Category: Hillary Clinton

Yep, Hawaii Too

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With around 70%:

Senator Bernie Sanders routed Hillary Clinton in all three Democratic presidential contests on Saturday, infusing his underdog campaign with critical momentum and bolstering his argument that the race for the nomination is not a foregone conclusion.

Mr. Sanders found a welcome tableau in the largely white and liberal electorates of the Pacific Northwest, where just days after resoundingly beating Mrs. Clinton in Idaho he repeated the feat in the Washington caucuses, winning 73 percent of the vote. He did even better in Alaska, winning 82 percent of the vote, and in Hawaii, he had 71 percent with a few precincts still be counted, according to The Associated Press.

While the party establishment may not like this, it is a good thing.

The Republicans in general, and Trump in particular, have gotten a lot more ink, and now that Clinton’s primary campaign seems less a coronation, the Democrats, and Democratic ideas, should start getting some coverage.

How Lovely!

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As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had her State Department aggressively push fracking across the world:

One icy morning in February 2012, Hillary Clinton’s plane touched down in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, which was just digging out from a fierce blizzard. Wrapped in a thick coat, the secretary of state descended the stairs to the snow-covered tarmac, where she and her aides piled into a motorcade bound for the presidential palace. That afternoon, they huddled with Bulgarian leaders, including Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, discussing everything from Syria’s bloody civil war to their joint search for loose nukes. But the focus of the talks was fracking. The previous year, Bulgaria had signed a five-year, $68 million deal, granting US oil giant Chevron millions of acres in shale gas concessions. Bulgarians were outraged. Shortly before Clinton arrived, tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets carrying placards that read “Stop fracking with our water” and “Chevron go home.” Bulgaria’s parliament responded by voting overwhelmingly for a fracking moratorium.

Clinton urged Bulgarian officials to give fracking another chance. According to Borissov, she agreed to help fly in the “best specialists on these new technologies to present the benefits to the Bulgarian people.” But resistance only grew. The following month in neighboring Romania, thousands of people gathered to protest another Chevron fracking project, and Romania’s parliament began weighing its own shale gas moratorium. Again Clinton intervened, dispatching her special envoy for energy in Eurasia, Richard Morningstar, to push back against the fracking bans. The State Depart­ment’s lobbying effort culminated in late May 2012, when Morningstar held a series of meetings on fracking with top Bulgarian and Romanian officials. He also touted the technology in an interview on Bulgarian national radio, saying it could lead to a fivefold drop in the price of natural gas. A few weeks later, Romania’s parliament voted down its proposed fracking ban and Bulgaria’s eased its moratorium.

The episode sheds light on a crucial but little-known dimension of Clinton’s diplomatic legacy. Under her leadership, the State Department worked closely with energy companies to spread fracking around the globe—part of a broader push to fight climate change, boost global energy supply, and undercut the power of adversaries such as Russia that use their energy resources as a cudgel. But environmental groups fear that exporting fracking, which has been linked to drinking-water contamination and earthquakes at home, could wreak havoc in countries with scant environmental regulation. And according to interviews, diplomatic cables, and other documents obtained by Mother Jones, American officials—some with deep ties to industry—also helped US firms clinch potentially lucrative shale concessions overseas, raising troubling questions about whose interests the program actually serves.

………

Clinton, who was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, believed that shale gas could help rewrite global energy politics. “This is a moment of profound change,” she later told a crowd at Georgetown University. “Countries that used to depend on others for their energy are now producers. How will this shape world events? Who will benefit, and who will not?…The answers to these questions are being written right now, and we intend to play a major role.” Clinton tapped a lawyer named David Goldwyn as her special envoy for international energy affairs; his charge was “to elevate energy diplomacy as a key function of US foreign policy.”

………

Goldwyn had a long history of promoting drilling overseas—both as a Department of Energy official under Bill Clinton and as a representative of the oil industry. From 2005 to 2009 he directed the US-Libya Business Association, an organization funded primarily by US oil companies—including Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Marathon—clamoring to tap Libya’s abundant supply. Goldwyn lobbied Congress for pro-Libyan policies and even battled legislation that would have allowed families of the Lockerbie bombing victims to sue the Libyan government for its alleged role in the attack.

………

But environmental groups were barely consulted, while industry played a crucial role. When Goldwyn unveiled the initiative in April 2010, it was at a meeting of the United States Energy Association, a trade organization representing Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and ConocoPhillips, all of which were pursuing fracking overseas. Among their top targets was Poland, which preliminary studies suggested had abundant shale gas. The day after Goldwyn’s announcement, the US Embassy in Warsaw helped organize a shale gas conference, underwritten by these same companies (plus the oil field services company Halliburton) and attended by officials from the departments of State and Energy.

………

Around the time of his departure, WikiLeaks released a slew of diplomatic cables, including one describing a 2009 meeting during which Goldwyn and Canadian officials discussed development of the Alberta oil sands—a project benefiting some of the same firms behind the US-Libya Business Association. The cable said that Goldwyn had coached his Canadian counterparts on improving “oil sands messaging” and helped alleviate their concerns about getting oil sands crude to US markets. This embarrassed the State Department, which is reviewing the controversial Keystone XL pipeline proposal to transport crude oil from Canada and is under fire from environmentalists.

After leaving State, Goldwyn took a job with Sutherland, a law and lobbying firm that touts his “deep understanding” of pipeline issues, and launched his own company, Goldwyn Global Strategies.

In late 2011, Clinton finally unveiled the new Bureau of Energy Resources, with 63 employees and a multimillion-dollar budget. She also promised to instruct US embassies around the globe to step up their work on energy issues and “pursue more outreach to private-sector energy” firms, some of which had generously supported both her and President Barack Obama’s political campaigns. (One Chevron executive bundled large sums for Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid, for example.)

So Clinton, who at the Flint debates was using double-talk about common sense regulations, employed a energy industry lobbyist to run her policy of aggressively pushing fracking to the world.

Later in the article, they talk about how her pet lobbyist lobbied aggressively for Canadian tar sands at State.

Yes, she sure sounds like someone who is serious about the dangers of fracking and Canadian bitumen, and the associated problems with global warming, doesn’t she?

She’s Fundraising with Theranos? Seriously?!?!?

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For a while, I have been talking about the smoke and mirrors show that is the lab test company Theranos.

The short version is that they have a multibillion dollar valuation for a technology that allows one to make blood tests from a drop of blood from a finger tip.

Unfortunately, they have not been able to make the technology work, and so they have been doing conventional tests to generate some revenue.

But they are f%$#ing this up too, having been cited by the FDA.

And now the Clinton campaign is having this den of fraud hold a fund raiser for them.

I guess that Enron was busy:

Theranos is a unicorn that may soon be sent to the glue factory. The biotech start-up was once the toast of Silicon Valley. Its signature technology — a blood-testing machine so sensitive it requires a mere pinprick of blood to make accurate diagnoses — attracted a $9 billion valuation. ……… And then, last October, The Wall Street Journal revealed that the company’s breakthrough technology doesn’t actually work.

In recent days, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that the company’s lab in Newark, California, was in violation of five federal regulations, thereby posing “immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety.” Last week, the release of that investigation’s full report revealed that “quality control issues” may have compromised the blood-test results of 81 patients.

……… But for god knows what reason, it hasn’t cost the company the chance to host a fund-raiser for the Democratic front-runner. Next week, Chelsea Clinton will join Holmes at Theranos’s Palo Alto headquarters to help raise money for her mother’s campaign. According to an email obtained by Re/code, the event will be held next Monday night and will cost most attendees $2,700 a head.

One of Clinton’s primary liabilities in her race against Bernie Sanders is the perception that she is overly friendly with corrupt corporate interests. So it’s pretty bizarre that she has decided to have a (reportedly) corrupt corporation host her next big fund-raiser. And it’s only one of several unforced errors the campaign has made since last Friday. 

Someone in the Clinton sure picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

On the bright side for the Campaign, at least this time Hillary was not caught on camera doing it, so she can blame some lowly staffer.

This really is a complete cock up.

She Said What?!?!?!?!

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I am beginning to think that Hillary Clinton has another bleeder in her brain:

Hillary Clinton on Monday defended the intervention in Libya that she championed as secretary of state, telling MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that the United States “didn’t lose a single person.“

Didn’t lose a single person?

Seriously?

She then followed up with, “Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

“Libya was a different kind of calculation. And we didn’t lose a single person. We didn’t have a problem in supporting our European and Arab allies in working with NATO,” the former secretary of state said during an MSNBC town hall on Monday night.

Clinton may have been referring strictly to the U.S.-backed overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, which indeed saw no loss of American lives and cost just around $1 billion. But her comments ignore the 2012 attacks at the U.S. mission and CIA outpost in Benghazi, which killed four people including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

Ousting Qaddafi was worth it, Clinton said.

“Now, is Libya perfect? It isn’t. But did they have two elections that were free and fair where they voted for moderates. Yes, they did. So you know, changing from a dictator who has hollowed out your country to something resembling a functioning state and even hopefully more of a democratic one doesn’t happen overnight,” she said. “And we’ve got to continue to support the Libyan people, to give them a chance, because otherwise you see what has happened in Syria, with the consequences of millions of people flooding out of Syria, with more than 250,000 people killed, with terrorist groups like ISIS taking up almost — huge blocks of territory, as big as some of the states in that area.”

Isis is in Libya now.

It wasn’t before we destroyed the country.

They had a sophisticated irrigation system that allowed them to feed themselves.

We blew it up.

Free healthcare for everyone. Gone.

Free education. Gone

A right to decent shelter. Gone.

We also have a genocide of black Libyans in the north of the country.

We destroyed the country.

And we also helped Saudi Arabia and Turkey create the Syrian civil war under her watch.

And that coup that we fomented in the Ukraine? It’s going swimmingly.

Arguably, the most important issue for the President is war and peace, it is the one that they have the most control over, and as I’ve said before, Hillary is nearly as bellicose as Dick Cheney.

The Term for this is Unforced Political Error

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I understand that one needs to have a sense of decorum at a funeral.

It is not a place where one should prosecute political differences.

That being said, when you are in a primary contest, and among the complaints against you is that you are:

  • Mindlessly bellicose and willing to engage in regime change for its own sake.
  • A member of a corrupt and incompetent ruling elite.

This picture from Nancy Reagan’s funeral is a disaster, showing her palling around with Shrub, is a complete clusterf%$#, as the ensuing Twitter sh%$ storm shows:

This may be the best photo from Mrs. Reagan’s funeral. pic.twitter.com/kX1WZP9mwi

— David Chalian (@DavidChalian) March 14, 2016

The fail is strong in this one.

H/t naked capitalism.

Experience My Ass!

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One of the claims made by the Clinton campaign is that she has experience, and knows how to get things done.

I’m not quite sure how this makes sense.

She has no experience in an executive elected position, and Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington for 8 years.

She was in Congress for 8 years, Bernie for 25 years.

What’s more, all through his legislative career, he has managed to make significant legislative accomplishments despite his status as a party outsider:

As Democrats cobbled together a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s immigration law three years ago, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York was clear about one thing: His party could not suffer a single defection.

But one naysayer remained — Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who had opposed a similar effort in 2007 and once again did not like provisions in the new bill that he thought would displace American workers. And he had a price, a $1.5 billion youth jobs program.

Through wheeling and dealing, shaming and cajoling, Mr. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, got his wish, and his favored provision was grafted incongruously onto a tough-minded Republican border security amendment and paid for by higher visa fees for some foreign travelers.

………

Yet in spite of persistent carping that Mr. Sanders is nothing but a quixotic crusader — during their first debate, Hillary Clinton cracked, “I’m a progressive, but I’m a progressive who likes to get things done” — he has often been an effective, albeit modest, legislator. He has enacted his agenda piece by piece, in politically digestible chunks with few sweeping legislative achievements in a quarter-century in Congress.

Over one 12-year stretch in the House, Mr. Sanders passed more amendments by roll call vote than any other member of Congress. In the Senate, he secured money for dairy farmers and community health centers, blocked banks from hiring foreign workers and reined in the Federal Reserve, all through measures attached to larger bills.

………

His congressional relationships with Democrats and Republicans have been largely legislative and not loving. A backscratcher he is not. Mr. Sanders is far more likely to be found alone in his apartment watching cable news than out for Chinese food with other members of Congress.

“He is not Ted Kennedy, who managed to have these personal relationships that come from the day in and day out working the halls,” said Representative Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont, who replaced Mr. Sanders in the House. “The way he works is consistent with his temperament and his skills.”

Counter to his reputation as a far-left gadfly, Mr. Sanders has done much of his work with Republican partners, generally people with whom he has little, but sometimes just enough, in common.

And Hillary Clinton’s accomplishments?

Voting for the Iraq invasion, destroying Libya, installing a failed puppet regime in the Ukraine, and supporting every other ill conceived American imperial adventure over the past 15 years.

What experience is there to see?

Nepotism is not experience, see Bush, George Walker and Bush, Jeb.

More Clinton Speeches to Banksters

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Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches to Goldman Sachs Group have drawn criticism on the campaign trail, but they’re not the only talks she’s given to big banks.

Bank of America has also paid the Democratic presidential candidate and her husband more than $1 million combined to deliver talks to the Charlotte-based bank and its Merrill Lynch unit.

The Clintons collected the combined figure from Bank of America over four appearances from 2011 to 2014, according to financial disclosures posted by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Former President Bill Clinton was the speaker on three of those occasions, once taking in $500,000 for a 2014 gathering in London.

The large fees raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest and are likely to remain a hot topic on the campaign trail, said Eric Heberlig, a political science professor at UNC Charlotte.

“Taking fees like this, particularly from banks that have been bailed out by the taxpayers, it’s certainly hard to argue to the public that you’re not acting in a self-serving way,” Heberlig said.

My point is not that Hillary Clinton is bought and paid for by the banks.

I do not think that she is.

Instead, I am suggesting that she, and Bill, are peas in a pod with the corrupt financial class (see Rubin, Robert), and the speaking fees are a reward for being a member of the tribe.

This is not someone who is going to go after Wall Street any harder than Barack Obama, and as mind boggling as it sounds, the George W. Bush administration prosecuted more financial criminals than Obama has.

She Said What?!?!?!?!

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In an interview with Andrea Mitchell Hillary Clinton praised Nancy Reagan’s “Low key activism” on HIV/AIDS.

While I fully understand the desire not to diss the Nancy on the day of her funeral, this bit of “Can’t we all just get along,” historical revisionism is completely repulsive:

In an interview conducted at Nancy Reagan’s funeral today, Hillary Clinton recounted a version of history that didn’t happen, lauding the former first lady’s “low key advocacy” for the cause of HIV/AIDS awareness. “Low key” is one way of putting it. In fact, the Reagan White House is infamous for its lengthy, deadly silence on the epidemic.

 Clinton’s remarks came after an extended explanation of Nancy Reagan’s efforts to expand stem cell research after her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimers. Then, in a bizarre turn, Clinton began talking about AIDS in the 1980s, a topic anyone looking to remain civil and complimentary would go far out of their way to avoid at the funeral of Nancy Reagan:

“It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan, in particular, Mrs. Reagan, we started national conversation when before no one would talk about it, no one wanted to do anything about it, and that too is something that really appreciated, with her very effective, low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience and people began to say ‘Hey, we have to do something about this too.’”

It’s almost tempting to interpret this as withering, devastating sarcasm—the Reagans “started a national conversation about AIDS” in the same sense that George W. Bush “started a national conversation” about Iraq.

 In reality, the Reagans were infamously, disastrously silent on AIDS—as President, Ronald Reagan spoke more about UFOs than HIV, and didn’t even say the word in a public address until 1987, by which point it had killed tens of thousands of Americans. The virus was quite literally a joke inside the Reagan White House. Whatever “advocacy” of Nancy’s Clinton is dreaming up here must’ve been low-key to the point of non-existence—just last year it was reported that she ignored her Hollywood friend Rock Hudson’s pleas for help as he himself died from AIDS. It’s hard for one ugly episode to stand out among so many ugly aspects of the Reagan administration, but Nancy and Ronald’s deliberate silence on one of the defining public health crises of the era is surely near the top of any list. What Clinton is saying isn’t just untrue, but erases the deadly legacy of the Reagan era.

The most charitable way to describe the Reagan administration’s behavior on the AIDS crisis is as an atrocity.

Once this blew up, Clinton walked it back, but this comment is indefensible:

Hillary Clinton’s statement on her comments about the Reagans’ record on HIV and AIDS: pic.twitter.com/RtIs0zpJfk

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 11, 2016

I can’t figure out whether this is a moment of mind-boggling stupidity, or if she was trying to pander to the right in the hope of picking up a few votes.

In either case, particularly when juxtaposed with her late to the game support of gay marriage, this is a major f%$# up.

For anyone interested in LGBT issues who is still on the fence, this is a push to Bernie Sanders.

Well, This is a Surprise

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In the week leading up to the Michigan primary, Clinton was leading by in excess 20 points in the last few day’s polling.

Well, when polling places started running out of ballots for the Democratic primary, it was a sign that the polls might not be accurate.

As I am writing this, the Detroit Free Press has called Michigan for Bernie Sanders.

It appears that the Sanders got its get out the vote effort right tonight.

Saw the Dem Debate Tonight

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I’m not sure who won, but here are my quick thoughts:

  • It was much more contentious than the previous debates.
  • Bernie Sanders is more likable.
  • CNN’s format was weird, and the questions from the audience were even weirder.
  • Clinton was hoarse.
  • Sanders was weak on gun control, which has always been one of his weak points.

Not sure what it means in the context of the election, though.

I Have Been Studiously Ignoring This Crap, but Now We Have a Grant of Immunity

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Yes, I am a Bernie supporter, but I’ve always felt that the whole Benghazi/Email with Clinton is 6 pounds of sh%$ in a 5 pound bag.

I guess I have to start taking it kind of seriously, because the IT guy who set up Clinton’s email server has cut an immunity deal with the DoJ: 

The Justice Department has granted immunity to a former State Department staffer, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, as part of a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information, according to a senior law enforcement official.

The official said the FBI had secured the cooperation of Bryan Pagliano, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009.

As the FBI looks to wrap up its investigation in the coming months, agents are likely to want to interview Clinton and her senior aides about the decision to use a private server, how it was set up, and whether any of the participants knew they were sending classified information in emails, current and former officials said.

I still think that the email server thing is complete crap, and the Benghazi pearl clutching is such dense crap that it risks collapsing into a bullsh%$ black hole.

Still, with the grant of immunity, this stinking sack of sh%$ just got real.

For Sanders Supporters Who are Silver Lining Types

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First, note that the primaries are structured that all of Clinton’s strong states will be done by mid March.

Basically, the southern states, the ones that won’t vote for a Democrat, are relatively early in the process:

I’m keeping this short to put a very simple idea into your head. Because of the way the Democratic Party voting calendar is structured this year, Clinton’s largest lead will occur on March 15. After that, most of Sanders’ strongest states will vote.

 What this means is simple:

  • Hillary Clinton will grow her lead until the March 15 states have voted.
  • Bernie Sanders will erase that lead — partly or completely — after March 15.
  • How much of Clinton’s lead he will erase depends on your not buying what the media is selling — that the contest is over.
  • In most scenarios where Sanders wins, he doesn’t retake the lead until June 7, when five states including California cast their ballots.

March 15 is the Ides of March; a good way to remember the date. The message — gear up for a battle after the Ides of March, and don’t let the establishment media tell you what to think. They won’t be right until the last state has voted.

 If you want to stop reading here, this is all you need to know.

………

Bottom line — Super Tuesday is upon us, and what’s bad for Sanders supporters on March 1 is going to look worse for a few weeks. Stay heartened. Whatever the result in March, this isn’t over until June, after Sanders’ best states have voted as well.

(Emphasis Original)

This is not surprising. Both of the party establishments have attempted to front load the the south, the Republicans because they double down on racism, and the Democrats because they want to forestall the liberal wing of the party. (Super Tuesday was largely a product of the right wing of the right wing of the Democratic Party.)

This raises an interesting question, “Does Sanders have the resources go to distance?”

The answer is clearly, “Yes.”

In fact, it is very likely that Sanders has more Cash on Hand than Clinton does:  (Note that this does not include Super PAC money, but that money does not go as far, because it cannot be targeted as flexibly)

Hillary Clinton raised $30 million in February and has $31 million on hand, her campaign announced on Wednesday — far less than Bernie Sanders.

 ………

 Her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, raised $43 million in February, with $6 million of that coming on Monday. Sanders’ campaign has not announced its cash on hand, but as of the end of January, he had nearly $15 million in the bank.

Sanders Raised $20 million to Clinton’s $15 million in January.

So, Sanders raised $63 million in the first two months of the year, and Clinton raised $37 million, and she has $31 million cash on hand, and we can be reasonably certain that the Sanders campaign has a lower burn rate than Clinton, because she is employing a lot of high powered consultants, and has a far more extensive fundraising apparatus.

Assuming the same spending rates, and Hillary and Bernie would be neck and neck in cash on hand.

My guess is that Bernie is a few million ahead, and Hillary’s big donors are running into campaign finance limits, so the Sanders campaign can take this to the convention.

The People Have Spoken, the Bastards!*

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Hillary Clinton crushed Bernie Sanders in South Carolina:

Drawing overwhelming support from the African-American voters who deserted her here eight years ago, Hillary Clinton won her first resounding victory of the 2016 campaign in South Carolina on Saturday, delivering a blow to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont as their fight turns to the 11 states where Democrats vote on Tuesday.

After supporting Barack Obama in 2008, black voters, who will be the dominant force in the coming Southern primaries, turned out in droves for Mrs. Clinton here. They chose her over Mr. Sanders by more than six to one, while white voters narrowly favored her as well, according to exit polls.

………

This time it was Mrs. Clinton who emerged from the first southern primary with a clearer path to the nomination. With 99 percent of the vote counted, Mrs. Clinton won 73.5 percent, to 26 percent for Mr. Sanders. Turnout was about 370,000, according to Edison Research — modest compared with the 532,000 ballots cast in the Clinton-Obama primary race here in 2008, and well below the record 743,000 votes cast in South Carolina’s Republican primary last Saturday, which Mr. Trump won.

Some observations:

  • She beat him by nearly 3 to 1, so Sanders lost this ugly.
  • There was not a whole bunch of voter enthusiasm. Turnout was low.

I think that the Sanders campaign needs to work on its ground game in general, and its GOTV effort in particular.

Bernie’s demographic trends younger, and it is difficult to get younger voters to show up at the ballot box.

I was hoping for Sanders to stay within single digits, so I has a sad right now.

*Not my quote, it comes from the inestimable Dick Tuck.

Finally, Someone Confronts Hillary About It.

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Just Desserts at a Fundraising Dinner

I could call Hillary’s endorsement of the penal state in the early to mid 1990s the “Elephant in the Room”, but given the attendant political symbology, it wouldn’t clarify the issue.

Bill Clinton was campaigning for president, and when he was campaigning for reelection, both he and Hillary Clinton acritively demonized black popular culture, see the “Sista Soulja Moment“, particularly with regard to young black men.

Their crime bill was an abomination, and Hillary was blithely talking about “super predators” as a code word for young urban black males.

A black lives matter protester shelled out $500 for a fundraising dinner, and got in Clinton’s face about her history:

Two activists with the Black Lives Matter movement interrupted a private fundraising event in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday night, demanding that the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton account for language she used as first lady about the need to “bring [at-risk youth] to heel”.

First reported by the Huffington Post, the protest began after Clinton told attendees about the need for police body cameras to stem police violence against members of the public. At this point, activist Ashley Williams stepped forward and unfurled a banner reading: “We have to bring them to heel.”

The banner’s text refers to a speech Clinton made in 1994 in support of her husband’s crime bill, the passage of which has since been criticized as having expanded the prison system and imposed unduly harsh sentencing on non-violent offenders.

“I’m not a super-predator, Hillary Clinton,” Williams said once Clinton turned around and noticed the sign, paraphrasing another line from the then first lady’s speech. “Will you apologize to black people for mass incarceration?”

Williams told the Huffington Post that she and another protester made a $500 donation to the Clinton campaign to attend the event, held in a private residence with roughly 100 attendees. Williams was eventually removed from the fundraiser by secret service agents.

Her eventual response, “Looking back, I shouldn’t have used those words, and I wouldn’t use them today,” is a non-apology apology.

What’s more it is further reduced in meaning in that she delivered this message only in writing.

There is a problem with what you said 20 years ago. 

The bigger problem was that you actively promulgated a racist trope because it helped Bill’s reelection campaign.

It is a very sad part of your history, and any apology needs to come from your mouth, and not from a memo dashed off to one of your pet journalists.

What an Unbelievably Transparent Cop-Out

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This is why, if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she is likely to get beaten by Donald Trump:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton again refused to release transcripts of her paid speeches to big banks, telling a CNN town hall audience Tuesday night that she will only release her transcripts if her Republican opponents release theirs.

 “Earlier tonight, I asked Senator Sanders: Will you give your transcripts of speeches?” said host Chris Cuomo. “He said he doesn’t have the bank speeches. If he can find any of the speeches that he did give for money, he will gladly give the transcripts up. So: Will you agree to release these transcripts? They have become an issue.”

 Clinton replied: “Sure, if everybody does it, and that includes the Republicans.”

 She continued: “Because we know they have given a lot of speeches.” She then went on to offer a defense of her Wall Street regulatory plan.

 And she asked: “Why is there one standard for me, and not for everybody else?”

Because you are claiming that you are not in Wall Street’s pocket, and the Republicans are in Wall Street’s pockets as an article of faith?

Because you have made a specific claim that you told them to “Cut it out”?

Because you got over a half a million dollars for your speeches?

Because that answer makes you look like a whiny self-entitled jerk.

Because you are f%$#ing running for f%$#ing President of the f%$#ing United f%$#ing States?

Even if you believe Hillary Clinton’s argument that she is likely to be more successful at getting things through Congress, which means that you have to ignore the fact that Bernie did more in the House and Senate than she did, this means that she is pretty damn near hopeless as a candidate.

She is the Martha Coakley of Presidential campaigns.

Letting her get the nomination likely to make Donald Trump President.

Headline of the Day

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Hillary Clinton’s Latest Attack on Bernie Sanders Sounds a Lot Like Mitt Romney:

Fresh off a vindicating win in Saturday’s Nevada caucuses, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton found herself embroiled in a controversy over remarks denigrating rival Bernie Sanders‘ policy proposals as “free everything” — an attack, critics charge, that echoes Republican talking points.

The former secretary of state actually delivered the jab on Thursday, as polls showed her locked in a tight contest with Sanders in the Silver State. But the remarks didn’t receive widespread attention until late this weekend, after Clinton defeated Sanders by more than 5 percentage points.

Speaking at a campaign rally, Clinton said, “I’m not just making speeches and not just promising free this and free that and free everything.” The line was widely interpreted as a dig at Sanders’ proposals for tuition-free public college and a single-payer, Medicare-for-All health system.

A familiar refrain? For many listeners, Clinton’s remarks evoked memories of Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, both patrician Republicans who came under fire for comments suggesting that Democrats sought to curry favor with voters by offering free benefits.

I think that there is a lot more of the “Hillary Rodham Goldwater Girl” from 1964 in her than I had previously realized.

This is Actually Not a Bad Thing

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It appears that much of Clinton’s victory margin was delivered by Harry Reid’s political organization:

I’d like to congratulate the winner of the Nevada Democratic caucuses: Harry Reid.

What’s that, you say? The Senate Democratic leader wasn’t running? What am I talking about?

Last Saturday may well have been the day that altered the course of the Democratic presidential race — when Hillary Clinton blunted Bernie Sanders’ campaign. After she was forced to work as hard as she ever has for a week (with a little help from a lot of friends), she was sling-shotted with new momentum into South Carolina’s primary this Saturday and Super Tuesday on March 1. Nevada could indeed prove to be the contest that saved Clinton’s campaign.

But the caucuses, which Clinton won by about 5 percentage points, also cemented Prince Harry as a man Machiavelli would have bowed to, a man with one eye who still sees the field better and is still more dangerous, effective and cunning than any pol the state (the country?) has ever seen. Clinton might not have won Nevada if Reid had not interceded last week, when the man feigning neutrality saw what everyone in the Democratic elite saw: Sanders erasing a once mountainous lead and on the verge of perhaps winning Nevada and rendering inoperative the “Hillary is more electable” argument.

The story of the Nevada caucuses is that a lame-duck senator and a self-neutered union conspired to revive the Clinton campaign in a remarkable bit of backroom maneuvering that helped Madame Secretary crush Sanders in Clark County, the key to winning almost any statewide election. Combined with a Clinton machine, erected last spring and looking invincible, that suddenly had to scrape the rust off its gears and turn out her voters, Caucus Day also was a remarkable story of an indomitable candidate, her nonpareil Nevada staff and a ragtag but committed Sanders operation that made them sweat.

Politically, Clinton is not a great campaigner, but playing this sort of insider game is her mutant super power..

I’m pretty sure that Hillary had to ask for this help, and knowing when to ask for help is a valuable skill.

I would rather that Sanders had won the caucus, but this is a smart move.

H/t DownWithTyranny!

It’s One Thing to Get Called out by Politifact, But to Get Outed by Snopes?

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No chanting here

Delores Huerta, a civil rights activist and campaigner for Hillary Clinton, claimed that her efforts to translate at a caucus in Nevada were shouted down by Sanders supporters chanting “English only”.

Snopes.com, the urban myth busting site for the internet, Finds these claims to be false, which is unsurprising. Huerta made similar discredited claims against Obama in 2008:

Claim: Supporters of Bernie Sanders shouted “English only” at civil rights activist Dolores Huerta during one Nevada caucus event, ostensibly objecting to a translation of remarks into Spanish.

 False

Origin: On 20 February 2016, the Nevada Democratic caucuses ended in a victory for Hillary Clinton.  Not long after that, actress America Ferrera tweeted that  that supporters of Bernie Sanders shouted “English only!” at longtime civil rights activist Dolores Huerta (who had apparently offered to translate from English to Spanish at an event at Harrah’s casino on the Las Vegas strip), objecting to a translation of remarks from English to Spanish:

………

Origin: On 20 February 2016, the Nevada Democratic caucuses ended in a victory for Hillary Clinton. Not long after that, actress America Ferrera tweeted that that supporters of Bernie Sanders shouted “English only!” at longtime civil rights activist Dolores Huerta (who had apparently offered to translate from English to Spanish at an event at Harrah’s casino on the Las Vegas strip), objecting to a translation of remarks from English to Spanish:

………

Huerta initially didn’t specify how she identified the chanters as Sanders supporters. We spoke to Erin Cruz, who was present at the rally with a nurses’ union to support Sanders:

@AmericaFerrera @DoloresHuerta
The moderator said English only not anyone from the Bernie camp @SusanSarandon @rebeccab311

— Erin Cruz (@neuroticnurse75) February 20, 2016



Cruz told us she was accompanied by ten other nurses and actors Susan Sarandon and Gaby Hoffman. Cruz said she was unaware of any recording during the disputed chanting:

………

As Sarandon correctly stated, the segment in dispute started around the 53:30 mark, when parties called for a Spanish-language translator. As she indicated, at 55:18 the caucus moderator (not Sanders’ supporters) simply stated that the inability to locate a neutral translator meant the caucus would continue in “English only.” At no point did any Sanders supporters appear to have refused a translator based on the fact that translation was objectionable to them; nor was “English only” used in a pejorative fashion. The term was invoked a single time, during the moderator’s assertion that no suitable translator was located to provide Spanish-language translations:

Between Madeline Allbright claimin that women Bernie supporters are going to hell, Gloria Steinem claiming that women Bernie supporters are in it for the Bernie Boys, and now this, it appears that Hillary’s supporters may be a bigger problem for her than Bernie’s supporters.