When will Hillary Clinton give up her candidacy ?

I had an interesting long talk with a 40 ish YO woman from Little Rock who has been active in state D work off and on over the years. She forgives Hillary everything, and so do the people in her circle. They also feel that the Clintons are citizens of the state, they show up enough and do enough work locally. She was certainly however not seeing Hillary as inevitable, she was hoping Hillary gets the chair.

The electric chair?

POTUS

I was thinking the other chair was more appropriate, but ok. 😉

Hillary Clinton’s Mega-Donors Are Also Funding Jeb Bush
Hillary Clinton’s Mega-Donors Are Also Funding Jeb Bush

By Jackie Kucinich - 08.04.159:00 PM ET

For some wealthy donors, it doesn’t matter who takes the White House in 2016—as long as the president’s name is Clinton or Bush.

More than 60 ultra-rich Americans have contributed to both Jeb Bush’s and Hillary Clinton’s federal campaigns, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data by Vocativ and The Daily Beast. Seventeen of those contributors have gone one step further and opened their wallets to fund both Bush’s and Clinton’s 2016 ambitions.

After all, why support just Hillary Clinton or just Jeb Bush when you can hedge your bets and donate to both? This seems to be the thinking of a group of powerful men and women—racetrack owners, bankers, media barons, chicken magnates, hedge funders (and their spouses). Some of them have net worths that can eclipse the GDPs of small countries.

Larry Noble, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast that it’s a common practice among a small number of people.

“Some of them will say they believe in the process, but the truth is you usually see them giving to people who will be most helpful to them if gets into office,” he said. “They are not necessarily Republicans or Democrats, they are business people first.”...

Read more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/04/hillary-clinton-s-mega-donors-are-also-funding-jeb-bush.html

Ah, geez... if this is true, it sure doesn't help my already shady impression of Clinton...

Good, bad or indifferent - its factual and true.

Where is the news in this? it's been a standard practice of political donors for decades (I did a paper on it back in 1978 or 79).

Some donate to more parties/candidates than most people even realize exist.

Its time to talk about it and stop the practice.

You want to stop people from donating to political campaigns?

I am so thankful you feel that way. I don't know when it became ok for donations to become corporate donations to morph into billionaires writing law and policy due to how much they can donate, but I don't want to live in a country where this is ok.

I don't agree with every policy Bernie espouses, but I'd put up with almost anything to get big money out of power.

Why?

You're going to let someone else decide who YOU can donate to?

That's easy to say and hard to do. The more intrusive the government becomes and the more it extends its regulatory reach into social and economic activities, the more is to be gained by various actors in manipulating or influencing its actions. When the stakes get high enough people will be ever more motivated to do what it takes to influence what government does.

Our government enacted large subsidies for corn based ethanol in order to "stimulate greater production of it for the then supposed environmental benefits. Later after many ethanol plants were in operation and it became possible to measure the total co2 impact of the new process (growing more corn and producing and distributing the ethanol) it became evident that the net effect was more co2 production than with a corresponding amount of petroleum. Did we end the subsidy? No ! By then a well-organized lobby of corn and ethanol producers was in place to inflience legislators (and regulators) to block any efforts to remove it.

It is also amusing to note that the very politicians who complain the most about the absence of enforceable restrictions on potential contributors (whom they oppose) are often among the most assiduous collectors of contributions from them and others more attuned to their interests (specifically including government employee labor unions).

From a businessman's point of view, it looks as if these contributors to both candidates, Hillary and Jeb, are playing it safe. If they can afford it, why not? After all, we all know when contributors of large sums to a candidate gives so freely, it means they're expecting something in return.

Glass Steagall, overturning Citizens' United, and ending the lobbyist stranglehold in DC would be good places to start.

There will have to be a fair way to make sure union donation recipients don't have an edge over business recipients. I know gutting corruption will be an uphill battle but now - it's just free flowing.

