276 Comments

My new favorite mantra courtesy of Racheal Bitecofer:

“If the Republicans can’t govern themselves, they can’t govern you.”

So very true.

So vote blue!

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This is going on my facebook page!

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I'd rephrase, "They can't govern FOR you."

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Good in you

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Rachel Bitecofer is ON IT.

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Oh that picture. Why, why could we not have had Clinton as our President?

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Two words - Electoral College. It's well past time to abolish the Electoral College.

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Once Dem takes the House,Senate,& WH the order of needed laws will roll out like new money. Learned our lesson?

Time to put our big boy pants on...V💙TE THE BLUE!

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And woman's health care.

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Time to put on our big BLUE PANTS! 💙

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May it be so. Your typing fingers to god’s ears.

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You are right about both things, Anita: the Electoral College is, in this day & age, a flawed anachronism to be sure, and Hillary would have been an excellent President, and it is lamentable that she was not able to serve in that office.

Besides those two truths though there is, as they say, more to the story.

It took misogyny, the Russians, James Comey, GOP crooks, and that vain idiot flasher husband of her aide Huma Abedin, to bring down Hillary (yet still she won the popular vote!), but there’s still more to it, in my view.

I truly believe that she was, basically, a sort of co-President with Bill (and by that I don’t mean in a “shadow-government/deep state conspiracy” kind of way, just… c'mon: who wouldn’t sit down for breakfast with either of those two and not happily get engrossed in some policy-wonk or politics discussion? It’s who they were).

I love the woman, but during this lead-up to 2016 she (for simplicity we’ll leave Bill out of this for the moment) made some serious mistakes —some of which alienated some of her liberal Dem followers, and some of which alienated so-called “independents”who ended up saying “the heck with them, let’s give Trump a chance” — on the way to 2016:

—Globalization wasn’t the boon to the American working class it was promoted as, but instead in the end it just resulted in making a few rich people more rich).

—“Don’t Ask Don't Tell” was a mistake. It didn’t seem so much like that at the time, but it most certainly was.

—The mass incarceration of (mostly) Black people brought about by the Clinton Administration’s bearing down on ”The War Against Drugs” (with the preposterous delineations created between “crack” and “coke”), along with new mandatory sentencing rules, was a mistake.

—Signing on with (or caving to) the GOP's “the end of Welfare as we know it” was a mistake, as the scheme didn’t work, and the administrative rat’s nest that it created just made poor people poorer,

and… (granted this is in a different sort of arena, but still):

As a Senator, Hillary voted to authorize the Iraq War.

Of course a lot of people did (fall for that set of falsehoods that ended with us destroying the wrong country, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11)… but Barack Obama did not vote for that big lie. Hillary suffered for her choice, in my opinion, and Barack, on the other hand, was elevated by the stand he took, and gained credibility in the public eye.

Now, this can be debated, but it was (and is) my opinion that 2008 should have been Hillary’s year. Which, when it was not, when Barack's candidacy got legs, her “timeline”, as it were, then got pushed out to 2016.

I submit that had she not bought in to that sick and ghastly war, Obama would have had a (possibly prohibitively) harder time getting through the primaries as successfully as he did.

So let’s see now:

Disaffected Rust Belt workers who felt they didn’t get the rewards they were promised, for standing by while their jobs were being moved offshore, Black Americans who saw increasing numbers of their relatives locked up for lengthy spells (for essentially the same offenses that White kids were getting probation for)... voter dissatisfaction with her for (for all practical purposes) signing on to the perpetuation of “Forever Wars”, disillusioned gay people in the military whose professional lives therein were ruined by the very politicians who said they supported them…

Now: by how many votes did HRC lose those critical “Blue Wall” upper Midwest/Great Flyover Electoral Votes-rich states, that the Democratic Party in its hubris thought they had a locked up prior to 2016?

I've heard reports of analysts (way smarter than me) who figured that as few as 70,000 people tipped that whole downhill-slide avalanche.

And we are not talking about 70,000 people switching sides (although that could've been the reality), but maybe just Democratic voters merely sitting-out that election —people that one of “The Little Rock Nine” veterans now calls “the Porsche Liberals”… “supporters” who simply didn’t show up for Ms. Clinton in 2016.

I’ll say it again: I adore the woman, and she would have been a stellar President, and by all rights should have held that office… but she brought ponderously heavy baggage with her, that in the end was too burdensome, I think.

And yes, the Electoral College in an abomination, but it’s a fact of life that it isn’t going away any time soon, so we’ll just have to get over that and work around the roadblock that it comprises.

sorry. But that’s the way it is right now: we cannot pin our hopes on that situation being fixed. The three-quarters majority of the states necessary to sign-off on that fix, simply doesn’t exist. It just ain’t a-gonna happen. Not in this decade.

Hillary should’ve won. But she (and/or the Democratic Party) were not appreciative of how and why they verily did not have the lock on certain votes that they presumed that they did. It really is just that simple . It's not some kind of an inscrutable mystery.

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Say what you will, despite your criticisms of Hilary, we would NOT have been in the trouble we're in now, if she had been president.

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And having said all the above, Mike, she won many millions more votes than trump, so the American people wanted her. It's unconscionable that we still have the Electoral College, but we have no realistic choice.

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My observations were not criticisms, they are accepted facts of life in the political sphere.

I bet even HRC thinks so, too, about everything I noted above. She spent a month walking in the woods after that election. She’s smart, and experienced. Guaranteed, she has appreciated the situation exactly that way.

In fact I’ve heard her say out loud that the one thing she CANNOT figure out is why the American people did not reject wholesale that man in revulsion and disgust after what he said about John McCain, and the release of the “Hollywood Access” tape.

That’s the only thing that she was scratching her head about.

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Monday morning quarterbacking on what happened in 2016 isn't helpful.

I doubt that any woman will become president within the next 30 years or more. America showed it prefers halfwit multimillionaire white guys and it hasn't changed.

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“Monday morning quarterbacking on what happened in 2016 isn't helpful.”

Yes, it is: unless and until we can figure out why the American populace did not immediately reject with revulsion and disgust with Trump after the “Hollywood Access” tape and what he said about John McCain, then we are still in big, big trouble; witness the insurrectionist Jim Jordan banging away repeatedly to seize the Speaker’s job, that is to say, to install himself second-in-line of succession to the Presidency.

The disease that tolerated the Orange Man occupying a political position of national leadership after McCain/“Hollywood Access” is still active, and will metastasize, if we cannot figure that out.

“ I doubt that any woman will become president within the next 30 years or more.”

Do you think they’ll have any hesitancy about electing a woman if Nikki Haley, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, or Kari Lake look like contenders?

(And, in the event our current President does not complete his term, the American people have -already- in effect elected the first woman President.)

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We don't necessarily have to psychoanalyze 7 million voters, nor is that practical, but we have to look at how the press and the internet process information, and who they target with it. The biggest culprit in electing Trump was not the voters, but the people who influenced them.

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Nope. That is NOT how this democracy thing is supposed to work. I respectfully disagree:

It is ALL bout the voters —not what somebody else tells them what think.

Shame on people if they consent to be led around by the nose.

Shame on them if they choose lies over truth, or if it’s too much trouble to, say, figure out if it’s the Russians (or any other anti-American agency) blathering inanities.

It’s not about the liars and the fabricators who make up the stories; that’s their evil job after all, it's their mission. It —the problem we have— is about people who cannot or will not make up their own minds, and lazily consent to have others do it for them.

It always has been, and always will be thus.

“Influencers”. feh. What does that even mean.

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I understand your point of view.

However. My mantra leading up to the 2016 election was “it’s the SCOTUS”. In my opinion, anyone who for what ever reason didn’t vote for Clinton, owns the mess we have lived through since Nov 2016. Owns it.

I knew what was coming if Trump won. And I was right. I did not anticipate the pandemic, I was thinking maybe that we would get involved in yet another war. Whatever, I knew a trump presidency would be a disaster.

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Oh yes. Absolutely.

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I’d almost be a one issue voter: either stand for elimination of the electoral college or I won’t vote for you.

