Democratic debate: It's Hillary Clinton who can win and govern, not Bernie Sanders

DEMOCRATS

By Jessica Tarlov

Published January 18, 2016

FoxNews.com

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Democratic U.S. presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) and rival candidate U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (R) speak simultaneously at the NBC News - YouTube Democratic presidential candidates debate in Charleston, South Carolina January 17, 2016. REUTERS/Randall Hill - RTX22TE2

My role in representing the left on Fox News can sometimes feel like David versus Goliath, but in heels.

It’s always welcome when I get a tweet or two that doesn’t involve “#Dumbacrat” and it’s especially heartening when one of two things happen: a conservative reaches out to let me know that I’ve let a little liberal light into their lives, or when fellow liberals are watching Fox because they know that without understanding the other side we will collectively get nowhere.

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But the reality is that as clear a divide as exists between left and right, there is an equal schism within the left amongst those vying for the Democrat nomination.  

That is precisely what we saw on stage in South Carolina Sunday night.

Fundamentally, the question is do we see a visionary or absurdist in Bernie Sanders? And do we see an experienced leader or sell-out in Hillary Clinton?

In a widely praised final State of the Union address, President Obama discussed his primary regret as being that he was unable to fix the partisanship that has been plaguing Washington. This theme was echoed in Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s rebuttal. It’s clear that both sides see partisanship as a serious issue that is holding our nation back.

And this is ultimately the reason why a political revolution won’t save us – from the left or the right. The system just isn’t built that way.

No one challenges Bernie Sanders’s authenticity, but there is a very real challenge in getting a candidate elected whose vision is so extreme.

Single payer health care – a policy that Hillary Clinton has long championed herself – could not even get passed with a Democratically-controlled House and Senate and a strong Democrat in the White House. The unabashed demonization of the financial services and pharmaceutical industries alienates key drivers of the American economy. Tuition free college sounds amazing – especially as someone who spent way too long in graduate school – but even with a plan to pay for it through raising taxes, it’s a fantasy.

Bernie’s vision is compelling. On Sunday night he showed his usual passion and ability to evolve: he has modified his position and now thinks that gun manufacturers can be held responsible in certain cases and he clearly takes the threat of ISIS seriously, something that has been questioned in the past.

But a compelling vision doesn’t necessarily translate into success in governing a divided populace.

This is where Hillary’s strength lies.

She offers the feasible version of Bernie’s political revolution. We should build on the Affordable Care Act, not replace it. We should be dedicated to making higher education more affordable and accessible, but not promising schemes that will never be turned into law. And she leads her Iran policy with the maxim “distrust but verify,” an embodiment of her muscular approach to foreign policy.

I return to the ACA to most clearly show why Hillary is the one who understands the liberal agenda and how to get things done. On stage in Charleston Sunday night, she recognized that we accomplished a historic milestone for social progress and the imprudence of scrapping it with a hostile congress and a country that is fatigued of the issue. The answer to this isn’t “single payer or bust.” To Bernie that doesn’t seem to matter. And that’s where Bernie’s political revolution fails us.   

Pragmatism doesn’t mean that there isn’t boldness and a big heart in her own vision. When she spoke of a lifetime of public service fighting for women’s equality, children and a better life for the middle class she means it. And her record shows that.

So the answer to the question of whether Hillary is a pragmatist or a sell out is that she’s a woman who understands that the prospects for improving the lives of everyday Americans hinges on the ability to champion solutions that those on the right will at least consider.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Bernie Sanders’s vision for America. But that isn’t the issue. The issue is who can we nominate that can win an election andgovern in a way that makes progress certain, albeit slow. #ImWithHer. 

Jessica Tarlov, Ph.D., is a political strategist at Douglas E. Schoen, LLC. Follow her on Twitter @JessicaTarlov.

high crimes and misdemeanors in presidential impeachment

Meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"

by Jon Roland, Constitution Society

Sick Bias Radio

The question of impeachment turns on the meaning of the phrase in the Constitution at Art. II Sec. 4, "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". I have carefully researched the origin of the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" and its meaning to the Framers, and found that the key to understanding it is the word "high". It does not mean "more serious". It refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons, that is, to public officials, those who, because of their official status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by ordinary persons.

