Does Hillary Pass My Political Check List? No.

What I need to know from Hillary Clinton before I even think about supporting her, is her positions on the key issues to me.  First there is the Trans Pacific Partnership.  I haven’t heard any indication she’s turned against it.  She probably helped write it.  I thought I read something where she was bribed into giving the XL Canadian pipeline an approval.  Clearly she is in favor of that.  Now she’s 0 for 2.  I want to know her position about “troops on the ground”.  I want to know her positions on military aid both to Israel and Saudi Arabia.  I believe we should cut off military aid to both.  She gets a passing grade in voting rights.  I want to hear more about taking money from this Swiss sex offender.  Have the Saudis “bought her silence” on women’s liberation issues because of the donation to the Clinton foundation?   And most important I’d like to know her position on the Federal Reserve police and “too big to fail” Wall Street Banks.  Of course I’d also like to know how she feels about “too big to jail”.  I want to know her positions about what republican governors such as Scott Walker have done to labor unions.  I haven’t heard word one from Obama about it.  She seems to be for an increase in minimum wage, so now she’s scored two “correct” points.  How does she feel about her husband’s “reform” of the communacations media?  What about “reforming” Wall Street legislation?   Are you beginning to get a glimpse of where she is at politically and where I am at politically?   We haven’t even talked about getting the money out of politics, a major selling point for Sanders.  As such I am perplexed by Thom Hartman’s saying that he agrees with Hillary Clinton on “most issues”.

The job of Supreme Court justice is not an easy one and sometimes no matter which way they decide they are going to come out with an unpopular ruling.  The Supreme Court said that San Francisco’s requirement that people who keep firearms in their home should either have them in a locked place, or with a trigger lock- - is a touchy one.  The last thing you want to do is go scurrying around looking for the key to a night stand when an intruder enters your home so you can protect yourself.  Yet this is just how the court ruled.  Thom Hartman said some interesting things in terms of Constitutional background we all should be aware of.  Thomas Jefferson wrote James Madison a letter objecting to a standing army in America and that every American should have their own firearm to defend themselves with.  Thom then pointed to a nation like Costa Rica, which has no standing army - -  and they haven’t been invaded.  The other case involves the number of abortion clinics in the state of Texasistan.  Apparently the Court says “there must be a minimum number” even if it’s almost down to nothing.   The problem here is that I see nothing in Roe verses Wade which dictates that every woman is entitled to free and convienient abortion services.  As I understand Roe verses Wade the issue for the court was legality and not convenience.  It’s kind of like you have the right to Free Speech but that doesn’t mean you are “entitled” to have a best selling book on the New York Times list like Stephanie Miller does.  You have the right to speak, but not necessarily the right to be heard.  

There were 117 law enforcement officers killed last year in the US in 2014.  Shawn Hannity inflated that figure to four hundred.  Even the 117 figure strikes me as high.  But all told the odds of any one officer meeting death on the job are low.   Shawn Hannity claimed that the reason why that officer at the pool party pulled his gun was “because he had no idea what he was facing”.  See how well that works for the common man.  “Well gee judge- - the reason why I went crazy firing my gun is because I really had no idea what was going on”.  That’s kind of law enforcements job to “know what is going on”.  He had just thrown down a fifteen year old black girl in a bikini to the ground and jabbed his knee into her back.  He could anticipate that others in the crowd might object to this provocative behavior and rush to her defense.  Shawn also stated that Hillary was going hard left.  And Hannity made an interesting admission.  He lamented the fact that Hillary no longer overtly supports the Trans Pacific Partnership (a perception error on Shawn’s part) and lamented Hillary’s move to the hard left.  (Who apparently are the ones who oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership)  Shawn then said “Obama’s entire presidency has been towing the hard left line.  After all he’s surrounded himself with people like Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dorn and Jeremiah Wright”.   Conservatives live in this completely out of touch realm of make-believe.  In terms of playing all those tapes of hysterical Black men- - I don’t see the point of any of that.  This one foaming at the mouth Black man was toting the FOX talking point political agenda - - and somehow even implied that the reason why places like Detroit are economically blighted is because of left wing policies and not right wing manipulation.  One thing I just don’t understand is- - how come police are going on strike as if “teaching us all a lesson that you all really need us”.  It’s like law enforcement throwing one bit infantile tantrum.  If anybody else did that in any other job they’d be pegged as horribly immature.

Vincent Bugliosi died today of some cancer that returned.  His last appearance on the Thom Hartman program was last December.  Bugliosi is the DA who prosecuted the Charles Manson case and also wrote a book saying Marsha Clark was too whimpy in prosecuting the OJ Simpson double murder case, and that's why she lost, because Clark and Darden weren't "firm enough" with the jury in making a moral appeal for a guilty verdict.  But in the two thousands - - Bugliosi write a book alleging that President Bush, Dick Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld be put on trial for war crimes, for murder, starting with the more than four thousand who died in the Iraq War on our side but also for the 216,000 of the enemy that was killed- - mostly innocent civilians in our indiscriminate bombing raids.  Of course there was the lie connecting Hussein with Bin Laden, and the other multi part lie that Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction".  There was a major CIA report that came out October first 2002 saying that Saddam Hussein posed no iminent threat to world peace or to us.  But then about ten days later a heavily deleted version of this same CIA report was sent to congress, otherwise known as "cooked intelligence".  All conclusions that Iraq was not a threat to us were deleted.  So this day we remember Vincent Bugliosi as a life long crusader for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.  

Every day President Obama shows himself to be more and more of a phoney.  We’ve told you of secret interperatations of “secret laws” when it came to bulk data collection and other surveillance by the NSA.  We concluded that even if the Patriot Act expired it would not stop one act of unauthorized surveillance.  Now it’s become more blatant.  Seemingly just hours after President Obama signed the heralded “Freedom Act” the President went to a “secret court” and asked permission to ignore the provisions of the law.  Obama is a president who relies so heavily now on secrecy and skirting of the law in cases such as immigration - - and of course the people who are against “Obama Trade” point to the fact that a lot of our laws will be tossed into a cocket had and permanently ignored because they are all overridden by this “treaty”, which of course is secret.  Go back and read the previous posting if you have further questions here.

The problem with President Obama is he’s a pie in the sky optimist about everything and thinks he has more power than he really does, over a lot of things.  Here are some facts indicating that the European Union might not be too happy with President Obama.  Interviewed on June 6th by German Economic News, the chief economist at Bremer Landesbank, Folker Hellmeyer, says that because of Obama’s sanctions against Russia, German exports declined year-over-year by 18% in 2014, and by 34% in the first two months of 2015 (no later figures), but he asserts that “The damage is much more comprehensive than these statistics show,” because those are only the “primary losses,” and there are in addition “secondary effects,” which get even worse over time.  For example: “European countries with strong business in Russia, including Finland and Austria, are economically hit very hard. These countries consequently place fewer orders from Germany. Moreover, considering that European corporations will circumvent the sanctions, to create production facilities at the highest efficiency level in Russia, we lose this potential capital stock, which is the basis of our prosperity. Russia wins the capital stock,” at the EU’s expense, even though the sanctions are targeted against Russia. Of course this is from a writer ever sympathetic to Russia.