I'll Never Vote for Hillary Clinton

No, you have not. In fact I have appreciated our exchanges. I am just saying a lot of us (not necessarily you as you have been kind of absent through the last month or else I haven't seen much of you) have gotten into the habit of dividing ourselves in groups and dismissing at best the other "side."

OK, this rhetorical device is old, now.

If you have something to say, just say it. This constant picking at someone, trying to find a chink in their armor, or goad them into something, is just a sad shadow of your former ability to make a point.

Very well. Blow it out your ass, DrewDad.

I try to have civil discussions which involve an interchange of ideas. Sometimes, though, I need to ask questions or probe deeper in order to make sure I'm not misunderstanding someone's position. I'd rather do that than, say, make the assumption that the other person is confused or malevolent or just an idiot. If that's the way you want to go forward, then knock yourself out. I will, in contrast, continue to give the other person the respect that he or she deserves, even though it makes me in your estimation a poor shadow of my former self.

More from PDiddie


Tuesday, June 07, 2016
Revolutionary News Update (Vol. 7: It's Over -- the AP said so)
It also can't be a revolution any longer, at least not in the traditional sense and certainly not inside the binary logic box that is the D versus R, left vs. right, right v. wrong, black/white either/or yin yang state of American politics. The headlines from last night include the following:

-- Clinton becomes presumptive nominee

-- CNN ignores DNC request to not count superdelegates before they vote

-- Six states are casting presidential primary ballots today:

Clinton and Sanders are poised to split the 694 Democratic delegates up for grabs in New Jersey, California, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota. The District of Columbia, which offers 20 delegates, is the last to vote on June 14.

-- Establishment media commit massive act of malpractice, claim Clinton clinched

The Associated Press and NBC News inappropriately reported Hillary Clinton made history and “clinched” the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. It spurred other media organizations, such as CNN and the New York Times, to follow suit and splash their home pages with big headlines indicating Clinton was the nominee.
In engaging in this act, establishment media improperly influenced five primaries scheduled for June 7, including the California primary, one of the biggest contests in the presidential race thus far. They collectively stooped to a new sycophantic low.
The reports of “clinching” are entirely based on an unofficial survey of superdelegates, which the AP and NBC News has conducted throughout the 2016 election. They both determined Clinton reached the “magic number” needed to clinch, which is 2383 delegates.
But if it is true that history happened, why didn’t Clinton’s own party congratulating her? How come there was no statement from the Democratic National Committee?
As of 12 am ET on June 7, the DNC had released no statement. There was no status update on the DNC’s Facebook page. There was no message sent or retweeted about Clinton making history.

There is a Tweet from Hillary in in the top link, and she says we've still got voting to do.

-- Obama had a heart-to-heart with Bernie Sunday afternoon.

-- Michael Lindenberger, writing for the Dallas Morning Views, says, "get on the bandwagon, Berners!" in the most condescending way possible. This might mean that the Snooze isn't going to endorse Trump, but I won't be restricting my autoneurological respiratory function by having my cortex override my medulla oblongata.

-- Walter Bragman (unfortunately even more melodramatic than HA Goodman) still manages to make a few good points.

Clinton’s problems can be attributed to the internet and the way she conducts herself politically. She is a politician of a bygone era of insider politics. Like Mitt Romney before her, Clinton has fallen victim to the fact that, today, anyone can readily pull up a video on YouTube of her saying different things to people on different sides of various issues.

This is spot on. In their zeal for 'first woman president', Clinton supporters ignore or weakly discount every single flaw of hers.



I had been of the opinion that Clinton-(VP) could hold serve until 2032, but even if she picks Elizabeth Warren, Hillary is going to be lousy one-termer in the Herbert Walker mold. The royal flush in 2018 against Democrats will rival 1992's, her husband's first midterm. And once her lying, economic misfires and the war she starts on Iran catch up to her, we'll have a Republican president and Congress in 2020 ... just in time for decennial redistricting.

For Democrats, 2020 presents the first chance in a decade to win back the House of Representatives. The election coincides with the next Census, which means the party that takes the majority of the state legislatures will redraw the congressional districts. The GOP won the down-ballot race the last time there was a Census — in 2010 — which allowed them to gerrymander the House districts heavily in their favor, and the Democrats have been unable to win control since.

This time around there are fewer restrictions on the redistricting process because the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder, struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act — the formula for states and localities to fall under the Section 5 preclearance requirements. If the Democrats lose down-ballot in 2020, they will not regain control of the House until 2031. Put simply, progress of any kind for the next decade will come down to turnout, and down-ballot voting in the next presidential election.

Egberto reinforced the point about all politics being local recently.

Far beyond Bragman's fear-mongering about the Democratic party destroying itself by nominating and electing Hillary Clinton, there will be some ominous ramifications for duopolists in the future. No, the GOP won't die off in the wake of Trump's defeat, certainly not in Texas, the South, or the Mountain states. Neither will the Dems do so in 2020, if he's correct about them getting swept out of office. We could wish for these things, but change in politics is too goddamned incremental for either one of the two monoliths to just keel over. It should continue to be a slow death for both, though, at least until they feel threatened enough by minor parties' ballot strength to adapt and co-opt some their most popular initiatives to sustain themselves for some time longer.

By that time all of that happens, we (humans) should have been burned off the Earth like wasps out of their nests. Mother Nature is going to shake us off like a bad case of fleas, as George Carlin presciently observed.

But until then, some of us will party like it's 1999, roll coal, turn the A/C down to 68, stock up on snacks and watch the revolution on teevee. The AP will call it before ten p.m. so they can get to bed early. Maybe even a couple of days in advance.

The world according to PDiddie. Hillary sux. The election and the whole system is rigged.We're all fucked. Except Bernie or busters, and everyone that agrees with me - we're less fucked, because we're so goddamn smart.

From P Diddie:


Um, media malpractice? Aren't we getting just a teeny weensy bit hysterical here?

They took the number of delegates Hillary got through primary votes and caucuses, plus got on the phones and asked the superdelegates who they were going to vote for, and found that Hillary had achieved enough delegates to clinch the nomination. That's media malpractice? That seems more like the press doing their job.

If you read PDiddie's blog, you see he has a singular talent for expressing extreme left-wing moonbeam views in almost reasonable sounding terms.
He's been an extreme scorched earth BOB'er this whole election.
Did you post here when he was a regular on A2K?

...Because everyone knows that people are never allowed to change their minds, ever.

The AP call is not irresponsible, but it is terrible for Clinton. It is not irresponsible because the super delegates they talked to committed, on the record, that they will definitely vote for Clinton. It is terrible for Clinton because:
- IMO, it has a greater chance of reducing her turnout than Sanders
- It irritates the Sanders voters who Clinton is trying to reconcile with
- It spoils her big plans for Tuesday night when she was going to have a big rally for crossing the pledged delegate threshold.

It is a strategy to keep voting low for Sanders in the remaining contests. It is a low partisan move on the part of the AP and those following suit. In fact, this very move was admitted to before it was ever made. I linked to it a day or two back. They know the psychology of voting for a declared winner and they know crestfallen Sanders supporters may not now vote or may even vote Clinton. It is a base move that merely enforces my conviction that the Democrats have abandoned democracy.

Didn't the AP do the same thing in the GOP race - call superdelegates and press them to make a choice? Isn't that how they called it for Trump?

How the hell is Hillary responsible for what the Associated Press does?

So now the AP is in on the conspiracy to keep Sanders out of the race? The whole world is against him. Woe to him.

It is a journalistic feather in your cap-a "scoop" if they still use that word-to accurately call an election or nomination before all the other news sources. Don't you remember the Superman comics when you were a kid and how Lois Lane was always going after the "scoop" before the other newspapers and forever getting captured while doing it and Superman had to always save her?

The news media is just tracking down the story to get the jump on the other news media. That's what they are supposed to do.

Superdelegates in the Democratic Party do not have to vote according to the popular vote. In the Republican Party they do. Comparing apples to cheese sandwiches.

A long time ago, when news organizations had a few traces of respectability, they realized that when they called the presidential election two hours before the polls closed in California the people quit voting. They made it a practice after that to wait until all polls were closed to project the winner. They used this same information this week to influence the final primaries.

And you're reaching. The AP and ALL media are keen to call any contest as early as possible - and I think that has to do with competing for a scoop - not with some smoke-filled room made plan to topple Bernie.

It was a story I linked to a day or two ago, that the AP was planning this strategy. I didn't just pull it out of my hat.

Right - but you added the spin that it was an anti-bernie "strategy", and not just a plan for the exact time they planned to call the race.

Wrong. The article made it plain that it was an anti Sanders strategy.

Would you mind sparing me the search, and posting the link again? If it says that, I'll admit I'm wrong.Maybe I'm naive, but it's just hard for me to imagine the Associated Press saying outright that they were trying to tip the race for Hillary.