2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumPlease explain the relationship of her vote on cluster munitions to progressive or moderate politics
Here is the bill: the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act.
This was a single purpose amendment to a larger defense bill so was not part of an omnibus bill where she could have had mixed goals. This was an act to limit the use and transfer of cluster munitions to those munitions that have a 99% or higher reliability rate, would prohibit use of cluster munitions in areas where civilians are known to be present and would require a cleanup plan of cluster munition remnants if the US used cluster munitions.
Historically, cluster munitions are particularly troubling because they are left in place and affect civilians ... including those women and children that Hillary expresses she is a fighter for. It is a world wide issue and is the subject of numerous diplomatic attempts to take these munitions that affect civilians off the table.
Of all her warlike votes, this may be the worst. There was no progressive or liberal reason for anyone to vote against this amendment. Her vote was either because she is a defense hawk or because she wanted to look like one and not look soft. It is one of the worst weapons in the world. Hillary joined 15 other democrats and EVERY REPUBLICAN iN voting this way. Her democratic company included most of the conservative war democrats in the senate: lieberman, nelson, landrieu, pryor, shumer. Surprisingly it was a Feinstein introduced Amendment which shows that such munitions even concern people who generally are defense hawks.
And for you Clinton lovers who want to associate her fully with Obama. Of course he voted for the Ban because he does not have the war baggage she has. Hillary voted against banning these munitions and there really is no excuse for this vote.
Some links below on cluster bombs and the Bill.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2012106/hillary-and-cluster-bombs-is-this-what-we-want
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/21/425303/-Hillary-Clinton-Voted-to-Continue-Cluster-Bombing-Civilians
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251413864
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Divernan
(15,480 posts)Of course Senator Clinton did not expect her vote on cluster bombs to become an issue in a presidential campaign. But that vote is one of many examples in a pattern of indifference to the welfare of children in the Developing World. (For detailed descriptions of others, such as sanctions read the entire article at the link.)
Because Clinton is now taking credit for the White House years, when she was a partner in power, we should also look closely at the Clinton policy regarding landmines, an issue of great concern to parents, to all those who care for children. The U.S. is the leading manufacturer of landmines. For families across the rest of the globe, landmines are buried terror. More than 100 million landmines are deployed in over 60 countries worldwide--nine million in Angola, 10 million in Cambodia. About 20,000 M14 antipersonnel mines are buried in the mountain areas of Yong-do, South Korea. According to U.N. estimates, 26,000 people, mostly civilians in developing countries, are killed or mutilated by landmines every year. In rural areas landmines are so ubiquitous and lethal, peasants risk their lives to earn a living tilling the soil and planting crops.
The worldwide movement to ban landmines burgeoned in the Clinton years. It was a visionary U.S. citizen, Jody Williams of Vermont, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to end the ignominy of landmines. And it was primarily in defense of children that Princess Diana, speaking from a minefield in Angola, raised international awareness about devastation caused by weapons from the West.
In December 1997, 137 nations, more than two-thirds of the world, signed the Ottawa treaty, an agreement to ban the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel landmines. How did the Clintons respond to world opinion, to the humanitarian movement against landmines?
President Clinton flat out refused to become party to the Ottawa convention. As he put it, "I could not sign in good conscience the treaty banning landmines." In "good conscience"?! Are landmines good for children?
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/03/13/cluster-bombs-are-not-good-children-hillary
Divernan
(15,480 posts)Her toughest love of all? Her vote in support of cluster bombs!
On September 6, 2006, a Senate bill--a simple amendment to ban the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas--presented Senator Clinton with a timely opportunity to protect the lives of children throughout the world.
The cluster bomb is one of the most hated and heinous weapons in modern war, and its primary victims are children.
Senator Obama voted for the amendment to ban cluster bombs. Senator Clinton, however, voted with the Republicans to kill the humanitarian bill, an amendment in accord with the Geneva Conventions, which already prohibit the use of indiscriminate weapons in populated areas.
