What If The Republicans Win?

[lektrode]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

Hillary Clinton's Minimum Speech Requirements

As a reminder, Hillary is running for “everyday Americans.”

and..
"I got no strings on me..."



Source: Townhall

[lektrode]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

Those comments aren't all that surprising, though. ....

considering the source + its target audience ? (of typical single-issue fanaticist navel-gazers)

its more like expected...

Then you gotta figure the fattest part of the echo boom graduated college the most indebted in a generation smack into the great recession. And tons of fines got levied, but nobody went to jail. And instead of saying, "Somebody has to go to jail," most of the GOP said, "Deregulate finance!" Obama let's them get away with it.

well.. what would anybody expect, when you have the chief exec of the most twistedly corrupt administration in US history look straight into the camera and say:

"...from 40,000 feet, that some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn't illegal."

this is right up there with a couple other alltime 'greatest' moments in US politix with:

"..I did not have sex with that woman..."

and just never mind:

"..I am not a crook..."

Other party wants to reward them for it. That's gotta smart.....

which is precisely WHY its humongously HILLARIOUS

when it was what side of the aisle that thought putting TRILLIONS (more .gov subsidies) into 'education' was a good idea?

or that to 'continue rolling the dice' so that TRILLIONS (more) could be 'invested' with 'safe' quasi-gov/public-private finance firms to make sure 'low income' types could qualify for mortgages - even tho they didnt have a snowballs chance in hell of EVER being able to pay?

They set out to loot the middle class out of existence. And it's working. But that just means there's going to be one huge working class. No more buffer between the folks on the hill and folks across the tracks. We'll see where it goes.

I tell you one thing, today reminds me an awful lot of old Will Rogers talking about the '32 election:

i would otherwise agree 100% dc - its just that i happen to think its the DNC's policies and end-justifies-the-means pandering to ever smaller slices of the electorate flavah-of-politix that is the primary culprit - and why?

look - 'we all know' who the Repubs (at least the clowns in the RNC) represent - and that's 'big biz' + the .mil-industrial complex.

fair enough, i'd agree with that basic premise - but i also happen to think that the Dems and their enablers in the lamerstream media are THE WORLDS BEST LYERS AND BULLSHIT ARTISTS

and therein lies my disappointment - to the point of outrage - with their shit-show theatrics that revolve around the meme that the Demorat Party represents the working/middle class - when NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!

and the events from the 1990's thru 2008 thru 2012 and on into 2013 confirm it

[don]

Ain't No Sunshine When She's here

No matter what spin is used for campaigning purposes, the idea that a critical distance can be maintained between the White House and Wall Street is naïve given the multiple channels of money and favors that flow between the two. It is even more improbable, given the history of connections that Hillary Clinton has established through her associations with key bank leaders in the early 1990s, during her time as a senator from New York, and given their contributions to the Clinton foundation while she was secretary of state. At some level, the situation couldn’t be less complicated: her path aligns with that of the country’s most powerful bankers. If she becomes president, that will remain the case.

The Clintons and Their Banker Friends

By Nomi Prins

The past, especially the political past, doesn’t just provide clues to the present. In the realm of the presidency and Wall Street, it provides an ongoing pathway for political-financial relationships and policies that remain a threat to the American economy going forward.

When Hillary Clinton video-announced her bid for the Oval Office, she claimed she wanted to be a “champion” for the American people. Since then, she has attempted to recast herself as a populist and distance herself from some of the policies of her husband. But Bill Clinton did not become president without sharing the friendships, associations, and ideologies of the elite banking sect, nor will Hillary Clinton. Such relationships run too deep and are too longstanding.

To grasp the dangers that the Big Sisx Banks (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) presently pose to the financial stability of our nation and the world, you need to understand their history in Washington, starting with the Clinton years of the 1990s. Alliances established then (not exclusively with Democrats, since bankers are bipartisan by nature) enabled these firms to become as politically powerful as they are today and to exert that power over an unprecedented amount of capital. Rest assured of one thing: their past and present CEOs will prove as critical in backing a Hillary Clinton presidency as they were in enabling her husband’s years in office.

In return, today’s titans of finance and their hordes of lobbyists, more than half of whom held prior positions in the government, exact certain requirements from Washington. They need to know that a safety net or bailout will always be available in times of emergency and that the regulatory road will be open to whatever practices they deem most profitable.

Whatever her populist pitch may be in the 2016 campaign — and she will have one — note that, in all these years, Hillary Clinton has not publicly condemned Wall Street or any individual Wall Street leader. Though she may, in the heat of that campaign, raise the bad-apples or bad-situation explanation for Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, rest assured that she will not point fingers at her friends. She will not chastise the people that pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop to speak or the ones that have long shared the social circles in which she and her husband move. She is an undeniable component of the Clinton political-financial legacy that came to national fruition more than 23 years ago, which is why looking back at the history of the first Clinton presidency is likely to tell you so much about the shape and character of the possible second one.

The 1992 Election and the Rise of Bill Clinton

Challenging President George H.W. Bush, who was seeking a second term, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton announced he would seek the 1992 Democratic nomination for the presidency on October 2, 1991. The upcoming presidential election would not, however, turn out to alter the path of mergers or White House support for deregulation that was already in play one iota.

First, though, Clinton needed money. A consummate fundraiser in his home state, he cleverly amassed backing and established early alliances with Wall Street. One of his key supporters would later change American banking forever. As Clinton put it, he received “invaluable early support” from Ken Brody, a Goldman Sachs executive seeking to delve into Democratic politics. Brody took Clinton “to a dinner with high-powered New York businesspeople, including Bob Rubin, whose tightly reasoned arguments for a new economic policy,” Clinton later wrote, “made a lasting impression on me.”

The battle for the White House kicked into high gear the following fall. William Schreyer, chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch, showed his support for Bush by giving the maximum personal contribution to his campaign committee permitted by law: $1,000. But he wanted to do more. So when one of Bush’s fundraisers solicited him to contribute to the Republican National Committee’s nonfederal, or “soft money,” account, Schreyer made a $100,000 donation.

The bankers’ alliances remained divided among the candidates at first, as they considered which man would be best for their own power trajectories, but their donations were plentiful: mortgage and broker company contributions were $1.2 million; 46% to the GOP and 54% to the Democrats. Commercial banks poured in $14.8 million to the 1992 campaigns at a near 50-50 split.

