Discussion for article #235386
Sure. And she’s noncommittal about TPP. Noncommittal about the NSA, DEA, CIA, FBI hovering up private communications. Noncommittal about Wall Street owning the government. Noncommittal about making a nuclear deal with Iran. And so forth. But, oh, she wants to be a champion for “everyday Americans.”
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If Bernie Sanders is on the ballot, I’ll vote for him. If Elizabeth Warren is on the ballot, I’ll vote for her; but rather than waste my vote writing in the name of someone who is not running and cannot win, I’ll vote for Hillary.
Other than few idiots who believe Snowden, I don’t think anybody cares about people who can’t spell whining about NSA. Poor Snowden, he spent so much time with Libertarian government haters he was sure that if he stole a million documents he’d find a smoking gun. He was wrong. I hope Snowden enjoys his extended vacation in Siberia when Puten has mined the little traitor for all the information he can get. I hope no presidential candidate wastes a moment on the non issues that Snowden and his fellow subversives hold so dear. To be sure, Libertarians will do their best to sabotage Clinton’s run and elect a Republican. Maybe Rand Paul will run. That would be funny.
The rest of us care a great deal about Hillary Clinton’s stand on Social Security, especially after Obama talked about “raising the cap” when he was up for election, and then proposed cutting Social Security benefits, with the support of Pelosi and Hoyer, as soon as he had no further need to face the voters. I will be listening very carefully and saving video from this election, to post if Hillary tries to support Social Security to get elected, then betray it once elected.
You make good points but let’s give her some slack. She’ll have to take a stand as soon as she has competition for the nomination.
I’m wondering if Hillary Fatigue is already setting in. This thread was put up yesterday and we now have 4-5 posts.
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It’s just politics.
Actuarially, Social Security was designed to work if it taxed income up to the 90th percentile. The trouble is that with the rise in inequality running boosting roughly the top fifth of incomes faster than everyone else, inflation-linked adjustments to that cap now put it only at about the 83rd percentile or so. Basically we need to see the cap go up from about the $110,000 mark where it’s at now to about $150,000. And of course that would hit a politically influential set of voters. Had that contribution mark been pegged to percentiles instead of inflation, there wouldn’t be any question over Social Security’s financial strength. Also, had immigration reform passed, there wouldn’t be any question over Social Security’s financial strength, but apparently it suits certain political agendas to leave all that untaxed.
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Let’s recap. What Snowden disclosed is not the issue, rather, it’s his politics and his personality. And to top it all off, those who don’t think so are idiots who can’t spell.
Man, there’s sure a hell of a lot of bleating going on in your barnyard.
Hey, you know what? I can even spell. F-U-C-K-Y-O-U. Hey, what more can you expect from an idiot?
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Clinton is the same Republican of the Eighties as Obama.
We do not have a second party in America.
Pretending Clinton is a ‘champion of the middle class’ is sheer marketing hype.
Neither party gives a hoot in hades about the middle class.
Social Security was up for cuts in Obama’s own budget proposal in 2013.
Americans must demand, organize for and vote for a real second party.
Funny how the person who was critical of someone’s spelling couldn’t spell “Putin”.
And someone missed a step - they were supposed to bring up Greenwald, too. Someone needs to go back to “Attack the messenger” school.
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Sanders is proposing what I remember as the Franken Donut Hole from Al’s Air America days: keep the current cap, but have FICA kick in again starting at $250,000. That’d keep people who think of themselves as middle class – and scream loudest and vote most reliably – from getting hit with a tax increase. Given that political advantage (and since Franken’s supporting Hillary), I can imagine her coming out for something like that. Works for me.
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Americans have a real second party to vote for - the Teahadi movement that is ravaging the GOP like metastasized cancer. I long for the days when the GOP and Democrats were truly centrist, Tweedledee-Tweedledum partys whose differences were on the margins of issues. Then comity prevailed and the system worked for most Americans.
To all the Manchin bashers out there, will you now acknowledge the worth of Blue Dog Democrats from purple and red states in Congress in lieu of another libertarian Republican?
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I love Manchin’s involvement in this. I think of him as the old-style conservative Dem – not the corporate-style but the New-Deal-style, the one who’s an economic populist and hence a Dem irrespective of the social/culture issues. IE, the kind that was part of the dominant economic majority for decades. Hence, he’s the embodiment of the argument that “far left” progressive economics is actually where most Americans are.
If the party finally recognizes that – and early signs suggest that Hillary, for one, probably does – then, given the waning (though not yet the demise) of the culture wars, that will bode very well indeed for our future. I’d love to see Warren and Manchin team up for a swing-state policy-promotion tour.
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Sure, same as Conservadems have a place in the hearts of the teabaggers. Doesn’t mean that you don’t primary them every election.