All senators are expected to inform themselves on the issues before they cast a vote. The evidence is overwhelming. It is hard to believe that Senator Clinton was unaware of the humanitarian crisis when she voted to continue the use of cluster bombs in cities and populated areas. A U.N. weapons commission called cluster bombs "weapons of indiscriminate effect." For years the international press reported the horrific consequences of cluster bombs on civilians. On April 10, 2003, for example, Asia Times described the carnage in Baghdad hospitals: "The absolute majority of patients are women and children, victims of shrapnel, and most of all, fragments of cluster bombs." Reporting from a hospital in Hillah, The Mirror, a British newspaper, became graphic: "Shrapnel peppered their bodies. Blackened the skin. Smashed heads. Tore limbs. A doctor reports that 'all the injuries you see were caused by cluster bombs. The majority of the victims were children who died because they were outside.'"
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/03/13/cluster-bombs-are-not-good-children-hillary
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)The special, oh so very special love she shows for all the little brown children she wants to make stronger, those that don't turn into brown hamburger that is.
She is so special, and her fans are so special that they see the value of taking care of woman and children first, never saying WHY THEY DO. But always first, when it comes to red mist time.
Hillary lovers that share this love of brown children will not answer these posts.
They never do.
Perhaps they are too modest to receive the thanks they deserve for all the special little presents they want to send to children across the world.
here is a nice sack of toys right here
and more here sent by Clinton's little Santa for all the brown kiddies to play with
Divernan
(15,480 posts)If we had debate questioners/news people with any balls, they'd flash that up on the screen at the next debate and ask her to comment on her vote.
thesquanderer
(11,989 posts)If only someone would bring it up in a debate or forum.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)Divernan
(15,480 posts)All these "I'm proud to stand with (fill in the blank) in support of Hillary Clinton" posters on DU vanish into thin air whenever her cluster bomb vote is cited and documented.
But Hillary isn't a racist? Give me a friggin' break!
As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. She spent the first 18 years of her life living with and desperately trying to please her sarcastic, mean-spirited, abusive, racist father. That poor, poor shredded dead child in the picture in this thread is one very small part of the long, wide and lethal shadow Hillary's abused childhood has cast upon not only her life, but tens of thousands of civilian victims of her aggressive, angry psyche. Her father was a bitter man who constantly ridiculed and demeaned his wife and children. According to statements by Bill, Hugh Rodham also physically abused his children.
As to being physically abused by her father, the following NYT excerpt was originally posted in the Hillary Clinton group:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110713163
The brusque son of an English immigrant and a coal miners daughter in Scranton, Pa., Mr. Rodham, for most of his life, harbored prejudices against blacks, Catholics and anyone else not like him. He hurled biting sarcasm at his wife and only daughter and spanked, at times excessively, his three children to keep them in line, according to interviews with friends and a review of documents, Mrs. Clintons writings and former President Bill Clintons memoir."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/us/politics/hillary-clinton-draws-scrappy-determination-from-a-tough-combative-father.html?_r=0
http://www.today.com/id/18984501/ns/today-today_books/t/bernstein-hillary-clintons-ambition/#.VrHGOkCnaDE
Who is Hillary Rodham Clinton? In his biography, A Woman in Charge, Carl Bernstein, who shared a Pulitzer Prize with Bob Woodward for their coverage of Watergate for The Washington Post, tries to answer that question. He follows her life from her childhood in the Midwest to her college days at Wellesley to Yale Law School, where she meets Bill Clinton, to Arkansas to the White House and to New York as a U.S. Senator. With Hillary Clinton running for president, Bernstein gives readers another perspective on her personal and public life. In Chapter One, he writes about her family.
Hillary Rodhams childhood was not the suburban idyll suggested by the shaded front porch and gently sloping lawn of what was once the family home at 235 Wisner Street in Park Ridge, Illinois. In this leafy environment of postwar promise and prosperity, the Rodhams were distinctly a family of odd ducks, isolated from their neighbors by the difficult character of her father, Hugh Rodham, a sour, unfulfilled man whose children suffered his relentless, demeaning sarcasm and misanthropic inclination, endured his embarrassing parsimony, and silently accepted his humiliation and verbal abuse of their mother.
