Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Ah, yes. Well, I don't give a shit about what the Right says about anyone. If he had cured 10 million kids of pancreatic cancer with his own hands they would have criticized him for touching so many children. The Right in this country is fucking ridiculous.

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

bt;dt

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

They are nuts, but that doesn’t mean they’re worth ignoring. Their criticism of Clintons cashing in was embraced by the center, and then by Bernie. And Trump used to it to tremendous effect on Hillary.

Today’s insane is tomorrow’s salacious meme.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Along which lines, I was impressed at how far they had to reach to object to the Starbucks Cups this year. All while looking the other way while Chick-fil-a advertising that they're selling "fresh young chicks" you can "devour".

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Hell, Sebby bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

God, you are so whiny.

One minute you’re talking shite about your badassery, the next you’re Joy Behar again.

Bless your SO. You’re a handful.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Is it possible for me to criticize the Clintons from the left without being lumped with bank-hating Bernie Bros.? I would have thought so. I have defended the work the Clinton Foundation did on several occasions here, so I don't think my bona fides in that direction can fairly be questioned. But setting aside the good work that they did, you can't get away from the appearance that much of the money appeared to come with an implicit quid pro quo by which the public stature of the donor would be laundered by association with the Clintons, such as in this case (which I found somewhat randomly using Teh Google). On top of that, the promise of real social change is pretty much lost with any initiative that depends on the largesse of foreign autocrats. The parallels with the Clinton's approach to governance are not subtle. Sure it's better than the Republican alternative -- should that really be enough?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Obama spoke to some bankers. This was a non-issue, aside from that it looked bad to some people who don't like banks, and you. I don't think you're someone who doesn't like banks, which is part of why I do not understand why it looked bad to you, unless you were concerned about how it looked to people who don't like banks.

It's perfectly reasonable to argue that we need to care about what those people think for political reasons. Heck, maybe it's even right.

Personally, I didn't think it helped to legitimize those anti-bank sentiments, even if I sort of agreed that we need support from those anti-bank people.

Isn't that the very definition of a charitable foundation?

I'm not so sure about that. It's possible for money to be money, and to not be dependent on the next large one-off gift. But I'll grant you that the Clintons are not exactly who you'd want in charge to prevent it.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

If you didn't understand what I said here before, there really isn't any point in my repeating it now. Note that my most recent post, the one you're responding to, referred to Clinton, not Obama. That was because I thought I'd say something about Clinton, not Obama. I'm not quite sure yet what Obama is doing with his post-Presidency, but he doesn't seem to be following Clinton's roadmap.

No, but it's not uncommon either.

I'm not sure in what sense that's possible, but the conversation quickly becomes interesting only for semantic and philosophical reasons, not for any practical application.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I know it's popular in all parts of the spectrum, from Bernie Bro to whatever Ty wants to be to neo-Liberal, neo-Con, and neo-Sebby, to full out Trumper, to see everything all foreign autocrats (other than, in Trump's case, Putin) as full out in all setting evil, but I've actually discovered that the Saudi Royal Family, whom I despise and blame for enormous amounts of misery in the world, is one of the major funders of the Aids fight in Africa, for reasons of their own.

I hate it when shit gets complex.

As to criticizing the Clinton's from the left, first of, what kind of misogynist pig lumps spouses in together and views the wife as inseparably tied to her husband, and how could someone who does that possibly describe themselves as "left", and secondly, um, no, especially not if you do that shit. The only one who can criticize Hilary from the left without being called a Bernie Bro is Obama, who still deserves a couple shots on her, which he'll never take, for the way she ran the end game in her post-super-Tuesday campaign against him.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I would hate it too if I had been denying that the Clinton foundation did good work.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Look, maybe the first one wasn't clearly tongue in cheek enough, it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and my apologies, but, surely, you could see the second was?

I hate this world in which it's hard to tell when someone is saying something ridiculous in jest.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Well, they are crooked. Crooked fucking degenerates. Bubba executed a retarded man to placate tough on crime voters and his wife went along with his racist shit in the South in 2008.

Sleaze. First order.

But also great stewards of govt. Bill being the best President of the last 30 years, whom I’d vote for again in a second.

And his wife being a far better statesperson than the idiot who beat her.

But corrupt? Fuck yes. Engaging in subtle, plausibly deniable quid pro quos? Come on... of course.

But as Hunter said, calling politicians scumbags is handing out speeding tix at the Indy 500.

There are few heroes in the squalid world of politics. The response to the “Clintons are corrupt sleaze” story is, “That only tells you they’re probably qualified to run. They’re actually pretty decent statespeople, too. Which is the best and only mitigation in that arena!”

