The Kids Are Not Alright, Con't

 Voters under 30 want politicians over 70 gone, all of them, in both parties.

Alexandra Chadwick went to the polls in 2020 with the singular goal of ousting Donald J. Trump. A 22-year-old first time voter, she saw Joseph R. Biden Jr. as more of a safeguard than an inspiring political figure, someone who could stave off threats to abortion access, gun control and climate policy.

Two years later, as the Supreme Court has eroded federal protections on all three, Ms. Chadwick now sees President Biden and other Democratic leaders as lacking both the imagination and willpower to fight back. She points to a generational gap — one she once overlooked but now seems cavernous.

“How are you going to accurately lead your country if your mind is still stuck 50, 60 or 70 years ago?” Ms. Chadwick, a customer service representative in Rialto, Calif., said of the many septuagenarian leaders at the helm of her party. “It’s not the same, and people aren’t the same, and your old ideas aren’t going to work as well anymore.”

While voters across the spectrum express rising doubts about the country’s political leadership, few groups are as united in their discontent as the young.

A survey from The New York Times and Siena College found that just 1 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds strongly approve of the way Mr. Biden is handling his job. And 94 percent of Democrats under 30 said they wanted another candidate to run two years from now. Of all age groups, young voters were most likely to say they wouldn’t vote for either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump in a hypothetical 2024 rematch.

The numbers are a clear warning for Democrats as they struggle to ward off a drubbing in the November midterm elections. Young people, long among the least reliable part of the party’s coalition, marched for gun control, rallied against Mr. Trump and helped fuel a Democratic wave in the 2018 midterm elections. They still side with Democrats on issues that are only rising in prominence.

But four years on, many feel disengaged and deflated, with only 32 percent saying they are “almost certain” to vote in November, according to the poll. Nearly half said they did not think their vote made a difference.

Interviews with these young voters reveal generational tensions driving their frustration. As they have come of age facing racial strife, political conflict, high inflation and a pandemic, they have looked for help from politicians who are more than three times their age.

Those older leaders often talk about upholding institutions and restoring norms, while young voters say they are more interested in results. Many expressed a desire for more sweeping changes like a viable third party and a new crop of younger leaders. They’re eager for innovative action on the problems they stand to inherit, they said, rather than returning to what worked in the past.

“Each member of Congress, every single one of them, has, I’m sure, lived through fairly traumatic times in their lives and also chaos in the country,” said John Della Volpe, who studies young people’s opinions as the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. “But every member of Congress has also seen America at its best. And that is when we’ve all come together. That is something that Gen Z has not had.”

 

When my generation said the same thing 30 years ago, we got Ross Perot. He got 19% of the vote in 1992, and Bill Clinton won with 43% of the vote for Poppy Bush's 37.5%. Famously, none of the candidates managed to get 50%+ in any of the 50 states.

The youngest candidate in touch with voters my age at the time? Clinton, who was 46 back then and appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show with his saxophone.

But I'm looking at this poll and I still see that folks 18-29 want major change, and half of them say there's no reason to vote.

So guess what? If you vote, you may not get what you want, but you'll make a difference. You don't vote, the people who do decide your fate. My answer to these kids is this: you know who does vote and who does get what they want?

People over 70.

Still hasn't occurred to the kids yet. It might after this midterm, I dunno.

We'll see.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

Michael Wolff's new book on Jeffrey Epstein basically says Epstein was going to cut a deal with prosecutors by flipping on Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, and then, well, you know.

Jeffrey Epstein believed he could make a deal with prosecutors by revealing secrets about former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, according to a new book by Michael Wolff, reported by The Daily Mail.

The disgraced financier and convicted sex offender was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges, and died a month later in his jail cell by suicide.

In his new book, "Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Damned, the Notorious - Twenty Years of Columns, Essays and Reporting," Michael Wolff reveals Epstein's thinking in his final few months.

According to the book, Epstein believed that The Justice Department had arrested him, under the instruction of then-President Donald Trump, because they wanted information on Bill Clinton, who had flown on his private jet multiple times.

"The White House, through the Justice Department, was looking to press a longtime Republican obsession, and Trump ace-in-the-hole, and get Epstein to flip and reveal the sex secrets of Bill Clinton," Wolff wrote, according to The Daily Mail.

Epstein also believed New York prosecutors who were investigating Trump's business affairs might have ordered his arrest to "pressure him to flip on Trump," Wolff reportedly suggests in the book.

Wolff said that there were "many likely holes in these theories," but Epstein believed that there could have been "a deal to be made," The Daily Mail said.

Wolff revealed that months before Epstein's death, he visited the billionaire at his infamous $75 million mansion in New York City, The Daily Mail said.

During Wolff's visit, Steve Bannon reportedly called Epstein on the phone and told him that he had feared him during Donald Trump's presidential campaign because he thought the financier knew secrets about Trump.

"You were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign," Bannon told Epstein.

"As well you should have been," Epstein reportedly replied.

 

Would be nice if one of these enterprising journalist types found out the actual truth.

Location Israeli A Problem

Even if Joe Biden wanted to move the location of the main US Embassy in Israel back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem after Trump moved it in 2019, the Senate wouldn't approve it, so it looks like for the foreseeable future, the embassy will remain right where it is.

The White House confirmed Tuesday that President Joe Biden intends to keep the U.S. embassy to Israel in Jerusalem, where it was relocated during the Trump administration. The issue of where to locate the embassy has been a fixture of negotiations over Israeli and Palestinian territory and authority for decades.

A White House spokesperson confirmed to CQ Roll Call the administration’s intentions, following up on a query from last Friday’s White House press briefing.

“The U.S. position is that our embassy will remain in Jerusalem, which we recognize as Israel’s capital,” the spokesperson said. “The ultimate status of Jerusalem is a final status issue which will need to be resolved by the parties in the context of direct negotiations.”

The Senate voted 97-3 last week during the budget vote-a-rama in favor of an amendment supportive of the location of the embassy. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in response to questioning during his Jan. 19 confirmation hearing that the embassy would remain in Jerusalem, but White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had not been definitive on Friday.

Still, the lack of clarity from the White House had prompted criticism over the weekend from freshman Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., who had been U.S. ambassador to Japan under President Donald Trump.

“This question was posed because, on the previous day, the United States Senate had sent an unequivocal signal on this topic,” Hagerty wrote in a Saturday letter to Biden. “In order to correct the discrepancy that unfortunately now exists between our two branches of government and send an unequivocal message to our allies in Israel, I urge you to confirm — immediately and publicly — that your Administration will continue to implement U.S. law and maintain the American Embassy’s location in Jerusalem.”

The amendment to the budget resolution was led by Oklahoma Sen. James M. Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee. Only Sens. Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., opposed the amendment.

In moving the embassy, the Trump administration followed through on provisions of a 1995 law known as the Jerusalem Embassy Act. Implementation had previously been suspended by presidents of both parties, which had kept the U.S. embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv.

 

In other words, the president who really tied Joe Biden's hands on this was Bill Clinton, not Donald Trump. Clinton, Obama, and you can argue Clinton actually had his hands tied by Congress in 1995, the bill passed with overwhelming veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate, and Clinton let it pass unsigned and kicked this particular diplomatic can down the road for 25 years.

There's nothing Biden can do, it's been preordained for a quarter-century.

Last Call For Goodbye Poppy

Former Presidents, Vice Presidents, First Ladies, lawmakers, and dignitaries both foreign and domestic assembled at the National Cathedral for the funeral of George H.W. Bush on Wednesday.  It was a somber affair, certainly worthy of the funerals of America's great leaders, and then an orange elephant showed up and managed to basically ruin everything.

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said he was "struck" by the reception of President Trump and first lady Melania Trump upon their arrival at the funeral for George H.W. Bush on Wednesday, saying "a chill had descended" on the front row that included the Clintons, Obamas and Carters.

“I have to say I was struck when President Trump and Melania Trump came to the front row, that it was as if a chill had descended on that front row," Wallace said on Fox's "America's Newsroom" during live coverage of the Bush state funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

"You had seen a lot of chatty talk between the Clintons and the Obamas, the Carters. But when Donald Trump sat down, the greeting that he was given by Barack Obama and Michelle Obama was about as cool as it could have been.”

Trump and the first lady greeted the Obamas and shook hands when sitting down next to them in the front row of the service for Bush, who passed away last Friday at the age of 94. There was no greeting between the Trumps and Clintons, who sat farther down the row.

Hillary Clinton, Trump's rival during the 2016 presidential election, turned when Melania Trump entered the area but did not appear to turn to acknowledge President Trump's arrival. Her husband, former President Clinton, and former President Carter turned their direction when Trump greeted the Obamas.

Trump managed to not soil himself in front of the planet, although it was close.

Watch Trump's face. pic.twitter.com/irLhFxqS0C

— Caroline Orr (@RVAwonk) December 5, 2018

Dubya said some nice stuff about his dad and then everyone avoided Donald Trump like a family reunion with the drunk racist uncle that just got out of Scientology. 

But in the end, a bunch of men whose decisions helped millions of lives, ruined millions of lives, and took millions of lives over the last 40 years all got together to bury one of their own.

That was really about it.  The rest of us press on, one day at a time.

Last Call For Missing What We Had

A new Pew Research poll finds Americans greatly miss the last guy in the Oval Office, because you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

When asked which president has done the best job in their lifetimes, more Americans name Barack Obama than any other president. More than four-in-ten (44%) say Obama is the best or second best president of their lifetimes, compared with about a third who mention Bill Clinton (33%) or Ronald Reagan (32%).

Not yet halfway through his term, 19% say Donald Trump has done the best or second best job of any president of their lifetimes. That is comparable with the share who viewed Obama as one of the best presidents in 2011 (20%).

The survey by Pew Research Center, conducted June 5-12 among 2,002 adults, asks people in an open-ended format which president has done the best job in their lifetimes. The analysis is based on their first and second choices.

About one-in-ten adults (12%) say John F. Kennedy did the best job in office during their lifetimes. But Kennedy is named as the best or second best president by about a quarter of those who were alive during his presidency: 24% of Baby Boomers and 25% of those in the Silent Generation.

People’s views of the best president of their lifetimes are partly tied to their ages. Millennials, who are currently ages 22 to 37, are far more likely than older generations to name Obama as one of the best presidents in their lifetimes: About six-in-ten Millennials (62%) view Obama as one of the top two, with nearly half, 46%, naming him the best president.

Older generations are much more likely than Millennials to name Reagan as one of the best presidents. Reagan was president before most Millennials were born.

Gen Xers (ages 38 to 53) are divided in their assessments: 45% of Gen Xers name Reagan, while nearly as many mention Obama (41%) or Clinton (39%).

As a young Gen Xer, Obama/Clinton is an easy one-two for me, but the sentimentality for Ronald Reagan is something I just don't get at all even though he's the first president I actually remember.  You can draw a straight line from Reagan to Trump today, the GOP has been a bunch of racist, bigoted, corporate dickbags my entire lifetime.

It's good to see that we miss Obama, but the people who think Trump's been the best president in their lifetimes are really hideous.

What About Bill Whataboutism

Given a known vile Republican sexual predator currently in the White House and another one trying to win a Senate seat in a special election next month, only Democrats would be stupid enough to go after Bill Clinton at a time like this, but there you are.

How vitiated Bill Clinton seemed at the 2016 Democratic convention. Some of his appetites, at least, had waned; his wandering, “Norwegian Wood” speech about his wife struck the nostalgic notes of a husband’s 50th-anniversary toast, and the crowd—for the most part—indulged it in that spirit. Clearly, he was no longer thinking about tomorrow. With a pencil neck and a sagging jacket he clambered gamely onto the stage after Hillary’s acceptance speech and played happily with the red balloons that fell from the ceiling.

When the couple repeatedly reminded the crowd of their new status as grandparents it was to suggest very different associations in voters’ minds. Hillary’s grandmotherhood was evoked to suggest the next phase in her lifelong work on behalf of women and children—in this case forging a bond with the millions of American grandmothers who are doing the hard work of raising the next generation, while their own adult children muddle through life. But Bill’s being a grandfather was intended to send a different message: Don’t worry about him anymore; he’s old now. He won’t get into those messes again.

Yet let us not forget the sex crimes of which the younger, stronger Bill Clinton was very credibly accused in the 1990s. Juanita Broaddrick reported that when she was a volunteer on one of his gubernatorial campaigns, she had arranged to meet him in a hotel coffee shop. At the last minute, he had changed the location to her room in the hotel, where she says he very violently raped her. She said that she fought against Clinton throughout a rape that left her bloodied. At a different Arkansas hotel, he caught sight of a minor state employee named Paula Jones, and, Jones said, he sent a couple of state troopers to invite her to his suite, where he exposed his penis to her and told her to kiss it. Kathleen Willey said that she met him in the Oval Office for personal and professional advice and that he groped her, rubbed his erect penis on her, and pushed her hand to his crotch.

It was a pattern of behavior; it included an alleged violent assault; the women involved had far more credible evidence than many of the most notorious accusations that have come to light in the past five weeks. But Clinton was not left to the swift and pitiless justice that today’s accused men have experienced. Rather, he was rescued by a surprising force: machine feminism. The movement had by then ossified into a partisan operation, and it was willing—eager—to let this friend of the sisterhood enjoy a little droit de seigneur.

The notorious 1998 New York Times op-ed by Gloria Steinem must surely stand as one of the most regretted public actions of her life. It slut-shamed, victim-blamed, and age-shamed; it urged compassion for and gratitude to the man the women accused. Moreover (never write an op-ed in a hurry; you’ll accidentally say what you really believe), it characterized contemporary feminism as a weaponized auxiliary of the Democratic Party.

And Michele Goldberg isn't the only one dealing in hair shirts and horsehide whips this week, over at Vox Matthew Yglesias comes to the conclusion Clinton should have resigned 20 years ago in order to prove his wokeness.

In the midst of the very same public statement in which he confessed the error, Clinton also mounted the defense that would see him through to victory — portraying the issue as fundamentally a private family matter rather than a topic of urgent public concern.

"I intend to reclaim my family life for my family," he said. "It's nobody's business but ours. Even presidents have private lives. It is time to stop the pursuit of personal destruction and the prying into private lives and get on with our national life.”

To this line of argument, Republicans offered what was fundamentally the wrong countercharge. They argued that in the effort to spare himself from the personal and marital embarrassment entailed by having the affair exposed, Clinton committed perjury when testifying about the matter in a deposition related to Paula Jones’s lawsuit against him.

What they should have argued was something simpler: A president who uses the power of the Oval Office to seduce a 20-something subordinate is morally bankrupt and contributing, in a meaningful way, to a serious social problem that disadvantages millions of women throughout their lives.

But by and large, they didn’t. So Clinton countered with the now-famous defense: “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Ultimately, most Americans embraced the larger argument that perjury in a civil lawsuit unrelated to the president’s official duties did not constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.

But looking back through today’s lens, this whole argument was miscast. The wrongdoing at issue was never just a private matter for the Clinton family; it was a high-profile exemplar of a widespread social problem: men’s abuse of workplace power for sexual gain. It was and is a striking example of a genre of misconduct that society has a strong interest in stamping out. That alone should have been enough to have pressured Clinton out of office.

I'm going to say this once: Bill Clinton indeed needs to be reckoned with, but right now is about the worst possible time for the Democrats to be having this argument.  It's great to say that Clinton should have been pressured to resign two decades ago, but Clinton isn't in the White House right now.

Donald Trump is.

Can we pressure him to resign first since he's the imminent danger?  Can we do that?  Can we get Roy Moore to drop out?  Can we take a look at both Democrats and Republicans who are in Congress now who have sexually assaulted people and need to be pressured into resigning before we tackle Big Dog's very real issues?

Yes, it's far past time to talk about Clinton, sexual predator.  I get that.  But he's not in office right now.  We have sexual predators who are, one of who may be Democratic Sen Al Franken.

Let's deal with them first, shall we?

Last Call For Obama Makes The Grade

Now out of office, Barack Obama can officially be ranked by C-SPAN's tabulation by presidential historians, and the man from Hawaii ends up in the 12 spot, maybe not Mount Rushmore territory, but certainly one of the better chief executives we've had.

Former President Barack Obama was ranked 12th best among 43 former presidents in in C-SPAN’s third-ever survey of dozens of presidential historians.

The network asked 91 presidential historians to rank every former president on 10 leadership attributes. C-SPAN also performed the survey in 2000 and 2009. 

Obama ranked favorably compared to his immediate predecessors: George W. Bush ranked at No. 33 (up from 36 in 2009), George H.W. Bush was No. 20 (down from 18), and Bill Clinton held steady at No. 15. 

