A friend of mine in the “Bernie or Bust” camp says Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be President. This friend says that Clinton, among other things, is a warmonger and a binge-drinker.
I don’t want to lose a friend over a Presidential election, but I’ll say this: if Sanders supporters want this country led into war by a drunken sailor, then come November, don’t support the Democratic nominee, and help Donald Trump become President.
I understand the thinking behind the “Bernie or Bust” position. The 1% have co-opted our politics with their money. Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton is sufficiently separate from the 1% to honestly and substantially fight the 1%’s grip on power. If the 1%’s money is the supreme evil in our politics, then one cannot justify voting for any representative of the 1%. Bernie or Bust!
I get it. But I can’t buy it.
I have never wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton. Maybe I’m still stuck in some psychological inertia from the 1990s, when I was a young and foolish Republican reviling Bill and Hillary Clinton because it felt good. Maybe my conversion to the Democratic Party (thanks to men of principle like Dennis Kucinich) hasn’t fully undone my Clinton aversion. But Hillary Clinton has made clear she does not believe in the radical change I have wanted since backing Kucinich in 2004 and 2008. She supports incremental change at best, tempered at every step by a centrism akin to Barack Obama’s and a far more compromising triangulation that promises less progress on health care and human rights than the Obama Administration has delivered.
Part of the error of my youthful Republican ways was wallowing in philosophical abstractions instead of dealing with practical policy. My abstractions still grab me every now and then, and they protest another Clinton Presidency. That the United States turns to the close relative of a former President as a main contender for the Presidency twice in sixteen years suggests democracy is misfiring. Two families controlling the White House for six out of eight consecutive terms. (You may hold me to these words if Michelle Obama runs for President.)
Cold political calculation also makes me doubt Hillary Clinton’s ability to win the general election. Much as I don’t like it, her status as former First Lady ought to be a huge electoral advantage. First Ladies have favorability ratings close to the Pope’s. Hillary Clinton piled U.S. Senator on top of her First Ladyship and still lost her first bid for the Presidency to a nerdy black rookie Senator from Illinois. This time she adds Secretary of State to her résumé, and she’s barely beating a cranky old socialist from Vermont. If Hillary Clinton couldn’t beat Barack Obama, and if what we’re seeing this spring is the best she can do against Bernie Sanders, can we really be sure she’ll inspire enough people to come to the polls for her against her pundit-defying billionaire neighbor from New York, Donald Trump? While Clinton has squandered sure-thing status against dark horses twice, Sanders has achieved much more with much less political capital. In an unpredictable political year, I would gamble on the unpredictable rise of Bernie Sanders before I would gamble on the oft-predicted coronation of Hillary Clinton.
But delegate math tells me I won’t get to roll those dice. Clinton is winning—not by much, not by as much as she ought to be, but by enough. Clinton will make the final speech in Philadelphia, and Clinton will lead the charge against Trump’s fascist wave in November. And in the face of that wave, we Democrats cannot sit out. We cannot pout about the absence of a true reformer on the Democratic ticket. We cannot splinter into protest votes for a Green here, a Libertarian there. We have to settle for four years of pragmatism and political dynasty. We have to settle for Hillary Clinton.
I do not want Hillary Clinton to be President. But she is qualified to be President, and Donald Trump is not. I disagree with many of Clinton’s policy positions, but to contend that a woman who spent eight years in the White House as the President’s closest advisor, then served eight years in the U.S. Senate, then was America’s chief diplomat for four years is not qualified to serve as President requires ignoring her record and her words and embracing flimsy Enquirer-level assertions, rumors, and conspiracy theories. To contend that Donald Trump is not qualified to serve as President requires only an honest reading of the actual words (by turns vile, contradictory, and false) coming out of his mouth.
Electing Clinton as we know her does not forward the revolution Sanders seeks. But electing Trump moves us backward.
Left to her own devices, Clinton will not help us get big money out of politics. But here we can use Clinton’s triangulation to our benefit. If we make clear that she owes her Presidency to millions of Bernie Sanders voters who do her a big solid, if we elect Senators and Representatives and state officials who support the revolution, she will have to bend her triangle toward the revolution to survive.
We can push for that bend now. We can send Bernie Sanders to the convention with as many delegates as we can muster with our remaining primary votes. We can make clear that her victory in November and her political capital in the White House depend on us, and that our ongoing support depends on her adopting more of the Sanders platform. We’ve pulled her our way on Keystone XL and on expanding Medicare to non-retirees; we can keep pulling on TPP, the minimum wage, and other issues affecting income inequality.
“Bernie or Bust” need not mean we tear up the convention and then quit. “Bernie or Bust” need not mean we act like Fox News, accept every bad rumor about Clinton as gospel, and pave the way for the Trump Presidency. “Bernie or Bust” is the ongoing threat that keeps Hillary Clinton under our thumb through November and for however long she leads the country.
We don’t have to put Bernie on the ticket. We have to put Bernie’s policies on the ticket. Donald Trump will never do that. Properly and constantly pushed, Hillary Clinton will. Even if she needs a couple stiff drinks after signing the latest Bernie Sanders bill into law, she’ll be our gal more than Donald Trump ever will be.
Friends, don’t stop shouting “Bernie or Bust!” But don’t make it an excuse to stay home in November, and don’t let it drag you into a Fox-Newsish disregard for fact. Shout “Bernie or Bust!” at the convention, at the Clinton rallies, and at the Inauguration. But make darn sure she’s the one hearing that shout next January.
This just makes me more want to NOT vote for Hillary, Cory. Sorry, I just can’t make myself vote for someone that is part of the problem.
Wait, you were republican once?
Hillary doesn’t publicly boast about adultery or issue blanket condemnations of ethnic and religious minorities.
And apparently these are the new minimum standards to which America is sinking.
Cory, your thesis assumes our Democratic vote counts in November. The state’s electoral delegates will go to the Republican candidate whomever it is.
That being said, Bernie has my enthusiastic vote in the primary. I’ll vote down ticket in November but probably leave the top race unvoted and feel no guilt whatsoever.
Doesn’t matter who Dems vote for in South Dakota because red always carries the state. Might as well cast a vote that sends a louder message than just a rubber stamp approval of HRC. I might write in Bernie, or vote Green, or just leave it blank. I think the real missed opportunity here is that Bernie supporters were likely to give a lot more help to our local Dem candidates than HRC and the DNC ever would. Now with the most brutally negative general election campaign brewing between two of the most unpopular candidates ever, I think getting voters to turn out is going to be a real challenge. And that doesn’t bode well for Dems in SD.
I agree that historically SD is a red state, but not every Republican likes Trump, nor wants him with control of the nuclear launch codes. The Libertarian polled at 10% nationally in a recent poll, and some will vote for Hillary since she is more centrist. But unless both Bernie and Hillary supporters turn out, then there isn’t a chance.
When did 2.9 million votes more than your opponent not mean a large victory Cory? ;)
Why not vote for Hillary, in SD you can lie, cheat and steal and still get elected.
so Greg you have proof that Hillary lied, cheated and stole?
I went to the Bernie speech in Sioux Falls. The tension with Hillary was palpable and not easily mended.
BTW, if there is fire to the smoke with the Va. governor, I think the Dem nominee will be Biden or Sanders. I don’t know how the DNC will get there but they will figure out a way.
This election reminds me a lot of Garfield vs Hancock.
@Mike Q. — Without wanting to get involved in the inevitable Bernie vs. Hillary pie-fight, can we please stop trotting out mendacious claims as reasons to support [insert favorite candidate here]? Claims that were bogus during the bitter 2008 primary remain just as bogus now.
Specifically, the “got more votes” nonsense. You cannot compare votes in a primary as some sort of objective measure. Primaries differ wildly from state to state. Some are open. Some are closed. Some aren’t even primaries with regular vote counts; they’re caucuses instead. Comparing those “votes” is adding fractions without using a common denominator. It’s comparing apples and watermelons. Please stop it. Both Hillary and Bernie supporters should be able to give good, persuasive reasons for supporting their candidate, and not resort to intellectually insulting talking points.
Some anonymous commenter (possibly one named after an inkblot or a comic book character – take your pick) voted absentee for Bernie today. That person could hold his/her nose and vote for Hillary in November (assuming she’s the nominee), but what does one SD vote matter?
Hmmm. Let’s see what Gary Johnson & Bill Weld have to offer …
@Chris S.
Apologies. I forgot that one does not win the nominating process through votes, or delegates earned, but through the intensity and passion behind the candidates support. Which over course is why we look back to the Presidency of Howard Dean so fondly.
Owen, lighten up a little. I never said Hillary lied, cheated or stole anything nor has she ever been elected in SD. It is under your assumption that maybe she has. I am merely stating that we elected a Senator that was accused of all three by many of the Dems. Grow some thicker skin Owen, it’s going to be a long time till election.
A group of us who worked for Democratic senators as staff and volunteers gathered to draw a petition asking Bill Clinton to resign the presidency. This was when the Lewinsky affair broke in 1998. Clinton had been under attack constantly for indiscretions, most false contrivances by his opponents, and now a relationship was revealed that fed into those attacks. Then the agricultural adviser to one of our SD senators came in from Washington and advised us not to process the petition because it would disrupt some important negotiations that were crucial to farmers and ranchers, and Bill Clinton was the key to a successful resolution.
Bill Clinton had signed the Freedom to Farm Act of 1996. It was largely opposed by Democratic senators, but it passed the House and Senate. A provision of the bill was the elimination of crop subsidies, which was a goal of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush presidencies. Democrats saw it as the final act in eliminating family farms and integrating them with corporate agribusiness. When the bill passed, crop prices were high and it looked as if farmers could operate without subsidies. However, farm prices are volatile, and by the time of the Lewinsky scandal, they had tanked and farmers were facing some situations much like the farm crisis of the 1980s. Legislators were getting heat from farmers and Clinton was moderating efforts to forestall another looming disaster for agriculture. The farm adviser stressed that if Clinton resigned or was removed from office, agriculture could well meet its final disaster. The president’s negotiations on some provisions for farmers were essential, in effect, to save farming.
It was this and other negotiations taking place during the impeachment proceedings that were playing out and led to his acquittal. Polls at the time reflected public disapproval of his personal affairs, but his performance ratings were rising. A good portion of the public seemed to realize that some crucial affairs of government should not be disrupted by dalliances in the Oval Office.
Shrewd observers of democracy recognize that it is always vulnerable to the failures of the people. Thomas Carlyle characterized the people as forming mindless and dangerous “swarms” that were incapable of productive self-government. Walt Whitman acknowledged that people could be stupid, venal, and driven by ignorance and malice, but the forces dedicated to freedom, equality, and justice might be threatened but would prevail over the threat of mass destruction.
The fact is that democracy can fail. We see that throughout the world where corruption, malicious fanaticism, and intellectual and moral incompetence prevail. Donald Trump represents all those deficiencies and failures of mind and character that threaten democracy. He raises all those figments of talk radio that have been raised against the Clintons. There is not another human being on earth over which we as human beings cannot find some disagreement, and we are forced to make personal concessions to endorse someone who by and large represents our best interests over our petty disaffections. At times, we have to focus on the job being done, not the personality of who is doing it.
The GOP is one of those swarms that Carlyle saw. It has produced Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Trump, and the rest of what was regarded as a clown show. In opposition, the Democrats raised candidates who keep talking about issues, who have some differences on them, but who keep trying to generate a dialogue about how those issues ultimately affect us. Trump, on the other hand, obsesses the nation with Vince Foster, Benghazi, fellatio in the Oval Office, who is ugly, who can be designated losers (anyone who divides the nation into winners and losers is not qualified to do anything), and who can be defamed in any possible way.
Neither Hillary or Bernie have condemned anyone for the color of their skin, their creed, or their place on the social scale. Neither have wished anyone ill. That cannot be said of the other side.
Just as our ancestors from the Old World readied their trunks to move to America when their political and social systems failed them, we are faced with that prospect in America. I would prefer that people vote for those who represent a viable alternative to the destruction of our democratic principles, even if they have some disagreements with them. On the other hand, the defamations from the swarm are affecting Democrats. If they choose not to vote because they believe those defamations, the principles of our democracy can well be abolished.
I hope for the better. But I keep my trunk packed.
… besides the opportunity to vote against the greater of 2 evils.
Almost every election in the whole history of this country can be seen [cynically] as a choice between the lesser of all evils.
No candidate or official is ever perfect. The less-perfect attributes are what so many of contrive as the “evil.” However, the natural shortcomings of an individual are rarely actual evil – unless we’re talking about Bush/Cheyney Admin.
I want to see more Hillary people express more appreciation for how Bernie brought new demographics into the fold. I want to see Hillary, herself, personally bring them in closer by choosing Liz Warren for VP.
Ultimately, if anyone wants to talk about an ‘evil’ in our democracy, they should keep the convo limited to how republican voters don’t understand why government exists or what it should ever do in this world besides blow people up on the other side of the world and reduce taxes until it, itself, ceases to exist. The most radical nutso churches all vote republican to save the babies and keep those gays from becoming equal.
Without the smallest brained, easy to fear monger, radical, low info, voters in the country, the GOP simply dies. As the modern world presses forward, GOP will continue to die – I actually enjoy watching the show.
I believe the late great James Brown was prophetically speaking to Democrats in 2016 when he said, “People, you got to get over before you go under.” It was testiment to getting over your smaller differences so you can take on the larger task at hand – together – united – and strong.
Trump or not, GOP is obsolete in today’s world, and needs to either reinvent itself very quickly or simply be destroyed by political market forces just as it currently is.
Even if it was Bugs Bunny vs. Donald Trump – I would get out the vote for that rascally rabbit.
The time may be right for a viable third party – fiscally conservative (but not in a Republican borrow-and-spend/military industrial complex kind of way) and socially liberal. The Libertarian Party has the best ticket it has ever had, and perhaps at the right time.
Hillary Clinton won’t get my vote by default. Bernie’s campaign is much more than just him. This is a revolution to get money out of politics, something that Clinton has benefited from over her career.
Cory, there has always been big money in politics and there is no way to get it out. George Washington was probably the richest man in America. His Secretary of State and our third President, Thomas Jefferson, was almost as wealthy as George. Andrew Jackson was quite likely the richest man in Tennessee. It has been estimated William McKinley outspent William Jennings Bryan 10 to one. Teddy Roosevelt and FDR came from a very wealthy New York family and JFK would not have become President if his father, as one of the wealthiest men in the county, had not spent lavishly on his son’s campaign. And candidates who raise large sums from collective constituencies like Ron Paul and his son, or Barack Obama and Bernie, and, yes Hillary too, though not as much as Bernie, are still captured by the particular issues which attract their collective donors in the first place. Whether it is auditing the Fed or returning to the gold standard, free college tuition, paid family leave, equal pay for women, or a desire to throw bankers in jail, to compromise their position, whether desirable or not, threatens their donor base and makes political accommodation undesirable.
We can bemoan the corrupting influence of money on our politics and it certainly is corrupting,
but what to do about it I don’t know. It has always been there and it always seems to find a way through whatever legal barriers or social conventions we erect. Way-back-when, William Randolph Hearst created a newspaper empire and, some say, started the Spanish and American War. The oil baron H.L. Hunt bought a consumer product company and had a weekly radio program to promote his crazy ideas with his company as the sponsor. Hell, Rupert Murdoch created a broadcasting network and Fox News and put Ronald Reagan’s former political Svengali in charge to push Rupert’s point of view.
Bernie is not immune from the influence of money though he is in a strong state of denial and impressed by his own purity. He has always pushed the interests of the dairy industry in Vermont at the expense of consumers of milk and cheese. And, he has carried water for the gun lobby in the past so as not to alienate the NRA though he claims he only wants to protect poor, small, gun shop owners. (Give me a break Bernie.) Bernie is not less political then Hillary, he simply has had to heed the concerns of a different set of constituents.
Well and truly spoken, Mr Newquist.
Can anyone name a single crime committed by Clinton of all the scurrilous garbage thrown at the 42nd Potus? None of the rape allegations were ever proven. Paula Jone’s case was thrown out of court. Vince Foster committed suicide. The Clinton’s lost money on Whitewater paying for assets their partner Jim MacGougal sold illegally. The Clintons left the WH with millions in debt to defense attorneys and wingnuts are still after them, all these years later.
