Hillary Clinton

Possibly most hated woman by Republicans admonished for acknowledging that they hate her. Okay.

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Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

sleeping with the enemy
Why do you have to be so strident about this, Julia? Calling him your “enemy” is so divisive!

At the end of last week’s Democratic debate, Anderson Cooper asked the candidates the following question (link autoplays):

“You’ve all made a few people upset over your political careers. Which enemy are you most proud of?”

Note that “enemy” was Cooper’s word choice. Here’s how all of them answered:

Lincoln Chafee: I guess the coal lobby. I’ve worked hard for climate change and I want to work with the coal lobby. But in my time in the Senate, tried to bring them to the table so that we could address carbon dioxide. I’m proud to be at odds with the coal lobby.

Martin O’Malley: The National Rifle Association.

Hillary Clinton: Well, in addition to the NRA, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the Iranians. Probably the Republicans.

Bernie Sanders: As someone who has taken on probably every special interest that there is in Washington, I would lump Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry at the top of my life of people who do not like me.

Jim Webb: I’d have to say the enemy soldier that threw the grenade that wounded me, but he’s not around right now to talk to.

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Feminism, Socialism, Hillary, & Bernie

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World leaders when the men are photoshopped out of the picture.
An Islamic leader infamously had German Chancellor Angela Merkel Photoshopped out of a group photo of world leaders because she was not wearing a veil. Here is a group photo with male world leaders Photoshopped out of the picture. This is the problem.

While many American progressives swoon over Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders’ laundry list of economic reforms– like free college education, taxing the rich, and redistributing the wealth– others support the progressive woman candidate, who has been leading in the polls for months.

Baby Boomer feminists like myself have been fighting for equality and punching through the glass ceiling of sexism our entire working lives. Hillary Clinton is one of us. She is poised to punch through the thickest glass ceiling in the world– the US presidency.

1960s

In the 1960s, when I was in the eighth grade, I told my guidance counselor that I wanted to go to college. He asked why– since girls really didn’t need to go to college. He finally acquiesced and ask, “So, do you want to be a teacher or a nurse? Those are the only professions for which women need a college degree.”

1970s

In the 1970s, I sued an employer for wage discrimination and won, but…

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Who Won the Dem Debate? Hillary Clinton!

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Democratic Party debate.
Democratic Party debate.

I’m a progressive, but I’m a progressive who likes to get things done. I know how to find common ground, but I know how to stand my ground.
— Hillary Clinton, October 13, 2015

The Democratic Party had its first presidential debate on Tuesday night. If you have to ask who won, you didn’t watch it. In my opinion, there was no contest. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won, hands down. She was poised under fire and smart in her answers. Obviously, the most prepared candidate– which comes with having more experience than anyone else on stage– Clinton took a bashing from CNN moderator Anderson Cooper and pot shots from a few others, but she came out on top.

Yesterday, the “who won?” buzz was all over social media. Senator Bernie Sanders raised a pile of money overnight after the debate, and a few focus groups and unscientific online polls said Sanders won the debate. In my opinion, Sanders stuck to his talking points (which I agree with), but the debate was a good chance to go bold. The only time he went bold, in my opinion, was when he said he would “vote for” legalization of marijuana if it were on the ballot. On legalization, Clinton said, let’s watch the states that have legalized marijuana, like Colorado, and learn from them. (I’m for legalization, but I’m OK with her statement. Thomas Jefferson said the states would be the incubators for democracy– trying out new ideas. I don’t want federal interference in state marijuana laws– as Governor Chris Christie has vowed to do if elected.) Clinton did go bold on gun control and said, it’s time we stood up to the NRA. Hallelujah! I have never heard such a strong gun control statement from any politician. (Unfortunately none of the mainstream media picked up on these other debate tidbits, since they are still focused on “your damn emails”.)

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Will the first Democratic debate be boring? No.

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Tonight’s Democratic debate, held at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, has been pronounced in advance to be a snoozefest, as it will likely be heavy on policy and light (to nonexistent) on the exciting personal attacks and stupefyingly dumb and/or dishonest statements we’ve grown to expect from the GOP debates. And though Hillary Clinton is said to be going in with “high expectations” (heard that phrase a lot from the cable pundits this morning), they have already declared her the loser. She will perhaps commit a terrible, campaign-derailing gaffe or she will be flawless but boring by talking about policy too much. Or she’ll try to connect with the audience emotionally and that will be characterized as insincere. Or whatever. It’s been decided amongst the pundit class that Hillary Clinton cannot win.

It’s often jarring how policy-averse some of the most prominent people covering Presidential campaigns can be. I first really noticed it in 2000, when the MSM had grand, giggly lark focusing on Al Gore’s “stiffness” and supposed exaggerations, while contrasting that with George W. Bush’s alleged affability and ease around people (especially reporters). Policy discussions were treated as an annoying obstacle to the theater and costume criticism, as we can see in Evgenia Peretz’s 2007 Vanity Fair recollection of how Al and Tipper Gore were savaged by the media in the 2000 campaign.

Perhaps reporting in this vein was just too gratifying to the press for it to stop. As Time magazine’s Margaret Carlson admitted to Don Imus at the time, “You can actually disprove some of what Bush is saying if you really get into the weeds and get out your calculator, or look at his record in Texas. But it’s really easy, and it’s fun to disprove Al Gore. As sport, and as our enterprise, Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining to us.”

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There’s nothing enthralling, or new, about Carly Fiorina’s funhouse mirror “feminism”

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Coulter Schlafly

Perhaps the most disheartening aspect of the last GOP presidential debate was following it on Twitter and seeing feminists I respect declare Carly Fiorina the “winner” and express admiration of her fierceness and command of information (bad information but, whatever, I guess). While I do agree that Fiorina handled the question about Donald Trump’s buffoonish comment about her face deftly, I had to shake my head at tweets by feminist academics lavishing praise on her performance when these same feminist academics would fail a freshman student for dissembling as much as Fiorina did. Being a glib liar, and especially about things that tremendously affect vulnerable women (like Planned Parenthood) is not worthy of anything but contempt. And it’s not remarkable either but some feminists continue to be “enthralled” by Carly Fiorina even as they are (rightly) alarmed about how anti-women many of her stances are.

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