May 31, 2016

Pro-Bernie Sanders posts to be banned on DU before Democratic Party has a candidate for President?

I hope not.

So is June 16th the "magical date" when pro-Bernie Sanders democrats and independents will be prohibited from presenting their views and news on Democratic Underground? That's what Hillary Clinton DU supporters have been joyfully claiming and gloating about for weeks now! How do they know in advance what DU administrators have planned? Maybe they had a look at some e-mails not shared with most DU members. I don't know.

So I have to ask, is the June 7th cutoff date based on e-mails received from top Democratic Party officials such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz or something else such as political opposition to Bernie Sanders or personal political support for Hillary Clinton's nomination by DU administrators?

In any case, everyone knows the General Election doesn't really begin until the two major party candidates have been decided at their respective conventions.

Hillary Clinton simply does not and can not have a sufficient number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination before the convention takes place. And secondly over 160 unpledged superdelegates have not indicated a preference for the nomination and the balance of superdelegates remain unpledged and they are free to vote for a candidate other than the one they have indicated a preference for. They are "free agents" at the national convention. And there is a very good chance that collectively the convention delegates won't elect Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders as their presidential candidate. Serious talk is beginning to surface among Democratic Party leaders on selecting Joseph Biden and others for the Democratic Party presidential ticket.

Only one thing can be accomplished by prohibiting pro-Bernie Sanders posts on DU before the convention. And that is to make DU a Hillary Clinton convention tool that will only serve to weaken Bernie Sanders and his supporters at the convention.

If that's what DU adminstrators want, they have a right to turn DU into an anti-Bernie Sanders discussion board.

That would mean that most posters will have to organize or find a democratic discussion board to permits free debate and discussion before the candidates have been selected for the General Election.

I urge DU Administrators to not ban posts by supporters of Bernie Sanders that criticize Hillary Clinton's policies until after the Democratic Party has selected their presidential candidate.

That seems like a completely fair and democratic proposal to me.

Isn't it?

I look forward to receiving a frank and positive response to my proposal

May 31, 2016

Pro-Bernie Sanders posts to be banned on DU before Democratic Party has a candidate for President?

I hope not.

So is June 16th the "magical date" when pro-Bernie Sanders democrats and independents will be prohibited from presenting their views and news on Democratic Underground? That's what Hillary Clinton DU supporters have been joyfully claiming and gloating about for weeks now! How do they know in advance what DU administrators have planned? Maybe they had a look at some e-mails not shared with most DU members. I don't know.

So I have to ask, is the June 16th cutoff date based on e-mails received from top Democratic Party officials such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz or something else such as political opposition to Bernie Sanders or personal political support for Hillary Clinton's nomination by DU administrators?

In any case, everyone knows the General Election doesn't really begin until the two major party candidates have been decided at their respective conventions.

Hillary Clinton simply does not and can not have a sufficient number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination before the convention takes place. And secondly over 160 unpledged superdelegates have not indicated a preference for the nomination and the balance of superdelegates remain unpledged and they are free to vote for a candidate other than the one they have indicated a preference for. They are "free agents" at the national convention. And there is a very good chance that collectively the convention delegates won't elect Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders as their presidential candidate. Serious talk is beginning to surface among Democratic Party leaders on selecting Joseph Biden and others for the Democratic Party presidential ticket.

Only one thing can be accomplished by prohibiting pro-Bernie Sanders posts on DU before the convention. And that is to make DU a Hillary Clinton convention tool that will only serve to weaken Bernie Sanders and his supporters at the convention.

If that's what DU adminstrators want, they have a right to turn DU into an anti-Bernie Sanders discussion board.

That would mean that most posters will have to organize or find a democratic discussion board to permits free debate and discussion before the candidates have been selected for the General Election.

I urge DU Administrators to not ban posts by supporters of Bernie Sanders that criticize Hillary Clinton's policies until after the Democratic Party has selected their presidential candidate.

That seems like a completely fair and democratic proposal to me.

Isn't it?

I look forward to receiving a frank and positive response to my proposal

May 31, 2016

With Clinton’s Nixonian Email Scandal Deepening, Sanders Needs to Demand Answers

With Clinton’s Nixonian Email Scandal Deepening, Sanders Needs to Demand Answers
Key issue not being addressed is secret financial deals
by: Dave Lindorff
May 26, 2016

Hillary Clinton is a lawyer, and while she’s slippery, she’s no dummy. She may have played dumb when asked earlier by reporters about her server’s hard drive being wiped clean of data before she turned it over to the FBI, saying, “What, like with a cloth or something? I don’t know how it works at all,” but she surely was involved in the deletion of her private emails -- over 30,000 of which were reportedly erased.

