Since 2001, when Congress doubled the salary of the president of the United States, our chief executive has made $400,000 a year. That’s some pretty good coin, and I don’t think you can say it’s a major financial sacrifice for most folks not named Donald Trump to serve as the president. Still, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect that former presidents (and in some cases, former First Ladies) won’t cash in once they leave office. I suppose we might want to have some rules about how they cash in. They probably shouldn’t be able to lobby the government for some specified period of time, for example.
There’s no doubt that there’s something unsavory about how massively the Clintons cashed in on the speaking circuit, although I think it would be less of an issue if Hillary hadn’t gone on to run for president twice.
Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, combined to earn more than $153 million in paid speeches from 2001 until Hillary Clinton launched her presidential campaign last spring, a CNN analysis shows.
In total, the two gave 729 speeches from February 2001 until May, receiving an average payday of $210,795 for each address. The two also reported at least $7.7 million for at least 39 speeches to big banks, including Goldman Sachs and UBS, with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic 2016 front-runner, collecting at least $1.8 million for at least eight speeches to big banks.
I can’t say there is anything straightforwardly unethical here. I want to be clear about that. If people want to pay you ludicrous amounts of money to give a speech, why not take their money? Only in the most indirect way is Bill Clinton in a position to do anything for Goldman Sachs, UBS, or any other business.
Hillary, on the other hand, has most definitely opened herself up to criticisms that these speaking fees create the appearance of impropriety. People have every right to be suspicious that, having accepted these massive fees from the financial sector, she’ll go easy on them when it comes to regulation. That doesn’t mean that she actually will go easy on them, only that it would be understandable if she did. After all, she would also be a former president one day, just like her husband, and why not maintain the kind of friendly relationship with the banks that could help her bring in another $153 million?
Is this a reason not to vote for her?
I think it is. I think it’s legitimate to prefer someone, like Bernie Sanders, who hasn’t created the appearance of a conflict of interest.
But this is a judgment call, and it’s only one consideration among dozens when choosing between the two candidates.
My biggest problem here is that I just don’t think that big banks and corporations would be able to answer to the shareholders for giving out an average of $210,795 a speech if they couldn’t plausibly argue that they made more money in return. Are they making a dumb investment?
We have to believe that they’re idiots for this arrangement to be kosher.
On the other hand, when I listen to them speak, most of the time I think they’re completely clueless. So, anything is possible.
Not your point, but it’s just not a lot of money to either of them (the banks or the Clintons).
Look, a coupla hunnert thousand here, a coupla hunnert thousand there, pretty soon you’re talkin real money.
People pay to see Hillary because she’s a celebrity. Universities have spent 3 times as much on her speaking as Goldman Sachs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-time-of-austerity-eight-universities-spent-top-dollar-on-
hillary-clinton-speeches/2014/07/02/cf1d1070-016a-11e4-b8ff-89afd3fad6bd_story.html
You don’t get influence over celebrities by paying their usual speaking fees. Try paying Kim Kardashian for a speech (which I’ll bet will cost a pretty penny) and see if she’ll let you name her next baby.
And universities have to answer to shareholders?
No, but it’s totally ordinary for a major company to pay millions for a retreat/special recognition function/etc. My husband’s company used to have annual meetings, always held at touristy locations, and fly hundreds of people from literally all over the world to stay at swanky hotels with fancy entertainment. Having major celebrities at these event is well within their budgets and probably provides a lot of excitement and interest.
“Entertainment” is what singers, musicians, comedians, etc. provide. Company retreats have several purposes directly related to the business of the company — schmoozing and playing golf with colleagues does serve a purpose. (Even those like me that find most of it a bore and waste of money can recognize that and go along with it when required.) Traditionally companies avoided partisan politics and speeches by politicians at these gatherings. (Of those I attended, the closest to rank politics one ever came was when Terry Bradshaw was the speaker. A foul mouthed, misogynist and vile man. Within a minute the men at my table knew better than to laugh. They might have feared having wine or coffee thrown in their faces, but they seemed to get it that Bradshaw was disgusting.)
You mean the Dork Dynasty “con-man-deer”‘s college buddy is as repulsive as he is?
Whod-a-thunk-it.
Two questions here. Why won’t she release her speeches? And do you suppose that Goldman give her all that money to tell them jokes or fairy tales? Politicians sell things for money. What did she sell?
If she said anything in those speeches that couldn’t withstand public scrutiny, then she’s dumber than I think she is. Transcripts of speeches don’t include a speaker’s non-verbal (winks, nods, and gestures) communications to an audience. It’s not what she said (although how she said it could be of importance but that will never be known) but the fact that she was privately hanging with major crooks and getting paid beaucoup bucks to do so. An agreement element of certain private transactions is that everybody remain silent about it afterwards.
Yes, but maybe she talked about more shenanigans, as Bill Black noted.
I’m going to modify my remarks, but it goes to what trial attorneys know — don’t press a question, particularly if you already have a winning argument, if you don’t already know the answer.
(An attorney once screwed up his case for doing just that when I was on the witness stand.)
If anyone calling for the release of Clinton’s speech transcripts knows that there’s anything like a smoking gun in them, then push for the release. Under that scenario, not releasing them would be the least bad option for her. OTOH, if there’s no there there, she wins by releasing them.
I could agree with that,but now I’m back to why hasn’t she released them already? I think Sanders is not going to directly accuse her. I also suspect there is nothing illegal or improper in them. But they could show her insensitivity to some issues like the “shenanighans” comment. This is already in the news and likely she will be asked. Sanders may have set the table. If I were her, I’d get it behind me.
It’s only been three days since this request became an issue. You should know by now that a Clinton can’t quickly locate and release one of their records. Takes time. How long did it take to find out if her server even had any emails still on it? Slow walking questions from adversaries has worked well for them. Also allows time for their attorneys to review anything before deep sixing or turning it over.
You have a
Sorry, got cut off.
What I meant to say is: I think you have a charmingly naive view of the efficacy of shareholder governance.
Can these companies justify to their stockholders the huge amounts they pay to their CEOs? Of course not.
They pay their CEOs bank because that’s what the CEOs want. And if the CEOs want to shake hands with the politically powerful at their annual picnic (or dinner, or whatever), then that’s what they will get. I think this has a lot more to do with ego than influence on the companies part.
That said, I think its pretty much established that people do give favorable treatment to people who give them gifts, even if they are not aware of it. That’s what the free swag that pharmaceuticals give to doctors is such an issue. It definitely has an effect, even if the doctors swear up and down that there is no quid pro quo.
She said she would look into releasing the speeches at the debate. Thus far she is still looking into it, but accusing Sanders of smearing her through innuendo. Why not release them and remove doubt? I suspect she fears some negative feedback. It is also naive to think Goldman gave her $600k for nothing at all but great laughs and a handshake. She is running for President and not retired.
like rmoney’s tax returns and rove’s e-mails, those transcripts won’t see the light of day anytime soon.
This isn’t a gift, though. Something like 700 other groups have paid her or Bill similar amounts. They just paid her customary fee, along with the University of California and many other groups.
I agree with Sam here:
This isn’t about buying votes on the House floor — I’ll leave John Boehner to defend that behavior. This is about who you’re rubbing shoulders with, who you trust, who you see as your constituencies, who you’re going to for advice, etc.
Doctors who are paid by pharmaceutical companies to push certain drugs experience similar things. Those same doctors will say that that money does not influence their decisions of what and how much to tell their patients to purchase — and I’m sure they honestly, truly, believe that. But the evidence available simply does not support that belief.
Specifically, when Seder says, “The argument about her personal integrity misses the point entirely. Look, pols are pols. I would have no problem if she got paid $50,000 from a union, and then said, ‘We’ve got to re-vamp/repeal Taft-Hartley!’ Frankly, I’d be very excited about that.”
But that won’t happen because those aren’t the fish she swims with. It’s why I laugh when I hear about the nurses’ supporting Bernie with a PAC. Like, and? The tin ear it requires to not understand the fundamental differences here is baffling.
Also, as I’ve said before, everyone and their grandmother has known since the moment that Obama was the Democratic nominee in ’08 that Clinton would run again in ’16. Everyone!! And if they say otherwise, they’re lying. So the question becomes why do it when that’s the case? Especially considering what happened right around 2008. My guess is because the Clinton machine controls the power slots in the party and figured she’d waltz to the nomination.
Precisely. Giving her every benefit of the doubt, she has bought the bankers line of debate.
I found this to be a acute look at the root differences in their two evaluations of the benefit of the financial sector to public good. And Bernie’s intent to re-purpose it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/the-allure-and-limits-of-managerialism/460146/?u
tm_source=SFTwitter#article-comments
As I love to say . . . I am shocked . . . SHOCKED . . .
to discover that Bernie Sanders is nothing but a tool of Big Nursing.
1989 – Eight Days in Japan Earn Ron and Nancy $2 Million–Now That’s Reaganomics. The big bucks thank you collection tour.
1990
2015 – Report: College balks at Hillary Clinton’s speaking fee, turns to Chelsea instead
The ex-public official lucre collection “speaking” tours dry up within two to three years. After that it’s all about what can be gained from the VIP in the future. The books they “write” and their book signing tours are another matter. That’s selling a product that apparently plenty of people are willing to buy (even if it totally escapes me why anyone would fork over good money for a crappy book). Similarly, if people want to buy a ticket to hear some person give a public speech and the ticket sales cover all the costs, there’s nothing questionable about that either. (Even if I would have to be paid to go hear Chelsea Clinton blather about something.)
HST had his memoirs published because after he left the WH he had no income (no government pensions) and wasn’t a wealthy man. Since then they’ve all enjoyed a nice lifetime pension and are free to get another real job. Instead, it’s become a racket. And the Clintons have taken it to the penultimate level with the pre- and post-office investments and thank you “gifts.”
Jimmy Carter had a joke about Reagan getting so much for a speech after he left the White House. Carter would say that if you hear of any other groups paying so much for a speech from an ex-President, could you let him know.
HuffPo — William K Black — Hillary, the Banksters Committed ‘Fraud,’ Not ‘Shenanigans’
For a “policy wonk,” the most generous interpretation of Hillary’s understanding of finance, she’s neither informed nor bright. Just the sort of person high finance guys love because they can run rings of people like this. Give her big fat checks that say, “You’re brilliant,” and then laugh all the way to the bank.
As Black noted she tried to paper over their fraud by calling it shenanigans. I have a really hard time thinking they give her all that money for laughs. They expect something. And she doesn’t help herself by not releasing the transcripts and talking about it in the open. It does sound really good to say Sanders is smearing her by innuendo. She could stop it all by talking about it directly and releasing the transcripts.
Obsessing over and expending energy to chase down a possible smoking gun is a good way to lose the important story that exists before our eyes. The House GOP nutcases had an open and shut case with Clinton on the email issue without seeing any of them but they lost it by going after the individual emails. In 2007 DEMs and the public were shocked to learn that Rove and WH aides bypassed the government servers and records retention laws for emails by using private email addresses hosted by the RNC servers. The DEM House quickly investigated and issued a damning report on this. Where they were stymied is that the RNC claimed that most of the emails had been deleted and neither party wants to tread on the privacy of the other party’s HQs. Rove resigned a few weeks after the House report was released.
Whatever any administration official did wrt to email service outside government equipment BEFORE Rove gets a pass because they didn’t know better. Sort of like when the Zoe Baird issue of not paying employer taxes for household help surfaced in 1993. While ignorance is no defense, the IRS didn’t go after back unpaid employer taxes on those that quickly got on the right side of the law. (Know that personally from my communications with the IRS on behalf of a client.)
Almost two years after the public exposure of the Bush WH using personal email accounts for government business and were properly slapped for having done so, she not only set up a personal email account, but it was exclusive of any USG email account (I believe that Rove, etc. also had and used USG email accounts) and went further than that by being hosted on her personal server housed in her home. Like the Rove, etc. emails on the RNC server, tens of thousands of emails were deleted from Clinton’s server before it was known that she’d had this non-USG set up.
The narrative wrt to her handsomely paid for private speeches to banksters that created the financial meltdown is all any thinking person needs to know to evaluate her suitability for POTUS.
There was never a case against Clinton. The Republicans were bypassing it in order to be able to delete the emails, which they did. The illegal part was not retaining the records. Having email on a private server isn’t illegal as long as they’re properly retained, which they were in Clinton’s case.
The Republicans already knew there was no case against Clinton because none of those Bush official had any consequences even when they did break the law, which Clinton didn’t do. They were hoping to find something embarrassing in those emails. Projection, as usual, because they know they have embarrassing things in their emails. But, fortunately, Clinton seems to have the same level of message discipline in her emails that she has in her public statements, and the “embarrassments” have turned out to be the weakest of tea.
Since we rarely prosecute government officials, unless they’re whistleblowers, I’m not talking about a case in a court of law but a case in the court of public opinion.
If she had nothing to hide from her co-workers, boss, and the public via later FOIA requests, why wasn’t the USG equipment good enough and suitable for Mrs.Clinton? Perhaps her intent was different from that of RoveCo but on its face they are the same and nobody can prove otherwise.
BTW, Clinton also deleted emails. You can take her word for it that only exclusively personal emails were deleted. Personally, I tend not to trust people that have a record of lying.
Having personal email on a private server is not illegal. Having official classified email on a private server is. That’s why the brouhaha over classification. And a cabinet secretary does have classification authority which includes the power to declassify department emails but NOT DoD or White House emails.
Not entirely sure if having official unclassified email on a private server is illegal. I do know that you can be fired from the Postal Service for it.
It wasn’t illegal at State. At the time, most Ambassadors used private email – which is why Manning’s Wikileak didn’t reveal much Ambassadorial correspondence. Also, nothing was classified at the time. All the classifications have been retroactive, and supposedly they’re particularly ridiculous even by the ridiculous standards of government classification.
It’s probably not illegal at USPS either. But it’s against published policy which warns of the consequences. You don’t have to do something illegal to get fired by the government (although it helps very much) insubordination is sufficient.
○ Goldman’s Hiiiiiigh-in-the-mountains Public-relations | NY Mag – Aug. 2013 |
○ Blankfein extends hand to Rajaratnam, defense team
○ Romney Can’t Help It – His Faith and Social Darwinism
The way this bipartisan system works is that when on a public salary you do favors for benefactors and after you leave the job you get your kickbacks in the form of fees for speechs and book deals and consulting fees and board directorships and the like. If ever a lobby group didn’t pay off the politician after the fact they’d never get a favor again.
And those Hillary fees were probably mostly thanking Bill – just as were Chelsea’s big fees for whatever it was she did.
Oh, they can do them a few favors while they are in office – usually employing their kids or spouses for ridiculously high salaries – this is common for positions which don’t have term limits, like SCOTUS judges.
This is how the system has evolved. The days of suitcases full of cash went out of fashion with Spiro Agnew.
Disagree with: And those Hillary fees were probably mostly thanking Bill –
By 2013, Bill had long since collected all his “thank you” checks. Hillary may have been collecting some of her own “thank you” checks, but more likely she was getting advance “thank you” money.
Marie, I’ve gotten pretty good at reading your comments and knowing they are yours without even looking at the signature. Generally speaking, my rule of thumb is if there is a more cynical view to be taken, then you are going to avail yourself of the opportunity. Particularly if the subjects are “establishment” Democrats and the Clintons. I seem to recollect a not too distant time when Obama was subject to the same cynical and critical takes, but I could be misremembering.
Sometimes I genuinely wonder why you call yourself a Democrat. Cause there’s almost nothing they’ve done that, in your view, couldn’t have been more progressive and less compromised.
I’ve been reading liberal blogs since about 2004 and have observed that cynicism and negativity are almost an inevitable result of spending a lot of time reading and commenting here and elsewhere. As a committed Democrat in a hugely red state, I’m obliged to seek out the positives in our national standard bearers so that I can stay motivated to work for them.
ad hominem argument. Or ad feminum literally.
Guess I must plead guilty to committing an unintentional ad hominem , er,… ad feminum attack. It wasn’t and isn’t my aim to attack Marie as a person but rather to point out how tiring for me personally her cynicism and negativity are, no matter how knowledgeable of matters political she obviously is.
