In Final Hours, DNC Election Misbehavior Runs Rampant
June 6, 2016

As the final seven contests of this primary season draw to a close, it appears the DNC is pulling out all the stops to ensure Hillary Clinton does not limp into the Democratic National Convention next month by employing any number of questionable (historically Conservative) voter suppression tactics. Tactics once the stock & trade of the GOP have become commonplace tools of the DNC. If they still want to convince me Hillary Clinton is not a Closet Conservative and the DNC isn’t becoming “GOP-Lite”, I dare say they couldn’t do a worse job. Two weeks before the Puerto Rican Primary & Virgin Islands caucus, when everyone was focused on the then upcoming Oregon & Kentucky primaries, I tweeted Senator Sanders that he should bear in mind that “Puerto Rico (worth 60 delegates) is ripe for a Sanders Landslide with their current economic crisis there and having gone 90% for Obama in 2008.” I don’t know if my tweet reached him, but the day of the Kentucky Primary, he wasn’t in The Bluegrass State but in Puerto Rico giving a speech about their Debt Crisis. Election night pundits even questioned why Sanders was worried about a race that was still two weeks away when Kentucky & Oregon were voting that very same day. It was a brilliant move. No one (else) was even thinking about the island territory worth more delegates than Kentucky (55) in which an eminently possible huge win could conceivably provide a net pickup of some 20 even 30 delegates for the Senator, dramatically lightening the burden on California the following Tuesday.

I’ve noted repeatedly on Facebook that “Puerto Rico is an Open Primary, is furious with Wall Street for bankrupting their economy, and that in 2008, went 90% for Barack Obama [over Clinton]”. Their former governor endorsed Sanders just prior to the New York State primary, and the Mayor of San Juan switched her support from Hillary to Sanders as well. Sanders opposes (and Clinton supported) the PR bailout bill being debated in Washington that seeks to impose Conservative austerity upon the Territory with no say in the matter. But the moment that plan proved unpopular, Clinton flip-flopped in her support declaring that she was now opposed to it as well (which was easy for her to do having previously declared she had “serious concerns” with the plan before she announced she supported it.) Hillary has a history of doing this… expressing disapproval for something unpopular before she supports it, so that later, when the people complain, she can point back and say, “Here! See where I suggested this might be a bad idea? Just before I okayed it?”

How are you supposed to know where a person stands when they issue a “disclaimer” before every decision? Then, rather than stand by that decision, says, “I had reservations from the beginning. Oops!” It’s called “trying to have your cake & eat it too.” It’s also called “It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.” I call it “having no core principles.” She already did this with her Iraq vote. “Your kid died in an unnecessary war? Forgive me.” TPP: “Your job moved to Vietnam because of a free-trade agreement I wasn’t sure about but approved anyway? Sorry!” The Commander-in-Chief doesn’t get do-overs. Some decisions you just can’t take back.

So, back to Puerto Rico. Sanders starts campaigning down there early, receives a standing ovation for his criticism of Congress and their proposed austerity measures, and was picking up endorsements.

This can not stand.

The DNC, unwilling to take any chances, starts shutting down polling places in Puerto Rico just days after Sanders unexpectedly wins the West Virginia Primary. In 2008, the island had just over 2,300 polling locations. Three weeks ago, they had only 1,500, but as election day drew to a close, the DNC shut down over 1,100 of them till only 432 remained. Worse still, some voters had to vote for president at one location and for their local officials at another [ibid]! The fact polls there close at just 3pm certainly didn’t help matters any (“Not enough time to stand in line at TWO locations before the polls close? Too bad.”) And how much do you want to bet the majority of those closed polling stations were in “Bernie-friendly” districts?

But would it be enough?

Denying Sanders a landslide in Puerto Rico still doesn’t guarantee Hillary won’t arrive at the DNC Convention limping across the finish line, possibly suffering a string of late race loses and potentially more bad news stories dogging her campaign as she loses ground against Trump in the polls while Sanders supporters are energized, motivated & mobilized?

No, we need to throw a few kinks in the hose.

How about we print up millions of different ballots for the state of California depending upon your (lack of) Party affiliation, upon half of which Bernie Sanders’ name doesn’t even appear? And if you try “writing his name in”, your ballot is instantly disqualified and tossed in the trash. If you are registered in California as “NPP” (No Party Preference), this may very well be you. If so, take your ballot back and demand a new one with Sanders’ name on it.

We all saw the misbehavior in Nevada… and I’m not talking about the understandably outraged Bernie supporters. When I watched the video of the Chairwoman holding a platform vote 30 minutes early, hold a voice-vote with no clear winner, declare a winner anyway, then defiantly (and with obvious disdain) gavel the convention to a close and childishly march off stage as conventioneers scream in protest, it’s impossible not to think of Congress cheating on a voice vote and the outrage that sparks… not just on the floor of Congress, but nationwide (BOTH sides are guilty of this.) I’ve heard Clinton supporters give arguments like, “Hey, it was just two delegates!” Might as well tell me not to complain over a “tiny” stab-wound either. It’s “Death-by-a-thousand-cuts.”

Hillary was on CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday, and promised: “After Tuesday, I will begin reaching out [to Sanders supporters]”. I’ve been pointing out for a long time that no one from the Clinton campaign (nor her followers) have made ANY attempt to make Sanders supporters feel welcome, and this quote proves I was right. Nor have I heard anyone provide a substantive argument for supporting Clinton’s policies over Sanders, or assure Sanders supporters their concerns will be addressed. “Math” & “inevitability” are poor arguments for convincing someone to abandon their principles and vote for someone they don’t trust. And I don’t have a lot of respect for anyone who would WANT the support of anyone who would so sell out their values so easily. But then again, look who we’re talking about? As I pointed out above, I’m not entirely sure what Hillary Clinton’s core values are to begin with because there is no principle she hasn’t sold out for political expediency (IMHO).

What infuriates me most is how no one is calling the DNC out for their obvious anti-Democratic chicanery and acts of voter suppression. Voter purges, long lines, not having enough ballots on hand, to even closing literally thousands polling stations. A victor that doesn’t care how they win as long as they win, and there’s no incentive to change a broken system that allowed them to win.

Instead, I must listen to Clinton’s supporters defend these abuses of power in the name of “Democratic purity” (aka: “Sanders isn’t a REAL Democrat. How DARE he try to change OUR Party!”)

A Party this sick needs changing… like a three-week old diaper.

Writers Wanted

Got something to say? Mugsy’s Rap Sheet is always looking for article submissions to focus on the stories we may miss each week. To volunteer your own Op/Ed for inclusion here, send us an email with an example of your writing skills & choice of topic, and maybe we’ll put you online!

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

June 6, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Partisanship, Politics, Rants, Scandals, voting

Is Hillary a Closet Republican? Her record would suggest so.
May 30, 2016

It’s a case I’ve been making since she ran against Obama in 2008: Hillary has this unfathomable, almost desperate, need to seek the approval of Republicans. Her first instinct on every issue is to align with Conservatives… especially on issues of National Defense… only to reverse course later when disapproval from Democrats proves inconvenient. Honestly, I believe it all started during her husband’s presidency when they hunted him like a dog for nine years (I’m including the year he was running for the nomination in 1992.) Kind of a mild “Stockholm Syndrome” where you begin to sympathize with your captors and see things from their point of view.

Whatever the reasoning may be for her Conservative tendencies, her history of doing so is well documented. These past few months, I’ve referenced repeatedly the notoriously nasty campaign she ran against Barack Obama in 2008. Her attacks on then Senator Obama’s “qualification” to be president (even running a multi-million dollar TV ad… the famed “3AM ad”… questioning his readiness to be Commander-in-Chief) was nothing compared to starting the “secret Muslim” whisper campaign against Obama by being the first to leak a photo of him in ceremonial garb during a visit to Kenya years before. A “scorched Earth”, “take-no-prisoners” style of campaigning more suited to the likes of Lee Atwater or Karl Rove than Democrats have traditionally waged against one another. Hillary’s 2008 campaign makes Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign look incredibly tame by comparison.

The polls weeded out two other admitted Conservative Democratic candidates early: Jim Webb & Lincoln Chafee. Webb likes to brag about his time as “Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan”. Chafee was the last openly “Liberal Republican” in the GOP, turfed out by his own Party, first becoming the “Independent” Governor of Rhode Island, then switching to the Democratic Party to run for president this year only to drop out early because of low poll numbers.

These two men demonstrate the fact that the lines between the Democratic Party & the Republican Party have become blurred. What was once called “the Republican Party” has been moved to the extreme Right by the Tea Party and Conservative Christians. And as they have shifted Right, so has the Center, with Democrats lurching to the Right to fill in the void.

It wasn’t always this way. Richard Nixon… the poster boy for Republican abuse of power… created the EPA and proposed a national health insurance system, and despite being openly/virulently anti-Communist, visited China to open Trade Relations with them for the first time. Nixon would be deemed “too Liberal” by GOP standards today.

Also from the Nixon Administration, former Secretary of State (and war criminal) Henry Kissinger… probably best known for his secret war in Cambodia and famously saying things like: “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.” Hillary called Kissinger “a friend” in her 2014 biography, and bragged of his praise on the campaign trail this year, of him telling her she “ran the State Department better — better than anybody had run it in a long time.”

The Clinton’s have been a part of the Democratic Establishment for 25 years, and as the center has moved, so have they. President Bill Clinton was the first as he too desperately tried to win the approval of the Republicans that were dogging him, first with the passage of NAFTA… the grandfather of all disastrous Free-Trade deals to come, followed a few years later by the troublesome (almost cruel) “Welfare Reform Act” of 1996 that was supported by nearly twice as many Republicans than Democrats. Ditto for his repeal of “Glass-Stegall”… the FDR-era bill that made it a crime for banks to gamble with depositors money (and arguably led to the 2008 Crash.)