The power couple’s two foundations, the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, now together reportedly worth more than $2 billion, both function effectively as money-laundering operations providing salaries to Clinton family members and friends. And Hillary Clinton, particularly while serving as President Obama’s secretary of state, was in a perfect position to do favors for unsavory foreign leaders seeking to have their countries kept off of State Department lists of human rights violators, and for US businesses seeking lucrative business deals abroad. It’s those kinds of email conversations that would have benefitted from a private server, since US State Department official computers have dedicated back-up systems that would be hard or impossible to wipe, and are also by law subject to Freedom of Information inquiries from journalists and the public.

This scandal is not about someone simply ignoring some arcane rules. As Secretary of State, Clinton had a legal obligation to operate in an above-board, legal and transparent manner in conducting the business of government. Instead, for our years in office, she conducted that business in a manner that can only be called Nixonian, opting to openly violate the rules, to hide her communications from government oversight and public review, to dissemble about her allegedly having received clearance to do so, and even to attempt to erase records from her server when ordered to turn them over. Furthermore, suspicions have to be raised because if Clinton’s concerns were about people accessing her genuinely personal emails, she had only to set up a State Department email address and obtain a State Department secure Blackberry phone, and limit her personal server and personal Blackberry to genuinely personal emails and calls, conducting all State Department business on State Department systems. According to the IGO report, she studiously avoided doing that kind of segregation for four years despite frequent instructions and advice to do so.

Bernie Sanders so far has declined to make an issue of Clinton’s email scandal, but as more information comes out from the Inspector General’s Office, from a FOIA lawsuit currently in the deposition stage in federal court, and ultimately from the ongoing FBI investigation reportedly nearing its conclusion, and with even the New York Times, a long-time Clinton backer, condemning her lying about the email server, it is becoming obvious that Sanders is being far too kind to her. When he pooh-poohed the scandal in response to a debate moderator’s question during the first televised public debate he had with Clinton, the scandal was still fairly new. Today, with release of the IGO report, it has become much more serious.

Sanders should start pointing out the obvious reality that should Clinton not come clean, and should she become the Democratic nominee for president this July, she faces the possibility of an embarrassing and damaging final report from the FBI during the election campaign, or perhaps even an indictment, and the certainty of five-months of hammering on the issue by her Republican opponent. Furthermore, if somehow elected, there will follow an inevitable and interminable campaign by Republicans in Congress to try and impeach her for her “high crimes and misdemeanors” committed while serving as Secretary of State in the prior administration. That would make a joke of her campaign slogan: “A president who gets things done.”



Read the full article at:
http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/3177

May 31, 2016

USA TODAY - EDITORIAL BOARD: "Hillary Clinton broke the rules: Our view"

Hillary Clinton broke the rules: Our view
The Editorial Board
May 31,2016


As secretary of State, she ignored repeated warnings about email security.

Warning No. 1:
The report, released last week, reveals that in January 2011, hackers were attacking her private server. Twice, the Hillary and Bill Clinton staffer responsible for maintaining the server had to shut it off to protect data held by America's top diplomat and the former president. The staffer notified State Department officials of the attempted hack, and Clinton’s top aides there emailed each other to say that “sensitive” matters should not be discussed with Clinton over email.

Warning No. 2:
Two months later, the assistant secretary for diplomatic security sent a memorandum on cybersecurity threats directly to Clinton, warning of a dramatic increase in efforts "to compromise the private home email accounts of senior department officials" in a likely attempt to "gain access to policy documents and personal information that could enable technical surveillance and possible blackmail.” The memo to Clinton warned her that some personal email accounts had already been compromised and had “been reconfigured … to automatically forward copies of all composed emails” to the hackers.

Warning No. 3:
That May, Clinton herself suspected that there might have been another hacking incident when she "received an email with a suspicious link." Hours after her aides discussed the issue over email, Clinton received another email with a suspect link, this time from the personal account of the "under secretary of State for political affairs."

Warning No. 4:
A month later, the State Department sent a cable to “all diplomatic and consular posts” about the dangers of unsecured personal email accounts. Staffers were ordered to “avoid conducting official Department business from your personal e-mail accounts.” Who signed that cable? Hillary Clinton.

