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Hello Hillary supporters and friends! I’m standing in for Lysis in this morning’s HNV. In the words of Scan, “there is no one style for this series,” so I won’t even try to copy Lysis' wonderful work. This is a long-winded absent-minded professor ramble, with Clinton news, a bit of FLOTUS herstory, a recipe, and at least one WONDER-ful endorsement. Look for another HNV from me on Monday, and then more Hillary-supporting contributors later next week. Ready for some positive Hillary stuff? Here we go!
In news that will shock exactly no one, Hillary Clinton is perceived as “more presidential” than Donald Trump. From CNN:
Overall, 56% say they think Clinton would win a match-up between the two leading candidates in November while 42% say Trump would take it. Democratic voters are more convinced that Clinton would win (87% say she would) than Republicans are about Trump (75% say he would win), and Republican voters who aren't currently backing Trump are particularly skeptical of his chances. Among that group, 40% say Clinton would win, 57% Trump, vs. 92% of Trump supporters who think he would win in November
...The new poll also asked which of the two candidates was better described by a range of potential presidential attributes. On those, 55% say Clinton would make a better commander in chief vs. 36% for Trump, and 51% see Clinton as more in touch with middle-class problems vs. 36% for Trump
Over at Blue Nation Review, Ginger McKnight-Chavers discusses the legal experts who don’t see much to worry about in Clinton's email “scandal,” and has some thoughts on why the media is desperate to tell us otherwise:
The fact that legal experts have agreed that it is very unlikely that Hillary will be indicted, and that existing law isn’t designed to be (mis)applied to this situation, has largely gone uncovered by the national media.
The most likely explanation for that failure is because they want to continue to doggedly elevate this bureaucratic review into a criminal scandal, in order to take down the woman most likely to be the nation’s first female president.
Also writing at BNR, my friend and blog-colleague Liss McEwan has some thoughts on Clinton voters and the real “revolution” this election:
Many marginalized people in red states depend on the Democratic Party in ways that privileged people in true blue states don’t need to. They (we) don’t have the luxury of being contemptuous of the Democratic Party for not being as progressive as we might like them to be, because marginalized people’s basic rights are constantly under assault.
There are certainly a number of people who voted for Clinton in Southern states who appreciate and value Sanders’ critiques of corporate corruption, yet bristle at his disdain for establishment politics. In those states, the near-total lack of progressive infrastructure means that the Democratic Party—the establishment—is the only well-funded institution prepared to hold the line against conservative oppression.
...The truth is, the framing of this election as those who are desirous of revolution and those who are not entirely misses that the real distinction is about strategy. Everyone wants meaningful change: The real disagreement is just about how best to achieve it.
The Daily Beast has a piece on a trans rights issue unexpectedly thrown into the spotlight by the Clinton emails. It highlights big effects of a seemingly small change wrought by Clinton while at State. Samantha Allen writes:
In 2011, a transgender woman working in the Illinois construction industry wrote an e-mail to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“I have applied at well over 300 job openings since 2007,” she wrote. “I was able to get about a dozen interviews and as soon as they found out I was a transgender person, all bets were off.”
Even though Illinois is one of 19 states that prohibits discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity, she explained, “the truth of the matter is you cannot work for someone that does not want you there.”
...The woman goes on to describe how a subtle but significant change in U.S. passport policy helped her gain employment.
In June 2010, as the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) notes, Secretary Clinton’s State Department began allowing transgender people to change passport gender markers with a physician’s certification that they had received “appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition.” For the first time, sex reassignment surgery (SRS) was not required to make the correction.
…The new passport policy reportedly helped the Illinois woman—whose name was redacted by the State Department in the Clinton e-mail dump—start a new company and get it certified as a female-owned business (FBE).
“The passport change made a major impact,” she wrote. “When I went to my state to begin the process [of FBE certification], I stated, ‘My country accepts me as a woman and this state should as well.’”
In other trans news: Caitlyn Jenner and Hillary Clinton met face to face in a recently released clip for an upcoming episode of I Am Cait. Although Jenner is famously Republican, apparently supports Trump, and has previously bashed Clinton, she was nevertheless charmed during a seemingly chance meeting between the two women. (So much for the myth that Clinton has no charisma!)
"With Hillary Clinton we were all so starstruck and Caitlyn was too. You know, even though she kind of wanted to deny it - it was so palpable to me that I was like, 'Oh, she's loving this,'" said Zackary Drucker, a friend of Jenner's. "She's meeting a presidential front-runner."
According to Rolling Stone, Clinton put human rights above partisan sniping, encouraging Jenner and her friends in their quest to bring more visibility to trans issues:
"That's great," Clinton says. "I have to tell you, what's happening around the world deserves your attention. Anything you can do to help."
Later in the episode, set to air on Sunday, Jenner says, "I have to admit, I think she's very good on transgender rights."
Clinton was in California Thursday. She appeared at a roundtable at USC on terrorism and security, highlighting her usual themes of putting cooperation above fear:
Taking part in a roundtable discussion on homeland security at USC, former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said today Americans cannot "give in to panic and fear" in the face of terrorism.
"We cannot allow our nation to be pitting groups of people against one another," Clinton said at the USC Ronald Tutor Campus Center. "We cannot give in to panic and fear. That's not in keeping with our values. It's not effective in protecting us and it plays into the hands of terrorists who want nothing more than to intimidate and terrorize people, turn (us) against each other, which leads to radicalizing more people and creating even more problems for us."
...Clinton was greeted at the event by Mayor Eric Garcetti, who introduced her as "in my opinion, the next president of the United States."
Clinton also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel last night, where he mansplained some campaigning tips for her:
“Thank you, it’s wonderful to be here,” Hillary began her speech before Jimmy interrupted, telling her “You’re shouting! You’re too loud. It hurts my ears. It comes off as a little shrill for men. You’re making a speech, not at arrest. Tone it down and try again.”
After an eye roll, Hillary continued, “Thank you, it’s wonderful to be here with all of you, no matter who you are…” before being cut off again by Jimmy who told her, “Now you have to speak up because we can’t hear you. You’re like a mouse up there. You know what would be nice? If you smiled, you should smile.”
...She soldiered on, stating “We don’t need to be made great…” with Jimmy jumping in saying, “OMG with the sourpuss, try to have some fun.” After finally having enough, Hillary told him, “Jimmy, your comments are kind of contradictory, nothing I do is right,” to which he responded “Exactly, you’re not doing it right, I can’t put my finger on it. It’s that you’re not…”
“A man?” she replied, as he told her, “That’s it, you’re not a man! That was really cute how you did it.”
And now, a break from our programming…
HERSTORY BITS AND A RECIPE BITE:
An opinionated First Lady, a political partner and a lightning rod for criticism. It’s a description that fit Hillary Clinton, but long before her time, Abigail Adams fit the same description. A 2006 PBS biography of John and Abigail Adams called them a “power couple,” buzzwords very much associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 90s. Allowing for the differences between the 18th and 20th centuries, there are some real similarities.
Did you know that Abigail Adams held a political appointment long before becoming FLOTUS? In 1775, the Massachusetts General Court commissioned her and a few others with assuring the loyalty of Massachusetts women to the Patriot cause, a position her husband called that of “a politician and now elected into an important office, that of judges of Tory ladies.”
In a world where women legally disappeared at marriage, she, like Hillary Clinton centuries later, spoke up for women’s rights. In one of the earliest known written pleas for American women in the political arena, she admonished her husband to “remember the ladies” as the Philadelphia Convention forged a new nation.
Like Clinton, Adams also played a role in American diplomacy. In an era when female-hosted salons and dinners were highly important political arenas, she was one of the first wives of a U.S. diplomat to join her husband overseas and bring this distaff diplomacy to bear. Intelligent and widely read, but largely an auto-didact, Adams was unsure at first about playing the diplomatic game alongside convent-educated aristocratic ladies, but she soon excelled at it.
A lover of good political conversation, she found holding back as SLOTUS and FLOTUS a great challenge, writing: “I have been so used to freedom of sentiment that I know not how to place so many guards about me, as will be indispensable, to look at every word before I utter it, and to impose a silence upon myself, when I long to talk.” Sounds like something that, with a few changes in idiom, Hillary Clinton might have said!
Abigail was unofficially known as “Lady Adams,” (just as Martha had been “Lady Washington”) but her detractors sneeringly called the second FLOTUS “Mrs. President” for her alleged influence in government. While she was indeed a Federalist partisan, it’s worth noting that two of her most beloved causes went far beyond petty party politicking: emancipation of the enslaved, and women’s right to public education.
One can only imagine that the outspoken “Mrs. President” might have some sympathy for Hillary Clinton’s quest to become the first “Madam President.” For more, see her First Ladies.Org biography or her entry at the National Women’s History Museum. For all the HNV recipe-lovers, here’s an Abigail Adams recipe before we resume our Clinton coverage.
ABIGAIL ADAMS’ BAKED NEW ENGLAND SALMON
- 1 whole salmon fillet (usually about 2.5 pounds)
- Olive oil or unsalted butter
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- Fresh parsley, chopped
- Few pinches of salt or freshly ground salt
- Small amount of bread crumbs (wheat bread or dark rye bread are nice)
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Wash the fish, and remove the scales. Put olive oil or melted unsalted butter on a sheet pan. Mix the ground spices together. Sprinkle some of the mixture on both sides of the fish. Sprinkle chopped parsley on the fish. Then sprinkle salt on the fish. Finally, sprinkle the fish with the breadcrumbs. Place the fish in the oven. Cook for about 10 to 13 minutes.
Serve fish on a large plate and garnish with more fresh parsley, if desired.
Source: The Culinary Lives of John & Abigail Adams: A Cookbook, by Rosana Y. Wan.
And now, returning to our Clinton coverage:
The Wisconsin Gazette has endorsed Hillary Clinton. The endorsement reads, in part:
Bernie Sanders repeatedly has told voters to compare records — that’s records, not messages. We’ve done that and we keep coming around to Clinton — former secretary of state, twice-elected U.S. senator and former first lady of the United States and the state of Arkansas.
With decades of experience, she knows the problems we face — foreign and domestic — and she offers real solutions, practical policies, workable fixes to progress after this long paralysis in Washington.
At a time when the Republican Party is doing its most to put forward the candidate with the least experience governing, the Democratic Party must put forward its most experienced and tested candidate.
To anyone in the party who thinks Clinton isn’t addressing their issues and on a progressive’s side, we direct you to hillaryclinton.com and click on “issues” — the proposals go from treatment and prevention ideas for Alzheimer’s disease to growing workforce opportunities. She’s proposed effective ideas for addressing gun violence and her financial reform proposals show a deep understanding of the crisis. And, as this primary race unfolded, she’s listened and learned, improving her position on trade agreements and taking a stand on Keystone XL.
Clinton, a master of policy and a devotee of details, knows how to build bipartisanship and move legislation in the Senate. She won approval of more legislation in eight years in the Senate than Sanders in nearly a decade in that chamber and 16 years in the House.
…We look also to Clinton’s endorsements from some of our most trusted and valued progressive groups — leading labor, women’s, choice, civil rights, LGBT, immigrant rights and environmental groups have backed her bid.
And we look to Clinton’s bold, broad community of voters — North and South, young and old, women and men, white and black and Hispanic. We see how she can unite us in what’s certain to be a big and bruising battle for freedom, justice and democracy. The Democratic coalition that grew and blossomed around Barack Obama’s promise of hope still exists — with Hillary Clinton.
And while this isn’t new, Hillary supporters who are seeing Superman V. Batman this weekend should remember: Wonder Woman has already endorsed Hillary Clinton! Lynda Carter, who describes herself as having “very liberal views,” said this back in February:
Saying she endorses Clinton “all the way, all the time,” Carter, 64, heaped praise on the former secretary of State: “It is that we really do need a voice that has the kind of experience that she has. We can’t start from zero — I think we need to hit the
ground running.”
“It feels so dangerous out there, and I am kind of tired of people promoting all of this divisiveness and fear. I think that’s what kind of led to the Iraq war, was the fear quotient,” Carter, who donned bullet-deflecting bracelets and a golden belt as Wonder Woman, said.
“And I’m kind of done with that.”
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