MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
"In her current campaign, Clinton has pledged to rein in Wall Street. She has proposed higher taxes on high-frequency traders and an end to special tax breaks for hedge fund managers, and recently called for more aggressive enforcement of criminal statutes that govern the finance industry. But her rhetoric has not alarmed her backers in the financial sector. So far, donors in the banking and insurance industries have given $6.4 million to her campaign and allied super PACs, behind only those in communications and technology, The Post found."
Comments
What the fuck does this have to do with anything, or how screwed up can a supposed expose be? More fucking shit thrown at the canvas to see if it can cause some petty outrage.
Obama raised $780 million in 2008 and $1.1 billion in 2012, while Romney raised and spent $1 billion.
Where's the headline "1 Obama: 4 years, $1.9 billion"? (excluding his other races)
Seriously, that's 2/3 of the Clintons total fundraising over a long career now with 2 politicians, including a successful 2x president - and $2 billion for the Clinton charity!!!
Try this - "A handful of elite givers have contributed more than $25 million to the foundation " - bwahahaha - so 1.25% of the foundation's $2 billion came from "elites"
Now try this - "The couple’s biggest individual political benefactors are Univision chairman Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl, who have made 39 contributions totaling $2.4 million to support the Clintons’ races since 1992. The Sabans have also donated at least $10 million to the foundation. " - Jesus, that's a shitty weekend for the Koch Brothers or Sheldon Adelson - seriously, $12m in 24 years? is this supposed to be a scandal?
"The Clintons’ ties to the financial sector strained their bonds with the left, particularly organized labor" - oh bullshit - Rahm Emmanuel strained relations with labor with his "they just flushed their money down the toilet" antics - the Clintons were always supportive. "giving at least $21 million to support their races" - damn straight.
"By comparison, three generations of the Bush family, America’s other contemporaneous political dynasty, have raised about $2.4 billion for their state and federal campaigns and half a dozen charitable foundations, according to a Post tally of their fundraising from 1988 through 2015 — even though the family has collectively held the presidency longer than the Clintons. " - well waah fucking waah - Clinton was never associated with anything as corrupt as the Carlyle group either, *AND THE 2/3 CHARITY MONEY WAS SPENT ON CHARITY, NOT ON POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS, YOU ASSHOLE GOOFS. That's right, mix 2 pots of money and then pretend they're equal. What a bunch of dickwads Matea Gold, Tom Hamburger and Anu Narayanswamy are - including the editor that let this piece of shit go to print.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 8:59am
Sanders gave a great speech challenging the racism and bigotry of Donald Trump and the Republicans last evening. Repeatedly telling people why they should not vote for Hillary Clinton will not work. She has stood up to GOP crap for decades and is considered battle tested. You should focus on why people should vote for Bernie Sanders.
Hillary has an image of strength on foreign policy. Bernie Sanders does not have a similar image. Attacking Hillary does not magically make Bernie look better
by Iphonermrd (not verified) on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:54am
So Peracles Please - would a laundry list of Bernie's accomplishments, his powerful speeches, and demonstrated commitment to poor, working, and middle-income Americans persuade you that he should be the Democratic nominee?
by HSG on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 11:06am
Actually if you spent as much time on Bernie's positives it would be helpful.
For example, there is a town hall meeting focusing on justice tomorrow. Sanders will be there. O'Malley will be there. Even Ben Carson will be there. Hillary is not coming. The focus should be on what Bernie plans to do. He is the one who needs exposure in the Black community. Attacking Hillary for not showing up does nothing to help Bernie gain traction with ethnic minorities.
BTW
I am rmrd0000 posting from my iPhone
by Iphonermrd (not verified) on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 11:47am
Thanks for the heads up. I will look into this.
by HSG on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 11:52am
http://www.bet.com/news/national/2015/11/13/bet-livestreaming-20-20-lead...
The link to the information
by Iphonermrd (not verified) on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 2:59pm
Thanks rmrd. I read on a couple of different sites that his speech was really good. Some was disappointed that it did not get the coverage it should have but Daesh has top billing right now. I will try to find it on you tube.
Is this town hall meeting being carried on any of the media outlets?
by trkingmomoe on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 4:19pm
It on BET streaming tomorrow.
I'll post a link when I get free
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 5:31pm
http://www.bet.com/news/national/2015/11/13/bet-livestreaming-20-20-lead...
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 5:36pm
Thanks, It is at 1PM. I hung a note on the frig to remind me. I have holiday baking to do today so the note on the frig is a good location.
It is really going to be interesting to see what kind of questions they will ask Ben Carson.
by trkingmomoe on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 6:49am
Thank you. I have seen some clips from his last speech. It is supper time here so I will continue my search later tonight. I like the idea that he putting out more detail then just his stump speech.
by trkingmomoe on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 5:37pm
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 5:21pm
Obviously, I see things exactly the other way than you. But I make my points without profanity or derision. Why do you think you choose to be obscene and insulting?
by HSG on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 6:38pm
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 1:45am
"Plus profanity helps pace the energy of a good retort - why go to battle half-armed?" I'll give you this one. But then again don't you think you've gone to the fuck/shit well
oncea few dozen times too often.by HSG on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 7:40am
Meanwhile I posted a link to a Sept 2008 Hillary op-ed about mortgage reform and you didn't have fuck all to say about it. What gives? Not speculative enough? Doesn't fit your Hillary as wicked witch meme? Couldn't figure out how to psycho-analyze the words to make them playing the gender or race card? Happy to hear what Bernie did re bank mortgage fraud and defying the intent of the bank bailout with 0% loans to get the economy going. Looking forward to your insightful analysis of how this Op-ed relates to Hillary's non-committal to re-invoking Glass-Steagal and to the accusations that with all that Wall Street money Hillary won't do shit to rein in Wall Street. You claim you want to (or do) talk real issues - let's see it.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 8:01am
You use a laser like focus on campaign contributions to make wild extrapolations about Hillary's behavior if she becomes president. You could just as easily point to Bill Clinton's Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act as evidence that she's going to massively raise taxes on the wealthy while increasing support for the poor. And he did it in spite of the Wall Street and wealthy contributions to his campaign.
edit to add: For some reason you see the Clinton's as uniquely tainted by campaign contributions. In 2008 Obama received the bulk of the health care and pharmaceutical money. A third more than Hillary and 2.5 times what McCain got. At the time did you support Hillary or even McCain as a better choice for health care reform citing Obama's acceptance of significantly more money from the health care industry as tainting him? Or did you support Obama in spite of the money he got from those big donors?
by ocean-kat on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 1:10pm
All I did was link to an article in the Washington Post and quote directly from it. There are no "extrapolations" nor do I see the "Clinton's as uniquely tainted by campaign contributions". If only she were the only tainted candidate this wouldn't be nearly as big an issue. Perhaps you think the information in the article shouldn't be disseminated?
Re: healthcare contributions to Obama. Frankly I was unaware of how much the industry contributed to his campaign. Kinda puts into perspective his very early willingness to take single-payer off the table and to flip on the individual mandate which he (and I) opposed preferring a focus on cost-reduction (I hoped through a public option, increases in medicare/medicaid coverage and lower premiums).
In retrospect, I was far too dismissive of Dennis Kucinich's long-shot campaign back then. I should have backed him in the primaries. Even though he obviously went nowhere, he was the best candidate. But, I was somewhat blinded by Obama's intelligence, poise, charm, opposition to the war on Iraq, his overall more liberal voting record than Clinton's, and the excitement that I had over the prospect of a young African-American President.
by HSG on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 1:31pm
This isn't some right wing site where people can't remember what was posted and said in a blog two weeks ago. We remember what people say here and are smart enough to continue conversations across several blogs months apart. I never call for information to be repressed but I also have no problem calling bullshit on a hit job in what ever strong terms I feel it calls for.
Your analysis of the process of passing the ACA shows the differences we have. I don't see the contributions as a factor in Obama's changing position during that process. I see a naive belief in bipartisanship and the idea that he could work with republicans to reach compromises on important policy. He was honest when he ran on being non-ideological and wanting to heal the rifts and be a bipartisan president. He practically bent over backwards and kissed the republican's ass to get one, just one, republican vote for the ACA. He wooed Susan Collins like she was his favorite democrat and he was in love. "I'll protect you" he reassured her when she worried about running in her next republican primary if she voted for Obamacare.
It took him a long time to understand just where the republicans were coming from but eventually learn he did. As I watched the two years long show it didn't seem to me it was about the health care contributions at all.
by ocean-kat on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 2:53pm
So Obama 1) got elected with the help of millions from the healthcare industry and 2) championed legislation that created millions of new subsidized customers mandated to purchase the products offered by health insurers.
You're free to believe that there's no connection whatsoever.
by HSG on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 6:42pm
So Obama took money and that explains everything he did. The world I live in and the people I see in it are more complex than that. Not just the politicians but even those in my circle of friends without influence or power have more complex motivations and nuanced behaviors.
Shrug, whatever. You're free to believe that simple explanation and live in a world without nuance or complexity.
by ocean-kat on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 8:52pm
We agree it's complicated. I think it's plausible to believe that the contributions from the healthcare industry affected Obama's position on the mandate. Do you?
by HSG on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 9:23pm
It could be. More likely he saw the handwriting on the wall and knew there was no way in hell he was going to be able to sell universal health care. Not in this climate. ACA may not be everything we'd hoped for--or even anything we'd hoped for, but it's more than we expected we'd ever get. It's a miracle that something called "Obamacare" is in place at all.
by Ramona on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:09pm
Possibly too late, but it would be helpful if democrats (at least) referenced it as the ACA. The Republicans wrapped his name around it from the beginning in order to have an obvious desired effect - and it's worked.
by barefooted on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:24pm
Obama did campaign on the ideal of universal healthcare in 2008. But neither the original Obamacare proposal nor the ultimate law covered everybody. Obama's argument before the election was that people didn't need to be forced to buy insurance they just needed to be able to afford it. Without the mandate, the government's focus would have been on keeping premiums low. Now the impetus is on providing enough subsidies - which of course go right to the insurance company's bottom lines. Pretty good deal for Obama's backers wouldn't you say?
Thinking about Obama's multi-national financers helps explain his push for "free trade" too doesn't it?
Pretty good argument for the candidate in this election cycle who refuses all corporate contributions wouldn't you say?
by HSG on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 7:47am
The fact we didn't get universal health care is the reason so many Democrats didn't show up to vote in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Sanders has lit a new fire under the progressive left. DNC will have trouble turning them out for Hillary. These are voters that can not be bought with high dollar commercials and polished wording from focus groups.
by trkingmomoe on Sun, 11/22/2015 - 12:25pm
Of course it's plausible. There are always many plausible explanations for any event. But before I believe that one or another plausible explanation is likely true I require evidence or at least a convincing argument.
Single payer was tabled from the start by Max Baucus not Obama. Look it up, the evidence is pretty clear. Though Obama didn't fight for it, not that it would have done any good imo. Much of the rest of the story is a long series of dithering, delaying and compromising to try to get some republican to sign on. Obama saw himself as the bipartisan mediator between the different sides. That's his personality from way back when he was president of the Harvard Law Review. His tenure was thoroughly covered during the primary eight years ago.
Or look at his work on immigration. He deported many more illegal immigrants than Bush and seriously tightened the border. Many liberals were calling him the Deporter in Chief. He's made it clear that his intention was to be harsh in those areas in the belief that republicans would see him as a reliable partner and compromise on comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship. It took him years before he got the message that there was nothing he could do to placate the republicans and began to slowly issue executive orders to protect immigrants
Frankly I've always seen him as too quick to compromise. I'm happy the right wing was totally unwilling to compromise because I think Obama was ready to give way on many democratic priorities. But I see little evidence it was the money that motivated him. It was his sincere desire to be a bipartisan president and pass compromise legislation. He told us this clearly during the primary.
by ocean-kat on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 3:47am
The most effective way to impeach a witness I learned in law school and while trying many cases before judges and juries is to show that the witness has a financial interest in the outcome of the case or is otherwise financially connected to one party or the other. Jurors tended to discount heavily testimony from bought and paid for expert witnesses.
by HSG on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 7:49am
You are completely tainted by your profession Hal. That is too bad. Your example up there, only applies in the confrontational world of lawyers. Out here in the regular real world we depend upon the ability to work with others and take them at their word until they prove otherwise in order to effectively make progress towards whatever we are trying to make progress towards. In our case, my job, we are trying to make more money to fund the ballet. We do that together as an organization and we don't judge people we just try to get them to donate, Republicans or Democrats, because lots of people love the Ballet. I have no idea how they vote.
I've felt for a long time, the reason our national legislature doesn't work, is because so many lawyers are congresscritters and all they know is confrontation. And that is the real reason progress is never made. And guess what, they all act the same way you do.. so assured of their righteousness...
We aren't jurors here, at Dag or generally in the world, we don't approach others even when they have differing opinions as though they are the enemy and at all costs they must be proven wrong. We don't think of the world in terms of hard choices. Don't get me wrong there are hard choices, but mostly, our lives are built on soft nuanced choices because that is the only way one can live in a community, be a part of the community. I get that you believe you are 100% correct about every assessment you make, and that if people would only listen to you..... The thing is, the rest of us do not and cannot function that way, I don't fight people every single day of my life, I don't go into a meeting or anything thinking the other person is my enemy and I must win. Ugh what a terrible life that would be. We work collaboratively and we believe in the honesty of others for the most part. This is how we are successful as organizations and individuals.
I'm still voting for Hillary.
by tmccarthy0 on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 8:46am
Either I'm completely tainted or 1) people really do favors, up to and including lying or worse, for those who give them money and 2) people give money to those who will do them favors, up to and including lying or worse
by HSG on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 1:15pm
Think you mean "jaded". So that includes
1) Bernie Sanders - will do favors, lie or worse for people who are giving him money to do favors, lie or worse?
2) the Red Cross - will do favors, lie or worse for people who are giving them money to do favors, lie or worse?
