Clinton faces sharp attacks on Wall Street ties, Iraq vote at second Democratic debate

Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton faced sharp attacks – about her closeness to Wall Street, and her vote for the Iraq War – from two more aggressive rivals, in the second Democratic presidential debate Saturday night.

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, like Sanders, seemed more aggressive on Saturday night – attacking both his rivals onstage, and Republicans far off of it. He got one of the night’s biggest rounds of applause by referring to GOP front-runner Donald Trump as “That immigrant-bashing carnival barker.” But O’Malley still seemed caught between Clinton, aiming for the middle of the Democratic party, and Sanders aiming for its left wing.

O’Malley followed with a slightly toned-down message, saying there are many good people in the financial industry. But he said that Wall Street bankers used their power to rig the government systems meant to oversee them, resulting in a situation where the banks can count on taxpayers to bail out their failures.

“That’s not capitalism, Secretary Clinton. That’s crony capitalism,” O’Malley said. “We need to step up, and we need to protect main street from Wall Street.” He said Clinton could not do that as “the candidate from Wall Street.  O’Malley called Clinton’s plans to regulate Wall Street “weak tea.”

All three Democratic presidential candidates offered enthusiastic proposals to raise taxes – in one way or another.

“I will pay for it by yes, taxing the wealthy more,” said Clinton, when asked how she would pay to make public college education debt-free. “I can do it without raising the debt. Without raising taxes on the middle class.”

O’Malley, for instance, followed Clinton by defending his record in Maryland, which included increases in sales and income taxes.

“We did in fact raise the sales tax by a penny, and we made the public schools the best schools in America for five years in a row,” O’Malley said, noting that he also raised taxes on the top 14 percent of earners. “While other candidates will talk about the things they would like to do, I actually got these things done.”

“We haven’t come up with an exact number, but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which is 90 percent,” Sanders left. The audience laughed. “I am not that much of a socialist, compared to Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

This second debate, carried out in the shadow of the terrorist attacks in Paris Friday night, revolved around national security and foreign policy in its early minutes. All three candidates rejected the phrase “radical Islam” to describe the militant groups opposed to the United States and its allies, saying that this phrase unfairly tarred an entire religion for the violence of one faction.

“You can talk about ‘Islamists,’ who clearly are also jihadists,” Clinton said. But she said that phrase – “radical Islam”—was the wrong one to use. “We are not at war with Islam or Muslims. We are at war with violent extremism.”

“I believe calling it what it is...radical jihadis,” said O’Malley, adding that a formulation that includes “Islam” would alienate American Muslims, whom O’Malley called “our first line of defense.”

Conservatives have criticized President Obama for his unwillingness to say that same phrase, using it as an illustration that Obama’s unwillingness to offend Muslims has blurred his administration’s strategy for fighting militants. How can these groups be defeated, conservatives say, if Democrats are not even willing to admit what they are?

Both Sanders and O’Malley criticized America’s record in foreign military interventions – a way of criticizing Clinton, who helped lead American foreign policy as secretary of state. O’Malley told a story about meeting the mother of a service member. - Read More at washingtonpost

Clinton faces sharp attacks on Wall Street ties, Iraq vote at second Democratic debate

Democrats debate Islamic State and Wall Street, but Clinton is the focus