By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Readers, I added some more links on campaign 2016, preceded by UPDATE. –lambert
TPP/TTiP/TISA
“Corporate World Takeover Through Trade” [Paul Craig Roberts, The Economic Populist]. “The ‘partnerships’ set up ‘tribunals’ staffed by corporations that are outside the court systems of the sovereign governments. It is in these corporate tribunals that the lawsuits take place. In other words the corporations are judge, jury, and prosecutor. They can’t lose. The ‘partnerships’ set up secret unaccountable governments that are higher and have power over the elected governments.”
“The European Parliament passed a law on Thursday (14 April) that critics say could criminalise whistleblowers and journalists” [EU Observer]. “The legislation on trade secrets aims to protect European companies from corporate espionage from rival firms around the world.”
2016
Policy
“Hillary Clinton’s Confusing And Conflicted Stance On The Minimum Wage” [HuffPo]. I’m not confused. The only issue is when she’ll flop, having flipped.
“Bill Clinton’s crime bill destroyed lives, and there’s no point denying it” [Thomas Frank, Guardian].
UPDATE Sanders: “If you know that if your kid gets sick you can take that child to the doctor…do you know what kind of load that is off their shoulders?” [Wall Street Journal, “Bernie Sanders, in Personal Turn, Talks about Money Struggles”]
The Voters
“A Democratic Flashback to 2008, or to 1980?” [WaPo]. Or 1860? Not yet.
“Did Hillary Clinton win primaries in the South because it’s more conservative?” [WaPo]. “[I]f you take Vermont out of the mix — a very liberal state that backed its senator by a wide margin — there’s essentially no correlation between the conservativeness of the state and the margin of victory for either candidate.” Hmm.
California
“More Than 300,000 California Voters Accidentally Registered for Ultra-Conservative Political Party” [New York Magazine]. “The American Independent Party, an ultra-conservative political party in California…” Handy!
New York
“Sanders’s scathing Clinton attack invigorates Brooklyn crowd” [The Hill].
On the night of the New York primary, however, Sanders will be in Pennsylvania. The Keystone State holds its Democratic contest on April 26 but the decision to leave New York on primary night may suggest the Sanders campaign is not quite so bullish as it claims about pulling an Empire State upset.
The candidates have their internal polling, of course, none of the public polls were taken after a week of “qualified,” a debate, and the Vatican, so who knows? And Sanders has never been one to hang around. He’s always on the move. We’ll have to see.
“New York Times Tries to Bury Bernie With Biased Reporting on Clinton-Sanders Debate” [Alternet].
“The Democratic Contest Is Getting Nasty” [New York Magazine]. Weary, jaded reporter strikes exhausted pose.
“Bernie Sanders draws record crowd in Brooklyn as race takes darker tone” [Guardian]. Dear Lord, another one.
“Bernie’s Revolution Comes to Bourgeois Greenwich Village” [Bloomberg].
“Bernie Sanders Rally in Brooklyn Park” [CSPAN].
Money
“New Report Shows Clinton Raising Money From Lobbyists That Have Represented Walmart, Fossil Fuel Firms And Wall Street” [David Sirota, Business Insider].
UPDATE:
“As a consequence of my fund-raising I became more like the wealthy donors I met.” — @BarackObama https://t.co/kpgvBMxCvN
— Sahil Lavingia (@shl) April 15, 2016
UPDATE Clooney on Political Fundraising: ‘It’s an Obscene Amount of Money’ [NBC]. But TINA. After all, nobody could possibly run a national presidential campaign with no PACs based on small donors. Oh, wait…
Corruption
“CREW’s Watchdog Status Fades After Arrival of Democrat David Brock” [Bloomberg].
The Trail
UPDATE “Sanders had the support of 47 percent of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters while Clinton had 46 percent—a narrow gap that fell within the poll’s 2.5 percent margin of error. The national survey was conducted in the days before the Vermont senator handily defeated the former secretary of state in the Wisconsin primary, and it tracks other polls in the last week that found Sanders erasing Clinton’s edge across the country. In a poll that PRRI conducted in January, Clinton had a 20-point lead” [The Atlantic]. It may well be that the Democrat Party establishment will be able to drag Clinton over the finish line first, but she’s just a terrible candidate.
UPDATE “The big picture for Sanders is one of image improvement over time as he has become better known. This directly contrasts the big-picture trend for Clinton of a decline in her image over time, particularly in recent weeks” (charts) [Gallup].
“There Is No Bernie Sanders Movement” [Jamelle Bouie, Slate]. “For as much as Sanders and his most vocal supporters identify themselves as outside the party system, the only way a real Sanders movement can make change is to take an active role within that system.” And restating: “Sanders supporters who want to move the Democratic Party to the ideological left need to become Sanders Democrats, political actors who participate in the system as it exists. To win a lasting victory—to define the ideological terms of Democratic Party politics—the people inspired by Sanders need to do more than beat the establishment; they need to become it.” This is a message that factions of the Democrat Establishment are working very hard to push. Which would be fine with me in the context of a hostile takeover; the Democrats have a brand, ballot access, and a database. But the management are corrupt, incompetent losers with bad politics. They need to go. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Bouie has in mind.
“What Hillary Clinton told The Inquirer” [Philadelphia Inquirer]. Interview. This is important, and I haven’t seen it covered. Readers, especially from Philly: Anything interesting?