ETA: Like you, I also sleep well despite having taken money from certain people I didn’t like. We’re all adults, and that’s life, but that shrugging? It’s not the better part of our personalities. I’m not sure you can be any more or less bought than more or less pregnant.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You are surely a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. You have borne me on your back a thousand times, and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Hamlet,

Well, to answer your question seriously, of course you can criticize Hilary from whatever side you want to, but if you choose an argument that was made a centerpiece of the campaign / ego trip by the great finger-wagger and that is pushed mainly by the likes of Cillizza, Thrush, and Yglesias, as well as Russian twitter-bots everywhere, you are indeed going to have difficulty distinguishing yourself from the Bros. I say this as someone who does think both you and Yglesias often have very good things to say.

If you chose an argument that was not so much part of the Bro-hood, like the argument that Hilary, exactly like Bernie, tried to appeal to whites through racial animus when it was convenient to her, then you are less likely to find yourself lumped in with the Bros.

Alas --

Poor Yorick

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I really don't like the lumping of the "Clintons" together. Yes, they have supported each other, which should not surprise anyone. But I like Hill a hell of a lot more than Bill.

It's not hard to compare administrations. In terms of corruption in office, Bill's was likely better than the one that came before and the one that came after, but not at all on par with Obama, who probably ran the most honest administration we'll see in our lifetimes. The lack of corruption was astonishing. And Hill was part of that.

Yes, it's a matter of degree, almost always is, and God save us from those who believe they are pure. But overall, frankly, even Bill is just not on the scale of a Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon, and certainly very very very very far from what we have now. And Hill, despite being pilloried constantly, is as close to Obama levels of purity as you are likely to see.

Here comes the waterfall...
 

If this guy is in the hot seat, I can only imagine how much dirt the right and left tribes of DC are dusting off (or amassing) to throw at each other. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0bfa88c1ca584

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Funny that you've used two examples of compromising their supposed values because it was politically expedient to do so to substantiate "crooked." I'll take hypocritical or false liberals or whatever, but you kind of need graft to get to "crooked."

You know, like directing federal dollars toward businesses you own or something.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I agree Bill wasn't as bad as LBJ or Nixon. Or Bush II (our worst President, based on his lying blunder into Iraq). And from what I've heard about HRC, the public and private person are, sadly, much different. In that regard, I think she's a bit of a tragic figure. Her meanest critics can't dispute that she was eminently qualified and would have been a highly competent leader. I think her problem was she was a technician, a chess player... She was a strategist first, hardened by years of attacks. Where Obama could overcome with soaring rhetoric, she was worried about how her words would be parsed.

But the point of my harsh rhetoric wasn't to uniquely assail HRC or Bubba. The point was more a recognition of the degradation of our democracy. I don't think either of us, or anyone here, is arguing about whether a politician is sleazy. We assume that's the case. The wise and weary of us would say that's how it's always been, going to back to the establishment of Ur in Mesopotamia. "There are always appalling compromises to be made..." Of course.

But maybe it's gone too far? Maybe the pragmatism and cynicism (of which I'm enormously guilty, and are most here) aren't wise anymore? Maybe we've reached a moment where the solutions lie outside traditional politics and markets?

Re: Here comes the waterfall...
 

Legislative bodies are all cesspools. There will be many more casualties.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It was a lazy descriptive, stolen from ole Pumpkinhead himself, who is himself so crooked he needs servants to screw his pants on in the morning.* But I was referring to the subtle quid pro quos involving speaking engagements. That gets into the sphere of graft.

_____
*Also stolen.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Kinda sounded like he was just arguing that Obama was not sleazy and the Hill was pretty close to him.

Also, funny that in the paragraph before this you justs said that Bill wasn't anywhere near LBJ, Nixon or W. That's a funny way to "degrade."

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There is a mix. I believe there are still a number of extraordinary public servants in the mix. I worked for one such Congressman once upon a time (now retired). I also worked for another Congressman (also retired).

The real cesspool these days is not the elected officials themselves, but the body politic that have made the investigations themselves the tool of punishment. Really, since the HUAC in the 50s, one party has believed endless investigations serve it, even if they are unsuccessful in finding any guilt whatsoever.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Why don't you wait until you have something to say to write? Tx.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

They named it the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, not me.

As for the foundation's work, well, you seem content with the idea that it did good work, and it's best not to think to much about why the likes of Nursultan A. Nazarbayev might have funded it. Dwelling on those sorts of unpleasantries only gives comfort to Hillary's critics. There's some truth in that, but if that's all the social change we can ask for, that's pretty sad. And that was my point.

Re: Here comes the waterfall...
 

Sad that you are taking something interesting and new and viewing it through the lens of DC partisan combat.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'm guessing it's 20-25% of them today. But it's not their fault. It's the money raising element of politics. The system is pretty much owned by outside interests.

