Hillary Clinton

[JTB]

Picking up from a different thread, I do have some thoughts about Hillary.

I really like her position on a number of issues.

I’m struck that she has not demonstrated a strong executive management style in spite of her years around the White House and in government. I think she knows better, she just takes way to long to take control or demonstrate command, allowing time for idiots to wag on and on. She took too long to get rid of Mark Penn in 2008 and it cost her dearly. Similarly she didn’t take control of the email server issue in a timely way and thereby allowed it to become more than it ever should have.

Of course, I do appreciate she has in fact been the subject of a “vast right wing conspiracy” for years. That would make anyone a bit cautious. But at the same time, it should have given her plenty of time to learn to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of her and her opponents positions. Easy for me to say since my sympathies are with her. For instance I thought her comment in testifying about Benghazi, “at this point, what difference does it make” was spot on. She might have added “asshole” to more properly characterize the numbskull Senator Johnson who was not in the least interested in understanding what actually happened. Of course, the press gave her little room for a full context of exchange in which the comment was made. She must really envy The Donald’s ability to speak off the top of his head and get away with it. Oh, wait, she’s not plying anger and resentment like Donald, Palin, Cruz and that ilk do, so she has to be more circumspect. Cue JoB, “and she’s a woman.” Yes, I think that is part of the issue.

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[JoB]

JTB

yes.. she’s a woman..

which comes with some strengths as well as the liabilities that come when a woman’s actions are judged through the lens of what a man would and could do.

this morning, let’s concentrate on the strengths of the weaker sex

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-20/the-numbers-don-t-lie-women-make-more-effective-legislators-than-men

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[JoB]

positions you might not know she is taking from the way she is being branded as a corporate tool..

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/24/hillary-clinton-capital-gains-tax-reform-wall-street

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[thisisagooddeal]

JoB, the way I read it, that article expresses that Clinton is relatively weak on Wall Street reform compared to her competition.

Regarding the Polifact article from the other thread: the conclusion is that the charges leveled at Hillary for taking a lot of money from banks are “mostly true.”

What you’re providing dampens the criticism, sure, but these articles far from erase it and somewhat validate it.

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[JTB]

JoB, I think these reforms are far too modest. As the article indicates, she’s tip-toeing around Wall Street. Joseph Stiglitz has put forward a series of recommendations May, 2014) that include those Hillary presents but much more:

Corporate Tax Reform

• Raise corporate income tax rates while providing incentives for investments and job

creation in the U.S.

• Reduce spending on corporate welfare

• Impose a special set of financial sector taxes, including the bonus tax, the financial

transactions tax, the bank rescue fund, and electronic payment system fees

• Impose taxes on monopolies and other rent-based enterprises

• Ensure that multinationals pay their fair share of taxes and have incentives to invest in

America by replacing the transfer price system with the formulaic approach and taxing

firms on their global income

• Reduce the bias towards leverage by making dividend payments tax deductible but

imposing a withholding tax

Individual Tax Reform

• Institute a progressive tax increase

• Institute a simplified individual income tax (e.g. a $100,000 standard exemption)

combined with a value-added tax, levied at a low rate

• Implement the fair tax, with which we eliminate the preferential treatment of

dividends and capital gains

• Eliminate the step-up of basis at death

• Eliminate capital gains tax deferral, e.g. using mark-to-market accounting

• Eliminate loopholes for the rich, e.g. the tax exemption of interest on municipal bonds

• Broaden the tax base by curtailing tax expenditures for top incomes

• Gradually eliminate tax deductibility of mortgage payments by converting the

deductibility into a tax credit (with an upper limit) and/or into an equity subsidy for

first time homebuyers

• Reduce or eliminate the tax exemption of employer-provided health insurance, but

balance it with a middle class compensatory tax adjustment

• Eliminate savings subsidies as tax expenditures

Other Taxes and Ways of Raising Revenues

• Impose environment taxes, including a tax on carbon

• Impose inheritance and estate taxes

• Improve management of government owned natural and other resources, including

better auctioning

In addition, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Taxation (incl Stiglitz) put forward a series of recommendations this year that would require cooperation between nation states in order to achieve fairness and prevent capital flight (a big concern when it comes to reeling in multinationals):

Tax multinationals as single firms

Curb tax competition

Strengthen enforcement

Increase transparency

Reform tax treaties

Build inclusivity into international tax cooperation.

The mechanics necessary to implement these broad guidelines are discussed in the commission’s report.

But my point is these combined recommendations get to the heart of how capitalism must be regulated if we hope to return to equitable income distribution and economic productivity. Anything shy of these measures isn’t adequate and functionally constitutes being a “tool” of the international corporations.

All that being said, I believe Hillary, like Obama, the Fed and most everyone else is reluctant to take on Wall Street (finance capitalism) out of fear. It’s understandable, but it’s not going to get us where we need to go. Bernie is at least framing the divide in an honest manner, one which may eventually lead to a more informed public.

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[JoB]

JTB

i am a realist

i agree that Hillary’s proposals are modest

but.. i would rather have a President who made modest promises and kept them than one who promised everything but was unable to deliver.

take a good look at what the quest for perfection has done to Seattle’t traffic and ask yourself if you really want that to become the national standard.

i am thinking i don’t have enough time to wait out another political cycle or two or three to make progress back towards progressive policies.

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[JTB]

JoB, that takes us back to my point about her questionable executive management skills. I have no doubt she is an effective politician, one-on-one, but when it comes to shaping and driving public policy, I’m a bit uncomfortable with her performance.

I think the decades of attacks from the right and eagerness of the press to pile on have made her more reticent to act than circumstances require. I’m not sure why she waited so long to get rid of Mark Penn and change course in the campaign (too late) but she certainly went along with a negative, counterproductive posture much longer than she should have.

I suppose we can envision Hillary Unchained and think she will act more decisively when given the opportunity.

Re Seattle traffic engineering–a quest for perfection? Really? More like a lack of technical and political resourcefulness, I think. But we really don’t want to be trying to draw parallels with that mess in the context of a discussion about national politics, do we?

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[JoB]

JTB

should i have used some other example of Seattle perfection ;-)

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[Interrobang]

I don’t vote based on probabilities of my party winning — especially this early on. I think that as “risky” as it is to go with anything but cis-gendered, straight, white, male politician, it’s not a reason to not vote for someone.

My biggest barrier with Hillary is Hillary. It’s not anything to do with her sex, or her husbands exploits, or anything other than she reeks of a character one might find in House of Cards. I’d like to see her not pander to minority communities (because, yay, we have value now??) and instead involve herself in conversation with those groups about why, time after time, we vote democratic in spite of the wishy-washy stance most democrats tend to take in defending us. THAT would get me to think twice.

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[JoB]

iterrobang

and where did you get your impression that Hillary reeks of a character one might find in House of Cards?

you may say it has nothing to do with sex or her husband’s exploits..

but impressions are created by what we hear about a person..

and what we hear about Hillary is filtered through an media bias that is largely unavoidable…

like this.. the Times article made her look machiavellian yet it was based on smoke and mirrors .. on the mistaking accusations for truths…

http://www.alternet.org/which-senior-official-smeared-hillary-clinton?sc=fb

Her actual legislative record during the time they served in the Senate together .. other than voting to authorize the war.. is 97% identical to Bernie’s.

imagine that.

Bernie fans should be grateful that the corporate media has chosen to ignore Bernie so far in the hopes that he will eliminate Hillary…

because what they will ultimately have to say and insinuate about him will bring both 2nd world war and cold war fear mongering to a television near you…

fasten your seatbelts.

FYI.. technically speaking.. although we certainly have been treated like one.. the “weaker sex” is not a minority..

we outnumber those oh so stronger fellas ;-) ;-)

instead of thinking of paying attention to women and women’s issues as pandering to a minority …

you might want to think of it as paying attention to America’s largest voting block… one that crosses all ethnic and age boundaries :)

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[Smitty]

“where did you get your impression that Hillary reeks of a character one might find in House of Cards?”

Seriously? I think that is spot on.

The list goes on and on, but the most recent example (that we know of!) is the email server/scandal. There are just oo many of these type of things to overlook. Where there is smoke……

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[JTB]

JoB the alternet piece is far too kind to the NYTimes for blatantly unprofessional journalism and staggering reluctance to simply acknowledge it. Anonymous sources must receive a basic level of identification–agency, etc— and rationale for their anonymity and they cannot possibly be construed as representing “the government.” I think Cummings nailed it.

I believe the email server issue is more an example of Hillary failing to deal with the matter decisively at first than anything else. But again, I certainly appreciate her need to be very cautious about everything, and the NYTimes article is just one example of how perilous it is for her.

As to the House of Cards reference, it’s simply an easy slur for people too lazy to address specifics. Any politician in a position of power and influence for as long as Hillary will incur the ire of those who are frustrated by the multiple failures to bring her down.

For example just whining about the existence of the email server doesn’t address the reviews and disclosure that have taken place. Saying “yeah, but we don’t trust her to be honest” says far more about the complainants than Hillary. I’ll set aside the obvious irony that the Clinton’s server was probably more secure and less vulnerable to hacking than the State Department’s.

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[JoB]

smitty..

click above link

oops.. they got it wrong

politically generated smoke does not equal fire

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[JoB]

JTB

you assume there was some way she could have dealt with that kind of character assassination decisively.

I don’t believe that’s true.

having been the recipient of more than one round of both public and private character assassination of the same sort ..

I can tell you that there is no win win way to deal with this kind of innuendo

damned if you speak up immediately and present a defense

damned if you walk away and believe that intelligent people will eventually figure out it’s just another spite filled witch hunt

damned even if all assertions are proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be false

simply becoming a target creates a false impression of guilt

and again.. from my own personal experience…

i can tell you that the impression of guilt sticks a whole lot stronger if you happen to be a strong willed woman who speaks her mind regardless of whether your message is one people want to hear or not.

it takes a confident woman with a strong set of personal principles to stand up to the kind of repeated politically generated character assassination that Hillary has coped with for decades.

i understand and admire that.

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[JTB]

I’m saying she waited too long before addressing the server issue, thereby allowing more time for the circus to develop. She knew she was going to have to speak to the matter and it shouldn’t have taken so long (unless she needed time to confirm that all State Department business had in fact been turned over for review). There were also some silly comments she made in an effort to explain her rationale which didn’t really help.

I believe you know by now that I’m saying this will all due respect for the relentless attacks she’s endured. But that history should have made her even more prepared to handle the server issue more effectively.

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[JoB]

JTB

would it have really mattered?

this was non-issue from the get-go

she treated it like one.

if tomorrow she is accused of wearing red panties when everyone knows that only hookers wear red panties..

should she answer to whether or not she moonlights as a hooker?

you might think that an absurd example but not as absurd as accusing her of doing what every other head of state has done… in fact.. if truth be known what most of the people accusing her were doing… and then demanding that she defend herself.

and today i read that Joe Biden is likely to throw his hat in the ring…

JanS was asking who i thought the democratic candidate would be.. he is a contender

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[JTB]

JoB, I tend to agree with most of what you say (apart from the riff on panties and hookers). But it’s exactly my point that Hillary Clinton being who she is should have anticipated the inclination on the part of her opposition and the media to see if this was an issue that could be sensationalized. She should and I believe could have shut it down with a more timely, deliberate response.

I don’t want to go through another presidency with issues like blow jobs and birth certificates taking up precious executive time. Hopefully Hillary will demonstrate a more commanding executive style than she has up until now. But for now, I’m not impressed and I prefer to support a more aggressive posture in taking on Wall Street as Bernie Sanders presents. Obviously either of those two will be worlds above any GOP candidate.

As to Joe Biden, he’s a really nice guy. Do I see him as offering solutions to the problems we face? No. But perhaps he’ll surprise us all an unfurl a dramatic, compelling vision for the future. If he does that, it will be very interesting.

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[thisisagooddeal]

Hate to say it, but if you want gaffes, circuses, and distractions, Biden’s your man. I like him, but he doesn’t have much of a chance.

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[JoB]

JTB

so her fault is that she is continually opposed?

:(

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[JanS]

speaking of candidates…I was asked in a survey today about Lincoln Chaffee and…I forget his name…the guy from Maryland…yeah..those two guys everyone doesn’t remember who are running for President on the Demo ticket….and I had to be honest and state that I know nothing about them because we only hear about Hilary, Bernie, and The Donald in the media…

they don’t have a chance in hell, do they?

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[JTB]

JoB, of course it’s not “her fault” she is continually opposed. But because that’s the case, I believe she must be prepared deal with the bs decisively rather than delay or seem defensive.

It all might be different if real journalism still existed on a large scale, but . . . .

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[thisisagooddeal]

JanS you’re thinking of Martin O’Malley.

And no I don’t think they have much of a shot, not just because of media coverage but also because their own party will actively thwart them.

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[JanS]

yes…Martin O’Malley…thank you…I’m sure there are people who, when hearing his name , go…”Huh? Who’s that?” and that’s a shame….but everyone knows all 150 billion of the GOP candidates…

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[dobro]

I’ll vote for Bernie in the primary. He won’t get the nomination but he will push issues to the forefront (as he already has) that are very important and he’ll force Hillary to go on the record on some of those that she’d rather handle with “politic-speak”.

It doesn’t matter which Repub wins the nomination. I think Mitt may try to swoop in at the last moment after the clowns wear themselves out. Your next President…Hillary Clinton.

The real problem is getting a Congress that will do some work.

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[Smitty]

Fixed:

“The real problem is getting a Congress that will spend more money”.

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