I'm getting a little sick of hearing Bernie is pushing Clinton left.

[Cassiopeia]

It's complete bullshit. Anyone that believes that should check my craigslist ads. Your item might not be posted yet, but I have your hopes and dreams and they're selling cheap.

There is NOTHING that forces Clinton to maintain her current progressive campaign stances on anything, especially regarding trade, Wall Street reform, and health care.

Absolutely NOTHING.

Need an example? Look at candidate Obama's picks for his cabinet before he was even sworn in Jan of 2009.

Clinton's campaign is a dog and pony show of ragged beasts with matted fur we imagine to be pristine specimens.

Read the book Needful Things by Stephen King. That is the Clinton campaign and possible administration in a nutshell.

[2pooped2pop]

1. he is pushing her to pretend to be left

Later she will say she misspoke.

[Cassiopeia]

4. She (and her supporters) are even getting angry about Sanders staying in

for that reason. She's ready to run back to the right and her true positions.

[jfern]

17. She usually carefully triangulates on these things

She loves to completely mislead while not technically lying.

[Hiraeth]

2. She is not pushable. Buyable, yes. Pushable, no.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Absolutely right, my dear Hiraeth!

[Hiraeth]

6. She is resolute, for sure. Lip service, yes. She is pretty good at that.

Ambitious. power hunger. fame and glory seeker. and She is damn good at all that.

I give her credit for her tenacity.

good to see you, CaliforniaPeggy

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. You are so correct!

Good to see you too, my dear Hiraeth

[Cassiopeia]

5. 150 million in the last 15 years should yield something after all.

[Hiraeth]

7. lord knows ... temptation .... I could/would do a lot of questionable things for that kind of money

but, not this. At least I hope not. Shit. that is fucking a lot of money. In a weak moment. shit. It is easy to see how.

dang.

would I be a puppet for a 150 million?

fuck.

no. not today.

[Lorien]

24. Bingo. You can push her for a few million

in almost any direction you please, until a donor with deeper pockets appears.

[CoffeeCat]

8. Anyone who believes that Clinton will EVER be pushed to the left

is either a complete buffoon or someone who is in denial.

Robert Kagan endorsed her. The founder of the neocon movement.

I don't recall Kagan ever endorsing Bush. Does anyone else?

Folks, it doesn't get any LESS progressive than having Robert Kagan sing your praises!

[Cassiopeia]

9. Yes, that is the epitome of a Clinton administration.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/08/robert-kagan-thinks-americas-problem-too-little-war

Over the weekend Robert Kagan wrote an essay in the Wall Street Journal titled "America's Dangerous Aversion to Conflict." That seemed....wrong, somehow, so I read it. Mostly it turned out to be a tedious history lesson about the run-up to World War II, basically a long version of the "Munich!" argument that conservatives make every time we fail to go to war with somebody. But there was also this:

President George H.W. Bush and his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, sent half a million American troops to fight thousands of miles away for no other reason than to thwart aggression and restore a desert kingdom that had been invaded by its tyrant neighbor.

....A little more than a decade later, however, the U.S. is a changed country. Because of the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, to suggest sending even a few thousand troops to fight anywhere for any reason is almost unthinkable. The most hawkish members of Congress don't think it safe to argue for a ground attack on the Islamic State or for a NATO troop presence in Ukraine. There is no serious discussion of reversing the cuts in the defense budget, even though the strategic requirements of defending U.S. allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East have rarely been more manifest while America's ability to do so has rarely been more in doubt.

This is one of the tropes that conservative hawks haul out with tiresome predictability, but it's flat wrong. Even now, when Americans have every reason to be skeptical of military action in the Mideast, poll after poll shows a surprising acceptance of it. Whether the subject is Iran, Syria, or ISIS, it's plain that many Americans are already primed for military action, and many more can be talked into it pretty easily. The United States has fought half a dozen major wars in the past quarter century, and the surprising thing isn't that we've gotten war weary. Quite the contrary: the surprising thing is that we're plainly ready to keep it up given the right incentive.

Great endorsement.

[CoffeeCat]

14. The Iraq War was Kagan's BABY

Iraq was the neocon door into the Middle East; their foothold into the region--the most difficult hurdle to overcome.

Clinton voted for it.

Then, when she ran in 2008, she said that vote was a mistake.

