What's All This About Hillary?

Hillary has been the object of constant scrutiny for the past 25 years, ever since she and Bill entered the public eye. Most of the scrutiny has been antagonistic. Politicians attract enemies when they try to do things. It's almost as bad as the resentment politicians get from not doing things exactly as each individual voter wanted.

The greatest danger to our nation in recent years is running for president at the top of the Republican ticket. And yet there are still people who feel uncomfortable voting for the only viable alternative. Casting a pure vote is an irrational and dangerous hobby. Voting is not a hobby, it needs to be an act of reason and compromise. Noam Chomsky is not a great fan of Hillary Clinton, but he explains why it's vitally important that reasonable and intelligent voters on the liberal side unite behind her.

This article is from DemocracyNow, which isn't a centrist or neoliberal news organization.

Hillary is being accused of dishonesty. Actually she is the most honest politician in the race this year.

Jill Abramson explains why this is so.

An interesting interview explaining what liberal communitarians stand for. Hillary is one.

It's weird some of the things Hillary is attacked for. Last week she was attacked for putting her hand over her heart...

This article from the Boston Globe is about how any woman running for president must be perfect in every way.

And Americans aren't too keen on people who are too perfect. Actually, if you are a woman and too perfect they really hate you.

This writer hated Hillary, until she sat down and read the emails Hillary is being hounded over.

This article is about the many sexist questions Hillary has had to answer (politely) for the past several decades.

Meanwhile, from the LATimes, we have Trump rallies where small children are applauded for screaming obscenities about Hillary Clinton.

So... what's all this about Benghazi?

What Hillary's values are.

From MEDIUM.

Hillary's convictions about social progress, from The Tablet.

What happened to the feminist excitement that surrounded Hillary in 2008? From SLATE.

Thinking about voting for Jill Stein?

Prominent ethicists are saying voting your conscience on a minor party candidate in an election like this one is actually immoral.

And by the way, in case you are still angry Bernie didn't win, NO the DNC email leaks do not contain evidence the system was rigged against Bernie. I was and am as big a Bernie supporter as anyone, and a Bernie fan of longer standing, and I am expressing that by putting all my support behind Hillary Clinton. As Bernie has done.

Greece Explained

An excellent video from VOX. No more oversimplified than the final demand letters Greece is getting from Angela Merkel.

I keep going back to the meme I invented a couple of years ago: Kiss Up, Kick Down. Is this crisis just an international version of junior high bullying? The powerful preying on the powerless? Noam Chomsky writes about this.

Vox has discovered that NSA wiretaps reveal Angela Merkel's cynical calculations prior to the Greek bailout. Why did Merkel and Germany send Greece so much money knowing the debt would be unsustainable? Maybe the potential profit caused them to ignore the risks. No intention of fixing a problem, just a strong impulse to milk that problem for profit. The payday loan model again.

Europe isn’t a family. Families don’t starve the child that does poorly in school. Families don’t think how they can profit from a family member’s failure.

I realize it gets complicated in families too. But nations and organizations of nations need to lean toward the helpful model rather than the exploitive one. Think St. Francis not some mob kingpin. Keynes not Friedman. The Marshall Plan, not the Versailles Treaty.