Richard Charnin Is A Delusional, Idiotic Moon-Bat!

Not too long ago, I boasted on Facebook that I had proof that claims of election fraud were dead wrong. (I reference that post later below.) In retrospect, that was a little bit hyperbolic. One can't prove a negative. Also, one can't prove that there is zero election fraud in any given election. There are probably more than a few shenanigans going on during any primary season, and I will be the last person to say that people weren't subjected to long lines, xeroxed ballots, fewer polling stations, closed primaries and voter I.D. laws. I will deal with all those and more in a later blog post. But in this post, I will simply say that I did find the specific source of the claim that exit polls were tampered with. And that source proved most interesting indeed!

Numerous times I've gotten into debates with my fellow liberals, some of whom are friends of mine I thought I'd known for years, about my support for Hillary vs. their support for Bernie. These debates often degenerated into outright arguments, and then shrieking matches. (Okay, I get it, Hillary is damaged goods. But the extent to which some Bernie supporters have guzzled down the Fox News Kool-Aid is truly staggering!) But repeatedly, I ran into the claim that exit polls were showing that Bernie won various states, including New York, and Ohio.

I found that claim bizarre. Exit polls are notorious for being wildly wrong, and so basing any claim on them must be equally strange. Nevertheless, I jotted the claim down and put it on my list of things to research. This week I got around to it, searching for "exit poll discrepancies" in my Google engine. There were numerous articles claiming this, the most prominent among them being a blog post by actor Tim Robbins. But interestingly, I found no major news articles making such a claim.

What I did find, is that all claims of exit polls showing huge discrepancies indicating wins for Bernie Sanders, all trace back to only ONE source!

That source turned out to be a blog written by a man named Richard Charnin, a mathematician who claims his math skills have helped uncover new revelations regarding the JFK assassination. Now, that's a pretty big red flag right there. Nevertheless, I'm a man of science and true skepticism, and so I will reserve my judgment of his JFK conspiracy theories until after I've read them. But one doesn't need to read them to explore his claims regarding exit poll variances. They are all available on his blog, and one doesn't need to read very far to know that this clown is a total crackpot.

His arguments basically go like this: Exit polls are published online throughout a given election night. But later on, those exit polls are deliberately changed to match the outcome so that it looks like the exit polls closely match the official tally of the vote. Most of these votes show a larger margin for Bernie Sanders at first, but later show more favorable numbers for Hillary Clinton. This is clear evidence, he says, of election fraud, as the exit polls are catching the book-cooking in the act.

At this point in his argument, I find myself asking why on earth CNN or any other news outlet would post exit polls online which are so divergent from the ones that end up being the final tally when everyone with screen capture or the ability to archive the .html file could simply do so? If there's a massive cover-up, why don't they at least try to cover it up?

Charnin doesn't bother to address this. Instead what he does is perform a mathematical analysis on the variance between the early poll numbers and the final vote. He has a friend of his record the earliest exit polls through screen-capture and tabulate them (the man's name is Ted Soares, who seems like a genuinely concerned citizen who just happens to have fallen in for Charnin's crap), then analyzes that data against the final reported vote. Here's an example of what he does, taken from his blog post, Five Democratic Primaries: Exit Poll Discrepancies And Win Probabilities (March 16, 2016):

Assuming a 30% cluster effect, the exit poll margin of error is:
MoE = 1.3*1.96 *sqrt [p*(1-p)/N],  where  p =2-party exit poll share, N = sample-size.

Sanders win probability is  P = NORMDIST (V, 0.5, MoE/1.96, true)
V = his 2- party exit poll share. His win probability is 80% in MO and 74% in IL.

The probability of the 10%  OH exit poll discrepancy is P= 0.00102 (1 in 976):
P = 1- NORMDIST(EP, VS, MoE/1.96,true),  where  EP=48.1% is Sanders’  2-party exit poll share and VS=43.0% his 2-party recorded vote share.

Sanders’ exit poll share exceeded his recorded share in n= 15 of N= 16 polls.
P= 0.00026 = 1-BINOMDIST(n-1,N,0.5,true) or 1 in 3855.
There is a 99.9% probability that this anomaly was due to election fraud.

If you didn't understand any of that, don't worry. You're not meant to. You're meant to "Oooh!" and "Aaah!" at Charnin's mathematical expertise. In a nutshell, what he's doing is calculating what the odds would be on the before/after totals being so different. He finds that the odds are so small (in this case, 3,855 to 1) that he concludes there must be election fraud going on.

Now, I don't have a problem with his math. His calculations are just fine. But like a computer, it's garbage in, garbage out. He starts with a flawed premise, correctly calculates based on that flawed premise, and then comes up with a bogus solution upon which he builds his incorrect claim.

To see just how screwed up this clown is, we need to know how election polls are done. And fortunately, we have a recent news article from the Washington Post which explores just that. In it, one of the people in charge of doing the actual exit polls explains how the process takes place. Exit polls are done throughout the election day, but are not released at all until 5:00. That's when the early exit poll numbers get put online. Then the interviewee, a man named Joe Lenski, vice president of Edison Media Research, drops this golden nugget on us:

The news organizations have made a pledge to Congress that they will not use the exit poll data to characterize the outcome of a race until the polls in that state are scheduled to close.
That brings us to the third wave at the poll closing time. What we also have, in addition to the exit poll data, we also have sample precinct data. The samples are picked similarly. In a state like New York, we had 35 exit poll precincts and 50 sample precincts in the state. The sample precincts include the exit poll precinct. We have a reporter in each polling location in the sample, and as soon as the results are posted at that polling place, they will call those results in.
Shortly after poll closing, we can quickly compare what the exit poll of that precinct said the votes were and what the actual votes were. So that's when you'll see a fairly quick adjustment to the exit poll estimates after poll closing.

Like in New York, we were showing a four-point margin in the exit poll at 9 o'clock, but by 9:45 we were showing a 12-point margin. That's because we can quickly compare precinct-by-precinct what the exit poll results were and what the full results for that precinct were. So we're seeing precinct-by-precinct that the actual results were that Hillary Clinton was doing four points better than she did in the exit poll in that precinct, we will adjust the results [of the exit poll] accordingly.

There are two important uses of the exit poll. One is to project a winner. But the main use of the exit poll that night and historically is to have the most accurate representation of the demographics of voters. How each demographic voted, what the issues were, when people decided how to vote. To make those demographic results as accurate as possible, we want to match to the actual results by precinct, by region of the state, etc.

When you see those adjustments made shortly after poll closing, that's because we've gotten a whole lot more real information to tell us what the turnout is going to be by region, the overstatement and understatement for each candidate in the precinct was based on the actual results. We're making those adjustments as rapidly as we can.

That's when the interviewer, Philip Bump, asks: So the New York issue, I can't help but notice that you said that younger people are more likely to fill out the surveys and then also that Sanders was over-represented in the initial estimate. Do you think there's a link there?

Lenski replies: Oh, yes, there's definitely a link there.

We're adjusting for that throughout the day. As I said, we know the response rate in our 35 precincts. We know that younger voters are more likely to choose to fill out the questionnaire than older voters, and that's typically the case so we're already making those adjustments.

Obviously in this case, that was even more than normal. As soon as we started getting sample precinct returns, we made that adjustment even more so that we'd match the actual results.

And this answers my earlier question! CNN does not make an attempt to hide the discrepancies in their earlier vs. their later polls, because the adjustments are part of an open process!

But in Richard Charnin's world, he takes the earliest possible numbers and the latest possible numbers, does a calculation on them to find how far outside the margin of error (MoE) the result is, inevitably finds that the numbers are outside the margins (because he's cherry-picking the two most discordant numbers he can find), calculates the probability of such a huge drift occurring which, of course, is infinitesimally small, like 4000 to 1 or 99.9% unlikely, and then says, "See? Fraud!"

WRONG! Yes, the numbers fall outside the margin of error, but there are dozens of reasons this might happen. Yes, fraud is one of those reasons. But here's just a small list of some of the others:

1.) The enthusiasm gap. Bernie Sanders supporters are more enthusiastic than Hillary supporters, making it far more likely that Bernie supporters will answer exit polls while Hillary supporters will not.
2.) The youth gap. Younger voters, who heavily favor Sanders, are more likely to answer exit poll questionnaires than older, more jaded voters who favor Clinton.
3.) The absentee gap. Exit polls do not get to interview anyone who votes by absentee ballot.
4.) The racial gap. Pollsters, who are mostly white and possibly may even be volunteers or interns, find that it is difficult getting people in black districts, who heavily favor Clinton, to answer questionnaires.
5.) The timing gap. Younger, college-aged voters, who favor Sanders, tend to vote earlier in the day based on completion of their class schedule while older, more professional voters tend to vote later in the evening based on completion of their work schedule.

But instead of any of these perfectly rational possibilities, Charnin goes with fraud.

Does he say why? No. Does he attempt to rule out the other possibilities? No. Does he even fucking acknowledge said possibilities? For the most part, no!

After his calculations are done, his default setting is set to 'fraud' and that's that as far as he's concerned.

On his blog's comments, his dismissiveness is quite apparent. After his blog post on May 5, a commenter posted: "How do I rebut people who say exit polling does not account for early voting?"

Richard's response: "Nothing to rebut. Early absentee voting can also be rigged."

Of course! Because when something indicates his calculations are wrong, he simply says, "Oh, that's rigged too!"

The fallacy of Charnin's approach can be seen in the number of people polled, which he foolishly publishes. Take Ohio, for example. He performs his calculation based on early CNN exit poll numbers where 1,670 people have responded. But the final number of respondents published on CNN's website is actually 1,764!

Look, when you add more votes to the total later in the evening, of course the final vote tallies are going to change. DUH!

And when an exit poll is done, it is of course not done on everyone. Instead a small sample size is taken in order to determine a probable idea of the outcome. And this is fraught with potential inaccuracies. Why someone would base their whole argument on this is beyond me.

It should be pointed out that Charnin might have an argument if he presented evidence of FINAL exit poll numbers having been changed. But does he do this? No. That would make too much sense. And besides, he has no such evidence.

I did a spreadsheet analysis of all exit poll data available as well as Charnin's numbers. The interesting thing I found when doing that is that even if Charnin's claims were 100% true, there are only three primary elections where his purported "election fraud" would have made any difference, namely, Missouri, Illinois, and Massachusetts - three of the closest races. Charnin's early poll numbers give Bernie Sanders a slight edge over Hillary Clinton, but Clinton had a late surge that put her just barely over the top in all three. But this makes no material difference in the outcome. Even if Bernie won all three states, he would have gotten only a few more delegates - nowhere near the kind of margin he would have needed.

What's more, if one applies ALL of Charnin's numbers and applies them to the states in question (23 states that had exit polling), then proportionally allots Bernie Sanders all of the additional delegates he would get as a result, Bernie would only gain about 70 delegates or so. That would be nowhere near enough to overcome the 377 pledged delegate lead Hillary has finished with (not counting D.C. which has yet to vote as of this writing).

There's even more. My spreadsheet analysis incorporated pre-polling data provided by Real Clear Politics, and just as early exit polls seemed to favor Sanders, pre-election polls seemed to favor Hillary. For example, in Iowa, Hillary's RCP average polling numbers gave her a four-point edge over Bernie. Instead, she finished a mere hair's-breadth in the lead with three tenths of a percent. In New Hampshire, Bernie's margin of victory was more than 9% higher than the margin predicted by RCP. In Oklahoma, Hillary trailed Bernie by only three points, but finished behind Bernie by ten points. In Michigan - well, we all know what happened in Michigan, don't we? And in Oregon, the only pre-poll available gave Hillary a 60% to 40% lead over Sanders, but the final totals on election night were almost the exact opposite of that.

Now, if I were someone who thought like Richard Charnin, I would take these numbers, do a calculation that showed how far outside the margin of error they were, perform a probability calculation on how likely that was, and come up with some absurdly huge 5000 to 1 number against such a scenario. I would then scream "FRAUD!" to anyone who was willing to listen.

But I'm not such an asshole. I know perfectly well that pre-election polls are just as volatile as exit polls. More so, even.

I could end my argument here. But, I'm a fastidious gadfly, and so, just to make sure I had all the data I needed. I wrote to Richard Charnin hoping to get a good look at the original source material for his spreadsheets. I found no email address, so I attempted to contact him by commenting on his blog. The comment was posted at around 11:00 a.m., and I saw no update to the comments list for several hours. Now, it's not uncommon for bloggers to approve posts first before others can see them, but I had good reason to believe I accidentally made a mistake when posting, and that therefore the comment wouldn't appear. So I commented again, this time being very careful to include my email address, and sent my comment off. By late in the evening, still nothing.

Then, I found that he had a Facebook account. "Perfect!" I thought. And I went to it to put in a friend request.

That's when I discovered that one of my dearest friends, a fierce Bernie supporter, a fulcrum of the freethought community's social circle, and a true battleaxe for justice, was also friends with him.

Aha! So that's where so many of my friends had gotten the idea into their heads that there was massive election fraud going on! Charnin had needlessly driven a wedge between myself and those dearest to me, and had done this same sort of thing with circles of leftist friends all over this nation. People who had been best friends for years suddenly found themselves bitter enemies, all because some favored Bernie while others favored Hillary. Millions of friendships destroyed, all to buy this hack a little bit of undeserved fame.