So long as SCOTUS says that money=speech corruption can not be attacked with the law, it must be attacked with a mass movement. The courts know that they are already on very thin ice with the people, they will not defy us once we make it clear that we will not allow them to defy us. Judges must get it through their head that we operate on majority rule in most cases, not judicial rule.

Edit: I did not read into it, but I saw that Jimmy Carter recently said that USA is no longer a democracy. I agree, but say that we are going to take the nation back....that the left and the teaparty will unite to deal with this usurping of the power of the people. There have been very many people commenting that democracy is getting routed globally, another point that I agree with. It is time to make a stand, no one else is going to do it.

Hillary & Monsanto

How is Hillary personally involved in supporting big agriculture? The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which gathers leaders to solve the world's problems, promotes Monsanto, the maker of RoundUp® and RoundUp Ready® seeds. Hugh Grant, Monsanto's Chairman and CEO spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in September, 2014. Ms. Clinton's top campaign advisor, Jerry Crawford, was a lobbyist for Monsanto for years and is now the political pro for her Super PAC, "Ready for Hillary." Clinton spoke in favor of the government's Feed the Future (FtF) program, a USAID funded, corporate-partnered program that brings RoundUp Ready® technology to the most vulnerable populations of the world. Monsanto and Dow Chemical support Hillary and Bill's 'Clinton Foundation' with generous donations.

Last year, at a San Diego biotech conference, Hillary coached her audience in messaging. "Genetically modified sounds Frankensteinish. Drought-resistant sounds like something you'd want. Be more careful so you don't raise that red flag immediately."

It's also highly unlikely for Hillary Clinton to stand up against her benefactors, saying she favors a review of RoundUp, 2,4-D, and the even more toxic poisons used by farmers worldwide when she has friends in the industry telling her that they will "feed the world" someday with their agricultural methods.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-frankel/hillary-vs-bernie-on-fran_b_7638846.html

January 23, 2007
Hillary Clinton and
the Israel Lobby

http://www.antiwar.com/frank/?articleid=10372

by Joshua Frank

George W. Bush's position on Iran is "disturbing" and "dangerous," reads a position paper written in late 2005 by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). One year ago the Bush administration accepted a Russian proposal to allow Iran to continue to develop nuclear energy under Russian supervision. Needless to say, AIPAC wasn't the least bit happy about the compromise.

In a letter to congressional allies, mostly Democrats, the pro-Israel organization admitted it was "concerned that the decision not to go to the Security Council, combined with the U.S. decision to support the 'Russian proposal,' indicates a disturbing shift in the Administration's policy on Iran and poses a danger to the U.S. and our allies."

Israel, however, continues to develop a substantial nuclear arsenal. In 2000, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported that Israel has likely produced enough plutonium to make up to 200 nuclear weapons. So it is safe to say that Israel's bomb-building technologies are light years ahead of Iran's budding nuclear program. Yet Israel still won't admit they have capacity to produce such deadly weapons.

Meanwhile, as AIPAC and Israel pressure the U.S. government to force the Iran issue to the UN Security Council, Israel itself stands in violation of numerous UN resolutions dealing with the occupied territories of Palestine, including UN Resolution 1402, which in part calls on Israel to withdraw its military from all Palestinian cities at once.

AIPAC's hypocrisy is nauseating. The Goliath lobbying organization wants Iran to cease to procure nukes while the crimes of Israel continue to be ignored. So who is propping up AIPAC's hypocritical position? None other than Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

As one of the top Democratic recipients of pro-Israel funds for the 2006 election cycle, pocketing over $83,000, Clinton now has Iran in her cross hairs.

During a Hanukkah dinner speech delivered in December 2005, hosted by Yeshiva University, Clinton prattled, "I held a series of meetings with Israeli officials [last summer], including the prime minister and the foreign minister and the head of the [Israel Defense Forces], to discuss such challenges we confront. In each of these meetings, we talked at length about the dire threat posed by the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran, not only to Israel, but also to Europe and Russia. Just this week, the new president of Iran made further outrageous comments that attacked Israel's right to exist that are simply beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptability. During my meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, I was reminded vividly of the threats that Israel faces every hour of every day. … It became even more clear how important it is for the United States to stand with Israel…."

