From the beginning, many and probably most liberal policy wonks were skeptical about Bernie Sanders. On many major issues — including the signature issues of his campaign, especially financial reform — he seemed to go for easy slogans over hard thinking. And his political theory of change, his waving away of limits, seemed utterly unrealistic.
Some Sanders supporters responded angrily when these concerns were raised, immediately accusing anyone expressing doubts about their hero of being corrupt if not actually criminal. But intolerance and cultishness from some of a candidate’s supporters are one thing; what about the candidate himself?
Unfortunately, in the past few days the answer has become all too clear: Mr. Sanders is starting to sound like his worst followers. Bernie is becoming a Bernie Bro.
Let me illustrate the point about issues by talking about bank reform.
The easy slogan here is “Break up the big banks.” It’s obvious why this slogan is appealing from a political point of view: Wall Street supplies an excellent cast of villains. But were big banks really at the heart of the financial crisis, and would breaking them up protect us from future crises?
Many analysts concluded years ago that the answers to both questions were no. Predatory lending was largely carried out by smaller, non-Wall Street institutions like Countrywide Financial; the crisis itself was centered not on big banks but on “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers that weren’t necessarily that big. And the financial reform that President Obama signed in 2010 made a real effort to address these problems. It could and should be made stronger, but pounding the table about big banks misses the point.
Yet going on about big banks is pretty much all Mr. Sanders has done. On the rare occasions on which he was asked for more detail, he didn’t seem to have anything more to offer. And this absence of substance beyond the slogans seems to be true of his positions across the board.
You could argue that policy details are unimportant as long as a politician has the right values and character. As it happens, I don’t agree. For one thing, a politician’s policy specifics are often a very important clue to his or her true character — I warned about George W. Bush’s mendacity back when most journalists were still portraying him as a bluff, honest fellow, because I actually looked at his tax proposals. For another, I consider a commitment to facing hard choices as opposed to taking the easy way out an important value in itself.
But in any case, the way Mr. Sanders is now campaigning raises serious character and values issues.
It’s one thing for the Sanders campaign to point to Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street connections, which are real, although the question should be whether they have distorted her positions, a case the campaign has never even tried to make. But recent attacks on Mrs. Clinton as a tool of the fossil fuel industry are just plain dishonest, and speak of a campaign that has lost its ethical moorings.
And then there was Wednesday’s rant about how Mrs. Clinton is not “qualified” to be president.
What probably set that off was a recent interview of Mr. Sanders by The Daily News, in which he repeatedly seemed unable to respond when pressed to go beyond his usual slogans. Mrs. Clinton, asked about that interview, was careful in her choice of words, suggesting that “he hadn’t done his homework.”
But Mr. Sanders wasn’t careful at all, declaring that what he considers Mrs. Clinton’s past sins, including her support for trade agreements and her vote to authorize the Iraq war — for which she has apologized — make her totally unfit for office.
This is really bad, on two levels. Holding people accountable for their past is O.K., but imposing a standard of purity, in which any compromise or misstep makes you the moral equivalent of the bad guys, isn’t. Abraham Lincoln didn’t meet that standard; neither did F.D.R. Nor, for that matter, has Bernie Sanders (think guns).
And the timing of the Sanders rant was truly astonishing. Given her large lead in delegates — based largely on the support of African-American voters, who respond to her pragmatism because history tells them to distrust extravagant promises — Mrs. Clinton is the strong favorite for the Democratic nomination.
Is Mr. Sanders positioning himself to join the “Bernie or bust” crowd, walking away if he can’t pull off an extraordinary upset, and possibly helping put Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in the White House? If not, what does he think he’s doing?
The Sanders campaign has brought out a lot of idealism and energy that the progressive movement needs. It has also, however, brought out a streak of petulant self-righteousness among some supporters. Has it brought out that streak in the candidate, too?
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, April 8, 2016
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April 9, 2016
Posted by raemd95 |
Bernie Bros, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton | African Americans, Countrywide Financial, Financial Crisis, Fossil Fuels Industry, Lehman Brothers, Policy Details, Predatory Lending, Shadow Banks, Wall Street |
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John Kasich had a clear plan in the third GOP presidential debate: Attack Donald Trump.
As the curtain rose and the 10 candidates took their podiums, the Ohio governor started out aggressively, as if already planning to lob whatever he could at Trump, no matter the question. CNBC moderator John Harwood asked Kasich to explain his comments Tuesday at a rally, where he said “I’ve had it” with candidates like Trump and Ben Carson. Kasich elaborated on his assault, saying: “This stuff is fantasy.”
“Well, right here they’re talking about, ‘We’ll just have a 10 percent tithe and that is how we’ll fund the government,’” Kasich said Wednesday night, clearly taking a jab at Carson. “‘We’ll just fix everything with waste, fraud, and abuse. Oh, we’re just going to be great, and we’ll ship 10 million people out of this country, leaving their children here in this country and dividing families,’” he added, taking a shot at Trump.
“Folks, we’ve got to wake up. We cannot elect somebody that doesn’t know how to do the job. You have to pick somebody who has experience, somebody that has the know-how, the discipline, and I spent my entire lifetime balancing federal budgets, flowing jobs, same in Ohio. I will go back within 100 days, it will pass, and we’ll be strong again.”
Trump, of course, leapt in, saying Ohio turned around economically because Kasich got “lucky with fracking.”
“First of all, John got lucky with a thing called fracking, OK?” Trump said, striking a typically defiant tone. “He hit oil, he got lucky with fracking, that is why Ohio is doing really well. That is important for you to know. No. 2, this was the man who was a managing general partner at Lehman Brothers and almost took us down with it, too. Lehman Brothers, they managed it all. Thirdly, he was such a nice guy, his poll numbers tanked. That is why he is on the end. He got nasty, so you know what? You can have him.”
Kasich shot back by saying he traveled around the country learning about how jobs work while he was at Lehman Brothers, giving him the economic chops to be the leader of the free world.
This “nasty” approach from Kasich was calculated, and one that many other GOP candidates, including Bobby Jindal have tried: Fight fire with fire against Trump.
“Part of being president is speaking the truth to the American people. That’s what Governor Kasich did today,” Kasich’s communications director Chris Schrimpf told The Daily Beast on Tuesday of Kasich’s newly aggressive strategy.
The governor of Ohio doesn’t want to play nice anymore.
By: Gideon Resnick, The Daily Beast, October 29, 2015
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October 30, 2015
Posted by raemd95 |
Ben Carson, Donald Trump, John Kasich | Budget, Deportation, Economic Policy, Fracking, Immigration Reform, Lehman Brothers, Ohio, Taxes |
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The article of the day is this detailed exploration of Jeb Bush’s complicated history in business by Robert O’Harrow and Tom Hamburger, which explores Bush’s talent for hooking up with people who turned out to be fraudsters and con artists and looks at how he became rich during the times when he wasn’t serving in public office. What does this history tell us about the kind of president Bush would be? We have to be careful about how we answer that question.
Bush likes to tout his experience in business as one of the reasons he’s well-qualified to be president, so the kind of experience he had is certainly worth examining. But as of yet, he hasn’t really shared the insights he gained about the economy that are unavailable to those who have not been so deeply involved in the world of commerce. And while it’s certainly interesting that he found his way to partner with multiple “dubious characters,” as the article describes them, there’s not much reason to believe that he was some kind of shady operator himself. But he did make his money the Bush way: by trading on his family name and the perception that because of who his father was (or later, because of who his brother was), he would have far-reaching influence that could help other people make money. For instance:
For a time, Bush also sat simultaneously on the boards of six corporations, including health industry giant Tenet Healthcare, earning as much as $3 million in fees and grants of stock, according to a Post analysis of financial documents. He also made more than 100 speeches at $50,000 or more per appearance, according to a New York Times report.
In June 2007, Bush signed on as an adviser to Lehman Brothers, the financial services giant. When Lehman was on the verge of collapse during the mortgage-meltdown crisis the next year, Richard S. Fuld Jr., Lehman’s beleaguered chief executive, asked Bush to use his cachet and reach out to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, then the second-richest man in the world, the New York Times reported.
That effort failed. When the London-based Barclays bank bought Lehman’s North American operations, Bush moved to that firm as a senior financial consultant. He made $1 million a year, the Times said.
