Hillary Clinton 2016 – Page 9

Misinformed vs. Uninformed (Cont.)

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (Mark Twain)

Yesterday, we linked to an article describing the difference between being misinformed and being uninformed. Uninformed people have no information about a subject, while those who are misinformed have information that conflicts with the best evidence and expert opinion.

How are so many people getting misinformed, and staying that way? Why does it work?

You probably have never heard of Robert Proctor, from Stanford, who wrote a book about ignorance, in which he tries to answer the question: What keeps ignorance alive, or allows it to be used as a political instrument? He calls this “Agnotology” (the study of ignorance). Proctor’s point is that ignorance has a political geography, and there are things people will work hard to keep you from knowing.

Apparently, his work started with the tobacco industry, who at some point used the slogan: “Doubt is our product“.

Proctor explains that ignorance can be propagated under the guise of balanced debate. For example, the common media approach that there are two opposing views does not always result in a rational conclusion to readers or viewers. This was how tobacco firms used science to make their products look harmless. It is still used today by climate change deniers to argue against the scientific evidence.

Procter, from the BBC:

This ‘balance routine’ has allowed the cigarette men, or climate deniers today, to claim that there are two sides to every story, that ‘experts disagree’ – creating a false picture of the truth, hence ignorance…We live in a world of radical ignorance, and the marvel is that any kind of truth cuts through the noise…Even though knowledge is ‘accessible’, it does not mean it is accessed.

Sound familiar?

In a December focus group with Trump supporters, David Frum, long-time Republican pollster, found that when negative information about Trump was presented, it strengthened the group’s support for him. Participants in the group held on more confidently to their misinformation as the session progressed.

We know that this is a symptom of the culture of American anti-intellectualism. Conspiracy theories have the same clout as legitimate science; the opinions of non-experts are just as credible as those of the experts; and ideology takes precedence over the cold hard facts. In this world, Trump is merely a symptom of that ethos and an industry dedicated to propagating doubt.

We all remember Stephen Colbert saying: “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

And consider a 2012 study that found when people are prompted to use their critical faculties, they become less likely to affirm religious statements. They found that there’s a causal link between “analytical thinking” and religious disbelief.

Perhaps the worst (best?) example was the Republican Party of Texas rejecting critical thinking in its 2012 platform:

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs [that] have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs.

Hmmm. Teaching HOTS can give you the HOTS? Doubtful.

Perhaps it’s a better thing to not know the facts, instead of knowing a few pretend facts. At least, the uninformed person is persuadable by evidence.

The right-wing noise machine has fed hatred, bigotry, fear and loathing to its base supporters for decades, and Trump is the logical outcome. Most people aren’t all that logical when it comes to politics or political issues, since most of us tend to be ruled more by emotions. But the right-wing propaganda juggernaut has brainwashed some of its followers to the point that they are completely impervious to facts.

The Republicans are not going to laugh the Donald off their stage. They are not going to dissuade his core supporters, the only question is will his supporters vote in the Republican primaries.

If they do turn out, it will be The Donald vs. The Hill in 2016.

Who Has the Answer For 2016?

We have entered the presidential election year, but we, the people, really do not see any candidate as the answer to our problems. Voters on both sides of the aisle think the country needs to turn a page. We are frightened and angry, and increasingly feel that the two parties have no answers to our questions about tomorrow.

The Democrats say the choice is Hillary or Bernie.

The Republicans say we should choose between Trump, Marco, Ted or Jeb!

Consider what Tom Friedman said in Wednesday’s NYT: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The agenda that could actually make America great again would combine the best ideas of the extreme left and the extreme right. This year is probably too soon for such a radical platform, but by 2020 — after more extreme weather, after machines replace more middle-class jobs, after more mass shootings and after much more global disorder — voters will realize that our stale left-right parties can’t produce the needed answers for our postindustrial era.

Ok, agreed! Friedman argues that it’s time for an extremist, a nonpartisan, whose platform draws ideas from both sides. To give Friedman his due, he outlines a fairly radical agenda that includes universal health care, a form of income guarantee for low wage earners, increased military spending along with some unintelligible tax reform:

Slash all corporate taxes, income taxes, personal deductions and corporate subsidies and replace them with a carbon tax, a value-added consumption tax (except on groceries and other necessities), a tax on bullets and a tax on all sugary drinks — with offsets for the lowest-income earners.

A Value-added Tax? Instead of a progressive income tax? That’s the icing on Tom’s pro-business cake.

So he has some good ideas, and some that won’t work. That makes him the same as our two political parties. Much of the problem can be traced to the Democratic Party walking away from its intellectual base in the New Deal and the Great Society, and failing to offer better choices. As Sam Smith says:

It’s [the Democrats] failure to come up with alternatives, [while following] an agenda that appealed to comfortable and more upscale liberals rather than to ordinary Americans.

Bernie Sanders is a New Deal Democrat in “democratic socialist” clothing. He is the first democrat in decades to look outside the box for solutions to the problems our current economy visits on average people. It is unlikely that he will beat the Clinton political machine in 2016.

Hillary Clinton leads in the primary polls, but is she electable in the general election? No one should enter the 2016 general election thinking that HRC isn’t a vulnerable candidate. Democrats seem to forget that in 2008, she lost to a little known black guy with a minimal political record.

If voters are looking for a political savior, Hillary is more of the same middle of the road economics with a slight tinge of social liberalism that Mr. Obama offered.

The question is, has the country moved past that kind of “political triangulation” that Bill Clinton perfected in the 1990s? In 2008, Mr. Obama won as a new breed of politician. By 2012, with staunch legislative opposition from the GOP, he was triangulating to win a 2nd term. Can triangulation work again for Hillary?

Sam Smith points us to the age issue:

Nobody’s talking about this, in part because Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would each be the oldest presidents except for Ronald Reagan. But what if Clinton at 68 faces Rubio or Cruz, both in the mid-forties? It makes the image of a new future considerably harder to project.

He might add that Bernie Sanders is 74 now. Ronald Reagan was 78 at the end of his 2nd term.

So what’s the alternative? It is too late for 2016. Partly due to the strength of Hillary’s resume, the Democrats have no viable alternatives. If Ms. Clinton stumbles, the Democrats would be trying to win with Bernie Sanders, who might do well, but who could also make the George McGovern 1972 shellacking seem like a win. This is indicative of a huge problem for Democrats: It has no viable bench.

Assuming that Clinton is the Democrats’ choice, her liabilities could be lessened by treating the campaign more like a struggle between opposing parties instead of one between political celebrities. The argument becomes: if you want to retain Constitutional freedoms that are under attack by a conservative Supreme Court, if you want to keep Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and other social programs, if you want less foreign adventurism, then you have to vote Democratic regardless of what you think of Hillary Clinton.

Despite the fact that many of us are desperate for something shiny and new, this contest is not a “Survivor” or “American Idol” TV series.

It’s the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats: Where the White Voters At?

Yesterday, we examined the fact that the poorest Americans are the least likely to vote, so they cede the policy agenda to those who do support the weakening of America’s social safety net, and who use low voter turnout as a key election strategy.

Do the Democrats have a strategy to counter the election strategy of the GOP? If they do it isn’t evident.

Dems think that they have a permanent Electoral College presidential majority, and that changing American demographics will help them build majorities in both houses of Congress by the mid-2040’s. They are apparently willing to wait for demographics to become destiny: The numbers of white working-class voters will dip to just 30% of all voters by 2020 and 44% of white voters.

This is a dramatic decline from 1988, when white working-class voters were 54% of all voters and 64% of white voters.

But, in the last three presidential elections, the Democratic candidate lost among white working-class (non-college) voters by an average of 22 points, and by 26 points in 2012 (62%-36%). Despite Mr. Obama winning two terms, his “Obama coalition” will not insure a Democratic majority in Congress, or even provide with certainty the election of a Democratic president again in 2016.

In fact, PPP, a Democrat-leaning polling firm with a great record for accuracy, says this about 2016:

Early general election contests are shaping up to be very competitive with Hillary Clinton polling within 2 points of 5 out of 6 Republicans that we tested against her. The only GOP hopeful to actually lead Clinton is Marco Rubio at 45/43. Rubio is also the only candidate in the field with a positive favorability rating among the overall electorate, at 39/37.

Pew found that those who are most unlikely to vote are demographically distinct from likely voters:

• 34% of nonvoters are younger than 30 years old
• 43% of nonvoters are Hispanic, African American, or other racial and ethnic minorities
• 46% of nonvoters have family incomes less than $30,000 per year, while only 19% of likely voters are from low-income families
• 72% of likely voters have completed at least some college, while 54% of non-voters did not attend college

On the subject of the white working class voter, The Democratic Strategist produced an analysis about the subject, “Roundtable on Progressives and the White Working Class”, which asked the question: “What do you think is the most important single step progressives and Democrats can take to regain support among white working class Americans?”

One thing stood out in their deliberations: It was clear from surveys that white working-class voters support public action to address chronic joblessness, income disparities, and unequal education and social opportunities. They cited the study on the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty conducted by the Center for American Progress, which found that more than two-thirds of white non-college voters supported 11 out of 11 policies to fight poverty, including:

• An increase in the minimum wage
• Subsidized child care
• Expanded Earned Income Tax Credit
• A national jobs program to combat unemployment

Support among this cohort topped 80% for universal pre-k, expanded Pell grants for low-income families, and affordable child care, and was basically on par with the views of African Americans and Latinos.

That indicates that there is a path for Democrats to gain a larger share of white working class voters, but The Democratic establishment does not have a serious plan that shows white non-college voters that they see the real problems facing Americans the same way.

Here is a modest program to improve Democrats’ chances with white working class voters:

1. The old guard Democratic leaders must go: Why would any Democratic candidate want to brand themselves with a party leadership that tells them to run content-free campaigns?
2. They should look at the political landscape: People are discontented, in part, because incomes haven’t risen in 15 years. What have Democrats done in response? Virtually nothing.
3. Democratic politicians need to listen to constituents. Democrats will never appeal to the majority of working Americans by primarily making more promises to enact new civil rights rules, or environmental laws. They have to deal with incomes.

The economic struggles of the white working class, combined with a feeling of powerlessness, have undoubtedly made them susceptible to right-wing rhetoric, a major coup for Republicans. The key to Democrats winning over this demographic is more about calls for straightforward job creation, wage increases, and benefits for working-aged families, and less about ploys that superficially connect to them.

We should remember that “low income white” is not a synonym for “Republican.”

Shouldn’t Democrats Be Doing Better?

Wrongo watched the first half hour of the Republican Debate. If you feel you must, a transcript of the whole debate is here. The focus was supposedly on the economy. Perhaps the funniest thing was that the media password for WiFi was “stophillary”.

You will be inundated with expert opinion about what was said and who the “winners” were, but none of that is important. All you need are the Wrongologist’s observations: First, the moderators couldn’t be trusted to offer a reality-based picture of the world, any more than the candidates. Maria Bartiromo asked Jeb about unemployment, saying that almost 40% of Americans are without a job and are not even looking. Really? Media Matters checked, and her number included children, retirees, college students, and stay-at-home parents.

Yep, Republican policies will get those kids and retirees into the workforce.

Regarding the candidates:

• There was oratory, little of which sounded informed
• Most denied basic facts about economic and jobs growth
• Most candidates agreed that nobody needs a minimum wage, much less a higher minimum wage
• They agreed we need a small government, but one that still can dominate the world

When a Republican says “small government,” they really mean making the government’s legal and regulatory arm ineffective enough to allow businesses to do whatever the Hades they want until something bad happens. Then Congress can say: “who could have imagined” like the morons they are, and ask the taxpayers to clean up the mess.

You would think that the debate performance by Republicans, and their relative lack of political experience, opens up a window for Democrats in 2016. It should, but Democrats may not be in a position to take advantage. Since the Reagan era, they have deserted the world view and policies that gave them an upper hand politically. They have left the New Deal and Great Society behind, and failed to replace them with anything that anyone thinks is worth getting excited about.

They have morphed into “Republican Lite.” Republicans don’t like Democrats because they won’t agree to the GOP’s fringe ideas on guns, climate change and gutting the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts.

Most of the rest of the country just doesn’t care about these new Dems. Some detest their support of abortion and gay and transgender rights. Democrats aren’t doing better because it is obvious that they have become what we used to call moderate Republicans, and why should right-of-center voters settle for the imitation flavor?

A pundit said last week that Barack Obama is only slightly to the left of Richard Nixon. Judge for yourself: Nixon instituted national price controls, ended convertibility of the dollar into gold, signed legislation that started the EPA, and endorsed the failed Equal Rights Amendment. Would Obama we know today have done all of those things?

Since 2008, Democrats have lost the electoral argument in the states. Republicans now control both houses in 31 state legislatures, and have gained 900 seats in those state legislatures on Obama’s watch.

That doesn’t sound like Democrats are following a winning strategy.

Bernie Sanders is attempting to help the Democratic Party rediscover who they once were. However, that re-discovery is not widespread, and may be occurring too late to be of service in this election cycle. If the re-awakening does not occur in this cycle, there is reason to believe that the oligarchs will have all the votes they need both in Congress and on the Supreme Court to ensure a semi-permanent reign.

So Democrats, the choice is yours: You can endorse centrist, middle-of-the-road issues, or you can represent the issues that the American people actually care about. If you go middle of the road, know that you’re putting the millennial vote in play, since they are a generation that, for the most part, remains politically independent.

This strategy may lead to Hillary taking the White House, but it will make taking back the Senate harder, and it will not reduce the Republican majority in the H0use.

Democrats need to do better.

Waiting for the Great Trumpkin

Today, we focus on this from the WaPo’s Marc Fisher who profiles the kind of people who support Donald Trump and finds they are mostly older white men and women:

The way Joe McCoy sees it, the last time America was great was when Ronald Reagan was president, when people played by the rules. No, it was in the ’70s, Holly Martin says, when you could depend on Americans to work hard. No, to find true American greatness, Steve Trivett contends, you need to go back to before the Vietnam War, ‘when you could still own a home and have a good job even if you didn’t have a college education.’

Fisher says this demographic resonates with the Donald’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”. And even if they don’t agree on exactly why, they do accept Trump’s contention that the US has become “an economic wasteland” and that it is “committing cultural suicide.”

The premise behind “Make America Great Again” is that while the country is no longer great, it can be great again, and Trump is the can-do billionaire who can make that happen.

This can be difficult to watch, like a slowly-developing accident on the freeway. People seem so easily misled, and they say such unsophisticated things about immigration, about Putin and Syria, about our economy, about the threat from Muslims who live in America.

But do we have good Party establishment choices in the 2016 election? No, voters don’t have good, clear choices, despite the unprecedented number of candidates.

Republicans made their voters a bunch of promises over the past 10 years, some of which they had no hope of keeping, and others which they had no intention of actually delivering. It’s also clear that the Republican “Establishment” is frustrated with the Republican candidates, and their supporters who actually expected the Party to be more effective. That’s why so many Republican voters have no interest in Jeb Bush or Scott Walker, and it’s clear that the GOP Establishment misunderstands their own base.

So, Donald Trump appeals to many Republicans as someone who’s pretty effective at holding the media’s attention and driving the national conversation. Someone who looks to be a better bet to actually shake things up and make possible a few things that currently look impossible.

It might be a GOP Hail Mary pass, but what’s the alternative?

For Democrats, Hillary Clinton looks like the candidate who’s “turn” has finally come. She is a product of their “establishment” as much as Jeb Bush is of the GOP’s.

And is it really all that different that the progressive left looks to Bernie Sanders to create a “revolution” in the political climate, making a progressive America possible? Sanders may be more of a Hail Mary pass than Trump.

Since both parties suck and won’t work together, many on both sides are looking for an anti-establishment Messiah to lead them to the political Promised Land. What makes this risk seem worth it is that, while folks understand they’re inviting chaos, they feel our politics are already chaotic. So, people think “What’s the difference?”

And it’s hard to argue with them. American politics feels like a metaphor of Easter Island: Some of us spend our lives trying to get new trees to grow, while the majority are happy to keep chopping down the old ones as fast as they can.

Trump is saying if we vote for him, he’ll make it all better. And if you read Senator Sander’s stump speech, you’d know he is saying he can’t do it alone, that people have to get together and organize to effect change.

That is “a substantive difference” between these two “insurgents”.

That’s why Bernie Sanders’ use of the Democratic Socialist label is disorienting. It shakes people out of their normal process enough to wonder how he thinks he could possibly win. He can’t.

And the mainstream media and both party establishments say: “things really aren’t as bad as they’re made out to be.” They hope that in the end, most voters will agree with their sentiment, and vote for their establishment candidates.

But voters have spent decades lowering their expectations (in Wrongo’s case, except for a short-lived upswing in 2008). Screw that. People need to raise their expectations. Because lower expectations and the “what did you expect” attitude is essentially giving permission for poor results.

We need to expect MORE, demand more.

Because it’s better to have high expectations with the risk of disappointment, than it is to have low expectations that guarantee more of the same old stuff.

You Say You Want a Revolution

The Nation describes Bernie Sanders’s “Political Revolution”: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

When Sanders speaks of that political revolution, he is asking Americans—especially younger Americans like the crowds of Iowans in their teens and twenties who packed the Sanders bleachers in Des Moines’ Hy-Vee Hall for the Jefferson-Jackson dinner—to believe that electoral politics might actually change something. Sanders knows that won’t happen unless people who are frustrated and disengaged and disenchanted see him as a candidate who is distinctly different from the rest.

For Sanders, “Political Revolution” means a protracted, grassroots effort to fix a broken political, economic and social system. He says it will take millions of people to get involved and then stay mobilized after the election to bring about a political revolution.

That’s what Bernie Sanders’s campaign is all about.

So, if you agree that our politics is broken, shouldn’t we actually be working to fix the underlying problems? Without something that looks like a “political revolution”, fixing these problems is difficult if not highly unlikely. Consider the following:

• Capitalism as an economic engine has created unheard of levels of wealth, but since the 1980s, that wealth only accrued to those at the very top.
• Democracy is in trouble, because Capitalism needs a plutocratic system of government to operate.
• Democracy gets in Capitalism’s way because the interests of the people are not congruent with the interests of the corporations. They are often in direct competition.
• In order for corporations to keep their preferred position in this conflict of ideas, the voice of the people must be weaker than the voice of the corporations. Hence, Shelby County vs. Holder, Citizens United and the soon-to-be decided Evenwel v. Abbott.

Democrats say “vote for us because we’re not as crazy as the Republicans” (even though they actually support the same corporate interests). The Dems will also offer you a few social policy crumbs that you should enjoy on your way to becoming the big losers in our latest Gilded Age. And those crumbs will expire when Republicans control all three branches of government.

The last political revolution began when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. That revolution has continued through two Democratic and two Republican administrations, for more than 35 years.

• It resulted in higher taxes for the middle classes which paid for lower taxes on the wealthy.
• It reversed progress toward voting rights, racial equality and equal rights for women, progress that was made in the 1960s and 1970s
• It has prevented universal health insurance.
• It led to increased terrorism and endless war.

So, it’s been a wild success! And it’s still going strong under its second Democratic president.

Bernie’s “political revolution” is to attempt to turn Democrats back to being the party of the people, to give Capitalism a conscience. The theory goes, if Democrats embraced Bernie’s point of view, people will vote in large numbers. If they vote in large numbers, change will come.

This is the fight Bernie is leading.

But Bernie has no real chance at the nomination, and if he got it, there is a high probability he’d lose the general election in a blow-out. And since he’s not doing the things he needs to build a constituency in Congress, or it other down-ticket races, his populism is unlikely to translate into a movement. America has to hit rock bottom for that to happen, and we’re not there yet.

OTOH, Hillary doesn’t seem to have a plan to win the House or Senate in 2016 either.

But the fact that it is unlikely that he can win doesn’t mean that Bernie and his supporters shouldn’t fight for his policies. He has already forced Hillary to recant a few illiberal positions. And his pursuit of right-leaning white working class voters could help forge a new populist coalition down the road. Poor white folks have been clinging to the GOP for the past forty-odd years, and they are still poor, and getting poorer.

They might be willing to embrace his populist economic message even while they hold their noses when they hear his social justice views.

So, when you hear about Sanders’ political revolution, it doesn’t sound so much like a revolution as a return to policies that had been in place for much of the 20th century, those policies that began during the FDR era.

What Sanders describes is a political restoration, not a revolution.

Little that he proposes is radical from the point of view of where the country was in the 1970s.

Back before the Regan revolution began.

Hillary?

An important survey by Pew released this week says that Republicans are looking for “New Ideas”: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Since March, the share of all registered voters who say it is more important for a presidential candidate to have “new ideas and a different approach” has surged – with virtually all of the increase coming among Republican and Republican-leaning voters. Today, by more than two-to-one (65% to 29%), Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters say it is more important that a candidate have new ideas than “experience and a proven record.”

(The survey was conducted on Sept. 22-27 among 1,502 adults, including 1,136 registered voters.)

Pew reports that Democrats have less interest in new ideas: 50% say it is more important for a candidate to have experience and a proven record, while 42% view new ideas and a different approach as more important. This is little changed from March (46% experience, 49% new ideas).

And Pew reports that Hillary has a bigger lead over Sanders than other polls show. Their poll includes Biden:

This is a very different result from other polls which tend to show Sanders just a few points behind Clinton, (at least in New Hampshire) and which say that Biden hurts Clinton enough to open a path to the nomination for Sanders, should Biden enter the race.

But despite the Pew results, many Democrats think 2016 looks grim. Here is the Denver Post reporting that Colorado’s Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper used those exact words:

Gov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday became the latest Hillary Clinton supporter to express doubt about her candidacy for president, telling a Denver audience that the 2016 election is ‘kind of grim, to be blunt’.

The Denver Post also quoted former Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm, who (speaking about the email issue) said he believes:

There’s a one in three chance that if something worse does happen, that will cost her the nomination.

From 30,000 feet, the presidential race includes Hillary, a person many people don’t trust, who seems to lack the vision thing, and Bernie Sanders, who self-describes as a democratic socialist when he’s merely an FDR Democrat.

It just shows how ingrained the memes of the right are in our society, when a New Deal Democrat honestly believes that he is a Democratic Socialist.

Bernie should call himself an FDR Democrat, since he has to deal with corporate media in order to win. The Democratic Socialist label easily morphs into socialist, and then on to Marxist by our media elite. This means that intellectually lazy voters will misunderstand what Sanders is really about. Better for him to conflate his candidacy with a period of American economic recovery than for him to get twisted by the media echo chamber into a second coming of Lenin, or a Jewish Fidel.

And right now, Pew says that the Republican voters are more engaged in the process:

This shows that Dems are about as engaged as they were when Barak Obama was running against Hillary for the nomination, but Republican engagement has increased steadily since 2007.

Considering that the Democratic base seems mostly on auto pilot, it could be a lot worse, particularly since the Democratic National Committee is headed by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who gave us a Republican House and Senate.

The key question is which candidate can keep the Obama coalition together. Today, it seems to be Hillary:

• If Bernie is the candidate, money is going to be a huge problem and not just for him. How does the DNC raise money? How do other Democratic candidates raise money with Bernie running against the big money donors? It’s all well and good to rail against the campaign financing laws, but Senate and Congressional candidates have to raise money too.
• Can the Dems win the White House AND the Senate on $30 individual donations?

If Hillary is the candidate, the issue will be Hillary making the case that she won’t preside over a third Obama term. Or, the central issue in Hillary’s candidacy could be her husband Bill, and a third Clinton term.

The assumption by Democrats in the primary contests should be that Republicans will still control the House. Even with a Democratic win, neither Hillary nor Sanders would be able to get much of a domestic agenda passed.

Either way, 2016 will be a repeat, more or less, of 2012, with the significant addition of Iran, Russia, and ISIS on the foreign policy front. That may make 2016 more of a balanced issue election.

All Dems can reasonably expect from a presidential win in 2016 is Supreme Court nominations, holding on to the Obama gains, and pushing the country to return towards more economic equality than in the years since 2008.

Monday Wake Up Call – October 5, 2015

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Saturday that he opposes a unilateral American no-fly zone in Syria. This differentiates him from Hillary Clinton who wants to create one. Mr. Sanders:

We must be very careful about not making a complex and dangerous situation in Syria even worse…I support President Obama’s efforts to combat ISIS in Syria while at the same time supporting those in that country trying to remove the brutal dictatorship of Bashar Assad.

Ms. Clinton’s position is the same as Republican contenders Florida governor Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and failed CEO Carly Fiorina, making all of them the “Quagmire Candidates”. Think about it: A US enforced no-fly zone over northern Syria could mean starting a war with Russia, who now controls that air space.

The Quagmire Candidates are ok with possibly attacking Russian forces in order to defend al-Qaeda?

Remember, our CIA and our Gulf State allies are funding al-Qaeda-affiliated groups. The NYT says: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The fighters advancing on that [northern] front were not from the Islamic State but from the Army of Conquest, a group that includes an affiliate of Al Qaeda known as the Nusra Front and other Islamist groups, including several more secular groups that have been covertly armed and trained by the US.

A second NYT article on 10/1 about the Army of Conquest: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The alliance consists of a number of mostly Islamist factions, including the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate; Ahrar al-Sham, another large group; and more moderate rebel factions that have received covert arms support from the intelligence services of the United States and its allies.

Clinton, Fiorina, Bush and Kasich have all endorsed the idea of forbidding Russian use of air space and operations in Syria and a willingness to fight the Russians to enforce such a thing. So, we have SEVERAL presidential candidates who should never be allowed near the position of Commander-In-Chief.

And why? What is there about (or in) Syria that is worth the risk of nuclear war to America? The Russians would have to agree to any US “no-fly zone” and it is difficult understanding how they would agree to it. Would we really engage Russia in an air war to settle the point about who controls the skies over Syria?

Will the main stream media even ask Hillary, Jeb, Carly or Kasich why they want to start World War III? Or, why America is supporting Jihadists in Syria?

This is potentially more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis, and it is beyond aggravating that these candidates can’t see it.

Our national security policy skews macho, and has since the 1950s. And the chest-beaters in Congress want Mr. Obama to appear weak, while our media continues to stir up trouble to keep these contradictions on the front burner.

This is why some Democrats have problems with Hillary Clinton. Her foreign policy position is “Republican Lite.” She consistently holds a near-bellicose position, similar to many Republicans. She supported our actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

Apparently quagmires poll well.

So, our wake-up is for the America voter: Here are Lords of the New Church doing “Open Your Eyes (to the lies right in front of you)”. Their line, ‘the acting’s lousy but the blind don’t know’ is as true today as it was in 1982 when this was recorded:

The Lords were fronted by the late Stiv Bators, who previously fronted the Dead Boys. Wrongo and Ms. Oh So Right hosted Mr. Bators and crew at our place in 1978. But, talk of recording an album there never materialized.

Sample Lyrics:
Video games train the kids for war
Army chic in high-fashion stores
Law and order’s done their job
Prisons filled while the rich still rob
Assassination politics
Violence rules within’ our nation’s midst
Well ignorance is their power tool
You’ll only know what they want you to know
The television cannot lie
Controlling media with smokescreen eyes
Nuclear politicians’ picture show
The acting’s lousy but the blind don’t know

Open your eyes see the lies right in front of ya.

For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

Thursday Cartoon Blogging?

We will not have Sunday Cartoon Blogging this week, as Ms. Oh So Right and the Wrongologist will be in Vermont at a wedding. However, some are too good to pass up. There will be a 9/11 column on Friday. On to cartoons!

Kim Davis is out of jail. She remains on the case, however:

“I want you to go down to Morehead Kentucky, and instruct Kim Davis to stop putting words in my mouth”

Last week saw the incredible shrinking NFL Commissioner Goodell:

The surprising track races continue:

With Hillary looking weaker, Dems consider a relief pitcher:

The Iran deal now has a bullet-proof minority in the Senate. Time to get frisky:

At the time, Wrongo thought that awarding Mr. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize was a mistake. It was also a mistake for Mr. Obama to accept it. We will see if the Iran deal holds, and if it promotes peace in the Middle East.

Why Trump and Cruz hang out together:

And the GOP explains their Wall strategy:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 23, 2015

Another bad week for many people in the public eye. But let’s start with Malcolm Gladwell’s rant in the NYT about university endowments in which he focused on Yale’s endowment. He says:

Last year, Yale paid about $480 million to private equity fund managers as compensation — about $137 million in annual management fees, and another $343 million in performance fees, also known as carried interest — to manage about $8 billion, one-third of Yale’s endowment.

He tells us that, of the $1 billion the endowment contributed to the university’s operating budget, only $170 million was earmarked for tuition assistance, fellowships and prizes. He reported that private equity fund managers also received more than students at four other endowments; Harvard, the University of Texas, Stanford and Princeton.

He makes another great point, that university endowments are exempt from corporate income tax because universities support the advancement and dissemination of knowledge. The tax advantage also benefits the fund managers whose carried interest is taxed at lower capital gains rates rather than ordinary income rates. It isn’t a coincidence that hedge fund managers return the favor to their large university clients. Kenneth C. Griffin gave Harvard $150 million in 2014. This year, Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chairman of the private equity giant Blackstone, pledged $150 million to Yale toward a new student center. John A. Paulson, another hedge fund manager, topped both when he gave Harvard $400 million in June.

Maybe these university endowments need to do more to support students and faculty, and less to support fund managers, if they are to keep their tax-exempt status.

On to cartoons. With the email server and new polls, Hillary did not have a good week:

Maybe if the Obama years hadn’t decimated the Democratic bench for an entire generation, we wouldn’t have to rely on two senior citizens slugging it out for the chance to call the White House their retirement home.