Hillary has continued her husbands’ bizarre need to seek the approval of Conservatives who hate her (though she has done little… if anything… to court Sanders supporters. Even going so far as to taunt them), uses Republican talking points to attack Sanders (just as she did against Obama in 2008), instinctively siding with Republicans first on issues like “Same Sex Marriage”, “Free Trade” (note at end of that video from four weeks ago, she confirms she only opposes the TPP “in it’s current form”), the Keystone XL Pipeline, but most notably when it comes to using military force, not only voting to give President Bush unilateral authority to declare war on his own (already disqualifying in my book), but also pushed for using American firepower to aide in the overthrow of Kadaffy (Libya) turning it into a new haven for ISIS, currently supports a “No Fly Zone” over Syria that could draw us into WWIII, and (as I’ve pointed out) famously criticized her former boss President Obama, for refusing to arm the Syrian rebels… Conservative positions all. Even her 2008 Health Care Reform Plan was (arguably) written by the Right-Wing “Heritage Foundation”.

And the latest scandal to hit the headlines is that Secretary Clinton did NOT in fact have approval from the State Department to set up a private email server in her home as she repeatedly claimed was not prohibited. She “never asked” for permission, simply assuming she had it. An independent report from the State Debt declared… not only was it not allowed, but her request would have been denied had she of bothered to seek permission first.

But you know the old saying, “It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission”… a mantra that perfectly describes the governing philosophy of The Bush Administration: No proof of WMD’s? Invade first and worry about producing the evidence later (which they couldn’t because it didn’t exist). No permission to indiscriminately secretly wiretap every American citizen? No problem. Just do it anyway and defend the practice later.

And Hillary’s defense for using a private email server? “Republicans did it too!” That’s an excuse I expect from someone like #ToddlerTrump. No wonder they’re the front-runners. Colin Powell & Condi Rice also used insecure email servers (Powell used “AOL” of all things), but there are two problems with that: 1) The rules changed after Powell & Rice, banning the practice, and 2) No one else went through the difficulty and EXPENSE of maintaining a private email server in their HOME… a highly unusual thing to do when the State Department was already providing a secure server FOR FREE.

But once again, the argument, “I only did what Republicans do!” is a troublesome rationalization. If you’re trying to make the case that you’re NOT “a Closet Conservative”, doing the same things Republicans do doesn’t exactly help your case.

Speaking of “Republicans do it too”, shall we talk about “SuperPACs” and money in politics? Hillary Clinton says she is “opposed to Citizens United”… the Supreme Court decision that lifted the cap on Big Money Donors to allow unlimited contributions to flow into a political campaign. “Citizens United” was actually the result of a case levied by the 2008 Clinton Campaign. A movie was released in 2008 attacking Clinton, backed by multimillionaires opposed to her run for president. Clinton argued this was a violation of campaign spending, allowing Big Money to spend unlimited amounts of cash on one giant attack ad.

Despite losing that case and being so badly harmed by it, it gave birth to “SuperPAC’s”, the bane of Democracy, which she now unashamedly takes full advantage of in her race for president, allowing her campaign to raise well over an additional $100 Million for her campaign (even Donald Trump, who claims to be self-funded, has SuperPAC’s and has stated he will reverse his policy of not accepting large corporate donations in the general.)

Hillary began her campaign this time around talking about how she got her start as a “Goldwater Girl”… supporting the Republican opponent of LBJ following the assassination of JFK months before. Martin Luther King Jr. himself wrote a statement that year begging “all good men of conscience to oppose the candidacy of Mr. Goldwater.” So from the very start, her ideology has leaned Conservative. And arguably, she is a “Democrat” today only because today’s Democratic Party is where the GOP was 50 years ago. It’s being dragged to the Right… and NOT because that’s where the public wants it.

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

May 30, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Money, mystery, Politics, Seems Obvious to Me

Stop Trying to Save Your Drug-Addicted Child, because: Math. Responding to Clinton supporters
May 23, 2016

Supporters of Hillary Clinton trying to convince supporters of Bernie Sanders to just “give up” because the “math” is not in their favor don’t get it. Never did, and probably never will. It’s like telling the mother of a drug-addicted child to “just give up and stop trying to save them” because “odds are they’re going to die anyway.” No parent would accept that. You fight to the bitter end even when others are telling you it’s “a lost cause”. This isn’t about “numbers”, this is about saving a country (if not an entire planet) from disaster. This country is in serious trouble of becoming a nation that represents the interests of the rich & powerful first and everyone else second (or perhaps third after the Religious Right). And as Donald Trump’s brand of pseudo-fascistic politics drags the GOP to the far FAR Right, they are simultaneously dragging the Democratic Party right along with them as it too lurches to the Right to fill the void (the old “Far Right”). There is only one candidate left in this race espousing the principles of FDR trying to drag this country back to the Progressive left, and it ain’t Hillary Clinton. To the contrary, her supporters are rabidly in opposition to Sanders’ style of Progressivism.

It has already started in Europe. Donald Trump’s brand of Far Right anti-migrant populism is sweeping across Europe as our endless War-for-Profit in the Middle-East, now halfway into its second decade, throws that region of the world into chaos.

Trump-style anti-immigrant fascism spreading across Europe (160521)

I hear a lot of people… even supporters of Senator Sanders now… criticizing the “Bernie or Bust” movement. I’m not “Bernie or Bust”, but I understand it. Let me explain “Bernie or Bust” to Hillary supporters:

The Democratic Party has been slowly drifting to the Right for decades now, and the pressure the DNC is putting on Democrats to coronate a multimillionaire Closet Conservative that keeps finding creative new ways to avoid revealing what she told her masters on Wall Street is seen as further proof how far the Democratic Party has strayed from the principles of FDR.

The election of Barack Obama raised hopes among millions of loyal Democrats that maybe we’d finally see a “real” Progressive in the Oval Office. And while he has been a “good Democrat”, true Progressives were dismayed the way he abandoned his call for a “Public Option” to reform health care in favor of the Clinton Plan (written by the uber-Conservative Heritage Foundation btw) that he himself ridiculed during the 2008 campaign, coupled with his failure to prosecute a single Banker, Credit Rating Agency or Hedge Fund Manager following the 2008 crash only further drives home the point that the Democratic Party is becoming “Republican Lite”.

Sanders supporters aren’t about to “surrender” to the 1% just because the “math doesn’t add up”… especially when we’ve seen so much game playing and vote-manipulation going on. Arizona, Brooklyn, Nevada… the Primary process has gotten incredibly ugly this year… and not because of false claims of “violence” & “chair throwing” (never happened) at the NV Convention last week. No, this nonsense has been growing for YEARS and only now are people starting to notice.

The Democratic Party is in serious need of course correction, and when Hillary supporters trash the most Liberal Democratic candidate in 70 years, it only further proves our point.

I now hear Clinton supporters adopting the rhetoric of the Right, making snide remarks about Sanders being “a Commie” that thinks he can “buy votes” by giving away “free stuff”. I’m in my forties with no children. Do you think I give a tinkers damn about “free college” for myself? It won’t be that long before I’m eligible for Medicare, so “universal healthcare” only gets me there a little sooner. Personally, I don’t give a rats ass if Bernie is unable to pass a single one of his proposed programs. I trust his consistency, honesty, integrity & judgement more than I do Hillary Clinton… who has a history of being on the wrong side of history.

By contrast, we hear Republicans adopting the rhetoric of Sanders, talking about “income inequality” now. They didn’t get that from Hillary. The person in this race that made that an issue BOTH sides are trying to adopt is Bernie Sanders.

When Hillary “needed time” to decide whether or not she was against the “Keystone XL” pipeline, I already knew there was no way I could possibly support her. That’s like someone telling you they “need time” to decide whether or not to drop a nuclear bomb on Pittsburgh to make way for a new shopping center. “No!” This is not a complicated question! The answer is “No!” What do you need “time” to figure out? Whether or not our need for oil is more important than turning the planet into an Easy Bake Oven??? We’re talking about unleashing an environmental catastrophe in the name of producing a few more years of toxic sludge masquerading as “oil”. That’s a decision only a 1%’er with the interests of Big Oil at heart would have trouble making.

Hillary supporters frequently repeat the false claim that Hillary Clinton “opposes the TPP” (Trans Pacific Partnership free trade agreement), but listen closely. She only opposes it “in its current form”. A little tweaking, and you can consider yet another disastrous “free trade” agreement as good as passed if she becomes president:

“I oppose the TPP… in its current form.” (1:05)

Almost snuck that one past you, didn’t she? Another big wet kiss for Corporate America at the expense of the poor & middle-class. Clinton’s natural instinct is always to fall on the Conservative side of every issue, only to flip-flop after being shamed out of it. She likes to have it both ways. “I oppose the war in Iraq! But here, let me give you the authority to do it anyway.” “I oppose Same Sex Marriage!” Hmm, Democratic voters don’t like that position. Okay, “I’ve evolved on the issue.” Ditto for Keystone. The “TPP” is but the latest example.

For the math lovers…

For those of you who still think “math” is important, here are some numbers for you:

Three: Number of states decided by LESS than 0.5% of the vote (Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky), and all three were awarded to Clinton. Those states easily could have gone the other way (bad weather, traffic, etc), and if they had, Clinton & Sanders would have won EXACTLY THE SAME number of races: 24.

Twenty-nine: Number of races (to date) that were “Closed” or “Semi-closed” primaries or caucuses. That means Independents were shut out and only registered Democrats were allowed to vote. Sixteen of those races went to Clinton. In November, there will be no “Closed” races to assist the DNC in excluding Independents from voting.

149: The number of Super Delegates that have yet to commit to either Clinton OR Sanders. If we go into the convention with Sanders having won the same number of races (or more) than Clinton, and she continues to lag in the polls behind Donald Trump, those Super Delegates could easily decide to side with Bernie.

930: The number of Delegates (including “Super Delegates”) yet to be awarded.

274: The size of Clinton’s pledged delegate lead (6.7%).

54%: Percentage of Hillary’s wins that were in Deep Red states she’ll never win in November (vs 45% for Bernie.)

51% vs 44% vs 37%: The favorability ratings of Sanders, Hillary & Trump respectively according to the latest ABC News poll. Columnist Matt Dowd described the 2016 race as an “UN-popularity contest”, and George Stephanopoulos stated that this would be “the first time in history the nominees of BOTH parties had higher UN-favorable ratings than favorable.”

“It’s a big club… and you ain’t in it!” – George Carlin

The first time I saw the above photo, my stomach tightened in a knot. It was like finding a photo of FDR with his arm around Hitler. What a bunch of suckers we must be. Your choices in the next election are either “Kang or Kodos”. If you ever had any doubt that our government is becoming a plaything for the “1-percent”, wonder no more. This election isn’t about “who has the most delegates”. It’s about saving Democracy itself.

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

May 23, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Money, Partisanship, Politics

The “Bernie Only Polls Better Because He Hasn’t Been Attacked” Canard. Debunking a popular pro-Hillary myth
May 16, 2016

Whenever someone asks a supporter of Hillary Clinton why Bernie Sanders consistently polls better against Trump than she does, they tell you… without an iota of proof… that it is “only because they [the GOP candidates] haven’t gone after him yet.” Not only is that not true (as I will explain below), but it is also irrelevant… and it wouldn’t have much of an effect if they did.

“Ready for Hillary?” The GOP is. They’ve been preparing for a Hillary presidential run since at least 2007 (maybe earlier.) They let the cat out of the bag when they admitted “Benghazi^TM“ was all about derailing her presidential ambitions. But Bernie is a wild card. They haven’t been preparing for over a decade on how to run against “an admitted [democratic] Socialist” like Bernie Sanders and don’t have a clue how they’d go about it. All they’ve got is “he’s a Socialist that’s raise your taxes!” News Flash: They’re going to say that no matter WHO wins the Democratic Nomination (“Big Government Tax & Spend Liberal” has always been code for “Socialist”), and for nearly two generations of voters, the “Socialist” label means absolutely nothing.

I saw a rather stunning (and somewhat depressing) video on Facebook over the weekend. A young woman with a mic doing “man-on-the-street” interviews, asking people questions about “World War II”:

“Hitler? Never heard of him.” (1:24)

For more than two generations of voters, the “Communist/Socialist” label is as terrifying as calling someone “Canadian”. The Soviet Union fell nearly a quarter century ago when many voters were still in Grade School or yet to be born. China makes their iPhones and Obama has normalized relations with Cuba. Years of fear-mongering without consequence has taken the sting out of the pejorative. “Fear Socialists? I thought we were supposed to fear ISIS? Muslims? AlQaeda?” “The Ruskies” were your grandfather’s Boogeyman. The only people frightened off by someone calling themselves a “Democratic Socialist” are people who were never going to vote Democratic anyway. Republicans call EVERY Democrat a “tax-raising ~~Socialist~~ Liberal“. They’ve been doing it for over 50 years now and time has rendered that line of attack impotent.

“No one is attacking Bernie yet”? Every time they say “Socialist Bernie” or say “Crazy Bernie wants to give everybody free stuff”, he’s being attacked. True, Republicans aren’t running ads against him (yet), but Hillary is. Does it matter if those ads are coming from the Left or the Right? People have been seeing attack ads against Bernie for nearly a year now and where has it gotten them? Every Democratic debate where Hillary criticized Bernie was a two hour de facto “attack ad.” True, Republicans will focus more on the “Socialist” label, but the general election is roughly four months long. How long can they milk the “he’s a Socialist” cow? Two weeks? Maybe three before they have to start attacking him for something else? Then what? As noted above, they’re going to use the “raise your taxes” argument against Hillary too.

As I pointed out last week, if Hillary supporters remain as loyal to the eventual Democratic nominee as they demand of Sanders supporters, then Bernie wins just with Hillary voters alone (how many Hillary-supporters would be so spiteful they’d rather vote for Trump if she loses, or just stay home on Election Day and let Trump win?) Add to that all the “Never-Trump, Never-Hillary” Republicans he’ll draw, most Independents, and Republicans that like his “outsider not-beholden to Washington” status and/or “anti-Free Trade” positions Bernie shares with Trump but don’t think Trump “has the temperament for the job” voters, and Bernie wins in a landslide.

We’ve all seen the graphics asking: “Where are the people marching for Clinton or Trump?” And we’ve seen the photos comparing crowd size of Clinton (tiny) vs Sanders (huge) rallies. And I just saw a graphic asking “Where are the MURALS for Clinton or Trump?” So I decided to do some digging for Bernie murals & Hillary murals. I found about a half dozen huge Bernie murals on the sides of buildings in various states.

I found EXACTLY ONE pro-Hillary mural on a wall, one drawing on the side walk in Central Park, and a number of paintings trashing her.

Next, I searched for marches: For Bernie, I found at least a half dozen in various states. For Clinton: I found ZERO.

Tell me again how much more popular Clinton is than Sanders?

Another point of order: Clinton supporters love to cite the slanted “popular vote” total showing Hillary with a nearly 3 Million vote lead over Sanders because it makes her look like she is doing better than she really is. Hillary herself has been making this case. It’s no different than including “Super Delegates” when trying to boost her delegate lead over Sanders to make her look closer to clinching the nomination.

But the fact is, 11 of the 13 races Bernie won so far were CAUCUS states. That means no weeks of “Early Voting” ballots to count, or ballots cast by people who simply dropped by on Election Day to vote then leave. Only the most committed voters willing to dedicate hours of their time to support their candidate were counted. And in those races, Bernie won by an average of nearly 50 points.

In 1992, another Billionaire political novice candidate running a “self funded” campaign… Ross Perot, famously ignored all advice of his campaign advisors to the point he earned a reputation as being “undisciplined” and “difficult”. Perot hired Jimmy Carter’s campaign manager Hamilton Jordan AND Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager, Ed Rollins, to highlight how “independent” he was. He then promptly ignored them both. Rollin’s quit very publicly, slamming his former boss on TV as “arrogant”, remarking how Perot would ask for his advice, and then go do whatever he wanted anyway. In the end, Perot received only 20% of the vote.

Rollins is now an adviser to the Trump campaign.

In 1994, the NFC Championship Game between two powerhouse teams, the Dallas Cowboys & the San Francisco 49ers was billed as “The REAL Superbowl” because the AFC champs that year… the San Diego Chargers… were so mediocre, it was a foregone conclusion they’d lose badly (and did. Superbowl XXIX was a blowout, trounced by the 49ers in a fitting 49 to 26 victory.)

Trump is the ’94 Chargers. He’s going to be demolished no matter which Democrat wins the nomination. He’s Ross Perot. The undisciplined Billionaire that doesn’t know how to stay on script and ends up winning only 20% of the vote. “Which Democrat has a better shot at defeating Trump” is no longer an argument for picking either Hillary or Sanders over the other. They’ll BOTH defeat him handily. Hell, Trump can’t even lock up The GOP vote. Every minority group you can name despises him. Even half of Hillary’s OWN support is simply people looking to defeat Trump. So the only question is, do you want your choices in November to be between two multimillionaire military hawks that’ll say anything to get elected, or do you want a clear choice with a consistent PROGRESSIVE track record?

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

May 16, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, myth busting

CNN Poll: 51 Percent of Hillary Vote is Just Anti-Trump. What happens if Romney goes indie?
May 9, 2016

According to a new CNN poll, 51% of Clinton supporters say they are simply “voting against Trump” not “for” her. That’s a serious concern if the “anti-Trump” vote is given another Republican option in November. Now that Trump is the lone GOP candidate left standing, famed Neo-Conservative columnist Bill Kristol (son of Irving Kristol, the founder of the Neo-Conservative movement) is said to be actively courting 2008 “also ran” slash 2012’s loser “Mitt Romney” to run as an “Independent” in 2016. What effect (if any?) might a Romney third-party bid have on Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning in November given that roughly half of her support is simply the “anti-Trump” vote? The Clinton Campaign has coasted into first place on three memes: “She’s the natural successor to Obama” (despite being more hawkish on military affairs), she’d be “the first female president” (a test both Fiorina & Palin pass), and an unsupported belief that she’s “more electable” than her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders. Yes, there are a lot of people who genuinely like Hillary Clinton and want her to be president of the United States, but is that demographic a reliable majority? One big enough to ensure victory should another GOP candidate get into the race? She doesn’t even have 100% of Democrats. If she loses half of the support she already has to another candidate, she could be in serious trouble. She was already polling poorly against other Trump rivals like Gov. Kasich. If yet another multimillionaire “1-percenter” like Mitt “King of Bain” Romney enters the race, does that make the need for a Sanders candidacy all the more critical before it’s too late?

ThinkProgress reported last week that now that Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, many Republicans say they will “vote for Hillary”. But this is based on the assumption that Hillary will be the Democratic nominee AND the ONLY alternative to Trump. MSNBC over the weekend (no video yet available) hosted a parade of Republicans saying they are both “never Trump AND never Hillary”. For many Republicans though, she’s just enough of a hawk, like-minded on “Free Trade” and squishy on “fracking” and “the Keystone XL pipeline” that they’d be willing to endure her as president for the next four years until they can pick a better nominee in 2020.

The Twitter hashtag “#ImWithHer” is now trending among Republicans, along with the co-hashtag “#ImNotNuts” (referring to committing electoral suicide by electing Trump.)

According to a joint CNN/ORC poll released last week, asked of 890 registered voters (MoE +/- 3.5%):

1) “Clinton or Trump (assuming they are the nominees?)”

54% Clinton
41% Trump

2) (Asked of Clinton voters) “Is your vote for Hillary “more a vote to express support for Hillary Clinton OR more to express opposition to Donald Trump?”:

48% “for” Hillary
51% against Trump

More than half of Hillary’s support is simply an “anti-Trump” vote. That’s pretty damning and raises great concern should another Conservative like Romney enter the race.

Despite publicly lambasting Trump two months ago as “a phony, a fraud” making “worthless promises”, the very next day, Romney declared that he would not seek the Republican nomination for a third time. However, now that Trump’s candidacy is essentially a done deal, Bill Kristol of the Conservative magazine “The Weekly Standard” is reportedly trying to convince Romney to run as an Independent (Mitt only promised not to seek “the Republican nomination.”)

So I tweeted out the following question to pollster Nate Silver’s @fivethirtyeight:

Anyone polling what might happen to #Hillary if #Romney runs as an indy? How would #Bernie #Sanders fair against 2 1%’ers?

What happens if an alternative to Trump and Clinton enters the race? Bernie would NEVER run as an Independent and challenge Hillary for the presidency. He has too much integrity for that, so stop asking. Despite being a lifelong “Independent”, Bernie changed his affiliation to “Democrat” because “I do not wish to be a spoiler” (it’s also too late for him to switch his Party affiliation now and get on the ballot on all 50 states. And doing so would paint him as a “sore loser”, not only unpopular with voters, but many states actually have “sore loser laws” to prevent that very thing from happening.) There are presently no polls that include Romney, so one can only surmise based on existing data how he might do. But it has been a long recognized fact that Trump & Clinton have consistently scored as the two least trustworthy candidates in the race since polling on this issue began in February:

Trump, Clinton 2 least trusted candidates

Polling wizard Nate Silver of “threefiftyeight.org” found that “Clinton & Trump are also the two most disliked frontrunners in polling history:

Trump & Clinton both fall off the charts (Trump far moreso than Clinton). But I couldn’t help but notice where Romney last polled in 2012. A good 10 to 12 points higher than where Hillary Clinton stands today.

Romney’s weaknesses were already exposed in 2012. It was his time at “Bain Capital” that made “vulture capitalism” part of the American lexicon in 2012. We already know what states he’ll win thanks to the 2012 election, but if you don’t think he’d do even better this time around vs someone as disliked/mistrusted as Clinton, you’re only fooling yourselves.

Here are the states Romney & Obama won in 2012:

206 Electoral votes. A flip of 64 electoral votes would have allowed him to reach the 270 he needed. BUT in a THREE way race, all Romney needs is a minimum of 180 electoral votes (538 split three ways) to win, and “206” is ALREADY well beyond that should those same states vote for him again. In fact, Romney could lose an additional 26 electoral votes to Trump or Clinton and still win (number of states Romney won in 2012 with fewer than 26 electoral votes? Twenty-three.)

The question then becomes: Do Trump and Romney end up splitting the GOP vote, making a Hillary victory even more likely? Not necessarily, because as pointed out above, more than half of Hillary’s support is simply the “anti-Trump” vote. Hillary is not Obama. There is no guarantee someone with her “unfavorable” numbers could count on winning the same close races Obama won in 2012. If given a Conservative alternative, Clinton stands to lose millions of Conservative voters to Romney. Romney already gets the “Never Trump and Never Hillary” vote, plus he would siphon away millions of Trump voters who question his fitness & temperament to be President of the United States.

What voters need is a clear choice between candidates. Someone who keeps all of Clinton’s Democratic supporters, but also wins the “Never-Trump/Never-Hillary” crowd, AND draws away a number of Trump voters that question his temperament but like the idea of his “self funded campaign” not beholden to any Special Interests, opposes devastating “free trade” agreements, has criticized Wall Street, opposed the invasion of Iraq, and talks about forcing the Saudi’s to start paying for their own defense… all Trump positions Sanders shares without the hateful racist rhetoric. Add to that his “honest & trustworthy” reputation, critic of Democrats and even the Obama Administration, and (like it or not) his history of defending hunters & legal gun ownership, all make him the stronger general election candidate (both in a three-way race that includes Mitt Romney as well as a two-way race against Trump.) Bernie, whose entire campaign has been fighting the obscene wealth and destructive power of the “1-percent” vs two destructive “1-percenters” like Trump & Romney? Or must voters choose between three “1-perenters”? Could voters have a clearer choice?

Knowing this, there is a possibility Romney… if he decides to run… may wait until after Hillary has locked up the Democratic nomination before announcing his plan to run to ensure Clinton… the weaker General Election candidate… is his opponent (with hopes to siphon away disaffected Sanders supporters.) Please note my fellow Bernie fans: “Write-ins” don’t win national campaigns. They just don’t. So stop praying for that particular miracle. Given three choices, a majority of voters in this country aren’t going to go through the process of writing in Sanders when they have three other candidates to chose from.

If the greatest argument for voting for Clinton is simply that’s she’s “not Trump”, then we need a candidate whose platform is tailor made to run against two multimillionaire 1%’ers like Trump & Romney that made their millions profiting off the backs of the little guy. And try to imagine what becomes of Democrats chances of… not only retaining control of the White House but retaking either House of Congress should yet another Clinton scandal hit the news, an existing investigation catches fire, or those transcripts she has been fighting to conceal are revealed just in time for the election? Sanders needs to win the Primaries and be the Democratic nominee before it’s too late and the “anti-Trump” vote keeping Clinton afloat finds its way to a more desirable target.

And lest we forget:

Hillary's _incredibly_weak_ excuse for refusing to release the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches (May 3, 2016)
from Mugsy RapSheet on Vimeo.

Last month, Clinton released a single 15 minute clip on the subject of “women in the workplace” from one of many hour-long speeches. Ergo, WE NOW KNOW that her refusal to release the speeches has NOTHING to do with “fairness”. Because if they made her look good, she would have released them MONTHS ago just as she did with that single 15-minute clip. When first asked why she wouldn’t release the transcripts during one of the early Democratic debates, her excuse was that she would “when everyone else released theirs.” Sanders gave no speeches. Trump is the only other candidate and there is no evidence he gave any private speeches to Wall Street either. Her latest excuse is she’s now waiting on others to “release their tax returns”. Seriously, is this what you want in as your Party’s nominee?

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

May 9, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Politics, Predictions

Why a Sanders Victory is More Likely than Hillary
May 2, 2016

If you are a Sanders supporter like myself, the Media seems to be every bit as eager to write off his campaign as Hillary herself even though his chances are FAR from mathematically eliminated (unlike Cruz & Kasich). Last week, Progressive political magazine “The Week” (owned by a Conservative publisher) did a story entitled: “Clinton regains aura of inevitability” following her big wins in recent races. Typically, these are Pro/Con columns were they cite the opinion of a particular pundit, followed by a contradictory opinion from another pundit. But this time, every pundit essentially closed the book on Sanders using some highly questionable reasoning. One particular argument against nominating Senator Sanders angered me enough to write a letter to the editor. They wrote:

“Fans of Sanders argue that he’s the stronger general election candidate, but they’re wrong,” said Paul Waldman in TheWeek.com. “Right now, he outpolls Clinton against Trump or Cruz, but that’s because Republicans haven’t attacked him yet. If Sanders were the nominee, the GOP would paint him as an America-hating Trotskyite who admires the Castros and wants to raise everyone’s taxes, put the government in charge of everything and cripple the military.”

Forget for a moment the fact that Republicans call EVERY Democrat “an America-hating Trotskyite” that “wants to raise everyone’s taxes, put the government in charge of everything and cripple the military.” If you don’t think they’ll accuse Clinton of that too, you haven’t been paying attention for the last 30 years. I bit my tongue a bit and wrote the following response:

[Dear Editor,]

In your last issue under “Clinton regains aura of inevitability” (April 29), The Week quoted its own website (TheWeek.com) to bolster the Clinton Campaign’s questionable claim that Senator Sander’s substantial poll lead over their GOP rivals was “because Republican’s haven’t attacked him yet.” This is purely the argument set forth by the Clinton Campaign to explain away his poll lead and does not withstand scrutiny.

When the Clinton Campaign makes this argument, they are tacitly admitting that Senator Sanders can not count on the same fealty for the Democratic nominee they demand of Sanders supporters.

If every Clinton supporter were as loyal to the “Democratic nominee no matter who”, Sanders would not only have every bit as much chance of winning the election as Clinton, but he also draws from both Independents, the “Never Trump” crowd, and even some Trump supporters that question his fitness for the job but like his purported “self-funded campaign” that’s “not beholden to any special interests”, a position Sanders shares with Trump (along with the “outsider” label and agreement that “the Establishment Party process is rigged.”)

While the author paints a picture of panic stricken voters who don’t yet know Senator Sanders is an admitted Democratic Socialist, he/she fails to take into account just how despised Secretary Clinton is to rank-n-file Conservatives. Their loathing of her is beyond visceral, and her nomination would spur the greatest GOTV (Get Out The Vote) effort the GOP could ever hope for. There WILL be a massive effort to ensure a President Clinton would be strapped with a Republican Congress.

So when you repeat the spin of the Clinton campaign intended to discourage support for the Sanders campaign, you are a willing participant in swaying the primary process.

Simply stated, the only people who might be swayed from voting for Bernie because Republicans call him a “tax-raising Trotskyite” are Republicans who won’t be voting for the Democrat anyway. So unless Mr. Waldman is telling us HE could be convinced to vote for Trump over Sanders, what in the hell is he talking about? (pardon my French.)

Nowhere in the column did they discuss Clinton’s many weaknesses. Just as Mr. Waldman predicts the GOP will try to paint Sanders as a “Trotskyite”, they will ALSO attack Clinton on everything from Benghazi^TM to the controversy over her emails. “WHY DID SHE setup a costly private email server in her home when a highly secure free email account was already being provided to her by the State Department?”, they’ll ask. The Trump campaign already has plans to nullify the “feminist” issue by going after her for the way she attacked her husband’s accusers back in the ’90’s… not just calling them liars, but actively seeking to “destroy” them then never apologizing. And younger female Bernie supporters already expressed how they resented being told there was “a special place in Hell” for them if they didn’t vote with their lady-parts instead of their personal judgement.

It is difficult to understate just how much Republicans Hate the Clintons (with a capital “H”). Conservative Right-wing lunatic Glenn Beck assured his listeners (who fully expect to lose the election in November):

“If Hillary is the Democratic nominee and it looks like she might win, Republicans will do everything in their power to ensure she has a Republican Congress.” – Glenn Beck

As noted in my Letter to the Editor above, Trump and Sanders already share some common ground that appeals to voters in this “anti-establishment” year. The eschewing of “Special Interests” by refusing to take their money (though Trump DOES have a SuperPAC), and their “Outsider” bona fides that seem to be targets of their respective political Parties who appear to be going out of their way to stop their mutual insurgent campaigns. Trump has already made a number of populist statements that sound like ideas from the Sanders campaign: criticizing banking practices that led up to the Crash of 2008, admits he would “raise taxes on the wealthy… including myself“, is promising a health care system that does not leave “people dying in the streets”, attacking “drug company lobbyists“, and demanding that Saudi Arabia start footing some of the bill for their own defense. When the GOP candidate is echoing the positions of his Democratic opponent, it’s difficult to make the case that your opponent doesn’t know what they are doing. (Note that Clinton has ALSO adopted the talking points of the Sanders campaign. Does anyone think BOTH sides would be talking this way if it were not for Bernie Sanders running for president? That alone is one of the best reasons I can give for why he should be president.

“Meet the Press” pointed out yesterday just how difficult it will be for ANY Republican to win in November. As long as the Blue states remain blue, the GOP candidate would need to flip at least one large Blue state or steal four of five swing states… two of which have large Hispanic populations:

Trump’s difficult path to 270

This hurdle is independent of whether the Democratic nominee is Clinton OR Sanders. No Blue states go Red if Sanders is the nominee, and Bernie has every bit as much chance of winning the purple swing states as Hillary (if not more.)

Do we REALLY want our choice in the next election to be between the two LEAST-trustworthy candidates left in the race, both one-percenters that have been rubbing elbows for decades?

The same people who have been whining for years that “both sides are the same” are about to make Trump & Hillary our nominees? Seriously?

The idea Bernie Sanders only enjoys a national polling lead over Clinton simply because “Republicans haven’t gone after him yet” is nonsense. They haven’t officially “gone after” Clinton yet either. Both Democratic candidates have baggage and neither candidate has been targeted yet the way they will be once the Primary season is over. Do the pundits really think most Americans don’t already know Bernie Sanders is an admitted Democratic Socialist by now? And as I’ve written previously, the general election season is over three months long. So let’s say the Republican nominee attacks Sanders for being “a Socialist”. Then what? How long do they play up that angle till it grows stale? Two weeks? Maybe three? Then what?

Both Clinton & Sanders have excited their base such that they will flock to the polls come November. And both candidates have weaknesses the GOP nominee will exploit in the general election. The big question then is: which of them will draw more REPUBLICANS to the polls seeking to derail their presidency for the next four years? Because as sure as I’m sitting here, our chances of seeing ANYTHING getting done over the next four years hinges greatly on that question.

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

May 2, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, General, myth busting, Politics, Rants, Seems Obvious to Me

Clinton Criticizes Sanders for Running the Campaign She Ran in 2008
April 25, 2016

In 2008, then Senator Hillary Clinton ran a campaign for president that looked very much like the Sanders campaign that she criticizes today. She questioned the “Super Delegate” system, took heat for her “weak stance on gun control” and “plan to ensure universal healthcare” (ie: the “mandate”), questioned her opponent’s qualifications to be president, and her rabid supporters… known as P.U.M.A.’s (“Party Unity, My Ass!”)… rejected calls for their candidate to drop out and instead, some in openly racist language, threatened to vote for John McCain before they’d vote for “secret Muslim Barack Hussein Obama“ (which, arguably, was invented by Hillary supporters, not Trump, who added in “place of birth” to justify the “secret Muslim” label), protesting right up until the Convention. Does any of this sound familiar? Does any of it sound worse? By May of that year, Hillary Clinton was behind in the polls and the calls for her to drop out “for the good of the Party” grew louder, yet she refused, continuing to question the “readiness” and inexperience of her opponent… lines of attack that were tailor-made for Obama’s rival should he win the nomination.

I was reminded last week listening to the radio that “in 2008, as many as 20% of Hillary Clinton’s supporters were vowing to vote for McCain if she were not the Party’s nominee. So I went “a’Googlin'” back to the 2008 race between her and Barack Obama… a race that most remember as being particularly nasty, even extending beyond the point Senator Obama officially locked up the Democratic nomination. (Mugsy’s Rap Sheet: “Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it”, dont’cha know?)

On Feb 5, 2008, twenty-four states and territories all held their Democratic primaries on the same day, including the big prize: California. Obama won 14 of the 24 but lost California (43% to 51%). He then went on to win 10-in-a-row and five of the next 12. By the end of May, calls for Clinton to drop out of the race… which began during her ten state losing streak in February… became even louder as the bruising primary battle between her and Senator Obama grew nastier by the day. People became concerned that the longer she dragged it out, she might end up hurting Barack Obama’s chances of winning in November. But Clinton was not about to concede.

Her refusal to drop out early raised a lot of eyebrows when on May 23, 2008, she cited the fact that “In 1968, Robert Kennedy was still running in June” when an assassin’s bullet took his life after winning the California Primary. Was Clinton suggesting she was staying in the race “just in case” the first ever likely black nominee for president were assassinated before November? It sure sounded like that to a lot of people and Clinton was forced to apologize. In all fairness, the upcoming 40th anniversary of RFK’s assassination was in the news a lot that week, and footage of RFK still competing for the nomination as late as June were being seen daily, so I never believed Clinton was suggesting she was staying on in anticipation that something terrible might happen to her opponent. But it WAS an early example of a tendency all Conservatives… including Hillary… share, and that is to speak/act without thinking about the consequences when it comes to pursuing their own self-interests (see: Iraq.) I refer you back to her questioning the “readiness” and inexperience of Obama without regard for how her own words might be used against him in the General should the “impossible” happen and she loses the nomination.

Some video from the 2008 campaign:

In 2008, Clinton was accused of being too deferential to the rights of gun owners and not the rights of victims of gun crime:

Clinton bemoaned the (ab)use of the “Super Delegate” system to portray Barack Obama as having a lead over her that he didn’t really have:

On June 3, 2008, Barack Obama officially locks up the Democratic nomination, yet Clinton refuses to concede:

Clinton campaign manager Terry McAuliffe publicly refuses to concede the nomination to Barack Obama after surpassing the Delegate threshold:

That whole “secret Muslim” thing didn’t originate with Donald Trump, it originated when the Clinton campaign mailed out this photo of Senator Obama dressed in ceremonial garb during a visit to Kenya (For what possible reason was this photo sent?):

Leading us to lovely people like this…

Co-Founder of Clinton’s PUMA’s makes racist claim to defend never voting for Obama

Clinton finally conceded the race to Obama four days later after meeting with him, endorsing him and encouraging her supporters to vote for the Democratic nominee, yet 17% of her supporters vowed to vote for the Republican nominee, questioning the readiness… and even the eligibility… of Obama to be president of the United States. Anything Sanders has said about HIS opponent (Hillary) pales in comparison to anything Hillary said & did to her opponent (Obama) in 2008.

Hillary Clinton has been attacking Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail, lobbing criticisms against him that were lobbed against HER in 2008. Repeated (false) attacks questioning the “qualifications” of her opponent (without regard for how those accusations could be used against the Democratic nominee if somehow she were to lose), with surrogates questioning for months if she were staying in the race beyond a point when most pundits were saying she “just can’t win” and therefor should “drop out for the good of the party”, and questioning the very same “Super Delegate” system she now defends. One of the very reasons I support Sanders over Clinton is his “consistency” of being right on the issues. The most consistent thing about Clinton (and Trump) is her “inconsistency“.

I’ve been pointing out this past week that prior to the New York Primary, Sanders had won seven of the previous eight contests, and that his “loss” in New York looked like this:

To me, that looks like a “pocket win” for Bernie.

Five states will be holding their primaries tomorrow/Tuesday (with Pennsylvania being the big prize). The Media is already putting their thumb on the scale predicting a Clinton sweep that would make a Sanders comeback all but impossible (So why even bother showing up, right?)

But keep in mind the above clips. The hypocrisy is stunning. The only thing Hillary Clinton has been consistent on is her willingness to throw her fellow Democrats under the bus if they come between her and the presidency. Her “Scorched Earth” style of politics might be an asset in the General against a Republican opponent, but eventually the campaign is over and you have to work with those you worked so hard to destroy.

And, as an added bonus from yesterday:

I believe this is exactly what Bernie warned us about. Clinton is the Conservative’s favorite Democrat.

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

April 25, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Election, myth busting, Politics, rewriting history

STUNNING: If Super Delegates Were Apportioned, Clinton would only lead by 20 (UPDATE #2)
April 6, 2016

(Update 4/10/16)

On Monday, I reported how “Meet the Press” created an entirely new number of Super Delegates in order to falsely/incorrectly claim that even by “Bernie’s own means of apportioning Super Delegates,” he’d still be way behind Hillary Clinton in the SD count. I have NO idea what they think Senator Sanders is requesting, but creating an entirely new Super Delegate system from scratch ain’t it. That made absolutely no sense, so I plugged the numbers into a spreadsheet, and what I found was STUNNING!

I don’t know if #MtP just didn’t understand Senator Sanders’ request, or if they are just really bad at math, but somehow they created an additional 106 Super Delegates out of thin air (“106” is the total number of “unbound” delegates), awarding an additional 4 SD’s to Clinton and 99 SD’s to Sanders… not enough to close the over 400 SD lead Clinton already enjoys over Sanders.

As a refresher, “Super Delegates” are current & former elected Democratic officials and members of the DNC. “Elected officials” includes members of Congress, governors and former Presidents/VP’s. But members of the DNC can be anyone with power & influence (corporate leaders.) So it is no surprise they would be predisposed to favor Clinton. They were an invention following the chaotic DNC Convention of 1968. You’ll note that the GOP does not (yet) use “Super Delegates”. So there is no justifiable argument to allow these representatives of the voters in their state to vote differently than the voters of their state.

To be clear, what Senator Sanders is requesting is for the Super Delegate votes in each state to be distributed PROPORTIONALLY according to each candidate’s win percentage. So if the state votes 50/50 for Bernie vs Hillary, the SD’s should be split 50/50 as well. That seems fair, right? I have no idea what method #MtP used or thought Senator Sanders was proposing.

Presently, “Super Delegates” can vote any way they like regardless of how the voters of their state voted. I examined the vote totals (source) and how the Super Delegates were distributed, and what I found made me sick:

States Bernie won…

New Hampshire, Hillary takes all 6 (of 8) super delegates. (Sanders won 61% of vote)
Colorado, Hillary takes all 8 of the 12 super delegates distributed so far. (Sanders won 59% of vote)
Minnesota, Hillary takes 13 of 15 (with 1 outstanding) super delegates. (Sanders won 61.6% of vote)
Oklahoma, Hillary takes 1 of 2 (with 2 outstanding) super delegates. (Sanders won 51.9% of vote)
Vermont, Hillary takes 3 of 9 (with 1 outstanding) super delegates. (Sanders won 86.1% of vote)
Kansas, Hillary takes the only (1 of 4) super delegates distributed so far. (Sanders won 67.7% of vote)
Nebraska, Hillary takes all 3 (of 5) super delegates distributed so far. (Sanders won 57.1% of vote)
Maine, Hillary takes 3 of 4 (with 1 outstanding) super delegates. (Sanders won 64.3% of vote)
Dems Abroad, Hillary takes 2 of 3 (with 1 outstanding) super delegates. (Sanders won 68.9% of vote)
Michigan, Hillary takes all 10 (of 17) super delegates distributed so far. (Sanders won 49.8% of vote, Clinton 48.3%)
Idaho, Hillary takes 1 of 3 (with 1 outstanding) super delegates. (Sanders won 78% of vote)
Utah, Hillary takes 2 of 4 super delegates. (Sanders won 79.3% of vote)
Alaska, Hillary takes 1 of 2 (with 2 outstanding) super delegates. (Sanders won 81.6% of vote)
Hawaii, Hillary takes 6 of 8 (with 2 outstanding) super delegates. (Sanders won 69.8% of vote)
Washington, Hillary takes all 10 (of 17) super delegates distributed so far. (Sanders won 72.7% of vote)
Wisconsin, Hillary takes 6 of the 7 (with 3 outstanding) super delegates. (Sanders won 56% of vote)
Wyoming, Hillary takes all 4 super delegates. (Sanders won 55.7% of vote)

By no standard I can imagine does ANY of that seem fair. How does the LOSER of a race come away with most… or in many cases ALL Super Delegates belonging to a particular state?

Number of states Bernie WON where he didn’t receive a single Super Delegate: SEVEN

States… win or lose… where Sanders was not awarded a single Super Delegate: NINETEEN

Iowa
New Hampshire
South Carolina
Alabama
Arkansas
Colorado
Georgia
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
Louisiana
Kansas
Nebraska
Michigan
Northern Marianas Is.
Illinois
Missouri
Washington
Wyoming

States… win or lose… where Clinton was not awarded a single Super Delegate: NONE

If Super Delegates were apportioned by same percentage each candidate won:

Hillary: 205
Sanders: 185
——————————-
Difference: 20
(Note: “Pledged” delegates ALSO are not distributed proportionately by state. Difference in “PLEDGED” delegates if distributed proportionately: 237 [vs 290].)

Clinton’s Super Delegate lead would be cut to just TWENTY if they were awarded proportionally/fairly as Sanders suggests they should be. That’s a HUGE reduction from the FOUR-HUNDRED & THIRTY-NINE SD lead she currently enjoys as of this writing.

Notice, I did NOT award the winner of each state every Super Delegate as some might try to claim Sanders is asking, as if he’s trying to “game The System” to reap some sort of unfair advantage. No, I split the SD’s “proportionally” based on the percentage by which each candidate won. If anyone is benefiting from an unfair system here, it’s Clinton.

Now, reapportioning the Super Delegates alone doesn’t give Bernie the lead. We await the apportioning of the “Pledged” delegates for Wisconsin, but he currently trails by only slightly more than 200 delegates (with just under Two-Thousand delegates remaining). Subtracting those hundreds of undemocratically “gifted” Super Delegates awarded to Clinton definitely reveals her lead is FAR less insurmountable and her victory far less inevitable (not to mention: more reflective of the electorate.)

Senator Sanders has now won 17 states as compared to Clinton’s 20. He has won 7 of the last 8 contests. If Super Delegates are distributed according to win ratios, Sanders only needs to win the remaining states by an average of 57.03% in order to win the Democratic nomination. That’s about as close to a TIE as you’re gonna get.

Super Delegates are a “thumb on the scale” that allowed Clinton claim a 400+ “Delegate” lead before even a single vote was cast. The intent is obvious: to suppress support/turnout for her opponents by discouragement. They should not be allowed to announce whom they are supporting early. Direct anyone who says Bernie is “too far behind to win” to read this post.

Postscript: The GOP establishment behind the “Stop Trump” effort is assisting a dangerous “End Times” evangelical psychopath (Ted Cruz) win the GOP nomination simply because he is the only candidate with enough delegates to beat Donald Trump. It’s a dangerous game they are playing.

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

April 6, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Election, myth busting, Politics, Scandals, Seems Obvious to Me, voting

Meet the Press’ Bad Delegate Math. Misstates delegate math suggesting Sanders can’t win
April 4, 2016

(FOLLOW-UP ANALYSIS HERE.)

On Sunday’s “Meet the Press”, Chuck Todd cited Bernie’s call for Super Delegates to pledge to vote according to the wishes of the voters of their state so that they accurately represent them, suggesting that even under his method, Sanders still would not win. But when they posted their “adjusted” delegate figures for Clinton & Sanders, I happened to notice BOTH candidates came out with MORE delegates. If you shift delegates from one candidate to the other, someone would have to lose votes:

MtP’s reassigned delegate numbers. BOTH candidates gain???

And they were NOT counting pledged Delegates in states that had yet to vote. Todd specifically said this was only “states that had already voted. The graphic clearly reads “States that have voted”.

278 Super Delegates currently pledged, 384 AFTER reassignment. I tried to figure out where they picked up an additional 106 delegates (the number of “unpledged” delegates. He’s counting them TWICE), but I haven’t a clue. If it was a mistake, I await their correction. If not, I await explanation. It’s seems like a pretty obvious and amateurish mistake to make. If Sanders gains 99 delegates, Clinton should LOSE 99 delegates, not pickup seven. If their shift for Bernie can be believed, Clinton would only have 154 Super Delegates to Bernie’s 124, a difference of only 30 delegates (not 136). To broadcast such a clearly wrong claim during the most watched political talk show on national TV on the eve of a crucial election in Wisconsin was (without question) an attempt to suggest Senator Sanders is too far behind to win. It is hard to believe this was “an innocent mistake.”

(Sorry folks, short update this week. Computer trouble. I’m having to post this remotely. – Mugsy)

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

April 4, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, General, mystery, myth busting, rewriting history

Ted Cruz Promises Massive War if Elected. Vows to “get” ISIS using “overwhelming force”.
March 28, 2016

I agree with Andy Borowitz. “I’m concerned that our obsession with Trump is distracting us from how terrifying Ted Cruz is.” (link) As reported two weeks ago, Cruz is an Apocalyptic “End Times” evangelical nutcase. So when he started pledging a massive invasion of the Middle East using “overwhelming force” to “get ISIS”, I noticed. I’m not sure how many others did as well. Cruz was invited onto Fox “news” Sunday yesterday to rant about Trump criticizing his wife’s looks (and possible connection to claims of his infidelity by The National Enquirer), to fear-monger over the latest ISIS attack in Brussels, and then criticize the Obama Administration for failing to protect Europe from terrorism. Cruz then vowed… with all the simplicity of Sarah Palin… to “utterly defeat” ISIS once and for all by carpet-bombing an unspecified region of the Middle-East, “get” ISIS, and come home. I have no doubt that to Ted, it really is just that simple.

Cruz: If elected, I promise a massive war (:55)
[flv:http://mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/fns-cruz_promises_megawar-160327.flv http://mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/fns-cruz_promises_megawar-160327.jpg 512 288]

This was following a long fear-filled rant about how “the terrorists are coming to get us!” But don’t worry! Elect me and I’ll go in and “carpet bomb” the entire region, wiping “them” out so you can go back to living in your happy little bubble where the outside world can’t hurt you! Hey, you’ve got a gun, right? So what are you so afraid of?

It was pointed out to Cruz during one of the GOP debates that “carpet bombing” is a war crime (when he said he would “carpet bomb” the city of Raqqa… population: 300,000… to “get” several thousand ISIS fighters (by no means ALL of them) hiding within. He explained that by indiscriminate “carpet” bombing, he actually meant “targeted” bombing… the exact opposite of “carpet bombing”. But now, here he is again, responding to criticism of his calling for “carpet bombing” by vowing to “carpet bomb” till we “get” ISIS. WHERE exactly does he plan to “carpet bomb”? He never actually says in that clip. (Remember this is the same many who “joked” about “finding out if sand glows in the dark” last year.)

But no matter. “Carpet bombing” wasn’t the only war crime Cruz promised to commit if elected. No more of this “refusing to torture prisoners” nonsense either. If elected, he vowed (like Trump), to end all this “political correctness” regarding our refusal to torture prisoners to collect insanely unreliable and dubious intel from prisoners using a process that takes twice as long as established & more reliable means. (Speaking of “political correctness”, Cruz also whined… yet again… over “President Obama’s refusal to use the words ‘Radical Islamic terrorism.” This is a popular complaint on the Right. Apparently, ISIS is like Beetlejuice. It doesn’t work unless you say their name.)

Part of his plan to “go in” involves “arming the Kurds”… something our close ally Turkey… the largest Muslim Democracy on the planet… would just adore us for. Turkey has been fighting Kurdish incursions into South East Turkey for decades (longer?) But who cares about Turkey? They’re just another Muslim nation that needs to fear us, right? It’s not like they’re helping us over there.

Cruz said he wants to “go in with overwhelming force”. “Go in?” Where? He seems to think all 30,000 ISIS fighters commute back home (to Raqqa?) each night. They probably share a split level condo, watch “Syria’s Got Talent” on Al Jazzera, and in the morning, pack a PB&J for lunch before heading out for a day of “terrorizing”.

ISIS lies mostly in Syria

ISIS resides mostly in Syria… which is not just a sovereign nation, but a close ally of Russia, protected by Russia, of whom would not hesitate to rush to their defense if the U.S. invaded in the name of “getting” ISIS. So (just as with Hillary Clinton and her “No Fly Zone”), you now have the U.S. at war with Russia. Iraq is also a sovereign nation (like it or not Ted), and they DON’T want U.S. troops back in their country. Could Ted get permission to send in a massive military force to get ISIS strongholds in Iraq? Possibly. But he ISN’T going to get permission to send hundreds of thousands of American troops into Syria. And… pardon the analogy… that’s like trying to kill your dogs fleas by washing only his hind legs.

So we send in hundreds of thousands of American troops. Where do they all come from? Hey, it’s not HIS kids he’ll be sending in as part of that “overwhelming force”. What’s a few thousand dead soldiers if it means saving the lives of… uh… how many Americans have died on U.S. soil at the hands of ISIS fighters who traveled here from the Middle East? Oh yeah. ZERO (no, the San Bernadino couple does not count. They were ISIS sympathizers, loners already in the U.S..) But according to Ted Cruz… an apocalyptic “End Times” religious radical, all we have to do is send in hundreds of thousands of YOUR kids into a war zone to get a bunch of apocalyptic “End Times” religious radicals. I’m sure they’ll all return safe & sound. And after we “get them”, that’ll be it. We can just come home. That was George Bush’s plan for Iraq, wasn’t it? There’s ZERO chance their angry followers, family members and orphaned children will follow in the footsteps of their beloved martyrs. They’ll be too terrified of President Cruz (cough) to risk us coming back to do it again. At least, that’s how it plays out in “Cruz Land”… the most delusional place on earth.

Everyone talks about how disastrous a Trump presidency would be (mostly for the GOP.) The fact that Ted Cruz is a terrified, paranoid, anti-Islamic, apocalyptic, Evangelical “End Times” xenophobe that talks of war like it’s something we can do in an afternoon and be home in time for supper concerns me FAR more than Trump’s clownish antics, racism and foppish misbehavior. No question both would be disastrous presidents, but I fear Ted Cruz for what he openly says he WANTS to do, not the catastrophic blundering Trump might stumble us into because thinks he has all the answers.. just so long as you don’t bother him with details.

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

March 28, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Election, Middle East, Religion, Right-wing Facism, Right-Wing Insanity, Terrorism, War

Claims Hillary Has Better Chance of Winning Not Only False, but now moot amid GOP chaos
March 21, 2016

For months now, many Clinton supporters have been citing Hillary’s chances of defeating Trump in the General election in November as their reason for voting for her. They just don’t believe that an admitted “Democratic Socialist” can win the election. As far as I’m aware, there has never been an official poll taken of Clinton supporters asking them why they support her over Sanders, but in searching the Internet, the Top 3 reasons always seem to be: “She has the best chance of winning“, “First woman president“, and “most experienced“. Well, all the polls (below) show Reason #1 is flat out wrong. Reason #2 applied just as well to Carly Fiorina, so that’s not really a very good (nor honest) reason, and Reason #3 is a matter for debate (that I’ve already covered in past posts.) But it’s that first reason, “a better chance of winning”… not only is it not true, but as recent chaos within the GOP has made painfully obvious, if THAT is your primary reason for picking Clinton over Sanders, that is no longer a concern. If Trump goes into the RNC Convention with a clear majority of votes yet is somehow denied the nomination, he is very likely to split off and run as an Independent. That much we knew. BUT, the GOP “Establishment” is so distraught by the idea of Donald Trump being their standard bearer that there are now threats by Republicans to leave the GOP to form a third party and pick their own candidate to run against Trump, splitting the Conservative vote. The GOP is in chaos and there are now two very likely scenarios in which the GOP vote is split in half, making “best chance of winning” the weakest reason of all for choosing Hillary over Bernie.

First, those polls I mentioned. Clinton & Sanders vs Trump:

Sanders beats Trump by more than Clinton:

(Clinton doesn’t even break 50%.)

If Cruz is the nominee, Hillary looses, while Sanders crushes him:

Why is this the case? There are a few reasons: One, Republicans DESPISE Hillary Clinton. If she is the Democratic nominee, Republican voters will turn out en masse to defeat her. Two, despite what you may think about Bernie’s record on gun control, it makes him much more electable in the General than Clinton.

For Donald Trump to win the nomination outright, he needs to win just over 53% of the remaining (1049) GOP delegates. For Ted Cruz to win the nomination outright, he would need 77.5% of the remaining GOP delegates to win (based on 1,049 delegates remaining out of number needed for each candidate to reach the 50% threshold.) Rubio has dropped out, while Kasich’s only hope is to be awarded the nomination like a prize via “brokered convention”, which almost guarantees a third party run.

If Trump is the nominee, the GOP “Establishment” will never support him. Clinton could still defeat Trump (as the above polls show), but it’s by no means the sure thing many Clinton supporters seem to believe it to be. Ted Cruz is so despised by everyone that has ever worked with him that not even his fellow Senator from Texas has endorsed him for president. That’s pretty bad. Cruz is an apocalyptic “End Times” teabagging nut, and the majority of voters know it. If Cruz steals the nomination from Trump and “The Donald” doesn’t go “3rd Party”, a good many Trump supporters will support Sanders. “Free Trade”. It’s one of the few issues where Sanders & Trump overlap. And those who liked Trump’s portrayal of a “self-funded, can’t be bought, beholden to no one” campaign will likewise be drawn to Sanders. Rubio supporters will also never vote for Cruz or Trump. But Marco lambasted Clinton, so his supporters won’t be defecting to her either, but they could go for Sanders.

As mentioned in the opening, not only could Trump go “3rd Party” if denied the nomination, if Trump IS the GOP nominee, a number of establishment Republicans are discussing whether THEY may form a 3rd Party believing that the GOP no longer represents THEM. And who do they have in mind to run against Trump and the Democratic nominee? One floated name, former Senator Tom Coburn, who retired from the Senate to be treated for Cancer (and has emphatically said he doesn’t want the job), and everybody’s favorite tree-stump Rick “Oops” Perry, a man who was doing great in 2012 until he opened his mouth. Perry then donned glasses trying to make himself look smart (which should tell you just how bright he really is) and returned in 2015 to try again, but this time he was fooling no one and dropped out of the race when he failed to break 2%.

So even if you (falsely) believed Sanders was “unelectable”, that is no longer a valid concern as the GOP is likely to split their own vote come November. You should actually be more concerned if the GOP doesn’t split and they rally behind Ted Cruz (see above poll) or even John Kasich (see Sanders vs Kasich here.)

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

March 21, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, myth busting, Predictions, Seems Obvious to Me

Trump’s Antics Only Helping Ted Cruz Look Reasonable By Comparison
March 14, 2016

I didn’t think it could be done, but somehow, Donald Trump has managed to make Ted Cruz seem like a sane & rational alternative. While Trump is a bigot and an egomaniac, Cruz is downright delusional (if not outright dangerous). Ted Cruz is Conservative ideology on steroids. He truly believes all that Right Wing fiction the GOP has been feeding Republican voters for the last 35 years: “trickle-down economics”, “Iran was so terrified of Reagan they released the hostages the day he took office”, we CAN “round up & deport 10 Million undocumented Mexican immigrants” and “Social Security is a Ponzi scheme”. But beyond ordinary GOP stupidity like that, Cruz is a “strict Evangelical fundamentalist” religious nut raised by a manifestly insane Messianic crank of the most bone-chilling degree: Rafael Cruz believes his son is ordained by God Almighty himself to bring about “The End Times”. And thanks to Trump’s Orwellian hour-long “2-minutes of hate” campaign events, every “establishment” Republican is looking to… of all people… Ted Cruz to “rescue” the GOP from a Trump nomination.

Trump has repeatedly pointed out that Cruz is SO disliked within his own Party, that not a single fellow Senator that has worked with him has endorsed him, but as of last week, that is no longer true as fellow Teabagging idiot Mike Lee of Utah (a state most people don’t realize is Redder than Texas & Oklahoma combined) endorsed him. If you are not familiar with Lee, he is Cruz’s ideological twin. In 2013, Time Magazine labeled him “The Man Responsible for the Shutdown”. Every bit as nuts as Cruz, in 2011, Lee called child labor laws unconstitutional, and is currently holding up aid to Flint, MI because (quote) “They have all the government resources they need”. This is the one & only Senator yet to endorse Ted Cruz for president (and even HE took his time doing it.)

Legally, Cruz isn’t even eligible to be president. Legal “scholars” debate on whether being born in Canada to an American mother granted him “dual citizenship” that renders him “natural born”, but they all overlook one very important fact: NOT A SINGLE FOUNDING FATHER WAS BORN AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. Whether or not Cruz is a “Natural Born” citizen is irrelevant. You had to be born on (what is now recognized as) U.S. soil. That includes American embassies & military based in foreign countries. It also provides exception to Americans “visiting” foreign countries at the time of their birth. It does NOT however include people who had taken up residence in foreign countries like Cruz’s parents had. Many people throughout history have been born to one or more American parents living in another country (Winston Churchill and Prince Hashim of Jordan were both born to American mothers on foreign soil. Were/Are they also qualified to run for president of the United States?) In a normal election season, Cruz would have been barred from even running in the first place, but thanks to Trump, “Read the Constitution!” Republicans are likely to rewrite the rules of elective office without so much as a challenge all because they are desperate to see anyone else but Trump win their Party’s nomination.

But back to what makes Ted Cruz such a dangerous figure.

Cruz is a Climate Change denier, calling it religious dogma, “not science”, and telling NBC’s Seth Meyers “Global Warming is a hoax.” Evangelicals like Cruz refuse to believe Climate Change is real because it contradicts an obscure Bible passage about the world always being here for our exploitation (but nothing about how long WE will exist to exploit it.)

People seem to have forgotten that only recently, Cruz was calling for the “carpet bombing” of an entire Syrian city (Raqqa) to “get” ISIS (a war crime), but clearly didn’t understand the difference between “carpet bombing” and “targeted bombing”, contradicting himself when asked about his call for the murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians (including children) just to “get” a few hundred ISIS fighters hiding in a city of some 200,000 people. Just what you want in a “Commander-in-Chief”, someone that doesn’t understand the consequences of what they are ordering the worlds most powerful military to do with all that firepower.

It quickly became apparent upon his taking office that Cruz not only shares the face, but the paranoia of Joseph McCarthy. As a Senate candidate in 2012, Cruz declared that “Sharia law is an enormous problem”, and upon taking office in 2013, Cruz told reporters that “There were fewer declared Republicans in the [Harvard Law] faculty when we were there than Communists!”

Keep in mind the man who raised him: the Cuban-born “Pastor” Rafael Cruz. A man who believes “Public education is a Communist Plot”, that “evolution is a Communist lie”, “Marxist Obama” should go “back to Kenya” (noticing a trend yet?), believes Sarah Palin was “maligned” for revealing the existence of “ObamaCare’s Death Panels”, has been invited to give speeches at various Fundamentalist churches across the nation to assure his fellow End Timers that his “anointed” son will be there to “fulfill God’s prophecies” and “return the spoils of war” back home to the wealthy, and just last week called the legalization of gay marriage “the work of Satan”. The Cruz campaign has stated that the elder Cruz “does not speak for his son’s campaign”, but have yet to disavow or refute anything his father has said (You know what they say about the nut not falling far from the tree.)

Ted Cruz’s Iowa victory speech, flanked by Steve King and Dad

I posted the above photo before. Cruz was flanked by close friend the despicable Rep. Steve King (who proposed building an electrified fence across our Southern border, and Cruz’s wacko-bird father (who held this exact pose for several minutes, staring straight ahead without blinking.)

Ted’s wife is similarly odd. Pastor Cruz told the Christian Fundamentalist program “Dove TV” that his son’s decision whether or not to run for president came after a “two hour prayer session” on their knees, when Ted’s wife Heidi said God told her to tell her husband to “seek God’s face, not his hand” by running for president, suggesting (AFAICT) her husband has (or would reveal) “the face of God” if elected. For a group of people who take the Bible literally, they sure love to talk in metaphor to describe their connection to it, so I can’t say “exactly” what Mrs. Cruz meant by that remark, though there is no question the two are implying “divine intervention” pending a Cruz presidency (one can’t help but wonder why The Almighty, who supposedly wants Cruz to win so badly, didn’t help him win more states or… at the very least… ensure he was born on U.S. soil to avoid any challenge to his eligibility. But hey, I’m not the one claiming to know the mind of God.

Senator Cruz now supports the ridiculous “Personhood” Amendment granting Constitutional rights to fertilized eggs, making many forms of birth control illegal and every miscarriage subject to a criminal murder investigation. Cruz recently stated: “I believe we should protect every human life from the moment of conception to the moment of death”, yet at the time insisted he didn’t support “Personhood”. That didn’t sit will with Evangelicals (his core demographic) who refused to support him until he relented. Cruz repeats at every stump speech that he won’t rest until we have “repealed every last word of ObamaCare” and replace it with the GOP alternative: “tax-free health savings accounts”. I’m not entirely sure how repealing The Affordable Care Act and bringing back denials over preexisting conditions “protects every human life from conception to death”, but I’m sure it is nothing short of “miraculous”.

People forget that very early on, when the GOP race still had some sixteen candidates, Cruz was very low in the polls (4%). But when his fellow Republicans started attacking Trump for his racists comments about “Mexicans”, Cruz refused to criticize Trump, resulting in a big bounce in his poll numbers. Pundits noted the ensuing “bromance” between Cruz & Trump, with the two of them repeatedly complimenting each other. Cruz even tweeted last December: “@realDonaldTrump is terrific. #DealWithIt”

While Trump’s own obvious bigotry & nastiness is out for the world to see, what we DON’T see are the number of Christo-Fascist racists coalescing around the Cruz Campaign as highlighted in this clip from The Rachel Maddow Show last February (jump ahead to 8:20 to skip the “Fundamentalist” setup):

The Cruz campaign did not reject the endorsements of the “kill the gays” pastor (though they did later admit, albeit quietly, that “attending the conference” was “a mistake”), the “God sent Hitler to hunt the Jews” pastor, or the insane rantings of anti-Semitic racist misogynist Ted Nugent. No, in fact they’ve proudly trumpeted those endorsements on their website [ibid video], knowing full well the kinds of Conservative voters they’d appeal to, hoping to take advantage of motivated Fundamentalist Christian activists that vote en masse for like-minded candidates. (Previously, it was enough to get a high enough percentage of them to the polls to win elections despite their low numbers (see: Bush 2000), but as their extremism drove larger numbers to the polls to counter their influence, we started to see the rise of “voter suppression” tactics like “Voter ID” to limit the opposition.)

Glenn Beck (who suggested Scalia’s death was God’s way of motivating Cruz supporters to the polls) says he fears for the future of our Democracy if Cruz is NOT elected president (the opposite of what every sane individual on Earth believes), and though Rush Limbaugh has yet to “officially” endorse a candidate, he has saved his highest praise for Ted Cruz.

Ye shall know him by his friends (and the man who bore him.)

Writers Wanted

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS

March 14, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Politics, Racism, Religion, Right-wing Facism, Right-Wing Insanity

Mugsy's Rap Sheet

Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.

In Final Hours, DNC Election Misbehavior Runs Rampant
June 6, 2016

Is Hillary a Closet Republican? Her record would suggest so.
May 30, 2016

Stop Trying to Save Your Drug-Addicted Child, because: Math. Responding to Clinton supporters
May 23, 2016

The “Bernie Only Polls Better Because He Hasn’t Been Attacked” Canard. Debunking a popular pro-Hillary myth
May 16, 2016

CNN Poll: 51 Percent of Hillary Vote is Just Anti-Trump. What happens if Romney goes indie?
May 9, 2016

Why a Sanders Victory is More Likely than Hillary
May 2, 2016

Clinton Criticizes Sanders for Running the Campaign She Ran in 2008
April 25, 2016

STUNNING: If Super Delegates Were Apportioned, Clinton would only lead by 20 (UPDATE #2)
April 6, 2016

Meet the Press’ Bad Delegate Math. Misstates delegate math suggesting Sanders can’t win
April 4, 2016

Ted Cruz Promises Massive War if Elected. Vows to “get” ISIS using “overwhelming force”.
March 28, 2016

Claims Hillary Has Better Chance of Winning Not Only False, but now moot amid GOP chaos
March 21, 2016

Trump’s Antics Only Helping Ted Cruz Look Reasonable By Comparison
March 14, 2016

Past posts

Archives

Resources

FREE Movies

Recent Posts

Most popular:

Access

Social Media

Blogroll

Subjects

Referral

Mugsy's Rap Sheet

Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.

In Final Hours, DNC Election Misbehavior Runs Rampant June 6, 2016

Is Hillary a Closet Republican? Her record would suggest so. May 30, 2016

Stop Trying to Save Your Drug-Addicted Child, because: Math. Responding to Clinton supporters May 23, 2016

The “Bernie Only Polls Better Because He Hasn’t Been Attacked” Canard. Debunking a popular pro-Hillary myth May 16, 2016

CNN Poll: 51 Percent of Hillary Vote is Just Anti-Trump. What happens if Romney goes indie? May 9, 2016

Why a Sanders Victory is More Likely than Hillary May 2, 2016

Clinton Criticizes Sanders for Running the Campaign She Ran in 2008 April 25, 2016

STUNNING: If Super Delegates Were Apportioned, Clinton would only lead by 20 (UPDATE #2) April 6, 2016

Meet the Press’ Bad Delegate Math. Misstates delegate math suggesting Sanders can’t win April 4, 2016

Ted Cruz Promises Massive War if Elected. Vows to “get” ISIS using “overwhelming force”. March 28, 2016

Claims Hillary Has Better Chance of Winning Not Only False, but now moot amid GOP chaos March 21, 2016

Trump’s Antics Only Helping Ted Cruz Look Reasonable By Comparison March 14, 2016

Past posts

Archives

Resources

FREE Movies

Recent Posts

Most popular:

Access

Social Media

Blogroll

Subjects

Referral

In Final Hours, DNC Election Misbehavior Runs Rampant
June 6, 2016

Is Hillary a Closet Republican? Her record would suggest so.
May 30, 2016

Stop Trying to Save Your Drug-Addicted Child, because: Math. Responding to Clinton supporters
May 23, 2016

The “Bernie Only Polls Better Because He Hasn’t Been Attacked” Canard. Debunking a popular pro-Hillary myth
May 16, 2016

CNN Poll: 51 Percent of Hillary Vote is Just Anti-Trump. What happens if Romney goes indie?
May 9, 2016

Why a Sanders Victory is More Likely than Hillary
May 2, 2016

Clinton Criticizes Sanders for Running the Campaign She Ran in 2008
April 25, 2016

STUNNING: If Super Delegates Were Apportioned, Clinton would only lead by 20 (UPDATE #2)
April 6, 2016

Meet the Press’ Bad Delegate Math. Misstates delegate math suggesting Sanders can’t win
April 4, 2016

Ted Cruz Promises Massive War if Elected. Vows to “get” ISIS using “overwhelming force”.
March 28, 2016

Claims Hillary Has Better Chance of Winning Not Only False, but now moot amid GOP chaos
March 21, 2016

Trump’s Antics Only Helping Ted Cruz Look Reasonable By Comparison
March 14, 2016