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

DEMOCRATS

By Jessica Tarlov

Published January 18, 2016

FoxNews.com

Facebook Twitter livefyre Email

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.

ADVERTISEMENT

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.

Michigan Becomes First State to Welcome Back Sub-$1 Gas... 0.80

Talked about this in great detail on last night show Smyth Radio called it before it happened.

Listen to Military Veteran Talk Radio

iHeart.SmythRadio.com

www.fox5ny.com

Gasbuddy.com says several stations in Houghton Lake, Michigan have lowered their prices under $1 per gallon, in what appears to be a price war.

According to GasBuddy it appears these stations are currently the first stations in the country to see prices under $1 per gallon in years. As the situation unfolds, it's possible these stations re-raise prices back over $1/gallon. 

78 cents per gallon was recorded at Beacon & Bridge Market while 95 cents per gallon was recorded at the Marathon in Houghton Lake. Prices were verified by GasBuddy after a review of photographs uploaded to GasBuddy's app. 

COMMENTS

EXCLUSIVE–Linda Tripp: ‘Bill Had Affairs with Thousands of Women’ - Breitbart

www.breitbart.com

In a rare interview, Linda Tripp, a pivotal figure in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, revealed on Sunday it was common knowledge while she worked in the West Wing that Bill Clinton had affairs with “thousands of women.”

Speaking on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” Tripp for the first time divulged that she personally knew another White House staffer aside from Lewinsky who was also having an affair with Clinton. That unnamed staffer was mentioned by Tripp in various depositions but she has not spoken about it publicly.

She charged that Hillary Clinton not only knew about her husband’s exploits, “She made it her personal mission to disseminate information and destroy the women with whom he dallied.”

Tripp says she cringes at the sight of Clinton presenting herself as “a champion of women’s rights worldwide in a global fashion, and yet all of the women she has destroyed over the years to ensure her political viability continues is sickening to me.”

Tripp documented evidence of Lewinsky’s phone calls about her relationship with Bill Clinton and submitted the evidence to independent counsel Kenneth Starr, leading to the public disclosure of the affair. She explained to Klein that she did so because she believed her own life and Lewinsky’s were in danger, saying that Lewinsky was threatening Clinton with outing the relationship.

Tripp also used the interview to criticize what she says is the news media’s unwillingness to investigate the Clintons. She singled out and thanked Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, declaring that without him “things would have been very, very different.”

Drudge’s website was the first media outlet to break the Lewinsky scandal after Newsweek sat on the story.

Tripp had unique access to the Clintons because her office was directly adjacent to Hillary’s second floor West Wing office for the entire time she served in the Clinton White House from 1993 to the summer of 1994 with the exception of the first three months of the Clinton administration, when she sat just outside the Oval Office.

Tripp’s nonpartisan position was a carryover from the George H. W. Bush administration in which she served.

‘Monica Lewinsky is alive today because of choices I made’

She told Klein that her role in the Lewinsky case followed “years of alarm at what I had seen in the Clinton White House, particularly Hillary and the different scandals, whether it was Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Vince Foster.”

“All of the scandals that had come before and were so completely obliterated in the mind’s eye of the American people because of the way all of them were essentially discounted. So I watched a lying President and a lying First Lady present falsehoods to the American people.

“So my dismay predated the January 1998 period when the Monica Lewinsky scandal surfaced. To me it was very important that the American people see what I was seeing. My years with the Clintons were so disturbing on so many levels.”

Tripp maintains that she went public with the Lewinsky evidence to ensure the intern’s safety as well as her own.

She told Klein:

I say today and I will continue to say that I believe Monica Lewinsky is alive today because of choices I made and action I took. That may sound melodramatic to your listeners. I can only say that from my perspective I believe that she and I at the time were in danger, because nothing stands in the way of these people achieving their political ends.

I think that had it not become public when it did, particularly in light of the Paula Jones lawsuit, which was coming to a head with President Clinton’s deposition, that we may well have met with an accident. It’s a situation where unless you lived it as I did you would have no real framework of reference for this sort of situation.

Tripp said the young Lewinsky, 21-years-old when she entered the White House as an intern, was unaware of the danger that she faced.

She described Lewinsky as a “young girl, smart, clever … but in this one area she was blinded and she fancied herself in love.”

Trip continued:

He fancied himself entitled. It was nothing more than a servicing agreement. She romanticized that there was an affair. And when it didn’t pan out the way she had hoped it would – he had promised her he would bring her back to the White House as soon as the 1996 election campaign had finished. When he didn’t, she essentially lost her mind and started acting in erratic and frightening ways. Threatening the president.

There came a point in July of 1997 when she not only threatened to expose the affair, as she referred to it. But also she at that time informed him that I knew all about it. So at that time it became dangerous for Monica and for me. This was something that absolutely could never see the light of day. And she never realized the implications of threatening a president or her behavior. And I did.

‘Thousands’ of women

Tripp told Klein that “the biggest fallacy that most people believed is that this was a unique occurrence. Monica was somehow special. And regrettably that’s the farthest thing from the truth.”

She said, “Everyone knew within the West Wing, particularly those who spent years with him, of the thousands of women.

“Now most of your listeners might find that difficult if not impossible to believe. And I can tell you in the beginning I felt the same way. But let me be clear here. This is a pattern of behavior that has gone on for years. And the abuse of women for years.”

Asked whether Clinton was having affairs with others in the West Wing, Tripp replied, “I know that to be true. One in particular who I will not name told me this herself.”

“But as to the hundreds or thousands, remember I worked closely with the closest aides to the president. And it was a loosey-goosy environment so there was not a lot of holding back. So it was common knowledge, let’s put it this way, within the West Wing that he had this problem. It was further common knowledge that Hillary was aware of it.”

Hillary ‘instilled fear’

Tripp described the tense West Wing atmosphere between what she characterized as two almost diametrically opposed Clinton camps.

The dynamic between the two groups – the Bill Clinton people and the Hillary Clinton people. It was as though they were almost opposing forces. But I can tell you that the one with the power and the one that instilled the fear in the other was the Hillary camp.

And the [Bill] Clinton people would cower if she were coming into the area, just as an example, of the Oval without notice. There would be scurrying around to make sure there was no one in the wrong place at the wrong time, shall we say. It was a fascination to see the amount of energy that was expended covering up his behavior. It was horrifying.

Hillary’s ‘war on women’

Tripp said Hillary personally targeted Bill’s female conquests and accusers, with the future presidential candidate exhibiting behavior that is “egregious and it’s so disingenuous.”

In my case, for instance, right after the Lewinsky story broke, she was heard directing her staff to get anything and everything on Linda Tripp. So the defamation of character and the absolute assurance that my credibility would be destroyed began right away. And it happens with any woman who is involved in any way, either with him in a physical relationship or an assault or anything that can endanger their political viability.

Tripp recalled Hillary’s January 27, 1998appearance on NBC’s The Today Show in which she was seen as standing by her husband while blaming the Lewinsky scandal on a “vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”

“She didn’t do it in an honest way,” said Tripp of Clinton’s NBC interview. “Instead she lied, which didn’t surprise me. And I will give her credit. She is enormously effective. And became a victim. A wife who was betrayed.”

“This is someone who had no real personal problem with any of this behavior. The problem was in it becoming public. They had to continue to become electable… She was the more aggressive one in ensuring that the political viability was not endangered in any way.”

Tripp told Klein that Hillary “does not possess integrity on any level. I just wish that your listeners could know the person that I knew. Because if they did there is not a chance she would be elected president.”

Disdain for military, classified material, email scandal

Tripp’s ringside seat afforded her rare insight into the scandals of the 1990s and perhaps alleged wrongdoings to come, with the West Wing employee personally witnessing behavior that may have foreshadowed Clinton’s email scandal, in which she is accused of sending classified materials through her personal server.

Tripp said she noticed major differences in the manner in which classified material was handled by both the Clinton and Bush administrations in which she served.

President George H.W. Bush’s administration had “a completely different way of operating on every level, including on classified and secret material,” she said.

She continued:

All the regulations were followed, right down to a cover sheet being essential if the document had had any sort of classifications. The securing of classified documentation in safes. The burn bags that were used if any sensitive material was to be disposed of. All of this was familiar to me and followed every security protocol that I had experienced in the past.

When the Clintons came in this was one of the things that I found appalling right from day one. And it went hand and hand with the disdain for the military. The military was present in the White House in the form of presidential aides. The aide that carried the nuclear football, just as an example. And in the Bush White House they were respected, as they should be. In the Clinton White House, they were disdained. To see it treated this way and to see these people treated this way was disturbing.

Tripp referred to Clinton’s private mail woes as “classic Hillary Clinton in a nutshell.”

“She gets to decide what she does. Look, the rules don’t apply to the Clintons. If you understand that basic premise you understand the Clintons.”

For Tripp, Clinton’s use of a private server was “all about control. She has a need to control every single aspect of her life. And you know anyone in government knows that any key

Laugh Track: Top 10 Funniest Dem Debate Moments

Andrew Burton / Getty

by JOEL B. POLLAK17 Jan 2016317

When Democratic presidential candidates get together to debate, it really is like watching the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) once joked.

They don’t just live in a different America. They live on a strange, faraway planet where politicians can control the weather, and evil corporations control everything else. (Oh, and where BLACK LIVES MATTER, über alles.)

It’s ripe with comic potential. These were the ten funniest moments.

10. The candidates talked down the economy. Last Tuesday, President Barack Obama said: “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.” His would-be successors did not get the memo, as each of them talked down the economy. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led off by talking about how “we have to get the economy working,” and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) talked about growing inequality between rich and poor.

9. Everyone competed to hate the Second Amendment. While Clinton and Sanders disputed which of them had been consistently worse for gun rights, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley boasted that he had been worst of all, passing gun regulations that somehow have failed to prevent an ongoing death spiral of violent crime in Baltimore. It was a reminder that there is no room in the Democratic Party for dissent–or for the Constitution.

8. Bernie Sanders couldn’t hear a question. In a reprise of Admiral James Stockdale’s catastrophic gaffe in the 1992 vice presidential debate, when he claimed his hearing aid was off, Sanders asked moderator Lester Holt to repeat a question from YouTube. It highlighted the sheer age of the field, as well as the age of their ideas. Later, in an encore, Sanders had to explain what it meant to be a “democratic socialist”–an ideology that died decades ago.

7. The candidates competed to take credit for Obamacare. Clinton, Sanders, and O’Malley each claimed credit for helping to write, fight for, and implement the “Affordable Care Act”–a law that the majority of Americans want to repeal. Millions lost their insurance, millions lost their doctors, and millions are paying more in premiums and high deductibles. In Obama’s home state, nearly 200,000 morejust lost their plans. But it’s working great, right?

6. When Hillary Clinton used the word “jail.” She was referring to corrupt Wall Street bankers–whom, by the way, the Obama administration failed to prosecute as promised. But with much of the country wondering whether Clinton will be indicted before Election Day for corruption and misuse of classified information, jail must certainly be weighing on the Secretary’s mind. Neither of the other two candidates had the guts to say the word. But she did!

5. Martin O’Malley bragged that no one from Wall Street has contributed to him this year. In response to Clinton reminding him that he had been happy to accept contributions from Wall Street in the past, O’Malley said he had not taken money from Wall Street “this year.” The year is 17 days old and O’Malley is at 2.3% in the latest Real Clear Politics national poll average, so no surprise. Even the audience of loyal Democrats laughed at that one.

4. Bernie Sanders dinged Donald Trump.One of the few moments of genuine humor came from Sanders, who said that Trump believes “climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese.” It was a good line, capturing Trump’s opposition to climate change policies, as well as his suspicion of China. Of course, Sanders thought the U.S. was on the wrong side of the Cold War, and still blames us for fighting it (see below), so take that from whence it comes.

3. Hillary Clinton claimed credit for the Iran deal–and Iran sanctions. If Clinton wants to take credit for a deal that allows Iran to develop nuclear weapons after a decade or so, and gives it over $100 billion to fund its terrorist proxies, so be it. But she told a knee-slapper when she claimed credit for the sanctions that brought Iran to the table.  The truth: her State Department, like the rest of the Obama administration, tried to prevent sanctions against Iran.

2. “We were able to get the chemical weapons out” of Syria, said Clinton.Clinton dodged a question about Obama’s failure to enforce his “red line” in Syria by claiming that he had found a unique window of opportunity to solve the problem of chemical weapons peacefully in a deal with Russia. She topped that fraudulent history with a claim that Syria gave up chemical weapons–a claim not even the Obama administration takes seriously anymore.

1. Clinton claimed to have stood up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. That“reset” button must have been flushed down the memory hole, because now Clinton is claiming that she put up a fight against Russia, describing Putin as “someone you have to continually stand up to.” A brazen lie–and a total joke, equaled only by Sanders’s complaint that the military aims “to fight the old Cold War with the Soviet Union.” He’s stuck in 2012–or 1917.

 

Read More Stories About:

Big Government, Big Journalism, 2016 Presidential Race

Markets suffer their worst start to the year since Great Depression | The Times

Obama resides over the worse economy in 80 years. 

EXCELLENT REVIEW ON LAST NIGHTS SHOW LISTEN 24/7 ON Military Veteran Talk Radio

 iHeart.SmythRadio.comwww.thetimes.co.uk

The start of this year has been the worst for financial markets since the onset of the Great Depression, with stock prices slumping around the world amid mounting concern over the situation in China.

A wave of selling has swept the world’s leading financial centres over the past two weeks, with the value of Britain’s leading companies falling by more than £110 billion since the start of the year.he year.

The FTSE 100 index of Britain’s biggest quoted companies fell 114 points, or 2 per cent, to 5,804 yesterday — the lowest close since November 2012. Indices in Europe and America have fared even worse: the Shanghai market was the worst performer, closing down 3.6 per cent, taking its total losses to 18 per cent for 2016. This was prompted by the price of a barrel of Brent crude dipping below the $30 mark, for the third time this week. In America the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 391 points, or 2.4 per cent, at 15,988.

The FTSE 100 index of Britain’s biggest quoted companies fell 114 points, or 2 per cent, to 5,804 yesterday — the lowest close since November 2012. In America the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 391 points, or 2.4 per cent, at 15,988.

The Shanghai market was the worst performer, closing down 3.6 per cent, taking its losses for the year so far to 18 per cent. This was prompted by the price of a barrel of Brent crude dipping below $30 for the third time this week.

David Buik, of Panmure Gordon, the investment bank, suggested that the “financial carnage” in stock markets in the first two weeks of the year was the worst since 1928.

Investors seeking safe havens have turned to gold, sparking a 2 per cent recovery in its price to $1,094 an ounce.

George Osborne underlined the pessimistic mood by warning last week of grave threats to the British economy, the chancellor saying that it could be “the year we look back at the beginning of the decline” if the country abandoned his agenda. Fears of another crash were heightened by a research note by an economist at RBS advising clients to “sell everything except high-quality bonds”.

Some economists have said, however, that the risk of contagion from China has been exaggerated. It is only Britain’s sixth-largest export market, representing no more than 3.6 per cent of overseas sales, behind the Republic of Ireland.

In China, interventions by the Communist party to prop up markets have done little to reassure investors, and the plight of the world’s second-largest economy is gripping markets. There is strong evidence of a slowdown, after an unprecedented boom between 2000 and 2014, when the size of the Chinese economy ballooned by a factor of eight. The Beijing authorities have set a growth target of 6.5 per cent for this year, but scepticism over the accuracy of its economic data is growing.

Fathom Consulting, an economic forecaster, thinks that growth in China could be as low as 2.4 per cent, rather than the official 6.8 per cent. The difference between those figures, in dollar terms, equated to more than the entire economy of the United Arab Emirates, suggesting that a severe jolt is in store for the rest of the world.

The Chinese government’s botched interventions in local stock exchanges have heightened the nervousness, and added to the steep fall in the price of oil. It tumbled to below $29 a barrel yesterday, its lowest since 2004.

COMMENTS

'Miraculous' results from new MS treatment

THANK YOU AMERICAN CAPITALISM FOR YET SAVING MORE LIVES AGAIN.

EXCELLENT REVIEW ON LAST NIGHTS SHOW LISTEN 24/7 ON Military Veteran Talk Radio
iHeart.SmythRadio.com

www.telegraph.co.uk

A pioneering new stem cell treatment is reversing and then halting the potentially crippling effects of multiple sclerosis.

Patients embarking on a ground-breaking trial of the new treatment have found they can walk again and that the disease even appears to be stopped in its tracks.

“I started seeing changes within days of the stem cells being put in. I walked out of the hospital. I walked into my house and hugged Isla. I cried and cried. It was a bit overwhelming. It was a miracle” Patient Holly Drewry

COMMENTS

Iran sanctions: Middle East stock crash wipes £27bn off markets as Tehran enters oil war

EXCELLENT REVIEW ON LAST NIGHTS SHOW LISTEN 24/7 ON Military Veteran Talk Radio

 iHeart.SmythRadio.com

Www.telegraph.co.uk

Stock markets across the Middle East saw more than £27bn wiped off their value as the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran threatened to unleash a fresh wave of oil onto global markets that are already drowning in excess supply.

All seven stock markets in the Gulf states tumbled as panic gripped traders. London shares are now braced for a second wave of crisis to hit when they open on Monday morning after contagion from China sent the FTSE 100 to its worst start in history last week.

Dubai's DFM General Index closed down 4.65pc to 2,684.9, while Saudi Arabia's Tadawul All Share Index, the largest Arab market, collapsed by 7pc intraday, before recovering to end down 5.44pc at 5,520.41, its lowest level in almost five years.

The Qatar stock exchange, fell 7.2pc to close at 8,527.75, and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange shed 4.24pc to finish at 3,787.4. The Kuwait market returned to levels not seen since May 2004 as it slid 3.2pc lower, while smaller markets in Oman and Bahrain dropped 3.2pc and 0.4pc respectively.

The Iranian stock index gained 1pc, making it one of the best performing markets in the world with gains of 6pc since the start of the year.

The dramatic moves came following the historic report from the UN nuclear watchdog, which showed that Iran has met its obligations under the nuclear deal, clearing the way for the lifting of sanctions.

Implementing #JCPOA not a detriment to any country. Our friends are happy & our rivals need not worry. We're no threat to any nation/state.

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani)January 17, 2016

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency issued the landmark document late on Saturday evening, sparking mayhem as markets opened on Sunday, the first day of trading in the Middle East.

The stock markets in Dubai and Saudi Arabia have been plunged into a painful bear market, losing 42pc and 38pc respectively, ever since Saudi Arabia decided to ramp up oil production in November 2014.

Oil prices fell below $30 for the third time last week as traders prepared for the prospect of Iranian oil flooding global markets.

The Islamic Republic has vowed to return its oil production to pre-sanction levels that stood above 3m barrels a day.

“The oil ministry, by ordering companies to boost production and oil terminals to be ready, kicked off today the plan to increase Iran’s crude exports by 500,000 barrels,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Sunday, citing Amir Hossein Zamaninia, deputy oil minister.

Fears that the Islamic Republic could quickly ramp up production sent Brent crude falling by 3.3pc to $29.43 on Friday - matching lows last seen in 2004.

West Texas Intermediate also slipped back to $29.60, a decline of 4.5pc.

Standard Chartered became the latest bank to raise fears over the oil price by downgrading its outlook to $10, following the likes of Goldman Sachs, RBS and Morgan Stanley.

The price of oil was $115 per barrel 18 months ago until Saudi Arabia greatly increased production to crush rivals in the US and Russia.

Oil price crash means petrol could become cheaper than bottled water

18 months ago a barrel of #oil bought you a bottle of Pol Roger 2004 champagne. Today it gets you Tesco Finest.pic.twitter.com/ROxaaTmW3H

— RBS Economics (@RBS_Economics)January 15, 2016

The relentless fall in oil has seen prices return to levels not seen since 2004.

Mapped: How the world became awash with oil

Interactive: Oilmapembed

COMMENTS