As Clinton embraces Israel's violence, as well as AIPAC's fraudulent posture on Iran, she simultaneously ignores the hostilities inflicted upon Palestine, as numerous Palestinians have been killed during the continued shelling of the Gaza Strip over the past year.

Clinton's silence toward Israel's brutality implies the senator will continue to support AIPAC's mission to occupy the whole of the occupied territories, as well as a war on Iran. AIPAC is correct – even President Bush appears to be a little sheepish when up against the warmongering of Hillary Clinton.

Hillary and her husband paid a visit to Israel in the fall of 2005. The former president was a featured speaker at a mass rally that marked the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It was Hillary's second visit to Israel since she was elected to office in 2000.

The senator did manage to take time out of her tour to meet with the then semi-conscious Ariel Sharon to discuss "security matters." Hillary also made her way to the great apartheid wall, which separates Palestine from Israel. As the barrier is nearing completion, the monstrosity will ultimately stretch to over 400 miles in length.

Palestinians rightly criticize the obtrusive wall on the grounds that it cuts them off from occupied land in the West Bank. Thousands more will be cut off from their jobs, schools, and essential farmland.

Hillary and her pro-Israel buds don't get it. When you put powerless Palestinians behind a jail-like wall where life in any real economic sense is unattainable, you wreak pain and anguish, which in turn leads to more anger and resentment toward the Israeli government's brutal policies. Indeed, the wall will not prove to be a deterrent to resistance, but an incitement to defiance.

"This is not against the Palestinian people," Clinton said as she gazed over the massive wall. "This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change the attitudes about terrorism."

The senator's comments seem as if they were taken word-for-word from an AIPAC position paper. They may well have been, as the lobby packs her coffers full of cash. In May 2005, Clinton spoke at an AIPAC conference where she praised the bonds between Israel and the United States:

"[O]ur future here in this country is intertwined with the future of Israel and the Middle East. Now there is a lot that we could talk about, and obviously much has been discussed. But in the short period that I have been given the honor of addressing you, I want to start by focusing on our deep and lasting bonds between the United States and Israel."

Clinton went on to address the importance of disarming Iran and Syria, as well as keeping troops in Iraq for as long as "it" takes. It was textbook warmongering, and surprise, surprise – Hillary got a standing ovation for her repertoire.

It is no matter that Iraq will never see true democracy. The U.S. won't allow that. Our government will never allow a free Iraq to form that embodies even the slightest disgust toward Israel or America. Democracy in Iraq, like democracy in Israel, has clear limitations.

Similar to her husband and the current president, Hillary Clinton will never alter the U.S.' Middle East policy that so blatantly favors Israeli interests.

Hillary Clinton's Safe Bet on Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel
Posted: 03/31/2015 2:13 pm EDT Updated: 05/31/2015 5:59 am EDT



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-r-depetris/hillary-clinton-benjamin-_b_6971146.html

Have you been wondering why Hillary Clinton has been so silent as the Obama administration and newly-reelected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been at each others throats? Presumably, a presidential candidate leading every other Democratic challenger for the nomination would have something to say on such a monumental U.S. foreign policy issue. The subject is Israel for god's sake, not the island nation of Guam!

Well, now we know. In a late-night statement, Malcolm Hoenlein -- the Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations -- told media organizations what Secretary Clinton supposedly thinks of the Barack-Bibi spat. The statement was as general and vague as words can be, but if you're a member of Joe-public like I am, it at least provides you with some sense of what Clinton is thinking.

"Secretary Clinton thinks we need to all work together to return the special U.S.-Israel relationship to constructive footing, to get back to basic shared concerns and interests, including a two-state solution pursued through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians," Mr. Hoenlein said. "We must ensure that Israel never becomes a partisan issue."

