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Can't quote as it's the new thread but on the rennie gibbs thing. I confess, I didn't read the link in its entirety. I've been following this case for 6 years and I was googling as a citation, not with an eye to presenting someone unfamiliar with it a complete overview. I wanted a link with the umbilical around the neck thing near the top as that was a stunning and recent revelation. I've had far to many arguments on the Internet over this case that shred my soul. Assholes and pro-lifers are quite willing to imprison a child for life for being an addict who got pregnant. The expectation that a positive pregnancy test can heal someone of addiction is absurd but common. Decades of research trying and failing to find a link between "crack babies" and miscarriage bounce right off far to many people's heads. The umbilical thing finally shuts those people up ... For the wrong reasons but OMG FINALLY! She miscarried in 2006 and was arrested and charged with "depraved heart murder" at 16. In 2014 .... 8 years later ... Those charges were dropped ( speedy trial indeed ) and the state indicated they would pursue the case by seeking an indictment for manslaughter instead. http://www.salon.com/2014/04/03/murder_charges_dismissed_against_mississippi_woman_on_trial_for_giving_birth_to_a_stillborn/ Manslaughter. When it is known that the cause of death was most likely umbilical strangulation and science has clearly established that cocaine doesn't cause stillbirths.. Per the link above the national advocates for pregnant women has records of hundreds of cases like these. There is insufficient resources to give all of them extra help. Rennie is thus lucky as she became a rallying point and was able to pay for good legal defense as well as eventually make bail. Over 70 medical organizations came to her aid filing an amicus brief with the court stating that the drug link was bullshit and providing studies showing that what they were doing causes pregnant drug users to be afraid to seek the medical help they need - which causes a lot of harm. And still she's been fighting this for a third of her life with a host of restrictions placed on her - even when out on bail you can't do things like leave the state which other people can do. And all of this with no evidence of wrongdoing. People caught with gun in hand standing over a dead body have faced less jail time and less of a legal battle than women like rennie and Bei Bei have.
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Apr 1, 2015 16:44
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ReidRansom posted:I just don't trust she'd actually do any of those things. Why not? I mean, when I think of her I think of someone who never gives up and just keeps pushing an issue till it gets done. She started pushing healthcare reform as First Lady, for example, and made it a centerpiece of her 2008 presidential campaign forcing everyone else to have a plan and ensuring that no matter who won something would have to get done. I'm serious, she is in the record in 2007 saying she was going to do it on purpose: http://www.pewforum.org/2008/11/04/religion-and-politics-08-hillary-clinton/ quote:She had called universal health coverage "a moral and health imperative " and says she plans to make healthcare "the no. 1 voting issue in the 2008 election". In the April 2007 democratic debate Clinton said that, "we've got to control and decrease costs for everyone." And She did. It was masterful. By making her campaign be all about health care reform she forced the other candidates to come up with their own plans and make promises on the topic. Even if she lost, she won. I honestly think the LBJ comparisons are spot on with her. I mean seriously people, when you guys talk about her I want to ask if there are two Hillary Clinton's and if you are talking about some other person. She can do the exact same thing as politicians you like - but when she does it you ignore it until forced to look at it then hand wave it away declaring that if something she said/did conflicts with your mental image of what you want her to be that reality is wrong and your battlestar galactica style head-hillary is right. Almost every time I read people badmouthing her and go googling for justification I come up empty or with a history of the opposite of what people are claiming about her. For example: Warren says in a local interview: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/10/17/graphic-for-senate-tax-story/lAKywM5PS185ALHfQojuzH/story.html Raise capital gains taxes to 20% Repeal the Bush tax cuts. Clinton says in a nationally televised debate: http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Hillary_Clinton_Tax_Reform.htm Raise capital gains taxes to 20% Repeal the bush tax cuts and return brackets to where they were in the 90's cause it worked for us then. Warren wants to end oil and gas subsidies. So does hillary. In fact, Hillary has voted to do exactly that in the senate http://eaglefordtexas.com/news/id/150340/what-would-another-clinton-president-mean-for-oil-and-gas/ it's on her permanent record. Who said this - Warren or clinton? quote:Tax incentives for alternate energy investments are unpredictable at best, while generous subsides for fossil fuels are still to easy to come by. Clinton. From the link above. And in 2007 she co-sponsored an initiative to get the US on 25 % renewables by 2025. Ohh we wuuuv Elizabeth and hate dat mean old Hillary! Yes we do! I know I know. If Clinton said something good and has a decades long voting record supporting the good thing it must be just a long con. It's like satan putting fossils in the ground to fool you into thinking evolution happened. It can't actually be because she is motivated by making the world a better place as best she can. The stuff I don't like about her I never see any of you mention. When you read her actual words - not punditry trying to cast her as some 2-D trope - you realize she is rather more religious than the media paints her. It's the good kind of religious, duty to the poor, moral obligation, have a decent side of oblige with your noblesse. But religion is a team gop thing so the media downplays the faith of team democrat a lot and I was surprised to see it when I started seriously researching her ( pssst, serious research means you stop reading what other people say about her and start looking at stuff she actually said/did ). Hillary Clinton posted:I realized at a very young age that I'd been blessed, and I was called by my faith and by my upbringing to do what I could to give others the same opportunities that I take for granted. I find that Jesus aftertaste unpleasant but the sentiment is a good one and her actions in public service have consistently reflected her words. I see no evidence of hucksterism in her references to faith - how could there be since the media consistently ignores it? - and her God tells her to do nice things rather than hate gays or whatever.
