"Bernie Sanders Wanted to Abolish the CIA—Good!"

http://gawker.com/bernie-sanders-wanted-to-abolish-the-cia-good-1760567613

Anyone who didn't understand how dangerous and out of control the CIA was back then, was clueless.

And of course the Clinton camp is using this to bash him.

i.e. the states that will make all the difference in the General Election? E.g. Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico.

Would guess is Bernie would be less off-putting to independents in critical swing states, but I have no real data on this.

However, strategically, which candidate is more electable in the swing is a huge question that we should consider as we try to take the presidency away from the hands of the horrific Donald Trump.

http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency

So even though Trump is horrible in almost every respect, he still was/is against the Iraq war.

So if it is him versus Hillary in the GE, then there will be a debate where the Republican is against the war and the Democrat will have to defend supporting the war. How weird and wrong is this? The Dems should not be in this position.

Harvey Wasserman of Columbus, Ohio, has been a vocal critic of electronic voting machines. He co-wrote the book, "What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election." His upcoming book is titled "The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft." We talk to him about his concerns for the upcoming presidential race.


http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/23/could_the_2016_election_be_stolen

http://m.democracynow.org/stories/15966

Insane....

https://medium.com/@LoriHandrahan2/maine-s-shameful-secret-child-rape-7162fa89a5b#.26aqtfhg9

Holy crap:

Maine is rated third worst in the country for sex trafficking. The Bangor Daily News says Maine is an East Coast source to procure children. Those who know Maine’s history are not surprised.

Only a few years ago, when students at Baxter School for the Deaf refused sexual abuse by their director, Dr. Robert Kelly, he tied them naked to a tree and left them, all night, in the Maine woods; to break them.

Dr. Robert Kelly was not prosecuted. The State of Maine protected Kelly and not Maine’s children. The Attorney General (AG) refused to prosecute any of the Baxter School rapists. Instead, Maine used tax-payer funds to pay Kelly’s pension through-out his retirement in Florida until he finally died, as reported by Rick Wormwood, in 2004.
Retired Biddeford Police Officer Stephen Dodd

Maine treated Robert Kelly the same way Maine is handling retired Biddeford Police Officer Stephen Dodd; a cop who anally raped children now living free in Florida on Maine tax-payer funds.

I had no idea. Horrific.

A really sobering thought is to realize that the Republicans are really psyched up for the 2016 election, because of course they see a "simply disastrous" 8 years under Obama. They are ready for change!

So even though the GOP race has been chaotic and mind-blowingly awful so far, the GOP is in complete disarray, there is little doubt Republicans will rally around their candidate as we get closer to November. It will be a tough election. You know the media will try to make it close.

While Democrats do have some structural advantages, and I still have a hard time seeing any of the six GOP candidates who are left (Trump, Cruz, Bush, Kasich, Carson, Rubio) winning the presidency, you just never freaking know. What we can be certain of is that the media will gloss over every awful position that the GOP candidate holds.

Even though there is some chance that the Dems could win the Senate back in 2016, I think we can all agree it would be a disaster to have the presidency and the House in GOP hands.

Thus, the Dems really need to be fired up and rally around their candidate-- whoever it is.

"Bernie Sanders’ win in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night came with some pretty impressive footnotes:

1. His margin of victory was the highest for a non-incumbent candidate in any state since JFK.

2. He won almost every demographic group—male, female, young, old, moderate, liberal, college educated, high school-educated—with the exception of voters making more than $200,000 per year.

3. He became the first Jewish candidate to win a state primary in U.S. history.

4. He became the first non-Christian candidate to win a state primary in U.S. history.

Sanders isn’t one to emphasize his religious affiliation—his political beliefs make him enough of an outsider as it is—so you won’t read much coverage about the historic nature of his win."

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/02/after-sanders-big-win-in-new-hampshire-establishme.html

Article is mostly discussion about the nature of super-delegates and is worth a read.

-- is that there is a huge swath of the Democratic party that has been waiting for a strong, serious liberal candidate for decades now.

They know that despite Obama's credentials, talents and charisma, he still was too corporate-influenced. He was a somewhat more liberal version of Hillary, and then in office, he became even more of a centrist.

The fact is a lot of Democrats-- perhaps most of them-- are tired of centrist, corporate Dems, the types who constantly use Republican talking points and who threaten to cut social Security and Medicare.

My feeling is that Bernie Sanders is the strongest liberal candidate we've had in a long time. He speaks powerfully and honestly about OUR issues. We are lucky to have him in the race.

Is he perfect? No, but no candidate is. And he's as close to what I would want in a viable presidential candidate as anyone I've ever seen. He "gets it" on all the big issues. He absolutely does. His instincts are wonderful.

Does his age make me nervous? Yes, a little. He's in great health and very strong-- but a presidential campaign is truly exhausting. Of course, his running mate will be absolutely crucial.

Does his blunt and "extreme" rhetoric make me nervous? Yes-- mostly because of how the media and elites have discussed him and will play him.

Will he be able to win in November? I don't know. But Hillary is not a sure shot either. The bottom line from my perspective-- and I am thrilled we have this opportunity-- is we have to take this chance to get a strong, honest, liberal Democrat in the White House. It's not clear when we will have another candidate like Bernie.

This is our shot at getting our liberal voices really heard across the country-- and we can see how popular our ideas really are. These are the liberal voices usually excluded from the media. We've long suspected they are popular, but it's been hard to get a fair hearing on them. Now is our time.

It seems like war is about as bad for women as anything on this green earth.

So-- has the US had a military action that Hillary didn't support?