Category Archives: democrats
Coal Country Candidate
Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the West Virginia primary 51.4% to 35.8%.
Before the primary an unemployed coal miner confronted Hillary for acknowledging that her policies would put a lot of coal miners out of work. She claimed that her remarks were taken out of context. Here are her remarks in context from Politifact:
So for example, I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?
And we’re going to make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.
Now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don’t want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.
Aside from EPA mandates, coal is being displaced by a cheaper and cleaner fuel – natural gas produced by fracking.
Pope Prop
In the heat of the New York Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders hopped on a charter Boing 767-300 and burned a carbon footprint to the Vatican.
The Week has a good account of Sanders’ “awkward” campaign detour.
He claimed he was invited by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences to give a speech on morality in the world economy. The president of that group, Margaret Archer, says, “Sanders invited himself.”
A Vatican spokesman said Sanders would not meet the pope. But meet he did.
Bernie managed to bump into the Holy Father’s as he was leaving for Greece. He gushed:
“It was a real honor for me, for my wife and I to spend some time with him. I think he is one of the extraordinary figures not only in the world today but in modern world history.”
Here’s the pope’s description of the encounter:
“This morning when I was leaving, Sen. Sanders was there, he had come to the convention,” the pope said. “He knew I was leaving at that time and he had the courtesy to greet me. I greeted him, his wife, and another couple who were there and were sleeping in Santa Martha,” the hostel where Francis also lives. “When I came down, I greeted him, I shook his hand, and nothing more. This is called good manners and it is not getting involved in politics…. If anyone thinks that greeting someone is getting involved in politics, I recommend that he look for a psychiatrist.”
Democratic Superdelegates
Bernie is racking up the wins but the party establishment is safe, thanks to Democratic Superdelegates. Unlike mere mortal delegates they aren’t beholden to any candidate.
Mark Plotkin in The Hill calls the Superdelegate arrangement a House of Lords category that makes the Democratic Party undemocratic.
The Republicans, on the other hand, are all House of Commons – no Superdelegates. The only way for their establishment to stop an outsider like Trump is to back Ted Cruz, an outsider they hate a little less.
Hillary’s War
Hillary’s in denial. Again.
Hillary’s War
This week she claimed we didn’t lose a single person in Libya due to her lead-from-behind intervention to take out Gadafi.
“We came, we saw, he died,” she enthused.
Pat Smith channeled her inner Madeine Albright saying, “there’s a special place in hell for Hillary.” She is the mother of Sean Smith one of the four Americans killed in Benghazi, Libya September 11, 2012.
She also insists she didn’t blame the Benghazi attack on an awful internet video we had nothing to do with. Come to think of it Obama did the same thing during his re-election campaign. Guess it works.
Hillary Howls
Donald Trump’s antics are bringing howls.
The campaign has become personal. Trump is attacking Jeb’s family and calling Cruz an unfit liar. Hillary has moved beyond the personal. When a candidate lies she barks like a dog.
That’s a lot of lonely barking.