Still I guess I remain the baddie here, not withstanding that she equated me below to being like the goose stepping North Koreans in allegiance to their leader and not possessed of enough smarts to know when the emperor is wearing no clothes.
I’ve never made any assertions that Hillary is perfect, but I still support her and her candidacy. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit that all these attacks on her tend to strengthen rather than weaken that support. Guess that makes me both not bright and all too human.
dww44: Your comments in this thread remind me of the 2008 primaries and how I eventually stopped reading all but one or two blogs that weren’t filled with invectives against Hillary or Obama. I watched some on-line communities break up, many of the regulars off to new spaces. It was no longer helpful to read the cynicism or arguments AGAINST this Dem or that one. Commenters just kept attacking each other’s arguments until they drove each other off the page. In the end, it seemed most voted for Obama because he won the primaries. End of story.
Yep, that’s exactly where I am. I’d already given up on DKOS and am ignoring all those emails from DFA and Moveon.org, etc, cause they all operate from the premise that all their subscribers/supporters are in the Bernie camp with them. Pretty much given up on Salon. BJ is about the only place left that’s not wholly committed to Bernie. Come to think of it, I don’t know a single lefty blog in the tank for Hillary. It’ll probably do me good to go spend my time elsewhere. Maybe even get reacquainted with some good fiction.
Thank you, though, for your comment. It helps.
Same for me: BJ is about the only one I can read and find some balance, and aside from the resident trolls, no one’s hair is on fire. I’m reading a lot of fiction these days.
TalkLeft, The Agonist, Taylor Marsh, all the same places in the tank for her in 2008.
Shakesville as well, although I agree with many of their criticisms of Sanders’ failings. Still, the most recent piece about Hillary and the Establishment was pretty terrible. In fact, after reading that I haven’t even really checked in much over there.
The “home” page of Booman’s posts here is the Washington Monthly Political blog. That is pretty friendly to Hillary. And so is the comment section.
to seek out the positives in our national standard bearers
In a democracy, which I do value as a principle, our governments belong to US, the people. Not some party apparatchiks that you call national standard bearers that are immune from legitimate critiques and that we, the people, are supposed to genuflect in honor of their alleged special qualities.
Understand that North Korea is quite a nice place for those that prefer to “seek out the positives” of the national standard bearers and attack those that have brains that function well enough to see that the emperor wears no clothes.
Wow, marie3, you pretty much told multiple commenters here that their completely reasonable views are cultish.
This sort of rhetoric is terribly ineffective in persuading people to vote for Sanders. You’re not helping.
The most indefatigable critics are the really true believers.
Yeah, I know. How could anyone possibly be cynical about the Clintons?
Institutionalised corruption, plane and simple. Serve corporate interests, and you get a sinecure post-office. Don’t and you won’t.
The US system of lecture circuit, board positions and book sales (for books the politician need not write themselves) is also used to reward European politicians who serve the US well. Those who don’t won’t get no rewards.
I recently ran across an example in US politics of how you don’t get a sinecure post-office.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That is impressive. In office he refused to sell the municipal electricity company despite a lot of pressure. So what happened then? Surely the meritocratic US corporations would be lining up around the bloc to hire this young go-getter?
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That is what happens.
Then in 1994 (after 15 years on the outside) Dennis Kucinich managed to get himself elected again, which is why he has a wikipedia-page.
○ Washington’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission set up to bring Wall Street “to account”
○ Lawmakers Pull Few Punches With Bank Executives | WSJ |
○ Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt
“Is this a reason not to vote for her?”
As long as we’re talking about the primaries, sure.
The trick is to stick with candidates who have inherited their money — that way there’s no conflict of interest, because they had no agency in acquiring tin it.
Does Papa John’s give Peyton Manning all that money for nothing? Is he going to say how crap their pizza is? Of course not!! Glad to see you agree with Anthony Kennedy!!!
Dude, hGH, Ari Fleischer, and the Pinkertons are expensive. The Mannings have to scrape up the money from somewhere.
Yea cause who can live on $19,000,000 a year?
