February 8, 2016

Killing a bullshit Clinton meme: Bernie Sanders Is No Favorite Son

Hillary Clinton’s campaign says that she’s losing New Hampshire because Bernie Sanders, being from neighboring Vermont, is a “favorite son” in the state. But according to reporters and editors at four of the state’s top news outlets, that’s “a load of crock” and “would make most New Hampshire stomachs turn.” In fact, most New Hampshirites probably didn’t know who Bernie Sanders was until he launched his presidential campaign. And bobcat-killing and the opiate epidemic are more likely to be at the top of their list of concerns than, say, immigration.

Those are just a few of things the pundits and candidates are getting wrong about New Hampshire as we head into its first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday. In a roundtable interview moderated by Politico’s senior politics editor Charlie Mahtesian, five of the journalists who follow New Hampshire politics most closely revealed more about what's really going on on-the-ground in the Granite State and what we in Washington are missing.

Charlie Mahtesian, Politico: One of the things we’ve heard is a lockstep message coming out of the Clinton camp—this idea that Hillary Clinton’s not going to do that well because it’s Bernie’s backyard. They’re downplaying expectations since she’s trailing in the polls. My question, though, is how well does New Hampshire actually know Bernie? Is it the case where he’s the third senator from New Hampshire, as Clinton would like to believe? Is he known in the Connecticut River Valley, known in southern New Hampshire?

Roger Carroll, Nashua Telegraph: I was watching CBS news the other night, there was a woman doing standup in front of a bridge in Manchester. She said that Sanders is practically a favorite son here in New Hampshire. You know what, that is a load of crock. There’s no other way to—that is, I mean, I’m sitting there, you know how a dog turns its head when it doesn’t quite get something? [Sighs deeply].

Look. People in the Connecticut River Valley knew who he was. They knew who he was when he was mayor of Burlington, because Channel 3 has a really strong signal that beams in. But you go 15 miles to the east and nobody knew who he was, he was 50 points behind at this time last year. So, as Colonel Potter from MASH used to say: Horse hockey!

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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/new-hampshire-primary-political-reporters-213604

February 8, 2016

Insiders: Bernie Sanders is winning the economic argument

Economic issues have dominated the race for the Democratic presidential nomination — and in this arena, Bernie Sanders is winning.
That’s according to the early-state strategists, activists and operatives of The POLITICO Caucus, with majorities in both parties saying that Sanders has the upper hand over Hillary Clinton when it comes to discussing the economy.

The special deep-dive insiders survey, conducted after Clinton’s narrow victory over Sanders in the Iowa caucuses, asked about the primacy of two different aspects of the economic conversation: jobs and the overall economy, and income inequality.

Both were major issues last week in Iowa: Thirty-three percent of voters said the economy and jobs ranked as their most important issue, according to the entrance polls, while 27 percent picked income inequality. Clinton won among caucus-goers who said the economy and jobs were most important by a narrow margin, 51 percent to 42 percent — while Sanders had a big advantage among caucus-goers who picked income inequality, 61 percent to 34 percent

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Economic issues have dominated the race for the Democratic presidential nomination — and in this arena, Bernie Sanders is winning.

That’s according to the early-state strategists, activists and operatives of The POLITICO Caucus, with majorities in both parties saying that Sanders has the upper hand over Hillary Clinton when it comes to discussing the economy.


The special deep-dive insiders survey, conducted after Clinton’s narrow victory over Sanders in the Iowa caucuses, asked about the primacy of two different aspects of the economic conversation: jobs and the overall economy, and income inequality.

Both were major issues last week in Iowa: Thirty-three percent of voters said the economy and jobs ranked as their most important issue, according to the entrance polls, while 27 percent picked income inequality. Clinton won among caucus-goers who said the economy and jobs were most important by a narrow margin, 51 percent to 42 percent — while Sanders had a big advantage among caucus-goers who picked income inequality, 61 percent to 34 percent.

hillary_AP.jpg
Clinton's margin of victory shrinks to 0.25 after Iowa audit
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI
Among Democratic insiders surveyed this week in the early states, 60 percent said Sanders is winning the economic argument — an assessment with which more than three-quarters of Republicans agreed.

“Bernie Sanders is saying what Democrats want to hear — that there is a cause to their economic uncertainty (Wall Street and the billionaires), and that the remedy is a revolution,” said one New Hampshire Democrat, who, like all insiders, completed the survey anonymously. “Unless Hillary can re-pivot her messaging on the economic insecurity so many of us (even her supporters) feel, Bernie will continue to win the argument and dominate the conversation when it comes to economic issues.”



Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/insiders-bernie-sanders-is-winning-the-economic-argument-218913#ixzz3zbqOHPNs

February 8, 2016

I wouldn't be surprised if she supported that war, is NOT a claim that she did.

Bernie said that about Albright and political judged it as a mostly false claim.

I hate to break it to the politifact gang, but that is not a claim of fucking anything at all.

And politifact even published this in their condemnation of Bernie:


When asked if she agrees with the premise of the war, Albright said, "I personally felt the war was justified on the basis of Saddam’s decade-long refusal to comply with UN Security Council resolutions on WMD (weapons of mass destruction)."

The liar isn't Bernie. It's the folks at politifact. And this is not unusual.

February 8, 2016

Tom Tomorrow Toon

?1454710213

February 8, 2016

How dishonest is Billy's current lying smear? He is doing his best

to conflate Bernie attending DSCC fundraisers for the purpose of raising money for democratic candidates, with Hillary's record of sucking up millions and millions from the Wall street trough to enrich herself personally and fund her campaigns.

Hillary would not be where she is without her dirty Wall Street money. Bernie is where he is because people support him, not fat cats.

Bill and Hill: Inartful smear merchants.

February 8, 2016

Dems, stop lying to yourselves about Hillary: Sure, she “gets s*** done” — atrocious s***, that is

The next line of attacks is designed to put Sanders supporters back on their heels: Clinton is a realist, warts and all, because she is a woman: “YOU DON’T LIKE THAT SHE PLAYS THE GAME? THAT SHE HAS TIES TO THE ESTABLISHMENT? FOR ONE THING, THAT’S HOW SHIT FUCKING GETS DONE. FOR THE OTHER THING, THE BIGGEST THING, A WOMAN DOESN’T GET THE FUCKING OPTION *NOT* TO PLAY THE GAME.”

To recap, Clinton voted to invade Iraq, backed job-killing trade agreements, suggested that black women on welfare were “deadbeats” who were “sitting around the house doing nothing,” called for “more police” and “more prisons” and “more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders,” and bases not only her campaign finances but her entire social universe on and amid the superrich who she resides among in Westchester and the Hamptons — because she is a realist who can get things done.

Or because she had to do it this way because she is a woman. Or both.

No matter Sanders’ legion of women supporters, including many outspoken socialists. This argument renders those women invisible in an effort to inoculate pro-Clinton women’s arguments from criticism. The fact that a Sanders supporter might also be a big fan of Elizabeth Warren, and in many cases initially lobbied for her to run for president, is also an automatic nonstarter, as Rebecca Traister made clear: “spare me the wistful paeans to Elizabeth Warren…citing a fondness for her as a get-out-of-sexism card is a dodge.”

Ad hominem attacks against Sanders supporters are on the rise after Iowa, and they are increasingly unkind. Clinton partisans are likely motivated by uncomfortable data points: 86-percent of women under 30 caucusing in Iowa said they support Sanders.

And so the sexism argument doesn’t wash. But since opposing Clinton necessarily entails some unsavory or unfortunate motivation, there are other arguments to pursue. Like that young people, God bless them, are innocent of how the world works.

“Bernie’s attractiveness as a candidate relies on the premise of purity — a political value as ancient as politics itself,” wrote The New Yorker’s Alexandra Schwartz, dismissing her youthful cohort for their naivete before knocking them for not even being very cool young people to begin with. “When his campaign tweets that it’s ‘high time we stopped bailing out Wall Street and started repairing Main Street,’ you have to wonder why his youngest supporters, so attuned to staleness in all things cultural, are letting him get away with political rhetoric that would have seemed old even in 2012.”

<snip>
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/05/dems_stop_lying_to_yourselves_about_hillary_sure_she_get_s_done_atrocious_s_that_is/

February 8, 2016

Hillary Has ‘Half a Dream’

Durham, N.H. — One of the most striking statistics to come of the Iowa caucus entry polling was the enormous skew of young voters away from Hillary Clinton and to Bernie Sanders. Only 14 percent of caucusgoers 17 to 29 supported Clinton, while 84 percent supported Sanders.

On Thursday, I traveled to the University of New Hampshire, site of a debate between Clinton and Sanders that night. Before the debate, I mingled on campus with people rallying for both candidates, with the Sanders rally many times larger than the Clinton one. The energy for Sanders at the school was electric.

For the actual debate, I went to a debate-watching party for Clinton supporters at the Three Chimneys Inn, just off campus. There were more heads of white hair in that room than a jar of cotton balls.

The two scenes so close to each other drove home the point for me: Hillary Clinton has a threatening young voter problem.

Young folks are facing a warming planet, exploding student debt, stunted mobility, stagnant wages and the increasing corporatization of the country due in part to the increasing consolidation of wealth and the impact of that wealth on American institutions.

<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/opinion/hillary-has-half-a-dream.html

February 8, 2016

The Guardian Panel: Why we think Bernie Sanders is the best choice for president

Steven W Thrasher: ‘He is ready to critique capitalism’

Bernie Sanders offers the possibility of a better political future, the kind of world I’ve been contemplating since the Black Lives Matter movement began. That’s appealing to me. I am not so naive as to think a Sanders presidency will solve everything or even much at all. But I am tired of being told I cannot imagine a better world.

You can’t alleviate any of the systemic problems facing society today – like racism, sexism or income inequality, to name a few – without an honest and sustained critique of capitalism. My support for Sanders stems from his radical (in this country, anyway) willingness to reimagine how our financial system can work. His presidency could open a broader debate about it before the whole thing collapses.

I certainly wish Sanders had enough room in his capacious political imagination to consider the (UN recommended) concept of reparations for slavery. But he seems to get how our economic structure harms most of us, and he’s gotten better at articulating the link between economics and racism since black women challenged him.

I’ve never understood the enthusiastic, robust support for the Clintons from black voters. Bill Clinton amped up policing against us. He irreparably harmed impoverished black families with so-called “welfare reform”. Hillary Clinton made even our black children out to be dangerous “super-predators” deserving harsh punishment.

<snip>
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/08/bernie-sanders-best-choice-president

February 8, 2016

Wall Street is a fraud. Since 2009, Wall Street has paid over 200 billion in fines

and settlements. Let that sink in. And with quite a few of those fines, firms got off easy.

<snip>
Since 2009, Wall Street has paid $204,000,000,000 in fines and settlements.

This is the equivalent to writing a $640 check to every man, woman and child in America including all undocumented residents. It's hard to imagine an industry running up such a liability unless its basic business model was deeply flawed.

They violated laws by the facilitation of money laundering for drug cartels and rogue nations, illegally evicting homeowners, selling fraudulent mortgages and mortgage backed securities, manipulating vital interest rates, insider trading, and facilitating off-shore tax evasion.

The damage done to homeowners and those who lost their jobs during the Great Recession is arguable far worse than the problems caused by drug trafficking. Yet millions have been arrested, fined, convicted and jailed through the failed War on Drugs, while not one of Wall Street's top banking executives has gone to jail or even paid a fine. (Conveniently, $204 billion have been paid by the companies, not by the top executives.)

2. Profits Extracted through Pay Day Lending
Loan sharking is something from the Sopranos. But payday lending, the legalized form of loan shaking, is a mainstream Wall Street activity. An estimated 120 million payday loans are issued annually worth a total value of $42,000,000,000. One study reports:

<snip>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/hillary-not-truthful-abou_b_9185412.html

February 8, 2016

If Bernie Wins NH, it will be despite his coming from VT, not because of it

I'm a Vermonter. And boy is this spot on- except for the showering stuff.

HANOVER, N.H. — Hillary Clinton’s campaign maintains that Senator Bernie Sanders could win New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday because he comes from neighboring Vermont. As Bill Clinton told NBC News: “Nobody from a state bordering New Hampshire has ever lost a Democratic primary to a non-incumbent president.”

But as natives of New Hampshire and Vermont are quick to note, if Mr. Sanders wins New Hampshire, it may be in spite if coming from Vermont, not because of it.

From afar, Vermont and New Hampshire look like two peas in a pod, but from the Birkenstock outlets in Vermont to the Harley-Davidson dealers in New Hampshire, these two states on opposite sides of the Connecticut River, could not be more different.

<snip>

Comparing and contrasting these two states has been a parlor game in New England for decades, if not centuries. It has produced academic studies and irreverent analyses, like one that boiled down the differences to this: Basically, if you live in New England and want to join a militia, then New Hampshire is for you. But if you want to skip showering and listen to NPR, then head on up to Vermont.


<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/us/more-than-a-riverseparates-bernie-sanderss-state-from-primarys.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2FPresidential%20Election%202016&action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=Collection®ion=Marginalia&src=me&version=newsevent&pgtype=article&_r=0