A vote for HIllary is a vote for Dr. Jekyll; forget that she's also Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 wrote a great novel called, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The leading characters in this book were Dr. Jekyll, a kindly, selfless gentleman who was kind to small children and dogs, and Mr. Hyde, an alcoholic seducer of women and all-around bad guy. The author invites readers to admire Jekyll and despise Hyde. But the truth is that Jekyll and Hyde are the same man.

So now in 2016 we are presented with 2 candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, whom Clinton supporters portray as the dastardly Mr. Hyde. These diehard Hillary fans have very little to say about their candidate, except that she's honest and not a crook. They claim Hillary and Trump are as different as night and day when in fact they are just two sides of the same coin. In fact, they are Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Progressives turned against Hillary in 2012 because they were presented with an attractive alternative, Barack Obama. But now she's back and she's claiming the progressive mantle she has torn from the shoulders of Bernie Sanders. Trump is wicked, she says. He's against climate control. He favors the banks over the people. And he's sexist, too.

Hillary claims she's way better than Trump. But only last month, Charles Koch, he of the coal mines and pipelines, said it was possible that he would support Hillary. He added that her actions would have to be different from her rhetoric. Hillary fans breathed a sigh of relief and Scopes claimed the idea that Koch would support Hillary was false. He said he wasn't serious.

But the idea that Hillary's rhetoric would not be matched by deeds is not far-fetched. After all, this woman once claimed that blacks were "super-predators" when she supported the laws that resulted in millions of blacks being locked up for non-violent crimes--the sorts of crimes that whites were never charged for.

What is being missed by Hillary supporters in this election is that the main issue, perhaps the only important issue, is whether this country should continue to be governed by the one percent of Americans at the very top of the income pyramid. I think people understand that Donald Trump is one of those. Very few recognize that Hillary Clinton is another. So Republicans can honestly boast that the Democratic party is run by millionaires and billionaires.

Except for Bernie and his backers. Which side are you on?

Hillary supporters falsely accuse Bernie Sanders of unethical actions

Bernie supporters tend to rationalize and create excuses for all of the Senator’s questionable stances and actions. It seems as if Sanders is infallible and, in his supporters eyes, incapable of making a mistake. Every human is flawed, so what mistakes has he made you cannot condone or rationalize?

(This post originally appeared as a response to a question in Quora)Your statement that Bernie supporters rationalize and create excuses for all of the Senator’s questionable stances is false. Bernie supporters know that Hillary and her minions are planting false stories in the media. Therefore, we have no need for excuses or rationalizations.

Take the statement made by Debbie Wasserman Schultz that Bernie said he did not condone violence—and here she uttered a broadly emphasized “but…” The truth is that Bernie did not have any buts in the statement he released to the public. Schultz is trying to make the public believe that Bernie said something he did not say. The same is true when she reports that “chairs were thrown” or the delegates in Nevada were “violent”. There is plenty of video coverage of the scene in Nevada. No chairs were thrown. No acts of violence were committed. So there is nothing for Bernie supporters to excuse or rationalize.

The advantage that we Bernie supporters have is that Bernie is always honest and above board. The same cannot be said for Hillary or Schultz, who reminds us of Bagdad Bob, the spokesman for Saddam Hussein who

denied there were any American tanks in Baghdad, when in fact they were only several hundred meters away from the press conference where he was speaking [1]

It is obvious from videos taken at the convention that

1. The convention Chair railroaded through very undemocratic and extraordinary rules of procedure. For example, the new rules made any ruling by the chair impossible to change. This kind of absolute power is familiar in dictatorships, but unknown—until now—in democracies.
2. The Chair of the convention asked for a voice vote on the report of the credentials committee. A clear majority of the delegates present opposed their adoption, but the Chair ruled that the rules were approved despite the obvious wishes of the delegates.
3. The Chair of the credentials committee was fired because she objected to the way that the Hillary members had removed 64 Bernie delegates from the official delegate rolls, without adequate investigation, or warning, or explanation.
4. The convention Chair at first refused to permit a minority report from the credentials committee to be read to the delegates until another member, serving as temporary chair, yielded his time for the reading.
5. All of these actions angered the delegates to the convention, who voiced their loud disapproval of these anti-democratic tactics. But the ruling of the chair could not be appealed under the new rules. This proves that the rules were changed because Hillary and her supporters recognized they would never get the extra two delegates to the Convention in Philadelphia without pulling these procedural shenanigans.

So no, the Bernie supporters have nothing to apologize for. There was no violence or any other illegal acts.

On the other hand, Hillary and her anti-democratic crew have a great deal to apologize for, but no such apology has been offered. Instead, they have accused Bernie and his supporters of the same kinds of acts that they publicly committed. Can Hillary be elected when she and her supporters use these tactics against fellow democrats who happen to support the candidacy of Bernie Sanders?

Footnotes

[1] Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf

Written 1m ago

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Elizabeth Warren is For Real

I went down to the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, DC, yesterday, to get a look at Elizabeth Warren. She appeared as part of a national book tour for her new book, A Fighting Chance. The book is primarily a history of her adult life. It is eerily reminiscent of a book called Dreams From My Father that appeared before Barack Obama, its author, had run for his first political office.

In Dreams, Obama gave an intriguing account of his early life, ending just before he entered Harvard Law School. He included the story of his indigent mother and her husbands, one (Barack's father) Kenyan, the other, married after a divorce, Indonesian. The writing style is plain and inspirational at the same time. Obama was running for his first political office, a virtual unknown. 

Dreams contains some details that his political opponents later used to attack him: His father was Kenyan, he lived for a short while in Indonesia, a Muslim country, and he was born in Hawaii, which many Americans do not consider a "real" state, but rather a place on the other side of an ocean, inhabited by a handful of mixed-race people who have no connection to the "real" America. When Hawaii became a state in 1959, it was probably admitted because of Peal Harbor, when its importance as a military base was recognized for the first time.

Warren's book, like Obama's, tells about her growing up in reduced circumstances, about the family who loved her, and about her adventures as an adult. Warren has had many more adventures than Obama, because he was only 34 when Dreams was published and she is now 64. The book contains some information that has already been used by her political opponents to attack her. In particular, she relates that her father's family did not approve of her mother because her mother was part American Indian. Scott Brown, Warren's opponent in her Senate race, mocked her claims of Cherokee Indian relationship, but the book makes it clear that this was a liability, not an advantage in Oklahoma before WWII.

Warren likes to connect with people by telling folksy stories and using straightforward language. Asked her opinion of Republican refusal to raise the minimum wage, she said, "It stinks". Asked her opinion of Janet Yellen's appointment as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, she said "woo-oo!" in a high, clear soprano yelp. Warren's speaking voice in person is no better than it is on tv. She has a weak, reedy delivery that sometimes becomes unintelligible, as when she tried to say "Buffett Rule" the first time. She later clarified what she meant by Buffett Rule: A millionaire (or billionaire, like Warren Buffett) should pay at least as high a percentage of his income in taxes as his secretary. Warren likes that rule.

The suspicion that Warren may be using her book to kick-start a presidential run is not idle. Warren indicated that once before, during the fight for a consumer review board, she was willing to fight because she didn't want a job in the capital. Additionally, she was introduced by Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO. Warren told a story about how she had met Trumka at the White House. She backed a chair into his shins, at which point he remarked, "I've got your back." Now he adds, in a larger, more forceful voice--the kind that Warren lacks--"And I always will have your back". Hillary Clinton, take note.

Hillary has reason to be concerned about Warren. Warren negates Clinton's main advantage in the race to become president in 2016: she's also a woman. Additionally, Warren has the "log cabin" childhood that has served presidential candidates so well since Lincoln, which is to say, her family struggled and her mother had to go to work at a minimum wage to support the family. Hillary, on the other hand, graduated from Wellesley and served on the board of directors of Wal-Mart. Hillary makes public appearances perfectly coiffed and dressed in designer duds; Warren buys her clothes at Target and clearly styles her own hair.

When Hillary and Elizabeth appear in debates together and the topic of debate turns to income inequality, Hillary will look like a one-percenter; Elizabeth will look like what she is, a teacher and a member of the working class. Elizabeth will have another advantage: She won a state-wide debate contest in Oklahoma as a high-schooler. As Warren puts it, she wasn't pretty and she didn't have the best grades, but she knew how to fight.

Supporters of Barack Obama often wish that he had a stronger competitive urge. As President, Elizabeth Warren would give us exactly what we have been missing: a born fighter.