So How Will Auntie Hill Come Down on that Trade Deal ?

I can't believe* that stupid non-troversy about Hillary Clinton and the rope between her and the media in some parade is still getting such attention in the US media.  It's utterly absurd, and of no interest to the average American at all.  Any more than for that matter BENGHAZI!!!! & E-mail-gate.

But, that said, she hasn't given many, if any, interviews since declaring her run for the presidency, and as such, until she does give her first major interview, she'll inevitably be judged by whatever does come out, via her, her people, her husband...

The former president described how Vietnam has going from being a country where people made barely a dollar a day twenty years ago, when we normalized relations with them, has seen explosive economic growth and how its children are now among the highest in the world in basic math, science and literature.

Finally, he spoke of how President Obama is trying to add to this record of economic cooperation with the TPP negotiations. He said he hoped “more than anything else that there will be as much bipartisan support for it as there was 20 years ago for the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam.” He said if our country can get good labor, human rights and environmental standards, the TPP will command the support of a broad swath of the American people.

'Good labor, human rights, and environmental standards'... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


* Who the fuck am I kidding ?  Of course, I can.



Update: Yeah, that CNN thing was a total softball puffpiece.  No hard questioning, no mention of TPP or trade generally.  And in so far as there was any approach at discussing anything remotely controversial, they just rehashed the same stupid nontroversies with which the US media is perpetually obsessed.  Basic takeaway: The Republicans are mean, nothing is Hillary's fault, and Hillary has a super-duper economic plan, but she can't tell you anything about it yet.

And since Hillary won't speak to TPP, I will on her behalf: She's for it.  Every bit of it.  Even the bits she may have criticised in the past.  Even the bit whereby the rightful constitutional authority of the government of the United States is made secondary to unaccountable tribunals run by multinational corporations.  Because she wants more wealth and power than she currently has, and the best way to ensure that happens is to suck up to and shill for her even-more powerful and wealthy friends on Wall Street.  But until the General Election at least, you get to enjoy folksy faux-populist Hillary.  As I hinted at in passing before, the woman knows how to act.

AlterNet Revisits the Legacy of Bill Clinton

15 Ways Bill Clinton’s White House Failed America and the World 

Bill Clinton remains one of America’s most popular presidents. A national poll last March by NBC and the Wall Street Journal found 56 percent of Americans had a clearly favorable view of Clinton.

...for more than a year before Hillary Clinton launched her latest presidential campaign, Bill Clinton has been selectively telling media outlets that he made some mistakes as president and might have acted otherwise. He's even tried to recast actual events and been taken to task by fact-checkers who recall his leading role in what became major crises, such as the 2008 global financial implosion.

What follows are 15 ways Bill Clinton’s presidency did not serve America or the world, and in many ways deepened and perpetuated the problems we face today. This article was prepared by AlterNet staff members Janet Allon, Michael Arria, Jan Frel, Tana Ganeva, Kali Holloway, Zaid Jilani, Adam Johnson, Steven Rosenfeld, Phillip Smith, Terrell Jermaine Starr and Carrie Weissman.

1. Prison-loving president. In May, on the heels of the unrest in Baltimore sparked by Freddie Gray’s death in police custody, Clinton apologized for locking too many people up. Thanks, Bill.

The 2.4 million people in prison and the 160,000 Americans serving life in prison largely because of his policies might be excused for not accepting Clinton's apology. Tag-teaming with ex-President Ronald Reagan, Clinton is the president most responsible for the mass incarceration of Americans on an epic scale. The gung-ho crime fighter-in-chief passed the single most damaging law with his omnibus federal crime bill in 1994, which included the infamous “three strikes” law (three felony convictions means a life sentence) and ensured that mandatory minimum sentences imprisoned even low-level, non-violent offenders for a long, long time.
...

And the list carries on, all the way from 'Welfare-reform' to war: Always useful to revisit history, given that some in the electorate are too young to remember it, and given how selective and unreliable our memories tend to be.  Clinton may have run as a liberal*, but he certainly didn't govern as one as this piece reminds us.

Although yes, to be fair**, we should really judge Hillary on the basis of her own accomplishments, since she started a political career by parachuting into a safe Senate-seat in New York.  Unfortunately, I can't think of any.


* See ?  Selective Memory-Syndrome strikes again.

** Because that whole 'co-president' thing never happened, and it's not as if nostalgia for the 'nineties is the primary appeal of Hillary's bid for the presidency.

That Clinton Economic Legacy

For all the progressives & Hillary-fans out there talking up the economic legacy of Bill Clinton, a president who inherited an economic recovery from his predecessor, George Herbert Walker Bush, and whose presidency happened to coincide with the tech. bubble, how about a reminder of some of Bill's economic accomplishments while in office ?*  I've divided them into two groups, one subjectively 'good', one subjectively 'bad'.  Your guess which is which.

NAFTA (North American Free Tree Agreement)
'Welfare-Reform'
The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)
Telecommunications Act of 1996
Permanent Most Favoured Nation status for the People's Republic of China
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (i.e. partial reform of Glass-Steagall)

Balanced the budget (Repubs. would probably dispute credit for this one)*
FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993)
Increased the Minimum Wage
Expanded EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit)
Expansion of Head-Start programme
Attempted (and failed miserably) to bring about universal healthcare-reform.

So, a record on balance to celebrate ?  Consider for one, what was/is the impact of these changes, short-term...and long...


*I am talking here about things Clinton actually did while in office, or was significantly involved in getting through Congress.  One of the things at least on my list (the one starred) is very debatable, and things like employment-figures and stock-market numbers are impossible to separate out between the multitudinous number of potential causal factors, most of which are probably outside of the control of any sitting president.

** Although I provided Wiki links for most of this stuff, I'm assuming a certain level of familiarity with this history and the politics thereof, which Wikipedia alone probably won't provide.

A Message From Harry & Louise

Imagine an alternate universe in which the Clintons went into acting.  Yes this is via the Chris Hayes' bit, via Digby.