Ronald Reagan was judged the ninth best president of all time, up from No. 10 in 2009.
In a press release accompanying the results, historian Richard Norton Smith, an academic adviser for the project, noted that five of the top 10 judged presidents in the American pantheon served between 1933 and 1969. 

“It reinforces Franklin Roosevelt's claim to be not only the first modern president but the man who, in reinventing the office, also established the criteria by which we judge our leaders,” he said.

The full list:

So yeah, for those of you playing at home, Dubya moved up a few notches into "C-plus Augustus" territory, and James "Oops I accidentally The Civil War" Buchanan still sets the nadir for the office. Reagan, still silly overrated, and Big Dog's still hanging at 15. Jimmy Carter is in the middle of the pack at 26, and Poppy Bush rounds out the top 20.

One has to wonder where The Donald will end up on this list.  I'm betting south of Hoover.

The Shrub And The Schlub

Don't look now, but after eight years of puttering around his ranch and taking up the joys of painting, former President George W. Bush will apparently show up at The Donald's Fascist Cotillion/Roller Derby later this month.

In a statement Tuesday, Bush's office said the couple is “pleased to be able to witness the peaceful transfer of power — a hallmark of American democracy — and swearing-in of President Trump and Vice President Pence.” 

The decision makes Bush the second living president planning to attend Trump's inauguration ceremony. Former President Jimmy Carter said last year that he would attend. 

Former President George H.W. Bush, 92, is not expected to be at the ceremony. His spokesman cited his age in a statement to Politico last month about the president's decision. 

Former President Bill Clinton has not announced whether he will be at the event after Trump’s contentious presidential race against his wife, Hillary Clinton.

President Obama is expected, as is customary, to attend inauguration events at the Capitol before departing.

Ol' Dubya has to be stoked.  Trump instantly gets him off the bottom of the barrel spot of the worst post-Civil War presidents in US history (and hey, I understand that Nixon guy was pretty much a treasonous bastard so that actually might help Junior Birdman here not finish dead last when the next set of history books come out) so he's got that going for him,

I kinda hope Bill Clinton shows up, drops trow and moons Trump on the way out though, I'm not going to lie.

The Lynch Pin Of The Investigation

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch is already under fire for meeting with Bill Clinton this week, with Republicans demanding her immediate resignation for the crime of "Talking To The Big Dog".

An airport encounter this week between Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and former President Bill Clinton has welled into a political storm, with Republicans asserting that it compromised the Justice Department’s politically sensitive investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices while she was secretary of state.

The Obama administration declined to say on Thursday whether the meeting between Ms. Lynch and Mr. Clinton, in Phoenix on Monday night, was appropriate. The press secretary, Josh Earnest, said that the investigation of Mrs. Clinton would be free of political influence and that he would leave it to the attorney general to explain the meeting.

Ms. Lynch said the meeting with Mr. Clinton was unplanned, largely social and did not touch on the email investigation. She suggested that he walked uninvited from his plane to her government plane, which were both parked on a tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

“He did come over and say hello, and speak to my husband and myself, and talk about his grandchildren and his travels and things like that,” Ms. Lynch said at a news conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday, where she was promoting community policing. “That was the extent of that. And no discussions were held into any cases or things like that.”

It's rather insulting that Republicans automatically assume everyone in the Justice Department is as incompetent as, say, Alberto Gonzales or as nasty as John Ashcroft.  Regardless, Lynch says the decision on any action on the Clinton e-mail nonsense will be up to the FBI, not her, as she will follow their recommendations.

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch plans to announce on Friday that she will accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and the F.B.I.director make about whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton’s personal email server, a Justice Department official said. Her decision removes the possibility that a political appointee will overrule investigators in the case.

This is the correct choice to make, as Lynch is all but recusing herself from the decision-making process here and giving it instead to James Comey's FBI.

Of course, if it were up to Republicans, every Democrat in America would have to resign for something, so let's not actually take anything they have to say seriously on things.

Meet The Old Boss, Wish He Was The New Boss

Given the less-than-thrilling choices ahead of us this November, America is starting to miss Barack Obama as president already. I'm right there with them.

As the race to succeed President Barack Obama rages around him, the man who currently sits in the Oval Office has hit his highest approval rating since his second inauguration, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows. 

Fifty-one percent of registered voters say they approve of the job Obama is doing as president, compared to 46 percent who disapprove. 

The last time more than half of the electorate gave Obama a thumbs up in the poll was in January 2013, when Obama took the oath of office after his successful re-election campaign against Republican Mitt Romney. His approval rating sunk as low as 40 percent before the 2014 midterm elections but subsequently rebounded, particularly since primary voting in the 2016 presidential race got underway at the beginning of this year. 

Obama's approval rating remains dismal with self-described Republicans, who disapprove of his performance by an 88 percent to eight percent margin. It's nearly the inverse image for Democrats, who approve of the job Obama is doing by 88 percent to 11 percent. And more than half - 54 percent - of independents give Obama high marks, compared to 44 percent who do not. 

Voters overall were less enthusiastic about the idea of electing Obama to a third term in office if such a move was allowed by the Constitution, although about four-in-ten respondents said they were willing to entertain the idea. Fifty-nine percent said they would not consider voting for a third Obama term, while 39 percent said they would consider it. That's compared to 34 percent who said they would consider voting for a third term for Bill Clinton in September 2000.

Granted, 2000 wasn't exactly Clinton's best year, but still, where was Dubya in spring 2008? Somewhere in the 20's by now?   Seeing Obama above water despite the daily programmed hatred of the man by the right-wing noise machine just goes to show you that if Republicans were reasonable instead of being the bugnuts party of Trump, Obama would be staking out future real estate on Mount Rushmore.

It tells you just how badly we're going to miss the guy, despite my grumblings about his foreign policy.

Big Dog Craps On The Porch Again

Former President Bill Clinton is a great guy, but I still have major issues with his policies from the 90's, including (and especially) the 1994 crime bill that he cooked up along with Joe Biden.  When Black Lives Matter activists showed up to challenge him as a campaign event for Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania yesterday, the Big Dog fully went off his chain.

In a prolonged exchange Thursday afternoon, former President Bill Clinton forcefully defended his 1994 crime bill to Black Lives Matter protesters in the crowd at a Hillary Clinton campaign event.

He said the bill lowered the country's crime rate, which benefited African-Americans, achieved bipartisan support, and diversified the police force. He then addressed a protester's sign, saying:

"I don't know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out onto the street to murder other African-American children," Clinton said, addressing a protester who appeared to interrupt him repeatedly. "Maybe you thought they were good citizens .... You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter. Tell the truth. You are defending the people who cause young people to go out and take guns."

The Clintons have faced criticism from BLM activists and younger black voters for months now over that bill, which they say put an unfairly high number of black Americans in prison for nonviolent offenses.

After a protester interrupted him repeatedly, Bill Clinton began to take on that critique directly, making the claim that his crime bill was being given a bad rap.

"Here's what happened," Clinton said. "Let's just tell the whole story."

"I had an assault weapons ban in it [the crime bill]. I had money for inner-city kids, for out of school activities. We had 110,000 police officers so we could keep people on the street, not in these military vehicles, and the police would look like the people they were policing. We did all that. And [Joe] Biden [then senator and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee] said, you can't pass this bill, the Republicans will kill it, if you don't put more sentencing in it."

"I talked to a lot of African-American groups," Clinton continued. "They thought black lives matter. They said take this bill, because our kids are being shot in the street by gangs. We have 13-year-old kids planning their own funerals."

Throughout the spirited defense of his policy, Clinton continued to be interrupted, and he repeatedly seemed to single out one protester.

"She doesn't wanna hear any of that," Clinton said to the protester. "You know what else she doesn't want to hear? Because of that bill, we have a 25-year low in crime, a 33-year low in murder rate. And because of that and the background check law, we had a 46-year low in the deaths of people by gun violence, and who do you think those lives were? That mattered? Whose lives were saved that mattered?" 

Now, I understand that it wasn't Hillary who passed that bill in 1994.  I understand also that black leaders and Democrats were some of the loudest voices in calling for police help for crime problems in the 90's. The crack epidemic in black neighborhoods was very, very real and very, very deadly, and it was only the crime component -- something that could affect white people -- that motivated any action at all.

But this is the worst defense of Bill Clinton's policies I think I've ever seen Bill Clinton give.  He certainly did no favors to Hillary with this performance, he came across as a tone-deaf jackass, and he made it all about himself.  There are very legitimate concerns that the bill went too far, and that what Republicans wanted in the bill was a way to punish black neighborhoods and the people who lived there while Democratic leaders looked the other way.  The bill absolutely created the mass incarceration state we have today, and the sentencing laws that Clinton wants to shove off on the GOP in a bill he signed still ended up in a bill he signed.

So yes, I blame Clinton, and to an extent Joe Biden, for that.  Neither one of them have given a good answer to black communities about this legislation, and whenever Bill Clinton especially is given the chance to respond, he acts like a sullen goddamn teenager caught taking Mom's car keys to go on a joyride.

"Maybe you should be a bit more grateful to me" is 100% the wrong attitude to be packing when it comes to the Big Bog and Black Live Matter, and it's not like this hasn't happened before.  Hillary's best campaign surrogate is also clearly her worst at times, and it's way past time the Big Dog goes in the doghouse for a while and starts thinking about what he needs to say to the rest of us.

People talk about how the Clintons have learned since their defeat in 2008, but this issue existed then as well, and Bill Clinton at least hasn't learned a goddamn thing.

Last Call For Hillary On Race

Michael Eric Dyson puts up a big piece in TNR on how awful Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were on race, but thinks Hillary has learned from those mistakes, proving that Michael Eric Dyson may actually be even more clueless than Cornel West on the Blackademic front.

I was once a vocal surrogate for Obama. But I grew disillusioned with his timid responses to racial crisis, with how willing he was to disclaim his racial affiliation, and more grievously, his shirking of his political duty—“I’m not the president of black America,” he has said. Obama will undoubtedly go down as one of the most important presidents in our nation’s history. But his accomplishments on race will not be what gain him that distinction.

All of which leaves us with an important question: What can Hillary Clinton do for black people as president? She possesses neither her husband’s performative charisma with black folk, nor Obama’s undeniable blackness. She must instead wield the sort of power that politicians would, in a better world, solely rely on: public policy. If we were betrayed by Bill Clinton, and suffered dashed hopes under Obama, maybe, just maybe, we will get from Hillary Clinton what we most need and truly deserve: a set of political practices and policies that reinforce the truth that black lives must, and do, finally matter.

On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has exhibited a greater sophistication about race, increased sensitivity about how blackness is lived in our country, and a deeper awareness of how the small brutalities of racism rend the fabric of the social compact after first spoiling the flesh of those at the bottom of society. If there were disturbing racial echoes in Hillary’s first attempt to gain the White House, what’s to guarantee we won’t get blinkered in a fog of racial sensitivity now? Has Hillary Clinton changed? Have we?

