For Better Or-- More Likely-- Worse, Hillary Still Walks Among Us

If you thought Hillary and the Clintons and-- more importantly-- whatever hybrid vision of governance they stand for, was going away: surprise! She's back, reminding millions of people what's so horribly wrong with the Democratic Party as to make an Obama voter switch to Trump. She's says it was Comey and Putin and she's got a point but does that adequately explain why her approval ratings were so jaw-droppingly bad all through the election. Too many people looked for a lesser of two evils and-- amazingly-- picked Trump. The country we live in!

David Axelrod seemed unimpressed with Hillary's excuse-making when he appeared on CNN's New Day this morning. He told Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota that "it takes a lot of work to lose to Donald Trump... Jim Comey didn’t tell her not to campaign in Wisconsin after the convention. Jim Comey didn’t say, 'Don’t put any resources into Michigan until the final week of the campaign.' One of the things that hindered her in the campaign was a sense that she never fully was willing to take responsibility for her mistakes, particularly that server. She said the words 'I’m responsible,' but everything else suggested that she really doesn’t feel that way, and I don’t think that helps her in the long run. The fact that she was in a position to lose because of the Comey letter is something that deserves some introspection."

For those wondering if the resistance to Trump will continue to grow and gain momentum or start dying off and losing ground going into 2018 and 2020, remember, Hillary now says she considers herself part of the resistance. How's the for the ultimate buzz kill that's remind everyone about how repulsive and corrupt the Democratic Establishment is and how Hillary kept Wasserman Schultz in place at the DNC to make sure Bernie wouldn't get a fair shot in the primaries.

A recently-released transcript of Florida court documents has revealed that the Democratic National Committee’s first line of defense in their motion to dismiss a lawsuit against them by defrauded Bernie Sanders supporters is to state that they are under no contractual obligation to provide the American people with real party primaries.

Yes, really. That’s their Plan A. In order to avoid a situation where they could be forced to return some of the small-dollar campaign donations of Sanders’ base, representatives of the regulatory committee for the Democratic party have tacitly admitted in a court of law that they are running a fake political party using the lie of legitimate primary elections to manufacture political engagement, and that democracy is officially dead in America.

“[T]here is no right to-- just by virtue of making a donation, to enforce the parties’ internal rules,” said DNC attorney Bruce Spiva. “And there’s no right to not have your candidate disadvantaged or have another candidate advantaged. There’s no contractual obligation here.”

Mr. Spiva is of course referring to the charge that Sanders supporters were defrauded of millions of dollars when they poured donations many of them could barely afford into the campaign of a candidate that the DNC was actively conspiring to sabotage, in gross violation of the Impartiality Clause of their own charter. Rather than trying to deny that this act of sabotage took place, the DNC is instead arguing that it is perfectly within its rights to obstruct and favor any campaign it wants in order to ensure the nomination of the candidate that it prefers.

From the DNC Charter

...[T]he DNC and the Clinton camp were colluding as early as 2014 to schedule debates and primaries in a way that favored her, or then-DNC Vice Chairwoman Donna Brazile acting as a mole against the Sanders campaign and passing Clinton questions in advance to prep her for debates with Sanders can truthfully say that this Impartiality Clause was adhered to. It wasn’t. And, according to Mr. Spiva, that’s because it didn’t need to be.

...The elites of the Democratic party are trying to have it both ways. They’re trying to maintain the system which obstructs independents and third parties from finding meaningful purchase within the political process, while at the same time ensuring that no democracy is happening within that rigid two-party system. They’re trying to maintain the “A vote for a third party is a vote for the Republican!” narrative from one side of their mouths while saying “It’s our party, we can rig the primaries however we want!” from the other. If Americans want to say that they live in a democracy, the major political parties can’t have it both ways. Either change the system so that other parties are viable, or give the people the ability to choose the nominees of the only two parties they’re able to choose from. Both of these would be ideal, one would be workable, but right now they have neither. Calling America a democracy is a joke.

...This is what happens when a political party places money above all else; they find themselves in a situation where they’re making politically catastrophic admissions rather than lose a few dollars. I was active in a lot of Bernie forums during the primaries, and the gut-wrenching stories I saw shared by participants there were what got me involved in this political commentary gig in the first place. There were people who could not afford to donate to a political campaign, but they found ways to do it anyway in the desperate hope of creating a more economically just future. Bernie received donations from people living out of their cars. From unemployed people with kids who could have used the money for groceries but chose to try and invest in a better world for their children. The DNC is now openly admitting that it took actions to make sure that that money went to waste, all so that they won’t have to give it back to these people who so desperately need it in the exploitative corporatist nightmare that the DNC has helped create.

Even after Anthony Weiner was exposed as a dangerous sociopath, Clinton chose to cling to her favorite aide, Huma Abedin, Weiner's wife. Did Hillary lose the election because of that terrible, lunk-head decision? Are the country-- and the world-- now stuck with Donald Trump because of that fateful decision? The American people very clearly did not want Weiner and Huma anywhere near the White House and didn't want crooked political hack Debbie Wasserman Schultz anywhere around it either. Who in their right mind would? I released this album and eponymous song by Rochester-based psychedelic rockers New Math in 1981 on my label, 415 Records, and, I admit, I wasn't thinking about Hillary at all at the time.