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February 14, 2016
Trump crosses the 9/11 line...(Will it Cost Him?)
Trump crosses the 9/11 line
‘If it doesn't backfire, then it will be official; nothing can stop him,’ GOP strategist says.
By Eli Stokols
02/14/16 06:14 AM EST
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Jeb Bush’s campaign thinks George W. Bush is its not-so-secret weapon in next Saturday’s pivotal primary. Donald Trump couldn’t care less.
Holding a 20-point lead in the state over his nearest rival with a week to go, Trump blasted the former president for the national security record his brother’s campaign plans to tout, blaming him during a GOP debate Saturday night not just for the Iraq War but also for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.“The World Trade Center came down during your brother’s reign. Remember that," Trump said to the former Florida governor, prompting a long, contentious back-and-forth.
In a state that’s home to a large number of military installations and veterans, the supercharged showdown between two candidates who’ve been sparring for months could play big, potentially reordering the race in the final week.
Our Principles PAC, launched last month with the purpose of attacking Trump, is preparing to blanket South Carolina's airwaves with a new ad featuring Trump's past statement that impeaching George W. Bush "would have been a good thing."
------------
In fact, Trump has blamed George W. Bush for 9/11 many times before, just never on a debate stage before a television audience of millions. It started when moderator John Dickerson asked him about a past statement in which he suggested that the 43rd president should have been impeached for lying about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction in order to justify going to war.
“Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake,” said Trump, who mocked Jeb Bush for taking five days to answer a question last May about whether, with the benefit of hindsight, he’d have made the decision to go to war in Iraq.
Then, Trump took his criticism even further, saying the former president did not keep America safe. And moments later, after Marco Rubio defended George W. Bush's record by saying the blame for the attacks fell on Bill Clinton, Trump doubled down."The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe, Marco. That is not safe," he continued. "The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him. And George Bush — by the way, George Bush had the chance, also, and he didn't listen to the advice of his CIA."
-------------
Asked whether he still supports impeachment, Trump didn’t directly answer, instead railing against the “lies” that, in his view, led up to the war in Iraq.
“You call it whatever you want,” Trump said. “They lied.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/trump-9-11-debate-219273
February 14, 2016
Trump crosses the 9/11 line....
Trump crosses the 9/11 line
‘If it doesn't backfire, then it will be official; nothing can stop him,’ GOP strategist says.
By Eli Stokols
02/14/16 06:14 AM EST
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Jeb Bush’s campaign thinks George W. Bush is its not-so-secret weapon in next Saturday’s pivotal primary. Donald Trump couldn’t care less.
Holding a 20-point lead in the state over his nearest rival with a week to go, Trump blasted the former president for the national security record his brother’s campaign plans to tout, blaming him during a GOP debate Saturday night not just for the Iraq War but also for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.“The World Trade Center came down during your brother’s reign. Remember that," Trump said to the former Florida governor, prompting a long, contentious back-and-forth.
In a state that’s home to a large number of military installations and veterans, the supercharged showdown between two candidates who’ve been sparring for months could play big, potentially reordering the race in the final week.
Our Principles PAC, launched last month with the purpose of attacking Trump, is preparing to blanket South Carolina's airwaves with a new ad featuring Trump's past statement that impeaching George W. Bush "would have been a good thing."
------------
In fact, Trump has blamed George W. Bush for 9/11 many times before, just never on a debate stage before a television audience of millions. It started when moderator John Dickerson asked him about a past statement in which he suggested that the 43rd president should have been impeached for lying about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction in order to justify going to war.
“Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake,” said Trump, who mocked Jeb Bush for taking five days to answer a question last May about whether, with the benefit of hindsight, he’d have made the decision to go to war in Iraq.
Then, Trump took his criticism even further, saying the former president did not keep America safe. And moments later, after Marco Rubio defended George W. Bush's record by saying the blame for the attacks fell on Bill Clinton, Trump doubled down."The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe, Marco. That is not safe," he continued. "The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him. And George Bush — by the way, George Bush had the chance, also, and he didn't listen to the advice of his CIA."
-------------
Asked whether he still supports impeachment, Trump didn’t directly answer, instead railing against the “lies” that, in his view, led up to the war in Iraq.
“You call it whatever you want,” Trump said. “They lied.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/trump-9-11-debate-219273
February 14, 2016
By Jeet Heer
February 13, 2016
It’s a measure of the remarkably transformative effect Trump has had on the entire tenor of the Republican presidential contest that the entire debate felt less like a political discussion and more like a kindergarten meltdown.
“Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency,” Jeb Bush lectured Trump in an earlier debate. But increasingly, there’s every reason to think Bush was wrong. Trump’s supreme skills at vituperation have taken him to the top of the polls, and led last Tuesday to a stunning victory in New Hampshire. And his vintage performance tonight—an exercise in pushing the limits which included calling both Cruz and Marco Rubio liars and drawing boos and catcalls from the debate audience, is unlikely to damage his perch high atop of the South Carolina polls heading into Saturday’s primary.
There’s no better proof of the success of Trump’s tactics than the imitation of his rivals. On Saturday night in South Carolina, with the notable exceptions of John Kasich (who tried with some success to play the adult in the room) and Ben Carson (who remains a strange wraith-like figure sleepily indifferent to everyone else on stage), the other candidates vied to outdo each other in insults.
Cruz claimed that Rubio was making promises to Latino immigrants in Spanish on Univision that he wouldn’t dare repeat in English. Rubio sassed back: “I don’t know how he knows what I said on Univision, because he doesn’t speak Spanish.” Along the way, Trump also called Cruz was “the single biggest liar on stage,” adding that the senator was “a nasty guy.” But the Rubio-Cruz spat, which seemed as personal as it was political, was matched in its intense juvenility only by the Bush/Trump fight, which seemed to symbolize the level to which Trump has reduced the debate.
Trump went out of his way to insult not just Jeb Bush but his brother, the former president, who is stumping in South Carolina. “Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake,” Trump said. “George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. ... They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.”
To hear the GOP frontrunner disparage the last Republican president was remarkable. Although he had played with these themes before, he had never been so blunt. It was a powerful testament to Trump’s ability to open up the internal fissures of the party.
Continued at.....
https://newrepublic.com/article/129918/republican-primary-now-giant-kindergarten-spat
The Republican Primary Is Now a Giant Kindergarten Spat--New Republic
Trump had a devastating retort [to Jeb]: “The World Trade Center came down during your brother’s reign, remember that.”
By Jeet Heer
February 13, 2016
It’s a measure of the remarkably transformative effect Trump has had on the entire tenor of the Republican presidential contest that the entire debate felt less like a political discussion and more like a kindergarten meltdown.
“Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency,” Jeb Bush lectured Trump in an earlier debate. But increasingly, there’s every reason to think Bush was wrong. Trump’s supreme skills at vituperation have taken him to the top of the polls, and led last Tuesday to a stunning victory in New Hampshire. And his vintage performance tonight—an exercise in pushing the limits which included calling both Cruz and Marco Rubio liars and drawing boos and catcalls from the debate audience, is unlikely to damage his perch high atop of the South Carolina polls heading into Saturday’s primary.
There’s no better proof of the success of Trump’s tactics than the imitation of his rivals. On Saturday night in South Carolina, with the notable exceptions of John Kasich (who tried with some success to play the adult in the room) and Ben Carson (who remains a strange wraith-like figure sleepily indifferent to everyone else on stage), the other candidates vied to outdo each other in insults.
Cruz claimed that Rubio was making promises to Latino immigrants in Spanish on Univision that he wouldn’t dare repeat in English. Rubio sassed back: “I don’t know how he knows what I said on Univision, because he doesn’t speak Spanish.” Along the way, Trump also called Cruz was “the single biggest liar on stage,” adding that the senator was “a nasty guy.” But the Rubio-Cruz spat, which seemed as personal as it was political, was matched in its intense juvenility only by the Bush/Trump fight, which seemed to symbolize the level to which Trump has reduced the debate.
Trump went out of his way to insult not just Jeb Bush but his brother, the former president, who is stumping in South Carolina. “Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake,” Trump said. “George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. ... They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.”
To hear the GOP frontrunner disparage the last Republican president was remarkable. Although he had played with these themes before, he had never been so blunt. It was a powerful testament to Trump’s ability to open up the internal fissures of the party.
Continued at.....
https://newrepublic.com/article/129918/republican-primary-now-giant-kindergarten-spat
February 11, 2016
February 10, 2016, 6:51 PM|Bernie Sanders is surging in the race for President of the United States, but his start in this country was a much humbler experience. Scott Pelley spoke with the Vermont senator about growing up in a modest Brooklyn home as the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland.
Can't get the CBS News Video to Embed here but it's a Great Watch at this Link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/a-look-at-bernie-sanders-early-life/
CBS NEWS: A look at Bernie Sanders' early life in Brooklyn with Scott Pelley
February 10, 2016, 6:51 PM|Bernie Sanders is surging in the race for President of the United States, but his start in this country was a much humbler experience. Scott Pelley spoke with the Vermont senator about growing up in a modest Brooklyn home as the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland.
Can't get the CBS News Video to Embed here but it's a Great Watch at this Link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/a-look-at-bernie-sanders-early-life/
February 10, 2016
by
Mike Lofgren
In 1927, H.L. Mencken rode by train through the Pennsylvania coal country. The houses he saw along the way were so hideous, at least in his eyes, that he was moved to pen his famous essay, “The Libido for the Ugly.” Mencken was writing about towns inhabited by coal miners and railroad brakemen, but what would he say if he were to visit present-day Washington, DC and take a stroll in its surrounding suburbs?
I’d bet the Sage of Baltimore would direct his limitless venom at the spanking-new particle-board McMansions of Washington’s New Class: the K Street lawyers, political consultants, Beltway fixers and war on terrorism profiteers who run a permanent shadow government in the nation’s capital.
This group does not include federal employees or most elected officials. With their statutorily limited salaries, they cannot afford the bloated monstrosities favored by the New Class. Modest developments like Fairlington or the humble cape cods, ramblers and four-squares of Arlington were built for them in the early post-World War II heyday of the federal bureaucrat.
There is talk of a Georgetown elite, but ever since Pamela Harriman’s death in 1997, that crowd has been as defunct as the Romanov dynasty. Georgetown has elegant but cramped townhouses with creaky floorboards, inadequate wiring and an aura of ever-so-slightly shabby gentility. Who needs that when you can buy a brand-new 12,000 square foot McMansion with cast stone lions guarding the front gate, a two-and-a-half story tall great room and a home cinema with built-in FSB ports?
If that sounds more like the jumped-up suburb of a Sunbelt city like Houston or Atlanta than the traditional, old-money atmosphere of Beacon Hill or the Philadelphia Mainline, it is because that is precisely what the neighborhoods of the new establishment have become.
Continued at..........
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/09/oligarchville-how-washingtons-new-rich-live
Oligarchville: How Washington’s New Rich Live
Oligarchville: How Washington’s New Rich Live
The twin explosions of post-9/11 national security extravagance and Citizens United political spending bonanza have reshaped Washington — not only in its political outlook but physically, with this New Class preferring lavish McMansions to show off their newfound wealth
by
Mike Lofgren
In 1927, H.L. Mencken rode by train through the Pennsylvania coal country. The houses he saw along the way were so hideous, at least in his eyes, that he was moved to pen his famous essay, “The Libido for the Ugly.” Mencken was writing about towns inhabited by coal miners and railroad brakemen, but what would he say if he were to visit present-day Washington, DC and take a stroll in its surrounding suburbs?
I’d bet the Sage of Baltimore would direct his limitless venom at the spanking-new particle-board McMansions of Washington’s New Class: the K Street lawyers, political consultants, Beltway fixers and war on terrorism profiteers who run a permanent shadow government in the nation’s capital.
This group does not include federal employees or most elected officials. With their statutorily limited salaries, they cannot afford the bloated monstrosities favored by the New Class. Modest developments like Fairlington or the humble cape cods, ramblers and four-squares of Arlington were built for them in the early post-World War II heyday of the federal bureaucrat.
There is talk of a Georgetown elite, but ever since Pamela Harriman’s death in 1997, that crowd has been as defunct as the Romanov dynasty. Georgetown has elegant but cramped townhouses with creaky floorboards, inadequate wiring and an aura of ever-so-slightly shabby gentility. Who needs that when you can buy a brand-new 12,000 square foot McMansion with cast stone lions guarding the front gate, a two-and-a-half story tall great room and a home cinema with built-in FSB ports?
If that sounds more like the jumped-up suburb of a Sunbelt city like Houston or Atlanta than the traditional, old-money atmosphere of Beacon Hill or the Philadelphia Mainline, it is because that is precisely what the neighborhoods of the new establishment have become.
Continued at..........
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/09/oligarchville-how-washingtons-new-rich-live
February 8, 2016
Why is the press treating a wealthy, 35-year-old political operative like she's still a White House kid?
By Jack Shafer
2/05/2016
The coverage threshold falls lower still if a grown-up White House kid expands her own public profile, as Chelsea Clinton most definitely has. She has maintained a role as adviser and advocate inside the Clinton family’s political dynasty since leaving Stanford University. In late 2011, she crossed over to the dark and often invasive art of journalism, working at NBC News as a special correspondent ($600,000/year) until August 2014.
Today, Chelsea serves as vice chair of the politically controversial Clinton Foundation, which has raised $2 billion since 2001. She’s a board member at Barry Diller’s IAC (paid a reported $300,000 a year, plus stock awards). She charges $65,000 per speech. Last fall, she published a book on “empowerment” for kids. She’s powerful. She exercises influence. She’s all grown up, soon to be the mother of two. If she isn’t newsworthy, nobody is.
As is her right, Chelsea picks and chooses how to respond to the press. Had you lived through the White House sex scandals as she did, you might not have affection for the press, either. For years, when approached by reporters asking questions, she would politely demur. In 2007, while stumping for her mother’s presidential campaign, shaking hands with voters and posting for photos, Chelsea spun her advocacy from the softest cotton—with no message exceeding the “vote for my mom, she’s the best” variety. She worked hard, traveling thousands of highway miles, visiting more than 100 campuses and dialing up to 60 names a day in support of the Clinton campaign.
---snip
As Vanity Fair reported, in early 2008 the Clinton campaign placed “warning calls” to David Shuster, then at MSNBC, the day after he asked her a couple of questions (that went unanswered) at a campaign event. Chelsea, age 27, was off-limits, the campaign said.
As the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign gathered steam, Chelsea agreed to sit for interviews with the press, but most of them were of the softball variety with Fusion, Ellen DeGeneres and Extra. But whenever the questions turn probing, Chelsea tends to shut down. At a April 2015 Council on Foreign Relations forum in New York, ABC News anchor Juju Chang asked her to respond to the news stories that criticized the Clinton Foundation's fundraising methods. “Not surprisingly, Chelsea punted,” wrote the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove about the session. Instead, she discussed all the good work the foundation does. Grove continued, “Needless to say, I was thwarted in my efforts to ask Chelsea a follow-up question as she left the building after patiently greeting a receiving line of admirers.”
------snip
Perhaps Chelsea avoids serious talks with the press because she’s smart enough to know that words betray her when she speaks extemporaneously, as she did in the middle of January when a young voter asked her how to mobilize young American’s for the Clinton campaign. Chelsea dug a hole, jumped into it, and dug deeper to attack Bernie Sanders as someone who wants to “dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare and private insurance.”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/chelsea-clinton-press-213596
Chelsea Clinton is a Very Wealthy Woman...
(Her salary while working for NBC News is a shocker @ $600.000...and now she's picking up and extra $300.000 working for Barry Diller? and who knows what Clinton Foundation is paying her!)
Why is the press treating a wealthy, 35-year-old political operative like she's still a White House kid?
By Jack Shafer
2/05/2016
The coverage threshold falls lower still if a grown-up White House kid expands her own public profile, as Chelsea Clinton most definitely has. She has maintained a role as adviser and advocate inside the Clinton family’s political dynasty since leaving Stanford University. In late 2011, she crossed over to the dark and often invasive art of journalism, working at NBC News as a special correspondent ($600,000/year) until August 2014.
Today, Chelsea serves as vice chair of the politically controversial Clinton Foundation, which has raised $2 billion since 2001. She’s a board member at Barry Diller’s IAC (paid a reported $300,000 a year, plus stock awards). She charges $65,000 per speech. Last fall, she published a book on “empowerment” for kids. She’s powerful. She exercises influence. She’s all grown up, soon to be the mother of two. If she isn’t newsworthy, nobody is.
As is her right, Chelsea picks and chooses how to respond to the press. Had you lived through the White House sex scandals as she did, you might not have affection for the press, either. For years, when approached by reporters asking questions, she would politely demur. In 2007, while stumping for her mother’s presidential campaign, shaking hands with voters and posting for photos, Chelsea spun her advocacy from the softest cotton—with no message exceeding the “vote for my mom, she’s the best” variety. She worked hard, traveling thousands of highway miles, visiting more than 100 campuses and dialing up to 60 names a day in support of the Clinton campaign.
---snip
As Vanity Fair reported, in early 2008 the Clinton campaign placed “warning calls” to David Shuster, then at MSNBC, the day after he asked her a couple of questions (that went unanswered) at a campaign event. Chelsea, age 27, was off-limits, the campaign said.
As the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign gathered steam, Chelsea agreed to sit for interviews with the press, but most of them were of the softball variety with Fusion, Ellen DeGeneres and Extra. But whenever the questions turn probing, Chelsea tends to shut down. At a April 2015 Council on Foreign Relations forum in New York, ABC News anchor Juju Chang asked her to respond to the news stories that criticized the Clinton Foundation's fundraising methods. “Not surprisingly, Chelsea punted,” wrote the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove about the session. Instead, she discussed all the good work the foundation does. Grove continued, “Needless to say, I was thwarted in my efforts to ask Chelsea a follow-up question as she left the building after patiently greeting a receiving line of admirers.”
------snip
Perhaps Chelsea avoids serious talks with the press because she’s smart enough to know that words betray her when she speaks extemporaneously, as she did in the middle of January when a young voter asked her how to mobilize young American’s for the Clinton campaign. Chelsea dug a hole, jumped into it, and dug deeper to attack Bernie Sanders as someone who wants to “dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare and private insurance.”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/chelsea-clinton-press-213596
February 6, 2016
Why is the press treating a wealthy, 35-year-old political operative like she's still a White House kid?
By Jack Shafer
2/05/2016
The coverage threshold falls lower still if a grown-up White House kid expands her own public profile, as Chelsea Clinton most definitely has. She has maintained a role as adviser and advocate inside the Clinton family’s political dynasty since leaving Stanford University. In late 2011, she crossed over to the dark and often invasive art of journalism, working at NBC News as a special correspondent ($600,000/year) until August 2014.
Today, Chelsea serves as vice chair of the politically controversial Clinton Foundation, which has raised $2 billion since 2001. She’s a board member at Barry Diller’s IAC (paid a reported $300,000 a year, plus stock awards). She charges $65,000 per speech. Last fall, she published a book on “empowerment” for kids. She’s powerful. She exercises influence. She’s all grown up, soon to be the mother of two. If she isn’t newsworthy, nobody is.
As is her right, Chelsea picks and chooses how to respond to the press. Had you lived through the White House sex scandals as she did, you might not have affection for the press, either. For years, when approached by reporters asking questions, she would politely demur. In 2007, while stumping for her mother’s presidential campaign, shaking hands with voters and posting for photos, Chelsea spun her advocacy from the softest cotton—with no message exceeding the “vote for my mom, she’s the best” variety. She worked hard, traveling thousands of highway miles, visiting more than 100 campuses and dialing up to 60 names a day in support of the Clinton campaign.
---snip
As Vanity Fair reported, in early 2008 the Clinton campaign placed “warning calls” to David Shuster, then at MSNBC, the day after he asked her a couple of questions (that went unanswered) at a campaign event. Chelsea, age 27, was off-limits, the campaign said.
As the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign gathered steam, Chelsea agreed to sit for interviews with the press, but most of them were of the softball variety with Fusion, Ellen DeGeneres and Extra. But whenever the questions turn probing, Chelsea tends to shut down. At a April 2015 Council on Foreign Relations forum in New York, ABC News anchor Juju Chang asked her to respond to the news stories that criticized the Clinton Foundation's fundraising methods. “Not surprisingly, Chelsea punted,” wrote the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove about the session. Instead, she discussed all the good work the foundation does. Grove continued, “Needless to say, I was thwarted in my efforts to ask Chelsea a follow-up question as she left the building after patiently greeting a receiving line of admirers.”
------snip
Perhaps Chelsea avoids serious talks with the press because she’s smart enough to know that words betray her when she speaks extemporaneously, as she did in the middle of January when a young voter asked her how to mobilize young American’s for the Clinton campaign. Chelsea dug a hole, jumped into it, and dug deeper to attack Bernie Sanders as someone who wants to “dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare and private insurance.”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/chelsea-clinton-press-213596
Time for Chelsea Clinton's Easy Ride With the Press to End?
(Her salary while working for NBC News is a shocker @ $600.000...and now she's picking up and extra $300.000 working for Barry Diller? and who knows what Clinton Foundation is paying her!)
Why is the press treating a wealthy, 35-year-old political operative like she's still a White House kid?
By Jack Shafer
2/05/2016
The coverage threshold falls lower still if a grown-up White House kid expands her own public profile, as Chelsea Clinton most definitely has. She has maintained a role as adviser and advocate inside the Clinton family’s political dynasty since leaving Stanford University. In late 2011, she crossed over to the dark and often invasive art of journalism, working at NBC News as a special correspondent ($600,000/year) until August 2014.
Today, Chelsea serves as vice chair of the politically controversial Clinton Foundation, which has raised $2 billion since 2001. She’s a board member at Barry Diller’s IAC (paid a reported $300,000 a year, plus stock awards). She charges $65,000 per speech. Last fall, she published a book on “empowerment” for kids. She’s powerful. She exercises influence. She’s all grown up, soon to be the mother of two. If she isn’t newsworthy, nobody is.
As is her right, Chelsea picks and chooses how to respond to the press. Had you lived through the White House sex scandals as she did, you might not have affection for the press, either. For years, when approached by reporters asking questions, she would politely demur. In 2007, while stumping for her mother’s presidential campaign, shaking hands with voters and posting for photos, Chelsea spun her advocacy from the softest cotton—with no message exceeding the “vote for my mom, she’s the best” variety. She worked hard, traveling thousands of highway miles, visiting more than 100 campuses and dialing up to 60 names a day in support of the Clinton campaign.
---snip
As Vanity Fair reported, in early 2008 the Clinton campaign placed “warning calls” to David Shuster, then at MSNBC, the day after he asked her a couple of questions (that went unanswered) at a campaign event. Chelsea, age 27, was off-limits, the campaign said.
As the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign gathered steam, Chelsea agreed to sit for interviews with the press, but most of them were of the softball variety with Fusion, Ellen DeGeneres and Extra. But whenever the questions turn probing, Chelsea tends to shut down. At a April 2015 Council on Foreign Relations forum in New York, ABC News anchor Juju Chang asked her to respond to the news stories that criticized the Clinton Foundation's fundraising methods. “Not surprisingly, Chelsea punted,” wrote the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove about the session. Instead, she discussed all the good work the foundation does. Grove continued, “Needless to say, I was thwarted in my efforts to ask Chelsea a follow-up question as she left the building after patiently greeting a receiving line of admirers.”
------snip
Perhaps Chelsea avoids serious talks with the press because she’s smart enough to know that words betray her when she speaks extemporaneously, as she did in the middle of January when a young voter asked her how to mobilize young American’s for the Clinton campaign. Chelsea dug a hole, jumped into it, and dug deeper to attack Bernie Sanders as someone who wants to “dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare and private insurance.”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/chelsea-clinton-press-213596
February 6, 2016
Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003.
Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote, Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA:
After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: "I urged him to bomb," she told reporter Lucinda Frank.
Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.
Continued at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/hillary-candidate-war-machine
Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine--by Jeffrey Sachs, The Earth Institute
Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine
by
Jeffrey D. Sachs--
Published on
Friday, February 05, 2016
by
Common Dreams
(Full Read Crossposted in DU's "Good Reads" Forum):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016143654
Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He is Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He is co-founder and Chief Strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, and is director of the Millennium Villages Project. A recent survey by The Economist Magazine ranked Professor Sachs as among the world’s three most influential living economists of the past decade. Sachs is the author, most recently, of “The Age of Sustainable Development," 2015 with Ban Ki-moon.
-------------
There's no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy "experience" has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.
Hillary and Bill Clinton's close relations with Wall Street helped to stoke two financial bubbles (1999-2000 and 2005-8) and the Great Recession that followed Lehman's collapse. In the 1990s they pushed financial deregulation for their campaign backers that in turn let loose the worst demons of financial manipulation, toxic assets, financial fraud, and eventually collapse. In the process they won elections and got mighty rich.
Yet Hillary's connections with the military-industrial complex are also alarming. It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don't want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.
Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support "regime change" in Iraq.
It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.
Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003.
Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote, Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA:
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members... "
After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: "I urged him to bomb," she told reporter Lucinda Frank.
Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.
Continued at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/hillary-candidate-war-machine
February 6, 2016
]There's no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy "experience" has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.
Hillary and Bill Clinton's close relations with Wall Street helped to stoke two financial bubbles (1999-2000 and 2005-8) and the Great Recession that followed Lehman's collapse. In the 1990s they pushed financial deregulation for their campaign backers that in turn let loose the worst demons of financial manipulation, toxic assets, financial fraud, and eventually collapse. In the process they won elections and got mighty rich.
Yet Hillary's connections with the military-industrial complex are also alarming. It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don't want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.
Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support "regime change" in Iraq.
Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003.
Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote, Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA:
After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: "I urged him to bomb," she told reporter Lucinda Frank.
Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.
Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: "We came, we saw, he died."
Perhaps the crowning disaster of this long list of disasters has been Hillary's relentless promotion of CIA-led regime change in Syria. Once again Hillary bought into the CIA propaganda that regime change to remove Bashir al-Assad would be quick, costless, and surely successful. In August 2011, Hillary led the US into disaster with her declaration Assad must "get out of the way," backed by secret CIA operations.
Five years later, no place on the planet is more ravaged by unending war, and no place poses a great threat to US security. More than 10 million Syrians are displaced, and the refugees are drowning in the Mediterranean or undermining the political stability of Greece, Turkey, and the European Union. Into the chaos created by the secret CIA-Saudi operations to overthrow Assad, ISIS has filled the vacuum, and has used Syria as the base for worldwide terrorist attacks.
The list of her incompetence and warmongering goes on. Hillary's support at every turn for NATO expansion, including even into Ukraine and Georgia against all common sense, was a trip wire that violated the post-Cold War settlement in Europe in 1991 and that led to Russia's violent counter-reactions in both Georgia and Ukraine. As Senator in 2008, Hilary co-sponsored 2008-SR439, to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. As Secretary of State, she then presided over the restart of the Cold War with Russia.
It is hard to know the roots of this record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA? Is it a repeated attempt to show that as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign financiers? Who knows? Maybe it's all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/hillary-candidate-war-machine
Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine--by Jeffrey Sachs, The Earth Institute
Published on Friday, February 05, 2016
by Common Dreams
Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
-------------
]There's no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy "experience" has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.
Hillary and Bill Clinton's close relations with Wall Street helped to stoke two financial bubbles (1999-2000 and 2005-8) and the Great Recession that followed Lehman's collapse. In the 1990s they pushed financial deregulation for their campaign backers that in turn let loose the worst demons of financial manipulation, toxic assets, financial fraud, and eventually collapse. In the process they won elections and got mighty rich.
Yet Hillary's connections with the military-industrial complex are also alarming. It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don't want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.
Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support "regime change" in Iraq.
It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.
Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003.
Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote, Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA:
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members... "
After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: "I urged him to bomb," she told reporter Lucinda Frank.
Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.
Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: "We came, we saw, he died."
Perhaps the crowning disaster of this long list of disasters has been Hillary's relentless promotion of CIA-led regime change in Syria. Once again Hillary bought into the CIA propaganda that regime change to remove Bashir al-Assad would be quick, costless, and surely successful. In August 2011, Hillary led the US into disaster with her declaration Assad must "get out of the way," backed by secret CIA operations.
Five years later, no place on the planet is more ravaged by unending war, and no place poses a great threat to US security. More than 10 million Syrians are displaced, and the refugees are drowning in the Mediterranean or undermining the political stability of Greece, Turkey, and the European Union. Into the chaos created by the secret CIA-Saudi operations to overthrow Assad, ISIS has filled the vacuum, and has used Syria as the base for worldwide terrorist attacks.
The list of her incompetence and warmongering goes on. Hillary's support at every turn for NATO expansion, including even into Ukraine and Georgia against all common sense, was a trip wire that violated the post-Cold War settlement in Europe in 1991 and that led to Russia's violent counter-reactions in both Georgia and Ukraine. As Senator in 2008, Hilary co-sponsored 2008-SR439, to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. As Secretary of State, she then presided over the restart of the Cold War with Russia.
It is hard to know the roots of this record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA? Is it a repeated attempt to show that as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign financiers? Who knows? Maybe it's all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/hillary-candidate-war-machine
February 5, 2016
Hillary Touts Endorsement by Drug Lobbyist, Howard Dean, Sitting Next to Goldman, Monsanto Lobbyist
‘Progressive’ Hillary Touts Endorsement by Drug Lobbyist Sitting Next to Goldman, Monsanto Lobbyist
February 4, 2016
Much of the early part of the MSNBC New Hampshire Democratic debate Thursday focused on whether Clinton was “progressive enough,” after Sanders accused her of only being “progressive on some days.”
Among other positions, Sanders pointed to her close ties with Goldman Sachs and big corporations as problems with her progressive resume.
In turn, as “proof” that she’s progressive, Clinton touted the endorsement of former Vermont governor and farther-left presidential candidate Howard Dean, now himself an employee of a healthcare lobbying firm.
He’s not exactly a “lobbyist,” but he more or less is.
Here’s how The Intercept describes him:
Dean, though he rarely discloses the title during his media appearances, now serves as senior advisor to the law firm Dentons, where he works with the firm’s Public Policy and Regulation practice, a euphemism for Dentons’ lobbying team. Dean is not a lawyer, but neither is Newt Gingrich, who is among the growing list of former government officials and politicians that work in the Public Policy and Regulation practice of Dentons.
The Dentons Public Policy and Regulation practice lobbies on behalf of a variety of corporate health care interests, including the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a powerful trade group for drugmakers like Pfizer and Merck.
Not only is Dean now a corporate shill for Big Pharma, he is actively campaigning against his own support for single-payer healthcare (Medicare-for-all, as Bernie calls it) while also playing a surrogate for the Clinton camp.
The more ironic aspect was that Dean was sitting with a man named Steve Elmendorf, a Goldman Sachs lobbyist involved in her campaign. Elmendorf isn’t just a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs, the former political operative also lobbies for Monsanto, Citigroup, Verizon, and countless other massive corporations.
More at......
https://latest.com/2016/02/debate-hillary-touts-endorsement-by-drug-lobbyist-sitting-next-to-goldman-monsanto-lobbyist/
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