"Trump and Clinton Win Primaries in Mississippi" by Patrick Healy New York Times March 09, 2016
NEW YORK — Hillary Clinton won a decisive victory in the Mississippi Democratic primary but was fighting to hold off Senator Bernie Sanders in Michigan.
Despite her victory over Sanders in Mississippi, the latest in a string across the South fueled by overwhelming black support, Clinton was more concerned about the outcome in Michigan and denying him any momentum coming out of the primary there. Sanders, targeting blue-collar voters in Michigan and in coming Rust Belt primaries, has been sharply attacking Clinton over her past support for free trade agreements, while she has aggressively questioned his support for the 2009 bailout of the auto industry.
Initial results indicated a close race in Michigan, with Sanders performing well with white voters and Clinton the overwhelming favorite of blacks, who were expected to make up around 20 percent of the Democratic electorate.
For Sanders, Michigan represented a likely turning point in his campaign. He badly needed a victory to provide much-needed political momentum heading into Ohio and Illinois next week, and to demonstrate that he is still viable even though he has fallen far behind Clinton in the race to amass the 2,323 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.
But Sanders has yet to show that he can prevail in several of the populous, racially diverse swing states that the Democratic nominee will seek to win in November, while Clinton has done so in states like Nevada and Virginia. For their part, Clinton advisers predicted that they would net more delegates from Tuesday’s primaries than Sanders because of Clinton’s landslide victories in heavily black parts of Mississippi.
Democratic delegates are awarded proportionally based on the candidates’ vote shares, and Democratic-leaning states and areas — like predominantly black cities and towns — tend to have the most delegates up for grabs. Advisers to both Clinton and Sanders expected a fairly even split of delegates in Michigan but a big Clinton haul in Mississippi, which would expand the significant lead that Clinton already had over Sanders.
Heading into Tuesday’s contests, Clinton had 672 pledged delegates (the result of primary and caucus wins) to Sanders’ 477. In addition, she has support from 458 superdelegates — party leaders and elected officials who count toward the nomination — to 22 for Sanders. Superdelegates can switch allegiance at any time.
Sanders’ advisers said that a strong performance in Michigan would augur well for him in Ohio and Illinois, given that the three states have similar Democratic electorates and that Sanders plans to continue criticizing Clinton over free trade. But they acknowledged that even if he were to win Michigan, he was not likely to gain much ground on Clinton in the race for delegates.
In addition to Ohio and Illinois, Sanders also plans to compete hard in next Tuesday’s nominating contest in Missouri, while he has shown less effort in the other two major primaries that day, Florida and North Carolina....
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"With Sanders’ Mich. win, Clinton’s vulnerabilities revealed" by Annie Linskey Globe Staff March 09, 2016
WASHINGTON — Bernie Sanders stunned Hillary Clinton in an upset win in the Michigan Democratic primary Tuesday, revealing the former secretary of state’s vulnerabilities in a crucial Midwest state where foreign trade and economic issues played a pivotal role.
Clinton cruised easily to a victory in Mississippi, another of the four states voting Tuesday. But the surprising result in Michigan showed that Sanders’ anti-Wall Street message, and his demands for sweeping change in Washington, resonated powerfully in a state with a large number of white, working-class voters.
The Associated Press declared Sanders the victor in Michigan at about 11:30 p.m. With 93 percent of precincts reporting, the Vermont senator had 50.1 percent of the vote, and Clinton had 48 percent.
In the Republican contest, Donald Trump easily won Michigan and Mississippi, further complicating the efforts of the Republican Party establishment to halt the momentum of his outsider, insurgent candidacy. Contests were also held in Idaho and Hawaii.
Got it.
Winning Michigan gives Sanders and his youthful, grass-roots supporters a major boost heading into several key races next Tuesday. The two candidates are set to face off in another debate Wednesday night in Florida, which is the largest of the five states set to vote that day.
“We came from 30 points down in Michigan and we’re seeing the same kind of come-from-behind momentum all across America,’’ Sanders said in a statement. “Not only is Michigan the gateway to the rest of the industrial Midwest, the results there show that we are a national campaign.’’
Sanders’ win in Michigan also raises the stakes for Clinton in Ohio. The state shares a large industrial base with Michigan, and voters express many of the same anxieties concerning the economy and trade policies.
However, Clinton’s current lead in delegates, and her commitment from party leaders who have a strong voice in determining the nominee, means the Michigan result does not fundamentally change her advantages.
Then why waste my time?
In Mississippi, Clinton had 83 percent of the vote to Sanders’ 16 percent with 94 percent of precincts reporting.
Despite the setback in Michigan, Clinton’s communications director Jennifer Palmieri said her campaign remains ‘‘confident she is going to be the nominee.’’
