POLITICAL CORRECTNESS HITS A NEW HIGH

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a congressman from Florida and, for the time  being, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.*  She has been under fire for a long time by Bernie Sanders for being pro-Hillary when she is supposed to be impartial.  Well, I guess Debbie really wants to see a woman president so I suspect Bernie is correct.  The result is Debbie is going to resign from the Democratic National Committee after the convention.  The well known TV commentator Morning Joe wants her to resign NOW and not speak at the convention that she put together.  As they say in Washington, D.C., "If you want a friend, get a dog."

Weirdly, the big turning point is some thousands of e-mails  (every thing today is in the thousands whether it is e-mail on closing of a bridge or a party chair ) have been made public by WikiLeaks, one of which reads as follows:

It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.**

This is being broadly interpreted as an anti-Jewish e-mail that to be an atheist would be better than being a Jew, but, I read it the other way around, in that to be Jewish would be better than an atheist.  We are talking Southern Baptists here. Do they really interpret having no belief in God is better than being a Jew with a belief in God?***  The person who wrote this might have just Googoled Bernie Sanders to find the result.

And then, no one seems to note that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is Jewish.*  At least "they" are not clannish if she is anti-Jewish.  No, she is pro-woman.  At any rate she knows she can retire from her position with a woman running for president on a major party.

I really wonder what to think of Bernie Sanders.  First off he wasn't a member of the Democratic Party.  Some like me think it was very nice of the party to let him come in and run for the presidential nomination of their party.  Then he spends the whole time bitching.  Lost in all this was Obama winning the nomination against the same Hillary Clinton that Bernie lost to using the same rules.

Hillary got more of the popular vote, won more states, and got the most super-delegates.  Remember that Obama faced the same obstacles as Bernie, yet Obama won against the same opponent.!  Sorry Bernie, but you lost the nomination.   You really did.  Bernie did win on some things like a plan for free college tuition  and some others on the platform so he did get something.  Fortunately, Bernie has an even lower opinion of Donald Trump so he keeps saying that Trump must lose.  I hope he sticks to it.

Now some of Bernie's "people" want to trash the vice-presidential pick  for the Democratic nomination.  What's happened to the Republican party  Well as Will Rogers said a long time ago, "I'm not a member of an organized party. I'm a Democrat."  Nothing has changed.

Bernie doesn't like the idea of super-delegates, but I don't like the idea of caucuses where only a small fraction of the potential voters actually vote.  And if it wasn't for the caucuses, Bernie would not have been anywhere.  Caucuses can turn the tide in favor of one candidate while the voters want a different one as shown by Washington State that had both.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Wasserman_Schultz
** https://theintercept.com/2016/07/22/new-leak-top-dnc-official-wanted-to-use-bernie-sanderss-religious-beliefs-against-him
*** Though raised Jewish, Sanders says that he is "not particularly religious," nor is he a member of any congregation or synagogue. "I am not actively involved in organized religion,"......"It's a guiding principle in my life, absolutely," said the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate.

"You know, everyone practices religion in a different way. To me, I would not be here tonight, I would not be running for president of the United States if I did not have very strong religious and spiritual feelings."(http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/14/politics/bernie-sanders-religion/)

HILLARY CLINTON AND THE COMPETITION

Remember month's ago when it was feared that Hillary Clinton would not be tested in the Democratic nomination process?  Now the worry is that the party cannot be brought back together.

In Kentucky, Clinton took the cities and Sanders took the rural areas, especially the coal country.  I don't know why the coal country favored Sanders over Clinton as Sanders is as much against coal as Clinton, maybe even more so.

Hillary's two opponents - Trump and Sanders - surprisingly share a number of viewpoints such as:*
Both being against foreign trade such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal;**
Both opposed the Iraq War;
Both flip-flopped on gun control;
Both are against big money in politics (though Trump's claims of  self -funding are false);
Both want to get rid of Obamacare (ACA) and replace it with a single-payer plan;
Both want to increase taxes on some or all of the wealthy (Trump notes " carried interest" of Hedge  funds);
Both support maintaining or expanding the current levels of Social Security benefits;
Both are concerned about the effect of illegal immigration on American jobs.
Both Trump's and Sander's claim the system is rigged and their followers have gotten violent or said violent things.

But of course there are differences also.  I'm not sure how serious Trump is to deporting all the illegals, but I think he is serious about building the wall on our Southern border. with Mexico.  I say this because Trump likes to build things.  Just think, "The Great Wall of Trump" to compete with The Great Wall of China.

* http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/01/what-bernie-sanders-and-donald-trump-have-in-common/422907/
** Though Hillary recently has come out against TPP, I suspect that she will flip back when (if?) she becomes president.

DEBATE DIFFERENCES

There is a curious difference between the Republican and Democrat debates.  Except for John Kasich who is clearly the best qualified person to be president (and look where he is in the polls), Republicans emphasize their lack of qualifications to be president whereas in the recent Democratic debate, every candidate emphasized their qualifications to be president.  Frankly I found the latter to be a more satisfying debate.

There seems to be a dichotomy in the response to the Democratic debate whereas all the pundits feel that Hillary was the clear winner whereas focus groups right after the debate favored Bernie Sanders.  I think the focus groups much appreciated Bernie Sanders comment that the American people are sick and tired of Hillary's e-mail, and that he wants to discuss the major issues.

Curiously, a number of pundits, including the liberal Mika Brzezinski (who I guess feels she must bend over backwards to be "fair."), said that Bernie flubbed his comment which, they say was actually to be an insult,  that if it wasn't for Hillary's personal e-mail server we could be discussing the real issues.  I've now listened to Bernie's comment three times, and I believe he said it as he meant to as there was no hesitation in his voice in saying it.  And does anyone believe that the Republicans wouldn't find something to assassinate Hillary with if she hadn't done the e-mails on her own server, even if it wasn't true?  I'm sure that Bernie's comment the way he said it led to the large influx of donations as I believe that the public is sick and tired of politicians continuously assassinating their competitors.

The media seems to like Marco Rubio among the Republican candidates for president in spite of his stand of no exception to no abortions and a tax plan that favors the rich the most.*

As the candidates plans on the issues come out, it seems that Donald Trump isthe best of a bad lot of Republican candidates (with the exception of John Kasich) in spite of his crazy immigration plan and a tax plan that favors the rich.

* Mr. Rubio, [who was brought up in a family living "paycheck to paycheck'] in New York for fund-raising at the time of the interview, offers an example. He proposes a significant new tax credit for households with children. But he would also cut the top federal income tax rate to 35 percent, from nearly 40 percent, and eliminate levies on capital gains, dividends and multimillion-dollar estates. (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/us/politics/tax-plans-of-gop-favor-the-rich-despite-populist-talk.html?_r=0)