Bill and Hillary Escalate Smear Campaign With Dishonest Attacks on Sanders

MILFORD, NH - FEBRUARY 07: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton campaigns for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, during a campaign event at Milford Junior High School February 7, 2016 in Milford, New Hampshire. New Hampshire holds the "first in the nation" primary on February 9. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The Clintons have escalated their dishonest smear campaign against Bernie Sanders, including attacks from Bill Clinton which are reminiscent of his racist attacks on Barack Obama eight years ago. Both Bill and Hillary have raised what Truthout calls The Most Disingenuous Attack on Bernie Yet over the vote for the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. Hillary Clinton raised this at the last Democratic debate.

But here’s the thing: Hillary Clinton isn’t telling a true story about Bernie Sanders and his vote for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, or CFMA.

As Robert Scheer has pointed out over at Truthdig, then-Congressman Sanders voted for the CFMA, not because he wanted to, but because he had to.

The CFMA had been shoved into an omnibus spending bill at the last minute as part of a deal between Republicans and President Bill Clinton, and because this was a time when, you know, Congress actually did its job, Sanders bit the bullet and voted for the whole package – CFMA included – to keep the government open.

Only four members of Congress ended up opposing the final spending bill that included the CFMA, and one of them was Ron Paul, who opposed pretty much every spending bill. But that’s just of the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how dishonest Clinton was being when she called Bernie out for voting for the CFMA.

Even if Bernie had a good reason to vote for that omnibus spending bill – like preventing a government shutdown – Sanders was angry that he been forced into deregulating Wall Street.

Bill is also attacking Bernie over the data breach with an inaccurate account of the incident, calling it like stealing a car with the keys in the ignition. Bill left out important details such as that it was the Sanders campaign which both reported that the data breach and fired their staff member who was involved. In return, the DNC violated their contract with Sanders, only backing down in response to a lawsuit. Imagine the cover ups which we would be seeing if it was a Clinton staffer involved.

In what was probably his biggest strategic blunder, Bill Clinton jumped on highly exaggerated attacks on Bernie Bros. The attack line, which is reminiscent of the Obama boy attacks of eight years ago, is largely based upon myths spread by the Clinton campaign. While there is no doubt that some Sanders supporters have acted inappropriately on the internet, Sanders has already condemned such acts.

If bad behavior from supporters on the internet was a reason not to vote for a candidate, there are also plenty of cases coming from Clinton supporters, both on line and from more prominent supporters. While hardly a serious argument against Sanders, this resulted in an increase in discussion of Bill Clinton’s predatory behavior towards women. This will haunt the campaign through the general election should Hillary win the nomination. Reuters reports that one of the women who is accusing Clinton of sexual assault is planning to campaign against Clinton.

Meanwhile, Hillary continues to have problems with her speaking fees. At Huffington Post, Les Leopold writes Hillary Not Truthful About Wall Street Speaking Fees.

Hillary is veering from the truth when she suggests her $225,000 per speech fee, paid three times by Goldman Sachs, was “what they offered.”

It was not what they offered — it was what Team Hillary demanded.

A review of her 2014 tax return posted on her website shows that $225,000 was her minimum fee…

Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame and Hillary biographer, commented on CNN that the White House is “horrified that Clinton is blowing up her own campaign.” He said they can’t believe she took the money and didn’t see the ethical problems that would dog her.

It is not credible for her to argue that she took the money because she wasn’t sure she was going to run for president or that she was “dead broke.” She and Bill hauled in $139 million from 2007 to 2014…

The pundits point out that she has created a “perceived” conflict of interest, whether real or imagined. In essence they are saying that there’s nothing inherently wrong with taking the money. It’s not really tainted.

Hillary states that she never changed her vote due to campaign contributions. But evidence is mounting via previous accounts by Elizabeth Warren, that Hillary may have switched her position on bankruptcy laws to please her Wall Street contributors after becoming the Senator New York.

But these attacks miss the most basic question: Is money tainted? Is it blood-money?

Sanders believes it is by arguing that “the business model of Wall Street is fraud.”

There is considerable data to support him.

The most disturbing factor here is that Hillary Clinton really seems to believe that there is nothing unethical about the situation. How can she ever be trusted to work to get money out of politics if she does not recognize the problem and this is how she thinks?

Clinton makes matters worse by refusing to release the transcripts as she previously refused to release the email until forced to.  McClatchy points out that Clinton did require that transcripts be kept.

With all the chaos surrounding the Clinton campaign, as well as Clinton losing her lead in the latest national polls from Quinnipiac and Reuters/IPSOS (which may or may not be outliers at this point), Politico reported that Clinton is considering a shake up of her staff. Hillary denied this report, but there is no information as to whether her nose grew during the interview. Regardless, the staff is not the problem. As was also the case eight years ago, the problem is the candidate. Democrats are insane if they want to go into a general campaign with her on top of the ticket.

Update: Bernie Sanders Delivers Clinton A Crushing Loss In New Hampshire

15 Comments

  1. 1
    George Catt says:

    Reminder: Bernie is not running against Bill. 😀

  2. 2
    Tricia Morgan says:

    Heard a democratic woman in New Hampshire – long time political activist – say on C-Span the other night  – Hillary was not telling the truth on the debate the other night when she said "I didn't know I was going to run for President when I tool speaking fees from Goldman-Sachs."  This Democrat said the entire Democratic Party knew Hillary was going to run – that is why there were so few democrats stepping up to run. This Democrat – A. Arensen – said she can't understand why Hillary is so foolish as to accept speaking fees etc – "She and Bill are so wealthy at this point they do not need it.  Foolish of her."

  3. 3
    Jonathan Brown says:

    Imagine how this looks to non-Americans living in the rest of the world? People doing well or scratching to make a living as best they can, all see this as being inherently greedy and morally dubious. If Hillary Clinton became the next President of the USA, could she command the respect of other world leaders? How many people would react to anything she did, however well motivated or correct, by assuming she was only doing it for the money? The President of the USA is supposed to be the leader of the free world, yet the majority of those seeking that office, this time round, seem more suited to a banana republic.

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    George, Bernie is not running against Bill, but Bill is running against Bernie. Plus Bernie is running against Bill (and Hillary’s) policies.

  5. 5
    Mike Hatcher says:

    Good news for Bernie in New Hampshire.  In the first official results, Dixville Notch, New Jersey.  All 9 votes have been reported and recorded.  4 for Sanders, Zero for Clinton.  The other five votes were republican 3 for Kasich and 2 for Trump. The polls are now closed in Dixville and it is Bernie in a landslide!

  6. 6
    Ron Chusid says:

    As Dixville Notch goes, so goes the nation. Ok, maybe it is not certain, but I did hear that the winner of the GOP vote there has predicted the state wide result for quite a while. It would be something if it happens again this year and Kasich beats Trump.

  7. 7
    Anonymous says:

    The Clintons are running a low class campaign and lying as much as they think they might be able to get away with.. which is regular order for them.  They are living in the internet age where all of their history and most of the facts are public and contradict them without their opponents having to really go after them.  Hilary is sinking her own ship.  

    And Bernie Sanders is waking the people up to the abusive corporations & billionaires that are RULING OUR Country & THEY SUCK AT IT!  They gain their outrageous fortunes at the expense of a decent country and a decent quality of life for the American people.  Game Over!

  8. 8
    Marcia Hatt says:

     Bill is worried Bernie outing Hillary for taking bribes will somehow put at risk human rights fight??? Countries in violation of Human Rights regulations got weapons from Clinton as secretary of state after making huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation. 

    The State Department formally approved these arms sales even as many of the deals enhanced the military power of countries ruled by authoritarian regimes whose human rights abuses had been criticized by the department. Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar all donated to the Clinton Foundation and also gained State Department clearance to buy caches of American-made weapons even as the department singled them out for a range of alleged ills, from corruption to restrictions on civil liberties to violent crackdowns against political opponents.

    http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187

     

  9. 9
    Laura Quimby says:

    Well said.
    There are actually a lot of questionable historical decisions that are being questioned.  People question whether Hillary gets tagged for Bill's decisions, except she continually made a point of declaring her participation in many decision making sessions.
    There are something like 10 different significant issues that Hillary proposed one view on and then, often 3-4 years later, expressed a completely different view on.  Dismissing this as evolving gets questionable when you study the contributions to the Clinton Foundation that happened in between.
    Which leads to the questions of whether Hillary should be held accountable for the choices and affiliates of The Clinton Foundation, which is an entity she does not have sole control over.
    The Clinton campaign keeps trying to keep these questionable issues separate, stating they should not reflect on Hillary as an individual.  Because when they all add up, it reveals a mega-machine that has been working politics for 20-some years.  That can't just be brushed off into the wings and ignored, no matter how much the DNC might want us to.

  10. 10
    Baruch says:

    Let's talk about Bill Clinton and pedophilia with his buddy Jeffrey Epstein in Las Vegas.  Let's talk about Bill Clinton and the laws he signed that put hundreds of thousands of black men in prison for cannabis.  Let's talk about water privatization which Bill Clinton gave a big boost to in NAFTA…and now we see that water privatization is "the plan" for the US as municipal water infrastructure has been allowed to essentially rot.

    The Clintons are a criminal operation just as toxic and greedy as any.  Self-dealing from their foundation (which is illegal but no one says boo), looking the other way when unionists are murdered at the oil company the Clinton's co-own in Columbia; these are just a couple of the crimes the Clinton's are guilty of.

    Smear all you want Bill…it all comes back onto you.

  11. 11
    Mike says:

    And this lie is from the Sanders' supporters…  As both sides of liberals act like the Tea Party…

    http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/8/1481704/-Hillary-Clinton-Thinks-15-Hourly-Minimum-Wage-Is-Too-High

  12. 12
    Ron Chusid says:

    Lie? While there might be some questions as to the framing, it is true that Sanders advocates a higher minimum wage than Clinton. This is hardly comparable to the types of lies being spread by the Clinton campaign. Plus a blog post from a supporter and such lies from the husband of the candidate are hardly comparable.

  13. 13
    Victor Tiffany says:

    It's going to be Bernie or bust. That is Revolt Against Plutocracy's strategy of leverage and Convention insurance.

  14. 14
    truth says:

    Does no one else see the problem of simultaneously demanding that Bernie not be conflated with his dishonest campaign workers and demanding that Hillary take responsibility for everything her husband says (about Bernie being responsible for his dishonest campaign workers)? Neither of these amazingly decent candidates deserves this, and the disingenuous defenses and double standards are nauseating. Bernie "had" to vote for the CFMA? Heck no, he didn't. There was no threat of a government shut down, and he had cover to vote no from all but two of his fellow democrats with ZERO risk that the bill would fail if he took a principled stand.

    Both of these campaigns need to stop insulting everybody's intelligence. There is a lot at stake.

  15. 15
    Ron Chusid says:

    Truth has the facts all wrong.

    Bernie fired the campaign worker who acted improperly. There is no comparison between this and Bill’s lies about Bernie. Bill is just one person spreading the lies. Hillary and other campaign surrogates are telling the same lies.

    Truth’s argument about the CFMA also makes no sense, as is shown in the linked articles. Bernie voted with the rest of the Democrats to vote for the budget and avert a government shutdown. This in no way indicates that he supported the CFMA.

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