Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Mark Twain is credited with popularizing the saying, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” I wonder under what category of lies Twain would lump Donald Trump's lies. I imagine he'd have to come up with a whole new "genre" to accommodate Trump's epic litany of fabrications, frauds, fakery, and phantasmagoria.

Republicans have been surprisingly successful painting Hillary Clinton as “a liar,” while turning a blind eye to their candidate’s bizarre travels through fantasy land. I've asked myself, "Why?" and I've decided it's because no one really expects Donald Trump to tell the truth. Apparently Trump equates being truthful with being "political correct," and we know well what he thinks about political correctness.

Let’s be honest, for a change, Hillary Clinton has lied. But to paraphrase Yogi Berra, half the lies they tell about Clinton lying aren’t true. Where she has bent the truth, she’s admitted it; awkwardly perhaps, e.g., “I short-circuited,” but she’s come clean. Not Donald Trump. He lies and then doubles down, belittling whoever has the temerity to challenge him.

What’s worse, Donald Trump lies to bamboozle, to swindle, to cheat. Often, the people he’s victimized are society’s most vulnerable — people down on their luck striving to get ahead, small businessmen working 80-hour weeks to build an enterprise.

Donald Trump is one of those people the writer Jose’ N Harris was talking about when he wrote, “Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak.”

A week or so ago, Hillary Clinton said one "could be grossly generalistic" and put half of Donald Trump’s supporters in a “basket of deplorables,” people driven by “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic" sentiments. She later walked that back a little -- maybe it wasn't half.

At the risk of being politically incorrect myself, I say it could be at least half if we add the lazy, ignorant, and weak-kneed people who make up another large segment of what is certainly a deplorable "basket" of the American voting public.

Donald Trump is a horrible person, and is grossly unqualified to be president. He is, as former Defense Secretary Bob Gates recently said, “willfully ignorant about the rest of the world, about our military and its capabilities, and about government itself.” But what's truly distressing to me is that so many Americans support him. I thought we were collectively better than that. Where the hell have I been all these years?

Grifters and Third Party Runs for the Presidency

by Jon Phillips*

No third Party candidate has ever won a US POTUS election except George Washington (he ran as a non-partisan Independent and won by a massive landslide as the Greatest Hero of the new Nation -- his opponent may have voted for him.

A so-called realignment election has only occurred once in history when the Republican (GOP) came into existence in 1856. The GOP supplanted the withering Whig Party, but lost the general election to the Democrats. In the next cycle, Lincoln was elected as the first Republican President and the Whig Party vanished into history. Nearly immediately, the Civil War began in response to Lincoln's progressive platform. Republicans were progressive and Democrats were conservative from 1856 to roughly 1930.

Then the great swap began that reversed the Party' positions, completing during the Civil Rights era in the 1960s. A second realignment election almost occurred in 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt, running as a "Progressive Party" candidate, challenged Big Bill Taft (R) and Woodrow Wilson (D). Although he beat Taft soundly, Wilson still won the election by plurality putting an unpopular President in the White House (he became more popular thereafter). The new "Bull Moose" or "Progressive" Party faded away quickly after the defeat and estrangement of Roosevelt from the GOP. The GOP bounced back and remains to this day.

Some context about that fractious 1912 race, that entirely split the Republicans, is quite instructive given today's circumstances. Theodore Roosevelt was arguably the most popular POTUS in US history, other than George Washington up to that point (and likely to this day).

Roosevelt bolted the GOP after feeling disenfranchised by his own Party's nominating process (there was rampant corruption in the nomination process a century ago that would make electioneering hijinks today look like a microbe). When he won every open primary voting State and lost every closed caucus State, TR declared that the GOP was corrupted and trying to steal the nomination. It was rather blatant given the lack of transparency in the caucuses back then -- his defeat of Taft demonstrated that the nomination process was entirely corrupted, it was not a conspiracy theory.

Recall that a mere 4 years earlier, TR had voluntarily not run for a third consecutive term as a matter of principle -- he had campaigned for Taft but felt his policies were betrayed during Taft's Administration. TR ran as an Independent and crushed Taft -- the second time a third Party candidate displaced one of the main Party nominees from the top two. Woodrow Wilson won by plurality and the Democrats took the WH.

The historical lesson is that even the second most popular politician in American history, tested as a two-term President, a Vice President, Governor of NY State, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Political Appointee to the Civil Service Commission (under both Parties), President of the NYC Police Commissioners, promoter of the "Muckrakers," Dakota cowboy and ranch owner, writer of a huge pile of scientific literature on natural history and military history and strategy (a scholar), war hero (he quit his political career to join the military when the Spanish American War broke out -- he led the famed "Rough Riders" Calvary Unit composed of many cowboys that he knew from the Dakotas), a brilliant orator, adventurer and explorer.

Even this person, who was a household name, an American legend in his own time, could not win a third Party run, even though he survived an assassination attempt while on the campaign trail. He was shot at point blank range in the chest, but his folded up stump speech and eye glasses case slowed the bullet down enough to keep it from puncturing his lung. The press went wild. America's hero has taken a bullet in the chest and simply stood back up and said, "Strong as a bull moose," and walked off stage. Now that's Presidential behavior! The history reads like some astonishing novel -- like the basis of a Greek myth.

So... what's the probability that largely unknowns have any chance of getting more than a few percent of the vote? ZERO! I know that's a tough history lesson to accept, but unfortunately, it's entirely true so don't fall for it. Have personal fortitude to accept reality and understand that third party voting for a President is what "useful fools" do in our electoral process.

If you look closely, what third party candidates do today is what they did back then. They put unpopular people in the WH by splitting popular sentiment. It's not hard to find examples since the list is reasonably long. This is particularly true when the margin of popular sentiment is less than 5%.

A glaring recent example is that Al Gore wasn't beaten by Dubya Bush, he was beaten by idealists (useful fools) who "voted their conscience" when they voted for Ralph Nader -- a left wing challenger. Nader picked up 2% and that was enough to put Dubya over the top. Dubya lost the national popular vote, but his contested win in Florida by a little over 100 votes, gave him Florida's winner take all Electoral College vote, and he won the Presidency.

The man was a fool and created a foreign policy disaster that killed thousands of Americans, wounded tens of thousands, and exploded the deficit by simultaneously expanding entitlement benefits (for a GOP constituency) and starting two wars (one unjustified), while massively cutting taxes. He destroyed our reputation overseas and it's taken 8 years to make headway against all the damage he did to our foreign policy. Trump is ten times the fool that Dubya was and entirely unqualified to be President having never held any elected office. He's a crooked realtor for God's sake!

The right wing media spin and smear machine (both sides have one) is simultaneously promoting a two-pronged approach: 1) a false equivalence campaign, linked to 2) encouraging undecideds to either not vote, or to vote third party. Why?

Donald Trump is an obvious disaster and a clear and present danger to the country, but culture warriors and right wing (vs center right) conservatives would rather the country take that risk (falsely believing they can control Trump's idiotic behavior) than risk Hillary making court appointments that could have decades of impact on their anti-progressive agenda. They're also trying to limit or destroy any coattails Hillary may have down-ballot in the event that she wins. They hate the Donald, but he's their narcissistic dangerous idiot since they nominated him. What to do?

Well...hmmm. Hillary has this amazing superpower of projecting unlikability (whatever that is) and elitism on TV. It's like some kind of intrinsic property that seems to ooze from her pores. Her impressive resume seems unable to paint over it -- it just keeps seeping through. The right wing spin meisters figure they can hold show trials and witch hunts, at taxpayer expense if possible, even though they have always ended in smoke but never fire, and then they can blow that smoke up the public's arshole by combining it with consistent messaging using words like "liar, liar, pantsuit and cankles on fire!" Heck, they've got a long lead on this since they've been pursing this strategy since the 90's (and before).

They've got her type cast like an old-time Hollywood actress. They've worked with diligence to turn Hillary's media persona into the Jungian archetypes of the "devil" and the "trickster" rather than the "wise old woman" or "hero", and her lack of "photogenics" and so-called "shrill voice" play right into their strategy. Let's be fair, her voice isn't really shrill, she's an alto and it's quite strong, rather than soprano and wispy. The real issue is that she's assertive and she tends to speak in active voice using imperatives, like men in leadership typically do -- this is a challenge to misogynists who don't like women who make demands and presume to be "uppity".

Then all they have to do to exploit this "dislike" campaign they've been fertilizing with BS for decades, is to constantly compare her to the Donald as somehow basically being equal choices: both are "horrible" or "bad and worse", depending on the audience. This is the false equivalence campaign that they're executing this with amazingly powerful effectiveness and coordination. They've leveraged TV and media messaging into millions of people parroting this like robots. They've even dispatched additional FOX News-like "fembots" as spokespersons to try and blunt expected losses among women, while boosting the misogynistic voters, who get turned on by the sight of dangerous and dominant "beauties" (sort of a lite-weight version of bikini-clad super models with machine guns).

How does this help their cause? Well, the Donald is loved only by a minority (sizable, which is scary) of potential voters with a statistical center that's populist, bigoted, anti-establishment, under educated, angry, white, male, older, can be motivated by flimsy culture war arguments, can overlook blatant lying and exaggeration when done by orange men with terrible hair and small hands, like to watch dominatrix films in private -- fill in other ugly descriptors here. In a big country, that's a lot of people that are very energized by fear, hate and anger, but far from enough to win the general election. Those voters won't abandon Trump no matter what outrageous thing he says. Like he said, "I love the uneducated" and "I could shoot someone on 5th Ave and not lose support." Given his cult following, how is the GOP to make up the deficit? Two ways...

First, encourage discouraged people not to vote. Second, encourage other discouraged people to vote third party. Trump "owns" his base (this is a unique sort of right-wing populist base, not the traditional GOP base). Hillary's base is broad and fractious and is much less tightly bound to their nominee (Hillary's personality cult is incredibly small and Donald's is comparably "Yuuuge" -- that's all he's really got in those tiny grasping orange hands). The media based spin and smear campaign being executed by the right, as described above, is partly aimed at the centrists and leftists in Hillary's base, in addition to maintaining the right wing base by "identifying their common enemy" through the process of "branding" that I described above. Discouraging people from voting by saying that both candidates are horrible or bad and worse, removes more voters from Hillary than from Trump (he benefits) since her base is less tightly bound to her.

Encouraging third party voting benefits Trump as well. Why? Because the only two very modestly visible third party runs include the Green Party (the decidedly leftist party of Ralph Nader) and a Libertarian ticket that is sort of center right with a few liberal elements in the social agenda. Any vote for the Green Party is one less vote for Hillary (this is obvious since they're a left wing challenge, just like Nader was to Al Gore when Nader helped the Republicans secure the Presidency by trimming the Democrat's polls from the left).

More of the votes for the center right Libertarians remove votes from Hillary because she's making a huge effort to "capture the middle" and because of their few liberal positions. Moreover, many of the people in the middle are former or disenfranchised establishment Republicans (that have been relabeled RINOs by the new populist "Freedom Caucus") who can't yet bring themselves to jump ship and vote for their traditional "enemy." This also slightly helps or is at worst neutral for Trump -- several polls have been performed that demonstrate this effect in the range of a couple percent or so.

It's sad, but this is both deeply cynical AND true AND nothing new. That there has been no reform of the electoral process to require top two runoffs in the absence of a popular simple majority for a single candidate (50%+ for a single candidate) is clear evidence that both of the main Parties are happy to game elections this way and like to keep the option open to overturn popular national sentiment through third party challenges that split the popular side. This is a power game the main Parties regularly play and the country suffers for it.

Third Parties should have sufficient ethics to see this game is being played and to constantly call for electoral reform so that they're not "being used" to spoil their own stated agendas. If it looks like they cannot get near the top of the ballot, they ought to bow out and lend their votes to the party with nearest interest (this is why coalition parliamentary government has some advantages). I figure they must be highly ideological, ambitious or an intentional foil to continue forward under current circumstances.

Theodore Roosevelt made the reasonable wager that if anyone could overturn main party dominance, it would be the most popular and well-loved president up to that point (not including George Washington, who was atypical). Even he was wrong and that lesson has already been painfully learned, historically speaking. Unfortunately, the voting public has a statistically significant portion that seems incapable of learning from history and they get used and the country gets abused over and over by flimflam artists in both Parties.

Just say "we won't be fooled again!" hold your nose if you must, and vote for Hillary Clinton. The only way to fix the right wing is to send them packing in a big and undeniable way.
_________________________________
Jon Phillips is a Senior Nuclear Technology Expert at the International Atomic Energy Agency and Director, Sustainable Nuclear Power Initiative at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The opinions expressed here are his own.

The NRA is Rallying its Members

The NRA is rallying its members to vote against Clinton and Kaine, because both favor sensible gun control measures. Something the NRA has fought no matter what. As long as they can continue to hold the Republican-led congress hostage, they will get their way. And their members are single issue voters.

What's going to motivate your vote; narrowing the wealth/income gap, strengthening Dodd-Frank, getting big money and dark money out of politics, reducing student debt, filling vacancies in the Federal and Supreme Courts, women's rights, LGTB+ rights, climate change -- any number of things, probably. Some of you may decide your vote on the basis of your anger over what you see as an unfair Democratic nominee selection process.

In the meantime, NRA members are going to vote for the candidates that get their "A" Grade on the issue of the 2nd Amendment. The NRA and their members know what motivates them, and it isn't any of your progressive values, and it isn't dead or wounded Americans. They don't give two hoots in hell about your values or your hurt feelings. They care about their guns.

Breakfast with Bill

SagePort Grille on Columbia Park Drive in Richland, Washington

I had breakfast at the SagePort Grille with my friend Bill (not his real name) this morning. We meet for breakfast once every week or two, usually here, but sometimes at the Village Bistro (formerly Deli), occasionally at IHOP, once at Country Gentleman. We vary our breakfast destination because I believe in diversity and wealth distribution, and because he thinks it's better in avoiding ambushes.

I had the Huevos Rancheros; two corn tortillas, covered with refried beans, two poached eggs, covered with salsa and cheese. My friend had bacon and eggs over medium, with hash-browns and sourdough toast.

We talked a little about our various maladies; his rotator cuff injury, my ruptured disk, then segued smoothly into politics.

"So I suppose you're not playing any golf," Bill said.

"Nope. Can't twist my back that violently."

"So what are you doing all day, trying to get the democrats organized?"

Bill got a sour expression on his face when he said "democrats." Probably put too much salt on his eggs, I thought.

"I'm writing letters to the editor, and keeping up my blog," I said.

"About what?" Bill said, frowning.

"About electing democrats," I said.

"Don't you have anything better to do," he said, pushing his plate away, and starting on his toast.

"I suppose you're voting for Donald Trump," I said.

Bill wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "That jerk," he said. "You know Hillary Clinton is corrupt," he added, tearing a bite out his toast like it was Hillary's ear.

"How so?" I said.

"How so,?!" Bill said, his voice rising, which is already loud, because we're both hearing impaired, or as Bill would say, 'deaf as doornails.'

"In what way is she corrupt?" I said.

I was having Bill on in a way, because I've heard all this before, and not just from him, but  from others, who have been convinced by the long-running Republican propaganda campaign that Hillary Clinton is a liar and corrupt. I wrote about this in an earlier blog titled 'Swiftboating Hillary Clinton.' As I wrote then, Swiftboating is a coordinated smear campaign waged on uncorroborated allegations so damning and ostensibly widespread that the public is disinclined to give the target the benefit of the doubt.

Certainly my friend, Bill, is so inclined -- to not be inclined that is. He knows in his bones that Hillary Clinton is corrupt. Hey, all that bone pain can't be just age-related arthritis.

"So, you don't think Clinton accepting millions of dollars for giving a talk to Goldman Sachs is corrupting?" Bill said.

"Well, it was actually less than one million dollars, for three speeches, after she'd already left office, and no, I don't think you can assume there was any quid pro quo involved."

Bill cocked his head to the side and smirked. "Will you at least admit that it's a conflict of interest?" He said.

"I'll admit that you perceive it as a conflict of interest," I said. "And a lot of Americans feel the same way, including me. But the fact is, the Supreme Court has ruled that buying political influence is just free speech by other means."

"So you think it's all right to bribe government officials?" Bill said.

"I didn't say that. And you have no evidence of a bribe. And as I said, Clinton was not in office."

A waitress came over with a pot of coffee and topped off my cup.

"You're not our gal," Bill said to the waitress.

"Here I am," another waitress said, topping off Bill's cup with the decaf he'd ordered.

Bill looked at the two waitresses and said, "I don't know if I can handle two of you. I'm not as young as I used to be."

Bill watched the waitresses leave our table, and then turning back to me said, "Bill and Hillary Clinton are ethically challenged."

"Well, I'll give you Bill," I said.

"She stayed with him," Bill said.

"I thought you evangelicals opposed divorce," I said.

"We'd make an exception for that sleaze-ball," he said. "Anyway, there's always some scandal coming out about the two of them."

"That's true," I said. "But they tend to be the same so-called scandals resurfacing at different times in the guise of new revelations. When nothing is ever proved, they germinate into conspiracy theories."

"Where there's smoke..." Bill said.

"Yeah, where there's smoke, there's a smoke machine, and it's called the RNC." I pushed away my half finished Huevos and took a gulp of coffee.

"You understand that Hillary Clinton has been convicted of nothing, right?," I said. "Nada. Not even an indictment."

"She'll be indicted over her emails," Bill said.

"Not likely," I said. "Other government officials, like Colin Powell, used personal email for government business. Condoleezza Rice staffers used personal email. As in the case of Hillary Clinton, those emails were later classified. You can't convict someone of, quote-unquote, mishandling classified information that wasn't classified at the time."

"Well, she used bad judgment," Bill said.

"Granted," I said.

Bill and I, despite having different tastes in breakfast, always manage to find common ground.

Benghazi was a CIA Operation

"The committee’s work is mostly about beating up a political adversary and not at all about advancing the security of American diplomats abroad." (Larry Hancock, 10/23/15)*

State Department's Special Diplomatic Mission Facility (upper left corner) was not a "consulate." It was cover for the CIA operation housed in the "Annex" (lower right corner).

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), then under Director David Patraeus, was carrying out a clandestine operation in Benghazi, Libya, operating from facility in the Benghazi compound that was simply known as the “Annex.” The "Benghazi mission" was primarily an intelligence operation and most the U.S. officials there and at the nearby annex were CIA officers who used State Department cover.

According to Michael Morell, former Deputy Director of the CIA, the State Department facility in Benghazi has been widely mischaracterized as a US consulate. In fact it was a Temporary Mission Facility (TMF), a presence that was not continuously staffed by senior personnel and that was never given formal diplomatic status by the Libyan government.

Some two dozen CIA case officers, analysts, translators and special staff were a part of this operation and its security was provided by CIA Global Response Staff (GRS), who had entered the country under diplomatic cover (Hancock, 10/23/15).

CIA Benghazi "Annex"

According to an article in the New York Times, the CIA’s mission included arms interdiction — attempting to stop the flow of Soviet-era weapons to Central Africa — and very possibly the organization of Libyan arms shipments to vetted insurgent groups on the ground in Syria, something Michael Morell disputes.

There is also evidence that the mission was working in concert with military personnel from the Joint Special Operations Group Trans-Sahara. At the time of the attack, an unarmed American surveillance drone was in flight over the territory east of Benghazi and Trans-Sahara military personnel were stationed in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

The top-secret presence and location of the CIA outpost was first acknowledged by Charlene Lamb, a top official in the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, during Congressional testimony in October. Representatives Jason Chaffetz and Darrell Issa immediately called a point of order when Lamb exposed the location of the annex, and asked for the revelation to be stricken from the record. “I totally object to the use of that photo,” Chaffetz. said. “I was told specifically while I was in Libya I could not and should not ever talk about what you’re showing here today” (Michael B Kelley and Geoffery Ingersoll, 8/3/13).

In contrast, the State Department’s special diplomatic mission facility, classified as “temporary,” was minimally staffed with a rotating series of State Department officers sent to and from Tripoli.

US Ambassador Christopher Stevens had not been in Benghazi for a year. When he arrived for a short stay in September 2012, only a single diplomatic officer was present there, and that officer rotated back to Tripoli upon the ambassador’s arrival. Stevens was accompanied by a communications officer and a handful of Diplomatic Service Security staff. The security personnel provided protection for the ambassador during his travels and meetings in the city. His presence was intended to be extremely low key, but it was exposed in the local media shortly after his arrival (Hancock, 10/23/15).

Larry Hancock has written that "asking Clinton to justify maintaining the State Department temporary mission in the face of a worsening security situation is fruitless, given its actual function as a clandestine national security mission cover." Furthermore, "querying Clinton about her involvement in the immediate response to the attacks is also pointless. The Secretary of State has no legal or operational role in a military response to a diplomatic facility attack. Only National Command Authority (president/secretary of defense) can order a foreign military intervention" (Hancock, 10/23/15).

Hancock has concluded that, "the committee’s work is mostly about beating up a political adversary and not at all about advancing the security of American diplomats abroad."

---

*Larry Hancock conducts investigative and historical research in the areas of intelligence and national security. He has studied Benghazi in regard to both its covert aspects and the issues it raises for diplomatic security. That work is published in Shadow Warfare, A History of America’s Undeclared Wars (Counterpoint, 2014) and his most recently published book, Surprise Attack, from Pearl Harbor to 9/11 to Benghazi (Counterpoint, Sept. 2015).

The Lesser of Two Evils?

It’s no secret that the GOP was stunned by the meteoric rise of the demagogue Donald Trump and his emergence as their presumptive nominee for president. Their surprise is symptomatic of how tone deaf they’ve been to their own xenophobic, anti-science, anti-government rhetoric.

Like Doctor Frankenstein, the Republicans created a monster, but unlike the good doctor, the Republicans created their horrible creature with malice aforethought, working hard at the only thing they worked hard at, which was to convince the American people that all their woes were government’s fault, somehow forgetting that they were part of government.

While they scramble to prepare Trump for his Cleveland coronation, Republicans are peddling the fiction that this 2016 Presidential Election is about selecting between the lesser of two evils. In this way, they hope to depress the vote and limit the collateral damage Trump’s candidacy does to the GOP down ballot.

Don’t fall for it. Hillary Clinton may not be your cup of tea, but she is in no sense evil. On the contrary, she has been working for social justice her entire adult life. As far as evil goes, Clinton can’t hold a candle to Trump, although someone should.

Forget Donald Trump -- Let's Talk About Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump at Rally Mocking Reporter with Disability

Sure, Donald Trump is a jerk — an odious person woefully unqualified by knowledge, temperament, or character to be president. Still, a lot of people support him. They do so for various reasons, none good in my opinion, but that’s another discussion. I want to address one of those reasons; their dislike, and for some, even visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton. For these people, Trump is the lesser of two evils. They are not so much voting for Trump as against Clinton.

Now to be clear, not all Republicans are voting against Clinton because they hate or dislike her. Many are voting against her for ideological reasons. They don't want to see a Democrat in the White House; one who could potentially change the ideological character of the U.S. Supreme Court. So even though they may admit that Donald Trump would be dangerous as the leader of the most powerful country in the world, they are willing to risk "destroying the world in order to save it," to paraphrase an infamous U.S. officer's explanation for the almost total destruction of Bến Tre, during the Vietnam War.

I’m not going to bother addressing the people who hate Clinton. Hate is not something you reason with, but something from which you distance yourself. So let's talk about why people dislike Hillary Clinton so much they're either planning not to vote, or, as one of my Republican friends said, "I'm holding my nose and voting for Trump."

There are quite a few reasons given for disliking Hillary Clinton, but in my view they boil down to the following:

(1) Hillary Clinton is not a "real progressive." She’s too cozy with Wall Street; she's taken campaign contributions from PACs; Charles Koch of the ultra-evil Koch Brothers endorsed her (he didn't); she's "hawkish;" and last but not least, she's not Bernie Sanders.

(2) Hillary Clinton is untrustworthy — in Republican speak, she's a “liar.”

Not a Real Progressive

On being "progressive" in a political sense, my bet is that most Americans have their own ideas about what that means. The Nation, in a recent article co-authored by four historians, provides an historical perspective on what "progressive" meant throughout our modern political history. Some of what they write makes for uncomfortable reading for those of us who see racial and religious tolerance as part of the progressive credo.

For some, the label "Progressive" was a substitute for "Liberal," which declined in popular usage among democrats due to Republican success in preceding the label with, "bleeding heart," and conflating it with leftist, socialist, and communist. We democrats can be so thin-skinned, and Republicans are undeniably good at labeling people and groups, as presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump has illustrated in his attacks on other Republican candidates, on ethnic or religious groups, on Hillary Clinton, and on women in general.

The fact that Hillary Clinton has accepted campaign donations from Wall Street firms, and made paid speeches to Wall Street firms, does not make her less progressive than Bernie Sanders. Policy positions and votes on policies across a spectrum of issues determine one's position on the ideological spectrum. Clinton and Sanders have differences -- mostly I think in what each believes can be accomplished, when -- but while in the Senate together, Clinton and Sanders voted the same way 93% of the time.

It should also be noted that accepting donations from outside entities, whether they be Wall Street firms or Emily's List, proves nothing nefarious about Clinton's relationship with any of the contributors to her campaign. If accepting money from Wall Street and big business generally were illegal (and I wish it were), almost everyone in politics would be in jail (not just former Illinois governors).

Now it's true that Hillary Clinton is not going to lead a socialist revolution. I’m good with that, although I’d love to see big money out of politics, and tax policies that narrow the income/wealth gap, as Bernie Sanders (who once again, she's not) has demanded. I believe Clinton can get done what she proposes. I can’t say the same for Bernie (has he somehow missed the Republican Obstructionist Era?).

The best evidence for Hillary Clinton’s values can be found in her upbringing and in her faith. Clinton was raised a Methodist and remains a devout Methodist. As a result she is an activist for social justice, and as such she believes in the dictum of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church;

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

Hillary Clinton holding her 1997 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album for an audio recording of her book, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us.

Untrustworthy

Republicans have been painting Hillary Clinton as untrustworthy for decades, including before she was in public office. They’ve turned rumor and innuendo into “scandal” and made a science of anti-Hillary urban myth, creating from it a virtual cottage industry, selling: she’s a crook, she’s a liar, and she’s a flip-flopper.

Let’s be clear, Secretary Clinton has been convicted of absolutely nothing. Unlike Richard Nixon, she can declare, “I am not a crook,” and the evidence would support her. Republicans have tried every which way to convict her of something, and have failed  — no indictments, let alone convictions. When the FBI finishes their investigation of Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified information, Republicans will be disappointed once again.

The details on Secretary Clinton’s handling of email emerged from the shameful Republican circus over Benghazi. The Benghazi Committee’s investigation alone has cost taxpayers some seven million dollars and counting (a combined $22 million has been spent by various committees). Republicans, acting as a tax payer-funded “Super PAC,” have managed to transmogrify a tragic event into a “Secretary Clinton lied about what caused the attack.” Objective research into the immediate aftermath of the attack shows she did no such thing.

When all else fails, the Republican mud machine splashes up the video of Secretary Clinton NOT under sniper fire when landing in Bosnia in 1996, although she said she was when giving a talk about the incident more than a decade later, in 2008. A week after her statement she admitted she misspoke.

Fortunately, for those of us who care about substance, hundreds of thousands of people did not die as a result of this embellishment by Clinton. That happened five years earlier as a result of lies George W. Bush told that led us to invade Iraq (notice I am not souring this, because we all know the story so well, even those of us unwilling to acknowldge it).

I might also remind my memory-challenged Republican friends that Ronald Reagan, in his “awe shucks,” folksy way, was a pretty darned good liar. He ultimately admitted his lie about not selling arms to the Iranian government and using the profit to fund Nicaraguan terrorists, but only under the threat of impeachment. He never did fess up to fabricating his tale about personally shooting footage of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. Reagan spent the war in Culver City, California, where he processed footage from the liberation of the camps. But so what? As with Clinton, no one died as a result of Reagan’s little embellishment.

Finally, let’s talk about how Hillary Clinton has changed her mind on everything from free trade to gay marriage, once again in Republican parlance, she’s flip-flopped. Well, let’s be clear, changing one’s mind does not constitute “lying.” If it did, we’d either all be liars or catatonic.

Hillary Clinton’s shifting views on some things — free trade for example — can largely be attributed to her circumstances at the time. When her husband, then President Bill Clinton brokered the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) she spoke in favor of it. When she was a member of the Obama Administration and Obama was floating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Clinton was a loyal soldier supporting her boss, and his “pivot to Asia.”

Clinton backed away from NAFTA when she campaigned for senator for New York, because upper state New York was losing manufacturing jobs and “free trade” was not a popular concept with unions. It still isn’t, and in her current campaign she’s also changed her tune on the TPP. Her shifting support on these policies makes her a politician, not a liar. Sometimes circumstances change and deals have to be cut; “Read my lips; no new taxes!”

As far as gay marriage goes, I’ll give Hillary Clinton the benefit of the doubt and believe her when she says her views have evolved; along with the rest of America’s I might add.

The real questions are, what are Hillary Clinton’s core values, do you as a voter share those values, and if she’s elected president, can you trust Clinton to follow through and transform those values into policies?

Least I end this short defense of Secretary Clinton against “the slings and arrows” of her detractors without admitting her faults, I will admit that Hillary Clinton has said some things that are cringe-worthy. Clinton is no saint. But she is also not a terminally ill lesbian, who murdered Vince Foster and plotted to have the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrate the CIA.

The most saintly person I know who actually served as President of the United States was Jimmy Carter — a man I greatly admire. He has been ranked 7th among 44 presidents on integrity. Overall, he’s ranked 32nd.

Swiftboating Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton should have been ready for the sort of targeted, coordinated smear campaign that sunk John Kerry's presidential aspirations in 2004. But it's not clear she was fully prepared for the barrage of mud that unlimited political money could sling. "Swiftboating" has never been so fully funded and carefully crafted as it is today in the project to bring down the Democratic Party's leading contender for the 2016 Presidential nomination.

To put it simply, "swiftboating" is turning some one's positives into negatives through a coordinated campaign of rumor and innuendo. The political technique was honed in the 2004 election pitting John Kerry, a decorated war veteran, against George W. Bush, who used his father's connections as a congressman to get an appointment to the National Guard, and avoid duty in Vietnam. Kerry's campaign hoped to use this disparity in the two men's military service to Kerry's advantage in the election.

The so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), a 527 group funded by by Sam Fox, a billionaire and hardline rightwinger, denigrated Kerry's military service record and questioned the circumstances relating to the award of Kerry's combat medals. Their campaign of rumor and innuendo against Kerry received widespread publicity due to his presidential bid. Defenders of John Kerry's service record, including nearly all of his former crewmates, stated that SBVT's allegations were false. The SBVT campaign against Kerry was later discredited and gave rise to the neologism "swiftboating" to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. Of course by then, the damage had been done.

Swiftboating is not about the truth. It's a coordinated smear campaign waged on uncorroborated allegations so damning and ostensibly widespread the public is disinclined to give the target the benefit of the doubt. It includes posting unflattering photos of Mrs Clinton, like the altered photo to the right created by the radical right wing organization, "shtfplan.com." The swiftboat attack on Hillary Clinton aims at discrediting the key things Republicans think could boost her chances in 2016:

• Her remarkable educational accomplishments at Wellesley College and Yale Law School
• Her experience with the Rose Law Firm, where she became the first female full partner
• Experience as First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992
• Experience as First Lady during her husband's presidency from 1993 to 2001
  
• Experience in government as Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009 
• Her foreign policy experience, including her tenure as the 67th Secretary of State, 2009 to 2013
• Her part in founding and her work with the Clinton Foundation international programs

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Official Senate Portrait

It would take a few volumes to detail all the charges leveled at Hillary Clinton over her political lifetime. She is a remarkably intelligent woman, who has dedicated her life to public service. She is outspoken in asserting her beliefs and promoting her many causes. She can be blunt, gives as good as she gets, and can be demanding when the path forward is clear and people are not stepping up. In all this, she acts a lot like a man -- a smart man. Only she isn't a man, so one of the many charges about her character is that she's a "bitch." Well, Hillary can't hold a candle to Donald Trump when it comes to being rude and nasty, but she does have an edge. Whether she's a "bitch" or not is all in the eye of the person who's eye she spit in, but as Tina Fey said, "She is [a bitch]. And so am I. Bitches get stuff done."

The latest "bitch" charge against Hillary Clinton is that she was rude to her Secret Service detail. The charges seem to have their genesis in a "tell all" book by Ronald Kessler detailing the lives of various occupants of the White House. Parts of the book about Hillary Clinton have taken on a life of their own and become part of Internet Urban myth, even forcing Kessler to say the viral email's descriptions of Obama and Hillary Clinton, "are completely wrong."

Nevertheless, the swiftboat is trying to speed Hillary Clinton's character down the river, with poorly-sourced negative quotes and opinions being repeated in one right-wing outlet after another, and "contributors" to conservative media wielding their "journalistic" cudgels. Some of the many media outlets being used to disseminate the smear campaign include: Fox Nation, New York Post, Breitbart.com, Newsmax.com, and the always extreme right-wing reliable Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

The "bitch" charge against Hillary Clinton is a key thrust for the swiftboat campaign because it goes to neutralize her appeal as a woman, and possibly the first American woman president. But this attempt at character assassination is small potatoes compared to the coordinated attacks being carried out by the Republican Congress itself.

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The swiftboat campaign against Hillary Clinton is far more pervasive and insidious than the 2004 campaign against John Kerry, which was funded by wealthy Republican donors and carried out by a tax-exempt 527 group. But the U.S. Congress wasn't directly involved in the swiftboat campaign against Kerry, as it is against Hillary Clinton (although Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida, personally thanked the 527 group for "standing up against" Kerry). Republicans in congress have taken up their oar in the swiftboat attack by attempting to impugn Hillary Clinton's performance as America's 67th Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.

Congressman Trey Gowdy, Chair of the House Benghazi Committee

The House Select Committee on Benghazi is the 8th congressional investigation of the September 11, 2012, attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four people, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Unlike the amusing TV comedy series, Eight is Enough, the Republican 'made-for-TV' production is neither amusing (okay, sometimes it's amusing), nor any longer interesting -- all the questions (2780 to date) have long ago been asked and answered.

In addition to the 8 congressional investigations, there have been 32 congressional hearings, plus another 50 hearings, briefings, and/or interviews by the Department of Defense, and 11 published reports. This incident has been investigated more than the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the 1996 Khobar Tower bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and even the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Benghazi clusterfuck has gone on longer than the investigation of the Watergate scandal.

Despite its best efforts, including plowing through all of Hillary Clinton's emails, the Republicans have come up with nothing substantive to pin on the former Secretary of State, or for that matter, the Administration. The best they can do is to complain that in the immediate aftermath of the attacks National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, implied the motivation for the attackers was an anti-Muslim video. Her information was based on an assessment provided by the Intelligence Community that also went to congress. Despite this, Republican Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chairs the far right, House 'Freedom Caucus,' said, "You could live with a protest about a video, that won't hurt you, but a terror attack...Americans could accept, reluctantly, compatriots being killed abroad, but what they can't live with is when their government is not square with them." The irony of this petulantly delivered statement seemed to escape Congressman Jordan.

Republicans believe the confusion over who did what to whom for what reason at Benghazi was not due to the fog of war, but rather was a deliberate misinformation campaign designed to protect President Obama's reelection chances. The reasoning behind this charge is somewhat convoluted, but not for Republicans hellbent on finding something, anything, to hang on Clinton and Obama. Were it not for the fact that Republicans leaders in congress urged the Obama Administration to support the overthrow of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, they'd have laid the disintegration of the Libyan State solely at Clinton's feet.

If Republican Reps. Kevin McCarthy and Richard Hanna hadn't accidentally made it clear that the Benghazi investigation was designed to hurt Hillary Clinton politically — at a cost of nearly $5 million to American taxpayers -- rather than reveal anything new about the attack, then the debacle of Republican members of the so-called, 'Select Committee' on Benghazi grilling Clinton for some eleven hours has revealed it for what it is, a partisan attack on a person Republicans fear and hate. Their pontificating, long-winded statements in the place of questions, their petulance and aimless meandering were evidence of a hatchet job attempted with a wet noodle.

So, now that Benghazi has turned sour for Republican hit men, what's there next target? Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation?

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The Clinton Foundation is an international charitable organization established by former President of the United States Bill Clinton in 2001. Its mission is to "strengthen the capacity of people throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence."

The Foundation focuses on improving global health and wellness, increasing opportunity for women and girls, reducing childhood obesity and preventable diseases, creating economic opportunity and growth, and helping communities address the effects of climate change.

The Foundation is chartered as a nonprofit under 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. As such, it is not required to report its donors. However, in the interests of transparency, and unlike the hoard of right-wing “social welfare” organizations, who thrive on “dark money,”  it does. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Republicans have attacked the organization and Hillary Clinton for conflicts of interest, and for using the Foundation as a “slush fund” for her political aspirations. No hard evidence exists to support such charges.

Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina has charged that only 6% of the Foundation’s donations go to support charitable works. That’s patently false; 89% of donations support a wide array of charitable projects that have demonstrably improved the quality of life of some of the world’s poorest communities.

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Hillary Clinton is smart, very smart, and her intelligence and the fact that she’s self-assured and speaks her mind was and is a thorn in the side of conservatives who believe a woman’s place is in the home -- and they didn’t mean the White House!

Clinton was an outstanding student in high school, where she was a National Honor Society member. She was Senior Class president at Wellesley College, where she served as president of Wellesley Republican club, and where she was the first student speaker to address the graduating class. At Yale Law School she was a member of the board of editors, Yale Review of Law and Social Action, and graduated with honors. She did a year of post-graduate work at the Yale Child Study Center.

Early on, Clinton was active in young Republican groups and campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. She was inspired to work in some form of public service after hearing a speech in Chicago by Reverend Martin Luther King, and she found that her values were more in line with the Democratic Party. Subsequently, Republicans charged her with everything from communist sympathies to not being in tune with “family values.” The latter charge is especially ironic, since Hillary Clinton has been a champion of children and families her entire working life.

As First Lady of Arkansas for twelve years, Hillary Clinton chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital, Legal Services, and the Children's Defense Fund.

As First Lady of the United States after her husband’s election, Hillary Clinton led the Task Force on Health Care Reform, overseeing research, investigatory trips, financial reports, numerous committees composed of medical and insurance professionals, lawmakers and other government officials, public service leaders, and consumer rights advocates. Conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries successfully attacked the resulting healthcare plan, the “Health Security Act,” calling it "Hillarycare," and claiming it constituted government overreach, and/or socialized medicine. The act never came to a vote in the Senate or House. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton was seen by congressional Republicans and Democrats alike as “extremely knowledgable” about healthcare and a leader on the issue.

Hillary Clinton's resume reads like a prescription for president. In addition to her legal chops, she was engaged in substantive policy formulation as First Lady of Arkansas and the U.S., she was the first female senator from the state of New York, and she was U.S. Secretary of State, where according to the magazine, 'Foreign Affairs,' she "helped undo the damage that the habitual unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration had done to the global image of the United States."

Republicans have attacked her on every front, while sallying forth a bevy of candidates that are at best inferior and at worst, dangerous fools. A political party with even a modicum of self-awareness would be embarrassed.
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The money that funds a swiftboating campaign is almost always "dark money." The group doing the swiftboating is usually a 527, a tax-exempt organization that can raise unlimited amounts of soft money. These organizations may also be 501(c) organizations, including the infamous, "social welfare organizations" that the IRS went after recently for their too obvious relationship to the Tea Party and other "patriot" and "we the people" conservative causes.