And Dyson goes on to answer his question with "Well, I spent time with Hillary and she seemed to listen to me (unlike her husband and Obama) which is good because I have all the answers."

No really, that's the other 85% of the article.

Also please buy his book on Where Obama Went Wrong, coming soon.

Depressing, huh.

Last Call For Putting The Smack Down

A funny thing happens when a drug epidemic affects suburban America: suddenly the war on drugs "lock all those people up" voters become "hey these laws are too draconian" and people start asking questions about how white kids from gated subdivisions end up in jail on heroin possession charges.

When the nation’s long-running war against drugs was defined by the crack epidemic and based in poor, predominantly black urban areas, the public response was defined by zero tolerance and stiff prison sentences. But today’s heroin crisis is different. While heroin use has climbed among all demographic groups, it has skyrocketed among whites; nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white. 

And the growing army of families of those lost to heroin — many of them in the suburbs and small towns — are now using their influence, anger and grief to cushion the country’s approach to drugs, from altering the language around addiction to prodding government to treat it not as a crime, but as a disease. 

“Because the demographic of people affected are more white, more middle class, these are parents who are empowered,” said Michael Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, better known as the nation’s drug czar. “They know how to call a legislator, they know how to get angry with their insurance company, they know how to advocate. They have been so instrumental in changing the conversation.” 

Mr. Botticelli, a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 26 years, speaks to some of these parents regularly. 

Their efforts also include lobbying statehouses, holding rallies in Washington and starting nonprofit organizations, making these mothers and fathers part of a growing backlash against the harsh tactics of traditional drug enforcement. These days, in rare bipartisan or even nonpartisan agreement, punishment is out and compassion is in.

And if you're wondering why all of a sudden criminal justice reform, mandatory sentencing revisions, marijuana legalization, treatment programs and the war on drugs all are major campaign issues in an election year when for 30 years it was "lock them up and throw away the key", then you now know just how bad the nation's heroin epidemic has gotten in white America.

The presidential candidates of both parties are now talking about the drug epidemic, with Hillary Rodham Clinton hosting forums on the issue as Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina tell their own stories of loss while calling for more care and empathy. 

Last week, President Obama traveled to West Virginia, a mostly white state with high levels of overdoses, to discuss his $133 million proposal to expand access for drug treatment and prevention programs. The Justice Department is also preparing to release roughly 6,000 inmates from federal prisons as part of an effort to roll back the severe penalties issued to nonviolent drug dealers in decades past. 

And in one of the most striking shifts in this new era, some local police departments have stopped punishing many heroin users. In Gloucester, Mass., those who walk into the police station and ask for help, even if they are carrying drugs or needles, are no longer arrested. Instead, they are diverted to treatment, despite questions about the police departments’ unilateral authority to do so. It is an approach being replicated by three dozen other police departments around the country.

Suddenly, the war on drugs is ruining the lives of Tyler, Madison and Hunter and not just Tyrone, Marisha and Hector.  Suddenly, zero tolerance for those people has turned into "Well, we have to have compassion for these sick souls that need help."

Suddenly, lawmakers and cops give a damn about serious criminal justice reform.  It took until the war on drugs finally escaped the battlefields of the inner cities they tried to contain it in and burned out the exurbs and the private schools and the galleria malls.

It took until the lives of the victims actually mattered, you see.  Black lives, well.  Not so much.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that there's finally real steps being taken on the criminal justice reform front and not just empty talk.  I'm glad users are getting real help, and real dollars are being spent to treat the core of addiction and not just the symptoms.  I'm glad we're doing something about non-violent drug offenders and legalization.

But this should have happened 20 years ago.  And one of the major reasons it didn't happen 20 years ago is a guy by the name of Bill Clinton.

And his wife.

Let's not forget that.

Big Dog Loose In Coal Country

As I've been saying, Bill Clinton was always going to end up stumping for Alison Lundergan Grimes as her ace in the hole.  Her daddy Jerry and Big Dog go way back.  The former president's appearance Wednesday with Grimes in Perry County, the heart of Kentucky coal country, was there to remind everyone why the last Democrat to win a presidential election in the state was Clinton himself.

As former President Bill Clinton stepped to the podium following Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes' emphatic introduction, a coal miner whispered something to him. 

The miner's advice, the former president told the audience packed inside the Hal Rogers Center, was "don't forget to remind people she's much prettier than Mitch McConnell is." 

"You got that right!" a man in the audience shouted. 

That was one of many contrasts Clinton tried to draw between McConnell, the U.S. Senate minority leader, and Grimes, the Democrat hoping to unseat him, as he traveled to a part of the state that has seen coal jobs evaporate and laid much of the blame on President Barack Obama. 

"I am a Clinton Democrat," Grimes shouted to the approving audience. 

For Grimes to win in Eastern Kentucky, she'll need voters to believe that declaration and not that she is "Obama's Kentucky candidate," as McConnell and his allies have asserted repeatedly. 

Grimes has endeavored from the start of her campaign to prove herself as a pro-coal Democrat. 

On Wednesday, as Grimes and Clinton spoke, members of the United Mine Workers of America sat onstage behind them, serving as flesh-and-blood proof that Grimes had won the group's endorsement. 

"Let's get the record straight, senator: I am the pro-coal candidate in this race," Grimes said, arguing that McConnell "hasn't saved or created one coal job" in his 30 years in office.

You may not like Big Dog that much, and you may not like the fact that Grimes is running as a Clinton Democrat when Obama is president.  Tough titties, kids.  This is how Kentucky politics rolls, and King Coal still calls the shots.  That means Grimes is going to have to stump with Bill here and not Barack.  She's going to remind voters in the mountains that the last time things were good there is when Bill was in charge, and that since then Mitch the Turtle has given the store away from hard working miners to nasty energy companies who don't give a damn about safety and wages and the people who live here, because they don't.

So yeah, that means playing the Clinton card with gusto, and doing it several times between now and November.  Bill Clinton's still real big here, and you play to win.

Last Call For The Price That Won't Be Paid

Doug Mataconis makes an honest attempt to fathom what the GOP is up to with impeachment:

Among the Tea Party and the hardcore GOP base, though, it seems as though impeachment is well on the way to becoming yet another one of those articles of faith, right along with absolute belief in the fact that Fast & Furious, Benghazi, and the IRS targeting story are the worst Presidential scandals in American history. In fact, notwithstanding the fact that the leadership opposes impeachment and knows that it would be a political disaster, it remains to be seen whether this impeachment talk remains something confined to the fringe of the GOP and the conservative or if it starts to become a more mainstream idea to the point where the leadership in Congress finds itself forced to “do something” in response to pressure from the base. That pressure could increase if the GOP captures the Senate in November and the base of the party finds itself energized in the manner it was after the 2010 midterms. It could also become an issue if and when the lawsuit that the House of Representatives intends to file against the President ends up going nowhere, as I fully expect that it will.

It will.  Expect the last two years to be nothing but chaos.  Your semi-regular reminder:  for all the damage that Republicans did to their "brand" in 1998, two years later Bush was President, and then two years after that, he allowed 9/11 to happen on his watch and America rewarded the GOP with total control of the government for 4 years, which led to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Republicans didn't exactly lose when they impeached Clinton.  They won, and handily.

Last Call For The Zombie CRA Lie

The jokers over at Investors' Business Daily ("When the Wall Street Journal is too liberal a source for your economics news") will keep flogging the ridiculous zombie lie that Bill Clinton created the subprime mortgage collapse through the Community Reinvestment Act.  Now that Hillary Clinton's future plans are making news, they've turned up the heat on this stale, overcooked lie.

Newly released memos from the Clinton presidential library reveal evidence the government had a big hand in the housing crisis. The worst actors were in the White House, not on Wall Street.

During the 1990s, former Clinton aides bragged that more aggressive enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act pressured banks to issue riskier mortgages, lending more proof the anti-redlining law fueled the crisis.

A 2012 National Bureau of Economic Research study found "that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks," with "a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam, (and) the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or low-income and minority areas.

To satisfy CRA examiners, Clinton mandated "flexible" lending by large banks. As a result, CRA-approved loans defaulted about 15% more often, the NBER found.

Exhibit A in the 7,000-page Clinton Library document dump is a 1999 memo to him from his treasury secretary, Robert Rubin.

"Public disclosure of CRA ratings, together with the changes made by the regulators under your leadership, have significantly contributed to ... financial institutions ... meeting the needs of low- and moderate-income communities and minorities," Rubin gushed. "Since 1993, the number of home mortgage loans to African Americans increased by 58%, to Hispanics by 62% and to low- and moderate-income borrowers by 38%, well above the overall market increase.

"Since 1992, nonprofit community organizations estimate that the private sector has pledged over $1 trillion in loans and investment under CRA."

And since minorities are all broke ass welfare cheats, Wall Street was "forced" to loan good money to those people and that's what destroyed our economy.   There's only one problem with this:  it's a lie that's been pushed by IBD for six years now.  I caught them doing it in November 2008.  They're still doing it now and the same rebuttal applies:

It's pretty idiotic, and any serious person rejects the argument that the CRA forced the banks into making loans they couldn't pay...including the lenders themselves.

But IBD plunges on into the darkness, admitting that even though Countrywide, the largest single subprime lender in America, was not covered under the CRA, it still "came under great pressure to loan to minorities".

No, it came under the pressure of its own greed.

And let's not forget banks like Citigroup that didn't make subprime loans at all, but still collapsed under the weight of their own bad investments they made by choice and had to be rescued with our money.

I said the same thing in December 2012 as well:

And I've killed this lie again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

 

Once again, the mortgage brokers that made nearly all of the subprime loans that went bad were MORTGAGE BROKERS and NOT BANKS.   Because they WERE NOT BANKS, they were NOT SUBJECT TO THE COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT AT ALL.

And I will keep killing this lie that black people and Bill Clinton caused the goddamn financial meltdown every single time.

Karl Rove Is Still Wrong About Everything

Karl Rove is convinced that Democrats are afraid of Chris Christie.

Democrats are raising a fuss about the closure of the George Washington Bridge because they are afraid of Gov. Chris Christie's (R) chances in 2016, according to former President George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove.

“The reason the Democrats are doing this is because Gov. Christie is a strong potential candidate in 2016 and they’re going to try to smother every Republican presidential possibility they can,” Rove said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“They know that this race in 2016 is going to be difficult for the Democrats, hard to get a third term, particularly after the two terms of Obama.”

Meanwhile, Rand Paul and Mitt Romney keep going on teevee bringing up Monica Lewinsky.  You know, because the economy was so awful when Clinton was President, especially compared to the mess Bush made of it and that Obama's still trying to dig out of with no help from the GOP.

Seems like it's the GOP who is afraid if the best they have is stuff from 15 years ago on Big Dog.  They've got no plan for the economy, no plan for tackling climate change or immigration, no plan for anything other than "We hate Obama, so we'll hate Clinton too."

Scared kids.

Last Call For The Rand And Mitch Shuffle

So Rand Paul launched another broadside on Bill Clinton today.  Can you guess why?

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) escalated his criticism of former President Clinton, saying any candidate who has accepted money from the former president should return it. 

Paul said Democratic candidates who accept money from Clinton have some “explaining to do” when it comes to women’s rights. 

