Clinton’s Latest Deceitful Statement: “I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me.”

Hillary Clinton, one of the most dishonest and corrupt politicians in recent history, has made a statement (video above) which ranks with Richard Nixon’s classic, “I am not a crook.” While running a campaign based upon one lie after another about Bernie Sanders, she responded to a truthful complaint about her by saying, “I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I’m sick of it.” The Hill reports:

Hillary Clinton on Thursday accused Bernie Sanders‘s campaign of lying about her in a heated exchange with an environmental activist.

“I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I’m sick of it,” the visibly angry Democratic presidential hopeful said, pointing a finger in a woman’s face, in a video posted by Greenpeace.

The exchange came as the woman pressed Clinton on taking donations from the fossil fuel industry and asked if she would reject their campaign contributions in the future.

“I do not have — I have money from people who work for fossil fuel companies,” Clinton responded, before calling the rival campaign’s claims lies.

Clinton’s campaign has accepted sums from fossil fuel companies. According to a Huffington Post report from July of last year, most of her campaign’s largest bundlers at the time were lobbyists for the industry.

In other words, Clinton is accusing the Sanders campaign of lying in response to an environmental activist making a true accusation against Clinton.

In contrast, Clinton has been caught telling multiple lies about Sanders, and was even been chastised for her lying about Sanders by many people, including a former adviser to Bill Clinton, and  The New York Times, which has endorsed Clinton. Among her top lies of the campaign

Clinton has also been caught telling other lies beyond lying about Sanders during this campaign, such as when she was caught  rewriting history on her support for the defense of marriage act.  (She has also been caught lying about Donald Trump and other Republicans by the factcheckers, but there is already too much here to go into that today.)

Of course Clinton has a long history of lying which is not limited to her political opponents, such as her false claims of a tie between Saddam and al Qaeda to justify the Iraq war, and the many lies she has told about her conduct as Secretary of State.

There was no reason for Clinton to run such a dishonest campaign considering the degree to which Sanders has wanted to stick to the issues, but Clinton could not help herself. Lying is what she does (and having a habitual lier and warmonger as Commander in Chief is quite scary). This is also not very wise politically. There are already many Sanders supporters who will probably not vote for her if she wins the nomination, and bogus attacks on Sanders such as this will not help matters.

Clinton Liar

Obama, Clinton, and Sanders & The Drug War (Sanders Has The Best Position)

Commuted Sentences Obama

The drug war is one of several areas where Obama has tried to move in the right direction, but his overall accomplishments over the last seven years have been disappointing. Far too little has changed. The White House has now announced that President Obama is reducing the sentences of sixty-one more individuals imprisoned due to drug laws, bringing the total to 248:

Today, the President announced 61 new grants of commutation to individuals serving years in prison under outdated and unduly harsh sentencing laws. More than one-third of them were serving life sentences. To date, the President has now commuted the sentences of 248 individuals – more than the previous six Presidents combined. And, in total, he has commuted 92 life sentences.

Underscoring his commitment not just to clemency, but to helping those who earn their freedom make the most of their second chance, the President will meet today with commutation recipients from both his Administration and the previous administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. During the meeting, the commutation recipients will discuss their firsthand experiences with the reentry process and ways that the process can be strengthened to give every individual the resources he or she needs to transition from prison and lead a fulfilling, productive life…

While this is welcome news, both liberal and libertarian commentators have expressed regrets that Obama hasn’t done more. Vox notes:

…the White House is still falling far short of the expectations it set for itself two years ago, when it encouraged thousands of prisoners to apply for shorter sentences. Then–Attorney General Eric Holder even went so far as to speculate that 10,000 prisoners might get their sentences reduced by the end of the Obama administration.

In that context, the 61 new commutations — and even the 248 total commutations — look different: a very small, incremental change that may signal the White House will do more in future but almost certainly won’t help it live up to its own expectations.

This comes not long after considerable discussion in the medical field regrading the negative impact of handling drug abuse as a criminal as opposed to a health matter, including in an article in The Lancet:

In a report published Thursday in The Lancet medical journal, Beyrer and an international team of researchers assessed the growing body of evidence for the public health impacts of programs such as opioid substitution therapy and needle exchange programs. In addition to criminal justice changes, the researchers made specific recommendations for policy makers to improve access to services that can reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis C virus, also known as HCV.

“We think there is the first opportunity in a generation to have meaningful drug reform,” said Beyrer, who led the research for the report , which was commissioned by The Lancet and Johns Hopkins University

The report comes weeks before the United Nations General Assembly Special Session convenes on April 19 to discuss drug policy for the first time since 1998.

“There is pressure from a number of countries who feel the war on drugs has failed them, particularly Central and South America, where there is some of the worst drug-related violence,” Beyrer said. “We sought to review all the scientific evidence so it would be available to the U.N. member states when this is being debated.”

According to the report, injection drug use has led to increases in new HIV and HCV infections. Unsafe injection practices, such as sharing needles, are linked to about 30% of HIV transmission outside of sub-Saharan Africa. HCV transmission is also high among people who inject drugs, and a study in the United States found that more than half of people got infected in the first year they were injecting.

Hillary Clinton’s opposition to needle exchange programs, along with her hard line overall on the drug war, was an issue in the 2008 election. This year Bernie Sanders differs from his current opponents in going the furthest to oppose the continuation of the drug war:

Bernie Sanders’ campaign is now officially neck and neck with Hilary. Considered by many of us, to be a voice of progress and a champion for a new America. Much of his platform is forward-looking and based on reimagining what Americans should value in the future. To reinforce this outlook, many of his major policies address the redistribution of wealth and the reevaluation of some of the country’s long-standing campaigns—with the the War on Drugs being at the top of the list. Bango, Bernie!

Now pay close attention here, his mandates related to the War on Drugs are to treat and rehabilitate non-violent drug offenders rather than imprison them, to prevent large companies from further profiteering off of prisons and to legalize cannabis. If he is elected and this reform is passed by Congress, America would look very different—for the better, we like to think.

As much as Big Bernie is an advocate for policy change, he’s also focused on creating a major cultural shift. This is most strongly evidenced by his plan to create treatment facilities for non-violent drug offenders. If implemented correctly, the plan would encourage Americans to be more sympathetic towards those who have fallen victim to drug addiction, regardless of how or why. As Sanders sees it, it takes a community to help someone get back on their feet, and we need to be in the business of creating the infrastructure to make this happen…

There were also recent reports that a top Nixon aide had described the real reasons for the war on drugs:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.

“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

This also fits into the Clinton model of expanding police power. I fear that if Clinton is elected we will slide backwards on continuing the disastrous drug war.

Susan Sarandon Shows The Risk Of Nominating Clinton And Winding Up With Trump As President

SarandonHayesMain

There are many celebrities supporting Bernie Sanders (along with celebrities supporting other candidates). Celebrities might not be experts on public policy, and their recommendations as to who to vote for might not mean very much, but comments from them often result in a tremendous amount of publicity. Susan Sarandon’s comments that Donald Trump might be better than Hillary Clinton would not mean very much if not for the fact that this highlights a problem Clinton will have in the general election. Many on the left will never vote for Hillary Clinton, for a variety of reasons.

While I agree with Sarandon’s criticism of Clinton and the status quo, I don’t agree with her particular argument that electing Trump would be better. Sarandon said:

“…some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately if he gets in, things will really explode.” Asked if she thinks that’s “dangerous,” she replied, “It’s dangerous to think that we can continue the way we are with the militarized police force, with privatized prisons, with the death penalty, with the low minimum wage, threats to women’s rights and think you can’t do something huge to turn that around.”

The problem for Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party, is that, for several different  reasons, some on the left do question if Clinton would do more harm than Trump, even if they agree that Trump is the greater evil. I’ve seen a handful give arguments like Sarandon’s based upon bringing about the destruction of the current system. Other arguments are less radical. I’m not saying I agree with all of these, but here are other arguments commonly made:

Some actually prefer Trump over Clinton. These are primarily those who stress trade deals, finding Trump preferable here. Plus Trump has been less hawkish than Clinton in supporting military intervention and nation building (not that I’d trust him at all on foreign policy).

Others see Clinton as being more likely to move the country to the right than Trump or a Republican. Policies from Trump would be opposed by Democrats, often being enough to block them from being passed. Clinton has already indicated a willingness to compromise with Republicans on areas from Social Security to access to abortion. We have already seen the downside of compromise with Republicans and triangulation by Bill Clinton. Such compromises by Clinton with Republicans would be more likely to move the country to the right than policies from a Republican president who would not have bipartisan support. We would be more likely to see cuts in Social Security, and restrictions on access to abortion, if Clinton is elected compared to Trump or another Republicans.

There is the question of what happens in 2018 and 2020. There is the fear that the election of Clinton would be highly damaging to the Democratic brand, leading to bigger GOP pick ups in 2018, and further state governments falling under Republican control in 2020, leading to more Congressional districts being redrawn to help Republicans.

Plus there is the effect on the Democratic Party. At what point is supporting the lesser of two evils counterproductive? Will Democrats continue to move to the right if they find that there is no political cost? If Clinton wins in 2016 she will probably be the nominee in 2020, leaving us stuck with eight years of a conservative Democrat. Or there is the danger that she lose in 2000, leaving a damaged Democratic brand, leading to a longer stretch of Republican presidents, and even more Republican court appointees.

Some prefer a loss in 2016, feeling that there is a better chance of having a liberal Democrat in 2020. A Clinton loss might be the final straw to kill off the remains of the DLC. Plus  another candidate as opposed to Clinton might increase the chances of Democratic pick ups in state governments, as opposed to having a party led by Clinton running for reelection in 2020.

The Nader/Gore argument from 2000 does not have much traction with many who do not plan to vote for Clinton because Clinton has many of the same problems which led the left to be so strongly opposed to Bush. Clinton supports the same neoconservative foreign policy. She has a conservative record on civil liberties, falling to the right of Antonin Scalia and even sounding far too much like Donald Trump on suppression of freedom of speech. Her opposition to open-government and government transparency is even worse than what we saw under Bush. She certainly is the last candidate to consider when looking at the role of money in government. If the election of George W. Bush was such a terrible thing in 2000, then voting for a candidate who supports so many of the same policies hardly seems acceptable.

The bottom line is that you may agree or disagree with the arguments above but the thing about democracy is that everyone makes their own decision. You can argue all you want, but you cannot make anyone vote for Clinton, even if she is the lesser of two evils. Some will ultimately vote for her, while others will either not show up to vote for a candidate they disagree with, or will vote for another choice. The polls have been quite clear that there is a significant drop-off in Democratic votes in general election match-ups when Clinton, as compared to Sanders, is the candidate. We already saw what happens to Democratic turnout in 2014 when Democrats run as Republican-lite.

It doesn’t matter if they are wrong and you are right. It doesn’t matter if Susan Sarandon is insane. If Democrats nominate a candidate as flawed as Hillary Clinton, many people will not turn out to vote for her, no matter how logical your arguments are that they should.

Susan Sarandon has just highlighted a point which has already been clear. If you are worried that many liberal and progressive Democrats will stay home or vote third party if Clinton is the nominee, letting Donald Trump become president, you are right. This could happen. Many people will not be able to vote for a corrupt warmonger like Clinton, so to ensure that Donald Trump does not get elected, the safest course would be to nominate Bernie Sanders to be the Democratic candidate. It is the obvious solution as he would not only make the better president, but he would also be the stronger general election candidate.

Clinton Email Scandal Threatens To Weaken Her Campaign

Clinton Email

While the primaries have dominated the political coverage, Hillary Clinton has more to fear than Bernie Sanders’ sweep in the caucuses on Saturday. Both The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times had articles which show that Clinton risks paying a political, if not legal, price for her conduct as Secretary of State. The scandal risks weakening her in a general election campaign.

The Washington Post went back to the start to explain How Clinton’s email scandal took root. Some excerpts:

The vulnerability of Clinton’s basement server is one of the key unanswered questions at the heart of a scandal that has dogged her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Since Clinton’s private email account was brought to light a year ago in a New York Times report — followed by an Associated Press report revealing the existence of the server — the matter has been a source of nonstop national news. Private groups have filed lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act. Investigations were begun by congressional committees and inspector general’s offices in the State Department and the U.S. Intelligence Community, which referred the case to the FBI in July for “counterintelligence purposes” after determining that the server carried classified material…

One hundred forty-seven FBI agents have been deployed to run down leads, according to a lawmaker briefed by FBI Director James B. Comey. The FBI has accelerated the investigation because officials want to avoid the possibility of announcing any action too close to the election…

Politico subsequently posted a story claiming that the reports of 147 FBI agents being assigned to investigate is an exaggerated number.

The Washington Post continued:

From the earliest days, Clinton aides and senior officials focused intently on accommodating the secretary’s desire to use her private email account, documents and interviews show.

Throughout, they paid insufficient attention to laws and regulations governing the handling of classified material and the preservation of government records, interviews and documents show. They also neglected repeated warnings about the security of the BlackBerry while Clinton and her closest aides took obvious security risks in using the basement server…

The State Department security officials were distressed about the possibility that Clinton’s BlackBerry could be compromised and used for eavesdropping, documents and interviews show.

After the meeting on Feb. 17 with Mills, security officials in the department crafted a memo about the risks. And among themselves, they expressed concern that other department employees would follow the “bad example” and seek to use insecure BlackBerrys themselves, emails show…

In early March, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell delivered a memo with the subject line “Use of Blackberries in Mahogany Row.”

“Our review reaffirms our belief that the vulnerabilities and risks associated with the use of Blackberries in the Mahogany Row [redacted] considerably outweigh the convenience their use can add,” the memo said.

He emphasized: “Any unclassified Blackberry is highly vulnerable in any setting to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations, retrieving e-mails, and exploiting calendars.”

Nine days later, Clinton told Boswell that she had read his memo and “gets it,” according to an email sent by a senior diplomatic security official. “Her attention was drawn to the sentence that indicates (Diplomatic Security) have intelligence concerning this vulnerability during her recent trip to Asia,” the email said.

But Clinton kept using her private BlackBerry — and the basement server…

The article described the incident in which there were problems sending material which was on the classified network. Clinton instructed Jacob Sullivan to remove the headings:

“They say they’ve had issues sending secure fax. They’re working on it,” Sullivan wrote his boss.

Clinton told him to take a shortcut.

“If they can’t, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure,” she said.

The article went on to describe how Colin Powell’s handling of email and classified information was significantly different from Clinton’s, debunking one of the common defenses of Clinton’s actions. (This is also a poor defense for Clinton as repeating improper actions committed under Bush would hardly justify her actions.)

The article also debunked Clinton’s claims that the classified material in the email was classified retroactively:

…Her statement appears to conflict with a report to Congress last year by inspectors general from the State Department and the group of spy agencies known as the Intelligence Community. They made their report after the discovery that four emails, from a sample of 40 that went through her server, contained classified information.

“These emails were not retro­actively classified by the State Department,” the report said. “Rather these emails contained classified information when they were generated and, according to IC classification officials, that information remains classified today. This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”

…Twenty-two emails discovered later were deemed so highly classified that they were withheld in their entirety from public release. “They are on their face sensitive and obviously classified,” Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told The Post. “This information should have been maintained in the most secure, classified, top-secret servers.”

Reuters had also explained last summer how classified information is “born classified” based upon its content, regardless of whether it is labeled as classified.

Clinton’s arguments that she did not do anything wrong were next debunked in The Washington Post story:

Specialists interviewed by The Post said her practices fell short of what laws and regulations mandated. Some of those obligations were spelled out a few months before Clinton took office in National Archives and Records Administration Bulletin 2008-05, which said every email system was supposed to “permit easy and timely retrieval” of the records.

The secretary of state’s work emails are supposed to be preserved permanently. In addition, rules also mandated that permanent records are to be sent to the department’s Records Service Center “at the end of the Secretary’s tenure or sooner if necessary” for safekeeping.

Under Title 18, Section 2071, it is a misdemeanor to take federal records without authorization, something that is sometimes referred to as the “alienation” of records. The law is rarely enforced, but a conviction can carry a fine or imprisonment.

Jason R. Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last year he believed that Clinton’s server ran afoul of the rules. In a memo to the committee, Baron wrote that “the setting up of and maintaining a private email network as the sole means to conduct official business by email, coupled with the failure to timely return email records into government custody, amounts to actions plainly inconsistent with the federal recordkeeping laws.”

The article concludes with concerns about how the email was used to sidestep requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act:

Last month, in a hearing about a Judicial Watch lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Sullivan cited that email as part of the reason he ordered the State Department produce records related to its initial failures in the FOIA searches for Clinton’s records.

Speaking in open court, Sullivan said legitimate questions have been raised about whether Clinton’s staff was trying to help her to sidestep FOIA.

“We’re talking about a Cabinet-level official who was accommodated by the government for reasons unknown to the public. And I think that’s a fair statement: For reasons heretofore unknown to the public. And all the public can do is speculate,” he said, adding: “This is all about the public’s right to know.”

Bringing matters to the present, The Los Angeles Times reports that the review is entering a new phase:

Federal prosecutors investigating the possible mishandling of classified materials on Hillary Clinton’s private email server have begun the process of setting up formal interviews with some of her longtime and closest aides, according to two people familiar with the probe, an indication that the inquiry is moving into its final phases.

Those interviews and the final review of the case, however, could still take many weeks, all but guaranteeing that the investigation will continue to dog Clinton’s presidential campaign through most, if not all, of the remaining presidential primaries.

Reuters had a story last week on Bryan Pagliano, the Clinton staffer who set up the private server and has received immunity:

The technician, Bryan Pagliano, was running the off-grid email server that Clinton had him set up in her New York home for her work as secretary of state. But even as years passed, Pagliano’s supervisors never learned of his most sensitive task, according to the department and one of his former colleagues.

Pagliano’s immediate supervisors did not know the private server even existed until it was revealed in news reports last year, the colleague said, requesting anonymity because of a department ban on unauthorized interviews.

These articles do cast doubt on whether Clinton will be prosecuted for her actions. In reviewing the arguments, it is notable that higher level officials do appear to be held to quite different standards than lower level officials, who have been prosecuted for doing less than Clinton, and not necessarily with any evidence of intent.

It should also be kept in mind that the mishandling of classified information is only one part of the scandal. There are also serious questions regarding violations of government policies to promote transparency, including new policies initiated in the Obama administration in response to the abuses under George W. Bush. While criminal penalties were not initiated for such violations of the regulations until after Clinton left office, the matter should be of considerable concern for anyone interested in open government.

