Showing posts with label 2016 Wisconsin presidential primary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2016 Wisconsin presidential primary. Show all posts

Apr 1, 2016

Hillary Clinton and Her Support for the Nicaraguan Contras

What about it, Hillary Clinton: You agree Reagan's training and support for the Nicaraguan Contras were a disgrace and a human rights violation, correct?

Most who came of age during the age of Reagan, (1981-89), remember the creation of the CIA, the Nicaraguan Contras, remnants of the U.S.-supported dictator, Anastasio Somoza.

The Contras, a group of U.S.-financed terrorists went after soft targets—schools, daycare centers and healthcare facilities—and were among the most vile death squads in 1970s-80s Latin America, terrorists drawing bi-partisan but not unanimous American support, (Greenwald, The Intercept).

Among the supporters of the Contras were the politically ambitious Hillary and Bill Clinton, and last month at a debate Hillary Clinton sounded precisely like Ronald Reagan, (and not unlike Henry Kissinger), (Greenwald, The Intercept).

Love to see a question posed of Hillary asking if the Contras, Latin American death squads and dictators were repulsive terrorists that no decent American should have ever supported.

As noted by Glenn Greenwald after a March 10 debate co-sponsored by Univision, the Washington Post, and Facebook at Miami-Dade College:

Vehement opposition to Reagan’s covert wars in Central America, as well as to the sadistic and senseless embargo of Cuba, were once standard liberal positions. As my colleague Jeremy Scahill, observing the reaction of Clinton supporters during the debate, put it in a series of tweets: 'The U.S. sponsored deaths squads that massacred countless central and Latin Americans, murdered nuns and priests, assassinated an Archbishop. I bet commie Sanders was even against Reagan’s humanitarian mining of Nicaraguan waters and; supported subsequent war crimes judgment vs. U.S. Have any of these Hillarybots heard of the Contra death squads? Or is it just that whatever Hillary says must be defended at all costs? The Hillarybots attacking Sanders over Nicaragua should be ashamed of themselves.'

So, what about it, Hillary Clinton: You agree Reagan's support for the Nicaraguan Contras was a disgrace and a human rights violation, correct?

Mar 31, 2016

On Wisconsin—Walker's Budget Mired in Disaster, Sanders Moves Ahead of Clinton

Donald Trump trashed Scott Walker over Wisconsin's declining fiscal health under Scott Walker, saying "[Walker] is not doing a good job ... ," (Vitali, NBC News).

Actually, Wisconsin's fiscal health is much worse; Jake the macro-Econ man, has the breakdown in a piece entitled, February revenues collapse, Wisconsin budget even more on the edge.

Meanwhile in the 2016 presidential Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders is plowing ahead of Hillary Clinton who has left Wisconsin for a fundraiser from the Wall Street crowd.

While Sanders was in Madison on Wednesday for several appearances including a town hall meeting, Clinton was scheduled to be in New York City at a fundraiser hosted by former Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat.

Sanders' campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, noted the candidates' divergent approaches in an email to supporters on Wednesday. 'Hillary Clinton left the campaign trail for yet another high-dollar fundraising event on Monday,' he wrote, 'but she shared some news about the state of the race that we agree with: she said the trail to the Democratic nomination 'goes through Wisconsin.' (Fulton, Common Dreams).
Also worrying is the uber-hawk, Hillary Clinton.

In the Huffington Post, Oliver Stone sets the record straight on Hillary Clinton and her foreign policy  earning Clinton elsewhere the moniker, the Queen of Chaos.

Notes Stone:

Hillary’s record includes supporting the barbaric 'contras' against the Nicaraguan people in the 1980s, supporting the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia, supporting the ongoing Bush-Iraq War, the ongoing Afghan mess, and as Secretary of State the destruction of the secular state of Libya, the military coup in Honduras, and the present attempt at 'regime change' in Syria. Every one of these situations has resulted in more extremism, more chaos in the world, and more danger to our country. Next will be the borders of Russia, China, and Iran. Look at the viciousness of her recent AIPAC speech (don’t say you haven’t been warned). Can we really bear to watch as Clinton 'takes our alliance [with Israel] to the next level'? Where is our sense of proportion? Cannot the media, at the least, call her out on this extremism? The problem, I think, is this political miasma of 'correctness' that dominates American thinking (i.e. Trump is extreme, therefore Hillary is not). 

Clinton's foreign policy is the same as the Cruz-Trump line, just delivered more delicately.

Clinton's domestic fiscal policy comes straight from Wall Street.

To the extent these facts are known, Clinton's political fortunes will decline.

Mar 25, 2016

Wisconsin Moves into Focus of Presidential Campaigns

On April 5 the Republican Party of Wisconsin will get a
glimpse of how well its voter suppression objectives
have been achieved in the first Wisconsin statewide,
presidential election that conditions the right to vote on
possessing and presenting a Republican-approved photo ID,
(Pierce, Esquire).
Projected Wisconsin April 5 Primary Turnout Expected to Exceed the 2008 Primary Turnout

Wisconsin moves into the spotlight as the April 5 partisan primaries reveal a radicalized Republican Party opposed by two wings of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW)—the progressive wing and the corporatist wing.

Steve Kornacki guest-hosting The Rachel Maddow Show Thursday led with a 13-minute segment offering a historical perspective of Wisconsin's progressive history, Robert La Follette and the statist reactionaries, (my words) such as Joe McCarthy and Scott Walker.

Kornacki interviewed Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel journalist, Mary Spicuzza about Wisconsin's surprise prominence as a potential tipping point in the presidential primary races of both major political parties in the 2015-16 election cycle.

Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board (GAB) this week predicted voter turnout for the April 5 election could be as high as 40 percent, (Beckett, Wisconsin Radio Network).

In the historic Feb. 19, 2008 primary, the turnout was 37.1 percent, according to the United States Elections Project. This figure is a couple points higher than the official Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board's figure of the 2008 Presidential Primary turnout as 34.9 percent.

Although Wisconsin is generally thought of a 'purple' state, the Republican Party of Wisconsin has veered into openly advocating the tenets of fascism the last five years.

The Democratic Party to the extent it is guided by grassroots citizens' groups still traces back a political tradition to La Follette, Milwaukee's sewer socialists, labor union activism, and a scholarship to study labor history as exemplified by University of Wisconsin economist John R. Commons in the early 20th century, (Birth of the Labor Movement, Wisconsin Historical Society).

Contra progressive citizens' movements, corporatist political forces in the Democratic Party today as embodied in U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) and Hillary Clinton have led the DPW to abandon fundamentals of Party organizing, grassroots organizing and establishing the Party as an effective counter to the historic political successes of Scott Walker and the gerrymandered, Republican-led Wisconsin legislature, (Murphy, Urban Milwaukee).
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