Paul has become increasingly critical of Clinton’s past affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, calling it “predatory behavior” on numerous occasions.

“They can’t have it both ways,” Paul said on C-Span’s “Newsmakers” set to air Sunday.

“And so I really think that anybody who wants to take money from Bill Clinton or have a fundraiser has a lot of explaining to do. In fact, I think they should give the money back,” Paul said. “If they want to take position on women’s rights, by all means do. But you can’t do it and take it from a guy who was using his position of authority to take advantage of young women in the workplace.”

Now, why would Rand Paul say this, and say this now?  Who is he going after?  Officially, he's responding to Sen. Claire McCaskill (herself a proxy for the Clintons in this case) but she won her re-election bid in 2012 and has another four years before she faces voters again, so that's not the real reason.

If you think it's Hillary Clinton, that too is incorrect.  That's still two years out.  Again, the question is why attack Bill Clinton now in earlt 2014, and why is Rand Paul specifically the one?

That's easy.  His real target is Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Former President Bill Clinton — known as the “Big Dog” — will come to Louisville this month for a campaign event for Grimes, who is running for the U.S. Senate and trying to topple Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. 

“We are very excited to have President Clinton coming into town to make his first campaign stop of this election cycle,” Grimes said in an interview Friday. 

“I was elated when he called and said he wanted to make this race his top priority,” she said. 

Grimes said Clinton, 67, will campaign for her on Feb. 25. Jonathan Hurst, Grimes’ adviser, said details of the visit will be released in the coming days.

I've said before that the Clintons have been good friends to Jerry Lundergan, Alison's father and former Kentucky Democratic Party head.  The Clintons are very, very popular in here in Kentucky.  Paul is helping out Mitch The Turtle by attacking Clinton and Grimes for him.  Pretty soon, those calls for "Democrats" to give the money back and stop having fundraisers with Big Dog will be directed personally at Grimes herself.

Clinton is Grimes's strongest card in her hand.  Rand Paul is Mitch's strongest card.  And if Rand Paul wants to take on the Big Dog, let it happen.  Paul's got so many nasty associations in his closet that he'll lose in seconds.   

This is gonna be fun.

Big Dog Tears Up The Furniture Again

The closer we get to a 2016 Hillary Clinton run, the more likely Big Dog Bill seems to take pot shots at President Obama.  This time around it's Obamacare, and of course the former president just has to take a swing at this pinata.

Former President Bill Clinton said in an interview published Tuesday that President Barack Obama should make sure Americans can keep their existing health plans, even if that means tweaking the Affordable Care Act.

"I personally believe, even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got," Clinton told the site OZY in a recent interview. 

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has introduced a bill that the House will vote on later this week. It would "grandfather" in all health insurance plans that existed as of Jan. 1, 2013, not March 23, 2010, meaning that insurers could continue to offer a number of plans that they have been forced to cancel under the Affordable Care Act. 

Clinton preceded his comments by telling the story of a man he met last week, who he said doesn't qualify for subsidies because he makes more than 400% above the federal poverty level. He has a wife and two children, and Clinton said his policy was canceled and replaced by one that doubled his premium.

"They are the ones who heard the promise, 'If you like what you've got, you can keep it,'" Clinton said.

Yanno Billy Boy, I distinctly recall you trying to fix the health care system about 20 years back when I was in college, and it blowing up in your face.  Glass presidencies, stones, man.

And people wonder why DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY is a permanent fixture of our pundit class. Clinton is far from the only Democrat taking pot shots at Obamacare, too, but he's the one who should definitely know better.

Bill Clinton Finally Makes The Case For Obamacare

With just weeks to go before exchanges open for enrollment on October 1, former President Bill Clinton joined the White House push as "Explainer-In-Chief" this week to help make President Obama's case to the American people to enroll in Obamacare.

"We've got to do this," Clinton said in a speech to several hundred health care professionals and doctors in Little Rock, Ark. "The studies show that we are No. 1 by a country mile in the percentage of our income that we devote to health care costs, and rank no better than 25th to 33rd in the health care outcomes we get. This is the country that pioneered innovation in every other area of our national life; you cannot make me believe that we have to tolerate this from now until the end of eternity."

At a crucial juncture a few weeks before the Oct. 1 opening of the law's health insurance marketplaces across the country, Clinton scolded Republicans who have voted to repeal the law more than 40 times, arguing that they have not offered "real alternatives."

"The benefits of reform can't be fully realized, and the problems certainly can't be solved unless both the supporters and the opponents of the original legislation work together to implement it and address the issues that arise whenever you change a system this complex," he said during Wednesday's address at the Clinton Presidential Library.

He made a good case, although such a full-throated defense of Obamacare should have been made in 2010 and 2011, Bill.  Joining the fight this late in the game is better than nothing, I suppose, but with the problem being communication and a confused public, we could have used you years ago.

The administration has a difficult task ahead in selling the public on the new law given its unpopularity and confusion about its effect. In a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, four in 10 people believed the law had been repealed or overturned - or were unsure about whether it remained in place. About 50 percent of those who responded said they didn't know how it would affect their families.

Considering the amount of lies the GOP has spread about Obamacare and the tens of millions spent on those lies by conservative groups, I'm not surprised at all.  That was the Republican plan all along: to kill Obamacare enrollment through confusion and indifference.

Glad you can lend a hand, Bill.  After four years of sitting on your ass, finally jumping in with a month to go is a great way to show your support for President Obama, right?

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/04/201195/bill-clinton-offers-case-for-obamacare.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/04/201195/bill-clinton-offers-case-for-obamacare.html#storylink=cpy