Regardless of whether Clinton is prosecuted, this will cast considerable doubt on her integrity during a political campaign. The fact checking sites have repeatedly stated that Clinton’s statements have been false regarding the email on many  points. The Washington Post Fact Checker has given Clinton and her defenders Three Pinocchios for their claims on at least two separate occasions (here and here). The top Freedom of Information Act official at the Justice Department has stated that Clinton was in violation of the rules and the State Department’s top Freedom of Information Act officer has called her use of a private server unacceptable. Not only did she violate rules regarding use of private email, she also destroyed around 30,000 email messages and edited others, which includes email related to Libya and Terrorism and was not personal email as she previously claimed.

The political, and potential legal, problems, are not limited to the email. Further ethical concerns regarding Clinton are raised by her failure to comply with an agreement that contributions to the Clinton Foundation be disclosed when she was Secretary of State. Clinton failed to disclose over a thousand donors, including contributions from parties with business before the State Department. The Foundation also failed to disclose many of these on their tax forms and was  caught lying about this issue.

We also know that Bill Clinton saw an unprecedented increase in payments for giving speeches when Hillary became Secretary of State from organizations and countries which subsequently received favorable intervention from Clinton. His speaking fees jumped from 150,000 to typically 500,000, and as high as 750,000.

Bernie Sanders has avoided these matters in his campaign for the nomination. It is a safe bet that if Clinton is the nominee, any Republican opponent will bring up these scandals. In addition, the Congressional committees investigating these matters will time their actions for maximum political impact during the general election.

SciFi Weekend: Controversy Over Death Of Lesbian Character On The 100; Orphan Black; Daredevil; 12 Monkeys; The Americans; Put A Bird On It

The 100 Clarke Lexa Kiss

Jason Rothenberg’s decision to kill a prominent LGBT character on The 100, and the manner in which she died, has made many fans of the show upset. At the time I first watched and reviewed the show, while I expected some disappointment and protest, I had no idea how serious a matter this would be to the LGBT community. Reviewing the discussion from those who did take it very personally, along with the views of television critics such as Maureen Ryan who is quoted below, help to understand the importance of this issue. After missing the significance of this in my original review, I hope to make up for it by providing this overview today.

I will start by allowing Rothenberg to explain his viewpoint. He was interviewed by TV Insider. Here are the first few questions, with much more in the full interview:

OK, so you had to be aware of the uproar that would come from killing Lexa, right? This was something that you guys had to realize you’d be walking into.
Yes and no. First of all, I think I should start by saying that for the last two weeks, I’ve pretty much thought about nothing else except for this. It’s taken me some time to process everything, and I’ve been listening, reading everything I could. I took my voice out of it on Twitter because I didn’t want to inflame the situation, and I felt like I didn’t want to shape the conversation. I just wanted to listen and try to understand. I mean, we were a little surprised by it—obviously not that people were upset; you’re right in the sense that we kind of knew that that would happen. The story that we’re telling is a tragedy. Lexa was a meaningful character to our fans, especially LGBTQ fans, and so I knew it would be emotional, of course. What was unexpected was the level of outrage that it’s generated from some people, but I do think I have come to understand that.

We’ve seen this with shows with strong social media bases: The louder the outrage, the more disturbing it can get.
Yeah. Lexa’s death triggered real emotional trauma for some people, you know? It tapped into the real world, it tapped into their lives, and as a straight white male, I obviously didn’t anticipate how deeply it would affect certain people. I look at it now and I realize that if somebody had that kind of a reaction and then were to look back at the way I behaved on Twitter leading up to it, which was celebrating this relationship that then crushed them, I can understand why they would find that reprehensible. I hope that people understand that.

Since there is no winning on Twitter, what do you want to say to the fans now?
I would say, first of all, that it’s taken me a while to get perspective on it myself and to put myself in the position of somebody who was hurt like that. And I hope that eventually they can start to put themselves in our position and understand that we would never want to hurt anybody like that. We would never want to hurt our fans. We love them, we owe them everything, we owe them the fact that we just got a Season 4 to them. We want to take them for a ride, we don’t want to hurt them. And because we didn’t anticipate this sort of level of pain over this fictional death, we were doing what we always do on Twitter, which was celebrating work that we’re proud of. In hindsight, knowing what I know now and sort of realizing the things that I’ve realized, we should have done less of that. We should have done less buildup knowing where this was going to end up and knowing how this was going to affect people.

But it wouldn’t have changed the story you’re telling.
No, absolutely not. We would have told the same story. I stand behind the story; I just don’t think I would have gone out of my way to say ‘This is the best episode we’ve ever done!’ Nobody really anticipated that this would happen so now that we’ve seen it, the idea for me as the showrunner going forward is to learn lessons from it, you know? This is a show where characters die. That’s another reason we were so surprised..it’s a post-apocalyptic world set 100 years later in which anyone can die.

The 100 Lexa Clark

Rothenberg also posted a statement on line a few days ago. Here are some excerpts, but those interested in the controversy should read his full statement:

For many fans of The 100, the relationship between Clarke and Lexa was a positive step of inclusion. I take enormous pride in that, as I do in the fact that our show is heading into its 4th season with a bisexual lead and a very diverse cast. The honesty, integrity and vulnerability Eliza Taylor and Alycia Debnam-Carey brought to their characters served as an inspiration for many of our fans. Their relationship held greater importance than even I realized. And that very important representation was taken away by one stray bullet…

In the show-world, no one is safe, and anyone, even a beloved character, can die, at any time. My favorite shows in this genre embrace a similar sense of heightened urgency. There are several reasons why this particular episode played out the way it did: practical (an actress was leaving the show), creative (it’s a story about reincarnation) and thematic (it’s a show about survival). Despite my reasons, I still write and produce television for the real world where negative and hurtful tropes exist. And I am very sorry for not recognizing this as fully as I should have. Knowing everything I know now, Lexa’s death would have played out differently.

The 100 is a post-apocalyptic tragedy set 130 years in the future. It’s a constant life and death struggle. In our show, all relationships start with one question: ‘Can you help me survive today?’ It doesn’t matter what color you are, what gender identity you are, or whether you’re gay, bi or straight. The things that divide us as global citizens today don’t matter in this show. And that’s the beauty of science-fiction. We can make a point without preaching. We can say that race, sexuality, gender and disability should not divide us. We can elevate our thinking and take you on a helluva ride at the same time.

But I’ve been powerfully reminded that the audience takes that ride in the real world — where LGBTQ teens face repeated discrimination, often suffer from depression and commit suicide at a rate far higher than their straight peers. Where people still face discrimination because of the color of their skin. Where, in too many places, women are not given the same opportunities as men, especially LGBTQ women who face even tougher odds. And where television characters are still not fully representative of the diverse lives of our audience. Not even close.

The 100 Clarke Lexa Thirteen

Maureen Ryan wrote about What TV Can Learn From The ‘100 Mess’ at Variety and helps explain why many fans are upset. Again, these are just excerpts and the full article is worth reading.

The response of the showrunner has, outside of a few unenlightening interviews, has been disappointing. Rothenberg live-tweeted the March 10 episode of the show as if thinkpieces and damning critiques were not still being churned out. In the limited array of interviews he did in conjunction with the March 3 episode, he has given little indication that he understands the depth of the sense of betrayal or the multitude of reasonable objections to the death story line. Since March 3, it has fallen to co-executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who wrote the episode, to engage with fans in any significant and meaningful way, but his compassionate and committed response has only highlighted Rothenberg’s abdication of responsibility...

So here’s the nitty-gritty: The character who died, Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey), happened to be one of the few well-developed and complex lesbians on TV, and it’s an unfortunate but enduring TV cliche that lesbians rarely, if ever, live happily ever after. In the March 3 episode, “The 100,” which had touted its commitment to quality LGBTQ storytelling, invoked one of TV’s oldest gay cliches by killing her off mere seconds after she consummated her relationship with another woman, Clarke (Eliza Taylor).

Many fans, regardless of sexual orientation, were left shaking their heads in disbelief.

On a story and thematic level, Lexa’s death (despite being well-performed by the actors) had little resonance and almost no meaning. But all things considered, the blithe manipulation LGBTQ fans and the show’s willingness to deploy harmful cliches about gay characters remain the things that rankle most…

Adding to the sense of betrayal was the manner of Lexa’s death. She was felled by a stray bullet from an angry male servant, mere seconds after she and Clarke had sex for the first time. The servant, Titus, disapproved of Lexa’s relationship with Clarke, whom he tried to kill, but Lexa caught the bullet. This woman — the most fearsome warrior in the show’s history — didn’t die defending Clarke; she just happened to be in the bullet’s path. And by following her only moment of bliss with her lover, the Grounder queen’s death followed a time-worn and disturbing TV pattern.

Autostraddle came up with a list of more than 130 lesbian and bisexual women who have been killed off on TV shows, and it’s a damning roster. Whatever progress you think TV has made on the front of LGBTQ representation, the sheer number of dead women on the list is profoundly troubling, to say the least. If nothing else, it shows that the Bury Your Gays trope is alive and well on TV, and fictional lesbian and bisexual women in particular have a very small chance of leading long and productive lives.

Critic Nicola Choi wrote that when they spot a lesbian or bisexual woman on TV, many LGBTQ fans simply resign themselves to the fact that the character will die.

The 100 Thirteen Lexa

Dany Roth tried to explain the matter to a conservative-leaning readership at blastr:

If you’re not part of the queer community, an ally of said same, or if you were never a fan of The 100, why should you care? If we’re boiling this down to the most selfish of reasons, it is because next time it might be you. And maybe it already has been you. Forget social justice for a second (as I know many of you often try to, anyway) — think about this as simply acting in the interest of fairness…

The reason Lexa’s death was so upsetting isn’t just because her face was a recognizable one for so many queer people, it’s also because she made the LGBT community feel more visible, more relatable. And it made them feel like they were being listened to. Every time someone tweets about why Lexa matters, each time someone challenges the “Bury Your Gays” trope and demands that writers and showrunners do better, someone who hasn’t thought about any of this hears why representation in stories matters for the first time. Even in death, Lexa is making LGBT people more visible.

Orphan Black Train

There is often much to think about and discuss after an episode of Orphan Black. This was especially true in the early episodes, when we had very little understanding of what was going on. Entertainment Weekly has good news on both of these points. BBC America will be starting a show, After the Black, to discuss each episode. Plus it sounds like next season might recreate some of the mystery of the first season, including going back to when Sarah first saw Beth jump in front of the train.

Taking a tip from AMC, BBC America has announced After the Black, a companion show that will air weekly following Orphan Black.

Hosted by Innerspace’s Ajay Fry, Morgan Hoffman, and Teddy Wilson, After the Black is a 30-minute after show that will feature various cast, crew, and special guest stars chatting about the plot, twists, and theories on future episodes. Other segments will include behind-the-scene footage from the set and an exclusive first look at the following episode.

The format is very similar to AMC’s Talking Dead, which airs weekly following The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead.

The first post-game, which will air Thursday, April 14 at 11 p.m. ET following the season 4 premiere of Orphan Black, will include stars Tatiana Maslany and Kevin Hanchard.

As for the fourth season, executive producers John Fawcett and Graeme Manson revealed at WonderCon on Saturday that they’ll be going back to basics in a lot of ways by delving into a particular mystery from the pilot. “We really wanted to look at the first season this year,” Manson said. “We wanted to go back to that moment on the tracks with Beth and Sarah and go, ‘What did Sarah miss?’ There’s more story there.”

“We wanted to get that feel back, that feel of season 1 where you don’t know who the bad guy is, you don’t know who you’re speaking to,” Fawcett added. “That was the goal of season 4.”

Above is a trailer for season 4 of Orphan Black. There will also be new characters introduced:

Also this season, viewers are introduced to brand new characters that prove to be pivotal to the clones’ saga. Season 4 introduces Joel Thomas Hynes (REPUBLIC OF DOYLE) in the role of “Dizzy”, an edgy, self-reliant hacker who doesn’t conform to group mentality; Jessalyn Wanlim (Alex Cross) as Evie Cho, a powerful, seductively articulate bioengineer who believes great discoveries require casualties; Lauren Hammersley (MR. D) as Adele, a shameless, brazen, and wickedly intelligent lawyer who outwits opponents even when heavily intoxicated; and Gord Rand (Maps To The Stars) as Detective Duko, who on the surface appears to be unassuming and slightly nebbish, but has used his underlying angst to nastily claw his way to the top.

I will hold off on saying much about season 2 of Daredevil different  people are at different points with the Netflix model. Entertainment Weekly has the above interview with Charlie Cox which helps set up the season after the arrest of Wilson Fisk at the end of the first season:

“What we’ve done this year with the show is we don’t really have so much a Big Bad, but we have characters that enter Matt’s life,” Cox tells EW in a recent interview, viewable above. “They force him to look at himself and look at his actions in a way that no one else has done in the past.”

Those characters are, naturally, The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) and Elektra (Elodie Yung). The first, as trailers have hinted, comes to Hell’s Kitchen with almost a similar purpose as Daredevil but with a much different modus operandi. And his methodology involves a lot more killing, which puts the entire city on edge shortly after coming to appreciate Daredevil’s work.

“It’s through Daredevil’s actions that someone like Frank Castle has been able to show up and do what he does,” Cox explains.

Yet putting a stop to The Punisher’s bloodlust isn’t the only obstacle thrown at Matt this season. Elektra, the “Greek girl” from college that Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) mentioned last season returns to New York. As portrayed by Yung, Elektra complicates Matt’s life both while he’s in and out of his crime-fighting costume, particularly when it comes to his burgeoning romance with Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll).

“… Matt is completely authentic with both characters, but that authenticity is different with each character,” Cox said, calling this love triangle “one of the most enjoyable things for me to do as an actor this season.”

12 Monkeys returns on April 18. If we didn’t have the “problem” of so much good television, including genre television, now available thanks to cable and streaming, it might be tempting to rewatch the first season to review all the twists which occurred. While some hardcore fans are doing so, many of us just do not have the time. Syfy has posted the above seven minute recap to help the rest of us to catch up. It is certainly not enough for new viewers to start watching the show, but it is helpful for those of us who watched the first season.

americans-season-4

The Americans, which very well might be the best ongoing drama now on television (separating it from shows such as Fargo which have a different story each year) is off to an excellent start for its fourth season. There is so much which can be said about the quality of the story, but I figure those who are watching understand this and those who are not will not be interested in a play by play.

Besides all the big things, the show gets the little things better than most television shows. While many shows do a terrible job of working in children and home life (such as with Brody’s daughter on previous seasons of Homeland), Paige’s teenage angst, exacerbated by learning that her parents are Russian spies, has been a huge plus in driving the plot this season. Television story lines are often driven by misunderstandings, such as Stan thinking that Philip was sleeping with his wife. While that is a standard television trope, I really appreciated it when Phillip immediately explained the situation to Elizabeth and told her about going to the EST meetings, as opposed to dragging this out and creating further misunderstandings with her–as so many television shows would have done.

Plus so many interesting characters have been developed beyond the main characters. When The Americans inevitably ends, I’m looking forward to one spinoff based upon Nina Krilova in Russia, and another (or perhaps work in into a single show) in which Stan Beeman and Oleg Burov find some reason to team up after the Cold War ends. If Napoleon Solo can team up with Russian Illya Kuryakin on The Man From UNCLE, why not Stan and Oleg?

With all the talk the last few days about the bird at the Bernie Sanders rally in Oregon, prior to his big three-state sweep yesterday, above is a clip from the episode of Portlandia which started the slogan, “Put A Bird On It.”

To conclude by tying this in with the previous story on Daredevil, above is Rosario Dawson (Daredevil, Jessica Jones) speaking in support of Bernie Sanders.

Why Millennials, And Older Liberals, Support Sanders Over Clinton

Clinton Progressive

The endorsement of Hillary Clinton by Rolling Stone was a surprise considering how this conflicts with the views of millennials, whom I assume make up a substantial portion of its readership. Matt Taibbi responded by writing, Why Young People Are Right About Hillary Clinton. Taibbi made many good points but only provided a broad outline. While this is not the article to give to try to convince them not to vote for Clinton, the points made are worth repeating, and expanding upon.

Taibbi correctly traces the problem with the Democratic Party, and disconnect with the views of millennials to living in the past, not getting past the defeat of George McGovern back in 1972. Never mind how much the country has changed or the unique specifics of 1972, with McGovern running against an incumbent president when there was a reaction against the 1960’s counterculture in this country. (Besides, Richard Nixon had the best campaign slogan ever: Don’t Change Dicks In The Middle Of A Screw, Reelect Nixon in ’72.) The Democratic establishment saw southern politicians like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton win and McGovern lose and they built the nomination process around that. As Taibbi put it, “it would be a shame if we disqualified every honest politician, or forever disavowed the judgment of young people, just because George McGovern lost an election four decades ago.”

Even besides the manner in which the DNC has rigged the nomination process for Hillary Clinton this year, preexisting rules favor a moderate southern candidate, or at least one who can win in southern Democratic primaries. We have a political process, from the nomination process through the general election, makes it difficult to achieve change.

The Democratic nomination system both super delegates, who are in place to keep insurgent candidates like McGovern or Sanders from winning, and front loading the primary process with southern primaries. The party has not taken into account the fact that a current Democratic candidate, no matter how moderate, will not win in the south, but they do risk depressing Democratic turnout in the battleground states with their current choices of candidates. They risk a repeat of 2014 when Democratic voters stayed home with a candidate such as Clinton who performs poorly among independents and in the battleground states.

The results this year could easily be quite different with fairer rules. Imagine if Iowa announced the popular vote, as they did eight years ago, which Bernie Sanders probably won. If he started out with wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, and then we had a mix of other states besides multiple southern states, Sanders and not Clinton would probably be the front runner now.

Taibbi described the transformation of the Democratic Party at the hands of the DLC and the Clintons:

That ’72 loss hovered like a raincloud over the Democrats until Bill Clinton came along. He took the White House using a formula engineered by a think tank, the Democratic Leadership Council, that was created in response to losses by McGovern and Walter Mondale.

The new strategy was a party that was socially liberal but fiscally conservative. It counterattacked Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy, a racially themed appeal to disaffected whites Nixon tabbed the “Silent Majority,” by subtly taking positions against the Democrats’ own left flank.

In 1992 and in 1996, Clinton recaptured some of Nixon’s territory through a mix of populist positions (like a middle-class tax cut) and the “triangulating” technique of pushing back against the Democrats’ own liberal legacy on issues like welfare, crime and trade.

And that was the point. No more McGoverns. The chief moral argument of the Clinton revolution was not about striving for an end to the war or poverty or racism or inequality, but keeping the far worse Republicans out of power.

Taibbi was relatively mild in his criticism of the DLC Democrats. Two weeks ago I cited two more detailed accounts of the era from Thomas Frank and Howard Zinn.

Taibbi tied this into the present with a look at Hillary Clinton and other recent Democratic policies:

For young voters, the foundational issues of our age have been the Iraq invasion, the financial crisis, free trade, mass incarceration, domestic surveillance, police brutality, debt and income inequality, among others.

And to one degree or another, the modern Democratic Party, often including Hillary Clinton personally, has been on the wrong side of virtually all of these issues.

Hillary not only voted for the Iraq War, but offered a succession of ridiculous excuses for her vote. Remember, this was one of the easiest calls ever. A child could see that the Bush administration’s fairy tales about WMDs and Iraqi drones spraying poison over the capital (where were they going to launch from, Martha’s Vineyard?) were just that, fairy tales.

Yet Hillary voted for the invasion for the same reason many other mainstream Democrats did: They didn’t want to be tagged as McGovernite peaceniks. The new Democratic Party refused to be seen as being too antiwar, even at the cost of supporting a wrong one.

It was a classic “we can’t be too pure” moment. Hillary gambled that Democrats would understand that she’d outraged conscience and common sense for the sake of the Democrats’ electoral viability going forward. As a mock-Hillary in a 2007 Saturday Night Live episode put it, “Democrats know me…. They know my support for the Iraq War has always been insincere.”

This pattern, of modern Democrats bending so far back to preserve what they believe is their claim on the middle that they end up plainly in the wrong, has continually repeated itself.

Take the mass incarceration phenomenon. This was pioneered in Mario Cuomo’s New York and furthered under Bill Clinton’s presidency, which authorized more than $16 billion for new prisons and more police in a crime bill.

As The New Jim Crow author Michelle Alexander noted, America when Bill Clinton left office had the world’s highest incarceration rate, with a prison admission rate for black drug inmates that was 23 times 1983 levels. Hillary stumped for that crime bill, adding the Reaganesque observation that inner-city criminals were “super-predators” who needed to be “brought to heel.”

You can go on down the line of all these issues. Trade? From NAFTA to the TPP, Hillary and her party cohorts have consistently supported these anti-union free trade agreements, until it became politically inexpedient. Debt? Hillary infamously voted for regressive bankruptcy reform just a few years after privately meeting with Elizabeth Warren and agreeing that such industry-driven efforts to choke off debt relief needed to be stopped.

Clinton not only voted for the war, she went beyond most supporters in making false claims of ties between Saddam and al Qaeda. While she later claimed this was a mistake, she showed no signs of learning from her  mistakes with her hawkish views on Libya and Syria.

Taibbi only managed to mention a portion of the issues where Clinton is out of touch with millennial voters, along with older liberal voters such as myself. While millennial voters tend to be more libertarian on social and civil liberties issues, Clinton is conservative on both. She spent her time in the Senate working with the religious right as a member of The Fellowship, and her social conservatism can be seen in many of her views. She is far right win in her views on civil liberties, falling to the right of Antonin Scalia and not far from Donald Trump in her view of freedom of speech.

Taibbi concluded with matters of corruption, but again was very limited in this discussion of a very large topic. He did write:

Then of course there is the matter of the great gobs of money Hillary has taken to give speeches to Goldman Sachs and God knows whom else. Her answer about that — “That’s what they offered” — gets right to the heart of what young people find so repugnant about this brand of politics.

One can talk about having the strength to get things done, given the political reality of the times. But one also can become too easily convinced of certain political realities, particularly when they’re paying you hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour.

Is Hillary really doing the most good that she can do, fighting for the best deal that’s there to get for ordinary people?

Or is she just doing something that satisfies her own definition of that, while taking tens of millions of dollars from some of the world’s biggest jerks?

Plus he pointed out, “her shifting explanations and flippant attitude about the email scandal” along with the “faulty thinking” of her defenders: “My worry is that Democrats like Hillary have been saying, ‘The Republicans are worse!’ for so long that they’ve begun to believe it excuses everything.”

Her defenders ignore how Clinton’s actions included serious breaches of rules to promote government transparency, including new rules instituted under Obama in 2009 in response to the abuses under George W. Bush. Her claims, such as that what she did was allowed, have been repeatedly debunked by the fact checkers. She acted highly unethically in making decisions regarding parties who were either donating to the Foundation or paying unprecedented speaking fees to Bill. She also failed to abide by an agreement to divulge all donors while she was Secretary of State.

While his article was limited in specifics, he hit the key argument against her:

Young people don’t see the Sanders-Clinton race as a choice between idealism and incremental progress. The choice they see is between an honest politician, and one who is so profoundly a part of the problem that she can’t even see it anymore.

A platform of “the Republicans are worse” might work if the problem was simply that (as her defenders often frame it) Clinton was not progressive enough for her critics on the left. However, that is not the case at all. The problem is that Clinton is not progressive at all. If anything, throughout her career she has been a “progressive” who gets conservative results. She has been on the wrong side of most issues, and not all that terribly far from the Republican viewpoint.

Quote of the Day: Jimmy Fallon & Conan O’Brien on Sarah Palin & Donald Trump

Jimmy Fallon

Sarah Palin just signed a deal to act as a judge on a new reality court TV show. Sarah said she just wants to get a little legal experience before Trump nominates her to the Supreme Court.–Jimmy Fallon

Bonus Quotes:

Conan Photo

Sarah Palin has just signed up to star in her own “Judge Judy”-style reality show. Palin said she knows how to deal with drunks, deadbeat dads, and barroom brawlers — and that’s just her family. –Conan O’Brien

Donald Trump continues to baffle and astound. A new study found that Donald Trump’s speeches are at a fifth grade level. In other words, he’s speaking two grades above his supporters right now. –Conan O’Brien

Elizabeth Warren Cheers Bernie Sanders On As He Ties Clinton In Latest Poll

Bernie-Sanders-Jimmy-Kimmel

Elizabeth Warren is not willing to make an endorsement yet in the Democratic primary battle, but she is “cheering Bernie on” as she attacks Donald Trump. AP reports:

On Thursday, when asked if Bernie Sanders should drop out of the race, Warren praised the Democratic senator from Vermont.

Sanders has echoed Warren’s criticism of Wall Street and rising student load debt more than any other candidate.

‘‘He’s out there. He fights from the heart. This is who Bernie is,’’ Warren said. ‘‘He has put the right issues on the table both for the Democratic Party and for the country in general so I’m still cheering Bernie on.’’

Warren declined to say which candidate she voted for in the Massachusetts primary. She said she plans to make an endorsement, but not yet.

Perhaps the cheering is helping. Bloomberg has a new poll out showing Sanders tied with Clinton, and Sanders continues to be the stronger general election candidate in match-ups against Republicans:

Even after more than two dozen primaries and caucuses in which Clinton’s amassed a commanding lead in votes and in delegates needed to win the nomination, a Bloomberg Politics national poll found that Sanders is the first choice of 49 percent of those who have voted or plan to vote in this year’s Democratic contests, while the former secretary of state is preferred by 48 percent…

The survey also signaled some trouble for Clinton in holding on to Sanders supporters in November. In general-election match-ups, Sanders holds a 24-point edge over Donald Trump, a 12-point lead over Ted Cruz, and a 4-point advantage over John Kasich among likely general-election voters. Clinton, by contrast, trails Kasich by 4 percentage points. She would carry a sizable lead into a contest against Cruz, where she holds a 9-point advantage, and Trump, whom she beats by 18 points.

There are additional media reports which question if Sanders supporters will back Clinton. With Sanders campaigning out west, the Times of San Diego has run a story under the headline, San Diegans Rally for Bernie, Warn Hillary: Don’t Count on Us. It is also looking like topless women might be a new feature of Sanders rallies.

Sanders also made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He discussed the terrorist attack in Brussels. He once again distinguished himself from Clinton, Trump, and Cruz in stressing the importance of respecting the  Constitution. He had this to say about Donald Trump:

At the end of the day, we cannot allow the Trumps of the world to use these incidents to attack all of the Muslim people in the world. It is unfair. To imply that because somebody is a Muslim, they are a terrorist, that is an outrageous statement. Equally so when he talks about Mexicans coming over the border as rapists and criminals. That is not what this country is about, and we don’t need, in my view, a candidate for president hurling these types of insults.

Sanders also talked more about Donald Trump, legalization of marijuana, Flint, and campaign finance reform in the segment above. Regarding climate change, Sanders said:

If you’re going to run for president, you need many, many hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m on the Senate environmental committee. I’ve talked to scientists all over the world. Climate change is real; it’s caused by human activity. And yet you don’t have one Republican candidate prepared to say that. The reason for it is that the day they say it, their campaign funding is cut by the Koch brothers and the fossil fuel industry.

Captain America vs. Religious Discrimination: Marvel Studios Protests Georgia Religious Liberties Law

Captain America

There are many opponents to the so-called “religious liberties” proposals from conservatives. In this case “religious liberty” means the liberty for conservatives to impose their religious views on  others. Variety reports that the Walt Disney Company is joining other groups which are opposing such laws, including recent legislation in Georgia.

The Walt Disney Co. and Marvel Studios indicated opposition to a Georgia religious liberty bill pending before Gov. Nathan Deal, saying that they will take their business elsewhere “should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law.”

With generous tax incentives, Georgia has become a production hub, with Marvel currently shooting “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” at Pinewood Studios outside Atlanta. “Captain America: Civil War” shot there last summer.

“Disney and Marvel are inclusive companies, and although we have had great experiences filming in Georgia, we will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law,” a Disney spokesman said on Wednesday.

The MPAA, representing major studios, has already spoken out against the legislation. On Monday, an MPAA official called the pending legislation “discriminatory,” but expressed confidence that Deal would not sign it…

On Saturday, Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin urged studios and production companies to refuse to commit to any further productions in Georgia if Deal does not veto the legislation.

Georgia legislators passed the bill last week. It protects religious officials from having to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies, and would allow faith-based organizations to deny services or employment to those who violate their “sincerely held religious belief.”

Perhaps the risk of economic repercussions will affect Governor Deal’s decision as to whether to sign the bill. Besides opposition from Disney and other entertainment companies, sports organizations including the NCAA and the NFL have issued protests, along with several Fortune 500 companies and major tech companies.

The Hollywood Reporter adds:

The bill poses a dilemma for Deal, who is regarded as pro-business, since major corporations headquartered in Atlanta such as Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS and Cox Enterprises have opposed the bill, joining a business coalition called Georgia Prospers that has stated “for Georgia businesses to compete for top talent, we must have workplaces and communities that are diverse and welcoming for all people, no matter one’s race, sex, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The controversy also comes just as Georgia is trumpeting its success in attracting film and television productions to the state, which offers attractive tax credits of up to 30 percent.

On Feb. 22, the governor joined other Georgia officials in celebrating Film Day, at which it was reported that during fiscal year 2015, which ran from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015, film and TV productions spent more than $1.7 billion directly in the state, which, in turn, generated a record $6 billion in economic impact.

During fiscal 2015, Georgia played host to 248 feature film, TV movies and series. Among them were such pics as the current Miracles From Heaven and Allegiant as well as TV series including AMC’s The Walking Dead, The CW’s The Vampire Diaries and Fox’s Sleepy Hollow.

Bernie Sanders Is The Only Candidate To Consider Defending Civil Liberties Following Terrorist Attack

Sanders Passion Civil Liberties

There’s nothing like a terrorist attack to bring out the craziness in Republicans. The terrorist attacks in Brussels resulted in some rather absurd recommendations from the two leading Republican candidates.  Donald Trump called for more torture and closing the borders.

Ted Cruz, who sometimes pretends to be somewhat libertarian, called for a police state, complete with police patrols of Muslim neighborhoods. He also calls for securing the border, despite the Department of Homeland Security having frequently debunked Republican claims of ISIS infiltrating the United States by crossing the border.

The Democratic candidates showed greater sanity. Clinton called closing the borders unrealistic.  Sanders, as usual, took this further than Clinton, seeing the big issue beyond whether matters are realistic. He responding to Cruz by saying, “That would be unconstitutional, it would be wrong.” While I am glad to see that Clinton does not believe that it is realistic to close the borders, she has also sounded alarmingly close to Donald Trump when it comes to the civil liberties issues involved in responding to terrorism, as in this recnt statement:

You’re going to hear all of the usual complaints, you know, freedom of speech, et cetera. But if we truly are in a war against terrorism and we are truly looking for ways to shut off their funding, shut off the flow of foreign fighters, then we’ve got to shut off their means of communicating. It’s more complicated with some of what they do on encrypted apps, and I’m well aware of that, and that requires even more thinking about how to do it.

While Clinton remains the lesser evil in comparison to the Republican candidates, Bernie Sanders is the only candidate to stress civil liberties issues. This is crucial considering the degree to which conservatives (including Clinton) have been quick to abandon civil liberties in response to terrorist threats.

Update: CNN reports, Clinton calls for more surveillance, police after Brussels attacks