Hillary's Wasn't-Me Book Tour

What Happened,
(Simon and Schuster)

Reading the reviews of Hillary Clinton's book, What Happened (Simon and Schuster), and watching Clinton's TV appearances, a constant Clinton theme is blaring: 'I didn't do it.'

The Clinton noise is like Fitchburg, Wisconsin cops harassing a residential home: Bad attitude and lots of time of their hands.

But it's Bernie Sanders who is targeted by Clinton for special reproach: Did you know Bernie isn't even a Democrat?

Ohh myyyy God!

From an instructive review by Jeffrey St. Clair in CounterPunch:

Hillary has tried to reinvent herself many times and does so yet again in this meretricious coda to her failed campaign. ...

She rationalized her votes for the Iraq War by saying she was duped by Colin Powell and Dick Cheney. She manufactured a timely tear for the cameras after her loss to Obama. She assumed the mantle of unrepentant war-monger during her belligerent tenure as Secretary of State and transubstantiated into a white dove during her debates with Bernie Sanders. ...

She then cynically blames Sanders for her losses in Ohio and Pennsylvania with apparently no assist from Putin: 'What did matter, and had a lasting impact, was that Bernie’s presence in the race meant that I had less space and credibility to run the kind of progressive campaign that had helped me win Ohio and Pennsylvania in 2008.' Tell Putin the news, Bernie.

Jesus Hillary, a simple I fucked up would do. Bernie did not stop Clinton from winning Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and Florida, you nit-wit.

Notes David Remnick in The New Yorker:

The wounds that the new book opens are not just Clinton’s. A few nights before meeting with her, I was at dinner with a political professional who worked on her 2008 campaign. I mentioned that I was going to interview Clinton, and sought his advice about what I should ask. He put down his fork and scowled. 'Ask her why she blew the biggest slam dunk in the history of fucking American politics!' he said. 

Hillary Clinton remains determined to show us why she is the one candidate who could have lost to the lunatic in the White House.

But maybe we should give the corporatist Dems just one more chance?

Hillary Clinton on Marriage Equality Is Indecent

If Hillary Clinton speaks, take out your BS meter.

"I believe marriage is not just a bond but a sacred bond between a man and a woman. I have had occasion in my life to defend marriage, to stand up for marriage, to believe in the hard work and challenge of marriage. So I take umbrage at anyone who might suggest that those of us who worry about amending the Constitution are less committed to the sanctity of marriage, or to the fundamental bedrock principle that it exists between a man and a woman, going back into the midst of history as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization, and that its primary, principal role during those millennia has been the raising and socializing of children for the society into which they are to become adults."
—Hillary Clinton in 2004 on marriage equity

Oh, but Hillary must have changed her mind.

Hillary Clinton's History with Black Folks: Lock 'Em Up

Clinton-Thompson-Walker Bond or Black Lives Matter more than Hillary Clinton's Career

Updated - Hillary Clinton is the embodiment of where the Democratic Party went wrong, the abandonment of human rights and decency replaced by passive complacency and careerism.

I wasn't shocked when Clinton defended her mentoring and advice from the war criminal, Henry Kissinger. It was convenient.

This is the same Hillary Clinton who made common cause with former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R-Wisconsin) and an obscure State Rep. Scott Walker (R-White People) in demonizing black folks in the 1990s—capitulating "entirely to the right-wing backlash against the civil-rights movement and (embracing) former president Ronald Reagan’s agenda on race, crime, welfare, and taxes—ultimately doing more harm to black communities than Reagan ever did," as noted in an important piece by Michelle Alexander in The Nation.

Notes Alexander: "In her support for the 1994 crime bill, for example, she used racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals. 'They are not just gangs of kids anymore,' she said. 'They are often the kinds of kids that are called "super-predators." No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.'

One hopes the inducements of a public salary, health care and pension are worth the deals some black members of Congress have made in their endorsement of Clinton.

But to these members of Congress, I say you know damn well you're selling out the future of a people who still matter, even if they're inconvenient to your political careers.

Bernie in Milwaukee with Irish-Latina

Consider private, for-profit prisons. "[T]here are now about 130 private prisons in the country with about 157,000 beds," notes Michael Cohen in the Washington Post on April 28, 2015, a couple of weeks after Hillary Clinton declared her candidacy for the presidency, (Chozick, NYT).

Six months later, it dawned on Clinton that she should cut her ties with the for-profit prison industry and stop taking money from private prison lobbyists, (Rivas, Fusion).

As for Bernie Sanders, he called for-profit prisons "morally repugnant and a national tragedy," and introduced bills to ban this disgrace, (Gaudiano, USA Today).

Hillary would have no moral high ground against a Marco Rubio or other Republican in the general election in this morally repugnant practice.

Bernie Sanders would and does now.

Bernie Sanders: Remember Eric Garner: