Clinton’s running mate is a catholic “personally against abortion, but…” writes informed consent and parental consent restrictions against the practice. He favors deregulating banks and businesses.
Meanwhile, Trump (at one particular moment) said he was “pro choice in every respect.”
I think this represents Clinton throwing half of her constituency (women) under the bus so she can edge toward the undecided anti-abortion conservatives that are terrified of Trump. If that’s what’s going on, it’s not just cynical, it’s disgustingly cynical.
So: women should be regulated, banks not.
How many women have caused Great Recessions?
(Fwliw: I read Kaine’s ticket to ride the Clinton Express as an attempt to sway some part of the southern states. “Balance”, they useta call it.)
Pierce Butler@#1:
How many women have caused Great Recessions?
Queen Victoria wasn’t so hot – she let her military/industrial complex run away with things “a bit”…
I agree, it’s an attempt to pick up uncertain evangelicals who are repelled by Trump. And I thought I was cynical. I guess I’m only jaded.
Whaddya expect, to achieve anything a politician has to first get elected. The problem isn’t so much Ms Clinton as the millions of stupid f*cking conservatives she has to pander to to get into power.
#3
But to that end, she should have gone after the progressive vote that flocked to Bernie and who are now bereft of any candidate that represents them. Although I guess that would mean taking someone that is anti-establishment, and is far from the votes she has ever courted.
Lofty@#3:
The problem isn’t so much Ms Clinton as the millions of stupid f*cking conservatives she has to pander to to get into power.
Yeah, the ends do justify the means.
So, as I understand it, Clinton’s calculus is that Bernie’s supporters will vote for her over Trump no matter what, so she’s better off appealing to uneasy conservatives by picking Kaine. Let’s all hope that progressives don’t just stay home come election day for lack of a compelling ticket because I’m not certain the uneasy conservatives can make up for the disillusioned progressives.
She may be right, but that is a very cynical calculus. Disgustingly cynical, indeed.
Not really surprised. In the (slightly larger) chance that she does win the presidency you can kiss all of those progressive promises she made goodbye. Since the DNC put all their eggs in a single basket (funneling money away from down ticket democrats and into her campaign), she’ll likely face a Republican congress, an uphill battle that she probably won’t even try to win (cos she so pragmatic u guys!).
Those same R’s that will pretend-fight her on gay rights, abortion rights and so on will fall in line with any war, trade deal, arms deal and military intervention she proposes. Donors work tirelessly across the aisle, and that’s where the money is.
It’ll be interesting to see how much of a liberal she still is in November, and if there actually is a point where her die-hard fans actually take pause and look at their hero for what she really is.
On the other hand, her losing to Trump is not exactly impossible either, I guess that the democratic loyalists really wanted a nail-biter election so they picked the only idiot who could possibly lose to him.
Bruce H@#6:
Clinton’s calculus is that Bernie’s supporters will vote for her over Trump no matter what, so she’s better off appealing to uneasy conservatives by picking Kaine
Apparently Kaine is pretty popular in Virginia, so that may tip an otherwise marginal state into her camp.
“realistic” verging on “realpolitik”
After being cheated twice of the power that she so clearly deserves, Hillary’s not leaving anything to chance.
She’ll make a better president than Trump, the perpetual war party will love her, the pentagon will continue to suck up a huge piece of the economy, and so forth. Let’s hope she’s learned a thing or two from watching Bush.
I can only hope the gamble works, but that Keane/Cain/Whatsit? gets to be the usual bucket of lukewarm spit, while Warren gets put in charge of something that matters – like, say, the banks.
Excuse me, I’ll just go feed my unicorn-farting rainbow now.
Sili@#9:
while Warren gets put in charge of something that matters – like, say, the banks.
Now why on earth would Clinton want to antagonize the banks that way? That’s not realistic or practical.
Pierce R. Butler @1: Krugman:
I suppose supporting Dodd-Frank with some softened rules for community banks and credit unions could be rendered as “favors deregulating banks and businesses”, but it’s a bit misleading, don’t you think?
Rob Grigjanis @12:
He says your “Regional Bank” (with could have assets of billions of dollars, depending on the region) shouldn’t be beholden to consumer protection laws. That is literally “favors deregulating banks and so on…” it’s not in any way misleading to say it because that’s what he does.
If by “misleading” you mean “yeah, that’s that he’s doing, I just don’t think it’s bad” you should just illuminate us, give us your best argument of how deregulation is actually good and customer protection is bad and how this is not exactly what a republican would say on this topic.
A Lurker from mexico @13:
No, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that “favors deregulating banks and businesses” is ridiculously vague and simplistic. Does he want to repeal Dodd-Frank? Does he want to let Goldman Sachs off the hook? Well, they’re a bank, so according to Marcus and you, I guess he must.
As to whether the letters to Yellen and Cordray were “good” or “bad”, I’m not qualified to say, but that rarely stops folk in FtB offering their opinions, so I’ll provisionally go with “bad”.
“Does he want to let Goldman Sachs of the hook?”
So he wants to deregulate banks on principle. The only exceptions to this principle are the 6 largest banks. Got it, he doesn’t (right now) want to let Goldman Sachs off the hook, just everyone else.
“The big bank letter would help major firms including Capital One, PNC Bank and U.S. Bank, all of which control hundreds of billions of dollars in assets. Such large “regional banks,” Kaine writes, are being discriminated against based solely on the fact that they are so big.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tim-kaine-clinton-vp_us_578fc8e3e4b0bdddc4d2c86c
If another great recession was in the making right now, Dodd-Frank would be worth shit. It simply can’t prevent a financial crisis. That Kaine doesn’t -explicitly- want to get rid of the little, mostly symbolic, regulation left is not much of a point in his favor.
A Lurker from mexico @15: Here’s a link (PDF) to the letter to Yellen. I see no reference to Capital One, PNC, etc in there, so it seems the HuffPo author decided that these are “regional banks”. Maybe I’m missing something in the terminology, but there’s nothing regional about them, as far as I can tell.
So far, my response is similar to that of a Daily Kos writer;
HuffPo shitstirring.
From the letter: “We therefore urge you to con sider altering the reporting requirement for all regional institutions with a similar business model, regardless of asset threshold”
PNC, for example, is technically a “regional institution”. That it has assets of $358 billion is apparently not enough reason to pay close attention to them.
Before you get all “But the Huffington Post is shit-stirring, how do they know that it’s a regional bank bla bla bla”.
“The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (PNC) is a regional banking organization headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”
https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/reform/resplans/plans/pnc-idi-1312.pdf
According to the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, PNC is a regional bank. I don’t fucking know what or who placed them in that category. Still, there it is.
I’ve known of so many examples of corporations claiming this or that regulation will kill them (minimum wage, pay equity, etc) and it never happens. Kaine argues that regulation will hurt “small” banks. Please excuse my skepticism, I’ve heard that one before, Republicans played it better.
That he made abstinence-only sex ed a part of his platform and him being pro-life don’t help his case, either.
Nonsense. The resolution plans are written by the companies, so it’s “according to” PNC, not the Fed. If I were Yellen or a journalist with any fucking integrity, I would send a request for clarification to Kaine and the others on what exactly they mean by “regional” and “systemically important”, rather than do the internet gotta jump to conclusions immediately thing.
Gosh, I wonder how he’s felt about abstinence-only sex ed since 2007, and to what extent he’s pro-choice. If only there were some way to find out.
A Lurker from mexico: My apologies. Further poking around has convinced me that PNC is indeed generally considered a regional bank. More later.
What’s your effing point? That one particular moment was not recent, and he has thoroughly and explicitly reversed himself on that issue.
Rob Grijanis
This is a bit of a problem I keep seeing. Every single fucking time there is ANY criticism of Clinton and her stooges, it’s a right-wing talking point or republican smear-job. You didn’t quite get there but Jesus Fuck you were close. Your immediate assumption was “HuffPo shitstirring” even though Huffington Post has been very much in Clinton’s side for a while now, if there were a bias it would be in her favor.
I’ve had people tell me that the Syrian No-Fly zone, her involvement in the Honduras coup, her ties to Wall St., her being pro-fracking are all Right-Wing Talking Points without a shred of evidence. When was the last time you heard O’Reilly even mention Honduras? When was the last time a republican attacked corporatism? This shit just doesn’t fucking happen, yet, the dumber half of liberals keep that assumption nonetheless.
This is what actually makes Clinton more dangerous than Trump. Every time she tries some bullshit on war, corporatism, interventionism or crony capitalism, she’ll be backed by republicans who love that shit and idiot liberals too fucking blind to see the flaws in their hero.