Hillary more honest and trustworthy than Trump

Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast, via the Daily Beast

Any U.S. citizen who believes that Donald Trump is more honest and trustworthy than Hillary Clinton has not been following the trail of lies Trump leaves behind him at every exchange with a media representative or at one of his violence-prone rallies. Well, at least Nicholas Kristof, NY Times op-ed columnist, isn't buying Trump's fabrications; Kristof tells it like it is regarding Trumpism.

Here's an excerpt from Kristof's September 15, 2016 column:
 

One of the mental traps that we all fall into, journalists included, is to perceive politics through narratives.

President Gerald Ford had been a star football player, yet somehow we in the media developed a narrative of him as a klutz — so that every time he stumbled, a clip was on the evening news. Likewise, we in the media wrongly portrayed President Jimmy Carter as a bumbling lightweight, even as he tackled the toughest challenges, from recognizing China to returning the Panama Canal.

Then in 2000, we painted Al Gore as inauthentic and having a penchant for self-aggrandizing exaggerations, and the most memorable element of the presidential debates that year became not George W. Bush’s misstatements but Gore’s dramatic sighs.

I bring up this checkered track record because I wonder if once again our collective reporting isn’t fueling misperceptions.

A CNN/ORC poll this month found that by a margin of 15 percentage points, voters thought Donald Trump was “more honest and trustworthy” than Hillary Clinton. Let’s be frank: This public perception is completely at odds with all evidence.

On the PolitiFact website, 13 percent of Clinton’s statements that were checked were rated “false” or “pants on fire,” compared with 53 percent of Trump’s. Conversely, half of Clinton’s are rated “true” or “mostly true” compared to 15 percent of Trump statements.

Read More:

Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?

Trump and Clinton, photo via http://www.eonline.com.

Research Professor of Education, New York University, Diane Ravitch, and I reached voting age in the early 1960s. I'm pleased to report that both Ravitch and I plan to vote for Hillary Clinton this November. Hey, it's either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. I'm hoping no self-respecting Democrat will vote for Trump.  

To be clear, Ravitch just published her well thought out reasons why she is voting for Hillary, and I'm with Ravitch on this:

I cast my first vote in 1960, when I was 22. That was before 18-year-olds were allowed to vote. I voted for John F. Kennedy, and I worked in his campaign. I was thrilled when he visited campaign headquarters, and I got to shake his hand. He was exciting and dynamic.

At the time, critics said he was no better than Richard Nixon.

They talked about his father, his money, his privilege, his Roman Catholicism; rumors swirled about his private life but were never reported by the media. 

Public opinion was so divided about JFK, even among Democrats, that Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. felt compelled to write a short book called Kennedy or Nixon: Does It Make Any Difference? Of course, he argued that Kennedy was infinitely preferable to Nixon. Kennedy was elected by a razor-thin margin. Some people said that the corrupt Daley regime in Chicago put him over the top.

Read more:
 

Commonalities of Bernie and The Donald

www.freakingnews.com

Personally, I wish Elizabeth Warren would call out Bernie Sanders, in addition to her tough talk about Donald Trump.  As far as I know, Liz hasn't been upset over some of Bernie's recent demands. Bernie, the losing candidate for the Democratic nominee position, having been a Democrat for about one year, has claimed the right to appoint members of the Party's platform committee, and he's currently demanding a voice in Hillary Clinton's presidential appointments, even though he's warning her not to declare herself the nominee just yet.

Warren needs to acknowledge that Bernie, her favorite for the nominee position, boasts some very superficial claims to authenticity: uncombed hair, rumpled suit, fist raised, perpetual scowl, etc. And yes Bernie does have some things in common with the Trump, for example, both of these grown men frequently throw temper tantrums when they don't get their way.

In the meantime, I'll give Liz due credit for publicly standing up to Trump:

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), amplifying her her recent attacks on Donald Trump, admonished the presumptive GOP presidential nominee in a no-holds-barred speech on Tuesday, calling him “a small, insecure money-grubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt.”

Warren recounted the story of a Nevada family whose home was foreclosed at the height of the 2008 economic crisis while accepting an award from the Center for Popular Democracy, an economic justice organization. The story served as a segue into an excoriation of comments Trump made before the crisis, hoping the housing market would crash so he could profit from it.

