Originally Posted by MordecaiK

How about Alan Grayson?

-- yeah Grayson would be good, & on the female side Marcy Kaptur, maybe?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I'd like to see a more-qualified choice.

-- define qualified

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

That's all, indeed. He said so himself.

After how much questioning by police? People accused of crimes couldn't get lawyers (unless wealthy) in those days. We just don't know how deep Czogolz's politics ran.

Why not support Hillary then, since she's also closer to Trump than Sanders is? Also a moderate IOW.

Because she has shown in the way she accepts contributions for the Clinton Foundation that her policy is for sale.

He wants to close the EPA and stop the energy transition we need to save the environment. Total disqualifer. Close to Trump, indeed. If Webb were nominated there would be no undecided answer from me; I'd vote for Stein for sure.

There you go. Not much worth voting for.

To be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if Webb winds up on Trump's ticket.

Veto repeal of what? Glass-Steagall? It might have helped, I suppose. But I think Gore probably would have signed it.

Maybe so. Neo-liberalism was popular in those years. And Gore likely would have invaded Iraq too after 9/11. Gore is as warlike as Hillary.

You can think that, but there's no evidence for it. They all voted to impeach him. Maybe it would have been a shrewd move for Democrats though. Even though the whole affair had nothing to do with who's above the law, and only who made a stain on who's dress, and what the definition of the word is, is.

Even if impeachment amounted to a legal lynching it would have been better for the country than seeing a President lawyer his way out of impeachment. The precedent would have hobbled executive privilege and made future Presidents more beholden to Congress, closer to a Prime Minister in a parliamentary system. And that would have been a GOOD thing.
Israel has a former President, Moshe Katzav, sitting in prison for rape. And a Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert who had to leave office because of corruption charges. As has Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. And another Cabinet Minister, Aryeh Deri who lost his post, did his time and got his position as head of Shomrei Torah Party back again. When a Cabinet Minister is indicted he has to resign his position in Israel. Nobody is above the law in Israel. And Israel is stronger for it.


My guess is that blacks will turn out against a racist, because they know they could be next.

They didn't turn out in the kind of numbers that elected Obama against George W Bush in either 2000 or 2004. And African Americans may not see opposition to immigration as something to be concerned about. Especially since many Latinos have brought some very racist attitudes with them from Latin America--to the point where Latino gangs in places like Compton and Highland Park here in Southern California have harassed ordinary African Americans and tried to force them to leave what they consider 'their hood". To the point that some have been sent away for hate crimes. And leave us not forget that the officer who arrested Sandra Bland was Latino.
So the question of whether African-Americans will make common cause with Latinos who have in some cases persecuted African-Americans on the grounds that nationalism and nativism is a form of racism is not that cut and dried--and a very open question. Among the middle classes who vote anyway, yes. Among the working class and poor African Americans who really drive turnout and encounter Latino racism, perhaps not so much.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

After how much questioning by police? People accused of crimes couldn't get lawyers (unless wealthy) in those days. We just don't know how deep Czogolz's politics ran.

We can be sure that his assassination did not happen because he wanted to make TR president. Nor will Bernie be assassinated to make Hillary president, or vice-versa.

Because she has shown in the way she accepts contributions for the Clinton Foundation that her policy is for sale.

No, because the foundation is not her personal property. Please read the article I posted on the new thread with the Hillary poll. She does not do quid pro quos for money.

To be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if Webb winds up on Trump's ticket.

Well that's an idea. You never know about The Donald.

Maybe so. Neo-liberalism was popular in those years. And Gore likely would have invaded Iraq too after 9/11. Gore is as warlike as Hillary.

I thought he was as well, but I don't think he would have gone to Iraq. Even though a majority of Democratic senators voted for it, none of them would have started that war. That war was unique to Bush and his crowd. And perhaps Gore would not have ignored the intelligence reports before 9-11 happened, or surrounded himself with neocons either, and he didn't subscribe to the neo-con PNAC plan which depended on "another Pearl Harbor." Gore would have been much better than Bush. But yes, he and most Democrats were still under the neo-liberal Reaganomics spell in 1998.

