I think a Hillary Clinton
presidency would be the very worst thing to happen to this country.
The recent email scandal
should remind Democrats that Hillary Clinton, despite polls that show her
beating everybody (largely because she’s so well known compared to everyone
else), her campaign is a house of cards. Would only take one big scandal to
remind everyone how dysfunctional she and the people around her are and knock
it down. I don’t know if it was illegal for her to use a private e-mail account
in this manner – I have read compelling arguments for both sides but it
certainly was against governmental policy set by the administration she worked
for. This shows an “it doesn’t apply to me” attitude which I associate with the
worst presidencies in America – Bush, Nixon, not to mention some of Bill
Clinton’s scandals. Another point to consider – How did Guccifer the hacker
find Clinton’s private email? Thru hacking the AOL account of Sydney Blumenthal
and finding emails there from Clinton. Why is that a big deal? Blumenthal is
the Clinton’s dirty tricks guy. In the late 90’s, he attempted to feed info to
journalists that Monica Lewinsky was a crazy stalker as well as dirt about
other women Clinton sexually harassed/assaulted. More recently in 2007/2008 in
the Democratic primary, Blumenthal has the dubious distinction of perhaps being
the first political operative to bring Reverend Wright and Obama’s birth
certificate up as issues. He’s a scumbag, a really sleazy, ugly guy and typical
of how the Clintons operate. When Hillary became SOS, she tried to bring
Blumenthal into the State Department and Obama to his credit said “absolutely
not”. Why is Hillary communicating with someone like this thru a secret
account?
I make no secret of my extreme dislike of both Clintons because A.)
They as much as anyone responsible for the Democratic Party being taken over by
the corporatist, foreign interventionist, anti-working people philosophy of
neoliberalism and kicking progressivism to the curb B.) They are just horrible
human beings – Dishonest narcissistic sociopathic and a lot more conservative
than either of them have ever let on. They are as bad or worse than any
Republican.
Hillary supports
fracking, military intervention almost everywhere, the Patriot Act and NSA
surveillance, thinks Edward Snowden is a traitor, took 400,000 in speaking fees
from Goldman Sachs in 2013, was silent on the Keystone Pipeline, supported
making flag burning a felony, and co sponsored the Federal Workplace Freedom of
Religion Act (which would have made it easier to discriminate against gay
people, single parents and others). The
Democratic Party can do much better.
Here’s my thoughts on three
other potential Democratic presidential candidates
James Webb
All of Elizabeth Warren’s
positions on income inequality with none of her electoral weaknesses, all of
Rand Paul’s positions on marijuana decriminalization and justice system reform
without his Republican libertarianism, wrote an op ed opposing the Iraq War in
2002 while Hillary Clinton vigorously supported it, a hard to attack personal
story/background (war hero, successful author etc.) ....In this day and age of
complete neo liberal domination of the Dem party, Webb’s not perfect but about
as good as you can hope for.
Martin O’Malley
He’s got a generally good
record as governor of Maryland but I think he’d be a weak general election
candidate. He harkens back to the days of Adlai Stevenson, George McGovern,
Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry all good men but perceived as
egghead liberals out of step with Middle America and despite changing
demographicsthat favor Democrats it would be hard for him to win states Obama
and/or Clinton won – Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Missouri for example. It would be
easy to tar him as a tax and spend weakling. In 2012, the Maryland legislature
passed a bill (recently modified) that taxed homeowners on surfaces that could
hold rainwater and conceivably create drainage problems. This legislation which
O’Malley was firmly behind proved so unpopular that Maryland, one of the bluest
states in the country, elected a Republican in 2014 as his successor. This will
definitely haunt him in a presidential campaign. Also O’ Malley’s been pretty
mum about his foreign policy beliefs but he has a history with Zionist groups,
has made a number of pro Israel comments over the years including chastising
Obama over his relationship with Netanyahu. He also has a lot of ties to police
brutality defenders such as police union and police booster organizations from
his time as mayor of Baltimore when he was a firm believer in the discredited Broken
Windows philosophy.
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders for president?
No thanks. Sure, he’s good on healthcare and income inequality issues but his
progressivism stops at the American border. Like so many, he fetishizes the
military, loves defense spending as long as it in his state and bends over
backwards to praise Israel mass killing of Palestinians – He has described
himself as a Zionist in the past. Like a lot of so-called American “liberals”
he has a blind spot when it comes to Israel.
He's as much a socialist as Khloe Kardashian and instead of building a
viable third party, he's spent his whole time in congress walking in lockstep
with the Democrat Party. A pro-military intervention, pro-defense
spending, pro-surveillance state Zionist social justice socialist is an odd
creature indeed!
To sum up, Webb, O’Malley,
and Sanders are all much better than Clinton but as a third party supporter only
Webb could potentially lure me back to voting for the Democratic Party.
