Donald Trump would like for Bernie Sanders supporters to ditch the Democratic Party and support him. There is very little evidence that they will do that, mind you, but it’s certainly possible that they might just stay home — which would help Trump.
Well, we have some bad news for the Trump campaign. Sanders supporters aren’t just rallying around Clinton; they’re doing it rather quickly. And it’s a big reason Clinton just extended her lead over Trump into the double digits, 51 percent to 39 percent.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Sanders backers, who polls have shown were reluctant to jump over to Clinton and even flirted with supporting Trump, are coming home faster than we might have expected.
Last month, 20 percent of Sanders supporters said they would back Trump over Clinton in the general election. This month, that figure is down to 8 percent.
If this trend continues, dumping Trump will be easier. He tends to be his own worst enemy.
Good. He is a damaging force for this country.
Trumpeteers think that because they were willing to throw their principles out the window in a temper tantrum that Bernie supporters must be just as foolish.
They don’t seem to realize that Bernie supporters are motivated by his policies and almost all of them will vote for Clinton as the next best alternative. A handful of hard core supporters will vote for Jill Stein but the memory of the 2000 election is too fresh. I think The Donald will have a hard time finding a single real Bernie supporter who now wants to Make America Hate Again.
The good news is that more and more Americans are seeing through Trump’s game. Even Republicans are starting to Dump Trump. This November will be a landslide for Clinton. The Demos will win the Senate, fix the Supreme Court and Trumpism will be dead and buried.
… But there’s that nagging little thing about Hillary using her personal email server to hide all the money that she took from worker-exploiting corporations.
Since she is bought and paid for by corporations, it is hard to see how she gives a rat’s ass about the average American worker whom Bernie supporters supposedly care about.
That is your opinion, Kelly. Those of us who do back Hillary really aren’t all that concerned over it. You do realize it has been spun so many times it has turned to silk?
I can’t buy into Bernie’s utopia. Who will pay for it? All those things are nice if money grew on trees. Hillary has the most experience. Its over. Its Trump vs. Hillary. If you are going to support Trump, well, that’s your business.
@MoonHowler
My viewpoint is not really support for Trump, but rather #NeverHillary. It is true that she has lots of experience, but she has not accomplished anything positive. Hillary got people killed in Libya due to her stupidity and obsession with politics (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/benghazi-report-charges-obama-clinton-did-nothing-to-save-lives/article/2595058). And she compromised key intelligence sources with her unprotected email server because she tried to thwart public release of her official emails.
Those two episodes alone make her distinctly unqualified to be commander-in-chief.
I realize that these incidents do not concern you, but I fail to understand why not. Most of us military veterans are gravely concerned by her lack of leadership and due diligence when her people were in harm’s way. Those bother me a lot. Plus, anyone who is not a Clinton would already be in jail for deliberate mishandling of classified information.
You speak of Hillary as though she had ben commander in chief. It really should be a non-issue.
All this emphasis on Benghazi makes me sick when looking at the loss of life in the middle east in general. It’s all political regardless of what you tell yourself.
The Washington Examiner is reliably anti-Clinton and has been for 25 years or so. I take what they say on most things with a grain of salt. Its an opinion….everyone has one.
I simply do not think that is true….name me people who are in jail because they have mishandled information.
@MoonHowler
Petraeus received probation.
A submarine sailor will be sentenced to jail shortly:
http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/crime/2015/08/01/kristian-saucier-alexandria-submarine-pictures-john-walker/30907091/
Matthew Aid, an author on intelligence issues, served a year in prison for mishandling classified.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/12/the-spy-satellite-secrets-in-hillary-s-emails.html
Stephen Kim was prosecuted and served time for leaking classified information that was already in newspapers:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/07/ex-contractor-stephen-kim-to-plead-guilty-in-leak-faces-13-months-in-prison.html
Well, the bottom line is, people who support Hillary really aren’t all that worked up over the emails.
You all keep trying….you might come up with something. It’s only been 25 years.
My standards simply don’t have room for someone like Donald Trump. Hillary would have to do something a lot worse ….like commit genocide or something to make me prefer Trump.
@MoonHowler
I am not trying to convince you — I am trying to understand your point of view.
I have stated that the magnitude of classified information compromised on Hillary’s server would get a lot of people put in jail … like me, for instance, if I had done the same thing while in the military.
You stated that you do not think it is true that people go to jail for mishandling classified information. I provided references showing that people do indeed go to jail.
Your response …. Ho hum, whatever. I am starting to think it really would take genocide to make you consider switching candidates. Even then, it would probably depend on the magnitude of the genocide ….
You mean go from Hillary to Trump? I can’t imagine voting for Trump for any reason. I have no problem with either of the libertarian candidates. I have always liked both of those men, in particular, Gov. Weld.
@Kelly-3406
At present, Kelly we (i.e., you, me, the general public) do not know that any classified information was “compromised”. We can agree (at least you and I can – maybe Moon also) that the private server was a foolish project that bespeaks the kind of arrogance and disregard for square corners that you and I (perhaps not Moon) have come to expect of the Clintons. But, while there may be people inside the FBI who know whether classified information was compromised, you and I don’t, and we might reasonably stay our hand on sweeping conclusions. It will all come out in due time without anyone being required to make a fool of themselves by making conclusory statements without the benefit of facts.
@Kelly_3406
So, Kelly, if you’re “not really” supporting Trump, are you leaning Libertarian or Green?
As far as singling out Mrs. Clinton re Benghazi, that horse has been pretty dead for some time and there certainly hasn’t been anything new on that recently. It was a chaotic situation that clearly would have benefitted, looking back, from far more robust security arrangements. On the other hand, this was , in part, a CIA operation in Benghazi, and there’s a question of how big and visible they wanted that presence to be. Yesterday’s interview comments from CIA director Brennan are interesting in that regard. The Ambassador was a hands-on, take charge guy who took risks that other diplomats probably wouldn’t take. But all the analysis, including the recent layer of expensive duplication from Mr. Gowdy, bespeaks a kind of general bureaucratic lethargy or remoteness not specific to Libya that, had it been more reactive, might have found ways to beef up things on the ground or to caution people on scene. There is no indication that Mrs. Clinton denied requested assets.
As for emails, I agree that that is a serious problem. I would hope that the FBI and DOJ would do the country the kindness of making their moves on that before the nomination, to give the Dems time to put up another candidate before the formal, post-convention campaign gets under way. If the decision is not to prosecute or indict, I hope that clearly is coming from the FBI, and is articulated clearly, rather than from DOJ, which, no matter how clearly it explains the decision, will be accused of having made a political decision (although those who know AG Lynch know that she’s probably the last person in the Administration who could be pressured politically on a matter of criminal behavior).
I honestly do not know at this point. Call me undecided.
I disagree with you about Gowdy’s report. I have read all three reports and there is quite a bit of new information in this one. The key new fact here is that there was an American force in Italy ready to go but no order was given. It was also revealed that a meeting took place while the attack was ongoing, but, rather than give the order for the rescue, most of the discussion focused on the political response. I think that is rather damning.
As for the email server, the hacker ‘Guccifer’ has made plausible claims that he broke into Hillary’s server. It may well be impossible to verify one way or another whether her server really was hacked. But the point is that her server was not secure and the top secret material was there for the taking. People have gone to jail for much less, although the well heeled usually get away with just probation and a fine.
@Kelly_3406
By “well-heeled”, I assume you’re referring to someone like General Petraeus. But even if Hillary fell into the Petraeus category (there are some distinct differences and I suspect that the clearly classified materials Petraeus let his honey peruse were far more sensitive than any of the yet-to-be-classified materials that were flowing through Hillary’s server), it would be absolutely fatal to her candidacy I would think.
As for Benghazi, nothing in the House Report strikes me as particularly new or revealing beyond what we already knew from the previous six or seven reports. Certainly none of it sticks to Mrs. Clinton specifically (other than the important fact that we found out about the private email system because of the Gowdy Committee’s activities).
@Scout
Some of Hillary’s emails clearly discussed technical capabilities which anyone in the DoD would recognize as highly classified. In order to have access to this information, someone would have told her exactly what was and was not classified. She and her staff failed to properly mark the emails as classified, but that does NOT make them “yet-to-be-classified” messages.
Petraeus screwed up, but not as bad as this. He released highly classified information to someone who had a high-level security clearance. She did not have a “need to know”, so it was considered a compromise.
Clinton had highly classified information on an unsecured server that could have been hacked by anyone including hostile intelligence services.
Nevertheless, it is highly unlikely she will be indicted. The meeting between Bill Clinton and the AG shows the fix is in.
@Scout
The early reports indicated that the military stated that a rescue was not feasible. Dempsey himself stated that the military did not have forces close enough to prevent or respond to the attack. This new House Report has revealed that, not only was a military response feasible, but a FAST team was standing by ready to respond upon receiving th order.
This revelation that a military force was ready to go is a blockbuster finding, despite the attempt by Hillary’s people and the media to downplay the report. The gullible public accepts the media’s claims at face value that there is nothing new.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/joint-chiefs-chairman-testifies-he-was-not-directly-involved-in-failure-to-prepare-for-benghazi-terror-attack/
@Scout
By well heeled, I refer to people like Sandy Berger removing classified materials from the National Archives in 2004 to Petraeus more recently, and to several more high-level politicians in between.
@Kelly_3406
Berger should have served some time for that. I would very much like to know exactly what he stole and why he felt compelled to do it.
Unless I have been off my mark my entire life, no secretary of state calls in air strikes.
True, the president has the final authority, but his decision is usually based on the recommendation of the security apparatus. There is no evidence that she demanded rapid action to rescue the people working for her. There is no evidence that she slapped any desks asking the SecDef to send a FAST team to pull her people out of harm’s way. There is no evidence that she said anything at all about the need for a rapid military response. There is no evidence that she did anything except coordinate a political response.
When her people were ambushed, outnumbered, and outgunned, my expectation is that she should have dropped everything she was doing to a coordinate with the SecDef to rescue her team.
If she made a super-human effort but was vetoed by SecDef or POTUS, that would be a different matter. There is no evidence of that sequence of events either.
I do not want a CINC who sits around thinking ONLY about political consequences while people are being slaughtered.
I would be blaming Obama then. That’s where the buck stops.
I suppose I am just aghast that so many people are valuing these 4 above all the other people who have lost their lives in the middle east.
With the amount of time that has been spent on gotcha over this one, we could have solved half the crises in the middle east.
@MoonHowler
The lives of these four people do NOT take precedence over the many people who have lost their lives in the Middle East.
The importance of this case is that we got to see the “true” Hillary when the crap hit the fan. I have seen many cases of leadership under pressure. Either the person blossoms and emerges as a true leader, or (s)he completely whithers. There is no faking it either way. People have the opportunity to see whether the leader tried to do the right thing under difficult circumstances, or whether the “leader” focused on CYA.
Hillary showed that she was more concerned about herself and her political career than about the lives of people for whom she had responsibility.
Sure Obama had ultimate responsibility, but there is nothing that can be done about that. He will be out of office soon. The only person involved in that sorry incident who is seeking higher office (at the present time) is Hillary Clinton. This case presents a window into her soul –and it is a truly scary sight.
Actually, I don’t think you have seen the true Hillary any more than you saw the “true” Ronald Reagan when the marine barracks were bombed and nearly 250 lives were lost.
You have seen what the anti Hillary conservatives want you to see. Neither Reagan nor Clinton were there in person. They had to rely on the eyes and ears of others to make their assessments.
Frankly, the entire thing is political and tiresome.
@MoonHowler
Reagan did not have the opportunity to respond immediately to the attack in Lebanon, because it was a massive bomb attack that was over in minutes. He made the mistake of not listening to his advisors about the marines being in an indefensible position at the Beirut airport, just as Hillary made the mistake of not reinforcing the compound in Libya.
As I said previously, politicians make mistakes. Reagan never made that mistake again, and Hillary would surely listen to military advice about securing installations in the future.
The attack in Libya lasted for 12 hours–there was time for a response. The issue is whether she tried to do the right thing or not when it counted most. No matter how you try to twist the facts or change the subject by dismissing it as political, there is no disputing that she chose to focus on herself rather than on the lives of her people.
As a military officer, when faced with deployment, I wanted to know that the chain of command, all the way up to the commander in chief, would have my back. This case shows direct evidence that Hillary would NOT necessarily have the backs of the little people working for her.
I have twisted no facts. This discussion absolutely is political. I can’t imagine how you can convince yourself otherwise.
@Kelly_3406
Way more conservatives are going to Dump Trump and vote for the Libertarian party than progressives will vote for the Greens. Progressives remember all too well what happened with Ralph Nader in 2000.
I saw an article that said that the GOP convention will be the first one since 1860 not to have a former GOP president there. The Bushes are boycotting Trump. The GOP is having a hard time finding speakers for the convention. Apparently the less crazy wing of the GOP has figured out that Trump is a sinking ship and they don’t want to go down with him. I guess it will be four nights of commercials for Trump Steaks, Trump Wine, Trump Golf Courses and finally The Donald Himself.
All the Trumpeteers have left is the dream that somehow after more than a year, the public is suddenly going to care about Clinton’s damn emails. Sorry, Trumpeteers, Clinton may not be perfect, but compared to The Donald, she sure is.
You are probably right that the public will forget about her ‘damn emails’ but let’s forget about politics for a minute.
I have a real problem with her for two reasons:
1) Her emails indisputably discussed highly classified information. Have you ever heard the phrase “loose lips sink ships’? As Secretary of State she would clearly have access to information that could get people killed if it were revealed.
2) The Libya report clearly showed that she met with officials and discussed the political response to the terrorist act but never urged Obama to send in a rescue force. There was a military force ready to respond in Italy, waiting for the order that never came.
The problem is not that she made mistakes. All politicians do. The issue is her willful neglect that may have gotten people killed.
These two events fill me with dread at the possibility that she will likely be president.
Given the two issues described above, what has Trump done that makes Clinton perfect by comparison?
@Kelly_3406
Nobody is saying that Clinton is perfect. It’s only when compared to Trump that she might appear that way.
But you asked what The Donald has done. Since you are focused mostly on military/defense issues, I’ll stick to just a few of those:
– Trump’s disgusting attack on POWs. “I like people who weren’t captured” referring to McCain, who refused early release because he didn’t want special treatment. Apparently McCain is a ‘loser’ because his plane was shot down.
– Trump is a draft dodger. Multiple student deferments and an magical medical problem that disappeared as soon as the Vietnam War ended.
– Speaking of Vietnam, Trump dishonors our veterans by referring to his ability to avoid getting an STD through his affairs as his own “personal Vietnam”
But on to the bigger stuff:
– Trump is dangerously ignorant on military policy & strategy. You really want a CINC that doesn’t even know what the nuclear triad is?
– Trump is dangerously prone to believing easily disproven conspiracy theories. Obama’s birth certificate. Ted Cruz’s father involved in the JFK assassination. Do you really want someone with that poor judgement as CINC?
– Trump’s illegal and immoral orders to kill the families of terrorists would put our troops at risk of war crimes trials as well as putting their own families at risk from reprisal terrorist attacks. Do you really want to see our troops in the Hague saying “I was only following orders”?
– Trump’s promised trade war with China will lead to an acceleration of China’s military buildup in the Pacific. We are already behind the curve here. Trump will throw gasoline on the fire.
– Trump’s bromance with Putin will embolden Russia to take further aggressive actions without the fear of US response. After all Trump can’t even bring himself to criticize Putin’s assassination of political opponents.
– Trump says that NATO is obsolete and promises to cut our involvement in NATO. Because weakening NATO will clearly deter Russia and increase security in Europe.
So in short, if you want to completely overturn every major element of strategic defense policy for the last 70 years, throwing the world into chaos and emboldening China & Russia, The Donald is your guy.
On the other hand: Benghazzzi! (Sure, it’s been 4 years. But it’s like Beetlejuice. If you keep saying it enough times the public will suddenly start caring.)
@Dump Trump
Whatever wild proposals Trump has thrown out pales in comparison to what Hillary has actually done. Here is yet another example. As Secretary of State, she signed off on a deal for a Russian company to acquire the rights to 20% of US uranium reserves. Officials from this Russian company donated millions to the Clinton Foundation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0
This Russian company has since supplied Uranium to Iran.
@Kelly_3406
From your own link:
“Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
So in other words, like Benghazzzi! Clinton did not personally do anything that others weren’t doing. She was one of a number of people who approved the deal. I suppose if she had been the only person to reject it, you’d be screaming about that.
How about this (also from your link):
The New York Times’s examination of the Uranium One deal is based on dozens of interviews, as well as a review of public records and securities filings in Canada, Russia and the United States….Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown.
In other words, there’s no fire here. Not even some smoke. Just yet another attempt by the GOP to create a scandal out of nothing.
@Dump Trump
I would agree with you were it not for the fact that the Clinton Foundation received MILLIONS from people connected to Uranium One. It looks an awful lot like a bribe, even if there is no direct proof.
Before Hillary ran, D’s used to think that money from corporations was corrupting. Not only was the money from a corporation in this case, but it was money from a foreign corporation that resulted in a very bad deal for the United States while SHE was Secretary of State.
Although his conviction was eventually overturned, Bob McDonnell was convicted for much less than this.
However, as we saw yesterday, the law only applies to little people and political threats to this Administration (i.e. Petraeus and McDonnell).
I am wondering why Petraeus is considered a threat to this administration.
I can’t recall a time when money from corporations was thought to be corrupting. Any documentation on that? Perhaps that might be correct amongst certain subgroups of Democrats. (and also Republicans) but as a general statement…not the case.
@Kelly_3406
Again, from your New York Times article, multiple government agencies all signed off on the Uranium deal, including the State Department under Clinton. But somehow it’s all on Clinton now. You are claiming (without proof) that there was a quid pro quo for donations to the Clinton Foundation. But how did that get DoD, DoE and other agencies to sign off on the deal? Or are you claiming they were bribed too?
If everybody else was approving this deal, why would they even need to bribe Clinton? I don’t have to pay Donald Trump to tweet something stupid next week. He’s going to do it on his own. If I happen to donate money to him the week before, did I bribe him to tweet something stupid?
You have a very strong anti-Clinton bias. I’m pretty sure that if the opposite situation had occurred, where every other government agency had signed off on this deal and Clinton killed it, you’d be screaming about that.
@Dump Trump
The interagency process is generally slow and cumbersome due to the difficulty of getting all the agencies to agree on anything. Each agency brings a particular set of hot-button issues that results in almost automatic non-concurrence, even if all the others agree.
For the State Department, two hot-button issues have historically been non-proliferation and export of Defense articles. The proposal for Uranium One to buy the rights to 20% of US reserves certainly relates to both of those. It is hard to imagine how this made it through the State Department without any significant push back from career employees.
This decision is so far outside the bounds of what we would normally expect that questions about the process are warranted. How in the world was it in the strategic interest of the US to let this deal go through? Money to the Clinton Foundation certainly could have provided a strong incentive for her to stand up to push-back from within her own Department.
On a broader note, it is generally frowned upon in America for a public servant to take money from a party directly affected by an upcoming decision that (s)he has to make. At best, there is an appearance of corruption. At worst, there is actual corruption.
To avoid criticism, the ethical thing for the Clintons to have done while she was Secretary of State would have been to recuse themselves from the financial dealings of the Clinton Foundation and to direct the proceeds into a blind trust.
Why do you suppose that they chose not to do that?
P.S. Regarding your charge of anti-Clinton bias, guilty as charged. I think the two of them are the most corrupt politicians we have seen since Nixon. But if she had opposed this uranium deal, despite approval by the other agencies, not only would I have applauded her, it might have forced me to re-examine my view of her.
That there might be even one Sanders supporter who would consider supporting Trump (or vice-versa) is an indicator of how goofy this election cycle has become. The spectrum has been twisted and bent to the point where, on issues like international trade and geopolitical security issues, the unapologetic ignorance of Trump and the Haight-Ashbury-ish wishful thinking of Sanders overlap at the outer extremities. Very strange stuff, to be sure.
Ad spending in swing states for the month of June:
Colorado: Team Clinton $2.9 million, Team Trump $0
Florida: Team Clinton $7.3 million, Team Trump $0
Iowa: Team Clinton $1.6 million, Team Trump $0
North Carolina: Team Clinton $2.3 million, Team Trump $0
New Hampshire: Team Clinton $1.2 million, Team Trump $0
Nevada: Team Clinton $2.5 million, Team Trump $0
Ohio: Team Clinton $5.6 million, Team Trump $0
Virginia: Team Clinton $2.4 million, Team Trump $0
Total: Team Clinton $25.8 million, Team Trump $0
So The Donald, who claims to be worth $10 billion won’t spent a penny of his own money on ads. Maybe he needs a new nickname. Donald “The Big Zero” Trump.
The good news is that the GOP appears to be lashing itself to this sinking ship and is putting through a rule change that will block any other rule changes from taking place before 2020, making it almost impossible for there to be a revolt at the convention. That’s awesome news. The GOP created Trump, now they can live with the electoral consequences.
It sounds like all GOP hopes are dashed. Supposedly the email issue is over as far as the FBI is concerned. No charges to be filed.
There was never an expectation that charges would be recommended or filed — the fix is in.