IF Bernie loses to Hillary, and tells his supporters to vote for Hillary, we older folks will vote for Hillary. But all those young new to politics people are not going to vote at all if Bernie loses. They did not get involved before and only started because of how honest Bernie is. So in their opinion, if the honest one loses, they are going to give up on politics again and reassure themselves that it was obviously wrong to have tried in the first place because all politics is crooked anyways and remind themselves to not waste so much time trying politics again. So half of the Sanders supporters will switch and the other half will go home. That is just how the different age groups are and the only thing that is going to get those genxers and millennials to participate in the long run is to get more than one, many, honest politicians involved. But is that possible with all the money in politics. Only if the voters demand it.
Remember, Sanders is a Jew who voted against going to war with Arabs while under a lot of pressure from everyone to go to war. Not many have that good of a conscience. Hillary went with the crowd when Bush threatened to end all their political careers if they did not go to war by painting them as unpatriotic. And now again Sanders is not looking at his career or winning, he is sticking with what is right even if it looks like he might not win. That is the amount of character that it takes to be a great President.
We have been down this road before, and now we have Kristi Noem. Guess we showed them.
Bernie has skeletons in his closet. Everyone does. As much as I like Bernie and dislike HRC, I will vote for the standard bearer just so Donnie Dum f@#$ doesn’t get near a red button he can push.
It has been said that not voting is making a political statement. True, it is making a statement, a stupid one.
There probably isn’t anyone on this blog that has felt pressured to vote for the lesser of two evils and when all is said is done it has all worked out.
In 2008 I was pissed that Obama beat Hillary, I slept on it over night and realized how much we had to lose if I didn’t support Obama.
It has taken nearly eight years for President Obama to reach some of the best favorability numbers in his presidency, it is now around 70%.
Donald Trump is America’s enemy and deserves to be treated as such. As Dr. Newquist and Adam have so eloquently stated, Trump represents the ugly side of America and we have an electoral obligation to stop him.
^^^What Mike said^^^
“Maybe I’m still stuck in some psychological inertia from the 1990s, when I was a young and foolish Republican reviling Bill and Hillary Clinton because it felt good.”
Cory, I was a young and foolish Democrat at the time, and the shameful actions by the president and the partisan reaction by Daschle and the rest of the Democrats chased me out of the party.
Let us all be grateful that Democrats ran Sibson out of the party.
Interestingly that Bill Clinton retains one of highest favorability ratings of all previous presidents.
You go right on and vote for Hillary, Cory. After reading this poor excuse for a column, were I an Aberdonian, I’d vote for someone else but you as well. The race isn’t over, oh ye of little faith. If you have the choice of the lesser of two evils, look elsewhere for someone to vote for. The lesser of two evils is still evil. If the DNC loses, it’s because it chose a weak candidate. Saw that in South Dakota in the 2014 election. SMH over that still. Want the free and open internet cut? Vote Hillary. She’s said so. And that’s just for starters. You blew it, Cory. Three Chinese cheers for you: Phooey, Phooey, Phooey!
Every chunk of crap thrown at Clinton was pure hog slop.
DR, yes. I was a Republican during the Clinton years and into the Bush II years. I’m recovering nicely, thank you.
The upcoming general election is not a choice between the lesser of two evils, it is the evil of two lessers. It will be very enlightening to watch who each of the major party standard-bearers select for the vice presidential slot- whether the choice reflects a reaching out to the rest of the party, or whether the VP choice is an unqualified “empty suit”. The contrast that comes to mind is the choices made by JFK in 1960 (his primary opponent LBJ, who worked even after JFK’s death to burnish JFK’s legacy) or George HW Bush’s selection in 1988 (J Danforth Quayle, who receded in anonymity after four non-descript years, the highlight/lowlight of which was mis-spelling “potatos”).
Let me echo Roger C.’s comment. Roger E.’s point is exactly why I support Hillary. I can’t stand whiners and quitters, and too many of Bernie’s support come from some very fragile individuals, apparently. When your candidate loses an election, it hurts, but you take a couple days to lick your wounds and get back in the game. In 2008 I had to go from Edwards to Clinton to Obama. I didn’t quit because Edwards imploded, and Hillary lost.
I’d say Bernie has won nearly everything, but the nomination. He’s certainly won most of the issues agenda, as Clinton has come way over to the left. Can you trust her? Probably not completely, but that’s why you need people who aren’t quitters to keep the pressure on.
There are clear differences between Trump and Clinton, and one’s that make enormous differences for the country. One is a dishonest and egomaniacal fascist and the other is a dishonest centrist, small “d” democrat Democrat who has been pulled by Bernie’s campaign to support a large part of the progressive agenda. One will appoint the same tired
What? I thought you were like 16 and gave it up by age 19. Hmmm….
If Bernie beats Hillary and gets the nomination should Hillary supporters pout and behave as badly as Bernie supporters?
Keep insulting and piling bullshit on Hillary and I’ll be one of millions that won’t vote for Sanders, and Sanders will need every vote he can get against Trump.
I believe it is called tit for tat.
Dennis R Wagner,
i.e. Kennedy/Johnson
Kennedy wanted to get Johnson out of the senate so when Kennedy was asked about selecting the brash LBJ as his v.p. pick, Kennedy said, “I’d rather have Johnson inside pissing out than outside pissing in”.
Don’t be petty and remember Hillary admitted she the mind of a conservative but only the heart of a liberal. Oh those inner conflicts.
On whether South Dakota’s Presidential vote matters:
(1) My thesis here, like my attitude when I enter the voting booth and my politics in general, does assume that every vote matters.
(2) South Dakota’s votes for replacements for Noem and Thune matter. Send Hawks and Williams to D.C., make clear to them that we expect Berniesque reform, and we can exercise power in Congress that will influence the Executive Branch.
(3) Are we sure South Dakota’s electoral vote won’t matter? How well will Donald Trump play with South Dakotans? What if there’s a massive sit-out from the Bernie Left and the Cruz Right and both major candidates end up scrambling for every electoral vote they can get?
Never trust a flip flopper. :)
I’m being monitored for moderation? I’m oatmeal! With a few raisins maybe.
LS mentions another important reason the Presidential vote matters to South Dakota Democrats. Democrats do better when more people come vote. While I can understand the sentiments of folks who say they’ll come vote for Dems downticket (thank you!) but leave the Presidential slot blank, there are many more voters who will let their Presidential apathy or antipathy keep them home completely, and they won’t come to the polls to help us Dems win seats in Washington and Pierre and do the right thing on all ten ballot measures. In terms of broad outreach, we need to give people reasons to come vote. Sitting out this election is not protest; it is declining to take the wheel to help keep the Americar (and the South Dakota truck!) from going in the ditch.
You can probably use the last election as a baseline and then make some reasonable guesses as to what needs to happen for Hillary to win in SD.
(Hap! I’m not moderating you! Check your autocomplete—it’s putting “happy campers” in your username, and the moderation system triggers on new names! You’re one of a kind. Give me another plop of that oatmeal. ;-) )
Deb’s comparison to 2010 is worth noting. Republicans fielded an intellectually inferior candidate, but a chunk of the Democratic base sat out in frustration with Herseth Sandlin’s Hillaryesque moderation and hasn’t come back to help us win a House race since. We need to bring those Democrats back to the polls this year.
Remember that I eagerly advocated for a primary challenger to SHS. When that challenge failed to appear, I swung behind SHS, pulled her lever, and told others to do so, even as I maintained my position that her Blue Doggery was misguided and that she should come my way to win.
The secretary of state web site lists the registration numbers in the state. If one neglects the minor parties and just focuses on Democrat, Republican, and Independent (or no affiliation), one gets roughly the following distribution of registered voters in the state.
32% Democrat
47% Republican
21% Independent
Let’s assume everybody votes. 80% of Democrats, 25% of Republicans, and 60% of independents vote for Hillary. The final count is then Hillary: 49.95%, Trump 50.05%. So that gives you a ballpark starting point.
I like Roger’s point about sleeping on it. We should fight every contest as hard as we can. If we fight hard enough and still lose, that defeat will hurt. We should not spend much if any time during a contest thinking about what we will do if we lose. We deal with that loss if it happens (visualize victory, not defeat!).
When we do get beat, we should let ourselves feel the pain for a night or two. Then we have to gear up for the next contest, and the next, and the next.
In this case, the next contest is one in which we have to team up with the people we just fought to combat a far greater challenge. (I was going to say a far greater evil, but if we take a classical sense of teamwork, no one involved here, Democrat or Republican, is an enemy; in the end, we Americans are all on the same team, seeking qualified leaders for the free world, right?)
Let’s fight the primary. Let’s argue at the convention. Heck, as I said above, keep arguing with Clinton all through the general election campaign.
But as David Newquist warns, don’t let Trump’s and Fox’s disregard for truth infect our discourse. On November 8, pull the lever for every Democrat, including Hillary. And on November 9, and November 10, and November 11, and ever onward, keep riding Hillary and the rest of us Democrats to do the right thing, to fight for the reforms that we must have.
Meanwhile, in a poll finding President Obama’s approval rating at 51%, NBC/WSJ also finds that 47% of respondents prefer that a Democrat take office in 2017. 43% would prefer a Republican.
The Donald will beat Clinton with or without my vote. If Bernie does not make it, I will vote the down ticket for the Democrats. I may change my mind if the platform changes and Democrats once more become the voice of the working people and those that need all of our support. If that platform seems wobbly, then that will be it for me and will not vote for anyone for president. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Typically the error is like 3-5%, but even that means this is a statistical tie.
If you don’t vote for Hillary, then you need to wrangle a Republican accountabilibuddy who will not vote for Trump….because the net difference will be important.
@ Roger Cornelius. “I’d rather have Johnson inside pissing out than outside pissing in”.
Actually it was LBJ saying that about J Edgar Hoover. David Halberstam quoted LBJ in a Oct 31, 1971 NYT article.
http://observer.com/2008/11/idaily-showis-lbj-piss-take/
@Dennis R Wagner:
While there was no love lost between LBJ and the Kennedy’s, the Senate back bencher JFK needed LBJ for his prowess in making deals in the Senate and in Congress and to placate the Southern white Democrats. That’s why he was selected as VP.
As Majority Leader, LBJ thought JFK was a show horse in the Senate and in his administration JFK excluded LBJ from his inner circle of advisors. LBJ feuded openly with RFK and Jackie Kennedy thought LBJ was responsible for JFK’s assassination. The Kennedy’s thought LBJ was a buffoon.
The only reason LBJ aggressively pushed JFK’s agenda after Dallas, was he was taking advantage of JFK’s popularity and was treading lightly until he could win the Presidency outright. LBJ ultimately wanted to out do FDR in social programs and by pushing Kennedy’s legacy he was laying the necessary groundwork.
When Sanders talks about revolution, he is not being literal, obviously. He is talking figuratively within the framework of the current political system. Thus, Sanders is running for President to change the political system from within. It seems as if some people forget this fact.
He realizes as some of his followers do that you have to be a part of the system to change it. If his supporters withdraw from the political battlefield because their great general will not be leading the fight, they will lose their political influence to a great degree. The loss of influence will be greatest obviously if they withdraw and Trump is elected.
Practically speaking, no one, least of all Bernie Sanders, is getting money out of politics in any meaningful way until Citizens United is overturned by SCOTUS. Hillary will get as much done on this issue as Bernie because she will appoint the next justice of the Supreme Court that will overturn Citizens United and restore sanity to our political system. This is the be-all and end-all of this issue. Bernie can rant with the best of them on this issue. But it all comes down to this: Hillary will do just as well on this issue as Bernie, if not better because she can work with people in Congress to pass campaign finance reform after Citizens United is overturned.
Bernie is an island unto himself. He is an independent running as a Democrat. He has no coalition. He has no power structure. He has not helped elect Democrats. His current claim to fame is he is trying to get one Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schult, knocked out in a primary contest. As far as I can tell, he is on the cusp of being a cult of personality.
If I’m wrong and it is not just about Bernie’s cult of personality, then Bernie and his followers need to do what is best for the country. Support, campaign and vote for Hillary. Get her elected president and take a seat at the table. Hold Hillary accountable and continue to fight for the issues that Bernie brought to the forefront.
The alternative is not to support Hillary and thereby enable a Trump presidency and relegate Bernie and his ideas to the scrap heap of history.
Hillary and her supporters need to do what is right for America and the Democratic Party and jump behind Bernie Sanders. Trump will shred Hillary with Bill’s legacy whether or not that is fair or appropriate. All the crap about Whitewater was exactly that–crap. The Pillsbury audits were available and had satisfied government accounts and showed the Republicans the Scaife propaganda was humbug. The GOP never gave up on it anyway. Logic and data and facts are not their stock in trade or even viewed by them as something to seriously consider. Sibson talks about greed, but the primary greed the retrograde GOP shows is greed for power without regard to the consequences.
Whether fair or not, HIllary is still female and there is a significant percentage of men and women who will never vote for a woman for anything. If Hillary was well-liked and far ahead the sexism would not be a factor. As close as polls are, it will be a factor.
Hillary will be like Hubert Humphrey with all the pols in DC and the party behind them and it won’t help them a bit in the general election.
Should Bernie get the nomination all you will hear from Trump is Socialist/Commie, Socialist/Commie.
Count on hearing those words from after the GOP convention through election day and Trump’s “uneducated voters” are eating it up already.
It does not matter that most of us here completely understand Bernie’s form of Socialism, it will resonate with voters that love fear.
Just keep clicking your heels while following the yellow brick road. Trump has her number and it is working. Clinton and her people think this guy is just a buffoon who can easily be beaten, the Donald plays it down to the wire as he knows his mark like a good con artist does. What he is doing is painting the picture that many of us have already seen, not about her, but about her serial cheater of a husband. She says that he will be her economic guru. Trump says game on, http://nypost.com/2016/05/24/trump-ad-hurls-sexual-assault-accusations-against-bill-clinton/
I think Hillary’s trying to play rope a dope. Let Trump shoot off all his biggest guns and missiles, essentially tire him out while you conserve energy (resources), so that you may knock him out a little later on when he has exhausted his resources and becomes a sitting duck. Trump looks like he’s playing his October surprise cards pretty darn early – perhaps too early.
People should grow tired of Trump’s over-sensationalism over time. Intellectual conversation is something you can’t get enough of and it almost never ends; bombastic BS is something we all grow bored of eventually.
However, I do think Hillary is making a similar mistake as John Kerry when he failed to publicly rebut the infamous swift boat ads claiming he wasn’t even in Vietnam when he earned his medals. In the end, it bit him, and the American people, square in the ass. You gotta strike back on that crap – or BS can have the leverage to beat you.
Indeed, it can beat you. So can playing rope a dope with yourself. Regarding that Citizens United thingy, that does not seem to be of much importance to Clinton https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dnc-allowing-donations-from-federal-lobbyists-and-pacs/2016/02/12/22b1c38c-d196-11e5-88cd-753e80cd29ad_story.html
dwr-just a minor comment-LBJ didn’t swoon for JFK. prolly the opposite, and I don’t know that “burnish” was what he did for him. I am no expert here, however. he did seem to rise to the occasion after the assassination. not sure why Vietnam spun out so badly.
quayle is certainly much like bush and now like trump. empty suits likely controlled by neo-cons.
jerry, while I don’t read the post, this is frightening: “her serial cheater of a husband. She says that he will be her economic guru. Trump says game on….”
bill Clinton, as I recall is kind of an extraordinary numbers guy. is a brash younger millionaire/billionaire’s son a serious threat to bill’s acumen and the formidable Clinton team of economists? I doubt it. it might be a rout.
Hillary seems to be anticipating trump will take this hook?
I’m still a Bernie guy. Will be until the end. I still am under the impression that the super delegate votes, all of the nearly 800 of them, will do at the convention what they were intended to do in the first place. The super delegate sole purpose is to cast it’s vote in the direction of the candidate who has the best chance to win in November. Right now that person is Bernie.
Will I vote for Hillary? A week ago I would have said no way. She will be a continuation of the death spiral the middle class and working poor have been on since 1981. But the alternative? Much, much worse. Want just a general glimpse of what a trump administration will be like? Look no further than here.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-s-new-fundraisers-a-dubious-cast-692264515814
Douglas, thinking about what Roger C says, isn’t it possible that Sanders would get shredded even worse than Clinton in a general election campaign? Sanders has never faced the kind of scrutiny and attack that Clinton has. Can Sadners respond with the same vigor and brutality necessary to beat back a full-scale assault from Trump and the GOP?
leslie, Those items listed are the truth that has been well documented. In order for me and for many many others to even consider supporting Clinton (if she is indeed the nominee) would be what the Democrats actually are now standing for. Democrats have lost their way and have become Republican lites in more ways than I care to think of. What folks like me want is Bernie, but if we cannot have Bernie, then we want what he brings to the table. The progressive ideas have always been standards for the Democratic party as that is what makes it different from the Republican party. In order to work, there has to be a healthy debate, not a one size fits all.
Bernie now has serious delegates that will be presenting these at convention. If enacted, that would bring on the support of millions of voters just like me to turn this election into a rout for whomever the Democratic nominee will be. To ignore the will of the future of the Democratic party, will bring on Trump and other assholes just like him. http://www.thenation.com/article/sanders-picks-and-allies-could-write-a-boldly-progressive-platform/ The game on will be what the leaders of the Democratic party want of course. Their first step would be the removal of their current leader Debbie Whatshername Schultz.
The general public isn’t going to pay much attention until the conventions. So the polls for the vote in November don’t mean too much right now. Particularly when the contests are state by state and the polls are national.
For me, I am not sure how Bernie is going to pay for all of the great ideas, and given he is an independent without the base in Congress I don’t know how his agenda gets through. Bernie’s national poll numbers would change once realization that gains traction. Nevertheless his campaign will have some influence on the Democratic agenda moving forward.
Bernie can pay the fiscally responsible wingnut way-charge to distant future Grandchildren’s credit cards.
“Democrats have lost their way and have become Republican lites in more ways than I care to think of.”
Jerry, nice you have realized some truth.
“The progressive ideas have always been standards for the Democratic party as that is what makes it different from the Republican party.”
The Progressive movement has been involved with both parties from the very start. The idea that the two parties are different is based on false propaganda. The Republican lite thing is nothing new, no more than the Demcoratic lite.
Republican lite….what a ridiculous statement.
Democrats are more focused on making policy to appease their various interest groups and Republicans are more focused on proving their commitment to the small-government philosophy that unites their base.
The Republican party has based itself on philosophical conservatism, while the Democrats are based around policy deliverables.
I could go on, but realize that for some folks this is a wasted explanation as they will believe what they will, but in the last few days I have seen some interesting comments on here calling Democrats racists and now Republican.
If you review history from the 1940’s on you will see the Democratic party has been the party in charge of change as a result of compromise, while the Republicans as Boehner said that they “should be judged by the number of laws they repeal”.
What is forgotten and makes moot of the Election and IM’s, is the fact that our voting machines are rigged; their software patent protected from examination, their results secret with no accounting available.
“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” Joseph Stalin
“Douglas, thinking about what Roger C says, isn’t it possible that Sanders would get shredded even worse than Clinton in a general election campaign? Sanders has never faced the kind of scrutiny and attack that Clinton has. Can Sadners respond with the same vigor and brutality necessary to beat back a full-scale assault from Trump and the GOP?”‘
Cory, it is also just possible that all the digging already done has not found anything that can really be used to slander Sanders. All the reporters and commentators who gave Sanders nearly zero odds of doing anything significant, are now trying to find something..anything..that they can use to cover up their erroneous predictions and justify their conclusions. It is finally happening with Trump who nearly the same columnists, editorialists, and Sabbath Gasbags gave zero chance of beating such a sterling candidate as Jeb Bush, or crazy loon like Cruz.
We will see for sure, and I really won’t make any predictions. This primary process this year has been too crazy to analyze rationally or make valid predictions.
Maybe for some of us it is just too embarrassing and humiliating to come out in support of Trump’s hateful policy “suggestions.” We can support Trump secretly and avoid the embarrassment and humiliation by pretending to support a Democrat candidate who stands virtually no chance to win the nomination. This gives us a vehicle to attack Hillary without openly supporting Trump, and an excuse to discourage others from supporting Hillary when Bernie doesn’t get the nomination.
I agree with Roger C’s comments. Failure to vote for Hillary if she is the party’s nominee is a vote for Trump.
Bear,
How much of a factor will the “Sanders is a Socialist/Communist” be should he win the nomination?
Secretary Clinton has always played fast and loose with rules and regulations as if they were made for someone else. The argument on her email server is that everyone else did it so why is poor Hillary being singled out. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/state-dept-inspector-general-report-sharply-criticizes-clintons-email-practices/2016/05/25/fc6f8ebc-2275-11e6-aa84-42391ba52c91_story.html
Is she gonna go to jail? Doubtful, but as the trail continues maybe we all will see how they connect with the foundation of her and her husband. One thing is for sure, Ken Starr will probably not be the go to guy if she gets the nomination.
There is no guilt trip in it for me if I vote for Clinton or if I do not. If I do not, I certainly am not voting for Trump, I am simply not voting for the highest office in the land. Not voting for Clinton does not equate any other way than not voting for her.
Glenn Beck is expected to endorse Libertarian presidential candidate Austin Petersen on Bill O’Reilly’s show tonight. It’s scheduled to air at 7 p.m. Petersen has already been endorsed by former Republican opinion leaders Mary Matalin and Erick Erickson:
http://reason.com/blog/2016/05/25/austin-petersen-catches-more-endorsement
I’m guessing O’Reilly will treat Beck with extreme disrespect, which is still vastly better than ignoring Petersen altogether the way most other political journalists are.
People, ya just gotta be able to see that Bernie is the continuation of the 99% movement – people who REALLY need to be brought into the Dem Party – in order to rightly create a new permanent majority (similar to Newt Gingrich’s big push in the 90’s) only with real actual sensible people behind it.
If we can just get over outselves on the Bernie vs. Hillary thing – it would force the GOP to reinvent itself, or die.
The first political party to co-op the 99% movement would very likely be unstoppable
A report on Clinton and e-mail just released.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/clinton-violated-email-rules-says-watchdog-what-you-need-to-know/?tag=nl.e589&s_cid=e589&ttag=e589&ftag=TREc64629f
The actual report apparently has 80 or more pages, so this is a brief summary. Not sure if it leads to anything that is useful for partisans or attack journalists, but there it is.
As Bernie said in one of the Democratic debates, I’m tired of hearing about Hillary’s emails.
Not voting for Hillary means one less vote that Trump needs to get. Individually, not a big deal. If several thousand people have the same idea, then it is a big deal. Particularly if there were a chance of putting SD in play.
Instead of guilt, there would be a collective sense of ennui.
This investigation started before HRC was SOS.but, as per usual, it focused on trying to get the goods on a Clinton.
Hope Obama gives everyone in his administration immunity from wingnut witch hunts. That’ll learn ’em.
OK lets be realistic! The Democratic party in South Dakota has been dead for many years. We nominate Republican light candidates and the party is run on republican beliefs and philosophy.
Now the rest of there nation has followed suit. What better way for these Republicrats to be outed than to listen to Harry Reid or Barney Franks or Howard Dean or any of the other Republicrats who marched up to the cameras to proclaim they would not stand for the Republicans proposals and then showing up the next day stating oooohh there was nothing we could do because the Republicans said they would not go along. The whole time they have been telling us lies and filling their pockets with corporate money..
Do you really believe us that really cares where this country if headed, are going vote for 4 more years of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and the Koch Brothers? The lesser of two evils is still EVIL. The next national election will have a party or parties that will leave the Democratic and Republican partys behind and will correct the damage done. This time they will be coming directely for the 1% and corporations and will make things right again for the American people.
Roger C, I imagine that the Trump team would do everything in their imagination to demonize Bernie as a hated “socialist,” but I doubt that would sell to our millennials. Bernie has succeeded in defusing the term better than anyone before him. The only people who would not vote for Bernie because he is a “socialist” are the same people who would not vote for him because he is a “democrat.”
Nothing is going to change in either party until we get a lot of limits on the type of money that is being spent on elections. Only one person is walking the talk on that. That one person has more charisma and energy then I have even thought possible in a 74 year old. He has to be putting in 20 hour days. Bill and Hillary have had their time and at that time they were different and they brought with them some energy. After getting to vote for one of the best candidates and as it turns out one of the best and most popular presidents of our time. I am not about to step back in time. I want the real product and to me Bernie Sanders is it. Period.
Maybe this is the election that the majority of folks realize the establishment two party system at the federal level is only theater meant to distract us, divide us and give us the illusion that we have a choice in who rules over us. Hillary represents everything that is rotten and corrupt in our system today. Bernie and Trump are both despised publicly or behind closed doors by the party establishment and super donors. This tells me that they may not yet be wholly owned puppets and have a chance to represent the will of the people.
We all need to remember one important thing and that is that a vote for Hillary on June 7th is a vote for Trump on November 8th….. This June 7th, vote your conscience, vote to win, which means vote for Bernie…
Hillary may inevitably end up with the nomination, but that is Camp Clinton’s task and not the responsibility or concern for Camp Sanders or his supporters.
If it was up to me we would be talking about Elizabeth Warren right now and not Clinton or Sanders, but if Hillary ends up with the nomination we all need to remember to support Hubert in the fall….I mean Hillary….. but until then it is not the responsibility of Sanders and or Warren supporters to just give up and let Hillary have it…
We are all Democrats which in my mind means vote your conscience. Political pragmatism has its virtue, but it also has it costs and such past costs have put us in this current dilemma of a shored-up potential nominee protected with palace guard style “Super Delegates.”
So it is time we be cognizant as Democrats as to why we are where we are as a political party and why our key political foe has received so much traction at our cost, and from our past transgressions as a party which have caused us to stray from our party’s principles in the name of past pragmatic acts… And when we take note of this reality as party members then a vote for Bernie becomes an even more obviously just, overdue, and right act on June 7th….
Just remember, the Clinton team went into deal making with Newt to end Social Security and Medicare. Is this the lesser of two evils? http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/05/29/the-pact-between-bill-clinton-and-newt-gingrich
I knew Bernie was very special when a SUPER conservative friend of mine told me how he, and many people in his circles, really liked and particularly respected Bernie – and why.
In that 10 minutes, he spoke 10x more volumes than the aggregate words coming out of his mouth. I had no choice but to recognize what I was witnessing. It was deep and very real. I was shocked, and I’ll never forget it.
In an environment where almost everyone is a psychopath, fake, or extremely calculating Bernie seems real. That’s Trumps appeal with his damn the consequences approach. Most of us wish we could just say what we want while day and out we have to be cordial, polite, etc. Hillary will get my vote but she’s a product of her ambition.
I’d written:
Beck didn’t endorse Petersen, so O’Reilly had no incentive to treat Beck with disrespect. My apologies if anyone tuned in for that.
Petersen did make an appearance on the Glenn Beck Show this week. The video is 35 minutes long. The intro ends around the 1:25 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKYKpSQRB5w
No thanks Curt. Austin Petersen is 35 years old and has never been elected to anything. Nobody could seriously suggest he should be President of the United States. But then, nobody could seriously suggest that people were riding dinosaurs a few thousand years ago either – and you made that suggestion too.
If the Libertarian Party nominates anyone other than Gary Johnson and his running mate William Weld it is making a huge mistake.
“Rorschach” writes:
You misspelled my name.
I’m wondering how you claim to know Austin has never been elected to anything.
Actually many people could, and have. Here’s an example:
http://www.redstate.com/diary/concernedmom/2016/05/25/endorsement-president-united-states/
Many people have also seriously suggested that, but I’m pretty sure I’m not one of them.
I’d be glad to hear what you might regard as a basis for that claim, but if it’s my acceptance of Jesus Christ’s teachings about the book of Genesis, you’ll probably need to clarify the relevance.
http://www.truedakotan.com/opinion/letterbox-science-includes-recognizing-assumptions/article_c211de08-0ba7-11e6-9f62-f74e57bae3ee.html
http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/opinion/letters/4032885-letter-all-sound-science-compatible-christianity
JKC- ” a vote for Hillary on June 7th is a vote for Trump on November 8th….”, as you said seems exactly backwards. can you really support this with fact?
Hillary says she’s been thru this before w/ Obama and polls favoring trump over her are not now, and were not predictive of the ultimate outcome.
I think it is highly likely she will destroy trump, finally, and the GOP. Then we will truly have the most progressive 8 years the nation has ever seen. I hope Bernie will be a significant and influential part of her administration. It is even possible we’ll take the house too. and by we, I mean a full victory for the lower and middle class. we won’t let Hillary pander to the economic elite.
Oh for God’s sake, Kurt! Look at Austin Petersen’s website. He doesn’t claim to have held elective office. Do you really need to be spoon fed this fact? Go check Wikipedia yourself. Come back and tell us what office he has held if you find something. Then tell us how it qualifies a 35 year old guy to be President.
And yes, you did on this very blog defend your belief that people and dinosaurs coexisted together a few thousand years ago. I parried with you on that. Short memory?
“Rorschach” writes:
Indeed.
I’m not sure what “fact” you mean:
(1) Austin Petersen has never been elected to anything.
(2) Austin Petersen doesn’t claim to have held elective office.
(3) Austin Petersen doesn’t claim to have held elective office on his website.
No, I remember the conversation, but in your previous comment above (2016-05-25 at 23:26) you claimed I’d made the suggestion that people were “riding” dinosaurs. It was actually you who’d brought up the topic of dinosaurs and made that suggestion, essentially out of the blue:
https://dakotafreepress.com/2015/12/10/fear-and-prudence-guns-and-principles-hickey-and-heidelberger-on-terrorism/#comment-27161
Also, I didn’t defend my belief that people and dinosaurs “coexisted together”—because “coexisted together” is redundant. Also, you didn’t parry in that discussion. You attacked. I parried.
Leslie, the “fact” or facts are that Trump has tightened the race. Some polls have him ahead, even though for months he ran behind her in double digits. He also has most of the GOP beginning to finally coalesce around him. Ryan and Romneys’ non commitments are merely the actions of generals without armies. Trump continues to define the issues whether you agree with him or not and has a teflon quality the likes of such which has not been seen since Reagan. Hillary has enormous political baggage. Most Sanders supporters and undecided voters in general do not think Hillary is authentic and on election day Hillary will lose states that even Dukakis carried in 1988. You just watch.
Leslie, I hope you are right and I am wrong, but the establishment which is jumping on the Hillary boat are on the Titanic and they know it, but they will never admit it and they want us all good Dems just to come along to make them look good and so that they do not have to identify with the “S” word…..
Trump went full out nukular on New Mexico’s guv Martinez while he was in New Mexico. He also recently attacked Elizabeth Warren.
Here is Wapo’s coverage of Drumpf’s bashing of Martinez-
http://tinyurl.com/jxqsc95
Drumpf. like wingnuts in general, can’t seem to understand making nice with people means not attacking them personally.
It is now official, CNN reports that Donald Trump now has the 1237 delegates to secure the GOP presidential nomination.
He gained the needed 10 uncommitted delegates that changed to committed.
Last night on Charlie Rose, there was discussion of report on Hillary and E-Mail. The most sensible conclusion by one of the participants was that all this probably isn’t all that horrible, but that it indicates Hillary’s first options are usually wrong and doing this indicated a terrible lack of foresight and common sense.
That is about what I have been saying for some time. Do we really want a President who seems to lack comprehension of the impact of her bad decisions and is usually wrong first, and only right when forced to concede? The report also indicate she just plain lied to the press and to others working in the State Department about her mail server.
As somebody said, she acts like Richard Nixon when the crap hits the fan and she curls into a secrecy ball. Unfortunately both she and Bill seem to assume they run under a different set of rules than the rest of us. Sometimes they have gotten away with it and sometimes they pay an inordinate price.
I don’t really know if all this will impact her election chances, but it surely is not good news for the Hillary campaign and the FBI report has not been released yet, but may have no bad effect.
Barack Obama was being overly generous in 2008 when he told Hillary “you’re likeable enough.” She’s not. Not then. Not now.
Everything Doug and Ror say might be 100% true about HRC,but, the alternative is Drumpf and that alone should scare everyone except our mortal enemies.
For all WJC’s real and made up flaws,he will be a steady guide for Madam Potus. Drumpf has Dennis Rodman as his adviser on North Korea fer chrissakes.
Doug, I listened to the Rose show and came away with a different impression. I missed any claim the Hillary lied to anyone. There was a statement that two individuals working at the State Department asked if her server had been approved and were told by others working in the State Department that it had been approved when in fact it had not been submitted for approval. Even that appears ambiguous, since it is unclear exactly who has to approve the actions of the Secretary of State. Isn’t the Secretary essentially the boss and would have the final say so in approving any request?
Another odd point is that Colin Powell used only his private email account for State business, yet Hillary’s situation was different because she set up a private server, while Powell used AOL. That strikes me as a significant improvement rather than something to criticize. Using AOL, yahoo, gmail, or some other server that neither the Secretary nor the State Department have any control over seems a much bigger problem than using a system that the Secretary had control over.
I think it important to review the actual report before accepting the analysis of any talking head. As was pointed out on Rose, those talking about the report will “cherry pick” parts, perhaps out of context, to support whatever narrative they are paid to advance.
Can anyone here find a link to the actual report?
Try this bcb- https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/05/25/inspector-general-report-outlines-hillary-clintons-unauthorized-email-construct-compromised-national-security/
The pdf is in this report. I know nothing of the website as I have never seen it before,but, it looks fishy.
Poor wingnuts have to kiss French surrender monkey butts so the Frenchies will ‘splain how the guillotine works on HRC’s neck.
Thanks mfi!
as to your long tenure as a dem wiken, I was gonna say troy’s equating himself to your wisdom was malarkey, but what is really malarkey is your unsupported callous supposition:
“Hillary’s first options are usually wrong and doing this indicated a terrible lack of foresight and common sense.”
sour grapes methinks? :)
After reading the report that mfi linked, this strikes me as a Shakespearean “Much Ado About Nothing.” It appears to me that the record retention obligations were in a state of evolution and the governing regs and rules were open to various reasonable interpretations.
But if you still think Trump is a better pick than Hillary based on what you believe to be important for our nation, then by all means either vote for Trump or, at least, don’t vote against him.
So,bcb, should HRC wear a hood when wingnuts execute her? From what wingnuts did to WJC for lying about a bj, death is the only suitable punishment for Hil. Or maybe some profuse apologies for all the abuse she has had to endure in the new Salem witchcraft trials.
Yeah,wingnuts-HRC is going to get off again. If you perverted misogynists ever learned how to get off, you’d be less bloodthirsty for Clinton blood.
You gotta love the irony, Ken Starr was fired from Baylor over a sex scandal.
Oh for the love of monkeys. C’mon Cory. I’m really surprised that you of all people would take such a stance. Are you beginning to weigh your words more carefully in light of your candidacy for the Legislature since you’re running blue in a red state? Typically, we’ve always been able to count on you to be the voice of justice against corruption. Where’s the Cory Heidelberger that gets fired up against the crooks in office? Or does that fire in your belly only apply to candidates like Annette Bosworth, Mike Rounds and AGs like Marty Jackley? As for HRC having higher approval ratings than the POPE…. I might just have to wave the bull—- flag. His Holiness had a 78% approval rate last year, albeit down to about 59% currently. HRC polls hover around that 40% mark and seem to be dropping. You say you don’t wish for HRC to become president but claim she’s qualified. What precisely are those qualifications consisting of? What exactly did she achieve as senator or as the secretary of state that is notable enough to deem her as “qualified”? Is it taking millions of dollars from Wall Street and giving us the claim that she’s going to just tell them to “knock it off”? Maybe it’s her vote to send us to war in Iraq? No? Could it be that she’s supported every single trade deal during her tenure that has sent good paying jobs over seas and left millions hard working Americans out in the cold? Or, maybe it was the Panama free trade agreement that opened up more loopholes for huge corporations to shirk their duty to pay their fair share of taxes and that let the wealthiest in our country hide their money overseas? Well…. I guess if that’s the bar that’s been lifted up to determine her to be “qualified”, we could say that she’s most likely OVER qualified… or at least equally qualified as Donald Trump. The difference is, Trump doesn’t even try to bother to hide who he really is.
Ellie, I am a big fan of yours. Your comment asking what has Hillary accomplished surprised me. She has been a great advocate for children and children’s rights, a value I believe you, Cory and I all share.
Democrat Martin Fox made a list of a few of Hillary’s accomplishments:
https://www.quora.com/What-has-Hillary-Clinton-achieved
In addition to focusing on law and public policy to benefit children and families for so many years of her life, she has achieved many more positive accomplishments. I think if you take a look at the list you might be surprised. Cory is right, if Hillary is the nominee she deserves our support. And as Roger C and I noted on another DFP thread, her foreign policy speech today in San Diego was one of the best ever.
Check out the link and let us know your reaction.
(off topic hint – paragraph breaks in long posts make them much easier to read and understand)
HRC has taken all the abuse wingnuts have carpet bombed her with for thirty plus years and is still standing strong.
Donnie Drumpf#$k gets a wind of a surprise challenger for the Presidency and he whines and cries like a brat.
I’m sure for a certain class of women she is perfect, but there are a lot of issues that affect low-income women (Please don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten that the most poverty stricken county in the United States is right here in South Dakota), immigrant women and women of color that her brand of doing things is not going to address. Sanders’ campaign for free tuition, a $15 minimum wage and Wall Street corruption tackles the roots of poverty – an issue that disproportionately affects women – better than Clinton’s platform. Hillary, as First Lady, advocated strongly for the restructuring of welfare. What welfare reform did was to go after some of the weakest and most vulnerable people in this country; and, under the guise of welfare reform the Clinton administration worked with Republicans to gut social services, ignoring their own senior officials’ warnings that, by doing so, they would be plunging over a million children into poverty. (Is this some of that “advocating” you were talking about?)
Furthermore, I actually think it’s offensive to say I should vote for someone because she has a vagina any more than I would want to be hired and promoted because I’m a woman. I have heard this day in and day out from HRC supporters (who happen to be women) and it’s simply an insulting notion. We simply cannot have this false narrative that women can’t be bad. Women can be as good as men but also every bit as bad as men in terms of leadership.
Oh… and sorry for the lack of paragraph breaks… when I get on a roll… it’s sometimes hard for me to slow down and follow the polite rules of spacing… punctuation… spelling… ;-)
Yesterday Sioux Tribes in North and South Dakota collectively endorsed Hillary for President. Obviously these tribal leaders see the strengths of Hillary’s leadership.
I agree with mike from iowa, republicans and now Democrats have been attacking her for 30 years and she is still standing strong, maybe stronger than ever
The good thing about Clinton is that she left the State Department and we got a real leader in John Kerry. Emails aside, she is a war monger that supported the Iraq fiasco along with ringing failures in Libya, Afghanistan, Iran and Cuba. Putting her in charge is relighting the fuse. http://www.businessinsider.com/nato-charts-show-how-afghan-surge-failed-2012-9
We’ve hear it all before.
Clinton does have the consistency that is required to be an over zealous right wing blood and guts neo liberal though, she just does not have any plans after the promised failures, kind of like W himself. This comes from her boss, Obama. I don’t think he was unhappy to see her depart as he has accomplished so much since. Cuba and especially Iran really shaped his legacy to be deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/failure-to-plan-for-day-after-in-libya-was-biggest-error-as-u-s-president-obama-says
Donald Trump with the nuclear code sounds exciting.
Bernie with the nuclear codes sounds safe and sound to this old soldier.
For those of you who remember far enough back, it was like the damn apocalypse, almost every damn day, during the last Republican Presidency. And if you thought that was bad, think about Trump banging on keyboards like a toddler in the Oval Office.
Democrats need to find a way to stop taking their distaste of the dirtier aspects of running for President out on our least favorite candidate. Some might say, “don’t hate the player(s), hate the game.”
The players just want to win, just like the rest of us in life.
Additionally – know thy enemy: GOP
Perhaps the lesser of two evils once again? Naw, I think I will stick with Bernie.
To be a bit more clear, if at some point it’s a choice between Hillary & Trump, don’t you dare stay home and then claim that you still care about yourself and your fellow man.
IF it’s a choice – my apologies
There clearly should be only the choice between Bernie and whatever cookie monster that muddles up a third party run against Trump. Probably someone with big ole ears and a pie chart or else some feller with a rumpled suit. Bernie would beat him badly. Clinton has to much baggage and smiling pictures with the Donald. Those two connect.
Martin Fox tries to wallpaper a cowpie with his glowing descriptions of nothingness. Clearly, she has not really accomplished much but war, she is damn good at that. So then, here we are with about 9 trillion out in treasure, that would give a lot of kids a lot of support. Martin is correct though, she supports full throated aggression on the brownies.
Jerry, still, I tell ya, I’ll take the Dems egregious special interests over GOP egregious special interests any day.
I think it’s almost all that matters. Purifying government doesn’t happen overnight, but it can happen. We may not get all that we want in the short term, but if you’d have told me in 2008 we’d have a guy successfully popularizing super progressive ideas in 2016, I’d have told you, “GOP just has too much leverage in messaging to Ametica; I don’t know if socialism could ever sell in America – even though we are totally socialist and conserva-cons are in complete ignorant denial.”
I’m really proud of how America’s political philosophies aren’t nearly as small government centric as they were yesterday.
For the foreseeable future, gotta take EVERY opportunity to vote against GOP.
No, Ellee, I’m not triangulating. That’s Clinton’s schtick.
And if I were triangulating for the South Dakota conservative audience, I wouldn’t be cheering Sanders or even risking staking out a position for the eventual nominee. I don’t want to spend my Senate campaign making excuses for my party’s nominee… but the excuses Al Novstrup, G. Mark Mickelson, and Steve Westra will be a lot harder to make. Don’t forget that, and don’t let your Republicans off the hook with any of this crazy false equivalency that Hillary Clinton is just as unqualified to be President as Donald Trump. Selling that false line now to bolster our “Bernie or Bust” hopes surrenders one of the strongest points we get to make in the fall, that the Republican Party has nominated a Presidential candidate who will lead this county to ruin and that the Republican Party deserves rebuke up and down the ticket for that error.
Hillary’s not my gal, either. You should not vote for Hillary just because she’s a fellow woman any more than I should vote for Trump or Sanders just because he is a fellow man.
But I’m with Adam. Know thy enemy, and in the endgame, our enemy is the Trumpist party. If we can make Bernie our nominee, I’m all for that. If we can’t, as I say in my original post, we can still use Bernie power to rein Hillary in and make her come our way. But Bernie power won’t check a President Trump. A President Trump will probably throw Bernie people in the camps with the Muslims and Mexicans.
Okay Ellie and Jerry, you got me. When you argue “she really hasn’t accomplished much . . . ,” I wonder what you think about the facts that:
“Hillary Clinton, . . . , has spent her entire career in the service of other people. . . .
As first lady of Arkansas, she instituted cutting-edge early childhood education programs;
As U.S. first lady, she worked with Congress and succeeded in passing a historic childhood health insurance program;
She put women’s rights on the global agenda, changing countless lives in developing countries;
As a U.S. senator, she led the way in getting support for the first responders on 9/11 and bringing new economic development to upstate New York;
As secretary of state, she negotiated Iran sanctions, and she brokered an agreement between Hamas and Israel that brought about a ceasefire and helped bring security to Israel.”
[quotes from an 8-20-15 CNN op ed by Hilary Rosen.]
On the other hand, consider the opinion of the New Yorker’s John Cassidy, someone who apparently shares your view that Hillary didn’t do much as Secretary of State. He writes:
“Obama said, “I think she will go down as one of the finest Secretary of States we’ve had.” But while he praised Hillary’s stamina, her professionalism, and her teamwork, the President was a bit short on specific achievements that could be put down to her efforts. Asked by Steve Kroft about the biggest foreign-policy successes of his first term, he mentioned ending the war in Iraq, drawing down U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and dismantling the leadership of Al Qaeda, adding, “That’s all a consequence of the great work that Hillary did and her team did, and the State Department did, in conjunction with our national-security team.”
“There’s no question that Clinton has been terrifically energetic, as well as a loyal team player,” Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard, wrote last July, shortly after a profile in the Times Magazine referred to Hillary as a “rock star diplomat.”
“She has done her best to smooth the troubled relationship with Pakistan, but anti-Americanism remains endemic in that country and it hardly looks like a success story at this point. She certainly helped get tougher sanctions on Iran, but the danger of war still looms and there’s been no breakthrough there either.”
“The fact that Hillary didn’t bring peace to Palestine, or redefine the relationship between the United States and China, doesn’t mean she was a failure. Far from it. In carrying out the task she was allotted, she was a big success. It’s just that the nature of her job was very different from the ones that Acheson and Kissinger held. In reality, she wasn’t directing American foreign policy, or anything close. . . . The post she really had was that of U.S. Ambassador to the world, and she made a pretty good fist of it.”
“As a globe-trotting representative for the United States, Hillary has had few equals. According to the Travels With the Secretary page on the State Department’s Web site, she has logged 2081.21 hours on the road-not 2081.20, mind you-and clocked up 956,733 miles on the federal frequent-flyer program. In total, she was traveling for four hundred and one days-more than thirteen months-enduring hundreds of long flights and sitting through countless boring meetings. . . . nobody can ever fault her work ethic.”
“Throughout her tenure, she was a vocal proponent of female empowerment, gay rights, and equitable economic development in poor countries. She also defended freedom of expression. Perhaps her most memorable moment was helping to secure the freedom of Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese dissident, who is now a scholar in residence at N.Y.U.”
http://www.newyorker.com/rational-irrationality/hillary-was-a-great-ambassador-not-a-great-secretary-of-state
When these are comments written by someone who argues Hillary didn’t do much it brings to mind Rodney Dangerfield’s comment – you guys are a “tough crowd.”
Hillary has been pretty well trashed here by a bunch of Democrats.
It is only fair to ask what Bernie Sanders foreign policy achievements have been during his long tenure in the senate?
With Trump being a possible president our foreign policy may be at the heart of this election, will we be prepared for his knee jerk reactions when someone calls him a name?
Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. The failures of where we are today in the world begins with Iraq. The many trillions and trillions of dollars with a T that have been lost still resonate around this country. This place is falling apart and all of the money has gone into the pockets of the investor class that Hillary has supported all her political career. Sorry, the political practices of Hill and Bill have changed the Democratic party in a bad way. The Democratic party used to support labor, where are we now? The Democratic party used to support the working people of the country, now, Democrats and Republicans alike, enslave them. Clinton did do a lot for children’s healthcare, however, one could argue that it also enriched the insurance companies that administer the programs.
The old Democratic workhorse from New York said it best “Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan qualified his agreement that “there is no health care crisis” by stating “there is an insurance crisis” but also indicated “anyone who thinks [the Clinton health care plan] can work in the real world as presently written isn’t living in it.”
Clinton declared publicly in a debate with Bernie who her first responders help went to, the banks, where she gets showered with cash from to this day.
June 7th is coming soon, the old hold your nose for a vote is no way to ever clean up politics, it only puts the wall paper on a moldy turd. Vote Bernie for clean air and a clean slate. Hope and Change still exists, if you want to end the corporate hold we are struggling against.
Want to know why Bernie and Trump are listened to? They are not from the political elite so when they speak about job losses going off shore along with the corporate earnings, workers listen. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/23/5-facts-about-the-minimum-wage/ If they are union workers, they vote strongly for either party, but they vote.
Bernie speaks to them in the same way that FDR did. He knows their anguish over the fear of loosing their jobs, he knows that if they complain in a right to work state, it is the door they could be shown. Trump is telling the same populist (although his has a different slant that is clearly racist) mantra to the listeners. People are pissed off. Look at the jobs report today. The good news on that is that the Fed will not raise interest rates, like it really matters any more to the working poor. The Democratic platform has one union dude on it. Bernie wanted to have the nurses but that was nixed as if labor is such a low spot on the totem pole that they don’t want to get a crowd, what would the neighbors think. Democrats had better start seeing the light or that train will roll them over. More populist directions will win over many voters, being a bunch of dumb asses will do them no good either in the White House or the down tickets.
Don’t tell me about what Clinton has done, tell me what she is going to do. She has had 25 years of internet postings so whatever it is she is gonna do, she better hop on to it. That argument over the 12 bucks or the 15 bucks an hour, once again shows how snippy she gets. Education, both sides of the mug again. Climate change, why do we have these damn pipelines here and why did she support the Keystone XL? Fracking, what the frack? She is a very poor candidate that is offering one thing, her husband to do economic voodoo, or so she says. Didn’t we just see how that worked out for us in 2008 to now? The last thing I want to see is that goblin at the controls of the piggy bank.
Had Drumpf@#k been Potus instead of Obama, he would have been immediately overwhelmed by the yoooooooge messes Bush left, filed bankruptcy for America, cleaned the treasury and added it to his bank account and quit.
The simple facts that America has come this far back from the brink is ample testament to the patience, fortitude and diplomacy of Obama and Clinton and thousands of government employees. And I have been unhappy with both Obama and Clinton about half of the time. They give in to domestic terrorists too often.