If Clinton wants to become the president of the United States, she needs to explain how she could make such a reckless decision. She had a chance to answer questions when the Obama administration-appointed inspector general contacted her about the investigation that was released last week. Among five recent secretaries of State, only Clinton refused.

While Clinton is under potential criminal investigation by the FBI for the mishandling of classified material sent through her email, remaining silent might be in her best interests and it is certainly her right. But to be president, she is going to have to convince voters that she can put the national security of the United States above her own short-term self-interest.

It's already clear that, in using the private email server, Clinton broke the rules. Now it remains to be seen whether she also broke the law.

Full editorial at:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/05/30/hillary-clinton-email-server-inspector-general-editorials-debates/85159948/

May 31, 2016

MAY 31 POLL: New Hampshire: Trump Ties Clinton Trump 44% Clinton 44%

MAY 31 POLL

New Hampshire: Trump vs. Clinton Boston Herald/FPU Clinton 44, Trump 44 Tie

May 31, 2016

The Bernie Sanders Scandals Exposed! There are so many of them I can't keep up! Where's the media?

Oooppsss! I meant the Bernie Sanders sandals. Sorry about that.

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May 31, 2016

"We may be just this screwed: Trump has an easier path to victory over Clinton than you think"

SALON
We may be just this screwed: Donald Trump has an easier path to victory than you think
Trump and Clinton share very high negatives. Hillary's may end up being harder to turn around
by Musa al-Gharbi
May 29, 2016


Nonetheless, the prevailing narrative is that while there is now a chance that Trump could actually win in November, it’s basically Hillary Clinton’s election to lose. Pundits focus on “fundamentals,” like Hillary’s superior fundraising, analytics, or ground game; however, these haven’t proven terribly predictive this cycle. And by focusing on conventional elements, analysts seem to be overlooking novel dynamics which are likely more important—specifically, the public’s persistent and negative perception of Hillary Clinton, the incumbency handicap, and a phenomenon I call “negative intersectionality.”

Both Trump and Clinton hold historically unprecedented unfavorable ratings among likely voters. Of the two, Clinton has held a slight edge—however, the gap between them has been rapidly closing. And here’s the kicker: While it is true that the public is very familiar with both Trump and Clinton due to their decades-long careers in public life, Trump has been in the limelight primarily as a businessman and entertainer. People are just now discovering “Trump the politician”—and as a result, their views on Trump as a politician are malleable. The Clinton team views this as an opportunity, and are attempting to define him before he gets a chance to define himself. However, the flip side is that while Trump’s numbers are currently low, there is a real opportunity for him to radically change public perception for the better. And he has tasked Paul Manafort with this responsibility—a man who, after orchestrating Ronald Reagan’s landslide victories, went on to build a highly successful career rehabilitating the image of dictators and strongmen. He’s made for this job. Expect Trump’s numbers to rise.

Hillary’s numbers are unlikely to follow the same trajectory—because not only do people know her well, but they know her specifically as a politician. It is precisely her perceived cynicism and duplicity as a politician that drive her unfavorable rating. Public opinion of Clinton has been on a steady decline since December 2012, and a brutal, negative campaign is unlikely to shift the numbers in her favor. In other words, Clinton will have a much harder time turning around her bad image than Trump.

.... in many ways, the Democratic primary has been a referendum on Bill Clinton’s tenure—and many of his signature achievements, championed by Hillary Clinton at the time, don’t look so great in retrospect. From NAFTA, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, Wall Street deregulation, welfare reform, DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”—and of course, the infamous crime bills—despite Bill Clinton’s success at restoring the Democratic Party to national prominence, primary voters have taken an increasingly critical view of his legacy. This effect will be even more pronounced among Independent and Republican voters.

Trump recognizes the opportunity here, and has already demonstrated an intention to hammer Hillary Clinton not only on her support of NAFTA—but to even undermine her feminist narratives by highlighting the genuinely disturbing sexual assault accusations against Bill Clinton, and the role that Hillary Clinton played in attempting to discredit and silence alleged victims. Again, in the current cultural and historical moment, voters seem unlikely to provide the same benefit of doubt that was afforded the Clintons in the ’90s.