Read more:

Sanders' outrageous demands

 (Tracie Van Auken / European Pressphoto Agency)

Bernie Sanders calls to mind an expression I learned years ago in childhood: "Give him an inch, and he'll take a mile."  The Democratic Party that he has maligned daily, after it embraced him in April 2015, has allowed him to appoint members to its Platform Committee. Having been given an inch, Bernie is now demanding his mile: he wants a say in Hillary Clinton's presidential appointments. The Democratic Party should be on the alert as it looks as if the loser in the election of its 2016 nominee will continue to increase his demands. By the way, Bernie is accusing the party of rigging the election in favor of Hillary Clinton. Talk about sour grapes.

Susan Madrak at the Blue Nation Review writes:

Jonathan Martin, NY Times national political correspondent, told CNN that Bernie won’t be satisfied with symbolic platform committee spots, he wants a say in Hillary’s presidential appointments.

When I heard this, I thought, not for the first time, that Bernie’s actions have become deeply undemocratic. He truly believes his opinions are more important than that of the, what, three million more voters whose support Hillary has earned — so far.

When I voted for Hillary here in Pennsylvania, I was voting for her choices. She’s smart, principled, and good at moving the levers of power. I want her judgment, not his.

Read More:

American politics: it's nothing but a game of cards

Craig Barritt via Getty Images 

 Gloria Steinem at the May 4 premiere of Viceland’s “WOMAN.” 

Photo via the Huffington Post.

Card playing in American politics is a big deal. Standing up against racism means you're playing the race card. If you support Muslims, you gotta be playing the religion card. And lately you're either playing the man card or the woman card. Who else but Donald Trump would come up with the woman card in his feeble attempt to put Hillary Clinton in her place. The Donald should have known better, but then he repeatedly demonstrates that he's not very bright; whereas, Hillary is known for her intelligence, knowledge, experience, and grasp of the important issues in the political arena. She's also a sharp card player. "Deal me in," she chided Trump, reminding him of the strong positions she's taken in support of sisterhood, which Robin Morgan continuously reminds us is a powerful force to be reckoned with. Yes, indeed, Donald:  Sisterhood is powerful!

Since attacking Hillary the other day, Donald Trump has been introduced to the powerful sisterhood of Hillary and Gloria Steinem - Steinem didn't miss a beat in suggesting that Donald plays a number of cards, including the masculinity and testosterone cards - she backed off that one as she recalled that both genders have testosterone - I didn't know that until I read this article by Emma Gray,  Huffpo's executive women's editor:

Gloria Steinem has strong feelings about Donald Trump, and unsurprisingly, they’re not glowing.
During the Wednesday night premiere of her powerful new docu-series for Viceland, “WOMAN,” Steinem did not mince words about Trump’s misogyny. The feminist icon responded to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s assertion that Hillary Clinton plays the “woman card.”

Read more:

Trump plays the women's card against Hillary

Hillary Clinton speaks during a primary night event in Philadelphia. (Tracie Van Auken / European Pressphoto Agency)

Although I’m somewhat of a political junkie, I’ve managed to tune out Donald Trump; I just haven’t paid that much attention to him. After all, in a presidential election year in which Democrats Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin Omalley have risen up against Republican candidates Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Carly Fiorina,  Marco Rubio, etc., to name just a few, can Donald Trump be expected to stand out? Maybe not.

Guess what? Trump got my attention today when he dismissed Hillary Clinton by saying “I think the only card she has is the women’s card.” Evidently, Trump got the attention of quite a few others with that comment: quoted in Business Insider, Matt Lauer asked Trump: 'Do you even care' that so many women have a negative view of you?”

On the East Coast, according to the NY Times, Trump keeps playing the women’s card against Clinton: “He claimed that women do not like Mrs. Clinton, and he has every right to attack her.”

Meanwhile on the West Coast, the LA Times reports: Trump's 'woman's card' jab at Clinton isn't how GOP wanted to get female voters' attention.”

LA Times reporter Cathleen Decker writes: 

When Republican leaders declared after the last losing presidential election that the party had to do more to attract female voters, this was not what they had in mind.

Before a national audience Tuesday night, Donald Trump railed at Hillary Clinton’s qualifications for the White House, describing her as an affirmative action hire by the Democratic Party.

