Hillary Clinton Hits Republican Candidates Over Voting Rights - KMBZ

 

-- Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton gave remarks at the Alabama Democrats Convention Saturday afternoon where she called out GOP candidates on voting right laws that she say are “a blast from the Jim Crow past.”

Her visit to Alabama comes the same month Alabama Governor Robert Bentley decided to close 31 DMVs across the state, including in every county where African Americans make up at least 75 percent of the population.

Clinton, who has made voting rights a cornerstone issue in her campaign, called the governor to re-open the offices and said these laws are "constructed today to discourage even intimidate people from voting.”

“It’s time for your governor and legislators to not only listen to their constituents but listen to their conscience about what it means to be a leader,” she said. "Those offices should stay open and not just for one day a month."

Clinton tied Donald Trump and the Koch brothers together, noting that at the end of the day they also only get one vote.

"We may be up against super pacs and billionaires, but when the election comes around, Donald Trump and the Koch brothers, and all their money, only get one vote each just like everybody else,” she said. “One person, one vote. That’s what we believe. No one should be able to take that vote away. That’s why we cannot turn away, close our eyes from all the voting rights.. that are happening right now.”

Clinton also hit Jeb Bush for saying he wouldn’t reinstate the Voting Rights Act, noting that George W. Bush did.

"Now Jeb Bush says he wouldn’t reauthorize the voting rights act,” Clinton said. "I voted to reauthorize the voting rights act when I was in the US senate and President George W Bush signed it so he clearly thought it was still needed and this idea we don’t need it anymore … if the law is working, we should let it keep working.”

Marco Rubio and John Kasich were also targeted by Clinton for not caring about new voting right laws.

"When asked recently about voter ID laws, Rubio replied 'what’s the big deal?' Kasich restricted early voting in Ohio when 77 percent of early voters in the most popular county were African American,” Clinton said. “What part of democracy are these Republicans afraid of? I’ve won elections, and I’ve lost elections, but I sure feel better when as many people as possible show up and raise their voice.”

Hillary Clinton Hits Republican Candidates Over Voting Rights - KMBZ

The GOP’s entire identity is based on a lie: How the Obama presidency exposed Republican deficit delusions - Salon.com

 

Following the first Democratic debate, Fox News and the broader conservative ecosystem erupted in a coordinated effort to paint the Democrats as frivolous spenders, handing out free stuff to everyone without bothering to discuss how they’d pay for it. However, the irony of this attack is thick, given how the Democrats have taken up the burden of fiscal responsibility in the modern era. The Republican Party has no choice but to dig deeply into the history books to find the last GOP president who actually bothered to leave the deficit in better shape than when he was inaugurated. Meanwhile, President Obama, like President Clinton before him, has seen the federal budget deficit fall by record numbers.

According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch site, the federal government ran up a deficit of $439 billion for the 2015 fiscal year. That’s 2.5 percent of GDP, which is the lowest level since 2007. Why is this significant? The Obama administration inherited a $1.4 trillion (with a “t”) budget deficit — driven in large part by stimulus spending meant to combat the financial crisis — which authorized George W. Bush in October 2008.

Since then, Obama has presided over a gradual $1 trillion-dollar reduction in the deficit. Insofar as deficit reduction is important — and remember, according to the rhetoric of the GOP over the past several years, it is very important — this is a massive achievement for the Obama administration. Massive. And neither he nor the Democrats will get any credit for it.

Chart via Steve Benen

If Mitt Romney’s lies about the deficit in 2012 were a predictor of the GOP’s attack plan for 2016, we can expect to hear the Republican ticket attack both Obama and the Democratic nominee on this very issue. But they won’t cite deficit numbers because, well, they’re not nearly as dumb as they look. Instead, they’ll recycle the Romney tactic of conflating the deficit and the national debt — two entirely separate numbers.

For example, Romney said during his first debate against Obama in 2012: “The president said he’d cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, he doubled it.” Well, no. The deficit wasn’t “doubled” at all. It was the debt that rose, but analysts have repeatedly shown that the chief drivers of national debt were George W. Bush’s wars, Medicare Part-D (a Bush-era policy) and the impact of the Great Recession — none of which was offset with higher taxes or spending cuts. Obama can hardly be blamed for all that.

Not insignificantly, though, the Obama administration’s deficit reduction has slowed the growth of the debt. In fact, the year-over-year increase in the debt has slowed to 10 percent. Compare that with the highest growth rate for the debt ever — 13.4 percent per year under, yes, Ronald Reagan. We’ll circle back to comparing the records of recent presidents in a second.

Meanwhile, contra Romney, Obama promised to cut the deficit in half, and he did. It took him five years instead of four, but he did it. Suffice to say, when you hear the GOP talk about government spending, listen for their deliberate swapping of the terms “deficit” and “debt.” They do it a lot.

The GOP’s entire identity is based on a lie: How the Obama presidency exposed Republican deficit delusions - Salon.com