Bernie supporters have asked in a previous thread how will

Hillary be able to strengthen the Affordable Care Act as some of us believe she can, or get any agenda through the GOP congress, if we don’t think Bernie can get his agenda through the current Houses of Congress.

I think that with Hillary in the WH, she would be able to work with the GOP. For the record, I recorded and watch the entire 11 hour Benghazi congressional hearing when Hillary testified a while back. At the end of the hearing, while the C-SPAN cameras were still rolling, I watched as the chairman Trey Gowdy, who had by then come down from the bench, approached Hillary where she was speaking with other people at her table and he spoke to her and they were both laughing and nodding, and this went on for a couple of minutes. I was just shaking my head in disbelief at how much of a joke these hearings had been for the GOP as they feigned outrage after outrage, one by one, but once the hearing was over they come down, and shake hands and smile and make small talk with one another, just like they had not just previously accused her of everything including being the spawn of satan. These people have worked with Hillary in the past and they will work with her in the future because they have been sitting on their hands for the past 8 years, in their attempt to stifle any progress by President Obama, and have no significant accomplishments of their own to show for it.

If the GOP is listening to their "angry" constituents, they are angry because they feel that their party leadership has let them down and that they are not better off than they were 8 years ago. Well, if those people are honest with themselves, they realize that it’s not the Kenyan in the WH that sold them out, it’s; the GOP who did. It’s the GOP that didn’t want to turn the economy around while Obama was in the WH, and that is the reason that their college grad kids can’t find employment and are still living at home, or they themselves have seen their wages remain stagnate over the past couple of decades, if they're lucky to have a job themselves. Or that the shine has come off the TEA Party members of Congress who were disingenuous when they came to power with the plan to destroy government and the ACA, while they drew a government salary upwards of $170K, while accomplishing nothing for their constituents back home, while voting to repeal the ACA more than 50 times.

It is the GOP’s SCOTUS appointments who failed to delivery to them the death of the ACA, approved Gay Marriage, failed to overturn Roe v. Wade and even slapped down their ridiculous attempts to close Women’s clinics across the country by applying drastic building codes for women’s clinics that were not required to other clinics performing other low risk surgical procedures. So now having felt left out in the recovery that did result in the largest redistribution of wealth they want something to show for the country’s rising debt for themselves and their children, and they want to “Make America Great Again”. They appear to be leaning towards accepting a carnival barker and his sidekick to make that happen. The evangelicals have shown that they are willing to sell out the Canadian born son of the twice married Baptist preacher and his wife, who were willing to relinquish her US citizenship to get their share of the Canadian pie in the form of secure jobs and welfare benefits.

The GOP may call Hillary a liar to their constituents, but as members of the “establishment” they know that their goose is cooked if they return to Congress and think that they can sit on their hands and fiddle while Rome burns for another four years. They know that Hillary is pragmatic, and she is not the ‘big government socialist’ that Bernie Sanders wants to be. They have worked with her before and they will work with her again. They know that compromise will be required to get anything done, and they will find common ground, unlike Bernie Sanders whose Big Government proposals leaves no room for common ground.

So I believe that the establishment GOP (should they survive 2016) who were willing to accept Cruz or Trump as an acceptable candidate, would accept Hillary before a self described Democratic Socialist. Members of the Democratic Party don't believe in Santa Clause, or the Tooth Fairy. There is no Free Lunch. Someone has to pay for Bernie's ambitious agenda, and any new entitlement programs will have to be paid for, and their are enough millionaires and billionaires to pay for all these new entitlement programs that Bernie has proposed without eventually everyone having to pay much more in taxes than Bernie has been willing to acknowledge. We have known for some time that Social Security may have to cut benefits in order to save the program for everyone, and Bernie wants to double current Social Security payouts. Removing the cap limiting the amount of income that is taxed won't do it by itself with people living longer.

The problem with Bernie getting 'angry' and calling for a revolution while not being honest with his constituents is that when you can't deliver, and they don't get what they want, you're stuck with just a bunch of 'angry' people. So perhaps Bernie should stop calling for a revolution, because when people's hopes are raised and then you can't deliver on the promise, some people take it literally, especially young people, and that never works out well for anyone.

I think it is disingenuous of Bernie Sanders to state, in response to a very good question about

how he (Bernie Sanders) is going to get his radical agenda through a previous reluctant GOP controlled congress, that "he has always been able to find common ground as a Senator", when there is no common ground to be found between Bernie’s agenda and the GOP Congress specifically related to:

• Universal Health Care for all whereby Bernie has propose an increase in Federal Taxes AND an increase in the Payroll tax to pay for it;
• Free college Tuition for all which he will make Wall St pay for through a new tax on Wall St speculation;
• Expanding Medicare to close the donut hole to include making all drugs affordable;
• Make Mental Health Care available to all who need it and have it covered by the universal health care for all;
• Raising the cap on Social Security funding by eliminating the current cap on income earned and make the Rich pay for it;
• Doubling the size of the social security pay out ( and I presume that the wealthy will also pay for this);
• etc, etc, etc.

It is one thing for Bernie to say that he has worked with the GOP to find common ground on "funding benefits for Veterans". It's another whole different ballgame for Bernie to believe that the GOP who have all taken Grover Norquist pledge to not raise a single tax.

For the record, I make no bones about the fact that I am not a supporter of Bernie Sanders because I'm not buying that he can anywhere near deliver on his pipe dream at where we are currently as a nation with the GOP in control of both Houses of Congress and likely to maintain at a minimum the House. I have also listened to Bernie on three separate occasions, outside of viewing all the debates, (Democratic and Republicans) and I think I can give Bernie's stump speech myself, because he constantly repeats the same things, without talking about how he's REALISTICALLY going to pay for all this stuff. He won't find common ground between his ideas and the GOP because there is no COMMON GROUND. The GOP is not going to participate in growing the Federal Government to the tune of trillions of dollars, taking over the entire Health Care Industry after voting 52 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and creating a new drug entitlement program, a new free college tuition program, a new mental health entitlement program, while doubling the Social Security payout.

It just ain't going to happen; WITH OR WITHOUT a revolution.

I know DU is Bernie Country, but in response to an earlier thread about Rachel's Interview of HRC

I submit the following:

Anyone who thinks that disenfranchised members of the GOP, Independents, or Non-Trump Supporters are going to vote for a self-professed Socialist, regardless of how he describes himself today, is delusional. Bernie, with his laundry list of freebees and government giveaways, cannot win in a General Election. The nation is BROKE and cannot afford Bernie Sanders, and a GOP controlled Congress is not going to vote through Bernie Sanders laundry list of new entitlement programs. People here who think that Bernie Sanders can win when Democrats don’t control either House of Congress, and while we might have a chance of regaining the Senate in 2016 if all the stars align, we have little to no chance of controlling the House of Representatives before the next Census is taken in 2020, (due to gerrymandering), and the possibility of subsequent redistricting should be successful in 2022. Anyone who thinks otherwise, is delusional.

I saw the thread earlier today regarding Rachel Maddow’s comments that Bernie Sanders doesn’t have any enemies. I say any politician who doesn’t have any enemies, hasn’t tried to accomplish anything Big. Trying to do BIG things creates enemies, which is why Bill and Hillary have plenty.

Bernie who hails from 96% white Vermont, has spent much of his lifetime as first, mayor of a small town and about 25 years in Congress between both Houses, with his socialist agenda and WHAT BIG THING does he have to show for it. What BIG agenda item has he sponsored, that has passed. And yes I know about Bernie’s Civil Rights background and I only bring up the point about Vermont’s ethnic background to make the point that Bernie represents a homogenous group of constituents who look and think like he does which has enabled his political successes thus far. The Presidency is a whole new ballgame.

Bernie and his 'socialist' ideas have not been fully vetted because he hasn’t been a threat to anybody before now. You can sit in the House as one of 435 voting members and have radical ideas as long as you pose no threat to anyone or anything. You can be sure as a General Election candidate he will be fully vetted, as will his laundry list of government giveaways, and Democrats will lose.

I know he likes to tout the fact that he has a large backing of young people who are active members of his campaign. Are these the same young people who are looking for a free college education or student loan forgiveness after racking up tens of thousands of dollars of student loans. The GOP is never going to allow this to happen as long as they are in charge, and as long as the Democratic Party looks like it’s the party of “Free Stuff” at other people’s expense we are never going to regain control of the House of Representatives. The nation is broke. The stock market is down more than 8% since the first of the year and people are fearful for their own jobs and funding of retirement savings. There is NO MONEY for Freebies. Stop the Insanity that perpetuates the myth that we can do all these things that Bernie is proposing.

Win or Lose, Trump has changed how presidential races are run for the rest of my lifetime.

Thank you lame stream media. No longer does a candidate have to have any clearly articulated policies he/she proposes to enact. No longer does a candidate have to have any experience for the most important job in the country. Six months ago we were worried that Citizens United was the worse thing to happen to our election process. Now we have a billionaire Bag of Gas who the media will give unlimited free time to regurgitate whatever nonsense he sees fit, without any political consequences.

Whatever happens in 2016, the blueprint has already been written for 2020. Though the media will feign surprise when every election cycle from here on out will spawn a new generation of Trumps-lite and Carsons-lite, the media will have no one to blame but themselves. Trump can, and does go on any station in the largest, most expensive media markets, for hours at a time and say anything no matter how ridiculous, because ratings matter more than substance when picking the leader of the free world and don't think that the Cruz-lites', Rubio-lites' and regrettably, some Democrats-lite are not watching and learning from it. Elections in America are forever changed.

For those of you who watched 60 Minutes last night, I hope you are as outraged as I am

about the guy who spent 30 years on Death Row in the sorry state of Louisiana. The guy who prosecuted him, and the current prosecutor are indicative of a corrupt system of justice in Louisiana. Bobby Jindal should be ashamed of that corrupt system that he governs over. Not only was the guy who was the subject of the story "not guilty" of the crime he was convicted of but according to the current POS prosecutor, there have been 10 more Death Row inmates who have been exonerated. Eleven people on Louisiana's Death Row, exonerated in the recent past is an indictment of a corrupt system that doesn't give a damn about someone's guilt or innocence, but only cares about winning. If you appoint two dirtbag attorneys whose sole legal experience is handling business transactions and wills, in a capital murder case in which the defendant is facing the death penalty, you are a scumbag.

Palin wants to be Secretary of Energy but doesn't know what the agency does.

To test Bernie's theory of "How to deal with an obstructionist Congress", let's see how many

show up on the steps of Capital Hill the week after next to support the Obama Nuclear Agreement and stand up against Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and their supporters. It should even be a warm day. These are the people who want to see another war in the Middle East. I don't see the Dems calling for their people to show up in force and face down Trump who like so many other members of the GOP chose to evade the Vietnam War through bogus deferments, and then want to call John Kerry, who did, names.

I don't believe Trump went to the Wharton School of Business. I want to see his transcripts.

The man cannot complete a sentence. He cannot finish a complete thought. He changes direction in the middle of his own argument without having been interrupted. According to Trump, you have to be really, really smart to get into the Wharton School of Business. I don't think Trump is very, very smart. I want to see his transcripts. I want to see what kind of grades he got.

What are YOU angry about?

If I hear one more political reporter say that the Trump supporters are “angry” I’m going to puke. Now Chris Matthews, of Hardball has started saying it, as does Chuck Todd, and every Liberal and Republican Contributor on Morning Joe. On his program the other day, Chris Mathews says that "I get it. These people are angry. They’re not just a bunch of crazies."

My question to Chris is “What the hell are they angry about?” Big businesses and billionnaires are the ones that sent their jobs overseas. Big business is the ones who brought in cheap Mexican labor when blacks moved to the cities to take low paying jobs as janitors and dishwashers rather than continue the back breaking work of hours spent laboring in the fields of California farms. Then when those uppity blacks had the nerve to demand better wages in the city factories, hotel kitchens, and sweatshops, they brought in Mexican workers to displace blacks in those janitorial positions and kitchen help.

No one was angry then. When Big Business made Steel workers disassemble the plant and equipment needed to make steel and box it up and ship it overseas, and even train their replacement workers, I don’t remember white people in masses getting angry. Or when Big business brought in Indian workers to this country on B1 and B2 Visitor Visas to displace Computer Programmers , and Nurses, and Mitt Romney and his ilk bought up businesses and shipped jobs overseas to Chinese workers and replaced American textile and factory workers, clothing manufacturers and furniture makers, I think the ‘angry folks’ were MIA. As they were when the big Homebuilders began bringing in Mexican workers to pour concrete, lay tile, and hang drywall. These were powerful Big Businessmen, like Trump, who all you "Angry" people NOW, bow down to and aspire to be like. Now it's all Bill Clinton's fault that he signed NAFTA, something that I'm sure every Big Businessman in American supported. So now, once again, the liberal media has decided that white people are angry and they have a right to be because they want their country to be Great again, and it's all the Mexican's fault. My question is, ”What are YOU angry about?”

I’ll go first.

I’m angry that the minority leadership of both Houses of Congress, on the eve of the Inauguration of the first black president of the United States in 2009, met in a hotel restaurant in the nation’s capital to plot and collude the demise and further deterioration of our nation's economy, lead by the collapse of our financial institutions, as a political strategy for returning to majority leadership, by doing anything and any means necessary to insure the failure of this President and his Administration, and with the full support and cooperation of those people who NOW claim to be ANGRY, once those deeds were publicly exposed, and they were never made to pay a price for their treasonous actions.

Is it just me, or is Donald Trump the Sarah Palin of 2016?

I was listening to Trumps interview with the lady from NBC the other day and I thought to myself, how much the Donald reminds me of the ever perpetual might be running Sarah Palin. Even down to the word salad speeches. Trump just throws out things and rarely completes a though before just changing the topic mid sentence (or paragraph that is) since he rarely finishes a thought. Also, I was surprised when the interviewer called him out for not having been campaigning in Iowa or New Hampshire with the other candidates and he said that he didn't need to because he got all the media attention without being there.

I was also amazed at how fact-less Trump is and how he turns on the interviewer or dodges the issue when he gets called out on it. While Trump may know the hotel business, he appears to know nothing except that Hillary is the worse Sec of State in the nation's history, or fails to discuss what his solution would be for the mess in the middle east, other than to say that he's not going to tell us what he would do to fix the mess, except that he is going to build a fence at the border and make Mexico pay for it. When he is told that that there are more people returning to Mexico the past several years than coming from Mexico, or that the crime rates in border towns, is less than in other areas, or that immigrants commit crimes at a lesser rate than non-immigrants, he just shshhs the poor woman and tells her she is delusional if she believes that.

Like Sarah, I can't believe that, should the Donald get the republican nomination, he would "study" up on any foreign policy or other facts that a would be candidate should know because he thinks he can wing it, as Palin thought she could. He could never be president because frankly, he'd be bored with the role after 5 minutes because it's actually work and in spite of what he thinks, there are two other branches of government he would have to work with, and can't fire at will. Trump is the proverbial born on 3rd base, and acts as if he hit a home run. He inherited a bunch of prime NY real estate which he proceeded to mortgage to the hilt. He is not a "pulled myself up by the bootstrap" type of person. He might be able to run a bunch of hotels, (and I'm even hesitant to give him that much credit since he always seems to have one foot in the door and one in the bankrupcy court) but he knows nothing about diplomacy, and I certainly would not trust him anywhere near the guy with the nuclear codes.