“In an interview this morning, Donald Trump said that mosques need to be ‘watched and studied,’ because he believes they may spread hateful views. In related news, Donald Trump needs to be watched and studied.” –Seth Meyers
Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought
In Major Economic Speech Sanders Explains That He Supports Principles Of FDR & LBJ, Not Communism As Donald Trump Claims
November 19, 2015 — Ron Chusid
In a speech at Georgetown University, Bernie Sanders explained his economic views, showing that Democratic Socialism is not a form of socialism which opposes free enterprise, and that he is definitely not a Communist as Donald Trump claimed. Full transcript here.
Sanders showed how his economic principles are along the lines of those of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson as opposed to Karl Marx, explaining how Roosevelt’s economic programs were called socialist:
Against the ferocious opposition of the ruling class of his day, people he called economic royalists, Roosevelt implemented a series of programs that put millions of people back to work, took them out of poverty and restored their faith in government. He redefined the relationship of the federal government to the people of our country. He combatted cynicism, fear and despair. He reinvigorated democracy. He transformed the country.
And that is what we have to do today.
And, by the way, almost everything he proposed was called “socialist.” Social Security, which transformed life for the elderly in this country was “socialist.” The concept of the “minimum wage” was seen as a radical intrusion into the marketplace and was described as “socialist.” Unemployment insurance, abolishing child labor, the 40-hour work week, collective bargaining, strong banking regulations, deposit insurance, and job programs that put millions of people to work were all described, in one way or another, as “socialist.” Yet, these programs have become the fabric of our nation and the foundation of the middle class.
Thirty years later, in the 1960s, President Johnson passed Medicare and Medicaid to provide health care to millions of senior citizens and families with children, persons with disabilities and some of the most vulnerable people in this county. Once again these vitally important programs were derided by the right wing as socialist programs that were a threat to our American way of life.
Sanders described the economic challenges we face today:
But, here is a very hard truth that we must acknowledge and address. Despite a huge increase in technology and productivity, despite major growth in the U.S. and global economy, tens of millions of American families continue to lack the basic necessities of life, while millions more struggle every day to provide a minimal standard of living for their families. The reality is that for the last 40 years the great middle class of this country has been in decline and faith in our political system is now extremely low.
The rich get much richer. Almost everyone else gets poorer. Super PACs funded by billionaires buy elections. Ordinary people don’t vote. We have an economic and political crisis in this country and the same old, same old establishment politics and economics will not effectively address it.
Sanders continued to provide considerable detail as to the economic problems we face. For the sake of brevity, and as these are arguments he has repeated multiple times, I advise reading the full speech but will not quote more on this portion of the speech here.
He next explained what he means by democratic socialism:
So let me define for you, simply and straightforwardly, what democratic socialism means to me. It builds on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights for all Americans. And it builds on what Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1968 when he stated that; “This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.” It builds on the success of many other countries around the world that have done a far better job than we have in protecting the needs of their working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor.
Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.
Democratic socialism means that we must reform a political system in America today which is not only grossly unfair but, in many respects, corrupt.
He explained further, but I thought that the portion which might best clear up misconceptions was when he said what democratic socialism is not:
So the next time you hear me attacked as a socialist, remember this:
I don’t believe government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal.
I believe in private companies that thrive and invest and grow in America instead of shipping jobs and profits overseas.
I believe that most Americans can pay lower taxes – if hedge fund managers who make billions manipulating the marketplace finally pay the taxes they should.
I don’t believe in special treatment for the top 1%, but I do believe in equal treatment for African-Americans who are right to proclaim the moral principle that Black Lives Matter.
I despise appeals to nativism and prejudice, and I do believe in immigration reform that gives Hispanics and others a pathway to citizenship and a better life.
I don’t believe in some foreign “ism”, but I believe deeply in American idealism.
I’m not running for president because it’s my turn, but because it’s the turn of all of us to live in a nation of hope and opportunity not for some, not for the few, but for all.
No one understood better than FDR the connection between American strength at home and our ability to defend America at home and across the world. That is why he proposed a second Bill of Rights in 1944, and said in that State of the Union:
“America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”
I’m not running to pursue reckless adventures abroad, but to rebuild America’s strength at home. I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will never send our sons and daughters to war under false pretense or pretenses or into dubious battles with no end in sight.
In other words, despite the scare tactics employed by his opponents, including Clinton surrogates and some supporters, we are no more in danger of a Red Dawn in America than in Vermont when he was a mayor who was friendly to small business development. Sanders seeks to reform capitalism, not to replace it with true socialism.
Sanders also discussed his principles for handling ISIS after the terrorist attacks in Paris. While Hillary Clinton was calling for more military intervention in a speech the same day, Sanders pointed out that we must also avoid the mistakes of the past–the types of mistakes advocated by hawks such as Hillary Clinton:
Our response must begin with an understanding of past mistakes and missteps in our previous approaches to foreign policy. It begins with the acknowledgment that unilateral military action should be a last resort, not a first resort, and that ill-conceived military decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq, can wreak far-reaching devastation and destabilize entire regions for decades. It begins with the reflection that the failed policy decisions of the past – rushing to war, regime change in Iraq, or toppling Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, or Guatemalan President Árbenz in 1954, Brazilian President Goulart in 1964, Chilean President Allende in 1973. These are the sorts of policies do not work, do not make us safer, and must not be repeated.