I’d be interested to hear the conservatives who are outraged by Hillary Clinton making millions in speaking fees explain how this kind of thing is completely different. After all, in both cases, people tossed large sums of money at the politician in question not because of his or her skills, but because of his or her identity. Again and again, companies found it in their interest to have Jeb Bush as a partner, consultant or board member, and it wasn’t for his technical expertise in their particular line of work. For instance, I’m pretty sure I know about as much about manufacturing prefabricated building panels for emergency housing as Bush did in 2007, i.e. nothing, but nobody’s offering to pay me $15,000 a month for “advice” on their prefabricated building panel business, as a company called InnoVida did for Bush.
That doesn’t make him a criminal. If a bunch of corporations wanted to put me on their boards, where I’d make millions for doing almost nothing, I might take them up on it, too. It’s only problematic if Bush thinks that experience has really taught him how the economy works.
I’ve long held that there are few more ridiculous characters in politics than the person who comes before the voters and says, “Vote for me, because I’m not a politician, I’m a businessman” (there are a couple of them running against Bush in the GOP primaries). It’s akin to someone saying, “I’m the person who can fix your leaky pipes, because I’m not a plumber, I’m a podiatrist.” Bush isn’t quite like those people, because he’s not offering his business experience as the sum total of his preparation for the presidency. But if he’s going to say that his business experience gives him a valuable perspective on matters economic that will produce different decisions than those other candidates make, let’s hear how.
As of yet, Bush hasn’t released a detailed economic plan. He has said that if he’s elected, he’ll have the economy growing at a consistent rate of 4 percent per year, which would make him far and away the most economically successful president in recent American history. In other words, at the moment his plan is essentially, “Elect me, and it’s puppies and rainbows for everyone.”
It’s possible that when he finally releases the details, Bush’s program will be so creative and transformative that it will blow everyone’s mind — and only a guy who had worked making deals for water pumps in Nigeria and real estate in Florida could have devised it. On the other hand, it might be pretty much what every other Republican advocates: cut taxes, cut regulations, await glorious new dawn of prosperity. I know which one I’m betting on.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect; Contributor, The Plum Line Blog, June 29, 2015
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July 3, 2015
Posted by raemd95 |
Economic Policy, GOP Presidential Candidates, Jeb Bush | Barclays, Business Experience, Carlos Slim Helu, Conservatives, Hillary Clinton, InnoVida, Lehman Brothers, Richard S. Fuld Jr, Tenet Healthcare |
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Is there anything more American than the spectacle of two entitled rich guys fighting over who gets to be the presidential candidate of the 1 percent? First former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced he’s “exploring” the race, and the next thing you know Mitt Romney says: “Me too!”
It’s true Romney hadn’t ruled out running for president, but he was sounding relentlessly skeptical about a third try – until Bush announced his presidential explorations. By “exploring,” Bush meant corralling the party’s major donors, many of them former Romney backers, who are terrified by the idea of the nominating process being hijacked by eccentric Sen. Rand Paul or a can’t-win Christian right loser like Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee or the terrifying Ted Cruz.
That’s all it took for Romney to let supporters “leak” the news Friday that he, too, was “exploring” another bid.
Over the weekend the Washington Post ran a long profile of the relationship between the two men, which it said was characterized by “competitiveness and snippiness.” It’s a fun read. Apparently Mitt’s still mad that Bush took his time endorsing him in 2012, waiting until after Florida’s crucial primary (which Romney won anyway), and that he criticized Romney’s campaign moves on immigration.
Also: Romney is worried that Bush’s work for Lehman Brothers and Barclays “makes Bush vulnerable to the same kind of Democratic attacks that he faced in 2012 over his career as Bain Capital co-founder and chief executive.”
That makes Romney the logical alternative how?
The piece makes the rationale for a Romney run sound like a tantrum: “Jeb endorsed me too late, he criticized my campaign, and if one idle plutocrat who hasn’t won public office for more than a decade can become president, it’s going to be me!”
In fact, the real driving force seems to be entitlement. As Bill Kristol put it (and he knows a thing or two about nepotism and entitlement): “A Romney-Bush race would be more personal — about whose turn it is and who is owed it.”
“Whose turn it is and who is owed it.” That reminded me of Ann Romney telling ABC’s Diane Sawyer in 2012: “It’s Mitt’s time. It’s our turn now.”
Bush and Romney are two sons of wealthy accomplished fathers, two sons of noblesse oblige. One father won the presidency (but alas, only for one term); the other was cruelly denied it. Both ran for governor in states where registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans and won. Both are rightly skeptical of the long term future of a party that only attracts white people, but Romney caved to the right when he ran in 2012; Bush seems to think he can get away without doing that.
At least Bush seems to have a rationale for a run — to articulate a new way of talking about Latinos and gay people that probably doesn’t lead to policy changes, but at least tests whether kinder, gentler rhetoric can help grow the party nationally. What is Romney’s? He’s told friends “he considers poverty the topic du jour.” But poverty was just as high in 2012 and Romney had no answer for it – except to famously disdain “the 47 percent of Americans…who won’t take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Although as a Democrat I’d enjoy the spectacle, I find it very unlikely both Bush and Romney will run. The GOP’s donor class can’t control the Tea Party, but they can probably force one of these guys to the sidelines, if he doesn’t go willingly, and I’d guess it’s Romney. He sounded convinced, and convincing, in the documentary “Mitt,” when he told his family, “My time on the stage is over, guys.” No longer clinging to the notion that “it’s our turn now,” Ann Romney agreed. “We’re done,” she said.
Though Romney is now telling friends that the once-reluctant Ann is on board with a third run, she was right back in 2012. They’re done.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, January 12, 2015
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January 14, 2015
Posted by raemd95 |
GOP Presidential Candidates, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney | Bain Capital, Barclays, Election 2016, Lehman Brothers, Plutocrats, Poverty, Republicans |
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So not that very long ago, Jeb Bush’s aggressive and controversial business tactics, mostly focused on the politically perilous area of private equity management in conjunction with shadowy foreign partners, especially in China, convinced some observers he sure wasn’t acting like somebody planning a presidential campaign. Now there are signs that what Bush has been engaged in lately is the tail-end of a financial fattening-up period before the long hard winter of a campaign. Here’s how the L.A. Times‘ Joseph Tanfani puts it:
After leaving office in 2007, he set up Jeb Bush and Associates, a management consulting firm. His son, Jeb Bush Jr., serves as managing partner. Bush has said the firm’s clients range from Fortune 500 companies to small tech startups, but Campbell declined to discuss the company’s business or identify its clients.
That same year, Bush also was hired as an advisor to Lehman Brothers, the New York investment bank and financial services firm. When Lehman collapsed in bankruptcy in 2008 amid the global financial crisis, Bush shifted to Barclays, the London-based multinational banking and financial services giant that bought Lehman Brothers’ North American divisions.
He got involved in a venture that provides disaster response services. He and two partners also set up another company, Maghicle Driverless, that is trying to develop self-driving vehicles for passengers and cargo.
“He was grabbing at a lot of things to make money quickly,” said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida.
Now he appears to be trying to clean up his act now that he’s all sleek with wealth and ready to focus on a restoration of the family dynasty.
[Kristy] Campbell, the Bush spokeswoman, said he will leave Barclays by Dec. 31 to focus on a possible presidential run. She said his work for Lehman Brothers and Barclays was mostly offering clients “his perspective on the impact of economic trends, regulations and policies.”
Yeah, it’s a total coincidence Jeb associated himself with two of the world’s most recent examples of financial malfeasance. But that’s not the sort of thing Team Jeb is most worried about; it’s this:
[O]n Wednesday, Bush resigned from the board of directors of Tenet Healthcare Corp., also effective Dec. 31, according to a corporate filing. The Dallas-based company actively supported the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and has seen its revenue rise from it, an issue that could draw fire in Republican primaries.
Bush earned cash and stock awards worth nearly $300,000 from Tenet in 2013, according to corporate filings. He also sold Tenet stock worth $1.1 million that year, the records show.
Can’t be associating with Obamacare lovers, can he?
Jeb appears to hope his whole pattern of financial system bottom-feeding and door-opening for shadowy global interests will be forgotten once the campaign is underway. In that respect as in others, he is the appropriate representative of a Republican Establishment that views lack of wealth as the most unforgivable character flaw.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, December 26, 2014
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December 27, 2014
Posted by raemd95 |
GOP Presidential Candidates, Jeb Bush | Affordable Care Act, Barclays, China, Jeb Bush an Associates, Lehman Brothers, Maghiele Drivers, Private Equity Firms, Republicans, Tenet Healthcare Corp |
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