Clinton plans Tuesday meetings with all Hill Democrats

[riversedge]

umm... wonder if Bernie will be there? He does caucus with the Democrats.


Clinton plans Tuesday meetings with all Hill Democrats http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/clinton-plans-tuesday-meetings-with-all-hill-democrats-119973.html … #uniteblue #p2
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Clinton plans Tuesday meetings with all Hill Democrats

By Lauren French

7/10/15 5:42 PM EDT


Hillary Clinton will meet with the entire House Democratic caucus on Tuesday.

The former secretary of state was slated to meet with minority lawmakers from the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Asian Pacific caucus but added another stop at the party’s weekly caucus meeting to her Washington swing.......

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/clinton-plans-tuesday-meetings-with-all-hill-democrats-119973.html#ixzz3fgG53gOF

[madokie]

1. Treading water is all that is

[roguevalley]

8. she wants to short circuit Sanders endorsements.

[LuvLoogie]

9. Bwaaaahhhaaahaaahh. She already has!

[roguevalley]

24. if you say so.

[LuvLoogie]

25. Ridiculous, right?

[Thinkingabout]

101. Which endorsements?

[MoonRiver]

2. Good

We need our candidate to have strong party support. Hillary is coalition building.

[oasis]

30. Congress folk will have access to Hillary once she's in.

She's laying down the groundwork.

[MoonRiver]

31. Yes, this is really excellent.

[artislife]

65. Are you sure it is coalition building or

is promises being made? Inquiring minds...and all that.

[MoonRiver]

66. I choose to take the high road. n/t

[artislife]

68. Goody for you....I chose to investigate. nt

[MoonRiver]

69. How do you plan to do that?

[artislife]

71. Well in this instance it will be hard

Afterall, H has refused anyway of recording what is actually being said. I will listen more intently to what Elizabeth has to say on it, if she does. I am not sure I would believe anyway else completely.


And that includes my two Women reps from Washington. I am sure they are in H's camp to the bitter end. I hope that end won't be my bitter end but theirs.

Go Bernie!

[MoonRiver]

72. Ok then

[wyldwolf]

79. Coalition building = making promises

Politics 101.

[BooScout]

3. Already nearly half the Dems in Congress have endorsed her...

...and so far none have endorsed Sanders.

[riversedge]

4. Yes, but it is important that she meet and talk with

the caucus's

[99Forever]

15. Endorsements from the 9% Approval Rating crowd.

Yippee!

[LuvLoogie]

27. So you leverage a result of Republican obstructionism to ridicule Democratic solidarity?

Wow!

[99Forever]

29. Facts are stubborn things, aren't they?

Can't argue the facts, roll out a strawman, eh?

[LuvLoogie]

97. No. You have made a third cause fallacy as to the "reason"

you have become incapacitated with pantomime laughter.

Congress has a 9 percent approval rating. That rating varies, but we'll consider that your "fact."

But you clearly don't get the cause and effect leading to that outcome.

Then you somehow offer that 9% approval rating as relevant to the worth of Democrats endorsing other Democrats.

The reason you have become incapacitated is that you don't know what you are talking about.

[Purveyor]

86. Considering the dismal public opinion of Congress, no 'endorsements' might be a good thing. eom

[RiverNoord]

5. Hm... Seems highly irregular.

A candidate for a party's nomination for the Presidency over a year away, who isn't a member of the House, somehow assembling the entire party's caucus in the House for discussion? And, it seems, on a regular basis? And the meeting(s) will be held on Capitol grounds?

Just... odd, that's all.

[rury]

7. Maybe she's dropping out.

[brooklynite]

12. ...because that's what first place candidates always do?

[freshwest]

50. That's one way to go out on the top of one's game, I guess. But unlikely. n/t

[RiverNoord]

14. Um... Ok....

[SoapBox]

10. Agree!

That was my first thought too.

But yet she's roped off from everyone else.

Will it be a "closed door" session?

[cherokeeprogressive]

17. A "closed door" session with no reporters and no reporting. No cell phones and no notes taken.

Hell, they might even do it in the dark to keep her picture from being taken.

[LuvLoogie]

21. Here's a picture for you. All you have to do is ask.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton&h=2588&w=2070&tbnid=CI9rjRrGcQIJxM:&zoom=1&tbnh=186&tbnw=148&usg=__Wf-CvcJ406CtOLJAhmacZQNoBcQ=&docid=aa-QNjwhVwqTsM&itg=1

[cherokeeprogressive]

22. LOL. That pic reminds me of business cards handed out by real estate agents.

Juxtapose that pic with one from yesterday for me. An unretouched pic.

Please?

[AlbertCat]

96. A "closed door" session with no reporters and no reporting. No cell phones and no notes taken.

You'd think she was meeting with oil execs! What's the big secret?

[Snotcicles]

20. Campaigning Netanyahu style. nt

[zappaman]

54. Cuz Benghazi.

[Sheepshank]

6. Good...pulling Dems together is how it's done

It's all part of campaigning.

So many had turned their back on Obama and in the end it was the wrong thing to do. I wonder if she will be reminding them that sticking together is a winning proposition.

[SoapBox]

11. Oh!

So maybe it's great, as the HRC supporters like to remind everyone frequently, that Bernie has no current endorsements from them...

And as you pointed out, President Obama didn't either!!!!

Who is endorsing Bernie are the American people...and they cast the votes.

Great point...thank you!

[Sheepshank]

13. Clever twist on my initiat thought

I don't think it actually pans out that way, but it was worth making the effort to not insult me while supporting your candidate

[RiverNoord]

16. A very gracious statement.

I'm a Bernie supporter, but I have no interest in mud-slinging. I do have a considerable appetite for dialogue on a very wide range of issues arising from the differences in the two candidacies. You just taught me something about civil dialogue in an online forum, and I won't forget it.

[MJkcj]

75. thank you

I am a Hillary supporter but I too have no interest in mud-slinging.
There is much to admire about all our democratic candidates
We should rally behind our candidate of choice for the primaries and may the best man or woman win.

Then we should unite and make sure the blue party keeps the white house - because despite our differences, that is key.
We cannot afford to have another Bush administration (or walker or trump or any of the other GOP clown candidate)
Too much at stake!

[freshwest]

35. Ted Kenney didn't turn his back, though:

Ted Kennedy Inspires New Obama Delegate Endorsement



Deborah Nelson's endorsement has already been posted on DU, but I thought the reason behind it deserved attention. Will more superdelegates follow suit? Seems a fitting tribute to Teddy, if you ask me.

State Senator Peter Burling of Cornish and Deborah Nelson of Hanover, two former Edwards superdelegates from New Hampshire, plan to announce their switch at a news conference this morning, the Associated Press reported...

Nelson told the AP she made up her mind as she watched the news coverage of Senator Edward M. Kennedy's diagnosis with brain cancer this week. "I thought, here's someone who represents everything that matters to me, and he supports Obama, so what am I waiting for?" she said in a separate phone interview.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6089159

Other of Senator Obama's colleagues in the Senate endorsed him. Obama said more than once he anticipates HRC being his replacement in a few places...

Particularly at those White House Press Correspondents Dinners. He really roasted the media and the GOP mocking the GOP wanting a white candidate in the White House again.

He invoked her likelihood of winning the White House after him. HRC and Obama have become fast friends. Obama said to the GOP they would get a white candidate in the White House - Hillary. And that their worst nightmare was going to come true..

Or words to that effect...

[aspirant]

18. If it is this easy to get all Dems together for a chat

why didn't she do it for TPA?

[Sheepshank]

23. A previously posted article indicates several key candidates already met with the union

I don't understand your gripe. Unions and 1000000 members...you want her to meet with all members or just the representatives? A useless and baseless gripe.

[aspirant]

32. The moon shines bright

and flowers glisten in the sunlight. It's the beauty of Mother Earth and her gifts.

[freshwest]

43. I don't think it was part of her duties as SoS. And she hasn't held an official position since.

Last edited Sun Jul 12, 2015, 06:45 PM - Edit history (1)

She was in the Senate, ran against Obama on single payer quite vehemently, then was appointed SoS.

