The Last Word on Hillary Clinton the Candidate

Oh please, let these be the last words about Clinton the candidate.

To be clear, I have moved on from November's fiasco.  But there still seem to be many people, on both the right AND the left, who are intent on stomping on her metaphorical corpse.  To those on the right, I say: Get a grip.  You have a dumpster fire in your own house which is far more serious than anything you imagine Hillary did.

For those on the left, I have the following two articles.  Read them and then, whether you agree or not, let it all go.  There is far too much work to be done in the next 18 months to waste time focusing on a candidate who will never run again.

First this from Rebecca Traister.  The short version is: "A competent woman losing a job to an incompetent man is not an anomalous Election Day surprise; it is Tuesday in America."

Follwed by this from David Faris:

Her boiling anger at the press and at various out-of-nowhere campaign developments doesn't make her worse than Gore, Kerry, Romney, and McCain — it makes her one of them.

And that really only leaves one thing that is just so very different about Hillary Clinton. Let's see if you can guess what it is.

I found both of these articles by way of Lawyers, Guns and Money, and if you aren't reading it on a daily basis, you really should be.

A Typical Friday in the Party for Personal Responsibility

Last Friday, May 26, Michigan congressman Tim Walberg (R - as if you couldn't guess) had this to say about climate change:

“Do I think that man has some impact? Yeah, of course,” he continued. “Can man change the entire universe? No. Why do I believe that? As a Christian, I believe that there is a creator, God, who’s much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.”

It's almost impossible to overstate how irresponsible this is.  For one thing, the United States obviously is not a theocracy.  We don't (or at any rate, most of us don't) vote to send someone to Congress so that they can make policy decisions based on their religious beliefs.

But even setting that aside, this is a cop-out of epic proportions.  How many people would find any of these similarly ridiculous statements acceptable?

• "Why yes, I DID hear a noise that sounded like my car running over something, and I saw a person lying on the street in agony in my rear view mirror.  I'm confident that if that pedestrian really needs medical attention, God will take care of it."
• "Sure my neighbor asked me to keep an eye on his house while he was out of town, and sure I heard breaking glass at 3:00 AM this morning.  It was sure tough to get back to sleep, too, what with his security alarm going off for the next 6 hours.  But that's what I did because after all, if there were a real problem, God would take care of it."
• "I did think it was strange that those guys wanted to learn how to take off and fly a plane, but had no interest in learning how to land one.  And it really surprised me when I found out what they did on September 11.  I really thought that if they posed any kind of threat, that God would take care of it."

If your position on any important issue is that "God will take care of it," then why did you bother running for Congress at all?  Surely we don't need Congress, or a government, right?  For that matter, we don't need jobs of any kind, or money, or food.  We can just sit around all day watching 'Duck Dynasty', because God will take care of meeting our needs and keeping us secure, right?

Walberg seems to be overlooking the obvious here.  Perhaps God really is taking care of the climate change problem, and the way God is handling it is by providing humanity with brains to think and institutions to act, and that God put Tim Walberg in a position of influence precisely so he could impartially review the climate change science and champion effective policies to keep America safe.  In other words, perhaps God gave Tim Walberg the opportunity to DO HIS JOB, and Walberg dropped the ball.

Working-Class Whites Watch: Day 105

Anyone who is tuned in to the state of American politics knows that the most important demographic supporting The Stain are so-called 'working-class whites'.  And if you know that, then you probably also know that this demographic is suffering a great deal from 'deaths of despair', caused in part by opioid addiction:

“Much of the relationship between mortality and Trump’s performance is explained by economic factors; counties with higher economic distress and larger working-class presence also have higher mortality rates and came out strongly for Trump,” Monnat wrote. “In many of the counties where Trump did the best, economic precarity has been building and social and family networks have been breaking down for several decades.”

The Bloomberg article quoted above cites a study by Princeton University's Anne Case and Angus Deaton, which among other things states that "Controlling opioids is an obvious priority" in addressing the problem.

So you will probably be unsurprised to learn that The Stain is doing the exact opposite, proposing a 95 percent reduction in funding for the office leading the fight against opioid addiction:

 It's the latest item in the Trump agenda that addiction advocates fear would erode the government's ability to fight an epidemic killing more than 47,000 Americans per year. Since taking office, the Trump administration has fought to pass an Obamacare repeal bill that would result in millions more without coverage; fired a surgeon general who led an unprecedented study of the opioid crisis; proposed billions of dollars of cuts to public health funding; and signaled a return to the tough-on-drugs approach to fighting addiction.

This move seems to be motivated by The Stain's fundamental belief that it Obama did something, it must be reversed.  And if that's really the driving force behind his presidency, it's going to be a long 4 years --- not least for the working-class whites who helped put him there in the first place.

They Get It

I live in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional district.  Most of the handful of people reading this don't, so I'm going to start this post by showing you the results of the 2016 congressional election in our district:

Now, you probably don't know much about the policy views of Angie Craig or Paula Overby.  I don't, either.  But what little I do know about those two candidates leads me to believe that they are further to the left than your average Democrat.

I will also point out that in the five elections preceding this one, the Democrat had never come within 8 points of winning.  I personally invested a ton of volunteer hours for a candidate who lost by 17 points in 2006.  So Democrats can be excused for feeling at least a little bit of frustration over the 28,869 votes collected by independent candidate Paula Overby.  An argument could be made (and has been) that Overby cost the Democrats their best chance at winning this seat in over a decade.

The reason I'm talking about this is that it just so happens that I was in the same room tonight with both Paula Overby and Angie Craig, and politics was discussed.  In fact, politics and plans to defeat Jason Lewis were the whole point of the meeting.  So one might expect that there would be some tension between these two women.

But there wasn't.  To my knowledge, neither has announced a decision to run again --- or not --- in 2018.  But when Angie Craig made what sounded an awful lot like a campaign speech, I saw Paula Overby applaud.  And for her part, Angie made a special point of being friendly with Paula.

This is how it's supposed to work.  Paula and Angie (and I) all share a common goal: making sure that Jason Lewis is a one-term congressman, and making sure that Donald Trump is a one-term president.  It's clear that neither one of them has the time or the inclination to hurl insults at the other, or re-litigate the election outcome.

There are supporters of both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders who would do well to learn from Angie and Paula's example.

Write You Congress Critter: Oppose the AHCA

This is the letter I sent to my congressman, Jason Lewis, this evening.  All are encouraged to use it as a template for letters of their own.

Imagine my surprise when I read this evening that Paul Ryan is planning to move forward with a vote on the Republican replacement for the ACA tomorrow, May 4.  This, despite the fact that the current version of the bill has not been released to the public nor scored by the CBO.

I wonder what Jason Lewis, the radio personality, would have said if Democrats had passed the ACA under similar circumstances.  As you are no doubt aware, President Obama made a concerted effort to get Republican input into the ACA, allowing working groups in the House and Senate to debate for four months --- before it finally became clear that Republicans were negotiating in bad faith to delay the bill's passage.  And despite that, Republicans insist on spreading the falsehood that the ACA was somehow 'rammed through' Congress.

What would talk show host Jason Lewis have said if Democrats had voted on the bill WITHOUT releasing it to the public and WITHOUT waiting for the CBO to score it.  I imagine he would have spent considerable time attacking the Democrats for lacking transparency and for trying to ram a bad bill into law --- and he would have been right to do so.

So I wonder why it is that congressman Jason Lewis is planning to vote for this bill?

Setting aside legislative hijinks, what IS known about the bill is that it is a very bad bill.  Unless something has changed significantly --- and there's no reason to believe that it has --- it will still deprive 26 million Americans of health care, just like the bill which failed in March.  It will still slash $370 billion from Medicaid.  It will still lead to an estimated 17,000 deaths per year.

And now as a bonus, we've learned that in order to draw more support from Tea Party Republicans, it will also allow states to apply for a waiver of the 'pre-existing conditions' regulations of the ACA, a provision which has the support of 52% of Democrats and 48% of Republicans.  This despite the fact that President Trump promised just 3 days ago that those with pre-existing conditions would continue to be protected under the new law.

Of course, it's no fun kicking away grandma's cane if you can't top it off with a large helping of hypocrisy, served in the form of a provision that members of Congress will continue to enjoy all of the ACA's benefits.

Come on, congressman.  If you have any concern whatsoever about the well-being of your constituents, you cannot support this bill.  And if you do vote 'Yea' on it, please don't come back to our district and try to tell us with a straight face that you did it in the best interest of your constituents.  There is no reason for anyone to support this bill, unless they want to demonstrate their fealty to a president with a 42% approval rating --- or shovel obscene tax cuts up to the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the most vulnerable.


In fact, if you do vote 'Yea' on this bill, don't bother coming back to the district at all.  I know I plan to do everything I can that you don't have your job for long.

Working-Class Whites Watch: Day 89

Once again, The Stain demonstrates that the working-class whites who voted for him were sold a bill of goods:

Unless Congress intervenes by late April, government-funded health benefits will abruptly lapse for more than 20,000 retired miners, concentrated in Trump states that include Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.  Many of the miners have serious health problems arising from their years in the mines.

In mining areas like Uniontown, Pa., and surrounding Fayette and Greene Counties, which Mr. Trump carried 2 to 1, it is an upsetting and potentially costly prospect.  "It's just a terrible, terrible feeling," said one of the retirees, David VanSickle, who spent four decades at work in the mine.  "I think about it 25 times a day."

The president has offered no public comment on the issue, even as he has rolled back regulations on mine operators, an omission that has not escaped the notice of Mr. VanSickle and other retired miners.

Stunning, just stunning.  I mean, the guy swindled thousands of people with a fake university, set up a sham charitable foundation to line his pockets, and lies more than any politician in U.S. history.  And his sole qualification for office was the fact that he's a rich guy.

Who could have predicted that his promises to look out for the interests of the miners would be empty, and that he would instead enact policies which favor the mine operators at the cost of the workers?

Things Everyone Knows: Don't Do Your Opponent's Work For Him

Some Sanders supporters drive me nuts.

So . . . this showed up on my timeline. It was shared by someone I don't actually know personally --- a Friend of someone I know personally, who sent me a Friend request.

Since I don't know her personally, I can't vouch for her politics, but I think she considers herself a liberal/progressive. She has certainly posted a lot of anti-Trump stuff. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's a Sanders supporter.

I don't know if anyone else in my Facebook friends group shares this opinion of the Clintons/DWS/Brazile/Abedin. But just for the record ---

If you oppose Trump and the Republican party, you need to stop doing their work for them. For starters, that means stop it with this over-the-top hatred of these Democrats. There is no proof anywhere that any of these people did anything criminal. There isn't even reason to suspect that any of them did anything illegal, or even particularly wrong. If you actually believe the words in this picture, it means that you are buying into a Russian/Republican con, at least somewhat.

You can't effectively oppose Trump by drinking his Kool-Aid.

Now you may think 'so what, the election's over. It doesn't matter what I say about these Democrats --- there's no way it can help Trump now.' That would be wrong.

The primary way it helps Trump is this: No matter what flaws these people may have, they still have the support of the majority of Democrats. And the Democratic party is the most effective force to counter Trump. So when a Sanders supporter posts stuff like this, it divides the Democratic party and causes Trump's opponents to fight among themselves (like I'm doing right now), rather to focus on opposing Trump.

The more subtle way it helps Trump is that it legitimizes the absolutely absurd attacks he and Russians made on the Clintons, et al, during the campaign. And guess what? No matter who the Democrats nominate in 2020 --- even if it's Saint Bernard --- the Russians and Republicans will generate the exact same kind of misinformation campaign against that person. And when they do, as someone who has given life and credibility to their lies against the Clintons, you will have no credibility yourself when you argue that these new attacks against your candidate are lies.

Lies and smears are exactly that. When Trump lies about Sanders, that needs to be denounced, or at least ignored. The same is true when Trump lies about Clinton. Sanders supporters need to let go of the fact that some of the lies and smears from the last campaign make their candidate look like a martyr. Otherwise the cycle will repeat itself, and an incumbent president who should easily be defeated might well barely stumble across the finish line to claim a second term.

And one final thing. I did what I could to research the origins of this image. My Facebook acquaintance who posted it shared it from some other guy who's not a Friend of mine. I checked out what I could of his page, and he looks like a Sanders supporter, too. But that 'looks like' is important. I expect there are some true Sanders supporters who actually believe this nonsense. But I have no doubt there are lots of people on Facebook who PRETEND to be Sanders supporters, just so they can sucker true Sanders supporters into drinking from their puke funnel and reposting this slime.

Think before you share.