THEIR ccandidate is Hillary Clinton.

Omerta.

come with Omerta. You don't get to be president without cutting deals and having a sit down. On the positive side we all live under the Grace of his Noodly Goodness (FSM). He presided at my husband's memorial service.

..I had my little sit-down too. Listened politely and did what I had to do. " You have a choice of a great career and a comfortable retirement or flip burgers for the rest of your Life." didn't sit very well with me.

Bill must want back in the White House really, really bad.

resource centers that supplied lawyers to those who couldn't afford one. Or the funds cut for prison conditions oversight.

....Clinton was eager to show he was "tough" on matters of "law and order." Running for president in 1992 while still governor of Arkansas, he flew back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of a mentally retarded man on death row. And early in his administration, he and Attorney General Janet Reno approved an FBI attack on a group of religious zealots who were armed and ensconced in a building complex in Waco, Texas. The attack resulted in a fire that swept through the compound, killing at least 86 men, women, and children.

Early in his first term Clinton signed legislation cutting funds for state resource centers that supplied lawyers to indigent prisoners. The result, according to Bob Herbert writing in the New York Times, was that a man facing the death penalty in Georgia had to appear at a habeas corpus proceeding without a lawyer.

In 1996, the President signed legislation that made it more difficult for judges to put prison systems under special masters to ensure the improvement of terrible prison conditions. He also approved a new statute withholding federal funds for legal services where lawyers used those funds to handle class action suits (such suits were important for challenging assaults on civil liberties).

The "Crime Bill" of 1996, which both Republicans and Democrats in Congress voted for overwhelmingly, and which Clinton endorsed with enthusiasm, dealt with the problem of crime by emphasizing punishment, not prevention. It extended the death penalty to a whole range of criminal offenses, and provided $8 billion for the building of new prisons.

All this was to persuade voters that politicians were "tough on crime." But, as criminologist Todd Clear wrote in the New York Times ("Tougher Is Dumber&quot about the new crime bill, harsher sentencing since 1973 had added 1 million people to the prison population, giving the United States the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and yet violent crime continued to increase. "Why," Clear asked, "do harsh penalties seem to have so little to do with crime?" A crucial reason is that "police and prisons have virtually no effect on the sources of criminal behavior." He pointed to those sources: "About 70 percent of prisoners in New York State come from eight neighborhoods in New York City. These neighborhoods suffer profound poverty, exclusion, marginalization and despair. All these things nourish crime."

Those holding political power—whether Clinton or his Republican predecessors—had something in common. They sought to keep their power by diverting the anger of citizens to groups without the resources to defend themselves....

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnclicri23.html

The media plays right into their hands. At least they're consistent.

each respects the other, as team members

I stand corrected.

think of much that they did do for people of color.

Best for Bill, then

Best for Hillary, now

they're record for consistency is unmatched

I do not forgive.

I won't vote for another Clinton or another Bush ever again.

Apologies after the fact are worthless.

Talk about voter suppression - most of those sent to jail never will get to vote.

The wod was outrageous 25 years ago. It was outrageous 15 years ago. It was outrageous 5 years ago, and it is STILL outrageous. How many lives have been ruined SINCE its outrageousness has been obvious??? What kind of a "democracy" allows policies this self-destructive and counter-productive to exist and persist, year after year, AFTER the outrageousness becomes obvious???

individual that went to jail that was hurt. It also hurt the family. in fact when you see how many families were broken up by those actions you actually have to see that the whole AA culture was turned upside down.

--and it looks like they are benefiting from that "nature."

Isn't Bill considered "Black" by many?

insist that you acknowledge the progress we have made.

I am not used to discomfort when it comes to race, you know.

oh, how that rubbed me the wrong way.

with everyone they stuck it too with H-1b visas

Yes, I know I have to leave DU if she is the candidate.
And everyone who buys into the Clinton "Apology for Anything That Might Affect Hillary" Tour theatrics - and that is what we have here, smug and calculated theatrics - YOU say hello to President Walker. You got this. If you end up with President Hillary, get ready to eat your peas.

