Showing posts with label influence peddling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label influence peddling. Show all posts

Friday, April 1, 2016

Clinton Meltdown


Hillary Clinton doesn't do fake populism very well under pressure:



Politicians who are as well tested and vetted and seasoned as she claims to be simply should not lose their cool like this on the campaign trail. She is, of course, under extreme pressure. Not only is the FBI closing in on her over her email server, she is being forced to challenge Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders at the same time in her own "home" state. For once in her life, she is on the receiving end of triangulation. This must not feel very pleasant to a woman so used to being protected in a bubble for the past several decades.

Maybe she can use the Affluenza defense to explain her over-the-top reaction to Greenpeace activist Eva Resnick Day, who simply challenged Clinton to divest herself of political contributions from the fossil fuel industry. When Hillary sputtered that she has contributions from "people" in the polluting industry rather than contributions from the actual industry itself, she sounded just like Donald Trump. How many times does Trump, too, answer every difficult question with: "I have people?"

How many times does Trump, too, deflect difficult questions with claims that the opposition is always lying about him?

Rather than engage with her questioner, Hillary snapped: "I  am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me!"

The trouble is, Resnick-Day is not even connected to the Sanders campaign. (Hillary and her supporters in the  media are wont to pigeonhole all her critics as rabid "Bernie Bros") The trouble is, fossil fuel industry contributions to both the Clinton campaign and the Clinton family foundation have been well-documented.

Resnick-Day has written about her exchange with Clinton on the Greenpeace website:
Today, I said to Hillary, “Thank you for tackling climate change. Will you act on your words and reject future fossil fuel money in your campaign?” I was genuinely shocked by her response. But I want to make sure we are focused on the issue at hand: asking our candidates to take a stand to fix our democracy. Rejecting fossil fuel money sends a strong signal.
Greenpeace, 350 Action, and dozens of concerned activists have been attending events, rallies, debates, and fundraisers for many months asking Hillary Clinton to reject fossil fuel money in her campaign. This is by no means the first time that we asked her the question. In fact, last night, more than  40 activists gathered outside of a Clinton Fundraiser at the Dakota, asking Senator Clinton to come out and talk to the people she is fighting for.
She did not cross the street to talk to us.
To be clear, we are talking about more than just individual contributions from oil and gas employees. According to data compiled by Greenpeace’s research department, Secretary Clinton’s campaign and the Super PAC supporting her have received more than $4.5 million from the fossil fuel industry during the 2016 election cycle. Eleven registered oil and gas industry lobbyists have bundled over 1 million dollars to her campaign.
If she takes the pledge, she’ll be sending a strong signal to our country and fossil fuel companies that it’s time to keep it in the ground, not just for the future of our planet, but for people that are living on it.
Hillary Clinton's unhinged response to a polite request by an environmentalist -- to lead by example and to help save the planet --  should be the turning point in her misbegotten quest for the White House. She possesses neither the temperament nor the ethics to be president.

Even if she ultimately wins this rigged election, any popular mandate she boasts from her millions of primary votes is rapidly being squandered.