Then took a breather with her family when Kerry took over. But she has never been out of touch. Obama and Hillary embrace here, as the votes came in to pass the ACA:



She has long experience working with the people on the Hill, longer than many have been there with the Watergate, hearings where she went after Nixon to impeach him;

To when she thought that the population would rise up and demand single payer as FLOTUS, but it didn't happen;

To her term in the Senate. She did manage within a GOP majority to get SCHIP and the children of military people covered with health insurance;

She has lot of veteran support trying to get single payer for many years, which is definitely a democratic socialist position;

She even had HILLPAC fund Sander's run for Senate, as a priority. That's why he calls her his friend, she's on his side on the issues that count.

The votes have never been there for single payer, even VT was unable to get its state legislature to make use of he single payer option that is part of the ACA, on a state by state basis.

Obama did what he had the odds of passing, busy cleaning up the GOP mess, starting with the country being bankrupt in 2009. The pressure has never let up and she needs to get Congress ready to do what is needed if she is elected.

Bernie has also been thinking post-election, having said who he would put in cabinet level positions, such as Krugman and Stiglitz (sic?) to help deal with the business sector.

Nothing untoward in any of this. I'm not saying you are, nor am I lecturing, just putting this out there for everyone to think on.

[karynnj]

61. she NEVER supported single payer

Not with her 1993 plan or her 2008 plan. There is good reason for that. It does not have much
CONGRESSIONAL support, something that would be needed.

[freshwest]

73. You and I are both right, I won't argue on the details, but here are her words:

Hillary Clinton: 1994 statement on single payer

She says whatever they pass would not be single payer but would lead to it with a mass populist movement...

...Mrs. Hillary Clinton:  No, because what I think would happen if there is not health care reform this year, and if, for whatever reason, the Congress doesn’t pass health care reform, I believe, and I may be to totally off base on this, but I believe that by the year 2000 we will have a single payer system. I don’t think it’s — I don’t even think it’s a close call politically.

I think the momentum for a single payer system will sweep the country. And regardless of the referendum outcome in California, it will be such a huge popular issue in the sense of populist issue that even if it’s not successful the first time, it will eventually be. So for those who think that building on the existing public-private system with an employer mandate is radical, I think they are extremely short-sighted, but that is their choice.

Then came the theft of 2000 and it never happened. Which she has also mentioned more than one time. That Jeb and his brother conspired to steal the election in Florida by purging the voter rolls.

And enough of the electorate - at least the ones who vote on everything that Faux tells them - affecting voter registration, state legislatures, and vote in US Congressional elections every time - are mobilized by the lies being told to them. The landscape has been much worse since 2000, irreparable harm has been done. Back to the interview:

There are many ways to compromise health care reform, and I don’t think that the President could have been clearer in every public statement he has made that he has one bottom line. It is universal coverage by a date certain. And he has basically told the Congress, you know, you’ve got different ways of getting there. Come to us, and let’s look at it. There are only three ways to get to universal coverage. You know, a lot of people stand up and applaud universal coverage, and they sit down, and you say, “Well, how are you going to get there?”, and they don’t want to confront that there are only three ways.

You either have a general tax — the single payer approach that replaces existing private investment — or you have an employer mandate, or you have an individual mandate. And there isn’t any other way to get to universal coverage. The market cannot deliver universal coverage in the foreseeable future, and any compromise that people try to suggest that would permit the market  to have a few years to try to deliver universal coverage without a mandate that would take effect to actually finish the job will guarantee a single payer heath care system...

http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2014/december/hillary-clinton-1994-statement-on-single-payer

After Nordquist's loyalty oath, the work of ALEC, the piece by piece dismantling of all branches of government in the states and D.C., she was less optimistic by 2008:

Hillary Clinton on single payer

Kevin Sack, NYT - March 28, 2008

In this interview, she'd given up, but wanted Medicare 2.0, or Medicare-For-All as some have called it. She gives the reason and the commentor at the bottom of the interview still believes it can be funded by taxes. That has not proven true.

I think she was reading the electorate correctly, having seen how it behaves and who was getting elected, yet with an eye toward getting things done, no matter how small. Because lives are lived and people die in the present, they cannot wait for relief.

Obama predicated his plans for infrastructure and human needs on two major things, ending the war and not staying in the Middle East past the date already agreed upon;

And the already agreed upon sunset of the Bush tax cuts.

The Koch brothers were mad at him about Keystone, which GWB promised them in 2007 and told Obama there would be a political cost if he didn't okay its construction. He stalled, and some OFA worked to build up grassroots to defeat the bill. It finally got through and he vetoed it.

But by then, the Koch created the Tea Party apparatus to elect officials to forestall the tax cut sunsetting, and have a group of elected officials with the goal of Keystone, who put it at the front of every bill and Obama kept on resisting until he finally vetoed the thing.

I think Clinton learns, just as Obama has. But he has borne more heat getting things done or not being pushed into things he did not want to give in on, than she did - the position of being POTUS is unique and very difficult, more than any person we know has faced.

Yet her record stands, she is for democratic socialist positions on universal public education, free Head Start, and now free college tuition. There is a lot less daylight between her and BS than many make out.

I think they are both great candidates and don't intend to trash either and won't listen to those that sink to that level. That's for the GOP. I don't agree with waiting until after Labor Day on the years that have presidential elections to see the heat directed at the GOP only, 'or you're rooting for the other side.' Because the GOP is in continual election mode and use the media to set us all against each other. I'm not buying a big money spiel.

Nice talking to you. I'll edit that post to make sure that it doesn't come off as an unqualifed support for single payer - but it appears she would have wanted it - but she was face to face with those who opposed it and saw the huge cost that occured for it being brought up. Such as the Gingrich majority being voted in after non-stop Limbaugh programming to tell people about 'death panels' and decry HRC's 'womb to the tomb' plans with healthcare. The shutown by Gingrich killed people who were in critical need of having their Medicaid approved, with government agencies running skeleton crews that couldn't keep up.

There are many consequences to every decision.

[karynnj]

76. In the first, she is using the demand for single payer as a threat - saying if you don't have

something like her plan, by 2000 (note that is still in the Clinton years - Bush was sworn in in 2001) there would be so much demand for single payer, that would happen.

As to 2008. I didn't see the link, but found the article as you had the reporter, the paper and date (thanks)

However, here is what she says of single payer:

MRS. CLINTON: You know, I have thought about this, as you might guess, for 15 years and I never seriously considered a single payer system. Obviously, I listened to arguments about its advantages and disadvantages, and many people who I have a great deal of respect for certainly think that it is the only way to go. But I said, as you quoted me, that we had to do what would appeal to and actually coincide with what the body politic will and political coalition building was. So I think if you look at most public opinion surveys, even from groups of people who you would think would be pretty positive towards single payer, Americans have a very skeptical attitude. They don’t really know that Medicare is a single payer system. They don’t really think about that. They think about these foreign countries that they hear all these stories about, whether they’re true or not, which they’re often not. And so talking about single payer really is a conversation ender for most Americans, because then they become very nervous about socialized medicine and all the rest of this. So I never really seriously considered it.

Here's the link to the full article - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/us/politics/27text-health.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 - which is good. In fact, Obama, Clinton and Edwards were ALL speaking of nearly the same proposal. In fact, ANY one of them would have likely ended with the same system -- because Congress actually designed what could pass. In fact, the plans they proposed looked a lot like Dean's and especially Kerry's (Kerry's reinsurance of catastrophic costs is important to making preexisting illnesses coverable in a reasonable way.)

I have no problem with what Clinton said - her plan, Obama's plan etc were what could pass at a time of an unusual majority in Congress.

[freshwest]

82. Sorry that didn't format right, but I'm too busy to correct it now. We're on the same page.

A Canadian echoed a process similiar to what HRC did.

Said their first attempt at single payer ended with something like the ACA. But that it took twenty years to get to single payer. Only with a sustained movement that does translate into votes, will it occur. Their foes were the same as ours, he said - the private insurers who didn't want to lose their profit.

