Democrats Need To Wake Up As To How Terrible A Candidate Clinton Is Before It Is Too Late

Clinton Toddler Answers

Hillary Clinton should have it made. Democratic Party rules designed to prevent a fair fight for the nomination, along with active help from the party establishment, have put her in a strong position to win her party’s nomination. If nominated, she gets to run against a candidate as weak as Donald Trump. However, recent polls show that her support has eroded. She is essentially tied with Trump in the polls, and would probably be losing if up against any other candidate. As The New York Times reports, Hillary Clinton Struggles to Find Footing in Unusual Race.

One problem is that her attempts to campaign against Trump are not working. Her nickname, Dangerous Donald, has not helped her campaign, while Trump’s nickname for Clinton, Crooked Hillary, has been reinforced by the news. As Chris Cillizza put it, Clinton just had the worst week in Washington. The State Department Inspector General report came out and was terrible for Clinton. The report not only confirmed the accusations against Clinton and debunked her defenses, it also showed that Clinton actively acted to hide her violations of the law. Dan Metcalfe, former Director of the Justice Department’s Office of Information and Privacy, wrote that Clinton likely committed the “biggest violation of Federal Records Act in History.”

As The New York Times pointed out, Emails Add to Hillary Clinton’s Central Problem: Voters Just Don’t Trust Her.

Mrs. Clinton has gone from having a 69 percent approval rating and being one of the most popular public figures in the country when she left the State Department in 2013 to having one of the highest disapproval ratings of any likely presidential nominee of a major party.

Roughly 53 percent of voters said they had an unfavorable opinion of Mrs. Clinton in a new ABC-News Washington Post poll. Some 60 percent of voters said they had an unfavorable opinion of Mr. Trump.

When asked if Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump are “honest and trustworthy,” 64 percent of registered voters replied “no,” according to a recent New York Times-CBS News poll. Ask voters why they don’t trust Mrs. Clinton, and again and again they will answer with a single word: Emails.

The Inspector General report proves that Hillary Clinton has spent the last year lying to the American people about this scandal. How did she respond? She continued to lie.

1. “Um, just like previous secretaries of state I used a personal email. Many people did. It was not at all unprecedented.”

Er … yes, previous secretaries of state have used personal email addresses while in office — Colin Powell most notably and extensively. But, and this is really important, Clinton is the first secretary of state to ever use a private email address exclusively to conduct her business. Period. That was and is unprecedented.

2. “I have turned over all my emails. … I have been incredibly open about doing that.”

Let’s take the second sentence there first.

The inspector’s report notes Clinton (a) shouldn’t have exclusively used a private server for her email correspondence and (b) given that she did, should have turned over all of her correspondence to the State Department immediately after she left office in February 2013. Clinton eventually turned over a portion of her emails — more on that below — but didn’t do so until December 2014 and “only after the State Department requested them as it prepared responses for the Republican-led House committee investigation into the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya,” according to a piece by WaPo’s Roz Helderman and Tom Hamburger.

As for Clinton’s assertion that she has turned over “all” of her emails, remember that Clinton deleted more than 31,000 emails that she deemed personal before ever turning anything over to the State Department. There was no third party brought in to make judgments on what was entirely private and what might be closer to the professional line. We have to, quite literally, take Clinton’s word for it.

3. “I will continue to be open.”

Clinton refused to sit down with the inspector general at the State Department, which is not exactly a testament to her commitment to openness. According to news reports, she has not yet been interviewed by the FBI, but there is an assumption that talk is coming.

4. “It’s not an issue that is going to affect either the campaign or my presidency.”

This is a subjective assertion and, therefore, sort of impossible to fully prove or disprove. But, there is plenty of polling evidence that suggests that voters aren’t convinced that Clinton is being entirely truthful in relation to her email server.

When asked last September whether Clinton has “honestly disclosed the facts about her use of personal e-mail while secretary of state or has tried to cover up the facts,” 54 percent of respondents in a Washington Post-ABC News poll chose the latter option. Just one in three (34 percent) said they believed she had honestly disclosed the facts.

And, it’s not a far leap from voters doubting Clinton’s honesty about her email setup to broader doubts about her veracity. Large majorities of Americans regularly tell pollsters that they don’t view Clinton as either honest or trustworthy — a massive hurdle that Clinton will have to clear between now and November.

