WTF? Clinton on board of Wal-Mart in late 80s/early 90s.

[Erin Elizabeth]

I had NO idea about any of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uihZYwFoino&NR=1

Yeeeeeeeesh. Rubbing elbows with a guy who called labor unions "blood sucking parasites???" What the hell?

I'm sorry, but the more I learn about Clinton, the less I'm inclined to believe the D after her name, seriously. And I don't say stuff like that lightly, I really don't. But that was jaw-dropping. Bill Clinton was serving as the DEMOCRATIC governor of Arkansas at the time. How could she NOT know about Wal-Mart's position on labor unions? Or all that stuff about the Buy America campaign?

Creepy as hell.

[cliffordu]

1. That's right. Blood Sucking Parasites

Great band name, by the way....

[BlooInBloo]

3. I was thinking rock band name.

[quantass]

2. Yup i remember this....funny that the MSM doesnt pick up on it ever. :(

[Erin Elizabeth]

4. Well, they have apparently.

That youtube video I linked to is a clip from NBC news.

[GarbagemanLB]

5. She also helped pass NAFTA in the white house. Yep, really a champion of the unions!

[Erin Elizabeth]

7. Yeah champion of the working man and woman alright.

:eyes:

Sheesh.

[Breeze54]

26. How? She had no vote... she wasn't an elected rep.

:shrug:

[sandnsea]

6. I lived in Arkansas in the 80's, let me tell you

Bill Clinton was working the "Arkansas miracle". That's where all these company's started doing business in Arkansas, turning around the economy. What really happened is he made Arkansas a haven for union busting corporations. They moved down there and within a few years, union jobs were minimum wage jobs.

He also used Arkansas to practice destroying the welfare system. In Arkansas in the 80's, they had already implemented "workfare", where you even had to work for food stamps. They also limited Medicaid prescription drug coverage to 3 per patient. I have never heard of that anywhere else in the country.

Yeah, those Clintons are real economic geniuses. I'm not a bit surprised she is more worried about protecting the FICA of the 10% who make over $100,000 a year, than the rest of us getting a fair return on what we have paid in.

[Erin Elizabeth]

8. I remember the workfare thing because

I was an undergraduate at the time and was doing some big sociology research project and I chose welfare reform as my topic, since it was hot just then.

What was going on in Arkansas was one of the main portions of my paper.

[sandnsea]

11. Well I didn't live there long

My mother was sick, so my husband and I tried, in order to be there and help the family. My husband was a cd counslor and they didn't have any treatment programs, nothing to really help anybody. But they were sure busy making people "responsible", kicking them into the streets more like. :crazy: I tried to live in Arkansas twice, and I just couldn't take it.

[SunsetDreams]

9. Let's not forget about the Colombia Trade Deal that

her Chief Campaign Strategist, Mark Penn was soliciting from the Colombian Govt., and that her husband Bill Clinton has been pushing for several years now.

A deal we are supposed to believe that she is against.

A country that is known for Labor leaders and union members being murdered.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

25. How can we forget? The Columbian lobby $ the Clintons took in is helping to fuel her campaign.

[LTR]

10. In Sam Walton's autobiography..

In the picture section, there is a pic of the corporate board. I was surprised to see ol' HillCo™ right there grinnin' like a Cheshire cat. She was on the board during her husband's term as governor.

Must be the Arkansas connection. Wonder what Sam got out of the deal?

[cbayer]

12. Any leeway I gave you previously is now revoked. nt.

[Erin Elizabeth]

15. Oh no!

So because I'm disgusted that Hillary Clinton was apparently in cahoots with an anti-labor union company, an anonymous person on DU has "revoked" my "leeway?"

I think I can live with that.

[Syrinx]

13. I've come to despise Hillary Clinton, but I was ready to defend her on this

I had in my head the idea that Wal Mart was a better company before Sam Walton died. And that Sam Walton was a pretty good guy. Guess I was wrong about that.

In 1985, Sam Walton began a program designed to stem the "tide of communism" in Central America by promoting capitalism and privatization.

In 1998, Walton was included in Time's list of 100 most influential people of the 20th Century. Walton was honored for his pioneering efforts in retail in March 1992 when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George H. W. Bush. That year, the Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China awarded him the Golden Star Foreigner's Award for "tireless assistance in the development of People's owned factories in the Suzhou area".

That's enough to know about Sam Walton. He hated labor unions in the U.S., he loved the Contra types in Central America, he was given awards by the "goons and thugs" in Beijing, and by George H. W. Bush.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton#Legacy_and_death

[Lakerstan]

14. More here...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/politics/20walmart.html

[gateley]

16. I'm surprised it's a surprise.

It's mentioned on DU almost daily -- and Obama himself brought it up to her during a debate.

