March 17, 2016

Legal group submits plan to depose 7 top Clinton, State Dept. aides in email battle

Source: Washington Post

A conservative legal advocacy group submitted plans Tuesday to question under oath seven current and former top State Department officials and aides to Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton — but not Clinton herself at this point — about her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.

Judicial Watch said its deposition plan includes Cheryl D. Mills, who was Clinton’s chief of staff at State; Huma Abedin, a top aide who served as Mills’s deputy and who now is vice chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign; and Bryan Pagliano, a Clinton staff member during her 2008 presidential campaign who helped set up the private server.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Washington granted a request on Feb. 23 for legal discovery by Judicial Watch, which seeks to determine whether Clinton’s email arrangement thwarted federal open-records laws. After his order, Sullivan directed Judicial Watch to file a detailed plan about how it intended to proceed.

The submitted plan can be contested by lawyers from the Justice and State departments and is subject to approval by Sullivan.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-group-submits-plan-to-depose-7-top-clinton-state-dept-aides-in-email-battle/2016/03/15/b0f1e47a-ead6-11e5-bc08-3e03a5b41910_story.html

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Here's a copy of the court document:
PLAINTIFF JUDICIAL WATCH’S PROPOSED DISCOVERY PLAN

Aside from :
Cheryl Mills, Clinton's chief of staff at the State Department
Huma Abedin, a long time aid who served as Mills’s deputy
Bryan Pagliano, a Clinton staff member who helped set up the private server and got immunity recently after pleading the fifth

they've also requested:
Stephen D. Mull, Executive Secretary of the State Department during Clinton time there
Lewis A. Lukens, Executive Director of the Executive Secretariat
Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management since 2007
Donald R. Reid, Senior Coordinator for Security Infrastructure, Bureau of Diplomatic Security since 2003

- more on them and how it's claimed they fit is in the linked Discovery plan.

from linked court document: "Based on information learned during discovery, the deposition of Mrs. Clinton may be necessary. If Plaintiff [Judical Watch] believes Mrs. Clinton’s testimony is required, it will request permission from the Court at the appropriate time".

The administration is trying to run out the clock so they'll probably wait until close to the April 12th deadline to respond. They'll argue about it for maybe a couple of weeks and then the judge will need a couple of weeks to make his decision around the middle of May (about the time some say they expect the FBI and Inspector General reports to start to come out ...)

Testifying should begin roughly about 8 weeks after that, around the middle of July (about 3-4 weeks after the House Benghazi report comes out) and run through the conventions. The plan is to get the above testimony done in eight weeks. Then, around the middle of September, they may ask Hillary to come in and testify. Could be sooner if a bunch of them plead the 5th (as I expect some likely will have to because a crime has probably occurred for exposing classified information and someone is going to take the fall).

The best defense in terms of the Clinton candidacy is to try to stretch this out until after the election.

Judicial Watch has several more lawsuits going on this and recently, the GOP joined them, filing six more lawsuits on FOIAs related to Hillary's time at the State Department.

Stock up on the popcorn. The schedule for dragging Hillary through the media mud is starting to fill up ....

March 10, 2016

That's one study's cherry picking opinion

But many, many others do not agree

NAFTA at 20: One Million U.S. Jobs Lost, Higher Income Inequality

Economic Policy Institute Fast Track to Lost Jobs and Lower Wages
http://www.epi.org/blog/fast-track-to-lost-jobs-and-lower-wages/

More than 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost between 1997 and 2014, and most of those job losses were due to growing trade deficits with countries that have negotiated trade and investment deals with the United States.

Towns, house values or homes, kids educations, etc got lost along with a significant drop in income and no safety net for a lot of them.

You walk around some of the towns in the rust belt with that article and they'll beat the living shit out of you for insulting the complete devastation of their lives and the unconscionable lack of compassion.

These people learned a trade. Did a bunch of what they were supposed to. And they got the rug pulled put from under them. And the only group of folks who made out well in long term on this deal, were the 1% Bernie talks about.

The notion of what they're spinning is an affront to the millions who suffered and lost their life's savings. I could go on and on. To me, it's like claiming the bombing of Hiroshima was a good thing for Japan or the slaughter of Jews in WWII was a good thing for Israel because their spreadsheets studying those events calculated a few positive numbers.

I was on a White House think tank studying NAFTA for Bush in 1989. We knew full well what NAFTA was going to do and tried to stop it. We at least got Bush to back off. Bill comes along, doesn't study it or look carefully - at the very least in how to implement it to lessen the damage and decides to make himself part of the history books.

And these economic gains Clinton touts, we knew it was going to be short term gain for long term pain. It was obvious. "Hey, look at me!! As president my numbers look really good!!" - only if you really believe what corporate America rightfully suckered Clinton with was good for the country. It wasn't. All you have to do is objectively look around at what the country was like in the early 90s and what it is like now. A bunch of the wealth and prosperity is gone - drained out of the US to other shores. The biggest culprit for that are these trade deals.

Their spreadsheet behind that article overlooks what really happened to American human beings. To me, it is offensive. This trade deal and how it was implemented was devastation on good, honest, hard working, decent Americans, blindsided when their own country sold them out for the welfare of corporations. I don't give a shit what they try to come up with. What I'm saying will be what the history books record - not some stupid spreadsheet analysis trying to prop up some lame politicians in Washington scrambling to save their jobs.

March 10, 2016

I posted about this before:

Hillary comes along in Dec 2007.

Hillary in part blamed the homeowners and then she said to Wall Street "cut it out"



Now look at the above chart. Don't you think she was a few years too late? These mortgages were already sold and falling apart. Her husbands removal of the regulations that Bernie fought against and would have secured them had been taken away.

Hillary hopped on that bus way too late.

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/36180-bernie-sanders-targets-goldman-sachs-wall-street-in-latest-campaign-ad

Sanders’ ad makes specific mention of Goldman Sachs’ recent $5 billion settlement with federal government over toxic mortgage bonds, which relates to the firm’s securitization, underwriting and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities from 2005 to 2007.
...
“Our economy works for Wall Street because it’s rigged by Wall Street,” Sanders' ad states.

“How does Wall Street get away with it?” Sanders’ ad asks. “Millions in campaign contributions and speaking fees.”

Goldman Sachs, remember them? The folks who pay Hillary $250,000 per hour to speak to their employees. And have contributed millions to her campaigns and the Clinton Foundation.

You want to know where Bernie has been on mortgages and housing:
http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2005/0305fireside.html

Sanders and the Progressive Coalition quickly sought to develop institutions and programs that would have a lasting impact on the community. The Progressives decided to make affordable housing a signature issue. Things got off to a rough start when their proposal for rent control was voted down after a coalition of property owners and establishment politicians hired a professional consultant to defeat it. With rent control off the table, and federal funding in short supply, the Progressives had to turn to more creative measures to address the housing crisis.

In 1983, they created the Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO), a permanent community-development office that would set development goals and initiate creative projects. CEDO initially focused on three areas of housing policy: protecting the vulnerable, preserving affordable housing, and producing affordable housing. While these goals sound typical of many municipal development authorities, CEDO's strategy was distinctive. It sought to decommodify residential property, ensure its housing projects would be permanently affordable, and actually empower residents. Its most important initiative, and the key to all of these goals, was the Burlington Community Land Trust.
...
This model gives the buyer the benefits of homeownership (including the tax deduction for mortgage interest, wealth accumulation through equity, and stable housing costs) that would otherwise be beyond her means. In return, she gives up the potential of windfall profits if the market keeps rising. BCLT recently published a study of the first 100 trust homes that were sold to a second generation. "The implications were very powerful," says Brenda Torpy. "The initial homebuyers realized a net gain of 29% on the money they had invested. Our homeowners were taking an average of $6,000 with them. These aren't the sky-high returns that some people have come to expect from the housing market, but these were people who would never have entered it in the first place." That's because most BCLT homeowners "would never have been able to buy homes otherwise, even with existing federal and state programs," explains Torpy. "For many, we are a stepping stone between renting and homeownership."
...
BCLT homeowner Bob Robbins says, "I think every community should have a land trust--not just as a fringe option but as the dominant model to keep housing affordable."