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Apr 21, 2015 05:59
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Stereotype posted:also the stuff about how religion is bad and "jesus leaves a bad taste in my mouth". Im more copying the sentiment and citations Religion is neither bad not good. It just is. In any society there will be a dominant religion that will claim a monopoly on morality. Assholes will claim affiliation with the local dominant religion as cover for being horrible people. The more vocal someone is about their religion the more likely they are a horrible person holding their affiliation up as a shield against criticism. Thus public appeals to divine authority - of the local dominant faith - are highly correlated to bad behavior and when I see someone doing it my first response is to try to determine what they are trying to distract me from. Additionally, people doing something because they think God wants them to are unpredictable allies. If you and I arrive to a policy position - or several - for vastly different reasons then we cannot predict agreement on issues that arise in the future. For example - building on a post in another thread-, many religious people square the circle between "God doesn't like abortions" and pro-choice policy positions by looking at the world as it stands now and determining that due to resource scarcity/poverty abortion is necessary to minimize suffering. It's not good or neutral, but it is less bad than the alternative. Or Nixon was famously caught on tape stating that abortion needed to remain legal in case the child would be mixed race. Nixon, Hillary, and I all advocate the same policy position currently, but we do so for vastly different reasons with Nixon and Hillary/random religious person being different flavors of no-choice and me being pro choice. No-choice doesn't mean you insist every pregnancy be completed, it means you are willing to look at a given pregnancy and judge whether or not it should be completed, then try to pressure the mother into abiding by your decision. Saying you want all white babies kept and all mixed race babies aborted is a no-choice position. Saying that abortion needs to be kept legal because it is sometimes necessary while trusting that the vast majority will make the "right" choice given the freedom to do so is also, at heart, a no-choice position. It is a no-choice position bowing to our current reality with a fair amount of optimism mixed in but is still at heart a denial of maternal body autonomy laced with the belief that I was created "for a purpose" and have an obligation to comport myself in accord with the purpose of what the speaker perceives to be my Creator. And yeah, that attitude leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If I was created for a purpose there isn't a human on the planet who knows what it is, including me. But, anywho, we have so much progress to make before these different worldviews would lead to policy disagreements. I mean, you have to solve poverty before it stops being an acceptable excuse for the faithful of my local dominant religion to respect reproductive autonomy ... and that won't happen anytime soon.