Remember how the Bushes, McCain, Palin, and especially Romney got criticized by Democratic partisans for being garbage rich people? Well, guess what? Since Oceania is revealed to have always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia, maybe we should STFU up about politicians using their political connections to grift.
You see, this is one of the many things that I despise about the Clintons. They force their supporters to throw away their principles and abandon lines of attack and/or be hypocritical about it and run the lines of attack anyway.
And anyway, aside from it being little more than brute emotional extortion (overlook the Clintons’ grifting because if you talk about it you’ll hurt them in a general election and enable someone worse) it’s also just bad politics.
Tying Romney to Bain capital was a brutal line of attack, even without the one-two punch of the 47% comment. But if Clinton was our standardbearer instead of Obama for such a line of attack it would’ve been drowned out in the counter-hypocrisy calls of ‘but what about the Clintons grifting with their Foundation/MSNBC/speeches/etc.?’ They’d either have to drop the line of attack or talk about how doing a personal favor to clear a bank of IRS charges and getting 1.5 million in return isn’t as bad as stiffing union workers or getting a drug dealer brother-in-law on their feet.
If Rubio somehow or Trump likely gets nominated as the GOP Presidential nominee, their finances will be some of the juiciest lines of attack the Democratic Party could target. But Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be able to take advantage of it.
“Garbage rich people” implies that some rich person isn’t just being rich, but using their wealth and power to further enrich themselves, at the expense of the working class/middle class, whatever.
So, whether its the Kennedys, who inherited their wealth, or the Clintons, who as far as I know didn’t violate any laws by speaking to whomever wrote checks to hear them speak, doesn’t make Bill or HRC “garbage rich people”, nevermind their specific politics.
I mean, if Bill and HRC are “garbage people” to begin with, then why does it matter that they are now rich, simply because they’re extremely famous, powerful, politically connected people?
Davis, or anyone who isn’t going to consider cutting their wrists at the thought of Bill and HRC getting paid to give speeches, aren’t now defending “garbage rich people”, or throwing away their own morals and ethics to not immediately demonize HRC as the most worstiest of the worstiest people currently alive on the planet.
It’s simply a matter of perspective. Not that anyone would give a shit about any speech I have to make, but if some criminals at Goldman Sachs want to give me their money, thereby losing the ability to use it to inflate bubbles or destroy the economy, I’d count it as a win-win; one for me, and one for the economy in general.
Will HRC be the biggest corporatist sell-out in history? I doubt it. Will she be as progressive as Sanders? Of course not. She’s somewhere in the middle.
Perspective has value. This blog is progressive, so I expect HRC apathy, apprehension, and disgust, and I’m not ever disappointed by it when I come across it. But seriously, I don’t think that HRC is as bad as any of the Republicans who she or Sanders will face in the general, and I truly believe that she’ll be better for everyone than any Republican.
I’m not going to get all tangled up in speaking fees that she or Bill collected, as speaking fees aren’t even in the same galaxy as profits earned by destroying workers’ lives, the environment, or the economy as a whole. And, considering who paid the speaking fees, the less money that crowd has, the better. Even if you expect it to be a quid pro quo if she is elected:
If you can point to where HRC has particularly used her wealth to hurt individual people, or destroy a class of workers, then let’s discuss it. But until then, I don’t blame her or anyone from taking money from rich people willing to dole it out to sit in the same room as they do. Hell, there are lobbyists, right this very second that I’m writing this and that someone, somewhere in time is reading this, that is doing far more damage, legally, with money than HRC can do simply for showing up and speaking in front of people. Which is why I don’t see her speaking fees as being anything more than just another sink to lob.
Well then, I guess Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter were just stupid not to get fabulously wealthy by picking up all those fat checks wealthy people were just dying to dangle in front of former Presidents for their words of wisdom. Truman and Carter wrote books (Truman did so initially because he had no income). Carter has managed to live well enough with his pension and book royalties. Hillary has received a total of $22 million in book advances and Bill received $15 for his memoir (2001 dollars) and over $6 million for “Giving.” They did donate (and got a tax deduction) $6 million to their personal charity. With pensions and Hillary’s ’01-’12 salaries, how much more do they need?
They chose government service over other careers where they might have received higher salaries. But so too do teachers, but they aren’t rewarded with huge checks for short speeches talking about their lives in the classroom.
Not stupid, just not interested.
Not to mention, 2001-Today is a lot different than 1953 or 1981. Neo-liberal economics rewards neo-liberals, which the Clintons are.
Why are you rationalizing the crass exploitation of the office of the presidency? Just another temporary position from which to launch a grift? Has the almighty dollar destroyed dignity and class? No values and principles not for sale to the higher bidder? What a very ugly nation we have become.
I don’t consider giving speeches out of office to be crass exploitation of the office of the presidency.
Going back to Washington, owning slaves while President. Adams passing the sedition acts. Jefferson raping his slave(s). Etc, etc, etc, for the last 225+ years. There have been vile, evil, and terrible things done while President.
I have absolutely zero qualms with attacking Clinton for the things he did in office. From Monica Lewinsky, to bombing aspirin factories and sanctioning thousands of children to death, to setting the stage for the 2008 economic crash.
BUt, Bill Clinton, giving speeches to people who will write him a check to do so, just doesn’t get me hot and bothered, to be honest.
I guess I’m not a real progressive. Damn’t.
I prefer to vote for people that have ethical standards and principles closer to mine. Use the same standards for business associations and friends. You and I clearly have different standards, but at least I don’t have to rationalize the behaviors of those that are more like me.
I prefer Sanders, but I’m not going to public shit all over HRC every chance I get.
That is the main difference between you and I.
You can rationalize my rationality however you like.
Remember to stay home instead of voting for HRC this year. Do America a huge solid!
Well, how often are you going to shit all over HRC, then?
Reminder: we’re in the primary portion of this election cycle. Sanders opponent is HRC. He and hopefully all his supporters are only speaking the truth, and if the truth hurts HRC that’s her problem.
I will deal with my general election decisions when the choices we’re left with is defined. (Since I’ve been dumping on Republicans since 1968, that won’t change.) What I’ve always done in the past when disagreeing with the DEM nominee choice is to say little to nothing about the candidate and make it clear that IMHO the GOP nominee is an unacceptable person.
Uh huh.
I’m just going to throw this weak dodge into the same pile of other weak dodges of ‘Hillary Clinton won’t destroy the party with her unilateral warhawkery, because she’s learned her lesson!’, ‘Hillary Clinton isn’t the same classist anti-poor bigot she was in the nineties, because 20 years have passed!’, and ‘Hillary Clinton won’t cause the nascent Obama Coalition to explode in the hangar because some vague GOTV shit and nagging Millenials about how bad the GOP is will cause them to come around’. We’ll just call it, ‘Hillary Clinton doesn’t have any smoking guns that grifting 150 million dollars from corporations will affect or affected her behavior once in office!’
Seriously, doesn’t it bother you that you have to make so many conservative-apologetic-flavored excuses for Clinton?
Did HRC grift $150M from corporations?
How much of that $150M did she personally grift compared to her husband, and why would I care if she grifts money from corporations that I’d like to see have less money?
And no, it doesn’t bother me to observe objective reality. It’s clear that she isn’t some shining progressive on a hill, so why would I expect her to act like one?
If I don’t expect her to act like one, describing what she did here in observable reality isn’t providing excuses. It’s describing objective, observable reality.
When Sanders wins the nomination, he can count on me and mine voting for him and working in any way we can to encourage others to vote for him. Until then, I’m not going to vomit bile and contempt on HRC just because she isn’t going to be as good as Sanders says he will be.
You can vote third party, or protest by sitting out 2016, or whatever, but I won’t. Which apparently makes me a big steaming piece of shit pretending to be a human being via being a voter for HRC over whichever other candidate she will face.
I suck, I know. If only I weren’t allowed to vote in 2016, we’d have a progressive President. Or something, right? I might as well vote for Cruz, or Trump, or Kasich, ’cause there won’t be a “dime’s worth of difference”, ad nauseam. Yeah, I’ve heard that before.
No thanks. I prefer Sanders, but I’m not going to continually attack HRC because she isn’t something that she isn’t. That I’m all of a sudden supposed to be upset that a -gasp- politician is being a politician by pandering for votes is ridiculous. Just like I voted for Obama over McCain/Palin and Rmoney/Ryan, I’ll vote for whomever the Democratic party nominates.
Yeah, I’m just a gullible, part-of-the-problem sap. I give you permission to blame me, rather than the non-voters who sit at home, since doing that is bad. It’ll be all my fault.
Weak dodge, indeed.
Many celebrities make a pretty penny giving speeches. 100-200k is actually not uncommon. There is no obvious underhanded quid pro quo involved. Highest paid speaker on one list I found: The Donald. ( before he had political aspirations).
Yes, but she’s NOT just a celebrity, and she HAS had political aspirations since the day they left the White House.
In other words, there are distinction between “legal”,
“everybody does it”, and “color of impropriety”.
Booman wrote: “That doesn’t mean that she actually will go easy on them, only that it would be understandable if she did.”
I’d put it like this: “”That doesn’t mean that she actually will go easy on them, only that people are hardly wrong to suspect that she would.”
You know, I agree with most of that. But, If she goes easy on Wall Street or big banks, I don’t think it would be directly because of the money from a few speeches. It would be because she sees things from their point of view. That worries me more than the money does.
Many people see all that money from the banks as a sign that she would tend to see things from their point of view. That’s the point.
As priscianus says, seeing things from their point of view is the entire point of why she’s brought there to make these speeches. She probably said during the speeches how important they are to the foundations of our economy, how important their investment vehicles are to growing the economy/providing jobs, that it doesn’t help to demonize them, and that we need to work together to strengthen the country. Just a bunch of platitudes and lip service to how awesome they are, but in generalities that you could plant this speech at a teachers’ union office and it wouldn’t be too awkward and still make sense. Think of it like her cover letter: change the address, maybe highlight certain skill sets tailored for that employer.
But, they come away thinking “she’s our peoples.” They’re on casual first names bases with each other. They know the same people. You come from the same sorts of assumptions, you’re just differing on the window dressing (a tax difference of a few percentage points). It takes a large hammer to smash through those assumptions, and it’s hard to do when these are the people you’re rubbing shoulders with and hanging out. So when the economy breaks down, she’s not going to be running to anyone accused of heresy, she’ll run to the “experts” at Goldman et al.; after all, they know how “the economy” works.
There’s also the simple point that, even if she doesn’t really believe they’re so wonderful, or doesn’t blatantly suck up to them, still, she’s less likely to ever say or do anything that would shut off that abundant flow of cash.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01/30/clinton-system-donor-machine-2016-election/
If you count the two billion in the Clinton Foundation and count the billion she plans on raising this election cycle you get close to four billion. But 800 million is not chump change.
I have a friend who served high up in the Obama administration. When she returned to private life, she had to be careful of what she said and did for 2 years. And observed those restrictions scrupulously. Don’t understand how Geithner, for example, could immediately return to a cushy position with a company whose business he was overseeing as a member of Obama’s cabinet.
As for the speeches, probably legal. (I wouldn’t know.) However, I consider them a serious conflict of interest. If Hillary were being considered for a top appointive position that oversaw the industry/profession/businesses that paid her such sums for speeches, I would find this conflict of interest to be disqualifying.
Rules are for the little people. Everyone in America knows that.
Nice post, Booman.
It’s interesting because in discussing the ethics of large fees for speeches, most people assume Hillary has conscious control of whether she’ll be influenced by the fee (basically a gift) and the interactions at the events themselves. I’m not. It’s pretty well established that doctors think they won’t change their prescriptions after marketing by pharmaceutical companies – but prescribing habits do change, even when doctors aren’t aware of it.
In fact, paying a doctor to give an educational speech is apparently a tactic to influence the doctor giving the speech –
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130730104
Even though the speaking doctors aren’t aware.
Too bad we’re all human. 🙂
Hillary would do good to listen to one of the founders of the republican party;
Of course so would those who place capital ahead of the labor required to create it.
Kinda short-circuits the entire GOtPer economic message, and bolsters Bernie’s message.
But then again Lincoln was never for the Southern Strategy of his time either 😉