jollyroger's picture

    Hillary lies, fails to prosper in Michigan

    'Honest and trustworthy" continues to be HRC's deficiency.

     

    The Democratic voters of Michigan, perhaps informed by the history that Mona has related in another thread, tore Hillary a new one tonight.

     

    We do not ( and may never) know whether her blatant misrepresentation of Bernie's auto bailout vote backfired to help produce this mammoth reversal of fortune, but it would only be poetic justice.

     

    She is  loathsome, and watching her lie in real time during the debate was stomach turning.

     

    I have come, admittedly against interest, to hope for the deus ex machina indictment.

     

    Pending which, Bernie will get a few of my tiny dollars.

     

    Soldier on, senator.

     

    A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. 

    Comments

    Failing indictment, a good old fashioned lightning bolt would show that there really is a just God in heaven.

     

    She is a stench in the nostrils of the Lord.


    And an abomination before the multitudes...


    Unhinged some, eh? Playing Jehovah with those raining toads again - thought we told you not to do that, someone will get hurt. Or squished.


    I have cruised so far past unhinged....


    Lick that toad before you throw it...


    FactCheck via Huffpost already evaluated the truthiness:

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Summary

    False and exaggerated claims from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders include:

    • Clinton twisted a Sanders vote on the Wall Street bailout package to claim he was “against the auto bailout.”
    • Sanders said he doesn’t support fracking because scientists tell him it’s “doing terrible things to water systems all over this country.” The EPA says fracking hasn’t led to “widespread, systemic impacts” on drinking water. [plus it's greatly decreased our dependency on the Mideast, where a lot more death and destruction goes on - as well as dependency on Russia - PP]
    • Clinton said that an auto parts supplier in Wisconsin got part of the auto bailout and is now moving to Europe. The company didn’t receive any bailout money, though it benefited indirectly from the program.
    • Sanders promised that the U.S. would no longer have the world’s largest prison population by the end of his first term. We can’t predict the future, but that would require a reduction of 500,000 inmates in four years. [plus 90% of inmates are in state & county lockups, so beyond Bernie's control - PP]
    • Clinton claimed that when she was a senator she scolded Wall Street executives for “wrecking the economy,” but the speech in question didn’t go that far.
    • Sanders claimed NAFTA had caused the loss of 800,000 jobs, but independent economists say the impact on jobs has been small.

    The two candidates also repeated claims we’ve checked before on guns, childhood poverty and unemployment.


    You know Jr. people ignore your posts because you've earned a reputation as a blowhard. Using hateful speech in a bid for attention isn't likely to work. It will simply cement that reputation more firmly in place. I suggest you stick to the subjects in your area of expertise, prostitutes that love being prostitutes because prostitution is great, and all drugs are great all the time.


    Odd to learn of my futility.  The counts seem to click along into five figures years after the splash 

     

    Me and Rodney, brothers under the skin


    Jolly, I always enjoy your humor.  You make me smile. I need a few frogs to kiss.  Maybe I could find a rich one. You are invited to Lis's party on FB Tues. night returns. I guess she has found a prince so you only have to bring frogs for me. 


    Another prince!  She has an inexhaustible supply!. ( the frog to prince pipeline is alas, a two way street)


    I cannot but applaud you for limiting your comment to ad hominem argument, evidently seeing the futility of attempting to defend HRC's poor performance in re: " honesty and trustworthiness ", the major premise of my post.


    It was a good win for the best candidate in the race. It is time now for progressives to unite behind him.  Those who don't are increasing the risk of a President Trump or Cruz.


    I'll certainly take another look.

    Who would be his Secretary of State?


    Stephen F Cohen...


    Who would Hillary's Secretary of State be? Some have suggested that Nuland is at the top of her list. Seriously. 


    And why not? If she is good enough for Chaney she is good enough for ... who? Well, she is where she's at now because of Hillary.


    Still bitter cause she said "Fuck the EU" (thiught you hated the EU) or cause we didnt get the WWIII over Ukraine we were promised? Diminished expectations, my friend.


    No, not bitter that she has revealed inconvenient truths about herself and her current sponsor.  And, why would you suppose I hate the EU?   


    Sanders accomplished little of substance in Congress but he talks a good game. He noted that his promises will not be accomplished. No single payer. No free college. Higher taxes including for the middle class. He will yell at Wall Street though. He does talk a good game. He tends to wilt under direct attack in debates. His senior adviser is the same guy advising Gore-Lieberman in 2000 and Kerry-Edwards in 2004. I think Sanders will appear weak against Republican candidates.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/11/11/tad-devi...


    Why do you consider legislative  tallies to be an index to executive promise, assuming, arguendo, that Bernie's chosen role in Congress was to attach his name to bills?


    Substance:

     

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

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

    The immigration bill, opposed by House Republicans, never became law. But the jobs program amendment was a signature Bernie Sanders move. He is a self-described democratic socialist who has spent a quarter-century in Congress working the side door, tacking on amendments to larger bills to succeed at the margins, generally focused on working-class Americans, income inequality and the environment.

    Mr. Sanders is not unlike Tea PartyRepublicans in his tactics, except his are a decaf version. While he is unlikely to turn against his party on important votes, he is most proud of the things he has tried — unsuccessfully — to block over the years. And he boasts about them constantly on the campaign trail: the Iraq war, the Wall Street bailout and the Patriot Act after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

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

    “I would point out to you that in perhaps the most significant public policy issue of our time, the war in Iraq, I cast the correct vote,”Mr. Sanders told CNN last year. “On the other hand, Secretary Clinton voted for that war. Her judgment was not right.”

    He worked with Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, to prevent foreign workers from replacing Americans at banks that have had a federal bailout, and with former Representative Ron Paul of Texas, who shared his zeal for monitoring the Federal Reserve.

    Mr. Sanders’s most notable partnership with a Republican was also one of his greatest successes. In 2014, Mr. Sanders, as chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, worked out an accord with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, on a bill to expand veterans’ access to health care after a scandal involving veterans’ hospitals across the country.

    In the House, he attached a measure to prevent the George W. Bush administration from finalizing rules that would have allowed companies to cut the pensions of older workers. Community health care clinics were expanded via a Sanders amendment to President Obama’s health care law. His amendments with Mr. Grassley to prevent bailed-out banks from replacing American workers with foreign ones was part of a major economic stimulus bill in 2009.

     

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/us/politics/bernie-sanders-amendments....

     

    ETA: the cited article, evidently too positive in its first iteration, has become the subject of a public editor centered firestorm

     

    http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/new-york-times-bernie-s...


    Substance

    The immigration bill that you led with never passed in Congress (from your own NYT article)

    I'll check on the other bills 


    come again, Hal? Bernie won Michigan by 20,000, but so far he's down 3 delegates, while in the other state you ignore he lost by 145,000 votes and 27 delegates.

    Next week's Illinois, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri. All primaries, 691 pledged delegates, another 100 unpledged (supers)'. Hang on to your shorts. Hillary's already halfway to needed delegates, 500 would put her near 3/4.

     


    There s no doubt in re:the math.  Hence the prayerl for help from James Comey.(and boy, you won't find me looking to the FBI to pull my chestnuts from the fire often...)


    What compromises do you see Bernie making with a Republican House?


    I don't.  I anticipate a two year holding action from any dem pres until the armies of the night can be mustered for 2018 and maybe even not til 2020..


    I would expect, however,  a vigorous debt ceiling push back, which will neuter a major Obama vulnerability.

     

    Stephanie Kelton  is his principal economics adviser.  Look for the trillion dollar platinum coin gambit.


    Wow.  I didn't think anyone took my comments to heart. Thanks Jolly. I could hug you. Kelton's models will move us out of this black hole. 


    Wow!  I didn't think anyone read my posts! ( I have it upon ocean Kat's authority..). Thanks!


    How long do you anticipate the government shutdown will last?


    I don't anticipate a shutdown.

     

    "Essential functions" are exempt .  who defines them?  The executive.

     

    The president and one third of the senate plus one can cheerfully ignore the vaunted " power of the purse" til hell freezes over

     

    It just takes balls


    The founders in their wisdom gave us a strong executive.

     

    For once, I applaud that we do not have a parliamentary system.


    Given that your scenario has not happened in previous shutdowns, you expect magic?


    I expect a very different response for Bernie than that manifested by either Clinton or Obama, that is correct.

     

    Not magic, class war waged consciously on behalf of the working class.

     

    Occupy the Shutdown, if you will.

     

    Oddly, IIRC you have hitherto denigrated the permanent impact of occupy

     


    He IS a Socialist!


    Bernie's victory party when he was first elected Mayor of Burlington...

     

     

     


    He's always up in the cold country working the land like a serf. You'd think he was still in the Pale. Should get back to East Egg now and then, some really smashing affairs going on. The poor arent like the rest of us, you know. They have less money.


    Shame he didnt say shtetl instead of ghetto...


    to-may-to, to-mah-to - let's call the whole thing off.


    I get your point, but its hard to imagine him answering " well, yo,my brother, I feel the pain in the hood because my peeps struggled in the ghetto too, and when the cossacks beat us down, no one had a glock in sight, so I understand the African-American dilemma" although it would'a been cool as shit to hear.


    Sanders could have simply noted that racism can trump economics. Tennis star James Blake got taken down by an undercover cop. Seattle Seahawk Cam Chancellor had cops called for trying to buy a gym. Blacks with good credit are routed to high risk high cost loans. Your jokes only confirm the impression a majority of black voters have about the mindset of Bernie Sanders. He does not get the impact of race. The message also seems to be vote for Sanders and something magical will happen in 2020.

     

     


    So far the replies have been that Sanders won't compromise like weakling Obama, there will be no government shutdown because the GOP will fear Sanders, we will press a trillion dollar platinum coin, and we have to wait until 2020 when Democrats will be elected after 4 years of government stagnation under a Democrat. Wow, that's inspiration.


    Correct except for the pugs fear.  They will send over an omnibus appropriation excising, eg,  food stamp money and press Sanders will either 

    A) declare food stamps essential (inarguable, no?)

    Or

    B) declare a state of hunger emergency.

    Also,two years of trench warfare forcing elucidative votes from the pugs as eschewed by ( your words) weakling Obama

     

    Class war, yo!


    A nice link but at the end of the day, we have your opinion of what Sanders will do. 

    Edit to add:

    He voted for the crime bill and made excuses for his vote. He voted to protect gun manufacturers, made excuses for his vote. If elected President, he will do the same Brrnie-"splaing" on a host of issues.


    Actually, I was trying to implicate a history shared by Sanders, by way of which, (believe it or not) the word "ghetto" has a deep personal impact.


    Even Sanders didn't try that desperate excuse.


    He should' a consulted...i work cheasp 


    I'm none too impressed with your friends of convenience in this case - is there a data privacy law Comey/FBI *hasnt* broken? (aside from that bit of Non-Recurring Engineering they're ginning up Apple to do). 


    He's a stomp down pig.

     

    Any port...


    You have to admire the voters in Michigan especially the Black voters who marched off of the elite Democrat Plantation and gave Sanders this important if symbolic victory. Breaking conditioning that makes people captured followers and leading for once was a huge step for people knowing the likely consequences, the Clintons are vindictive and never forget a slight and this was a big slap at their lying arrogant triangulating faces.

    This may be an anomaly but other voters may see it as an example and break their conditioning to lead the rejection of the Democrat elite and their minions.


    I have been reproached not two days after casting aspersions at them as  lumpenproletariat losers on Mona's thread.


    Obama was wrong. She isn't likeable enough.( debate live blogging.)


    At Huffpost, some agree that Bernie purity would have left the auto industry with nothing.

    Sperling is a Clinton supporter, so take his response with a small grain of salt. So, too, is Steve Rattner. He was Obama’s auto czar, so he has some credibility in this debate. And he sided against Axelrod in an email to HuffPost.

    If TARP hadn’t passed, he said, “there would have been no money for the auto bailout. Remember that Congress explicitly voted down an auto bailout (although that certainly could have changed.) Sanders voted for that bailout. But to me, his failure to support [releasing] the second tranche [of TARP] in effect made him an opponent of the auto bailout.”


    'Purity' indeed! Excellent comment at a NYT article has same opinion:

    Bernie Sanders is the "holier than thou" candidate. As some commenters have pointed out, most legislation is the product of log-rolling: If you support my amendment, I'll vote for your bill. He normally will withdraw his support, if he doesn't like this or that amendment. He thus voted against the final auto-bailout bill, because he didn't like its other provisions. He is pure as the driven snow of Vermont. This is not conducive to being a successful legislator, such as were Robert Wagner, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, Everett Dirksen, and Ted Kennedy. These great legislators knew that the best is often the enemy of the good, and made skillful compromises across the aisle. Bernie Sanders seems constitutionally unable to do that. Perhaps that is why he calls himself a socialist and has no track record of crafting and implementing important laws in his thirty-year history in the House and Senate. He is a lone ranger, which is inspiring out on the trail but not in the messy, crowded halls of the Congress.


    Brevity is bullshit and I generally try not to give attention to bullshit posters so I rarely post on Jr's blogs. Legislation is complex, unfortunately too complex with omnibus bills and unrelated amendments attached. There's no doubt both Sanders and Hillary supported the auto bailout as both voted for it. It couldn't get enough votes to pass. When it was included in TARP Sanders made a choice that voting against the Wall Street provisions was more important than voting for the auto bailout.

    Both candidates make these types of decisions all the time. It's impossible not to as stand alone legislation rarely gets through congress. Sanders has made opposition to corporations and Wall Street the priority issue of his time in congress and has repeatedly voted against bills, no matter what good they might do, to fight against corporations.

    The export/import bank is another example. It does help some large corporations. It also helps many small businesses and creates many jobs in America. I'm sure Sanders would like to help those small businesses and create jobs but if the costs of helping them also might help a large corporation his priority is to fight the large corporation.

    Some might think this level of purity is a good thing and that the fight between the corporations is the main fight of our time. Others might see it as non pragmatic and as hurting many workers.

    A blog that wasn't bullshit written by a person who is full of shit would have explained these issues. But that's not what Jr does because to do that you actually have to know what you're talking about.


    A Republican friend who will vote Democratic in November pointed out that Sanders is just like Cruz in only willing to pass. a "pure" bill.


    I suppose I would have had less of a beef had HRC framed her point similarly.  Saying "He opposed the auto bailout" I consider to be misleading and disingenuous. 

    Precisely the sort of slippery use of language that has gotten both Clintons a reputation for dishonesty.


    But it was okay when Sanders side-stepped the question about his praise of Castro?  He talked about Cuba's health care instead.  His "But he made the trains run on time" moment.


    I missed that, frankly.  Of course, you get no points from me dissing el caballo.


    Both candidates have taken difficult votes on compromise legislation. Both candidates point to the bad parts and accuse the other candidate of supporting them. Both candidates respond by pointing at the good parts as the reason for voting for the bill.

    You can see both candidates using similar spin if you look for it. You can call it slippery language or lies if you want but both candidates do it. I don't look for it. I try to get deeper than the spin to understand why the candidate supported the legislation. You only look for it in Hillary.

     


    The more I see of Bernie Sanders the more my dislike of him turns visceral.  He's a righteous bully, puffed up by his newfound popularity, given to talking down to everyone who dares to question him. He is turning Trumpish without the gross language.  His whole shtick is pushing lofty but empty promises with no sign of actually knowing how he would accomplish any of  it.  He talks as if, when he becomes president, he will both carry the weight of all our problems and will wave his magic wand to make everything all right. 

    I've tried to be fair about these two candidates because I believe in my heart trashing the candidates on our side only gives the other side more ammunition. I don't know how much longer I can do it publicly.

    I will hold my nose and vote for him if he wins.


    I have the same feelings about Sanders. His supporters point to his arrest during Civil Rights protests in Chicago. I point to Hillary going undercover to investigate segregation at private schools in Alabama at personal risk.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/us/politics/how-hillary-clinton-went-u...

    Goldwater girl   Yeah right.

     

     

     


    Wow!.

     

    Amazing how people can work with the same data and arrive at such different conclusions, except for the nose-holding, dem-voting part!


    Exactly.  There are two sides to every political campaign.  Neither of them is all good or all bad.  If you don't like Hillary and you want to shout it to the rooftops, fine and dandy.  Just know we're not all up there shouting along with you.


    Wikipedia, citing Leon Festinger, Ph.D., describes cognitive dissonance as follows:

    In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.[1][2]

    I'm not a mental health professional so I'm free to fine-tune or even elaborate on the definition offered by an extremely well-regarded psychologist.  I see cognitive dissonance as evident in situations where people reject facts that contradict long-cherished beliefs rather than reject the beliefs which the facts don't  support.

    Cognitive dissonance is obvious here in the increasing anger and resentment at Bernie Sanders.   Where facts prove beyond peradventure that Hillary Clinton is fundamentally dishonest, a corporate shill, a neo-con, er warmonger, and a race-card player, her supporters project these or comparable negative traits on her truly decent and compassionate opponent.  Why have people whose support for Clinton almost certainly stemmed from the best of motives turned so harshly against the better candidate?

    The answer is cognitive dissonance.  Many of Clinton's backers feel stress and anxiety when confronted with the truth about her.  Rather than blame her for fooling them or themselves for being suckers, they lash out at the one demonstrating the empress has no clothes.


    Hal, you wouldnt recognize a "proof" if it hit you in the ass, as it has many times. You're a partisan hack trying to define the world "fairly" from a purely biased viewpoint - conclusions first, fill in "facts" later. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you were Trump, you'd see cheering Muslims on the Jersey shore. Instead, you come with your Bernie-tilted hallucinations. Amateur physician/psychologist, diagnose yourself first - a lot more fruitful.


    Um hm.  So in what ways do I remind you of your father or is it your mother?


    Sorry, genius, you just remind me of hacks Ive known, nothing familial.


    And how does that make you feel?...oh, I see our time is up, we have to stop now.


    Oh, and I've had to raise my rates...


    Sorry, dude, you're not my type.


    Clinton supporters know her full history. Your personal problem is that you cannot deal with the rejection of your favorite candidate. You are aware of his vote on the crime bill and forgive him. You are aware that for purity's sake, he would have crashed the economy by letting the auto manufacturers go belly up. Sanders home state of Vermont could not get single payer passed. You ignore all this and place all the pathology on Hillary supporters.

    Fortunately, neither you or JR are official surrogates for Sanders. If you responses represented the campaign, I would really be concerned.

    VIVA FIDEL! 


    QUE VIVAN!


    “You know, if the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, imprison people or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere.”

    I bet you can guess who said that but can you align it with what history has shown us to be the truth? 

     


    Now you've really stepped in it....


    (If Henry  doesn't get his hand off my ass I swear I'll clock him)

     


    And of that wise counsel, which of his ideas did she implement as S of S?  


    If Hillary gets aligned with the Saudis, Bernie's gets aligned with Fidel

    Sanders praised Castro

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/meganapper/sanders-in-1985-sandinista-leader-imp...

    ​He ignored the Human Rights record under Fidel

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba

    Now Sanders is Bernie-splaing and refusing to directly answer questions about his support for Castro

    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/272485-sanders-de...

    ​What else ya got?


    And off course Sanders can't address racism in Cuba because that would destroy his nonsense about solving economic inequality as the solution to the "problem" of race.

    http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2015/07/one_on_one_with_afro_cub...


    Yes, Sanders defended his history. It is defensible. And this is about equivalent to all you got.


    It is your opinion that what he said is defensible. Sanders can do no wrong in your eyes. 30 years in Congress and little Congressional support. He seems as popular as Ted Cruz. It seems to me that the angry voters supporting Trump and Sanders are willing to buy fantasies that fit their politics.

     


    Sanders can do no wrong in your eyes.

    That is so obviously wrong. I have been critical of him on several issues right from the beginning of his campaign. The fact that I am more critical of Hillary does not negate that fact. But, when you see any criticism of Hillary you think it must somehow be turned against Sanders. When any evidence is presented critical of Clinton you sluff it off like shedding one more layer of skin.  


    Uh, LULU you responded to my criticism of Sanders with criticism of Hillary.


    Fair enough, you got something right. Repeat it and you will be as right this one day on the whole subject as a broken clock is every day . 


    The irony of rmrd's response is that in it he unwittingly exemplifies the cognitive dissonance that leads Clinton supporters to attack Sanders for the sins of their candidate.

    Thus, rmrd attacks Sanders for voting for the Clinton 1994 Omnibus crime bill that because of 3 strikes and you're out resulted in Bill Clinton becoming the greatest incarcerator of African-Americans of any President in history.  But rmrd ignores the fact that Hillary championed the three strikes and you're out provision on the ground that it was necessary to lock up "superpredators" while Sanders spoke out against mass incarceration and voted for the bill because of increased funding for women victims of crime.  In other words, rmrd attacks Sanders for what Clinton herself did - cognitive dissonance!

    Likewise, rmrd attacks Sanders for voting against the bank bailout and twice for the auto bailouts on the ground that Sanders was being excessively pure.  Of course, for rmrd Sanders wasn't pure enough when he voted for the 94 crime bill.  Rmrd also ignores the fact that Congress did not earmark any of the bank bailout funds for the auto industry and the vote against the bank bailout was a vote solely against bailing out the banks.  It wasn't until after Obama took office that he was able to divert some of the money to Detroit.

    If I engaged in cognitive dissonance the way Clinton's cohorts do, when confronted with Bernie's mediocre record on guns, I would pivot immediately to a bogus attack on Clinton as being even worse.  But I don't do that because I look at each candidate's record objectively.  Yes Bernie is worse on guns.  But Clinton is worse on everything else.  Thus Clinton's backers have two choices when her record is waved in their face.  They can accept the facts and admit they got it wrong or they can deny the facts.


    Bill Clinton was not the largest incarcerated in history. The incarceration rate increased at the state level. Federal incarceration so account for 13% of all arrests. If Bill Clinton was as bad as you say, Sanders aided and abetted the incarcerations It is interests resting to watch twist as you diminish Sanders gun vote, bring up Bill Clinton , and ignore that Hillary did not vote for the crime bill. Somehow Hillary is responsible for her role in the 1994 crime bill and Sanders is not. Bill Clinton is an incarcerations in chief, but Sanders is relived of any involvement.

    The auto industry argument now seems to be that Obama saved the auto industry alone. That is fine with me. Regarding Sanders votes: (from the LA Times)

    Sanders' campaign pointed out Monday that he had voted in favor of the $14-billion "aid package." The campaign went on to say, "When that bill ran a Senate Republican roadblock, the White House turned to a separate Wall Street bailout fund for loans to the auto industry." (See what they did there? The proposed auto industry measure was an "aid package," which is good, right? The other was a "bailout," which is obviously evil.)

     

    What the campaign failed to mention was that Sanders voted the following month with Republicans in a failed effort to cancel the second half of TARP's funding, which would have stopped the Obama administration from using $350 billion in bailout dollars. That sum had $4 billion earmarked for the auto bailout, but arguably included most of the $80 billion that ultimately was lent to the industry.

    So in other words, Sanders was following in the footsteps of Kerry, who famously tried to hold himself out as an opponent of the Iraq War by noting that he'd voted against a bill to fund it -- after previously voting for the measure.

    Granted, Sanders isn't guilty of so blatant a flip-flop. But his position on the auto bailout and TARP illustrates one of the drawbacks of being so ideologically pure (or rigid).

    Not a soul in Congress wanted to vote for TARP. It was an undisguised bailout for big financial institutions that had played fast and loose with their investments, and by all rights they should have been allowed to fail. But you would have been hard pressed to find a mainstream economist in October 2008 saying there were any better options. Had the Federal Reserve and Congress not moved aggressively to recapitalize the banking system, the results would have been much, much worse.

    http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-ol-sanders-auto-bailout-20160307-story...

     

     


    Rmrd writes: "Bill Clinton was not the largest incarcerated in history. The incarceration rate increased at the state level. Federal incarceration so account for 13% of all arrests."

    From the LA Times in February 2001:

    The federal and state prison populations rose more under former President Bill Clinton than under any other president, according to a report from a criminal justice institute to be released today.

    In fact, the analysis of U.S. Justice Department statistics by the left-leaning Justice Policy Institute, a project of a San Francisco-based justice center, found that more federal inmates were added to prisons under Clinton than under presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan combined.

    So we see that rmrd's theory that Bill Clinton is not responsible for incarcerating more people than any other President is disproven by the facts.  Let's see if he's willing to change his theory.

    Regarding rmrd's contention that Sanders voted against $4 billion for the auto industry, it was Sanders' adamant belief that taxpayers should not bail out the big banks to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars while the auto industry got a paltry $4 billion.  It seems rmrd is insisting on an extraordinary degree of ideological purity.  If any money at all is set aside for one industry that we agree is worth saving, you must agree to set aside 60X more to protect crooked financiers.


    You quote an article from 2001. I provide with a current analysis of the data. Black incarceration rose prior to the crime bill. I'll give you another link that includes a second graph that depicts the dramatic rise in state and local incarcerations. It comes from a different source.

    http://www.vox.com/2016/2/11/10961362/clinton-1994-crime-law


    Regarding the auto bailout, the fact is the laws are made by compromise. Sometimes you have to vote for stuff you don't like to get stuff you like passed. Do you see Sanders possessing some magic that transforms political reality. If there is a limited pool of funds do you use it for free education or single payer health care?


    Here is a link to a graph that shows that the explosion of black incarcerations grew before President Clinton.

    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/02/black-incarceration-didnt-...

    ​I think you should apologize to Bill and Hillary Clinton for slandering their names in regards to black incarceration.


    Sure, thatll happen. But nice try at least.


    From the Federal Bureau of Prisons:

    Between 1980 and 1992 - the federal prison population increased by 55,038.  Over the next eight years while Bill Clinton was in office, the total prison population increased 65,447.  The great bulk of that growth occurred after the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill that both Clintons championed. Bill Clinton locked up more people than any other President.  Under W, the total population in federal prisons rose 56,543.  A shameful record but not as shameful as Clinton's.

     


    What were those people imprisoned for, Hal? Murder or smoking grass? If murder, why are you defending murderers? If you don't know, why are you pasting numbers at us? In 1990, my next-door neighbor had machine gun bullet holes in his front door. Just another misunderstanding in the hood. It's all good fun until someone puts an eye life out


    Observers should note how flawlessly PP changes the discussion.  Previously she and rmrd were claiming Clinton isn't responsible for locking up more people than any other President.  When confronted with irrefutable proof that he is, without missing a beat she tries post hoc to justify the action which she previously claimed he didn't do.

    Under these circumstances, a mature secure intellectually honest person would just admit error.

    The appropriate response from PP would have been something like this:

    Hey - look at that.  Clinton really did lock up more Americans than any other President in history.  I guess I'm going to have to revise the rosy rearview mirror picture I have of his tenure in office.

    Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, that's not the response to which we have been treated.


    No, Hal, I'm not so fact-free and careless as you (for example, Im not female, which we already established, remember?). I have said the bulk of prison population, 90%, is state and local, so out of range for Bernie's plan to drop it by 500,000. I have said the background for the bill was the horrid gang violence, black-on-black murders, and other intolerable rise in predatory crime. That the graph rmrd referenced and I posted above show the bulk of prison increases occurring before Clinton's bill had any effect in 1995 sucks any sense out of your claims that he was the worst. People arent complaining about 55,000 blacks in fed pen - theyre complaing about 1 million+ black men in all prisons or on probation. Youre the one shifting the story, because you didnt realize the states were where the action was when you tried to score your cheap points.

    Here's the crime bill, you probably havent looked at, written by liberal hero Mr Honest Integrity himself, Joe Biden. Tell me which parts you would remove and which of the crime decreases werent worth the cost.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcemen...

    And certainly no self-respecting Democrat felt the hard chiice of putting another 100,000 cops on the street as "rosy" nor feels happy debating the resulting success-tied-with-failure. But thats part of the real world too - every solution creates problems, and we have debate and balance properly the 2. I'm quite tired of the cherry-picking of some bad anecdote or data point out of large complex issues. Even with the crime bill, the grown-up discussion lies elsewhere - not fetishizing over a list of numbers, but figuring out how to manage serious crime with a compassionate, not overly draconian response. Doing nothing was not a serious option.


    So Sanders said he would reduce the US prison population from 2.2 million to less than the Chinese 1.7 million or by 1/2 million, and the federal prison system only has 215,000 inmates.

    So he would empty the federal prisons, and interfere with state governments to release hundreds of thousands of prisoners?

    Sounds like Sander's economic plan and his foreign policy plans. Promises promises.


    We can agree on the increase in federal incarcerations. I thought that, like most, you were including state and local incarcerations as the reason for labeling Bill Clinton as the great incarcerator. I do find it curious that you do not include Sanders as equally responsible for the number of federal incarcerations since he voted for the bill.

    Do you accept that Bill Clinton regrets that he encouraged passage of the bill?

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/bill-clinton-1994-crime-bill/


    Thanks rmrd - brief response and then I have to move on to a new post for my website.

    1) Yes.  Bill has acknowledged the 1994 crime bill was a mistake.  I'm not sure Hillary has gone that far but she may have.

    2) I don't hold Sanders nearly as responsible as the Clintons for the terrible results of the bill for these reasons:

    A) He spoke against the enhanced sentencing when the bill was being debated.  Hillary praised this aspect of the legislation.  B) He explained his support for the bill on the grounds that 1) funds were set aside to help female victims of violence who were not getting the assistance they needed and 2) he realized if he voted against the bill he would be labeled soft on crime.  C) Unlike Clinton, Sanders was not responsible for enforcing the law and did not embark on the prison-building spree that led to over 10,000 more inmates being added to the federal corrections system during each of the last three years of Bill's second term.


    You paint a rosy picture of Sanders stance on criminal justice. In 2006 Sanders' website noted his tough on crime stance. In 2007, Hillary Clinton spoke of reform of the justice system and the mistakes made in the 1990s. Hillary released her justice reform package first. Sanders released his justice reform package only after the challenge from Black Lives Matter.

    https://www.yahoo.com/politics/sanders-now-a-reformer-once-boasted-of-be...

    Have you demanded that Bernie apologize for his vote? Sanders is the only candidate running who actually voted for the crime bill.


    I've explained a number of times why I don't believe Sanders' vote for the 1994 Omnibus crime bill is nearly as problematic as Bill Clinton's push for Congress to pass it, specifically 3 strikes and you're out, and Hillary's subsequent strong support for that provision.  You are of course free to disagree with my view as you do.  You mentioned in another post Bernie's vote against a 1995 bill to give communities more power to demilitarize their police forces.  From what I've read, it looks like this was a good bill and Bernie was wrong to vote against it.  So that's a demerit on his side.  Regarding the current campaign, we'll have to disagree on who's better on law enforcement.  Again, we've made our arguments.  I think mine are stronger you obviously disagree.


    I look at each candidate's record objectively.  Yes Bernie is worse on guns.  But Clinton is worse on everything else.  Thus Clinton's backers have two choices when her record is waved in their face.  They can accept the facts and admit they got it wrong or they can deny the facts.

     

    Your objectivity is admirable.  I guess you are saying that Clinton's backers are deluded.  

    Duly noted.


    oo-oo-oo psychological analysis, what fun. Can  I play too?

    Projection (German: Projektion) was conceptualised by Freud in his letters to Wilhelm Fliess,[8] and further refined by Karl Abraham and Anna Freud. Freud considered that in projection thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings that cannot be accepted as one's own are dealt with by being placed in the outside world and attributed to someone else.[9] What the ego repudiates is split off and placed in another.[10]

    Projection tends to come to the fore in normal people at times of crisis, personal or political[16] but is more commonly found in the neurotic or psychotic[17] in personalities functioning at a primitive level as in narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder.[18]

    Carl Jung considered that the unacceptable parts of the personality represented by the Shadow archetype were particularly likely to give rise to projection, both small-scale and on a national/international basis.[19] Marie-Louise Von Franz extended her view of projection, stating that "wherever known reality stops, where we touch the unknown, there we project an archetypal image".[20]

    Hey guys and gals, I'm not a mental health professional so I'm free to fine tune or even elaborate on the definition from the most famous extremely well regarded psychologists in history. And those elaborations and fine tunings have the weight of the authorities I've cited. Isn't that cool! It's like Freud and Jung themselves have spoken from the grave and supported my analysis.

      I see cognitive dissonance as evident in situations where people reject facts that contradict long-cherished beliefs rather than reject the beliefs which the facts don't  support. Cognitive dissonance is obvious here in the increasing anger and resentment at Hillary Clinton.   Where facts prove beyond peradventure that Bernie Sanders is just another politician who panders for votes and lies to explain away his pandering votes Sanders supporters are unable to face the reality that their candidate is not the messiah destined to lead them to the promised land.

    As their dreams of the great man, the father archetype, fails they are unable to deal with the reality that confronts them as their delusions fall apart before their eyes. They then project those feelings onto those who have destroyed their delusions, those who didn't support the delusion and voted against their beloved Father archetype.


    One always hopes that people will recognize their weaknesses and foibles and so often one's hopes are dashed.


    I know, so sad. I had such hopes for you when you restricted yourself to passive aggressive attacks on Hillary's supporters. But the frustration and anger at your failures and the failures of your candidate has pushed you over the edge into crazy overt attacks. /sigh I guess is was inevitable.


    Ocean-kat's comment here is yet another example of a Clinton supporter's cognitive dissonance. Ocean-kat has chosen to reject the overwhelming - and stress-inducing - evidence that Hillary is an inferior candidate.  So what's the next step - lash out at the person who created the anxiety. 

    Note how kat calls my attacks "crazy".  In fact, nearly everything I write here is very clearly supported by citations. What little isn't is generally common knowledge or very easily documented through a google search.  I also acknowledge freely my preferred candidate's weakness.  I never rely on boilerplate arguments like my candidate's "the most experienced person to ever run for president" or she's better than Bernie because "she's walked the walk" or "she's part of the family" or job-destroying trade bills really create jobs.  I have never denied obvious facts like those who claim Clinton didn't break any rules when she used a private email server. 

    Crazy means delusional.  My support for Sanders and criticism of Clinton is clear-eyed and sane.


    Ocean-kat has chosen to reject the overwhelming - and stress-inducing - evidence that Hillary is an inferior candidate. 

    That's a subjective analysis, an opinion, and cannot be proven objectively. imo Hillary is obviously the better candidate. Like Ramona, the more I see Sanders debate the more I support Hillary.

    Note how kat calls my attacks "crazy".  In fact, nearly everything I write here is very clearly supported by citations.

    There is no citation that Hillary supporters are engaged in cognitive dissonance. Only a citation that cognitive dissonance exists. That's a rather crazy attack on Hillary's supporters.

    I liked Hillary when she was in the West Wing working with her husband. I liked her better than Bill. I liked her in 08 and supporter her in the primary. I was disappointed when she lost by content to vote for Obama. I like her even better today.

    You and I have discussed many of the issues in this campaign and I've given you clear reasons with citations to back up my opinions. I didn't expect my subjective analysis to change your subjective analysis. But it's puzzling why you think your subjective analysis constitutes "truth."

    I'm experiencing no stress or anxiety over my choice to support Hillary. The only stress I'm experiencing is the stress I experience every election. That the republican might win.

    But continue to post your psychological analysis of Hillary's supporters. It's good for a laugh, it will harden Hillary's support and it makes you look like a fool. It's a win/win/win imo


    Let me get this straight - you continue to support Clinton and don't suffer any stress when the following is brought to your attention:

    1) She has made a number of dishonest attacks on Sanders some of which rely on discredited right-wing talking points, e.g, a) he wants to take away people's healthcare, b) he was against the auto bailout, c) he doesn't care about black people, d) single-payer healthcare and tuition-free state colleges and universities are too expensive.

    2) She refuses to divulge the specifics of speeches she gave to the bank perhaps most responsible for a global economic crisis in 2008 and has also pocketed millions from other reckless financial institutions.

    3) She broke federal rules governing her email and continues to deny this fact.

    4) After voting in favor of the worst foreign policy blunder since Vietnam and pushing us to bring about disastrous regime change in Libya, Clinton continues to the present day to support insane military adventures on the other side of the globe.

    5) She didn't safeguard classified material on her email server but believes Edward Snowden should be prosecuted with life imprisonment as the potential punishment.

    6) She is well aware of the disastrous impact of the 1994 omnibus crime bill that she supported but she still opposes legalizing marijuana.

    Okay, you don't suffer from cognitive dissonance.


    We've discussed most of these topics. You should know my opinions. Here's the thing Hal. I know my opinions are opinions. I know that they are a subjective analysis and cannot be proven objectively. I think that my opinions are sufficiently backed up by facts and rigorous analysis. I think I have made many convincing arguments that I backed up with numerous citations and links. But I know they are opinions and there is room for disagreement.

    I thought we were having disagreements over opinions. A difference of opinion.  It's beginning to seem that you don't realize your opinions are opinions. You seem to think your subjective analysis is objective truth.  If in fact you've lost your grip on reality and think your subjective analysis is objective truth you are delusional and need to get some help


    There is no overwhelming evidence that Hillary is an inferior candidate.  That's your notion.  It may not be insane but clear-eyed it's not.

    No explanation forthcoming.  So don't ask.


    Hal, (re cognitive dissonance)

    This is a classic example of the ad hominem fallacy where an argument is dispensed with on the basis that your interlocutor is not competent to put forth a position because of a crippling psychological condition. The use of the technique does not strengthen the argument you are making. In your capacity as a partisan for your candidate, whatever pleasure it might give to speak in this manner should be weighed against the weakness it brings to your actual arguments.


    I do not claim a priori the arguments of Clinton's supporters should be dispensed with on the basis that the interlocutors are not competent to make them.  I claim the arguments of Clinton's supporters are so weak and unconvincing that those who make them - absent a financial interest in a Clinton victory - must be captive to a syndrome (not a crippling psychological condition) like cognitive dissonance.


    This is why you can't have nice discussions.


    "Do not cling to theories where facts do not support them."  Hercule Poirot The Murder on the Links.

    Ramona you have said here you couldn't be persuaded Bernie was the better candidate even though you have also written you agree with him more than you do Clinton.  Doesn't that suggest you might be clinging to a belief that the facts do not support?  If so, I have provided a possible explanation.


    Syndrome or whatever, it is the same use of ad hominem fallacy. You repeat the technique in the second sentence.


    No.  An example of an ad hominem argument would be that an overweight person can't have good ideas about losing weight.  But I am not arguing that Clinton's online defenders have cognitive dissonance and therefore they should not be believed.  I am explaining the reason some rational people hold/express unbelievable views is because of a cognitive dissonance.

    The way to attack my conclusion is to disprove the assumptions underlying it.  The assumptions are: 1) Hillary's supporters are launching bogus attacks on Bernie in response to 2) legitimate criticism of her and her record.   Another way you could challenge my assertion is to accept my "facts" but to offer an alternative explanation.  Clinton is paying her online supporters.  They know they're lying but do so for personal gain.  That is not how you would undermine an argument based on the ad hominem fallacy. 

    A few ways you could undermine my example of an ad hominem argument include pointing out 1) there's no logical reason an overweight person couldn't have good ideas about losing weight, 2) the overweight person might have been even heavier until he started following his ideas on weight loss, or 3) the individual is overweight due to a glandular condition and therefore his ideas about losing weight don't work in his specific case but do for most people.


    You don't have to undermine an argument using the fallacy because the use invalidates any claims by means of it.
    Whatever you claim to be the reason why people are arguing with you does nothing to support your claim of what is "self evident" fact. Your claim that your interlocutors have a quality that causes them to dispute this "self evident" fact does not in any way support the claim but is just the claim made a second time.


    Again, you misunderstand the nature of an ad hominem argument.  An ad hominem argument proceeds from the a priori assumption that a particular individual, solely because of who he or she is, has to be wrong or at a minimum cannot be completely correct so there is no need to rebut her arguments.  In most cases, ad hominem arguments rest on fallacies but this is not necessarily the case.  For example, I have read many women argue that men, because we are men, cannot fully understand the hurdles that Hillary Clinton has had to overcome because she is a women.

    I do not contend that Hillary's most rabid supporters have to be wrong because they suffer from cognitive dissonance.  I contend their wilder claims such as insisting that, inter alia, a) she is more honest than he is, b) he wants to take away people's healthcare, c) he opposed the auto bailout, cannot follow from a sober appraisal of the facts since the facts do not support these claims.  Thus, their must be another explanation for why Clinton's supporters assert them.

    In a previous post, I quoted Hercule Poirot, now it's time I guess to quote Sherlock Holmes.  "If you’ve eliminated all other possibilities whatever remains must be the truth," Arthur Conan Doyle's famous sleuth famously said.    I confess I haven't eliminated every possibility besides cognitive dissonance.  But certainly it is a plausible explanation.


    Regarding honesty, will Sanders simply state that he continues to believe that economics trumps race and is only pandering when he says he thinks that race is important?

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/12/bernie-sanders...

    Should Sanders be honest and say that single-payer health could not pass muster in his home state, but he will try again on a national level? Should he also add that during crafting of the single payer bill, Obamacare would go under the political microscope?

    http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/single-payer-vermont-113711

    Will Sanders admit the most bills in Congress have amendments that a politician may not like. Politicians have to decide if what they want is important enough to stomach the bad stuff? If a politician votes against a bill that supported the auto industry because of stuff he didn't like, he should say I voted against the bill rather than I supported a bill that didn't exist?

    https://www.minnpost.com/dc-dispatches/2015/09/if-schoolhouse-rock-remad...

     


    Your definition of the fallacy is new to me. I am more familiar with it as a type of evidence given to support a contention. So the description is something like this:

    A debater commits the Ad Hominem Fallacy when he introduces irrelevant personal premises about his opponent. Such red herrings may successfully distract the opponent or the audience from the topic of the debate.

    The matter of irrelevant personal premises is in regard to the claim being made. In your case, the claim is the quality of "self evident" fact in contrast to your debaters who claim it is not self evident. As you just admitted, the cognitive dissonance charge does not substantiate your position. It is introduced to weaken the credibility of your debaters. From the same source regarding Cirumstantial Ad Hominems:

    • Circumstantial: A Circumstantial Ad Hominem is one in which some irrelevant personal circumstance surrounding the opposition is offered as evidence against their position. This fallacy is often introduced by phrases such as: "Of course, that's what you'd expect them to say." The fallacy claims that the only reason why they argue as they do is because of personal circumstances, such as standing to gain from the argument's acceptance.

      This form of the fallacy needs to be distinguished from criticisms directed at testimony, which are not fallacious, since pointing out that someone stands to gain from testifying a certain way would tend to cast doubt upon that testimony. For instance, when a celebrity endorses a product, it is usually in return for money, which lowers the evidentiary value of such an endorsement—often to nothing! In contrast, the fact that an arguer may gain in some way from an argument's acceptance does not affect the evidentiary value of the argument, for arguments can and do stand or fall on their own merits. 


    I'm just trying to explain why some Clinton supporters are making transparently false assertions.  Of course, I disagree with your patently absurd claim that "the fact that an arguer may gain in some way from an argument's acceptance does not affect the evidentiary value of the argument[.]"  To accept this assertion would mean the arguments on global warming posited by scientists funded by Exxon are as credible as those from NOAA.


    Your first sentence simply repeats the claim you made earlier.  The words you put in quotes are not mine but are from the reference I provided. Your interpretation of those words would put all value of an argument as something resolved by appeals to authority. Arguments based upon authority are the weakest kind unless followed up by convincing arguments why such an authority should cancel other opinions. The whole idea of discussing things in a democracy means that appeals to authority should be grudgingly admitted and require continuous forms of verification. The climate change element is a good example of a factor that has survived that process.

    Your attempt to run the board, not so much.


    Hal. your valiant attempts to inform HRC's followers of her many defects and incompetence aren't and won't work because you take for granted they share your ethical moral framework. used to decide who should lead.

    Homes would probably say there are two possible explanations why they are unable to digest what you attempt to feed them. First they could be the 'low information voters' who instinctively reject any negative information about HRC because of the 'Vast Right Wing, and now Left Wing, Conspiracy' that is trying to drag down this great Centrist leader. The second is they actually view the defects and incompetence you highlight as positives necessary for strong leadership and mostly admirable because they share most of HRC's militaristic, authoritarian and neoliberal positions.

    Ocean Kat exposed his status quo position when he claims Sanders' Public Health Care proposals would deny people their rights to private health insurance, which does not guarantee Health Care.


    Hal. your valiant attempts to inform HRC's followers of her many defects and incompetence aren't and won't work because you take for granted they share your ethical moral framework. used to decide who should lead.

    Peter, you're pitiful attempts at getting Hal back into our good graces are failing miserably.  PR is not your strong suit..


    Good graces?  Good grief.  I thought this site was about intelligent articulate people making serious arguments in good faith with a legitimate expectation of being taken seriously.  Not sure what good graces have to with any of that.


    And you think your psycho-babble post is an example of that. Surely you must be aware that your posts on this thread have now cemented your reputation as a fool.


    Isn't it ironic?  Firing "fool" in retort, Rodham rooter feigns outrage at allegedly insulting use of psychological explanation for observed offensive attacks at Sanders. 


    Your observations, Hal, are pathological, and you've no idea where it stops. You dont know the difference between opinion and fact, and then you whip out psychological discourse as if you can handle such a big machine. Stop before you hurt yourself.


    I made no claim that people have a right to private health insurance. I simply pointed out that they have employer based health insurance now, they would fight to keep it, and a promise of something better from the government would not placate them. That the majority of the population has employer based insurance now is an indisputable fact. That they would fight to keep in even in the face of a promise of something better is an opinion. Do you disagree?

    Your comment on my post is obviously false. Are you lying or do you have a reading comprehension problem?

     


    Thanks Peter (not verified).  Sadly, I fear you are right when you write off Clinton's cohort.  Of course one lives in hope.  But, I'm just trying to explain some of Hillary's helpers more laughable attacks on Bernie.


    The assumptions are: 1) Hillary's supporters are launching bogus attacks on Bernie in response to 2) legitimate criticism of her and her record.  

    Your opinion is that the attacks are bogus. My opinion is they are not. We've previously discussed what you consider bogus attacks without resolution. Those differences of opinion will not be resolved.

    a) he wants to take away people's healthcare

    I believe it's clear that Sanders wants to take away many, a majority, of people's healthcare. He intends to replace it with something he claims will be better. The majority of people have employer based healthcare they are happy or at least satisfied with. While pharmaceutical and insurance companies will fight single payer the greatest opposition to it will come from the people with employer based healthcare, about 70% of the population. They will fight any attempt to take it away from them even if they are promised "something better." You can attempt to make the case that what Sanders offers will be better. But I don't think you can make the case that he doesn't intend to take away the healthcare they presently have.

    b) he was against the auto bailout,

    As is common in congress Sanders was faced with a vote on a piece of legislation that contained items he supported and items he didn't. His only choice was to vote for both or to vote against both. After weighing the degree of good the legislation would do and the degree of harm he the felt it would do he decided to vote against both. He chose to vote against the auto bailout. You can attempt to make the case that the legislation was so flawed that voting against it was the best decision but I don't think you can deny that he voted against the auto bailout.

    I could go on. Your claims of bogus attacks are in error. We have a difference of opinion on each of  the points you bring up. But there is really no point in wasting my time re-discussing these issues. Our differences of opinion will not be resolved.


    From my trade link the other day

    Michael Moore's documentary film "Roger & Me," about the calamitous shutdown of General Motors plants in Flint, came out in 1989 -- more than four years before the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect and long before China exported much of anything. Detroit lost more than a third of its population between 1960 and 1990.

    The article goes on to note that automation, not offshoring, was the cause of most job losses, and that much of Detroit's labor was dispersed to non-union Southern states, not Mexico. [and the obviously greater volume of offshoring going to China instead of Mexico didn't get mentioned]. These are *factual* details that seldom get discussed at all. Instead it's "Clinton signed NAFTA, bad", full-stop except for exaggerated estimates of job losses over 20 years, including 15 years after Clinton left office.

    I'm getting way bored with sound-bite political gotcha - it makes Twitter look verbose.

    (my news item with Hillary's Wall Street transcript was at least he said-she said - Huffpost thought it was a way too soft message to Wall Street; I thought it a wake-up call in 2007 before the free-fall started - diplomatically the way Mom says, "I'll be watching you, better shape up, young man")

    So yeah, everything's a battle of opinions, and facts & the fine details aren't allowed much play. How did Bernie's health care plan read?

    PS - one of the defining points in 2008 was when Samantha Power called Hillary a "monster" - interesting to hear her described here as the most interventionist of Obama's cabinet - one of the deadliest claims against Hillary. Just as Joe Biden wrote the Crime Bill we're now debating endlessly but as party White Knight, his culpability is nowhere to be found. All these opinions like "tears in the rain" - seem urgent and impressive at the time, but tomorrow theyve disappeared, replaced by some other urgency of chosen perspective.


    Oh my... Oh my...

    A pseudo psychoanalyst spouting legalese?

    ~OGD~


    I claim the arguments of Clinton's supporters are so weak and unconvincing that those who make them - absent a financial interest in a Clinton victory - must be captive to a syndrome (not a crippling psychological condition) like cognitive dissonance.

     

    So, you are either accusing Clinton supporters of being "in the bag" for Clinton (as you accuse her of being for Wall Street on the basis of fees paid for speaking engagements), or have a psychological condition which makes them incapable of making a good judgment.  Only you know the truth.  Everyone else is either nuts or corrupt.

    I guess all this is OK.  I think it is because you say everything in the same tone as a former neurosurgeon...quietly, passively, and without passion.  

    OK.  Got it.  For the record, I humbly disagree.


    I think Clinton supporters are wrong pure and simple to believe she would be a better President than Bernie Sanders.  Likewise, I think global warming deniers are wrong.  I don't think most members of either group are necessarily deluded.  Deluded or delusional suggests temporary mania or a psychosis of some sort.  Lots of "normal" people get things terribly wrong all the time.  It's part of being human. 

    I used the term "cognitive dissonance" which seems to have upset a number of people here because I believe it explains me why many Clinton backers (here and elsewhere) were lashing out in anger at Sanders and his supporters.  Cognitive dissonance is a form of anxiety to which we are all prone. 

    As I've explained several times, Clinton supporters don't back her because of cognitive dissonance, they experience cognitive dissonance when confronted with the many examples of her dishonesty or acting in ways that are clearly contrary to the best interests of the American people.


    Bernie Sanders did nothing about the problems at the VA. Sanders protected the corporations embodied by gun manufactures. Sanders has no rational plan for single- payer health care and free college education.Until Sanders needed black votes, he ignored the black community. When the black community did not behave like Sanders' wished they would his surrogate, Cornel West, had the audacity to lash out the black community after Sanders lost South Carolina.

    http://www.salon.com/2016/02/29/cornel_west_lashes_out_at_civil_rights_i...

    We have seen nothing that insures us that Sanders is capable of doing anything. 

    That is why people are "attacking" Sanders.


    I think your analysis is incorrect.  We can argue until the cows come home but the simple fact is blacks have lost economic ground to whites and the poor have lost economic ground to the rich during the two most recent Democratic administrations.  See here and here.  I believe it's time to move away from the neo-liberalism that has characterized their economic policies.

    Regarding Dr. West's anger at South Carolinians who backed Clinton, that strikes me as an excellent example of cognitive dissonance.  West believed Palmetto State residents would perceive, as he does, that Sanders would be a better President for them.  When they rejected his candidate and thereby his belief that they would see things his way, he apparently became anxious, stressed out, and angry.


    Your first link is to Harris-Perry noting that blacks believed that they were doing better economically than blacks Black have always had numbers that were at best 66% worse than whites. The beliefs of doing better than whites was unfounded BUT blacks do better under Democrats than under Republicans. The link below addresses racial dynamics as well as economic impact.

    http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/republican-policies-dont-he...

    Stagnation in the economy in the black community tends to worsen historically when Democratic Presidents are coupled with a Republican Congress.

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/democra...

    The "terrible" state of the black economy under Obama is due to the chronically high black unemployment rate and the slow recovery from a Republican created recession. The rate of improvement in unemployment after the peak of the unemployment curve is similar for whites, blacks, and Latinos

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/02/06/the-group-that...

    History says that Democrats are good for black economics, but the combination of a Demoratic President and a Republican Congress can be disastrous. What does Bernie Sanders bring to the table that changes this history?


    How about looking at the actual black unemployment rate of 8.8% rather than a made-up number from a partisan? And compare the peak black unemployment from the shitpile Bush left Obama and not from the better Bush years? I hear Lehman Brothers is a sound investment and blacks were doing grand under Hoover in May 1929.

    http://www.npr.org/2016/02/05/465748249/african-americans-face-uncertain...

    Ditto forthe Clinton years - black poverty down, black jobs and home ownership up. Pull the other one now.


    Let us assume that the black middle class has totally abandoned the poor. Let us imagine this despite the housing crisis that decimated the black middle class. Does Bernie Sanders offer any viable solutions. The answer to that question is no. He actually tells us that he cannot accomplish much of his desires without a transformation of the membership of Congress. Additionally, Sanders is blind to the issue of institutional racism.

    Since Bernie is not the answer and Bernie surrogates like Cornel West feel that the black middle class is lost, does West have any solutions. Aside from cool hip- hop ver age, West has created nothing, therefor he has no solutions.

    Who seems to have a solution to the problems. So far, one would have to look at Black Lives Matter. BLM got Sanders to briefly focus on race. They protested the death of Michael Brown. In the end the leadership in Ferguson changed and the practice of the black community in Ferguson being an ATM for the local judicial system diminished. BLM protested the death of Tamir Rice and the Prosecutor who failed to bring charges was defeated at election time. BLM protested the shooting of Laquan McDonald and the prosecutor who waited over 400 days and only after a video she tried to suppress was released to file charges lost her reelection bid. It seems that the scores is Sanders 0 and BLM 3.


    On balance, it seems to me that radical African-American activists, including ones associated with Black Lives Matter, have chosen Bernie or at least said they will vote for him over Clinton.  These include but are obviously not limited to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nina Turner, and BLM activists Shaun King and Erica Garner. 

    Clinton had a BLM activist - Ashley Williams - escorted out of a fundraiser in Charleston, SC.  Ms. Williams was questioning Clinton's support for the '94 crime bill and her use of the term "super predators" who have to be brought "to heel" in defense of the bill.  After Williams was evicted, Clinton said "back to the issues I think are important." 

    On the other hand, Sanders has called for Rahm Emanuel who covered up Laquan McDonald's murder to step down.  As you know, Emanuel has close ties to Clinton. 


    Hillary Clinton has the mothers of Eric Garner and Jordan Davis. She has John Lewis who Cornel West criticizes. Coates said he was voting for, but not endorsing Sanders.

    Sanders is the only one running who voted for the crime bill. Sanders is the only one running who voted to protect gun manufacturers from law suits.

    Sanders record of legislative accomplishments is equivalent to Cornel West's accomplishments in Civil Rights.

    The voters in Chicago took care of the prosecutor.The voters will take care of Rahm.

    What do you think of Sanders' lax behavior regarding the VA scandal?


    rmrd - what  I don't appreciate about our frequent colloquies is that you seem utterly dismissive of my points.

    You praised BLM and black activists.  I noted several who support Sanders.  You ignored that point.

    I noted that Clinton was dismissive of Ashley Williams's concerns.  You ignored that point.

    You repeatedly invoke Sanders' vote for the '94 Omnibus Crime bill but you ignore the reasons that I have repeatedly set out for believing Clinton's support for it was far worse.  Moreover, you have ignored the fact that Clinton supported and campaigned for the bill and did refer to young African-Americans as "superpredators" who have to be brought "to heel".

    I have always acknowledged that Sanders is weak on guns.

    You ignore my point that it is Clinton who is close to Rahm Emanuel.

    After arguing for some time, you finally acknowledged I was right when I said Bill Clinton locked up more blacks than any other President.  Since then, you've completely ignored that point.

    Sanders dithered for a couple of weeks when it came to the VA scandal.  Here's what Dr. Sam Foote had to say about Bernie's reaction when stories first came out about problems in the VA:

    “Bernie initially came out like this was a Republican attack and was extremely defensive about it,” said Dr. Sam Foote, one of the primary whistle-blowers who revealed the delays at the veterans hospital in Phoenix. He said Mr. Sanders’s “impulse is to stick up for the little guy — and the V.A. serves a lot of little guys.”

    “But he is no dummy,” Dr. Foote said. “He quickly realized the V.A. was lying, and he turned right around and was all over them.”

    Not great but understandable.  No implication that he acted in a corrupt fashion or was covering for political allies.  He must be doing something right for our veterans since the VFW voted him Congressional representative of the year in 2015.

    Okay, I answered your question.  Here are 5 for you.  How do you feel about:

    1) The way Clinton treated Ashley Williams last month at her South Carolina fundraiser?

    2) Clinton's call for a 'no-fly' zone over Syria?

    3) Clinton's aggressive push for regime change in Libya?

    4) Clinton's contention that "hard-working" "white" voters won't support Barack Obama in 2008?

    5) Clinton's use of the "dog-whistle" phrases "super predators" who have to be brought "to heel" when defending the '94 crime bill in 96?


    Hal, in 1991 for blacks male and female 15-24, homicide was the leading cause of death. There were over 5 million assaults and over 100,000 rapes. Why are you worried about calling the criminals "predators"? Does it bother you to call bullies at Trump rallies "predators"? If not, why the pass for murderers and rapists? What would you have done about high crime in the 90s aside from piss and moan?

    You noted 2 BLM members and you wouldnt know any if they werent supporting Bernie. 1 is ostracized from his community for mismanging charity funds. Bad start.There are hundreds or thousands of BLM members, and they chose not to endorse anyone to stay focused on their mission, yet you keep trying to steal their endorsement by default. Isnt that wrong?


    I noted that BLM has not endorsed Sanders, You continue to try to connect individuals to the official stance of the organization.

    http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/9/we_endorse_no_one_black_lives

    Five women connected to BLM campaigned for Hillary in SC. I didn't mention it because BLM is not endorsing anyone.

    http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/22/five-women-from-b...

    Regarding Ashley Wiliams, black people were aware of the protest and voted for Hillary overwhelmingly. I dismissed the protest just like other black people dismissed the protest. Ms. Williams was fortunate that she confronted Hillary and not Michelle Obama who would have pointed out to. Ms. Williams that she (Michelle) had the Mike. A CodePink activist learned that lesson first hand.

    http://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/06/10/first-lady-heckled-defend-codep...


    Regarding your obsession will Bill Clinton, Obama has more people in federal prison the an Bill. The number is decreasing under Holder and Lynch.

    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/feb/23/eric-hold...

    Bill Clinton is not running for President in 2016


    rmrd - I hope you can understand how this response and your previous one are so frustrating.  I asked you how you felt about Clinton's treatment of BLM activist Ashley Williams in light of your admiration of the organization.  You responded by telling me that most South Carolinians voted for her and Michelle Obama wouldn't have stood for that nonsense.  That strikes me as a very strange response from somebody who extols BLM and repeatedly attacks Bernie for not speaking directly to the black community.  Did Hillary speak directly to the black community on that occasion?  Has she ever adequately explained/apologized for her use of coded racist language in 1996 in your opinion?

    Here you claim I have an obsession with Bill Clinton.  I have no such obsession.  I criticized Hillary's support for the '94 Omnibus Crime Bill on the ground that, among other things, it resulted in more blacks being incarcerated during Bill Clinton's Presidency than during any other Presidency in history.  You responded repeatedly that Clinton was not the greatest incarcerator in American history until I set out the actual numbers. 

    The number of incarcerated African-Americans now is higher than when Clinton was President but the biggest rise in population was when Clinton was in office. If you want to criticize Obama for being too quick to lock people up, I won't argue.  But my point is the '94 bill and specifically the 3 strikes and you're out provision and mandatory sentencing requirements led to the greatest inmate population increase in American history and Hillary (not Bernie) specifically praised those provisions in 1996.

    Regarding the five BLM mothers who campaigned for Clinton, I agree that their support is very meaningful.  It also highlights the generational divide as Gwen Carr is the mom of Eric Garner's daughter Erica who supports Sanders.  But the BLM mothers are not the front-line activists who shut down Trump's rally in Chicago and who were chanting "Bernie! Bernie!" while doing so.  They are the activists I thought you found especially impressive.

    I note you ignore Clinton's use of racially charged language in 2008, her disastrous support for regime change, and her call for a "no-fly" zone over Syria.  But frankly, it really doesn't matter.  We just see history very very differently.

     


    It is frustrating because you make it so. I told you how I felt about the treatment of Ashley Williams. She protested and she was escorted out. Did you think that Clinton would allow her to take over. Did Sanders engage with BLM on the podium or did he stand aside? Sanders did not have a dialog with BLM at Netroots Nation or in Seattle. You set a double standard for Hillary. 


    Bernie absolutely tried to engage with the two young women who actually did take over in Seattle.  He reached out to them and tried to have a discussion but they shouted him down.  The video is right here.  He backed off.  Clinton barely engaged with Ms. Williams and demeaned her concerns by saying they weren't important to her.  Also Ashley Williams was far less disruptive and rude than Marissa Johnson and Mara Jacqueline Willaford were in Seattle.  Williams tried to have a dialogue with Clinton.  Hillary shut her down.  Sanders tried to dialogue with Johnson and Willaford.  They shut him down.


    Details. 

    Image result for details


    Remember Sanders at Netroots Nation?


    At Netroots,  Sanders was an invited guest and speaking about a matter of direct relevance to BLM's concerns,  i.e., the importance of preserving net neutrality as a way of limiting the power of the 1%. The host wanted him to continue to discuss net neutrality. He indicated he would step off the podium and the moderator said no we want to hear you. Clinton, by contrast, was curt and dismissive at her own fund raiser where she set the agenda and had the ability to discuss matters of importance to her. The circumstances are not comparable.  Finally, are you personally satisfied with the explanation Clinton has offered for the language she used in 1996 that Ashley Williams asked her about. How about what she said about Obama's inability to get votes from hard working white Americans? Are you good with that?


    I provided the Salon article to show how Sanders behavior was interpreted at the time.

    You repeatedly ask the same question about Hillary's language in 1994. I repeatedly said that I don't care. The context of the comments was provided to you. The context does not seem to penetrate. I don't care about her comments in 1994. What I care about is making a decision on who the 2016 candidate will be so that the focus can be on raising funds for Congressional candidates.

    i don't care about 1994. I do care the Bernie Sanders talked about a Primary challenge to Barack Obama in 2012. 

    Regarding Black Lives Matter, blacks appreciate their role in getting two prosecutors ousted. Blacks will not follow in lockstep when some people who use connections with Black Lives Matter to support Bernie Sanders. Blacks appreciate the word-craft of Ta-Nehisi Coates, the movies of Spike Lee, and the activism of Danny Glover. They appreciate the activism of Harry Belafonte, but are more in tune with John Lewis. The majority of blacks favor Hillary Clinton.

    Why should I trust the man who wanted Obama challenged, running the risk of the Democrats loosing the 2012 Presidential election? That suggestion was poor judgment and arrogance.


    We've been through this over and over.  I'm glad you clarified that you don't care about Clinton's racially charged remarks and coded language in 1996 and 2008.  To me, those are more problematic than Bernie Sanders' 2012 concerns over President Obama willingness to cut social security payments to American seniors and cut ever more "free" trade deals that have cost Americans millions of jobs.  We have different priorities.


    It's nice of you to hold a grudge for blackness that even most blacks don't hold.

    You *are* the civil rights pioneer. Go gettum, tiger. #WhiteLiesMatter


    Yes, my priority like the majority of people voting in the Primaries is to select the best candidate.Hillary is winning.

    Black Democrats are overwhelmingly selecting Hillary because they know she didn't vote for the crime bill and that the 2008 campaign was bare knuckles. It should be telling that John Lewis, James Clyburn, etc selected Hillary. Why do you object to their priorities?


    I can't speak for Lewis, Clyburn, et al.  My guess is that by now, they are insiders or feel like insides and they, like most insiders, are inclined to support another insider.  Regardless, I am confident for all the reasons I've set out that Sanders would be better for all Americans.  I also am far from certain Clinton would be stronger in the general election.  Folks argued in 2008 Clinton was more electable.  They were probably wrong. Finally, I am surprised to see you invoke yet again the '94 crime bill which Hillary championed. 

    Earlier today, you wrote you don't care what Hillary said in 1996 and in 2008.  Yet you now refer to Sanders' vote for Clinton's '94 Omnibus crime bill as a reason to support Hillary.  I've repeatedly explained why I believe his vote in '94 isn't as bad as her campaigning on behalf of the bill.  But you of course disagree.  In any case, If Sanders' vote for the 1994 bill is a reason to support Clinton, why aren't her support for the bill and her use of racially charged and coded language reasons to oppose her?


    Marissa Johnson's own account of what happened and her displeasure of being used by Killer Mike and other Bernie supporters, 

    http://thisweekinblackness.com/blackness-tv/blm-activist-challenges-kill...


    In the face of inappropriate aggression, Bernie was calm and mature.  In the face of a just peaceful protest, Hillary was petulant and dismissive.


    Bernie got confronted about a major problem for blacks in 2015.

    Hillary got confronted by a gotcha question over a possibly inappropriate word from a raging societal epidemic 20 years ago.

    Blacks are being killed and abused every day - I don't know where you get off calling it "inappropriate aggression" - if they hadn't been aggressive, their issue likely would have never gotten airtime in Campaign 2016.

    Your "peaceful protest" is roughly equivalent to complaining that someone cursed while working a flood. 20 years ago. [gratuitous ad hominem removed by gratuitous author]

     


    PP, You. Know. The. Fucking. Rules.

    ToS warning


    Assuming that the usage ( super predator, bring to heel, etc) is at least arguably illustrative of her history of ideological opportunism, and if opportunism is a character flaw of which she is frequently accused, where is the statute of limitations to be found excluding from admissible evidence this instance of her historically odious positons and rhetoric?


    Based on the way she is shellacking Bernie in the black community, I'm assuming the statute has passed. Bernie's problem, the problem that you keep ignoring, is that he did not consider the black community important enough to listen to what was being said. He ignored concerns about racism and told them that economics was the only issue. Race would take care of itself. Sanders was tone deaf. Bernie led black voters into Hillary's camp.

    Neither Bernie, or many of his surrogates, understand why they don't connect with the black community. This is evidenced by the large margins Hillary has in the black vote. Instead of looking inward at the workings of the Sanders campaign, surrogates like Cornel West attack the black community. Predictably, this goes over as well as Omarosa saying protestors at Trump rallies that they get what they deserve. 


    Dude, over 20,000 murders a year, 5 million violent assaults, and you're worried about someone saying "predator"?

    Plus back then, "Predator" was a fairly recent movie by Arnold Schwarzenegger - might as well say she was anti-Austrian,justifiably so it turns out.


    Cute, inapposite.  Sad.  PP, keep dayjob, standup not for you.  Your friend, r

    @real you-kmow-who


    At Netroots Nation,, Bernie was dismissive of the concerns of Black Lives Matter

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiNy6UA7zY

    ​He wanted to discuss his issues.

    Salon reported on his dismissive attitude 

    http://www.salon.com/2015/07/20/bernie_sanders%E2%80%99_big_test_can_he_...


    Here's an easy one, Hal - "Bernie Sanders‘ campaign manager Jeff Weaver confirmed the Senator voted for the bill 20 years ago to support domestic violence provisions for women. The candidate has now spoken out against it."

    So does this mean Bernie now supports domestic violence against women, or which provisions of the crime bill is he abandoning and what's he doing/done to replace it?

    Is Bernie unhappy about the decrease in black-on-black murder among other significant crime-lowering outcomes, black and white, or is he simply sorry the word "predator" was used so he's taking his ball and going home?


    Hal, the black community seems to not like Shaun King, for justifiable reasons. Perhaps just drop him already? Nina Turner's also a nobody who only got to state office when appointed or unopposed. Hardly a big hitter.

    Hiilary spent a lot of time talking to and listening to the black community, and they favored her over Bernie. A black protester playing gotcha with a word taken out of context from 20 years ago hardly trumps months and years of effort. But since you dont have guns or religion, you gotta cling to something.

    #FeelTheBernOut


    I used the term "cognitive dissonance" which seems to have upset a number of people

    You misunderstand. As you have said you're not a psychologist so we have a small disagreement with your analysis. Psychological analysis of liberals has a long tradition on Fox news including experts on body language analyzing Obama's demeanor and movements during speeches. That type of analysis has been sorely absent here, until your arrival. You're to be commended for broadening our horizons by bringing this Fox news tradition to Dagblog and using it to inform our understanding of Hillary's supporters.

    I too have engaged in some private psychoanalysis of Sanders and his supporters that your fine example has inspired me to share. As I watched Sanders waving his hands in the debate, often invading Hillary's space, body language analysis suggests an unconscious desire to slap Hillary across the face.

    Given the fact that Hillary is by far the superior candidate one must wonder why so many men support Sanders. Perhaps male supporters of Sanders subliminally detect Sanders unconscious violent tendencies toward women and that appeals to them on an unconscious level.

    Nothing insulting here Hal. Just a psychological analysis that only applies to some, perhaps a majority, maybe the vast majority, of male Sanders supporters. Since it is an obvious fact that Hillary is the best candidate I'm simply trying to come up with some rational explanation why men who support Sanders ignore that fact.

    Again Hal, I want to thank you for bringing traditional Fox news analysis to Dagblog. Before you arrived to share your views no one here ever engaged in such psychological analysis. You have really elevated the discussion here.


    Speaking of body language, Sanders' finger-wagging speaks volumes.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/02/12/bernie-san...


    "Since it is an obvious fact that Hillary is the best candidate . . . "  Good one!


    Thanks, I learned that from you. I used to think there was a difference between fact and opinion but you helped me redefine "fact." Another one of the useful changes you've brought to dagblog.


    Ocean Kat, you have achieved greatness here.  Not, of course, due to your own analysis, but for finally rising to the apogee of objectivity that Hal has demonstrated by example to all of us.  His use of FOX - originated psychobabble went over my head because I don't watch it.

     But since he asks us all to trust him with his assessments of H. Clinton supporters' mental deficiencies, I will trust you on this one.  

    Bottom line:  We should all be sad that Hillary (or Shillary, as I have also seen ON THIS VERY SITE) has:  told millions of lies, is guilty of decisions HER HUSBAND MADE (even in the context of the time); does not deserve to be listened to as to why she voted as she did (nor listened to her reasoning as to:  a) the Iraq War, b) bankruptcy, etc, etc, etc

    Yeah.  It is pretty obvious.  You have nailed it.  Hal is a genius (at least in framing his stuff in passive-aggressive ways). Oh, well.  What works, works. 

    Note to Hal!  My admiration knows no bounds.  


    Ignoring the snark and sarcasm (which I guess is redundant since snark = snide+sarcastic), straw men and bogus arguments abound.

    Nobody here has 1) accused Hillary of telling "millions of lies", 2) claimed she does not deserve to be listened to, or 3) blamed her for Bill's mistakes unless she indicated support for them either at the time or subsequently.

    What some, including me, have done is 1) identify a number of specific falsehoods that she has told and argued that they reflect an inherent dishonesty unbecoming in a President or Presidential candidate, 2) question the legitimacy of various excuses and explanations she has made for her  "mistakes", and 3) note where Hillary endorsed or failed to renounce Bill's bad decisions


    Apparently for Sanders supporters the only answer is OMG you're right shillery is " this loser bitch, this whore." Anything else is an attack on them and evidence that we are mentally unstable. /shrug

    And yes, fox regularly has psychologists on to analyze liberals and Obama's body language and what it means. It's similar to the psychobabble Hal posted here. I don't watch fox but RCP has videos of it occasionally on their site.


    Apparently my potty mouth makes me unreadable, so that countering an exaggerated 14 or 16% black unemployment rate with the actual 8.8% draws 0 response. But then the fanboi whines to others, "why wont you answer my question?" Because it's always classic "do you still beat your wife?" Or "accepting that my opinion is the right one, how do you feel about X" kind of stuff.

    But comparing Obama's performance with Bush's pre-meltdown is more absurdity than I ever expected. "Here, hold on to this plate of steaming dogshit - dinner's at 8. Make sure you dont stink, and maybe you could wear something a bit classier, all the hoi polloi will be there". I've certainly criticized Obama before, but I never dismissed the horrible crisis he inherited. But apparently Bernie would have restored Clinton-era emplyment first year, along with single payer universal health care and free education. That Obama, he's such a slacker. Hell, Bush even paints when he's not destroying the economy or invading countries or letting Katrina sink the Big Easy in the deep. Cool Hand Luke. 


    Misspoken vs. Mistaken

    At Nancy Reagan's funeral Hillary invented a false narrative.  She credited the Reagans with exactly the opposite history vis-à-vis the AIDS epidemic than the truth.

     

    This she then characterized as "misspeaking"

     

    What she did was what we call, technically, bullshitting.

     

    Its just her style, yo'.


    There must be some psychological explanation for a persistent disregard of inconveniently veridical facts.

     

    .  Hal, step up to the plate here.


    She just can't stop lying, even when she doesn't have to...


    Just chalk it down to diarrhea of the mouth like you have - no harm, no foul, eh?


    Maybe, but where I suffer from excessive candor....

     

    The harm to me? Embarrassment.  To her? A well deserved deficit in public trust.  Not to put to fine a point on it, I aspire to no elective office.


    Thanks fer askin' JR.  Hillary's major gaffe resulted from two things I believe:

    1) She's so far inside the establishment bubble she truly can't see the harm another insider caused.

    2) She really isn't that smart.  I know people will recoil in horror that I could say this but she makes so many unforced errors, it's hard to come up with another explanation.  She is a great crammer of facts but she fails repeatedly at analysis.


    As a peripheral puzzlement, albeit she appears to have no shame when tripped up by these "gaffes" ( and you are to be lauded ,no doubt, for exceptional restraint  in so charitably characterizing them...) do her adherents here present,( Mona, PP et al. I'm talkin' to YOU) have any promptings of shame on her behalf?


    No shame at all. 

    When caught lying about landing in Sarajevo under sniper fire:

    "I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said.

    When she finally admitted error in voting for Iraq invasion:

    "I've been very clear that I made a mistake, plain and simple and I have written about it in my book, talked about it in the past."  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hillary-clinton-iraq-war-made-182928831.html

    Regarding the 1994 Crime bill:

    "There were some aspects of it that worked well, the Violence Against Women provisions have worked well, for example," Clinton told CNN's Don Lemon during the [March 2016] debate, according to ThinkProgress. "But other aspects of it were a mistake and I agree."

    Regarding her improper use of a private email server while Sec'y of State:

    “That was a mistake.  I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility.”  http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/08/hillary-clinton-apologize...

    If she showed shame, she would acknowledge the damage the mistaken policies and decisions she supported caused. 

    To be fair, most politicians aren't real good at taking responsibility for their screw ups.  Much as I prefer Bernie, he hasn't been forthright in admitting he was wrong to vote against the Brady Bill and to immunize gun manufacturers from lawsuits.

     


    There is an interesting pattern of perceived grievance at being caught lying that emerges from the aggregation that you cite.

     

    Its sort of mirrored by Mona's catalog of frustrations on what I suppose has become a " companion thread"


    Cognitive dissonance writ large in both cases.


    One might imagine Pinocchio turning down an offer of a free  nose job on the grounds it was unneeded


    Most people try, sometimes struggle, to say something nice about the dead, especially on the day of their funeral. This is not something you are likely to understand as your response in this type of situation would likely be, "I'm glad the bitch is dead."

    Hillary's work in the gay community on AIDS and other issues is well known and she's been repeatedly honored for it. So no, this trivial gaff doesn't bother me.

    Did a quick search to find a link for you.

    Elton John honored Hillary Rodham Clinton for her work to help those affected by HIV and AIDS at an annual event for his foundation.

    John added that he was touched by Clinton's speech in Geneva, when she declared that "gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights."

    John told The Associated Press before the event that he hopes Clinton runs for president in 2016.

    "She's a great human rights campaigner for people of color, for people of sexual orientation," he said. "She's made our fight easier by being such a staunch supporter of AIDS and for people's human rights."


    I'm all for the effusive eulogy, but why not focus on Nancy's special gifts. No need to embellish!


    And, yes, I AM glad the bitch is dead, since you mention it.

     

    And I'm glad her piece of shit husband died with no recollection of having been President . Poetic justice!

     

    Call me pisher. 


    Wonkette addresses fateful speech, seeks finaluty. And Likes.

    http://wonkette.com/599607/hillary-clinton-sorry-she-tried-to-say-nice-t...


    I find it hilarious that you keep trying to pull some sense of shame from me because I'm supporting Hillary.  I told you, I'm a pragmatist. I look at Hillary and I see a toughness not evident in any other candidate, and damn if she isn't a girl!  Icing on the cake!

    I'm not ashamed, I'm energized.  So leave me out of it.  You're wasting your breath.


    I agree with Tom Hartmann on this.  She needs to fire Mook and Brock.  She does seem to not have much sense when it comes to campaigning. Their dirty tricks mentality word smithing is getting her into trouble. It all comes down to bad judgment on her part. 

    The Cuban reference made by Sanders back in the mid 1980's bounced like a dead cat here in South Florida when it was brought up in the debate. They are concerned more with what is happening in Central America right now. Sec. Clinton has a poor track record on that. The majority would also like to have a open relationship with Cuba. He did what he needed to do in that debate and earned that standing ovation from Florida Hispanic community. 


    Of course, she's been losing 24x7 for 9 months now, everyone on her team should quit it's such a lost cause. I mean, she lost Michigan by 1 1/2% - enough's enough, we can't be fooled.


    If you're in the tank for Hillary that's how you'd spin it. Sure Hillary got 71% of the vote in Louisiana to Sanders 21%. A partisan hack like you will spin that as a win for Hillary of 50%. But she was expected to get 75% so it's pretty clear she lost by 4%.

    With failures like that it's time for her to fire her team and start over.


    That's just because it's in the south where there are racist whites and blacks still suffering Stockholm Syndrome, as the 83-16 shellacking in Mississippi shows. And her Southern strategy is finished, except for Florida and North Carolina, and they hardly count.


    And, lo, there was a great murmuring across the land, and the people said " wherefore are we to chafe under this loser bitch, this whore of Babylon, who cannot even shoot it straight, whose arrow, Selah!, fails of its target by one--nay, one and one half points!  And a cry went up, as if a great beast were in the throes of death, and from the cry emerged the single word, INDICT!....INDICT!

     

    Here endeth the lesson.

     

    Just a word from Jehovah for your seventist sabbath enjoyment.


    Here endeth what lesson?

    you have obviously learned the lesson of writing many posts to yourself after you put up a blog.  Hey!  It makes it look like there is a ton of interest!  Hey!  It works!

     



    Great to have you rooting for Bill O'Reilly. remember, the means justifies the ends.


    Au contraire, Mon Frere..I'm rooting for an early vs late indictment.  Before convention, so we can rescue the election from the pugs.


    Let her spend more time with her family in her declining years...


    Clearly too much time watching The Sopranos or Goodfellas or both.


    Needless to say, the topics above have been dramatically embellished by the release of the FBI investigation notes.

     

    I do think, though, that I have been unfair.

     

    Hillary is stuck in the  reality of the immediate aftermath of her (really rather stellar) law school (that was Yale, law school, btw, jus' sayin') when she was simultaneously a public defender in Fayetteville, Ark and the woman who Bill Clinton was just getting tired of fucking.

     

    It makes you guarded and a little bitter.

     

    But not loathesome.

     

    http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/dear-hillary-you-talk-lawyer-only-compli...

     


    How do you know Bill CLinton was getting tired of fucking her, Mr. Blogland Shrink? Seems you never tired of fucking, if your shingle is accurate, and they were fucking at least up to mid-1979 based on Chelsea's resemblance of her father, and I imagine like most new mothers she was plenty busy and entertained afterwards. Maybe Bill was like Frank in Blue Velvet exhorting "I'll fuck anything that moves".

    But why do you care? Are you guarded and bitter too behind that pirate demeanor? Is that a fake beard?


    Oh, Peracles, PLEASE!

     

    Because he gets tired of fucking any and every woman he fucks.  He is not just as doggish as your average man, he is an exceedingly shallow dog.

     

    Are you gonna fight it out on this terrain, that I am to be thought excessively pessimistic in my estimate of Bill Clinton's continued concupiscence?  Pshaw!


    Over 45 years we know of 1 sexual encounter with Gennifer Flowers (fucking? just a BJ? in any case, not 12 years) and a series of blowjobs over a couple of weeks in the White House. Everything else is pretty vague and disputable, despite the lawsuits and independent prosecutors, and it seems pretty likely that he didn't spend the night with anyone - sad for the most powerful man on earth, no? Compare that to 3 successive French Presidents.

    And compare Bill's continued(?) "concupiscence" with presidents who had long-term mistresses/gay lovers, fathered multiple children with slaves, et al - http://www.rantpolitical.com/2014/11/12/15-presidents-who-were-rumored-t... - FDR, LBJ, JFK, Woodrow Wilson for our Democratic heroes, Honest (but switch-hitting) Abe, Warren Harding, Reagan, George Herbert Bush & likely Eisenhower on the Republican side - all much less discreet than the Lewinsky affair, but covered up nicely by the press and no right wing lawsuits to hound and out any of these characters. (considering the effort to cover up W's AWOL for the Guard, no telling what's there)

    And compared to modern politicians like Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, et al,, along with newscasters like Ailes and O'Reilly, Clinton's a saint. John Kerry, ever the good Catholic, had his marriage annulled after 18 years & 2 kids, and then married a rich heiress.

    Really, you just have Clinton on the brain. Perhaps time to seek help.


    I missed your reply when fresh, yet intervening events appear to have made more salient (if still irrelevant) the ebbs and flows of blood in Bill's dick.

     

    More germane to our discussion here, I used "continued concupiscence" as a reference to his continued sexual interest specifically in HRC, which, as you will note, both by inexorable laws of human nature (of general application) and by historical inevitability (of specific application to Bill Clinton), when the algorithm of elapsed time from onset of interest (that library walk at Yale, I believe...) is introduced into the analysis, I posit to be have been in rapid disappearance.

     

    Now, serendipitously, as it were, Deadbeat Donald proposes to invite us to walk a way with him down memory lane...


     I imagine like most new mothers she was plenty busy and entertained afterwards. 

    More Diogenes than Peracles, you may have inadvertantly stumbled on the truth, and if you will pause for a moment's thought you well may agree that it cuts in my direction, unless, that is, you are incapable of a microgram (see what I did there?)  of empathy for Hillary's phenomenology>


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