1) Relative to a point that came up in mistermix’s fun Energized thread, while I get that the phrase “corporate whore” needs to be retired, especially relative to female politicians, the issue of corporate money corrupting our politics is a serious one and not going away. There will also be more “Bernies” (and “Trumps,” alas) as the traditional political parties continue to lose power and the grassroots continues to gain it.
2) Related to BLM, I want to clarify something that came up yesterday. Tom expressed a concern that when I wrote that Bernie supporters get that: “Black lives matter, Iraqi lives matter, also Honduran, Libyan, and Palestinian” I meant that “the realities of Black life must wait while we, once again, reach for the promised land of revolution.”
I would never say that. I strongly support BLM and agree that it’s an urgent domestic priority.
However, we also have urgent foreign priorities, and I would say reducing our propensity for warmongering is one.
I linked all of those “lives” rhetorically because of the common thread of violence–and it’s also no coincidence that the foreigners I mentioned are all people of color. Also, there are some concrete links, with at least some of the threat to American black lives being traceable back to the militarization of our society and cops.
I hope that clarifies, and sorry the original wasn’t clearer. Thanks to Tom for raising the point, which is an important one.
3) Since we’re talking about helping communities at risk, however, let’s not forget whom else the Clintons have taken millions from – the odious for-profit college industry. The only ones who could possibly make even the Wall Street speculators look like decent and productive members of society.
It’s a predatory industry that specifically targets poor people at the very moment they’re trying to better themselves. (And rips off taxpayers by forcing us to repay millions each year in defaulted student loans.) Graduates of these awful programs often wind up with broke and in debt, with sham degrees and none of the promised career assistance.
This one’s personal for me. When working at a Boston nonprofit serving mainly inner city and immigrant populations I wound up steering several people away from these rip-offs and to our excellent community college. (The For Profits’ marketing and sales are so targeted and “effective” that for many underinformed people they’re the presumptive choice.) And later, one of my foster kids wound up in the clutches of one. Thankfully Massachusetts has an enlightened Lemon Law policy for these schools and so we were able to help him cancel the contract.
I wonder how many Juicers would work for such a predatory organization. And if you wouldn’t, why support a candidate who would?
raven
Check what the for-profits” do for vets.
japa21
Whose supporting a candidate that would?
Also, although I am as white as they come, all the militarization has done is make it easier to do what society and cops have been doing to black people for decades, if not centuries. So no, it isn’t traceable to that, it is just abetted by that.
FlipYrWhig
Does Hillary Clinton work for such a predatory organization? Christ almighty, the guilt by association logic.
Hillary Rettig
@raven: wut? be a little less terse.
kindness
Yow. Maybe my decipher ring is broken but it sounds like someone hasn’t given up on sliming Secretary/Senator Clinton.
schrodinger's cat
If you get off your moral high horse, you will see why. I want the most capable chief executive. Of all the people running for office this time around, HRC fits the bill for me. Its that simple.
Hillary Rettig
@FlipYrWhig: First, she’s taken money from the industry (follow the link). Second, I’m sorry, but I will always see the Clintons as a package deal. I think it’s absurd not to.
Bob In Portland
@japa21: “It’s always been this way.” I will expect more excuses forthcoming.
Hillary Rettig
@kindness: facts = sliming?
raven
@Hillary Rettig: I guess I need writing lessons from you.
Betty Cracker
Your “for-profit-college” link doesn’t work.
jl
I’ve supported Sanders and I may vote for him in the CA primary if he behaves himself and can be a constructive force, but I’ll vote for HRC in the general election, given the alternative that the GOP will offer this year. And i suppose the best would be Kasich, and I would not even consider voting for him.
The only current GOPer I can think of who would not be a complete disaster would be Arnold, and he hasn’t got the fake ID he needs for the election, and he would be doomed anyway since his own party hates him for being a dirty pinko commie. And I would not vote for him over HRC.
Unless a rogue asteroid hits the earth between now and January 2017, somebody will be sworn in as president, and I have to work with the choices that are available.
Edit: regarding for-profit colleges, yes they stink, but the choice is between an HRC higher ed policy and a GOP higher ed policy. Easy to make that choice.
Chyron HR
I assume that, much like “oil companies” and “Wall Street”, it will turn out that Bernie also received contributions from these odious people.
japa21
@Hillary Rettig: And I think it is absurd to.
So she’s taken money from the industry. That means what exactly. And don’t make assumptions. Show your work.
Bostonian
Ms. Rettig, you should avoid talking about any of our nation’s biggest problems until after the primary, because doing so would inevitably be construed as a personal attack on Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Rettig
@Betty Cracker: thx will edit!
rikyrah
Harriet Tubman once staged a sit-in to get $20. The Treasury just gave her all of them.
How Tubman got the $20 she needed to rescue her own father from slavery.
Updated by Dara Lind on April 20, 2016, 1:30 p.m. ET
The news that Harriet Tubman will be replacing Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill is significant for all sorts of reasons. Slave owner Jackson is being replaced by a former slave; Tubman, who led more than 300 slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad, is replacing a president who drove 16,000 Cherokees (and thousands more from other native tribes) out of their homelands on the Trail of Tears.
But even if Tubman weren’t replacing Jackson, the $20 would be the perfect bill to honor her, because the sum of $20 played a significant role in her life on two separate occasions.
For one thing, $20 was the amount she earned as a monthly pension after the Civil War, for which she helped the Union as a scout and spy. It was still less than the $25 a month paid to full soldiers, but it was the result of a long legal fight to earn a soldier’s pension at all. (Vox’s Phil Edwards wrote about this last year, when the social media campaign to put Tubman or another woman on the $20 was at its height.)
But even before that — as Yoni Appelbaum of the Atlantic pointed out on Twitter — the sum of $20 played a huge role in Tubman’s efforts to rescue her own father from slavery.
Bob In Portland
@kindness: Well, now’s your chance to tell us what Clinton is going to do. Do you have any expectations?
Or is everything copacetic in your neighborhood?
Davebo
@Hillary Rettig:
Your link we are supposed to follow is no good.
Hillary Rettig
@Bostonian: :-)
Bob In Portland
@Chyron HR: In the windmills of your mind.
rikyrah
Orientalism, Whitewashing, and Erasure: Hollywood’s Historic Problem With Asian People
by Jessica Lachenal ( ) Wednesday, April 20th 2016 at 1:26 pm
Hollywood has no idea what to do with Asian people. And, given the fact that Hollywood often serves as a reflection of contemporary culture, this is a major problem. Aside from casting us as goofy comic relief (Long Duk Dong, really) or evil mystical ninjas (come on, Daredevil season 2), they just don’t know what to do with us. The confusion and ignorance around what we bring to the table sometimes gets so bad that rather than try and find out who we actually are, they’ll overwrite us with white characters, erasing us completely from narratives that inherently belong to one culture or another (looking at you, Ghost in the Shell). Sometimes, to bridge that gap, they’ll even try to use yellowface, which (if you somehow weren’t already aware) is the practice of donning makeup and a really racist accent to look and sound Asian.
These hideously xenophobic implications at play in Hollywood’s insistence on erasing Asian people from their own narratives refers to some incredibly deep-seated, historical prejudices that were widely held back when Hollywood was still forming its identity. Consider Orientalism: popularized as a theory by Edward Said in 1978, it references a historic tradition of “othering,” which set the East far apart from the West in some of the most negative ways. Eastern beliefs, practices, and religions became “mystical, magical, mysterious,” really emphasizing the differences between the East and the West, pushing them further and further apart rather than trying to encourage connection and understanding.
You can see some of these ideas at play in Marvel’s upcoming movie, Doctor Strange, which is a story focused on a white man (Stephen Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch) who goes on what amounts to a “magical, mystical journey” through a vaguely “Eastern country” to learn martial arts and mental powers from… well, a white woman. Originally written in the comics as a Tibetan mystic, the Ancient One who trains Doctor Strange is played by Tilda Swinton in the forthcoming flick. The movie presents Eastern religions as mysterious, “magical,” something that’s wildly different that exists only to be understood and mastered by a white person.
Hillary Rettig
@Bob In Portland: this will be my new favored retort!
Horatius
@Hillary Rettig: Obama appointed the even more odious Arne Duncan to lead the department of education and this fucker promoted rheeism and anti-teacher bullshit for the majority of Obama’said tenure. I still like Obama.
I realize that all politics is a package deal. Do you?
Bob In Portland
@japa21:
I’m guessing that it’s willful self-deception that this time around the Balloon Juicers have forgotten the connection between campaign donors and how politicians behave after being elected. Do you think you can keep your magical thinking going for four years?
Come, winners, you bought, you own it. Tell what you expect your pretty pony to do now.
Davebo
Lumping in Academic Partnerships with for profit organizations like Apollo is more than a stretch. Criticizing Clinton for things some of her campaign bundlers have done also seems like weak tea.
Bills work for Laureate is legitimate and therefore I’m definitely not going to vote for him.
Mnemosyne
I was able to get to the “for profit colleges” link, and here’s the subhed:
So, basically, she’s already said she will continue and expand Obama’s regulations of the industry, but people think she’s a liar because everybody knows what a lying liar she is.
As usual, lots of smoke and implication without much substance.
eemom
@Hillary Rettig:
And you’re a woman? Wow.
Davebo
@japa21: Actually, no where in the link does it show Hillary Clinton took any money at all from the for profit college industry.
raven
: @Bob In Portland: Fuck you Bob.
Hillary Rettig
@Horatius: I do.
Interesting how no one’s actually answering the question I asked at the end of the post.
cleek
as evidenced by Sanders not winning ?
schrodinger's cat
Questions for Ms. Rettig:
Why won’t the paragon of virtue release his tax returns beyond 1 year? Speaking of higher-ed can we speak of Mrs. Sanders career as a college admin too?
raven
@Hillary Rettig: Maybe nobody gives a shit what teacher asks.
eemom
@Hillary Rettig:
Because it’s a bullshit question. Because you haven’t come anywhere close to supporting the absurd proposition that Clinton “works for” the for-profits.
Barbara
@Hillary Rettig: And you don’t even feel the need to explain why you see the Clintons as a “package deal.” Why is that? Because women are extensions of their husbands or because you accept the Christian view of marriage in which the two become indivisible in flesh and spirit? Or maybe in your mind Hillary Clinton is still Bill Clinton’s property? Did you view Al Gore as a package deal with Clinton? Or attribute everything Joe Biden has done in his career to Obama? Seriously, this is how deeply gendered discrimination permeates our culture, when no one, not even self-proclaimed ultra-progressives like you, can see women as individuals once they get married.
Davebo
@Hillary Rettig:
Perhaps because the question is based on a totally false premise?
Major Major Major Major
These for-profiters are loathsome, for the most part. No argument here. Though I’m still of two minds on the whole “take their money = support their interests” math, and there is no question in my mind that Hillary is more liberal than Bill, and also she is her own person &c. But even if she was an in-the-tank shill for for-profit education, I still think she’d make a way better president than Bernie.
@rikyrah: I saw that. I feel like this issue gets press every time there’s an “Asian casting decision” and then we don’t hear about it until the next time. Anywho, glad to see it getting attention again.
schrodinger's cat
@Hillary Rettig: I did answer your question.
Roger Moore
@Hillary Rettig:
Maybe because it’s based on an untrue insinuation rather than actual evidence.