“The only card she has is the woman’s card; she’s got nothing else going,” Trump said Tuesday. “And frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5% of the vote. … The beautiful thing is women don’t like her, OK, and look how well I did with women tonight!”

Bluster? Yes. Reality? No.

Trump has grown increasingly popular among Republican women. But one of his biggest weaknesses as he looks toward a probable November clash with Clinton is the broader pool of female voters. They aren’t all rapt Clinton supporters, but they like her far better than they like him.

His routine broadsides against women — mocking Carly Fiorina’s face, raising the specter of Megyn Kelly’s menstrual cycles, passing along an unflattering picture of an opponent’s wife and now asserting that Clinton lacks the “strength” and “stamina” to serve as president — do little to endear him.

And describing a two-term U.S. senator and former secretary of State in dismissive, gender-freighted terms plays straight into the Clinton campaign’s hopes of picking up non-Democratic women in November.

At her victory rally on Tuesday, Clinton explicitly made a play for Democrats, independents and “thoughtful” Republicans as she brushed back against an earlier Trump broadside.

“The other day, Mr. Trump accused me of playing the “woman card,’” Clinton declared. “Well, if fighting for women’s healthcare and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in!”

Gender insults are nothing new for candidate Clinton. During her 2008 run, young men in the audience chanted “iron my shirts” and cable pundits compared her to hectoring mothers and the deranged bunny-boiling character in the film “Fatal Attraction.” One entrepreneur sold the “Hillary nutcracker,” a plastic representation of Clinton with serrated blades lining her inner thighs.

Trump played on another stereotype, of women being too weak and soft to inhabit the White House — ironic, because in the same bout of criticism he cast Clinton as a warmonger. 

In her 2008 campaign, Clinton was reluctant to emphasize the historic nature of her effort to become the first woman president until it was nearly over. This time, she has been more overt, but most of the time her historic reach is most visible in that she is a candidate in a pantsuit and kitten heels, not a button-down and a tie.

It was the mere fact that she is a woman that seemed to set off Trump in recent days. Asked repeatedly in an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday about how, exactly, Clinton has played “the woman’s card,” Trump had no meaningful response.

 “How do you call someone on being a woman?” Cuomo asked.

“You just tell them they're playing the woman's card,” Trump replied.

“But what does that mean exactly?” Cuomo said.

“Frankly, if she didn't she would do very poorly,” Trump said. “I know it because I think if she were a man and she was the way she is, she would get virtually no votes.”

Read more:

Dishonest Bernie vs. truthtelling Hillary

Photo courtesy of CNN.

Hi friends of Katalusis,

I'm on edge this morning thinking about the NY primary today and hoping that Hillary's win will prove that Americans are better than the reprehensible behavior of Bernie Sanders and his followers indicates. This letter from Hillary's campaign hit my inbox this morning, and it reveals how low Sanders is willing to stoop in order to get what he wants, never mind what he deserves:

Virginia --

I want to let you know about a development that just occurred, because it matters. The tone of this primary matters, and the condition of our party at the end of it will matter as we prepare to face Donald Trump or Ted Cruz this fall.

Earlier today, the Sanders campaign wrote a letter to the Democratic National Committee, falsely accusing us of violating campaign finance law.

You won’t be surprised by what happened next: 26 minutes after the letter was sent, his campaign sent a fundraising email attempting to capitalize on the phony charges.

(Before you read any further, let's get one thing straight: this accusation is false. They're questioning our joint fundraising agreement with the DNC, which allows us to support Democrats running up and down the ticket -- the same fundraising structure used by President Obama in 2008 and 2012.)

This latest incident is part of a troubling pattern of behavior -- occurring just as Bernie’s mathematical odds of winning the nomination dwindle toward zero -- in which Sanders and his team are not just debating us on issues (which we all agree is perfectly fair), but rather attacking Hillary Clinton’s character, integrity, and motivations.

The fact that they include the Democratic Party in these charges -- an organization we want future generations of progressives to trust and support -- further confirms that the Sanders campaign has let things get out of hand in its waning days. To wit:

• Over the weekend, they had protesters outside one of our fundraising events -- one whose proceeds went not just to Hillary for America, but to the Democratic National Committee and 32 state Democratic Parties -- throwing dollar bills at Hillary’s motorcade, as if they were at, shall we say, an adult entertainment venue. This was just days after someone introducing Bernie at a rally called Hillary a “Democratic whore.”
• In last week’s debate, Bernie questioned Hillary’s commitment to fighting climate change because a whopping 0.2% of the money given to our campaign has come from employees of oil and gas companies. Not even 2%, mind you: 0.2%.
• And of course, Sanders spent several days calling Hillary unqualified for the presidency, based on an entirely false claim that Hillary had said the same about him. She hadn’t (and still hasn’t, even after what he said).

To be clear, we welcome a debate on the important issues facing Americans, like how to prevent gun violence, encourage tolerance, and do more to level the playing field for Americans who are counting on us.

But it’s hard to see how anyone -- other than Donald Trump and Ted Cruz -- benefits from this downward spiral of irresponsible and baseless attacks. Right about now is when we ought to be talking about coming together as a progressive movement, not undermining a generation of voters’ faith in the Democratic Party and in the woman who is almost certain to be its nominee.

Thank you for everything you do to support our campaign.

Robby

Robby Mook
Campaign Manager
Hillary for America

What?!!! Hillary is more honest than Saint Bernie?!!

Hi Katalusis friends, I'm interrupting a busy day to post this breaking news about Hillary Clinton:

Fact checkers confirm Hillary Clinton is more honest than any of her 2016 opponents.

Did you get that? I mean she rates as more honest than Saint Bernie who claims he's the purest of the pure among politicians:

The trendy knock on Hillary Clinton, even among those who acknowledge that she’s the most capable and knowledgeable of the 2016 candidates for President, is the accusation that she’s just not honest. Her opponents keep insisting that she can’t be trusted, that she’s not telling the truth, and that there is therefore no telling what she might do while in office. But whenever fact checkers look at what Clinton and her opponents are saying during this election cycle, she rates out as the most honest of the bunch.

Read more:

 

 

 

 

NY Times columnist Frank Bruni's "less savory" qualities

Hillary speaks to supporters on Roosevelt Island,AP

Even as Hillary Clinton emerges victorious on Super Tuesday, the sexism prevails as evidenced in none other than Frank Bruni's column in the NY Times in which Frank suggests, among other blatantly sexist accusations, that Hillary exhibits "unrestrained ambition." 

Uh, Frank, have you noticed over the years that presidential candidates are by and large ambitious, or do you just criticize a female candidate for exhibiting ambition?

By the way, Frank, folks like you apparently haven't noticed, or maybe you've noticed, but resent Hillary for being able to keep her family intact and maintain several longtime friendships throughout her years of public service - that says a lot about this woman that you so assiduously mock throughout your ugly and misguided attempt to undermine her character.

In one of his backhanded compliments of Hillary, Bruni speaks of her successes on Super Tuesday. He insists his view is a "legitimate perspective." Frank, a sexist diatribe against a woman who has been voted the most admired woman in the world for many years doesn't seem that "legitimate."

You can look at Hillary Clinton’s path to this juncture and marvel at how difficult she has often made things for herself, creating messes where there didn’t need to be any, frittering away advantages, misunderstanding the mood of voters, underestimating the mettle of opponents, and failing to cement an image — and a message — that seemed authentic and right.

That’s a legitimate perspective. She’s a deeply flawed politician.

We need to remind ourselves that Bruni's shoddy column mentioned above isn't exactly original in its attempt to shame Hillary for - OMG!  - having ambitions for the White House. Her critics have faulted her for having ambition for years; whereas, I've yet to see a male political candidate for public office criticized for having ambition??!!

So while attacking Hillary in one breath, Bruni urges us, with all the condescension he can muster, to "give Hillary her moment, because she fought her way here." He then continues to distort the facts of Hillary's longtime career in public service.

Wonder if Bruni noticed that his paper, the NY Times, endorsed Hillary awhile back? Probably not. He's obviously behind the times, no pun intended. In his column titled "Clinton's Moment," Bruni unashamedly claims his perspective on Hillary is "legitimate:"


Speaking of backhanded compliments, Bruni adds this note to his not so subtle put downs of Hillary Clinton:

We were seeing the vindication of a fortitude and fierceness that warrant as much notice as her less savory qualities.

