abcnews | Former President Clinton, who ABC News has learned is identified as "Doe
36," is mentioned in more than fifty of the redacted filings, according
to court records. Several of those sealed or redacted entries are
focused on an effort by Giuffre's lawyers in mid-2016, first reported by ABC News, to subpoena the two-term Democratic president for deposition testimony about his relationship with Epstein.
According to portions of the
court record that were not sealed, Giuffre's legal team initiated
informal discussions with attorneys for the then-unnamed witness on June
9, 2016. That was a few days after the former president's wife, Hillary
Clinton, clinched the Democratic nomination for president.
Representatives
for Giuffre did contact the former president's attorneys in 2016 about a
potential deposition, a person familiar with the situation told ABC
News. Clinton's lawyers responded that his testimony would not be
helpful to Giuffre because, the person said, the former president had
never been on Epstein's island, as she had claimed.
Maxwell
called the move to question Clinton "utter nonsense" and a "transparent
ploy by [Giuffre] to increase media exposure for her sensational
stories through deposition side-show," her attorney Laura Menninger
wrote, according to an unredacted section of a court filing.
Giuffre's
legal team, in contrast, described the proposed testimony of Clinton as
"highly relevant" and "important to the fundamental claims and
defenses" in the case. The request was ultimately denied by U.S.
District Judge Robert Sweet, in a redacted ruling in late June 2016.
Giuffre's lawyers pressed the
Clinton issue again at a hearing in March 2017, six weeks before a trial
was scheduled to begin. According to a publicly available transcript,
Giuffre's team was then seeking to preclude Maxwell's side from
presenting testimony suggesting that Clinton hadn't been on Epstein's
island. Her attorneys argued it would be "inherently unfair" to Giuffre
because they had not been permitted to ask the former president if he
had ever been to Little St. James, as Epstein's private island estate
was known.
"You did not
allow us to depose him because you said it was irrelevant," McCawley
told Judge Sweet. "So now we're in a position where at trial they want
to put forth that information against my client, and I don't have an
under-oath statement from that individual saying whether or not he
actually was," she added.
Maxwell's
attorneys, according to the transcript, told the court Maxwell was
prepared to take the stand and testify that Clinton was never on the
island.
jonathanturley | In the cult classic, “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” the
character Scott Stuart is caught in a thick fog that causes him to
gradually shrink to the point that he lives in a doll house and fights
off the house cat. At one point, Stuart delivers a strikingly profound line: “The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet — like the closing of a gigantic circle.”
If one image sums up the incredibly shrinking stature of Attorney General Merrick Garland, it is that line in the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago search.
Two years ago, I was one of many who supported Garland when
he was nominated for attorney general. While his personality seemed a
better fit for the courts than the Cabinet, he is a person with
unimpeachable integrity and ethics.
If there are now doubts, it is not about his character but his
personality in dealing with political controversies. Those concerns have
grown in the past week.
In the aftermath of the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida, much remains unclear. The inventory list confirms that there were documents marked TS (Top Secret) and SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information)
—two of the highest classification levels for materials. The former
president’s retention of such documents would appear to be a very
serious violation.
However, the status of the documents is uncertain after Trump
insisted that he declassified the material and was handling the
records in accordance with prior discussions with the FBI. While the
declassified status of these documents would not bar charges under the
cited criminal provisions, it could have a significant impact on the viability of any prosecution.
I have not assumed that the search of Mar-a-Lago was unwarranted
given that we have not seen the underlying affidavit. Yet in
another controversy, Garland seemed largely reactive and rote in dealing
with questions over bias or abuse in his department.
In his confirmation hearing, Garland repeatedly pledged that
political considerations would hold no sway with him as attorney
general. Yet, in just two years, the Justice Department has careened
from one political controversy to another without any sign that Garland
is firmly in control of the department. Last year, for example, Garland
was heavily criticized for his rapid deployment of a task force to investigate parents and others challenging school boards.
By refusing a special counsel, Garland has removed the president’s
greatest threat. Unlike the U.S. Attorney investigating Hunter Biden, a
special counsel would be expected to publish a report that would detail
the scope of the Biden family’s alleged influence peddling and foreign
contacts.
Likewise, the Justice Department is conducting a grand jury
investigation that is aggressively pursuing Trump associates and
Republican figures, including seizing the telephones of members of Congress. That investigation has bearing on the integrity and the status of Biden’s potential opponent in 2024.
The investigation also has triggered concerns over the party in
power investigating the opposing political party. It is breathtaking
that Garland would see no need for an independent or special counsel
given this country’s continued deep divisions and mistrust.
Then came the raid. While Garland said he personally approved the
operation, he did little to help mitigate the inevitable political
explosion. This country is a powder keg and the FBI has a documented history of false statements to courts and falsified evidence in support of a previous Trump investigation.
taibbi | Last week, in the trial of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael
Sussmann, prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis asked ex-campaign manager Robby
Mook about the decision to share with a reporter a bogus story about
Donald Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank. Mook answered by giving up his
onetime boss. “I discussed it with Hillary,” he said,
describing his pitch to the candidate: “Hey, you know, we have this,
and we want to share it with a reporter… She agreed to that.”
In a
country with a functioning media system, this would have been a huge
story. Obviously this isn’t Watergate, Hillary Clinton was never
president, and Sussmann’s trial doesn’t equate to prosecutions of people
like Chuck Colson or Gordon Liddy. But as we’ve slowly been learning
for years, a massive fraud was perpetrated on the public with
Russiagate, and Mook’s testimony added a substantial piece of the
picture, implicating one of the country’s most prominent politicians in
one of the more ambitious disinformation campaigns we’ve seen.
There
are two reasons the Clinton story isn’t a bigger one in the public
consciousness. One is admitting the enormity of what took place would
require system-wide admissions by the FBI, the CIA, and, as Matt
Orfalea’s damning video above shows, virtually every major news media
organization in America.
More importantly, there’s no term for the
offense Democrats committed in 2016, though it was similar to
Watergate. Instead of a “third-rate burglary” and a bug, Democrats sent
schlock research to the FBI, who in turn lied to the secret FISA court
and obtained “legal” surveillance authority over former Trump aide
Carter Page (which opened doors to searches of everyone connected to
Page). Worse, instead of petty “ratfucking” like Donald Segretti’s
“Canuck letter,” the Clinton campaign created and fueled a successful,
years-long campaign of official harassment and media fraud. They
innovated an extraordinary trick, using government connections and press
to generate real criminal and counterintelligence investigations of
political enemies, mostly all based on what we now know to be
self-generated nonsense.
The Clintons, and especially Hillary,
have been baselessly accused of all sorts of things in the past, the
murder of Vince Foster being just one example. The “vast right-wing
conspiracy” was so successful that the Clintons ended up aligning with
and helping fund its chief architect, David Brock, ahead of the 2016
cycle. Along with Perkins Coie and the research agency Fusion-GPS,
headed by former Wall Street Journal reporter and current
self-admiring sleaze-merchant Glenn Simpson, they engineered three long
years of phony “collusion” headlines. No matter what papers like the Washington Post try to argue this week, this was an enormous scandal.
The
world has mostly moved on, since Russiagate was thirty or forty
“current things” ago, but the public prosecution of the collusion theory
was a daily preoccupation of national media for years. A substantial
portion of the population believed the accusations, and expected the
story would end with Donald Trump in jail or at least indicted,
scrolling for a thousand straight days in desperate expectation of the
promised justice. Trump was bounced from Twitter for incitement, but
Twitter has a policy against misinformation as well. It includes a
prohibition against “misleading” media that is “likely to result in widespread confusion on public issues.”
I’m
not a fan of throwing people off Twitter, but how can knowingly
launching thousands of bogus news stories across a period of years,
leading millions of people to believe lies and expect news that never arrived, not qualify as causing “widespread confusion on public issues”?
Let’s
travel back in time to the first months of 2017, when “Russiagate”
became the dominant news story in the world. Full panic arrived on the
wings of a series of blockbuster events. One was the release of an Intelligence Assessment
by the office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on
January 6, 2017, which concluded Russia ordered an “influence campaign”
with a “clear preference” for Trump. Days later, there was an “absolute bombshell” of a leak reported in CNN,
about four intelligence chiefs — Clapper, CIA head John Brennan, FBI
chief James Comey, and the NSA’s Mike Rogers — who supposedly presented
president-elect Trump with “claims of Russian efforts to compromise
him.”
Instantly, much of America was in a fever of speculation
over the suddenly plausible-sounding possibility that the incoming
president was a real-world “Manchurian Candidate” under Russia’s
control. That phrase would be used by the Washington Post, New York Times, Vanity Fair, Salon, Daily News and countless others:
moderndiplomacy | The Ukrainian war started when the democratically elected
President of Ukraine (an infamously corrupt country), who was committed
to keeping his country internationally neutral (not allied with either
Russia or the United States), met privately with both the U.S. President
Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
in 2010, shortly after that Ukrainian President’s election earlier in
2010; and, on both occasions, he rejected their urgings for Ukraine to
become allied with the United States against his adjoining country
Russia. This was being urged upon him so that America could position its
nuclear missiles at the Russian border with Ukraine, less than a
five-minute striking-distance away from hitting the Kremlin in Moscow.
On 1 March 2013 inside
America’s Embassy to Ukraine in Kiev, a series of “Tech Camps” started
to be held, in order to train those Ukrainian nazis for their leadership
of Ukraine’s ‘anti-corruption’ organizing. Simultaneously, under Polish
Government authorization, the CIA was training in Poland the military
Right Sector leaders how to lead the coming U.S. coup in neighboring
Ukraine. As the independent Polish investigative journalist Marek
Miszczuk headlined for the Polish magazine NIE (“meaning “NO”) (the original article being in Polish): “Maidan secret state secret: Polish training camp for Ukrainians”. The article was published 14 April 2014. Excerpts:
An informant who introduced himself as Wowa called the “NIE”
editorial office with the information that the Maidan rebels in Wrocław
are neo-fascists … [with] tattooed swastikas, swords, eagles and crosses
with unambiguous meaning. … Wowa pleadingly announced that photos of
members of the Right Sector must not appear in the press. … 86 fighters
from the then prepared Euromaidan flew over the Vistula River in
September 2013 at the invitation of the Polish Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. The pretext was to start cooperation between the Warsaw
University of Technology and the National University of Technology in
Kiev. But they were in Poland to receive special training to overthrow
Ukraine’s government. … Day 3 and 4 – theoretical classes: crowd
management, target selection, tactics and leadership. Day 5 – training
in behavior in stressful situations. Day 6 – free without leaving the
center. Day 7 – pre-medical help. Day 8 – protection against irritating
gases. Day 9 – building barricades. And so on and on for almost 25 days.
The program includes … classes at the shooting range (including three
times with sniper rifles!), tactical and practical training in the
assault on buildings. …
Excited by the importance of the information that was presented to me, I started to verify it.
The Office of the Press Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs refused to answer the questions about the student exchange
without giving any reason. It did not want to disclose whether it had
actually invited dozens of neo-fascists to Poland to teach them how to
overthrow the legal Ukrainian authorities. …
Let us summarize: in September 2013, according to the information
presented to me, several dozen Ukrainian students of the Polytechnic
University will come to Poland, at the invitation of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. In fact, they are members of the Right Sector, an
extreme right-wing and nationalist Ukrainian group led by Dmytro Jarosz –
he declined to comment on his visit to Legionowo.
Poland’s ‘fact-checking’ organization is (appropriately) titled demagog dot org (Demagog Association), and it is funded by the Stefan Batory Foundation. Demagog’s article about that NIE
news-report rated it “NIEWERYFIKOWALNE” or “ NOT VERIFIABLE”. The sole
reason given was: “The Ministry [of Foreign Affairs] strongly opposes
such news, emphasizing that the weekly (magazine) has violated not only
the principles of good taste, but also raison d’etat (reasons of
state).” No facts that were alleged in Miszczuk’s article were even
mentioned, much less disproven. How can his article be “unverifiable” if
the evidence that it refers to isn’t so much as even being checked?
I am insufficiently informed as to how the Russian internal economy works at this point to fully parse Hitlery's assertions. But, even without that information it is possible to infer some things.
Resource economies are not unusual among developing nations, and Russia has had less than thirty years to date in order to redevelop and modernize its’ infrastructure. Why would anyone expect a fully industrialized economy without the financial basis upon which to build one? Perhaps those leftist economists have expected too much in the face of the kinds of sanctions regimes leveled upon them to prevent just such an economy as they are claiming he is unwilling to create? In light of the present situation, they may now be more forgiving of having invested in guns rather than butter. It is they, after all, who are possessed of hypersonic weapons that we have no defense from.
Investments of any sort are subject to a cost benefit analysis; industrialization costs money, and one might forgive them for declining what the IMF has to offer in view of what has been required of those who take them up on their loans in the past. That may have rendered full integration into the Western economy on their terms unwise in the face of the kinds of hostility that have faced them since the fall of the Soviet Union. Slower growth appears to have benefited them, and Putin appears to have tamed his oligarch problem in the process.
The Russian economy that evolved under Putin from the basket case that US shock therapy left is now sufficiently diversified to handle all of the shocks that the west has leveled upon it. That would imply that it is not being handled in such a way as to sow chaos and mine it for the benefit of oligarchs, as it was initially designed to do by Larry Summers’ Harvard boys.
Present day Ukraine would be a perfect example of how that paradigm works out; Kolomoisky is clearly not a Putin, and it was not Russia that Bidens’, Kerrys’, Pelosi’s, Clinton’s and Romney’s kids were invested in. It sounded like Clinton was trying to make that case, but it has been her own cadre of political wrecking balls that have left the kinds of devastation which would normally result from such actions. If there is a “mean neighbor” out there trying to strip Ukraine of its’ assets, one might first look at the efforts made on behalf of Shell and Monsanto to do precisely that in 2014 rather than the Gazprom that has done yeoman’s work in stabilizing Russia’s foreign exchange.
“…just like boosting defense contractor revenues was not the primary reason for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.”
It was a nice bonus, but Iraq, Libya, Iran and Venezuela were never in a position to eliminate the petro-dollar/reserve currency as handily as Russia presently is. Nevertheless, there appear to be a lot of bankers who have found other nations gold and foreign reserves to be irresistible. The proposed playbook WRT Russia appears to be identical. Russia has not featured the cast of characters that we routinely find pirating them away while they are common as dirt here in our own failing Monopoly board paradigm.
The irony is that Hillary is like a broken clock in that clip.
First, one of the consistent critiques of the Putin regime by Russian leftists is that his government has spent the past twenty years or so transitioning to a so-called “semi-peripheral, resource-based” economy. That is – export lower-end goods, such as natural resources and low-processed materials, and import higher-end products. [E.g. export raw material for fertilizer, import finished fertilizer.] Then take the euro and dollar surplus thus received, and instead of investing it internally (as would have been done in the Soviet era) export it back to the West both as oligarchic wealth and as central bank deposits abroad, thus also creating a shortage of euros and dollars internally and artificially depressing the exchange rate (further inflating private fortunes – in rubles). Komolov has done multiple presentations and papers on this, and other left-wing or left-leaning economists have as well.
So in a sense, yes, the Putin regime, instead of building up the internal economy and industry, either dismantled it or let it go fallow so as to pour everything into this semi-peripheral scheme. But that was not a “failure” of policy – it was the policy, designed to benefit specific groups. Putin, thus, from the standpoint of the socio-economic elites that back him, has been an incredibly successful president. One might even call him the Russian Obama or some such, if framed in those terms. This, incidentally, is exactly how a bourgeois republic of any kind is supposed to work, after adjusting for local nuances.
Secondly, she notes that “Putin now wants to take what Ukraine has”. Well, to be sure, when the war is finally over, or at least when the situation is stabilised, then yes, one would fully expect the oligarchs close to the government to engage in vigorous redistribution of formerly Ukrainian assets (land, port facilities, mines, whatever), not to mention in competing for fat reconstruction contracts. This was not the primary reason for going to war, of course, just like boosting defence contractor revenues was not the primary reason for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. But it is a nice bonus, and again, exactly the way imperialism (as in, highest form of capitalism) is supposed to function. Incidentally, she also very quickly elides when it comes to listing what is it exactly that Ukraine “has” that Putin “wants – because Ukraine, too, had downshifted into a peripheral-type resource-export economy over the past three decades, so essentially Russia is not getting any new industry or technology or whatnot; Russia is getting more of the same resources, plus an infusion of cheap labour, plus, of course, some security enhancements offset by countervailing nonsense happening elsewhere such as Finland wishing to join NATO.
[For fun, look up the length of the Finnish-Russian land border and then consider that this is the stretch that NATO will now have to “defend” against “Russian aggression”…]
technet |Open Letter from Former Defense, Intelligence, Homeland
Security, and Cyber Officials Calling for National Security Review of
Congressional Tech Legislation
April 18, 2022
This is a pivotal moment in modern history. There is a battle brewing
between authoritarianism and democracy, and the former is using all the
tools at its disposal, including a broad disinformation campaign and
the threat of cyber-attacks, to bring about a change in the global
order. We must confront these global challenges.
U.S. technology platforms have given the world the chance to see the
real story of the Russian military’s horrific human rights abuses in
Ukraine, including the atrocities committed in Bucha, and the incredible
bravery of the Ukrainian people who continue to stand their ground.
Social media platforms are filled with messages of support for Ukraine
and fundraising campaigns to help Ukrainian refugees.
At the same time, President Putin and his regime have sought to twist
facts in order to show Russia as a liberator instead of an
aggressor. When reporting and images of the atrocities in Bucha began to
circulate, along with evidence and testimony pointing to Russian forces
as the perpetrators, the Kremlin was quick to label the claims
as “fake news.” The Russian government is seeking to alter the
information landscape by blocking Russian citizens from receiving
content that would show the true facts on the ground – and it has
already received buy-in from other like-minded states, such as China,
whose social media platform TikTok continues to abide by Moscow’s rules
of “digital authoritarianism.” Indeed, it is telling that among the
Kremlin’s first actions of the war was blocking U.S. platforms in
Russia. Putin knows that U.S. digital platforms can provide Russian
citizens valuable views and facts about the war that he tries to distort
through lies and disinformation.
U.S. technology platforms have already taken concrete steps to shine a
light on Russia’s actions to brutalize Ukraine. Through their efforts,
the world knows what is truly happening in cities from Mariupol to Kiev,
undistorted by manipulation from Moscow. Providing timely and accurate
on-the-ground information – and disrupting the scourge of disinformation
from Russian state media – is essential for allowing the world
(including the Russian people) to see the human toll of Russia’s
aggression and is increasingly integral to U.S. diplomatic and national
security efforts. It is our belief that these efforts will play a part
in helping to end this war.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity threats from authoritarian regimes are also on the rise. As President Biden recently announced,
the United States is facing an extraordinary threat from Russian
cyber-attacks, and the private sector “must accelerate efforts to lock
their digital doors.” In response to this heightened threat environment,
U.S. technology companies have accelerated their partnership with the
U.S. government and its allies to improve our collective defense. Both
in public and behind the scenes, these companies have rolled out
integrated cyber defenses, rapidly fused threat intelligence across
products and services, and moved quickly to block malicious actors on
their platforms. This partnership has resulted in the detection and
disruption of a series of significant security threats from Russia and
Belarus.
In the face of these growing threats, U.S. policymakers must not
inadvertently hamper the ability of U.S. technology platforms to counter
increasing disinformation and cybersecurity risks, particularly as the
West continues to rely on the scale and reach of these firms to push
back on the Kremlin. But recently proposed congressional legislation
would unintentionally curtail the ability of these platforms to target
disinformation efforts and safeguard the security of their users in the
U.S. and globally. Legislation from both the House and Senate requiring
non-discriminatory access for all “business users” (broadly defined to
include foreign rivals) on U.S. digital platforms would provide an open
door for foreign adversaries to gain access to the software and
hardware of American technology companies. Unfettered access to software
and hardware could result in major cyber threats, misinformation,
access to data of U.S. persons, and intellectual property theft. Other
provisions in this legislation would damage the capability of U.S.
technology companies to roll out integrated security tools to adequately
screen for nefarious apps and malicious actors, weakening security
measures currently embedded in device and platform operating systems.
Our national security greatly benefits from the capacity of these
platforms to detect and act against these types of risks and, therefore,
must not be unintentionally impeded.
We call on the congressional committees with national security
jurisdiction – including the Armed Services Committees, Intelligence
Committees, and Homeland Security Committees in both the House and
Senate – to conduct a review of any legislation that could hinder
America’s key technology companies in the fight against cyber and
national security risks emanating from Russia’s and China’s growing
digital authoritarianism. Such a review would ensure that legislative
proposals do not enhance our adversaries’ capabilities. It is imperative
that the United States avoid the pitfalls of its key allies and
partners, such as the European Union (EU), whose Digital Markets Act
(DMA) passed without any consideration of national security
repercussions – despite repeated concerns from the Biden administration, including over potential cybersecurity risks. There were also bipartisan congressional fears
that the DMA would benefit “powerful state-owned and subsidized Chinese
and Russian companies,” which could have “negative impacts on internet
users’ privacy, security, and free speech.” Even in light of these
security concerns, the EU’s refusal to undertake a national security
assessment led to none of them being addressed. The U.S. government must
not make this same mistake.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the start of a new chapter in
global history, one in which the ideals of democracy will be put to the
test. The United States will need to rely on the power of its technology
sector to ensure that the safety of its citizens and the narrative of
events continues to be shaped by facts, not by foreign adversaries.
Sincerely,
James R. Clapper Former Director of National Intelligence
Jane Harman Former U.S. Representative from California Former Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee
Jeh C. Johnson Former Secretary of Homeland Security†
Michael J. Morell Former Acting Director and Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Leon E. Panetta Former Secretary of Defense Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Admiral Michael S. Rogers Former Commander, U.S. Cyber Command Former Director, National Security Agency
Frances F. Townsend Former Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security
BAR |Having a new Black SCOTUS justice or bringing Barack Obama out of
retirement for a photo opportunity won't raise Joe Biden's poll numbers
or stave off defeat in the mid-term elections. Only fulfilling campaign
promises and giving the people what they need will help Biden and the
democrats.
The Black political class and the democratic party are once again
infantilizing Black voters instead of giving them what they need and
want. They pass useless legislation and stage political performances
because they have lost the trust of the people. Biden’s poll numbers
continue to drop. He now has a lackluster 40 percent approval rating for
the simple reason that he hasn’t done what he promised during his 2020
presidential campaign.
Biden said he would provide student loan debt relief, raise the
minimum wage, and improve the government response to the covid crisis.
His friends in corporate media covered for him by claiming that stimulus
and child tax credit payments would “cut child poverty in half.” That
claim was never true and now that tax credit is gone along with the much
touted Build Back Better legislation. Not only does covid continue to
kill, with 1 million dead in the past two years, but the millions of
Americans who are uninsured no longer have free treatment, testing, or
vaccinations.
The Black political class have so little to show for their efforts
that they now resort to passing legislation so meaningless that it
insults the collective intelligence of Black people. One example is the
passage of the Emmett Till Anti Lynching bill. Congress failed to pass
anti-lynching legislation when the public murder of Black people was a
common occurrence. But now the lynchers are not local white citizens
councils and Ku Klux Klan members. It is the police who kill an average
of three people every day, and one of those persons will be Black.
Despite this continuing bloodshed committed against their
constituents, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has never even
attempted to pass legislation which would protect the public from
summary police execution. There is plenty of kente cloth and posturing
but the CBC go along with Biden’s plan to add $30 billion in funding to states and localities to hire more police, the people who actually commit lynch law in this country.
When they aren’t virtue signaling about lynching, Black politicians
are passing legislation about hairstyles. The legislation, Create a
Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN Act) would prohibit
discrimination against people with natural hair. The House of
Representatives passed the CROWN Act but it faces what is called an
uncertain future in the Senate. That means it probably won’t be taken up
at all.
No Black person is in favor of hair based discrimination, but there
are far more important issues that need to be addressed. The democrats
are rightfully worried about the November 2022 mid-term elections and
are in danger of losing control of the House. Their response is what one
would expect from a faux leftish party.
They bring out their faux leftish former president, Barack Obama.
Obama appeared at the white house to celebrate the Affordable Care Act
(ACA), popularly known as Obamacare. Obamacare enshrined corporate
control over health care and gave people the right to purchase insurance
which is too expensive. Medicaid expansion was the most important
aspect of Obamacare but it was never accepted by most of the southern
states, the region with the largest Black population.
Pulling out the Barack Obama card didn’t help Hillary Clinton secure
votes where she needed them in 2016. Similarly, his presence is unlikely
to help Biden in 2022. Biden and the democrats are hamstrung by their
reliance on the oligarchic class, the people he promised, “Nothing will
fundamentally change.” They won’t allow Build Back Better or student
loan debt relief or universal health care and so the people go without
what they need the most. Thus the CROWN Act is born.
The problem for Biden and the democrats is that the entire political
system is in disrepute. They post on Twitter about expensive health care
and give the impression they will actually do something about this
crisis. But they can’t fool all the people all the time. Inflation is
eating away at the well being of millions of people. The party in power
takes a hit when times are hard. Ridiculous propaganda about “Putin’s
price hike” won’t get the votes they need.
tomluongo | All the roads to RussiaGate lead through Ukraine and British
Intelligence. At some point you just have to face the face of the
agitator. Every one of those stories have logical inconsistencies wide
enough to drive a column of tanks through.
These are painstakingly worked through by investigative journalists
pushed to the fringe by the technocrats’ willing partners in Silicon
Valley to minimize their influence over the narrative.
That, in itself, should be considered prima facia evidence of malfeasance but sadly it isn’t.
From the moment Russia’s troops crossed the border into Ukraine on
February 24th there has been a clear strategy by the Russian Ministries
of Defense and Foreign Affairs to head off potential false flags
publicly before they could be pulled off.
The Russian Foreign Ministry singled out the UK for its histrionics
saying if they wanted to lead the charge, they’ll get the worst
treatment.
With the pullout of Russian troops from around Kiev however, they
have little control over the preparing of the stage. You believe what
you want to believe about Bucha, I don’t care.
Given the track record of Russia’s accusers here I’m taking the
position that these allegations have to be incontrovertibly proven
publicly for me to believe a word of them. Here’s one version of the story (warning: very graphic).
That is how low the credibility of the sources on this are. The UK
government has been, along with Biden’s Dept. of State and National
Security Council, the most belligerent in their response to Russia’s
military operation. Their history and naked hatred of all things
Russian stretches back multiple centuries.
In short, they have motive, means and opportunity to stage a false
flag to push public sentiment further towards NATO’s intervention into
Ukraine officially, therefore a false flag is the most likely scenario.
Complaints about how Russia waged the initial part of this war have
centered on their unwillingness (but not opposition) to target
civilians. Kiev could have easily been taken if the Russians wanted to
commit massive atrocities against civilians.
They did not do so. That flies in the face of what’s being alleged
about Bucha. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen the way it is being
alleged, but the burden of proof lies with the accuser (Ukraine) and
their allies (The US and UK).
And the main amplifier of this story, the UK, blocked not one but two
proposals by the Russian Federation to investigate what happened in
Bucha. We can’t have that, there’s a war to escalate.
Remember this story is only possible because the Russians first got
repulsed from taking Kiev and then pulled back from the areas
surrounding it. They are redeploying forces and regrouping for a major
push against Ukrainian forces trapped in the eastern part of Ukraine.
That operation will likely wipe out what’s left of the UAF troops
there and push the next phase of this war on the ground to its natural
state of equilibrium for the next few months.
There are so many people whose crimes in Ukraine would be exposed by a
Russian win there that it is truly existential to keep that from
happening. It goes deeper than even the ideology of the West which
needs to subjugate Russia if the Davos plan for global governance is going to have any hope of succeeding.
This is also personal for everyone from Joe Biden himself to
hundreds, if not thousands of people complicit in the various schemes,
plots and crimes committed in the petrie dish of corruption they’ve
staged their attacks on common decency from.
So, when I say they have motive, means and opportunity, I mean it.
These are the same people who impeached Donald Trump over a phone call.
Of course they will say the quiet parts out loud about what they want
to do to Putin for screwing up their grand plans.
This brings me back to my article from the other day
handicapping the Hungarian elections. Because Hungary is now in a very
strong position I posited they’d be in if Viktor Orban won the
election, which he did, emphatically. And that means the EU is in a
very precarious position to continue supporting an anti-Russia policy
stance.
dailycaller |The Clinton Foundation’s rapid
decline in donor cash has alarmed top ethics watchdogs who say it shows
clear red flags of political corruption.
Financial
disclosures show a precipitous decline in contributions to the Clinton
Foundation in the years following former president Bill Clinton and
former first lady Hillary Clinton’s fall from the heights of their
political power.
The Clinton Foundation received roughly $16.3 million in contributions in 2020, according to their newly released Form 990. This was a
93.6% decrease from the nearly $250 million the charitable organization
raked in during 2009 after Hillary Clinton was appointed Secretary of
State.
“For years, the Clinton Foundation
raised ethical concerns and blurred lines between the foundation,
private entities, and the State Department,” said Scott Amey, General Counsel for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan, independent government corruption watchdog organization.
“Money
was pouring in when Hillary Clinton was a senior official and a
candidate for president. The fact that foundation donors received
special access to the Secretary of State isn’t surprising, nor is the
fall in foundation funding after her 2016 election loss. Many people
thought people were supporting the former president, but it really looks
like they were cozying up to who they thought was going to be the
future president — a situation that can’t be repeated,” the POGO General
Counsel told the Daily Caller.
“Now,
with ethics concerns raised about Mnuchin and Kushner, as well as
judges, it is vital that Congress put politics aside and pass an ethics
reform package for all three branches of government. Congress must
eliminate conflicts of interest, restrict special access, prevent
trading on insider knowledge, and stop public servants who cash in for
personal or private gain. Recent surveys show that corruption is a major
public concern, but with the foxes guarding the henhouse, I’m unsure
who will step forward to fix the problem,” said Amey.
“We’ve been seeing a decline in the cash flow to the Clinton Foundation since the 2016 presidential election,” Anna Massogliatold the Daily Caller. Massoglia is an Investigative Researcher at OpenSecrets, a non-profit transparency organization that tracks money in politics.
The
Investigative Researcher said that when OpenSecrets spoke with the
Clinton Foundation, they explained the strained revenue stream was “due
to a lack of events due to an inability to have conferences” and
“receiving less money from fundraising events, programs, and services.”
Massoglia reasoned that “it would make sense for there to be a
significant decrease in 2020 since there were even less in-person events
around that time.”
“During
the presidential election, of course, Clinton had said that they were
going to step back from the foundation for the duration of the election,
and if she came into office, that they would wind things down. However,
because she was not elected, it was not expected that the foundation
would get smaller for any other reason, at least externally,” added
Massoglia.
In 2018, Massoglia and OpenSecrets were
the first to obtain the Clinton Foundation’s annual 990 Form that
showed a $38.4 million revenue stream. While slightly higher than the
previous year, donations were still significantly lower than in years
when Hillary or Bill Clinton were more influential in American politics.
taibbi | Cast out, the Times said, were “the majority of former Obama
administration officials… who generally credit themselves with helping
create the Obama legacy,” including former top aide David Axelrod, who’d
just called Obama an “apostle of hope” in the Washington Post and
sat for a three-hour HBO documentary deep-throat of his ex-boss.
Remaining on the list were celeb couples Chrissy Teigen and John Legend,
as well as Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union, along with Steven
Spielberg, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen, Questlove,
Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Don Cheadle, and other Fabulous People, who drank “top
shelf liquor,” puffed stogies, and hit the links at the Vineyard Golf
Club (membership fee:
$350,000). An early report that Pearl Jam had been hired to perform was
later refuted. Eddie Vedder would just be there, but not to play.
One attendee called it the “party of all parties,” while another added, “Y’all never seen
Obama like this,” There’s a glorious moment in the life of a certain kind of
politician, when either because their careers are over, or because
they’re so untouchable politically that it doesn’t matter anymore, that
they finally get to remove the public mask, no pun intended. This Covid
bash was Barack Obama’s “Fuck it!” moment.
He extended middle
fingers in all directions: to his Vineyard neighbors, the rest of
America, Biden, the hanger-on ex-staffers who’d stacked years of
hundred-hour work weeks to build his ballyhooed career, the not quite
A-listers bounced at the last minute for being not famous enough (sorry,
Larry David and Conan O’Brien!), and so on. It’d be hard not to laugh
imagining Axelrod reading that even “Real Housewife of Atlanta” Kim
Fields got on the party list over him, except that Obama giving the
shove-off to his most devoted (if also scummy and greedy) aides is also
such a perfect metaphor for the way he slammed the door in the faces of
the millions of ordinary voters who once so desperately believed in him.
Obviously, getting rich and not giving a shit anymore is the
birthright of every American. But this wasn’t supposed to be in the
script for Obama, whose remarkable heel turn has been obscured by the
Trump years, which incidentally were at least partly his fault. The
history books and the still-starstruck press will let him skate on this,
but they shouldn’t.
Obama was set up to be the greatest of
American heroes, but proved to be a common swindler and one of the great
political liars of all time — he fooled us all. Moreover, his
remarkably vacuous post-presidency is proving true everything Trump said
in 2016 about the grasping Washington politicians whose only motives
are personal enrichment, and who’d do anything, even attend his wedding,
for a buck. Trump’s point was that he, Trump, was already swinishly
rich, while politicians have only one thing to sell to get the upper
class status they crave: us.
BAR | It is painfully evident from the video
of last week’s meeting between a #BlackLivesMatter delegation and
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that the organization
is philosophically incapable of making demands on the political
representatives of the rulers of the United States. #BLM’s leadership is
either confused as to the nature of political demands, or has decided
to reject the most fundamental lessons of mass movement politics –
indeed, of human social dynamics. Political movements are defined by
their core demands. The video of #BLM’s closed-door encounter with
Clinton in New Hampshire, August 11 – after the five activists had been
prevented from attending and, presumably, disrupting her campaign event –
should become a staple for future political education classes on what
happens when would-be movement operatives enter the lion’s den unarmed
with political demands: they are humiliated and eaten alive.
#Black Lives Matter does post a list of “National Demands”
on its website, including “that the federal government discontinue its
supply of military weaponry and equipment to local law enforcement,” and
that the U.S. Justice Department “release the names of all officers
involved in killing black people within the last five years.” Mixed in
with these demands are pledges to “seek justice for Michael Brown’s
family,” to develop a network “aimed at redressing the systemic pattern
of anti-black law enforcement violence in the US,” and to “advocate” for
a decrease in federal spending on law enforcement, accompanied by an
increase in social funding.
The commingling of demands and lists of future projects is, itself,
indicative of lack of clarity on what constitutes a demand. However, it
is clear that the organization’s campaign to disrupt presidential
candidates involves only one demand: that representatives of the
corporate electoral duopoly “acknowledge whether they believe that Black
lives matter,” in the words of #BLM co-founder Alicia Garza, who interviewed on MSNBC on the same day as the New Hampshire debacle.
The main aim of #BLM, besides the huge airplay generated by the confrontations, is to elicit the candidates’ own proposals
for changes in the criminal justice system. Julius Jones, founder of
the Worcester, Massachusetts, chapter of #BLM and Clinton’s main
interlocutor at the New Hampshire encounter, told The Daily Beast:
“Each one [of the candidates] is being made to offer their racial
analysis in the United States. We require that they have an
understanding so to that list we need to strongly add analysis because
we live in a pluralistic society."
“The main aim of #BLM is to elicit the candidates’ own proposals for changes in the criminal justice system.”
In the logic of #BLM leaders, solicitation of reformist proposals
from candidates of the two oligarchic parties constitutes a kind of
demand. The group doesn’t even require that candidates endorse #BLM’s
own posted, reformist demands, such as decreasing spending on police or
releasing the names of killer cops. Instead, the candidates are “made to
offer their racial analysis” and to produce proposals tailored by the
candidate’s own staffs.
The strategy – if one could dignify it as such – is inherently impotent, which
is why corporate lawyer and war criminal Hillary Clinton found it so
easy to reduce Jones and his colleagues to school children at an
elementary civics class.
Although millions of people have already seen the video, it is
important to carefully examine the exchange between Clinton and Julius
Jones, since the meeting marks a crucial point in the trajectory of both
#BLM and of the larger movement to which Alicia Garza and her
colleagues contributed a name. The contradictions of #BLM’s strategy
will have profound impact – at least in the near term – on the future of
the struggle against state oppression of Black people in the U.S. We
need to learn from this disaster.
mintpressnews | Liberals who express dismay, or more bizarrely a fevered hope, about
the corporatists and imperialists selected to fill the positions in the
Biden administration are the court jesters of our political burlesque. They long ago sold their soul and abandoned their most basic principles to
line up behind a bankrupt Democratic Party. They chant, with every
election cycle, the mantra of the least worst and sit placidly on the
sidelines as a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama and the Democratic Party
leadership betray every issue they claim to support.
The only thing that mattered to liberals in the presidential race,
once again, was removing a Republican, this time Donald Trump, from
office. This, the liberals achieved. But their Faustian bargain, in
election after election, has shredded their credibility. They are
ridiculed, not only among right-wing Trump supporters but by the
hierarchy of the Democratic Party that has been captured by corporate
power. No one can, or should, take liberals seriously. They stand for
nothing. They fight for nothing. The cost is too onerous. And so, the
liberals do what they always do, chatter endlessly about political and
moral positions they refuse to make any sacrifices to achieve.
Liberals, largely comprised of the professional managerial-class that
dutifully recycles and shops for organic produce and is concentrated on
the two coasts, have profited from the ravages of neoliberalism. They
seek to endow it with a patina of civility. But their routine and public
humiliation has ominous consequences. It not only exposes the liberal
class as hollow and empty, it discredits the liberal democratic values
they claim to uphold. Liberals should have abandoned the Democratic
Party when Bill Clinton and political hacks such as Biden transformed
the Democratic Party into the Republican Party and launched a war on
traditional liberal values and left-wing populism. They should have
defected by the millions to support Ralph Nader and other Green Party
candidates.
This defection, as Nader understood, was the only tactic that could
force the Democrats to adopt parts of a liberal and left-wing agenda and
save us from the slow-motion corporate coup d’état. Fear is the real
force behind political change, not oily promises of mutual goodwill.
Short of this pressure, this fear, especially with labor unions
destroyed, there is no hope. Now we will reap the consequences of the
liberal class’s moral and political cowardice.
The Democratic Party elites revel in taunting liberals as well as the
left-wing populists who preach class warfare and supported Bernie
Sanders.
nakedcapitalism | I hate to have to make a couple of qualifying remarks about an otherwise excellent discussion of how the Democrats have made promises
to too many constituencies, particularly Big Finance and top
professionals, and will soon go through elaborate exercises to try to
pretend that they aren’t betraying some interests to deliver to others.
I’ve mentioned before that Paul Jay has developed a misguided
obsession with BlackRock, when it is far from the most powerful
financial firm. Goldman, with its astonishing alumni penetration of top
level government positions in the US and abroad (Mario Draghi, Mark
Carney, William Dudley and Neel Kashkari as as central bankers; Bob
Rubin, Hank Paulson, and Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretaries; Gary
Gensler, admittedly a bit of a turncoat, as head of the CFTC; John
Corzine and Phil Muphy as New Jersey governors; I’m sure I missed
plenty). The idea that a former BlackRock official Brian Deese becoming
head of the National Economic Council confers some sort of outsized
influence is quite a stretch…particularly since former Goldman President
and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cheld the same post in Trump’s
administration.
Similarly, any of the top private equity firms has vastly more power
than BlackRock. Even though BlackRock manages more money, it has an
arms-length, virtually nil influence relationship with the companies
whose shares are in its funds.
By contrast KKR stated in one of its annual reports in the mid-2000
that it would be the fifth biggest employer in the US through its
portfolio companies. Given that private equity has only grown as a share
of global equity since then, it’s extremely likely that Blackstone,
Carlyle and KKR each through their portfolio companies are among the top
ten employers in the US.
All of these private equity firms hire and fire the executives of
their portfolio companies and dictate which law and accounting firms
they use; they could reach in and fire any employee if they chose to
(say they found offensive remarks on Facebook or Twitter). Private
equity collectively is the biggest source of fees to Wall Street (their
rich merger and acquisition and financing fees dwarf the skimpy stock
and bond trading fees a BlackRock pays1), the biggest source
of fees to white shoe law firms, and I am told, since the early 2000s,
also pay more than half the fees of top consultants McKinsey, Bain, and
BCG
By contrast, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, has extremely little
direct influence over any of the public or late-stage VC companies in
which BlackRock invests. Nearly all shares are held in index funds,
which means BlackRock’s overriding concern is index replication at the
lowest possible cost. It can’t buy or sell shares to make a point.
BlackRock does not hold large enough stakes to appoint directors, let
alone hire and fire executives or employees.
And BlackRock’s promotion of ESG, as in environmental, social and
governance investing? BlackRock is very late to that party. CalPERS and
CalSTRS were true believers long ago; CalPERS famously dumped tobacco
stocks at the worst possible time, right before the Federal-state
settlement. CalSTRS pressured Cerberus to dump its holdings in gun maker
Remington in 2015. A party with inside knowledge of BlackRock told me
that the big reason BlackRock suddenly became a vocal advocate was that
it hoped to win the mandate to take over CalPERS private equity
portfolio. Recall that Bloomberg publicized in late 2017 that that was
CalPERS’ plan, despite BlackRock’s lack of meaningful private equity
experience. BlackRock was indeed on a short list of firms invited to
propose over that Christmas/New Years holiday. BlackRock staring making a
full throated defense of ESG investing, which is near and dear to the
board’s heart, in early 2018, with CalPERS Chief Investment Officer Ted
Eliopoulos at Larry Fink’s side during the press conference. The effort
to hand off CalPERS’ portfolio to an outside party and have less control
and pay even more fees fell apart under press scrutiny, led by this
website.
Another smaller sour note was Mark Blyth depicting Republicans as
representing extractive, old economy industries. Top expert on political
money in America, Tom Ferguson, says that’s simplistic. While oil and
fracking company donations are strongly Republican, of the four biggest
private equity firms, the heads of three (KKR, Blackstone, and Carlyle)
are established heavyweight Republican donors. Industry insiders report
that private equity firms press portfolio company executives to donate
in line with parent company preferences. Apollo, as more of a real
estate firm, gives to both parties, as do most developers, since they
always need friends in office. The arms industry skews Republican. The
health care industry gives heavily to both parties.
vanityfair | Band’s ultimate goal was to transform Clinton from a beleaguered
politician, remembered for sex scandals and debating what the meaning of
the word is is, into the world’s philanthropist in chief. Band
came up with the concept at the 2003 World Economic Forum as he watched
attendees flock to Clinton like groupies. In 2005, Band convinced
Clinton to host his own version of Davos. Celebrities, billionaires, and
CEOs descended on New York to mix and mingle while making “pledges” to
donate to charity. The Clinton Global Initiative quickly established
itself as one of the hottest tickets on the conference circuit. In 2007,
Gallup ranked Clinton’s favorability at 63 percent. “Clinton was happy
because CGI gave him what he wanted--redemption and being in the
spotlight,” Band said.
As
the impresario of CGI, Band became a central node in a network of the
most powerful people on the planet. Because Clinton didn’t carry a cell
phone or use email, anyone who wanted to speak to Clinton had to go
through Band. (At his peak, Band carried three BlackBerries at all
times.) Most petitioners didn’t get through the door. Not surprisingly,
this pissed off a lot of people. “You make so many enemies when you’re
the right-hand guy to a powerful person. You just can’t make everyone
happy,” Ruddy said. Band didn’t help himself by coming across to many as
self-important and blunt. “You had to kiss Doug’s ass to get anywhere.
It was like Doug began to think he was Bill Clinton,” said a Clinton
adviser who dealt frequently with Band. Clinton ignored Band’s critics
because Band was getting results.
Band’s relationship with Clinton
rocketed Band into the stratosphere of Manhattan’s social scene. He
frequented Bungalow 8 and Buddakan, and briefly dated Naomi Campbell.
Band’s bachelor years ended when he met Lily Rafii, a Morgan Stanley
banker turned handbag designer, at a Bergdorf’s trunk show. In 2007,
they wed at the 17th-century Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, near Paris, at a
ceremony attended by no fewer than three billionaires. Clinton
delivered a moving toast. “If there is one person I want in a foxhole
with me, it’s Doug,” Band recalled Clinton saying.
His problem was that someone else was already in the foxhole.
Politics is the Clinton
family business, and it was inevitable that Band would get squeezed
between Bill’s and Hillary’s competing ambitions and conflicting
priorities. It’s hard to overstate how parallel Bill’s and Hillary’s
lives had become by the 2000s. “It was separate worlds that had very
little overlap,” Band said. Band was Bill’s guy, which meant he saw
Hillary’s career as a threat. “I wanted him to stay out of politics and
do great big things,” Band said.
As Hillary’s 2008
run approached, the tensions played out, and the campaign brought on
unwelcome scrutiny of Bill’s postpresidency. How exactly had Bill, with
Band’s help, earned that $109 million after leaving office? The Wall Street Journal
uncovered Band’s role in brokering a $100 million real estate deal
between Italian con artist Raffaello Follieri, Ron Burkle, and a Clinton
Foundation donor named Michael Cooper. (Follieri wired Band a $200,000
finder’s fee, which Band later returned.) A New York Times
investigation exposed how Canadian mining mogul Frank Giustra won a
lucrative uranium mining concession in Kazakhstan two days after Giustra
and Bill dined with Kazakhstan’s strongman president. (Months later,
Giustra donated $31 million to the Clinton Foundation and pledged $100
million more.)
sicsempertyrannis | While
the law enforcement and intelligence community, along with the
mainstream media, has been pushing the meme that there is no basis to
believe that Seth Rich, as claimed by multiple independent sources, had
contact with Julian Assange’s Wikileaks, the evidence suggests otherwise
and it turns out the FBI has been covering up more relevant documents.
The first hint of the coverup came from David Hardy, an FBI Senior
official, who affirmed in a 2017 affidavit that there were no responsive
records. Hardy is the Section Chief of the Record/Information
Dissemination Section (“RIDS”), Information Management Division (“IMD”),
Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), in Winchester, Virginia. Here
are the relevant portions of his first affidavit:
(19) CRS Search and Results. In response to Plaintiff’s request dated
September 1, 2017, RIDS conducted an index search of the CRS for
responsive main and reference file records employing the UNI application
of ACS. The FBI searched the subject’s name, “Seth Conrad Rich,” in
order to identify files responsive to Plaintiff’s request and subject to
the FOIA. The FBI’s searches included a three-way phonetic breakdown5
of the subject’s name. These searches located no main or reference records responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request.
(9) By letter executed on November 9, 2017, OIP advised Plaintiff it
affirmed the FBI’s determination. OIP further advised Plaintiff that to
the extent his request sought access to records that would either
confirm or deny an individual’s placement on any government watch list,
the FBI properly refused to confirm or deny the existence of any such
records because their existence is protected from disclosure pursuant to
5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E). . .
David Hardy either was lying or dangerously incompetent. The FBI did
have documents–emails to be specific. The FBI’s habit of stonewalling or
denying that it has documents, in this case documents related to Seth
Rich, is not unique to this case. Just ask Carter Page or General
Michael Flynn.
The FBI finally admitted to Judicial Watch in January 2020 that they
had emails between the Washington Field Office and FBI Headquarters.
These are dynamite because they show that the FBI’s Washington Field
Office (which is not located at FBI Headquarters on 9th and Pennsylvania
Avenue, NW in Washington, DC) was communicating with the FBI’s Peter
Strzok and the Counter Intelligence Division. Why in the world would the
FBI be involved in investigating what was supposedly a mere robbery of
an unfortunate white victim (i.e., Seth Rich) and communicating on this
investigation with the Counter Intelligence Division (CID) of the FBI.
The CID only works international spy cases.
Here are the emails (I transcribed them and put them in chronological
order to facilitate your ability to read them and understand what is
being communicated).
realsludge | Democrats are looking ahead to the second nominating ballot at the
July Democratic National Convention, when superdelegates will be allowed
to cast votes if no presidential candidate receives a majority of
pledged delegates on the first ballot.
Superdelegates include 75 at-large DNC members, often prominent party
figures who are put forward as a slate by DNC Chair Tom Perez and do
not directly represent a state or other region. Among the 447 total
voting DNC members, who make up the majority of 771 superdelegates,
there are scores of corporate lobbyists and consultants—including many
of the 75 at-large DNC members, who were not individually elected.
These corporate lobbyists will be allowed to vote on the second
ballot under the compromise that emerged from the Unity Reform
Commission meeting in 2017. The Unity Reform Commission’s proposed
package of reforms was later passed by the Rules and Bylaws Committee
and adopted as the 2020 convention rules in a rushed voice vote of full
DNC members at the summer 2018 national party meeting.
In October 2017, Perez purged DNC committees of several members who
had supported either his rival candidate for chair, then-Rep. Keith
Ellison, or Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid. In their place, Perez
appointed several handpicked corporate lobbyists to the committees that
govern the party’s operating rules, budget, convention delegates, and
other matters.
Sludge reviewed a DNC committee membership list from September 2019
and found that nearly two-thirds of the members of the DNC Rules and
Bylaws Committee have backgrounds in corporate influence and legal
defense that present possible conflicts of interest for their work on
the party rules. Some individuals may not currently hold the same
committee assignments, but all are current DNC members. Committee
membership details are not made publicly available by the DNC.
The 32-member DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee contains the following
20 individuals: a health insurance board member co-chair, three
surrogates for presidential campaigns (two for Bloomberg, one for
Biden), four current corporate lobbyists, two former corporate
lobbyists, six corporate consultants, and four corporate lawyers.
This article, the second in a series
on DNC committees, looks at the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which is
responsible for the Charter of the Democratic Party, for which it “shall
receive and consider all recommendations for adoption and amendments.”
Here are the rules-making DNC members—many of them unelected—whose
voting power raises ethics questions, as the Rules and Bylaws Committee
continues to block proposed changes for stronger conflict of interest
policies.
theintercept |Members of the Democratic National Committee will meet on Saturday to choose their new chair, replacing the disgracedinterim chair Donna Brazile, who replaced the disgraced five-year chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Even though the outcome is extremely unlikely to change the (failed) fundamentals of the party, the race has become something of an impassioned proxy war
replicating the 2016 primary fight: between the Clinton/Obama
establishment wing (which largely backs Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez,
who vehemently supported
Clinton) and the insurgent Sanders wing (which backs Keith Ellison, the
first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Congress, who was an early
Sanders supporter).
The New Republic’s Clio Chang has a great, detailed analysis
of the contest. She asks the key question about Perez’s candidacy that
has long hovered and yet has never been answered. As Chang correctly
notes, supporters of Perez insist, not unreasonably, that he is
materially indistinguishable from Ellison in terms of ideology (despite his support for TPP,
seemingly grounded in loyalty to Obama). This, she argues, is “why the
case for Tom Perez makes no sense”: After all, “if Perez is like Ellison
— in both his politics and ideology — why bother fielding him in the
first place?”
The timeline here is critical. Ellison announced
his candidacy on November 15, armed with endorsements that spanned the
range of the party: Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Raúl Grijalva, and
various unions on the left, along with establishment stalwarts such as
Chuck Schumer, Amy Klobuchar, and Harry Reid. He looked to be the clear
frontrunner.
But as Ellison’s momentum built, the Obama White House worked to
recruit Perez to run against Ellison. They succeeded, and Perez announced his candidacy
on December 15 — a full month after Ellison announced. Why did the
White House work to recruit someone to sink Ellison? If Perez and
Ellison are so ideologically indistinguishable, why was it so important
to the Obama circle — and the Clinton circle — to find someone capable
of preventing Ellison’s election? What’s the rationale? None has ever
been provided.
I can’t recommend Chang’s analysis highly enough on one key aspect of
what motivated the recruitment of Perez: to ensure that the Democratic
establishment maintains its fatal grip on the party and, in particular,
to prevent Sanders followers from having any say in the party’s
direction and identity:
There is one real difference between the two: Ellison has
captured the support of the left wing. … It appears that the underlying
reason some Democrats prefer Perez over Ellison has nothing to do with
ideology, but rather his loyalty to the Obama wing. As the head of the
DNC, Perez would allow that wing to retain more control, even if
Obama-ites are loath to admit it. …
And it’s not just Obama- and Clinton-ites that could see some power
slip away with an Ellison-headed DNC. Paid DNC consultants also have a
vested interest in maintaining the DNC status quo. Nomiki Konst, who has
extensively covered the nuts and bolts of the DNC race, asked Perez how he felt about conflicts of interest within
the committee — specifically, DNC members who also have contracts with
the committee. Perez dodged the issue, advocating for a “big tent.” In
contrast, in a forum last month, Ellison firmly stated, “We are battling the consultant-ocracy.”
politico | I wanted to believe Hillary, who made campaign finance reform part of
her platform, but I had made this pledge to Bernie and did not want to
disappoint him. I kept asking the party lawyers and the DNC staff to
show me the agreements that the party had made for sharing the money
they raised, but there was a lot of shuffling of feet and looking the
other way.
When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found
the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement
between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.
The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and
Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for
raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the
party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had
the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director,
and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also
was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing,
budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.
I had been wondering why it was that I couldn’t write a press release
without passing it by Brooklyn. Well, here was the answer.
When the party chooses the nominee, the custom is that the
candidate’s team starts to exercise more control over the party. If the
party has an incumbent candidate, as was the case with Clinton in 1996
or Obama in 2012, this kind of arrangement is seamless because the party
already is under the control of the president. When you have an open
contest without an incumbent and competitive primaries, the party comes
under the candidate’s control only after the nominee is certain. When I
was manager of Al Gore’s campaign in 2000, we started inserting our
people into the DNC in June. This victory fund agreement, however, had
been signed in August 2015, just four months after Hillary announced her
candidacy and nearly a year before she officially had the nomination.
I had tried to search out any other evidence of internal corruption
that would show that the DNC was rigging the system to throw the primary
to Hillary, but I could not find any in party affairs or among the
staff. I had gone department by department, investigating individual
conduct for evidence of skewed decisions, and I was happy to see that I
had found none. Then I found this agreement.
The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was
not illegal, but it sure looked unethical. If the fight had been fair,
one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had
decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but
as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.
I had to keep my promise to Bernie. I was in agony as I dialed
him. Keeping this secret was against everything that I stood for, all
that I valued as a woman and as a public servant.
“Hello, senator. I’ve completed my review of the DNC and I did find the cancer,” I said. “But I will not kill the patient.”
I discussed the fundraising agreement that each of the candidates had
signed. Bernie was familiar with it, but he and his staff ignored it.
They had their own way of raising money through small donations. I
described how Hillary’s campaign had taken it another step.
You Should be Afraid of Your Government
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In November I’ll be voting for Joe Biden with some enthusiasm. From the
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"The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian
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Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
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New Travels
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Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
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Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
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sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...