April 23, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s Campaign, Cautious but Confident, Begins Considering Running Mates

Hillary Clinton’s advisers and allies have begun extensive discussions about who should be her running mate, seeking to compile a list of 15 to 20 potential picks for her team to start vetting by late spring.

Mrs. Clinton’s team will grapple with complicated questions like whether the United States is ready for an all-female ticket, and whether her choice for vice president would be able to handle working in a White House in which former President Bill Clinton wields significant influence on policy.

While the nomination fight is still fluid, Mrs. Clinton is confident enough of victory that she has described a vision of a running mate and objectives for the search, according to campaign advisers and more than a dozen Democrats close to the campaign or the Clintons.

She does not have a front-runner in mind, they said, but she is intrigued by several contenders and scenarios.

Among the names under discussion by Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Clinton and campaign advisers: Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, former governors from the key state of Virginia; Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who represents both a more liberal wing of the party and a swing state; former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, a prominent African-American Democrat; and Thomas E. Perez, President Obama’s labor secretary and a Hispanic civil rights lawyer.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/us/politics/hillary-clinton-vice-president.html?_r=0

April 23, 2016

Prince - Darling Nikki (VIDEO)

April 23, 2016

Why Elizabeth Warren Would Have More Clout As Hillary Clinton’s VP

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As Hillary Clinton moves closer to officially clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, the next phase of the competition has already begun: speculation about her running mate.

A Boston Globe article kicked off the latest round on Thursday by floating the possibility of an all-female ticket — specifically one filled out by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

With the Clintons, people are quick to assume everything is calculated. Appearances aside, the Clinton campaign did not choose a Boston paper to float a Warren trial balloon. Campaign chairman John Podesta just answered a question from a Globe reporter after the most recent debate.

But the speculation around Warren is not baseless. “Real folks are pushing Warren. I’m into it,” said one member of Clinton’s inner circle. And if Warren needs them, she has friends inside the campaign, including its CFO Gary Gensler, a leading Wall Street reformer who is close to Warren, and campaign strategist Mandy Grunwald, who helped run Warren’s 2012 Senate bid and remains close to the senator.

Whether Clinton would choose her, though, is impossible to know yet. It would solve some obvious problems with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but would create new ones with the Wall Street wing — and give her headaches she might rather avoid. And at least until a special election could be called in Massachusetts, it would take Warren out of the Senate.

But among progressives, that’s all beside the point: There is a firmly held belief that even if the job were offered to Warren, she would decline it, aware that her true power lies in operating from within the Senate.

Don’t buy it. There is a strong case to be made that Warren could significantly expand her ability to advance the issues she cares about by taking the VP slot.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-vice-president-hillary-clinton_us_571a8129e4b0d912d5fea0e8

April 23, 2016

Hillary Clinton scores big with local references in Dunmore

DUNMORE — Hillary Clinton had the crowd eating out of her hand from the beginning, mentioning Lake Winola, Scranton and promising to bring good jobs to the region.

“I believe we can still make it in America,” she said at a campaign Dunmore High School. “We will knock down the barriers and we will raise the minimum wage.”

Clinton said the state of the economy, the low wages and lack of benefits “is a disgrace.” She followed that with a vow to bring equal pay for equal work for women.”

She said, “We have to raise wages for everybody. In fact, the economy is always better with a Democrat in the White House.”


http://timesleader.com/news/local/534413/hillary-clinton-talks-issues-in-dumore

April 23, 2016

Jane Sanders Sounds Like a Republican on Sandy Hook

She complains that Hillary is 'politicizing' Sandy Hook. Sure, let's not talk about it that will solve the problem. That, pray for them, and maybe talk about mental illness.

And, like Bernie did, remember to give the gun makers immunity. That will make sure there are no Sandy Hooks.

The Republicans don't like seeing it politicized either. But then they don't do much to solve it. Here, though Jane Sanders strays into science fiction in absurdly claiming Bernie has a better record on gun control. Wow, where to start.

Sanders noted that her husband has, since 1988, "been consistently supportive of instant background checks, opposed to assault weapons, the sale and manufacture of assault weapons, for closing the gun show loophole, ending the strawman problem. And I think that's been since 1988."

By contrast, she remarked that when Clinton ran for Senate in New York, "she was very pro-gun control."

"When she ran for the presidency against Barack Obama, she was very anti-gun control in 2008," Sanders remarked. "And now that she's running against Bernie, she's back to for gun control."

The bottom line, Sanders said, is that both candidates agree that guns are an issue but that they disagree on the solution.

Sure. Hillary's solution is to try to solve the problem, Bernie's answer is 'not to solve it.'



http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/04/jane-sanders-sounds-like-republican-on.html

April 23, 2016

Howard Dean: Sanders ‘getting pretty close to the end’

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) on Friday said Bernie Sanders’s Democratic presidential campaign is on its last legs.

“I have been exactly where Bernie is, or pretty close to where Bernie is,” he said on MSNBC, referencing his unsuccessful 2004 White House run.

“I know how hard this is,” Dean added on "Morning Joe." "This is when you see you’re not going to win. If he has the week it looks like he’s going to have, we’re getting pretty close to the end.”

Dean said he thinks Sanders will struggle with suspending his bid.

“I’m sure he’s very angry. ... He’s even more competitive than I am."

“He couldn’t stand to lose a pickup basketball game in Burlington,” Dean added, referring to the Vermont city where Sanders once served as mayor. "He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t back down. It’s not in his nature. This is going to be a hard transition for him.”


http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/277295-dean-sanders-getting-pretty-close-to-the-end

April 22, 2016

The Democratic primary is over. It’s time to take on the Republicans.

The New York primary is over, and for all intents and purposes, so is the Democratic primary. Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee.

Bernie Sanders may or may not have accepted that fact, but it’s time for Democrats to move on either way. What Bernie should or shouldn’t do is no longer relevant to winning the Presidency. Democrats, led by the Clinton campaign, need to pivot to winning in November.

It starts with the White House and ends with state legislative seats across the country. Regaining a majority in the Senate is on the table, as is gaining more seats in the House. We win by making every Republican running for office own Donald Trump and Ted Cruz as the leaders of their party. Hold them accountable for everything Cruz and Trump say from now until November.

We win by reminding voters constantly that the GOP, led by Trump and/or Cruz, stands only for obstruction. To the point where they won’t even meet with President Obama’s supreme court nominee, much less do their constitutional duty of vetting him.


http://americablog.com/2016/04/time-hit-reset-button.html

April 22, 2016

A Gradual Shift Comes Clearer As Hillary Clinton Gains More Sanders' Supporters

Freddie Graves walked with her daughter a few blocks from her house to the Wilson-Gray YMCA on Albany Avenue Thursday and entered the Hillary Clinton town hall undecided between the former secretary of state and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

She agrees with what Sanders says and likes the tone of his rhetoric, but doesn't think he has the political chops to turn it into results. As for Hillary, she has long viewed the Clintons as a unit, and held against her the 1994 omnibus crime act, "the law to incarcerate African Americans at a higher rate," as Graves calls it.

Graves lingered in the YMCA gym long after the crowd was gone, and thought about her new resolve.

"I'm convinced now. I just like her message and I like her sincerity," Graves said. I'm looking at Hillary as her own person and I'm glad that I came. ... I was putting her in her husband's shoes until today."

Graves wasn't the only fence-sitter I met at a Clinton campaign event that was overwhelmingly pro-Clinton without hesitation. But with Clinton's big win in New York this week, and with primaries in Connecticut and five other states where Clinton appears strong this coming Tuesday, the direction is inevitable.


http://www.courant.com/business/dan-haar/hc-haar-hillary-clinton-gathers-bernie-supporters-20160421-column.html

April 22, 2016

Benefits of Sanders’s College Plan Bigger for Wealthy, Analysis Finds

The analysis undercuts a central theme of Mr. Sanders’s Democratic presidential campaign, which has called for shifting tax benefits from the rich to the beleaguered middle class and poor. Brookings contributor Matthew Chingos says the Sanders plan would actually be tilted toward the wealthy, a charge that has been made by the senator’s chief rival, Hillary Clinton.

Specifically, dependent students from households in the top half of U.S. earners would get $16.8 billion in tuition relief under the free-college plan, Mr. Chingos concludes. Students from households in the bottom half would get $13.5 billion.

The Sanders campaign called the analysis deeply flawed, saying that under its own analysis, 70% of the benefits would go to those making less than $100,000 a year. “Unlike, the Clinton plan, Senator Sanders is clear on who will benefit from his plan: everyone who has the ability and the desire to receive a higher education,” Warren Gunnels, the campaign’s policy director, said in an email. Mrs. Clinton has proposed allowing making college debt-free for students, rather than tuition-free.

Mr. Chingos’s explanation is simple. The Sanders plan would relieve students of paying any tuition at public colleges and universities, both at more-selective schools that tend to be more expensive, and less-selective schools that tend to be cheaper. (Mr. Sanders would levy a tax on Wall Street trading to pay for it.) “At public four-year colleges, dependent students from higher-income families tend to attend more expensive institutions,” he writes. As a result, they would get most of the aid if college tuition were free.

Lower-income students tend to go community colleges and less-expensive public schools, and thus would receive less aid.

Mr. Chingos points out that making college tuition-free would still leave students on the hook for rent, transportation and books, which often comprise the biggest costs for students.



http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/04/21/benefits-of-bernie-sanderss-free-college-plan-bigger-for-wealthy-analysis-finds/

April 21, 2016

Where is Killer Mike?

Is he still campaigning out there, or is he done using Bernie to sell albums?