Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood her ground against a Republican witch hunt for eleven hours. The Bengahzi hearings showed that the Republicans were politicizing the event to try to discredit the former Secretary of State.
Then, just yesterday, Hillary Clinton spoke to MSNBC host Chris Matthews at a town hall meeting in Springfield, Illinois and said, “We didn’t lose a single person” (in Libya). This quote will be used as red meat for the Republicans who will use it to try to prove that Hillary has already forgotten about the four Americans who were killed in Libya on September 11, 2012. The Republicans will take this quote and run with it, using it in an attack ad every minute of every day.
Hillary’s slip of the tongue, and other slip-ups that Hillary has made throughout her political career, should concern all Democrats as she is likely to face off against the racist xenophobe Donald Trump, who we all know will take advantage of every last weakness of the Democratic challenger he will face off against in the general election.
Hillary has tried to distance herself from her record on trade, changing her opinion on the Trans Pacific Partnership after feeling pressure from Senator Bernie Sanders who opposed this free trade deal from day one. Hillary, who said in 2012 that “this TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field,” later said that she “hoped it would be the gold standard”. Plus she has pushed for the Trans Pacific Partnership that she now opposes 45 times.
In February of this year Hillary Clinton publicly denounced the Columbian Free Trade Deal, saying that she was, “very concerned about the history of violence against trade unionists in Colombia.” She later declared, “I oppose the deal. I have spoken out against the deal, I will vote against the deal, and I will do everything I can to urge the Congress to reject the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.”
Unfortunately for Secretary Clinton, her private e-mails became public. It turns out that Hillary was sending a different message to her e-mail recipients than she was to the general public. When chatting with her aid, who is a former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs, Robert Hormats, he told her, “terrific job” and “GREAT line on Columbian [sic] workers!!!!!”
“”Despite Clinton’s 2011 assurances that Colombian workers would get strong labor protections, union officials say violence against workers remains a significant problem in that South American country. A 2015 AFL-CIO report citing data from Colombia’s National Union School asserted that “in the four years since the United States and Colombia signed the Labor Action Plan — a precursor to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement — to address entrenched labor rights violations, Colombian workers have suffered more than 1,933 threats and acts of violence, including 105 assassinations of union activists and 1,337 death threats.””
Hillary said that she would fight for the workers in Columbia but union busting just got worse. It gets worse for Hillary, too. Chamber of Commerce Lobbyist Tom Donohue says that “he expected Hillary Clinton would ultimately support the TPP if she becomes the Democratic nominee for president and is elected. He argued that she has publicly opposed the deal chiefly because her main challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has also done so.” Another example of Hillary saying one thing and doing another, and with regard to trade policy, no less.
It is clear that what secretary Clinton says to the public is different than what she says behind closed doors. This may be why she will not release the transcripts of private speeches that she gave to Goldman Sachs executives for hundreds of thousands of dollars. She says she will release the transcripts when other candidates do, even when her opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, has never given a paid speech to Wall Street, and has given all of his past speaking fees, which amount to just over 1,000 dollars in his lifetime, to charity.
The Former Secretary of State blamed the mortgage crisis on homeowners. Mortgage companies targeted poor and minority communities when selling subprime mortgages. Hillary also does not support introducing a modern version of Glass-Steagall Act, which would separate commercial banks from investment banks, making it unlawful for banks to gamble away our hard earned money on risky investments.
In a recent political rally, Secretary Clinton asked where Bernie Sanders was when she was fighting for health care reform in 1993 and 1994. Within minutes, the Sanders campaign released footage of Bernie Sanders standing with Hillary when she was pitching her health care proposal in the 1990’s. When Hillary accused Bernie of not standing with her before, the Sanders campaign released a photograph of Hillary and Bernie together, and Hillary signed the photograph thanking Bernie for his health care advocacy and for supporting her health care plan.
Now Hillary Clinton does not support single-payer health care like she did when she ran against President Barack Obama because she has recently received millions of dollars in donations from the pharmaceutical industry.