Under the English common law tradition, crimes were defined through a legacy of court proceedings and decisions that punished offenses not because they were prohibited by statutes, but because they offended the sense of justice of the people and the court. Whether an offense could qualify as punishable depended largely on the obligations of the offender, and the obligations of a person holding a high position meant that some actions, or inactions, could be punishable if he did them, even though they would not be if done by an ordinary person.
Offenses of this kind survive today in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It recognizes as punishable offenses such things as perjury of oath, refusal to obey orders, abuse of authority, dereliction of duty, failure to supervise, moral turpitude, and conduct unbecoming. These would not be offenses if committed by a civilian with no official position, but they are offenses which bear on the subject's fitness for the duties he holds, which he is bound by oath or affirmation to perform.
Perjury is usually defined as "lying under oath". That is not quite right. The original meaning was "violation of one's oath (or affirmation)".
The word "perjury" is usually defined today as "lying under oath about a material matter", but that is not its original or complete meaning, which is "violation of an oath". We can see this by consulting the original Latin from which the term comes. From An Elementary Latin Dictionary, by Charlton T. Lewis (1895), Note that the letter "j" is the letter "i" in Latin.

periurium, i, n,, a false oath, perjury.

periurus, adj., oath-breaking, false to vows, perjured. iuro, avi, atus, are, to swear, take an oath.

iurator, oris, m., a swearer.

iuratus, adj., sworn under oath, bound by an oath.

ius, iuris, that which is binding, right, justice, duty.

per, ... IV. Of means or manner, through, by, by means of, ... under pretense of, by the pretext of, ....

By Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, the president must swear: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." He is bound by this oath in all matters until he leaves office. No additional oath is needed to bind him to tell the truth in anything he says, as telling the truth is pursuant to all matters except perhaps those relating to national security. Any public statement is perjury if it is a lie, and not necessary to deceive an enemy.
When a person takes an oath (or affirmation) before giving testimony, he is assuming the role of an official, that of "witness under oath", for the duration of his testimony. That official position entails a special obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and in that capacity, one is punishable in a way he would not be as an ordinary person not under oath. Therefore, perjury is a high crime.
An official such as the president does not need to take a special oath to become subject to the penalties of perjury. He took an oath, by Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States" and to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" to the best of his ability. While he holds that office, he is always under oath, and lying at any time constitutes perjury if it is not justified for national security.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr erred in presenting in his referral only those offenses which could be "laid at the feet" of the president. He functioned like a prosecutor of an offense against criminal statutes that apply to ordinary persons and are provable by the standards of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". That is not to say that such offenses are not also high crimes or misdemeanors when committed by an official bound by oath. Most such offenses are. But "high crimes and misdemeanors" also includes other offenses, applicable only to a public official, for which the standard is "preponderance of evidence". Holding a particular office of trust is not a right, but a privilege, and removal from such office is not a punishment. Disablement of the right to hold any office in the future would be a punishment, and therefore the standards of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" would apply before that ruling could be imposed by the Senate.
It should be noted, however, that when an offense against a statute is also a "high crime or misdemeanor", it may be, and usually is, referred to by a different name, when considered as such. Thus, an offense like "obstruction of justice" or "subornation of perjury" may become "abuse of authority" when done by an official bound by oath. As such it would be grounds for impeachment and removal from office, but would be punishable by its statutory name once the official is out of office.
An executive official is ultimately responsible for any failures of his subordinates and for their violations of the oath he and they took, which means violations of the Constitution and the rights of persons. It is not necessary to be able to prove that such failures or violations occurred at his instigation or with his knowledge, to be able, in Starr's words, to "lay them at the feet" of the president. It is sufficient to show, on the preponderance of evidence, that the president was aware of misconduct on the part of his subordinates, or should have been, and failed to do all he could to remedy the misconduct, including termination and prosecution of the subordinates and compensation for the victims or their heirs. The president's subordinates include everyone in the executive branch, and their agents and contractors. It is not limited to those over whom he has direct supervision. He is not protected by "plausible deniability". He is legally responsible for everything that everyone in the executive branch is doing.
Therefore, the appropriate subject matter for an impeachment and removal proceeding is the full range of offenses against the Constitution and against the rights of persons committed by subordinate officials and their agents which have not been adequately investigated or remedied. The massacre at Waco, the assault at Ruby Ridge, and many, many other illegal or excessive assaults by federal agents, and the failure of the president to take action against the offenders, is more than enough to justify impeachment and removal from office on grounds of dereliction of duty. To these we could add the many suspicious incidents that indicate covered up crimes by federal agents, including the suspicious deaths of persons suspected of being knowledgeable of wrongdoing by the president or others in the executive branch, or its contractors.
The impeachment and removal process should be a debate on the entire field of proven and suspected misconduct by federal officials and agents under this president, and if judged to have been excessive by reasonable standards, to be grounds for removal, even if direct complicity cannot be shown.

