War v. Peace, Status Quo v. Real Change and Obfuscation v. Transparency

Dear Friends,

The debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders last night could not have done a better job of highlighting the choice that we have between these two candidates and their policies, opinions and positions.

War v. Peace

On foreign policy, except for a short discussion about NATO where the candidates are in basic agreement, the Middle East was the focus.  Senator Sanders laid out a very clear and articulate position that acknowledged the right of Israel to exist in peace and security, but also acknowledged the same right for the Palestinian people.  Senator Sanders made it clear that the Israeli  response to the latest conflict in Gaza was an over-reaction by Israel.  Secretary Clinton refused to acknowledge that Israel over-reacted.  You cannot achieve peace between Israel and Palestine until you acknowledge the atrocities on both sides.  Senator Sanders' approach is the only one that has any chance of bringing peace.

With respect to Syria, Secretary Clinton, who has frequently chastised Senator Sanders for criticizing President Obama, laid the blame for the Syrian situation on President Obama because he did not take her advice to more aggressively arm the "friendly forces" fighting against Assad and establishing a no-fly zone which virtually all experts say would lead to more US troops fighting in Syria.  She also refused to take any responsibility for the debacle in Libya.  President Obama has said that one of the biggest mistakes of his Administration was not planning for what happens after Gaddafi is deposed.  Secretary Clinton refused to accept any responsibility even though she was a strong proponent within the Obama Administration for regime change in Libya.  She blamed the Libyan people for failing to take her advice and accept American troops in Libya.

We have a clear choice - Secretary Clinton, a clear hawk or Senator Sanders, a thoughtful person who will acknowledge reality, seek peace and use force only as a last resort.

Status Quo v. Real Change

On issue after issue, it is clear that Secretary Clinton supports the status quo, with only incremental changes, and it is equally clear that Senator Sanders believes we need big and substantive changes now.  This difference represents a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.  When Secretary Clinton says that Senator Sanders is not a real Democrat, what she means is that he is not part of the move to the right, Republican light, Democratic Party establishment founded by her husband.  There is a great sentence going around the internet - "There is only one moderate Republican running in this election, and she is running as a Democrat."  I have said before that President Obama is about as far right as President Eisenhower was.  Secretary Clinton is clearly to the right of President Eisenhower particularly on the use of force.  President Bill Clinton formed an unholy alliance with big business.  Secretary Clinton will continue that alliance.  Senator Sanders will break up that alliance.

Secretary Clinton claims that she wants to get to universal healthcare coverage but has only plans to add an incremental number of people and attacks Senator Sanders' plan for Medicare for all.  She says he would throw out Obamacare which is not true.  He would keep Obamacare until the Medicare for all was in place.  She wants incremental change and calls it pragmatism.  She says she supports the movement for a $15 minimum wage, yet she refuses to support Senator Sanders' bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 instead she supports a competing bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour.  She claims that she wants to protect the economy from another melt down but continues to fight against breaking up the big banks even though they are bigger now than before the great recession and the Fed and FDIC have recently called them too big.  She continues to say we should regulate them but, in an implicit criticism of President Obama, says that she would be tougher.  However, she fails to acknowledge that the big banks have successfully stalled on developing "living wills" for more than five years.  She says that she stood up to the big banks before the great recession but fails to acknowledge that she completely failed in changing their behavior.  The time has come to stop coddling the big banks and break them up.

She uses the overturning of the Citizens United case as one of her two litmus tests for any Supreme Court nominee and states that big money is corrupting our political system but refuses to acknowledge that it has any impact on her.  Apparently she is immune to all the pressures that other politicians are not immune to.  She cannot answer the simple question of why she will not release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Wall Street.  Her only response is that she will not release them unless everybody does, obviously including all Republican candidates.  Senator Sanders has not made closed door speeches to Wall Street.  The only logical conclusion that I can reach is that she would be embarrassed by those speeches if the transcripts became public.

The most important area where Secretary Clinton's incremental only approach to change cannot be accepted is with respect to climate change.  With every new report we are closer to a cataclysmic tipping point than was previously thought.  The time for incremental action has passed.  We need big change now.  Senator Sanders would ban fracking, would ban further drilling on federal lands, would place a tax on carbon and would focus completely on moving to sustainable, renewable energy.  Secretary Clinton promoted fracking around the world as Secretary of State, she refuses to say she would ban fracking, she refuses to say she would stop drilling on federal lands, and she refuses to say that she would support a carbon tax.  She says we need to move to sustainable energy but will do it in a "practical" and "possible" way, which is to say with small incremental steps.  That approach will destroy the earth for my grandchildren and is unacceptable.

Of course the debate was full of moments when Secretary Clinton obfuscated the facts while Senator Sanders was transparent about his positions.  While saying she would fight climate change, she refused to indicate immediate actions she would take that would have a significant impact, while saying she supports a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, she actually supports a move to $12 per hour, while claiming she supports Senator Sanders' policy of extending the life of the social security trust fund she refuses to support raising the income cap on social security taxes or endorsing any other particular approach, while saying she would be tough on the big banks, she refuses to support doing anything more than have the regulators be "tough" which has failed miserably so far and while saying she will work for peace between Israel and Palestine, she refuses to acknowledge the Israeli atrocities only the Palestinian ones.

She also continues to distort Senator Sanders' record.  She claimed that most of the gun deaths in New York resulted from guns from Vermont which is absurd.  While acknowledging that her statement was incorrect, she refused to apologize.  Instead she made the even more absurd statement that Senator Sanders does the bidding of the NRA in the Senate.  That statement is blatantly false as everyone including the NRA knows since it gives him a D- rating.

