yallerdawg

yallerdawg's Journal

January 31, 2016

"Warriors of the GD-P" Appreciation Thread! (Hillary Group)

We've lost a few along the way over the last year - some permanent, most 'temporarily.' Most will be back - real soon!

The following Hillary supporters have persevered while being 'outnumbered' (as the Administrators verify) -- ferociously persisting in getting the message 'out there' for all to see!

In no particular order - and in no way inclusive of all the Great Warriors who won't back down:

DemocratSinceBirth

pwnmom

riversedge

DanTex

Cali Democrat

While some of us prefer the quiet corners of DU while we are in this contentious primary cycle, we do at least 'lurk' in the GD's.

Today, these Great Warriors are at it.

Yesterday it was some others, too - and tomorrow it will be some more, too.

Please recognize your favorites - and know, we will not be silenced, and we will not go away!

This is still our DU! See you in the GD's!

January 29, 2016

CNN Democratic Town Hall Is Most Watched in Cable News History

?

And still we hear America hasn't met the candidates?

It didn’t attract debate-level ratings, but CNN saw a good tune-in Monday — winning among the cable news networks — for its Democratic Town Hall gathering in Iowa.

According to CNN, the 3.2 million makes Monday’s town hall the most-watched primary candidates’ cable news event (excluding debates) on record. By comparison, last night’s event drew more than double the demo audience (944,000 vs. 416,000) of MNSBC’s recent “First in the South Presidential Forum,” though that one had the disadvantage of airing on a lighter-watched Friday night.

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/cnn-democratic-town-hall-iowa-ratings-1201689244/

January 27, 2016

"...Great News for Hillary..."

The Iowa caucus system is completely absurd — and that's great news for Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz

Source: The Week by Paul Waldman

Before we get to those polls, let's take a look at what goes on in Iowa. While the idea of voting as a communal act requiring you to gather with your neighbors in order to fulfill your democratic duty has a certain archaic charm, what it is most of all is a huge pain in the behind. It's a little more reasonable on the Republican side, where voters come to the caucus site, spend some time listening to local apparatchiks talk about the party's business for a while, and then are finally allowed to vote with a secret ballot. Democratic caucuses, on the other hand, are a more complex enterprise, where representatives of the candidates make speeches, then everyone arranges themselves into different corners of the room depending on which candidate they support, then the supporters of candidates who don't meet a threshold of 15 percent support in that caucus have to find a new team to join. What ensues is then a period of fevered negotiation, until everything finally gets sorted out and the votes can be tallied. It takes hours.

When turnout is that low, the people who do turn out are going to be an unrepresentative group; among other things, they'll be older and more likely to have caucused before. This is where the difference between the candidates' supporters comes in. As Nate Cohn of The New York Times recently noted, Iowa polls that use lists of registered voters as the universe from which they draw a sample tend to show Clinton in the lead, while polls that use random-digit dialing — surveying everyone, whether they're registered or not and independent or not (registered independents can't vote in the caucuses) — show Sanders leading. Trump's situation is probably similar — his unusual candidacy is bringing in people who are not party regulars, but that also means they're less likely to turn out.

Here's another interesting data point. A recent CNN poll asked whether respondents had participated in their party's last competitive caucus (2012 for Republicans, 2008 for Democrats). Among the whole sample of Republicans, Trump led Cruz by 11 points, but among those who caucused last time, Cruz led by 2. On the Democratic side, the effect was even more stark: Sanders led Clinton by 8 points among all respondents, but among those who caucused in 2008, Clinton led by 17.

January 27, 2016

Keep up with the SEC Primary!

Southern Democrats do count - at least occasionally!

Keep up at SECPrimary.com!

Remember as most of us continue to wander in the desert, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer!"

History has shown us that the South is generally overlooked when it comes to choosing the President of the United States. States with smaller populations and scattered election dates have caused the South to be pushed aside for states and regions with a larger concentration of delegates.

To remedy this “Southern neglect”, Secretaries of State, led by Brian Kemp of Georgia, banded together to move the primary election dates of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia to March 1, 2016 (with Louisiana just a few days later).

The formation of an “SEC Primary” creates a region in which candidates must invest their time, energy and money or take a massive hit on the road to the Whitehouse.

The 1,010 delegates from these states will be up for grabs as an army of candidates marches through the South to claim the right to represent their party in the November General Election.

Where are we Democrats as of last month? This sums it up:

1 | Hillary Clinton

“Wake me up when the Republicans decide who I have to run against.” – HRC

No 2 and 3.

January 27, 2016

Another (Senator) Richard Shelby (R) campaign ad fails the truth test

Source: al.com by Kyle Whitmire

*****

A new campaign ad going up this week portrays the Alabama Senator as a fierce opponent of Wall Street bailouts.

"Bailouts reward failure and punish taxpayers," the woman in the new spot, Shannon Riley, owner of One Stop Environmental, says. "You know that. Senator Shelby knows that. Then why is Washington so stupid?"

*****

The problem is that TARP was signed into law in October 2008 by then-President George W. Bush.

*****

But here's the thing — TARP actually worked. And it didn't merely save the financial industry from apocalyptic collapse. The federal government put $426.4 billion into TARP, and by the time the program ended six years later it got $441.7 billion back.

That's right. The federal government saved the banks and made money doing so. Really, when was the last time a government program made money?

The rest of the story at: http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/01/another_richard_shelby_campaig.html#incart_most-readnews

January 27, 2016

Ed Rendell backs Hillary Clinton, not his friend Mike Bloomberg

By Jose Pagliery, CNN

Washington (CNN)—Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said Hillary Clinton has his endorsement in the 2016 contest, even if his close friend Mike Bloomberg launches an independent bid.

Bloomberg is thinking about entering the 2016 presidential race, sources recently told CNN.

That has some asking if Rendell, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, would break away from his fellow party members and endorse his friend, the billionaire former mayor of New York.

In a recent New York Times piece, Rendell said he might pick Bloomberg over Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described democratic socialist.

But Bloomberg over Hillary? No way.

A little more at: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/26/politics/hillary-clinton-ed-rendell-bloomberg/index.html

January 26, 2016

Obama Insiders Say Clinton, Not Sanders, Is His Natural Heir

Source: Bloomberg by Sahil Kapur

When President Barack Obama was asked by Politico this week whether Bernie Sanders' populist campaign reminded him of his own 2008 run, the president quickly rejected the notion. “No,” Obama responded. “I don't think that's true.”

While Obama didn't elaborate, former top aides weren't reticent to say they view Hillary Clinton—not the insurgent Vermont senator whose rhetoric has drawn comparisons to Obama—as the natural heir to the president.

“Then-Senator Obama ran for President to tackle longstanding challenges that our country had debated for decades but was unable to resolve. A ‘politics as the art of the possible’ candidate,” Ben LaBolt, a national spokesman for Obama's 2012 campaign, said in an e-mail. “Senator Sanders has been in Congress for decades but hasn't tackled any major longstanding challenges—he's been too busy shouting his point of view across the aisle with few results.”

Jon Favreau, who worked on the Obama 2008 campaign before becoming a speechwriter for the president, said Sanders' campaign “resembles Howard Dean's a lot more than it resembles Barack Obama's.” In key respects, he said, “Hillary is much closer to Obama than Bernie is.”

Obama “campaigned as an idealist in terms of the goals he articulated but a pragmatist when it came to the policies needed to reach those goals. And he had very, very detailed policies that were grounded in pragmatism,” said Favreau, who nevertheless praised Sanders as genuine. “Obama has always believed it's more important to take action that actually makes a difference now and improves people's lives instead of settling for the satisfying purity of moral indignation.”

Read the rest at: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-26/obama-insiders-clinton-not-sanders-is-his-natural-heir

January 23, 2016

'Give us a dream': Hillary Clinton supporters look to her for aspirations

On presidential campaign trail the Democrat rewrites a narrative that was written long ago but this time it’s on her own terms – and women are listening closely

Source: The Guardian by Megan Carpentier

"To have Hillary be a woman who says that it’s not only OK to put women at the center, but that it’s important because that’s how our families thrive and our marketplaces thrive … that’s revolutionary.”

Is this part of the dream?

“You are my Eleanor Roosevelt” a woman told Hillary Clinton at a town hall in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Friday afternoon, eliciting cheers and applause from the crowd.

After acknowledging the compliment with Roosevelt, Clinton gave it a go. “I really want people to feel I’m working for them, to improve their lives” she began, eventually adding “I want people to feel, with me in the White House, I get it.”

The crowd cheered her answers, whether they were “a dream” or not, and Clinton said goodbye and began shaking hands to the tune of Sara Bareilles’ Brave (a common song at Clinton speeches and rallies). She stayed, as is apparently fairly common at her town halls, until there was almost no one left with whom to shake hands or take a selfie.

Deb Andersen, like a lot of people at Clinton’s New Hampshire events, drove up from neighboring Massachusetts to catch her speech. The 64-year-old army veteran of Desert Storm and political junkie (she tries to see all the candidates and ask questions) spent much of the rally whistling loudly with two fingers while other clapped, and tried to ask Clinton a question by shouting “President Clinton!” during the question time. Afterwards, she declared herself a fan.

“Hillary’s not just going to be a woman in the White House, she’s going to be a woman with balls in the White House,” Andersen told the Guardian.

Read it at: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/23/hillary-clinton-supporters-look-to-her-for-aspirations

January 23, 2016

Hillary Clinton's lifetime cause: Column

Fighting income inequality is central to this campaign and Clinton's career.

USA Today guest opinion column by Ann Lewis, veteran Democratic strategist who was a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign and 2008 presidential campaign. She has known Clinton for more than 20 years.

...Some in the media seem to think Hillary Clinton is new or insufficiently committed to solving this problem. As someone who’s known Hillary for a very long time, that’s an impression I’m happy to correct.

Remember, this is the same woman who spent a summer during law school investigating the working conditions of migrant farm workers, compiling evidence to hold their bosses accountable for their health and safety.

She’s the same woman who, after graduating from one of the best law schools in the world, at Yale, walked right past all the big corporate firms on her way to the Children’s Defense Fund. Her salary was considerably smaller, but she found her reward in serving America’s poorest and most vulnerable.

Of course, inequality in our country isn’t just economic – it has a long history of being racial, too. That’s why Hillary went undercover in Alabama, posing as a young mom trying to find an all-white school for her child to prove that segregation still persisted and to end the tax-exempt status enjoyed by schools that discriminated against African-American kids...

Read the rest at: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/22/income-inequality-hillary-clintons-lifetime-cause-column/79116772/

January 22, 2016

Officials: New Top Secret Clinton Emails 'Innocuous'

Source: NBC News by Ken Dilanian

The classified material included in the latest batch of Hillary Clinton emails flagged by an internal watchdog involved discussions of CIA drone strikes, which are among the worst kept secrets in Washington, senior U.S. officials briefed on the matter tell NBC News.

The officials say the emails included relatively "innocuous" conversations by State Department officials about the CIA drone program, which technically is considered a "Special Access Program" because officials are briefed on it only if they have a "need to know."

As a legal matter, the U.S. government does not acknowledge that the CIA kills militants with drones. The fact that the CIA conducts drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, however, has long been known. Senior officials, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein and former CIA Director Leon Panetta, have publicly discussed CIA drones.

*****

On Tuesday, Sen. Feinstein, ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, criticized the original Fox News story about the Inspector General's letter as partisan, and said "none of the emails that are alleged to contain classified information were written by Secretary Clinton."

Read the rest at: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/officials-new-top-secret-clinton-emails-innocuous-n500586

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