UPDATE “The Mystery of the Two Hillarys” [Politico]. This accords with what I hear, that Clinton is good in small, closed groups and terrible out in the open, with crowds. However, the hidden assumption is that one of the two Hillarys is the genuine one. Why do we assume that?
UPDATE “In its 2016 campaign, the G.O.P. is squandering the political advantages of the recent tradition of changing parties in the White House after eight years and two seriously flawed Democratic contenders. As a result Republicans no longer have a best course of action” [HuffPo]. “Between now and the July convention in Cleveland — a city that suitably once boasted a flammable mayor and a flammable river — they can only choose the least worst course of action. It is months and years too late for a best course, only a least worst.”
“Cruz Delegate Strategy Could Embolden Trump Foes in States Billionaire Won” [Bloomberg]. In other words, Cruz is running an effective delegate operation, and that could tick Trump off.
UPDATE “Trump threatens a ‘rough time’ at the Republican National Convention if he isn’t given the nomination” [HuffPo]. “Nice little convention you’ve got here. Shame if something happened to it.”
Rove’s “fresh face” won’t be a general: “‘It takes a certain kind of war to make a general a president,’ said Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University, former senior White House official, and Foreign Policy contributor. ‘You’ve got to have a decisive victory'” [Foreign Policy]. And after all the squillions spent on our war machine, we don’t have a victory so show for it. So.
Stats Watch
Housing Market Index, April 2016: “The housing market index, unchanged for a third straight month at 58 in April, continues to signal solid confidence levels among home builders” [Econoday]. “The availability of jobs together with low mortgage rates are solid pluses for the new housing outlook. A negative, however, is low traffic, reflecting lack of participation by first-time buyers who continue, in what is perhaps a lingering effect from the 2008 housing collapse, to prefer to rent.” The stubbornly sub-par behavior of the “low traffic” component reminds me of the same behavior in the labor force participation rate. Readers, random?
Shipping: “March 2016 Import Sea Container Count Collapse Questions State of Economy” [Econintersect]. The series is noisy, but down 33% year-on-year means a lot, and we’re past the strike data. (Note this seems inconsistent with rising first quarter cargo volumes on April 14, last week.)
Shipping: “The head of China Cosco Shipping flew into Athens 10 days ago to seal the privatisation of Piraeus port in a deal worth more than EUR350m, making it one of the most significant foreign direct investments into the Mediterranean nation ever” [Splash247]. “However, [Greek shipping minister Theodoros Dritsas] has thrown a spanner in the works with his determination to create an independent port authority at Piraeus which would have, what local newspaper Kathimerini described as ‘extensive control’ over the port, going against the draft agreement inked with China Cosco Shipping.”
Honey for the Bears: “It’s not Cyberspace anymore” [danah boyd | apophenia]. “But as I listened to attendees talk, a nervous creeping feeling started to churn my stomach. Watching startups raise downrounds and watching valuation conversations moving from bubbalicious to nervousness, I started to sense that what the tech sector was doing at Davos was putting on the happy smiling blinky story that they’ve been telling for so long, exuding a narrative of progress: everything that is happening, everything that is coming, is good for society, at least in the long run.”
Honey for the Bears: “Industrial Production Grim With a -2.2% Q1 Decline” (charts) [Economic Populist]. “Capacity utilization has decreased by -1.5 percentage points from a year ago and is 5.2 percentage points below the long run average…. This report is really horrific and bodes poorly for Q1 GDP.”
Honey for the Bears: “China could well become the “epicenter of global labor unrest” [Econintersect].
“A financial hockey stick” (charts) [Econbrowser]. “After nearly a century of stability, loans by banks to the nonfinancial sector began after 1950 to grow systematically faster than GDP around the world. This growth in credit was concentrated in mortgage loans as opposed to unsecured lending to businesses.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 73, Greed (previous close: 70, Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 65 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 18 at 12:37pm. Nothing happened at the 19th hole on Sunday afternoon, I guess.
Black Injustice Tipping Point
“Top Infrastructure Official Explains How America Used Highways To Destroy Black Neighborhoods” [Think Progress]. “In the first 20 years of the federal interstate system alone, [Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx] said, highway construction displaced 475,000 families and over a million Americans. Most of them were low-income people of color in urban cores. It was Foxx’s second speech in as many days about how federal infrastructure projects contribute to inequality and poverty, and how the agency wants to make up for it now.”
Dear Old Blightly
“Many railway lines in Britain that were closed in the 1960s are re-opening” [The Economist]. Take that, Dr. Beeching!
“‘If you try to explain why Germany has taken its unique stance on Syrian refugees in Europe you can’t ignore this,” [Neil] MacGregor says. ‘Some argue the policy is another way of atoning for the Nazi era. But another absolutely central motivation, rarely mentioned, is that almost everybody now in Germany in their 20s or 30s has a grandparent or great-grandparent who has been a refugee. Pretty well every German has direct family experience of knowing what it means to be welcomed'” [Guardian]. Long article about MacGregor.
Health Care
“Editorial: Let Medicare negotiate prices for prescription drugs” [Des Moines Register]. Sure. Why stop there?
“The truth about ‘skyrocketing’ Obamacare premiums” [Daily Kos (diptherio)]. Author is a Kos front-pager, and many commenters seem to be deriving truth from the facts of their own experience, and their conclusions differ from the author’s.
Corruption
“Forget El Niño — California’s coast is in danger from a soulless commission” [Los Angeles Times]. Commissions are unlikely to have souls, but the California Coastal Commission is especially unlikely.
The Jackpot
“Researchers have found a ‘striking’ new side effect from eating fast food” [WaPo].
Class Warfare
“The Panama Papers Could Lead to Capitalism’s Great Crisis” [Time]. “Voters know at a gut level that our system of global capitalism is working mainly for the 1 %, not the 99 %. That’s a large part of why both Sanders and Trump have done well, because they tap into that truth, albeit in different ways. The Panama Papers illuminate a key aspect of why the system isn’t working–because globalization has allowed the capital and assets of the 1 % (be they individuals or corporations) to travel freely, while those of the 99 % cannot.”
” The solution to (nearly) everything: working less” [Rutger Bregman, Guardian]. :Excessive work and pressure are status symbols. But overtime is deadly. If we worked less we’d make fewer errors, address inequality and have a better life.”
“The Chicago Teachers Union says the countdown toward a possible strike has begun after it rejected the recommendation of an independent arbitrator” [US News].
News of the Wired
“Like It Is: Bob Dylan Explains What Really Killed Rock ‘n’ Roll” [Medium]. Long but fun. No spoilers!
“German researchers discover a flaw that could let anyone listen to your cell calls” [WaPo].
“Landslide win for ‘Boaty McBoatface’ in $300M research ship naming poll” [CNN]. Awesome!
“The Killer Hiding in the CDC Map” [Slate]. Read this. It’s absolutely awful. More professional demoralization.
Readers, I still need to fix my fershuggeneh contact form! Hopefully noting that fact publicly will serve a lash and a spur to my endeavors. (Meanwhile, thanks to readers, who already have my email address, who sent in images of plants!)
See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And here’s today’s plant (MG):
From Malibu Creek State Park, a lovely, restful scene.
Readers, Water Cooler will not exist without your regular support. Your tip will be welcome today, and indeed any day. If you enjoy what you’re reading, please click the hat!
125 comments
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The Inquirer piece really is must read, if only because for once, a journalist doesn’t let Clinton get away with taking what is, in fact, a straightforward question and try to make it about something completely different. She does that several times in the interview, so it’s nice to see that even some in the press get as irritated with it as many of us out here in TV land do.
I added more on campaign 2016, so please refresh your browser!
“The Mystery of the Two Hillarys” piece is the kind of clueless coverage that largely ignores a candidate’s actions and ideological proclivities in favor of their personality traits in accounting for their political popularity. Particularly annoying were portrayals of Clinton as victim. I’m sure, like Liberace, she cries all the way to the bank.
Speaking of money, your tip jar won’t accept the card I typically use for online transactions. Please, take my money!
ya I had a problem too – do you have a PO Box to which a cheque could be sent? ANy favorite currency other than USD?
As I never tire of saying, Obama and the Democrats could have gotten the public option or Medicare for all using budget reconciliation when they controlled both houses of Congress. The reason it was and remains a cluster#%&@ is that they, especially Obama, wanted it that way.
yep. getting very close to crunch time in the election, fingers tightly crossed, with an eye on the future of the movement if bernie can’t overcome the huge obstacles in his way.
Bernie or not, the future of the movement is all that matters. No single person, let alone a 74-yr-old, can make the changes needed!
he’s almost an accidental candidate, he was willing to step up because nobody else had. he’s the best candidate i’ve seen in a long time, but you’re exactly right. we can’t let the enthusiasm dissipate this time.
pretzelattack @ 3:41 pm
That’s a good point and very much to his credit. I had the (perhaps gall, as I’m not a VT resident) to write him during the government shutdown and ask who would represent the hoardes of disenfranchised progressives. He likely received many such appeals in recent years, but he actually listened and took up the challenge. Officials have abdicated their responsibilities to the people for so long now it’s become exciting [novel?] when a one even tries.
Trade Deals – When democratically elected governments subordinate the people’s sovereignty to giant corporations, we truly have entered Blade Runner world. What most annoys me about this is that our corporate masters have managed to confuse a great many among the wage and salary classes that it is others – from BLM to political refugees that are their enemies rather than the elite who have succeeded in a global coups. My thanks to NC and men like PCR for trying to keep the focus on our true enemies. Thanks Lambert.
many thanks to yves and lambert for their hard work on this site.
+1. The generally very high level of commentary from readers is also worth noting, and is a reflection of the quality of their work.
I don’t do the heavy lifiting!
Check out this bit from the Obama Whitehouse blawg.
The explainer-in-chief is almost as subtle as Hillary, just saying….he’s trying, fighting the good battle for… us? ;-)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/02/26/investor-state-dispute-settlement-isds-questions-and-answers
Right. It can’t require them to change the law or regulation. It can just impose consequences and “compensation” for insisting on maintaining them.
Much as the courts can’t force you to change your behavior. They can only impose consequences for not changing it that most will find unacceptable.
Blather.
http://www.thenation.com/article/three-million-registered-voters-wont-be-able-to-vote-in-new-yorks-primary/
This is certainly timely, but it should also be a way bigger story than it is. It’s a shame that the right to vote isn’t defended nearly as vigorously as the right to bear arms. Not much of a buck in that racket apparently.
