CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta if having a fundraiser with lobbyists from Goldman Sachs “undermines” Clinton’s message and drive “supporters to Bernie Sanders.”

During “The Lead” on Tuesday, Podesta downplayed the possible conflict of interest and said “we’re going to raise money that we need to compete.”

Tapper said, “John, according to the Sunlight Foundation and The Intercept, you’re hosting a fundraiser for Secretary Clinton in Washington, along with several lobbyists who work for firms that lobby on behalf of Goldman Sachs, the NRA. Isn’t this the fundraiser exactly the kind thing that drives supporters to Bernie Sanders?”

“Well look, I think we’re trying to raise the resources that are necessary with respect to her positions,” Podesta said. “For example, there’s no one who’s been stronger, louder, in taking on the gun lobby than Hillary Clinton. She has a record in sharp contrast to Senator Sanders who’s voted five times against the Brady Bill. Voted to provide immunity to gun owners. He’s shifted, to some extent, we welcome that, in the course of this campaign. But she’s going to take on the gun lobby, take on Wall Street with comprehensive plan.”

Tapper interjected, “But aren’t you afraid that it undermines her pitch on Wall Street and the gun lobby when she takes money from federal lobbyists who lobby on behalf of Wall street and the gun lobby?”

“Well, as I understand your reference to the gun lobbies, the person no longer does that, that’s a good thing for the country because we need to beat back the gun lobby. And I think what’s important is that she can stand up, as she always has to special interests, to the people who are taking our country in the wrong direction, and she’ll do that,” Podesta claimed.

“But as you know, there’s a lot of money coming at us from the other side and we’re going to raise resources that we need to raise to compete both in these primaries and then if we become the nominee, as I think we will, in the general election. Super PACs are already advertising against her and they have been since Iowa. And we’re going to raise money that we need to compete.”

How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable

He's no ordinary con man. He's way above average — and the American political system is his easiest mark ever

By Matt Taibbi February 24, 2016

---snip

President Donald Trump.

A thousand ridiculous accidents needed to happen in the unlikeliest of sequences for it to be possible, but absent a dramatic turn of events – an early primary catastrophe, Mike Bloomberg ego-crashing the race, etc. – this boorish, monosyllabic TV tyrant with the attention span of an Xbox-playing 11-year-old really is set to lay waste to the most impenetrable oligarchy the Western world ever devised.

It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go.

And Trump is no half-bright con man, either. He's way better than average.

It's been well-documented that Trump surged last summer when he openly embraced the ugly race politics that, according to the Beltway custom of 50-plus years, is supposed to stay at the dog-whistle level. No doubt, that's been a huge factor in his rise. But racism isn't the only ugly thing he's dragged out into the open.

Trump is no intellectual. He's not bringing Middlemarch to the toilet. If he had to jail with Stephen Hawking for a year, he wouldn't learn a thing about physics. Hawking would come out on Day 365 talking about models and football.

But, in an insane twist of fate, this bloated billionaire scion has hobbies that have given him insight into the presidential electoral process. He likes women, which got him into beauty pageants. And he likes being famous, which got him into reality TV. He knows show business.

That put him in position to understand that the presidential election campaign is really just a badly acted, billion-dollar TV show whose production costs ludicrously include the political disenfranchisement of its audience. Trump is making a mockery of the show, and the Wolf Blitzers and Anderson Coopers of the world seem appalled. How dare he demean the presidency with his antics?

But they've all got it backward. The presidency is serious. The presidential electoral process, however, is a sick joke, in which everyone loses except the people behind the rope line. And every time some pundit or party spokesman tries to deny it, Trump picks up another vote.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-america-made-donald-trump-unstoppable-20160224

Political Operatives Abandon Koch Network For Donald Trump
Lee Fang

Aug. 27 2015, 10:44 a.m.

After investing a sizable fortune into building a political machine that now rivals the size and budgets of both major political parties, the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are seeing some of their top operatives take jobs with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

The fact that many of Trump’s political positions are at odds with those of the Koch brothers does not seem to be a factor.

Take Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, who spent many years of his career working for the Koch political network, first as an assistant at the Koch-led group Citizens for a Sound Economy in 1997 and from 2008 through earlier this year as a senior staff member to the Koch’s primary grassroots group, Americans for Prosperity. Over the last seven years, Lewandowski helped the Koch network organize Tea Party events and get-out-the-vote efforts for Republican candidates for office.

Alan Cobb, a strategic consultant for Trump, is the former director of Kansas public affairs for Koch Industries and also worked for years as a vice president at Americans for Prosperity.

Trump is being counseled by lawyer Donald F. McGahn, the former Federal Election Commission chair who just months ago represented the Koch political network during hearings with the FEC. McGahn is listed as affiliated with Freedom Partners Action Fund, the Super PAC set up by the Koch brothers and their lobbyists.

In New Hampshire, Trump’s state director is Matt Ciepielowski, the former New Hampshire state field director for Americans for Prosperity. As National Journal reported, as Trump works to develop a team to win the New Hampshire primary, he has hired multiple AFP staff, and even leased a campaign headquarters in the same office building as AFP’s office in Manchester.

Some have suggested that Koch operatives have abandoned the industrialist billionaires simply for a higher paycheck. As the director of voter registration with Americans for Prosperity, Lewandowski made $153,162, according to the last available nonprofit disclosure made public, for 2013. Now as a Trump staffer, Lewandowski is making $20,000 a month — or $240,000 a year. As the Wall Street Journal reported, that is “about 45% more than 2012 GOP nominee and multimillionaire Mitt Romney paid his senior staffers.”

Not long ago, Trump maintained friendly relations with the Koch network. He was an invited speaker at the Americans for Prosperity “Freedom Summit” in April 2014. But as Trump began outpolling his Republican rivals, many of whom enjoy support from the Koch brothers, the real estate mogul appears to have fallen out of favor with the Koch brothers.

Trump was not invited to the private fundraiser hosted by the Koch brothers last month at a retreat in Southern California, nor was he invited to the Americans for Prosperity “Defending the Dream” summit last weekend in Ohio. As many of Trump’s rivals headed to the California fundraiser, Trump tweeted: “I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets?”

https://theintercept.com/2015/08/27/koch-operatives-trump/

The Libya Gamble: An examination of the American intervention in Libya and Hillary Clinton’s role in it.

Hillary Clinton,‘Smart Power’and a Dictator’s Fall

By JO BECKER and SCOTT SHANE
FEB. 27, 2016

The president was wary. The secretary of state was persuasive. But the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi left Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven.

Part 1

Hillary Clinton, ‘Smart Power’ and a Dictator’s Fall

Part 2

A New Libya, With ‘Very Little Time Left’

(This is a very long investigative read with video, photos--but, well worth it)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html?_r=0

The Libya Gamble: An examination of the American intervention in Libya and Hillary Clinton’s role in it.

Hillary Clinton,‘Smart Power’and a Dictator’s Fall

By JO BECKER and SCOTT SHANE
FEB. 27, 2016

The president was wary. The secretary of state was persuasive. But the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi left Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven.

Part 1

Hillary Clinton, ‘Smart Power’ and a Dictator’s Fall

Part 2

A New Libya, With ‘Very Little Time Left’

(This is a Very Long investigative read with video, photos--but, well worth it)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html?_r=0

Prof. Frances Fox Piven says movements bring up issues that politicians left to themselves would ignore - and it's the movements like Fight for 15 and Black Lives Matter that make Bernie Sanders a credible candidate - February 26, 2016

Partial Transcript Follows the You Tube:

Full Transcript, Here:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15747



On Thursday night, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was put in the hot seat by Chris Matthews of MSNBC. They discussed foreign policy, the Black Lives Matter movement, and income inequality. Let's take a look.

BERNIE SANDERS: You and I look at the world differently. You look at it inside the beltway. I'm not an inside the beltway guy. I am an outside the beltway guy.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: But the people who vote on taxes are inside the beltway.SANDERS: And those people are going to vote the right way when millions of people demand that they vote the right way. On this issue I have no doubt that as president of the United States I can rally young people and their parents to say that if Germany does it, Scandinavia does it, countries around the world do it, we can do it. And yes, we bailed out Wall Street. It is Wall Street's time to help the middle class.

DESVARIEUX: Now joining us to give us her take on last night's discussion is Frances Fox Piven. She's a distinguished professor of political science in sociology at the graduate center of City University of New York, and the author of many books, including Poor Peoples' Movements, and Why Americans Don't Vote, and Why Politicians Like It That Way.

Thank you so much for joining us, Frances.

So Frances, in the clip we just saw Chris Matthews was questioning Bernie Sanders on whether or not his goals are realistic, we often hear that term, asking him to name senators who would vote in favor of his policies. Do you think of Sanders is elected his hands will be tied to make real reforms once he's in the White House?

PIVEN: Well, yes. People will try, insiders in the Beltway, certainly the Congress of the United States, will try to block his initiatives, because he is, as he says he is, he's challenging the tycoons of the American political economy.But what Sanders is saying in response to Chris Matthews is that people are going to rise in protest at the effort to make gridlock the tune of the day. And that because people will be rising, they'll be marching, they'll be striking, they'll be clamoring, that the opposition in the Beltway will have to give way. And that may be true.

DESVARIEUX: Okay. If people are going to rise up, the question always is why haven't se seen them do it already? I mean, there are protests, but usually they're in the hundreds, thousands, maybe. But we're not really seeing hundreds of thousands of people out there in the streets. What would you suggest? You've worked with a lot of movements, and grassroots organizations. How do people take that energy, who might become politically conscious during this election cycle, and really transform that into a movement?

PIVEN: Well, I think there are movements that are unfolding right now in the United States and elsewhere in the world. You know, neoliberal capitalist economics is not good for people. It breaks the promises that they've come to expect. And so people are rising up in protest. We're in a protest era, actually. Again with Wisconsin, remember all of the students and workers occupying the state capital. It spread to Occupy. Occupy took place in hundreds of cities across the United States, and it had tremendous impact on the way Americans discuss politics. And then there was Black Lives Matter which, again, has sprung up in city after city, and the Fight for $15. The Fight for $15 is a movement, and it's unfolding among workers in retail and fast food establishments everywhere.So I don't know what you think a movement is, but it's not like an army. It isn't all coalesced. People are not marching in battalions. It springs up here and there, and people rally for it.

DESVARIEUX: How do you get more people, though, in the mix, though? I mean, the numbers are significant, but they could be more. I mean, if you compare it to the '60s and those kind of eras of protests, how do you reach that tipping point where it's really a mass, mass movement?

PIVEN: The movements are going to enlarge. And partly they will enlarge because they get a kind of encouragement from the election campaign itself, and particularly Sanders' contribution to the election campaign. I don't think that if it had been Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley that we would have the same kind of intensity about the election, and that spreads to the movements. The movements here are a kind of echo of their own grievances in the voices of national politicians. I mean, notice how Sanders has pushed Hillary to the left. She may not stay there if she actually wins the nomination. But she has so far been pushed to the left.

So I think movements energize electoral politics. They bring up issues that politicians left to themselves would ignore. And it's the movements, in a way, that make Bernie Sanders a credible candidate. Sanders didn't do it by himself, as the Congressman and then the senator from Vermont. He's been around for a very long time. And now certainly he's blossoming, he's become a kind of national hero. And that's partly due to the way the movements are at his back. They're pushing him and they're also energizing him, and they're creating a kind of audience for the issues he is raising.

I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore.With the South Carolina Democratic primaries coming up this Saturday, polls are indicating that Hillary Clinton has a greater chance of walking away with the victory. However, according to our next guest, Dr. Ron Daniels, Bernie Sanders' campaign matters a lot more than it is getting credit for. Dr. Ron Daniels is president of the Institute for a Black World 21st Century, and distinguished lecturer at York College at City University of New York. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Daniels.

RON DANIELS: It's good to be with you.

PERIES: So, Dr. Daniels, last week the Congressional Black Caucus PAC endorsed Hillary Clinton, and now you've just met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC, who endorse Hillary Clinton. So what did you say to them when you met with them, and who did you meet with?

DANIELS: Well, we weren't really meeting with them about the Bernie Sanders campaign, or about the Hillary Clinton campaign. We were talking about the UN Decade for People of African Descent. The Congressional Black Caucus every Wednesday has a luncheon in which its members come together to take up major issues, and we were delighted to have an opportunity for Mireille Fanon-Mendes France, who essentially is in charge of the civil society aspect of this program for the United Nations, to have an opportunity to share a few thoughts with the Congressional Black Caucus, and there is subsequently going to be a briefing about that.So we didn't get into any politics.

These are, many of these are folks that I know. They are friends of mine, I have worked with many of them over the years. We just have a difference of opinion in terms of who is the more visionary candidate in relationship to not only black people, but for the nation. And so that's how, I guess, politics works. So we'll agree to disagree, at least with many of them. There are some within the Congressional Black Caucus, I suspect, who are leaning towards Bernie Sanders. But they've been very, very cautious and very, very careful at this point, and many of them have endorsed the incumbent. Not the incumbent, but the presumed nominee, so to speak.

PERIES: Dr. Daniels, in the article you wrote that we just cited, you wrote: “Under fierce assault from reactionary forces on the right, for decades the Democratic party has retreated from the hard-fought gains secured over generations.” You wrote that this is contained in the Roosevelt's New Deal. Give us a sense of why you wrote that and what's meant by it, and relate it to the Bernie Sanders campaign.DANIELS: I mean, the fact of the matter is for from the Clinton era on what you've had is a kind of centrist approach, a kind of center-left, center-right approach. And this is what the Clintons represent. This is what they profess to be. There's something called the Democratic Leadership Conference, and some people may have forgotten. I haven't forgotten about it. When Jesse Jackson ran for president in 1988 I was deputy campaign manager. He ran on a slogan of bold leadership in a new direction. He was talking about, you know, how to build a better society, how to hold corporate America accountable.

How to, in fact, get masses of people involved in creating, for lack of a better word, a counterrevolution based on economic common ground.After that election was over, the Democratic party under the leadership of Clinton made a calculated decision that that would not win, that the way to win in their judgment was to take an incremental approach. It was to become Republican lite. Adopt--end welfare as we know it, for example, adopt trade policies that would be sort of a free trade system, or a free market system, as the Republicans call it, and to be tough on defense. And that's the way the Democratic party essentially has been rolling, and when on key questions like privatization, the privatization of public institutions, the Democratic party has been retreating.The fact of the matter is the public space, public hospitals, public schools, public education, this is the equalizer in a capitalist, political economy. And yet under the assault of the right wing, Democrats have not stood firm. And what Bernie Sanders' campaign is doing--this is why it matters--you see, now, stretching our imagination to envision what America could be. It's not a question of what we can afford, at this point. It's what are we willing to fight for. Because the Democrats have not been willing to fight for very much. It's been a kind of holding action. Bernie Sanders is coming out clearly saying there is a 1 percent, and that 1 percent is controlling an incredible amount of wealth in this society, and it is polluting the entire system, and it is, in fact, you know, devastating the lives of millions and millions of people in the middle class and working class people and the poor.And that's why this campaign matters, because there is a vision that's involved here.

And I think that's why many young people are inspired by it, because they're tired of just hearing what's practical, what's realistic. Of course we have to be realistic. But when you have nations in Europe where you have universal healthcare, you have universally across the board in Western societies paid pregnancy leave, paid sick leave, you have long vacations and whatever, here we in the United States are made to feel as if somehow we should feel privileged to be able to work for, you know, to be worked to death, indeed by these corporate bandits, if you will. And Bernie Sanders is railing against that in a very, very effective way.

PERIES: Dr. Daniels, recently we've had a lot of very good public intellectuals in this country in the African-American community such as Cornel West and Michelle Alexander, Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic. We have also had stars like Danny Glover and others endorsing Bernie Sanders' campaign. So I guess you're in good company here.Now, my question to you is, why is these kinds of very important endorsements not having traction in places like South Carolina?

DANIELS: Well, I think it's having some traction. But the fact of the matter is over the years the Clintons have cultivated an image of being very heavy on symbolism and not very good on substance. A lot of people don't remember that. They're quite good at it. I mean, Bill Clinton could play a saxophone, you know, so he's a down guy. In fact, he came to be known as the first black president.And in some ways my friends and allies in the Congressional Black Caucus are at fault, because you know, politics is a matter of making tough decisions. We had, we supported, I supported Bill Clinton during the course of his presidency not because I agreed with all of his policies, but because all of us were under assault by the vicious attack from the right. And so Clinton was sort of the firewall. He was, that was a defensive move. That didn't mean I believed in everything that he was about. I knew we needed a more visionary politics. So that was a tactical decision. But somehow this tactical decision in the black community came off as if this man was this great, you know, this really great lover of black people.

And I'm not saying that in a [inaud.] kind of way.The fact of the matter is we've had no urban policy, you know, since the Clinton era and before. I remember distinctly during the Clinton era he campaigned in urban areas after dark. He did, in the evening, he did not want to, in fact, be seen in black communities in the daytime. That was the thrust of, in fact, what Clinton was about. And of course the 1994 omnibus crime bill, which unfortunately some blacks signed off and so forth and so on, has been very, very devastating.So I think that when you look at Coates and Danny Glover, Ben Jealous of the NAACP, Spike Lee and others, they understand that we need a politics which is far more, is stronger than that. But the Clintons are good at building relationships in the black community.

And one of the things I think Bernie Sanders has needed to do is to have a clearer, more explicit position as it relates to black issues. Black Lives Matter, you know, have been pushing him on that. Ta-Nehisi Coates raised the issue of reparations. And it seems to me that Bernie Sanders could have at least said, I support HR 40. And my recommendation was that he have, in fact, he do a speech on race and lay out his positions on racial issues, including not just mass incarceration but indeed, what would he do in terms of investment in the black community? He has a bill before Congress, apparently, that would be very effective in that regard. But he's not wrapped it in a message that would be as effective as it might be.

The 1 percent issue, certainly inequality is an important issue.In one of the debates he pointed out that during the great crash it was black people whose wealth was--I mean, emaciated by the great meltdown in 2008. Those are the kind of points that he needs to make in order to tie his major theme to issues that affect black people. And we hope that some of us, Danny Glover and others, can get that message across to him so that his message will resonate.But to me, if it resonates, fine. We hope it does. But for some young people they kind of get it.

They understand that we need an America which is much better than it is now, that it can, we can do better. But we won't do better if we only focus on what is realistic, what is practical. We need to stretch the imagination of the American people, of workers, of poor people.Let me just say this. For the longest time in the Democratic party they couldn't even put poor in their mouths. They couldn't say workers in their mouths. It was actually disgusting. All we talked about--and you know, the middle class is fine. But they were being--they're captured by this consulting class, talking about the middle class, the middle class. Of course we have to help the middle class. But workers exist in this society. Poor people exist, and they need to be spoken to. And Bernie Sanders is speaking to them, and he's asking them to join this revolution. Because the biggest political party in America today is not the Democrats, it's not Republicans, it's non-voters who become apathetic, who are in fact turned off by a system that they know is rigged.

They in their gut know it's rigged.And Bernie Sanders is tapping into that. And quite frankly I'm so proud of so many young people across this country who understand that and who really want to fight for an America which is not exceptional because, you know, the only America--every Western industrial society has healthcare, and America is the exception because it does not have these things. There are so many things that can be achieved if we have a more visionary politics.And let me just say this. At the end of the day it's also important that this energy be maintained, because one of the problems we've had is we've not had a third, what I call a third force in American politics that would gather up those who are progressive, those who are visionary, to continue to battle at all levels. For school board, for city council, for state representative, senator, Congress. All the way up. That's what the Tea Party did on the right.

They not only mouthed their politics, they translated it into a force. I don't agree with that force. But it has to be reckoned with.We need to do the same thing on the left, no matter who wins the presidency. I hope Bernie Sanders wins, but if he doesn't win we need to maintain a third force in American politics.

PERIES: Dr. Daniels, on February 11 Congressman John Lewis questioned Senator Sanders' civil rights record. Let's have a look at what he said.JOHN LEWIS: Well, to be very frank--I don't want to cut you off

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that State Department officials and top aides to Hillary Clinton should be questioned under oath about whether they intentionally thwarted federal open records laws by using or allowing the use of a private email server throughout Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Washington came in a lawsuit over public records brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group, regarding its May 2013 request, for information about the employment arrangement of Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide.

A State Department official said that the department is aware of the order and that it is reviewing it but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing litigation. Discovery orders are not readily appealable. An attorney for Abedin declined to comment.

Sullivan set an April deadline for parties to work out a detailed investigative plan--subject to court approval--that would reach well beyond the limited and carefully worded explanations of the use of the private server that department and Clinton officials have given.

Sullivan also suggested from the bench that he might at some point order the department to subpoena Clinton and Abedin, to return all records related to Clinton’s private account, not just those their camps have previously deemed work-related and returned.

“There has been a constant drip, drip, drip of declarations. When does it stop?” Sullivan said, adding that months of piecemeal revelations about Clinton and the State Department’s handling of the email controversy create “at least a ‘reasonable suspicion’ ” that public access to official government records under the federal Freedom of Information Act was undermined. “This case is about the public’s right to know.”

In granting Judicial Watch’s request, Sullivan noted that there was no dispute that senior State Department officials were aware of the email set-up, citing a January 2009 email exchange including Undersecretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, Clinton chief of staff Cheryl D. Mills and Abedin about establishing a “stand-alone network” email system.

The watchdog group did not ask to depose Clinton by name, but its requests in its lawsuit targeted those who handled her transition, arrival and departure from the department and who oversaw Abedin, a direct subordinate.

Sullivan’s decision came as Clinton seeks the Democratic presidential nomination and three weeks after the State Department acknowledged for the first time that “top secret” information passed through the server.