Bill Clinton unleashes on Black Lives Matter

[_ajax18]

Bill Clinton Unleahses on Black Lives Matter: "They defend Gang Leaders who get kids Hopped up on Crack."

Former President Bill Clinton slammed a Black Lives Matter protest against Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, and said the group defends gang leaders who get kids “hopped up on crack.”

“I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out into the street to murder other African American children—maybe you thought they were good citizens,” Clinton said.

“She [Hillary] didn’t. She didn’t. You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter. Tell the truth.”

The angry response from the former U.S. president — his wife’s top surrogate — is sure to complicate matters for the Clintons as the contentious Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)



16%

heads to the New York and then afterwards to Pennsylvania.

In both states, Democrats depend on the black vote in inner cities of New York and Philadelphia to win—and it’s been something the Clintons have had reliably under control until now.

Sanders is infuriating Hillary Clinton, she revealed in a Politico interview recently, because he refuses to go away and keeps winning states by large margins. If Sanders can gain traction in the inner cities and black communities that have been until now Clinton strongholds, he may be able to give Hillary Clinton a run for her money in the Empire State—a state that previously sent her to the U.S. Senate after Bill Clinton’s presidency ended—and in other states like Pennsylvania.

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-president ... ped-crack/

This seems like a surprising misstep from the master statesmen who knew and was willing to say whatever it took to get elected. Maybe he's just getting old and not so good at holding back the truth.

[_EAllusion]

Clinton is responsible for some of the worst aspects of the drug war (and its subsequent racial disparities). His response here is so dishonest in that people were harmed by those policies overwhelmingly are not part of the scenario he described. In fact, it's almost entirely fictional. At the outset, he tries to pin his drug war policies on Republicans, arguing he was forced into that compromise, but then ends with an offensive characterization of the very people his administration brutalized. The countless peoples lives that were destroyed by Clinton's draconian policies that draw complaint were not people getting adolescents hooked on crack and sending them out to murder. He's trading on crude racial stereotypes here with little to no basis in reality.

Hopefully this damages the Clinton campaign badly in the next few races where they are counting on the black vote. God, it would be sweet if that's the scandalous thing that comes out of left field and takes down Clinton's near inevitable victory. Attempting to race bait in South Carolina in 2008 hurt them badly with Obama. Maybe something parallel will happen here.

[_Res Ipsa]

EA, did Clinton have a Republican or a Democratic Congress at the time the bill was passed? Did Republican Congress members push to have harsher criminal penalties in the bill? Did Clinton meet with AA community leaders at the time? Did they want the bill passed? Did it have the other things Clinton mentioned that were helpful to those communities?

I listened to the whole encounter, noting that one of the signs accused Hillary of being a murderer. It's hard to hear what the protesters were yelling, but it appears he is engaging with them and responding to their criticisms. I hear him defending the bill as an attempt to address crime and violence that was tearing inner cities apart at the time. It and subsequent laws, state and federal, had bad consequences that need to be fixed. But I don't think that, at the time, he had any idea of what the war on crime/drugs would lead to in terms of incarceration of AA men.

I'm not a particular fan, and didn't vote for him. But much of the criticism I'm reading ignores the context in which the events took place.

[_subgenius]

Clinton is responsible for some of the worst aspects of the drug war (and its subsequent racial disparities).

please, explain this "responsibility"

[_EAllusion]

Clinton is responsible for some of the worst aspects of the drug war (and its subsequent racial disparities).

please, explain this "responsibility"

He promoted and signed into law legislation. He is responsible for that.

[_EAllusion]

EA, did Clinton have a Republican or a Democratic Congress at the time the bill was passed? Did Republican Congress members push to have harsher criminal penalties in the bill? Did Clinton meet with AA community leaders at the time? Did they want the bill passed? Did it have the other things Clinton mentioned that were helpful to those communities?

I listened to the whole encounter, noting that one of the signs accused Hillary of being a murderer. It's hard to hear what the protesters were yelling, but it appears he is engaging with them and responding to their criticisms. I hear him defending the bill as an attempt to address crime and violence that was tearing inner cities apart at the time. It and subsequent laws, state and federal, had bad consequences that need to be fixed. But I don't think that, at the time, he had any idea of what the war on crime/drugs would lead to in terms of incarceration of AA men.

I'm not a particular fan, and didn't vote for him. But much of the criticism I'm reading ignores the context in which the events took place.

Bill Clinton and several important Democrats (Joe Biden chief among them) were not dragged into provisions of the law being referred to. They heavily promoted and advocated for them either to appear tough on crime or because they genuinely believed in them. "Republicans made me do it" doesn't work as an excuse when he was a major proponent himself. You see this tension in his response when he flips from blaming Republicans to defending the law's harmful provisions. You know, to get those crack-fiend murderer trainers.

The problems with draconian mandatory mins, sentencing disparities, race-baiting political advocacy, etc. were known and expressed at the time. Clinton doesn't get a pass because triangulation was an important political strategy to him. Further, the idea that the black community was clamoring for this bill is simply not true. Clinton doesn't say that, but he tries to leave that impression in the listeners mind.

The focus right now is white hot on the 1994 crime bill, but the Clinton administration oversaw several bad bills regarding crime.

[_The CCC]

It is a bit more complex than some want to believe. Sure William J. Clinton is responsible for what he did, and Ronald Reagan for what he did.
SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_invol ... rafficking

[_ajax18]

First agreeing to welfare reform and now this. WJC will not be remembered very kindly by leftists.

[_The CCC]

Bill Clinton didn't run as a Leftist. Only that he was better than the other alternatives.