Hillary Clinton, Big Banks and Money

Dear Friends,

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that Hillary Clinton is not outspoken about breaking up the big banks that are "too big to fail".  Nevertheless, I was struck by a Facebook post by Robert Reich that read in part:

One reason the big banks are so powerful is they continue to dump big money into presidential campaigns. According [to] today's Bloomberg Politics (see below), Citigroup has been Hillary Clinton’s No. 1 contributor during her political career, and Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are among the top 10 donors to her current presidential run. Which may have something to do with her reluctance to advocate busting up the biggest banks – even though they’ve gone from having 25 percent of the nation’s banking assets in 2007, just before the crash, to 44 percent now. If they were too big to fail in 2008, they’re far too big now. Government regulators say they’ve failed to show how they can be effectively wound down in the next banking crisis without another bailout.

If our economy and our democracy are to remain safe, the biggest Wall Street banks must be broken up. Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are pushing for this. Hopefully Hillary will see the light as well.

I followed the link to the Bloomberg Politics article (here).  I think that these two paragraphs summarize the article well:

From her opening speech on economic policy in July, Clinton has maintained a delicate balance between talking tough on the financial industry and staying clear of detailed promises. She said she’d appoint regulators who understand that the biggest banks are still seen as too big to be allowed to fail, and she said that individuals should be prosecuted more when they go astray within their firms. Clinton argued that the government relies too much on slapping the banks with large fines while "the human beings responsible get off.''
But nobody would mistake her views for those of Sanders or Warren—who seems to relish her role as the scourge of Wall Street. Warren said in an April speech that “if the big banks keep calling the shots, they will own both our economy and our democracy.”

On this issue as well as many, Secretary Clinton wants to have it both ways.

Just on the issue of money, here are the top five donors to Hillary Clinton campaigns for her entire career according to opensecrets.org (here).

Citigroup Inc	$824,402	$816,402	$8,000
Goldman Sachs	$760,740	$750,740	$10,000
DLA Piper	$700,530	$673,530	$27,000
JPMorgan Chase & Co	$696,456	$693,456	$3,000
Morgan Stanley	$636,564	$631,564	$5,000

Here is the list of the top five contributors to Bernie Sanders since 1989 from opensecrets.org.

Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union	$105,000	$0	$105,000
Teamsters Union	$93,700	$700	$93,000
National Education Assn	$89,242	$8,242	$81,000
United Auto Workers	$79,750	$850	$78,900
United Food & Commercial Workers Union	$72,500	$0	$72,500

In the last reporting quarter, Bernie Sanders raised $26 million just $2 million less than Hillary Clinton.  Bernie Sanders also now has over one million contributions from over 650,000 individuals.  He is ahead of President Obama  at this same point in his first bid for President.  The average contribution to Bernie Sanders' campaign is about $25.  Hillary Clinton does not provide that data.

I do not believe that corporations are people or that money is protected speech under our Constitution, but money certainly talks and influences positions.  You can see who will have Hillary Clinton's ear and who will have Bernie Sanders' ear.  

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Bernie Sanders can win!

Dear Friends,

I walk around a lot in my Bernie for President t-shirt, since it will soon be too cold to do so.  I have been struck by the reactions that I get.  By far the biggest reaction that I get is nothing.  I don't know how to take that.  Do people not care? Do people think that I am crazy? Do people agree or disagree with me but don't want to say so?

The only other reaction that I get is one indicating agreement with my political position (so far nobody has indicated disagreement, but I am sure that will happen).  Sometimes it is a thumbs us, sometimes it is "I like your shirt" and sometimes it is "me too".  The largest demographic of the people who seem to approve of my Bernie for President shirt is young women.  For an old guy who has never been even close to being a chick magnet, I am quite surprised that a young woman would notice much less comment.  More importantly, I am very pleased by the number of young women who seem engaged in the political process and are intent on finding the best candidate rather than seeking to get our first woman President elected.  I was pleased to be alive and to vote for our first black President, but I did so because he was the best candidate.  I hope to be alive and vote for our first woman President, but I will only do so if she is the best candidate.

My experience seems to mirror the national Presidential polls.  Hillary Clinton's negative ratings continue to climb and her favorability ratings fall even among women voters.  Here are a couple of paragraphs from a ABC report on September 2:

Negative views of Hillary Clinton have jumped to nearly their highest on record in ABC News/Washington Post polls, while Donald Trump’s personal popularity has grown more polarized along racial and ethnic lines.
Clinton’s favorability has burbled back under water: 45 percent of Americans now see her favorably, down 7 percentage points since midsummer, while 53 percent rate her unfavorably, up 8. Her unfavorable score is a single point from its highest in ABC/Post polls dating back 23 years; that came in April 2008, in the midst of her last presidential campaign.

And this chart from The Washington Post (here) say a lot:

None of this is good news for Secretary Clinton and with more bad news on her email debacle coming almost daily, there is no relief in sight.

As for Bernie Sanders, the more people get to know him and the more they listen to his positions, the better he does.  These paragraphs from The Huffington Post (here) are remarkable.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) narrowed the gap with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.
In the poll, conducted among Democratic primary voters Sept. 20-24, Clinton led Sanders 42 percent to 35 percent. While the new poll isn't necessarily an indicator of who will win the contest, the 7-point difference shows a big change from just two months ago. In July, Clinton led Sanders by 34 percentage points, with 59 percent to his 25 percent.
Vice President Joe Biden, who is still considering whether or not to run, also earned the support of 17 percent of those surveyed. When those conducting the survey removed Biden from the field, Clinton's lead over Sanders increased -- she led him 53 percent to 38 percent.

The poll surveyed 256 Democratic voters with a margin of error of +/- 6.1 percentage points and 230 Republican primary voters with a margin of error of +/- 6.5 percentage points.

As you can see in this amalgamation of polls, Bernie Sanders' line is going up as fast as Hillary Clinton's is going down.  The more exposure people get to his ideas and policies and to him as a real person, the more people support him.  With our help getting people to learn about him, he can win.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

What has happened to the Republican Party?

Dear Friends,

My wife is celebrating her 50th reunion from high school this weekend.  So we have been thinking about all that has happened in the last 50 years, all that we have lived through and all that is going on today.  The changes that have occurred in our lifetimes are incredible, wonderful, terrifying and disappointing.  While it may seem trivial in the overall scope of the world's problems, today I am going to focus on the changes in the Republican Party.

The Pope's visit to the Untied States and his message of community, love, inclusion and care for those on the margins and for the planet we all inhabit are inspiring but also make clear the terrible shape the  world is in and how little progress we have made in many respects in the last 50 years.  I really didn't notice much but even in Minnesota when I was growing up there was rampant racism and anti-semitism.  As a white male Christian born into an upper middle class family, I was and remain a person of privilege which today is so obvious to me, but growing up I was oblivious to it.

There are glimmers of hope.  The civil rights movement and subsequent civil rights laws were a big step forward in recognizing the institutional and individual racism that existed in our country.  Those same laws also lead to the development of the southern strategy by the Republican Party that lead to Presidents Nixon, Reagan and a couple of Bushes.  That strategy of fear and division is not only still present in the Republican Party it seems to have taken complete control.

One of the things that my wife found going through her old scrapbooks were thank you letters from Nelson Rockefeller.  She worked hard on his campaign for President even going to Miami to the Republican convention where he lost to Richard Nixon.  Nelson Rockefeller was a viable candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination despite the fact that he was socially quite liberal, truly wanted to bring people together and knew that there was an important role for government to play in solving our country's problems.  I suspect that if he were running today it would be for the Democratic nomination, and he would be slightly to the left of Hillary Clinton.  There is no way that he would be among the Republican candidates for President today.

History is replete with examples of one group attaining and maintaining power by demonizing another group.  The Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt and Nelson Rockefeller may not have been perfect but by comparison to the Republican Party today, it was open, welcoming, inclusive and seeking to improve the lives of all people.  Unfortunately the Republican Party has become more and more dependent upon demonizing the "other" to maintain its power.  In my lifetime it started with the southern strategy to demonize blacks and demonizing jews and communists.  Today the Republican Party's "otherness" has grown to include Muslims, any other non-Christians, hispanics, gays, etc.  The Republican Party creates fear of "others" and then preys on those fears.

For years the Republican Party, funded by big business and ultra-wealthy donors who want to continue to consolidate wealth in the top 1%, has been able to convince the social conservatives that the Republican Party cares about their causes.  Unfortunately, all those social conservatives seem to have figured out that the Republican Party only cares about those causes to create and maintain fear of the "others".  The money behind the Republican Party seems to be unable to control the monster that it has created.  The Republican Party took up President Reagan's motto that the government is the problem to get the support of the right wing.  Then that constituency actually wanted to get rid of the government.  The money behind the Republican establishment needs government to act to help them in their quest for an ever larger share of the wealth in this country and protect them.  Government over the last 50 years has passed regulations that big business does not like, but it has also passed lots of laws that give huge breaks to business and keeps the billionaire class in power.

John Boehner was never very good at his job as Speaker of the House, but I am not sure that it would have made any difference if he were.  The Tea Party Republicans actually wanted the exclusion of others and the end of government that the Republican Party had promised them to get their support.  Speaker Boehner tried from time to time to govern and to use government to solve problems, but those times were few and far between and each of his attempts were blocked by his own caucus.  The big business establishment Republicans do not want a government shut down, they want the Import Export Bank, they want trade deals like NAFTA and TPP, they want to continue to fund the military industrial complex, they want to keep their tax loopholes, they want to keep cheap government oil leases, etc.  The big business establishment Republicans know that our country must talk to and negotiate with other governments even ones we do not like.  Wall Street is afraid of who will replace Speaker Boehner because it might well be someone who is or who is forced to be even more confrontational.

The Republican primary election base (the Tea Party, anti-government zealots and religious right) is supporting Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz.  Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush are made to look like moderates (do not be fooled, they are not).  The big business establishment Republicans are funding these candidates (other than Trump) but seem less and less able to control them as they all tack further and further right.  We should have seen the writing on the wall when Eric Cantor got tossed out by a Tea Party candidate in his primary.

The Republican Party today is a disgrace to the many wonderful Republicans of my youth who believed in limited government but also believed in the important role that government should play in helping to improve the lives of all its citizens as well as control the excesses that result from unbridled capitalism.  The Republican Party today is a disgrace to the many wonderful Republicans of my youth who believed that those who benefited the most from our country should contribute the most to the country through taxes and public service.  The Republican Party today is a disgrace to the many wonderful Republicans of my youth who understood that factual, logical arguments should be used to win elections not fear and hatred of "others".  I hope that in my lifetime, I will see the return of a Republican Party that those wonderful Republicans of my youth can be proud of.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal