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Today’s Hillary News & Views begins with calling out the increasingly blatant misogyny which is sadly coming from our own side.
Peter Daou writes for Blue Nation Review:
Hillary Clinton is one of the most admired and accomplished women in the world — the first in history with a viable shot at the American presidency. What does it say about the culture of Bernie’s campaign that in the space of a week, his supporters have used the term “Democratic whore,” chanted “Hey hey ho ho, Hillary Clinton has got to go” and thrown dollar bills at her?
Bernie and his campaign have done their level best to paint Hillary as a corrupt politician who is “bought and paid for.” The unseemly implications of that attack line are becoming more apparent in recent days.
Taken separately, one might rationalize terms like “corporate Democratic whore,” chants like “Hey hey ho ho, Hillary Clinton has got to go” and actions like throwing dollar bills at her. Taken collectively, it is increasingly difficult to avoid the gendered implications of this coded language.
Capturing it all in the character limit of Twitter, here’s Melissa McEwan:
Remarkably, what was bring protested was Clinton using her own star power to raise funds desperately needed for the state parties and downballot Democrats up against the GOP big money machine.
CNN reports:
Howard Gold, who lives down the street from Clooney in Los Angeles' tony Studio City neighborhood, hosted the group of Sanders supporters for a $27-a-person fundraiser. As part of that event, Gold and other organizers handed out $1 bills for attendees to throw at Clinton as she drove by.
Both of the Clinton-Clooney fundraisers benefit the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising effort for the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee and a host of state Democratic parties.
"Hillary Clinton has made it a priority to raise money for Democrats up and down the ballot and we're grateful to everyone who supports the party," said Christina Reynolds, a Clinton campaign spokeswoman. "We frequently hear about how much money Senator Sanders is raising, maybe he can send a few of those $27 donations to the DNC and state parties across the country to help the party he hopes to lead."
Here’s more on the above, this time from Clooney:
Clinton's allies are also considering downballot implications as they begin to invest for the general election.
Politico reports:
Democrats — led by Priorities USA Action, the biggest pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC — have already started spending heavily on ad reservations in strategically placed markets in the seven core states, investing early to maximize air time while rates are still low.
Combined with Clinton’s continued travel to some of these swing states even after their primaries have concluded, the ad placements paint a picture of a party laying the groundwork for a relatively small universe of key battles but positioning itself for an expansion of that universe, even as Bernie Sanders continues to run competitively with Clinton. By contrast, the delegate war on the Republican side has been so consuming that it’s preventing any major conservative group or individual campaign from engaging in this level of long-term planning and spending.
While Clinton's campaign doesn’t have many paid staffers left over in swing states that have already held their primaries, local allies are preparing to work hand-in-hand with state party infrastructures in coordinated campaigns. Clinton’s top political staffers have also, in some cases, been monitoring local Democratic field and financial programs for months.
Clinton's chief strategist Joel Benenson has said in interviews that he believes Clinton could put traditionally red states like North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona into play in a race against Trump, and influential Democrats in the South believe any attempt to do that by increasing African-American and Hispanic turnout could bring with it considerable implications for down-ballot races there, especially if Republican turnout is suppressed as a result of a Trump candidacy.
Clinton has released a statement on the 2nd anniversary of the Chibok schoolgirls being kidnapped.
Time reports:
Presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Chibok schoolgirls still being held by West African extremist group Boko Haram two years after their abduction are a “stark reminder of the work we must do to advance equality for women and girls.”
In a statement provided exclusively to TIME on the second anniversary of the kidnapping, Clinton condemned Boko Haram and linked the kidnapping to larger problems facing women around the world.
“My heart aches for the hundreds of boys and girls who have been kidnapped by Boko Haram over the years,” she said, noting the reports that Boko Haram captives suffer sexual violence and forced marriage, and citing a UNICEF report that one in five suicide bombings by Boko Haram has been carried out by a child, usually a young girl. “No child should have to endure these atrocities.”
