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Playinghardball

(11,665 posts)
Mon May 9, 2016, 12:36 PM May 2016

A compilation of wrongdoings by Hillary Clinton (*Bernie Sanders Group*)

Submitted by ArtlessWonder

All the supporting sublinks are here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/POLITIC/comments/4idg2e/a_compilation_of_wrongdoings_by_hillary_clinton/

AS FLOTUS:
Clinton touts her time as FLOTUS as political experience and is known to have been very involved in her husband's work, but she refuses to accept responsibility for NAFTA, DOMA, the crime reform bill (which she supported with her racist "remorseless superpredators" remark), the welfare reform bill and the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
AS SENATOR:
Clinton voted for the Iraq War, she voted for the PATRIOT Act, she supported bankruptcy reform that denied Chapter 7 protection for the poorest people.
AS SECRETARY OF STATE:
Clinton pushed NATO to bomb Libya and it is now a haven for ISIS, she opposed the restoration of the overthrown elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and now Honduras is in chaos, she supported free trade with Colombia that led to slave labor conditions in that country even after she had publicly opposed that same free trade agreement, she made favorable deals with countries that had donated to the Clinton Foundation.
Clinton's foreign policy can best be described as "hostile", favoring military intervention or oppressive sanctions, particularly in the Middle East. This hostility complicates our reputation abroad and creates unintended problems. However, there is an "Emperor's New Clothes" effect where the media consistently portrays Clinton as vastly experienced and capable in foreign policy, despite the ruins and/or chaos left behind in Iraq, Iran, Libya, Honduras, Colombia and soon Syria.
To further this "Emperor's New Clothes" effect, Clinton had her Senior Advisor while she was Secretary of State, Philippe Reines, secretly communicate with journalists of major media sources to encourage them to use glowing praise for Clinton's foreign policy, including use of the adjective "muscular". These journalists were happy to cooperate in exchange for exclusive stories.
Clinton embraces her ties to Nixon's Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. Kissinger is known to have had the most warlike foreign policy of any Secretary of State, causing mass deaths in Cambodia and Laos to fight the Viet Cong, the former leading to the rise of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge party which massacred some 2M people in the Cambodian "Killing Fields", as well as unseating Salvador Allende in Chile to replace him with brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet. Clinton's embrace of her ties to Kissinger before an audience speaks to her foreign policy, yet she seems to feel confident that the average voter will not know who Kissinger is and what he did.
Clinton has worked to maintain close ties to Israel's conservative Likud Party and its leader and oppressive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu dislikes President Obama for not frequently dealing with him. Clinton has worked through the Center for American Progress (CAP) and its leader Neera Tanden to smooth over relations with Netanyahu, including a recent speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) where Clinton gave effusive praise for Israel and the need for America to maintain close ties with Israel and offer unconditional support for the country despite its mistreatment of Palestinians and exaggeration of Palestinian violence compared to Israeli usurpation of land and water rights in the region.
When Clinton was secretary of state, she helped Swiss bank UBS avoid the IRS after they helped wealthy Americans dodge their taxes, then UBS gave $1.5M to Bill Clinton for a speech.
Clinton recently was outed for supporting the Panama free trade agreement alongside Obama, that allowed people all over the world to use Panama to avoid paying taxes. The Prime Minister of Iceland recently resigned for his implication of tax evasion in Panama, but Clinton is not under any significant scrutiny for her role in the Panama trade agreement.
AS A PRIVATE CITIZEN:
Before she was First Lady, Clinton was on the board of directors of Walmart, which has driven small businesses to closure around the country and has aggressively lowered wages, forcing its employees to seek welfare and nutrition benefits. Clinton continues to receive donations from members of the Walton family.
Clinton accepted millions of dollars in speaking fees from the most corrupt financial institutions in the country that were responsible for the subprime mortgage lending crisis that caused the recession of 2008, but acts like these fees do not influence her and doesn't seem to understand why the public doubts her. Clinton also refuses to release the transcripts of these speeches, first saying that "she will look into it" and then saying that she will not release such transcripts so until all candidates have done the same.
Clinton works with the charitable organization the Clinton Foundation, which fundraises from suspicious individuals and has raised $3B. Some people on the payroll of the Clinton Foundation have found their way into Clinton's campaign, which blurs the line between the charitable organization and her campaign (which would be illegal).
AS A CAMPAIGNER:
Political favoritism
Clinton got hundreds of superdelegate endorsements long before the primary started. These superdelegates stubbornly refuse to change their endorsements, even when their states have gone for Sanders. Clinton has a vast donor network to which these superdelegates are all connected, and they are essentially "locked in" to support her. There is also concern that Clinton exerts pressure on these superdelegates through political coercion.
Of these superdelegates, many Senators and Representatives have either offered excessively flattering praise for Clinton or rebukes for Sanders, or both. Notably, Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Claire McCaskill, Nancy Pelosi.
The same Harry Reid coordinated with a union in Nevada to let their workers out with pay so that they could caucus for Clinton.
Elizabeth Warren, who did not endorse either candidate, is hounded constantly by her peers to endorse Clinton.
The DNC is clearly supporting Clinton. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was part of Clinton's 2008 campaign, is now head chair of the DNC and has caused grief to the Obama administration. She has done everything she can to limit Sanders' media exposure by severely limiting the debate schedule yet she acts like it helped the candidates. She also cut off Sanders' campaign access to voter data because of a data theft by a Sanders campaign staffer who was referred to the campaign by the DNC.
The same Debbie Wasserman Schultz blacklisted vice chair of the DNC Tulsi Gabbard from attending the first debate because Gabbard insisted that she and others had not been consulted about the debate schedule and demanded more. Gabbard had to leave the DNC to endorse Sanders.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz has also attacked Elizabeth Warren's legislation to stop payday lenders, seemingly in retribution for Warren's refusal to endorse Clinton.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz has also cut off voter data access to Tim Canova, a Sanders supporter who is running to replace her in the House of Representatives.
Clinton won Arizona due to early voters, while Arizona election day voters were stuck in line for hours due to the loss of over a hundred polling locations and thousands of people were denied their votes entirely. Clinton was suspiciously quiet on this disenfranchisement while being the beneficiary of it.
Clinton won New York's closed primary by a large margin despite Sanders' record-setting rallies and Sanders' volunteers making over 3M calls into the state, after mysteriously lucky circumstances for Clinton of malfunctioning voting machines, people involuntarily changed from Democrat to Independent and over 126,000 people dropped from the voter rolls in Brooklyn, which was expected to be Sanders' most favorable borough. NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and NY Governor Andrew Cuomo all endorsed Clinton and did not acknowledge any fraud, but suspended the Brooklyn Board of Elections chief clerk seemingly to pin all the blame on a low-ranking official.
Sanders was booted from the DC ballot for what were claimed to be administrative issues, then the mistake was corrected after the controversy.
In many of the states that Sanders lost, the voting results do not match the exit polls at all. This strongly suggests electoral fraud by the Clinton campaign. By comparison, the Republican voting results by state very closely match the exit polls, showing that exit polls should be accurate for the Democratic results as well.
Clinton uses her husband and her daughter to hurt Sanders. Bill has campaigned in front of voting places in Boston and Chicago on their election days, which veers on illegal electioneering and kept people from making their votes that day. Chelsea has lied about Sanders' healthcare plans, claiming that he will repeal the Affordable Care Act rather than use it as a backstop until implementing the superior Medicare for All that Sanders wants instead.
Hillary Clinton relies heavily on her husband Bill's appeal with black voters. That is why people have referred to the South as her "firewall", because there are many black voters in the South who fondly remember Bill's presidency and will vote for a Clinton over any other candidate. The Southern states did vote overwhelmingly for Clinton, but recently Bill had a run-in with the black rights activist group Black Lives Matter bringing him to task for his crime reform that put so many black people in prison and his welfare reform that denied relief to the poorest black people. Black Lives Matter also demanded that Bill answer for his wife's use of the racist code phrase "remorseless superpredators" to justify the crime reform. Bill handled himself very poorly, becoming defensive and trying to justify the bills he had signed into law even after he had apologized for the crime bill last year. This has turned black voters against Bill Clinton. However, with the predominantly black Southern states out of the way in the primary, Bill Clinton's appeal with those same black voters has already done its job for Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Clinton's campaign staffers have been caught on camera violating election laws of the respective states, by canvassing for Clinton while registering people to vote.
Clinton has been coordinating with her SuperPACs Priorities USA and Correct the Record by helping them fundraise, in violation of FEC laws.
Clinton's campaign has harassed Sanders' campaign for not raising money for state and local candidates, but Clinton recently was outed for utilizing a fundraising group in her name, the Hillary Victory Fund, to raise millions of dollars for state candidates then have those states funnel nearly all the money back into her campaign to skirt FEC laws.
Media favoritism
Clinton has clout with every news source. She got endorsements from New York Times and Washington Post, and gets consistently favorable coverage from CNN, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, and Univision, while those same networks either ignore Sanders, even when he wins overwhelming victories, or belittle his campaign and his chances. Many of those networks are contributors to the Clinton campaign.
When Clinton had a young black woman escorted out of her South Carolina fundraiser for demanding an explanation for the "we have to bring them to heel" remark, Clinton got an immediate audience with Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post to clear up her image with black voters.
The same Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post lied to hurt Sanders, by claiming that Sanders was not the subject of a civil rights photo, even when the photographer himself verified it was Sanders.
When Clinton was confronted by a Greenpeace activist over her fossil fuel donations, Clinton blew up in that activist's face, saying "I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me", and promptly got an article from Philip Bump of the Washington Post debunking her fossil fuel donations, which didn't sufficiently discuss Clinton's lobbyist donations from the fossil fuel industry and failed to mention fossil fuel donations into her SuperPAC Priorities USA. And again, Clinton is coordinating with her Super PACs, so she is responsible for donations into those Super PACs.
Univision, owned by Haim Saban, notorious right wing supporter of Israel and Clinton Foundation donor, bought The Onion which had been printing stories at Clinton's expense and now the satirical newspaper runs brown-nosing Clinton stories instead.
The same Univision hosted a debate where they gave Clinton quadruple the speaking time and ambushed Sanders with an out-of-context clip of an interview about Fidel Castro.
The New York Times repeatedly edits their digital articles to diminish any praise for Sanders and make Clinton sound better.
Paul Krugman, economist and columnist for the Times, has run one condescending article after another about Sanders and his supporters while clearly slavishly endorsing Clinton.
The Washington Post ran an article by the editorial board calling Sanders a liar and his supporters gullible fools. When Sanders fought back calling the Post wrong on the Iraq War, among other things, the Post doubled down and they have been facetiously attacking him ever since.
Smearing her opponents
Clinton lies about Sanders, including making insinuations of sexism and racism, accusing him trying to repeal the ACA, accusing him of cozying up to the gun lobby (while she attends fundraisers held by NRA lobbyists), tried to smear Sanders as being anti-choice and tried to blame Sanders for the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.
Clinton acts through third parties to lie about and attack Sanders, including despicable smear artist David Brock (accused Sanders' campaign of racism, attacked Sanders' age and health, hired trolls to post porn and snuff photos to pro-Sanders Facebook groups), Hispanic activist Dolores Huerta (accused Sanders supporters of racism), Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis (insinuated that Sanders was not a member of the civil rights movement), Congressman Luis Gutierrez (accused Sanders of insensitivity to Hispanic people) the feminist group Emily's List (accused Sanders' campaign of sexism), the gay rights group HRC (ignored Sanders' superior record on gay rights), and the list goes on.
Clinton uses doublespeak to slander her opponents. Recently, Clinton was asked on Morning Joe whether Sanders was unqualified for the Presidency. She refused to answer this question multiple times, when she could have easily said "Yes, but I am more qualified." Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver responded to this with "I went to law school as well, and I know how to say something without actually saying it."
Stealing her opponents' ideas
Clinton has changed her stance on the TPP, Keystone pipeline, financial de-regulation, the private prison industry and a $15 federal minimum wage, among other things, the moment that Sanders made these issues important to voters.
Contradictions to behavior in the 2008 election
Clinton has made herself a very close friend to President Obama. At least, that's how she portrays herself in every debate. However, Clinton was rather nasty to Obama in 2008, running the infamous "3 A.M." political ad that had racist undertones and suggesting that she would stay in the race despite an insurmountable delegate gap because Obama might be assassinated like Robert Kennedy. Clinton's sudden camaraderie with Obama and his policies plays more like an appeal to black voters, considering that the Clintons are rumored to be furious at Obama for winning the 2008 election.
Clinton has changed course from 2008 to attack Sanders. She put herself on Obama's right regarding guns to appeal to rural voters, and now puts herself to Sanders' left regarding guns to appeal to urban voters. She told Obama that Democrats should never disagree on universal healthcare, and now tells Sanders that his Medicare for All concept "will never, ever come to pass."
GENERALLY AS A POLITICIAN AND A HUMAN BEING:
Clinton is seen as a political opportunist, and her views have (outwardly) changed as the world has changed. She opposed gay marriage, now she supports it. She supported fracking, now she opposes it (after making money from the fracking industry). She supported the TPP, now she opposes it (while political officials feel comfortable that she will flip back to supporting the TPP if elected). She supported the crime bill that her husband signed into law, now she says it was a mistake. This kind of opportunism tells people that Clinton is a liar who will say anything to be elected.
Part of this political opportunism is that Clinton has used political revisionism to explain away her bad decisions from her time as First Lady. For instance, Clinton has claimed that DOMA was secretly intended to prevent a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which is false.
Clinton is seen as wealthy, out of touch and arrogant. She owns expansive New York properties, she flies in a private jet even as a private citizen, she hasn't driven herself since she became First Lady and she has been surrounded by Secret Service since the 90's. She claimed that she and her husband were "dead broke" after leaving the White House, even on a more than $100K pension, and so she and her husband gave paid speeches to become multimillionaires. She doesn't even seem to understand that these paid speeches constitute a conflict of interest for a President. Her daughter married a Goldman Sachs employee and has never had to work a day in her life. Secret Service employees allegedly dislike her and say that she is rude and dismissive.
Clinton is seen as considering herself above the law. Of course, there is the private server that she had set up as Secretary of State, seemingly so that she could either work from home or so that she could have communications withheld from the State Department with individuals like Sidney Blumenthal, who was not authorized to work for the Department and was paid out of the Clinton Foundation as Clinton's private foreign affairs advisor. There is a history of scandal following her and her husband, some of which is compelling, most of which is conspiracy theory.
Clinton is seen as a liar even on unnecessary things. She lied about "being under sniper fire" when visiting Bosnia, she lied about trying to sign up for the military and she lied about her name being given in honor of Mount Everest mountaineer Edmund Hillary. This tendency to lie even about insignificant things creates perpetual distrust of her. Worse still, when Clinton was asked if she would always be honest with people, she responded "I don't believe I ever have [lied]. I don't believe I ever will."
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A compilation of wrongdoings by Hillary Clinton (*Bernie Sanders Group*) (Original Post) Playinghardball May 2016 OP
As Senator add Ichingcarpenter May 2016 #1
Meh, that's all you got? bahrbearian May 2016 #2
An addition... Ino May 2016 #3
Bookmarking for later. nt silvershadow May 2016 #4

Ichingcarpenter

(36,988 posts)
1. As Senator add
Mon May 9, 2016, 12:48 PM
May 2016

She voted with all republicans and against democrats on support of cluster bombs.

Her American flag burning vote

Her video games vote.

Ino

(3,366 posts)
3. An addition...
Mon May 9, 2016, 03:01 PM
May 2016

the strong appearance, hopefully being investigated, that she gave State Dept favors in exchange for "donations" and "speaking fees."

And of course, presently being under FBI investigation.

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