Hillary Rettig
@Mnemosyne: I would say the onus is on her to explain how she won’t be influenced by the contributions (if she can), also unless she gives specifics I would say that she’s the one with the smoke and mirrors (don’t all the Clintonistas say that exact thing about Bern?).
gwangung
@Hillary Rettig: I find it very interesting you’re not responding to the points other people are bringing up.
I DO think its relevant that people want to know you’re not engaging in that sloppy thinking that pervades any discussion about money, donations and politicians.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Blob In Portland:
Hows your dear friend Putin these days? I assume you still think we are all fascists and baby killing monsters for not supporting that fine fellow in Moscow even though you have stopped calling us those names. Do you really expect anyone here to listen to anything you have to say after the way you behaved here? The assumption is that after Clinton is sworn in next January that you will go back to your Putin fanboi bullshit and we will all be told to goose-step off again.
So why would anyone here give a weak watery shit what you think or have to say? You have shown yourself to be beneath contempt and incapable of engaging in useful argument.
Bob In Portland
@Horatius: Hey, I like Obama. I realize that he can’t do anything to help most Americans unless it can be profitized for the 1%.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think there’s much wiggle room for a President. The wars that were planned went on whether or not Obama approved. He couldn’t stop the Repubs from kicking the downtrodden, although he said some nice things in reflecting on the thuds. Presidents are pre-approved. Sanders seems to have slipped in unannounced. And the media ignored, slanted and slimed Sanders enough to keep the homefield advantage working for H. Clinton, so the system’s working.
I don’t like him enough to like the wars under his stewardship, the continuing freefall of the working class and the dumbification of Americans generally.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I just have to say that I’m really tired of holier-than-thou people today. Can we all always try to do better? Yes. Can we and should we expect more from our politicians? Yes. But Bernie has been in politics longer than Hillary and seems to have only succeeded in making himself a reputation for being a scoldy PITA because in all that time, he was able to always do a protest vote. Now that he’s in the spotlight having to make real decisions and be held accountable, he’s made one gaffe after another, has been shown to be misinformed and uninformed, and handles criticism as well as you’d expect an old white guy who’s skated by as a backbencher who has been able to snipe from the sidelines from a safe seat in the Senate for the last 25 years. Welcome to Hillary’s world, Bernie. We’ve taken a good long look at you, and you’re not all that either.
Horatius
@Hillary Rettig: This is why FDR once famously said.
The time to raise all hell about this is after the election and force Hillary’s hand. Now it’s all hands on deck to dump trump.
Davebo
@eemom: But she gave a speech to a group that develops software for traditional not for profit universities!!!
And her husband served on the board of a for profit university for a time. And you know, they are a package deal which is why Hillary forced Bill into getting a blowjob from an intern.
Or something.
Barbara
@Horatius: Duncan — and education policy generally — is Obama’s biggest failure. I take Duncan especially personally because his kids attended the same public school district that mine do, with not a charter or voucher or even a private (save the Catholics) in sight. And his cheering of that execrable California judicial decisions sticking a thumb in the eye of teacher protections, now reversed on appeal, was just inexcusable.
Hillary Rettig
@Barbara: Don’t be absurd. They’re a political family, everyone supporting each other’s interests.
you know who else described the Clintons as a package deal? THE CLINTONS
“GOV BILL CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I always say that my slogan might well be, “Buy one, get one free”.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/clinton/etc/03261992.html
Weaselone
The for profit university links don’t work for me, so I can’t see what aspect of the Clinton collective are responsible for taking these funds, but when you use “Clintons” as opposed to Hillary specifically, it throws up a red flag for me.
I will state, that I have no problem with the Clintons taking those funds. In fact, I would encourage her to take as much of their money as possible, provided that she gives them the same quality service in return that they give to their students.
Money in politics has definitely corrupted the political system, but it’s difficult to say that it’s corrupted the politicians. Instead, the money seems to have been used to corrupt the electorate by stoking fear, racism, and distrust of government. The balance has then been used to convince the electorate to vote for politicians with views and policy positions favorable to the donor class. In other words, the money is not being directed to politicians as a bribe to support certain policies, but rather is being used to get politicians already inclined to support these policies elected.
Bob In Portland
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
I’m sure that they hold your opinions in high regard here in Balloon Juice. I can only hope that others here have as clear a vision of the future as you do.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Hillary Rettig:
Yes, please make her prove a negative.
I have my problems with Ms. Clinton and some of those pertain to the money but every time I read things like that I just think our side has lost its mind. We are supposed to be the party of reality as opposed to the fantasy island that is the GOP.
Jordan Rules
If someone needed a job, I imagine they’d take it.
Hildebrand
@Hillary Rettig:
I am going to go out on a limb and guess that no matter what she says you won’t find it persuasive.
Hillary Rettig
@Horatius: Well I’m with Bern till he’s out (barring unforeseen circumstances) – then I agree. Great quote btw.
cleek
Sanders has taken plenty of money from American Crystal Sugar. give ’em a Google!
the onus is on Sanders to explain how he’s not a pro-big-ag union buster.
likewise, the onus is on you to explain why you’re not actually working for Trump.
Brachiator
@Hillary Rettig:
I was very much against HRC in 2008. And I have really hate the idea that some people would automatically think that the spouse or very close relative of a president should automatically be considered a strong potential candidate for the office.
But then again I thought that Bobby Kennedy was one of the greatest politicians we have ever had, and would have made a great president.
In 2008 (and now) I reject all implications that Hillary Clinton was co-governor or co-president with her husband. I don’t even buy the idea that she was necessarily learning about presidenting. Some time lines show, for example, that she was far away from the Oval Office while Clinton was making decisions and entertaining Monica Lewinsky.
That said, Hillary Clinton has been a strong senator and a very effective Secretary of State. And here I don’t buy the nonsense that would make her the sole architect of decisions actually made by President Obama in consultation with many high level staffers.
Also, should HRC win in November, she will be president, not Bill. And while she may have supported many of Bill’s past policies, being First Lady is not an elective office. Neither is First Gentleman. As president, the buck will stop with her. And any mistakes she makes will be her responsibility alone. And hopefully, there will be few of those should she be elected.
Mnemosyne
@Hillary Rettig:
She has given specifics. They’re even quoted in the story. You think she’s lying and that she will reverse her stated policies if she’s elected, even though you have no evidence to base that belief on. What now?
It’s one thing to say that a particular policy is important to you and that you will hold th candidate’s feet to the fire to make sure she follows through. It’s quite another to decide ahead of time that it doesn’t matter what she says, you think she’s lying.
I have a question for you: is there anything at all she could say, or any policy proposal she could put forward, that would convince you that she’s acting in good faith?
lowercase steve
@Hillary Rettig:
There are no pure politicians with values that line up perfectly with my own. I vote for the person who I think is most likely to push the world into a state that I find superior to the current one even if that means that they won’t push as far on some dimensions as I would like and even that they might push in the wrong dimension on some dimensions that I prioritize lower. I respect people’s decisions to vote differently based on a different prioritization scheme.
Obama has been crummy on educational matters. Obama was, nevertheless, a better choice than McCain and Romney and, frankly, Clinton because of his other positions and because of his skill set.
Hillary Clinton is currently the best choice available given my preference set even though on a small number of dimensions I think Bernie is better. She is not my ideal candidate but my ideal candidate isn’t around.
If you are voting for Bernie in the primary because he lines up better with your positions and priorities that is cool. If you refuse to vote for Clinton in the general because of some sort of aversion to taint despite the fact that she is better on most dimensions and on other at least no worse than her possible opponent that is just silly.
Davebo
In retrospect you probably shouldn’t have fixed that link since it really undermines the your entire premise.
SoupCatcher
@Jordan Rules:
Thank you for saying that.
My first response to “I wonder how many Juicers would work for such a predatory organization.” was to raise my hand.
Miss Bianca
@eemom: Yeah. Seriously. *facepalm*
Hillary Rettig
@Weaselone: With all respect (truly – because I appreciate your considered answer) I do think it’s naive to think someone would take millions and not be influenced. And I don’t think people give millions without expecting influence.
Chris
I found it notable that Arab Americans went for Sanders.
raven
@Mnemosyne: Only if she became vegan.
Barbara
@Hillary Rettig: No, Hillary, you are the one being absurd, for making foolish statements without once examining the implications of what you are saying for female politicians in particular. What Bill Clinton said was a joke. What you are saying is a specific attribution of everything William J. Clinton has ever done, to his wife, who, by the way DID NOT MAKE THAT STATEMENT. It was an open secret in the 1990s that Hillary Clinton did not agree on many things with her husband.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Blob In Portland:
Well, I have never called anyone here a NAZI or suggested that they are in favor of bayoneting babies despite having had some heated exchanges. That leaves me with the ability to argue my points and possibility change some opinions. You on the other hand would serve very well to change opinions only in the negative. If you came out as hard for Clinton as you currently are for Sanders I bet you might find a few more Sanders supporters here just because of you.
chopper
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
i’ll never trust clinton until she proves to me that she isn’t the devil.
i’m waiting, hilz.
low-tech cyclist
@Horatius:
Bingo. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find a candidate who is both as pure as the driven snow and has the ability to accomplish good things.
There are a number of things about Hillary that are far from ideal. But I think that overall, she’s still going to be a damn good President. I don’t think Bernie Sanders would make a good President, and of course anyone the GOP nominates would be a fucking disaster if they got the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. So to me, Hillary seems like the right choice in the real world that we live in.
Miss Bianca
@Hillary Rettig: You know, political analysis doesn’t appear to be your forte. Have you considered a career posting animal news?
schrodinger's cat
@raven: For you, because you like bhangra music.
Rang de basanti (Color me saffron, in Punjabi)
Saffron is the color of sacrifice and renunciation among both Sikhs and Hindus. Rang de Basanti, was one of the slogans of socialist/communist freedom fighters in British India, their other slogan was Inquilab Zindabad (Long Live the Revolution). Unfortunately, the Hindu right has appropriated the color.
Hillary Rettig
@Mnemosyne: Fair question.
I am willing to give Clinton benefit of the doubt that she will try to do everything she says, and even accomplish some of it – and maybe even exceed expectations in some areas. (Like Obama.) I’m pro Bernie b/c I like what he says way better and also think he’ll also be able to accomplish some of it.
I think the For Profits are basically evil and it doesn’t speak well of the Clintons (who are already extremely wealthy) to work with them. And it looks like Bill was shilling for a particularly scuzzy one.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
You’re missing the big story, Hillary.
I think they Clintons are clearly in the pockets of UNITAID, The Commonwealth of Australia, and href=”https://www.clintonfoundation.org/contributors?category=%245%2C000%2C001+to+%2410%2C000%2C000″>Elton John, myself.
;-)
Seriously, where’s the quid pro quo? The implication from all of these stories about how the Clintons are somehow “corrupt” or “tainted” or whatever wants the reader to assume that they’re doing things that they wouldn’t do if they hadn’t received the money. Where’s the smoking gun? Where’s the policy proposal on Hillary’s site that shows favoritism in exchange for the payments?
$16.5M over 5 years is almost nothing for someone of WJC’s stature. The U of Chicago President made more than $3.3M in 2013 according to a story of HuffPo. Average CEO pay was $13.8M/yr last year.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
chopper
personally i think clinton is going to be better on education than obama is, and i like obama a lot. this all just smacks of moving goalposts in a quest to always come up with something to hate clinton over.
eemom
@Hillary Rettig:
Frankly, you’re the one who’s absurd. Big time. You see no distinction between a family supporting each other’s interests and the incredibly sexist assertion — by a woman and so-called “progressive,” no less — that Hillary Clinton is indistinguishable from her husband??