Asshole! Now, it was personal!

Nevertheless, I decided to keep things cordial. By the following morning, I saw that Richard had accepted my friend request, so I repeated my question to him. Here's what I sent him by FB Messenger:

Hi, Richard. I'm intrigued by your blog and spreadsheet. I'm an accountant who also studied biological sciences and physics, so I can follow the math. Impressive work.
I have a question about the original numbers for the exit polls. The numbers your blog shows are not the ones CNN has on its website now. You say they changed them. That's very disturbing. If you can verify those original numbers, you have a real bombshell to drop on the establishment. So my question is, can you show where those original exit polls come from? Maybe you saved the .html file from CNN? Or did a screen capture? Is the original Internet page from CNN cached somewhere? Please let me know. I'm anxious to catch this fraud red-handed.

Now, I hadn't quite learned how exit polls work at this point, and so I was a little bit naive in my question. I should have asked if he had any evidence showing final poll numbers had changed. But in the end, that proved irrelevant. He didn't have such information anyway, or he would have blogged about it. But he finally did reply:

I answered you on my blog yesterday.

Okay, surprise. I guess he answers his blog posts in the wee hours of the night. I answered,
I'll take a look. Thanks.

I did. His response on the blog read...
The data source is described in the post. View the table. Thee data was captured by Ted Soares. His e-mail is indicated below the table.
Did you see the table? Why don’t you contact him if you have questions?

I did contact him. I prepared to send him an email asking what original data he had. Ted seemed a genuinely concerned citizen with a keen interest in doing the right thing. But before the e-mail could be sent, this happened on Facebook Messenger:

Why don't you call the exit pollsters? Or call CNN. I gave you my info. Contact Ted Soares. You have his e-mail in the table you are questioning. That's it. No more questions.

Apparently, he was upset that I'd asked the same question multiple times in multiple forums. I wasn't trying to do that to him on purpose. I just didn't get a response within the course of a normal business day. It's not my fault he doesn't answer his blog posts until after midnight Central Standard Time. But then he continued:

Are you down with that, Mr. Agenda? You turn out to be just what I thought you are. Expect nothing from me. We are done. You are exposed.

Ooookay?

Now, I made no attempt to hide my affiliations or views expressed on Facebook. (In fact, I have one alter-ego Facebook profile I use to infiltrate certain religious groups, and I could have used that to conceal my identity. But I didn't.) I simply sent him a friend request, and asked him a question, that's all. But he apparently saw one of my pro-Hillary Facebook posts and assumed that I was out to get him. In truth, I was seriously considering going after him at that particular time, but if he'd presented compelling evidence, I would have changed my mind, as all good people of science and skepticism must. As per usual, he assumed far too much.

He quoted my FB post back at me, as if it were some sort of a "gotcha!" moment. I was rather forceful with that particular post, but I also have nothing to hide, so here is the post that got Mr. Charnin's hackles up:

Okay, I promised to stay quiet until June 7. Now that it's in our rear-view mirror, I need to say something to all those Hillary-haters who insisted to me that Bernie would run the table and win the nomination:

I. Told. You. SO!

There, I said it. And now all those who said its not over until California are telling me that it isn't over until July 28. Olay, fine. I get it. Hillary's not that good. But you know what? SHE'S ALSO NOT THAT BAD! And I'll go to the mat against anyone who says otherwise.
Now our focus should be on securing a high-ranking office for Bernie within the DNC. But some of you will focus instead on various claims of voter fraud and vote suppression. I'm very nearly done with my investigations into such claims, and what I've found is amazing! Let me tell you!
So if you say "fraud" or "rigged," prepare to have your illusions shattered. I now have PROOF to the contrary! So be warned, and make no mistake about it...
I'm BACK!

The proof I refer to in this post involved a laundry-list of items, and yes, the possibility of Charnin's belfry-bats was potentially one of them at the time. But Charnin must have assumed that it was 100% about him (as all conspiracy nuts who see themselves as one-knight-against-an-army are wont to do). After finding this not-so-secret post of mine, Mr. Charnin tells me, "You are exposed."

Wow. Hold the damned phone. We've got ourselves a real Sherlock Holmes, here.

When I received his Messenger text, I was at work, and so I couldn't really expend much brain power in a reply. So I simply typed,

If you are at all righteous, you have nothing to fear from me.

He responds:

I do not fear you. I feel sorry for you. You are going to prove my analysis is wrong? That Hillary is winning fairly. Go right ahead. Make a name for yourself. Mr. Accountant.
And don't lecture me about being righteous. TRUTH IS ALL!

Well, he got that last part right, at least. But after all he's done to obfuscate the truth, he has no right whatsoever to that banner call.

He goes on:

I can spot trolls like you in a minute. Sending me the same message over and over again. Trying to wear me out. I know your king. You and Josh Holland should get together. So long, poseur...

Touchy, isn't he? And at this point, I'm more impressed that this guy knows the definition of 'poseur' than anything else about him.

"Trolls?" If I'd really wanted to troll a guy who's this hyper-sensitive, I could have had him in tears. And he didn't spot me in a minute. It took him several hours. And I wasn't even hiding!

The "king" he refers to, and suggests I should get together with (I assume), Josh Holland, is a reporter for The Nation who did a brilliant exposure of phony vote fraud claims. You can read it here. He also did a very good analysis of the Tim Robbins connection with Richard Charnin's hoax on Raw Story, which you can read about here. But I never met Josh Holland, and I don't believe in kings.

I don't doubt that Mr. Charnin is sincere. He truly believes that the bullshit he's spewing is real. I also don't fault his friend Ted Soares, or the admirable actor Tim Robbins, or anyone else fooled by this bullshitter. It's easy to get dazzled by the equations and not realize that what's being calculated was incorrect to begin with. What I do fault Charnin for, is being so thick-headed about it. His genuinely left-leaning sense of justice has convinced him that voter fraud has been going on for decades. (He seems to have began this conspiracy-theory out of hatred and disbelief over the election results in 2004, and who can blame him?) His passion for defending left-leaning politics has driven him into this insanity, and now it's had a direct influence on the sort of irrationality that has infected the entire "Bernie or Bust" mindset, one which has now consumed every anti-Hillary conspiracy whack-job notion with such gusto that hardly anything rational is left. With his heart in the right place, he's driven everybody and everything else to the wrong place. He's convinced himself that he's on a crusade, and he doesn't give a shit how many lives he has to ruin to do it, or that his unwitting hoax could lead to the travesty of having a President Trump. He probably sees some glimmer of this reality, but presses on anyway, destroying reason and common sense while leaving hysteria and anger in his noxious wake.

Well I say FUCK THAT!

Fuck this guy! So long as I'm around, I'll do everything I can to make sure that this loony-tune has his work flushed down the toilet bowl of history!


Eric

*

The Clinton/Kissinger Connection

It's one of the darkest accusations yet made against Hillary. That she's friends with Henry Kissinger. In the aftermath of Obama's endorsement of Hillary, I feel it's important to continue my systematic defenses of both Mrs. Clinton and her campaign. But this one, I'll admit, is a doozie!

There’s no question that the ties between Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger are strong, and not just because they both served as Secretary of State. The Clintons have been regular dinner guests with the Kissingers (particularly at the Dominican home of fashion designer Oscar de la Renta), for years, and Hillary has not only admitted that she listened to Kissinger for advice while serving in Obama’s administration, she boasted about it. In her review of Kissinger’s book, “World Order,” she writes:

“Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels. Though we have often seen the world and some of our challenges quite differently, and advocated different responses now and in the past, what comes through clearly in this new book is a conviction that we, and President Obama, share: a belief in the indispensability of continued American leadership in service of a just and liberal order.”

This led to a tense exchange between Hillary and Bernie during the February 11 Democratic Party Debate.

SANDERS: Where the secretary and I have a very profound difference, in the last debate — and I believe in her book — very good book, by the way — in her book and in this last debate, she talked about getting the approval or the support or the mentoring of Henry Kissinger. Now, I find it rather amazing, because I happen to believe that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country.

(APPLAUSE)

I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger. And in fact, Kissinger’s actions in Cambodia, when the United States bombed that country, overthrew Prince Sihanouk, created the instability for Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to come in, who then butchered some 3 million innocent people, one of the worst genocides in the history of the world. So count me in as somebody who will not be listening to Henry Kissinger.

(APPLAUSE)

IFILL: Secretary Clinton?

CLINTON: Well, I know journalists have asked who you do listen to on foreign policy, and we have yet to know who that is.

SANDERS: Well, it ain’t Henry Kissinger. That’s for sure.

CLINTON: That’s fine. That’s fine.

(LAUGHTER)

You know, I listen to a wide variety of voices that have expertise in various areas. I think it is fair to say, whatever the complaints that you want to make about him are, that with respect to China, one of the most challenging relationships we have, his opening up China and his ongoing relationships with the leaders of China is an incredibly useful relationship for the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

So if we want to pick and choose — and I certainly do — people I listen to, people I don’t listen to, people I listen to for certain areas, then I think we have to be fair and look at the entire world, because it’s a big, complicated world out there.

SANDERS: It is.

CLINTON: And, yes, people we may disagree with on a number of things may have some insight, may have some relationships that are important for the president to understand in order to best protect the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

In other words, it’s best to be receptive and open-minded to advice from everyone experienced in the field, even those you disagree with. And that sounds good. But the catalog of Kissinger’s crimes is undeniable.

• He sided with the Ayatollah Khomenei, solely on the grounds that the Ayatollah was anti-Soviet.
• He persuaded the Iraqi Kurds to take up arms against Saddam Hussein, then abandoned them to be slaughtered after Iraq signed a diplomatic deal with Iran.
• He was responsible for the deliberate mass killings of civilians in Laos and Cambodia.
• He worked behind the lines to oust the democratically elected president Salvador Allende in Chile because of his pro-Communist and pro-Castro views. While he supported the revolutionary leader Auguste Pinochet, Allende was killed, and Pinochet became the leader of a military junta in Chile. The doctrine was, better a dictator on our side than a democracy that favored the Soviets.
• Because the nation of India was developing Soviet ties, he engineered U.S. ties to the nation of Pakistan and sided with them in their invasion of Bangladesh. The result was a bloodbath.

It’s hard to look at such a track record and not be worried that such a man is a friend of Hillary Clinton, and that she takes advice from him.

And yet…

Even Kissinger’s most staunch detractors, such as your hero and mine Christopher Hitchens, have acknowledged two positive things about Kissinger: that he is/was 1) brilliant and 2) focused.

Kissinger saw his role in the office of Secretary of State as one in which the primary goal was to win the Cold War. This he did rather effectively. He didn’t care how many millions of brown people had to die in order to achieve that goal, but he did achieve it. It doesn't excuse his crimes, but the job got done.

Also, he was the mastermind behind opening up trade relations with China. “Only Nixon could go to China,” was Tricky-Dick’s catchphrase. The truth was, he could only have gone if Kissinger had gone with him. That Sino-American alliance helped hold the Soviets in check, and prevent any future war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. after the Cold War’s end. In other words, this move by Kissinger saved millions of lives.

I am not arguing that the lives Kissinger saved washes his hands of the murders he committed. But I am saying that as Secretary of State, he was both effective and successful at his job and in his goals. He’s clearly a war criminal, but he’s also clearly a fucking genius.

So I look at it from my own perspective. If I were Secretary of State, and I had the opportunity to listen to this man’s advice, would I do so?

Honestly? Damn right, I would! And I think, so would most of you.

I would even sit down to dinner with the man and talk foreign policy with him. True, when dinner had ended, and I’d shook his hand after bidding him good night, I would feel a severe urge to wash that hand thoroughly with very hot water! But I would also have a head full of invaluable knowledge afterward.

On today’s issues, Kissinger has argued for Russia to defeat Daesh (ISIS), and for the Ukraine to fracture into separate east and west republics. This is something I have argued for on this blog. No, I’m not saying I’m as brilliant as Kissinger, but it is interesting how I, who would never have committed the kinds of genocides he did, came to such similar conclusions regarding foreign policy.

Maybe great minds do think alike, even when one of those minds is good and the other evil.

So Hillary regularly listens to Kissinger today. And TODAY’S Kissinger is not advocating the same kinds of “smash-the-third-world’s-chances-at-democracy-to-defeat-the-Kremlin” tactics that he so readily did in the past.

Fucking hooray.

It makes me uncomfortable, to say the least, but if I would be willing to listen to Kissinger (and I would be), then I suppose I can’t be upset at Hillary for listening to him either.

But I’d rather she took his advice while visiting him in his jail cell. In a perfect world, she would be.


Eric

*

Did Hillary Broker Arms Deals In Exchange For Donations To The Clinton Foundation?

This is one of the most astounding accusations against Hillary Clinton I've yet heard: That Hillary, during her tenure as Secretary of State, helped procure weapons sales to nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman because these nations donated generously to the Clinton Foundation. Is this true?

The story has been reported in various left-wing sources, including an article in Mother Jones. But when I did some digging, I was stunned at what I found. The truth, it seems, is stranger than fiction.

It's true that sales in arms to the Middle East, and to Saudi Arabia in particular, more than doubled in 2011. (140%) In particular, a large sale of fighter jets to the Saudis made Israel rather angry. At roughly the same time, donations to the Clinton Foundation from these nations also skyrocketed. This seems suspicious. Is there a connection?

There is. But it's not what you think.

First, we need to understand how foreign arms sales are done. They are not brokered through the State department! It is the Department of Defense who brokers such sales, and they do so because foreign governments are not allowed to purchase directly from manufacturers (such as Boeing or Norfolk-Grumman). Instead, any government who wishes to buy arms from the U.S. must go through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is a special agency within the Department of Defense which deals with the sales of arms and military training to foreign governments. After the DSCA is contacted, a proposal is drawn up. This gets approved by the Defense Secretary if he/she feels that it is in the national interest, and the president is advised. If the president disagrees, he can nix the sale. If not, it then goes to the State Department.

And here's where the Hillary angle comes in. The State department gives its determination if the sale is in American interests diplomatically. If it does, it gives an approval to the sale. This is just what Hillary did in 2011 with increasing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and others.

But does it end there? NO! According to law, the DSCA must then give notification to Congress regarding the sale 30 days in advance. (15 days in advance if the arms buyer is a NATO ally.) Congress can then vote to disapprove the sale if it so desires. The president can veto such a vote, but if Congress has enough votes to override, the deal is dead.

So that's how it's done! And knowing this, we can now ask ourselves, if Hillary really did trade arms deals for Clinton Foundation donations, how did she get the DoD to go along? How did she sway the Pentagon and the DSCA? For that matter, how did she prevent Congress from voting against the deal?

The answer is simple: She didn't!

But if not, what caused the spike in arms sales? Why did so many in the Pentagon think such sales were in the U.S. interest? And why did it coincide with such large donations to the Clinton Foundation?

The answer is even more simple: The Arab Spring!

In December 2010, Tunisia overthrew its government and instituted a democracy. Jealous that little Tunisia could pull it off, Arabs began staging popular uprisings all over the Middle East in 2011. In Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Saudi Arabia, throngs of people began crying for revolution. Iran began plotting ways to take advantage of the situation to its advantage. Saudi Arabia, in particular, began to get nervous.

Requests for arms sales from the U.S. shot way up.

The Pentagon, seeing what was going on, approved the sales to the Saudis, Kuwait and other oil-allies for the obvious oil-related reasons, and because there was little guarantee a democracy would arise if these nations fell. The Republican controlled Congress went along with this because oil interests own them. The State Department, meaning Hillary, signed off on them, knowing that destabilization would not likely lead to democracy - least of all in Saudi Arabia.

Okay, fine, but did the Saudis and others give so generously to the Clinton Foundation in hopes of influencing the government?

Here's the kicker, because it shows some real genius. They probably did! Yes, the Saudis probably hoped their donations to Clinton's charity would grease the wheels of American arms sales.

Except it couldn't. They had no idea that Hillary was not the hand at the helm. They were as ignorant of the process as the average American voter was. (And still is.)

Now, watch this: Would Hillary be the type of low-down person to take advantage of that situation and allow the Saudis and other corrupt governments to contribute so generously to her charity foundation, knowing full well it wouldn't matter? Why, you bet your ass she would!

Would Hillary ever bother to say, "You know, fellas, these donations are nice and all, but I don't handle the arms sales. Other people do that. I just sign off on what goes to Congress for final approval. This is a waste of your money."? Of course she wouldn't say that!

She swindled them! By doing nothing! She let them give their money away! To her! Beautiful!

Now that, my friends, is a master at work!

That, my friends, should be our next president.

I feel bad for publications like Mother Jones. They put A and B together, and thought they had a news story, not realizing that there were pieces C, D and E yet to be added to the puzzle.

But that's been this election year so far: People shooting off their mouths when they haven't done their homework.


Eric

*

Trump Stole The Nomination. Not Hillary.

Bernie already said the Democratic primary process isn't rigged.

But, just in case you missed it, and you insist that the Democratic Party process is rigged anyway, here's my two-pronged defense.

#1) You want to see a rigged primary? Look at Trump's nomination.

Prior to the primaries in New York and Pennsylvania on April 26th, Donald Trump garnered only 37% of the Republican vote. In other words, 63% of all Republican-ticket voters wanted somebody else. And yet, at that point in the contest, Trump had 60.3% of the delegates he needed to win.

In other words, he received nearly double the amount of delegates he actually earned.

In Iowa, Trump LOST. He received only 24.3% of the vote. He nevertheless received 35% of the delegates.

In New Hampshire, he received only 35.3% of the votes. But he received 58% of the delegates.

In Nevada, Trump did not achieve a majority. He won with only 45.9% of the vote. He nevertheless received 100% of the delegates.

In South Carolina, Trump won with only a paltry 32.5% of the vote. He received 50% of the delegates.

The most grotesque example may be Vermont, where Trump won only 32.7% of the vote. He received 100% of the delegates!

Same thing with Florida. Trump won only 45.7% of the vote. He received 100% of the delegates.

In fact, in all but a handful of states, Trump won a disproportionately higher delegate total than the percentage of votes he received.

And yet Trump is the one pointing at the Democratic Party's process and saying, "Come on, this is supposed to be a democracy!"?

Trump stole the nomination. True, it fell of a truck first, but he stole it. He stole it by being such an asshole that the more than dozen candidates who should have dropped out early didn't, and ended up dividing Trump's opposition vote beyond a point where anyone could consolidate on one other person. At no point did Trump ever face off in a binary way, where it was just him and one other choice. When his last opponent fell, it was two opponents, not one, and they both bowed out at the same time.

Trump is an illegitimate candidate!

Then there was the pledge. They made Trump sign a pledge that he would support the Republican nominee, no matter who it was. They all signed it too, figuring that Trump would never win. Then, when Trump successfully gamed the broken system, they found that the document designed to trap Trump had trapped them. They were bound to support him as their nominee, even though they hated it!

Even after New York and Pennsylvania, Trump only received 40% of the vote total. 60% of the voters chose someone else. Even factoring in states like Indiana, Nebraska, West Virginia and Washington State, where voters had only Trump with no viable opponents, Trump still did not get more than 40% of the vote. (After New York, he only went from 40.11% to 40.23%!)

This is not fair! When a state has a "winner take all" or "winner take most" system, the winner steals the votes of the loser. Plain and simple! 60% of Republicans wanted anybody else but this clod! This is a shitty process, and one that Republicans should be in full-fledged revolt about.

Instead, Democrats are in full fledged revolt.

Fucking WHAT?!

Here's why. Take New Hampshire, for example. Bernie clearly beat Hillary in that state by 60.3%  to Hillary's 38%. Delegates were awarded proportionally, and so Bernie got 15 delegates, while Hillary got only 9. But wait! Add in the superdelegates who declared their intention to vote for Hillary, and suddenly you add 6 more delegates to Hillary's side! Now it's a TIE! After Bernie won, Hillary gets a clear defeat erased. The system is rigged! Why even have a vote!

Except those superdelegates don't count until the Democratic National Convention vote in July. They can and often do change their minds. What's more, the Bernie supporters know this! Which is why their strategy for victory involves convincing as many superdelegates as possible to come over to their side to deny Hillary the victory!

From this, we learn two things:

First, any news outlet that reported that Hillary "tied" or "won" a state because of the superdelegate factor was engaging in irresponsible reporting.

Two, Bernie's camp cannot complain that superdelegates have the system rigged while simultaneously trying to rig the system to cheat Hillary out of a victory she earned by garnering nearly 3 million more votes on the ground than Bernie got.

#2) You can't try to steal votes and complain that the system is rigged at the same time.

The people have spoken. Love her or hate her, 55% have chosen Hillary. Oh, to be sure, it's not over yet! In a few days we get to hear from California, New Jersey, New Mexico and the Dakotas. But the math says that a continued campaign by Bernie amounts to obstinance.

In other words, Bernie can't win superdelegates by continuing his campaign and deliberately pissing them off!

Of course the main reason Hillary didn't steal the nomination is because she hasn't won the nomination yet. You can't have stolen something you don't yet have. Still, strange things may yet happen. They certainly have so far. Hillary may get indicted, and this might cause superdelegates to flock to Bernie's side. That may be Bernie's best bet for victory. But before we complain about the Democratic primary system, where a political party, having the absolute right to structure itself in a way that disallows outsiders (because a party is neither a government nor a democracy), let's recognize the REAL vote thieves!

The RNC. Accomplished through:
Gerrymandering
"Winner Take All" structures
Closed primaries in California and many other states where the Democratic Party has an open primary system.

I say the real thieves shouldn't get away with it just because we got distracted by a fake scandal!


Eric

*

Hillary's Emails

The emails! Of course, the emails! There’s nothing that shows how corrupt Hillary is than the shoddy way she handled sensitive information while serving as Secretary of State.

Isn’t there?

Well, not quite, because like most Hillary “scandals” it’s nowhere near as bad as the Republicans have lied about and exaggerated. Nor is it as bad as Bernie Sanders supporters believe (although at this point many of them would believe Hillary urinated on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and then sacrificed a baby to Satan – even and especially if The Drudge Report said she did).

To expedite my defense of Hillary on this, I’ve opted to boil down the main accusations and juxtapose them with the truth, warts and all. Then, the distinction will be highlighted between the truth and the fiction of the matter, and why it’s important. Hopefully, even a cursory skimming of my defense should then convince a few hardened anti-Clinton skeptics.

Also, I’m not going to bother with the emails themselves. The State Department released the last of them way back on February 29. The media have had plenty of time to sift through each and every little word to find if there had been any juicy or scandalous news story and so far, have found nothing scandalous. In fact, they found a woman who was thoughtful, respectful, and quite human. Many anti-Clinton people have been converted into Clinton people just on the strength of reading her emails alone. So I’ll leave the media to sludge through the dross with underpaid bleary-eyed interns. My focus will be on the major points.

So, here we go:

False: Hillary broke the law.

True: Hillary broke the rules.

The distinction: The official line from the Clinton campaign is that the use of a personal email server was “allowed.” While this is legally true, it is false from the State Department's perspective, and deliberately misleading in the view of the general public. State Department “guidelines” stated that a personal email server should not be used. Hillary weighed the cost of breaking an internal rule with no teeth when there was no law prohibiting her, and decided to ignore the guideline. Proper? No. Illegal? Nope, not that either.

False: Hillary is under investigation by the FBI.

True: Hillary’s emails are under investigation by the FBI.

The distinction: This might seem like splitting hairs, but there is no criminal investigation by the FBI – yet. What’s going on now is an investigation as to whether or not any criminal action was done. And so Hillary’s email server is being combed through by FBI cyber-specialists who seek to make certain no classified information was leaked. So far, it seems none has been, because the FBI has had an entire year, and no criminality has yet been found. On the other hand, if such criminality has been found and the FBI is remaining quiet about it, that would be another matter. The FBI however is non-partisan, and has no reason to delay an indictment if any wrongdoing should be found. Again, because no indictment has been forthcoming, it is becoming more and more safe to assume that there was no criminal leaking of classified information.

On the other hand, if the FBI does hand down an indictment, THEN Bernie Sanders will have a decent shot at winning the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Not before, however.

False: The purpose of her use of a private e-mail server was to hide her personal emails from the government and the press.

True: The purpose of her private email server was the convenience of not needing two separate email accounts.

The distinction: This is one where the claims from the Clinton campaign are probably spot-on. If you’re going to conceal e-mails, a private server is a lousy way to do it. Any email you send to a .gov address gets archived anyway. (This, in fact, is one of Hillary’s arguments.) You could provide security for the server yourself, but if you hire professionals to do it  (as Hillary did), then the company hired could turn over all their materials to the FBI (which they did). Yes, deleting some of your emails from your own server could result in some information being lost, and some was, but unless you can be sure that 100% of all emails sent were deleted on the other end, you can’t be sure of anything being secure.

Hillary had precedent. Three other Secretaries of State served in the era of email: Madeline Albright, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Albright never had an email account, but both Powell and Rice did, and their emails were permanently deleted after their terms of service ended. As such, when Hillary saw the guidelines saying that private servers ought not be used for official State Department business, she must have felt like the younger sister who saw an older sibling receive a privilege to which she was now denied. Of course she would keep her own private server “for convenience.” And who can blame her for being indignant at being so severely investigated when two Republicans did the same thing before her and got off scott-free?

It’s easy to see how a woman in her 60’s would not want to bother with using two email addresses. I have two email addresses, and it sucks. I tend to read the older account and never read the new one, even though the new one is the “official” one. And that’s just me – a man from the next generation down, presumably more tech savvy. Most women from Hillary’s generation struggle with how to set the DVR.

“Convenience?” I buy it.

False: Hillary emailed classified information.

True: Hillary emailed information that was marked as classified by a different agency after the fact.

The distinction: This is another one where the Clinton campaign is dead-on right. The FBI or the CIA might designate something as classified which the State department doesn’t. And information which might not be classified today might become classified tomorrow, or vice-versa. It’s the reason some Cold War documents are being declassified now. It’s also the reason some things which were thought to be casual exchanges even a few years ago might suddenly become classified in light of a sudden shift in the situation at home or abroad. An unclassified message to a Ukranian official might become classified if that official suddenly gets promoted to a higher position. An innocent request from a Kenyan politician might become classified if that dignitary is suddenly arrested for an unknown reason. Many things change in the fluidity of international politics, and designations of what constitutes classified information must change with them.

In short, if Hillary had received or sent information which was not classified at the time, but became classified later on, she would not be guilty of wrongdoing.


False: Her use of a private server made sensitive information more vulnerable to hackers.

True: Having a private server put her email outside the government’s protective firewalls.

The distinction: Think having a private server outside the government is more accessible than one within the government? Not necessarily! The government websites and emails are the constant targets of hackers, and hackers who break the government system receive the most “cred,” which is everything in the hacker world. Because Hillary’s server was off the government reservation, the only hackers targeting it were those few who 1) knew of its existence and 2) felt the need to target it. There weren’t many hackers who met that criteria. In other words, sometimes the safest place is away from the primary target.

But what about this Romanian hacker nicknamed “Guccifer?” Didn’t he hack Hillary’s email server?

Marcel Lehel, a.k.a. “Guccifer,” has indeed been extradited to the United States on hacking related charges involving identity theft, wire fraud and cyberstalking. But his claims at having hacked Hillary Clinton’s email server are probably made up. He is able to offer no proof that he hacked Hillary’s private server, and making a hack claim without being able to back it up is the worst crime a hacker can do. It makes him a “muggle” (a hacker wannabe who fakes it). He is therefore a pariah. Until he presents proof, he’s a hacker’s joke.

So, quick recap:

Did Hillary disregard rules and put her own convenience ahead of the nation with her handling of State email on a private server? You bet your ass, she did!

Did she endanger the nation’s security by passing along sensitive information to those who shouldn’t have received it? Hell, no!

In the end, the official FBI conclusion will likely be that Hillary did not divulge State secrets, but will also give her a severe reprimand. The State department has already effectively done this. She deserves it, and she knows it, which is why she’s issued her apology for it, and not just because she was caught. It stings her, and well it should.

But against Trump, it shouldn’t cost her any votes.

Hillary’s behavior was myopic, technologically naïve, somewhat lazy, and even sloppy. But not criminal.

And unless they find an email sent from her server to some lowlife without clearance, it never will be!


Eric

*

Hillary And Benghazi

Ah, yes, the Benghazi scandal. What else but four Americans getting killed on Hillary's watch could possibly fire up such opposition to her in the general election, and even the primary?

Except it wasn't a scandal. And far from Hillary having the blood of four Americans on her hands, her brightest shining moment came in her sworn testimony to the House Select Committee on Benghazi back in October of 2015, where she took the worst accusations that were possible from the Republicans and not only withstood them, she beat the right-wingers hands down, making them all look stupid. The result was Hillary soaring in the approval polls, and Bernie Sanders was barely a blip on the radar.

My, how times have changed in only several  months.

My defense of Hillary on this is quite simple. The attack on Benghazi was a sucker punch. A sneak attack. A blindside. One doesn't blame FDR for Pearl Harbor, and most reasonable people don't blame George W. Bush for the attacks on September 11, 2001 (certainly no one on the Republican side does!). By the same token, one can't blame Hillary for the attack on the consulate at Benghazi. She doesn't have direct control over the defenses of every consulate, and even if she did, she doesn't have a functioning crystal ball to allow her to see into the future. If she had such a pallantier, she would most certainly have used it.

Blaming Hillary for the attack on the Benghazi consulate is like blaming the turnstile attendant at the Ford Theater for not stopping John Wilkes Booth before Lincoln got shot.

That would be enough of a defense right there. But, as usual, I need to not only score the touchdown but spike the football several thousand times in the end zone before people realize I really did put six points on the goddamned board. So, let me spike on.

The Benghazi incident generally resolves itself into three separate conspiracy theories regarding Hillary Clinton. here they are:

#1) Hillary is responsible for leaving the Benghazi consulate under-defended.

As has been pointed out on numerous occasions, the Secretary of State is not the person who calls the shots regarding the defense of American diplomatic consulates around the globe. That person is the Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, who serves as the head of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. At the time of the Benghazi incident, the person serving in that role was Eric J. Boswell. His deputy, a woman named Charlene Lamb, rejected repeated requests from U.S. Security Officer Eric Nordstrom to send additional security to Benghazi. Her thinking at the time was that it was better for the American presence to keep a low profile, and that meant no visible displays of additional soldiers at the embassy.

After the Benghazi incident, Charlene Lamb testified just once at the House Select Committee, and was not summoned further. Lamb had been placed on leave after the Benghazi incident, along with her boss, Eric Boswell, but both were reinstated by Secretary of State John Kerry.

Fucking WHAT?!

That's right, the doofus who left Benghazi under-defended, the name we clearly have in our hot, little hand, Charlene Lamb, was let go without even a slap on the wrist, given her old job back so that she could muck it up even further, and nobody has said anything!

Except Hillary Clinton. On the witness stand. With all the goddamned cameras watching.

She told us pretty much what we already knew. And Republicans still didn't listen. "The specific security requests pertaining to Benghazi," she said, "were handled by the security professionals in the [State] Department. I didn't see those requests, I didn't approve them, I didn't deny them."

No. Charlene Lamb did. Or rather, didn't. We should hang her out to dry. We could attack the current Secretary of State John Kerry for reinstating her.

But still, we go after Hillary Clinton.

This is a little bit like blaming Barack Obama for allowing the Bears to lose to the Redskins. But, of course, there are Republicans who do that sort of thing, too. The main reason we aren't sending this particular Lamb to the slaughter is because she's not running for president. And so, believing that they have a bigger fish to fry, they let the guilty party go free, and go after the innocent.

That's right. The "innocent" is really Hillary Clinton. Right? I know! How about that!

#2) Hillary didn't respond quickly enough to the threat to save American lives.

The reason that Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team were not rescued right away was because the top CIA officer stationed in Benghazi ordered the security contractors to stand down. Eventually, those men ignored the company man's orders and staged a rescue attempt anyway.

Again, we have a guilty culprit responsible for the delay in the form of the unnamed CIA official. Again it was not Hillary. And again, this individual is ignored in favor of going after Hillary anyway.

But that's not all, say Hillary's critics. As Secretary of State, Hillary had the power to push for a rescue of Americans in Benghazi. She didn't. The Americans were left to fend for themselves without help. Four Americans died as a result.

This, essentially, is the not-too-subtle message of the Michael Bay film, 13 Hours. For the duration of the siege on the consulate in Benghazi, and on the covert CIA base located nearby, American paramilitary fighters were left to fight on their own against Islamic militants apparently loyal to Daesh (ISIS). And why? Because, say Hillary's critics, the then Secretary of State thought it was more important to respect the sovereignty of Libya than to aid Americans in dire need of help.

Hillary was not named in the 13 Hours movie. She didn't have to be. Michael Bay and many others blame her for abandoning American special forces caught in the line of fire.

But the Secretary of State does not make the calls when it comes to military extractions and/or incursions. That call is made by the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They, in turn, recommend a rescue op to the President, who gives a go or no-go. The most that the Secretary of State can do in such a situation is talk to the SOD or the Joint Chiefs and try to persuade them to do something. By all accounts, that's what Hillary did.

Whether her efforts in that regard did any good, we'll never know. In the end, the timeline passed, and the need for an American incursion into Libyan territory was solved by the burgeoning Libyan government getting the Americans out themselves.

The decision to honor Libyan sovereignty was not popular here at home, but the Libyans loved us for it. In fact, they still do. Libyans love and respect the United States. How many Muslim nations can we say that of?

But let's not blame the CIA, or the Joint Chiefs, or the Secretary of Defense. Let's blame Hillary anyway. Why? Because that's the thing to do, apparently.

#3) Hillary called the incident a "planned attack" in at least two official e-mails before the revelation came about afterward that the attack had been a planned assault and not part of an official protest. The reason Hillary withheld that the attack was a terrorist assault was because she wanted the situation in Libya to be seen as a success for the Obama administration after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.

This may be the only conspiracy theory with some plausibility to it. Hillary's response to this line of questioning in 2013 was to lose her cool and say, "What difference does it make?" But in the 2015 hearings to the House Select Committee, she stayed calm and pointed out that it was a fog of war situation, with lots of things happening at once. There were suspicions that the attack had been planned, and certain of her e-mails reflected that suspicion. So when the official press release through the White House Press Secretary was made, it reported that the attack had been part of the protest stemming from an apparent anti-Islamic YouTube video. In fact, that turned out not to be the case, and the official statement was revised according to the known facts on the ground. Representative Jim Jordan, who questioned Hillary in October of 2015, felt strongly that Hillary was deliberately covering up knowledge that the attack had been done on purpose, and not as some spontaneous protest. Hillary rightly countered that drawing such conclusions when the situation was one involving the "fog of war," was irresponsible.

Which side is right? Frankly, Hillary was quite correct the first time. It makes no difference. Even if she covered up the initial truth in an attempt to make Obama's administration look better, it was a temporary reprieve at best, and made Obama look only marginally better, even if such misinformation held over a lengthy period of time. So the accusation that Hillary was deliberately hiding something is ludicrous.

I'm sure that Hillary has covered up a great deal in her political tenure. Just not this time.

So, when it comes to Benghazi, the only scandal is that Republicans still think there is a scandal!

On the other hand, better for your opponents to be fixated on a fake scandal than a real one.


Eric

*

Hillary On WalMart's Board?

Here’s one I’ll bet you’ve heard: Hillary Clinton once served on the board of directors for the WalMart Corporation, and while there, she did nothing to advance unions or workers’ rights.

It is indeed true that Hillary once was a board member of WalMart. Sam Walton, the founder of WalMart, was having a growing P.R. problem back in the mid-eighties, as his board had no women on it, and this was seen as typical “good-ol’-boy” misogyny. Furthermore, Sam’s wife Helen was giving him quite an earful over the issue every night at dinner. He finally had to do something.

Well, the logical choice was Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not only was she a top-notch lawyer, she was the wife of the governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, and WalMart was headquartered in Arkansas. This was both good for WalMart and for the Clintons. After all, Arkansas felt about WalMart the same way we in Milwaukee feel about Miller Brewing Co. or Harley Davidson Motorcycles. She served on the board six years between 1986 to 1992 The Clintons got political cred with voters, and WalMart got fem power cred from Hillary.

Well, fine, but what did she do there? Did she defend workers’ rights? To an extent, she did. She used her position to speak out in favor of women’s rights in the workplace, women’s issues as they related to climbing the corporate ladder, and the importance of maintaining a good benefits package. This didn’t do much to sway her fellow board members, but it did give the company a better image, and that’s what she was expected to do.

What about unions?

No, she did not defend unions. In fact, when her fellow board members went off on the sort of tirades which were all-too-typical for corporate bigwigs, Hillary said nothing.

One quarter of a century later, do we hold Hillary accountable for this?

I argue no. Why? Because unions being a major part of retail labor is a modern-day movement, and one which was simply unheard of in most quarters prior to Y2K. There were some retail stores which were unionized, both then and now. Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s for example. But these are high-end stores where higher prices and service are expected. Unionizing a WalMart or a K-Mart was unheard of. For the most part, unions were something for manufacturing labor, specialized trades or the municipal workforce. Speaking out for labor unions at low-end retail stores makes sense in today’s political climate. But in the late 80’s to early 90’s? That was something that was simply not on anybody’s radar!

We might also look at what speaking out in favor of unions would have done back then. It would almost certainly have gotten her kicked off of the board, which would have been politically damaging to her husband, and to herself. It would also have accomplished nothing. The remaining board members would have shaken their heads, clucked their tongues, and said “That silly liberal! Did she really think speaking out would change our minds?” Then they’d go play another round of golf.

What does a corporate board member even do? Well, he or she helps evaluate the performance of the CEO, votes to approve or disapprove quarterly and annual budgets, helps to set the compensation and salaries of management, develops shareholder reports, develops and helps enact broad company policies, and ensures accounting standards. In Hillary’s case, she was one of fifteen board members, and so got a 1/15th vote on all of that.

That’s all the power she had. 1/15th.

Hillary is a pragmatist. It’s her one, big strength as a candidate. And as such, she knew that speaking up for unionizing WalMart was tantamount to throwing herself on her sword for nothing. So she didn’t. How can we blame her? Her position on the board was crucial for helping young women dream that anything was possible; for showing corporate executives that women were just as capable as men at such jobs; for smashing through glass ceilings.

Why, WHY would she throw that away on a tactical error?!

So now here we are, 24 to 30 years later. Some among us are trying to apply modern standards to Hillary’s youthful past. It seems strange that we would even consider judging a 69 year old woman on the standards of her 39 year old self, while applying the standards of 2016 to something that happened in 1986. But ever since John Kerry got swift-boated in 2004, such dirty tricks are apparently kosher with some people.

Well, I think that only Republicans should play so dirty. Democrats should be above such nonsense, especially when dealing with one of their own.


Eric

*