[cornermouse]

17. want some more dirt on Hillary?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton

"Clinton served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services (1988–1992)<106> and the Children's Defense Fund (as chair, 1986–1992).<107><10> In addition to her positions with non-profit organizations, she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–1992),<108> Wal-Mart Stores (1986–1992)<109> and Lafarge (1990–1992).<110> TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law.<89><111> Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added when chairman Sam Walton was pressured to name one;<111> once there, she pushed successfully for the chain to adopt more environmentally-friendly practices,<111><112> pushed largely unsuccessfully for more women to be added to the company's management,<111><112> and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices.<112><111><109>"

"Along with Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, she was a force behind passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997,<145><146><147><148> a federal effort that provided state support for children whose parents were unable to provide them with health coverage, and conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling children in the program once it became law.<148> She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood illnesses and encouraged older women to seek a mammogram to detect breast cancer, with coverage provided by Medicare.<149> She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health.<51> The First Lady worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War syndrome.<51> Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.<51> In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as First Lady.<51><150> In 1999, she was instrumental in passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care.<150> As First Lady, Clinton hosted numerous White House Conferences, including ones on Child Care (1997),<151> Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997),<152> and Children and Adolescents (2000),<153> and the first-ever White House Conferences on Teenagers (2000)<154> and Philanthropy (1999).<155>

Hillary Clinton traveled to 79 countries during this time,<156> breaking the mark for most-travelled First Lady held by Pat Nixon.<157> In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued very forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself,<158> declaring "that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights"<158> and resisting Chinese pressure to soften her remarks.<156> She was one of the most prominent international figures at the time to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Islamist fundamentalist Taliban that had seized control of Afghanistan.<159><160> She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the United States to promote the participation of women in the political processes of their countries.<161>"



And that's just the easy to find stuff.

[2rth2pwr]

18. WTF!??! Michelle Obama resigned Tuesday from the board of TreeHouse Foods Inc., a Wal-Mart vendor,

Michelle Obama resigned Tuesday from the board of TreeHouse Foods Inc., a Wal-Mart vendor, eight days after husband and White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he would not shop at the anti-union store. http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/05/sweet_column_michelle_obama_qu.html

Obama has been a director of the suburban Westchester food maker since June 27, 2005. Board chairman Sam Reed received a resignation letter from Obama Tuesday. The company said she quit because of “increased demands” on her time. Obama was re-elected to the board April 19 for a term ending in 2010 — during a period she was preparing to take on a larger role in the campaign....
...Obama’s link to Wal-Mart through TreeHouse was a potential liability for Sen. Obama. On May 14, during an AFL-CIO forum in Trenton, N.J., Sen. Obama was asked about Wal-Mart. “I won’t shop there,” he said

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/05/michelle_obama_.html
Her position on the board of the company was not without controversy. Many pointed to her role on the board as a direct conflict with her husband's stance against the company Wal-Mart. TreeHouse Foods is one of the main suppliers to Wal-Mart and Senator Obama has come out against Wal-Mart's labor practices in the past.

In an exclusive interview Tuesday morning on "Good Morning America," before her resignation, Michelle Obama responded to ABC News' Robin Roberts who questioned whether her position was a conflict of interest.

"Barack is gonna say what needs to be said, and it's not going to, you know, necessarily matter ... what I'm doing if it's not the right thing," she said. "He's going to do what's right for ... the country. He's going to speak out. And he's going to, you know, implement his views as he sees fit. ... I see no conflict in that."


The company supplies retail grocery chains with pickles, nondairy powdered creamer and other products. Wal-Mart was its largest customer last year, according to an SEC filing. http://www.cnbc.com/id/18815916/

[cornermouse]

19. You know.

Most people who work for hospitals find it to be a full time job with a lot of overtime. I find it difficult to understand where she could find the time to pick up extra money by working as a member of the board of any company. I wonder which job she neglected...

[FrenchieCat]

20. Do you know what a "Vendor" is?

Michelle Obama resigned Tuesday from the board of TreeHouse Foods Inc., a Wal-Mart vendor

A vendor sells products to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has thousands of vendors. Michelle sitting on the board of a company that did business with Wal-Mart along with hundreds of other customers is not nefarious.

[2rth2pwr]

21. A vendor is a company that provides products, in this case, to Walmart.

Without products, no Walmart.

[cornermouse]

22. Some people just HAVE to believe...

Doesn't do any good to talk to them.

[FrenchieCat]

23. Again, I believe that you are reaching.....

but then, what's new? :shrug:

Hillary Clinton in refering to working-class-Whites; "Screw 'em," she told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."
http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/hillary-clinton-on-working-class-white.html

[cornermouse]

24. See what I mean?

:eyes: