Hillary Is Already Triangulating Against Liberals

* Every word of this is true to the best of my knowledge.

Yep, she's come out against single-payer universal health care. She's attacking Bernie for trying to do the right thing for America. Showing her true colors, she is.

The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has begun using an odd new line of attack against upstart Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders: He’s too liberal on taxes and universal health insurance. Why is she doing this? After returning to the position in which she entered the race—as the near-certain nominee—she seems to be setting herself up for the general election. But it’s strange to see her now, after the previously shaky ship has been steadied, attacking a candidate whose supporters she’ll need in any general election campaign over an issue that his supporters care about very deeply.

Triangulating against Sanders (and, by proxy, the left wing of the Democratic Party) with conservative attacks does make some sense. For one, she is a Clinton, and this is what they do.

At issue is Sanders’ support for a single-payer universal health care system, which he and others brand as “Medicare for all.” A single-payer bill he introduced in 2013 would have levied a 2.2 percent tax on individuals making up to $200,000 or couples making up to $250,000, and progressively increased that rate to 5.2 percent for income beyond $600,000. It also would have tacked an extra 6.7 percent payroll tax on the employer side, at least some of which employers would likely pass on to workers.

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Perhaps the Clinton campaign has some horrific polling data that’s leading them to launch this direct assault on Sanders, or it’s just trying to distract everyone from Clinton’s bizarre explanation at Saturday’s debate for her voluminous contributions from Wall Street over the years. But it also seems like Clinton feels like she has the nomination secure and is triangulating ahead of the general election, mortgaging progressive policy in the process. Does that sound familiar?

Hillary Is Already Triangulating Against Liberals

Her new attack on Bernie Sanders’ single-payer health care plan shows her indifference to progressive voters.

www.slate.com/...

She wants us to believe that her ties to Wall Street don't matter.

Wall Street has made Hillary Clinton a millionaire.

As Clinton tries to talk tough about how she will stand up to America's biggest banks, her Democratic rivals are likely to remind voters just how cozy she's been with Wall Street.

Clinton made $3.15 million in 2013 alone from speaking to firms like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and UBS, according to the list her campaign released of her speaking fees.

"Her closeness with big banks on Wall Street is sincere, it's heart-felt, long-established and well known," former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley has said on the campaign trail.

While Clinton has given paid speeches to many groups, Wall Street banks and investment houses made up a third of her speech income.

She even made more money speaking to UBS and Goldman Sachs than her husband Bill did. Goldman Sachs in New York paid Bill $200,000 for a speech in June 2013 and Hillary $225,000 for a speech in October of that year.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/13/investing/hillary-clinton-wall-street/

Even Zephyr Teachout is speaking out about Hillary.

You can't have a serious conversation with any voter, left or right, without talking about money in politics. It is in every breath. Eighty-four percent of Americans believe money has too much influence over our political system and elected officials. The despair on the left and right, the excitement about Sanders, the almost desperate desire for anyone who will break up the current machine, the thirst for revolution, not just policy. That this is a corruption election is evidenced in Donald Trump's appeal: the voters I've met who support Trump even accept that he lacks credibility, but argue he doesn't lack independence -- unlike the other candidates. They are fleeing to him in droves not because he represents something positive, but because the corruption of the modern private financing model makes the other candidates feel like servants, instead of leaders.

And into this corruption moment comes Hillary Clinton, who has four big corruption problems. None of them have to do with Benghazi. The first is that she is intimately related to a foundation that raises millions of dollars on a daily basis from the most powerful corporations in the world. The second is that she and her husband have made millions of dollars in speaking fees from the most powerful corporations in the world. The third is that a Super PAC supporting her has raised money from individuals representing the most powerful corporations in the world. And the fourth is that shared by all candidates -- her fundraising relies on donations from the most powerful wealthy individuals in America.

Zephyr Teachout  www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Hillary supporters want us all to turn a blind eye to the corruption problems of Hillary Clinton, so well delineated by Zephyr Teachout above, and the skullduggery she's been inextricably tied to in South America for decades. It’s a matter of historic record. If you can dispute it factually and credibly, go ahead.

Duane Clarridge’s Iran/Contra history is horrifying—but it’s no worse than Hillary Clinton’s record in Colombia.

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Then there’s Hillary Clinton. As Ken Silverstein reported last week, the Clintons are involved in all sorts of shady dealings in Colombia, all made possible by policies Bill Clinton put into place while in office.

In 2000, just before leaving the White House, Clinton ratcheted up military aid to Colombia. Plan Colombia, as the assistance program was called, provided billions of dollars to what was, and remains, the most repressive government in the hemisphere. The effect was to speed the paramilitarization of the country, with government- and military-allied death squads penetrating the intelligence services, judiciary, municipal government, legislature, and executive branch. Washington money effectively subsidized the narco-right to preside over an enormous land grab. According to the US government’s own figures, “in rural areas, less than 1% of the population owns more than half Colombia’s best land.” “Torture, massacres, ‘disappearances,’ and killing of non-combatants” became routinized, with trade unionists, peasants, and Afro-Colombians the main victims. The CIA’s always-useful World Factbook says that a staggering 6.3 million Colombians have been internally displaced (IDP) since 1985, with “about 300,000 new IDPs each year since 2000”—the year Bill Clinton enacted Plan Colombia. Added up, that’s 2.4 million people during Clinton’s eight-year presidency.

The payoff from all this misery was substantial. Between 2002 and the 2008 financial crisis, foreign direct investment in Colombia increased fivefold, mostly in the petroleum, mining, and finance–that is, those economic sectors unleashed by the global deregulation that started under Reagan and continued by Clinton.

Then Hillary Clinton became secretary of state under Barack Obama. It’s hard to convey just how stunningly cynical she has been on Colombia: In 2008, running against Obama, she opposed, in unambiguous terms, a free-trade deal with Colombia. “Senator Clinton’s position is clear and unequivocal: She is opposed to the deal,” said a spokesperson. Yet even as she was telling voters she was against the deal, her chief adviser, Mark Penn, was meeting with Colombian officials to tell them otherwise. Then it was revealed that Bill Clinton was paid $800,000 by the Colombia-based Gold Service International to give four speeches in Latin America, in which he advocated for the free-trade agreement. “Estoy a favor,” he said. Once Hillary Clinton was appointed secretary of state by Barack Obama, she changed her position and pushed for the deal (Obama, too, reversed his campaign pledge). Celebrating the pact’s passage, she said that “by opening new markets to American exports and attracting new investments to American communities, our economic statecraft is creating jobs and spurring growth here at home.” Now she is repeating the exact same pirouette with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As secretary of state, she backed it. As candidate, she opposes it, “as of today.”

Here is Clinton laughing when asked by a reporter if there was a conflict of interest, considering that her husband’s well-compensated advocacy for the deal: “How many angels dance on the head of a pin?” Who knows? But we do know how many trade unionists have been executed since the 2011 congressional ratification of the treaty: 105.

The Nation: Ben Carson Isn’t the Only US Politician With a Hand in Shady Latin American Dealings

Don't forget about the 105 trade unionists murdered in Colombia, don't forget about Plan Colombia, and don't forget about the horror in Honduras.

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton sold out Honduras: Lanny Davis, corporate cash, and the real story about the death of a Latin American democracy

Want to know why Clinton's State Dept. failed to help an elected leader? Follow the money and stench of Lanny Davis

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Republicans really hit on something when they started making noise about the Clintons’ relationship with foreign governments, CEOs and corporations, following the lead set by Peter Schweizer’s bestselling “Clinton Cash.” Cross-ideological ears perked up to rumored quid pro quos arranged while Hillary was atop State and Bill was out glad-handing global elites. Even liberals and progressives paid attention when the discussion turned to the Clintons and international elites making backroom, under-the-table deals at what Schweizer calls “the ‘wild west’ fringe of the global economy.”

Though it’s less sexy than Benghazi, the crisis following a coup in Honduras in 2009 has Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints all over it, and her alleged cooperation with oligarchic elites during the affair does much to expose Clinton’s newfound, campaign-season progressive rhetoric as hollow. Moreover, the Honduran coup is something of a radioactive issue with fallout that touches many on Team Clinton, including husband Bill, once put into a full context.

Salon

Hillary is ensconced in the Military Industrial Complex and fully committed to their mission, the only one that could ever possibly justify their existence: War. War at any cost.

War is murder. We need to stand up to them and stop these warmongers. It's insanity. Nobody makes money on peace? That's no fucking excuse! We need to stop the wars, not feed them. Greed doesn't justify it. Violence begets violence. There comes a time to stop it. We won't stop it by nominating Hillary, and we certainly won't stop it by electing her president.

What Hillary Clinton wants you to forget: Her disastrous record as a war hawk

Clinton gave her support to the Iran deal yesterday, but she also talked like someone ready to start dropping bombs

Hillary Clinton  announced her support for Obama’s Iran deal in a speech on Wednesday. It wasn’t exactly an act of huge political bravery. The deal is happening. It’s secured enough support from Democrats in the Senate to doom any attempts to block it. If Clinton had done anything other than endorsed the deal, she would have created a major headache for herself.

Even so, her speech about the deal highlighted what ought to be–but probably won’t be–a deeply examined part of her ideology: her hyper-hawkishness.

In the speech, Clinton spent most of her time “talking tough,” as they say. She flatly declared that the deal did not signal “some larger diplomatic opening” and insisted that she would “not hesitate to take military action if Iran tries to obtain a nuclear weapon.” (If the president of Iran casually threatened to bomb the United States, there would be hell to pay, but no matter.) She also pledged to to arm the already-well-stocked Israel even further, and to expand the American military presence around Iran. Never mind that multiple American intelligence estimates have concluded that Iran suspended its quest for a nuclear weapon long ago; we can always use more ships in the Middle East.

www.salon.com/...

Hillary is an acceptable alternative to republicans and neocons. Please tell me why that is not enough to make anyone pause to think? You are the company you keep. Who doesn't see it?

Wall St. Republicans' dark secret

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The darkest secret in the big money world of the Republican coastal elite is that the most palatable alternative to a nominee such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky would be Clinton, a familiar face on Wall Street following her tenure as a New York senator with relatively moderate views on taxation and financial regulation.

“If it turns out to be Jeb versus Hillary we would love that and either outcome would be fine,” one top Republican-leaning Wall Street lawyer said over lunch in midtown Manhattan last week. “We could live with either one. Jeb versus Joe Biden would also be fine. It’s Rand Paul or Ted Cruz versus someone like Elizabeth Warren that would be everybody’s worst nightmare.”

Read more: www.politico.com/...

Yes, even the neocons approve of Hillary. That's at least enough to make a body wonder, right?

Hillary’s already won the support of those who continually agitate for war. “I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,” Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, told The New York Times last summer. “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,” he said, “it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

We’re going to call it what it is: More of the same sort of murderous policies that destroyed Iraq, destabilized Libya, killed women and children with cluster bombs and drones in Yemen, and legitimized the undermining of democracy in Honduras. There’s little chance the Republicans will nominate someone better, but given Clinton’s record as a senator and secretary of state — the latter giving us a very good idea of how she would approach foreign affairs once in office — it will be hard for them to find anyone much worse.

When Hillary Clinton Pitched the Iraq War to CodePink

Hawkish highlights from Hillary Clinton's career.

fpif.org/...

“If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,” he [Kagan] said, “it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

Yes, Robert Kagan, her supporters are definitely going to call it something else.

America needs to face some very unpleasant facts. Hillary wants to feed the war-frenzy of the profiteers – and she can't be excused by ignorance. She knows exactly what she is doing. That's why she's so closely tied to Robert Kagan of neocon PNAC fame and his wife, Victoria Nuland, who was Hillary's Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Hillary has a powerful hankering to be a War President. Peace is too boring, like with Pappa Bush. Peace was so boring he wanted to quit being president.

Living in a neocon’s paradise Robert Kagan Thinks America's Problem Is Too Little War

Over the weekend1 Robert Kagan wrote an essay in the Wall Street Journal titled"America's Dangerous Aversion to Conflict." That seemed....wrong, somehow, so I read it. Mostly it turned out to be a tedious history lesson about the run-up to World War II, basically a long version of the "Munich!" argument that conservatives make every time we fail to go to war with somebody. But there was also this:

President George H.W. Bush and his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, sent half a million American troops to fight thousands of miles away for no other reason than to thwart aggression and restore a desert kingdom that had been invaded by its tyrant neighbor. ....A little more than a decade later, however, the U.S. is a changed country. Because of the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, to suggest sending even a few thousand troops to fight anywhere for any reason is almost unthinkable. The most hawkish members of Congress don't think it safe to argue for a ground attack on the Islamic State or for a NATO troop presence in Ukraine. There is no serious discussion of reversing the cuts in the defense budget, even though the strategic requirements of defending U.S. allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East have rarely been more manifest while America's ability to do so has rarely been more in doubt.

This is one of the tropes that conservative hawks haul out with tiresome predictability, but it's flat wrong. Even now, when Americans have every reason to be skeptical of military action in the Mideast, poll after poll shows a surprising acceptance of it. Whether the subject is Iran, Syria, or ISIS, it's plain that many Americans are already primed for military action, and many more can be talked into it pretty easily. The United States has fought half a dozen major wars in the past quarter century, and the surprising thing isn't that we've gotten war weary. Quite the contrary: the surprising thing is that we're plainly ready to keep it up given the right incentive.

Kagan's argument is also dishonest in a couple of common ways. First, he argues that sending "even a few thousand troops" anywhere is now unthinkable. This is nonsense. Over the past few months we've already sent a few thousand troops to fight ISIS, and this has barely raised a peep even from liberals. There is an aversion to sending a hundred thousand ground troops to fight ISIS and starting up another full-scale war and occupation of Iraq. If Kagan objects to that, fine. But that's what we're talking about, and Kagan should own up to it.

Mother Jones

Too little war. Why didn't we think of that? It's so obvious.

There is no way around the deplorable fact that Hillary is connected to the neocons. Approved by them. People who think all we need is more war. That doesn't exactly inspire trust, now does it? How could it? One of her supporters accused me of making her toxic so Bernie could win. I didn't make her toxic. She did. She voted for the war in Iraq. She voted for the Patriot Act. She was up to serious no-good in Honduras and Colombia. She's rattlin' sabers every time you turn around. She wants to be the one to drag us the rest of the way into World War III.

And it's on us to stop ANYBODY from doing that.

The world does not need one more war millionaire or war billionaire as old Smedley Butler called them.

At the time of his death in the 40s, he was the most decorated marine in US history. He is an unusually honorable historical figure who needs to be heard by one and all right now. His famous book War is a Racket should be required reading. It can be found free online. 

Clinton cannot defend her own actions or her ties to the deep, war-connected corruption that has crippled our nation and tied it to the worst to be found in humanity and not the best. We should at least aspire for the best. War, torture, frenzied mass murder of our fellow human beings. This is crazy! This is as much her legacy as it is any of the many other responsible parties. She didn't invent it but she jumped right in. She made herself toxic. It's a done deal. I didn't make any of this up. Don't blame it on me. If Clinton supporters want to look for someone to blame, look in the mirror.

They're marching us merrily off to World War III and we're letting them - like a bunch of chumps. Like we can't see it happening. We'd have to be crazy to let them get away with it. We need, and we need to demand, someone we can absolutely trust to turn the madness down. It ain't Hillary.

Hmm. What exactly was the new information she acquired and how did it not meet her "standards"? We don't know — and her standards for "more new, good jobs for Americans" are, it goes without saying, totally subjective and amorphous. Remember, too, that when Clinton referred to TPP as the "gold standard" in 2012 -- she never said she "hoped" it would be; she said it was -- and she insisted that it would "open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment."

What changed her view? Why? How? When? We don't know — and in the absence of that knowledge, it sure looks like political expedience.

Why it’s tough for Hillary Clinton to explain away her flip-flops 

Hillary is a known serial flip-flopper. It's famously hard to know where she stands on any given thing on any given day. Maybe that's why her supporters are finding it so hard to give a shit.

Lack of Enthusiasm From Supporters May Undermine Clinton’s Lead

The worries of some Clinton insiders are focused on the general election. There is an “enthusiasm gap.” Surveys of voters at this early stage of the campaign show that young people, independents, possibly even blacks and Hispanics are not excited about her candidacy.

To be sure, a number of women, especially middle-aged ones, are energized by the prospect of electing the first female president of the United States. That’s a strong asset.

But Mrs. Clinton has a striking problem with young voters. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that a solid plurality of young voters has a negative view of Mrs. Clinton. She did even worse in a Bloomberg Politics national poll.

Here is a result to unnerve her Brooklyn campaign headquarters: Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton get a 60 percent favorable rating with 18-to-29-year-olds. She gets 35 percent approval and 57 percent unfavorable.

www.nytimes.com/...

Bernie, on the other hand, is a much needed breath of fresh air.

Bernie Sanders’s refreshingly sane foreign policy

In his speech last week, Sanders said what every presidential candidate ought to say about ISIS and the Middle East

Bernie Sanders’s economic populism and domestic agenda receive a lot attention, and they should – he’s a unique and important voice on these fronts. But Bernie’s refreshing sanity on foreign policy gets overlooked far too often. This is especially problematic given the most recent Paris attacks and the renewed emphasis on national security.

Sanders gave a major speech last week at Georgetown University, the central theme of which was democratic socialism. Understandably, much of the coverage focused on Sanders’s efforts to situate his brand of socialism in the broader American tradition. However, Sanders also used his speech to talk about our foreign policy dilemma in the Middle East.

His remarks were what we’ve come to expect from Sanders: honest.

Because he doesn’t spin the way other politicians do, Sanders brings a kind of clarity to this conversation, a clarity that’s desperately needed in our current climate. Conservatives will likely dismiss Sanders as a dovish liberal who doesn’t understand foreign policy, but that’s because they don’t want to hear what he has to say.

In the speech, Sanders makes clear that he both understands the crisis and the complicated political realities on the ground. “The United States must pursue policies to destroy the brutal and barbaric ISIS regime,” Sanders said, and we must “create conditions that prevent fanatical extremist ideologies from flourishing. But we cannot – and should not – do it alone.”

Bernie Sanders’s refreshingly sane foreign policy

www.salon.com/...

Refreshingly sane foreign policy. How fucking desperate are we for that?

My opinion is that Hillary would lose the general and Sanders would win it. Her negatives are too great. Even many of her supporters distrust her or at least lack enthusiasm. The rank and file of many of the unions who have endorsed Hillary have made their displeasure about that clear. Bernie's supporters are too energized and too committed to his vision of a better world for all, for the half-hearted to stand in our way. There's still plenty of time for the dynamics to go our way and I believe they will. Plenty of people in this country are ready for a change. The Clinton/Goldman Sachs/Exxon-Mobil/Monsanto campaign is in trouble. Don't let 'em fool ya. Their panic is palpable. Their attacks are testimony. They see somebody coming up from behind.

Poll: Sanders more electable than Hillary against top Republicans

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is more electable than Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton against several top Republican candidates, according to the new national Quinnipiac University Poll.

Sanders leads Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) by 10 points, businessman Donald Trump by 8 points, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson by 6 points and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) by 1 point in the poll

thehill.com/...

Hillary keeps chasing Bernie's positions but she waters them all down and no one can believe her anyway.

So if you are a liberal or a progressive or just a clear thinking person, don’t support Wall Street, don’t support the bombing of the world for fun and profit, don’t support the status quo, don’t support the establishment hucksters, the ones who will lie to your face and stab you in the back. Don't be on the side of the warmongers, neocons, war profiteers or war criminals. Don't stand with the bankers, the grifters, the merchants of death. If you love peace and justice, if you care about the people of this country, indeed the people of this world, if you want to see us finally change anything in this God-forsaken country, support the progressive movement and stand the fuck up and do something to change this country before it’s too late. Vote for Bernie Sanders and give us all a fighting chance at a better, more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren. We've done them few favors lately. We should change that.