“Clinton is good in small, closed groups and terrible out in the open, with crowds”
Sure, when she controls who has access and lets in only those who like her, she’s good.
Or another possibility, the fact that sociopaths are often very charming face-to-face.
Do sociopaths usually have a hard time bewitching large crowds, or is that just because Hillary is completely incompetent?
Sigh, just an incompetent sociopath :o/
One can be a policy wonk, or a bewitcher of large crowds. But it’s rare to be both.
Crowd-pleasing politicians appeal to the emotional wants, fears and desires of their audience, glossing over details which will be filled in later by policy wonks.
HIllary, by personal inclination, is more of a policy wonk than a crowd-pleasing leader. Which raises a serious question as to what drives her lifelong ambition to climb to the top of the political ladder.
Maybe clues can be found in her book Hard Choices, for which she received a $14 million advance. Or maybe the $14 million advance IS the clue. :-0
Does the president need to be a policy wonk? Can not a president set an agenda of general ideas, and hire policy wonks to figure out the details? Is there any evidence policy wonkery is good for being president?
What drives her?
The standard answer is: I am serving my country.
Maybe Bill can tell us.
“I bewitched her. Once you have lived in a mansion like the White House, you need little bewitching.”
Except that I’ve seen no sign that she’s actually a policy wonk, either. Except at a very superficial level. Deep down, its shallow.
It’s dangerous when they are both charming face-to-face, and good with crowds.
There, we might end up with a cult figure and something like People’s Temple.
a) Of rich donors?
b) without evidence, how could anyone know that? It could be more spin to make Clinton appear warm and friendly.
Clinton is good in small, closed groups….
Bill, Chelsea, and Huma!
More likely Chelsea and Huma :o/
I believe the operative word is psychopath rather than sociopath.
iirc you are correct on that. I think a nonclinical assessment would be that family aint quite right in their heads
Most everyone is good in small groups. It’s as if we descended from some kind of social primate.
I think we still are social primates, just a bit fucked up ’cause we tell ourselves we ain’t…..
Introverts aren’t, IIRC. One-on-one, fine. Crowds, fine. Small groups, a problem. True for this INTJ, certainly.
Bernie usually does better than polls, Imo because many young have cell phones. But this group was not able to get enthused and, critically, vote because they had to be a registered dem last October (does this include new voters?). Keeping out independents sounds undemocratic… Maybe they should change their name to Undem?
Anyway, pretty pessimistic, happy to be wrong.
No. The registration deadline for new voters was March 25, 2016. See:
http://www.elections.ny.gov/
Well, that’s the key right there, isn’t it? That 18-30 crowd of new voters really needs to come out and make the difference for Sanders if he’s going to at least blunt her lead.
With Clinton’s lead under 200 delegates, now, a draw/small loss isn’t a death knell for him. If he loses by 15 points, as some polls show, then it’s that much harder to crush the Corp media narrative.
In democratic America, we rely more on enthusiasm of the voters.
For many international revolutionaries of the past 100 years, it was more about discipline. A new member usually had to prove him/herself.
So the question is whether it’s possible to have a modern revolution without party discipline?
It’s not like switching TV channels.
I think it’s only possible *without* party discipline. If you are loyal to the party you are not loyal to voters or a cause. See: Democrats, USA
I hope so,
But other than color revolutions, with help from outside, do we have any example of a revolution without discipline?
Re help from outside
Maybe the people of the world would help a revolution here in the USA. Just as Sanders has surprised with small donors. $1 or 2 from a billion people would make enough for a real impact. Would there be any appeal? I think perhaps, given the current large negative impact of the US.
California has such capable and devoted public servants that they go out of their way to get publicity and shine the beacon of their accomplishments and qualities for the rest of the country to notice. If it isn’t those tireless students of finance at CalPERS then their sun-bathing pals at the Coastal Commission paddle in to pick up the slack. We are truly blessed.
“The CDC, a U.S. government agency, discouraged journalists from asking about the epidemic’s origin, telling them that pinpointing the source, Dr. Snow–style, was “not productive,” “not central,” and would likely never happen.”
I don’t see what’s wrong with that! Isn’t that how journalism is supposed to happen?
Move along, nothing to see here.
And we could use a billion for Monsanto anti mosquito poisons, thanks!
I’m not a bern fan I did hope this might happen. I’ll vote for him in Calif. prime then Green in show time.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/bernie-sanders-has-secret-weapon-new-york
Lol. from the Guardian article
raucous?
whistlestop?
Hillary:
Basta?
Any event that attracts an under-70 crowd is ‘raucous,’ from the point of view of Hillary’s base.
I thought it was an amusing reference to the unwashed proles, bros and horny babes Bernie supposedly attracts, according to Hill’s propaganda machine.
Why can’t they get off our lawn? ;-)
bros and horny babes? Where do I sign up?
Sanders supporters are more vocal and more expressive.
People are like they when they are young or enthused.
Before the South Carolina primary, many reported way more Sanders signs, only to see him lose that state.
Again, in New York, people are sighting numerically superior Sanders signs, but the polls have him behind.
Based on empirical data, maybe someone can come up with an adjustment formula.
Something like,
100 to 1 signs in Bernie’s favor = 50/50 in polls (that’s the baseline)
10 to 1 = 55/45, in favor of Hillary.