Sickest Liberal Bias of the Year

YAHOO READERS ARE BEING DUPED. Please read this in full to see:The propaganda wing of the Obama Campaign, Politifact, just released one of the most egregious, inciting, and blatantly and outrageously dishonest articles today.  Rachel Rose Hartman of Yahoo News wrote an article about it that is currently plastered all over the front of Yahoo.com. It talks about the claim and of the possibility that it led to Romney's defeat in the 2012 election.What it doesn't tell you is how dishonest this article is. The article is based on another article written by a far left political blog called Politifact.com. Apparently Romney's statement that Fiat (the company that bought Chrysler from Barack Obama for peanuts) planned on building Jeeps in China was deemed "Lie of the Year" by Angie Drobnic Holan. What's even MORE important is that the neither the Yahoo article OR the Politifact article explains where this "Lie of the Year" came from. What were the other candidates for lie of the year? If you look at another article that asks its readers what THEY think the lie of the year should be, you'll see that they got a choice of 11 options - 11 of which were supposed Romney lies, ZERO of which were Obama lies.The truth is that the Romney campaign assertion that Fiat planned on producing Jeeps overseas has never been refuted. The truth that these overseas productions were going to come at the expense of American jobs was a figment of liberal imagination. They literally needed to IMAGINE facts in order to spin lies out of Romney statements. Nevermind that Obama has yet to answer for the 4 brave American diplomats who were left for dead by Barack Obama. The gut-wrenching incident was blamed, BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION on a ridiculous Youtube video that hardly anyone saw. So it turns out that the real big fat lie of the year is that Obama got re-elected by a well informed electorate.

Many of you are no doubt wondering why Liberals are campaigning after the election is over. It is not because they want to get a 4 year head start. Its not even to finish off the wounded Republicans after such a stinging loss. The real reason is because they know that Obama's communist agenda is going to ruin the economy and possibly the country, and that by continuing a campaign style assault against conservatives they have the ability to continue to blame them for whatever goes wrong. It makes what they say slightly believable to the mob that otherwise doesn't know any better. We here at Sickbias.com are dedicating our lives to educating young Americans about truth and facts to make them more informed voters. We will fight hard against the dishonest Propaganda used to manipulate you the reader into voting the way THEY want you to and against what is best for you and your family, and freedom and prosperity for America.

Will She Survive?

My mother was bitten by a deadly snake a while ago. While her health was failing due to the venom coursing through her body, a doctor came running with a single vile of the antidote. He tripped and fell, smashing the bottle to the ground. Now my mother is at the fate of her own body being able to power through and rid it of this deadly toxin, or die trying.

This is an honest-to-God true story...

if by "mother" I mean "country,"

if by "bitten by a" I mean "plagued by the election of,"

if by "deadly snake" I mean "Barack Obama,"

if by "a while ago" I mean "four years ago,"

if by "health" I mean "economy,"

if by "venom" I mean "socialism,"

if by "coursing through her body" I mean "being implemented,"

if by "a doctor" I mean "American patriots,"

if by "a single vile of antidote" I mean "candidates Romney and Ryan,"

if by "he tripped and fell" I mean "the concerned citizens failed on election day,"

if by "smashing the bottle to the ground" I mean "eliminating any hope of reversing the effects of socialism being implemented,"

if by "her own body" I mean "the strength and will of freedom loving Americans."

Will she survive?

The New Silent Majority

Barack Obama has just been reelected president by a majority of the U.S. population. Although this comes as no surprise to those at MSNBC, I must point out that this win bucks a whole lot of conventional wisdom on polls and turnout. Liberal commentators, pundits, journalists and Obama campaign officials spent the entire month of October pointing to polls that Obama had slight leads in nearly all battleground states. The election results proved the liberals right. But that doesn't mean all the conservatives that claimed that the polls were wrong were deliberately trying to be misleading. In fact their claims had so much merit, it lead me to believe that it was the democrats that were living in Fantasy Land. During October, I looked further into it and it turns out the polls were based on a methodology that included the belief that even though independents were breaking for Romney, a massive turnout of democrats very similar to 2008 was going to make up the difference.

Conservatives had plenty of reasons to be skeptical. First of all 2008 was an historic election for the ages. Supporters of Obama were going to vote for America's first black president. There was so much hope in the air it was electric. The numbers of young, minority and women voters that showed up in 2008 was overwhelming compared to any election before it. People who never voted in their life wanted to be a part of history. Then there was the 2010 election. The newly formed conservative tea party turned out to oust huge numbers of democrats in the house and senate. It seemed to most experts that the election of 2008 was an anomaly. Conservatives were convinced that the polling methodology for 2012 was wrong.

But wait! There's more!

The conventional wisdom of polling statistics was not the only thing that made conservatives skeptical of a huge 2008-like turnout. There was also obvious visual clues as well. In the last month of campaigning, both candidates held many rallies, almost every single day. In the last week there were several rallies per day for both candidates. One of the big stories reported by reputable conservative news organizations both on television and on the internet was that there was a huge difference in turnout to the rallies of Obama verses the rallies of Romney. It was reported that the Romney campaign had to move his scheduled events to larger venues because of the overwhelming turnout. I heard crowds as large as 30,000 were driving in from hundreds of miles away to get in to see what they believe was going to be their future president. By the end of the campaign, Romney was calling it "a movement." At the same time it was told that the Obama campaign was struggling to scrape together a couple thousand people. Reports of half empty venues were all over the place. One conservative article claimed an Obama rally featuring a concert by Stevie Wonder managed to muster up only 200 people! It doesn't help that the liberal news organization were silent about rally numbers. So while it may not be scientific, the reported rally numbers really made many feel like the momentum, energy and excitement was definitely on Romney's side.

More anecdotal evidence:

The visual evidence was not limited to rallies. I live in a swing county of a swing state. A strong argument can be made that Hamilton County, Ohio elects presidents of the United States. We voted for Bush twice and Obama twice. That's where I live and work. I drive all over the county all day, every day. In 2000, yard signs were equally divided between Bush and Gore supporters. In 2004, Bush signs were much more numerous than Kerry signs. In 2008, Obama signs totally overwhelmed McCain signs. This year, Romney signs absolutely dominated Obama signs. I can't speak for the rest of America and what kind of support they display on their residences, but here it is generally loud and proud, and this year the louder support in a county that is a microcosm of the rest of the country was loudest for Romney.

Last but not least...

I am a chronic Yahoo! user. Don't get me wrong - do not think for a second that in my quest for intellectual punishment, my choice of torture device is in any way an endorsement of such a device. I have grown to love to hate Yahoo! and everything their editorial staff stands for. Once you get beyond that, I am hopelessly addicted to their comments section. This is not a new development either. I was a notorious troll on the old Y! Message Boards before it got shut down, gutted and transformed to Y! Answers. These days, the public gets their fix of trolling in the comments section of Yahoo's front page articles. Its extremely popular, and I became convinced over the years that you can use the overall attitude of the collective posts as a bellwether for predicting actions of Americans. For example, back around 2005-2007 I could truly tell that Bush's popularity was waning. The more popular posts (based on their ratio of thumbs up to thumbs down) were mostly anti-Bush posts, and the overall percentage of pro-Bush posts was getting smaller and smaller. Then of course we saw the landslide election of 2006 against Republicans. In 2008 the comments were mostly pro-Obama, or anti-Bush, which of course led to the huge Obama win coupled with the election of the Democrat super-majorty in Congress. In 2010, I saw slightly more comments on Yahoo of pro-tea party types. It was only "slightly" because Yahoo comments section have always been a safe-haven for liberals, as many of the most popular news sources online have become by that time.

Fast forward to October, 2012: Following the debates, the comments section of Yahoo has become more one-sided than I have ever seen them - but not for the liberals. It has been flooded with conservatives earning hundreds of thumbs-ups for pro-Romney and anti-Obama posts. As far as I was concerned, this alone was an indication of a landslide for Romney. There was also the incumbent presiding over the worst economy of our generation, the foreign policy missteps of Benghazi, and to put the icing on the cake, the last few days of the campaign included a Hurricane Sandy that was very quickly looking like a debacle for Obama.

All the conventional wisdom was pointing towards the polls being wrong. How could a majority of independents be for Romney while the overall numbers were showing Obama ahead? How could this be while everything I can see with my eyes and hear with my ears says that most people are going to vote for Romney? How was it that the polls ended up being right on election day despite the conventional wisdom of presidential elections in years past?

The New Silent Majority

The answer is that there were many millions of people who voted for Obama that never put up a yard sign. They either didn't ever log into Yahoo, or stopped posting comments. They were quietly waiting in the shadows and pounced on election day. The are the "Silent Majority". Wait, what? For those not familiar with the phrase, the Silent Majority has in recent history been that large group of politically silent people that largely voted Republican on election day. For more information on the old Silent Majority, click here. The group of Obama voters that proved the polls right on election day are "The New Silent Majority." The question as to whether or not this is an Obama phenomenon or whether it is the new norm for the Democratic Party will not become apparent until the election of 2014.

As I write this, I am listening to Rush Limbaugh express his opinion that the reason Romney lost was because of a lack of turnout of the Republican Base. As of right now, based on what I have said about rally turnout, "Mittmentum," the movement, etc. I am rejecting that claim. Conservatives were fired up about the possibility of ousting Obama and replacing him with anyone. While conservatives were skeptical of Mitt for a long time, his performance in the debates really truly excited conservatives. Besides, just one day prior, Rush was talking about how the election results were a trend, not an anomaly. I'm not writing off the theory, but if Rush is correct, then I would have to write another article explaining how so many indicators pointed to a huge conservative turnout, but it just simply didn't happen on election day. For now, you can just know that it was the New Silent Majority.