Once the primaries are over you can't say that you won't vote for the D, that's the only constraint. And there are ways you can get around it. For example: My two Senators, Boxer and Feinstein split their vote on the IWR. Boxer voted against it, Feinstein voted for it so I say things like, "I proudly cast my vote for Barbara Boxer." I let the reader figure out the rest.

I am still trying to figure out why posting Bernie Sanders' record is considered harassing and bullying, but being lectured that not supporting Hillary means Hello, President Cruz/Walker/Whatever is not.

Cult of Personality has no logic.

How courteous.

Any affront to their candidate results in a mindless attacking response.

that is identity politics in full effect.

work for Hillary. Let do it herself. I will stay at DU but my avatar will stay the same as it is now and that will be that. And I will prepare to lobby my congress people to stop her 3rd Way bull.

Last edited Tue Jul 21, 2015, 10:09 AM - Edit history (1)

(more from the OP link)
The Clintons are counting on the forgiving nature of Black people. It is hoped that just as the families of the nine massacred Black parishioners of Charleston’s Mother Emanuel Church forgave mass murderer and domestic terrorist Dylann Storm Root, Black people will forgive the Clintons as well. But whether intentional or not, the Clintons’ “law and order” policies have destroyed far more Black lives than Dylann Root could ever even imagine.

Actually, the Clintons are demanding more than forgiveness from Black voters. They also want Blacks to forget that it was Bill Clinton and his co-president wife who signed welfare “reform” into law; who abandoned a perfectly qualified Black woman, Lani Guinier, to head the Justice Department; who oversaw the precipitous decline in “wealth” among poor Blacks even as a minuscule number of “middle class” blacks made slight (and oh so relative) financial gains.

But more than anything else, the Clintons demand that Black people forgive and forget that it was they who encouraged and helped finance a prison building boom; and who then sicced 100,000 mostly white cops on Black communities nationwide and herded black people into Bill and Hillary’s “incarceration nation.”

I posted. But we only get to post so much to keep in line with copyright rules & I posted the main topic. What you posted is even more important. I hope it gets read by many.

Getting out of prison after an extended sentence is stage 2 of the horror of this. When you combine the difficulties with adjusting to release, the absence of jobs, the difficulty of getting a job as a felon.

Moving from prison to homelessness with few options is no picnic in the park. Bad options are sometimes the only options.

Which is even worse for a black person, as getting a job even without a felony is already more difficult for them.

I have not read this letter before, but the dolt-headed sentiments are completely normal for Bubba...

When she said, in essence, "McCain and I are good on foreign policy [I believe it was] but I dunno about that Obama guy," it got my attention, and aroused my ire. Caused me to make the first donation in a primary race in my life.

Clinton policies were to this country.

a baseball bat to working people, and a huge gift to the billionaire class

And after that the War Shrub kicked it up a notch by rewarding companies that outsourced. The year I bought my Dell Computer was the year that Dell shutdown their North Carolina plant.

Thanks Bubba! That service economy you left us with is reeling in the dough!

India

IMO, nearly all of the job angst since 2000 can be traced to NAFTA, MFN-China, H-1b visa (and the outsourcing it facilitates)

Simply put, he's a corporate cnservative. So's his wife.

it was as far as the public and the military were willing to go at the time

Bill Clinton put enormous hardships into the lives of millions of Americans...We are now beginning to realize what a destructive force his administration was...and the effects are still being felt...Murderer Bush and Corporatist Obama have simply enlarged upon the destruction begun by Raygun, H. W. Criminal, and Big Dog Bubba...What a landscape of misery these evil people created!!

There is no Clinton apology acceptable to the masses of black and brown people who are still brutalized by his policies...

fell for them in 2008. These are the reasons we will not be falling for them again. And as to why our eyes are finally open? Well, the protests in Ferguson MO went a long way in telling us what was wrong. We will not forget again.

or remember how between 1968 and 1988, we had the same vote-winning record as the GOP has now: lost 5 out of 6 popular elections. Remember in those years, MI, NH, CA, IL, CT, NJ, VT, ME, DE, MD and PA voted Republican at least 4 out of 6 times (most 5 or 6 for 6). Now those states all have perfect Dem records since 1992 (except NH in 2000). Before Bill Clinton, states like New York were swing states. Dukakis won there by less than 5, Mondale and Carter '80 lost, and Carter barely won there in 1976. Urban crime was once a huge issue you know.

I don't think the law was perfect, but its easy to forget how different the attitudes and the times were

was for Republicans!!

is the presidency worth to an ex-president? At least for the Clinton and Bush families the post-presidency has been worth millions, with the Clintons way ahead.

when a politician say's 'I know I can count on you' the translation is 'I know I can screw you and get away with it'

Gets elected.

Let alone hanging with his homies at papa Bush's house should make anyone shudder.

gives me the Willies! Hill'nBill have had the same "favorite song" for TOO long to all of a sudden drop it for a truly progressive ditty!

Or, to me, it seems they are something even worse, masquerading as Democrats.

That has a lot of truth to it. My understanding is that Clinton and his group decided to write off Progressives and go after the Wall St. money. I don't think the Progressives have the money to compete with these folks. It's going to be an interesting primary and convention. I think it might have a bit of 1968 to it. At what point, as a Progressive, when you realize you have been played for the last 20 years, say enough? Once you wake up it's hard to go back to sleep.

North Korea is notorious (at least among those who are minimally informed about North Korea) for imprisoning 3 or 4 generations of those labeled "criminals". No formal accusations; no trials; just thrown into prisons for life. Grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren - thrown into prisons, many doing slave labor working in mines.

Isn't that horrifying? Inhuman? But look at the real world impact on families of people convicted of minor and victimless crimes in the U.S. (And many's the wealthy American who avoided conviction/incarceration via a well-paid, competent defense attorney.)

Their ability to make an honest living through employment in a vast number of areas is destroyed for the rest of their lives, and through that destruction, their ability to financially support not only themselves, but their parents, their spouses or their children.

Last edited Tue Jul 21, 2015, 12:23 PM - Edit history (1)

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was a result of the 101 California Street shootings and the 1993 Waco Siege. Polls had indicated that the American public placed crime at or near the top of the list when asked to name their civic concerns. Tougher sentences and straight marriage were popular stances in the 1990s, even if they're not today. And the law also enacted a Federal Assault Weapons Ban and required all states to pass legislation requiring sex offenders to register with state sex offender registries. It was passed by both a Democratic controlled House and Senate. Bill Clinton obviously didn't sign it with the intention of hurting black people. And rather than dancing around the issue, he is at least willing to apologize and disavowed part of it.


I like both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and wish some of us would stop trying to eat our own.

and Hillary fans responded.

Hillary folks would not bother with Bernie if his fans left Hillary alone. I used an NYC analogy. Yankees fans vs Mets fans. Yankees fans don't think about the Mets. But Mets fans hate the Yankees and talk and think about them a lot. Yankees fans would not say bad things about the Mets at all if Mets fans weren't constantly saying stuff about the Yankees. Of course, we Yankees fans respond when a Met fan says something about our team, but otherwise, the Mets wouldn't occupy a single thought in our minds.

Same thing here. If Bernie fans weren't attacking Hillary, there would be none of this going on.

Many candidates campaigned as being tough-on-crime and won, including Clinton. Minus the assault weapons ban, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 wasn't controversial at the time. But you're right, some did know better. Bobby Scott (D-VA) voted against the bill because it didn't do enough to support prevention programs. But regardless of the facts, public opinion won.

One can't even blame a human-weathervane of a politician for the location it plants itself, amid the various prevailing winds. The only thing that's important is if the weathervane is painted blue or red, or in very special cases if the weathervane is painted blue overall, but with a bright red pointer.