Hugh Rodham, the son of Welsh immigrants, was sullen, tight-fisted, contrarian, and given to exaggeration about his own accomplishments. Appearances of a sort were important to him: he always drove a new Lincoln or Cadillac. But he wouldnt hesitate to spit tobacco juice through an open window. He chewed his cud habitually, voted a straight Republican ticket, and was infuriatingly slow to praise his children. He was rougher than a corncob and gruff as could be, an acquaintance once said. Nurturance and praise were left largely to his wife, whose intelligence and abilities he mocked and whose gentler nature he often trampled. Dont let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out, he frequently said at the dinner table when shed get angry and threaten to leave. She never left, but some friends and relatives were perplexed at Dorothys decision to stay married when her husbands abuse seemed so unbearable.
She would never say, Thats it. Ive had it, said Betsy Ebeling,* Hillarys closest childhood friend, who witnessed many contentious scenes at the Rodham dinner table. Sometimes the doorknob remark would break the tension and everybody would laugh. But not always.
By the time Hillary had reached her teens, her father seemed defined by his mean edges he had almost no recognizable enthusiasms or pretense to lightness as he descended into continuous bullying, ill-humor, complaint, and dejection. (*Ebeling is Betsys married name. Her maiden name was Johnson.)In fact, depression seemed to haunt the Rodham men. Hughs younger brother, Russell, a physician, was the golden boy of the three children of Hannah and Hugh Rodham Sr. of Scranton, Pennsylvania. When Russell sank into depression in 1948, his parents asked Hugh to return to Scranton to help. Only hours after his arrival, Russell tried to hang himself in the attic, and Hugh had to cut him down. Afterward, Russell went to Chicago to stay with Hugh, Dorothy, and their baby daughter in their already overcrowded one-bedroom apartment. For months, Russell received psychiatric treatment at the local Veterans Administration hospital. Eventually he moved to a dilapidated walk-up in downtown Chicago, worked as a bartender, and declined into alcoholism and deeper depression until he died, in 1962, in a fire that was caused by a lit cigarette.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)They're totally busy on this "berniebro" thing right now, but soon.
Honest.
Rilgin
(787 posts)I guess there are some things like supporting cluster munitions that it is almost impossible to come up with a reasonable spin.
It would be kind of fun to see what the Hillary camp can come up with to explain this vote.
Arazi
(6,829 posts)Rilgin
(787 posts)Arazi, you give a good reason to continue this thread. I think of all her votes and positions this is the clearest expression of her neo tendencies rather than progressive tendencies. More than the Iraq War Vote, more than any other single vote or position she has taken in the past. And I think Hillary supporters are sticking their fingers in their ears and eyes when looking at her history and humming "I cant hear you! I can't hear you! I cant hear you! so as to actually avoid looking at their candidate closely.
Someone who supports Hillary, please let us have some fun and tell us why this was a good vote and further how this places you as a progressive or even a moderate Please lets see what you can come up with.
(Sarcasm intended. The use of the word "fun" was not related to the subject of cluster munitions which is deadly serious but to the thought of a Clinton Supporter trying to justify their even potential use by the US in a civilian area).
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)that just keeps on giving.
They could also explain Bill Clinton could not in good conscious refuse to leave Easter egg hunt landmines to be found later by those with nothing else to look forward to other than hidden treasures.
"For The Clinton's so loved the world and it's children, that it gave it's everlasting gifts in time capsule form to the needy brown children abroad."
They are just full of something that couple, I hear they call it love. Tough love perhaps, but love. Only the strong can survive in war torn regions sitting on resources that belong to us, so what better gift to give the mothers and children than the gift of admittedly fewer but stronger mothers and children.
They could go on to explain how their heroes lovingly placed a hand grenade and a jack in the box full of wads of cash in their daughters stocking at Christmas time asking her to choose only one,to teach her the value of choosing to pull the pin on a hedge fund rather than a piece of munition as a life lesson that made her a stronger and wealthier adult having survived by choosing the correct gift.