Even if impeachment amounted to a legal lynching it would have been better for the country than seeing a President lawyer his way out of impeachment. The precedent would have hobbled executive privilege and made future Presidents more beholden to Congress, closer to a Prime Minister in a parliamentary system. And that would have been a GOOD thing.

It would be a good thing, but it would not have happened that way.

They didn't turn out in the kind of numbers that elected Obama against George W Bush in either 2000 or 2004. And African Americans may not see opposition to immigration as something to be concerned about. Especially since many Latinos have brought some very racist attitudes with them from Latin America--to the point where Latino gangs in places like Compton and Highland Park here in Southern California have harassed ordinary African Americans and tried to force them to leave what they consider 'their hood". To the point that some have been sent away for hate crimes. And leave us not forget that the officer who arrested Sandra Bland was Latino.

Demographics have more and more favored Democrats. Hillary won't get as much black vote as Obama did, though she'll get more white votes than he did in some places. Certainly another Bush v Gore today would net Gore far more than the 537 votes in Florida he needed to overcome Kathryn Harris' cheating. Blacks vote 90% Democratic, and with Hillary running you'd see at least a normal black turn out. Blacks vote for her.

So the question of whether African-Americans will make common cause with Latinos who have in some cases persecuted African-Americans on the grounds that nationalism and nativism is a form of racism is not that cut and dried--and a very open question. Among the middle classes who vote anyway, yes. Among the working class and poor African Americans who really drive turnout and encounter Latino racism, perhaps not so much.

We'll see which theory is correct; there's no way to prove it now unless you have a reliable poll on the question. Right now the polls favor Hillary over Trump. I think Latino prejudice and xenophobia is not going to appeal to blacks.

Originally Posted by marypoza

-- define qualified

Someone who has the experience, ability and temperament in public office to assume the presidency if need be. Someone who could run for the office and possibly win. Someone we might want to see run in 2020.

I would add, someone with a good horoscope score on my system, assuming we want a potential presidential candidate.

Nominees also look for someone who could balance and strengthen the ticket.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

As long as we have institutions designed to create only two major parties, open primaries are not out of line. If we can go to a multi-party system, then you will have a point. A closed two-party system truly IS a closed oligarchy with little possibility for democratic change.
What I fear is that what you are saying will become the norm if Hillary wins the White House. Instead of listening to the People, finding new ways of shutting the People up.

Millions of people are voting in the primaries (on whole, Clinton has 2.5 million more than Sanders) and yet we're "shutting the People up" - I guess that's a new way of describing your frustration that people don't vote the way you want them to?

The institution you are talking about that creates the two-party system is the Constitution's one-man-one-vote and majority rule. It's not directly dictated but it is dictated by the math; a pretty straightforward presentation of the math of "the first past the post" elections is here -

http://themoderatevoice.com/why-a-tw...o-do-about-it/

Labeling the issue as an oligarchy or some other evil bumper sticker 'thingee' is just intellectual laziness.

My point wasn't that open primaries are out of line. The point is if Maryposa's benchmark for fraud is early voting, then she should be at least as disgusted with the 'fraud" of open primaries given that both are ultimately about getting more people voting. Capiche?

Originally Posted by marypoza

-- define qualified

I think for some Sanders supporters that would be the length of the magical unicorn's wings. That would be indicative of how large the Progressive poop that the candidate unicorn VP will be able to poop out once in office. Important since the GI tract is one of the things we can expect to go bad in Sanders late years.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Millions of people are voting in the primaries (on whole, Clinton has 2.5 million more than Sanders) and yet we're "shutting the People up" - I guess that's a new way of describing your frustration that people don't vote the way you want them to?

The institution you are talking about that creates the two-party system is the Constitution's one-man-one-vote and majority rule. It's not directly dictated but it is dictated by the math; a pretty straightforward presentation of the math of "the first past the post" elections is here -

http://themoderatevoice.com/why-a-tw...o-do-about-it/

Labeling the issue as an oligarchy or some other evil bumper sticker 'thingee' is just intellectual laziness.

My point wasn't that open primaries are out of line. The point is if Maryposa's benchmark for fraud is early voting, then she should be at least as disgusted with the 'fraud" of open primaries given that both are ultimately about getting more people voting. Capiche?

He's either a frustrated radical academic or even a troll who's not who he appears to be. I've long questioned the Oxford English spellings. He claimed it to be due to a computer he got in Australia. But it's simple enough to change the spell checker over to US English. I had a wild thought yesterday. Back when I was young and wild, and toyed with The League of the South for a few months, I noticed that they all use British spellings as some sort of homage to an earlier time or to indicate local separatism while being in cahoots with the UKIP, etc. So maybe he's a plant from League of the South over here to stir up shit.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

He's either a frustrated radical academic or even a troll who's not who he appears to be. I've long questioned the Oxford English spellings. He claimed it to be due to a computer he got in Australia. But it's simple enough to change the spell checker over to US English. I had a wild thought yesterday. Back when I was young and wild, and toyed with The League of the South for a few months, I noticed that they all use British spellings as some sort of homage to an earlier time or to indicate local separatism while being in cahoots with the UKIP, etc. So maybe he's a plant from League of the South over here to stir up shit.

Wow, that's not the impression I've had, but I admit I haven't followed much of his other posts that I haven't been engaged in. He seems to be coming more from the Far Left to me. But there is a point where the Far Left and Far Right begin to merge in some 'attributes' so that may be part of the confusion in signals. Interesting guy, either way, ey?

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

They didn't turn out in the kind of numbers that elected Obama against George W Bush in either 2000 or 2004. And African Americans may not see opposition to immigration as something to be concerned about. Especially since many Latinos have brought some very racist attitudes with them from Latin America--to the point where Latino gangs in places like Compton and Highland Park here in Southern California have harassed ordinary African Americans and tried to force them to leave what they consider 'their hood". To the point that some have been sent away for hate crimes. And leave us not forget that the officer who arrested Sandra Bland was Latino.
So the question of whether African-Americans will make common cause with Latinos who have in some cases persecuted African-Americans on the grounds that nationalism and nativism is a form of racism is not that cut and dried--and a very open question. Among the middle classes who vote anyway, yes. Among the working class and poor African Americans who really drive turnout and encounter Latino racism, perhaps not so much.

When every group looks inward, the concept of a coalition dies on the vine. Identity politics is nearing the end of its run. It's a huge unknown how that will play-out in the future. If it plays out as a aggregate of demanding self-centered groups unwilling to give an inch, the left is doomed. As weak as the right is today, you still can't beat something with nothing.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

They didn't turn out in the kind of numbers that elected Obama against George W Bush in either 2000 or 2004. And African Americans may not see opposition to immigration as something to be concerned about. Especially since many Latinos have brought some very racist attitudes with them from Latin America--to the point where Latino gangs in places like Compton and Highland Park here in Southern California have harassed ordinary African Americans and tried to force them to leave what they consider 'their hood". To the point that some have been sent away for hate crimes. And leave us not forget that the officer who arrested Sandra Bland was Latino.
So the question of whether African-Americans will make common cause with Latinos who have in some cases persecuted African-Americans on the grounds that nationalism and nativism is a form of racism is not that cut and dried--and a very open question. Among the middle classes who vote anyway, yes. Among the working class and poor African Americans who really drive turnout and encounter Latino racism, perhaps not so much.

My suspicion is that Trump's implied opposition to "black lives matter" by praising the police, and his questioning of Obama's birth and college records, plus his proposal to pay for much lower taxes by rooting out non-existent "waste, fraud and abuse" from social programs, will not appeal to black voters, who so far vote for Hillary, and can be expected to turn out and vote in at least normal numbers in November.

Sanders faces a hard task ahead, but on better terrain than he travelled earlier. The mid-atlantic states could be Hillary's new firewall though.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/up...week.html?_r=0

Originally Posted by Eric the Green;553984[QUOTE

]We can be sure that his assassination did not happen because he wanted to make TR president. Nor will Bernie be assassinated to make Hillary president, or vice-versa.

I should hope not. And I should hope that Trump won't be assassinated either. That's why presidential candidates now have Secret Service protection early on in the primary process. Nobody wants a repeat of RFK 1968.

No, because the foundation is not her personal property. Please read the article I posted on the new thread with the Hillary poll. She does not do quid pro quos for money.

Pardon me for being sceptical about that. Foundations are just another form of corporation to most Americans these days. The whole idea of an ex-President doing good works for 8-15 years than having a family member recycled into the White House smells to me and a lot of Americans. It will smell just as bad if Michelle Obama makes a run for the White House, using Hillary's precedent.
FDR's sons and nephews (like Kermit Roosevelt) were very prominent in US diplomacy and intelligence work. But none of them made a run for the White House.

I thought he was as well, but I don't think he would have gone to Iraq. Even though a majority of Democratic senators voted for it, none of them would have started that war. That war was unique to Bush and his crowd. And perhaps Gore would not have ignored the intelligence reports before 9-11 happened, or surrounded himself with neocons either, and he didn't subscribe to the neo-con PNAC plan which depended on "another Pearl Harbor." Gore would have been much better than Bush. But yes, he and most Democrats were still under the neo-liberal Reaganomics spell in 1998.

Don't be so sure that Gore wouldn't have gone to Iraq. Or possibly invaded Saudi Arabia in retaliation for 9/11 instead. The Iraq War was all about a) protecting the petrodollar and b) coming up with a new home for a US Mideast presence after the US was kicked out of Saudi Arabia in the wake of 9/11 and c) coming up with an alternative large source of cheap oil to make Saudi Arabia less important in OPEC (which failed in retrospect but seemed like a good idea at the time). Remember. In 2001, the US did not have the domestic oil production that it has now.
All of these reasons would have weighed heavily on Gore's mind--and weighed heavily on the minds of Congresspeople who approved the Iraq War. Even Gore, for all his concern about global warming would not have wanted to see a return to the gas rationing of 1973. Nobody wanted that, and after 9/11, I suspect that there was a lot of fear of that happening.

Demographics have more and more favored Democrats. Hillary won't get as much black vote as Obama did, though she'll get more white votes than he did in some places. Certainly another Bush v Gore today would net Gore far more than the 537 votes in Florida he needed to overcome Kathryn Harris' cheating. Blacks vote 90% Democratic, and with Hillary running you'd see at least a normal black turn out. Blacks vote for her.

I'm not so sure about that. Voter suppression in FL has taken it's toll. Obama barely won FL in 2012, an election when a lot of the voter suppression FL wanted to do was held up by the courts.

We'll see which theory is correct; there's no way to prove it now unless you have a reliable poll on the question. Right now the polls favor Hillary over Trump. I think Latino prejudice and xenophobia is not going to appeal to blacks.[/QUOTE]
I don't know either. But a normal African-American turnout in places like OH and MI and WI and suppressed AA turnout in FL and perhaps PA may not be enough to elect Hillary, who may not even win the primary or if she does, may win on superdelegates alone. If Bernie exceeds Hillary's pledged delegates by even one and the superdelegates still line up for Hillary---THAT will anger and disenhearten Bernie's supporters to the point where many will not vote for Hillary even against Trump. In which case it's 1968 all over again.

Important article on Consortium News. Tulsi Gabbard is pushing Bernie to embrace the role of Commander-in Chief who will not lead the country into more wars.https://consortiumnews.com/2016/03/2...nder-in-chief/ Fit to be Commander-in Chief should not be tantamount to "Who are we going to fight in my Administration"?

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Pardon me for being sceptical about that. Foundations are just another form of corporation to most Americans these days. The whole idea of an ex-President doing good works for 8-15 years then having a family member recycled into the White House smells to me and a lot of Americans. It will smell just as bad if Michelle Obama makes a run for the White House, using Hillary's precedent.
FDR's sons and nephews (like Kermit Roosevelt) were very prominent in US diplomacy and intelligence work. But none of them made a run for the White House.

There's no reason for any of them, or Michelle, or Hillary NOT doing so. There's no basis for the odor.

Don't be so sure that Gore wouldn't have gone to Iraq. Or possibly invaded Saudi Arabia in retaliation for 9/11 instead. The Iraq War was all about a) protecting the petrodollar and b) coming up with a new home for a US Mideast presence after the US was kicked out of Saudi Arabia in the wake of 9/11 and c) coming up with an alternative large source of cheap oil to make Saudi Arabia less important in OPEC (which failed in retrospect but seemed like a good idea at the time). Remember. In 2001, the US did not have the domestic oil production that it has now.
All of these reasons would have weighed heavily on Gore's mind--and weighed heavily on the minds of Congresspeople who approved the Iraq War. Even Gore, for all his concern about global warming would not have wanted to see a return to the gas rationing of 1973. Nobody wanted that, and after 9/11, I suspect that there was a lot of fear of that happening.

The Iraq War was a planned invasion by Bush's neo-cons, and was spelled out in PNAC (Project for a New American Century), the neo-con blueprint. I still don't see enough connection of the petrodollar to the corporate establishment. A don't get that the currency used for transactions is that critical a reason for imperialism. It's true that a source of cheap oil was important, but the US establishment still viewed Saudi Arabia as a stable source. But for the Establishment and PNAC, more oil sources and more bases for American power were important motives. I just think Gore would not have been as beholden to these forces as Bush was, plus he had some good sense. A president has to make decisions, and ultimately those decisions depend on the intelligence and character of the president, not just on what the corporate and military establishment wants. Gore had good sense, whereas Bush did not; and I think the oil motive would indeed have mattered MUCH LESS to Gore, because he knew that we must and we CAN transition quickly. A war to protect a resource that he believed we should not be using, would have been far less attractive to Gore than to Bush (an oil man) or even to Hillary.

I'm not so sure about that. Voter suppression in FL has taken it's toll. Obama barely won FL in 2012, an election when a lot of the voter suppression FL wanted to do was held up by the courts.

Most people predicted Obama would lose FL in 2012. I predicted he would barely win, which he did, and I predicted the exact electoral count, unlike most pundits. Voter suppression can only go so far. The polls and the demographics of FL now favor Hillary by a comfortable margin.

I don't know either. But a normal African-American turnout in places like OH and MI and WI and suppressed AA turnout in FL and perhaps PA may not be enough to elect Hillary, who may not even win the primary or if she does, may win on superdelegates alone. If Bernie exceeds Hillary's pledged delegates by even one and the superdelegates still line up for Hillary---THAT will anger and disenhearten Bernie's supporters to the point where many will not vote for Hillary even against Trump. In which case it's 1968 all over again.

Angry Bernie supporters could hurt Hillary, no doubt. But Trump or Cruz will still have a long way to go to catch up and win almost all the swing states. And Bernie primary/caucus supporters are a small proportion even of the Democratic Party, and even of independents.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Sanders faces a hard task ahead, but on better terrain than he travelled earlier. The mid-atlantic states could be Hillary's new firewall though.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/up...week.html?_r=0

In the Mid Atlantic States, Pennsylvania looks the best for Hillary because it IS a third Appalachian and because Pennsylvania DOES suppress the youth vote), followed by Maryland with Baltimore's huge African American population. New York and New Jersey (and definitely Connecticut and Rhode Island) could be very good for Bernie. The important thing is that Bernie now has the money and more importantly the TIME to build up his numbers in Mid Atlantic States. Two weeks from Wisconsin to NY. Lower African American proportions. A chance to repeat his inroads amongst younger African-Americans. No youth vote suppression anywhere but Pennsylvania. And a lot of Jews crossing over to vote for Trump, who frankly, looks better to a lot of Jews on Israel than Hillary does.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

In the Mid Atlantic States, Pennsylvania looks the best for Hillary because it IS a third Appalachian and because Pennsylvania DOES suppress the youth vote), followed by Maryland with Baltimore's huge African American population. New York and New Jersey (and definitely Connecticut and Rhode Island) could be very good for Bernie. The important thing is that Bernie now has the money and more importantly the TIME to build up his numbers in Mid Atlantic States. Two weeks from Wisconsin to NY. Lower African American proportions. A chance to repeat his inroads amongst younger African-Americans. No youth vote suppression anywhere but Pennsylvania. And a lot of Jews crossing over to vote for Trump, who frankly, looks better to a lot of Jews on Israel than Hillary does.

I suspect home-state NY will be the strongest for Hillary, because polls are usually not THAT wrong. The Appalachian states are likely to be the strongest ones in that region for Bernie, not Hillary. MD will be strong for Hillary, while NJ and the others are moderately strong for Hillary, and Rhode Island will go for Sanders. Voter suppression is aimed at the November election, and that's where it could have an effect. But the Republicans have to nominate a viable candidate in order to make the election close enough to suppress. Trump at this point does not look like that candidate.

Sarah Silverman on Why She Changed Her Mind About Clinton and Will Vote for Sanders (Video)

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item...ernie_20160330

In her typically funny and straightforward style, Sarah sums up in five short minutes why I much prefer Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton. I especially like that she said, "I'm not against Hillary; I've just met someone I have more in common with." I would add that Bernie has a lot more in common with me.

Thought this was an April Fools joke but it's not:

http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-w...cratic-caucus/

Boo-yeah!

Early Missteps Seen as a Drag on Bernie Sanders’s Campaign
By PATRICK HEALY and YAMICHE ALCINDORAPRIL 3, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/us...nton.html?_r=0

....Despite the urging of some advisers, Mr. Sanders refused last fall and early winter to criticize Mrs. Clinton over her $675,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, an issue that he now targets almost daily. He also gave her a pass on her use of private email as secretary of state, even though some allies wanted him to exploit it. And he insisted on devoting time to his job as a senator from Vermont last year rather than matching Mrs. Clinton’s all-out effort to capture the nomination. Some advisers now say that if he had campaigned more in Iowa, he might have avoided his critical loss there.

All those decisions stemmed in part from Mr. Sanders’s outlook on the race. He was originally skeptical that he could beat Mrs. Clinton, and his mission in 2015 was to spread his political message about a rigged America rather than do whatever it took to win the nomination. By the time he caught fire with voters this winter and personally began to believe he could defeat Mrs. Clinton, she was already on her way to building an all but insurmountable delegate lead..........

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Early Missteps Seen as a Drag on Bernie Sanders’s Campaign
By PATRICK HEALY and YAMICHE ALCINDORAPRIL 3, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/us...nton.html?_r=0

....Despite the urging of some advisers, Mr. Sanders refused last fall and early winter to criticize Mrs. Clinton over her $675,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, an issue that he now targets almost daily. He also gave her a pass on her use of private email as secretary of state, even though some allies wanted him to exploit it. And he insisted on devoting time to his job as a senator from Vermont last year rather than matching Mrs. Clinton’s all-out effort to capture the nomination. Some advisers now say that if he had campaigned more in Iowa, he might have avoided his critical loss there.

All those decisions stemmed in part from Mr. Sanders’s outlook on the race. He was originally skeptical that he could beat Mrs. Clinton, and his mission in 2015 was to spread his political message about a rigged America rather than do whatever it took to win the nomination. By the time he caught fire with voters this winter and personally began to believe he could defeat Mrs. Clinton, she was already on her way to building an all but insurmountable delegate lead..........

Paul Krugman's take on this Sanders Team's pre- post-mortum in the NYT is devastating -

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...ars-past/?_r=0

Shadows of Smears Past

The Times has a sort of pre-mortem in which people associated with the Sanders campaign wonder if they might have pulled it off if they’d made personal attacks on Hillary Clinton earlier. I’d say, probably not.

As I see it, the Sanders phenomenon always depended on leaving the personal attacks implicit. Sanders supporters have, to a much greater extent than generally acknowledged, been motivated by the perception that Clinton is dishonest, which comes — whether they know it or not — not from her actual behavior but from decades of right-wing smears; but Sanders himself got to play the issue-oriented purist, in effect taking a free ride on other peoples’ character defamation. There was plenty of nastiness from Sanders supporters, but the candidate himself seemed to stay above the fray.

But it wasn’t enough, largely because of nonwhite voters. Why have these voters been so pro-Clinton? One reason I haven’t seen laid out, but which I suspect is important, is that they are more sensitized than most whites to how the disinformation machine works, to how fake scandals get promoted and become part of what “everyone knows.” Not least, they’ve seen the torrent of lies directed at our first African-American president, and have a sense that not everything you hear should be believed.

So now, in a last desperate attempt to beat the arithmetic, the Sanders campaign is turning the implicit character attack explicit, and doing so on the weakest possible ground. Clinton, who has said that coal is on its way out, is a tool of the fossil-fuel industry because some people who work in that industry gave her money? Wow.

Still, maybe it can work — although you need to remember that Sanders needs landslide victories in what’s left of the primary. The problem is that if it doesn’t work, Sanders will have spent a couple of months validating Republican attacks on the Democratic nominee (or, if he somehow pulls off an incredible upset, deeply alienating lots of progressives he’s going to need himself.)

But what an ugly way to end a campaign that was supposed to be positive and idealistic.

This is getting a lot of play in NY. Maybe too late to impact Sanders in Wisconsin but I think he's going to get whipped bad here.

The fact checkers have had a field day with Sanders attempt at the artful smear of Clinton over oil&gas contributions -

http://americablog.com/2016/04/factc...donations.html

Factchecker: 3 Pinocchios for Sanders over Clinton oil & gas donations

...The Sanders campaign is exaggerating the contributions that Clinton has received from the oil and gas industry. In the context of her overall campaign, the contributions are hardly significant. It’s especially misleading to count all of the funds raised by lobbyists with multiple clients as money “given” by the fossil-fuel industry.

Three Pinocchios

The bigger problem may be that this has opened up bigger scrutiny of Sanders's campaign donations -

You might have noted in that paragraph from the Post that Sanders himself has received contributions from the oil and gas industry, using his terminology. Thus Sanders himself has been paid off and is now corrupt, if you trust his analysis of things.

And it gets even more troublesome for Sanders. Using his yardstick for measuring corruption, Sanders has been bought off by the US military-industrial complex.

You see, when you do a comparison of Bernie Sanders’ and Hillary Clinton’s top contributors via the Open Secrets Web site, Clinton’s top contributors are unions, foundations, and progressive organizations. While Sanders’ top contributors are huge corporations, the hated insurance industry, the US military.

Here is Hillary, via Open Secrets:



Here is Sanders, via Open Secrets:



Oh, and you might have noticed that one of Sanders’ top contributors is Boeing. Yes, that would be the same company Sanders blasted in a presidential debate as being a corrupt donor to the Clintons. Sanders said that Boeing’s donations are clearly intended to buy interest, and anyone accepting Boeing contributions simply must be corrupt.

I don't see Bernie's army marching behind Hillary. Why is inconsequential to the actual result. Hillary is strong in the solidly RED and BLUE states, and less so in the marginal states -- the ones she needs to win in the fall. If she loses to Trump or Cruz, that may be the reason.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I don't see Bernie's army marching behind Hillary. Why is inconsequential to the actual result. Hillary is strong in the solidly RED and BLUE states, and less so in the marginal states -- the ones she needs to win in the fall. If she loses to Trump or Cruz, that may be the reason.

Hillary is weakest in the white Republican states, and strongest in the black Republican states. The marginal ones in the middle are the states that are always in the middle- the (formerly) industrial middle west. Yes, those are the ones she needs.

Mordecai says the black vote for Hillary may be weakening. On the other hand, Hillary is still strong in the solidly-blue northeast states that remain, which are less white but less black, although Bernie is gaining there.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Hillary is weakest in the white Republican states, and strongest in the black Republican states. The marginal ones in the middle are the states that are always in the middle- the (formerly) industrial middle west. Yes, those are the ones she needs.

Mordecai says the black vote for Hillary may be weakening. On the other hand, Hillary is still strong in the solidly-blue northeast states that remain, which are less white but less black, although Bernie is gaining there.

She handily won in FL, OH, VA, NC, and at least tied in NV - is there another swing state you have in mind?