Read the complete article at:
http://www.salon.com/2016/05/29/we_may_be_just_this_screwed_donald_trump_has_an_easier_path_to_victory_than_you_think/

May 30, 2016

"The Clintons have thrived within a corrupt system and have become obscenely wealthy because of it"

Salon
Hillary Clinton’s big donor problem isn’t going away: Her history of taking Wall Street cash exemplifies all that’s wrong in U.S. politics
The Clintons have thrived for so long within a corrupt system and have become obscenely wealthy because of it
by Conor Lynch
May 30, 2016

Money in politics has been an important and at times contentious topic during the 2016 presidential race, particularly on the Democratic side of things, where Bernie Sanders has campaigned almost entirely on small donations — breaking grassroots fundraising records previously held by Barack Obama — and railed against Clinton for her financial ties to Wall Street and other industries.

Clinton has responded to these criticisms by arguing that Sanders has no proof of quid pro quo, a similar line of reasoning that right-wing Supreme Court Justices use when throwing out campaign finance laws. At one debate, she insisted that Sanders was peddling an “artful smear” by questioning whether big money donations or high-paid speeches influenced her, which — not surprisingly — she has denied completely.

Of course, there is very good reason to believe that the billionaires and corporations that donate to Clinton or pay her generously for 30-minute speeches are expecting something in return (as with every other politician they donate to). Wall Street bankers don’t contribute to both Republicans and Democrats because they like Republicans and Democrats equally, but to hedge their bets (needless to say, some politicians are much more willing to bend than others).

This is all an indictment of the system, not any particular politician; but the fact that the Clintons have thrived for so long within this system and have become obscenely wealthy because of it should trouble any progressives who want to see meaningful reform. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich put it, Clinton is the “most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have,” but “Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have.”

What has been especially disturbing about the 2016 Democratic primary debate over money in politics has been the extent to which partisan Democrats have been willing to use right-wing talking points to defend their preferred candidate, dismissing big money contributions as inconsequential without concrete evidence of quid pro quo.

Barney Frank, a prominent Clinton surrogate and board member of Wall Street bank Signature Bank, has gone so far to accuse Sanders of McCarthyism (which is funny, considering the Clinton camp began red-baiting Sanders and his supporters pretty early on) for implying that Clinton and other politicians are influenced by contributions.

In a 2012 interview with NPR, Frank had a slightly different tune: “People say, ‘Oh, it doesn’t have any effect on me.’ Well if that were the case, we’d be the only human beings in the history of the world who on a regular basis took significant amounts of money from perfect strangers and made sure that it had no effect on our behavior.”

http://www.salon.com/2016/05/29/hillary_clintons_big_donor_problem_isnt_going_away_her_history_of_taking_wall_street_cash_exemplifies_all_thats_wrong_in_u_s_politics/

May 30, 2016

Donald Trump will win the US presidency by a landslide against Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump will win the US presidency by a landslide – don't underestimate him yet again
Just like Obama, Trump is inspiring first-time voters to get out on polling day, while existing Republicans will hold their noses when they get to the ballot box
by Andrew MacLeod
May 27, 2016

I’d rather not have Trump in the White House. Neither would many Americans, yet it is now very likely that the Republican nominee will be the next American president – and he could win in a landslide.

Winning and losing elections in America is not about pinching votes from the other team. It is getting your team out to vote. In the US, voter turnout hasn’t exceeded 60 per cent for nearly 50 years. In 1968, 60.7 per cent of eligible voters actually managed to drag themselves out of bed and exercise a right that people had fought and died for. In 1996, less than 50 per cent bothered turning up.

Getting out your own voters is far easier, and far more important, than pinching votes from the other side. In both 2008 and 2012, Obama ran a massive “get out the vote” campaign, inspiring many first time voters with the promise of hope, change and making history by electing the first black man to the White House. Voter turnout in 2008 was the highest since 1968.

Clinton, on the other hand, does not inspire that level of emotion. The so called “woman card” that she plays is not motivating women either. In the Iowa caucus, only 14 per cent of women under 30 voted for Hillary; in New Hampshire it was around 10 per cent. Young women went for the 'old white guy' – Bernie Sanders.

Clinton will get fewer votes than Obama. Trump will get out far more first-time voters than the Republicans have ever achieved before, while regular Republican voters will hold their noses and punt for Trump.

Unless the left stop dreaming up reasons for Trump to lose, and start campaigning like he might win, the 2016 election will be the landslide for Trump.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-will-win-the-us-presidency-by-a-landslide-dont-underestimate-him-yet-again-a7051686.html