Sen. Elizabeth Warren nails Crooked Donald

via of /nymag.com/thecut/2016/05/

It was to be expected that Sen. Elizabeth Warren would lead the charge for Democrats against the Crooked Donald Trump's usurpation of power for his fraudulent enterprises in America and elsewhere. Throughout his campaign, Crooked Donald insisted that the system was rigged against him; now we all know that, yes, the system was rigged, but it continues to be rigged in his favor as he pompously offers to help Hillary Clinton, the most honest among her opponents in the 2016 presidential campaign, restore her reputation.


In the video below, Sen. Warren details Crooked Donald's lies and other misleading statements that he made in the campaign and has since failed to live up to:

Madam President

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:

Whoa! The Donald is sexist!!

Presidential Hillary Clinton, photo via Daily Kos.

 Dear Katalusis readers,

I suppose none of you has guessed by now that Donald Trump is a sexist?!!

Shouldn't the Donald's accusation that all Hillary has going for her is "the woman's card"
have given you a clue as to his distorted view of women? Anyway, the word is out now that the Daily Kos's expose by Kevin Cirilli is published:

CLEVELAND --

TRUMP on Clinton:

"Does she look presidential, fellas? Give me a break."

Attacking a female public figure for her appearance is the dictionary definition of a sexist remark. It’s exactly what women in the workplace face all too often, an attack on their professionalism based on their appearance. There’s no acceptable alternate explanation for this one.

The Clinton campaign is all over it already. Tim Kaine responded with a nice jab at this afternoon’s Clinton-Kaine rally in Cleveland:

“Donald Trump put out a tweet that said she doesn’t look presidential, does she fellas? Does she fellas,” he said repeating the tail end of Trump’s remarks.

“Here’s my prediction, at the end of a second-term Hillary Clinton, Trump will be saying that same thing as he’s hocking bottled water somewhere and we’ve forgotten he ever ran for president.”

Apparently Kaine placed emphasis on the word “fellas”. He didn’t miss the implications either.

Read more:

Trump incites Americans to violence

The face of hatred. Photo via Wonkette.

Come on, people! Are we so desensitized by politics as usual in the US of A that we brush aside Donald Trump's casual suggestion that it would be okay to shoot Hillary Clinton or maybe her appointees to the Supreme Court?

Do Americans have no recourse in this situation as the nominee of one of our two major political parties encourages murdering his opponent? .

Are we not even surprised or shocked? How on earth did Donald Trump get as far as he has in our supposedly developed nation? Or maybe if we look a little deeper, we're as underdeveloped as those nations we like to hold up as examples of those backward folks.

My fellow Americans, is there no defense in our supposedly civilized culture against incitement to violence, even murder?

It's past time for Republicans to take action and boot the Donald out of their camp. Dan Rather has the right idea:

Former anchorman Dan Rather has issued a challenge to his colleagues: "This cannot be treated as just another outrageous moment in the campaign." 

Rather is talking about Donald Trump's remark that "Second Amendment people" might be able to stop Hillary Clinton's appointment of Supreme Court justices.

The comment raised the specter of political violence and earned widespread condemnation, though Trump supporters denied that he was encouraging violence.

"To anyone who still pretends this is a normal election of Republican against Democrat, history is watching. And I suspect its verdict will be harsh," Rather wrote on Facebook shortly after it happened on Tuesday afternoon.

Related: New York Daily News calls for Trump to end his campaign
 
Rather -- who covered the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas -- called Trump's "Second Amendment people" remark "a new low," unprecedented "in the history of American presidential politics."
 
Writing about political figures who have reluctantly endorsed Trump, he said, "Many have tried to do a side-shuffle and issue statements saying they strongly disagree with his rhetoric but still support the candidate. That is becoming woefully insufficient. The rhetoric is the candidate."
Fellow journalists were the other audience for his Facebook post.

Read More:

Hillary's lead over Trump grows post DNC Convention

Hillary Clinton arrives on the final night at the Democratic National Convention on July 28, 2016.

 Photo by Jim Young, Reuters, via CNBC.

My hope for the America I've known throughout my life has been nearly restored. You understand, I've been seriously worried by the apparent support Donald Trump has -with his ethics of  bigotry and "me first" -
philosophy that he has received from those apparently blind folks who have followed in line behind little Donnie. Hopefully the news of Hillary's bounce from the Democratic Convention will inspire others to check out her years of public service, keeping in mind that relentless attempts by the GOP to take her down have failed. Never once has Hillary been charged of willful wrongdoing and that includes the fake Benghazi and email scandals.

