Yes, the FCC will probably deliver bad news. Here's one answer.

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday November 27, 2017 · 11:40 PM PST

2017/11/27 · 23:40

The situation's grim, but don't panic - not just yet!

OK, here’s the deal — the data:

AJit Pai’s FCC will almost certainly remove the “Net Neutrality” rule, which prevents ISPs from discriminating against certain content providers and websites;
If the FCC doesn’t remove it entirely, it will instead twist it to become a de facto corporate censorship enabler;
All of this is happening with the approval of Donald Trump and his fanbase — he really could shoot someone in public, and they’d rush to get blood-spot souvenirs!

Got that? Yeah, it sounds grim, and I’d be lying if I said the prognosis was great. But it’s not quite all there is. Now here’s the jazz — what is being done to keep the Internet going and great:

In the 30 States which permit it, many municipalities are expediting the provision of municipal broadband ISPs, which will be content-neutral to their subscribers (i.e., any residents of the city willing and able to pay the fees);
Non-profit groups (such as the Calyx Institute) are already forming up to provide broadband at-cost on a mass subscription basis, in some cases by end-running the ground communications network entirely; and
At least some ballot initiatives are already underway to reverse State-level anti-municipal broadband laws. Even in the reddest States, these are not doomed to failure — this was best seen in the 2014 Republican landslide, in which progressive ballot initiatives often won even as Democrats were being voted out.

So, what’s more important: The data, or the jazz?

It seems to me that there are ways around the vampire-squid ISPs’ efforts to censor our data for their private profit. If the Federal Government will close off the way it provided in the past, that means it’s up to individual Americans to find what ways are possible, or create-able, or otherwise to be had to maintain the neutrality of the Internet — then to implement them!

It also means that it’s even more imperative to retake as many levers of power as possible. From municipal board-members (who can often make or break any effort to create a publicly-owned ISP for the municipality), all the way to Congress and the White House (who can legislate to require Net Neutrality, in ways the GOP can’t ratf**k to please their donors/owners), who holds office matters.

Leave the 2016 primary crap in the past, realize that Hillary supporters, Bernie supporters and all Democrats must hang together or hang separately, and get ahead of events.

Act, don’t react.

Do your research, spread the word (while you still can) to help others find these ways, and don’t assume that the ISPs will take the potential profit-loss lying down. As soon as they see other ways of accessing the internet gain currency, they will attempt to choke them off. Which means that you have to organize, organize, organize to protect everyone’s access to knowledge!!

(Headline image credit: John Cole, The Scranton Times.

Body image content: Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, Sinder Roze.)

OK, so - as neutrally as possible - why did Clinton REALLY lose?

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday November 11, 2016 · 3:38 AM PST

2016/11/11 · 03:38

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are tightening their grips on the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations.

OK, I’ve been seeing the increasingly vicious back-and-forth going on, the relitigation of the primaries, and so on and so forth. I’m hoping, in this diary, to be as dispassionate as possible in analyzing precisely why Clinton lost the election.

I am not going to excessively relitigate the primaries — what’s done is done, and neither Sanders nor Clinton is likely to be interested in a 2020 run.

I am not going to be (deliberately) incendiary — I’m trying to encourage discourse and dispassion, not division and bitterness.

And I’m not going to (deliberately) handwave components of the election.

Please — I would esteem it a favour if those who choose to participate in this particular discussion could do likewise. With this in mind, I will probably focus more on areas where Kossacks are in disagreement, while still acknowledging factors in which we are in agreement. With all of that said, let’s start this.

Factors which I have identified as contributing to Clinton’s loss:

1. A bitter, tainted primary election.

Clinton won the primary election — as I said, I’m not going to relitigate this. However, one key result of the primaries was that a large segment of the Democratic base — the people on whose support the eventual nominee must be able to rely — was dispirited and angry. Why?

First, of course, there was the sense that Clinton’s time had passed. Her style came across to many observers as a 90s politician in a 2010s world, and her recent conversion to several progressive ideas appeared at first glance to be one of convenience.

Second, equally obviously, was the palpable sense that Clinton entered the primaries with several undue advantages (as well as all the ones she had rightfully earned) — specifically, the near-unanimity among “Establishment” Democratic politicians in both endorsing her and….creatively interpreting the DNC’s role to her advantage.

Examples of the latter part include (but are not limited to):

The decision of the DNC Chair (DWS) to schedule all public events (most particularly debates, which are an outsider’s best chance to introduce themselves in a strong fashion on a national stage) at times apparently designed to minimize exposure (which advantaged Clinton, as the candidate with universal name recognition);
DWS’ decision to hamstring the Sanders Campaign’s ability to access its own data right before the primaries started;
The DNC’s decision to share staffing and facilities with the Clinton campaign well before the primaries were concluded;
The role of the State-level establishments in taking part in elaborate money-shuffling operations designed to circumvent donations limits and funnel more money into Clinton’s campaign while the primaries were still ongoing, and many others.

Would Clinton have won the primaries without these advantages? Most likely — she had many legitimately-earned advantages going in. But we’ll never know now. And that cloud around the processes of the primaries inhibited the other candidates supporters’ ability to put the primaries behind them and unify the party. They felt, not unreasonably, that they had been robbed of a fair election — one in which all candidates were able to make their case on equal terms.

This, in turn, led to anger at the very party which ideally is guarding and promoting their interests as part of the Democratic coalition, anger which was fanned when the DNC/Podesta emails were dropped and confirmed that the DNC had, indeed, had at least a thumb on the scale for Clinton. This undoubtedly had a part in lowering the turnout in November.

If you’re having trouble accepting this point, consider: Would you consider an election held under those terms, in a Latin American/African country, to be “free and fair”?

2. A partisan, biased media.

Undoubtedly, this is a large part of Trump’s ability to win — he personally acknowledged as much when he stated that a large part of his strategy in the general would be to rely upon free publicity. The mainstream media routinely, uncritically repeated and amplified his lies. And they deserve to be blamed for that, and for their acknowledged double-standards to which they held the candidates.

3. Foreign/FBI interference.

This is also a portion of it — it is beyond certain that Russian hackers were involved in getting various leaks to Julian Assange’s inbox — but I don’t think it was quite as large as some others claim. Had Clinton truly commanded the lead that the polls showed her with — and if so much of her support had not been so soft — Comey’s interference would only have taken the edge off her victory. Instead, Comey delivered the coup de grace to her campaign.

4. Racism and sexism.

Racism was also a factor — but, I think, less of one than many people are prepared to consider. Bear in mind that many of Trump’s breakthroughs — PA, MI, WI, various counties which were traditionally “blue” — came from voters who had voted for Barack Obama’s candidacy, not once but twice, against Republican opponents far more mainstream than Trump.