Of course then there’s the 3/4 of the states needed to ratify a change to the constitution. Witness the Equal Rights Amendment...

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This has been my passion as well. Why does this country not learn from what is/has happened over the past several elections. The popular vote is most sensible. With this dangerously changing world, we need laws/amendments to change with it!

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Dos word and don't reach out and smack me :) . Si. How?

Seriously, the House is on fire. We're losing a senator soon probably (Menendez and I wondered what the heck happened to that legal mess that disappeared). We don't have the House. We're down another potentially in the Senate and they're pretty stuck anyway.

Well, the good news is Poland came back from the edge (and may go over it in the future but for now, yay). Bannon helped with Bolsonaro's Brazilian coup and it didn't work. The odds are being beaten.

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Yes, Hillary won the popular vote, but I blame Jim Comey because he violated DOJ policy when he spoke out about the investigation, multiple times.

Comey spoke out in July 2016 to publicly discuss an investigation when no charges were brought. He said she was egregiously careless -- WTF does that even mean? (Hillary had a private email server because Colin Powel recommended it -- he used AOL when he was SOS.)

Comey spoke out twice more within days of the 2016 election. He was told/reminded it was out of policy to speak so close to an election but he did it anyway. He claims he would have been criticized for not speaking. So what. It is his job to follow DOJ Policy and take criticism. He claimed everyone knew she would win so it was okay to speak. It was not. She did not win. But Hillary received more votes than any winning candidate ever up to that time.

I would have liked to see where our country would be today had Hillary won. One thing for sure, even Donald Trump would have been better off had Hillary won -- he’d have saved a lot on legal fees and spent less time in court if Hillary had won.

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If you think about it a little more broadly, we were damn lucky she didn't win. At the time, the Republicans had control of both the House and Senate. If you think there's ever been gridlock before 2016 or since, those incidents would have been nothing compared to what the Republicans were planning to bring on January 21, 2017, if she had won: no presidential nominees for any office confirmed; "Benghazi hearings" on every topic imaginable 24/7/365; no legislative proposal even sent to a committee let along coming to the floor for a vote. It would have been a combination of gridlock and logjam multiplied by 1,000 (at least).

And there is a good argument to be made that it was a good thing Trump did win, because it took "Reveille" being sounded that loud and that long to wake up most Americans to the threat to the country and the constitution that will still exist when Trump is six feet under and the MAGA movement is still around. I seriously doubt Substack blogs like this one or mine, or HRC's or any of the others would exist, and I even more seriously doubt that 60% of the people who come to these conversation spaces now would be doing much of anything other than wringing their hands like most of them did when we had to put up with Hillary's husband giving the enemy the ammunition to go after him that he did.

The fact that we are all awake now is a Good Thing. The fact it took Trump for us to see what was there all along - that's on us. But better late than never.

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I've been thinking along these lines for some time. I think it every time someone (usually a white middle-class-and-up liberal) goes on about "saving democracy" as if democracy wasn't in trouble before Trump got elected. For starters, take a look at the gerrymandering that followed the GOP "Tea Party" blowout of 2010, or the SCOTUS decisions in Citizens United and Shelby County v. Holder, which came down before McConnell/Trump created a supermajority on the Court.

Or, to put it a little differently: it's been true since the founding of the Republic that democracy takes ongoing engagement and hard work, and many of us were slacking off (or spending too much time carping at each other).

I believe that the threat to country and Constitution will continue until the power of Big Money is curbed. It's become in effect the 4th branch of government, and it's hamstringing the other three. On the upside, it also seems to be destroying the GOP. That probably wasn't its intent, at least not consciously, but seriously -- what did they expect a bunch of anti-government types to do after they got elected to run the government?

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P.S. I'm also thinking that Trump's election has been good for the Democratic Party. I campaigned and voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (of course), but it wasn't till around 2008 (when I supported Obama) that I really began to appreciate her as distinct from Bill Clinton and the Blue Dogs. (I've been saying for years that Bill Clinton was the only Republican I ever voted for for president.) The blatant racism and misogyny of the GOP has empowered the anti-racist and anti-misogynist voices within the Democratic coalition, and what do you know? The recent votes on abortion rights suggest that this might actually be good electoral strategy!

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Thanks for your perspective. I’ve often wished for Hilary (and Al) and yes, I voted for Bill— but seriously, consider the alternative. HW would have been impeached had he not had Bill Barr to get the other Iran Contra conspirators blamed. If only we had never had him, we’d never have had W. And we might not be looking at 2degrees C of climate change.

Maybe it’s a good thing people are waking up. Hope not too late.

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I think the real malaise goes back before Bush I, to Reagan and his racist law & order supply-side crusaders. Changing course after his administration gutted unions, environmental protections, etc., would have been a massive challenge, and don't forget what Congress looked like during the Bush I administration: remember the all-white Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee? That's one reason I think an impeachment of Bush I would have been extremely unlikely.

The other reason is that until the GOP/Starr investigation of Bill Clinton in the late '90s, only one president in U.S. history had been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, about 130 years before. Once upon a time people didn't scream "Impeach them!" every time they disagreed with an elected official of the opposite party -- and now it's overwhelmingly Republicans who are doing the screaming, as in the stupid (and abortive) move to impeach newly elected Wisconsin judge Janet Protasiewicz. I think that helps explain why Speaker Pelosi and her House team were so cautious in approaching the first impeachment of 45: the Republicans were going to claim that it was all political (projection, much?), and after the Clinton charade plenty of voters might have believed them. In contrast, the reasons for the second impeachment were all out in the open for everyone to see.

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This is a reply to all of you in this little subthread. I never thought about that "what if" I just thought about our (my) loss. I also watched all of the Benghazi hearings because I didn't want to leave it up to someone else's filter and saw (at this point "remember") just Trey Gowdy going after her. I never went beyond that out of my own greed and what-if completely ignoring the fact that repubs have been after her for decades for anything true or not true and it would've been worse than worse. So, thanks for the reality.

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Citizens United was definitely the catalyst for a lot of the points you made, that and Gerrymandering

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Agreed. I would throw in Reagan's complete lack of reasoning to fall for the blatantly partisan (and FOX profit-making) agenda of Rupert Murdoch that cajoled him to get rid of the FCC Fairness Doctrine and thereby essentially turn on the floodgates of outright partisan propaganda to masquerade as news.. openly inhaled by "deplorables" etc. 🙄🤷‍♂️

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"...as if democracy wasn't in trouble before Trump got elected." ✅

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Your argument is a good one, but has "Reveille" been played? I think Trump's upcoming cases may indeed begin the bugle to play and drumroll. Are enough Americans AWAKE, perhaps, more about inflation than our loss of democracy? The Republican party is helping to bring the truth home to the big house. A dark joke in this is how the little man of no character came close to blowing up a wobbly 'land of the free and home of the brave'!

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Just showing my age, but I have the theme from that old TV show Branded in my head when I think of Trump, not trumpets:).

As for what people will be voting for: Inflation has been artificially held down for a generation, (maybe two) so long that many of us buying homes and groceries in the 80s and 90s have forgotten what interest rates we were paying on credit cards, cars, mortgages, and college loans. Credit cards were up in the high teens and low twenties, my first new car came with an 8% interest I think, my first house was considered a steal at 5%, and my college loan was 7%. Now my mom didn't worry about inflation because as a young woman she couldn't get cards, cars, college, or housing without a man co-signing for her. Remind today's "kids" inflation is a problem that they can live through. We went from hard times to high times and they will too. What breaths in must breath out. That is true for the economy, which is way better than it was regarding pay and unemployment and hiring then it was when I was starting out in 1980. Although I didn't like Reagan he was good for the country because the general population believed he was. Biden is showing us he is good for the country. Inflation is infact down after a national crisis caused a brief rise. But if people don't care about Ukraine and Israel or the Constitution or democracy they should at least care about climate and infrastructure and the lives their children will have if the bridges and sky actually do fall.

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A bridge over I25, the N/S route through Wyoming Colorado and NM, collapsed with a coal train on it last week. Didn’t make national news. A semi driver passing below was killed.

There was an argument between responsible parties, with CDOT saying it belonged to BNSF and the corporation saying no it was Colorado. Looking at pictures, and having driven below it dozens of times, it looked like it was a hundred years old and badly in need of repair. For decades.

The country won’t begin to feel the impact of Biden’s economics until well after the election. Let’s hope we do the right thing and keep the man and his policies in place.

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It did make the Washington Post where I read about it. (There may be a paywall here but I didn't want to omit the link.) https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/10/16/pueblo-colorado-train-derailment-bridge-collapse/

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“What breathes in, must breathe out”

Brilliant in its eloquence

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Well, yes. Unfortunately I should have given credit to William E Simon, author of "A Time for Truth" and "A Time for Action." I was baffled by his brilliant endorsement of Ronald Reagan and then his decision to not to serve in the administration. I was furious with him about that for some reason....what I remember was his very clear description in "A Time for Truth" of how the economy actually works. So I always remembered that single line - or it is how I remember it. I think I read the book in 1978 and he had interesting truths.

Gifted:

William E. Simon, Ex-Treasury Secretary And High-Profile Investor, Is Dead at 72 https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/05/us/william-e-simon-ex-treasury-secretary-and-high-profile-investor-is-dead-at-72.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4kw.1H1G.KlJ2KOc5Y9m7&smid=nytcore-android-share

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I went back and looked at some reviews, synopsis of that book just for yuks...but I came across this excerpt about his disdain for neo-conservatives: "The only thing that can save the Republican Party, in fact, a counterintelligensia. Without such a reservoir of antiauthoritarian scholarship on which to draw, it is destined to remain the Stupid Party and to die. It may even deserve to die. A political party which declares itself philosophically committed to freedom but allows an economic dictatorship to emerge in the United States without stirring up the fiercest political donnybrook in American history has asked for the oblivion to which it is presently being consigned." And we now know he was a bit early.

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Well done.

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Interesting point of view.

I still wish for a world in which Clinton could have been our President AND there would have been a functioning bipartisan Congress.

My fantasy, my files. 😉

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I do that (there's a magnet of her on the inside garage door). I do HRC and $2 on powerball 2x week. But the lottery bit is getting really old.

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So do I, but we got what we got.

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@TCinLa. After the shock of Trump beating Hillary I came to a similar conclusion with a twist. In place of dynasty rule beginning with the Bush family and extended by the Clintons it was good to get shock treatment bringing us back to ground zero. I did not see Trump lasting more than four years or the depth of maga trolls waiting in the wings to support such a person. I expected intelligent leaders, government officials, the constitution , media and the public to keep Trump in bounds. I missed the point that Trump is a shark eating what he kills with no other purpose.

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Then you REALLY weren’t paying attention to him prior to running for president. We NYers told the world who he is. His father and previous generations were the same or worse.

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You are right, so many of us asleep at that wheel. I did not imagine the depth of the damage that was waiting for us.

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What Erica says ⬆︎✅

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Yeah, me too. I also though tRump would be controlled by "others". WRONG!

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In the past different administrations were always populated by people who wanted to serve the nation, people who left successful careers in business and education and brought their skills to help run the government. When the insipid clown was elected, I thought that since he had no experience in politics, he would surround himself with the same sort of people, and he did, what no one envisioned was that he had no interest in advice, he had no interest in anything that might be good for the country, all he cared about was himself, that is in fact still the case. He was and still is an unmitigated disaster for this nation, he will continue to be so until we put him in prison.

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You say, “Controlled by others. What about controlled by Putin?

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We all would like more in depth information.

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And just to add to everything you said, it would have been the same or worse for Bernie. In fact it could be thought that Clinton and Sanders were both without their fingers on the pulse, both were running based on status quo beliefs that the best candidate would win (Gore might have pointed out their flawed thinking). Sanders understood what the struggling population really needs and Clinton had passed her moment and been rejected once already. I'm not saying she didn't have a vision, she just didn't get people to pay attention. She had no Rush Limbaugh of her own and was seen as painfully politically correct by the masses who passively watched The Sopranos and Game of Thrones . Like Ned the Hand who lost his head and Tony who dined in bliss with his family, she didn't see it coming until too late and Trump walked over the finish line.

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Well, no. Actually, she came very close, which is what hurts. Even just looking at the states whose electoral college votes elected Trump, the margin was slender. Trump was elected through selective campaigning, big bucks who thought they could control him (those of us watching saw that quiet walk-back), and not enough financial support for the Dems. Both the electoral college and Citizen United need to be eliminated. Not holding my breath for the immediate future, but it will, I believe, happen, if we keep chipping away. BUT: we still can institute meaningful campaign finance reforms at legislative level, both state and federal. We can support legislative and congressionsl reps whose records and values reflect what we need. Yep, it's going to mean a lot of hard work, and it might be messy. Oh, wait, it already is messy. Ok, less complaining and hind-sight quarterbacking, and more just getting involved in doing what you can.

We know what the problem is, and it is us.

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Yes, she was very, very close but I will never forget how shocked and sickened I was when I realized she was going lose to someone clearly unprepared. It was like imagining being on the Titanic...this can't be happening, please let me wake up! I contributed to her campaign and voted for her and but to be honest, I did not have strong feelings for her. I just knew that Trump was unacceptable. The day I heard him on NPR co-opting many of the sentiments of Bernie's campaign I knew she was in trouble. Then came WikiLeaks. I have knocked in doors and done phone banks over the years, I'm not sure they change minds. I don't know how to measure that. I do know it does provide data for analysis.

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Bernie could never be president. I'm so tired of telling people to look at his actual record IN VT.

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The most consequential problem we are left with is that we now have to expand the court. It's the one thing I feared most n Clinton not getting the position of POTUS. I don't think I need to explain why.

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I've thought the same about a potential Hillary term: complete Republican chaos. But My Hillary fan friends won't hear of it. But MAYBE the midterms would have saved it???

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When Hillary announced her candidacy, I thought, "If she wins, the next four years will be Republicans on the attack to gin up as much chaos as possible." She was right many years ago when she talked about the vast right wing conspiracy. People thought she was being ridiculous.

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She was also right about the Deplorables!

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I don't think she should have said it. As a pro she should have known better than that.

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I wonder all the time. She has her detractors, but not me. How she could have transformed the nation, in a way Obama was limited as a result of the levels of racism we still have. And just as important - we would not have had Trump who took us backward years. Damage we are still sifting through.

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Ask Putin.

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Zzzzzinggggg!

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Yes, we would not be dealing with insurrectionists in our congress, would not have lost so many lives during Covid....and on and on.

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Insurrectionists would not have disappeared. Trump would not have disappeared. COVID denial would not have been less. She would have been blamed for it instead of the Chinese. The country was a mess, full of angry people and I for one did not know that in 2016. Trump just made it so much worse.

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Clinton would not have politicized mask wearing and vaccination, etc. She also would have moved quicker. There was a plan that Trump tossed early on in his presidency. She would have kept it and improved on it and been ready.

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Yep.

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Because you and I did not VOTE for her!

Our country’s women would not have lost the Right to an Abortion because Hillary would NEVER have nominated the last three conservatives justices to the Supreme Court.

Elections do have consequences! Never forget and vote BLUE!

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I did vote for her, FYI.

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The voters demanded a populist figure to address accumulated failures in governance. The Democrats could have offered a 'good populist', but chose not to, leaving those disaffected voters no alternative to the faux-populism of the Right. Clinton was about as far from a populist as possible, disliked by many on all sides - her loss to such an unworthy, incompetent, and dangerous individual by any measure in 2016 is a terrible indictment of failure to be learned from, not lamented.

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Your opinion, to which you are entitled. I happen to disagree.

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I'm certain many would both agree and disagree. Thanks for the opportunity to speak up - I'm addressing the broad sentiment you expressed, not you personally.

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And that is what it is about, isn’t it? The ability and opportunity to have a discussion.

A respectful discussion.

Unless someone is a delusional Kool-aid drinker in which case, they must be called out in the strongest of terms. (You have NOT exhibited that behavior)

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It’s truly a joy to see the R’s implode, especially knowing that Trump got severely admonished by the Judge. It is a good reminder that even though Cheseboro and Powell are getting probation for their acts in GA., they still face the mighty Jack Smith in federal court. Trump will turn into a weeping willow when all of his co-defendants turn on him. I am here for it because it will be simply delicious.

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Marlene, congratulations! You have put together two of the least likely to couple: a lovely weeping willow and Donald J. Trump. That's a laugh!

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Dear Lord, hear our prayer. Let us finally have closure.

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So profound,Joyce. Thank you for answering so many questions as to ‘why’ the three guilty plea deals are fatal for Trump in Georgia.

At least for those of us who are ‘why’ people, so far as the implosion of the Republican party, we know exactly ‘why’ that has happened. It was surely a week. Prediction: republicans choose to go bipartisan or a McCarthy rerun as the last hope to avert a government shutdown. And the only reason the Republicans would think of working with the Democrats for a Jeffries speaker or to have a McCarthy rerun is that unless they do so, they will be toast through 2028. They are truly in a slovenly mess of their own making. And did they know who to thank.

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I hope Republicans burn their party to the ground, but something just as ugly will rise in its place. The love of money is the root of all evil. I don't think that can be burned to the ground.

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Kevin blames Matt Gaetz and ‘The Crazy Eights.’

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Super!!! As predicted, they are circling the wagons and shooting in.

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You never disappoint, Joyce. as for me, I am loving every minute of him being accountable. Never would I have thought that I would wish upon another person as I do tfg. However, for all of our future for our (children, grandchildren) and every citizen who pay taxes and have supported our Democracy... we deserve Truth and Honesty from those that we have chosen to look after us... up until this guy, No other has done more damage (as bad as he has) and those who defend him over their own constituents. ENOUGH. I praise our Judges for showing that NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW(so tired of that statement, but it is truth) tfg continues doing it to himself, the Judges have given him more than I would have. Thanks, as always for being here for us all.🇺🇸🙏🏻🐓

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So this is why they invented schadenfreude!!!

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They didn’t invent it. They just stuck a cumbersome name on a very human sentiment. I need a tshirt so I can remember how to spell it.

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Ahhh, German language: never settle for what 2 syllables might do when you can throw 4 syllables at it; even better if you can load 6. (Meant simply in humor, not as disparagement. There’s also a certain elegance in having a 4 syllable word in place of “enjoyment found in another’s misfortune.”If you hold your face right by not smiling too broadly when you say it, you can even disguise your guilt at feeling that way. 😐)

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Listen to the highly irreverent and inappropriate song “Schadenfreude” from the musical Avenue Q a few times and you will never forget how to spell it. (Avenue Q is a comedic musical parody of Sesame Street that contains adult themes. NSFW.)

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That is the song I hear in my head on these occasions!

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Re the shirt....I couldn’t seem to move the comment under Jen’s!

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It blows my mind that there are people who think they are above the law. Such people endanger everyone's safety.

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With the likes of Joyce Vance and Heater Cox Richardson...our country may survive Trump the tramp.

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It all feels like a fire hose. I heard on MSNBC today from a person living in the West Bank that Biden should have negotiated the Isrealis turning back on water, power and food pipelines from Isreal to Gaza. The Isrealis killing innocent children in Gaza by airstrikes and withholding human necessities is precisely what Hamas did. Exacting revenge on children in Gaza says what about the IDF? What I want someone in the media to explain is how much of what Netanyahu is doing in Gaza is to curry the favor of his allies in the West Bank so that they continue to protect him from being prosecuted for being corrupt? I was ashamed when Biden embrassed Netanyahu. I think that was a terrible strategic visual message to those who know Netanyahu for what he really is. I am Jewish and have for 40yrs been encouraged to go to Isreal. I will never. The ground is soaked w the blood of innocents.

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Here's a story I just spotted in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/21/woman-returns-from-vacation-to-find-family-home-mistakenly-demolished

Shocking, isn't it? Yet that's one of the milder features of everyday life among Israel's captive population. And when a Palestinian comes home to find a bulldozer got there first, it isn't an accident.

Rachel Corrie was killed by a bulldozer engaged in just such a house demolition.

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The west bank actions by Israel are wrong and should be reversed, but they in no way justify Hamas' actions. Israel has a right to defend itself, and that means removing the ongoing sources of missile attacks and terror attacks from Gaza and the true source of misery for the Gaza residents. Your stance of moral equivalence may be well meaning, but it's lazy.

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I wouldn't suggest there is a "moral equivalence" between the Israelis and the Palestinians. There's no "moral equivalence" between the Spartans and their helots, either. Or between an American slaveholder and Nat Turner. Or between the Nazis and their prisoners who escaped from Sobibor. Or between the Chinese government and the Uighurs. In each of these cases it is clear that the bulk of responsibility lies with the first of the two parties.

We can make this determination only after considering both sides, and not by simply parroting one side's propaganda. Otherwise, we become part of a Pete Seeger song:

"I learned our leaders never lie,

I learned that soldiers seldom die,

I learned that everybody's free,

Cause that's what the teacher said to me,

And that's what I learned in school today,

That's what I learned in school."

"The human mind can understand truth only by thinking."

-- Thomas Aquinas

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You twist my words a bit, Clifford. I did not say there's no moral equivalence between the Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote that there is no moral equivalence between Hamas and the IDF. Actions the IDF have taken against Hamas have been in response the Hamas aggression. Restrictions on movement across the Gaza border have been in response to terrorists' actions.

I separate the moral status of Israeli actions and activities in the West Bank from those in the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, Israel has lost its moral high ground, what little it had eroded by actions of Netanyahu's coalition.

However, Israel has a right to exist. Netanyahu's coalition's stance against an independent Palestinian state subverts the 1947 UN resolution that granted Israeli right to statehood. For THAT last point, if not for his corruption, he needs to be thrown into the garbage pit.

But saying the IDF can't take action against Hamas is like saying Israel has no right to exist.

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(1) But Israel isn't "taking actions against Hamas" (except in the most indirect sense). It's indiscriminately bombing and expelling Palestinians at large.

(2) States have no rights; PEOPLE have rights. States have only powers.

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1) Israel is attacking specific hamas targets, and warning civilians before each attack. On the other hand Hamas attacks civilians in Israel while using civilians in Gaza as human shields. Tell me, how would you protect your citizens against missile attacks by an organization whose charter is to destroy you??

2) States represent their citizens. Don't they have the right to exist and to protect their borders? Would you tell Ukraine to just bend over and get f****d by Russian aggression? Your argument makes no sense.

Further, the UN resolution in 1947 created a partition of land in Palestine, one part for the Jews who were developing land purchased for them, and the other part for Palestinians. Jews took the opportunity and built a state. Far-away Arab leaders rejected the partition and tried to attack the fledgling state, ignoring the needs of the Palestinians who were their. That's the origin of the Palestinians' disaster.

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Different interpretations with differing analyses, so one party is 'lazy' and the other is correct? Hmmm!

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Yes, Fern. Moral equivalence in this case is lazy. So would total acceptance of all Israel actions be just as lazy (and wrong). Not even Israelis who fought in its many defensive wars go that far, at least not the ones I've talked to. I'm glad that Biden is insisting on adherence to rules of war as Israel works to rid Gaza of the Hamas cancer. That work is needed. I'm glad the US had pushed for delay of an Israeli ground operation until 1)more aid reaches south Gaza, 2) negotiations have more time, 3) more Palestinians temporarily move out of north Gaza.

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We have different information about Israel and the Palestinians, and I would guess about other subjects as well, however, I'll refrain from calling you anything but, Jerry Helfand, for the time being.

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Moreover, what about the kidnapped hostages, more than 200 of them including babies, young children and very old folks? Israel has a right to try to liberate them including an obligation to do so!

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Except that happened in Atlanta …

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Steve, thanks for pointing that out. I read the article finally, and it has ZERO to do with anything in the Middle East. That Clifford is a troll or a bot.

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