Shadow Banks Clinton Flags as Risky Put Millions Into Her Run Bloomberg Politics

I would never argue that Wall Street has no influence over politicians. But as this excellent article from Bloomberg Politics points out, the relationship between Hillary Clinton and Wall Street is far more complex than Bernie Sanders would have us believe.

Even though Hillary Clinton has vowed to be very tough on Wall Street -- and her very public, detailed position papers back up that claim -- her campaign is receiving very substantial contributions from the very sectors that she plans to regulate.

Hillary Clinton argues that Bernie Sanders' plan to break-up the big banks is too narrow and should only be executed where the bank doesn't meet criteria for financial stability. Sanders says nothing about shadow banking, even though the Financial Stability Board estimates that the US has the largest shadow banking sector with $14.2 trillion in assets, or about one-third of the total shadow banking assets in the world.

In highlighting the risks posed by shadow banks, Clinton frequently notes the example of American International Group Inc. The insurer had agreed to back securities that were tied to home loans before the 2008 financial crisis. When the mortgage market tanked, the company was on the hook for billions of dollars of payments and ended up needing a bailout from the federal government. As banks face more and more rules, Clinton says she’s concerned that more financing arrangements will move to less-regulated companies.

To regulate shadow banking, Clinton calls for "higher margin and collateral requirements for short-term borrowing like repurchase agreements, new rules for brokers on leverage, and more disclosure for hedge funds and private equity firms."

Rebirth of the Boys Club

Make Yourself Great Again! Politico

Does the Trump movement give hope to especially white men that they can be their best alpha male selves again? Screw feminism!

The most common thread in the world of MYGA is a feral obsession with Trump’s domineering maleness, writes Politico. MYGA writers embrace varying degrees of the idea that the Trump campaign is helping them become real men, inspired by Trump’s testosterone-driven unapologetic, aggressive vision for the country.

“He’s this alpha kind of guy, and I do think that resonates with young men,” a 21-year-old professional athlete from Idaho and a MYGA poster who uses the name HighlyVenomous, told me. MYGA men say that Trump "comes across as an alpha male. He’s sure of himself, and whatever flaws he does have, like his hair, he doesn’t care, and he runs with it." The Trump men reject the so-called feminizaiton of politics -- a joke given America's rank of 90 on the world in electing women to office.

“The Apprentice really showed me what a world class alpha male looks like and operates,” writes one poster in the Reddit thread LifeProTrumpTips. “As a group of dominant alphas you can achieve impossible things.”

As the MYGA crowd’s open obsession with dominance, manliness, and alpha-status suggests, the gospel can quickly turn down a dark corridor. The deeper one ventures into the strange world of MYGA, the more the country’s problems become laced with an array of white-male-themed anxieties—men are apologizing for their maleness, the users say; policies are lifting up the weak and punishing the strong; and culture at large is becoming more feminized. Go deep enough, and you’ll hit the so-called alt-right movement, an online waystation where MYGA has thrived most principally as an ideation of male virility. (The world of the alt-right is best known for creating the “‪#‎Cuckservative‬” hashtag—a racially tinged portmanteau of cuckold and conservative, created to call out those who are insufficiently far-right.)

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton speeches to highlight divisions on guns CBS News

Hillary Clinton policy adviser Maya Harris answered Donald Trump's assertion that she wants to overturn the 2nd amendment.

Clinton believes that the 2008 5-4 SC decision in D.C v. Heller, striking down a longstanding handgun ban in the District of Columbia was made in error.

{Quote}: "Along with the vast majority of Americans, Hillary Clinton believes there are common sense steps we can take at the federal level to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while respecting the 2nd Amendment. As both PolitiFact and Factcheck.org recently reported, Donald Trump is peddling falsehoods," Harris said. "Donald Trump's conspiracy theories are simply his latest attempt to divide the American people and distract from his radical and dangerous ideas, like his promise to mandate that every school in America allow guns in their classrooms."

[ . . . ]

California, already among America's toughest states on gun control, will vote in November on a ballot initiative that would require buyers of ammunition to pass background checks and outlaw high-capacity magazines. This move to tougher gun control comes as other states are moving to allow people to carry concealed weapons more openly, including on college campuses, with no permit required."

Hillary Clinton Headlines March 23, 2016

Podesta attacks Trump's commander-in-chief credentials Politico

Born to Run The Atlantic

Family Feud US News

Who's voting in the Democratic primaries? CBS News

Trump's campaign dwarfed by Clinton's Politico

What Happens When Female Politicians Try to Stand Up to Sports Fans The Atlantic

Sanders Slams Closed Process, Rift With Top Democras Widens Bloomberg Politics

This Is What the Future of American Politics Looks Like Politico

Bernie Sanders Just Declared War on the Democratic Party Washington Post

The 6 biggest policy differences between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton VOX News

One of our favorite media perspectives comes consistently out of VOX. Perhaps because the team is younger, they aren't quite as jaded. More importantly, they make an attempt at objectivity and fairness in discussing Hillary Clinton that is absent from most sources.

In advance of tonight's debate in Las Vegas, Andrew Prokop outlines key differences between the candidates.

1) Money: Sanders attacks the rich; Clinton wants to raise money from them

2) Trade: Sanders is extremely skeptical of new agreements, while Clinton has waffled

3) Foreign policy: Clinton is more of a hawk than Sanders -- and most other Democrats

4) Health reform: Sanders wants single-payer -- but likely couldn't get it through Congress

Clinton said earlier this year that she wants to build on "what works" in Obamacare — the basic framework of which was very similar to her 2008 campaign's health reform proposal. Notably, she said back then that over her 15 years of work on the issue, "I never seriously considered a single-payer system." Her reasons were pragmatic. "Talking about single-payer really is a conversation ender for most Americans, because then they become very nervous about socialized medicine," she's said.

In 2008, Clinton did support one key proposal that never became law — a public option to let people choose government-provided insurance. And she suggested that if it was popular, it could lead to a more extensive overhaul of the system. "Let Americans choose. And what better way to determine that than letting the market have some competition and, you know, see where it does lead to," she said.

5) Spending: Sanders wants big spending

. . . Clinton — wary of being tarred as a big-spending Democrat, like her husband was in the beginning of his administration — is one of them, generally proposing that increases in spending would be paid for by other spending cuts or tax hikes.

Not Sanders. His speeches are filled with calls for dramatic increases in government spending. Pay for the first two years of college at any public university! Spend $1 trillion on infrastructure! Move to single-payer health care!

Overall, he downplays the deficit as a problem, as his appointment of Stephanie Keltonas the top Democratic economist on the budget committee shows. "She thinks that, in many cases, government surpluses are actively destructive and balancing the budget is very dangerous," writes Dylan Matthews. When Sanders does discuss pay-fors, he talks about cutting defense or hiking taxes on the wealthy (not the middle class).

6) Clinton has more frequently pushed for gun control measures