Divernan
Divernan's JournalDeBlasio played very hard to get for 5 months; very sweet quid pro quo?
Cabinet appointment? VP slot? I expect he drove a very hard bargain.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bill-de-blasio-hillary-clinton-nyc-launch-rally-118825
De Blasio will skip Hillary Clinton's launch rally
(headline)
Hillary Clinton has planned a lavish campaign kickoff on New York City’s Roosevelt Island this Saturday, but one of the Big Apple’s Democratic heavyweights isn’t attending.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press secretary confirmed to POLITICO Wednesday that the New York Democrat would not attend the rally. “I’m waiting to hear…her larger vision to addressing income inequality,” de Blasio said when asked about the event by Capital New York’s Azi Paybarah.
De Blasio has thus far refused to endorse Clinton, despite having managed her successful U.S. Senate campaign in 2000, and has kept his distance from the former secretary of state’s nascent campaign.
The New York mayor also did not attend another major Clinton speech in his backyard in late April. Then, the former secretary of state made headlines in an appearance at New York’s Columbia University for declaring that “it’s time to end the era of mass incarceration” and coming out against many of her husband’s 1990s-era criminal justice policies.
De Blasio has sought to establish himself as a national progressive leader in his first year in office, leading calls for raising the minimum wage and aligning himself with progressive favorites like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Earlier this year de Blasio, Warren and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz unveiled a 13-point “Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality” in an attempt to outline a leftward agenda before the 2016 campaign fully takes off.
http://nypost.com/2015/06/15/de-blasio-still-waiting-on-hillarys-vision/
De Blasio says Hillary Clinton lacks 'vision' (Headline)
Even after delivering a campaign speech packed with eat-the-rich rhetoric, Hillary Clinton was still unable Sunday to win an endorsement from her far-left-leaning former protégé, Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“I’ve been waiting to hear a vision,” de Blasio said. “She’s doing more each time to give us a clearer picture, and I’m very optimistic, but we’ve got to see the plan of how she’s going to turn around this horrible income-inequality problem.”
In her Saturday campaign kickoff rally on Roosevelt Island, Clinton pledged support for gay rights, universal pre-K, paid family leave and higher wages for workers — all while vowing to keep corporate CEOs and hedge-fund managers in check.
But it wasn’t enough for de Blasio, who seeks to be a progressive kingmaker.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ilanbenmeir/peter-king-de-blasios-absence-from-clinton-rally-a-knife-in#.hcO6jJvzd
Peter King: De Blasio’s Absence From Clinton Rally “A Knife In The Back”
“She’s saying all the things now that de Blasio is saying. I guess de Blasio’s answer is that he really means them, and she doesn’t.”
Bazinga! And a sincere welcome to DU
I'd like to see a book analyzing the Clintons, co-authored by Machiavelli, Freud & Shakespeare.
Of course posts like yours will not dissuade true believers/"strong supporters" of the Clintons, but they are read by and given serious consideration by the many who follow DU without joining or posting.
So be not discouraged by "the swarm" when you post on DU. Their very sarcastic responses on any thread are testimony to the fact that posts critical of HRC qua presidential candidate have hit too close for their comfort.
Or as Sheldon would say, Bazinga!
Were those women publicly and repeatedly humiliated and betrayed?
Bill Clinton was a serial adulterer.
Sure, I know women who choose to look the other way, but they had the luxury of that option because their husbands/partners had the class to keep their infidelities on the down low - and I can understand it if wives traded financial security for self respect, and/or had so little sense of self-worth and ability to make a decent living on their own that they hung onto their marriage/meal ticket. And I do know one couple where the wife raised holy hell, threatened to bankrupt hubby in the divorce and they got counseling and the marriage seems to have survived without any further infidelities on his part.
But here we have Hillary, with her Ivy law degree. Bill joked she was making more money than he was when she was a partner in the Rose law firm and he was governor. She's extremely bright and could have made a very lucrative living on her own. Perhaps she'd even have found a second husband who would not treat her so shabbily. Forgive the guy once? Fine. But repeatedly? Her choice, but don't give me any garbage that she's a feminist.
Then there's this: PBS film eyes Clinton
When discussing the Clintons’ years in Arkansas, narrator Campbell Scott said, “Hillary had to deal with Bill’s constant womanizing.”
“You’ve got to understand, at one time, there at least 25 women per day coming through there trying to find him,” said Paul Fray, Clinton’s campaign manager during his unsuccessful congressional run in 1974. “I’d tell them, 'He’s on the road, get out the door.' But, Lord, it was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.”
“He draws women in, and they are literally mesmerized by this man,” said Marla Crider, who was a congressional campaign aide to Clinton. “It was absolutely like fly on honey. And he needed that. He needed that kind of adoration.”
“It’s almost as though there was a part of Bill Clinton that he had no control over,” said William Chafe, a history professor at Duke University. “That whenever it had the opportunity to come out, it was going to come out and with no forethought, with no calculation, with no sense of the consequences; it was simply going to happen. And that’s terrifying.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2012/01/pbs-docu-eyes-clinton-womanizing-071382#ixzz3pa5lvslq
Beautiful essay by Pitt on loss, hope and patience.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33223-know-it-to-the-bone(excerpts)
It is getting dark earlier and earlier in the evenings here, and staying dark later in the mornings. The weather during the daylight hours has been gorgeous - cobalt blue skies, warm sun, cool wind - which makes the ever-earlier departure of the sun all the more poignant. The leaves are turning finally and fast, delayed by a warm September. The goldenrod is gone from the back yard, and battalions of turkeys strut the land.
I am going to miss my sepia dawns, and will have to spend my time now with the dark. That's cool. As Dr. Seuss said, don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened. It happened, and my dawns will return after a budget of cold and snow. In the meantime, I will wait.
I will sit in the dark and think of my friend Brian, and of everyone who has lost someone dear. I will try to figure out how to convince people - one at a time, for as long as it takes - that this isn't working, that blunted indifference is the wellspring of sorrow to the tall profit of a few. Because it is how it is does not mean this is always how it has to be. I believe that. I know it to the bone. I will sit in my dark, and when the sun climbs over the mountain, I will get back to work.
I am a very patient man.
13 vital questions CNN should (but won’t) ask at tonight’s Democratic debate
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/13/13_vital_questions_cnn_should_but_wont_ask_at_tonights_democratic_debate/Don't count on hearing anything consequential tonight. That would mean asking a question with teeth (subheadline)
(samples of some of the proposed questions)
“Do you think the Obama-era revolution in education, from charter schools to testing regimes to teacher evaluations, properly benefits schools and gives students the best chance to succeed as well-rounded individuals capable of independent thought and analysis?”
“The gun control reforms Democrats have proposed since the expiration of the assault weapons ban have been fairly mild, and experts have pronounced them unlikely to help bring down the incidences of gun violence. You would have to actually reduce the number of guns in circulation to get there. Are you willing to propose that?”
“How high should the bar be for assessing when the United States uses its military – including the use of unmanned drones or special forces operations – and what are the factors that should enter into that decision?”
“Can you give me an example from the past 30 years where training and equipping a foreign nation’s opposition has actually led to a successful outcome?”
Bernie & Larry Sanders:candidate's brother crosses Atlantic to watch debate
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/12/bernie-larry-sanders-brothers-presidential-debate?CMP=fb_us#comment-61292763Larry Sanders, who lives in Britain, is scheduled to land in New York on Tuesday morning and watch the debate later that evening. On Monday he told the Guardian he would do so nervously, but with hope.
“I am certainly nervous about it,” he said. “It will be a very big event, very important for the campaign. I’ve seen he’s mentioned online that it’s daunting, but he’s been of course in dozens of debates before so he’s not a newcomer.”
Bernie Sanders’s brother is six years older, at 80, and the candidate has named him as a major political influence. Bernie has credited Larry with introducing him, as they grew up in Brooklyn, to ideas and books that formed his political beliefs.
“Bernard’s campaign and Bernard’s potential election is really about the most important political event in very, very many years,” said Larry Sanders. “He is really very different from the other candidates.”
Wonder if Hillary's 2 ne-er do well brothers or Bill Clinton's half-sister, whom he's never bothered to meet, will attend. As to the Brothers Rodham, "Will they be a problem? Yes. They underscore everything that people fear and hate about the Clintons," the aide said. "They're essentially the id of Bill and Hillary Clinton. A bunch of money-grubbing and opportunistic hillbillies with no sense of ethics, decency, or even legality. "
http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clintons-brothers-tony-and-hugh-rodham-2015-5The newspaper pointed to a wide range of Tony Rodham's business activities including a Haitian gold mining venture and speeches he gave before Chinese investor conferences and a California cosmetics company.
Earlier this year, Tony Rodham was linked to alleged political favors in a report published by the Department of Homeland Security's investigator general. The report criticized a top DHS employee for appearing to go out of his way in 2010 and 2011 to assist "a politically connected regional center," where Tony was listed as the CEO.
The Times cited several other instances where Tony Rodham had tried to use his influence. After the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, former President Bill Clinton helped lead the recovery commission. According to the paper, Tony pressured his brother-in-law for funds. Tony himself reportedly discussed the arrangement in court proceedings that "were the result of a lawsuit over unpaid legal bills filed by his lawyer in a child support case."
"I deal through the Clinton Foundation. That gets me in touch with the Haitian officials," Tony said. "I hound my brother-in-law, because it's his fund that we're going to get our money from. ... And he keeps telling me, 'Oh, it's going to happen tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.' Well, tomorrow hasn’t come yet."
As to Clinton's 1/2 sister, "A newspaper reported that Bill Clinton's father, a traveling salesman who died before the future President was born, may have also fathered a daughter." http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/06/us/president-has-a-half-sister-an-arizona-family-claims.html What a family!
Go Bernie - a nation - or at least 99% thereof, turns its desperate eyes toward you.
An Open Letter to Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper
October 10 at 11:33am ·
An Open Letter to Stephen Harper
Dear Mr. Harper,
I live in BC with my husband and two little girls. I grew up in Calgary and have many friends and family members there. I’m white and in my early 40s. One of us is a stay at home parent, so we benefit 100% from the direct deposits in lieu of a national childcare program. We also benefit 100% from income splitting. And we can afford to take advantage of the increased allowance in our TFSAs. In other words, we're the picture of the family who benefits the most from your economic policies.
But we're not voting Conservative on October 19th.
You see, you've misjudged us. We enjoy our standard of living, we work hard for it but it's not the only thing that matters to us.
You assume we don't care about our first nations neighbours, or Canadians trying to bring their family members here from war torn countries. That we don't care about less fortunate Canadians, our veterans, or scientists. You think we don't mind that to save a few bucks and balance the books we axed the census, dumped decades of research from our libraries, cut funding to CBC, underspent our budgets in important departments and closed coast guard stations. You figure we no longer want our lakes and rivers protected and that we don't understand that climate change is a far greater risk to our way of life than Barbaric Cultural Practices.
You've underestimated us.
On October 19, we're not voting for our bank balance. We're voting for change because we want the caring Canada of our youth back. The Canada that supported our single mothers that gave us the opportunity to succeed in the first place.
Mary Cleaver
www.leadnow.ca
#imagineoct20th
https://www.facebook.com/notes/mary-cleaver/an-open-letter-to-stephen-harper/10156073375130109
Pennsylvania's new online voter registration draws thousands
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2015/10/06/Pennsylvania-s-new-online-voter-registration-draws-thousands/stories/201510060164Pennsylvania's new online voter registration draws thousands
October 6, 2015 12:58 PM
Associated Press
HARRISBURG — Thousands of Pennsylvanians went online to register to vote or changed their registrations in the first year of the new system.
Monday was the deadline for registering to vote in the Nov.3 general election and Secretary of State Pedro Cortés said today that 32,428 people used the online system.
More than 20,000 were new registrants and the rest were people who changed the information on their registration. On Aug. 27, Pennsylvania became the 23rd state to allow online registrations.
Since then, two more states -- Nebraska and West Virginia -- have followed suit.
Profile Information
Member since: 2002Number of posts: 15,480