Clinton Believes She's Special Kind Of Politician Who Can't Be
Influenced By Money
Published on
Monday, April 04, 2016
by
Shadowproof
Clinton Believes She's Special Kind Of Politician Who Can't Be Influenced By
Money
by
Kevin Gosztola
Hillary Clinton at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Gage
Skidmore)
If one listens to the remarks of Hillary Clinton, her campaign staff, and
any spokesperson from the network of super PACs helping her challenge Bernie
Sanders, it becomes clear they believe Clinton is a rare and special breed
of politician. They think she is someone who cannot, has never been, and
will never be corrupted by large sums of money given to her by corporate and
special interests.
In particular, it does not matter to them if Clinton's super PACs have
accepted millions of dollars from lobbyists with ties to the fossil fuel
industry. It does not matter if executives of oil and gas companies have
supported the Clinton campaign by donating the maximum legal amount. To
them, Clinton is an altruistic public servant, a kind of role model in
American politics.
There must be no reason to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United
decision. The Democratic Party can simply educate up-and-coming leaders on
how to be like Clinton, and the stark influence of money in politics will be
reversed by the next generation of Progressives Who Can Get Things Done.
Of course, all of the above is ludicrous. Donations were made because
lobbyists and executives think Clinton will win the general election, and
they want to have a stake in whatever agenda she sets if she becomes
president.
Eva Resnick-Day, a Greenpeace activist, is one of many activists who
recognizes this is how money influences politics in the United States. She
asked Clinton if she would reject fossil fuel money in the future. Clinton
blew up and accused Resnick-Day of spreading the lies of the Sanders
campaign.
As she described on Greenpeace's website after video of her exchange with
Clinton went viral, "Greenpeace USA, along with 20 other organizations,
launched the pledge to #FixDemocracy, asking all presidential candidates to
reject future fossil fuel contributions, champion campaign finance reform,
and defend the right to vote for all."
The pledge was immediately signed by Sanders. The Clinton campaign responded
to the pledge but did not sign it. (None of the Republican candidates take a
position that climate change is real so, of course, neither Donald Trump,
Ted Cruz, nor John Kasich have signed the pledge.)
Hillary Clinton is personally aware that Greenpeace, 350 Action, and other
groups have showed up to debates, rallies, fundraisers, and events, which
she has attended. She knows they've tried to pressure her into signing the
pledge. Environmental activists also have asked her questions before, but
this time-perhaps because Sanders won five of the last six states in
landslide victories-Clinton thought the Sanders campaign had dispatched her
to mount an attack.
Quite a lot of the focus on this exchange has been on the fact that
corporations cannot donate directly to her campaign so Clinton cannot take
money from the fossil fuel industry. Yet, nobody has suggested that
corporations are donating directly to Clinton's campaign.
Greenpeace asserts, "Fifty-eight lobbyists that work for the coal, oil, and
gas companies have given $138,400 directly to the Clinton campaign.
Forty-seven of those lobbyists gave the maximum allowable amount - $2,700.
Eleven oil and gas industry lobbyists also bundled $1,327,210 for Clinton's
campaign as of the end of 2015. Bundling is a practice in which lobbyists
use their personal and professional networks to collect additional donations
for campaigns." (The advocacy group put together a list of in-house oil and
gas industry lobbyists and lobbyists hired by the oil and gas industry, who
have donated to the Clinton campaign.)
The main super PAC supporting Clinton, Priorities USA Action, has received
$3.25 million from fossil fuel interests.
But the establishment news media, in their fact checking, informed readers
the money is a tiny percentage-0.15 percent of Clinton's campaign and
outside PAC money is from the oil and gas industry.
In other words, $4.5 million from fossil fuel industry interests pales in
comparison to the tens of millions of dollars she has raised from
individuals with ties to financial institutions, including firms on Wall
Street.
The establishment news media contends Clinton has no control over donations
to super PACs because it is against the law to coordinate with super PACs,
like Priorities USA Action. However, one of the super PACs in her network of
dark money allies is Correct the Record. It has stretched the legal
boundaries of what coordination is allowed between a candidate's campaign
and a super PAC. Paul Ryan, a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center, has
argued the super PAC is "creating new ways to undermine campaign
regulation."
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio defended Clinton. "This attack is not
becoming of him, is not becoming of that movement to bring about more
progressive change. And I think we should just get back to the issues."
(Note: Clinton said "back to the issues" after a Black Lives Matter activist
confronted her over her super-predator remarks in the 1990s.)
De Blasio added, "Any suggestion that she's in anyone's pocket on the issue
of climate change or on any other issue is flat-out false and just
inappropriate."
Yet, the issue is not that she fails to recognize the severity of the threat
of climate change. The issue is that she may lack the political independence
necessary to take radical action necessary to significantly diminish the
impact of a future global catastrophe.
In 2015, Mother Jones reporters Paul Blumenthal and Kate Sheppard documented
the fossil fuel lobbyists raising money for her campaign. Lobbyists, who
helped Chevron "resist efforts to eliminate oil and gas tax breaks" and
"regulations to reduce carbon emissions," bundled funds. An executive at a
top liquefied national gas exporter, Cheniere Energy, which lobbied
Washington hard and won approval to export gas to countries not part of U.S.
free trade agreements, bundled funds. A well-known energy lobbyist, who
ExxonMobil retained to "increase the company's reach into the Democratic
Party," bundled funds for Clinton.
While Clinton was a senator, according to the League of Conservation Voters,
she voted for an "end to protections for Florida's Gulf Coast" in 2006. The
legislation opened up "8 million acres off the coasts of Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, and Louisiana for oil and gas drilling." She also voted against
a ban against a controversial oil and leasing program off the east coast of
the Gulf of Mexico, which President George W. Bush's administration proposed
in 2001 to allow offshore drilling.
The Sanders campaign has their own list of facts, which suggest how Clinton
may have been influenced by fossil fuel interests in the past. When she was
secretary of state, Clinton approved the Alberta Clipper, a tar sands
pipeline. The State Department also signed the U.S.-Mexico Transboundary
Hydrocarbons Argeeement, a deal which helped make drilling offshore in the
Gulf of Mexico easier for energy companies.
Clinton said she opposes TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline project because
it is a "distraction" from the work that has to be done on climate change.
But Mother Jones reported in 2015:
Bundler Gordon Giffin is a former lobbyist for TransCanada, the company
working to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Giffin sits on the
board of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, an investor in the pipeline.
The Canadian bank paid Clinton $990,000 for speeches in the months leading
up to her presidential announcement. Another Canadian financial institution
with an interest in Keystone XL, TD Bank, paid her $651,000 for speaking
engagements.
Just as voters are not supposed to fret over the speeches she gave to major
banks like Goldman Sachs for hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Clinton
campaign does not think voters should be concerned about these transactions.
Like Senator Barbara Boxer said of her speaking fees from Wall Street banks,
"She didn't do anything that other presidents and other secretaries of state
don't do."
Clinton insists, "You will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote
because of any donation that I ever received. And I have stood up and I have
represented my constituents to the best of my abilities, and I'm very proud
of that."
Similar to her 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton remains convinced there
is no such thing as dirty money. It's as if when the money ends up in the
war chests of the Clinton campaign and their network of super PACs the money
suddenly becomes funds, which will unquestionably be used for good. But that
is not how money in politics works.
Clinton does not depend upon small donations from individuals for her
election campaign. She depends upon the donations of corporate executives,
elite culture producers in the entertainment industry, and upper class
Americans. Many of her donors are part of the ruling class and have deep
investments in the status quo.
There is no evidence that Clinton is so virtuous that she can take millions
from these people and then turn around and advance social justice policies
against their interests. That is why democracy pledges like the one
Greenpeace wants presidential candidates to sign are important. Such pledges
force candidates to go on the record and break away from the system in order
to demonstrate they will not depend on corporate and special interests to
get elected president and will not owe any executives anything upon taking
office.
Copyright FDL Media Group C, All Rights Reserved.
Kevin Gosztola
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Clinton Believes She's Special Kind Of Politician Who Can't Be Influenced By
Money
Published on
Monday, April 04, 2016
by
Shadowproof
Clinton Believes She's Special Kind Of Politician Who Can't Be Influenced By
Money
by
Kevin Gosztola
. 10 Comments
.
. Hillary Clinton at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by
Gage Skidmore)
. If one listens to the remarks of Hillary Clinton, her campaign
staff, and any spokesperson from the network of super PACs helping her
challenge Bernie Sanders, it becomes clear they believe Clinton is a rare
and special breed of politician. They think she is someone who cannot, has
never been, and will never be corrupted by large sums of money given to her
by corporate and special interests.
. In particular, it does not matter to them if Clinton's super PACs
have accepted millions of dollars from lobbyists with ties to the fossil
fuel industry. It does not matter if executives of oil and gas companies
have supported the Clinton campaign by donating the maximum legal amount. To
them, Clinton is an altruistic public servant, a kind of role model in
American politics.
. There must be no reason to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens
United decision. The Democratic Party can simply educate up-and-coming
leaders on how to be like Clinton, and the stark influence of money in
politics will be reversed by the next generation of Progressives Who Can Get
Things Done.
. Of course, all of the above is ludicrous. Donations were made
because lobbyists and executives think Clinton will win the general
election, and they want to have a stake in whatever agenda she sets if she
becomes president.
Eva Resnick-Day, a Greenpeace activist, is one of many activists who
recognizes this is how money influences politics in the United States. She
asked Clinton if she would reject fossil fuel money in the future. Clinton
blew up and accused Resnick-Day of spreading the lies of the Sanders
campaign.
As she described on Greenpeace's website after video of her exchange with
Clinton went viral, "Greenpeace USA, along with 20 other organizations,
launched the pledge to #FixDemocracy, asking all presidential candidates to
reject future fossil fuel contributions, champion campaign finance reform,
and defend the right to vote for all."
The pledge was immediately signed by Sanders. The Clinton campaign responded
to the pledge but did not sign it. (None of the Republican candidates take a
position that climate change is real so, of course, neither Donald Trump,
Ted Cruz, nor John Kasich have signed the pledge.)
Hillary Clinton is personally aware that Greenpeace, 350 Action, and other
groups have showed up to debates, rallies, fundraisers, and events, which
she has attended. She knows they've tried to pressure her into signing the
pledge. Environmental activists also have asked her questions before, but
this time-perhaps because Sanders won five of the last six states in
landslide victories-Clinton thought the Sanders campaign had dispatched her
to mount an attack.
Quite a lot of the focus on this exchange has been on the fact that
corporations cannot donate directly to her campaign so Clinton cannot take
money from the fossil fuel industry. Yet, nobody has suggested that
corporations are donating directly to Clinton's campaign.
Greenpeace asserts, "Fifty-eight lobbyists that work for the coal, oil, and
gas companies have given $138,400 directly to the Clinton campaign.
Forty-seven of those lobbyists gave the maximum allowable amount - $2,700.
Eleven oil and gas industry lobbyists also bundled $1,327,210 for Clinton's
campaign as of the end of 2015. Bundling is a practice in which lobbyists
use their personal and professional networks to collect additional donations
for campaigns." (The advocacy group put together a list of in-house oil and
gas industry lobbyists and lobbyists hired by the oil and gas industry, who
have donated to the Clinton campaign.)
The main super PAC supporting Clinton, Priorities USA Action, has received
$3.25 million from fossil fuel interests.
But the establishment news media, in their fact checking, informed readers
the money is a tiny percentage-0.15 percent of Clinton's campaign and
outside PAC money is from the oil and gas industry.
In other words, $4.5 million from fossil fuel industry interests pales in
comparison to the tens of millions of dollars she has raised from
individuals with ties to financial institutions, including firms on Wall
Street.
The establishment news media contends Clinton has no control over donations
to super PACs because it is against the law to coordinate with super PACs,
like Priorities USA Action. However, one of the super PACs in her network of
dark money allies is Correct the Record. It has stretched the legal
boundaries of what coordination is allowed between a candidate's campaign
and a super PAC. Paul Ryan, a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center, has
argued the super PAC is "creating new ways to undermine campaign
regulation."
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio defended Clinton. "This attack is not
becoming of him, is not becoming of that movement to bring about more
progressive change. And I think we should just get back to the issues."
(Note: Clinton said "back to the issues" after a Black Lives Matter activist
confronted her over her super-predator remarks in the 1990s.)
De Blasio added, "Any suggestion that she's in anyone's pocket on the issue
of climate change or on any other issue is flat-out false and just
inappropriate."
Yet, the issue is not that she fails to recognize the severity of the threat
of climate change. The issue is that she may lack the political independence
necessary to take radical action necessary to significantly diminish the
impact of a future global catastrophe.
In 2015, Mother Jones reporters Paul Blumenthal and Kate Sheppard documented
the fossil fuel lobbyists raising money for her campaign. Lobbyists, who
helped Chevron "resist efforts to eliminate oil and gas tax breaks" and
"regulations to reduce carbon emissions," bundled funds. An executive at a
top liquefied national gas exporter, Cheniere Energy, which lobbied
Washington hard and won approval to export gas to countries not part of U.S.
free trade agreements, bundled funds. A well-known energy lobbyist, who
ExxonMobil retained to "increase the company's reach into the Democratic
Party," bundled funds for Clinton.
While Clinton was a senator, according to the League of Conservation Voters,
she voted for an "end to protections for Florida's Gulf Coast" in 2006. The
legislation opened up "8 million acres off the coasts of Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, and Louisiana for oil and gas drilling." She also voted against
a ban against a controversial oil and leasing program off the east coast of
the Gulf of Mexico, which President George W. Bush's administration proposed
in 2001 to allow offshore drilling.
The Sanders campaign has their own list of facts, which suggest how Clinton
may have been influenced by fossil fuel interests in the past. When she was
secretary of state, Clinton approved the Alberta Clipper, a tar sands
pipeline. The State Department also signed the U.S.-Mexico Transboundary
Hydrocarbons Argeeement, a deal which helped make drilling offshore in the
Gulf of Mexico easier for energy companies.
Clinton said she opposes TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline project because
it is a "distraction" from the work that has to be done on climate change.
But Mother Jones reported in 2015:
Bundler Gordon Giffin is a former lobbyist for TransCanada, the company
working to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Giffin sits on the
board of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, an investor in the pipeline.
The Canadian bank paid Clinton $990,000 for speeches in the months leading
up to her presidential announcement. Another Canadian financial institution
with an interest in Keystone XL, TD Bank, paid her $651,000 for speaking
engagements.
Just as voters are not supposed to fret over the speeches she gave to major
banks like Goldman Sachs for hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Clinton
campaign does not think voters should be concerned about these transactions.
Like Senator Barbara Boxer said of her speaking fees from Wall Street banks,
"She didn't do anything that other presidents and other secretaries of state
don't do."
Clinton insists, "You will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote
because of any donation that I ever received. And I have stood up and I have
represented my constituents to the best of my abilities, and I'm very proud
of that."
Similar to her 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton remains convinced there
is no such thing as dirty money. It's as if when the money ends up in the
war chests of the Clinton campaign and their network of super PACs the money
suddenly becomes funds, which will unquestionably be used for good. But that
is not how money in politics works.
Clinton does not depend upon small donations from individuals for her
election campaign. She depends upon the donations of corporate executives,
elite culture producers in the entertainment industry, and upper class
Americans. Many of her donors are part of the ruling class and have deep
investments in the status quo.
There is no evidence that Clinton is so virtuous that she can take millions
from these people and then turn around and advance social justice policies
against their interests. That is why democracy pledges like the one
Greenpeace wants presidential candidates to sign are important. Such pledges
force candidates to go on the record and break away from the system in order
to demonstrate they will not depend on corporate and special interests to
get elected president and will not owe any executives anything upon taking
office.
Copyright FDL Media Group C, All Rights Reserved.