She claims that Senator Sanders could not answer the questions in the New York Daily News interview correctly even about breaking up the big banks.  I have actually read that interview in total and either Secretary Clinton is lying or she has not read the interview.  But you do not have to believe me, you can listen to this segment of Democracy Now today (here), it is entitled, "Juan González: Clinton Has 'Really Distorted' What Happened When NY Daily News Interviewed Sanders".  Senator Sanders answered the questions of the interviewer precisely and accurately.  The question to which he answered that he didn't know was whether the Fed has the right to break up the banks.  That is a correct statement, nobody knows for sure if the Fed does have that authority.  When asked about the President's authority to break up the banks, he correctly stated the process under Dodd-Frank by which the President can break up the big banks including that in the end the banks themselves determine exactly what assets to shed, etc.

We have a clear choice and in my opinion Senator Sanders is by far the better choice.

I should also point out that Senator Sanders will win a general election against any Republican while Secretary Clinton is quite vulnerable against any Republican other than Trump.  In the most recent polls reported by RealClearPolitics (here), both Clinton and Sanders beat Trump although Sanders beats him by quite a bit more.  The interesting results are that Clinton is in a statistical tie with Cruz beating him by 1 point in one poll and 3 points in another poll.  Sanders on the other hand defeats Cruz by 12 points in both those polls.  With respect to Kasich, Clinton loses to him by 9 and 6 points while Sanders beats him by 4 and 5 points.

Sanders is by far the better candidate both because of his positions and because of his electability.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Moving Hillary Clinton to the Left

Dear Friends,

There are two interesting articles at Time.com by Rana Foroochar.  One is entitled "How Elizabeth Warren is Yanking Hillary Clinton to the Left" (here) and another entitled, "This Could be Hillary Clinton's Economic Policy" (here).  MSNBC also published an article by Alex Seitz-Weld and Suzy Khimm entitled "Is this Hillary Clinton's Economic Policy" (here).  Both the articles about Secretary Clinton's economic policy discuss a recent report by the Center For American Progress, a pro-Clinton think tank.

Interestingly enough in the last weeks during which there have been terrorist attacks in Nigeria by Boko Haram, terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish community in Paris, Republican congressional efforts to make cuts in Social Security, Republican congressional efforts to push the Keystone XL Pipeline, the initiation of an inquiry by the International Criminal Court into potential war crimes in the most recent Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the Republican efforts to dilute the impact of the Dodd-Frank regulations on Wall Street, Hillary Clinton has been completely absent from the news and has only made one public statement.  That statement was in the form of a tweet. "Attacking financial reform is risky and wrong.  Better for Congress to focus on jobs and wages for middle class families."

First, it is clear that Secretary Clinton is steering clear from taking a position on anything that is or may be in the future controversial.  The national media and virtually all politicians are refusing to talk about the terrorist attacks by Boka Haram or the victims of the latest violence between Israel and Palestine, even though in both cases far more innocent people were killed.  I cannot help but think that the lack of outrage in the United States and other western countries over the deaths of innocent Nigerians and Palestinians has a lot to do with the otherness attached to those people.  How can you explain the incredible difference in response to those atrocities and what just happened in Paris?  In any case, that is a question too hot for Secretary Clinton to deal with.

Of course the issues of freedom of speech raised by the attack on Charlie Hebdo raise a lot of difficult questions as well.  Secretary Clinton,  a hawk who voted for the Iraq war and for the Patriot Act twice and a member of the Obama administration that has attacked freedom of the press with a vigour normally only seen in Republican administrations, has not been a strong advocate for freedom of expression and would have great difficulty navigating the difficult issues raised by the recent Paris attacks to say nothing of the crack down on freedom of expression following the Charlie Hebdo attack.

I am actually surprised that she has not made a statement condemning the opening of an investigation by the International Criminal Court into the latest Israeli/Palestinian violence.  Normally she defends Israel regardless of what it has done.  I am at a loss to explain her silence on this issue although one might posit that there are more and more Democrats that want to hold both the Palestinians and the Israelis responsible for their violent actions, so perhaps she thinks her silence will not offend anybody.

Of course, Secretary Clinton is maintaining her silence on the Keystone XL Pipeline.  This issue is a symbolic one pitting the environment against short term profits for giant oil companies.  Secretary Clinton's ties to big business and Wall Street make it difficult if not impossible for her to oppose the pipeline.  I should note she has not commented on the fact that 2014 was the warmest year on record either.

Secretary Clinton chose, as her only public comment, to tweet about the Republican efforts to dilute the regulations imposed on Wall Street by the Dodd-Frank legislation.  Her comment was limited to a tweet and hence could not contain any real substance.  What a perfect way to try to walk the fine line between her Wall Street backers and Elizabeth Warren.

It is the issue of Secretary Clinton's closeness to Wall Street that made the articles about a report by the Center for American Progress, a think tank full of friends of Hillary and Bill, so interesting to me.   The two articles about the report cited above were clear about the ties of the think tank to the Clintons and their advisors and the fine line that the report walks to not offend Wall Street while trying to sound like Elizabeth Warren.  The report was written by a group of Clinton loyalists lead by Larry Summers.  This group are deregulators and people that supported NAFTA and other "free trade" agreements.  They share in the blame for the great recession and the ever increasing gap in wealth and income in the United States.  In light of the popularity of Elizabeth Warren, they and Secretary Clinton are trying to reinvent themselves as populists.

I am not yet convinced that Secretary Clinton can actually reinvent herself as a populist and true liberal.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal