Hillary Clinton’s polispeak on Wal-Mart

Written by Michael Vass

Oh how the facts just get in the way. There have been released tapes that reveal Democratic Presidential candidate and NY Senator Hillary Clinton’s position on labor unions while she was a board member of Wal-Mart. As a Democrat, Senator Clinton has been outspoken about her support of unions, and has several that have endorsed her campaign.

But back in the late 1980’s through early 1990’s it seems that Senator Hillary Clinton had other views. It has been proven that in several meetings of the board members, of which she was a member for 6 years, she NEVER took a stance to help unionize or support unions in the company. Board members have been quoted as stating that beyond the recordings, they have zero memory of a single confrontation or commitment by Senator Clinton on behalf of Unions.

Now in general I’m not a big fan of unions. In general I don’t care what board members do or do not think of, if they are not stocks that I own. But I am interested in who will be the next President of the United States. And I do note hypocrisy in the Presidential candidates.

As a proponent of unions Senator Clinton has attacked Wal-mart and its policies. That’s fine, as it’s the big enemy of ultra-liberal Democrats these days, and that’s an opinion some have. But considering that she was a member of this same company and did nothing to improve their corporate actions, it’s too faced.

Add to this fact, that she has publicly refused campaign donations from this company, and then quietly taken 4x as much money ($20,000) from executives and lobbyists of that same company privately.

Last year Senator Clinton stated

“Now I know that Wal-Mart’s policies do not reflect the best way of doing business and the values that I think are important in America.”

So in over a decade, on top of 6 years as a board member of the company Senator Clinton had no knowledge of the anti-union policies of Wal-Mart. And as she has stated she was an advocate of women in the company.

“I don’t doubt the sincerity of her efforts, but we don’t see much evidence that conditions for women at Wal-Mart changed much during the late 1980s and early 1990s,” said Joe Sellers, one of the lawyers suing Wal-Mart on behalf of the women.”

So a question that might show her sincerity would be if Senator Clinton would return the $20,000. But she has stated through her campaign that “no basis to return the money.”

That sounds incredibly like when it was found that Senator Clinton’s campaign took $1 million from legal fugitive Norman Hsu or the questionable Abdul Rehman Jinna.

“To summarize Mr. Hsu was wanted with a warrant for his arrest from California for over a decade. Mr. Hsu recently started to bundle funds for donation to Sen. Clinton. Initially, when his identity and warrant came to public attention, the Clinton campaign first stated their surprise, and then as pressure mounted offered to give back roughly $32,000. Then as the media checked into the story and it was found that the actual donations made totaled 1 million dollars which was possibly gotten from funds scammed from 3rd parties. The Clinton campaign offered to give the money to charity. The answer was they had not known he made the donations.”

All of this seems to go back to a thought I had back in November 2005. I would suggest that members of unions, and Democrats consider the following, and the apparent election year flip mentioned above, as well as the questionable acceptance of funding from active criminals evading prosecution.

“There are more votes, my point is Sen. Clinton seems very confused on several issues. Sen. Clinton promotes the idea that she is for families and individuals (ie raise wages, leaving SS alone, improving bicycle safety) yet she also has voted to do the opposite (no motorcycle safety, repeal ‘93 tax, ethanol, AIDS funding). My thoughts are not about the outcome of the actual votes, but how Sen. Clinton has voted. That is far more important. It seems to project an image of someone looking to say anything to get elected, but not caring what the constiuents want as much once elected.”

I hope everyone that can will vote on Super Tuesday. I hope even more vote in the Presidential election in November. I just hope that the candidates of both political parties are worthy choices for the American public.

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