YET---she did the same thing in Libya. She spearheaded the effort to have Gadaffi overthrown, now the county is in tatters, without a government and is a failed nation with droves of refugees who are unable to stay. It's Iraq all over again. Libya is "Hillary's project." That's well documented in countless articles.

Kagan was also one of her advisers while she was Sec of State. ...That's fucking off-the-charts batshit crazy.

But we're supposed to believe that Mrs. Clinton REGRETTED her Iraq War vote? She only said that because voters were flocking to Obama, in part, because we loved that he denounced the Iraq War. So, she had to run to the left, to compete. She'll say anything and be anything to get elected!

OMG...the lies!! Does she ever stop lying?

[Cassiopeia]

16. If Clinton stops lying, I'm going outside to make snowballs

and I'm in SW FL.

Clinton didn't make a mistake or misspeak. She stood before the Senate and made an impassioned speech on how important it was to invade and how everyone needed to vote WITH her on the IWR.

It wasn't a vote, it was lobbying for everyone to join her vote so it would pass.

[CoffeeCat]

19. What is so insidious about Hillary Clinton's Iraq War "speech" on the Senate floor

is that she knew, the entire time--that the Iraq War was a farce and a lie.

She knew because the neocons wrote then-President Bill Clinton a letter in 1998. They begged him for a war with Iraq. That letter was signed by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Robert Kagan and other neocons.

President Clinton said no.

Link to that 1998 letter: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5527.htm

The neocons couldn't get President Clinton to do it. They had to wait until Bush was President. And Bush installed many neocons in his administration: Rumsfeld was Sec of Defense. Wolfowitz was a deputy Sec of Defense. Bolton was in the State Dept and Cheney was VP.

This was the same cast of characters who Hillary knew asked her husband for war with Iraq in 1998. And they were back again.

She could have printed out that 1998 letter, waved it around and said, "These are the same people who wanted the same war just a few years ago. Maybe, instead of rushing to war, we should talk about the fact that they've been shopping around this idea for years."

Hillary Clinton could have single handedly stopped the war in Iraq. Instead, she made one of the strongest cases for it.

[Cassiopeia]

21. Wow, I've read a lot about her vote

but I've never seen that.

Clinton might not have been able to stop the Iraq war, but she could have shaped it. Instead she chose to rally the vote for it.

War hawk she is, more so with that letter in hand.

She just might be more dangerous than a Trump Presidency.

[marions ghost]

33. good post

thank you

[Lorien]

25. Hey, Dick Cheney endorsed her too!

I suspect the Hillbots are singing both of their praises among themselves.

[whirlygigspin]

10. the weight of 'pulling left' only carries as much weight as the number of votes in the primaries

that's why the primaries are the best time if not the only time one should ask for ponies, magic wands, revolutions and free everything, because the day after it's done, you have no leverage...and get diddly squat.

But people insist on giving away their bargaining power BEFORE they get a chance to make a deal
and then act surprised when they get called 'retards' and thrown under the bus when it's too late.

the whole point of this mad rush to end the process now, is to end debate so nothing will change
AND it costs the corporations nothing AND they get to cash in, again.

there is, apparently, one born every day

[Cassiopeia]

11. Peas.

I used to love them.

[whirlygigspin]

13. carrots

are only good raw

[jfern]

15. Exactly, a little feinting left in the primary doesn't make her stop being a 3rd wayer

[delrem]

18. She's a neocon.

Over a million Arabs in the ME have died because of her neocon wars.
Millions more are fleeing, taking their chances as refugees.
They bombed schools, hospitals, bridges, the electrical grid, and they left whole cities burnt out husks, countries directionless ruins.
And she wants more.

Hillary Clinton puts the fat profits of private health insurance companies as first thing to be protected, when considering the nation's health plan. That mirrors her stance on every social issue. She is extreme right wing. She hasn't even been nudged "to the left", and her momentum is accelerating to the right at such a breakneck pace that the idea of her being "nudged to the left" by anything is laughable.

[CoffeeCat]

20. Agreed. So why don't her supporters

get this?

Are they in denial?

Do they know, and simply don't care?

Or are they just too damn dumb to figure it out?

[Cassiopeia]

22. It's the cult of personality.

It's her turn.

The majority of people in this country are simply politically stupid. There are a lot of reasons for that, education, the media, our attention spans due to technology, and the constant bombardment we inflict upon ourselves that those with less have too much.

I'll give an example of the last. I have a cousin who ranted and raved at a family reunion about the people wasting our taxes and resources by using welfare. After two hours of it, I had to finally interrupt and remind her that she was in fact a beneficiary of our welfare system.

She deserved it though.

While that may not seem to go toward our primary, I think it does. Hillary deserves it. She's done her time and deserves a shot at the Presidency.

People really are that stupid.

Additionally, 95% of voters really don't follow politics at all. They really have no idea what really happens year to year and how it impacts their lives.

Seriously, go ask random people if they know what the TPP is. Watch the doe eyed look fall upon their faces. They have no clue at all.

We are a politically stupid nation and we're proud of it. However, as politically stupid as we are, Clinton will never win the White House because one thing is nearly universally true, America overall ranges from dislike to hate for the Clinton's especially Hillary.

[Lorien]

26. Yes, as someone said on another board recently

dead Republicans will be crawling out of their graves to vote against Hillary.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

27. i have said that on this board

hillary hate is deep among republicans just as it was for billy - i never understood it - they are both great republicans

[Lorien]

29. Then they must have stolen it from you, lol!

and yes, the Clintons are ideal neocon repugs. But still, branding is all that matters to many people.

[delrem]

23. Her supporters agree with Hillary Clinton's neocon view.

They are fine with Kagan.
They are fine with the destruction of Libya.

They consider talk about these wars, the destruction of the ME, to be a distraction.

In any event that's what I gather from having exchanged opinions with quite a few of them over the years.

Because it's 2016 I think of this in terms of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I don't think Arab lives matter, much, for a lot of US Americans. I think for many it isn't a matter of murdering over a million Arabs in an insane war or vengeance, and wanting to murder way more -- but it's a matter of business is business. There's a profit to be made. And I hear the destruction of Libya happened without spilling any precious US American blood.
There is something about this that reminds me of the Vietnam/Cambodia war. It was grotesque - esp. as US commentators had to wrestle with highly edited "bodycount" info. Back then it was much more evident. The US was killing "gooks".

[Lorien]

28. Yes, they've completely lost their humanity

and without humanity not a shred of left wing progressive liberalism is left in them. To them this is all just the Superbowl, and they want their favorite team to win at any cost. Ideology, history, and policy positions don't matter to them; it's all about branding, scoring and a team win (which they will never have).

[delrem]

30. I don't go that far!

I never deny a person their humanity. Not ever.

What you have is A PROBLEM.

Perhaps a large part of the problem is that many people aren't all that well attuned to political reality? They might latch onto one thing, that HRC is a pro-choice feminist and so is one of the good guys. And that's the limit of it. Perhaps they're incapable of holding together the successive thoughts that explain Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/Syria/Yemen, her actual policy interference to do the thing, and are incapable of understanding what one million dead innocents means. Perhaps they're just, stupid.

[marions ghost]

34. I agree that it's the Stuperbowl to a large number of the electorate

Go team........

In defense of the "lo info voters" however, there is so much conflicting and complicated information coming at them--that I understand not having the time or energy to research it, sort through the lies and manipulations. It is very difficult in this culture for someone who's not a big reader or researcher to make informed decisions. They go on buzz, on feel, what they're fed on screaming media. They vote like their buddies.

If you ask LIV why they vote for Hillary or Trump, the bottom line is that he or she appears to be strong, a fighter. A gladiator. Never mind anything else.

[GreenPartyVoter]

31. Pushing _her_? No. Pushing the national political dialogue, yes. An important distinction.

[eridani]

32. ^^^YES^^^ n/t

[swilton]

35. Thank you for this post

Yes, precisely and add to that the 'Democratic Party' as we know it....Yes, there are a few outliers now running on Sanders' coat tails and I do hope they succeed....

And I know that Sanders has started or is starting a social movement....

But the country will go back to same old-same old with a few purges unless Sanders succeeds.

[Rebkeh]

36. Yeah, it's absurd

It's a non-starter. With her history, there is no reason whatsoever to believe she would lead from the left. The notion is patently absurd.

She is pandering, it's not complicated. People believe what they want to believe, it's why advertising is a big business. It's actually kind of embarrassing.

But what can ya do? Leading a horse to water is never enough.


All will be okay in the end, I know, but why settle? It could be great instead.

[Impedimentus]

37. Hillary will do the Reverse Clinton Two-Step. One step to the left during the primaries ...

two steps to the right (in the direction of the $$$) if she gets into the White House.

It's absurd to think she will change what she has been her entire life ---> a captive of power and money.

FEEL THE BERN - 2016