To expand on the second point, we also know that Clinton was lying about the deleted email all being personal as business related email has already been to have been deleted.

As bad as this week was, The Hill predicts that things will get worse:

In the next few weeks — just as the likely Democratic presidential nominee hopes to pivot towards a general election — it will face its toughest scrutiny yet.

“All of that feeds into this overarching problem of public distrust of her,” said Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University.

“To put it in slang terms, she’s got a pretty deeply held street rep at this point. This fits the street rep,” he added.

The State Department’s watchdog report was especially damaging, given the official nature of its source. The report claimed that Clinton never sought approval for her “homebrew” email setup, that her use of the system violated the department’s record-keeping rules and that it would have been rejected had she brought it up to department officials…

Clinton and many of her top aides declined to take part in the inspector general’s probe. But they won’t have that option going forward.On Friday, Clinton’s former chief of staff Cheryl Mills was interviewed behind closed doors as part of a court case launched by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch. In coming weeks, longtime aide Huma Abedin, former IT specialist Bryan Pagliano and other officials are scheduled to answer questions under oath for sessions that could last as long as seven hours.

A federal judge this week preemptively blocked Judicial Watch from releasing videotapes of the upcoming depositions.

But the group this week released the transcript from its first interview, with longtime State Department veteran Lewis Lukens. And it plans to do the same thing following each of the upcoming depositions, providing fodder for weeks to come from some of the closest rings of Clinton’s inner circle.

The court has said that Clinton herself may be forced to answer questions under oath, which would dramatically escalate the brouhaha surrounding the case…

What is potentially profoundly more damaging for Clinton is the looming FBI investigation, exploring the possibility that she or her aides mishandled classified information.More than 2,000 emails that Clinton gave the State Department from her private server have been classified at some level, and 22 were marked as “top secret” — the highest level of classification — and deemed too dangerous to release publicly even in a highly redacted form. However, none of the emails were marked as classified at the time they were sent, complicating the investigation into whether her setup thwarted any laws.

Abedin, Mills and other Clinton aides have reportedly been interviewed as part of the FBI case. And Clinton herself is due up for questioning at some point.

Legal experts appear skeptical that the Justice Department would hand down a criminal charge against Clinton, due to both the high legal hurdles involved and the intense political scrutiny surrounding the likely presidential nominee.

But that won’t end the matter.

Republicans appear primed to cry foul if the FBI closes its investigation without handing down indictments or offering a public explanation. Senior lawmakers have already excoriated the Justice Department for failing to appoint a special prosecutor.

While there is a good chance Clinton will escape prosecution, people lower than her have been prosecuted for less. A debate over selective prosecution could damage not only Clinton but the reputation of the Obama administration.

Clinton’s dishonesty and scandals will dominate the presidential election. While there are also plenty of bogus scandals raised by Republicans, the current scandals are true and are Clinton’s fault. They demonstrate her dishonesty, her poor record on government transparency, and her poor judgment. Blaming all the attacks on the vast right wing conspiracy will not protect her. The Democratic Party can still avoid this, and a high risk of defeat to Donald Trump, by nominating Bernie Sanders instead.

21 Comments

  1. 1
    Jersey McJones says:

    The endless parade of scandals, mostly just BS, are not going to effect Hillary's chances.  The sorts of people who go in for that sort of thing were never going to vote for Hillary anyway.  What this election is coming down to is whether to keep the status quo or try for a dramatic and dramatically risky change.  If the Dems chose Sanders, he would win in a landslide, as his brand of change is far less risky than Trump's.  But if it's Clinton, then it's the Shiny Red Trump Button or the right back to things as normal.  We shall see…

     

    JMJ

  2. 2
    Dannye Ahlstedt says:

    If Her Royal Republican Highness Hillary Rodham Clinton {She Who Poses As A Democrat} is SELECTED to the Presidency as was G.W. Bush… our country will be in the beginning of the end. This woman is no more qualified to run our country than was G.W. Bush and if folks want more wars, more economic decline, that's what they'll get with this pathetic REPUBLICAN woman posing as a Democrat in order to garner the nomination and in hopes of becoming first woman President of the USA!!! Has no-one learned as yet what an incredible LIAR she is??? Has everyone forgotten how she lied about her husband Slick Willy's sex-capades??? This woman is not qualified to do anything other than tell one lie atop another… remember her Bosnia Lies??? The list continues to grow!!!! PLEASE THINK LONG AND HARD… THEN CAST YOUR VOTE FOR BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT OF THE USA!!!!

     

  3. 3
    Ron Chusid says:

    JMJ, The current scandals are not BS. While there are many other reasons to not vote for Clinton, her misconduct at State would be sufficient to show she is not fit for public office.

    “The sorts of people who go in for that sort of thing were never going to vote for Hillary anyway.”

    The polls show you are wrong on that. The scandals have had a major effect on independent voters, along with greatly increasing the number of people who believe Clinton is dishonest.

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    Dannye,

    There is video evidence (satire) showing that Clinton was telling the truth about sniper fire in Bosnia. See this post:

    http://liberalvaluesblog.com/2016/04/01/president-obama-grants-hillary-clinton-a-full-free-absolute-pardon-for-all-crimes-committed-as-secretary-of-state/

  5. 5
    Jersey McJones says:

    I'm not buying that, Ron.  If that were true, why would they jump over to Trump?  It sounds like a convenient excuse to not vote for Hillary, but not an honest opinion.  Sure, 24 years of silly scandal-mongering from the Right have had an effect, among the less educated, less worldly, less wise crowd.  But how many of them even vote?

    The sandal-mongering, of course, is a diversion from real issues.  Don't want to deal with healthcare?  Talk about the stain on a dress!  Don't want to deal with government borrowing?  Talk about Benghazi!

    It is also a way to firm up support among a constituency who's real concerns their party in no way addresses, or wants to.  A good sized bloc of GOP voters are voting quite diametrically against their own best interests, so how do they keep them in line?  By making the other side seem worse.

    It's a scam, and the sorts of suckers that fall for it are not likely to make a wise decision in the first place.

    If Trump wins, Hillary's scandals will have nothing to do with it.  It would simply be a mass protest against the status quo.

    JMJ

  6. 6
    Jersey McJones says:

    Let me put it this way – if these scandals really meant all that much, half the Bush administration would be in prison now.

    JMJ

  7. 7
    JimZ says:

    Many of my Clinton-supporting friends/acquaintances claim (a) that her poll numbers will increase once she has the nomination, (b) she will be able to win (only?) if Sanders gets behind her full bore as he promised to do, once he drops out of the race, (c) it is only the political right that has problems with Clinton (& I guess left-leaning voters are unwittingly swallowing the right's claims?).  No one knows what the polls will do between now and July, or between now and November; however, the dramatic difference between Clinton-Trump, and Sanders-Trump today is very disconcerting, and is saying at least something.  For Clinton supporters to rely on Sanders supporters to say, in effect, "oh, never mind" regarding their specific reasons for supporting Sanders against Clinton, for her to be elected in November is not only incredibly hypocritical, but shows a deep misunderstanding of the genesis of Sanders' support.  While I may or may not agree with this position, many of my Sanders-supporting friends/acquaintances oppose her for reasons having nothing to do with GOP talking points.

  8. 8
    Ron Chusid says:

    Jim, It is possible Clinton will get a bounce if she clinches the nomination. Both Clinton and Trump will probably move up and down at different times.

    There is a major flaw with the argument that Trump’s recent lead over Clinton is due to him getting a bounce from winning the nomination. If that was the case, Trump would be leading over both Clinton and Sanders, not just Clinton.

  9. 9
    Ron Chusid says:

    JMJ, First of all, this is not based upon “silly scandal-mongering from the Right.” The current scandals are real and have nothing to do with right wing attacks. This comes from a couple of Inspector Generals in the Obama administration, with an investigation in progress by the FBI in the Obama administration. Prior to the IG report, this scandal has been exposed by The New York Times, McClatchy, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, The Guardian, AP, and multiple non-right wing sources.

    The polls have also been quite clear in showing Clinton’s support dropping in response to the scandal and a tremendous rise in the number of people who say Clinton is dishonest.

  10. 10
    Ron Chusid says:

    JMJ, “Let me put it this way – if these scandals really meant all that much, half the Bush administration would be in prison now.”

