2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumExcerpt from 'My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency'
http://www.alternet.org/books/excerpt-my-turn-critical-doug-henwood-book-hillaryPolitics, the family business of the Clintons, has been very good to them, as they have raised between $2 billion and $3 billion since 1992.
The title of Daniel Halpers book, Clinton, Inc., is key to understanding the family. Unlike the Bush family, neither Bill nor Hillary was born into anything near the ruling class. There was no Prescott Bushthe son of a steel company president who went to Yale, joined Skull and Bones (just like his son and grandson), and later became a banker and then a senatorin their separate pasts. Bill was born poor, in one of the poorest states in the country and into an unstable family, while Hillary was born into the provincial petty bourgeoisie. Entry into elite schools was their ticket to eventual membership in the ruling class; it took decades of striving for them to get there.
Once established, however, politics became the familys business, and its been very good to them. A 2014 Wall Street Journal analysis showed that the Clintons have raised between $2 billion and $3 billion since 1992more than three-quarters of it from industry sourcesfor their campaigns, philanthropies, and themselves. At the top of the list of corporate donors were financial firms, and highest up among them was Goldman Sachs. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase gave generously as well. Not far behind Wall Street were communications/electronics firms and then, that perennial bedrock of Democratic Party support, lawyers and lobbyists. Those three sectors alone contributed more than ten times as much as organized labor, which pitched in just $41 million of the total over the period of the Journals study.
Its hard to separate the Clintons personal fortune from the Foundations; the perks it provides are a form of imputed consumer services, to use the language of national income accountingjetting all over, staying in fancy hotels, eating very well, and the rest. But they have been prodigious earners on their own account. Bill did most of the heavy financial lifting, earning $105 million from speeches in the dozen years after he left the White House; a good week could yield $1.4 million. According to work by the website 24/7 Wall St, Bill is the 10th-richest of our presidents, with a net worth of $55 million. (Five of the 10 richest presidents have been Democrats, compared to two Republicans, and on average, Democratic presidents are more than three times richer than Republicans.) But Hillary wasnt just sitting around baking cookies: shes worth $32 million, according to a Politico analysis. The property taxes on their two houses, one in D.C. and the other, for which they paid $4.5 million, in Westchester, are $104,000, twice the average households income. Its a good life theyve made for themselves.
Metric System
(6,048 posts)left you've circled around to the right.
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)pinebox
(5,761 posts)Who painted Obama as being too liberal on guns in 2008.
Beacool
(30,244 posts)Daniel Halper is an American political writer. He serves as the online editor of the conservative news publication The Weekly Standard[1] and is the author of an unflattering 2014 biography of the Clinton family titled Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Halper
Thanks for posting an article based of what RW writer Halper wrote in his anti-Clinton book.
This place jumped the shark long ago......
revbones
(3,660 posts)Beacool
(30,244 posts)revbones
(3,660 posts)dchill
(38,324 posts)=crap.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)you denounced the use of a right wing PAC to slander Sanders the other day??? If so I'm sorry if I felt this reply was a bit hypocritical.....
Right wing PAC Official PAC Name:
WESTERN REPRESENTATION PAC
Location: RENO, NV 89509
Industry: Republican/Conservative
Treasurer: STOCKTON, ROGER
FEC Committee ID: C00461772
revbones
(3,660 posts)UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)I meant those who criticize a source but does not do so when it favors their candidate.
revbones
(3,660 posts)Which quite clearly ascribes that to me in an attempt to discredit my statements.
I typically don't use shoot the messenger tactics, and look at facts regardless of the source. I would suggest the same for others.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)and what was in the post......
revbones
(3,660 posts)That was my mistake, and I own it. I "misread" it - sorry couldn't resist.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)it can get crazy at times.
Response to revbones (Reply #14)
UglyGreed This message was self-deleted by its author.
Beacool
(30,244 posts)What RW PAC?
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)used the PAC to trash Sanders the other day and it was well received and had many recs. The PAC's name is in my first reply.