For one, Hillary Clinton seems to want to be able to control the press or at least, her press.
The story via CNN:
Gorham, New Hampshire (CNN)Hillary Clinton’s campaign used a rope to keep journalists away from the candidate on Saturday while she walked in this small town’s July Fourth parade.
The ensuing photos of journalists, including a CNN reporter, being somewhat dragged by a thin white rope as Clinton walked down Main Street caught fire online.
Initially, Clinton’s campaign was not using a rope to corral the press, allowing journalists to get close to her and ask her questions.
But campaign aides said they brought the rope out because they feared the press scrum of around a dozen reporters and photojournalists would obstruct the view of New Hampshire voters attending the parade.
The rope was held by two of Clinton’s advance staffers, who at times walked ahead of reporters, seemingly pulling them along the parade route.
“You guys, we are going to do 10 yards and a little more organized,” said one of the advance staffers after breaking out the rope.
In explaining why they were using the rope, the staffer said, “so maybe a voter could see her, that kind of thing.”
Clinton’s Secret Service detail also urged journalists to abide by the mobile rope line.
“You are not going fast enough,” one agent said when the rope tightened around a reporter’s waist.
When Hillary Clinton is not trying to control the press covering her; she is outright lying about her record. Case in point:
Via Politico:
HANOVER, N.H. — Hillary Clinton arrived in this liberal New England enclave with a message for anyone thinking about voting for Sen. Bernie Sanders of next-door Vermont: “I take a backseat to no one when you look at my record in standing up and fighting for progressive values.”
Sanders, according to the latest New Hampshire polls, is trailing Clinton by just eight points. And at the first stop of her two-day swing through the early-voting state, Clinton highlighted contrasts with her main Democratic rival without mentioning him by name.
“We have to take on the gun lobby one more time,” said Clinton, speaking without notes or a teleprompter in front of a crowd of about 850 Dartmouth students and native Granite Staters. “The majority of gun owners support universal background checks, and we have to work very hard to muster the public opinion to convince Congress that’s what they should vote for.”
She said it was the “height of irresponsibility not to talk about it.” Sanders, who represents a pro-gun constituency, has voted against the Brady Bill, which required federal background checks for gun purchasers, as well as other major bills supported by gun-control advocates.
She also signaled that she would have no problem defending President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.
Well, there is only one problem with that little statement, it, like most everything that comes out of Hillary Clinton’s mouth, is a bald-faced lie. Ron Chusid at Liberal Values Blog explains and I am going to quote the thing, links and all. Hopefully, he does not mind:
Hillary Clinton said, “I take a backseat to no one when you look at my record in standing up and fighting for progressive values.” Quite a lie, but not surprising coming from a candidate who the majority of voters agree is dishonest in recent polls.
Clinton believes she needs to make such false claims now that Bernie Sanders is posing a serious threat in Iowa and New Hampshire, but she will hardly convince Sanders supporters that she has ever been progressive. The former Goldwater Girl has maintained conservative values throughout her career, except that Barry Goldwater was more socially liberal than Clinton.
In February Truth-Outhad a post on Five Reasons No Progressive Should Support Hillary Clinton, which is worth reading–and there are several more reasons besides what is in that article.
Besides the economic differences which have dominated the campaign so far, it was Sanders who, reviewing the same intelligence as Hillary Clinton, voted against the Iraq war. Hillary Clinton not only voted for the war, she went to the right of other Democrats who voted to authorize force in falsely claiming there was a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda. She showed she did not learn from her mistake when she continued to advocate for increased military intervention as Secretary of State.
In an era when the nation is becoming more liberal on social issues, Hillary Clinton’s long-standing conservatism on social/cultural issues also make her too conservative to be the Democratic nominee. This was seen when she was in the Senate when she was a member of The Fellowship, being influenced on social issues by religious conservatives such as Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback. Clinton’s affiliation with the religious right was seen in her support for the Workplace Religious Freedom Act , a bill introduced by Rick Santorum andopposed by the American Civil Liberties Union for promoting discrimination and reducing access to health care, along with her promotion of restrictions on video games and herintroduction of a bill making flag burning a felony. Her social conservatism is also seen in her weak record on abortion rights, such as supporting parental notification laws andstigmatizing women who have abortions with the manner in which she calls for abortion to be “safe, legal and rare.” Clinton was speaking out against same-sex as recently as 2013.
Clinton has disappointed environmentalists in supporting fracking and off-shore drilling. Her views on the Keystone XL Pipeline is just one of many controversial issues where Clinton has refused to give her opinion. The vast amounts of money she has received from backers of the pipeline lead many environmentalists to doubt that Clinton can be counted on to oppose the pipeline, or take any positions contrary to the wishes of the petroleum industry.
Bernie Sanders voted against the Patriot Act while Clinton supported it. Sanders has spoken out against the illegal NSA surveillance while Clinton has remained quite, and has an overallpoor record on civil liberties. Clinton’s failures to archive her email as required when she was Secretary of State and disclose donations to the Clinton Foundation as she had agreed to are just the latest examples of her long-standing hostility towards government transparency.
Saying she is a progressive is not going to win over progressives after she has spent her career opposing liberal values.
Not to mention that Hillary’s hubby sold out the American worker, when he signed the NAFTA Bill in the 1990’s. Speaking of unions, the AFL-CIO just sold its members up the river too:
Richard Trumka has a message for state and local AFL-CIO leaders tempted to endorse Bernie Sanders: Don’t.
In a memo this week to state, central and area divisions of the labor federation, and obtained by POLITICO, the AFL-CIO chief reminded the groups that its bylaws don’t permit them to “endorse a presidential candidate” or “introduce, consider, debate, or pass resolutions or statements that indicate a preference for one candidate over another.” Even “‘personal’ statements” of candidate preference are verboten, Trumka said.
The memo comes amid signs of a growing split between national union leaders — mindful of the fact that Clinton remains the undisputed favorite for the nomination — and local officials and rank and file, who are increasingly drawn to the Democratic Party’s growing progressive wing, for whom Sanders is the latest standard-bearer.
The South Carolina and Vermont AFL-CIOs have passed resolutions supporting Sanders, and some local AFL-CIO leaders in Iowa want to introduce a resolution at their August convention backing the independent senator from Vermont. More than a thousand labor supporters, including several local AFL-CIO-affiliated leaders, have signed on to “Labor for Bernie,” a group calling on national union leaders to give Sanders a shot at an endorsement.
So much for standing for the American worker eh? Oh, there’s more:
The AFL-CIO’s constituent unions — as distinct from divisions of the federation itself — remain free to make endorsements however they wish. But they can’t make those endorsements acting through local and regional divisions of the AFL-CIO, as Trumka reminded everyone in the memo.
His message wasn’t anything new for the federation’s state leaders: They know that endorsement decisions belong to the national leadership. Still, it was unusual for Trumka to call them out in a memo. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one before like this,” said Jeff Johnson, the president of the AFL-CIO’s Washington state labor council.
Johnson agreed that it was important for the AFL-CIO to speak with a single voice. But “there’s a lot of anxiety out there in the labor movement,” he said, “and we’re desperately searching for a candidate that actually speaks to working-class values. The Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders camp is very, very attractive to many of our members and to many of us as leaders, because they’re talking about the things that need to happen in this country.”
Similarly, Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steven Tolman said he agreed that Trumka had to lay down the law. More tellingly, though, he added: “Bernie Sanders has spent his life actually fighting for working people. He’s made no secret of it, and he’s used it as his mantra. And that I respect very much.” When asked about Clinton’s candidacy, Tolman was less effusive: “Who? Who? Please. I mean with all respect, huh?”
Other state-level union leaders affiliated with the AFL-CIO didn’t bother to give Trumka and his memo lip service. “I was disappointed by it,” said UPTE-CWA Local 9119 organizing coordinator Lisa Kermish, of Berkeley, California. “I think that local unions and national unions, while it’s important to work together for strength, I think that this is in some ways truncating dialogue. And I find that very unfortunate.”
The memo surfaced a day before top staffers for Clinton and Sanders participated in a meet-and-greet with AFL-CIO political directors Thursday morning in Washington. A person who attended the meeting said those present included Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, Clinton labor liaison Nikki Budzinski, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver and top Sanders strategist Tad Devine.
If I were the President of the UAW right about now; I would be calling an emergency meeting and holding a vote to leave the AFL-CIO ASAP. No wonder the teamsters left them after the 2004 election. The AFL-CIO does not give a tinker’s damn about the American worker. They simply care about power and money; and believe you me, they get plenty of it. This is proof of that.
This my friends, is one of the many, many examples why I stopped voting for Democrats. Social issues were a secondary reason. My primary reason is of stuff like this; how the progressive left is chock full of liars and corruption. There was a time in America, when the organized labor movement was something of integrity that stood for those who they represented. Sadly, those days ended long ago. Now, before any says it; are there liars and corruption in the Republican Party? Yes, there is. I never said there was not. But, this sort of blatant control of press and supporters; is like nothing I ever saw before.