Speaking to reporters in Cleveland, Palmieri said ‘‘our strategy for getting the nomination is built around accruing more delegates. We will come out on top tonight on delegates.”
Sanders’s campaign had downplayed his chances in Michigan amid polls that put him down by double digits.
And he had found himself on the defensive just two days before voting started, forced to explain his vote against a Wall Street bailout package after Clinton pointed out that some of the money in the legislation was directed to help the ailing auto industry.
In the end the skirmish didn’t matter.
Democrats instead reacted strongly to Sanders’s message that the state’s economy was in shambles because of trade deals that were designed or supported by the Clinton clan.
“Secretary Clinton supported virtually every one of the disastrous trade agreements written by corporate America,” Sanders said during a debate held Sunday night in Flint.
“You didn’t need a PhD in economics to understand that American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Mexico making 25 cents an hour.”
Sanders hammered Clinton on her hesitance to voice opposition to the TransPacific Partnership trade agreement, an accord President Obama reached with 11 countries.
She initially called the process the “gold standard” for developing a trade accord.
Then Clinton sat on her hands for weeks as Congress was debating whether to grant Obama so-called fast track authority on the deal, a intermediatory step that will likely ease passage.
She finally came out against the deal during a trip to Iowa and repeated that position earlier this week at the debate.
“I thought it was reasonable to actually know what was in it before I opposed it,” Clinton said during the debate explaining her delay. “I oppose it.”
A loss in Michigan could spell trouble for Clinton down the line if she and Trump face off in the general election because he appeals to many of the same factory worker Democrats who are motivated by Sanders.
But Bernie's aren't being labeled Nazis by the Jewi$h media.
During a February interview on CNN, Trump said that he and Sanders “agree very much” on trade. “We both agree that we’re getting ripped off by China, by Japan, by Mexico, by everybody we do business with,” Trump said to CNN’s Jake Tapper on ‘State of the Union.’”
That's another reason the ma$$ media and e$tabli$hment they mouth for hate them both, even as they have both in their pocket.
They just don't want us having any ideas out here.
With an eye to wooing voters skeptical of her commitment to working class Democrats, Clinton had unveiled a detailed economic plan last week that she calls a “new bargain” that would provide incentives to companies investing in their employees.
It's the $ame old $hit.
It includes a provision that would allow the US government to “clawback” benefits from companies that move overseas after taking advantage of federal incentives.
The Michigan results showed that Sanders’ message is slightly stronger with black voters outside the Deep South, reinforcing a theory that his top strategists have offered as they argue his candidacy still has legs. In Michigan Sanders won the support of 32 percent of black voters, compared to 64 percent for Clinton, according to exit polls. In Mississippi, he won just 10 percent of African-Americans.
Clinton prevailed in the urban Detroit and Flint neighborhoods, while Sanders dominated in the more rural parts of the state and in cities with a large percentage of young voters, such as Lansing and Ann Arbor, where Michigan State University and the University of Michigan have their campuses.
His better performance among blacks in Michigan was particularly surprising given that he seemed to further alienate them during the Flint debate by suggesting many live in ghettos.
“When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto,” Sanders said on the debate stage Sunday night. “You don’t know what it’s like to be poor,” he added, ignoring the fact that there are many poor white enclaves while the majority of blacks don’t live in ghettos and aren’t poor.
Truth is, by raw numbers, there are more poor white than black. Problem is, they tend to live in poverty in rural areas and not urban areas -- and thus do not receive as much coverage.
It's the old #WLDM, and you can't blame Bernie for thinking it.
He's just reading the same slop as are you and I!
Clinton had tried to make the campaign here about local issues, focusing heavily on the lead tainted water that has poisoned residents of Flint.
Using them as a public relations and political photo-op worked wonders for her vote total!
She took the highly unusual step of leaving New Hampshire, the first in the nation primary, the Sunday before voting to visit with the mayor of Flint and speak at a church. Clinton lost New Hampshire by 22 points.
Sanders focused on broader issues, tying the plight of Flint’s residents to a larger economic system that he says is rigged against their interests.
Good thing it is just a theory (even though it looks that way in fact).
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"In Miami debate, Clinton forced to face campaign weaknesses" by Annie Linskey Globe Staff March 10, 2016
MIAMI — Hillary Clinton was forced to grapple with many of the weaknesses in her campaign during a debate Wednesday night when she was pressed on an extensive list of factors dogging her candidacy.
Moderators pointedly asked her to respond to her surprising loss to Bernie Sanders in Michigan this week, her poor poll numbers on trustworthiness, the deaths of Americans in the 2012 Benghazi attacks, as well as the controversy over her personal e-mail server and the investigation it spawned.
Sanders, who has generally shunned the latter subjects, stuck to his script of pounding the Democratic front-runner over her paid speeches to Wall Street, corporate campaign contributions, and deep ties to the Washington establishment. The Miami debate, co-sponsored by Spanish broadcaster Univision, also focused heavily on immigration and other issues of high interest to America’s growing pool of Latino voters.
In response to a question, Clinton declined to say whether she would drop out of the Democratic nomination contest if she is indicted for mishandling classified information connected to her e-mail system, which she maintained while she was secretary of state.
“Oh for goodness . . . ,” Clinton said, in response to a moderator’s query. “That is not going to happen. I am not even answering that question. . . . I am not concerned about it. I am not worried about it, and no American should be either.’’
Obama has tipped her off that there will be no political Lynching before the election. FBI will be ordered to sit on it.
Heck, they only need delay a few more months.
Some of the sharpest exchanges between Clinton and Sanders came on immigration reform.
Clinton criticized Sanders’ reasoning for voting against a 2007 immigration reform bill that was championed by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Sanders has said he followed the guidance of advocates who likened a guest worker program to modern slavery.
“It’s very hard to make the case that Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, me, La Raza . . . would have supported a bill that promoted modern slavery,’’ she said. “If we had been able to get that passed, we would be so much further along now.’’
That's a low blow -- and a lie!
Sanders countered that Clinton prevailed upon former New York governor Eliot Spitzer to reject a driver’s license program for illegal immigrants.
“New York still doesn’t do it,’’ Sanders said, while noting that Vermont does permit the practice.
Much has shifted in the race since the two candidates last met on a debate stage just 72 hours earlier. Sanders unexpectedly beat Clinton in the Michigan on Tuesday, raising fresh questions about her ability to reach white, lower-income voters.
Why would they need worry when we have been told that is a dying breed of voter dooming Republicans to obscurity?
The victory gave Sanders a fresh boost as he looks ahead to a trio of industrial Midwestern states — Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio — that hold primaries on March 15, along with Florida and North Carolina. While Clinton’s 200-plus lead in delegates makes it complicated for Sanders to prevail in the nomination contest, the momentum he’s showing will force Clinton to continue spending time and money on the primary.
The pre$$ admits its a rigged system.
She’s signaled repeatedly that she’d prefer to focus her fire on the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump.
Democratic strategists allied with Clinton have studied Trump’s rise and concluded that the Republican field waited far too long to take him on.
Clinton, early in the debate, said that Trump is “un-American.”
OMG!
When that was said about Obama there was a FUROR!
No such defense for Trump!
And what does she mean anyway?
That bombing, killing, and torturing over damnable lies is American?
She also showed some humor, playfully mocking Trump’s central campaign theme that he would build a wall between the United States and Mexico.
“He’s talking about a very tall wall. Right? A beautiful tall wall. The most beautiful tall wall. Better than the Great Wall of China.” Clinton said. “That’s just fantasy.”
Not as good as Israel's Apartheid Wall, though.
Trump, along with the three other candidates left in the GOP field, are set to debate in Miami on Thursday evening.
Different post.
Clinton took the toughest questions Wednesday, befitting her status as the front-runner in the Democratic contests.
At one point Clinton found herself defended her shocking loss in the Michigan primary on Tuesday by noting that she won Mississippi, which also voted, and took home more delegates than Sanders.
She said that it is “painful” to see the poll numbers that show many Americans don’t believe Clinton is honest. “I am not a natural politician in case you haven’t noticed like my husband and President Obama,” Clinton said.
Awwwwwwww!
Another sensitive topic to come up was the 2012 attacks on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Democrats have not made an issue over the deaths of four Americans on Clinton's watch — but moderator Jose Ramos pressed her on whether she lied to the family members of the victims.
“We were scrambling to get information that was changing literally by the hour. When we had information, we made it public, and sometimes we had to go back and say we had new information,” she said.
The evolution of a cover story it was.
Sanders was called on to explain how he could possibly clinch the nomination given the deep deficit he has in the delegate count and among party leaders who also vote in the selection process.
“In the coming weeks and months we’re going to continue to do extremely well, and convince super delegates that Bernie Sanders is the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump,” Sanders said.
In a nod to the near sea-level location of the debate, moderators pressed both candidates on their views on climate change. Sanders’ answer resonated on social media as one was one of his strongest responses of the evening.
PFFFFT!
“When Republicans say climate change is a hoax, they mean they don’t have the guts to stand up to the fossil fuel industry,” he said.
Neither does the president.
Sanders is training his sights on the upcoming primaries in Midwest states. As he did in Michigan, he’s contrasting his record opposing trade deals with Clinton’s more nuanced positions.
She has supported several bilateral deals and her family legacy includes the North American Free Trade Act, which was enacted during her husband’s presidency. The 1994 trade deal with Mexico and Canada is still reviled by chunks of the Democratic base.
Clinton drew blood during Sunday’s debate by accusing Sanders for voting against the auto industry bailout, an attack that fact checkers have since called “half true” but on Wednesday night Sanders still had difficulty batting it down succinctly.
She.... LIED?
“What the secretary is doing tonight and has done very often is take large pieces of legislation and take pieces out of it,” he said.
“No, I did not oppose the bailout or the support of the automobile industry,” he added, getting flustered.
He lost the debate right there!
It wasn’t clear at the time that the bill Sanders voted against — the Troubled Asset Relief Program — would be the vehicle for bailing out the auto industry. Only later, after a separate bailout failed, did Obama reroute some of the cash to help domestic car and truck makers. Sanders struggled to explain that distinction.
David Axelrod said it was a cheap shot by Clinton.
Sanders has struggled to attract support from minorities, but has had better luck winning support from Hispanics than blacks.
Except in Nevada!
Clinton’s advantage with black voters has given her a sizable delegate lead — and she’s counting on continued support in North Carolina as well next week.
During the most of the debates so far she’s tried to appeal to African-Americans by wrapping herself in Obama’s legacy, stressing that she’s best positioned to continue his policies.
However, she broke with Obama on his administration’s policy of conducting raids on undocumented immigrants and deporting them.
“I do not have the same policy as the current administration does,” Clinton said, adding she supports an overhaul to the immigration laws. “At the same time, stop the raids, stop the round-ups, stop the deporting of people who are living here doing their lives, doing their jobs, and that’s my priority.”
Yes, she wouldn't want to upset the $lave economy based on the backs of illegals delivering papers before rushing of to the factory and then the restaurant.
This is getting tire$ome, folks.
Sanders' campaign, looking to press its advantage with Rust Belt voters, has distributed a 2012 video of Clinton, during her tenure as secretary of state, on a trip to India defending the practice of outsourcing US jobs.
"There are advantages of it that have benefited many parts of our country and there are disadvantages," Clinton said at a town hall-style event that took place in India. "It's like anything, there are pluses and minuses."
Oh, how cavalier!
--more--"
The photo says it all.
What a joke!
"Hillary Clinton’s lack of Michigan ground game contributed to upset loss" by Akilah Johnson Globe Staff March 10, 2016
Just about every poll heading into the primary election had Hillary Clinton winning Michigan by double digits. They were all wrong. Clinton lost by less than 2 percent, or about 18,000 votes.
A record number of voters showed up at the Michigan polls on Tuesday, with more than 2.5 million casting ballots in the Democratic and Republican primaries. That intense enthusiasm was something that worked in Bernie Sanders’ favor — and was missed by pollsters.
“The enthusiasm level was much higher for him than for her,” said pollster Steve Mitchell, chief executive of Mitchell Research & Communications in East Lansing, whose most recent poll — released Monday for FOX 2 Detroit — showed Clinton up by 27 points. “All of the pollsters got it wrong, and the question is ‘Why did we blow it?’ — and we all did.”
Mitchell pointed to key reasons for the miscalculation: higher-than-anticipated turnout of 18- to 39-year-old voters, who supported Sanders in greater numbers; and Sanders performing better than expected among African-American voters.
Clinton’s strategy to win, meanwhile, relied too heavily on urban areas, including Detroit and Flint, as well as black voters, Michigan Democrats said. Sanders targeted a wider geographic range.
“It’s the ground game and the get-out-the-vote operation that really made the difference,” said Chris Savage, chairman of the local Democratic Party in Washtenaw County, which includes Ann Arbor. “When he had his rally in Ann Arbor, there were lines around the block. He wasn’t just able to get people to come see him, he then organized those voters.”
Among the five states voting in the upcoming primaries Tuesday are Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri, each with similar demographics to Michigan and some of the same economic anxieties among residents buffeted by globalization.
“She needs to do a better job in her message to people in the Rust Belt in terms of their economic concerns” -- or so I'm told.
Clinton’s campaign provided its own postmortem of the Michigan primary Wednesday, saying it too thought the race would be closer than pollsters predicted. And despite the loss in Michigan, the night was not a total loss because of the number of delegates Clinton picked up, Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said during a conference call with reporters.
Mississippi voters went to the polls Tuesday night as well, and she trounced Sanders by a 66 percentage-point margin.
Sanders won 65 delegates to Clinton’s 68 in Michigan (a candidate can win a state and still come away with fewer delegates because of apportionment rules), according to the Associated Press. Clinton won 32 to Sanders’ 5 in Mississippi. Net advantage for Clinton: 30 delegates.
Bernie won but lost???
And he's NOT FIGHTING IT?
What is the Democratic primaries these days, the 2000 general election?
Really tells you all you need to know about his sacrificial lamb show that sucks energy and people away from protest and into meaningle$$ politics.
It's the flip $ide to Ron Paul, who ran in the last two campaigns. Get all those liberals and Occupiers to divert their attention and energy like they did the righties.
Mook pushed back against suggestions that Clinton’s campaign should alter its campaign strategy ahead of Tuesday’s elections, calling it “a little bit of a fool’s errand to assess the ground game.”
Moving forward, he said, the campaign plans to continue to “amplify Secretary Clinton’s economic arguments. She is the only candidate who has rolled out a specific plan to create more good-paying manufacturing jobs.”
Clinton opposes President Obama’s Pacific rim trade deal, but she did come out against it until months of debate in Congress had already transpired.
CNN’s exit polls showed that 57 percent of Michigan Democrats thought that trade with other countries takes away jobs compared to 30 percent who believe that foreign trade creates jobs.
Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan, who is a Clinton supporter, said trade does matter and Clinton “gave a very strong economic speech” last week at Detroit Manufacturing Systems, which supplies automotive parts. The problem, Dingell said, was that “not enough people knew she gave it, let alone what the content was.”
Whatever.
The whining isn't helping the campaign.
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Now about those e-mails:
"GOP sues over Clinton emails; senators press attorney general" by Michael Biesecker and Eric Tucker Associated Press March 09, 2016
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday she hasn’t discussed the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails with the White House and doesn’t plan to.
What did I saw above?
The investigation deals with the potential mishandling of sensitive information that passed through the former secretary of state’s private email server, and Lynch’s assurance to the Senate Judiciary Committee came shortly after the GOP sued for access to Clinton’s emails.
The two lawsuits spring from Freedom of Information Act requests filed last year seeking copies of emails and text messages sent or received by the Democratic presidential candidate and her top aides. In court filings, the GOP says it has not received any documents in response to the requests.
The GOP litigation brings the total to at least 34 civil suits so far involving requests for federal records related to Clinton’s service as secretary of state between 2009 and 2013....
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What they are not telling you is she set up a server so Israel could cadge all her communications while at the same time selling classified information to select foreign countries, whose payments were laundered through the Clinton Foundation under the name of a donation. That's the whole scandal on a thumbnail.
It's up to you to decide if you think that is important or not.
It was illegal, but what does that really mean in AmeriKa?
"Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders released a new policy plan to combat HIV/AIDS, pledging ‘‘virtually universal access’’ to drugs treating the disease.
He also pledged to create a $3-billion-a-year prize fund to incentivize drug development and increase federal funding to double the number of people on HIV treatment worldwide by 2020.
The disease is ‘‘one of the great moral issues of our day,’’ Sanders said in a statement. America must act to ‘‘end the greed of the pharmaceutical companies.’’
Looks to me like he is playing to that lobby.
Where does he think those treatments and drugs come from?
Sanders’ plan was issued a day after rival Hillary Clinton apologized for remarks crediting Nancy Reagan with taking early action to stop the spread of aids. Those comments outraged activists who said the Reagan administration lagged in taking action as the illness ravaged the gay community.
First she was schmoozing with George W, and now this!
Sanders and Clinton met at a town hall forum in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday night.
While Clinton’s campaign is trying to direct its attention to Trump and the general election, Tuesday’s primary contests in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois look tighter than they did just days ago. That is forcing the campaign to keep focus on the primary race despite a sizable advantage among the delegates that determine the nomination.
While Clinton aides say there’s little they will do to push Sanders out of the primary race, they are showing signs of impatience with the increasingly negative nature of his campaign.
‘‘We would like to wrap it up as soon as possible,’’ said communications director Jen Palmieiri, just hours before Sanders won the Michigan primary. ‘‘You don’t want to let them have a head start on the general.’’
Bernie is done after tonight.
Clinton and her allies had hoped to switch much of their focus to the general election after Tuesday’s primary contests, a plan thrown into doubt after her loss in Michigan last week.
Democratic strategists wanted to use the spring to settle on early lines of attack against Trump, who has successfully deflected nearly all Republican efforts to undermine his candidacy.
I'm getting the feeling it isn't going to be him.
The screeching shrillness of the establishment leads me to believe he will be "eliminated."
And top donors had expected the campaign to begin raising money for the general election beginning in April, a transition they now say has been pushed off.
Wins on Tuesday would give Sanders fresh momentum in the contest, granting him months to continue criticizing Clinton’s positions on issues that Republican front-runner Donald Trump wants to put front and center in the general election.
Some Clinton allies worry that messages from the Sanders campaign — demands that Clinton release transcripts of her paid speeches to Wall Street banks, her past support for trade deals, and his argument that most Washington politicians are bought and paid for by campaign contributions — could aid Trump in the general election.
It is an either/or, isn't it?
Sanders and his supporters are also making a similar case against Clinton backers with ties to Wall Street, expanding his critique to a broader swath of the party.
At a Saturday press conference in Chicago, Sanders charged Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a longtime Clinton ally, with being ‘‘indebted to Wall Street and big-money interests.’’
Better watch it, Bernie.
Rahm is the guy who sent the goons into Trump's rallies.
Also on Sunday....
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Let's get over to Ohio:
"Backing trade deals haunts Hillary Clinton in Ohio" by Tracy Jan Globe Staff March 13, 2016
WASHINGTON — Hoping to avoid a repeat of her surprising loss last week in Michigan, Hillary Clinton is fighting headwinds over international trade before Tuesday’s vote in Ohio, another state where trade pacts are blamed for damaging the economy.
Clinton opposes President Obama’s proposed Pacific Rim trade agreement, but she previously supported it as a “gold standard” when she was secretary of state and didn’t register her objections until last fall. Her previous support of that deal and other trade agreements has generated strong distrust among voters in the Rust Belt.
“These trade deals are killing us. And she’s supported trade deals,” said George Husty III, a 68-year-old millwright at US Steel in Lorain, Ohio.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has made opposition to international trade agreements a centerpiece of his campaign, captured greater support from white working-class voters in Michigan last Tuesday, fueling his upset win there.
Voters will cast ballots in the Ohio Democratic primary contest on Tuesday, the same day residents of Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, and Missouri also go to the polls. Opinion surveys show Clinton with a healthy lead in Ohio, but they said the same thing in Michigan last week, and they were wrong.
Clinton campaigned in Youngstown with Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown over the weekend and denounced Obama’s proposed trade pact as insufficient to protect American auto workers. She has said she switched from supporting the pact to opposing it after reading newly negotiated details.
Sherrod Brown just lost all credibility and respect.
‘‘When I saw what was in it, it was clear to me there were too many loopholes, too many opportunities for folks to be taken advantage of,’’ Clinton said at a Saturday campaign appearance at a precision manufacturing firm.
In contrast to the rules in the Republican contest, which makes Ohio a winner-take-all-state, Democrats award Ohio delegates proportionally. That means Clinton could lose the state narrowly and still get a large share of delegates, as she did in Michigan, where Sanders got 67 but Clinton got 60.
WTF?
I WAS TOLD above he got 65 and she got 68!!!
I really less interested in the discrepancies or reasons for the slop shovel anymore, folks.
I simply note that it is there and then toss the whole damn thing in the round filing cabinet known as the trash can.
Still, losing another crucial swing state in the Upper Midwest would be a serious sign of weakness for Clinton and would once again reveal how much she is struggling to unite the party in the face of Sanders’ strong challenge from the left.
I voted Sanders in the primary, but won't be voting for her in November.
Thus I contribute to its unity, don't I?
I'm out!
Lorain, a steel town along Lake Erie that has lost hundreds of jobs in the past year, provides a microcosm for how these debates are playing in the industrial Midwest.
“All the foreign steel that’s coming in has destroyed our industry. We have thousands of people across the state out of work. I feel like the government just didn’t care,” said Betty Vazquez, a 49-year-old inspector shipper in the quality control department of Republic Steel who was laid off last July after 18 years.
I wonder if it is the melted WTC stuff that Giuliani sent over to China after 9/11.
Vazquez, a Democrat, is undecided about whom to vote for on Tuesday.
“I don’t know much about this Bernie but I’m going to learn more about him,” she said.
????
How can you not know much at this point? Haven't been following any of it all?
Distrust of Clinton on the trade issue runs deep here.
There is that trust issue again.
As Husty, the millwright at US Steel, put it: “Her old man was the one who pushed NAFTA, and she’s changed her tune on TPP,” he said, referring to the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership reached in October.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership was not her first reversal on trade.
Doesn't help with the trust issue, you chameleon-like creature.
While campaigning against Barack Obama in the 2008 election, she railed against a potential deal with South Korea, calling it “inherently unfair.” But as Obama’s secretary of state, she embraced it, calling it a “priority.” The US-Korea Free Trade Agreement took effect in 2012.
Since 2011, the US trade imbalance with South Korea has more than doubled to $28.3 billion, according to data collected by the Department of Commerce. Korean imports, especially cars and iron and steel mill products, have increased 22 percent since 2012, according to foreign trade statistics from the US Census Bureau.
In Ohio alone, more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since NAFTA went into effect, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Sanders is driving the issue hard in Ohio. His campaign began airing a new television ad on Friday focusing on trade — referencing the 850,000 jobs lost under the North American Free Trade Agreement, negotiated under President George H.W. Bush but signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, and the 3 million jobs lost following permanent normal trade relations with China, also under President Clinton.
The ad, which will also air in Illinois and Missouri, highlights Sanders’ record of opposing every trade deal and makes the connection between trade and taking money from special interest groups.
The state has been battered by the federal government’s inability to negotiate balanced trade deals, said US Representative Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat whose district includes Lorain.
Kaptur, the most senior woman in the House of Representatives, endorsed Sanders on Friday. In an interview with the Globe, she praised Sanders for his consistent record on trade, having joined her in voting against NAFTA when he served in the House.
“It was a tough vote because the most powerful economic interests in the world were on the other side, and he didn’t cower,” Kaptur said.
They always squeak through, too.
Kaptur, an outspoken critic of free-trade policies, said she was jolted last summer when she visited Cleveland for a Port Authority celebration and saw all the imported steel being unloaded. Hours earlier, she had spoken to pink-slipped workers at a US Steel plant.
“It was the most ‘Twilight Zone’ experience,” Kaptur said.
That's a great show even now!
Republic Steel, headquartered in Canton, Ohio, is scheduled to indefinitely “idle” its Lorain plant, which once employed close to 700 workers, at the end of March. Much of the steel produced there went to the auto industry as well as piping for oil and gas drilling.
Which have closed down due to the drop in the price of oil, not trade.
Glenn Loughrie, president of the Lorain County AFL-CIO, said other countries such as Korea and China benefit from “unfair” trade deals and “dump” their steel in the United States at artificially low prices.
Loughrie, 61, was laid off last month after 41 years as a mechanical hydraulic repairman for Republic Steel. He, too, remains undecided about whom to vote for.
“Clinton better step up to the plate and start talking about how she’s going to rectify some of these trade deals and decide what side of the table she’s sitting on,” Loughrie said.
Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer said less than two years ago, US Steel and Republic Steel together employed 1,200 workers in the city. Now there are only about 200 jobs, he said. The job losses have eroded the city’s tax base to the point where the city may have to cut fire and police services, he said.
This, need I remind you, during a record six-year economic expansion according to government.
While trade deals certainly played a part, Ritenauer said excess oil and gas on the world market has also dragged the local steel industry down.
“The populist message of Sanders, and I would venture even the populist message of Trump, on this issue is making some inroads here,” he said. But Ritenauer said he supports Clinton anyway. “If elected, she would be a champion for cities like Lorain.”
Then he deserves what he gets.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who said free trade deals are “absolutely killing our country,” is capitalizing on anger from members of the white working class who feel cast aside by Washington policies.
Implying, you know, white supremacy and Nazism.
Trump’s message resonates in Lorain, where, in addition to the shuttering of Republic Steel, US Steel plans to cut its run time in half beginning this week — from 16 hours a day to just eight.
Husty, the soon-to-be-retired millwright, said he plans to change his party registration on Tuesday in order to vote for Trump. A lot of his colleagues at the steel mill also plan to vote for Trump, he said.
“Trump is going to get a lot of Democratic votes, believe it or not,” Husty said. “A lot of Caucasian workers are going to vote for him. Even some minorities. We talk about it all the time.”
Oh, I believe it.
It may not be reflected in the rigged results, but I believe it.
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"Tuesday contests to decide whether GOP can halt Trump" by Annie Linskey and Matt Viser Globe Staff March 15, 2016
This post isn't about him!
WASHINGTON — For Democrats, who award all of their delegates proportionally, the consequences of Tuesday’s vote loom somewhat less large. A big win for Hillary Clinton over challenger Bernie Sanders would give her a greater margin of comfort as she tries to turn her attention to the general election. But if Sanders wins in Ohio or some other state, negative perceptions about her candidacy will linger, even as her delegate lead inevitably grows.
Clinton is counting on a show of strength in Ohio — where she’s ahead in the polls — to reassure supporters nervous that her inconsistent views on trade have prevented her from connecting with the white, working class men. These voters have supported Democrats in the past but have been cool to Clinton.
Why worry?
We were told.... sigh.
Over the weekend, she brought the press along for a stop at the O’Donold’s Irish Pub & Grill in Youngstown, Ohio, where she was photographed sipping a dark beer.
There is another photo you should see.
Yeah, having a beer is going to win over Joe Sixpack.
Despite Sanders’ unexpected victory in Michigan, he came out of last week even further behind Clinton in the delegate race.
I'm told he lost, told he won, told he lost....
His backers seem undeterred, however.
“Hope is a difficult thing to extinguish, particularly when it’s well funded,” said Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist who isn’t working for either campaign....
HE JUST DID!
That's the problem with hope -- it is BY DEFINITION NOT WELL-FUNDED!
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Now THAT is WELL-FUNDED!
I won't be burning the midnight oil waiting for results tonight, sorry.
"Facing backlash, Clinton says coal still has a future" by Adam Beam Associated Press March 15, 2016
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Clinton’s campaign Monday tried to reaffirm her commitment to coal communities one day after declaring on national television she was going “to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
Clinton’s comments came during a Sunday night appearance on CNN, where she was asked a question about how her policies would benefit poor white people in southern states who generally vote Republican.
??????
Does she need them?
Democrats in those states tried to distance themselves from Clinton’s comments.
“I was very disappointed to hear the comments that came out of the debate,” said Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state and a close friend of the Clinton family who received their endorsement during her unsuccessful challenge to McConnell in 2014.
You get Grimes on you at your own risk.
In West Virginia, where Democrats are trying to hang to the governor’s mansion after losing the state Legislature after the 2014 elections, two of the three Democratic candidates criticized Clinton’s comments.
Booth Goodwin, the former US attorney who prosecuted former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, said he “absolutely disagreed” with Clinton. And Democrat Jim Justice, an Appalachian coal magnate, declared: “I will not support anyone who does not support coal.”
It wasn't a Goodwin!
Jeff Kessler, a progressive candidate supporting Bernie Sanders, echoed Clinton’s message about providing new coalfield opportunities but said he would’ve worded it differently.
Brian Fallon, Clinton’s national press secretary, said Republicans were trying to twist Clinton’s words.
They don't have to try; liars inevitably twist their tongues into knots.
But later in the day, the Clinton campaign released a statement that appeared to walk back her comments.
“Coal will remain a part of the energy mix for years to come, and we have a shared responsibility to ensure that coal communities receive the benefits they have earned — and can build the future they deserve,” she said....
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She just lost Kentucky and West Virginia's electoral votes.
Also see:
Dissecting a Few of Hillary Clinton’s Most Recent Lies and Evaluating What They Tell Us About Her
Happy Primary Elections Day! (Feeling the Bern Yet?) Was First Obama Election Fixed?
And I was worried at the time that he would be robbed.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
"Three realities – social injustice on an unprecedented scale, massive inequities, and a loss of trust in elites – define our political moment, and rightly so. More of the same is not an answer. Nobel Laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz : The New Generation Gap" He conveniently ignores the last eight years of Obama as he endorses Hillary Clinton for president.
"Hillary Clinton cements lead" by Annie Linskey Globe Staff March 16, 2016
WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton cemented her lead in the Democratic primary contest Tuesday with decisive victories in Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, and Ohio — a sign that rival Bernie Sanders’ surge may have crested.
I predicted it before it happened.
The strong result in four populous states was likely to significantly increase Clinton’s delegate lead over Sanders. Voters delivered what she had hoped for: a strong night that would allow her to unify the party and focus her fight on the Republicans.
It's “another super Tuesday” for Clinton, and she will probably get the unity as Bernie's leftist lemmings fall in line!
Tempering the wins for Clinton was a series of self-inflicted wounds in recent days, some of which could become fodder for Republicans.
She irritated AIDS activists and offended coal miners over the weekend.
Then on Monday she stirred up the Benghazi controversy, stating falsely that no Americans died in Libya while she was secretary of state.
“Now, is Libya perfect? It isn’t,” Clinton said to Chris Matthews on MSNBC Monday night.
Clinton compared the American policy in Libya with the current approach to Syria, a country that’s been mired in civil war.
“Libya was a different kind of calculation and we didn’t lose a single person,” Clinton said, referring to overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
In fact, four Americans including US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens died in the September 2012 attacks on a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. Republicans have long sought to blame Clinton for failing to secure the facility, which included a covert CIA base.
It was pointed out by some yesterday that she may not be all there mentally. I don't know what prescriptions they have her on, or whether she is suffering from natural delusion, but....
The series of stumbles started Friday when she credited former first lady Nancy Reagan with starting “a national conversation” on AIDS. In fact, the Reagan administration’s slow response to the epidemic is considered by activists to be one of the darker stains on his presidency.
Hey, she accepted the rewritten and revised version of history there.
So what?
It's not like she questioned certain trademarked events that may be in dispute regarding certain distortions.
Clinton later apologized for misstating the Reagans’ role.
Then, during a Democratic town hall Sunday night, Clinton gave a cringe-worthy answer while talking about clean energy. “We’re going to put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business,” Clinton said.
On Monday afternoon Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon was left with little room to maneuver and could only accuse Republicans of “trying to score political points by misinterpreting the intent” of Clinton’s coal comments.
This as she was walking back the comments.
The Ohio win was particularly gratifying....
Another state with a long history of vote fraud.
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