When then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton voted to authorize the war against Iraq in 2002, she justified her support of the invasion as a way to protect America’s national security. But less than a decade later, as secretary of state, Clinton promoted the war-torn country as a place where American corporations could make big money.

“It's time for the United States to start thinking of Iraq as a business opportunity," she said in a 2011 speech.

The quote was included in an email released by the State Department on Wednesday that specifically mentioned JPMorgan and Exxon Mobil. JPMorgan was selected by the U.S. government to run a key import-export bank in Iraq and in 2013 announced plans to expand its operations in the country. Exxon Mobil signed a deal to redevelop Iraqi oil fields. JPMorgan has collectively paid the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation at least $450,000 for speeches, and Exxon Mobil has donated over $1 million to the family’s foundation.

(more at link

http://www.ibtimes.com/campaign-2016-hillary-clinton-pitched-iraq-business-opportunity-us-corporations-2121999

Liberal critics like Paul Krugman argue that Sanders’s economic platform is unrealistic. They are dead wrong.

Does Bernie Sanders’s economic program amount to pie-in-the-sky nonsense? The short answer is no. All of his major proposals are grounded in solid economic reasoning and evidence.

But that hasn’t stopped a major swath of leading liberal economists and commentators to insist otherwise. Paul Krugman has led these attacks from his New York Times perch, charging repeatedly that Sanders makes “outlandish economic claims,” embraces “deep voodoo” economics, is “not ready for prime time,” and so forth. A recent Washington Post article by columnist Steven Pearlstein cites several other liberal economists criticizing Sanders’s support for Scandinavian-style social democratic policies, concluding that his program “promises all the good parts of the Scandinavian model without any of the bad parts.”

(Omitted point-by-point, detailed analysis at link)

It is true that the overall share of GDP going to corporate profits and the rich will decline, and this will likely counteract to some degree the positive factors encouraging private investment and growth under Sanders. But even The Economist recently concluded that corporate profits in the United States are excessive, so much as to be damaging the economy’s overall performance. The entirely feasible challenge today is therefore to produce higher growth rates through creating more jobs, getting more money in people’s pockets, widening educational opportunities, and raising productivity rather than allowing the country to slip further into economic oligarchy.

In short, if something like a Sanders program is enacted in the United States, the critical point will not be whether GDP grows, on average, at 3 percent, 4 percent or 5.3 percent. A Sanders economy will be fully capable of growing at healthy rates. But more than just growing, a Sanders economy will also deliver standards of well-being for the overwhelming majority of Americans, as well as the environment, in ways that we have not experienced for generations.

http://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-will-make-the-economy-great

As Hillary Clinton seeks to defend her role in the 2009 Honduras coup, we speak with Dana Frank, an expert on human rights and U.S. policy in Honduras. "This is breathtaking that she’d say these things. I think we’re all kind of reeling that she would both defend the coup and defend her own role in supporting its stabilization in the aftermath," Frank says. "I want to make sure that the listeners understand how chilling it is that a leading presidential candidate in the United States would say this was not a coup. … She’s baldly lying when she says we never called it a coup."

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/13/shes_baldly_lying_dana_frank_responds

According to the group, while Clinton may be wooing the immigrant vote and have increasing support among immigrant groups, she actually has “blood on her hands” and is responsible for forcing immigrants into low paid jobs while destabilizing their Latin American homelands.

Here is how they explain Clinton’s actions in Honduras and other Latin American nations:

Hillary Clinton supports violent military coups in Latin America and, specifically, is responsible for the coup in Honduras that ousted Zelaya and the recent assassination of the beloved Berta Caceres.

The coup governments supported by Hillary Clinton then open up their economies to US capital for further exploitation. Through free-trade agreements and other neo-liberal policies Hillary Clinton destabilized Latin America. The devastating effects of these policies then lead to mass migration across the border.

Once here migrants are forced to work low paid jobs while under the constant threat of deportation. Hillary Clinton doesn’t just support mass deportation, but is also supported and funded by companies that build and maintain FOR PROFIT immigration Detention Centers.

She is a former member of the Obama administration who oversaw the recent raids and deportation in this community right here in Corona.

So, how is it that Hillary Clinton supports the Latino community?

On April 10, the group attempted to protest Bill Clinton’s stumping for Hillary in Corona, Queens.

According to the members, they were removed by the police immediately.

http://latest.com/2016/04/why-basta-hillary-protesters-say-clinton-has-blood-on-her-hands/