Sanders called for more international cooperation, including from countries in the region. After considerably more discussion on this topic, Sanders concluded:
The bottom line is that ISIS must be destroyed, but it cannot be defeated by the United States alone. A new and effective coalition must be formed with the Muslim nations leading the effort on the ground, while the United States and other major forces provide the support they need.
Clinton Attacks Sanders On Progressive Agenda Including Single Payer Health Care
November 18, 2015 — Ron Chusid
Hillary Clinton distorted the meaning of single payer health plans in the second Democratic debate and is continuing to attack Sanders’ progressive agenda on the campaign trail. Politico reports, “Three days after the fairly cordial second Democratic debate, Clinton’s campaign is mounting an attack against Sen. Bernie Sanders for proposals to raise taxes on the middle class that were part of the national single-payer health care bills he introduced in Congress.”
As Jonathan Cohn, Why is she talking like a Republican? He also points out, “This is why Hillary Clinton makes so many progressives queasy.”
Sanders’ campaign responded:
“On Medicare for all, the middle class would be far better off because it would save taxpayers money,” Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said in response to Clinton’s latest line of attack. “More people would get better care at less cost. Didn’t she used to be for that? We wouldn’t throw money away on costly premiums for profit-making private insurance companies. Pharmaceutical companies would no longer be able to rip off Americans with the most expensive prescription drugs in the world. Didn’t she used to be for that?”
“Secretary Clinton has singled out Senator Gillibrand and praised her [family leave] legislation which, it turns out, Secretary Clinton now refuses to support because of the way it’s paid for,” Briggs added, noting it requires a small tax hike on the middle class. “No wonder people have their doubts about her.”
His campaign web site has further information:
What’s the Truth About the Clinton Campaign False Attacks?
The truth is that a single-payer plan will save American families money and provide universal health care.
Under the legislation offered by Sen. Sanders in 2013, families with taxable income under $250,000 a year (individuals under $200,000) would pay a tax of 2.2 percent of taxable income.
That means a family with a taxable income of $100,000 a year would pay $2,200 a year – but would be relieved of paying any private health insurance premiums and any copayments or deductibles.
A family making $50,000 would pay $1,100 a year.
The page also notes that, “The Clinton campaign received more contributions from the pharmaceutical industry than any other – Republican or Democrat – through the first six months of the campaign.”
Clinton’s attack sounds like a repetition of attacks on Sanders in The Wall Street Journal in September. Physicians For A National Health Program responded:
In a front-page Wall Street Journal article a few days ago, the projection was made that a single-payer national health insurance program (NHI), as part of the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), would cost $15 trillion over ten years. Accurate though that figure is, this under-researched article conveys disingenuous misinformation to a broad readership that might be inclined to dismiss such a program as too expensive to even consider.
This article is irresponsible in what it doesn’t say— what the savings would be of reining in our current wasteful, overly bureaucratic profit-driven medical industrial complex, and the benefits that NHI would bring to our entire population compared to what we have now or have ever had.
Thanks to a landmark study in 2013 by Gerald Friedman, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, we have a solid financial analysis of the costs and benefits of a single-payer national health plan. With NHI, $592 billion would be saved annually by cutting the administrative waste of some 1,300 private health insurers ($476 billion) and reducing pharmaceutical prices to European levels ($116 billion). These savings would be enough to cover all of the 44 million uninsured (at the time of his study) and upgrade benefits for all other Americans, even including dental and long-term care. A single-payer public financing system would be established, similar to traditional (not privatized) Medicare, coupled with a private delivery system. Instead of having to pay the increasing costs of private health insurance, so often with unaffordable deductibles and other cost-sharing, patients would present their NHI cards at the point of service without cost-sharing or other out-of-pocket costs. Care would be based on medical need, not ability to pay…
There is far more on this in the full post. Common Dreams adds:
Sanders’ embrace of a single-payer system—also widely backed by the American public—earned him the endorsement of the National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest organization of nurses. NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro said in August that his ” issues align with nurses from top to bottom,” including his “insist[ance] that healthcare for everyone is a right not a privilege.”
There is added irony in that this is yet another flip-flop from Hillary Clinton. She has flip-flopped on some selective economic issues to try to attract progressive support, and she has flip-flopped on gun control. As I recently posted, some of her statements on gun legislation were like the views from Sanders which she attacks. At other times she has taken a more conservative viewpoint. As Martin O’Malley pointed out during the second debate, she has held at least three views, portraying herself “as Annie Oakley and saying we don’t need those regulations.” Clinton has also supported a single payer plan in the past. This is from Clinton in 1994, both supporting single payer and showing no objection to a general tax to fund it (emphasis mine):
..I believe, and I may be to totally off base on this, but I believe that by the year 2000 we will have a single payer system. I don’t think it’s — I don’t even think it’s a close call politically.
I think the momentum for a single payer system will sweep the country. And regardless of the referendum outcome in California, it will be such a huge popular issue in the sense of populist issue that even if it’s not successful the first time, it will eventually be. So for those who think that building on the existing public-private system with an employer mandate is radical, I think they are extremely short-sighted, but that is their choice.
There are many ways to compromise health care reform, and I don’t think that the President could have been clearer in every public statement he has made that he has one bottom line. It is universal coverage by a date certain. And he has basically told the Congress, you know, you’ve got different ways of getting there. Come to us, and let’s look at it. There are only three ways to get to universal coverage. You know, a lot of people stand up and applaud universal coverage, and they sit down, and you say, “Well, how are you going to get there?”, and they don’t want to confront that there are only three ways.
You either have a general tax — the single payer approach that replaces existing private investment — or you have an employer mandate, or you have an individual mandate. And there isn’t any other way to get to universal coverage. The market cannot deliver universal coverage in the foreseeable future, and any compromise that people try to suggest that would permit the market to have a few years to try to deliver universal coverage without a mandate that would take effect to actually finish the job will guarantee a single payer heath care system.
Or maybe we are just dealing with ignorance of the topic as opposed to flip-flopping. Physicians For A National Health Program pointed out her confusion on Medicare for All as a model for single payer plans displayed in an interview in The New York Times in 2008:
Q: Last question. You talked earlier in the interview about how your plan maintains the private insurance system. But in October, at the forum of the Kaiser Family Foundation, you were asked whether your plan to make government insurance, a Medicare-type plan, available to all was a backdoor route to a single payer system, and you said, “What are we afraid of? Let’s see where the competition leads us.” So is it okay with you if the market ultimately dictates that the U.S. system sort of morphs into a single-payer system? And if so, doesn’t that arm the Republicans with exactly what you were talking about, this claim that it’s socialized medicine?
MRS. CLINTON: No, because I think what we would be offering would be a Medicare-like system, which is something people are familiar with, and you know whether we would call it Medicare 2.0 or whatever we would call it. And we’d see whether people want that or not. And where it morphs to, I think this whole system will morph. I mean, look at where Medicare started and where it is today. In large measure, some of the problems we have are because of the way it evolved. But I think from my perspective, having this Medicare-like alternative really does answer the desires of people. And there’s a significant minority who want quote a single-payer system. It at least gives them the feeling it’s not for profit, they’re not paying somebody a billion dollars for raising their premiums 200 percent and all the rest of the problems that we face with the for-profit system. You get the costs of overhead and administration down as much as possible. I believe in choice. Let Americans choose and what better way to determine that than letting the market have some competition and you know see where it does lead to.
Q: And if the choice is a single-payer system, that’s fine by you?
MRS. CLINTON: You know, I think that would be highly unlikely. I think that, you know, there’s too many bells and whistles that Americans want that would not be available in kind of a bare-bones Medicare-like system but I think it’s important to have that competition.
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
Competition between a bare-bones Medicare-like plan versus private bells-and-whistles insurance? What kind of framing is that!?
In her proposal, is she really advocating for a public Medicare-like option that provides only bare-bones coverage? That’s certainly not the model that single payer advocates propose.
Is she suggesting that the private insurance industry will be able to provide us with an insurance product that includes all of the bells and whistles at a premium that is affordable? If such a plan were to be offered it would have a very small market limited to only the wealthiest of us. Insurers typically shun small markets.
On this issue, at least, it looks like Clinton has been moving to the right over the years.
I could understand a politician not pursuing a single payer plan because of the political obstacles in getting it passed. It is a totally different thing when Hillary Clinton repeats right wing talking points to attack Sanders for desiring a single payer plan, especially when she once had a far more liberal view on the subject.
John Kasich Proposes New Government Agency To Spread Judeo-Christian Values Around The World
November 17, 2015 — Ron Chusid
John Kasich is supposedly the saner sounding Republican, but he isn’t sounding like that today. His response to the terrorist attacks in Paris is to establish a new government agency to promote Judeo-Christian values. From an interview with NBC News:
As part of a broad national security plan to defeat ISIS, Republican Presidential candidate John Kasich proposed creating a new government agency to push Judeo-Christian values around the world.
The new agency, which he hasn’t yet named, would promote a Jewish- and Christian-based belief system to four regions of the world: China, Iran, Russia and the Middle East.
“We need to beam messages around the world” about the freedoms Americans enjoy, Kasich said in an interview with NBC News Tuesday. “It means freedom, it means opportunity, it means respect for women, it means freedom to gather, it means so many things.”
He defended creating a new government agency at a time when fellow Republican presidential candidates discuss eliminating government agencies to making the government smaller.
If he wants to spread American values such as freedom and respect, the United States already has the Voice of America for this. It is a different matter if he wants to spread religious values.
The main problem addressed in most media reports is of establishing a new government agency, in violation of Republican dogma. There are bigger problems. First this violates the First Amendment, although Republicans are generally only concerned with the Second Amendment and have never shown any respect for separation of church and state.
There is also the question of how this will be received in other countries and how they will respond. Trying to spread Judeo-Christian values in Muslim dominated regions would provide yet another recruitment tool for ISIS.
This would be a surprising proposal if coming from a moderate Republican, but Kasich has never really been all that moderate.
Clinton Email States “She’s Often Confused”
November 16, 2015 — Ron Chusid
The Hill is reporting on line found in Huma Abedin’s email which is potentially very damaging:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was “often confused,” according to a 2013 email from her longtime aide Huma Abedin.
The comment, which is likely to attract attention from Clinton’s critics on the presidential campaign trail, was revealed on Monday following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from conservative legal group Judicial Watch.
In the Jan. 26, 2013, message, Abedin gave the note about Clinton while discussing the secretary’s schedule with another Clinton aide, Monica Hanley.“Have you been going over calls with her for tomorrow?” Abedin asked Hanley. “So she knows [then-Indian Prime Minister Manmohan] singh is at 8?”
“She was in bed for a nap by the time I heard that she had an 8am call,” Hanley responded. “Will go over with her.”
“Very imp to do that,” Abedin said in response.
“She’s often confused.”
This was in email found by the conservative group Judicial Watch so I would be concerned about whether they might be cherry picking statements out of the email which they obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Conceivably other email might indicate that Clinton had difficulty keeping track of a busy schedule as opposed to generally being confused.
Unless there is further information favorable to Clinton, this release could be very damaging to her in the general election, raising questions both as to her competence and suggesting a reason why Clinton tried to use her private server to keep her email secret.
Judicial Watch also claims that the email containing a detailed itinerary of Clinton’s schedule for the day would be a security breach.
SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who; Jessica Jones; Supergirl; Limitless; Star Wars; Blindspot; Childhood’s End
November 15, 2015 — Ron Chusid
I don’t want to spend too much time on an episode of Doctor Who which I really did not like very much. Sleep No More did not have the usual intro sequence to the show but did start with a character giving this warning: “You must not watch this! I’m warning you. You can never unsee it.” Viewers should take his advice and apply it to the episode.
It is hard to say exactly what to make out of an episode where the Doctor says he’s confused and that it doesn’t make sense. Perhaps this was written to lead into future events of the season. We know Jenna Coleman is leaving, and we are told that the Morpheus process has already begun in Clara. I hope that this is not the episode which leads into Clara’s departure, especially if it means she dies. A major character deserves to go out better than this. This could be the worst exit for a character (even if not the final episode for her) since Tasha Yar’s death on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Mark Gattiss warns that a sequel is planned. He should not be judged primarily on this episode after all the great writing he has done. Fans might be more interested in this interview with Tor, released earlier this week
Doctor Who Extra videos can be seen here. (I have not watched them–I have no further interest in this episode).
While the show itself was weak, presumably it inspired the great cover for Doctor Who Magazine. More on the contents of the issue here.
Next week Fear the Raven features the return of Maisie Williams.
The BBC has released the synopsis for the Hell Bent, the final episode of Doctor Who before the Christmas episode:
If you took everything from him, betrayed him, trapped him, and broke both his hearts…how far might the Doctor go?
Returning to Gallifrey, the Doctor faces the Time Lords in a struggle that will take him to the end of time itself. Who is the Hybrid? And what is the Doctor’s confession?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3UYWK2jeX0
These trailers for Jessica Jones continue to create considerable interest in the show, premiering November 20 on Netflix.
CBS has pulled episodes of Supergirl and NCIS scheduled for Monday following the terrorism in Paris as they deal with terrorist attacks. The episode planned for next week has been moved up.
I09 reports that Georgina Haig of Fringe will have a recurring role on Limitless:
Georgina Haig is set for a recurring role as Piper. Per the producers, Piper was once like Brian, naive and sheltered—then she lost everything. Now, self-trained in many forms of combat, she has a mission to stop the man who took it from her—with Brian as either her ally or her enemy.
This TV spot for Star Wars: The Force Awakens has also been released.
J.J. Abrams has some comments on Luke Skywalker.
NBC has renewed Blindspot for a second season. That is good news, but also means there is no hope for an explanation this year.
The above featurette was released on Syfy’s upcoming adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End.
Julian McMahon and Charles Dance, who star in Syfy’s new Childhood’s End talk about what it means to be a part of a utopian society. Childhood’s end looks at a peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious “Overlords.” The group’s arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule…but at the cost of human identity and culture.
Vincent Margera has died. TMZ reports:
Vincent Margera — the uncle of Bam Margera who appeared in “Jackass” — has died … TMZ has learned.
Vincent became famous for pranks he pulled off with Bam on the TV show and later the “Jackass” movies as well as “Viva La Bam”.
It’s a double blow for Bam, who lost his best friend and co-star Ryan Dunn, who was killed in a car crash.
Vincent has been struggling with kidney and liver failure for several years. He fell into a coma last month and has been in bad shape ever since.
Bam’s mom tells us, Vincent passed away Sunday at 6:45 AM.
Vincent was 59. RIP.
Sanders and O’Malley Challenge Clinton On Foreign Policy And Economics In Second Democratic Debate
November 15, 2015 — Ron Chusid
After failing to challenge Hillary Clinton in the first Democratic Debate, both Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley put Clinton on the defensive in the second (transcript here). The added focus placed on the terrorist attacks might have played to the candidate who tries to sound the toughest on terrorism, but instead highlighted how (as I discussed prior to the debate) it was Clinton’s neoconservative foreign policy views, which are essentially the same as George Bush’s, which led to the destabilization of the region and creation of ISIS. While Clinton admits that her vote for the Iraq war was a mistake, this does not get her off the hook for being one of the strongest advocates of going to war. She also demonstrated that she did not learn from her mistake in advocating greater military involvement in Syria and Libya.
Sanders did make a mistake in his opening statement, insisting on sticking with his planned concentration on economic matters rather than shifting to say more about the Paris terrorist attacks as Clinton and O’Malley did. From there, both Sanders and O’Malley criticized Clinton’s policies, but sometimes appeared to pull back, failing to give the knock out punch before a partisan crowd invited by Clinton ally Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Sanders’ first major criticism of Clinton was blunted by John Dickerson asking him about his statement at the previous debate that “the greatest threat to national security was climate change.” This forced Sanders to defend his previous statement before getting to the more relevant point:
Absolutely. In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say you’re gonna see countries all over the world– this is what the C.I.A. says, they’re gonna be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops. And you’re gonna see all kinds of international conflict.
But of course international terrorism is a major issue that we’ve got to address today. And I agree with much of what– the secretary and– and the governor have said. Only have one area of– of disagreement with the secretary. I think she said something like, “The bulk of the responsibility is not ours.”
Well, in fact, I would argue that the disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unraveled the region completely. And led to the rise of Al Qaeda– and to– ISIS. Now, in fact, what we have got to do– and I think there is widespread agreement here– ’cause the United States cannot do it alone. What we need to do is lead an international coalition which includes– very significantly– (UNINTEL) nations in that region are gonna have to fight and defend their way of life.
In response to follow up questions, which made it clear that Sanders had opposed the invasion of Iraq and Clinton had been in favor of it, Sanders also said, “I don’t think any sensible person would disagree that the invasion of Iraq led to the massive level of instability we are seeing right now. I think that was one of the worst foreign policy plunders in the modern history of United States.” He also discussed other attempts at regime change, concluding, “And that I am not a great fan of regime changes.” Meanwhile Hillary Clinton didn’t help her cause by quoting George W. Bush along with justifying her polices with neocon talking points.
John Heer at The New Republic summed up the danger Clinton is in with her conservative foreign policy views:
…for the first time in this election season, she’s being challenged by Democrats on foreign policy. That’s a very different dynamic than the Benghazi hearing, where the Republican focus on esoteric conspiracy theories made her look good. Against Sanders and O’Malley, she’s having to to defend something larger: her foreign policy vision, which led her to support the Iraq War and later made her a strong advocate for intervention in Libya and Syria. Sanders made a palpable hit by noting the problem with regime change as a policy goal. There are strong echoes here of Obama’s successful challenge of Hillary Clinton in 2008, where sharp differences in foreign policy visions defined the characters.
Clinton was doing so poorly on foreign policy that she had me wondering if she would next say that as president she would tell ISIS to cut it out, as she has said about Wall Street. Matters went from bad to worse for Clinton when the debate turned to her Wall Street ties. Sanders dismissed Clinton’s plans as “Not good enough.” He took a hard line against Wall Street with lines such as, “The business model of Wall Street is fraud.”
Martin O’Malley also put up a strong argument here, saying, “I believe that we actually need some new economic thinking in the White House.” He differentiated himself from Clinton in saying, “I won’t be taking my orders from Wall Street” and dismissing Clinton’s policies as “weak tea.”
Clinton totally fell apart in trying to respond, relying on both the 9/11 and gender cards, even if these made no sense in this context. Chris Cillizza called this one of “a few verbal and/or policy mistakes that will likely haunt her in the days to come.” Glenn Thrush wrote that, “Wall Street is Hillary Clinton’s golden albatross” and further described her off the wall defenses:
Hillary said something really cray-cray. The pressure of the dual Sanders-O’Malley attack on Clinton’s Wall Street connections prompted her to say one of the craziest things she’s uttered in public during this campaign or any other. When Sanders acidly pointed out that Clinton has raked in millions from the wealthy executives at Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, she riposted with a clever reference to gender politics: “You know, not only do I have hundreds of thousands of donors, most of them small, and I’m very proud that for the first time a majority of my donors are women, 60%.”
Cool. But things got weird. Even though Bill Clinton had close ties to Wall Street (his Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin would go on to become head of Citigroup) and financial sector’s donors ponied up plenty of cash for her 2000 New York Senate run, she claimed that the main reason bankers have flocked to her cause is – wait for it – because of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. “So I— I represented New York, and I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked,” she said, as the moderators from CBS gaped, gob-smacked. “Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy, and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country.”
Needless to say, the remark – delivered in her emphatic shout-voice — raised eyebrows 24 hours after the terror attacks in Paris killed more than 120 people. And it’s not likely to go away…
Alexandra Petri pointed out that she didn’t even play the gender and 9/11 cards all that well:
The only trouble with the Card Playing answer that you have to be a little bit subtle when you deliver this answer or else people will notice what you are doing and their sympathy will evaporate like morning dew and they will say things like “The woman card AND the 9/11 card, wow!”
In fact, later in the evening, a follow-up — from Twitter, no less — (out of the mouths of eggs!) commented: “I’ve never seen a candidate invoke 9/11 to justify millions of Wall Street donations until now.”
Clinton was widely criticized on Facebook and Twitter for these comments, with many women being offended over Clinton’s use of the gender card, and many Democrats objecting to her use of 9/11. Some of the Twitter responses on her use of the 9/11 card were listed here. Clinton is not likely to live down this moment, with a Clinton response when in trouble now likely to be defined as a noun, a verb, a gender reference, and 9/11.
Sanders also had one of the better lines of the evening when he pointed out how we have had much higher marginal tax rates in the past. He said, “I’m not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower.” In reality we are not seeing more affluent Democrats avoiding Sanders out of fear of higher tax rates with a recent poll showing Sanders doing the best among Democrats earning over $100,000 per year.
John Dickerson, who did an excellent job as moderator, challenged the manner in which Clinton has been attacking Sanders’ record on guns by distorting their records. He asked, “Secretary Clinton, you’ve said that Senator Sanders is not tough enough on guns. But basically he now supports roughly the same things you do. So can you tell us some of the exact differences going forward between the two of you on the issue of gun control?” He challenged the idea of attacking Sanders based upon a single vote:
JOHN DICKERSON:
Secretary Clinton just a quick follow up, you say that– Senator Sanders took a vote that– on immunity that you don’t like. So if he can be tattooed by a single vote and that ruins all future– opinions by him on this issue, why then is he right when he says you’re wrong vote on Iraq tattoos you for offering your judgment?
HILLARY CLINTON:
I– I said I made a mistake on Iraq. And I would love to see Senator Sanders join with some of my colleagues– in the senate that I– see in the audience, let’s reverse the immunity. Let’s let’s go to the gun makers and tell– on notice that they’re not gonna get away with it.
In reality Sanders had more than a single vote which gun control advocates could disagree with, but far more votes in favor of gun control than his opponents give him credit for. However, Clinton’s support for the Iraq war, along with her continued support for increased military action, is hardly comparable. Sanders has a record of generally supporting gun control, while Clinton has a record of generally supporting military intervention. As I asked during my comments on the debate on Facebook, “If Hillary Clinton hates guns so much, why does she want to send people off to more wars with guns?”
Martin O’Malley pointed out how many times Clinton has flip-flopped on the gun issue:
But Secretary Clinton, you’ve been on three sides of this. When you ran in 2000 you said that we needed federal robust regulations. Then in 2008 you were portraying yourself as Annie Oakley and saying that we don’t need those regulation on the federal level. And now you’re coming back around here. So John, there’s a big difference between leading by polls and leading with principle.
Clinton’s flip-flopping on gun control can be seen in an excerpt from a debate back in 2008 which I quoted extensively here.
Sanders and O’Malley did fail to contradict other statements where Clinton dodged and distorted the truth. They let her get away with using her Benghazi testimony as evidence she can withstand further damage from the FBI inquiry into her personal email server. However Benghazi and the alleged mishandling of classified information under investigation by the FBI are two different matters. Her violations of new transparency requirements instituted under Obama in 2009 is yet another issue independent of Benghazi, and something which Sanders and O’Malley should hold Clinton accountable for.
Sanders also let Clinton get away with totally distorting what a single payer plan is. When she expressed regrets that everything would not be run from the federal government, she had me wondering if she even understands how Medicare is currently run by several intermediaries which typically are responsible for a handful of states, or how Medicaid is currently run by the states. While Sanders didn’t correct Clinton’s distortions, he did make his principles on universal health care clear in saying, “I want to end the international embarrassment of the United States of America being the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people as a right and not a privilege.”
Clinton also had a rather absurd response to Sanders’ plan for paying for college tuition in saying, “I disagree with free college for everybody. I don’t think taxpayers should be paying to send Donald Trump’s kids to college.” That makes no more sense than saying we should not provide free education for kindergarten through twelfth grade so that we don’t send Donald Trump’s kids to school. Plus, as Karoli pointed out at Crooks’s And Liars:
Honestly, I don’t want to pay for Donald Trump’s kids to go to school either, but I also doubt any of them would go to school at a public university anyway, so we won’t have to worry about that…So let’s not worry about Donald Trump’s kids and just focus on the majority of kids and parents out there who are going way too far into debt to get educated. There must be a better way.
Sanders and O’Malley further criticized Clinton in their closing comments. Sanders once again called for “a political revolution” and O’Malley echoed the same idea in saying, “will not solve our nation’s problems by resorting to the divisive ideologies of our past or by returning to polarizing figures from our past.” Earlier O’Malley accused Clinton of supporting crony capitalism and I wonder when he will run an ad quoting Clinton as saying “I come from the ’60s, a long time ago.” We are also likely to see this line repeated (if she wins the nomination) should a younger Republican, such as Marco Rubio, be her opponent.
O’Malley did quit well during the debate but Sanders once again dominated the on line buzz on Facebook and Twitter, along with winning the non-scientific online polls. The bigger question is whether showing the stark contrasts between his views and Clinton’s will remind Democratic voters that the same reasons Obama challenged Clinton in 2008 still hold. Mark Halparin pointed out in discussing Sanders, “If he improves this much again by the next debate, Clinton could have a real problem.” Unfortunately far too few people watched a debate which Debbie Wasserman Schultz scheduled on a Saturday night to minimize viewership. The scheduling of the next debate is even worse (unless the goal is to protect Hillary Clinton from criticism), occurring on the Saturday night before Christmas.
Update: The New York Times has an op-ed entitled Hillary Clinton Botches Wall Street Questions
Middle-class Americans associate Wall Street with the 2008 meltdown of the economy that cost so many their homes and savings. In the debate Mrs. Clinton repeatedly referred to her plan for reining in banks, but offered precious few specifics. This is what happens when Hillary Clinton the candidate gets complacent. The debate moderator, Mr. Dickerson, had even tipped her off before a commercial break that the next topic was Wall Street.
Her effort to tug on Americans’ heartstrings instead of explaining her Wall Street ties — on a day that the scars of 9/11 were exposed anew — was at best botched rhetoric. At worst it was the type of cynical move that Mrs. Clinton would have condemned in Republicans.
Terrorist Attack In Paris To Impact Tonight’s Debate: Anti-War Candidate Sanders vs. Neocon Candidate Clinton
November 14, 2015 — Ron Chusid
The terrorist attack in Paris, which ISIS has taken credit for, has led CBS to alter the emphasis of the second Democratic debate. When news was received of the attack, CBS decided to “focus more on issues of terrorism, national security and foreign relations.”
While the campaign this year has centered more around economic policy, this debate should emphasize another major difference between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. This discussion is likely to bring out Clinton’s hawkish views and how they differ from the views of Bernie Sanders. The terrorist attack might help Clinton in appealing to those who respond to terrorist attacks with more fear and mistakingly respond with a desire for greater military force. NPR points out that, “Clinton has always been seen as more hawkish than President Obama, and that’s something that hurt her in 2008, especially in a state like Iowa, which has its caucus roots in the anti-war movement.”
USA Today also noted this could present a challenge to Clinton:
The debate creates a challenge for Clinton, as it magnifies her public split with Obama on his approach to Syria. Several weeks ago, she was critical of Obama by saying there should be a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors in Syria, something Obama’s rejected.
Clinton has long advocated for a more robust approach in the Middle East to thwart the Islamic State, including when she was a member of Obama’s administration. As a U.S. senator she voted to authorize the war in Iraq, though she has since called that decision a mistake.
Though Sanders voted for the war in Afghanistan, he opposed Iraq and has highlighted that difference with Clinton. Sanders, who believes the Islamic State must be defeated primarily by Muslim nations in the region, opposed Obama’s recent decision to put Special Operations boots on the ground in Syria while a Clinton spokesman said she “sees merit” in the approach.
The challenge for Sanders is to make it clear that he will do what is necessary to defend the country, but that it is the neoconservative views on foreign policy from both most Republican candidates and Hillary Clinton which are largely responsible for the problem.There is a growing consensus in the foreign policy community that the creation of ISIS was a direct response to the US invasion of Iraq.
In the run up to the Iraq war, Clinton was one of the strongest proponents of the invasion, going beyond most supporters in making false claims of an association between Saddam and al Qaeda. Clinton’s hawkishness extends beyond her support for the Iraq war. Besides Iraq, Clinton differed from Obama and most Democrats in her hard line approach to Iran (including opposing Obama’s plans for talks with Iran during the 2008 campaign), and in her support for greater intervention in Syria. Her approach to Libya, which unfortunately Obama did go along with, has been a disaster.
Rand Paul made a point of how both most of his Republican opponents and Hillary Clinton have had the same approach to Syria both in the last debate and on the campaign trail, with Truth-Out explaining why he was right. Discussion of Clinton holding neoconservative views is hardly new, with The Week asking in 2014, Will neocons ditch the GOP for Hillary Clinton? This was based upon a longer story in The New York Times on Clinton’s neoconservative views. Neoconservative Robert Kagan was a key Clinton adviser at the State Department. Clinton has also attacked Obama’s foreign policy after leaving the State Department, echoing (as The Nation pointed out) the far right and neocons. Steve Clemons, Washington editor of The Atlantic, described how Clinton gave “a very neoconservative sounding speech” at the Brookings Institute in September, showing a sharp contrast with Obama’s views. Joe Scarborough has said that Clinton will be “more of a Neocon” than the 2016 Republican nominee.
The debate will also present a challenge for Martin O’Malley to show that he is capable of responding to foreign policy issues.
The debate might also will touch on the vast differences of opinion between Clinton and Sanders on civil liberties as well as foreign policy. Sanders differers from Clinton in having opposed the Patriot Act and NSA surveillance. Beyond her supporting George Bush’s approach to terrorism, Clinton’s poor record on civil liberties also includes her support for the Workplace Religious Freedom Act , a bill introduced by Rick Santorum and opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union for promoting discrimination and reducing access to health care, leading a campaign to censor video games and introducing a bill making flag burning a felony.Having criticized George Bush in the previous sentence, it is only fair to point out that Bill Clinton also had a poor record on civil liberties, with Hillary likely to continue this dubious part of his legacy if elected.
Supreme Court To Decide On Texas Anti-Abortion Law
November 13, 2015 — Ron Chusid
Republican efforts in recent years to restrict access to abortion have generally been at the state level (along with debunked attacks on Planned Parenthood), but now the Texas law will have national significance with the Supreme Court deciding to hear the case. The New York Times reports:
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear its first major abortion case since 2007, one that has the potential to affect millions of women and to revise the constitutional principles governing abortion rights…
The case is a challenge to a Texas law that would leave the state with about 10 abortion clinics, down from more than 40. Such a change, the abortion providers who are plaintiffs in the case told the justices, would have a vast practical impact.
“Texas is the second-most-populous state in the nation — home to 5.4 million women of reproductive age,” they wrote in their brief urging the court to hear the case. “More than 60,000 of those women choose to have an abortion each year.”
The case concerns two parts of a state law that imposes strict requirements on abortion providers. It was passed by the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature and signed into law in July 2013 by Rick Perry, the governor at the time.
One part of the law requires all clinics in the state to meet the standards for “ambulatory surgical centers,” including regulations concerning buildings, equipment and staffing. The other requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Officials in Texas said that the contested provisions were needed to protect women’s health. Abortion providers responded that the regulations were expensive, unnecessary and intended to put many of them out of business.
Think Progress has debunked claims of supporters of this law that the strict requirements are reasonable:
Yet, while these may seem like health regulations at first glance, they do little, if anything, to actually advance women’s health. As the Texas Hospital Association explains, for example, “thousands of physicians operate clinics and provide services in those clinics but do not have hospital admitting privileges.” Hospitals provide care to women who experience complications during an abortion — complications, it should be noted, that are extraordinarily rare — regardless of whether the physician who performed the abortion has admitting privileges or not. Similarly, the ambulatory surgical center requirement applies even in abortion clinics that do not perform surgeries — many abortions are induced by medication alone. The laws, in other words, impose burdensome and expensive restrictions on abortion clinics even when those restrictions bear no relationship whatsoever to advancing women’s health.
There is little doubt that these restrictions were written by opponents of the right of a woman to control her own body, with the goal of making it harder for women to obtain an abortion by causing multiple clinics which provide abortions to shut down. Opponents of the law expect that those clinics which do remain will be limited to the metropolitan areas of Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. This will leave many women in Texas without a nearby site to obtain abortions.
Clinton Might Have Won October, But Sanders Is On Track To Win November
November 12, 2015 — Ron Chusid
The conventional wisdom was that Hillary Clinton had an extraordinary month in October, with some pundits going as far to claim she virtually wrapped up the nomination. Yet now we are in November and Bernie Sanders has hardly been knocked out of the race. He is even looking like he is on track to win the month of November.
While polls this long before primaries have limited predictive value, they tend to show Sanders gaining slightly on Clinton with no signs of Clinton opening a wider lead over Sanders. Instead of the Biden supporters all falling in line behind Clinton as the pundits predicted, Biden’s support is dividing fairly equally between the two.
Take the latest New York Times/CBS News survey. The spin favors Clinton, but look at the actual numbers. Seeing Sanders close the gap, even if slightly, is a plus for him after all favorable publicity for Clinton in October. The key line, however, is, “Half of Democratic primary voters said it was still too early to say for sure who they would support.” As I have discussed previously, polls before the primaries have little predictive value, largely because so many people do not make up their mind until the last minute. Plus should Sanders hold on to win in Iowa and New Hampshire, polls in subsequent states, as well as the national polls, will change dramatically.
The Clinton camp claims that Sanders cannot win a general election, as they claimed with Obama eight years ago, but the polls certainly contradict them there. Sanders does as well as Clinton or better in head to head match-ups against Republicans, while Clinton struggles to get the support of independents and voters in battle ground states. The latest McClatchy-Marist poll has Sanders beating Trump and Bush by a landslide. The poll also shows that 68 percent believe that what Clinton did related to her private email server was wrong.
While Clinton would have people believe that her success at the Benghazi hearing somehow provides protection against the email scandals, these are two separate issues. It certainly helps her should she ever be prosecuted that the government has backed away from claims that two emails were top secret, but we recently learned that the FBI investigation not only is still going on, but there are news reports that the FBI is stepping up the investigation.
Plus the investigation of alleged mishandling of classified information is only one small part of the scandal. The more important issues are Clinton violating the stricter rules for government transparency which Obama initiated in 2009 in response to the abuses of the Bush administration, and her making decisions on matters as Secretary of State involving parties which were making huge payments to her Foundation and to her husband. It also does not help matters that the fact checkers have demonstrated that Clinton has repeatedly lied about the matter.
The recent charges that Ben Carson has been dishonest about his biography has led to others pointing out that Hillary Clinton has additional honesty issues of her own. Clinton’s claims that she once tried to join the marines is being questioned. It doesn’t help her case that the Washington Post Fact Checker, while noting some ambiguity, has given Clinton Two Pinocchios on this story, along with reminding readers of past problems in her biography such as “landing under sniper fire in Bosnia or getting the date wrong for hearing a speech by Martin Luther King Jr.”
As the establishment candidate, it is no surprise that Clinton has received more endorsements, although Al Gore has declined to offer his support. Sanders has been receiving some key endorsements, including the American Postal Workers’ Union.
Sanders did well in the Democratic Forum last week, and has another chance to advance his campaign in the second Democratic debate–even if scheduled on a Saturday to minimize viewership. He has been more aggressive in showing the many differences of opinion he has with Clinton on the issues and will probably do the same in the debate (as I have argued he must), as opposed to allowing Clinton to get away with false statements in the first debate and even giving her a lifeline on her email.