You are a sanctimonious fraud, just like your candidate.
Technocrat
Colleges are the enemy now?
I honestly can’t keep track. No snark, and no disrespect intended.
I’ve consulted at dozens of corporations over the past 30 years. No doubt I’ve taken money from some foe or another. So, it occurs to me that I have no room to judge.
Hillary Rettig
@Barbara: I don’t know how old you are, but I was around then and it was absolutely not a joke. They presented themselves as a team–then dialed it back when people reacted in a sexist way to that.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@chopper:
You win!!!
How to come to a conclusion:
A) I know in my heart that X is evil
B) I saw something on FB saying X did bad things and or said bad things
C) Some showed me several stories refuting B
D) X has denied B
E) I can’t support X because they have not proven to me that B is not true
Seems we all could just skip B through E.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Er, the last link was supposed to be:
Elton John.
Cheers,
Scott.
Davebo
@Hillary Rettig:
But as I’ve noted several times and you’ve ignored, only Bill ever worked with them. And he doesn’t any longer.
gwangung
@Hillary Rettig:
Do you work with large donors?
Do you know you sound quite unknowledgeable here?
singfoom
Some general questions here about money and actions.
#1 – Do you think that political contributions from individuals are good or bad or neutral? (For the Republic as a whole)
#2 – Do you think that political contributions from corporations are good or bad or neutral? (For the Republic as a whole)
#3 – Do you think that the contributor has any expectations on what the contributee might do or not do based on their contribution?
#4 – Do you think that the expectations of a contributor might scale with the amount of the contribution?
If one assumes no existence of a quid pro quo because that would be outright bribery, what purpose does the contribution serve to the contributor?
If not quid pro quo, is it access? And if that access to the contributee is granted, might it not be reasonable to think that the contributor might use that access to press their case for legislation/action/favor? Is that good or bad or neutral?
Hillary Rettig
@gwangung: Would like more explanation.
chopper
@Davebo:
yes, but 25 years ago bill said they were a ‘package deal’. 25 years.
Eric U.
I addressed the question at the end of the post, and then rejected it. HRClinton hasn’t worked for any of the for-profit universities.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Because, don’t follow the money.
The good thing is that with all the bundlers and the non-profits and offshores where you can park the money it’s really hard to follow the money anymore. So let’s just take this politician’s word for it because we love her.
So, Mnem, you’re saying that Hillary plans to burn all those corporate funders of hers? Or just the deals that Bill cut on his own?
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: So, the dude in the 101st Airborne jungle fatigues is jamming and sacrifice is blended in with the same kind of water buffalo whacked in Apocalypse Now! That’s some trippy shit right there.
Mnemosyne
@Hillary Rettig:
So do you think Hillary is going to reverse the current policies of the Obama administration? It should be a yes or no question.
After Travelgate and Whitewater, I’m going to need a lot more to go on than “looks like.” Except for the blowjob, every Clinton “scandal” petered out once the actual facts were known.
raven
@Hillary Rettig: Be less terse.
Bob In Portland
@chopper: So, chopper, what do you think Hillary’s accomplishments will be?
Elie
@Hillary Rettig:
Whoa there! Because she cannot have her own ideas and be her own “woman” in her administration? In your mind, because she is married to a former and successful Democratic president, she MUST therefore be seen as a package — not her own boss with her own ideas and policy priorities. That is so sad that a young woman of intelligence would actually say that and assume that the statement was acceptable and even defensible. Very sad.
gwangung
@Technocrat: I think we’ve seen how the for-profits have revealed themselves to be sleazy over the past few years.
However, prior to that, I think most people thought of them as neutral, at worse. I don’t think it would be particularly evil of a person to have associated with them earlier on and then gradually cut ties as more information comes up.
randy khan
@Hillary Rettig:
(1) That was before Bill Clinton was elected President, so at least 24 years ago. (And, as you might recall if you were of an appropriate age then – I don’t know if you were – it did not go over very well.)
(2) Bill said it, not Hillary, so I’m not sure why you ascribe much meaning to it in the context of what she will do. (As an aside, I do think that one challenge for her will be making sure he stays on the reservation, but she’s already had practice at that as SoS.)
(3) It’s still not evidence that she’s going to go back on her public promise to continue to pressure for-profit educational institutions. In general, politicians try pretty hard to do what they said they were going to do, as not fulfilling your promises tends to annoy your supporters.
And a bonus response, on the topic of the people who contribute to her: I work in Washington, where half of the people I know seem to be registered lobbyists. Saying that a bundler or a contributor lobbied for any particular company or group of companies is pretty much non-information. If nothing else, it’s impossible to tell from such reports what the lobbyist really cares about (that is, the biggest clients) or even if the company is a current client. More to the point, such contributions usually are not related to any specific issues at all.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
I give our Hillary a lot of credit. While I disagree with her conclusions I admire the way she is willing to stand up for them. You have to admire (seriously) that she is prepared to argue her points without calling people asshole or telling them to fuck off. I think we could all use a little more of that attitude.
Hillary, I think you are wrong & I believe the evidence for that has been provided above but I respect the hell out of you for the way you have acted here.
gwangung
@Hillary Rettig: These are simple questions. I think you can answer them.
Hillary Rettig
@Davebo: Because you’re wrong. The link mentioned a speech she gave plus other linkages besides Laureate. And as noted above I reject the idea of a wall between the Clintons in terms of their politics.
raven
@gwangung: It’s cyclical.
lowercase steve
Nothing specific to Clinton but lobbying/donations do have an impact. It is not the quid quo pro that people imagine. Most politicians are not stupid and/or corrupt enough to go that route. It is that access gets you face-to-face time…it increases your salience, it humanizes you, it makes the politician more likely to take weight your concerns more heavily and sympathize with your position. Most of that is subconscious but it is still important/problematic.
To the extent that I worry about Clinton being an “insider” it is that when you hang out with bankers and go to the weddings and parties and so forth of the elite you are subject to the effect I described above. So Henry Kissinger seems like a nice guy…that colors your perceptions of his positions and his character and maybe you lose site of the fact that a lot of people think of him as a war criminal (or maybe you dismiss it without thinking it through as deeply as you would otherwise).
This is pretty much just a problem with the system in general and I don’t see any evidence that Clinton is any more subject to it than anyone else who has been in politics for a long time. And at the regulatory level our bureaucrats are extremely susceptible to “capture” through it as well.
You can take money or even just be polite and attend events and chat with them. You can try to remain impartial but it is a struggle.
Hillary Rettig
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): ::blush:: grateful!
eemom
Anyone recall the time, shortly after Hillz became SoS, when she was giving a speech in some foreign country and somebody asked her what her husband thought about whatever she was saying, and she snapped right back something to the effect of “Really? You are asking me what my HUSBAND thinks?”
Yup. She’s totally down with this “package deal” shit.
Hey Hillary R., why don’t you start a new bernout meme that HRC is constitutionally disqualified to be president because she’s already served two terms?
Davebo
@Bob In Portland:
In just about every aspect it’s far easier to follow the money now than it ever has been in the past. Don’t believe me? Accumulate a significant amount of cash and try to “park” it offshore. Grand Cayman is back to being primarily a tourist destination these days.
Barbara
@Hillary Rettig: I am 55 years old Hillary. Hillary Clinton was not the president any more than Michelle Obama is. For Christ’s sake, Nancy Reagan had more power over policy than Hillary Clinton did. Yes, I know, she injected herself into health care policy in particular and did not succeed but everything else she did was more or less what the most active political spouses do. What you are saying reminds me of nothing so much as the right wing crazies who decided to hate Hillary from the day they first realized they could demonize her with certain kinds of demographic groups.
singfoom
@Technocrat: Some For Profit Colleges are very bad actors indeed. Are all of them, probably not.
Corinthian Colleges, which I believe is now bankrupt, was one of the worst of the lot:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/10/28/government-watchdog-wins-530-million-lawsuit-against-for-profit-corinthian-colleges-too-bad-it-will-never-see-a-dime/
WarMunchkin
@Davebo: Bill drew a salary from them; prior to that, Hillary invited them to a state department dinner.
The operative quote:
This is the passage that makes me scratch my head. Note that this is prior to Bill’s employment at Laureate. At most, this suggests that Bill lobbied Hillary to include them, but I’m not really sure why. That said, this also doesn’t show any actual policy difference – just that they were invited to a party (improperly?). I don’t know why she would do this, though.
Bob In Portland
@Miss Bianca:
Nothing besides snark seems to be your forte, Bianca. You’ve got your coronation. What does she deliver to America?
Mike J
@singfoom:
Political contributions from corporations are illegal, so it’s a moot point.
jl
” I wonder how many Juicers would work for such a predatory organization. And if you wouldn’t, why support a candidate who would? ”
Deciding to vote for someone is not the same thing as supporting every single one of their policies. As a commenter said above, politicians are people who come with a package of policies, some of which you support and some of which you don’t. And you have to deal with the choices available to you when voting. So, in the general election the choice may be between HRC who will at least regulate for-profits better in order to reduce their predatory nature, and a GOPer who will allow the worst of them to become even more predatory. And as a commenter above said, if HRC backtracks on for-profit regulation, we will have a better shot at exerting effective pressure to get a better policy implemented with an HRC WH and a Democratic Senate than with the GOP alternative.
And, every Democratic politician (besides Sanders) who works in the current campaign financing system will have some associations with an unsavory industry. Uncle Joe has the Delaware corporate financial scammers and their bankruptcy and credit card bills in his history, for example. You want purity on the financial contributions front, you have only Sanders, and it looks like he will not get the nomination. So you have a choice, and you make the best decision you can based on the available alternatives.
raven
@Bob In Portland: Uh, fuck you Bob.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Bob, I think you’ve already shown multiple times that your idea of following the money is to launch yourself into a parallel universe wormhole and then come back insisting that the guy who spent €22 million on a single chandelier for his house is a beleaguered hero who totally didn’t steal the money from the government he was running.
So forgive me if I snort-laugh whenever you try to insist the Clintons are more corrupt than Putin and his buddies.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bob In Portland: Follow the money where Bob?
The expression was popularized in Watergate – you know, the famous break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in DC in 1972. The breaker-inners were caught. A crime had been committed. “Follow the money” was a way to try to figure out who was the behind the crime and why it was committed.
Where’s the crime that someone committed that is tied to the Clintons? Or, in the case here, to Hillary?
We already know from the Clintons’ disclosures, you know that bit of transparency that they show and have shown for decades, that they (and their organizations) got money from lots of people. Where’s the crime? Where’s the Corruption™?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elie
@eemom:
Yeah — totally agree and said so. Like Wow! I guess Hillary is just going to be the little woman doing Bill’s bidding — the stenographer to his decisions…. I tell you I am smoking — steam coming out of my ears! My husband is supportive of me but if I decided to run for office, sure he would support me, but not only would he not be part of my administration but I would cut him off at the knees if he waded into my prerogatives on his own say so. What does she think HIllary is?
Bob In Portland
@WarMunchkin: Let me see. Did money exchange hands?