Her less savory qualities?

Among Frank Bruni's "less savory qualities," his sexism ranks right up there.

Read more:

Bernie's alliance with the Tea Party

Say what??!!

Can't help it. I'm always a little skeptical of self-proclaimed saints, especially the political variety, e.g., Bernie Sanders. My skepticism has been warranted more than once so far during the 2016 Democratic primary. You know the primary, I mean. It's the one that Bernie qualified for when he suddenly decided it was in his best interest to join the Democratic Party: he needed its backing for his presidential run. Yet Bernie, the newest Democratic leader (?) on the block, continues to boast of his superior ethics while aggressively joining the Tea Party's efforts to label Hillary as corrupt.

Peter Daou's article in the Blue Nation Review reveals just who is corrupt, and it's not Hillary:

By Peter Daou

 

The corporate media are busy doing the Sanders campaign’s heavy lifting by trumpeting his desperate call for Hillary Clinton to release speech transcripts, an evidence-free insinuation of corruption that should be beneath Bernie.

And it is dismaying that Bernie’s positive message of 2015 has devolved into a relentless assault on Hillary’s integrity, using innuendo and guilt-by-association to tarnish her image and damage her for the general election should she be the Democratic nominee.

Meanwhile, aside from glancing mentions by Joy Reid and Jake Tapper, there has been complete media silence on Sierra Blanca, a shocking and distressing example of Bernie acting in direct contradiction to the values he espouses.

CounterPunch:

Bernie Sanders made a cold political calculation in 1998 that affected the lives of hundreds of poor, powerless people half a country away. He did it because it would benefit his affluent, politically engaged constituency, and, in turn, benefit him.

Read More:

Bernie's perpetual temper tantrum

Image of Bernie Sanders courtesy of the Canadian Dimension.

Watching Bernie Sanders in his perpetual temper tantrum mode, white hair standing on end, waving his arms around, and shouting about starting a revolution, it's hard to imagine him in the Oval Office greeting heads of state from around the world. And yet Senator Sanders, who accomplished next to nothing during his many years in Congress, recently ditched his independent status to formally join the Democratic Party, obviously for personal gain - Bernie needed its backing for his run for the presidency. 

(Did I mention Bernie has zero knowledge of foreign affairs.)

The Blue Nation Review takes a look at Bernie's promised revolution in its article headlined "There is no Bernie revolution: turnout should worry Democrats," Peter Daou writes:


Read More: 

The scary results from the New Hampshire primary

Hillary is still in the running.

I grieved for my country when I first heard the news from the Granite State: the Democrats rejected  the better qualified and more experienced  Hillary Clnton in favor of  the "cool grandpa Sanders,"  and the Republicans chose Donald Trump - enough said.  Europe must be wondering at the insanity that prevailed in the New Hampshire primary.

Bllogging at the Huffington  Post yesterday, prior to the scary NH results, Lesleyann Coker tellingly  titles her piece: "I'm not ashamed to like Hillary." Coker writes:

I like Hillary. 

There, I said it. 

I'm tired of feeling like a pariah. Liking Bernie Sanders is cool. Liking Hillary Clinton is not.
Whenever I tell people I like Hillary, I'm met with incredulous stares and voices dripping with disgust. "Really?" they ask. "Why? How can you like her?" You'd think I confessed to killing puppies the way they carry on. 

I'm then met with a litany of common refrains. "She lies. You can't trust her. Remember Benghazi?" Or my personal favorite, "She's a Clinton. She thinks she's entitled." 

And those are just my Democrat friends! My Republican friends are even more unrelenting in their irrational disdain for this woman.

Yet when I ask them to explain, they can't delve deeper than the platitudes.

When President Obama famously said to Hillary in a debate before the New Hampshire primary in 2008, "You're likable enough," he was tapping into a deep vein of unlikability that surrounds her like a cone of shame.

I can't think of another national figure, politician or celebrity who has been as scrutinized and savaged for over two decades the way Hillary has. 

In addition to the run of the mill haters, she has to contend with more stereotypes and overt sexism than anyone else in modern politics.

When Bernie raises his voice, it's cute and humorous. He's the beloved cranky grandpa. Memes are created. When Hillary raises her voice, she's a shrill, angry woman, and the hate ensues. Yet if she's soft spoken, compassionate or shows too much emotion, she's criticized as weak. She's damned if she does, damned if she doesn't.

Any other public servant would have left politics for a career where character assassination isn't standard practice. 

Read more:
 

In response to the newly aroused Hillary Haters

A couple of years ago, the Daily Kos published Meryl Streep's tribute to Hillary Clinton. The Hate Hillary club is out in full force in 2016 and  doing its best to take Hillary down. It's heartwarming to reread Meryl Streep's tribute to Hillary, a woman whose years of public service have been primarily invested in supporting the downtrodden around the globe.

The Hillary Haters will no doubt continue their attacks on the best qualified candidate for president this year, but it has become increasingly obvious that their warped opinions bear little or no relationship to the real Hillary Clinton. Meryl Streep gets the word out:

 

Read Meryl Streep’s introduction of Hillary Clinton during the recent 2012 Women in the World conference:

Two years ago when Tina Brown and Diane von Furstenberg first envisioned this conference, they asked me to do a play, a reading, called – the name of the play was called Seven. It was taken from transcripts, real testimony from real women activists around the world. I was the Irish one, and I had no idea that the real women would be sitting in the audience while we portrayed them. So I was doing a pretty ghastly Belfast accent. I was just – I was imitating my friend Liam Neeson, really, and I sounded like a fellow. (Laughter). It was really bad.

So I was so mortified when Tina, at the end of the play, invited the real women to come up on stage and I found myself standing next to the great Inez McCormack. (Applause.) And I felt slight next to her, because I’m an actress and she is the real deal. She has put her life on the line. Six of those seven women were with us in the theater that night. The seventh, Mukhtaran Bibi, couldn’t come because she couldn’t get out of Pakistan. You probably remember who she is. She’s the young woman who went to court because she was gang-raped by men in her village as punishment for a perceived slight to their honor by her little brother. All but one of the 14 men accused were acquitted, but Mukhtaran won the small settlement. She won $8,200, which she then used to start schools in her village. More money poured in from international donations when the men were set free. And as a result of her trial, the then president of Pakistan, General Musharraf, went on TV and said, “If you want to be a millionaire, just get yourself raped.”

But that night in the theater two years ago, the other six brave women came up on the stage. Anabella De Leon of Guatemala pointed to Hillary Clinton, who was sitting right in the front row, and said, “I met her and my life changed.” And all weekend long, women from all over the world said the same thing:

Read More:

The NY Times gets it right once again in endorsing Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton, 2015. Doug Mills/The New York Times

Photo courtesy of the NY Times. 

Well, Katalusis friends, considering Hillary Clinton's widespread sexist treatment by the media during the 2008 Democratic primary, it's a pleasure to read that once again, the NY Times has chosen to endorse her.  The Times editorial begins with this blurb:

Voters have the chance
to choose one of the most
broadly and deeply
qualified presidential
candidates in modern history.

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD JAN. 30, 2016

(Virginia Bergman notes: I object to the Times editorial's insistence on labeling Bill Clinton as her "brilliant and flawed husband." I would ask the Editorial Board to name one so-called brilliant public figure without flaws. A reminder is in order here: all human beings are flawed in one way or another, even the members of the Times editorial board.)

The Times endorsement of Hillary continues:

For the past painful year, the Republican presidential contenders have been bombarding Americans with empty propaganda slogans and competing, bizarrely, to present themselves as the least experienced person for the most important elected job in the world. Democratic primary voters, on the other hand, after a substantive debate over real issues, have the chance to nominate one of the most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in modern history.

Hillary Clinton would be the first woman nominated by a major party. She served as a senator from a major state (New York) and as secretary of state — not to mention her experience on the national stage as first lady with her brilliant and flawed husband, President Bill Clinton. The Times editorial board has endorsed her three times for federal office — twice for Senate and once in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary — and is doing so again with confidence and enthusiasm.

Mrs. Clinton’s main opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, has proved to be more formidable than most people, including Mrs. Clinton, anticipated. He has brought income inequality and the lingering pain of the middle class to center stage and pushed Mrs. Clinton a bit more to the left than she might have gone on economic issues. Mr. Sanders has also surfaced important foreign policy questions, including the need for greater restraint in the use of military force.

In the end, though, Mr. Sanders does not have the breadth of experience or policy ideas that Mrs. Clinton offers. His boldest proposals — to break up the banks and to start all over on health care reform with a Medicare-for-all system — have earned him support among alienated middle-class voters and young people. But his plans for achieving them aren’t realistic, while Mrs. Clinton has very good, and achievable, proposals in both areas.

Read More:

 

 

"Republican operatives have a strange crush on Bernie Sanders"

Bernie Sanders, AP photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Photo courtesy of The Blaze.

So do Republicans have a better fix than the Democrats on which candidate would be harder for them to defeat in the 2016 general election? It's possible. Maybe that's why the Republicans are giving "unsolicited" support to Bernie Sanders to help him defeat Hillary in the Democratic primary. Take a look at this piece by  Steve Benen at Rachel Maddow's blog:

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was asked last week which Democratic presidential candidate he’d prefer to face in a general election. The RNC chief said Bernie Sanders is probably the tougher candidate.

 

It’s obviously difficult to take Priebus’ assessment at face value – even if he has a firm opinion, the Republican has no incentive to tell the truth – and his comments are all the more curious given what his party has been up to lately.

 

During Sunday’s Democratic debate, for example, reporters received emails from the candidates’ campaigns and their allies, but in a remarkable twist, the Republican National Committee also issued statements – two during the event, two after – defending Sanders against criticisms from Hillary Clinton and endorsing Sanders’ arguments.

 

Bloomberg Politics’ Sahil Kapur reported that Republican operatives have “a strange crush on Bernie Sanders,” and it goes beyond the RNC’s pro-Sanders rapid-response during Sunday night’s debates.

 

Read more:

 

The truth is out about Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

Photo  by Andrew Burton via Getty image at Huffington Post.

Blogging at the Huffington Post, Peter D. Rosenstein, non-profit consultant, public speaker and political activist, responds to Donald Trump's attacks on Hillary Clinton and in the process, Rosenstein gets the truth out about Hillary Clinton and about the Left's favorite candidate, Bernie Sanders as well. The Dems  - especially the Left - will be better prepared to nominate a winner by reviewing Rosenstein's take on their two leading candidates:

In his maniacal rantings about Hillary playing the woman's card Trump ignores what is right before his eyes; she is a brilliant, experienced and passionate woman whose supporters, male and female, will be working hard to elect her President of the United States of America. Clinton is the most prepared person running for President in decades with the range of experience and knowledge few if any past Presidents have had. Before his ego ran wild Donald Trump agreed. But this campaign has seen whatever common sense and decency he once possessed go out the window. All his recent threats to launch attacks against Bill Clinton are symptoms of candidate out of control and one afraid to face the person who is actually running for President, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Should Republicans nominate Trump the country will see him for the hypocrite he is. The thrice married Trump has always been a wheeler dealer. The Village Voice chronicled some of his deals and political manipulation including those leading to the building of the Grand Hyatt on top of Grand Central Terminal in New York, built with a 40 year $60 million tax abatement paid for by the taxpayers of New York City. He has never done anything for anybody else that didn't benefit him. 

Those who have watched all the Republican debates and the three Democratic ones, Clinton backers now wishing there were more, have seen first-hand Hillary Clinton is far and away the smartest person participating in any of them. By dint of her leadership, experience and intelligence she is able to speak to both domestic issues and foreign affairs with an understanding and passion not evident in any other candidate.

Read more:

A powerful duo on behalf of women: Gloria Steinem and Hillary Clinton

Steinem with Hillary Clinton at a Girls Learn International event in 2006. Photograph: Jemal Countess/WireImage for Glamour Magazine via the Guardian.

I'm up early two days before having guests for dinner on Christmas Eve and browsing the Web this morning brought me this treasure: an excerpt from Gloria Steinem's book, On The Road, in which she reflects on another outstanding female leader in "Why the White House needs Hillary Clinton:"

I know Hillary Clinton mostly in the way we all do, as a public figure in good times and bad, one who became part of our lives and even our dreams. I once introduced her to a thousand women in a hotel ballroom. Standing behind her as she spoke, I could see the binder on the lectern with her speech carefully laid out – and also that she wasn’t reading from it. Instead, she was responding to people who had spoken before her, addressing activists and leaders she saw in the audience, and putting their work in a national and global context – all in such clear and graceful sentences that no one would have guessed she hadn’t written them in advance. It was an on-the-spot tour de force, perhaps the best I’ve ever heard.

