Hillary Clinton, broadly cast as "untrustworthy," is more honest than anyone else running for president. https://t.co/fWr3RP2hAS
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) March 20, 2016
Interesting piece from ex-NYTimesperson Jill Abramson, in the Guardian — “This may shock you: Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest”:
… I would be “dead rich”, to adapt an infamous Clinton phrase, if I could bill for all the hours I’ve spent covering just about every “scandal” that has enveloped the Clintons. As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising.
Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.
The yardsticks I use for measuring a politician’s honesty are pretty simple. Ever since I was an investigative reporter covering the nexus of money and politics, I’ve looked for connections between money (including campaign donations, loans, Super Pac funds, speaking fees, foundation ties) and official actions. I’m on the lookout for lies, scrutinizing statements candidates make in the heat of an election…
Clinton distrusts the press more than any politician I have covered. In her view, journalists breach the perimeter and echo scurrilous claims about her circulated by unreliable rightwing foes. I attended a private gathering in South Carolina a month after Bill Clinton was elected in 1992. Only a few reporters were invited and we sat together at a luncheon where Hillary Clinton spoke. She glared down at us, launching into a diatribe about how the press had invaded the Clintons’ private life. The distrust continues.
These are not new thoughts, but they are fundamental to understanding her. Tough as she can seem, she doesn’t have rhino hide, and during her husband’s first term in the White House, according to Her Way, a critical (and excellent) investigative biography of Clinton by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, she became very depressed during the Whitewater imbroglio. A few friends and aides have told me that the email controversy has upset her as badly…
Still, Clinton has mainly been constant on issues and changing positions over time is not dishonest.
It’s fair to expect more transparency. But it’s a double standard to insist on her purity.
Transparent is not, of course, synonymous with honest. Donald Trump’s as transparent as the yuuugest, classiest plate glass, but he’s very far from honest (and extremely close to incoherent, which doesn’t improve the clarity of his proposals).
***********
Apart from continuing to fight the good fight (sometimes, it seems, with those who should be our allies), what’s on the agenda for the day?
Clinton: "It has become harder and harder for moderate, reasonable voices to be heard." Full comment: pic.twitter.com/3vokY0CVv0
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) March 24, 2016
Baud
The story of Baud! 2016!
Zinsky
My brother-in-law lives in Southeast Iowa and has had the honor/privilege of hosting any number of Democratic politicians in his home. He hosted a brunch for Hillary Clinton in 2008 and had a chance to sit in his living room with Hillary, her campaign manager and just a couple other people. He said her personal character is so much different than the way the press portrays her, it isn’t even funny. Warm, funny, very smart, gracious and humble. He is not as fond of Bill, who he has also met one-on-one. I think Hillary has suffered over the years from living in the shadow of her husband, who while incredibly charming, is less gracious, more duplicitous and always looking out for Number One.
Baud
CNN update on hijacker
Makes sense.
OzarkHillbilly
Yes, that’s why he has released 17 years worth of tax returns.
@Baud:
If his ex is anything at all like my ex, she defines terrorism.
Amir Khalid
Any assessment of a person’s truthfulness is always going to be subjective. Much depends on what the assessor considers to be true, and how closely they scrutinise the person. Giving their assessments a name like Truth-O-Meter puts an undeserved gloss of precision on the whole business. That said, it’s interesting that Politifact considers Hillary, Bernie, and John Kasich similarly truthful.
Darkrose
@Zinsky: I’ve seen that in a couple of places, that Hillary seems much warmer and engaging one-on-one or in small groups. I suspect that when she doesn’t feel like she has to be constantly on guard she can relax and just be herself.
Baud
@Amir Khalid: It might explain why Kasich is doing so poorly in the GOP primary.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Zinsky: I’ve heard that about Hillary, from folk in the press.
Mackenna
Hillary is the “most honest” candidate compared to whom?
Trump, Cruz and any other GOP member running can be assumed to be completely untrustworthy, but how is she “more honest” than Sanders?
MattF
Via Slate, a Trump PAC spokesperson takes it all back.
Off to work.
Amir Khalid
@Mackenna:
I wouldn’t try to make such a precise comparison from a rough, essentially subjective comparison.
Mustang Bobby
The way the GOP complains about Hillary Clinton being untrustworthy, you’d think they were accusing her of stealing their act. “Hey, being lying scum is our shtick.”
@OzarkHillbilly: Reminds me of the Henny Youngman line: “I got a dog for my wife. Best trade I ever made.”
satby
We see in other countries how well propaganda works to distort people’s understanding of things, but we’re so resistant to admitting that propaganda is the main product of the “news” media here (most present company excepted).
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
That should be
geg6
At either WaMo or Benen’s place yesterday, they had the results of a poll of Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters and the results showed much higher levels of enthusiasm on the Hillary supporters’ part. Now we all know that enthusiasm does not translate to winning, but I did find this tidbit interesting.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: I had to pay, and pay and pay and pay and pay… to get rid of my ex-wife. Cheap at thrice the price.
Baud
@satby: Yep. Long live corporate media.
dogwood
@Mackenna:
Hillary and Bernie rank about the same. Kinda like their Senate voting record.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Mustang Bobby: Howdy! I usually miss you due to scheduling. I hope the air starts circulating at school, and I hope you had a dandy break.
Mustang Bobby
@OzarkHillbilly: I know that when I and my ex separated (amicably), the first thing I said was, “I’m keeping Sam.” He didn’t fight me on that.
Mustang Bobby
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Thanks! It got cool fast, and now it’s almost too cold in here.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
It’s telling how the press has launched endless investigations of the Clinton’s but never investigated any of the republicans – like the patently corrupt ones like Gingrich and Christie – or any of republican scandals like 9/11, Iraq, yellow cake, plamegate, katrina, enron, halliburton, abu ghraib, Gonzalez, torture. Bush even had his own e-mail scandal and he got a complete free pass, not 7 months of endless false attacks. The Times, under Abramson, even buried the warrantless wiretaps story until 13 months after the election.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
One thing we take for granted is how Obama has had a scandal free administration.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Mackenna:
Aw, did someone get their feelings hurt?
Perhaps if you read the article and thought about the number of “scandals” the reporter admits she investigated and the litany of charges she and so many others have chased down only to find that Hillary is not hiding anything and is doing the best a modern candidate can do given the circumstances. So not rating Saint Bernie numero uno may have been the result of the pile of shit tossed her way that he has not seen.
BTW I would have voted Sanders at our caucuses had I been home to do so so don’t get more butthurt over “Saint Bernie” but my fellow supporters who take offence, jinned up slights and willfully ignore some issues the candidate has have gotten on my nerves as much as saint ronnies tru-B-levers(TM).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: That’s only the objective reality; wing nuts know that there have been dozens of scandals.
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
In terms of real scandals, that’s true. I don’t take it for granted. It’s where media lies about Democrats are most obvious. How often have you heard “Nixonian” used to describe Obama? All they do is lie to us.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: I left my beloved Willie Maybe (the Say Hey Dog) with my sons and when I had them for a weekend, I took Willie too. It worked.
bemused
Jeffrey Goldberg was on Morning Joe. I haven’t watched the show for quite awhile. Joe is just as vile as ever going on and on about Obama doing tango, baseball game, blah, blah while Brussels! I may be imagining this but Goldberg seemed to be taking deep breaths at times before responding to Joe.
bystander
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Aren’t we forgetting Shirley Sherrod?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Baud: This is Obama’s katrina #374! This is Obama’s watergate #156! This is Obama’s Tea Pot Dome #56!
this is a post from 2010, when Obama had only been in office 15 months:
BillinGlendaleCA
@bemused: He was giving Joe of the Morning a bit of pushback.
OzarkHillbilly
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Ummm, how is it we know of these things if they were never investigated and reported?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@bystander: the president of the united states does the hiring and firing of the georgia state director of rural development for the department of agriculture? I thought he only controlled the weather.
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I don’t think Obama himself was involved, but I thought someone on the White House staff was the one who overreacted.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@OzarkHillbilly: it was because the house ethics committee investigated and sanctioned gingrich and because the state transportation committee subpoenaed wildstein’s communications.
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?.
bemused
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes and good to see. Too many guests and some regulars tip toe very gingerly when they do disagree with him. Joe is a bitter cranky bully.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@bemused: normal people usually try to avoid rolling around with a pig, cuz they end up dirty, while the pig likes it.
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: That’s why Trump is so difficult to deal with.
C.V. Danes
My only concern right now is with the DNC. It looks like there’s a Democrat tsunami forming, and it doesn’t look like the Dems are positioned downballot in many races to capitalize on it.
When Bernie sues for peace, one of the conditions should be encouraging DWS to go spend some time with her family and replacing her with Tulsi Gabbard.
BillinGlendaleCA
@C.V. Danes: DWS has been DNC chair longer than anyone since the 60’s. She’ll be gone after the election.
ETA: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the DNC chair is a FULL TIME JOB and shouldn’t be given to a current office holder.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: Seconded.
C.V. Danes
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yes. But I’d like her gone before the election.