Clinton, like every good Democrat, campaigned publicly against the bankers: “It’s time to end the greed that consumed Wall Street and ruined our S&Ls [Savings and Loans] in the last decade,” he said. But equally, he had no qualms about taking money from the financial sector. In the early months of his campaign, BusinessWeek estimated that he received $2 million of his initial $8.5 million in contributions from New York, under the care of Ken Brody.

“If I had a Ken Brody working for me in every state, I’d be like the Maytag man with nothing to do,” said Rahm Emanuel, who ran Clinton’s nationwide fundraising committee and later became Barack Obama’s chief of staff. Wealthy donors and prospective fundraisers were invited to a select series of intimate meetings with Clinton at the plush Manhattan office of the prestigious private equity firm Blackstone.

Robert Rubin Comes to Washington

Clinton knew that embracing the bankers would help him get things done in Washington, and what he wanted to get done dovetailed nicely with their desires anyway. To facilitate his policies and maintain ties to Wall Street, he selected a man who had been instrumental to his campaign, Robert Rubin, as his economic adviser.

In 1980, Rubin had landed on Goldman Sachs’ management committee alongside fellow Democrat Jon Corzine. A decade later, Rubin and Stephen Friedman were appointed cochairmen of Goldman Sachs. Rubin’s political aspirations met an appropriate opportunity when Clinton captured the White House.

On January 25, 1993, Clinton appointed him as assistant to the president for economic policy. Shortly thereafter, the president created a unique role for his comrade, head of the newly created National Economic Council. “I asked Bob Rubin to take on a new job,” Clinton later wrote, “coordinating economic policy in the White House as Chairman of the National Economic Council, which would operate in much the same way the National Security Council did, bringing all the relevant agencies together to formulate and implement policy… [I]f he could balance all of [Goldman Sachs’] egos and interests, he had a good chance to succeed with the job.” (Ten years later, President George W. Bush gave the same position to Rubin’s old partner, Friedman.)

Back at Goldman, Jon Corzine, co-head of fixed income, and Henry Paulson, co-head of investment banking, were ascending through the ranks. They became co-CEOs when Friedman retired at the end of 1994.

Those two men were the perfect bipartisan duo. Corzine was a staunch Democrat serving on the International Capital Markets Advisory Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (from 1989 to 1999). He would co-chair a presidential commission for Clinton on capital budgeting between 1997 and 1999, while serving in a key role on the Borrowing Advisory Committee of the Treasury Department. Paulson was a well connected Republican and Harvard graduate who had served on the White House Domestic Council as staff assistant to the president in the Nixon administration.

Bankers Forge Ahead

By May 1995, Rubin was impatiently warning Congress that the Glass-Steagall Act could “conceivably impede safety and soundness by limiting revenue diversification.” Banking deregulation was then inching through Congress. As they had during the previous Bush administration, both the House and Senate Banking Committees had approved separate versions of legislation to repeal Glass-Steagall, the 1933 Act passed by the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that had separated deposit-taking and lending or “commercial” bank activities from speculative or “investment bank” activities, such as securities creation and trading. Conference negotiations had fallen apart, though, and the effort was stalled.

By 1996, however, other industries, representing core clients of the banking sector, were already being deregulated. On February 8, 1996, Clinton signed the Telecom Act, which killed many independent and smaller broadcasting companies by opening a national market for “cross-ownership.” The result was mass mergers in that sector advised by banks.

Deregulation of companies that could transport energy across state lines came next. Before such deregulation, state commissions had regulated companies that owned power plants and transmission lines, which worked together to distribute power. Afterward, these could be divided and effectively traded without uniform regulation or responsibility to regional customers. This would lead to blackouts in California and a slew of energy derivatives, as well as trades at firms such as Enron that used the energy business as a front for fraudulent deals.

The number of mergers and stock and debt issuances ballooned on the back of all the deregulation that eliminated barriers that had kept companies separated. As industries consolidated, they also ramped up their complex transactions and special purpose vehicles (off-balance-sheet, offshore constructions tailored by the banking community to hide the true nature of their debts and shield their profits from taxes). Bankers kicked into overdrive to generate fees and create related deals. Many of these blew up in the early 2000s in a spate of scandals and bankruptcies, causing an earlier millennium recession.

Meanwhile, though, bankers plowed ahead with their advisory services, speculative enterprises, and deregulation pursuits. President Clinton and his team would soon provide them an epic gift, all in the name of U.S. global power and competitiveness. Robert Rubin would steer the White House ship to that goal.
On February 12, 1999, Rubin found a fresh angle to argue on behalf of banking deregulation. He addressed the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, claiming that, “the problem U.S. financial services firms face abroad is more one of access than lack of competitiveness.”

He was referring to the European banks’ increasing control of distribution channels into the European institutional and retail client base. Unlike U.S. commercial banks, European banks had no restrictions keeping them from buying and teaming up with U.S. or other securities firms and investment banks to create or distribute their products. He did not appear concerned about the destruction caused by sizeable financial bets throughout Europe. The international competitiveness argument allowed him to focus the committee on what needed to be done domestically in the banking sector to remain competitive.

Rubin stressed the necessity of HR 665, the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, or the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, that was officially introduced on February 10, 1999. He said it took “fundamental actions to modernize our financial system by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act prohibitions on banks affiliating with securities firms and repealing the Bank Holding Company Act prohibitions on insurance underwriting.”

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Marches Forward

On February 24, 1999, in more testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Rubin pushed for fewer prohibitions on bank affiliates that wanted to perform the same functions as their larger bank holding company, once the different types of financial firms could legally merge. That minor distinction would enable subsidiaries to place all sorts of bets and house all sorts of junk under the false premise that they had the same capital beneath them as their parent. The idea that a subsidiary’s problems can’t taint or destroy the host, or bank holding company, or create “catastrophic” risk, is a myth perpetuated by bankers and political enablers that continues to this day.

Rubin had no qualms with mega-consolidations across multiple service lines. His real problems were those of his banker friends, which lay with the financial modernization bill’s “prohibition on the use of subsidiaries by larger banks.” The bankers wanted the right to establish off-book subsidiaries where they could hide risks, and profits, as needed.

Again, Rubin decided to use the notion of remaining competitive with foreign banks to make his point. This technicality was “unacceptable to the administration,” he said, not least because “foreign banks underwrite and deal in securities through subsidiaries in the United States, and U.S. banks [already] conduct securities and merchant banking activities abroad through so-called Edge subsidiaries.” Rubin got his way. These off-book, risky, and barely regulated subsidiaries would be at the forefront of the 2008 financial crisis.

On March 1, 1999, Senator Phil Gramm released a final draft of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 and scheduled committee consideration for March 4th. A bevy of excited financial titans who were close to Clinton, including Travelers CEO Sandy Weill, Bank of America CEO, Hugh McColl, and American Express CEO Harvey Golub, called for “swift congressional action.”
The Quintessential Revolving-Door Man

The stock market continued its meteoric rise in anticipation of a banker-friendly conclusion to the legislation that would deregulate their industry. Rising consumer confidence reflected the nation’s fondness for the markets and lack of empathy with the rest of the world’s economic plight. On March 29, 1999, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 10,000 for the first time. Six weeks later, on May 6th, the Financial Services Modernization Act passed the Senate. It legalized, after the fact, the merger that created the nation’s biggest bank. Citigroup, the marriage of Citibank and Travelers, had been finalized the previous October.

It was not until that point that one of Glass-Steagall’s main assassins decided to leave Washington. Six days after the bill passed the Senate, on May 12, 1999, Robert Rubin abruptly announced his resignation. As Clinton wrote, “I believed he had been the best and most important treasury secretary since Alexander Hamilton… He had played a decisive role in our efforts to restore economic growth and spread its benefits to more Americans.”

Clinton named Larry Summers to succeed Rubin. Two weeks later, BusinessWeek reported signs of trouble in merger paradise — in the form of a growing rift between John Reed, the former Chairman of Citibank, and Sandy Weill at the new Citigroup. As Reed said, “Co-CEOs are hard.” Perhaps to patch their rift, or simply to take advantage of a political opportunity, the two men enlisted a third person to join their relationship — none other than Robert Rubin.

Rubin’s resignation from Treasury became effective on July 2nd. At that time, he announced, “This almost six and a half years has been all-consuming, and I think it is time for me to go home to New York and to do whatever I’m going to do next.” Rubin became chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee and a member of the newly created “office of the chairman.” His initial annual compensation package was worth around $40 million. It was more than worth the “hit” he took when he left Goldman for the Treasury post.

Three days after the conference committee endorsed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill, Rubin assumed his Citigroup position, joining the institution destined to dominate the financial industry. That very same day, Reed and Weill issued a joint statement praising Washington for “liberating our financial companies from an antiquated regulatory structure,” stating that “this legislation will unleash the creativity of our industry and ensure our global competitiveness.”

On November 4th, the Senate approved the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act by a vote of 90 to 8. (The House voted 362–57 in favor.) Critics famously referred to it as the Citigroup Authorization Act.

Mirth abounded in Clinton’s White House. “Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the twenty-first century,” Summers said. “This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”

But the happiness was misguided. Deregulating the banking industry might have helped the titans of Wall Street but not people on Main Street. The Clinton era epitomized the vast difference between appearance and reality, spin and actuality. As the decade drew to a close, Clinton basked in the glow of a lofty stock market, a budget surplus, and the passage of this key banking “modernization.” It would be revealed in the 2000s that many corporate profits of the 1990s were based on inflated evaluations, manipulation, and fraud. When Clinton left office, the gap between rich and poor was greater than it had been in 1992, and yet the Democrats heralded him as some sort of prosperity hero.

When he resigned in 1997, Robert Reich, Clinton’s labor secretary, said, “America is prospering, but the prosperity is not being widely shared, certainly not as widely shared as it once was… We have made progress in growing the economy. But growing together again must be our central goal in the future.” Instead, the growth of wealth inequality in the United States accelerated, as the men yielding the most financial power wielded it with increasingly less culpability or restriction. By 2015, that wealth or prosperity gap would stand near historic highs.

The power of the bankers increased dramatically in the wake of the repeal of Glass-Steagall. The Clinton administration had rendered twenty-first-century banking practices similar to those of the pre-1929 crash. But worse. “Modernizing” meant utilizing government-backed depositors’ funds as collateral for the creation and distribution of all types of complex securities and derivatives whose proliferation would be increasingly quick and dangerous.

Eviscerating Glass-Steagall allowed big banks to compete against Europe and also enabled them to go on a rampage: more acquisitions, greater speculation, and more risky products. The big banks used their bloated balance sheets to engage in more complex activity, while counting on customer deposits and loans as capital chips on the global betting table. Bankers used hefty trading profits and wealth to increase lobbying funds and campaign donations, creating an endless circle of influence and mutual reinforcement of boundary-less speculation, endorsed by the White House.

Deposits could be used to garner larger windfalls, just as cheap labor and commodities in developing countries were used to formulate more expensive goods for profit in the upper echelons of the global financial hierarchy. Energy and telecoms proved especially fertile ground for the investment banking fee business (and later for fraud, extensive lawsuits, and bankruptcies). Deregulation greased the wheels of complex financial instruments such as collateralized debt obligations, junk bonds, toxic assets, and unregulated derivatives.

The Glass-Steagall repeal led to unfettered derivatives growth and unstable balance sheets at commercial banks that merged with investment banks and at investment banks that preferred to remain solo but engaged in dodgier practices to remain “competitive.” In conjunction with the tight political-financial alignment and associated collaboration that began with Bush and increased under Clinton, bankers channeled the 1920s, only with more power over an immense and growing pile of global financial assets and increasingly “open” markets. In the process, accountability would evaporate.

Every bank accelerated its hunt for acquisitions and deposits to amass global influence while creating, trading, and distributing increasingly convoluted securities and derivatives. These practices would foster the kind of shaky, interconnected, and opaque financial environment that provided the backdrop and conditions leading up to the financial meltdown of 2008.

The Realities of 2016

Hillary Clinton is, of course, not her husband. But her access to his past banker alliances, amplified by the ones that she has formed herself, makes her more of a friend than an adversary to the banking industry. In her brief 2008 candidacy, all four of the New York-based Big Six banks ranked among her top 10 corporate donors https://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/c...&cid=N00000019 . They have also contributed to the Clinton Foundation. She needs them to win, just as both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton did.

[dcarrigg]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

Sure the dems did wrong. Especially the DLC and the rest of the Rubinauts. No argument here.

There's not a single Republican that recognized that and tried to move in to gain some ground, through. They purged most of the pragmatists in favor of Österreichisches Marktwirtschaftsgottesdienst. And so here we are. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and spoiled crooks in the middle. There was some ground here the right could have taken up, if it just let its candidates have a little diversity on economic policies. There's no candidate on the right even remotely sounding like the pages of the American Conservative these days. They all sound like hardline true believers in market anarchy. Even compared to presidents like George H. W. Bush. Especially compared to right-wing writers like Pat Buchanan.

This is what turned me off to even their alternative candidates. I explained that the last time this circus merry-go-round was heading our way. And I knew exactly what Obama was by the time the 2010 middle class betrayal occurred. He was a "New Democrat." He didn't want to fight the Von Hayek brigade in congress. He was more than happy to pass the tax cuts up to the top. Not to mention the free billions he has given snake-oil salesmen like Elon Musk...who just happens to be another Von Hayek true believer...

Truth be told, no sane voices came out of the woodwork last go-around. Every candidate agreed that we oughta let the chickenf*&$ers in the henhouse. The debate was only on whether or not to pass out condoms and antibiotics while we were at it. If that weren't true, Dodd-Frank would be implemented right now, instead of still only half done an entire presidential term later.

It's not going to be small ball or incrementalism or tax cuts or credits that's going to get us out of the mess we're in now. It's going to be swing-for-the-fences or go home. And maybe we'll go home. All I know is we tend to get one of those little shaded regions on the Fed graphs every 6 to 9 years or so. We're coming up on 7. Rates are at ZIRP. Nasdaq's past 2000 levels. Real estate is past 2006 levels in certain spots - especially around where lots of the Nasdaq is. You cut everyone's pay down and cut rich folk's taxes to pass even more money up to the top going into this, and Bernie Sanders is going to look like Herbert Hoover compared with what's coming down the pike the next time. You can't have one party playing Wall Street Offense and the other playing Wall Street Defense forever. Not as long as you still let the plebs cast a ballot.

Even now, Little Finger's waiting in the wings. He's putting Glass-Steagall back as a key part of his campaign. He's planning on bringing overtime back to America. He might not naturally be in this spot. But a good opportunist can always feel which way the wind blows. And America never lost her love for camelot. If not now, sometime else. And under worse conditions.

[lektrode]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

Sure the dems did wrong. Especially the DLC and the rest of the Rubinauts. No argument here.

There's not a single Republican that recognized that and tried to move in to gain some ground, through. They purged most of the pragmatists in favor of Österreichisches Marktwirtschaftsgottesdienst. And so here we are. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and spoiled crooks in the middle. There was some ground here the right could have taken up, if it just let its candidates have a little diversity on economic policies.

+1 and the ULTIMATE disappointment

just goes to show how BOUGHT-OFF THEY ALL ARE:




still say that NOTHING WILL CHANGE without

TERM LIMITS for CON-gress

There's no candidate on the right even remotely sounding like the pages of the American Conservative these days. They all sound like hardline true believers in market anarchy. Even compared to presidents like George H. W. Bush. Especially compared to right-wing writers like Pat Buchanan.

This is what turned me off to even their alternative candidates. I explained that the last time this circus merry-go-round was heading our way. And I knew exactly what Obama was by the time the 2010 middle class betrayal occurred. He was a "New Democrat." He didn't want to fight the Von Hayek brigade in congress. He was more than happy to pass the tax cuts up to the top. Not to mention the free billions he has given snake-oil salesmen like Elon Musk...who just happens to be another Von Hayek true believer...

+1
tho i went with the 3rd choice last time (as i tend to do) - it was a wasted vote - and still think that the mittster would've been a better bet to take on the lower manhattan mob - as he knows how their game is played and DOESNT NEED THEIR MONEY (or anybody elses for that matter = some level of independence from the string-pullers - that and he's part of TeamBOS = a RedSox fan vs a yankee-wannabee..)

quite unlike the poseur-in-chief and the carpet-bagger-in-waiting...

both of them on TeamSellout

personally, i think that unless one has either already made it to the top - read: in the private sector - BEFORE GOING INTO POLITIX
(quite unlike the above mentioned) or has risen up thru the ranks in the .mil?

then they ARE NOT QUALIFIED to be potus..

Truth be told, no sane voices came out of the woodwork last go-around. Every candidate agreed that we oughta let the chickenf*&$ers in the henhouse. The debate was only on whether or not to pass out condoms and antibiotics while we were at it. If that weren't true, Dodd-Frank would be implemented right now, instead of still only half done an entire presidential term later.

It's not going to be small ball or incrementalism or tax cuts or credits that's going to get us out of the mess we're in now. It's going to be swing-for-the-fences or go home. And maybe we'll go home.

+2
and merely another HUGE disappointment with 'team NO' = they aint got a plan, only the anti-vote

myself, i think that the chinese are now leading the way .. ummm.... forward

and until we see something more from 'team no' ?
guess its that time o year again...

[don]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

The lessor of two evils...


The Many...




or The One

[lektrode]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?



this one from the 'old news' dept, but still QUITE pertinent

[don]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

I think you're on to something . . . .

How Money Runs Our Politics
Elizabeth Drew
JUNE 4, 2015 ISSUE NYRB

Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson—who spent at least $92 million to support *Republican candidates in the 2012 election—waiting with his wife, Miriam, for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress, Washington, D.C., March 2015

With each election come innovations in ways that the very rich donate and the candidates collect and spend increasingly large amounts of money on campaigns. And with each decision on campaign financing the current Supreme Court’s conservative majority, with Chief Justice John Roberts in the lead, removes some restrictions on money in politics. We are now at the point where, practically speaking, there are no limits on how much money an individual, a corporation, or a labor union can give to a candidate for federal office (though the unions can hardly compete).


Today a presidential candidate has to have two things and maybe three before making a serious run: at least one billionaire willing to spend limitless amounts on his or her campaign and a “Super PAC”—a supposedly independent political action committee that accepts large donations that have to be disclosed. The third useful asset is an organization that under the tax code is supposedly “operated exclusively to promote social welfare.” The relevant section of the tax code, 501(c)(4), would appear to be intended for the Sierra Club and the like, not political money. But the IRS rules give the political groups the same protection.

The contributions to these last groups have come to be called “dark money” because the donors can remain secret. The very wealthy can contribute to such dark money groups in the knowledge that people won’t know who is trying to buy a candidate.

At this stage of the campaign, while some politicians are ostensibly still agonizing over whether or not to run, the would-be candidates are engaged in setting up the “independent” fundraising groups that will support them; they aren’t even bothering to call mere millionaires. And the idea that campaign contributions aren’t intended as a quid pro quo is fast crumbling.

Fortunately for the candidates, given the way the benefits of the economy are concentrated there’s an adequate supply of billionaires—people who enjoy investing in a candidate, in whom they may actually believe, and whose gratitude would be most useful if that candidate were to win. Meanwhile, the billionaire can indulge in name-dropping, in the reality or illusion of being on the inside of a campaign with the prospect of access to the candidate who ends up in the Oval Office.

With enough money behind him or her, even a preposterous candidate can at least for a while be a real factor in the nominating contest. The billionaires sometimes seemingly come out of nowhere. Few had heard of Foster Friess, who suddenly popped up in 2012 supporting Rick Santorum—a seemingly improbable prospect for winning the presidency given his retrograde social views and his reputation for having been a brash but mediocre senator. Friess, a business investor and evangelical Christian conservative, kept Santorum in the primaries for a lot longer than would have been reasonably expected. Friess himself became famous when, defending Santorum’s opposition to contraceptives, he asserted that women (“gals”) could stave off pregnancy by putting an aspirin “between their knees.” He is now supporting Santorum again for the 2016 race.

The erratic but seldom boring Newt Gingrich, never a serious candidate for the presidency, came in fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire in 2012, but with the help of the billionaire Las Vegas–based casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, he swept the important South Carolina primary and seemed to truly believe that he could win the nomination.

Thus, a single exceptionally rich person can distort the nomination race, meanwhile confusing candidates into thinking that they’re more popular than they are. Of course other factors can play into the successes of the well-backed candidate: Gingrich benefited from what were seen by many as strong performances in debates.

Adelson’s prominence in 2012 as well as his generosity to congressional candidates has made him one of the most powerful people in the country. His wealth is estimated at over $35 billion, and he and his wife, Miriam, a dual citizen of Israel and the US, are fervent supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu’s aggressive policies. Adelson is reported to have spent at least $92 million on the 2012 election. As a casino owner, Adelson unsurprisingly also seeks a ban on Internet gambling. Lindsey Graham, said to be nearing an entrance into the 2016 Republican free-for-all, is the principal sponsor of this Adelson cause in Congress. Graham recently told The Wall Street Journal, “I may have the first all-Jewish cabinet in America because of the pro-Israel funding.”

As early as March 2014, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, and John Kasich flew to Las Vegas to appear before a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition—the pilgrimage was to seek Adelson’s favor. Christie had to apologize to Adelson for having referred to “occupied territories.” Walker let the group know that he owns a menorah. This year a larger number of Republican candidates trooped to Las Vegas. Adelson pressured the donees to support Netanyahu’s position against the nuclear deal with Iran.

Most of the candidates for the nominations for 2016 have their pet billionaires. Hillary Clinton has more than one. Among them so far are Alice Walton of Walmart and Marc Benioff, a San Francisco businessman who supported Barack Obama. All contributed early to Clinton’s Super PAC, Ready for Hillary. For now, to give the impression that her campaign is supported by the ever-expanding idea of who the “grassroots” are, donations to Ready for Hillary are limited to $25,000. Clinton also enjoys the support of some Hollywood billionaires, such as Jeffrey Katzenberg and Haim Saban, an entertainment executive worth an estimated $3.4 billion who has been generous to the Clintons in the past and is another supporter of right-wing Israeli policies. The big money for Clinton is expected to go both to Priorities USA, a Super PAC that backed Obama but is now switching to support her and will spend dark money on ads, and also to another group, called Priorities USA Action, that won’t be hiding its contributors.

Clinton’s side hoped to scare off serious rivals for the Democratic nomination by letting it be known that she planned to raise a staggering $2.5 billion for her campaign. Obama and Romney each spent less than half that amount in 2012—Obama $1.1 billion and Romney $1.2 billion. The closeness of these totals obscures the important difference between where the two men got their funds. As an incumbent president Obama could raise more money for his own campaign, and he outstripped Romney in this category by slightly more than $250 million. But Romney benefited far more from outside contributions to Super PACs, as opposed to his own campaign, by slightly more than $287 million. Thus a nonincumbent Democrat could be outraised by a Republican. Clinton is trying to make sure that this won’t happen in the 2016 election.

On the Republican side, Walker has had the generous support of the Koch brothers since he first ran for governor of Wisconsin in 2006. They poured millions into his successful effort to break the power of the Wisconsin public employees’ union, which has made him a darling of many on the far right. They contributed a reported $300 million to his recall election in 2012. The Kochs, who operate through their own aptly named Americans for Prosperity, a dark money group also contributed to by their network of super-rich allies, have said that they plan to spend a humongous $889 million in the 2016 campaign—all of it dark money, so the public won’t know who made the contributions. This makes the Kochs virtually a political party of their own.

Walker also has the support of John Menard Jr., the wealthiest man in Wisconsin and the owner of a chain of home improvement stores throughout the Midwest that has been embroiled in a number of environmental controversies. The publicity-shy Menard has made his contributions to help Walker through “dark money” avenues, though an investigation found that he’s donated more than $1.5 million. Walker has scaled back the activities of the state environmental protection agency, and Menard’s company has received $1.8 million in tax credits from the state. (Walker’s office denies any connection.) Walker also solicited and directed funds to the Wisconsin Club for Growth, which backed him. His popularity in Wisconsin has been sinking of late but Menard can keep Walker afloat.

Early on, a candidate’s status is now largely measured by how much money he or she is able to raise. Ted Cruz has the backing of Robert Mercer, who heads a New York hedge fund. Cruz, long considered a fringe figure since he’s so far on the right, astounded the political world by amassing an unprecedented $31 million from a network of sympathetic Super PACs in the first week of his campaign (more than Obama raised in the entire first quarter of 2007), which suddenly catapulted him to the top ranks of Republican candidates.

Shortly thereafter Marco Rubio went Cruz one better when his donors announced that in less than a week Rubio had obtained pledges of all of the $40 million he was expected to need for the primary campaign. He has the backing of Norman Braman, a Miami billionaire car dealer who used to support Jeb Bush but is expected to pump around $10 million into Conservative Solutions, a Super PAC supporting Rubio.

Jeb Bush’s camp let it be known that he’s expected to have raised $100 million during the first quarter of this year. This information was aimed at discouraging Mitt Romney from entering the race. Bush already has both a Super PAC, Right to Rise, and a dark money group, Right to Rise Policy Solutions, lined up to support him. Bush was reported to be seriously considering turning over the management of his campaign to the Super PAC, which is supposedly “independent” of his campaign, but this shortly raised questions of the legality of such an arrangement.

Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, and Santorum also have their own Super PACs. Each of these would-be candidates actually helped establish their money pots before they officially announced their campaign, using the fiction that then they weren’t coordinating with them, although the law against such coordination is often evaded and in any case the question of when a candidate is officially a candidate is hardly clear. Two reform organizations, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, have filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission against Bush, Santorum, Walker, and former Democratic governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley, alleging that by traveling around the country and raising money and behaving like candidates they met the definition of a candidate and therefore were violating the law by raising money for friendly Super PACs before they officially announced their candidacies.

The Super PACs and dark money groups are the progeny of the infamous Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court in 2010, along with an appeals court decision later that year, SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission. The Citizens Unitedruling was one of the most blinkered Supreme Court decisions since Dred Scott. Citizens United is a conservative group that makes ads and documentaries. The decision erased the limit on corporate funds in elections going back to Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. By a ruling of 5–4, the five being the usual conservatives, including, crucially, Anthony Kennedy, the Court held for the first time that businesses could make contributions to influence federal campaigns.

The Court majority acted on the faulty assumption that so-called independent committees are truly independent of the campaigns. Whether Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, was being ingenuous or disingenuous in making this uninformed observation, it changed the shape of American politics. The idea that the so-called independent committees remain absolutely separate and apart from the candidate or the campaign they support is laughable. The two entities have various ways to coordinate so that the independent group knows precisely what kinds of ads would be helpful. The chairman of the Super PAC might well be a former aide of the candidate, often as not a chief of staff, or a close friend or a brother-in-law. The two entities can share the same consultants and advertisers. The Super PAC can sell its data to the campaign. It can also tell simply from its staff reading the newspapers what themes the campaign it’s helping is promoting.

Under the federal rules people from the campaign and the Super PAC can talk to each other, as long as the conversations aren’t what the federal regulations call “substantial discussions.” This term has never been clarified. The federal rules on communication between the candidate’s campaign and the so-called outside groups are very rarely enforced. Though Citizens United left intact the limits on amounts that people and old-fashioned PACs could give directly to each candidate ($2,700 and $5,000 respectively per election), the McCutcheon decision of April 2014 combined with the Citizens United opinion have rendered these limits meaningless.

If people are concerned about the gaping and growing disparity of wealth in this country, the pattern of political donations is one place to look for its source. By and large the middle class doesn’t donate, except through the labor unions, which the Republicans, especially Scott Walker, have been working hard, with some success, to render powerless. Republican governors can come down hard on the overwhelmingly pro-Democratic public employee unions because they have direct power over them through government contracts.

Such is the strength of the billionaires that while the House Republicans are considering severe cuts in domestic programs (including of course food stamps) and an increase in spending on defense, on April 16 they voted to end the estate tax—what Grover Norquist, in order to get it killed, has dubbed the “death tax.” If it were ended, this boon for millionaires and billionaires would cost the federal government $269 billion and help all of 0.2 percent of the people. Since the estate tax, in existence for nearly a hundred years, has been the subject of a running argument for some time, what was the hurry to pass this bill when so much else, including a large-scale revision of the tax code, is on the agenda?

The bill also contained a provision that explicitly exempted large donors from having to pay gift taxes on their donations to political groups—a measure some billionaires had urged on Congress in order to protect themselves since the IRS had hinted that it might consider political donations subject to the gift tax. The IRS made a statement to this effect in 2011 when it called off an investigation of Karl Rove’s dark-money operation Crossroads GPS and suggested that Congress might want to speak on this matter. After the Republicans took over both chambers this year, it did. Only three House Republicans voted against the bill, and all but seven Democrats voted against it. The president has threatened to veto the bill, which isn’t expected to become law; the exercise was essentially a piece of political theater at tax time, but it revealed the disposition of the two parties toward benefiting the wealthiest.

A frequently heard rationale for the money frenzy is that the other side also has a lot of money, or might get it. Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for more accountable and transparent government, says that we now have “slush fund politics.” The question is what can be done about it.

The perennial problem is that incumbents who have succeeded within the system as it is are reluctant to change it—and this reluctance has been largely bipartisan. The first adoption of real campaign finance controls was approved on a broad bipartisan basis in 1974, after the Watergate revelations, in which a suitcase stuffed with cash was a symbol. The nation was shocked to learn that ambassadorships had been bought for $100,000. Now they are simply more expensive.

The McCain–Feingold law regulating the financing of political campaigns was adopted in 2002 in reaction to the scandals in the 1990s when both parties, but particularly the Democrats because they controlled the presidency, were caught accepting illegal foreign contributions. John McCain, who had narrowly lost the Republican nomination to George W. Bush in 2000, was determined to pass new legislation. Russ Feingold was the only Democrat McCain could find to cosponsor his bill. After the George W. Bush White House tried to torpedo it and failed, Bush signed it when McCain was out of town on a congressional recess. The combination of political self-protection and the Supreme Court has rendered real reform by Congress seemingly hopeless for the time being. But that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be done—in the near and somewhat further term.

Some elected officials have been willing to call for disclosure of the big donations that the IRS rules now allow to be hidden in dark money accounts. The theory is that at least some of the donors or recipients of big amounts of money could be embarrassed into giving up such donations. I’m not so sure, though such disclosure is obviously desirable. But as with voting rights and even foreign policy, campaign finance reform is more partisan than ever before. Now that the Republicans have shown themselves more able than Democrats to raise outside money, they have no interest in disclosure of contributions to such funds.

In 2010, following the Citizens United decision, the Democratic-controlled House passed a bill requiring dark money accounts that contribute to federal campaigns to disclose their donors, but in the Senate this bill fell short by one vote of surviving a threatened filibuster. Fifty-nine Democrats voted for it but not one Republican supported it. Since then, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, has reintroduced a disclosure proposal in the Senate, but despite the fact that Whitehouse has forty-two cosponsors it’s not likely to go anywhere in this Congress.

Difficult as it is to change the campaign finance system since incumbents benefit from the status quo, a number of proposals have been floated. One that’s popular on the left of the Democratic Party is to amend the First Amendment to overcome Citizens United. Hillary Clinton, obviously trying to ward off a serious challenge from her left in the primaries, said on the second day of her campaign that she was interested in amending the First Amendment as a way of trying to fix the “dysfunctional political system.” But it’s extremely difficult—as it should be—to amend the Constitution and it takes an interminable amount of time, since an amendment must be approved by two thirds of the House and the Senate and by three fourths of the states.

Moreover, once the First Amendment is opened up for changing, who is to say that the larger and better-organized forces of the Christian right, eager to remove barriers between church and state, wouldn’t outmaneuver the forces of campaign finance reform?

Also unhelpful are the activities and proposals by Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig. A prominent specialist in copyright law, Lessig took on the problem of money in politics just a few years ago and has since pushed various proposals. At first he called for a Constitutional Convention, which would be a disaster since it could lead to all sorts of other proposals. When this idea came under attack from, among others, law professors, Lessig retreated and encouraged people in the Occupy Wall Street movement to think they could overcome Citizens United through political pressure to amend the First Amendment.

After that movement fizzled out—at least in its initial form—Lessig formed his own Super PAC, called Mayday, to raise funds to fight the Super PACs. He selected eight candidates to back in the 2014 midterms, on the grounds that they would support campaign finance reform. All but two of his selections lost, and the candidates who won had been expected to anyway.

Now Lessig has a new proposal for 2016: it involves a complicated process by which his followers would identify members of Congress who are leaders on campaign finance reform—though there’s really no mystery about who they are. In addition his followers would campaign in the primaries on the side of the candidate most interested in such reforms. His followers also would discourage contributions to a candidate in the primary who wasn’t backing campaign finance reform.

The problems with Lessig’s proposals are several: he’s leading people, from whom he now receives contributions, to believe that their efforts will be able to transform Congress into a body that’s ready to back campaign finance reform, election by election, which means that even if his scheme worked his younger followers would be very old by the time such a transformation occurred. Second, his funds will always be overwhelmed by the corporations that are raising money for their own political interests. There are no shortcuts.

[don]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

the Repubs are being dealt a hand they can't win - Hillary is nearly as perfect a candidate as Obama - divide and conquer, baby

On his new website, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey portrays himself as a guy who gets attacked for “telling it like it is,” but that’s what his mom told him from her deathbed to do.

It is part of the legend Mr. Christie has carefully cultivated for many years, with startling success. He is described as “brash” and “bold,” with a certain rough charisma that his political opponents just cannot handle. “I get accused a lot of times of being too blunt and too direct and saying what’s on my mind just a little bit too loudly,” he says in the first video for his presidential campaign, showing him with a selected group of adoring voters.

It’s fundamentally nonsense. There are lines between brash and belligerent, between open and obnoxious, and, most important, between “telling it like it is” and not telling the truth. Mr. Christie crosses those lines all the time, as Tom Moran, the editorial page editor of The Star-Ledger of Newark, documented in a blistering column about Mr. Christie’s “catalog of lies.”

“Don’t misunderstand me. They all lie, and I get that,” Mr. Moran wrote of politicians in general. “But Christie does it with such audacity, and such frequency, that he stands out.”

[don]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

looks like Clinton fairy dust has sprinkled onto Jeb as well . . . .

Jeb Bush Reports $7.3 Million in Income on 2013 Return

Jeb Bush campaigned in downtown Pella, Iowa, on June 17.

Jeb Bush’s time away from public life has been good for him, at least financially, as he and his wife, Columba, reported adjusted gross income of $7.3 million on his 2013 tax return, the last of 33 years of returns he released on Tuesday.

The return showed that he paid $2.9 million in federal taxes on that income, for an effective tax rate of 40 percent.

The business engagements of Mr. Bush were closely dissected during his campaigns for governor in Florida and during his father’s two presidential campaigns. But until Tuesday’s release, less was publicly known about his financial standing since he left the governor’s office in 2007 after two terms.

Deep in the 2013 filing, he reported $5.8 million in “consulting and speaking” income. The couple also reported making $110,616 in charitable contributions for the year. The Bush campaign reported separately that the couple had a total net worth of $19 million to $22 million.

[don]

Ain't No Sunshine When He's Gone?

AUGUST 7, 2015
Trump’s Triumph: Billionaire Blowhard Exposes Fake Political System

by MIKE WHITNEY

Last night’s FOX News GOP Presidential Debate Extravaganza featured the most riveting two minute political exchange ever heard on national television. During a brief colloquy between Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and Fox moderator Brett Baier, the pugnacious casino magnate revealed the appalling truth about the American political system, that the big money guys like Trump own the whole crooked contraption lock, stock, and barrel, and that, the nation’s fake political leaders do whatever they’re told to do. Without question, it was most illuminating commentary to ever cross the airwaves. Here’s the entire exchange direct from the transcript:

FOX News Brett Baier (talking to Trump): Now, 15 years ago, you called yourself a liberal on health care. You were for a single-payer system, a Canadian-style system. Why were you for that then and why aren’t you for it now?

TRUMP: As far as single payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland. It could have worked in a different age, which is the age you’re talking about here.

What I’d like to see is a private system without the artificial lines around every state. I have a big company with thousands and thousands of employees. And if I’m negotiating in New York or in New Jersey or in California, I have like one bidder. Nobody can bid.

You know why?

Because the insurance companies are making a fortune because they have control of the politicians, of course, with the exception of the politicians on this stage. (uneasy laughter) But they have total control of the politicians. They’re making a fortune.
Get rid of the artificial lines and you will have…yourself great plans…

BAIER: Mr. Trump, it’s not just your past support for single-payer health care. You’ve also supported a host of other liberal policies….You’ve also donated to several Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton included, and Nancy Pelosi. You explained away those donations saying you did that to get business-related favors. And you said recently, quote, “When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”

TRUMP: You’d better believe it.

BAIER: — they do?

TRUMP: If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of the people on this stage I’ve given to, just so you understand, a lot of money.

TRUMP: I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people, before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you get from Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi?

TRUMP: Well, I’ll tell you what, with Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding and she came to my wedding. You know why?

She didn’t have a choice because I gave. I gave to a foundation that, frankly, that foundation is supposed to do good. I didn’t know her money would be used on private jets going all over the world. It was.

BAIER: Hold on…..We’re going to — we’re going to move on.” (Transcript: Read the Full Text of the Primetime Republican Debate, Time)

There it is, two glorious minutes of pure, unalloyed truth on national television. How often does that happen?

How often does a fatcat billionaire-insider appear on TV and announce that the whole system is a big-fat scam run by crooks and patsies?



Never, that’s when. But that’s what Trump did last night. And that’s why the clatter of ruthless miscreants who run the system behind the smokescreen of fake politicians are sharpening their knives right now before Manhattan’s rogue elephant does even more damage to their precious system.

Just think about what the man said. He not only explained that the whole system is rigged (Baier: “And when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”…TRUMP: “You’d better believe it.”), he also said that the politicians will do whatever they’re told to do. (TRUMP: Well, …with Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding and she came to my wedding. You know why? She didn’t have a choice because I gave.”)

Doesn’t that confirm your darkest suspicions about the way the system really works, that money talks and that elections are just a way to get the sheeple to rubber-stamp a corrupt, fraudulent system?

Of course, it does.
So, let’s summarize: Moneybags capitalist loudmouth explains to 80 million dumbfounded Americans watching prime time TV, that the system is a total fraud, that the big money runs everything, and that even he thinks the system is broken.

How do you beat that? Seriously, my wife and I were laughing and high-fiving and like we just won the lottery.

Thanks for that, Don. We owe you one.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Ain't No Sunshine When He's Gone?

How often does a fatcat billionaire-insider appear on TV and announce that the whole system is a big-fat scam run by crooks and patsies?

That was pretty much my reaction to last night as well. Trump's basically teflon in this primary for a couple reasons. First, there's so many candidates, all he needs is a decent toehold niche. Second, the rest of them are so busy running around begging billionaires for $$$$ that they can't afford to misspeak or misstep. Trump can pull tens of millions per year off 1% interest. No matter how bad he gaffes or what he says, he's going home to crap in a gold-plated toilet. The Fox News anchors did the very best they could to discredit him and corner him. And it slid right off. In the end of the day, the anchors have to worry about their jobs. The politicians even have to worry about their jobs. Trump doesn't have to worry about anything. And it shows.

What's even better is that it's a front-row seat to the battle of the billionaires. Rupert's buying ink by the supertanker and juicing up all the airwaves he can to shut down Trump. Usually that would be enough to take out any single Republican primary candidate. Rupert owns the bulk of the mainstream right-wing media. Except Trump is not a mere mortal. He's a fellow billionaire. It's a live battle on Mt. Olympus. Zeus might not be weighing in. But the brothers Apollo and Artemis are taking sides and hedging bets. They didn't expect Dionysus to take center stage among mortals. And last night, we saw Hermes take a shot at Dionysus for doing it.

One of the best exchanges I thought was Rand taking him to task for donating to democrats. He just says, "I donated plenty of money to you," and then goes on talking about how he commanded Hillary to come to his wedding. He basically scoffed at the mortals for deigning to think they could force him to choose sides in their petty affairs. He would shower blessings on them as he pleased. They are the ones that bend the knee and pray to billionaires like him, not the other way around. He baldly threw that fact in their faces. And they had no defense for it. Because it is true.

[santafe2]

Re: The GOP Clown Car

Inside the GOP Clown Car

Twenty years from now, when we're all living like prehistory hominids and hunting rats with sticks, we'll probably look back at this moment as the beginning of the end...

Take a combustible mix of the most depraved and filterless half-wits, scam artists and asylum Napoleons America has to offer, give them all piles of money and tell them to run for president...

Years of relentless propaganda combined with extreme frustration over the disastrous Bush years and two terms of a Kenyan Muslim terrorist president have cast the party's right wing into a swirling suckhole of paranoia and conspiratorial craziness.

Matt Taibbi back at Rolling Stone and at his snarling best.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...n-car-20150812

[don]

Re: The GOP Clown Car

Inside the GOP Clown Car

Matt Taibbi back at Rolling Stone and at his snarling best.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...n-car-20150812

Ditto, Santa, and thanks for posting.

Taibbi is both insightful and witty, a double-down rarity.

On Rick Santorum:

"Dressed in jeans, a blue oxford and a face so pious that Christ would be proud to eat a burrito off it ...."

[Woodsman]

Re: The GOP Clown Car

Who would vote for Deez Nuts?

There are 585 registered candidates for president in 2016, including Sydneys Voluptuous Buttocks (independent), President Emperor Caesar (Democrat), Buddy The Cat (Democrat), Crawfish Crawfish (other), Bailey D Dog (independent), Buddy The Elf (write-in) and Lindsey Graham (Republican), none of whom – unlike Deez Nuts – received any support whatsoever in PPP’s North Carolina poll...

And while Trump was the headline figure – at 24% in the Republican primary race, double digits clear of his next rival, Ben Carson, at 14% – Nuts’s showing as an independent was the real surprise. Asked the question “If the candidates for President next year were Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump, and independent Deez Nuts, who would you vote for?” respondents in North Carolina voted Trump 40%, Clinton 38%, and Nuts 9%.

Deez Nuts Most Successful Independent Presidential Candidate in Two Decades

I'm fifteen, so I haven't been registered yet. I side more with the Libertarian Party.