Ten years before Hillary showed up in Washington, Bernie was finding successful ways for people who couldn't afford the conventional offerings to own homes without them getting ripped off by Goldman Sachs. He was the first in the entire country to do so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

Under Sanders, Burlington became the first city in the country to fund community-trust housing.[61]

Hillary hangs with and takes money from people who scam poor home owners. Bernie finds safe ways for those same kinds of people to own a little part of the American dream without getting ripped off. Bernie was effectively telling these pricks to cut it out and finding good solutions for these people 26 years before Hillary ran for media cover on Dec 2007 when it was too late and the wheels were falling off the economy.

Bernie's fight for this kind of housing didn't end there. In 2001:
CONGRESSWOMAN BARBARA LEE INTRODUCES LEGISLATION FOR A NATIONAL AFFORDABLE HOUSING TRUST FUND
https://lee.house.gov/news/press-releases/congresswoman-barbara-lee-introduces-legislation-for-a-national-affordable

The tri-partisan National Housing Trust Fund Act is co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and John McHugh (R-NY).

And they finally got it:
http://nlihc.org/issues/nhtf

The National Housing Trust Fund was established as a provision of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The passage of National Housing Trust Fund legislation is a major victory for low income housing advocates and the lowest income people in our country with the most serious needs.

That's a stark difference between the two candidates. Bernie had vision and solved the problem for his constituents. Hillary got some video of her trying to stop the greed problem by the people who fund her - long after the point when it was way too late.

As human beings, to me, the difference between them is night and day. Bernie's honest and he sincerely cares to do good things for the people he represents - particularly the poor or disadvantaged. Hillary is not honest and is like the kid in school who liked to run the United Way program - not so much because of the good it would do for others but because of the good it would do for her when others take notice of her.

Hillary wants to be the first woman president. Bernie wants a bunch of bad crap to stop happening to the people around him.

The differences cut right to the core of who they have been as people all their lives and why they have done what they have done all their lives. Hillary represents American aristocracy and the power and entitlement of the wealthy. Bernie represents the proletariat, working and middle class who have been getting the short end of the stick for the last number of decades.

If you're part of the American aristocracy, you should vote for her. She has your best interests at heart. But if not, you ought to look closer at what Bernie is really about because the heavy odds are, in some way, he's either got your back or he's in your corner.

March 7, 2016

"they have to have evidence that Clinton willfully committed a crime"

I don't think so.

Hillary signed a non disclosure agreement. In that agreement,
https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRC_NDAS/1/DOC_0C05833708/C05833708.pdf
it made specific mention of various criminal clauses of the US Code that she was subject but not limited to - which proves she was aware of the applicable criminal laws, etc.

They also refer to EXECUTIVE ORDER 12958 -- April 17, 1995 signed by her husband, Bill. In there, it is using words like "any knowing, willful, or negligent action" so negligence in taking care of classified information is a violation that leads to "applicable laws" (cited in the non disclosure agreement).

Hillary's husband, Bill knows all about what happens to folks who store classified information at their house without authorization. It is a crime:
When Bill Clinton Pardoned His Former CIA Director over Classified Documents on His Home Computer

For Hillary to be innocent of that crime, she would have to convince the court that she knew as Secretary of State that she or those who used her server would never send or receive anything that was classified or could be classified after the fact and stored on her server between 2009 until recently when she turned her server over to the FBI. Given that many emails from foreign countries are "born classified", that's an absurd argument to attempt to make. So Hillary very arguably negligently exposed the security of classified information and illegally stored it at her home. Those are criminal acts.

Certainly, the illegal, unauthorized storage of classified material in her home is pretty much a slam dunk case. I can't imagine how she can refute it - just like Bill's own Director of the CIA couldn't refute it. It's a crime and he was convicted for it.

If you've followed this, part of the allegation is that they cut pieces of classified information and inserted that classified information into their emails. That's also against the law. They have depositions from Intelligence Community agents that information was classified at the time it was transmitted. That's against the criminal law - even if it is not marked classified.

And then we have the Clinton Foundation being subpoenaed for information about donors who contributed large amounts (ie $5+ million by Saudi Arabia and Boeing) who also got help from Hillary and the State Department. That has been widely reported by the media, smells real bad and nobody has very good answers yet.

The video is also right: the justice department doesn't cut an immunity deal with someone, if after months of looking at a situation, they don't think there are bigger fish to fry.

Further, the FBI (over a hundred agents), Intelligence Community agents and two inspector generals do not spend 9 months gawking at something if there is nothing to see.

Someone is going to get charged with something after all this time.

Hate to agree with a FOX Noise video but I think there's more right than wrong with what he says.

March 6, 2016

"Clinton Foundation received subpoena from State Department investigators"

Clinton Foundation received subpoena from State Department investigators

Investigators with the State Department issued a subpoena to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation last fall seeking documents about the charity’s projects that may have required approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state, according to people familiar with the subpoena and written correspondence about it.

We've been assured that what Hillary did was here no different than what Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell did as Secretary of State ... though for some stupid reason, no one has been able to find $5+ million donations from Saudi Arabia and Boeing to the Rice or Powell Foundations ... (I guess we just have to stay tuned ...)

Obviously, it would be silly of the GOP to try to bring this up during the general election because the Clintons have already assured us once again (paraphrased) "I did not take bribes from that country ... or company!" So we can take comfort that this will not come up and hurt our candidate's chances to be elected to the White House. Or maybe the spin should be "why wouldn't Americans want a president with the good sense to take bribes when they get the chance??"

So don't worry your pretty little heads about this, ok? Move along. There's nothing to see here.

February 20, 2016

T'm tired of this BS - another deception brought to us by the Clintons

Here are four pdf links to the congressional record in June 2007 when they were debating this:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-25/pdf/CREC-2007-06-25-pt1-PgS8337.pdf#page=2
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=11
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=13
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=14

Bernie said a lot on the floor of the Senate. String search for Sanders in those documents to read it all. It's in a few places - at least two major speeches. Once again, Bernie is telling the truth. Hillary is not. Here are some excerpts:

As I think we all know, this is a long and complicated bill. An important part of this bill deals with illegal immigration --how do we make sure we stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country; how do we finally begin to deal with employers who are knowingly hiring illegal immigrants; what do we do with 12 million people who are in this country who, in my view, we are not going to simply, in the middle of the night, throw out of this country. These are difficult and important issues.

On those issues I am in general agreement with the thrust of this legislation. But, Mr. President, I wish to tell you there are areas in this bill where I have strong disagreement, and one is the issue of legal immigration , what we are doing in terms of bringing people into this country who, in my view, will end up lowering wages for American workers right now.

Here's one part where it gets "good". Who can name the corporation Hillary sat on the board of directors for? I'll let Bernie name them and why:

The argument there is Americans don't want to do the work. They say: We can't find American workers to do the work. That is a crock, in many instances. It is not true. One of the groups that has come to Congress to tell us how much they are concerned about the need to find workers because they can't find Americans to do the jobs is our old friends at Wal-Mart.

As many Americans know, Wal-Mart pays low wages. They often hire people for 30 hours a week rather than 40 hours a week, and they provide minimal health care benefits. Yet Wal-Mart has come in and said: Well, we can't find the workers. Bring us in more low-wage workers.

Well, guess what. Two years ago, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a new store in Oakland, CA, guess how many people showed up for that job in Oakland, CA, at a Wal-Mart. Eleven thousand people showed up--11,000 people showed up in Oakland--filled out applications for a job when only 400 jobs were available. Eleven thousand people for 400 jobs.

Wal-Mart says they need more low-wage workers coming in from around the world because they can't find workers. Well, that was a couple of years ago. So you might say: Well, that doesn't happen today. In January of 2006, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a store in Evergreen Park, just outside of Chicago, in your home State, Mr. President, 24,500 people applied for 2,325 jobs. Yet Wal-Mart and their friends are coming in here saying we can't find Americans who want to work.

Let us be clear. Wal-Mart does not provide good wages, does not provide good benefits, does not provide good health care,

How do you like them apples? In 2007, "Wal-Mart" had been lobbying to bring in cheap labor and their ex-board of director is all for it. And it's screwing up the immigration bill that Sanders would have otherwise voted for but they won't drop it. Could this have something to do with it?

Disclosures to the Federal Election Committee reveal how lobbyists for Wal-Mart, Chevron, Facebook and Goldman Sachs have been acting as fundraising captains for Clinton

See how that works?

Hillary was there for the vote. She heard where Bernie stood, that he supported much of the legislation and why he couldn't vote for it - for what Walmart was up to. So what does Hillary do in this campaign? Turns it around, deceptively spinning it that Bernie was against Latinos - while she had sold out American workers for her Walmart bundling. And it's no joke because this garbage is all over Nevada taking votes from Bernie.

I do not know how you Clinton supporters sleep at night. This is not a nice, ethical woman. She's deceitful, ruthless and doesn't care who gets thrown under the bus.

In essence, this bill didn't die because of people hating Latinos. It died because folks wouldn't go along with the corporate greed - it was too much and too obvious.

Bernie goes on later in his speech

Many of the largest corporations in this country are supporting this legislation. And you know why? It is not because they are staying up late at night worrying about some Mexican kid in Detroit or Chicago and what will be the future of that kid. They are not worrying about that. What they want to see is a continued influx into this country of cheap labor. They are not content with outsourcing millions of good-paying jobs. They are not content with fighting against working people who want to form unions. They are not content with their opposition, successful until recently, of keeping the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour for 10 years. That is not good enough. Now they are saying: Gee, we can't move Wal-Mart from America to China, we can't move hotels to China, we can't move restaurants to China, so what is the best way to continue keeping wages low for those workers?
....
Reclaiming my time, Mr. President, the Senator makes an important point, and that is we have all been educated that economics is about supply and demand. If you don't get the workers you want, you raise wages and you raise benefits. You don't simply open the door and bring in other workers at low wages.

I sure don't have a problem with those words. They were right in 2007 and they're still true today.

The next day, Bernie rises to propose an amendment. He hasn't given up on the bill. He's trying to solve the problem so he can vote for it.

In a moment, I want to talk about an amendment I will be offering with Senator Grassley to the immigration reform bill. That is amendment No. 1332. I should mention this amendment has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO. It was endorsed by the Programmers Guild and by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
...
This bill also carves out a path to citizenship which, frankly, is the right thing to do. But also what this bill does not do is analyze effectively the impact of various aspects of this legislation--the guest worker program, H-1B program--on the lives of American workers. The basic premise under which this bill operates in those areas is a false one. ...
...
What I fear the most is if we keep going in the direction in which we are moving now economically, what we are going to see is our children are going to have a lower standard of living than we do. In fact, according to a recent joint study by the Pew Charitable Trust and Brookings Institute, men in their thirties earned on average 12 percent less in 2004 than their fathers did in 1974, after adjusting for inflation. Incredibly, men today are earning less than their fathers did despite a huge explosion in technology and worker productivity.
...
During the debate over NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China--which I participated in as a Member of the House of Representatives--we were told by all the corporate interests who pushed that legislation on the Congress not to worry about the blue-collar jobs we would lose. I remember it distinctly. They said: Well, yes, it is true. If we open up our markets, yes, it is true we are going to lose a lot of these factory jobs. They are going to go to China, Mexico, whatever. But don't worry because if your kid does well in school, becomes computer proficient, your kid is going to have a great job out there at good wages. That is the future of America. Don't worry about the blue-color jobs. You have all these white-color information technology jobs.

Well, guess what is happening. From January of 2001 to January of 2006, we have lost 644,000 information sector jobs. Alan Blinder, the former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has told us between 30 and 40 million jobs in this country are in danger of being shipped overseas.
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What upsets me is how our young people feel about this situation. These are kids who go to school—sometimes they borrow a lot of money to go to college—they work hard, and what
they are looking forward to, whether through a BA or a BS or an MA or a Ph.D., is a good, secure, challenging, meaningful job with a decent income. What they are seeing is companies saying: We do not want you. We want somebody from abroad who will work at lower wages than you. I think that must be very discouraging for so many of our young people.

Madam President, the amendment I am offering today, along with Senator GRASSLEY, is a pretty simple amendment. What it would do is it would prohibit companies that have announced mass layoffs from receiving new visas of any kind, unless these companies could prove that overall employment at their companies would not be reduced by these layoffs. In other words, we are calling their bluff, and we are saying: You can’t lay off large numbers of American workers and then tell us you desperately need workers, professionals from abroad. Those companies which are truly experiencing labor shortages would not be impacted by this amendment and could continue to receive increases in foreign workers, but companies that are reducing their U.S. workforce by laying off thousands of Americans would be prevented from importing workers from abroad. The bottom line is, the companies that are laying off thousands of Americans shouldn’t be allowed to import workers from overseas. Let us stand up for the American people. Let us stand up for American workers. Let us support
this amendment.

Here's his amendment. They ignored it - didn't even vote on it:
https://www.congress.gov/amendment/110th-congress/senate-amendment/1332/actions

Someone else made this comment:

Three weeks before we had the final vote and Senator Reid pulled it down, after the debate continued a couple of weeks ago, a Rasmussen poll showed support for the bill in the high 20s. Then fell to 23 percent, and the last poll showed only 20 percent of Americans supported this bill. Only 20 percent of the American people said we should pass this bill.

In spite of all that, the bill fell just a few votes short.

I see crap like this and start to wonder about Trump if Hillary wins. If Hillary wins Nevada tonight, it will be in significant part because the people of Nevada got hammered with this deception to steal votes. Sanders made himself crystal clear what they were up to in 2007. It is beyond debate.

February 19, 2016

When the CIA and Inspector General read the emails, they had a different reaction

January 14, 2016 IC IG Response to Congressional Inquiry (page 1)

...“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and TOP SECRET/SAP levels. According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources.”....

Charles McCullough, Inspector General Intelligence Community

February 4th, 2016 State Department Press Briefing

QUESTION: "... for the emails ... but in terms of the special access program intelligence, there are two sworn declarations from the CIA that they were top secret at the moment they were transmitted to the server. So why do you use the term “upgraded?”

MR KIRBY: "When we talk about upgrade, Catherine, it’s a process issue. ... in doing that, our job is not ... to make an assessment of the degree to which it was classified at the time ..."

QUESTION: "Right. So are you challenging sworn declarations from the CIA that they were top secret at the time of transmission?"

MR KIRBY: "As I said last week, it was at the request of the intelligence community that we specifically upgraded that traffic to top secret."

QUESTION: "Okay, so you don’t dispute that."

MR KIRBY: "If we had disputed it, we wouldn’t have upgraded it --"

QUESTION: "Okay."

Clinton Foundation received subpoena from State Department investigators

Investigators with the State Department issued a subpoena to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation last fall seeking documents about the charity’s projects that may have required approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state, according to people familiar with the subpoena and written correspondence about it.

The subpoena also asked for records related to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide who for six months in 2012 was employed simultaneously by the State Department, the foundation, Clinton’s personal office, and a private consulting firm with ties to the Clintons.

Back to your quote: "In those emails, I discovered a Hillary Clinton I didn’t even know existed."
If the CIA or FBI find that, I think you'll find "a woman ... worried" about herself.

February 19, 2016

AP-GfK Poll: Voters increasingly see Sanders as electable

link

WASHINGTON (AP) — The more Democrats learn about Bernie Sanders, the more they appear to like him.

A greater percentage of Democratic registered voters view the Vermont senator as likable, honest, competent and compassionate than they did just two months ago, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. Seventy-two percent now believe he could win the general election, a 21 percentage point increase from the last time the survey was conducted in December.

The findings underscore the challenge facing Hillary Clinton as she enters the Democratic contest's pivotal spring stretch, when primaries across the country mean that many of the party's voters will finally get their say on her candidacy.

Clinton's campaign has argued that as voters learned more about his record, Sanders will begin to lose support. Instead, it seems that as Sanders has gotten more scrutiny, support for him has only grown. While Clinton continues to be the Democratic candidate who's most well-liked within her own party, Sanders is gaining on her.

I've seen that improving with other pollsters as well.

I'm now feeling pretty comfortable saying if Bernie had more time, he would beat Hillary.

Right now, they have a lot of states between now and March 1 they have to catch up in. I don't think SC is one of them. If Bernie wins Nevada, Hillary has a real problem. Close would be ok as Nate Silver said but win and he goes up in the Super Tuesday polls - which I think he needs.

February 19, 2016

Bernie is within 4.3 pts of Hillary Nationally in RealClear Poll of Polls

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_democratic_presidential_nomination-3824.html

Arguably, it might be a statistical tie, as he may be within the margin of error.

Before New Hampshire, Hillary was +13.7. In less than a week, he's really closed the gap.

Time. The only question now seems to be if he has enough time. Because he's still winning people over.

February 18, 2016

Here's part of Bernie's plan

1: If nothing else is done to healthcare and rates and everything else remained the same and they just remove the insurance companies admin and their profits, they would save:
- somewhere between $120 - $280 billion saved of the $1 trillion private heath care dollars
(estimates vary from 15%-31% but 3% would be needed for Medicare admin)
Economists just love the ten year figure so over ten years that is:
$1.2 Trillion to $2.8 Trillion dollars saved.

2: Other things Bernie wants to do like:
https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/
Progressive income tax rates.
- Revenue raised: $110 billion a year
Taxing capital gains and dividends the same as income from work.
- Revenue raised: $92 billion per year.
Limit tax deductions for rich.
- Revenue raised: $15 billion per year.
The Responsible Estate Tax.
- Revenue raised: $21 billion per year.
===========================
$ 2.38 Trillion in additional revenue over 10 years

3: Negotiate lower drug prices because we have the hammer.
https://berniesanders.com/issues/fighting-to-lower-prescription-drug-prices/
$2.9 Trillion will be spent on drugs over the next 10 years if unchecked. Canada pays 60% less. Over the next decade, conservatively, they would save
between $230 billion (8%) and $541 billion (19%).

4: Doctors cost around 20% of healthcare or $5.8 Trillion over the next 10 years. US doctors are paid way more than any other country. Bernie says we can reduce doctors salaries by 10%. To be conservative, I'd suggest a range of 5%-10% through single payer negotiation. So over 10 years that would be $290 billion to $580 billion saved

Those four things add up to a range of $4.1 Trillion to $6.3 Trillion financial improvement in health care with single payer.

So here's the point: at this juncture, nothing else has changed. Everybody is paying their premiums and deductibles to the government instead of the insurance companies.

Bernie has $400-600 million/yr right there to improve healthcare. And he has other areas he can go for revenue or recovery or savings.

This bickering with the economists is smoke. You can argue about the percentages I used or the figures. But it doesn't change the overall story in a big way. Single payer saves Trillions of dollars. The argument is what to do with that money and how much will it cost.

No matter what those economists say, single payer is a no brainer.

They're nitpicking over the other numbers.