Baud
@C.V. Danes: A switch this late isn’t going to help anything.
bemused
Right. On occasion while going about my grocery or hardware shopping there will be a couple of people, old white guys, who make a point of talking politics rather loudly, usually looking belligerent, while looking around to see who they can engage with. You never want to lock eyes with those folks and walk swiftly away.
I thought Goldberg looked like he wanted to say more than he did. I don’t suppose he will be back on the show soon.
BillinGlendaleCA
@C.V. Danes: That’s not going to happen.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Baud for DNC chair!
debbie
@bystander:
Hard to tell: Early morning snark?
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: If I don’t come back to win, I’ll be busy chairing the new BJ Party.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@C.V. Danes: Tulsi Gabbard voted to ban Muslims from entering the country, she’s attacked Obama for not saying “radical islam” like the wingnuts insist, she opposed the iran deal using aipac talking points up to the last minute, and has said Obama’s actions against ISIL could lead to a “devastating nuclear war“ with Russia.
Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln.
C.V. Danes
@Baud: Depends on how fired up you want the Bernie supporters to be. DWS has been a contention since day one. Getting rid of her is a good way to mend fences.
@BillinGlendaleCA: Unfortunately I think you’re right. The establishment takes care of its own first.
Matt McIrvin
@bemused:
The political media have been full of that stuff for the past week. The funny thing is that Obama’s popularity is creeping upward while it happens.
Baud
@C.V. Danes:
It’s not going to happen. If Bernie supporters want to die on that hill, they’ll probably die in some other hill anyway.
dogwood
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
In many ways Obama benefited from not having elective executive experience. As a long time Governor Clinton brought all the baggage that comes with the cesspool that is Arkansas politics. He also lied about his infidelity and had to backtrack before the primaries were over. I voted for him without pause in the general, but was never enthusiastic about him in the primaries. Spending money and hours on investigating politicians is tedious work that few want to invest in they don’t think they’ll have a chance of turning something up. With Clinton, I think they truly believed there was a chance they’d find something if they chased down all the Arkansas scuttlebutt. With Obama there were no leads to follow in the first place. In this respect Obama was lucky. The president said today in a speech to journalists that a week or so into his first term he asked Bob Gates who had worked in several administrations if he had any words of wisdom for him. Gates told him that he was now in charge of an operation that had 2 million employees and that every day someone working for the federal government will be screwing something up. With Obama I’m not sure the press searched non-stop for screw ups the way they did with Clinton.
C.V. Danes
@Baud: Yes, because they should just shut up and become nice little Clintonistas.
I need to take a break. See you in November.
Baud
@C.V. Danes:
Good, then I won’t have anyone putting words in my mouth until November. Have a nice break.
BillinGlendaleCA
@dogwood: The Republicans both in DC and Arkansas have been feeding the press stuff(mostly untrue) about Bill and Hillary for the last 35 years. It’s pretty well documented in “The Hunting of the President”.
bemused
@Matt McIrvin:
Heehee, 53% approval, last I read. Republican voters haven’t seen this or refuse to believe it’s true if they have. Everyone knows you can’t believe anything coming from liberal media which is any media that contradicts what you believe.
Matt McIrvin
@C.V. Danes: They should replace DWS, but not with Tulsi Gabbard, who is way to the neocon/Islamophobe right on foreign policy. It would make no sense for anyone worrying about Hillary Clinton’s possible hawkery to push for her as the future of the Democratic Party.
Raven
Got to the big city before sunrise, now I have to wait 2 hrs for the “ceremony”!
Raven
@Matt McIrvin: Looks like she’s a cultist too!
OzarkHillbilly
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: And they were duly reported on. And what about these?
I get your frustration with the media’s obsession with all things Clinton, but what you said was just not true.
gene108
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Or if any Congressional Repubs knew about Hastert’s past history of molesting students.
I can only imagine the wall-to-wall coverage of a prominent Democrat accused of homosexual molestation of teenage boys.
The third party attack ads, “Mr. Jones supported the homosexual child molestor’s agenda 99% of the time.”
Matt McIrvin
@Raven: I always take these cultism accusations with a grain of salt just because there are Christianist wingnuts out there busy labeling everything non-Christian as a cult. But she does seem sympathetic to Indian politicians who are sort of the Hindu version of Ted Cruz.
Raven
@Matt McIrvin: Kishna!
Stacy
OT Michael Hayden just said on Morning Joe that while he disagrees with Ted Cruz saying that the US should “carpet bomb” the Middle East to get rid of Isis, we should be tougher and we have “too low of a tolerance for collateral damage.”
Elizabelle
LOL. I spend so much time ragging NBC for being slanted (and they have become so; they’re awful) AND —
first time ever, I get to a hotel (a nice one, actually) that has no NBC, local or cable. They’ve got ABC and CBS and, yes, Fox News. (No AMC either. Cannot call Saul. That is a loss.)
So: thinking this might actually be an answered prayer.
First they came for the premium channels, but I cared not a whit for HBO.
Then they came for the local channels. And …
No Chuck Todd. No Andrea Mitchell. No concerned faces spouting false equivalencies. No warmongering and thrilling to terrorism as a topic. Vacation from vacuousness!
dogwood
@Matt McIrvin:
Instead of saying he’s glad that Tulsi’s on Bernie’s team but, given some of her odious positions that he was unaware of, she shouldn’t be DNC chair, he picks up his marbles and leaves.
Elizabelle
@C.V. Danes: But isn’t Tulsi from an exotic foreign country?
Hawaii.
Cokie Roberts told me so.
Baud
@Elizabelle: Another vacay?
Bruce K
Funny this comes up; I worked in the Kerry 2004 campaign in New Jersey, and I was assigned to an appearance by Hillary Clinton before a women’s group. Seeing her talk with a reasonably small group, seeing her interact, and briefly interacting with her personally, led me to think better of her as a person – and I will freely admit that it has created a bit of bias on my part with respect to the 2016 Democratic race.
In fact, the comment that comes to my mind when Clinton jabs at Sanders is this: “Dammit, Mrs. Clinton, you are better than that. I’ve seen you be better than that.” And then I immediately wonder whether I’m being unfair by taking that attitude, by expecting her to maintain the standard I saw her reach that one time.
Baud
@dogwood:
Amd they are definitely not going to change horses that close to the general election. Like others, I expect DWS to be gone shortly afterwards.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: Cokie’s dad was killed in another foreign land, Alaska.
gene108
@dogwood:
Obama benefits from not having an ideologue Special Prosecutor, like Ken Starr, subpoenaing the Executive Branch over every damn thing imaginable.
Between Obama’s relationship with Rezko and Michellle getting her pay doubled just as her husband got elected to the US Senate, there’s enough for a Ken Starr type to make life hard for Obama.
One thing to remember about the Clinton “scandals” Starr investigated is none of them had to do with Bill’s execution of his duties as President, which were honest, but with every tangential thing the right-wing noise machine threw up.
satby
@Baud: boom! And a few more could use a break like that.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Yup. Ambled through North Carolina and now in Jacksonville FL. Have to amble back north tomorrow. Drove a lot of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and top of NC, but spring had not sprung there yet …
Alas, no surfing dogs. The riptide prevented that. Guess they’ll reschedule. Did see some leaping and diving dogs, though. Plus lots on beaches (Jville area is good about that.)
ETA: the slideshow at the link is good. Border collie named Flank Sinatra.
Bumpersticker sighted yesterday in St. Augustine: (P)Rick Scott. Teabagging Florida’s Future.
OzarkHillbilly
@Bruce K:
Probably, and you’ve been better than that yourself in the past, ;-) but that’s only human.
Raven
@Elizabelle: Was Mount Mitchell open on the Blue Ridge? Do you know about American Beach on Amelia? Have you seen Sunshine State?
Baud
@Elizabelle: That dog has good form.
satby
@Bruce K: and the response she should have instead when Sanders jabs at her?
OzarkHillbilly
Anybody else notice a contradiction in this?
If it appeared to be a gun, that kind of means it wasn’t a gun, and if it wasn’t a gun, how could he attempt to open fire?
Sorry, just had to get that bit of pedantery out of my system.
Baud
@satby:
“Thank you, sir, may I have another.”
dogwood
@OzarkHillbilly:
I used to have a colleague who was a bit of a left wing conspiracy nut. She passed away before 9-11, but she would have been a truther for sure. In ’92 she was anti-Clinton during the primaries. I loved teasing her about her belief that the press was refusing to cover Clinton’s scandals, because when you’d ask her where she got her info, she’d start naming newspaper and magazine articles she read.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: It was a pellet gun.
Elizabelle
@Raven: Skirted Mount Mitchell, but a lot of stuff on Blue Ridge was not open yet. April or May opening dates. Got some snow/sleet in western NC on first day of Spring.
What’s the deal with American Beach? Drove by it; didn’t stop but could go there today or tomorrow. Spent 2-3 days on Fernandina Beach, which is lovely.
Jville’s been great. Seems a lot of people are elsewhere. Have no plans to get anywhere near Daytona! And saved the Keys for another time. Just dipped a toe in Florida.
Elizabelle
@Baud: They were so
preytoy driven! Amazing canine athletes.One Malinois was a rescue who’d washed out of police training. Would never release the suspect.
Faced with euthanasia because too high energy; a woman who trains a fleet of dock diving dogs rescued and the dog was amazing. Although too intense, really. Would circle the missed target high above its head, swimming like a shark, until called out of the pool.
