2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumKeeping Wall Street Speeches Secret Speaks Volumes About Hillary Clinton
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/05/02/keeping-wall-street-speeches-secret-speaks-volumes-about-hillary-clintonAll told, according to McChesneys meticulous research, Clinton pulled in a whopping $21.7 million in speaking fees for the two-year period. Of this amount, $3,260,000 came from 14 speeches delivered directly to financial-sector interests, including Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and, above all, Goldman, which remitted a tidy $675,000 for no less than three chin-wags.
I was watching the debate when she said she would look into [releasing the speeches], McChesney told me in an interview I conducted with him last week via email, as his phone was down as a result of a north Kansas thunderstorm. I just knew it was a complete blow-off answer.
I find it to be completely disqualifying, he continued, regarding Clintons presidential bid. It says a lot about our system when such brazen bribery is wholly accepted. So about an hour or so after the debate, it just hit me to start a clock to hold her accountable.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)NewImproved Deal
(534 posts)America has outgrown the Clinton Dynasty.
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Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)NanceGreggs
(27,821 posts)... over and over and over speaks volumes about those who think they're accomplishing something by doing so.
840high
(17,196 posts)NanceGreggs
(27,821 posts)... every day, all day, it's kind of hard to miss them.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)You can always just pass over them.
NanceGreggs
(27,821 posts)They get inserted into threads on completely different topics. They're like insects - you can try to ignore them, but you know damned well they're there.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)If they're innocuous, then she could have the extra bonus of embarrassing Sanders and his supporters.
NanceGreggs
(27,821 posts)Not releasing them hasn't lost her the nomination, has it? No one cares about them except BS supporters.
Do you have any links to where anyone demanded speech transcripts from any other candidate in US history?
Take your time finding them - I'll wait.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)I cannot fathom why she doesn't release them.
If I were a supporter of hers I's have been clamoring for it, just to put the issue to bed. You don't think the Trumpster isn't going to make hay out of it?
If I were her, i would have wanted to put the questions to bed tight away.....Unless there were things said that really would be politically damaging....It would have been a WIN to put out some harmless speeches, and embarrassed Sanders in the process.
No there is not precedent, and she is perfectly entitled not to. But she is also the first candidate who made many millions by making a relatively small number of high-dollar speeches at a time when she was considering a run for the presidency. And knowing that it epitomizes the negative stereotype that many people think about her.
It was also bad judgement to have made them to the people she would be responsible for regulating -- especially Wall St. firms that people are angry at -- on the eve of a presidential campaign. And, even though she is winning the primary, it HAS hurt her image among those who are not loyalists.
840high
(17,196 posts)AgerolanAmerican
(1,000 posts)a festering wound in her claim of integrity, it is, and so it remains until she acts to resolve it.
Your complaint is essentially a mirror image of others' complaints about Clinton. The reason why this happens to her particularly and specifically is her own behavior - questions about her ethics never get resolved, they get papered over or shouted down or ignored outright. So they hang out there forever and ever and are always primed to come back.
Even stuff from over 20 years ago is still unresolved with her. Howabout that cattle futures bet?
The problem you are experiencing is a problem with the candidate you're backing. I bet it does suck, and sympathize with your plight. The solution to the thing that is bothering you is to support someone other than this particularly unsuitable individual.
NanceGreggs
(27,821 posts)... by over 300 delegates and millions of votes.
I guess that "festering wound in her claim of integrity" just isn't the big issue with voters that Bernie supporters were hoping it would be.
AgerolanAmerican
(1,000 posts)because you chose to ignore the problem, the problem will not go away.
Only addressing and resolving problems make them go away. Otherwise they fester.
Trump is already promoting the phrase "Crooked Hillary" and things like this will make it ridiculously easy for him. He's telegraphed his position to hammer her relentlessly on this and he will score hit after hit after hit because there's no defending her acceptance of these very bribe-like figures from interests which could profit from her political influence.
And if you think the speeches are her only problem of this type, she's got it even worse with her arms deals and "donations" to the Clinton Foundation.
NanceGreggs
(27,821 posts)Hillary has been defending herself against RW accusations for decades. And every one of those accusations has come to naught.
"Only addressing problems makes them go away." Well, guess what? The transcripts are of no interest to anyone other than BS supporters. It's a "problem" that obviously doesn't require "addressing", because it doesn't have to "go away" - it was never "there" to begin with.
But hey, keep hopin' for that imminent indictment, that investigation into the Clinton Foundation - and anything else you need to cling to in order to believe that BS will wind up being the nominee.
Ain't gonna happen - but you hang in there as best you can, pinning your dreams on the utterly ridiculous.
AgerolanAmerican
(1,000 posts)On Planet Normal, these are actually serious issues that should be discussed about candidates before considering them for the highest office in the land. This is standard vetting practice. And when the answers range from hostile to evasive to deceptive, everyone with two brain cells to put together can figure out there's something fishy going on.
NanceGreggs
(27,821 posts)... Hillary is 300-plus delegates and millions of votes ahead of Bernie.
It looks like what you want to be a "serious issue that should be discussed" is not of any interest to the voters. Maybe they don't have "two brain cells to put together"?
Oh, and BTW - Hillary is ahead that many delegates and votes here in real life - where your concept of what prevails on "Planet Normal" doesn't seem to have much sway.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)FlatBaroque
(3,160 posts)eridani
(51,907 posts)And since when does what we think mean anything?
qdouble
(891 posts)Or are you giving Bernie credit for something he couldn't do legally and vilifying hillary for something she did do legally?
synergie
(1,901 posts)especially when they voice the fear that they are doing so because they're worried that people will go through them and ask questions about their finances.
It's disqualifying when ELECTED officials refuse to disclose their records so that the public can see what's influencing their votes. The Clinton's are open about their finances, but the Sanders are clearly hiding something and doing a poor job of pretending they're not. When such lack of transparency is allowed, we know that there must be "brazen bribery" and other wrong doing in those files. We already have a hint of inappropriate use of funds, we just don't know what else Jane is so terrified of anyone finding.
So no clock to hold Jane and Bernie accountable for the things that is actually expected of elected officials and candidates for president? After all you know about these speeches the FORMER secretary gave AFTER SHE LEFT office, but you know NOTHING about what Bernie and Jane have been up to on the public dime.
eridani
(51,907 posts)2015 probably required them to hire someone.
synergie
(1,901 posts)They asked for an extension until AFTER CA for their 2015 ones.
Also they're on record LYING about what they've released.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/apr/06/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-has-released-few-tax-returns-compar/
eridani
(51,907 posts)--that they have been doing quite a few campaign events this year.
synergie
(1,901 posts)Well, the speeches they've been hounding only one candidate EVER about, they found out through her and her husband's extensive publicly available financial disclosures, so it pretty much shows that Jane and Bernie are not following the rules, and their excuses are pretty nonsensical.
Jane has admitted she's worried about people doing to them what they've done to the Clintons, so if you're fine with them being raging hypocrites who refuse any transparency on their part and who are concealing their assets and income and their sources, I guess nothing.
But if you're actually honest and concerned with transparency and the effect of money in politics you know there is something the hell wrong with anyone who refuses to be transparent, about where their money comes from WHILE IN OFFICE.
And this whole, oh dear, my papers are way back in Vermont, is not something that anyone with more than 2 brain cells is buying in 2016.
Jane doesn't need to be camping out at CNN and MSNBC, she can take the jet to VT and go find the records and release them pretty easily, or have had the thousands of people who work for them or her own kids do that for her.
She didn't. So one wonders what the hell kind of wrong doing are these people hiding, and why do their rules and standards never apply to them? She's disclosed, but he won't? We know what Trump is hiding, what's Bernie and Jane hiding?
ebayfool
(3,411 posts)"UPDATE: As he had promised, Sanders released his full 2014 tax return on April 15, 2016."
I'm still having trouble finding Clinton's full 2014 and 2015, though. Got any more links for those?
The 2015 returns, I don't have a problem with either candidate not having out yet. It's nothing new for people to get extensions on them. (I got one too, and it don't mean a thing nefarious!).
on edit: Found her 2014 return! Interesting return. Virtually ALL charitable deductions are to the Foundation.
eridani
(51,907 posts)EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)Wow..what leadership. Admirable indeed. Amazingly transparent.
synergie
(1,901 posts)An elected official who yells daily about corruption of money in politics won't release his own taxes as he's expected to do as a sitting Senator and a presidential candidate, what transparency, what leadership ... oh wait, that's just hypocrisy.
EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)btw.. it isn't required for elected officials to release their tax returns just as an audit of the Clinton foundation is not required.
The problem with the transcripts is that HRC says she is not influenced by big money from these corps like Goldman. Wonderful, then releasing the transcripts should clear this up. She's the one who has said she's the most transparent candidate who has ever run. If so, this seems like a small issue to release one transcript, especially since Sanders has called her bluff and released a tax return.
Bottom line is we all know she'll never release those speeches because she is well aware they compromise her political message with her corporate message. I think you know that as well, but are dug in defending your preferred candidate. I get it, but it's anything but transparent or admirable.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)holding them back.
EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)"You know, what's interesting is we released the 2014," Sanders said. "Hillary Clinton hasn't released a transcript yet." She then confirmed that she'll provide the returns when Clinton publishes her Wall Street transcripts
uponit7771
(90,370 posts)... and hasn't released 2015 at all yet.
They've got everything except the cheap suites
NewImproved Deal
(534 posts)Out-Nixon's Nixon in vindictive, paranoid petulance...
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)chwaliszewski
(1,514 posts)Skwmom
(12,685 posts)I am still shaking my head over Obama's going to Goldman Sachs and making Tubmans line in his WHCD speech. Why did they put that out there for use in a Republican ad?
It can be used against the Democratic Party, not just Clinton.