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Apr 22, 2015 20:29
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Unzip and Attack posted:If that excuse works for your choice as President, then you've got some pretty low standards. When I think of POTUS qualifications, I definitely think of "buys into climate of fear" near the top of my list. Take a moment please and compare the responses to 9-11 of the senator from New York to that of the mayor of New York City. Giuliani developed a manic fixation after the 9-11 attacks leading into the first ever recorded case of 9-11 turretts syndrome. He both became virulently war mongering and sought to exploit the tragedy to advance his own career. Hillary Clinton, by comparison, acted in the heat of the moment and then reflected later on that choice in an adult manner. I have never heard so much as a whisper from her trying to claim her position as senator of New York during the attack as a reason to pay more attention to her. And she has flatly admitted that with the power of hindsight she understands that she was wrong. . I picked up her autobiography at an airport shortly after it came out and have been slowly reading through it in the last year. It's plodding. Obamas auto bio was a joy to read with an evocative narrative voice and I got through it in less than a week. It has taken me many times longer to get through Clinton's book than any other book I've ever read. I'm still not done with it. Anywho, she writes this about her Iraq vote: Hillary posted:I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn't alone in getting it wrong. How many times have any of you ever seen a politician admit they done hosed up on something important with an actual admission of wrongdoing? That quote is one of the gems scattered throughout that brick - which spends far FAR to much ink on how rooms are decorated omg - that keeps me coming back to it periodically to read a bit more. Hillary posted:As the war dragged on, with every letter I sent to a family in New York who had lost a son or a daughter, a father or a mother, my mistake became more painful. But hey, who cares, right? Everyone who voted to go to war with the people they were told had murdered thousands of Americans in a surprise attack are completely the same. And people who've never been in situations like that and made choices they later regret are much better executives than inexperienced ideologues because
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Apr 23, 2015 01:27
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Stultus Maximus posted:It only counts when it's from a credible source with actions to support it. Right .... So the fact that the last time a clinton was in office he raised taxes and Hillary has said flatly that it worked last time and it'll work now means she meets those requirements ... I mean yeah as First Lady she didn't enact the taxes herself but she was part of the advisory team advocating it which is close enough, no?
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Apr 23, 2015 01:39
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Tran posted:Yes, the same candidate that claimed to have been completely impoverished after leaving the white house. Clearly this couldn't be a matter of empty platitudes. So yet again I google to see what the story is here and yet again I end up not enraged but rather bemused. In an interview with Diane sawyer clinton says: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-defends-high-dollar-speaking-fees/story?id=24052962 hillary posted:"Let me put it this way", clinton told sawyer, "I thought making speeches for money was a much better thing than getting connected with any one group or company as so many people do when they leave public life." She also charges on a sliding scale. The 200k speeches are to people like Goldman Sachs. They speak to non-profit groups for free. This wasn't what I was expecting to find. I was looking for numbers to see if their net worth was negative or not and wondering if I could find out if the money crunch was painful enough that they were selling important assets like houses ( they were and it was btw ) to see if there was enough pain that one could reasonably interpret "we were broke" as the kind of hyperbole normal people use when speaking all the time ... because normal people don't have an army of fishmench knockoffs pouring over every syllable looking for an excuse to sperg out and take offense. Instead I find that they went all Robin Hood charging the rich and helping the poor for free ( cause nonprofits can sell tickets to hear them speak and they aren't charging the non-profits ). And a conscious, clearly articulated, rejection of becoming beholden to a particular interest. Anywho, for the fish brigade, when Bill left office they were 8 million dollars in debt - mostly due to legal fees - and their total net worth was around 2 million. The speaking gig thing saved their bacon. Neither Bill nor Hillary comes from the kind of money that can make 8 million dollars in debt just go away and facing it must have been pretty daunting. Edit: apparently my phones autocorrect speaks jive. Edit 2: after they got out of debt they started the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton foundation ... Which somehow I've never heard of before despite its amazingly catchy name ( yes, that's sarcasm). All their speaking fees are donated to the foundation ( even Chelsea who can apparently command 75k for a speech and that got her name added to the banner ). They do everything from supporting school lunch programs to making drugs available to aids patients in Africa to teaching farmers more sustainable methods, promoting clean energy, etc. Go to their blog and marvel at their fiendish cleverness in trying to fool you into thinking they actually care. https://www.clintonfoundation.org/about McAlister fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Apr 23, 2015 |
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Apr 23, 2015 05:35
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This post is close enough to my above edit that it does't need repeating. To used to the thread moving fast. Also, googling the speaking fee thing is hilarious because conservative writers are dripping in jealousy over the fact that their ex-politicians can't command anywhere near what the Clinton's can. Palin is paid less than Chelsea clinton to speak and Chelsea didn't even hold office. W is paid about half what Hillary makes and Bill has been offered $750,000 to go to Japan and speak there. The free market has spoken and literally found conservative ideas to be of little value. McAlister fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Apr 23, 2015 |
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Apr 23, 2015 06:25
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My Imaginary GF posted:Bingo, and speaking of personality/individual character... A charity like the clinton foundation is a tool that makes money go away. A hedge fund is a tool that accumulates money. They are the opposite of each other. So the Clinton's charity is nothing like the Bush's hedge funds. Furthermore, working 30 hours a week ( per tax filing link below ) for a charity is nothing like owning a hedge fund - an activity requiring no work at all. While Chelsea Clinton may be the director of her parents charity, she isn't making bank there financially ( spiritually it's probably very fulfilling ). Take a moment before you follow this link to their tax filings and try to guess what Chelsea's foundation salary is. It's on page 8. http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2012/311/580/2012-311580204-09d3e966-9.pdf Were you right? Did you guess zero dollars? Cause that's how much the foundation pays chelsea. Nothing. The ceo makes a friendly $385k a year but the clinton daughter is paid nothing. Family businesses are always crappy with regards to child labor, no? In fact, when you remember that proceeds from Chelsea's speaking engagements ( up to 75k a speech ) are donated to the foundation you realize that she is paying to work there rather than being paid. Now one could pull their tin foil hat tightly around their ears at this point and speculate that Chelsea dips into the foundation's petty cash and steals office supplies ... But wouldn't it be easier to just keep her speaking fees and not work there? Maybe put that money into a hedge fund instead of a charity? Also NBC pays Chelsea 600k a year to be a contributor so she's not exactly hurting for cash. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/chelsea-clinton-nbc-600-k-salary-107827.html. Oh, and if you like Terry McAuliffe you may have noticed that he also works for the Clinton foundation for no salary.
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Apr 24, 2015 06:24
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Trabisnikof posted:That's more of the Clinton Cash "reporting." Also as that article points out, there's not any evidence linking the donation to the Clinton Foundation to the nuclear deal. Here is a dissection of the BS: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/04/24/fox-news-baselessly-blames-hillary-clinton-for/203404 9 separate agencies approved the deal, including the Department of Defense, the Treasury, and the Department of Energy. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Hillary was personally involved in that issue as all documentation of it shows mid level beaurocrats handling it. Outside of the 9 agencies it also had to be approved by the nuclear regulatory commission at the federal level and an equivalent commission at the state level in Utah. And central banks have ties with everyone in a country who has money. So if a Russian central bank pays Bill to come speak you now have one degree of separation between the Clintons and a significant chunk of the Russian population. That's like a conspiracy theory wildcard speaking event. Weapons grade tinfoil there. And lastly, you'll note that while complaining that the Clinton foundation didn't disclose donations to the public our huckster --- um author --- also fails to disclose his source of information about the alleged donations. So while the speaking engagement is verifiable the claims of direct donations aren't. And that's where things stop making sense. If you are paying through direct deposit why hold a farcical speaking event to launder the money? And if you are paying through deniable intermediaries why not pay it all that way? To split the payments between two methods incurs all the downsides of both. It's just dumb. Right, I forgot, through a constant shifting of rhetorical focus Clinton is both a mastermind and an idiot.
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Apr 25, 2015 00:38
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DaveWoo posted:Man, POLITICO's starting to get a little desperate in finding ways to sneer at Hillary: Wait, I'm confused, is she a big spending liberal or a penny pinching conservative? I can't keep track when the accusations change so fast.
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Apr 25, 2015 00:54
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:1) Hillary, and all presidential candidates, don't tend to deviate far from the center of the party. She will probably represent the center-left of the 2016 Democratic party, which will be well to the left of the general public, but not exactly as far as most activists are going to want her to go. I agree, but I would argue that she is personally to the left of her own campaign and is pulled toward the center by pragmatism - that being center-left is her compromise position. And that she has worked for decades cultivating friendships across the party lines that defray point #4. My opinion is partly due to things like being for healthcare reform before it was cool and the delicate inroads she is currently making towards universal daycare ( which honestly have me all excited ... The last time a universal daycare bill got passed Nixon was president and he vetoed it ) and partly because the leadership styles of women differ from the leadership styles of men so her actions should be interpreted differently. I am not for a moment saying that the difference in leadership methodologies is innate or represents a biotruths male/female difference. But we live in a sexist society and if women use leadership styles reserved for men they blow up in our faces. Any rational being in a society where following their orders is perceived as lowering your social status ( bossy / pussywhipped / etc ) will adopt a "lead from behind" or mediation based approach that avoids things like simply giving orders but instead uses consensus building or other indirect strategies. If you are a member of a group that it is socially acceptable to publicly interrupt ( http://m.asq.sagepub.com/content/56/4/622.short ) then you save your controversial statements for one-on-one discussions and get everyone on the same page before you speak to the group - and in that process you broker compromises meaning the final proposal isn't necessarily what you started with. If you don't you'll be interrupted all the time and then perceived as an incompetent boss because you are interrupted all the time. which signals a lack of respect and good bosses are respected. Which is why that study above shows that men address the group more often as they gain power while women don't - however many studies show that female leaders engage in massively more one on one conversations. Clinton detractors love to complain about mutually contradictory things so among sufferers of clinton derangement syndrome she is simultaneously to masculine in her style - marching around and giving orders in a most unfeminine and unnatural way - while they also make hay complaining about perfectly normal feminine leadership traits ( back room deals! Lack of transparency! Private conversations! What is she hiding?!?!? She's always talking 1-on-1 with republicans and being friendly with them!!! ). A common complaint is about the lack of public debate in "team Hillary" and the accusation that she silences debate through threats of horrible retribution is frequent. This is a very dramatic and sinister interpretation of perfectly normal and well documented behavior patterns. Female leaders engage in a lot of one-on-ones when hammering out compromises and acting as mediators between different factions. Basically, what Obama tried to do by stepping up and proposing a reasonable compromise is what women leaders routinely do - just women do a hell of a lot of legwork first to get enough people behind the compromise that by the time they propose it its fait accompli. Obama skipped the necessary pre-work and sought to lead from the front with compromise ... Which backfired spectacularly because the masculine leadership style requires that you open discussion asking for as much ( or more ) than you want and negotiate from there. The inspired speech is the start of the process for male leaders while in the feminine leadership mode the public proposal is the end of the process. Because Obama made a big deal about being a unifier people understood that when he proposed a compromise he was offering policy to the right of his preference and automatically left-shift when thinking about Obama the person. Most people don't do that for Hillary but they should because it is a natural consequence of our society forcing women into a more indirect leadership mode. McAlister fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Apr 25, 2015 |
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Apr 25, 2015 16:02
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Luigi Thirty posted:So does that mean Carly Fiorina will be a good president? Nope. It's saying that the effective female leaders are forced by society to this style of operating and you should evaluate their actions in accordance with that. Women who don't do it are perceived as poorer leaders than men who do the exact same things. Carly, as I understand it, was partially screwed because the ink was already dry on horrible choices like the sale of profitable divisions before she stepped up but also tried to lead in the masculine mode ... Which causes people to dislike female leaders and perceive them as incompetent even when things are going well. There are ample studies on the phenomena if you fire up Google. The woman acting as mediator/leader could be to the right of the compromise she proposes as easily as to the left. And she could be engaging in blackmail one on one. But the pattern itself of private discussions followed by a public compromise proposal accepted with a minimum of pushback isn't indicative of anything. Clinton is on record pushing left wing initiatives so we can conclude that she personally is to the left of the compromises she proposes. It's much harder to infer anything about her one on one negotiating tactics because we don't see them.
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Apr 25, 2015 16:21
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Joementum posted:I do have concerns about the administrative effectiveness of a potential Hillary Clinton presidency, because she and Bill have a long history of valuing loyalty far above competence in their associates. No leader is immune to this (see: Daley, Bill; Miers, Harriet), but it's the norm, not the exception, with the Clintons and led to a chaotic first two years for Bill in the White House (his transition team is considered one of the worst ever) and a poor campaign in 2008. The campaign is doing their best to show they haven't succumbed to that temptation this time, but the pressure from their allies has only just begun. I bolded an important tiny clause up there. The wonderful thing about human beings is that most of us learn from experience. There is a story told frequently in business settings by upper level people that goes something like this: When the executive was younger they hosed up bad. They thought they'd be fired. They weren't. They were dressed down throughly but didn't get demoted or let go. They're boss explained that the reason they aren't getting the boot is because there is a word for their spectacular gently caress up. Experience. And that is why the executive today isn't firing you after your horrible mistake. Now that you are more experienced they can trust that you won't gently caress up again. If you do repeat your mistakes that's a different story, but the first ones free. One of the ways in which subtle/structural discrimination occurs in society is that out-groups aren't given the chance to learn from experience. Any mistake they make is held against them forever as if having made it once it is inevitable that they will make it again and again. Are you completely sure that you are not doing this? In your own post you noted that those problems only dogged the first two years of a presidency that lasted rather longer than two years. Furthermore, isn't the general consensus in Hillary 2008 campaign that the problems were due to her attempt to emulate Lincoln's "team of rivals" and encourage a wide diversity of opinions that backfired by creating to much internal strife? Also something I expect she has learned from? To close, I dog eared a page in her book over a year ago because there was a quote in it I knew would come in handy: Hillary posted:Learn to take criticism seriously, but not personally. Your critics can actually teach you lessons your friends can't or won't. Page 179, Hard Choices.
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Apr 25, 2015 18:42
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Dr. Tough posted:*does not apply to rank and file employees The fact that this treatment is not extended to out-groups is precisely my point, yes. And Clinton is clearly an out group here as evidenced by the general willingness to believe/repeat negative assertions without evidence and the general forum endorsement of Obama over Hillary in 2008 which involved a fair amount of mudslinging at her.
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Apr 25, 2015 19:36
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AndDr. Tough posted:Hilary is not a member of an "out group". She's a wealthy former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State. The People spreading awful rumors about her are her political enemies so what they're doing is hardly surprising. I set my goal posts carefully and I'll thank you not to move them about. This is a left wing forum where "eat the rich" is said only half jokingly. She is an out group here. Which is why when you guys bemoan her it's mostly tone arguments or hand waving about how she shouldn't be given credit for good thing X because she's really a horrible selfish money grabber who is just pretending to be a caring person.
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Apr 25, 2015 19:51
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Joementum posted:The poor transition that began Bill's first term led to a series of crises that contributed significantly to the Republican takeover in '94 and caused Clinton to pivot to the right in '96. It had real consequences that lasted throughout his time in the White House. Mistakes often have real consequences. And you are countering an argument that I didn't make. My entire point was that in order to have something worthy of concern you must not simply state that a mistake was made but also show that no lessons were learned from it. When you indicate that they cleaned up their act in the same post that you describe the mistake you are doing the opposite of that so your case that I should be concerned here is not convincing. Not many people get a second chance to have a transition ... Did historic presidents that had non-consecutive terms do better or worse in their second transitions? Why should prior experience not give Clinton an advantage here? Joementum posted:The "team of rivals" metaphor was used to describe the Obama transition, not Hillary's campaign, I disagree. From outside the political junkie sphere the "Team of Rivals" description was everywhere to refer to a book published about Lincoln on the best seller list ( and my nightstand - also a slog btw ). It was a popular meme used to apply to everything and both candidates latched onto its popularity in different ways seeking to gain credibility be assuring people that they invited many points of view. Because clinton lost there was a fair amount of scapegoating going on - as always happens when a group of humans loses - and in post mortem books about her campaign the conclusion was that they worked against each other rather than with each other and Clinton didn't reign them in adequately. The book I got that impression from was recommended on this forum possibly by you Joe. They may or may not have used the catchphrase, but they were certainly giving the strategy a try. Joementum posted:Have they learned from these experiences? As I mentioned, the early evidence from the setup of her campaign this year suggests that they have. Podesta and Mook are aggressively leaking internal memos that say they won't tolerate infighting. So why bring it up? I mean, you didn't mention it as a footnote in a list of concerns, you made the focus of your entire post nebulous concerns about a situation that you acknowledge the evidence suggests is clearly in hand.
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Apr 25, 2015 20:56
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radical meme posted:Hillary is not going to get a chance to do anything in office anyway. Her first two years will be like the last six, 2010-2016, of Obama's presidency. She'll have a Republican House and probably a Republican Senate so judicial and other appointments are going to be the only thing she actually gets to do; other than continuing the trend of governing by executive order. This is where I think popular wisdom on D&D is getting it completely wrong. I haven't posted much here but my reg date is in the early 2000's and I'm fairly certain I did post a few times here among other forums about why I thought both Obama and Hillary were great candidates but supported Hillary in the primary. If someone with a fancier account than me can dig in my post history you'll probably find some posts on the subject ( and I hope 2008 me doesn't embarrass now-me if someone does ). My prediction was that Obama was climbing to high to fast and that this represented a bad combination of inexperience and lack of connections. Presidents tend to come from either a governor's mansions or the senate. Each track has its own advantages and weaknesses. If they are ex-governors they have executive experience they can transfer to their new job but lack connections/relationships that make things smoother. If they are ex-senators they have a wealth of connections and collegiality to smooth things over as they adjust to an executive role. Obama was effectively neither. Obama had never held an executive office and was a senate freshman in 2007. On top of that, everything I read indicated he wasn't spending his time in the senate to good effect by networking. He was described as a "loner" in the senate not just by political opponents but also by fellow democrats. Which was really weird given how charismatic he is in speeches but all accounts from all sources I've found agree that he did not apply his charisma to his fellow senators. To skip this antisocial newbie over all the long serving senators to the big chair that they all dream of ... well even if he weren't black that comes with a host of problems. Racism certainly added a vile flavor to the mix but the real poison would be/was professional jealousy. My argument then - and now - was that this double penalty would/did cause a ridiculous amount of gridlock. Above and beyond inevitable political theatre, being cut to the head of the Senate line outraged a lot of people Obama needed to be able to work with. Obama needed to serve longer in the senate both to build professional relationships and to pay his dues like everyone else. I feel that the passage of time has born out my predictions. Hillary is the complete opposite of Obama. Instead of a double penalty she has a double bonus. She has both paid her dues/networked in the senate and also had a lot of second hand executive experience first as First Lady of Arkansas and then as First Lady proper. The personal animosity that Obama had to deal with simply isn't there for Hillary. And that animosity - not racism - is what keeps the non-tea party republicans from being able to work with Obama. The TP republicans are newbies themselves so have no networks and yeah, racism/sexism will remain the driving forces there. But they are a minority that the rest of the GOP doesn't like. Hillary can work with that in a way Obama simply couldn't. I propose a simple test of my hypothesis. Open two browser tabs and in one Google "republicans praise Obama" and in the other "republicans praise Hillary". Compare and contrast. I just did the Google test and I found more praise for Obama than I expected but it was mostly in the form of backhanded insults for policy, not for Obama the person. So Obama gets the occasional "ok, he didn't gently caress that one up completely", while Hillary gets a lot of "I disagree with her on a lot of things ... but she's very smart and I like her as a person" from her republican co-workers. Scott brown even had a "scandal" where he said things that were too nice and had to clarify that of course he disagreed with all her policies, he just meant she was a friend - misguided sure but a nice person. That matters. Good will makes a big difference. If your coworkers personally resent you - you end up with Obama's presidency. And cue the tin foil hats worrying that she's a crypto right winger because she followed vile rat's basic diplomacy advice of being nice to people you have to work with. http://patdollard.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/31-hillary-clinton-john-mccain.jpg radical meme posted:edit: I'm just hoping the Democrats can get enough seats in the House and Senate to support her vetoes I do too. Which is why this whole, "to cool to like Hillary" thing bothers me. The best way to get a wave election is to get people excited.
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Apr 26, 2015 00:13
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Armani posted:I love your posts, McAlister. Thanks for all of this. Thank you for reading. I have some painting to finish while the light is still good but I'll try to continue this tomorrow.
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Apr 26, 2015 00:27
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Joementum posted:You can disagree all you like, but you're wrong. The "team of rivals" meme from 2008 was explicitly about (and disseminated by) the Obama transition team to highlight his willingness to work across ideological boundaries, chiefly his (poor, as it turned out) decision to retain Robert Gates. Ok, someone you don't like is offering her substantial aid and you are worried they will be elevated to somewhere they can do damage. My claim is that she is savvy enough at this point to know what sinecures are for. How do we test these competing claims? Well, she spent a fair amount of time as Secretary of State during which she got to make direct appointments. If she hasn't learned to shuffle off loyal idiots who earned a treat into sinecures while ensuring that real jobs go to the competent ... Well that would be an ample opportunity to display it. Do you have any examples of this from her tenure at State?
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Apr 27, 2015 15:50
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evilweasel posted:I think this has a lot of merit, but I think you overstate the effect that it had on Obama's relationship with Republicans. However one of the more significant problems he's had has been somewhat poor relationships with Democratic legislators and I think you've got a finger on part of that problem: he's a Democratic president but a lot of those people are not on the good terms with Obama that you'd think they'd be. I was focusing mostly on the republicans but yeah, the effect would be even worse for fellow democrats as he is also hopscotching over them in the democratic hierarchy and he needs established relationships with Dems too. evilweasel posted:However when it comes to Republicans, I think there might be some personal animosity there but it's more driven by their base. Eh, Political theatre is not political reality. Think of it in terms of early arguments about freedom of religion. You can legislate a religion all day but you can never force anyone to believe in it. You can force actions, but not thoughts. Ergo any attempt to legislate belief is unenforceable. If I hold a shindig to promote a bill about expanding veterans benefits that I wrote ... and Hillary Clinton is the only senator who shows up from either party ... And we work together to whip the votes to pass this bill ... That sort of thing has an effect. I now owe a personal debt to Hillary. She did stuff like that for years in the senate. She'd keep an eye out for a republican who wanted to do something good and reach across the aisle to help. And plenty of the praise I mentioned predates 2007 so it could not have been uttered to influence the primary. evilweasel posted:Part of what makes the Tea Party powerful in the Republican party is their willingness to primary Republicans who are not 'pure' enough, ... Those reasonable Republicans cannot afford to let up on the gridlock because someone will jump in and try to primary them if they try. All that is necessary for that is to check off the latest purity test items. The GOP has gone much, much, further than that. Blocking reasonable or even right leaning nominations for low profile jobs that their base has never even heard of ... These win no red meat points. For example, when Ted Cruz slipped up and gave them something like 75 confirmations did the GOP base vilify him? Did they know or care what those nominations were for? No. They did not. The day to day turning of the gears of beurocracy are well below the public's attention threshold. Or anonymous holds. If I am doing something to stroke the base only, not for myself, then I'm not going to do it anonymously. Anonymity literally defeats the point. It's great for advancing a personal vendetta, not for grandstanding. evilweasel posted:She's also not been a political figure since 2008, which matters: Agreed, only 47 senators currently in service were her peers. She would have been stronger in this respect in 2008. But that's enough to stop filibusters of day to day basic stuff. evilweasel posted:I think that once she's a candidate and possibly a president, the base will get just as primed against her as they are against Obama now. Agreed. Such has always been the case. Obama was an aberration because in his case political theatre and political reality intersected. evilweasel posted:I don't think that personal relationships with legislators would have significantly changed the dynamic of gridlock though: Off the top of my head, wasn't Lieberman the deciding vote that stopped the Medicare for all bill? And wasn't his stated reason that Obama liked it to much/screw Obama? Lieberman and Hillary are good friends. You don't think she could have talked him around? Cause I'd love to have the option of enrolling in Medicare as well as private plans. It has the highest customer satisfaction, the largest network, and the addition of my young healthy self to its roles would be a net positive for its finances. It's win win. Although that is getting into what ifs and if wishes were fishes ....
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Apr 29, 2015 01:25
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On Terra Firma posted:I could be wrong, that a lot of those people think arming every day people is good for everyone. If they fully believed that, what would happen if they pushed for that in cities as well as far as what everyone in that group thought? I don't think anyone supports arming anyone. Arming people costs money. I've never met a gun advocate who is interested in parting with money to arm someone other than themselves or a personal friend. /Shrug
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Apr 30, 2015 04:08
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Side note for a post a bit ago from Joementum and the "Team of rivals" thing because a shower thought lead me to remember where I heard it first. Gail Sheehy started referring to Hillary's campaign team as a "team of rivals" in a vanity fair piece in 2008. She considered them to be a bunch of "brilliant, egocentric, men" who were unable to work well together because they kept trying to outdo each other and stated that clinton thought their competition would provide the best possible ideas - everyone was praising Lincoln at the time so she was hardly unique in trying this out. It caught on and was quoted in many places including the book about her campaign I read later. It's not an either/or thing. It's both. Edit: overzealous autocorrect. McAlister fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Apr 30, 2015 |
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Apr 30, 2015 06:47
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zoux posted:
What if we've all got it backwards? What if her conflict of interest vis a vi the Clinton foundation primarily manifested by using the state department to retaliate against people who hosed with the charity? =P In all seriousness, conflicts of interest are a thing. But the form they take depends on your motives. Clinton detractors assume a personal greed motive despite no indication that clinton has unmet material desires. They ignore altruistic "save the planet" motives despite Hillary's words and actions that show she harbors those motives. If you sincerely believe that climate change is a huge problem - so much so that you've spent tens of millions of your own dollars to reforest Africa/sequester carbon - then there would be a temptation to lean on people officially if they are interfering with your sequestration projects. From Hillary's recent speech to the league of conservation voters: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/12/04/this-one-hillary-quote-about-climate-change-is-very-very-important/ Hillary Clinton posted:You pushed for and rallied behind President Obama’s use of the Clean Air Act to set the first ever federal limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants, which are driving the most dangerous effects of climate change. As you know so well, power plants account for about 40 percent of the carbon pollution in the United States, and therefore must be addressed. And the unprecedented action that President Obama has taken must be protected at all cost. It's also logically consistent with her position on nuclear energy though she proceeds with prudent caution in her rhetoric given that that's an emotional issue for many. http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2007/03/senator-hillary-clinton-on-nuclear.html?m=1
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Apr 30, 2015 14:49
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