But what clinched it for me was listening to her speak after a performance of Eve Ensler’s play Necessary Targets, based on interviews with women in one of the camps set up to treat women who had endured unspeakable suffering, humiliation, and torture in the ethnic wars within the former Yugoslavia. To speak to an audience that had just heard these heartbreaking horrors seemed impossible for anyone, and Hillary had the added burden of representing the Clinton administration, which had been criticised for slowness in stopping this genocide. Nonetheless, she rose in the silence, with no possibility of preparing, and began to speak quietly – about suffering, about the importance of serving as witnesses to suffering. Most crucial of all, she admitted this country’s slowness in intervening. By the time she sat down, she had brought the audience together and given us all a shared meeting place: the simple truth.

Read more:

Black lives matter to Hillary Clinton

Family photo

Throughout her long career in public service, Hillary Clinton has stood for social justice for all people. She continued to live out those values on Monday when she met with the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, young blacks who have recently lost their lives through acts of violence.

Alana Horowitz Satlin, assignment editor at the Huffington Post has the story:

Hillary Clinton held a private meeting in Chicago on Monday with the families of prominent victims of recent gun violence.

Hillary tweeted: Hillary Clinton ✔ @HillaryClinton

Grateful to spend time today with mothers who have lost a child to violence and turned their grief into a national call to action. -H

6:05 PM - 2 Nov 2015

The mothers of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice were all present at the meeting with the former secretary of state.

The women discussed racial inequality, criminal justice reform, and gun control. Clinton's first pro-gun control ad debuts on Tuesday. 

"She is a mother and she is a woman and I felt she understood where we were coming from," said Samaria Rice told CNN. "It doesn't matter what color we are, I felt that she really understand where we are coming from."

Rice's son, Tamir, was the 12-year-old Ohio boy fatally shot by police last year for wielding what later turned out to be a BB gun. Brown, 18, was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson last year in Ferguson, Missouri, after a scuffle. In 2012, Martin, 17, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a Florida neighbor of his father's fiancee, for appearing "suspicious." Davis, also 17, was shot and killed after an argument over loud music with Florida resident Michael David Dunn. 

Dunn was the only shooter of the four who was convicted of a crime.

Read More:

Hillary's surging poll numbers!

A busy day ahead, but I had to take time out to post this great news!  The Hill's Jesse Byrnes has the story:

Cameron Lancaster (via the Hill)

Hillary Clinton has hit 50 percent support for the Democratic presidential nomination for the first time since April, around the time she launched her campaign, according to a new national poll. 

 

Clinton's support among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters has ticked up 9 points since mid-September, based on the latest NBC News/Survey Monkey online poll. 

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Clinton's primary rival in the Democratic race, now stands at 30 percent support in the poll, relatively unchanged over the past six weeks.

 

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig took 1 percent apiece in the online poll released Friday.

 

 

Read more:

A well-deserved standing ovation for Hillary Clinton

Hi Katalusis friends, I'm a little late in calling your attention to the Hill's piece about Hillary Clinton's "hero's welcome" at the DNC Women's Leadership Forum the day after the Benghazi hearing last Thursday, Oct. 23. But I'm sure you'll share the joy I experienced at the thought of women in the audience giving the soon to be first woman president a standing ovation - and some of them stood throughout her speech!

 

 Hillary Clinton was greeted like a returning war hero at a Democratic National Committee (DNC) forum the morning after a long day of Republican interrogation at a hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. 

“As some of you may know, I had a pretty long day yesterday,” Clinton told a whistling, cheering audience of several hundred Democratic women who were on their feet to greet her arrival at the DNC's Women’s Leadership Forum on Friday morning.

 

“I wanted to rise above partisanship and reach for statesmanship, and that is what I tried to do,” Clinton said of her 11-hour Benghazi performance. 

Clinton received the most ecstatic reception of all the Democratic candidates who addressed the DNC’s Women’s Leadership Forum, with some audience members staying on their feet throughout her speech. 

Read More: