Hillary Clinton's Sorry ... Good for Her!

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Tuesday September 08, 2015 · 4:28 PM PDT

2015/09/08 · 16:28

As a great fan and supporter of Hillary Clinton, I'm delighted to see that she has finally come forward to acknowledge that the privately operated email server was a mistake.

Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized Tuesday for using a private email server while she was secretary of state, calling it a “mistake” – uttering words that many of her allies had wanted to hear from her in hopes that they would quell the controversy that has dogged her presidential candidacy for weeks.
...

“That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility,” Mrs. Clinton

Lest you think this is diabolical Clintonesque spin in the face of bad news, let me point to a comment I posted over 2 weeks ago, suggesting that an apology was in order for her own sake. To many of her honest supporters, it was clear that the right road forward for Hillary was to acknowledge, apologize and re-build trust.

While some Clinton supporters did make the defensive argument that any weakness would be seized on by the enemy, Hillary's apology is the best thing that could have happened to the campaign for three reasons:

1. An apology is the right thing to do. The personal server was ill-advised, and put the nation's secrets at jeopardy.

2. Hillary has lost a lot of credibility over this. The earlier she can start rebuilding towards a position of trust, the better it is for all of us Democrats. I want all our potential nominees to be as strong as they can get!

3. Hillary Clinton is a remarkable woman who is much bigger than this ill-thought snafu. I sincerely hope she can make this a teachable moment on cyber-security for the benefit of the country.

Bronxist

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Friday March 23, 2012 · 9:08 AM PDT

2012/03/23 · 09:08

How many people are poor or hungry in the world? Has the world changed for the better or the worse?

While there are strong opinions on both sides, most developmental experts regard the picture as mixed, but still very dire. Even though the World Bank reports some progress on fighting poverty, near half the world still lives on less than 2 dollars a day.

Think about that slowly: 2.5 BILLION people live on less than 2 dollars a day

And that is not Two American Dollars converted to a pot of local currency.

It is 2 dollars in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP); in other words, 2 dollars worth of stuff as can be bought in the US. And we're celebrating now because the number of people that live below $1.25 (PPP) a day has come down! As Adam Parsons writes in CounterPunch:

Many critics have pointed out that the Bank’s poverty line, once fixed at $1 a day and now modified to $1.25 a day, is outrageously low by any standards. Living on this amount of money in the United States would be unthinkable, but according to the ‘purchasing power parity’ adjustment that the Bank uses – based on the differences in the prices of household consumption goods and services in different countries – this is effectively what this means. Contrary to popular perception, the world poverty measure is based on what $1.25 a day would buy in the United States, not in another country like Ethiopia or Peru.

How can we end the Hunger Games of showing progress by selectively counting the poor below absurd levels of subsistence? And in a world where the resources required to feed these people is miniscule compared to Apple's cash hoard?

Follow me past the orange croissant of plenty and I'll tell you about an inspiring woman who speaks effectively about how The Hunger Games can end.

Bronxist

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Thursday November 10, 2011 · 7:23 AM PST

2011/11/10 · 07:23

Broadcast Email from Team Perry to any remaining Friends and Supporters:

Friend & Supporter,
We’ve all had human moments. President Obama is still trying to find all 57 states. Ronald Reagan got lost somewhere on the Pacific Highway in an answer to a debate question. Gerald Ford ate a tamale without removing the husk. And tonight Rick Perry forgot the third agency he wants to eliminate. Just goes to show there are too damn many federal agencies.

The governor said it best afterwards: “I’m glad I had my boots on, because I sure stepped in it tonight.”

While the media froths over this all too human moment, we thought we would take this opportunity to ask your help in doing something much more constructive: write us to let us know what federal agency you would most like to forget.

Is it the EPA and its job-killing zealots? The NLRB and its czar-like dictates? The edu-crats at the Department of Education who aim to control your local curriculum?

Send your answer to forgetmenot@rickperry.org, and if you are on twitter join us in using a new twitter hashtag: #forgetmenot. And, if you could, throw in a $5 contribution for every agency you would like to forget. We hope you have a long list. And we promise we will write down every last idea. So we don’t forget.

Still standing in our Boots,

Team Perry

I'm sure you're thinking, "Jeez, no one like a conservative to stand up and own his mistakes!"

But did you spot the weirdness in the email above?

Bronxist

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Friday October 28, 2011 · 4:12 PM PDT

2011/10/28 · 16:12

Remember all that outrage on DailyKos over Bank of America's decision to charge a measly $5 a month for the convenience of holding debit cards? Recall how crazy people got 'cuz CEO Brian Moynihan got incensed that his people were getting dissed as too greedy?

Well you can suck it up Mr Dodd and Mr Frank because Bank of America is going on a charm offensive.

Bank of America is considering softening its controversial policy of charging some customers for making purchases with their debit cards, according to a person familiar with the bank's plans.

("some customers" = anyone without a premier account, also known as "most customers".)

It may be hard to believe, but Bank of America still has customers. They are comprised in equal parts by folks too busy, too lazy or too clueless to move money to the nearby credit union.

These lucky customers now have a great shot at being the recipient of the debit card fee forgiveness courtesy their friendly neighborhood TBTF Bank.

Poll

92 votes Show Results

Can you guess Bank of America's next PR move?

92 votes Vote Now!

Can you guess Bank of America's next PR move?

Debt forgiveness for America's CEOs

16 votes

Free! Toys for the Childless this Christmas

2 votes

Winter Special: Air Conditioning At Zuccotti Park

8 votes

BAC Credit Default Swaps - Backed by Bank of America!

15 votes

Pie At the Shareholder Meeting

11 votes

All of the above

40 votes

Like What You Have? Keep it! Like What I have? Take it!

Bronxist

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 24, 2011 · 8:20 PM PDT

2011/10/24 · 20:20

Rick Perry will have you know that his world is flat.

Flat as pancake and flatter than Herman Cain's bald head, and god yes, way flatter than Romney's humor or Huntsman's electoral pulse.

Unless you like the world the way it is, bumps and all, in which case he'll let you know that it is bumpy, bumpier than a Republican front-runner's poll numbers, way way bumpier than how the dog felt tied to the top of Romney's car.

In a nutshell (a most appropriate receptacle), Mr Perry's tax plan announced in the Wall Street Journal today promises to be whatever you want it to be, only more so.

If you read the title and assumed I was quoting Emma Goldman or St. Francis, I apologize. But if you join me below the fold, we can talk about the Radical Miracle-Monger from Texas and his plan to come back from the Dead in the Republican Primary.

Bronxist

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Sunday September 27, 2009 · 9:10 AM PDT

2009/09/27 · 09:10

In the New York Times this morning, Frank Rich writes:

Most worrisome, in Goldstein’s view, is the notion that a recycling of America’s failed "clear and hold" strategy in Vietnam could work in Afghanistan. How can American forces protect the population, let alone help build a functioning nation, in a tribal narco-state consisting of some 40,000 mostly rural villages over an area larger than California and New York combined?

Many reputed analysts doubt the success of our Afghan strategy with or without a surge, and see withdrawal as inevitable, sooner-or-later.

It puzzles me that a third-way forward is never discussed -- treating the Afghan problem as a regional problem whose solution is of far greater importance to Pakistan, Iran, Russia, India and China than it is to the United States.

Poll

19 votes Show Results

Why are Afghanistan's neighbors not involved in the solution?

19 votes Vote Now!

Why are Afghanistan's neighbors not involved in the solution?

The regional powers would never find common cause and impetus to joint action

4 votes

The West would rather fail by itself than succeed in alliance with someone else

2 votes

You will be talking about the United Nations next! NATO is the new United Nations!

0 votes

Obama would never win another election if he got into a room with Russia, China and IRan

3 votes

Oil. It's all about oil. Somehow.

4 votes

Obama is methodical and pragmatic. He'll try out a regional solution if that has a chance of success.

6 votes

Pie. Why don't we drop them some pie.

0 votes

Beg for my f**king money, Santelli! (w/ Poll)

Bronxist

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Wednesday March 04, 2009 · 9:14 AM PST

2009/03/04 · 09:14

I've been hearing on the street that the giant conglomerate GE may need more capital.

UBS analyst Jason Feldman said GE may need to raise capital despite the expected $9.0 billion annually in savings resulting from Friday’s dividend cut. (See "GE Turns On The Thrift.") Feldman believes the cut was "necessary and prudent action" and "may mitigate the extent of a credit rating downgrade, but said that first-quarter results may yet warrant a downgrade. "We expect investor dialog to shift to whether General Electric needs more capital, and if so, how much," he noted.

Poll

162 votes Show Results

Do we really want to give GE a handout?

162 votes Vote Now!

Do we really want to give GE a handout?

No. Let them hold a fundraising Tea Party

85 votes

Only if they send Rick Santelli to personally beg for it

32 votes

Not even if they send Rick Santelli to personally beg for it

40 votes

Sure, why not. Everyone else got theirs.

3 votes

Pie

2 votes

We hold the world ransom for a TRILLION Dollars!

Bronxist

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Friday February 20, 2009 · 10:42 AM PST

2009/02/20 · 10:42

The New York Times reports another Trillion Dollar package:

Banking chiefs, who have come under sharp criticism for not making more loans even as they have accepted billions of taxpayer dollars to prop themselves up, say it is the markets, not the banks, that are squeezing American borrowers.

The Obama administration hopes to jump-start this crucial machinery by effectively subsidizing the profits of big private investment firms in the bond markets. The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve plan to spend as much as $1 trillion to provide low-cost loans and guarantees to hedge funds and private equity firms that buy securities backed by consumer and business loans.

The Fed is expected to start the first phase of the program, which will provide $200 billion in loans to investors, in early March.

There is a lot of outrage on the street about this as a huge giveaway to giant corporations.

My read -- well-intentioned but ill-fated.

Poll

25 votes Show Results

My simplistic answer

25 votes Vote Now!

My simplistic answer

Nationalize!

20 votes

Appropriate the appropriaters!

0 votes

More TARP!

0 votes

More TALF!

0 votes

Canada!

2 votes

Canada and Pie!

3 votes

Just need to Vent: BO and the HBO Sellout ...

Bronxist

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday January 19, 2009 · 6:43 PM PST

2009/01/19 · 18:43

Hi Barack,

You were smart enough to run an inclusive campaign that relied on word of mouth marketing, Youtube, email and volunteers. You raised a Billion Dollars without once having to sell yourself cheap to the highest corporate bidder.

What happened?

The concert at Lincoln Memorial was one of the most anticipated events of your inauguration in its historic significance linking memories of Lincoln and FDR, Seeger and Springsteen, Dr King and Kennedy and so much more.

That moment was not yours to sell ... that belonged to the entire nation. It just boggles my mind that the exclusive right to televise that event could belong to a corporation.

Ok. I can reconcile myself to corporate sponsorship, even ownership of our most cherished memories, but not to DUMB corporate sponsorship!

Poll

98 votes Show Results

All future concerts, speeches and other public events shall be:

98 votes Vote Now!

All future concerts, speeches and other public events shall be:

Distributed on broadcast and cable TV, as well as streamed over the web

61 votes

Sold to the highest bidder

19 votes

Pie

18 votes

This really happened to my friend Rob the Republican

Bronxist

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Thursday October 30, 2008 · 8:41 AM PDT

2008/10/30 · 08:41

I received an email from my friend Rob the Republican.

Now, Rob is not a bad guy ... just someone blind in his love for John the Prisoner and Sarah the Hokey-Mom. They have him convinced that raising the top tax rate from 36% to 39% is the difference between capitalism and communism. And that Jesus the Carpenter could not have hired 12 Apostles without tax breaks for the wealthy.

In the interests of my substantial soul and evanescent bank balance, Rob is always trying to convert me to the true path.

Bronxist

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Thursday October 02, 2008 · 10:09 AM PDT

2008/10/02 · 10:09

This sounds like bad news for Begich - but it is good news for those who believe in the power of prayer.

Politicoreports that

Prosecutors disclosed this morning that they hadn't given defense lawyers exculpatory information from an FBI interview with Bill Allen, the Justice Department's star witness in the case. Allen, the former CEO of Veco Corp., an Alaska oil services company, has testified that his former company, with Stevens' knowledge, paid more than $180,000 to cover the costs of renovating Stevens' home in Girdwood, Alaska. DOJ alleges that Stevens did not report the gifts from Allen, Veco and others on his annual financial disclosure reports. Stevens has denied the charges.

Allen reportedly told an FBI agent that Stevens would have paid the full cost of the renovations if he had known about it, information that prosecutors did not share with Stevens' attorneys until near midnight on Wednesday.

Bronxist

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Tuesday September 30, 2008 · 7:11 PM PDT

2008/09/30 · 19:11

After several days of intense planning, discussions and negotiations, several Progressive members of Congress and their grass-roots allies are close to announcing a Rescue Package For America's Homeowners.

The best part of this package is that it punishes those that knowingly tried to game the system, while rescuing only innocent homebuyers that were huckstered by Wall Street Greed. And did I mention that it costs the American Taxpayer nothing - yup! zippo.

There are 5 Key Steps to this Rescue Package that deliberately parallel the brilliant "No Bailouts Act" from Pete DeFazio, Donna Edwards and Marcy Kaptur, among others, released earlier today.

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Hillary Clinton's Sorry ... Good for Her!

The Hunger Games and the Amazing Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Mystery of Agency #3: Another Human Moment

VICTORY: Bank of America to Rescind Debit Card Fees

Like What You Have? Keep it! Like What I have? Take it!

A Third Way for Afghanistan?

Beg for my f**king money, Santelli! (w/ Poll)

We hold the world ransom for a TRILLION Dollars!

Just need to Vent: BO and the HBO Sellout ...

This really happened to my friend Rob the Republican

The Power of Prayer: Stevens Trial May Be Dismissed

The No-Lockout 5 Step Progressive Housing Rescue!