Some of the dogs just wanted to swim and swim and not exit the water. Clutching the toy. Ignoring their owners. It was fun.
SFAW
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Well, they saw what happened the last time a Republican was being investigated for stuff: in the Summer of 2001 (I think), the SEC was starting to investigate Harken Oil. For some reason, that investigation stopped completely, around the second week in September of that year. (Paging Mr. Jones! Mr. Alex Jones!)
I have every confidence that, once Trey Gowdy is satisfied that there was no malfeasance vis-a-vis Hitlary and Denghazi, he will turn his considerable, non-partisan, investigative skills to Harken. Probably happen around November 9th of this year.
Raven
@Elizabelle: American Beach was the first African American Beach in Florida. It’s on Amelia and Sunshine State is a loosely based film about real estate interests try to take the beach away.
Beach Lady
Raven
@Raven: My friend did a documentary on her before she died and I was lucky enough to meet her.
bystander
@OzarkHillbilly: I was not the bystander in the article. That said, kind of a sad day when you go to visit our nation’s capitol and you end up taking friendly fire.
I only mentioned Sherrod because I couldn’t remember the endless litany of Obama’s Katrinas.
Elizabelle
@Raven: Good to hear. I may visit American Beach today.
St. Augustine had a lot of plaques/statues up commemorating civil rights era events (lunch counter sit-ins, Andrew Young walking a park).
SFAW
@satby:
A straight left or a right cross might work.
ETA: Yes, I realize she may not have the reach for a cross when Bernie jabs.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: And even then, it should have been reported as such. A pellet gun, while able to harm a person, and in theory even kill, is not a firearm. It was sloppy writing and somebody should have caught it. Again, forgive my inner pedant, and thanx for answering my unasked question.
SFAW
@bystander:
Except for the RNC convention, unfortunately.
msdc
@gene108:
I know you’re a diehard Clinton supporter, but why in God’s name are you bringing up Tony Rezko in 2016? Do you by any chance have a line on the “whitey tape”?
Clinton learned from her mistakes in 2008 and decided not to relitigate it. I encourage you to do the same.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
I’ve said it more than a couple of times in this august blog: there is a surprisingly large redneck contingent in the Commonwealth. And that was even before 9/11.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So Athens invented Democracy way back when, and the instant result is the lying politician, because the only way to persuade people to a massive tax hike now to build a massive navy so they didn’t get enslaved by Persians later was by lying, since people are selfish, short sighted idiots.
So please continue with this honesty argument and keep on ignoring who is more likely to get things done that need to be done.
Elizabelle
First, Politico colonized CNN. Now NBC. Gag.
NY Times:
More Republican water-carrying and “both sides”-ism. Now with more religion, too. Spare us.
Because what do cable news and NBC exist for, but to devote more air time to Donald J. Trump?
Bartholomew
@satby: “when Sanders jabs at her?”
This IS a problem with Sanders: he doesn’t actually attack much of anyone. A little, but mostly he talks about solutions for actual problems. Highly irrelevant to Hillary’s or mirror image extremist rightwing voters who have all swallowed too much shit to be interested in burping.
It is my one doubt about Sanders. He doesn’t seem to react to the fact the corporate Dems and paid hustlers are hypocritical fabulists who practice fake falls and suchlike. Sanders is going to be falsely painted as using an ‘attacking’ tone by the establishment and its monkeys no matter what, so being gentle only allows her supporters to be fooled.
Sanders should just get on with it. He isn’t dealing with honest folks, just ugly power-hungry politicians and their paid lackeys. And oh my, our dear Anne is showing her baboon ass and its yucky. The poor, maligned Clintons are actually … honest … yeah that’s the ticket. That’s why they own half of our electoral apparatus: the honesty of their politics.
rikyrah
Soledad O’Brien: #Blacklivesfade on 2016 trail
The Justice Department issued a scathing report on Ferguson, Mo. a year ago, confirming to the broader public what many blacks and Latinos had been saying for years: that the criminal justice system is rigged against them, sometimes with deadly results. The rage of the #blacklivesmatter movement seemed sure to dominate the coming election campaign.
Yet now in the midst of that campaign, an important national conversation about police brutality and discrimination has faded into the background. Instead, an angry white working class is center stage voicing, subtly perhaps, that this election is about recapturing a nation now led by its first ever African-American president.
…Bernie Sanders faced early protests for his lack of understanding of the movement. And while Hillary Clinton was able to capitalize on her strong support among blacks, police brutality has hardly been the centerpiece of her campaign. That’s even more true on the Republican side, despite a once huge field and months of debates and interviews.
It’s perhaps ironic that a conversation about police brutality and discrimination has been overshadowed in an election year in which the candidates have included an African American, two Latinos, a Jew and a woman. Not even the two Latinos, running as historic firsts, have talked much about discrimination.
The presence of the #blacklivesmatter movement is mostly felt these days in protests that some candidates are trying to hijack for their own purposes. Trump has had protesters forcibly ejected from his rallies. He sometimes counters them by saying that all lives matter, an attempt to reclaim the conversation about race from blacks and make it about whites. He really doesn’t need to do that. In this first election after our first black president, it has already happened.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: Thank you.
Although I think Democrats should propound what SHOULD be done. We have a Republiklown Congress. That could change, over time. Just because the GOP wants to slit everyone’s throats does not mean you back down and give up.
And get the ideas you want to support out there, again and again. It’s what the GOP does, successfully, with much worse policies.
satby
@Bartholomew: Clinton is dishonest and AL is showing her “baboon ass”.
Yeah, I think we’re done here.
Tim Smith
@geg6: I read that poll too. The spin in the media about the poll is exactly backwards.
Gallup asked people how enthusiastic they were about voting in this election (presumably in November), and not how enthusiastic they were about voting for their candidate. Given that Hillary is likely to be the candidate this fall, the correct interpretation is that Sanders voters are less enthusiastic about voting for Hillary than the Clinton voters. This is a very unremarkable and unenlightening result.
This very predictable result makes me wonder why Gallup bothered to take the poll in the first place. It seems tailor made for generating the false – “Hillary’s voters are more enthusiastic than Sander’s voters” – spin we are seeing in the media. If the Clinton/DNC camp commissioned it then points to them for creativity, but so far very few credible media outlets have fallen for it, so more points to the media. Play on!
Percysowner
@Matt McIrvin: I wonder if Biden would consider the job. He’s well respected in and out of the party. He won’t have a full time position, so he can devote the time needed. He does care about the Democratic Party.
ETA: I know this doesn’t do anything to satisfy Bernie folks, I’m just wondering who would be a good replacement/
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I generally like Soledad O’Brien, but I think she’s wrong here. Of course the Republicans don’t give a shit about black lives and haven’t since Nixon. But both Clinton and Sanders bring up structural discrimination and criminal justice reform at every single rally and debate. Neither has made it the “centerpiece” of their campaign, nor should they if they want to actually win the election. But it’s inaccurate to say it has faded as an issue, at least on the Dem side.
Elizabelle
@Percysowner: That’s an interesting idea. Biden could be good.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Speaking of baboon asses….
Bob In Portland
Truth and its measurement is a subjective thing. In 1993 NAFTA, with the support of GHW Bush and Bill Clinton, passed. In 1996 Hillary Clinton said, “I think everybody is in favor of free and fair trade. I think NAFTA is proving its worth.” In 2008 she said, “I’ve been a critic of NAFTA since the beginning.”
Was that a lie? Should it be tallied when judging her truthfulness?
FlipYrWhig
@Bartholomew: Oh my ever-loving God, the entire Sanders campaign is based on saying that he’s the only honest man in politics, that everyone else is corrupt, and that ranting about it fixes it because corrupt politicians won’t be corrupt anymore if The People rise up and stand outside their windows to remind them of the human toll of their decisions. It’s transparently an attack on all his foes’ integrity, and the proposed solution (POLITICAL REVOLUTION) is stupid. When he talks about tangible, concrete plans, he does OK, when he bothers with the details, which isn’t always, but he’s not the only politician with that problem.
FlipYrWhig
@Percysowner: I think Robby Mook would be pretty good.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
“plamegate” – Didn’t that get Scooter in a bunch of trouble, to the point where he needed a Presidential Pardon from W to stay out of jail??
No, I’m miss-remembering, he got his jail sentence commuted. Pissed off Dick Cheney too because W wouldn’t pardon Scooter, who can’t practice law no more. Or pretend to practice law, anyways. Most of the rest of those were brought up briefly, dropped mostly after a short moment in the sunshine.
Because IOKIYAR, and the big shot media people don’t seem to benefit from keeping things hot under the Republicans, not like they do from heating things up for a Democratic office holder.
different-church-lady
Welp, there goes The Guardian as the manic progressive’s favorite linky-place.
Elizabelle
@Bob In Portland: How be the mom today? And hope you are not coming down with strep.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: That’s a great suggestion, assuming that Mook wants the job.
japa21
Everything must always be viewed in relation to how it compares to other instances. Compared to the GOP show, the Dem primary has been genteel. Compared to the 2008 Dem primaries, 2016 has been genteel. However, there should be no doubt as to who has run the more negative campaign. It is Sanders by a large degree.
It didn’t start that way. I think that was partly because he didn’t really want to be President and was running mainly to get his ideas out there. Suddenly he found himself with a chance and he has almost, but not quite, turned into the Clinton of 2008.
Clinton will hit his policy proposals, but mostly because of the imprecision in the exposition of those proposals and the false math, etc. She has not attacked Sanders personally.
Sanders has gone after Clinton on a personal level, leveling accusations of being a Wall Street lackey for example with nothing to back it up, just a couple speeches to GS without mentioning that she gives speeches to all sorts of groups, and usually on the same subject, empowering women.
Again, compared to either the GOP or prior campaigns, this is really a nothing burger, but let’s not pretend that Sanders is pure and kind.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Hope you were able to see your mom yesterday, and that you both are at peace.
dogwood
@Bartholomew:
Sanders doesn’t “exactly attack much of anyone”.
Obviously Bernie hasn’t had much influence on your behavior. ” Baboon ass” ? What in the hell is wrong with people like you? I’d like to think Bernie would be appalled at that post, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s true.
FlipYrWhig
@japa21: I really, really don’t like the corruption argument he makes. And I think that’s the big overarching argument that animates his political conscience. I can buy the argument that Clinton is too much of a hawk. I can buy the argument that Clinton hasn’t done enough for working people. Those would still lead to heated exchanges between candidates and their supporters. Those are still conventional kinds of political arguments within the Democratic continuum: war/peace issues, populism and the status of the welfare state. I think saying that she’s the candidate of the dirty wealthy establishment is deplorable, and I think that’s the part that excites him to have a chance to say out loud with a lot of people listening.
El Caganer
@Baud: Maybe that was part of the deal when President Obama endorsed her in her re-election bid; she can be in Congress or head of the DNC, but not both.
rikyrah
hmmmmm
Chelsea Clinton’s bungled answer on her mother’s college affordability plan
By Michelle Ye Hee Lee March 29 at 3:00 AM
“What matters to me as a voter is that my mom is not only the only candidate on either side of the aisle who tells you exactly how she is going to pay for everything, but she doesn’t expect to rely on things that are unlikely, like that [Sanders’s plan]. So she says, going forward, she believes that anyone should be able to graduate from school debt-free, public universities or private universities, debt-free. And for public universities that students who come from working-class, middle-class families, should be able to go tuition-free. But families who come from wealthier backgrounds should pay into the system.”
Chelsea Clinton was asked by a University of Wisconsin-Madison student about her mother’s plan to make college affordable — one of the major domestic issues in the Democratic presidential race. But the former first daughter oversimplified two components in her answer and failed to capture the nuances. We fact-checked how much of Hillary Clinton’s college affordability plan offers “debt-free” and “tuition-free” colleges.
Applejinx
It does seem to me that you can’t be wildly disingenuous and also succeed in politics. With regard to the people she works with, Hillary _can’t_ be such a big fat liar because if she doesn’t do what she says (sometimes in private) that’s fatal to relationships.
I do wonder very much if some of these places are taking statements like ‘socialism really works!’ and rating them ‘Mostly False’. Or ‘our youth are being denied the right to an education through skyrocketing student loans!’, and calling it ‘partly true’ because rich kids exist who don’t have that problem.
I’ve seen video of Hillary clearly saying things that she now flat-out denies, and I don’t want her to go back to the thing she said before, because in every case I don’t LIKE what she said before. I think she has a problem in that politically, she has to deny such things even in the face of video footage or be called flip-floppy.
Bernie doesn’t have that problem but people will get pedantic on him, get mad at big sweeping general statements especially when they’re ‘revolutionary’ rallying cries. I think many of his rallying cries are rated ‘mostly true’ or ‘mostly false’ because exceptions are found easily to that stuff, but the exceptions aren’t always relevant to those for whom the rallying cry applies.
Tim Smith
@Zinsky: While admirable, personal charm doesn’t mean much. Most successful politicians are extremely charming. George W. Bush got elected on his charm, and we all know how well that turned out. George W. Bush also laughed off the idea that he would do nation building while running for office, and we all know how that campaign promise turned out.
Charm and good intentions only count when backed up by demonstrated integrity. I knew George W. Bush was going to take us to war for oil when he was running. You could tell from the advisors he chose to have around him. Henry Kissinger was too, and hundreds of thousands of people died. Ditto for Clinton. We’ll be mired in a war within a year of her taking office, and as a wartime president she’ll be similarly immune from criticism about other things. It’s why I can’t vote for her.
But yes, Hillary is clearly a very bright and charming person. I’d much rather have a frumpy old socialist with integrity than another charming president willing to sacrifice armies of 99.9%ers to make a handful of 0.1%ers richer.
Gin & Tonic
Am I the only one here noticing that a lot of the more vocal pro-Sanders commenters here lately, including some of the more obnoxious ones, are nyms that don’t have, shall we say, an extensive commenting history?
Peale
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, but I think BLM terrifies the right, and I think they think that BLM and Obama has won and now police can’t even arrest anyone “of color”. Seriously, I was reading some fuckwit right-wing “International Specialist” who wants to blame Islamic Extermism in Europe on all powerful “multiculturalist” academics and “BLM-type activism” which creates these “no-go” areas for the police. In Belgium. That’s how powerful BLM is. They have destroyed the police in two continents.
OzarkHillbilly
@J R in WV:
I seem to remember reading about each and everyone of them ad nauseum. In fact, I’m still reading about them in the news. Christie can’t open his mouth without a reporter referencing Bridgegate. And any article on Cheney is sure to contain mention of his past sins. Remember how the Abu Ghraib story lived on for years? And is now being resuscitated thru the latest “nude pictures/CIA” stories? (I haven’t even bothered to read those articles, just more SSDD)
Do they have an apparent obsession with Hillary and Bill? Absolutely, but that is more a result of the Republican oppo team ensconced in Congress with subpena power dribbling out incomplete info and innuendo as well as outright lies, and managing the news cycle. Complain if you like that the media all too often are just transcribers for GOP/DEM talking points with out pushing back on most of the BS, I do and often.
But it just is not true that the media does not report on Republican misdeeds. They do.
Chyron HR
@Tim Smith:
P.S. Stop accusing Sanders’ supporters of planning to sit out the election, you big meanies.
Kay
@rikyrah:
The reason I like public subsidy efforts that apply to everyone is because higher middle and upper class people will protect the subsidy if it applies to them.
I think of it like “putting them in front” (me, I would be in front, too) when these programs are targeted for cuts. The fact is they’re much less likely to go after a program that applies to everyone. That’s how Social Security and Medicare survived this long.
They’re seeing this vividly right now with state funding cuts to public colleges:
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay: Right. That’s the difference between how they treat Medicare and Medicaid. Means testing for Social Security sounds reasonable until you realize that puts it in the Medicaid category.
dogwood
@Tim Smith:
Could you people get your stories straight. I thought she was too unlikeable and lacking in charm to be electable. Now she’s too charming and the charming people kill at will. But I do note you like the martial references.
bystander
There will never be a self-denominated socialist in the WH, except maybe to clean up. If Sanders gets the nomination, it’s hello, President Trump.
I attended a speech by Hillary when she was running in 2008. It wasn’t Goldman Sachs but another major banking conglomeration that could not have existed prior to the destruction of Glass-Steagall. Does anyone actually think that she stands there saying, “Hope you’re enjoying the high life here thanks to Bill and me. If you elect me, expect more de-regulation and tax cuts.”?
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx:
Probably the things that Bernie says that aren’t actually true are better considered proof that he has sufficient wonder-working powers to emanate a _higher_ truth. It’s not so much Bernie’s fault, it’s the world’s, for failing to live up to Bern-vana.
dr. bloor
@Gin & Tonic: I’m thinking of changing my nym to “AL’s baboon ass.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
A feature, not a bug.
gene108
@msdc:
Obama has benefited by not having a Ken Starr Special Prosecutor parked in his Administration conducting witch hunts for any dirt he could uncover. Power Starr had to subpoena documents, testimony, etc was used as a cudgel to keep Clinton = corrupt in the headlines throughout the 1990’s. Starr’s over zealous hunting for a Clinton scandal, more so than the media, is what has helped cement the idea of Clinton = corrupt.
Whitewater, for example, was extensively covered. A special prosecutor was assigned and found no wrong doing. The case should have been closed.
But then Republicans win the House, and Ken Starr is appointed and Whitewater is back, along with a host of other issues that were tangential, at best, to Bill’s actions as President.
The only scandal revealed is Bill cheated on his wife, which apparently other politicians, it seems, have also done and some the voters have forgiven and some not forgiven.
As much as Gowdy et al have tried to investigate Obama and create the same level of scandal mongering, the House does not have the powers the Special Prosecutor’s office seems to have had.
If you think Ken Starr is not a major factor in the Clinton=corrupt mindset, I do not agree.
japa21
@bystander: No, I think Sanders would beat Trump, and not based on any of the current polling, which is meaningless. But it would be a close call. Any other Republican and Sanders would, in my opinion, lose.
Betty Cracker
@Peale: Good point. I’ve heard Trump say the police are not being allowed to do their jobs or are otherwise treated unfairly. I believe wingnut alarm about “no-go” areas in Europe predates BLM, but it’s not surprising that they are merging the concepts now.
Gin & Tonic
@dr. bloor: Funny. I replied to this comment with a bit of humor and it vanished. No moderation, just “poof.”
I guess that’s FYWP telling me that only “your candidate sucks” posts are acceptable.
Kay
@Iowa Old Lady:
People love sliding scales, so that part of Clinton’s idea is good, but she should set it HIGH- give upper middle something. She addressed the “skin in the game” theory that DC loves with making low income students work ten hours a week, but I wish they would look at “skin in the game” from a different direction. Upper middle needs “skin in the game” as far as protecting the public subsidy, politically.
It’s well worth it- paying them off- they’re aren’t nearly as many of them as there are poor and low income. It’s a bargain as far as buying political protection. Make sure they get 5k a year or something :)
There are real hard-headed practical reasons for extending benefits to the (higher) middle class that have nothing to do with “subsidizing Donald Trump’s kids” and everything to do with keeping them on board and not relying on their inherent goodness and instead playing to their self-interest :)
msdc
@gene108: I don’t disagree with your take on how the GOP associated the Clintons with scandal. I question why you would try to do the same thing for the Obamas by dredging up the nothingburger “scandals” that utterly failed to sway the electorate eight years ago.
Clinton has won the support of a majority of Democrats (including me) by embracing Obama’s legacy, not refighting battles she lost eight years ago. Apparently we’re still waiting for all of her supporters to get the memo.
Soylent Green
@bystander:Shirley Sherrod was Tom Vilsack’s scandal, a misjudgment that he has worked hard to set right. It happened quickly, well before the White House could weigh in. The president is not directly involved in every personnel action in the federal workforce.
bystander
@japa21:
That’s the kind of magickal thinking that puts Bernie in the WH with his Socialist Wand waving the repub Congress away and replacing them all with Deep Blue Dems.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m old enough to remember when Bobby Jindal was a budget genius. It was all smoke and mirrors. He left that state a disaster. I assume they’re energy-price dependent and he burned thru all the revenue sources with tax cuts. The Democrat who followed him will get the blame. They are actually threatening to pull scholarship money that students have already been awarded.
bystander
@Soylent Green: You seem to believe that facts somehow have anything to do with determining exactly what is a scandal and who is tainted by it. As you will recall, Colin Powell and Condi were noted for not having any publicly available electronic trail whatsoever. No trail, no scandal. But move the way the Secretary functions and communicates into the 21st century and it’s full bore SCAHNDAHL!
different-church-lady
@bystander:
Current polls disagree (as has been noted). But current polls are current, and the general election is not.
To my mind it’s more a question of matchups: who would Trump more easily get off their game? On the surface it would seem Sanders would be more easily rattled. I have a far easier time imagining Clinton giving Trump a “Please proceed” moment than I do Sanders.
Peale
@Kay: It’s one of those problems that I wish could be made clearer. What Bernie is proposing is to have the federal government take over the state school subsidizing that the states used to have in place – since the tuition reduction is aimed at state and not private schools. But I don’t think that’s a solution. I would like to find out what Dems could possibly run on a platform of restoring the university system budgets so that in-state tuition was 40% of out of state tuition, which is what it was 30 years ago. Or something like that. The state schools are supposed to be for the benefit of the residents of that state and I don’t think nationalising funding with a federal subsidy so that it doesn’t matter which state you come from is the way I want to go.
That said, Louisiana and soon a bunch of other Republican controlled states are going to be such messes that the only way to keep public universities from closing or spinning off in privatization schemes may be federal. None of the states, including blue states, are actually fulfilling the demand for lower cost higher education for their residents.
different-church-lady
@bystander: In a sane world, the real scandal would be Powell knowing his UN speech was bullshit and giving it anyway.
Bobby Thomson
@C.V. Danes: why Gabbard? Until about five minutes ago she was a rank homophobe, pro-forced birth, extreme Islamophobe from a right wing family.
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly: I heard it was possibly a BB gun.
D58826
(sigh). Over on Slate (yea I know) there are two posts – one which explains why the Clinton machine must be smashed in favor of the Bernie revolution. And the other by Susan Sarrandon in which she says that Clinton has been wrong about so much that she can not in good conscious vote for her if Bernie loses out. According to Sarrandon, Bernie is the most principled candidate to have run in her lifetime and has taken political stands even when they are unpopular (easy to do when you come from a small state that has had little impact on the national scene).Bernie’s supporters are passionate and principled and Bernie doesn’t have his ego in this fight. (he also walks on water). If that means Trump wins then that will bring the revolution immediately. By the way Sarandon voted for Nadar in 2000 and we know how well that turned out. I’m sure a President Trump will bring about a ‘revolution’ but I don’t think its the kind Ms Sarandon has in mind.
But lets suppose that Bernie wins in November. What will this revolution look like? The GOP will more than likely hold the House. If the democrats flip the Senate it will be with standard dyed in the wool democratic candidates who have no connection top Bernie or his revolution. In fact it is just those dyed in the wool establishment t democrats that the Bernie revolution wants to eliminate. The GOP will continue to control the legislative agendas in most of the states. So my question is where is the political support to even start this revolution? It looks very much like a revolution of 1 that unless there is a sea change in the rest of the political world will end when Bernie leaves the WH. The selling point seems to be to smash the current democratic establishment and replaced it with. ah with hmmm????????????
Or am I missing something
dogwood
@OzarkHillbilly:
I agree with you. Stories weren’t dropped, people just don’t stay interested in every story long enough to make it some full fledged scandal that has political consequences. Outside of sex scandals, it’s hard to predict what potential stories the American people will follow with any type of sustained intensity. Benghazi was a bust because there were never any new developments. I remember a friend getting excited about one of W’s cabinet secretaries getting picked up for shoplifting. She was sure it would be a big problem for Bush. Of course it wasn’t, because what elese can you say after he resigns and leaves town? Watergate, Iran-Contra, Lewinsky. New developments almost daily kept people interested in that stuff. Benghazi, was a sad story, but the coverage became boring.
Bobby Thomson
@Matt McIrvin: it almost makes you think they’re all full of shit.
Amir Khalid
Here’s a Bernista who won’t commit to voting for nominee Hillary over nominee Donald in November.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
You assume correctly and your diagnosis is accurate. I follow LA a little more closely than most because my son lives in Baton Rouge. The one inarguable fact I have learned over the past 4 years is that for a genius, Bobby Jindal is about the stupidest person I’ve ever seen. His wife probably needs to tie his shoes for him. Edwards will get blamed for something, but not for the current state of affairs down there. Probably for not waving a magic wand and making all the problems disappear.
But just like Bush owns the Iraq imbroglio, Jindal owns this mess in totality, even tho he had plenty of help from the GOP state legislature.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@D58826:
The ability to mindlessly worship Dear Leader.
Shorter Salon: CLAP HARDER
Bobby Thomson
@Gin & Tonic: nah, Doug has been commenting here for years.
Matt McIrvin
@japa21: Current polling is not meaningless, but it only gives you a starting point. Sanders starts out with a lot of public goodwill. Hillary Clinton had a lot of public goodwill, incredibly positive approval ratings, while she was Secretary of State, and it started to leak away the instant it became clear she was going to run for President in 2016.
But that took time. We’re now pretty deep into the primary season and Sanders is still riding high in popular opinion, which actually impresses me.
However. The question is what happens when Sanders starts coming under real media scrutiny. Sanders’ fans constantly complain that his campaign is under-covered, but if it gets the fair share of attention due a major contender it’s not all going to be positive. Calling himself a socialist hasn’t actually hurt him. But he said a bunch of weird/radical stuff in previous decades that’s only been batted around a little. None of it is substantively more damaging than, say, Obama’s association with Jeremiah Wright or Hillary saying stuff that mutated into “channeling Eleanor Roosevelt”, but we haven’t really seen how Sanders deals when one of these bombs goes off on a national scale. With Hillary I’m pretty confident she can swat it away.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I think Sarandon is a wonderful actor, but it mystifies me why anyone would look to celebrities for guidance on topics like politics. Sarandon was a Naderite in 2000, and if she didn’t learn her lesson from that, I don’t know why anyone would pay any attention to her now. My guess is she will come around. She doesn’t seem like a stupid woman, and her heart’s in the right place.
FlipYrWhig
@Peale: My neighbor, who’s a Foxified Republican with a lot of status resentment, but who also has some good qualities, thought that the Sanders college plan wouldn’t work because if it’s free, how would all the people who work for colleges (like a lot of people in my town) get paid?
Princess
@Amir Khalid: I didn’t realize until today that Sarandon had also been a big Nader supporter. I guess she doesn’t have to bother with voting with her vagina because she can vote with her big cushion of wealth and privilege.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/susan-sarandon-not-vote-vagina-article-1.2536095
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Amir Khalid:
Susan Sarandon appeared on a local Boston TV news show the night before the primary here, spewing nonsense about how Obama let us all down by telling everyone “he’s got this” and to go home after he won, leaving all his stuff on the WH lawn. That’s a completely bullshit Berniebot talking point from the Chief Bullshitter himself. She’s ridiculous.
The overweening white entitlement of so called progressives is breaking my brain.
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
Maybe it’s Reich to Rise, and he’s now hitched his wagon to the Bernie train? (No, I don’t really believe that, but he’s been such a whore, it wouldn’t surprise me.)
benw
@FlipYrWhig:
@D58826:
Bernie: Jewish, economic message to help the sick and poor, against the rich and bankers. Anti-violence. I mentioned this in an earlier thread: he’s obviously the second coming of Christ. Don’t vote for him at the peril of your eternal souls!
SANDERS/REVELATION 2016
OzarkHillbilly
@D58826:
You mean somebody dragged him into this race kicking and screaming and they hold a gun to his head at campaign events and bark, “SPEAK!” at him?
Having an ego is a job requirement for the Presidency. I have an ego but it’s no where near YOOOOOGE enuf to fill that job.
D58826
@Matt McIrvin: Just wait till the rightwing slime machine starts to swiftbolat candidate Bernie. Since the assume Hillary will be the candidate they have been laying off him because it suits them to have his ‘positive’ image beating up on Hillary and driving up her negatives
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin: I’ll tell you, my nervousness about Sanders in the general election is that a lot of the same people who approve of him in a low-intensity way (“Hey, I like that guy, because he’s pissed off and speaks his mind”) also like Trump for similar reasons. And while the discussion is about domestic policy, Sanders rides high. But if the discussion swings to foreign policy and terrorism, if it’s Sanders vs. Trump he’ll lose support to Trump: Trump is pissed off, uncensored, and wants to kill bad guys, while Sanders is pissed off, uncensored, and doesn’t show a lot of interest in killing bad guys. I think he’ll end up in the box marked “Decent Guy, Lousy Commander-in-Chief,” like Carter ’80 and Dukakis ’88.
Bruce K
@satby: Like I said, it’s probably unfair of me to have that expectation.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks. She was doing better. When you’re running on 20% of one kidney you don’t bet on the long run.
SFAW
@D58826:
That shit again? Spoken like a true Naderite (if she actually said anything approaching that).
D58826
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ll grant, for the sake of the argument, that when he started as a protest candidate his ego might not have been fully engaged. But now that he has come much further along than any one imaged I’m sure he is measuring the oval office drapes just like any other candidate.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@FlipYrWhig:
No one in the media/right wing has made a big point of sussing out his tax plan to pay for all the stuff he’s one-noting about, either. It would require one of the biggest, if not the biggest, tax hike in American history which is hard enough, but then wait until half the country realizes that “those people” will also be beneficiaries. His talking points just won’t bear a lot of scrutiny without looking pie in the sky ridiculous. Look at how popular Medicaid expansion has been in the red states. Also, he’s an old cranky feeble looking guy with that wagging finger scoldy shtick with a thin skin, and nothing else to really talk about. He’ll lose 45 states.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
Nope, I’ve noticed that too. Brief comments in bad faith made by nyms no one has ever heard of before.
Can’t tell if that’s officially sponsored, like R-t-R and sometimes Bob in Portland, who insists he’s a strong leftist and always has been. Right Bob! Whatever.
Bob In Portland
@D58826: My FLA sister and I know better than to talk politics. But I think that people need to listen to Costello’s “Night Rally” a few times.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
Reminds me of a guy I used to know who got shot 3 times in the chest. Everybody said he only survived because he never did have his heart in the right place.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
I agree with a celebrity on politics only if the celebrity agrees with me first. In April 2008, when Springsteen endorsed Obama over Hillary, I’d already made up my mind whom I preferred; I was glad Bruce agreed with me. Had Bruce endorsed Hillary instead, I wouldn’t have changed my preference to her.
D58826
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Actually I think there have been articles about the cost of his plans and he makes no secret that taxes will go up, a lot. The campaign ad writes itself – GOP tax cutters against tax and spend democrat. You don’t even have to mention that he is a socialist. Now the Bernie folks claim that being a socialist isn’t the poison pill that it used to be. Maybe they are right but the GOP has spent 8 years claiming Obama is a socialist and Obamacare is socialized medicine so the word must have an impact somewhere.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@D58826:
“Socialist” means big government. Big government means giving stuff to “those people”. It’s a racist dog whistle, which is what works.
dogwood
@FlipYrWhig:
I think it’s the domestic agenda that will give Bernie trouble. His tax plan really does hit the middle class hard. They’ll run from him when they see the bill, and democrats will be left holding the bag for years.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: One possibility. When your candidate wins six of the last seven primaries mostly by blowouts, you feel more expressive than the opposite. Over at Booman Tribune, where I would guess that the mix of commenters is slanted more towards Sanders, a number of heretofore unheard commenters who support Clinton have shown up. Coincidence or conspiracy? Who knows?
Also, at a site like BJ where the commenters are so brutally pro-Clinton, if someone (like that damned Bob In Portland) starts posting pro-Bernie posts others feel comfortable enough to come forward. I don’t think this is a great mystery.
Bob In Portland
@J R in WV: Why would you not think I’m a leftist? Because I’m not rooting for the candidate with three billion in her fridge?
OzarkHillbilly
@Bob In Portland: My mothers kidneys shut down and then came back on line on several occasions before she finally died of congestive heart failure (helped along by an incompetent nursing home staff). A buddy of mine was on dialysis for about a year (IIRC) when all of a sudden his kidneys started functioning properly again. That was 2 years ago and he hasn’t had any trouble since.
Things can change for the better.
D58826
@Bob In Portland: Bob in Portland would argue against gravity if we were talking about Issac Newton :-)
Bobby Thomson
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: scroll down. Not a good look for Susan.
Felonius Monk
@Betty Cracker:
Assumes facts not in evidence. She’d be my candidate for Baboon Ass with her latest emission.
gwangung
@D58826: Actually, they’ve assembled a few PACs to support Bernie.
Think about that.
Rathskeller
On Reddit just now, I saw a 50-element list of a pro-Donald supporter that was “debunking” reasons people have to dislike Trump. Reading it made me thoroughly depressed. It was having two dumb people in an argument.
That is, the first idiot makes a dumb argument against Donald. Then the second idiot makes an idiotic response. Either the initial assertion or the response may be riddled with lies or incompleteness.
It’s going to be a long, hard slog to November.
Matt McIrvin
@D58826: Clinton’s campaign currently has no reason to take the low road with personal attacks on Sanders, because they seem to have learned to count delegates and at this point they know they’ve got a pretty straight shot to the nomination. Sliming him would only hurt them. If his miracle occurs and he wins in NY, PA or MD, especially if it’s by solid margins, at that point I suspect you’d see them start to get down in the dirt, much as in 2008. Personally I think the chance of this is very low, but we’ll find out soon enough.
ThresherK (GPad)
Jill Abramson, I’m not shocked you’d say “This may shock you”, just disappointed that you’ve depriving us of a great Kent Brockman imitation for so many years.
Bob In Portland
@dogwood: Hits Middle Class hard? His income taxes don’t touch anyone making under $250K a year. That’s why I was asking how much everyone around here makes the other day. How much do you make a year, JR? Just roughly.
Is 250K middle class around here?
That’s why when I mention that Clinton has accrued billions from the rich no one here seems to find that disturbing. Saw she got a half-million’s worth of jewelry from the head of the House of Saud. When you get trinkets like that from a headchopper who finances ISIS, it keeps the headchopper out of the conversation when talking about Syria.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
How dare that bitch react when St Bernard calls her corrupt!
@FlipYrWhig: Yup, to hope that foreign policy remains on the back burner through the fall is a dangerous plan,
The courage it must take to keep typing when people type brutal mockery in response… Hero is word used too often nowadays, but….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
she was for Edwards in 2008. (Full disclosure… so was I, briefly)
Kay
@Peale:
Why not, though? K-12 systems are state run and the federal government plays a big equity role in subsidizing low income schools. It’s pretty standard “Democrat” to see the federal government as a civil rights guarantor and K-12 funding reflects that. Why shouldn’t public universities reflect that now that college or training past high school is not a luxury but a need?
I think there’s going to have to be an attitude and category shift. Start thinking of “free public education” as K-14 then (eventually) K-16. The fact is young people cannot make a lower middle wage without college or skills training past high school. That’s reality for them. It doesn’t have to be the traditional “go away for 4 years” that is always assumed in these debates. There’s w whole host of ways people cobble together a college degree or skills training.
It’s funny because I agree with your “not meeting demand” point, but creating demand for higher education was and is one of the goals in the US. If we have higher demand that’s a sign of success. The goal was for more people to have more education. Now that people are responding to that by pursuing more education I don’t think federal and state government can says “ooops! we can’t afford to subsidize so many of you!” It’s freaking incoherent. Either education is a priority or it’s not.
Bob In Portland
@D58826: Americans, especially those in positions of power, have been arguing against the laws of motion since November 22, 1963.
No, I spend every day scouring science blogs. You want a list?
You realize your little chuckle didn’t advance your argument, whatever it was.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland:
Your direct inquiry to me about my income did not mention taxes, and was somehow linked to 40k, not 250k.
We rate the statement “full of shit.”
Bob In Portland
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. She’s ninety, so, again, we’re not betting on the long term here.
Keith G
@Betty Cracker:
Susan is an amazing actor and has lead an amazing life – many lives, actually. Her success and her associations helps to nurture a bubble of pure ideological commitment that is not tethered by common pragmatism.
I think that her latest comments are dead wrong, but I value the voices of Lefties like her who are so anxious to outline how actually little our society is doing to promote improved socio-economic fairness.
OzarkHillbilly
@Bob In Portland: Valar morghulis, but let’s hope not yet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Like Alan Grayson and a few others, she has Said Things! and that proves that she would be a gifted fund-raiser, and would convince people to disrupt their lives and risk their financial stability and reputations by running for public office. And they would all be good liberals. No coal-friendly Dems from West Virgnia or Kentucky. No soft-on-guns candidates from Colorado or southern Ohio. They will all be good liberals, and they will all win after Tulsi Gabbard lights a candle at midnight, puts on a Howard Dean halloween mask and utters, or chants, or incants, thricely into a mirror, “Fifty state strategy, fifty state strategy, fifty state strategy.”
D58826
@Bob In Portland: sigh was just meant as a light hearted joke. absolutely no agendas or argument involved. I due agree with your first sentence.
In other non Bob related news. Scott walker is endorsing Tail-gunner Ted. SCOTUS split 4-4 on the Calif. school union case so the 9th circuit decision in favor of the teachers union stands. (Any one now need a reason to ignore Susan Sarandon’s political advice).
Kay
@Peale:
Democrats especially have to address skills training or college costs because so much of their “opportunity agenda” rides on education. I myself wouldn’t have out them in that box, but they put themselves there, so now they’re going to have to explain to people how they are going to pay for this “ladder of opportunity” they want everyone climbing. IMO, “more education!” has become a bit of an excuse for everyone to ignore all the other factors that contribute to income inequality and wage stagnation, but here we are, so they better come up with something to help people pay for it. If they want more than 30% with a college degree, if that’s the solution to all economic ills, they better come up with the means to do that, or they’re essentially offering people no solution at all.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady:
Okay, I asked what your family income was. You said 20K for a couple of years. I don’t know how much a spouse makes or if you got an inheritance or a paid-for house, but in places where I’ve lived 20k won’t pay for rent for a studio apartment. I figured you were holding back on information and I didn’t want to come off as a prosecutor. But if you are only making 20K a year and living under an overpass and use the public library for internet, then you clearly are voting against your own interests.
The $250K number is how much you would have to make before you get an income tax increase under Sanders’ proposals.
So how is my statement full of shit? Did you look at the numbers for Sanders’ tax proposals? Shit shit shit. Shit shit shit.
As long as you feel you’re honest and believe, shit shit shit.
Iowa Old Lady
In my travels last week, I talked to a couple of people about folding community colleges into the K-12 system and all of them seemed to think it was reasonable. They think of community college as low cost and part of local education anyway, and they see that a two-year degree or certificate of some kind is the equivalent of what a HS diploma used to be.
Bob In Portland
@Iowa Old Lady: Oregon passed a bill for free tuition for community colleges for kids coming out of high school. It doesn’t help anyone else, like vets coming out of the army, or people needing to “retrain” but it’s a start.
D58826
@Iowa Old Lady: I would add tech/vocational/apprenticeship programs as well. Not everyone wants to be a white collar worker. I would also include stipends for displaced workers learning a new skill. It’s hard to concentrate on learning a new skill when your not sure where your family’s next meal is coming from. From what I’ve read Germany seems to do a good job in this area so we might take some lessons from them
D58826
@Bob In Portland: As to returning vets, rather than folding them into the community college system how about extending their enlistment for 6 months or so. They get the training and still have a paycheck and all of the other military bennies to take care of family needs. Would be voluntary.
Bob In Portland
@D58826:
And an increase in Social Security. No matter what the percentage of hops in my beer it doesn’t make cat food taste any better.
Betty Cracker
@Bob In Portland: That’s a great start indeed. If the schools are anything like the ones here in Florida (and I’m guessing they are better in OR because they pretty much suck in FL — I should know!), high schools and community colleges are already working together to give AP kids early college credit.
PaulWartenberg2016
my two cents about the Democratic peeps who are hair-rending in their arguments between Hillary or Bernie.
LIGHTEN THE F-CK UP AND STOP FIGHTING EACH OTHER.
Done. Now let’s blow this thing so we can all go home.
Bob In Portland
@D58826: There are ways to do this, but they all require money.
opiejeanne
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve noticed it too. The obnoxious ones, McClaren insisted yesterday that they don’t exist, were imaginary, and dared us to name 5. I think we have exceeded that by now.
starscream
The only reason Gabbard is so popular with the internet left right now is because she’s one of the few people to have both met and endorsed Bernie.
D58826
@Bob In Portland: Yep. Just like it takes money to repair the bridges and see that all Americans get three good meals a day. As long as one party claims taxes are governmental theft then we will never have nice things.
Applejinx
@Bob In Portland:
Pics (and references) or it didn’t happen :P
Bob In Portland
My last word on the subject. Sometimes good guys don’t wear white collars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwE4OPwer1Y
Larv
@Bob In Portland:
Given that my first exposure to you here was your claiming that HIV was created by the US govt, and that you displayed a thorough ignorance of any of the underlying science, I kind of doubt that. Or (like Otto) you may read them, but I’m less sure you understand them.
feebog
@SFAW:
She said exactly that during an interview with Chris Hayes last night. The trouble with that thinking is that four years is not “immediately”. Four years of a Trump presidency would be a lifetime. And would ensure a conservative supreme court for the next 20 years. For that matter, a Trump presidency might mean none of us would be here in four years.
Bruce K
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I did say that my next thought was that I was probably being unfair to Clinton in thinking that…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Larv: are you saying Aristotle was not Belgian?
rikyrah
@C.V. Danes:
Hell no. I don’t want a Democrat who just showed up last week to be a Democrat.
rikyrah
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Absolutely true. On point.
maeve
@Bob In Portland:
That’s not what this calculator says: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/3/25/11293258/tax-plan-calculator-2016
A couple with 2+ kids makeing 200,000 pays 21,000 more – I don’t know whether that’s right or wrong or whether its supposed to be offset by savings on college tuition or health care – but that’s what Bernie’ll run against in the general election and complex explanations won’t counter it.
(BTW a single person, no kids, making 40,000 pays over $4,000 more)
Again – calculator may be wrong but is illustrative of what will happen in the general election
D58826
@feebog: ANY gooper in the WH would be a disaster. Kaisch seems moderate only because he keeps his crazy views off the campaign trail but he has governed like a true wingnut in Ohio. And Cruz well …. Trump might actually be the lesser of those two evils.
dogwood
@Kay:
As a retired educator, I can tell you education is not a priority in this country. It’s pretty sad to say this as someone who was passionate about teaching, but I stopped even looking at candidates’ education plans. Education is like gun control. People are for it in theory, but it’s not a voting priority. On a different note, concerning public employees and retirement systems, I actually feel fortunate to live in Idaho where we have the Cadillac of systems. I recently had to meet with my deceased brother’s financial guy. When I told him I was a retired Idaho teacher, he replied that he hopes I know how lucky I am. When I see republicans raiding pension funds to pay for tax cut, I feel, heartsick, lucky, and a bit guilty all at the same time. But it’s a reminder to me that so much of what ails this country lies at the feet of the states. Bernie’s message inspires young people, but it’s still a top down revolution. Electing Bernie or Hillary won’t stop republicans from raiding pension funds, poisoning the water, closing public schools, decimating universities , and it won’t stop local cops from shooting unarmed black people.
nellcote
@Bob In Portland:
single, no child, making between 10K -15K, Bernie’s taxes go up 900+
tax calculator
FlipYrWhig
@maeve: Yeah, I’m pretty confident that the idea is bogus that Sanders doesn’t touch the incomes of people over $250K.
D58826
@maeve: Bernie will be labeled a tax and spend socialist regardless of what the actual tax calculations are. One of the big problems with Bernie’s free college or single payer plan is the ‘pain’ starts immediately but the benefits will only show up in the out years. By ‘pain’ I mean people having to make changes in their lives or pay more in taxes. Look how much grief Obama got with his off-hand ‘if you like it yon can keep it’ remark. The number of people who could not keep their inadequate medical plans was relatively small. Single payer effects every one as they switch from an employer plan to the single payer plan. Not to mention all of the people who work in the health insurance business who would lose their jobs and the doctors/hospitals/big pharma who would see a decrease in reimbursement rates.
Paul in KY
@bystander: I would hope she excoriates them, but I bet she doesn’t do that either.
dogwood
@maeve:
Single, no dependents, at 50k I pay about 6k more according to the calculator, and if you can’t explain how that isn’t accurate in 140 characters or less or in a 30 second ad, that becomes the story.
D58826
@FlipYrWhig: I know the 1% are rolling in cash but is there really enough money there to pay for Bernie’s plans without going to a 60-70 percent marginal rate?.
Paul in KY
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Ms. Sarandon should STFU.
D58826
@dogwood: Just to refer back to Obamacare. look at all of the stories about people whose medical insurance premiums went up. Never mind that their old plan was worthless or that the ACA plan provided better coverage or that for many there was a subsidy to off set the increased cost. The story was we found some one who pays more now than they did before. It will be the same with Bernie’s tax plan. Heck people in Kentucky who never had healthcare insurance before Obamacare voted for the candidate who promised to take that health care away from them.
Elie
@Bob In Portland:
Glad she is better… I have been on long haul situations with both parents and it is not easy. And yet it is also some of my important memories of both of them — so take some time to really feel what is going on and savor that you were there for her. We can’t always be what we want to be for our parents when they want it. Your being there now is wonderful for her — and for you.
dogwood
@D58826:
If an employer is contributing 500.00 a month toward my healthcare and my taxes go up 400 for single payer, is there in guarantee that the employer will raise my salary? Or will he take the 500 and funnel it to investors? I assume that can’t be the case, because if it were ,corporations would be lobbying for single payer.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@D58826:
Actually, the vocational and apprenticeship programs moved to the community colleges years ago.
opiejeanne
@Applejinx: It’s a half truth and BS. http://thehill.com/regulation/administration/319383-administration-discloses-bounty-of-gifts-from-foreign-leaders
“….Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to have received the most expensive gift, described as “white gold jewelry with teardrop rubies and diamonds containing a necklace, a bracelet, earrings, and a ring.”
Bestowed upon Clinton by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, the jewelry is valued at half a million dollars. It is pending transfer to the GSA, according to the State Department…..”
D58826
@dogwood: I think it would depend on how the law was written. For single payer to have any popular support, the employer portion of the health care premium would have to go to the government in taxes and not back to the company bottom line. That being said and given the relative power balance between corporte America and joe sixpack, the money will go to the corporate bottom line.
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: When I was in school (back when we used quill pens) it was still a vo-tech high school type set up. For larger districts like Philadelphia it was in the district. For suburban districts it was a county wide high school.
D58826
totally OT
Paul in KY
@opiejeanne: Makes me like her more. She could have refused the gift, but knowing it goes to the US Govt, she accepted some of that loot to help the US!
opiejeanne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: In California that’s true. I cannot understand how all of the really bad private vocational schools stayed open when you could get the two-year nursing degree at a JC. Why would anyone pay the outrageous tuition at Bryman if they could get the same diploma at the local Community College?
Not every JC has every discipline, you might have to go to Rio Hondo in Whittier for pilot training (ok, not sure they still offer this) or public safety (police training), Riverside Community College for nursing or beautician certification, but in California at least the JCs are thick on the ground and offer many different specialized degrees.
opiejeanne
@Paul in KY: I am pretty sure it is considered diplomatic to accept the gift from an ally (no matter how odious) and standard operating procedure to turn it over to the government because there are rules about accepting gifts that everyone in the government is supposed to abide by. The jewelry will probably end up in the Smithsonian where we can all enjoy looking at them.
I already liked her a lot, glad she isn’t just tucking them into her purse when no one is looking.
chopper
@Chyron HR:
name me five (5) people who intend to sit out the election if hillary wins the nom or be revealed as a lying piece of human excrement! NYAARRRGH
Smedley the uncertain
@opiejeanne: Gifts of significant value exchanged between members of the government are deemed U. S. property and are, as the article points out, turned over to the Government Services Agency (GSA).
So Hillary doesn’t get to keep them…
smintheus
So the point once again is that anyone who thinks the Clintons are not trustworthy (as I do) are basically nuts? Might be more credible if you could demonstrate it rather than just waving your hands in front of the problem that they’ve done a lot of shady things.
Bill Arnold
@Bob In Portland:
FWIW, my mother lived for 10 years on 25% of one kidney. 100 percent compliance with a strict kidney diet.
(Kidneys badly damaged by strong NSAIDs taken for arthritis without monitoring. )
Paul in KY
@opiejeanne: Well, you sure know how to harsh on a guy’s pro-Hillary spin ;-)
opiejeanne
@Smedley the uncertain: I pointed that out. The bit about sticking them in her purse was a joke.
opiejeanne
@Paul in KY: OH God, it will be seen that way, won’t it?
Yeesh.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@opiejeanne: I got lost driving through central (I think it was) France and stumbled on the Francois Mitterrand birthplace museum, which houses all the gifts he received while in office. Some of it was really cool shit. Some of it was flat out tacky. I’ll let you guess who gave him the almost . life-size crystal eagle that represented freedom, or liberty.
That jewelry is a kind of a weird gift. Maybe President Hillary (incoming!) can order it auctioned off and give the proceeds to an international women’s rights NGO>
bemused senior
@Bob In Portland: You are incorrect in your statement about not paying more until you make $250000. Here is the VOX tax calculator. Try $50,000 married with two children.
gwangung
@smintheus:
No, the point is that you haven’t sufficiently supported the thesis that the Clintons are more untrustworthy than a typical Democratic politician. That’s a comparative exercise, and while it IS a harder thing to support, I think actually doing it would be enlightening.
Bob In Portland
@bemused senior: Sorry, I don’t rely on the Brookings Institution for anything. Seems to me since Vietnam. I followed the links and have no faith with the numbers.
Everyone’s tax goes up for a single-payer, but everyone doesn’t have to pay health insurance. That’s a big cut.
Now if you make a quarter million a year I expect you to be paying more. If you’re someone who’s donated a million to Clinton or her Foundation I’d expect you’d be paying over fifty percent.
Bob In Portland
@FlipYrWhig: That’s not what I wrote. After 250K he touches.
Bob In Portland
@Chyron HR: Read this.
Twenty percent of Sanders supporters won’t vote for Clinton in the general. About nine percent will vote for Trump. The rest will vote Green or stay home.
Don’t get angry. Try to figure out why.
redshirt
@Bob In Portland: Because they’re naive fools?
J R in WV
@Bob In Portland:
Bob, I’m hoping your Mom does well, when Mrs J’s kidneys were a problem along with the rest of her systems, her kidneys were the first thing to come back fully on line.
My income really is none of your business, but I will inform the world that I am a retired state government employee living mostly on Social Security and a state government pension. So I’m not making $250K/year. Fortunately Mrs J is also drawing a small pension and her own Social Security benefits, and we don’t have huge loans outstanding, so we are comfortable, able to buy a car as needed, etc. We were both union members, the Mrs was an elected officer for years in her local.
I have never voted for a Republican, and have supported and volunteered for Democratic candidates for years.
All that said, I think Hillary Clinton will make a great president, we have contributed to her primary campaign and will work for her in the general election.
I suppose you can’t be a liberal or a socialist because of the many ridiculous things you believe about Mrs. Clinton, things propagated by Republicans for decades.
Just like I could draw conclusions about you if you were telling us about President Obama coming to take our guns, and the secret FEMA camps reached by tunnels from closed Wal-Mart stores in TX, or any of the other dozens of stupid and obviously fake racist stories about the weak socialist dictator from Kenya.
I wish I were just snarking but the stories are as real as their content is phony. Pretty sad, what the racists get up to before you lift that rock they live under.
smintheus
@gwangung: We’re being told here that “Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.” Not that she is less untrustworthy than some other Democrats, but that she is trustworthy, period. And this despite her record of doing/saying untrustworthy things.
mclaren
Sorry, no. Hillary Clinton is not even remotely honest and trustworthy.
Hillary has flopped around on what she’s said like a dying carp. She was for the TPP, then she was undecided, then she was against it. She was against breaking up the big banks, then after overwhelming pressure from the Bernie supporters and the press, she started coming around to weasel-wording that suggests she is against breaking up the TBTF banks. She gave superhawk speeches over the last couple of years saying that America needs a “more assertive foreign policy.” Now in the heat of the campaign she’s backed off to differentiate herself from Trump and now she claims it’s important not to ball right in with boots on the ground whenever we have a foreign policy crisis (the exact opposite of the position she’s taken as Secretary of State and as a speechmaker to the military-industrial constituency over the last 3 years).
Hillary has given speeches to Goldman Sachs explaining that “bashing the bankers in unproductive” and “it has to stop.” Then she gives speeches to crowds on the campaign trail explaining that “we need to fix inequality.”
Hillary is as untrustworthy as an eel drenched in Pennzoil.
mclaren
@D58826:
Easily. The U.S. spends about 53% of its annual 4 trillion dollar budget on national security, broadly defined. The annual Pentagon budget of 600 billion represents only a tiny fraction of what we spend on national security. Between the NRO (surveillance satellites), the CIA, the NSA, miltitary retirements, the Department of Homeland Security (at least 70 billion dollars each) plus black programs that don’t show up in the official budget, you’re up to well over 2.2 trillion dollars per year burned on worthless counterproductive shite like $30,000 bulletproof vests for SEAL dogs and 3 million dollar lightning guns designed to kill terrorists from the air (but which don’t work and were scrapped and sold on ebay for pennies on the dollar).
Slash that useless spending and we’ll be drowning in cash to fund every policy Bernie Sanders has proposed.
mclaren
@J R in WV:
Great president, meh. Probably not. But she won’t make a terrible president.
Which is why I’ll vote for Hillary if my first choice, Bernie, isn’t the nominee. My ideal nominee would actually be the reanimated corpse of Eugene Debs…but Bernie will do in a pinch.