There is no honorable way to make profit on healthcare or social programs, but that's just my opinion, and I bring it up in meetings. Since it's taxpayer money even if privatized, and in a just way, that would cover everyone.

Of course some will look at me as if I'd sprouted horns when I say that... They want to make some profit and live well on the public dime, whether the people they are charged to care for, live or die. They still want their cut, like a casino.

Like the damned pre-existing clause. Because everyone will get sick, disabled and or die is part of the human condition, thus pre-existing.

Olbermann did a masterful job on the for-profit health care industry, in a special edition. Of course, corporate media fired him, but not before they slimed him so well that even progressives have swallowed the bait and made it into a personality thing. No, he was let go for telling the truth.

[karynnj]

95. no problem - as noted, I added the link

Because I thought someone else might want it. It is a long, serious, detailed interview - something that happens infrequently. You provided enough info to get the article for which I thank you.

[calimary]

83. But let's not forget the effort she put in to lead a health care task force when Bill was

President. He assigned her to dig down into the health care crisis in this country by the 1990s and come up with a solution. She took SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT for that!!!!!!!!! Oh God did they beat up on her from all sides. I was amazed at her poise back then. She never once lost her cool, she never once was snarky, she never once badmouthed her enemies - or even those who weren't really enemies but they just didn't agree with or have any confidence in what she was doing. She was thorough and graceful throughout. And she was hammered for it from all sides - "Who the hell does she think she is?" "Who voted for HER?" plus all the "too-big-a-problem", "can't-be-solved", "it's-no-use" types.

The intellect thing was kind of a thing back then, too. In an alarming trend, noticeable numbers of Americans seem to view being smart as something bad. Maybe it's because - if the guy next to you is smart, it'll make you look dumb (and we can't have thaaaaat!). It's not a matter of - if the next guy is smart, then maybe that'll help add points to the game on our side. And we'll ALL benefit from it. Because it isn't really ABOUT "sides." We're all in this together.

Fucking reagan - there was one thing I have to give him. ONE thing he said that really made sense and would prove out if it ever happened. He once observed that the one thing that would unite the entire world on the same side - would be if there was a UFO invasion. MAN was he laughed at for that one. But I found it rather mind-blowing that he would have this moment of keen sense of the human condition. The whole common enemy thing. A whole nation full of strange bedfellows. Hell, a whole globeful. ALL nations full of strange bedfellows. I always regarded reagan as a dim bulb but he had some street smarts. And he knew how to manipulate people. MAN did he know that one. That was the only thing I ever heard to come out of his mouth to which I could honestly and sincerely respond - "he's absolutely spot-on!" It'd be a hard way to learn the lesson about us all being on the same team, but maybe we're doomed to learn the big things that way.

Hey, at least she tried. She went all over. She talked to everybody and had her panel talk to everybody. She came up short, of course. Similarly to the ACA - do any of us remember that it, too, is imperfect? But shit, people. At least we have SOMETHING. We have a START. You don't build a complete house overnight. You have to lay a foundation and build from the bottom up. And we have a foundation now. Hillary at least tried to get something done, and she wasn't afraid to tackle a project that everybody considered 1) impossible and 2) miserable and boring and unglamorous. You spend your whole project down in the weeds. It's about as un-sexy a project as there is. And you get no glory and no bounce from it. No matter what you do. It was a national sport - finding fault with all things Clinton and also with a First Lady like she was. She had an office not far from the Oval Office. She wasn't just overseeing seating arrangements and menu items for state dinners, or hosting the DAR in the Rose Garden. She was an active participant in the policy arena. It was a brave and thankless thing to do and she willingly took it on.

As you might surmise - I give Hillary Clinton boatloads of points for all of the above. And she wasn't even getting paid for it. She didn't even have a formal government job title. "First Lady" was more of a ceremonial nature. But then again, she told everybody from the beginning, to "60 Minutes" during his first campaign, that she wasn't the kind of politician's wife who just stayed home baking cookies "and standin' by mah man like Tammy Wynette". Lord Have Mercy she took heat from that, with Tammy Wynette herself leading the stampede. She was an uppity woman very much UNLIKE what America had been accustomed to for a generation - with ol' bar bush and nancy reagan before her. And she took all this punishment and hunkered down and did her job and came up with the best that circumstances allowed at that time. Wasn't good enough. Got torpedoed. But at least she'd started the conversation and made some of us start looking at the problem a little deeper and/or more seriously. And remember what they say in addiction recovery: "First you have to admit you have a problem."

