Someone asked me every question they had about Hillary, here are my answers:

I just want to know…

Why did she support then suddenly oppose the Keystone XL when she again was involved in writing it out as secretary of state?

Why does she avoid talking about her Walmart ties?

Why was it so difficult to state a position on the TPP agreement when she was involved in writing it out as secretary of state? Why delay answering?

Why did she start rumors about Obama last election cycle?

Why does she claim to represent women’s issues while doing business with Saudi interests who regularly behead and stone women to death as a form of legal punishment?

Why did her campaign request fewer debates from the DNC at the start of this election cycle, when she stated less debates to be ‘undemocratic and un-American’ last election cycle?

Why did she lie about being under sniper fire? What is there to gain from that?

Why is it acceptable for someone running for POTUS to be accepting big money donations when most Americans agree that big money is ruining our political process?

Why does she accept political donations from wall street bankers then says she will let them fail or even prosecute them once she is president? Letting the banks fail did not work out for Greece, why does she think it will work out here?

Why does she accept money from lobbyists for prisons for profit groups, while hiring former prison lobbyists openly to run her campaign? Why should we believe her when she says she will abolish for profit prisons when the Clintons helped the industry to come into existence in the first place.

Why did she support then suddenly oppose the Keystone XL when she again was involved in writing it out as secretary of state?

So first, Clinton never supported the Keystone pipeline. In fact, during her tenure as Secretary of State, the Department of State recommended that President Obama deny the pipeline. It was Secretary Kerry’s State Department that approved the permits. In 2010 when Clinton was Secretary she indicated she was ‘inclined’ to support the pipeline, but was careful to include that they had not completed their analysis and that no final decision had been made.

Secondly, the implication that her involvement alone is suspect (an implication often repeated with the TPP) is quite unfair. The office of the Secretary of State (unlike the office a Senator) is not an independent political office. Hillary was not her own boss. She served at the pleasure of the President and had an obligation to carry out his agenda to the best of her ability. The Obama administration has long stood in a posture supportive of oil and natural gas development. This should not have come as a surprise to environmentalists since he ran on an “all of the above” platform and has long been supportive of the natural gas industry.

Thirdly, a criticism of her opposition was that she waited too long to announce it. But I think an objective assessment of her reasoning suggests that she did something that was ‘right’ instead of politically convenient. There’s no doubt that she, and everyone on her team, knew that the politically correct answer on Keystone was opposition. They knew that from the day she launched her campaign. And since she had never publicly supported it there was nothing stopping her from saying on day one “I oppose it.” And in fact, it doesn’t take a political genius to know that waiting is politically damaging. So why did she wait? Well, it turns out, for a very good reason. Loyalty. She was involved in the decision making process, her position one way or the other would have made life for the administration she served more difficult. She said (I’m paraphrasing) “I don’t think it’s appropriate at this point, given that I was involved, to put pressure on the White House one way or another.” I think that’s quite reasonable, and I think it shows something that Sanders supporters often claim that Clinton doesn’t do… she put principle above political expediency.

Why does she avoid talking about her Walmart ties?

Let’s begin with what these ‘ties’ consist of. From 1986 to 1992 Hillary was a member of the board of directors of the Walmart corporation. Well, I guess you’d want to know, what does a board of directors do? A board of directors appoints and advises (with varying degrees of authority depending on the bylaws of any given corporation) corporate officers (the people who make actual decisions and set policy). But the most important function they provide is legal oversight. The board of directors are responsible for receiving and reviewing all relevant filings and reports to shareholders and the SEC. Their role is to make sure the corporation is behaving within the law.

Generally speaking, boards are less involved in the kind of day-to-day policies that you might object to than, say, a CEO is. Further, as boards are pseudo-democratic, a single member of the board is rarely in a position to direct policy. In fact, you’ll find that most members of boards are actually on multiple boards at the same time— because their role is not as involved as you might think.

So while I would disagree with the characterization that she’s ‘avoided’ talking about it, I’d point out that it’s not a radically significant role, there’s probably not much to tell beyond “I read a lot of finance reports,” that we’re talking about a 6 year period that began almost three decades ago during a period of time when not much was happening with Walmart [you can confirm this with a simple google news search with a 1986-1993 time filter], and so it’s not particularly relevant compared to her tenure as Secretary of State, Senator from New York, and her policy work as First Lady.

But to the extent that it is relevant, I’m not sure it should be seen as a detriment. Corporations are a fact of life, and knowledge of how they work internally is an asset to a President who exists in a power ecosystem in which multi national corporations are high on the food chain.

Never the less… I don’t think she’s “avoiding” anything. Organized campaigns are about message discipline… that’s just as true of Bernie Sanders as it is of Barack Obama as it is of Hillary Clinton. It would make just as much sense for me to say: “Why is Bernie Sanders avoiding talking about the 30 years of his life he was underemployed and reliant on women in his life for support?” That’s a pretty facially accusatory question, he’s not avoiding it, it’s just objectively not particularly important to his campaign, nor would it be good messaging to indulge such a question with an answer when there are more important issues to talk about.

To put a finer point on it: Bernie Sanders is applauded when he “smacks down” journalists that ask him questions that deviate from his message, when he “puts journalists in their place” by lecturing them on the “issues that matter.” When he’s doing that, wouldn’t it be just as fair to say he’s ‘avoiding’ this or that topic? Probably. But in most cases, it’s also the smart, and right, thing to do.

Why was it so difficult to state a position on the TPP agreement when she was involved in writing it out as secretary of state? Why delay answering?

Let me begin here by saying: I disagree with Hillary and Bernie on where they fall on the TPP. I recognize that free trade agreements have easily accosted negative features. Nobody likes the fact that global competition, particularly in terms of the cost of labor, means that “American jobs” are shipped overseas. But people rarely talk about the fact that free-trade is responsible for a great deal of what little prosperity main street does enjoy. Goods are cheaper because of free trade. We have a wider variety of available goods, at a wider variety of qualities and prices, because of free trade. There are concurrent (internal) trends that give free trade a bad name even though they have little to do with free trade per se, namely the GOP war on unions which drive worker wages down more than free trade agreements drive high wage jobs out.

Don’t get me wrong: free trade agreements are not perfect, and they are not without REAL kinds of damage. But they also have many benefits, and not all of them are economic. The TPP in particular is not entirely about economics, it’s about geo-political balances of power. People don’t fully grasp what a heated time it is in the South China sea and how great the long term ramifications of China’s territorial and maritime claims there are. The TPP is just as much a political counterbalance to an ascendant China as it is an economic one.

Now all that said, let’s turn to Hillary’s role in the TPP. Operationally, the Secretary of State is the President’s representative to every other head of State. The TPP (again, both as an economic agreement, and as a strategic effort to build a united political front to contain Chinese influence) was a centerpiece of President Obama’s foreign policy. It was the job of the Secretary of State to sell that policy as positively as she could. If you review all the times when Clinton “supported” the TPP you’ll notice that they are almost always in speeches where she’s listing President Obama’s efforts, it is included as evidence of American engagement. Rarely (at least I haven’t seen anything like this) did she delve into any specifics, or personally endorse specific elements. I have not even heard her make as vocal a defense of free trade as I just did. (A good reference: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/13/hillary-clinton/what-hillary-clinton-really-said-about-tpp-and-gol/)

But little do people know, trade agreements ARE NOT negotiated by the State Department. In fact, the Office of the Trade Representative hasn’t answered to the Secretary of State since the 1960s. In the 60’s and 70’s Congress separated the Trade Representative from the State Department and made it an independent office of the executive answering directly to the President and to Congress. While the Secretary of State is still involved, organizationally, they do not have direct oversight or control over the process. So assuming that Hillary Clinton was somehow ‘at the table’ or personally approving or vetoing provisions is a falsehood. Her role (as far as anyone has reported, and as far as can be fairly assumed if you take into account the organizational structure of the government) in the entire process was far less pronounced than many suggest. Again, it’s not to suggest that she had no say, that she wasn’t briefed, that she didn’t have surrogates keeping her in the loop… but I think once we understand the relationship between the Office of the Trade Representative and the Department of State it becomes a lot more clear that hanging the TPP around Hillary Clinton’s neck isn’t really fair. She herself noted: “I did not work on TPP… I advocated for a multi-national trade agreement that would ‘be the gold standard.’ But that was the responsibility of the United States trade representative.”

You follow up your question with: Why delay answering?

The same reason she did on the Keystone Pipeline.

CNN reported: “Earlier this year, Clinton told reporters that she didn’t want to comment on the trade deal until it was finalized, something that happened earlier this month.” Less than a week following it’s finalization she said, ““As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it.”

“I have said from the very beginning that we had to have a trade agreement that would create good American jobs, raise wages and advance our national security and I still believe that is the high bar we have to meet,” Clinton said.

She added: “I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set.”

And this was consistent with previous statements she had made on the matter:

Before the TPP was announced she wrote in 2014: “Because TPP negotiations are still ongoing, it makes sense to reserve judgment until we can evaluate the final proposed agreement. It’s safe to say the TPP won’t be perfect — no deal negotiated among a dozen countries ever will be — but its higher standards, if implemented and enforced, should benefit American businesses and workers.”

Why did she start rumors about Obama last election cycle?

The simple answer is: She didn’t.

Obviously, there were public statements that were your standard political back-biting. But as for the most pernicious rumors… they didn’t come from her campaign any more than all the nonsense about the “Bernie rape essay” comes from her campaign or all the nonsense about Clinton being corrupt comes from the Sanders campaign.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/23/donald-trump/hillary-clinton-obama-birther-fact-check/
Why did she lie about being under sniper fire? What is there to gain from that?

The answer to this question, I think, comes down to how you already feel about Hillary and how much generosity of spirit you have towards politicians who lead full, busy, interesting lives.

Is it possible that she simply, flat out, lied? It is. But I’d urge you to think critically about telling such a lie. Here’s a woman whose every action, facial expression, reaction to questions, transactions… everything … is put under a microscope, subpoena’d, discussed ad nausea on Fox News. Why purposefully tell a lie about an event traceable to a specific date, in a specific place, with tons of witnesses, of which there was video? And if you believe the right wing claim that she’s this spectacularly skilled liar who has spent years breaking the law but never having been caught because she’s some mastermind at corruption… then wouldn’t you wonder why a master would convey such an easily discoverable falsehood?

I think the more likely truth is something I’ve experienced watching witnesses on the stand, people misremember. The mind often unconsciously embellishes events, usually in ways that make us feel like we’re closer to the center of them or more important or exciting than we are. And I’m sure you’ve had this same experience— an argument you remember as being more explosive than it was. A victory in your personal life that you remember as being far more dramatic and glorious than it really was. A slight that you remember as hurting more than it probably did.

So I don’t think she intentionally lied, but I don’t deny she incorrectly recalled events. It is precisely because she has little to gain and much to lose from such a ‘lie’ that I air on the side of it being the product of misremembering than of intentional deceit.
Why does she claim to represent women’s issues while doing business with Saudi interests who regularly behead and stone women to death as a form of legal punishment?

This is a great question, and I don’t think I could do it as much justice as the West Wing… I offer you this clip:

Apart from the uncomfortable balancing of principle and practicality that the most powerful nation on earth must undertake, I think Clinton’s many accolades from women’s rights groups the world over, all of which recount her many contributions to the field of women’s rights beyond her mere symbolic importance as the woman who has come closest to the Presidency, are easily retrievable and so I’ll spare you a recitation here.

Why did her campaign request fewer debates from the DNC at the start of this election cycle, when she stated less debates to be ‘undemocratic and unamerican’ last election cycle?

This was probably an unabashedly political move. But not simply in her fight against Sanders. Clinton, the DNC, and most political observers have learned a couple of lessons from watching the 2008 and 2012 GOP nomination that are being proven right, once again, in the slow moving train wreck that is the 2016 GOP nomination. The biggest lesson is that more debates do not always mean a better informed voter, as much as they mean a more bloodied, weak nominee.

Now, that’s not always true. And there are plenty of fine arguments on the other side. But Clinton is a politician, and some count that as a bad thing… I for one do not. Washington is politics, it has been since ‘Washington’ was Philadelphia and New York. In 2008 Clinton was a first-time candidate, the 2004 debates had been very good for candidates running campaigns like hers, we were coming off of 8 years of a deeply unpopular GOP President and maximum exposure was helpful (not least because democrats didn’t have anything to answer for, they could trust that, for the most part, they were going to be able to lay out their visions and contrast with one another.) 2016 looked very different in February and March when these decisions were starting to be discussed. We’re the incumbent party, Hillary is arguably the “Obama’s third term” candidate, she also had no apparent meaningful competition. It’s fairly predictable that the more debates you have as the incumbent party, the more likely you’ll have to get into defending the administration (and there’s always a risk that the public goes sour on the administration and that it becomes a liability… look at the Kentucky governors race). It’s also true that a front runner benefits from fewer debates.

So I understand 100% why Sanders supporters would be upset that there are not more opportunities for debates, because they have the (probably correct) sense that the more debates the more bloodied the front runner, and therefore the less likely they remain the front runner. And I understand why such a blatantly political ‘flip flop’ angers you.

But permit me to offer a realpolitik justification in the form of an example. In the 2000’s the democrats in Congress were the minority. They used the filibuster to stop the most egregious GOP policies from becoming law. Frustrated, the GOP threatened to change Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster. Democrats, in response, called that move ‘the nuclear option’ and lambasted it for the danger it presented to democracy and to the institution of the Senate. Years later when the GOP was the minority they used the filibuster in an unprecedented way to block President Obama’s agenda. In response, the democrats unleashed the nuclear option (albeit just for judicial nominations) to send a message that they wouldn’t be fucked with.

The GOP accused them of flip flopping. And they were right. But politics is sometimes about being inconsistent in order to achieve your goals. I know the instinct is to see that as grimy — but in most instances it’s a smart way to use power. The democrats were long the interventionists in government, it was such for so long that a joke around DC was “The Republicans want a large military but don’t want to send it anywhere, the Democrats what a small military and they want to send it everywhere.” Enter the Iraq war, and now there has been a tectonic shift. Democrats blanche at even minor military intervention, whereas the GOP seems trigger happy.

My point is: Yes, this was political. Yes, it acts to the detriment of your candidate. Yes, it’s understandable (and easy to argue) that this is slimy. But no, I don’t take personal issue with it and frankly, I think being political is an asset when you’re confronting the slimiest version of the slimiest party this country has seen in a while.

Why is it acceptable for someone running for POTUS to be accepting big money donations when most Americans agree that big money is ruining our political process?

Why does she accept political donations from wall street bankers then says she will let them fail or even prosecute them once she is president? Letting the banks fail did not work out for Greece, why does she think it will work out here?

Why does she accept money from lobbyists for prisons for profit groups, while hiring former prison lobbyists openly to run her campaign? Why should we believe her when she says she will abolish for profit prisons when the Clintons helped the industry to come into existence in the first place.

^ Ok so these three questions are big ones, but they all share a common theme which is captured by the first. So I want to answer in a general way first… and then dig down into the specific concerns you raise in each question.

Generally it seems like these questions confront the concern about how credible it is to claim that you can formulate non-biased policies while accepting donations from interests those policies concern.

I wrote earlier in the thread that “I take issue with the “contributions are evidence of corruption” line of reasoning on the whole.” I think that could be rephrased as “I take issue with the general argument that contributions necessarily skews policy in favor of the contributor.” Here’s why:

First: Money does influence politics. That’s an undeniable fact. And it has been true since the revolutionary war (and, really, for all of recorded history).

Most people don’t realize that our own founding has been mythologized in such a way as to remove some rather tawdry truths about what riled up the rabble. We’re taught a simplified version of “taxation without representation” and we’re led to imagine peasants with muskets angry about the cost of their tea. But that’s not really reality. In reality, the richest families and merchants of the colonies… richest among them John Hancock, were having their trans-atlantic shipping (and smuggling) interests openly and vigorously challenged by Parliament. If the argument were being played out today, the founders would be the CEO’s and the Parliament would be a “liberal Congress passing anti-business legislation choking business with taxes and regulation.”

The straw that broke the camels back came when British customs officials seized “the Liberty” (the founders, like the modern GOP, had a knack for good branding) in Boston Harbor and demanded John Hancock provide the proper documentation for the goods found thereon under the Navigation Acts. Hancock bribed the customs officials and smuggled the illegal goods off the ship. When the ship was restocked and released, it was captured outside of Boston Harbor in retribution for this crime. Samuel Adams (also a wealthy Bostonian whose family made it’s money in trade) who led the ‘Sons of Liberty’ directed them to incite a crowd in favor of Hancock. (Imagine a group of tea partiers being riled up by a Koch henchman in the face of the FBI confiscating an illegal oil shipment.) The crowd attacked the customs house, burned one of their boats, and successfully demanded a boycott of British goods. These events would lead directly to the Boston tea party, and later to the declaration of independence— bearing, most prominently, John Hancock’s signature.

As the revolution concluded and the articles of confederation and later the constitution were being written, the men at the helm of the process were the colonies 1%. The articles themselves stand as one of the most anti-tax pro-business documents ever conceived, they so effectively prevented the government from taxing wealthy citizens that they were dissolved! But the constitution too, and really the entire idea of a sovereign US, was just as much an effort to secure an economic status quo of a landed elite as it was an effort to establish some egalitarian government of the enlightenment.

I recount this history not to justify money’s current place in politics… but rather to illustrate that even though industry and commerce are inevitably driving forces in how whole states are shaped, that needn’t mean that the outcomes are anti-democratic.

Which brings me to your first question: “Why is it acceptable for someone running for POTUS to be accepting big money donations when most Americans agree that big money is ruining our political process?”

It’s not ‘acceptable’ without qualification, but it is acceptable (and necessary) in terms of good political strategy. I offer you an example and an analogy.

First the example: In 2008 Barack Obama decided to forego public financing in lieu of collecting unlimited campaign funds. The result: he massively outspent John McCain, he was able to direct millions of dollars to down-ticket races, able to fund nationwide advertising (including a 5 minute televised bio produced by Steven Spielberg) and he was swept into office with commanding majorities in both Houses of Congress. As a result he passed Health Care Reform (imperfect as it was), a legislative accomplishment that had eluded every democratic administration since Truman. While his tenure has been a mixed bag (mostly thanks to an intransigent GOP) his administration will likely be remembered as successful and as progressive.

Front runner fundraising isn’t just about the front-runner. It’s about the hundreds of down ticket races that determine the majority party of the Senate and House, the balance of power in the statehouses and governorships. It’s not the only factor, but it is an important one.

And right here would be an obvious place for an interjection: “But that’s just the problem! It shouldn’t be an important one.” Ok, well let’s take that as a unqualified truth (though, and I’ll come back to this later, I don’t think it is). In response I offer the analogy I promised.

Imagine you’re a football coach. You have a team that is regularly among the top 2 teams in the league. But you are appalled by the use of tackling in the game because of the concussions it leads to. In this magical world where you’re the coach, the coach of the winning team has strong sway over the rules for the coming year of play. You get to the Superbowl, and you know that the opposing coach LOVES tackling. Not only does he love tackling, he doesn’t care about concussions in the least. If he had his way, he’d put all your guys in the hospital and run the league unopposed.

You’re in the locker room. And you say to your team: Guys, whoever wins this game could set the rules for the whole next year. We might have a chance to implement a rule that forbids tackling. But honestly, I’m so sick of concussions, i’m so sick of this dangerous game… I think we ought to send a message. Lead by example. In tonight’s game, none of us are going to tackle. We’re going to play a touch game.

Well you can see the problem. Not only does that kind of unilateral disarmament increase the likelihood that you’ll lose the game, and that therefore tackling will remain a legal tactic in the years to come… but it also has the unintended consequence of increasing the number of concussions your own team incurs. Wouldn’t it be better, in pursuit of the power to rid the game of tackling, to fight fire with fire?

I want to insert here that people often don’t game out the peril of a Sanders Presidency in terms of what’s actually likely to happen to the role of money in politics. I think there’s a strong argument to be made that electing Sanders won’t get money out of politics. If anything it’s more likely to give the private sector more sway.

There’s no realistic path to overturning Citizens United right now. Not through a constitutional amendment (not enough state legislatures would ratify, nor would you get the supermajorities needed in Congress), you’d still have to replace a conservative justice (who knows when that will happen) and get a new lawsuit coming up the chain (that would take at least one or two full election cycles AFTER the composition of the court changed to accomplish), nor is there a viable path in congress for meaningful campaign finance reform.

Therefore, big money is still going to be 100% legal for at least the first 4 years of a Sanders Presidency.

During that time, Sanders won’t be taking that money. During that time he likely won’t allow the DNC to collect big money either (since he’ll be the party leader). But the RNC will be collecting that money, and so will their members.

Without the ability to look to the party or the President for money candidates will grow increasingly reliant on big money they solicit directly in order to be competitive with the GOP.

So either the GOP will take more seats (through the advantage of their money domination) or the democrats who have directly solicited money from corporations will win seats and be more beholden to the corporation than any party structure or President.

Thus, to conclude your first question… why is it acceptable? Because it is good defense in anticipation of an, admittedly necessary offense.

Why does she accept political donations from wall street bankers then says she will let them fail or even prosecute them once she is president? Letting the banks fail did not work out for Greece, why does she think it will work out here?

I think what’s interesting about this question is that it identifies precisely how you can in fact receive contributions from a source that you nevertheless then act against the interests of.

Why she accepts the donations (the great mass of which are from individuals and not from the institution itself) is because, as I mentioned earlier, the money confers a political advantage that is silly to sacrifice save for very good reason. Prosecuting bankers who break the law is right, regardless of whether they give you money. It is, again, simply the right thing to do.

As for letting the banks fail I’d point out two things. First, back when the financial market collapsed and the top economists in the United States were begging the Congress to bail out the banks, Sanders voted against it— and he stands by that vote. So, at face value, Clinton and Sanders are indistinguishable on this issue.

Except Hillary wasn’t saying “I’d let the banks fail” ‘as things stood in 2007.’ Instead she was speaking in in terms of her own proposals for financial reform which would, in theory prevent banks from being so large that their failure would be catastrophic to the economy (as such a failure would have been in 2007 when Sanders voted to let the banks fail. I quote:

“First of all, under Dodd-Frank, that is what will happen because we now have stress tests and I’m going to impose a risk fee on the big bank if they engage in risky behavior,” she elaborated. “But they have to know, their shareholders have to know that yes, they will fail. And if they’re too big to fail then under my plan and others that have been proposed, they may have to be broken up.”

Furthermore, as the front runner, there’s a good reason for her to message that this would be her policy. Imagine the danger of saying: “If elected, I will never let the banks fail.” Such a thing would invite banks to behave very badly, and take outsized risk knowing that they have the ultimate insurance policy!

Why does she accept money from lobbyists for prisons for profit groups, while hiring former prison lobbyists openly to run her campaign? Why should we believe her when she says she will abolish for profit prisons when the Clintons helped the industry to come into existence in the first place.

So I think you’ve already grasped how I feel about this general question… but as it relates to private prisons: She has announced she won’t be accepting their money.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/10/23/3715544/clinton-private-prisons/

As for prison lobbyists running her campaign— I’m not familiar with any who are. I know that there were bundlers who had worked for, among others, private prisons who were raising money on her behalf, but I think it’s a pretty distant linkage to make between someone who isn’t on her campaign, who is fundraising for her campaign, used to fundraise for that industry, and her policies on the matter.

Furthermore, two of the issues I have with a lot of the criticism of Clinton that follow the formula of: “Hillary has a lobbyist for X corporation working for her” are that A) usually those people don’t actually work for her, at least not in any significant capacity, and B) It embraces a pretty wide definition of lobbying for a given entity.

Let me explain: In DC lobbying is usually done through, essentially, law firms. These firms are subject to conflict of interest rules that dictate that if you are on retainer for, say, GE you cannot also have as a client one of GE’s competitors. So what large corporations do is they put as many of the best firms in DC on retainer so that their competitors can’t. That makes it harder for competitors to lobby or sue against their interests.

In turn, what political enemies of Hillary do is, they look at a lawyer or lobbyist (who are usually highly qualified policy experts), who used to work at one of these firms… and even if they’ve never directly lobbied on behalf of GE, even if they’ve only ever been a member of a firm on retainer… and if they now work for Hillary (or whoever the target of the attack is) the line is: “GE lobbyist works for Hillary!” But as you can see, that claim is often a stretch.

Finally— I try to urge caution in using “the Clintons” to describe policies of the Bill Clinton White House. Hillary was certainly influential, but she wasn’t the President, she wasn’t the chief of staff, and her role wained significantly in the middle period of Clinton’s term as far as I’ve read.

I think the prison industrial complex is incredibly important to talk about and to combat, and I think Bill Clinton has nobly taken responsibility for playing a role in its growth. But Hillary Clinton has not taken any actions that would suggest she agreed with such policies (though Sanders voted for the “Violent Crime Control Act” that was instrumental in the continuation of a lot of these trends). Moreover, I think it’s important to put private prisons in perspective. They are primarily employed by state governments, they house a minority of US prisoners, and their existence is of less moment than the fact that we’re locking people up in such great number for such long terms for such bad reasons without sufficient due process.

I hope that answers all of your questions!