Clinton, who as Secretary of State was vocal about the protection and empowerment of women and girls, said the plight of the missing schoolgirls shows how much work needs to be done to advance gender equality worldwide. “It’s the right thing to do, and it improves security and prosperity for everyone,” she said. “That starts with freeing the Chibok girls, and stopping the terror of Boko Haram.”
Clinton brushes off Trump’s insults of her but stands tall against his attacks on others.
Politico reports:
“I don’t respond to Donald Trump and his string of insults against me. I can take care of myself. I look forward to running against him if he’s the Republican nominee if I am the Democratic nominee,” the Democratic presidential front-runner said on ABC's "This Week."
“What I am concerned about is how he goes after everybody else," Clinton said. "He goes after women. He goes after Muslims. He goes after immigrants. He goes after people with disabilities. He is hurting our unity at home. He is undermining the values that we stand for in New York and across America, and he’s hurting us around the world.”
Clinton visited a Harlem public housing unit for seniors.
New York Daily News reports:
Hillary Clinton toured a problem-plagued NYCHA building in East Harlem on Friday and promised long-suffering residents she would always fight for their needs if elected — and would boost funding for affordable housing nationwide.
"I wanted to come here to really make a very strong plea that we do more when I am president to help the people who live in developments like this," Clinton said.
"I will do everything I can as your president to remember what needs to be done here in the city that I love, that is the greatest city in the world," she said to cheers from the crowd.
To fix NYCHA, which has suffered for years from federal disinvestment, she said she would boost funding for the section 8 program, invest $125 billion to help struggling communities like the South Bronx, and expand Low Income Housing Tax Credits to curb rental costs.
"I will fight for you," she said.
A huge wave of endorsements came in over the weekend from leading newspapers in the 4/19 and the 4/26 primary states.
Newsday endorses:
Hillary Clinton, who is aiming to shatter the nation’s highest glass ceiling, has the right blend of knowledge, skill and experience to be an outstanding candidate for president.
We have seen her in action for decades — as an active first lady; as an effective eight-year senator who delivered for New York, including billions in federal aid to rebuild New York City after 9/11; and in four years as secretary of state, when she played a critical role in levying crippling sanctions on Iran and in the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Her long service and many scars from more than 30 years of political battles make Clinton a superb manager, with a knowledge of issues unmatched by any candidate.
America is a country of big dreams, and Democrats a party of big dreamers. Hillary Clinton is uniquely positioned to carry on her party’s legacy and make those dreams a reality.
Albany Times-Union endorses:
For all the frequent consensus between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, they differ significantly on details, their approach to governing, and their experience. It’s those differences that give Mrs. Clinton the decisive edge in the Democratic primary.
Mrs. Clinton takes a more moderate, centrist approach while still espousing progressive values. Her plans take considerably less money – about $1.1 trillion over the next decade, raised mainly through higher taxes on the rich. She favors building on Obamacare, which has insured some 20 million more Americans so far. She prefers to target more college aid to those who need it. Like Mr. Sanders, she promotes more income equality, and a constitutional amendment that would allow more limits on campaign finance to reduce the influence of big money in politics.
As for the attacks she is likely to endure from Republicans, she’s been weathering them for years, while the GOP hasn’t even gotten started with Mr. Sanders. And her time as a U.S. senator from New York demonstrated she has the ability to work across the aisle.
Syracuse Post Standard endorses:
We believe Clinton has the experience and political savvy for uncertain times. She's a proven leader on the world stage and especially in New York, where she served ably in the Senate and represented Upstate interests.
Clinton has a plan to reinvigorate manufacturing, which she unveiled in Syracuse earlier this month. She would raise taxes on the wealthy, create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and offer debt-free college tuition at public colleges. Clinton would preserve the Affordable Care Act, with fixes.
When Clinton represented New York, she showed up and listened to the needs and concerns of farmers, small businesses and big corporations.
We are confident Clinton understands the big picture -- of global politics --and the little picture -- of the everyday lives of Upstate New York's people and businesses, thanks largely to her time in the Senate.
On Tuesday, April 19, we think Clinton is a better choice.
The Irish Voice endorses:
Bill Clinton was the first president ever to take an active part in finding a solution and his success in approving the first U.S. visa for Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, the Good Friday Agreement and sending Senator George Mitchell as his plenipotentiary to the North remains one of the most feel good stories of his entire two terms. But more important, it brought a fragile peace to a land that many thought they would never see.
Hillary Clinton was not found wanting either and created valuable links with grassroots organizations, especially working class women’s groups, as her major contribution, as well as jumping in as secretary of state when help was needed.
Hillary is also promising a compassionate and all encompassing approach to immigration reform which deeply impacts the 50,000 or so Irish undocumented.
Hillary Clinton will be the first to admit she does not match her husband’s brilliant oratory in speech making, but she has a fire in her eyes. She knows this is her last opportunity, win or lose, and she is throwing everything at it.
The White House will be hard won. The incredible achievement of electing an African American president eight years ago should be followed by another massive breakthrough in electing the first woman president.
But first there is a primary to negotiate. We are proud to endorse Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. It’s time, New York.
Hartford Courant endorses:
Few candidates in history have had Mrs. Clinton's prepping for such challenges. As a senator from New York, she was more effective at legislating than Sen. Sanders was, The Washington Post says. As secretary of state, she secured the tough sanctions against Iran that eventually led the dismantling of much of its nuclear program. While first lady, she shrugged off the failure of her health-care-for-all plan in 1993 and set about helping to get millions of poor children coverage.
Mr. Sanders is right to ask whether Mrs. Clinton is too embedded in the establishment to change it. The question is whether Mr. Sanders has the political tools to change it. She does. She has often crossed the divide to solve problems, whether negotiating a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas or getting Republican support for the Children's Health Insurance Program.
We believe she can do the one thing that President Obama has not done and that Mr. Sanders may not do, with his ambivalent record on guns (including voting against the Brady bill) — use her political skills to get greater gun controls. Dec. 14, 2012, has tragically made that Connecticut's salient issue.
Mrs. Clinton has turned dreams into laws. She has fought for the underclass, championing the causes of women and children around the world. Her grasp of foreign policy is deep — including, through sorry experience, the limits of U.S. power.
Given her resume, few people today are more qualified for the Oval Office than she is.
Philadelphia Inquirer endorses:
In a word, Clinton
If campaigning is poetry and governing is prose, as Mario Cuomo put it, this campaign's unlikely poet laureate composes his verse in a thick Brooklyn accent untamed by decades in New England and Washington. Buoyed by a groundswell of conspicuously younger supporters, Bernie Sanders has turned what could have been a mere socialist statement into serious competition for the country's most tested (if relatively prosaic) politician, Hillary Clinton.
And yet Democrats don't have a monopoly on discontent - or on ideas of how it should be addressed. To accomplish anything, their nominee has to appeal to voters well beyond the party's base and, if elected, work with Republican lawmakers who have only grown more collectively conservative.
Sanders' quixotic answer to this problem is that the impressive throngs of his rallies and massive turnout that must accompany his general election victory would transform national politics, making the impossible possible. "The reason I'm running for president is that it is too late for establishment politics," he told Inquirer and Daily News editors and reporters. Clinton's response was less galvanic but more pragmatic: "You know, I will go anywhere and talk to anyone to find common ground."
Sanders is also a compelling spokesman for a more pacifist foreign policy, often touting his opposition to the Iraq war (though not his less prescient objections to the first Gulf war). But particularly in contrast with the former secretary of state, he has largely downplayed foreign affairs, one of the president's greatest responsibilities. He expresses too much vain hope that other countries will do what they ought to, while Clinton told the Inquirer Editorial Board that "we have to continue to lead the world." She helped do so herself by contributing to the nuclear deal with Iran, a bright spot in President Obama's foreign policy.
Providence Journal reports:
Ms. Clinton, 68, is a seasoned Washington player with hard-earned experience in how to get things done. She would be a far better president than Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the 74-year-old independent socialist still in the race.
Ms. Clinton would bring a wealth of political knowledge to the job — from her days as the political partner of husband Bill Clinton, the Arkansas governor who became president, to her eight years in the U.S. Senate, to her work as secretary of state.
She understands that America plays an essential part in the world, and that our safety — and that of all free people — cannot be secure if the United States retreats.
She knows how Congress works, and the best ways to advance a Democratic agenda, whether Republicans or her own party holds power in the House or Senate.
She can be counted on to defend the rights of women, and make sure they continue to advance in our society. As the first woman president, she would shatter a glass ceiling that has stood in place for too long, and serve as an inspiration to many.
Her performance throughout a less than edifying presidential campaign season has made clear that she is thoughtful, mature, serious and strong — and fully capable of standing up to the intense pressure of the presidency.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar endorses in The Washington Post:
This isn’t because we have a female candidate who may be her party’s nominee. That would be historically significant, as was electing Barack Obama as the first black president. His race and her gender inform who they are, as any person’s cultural background does, but it’s policies that maketh the politician.
And it’s policies that make me endorse Hillary Clinton for president of the United States.
Clinton possesses that rare but crucial combination of idealism and pragmatism. She can both envision a better world and take the necessary steps to make that vision a reality. She embodies the principles of the Age of Reason and isn’t afraid to fight against the confederacy of dunces who would undermine the principles of inclusion and diversity that America stands for.
I especially appreciate Clinton’s unflinching support of President Obama’s policies, which have lifted many Americans both economically and socially, despite the battered economy that he inherited. Continuing the direction of those policies, including reforming a bail system that targets the poor, drug laws that target minorities and an education system that saddles college students with unbearable debts, must be a priority if the United States is to be the land of equal opportunity it brands itself to be.
Kori Dryhurst Coates writes for Blue Nation Review:
Dear Secretary Clinton,
I’ve admired you my entire adult life. I was a new mother when you moved into the White House. I was a new mother, a new wife, alone in a country not my own, and surrounded by strangers. I was idealistic, puristic, and more than a little insufferable. Your example as First Lady played a significant role in helping me determine the kind of woman I wanted to be.
You weren’t always perfect and oh how that liberated me from the idea that perfection was something to which I should even aspire. In fact, because of you I came to really like the imperfections. The flaws and the mistakes. Broken vessels are more beautiful for the mending. As Leonard Cohen says “cracks are how the light gets in”.
I don’t know how you’re holding up under the barrage of unjustified attacks that keep being thrown at you, under the smear and insinuation, the spin and the pressure…but I know it can’t be easy. To ‘keep your head when all around you are losing theirs’, to ‘rise up in spite of the ache’ takes so much grace, strength, and grit. Thankfully those are qualities you possess in abundance.
I want you to know that I see you. I see your courage. I see your resilience. And I am not alone. You are loved Secretary Clinton. You are respected. You are appreciated and admired and valued. Millions of people say #ImWithHer because you inspire passion and loyalty.
FiveThirtyEight reports that “Clinton is Winning the States that Look Like the Democratic Party”:
Consider Sanders’s reference to the term “Deep South,” which traditionally describes Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina: These are five of the only six states, along with Maryland, where at least a quarter of the population is black. Given the United States’ history of disenfranchising black voters — not to mention the importance of black voters to Democrats in November — it’s dicey for Sanders to diminish Clinton’s wins there.
But the Deep South isn’t Sanders’s only issue. His problems in the rest of the South are what really dooms him. Clinton’s largest net delegate gains over Sanders came from Texas (+72) and Florida (+68), two states that are within the South as the Census Bureau (and most other people) define it. Clinton also cleaned Sanders’s clock in Virginia and North Carolina. Overall, Clinton gained a net of 155 delegates on Sanders in the five Deep South states, but she also added 211 delegates to her margin in the rest of the region.
