Bill Clinton had been silent up until this week. The plaid lumberjack shirt he put on this morning reminded him of his masculinity and the days when dozens of soldiers saluted him just for getting off an airplane. As the chauffeur was letting him out of his limo to his wife’s presidential campaign rally he thought to himself, “That little Jew from Brooklyn is fucking everything up.”
Our protagonist had been especially critical of Senator Bernie Sanders that crisp Sunday morning in New Hampshire. While manning his familiar pulpit, he cut into Sanders alleging that the Vermont senator is hypocritical and that some of his followers are sexist. Clinton was referring to “Bernie Bros” – the name ascribed to some supposed young male supporters of Sanders. “People who have gone online to defend Hillary, to explain why they supported her, have been subject to vicious trolling and attacks that are literally too profane often, not to mention sexist, to repeat!” Bill learned long ago it’s always a good idea when in a conservative, white-bread state like New Hampshire, to pretend one’s sensibilities are those of a naive and devout 11-year-old girl.
Clinton soon resumed his critique of all things Bernie after giving himself a little motivation by silently reciting his time-worn, mental mantra, “What would Kissinger do?” “That’s right, Bill, Kissinger would sock it to ’em,” he thought. He began by noting that, sixteen years ago, Sanders voted for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA). “[My wife’s] opponent, a champion of all things small, an enemy of all things big, voted for that bill. But you will never hear her say that he is the tool of Wall Street because of that.”
Now, maybe it was just our protagonist getting older and losing his memory or maybe it was the two martinis in the limo before the speech, but Bill totally forgot he actually signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act back when he was POTUS. It was the CFMA that helped deregulate Wall Street. The bill legitimized derivatives trading, which had previously been relegated to the realm of gambling. Members of Clinton’s financial team – Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Alan Greenspan – pressured Clinton into signing the bill, claiming it would help the stock market. Unfortunately, after the bill was signed, there was an explosion of credit default swaps and derivatives (mostly betting on U.S. housing), which set the foundation for our present economic house of cards.
[Flashback to the year 1999] Bill Clinton is in the final year of his double-term as president. Bill’s feeling maudlin and sentimental about his Southern upbringing, that’s evident by the ten-gallon cowboy hat on his head. Clinton, Greenspan, Larry Summers, and Robert Rubin are sitting at a round, mahogany table smoking cigars and bullshitting. After a lurid story Larry told about shagging the teenage maid, while Victoria wasn’t looking of course, at his summer house in the Hamptons, Clinton gets jealous of Larry talking so much and starts cranking-up the old con & no one can deny that Clinton charm & charisma. He said, “Let’s give them piggies on Wall Street some fixins they can really wrap their lips around! We’ll call it Buffalo Bill’s Wild West! After all, there’s too much order in the system. What’s wrong with a little chaos? All’s we gotta do is make gambling legal again. But you know after playing as much blackjack as I’ve played, Roger & I love Vegas, man, I gotta up the stakes a little sometimes just to get off anymore!”
It seems a coronation for Hillary by the black community isn’t an inevitability like she may have previously assumed. In fact, many black folks find it laughable that Hillary supporters claim her husband was ‘the First Black President’. There are issues important to the African-American community that go far beyond mere civil rights. When asked about issues important to her in the general election, Rep. Barbara Lee gave a scathing criticism of the current political status quo. She stated, “I want to hear more about this defense budget. It’s just obscene. When you’re talking about a slush fund called the Overseas Contingency Account, that funds these wars off-budget. That needs to be dismantled, if you ask me.” Hillary’s refusal to support the legalization of marijuana and end the war on drugs is a policy decision that only serves to perpetuate the mass incarceration crisis in America. This crisis hits the black community the hardest. Personally, i think we could use 535 Barbara Lees on Capitol Hill.
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