This is about as safe a remark Hillary Clinton could have given. What prospective 2016 presidential candidate doesn't want to improve the U.S.-Israel relationship? It's about as obvious as saying that the government should fight animal abuse. And what presidential candidate doesn't support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Democratic and Republican presidents over a period of decades have argued that negotiating two states for two peoples is the only viable way to solve this intractable conflict. After all, there isn't a better alternative: Israeli annexation of the West Bank, a one-state solution, a three-state solution, or temporary, interim Palestinian governance over select portions of the West Bank and Gaza aren't exactly recipes for long-term stability.

But beneath the obvious, read between the lines and you come to an equally obvious conclusion: Clinton believes that the Obama administration is mismanaging relations with Benjamin Netanyahu, a man that has proven to be an incredibly difficult person to deal with (James Baker and Bill Clinton can attest to this) on issues as important as preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon and establishing a democratic and demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel. Politically speaking, Hillary Clinton is trying her best to distance herself from an administration whose second-term foreign policy approval ratings are awful and a White House that staunch pro-Israel supporters in Congress and across the country are convinced has an interest in continuing the diplomatic crisis. Or as Abe Foxman, President of the Anti-Defamation League, said to The Jerusalem Post, "I am...troubled by statements now coming out of the White House."

2015-03-30-1427746737-9234607-2116628215.jpg
GPO

It would be easy to chock up Hillary's maneuver as politics during the beginning of her presidential campaign and call it day. But there's something more to it than that: relations between a U.S. President and an Israeli Prime Minister are the worst they have been since the early 1990s. Bibi Netanyahu has a lot to do with this downward spiral, including his comments on Election Day about Arab Israelis streaming to the polls "in droves" and his remark about a Palestinian state being an impossibility during his tenure. But, to his credit, Bibi seems to have recognized that his comments were ill-conceived and counterproductive, and has gone as far as apologizing for being insensitive to the concerns of Israel's Arab citizens. For a man like Netanyahu, apologizing publicly is a big deal.

The White House, however, is unfazed by Netanyahu and has consistently expressed reservations about the Israeli Prime Minister's judgment and sincerity. From White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki to President Obama himself, Netanyahu is molded as an insincere politician who will do anything to save his job -- even if it means foreclosing a two-state solution that he previously supported and which Middle East experts, the U.S. and Israeli governments, and the Arab League have all acknowledged is the only way to assure that Israel is secure and the Palestinians are recognized as full members of the international community. One can perhaps understand the administration's reluctance to accept Netanyahu's about-face, but the White House isn't making matters easier by questioning the prime minister in public.

Hillary Clinton has a complicated relationship with Netanyahu herself. The two have gotten into shouting matches before when the former was Secretary of State (see this article from the Washington Post's Anne Gearon for context), most notably over Israeli settlements on land that the Palestinians consider part of any territory that they would be allowed to keep. But, by Hillary's own admission (see her memoir, Hard Choices), she was able to work with Netanyahu and stroke his ego when she needed to.

Until she is able to win a presidential election, we won't know for sure whether a President Hillary Clinton would have used the same tactics with Netanyahu as President Obama has for the past six years. But, based on her record as first lady, Senator from New York, and Secretary of State, one could come to the conclusion that she wouldn't have let her personal feelings with a world leader gather so much momentum that the state-to-state relationship itself was questioned.

Hillary Clinton sees an opening that she can exploit. If elected president, one of her first orders of business would be to turn a page on U.S.-Israel relations to a more "constructive footing." But first, she needs to win that election.

Follow Daniel R. DePetris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DanDePetris

My hopes would be that Hillary's political ambition will not allow her to place Israel's interests over that of the US. The average American does not hold the same feelings towards Israel as the US Congress who has been given millions to purchase their loyalty. Most Republicans and some Democrats have sold their souls to the Netanyahu for a handsome sum of money and if it's war Israel wants, then so be it and to hell with the Iranian nuclear deal. The Neocons had us in an unnecessary war in Iraq which has destabilized the Middle East.