It brings a tear to the eye how good and altruistic a couple they make.
olddots
(10,237 posts)Divernan
(15,480 posts)Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red& yellow,black & white
they're precious in his sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world
So what did they sing in Hillary's Washington, DC "fellowship" prayer meetings with the likes of Rick Santorum?
Jesus bombs the little children?
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)No, that's the answer. Really.
DerekG
(2,935 posts)I would just LOVE to hear them defend this madness.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)Arazi
(6,829 posts)Shameful actually that nobody's brave enough to at least acknowledge the horror Hillary Clinton's vote has wrought...
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)this evil.
CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)absolutely contemptible thing to do. And yet she tries to portray herself as a grandmother who cares about children. Phoney doesn't begin to cover it.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)There are campaign contributions to be had, doncha get it?
The United States is not only one of the world's largest manufacturers of cluster bombs, it's also one of the few states, along with Libya, not to sign the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. Which makes the hectoring of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for using such munitions against civilians ring hollow and hypocritical. If the Obama administration was really serious about banning their use in wartime, it would sign on to these international covenants.
But like a drug user, it can't. That's because American manufacturers love cluster bombs. They are small, cheap, and easy to make. Military honchos like them because they leave a large "footprint" and are versatile, if not very accurate. Against hard-to-find enemies that bleed into the population, they say it makes more sense to drop a thousand one-pound bombs than one thousand-pound bomb. Newer models have warheads whose shrapnel is able to pierce a 70-ton tank.
Last year, the U.S. Air Force reportedly spent billions of dollars to purchase a batch of 4,600 cluster bombs from Textron, a New England-based arms manufacturer that also supplies munitions to Turkey, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/04/16/hillary-clintons-cluster-bomb-hypocrisy.html
Rilgin
(787 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Arazi
(6,829 posts)then that explains why they continue to ignore this thread.
Because Pingate is ever so much more important than cluster bombs...
AM kick
reformist2
(9,841 posts)farleftlib
(2,125 posts)from the Hillary supporters. I wonder why...
Rilgin
(787 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/08/26/yemen-cluster-munition-rockets-kill-injure-dozens
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)SIGNATORY WARRANTED?
http://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1336&context=gjicl
Rilgin
(787 posts)Landmines are another heinous weapons type. The only reason I focused my OP on cluster munitions is that it was directly a Hillary Vote not one that they could say Hillary is not Bill.
It is clear that Bill and Hillary are a package but her supporters try to use Bill when they want and separate Hillary when its inconvenient to associate them together.
With cluster munitions there is a clear unambiguous vote of Hillary's on a single purpose humanitarian bill that directly contradicts the image she tries to create of a liberal/progressive fighter for children around the world.
As many of the responses show, a lot of us are waiting for one Hillary Supporter to try to come up with any explanation. Maybe one of them will surprise us with the the extent of their creativity.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)due to her husbands legacy. That is why I posted it, when you pair that with
her continued dismissal of Glass-Stegall one should be cautious of her
motives on her positions.
Rilgin
(787 posts)I do not know her current positions on landmines or Cluster Munitions after Bill Clinton left office and after she voted for the ban. I know in 2015 there was another attempt at passage of the ban on Cluster Munitions.
Her refusal to acknowledge Glass Stegall is another issue with Hillary altogether. In my late 20's I had the good fortune or misfortune to be a banking lawyer and knew quite a lot about banking regulation. In a summer law school job, I worked for a major law firm who had me read or scan every letter opinion since the 1930 to try to see how far banking deregulation had come.
Glass Stegall kept our banking system from massive failures from enactment through deregulation because each time corporate banking lawyers found loopholes, the loopholes were closed. It is no surprise we have had problems in the financial industry once they started to deregulate. America changed from a productive economy to a financial economy with all the gambling that entailed. Changing back will be very hard but necessary.
However, bank regulation is very complicated. The good news on this OP is that, unlike a lot of Hillary baggage there is a clear unambiguous vote against the ban on Cluster Munitions. A vote that clearly contradicts the type of image Hillary is trying to adopt and sell to the Democratic Party voters.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Rilgin
(787 posts)I ended up mostly doing real estate law and trying to flee the law although I cant seem to find something else.