Certainly, sexism was a factor as well — again, less than I suspect others believe. Consider Michigan: It has voted for a liberal Democratic woman to represent it in the Senate (Debbie Stabenow) for the last three terms, twice with large margins. It has voted for a moderate Democratic Governor to lead its State government twice (Jennifer Granholm), once in a Republican year (2002). Why would people who voted for Stabenow and Granholm suddenly vote against Clinton due to sexism? They voted against Clinton, but I don’t think sexism was the answer.

5. A flawed candidate.

This was most definitely a factor. All candidates are flawed — to expect perfection in a candidate for nationwide office is silly. But Clinton’s particular flaws played precisely to Trump’s strengths, while his own flaws were largely immune from her attacks. Consider:

Criminal activity: The fact that Clinton was under active investigation for criminal activities (she was correctly determined to be innocent) made it difficult for her to capitalize upon Trump’s long history of cutting legal corners;
Establishment: Donald Trump may be an anti-establishmentarian, but he’s of the establishment. Born into wealth and power, his political ties are long-running and as deep as you get. This is the person who brags about his connections all the time! But, of course, Clinton couldn’t tap into that gulf between his personal history and his message, because she — having been in or near the halls of power for the past generation or more — is very much Establishment herself, however progressive her ideals are.
Corruption: Donald Trump is corrupt. There: it’s said. He is undeniably corrupt, he is openly, publicly corrupt, he brags about being corrupt. Yet this could not be used against him. Why? Because any such arguments quickly devolved into “he says, she says” ones, and there’s enough smoke for observers to pretend that it comes from both sides equally.
Messaging: Clinton did not have a single, clear message. Trump did. It was bullshit, but he had it. And that message, “Make America Great Again”, was nothing short of genius. In four short words, he played on the resentment of people who’ve been left behind for the past generation, promised a better future for them and promoted himself. Clinton’s message, “I’m with Her”, did nothing comparable. It was about Clinton, not about America. It was about being with someone, not what she’d do for them. It was passive, while Trump’s message was active.
Populism vs. “business as usual”: Clinton is not, and has never been, a particularly left-wing politician. The only time she’s pretended to be that was in primary elections.

On top of this, the Clinton campaign was unable to come up with a single, coherent response to a very simple question: Why do you want to be President? What did Clinton hope to accomplish as President? What was the single, underlying theme of her run at the White House? What main ideal, above all others, did she champion? And, most importantly of all, why should people support her, other than for the sake of opposing Trump?

She couldn’t provide a clear, concise and coherent answer to any of those questions. And that played a large part in her losing a broad swath of the Obama coalition.

6. A smug, complacent, sneering party establishment.

This is most perfectly epitomized in Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment — it was her 47% moment. You can’t sneer at a huge chunk of the electorate — a chunk you need at least some support from — and hope to win. But there were many other examples. Democratic officials and pundits routinely derided and generalized Trump’s supporters as being motivated by racism and sexism, when many were not — and were therefore reachable...until they heard that they’d been sneered at.

This attitude was also exemplified in the Clinton campaign’s attitude toward Sanders’ supporters after the primaries, which can be characterized in seven words:

Go on then — we don’t need you!

This attitude was evident in many ways, from Clinton’s choice of a centrist (if capable), technocratic Senator from a swing-state to be her VP, to her walking-back of several progressive positions taken during the primaries, and, of course, too many of her proxies’, surrogates’ and supporters’ dismissive, sneering attitude. It was clear that Clinton felt little, if any, need to embrace the Sanders supporters beyond the bare minimum.

Even without this specific circumstance, to any politician trying to build an election-winning coalition, those are the seven worst possible words for them, their campaign, their affiliates or even their supporters to say. General implications aside, after a primary election whose fairness was in dispute, all too many supporters of the losing candidate would be entirely receptive to such a message.

Complacency is also easily established — after the primaries were done, how much effort did the Clinton campaign put into Wisconsin? Michigan? Pennsylvania? Very little indeed — they were taken for granted. I recall much sneering, here and elsewhere, at “crazy Donald” who was spending time in PA. PA, MI, WI — these are States which hadn’t been won by a Republican candidate since 1988. These were part of the “blue firewall”. Yet they were lost.

Perhaps Trump wasn’t quite so crazy after all, in going after Pennsylvania. Speaking of Trump, why was he the Republican candidate? Several reasons, but one of these was the DNC’s effort to ensure he won the GOP nomination.

Seriously. This guy is, if not a Fascist, then a proto-Fascist at the very least. Helping him get the GOP nod was playing with fire, all in an effort to ensure the weakest possible Republican candidate. It reeked of a smug certainty that he would be utterly unacceptable to most of America. And it was wrong.

So, there it is, folks: My current take on how America got to this point, with an orange Mussolini on the verge of taking the highest office in the land. Opinions and discussion are more than welcomed — to quote our own Trump, I am not “the suppository of all wisdom”.

How the Democratic Party can move forward - with strength!

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday May 20, 2016 · 5:16 AM PDT

2016/05/20 · 05:16

Democratslogo.svg.png — Time to kick right-wing ass! (pun intended)

All right, folks — I’m going to lay it on you straight.

To Bernie supporters: Sorry, but Hillary has effectively won. Let the remaining States vote, by all means — but be ready to support Hillary, flawed as she is, because Trump is absolutely f*cking batsh*t. For the sake of the continued survival of the human species, I don’t want his hands on the nuclear button — another eight years of incrementalism (at best) isn’t good, but we can survive it better than we can survive a nuclear apocalypse!

To Hillary supporters: Sorry, but one point Bernie’s made is correct — well, many are, but I had one in particular in mind. There are serious structural problems with the Democratic Party, and it needs to fix them sooner rather than later if it wants to remain as a viable force in US politics. Gloating about the Republicans’ “demographic death-spiral” is distinctly premature; they may effectively be barred from the White House by “virtue” of insanity, but they control twenty-three State trifectas to the Democrats’ seven. What’s more, some of those GOP trifectas are in States which vote reliably Democratic for the White House, such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, so it’s not just the ruby-red States where the Democratic Party is falling over. This needs to change, and soon.

Therefore, here’s my $0.02 worth of “how-to” for Moving Forward in the Democratic Party. Each idea will be followed with a short explanation of what it involves and why I consider it a good idea.

1) Cut the lobbyists out of the party.

This one should be a no-brainer: One of the rules then-Sen. Obama placed into the DNC in 2008 was a ban on direct donations by lobbyists. Put charitably, removing that rule — in an anti-establishment, anti-business-as-usual election — was stupid. It undermined what should be a Democratic strength: that only one Party is standing meaningfully against corruption. Change the rule back, and strengthen it — cut the lobbyists out of Party policy at all, including as superdelegates. Which brings me to my second point:

2) Formalize a specific set of rules for pledged-delegate selection and allocation.