1000 to 1 = 45/55, Bernie beating Hillary.
As for raucous parties, since there is none for Hillary, no adjustment is possible.
Hopefully, by adjusting raw data, we can better assess our field intelligence
it’s all just journalistic wordplay fun
Let’s take advantage out of that to work out an adjustment scheme.
Battlefield intelligence is critical, as is the accurate assessment of it.
The silent majorities, who may fear or don’t understand radical change, functioned as they did for republicans and turned out for Hillary. No fanfare, just go to the polling place, pull the lever or black out the circle, then go back home or to work.
Don’t worry, the machines will sort this all out for us.
> Basta?
Honestly no clue if this is right, but “basta” means “Enough!” in Italian and maybe that’s what she was going for?
I thought so.
Basta – as in, enough with your open-door policy at Trump Modeling Agency with foreign models or immigrants.
“Donald, basta!”
It’s also Spanish — “bastar” (Sp.) and “bastare” (It.) both bean “to suffice”, “to be enough” etc., hence “ya basta!” / “basta!”: “that’s enough!” (or some less polite variant) in both languages. Mentioned here not out of pedantry but because “ya basta!” is associated with the Zapatistas in particular and Latin American protest movements in general, so it looks like Hillary is “Abuela” again, condescending to Hispanic voters as glibly as ever. But will she outdo Obama’s plundering of “Sí Se Puede!” from the immigrant strikes of 2006 and the tradition going back to Cesar Chavez and (yes) Dolores Huerta?
it’s a word I associate with mafia movies. it made me laugh
so does this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqU76MyB-Fc
last stanza
indeed
Hasn’t anyone made the Mussolini (or is that Moose-olini) connection? Didn’t “Il Duce” call himself a “corporatist?” Hillary couldn’t get more ‘corporate friendly,’ unless she put the heads of the Fortune 500 on a ‘Board of Directors’ for America.
John Lennon, she’s not.
“Imagine that peaceable kingdom where the exploited lie down with the exploiters.”
RE: China labor unrest
The reason elites off-shored jobs from America, is because the unions and such were becoming too uppity. Expecting progress. Even labelling themselves progressive.
It seems the same dynamic has only been moved to china, to my unqualified eyes.
Hmmm. It’s a finite world after all.
Where has China off-shored their jobs to?
Maybe Vietnam, but only so many jobs can go there. They only have so many human workers.
Off-shored to the Robots’ Republican of Tomorrow Land? Perhaps.
“German researchers discover a flaw that could let anyone listen to your cell calls” [WaPo].
speakerphone button. I found that a while ago
Ha!
Kwatz! (that’s for those who practice Zen meditation)
I don’t know if this is a hoax or not, but USUncut just tweeted a video of Hillary Clinton talking with three young Black people and responding to the question “what do you always carry with you?” with “hot sauce.” I don’t know what else she said, as I couldn’t bare to watch any further. Anybody else seen this?
yes — it was blatantly obvious pandering…the press has written she does not even carry her own purse.
That’s actually sensible. She has Huma to carry her purse. All presidents have a “body man” (or woman). Obama does; Bill Clinton did (and Clinton’s body man was later prominent in the Clinton Foundation, though I seem to remember some Game of Thrones-like intrigue).
Hot sauce? Why hot sauce?
And, if it spilled, wouldn’t it make a mess in her designer handbag?
Maybe she confused them with hispanics.
Or ‘hot sauce’ was a euphemism for ‘pepper spray.’
It’s a reference to Beyonce’s “Formation” song and video. It’s her showing that she is hip and with it. She’s been trying to get the Bill Clinton moment with a boxers or briefs question/ saxophone playing moment to get the young ‘uns to like her like they like Bernie.
It’s very much a fellow kids moment. She does things like this and yet it proves how utterly uncool she is to the youth, yet she tries so damn hard. So much of this nonsense she embraces seems cribbed from the gossip culture of daytime television and twitter.
It doesn’t make her anymore real or legitimate to the youth, as much as she panders. Honestly, I would view this whole exchange as some kind of tell on her part, mixed with deep arrogance of the Clinton campaign prior to the coming NY vote (they’ve been insanely negative). Hubris is a crappy personality trait to have.
It’s shallow, but its about connecting with a particular demographic for votes. I remember Bush on the campaign trail in 2004 serving pancakes in a diner, talking about how everybody likes a pancake. He was just bonding with shallow goobers on cultural terms like Hillary is bonding with shallow black voters on more or less the same terms.
My first thought was Hil got her Latino pandering mixed up with her bro? pandering.
But I guess the Beyoncé vid explains it.
There is quite a bit on it: https://twitter.com/search?q=clinton+hot+sauce&ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^search
This provides an explanation to what this refers to (and the type of insincere pandering it is): http://www.vibe.com/2016/04/hillary-clinton-breakfast-club-interview/
Edit* The Video: http://uproxx.com/webculture/hillary-clinton-hot-sauce/ … and the transparency is astounding. One host literally tells her that the statement will be viewed as pandering and she somewhat “jokingly” says, “Well… is it working?”. I hit the floor.
Kevin Hart, in talking about “everyday racism,” talks about going into a restaurant in KY, and having the waitress say to him, without prompting, “we don’t have hot sauce here.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RxZ6b0_5jk
And are we really expected to believe she keeps hot sauce with her all the time? Who does that?
Maybe a KFC leg in the purse for a snack?
It’s the “is it working” that’s the off-note.
Here’s a reference to Clinton’s hot sauce from 2007, so the story is at least semi-legit.
I dug out and posted a 2008 link on hot sauce too, although I’m too lazy to find it right now. I think it’s legit; she carries it.
ok one might take hot sauce with them everywhere, but it seems remarkably out of touch with the average person whose first answer might be: cash, a credit card, a wallet etc.
Or my folding knife, tape measure, dental floss, nail clippers, a lip gloss, pens, phone and my shopping lists. I realize that I am in a different place in life, but PLZ, if there is no hot sauce, I pro’ly won’t go there.
Thats hip vampire lingo for an ampule of virgin’s blood
Oh! I am embarassed…
Anyone in NY City district who wants/ is able to poll watch tomorrow (Queens I think) please click this reddit link. https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/4fdg2x/urgent_we_need_to_be_ready_for_establishment/
It sounds like Ami Zota got a phone call, too.
“Nice little career you’ve got there…”
Press release from Sander’s campaign about joint fund raising between DNC and HRC campaign.
https://berniesanders.com/press-release/clinton-dnc-joint-fundraising-raises-serious-campaign-finance-concerns/
FEC document here: http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00586537/1064088/sb/22
Read the Inquirer piece:
Okay, the reporter is certainly a little coy and does goes after Clinton with a number of follow up questions about her campaign financing, her speeches to Wall St., etc..
Clinton gives her standard deflecting replies: No evidence of any quid pro quo. Let’s have same standards of transparency on the Republican side.
The reporter expresses some disappointment with the lack of specificity of the answers and questioning turns to how she would combat the influence of money in politics as president.
Clinton:
WTF? The reporter drops the ball here! This begs a question of why Citizen’s United is so dangerous if Clinton’s financing is beyond reproach. Is money only dangerous in politics if it’s financing the Republicans!?
And when is a reporter going to ask her if she will rule out appointing any current or former employees of Goldman Sachs – ‘cos, ya know, it might look like a favour.
Or how about asking if she might possibly be more inclined to answer a telephone call from the head of Goldman Sachs before one from some councillor from some innercity borrough – cos, ya know, it might look like money can buy access.
Or how about asking if she would rule out her, or any of her family or close confidants, leaving office and working with/for any of her campaign financers – cos, ya know, it might like like payback.
I mean why can’t journalists ask these direct questions?
Yes, if you believe you are on the right side.
Thus, 11 dimensional chess, sorry, strategizing.
“Joining the Democratic Party was the only way. We have to get their nomination…”
End justifies the means, for the good guys.
Unfortunately, most people think they are the good guys (or gals).
“Let’s omit Obama’s deeds, until we get into the White House…”
So, too, the heroine of our narrative must have enough money to get to the mountain where she can slay the money dragon. Will she be corrupted, tempted by the Ring? Will she be able to do it?
Well, if you believe, all things are possible.
The reporter also just let Hillary blame the whole 2008 crash on the Republicans, saying everybody was doing so well in the 90’s. I really wonder if these reporters are so young that they don’t have the knowledge and perspective to do anything but provide a forum for Hillary to pontificate.
“I mean why can’t journalists ask these direct questions?”
Because they do not work in the public interest. Because there is no “free press.” Because they all work for global corporate masters, including those in the “public” media, which is not public, but is a wholly owned subsidiary of global corporations. I mean I just saw a Pepsi commercial on “public” TV, for god’s sake.
There are precious few places we can get any reliable news at all; many thanks to NC for being one of them.
The public doesn’t need “more disclosure” about dark money in politics, the public needs a politic uncontaminated by the privilege dark money buys.
“Constitutional amendment.” Wow.
How to say something while saying absolutely nothing. Maybe she’ll resurrect the ERA too.
She will “lead” a constitutional amendment. How does one do that?
More to the point, the whole constitutional amendment thing is only after the court fails to change its mind. And there seems to be no timeline on how long it should be given to do that.
So “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (Skipping the first part of that line, since she lacks the excuse of being an idiot. She just hopes that others are.)
Various:
Is this the same Des Moines Register that endorsed Hillary Clinton? The Hillary Clinton who doesn’t believe in allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for all Medicare recipients, only for those receiving Extra Help?
If the Philadelphia Inquirer endorses Hillary after she refused to give the board a straightforward answer to any of its questions, the whole lot of them should be drummed out of the newspaper business.
Whether you listen to Hillary in a debate, or read segments of her speeches or interviews, is it any wonder that the more people know about her the more they dislike her? She is apparently congenitally incapable of giving a simple answer to even the most simple question. The Milwaukee Press Journal actually wrote an editorial advising people not to vote for Hillary because she was so completely untrustworthy.
i check the guardian most days (habit, not hope) and did not see this scathing piece on the clintons by thomas frank. did it actually appear?
had to do a search to find it on the web site–and it’s listed as ‘3 days ago.’ but i swear it wasn’t there 3 days ago.
mandatory reading. attacks nyt and rest of clinton-loving press.
and, yes, how can they live with themselves?
yeah it was one of their infrequent decent articles. it was somewhere lower on the front page when it appeared iirc.
Yes, it was a good article with a lot of skewering of revisionist history (“gosh, we’re sorry, we never meant for that to happen” – yes they did) and highlighting the MSM spin machine in action. It would not have looked out of place on NC.
Here’s the excellent ThomasFrank Guardian article on the crime bill and how Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton Lie…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/15/bill-clinton-crime-bill-hillary-black-lives-thomas-frank
i get that a lot with the guardian. this morning, before work, i saw an article about samantha power’s motorcade killing a boy and thought, i’ll get to it when i’m at work. by the time i got there, it was no longer on the front page and i forgot about it.
Dow 18,000, comrades: it’s back. The Dow’s May 19, 2015 record high of 18,312 is less than two percent away.
If the Dow blows through its old high, then 20,000 is an obvious round-number next stop.
Poor Dr Hussman will have to find an adjective stronger than “obscene” to describe the Dow’s valuation, as he fecklessly shouts insults and slings brickbats at the third great bubble to contemptuously kick sand in his face despite his vociferous protests.
As the late Marty Zweig used to say, “Don’t fight the tape. Don’t fight the Fed.”
The pensioners can look forward to extracting more rents from those S&P 500/Wilshire 5,000 corporations.
Sop picking on the “jahb creators.”
“Don’t fight the tape. Don’t fight the Fed.”
That’s not, at this point, redundant?
Dowd: being Hillary is never having to say your sorry.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opinion/sunday/hillary-is-not-sorry.html
Apparently her philandering husband has told her she’s a genius so many times she has come to believe it. Flattery is no doubt a key component of such a Stockholm Syndrome marriage (the key question being which is the captive).
Bill got a $15 million book advance. Hill got only $14 million.
One gets a disturbing sense that spousal one-upmanship is an important dynamic in this two-lawyer couple.
Bill never has to say to her, ‘Now, it’s my turn.”
Nor does Obama.
Like the old fortune cookie joke. —in bed
Hill why dont you go get that revolver out of thr freezer
Only Bernie Sanders can break the power of capitalism in the US
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/18/bernie-sanders-break-power-capitalism-us-democratic-presidential-race-hillary-clinton
I see Paul Mason is enjoying the freedom of not working for network news anymore!
Together, we can.
“You’re the savior you have been looking for. Believe in yourself, and together with others, we shall overcome!.”
Beware of one and only. The Great Helmsman did not save China by himself alone.
Not quite. Paul Mason has been with Channel4 since he left the BBC. Channel4 being one of the 2 main commercial TV channels in the UK. He’s currently their Economics editor, the post he held on BBC’s Newnight program.
He’s also blogs @
http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog
OK, let’s not confine our gaze to the Coastal Commission. The land use planning process in California is toxic, top to bottom. The state mandates local planning….but never mandates the plans be followed! (Could someone game that process? Read on).
Local planning, with a few exceptions (e.g. Hercules), has “use-based” zoning. A bunch concerned citizens sit around a table and try to decide whether a particular plot of land should be residential, or commercial, or offices, etc. All this occurs decades before any development. So do the locals follow the plan? At the height of the real estate bubble in 2004, 35,000 acres were proposed for plan change in the Sacramento region. I’d bet my net worth that 35,000 acres were not proposed for development according to plan….
…So the planning / zoning regime is *designed to fail* [tm]. It’s right only by coincidence, like that stopped clock.
Why would people want to manipulate planning? If I’m a land speculator, and can gain control (buy or option) outlying ag land, then persuade (or manipulate, or suborn) the consent of the locals to develop those 40- and 80-acre minimums, I can sell the land, completely unimproved except for the entitlement to develop, for 50 to 100 times what I paid for it. With 5,000% – 10,000% gross profit margins, cockroaches come out from under the baseboards to do land speculation. The Sacramento region has 20 years worth of infill development land, but still lengthens those commutes with edge city development (more proposed!) in the worst possible locations (20′ underwater floodplain surrounded by weak levees!). Why? Because money! (And if the speculators exchange out of their winnings they don’t even pay income tax on them!)
There are easy and simple remedies for all this. Form-based planning (build the big buildings here, medium ones there, and little ones yonder) is enforceable, and when it includes pedestrian- and transit-friendly streets (“Complete Streets”), can cut vehicle miles traveled roughly in half.
In Germany, the developers have to sell that outlying land to the local government at the ag land price, then re-purchase it at the development land price. Guess who has nice infrastructure, free college tuition even for foreigners, and a low unemployment rate? The arts budget for the City of Berlin exceeds the National Endowment for the Arts for the U.S. of A!
Why can’t we have nice things? Because we’d rather support a plutocracy with a boundless appetite for real estate deals that game the system. FYI, David Cay Johnston reports 75% of George W. Bush’s net worth comes from a similar stadium deal in Arlington TX. Heck, Al Davis, the owner of the Oakland Raiders has extorted stadiums from both Oakland and Anaheim. Pro sports teams have an antitrust exemption, so can charge monopoly rents. In plain English, they can extort stadiums from locals by threatening to leave. The City of London has 13 soccer teams without such anti-trust exemptions, and no one extorts stadiums, reports Johnston.
To demonstrate their unwillingness to learn, Sacramento subsidized its game-losing NBA team to the tune of a quarter billion dollars (bonus: the bonds not only make a $9 million annual shortfall in the City’s budget, the City owns the stadium, a white elephant without the team, and the team, which begged for the subsidy, is now appraised at double what the plutocrats paid for it by Forbes….oh yes, and Goldman Sachs, our favorite vampire squid, underwrote the bonds).
…So yes, the Coastal Commission offers ample opportunities for corruption, but that’s not the end of the story.
Best planner quote (from the head of Planning in Perth Australia): “You Yanks don’t consult the wisdom of democracy; you enable mobs.”
What a great comment. Thanks. Land use is a cesspit in my own small town, too. Maybe it’s a cesspit everywhere.
great comment, but minor correction: “The City of London” should be “The city of London”. The City has zero teams.
Obamacare / Daily KOS comments (and article).
Comments Section: Wow, the Daily KOS isn’t exactly YouTube, but it really made me appreciate how civil and intelligent most comments are on Naked Capitalism. It’s as if 85% of the replies to earlier comments on that article were done without reading what was written.
Article Content: claims of small increases = extreme simplification by the author. No attempt to report on changes in deductibles/co-pays, shrinkage of networks, changes in out-of-network coverage, all the information necessary in order to compare the real cost changes. When I see something so biased, my instinct is to Duckduckgo/metasearch the author to find out their agendas, who’s buying their lunch. In this case it wasn’t necessary, it would not surprise me if the name his Caiman Island account is Hill-Billy Barry Wasserman.
Got this e-mail from Bernie : There’s something I need to share with you and it’s probably going to anger you. It should probably anger everyone. Here it is:
Our opponent is bending campaign finance rules to their breaking point all so Wall Street fat cats and people like Walmart’s Alice Walton can get away with giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single contribution to benefit the Clinton campaign.
You already know about the fundraiser Hillary Clinton held where a couple could contribute $353,000 to sit at a table with George Clooney. That money doesn’t go directly to the Clinton campaign, it goes to something called the “Hillary Victory Fund” – another account that has raised almost $35 million.
Well, for MONTHS the Clinton campaign has been saying the primary purpose of that fund is to support the DNC and state parties. But that’s not even close to true.
According to the Hillary Victory Fund’s most recent FEC report, the vast majority of the money they spent in 2016 – $25 MILLION – went directly towards helping the Clinton campaign itself.
So, what can we do about it? We can either sit back and shrug our shoulders at yet another obscene injustice. Or, we can fight. I say we fight.
Contribute to Bernie’s campaign today to help us win New York and as a way of saying you have had ENOUGH of the way Hillary Clinton’s campaign is funding its campaign and super PACs.
There’s something I need to share with you, Edward, and it’s probably going to anger you. It should probably anger everyone. Here it is:
Our opponent is bending campaign finance rules to their breaking point all so Wall Street fat cats and people like Walmart’s Alice Walton can get away with giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single contribution to benefit the Clinton campaign.
You already know about the fundraiser Hillary Clinton held where a couple could contribute $353,000 to sit at a table with George Clooney. That money doesn’t go directly to the Clinton campaign, it goes to something called the “Hillary Victory Fund” – another account that has raised almost $35 million.
Well, for MONTHS the Clinton campaign has been saying the primary purpose of that fund is to support the DNC and state parties. But that’s not even close to true.
According to the Hillary Victory Fund’s most recent FEC report, the vast majority of the money they spent in 2016 – $25 MILLION – went directly towards helping the Clinton campaign itself.
So, what can we do about it? We can either sit back and shrug our shoulders at yet another obscene injustice. Or, we can fight. I say we fight.
Contribute to Bernie’s campaign today to help us win New York and as a way of saying you have had ENOUGH of the way Hillary Clinton’s campaign is funding its campaign and super PACs.
The CDC cover-up of source of the Haitian cholera epidemic is astonishing. The truth is a casualty of privatization and the deregulation of corporate media. News blackouts will not prevent the looming disasters from striking you; it just assures that you will be unprepared.
It’s just so tragic. “UN introduces cholera into Haiti by sh*tting in their rivers.” Why not just go the whole route and supply them with smallpox blankets?
http://www.smh.com.au/world/un-ambassador-samantha-powers-motorcade-hits-boy-in-cameroon-20160418-go9h1x.html
skippy…. file under – ?????
… file under symbolism that would have been too much even for V.S. Naipaul.
Per risum multum poteris cognoscere stultum
http://freebeacon.com/hillary-laugh-button/
Hillary Laugh Button
Laughing all the way to the bank.
“Millions of dollars have been given to the DSCC and other outside interest groups for it to be used to defeat Republicans,” Sestak wrote. “D.C. Democratic money is now used without asking donors whether it can be contrary to the original purpose of the contribution: not against Republicans, but against another Democrat.”
Hil-yena button was fun though.
In the Inquirer interview, HRC finally makes the more specific statement that her speeches were essentially just boilerplate in content, same as she’d do elsewhere or other ex-SOS’s would do/have done.
The conclusion to draw from that then is that these organizations like GS were paying her so much money not for the content of her speeches, but for…..something else. I would love to have seen the interviewer draw that conclusion and ask her to respond to it.
And she expects everybody to just take her word for this. I suspect if this were entirely the case, we’d already have seen the transcripts.
Don’t remember seeing this, apologies if it has already been posted.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/state-department-consents-to-deposition-clinton-email/