I graduated law school in 1985. The summer project was in 1984 and I worked in a firm that represented the FDIC summer of 1985. My first two years out of school were with a big firm where I was in the banking department and a real estate department.
The banking group I was in was actually a fascinating group. It was headed by a lawyer named Roland Brandel who was actually the 3rd year associate assigned to incorporate mastercard (the first credit card). He was one of the more interesting people I ever met in the law and had a fascinating practice as well as being both a brilliant and emphatic man. At one point in those two years, I was assigned to re-write a chapter of his book. The chapter was on electronic funds privacy so I was probably at one time one of the nations experts in privacy law.
This was long ago and I really don't keep up with banking law as a lawyer since the 1990s. However, as a political matter, the project way back in 1984 when I read or scanned for relevancy every opinion letter of the Federal Reserve and the Controller of the Currency had a huge impact on my political views on banking regulation and de-regulation. Basically, all the way till the end of Carter, every request to expand what a bank could do was met with a solid "no" from the regulators. In 1980 as you could expect since Reagen came into office, the tenor of the responses changed so that they started to deregulate administratively. The reason they had me reviewing these opinions was to advice a major bank (the law firm and bank were BIG) as to how far deregulation had proceeded so I got to see how stable the banking system had been for years and how deregulation undermined that stability.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)the professor level..he's more like a forensics fanatic and I have yet
to see anyone prove him nor his colleagues wrong..what is not to love
unless you're protecting fraudulent actors?
from the OP: The Whistleblowers United 60-Day Plan:
Restore the mandatory criminal referral process and Criminal Referral Coordinators at every financial regulatory agency
Require that all new hires agree to conditions that will end the revolving door with no provision for waivers.
The FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) will publicly terminate their partnership with the Mortgage Bankers Association the industry trade association which has a clear conflict of interest and harms prioritization by pushing solely for the prosecution of what should be far lower priority cases of crimes v. banks and never for the prosecution of what should be the highest priority cases of frauds led by banks senior officers
Ban DOJ from making deferred prosecution agreements with elite white-collar criminals
Reassign 500 FBI agents to the white-collar crime section
Request authority from Congress to hire 3,000 FBI agents, 250 DOJ attorneys, 250 SEC investigators and enforcers.
This is the only portion of our plan requiring legislation.
Stop prosecuting the mortgage fraud mice and use all DOJ and FBI resources against the fraud lions
Rescind the FBIs false claim on its web site that asserts:
Ethnic groups involved in mortgage loan origination fraud include North Korean, Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Lithuanian, Mexican, Polish, Middle Eastern, Chinese, and those from the former Republic of Yugoslavian States.
Anyway, a pleasure to converse with you and I appreciate your OP, thanks.
EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)kath
(10,565 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Rilgin
(787 posts)SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)Arazi
(6,829 posts)farleftlib
(2,125 posts)and not one comment from a HRC fan?
Arazi
(6,829 posts)Rilgin
(787 posts)It is probably really hard for HRC supporters when the carefully constructed image of Hillary runs into some of her truly contradictory acts, votes and positions of her past. There are some things that Hillary believes in and has done in her life however there is a lot of bad. Her attempts to avoid her corporate and defense hawk past is what is truly problematic. She knows it is a big problem and makes her a bad candidate for the Democratic Party as she was in 2008. Her supporters have to close so much of their eyes and ears to make her a good candidate and simple direct shameful votes like this one for Cluster Munitions (or the Clinton Administration support for landmines as has been mentioned above) make it very hard.
At some point we can probably help out and try to invent creative explanations like she thought it was about Chocolate Clusters for all.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)This is the decent actual progressives, liberals, and socialists calling. Is there a single one of you Hillary people that will step up to the task of explaining this?
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)she wanted to bomb Iran too
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Purveyor
(29,876 posts)Arazi
(6,829 posts)Kick
Almost 850 views and nary a Clinton supporter in sight
farleftlib
(2,125 posts)for exposure of an important topic.