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Well, Doc Strange is a magician, who dabbles in cosmic (not Asian) mystical powers. And Doc Strange ain’t about real Asians or real Asian culture. It’s a comic book made up by white guys who were just trawling in the waters of pop culture for another superhero. And yes, that pop culture, going back to the BS about the sinister Fu Manchu, was filled with ignorant stereotypes about Asians.
singfoom
@Davebo:
Don’t mistake this response for agreeing with Villager Bob,because I don’t, but there’s a large news story called “The Panama Papers” which kind of invalidates your entire premise about not being able to “park” money offshore.
Hillary Rettig
@randy khan: well my google skills are getting a workout:
” Hillary Clinton is running. She and her husband have been a political team for more than twenty years. And now they are, despite protestations to the contrary, co-candidates for president of the United States. Asked at the L.A. luncheon if she wanted to be her husband’s vice president, Hillary brushed off the question. “I’m not interested in attending a lot of funerals around the world,” she cracked. She got a laugh, but when she continued it was with serious intent. “I want maneuverability . . . I want to get deeply involved in solving problems.” She later told me that she doesn’t see herself as a Cabinet officer but as an all-around adviser. And she doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. “No one gives George Bush a hard time when he gets advice from Jim Baker,” she’d complained to me earlier in the campaign.””
“Before he was forced to retreat on the subject of Hillary’s possible role in a Clinton administration on NBC’s Meet the Press, Bill told me, “If I get elected president, it will be an unprecedented partnership, far more than Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor. They were two great people, but on different tracks. If I get elected, we’ll do things together like we always have.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/1992/05/hillary-clinton-first-lady-presidency
goblue72
@eemom: I see the resident looney tune is back to accusing women who don’t agree with her views to be self-hating women.
chopper
@Hillary Rettig:
but this is a false choice. it’s isn’t either ‘a wall between them’ or ‘no daylight between them’.
geg6
But sucking up to the gun industry is just fine and dandy. It’s not that they ever did anything bad, right?
Davebo
@Hillary Rettig:
No. She gave a speech to Academic Partnerships, a for-profit education company that works with traditional colleges to help them create online degree programs to quote your link nearly word for word.
How is Academic Partnerships tied to University of Phoenix or other for profit diploma mills?
As to the “other linkages” you are talking about, what are they? Because they certainly aren’t in the story you linked to.
It’s always a bit sad to see a purist who refuses to stop digging.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
This is a clown post bro.
geg6
@Hillary Rettig:
That’s about the most anti-feminist thing you could possibly say. So Hillary is not her own person and just an appendage of Bill.
Got it.
Elie
@eemom:
This bears repeating:
chopper
@Hillary Rettig:
again, 1992. 1992.
Roger Moore
@Hillary Rettig:
That’s strange, because the whole premise of your article seems to be that she won’t follow through on her promises because of the money her husband received. You can claim to trust her at her word, but the rest of your statements belie that claim.
Hillary Rettig
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: the fact that a few million is pocket change compared to everything else the Clintons are raking in is not a point in their favor, as far as I’m concerned.
singfoom
@Mike J:
Yes, direct contributions. But there’s this thing called a SuperPAC.
https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/superpacs.php
Snip from the link:
So, the question still stands, as the rest of the questions I asked.
Cheers
Davebo
@singfoom: It can be done but it is much much more difficult than it was pre 9/11.
I stand by my assertion that it’s more difficult now than it has ever been in modern history. Which is why you hear about Panama. 30 years ago no one was trying to stash money there.
Kropadope
@eemom: In fairness, didn’t the Clintons explicitly sell themselves as a package deal in 1992?
I’ve seen a whole lot of answers on whether it’s fair to credit/blame Hillary for what happened during Bill’s administration. Most of them have seem to center on the intersection of “do you like Hillary?” and “was the outcome desirable?”
How about this as a standard, “was she directly involved?”
ellie
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): I was in an online argument with someone over climate change. It couldn’t be true, according to this guy, because he “felt in his heart” it wasn’t true. What the hell?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@eemom: I remembered that incident recently as well.
It was a mis-translation (3:16). I don’t think she was tripped up by such errors after that.
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@WarMunchkin: The reality is that for-profit colleges were chugging along and some were bad and some were okay, and then venture capitalists and Wall Street types saw an opportunity to make hay because of guaranteed federal student loans, but like the greedy maw that capitalism often spurs, the only way to make REAL money was to make the model “scalable,” and for that, of course, you need to fill seats. The point is that many for-profits actually offer real instruction but they don’t care who enrolls, and I have talked to teachers at such institutions who tell me that there are always 30% of students who just don’t have the background or preparation to benefit even when the instruction is okay. And of course, there are those schools that are not bona fide institutions and that don’t make much pretense of teaching. What needs to be reined in most is the federal guaranteed student loan program, to limit abusive institutions, whether for-profit or not for profit. A lemon law or some other generous right to rescind the transaction would also help.
gwangung
@Brachiator: Hm. Not sure I could say that with a straight face given the first few Ditko stories. Definitely drawn with Asian features, and at least some comic insiders like Kurt Busiek, think he was meant to be Asian, drawing on Orientalist tropes.
randy khan
@singfoom:
I tend to divide contributions into three categories:
1. People give because they think the candidate’s views or actions will be congruent with what they want. This covers most contributions, but in general is in smaller increments than the other categories. That said, a fair chunk of independent expenditures fall into this category.
2. People give because they want access or, in the case of Presidential races, the opportunity to serve in the Administration. (It takes a lot of money to be in the second part of this category, and usually bundling as well).
3. People who are trying to influence politicians to take particular actions.
I find category 1 to be beneficial. 2 is problematic. 3 can be good or bad, depending on how it’s done.
japa21
@Hillary Rettig:
Sure people who give money expect something in return. Doesn’t mean they get what they want.
You assume that Clinton will give all the big donors (and for-profit colleges aren’t) special preferences policies or a night at the WH or something. But here is a question I have for you.
A candidate receives large donations from two different organizations with two competing objectives in mind. I am sure, in fact, this happens a lot. What then? I am going to just have to believe that you believe she would go with the most evil one and do their bidding and not do anything the not so evil one wants. Unless you can prove to me differently anyway. Oh, and saying that you don’t believe that doesn’t count.
Hillary Rettig
@Roger Moore: fair point. I do think the money is corrupting, and as someone noted above it’s not just the corruption of the individual candidate but the system. So I think she’ll will do her best, and prob get stuff done, but her best will be compromised (in some cases a lot) by the donations.
I don’t know how you feel about fracking but (assuming you’re anti) when she speaks a lot of gobbledegoop on that do you find that admirable or persuasive?
Davebo
Out of respect for Ms Rettig’s passionate stance against animal cruelty could some one please humanely put this post out of it’s misery?
Hillary Rettig
@Davebo: it sure is!
“Laureate International Universities continues to have a partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative, part of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Laureate also did business with a consulting firm, Teneo Holdings, that was started by and employed an array of Clinton associates, Politico reported last week.”
Bob In Portland
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Scott, historically campaign donors gave donations to political candidates so that said candidates would act for their benefit.
This may be a new concept to you, Scotty, but until this election cycle it was actually the general consensus.
Following money, as I’ve mentioned, is more difficult these days, but if you try really, really hard you will see who the large donors to Clinton’s campaign are. The next step is to try to figure out what they want. Then we all take out our scorecards in four years.
You seem to be so sensible and erudite. How come you are unfamiliar with the effect of money on politics?
Elie
@Hillary Rettig:
Fair enough from that 2013 article. Hillary did seem to imply a partnership. I think that has changed and I do not see Bill operating as closely with her campaign as he did in 2008. I see a confident woman who can run her own thing. Bill is also not as robust as he was and his issues and policies are no longer ascendant. I cannot prove it but I believe that Hillary would not want to be a figurehead to his repeat presidency. I just don’t see that. I would be very very upset if that turned out to be an issue and it would definitely not be popular…
Mike J
PBS must be the single most evil entity on Earth since the Kochs help pay for Antiques Roadshow.
It’s galling the way the overdub Mary Berry talking about the need to crush unions when they rebroadcast GBBO.
randy khan
@Hillary Rettig:
That’s still 24 years ago. And it still doesn’t explain why you think she’d break a campaign promise unless you’re bought into the “Hillary’s a lying liar” libel.
singfoom
@randy khan: Thanks!
We’re in a lot of agreement. My only quibble would be to say that I think your #2 can lead to #3, by the individual trying to use that access to lobby. #1 we’re totally in agreement on.
Davebo
@randy khan:
Well said.
Bernie has gotten significant contributions from SuperPacs, especially those run by various labor unions.
Can we trust him to appoint impartial executives to the National Labor Relations Board?
Bob In Portland
@Davebo:
It’s tough the morning after to see who you woke up with.
Hillary Rettig
@japa21: >A candidate receives large donations from two different organizations with two competing objectives in mind. I am sure, in fact, this happens a lot. What then? I am going to just have to believe that you believe she would go with the most evil one and do their bidding and not do anything the not so evil one wants. Unless you can prove to me differently anyway. Oh, and saying that you don’t believe that doesn’t count.
What then? Probably not great public policy, and probably not much that benefits anyone who isn’t one of the donors.
Loviatar
Can’t speak for everyone, but for me, this posts definitely proves that Hillary is an easily manipulated idiot.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: I haven’t seen the movie. Just liked the bhangra music.
According to Wikipedia: The story is about a British documentary filmmaker who is determined to make a film on Indian freedom fighters based on diary entries by her grandfather, a former officer of the British Indian Army. Upon arriving in India, she asks a group of five young men to act in her film.
The freedom fighters in question were Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev who were hanged by the British for fomenting violence. Their trial generated a lot of publicity since they went on a hunger strike and demanded to be treated as political prisoners.
geg6
@Hillary Rettig:
You can’t prove a negative. Jesus.
gwangung
@Kropadope:
This is a fair standard. Indeed, there were lots of talk about being co_presidents, but anything direct is fair game.
But I don’t find the fact of getting large sums of money to be insidious, in and of itself. That just smacks of resentment.
Dan
My support for HRC in this primary/general election does not denote support for every single action and position she and Bill have taken in the past four decades of public life, and as others have ably detailed, you’re asking HRC to prove a negative. This seems like weak tea to me.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: cool!
japa21
@Hillary Rettig: A rejection not based upon any facts.
singfoom
@Mike J:
Or, it could be a red herring, because comparing a donation to a entertainment show about antiques and a donation to a political campaign is not an apples to apples comparison.
Who cares how much money the Kochs give to PBS, how about their superpac contributions? Oh wait, you don’t and can’t know, because SuperPACs don’t have to disclose their donors.
Hildebrand
@Hillary Rettig:
Is there direct evidence that the donations have shaped her policy proposals? Has someone gone through her whole website and connected the dots that you see? Have you? In this case, I am most serious – do we have actual evidence that Clinton’s proposals have been shaped in such a way as to directly please those who have donated to her campaign? If so, what are they getting? Oh, it needs to be something more concrete than ‘access’.
japa21
@Hillary Rettig: Why not great public policy? Is it possible that the policy will be determined based upon the needs of the country? Oh no, that can’t happen. All policy is directed by campaign contributors. No politician makes their own decisions any more. At least, that appears to be your feelings on the matter.
gex
@Hillary Rettig: If her statements about continuing and expanding Obama’s crackdown on for profit schools doesn’t answer your question, nothing will.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
feelings, nothing more than feelings….
rikyrah
Awesomely Luvvie ✔ @Luvvie
Andrew Jackson got kicked off the $20 bill for Harriet Tubman. Because it’s Abolition April. And the Blackest Year EVER.
gelfling545
@Hillary Rettig: jesus, I’d have hated to be judged in my professional life by whom I was married to – for good or ill.
Hillary Rettig
@Elie: Thanks for your comment. I definitely think HRC is her own independent woman running her own campaign. But Bill is definitely involved (sometimes to the campaign’s detriment).
I’m just saying that, from all appearances, the Clintons are operating as a couple and a family to maximize their political and economic success, leveraging every asset they can. The Washington Post article I linked to yesterday made that very point. But people somehow find that shocking and unbelievable.
Davebo
@Hillary Rettig:
I’ve already conceded Bill’s association with Laureate International. I’m not as sold as you seem to be on the concept of female submissiveness in marriage but OK.
I can read about tons of conspiracy theories regarding contributors to the Clinton Global Initiative at RedState which perhaps would be a more suitable venue for sharing your insights.
Well, since the speech she gave wasn’t to a group supporting for profit universities (quite the opposite) and you can’t come up with anything to support your “plus other linkages” claim other than “someone associated with Clinton in the past has worked with for profit education companies” I really can’t see the point in continuing.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Hillary Rettig: That’s fine. But it doesn’t make her, or Bill, Corrupt™ that they’re able to earn a very handsome income and have charities that others around the world have been willing to give millions to.
It’s fine not to like the Clintons, but maybe try to separate what she is proposing and what she has actually done with her public life from her finances. They’ve been extremely transparent about their earnings. Where’s Bernie’s financial transparency?
There are lots of people out there who do horrible things in office who are broke. There are lots of people out there who do honorable things in office who are extremely wealthy. Wealth doesn’t determine evil policies and poverty doesn’t indicate virtue. Joe Biden was basically bankrupt in the Senate, yet he did a lot of things (that at the time and in retrospect) seem to be huge mistakes (Clarence Thomas, the Bankruptcy Bill, etc.).
I’d find your political posts to be much more persuasive if you didn’t go down this rabbit hole on their finances if you can’t show a quid-pro-quo. But that’s just my $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Hillary Rettig
@Dan: What I’m really asking her to do is not take money from industries that do little but harm people; industries that deserve not deregulation but to be made illegal.
Aqualad08
My lord, nothing that happened last night make a damn difference to you, did it? Bernie was asked during the debate POINT BLANK to give an example of when Hillary gave any of these corporate masters the reach around. What was his answer? Oh, right, NOTHING… just another section of his stump speech meant to IMPLY corruption with offering concrete examples of corruption.
The system sucks. I get it. I agree. But last night Democrats in NY rejected the notion you can smash it from the outside. White knights charging the gates head on aren’t coming to save us. We have to sneak in through the sewers and blow it up from the inside. SCOTUS is the most viable path to ditch Citizens United. Excited villagers outside the castle wielding pitchforks isn’t. Implying she won’t enact policy because of who she gets money from is just that, an implication. Give me substance, give me details, give me evidence of malfeasance. I’m sick of conspiracy theories.
Shawn in Showme
Would Bernie have won the nomination if was running against Joe Biden instead of Hillary?
Part of me is curious whether a democratic socialist could stir up the masses to finally vote their interests and finally hold the banking class accountable. I mean we’ll never have a weaker GOP opponent to run against. Now I guess we’ll never know.
burnspbesq
@Hillary Rettig:
Unless you can document a quid pro quo, that’s meaningless. It’s also defamatory, but fortunately for you our defamation laws are the most anti-plaintiff in the known universe.
Hillary Rettig
@randy khan: right. Which kind of puts the lie to the “they were just speeches” argument.
Davebo
@singfoom:
Super PACs are required by law to disclose their donors. This disclosure includes the name of the individual, group, or other entity that is contributing, the date on which the contribution occurred, and the amount given. Additionally, Super PACs must report all of their expenditures..
Now, many get around this by getting donations from organizations that aren’t required to disclose their own donors such as 501C3’s.
jl
@Barbara: There is a lot wrong with for-profit colleges, from what i have heard from friends teaching in that industry. I view them as perhaps a necessary evil to be put up with for now, and they must be very highly regulated.
” The point is that many for-profits actually offer real instruction but they don’t care who enrolls, and I have talked to teachers at such institutions who tell me that there are always 30% of students who just don’t have the background or preparation to benefit even when the instruction is okay. ”
And ‘okay’ is the best that can be said about instruction in even the tolerable ones. I think the pressure of competing against the scams, and the demand to make a profit and stay in business, has resulted in instructors now teaching from shrink wrapped course packages and without resources to help under prepared students.
Which brings up the question of what kind of horrible person would work for for-profit colleges? How about teachers who need a job? I know a few conscientious people who are good teachers who have gone to work for for-profits. They can barely stand it, and the move towards demanding the most robotic approach to teaching drains most of the joy out of the work. But they need work. And for others, it beats the inhuman existence of patching together a living on adjunct teaching assignments. And non-profit educational institutions are masters at that racket, and I wonder what kind of person would work for an industry that mistreats its own employees so horribly… (uh -oh… I better stop typing now)
Iowa Old Lady
When I first got out of grad school, I taught for five years in a business college that was theoretically non-profit but ran an “overage” of about a million dollars a year. The president got a bonus based on the size of the overage. It abused its faculty as well as its students. I taught there because it was the only job I could find and when I managed to move on, I got a 50% salary increase and a 25% drop in teaching load.
I felt I was teaching the students things they needed to know, but I thought they’d be better off at the community college. I told that to someone I knew who did the kind of work Hillary R did, counseling non-traditional students about college, and she said she sent students to the college where I taught because it was a 4 year institution, whereas the community college credits might not transfer.
So, I guess you should lump me in with the people who work for a corrupt system.
goblue72
@gwangung: My daily professional life involves interfacing with elected officials regularly – at the local and state levels primarily; on rare occasions, the federal level. And yes, money matters. A lot. To a disgusting degree that would make Gordon Gekko look like a saint. There are some electeds on both sides of the aisle for whom it matters less – they are often the more ideological ones on either side. But for a big huge swath of electeds, money talks. Lobbyists with big checkbooks get their phone calls returned, gets the face-to-face time with the electeds themselves (and not with some low level staffer), and when time comes to vote on any one of the innumerable pieces of legislation that passes through your typical legislature, they get the vote the want (or mostly want). Most of this occurs completely invisibly to the general public. For those of who actually do work that involves “working on the Hill” – whether that”Hill” is a hill in Boston or some flatland in the middle of the Central Valley – its a soul crushing experience to see how the sausage gets made, and the degree to which its all about “show me the money”. I have, quite literally, had face-to-face meetings with elected officials in cigar smoke filled back rooms, with our hired lobbyist. I have been part of small, intimate big dollar fundraisers for gubernatorial and Senatorial candidates before, in the kind of face to face that no one in the general public of the great unwashed would ever be able to have. Shit, I even met Secretary Clinton at a house party in the kind of home today we’d refer to as a “1%-er”, way back when she was just the spouse of some Governor from Arkansas who wanted to be President. Thankfully, I don’t have to do that kind of crap anymore. But its beyond hopelessly naive to think the money doesn’t buy influence. Hopelessly. Naive.
It takes a LOT of organizing efforts for grassroots advocates to fight that – which fights they often lose absent being able to organize and fund a sustained campaign on a particular issue or piece of legislation. Or if the advocacy group in question is fortunate to have the right kind of talent and savvy to punch above their weight class at the opportune time. Typically, though, the best that the grassroots is able to achieve is to throw a monkey wrench into the legislative process.
Once upon a time, when organized labor was actually healthy, the unions provided the money & muscle for the liberal side of the aisle. Today, not so much. We got real lucky in Obama. As much as he cut an establishment figure in terms of some of his politics, he was smart and savvy enough to mitigate the money men to be able to move the ball forward. (His small dollar fundraising machine was probably one of the best things we could hope for in terms of partially freeing Obama from being completely in hock to the money men. There’s a reason he was able to make some headway in making it harder for the lobbyists. Which headway, the DNC immediately undid as soon as he wasn’t running anymore.)
japa21
@Hillary Rettig: Yet there is no evidence that SHE has taken any money from them for her campaign.
And of course
They would be stupid not to in a campaign. But you have been implying that this means she will follow everything Bill tells her to do and will mirror every policy that he has had in the past, even though she has made the point to state that some of those policies were misguided and wrong.
For that, you have provided no evidence other than innuendo.
goblue72
@jl: I don’t blame the teachers. I’m a socialist. I don’t blame the workers – teachers at those for-profits are put in the position of having to choose between their livelihoods (food on the table) and their values (while starving or going homeless). Its an unfair position – and part of which without economic rights, along with civil rights, none of us are truly free.
But I do blame the ownership and management of those schools. The bosses ARE at fault, and should be held responsible.
Mike J
@singfoom:
And a donation to a charity isn’t the same as a donation to a campaign either, yet people seem eager to conflate them.
Hillary Rettig
Everyone I have to take off. Thanks for your comments–some good points were raised.
singfoom
@Davebo: And that law has been skirted time and time again by the use of LLCs to funnel money to super pacs. And the disclosure you’re talking about can happen AFTER the election.
I would argue that not having to disclose your donors until AFTER the election is functionally equivalent to not having to disclose your donors at all, because after the election who cares…
jl
@Hillary Rettig:
” but her best will be compromised (in some cases a lot) by the donations. ”
But how is that a personal characteristic of HRC, for any practical purpose? What politician, other than Sanders, has tried to completely abandon that corrupt financing system. And, even though I support Sanders, it is not obvious he could do much about it even as president. I don’t see how HRC is more corrupted by a corrupt system than anyone else.
Supporting Sanders and no one else is not a good game plan for getting a corrupt system changed. It will take a lot of years and effort, with Sanders or HRC as president. With GOP in control, the effort would take a huge leap backward. That is the situation, and I think better to figure out a realistic strategy to fix it. Placing all hope on one candidate, and a president who personally has the best position on the issue during one or two terms in the WH is not a good plan at all.
goblue72
@burnspbesq: I see the offshore tax shelter lawyer from the O.C. has popped up to once again defend the overclass.
singfoom
@Mike J:
Ok, but I haven’t conflated them, I was asking general questions about contributions to politicians.
Cheers.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Jane Sanders gets money from her position on the board of an entity that poisoned poor Latinos with low level radioactive waste, also tanked a college pretty much single handedly. I wonder if Bernie just sat there and want lalalalalala can’t hear you Jane.
tmflibrarian
@raven: Bill’s a vegan, so that should be good enough.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Stop making homophobic comments, Bob.
Loviatar
@Hillary Rettig (174)
per usual, drops a turd and then leaves when people start to complain about the smell.
burnspbesq
@Hillary Rettig:
<blockquoteI would say the onus is on her to explain how she won’t be influenced by the contributions
You can say that all you want. It’s risible, and isn’t improved by repetition.
jl
@goblue72: I agree.
goblue72
@singfoom: Or being able to funnel an anonymous donation through an LLC or 501c3. And let’s be clear about those 501c3s. They typically are not your neighborhood SPCA we are talking about. Typically they are sham non-profits set up by corporate and individual wealthy donors for purposes of sloshing money for political lobbying around.
burnspbesq
@goblue72:
That all you got? Try harder.
Davebo
@singfoom:
In which case the LLC is named as the contributor. From that knowledge about who runs the LLC is publicly available.
The only post election disclosures are for receipts received after October 15th of an election year which is reasonable IMO. I’d question the effectiveness of receipts within 2 weeks of the election and what exactly should the FEC require? Daily disclosures of receipts?
I hate superpacs. I just wanted to correct your initial misconception that they aren’t required to disclose their donors. Now we’re just splitting hairs.
burnspbesq
@goblue72:
If you want credibility, try citing the correct Code section.
Kay
@lowercase steve:
Obama agrees with you:
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bob In Portland: You didn’t answer my question, Bob. :-)
I’ll ask some more, just for kicks…
Have you ever given to a campaign? Did you do it with the Corrupt™ intent to have them “act for [your] benefit”? I’ve given to several campaigns over the years, because I wanted to help that person win a race (in my small way) and liked them and their policies better than their opponents. I never expected anything in return, though they often sent postcards as thankyous, sometimes with invitations to picnic fundraisers and the like.
Am I Corrupt™ because I’ve given more than $27? Even Bernie’s asked me for $100 on several occasions. Where’s the dividing line between Corrupt™ and not?
And where’s the crime, Bob?
Cheers,
Scott.
Davebo
@Loviatar: It’s called sea gulling.
Fly in, crap all over everything, then fly away.
randy khan
@Hillary Rettig:
I have to say that seems like a non sequitur in the context of a post about political contributions, but I guess that’s par for the course on this particular thread.
In any event, as I’ve said before, I think people who see the Goldman speeches as a preemptive bribe have it exactly wrong. The function of such speeches is to impress the audience, not to influence the speaker. She was paid for what she was providing, nothing more, nothing less.
Loviatar
@Davebo:
ahhh. thanks. did not know there was an actual name for it.
Annie
” how many Juicers would work for such a predatory organization”
There were times in my life when I needed a job so desperately that it wouldn’t have mattered to me. If you have not been in that situation, Hillary Rettig, count yourself lucky.
Mnemosyne
So here’s a crazy thought I had on my lunch break. Since the problem with so much money floating through politics is that it buys access, what if we took a tack of mandating access somehow? Like, say, if BP wants to meet with a politician about drilling, that politician would also be mandated to have a meeting of equal length with the Sierra Club to discuss the downsides. I’m sure it could be gamed somehow, because humans are human, but I wonder if bringing “equal time” directly into politicians’ offices would help?
Chris
@Kay:
Left unstated is the question of what happens to all these people who can’t get a high SAT score. Fine, they don’t deserve to be among the best compensated members of society. Is it too much to ask that they be able to live somewhere above the poverty line?
geg6
@Hillary Rettig:
From what I understand from the engineers and earth and mineral scientists I know and work with, it’s not gobbledegoop at all. None of them like Hillary but all of them say her plan is better than Bernie’s. This includes *gasp* college age Bernie supporters who are majoring in said earth and mineral science and who actually know quite a bit about fracking since we are smack in the middle of the Marcellus Shale region.
BaldwinBro
@Loviatar: Cole rarely responds/answers anyone here….
randy khan
@Davebo: @Loviatar:
In fairness, she did stay around for more than an hour after the post went up.
Chris
@Kay:
Incidentally, that’s one of the more self-aware moments I’ve ever seen from a contemporary politician.
cleek
well, now that we know that none of the politicians who have any chance at all of becoming President are completely corrupt shitbag whores, where does that leave us?
somebody is going to have to become President.
do we all just throw ourselves into the nearest volcano, so as to avoid associating our Pure selves with the horrible people?
you first.
Kay
@Chris:
It’s true, though. There’s an entire faction who believe education will solve literally everything.
They joke about in public school circles: “poverty? public schools! racism? public schools!”
I’m sure it’s well-intended but what it ends up doing is dumping everything on public schools and frankly they have enough on their plate as it is :)
Loviatar
@BaldwinBro:
As much as I dislike Cole and may disagree with him, his posts are usually coherently arguable. Hillary R’s posts are incoherent crap which she then attempts to argue. Its not about the length of time she stays to argue, its the quality of the post/argument. She should stick to animal rescue posts/pictures.
Bob In Portland
@randy khan:
Has it always been this way? When did it change? When Ted Cruz gets money from Goldman Sachs, is it for his legal interpretations of dildo use in Texas?
BaldwinBro
@cleek: I think Sanders should spend all his money promoting a write-in campaign. On himself of course.
Kay
@Chris:
Right, which is why I think being aware of the possibility of capture and living in a bubble is important.
At the very least. They have to admit the risk.
Calouste
@Hillary Rettig at top:
The fact that Bob in Portland agrees with you wholeheartedly should give you pause for thought. A lot of pause.
geg6
@Calouste:
This.
If I would ever find myself in agreement with Bob, I’d check myself into the local psych hospital.
Davebo
OT but a nice move in WTI and Brent Crude today.
Who knows, if this keeps up we might see fracking start up again.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
I’m pretty sure that Baud is rested and ready to step in.
Loviatar
@Bob In Portland:
As a person whose has been intimately involved in bringing in speakers, its about impressing your audience.
Did a conference where we brought in Colin Powell for the keynote and a 60s era band to play the closing night dinner. We got more congratulations and kudos for the band than we did for Colin Powell.
tinare
“I wonder how many Juicers would work for such a predatory organization.”
Well, I work at a big bank, so…….
(I gotta eat and the mortgage needs to be paid.)
Applejinx
Bernie’s candidacy (following on from Occupy) has blown up the corruption of capitalism and demanded money out of politics literally within the last year. Only got anyone’s attention when he started winning primaries and threatened Clinton.
I don’t think you can go by statements, even private email statements (I don’t like the bit about wanting for-profit colleges ‘represented’: why?) made before this primary season. I don’t think they’re predictive, put it that way.
As much as people would love to believe Hillary is firmly stuck in being 90s Hillary, I’m just not sure of that. Seems like it would get in the way of the wholesale reinvention she’s done to get re-elected. Those ‘lies videos’ literally showing her saying stuff and then opposite stuff? She is MUCH younger in some of those video clips.
You can’t both scorn her for ‘triangulating’ and then not accept it when she triangulates in your favor. In her circles, there wasn’t the least bit of representation for hard-left liberal thinking in the 90s. There’s blessed little in HER circles even now: to notice it at all is pretty good attentiveness for her. Any serious liberalism she’s up to is flying in the face of probably most of her advisors (who lost her the nomination in 2008: she’s right to look beyond them).
BECAUSE Clintons triangulate and then appear to make good on their promises (the only way for an outsider to really become the in-crowd), I would have to see new ‘scandals’, not old ones. That isn’t necessarily going to happen. Even if she was faking that would imply she was dumb, which she’s not: and it also implies she has a true policy center based in the 90s and in oligarchy and predatory capitalism.
I think getting (and staying) elected trumps that, even for Bill and definitely for her. Clinton is particularly susceptible to pressure pushing her left because I think she has some similar goals to the hard lefties. She has just been immersed in a world (white DC) that has completely different answers to those questions: answers that are proven so false that it’s scandalous to have supported them.
Let’s ask what her intentions are, rather than looking at the record. Clintons… evolve. And she’d better. (and she has been, by all appearances)
goblue72
@burnspbesq: My bad for just quickly referring to what the original commenter wrote when I responded instead of feeling the need to henpeck correct him/her that its a 501c4 social welfare organization he/she meant and not a 501c3 tax exempt nonprofit organization, since 501c3s are heavily restricted in their ability to lobby while 501c4s are not, Oh Mighty Offshore Tax Shelter Lawyer from the O.C. Seemed completely beside the general point that was being made so I felt no need to nitpick.
Do they make you swear an oath on a pile of $100s at University of Spoiled Children before they let your matriculate?
jl
@goblue72:
” Do they make you swear an oath on a pile of $100s at University of Spoiled Children before they let your matriculate? ”
Swearing anything on pile of sofa level spare change like that would be insulting. Don’t be silly.
goblue72
@Loviatar: Depends on the band. I can think of some 1960’s one hit wonders that would make me rather listen to Colin Powell….
Bob In Portland
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Me:
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Being coy is no defense, smartypants. Hillary gets big campaign donations from rich people. She gets millions in speaking fees from rich people. Rich people make donations of millions to the Clinton Fund. Rich people get into deals with Bill and Hill through the Clinton Global Initiative.
Please continue to play the ignorant ass. It only shows that you can’t answer the question honestly. So on top of supporting the second-most despised person in the race you also are a liar and a hypocrite. Well-played, sir.
Bob In Portland
@Loviatar: Who was the band playing when Hillary talked to Deutsche Bank?
ruemara
Please. Just stop. As if the Sanders votes for NRA friendly policies aren’t odious. And re: BLM, it might be better for you to pass on it. Just be fine with your vote, let others be fine with theirs and move the fucking fuck on. It’s ridiculous.
FlipYrWhig
If the way we’re keeping score on these things is by the way the candidate’s spouse handles issues related to education, maybe we should talk about the way Jane Sanders parlayed having no experience but a politically-connected husband into a gig fucking up Burlington College nine ways to Sunday and then took a golden parachute to go away. Five years ago, not 25.
patroclus
I would teach at a for-profit university if they paid me and I liked the working conditions. And I would do my best to teach the students the subject matter as best as I could so as to (partially) overcome the perception that for-profit automatically equates with “evil.” A lot of not-for-profit schools actually just accumulate endowment and then spend it on athletic facilities and coaches’ salaries (or art work in the executive suites), so from the teachers’ point of view, there might be a difference, but it’s not as substantial as this post implies.
Moreover, Bill Clinton isn’t Hillary Clinton. This post, and the links which don’t back it up, doesn’t even lay a glove on Hillary and she’s on record as wanting to crack down on the egregious for-profits already, so unless one just assumes she’s lying (which is fairly typical of the last two week’s style of Sanders’ campaign as it is emanating from his supporters), I’m not sure what the point is. And, absent a quid pro quo, a campaign or a PAC accepting campaign contributions doesn’t equate with “taking money” for nefarious purposes.
Further, even Wall Street speculators are not inherently evil. The finance industry is responsible for things getting done in this country; some of it good, some of it bad. To paint the entire industry as inherently corrupt is painting with a very broad brush – a more accurate criticism would focus on the particular actions and/or actors who are doing the “bad” things.
Bob In Portland
@Calouste: Who said I agreed with H. Rettig wholeheartedly?
By the way, I’m still waiting for the villagers to explain how money no longer matters in politics. What makes Clinton different from all politicians before her?
kindness
Christ. If I wanted to read this kind of back and forth I’d go back to Huffington Post.
I really don’t mind that others think things I don’t agree with. I would hope that wouldn’t mean they are bad people, just confused from my point of view. Elections seem to bring out the thin skins in far too many of us.
Bernie is cool. I think he’s a good Senator for Vermont. I like his ideas but he hasn’t convinced me he can push any of his ideas over the goal line. I mean, Bernie himself says he’ll get it done because People Power. I’m sorry but Republicans could give a shit about what Republicans they don’t agree with think and anyone thinks they are going to cave because of People Power from a Democrat? That is willful delusional thinking that ignores what Republicans did the entire terms of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Don’t be delusional. Be real.
eemom
@ruemara:
Well, she’s just come out in favor of the Adam’s rib theory of feminism; who knows what wisdom she might have to impart to folks of color.
Applejinx
@Kay:
This is Obama, and yet people expect Hillary Clinton to have lived in this environment for decades and yet be totally, completely unaffected by it.
Clinton being able to change to win votes (or if you must frame it that way, Clinton the pandering rootless weathervane who supports what will benefit her the most), is a GOOD thing. They ALL have to change, they ALL have to get a clue and realize they’re the Sun King’s court and Robespierre is honing his guillotines. They are ALL brainwashed by each other and their environment, plus by the very nature of that environment they are on a Red Queen race to constantly, exhaustingly raise money all the time, forever.
Their environment really truly sucks. It’s not fun for them. It’s just the water in which they swim and they know nothing else. At least Versailles was fun while it lasted! They don’t even have that excuse, they have to get back to phone banking (see John Oliver’s episode on political fundraising)
You need one who’s quicker to jump on new trends if that’s where the votes are. I think that is actually Hillary Clinton. It still depends on a lot of things going well, and I welcome Hillary Rettig and those like her, lighting fires under those previously ‘safe’ belief systems and making it untenable for Clinton to continue to be associated with for-profit college scams.
But until then, you’re just going to have to be content with Clinton increasingly running away from that stuff and denying she ever liked them, b-baka!
She’s probably among the least worst of the lot, in practice. Combine that with ‘the most able to change’ and we’re cooking with gas (hopefully not extracted by fracking, ANOTHER area where she needs to smarten the hell up and not trust the promises of rich corporate drones).
What’s important is where we end up.
Chris
@Kay:
It makes a certain kind of sense considering the audience. Not only do you have an assload of upper class people who always went to the best schools and had access to the best education… but for those wealthy people who didn’t have it easy and who really did bust their ass to get to the top, the way they did that as often as not involved excelling academically. (You don’t necessarily have to have gone to an Ivy League school, but you probably had to do pretty damn well in school, if nothing else). So it’s easy for these people to look at themselves, and for their more privileged peers to look at them, and conclude that “see, education is how you get ahead in life!”
(This can be simple tone deafness. It can also, unfortunately, include the nastier component of “well fuck all these losers – if they couldn’t be arsed to work as hard as I did, let ’em flip burgers for minimum wage all their lives! They should’ve been paying attention in math class instead of fucking around!)
Loviatar
@goblue72:
Thats the point, you bring an act (politician, musical performer, sports star, juggler, etc) to impress your audience and make your company look more impressive. Its called reflected admiration.
eemom
@kindness:
[headdesk]
Mnemosyne
@tinare:
I work for a company that warps children’s minds starting at birth and is blocking sensible copyright reforms, so I feel ya.
Bob In Portland
@Loviatar:
I thought it was called “pride of ownership.”
Bob In Portland
Well, Hillary Rettig, the village has spoken.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: Meanwhile Bernie Sanders gets to grump around his hermit hut alienating everyone and getting nothing done. Which is totes better.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob In Portland: That was actually one of the funniest lines you’ve ever written, Bob.
Brachiator
@gwangung:
Doesn’t change the fact that the comic was never meant to be about or even display any knowledge of “real” Asian culture.
And one of the sources of the comic supposedly was a 1930 radio serial, Chandu the Magician.
Loviatar
@Bob In Portland:
I heard it was a jam of two of your favorite groups; the Purity Ponies and the Douche Bros.
dollared
@Technocrat: Oh, you took money from somebody who expected you to influence politicians and influence governmental policy for profit? Or are you suggesting that Bill Clinton programmed in C sharp for them? Or are you just putting your hands over your ears and pretending that there’s no such thing as political influence peddling for money?
Loviatar
@Bob In Portland:
Nah, no need to own, Its the new century and we just gigged it out.
chopper
shrug. some people are single issue voters, where the single issue is “whatever lets me rationalize hatin’ on X’.
dollared
@gwangung: How in the fuck does she sound unknowledgeable? Large donors expect access and influence. Hell, for my $200 checks I expect access and influence. You sound like you’re blowing smoke out your ass. Or that you’re a Republican in denial about money in elections.
WarMunchkin
Look – the invitation to the state department was weird. I don’t know why she did that. Bill was employed by this organization, and then he left. I wouldn’t blame HRC for that. So we’re left with more speaking fees. And there are perhaps problematic things involving speaking fees, but there’s a difference between being guilty of actual bribery and being guilty of politics-as-usual. Yes, politics as usual has problems, but is not the same thing as selling out for that industry. The actual policy proposals have not changed.
gelfling545
@Hildebrand: Well, one thing they’d be getting is a president who’s not Trump or Cruz or some other right wing looney. That seems like it would be worth a lot of money.
randy khan
@Bob In Portland:
It has, in fact, always been this way. It’s why George H.W. Bush could command a speaking fee of $1 million right after he left office. It’s not like he could have made policy at that point.
I find it strange to say this to you, but you’re not being sufficiently cynical about this. HRC probably agreed to the dates because it was an easy trip from her house to where she had to speak. (If you think I’m kidding about this, I’m not, at least not entirely. I know from my friend in the business that travel and convenience matter a lot to speakers at the high end.)
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: Hush, you. Soon enough he’ll be back home with us <3
We absolutely would have a different, much less electable Hillary without Bernie's campaign. No regrets, not a one.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@randy khan:
Bingo. Donations help give access. And that can be a problem.
But what’s the alternative? Politicians are human. They hang out with people like them. They are friends with people they went to school with, people they go to church with, people who are parents to their kids. If money didn’t help people outside those groups gain access, what would be their “in”? Would it be better if candidates only listened to their friends?
I think we all want politicians who are smart and empathetic and respond to a letter or a righteous rant. But as long as lots of money is needed to campaign for office, and there isn’t a public financing system that removes the need for fundraising (and I think we all know that it may be generations before something like that is even seriously considered), and there are only 24 hours in a day, then politicians will need to raise money and one way to raise money is to have a fundraiser where the donor can meet and briefly talk with the candidate. There are a few advantages to the system in that it makes most candidates actually get out and meet people. Overwhelming name recognition where an official doesn’t feel the need to campaign is a bad thing even if it removes the need for money in some cases (look at Trump).
The way things are now, people who aren’t donors have almost no chance of sending a message to someone outside of their district (e.g. most/all US House web pages require home addresses in their district). If I support, say, Franken, he doesn’t care too much since he doesn’t represent me. If I donate to his campaign, though, there’s a chance that I can interact with him (which can be important if he’s on an important Committee, etc.).
So, agreed, Money gives Access. And that can be a problem. But it doesn’t have to be, and it’s not immediately clear that a system without money would work better when it comes to sensible representation.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elie
@Applejinx:
I agree with you… Bernie helped her and us see things and change the frame. I am very grateful for that and I would like to celebrate him rather than worry that Weaver plans to do damage. I hope Bernie got some good rest at home… its been a tough slog and being tired just builds up. Those of us over 60 (including Hillary), need our rest — sleep AND mental relaxation.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
He said village.
Drink!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bob In Portland: (sigh).
We know who gave HRC and WJC and their foundations money, Bob. We know how much. They told us.
Where’s the crime, Bob? Where’s the Corruption™? What corrupt policies did Elton John from HRC get by giving the Clinton Foundation $10M?
If it is so obvious and clear that they’re Corrupt™, show me the quid-pro-quo.
Cheers,
Scott.
CarolDuhart2
@Hillary Rettig: Back then, the assertion was feminist-she’s an intelligent woman who is her husband’s partner who was being respected for her mind. Therefore the partnership. Hard to remember, but Hills was the first first lady who had a substantial education and career. So the assertion was that she mattered as a person, not a hostess and that Bill loved her as such.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Er,
Elton John from HRC getElton John get from HRC.Cheers,
Scott.
Applejinx
@WarMunchkin: This.
Even as a lifelong Berniac it amazes me how people can on the one hand correctly rail against how amazingly corrupt Washington DC is, how captured it is… and then turn around and insist that they will only deal with people completely untouched by this total corruption and decline.
That’s not how it works. Even ‘Amendment King’ Bernie knows that.
Pick one. Either Washington is insanely corrupt and captured—and therefore of course everybody’s got shit all over ’em like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail—or it’s captured only for a subset of wicked politicians who do bad stuff entirely on purpose, knowing full well it’s wrong and doing it anyway between cackling and clubbing baby seals.
And simultaneously there’s this other Washington full of noble pols who are just outnumbered, who always know best in between declining political contributions and gazing wistfully into the sunset waiting for the electorate that will deserve them.
I don’t live there.
Not even when I live in Vermont.
Aimai
@Mnemosyne: really? You went with petered out??
gelfling545
@tinare: yeah..a number of my younger acquaintences took jobs in collections as their first jobs out of college due to their unfortunate addiction to food, clothing & shelter.
Terry chay
you know the post is bad when this front pagers only defender is bob in Portland.
gelfling545
Is this Bob person the same one who used to chortle about Brinks trucks full of cash or am I mistaking him for someone else?
BaldwinBro
@Terry chay: Meeeooowwww!
kindness
Democrats need to know a really good quote from Jesse Unruh, a famous (nationally obsure) California politician who was Assembly Speaker for a decade in the 60’s and then California Treasurer. He said this regarding lobbyists:
I think that fits perfectly in today’s political climate. The money isn’t going to not be there. We can’t stop that. But one can act ethically even in the presence of money. And Jesse said that back in the 1970’s. Food for thought.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gelfling545: That’s someone else.
Cheers,
Scott.
Andrey
@Applejinx:
No one expects Clinton to be unaffected. However, many people expect Hillary Clinton to be affected the same way Obama did. And Obama turned out to be one of the greatest presidents in US history.
Every US president to date, including the best of the best, has had deeply wealthy backers. Clinton is not unique; further, her ties to wealthy backers are rather weak compared to many excellent presidents of the past. That is why such accusations of corruption seem tiresome and unreasonable.
Edit: on re-reading, I may be agreeing with your sentiment expressed further.
Applejinx
@Terry chay: It’s not bad in the sense of ‘wrong ideas’ or ‘decrying this stuff is bad’. The reason I can’t defend it is, we don’t get to magically erase a history of working within Washington. That’s dumb.
Call for change, make certain subjects or funding sources toxic: getting funded by climate change deniers is toxic now, that’s good. I think they should add fracking apologists to that list, and I would actually add ‘predatory lenders’ before extending that to ‘marketers of predatory for-profit college scams’: I see the validity of making a fuss, though, because Hillary is a leetle too prone to call for ‘right to aspire’, and the concern there is that it can play into advocacy of ‘schools’ that really aren’t schools in the traditional sense.
Expecting a spotless record is dumb. And holding people to their old positions in a time of great flux and change is dumb. We all gotta reinvent ourselves to keep up, there’s no shame in Hillary trying to do likewise. Being slow to learn and adapt is actually one of Bernie’s faults that I’ve regretted most: even with so many right and correct axioms to start with, it was worrying that he struggled to catch up with #BLM, for instance.
Good points, Hillary Rettig, but how about let’s consider them as a target for future behavior? And clearly conveying our expectations about that?
Blue in SLC
Everyone does remember that HRC, even if awash in donor money from for-profit colleges, is going to probably be running against the entrepreneur behind Trump University? Even if we grant Rettig’s insinuations to their most dire ends, if the question is something along the lines of, “who’s in bed worst with the for-profit college scam?” isn’t focusing on Clinton a major distraction?
(For what it’s worth, I’m in the camp that the final question posed by Rettig rests on pretty weak premises, to put it gently.)
Elie
@Applejinx:
Good comment…..
D58826
@kindness: Has anyone seen a study or ‘wargame’ simulation of what would happen to the economy if Bernie started to break up the big banks? The financial section is about 1/3rd of the GDP. That is a big chunk of the economy to start experimenting on. I realize the big banks are only a part of the financial sector but they have counter party relationships throughout the financial sector as well as the economy at large. It’s easy to run against the greedy Gordon Gecko types in the financial sector but there are hundreds of thousands of Bernie’s ‘little people’ who work for financial institutions and they are not bringing home 7 figure salaries. Then there are all of the folks whose jobs support the industry from the UPS driver to the guy who runs the coffee shop in Trump Tower. And breaking up the big banks won’t eliminate the systemic risk to the nations economy. The shadow banking sector was as big a villain in 2008 as the banks, if not more so.
The same can be said about his plan to covert the healthcare industry to single payer. It’s easy to hate on the overpaid overstuffed insurance company CEO’s but there are a lot of just regular folks whose income depends on those insurance company jobs. The health care industry is what another 17% of the GDP.
So if elected Bernie is promising to make wholesale changes to close to 50% of the nations economy. He does think big but does he remember our recent history. We broke up AT%T in the mid 80s into a bunch of baby bells. After all the pain and suffering we are back to two or three telecommunications giants that control the market. At least AT%T was a regulated utility and society at large had some small say in what was going on. The airlines were deregulated and now we are down to 4 major carriers.
mybe Bernie can pull it off but I’m reminded of the old medical adage – ‘first do no harm’.
Johnnybuck
Hillary R shows up with her talking points from the thought leaders of the revolution. Pretty weak sauce.
Tim C.
So quick question, is anyone else seeing the ocean of difference between Devine and Weaver on the Sanders campaign?
agorabum
I’m far less interested in who someone has taken money from (money is the mother’s milk of politics), but about what a politician has actually done. Obama has been doing a lot to reign in the for-profit school industry – but he likely took donations from some of the same entities. And frankly, before Obama started working on the issue, it was hardly even on the national radar.
So please, no smears of “someone gave her money, there she believes everything the donating party believes.” That’s hardly ever been true in politics.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: But, OK, to take this seriously for a moment. isn’t there a huge difference between “rich person cozies up to needy politician to make (her) a puppet” and “rich person uses riches to support politician who stands for things rich person also likes”? And are you really that sure you can tell which is which?
Elie
@D58826:
This….. Again — its the extreme rhetoric. Also, would you undertake changes like this as some sort of war? Our economy is large, complex and intertwined not only with other countries, but most importantly, the lives of our citizens. I dunno… I can remember being in love with some of these left slogans and ideas when I was in my twenties — before I learned some stuff. BTW, I am not rich, so this is not some insider point of view. Our country is in transition economically and in its role as world leader. Tearing down the economy — a real source of our power and ability to manage our affairs and look out for our people in a intensely competitive world market place — well lets say changes need to be handled with great wisdom. This is not after WWII where all the other large economies were all devastated by war. We have lots of healthy competitors. To some degree, I think the lefties haven’t realized that.
FlipYrWhig
@agorabum:
This time it was even worse than that — it wasn’t just “belief” or “support” but “work for.” And when there was no _work_! SM damn H.
toned
@Elie: She and Bill were a package deal – their words.
He was all over the TV bad mouthing President Obama and campaigning for her in 2008.
They slagged Obama in all the worst ways.
Now he is doing the same thing again, and we are supposed to see them as no longer a package deal?
Why?
Based on what?
toned
@Hillary Rettig: she made more in 90 minutes speaking to the rich than Bernie made in a year…
smintheus
@FlipYrWhig: Bill Clinton worked for such an institution right up until Hillary was ready to run again. From the link:
Laureate Education has been sued repeatedly by students in the US basically for creating fraudulent programs that deliberately set up obstacles to students finishing their degrees in a reasonable time – thus siphoning more tuition money from them. Laureate also typically fires a lot of faculty at institutions it buys up even while it ramps up enrollments that the smaller sized faculty cannot reasonably teach.
Bill Clinton made a large fortune serving as a pitchman for this for-profit corporation that exists to take advantage of students.
toned
@goblue72: Evil Energy Mom does nothing else – she is the worst kid of venomous troll on this site and should probably be banned yet again.
FlipYrWhig
@smintheus: That does it, on that basis I’m definitely not voting for Bill Clinton.
toned
@Hillary Rettig: I think this site of late explains fully where all of the “PUMA”[s] went to – they never left and never changed their minds that she should have beaten that amateur Obama.
She didn’t deserve it then, and she does not deserve it now – we are done with moneyed elite status quo.
She makes 10 times [For like one day’s work] what Bernie makes by giving speeches to the organizations she is going to play hard ball with.
Yeah, right.
When she starts the next elective war , you people be sure to admit you were wrong, ok?
[not you Hillary R]
HRA
1. Bill did say your get 2 for the price of 1. More closer than 2013, Hilary was asked in a debate with Bernie about getting advice from Bill if she becomes president. She said yes. (not exact quote and I wish I could remember who asked her the question)
2. The reaction to Bill helping Hilary from some of the above comments is mind boggling. Who do you think ran the country when Bill was away or/and otherwise occupied. I give Hilary a lot of credit for being there and was glad as well for I think she was/is a lot more intelligent than Bill.
3. My BIL was a very affluent businessman. During a conversation we had, he told me the first move towards getting what you want in business is to contribute to both the Democrats and the Republicans. It’s a foot in the door. It does not have to be making money from having an in towards it. It could be an invitation to a cocktail party to meet the President of the United States and have a photo taken in the receiving line which did come true.
It was a front page photo in the news. From then on he was greeted with “What can I do for you, Frank?”
Elie
@toned:
Would you expect that Bill would not have ANY involvement in her campaign? Would not try to defend her or go after her attackers? Really? While I think he is not always a great help and am glad he is way more low key than in 2008, I am puzzled that somehow you think he would have NO involvement as his wife is being called a whore and corrupt. As for a matched pair, other than past articles and statements, there is no reason to believe that she would somehow just be a stenographer to Bills third term. That is insulting and not going to happen. I have no idea if he will play a formal role in her administration. I would be frankly surprised and disappointed if he does, More likely he will be given some ceremonial post somewhere. I do believe that it will be a challenge to keep him quiet and that the media will be constantly asking him stuff that could put his wife on the spot. They will have to work that out and I am sure they will. Wow — you give them absolutely no credit for anything.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elie: I think some on the left still think it’s 1968.
Barbara
@toned: Oh nice, now we are all PUMAs because we object to Hillary Rettig’s thoughtless sexism. For the record, I voted for Obama in the 2008 primary.
Loneoak
It’s amazing that we went from celebrating HRC as a powerful, active and smart-as-hell First Lady who was closely involved in matters of state to now asserting that it is thoughtlessly sexist to see the Clintons as a team who bear some mutual responsibility for their actions in public life.
Btw, until the formal start of her presidential run is was not “The Clinton Foundation,” it was the “Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.” Her name is on the organization, and thus can fairly be held accountable for its donors and activities to whatever extent you think it is fair to assume money actually matters in procuring favor.
Barbara
@Loneoak: Look, I am totally okay with Hillary Rettig taking potshots at Hillary Clinton. She is a candidate for president and she should be accountable. It’s referring to Hillary and Bill Clinton as a “package” that I object to, and I would object to it if it were any female politician or candidate. It is just too easy, and too much a part of our historical experience, to not see women independently from their husbands to overlook such a thoughtless and obvious example of this kind of thinking.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Terry chay:
LOL. Sad!
nutella
@Barbara:
Yes, and if it’s The Clintons who are running now I’d like to see attention paid to the last 30 years of political history and business dealings of Jane Sanders, Melania Trump, and Heidi Cruz. More package deals, obviously!
/snark
No, let’s leave spouses out of this unless there is a good reason not to. (Maybe Ted Cruz’s Goldman Sachs loan might qualify as a good reason.)
nutella
But an important policy point that needs to be covered by Sanders (for his “free college” program) and Clinton (for her “free community college” program): How can they structure the program to avoid the way for-profit schools sucked so much of the money out of the federal student loan programs, leaving them with all the money and their students with all the debt and, in many cases, little to no useful education?
Free community colleges and trade schools are very vulnerable to the same problem. How can we be sure that the schools we (the taxpayers) are subsidizing are providing adequate training to the students?
John S.
I love the intellectual honesty around here.
If Donald Trump received $16 million in contributions from the payday loan industry, I’m sure you would all be asserting that he has no ties to that group and that he isn’t guilty by association.
david10
@Hillary RettigYou start out so strong, so absolute, so very sure of the evil of Hillary and your own spotless virtue. And then as others shine a little light into the dark, you crumple, you retreat, you equivocate. You weakly admit perhaps there is some truth in what others say. And intellectually that is admirable. But perhaps you might think a bit before putting fingers to keyboard. Just saying.
Karen
No one is pure. I understand that. Bernie can only be successful if the GOP loses its grip on Congress. Chances of that happening are not very high, thanks to gerrymandering. All I care about is who will win. Hillary has no purple purity pony and I don’t agree with everything she believes in. But she agrees with what I believe in, I’m enough of a pragmatist to take 3/4 of the loaf if it means she could stop the horrible bills Congress will attempt to shove through. I believe in LGBT issues. Congress will turn back the progress we’ve made. The ACA will be overturned as they appoint their hitleresque judge. That makes me vote for Hilary. Because she’ll win.
northquirk
FFS, this this is an incredibly condensing post. I almost regret that I haven’t been able to read all the comments, but am de-lurking just to say wow Hillary, you really come off as smug and entitled here. You say you didn’t really mean to be *all* lives matter in your previous post, b/c of course you support BLM, and then reiterate that *all* lives matter…compassionate understanding of world politics and what’s happening in other countries FTW! of missing the point of discussing politics in this country, on THIS ISSUE.
Then you go on to imply that everyone involved with for profit colleges is (1) totally corrupt or (2) too dumb to know what’s in their best interest. Do you judge everyone around you so harshly? Do you always bracket that criticism with personal stories about how you’re much you do to save those poor souls who are less well informed than you?
I’m not being particularly coherent but just venting b/c I think this sort of attitude is horribly judgy/not constructive and after a day working at the local government, my brain is filled with sad about this type of BS.
Ella inNew Mexico
Read thru the comments here and all I can say is we’ve got a lot of scared, insecure, pouty, whiny-ass titty babies rooting for Hilary.
The way you people come completely unglued when someone expresses even the LEAST bit of disagreement with you is frigging pathetic.
You all do know that if you don’t share the same views with Hillary or anyone else here you don’t have to go completely ballistic, right? If your candidate is such a shoe-in guaranteed winner, why do you waste all the energy with all these personal attacks and denigration? Or is it imperative you live in a world in which groupthink is mandatory?
Jesus. What is fucking WRONG with your personal lives that you have the energy for this much ANGER at someone who’s your frigging ally when it comes to the big picture? She gets to have her opinion without being a monster.
Lot of warped, unbalanced people here.
Paul in KY
@Hillary Rettig: They definitely give the millions expecting something. Now, whether they get anything or not…depends on the politician’s cojones.
Paul in KY
@Hillary Rettig: I think the whole ‘for profit’ Phoenix/Kaplan University scam should be made illegal. Agree on that!
Bob2
Holy crap. What is this?
A Freddie deBoer or Erik Kain thread?
Barbara
@Ella inNew Mexico: All I can say is, “projection, heal thyself!”