    That makes no sense for several reasons. The scandals are primarily over ethical matters, not criminal matters. Most of the rules Clinton violated did not have criminal penalties. They are matters which have resulted in others being fired, but not imprisoned. Nobody in the Bush administration came anywhere close to violating the rules to the degree Clinton did. Plus stricter rules were put in place in 2009 in response to the abuses under Bush, so they were not operating under the same rules Clinton was.

  11. 11
    Anonymous says:

    The assumption that Sanders supporters should just "get over it" and support HRC the way her supporters did in 2008 leave out the facts that Obama was the better candidate and it was easy for people to vote for him. The problem for her now is that Sanders is the best candidate and his followers aren't willing to support her, period.

  12. 12
    Jersey McJones says:

    I wasn't the least bit surprised to discover Hillary had her own server.  Were you?  I thought it was funny.  She seems to relish in pissing off the right.  It's one of the the rather few things I like about her.  These days, the more record you have, the more it can be used against you, regardless of the content or merit.  That's why we're seeing more political novices, or relative novices, running for and winning the Presidency.  Clinton, Bush, Obama, all beat guys with more extensive records.  Clinton took advantage of ambiguities of her office to leave as little record as possible.  Unless someone can show some particular law she broke, there is no scandal here, just a rather naive misunderstanding of politics in the good ol' US of A.

    I'm not a fan of hers either.  She's a status quo, Baby Boomer technocrat who's never shown a penchant for original thought, a moderate, a third-wayer, a New Democrat (re: Republican-Lite).  To a lefty like me, she has a lot of downsides.  But the endless parade of gossipy nonsense is none of it.

    JMJ

  13. 13
    Ron Chusid says:

    There were no ambiguities. The IG report shows that she broke the law. The FBI is now investigating whether she broke additional laws.

  14. 14
    Ron Lambard says:

    Liberals have not been happy with the strides that Obama has made in his 8 years and there have been many in spite of his opposition.  Bernie and his supporters are not dealing with the reality that we don't have a monarchy in this country AND that the Democrat has to work with the Republican AND vice versa.  Bernie and his supporters aren't even open to working with other Democrats.  Bernie easily forgets that DEMOCRATS and not his liberal socialist wing passed the Civil Rights act, Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Social Security, AND many other social programs since the Great Depression.  It is much easier to add to a difficult program to pass, like Obamacare, and tweak it with additional legislation going forward.  You don't always get what you want when you want it BUT you may eventually get what you want with cooperation.  Cooperation doesn't fit into Bernie's brain AND he will, maybe already has, isolate himself to the point that he won't even get Democrat Legislators to support his ideas.

    Bernie has not ever proven himself to be a leader that can unite instead his CAREER political history shows he has been most often divisive.  "KING" Bernie may be the first "President" going in to the Presidency as a lame duck the moment after his "swearing in."

    Hillary and Obama were both awarded the titles (international not just U.S.) of being the most ADMIRED woman and most ADMIRED man in the world.  Bernie wasn't even in the consideration.  Dislike her for her "questionable" judgement but at least compare her proven "VICTORIES" to those of Bernie's and not Bernie's wishful victories that he won't be able to deliver on without compromise!!!!!!!!!  I want to win a Billion $$$ Lottery AND I can tell all of America I want to win a Billion $$$ Lottery BUT reality and odds tell me differently if I just want to research the odds.  Also, the Lottery takes me spending money in hopes of getting and EVEN bigger return.  Maybe Bernie and his supporters should look into what experts in the field of ECONOMY are saying about how many of his promises are not attainable EVEN with his increased taxes on the weathy,etc.

    I am no fan of Corporations or Financial  Institution BUT millions of Americans are employed by these institution and even more own stock in them as well as other stocks managed by Wall Street.  All these people are Americans and need their jobs and a lot of folks have their retirement funds in Wall Street so they can make the best return off their investment.

    Corporations and Banks as well as all businesses listed on the stock market  are not NON-PROFITS and they function for the sole purpose to make money for their stock holders.  They ALSO contribute a lot of money to NON-PROFITS.  To say anything or anyone is ALL EVIL is naïve, undereducated, and unrealistic.

    Being that Hillary was a New York Senator AND Wall Street WAS a part of her constituency, I would expect her to have close ties to Wall Street just like any of her other constituents.  Bernie doesn't want to tell the truth that Hillary HAS NOT been getting donations from BIG Wall Street BUT individual people who work on Wall Street.  He is very loose with telling the truth and just not stating the facts!!!!!!!!!  This has been true with much of his campaign.  Don't believe me, check the facts for yourself instead of being mindless Robots!!!!!!!!

    Promises are only as good as your ABILITY to deliver on them!!!  BERNIE CANNOT DELIVER BY HIMSELF!!!!!!!

     

  15. 15
    Ron Chusid says:

    What a rewriting of the records of Sanders and Clinton. Sanders has worked with Democrats and Republicans to pass liberal legislation. Clinton is a DLC Democrat who has spent her career undermining liberal Democratic goals, trying to make the Democratic Party a clone of the Republicans. It is Clinton who has been spreading lies which you are all to willing to repeat.

  16. 16
    Bob Munck says:

    Jersey McJones says: I wasn't the least bit surprised to discover Hillary had her own server.  Were you? 

     Not in the least. You have to realize that the State Department (and most of the other government agencies — FBI, IRS, FEC, FAA, etc.) have barely been dragged into the Internet age. Their technology is somewhere around 1985-1995. This is especially well illustrated by that horrible semi-encrypted DumbPhone that they try to force high-level officials to use.  It's an efficient way to prevent them from doing their jobs, which is a reason that most of them reject their department's IT infrastructure.

    I worked on the attempts to upgrade the FBI and FAA while at MITRE, and almost took a job at the Institute for Defense Analysis working on the IRS upgrade. Projects like that are horrible, in part because they're pre-doomed to failure.

  17. 17
    Ron Chusid says:

    Excuses like having barely been dragged into the Internet age hardly apply here since the IG report verifies what was already seen in the email–Clinton was knowingly violated the law. The IG report adds how she attempted to cover-up what she was doing and failed to cooperate with the investigation.

  18. 18
    Jersey McJones says:

    Mr Chusid, the IG report is not a criminal indictment.  I don't think you understand.  It does not show she broke the law.  The FBI can determine that, but haven't yet to anyone's knowledge.  Look, as a liberal, I'd be thrilled to see Hillary out of the way of progress, but after 24 years of stupid stupid stupid crap, I'll wait for an actual arrest, than you.

    JMJ 

  19. 19
    Ron Chusid says:

    The IG report indicates that Clinton violated the Federal Records Act. Nobody said that the IG report is “a criminal indictment” but that does not mean that she did not break the law. These were rather serious violations.

  20. 20
    Joe says:

    Hillary has a long-standing relationship with the corporate entities who have used many of our legislators to gain an unfair political advantage over the general public. Hillary worked for them as a lawyer for Monsanto and one of her policies as Secretary of State was to force poor countries to accept GMO seeds in exchange for not having their U.S. Federal Aid reduced. She came into politics and has gained hundreds of millions of dollars while performing her "public service." She will never admit that she did anything wrong and claims she is being persecuted by the Republicans when it is the Obama Inspector General who has determined that she used an illegal email system, lied about her handling of her emails while selectively handing over the ones she herself decided were not private, and her response is "the Republicans are responsible" and "I didn't do anything wrong." She is a perfect example of what is wrong with this country, allowing corporations to write their own laws and trying to implement corporate sponsored trade agreements that President Obama supports even though his own administrative review recently published their opinion that the TPP is a disaster that will cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars in trade deficits, send thousands of jobs offshore to foreign countries, and continue to decimate the remaining middle class. The voters are tired of this. Younger voters facing student debt and a shrinking job market are rebelling. The majority of the country wants change and the Democratic Party rigs the election process to keep the status quo that they themselves are benefiting from at the expense of the public. We don't want to continue the oligarchy and we want someone trustworthy, definitely not Hillary, to bring about changes. I will write in Bernie Sanders or hopefully  some third party candidate will emerge.  But would not, under any circumstances, ever vote for Hillary and that is an opinion I hear over and over again. The Democratic Party in trying to remain the same has placed itself in a no-win position. If Hillary wins the nomination through the party-controlled Super Delegates and ignores the hugely popular Bernie Sanders, the only candidate running with a positive public approval rating, we can look forward to eight years of Donald Trump.

  21. 21
    paintedjaguar says:

    "I am not a crook."

    — Hillary Milhous Clinton

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