This includes both pledged (“normal”) and unpledged (“super”) delegates to the DNC. Some principles which I believe would command broad (in-principle) support, as well as being workable, might be:

Each State gets a set multiplier of its Electoral College (EC) votes as pledged Delegates, split evenly between winner-take-all for Congressional districts and proportionally for the Statewide vote. For example; if the multiplier was set at 6xEC votes, Montana would get 18 Delegates, 9 to be awarded to the winner of the (only) Congressional district and 9 to be split proportionally between all candidates who meet a set threshold. Meanwhile, New York would get 174 Delegates, with 87 split between the Congressional districts (probably rounded down to 81 for convenience’s sake, to avoid partial-delegate allocation) and the other 87 split proportionally to the State-wide vote (probably rounded up to 93 to account for the six delegates lost from the first half). By splitting the delegate allocation like this, there are likely to be far fewer mixed results from individual States;
If I were feeling particularly bold, I might even suggest adopting a variant of mixed-member proportional voting for delegates, treating each campaign as a “list” and thus equalizing the popular vote and the delegate totals, but that may be a bridge too far;
Each State’s pledged delegates to be selected by one homogenous set of rules governing who votes, when and how. Ideally (imo) a system of semi-open primaries would be best, but closed primaries with reasonable deadlines to register (yes, I’m looking at you, New York!) would be good too. Above all, the rules need to be clear, concise, fair and consistent across State boundaries;
Move away from State-funded primaries. By funding the primaries, the States get a large say in when and how they happen, and that has to go (for instance: the NH Constitution’s opinion on primaries...). One way to make it (relatively) cheap to run these primaries would be to do it by mail: At a set date (say, two weeks before the official “voting day” for the State’s primary), every registered Democrat in the State gets mailed out a ballot and a postage-paid return envelope to seal it in. Ballots returned prior to the official date get securely stored, with occasional spot inspections by representatives of any campaign to ensure security, and on the official date, the ballots are opened and counted in the presence of scrutineers from any campaign who wishes to send them;
End the Iowa/New Hampshire crap. Sorry, but it’s outlived any usefulness it may have had, as country-wide voting demographics have moved in one direction, and IA and NH have gone in the opposite direction. Ideally, have a draw well before each primary season to determine the order in which Democratic State parties hold their primaries, to avoid the regional clustering which can act as a barrier to entry for candidates who are stronger elsewhere. Incidentally, this would also have the beneficial effect of candidates trying to garner support across the USA, not just in specific areas. Also, it’s quite possible to do this, with the idea of voting-by-mail above to mitigate the costs. (Yes, I’m looking at the Great Southern Firewall here — under most circumstances, the effect of clustering that many States where even the Democratic voters are more conservative near the start of the primaries acts as a barrier to progressive ideas, which is Not Good);
End caucuses. Whatever the outcomes, caucuses need to go — it’s just that simple. Caucuses are cumbersome, unwieldy processes which require people to commit a full day to voting (which many people, especially poorer people, are unable to do due to having work commitments) and drive down participation rates, which is the opposite of what the Democratic Party, anywhere, should be seeking. On top of that, they’re arcane processes, in which the losing campaign can always find some interpretation to hang cries of unfairness on to try to get a better deal. That kind of publicity, the Democratic Party doesn’t need! Caucuses may have once had a legitimate purpose, but they really don’t any more.

You may have noticed a general pattern here: I’m trying to put forward rules that encourage voter participation, rather than discouraging it, to increase voter affiliation and identification with the Democratic Party. I’m trying to put forward a set of rules that is easy to understand and easy to justify if asked, to avoid controversy and negative publicity. And I’m trying to put forward rules to make the Convention a size that is manageable (with around 3,000 total delegates inc. supers, rather than the 4,750 and growing of today), to make the process less riotous and help with setting a narrative at the very start of the general election season. I believe that adherence to these principles will increase voter affiliation/identity with the Democratic Party, resulting in a stronger Party for years (and possibly generations) to come.

3) Superdelegates. Reform them.

Once again, this really should go without saying. Right now, the procedure of allocating superdelegates is largely whatever the DNC says it is, and they’ve made some really...puzzling choices, especially this time around. With that in mind, here’s a way to keep the idea of “party elders” having a special say in the Party in which they’re invested in seeing a future of, while making the process — again — simpler, easier to comprehend and more defensible. Formulate a specific, non-changing set of rules by which Party superdelegates are chosen, a formula which is reasonable and easily justified. Here’s one way it could be done — there are other reasonable ways, too:

Past Democratic Presidents and Vice-Presidents get super-delegate status (4 — Clinton and Gore, and Carter and Mondale);
The current President and Vice-President, if Democratic, get super-delegate status with double votes (2 — Obama and Biden — with double effect, for 4);
Current Democratic Governors and Lieutenant-Governors get super-delegate status (32 — 18 Governors, 14 Lt.-Governors);
Current Democratic State/territory legislative leaders get super-delegate status, irrespective of whether they’re majority or minority in the legislatures (102 — 2 per State, 2 for Puerto Rico, but only 1 for unicameral Nebraska and DC);
All current Democratic members of Congress (either chamber) (234 — 188 House + 46 Senate); and
All current members of the Democratic National Committee, plus all past Chairs (9 current DNC members, plus 14 former DNC Chairs by my count).

There. Done. Simple. And, above all, fair. Any person on this list can quickly, easily articulate why they themselves either have done the Party great services in the past, or have a direct, vested interest in the Party’s wellbeing into the future (or both!). And it won’t be such a number as to outweigh the popular vote (it’ll hover between 400 and 450, depending on Democratic electoral fortunes, or around 1/7 of the delegate total if my earlier ideas for pledged delegates are accepted), but it will be significant enough that they can choose between two near-tied candidates on the basis of electability in November.

4) Make DNC membership a full-time job.

As everyone reading this should already know, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the current DNC Chair, has done….less than spectacularly well at her job. Well, this job, that is — because Wasserman-Schultz is also a member of Congress, which most people would argue is a full-time job in itself. This is, incidentally, true of all nine positions on the central Committee. Some of this is unavoidable — for instance, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid hold DNC positions ex officio of their public positions (POTUS, VP and Democratic House and Senate leadership respectively), and that makes sense — any decent election strategy at the Federal level must involve those four people. But it can be avoided for other positions — the organizational, rather than leadership, positions - and it should be.

It’s not fair to the DNC chairs to expect that they perform two full-time jobs at once, and it’s not fair to the Democratic Party to expect that they make do with a part-time effort from the organizational head of the Party. With a DNC (not just the Chair, but all organizational members of the central Committee) which serves and works full-time, more co-ordination can be made with State and local Parties and candidates to build the Democratic bench even in reliably Republican areas. More coherent strategies can be debated, planned and implemented to ensure maximization of Democratic wins and minimization of Democratic losses for Congressional elections. And more effort can be put into a coherent, consistent approach to voter outreach, not just asking ad hoc for donations for this candidate or that initiative.

If the Democratic Party wants to do better in elections, the DNC has to do a better job. If the DNC is to do a better job, then it must be a serious job for its members, not a part-time sinecure or fiefdom, and not an extra burden on someone’s already overloaded plate. It’s that simple.

5) Make sure the DNC does its job!

This isn’t particularly easy to set up on a self-sustaining basis, but some rules that could be implemented to ensure the DNC actually tries to do its job might include:

DNC (each member, and collectively) to take all reasonable efforts to secure positive media attention, both for the Party as a whole and for individual candidates at all levels (Yes, I’m looking at The Invisible Debates from this campaign season — what an absolute clunker of a decision that was!);
DNC to co-ordinate with each State party on maximizing grassroots involvement (small donations, volunteering, ongoing outreach) within all parts of that State;
DNC to approach Members of Congress for campaign funding and transfers, rather than the reverse;
DNC members (as well as superdelegates in general, possibly) to refrain from endorsing any candidate more than 14 days before the set date for the primary in their home State;

And so on. Like I said, it’s hard to (pseudo-)legislate this, but there could at least be some effort made in this direction.

A little more on that “positive publicity” part, and this is an anecdote. As my handle indicates, I’m an Australian — by birth, citizenship and whatever else you care to examine. I’m also a Greens voter, here in Australia — we don’t use first-past-the-post, so I’m free to vote my conscience without helping the (worse) ratbags into power. But this election, I’m not only going to vote for Labor (for the first time in my life!), but I’m volunteering for a Labor candidate! Why? Because I know the candidate.

I’m not doing this for Labor. I’m doing this to support Anne Azza Aly, whom I met years ago in passing, who always had a kind word for me at social, academic or professional events to ease me out of my social awkwardness, whom I personally know to be a good, decent, highly-intelligent and hardworking woman. So, despite my depression and my social anxiety, I’m phonebanking two nights a week. I’m doing back-end office work to process constituent outreach results and get responses. I’m doing honk-and-waves.

And I didn’t even find out from Labor that she was the candidate. If I hadn’t spotted her name on the electorate analysis on a third-party website, I would never have known, and Labor would never have gotten my vote, much less my time (I live in a neighbouring electoral division, so wouldn’t have even seen her name on the ballot).

This is the kind of outreach that major Parties — our Labor Party and your Democratic Party — need to do much, much better at. Because without showing each and every candidate in the best light possible, it’s all too easy for far, far too many people to fall into the trap of “a pox on both their houses!” which today’s politics inspires all too often.

So, there it is — my $0.02 worth on how to best move forward at this point. As always, constructive criticism and civil debate are appreciated in my diaries :)

Poll

16 votes Show Results

Do you largely agree with these ideas?

16 votes Vote Now!

Do you largely agree with these ideas?

Yes - entirely! These principles are strong ones

5 votes

Some of them - it's a mixed bag of good and bad ideas

9 votes

No, this is silly and will result in a poorer Democratic Party

0 votes

Pie :)

2 votes

Charles Koch: I could support Hillary for President.

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday April 24, 2016 · 4:04 AM PDT

2016/04/24 · 04:04

No, seriously. In an interview with Politico, one of the two most evil men in America stated that he was OK with the notion of another Clinton Administration:

Billionaire businessman Charles Koch said in an interview airing Sunday that “it’s possible” another Clinton in the White House could be better than having a Republican president.

...

The comment came after Karl asked about former President Bill Clinton’s term, to which Koch said Clinton was “in some ways” better than George W. Bush.

“As far as the growth of government, the increase in spending, it was two-and-a-half times under Bush that it was under Clinton,” he said.

Karl followed up by asking about whether or not Koch could see himself supporting Hillary Clinton.

Koch hesitated before giving an answer that didn’t rule out the possibility.

“We would have to believe her actions would have to be quite different than her rhetoric, let me put it that way,” he said.

Well, folks, there it is. The friggin’ Koch Brothers could see themselves getting behind Hillary4Prez — after all, her other wealthy backers already believe that her actions will be quite different to her progressive rhetoric for the primaries. My disgust knows no bounds, that the “Democratic” front-runner is running (and is likely to govern) far-enough Rightward that these scumbags might support her.

The Koch Brothers could see themselves supporting her. Robert Kagan (the original neo-con) endorses her foreign policy. What’s next — an endorsement from Dick Cheney?

Talk about getting stuff done across the aisle!

Robert Kagan: Neo-con Godfather, PNAC cofounder...and Hillary Clinton endorser.

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday March 08, 2016 · 9:00 AM PST

2016/03/08 · 09:00

This man has endorsed Hillary Clinton. Why?

First, a bit of background. The man pictured here is none other than Robert Kagan. His career in the neoconservative school of International Relations has been long and storied. Here are some (only some) highlights:

— In 1997, Kagan cofounded, with Bill Kristol, the major neo-con think-tank, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC);

— In 2000, Kagan penned a scathing editorial blaming Colin Powell for Saddam Hussein remaining in power in Iraq (and in general accusing Powell of not backing enough wars);

— In 2003, Kagan wrote in support of the Iraq War, whilst simultaneously attempting to justify the Iran-Contra deals of the Reagan Administration and characterizing opposition to the pending invasion of Iraq as “elite opinion around the world”, “tirelessly working to discredit Bush”;

— In 2008, Kagan served John McCain as a foreign policy advisor;

— Notwithstanding McCain’s defeat in the 2008 election, Kagan served in the State Department between at least 2011 and 2015 as a member of the elite Foreign Affairs Policy Board, which is a council tasked to provide advice & opinion directly to the Secretary of State;

— In 2014, Kagan wrote a cover article of The New Republic taking President Obama to task for being insufficiently willing to assert American values (read: start wars with foreigners);

And here’s the kicker:

— Later in 2014, Kagan spoke on-the-record about his preference for the Presidency of the United States. Endorsing Hillary Clinton, he said about her:

“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy...If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue, it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

The loudest voice of all in favour of the utterly fruitless, bootless, sleeveless invasion of Iraq has endorsed Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy mindset. That should scare the holy howling bejeezus out of anyone who wants the next President not to be a warmonger.

Rebranding “neoconservatism” to comfort the base that it’s not really neoconservatism is not acceptable, and someone should ask Mrs. Clinton what her views of Robert Kagan (and his proposed policies) are...preferably soon, before her answer becomes irrelevant by virtue of coming after her nomination.

Healthcare: It's sick and needs to get better. Soon.

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday February 24, 2016 · 7:08 AM PST

2016/02/24 · 07:08

Two days ago, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) revealed in an NBC interview that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. On Twitter, she then wrote this:

I very recently learned that I have breast cancer... - https://t.co/VYOi5pohqP
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) February 22, 2016

Sen. McCaskill has my sympathies now and in the trying times ahead for her. Even for those, like her, whose prognosis is good, it’s still going to be a lot of trouble and pain to deal with. And of course, thousands and thousands of women aren’t so fortunate as Sen. McCaskill — to be able to afford treatment which can catch this killer cancer before it’s already spread throughout the body.

In fact, the Kaiser Health Foundation estimates that, even with the help of Obamacare, 13% of women — about 15 million women — are uninsured. Millions more are underinsured — enrolled in plans that fulfil the bare minimums of the Affordable Care Act, but offer only bare-bones cover, and whose copays for cancer treatment can run into tens or, in particularly bad cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most women cannot afford this, and even many who can are left teetering on the edge of bankruptcy from the vast costs. And even among women, disproportionately the worst-off are Mexican-American women, are African-American women — whether their household is themselves alone or a partner and/or children, it’s almost certainly got far, far fewer resources available than a white household to meet these exorbitant costs.

And these costs are vast not because of some vanishing rarity in the treatments, not because of the high costs of innovation and development — these costs are high because the government takes little or no role in regulating this market at all. Martin Shkreli was only the tip of the iceberg, the most visible sign of the disease in America’s healthcare system — there are thousands of Martin Shkrelis in the hallways of Big Pharma, Big Health, Big Medicine, who silently applaud him but lack the guts or the imagination to so blatantly act the role of villain. The government can and should do so much more than it is, to ensure that treatment is available for women who cannot afford it themselves.

One thing the government could do is take a positive role in bargaining drug prices down to something reasonable. One example of this is Gleevec, which is used to treat some forms of leukemia. It costs $6,000 per month for this treatment in America — and the insurance company won’t pay one dime more than it has to. But in the United Kingdom, it costs the National Health Service $2,700 for a month’s supply of Gleevec. In the Netherlands, the government has made sure that Dutch insurers only pay $1,100 for a month’s supply. That’s less than one-fifth of the cost Americans pay, and the pharma companies still make a profit from it! Why is America paying five times as much for the same thing? Because in America, the government can’t bargain the prices down — it can’t bring the insurers to heel. Not even Medicare can do this, thanks to a bill the Republicans passed a decade ago — not even Medicare!

Another thing the government could do is offer a government-run health insurance plan to compete with the private insurers, who often abuse their customers in so many ways. They deny treatments on the thinnest of technicalities, they hound and hector the patient nonstop, they act as their own “death panels” simply to cut their costs and inflate their profits. If there were some real competition out there, if there were public insurers who were only required to cover their costs, some real cutting back in healthcare costs would start to happen!

All of this is without even looking at the elephant in the room, and that is single-payer. Right now, the US Government — Federal, State and local — already spends more healthcare money per person than many countries spend both privately and publicly! America’s government at all levels spends around $4,000 per person per year on healthcare spending — over a trillion dollars per year, and Americans across the board spend another $4,200 on average — another trillion and a half dollars. In contrast, Australia’s total healthcare spending is less than $4,000 per person per year, of which the government spends around $2,600. For all of that money, what’s America getting? Not much! And of what is gotten, all too much is out of reach to poorer people, who are mostly not white.

These aren’t just lines on a graph. They’re stories of peoples’ lives.

One effect of this has been the creation (rather, the maintenance) of a significant disparity in life expectancy by race, as you can see to the right:

Consider for a moment what this says. It says that African-Americans, male and female both, can expect to live at least 4-5 years less than white Americans. This is another way that Black Lives Matter, and it’s one which is too often ignored in favour of stories of the latest police atrocity or outrage committed against one or more African-American kids. It tells a story of a quiet killing, of thousands of lives cut short in a boardroom meeting, of unspeakable agony inflicted to shave a few dollars off a corporation’s bottom line.

It tells a story of treatments denied to save money, of doctors’ visits not made to save money, of drugs not purchased due to not having enough money…

Does anyone see the common thread to this? Money. Pharmaceutical companies hoard it. Insurance companies worship it. Patients need it. There are many ways this could be changed — and single-payer isn’t the only possibility. In fact, at least one study has estimated that, given permission to use its buying power to get drug prices down, Medicare could save $16 billion annually. That’s $16,000,000,000 every year — enough money to give each and every public school in America another $160,000 each year to rebuild or update their facilities & equipment. Enough money to build 100,000 homes for low-income people, or resurface over 10,000 miles of four-lane roads each year, build 16,000 miles of high-speed rail, increase public-transportation budgets by one-third or do many, many other things. That’s just one, easy way the government could save money — if it dared to — and it doesn’t even count what would happen to prices paid elsewhere in the market, it doesn’t count the lives saved because costs got cheaper.

But there’s a dimension to this other than money. Senator McCaskill is fortunate enough to be one of the wealthy — she won’t have to choose between the cancer treatments or making her mortgage payments. And because she could afford regular doctors’ visits, she was correctly diagnosed at an early stage, when treatment can still cure it. Many people don’t have that choice. The lives of those people, those who cannot afford to support extravagant profits in American healthcare corporations, are cut short, often well before retirement age. Those people leave holes in the world, all around us, which would be filled if they were here, or if they had lived longer to raise their children, build their businesses, create their legacies or simply live their lives.

This isn’t about Hillary or Bernie. This isn’t about Republicans or Democrats. This is a much more basic issue. It’s about life and death, and the ways people live and the systems they create to prepare themselves for those issues and those emergencies. It’s about justice, about making sure that the colour of your skin doesn’t affect the affordability of your lifesaving treatment. And it’s an issue which every people, every nation, must find a way to address.

To your mind, how should America address this issue? What steps should be taken — and on what principles should they be based?

The reality of electability: an apples-to-apples comparison of Sanders' and Clinton's elections

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday February 24, 2016 · 2:52 AM PST

2016/02/24 · 02:52

In this photo taken May 20, 2015, Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., poses for a portrait before an interview with The Associated Press in Washington. For Democrats who had hoped to lure Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren into

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about “electability” lately. I’ve seen the diaries ranking “electability” of major-party candidates and cross-referencing with election outcomes. But most of all, I’ve seen the oft-repeated line about how Sanders has only ever run in “friendly” Vermont, how he practically sailed into office.

This diary is about debunking the lies and revealing the truth. To do this, it will compare both Sanders’ and Clinton’s successful runs for federal offices to date, and examine how well both did, relative to (other) Democrats also on the ballot at the time.