And get this dear readers, little Donnie's response to the above breaking news is to name HRC "the devil" FYI Donnie, Hillary is a saint compared to you. Here's the latest on the general election race between little Donnie and Hillary who has continued to comport herself from a centered position of compassion, respect for others, intelligence, and overall ethical values  throughout her longtime service to her country. Now hear this from NBC:

Following the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton now leads Donald Trump by 8 points — 50 percent to 42 percent — up from a single-point difference last week, according to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll.

Clinton's gain also comes after a series of controversial comments made by the Republican nominee this past week regarding the family of a fallen American soldier and Trump's suggestion that Russian hackers should seek out deleted Clinton emails. (graphs included below.)

Read more:

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-clinton-support-spikes-following-democratic-convention-n621071

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:

Sanders' problem in facing reality

Bernie's angry face is all over the Internet, photo via the New Yorker.

Credit PHOTOGRAPH BY MANDEL NGAN / AFP / GETTY

Senator Bernie Sanders stepped on the national stage with a halo around his head, proclaiming he was above politics and holding up his flag of idealism for all to see. He roused the college kids with his notions of starting a revolution and leaders on the ultra Left, old enough to know better, were also stirred by Bernie's inflammatory rhetoric. The Democratic Party welcomed Bernie into its fold as he non-idealistically needed its cash and support for his presidential run.

What has Bernie done for the Democratic Party since it embraced him? Well, he sued the DNC for penalizing his team for hacking Hillary Clinton's files. He has repeatedly accused his newfound political home for rigging the election of its nominee in Clinton's favor, and among other things, he's threatened to depose Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC Chair, when he's elected.

Then there was his response to the Nevada episode where his supporters - the Bernie or bust folks - got a little out of hand, as noted by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who titled his recent post: 'Questions of Character:"

Like a lot of people, I was shocked by the statement Bernie Sanders put out about Nevada. No hint of apology for his supporters’ behavior, lots of accusations about a “rigged” process when the issue in Nevada was whether Clinton should get more delegates in a state where she won the vote. And the general implication that the nomination is somehow being stolen when the reality is that Clinton won because a large majority of voters chose to support her.

But maybe we shouldn’t have been shocked. It has been obvious for quite a while that Sanders — not just his supporters, not even just his surrogates, but the candidate himself — has a problem both in facing reality and in admitting mistakes. The business with claiming that Clinton only won conservative states in the deep South told you that; and even before, there were strong indications that he would not accept defeat gracefully or even rationally.

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:

http://katalusis.blogspot.com/2011/04/appropriate-reading-for-earth-day-2011.html

Hillary takes New York!

Time to celebrate - Hillary Clinton, a long-time, loyal Democrat just defeated Bernie Sanders in the NY primary. Bernie is the guy who became a Democrat in 2015 and since then has done his best to divide the party, and he has certainly not done anything at all to help Democrats.

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

Debate coach: Hillary A-; Bernie D

Photo courtesy of CNN.com.

So, as I've explained already on Facebook this morning, I got disgusted watching last night's debate between Hillary and Bernie - it was Bernie's finger pointing, arm waving, and angry scowl that prompted me to turn off CNN's live stream from New York and go to bed early.

However, I was anxious this morning to see how viewers rated the two Democratic candidates. It was my good fortune that CNN posted Todd Graham's response to the performances of Bernie and Hillary; Graham is director of debate at Southern Illinois University.

To start with, Graham gave Hillary an A- and Bernie a D. From what I saw, those grades are about right. Graham followed with a detailed critique of the pair's performances:

(CNN)For Thursday night's Democratic debate, I'm focusing my debate coach evaluation squarely on improvements. 

Hillary Clinton: A-

She still interrupts too much. No improvement there.

She still has a terrible answer to the question of why she won't release her Wall Street speech transcripts. But Sanders won't release all his tax returns either. (They're both still ducking questions with answers that don't pass the smell test.) 

However, Clinton did have a better debate in some significant ways. The first was in demanding Sanders produce examples of her being influenced by Wall Street, as he has so often charged. She asked for an example, and when he couldn't come up with one, she said, "This is a phony attack designed to raise questions with no evidence or support... he cannot come up with any example, because there is no example." 

Good response...but this wasn't even her best retort of the night. 

In a discussion about the U.S.-backed military operation in Libya, for the first time, while admitting that the ouster of Moammar Ghadafi didn't work out as well as hoped, Clinton compared Libya to Syria. Bashar al-Assad is a terrible dictator, just like Gadhafi was, she argued. The difference, she pointed out? Syria is worse now, and a bigger threat to the United States than Libya is, but Syria still has Assad. The effective takeaway? So perhaps keeping dictators in place isn't better than removing them. 

But neither was this her best argument of the night.

Read More:

Vetting Bernie - that cool old guy from Vermont

photo from Wikipedia.

An interview with Bernie's wife Jane Sanders confirms information I've posted at Katalusis, including here, here, and here, in my efforts to contribute to the long overdue vetting of Bernie, that "cool" old guy from Vermont.

Spandan Chakrabarti at The People's View contributes to Bernie's vetting by sharing info he obtained from his recent interview with Jane:

Jane Sanders was surprised that the Daily News released the transcripts of her husband's interview.

"We didn't realize they had planned to release the transcripts", was Jane Sanders' best response to her husband's disastrous interview with the New York Daily News.  Word. For. Word.

This quote should be featured in the dictionary next to the word 'irony.' What, pray tell, did Mrs. Sanders think was going to happen when a candidate for president does an on-the-record interview with people whose business is to publish things?

What's so terrible about releasing the transcript of a candidate interviewing with a publication? Flavor. Apparently to Mrs. Sanders, it wasn't so important that Bernie Sanders seemed to be completely out of his depth in the interview, what really matters is that he did it with gusto. Or something. It's not important that he said "I don't know" when asked about how he'd accomplish the things he was promising, what's important is his inflections on how he said "I don't know." Ah.

All joking aside, it should warrant to anyone who genuinely cares about the state of our democracy a great deal of pause when a candidate's wife and campaign surrogate refers to an hour long interview that did not go their way as an "inquisition" while fumbling to explain the vaguest answers.

In the immediate aftermath of the interview (ahem, transcript here), I penned a column headlined "Thoroughly Unprepared", referring to Sen. Sanders' absolute inability to furnish the details of how to achieve any of his policy goals, especially on his signature issues of trade and Wall Street to such a degree that his opponent can explain it better.

It turns out that "thoroughly unprepared" is a pretty good descriptions of the Sanders campaign when it comes to being vetted or scrutinized in general. In fact, they may well be thoroughly unprepared for any type of coverage other than the swooning, adoring kind that marvels at "how far he has come" and how "his message is resonating and all the kids are flocking to him."

Think about it. Bernie Sanders' campaign has been one of the least transparent. We still do not have a single year of full tax returns. His wife holds all the couple's assets. We still do not know where a mysterious $10 million Washington, DC campaign contribution came from. The campaign still cannot keep its books in order to avoid potentially illegal, foreign donations. The Sanders campaign stole proprietary Clinton campaign data, and is now suing the DNC to keep from suffering the consequences. They repeatedly lied about endorsements, and looks to have sent out shadow campaign affiliates to disrupt Clinton rallies.

Bernie Sanders likes to tout his civil rights arrest record from a half century ago, yet when he faced anti-war protests as a Congressman, he had the protesters arrested.

When organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign endorsed Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and his campaign dismissed those as "establishment" voices simply unworthy of his great revolutionary aura.

Read more: 

Do Bernie and his supporters know how to count?

Photo courtesy of 538

You have to wonder if Bernie and his supporters know how to count. This post by David Wasserman at 538 suggests otherwise; hence Bernie is determined to keep blowing his millions - no help there for down ballot Democrats - to smear Hillary at every opportunity. And Bernie is the "cool" guy who pledged to never run a negative campaign. I refer to Bernie's coolness (whatever that means) because so many of my liberal friends in the past have preferred the "cool" candidate over the best qualified candidate - that would be Hillary.


So 538's Wasserman crunches the current numbers for Bernie and Hillary in the 2016 campaign:

Bernie Sanders’s supporters are fond of the hypothesis that Democratic superdelegates, the elected leaders and party officials who currently support Hillary Clinton by a lopsided-doesn’t-even-begin-to-describe-it 469 to 31, are going to bow to the “will of the people” if Sanders ends up winning more pledged delegates than Clinton by June.

There’s just one hiccup in this logic: Sanders fans seem to be conflating the pledged delegate count and the “will of the voters,” when in fact the two are far from interchangeable.

Sanders’s reliance on extremely low-turnout caucus states has meant the pledged delegate count overstates his share of votes. To date, Sanders has captured 46 percent of Democrats’ pledged delegates but just 42 percent of raw votes. So even if Sanders were to draw even in pledged delegates by June — which is extremely unlikely — Clinton could be able to persuade superdelegates to stick with her by pointing to her popular vote lead.

Sanders already has a nearly impossible task ahead of him in trying to erase Clinton’s pledged delegate lead. He’s down by 212 delegates, meaning he’d need to win 56 percent of those remaining to nose in front. He has dominated caucus states such as Idaho and Washington, but only two caucus states — Wyoming and North Dakota — remain on the calendar. What’s more, the biggest states left — New York and California — favor Clinton demographically.

Read More:

Who knew? Bernie and Jane Sanders are millionaires!

Sanders with his wife Jane O'Meara in Des Moines, Iowa (Wiki)

Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane have some explaining to do. Bernie, as you know, is the candidate in the Democratic primary who rails against Wall Street, big banks, and the one percent. You recall Bernie, right? He's the angry guy with his fist raised attempting to shame his opponent Hillary Clinton for her supposed ties to Wall Street - she got paid for a couple of speeches...

Who knew that Bernie and his wife Jane are millionaires, or that Jane left her position as president of Burlington College under questionable circumstances and has been accused of federal bank fraud. Accuracy in Academia details the financial scandals following Bernie and Jane:

Editor’s Note: Maybe some of Bernie Sanders youngest supporters should know how close to the one percent he gets.

Responding to one of Anderson Cooper’s softball questions, socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told the CNN Town Hall on Wednesday night that he lives a frugal life and indicated that he doesn’t care about money or status. “I have a small Chevrolet,” he said. “It is one of the smallest Chevys that they make.” He said it was about five years old.

But James O’Brien, a political consultant and former publisher of Campaigns & Elections magazine, says the career politician, who has been a mayor, member of Congress and U.S. senator, has achieved the financial status of a millionaire.

O’Brien has analyzed the financial status of Sanders and his wife, including their financial disclosure report, and has concluded they have a net worth in the range of $1.2 to $1.5 million, not the $700,000 or less that is usually reported by the media.

Rather than “Feel the Bern,” the phrase associated with popular support for the self-declared “democratic socialist,” O’Brien says that Sanders is personally “Feelin’ the Wealth.”

Equally significant, his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, left her position as president of Burlington College under controversial circumstances and is now being accused of federal bank fraud. She left her position at the college and was given a severance package known as a “golden parachute” that also benefited Senator Sanders’ personal wealth.

Read More:

Bernie's for-profit investments in Wall Street, Big Pharma, and Fracking

Photo courtesy of Daily Kos.

Whenever a politician claims to be above politics, I immediately become skeptical. Early on, shortly after he suddenly decided to join the Democratic Party, Bernie boasted about his high principles. One of his favorite criticisms of his opponent Hillary Clinton, a long-time, loyal Democrat, is that she's owned by Wall Street, etc. So I'm surprised this morning to read that Saint Bernie has for-profit investments in Wall Street, Big Pharma, and fracking - that information is probably only surfacing now, as Bernie has cleverly listed his assets under his wife Jane's account.

Yesterday in an interview on the evening news by Charlie Rose, Bernie promised to respond in kind to any criticisms of his saintly self, so he may be ready to attack Educatordcm at the Daily Kos who recently posted this item:


I found this article on “Garnet News” interesting.  Written by Marcus Johnson for a website that is “Today’s News Powered by Women”, I took time to look through the website and it is clearly a left-leaning progressive website. In a fascinating article, the writer analyzes Bernie’s assets that he reported in 2014. I was surprised by quite a bit of the information. Here is the full read:

garnetnews.com/…

Here are the highlights that stood out to me:

With such an anti-Wall Street platform, one would think that Sanders didn’t own any stock at all. But not only does Sanders own stock, he actually is invested in several industries that he’s heavily criticized.

I found that statement to be really compelling.  Looking directly in his investments… the hypocrisy immediately jumps out at the reader.

Big Banks

One of Sanders’ most well-known policies is his push to break up the big banks. Sanders has given America’s biggest banks the notorious “too big to fail” label, and he has pushed the idea that their profits are coming at the expense of American workers. I was surprised, then, to find that Sanders himself owned funds with holdings in some of America’s biggest banking institutions, including JP Morgan & Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, US Bancorp, Wells Fargo, and Bank United. Bank United is particularly interesting, seeing as the federal government actually had to seize the bank in 2009 in part because “it was critically undercapitalized and in an unsafe condition to conduct business.”

And it’s not just BIG BANKS he has holdings in… he is also earning money from BIG PHARMA.

Read more:

Saint Bernie should stop parroting GOP lies about Hillary Clinton

Yesterday I linked to Paul Krugman's blog post in which he suggested the self-righteous Bernie Sanders stop spouting years of Republican character attacks on Hillary Clinton that imply she's dishonest and corrupt. It's about time that leaders in the media began to set the record straight regarding Hillary's character. For example, at Politicususa, Rmuse quoted NY Times Executive Editor and investigative journalist Abramson: "Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy."

So what does that say about Saint Bernie's false charge made recently that Hillary has accepted significant amounts of money from the fossil fuel industry? It appears that Bernie is the dishonest and corrupt politician in the 2016 Democratic primary - not Hillary. Fact checkers found that Hillary's fundraising includes only .15 of one percent from the fossil fuel industry. Hopefully, Bernie will take the advice from Paul Krugman, the NY Times, Nobel-prize wining economist, and start "behaving responsibly."

In the meantime all of you Hillary Haters and others who have all too eagerly maligned Hillary's character, take a look at this piece at Politicususa and

Stop Parroting GOP Lies That Hillary Clinton Is Dishonest 

 Read More:

By the way, according to a new Gallup poll  Hillary Clinton supporters are extremely or very enthusiastic by 54% to Senator Bernie Sanders supporters who are extremely or very enthusiastic by 44%.

 

Krugman asks Saint Bernie to "behave responsibly"

 

Both the media and its followers have begun catching on that self-proclaimed Saint Bernie Sanders is not so saintly after all. I watched the PBS News Hour last night that has often displayed a bias against Hillary and Bill Clinton. During the Analysis of David Brooks and Mark Shields, Shields mentioned Saint Bernie's "bogus" charge that Hillary Clinton accepts money from the fossil fuels industry. Shields had done the research: Hillary's campaign has accepted a grand total of 15 hundredths of one percent of its funding from the fossil fuels industry. Shields also noted that the Sanders campaign has accepted a bit more funding from that much maligned industry than Hillary's campaign.

Yesterday, in his blog The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winning economist, urged Saint Bernie to start behaving responsibly. Krugman calls Bernie out for spouting innuendo about Hillary Clinton and for not sharing his massive fundraising resources with down ballot Democrats - folks from the party Bernie admittedly joined solely for its backing of his presidential candidacy.

In his blog post, "Feel the Math," Krugman writes:

The Sanders campaign has come much further than almost anyone expected, to the point where Sanders can have a lot of influence on the shape of the race. But with influence comes responsibility, and it’s time to lay out some guidelines for good and bad behavior.

The first thing to say is that it’s still very unlikely that Sanders can win the nomination. Don’t tell me about national polls (and cherry-pick the polls that show your guy getting close); at this point it’s all about delegate counts, where Clinton has a substantial lead with the voting more than half over. The Times’s Upshot has a nice calculator that takes account of what we know about demographic factors – Sanders does well in very white states and in caucuses, not so much elsewhere – and lets you experiment with various overall leads in what remains of the race. To overtake Clinton in pledged delegates, Sanders would need to win by about a 13 point margin from here on in:

Nothing in what we’ve seen so far suggests that he’ll come anywhere close to that. He’ll probably win Wisconsin next week, but that’s a demographically favorable state for him, so unless it’s a huge blowout (which the polls aren’t showing), Clinton will still be very much on track for the nomination.

Now, as the bumper stickers don’t quite say, stuff happens. But at this point it’s something like a 90 percent probability that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. Anyone denying that arithmetic is basically pulling a con job on Sanders supporters.

So what does that say about appropriate behavior on the part of her rival? Two things, I’d argue.

Read More:

Hey Bernie, Anger is not a plan!

Bernie should smile more and stop shouting.

Hi Katalusis friends, it's a wintry March day up here in the Northland; the Twin Cities metro is expecting a couple inches of the white stuff in the next several hours with tons more of the heart attack variety south of us - please be careful when you're shoveling your sidewalk.

In the meantime, I doubt that snow is on the minds of Bernie and Hillary this afternoon. I confess that although I consider myself a liberal in good standing, I'm not familiar with the Rolling Stone Magazine, which I gather is a bit left-leaning. Nevertheless, I followed a titillating link just now to read the Rolling Stone's reasons for endorsing Hillary over Bernie; I mean, generally speaking Hillary is the realist in the Democratic Primary race, and Bernie is the idealist. You'd expect Bernie to attract the young folks and readers of mags like the Rolling Stone, right? Maybe not...Here's the link to Rolling Stone's endorsement by its publisher, Jann S. Wenner.

“This is not the time in history for a ‘protest vote,’” publisher Jann S. Wenner writes

Rolling Stone has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and the magazine’s publisher, Jann S. Wenner, explained why in a column that starts off with effusive praise for her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
- See more at: http://www.thewrap.com/why-rolling-stone-magazine-endorsed-hillary-clinton-despite-clear-love-for-bernie-sanders/#.dpuf

Rolling Stone has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and the magazine’s publisher, Jann S. Wenner, explained why in a column that starts off with effusive praise for her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“It’s hard not to love Bernie Sanders. He has proved to be a gifted and eloquent politician. He has articulated the raw and deep anger about the damage the big banks did to the economy and to so many people’s lives.” Wenner wrote. “My heart is with him.”
Despite the clear love for Sanders, the Rolling Stone publisher concluded, “It is not enough to be a candidate of anger. Anger is not a plan; it is not a reason to wield power; it is not a reason for hope.”
- See more at: http://www.thewrap.com/why-rolling-stone-magazine-endorsed-hillary-clinton-despite-clear-love-for-bernie-sanders/#.dpuf

“This is not the time in history for a ‘protest vote,’” publisher Jann S. Wenner writes

Rolling Stone has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and the magazine’s publisher, Jann S. Wenner, explained why in a column that starts off with effusive praise for her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“It’s hard not to love Bernie Sanders. He has proved to be a gifted and eloquent politician. He has articulated the raw and deep anger about the damage the big banks did to the economy and to so many people’s lives.” Wenner wrote. “My heart is with him.”
Despite the clear love for Sanders, the Rolling Stone publisher concluded, “It is not enough to be a candidate of anger. Anger is not a plan; it is not a reason to wield power; it is not a reason for hope.”
- See more at: http://www.thewrap.com/why-rolling-stone-magazine-endorsed-hillary-clinton-despite-clear-love-for-bernie-sanders/#.dpuf

Rolling Stone has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and the magazine’s publisher, Jann S. Wenner, explained why in a column that starts off with effusive praise for her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“It’s hard not to love Bernie Sanders. He has proved to be a gifted and eloquent politician. He has articulated the raw and deep anger about the damage the big banks did to the economy and to so many people’s lives.” Wenner wrote. “My heart is with him.”
Despite the clear love for Sanders, the Rolling Stone publisher concluded, “It is not enough to be a candidate of anger. Anger is not a plan; it is not a reason to wield power; it is not a reason for hope.”
- See more at: http://www.thewrap.com/why-rolling-stone-magazine-endorsed-hillary-clinton-despite-clear-love-for-bernie-sanders/#.dpuf

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:

 

 

 

 

Bernie shoots off his mouth on behalf of gun manufacturers

The revolutionary Bernie Sanders should stop shooting off his mouth and smile more. More than anything else, it's that shooting off his mouth in support of gun manufacturers that's getting Bernie into trouble lately - pointing his finger and waving his arms around like an out of control windmill doesn't help his case.

Oh, and Bernie seemed a bit insensitive in his response to the lawsuit recently filed by parents of children murdered at Sandy Hook. Mark and Jackie Barden, plaintiffs in the case, poured some cold water on "feel the Bern" Sanders and his supporters. The Bardens' op-ed at the Washington Post should make Sanders and company more careful in their response to families who have lost loved ones to weapons like Remington’s Bushmaster AR-15.

Mark and Jackie Barden are plaintiffs in the case Soto et. al v. Bushmaster. 

 

Our son, our sweet little Daniel, was just 7 when he was murdered in his first-grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. We are among the 10 families suing the manufacturer, distributor and retail seller of the assault rifle that took 26 lives in less than five minutes on that terrible day.

We write in response to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s comments about our lawsuit at the recent Democratic presidential debate in Michigan. Sanders suggested that the “point” of our case is to hold Remington Arms Co. liable simply because one of its guns was used to commit mass murder. With all due respect, this is simplistic and wrong. 

This case is about a particular weapon, Remington’s Bushmaster AR-15, and its sale to a particular market: civilians. It is not about handguns or hunting rifles, and the success of our lawsuit would not mean the end of firearm manufacturing in this country, as Sanders warned. This case is about the AR-15 because the AR-15 is not an ordinary weapon; it was designed and manufactured for the military to increase casualties in combat. The AR-15 is to guns what a tank is to cars: uniquely deadly and suitable for specialized use only.

Read More: