Obama White House Pinning the Blame on Hillary

Yep, all her fault.  According to a security person in Tripoli from the Utah National Guard, the embassy (unclear which one) asked for more security and that request was denied by the State department.  Hillary says the truth will all come out, we need to be patient.  But this is an election year and patience is not a virtue.  The Republicans want to pin the responsibility for the embassy attack in Benghazi on Obama and Obama wants to pin the responsibility on Hillary.

Interesting.  I probably wouldn’t have done it this way because I’ve read various accounts of who requested what for which embassy and who turned it down or didn’t ask for it or decided it wasn’t in their strategic long term interests.  Ambassador Chris Stevens was convinced that local Libyan security should be used when possible, if I recall correctly. It may have cost him his life in the end but from recent accounts, a few extra American military people, which is what was requested, wouldn’t have made a big difference.  The attack on the embassy was a full on assault with heavy fire and mortars. Whether the State department shares some of the blame for this disaster is something we will all find out eventually and the responsible parties will have to answer for it, including Hillary if she is at fault.  I want to hear all of the facts first.

Frankly, I would LOVE for Hillary to have to testify before Congress on the matter.  The sooner the better.  She’s not the headbanded lawyer with the missing box of billing records anymore.  Does either side really want to call Hillary to Capital Hill?  Think about that for awhile.  Let it soak in.  I’m not sure which campaign has the most to lose in that scenario but let us remember what James Carville once said of Hillary, “If Hillary gave Barack Obama one of her balls, they’d each have two.”

Craig Crawford has this to say on the matter:

President Obama’s team seems close to provoking a feud with the Clintons. The White House seems to be shifting blame to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Benghazi fiasco.

First, Vice President Joe Biden says in his debate “we” weren’t told U.S. diplomats asked for more security in Benghazi before the violence there. Then, White House press secretary Jay Carney explains that Biden meant only the White House had not been told, and in a telling remark says the matter was “handled by security professionals at the State Department.”

I can understand why Biden, who wants to run for president again, would relish a chance to undermine Hillary, who might also run again. But at a moment when Obama is relying so much on Bill Clinton for support does he really want to let this play out?

Well, considering that Obama owes his presidency to Wall Street and that the culture of smartness doesn’t do long term thinking, I think we can assume that they haven’t actually played that scenario out and are still under the impression that they can humiliate Hillary without consequences.

But don’t be surprised to find that the Republicans have sized up the situation and predicted the opposition’s likely reaction.

Get the popcorn.

Do 3rd party votes count? Of course they do!

Green Party Candidate, Jill Stein

This post was prompted by a question that bellecat left in the last thread:

I’ve seriously thinking for months to give my vote to the Green Party-Jill Stein; after all I’m an environmentalist and for clean energy.
But I keep reading that her votes -since there’s not chance of winning, will go automatically to Obama. It’s that true? What are your thoughts?

 

Justice Party Candidate, Rocky Anderson

There may be some confusion here about the concept of “winner take all” but I’ll get to that in a moment.

I’m not sure who is spreading this misinformation but you can never rule out motivated party operatives (either party) who are paid to write it.

There’s a very good reason why this is misinformation and obviously untrue.  If it were true that a major party could just reassign third party votes to its nominee, then Al Gore would have won the presidency in 2000.  Want a more recent example?  Jon Corzine lost to Chris Christie in 2009 because some of us New Jerseyans voted for Chris Daggett, an independent candidate.  Daggett collected about 5% of the votes (and I’m convinced that those votes came from Democrats, not Republicans).  Nevertheless, Daggett’s votes counted and Christie won.  If they had not, Corzine would have been losing New Jersey’s money today, not MF Global’s.

If the party is recognized by your state and has a ballot position for its candidate, the votes that candidate gets are going to count.  It might be a different story if you are writing in a name of a politician who is from the same party as the party’s official nominee.  We noted in 2008 that this happens in some states.  That’s why Joe Lieberman ran as an Independent Democrat in 2006.  It’s because he couldn’t run against his party’s official nominee on the same party ticket.  If you were planning to write in Hillary’s name for president, that vote might be converted to a vote for the party’s official nominee in some places. So, we recommended that voters check their local and state laws to see what would happen in that case.

Now, is it possible that a third party candidate like Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson can win?  Anything is possible but it’s not probable.  Some people will think they’re throwing their votes away and if they want to be chicken shit cowards, there’s nothing you can do to stop them from going along with the crowd, voting for one of the major party candidates and they whining afterwards that there’s never any choice.  But there are good reasons why a third party vote can still make a difference and why more Americans should vote third party instead of acting like two year olds who can’t defer their desire for instant gratification.

1.) The more votes a third party gets, the greater the chances that it will be taken seriously some day in the future. This is what happened to Canada’s New Democratic Party. It came out of virtually nowhere a couple of years ago to displace the Liberals from the second spot in opposition to the Conservatives.  And the Pirate party has made a strong showing in Germany, surprising even the Pirates themselves.  So, the major parties might be dominant now but you never know what’s going to happen a couple of years from now.

2.) Once a third party is firmly established, there’s an opportunity for some of them to run for downticket offices.  The introduction of a third party of significant critical mass in Congress may help break our gridlocked government.  The parties would have to realign themselves somewhat and make deals with other party alternatives.  This is what has happened internally with the Republican party with the introduction of the Tea Party candidates.  The Republican party has found itself having to negotiate and pander to them.  What we need is a similar voting block to the left of the Democrats.  And when I say “left”, I don’t mean commie left or treehugger left.  It just has to be noticeably left of the Democrats as they are now, which is essentially a moderately conservative party.

3.) You CAN influence the current election even if your third party candidate doesn’t win.  Like I pointed out before, Al Gore and Jon Corzine both lost support when their voters turned to third parties.  If there are enough voters choosing this option, the losing party might start taking a cold hard look at what it will take to win those voters back.  Just be sure you send the right message.  If you desert the Democrats out of anger and go to the Republican side or a right of center candidate, the party analysts are going to think you want more conservative politics.  They won’t see it as righteous indignation.  You don’t have to vote for your ideological enemies in order to punish the party you align yourself with most closely.  Vote as close as you can to your ideological allies and your party will eventually buy a clue.

Now, let’s say you vote third party and the Democrat still wins the popular vote in your state.  In most states of the union, the rule to convert the popular vote to the electoral college vote is “winner take all”.  So, if Obama won most of the popular votes in your state, he would take all of the electoral college representatives.  But he wouldn’t be singling out third party votes, he’d be taking the Republican voters’ votes as well.  It must suck to be a Republican in California or New York but that’s how it works.

But what if you live in a swing state or what if the polls remain very close all the way to election day?  If you live in a state that has a third party on the ballot, your vote could count quite a bit.  Because if you siphon away enough popular votes from one of the candidates, you could throw all of the electoral college votes to his opponent.  Some people call this a spoiler.  I think it depends on what your goal is.  I’m not sure that Nader had a legitimate case in 2000 but anyone who doesn’t like the way the Democrats have gone in the past two election cycles should feel free to express their displeasure.  If the Democrats want to avoid this scenario, they had better get on the stick and start courting the potential defectors toot sweet.  I’d be worried if I were the Democrats right now.  It’s not the Republican or independent voters they have to fear.  It is their own base that might defect from them that should be a major concern.

Let your conscience be your guide.  At this point, I don’t think it matters too much who occupies the White House.  It might be an issue if one of the Supreme Court justices retires or dies but not because of Roe v Wade. It’s because the president might appoint a more Wall Street/deregulation friendly justice and at this point, either president could do that.  I’m in favor of electing more Democrats to Congress because that might be helpful.  Then again, the Democratic party tends to suck all of the flavor out of the downticket candidates so, do the best you can.

But I think whoever is telling us that third party votes will be handed over to Obama is conflating the popular vote with the electoral college vote.  Your vote WILL count. Vote strategically.

The Verdict: Biden won the debate and soundly beat Ryan

I am told that the mainstream media is trying to spin it hard in Ryan’s favor.  Lucky for me, I cut the cord last year so I don’t have to put up with the frantic spinning and pundits telling me what I should or shouldn’t be offended by.

Biden won.  Yeah, he smiled mockingly at Ryan.  Yeah, he laughed and interrupted.  So what?  Did that make what came out of Ryan’s mouth more agreeable?  More worthy of respect and consideration?  Hell no.  Ryan is a Ayn Rand conservative who wants to slash the budget so severely that we’ll become a nation of favelas and gated communities with the not-quite-seniors and poor carrying the burden of decades of tax cuts for the rich.  That’s what he is all about.  All you had to do was listen to the words that came out of his mouth.  Biden simply countered him very effectively.

I did have issues with what Biden was defending at times.  He wasn’t straightforward about Social Security and didn’t take retirement age changes off the table.  That infuriated me and probably all of the other people my age and a bit younger who have been pre-paying our benefits for decades.

But on the other stuff?  He trounced Ryan who came off as even less capable of taking over the office of president than Sarah Palin did four years ago.  Don’t take that as support of Palin or her conservative views. My protest vote in 2008 wasn’t about liking Republicans.  It was a protest.

Please don’t waste your time telling me how “rude” Biden was to Ryan.  That’s the operatives speaking through the media pundits, trying to get the public to condemn Biden by using the appeal to civility and politeness.  It’s the standard way to get effective people to shut up and sidelined.  The media likes Ryan and his budget plan, probably because none of them will be affected by it.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Biden won.

It also doesn’t change the fact that although Biden has demonstrated effectively how to defend his party and command the debate, I’m still voting third party this year.  It’s Obama and Geithner and his Wall Street handlers that I have a problem with and voting for Joe is not going to change that.  Joe is still only the vice president, as much as he seems to be wasted in that position.  Just like Hillary is a great SOS but could have been so much more.  Joe is an enigma to me.  He’s like a bright guy who got stuck in the sales department.  But in general, it just looks to me like the Democrats benched their best players in order to bet everything on Obama.  The whole party structure and function seems out of whack with the most effective parts of it on mute and this weird toxic strain of operatives in charge. Am I just imagining it?

But anyway, Biden- 1, Ryan-0.  That’s how I’m calling it.