2. You have a zero sum game mentality at work. McConnell expressed this ethos best when upon Obama's election, he stated he would thwart every single thing Obama did. A big part of this is engaging in endless investigations of everything. Benghazi, Whitewater, HRC's Emails Parts I-VII, Bill Clinton Impeachment...

But what has not yet been investigated in detail? The question of whether the Iraq War was a conspiracy based on intentional misrepresentations, or a mere intelligence failure. This is the most significant question of our time, and it remains unanswered. (Not to me, but officially.)

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Whoa there -- Bilmore may call you shrill.

Re: Here comes the waterfall...
 

God, you fall flat trying to be clever so fucking often...

That's where it's going, dude. That's my point.

I don't care much about Conyers doing something dumb or odious. He's one of what'll be 100 to come.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I don't know where you went to college, but you may want to look at it's donor list. Around here, at least, it's pretty tough to find a school whose base fortunes aren't derived in part from some combination of the slave trade, oil money, and various other rape and pillage schemes. Hospitals are not much different.

I hope you will hold every charity you deal with to the same level of purity.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I agree with him on the degrading, but I think the source is actually in the media more than on the hill. The most radically degraded institution out there is the right wing media, and that goes back quite a bit these days.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I can and would litigate this issue all day long.

The only modern Presidents one can argue come close to W would be Nixon and LBJ. That argument would be based on their continuation of the war in Vietnam. Both of those men lied, and it did cost the lives of 50,000 innocent Americans, and countless innocent Vietnamese.

BUT... That war was predicated on a legitimate fear of Communist creep. There was a reasonably perceived assessment made that we needed to place a bulwark against an enemy encroachment in that part of the world.

Iraq was a lie, of whole cloth, from the start. Saddam was contained, and would remain contained, and we knew it. He was, in fact, a bulwark in our favor against radical Islamists. He was the devil to be dealt with, to be bought off as necessary - an eventual Gaddafi in the making.

It was false, rotten, dumb, cynical, opportunistic and reckless in a manner Vietnam was not. That's irrefutable. And it burns my fucking ears every time I hear someone say, "Wouldn't you rather have W back now?" No. No I wouldn't. I don't think HRC is a liar like Cheney and Rummy and Bush were, but fear of her interest in foreign interventionism is a lot of what disqualified her in my eyes.

Might I have been wrong? And might Trump be worse? Certainly. But if I might borrow from George Tenet's post-Iraq mea culpa, I was working with incomplete information at the time.

W is the worst President of the last 50 years. I'll stand in the well of Congress and say it. And god help any son of a bitch who attempts to defend him.

Re: Here comes the waterfall...
 

Who's trying to be clever? I don't think that's where it's going. When everyone lives in a glass house, no one wants to throw stones.

No interest in defending Conyers here, and happy to see the Charlie Roses of the world walk their planks.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

So far it seems like you have not been. I don't think we really know what's going on in places like Niger, and that should be scary, but I have to admit that I expected 45 to be pushed into greater interventions than we've seen so far.

Re: Here comes the waterfall...
 

I think that's exactly where this is going.

Notice how when people on the Right started getting hit with this stuff, suddenly stories started emerging about people on the Left?

You think these things are all organic?

The sad fact is, a lot of legitimate voices seeking to stanch harassment are going to be mixed in with a bunch of people playing political games and looking to cash in on some info.

I'm highly suspicious of the Franken story. This woman worked in media and has herself admitted she sees no reason to punish him severely. Okay. Then why the sudden disclosure? I'd like to see the miscellaneous 1099 income section of her tax return for this year, her voter registration, and her financial situation in general. And no -- this is not victim shaming.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I would like a Democratic Party that aspires to social change more profound than persuading the very rich to burnish their reputations by bestowing their largesse, ill-gotten or otherwise, on the less fortunate. And so should you.

Re: Here comes the waterfall...
 

Does it matter? The photo alone is something for him to apologize for, and he has. I don't care whether she was politically motivated as long as she's not lying and she doesn't seem to be.

The follow on ass-grabbing accusation I'm more skeptical of.

Re: Here comes the waterfall...
 

It matters in regard to the issue of whether the parties are going to use sexual harassment allegations against each other.

I believe Ty and I disagree on whether that will happen.

Gordian knot
 

You just put your finger on the central gripes of the Trumpkins.

They want a chance to climb the ladder.

The problem is, they don't have the skills to manage the first three rungs.

Re: Here comes the waterfall...
 

One party will use them strategically, because that's what it does. The other will only "use them" in an effort to change behavior.

On that point, a young Minnesota legislator has been willing to talk on the record about behavior that everyone has seemed to know about for awhile. She first went on the record about a fellow Dem.