Hillary also takes millions in campaign contributions from private prison contractors. In fact, she gets roughly the same amount of donations from private prison lobbyists as former Senator Marco Rubio. Hillary claims that she opposes private prisons and will fight to close them, but if you follow the money, you will see that this is plainly not the case.
The Former Secretary of State also accused Bernie of voting against the auto bailout at the Michigan town hall, which was a flat out lie.
Climate Change is the most important issue facing our collective future. Senator Bernie Sanders supported a tax on carbon that Hillary Clinton opposed. Also, it turns out that Hillary Clinton rakes in money from fossil fuel interests, many of these special interests opposing efforts to combat Climate Change. Bernie Sanders does not take money from the oil industry and has been a champion for the environment for his entire political career.
Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, sold Fracking to the world. Bernie Sanders has always opposed Fracking, and also opposed the Keystone pipeline which would only have created 35 permanent U.S. jobs and could have potentially destroyed 27 percent of U.S. farmland. Hillary supported the pipeline but only after waiting for President Obama to decide on it. Bernie Sanders opposed it from day one, which shows that he has excellent leadership skills.
When it comes to privacy rights, Hillary Clinton voted for the Patriot Act, and Senator Sanders voted against the Patriot Act. Clinton has a lifetime rating of 75% from the American Civil Liberties Union. Senator Sanders, in contrast, has a 100% lifetime rating from the ACLU, meaning that he votes in favor of free speech rights.
When Hillary was on the board of directors at Wal-Mart, she was silent when Wal-Mart successfully attempted to bust union organizing efforts. Senator Sanders is no stranger to picket lines and protests, and has even joined several picket lines during his 2016 presidential run. Will Hillary fight for U.S. workers as much as Sanders does, or is she going to say one thing to the Wal-Mart board and another thing to union workers in order to win votes?
When Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War in 2003, saying, “This is a difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make. Any vote that may lead to war should be hard, but I cast it with conviction. … My vote is not, however, a vote for any new doctrine of preemption or for unilateralism or for the arrogance of American power or purpose.” Senator Sanders, however, understood that the vote that may lead to war was a vote for preemption and unilateralism, which he warned about at the time. He was one of the few politicians to vote against giving President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq.
Hillary has not learned her lesson on foreign policy and regime change, as she lead the effort to remove President Qaddafi from Libya and has called for a no fly-zone in Syria which would likely lead to the overthrow of President Assad, allowing ISIL to fill the power vacuum as they did in Libya and Iraq.
In a recent debate, Senator Clinton was asked why she voted for building a fence along the Mexican/American border. Her likely opponent Donald Trump will most likely take advantage of this vote and say, “Hillary, you wanted to build a fence, I think a wall would better secure our border. I am glad that we are in agreement that we need to build something to protect our borders”. Needless to say, Trump cannot use this same argument against Bernie.
So it is clear, Markos, that Democrats need to unite behind one candidate. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is polled to be the least honorable and trustworthy of all the 2016 presidential candidates, Democrat or Republican, and loses in hypothetical national match-ups with Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Marco Rubio, and was trailing Governor Jeb Bush by one percentage point when he was still in contention. In most polls, Hillary is ahead of Trump, but Senator Bernie Sanders is farther ahead of Trump in the same polls. Bernie is defeating every single Republican presidential candidate in hypothetical match-ups. He is now leading Ted Cruz by a resounding seventeen points, and Trump by ten in some polls. Bernie Sanders is, unlike Secretary of State Clinton considered to be themost honest and trustworthy candidate in the 2016 presidential race.
You said the we could not criticize the presumptive Democratic front-runner on your blog site after March 15, 2016. I am glad that I met the deadline, and promise not criticize Senator Bernie Sanders after this date, as you have so requested.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to supporting our presumptive Democratic nominee, Senator Bernie Sanders, in the general election.
Also, if you disagree with anything in this article, you can post in the comment section. I will not restrict free speech or attempt to silence my candidate’s critics as the Daily Kos has set out to do. But considering that I back of all of my claims with facts and reliable sources (nothing from Breitbart or other bogus sources), it may be impossible for you to discredit my article.