1. Bernie Sanders

Bernard “Bernie” Sanders first won Federal office in Vermont in 1990, ousting incumbent Republican Peter P. Smith. Afterward, he ran for re-election to the House seven times, before moving upstairs to the Senate. Accordingly, this section is divided as follows:

1A: Challenging for the House
1B: Maintaining his House seat
1C: Challenging for the Senate
1D: Maintaining his Senate seat

1A: Challenging for the House

The 1990 House election in Vermont was actually a rematch of the 1988 House election — Bernie Sanders had challenged Republican Peter Plympton Smith in 1988 to succeed Republican Jim Jeffords (Jeffords had moved to the Senate, winning 68% of the vote) in the House. The result of this was a three-way race in which Sanders placed second, with 37.5% of the vote and the Democratic candidate won 18.9% of the vote — Smith won, with 41% of the vote.

In 1990, the Democratic Party decided not to field a candidate, instead allowing Sanders and Smith to run against each other. Most likely a wise decision, as Vermont had elected just one Democrat (ever) to its House seat — William Meyer won the 1958 election, but failed to be re-elected in 1960. The gambit paid off, as Sanders ousted Smith with 56% of the vote, beating Smith by a whopping 18 points to take the seat, then promptly caucused with the Democrats for his time in Congress. Being a midyear election, the only other Statewide election being held was for the Governor’s mansion — Republican Peter Snelling won with 52% of the vote, succeeding outgoing Democratic Governor Madeline Kunin.

End result: Sanders ran 10% ahead of the Democrat running statewide, who was also a challenger.

1B: Maintaining his House seat

After winning his House seat, Rep. Sanders ran for re-election seven times: In 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004.

1992: Bill Clinton won Vermont (the second Democrat ever to do so, LBJ being the other), bearing George Bush Sr. by 16 points, 46-30. In the Governor’s mansion, Lt.-Governor Howard Dean had inherited the job after Gov. Snelling died in office, and won election to his first full term with 75% of the vote. The Senate seat of Pat Leahy (D-VT) was also up for re-election, and he won a fourth term in office with a surprisingly narrow 56-43 margin over Secretary of State Jim Douglas (R-VT). Meanwhile, Sanders won re-election against both a Republican and a Democratic opponent, beating Republican Tim Philbin by an eye-popping 27% of the vote, 58-31-8.

End result: Any way you measure it, Sanders ran ahead of Clinton and longtime incumbent Leahy, his margin of victory behind only Dean’s.

1994: In the Republican Revolution of 1994, Democrats were dropping all over the country — except in Vermont. Governor Dean was elected to a second full term with 68% of the vote and Republican Senator Jim Jeffords beat a Democrat 50-40 to win a second term in office. Only the GOP fielded an opponent to Sanders, which was probably just as well, as he barely won, 50-46.5, to secure a third term.

End result: Sanders ran ahead of one Democratic candidate (Jeffords’ opponent Jan Backus), but behind another (Dean).

1996: 1994 would prove to be the last close election Sanders would face, as he defeated Republican Susan Sweetser by 23 points, just ahead of President Clinton’s 22-point lead in Vermont. Meanwhile, the indomitable Howard Dean turned in yet another crushing re-election, beating Republican John Gropper by 48 points.

End result: Sanders ran marginally ahead of one Democratic candidate (incumbent President Clinton), and far behind another (Dean).

1998: The second of Clinton’ mid-term election years proved to be a boon for Sanders, who was given the Democratic nomination (he was written-in to the primary as an Independent, seriously!) and thrashed his hapless Republican opponent by 31 points. At the same time, Dean was held to a 14-point win over Republican Ruth Dwyer, while Leahy beat Republican Fred Tuttle (who had endorsed him) 76-22.

End result: Sanders ran ahead of one Democrat (Dean), but behind the other (Leahy)...although I’m not sure it entirely counts as a contested election for Leahy…

2000: 2000 was another busy year for Vermont statewide elections - Governor, President, House and a Senate seat. Governor Dean’s 1998 margin was eroded a little further in his rematch with Dwyer, beating her by 12.5 points. Gore carried the State by 10 points, 51-41, while Jeffords cruised to an easy victory over State Auditor Ed Flanagan, 65-25. Sanders ran up an even larger margin, defeating Republican Karen Kerin by over fifty points, 69%-18%.

End result: Sanders ran far ahead of any of the Democrats in Vermont, lapping even Governor Dean’s margin of victory multiple times over.

2002: The first midterms of Bush’s Presidency were held in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks and the Republicans benefited from this, picking up eight House seats. They also won the Governorship of Vermont, with Howard Dean’s retirement leaving Lt.-Gov Doug Racine (D) facing off against Treasurer Jim Douglas (R) — Douglas won a three-way race with a 2.5% margin, even as Sanders crushed another Republican challenger by over 30 points.

End result: Sanders ran far ahead of the only other Democrat running Statewide.

2004: Bush’s re-election year was Sanders’ last re-election effort to the House. It also featured Leahy’s bid for a fifth term in office. Leahy ran up a huge margin, beating his GOP opponent by 46% as John Kerry carried Vermont by 20% and Gov. Douglas won re-election against the Democratic Mayor of Burlington (incidentally, Sanders’ immediate successor) Peter Clavelle, also on a 20% margin. Sanders won by 43%, beating Republican Greg Parke 67.5%-24.5%.

End result: Sanders ran ahead of all Democrats save Leahy — indeed, he lapped Kerry’s margin of victory.

1C: Winning the Senate seat

Leading up to the 2006 Senate elections, Republican Sen. Jim Jeffords decided to retire rather than seek election to a fourth term in the Senate. Seeing an opportunity, Bernie Sanders decided to go for a promotion — he won the Democratic primary, then declined the nomination in order to ensure that the left wing wouldn’t split its vote. He was faced by self-funding Republican businessman Rich Tarrant for the general election.

The 2006 Senate election, held as a Democratic wave swept the country, was exceptionally nasty by Vermont standards. Tarrant spent lavishly, running negative ads throughout the campaign and running up the most expensive campaign in Vermont history — spending $74 for each vote he ultimately received. Sanders raised a great deal of money also, but ended up winning the election 65-32, spending less than half as much for each voter who supported him and $1,800,000 less overall than Tarrant.

In the House, Democrat Peter Welch won the right to succeed Sanders in the House, beating Maj-Gen. Martha Rainville (R) 53%-44.5%. Governor Douglas won a third term, 56%-41%, over Democratic Some Dude Scudder Parker.

End result: Sanders ran up by far the highest margin statewide in his first Senate election.

1D: Maintaining his Senate seat

Sanders’ latest election (to date) was his bid for a second term in the Senate, in 2012. Also up were Governor Peter Shumlin (D) and Representative Peter Welch (D), who won 58% and 72% of the vote respectfully. Sanders won 71% of the vote, narrowly trailing Welch but running far ahead of Shumlin and marginally ahead of President Barack Obama’s 66.5% of the vote.

Overall analysis

Bernie Sanders has had a wide variety of elections to look at; however, on average he has tended to run ahead of Democrats also running Statewide at the same time, whether as a challenger or as an incumbent. Not even Pat Leahy has consistently beaten Sanders’ margins of election, although he has usually done so.

2: Hillary Clinton

With Sanders’ electoral history looked at, this diary will now shift to Hillary Clinton’s. Hillary Clinton has extensive experience with political office, but it has usually been as an appointed official or an onlooker — she has only run for (and won) office twice, both for the Senate seat of New York. Therefore, this part of the diary will have only two sections:

2A: Winning the Senate seat
2B: Maintaining her Senate seat

2a: Winning the Senate seat

In 2000, the talk of the Beltway was about Hillary Clinton. The much-admired (and much-disliked — even in the 1990s, opinion of Hillary Clinton was polarized) First Lady to outgoing President Bill Clinton, she was running to represent New York in the Senate, despite having no prior experience with elected office. The Democratic establishment was quick to clear her way to the nomination — Outgoing Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan endorsed her to succeed him, and the other high-profile Democrats who were hoping for a run (Reps. Nita Lowey and Caroline Maloney, HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo and Comptroller Carl McCall) stood aside so as to ensure Clinton had the best chance she could get against the eventual Republican nominee.

On the Republican side, the nomination contest resembled a soap-opera for some time, with NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani (I wonder what he was saying before 9/11 allowed him to tack a noun and a verb in front of it?) running a very psychological campaign against Clinton from the moment he came in. The Guiliani campaign emphasized Clinton’s carpetbagger status, also attempting to bait her into overreaction to various statements and using extensive opposition research to try to find attack lines against her.

Initially, this told on Clinton’s campaign — while she was able to defuse the carpetbagger charges with her (now-famous) “listening tour” to each and every county in New York and careful emphasis of locally-important issues to emphasize that she’d done her homework, her relations with the press were sour and she was starting to bleed support from female voters. More importantly, she had alienated New York City’s powerful (and large) Jewish community by her warm greeting of Suha Arafat, wife of PA head (and longtime anti-Israeli terrorist leader) Yasser Arafat.

The 2000 Senate election highlighted one of Clinton’s major strengths to this day: Tenacity. Tough and determined to succeed, she stuck out the race, using her lack of office to out-campaign Giuliani who also had to carry out his duties as Mayor, and whose interest flagged over time. This began to tell, as he started to fall behind in the polls relative to Clinton and her campaign began to get his measure on the psych-warfare front. Then the race was upended by the very public revelations of Giuliani’s longrunning infidelity to his third wife, leading to his withdrawal from the race on 19 May 2000, leaving the Republican side of the race in chaos as all other Republicans had also withdrawn to facilitate their front-runner’s bid. However, the Republican party establishment quickly (within a fortnight) rallied around Rep. Rick Lazio (NY-02), and the other contestant (Rep. Peter King of NY-03) pulled back to establish unity.

Clinton immediately established a commanding lead over the low-profile Lazio in the polls, however this quickly dwindled and by June had disappeared, leaving the two in a tie. Over the remaining five months of the race, her campaign’s discipline and energy (as well as a debate blunder by Lazio, in which he very physically got in Clinton’s face) re-established her lead and she ended up beating Lazio in November by 12 points, 55%-43%.

At the top of the ticket, meanwhile, Al Gore correctly counted New York as a safe State, which he ended up winning by 25 points, taking 60% of the vote to Bush’s 35%.

End result: Clinton ran far behind Gore despite Giuliani’s spectacular implosion.

2B: Maintaining her Senate seat

Clinton was up for a second term in 2006, the second midterm of the Bush administration. Despite the rampant speculation swirling around the possibility of a Presidential campaign, Clinton elected to run for re-election to the Senate. She was considered a sure bet for a second term, despite drawing a great deal of Republican attention.

True to predictions, and despite the Republicans’ best hopes, Clinton won a second term with a massive 67-31 victory after spending $36 million, the most of any Senate candidate in 2006. Being the midterm election, New York’s other statewide offices included Governor/Lt-Governor, Treasurer, Attorney-General and Comptroller, all won by Democrats.

Eliot Spitzer carried the Governor’s election 69-29, Andrew Cuomo won the Attorney-General’s office 58-29 and Alan Harvesi won the Comptroller’s election 56-39. Overall, Clinton ran slightly behind Spitzer, but ahead of Cuomo and Harvesi.

Overall analysis

Perhaps because of her high profile, perhaps in spite of it, Clinton did not run noticeably ahead of other Democrats for statewide elections in New York. Notably, in the one Presidential year she ran, she ran around 10% behind the top of the ticket.

Conclusion

After reading this data, the conclusions I came to are:

Sanders is no stranger to hard-fought races in Republican-friendly terrain. (Which Vermont undeniably was in 1990, having a Republican Governor, Senator and Treasurer.)
Clinton has many strengths as a candidate, but also many weaknesses, and tends to run behind other Democrats.
If it’s “all about the Supreme Court”, as many Clinton supporters have stated, then the safer choice is Bernie Sanders, not Hillary Clinton.

Poll

57 votes Show Results

With the information in this diary, who is more electable in your opinion?

57 votes Vote Now!

With the information in this diary, who is more electable in your opinion?

Hillary Clinton

14 votes

Bernie Sanders

43 votes

This is an outrage. No, this is a BLOODY outrage!!

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday January 14, 2016 · 10:20 PM PST

2016/01/14 · 22:20

This lady is Dr Mehreen Faruqi, who has represented the NSW Greens Party in that State’s Legislative Council since 2013. As of yesterday, she is also apparently a terrorism suspect — at least, if you ask the TSA. Dr Faruqi was on a self-funded, fact-finding trip to the USA on the topic of drug law reforms.

Upon arrival to LAX, this is what happened:

After fingerprinting etc, we were asked how we 'got' Aussie passports & marched off to the interview room for grilling. Welcome to America.
— Mehreen Faruqi (@MehreenFaruqi) January 14, 2016

This is absurd — it’s an outrage! Upon arrival at a major international airport, showing a valid Australian passport, a member of an Australian Parliament was arbitrarily detained, harassed and accused of committing fraud. If our spineless fool of a Prime Minister had any guts at all, he and the Governor-General would summon Ambassador Berry to Yarralumla to explain his nation’s actions! Instead, the Prime Minister looks like ignoring the incident entirely — mustn’t upset Big Brother, after all.

Not that Big Brother has done anything for Australia in the last 70 years, and what was done then has been more than repaid by the Australian blood shed in pursuit of American interests in Korea, in Vietnam, in Iraq and in other nations since.

America’s heavy-handed, callous and prejudiced treatment of its so-called “allies” is why America’s rapidly running out of allies. Yet no Presidential candidate, not even Sanders, is willing to actually accord other sovereign nations the rights and prerogatives it so routinely demands for itself.

It’s time that Australia explored other options for diplomacy, besides a spineless, subservient, one-way “alliance” that has led to our government being regarded as little more than an annex of Washington.

Dear Hillary Clinton supporters

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday December 09, 2015 · 2:44 AM PST

2015/12/09 · 02:44

Let’s leave the personal attacks at the door this time, hm? I’m going to offer a list of actions that, in my opinion, disqualify anyone taking them from seeking — let alone gaining — the Presidency of the United States of America, the most powerful elected office in the world. In the comments, I would like you to explain either a) how Hillary Clinton has not taken them; and/or b) how those actions don’t disqualify her from the office. In no particular order:

1) Did Hillary Clinton, or did she not, cast as one of her first votes in the Senate a vote in favour of bankruptcy “reform” that the credit card companies had spent many millions lobbying for, and which made it vastly harder to re-start one’s life after bankruptcy?

2) Did Hillary Clinton, or did she not, cast a vote in support of invading another sovereign nation (Iraq) without even reading the National Intelligence Estimates that cast significant doubt on the Administration’s casus belli?

3) Did Hillary Clinton, or did she not, push (within the Obama Administration) for more military intervention in Libya and in Syria during her time as Secretary of State?

4) Did Hillary Clinton, or did she not, give multiple speeches immediately after leaving her Cabinet Post, to Wall Street audiences and paid for by Goldman Sachs, at which her message was that bankers were being unfairly treated in the wake of the 2008 meltdown?

5) Did Hillary Clinton, or did she not, vote for both the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001 and its reauthorisation in 2005 while in the Senate?

6) Did Hillary Clinton, or did she not, repeatedly and explicitly support Israel’s de facto apartheid policies against Palestinians while still a Senator?

7) Did Hillary Clinton, or did she not, speak in favour of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on no fewer than 45 occasions?

7b) Did Hillary Clinton, or did she not, refuse to lobby Congress to block the TPP after belatedly opposing it?

8) Has Hillary Clinton, or has she not, claimed to be both a progressive and a moderate in rapid succession?

9) Does Hillary Clinton, or does she not, support the use of the death penalty to this day, despite the many and obvious flaws in the US justice system?

10) Has Hillary Clinton, or has she not, spoken against lifting the cap on income taxable by FICA, calling it “a tax increase on the middle class” despite the cap already being at $117,000 p.a. income?

These are not alleging criminal actions on Clinton’s part, nor slamming her for things she did before entering politics. They are not actions that Hillary Clinton took while subordinate to another person. These are statements of what Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton has done, herself, that have made the world worse or indicated a desire to make the world worse, or that speak to a lack of character on her part.

If you are intending to rebut these criticisms, please respect my diary’s guideline and limit your rebuttals to an explanation of either

a) How these actions and words are not/were not Hillary Clinton’s doing and/or responsibility; or

b) How these actions are not, singularly or in toto, disqualifications for the support of progressives for the most powerful elected office on Earth.

I await rebuttals.

I hate to admit it - but Schumer was right.

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday November 27, 2014 · 1:55 AM PST

2014/11/27 · 01:55

This diary will probably not make me popular - so be it.

The simple fact of the matter regarding Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) comments on the strategic mistakes that the Democrats made from 2009 to 2011 is this:

He. Was. Right. The Democrats f--ked it up big, after being swept to office in the Great Blue Wave of 2008.

This is not to say that I don't fault Schumer as much as anyone for that f--king up, but his hindsight is actually spot on.

(More below the orange fleur-de-lis)

Poll

98 votes Show Results

Were Sen. Schumer's remarks on-target?

98 votes Vote Now!

Were Sen. Schumer's remarks on-target?

Yes - this needed to be said.

38 votes

Sort of - Schumer's right, but the timing's bad.

21 votes

Not really - it's pointless navel-gazing.

19 votes

No - This simply divides Democrats and nothing more.

20 votes

Rule #1 of brawling

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday June 27, 2013 · 1:55 PM PDT

2013/06/27 · 13:55

And yes, this applies to politics as well.

Motivated by WheninRome's comment in Joan McCarter's most excellent observations on the disarray of the congressional GOP, I thought that I'd expand on this theme.

The Republicans are reeling - not everywhere, but in enough places. They have rebellious Tea Partiers in the House, lunatic State Senators and Representatives making the news for all the wrong reasons, and now they can't even control the political process in the one of the States that're supposed to be Republican strongholds: Texas.

Which brings me to WheninRome's comment: kick them while they're down. The Republicans, every day and every way, are showing themselves to be utter nincompoops - incapable of and uninterested in governing, only in grabbing power.

The Democrats need to kick the Republicans, hard and in ways the media can't ignore.

- Offer commonsense amendments in the House - ones that can be explained in 5-second soundbytes.

- Find more courageous people like Wendy Davis (may she run for and win the Governor's mansion next year).

- Reform the Senate.

- Hold peaceful demonstrations outside the Koch subsidiary GOP-majority statehouses.

Rub the Republican Party's combination of stupid and fundamentalist so hard into the media's faces that even they can't ignore it any more - and will look like the 1% stooges they are if they try to, even to low-information voters.

When your enemy is in disarray and reeling is not the time to be a gentleman; it's the time to kick him in the 'nads and then stomp his face when he's down.

It's time for the Democratic Party to start playing offense. Make the bastards sweat.

Poll

40 votes Show Results

Where should the Democratic Party go on from here?

40 votes Vote Now!

Where should the Democratic Party go on from here?

Find more Wendy Davises

1 vote

Reform the Senate

1 vote

Peaceful demonstrations

2 votes

White House spine-showing

5 votes

Other stuff to kick 'em while they're down

0 votes

All of the above!

31 votes

First Amendment Alert!

Australian2

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday November 17, 2012 · 1:28 AM PST

2012/11/17 · 01:28

Spotted this a couple minutes ago:

Judge sentences teen to church attendance

While I'm all for going relatively easy on first offenders, this particular method of doing so - subjecting the kid to church indoctrination - is a blatant violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, the Establishment Clause, as the Judge is essentially endorsing - and forcing upon the defendent - the practise of a religion.

So, Kossacks? Your thoughts? Let us say that you had the power to remove Judge Norman - would you do so?

More beneath the squiggle o'doom:

Poll

47 votes Show Results

Should "Judge" Norman be sacked?

47 votes Vote Now!

Should "Judge" Norman be sacked?

Yes

32 votes

4 votes

Don't stop at sacking!

10 votes

Pie!

1 vote

Newer
Older

RSS