Politicians are like political pundits, that way. Blameless. How can one blame a FOX pundit for pointing in tandem with the other weathervanes amid the winds at FOX? Or an MSNBC pundit pointing away amid the winds at MSNBC? Like politicians, political pundits are innocent of their words and actions. They are just things, weathervanes by nature, and it's just too damn bad that the vast majority of them are planted so the winds are at the backs of the rich.

Attack, attack, attack. They like to preach to the choir on LW sites. As if it will make any difference in the long run.

I just and it all becomes background noise.

You do realize that most of those pics come from official functions, right?

Ahhh, the nonsense one reads here.

It seems to be causing some confusion because people think I am actually posting those pictures. Possibly this signature line is more trouble than it's worth, because of this confusion. It's new. But she does seem to enjoying the events.

You smile at people, even those that make you cringe.

Just do the thing and then apologize later.

My little girl is awesome at it.

And Hillary wants it both ways...share the spotlight when people remember the Clinton years fondly and be her own woman when people start examining the warts.

about the records of all Candidates. Which is why they are working so hard to distract from the record.

Thank you for sticking to the ISSUES. That is the only thing that will provide the FACTS about all of the candidates.

But keep hoping that she does.

Bill manager to end his term with a surplus and many other accomplishments but none of that matters. I know all of his faults, but he got things done even when repugs did everything to disassemble him. That is right there are repug lite here.

It's better for one's blood pressure. Why waste your breath?

come next year, the Hillary campaign will need those same minorities to win Florida, even though the Dylan Roof and Koch Bros contingent will be out ready to beat up and harass them. When you have to summon to fortitude to deal with cops and crazies, the idea that "elect me, and I will only hurt you 50 percent as much as the GOP" will NOT help.

Despite the attempts of some people to portray minorities as not supporting the Clintons, that is not true. Or do some of you really think that Hispanics, AA, Asians, gay and women would rather vote for whichever clown the Republicans nominate?

but I am talking about the folk who will need to suffer an incredible amount just to vote, the ones that will literally risk their jobs and lives. Are you going to think people will stand in five hour lines just to vote for someone that really likes many of the same people that make them powerless?

This is a game of inches, 2000 was decided by a few hundred votes, most of them squandered by Ralph. It will take enthusiasm to win.

But in case you will just keep ignoring that, I ask you a simpler question: what is Hillary's plan to keep Florida from being stolen, AGAIN. We know what Debbie Wasserman Schultz plan was, run Charlie Crist for governor, and that failed.

Then we go after the real enemy. Hillary gives us our best chance of winning. More than a few on this thread are already aware of that.

I remember how outraged almost everybody was that judges were handing out drastically different sentences for the exact same crimes. How, if the guilty party "knew someone", they could have been to court a dozen times for the same offense and get a slap on the wrist, while another a person committed the same crime, but far fewer times, received 10-15 years!

It really was the majority who called their congress critters to DEMAND "mandatory minimums" because the judges were not doing their job.

Thinking back to that now, I realize we should have known that ACROSS THE BOARD MANDATES never work. There are always unforeseen circumstances.

Bill signed the law mainly because so many people thought it would cure the problem. I think he really is sorry he did, and I accept his apology.

As opposed to some black guy with a little crank.

sentenced to 6 months suspended while the black kid with a small amt. of crack got 5 years! It didn't only involve drugs either. There were drastic differences in the sentencing for all different crimes. MANY repeat offenders got off with a smack on the wrist, while other "not connected" people got long terms for first time offenses. That's where the mandatory minimums AND the 3 strikes you're out program.

Although I personally have not been affected by those laws, I'll be very happy to see them GONE! I'm ashamed of my Country when I hear that we lead the world in # of prisoners. Shame of us all.

because I KNOW it wasn't ALWAYS waved. I knew several whites who served long sentences because of the 3 strikes law.

My only reason for pointing all of this out is to get everyone to understand there WAS a valid reason to enact these laws, and as usual, the unintended consequences prevailed.