CDZ Goldman Sachs speeches -- Is it even credible to think the came from Podesta?

[320 Years of History]

First:

This week, Wikileaks has posted what it claims are "Goldman Sachs paid speeches" delivered to Goldman Sachs that Wikileaks claim came from John Podesta's computer. Tell me this....Why would those speeches even be on Mr. Podesta's computer(s) or in his email accounts? Not one of them was delivered after the Clinton campaign for President commenced. I have a hard time thinking "Goldman Sachs paid speeches" are on his computer or in his email account.

That's not to say I don't think they are the speeches. It's to say I don't think they came from Mr. Podesta's computer.​

Read the speeches, discussions is more what they are -- and because they contain remarks from Goldman principals, it now makes sense why she would not release them -- and what you see is a person who's very knowledgeable and very much about protecting U.S. interests. One passage from the transcript from 29-October-2013 contains the following discussion regarding the matter of national security and the impact of hacking.

Anybody who has ever traveled in other countries, some of which shall remain nameless, except for Russia and China, you know that you can't bring your phones and your computers. And if you do, good luck. I mean, we would not only take the batteries out, we would leave the batteries and the devices on the plane in special boxes. Now, we didn't do that because we thought it would be fun to tell somebody about. We did it because we knew that we were all targets and that we would be totally vulnerable.
​

Below is a question and Mrs. Clinton's answer about the nature of "gridlock" in political Washington.

MR. BLANKFEIN: Let me just introduce one more topic with you, and I'll urge everybody to think of some questions if we have time for that.

But just a general question to start you off on the domestic situation. Is the American political system just hopeless? Should we just throw it away, start over? You know, go home. Get a parliamentary system. Is it -- because I will tell you -- I'm kidding. We -- talking here, and I didn't do this in a formal survey, but when we ask entrepreneurs, whether they were social entrepreneurs, the people who were talking represented the work they're doing in the cities and the businesses represented here, every conversation referred to either what the government was doing or what the government wasn't doing that it was obvious that they should be doing.

And then I guess a corollary question to my first approach, should we chuck it away, will the elections make a difference. Is the system so gummed up where a single senator can so gum up appointments and basically extort legislation or stop legislation, is the system so screwed up now that really that we just have to have some cataclysm that just gets everybody so frustrated that we de facto start over, you know, or practically start over.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, look, I -- I think that everyone agrees that we're in a bad patch in our political system and in Washington. It's -- you know, there's a lot of good things happening elsewhere in the country. There are a lot of mayors, you had Mitch Landrieu here, I was with Rahm Emanuel yesterday. There's a lot of innovative, interesting, new ideas being put into practice by mayors, by some governors. So I think when we talk about our political system, we're really focusing more on what's happening in Washington. And it is dysfunctional right now. And it is for a variety of reasons, some of them systemic, as you suggested.

You know, I really have come to believe that we need to change the rules in the Senate, having served there for eight years. It's only gotten more difficult to do anything. And I think nominees deserve a vote up or down. Policies deserve a vote up or down. And I don't think that a small handful of senators should stand in the way of that, because, you know, a lot of those senators are really obstructionist. They should get out. They should make their case. They should go ahead and debate. But they shouldn't be able to stop the action of the United States Senate. So I think there does have to be some reworking of the rules, particularly in the Senate.

I think that, as has been discussed many times, the partisan drawing of lines in Congressional districts gives people -- gives incumbents certainly a lot more protection than an election should offer. And then they're only concerned about getting a challenge from the left of the Democratic Party or a challenge from the right in the Republican Party. And they're not representing really the full interests of the people in the area that they're supposed to be.

And then it comes down to who we vote for and what kind of expectations we set and who we give money to. Those who help to fund elections, I think it's important that business leaders make it clear, why would you give money to somebody who was willing to wreck the full faith and credit of the United States. I mean, that just makes no sense at all because the economic repercussions would have been very bad, and the long-term consequences with, you know, the Chinese saying, let's de-Americanize the world and eventually move to a different reserve currency wouldn't be, you know, beneficial, either.​

So I think there are steps that citizens have to take. It's not just about how we rearrange the levers of power and the institutions in Washington.

But there has to be a new ethos. I mean, we can't let people, as you say, be extortionists. And the President was absolutely right not to negotiate with people who were acting the way that the minority of the minority was acting on the shutdown and the debt limit issue.​

I haven't finished reading the document, but so far, I don't see anything to take exception with. What I see is someone who understands all sides of the issues she's discussing and she's presenting her ideas in a balanced and non-inflammatory way.

 

[320 Years of History]

One of the astute observations from Goldman's CEO, Lloyd Blankfein:

The voters have to realize that the only stable, sustainable government is one in which the moderates compromise and the fringes get rejected, not the other way around.​

Of course, the fanatics in the polity don't get that....On the contrary, they think they are doing the right thing for the nation. Bless their hearts....

 

[320 Years of History]

Another excerpted dialogue:

SECRETARY CLINTON: That is exactly. And, you know, post the shutdown/debt limit debacle, you know, the Republican Party's ratings dropped dramatically. You can see it in Virginia where the Democratic candidate has opened a big lead and in part because the Republican candidate for governor looks as though he's of the extremists. He's of the Tea Party-like Republicans, and he's being punished for it. MR. BLANKFEIN: Utah, also.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Yeah. So you're seeing people say, wait a minute. Enough. You know. I may be conservative, but I'm not crazy. And I don't want to be represented by people who are crazy and who are threatening, you know, the entire structure --

MR. BLANKFEIN: "I'm not crazy." That's going to be the new rallying cry.

SECRETARY CLINTON: I think it would be. I like when people say, you know, I may be conservative, but I'm not crazy. I'm very reassured.

MR. BLANKFEIN: Prove it.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Yeah. You want them to prove it by saying, you know, we're going to act differently in our voting and our giving. And it could make a very big difference. Now, some of the Republicans are also fighting back. I mean, somebody like Lamar Alexander, who's been a governor and a senator of Tennessee, and they're mounting a Tea Party challenge against him. He's going right at it. He is not afraid to take them on. And more moderate Republicans have to do that as well. Take back their party from the extremists and the obstructionists.

And you're right, we've gone through these periods before. We have always had this kind of streak of whether it's know-nothingism or isolationism or, you know, anti-Communism, extremism. Whatever. We've had it forever from the beginning. So it's important that people speak out and stand up against it, and especially people who are Republicans, who say, look, that's not the party that I'm part of. I want to get back to having a two-party system that can have an adult conversation and a real debate about the future.​

 

[320 Years of History]

MALE ATTENDEE: Madam Secretary, thank you for everything you've done for the country. I think I speak on behalf of most of the entrepreneurs here, we're optimists. Understandably, post 9/11, most of our framing of United States with respect to the rest of the world has been about fear and threat. I can speak for myself and a lot of people in this room. For us from outside of the country before we immigrated here, America was a symbol of hope.

How do we reframe what we talk about in terms of the good that America does in the world and bringing about the message of hope. Even in this discussion what we talked about, we talk mostly about fear and threat. Can you speak to us about the hope and the good that we bring to the world.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, yes. I mean, you have to blame Lloyd for the questions.

(Laughter.)

MR. BLANKFEIN: I'm more associated with fear than hope.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, you're absolutely right. And that still is the American character. It's in our DNA. We are a generous, hopeful, optimistic, confident people. As you know, I was a senator from New York on 9/11. And, you know, the comeback of New York City, its resilience, its confidence in the face of a devastating attack was one of the most inspiring chapters of American history.

So there's no doubt that we have a great story to tell. I think, understandably, there was a lot of overreaction as well as appropriate reaction following 9/11, which is why now, you know, 12 years on, we're talking about having a conversation about getting into the right balance on privacy and security, but it would also be fair to say, you know, on optimism and skepticism. We've got to get back on the optimist scale.

And, you know, I see it everywhere I go. I mean, a lot of the people I meet with and talk to are excited about the future. They want to make a contribution, whether it's, you know, in business or in some kind of non-profit. There's an enormous amount of pent-up excitement and anticipation.

But a lot of people are worried that there's another shoe that's going to drop. That somehow our government, our culture is going to not reflect that sense of forward movement. So yes, we do have to get back to telling the American Story and telling it to ourselves first and foremost. That's why immigration reform is so important. I mean, get immigration reform done you. It sends exactly the signal you're talking about.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Get it fixed so that the people who have been here working hard, building futures, are given the chance to become American citizens. There's no requirement that they do, but they would be given that path to citizenship.

So it still is the case that more people want to come here than anywhere else in the world. People still, despite all of the problems of the last decade, see through it and see the underlying reality of what a life in America can offer them and their children.

But we need to get back to believing our own story. We need to jettison a lot of the skepticism. I mean, there's not a skeptic among you when it comes to being an entrepreneur. You couldn't get up in the morning. You couldn't face how hard it was. You couldn't do the work that's required. You have to believe you're going to make it, you're going to get that breakthrough, you're going to be successful, you're going to get those investors. I mean, that is a representation of what America has stood for, and we have to champion that.

And I tell you, I see any society like a three-legged stool. You have to have an active free market that gives people the chance to live out their dreams by their own hard work and skills. You have to have a functioning, effective government that provides the right balance of oversight and protection of freedom and privacy and liberty and all the rest of it that goes with it. And you have to have an active civil society. Because there's so much about America that is volunteerism and religious faith and family and community activities. So you take one of those legs away, it's pretty hard to balance it. So you've got to get back to getting the right balance.

And what I really resent most about the obstructionists is they have such a narrow view of America. They see America in a way that is no longer reflective of the reality of who we are. They're against immigration for reasons that have to do with the past, not the future. They can't figure out how to invest in the future, so they cut everything. You know, laying off, you know, young researchers, closing labs instead of saying, we're better at this than anybody in the world, that's where our money should go. They just have a backward-looking view of America. And they play on people's fears, not on people's hopes, and they have to be rejected. I don't care what they call themselves. I don't care where they're from. They have to be rejected because they are fundamentally unAmerican. And every effort they make to undermine and obstruct the functioning of the government is meant to send a signal that we can't do anything collectively. You know, that we aren't a community, a nation that shares values.

I mean, American was an invention. It was an intellectual invention, and we have done pretty well for all these years. And these people want to just undermine that very profound sense of who we are. And we can't let them do that.

So it's not just about politics or partisanship. It really goes to the heart of what it means to be American. And I'll just say that I've been reading a lot of de Tocqueville lately because he was a pretty smart guy, and he traveled around and looked at this country and came up with some profound observations about us. But he talked about how unique early Americans were because they mixed a rugged individualism with a sense of, you know, community well being. So the individual farmer would quit farming for a day to go somewhere to help raise a barn, for example. People understood that the individual had to be embedded in a community in order to maximize -- if you were a merchant, you needed people to sell to. If you were a farmer, you needed people to buy your products. And he talked about the habits of the heart. And he said, that's what set us apart from anybody else. And, you know, I think there's a lot of truth to that. We are a unique breed, and people come here from all over and kind of sign on to the social compact of what it means to be an American.

And we can't afford to let people, for their own personal reasons, whether they be political, commercial, or whatever, undermine that. So, yeah, there's a lot of to be said. And we need to say it more, and it doesn't just need to come from, you know, people on platforms. It needs to come from everybody.

 

[320 Years of History]

From the 4-Jun-2013 seminar:

MS. CLINTON: Look, I think there is a couple of things. One, I talk a lot about it, and I talked about it when I was a senator. I talked about it as Secretary. I'm talking about it now. You know, we have to get back to at least trying to make evidence based decisions. I know that sounds so simplistic, but the ideological partisan position on all sides -- because there are people who refuse to look at facts and deal with them, coming from many different perspectives -- really undermines confidence in the people. The American people are smart. They may not be living and breathing politics, but they're looking and they're thinking: Come on, guys. Get it together. You ought to be able to make a deal of some sort.

You know, when my husband spoke at the the Democratic Convention he basically touted the virtues of arithmetic. Can you imagine a major speech having to be made about how arithmetic needs to be used as the basis for budgetary discussions? But in fact, we do need more of an outcry and pressure from the rest of the American system, not just the politicians but business leaders and others who are saying: Let's try to figure out how we're going to move forward based on as near an evidence-based foundation as we possibly can manage.

Secondly, you know, people get rewarded for being partisan, and that's on both sides. The biggest threat that Democrats and Republicans face today, largely because of gerrymandering in the House, is getting a primary opponent from either the far right or the far left.

You know, there is no reason you would have noticed this, but there was a woman in the Senate -- and I think it was Kentucky -- recently who had an A plus rating from the NRA. A plus rating. She was a country legislator, highly regarded, and she was a chairman of a committee in the state legislature. And somebody introduced a bill with -- you know, it's not too much exaggeration to say that you should have your gun in your car at all times and it should be visible. And she said: Let's table it for a minute and think about the consequences.

So the NRA recruited an opponent for her who beat her. They put a lot of money into it and basically: You couldn't be reasonable. You couldn't say let's try to reason this out together. You had to tow the line, and whether it's a financial line or gun control line or whatever the line might be. But people let that happen. Voters let that happen.

I mean, the number of people who ask me questions very similar to what you asked I'm sure is representative of millions of people who feel the same way. If you look at the polling and all the rest of it that's clear. But you need people who will stand up and say: I want somebody who exercises some judgment. I want somebody who is not just a mouthpiece for one point of view or another. I may have my own opinions, but let's have a debate here. That's what we were always good at in the past.​

 

[320 Years of History]

I'm still reading the speeches....So far, not one thing that's worth chiding her about has she said....Perhaps a "bombshell" will drop when I get to the third document, but I'm not holding my breath.

Sidebar:

People keep asking, "Why isn't anyone talking about the content in the leaked emails?" Well, I've been reading them over the weekend and frankly, there's nothing really to talk about. Indeed, except for the Clinton roundtable conference transcripts, it's all just what one would expect to find among the conversations of political strategists.​

End of sidebar.

 

[320 Years of History]

Wow...After all those accusations and recriminations about Mrs. Clinton's "Goldman" speeches, now that at least three of them are available to read in their entirety, not one person here has a thing to say about their content.

Were the speeches' merely something at which to point a finger, a mere talking point with no substance?