People give a lot of money to Kickstarter and GoFundMe, seemingly to fund little interesting projects in doing just what they say they will do - no special favors, and in the case of non-delivery it's usually because delivering on projects is difficult, doubtfully a lie or scam in most cases.
Is the Clinton Foundation significantly different from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation? People have complained about some of the Gates funding distorting say what the priorities and accepted diseases to fund in Africa, but that's typical when any large batch of money comes around.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 1:57pm
The word "tainted" is lifted directly from tmmcarthy's post. I agree the word "jaded" otherwise fits better in my reply. Thanks for the civility!
by HSG on Sun, 11/22/2015 - 9:28am
You are right. Those individuals who contribute to Bernie's campaign expect something back if he's elected. They expect a strong effort to implement, among other things, the following: 1) campaign finance reform, 2) higher taxes on the wealthy, 3) a rejection of future trade deals and a repeal of past ones, 4) a new Glass-Steagall, 5) no more private prisons, 6) free state colleges and universities, 7) a $15 minimum wage, 8) a truly clean green economy. Since I want all of those things too, I have no problem with Bernie's acceptance of many small contributions from grass-roots supporters.
I am very skeptical of the expectations lying behind contributions from big commercial and investment banks, pharmaceutical companies, the private prison industry, corporate law firms, the cable TV industry, casinos, and big Hollywood studios. Accordingly, I do have a problem with Hillary's eager cultivation of money from these special interest groups.
by HSG on Sun, 11/22/2015 - 9:35am
I have a real problem with big business financing political campaigns, too. I hate that Hillary, or any politician, takes money from them. If only it didn't cost so much to run a campaign. If only the Democrats had access to the same free media attention that, say, Donald Trump, has. If only Hillary didn't have the additional disadvantage of having to fight against everyone--the right, the left, and the media--in order to prove she's got what it takes to be president.
Presidential campaigns are horribly expensive. Bernie is riding on the populist bandwagon right now, pulling in funding in small quantities, and at the moment, it works for him. This is just the beginning. There will come a time when Bernie will have to consider other, bigger sources for funding his campaign. All of those sources will be looking for something in return for their support.
That's the way the game is played. This is the 21st Century, not the 19th. No one can become president by relying on grassroots funding to get there. It just won't happen.
by Ramona on Sun, 11/22/2015 - 10:33am
There's an expression - "little companies do business with little companies; big companies do business with big". Sanders has been working at a much more modest level than Clinton. This isn't absolute - Google arrived 15 years ago, Facebook 11, Twitter 9, not that startup business models necessarily translate directly to government. Obama was essentially a limber "startup", but he came into office tapped into big money interests, for better or worse. LBJ was certainly part of the establishment, though JFK's death gave him incentive & mandate to use his famous arm twisting for the better good.
There of course is a chance that Sanders could excite the populace enough to put him in, but once there, it's also a question of what levers he can pull to commandeer items like "campaign finance reform", "free state colleges and universities", or "a new Glass-Steagall" - presumably he needs the cooperation of Congress, where only a change of 13 House seats seems possible (in the Senate, maybe 4 could shift from D, but Harry Reid's could shift to R). "A repeal of past [trade deals]" possibly could be done by executive order, but it's questionable whether this Supreme Court would let that stand the way the 2002 court let Bush withdraw from the ABM - things are much more wacko and right-wing now.
So I'm quite skeptical that Bernie can achieve his points short of a full-scale congressional revolution (how?), & I'm not quite sure what "a truly clean green economy" would mean, vs. the current progressing shift to electric cars and renewable energy. Denial of fracking to produce more dependence on Mideast oil? That won't fly, at least this week. Big energy reform? Obama's Clean Power Plan? seems to be a show horse. Cap-and-trade? maybe we'll see some trade-offs, especially at state level.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 11/22/2015 - 1:52pm
Great answer, Teri. I completely agree. There are very few saints in real life, so we have to overlook faults in order to get along. That's what we do in civilized societies. We do expect more from politicians because they are government officials in whose hands our lives may rest. But to go after Hillary Clinton, pulling up every miniscule detail of her long political life, dragging out every comment, no matter the context, while somebody like Donald Trump is rising in the polls, gaining enough ground so there's a real chance he could be the Republican nominee--there's something dreadfully wrong with that picture.
by Ramona on Sun, 11/22/2015 - 9:18am
Here's how they "did it". Quite interesting, and they deserve kudos for research (as do those who actually did it). I can only repeat and amplify Paracles - why does what Bill Clinton raised in the 70's have anything to do with Hillary's current campaign? Or the donations to the Foundation, which have been as all things Clinton vetted beyond belief?
It's really nothing more than an opportunity for a numbers cruncher to do their thing, so I await an equally weedy dive into the Bush family tree.
by barefooted on Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:27pm
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 1:35am
September, 2008. Good catch.
by barefooted on Sat, 11/21/2015 - 1:51am