Not Just The Same (Part One)

In this year's presidential election, a theme is emerging which is an out and out lie. The media is playing it up but its origins are sadly with American citizens. One need only look at social media for it and it won't take very long to find it. Somehow, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are being lumped together as being equally disliked and deeply flawed. I find this to be completely erroneous on a number of levels. Starting today, I'm going to be highlighting the stark differences between the two candidates and with each segment, I'll focus on a particular theme.

Let's begin with the issue of race. How does a guy who has the total support of white supremacists even get put in the same ballpark as Hillary Clinton?

“The discussion that white Americans never want to have is this question of identity — who are we?” said Richard Spencer, 38, a writer and activist whose Montana-based nonprofit is dedicated to “the heritage, identity and future of people of European descent” in the United States. “He is bringing identity politics for white people into the public sphere in a way no one has.” 

Mr. Spencer, a popular figure in the white nationalist world, said he did not believe that Mr. Trump subscribed to his entire worldview. But he was struck that Mr. Trump seemed to understand and echo many of his group’s ideas intuitively, and take them to a broader audience. “I don’t think he has thought through this issue in a way that I and a number of people have,” Mr. Spencer said. “I think he is reacting to the feeling that he has lost his country.”

And...

In June 2015, two weeks after Mr. Trump entered the presidential race, he received an endorsement that would end most campaigns: The Daily Stormer embraced his candidacy. Founded in 2013 by a 32-year-old neo-Nazi named Andrew Anglin, The Daily Stormer is among the most prominent online gathering places for white nationalists and anti-Semites, with sections devoted to “The Jewish Problem” and “Race War.” Mr. Anglin explained that although he had some disagreements with him, Mr. Trump was the only candidate willing to speak the truth about Mexicans. “Trump is willing to say what most Americans think: It’s time to deport these people,” Mr. Anglin wrote. “He is also willing to call them out as criminal rapists, murderers and drug dealers.”

And...

This year, for the first time in decades, overt white nationalism re-entered national politics. In Iowa, a new “super PAC” paid for pro-Trump robocalls featuring Jared Taylor, a self-described race realist, and William Johnson, a white nationalist and the chairman of the American Freedom Party. (“We don’t need Muslims,” Mr. Taylor urged recipients of the calls. “We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.”) David Duke, the Louisiana lawmaker turned anti-Semitic radio host, encouraged listeners to vote for Mr. Trump.

And...

Mr. Taylor, who has written that blacks “left entirely to their own devices” are incapable of civilization, and whose magazine, American Renaissance, once published an essay arguing that blacks were genetically more prone to crime, wrote on his blog that Mr. Trump had handled the attacks on him “in the nicest way.” Like others in his world, Mr. Taylor does not know if Mr. Trump agrees with him on everything. In an interview, he suggested that it did not really matter, and that Mr. Trump was expressing the discomfort many white people felt about other races. 

“Ordinary white people don’t want the neighborhood to turn Mexican,” Mr. Taylor said, adding, “They just realize that large numbers of Mexicans will change the neighborhood in ways they don’t like.”

Trump gets this sort of support because he calls Mexicans rapists, wants to ban Muslims from entering the US and likes to say things like this...



Contrast this with Hillary Clinton..



Given this clear distinction on race, Hillary Clinton is not "just the same" as Trump.

Good Words (2016 Election Edition)

"Right now, the G.O.P. is not a healthy center-right party. It is a mishmash of religious conservatives; angry white males who fear they are becoming a minority in their own country and hate trade; gun-control opponents; pro-lifers; anti-regulation and free-market small-business owners; and pro- and anti-free trade entrepreneurs."

---Thomas Friedman, in his recent Op-Ed, "The (G.O.P) Party's Over."

I am completely with him in terms of the sentiment of the whole column. Hillary Clinton can't merely win. She has to crush him with the Democrats taking back both the Senate and the House. The latter will likely not happen given the reality of congressional districts but even a shift to put the Dems over 200 in the House would be symbolically significant.

The anger, hate filled mouth foamers that are afraid of their own shadow (aka the Trump voter) need to be sent a message. Fuck your guns, bigotry, racism, ignorance of science and economics, and desire to return to the Antebellum South.

We are moving on without you.

Hillary Email A Go Go

Here's a great list which summarizes FBI director James Comey's fact based, unbiased and emotion free testimony today regarding Hillary Clinton's email server (currently more important to conservatives than police shooting black people on a regular basis, Americans shooting people at an annual rate of 30K a year, ISIL, education, climate change, poverty, college debt, racism and inequality)

Here are my conclusions based on these facts:
1. Hillary Clinton made a mistake using a home email server
2. She went against State Department policy
3. She was careless with government information some of which was sensitive or classified
4. The emails were not properly classified by the State Department indicating a much larger problem beyond Hillary Clinton.
5. There wasn't enough evidence of criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt to pursue this case. Previous cases that have been mentioned had obvious criminal intent.
6. Hillary Clinton did not lie to the FBI.

Anything beyond this moves out of the realm of facts and evidence and into the realm of politics. I honestly don't fault her that much for making this mistake. Clearly, she would have done things differently if she could go back but it makes sense to me that you'd want to keep as much of your dealings private when you have an army of assholes out there ready to give you a colonoscopy over any little thing they can find.

Obviously, this will never be over because Republicans, as usual, have nothing else to run on. They can't actually tackle the real problems we face today because their solutions (the ones they have to keep beating over our heads because of their angry and hateful base) haven't worked and never will. I'm betting the a majority of the US voters don't care either and the GOP's continued mouth foaming about this will end up hurting them in the fall...along with their nominee:)

Five Undisputed Facts About Clinton's Emails

From The Hill...

First, the former secretary of State did nothing illegal by having a private email system. The department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) pointed to “policies” that were violated but cited no laws that were violated and said these policies were inconsistently applied and need to be further clarified in the future. 

Second, Clinton was not trying to hide her use of her own private email address. In fact, 90 percent of all the emails she sent went to State Department employees with a state.gov email address, which she thought, mistakenly, would be automatically preserved on the department’s email server. How could she be seeking to hide her use of a private email address if she sent her private email to so many people at State? 

Third, no email received or sent by Clinton was labeled at any level of classification. Multiple references in the media and in the right-wing blogosphere to Clinton emails containing “classified” information all refer to post-facto opinions — what could be accurately called classification by hindsight. State Department experts disagreed with many of those opinions. 

Fourth, according to the OIG, there is no evidence that Clinton’s private server was ever successfully hacked. In other words, all the dire and dark warnings from partisan Republicans about the secretary of State risking the nation’s security by using a private server are, in fact, all speculation — based on no facts whatsoever. 

Fifth, as pointed out by the inspector general, there was ample precedent for the use of private emails for official and private business, from Colin Powell to senior aides for Condoleezza Rice.

If you head hurts, that's the ol' cognitive dissonance happening.

The second one is my favorite because it shows how silly the Hillary mouth foamers are. Email goes two ways, right? So..um...that means that there are always copies out there FROM THE PEOPLE WHO SHE SENT EMAILS TO!!!

Someone Woke Up Hillary

The video below is an excellent illustration of how you take down Donald Trump. I'm happy to see that Hillary Clinton finally woke up. She looks presidential and he looks like some angry, old white guy yelling in a hat. Speaking of such guys...

I noted how her critique of Donald could also be applied to right wing bloggers and commenters. After all, they are essentially the same animal. Example...

"Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different -- they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies."

Sums up nearly every conservative, especially the Gun Cult, that I've ever had a discussion with over the years...:)

Not That Close

Here's a great piece from Charlie Cook on how the Clinton Trump race is not as close as it seems. The simple fact is that once the Hilz is the nominee, her numbers are going to return to what they were before Trump become the de facto nominee.

Dwarfed?

I was sitting watching my son play baseball the other day when the conversation with a fellow parent turned to politics. We talked for a bit about the election and then she said something that cracked me up.

"I just have this feeling that Trump is going to win."

I asked her on what she based her assertion.

"I don't know...just a feeling."

She was certainly not a Trump supporter as she told me she would be voting for Hillary Clinton and truly despised Trump's comments about women. Yet her comments made me wonder where all this "Trump feelings" stuff originates. I think part of it is his celebrity but I'll have a post about that in a few days. Most of it is merely slippery slope fallacy...he won the GOP primary when no one thought he could so therefore he will win the general when no one thought he could.

I don't think my fellow baseball parent is aware of the massive infrastructure advantage that Hillary Clinton has right now. The political world is, however, and it's pretty amazing.

Through the end of last month, the period covered by the most recent FEC filings, Trump’s campaign had spent less than a third as much Clinton’s ($57 million to $182 million) and had assembled a staff about one-tenth the size of her (70 employees to 732), with a fraction as many offices (Trump last month paid $101,000 in rent vs. $328,000 for Clinton), the analysis found.

Does Trump think he can get out the vote in a general election without field offices?

Polls A Go Go

I find it most interesting that everyone seems to be focusing on national polls (of registered voters no less..pee-yew) and not on the state by state polls. National polls don't really matter. It's the individual state polls that matter. And anyone that thinks this race is tightening ought to take a look at what Arizona and Georgia look like.

Here are some other notes about polls...

Nate Silver went on a pretty hilarious Twitter rant about polls in May. And a great mea culpa from Silve as well.

Speaking of 538, here's some great insight on the whole Trump supporters are in the closet meme.

BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Republicans consider Clinton over Trump 

Meet the Republicans Who Say They’ll Vote for Hillary Clinton 

Clinton set to assemble ‘Republicans for Hillary’ to lure Trump skeptics 

Laura Bush hints she would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump

I can't wait to see the first polls of the swing states for Clinton v Trump:)

The Fallout From Indiana

With Donald Trump's resounding victory in yesterday's Indiana primary, the general election has officially taken shape. Ted Cruz is out. Kasich has zero chance of getting anywhere even in a contested convention. Ladies and gentlemen...

Donald Trump is the GOP nominee for president.

I can't think of a better example of the GOP today. Donald Trump is angry, hateful, willfully ignorant, adolescent, racist, bigoted, and highly unintelligent. He is the most unqualified candidate in the history of presidential elections and he's been fueled by voters who mirror his completely false perception of reality. Conservatives are getting exactly what they want.

He also represents proof positive of one of my running theories. Conservatives want someone who is massively authoritarian because they loves themselves an aristocratic structure where the non whites know their place. Trump was so popular in the South because he reminds folks of the plantation owner lording over his minions and expecting tribute from the "less-thans."

Even though Bernie Sanders won last night in Indiana, Hillary Clinton will still win the Democratic nomination. So it's going to be Clinton v Trump. I'm looking forward to the slew of polls likely to come out in the next few weeks that show just how much Trump is going to get his ass kicked. Worse for Republicans are the down ticket candidates who now have to run way from Trump if they are in a toss up race.

With Trump at the top of the GOP ticket, the Republicans can wave buh-bye to the Senate.

Will the GOP learn its lesson? I doubt it. They will likely stomp their feet and whine about not nominating a "real" conservative. They'll heap blame on Trump but it's really the voters that are the problem. Their base is so fractured largely due to the Tea Party who seemingly morphed into Trump supporters.

The only issue faced by the Democrats is replicating what will likely be massive turnout in the fall in the off year elections. Why can't Democrats vote in the years that matter? This is why the GOP has taken over state house and local governments. When 35-40 percent of voters turnout in the midterms, that means only old, white people are voting. Translation: GOP victories.

In advance of what will surely be ear to ear smiles from fresh polls, here, once again, is my map for the fall election.




And I think I'm being generous to Trump!

The Not So Known Reason Why Trump Will Be Decimated

Hillary Clinton is pivoting to the general election and solidifying her operations in battleground states. It make sense because she is the likely nominee. But why isn't Donald Trump doing this? It has some folks perplexed.

"The sooner you can get up and running the better," said Dan Pfeiffer, who advised President Barack Obama. "On the Republican side, Trump has not built anything resembling the sort of field operation it takes to win."

If he doesn't have an y field operation in battleground states, he's going to lose even more badly than I thought. Meanwhile, Clinton campaign employees are heading to battleground states across the country, among them Ohio, Florida and Colorado. Democrats are also eyeing the possibility of making a run at traditionally Republican-leaning states such as Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona, calculating that Trump's penchant for controversy could put minority and female voters in play.

Georgia is in play? Wow.

Get Ready For An Ass Kicking

Insiders: Clinton would crush Trump in November

From the Republican insiders...

“There is positively no way for Trump to win in Pennsylvania,” said a Republican from that state. 

“Trump cannot and will not carry Ohio,” a Republican from that state insisted. “He will do well in Appalachia and in the Mahoning Valley but he will get killed in the rest of the state. The danger for the GOP is losing Rob Portman which is a very real possibility under this match-up.” 

Added a Florida Republican, who like all participants was granted anonymity in order to speak freely, “Trump is grinding the GOP to a stub. He couldn't find enough xenophobic, angry white Floridians to beat Hillary in Florida if he tried.” 

Wow. Here's my map of what it will all look like.

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

And I'm actually being generous to Trump because he's polling behind her in Utah for fuck's sake!

The GOP is finally getting exactly what they deserve. When you spend the better part of two decades training their constituents to believe wacky, ideological nonsense (see also: lies), you get Donald Trump as your front runner.

Charles Koch: Clinton Might Make Better President

In a sign that this election has really gone off the rails, Charles Koch recently said that Hillary Clinton might make a better president than the eventual GOP nominee. It makes sense if you think about it. None of the current GOP candidates meet the Koch standard. Kasich is too liberal. Trump is too aristocratic and authoritarian. Ted Cruz is giant asshole.

The Hilz response?

Not interested in endorsements from people who deny climate science and try to make it harder for people to vote. https://t.co/TWN4zYhMBh

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 24, 2016

The Bernie Sanders Voter

The County Needs To Hear From You.

This is why I heart the Hilz...

“You are the mothers of the children who are dying in the streets,” Mrs. Clinton told the group, Ms. McBath recalled. “You have a lot of power individually,” she said. “But collectively, you need to come together. The country needs to hear from you.”

Why Hillary Won't Be Indicted and Shouldn't Be

Richard O. Lempert offers an excellent summation of the faux scandal that is the Hillary Clinton email kerfuffle. It's the most honest and objective piece I have seen out there thus far. Here are some key points.

It is unclear whether classified information conveyed in an email message would be considered a document or materials subject to removal. Moreover, with respect to information in messages sent to Clinton, it would be hard to see her as having “knowingly” removed anything, and the same is arguably true of information in messages that she originated. If, however, she were sent attachments that were classified and kept them on her server, this law might apply.

And if they did?

But even if this section did apply, a prosecutor would face difficulties. Heads of agencies have considerable authority with respect to classified information, including authority to approve some exceptions to rules regarding how classified information should be handled and authority to declassify material their agency has classified. It would also be hard to show that Clinton intended to retain any information sent to her if her usual response was to forward the information to another, and if she then deleted the material from her inbox, whether or not it was deleted from her computer.

Some of that classified information includes information that was published in the New York Times and then retroactively classified recently.

This is a very thorough article that addresses the fact of the law. This is in direct opposition to what the media is reporting on a daily basis. I wonder why...

Nate Silver Was Wrong?

Why The Polls Missed Bernie Sanders’s Michigan Upset

Post-Mortem on Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday showed that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the front runners for the respective parties.

The Hilz is in a far better position than the Donald with a 1052 to 427 lead over Bernie. At this point, she's halfway to the 2382 needed to win and will likely win the nomination. Bernie fans can take heart that his ideas will live on in this year's party platform.

Donald's front runner status is not quite as solid as of yet. He's got 319 to Cruz's 226 and Rubio's 110. Kasich has 25. The three of them together beat Trump which I find highly amusing for several reasons. More people don't want Trump to be the nominee than want him to be the nominee. Mitt Romney is making a speech today to try to rally the troops against Trump. Many Republicans are calling for a third party option. They may as well just support Hillary if they are going to take this tack. Of course, this is what you get when you have 89 people running for president in your party. You get a disaster as your nominee.

The best the "stop Trump" folks can hope for is that he does not get to the magic number of 1237 in order to win and they can have a contested convention. That will do wonders for voter turnout in the fall. But a Trump candidacy will have the same effect as many GOPers don't support him. They are kind of fucked any way you cut it.

I've said it many times and will continue to say it. When you spend the better part of a decade conditioning your supporters to believe lies through hate, anger and fear, you get Donald Trump as your nominee.

Conservatives only have themselves to blame.

Unanswered Questions Regarding Hillary Clinton's emails.

Yesterday, the Obama administration confirmed that 22 of Hillary Clinton's emails contained information that was highly classified. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the documents, totaling 37 pages, were not marked classified at the time they were sent, but are being upgraded at the request of the Intelligence Community because they contain sensitive information.

This statement leads me to wonder why, again, we must go through more hyper ventilating about Hillary's emails. In fact, I have several questions that still remained unanswered or vague.

Why were these documents not marked classified at the time they were sent?

Why are these documents being upgraded now?

Why does retro classification occur?

Were these emails available publicly in any way? Via the recipients of the emails who used .gov emails?

What was the email policy regarding personal servers when Hillary took over as Secretary of State? What did other Secretaries of State do?

Have Hillary's critics read any of the emails that have been released?

For those of you out there who are convinced that Hillary Clinton is a criminal because of these emails, failure to adequately answer these questions means your accusations are purely emotional.

Even Conservatives Are Calling It A TKO

Benghazi bust

So a hearing billed as an epic, High Noon-style confrontation — granted, the hype came from the media, not Republican committee members themselves — instead turned out to be a somewhat interesting look at a few limited aspects of the Benghazi affair. In other words, no big deal. And that is very, very good news for Hillary Clinton.

Even the New Yorker's Andy Borowitz had this to say...

Clinton Thanks Benghazi Committee for Invaluable Service to Her Campaign

Hilarious!!

Sitting there for 11 hours looking calm, cool and collected (see also: presidential), the Hilz took everything they had to dish out. And the Republicans looked like the children I have always said they are:)