It was hard carving a niche in decades past! It was hard! I say this from an EXTREMELY microscopic version of Hillary Clinton's experience. My version, wee as it was, involved being the first woman hired in various radio station news departments. It came at approximately the moment in the mid'70s when the FCC started letting radio and TV stations know in effect that it was time to add a woman or two. It was a time when you started seeing female co-anchors on the local news. It was a time when you noticed, all of a sudden, that up and down the radio dial, music stations had a token female jock on staff. Most of the time, at least for starters, she worked overnights. Or later, middays. It was news, locally and within the industry, when a woman was chosen for a drive-time shift. I remember when this little sprite, Ellie Dylan (I think that's how she spelled her name) was #1 on this huge-ass rock station in New York City. It was BIG news. I remember the photo in the trades when her first ratings came out - and there she sat, in front of the control board and mic, with her index finger up in the air "Number ONE!" Hell, I remember reading profiles of the rare women deejays in major markets back when I was still in college radio. Allison Steele, the "Night Bird." At KNAC when I started, doing afternoon news breaks, there was a lady jock overnight going by the name Sunshine. There was a whole lot of that. Women on the air where it had only been men - that was a big deal.

And it was hard. You had no template if you were the first one. YOU were setting the standard, whether you wanted to or not. You were breaking ground. Most people at the station - mainly men - didn't really know how to deal with you or react to you. I had this really instructive experience going to one big radio industry convention in town. I was the news director at my station. I tried to dress like a management person would. The ol' Credibility Costume, that followed the "Dress for Success" how-to book guidelines for all you women just starting to make it in a man's world. I was one of the few women there - well, I don't remember seeing anybody else, frankly - in a nice blazer and trousers. Everybody else was in jeans and t-shirts. Except for some of the - um - "decorative" women who turned up more toward evening. It was clear that more of the male contingent felt comfortable with the decorative women than with a woman who turned up in a blazer and nice pants. There was shit like that ALL THROUGH the 70s that women had to go through. So I relate to Hillary in my own microscopic way - in pretty strong terms.

As for single-payer, yeah, I want that, too. But it's an end goal, not the first step. Obama couldn't get it either. And with the opposition we have in this country because of the masses of people who willingly vote against their own best interests, sometimes we're lucky even to get past the first step.

OH CRAP, sorry it's so long...

[karynnj]

84. Nowhere do I not give her credit

She definitely did lead a very thorough effort to get a healthcare bill. I would say that the biggest problem she had - one that might be related to how she deals with the world - is that only a narrow, extremely loyal group of people were listened to by her and Ira Magaziner. Even Senators and Congressmen who were KNOWN to be influential on healthcare - like Ted Kennedy were excluded. This led to a plan that not one Senator then on the Finance committee was in favor of - not even a liberal like Bill Bradley. This is why Bill Clinton never really put the plan out for a vote.

(Schip which did pass was originally Kerry/Kennedy - a 1996 bill designed to copy the plan MA already had. In 1997, Kennedy managed to get Hatch to cosponsor it after significant changes, most importantly letting the states design the program. Kerry and Dodd were cosponsors. Here, Hillary Clinton did two important things : she convinced BC to include funding (beyond the tobacco tax) for it in the budget AND she used her status as First Lady to advocate for it. I wish she would more explicitly use this as an example of learning that letting Congress design the bill (that do things you favor) is more successful than doing it yourself secretly and then asking them to approve it. The former gets advocates in Congress, where the latter might even itself be a turnoff.)

[calimary]

98. Even so, was there ANYBODY ELSE ANYWHERE who was willing to stick his or her neck out

on this? Regardless the execution. NOBODY wanted to bother with sorting out the health care crisis in this country. Either they expected it not to go anywhere so it was a useless fight to attempt to begin with, OR they were just plain scared of venturing out into the weeds. Because it's just so much easier to sit back on the sidelines and criticize.

She actually stuck her neck out. And whether the WAY she went about it was good or bad really doesn't matter a lot to me in the long run. What matters to me is that she got in there and TRIED. She got in there with both feet and took a crack at it. WHO ELSE around there, around then, was willing to take that risk? When the task is really hard, some people throw in the towel before they reach the starting block - because it's hard. It's too hard. Not gonna get anywhere. Why try? All that effort will go nowhere, won't gain any ground and blah-blah-blah. She forged ahead anyway - because it needed to be done. That she was sniped to death about it, well, I put the blame as much with the fault-finders as I do with whatever mistakes she might have made. They found fault? Easy for them to say! Where were THEIR asses when the work needed to be done? Why didn't THEY get up and off their lazy complacent butts and try to do something?

WHERE WERE THEY????? I know exactly where they were. Off in the peanut gallery with their bags of popcorn and their spit balls, neither rolling up their sleeves and trying to get something constructive accomplished, nor willing to stick their necks out, get their hands dirty, and try to do some actual WORK on the problem - perish the thought. Health care chickenhawks, ALL. If they didn't like the way she tried to do it, WHERE WERE THEY? With THEIR ideas and THEIR approach to solving the problem and THEIR meetings and THEIR fact-finding and THEIR skin in the game? If they thought her efforts were so lousy, then WHERE WERE THEIRS??????

[karynnj]

99. There were many people - even some Republicans working on expanding affordable

health care. One, was named Ted Kennedy. He had been involved as a young Senator on Medicare and he was involved on Medicaid. In the Clinton years, he worked with first John Kerry and then Hatch (and Kerry and Dodd as cosponsors) on what became SCHIP. (Note it is this that HRC claimed as her accomplishment because she helped lobby for it and persuaded her husband to include it in the budget after the bill passed. )

She ignored ALL the Senators and Congressmen who had worked on this - in some cases for decades. Thus, when she and Ira Magaziner put out their full blown plan, it is little wonder that it was not greeted with applause in Congress. In fact, it did not gain a single supporter in the Finance committee - one of the two committees it had to pass.

Why did they not help? She didn't ask them for their advice and they had problems with the final product. Part of the problem is that this is how they developed things for Arkansas. This was NOT how things got done in DC. In addition to it maybe being part "not invented here" - these were people who had tried various things and had a wealth of knowledge on what would pass and what wouldn't - all ignored. The Clintons made it pretty clear that they were not interested in any alternative programs - and fought those suggested.

I do think that she deserves credit for wanting to fix this, but I was pointing out that the cause of failure MIGHT be something she has yet to change. We are finding that in both her 2008 campaign and as Secretary of State, she has a VERY small, close tight groups that have substantive contact directly with her. It is a management style I worry about.

[oasis]

94. Super post.

As a long time Hillary supporter myself, it is always great to see her get the recognition and appreciation she deserves.

[William769]

19. Kick & Recommended.

[djean111]

26. If the Dems in Congress have to endorse her, because of the "D", if they have to be

told that this is what they need to do - then, for me, their endorsement is meaningless.
Of course, and maybe I am being silly, but I would never vote for someone just because of an endorsement.
Heh, I consider endorsements from my Floridian DINOs worthless, and actually a bad thing - Nelson, Wasserman-Schultz, Murphy.

[George II]

100. Who said the Dems in Congress "HAVE" to endorse her? If she didn't meet with them no doubt....

...the criticism would be "she's ignoring her party's Congressional members".

[hrmjustin]

28. Some of these responses!

[okasha]

33. Weird, no?

These are the people she will have to work with as President. It's not too early to start mapping out legislative strategies that either circumvent the Republican crazies or strong-arm the reasonably sane ones. It's called politics, exercising mastery of the art of the possible.

[hrmjustin]

34. Well it is Hillary and some here have to see the dark side in anuthing she does.

[okasha]

37. And paint a dark side

where there isn't one.

[hrmjustin]

38. Well they are great at reaching for the stars and falling flat.

[aspirant]

39. When your Freaching for the stars, Hollywood sings

[hrmjustin]

41. .

[aspirant]

44. When a child spits up,

it's wise to have a towel handy

[hrmjustin]

45. No doubt you are an expert.

[aspirant]

48. Are you an expert on Freaching the stars?

[hrmjustin]

49. No my expertise is in typos.

[aspirant]

51. How many typo mistakes does an expert make/year

[hrmjustin]

53. At least 5,000.

[aspirant]

55. You make all those mistakes and have no doubts,

that's unbelievable.

[hrmjustin]

56. I have doubts.

[aspirant]

62. "no doubt" (your post #45)

Which one of you do we believe or do we just doubt all of you?

[hrmjustin]

63. Doubt whatever you like.

[aspirant]

70. Do you like your doubts?

[hrmjustin]

74. Sometimes.

[aspirant]

77. Would it be wise to doubt some of your DU posts?

[hrmjustin]

78. Would it be wise to doubts yours?

[aspirant]

90. "doubts yours"

only if you are a doubter

[hrmjustin]

91. Another one of my typos.

[aspirant]

92. We may get to 5000 in just this thread,

do you have your doubts?

[hrmjustin]

93. Yes.

[okasha]

40. True.

Unfortunately, this is not going to be the kind of old-fashioned story in which Captain Bernie cobbles together a working spaceship from a few paperclips, some flashlight batteries and foil.wrap to carry the stranded colonists and crew on to Deneb IV and safety.

[hrmjustin]

42. Lol. My favorites were "They don't have Bernie in their hearts" and the one that said Sanders will

Make Japan deal with Fukushima with one phone call.

[okasha]

47. Those are a couple of my favorites, too.

[Control-Z]

85. Good gawd,

a DUer said that about Sanders and Fukushima? I mean, there are the young and naive who might talk about Bernie in their hearts. I guess I get that, kinda sorta. But one phone call from Sanders and magic happens?

Please, please, please, send me a link to that (via PM would probably be the kindest way. I'm not out to embarrass anyone. I just want to see it for myself.)

Thanks!

[hrmjustin]

88. Doing advanced search and found it willsent you a pm soon.

[freshwest]

46. He can after he gets help from... Space Godzilla!

Right there at the very end...

I loved those old movies! Here's the musical version. Tell me who's who in this one:

Looks like a temper tantrum at the end, though. I can see either candidate as Godzilla. Note there is no evil applied. Godzilla is just... Godzilla.

[okasha]

52. Or perhaps a Scots engineer and a couple dilithium crystals.

"Captain, she canna take much more! She'll fall apart!"

[freshwest]

57. Loved that, too! TOS is my favorite. n/t

[okasha]

60. Mine, too!

And sometimes DU makes me feel like I'm ass-deep in tribbles.

[CharlotteVale]

36. My "Democratic" rep and 2 Senators all voted for the TPP.

Fuck all of 'em. If they endorse Hillary that's a good reason for me not to.

[restorefreedom]

58. this is the difference

Hillary will be talking to other politicians. Bernie is talking to the PEOPLE.

nuff said.

[peacebird]

59. Yup!

[Buns_of_Fire]

64. Maybe she's just pointing out to her potential surrogates

that saying nice things and endorsing her is all well and good, but PLEASE don't call Bernie a "socialist" in the same breath. And for GAWD'S SAKE please don't text any pictures of your junk with your endorsement message!

[artislife]

67. If anything screamed establishment machine, this is it nt

She's got a lot of friends there...the one who voted for the TPP like my two women senators.

I unsubscribed to Patty Murray for her vote. Makes me sad that she and Maria Cantwell both voted for it. Not to mention President Obama , who I voted for as well.


We don't need politics as usual. Not now.

[wyldwolf]

80. Yeah, having your party behind you is so passé

[artislife]

81. What does that even mean?

Oh you mean H. not me...Yeah....there are a lot of timid democrats in congress who are about their next election and what they deem prudent.

[truebluegreen]

89. So, no labels?