In addition to being important to the Democratic Party’s electoral present and future, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Texas are quite diverse. They’re diverse ideologically — Miami and Austin aren’t exactly “the most conservative part” of the country — and they’re diverse racially. They contain not only a substantial number of African-Americans but also Hispanics and, increasingly, Asian-American voters.
In fact, these states are among the most demographically representative of the diverse Obama coalition that Clinton or Sanders will have to rely on in November.
Rosie O’Donnell was interviewed by Rita Crosby in advance of Tuesday’s primary election in New York. Check it out to hear O’Donnell’s thoughts on Clinton, Sanders, Trump, and the institutional racism and sexism at work in our society.
_____________
Finally, a few thoughts about Safe Zones at Daily Kos.
First, they don’t exist in the context of the primary election diaries. A true Safe Zone requires a level of active moderation that is beyond the scope of both the mission of Daily Kos and the resources of its staff. Moderating specific community diaries is one thing; expanding that moderation to the dozens of daily diaries and thousands of daily comments about Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is a job on a completely different scale.
Second, Hillary News & Views was never intended to be a Safe Zone. It, along with Bernie News Roundup, developed into one as the primaries heated up, just so there could be at least one place daily where supporters of a particular candidate could speak openly without incoming pie from the other side.
This was at a time when positive Hillary content, and places for pro-Hillary discussion, were both limited at Daily Kos. That's no longer the case. There are even several daily Open Threads for Hillary supporters now.
Speaking of, HNV has recently been described as one of those Open Threads. It’s not. Never has been. It’s for discussion of the news and opinion pieces included in the roundup.
As I’ve noted before, I do not have the standing to police Bernie supporters at Daily Kos. But I hope that I’ve established enough of a reputation over the past few months to have some standing with my fellow Hillary supporters.
My advice to them is this:
We need to keep our own house clean.
To focus on injustices between how Clinton supporters and Sanders supporters are treated is to miss the larger point that our own behavior is the only variable which we can control.
As a personal example, I have been targeted several times over the past few months. Once, it was an egregious accusation of sockpuppeting that required intervention from a staff moderator.
But the other times, it was for things like insensitive comments, questionable flags and comment uprates, and copyright violations. When those accusations surfaced, I took my own personal inventory. I’m the only variable that I can control. I’ve apologized when I’ve offended, removed recs and flags when I’ve calmed down, and gone back and edited HNV to be absolutely sure that I’m not overquoting (which is easy to do in the early hours on the morning!)
In short, I’ve done my best to hold myself to a higher standard, partially because I’m more likely to be targeted due to my visibility, but more so because I don’t actually enjoy having a negative impact or coloring outside of the lines of appropriate conduct.
I strongly recommend that all readers of HNV and supporters of Hillary at Daily Kos do the same.
I’m all for engaging on the issues and calling out distortions and character attacks against Clinton, but I don’t understand doing so outside of pro-Hillary diaries. If you're going to do so, that’s your choice.
But please don’t bring the battles to HNV. Too much work goes into putting these together, and too many Kossacks have expressed that HNV is the only diary they feel comfortable commenting in. That’s why I keep doing HNV, even after it’s largely outlived its initial purpose of providing positive Hillary coverage at Daily Kos.
When someone gets under your skin, consider directing your energy toward writing or recommending a positive Hillary diary. There are so many of them now, and they’re more likely to sway an undecided voter to our side than getting in a pie fight ever will.
As for me, I will be more careful about what I say and what I recommend. If it’s a gray area, I will err on the side of caution. I hope that all of you will join me in this. We can’t change what we’ve said or done in the past, but we can reflect in the present and change for the future.
We’re winning this primary. How sad it will be if once our victory is official, we’re celebrating with fewer Hillary supporters around here because they’ve been BOJOed.
Thanks for reading and for listening. — Lysis
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Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States.