Trumpf Just Blatantly Lies His Ass Off-- Hillary's Dishonesty Is More Sneaky

The Clintons don't seem to get a simple point: Democratic primary voters hate when Democrats attack other Democrats. And now it isn't just Hillary's sleazy team of lobbyists, job-seekers and conservatives attacking Bernie, it's also Hillary herself. she uses the same basic debate tactics Cruz and Rubio use-- maybe she learned them when she was president of the Wellesley College Young Republicans. She slips in a quick attack on his character or his competence and then immediately says something like "but let's please talk about issues" and then throws out some policy issue that Bernie can't resist, leaving her sly, slimy personal attack hanging out there. It's how she lost to Obama in 2008.

Bill Curry, a former counselor to President Clinton, writing for Salon Tuesday, was amazed as I am that the Clintons don't understand the vicious, ugly negative attacks are losing her the election-- if not the primary, then surely the general. "How Clinton lost [in New Hampshire]," he wrote, "is as telling as the historic margin she lost by. Just as in 2008, she presented as a hawk to a party bone-weary of war. Now as then, her high-dollar, tone-deaf, leak-prone campaign telegraphed every punch. Her backers harp on her experience-- but experience only counts if you learn from it. Eight years later, Clinton makes the exact same mistakes. Still, party elites have bet the farm she’ll have it all sorted out by October. Dangerous wager."

She isn’t learning from this race, either. Her response to New Hampshire has been to double-down on her strategy. How such a bright person could be such a slow learner is a mystery. Her worst moments prior to New Hampshire were her ham-handed attempts to take down Sanders. Chelsea distorted his healthcare plans, Bill ripped his character. Hillary accused him of an “artful smear” for suggesting, obviously, that banks give to super PACs to influence policy. She voiced “concern” over reports he’d mingled with real live lobbyists at Democratic fundraisers. But to many voters the Clintons attacking Sanders’ integrity was like draft-avoider George W. Bush swift-boating Purple Heart-winner John Kerry-- except this time it backfired, and her whole family took the hit.

At this point she might have decided to curtail the personal attacks, but alas, no. In a public television debate two days after the primary, she waited till the last second to launch an attack, this time on Sanders’ alleged disloyalty to Obama. It seems this will be a principal theme going forward, so in case you missed, a sample:

Today Senator Sanders said President Obama failed the presidential leadership test…. he has called him weak. He has called him a disappointment. He wrote a forward for a book that basically argued voters should have buyers’ remorse when it comes to President Obama’s leadership and legacy it is the kind of criticism I expect from Republicans. Calling the president weak…  [Saying] several times he should have a primary opponent when he ran for re-election…

Much of this is flat-out false; all is shorn of context and rife with what Politifact called “half-truths.” Bill Press wrote a book criticizing Obama, but Sanders didn’t write the foreword (just a blurb that doesn’t criticize Obama). He never called Obama weak or a disappointment, though he once said Obama showed weakness in budget negotiations. Talking to a radio host who wanted Obama primaried, Sanders said open debate was a good thing. But notice in the above quote how Clinton, the Mary Lou Retton of syntax, made it seem Sanders said all these things.

When Clinton at last holstered her weapon, moderators Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill, who’d done yeoman’s work to that point, said there wasn’t time for Sanders to answer her final fusillade, but that he could do so in his closing remarks. Off balance for the first time all night, he split the difference, which made for a weak finish to an otherwise strong performance. Too bad; he deserved a chance at a full rebuttal even if it meant shaving a minute or two off Antiques Roadshow.

...Clinton’s ad hominem attacks-- call it the politics of personal destruction-- poison the air around her. Just before New Hampshire, deservedly beloved feminist icon Gloria Steinem told Bill Maher that young women join Sanders’ campaign to meet guys. Steinem got taken to the Internet woodshed for making a lighthearted, self-deprecating joke, on a comedy show, no less, but only because the tone of Clinton’s campaign is so rancid. Clinton must see how her scorched-earth policy hurts her family, her friends and her campaign, but for her there’s never any turning back.

In another reminder of 2008, Clinton has added race to the mix. On primary night on CNN, Clinton ally Michael Nutter slyly accused Sanders of subtle racism, terming his call for criminal justice reform “mildly offensive” because, Nutter falsely charged, Sanders never talks about other African-American issues. For some reason-- it can’t be ratings-- CNN lets commentators with clear conflicts of interest mouth thinly veiled partisan message. This is worse. Nutter is no more “offended” than Hillary is “concerned” or Bill “shocked” to discover trolls on the Internet. They want us to think Bernie does what they do, but of course he doesn’t.

...On Friday we learned that DNC chairwoman and Clinton lifer Debbie Wasserman Schultz ended Obama’s ban on federal contractors donating to the party. (So much for loyalty to Obama.) On Wednesday we learned Clinton will get a majority of New Hampshire delegates despite losing in a landslide. Schultz told CNN the reason 700 unelected superdelegates get to vote at the convention is to spare grass-roots activists the burden of having to primary them. No matter how much money Schultz wrings from contractors or how many superdelegates Clinton piles up in states Sanders wins, it won’t equal the price they pay for such cynicism.

To the extent Clinton gets away with it, she can thank a media nearly as out of touch as she is. Newspapers beat TV for analysis, but the gap narrows every year, and not because TV is getting better. Elite reporters reflect the elite consensus, which accounts for such recent Washington Post headlines as “Democrats Would Be Insane to Nominate Sanders” and “Sanders’ Oddball Coalition Savors Its Victory.”

...Neoliberalism appeals to the rich. Neoliberal Bill Clinton was the first Democratic presidential nominee to outspend a Republican. In 2008 Obama outspent John McCain 2-to-1, breaking a record set in 1972 by Richard Nixon. But neoliberalism is killing the middle class. It’s why both parties rely on cultural issues to hold their bases. If you back abortion rights, same sex marriage and gun safety you’re a Democrat. If not, you’re a Republican. On economic issues it’s more complex. If you hate big banks and political corruption, you could be for Sanders or Trump. It’s why Sanders talks so much about these things; they’re what the election’s all about.

When Clinton isn’t calling Sanders a traitor, she says she shares his goals. But she doesn’t. Clinton was part of the neoliberal revolt that destroyed the Roosevelt coalition and she is as we’ve seen, a woman of markedly fixed views. She may be Obama’s heir, but Sanders is FDR’s. She campaigns as she does out of habit, and to hide the very real choice. The neoliberal experiment is over. Democrats, proud heirs to Franklin Roosevelt, are ready to come home.

She'd probably prefer primary voters to be arguing over campaign tactics than over her unprecedented-- but not well-known--personal corruption. The video up today from Thursday's Las Vegas Democratic town hall, is also something Hillary would probably not want Democratic primary voters to be spending any time thinking about. It reinforces her dishonesty and untrustworthiness, as well as her corruption and affinity to the banksters. Have you checked out IWillLookIntoIt.com lately? It's been over two weeks since the site went up. Yesterday Lee Fang caught her lying again: "Clinton speaking contracts that have been made public stipulate that a stenographer is hired to make a record of her speeches and that she owns the transcripts. As the demand for her to release the transcripts has increased, Clinton’s team has reportedly began reviewing the documents to assess the political risk of making them public." He also caught her making it clear which side she's on-- not workers or ordinary American families, but the same predatory banksters the Republicans support.

Records show Bill and Hillary Clinton made over $125 million from giving paid speeches since 2001. In particular, critics question why Hillary Clinton received over $675,000 from Goldman Sachs, an investment bank notorious for using its ties to public officials to influence policy, over the course of three speeches in 2013.

And while Clinton likened her paid speeches to similar speeches given by Bernie Sanders, financial records show Sanders made $1,876 for two paid speeches and a television appearance last year. Sanders donated the speech fees to a local charity in Vermont that serves low-income families.

An attendee of one of Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches said she gave such a flattering speech that she “sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director.” According the Wall Street Journal, Clinton used one of her speeches to the bank to thank the audience for what they had done for the country.

Watch the video up top again. Then hit the thermometer: