D. K. Christi's musings

6/9

                Maybe ..we'll see what happens by October ?

                                Cheers......Joe.........

I so admire women who go into the arenas previously reserved for white males.  What they wear, how they speak, how they smile, their entire life history is dragged out and gone over with a fine tooth comb. Men, on the other hand, just bull their way through, run a comb through their hair and put on their custom Armani suit and off they go to say whatever they want - their past forgiven as "the past" and "men will be men, you know."

And the men who can't stand competent and competitive women are the traditionals who in their heart of hearts want to still control every move a woman makes.  They want to control their religion, their choice of occupations, their health needs, the way they dress, the words that they speak and especially their "tone of voice."

I wonder why non one mentions Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman vice presidential candidate - a very competent woman who was held back by relentless investigations into her and her spouse's (mostly her spouse's) business practices.  If anyone can get at Donald Trump's history, the dirt there will bury him - but no one will care!  They won't care because he is "successful" and "rich" and "a businessman" regardless of who he buried and ruined on his way there.

My understanding is that Bernie Sanders wife has plenty to dig into - and she is a major influencer in all that he does. Never does he give her credit or even mention her for that matter.  And fortunately for Bernie, no one - and I mean no one - made any effort to delve into how he got to where he is or his wife, either.

Are we all absolutely truthful in all respects?  I have been told to create false books and left my career and broke my financial future because I would not. I sure wouldn't want anyone digging into my divorce and all that it entailed as all divorces are the work of the devil in my book. 

And Hillary is no more untrustworthy or anything else than any other person seeking political office.  It does not bring out the best in people for sure when they must please everyone.

For all the lovely things Bernie said, he couldn't do one without a change in the Congress - he'll just be another voice in the wilderness with good ideas he can't implement and then be blamed for that fact.

Hillary on the other hand has the political acumen, support and clout in the right places to eventually get something done.  She has always been a doer - which makes her more open to criticism.  The recent Congress gets no criticism - they did nothing. 

People promise anything and then they get into the position and find they cannot deliver.  They cannot deliver unless they give something away.  Sometimes what they give away is their ideals.

6/9

                         DK..

            I still have the political button till this Ferraro/Mondale, I would have loved to see
Barbara Jordan is she were alive run for President, she was elegant, well spoken and yes
a lady, I miss hearing her voice, it's true what you have said today's political animals to me
would throw their own Mothers under the bus to get what they want !

                                              Cheers......Joe............

Shelagh, we are obviously in strong disagreement when it comes to Trump.  Of course you are not my only opponent in that regard. I'd rather talk about the weather than about Trump and the weather is not good.

I put the video link to show how Trump decided to run for President. His view of the state of America might be different to yours, but he is trying to help to get the country back on its feet. Whatever anyone says about his arrogance, rudeness, and self-importance, he genuinely cares about his country.

6/11

              Why oh why is the USA turning Socialist Democrats ? I remember when I was 18
yrs old and I got a job with The Board Of Education I had to sign a document stating I never
belonged to " The Communist Party," If I didn't sign it I didn't get the job, I didn't know at
the time what the hell a Communist was! I had to ask my step-father ( By the way he was a
a Democrat but it was different in those days,) I did sign stating I didn't belong to that party
and got the job.....We don't have the kind of money Hillary and her cohorts want to spend
and another thing our military is gone down the toilet, everything being cut, if we got hit at
home were in big do do !!!

                                                      Cheers.........Joe.......

6/11

              Shelagh..

                           That is too funny !

                           Cheers......Joe.............

Joe, I think you are confusing communism with socialism.  This continues to be the problem with many when discussing social issues.  There are websites that clearly explain the difference is one is genuinely interested in knowing. 
As for signing the statement as you referenced, all who served in the military had to sign such a document.  Remember that during and even after the Joe Mccarthy era, people were nuts.  Even some Hollywood Starts were targeted.  The Communist label was far worse than today's racist label.  As a deterrent there were some that used the slogan:  "Better red than dead."

The real Hillary Rodham Clinton exposed:

http://freedomoutpost.com/the-real-hillary-rodham-clinton-exposed/

I do have a sense of humour, Abe. This is funny, too:

Love it, Shelagh.  Although this is presented as comedy, shit like this actually happens.  The American and British Secret Service have carried out assasinations that were made to appear as accidents.

New Topic:  my dislocated shoulder

The sling is gone but I can't move it yet.  I am slow at accomplishing things like getting money in and out of my wallet or maneuvering a grocery cart.

I remember my mom who is 97 is slow about putting her receipts and credit card etc. into her wallet when shopping but is careful to get it all done and her purse closed before she leaves the line.

People in line are very impatient.  In her case, they can at least see she is a senior.  In mine, maybe, but they don't see my infirmity.  The clerks give me a dirty look joined by those behind me. Yesterday because I was so slow unloading she asked me to take my purchase to the service desk.

Many people are generous and kind.  However,it is always the ones who are impatient and self-absorbed that seem to grasp our attention - and get the headlines.

Kindness and caring seem to get occasional recognition.  However, it's not on page one.

I live in a town with many Mexican immigrants.  They always hold the door for me - not even knowing it is a problem with my shoulder. The old white guys who should know better just slam on through the door and let it slam on me because I'm no longer a pretty chick - there's nothing in it for them to hold the door or smile.  

I live in a retirement town where most of the people have all the time in the world.  Yet, they are always in a hurry so they are impolite.  

I remember men in the southern states as more gracious, but Florida is only the south in the north.

Women are certainly equal mentally to men, but most have bodies created for having children and caring for them.  Our upper arm strength and general body strength is often less - as evidenced by the number of women not making it in the strength tests required to qualify for military combat though they make the rest of the tests for other military specialties.

I know the children born into today's society won't understand the polite things we were taught - they will have missed them because their lives are in video games, social media and technology with little need for intimacy or consideration in the old fashioned contact sense.  The average teenager spends 9 hours on a smart phone.

Even businesses have found they cannot forbid the use of cell phones or they will have no employees.

Dine with a friend and their cell phone is next to their plate distracting their conversation.

Fortunately, a few cultures still teach children respect for parents, elders and a lady going through a door.

DK, your post was insightful.  Courtesy is becoming rare.  As we get older help is appreciated in all forms.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=78283

Not only did the Republicans borrow from Michelle Obama to write Melania Trump's speech, but they also borrowed President Obamas platform.

You see, the Republicans set out to prevent President Obama from accomplishing all he set out to do in every way they could to set the stage to elect a republican by saying what they are saying today, that the current administration "failed."

The truth is, it is the Republicans in Congress who failed the American people by preventing all the great platform ideals of the Obama administration from being implemented.  Yet, he was able to bring our economy back in spite of the jackals.

While we all hear about crime because of the internet and social media, crime is actually down.  People are working. We do have healthcare for most people. There are areas in which the education system has improved and tuitions are down at universities.

There's much that has been accomplished.  All that has not is square on the shoulders of the Republicans who swore with Mitch McConnel on election day that they would do all possible to stop President Obama from accomplishing anything.

So, now a segment of the U.S. citizens wants to put a republican in the White House so they can set about setting back the clock on the rights gained for U.S. citizens.  At the last minute they throw in respect for gays and lesbians but everyone knows the truth about the evangelical right - the ones that take away a woman's right to her own health decisions - yet believe in owning weapons of war and killing human beings via capital punishment.

They are talking President Obama's platform while they are plotting the end to immigration, the elimination of women's rights, the elimination of social security and poverty safety nets, the end to public education and back to the privileged education systems of the "great" past.

States did such a lousy job of providing equality of opportunity and improving infrastructure that the federal government had to step in so all citizens were treated with some modicum of equality.  States did they own death knell by impoverishing their citizens, having crummy schools and providing no women's choices in health care - the list goes on.

So, the definition of Trump's Make America Great Again is an America for the privileged white old men and the women they control.  Those in the blue collar class are kidding themselves if they think his wealth is going to rub off on them just because they think the people of color and immigrants will be eliminated from competition for jobs.

Of course affirmative action that has brought us the brightest and best of those previously left behind will be a forgotten system.  Planned parenthood providing women's health care will close its doors. Abortions will go back to coat hangers and long trips and death.  Health care will be cancelled until they come up with something "new" instead of tweaking what exists.  Look forward to privatized meaning less social security and medicare and help for the disabled and needy.

The lists go on and on.  That's the real Republican platform.  Everything they are saying to get votes is not part of their platform!  It's the democratic platform they are borrowing.  Remember, Ted Cruz is a tea party republican - far to the right - anti-abortion, anti-public education, anti- social security, - anti everything that benefits the common man.  He is the republican platform.

Donald Trump is just a shill, a placeholder so the Republicans won't have the President to bash anymore and can do as they will - their own president, their own House, their own Senate and their own appointments to the Supreme Court.  

The damage of electing a republican president will harm generations to come with religious bigotry, misogynistic perspective on women's roles in society, states rights that work against the poor and people of color and the needs of people who need a leg up to become great contributors to society.  It represents backward into a "Made in America" stance that is archaic and out of date in a modern world.  It breaks alliances with long time national allies and looks to our enemies as "strong and admirable" and breaks all the good will that President Obama and HIllary Clinton developed across the globe.

Everyone on the republican stage lied and made Hillary's full glass of successes into a half empty one.  The film about Trump's great contributions to society neglected to mention the business improprieties and the small businesses he destroyed along the way including his four bankruptcies.  They left out his philandering and womanizing and mean-spirited behavior in business dealings.  Yes, he made himself a success with daddy's money and a serve one's self business style with minimal - yes minimal charitable endeavors that's why they are "anonymous" because they are so small compared to the $billions he went through.

No, Hillary Clinton is far from perfect.  But regardless of how it looks to the half full bunch - she has never been convicted of wrong doing and Donald Trump stole from people with his Trump University and stole from creditors by going bankrupt - 4 times - and is the subject of an interminable amount of law suits because he refuses to pay for the work done on his buildings at full contract value.

As far as the email scandal - she did no different than her predecessors.  Her intentions were efficiency not subterfuge and she has certainly testified enough.  When I was a government employee I used personal email too, and it was against rules.  It was more efficient.  Period.

Every elderly person, every disabled person, everyone representing children, every person of color or immigrant background, every mom, every woman, every person of a different faith than Christianity or no faith, every person who doesn't want the religious right dogma jammed down their throat and every government service returned to the unequal treatment of each bigoted state run by republican legislatures better get out and vote for democrats up and down the line.

It is the Congress and the Senate and the Supreme Court that run the land.  The President is a figurehead except for presenting his platform to the Congress for implementation - and our Congress not only implemented nothing, they did nothing.  If a Republican place holder like Donald Trump is allowed to run rampant in the White House with no checks and balances, the Republicans in the Congress will undo decades of progress for individual freedom and equality in these United States.

Wake up.  Talk is cheap and speech writers expensive.  Pay attention to the platforms that each candidate represents. Look at the language of Donald Trump and the mean spirited way in which he presents information.  

The U.S. is already the greatest leader representing the free world.  It does not need to be great again in the going backward sense outlined by Donald Trump.  It needs more partnerships in the global world.  It needs more opportunities for all its citizens. It needs the innovation and excitement brought by the immigrants anxious to experience their potential in this great nation.  I am sick of the republicans saying make us great again.

We have flaws.  That's what we need to work on.  You don't throw the baby out with the bath.  We've already suffered under Republicans. They destroyed our economy, threw us into three unwinnable wars, and took away our feeling of freedom to congregate, to speak our minds, to live in relative privacy.  They allowed the twin towers disaster and horror - they were in power.  They did not keep us safe.

Help me.  Help me wake up the sleepy who think a rich man cares about anyone but himself.  When asked if he wanted to contribute his wealth to charities like many other wealthy people were doing, he said he's rather be old fashioned and keep his money to pass on to his children.  They don't need it.

Imagine what President Obama could have accomplished with a modicum of Congressional support.  Instead they were paid and did nothing but build walls to stop productive accomplishments.  One thing they did well - they divided the country with their hate mongering talk in media and radio.

Dear Diane, I would like to copy and paste your post on my timeline. I think it is important.
Love,
Betty

I don't think anyone cares, Betty.  Those whose minds are set on Donald Trump simply refuse to see the flaws in their reasoning.  I have just touched upon a few of the disasters his reign will bring.  Feel free to post it.  People gather around them the information to support their point of view and dump the rest as propaganda and lies even when the truth stares them in the face.

DK.  Your post is excellent.  It obviously took much time to compose bringing your insights into focus.  I could not possibly have written what you did, although I share your views.  Keep writing.  What we say may disappear, but what we write stays.

And by the way - the old white guys and the blue collar guys don't want the jobs that the immigrants and the people of color are doing - they want the jobs that the global corporations sent overseas to avoid U.S. safety standards both for the safety of workers and for the safety of customers and for the slave wages and work by children and women who are stuck in dorms for 30 days of the month until they return to their families in the country for a few days to take the money home - and the profits are also stashed overseas to avoid taxes.  So, while these corporations received the benefits of the U.S. for their beginnings and their families, their greed took them out of the country and their former U.S. workers instead of putting the blame on the global corporations and the executives who rake in $billions on the backs of their undeveloped country workers.

So the jobs in the U.S. are the entry level jobs that no one but immigrants and poor people are willng to take - two to three jobs at the time.  Anyone on unemployment and benefits would rather not work in fields and mow lawns and lay roofs in 140 degrees.  No thank you.  Keep out the immigrants and the food will rot in the fields (as much is doing right now) and the roofs will go undone.  To get the work done, it will be even more mechanized and those jobs too will disappear.

The tax base is drying up because of decaying inner cities and corporate global exodus and the fact that white people with incomes are not replacing themselves with children who will add to the tax base but rather with dogs who contribute nothing monetary thought the pet industry is booming with their clothing etc.

Children are the future of the nation.  Our nation's future is in the hands of the children of immigrants as they are the only ones who are still family oriented.

A talk I gave at church:  http://www.unitybonita.com/our-thoughts-are-prayers-2016-07-10

Okay, Trump is deeply flawed, but so is Hillary. She has lied repeatedly.
Help America. We need new roads, bridges--everything. If Trump can get
anything done--more power to him.

"Telling lies" in politics is a matter of opinion. There's lots of gray areas and points of view.  Donald Trump has zero qualifications for the presidency and many negatives in regards to his prejudices and really off the wall thought patterns.

Hillary Clinton is the best qualified between the two by far.  People who accomplish much have many chances to make errors. Donald trump has provided zero evidence that anyone besides  himself matters to him.  I've known men like him.  Without their money and the power it brings, they are small men with nothing original or inspiring to offer.

The following is from a post sent to me.  Some food for thought thought long - and worth reading.

So what do we see in this data? What I see is that the public view of Hillary Clinton does not seem to be correlated to “scandals” or issues of character or whether she murdered Vince Foster. No, the one thing that seems to most negatively and consistently affect public perception of Hillary is any attempt by her to seek power. Once she actually has that power her polls go up again. But whenever she asks for it her numbers drop like a manhole cover.

And in fact I started thinking more about this after reading an article that Sady Doyle wrote for Quartz back in February. The title of the piece was, “America loves women like Hillary Clinton - as long as they’re not asking for a promotion.” In the article Ms. Doyle asserted that, “The wild difference between the way we talk about Clinton when she campaigns and the way we talk about her when she’s in office can’t be explained as ordinary political mud-slinging. Rather, the predictable swings of public opinion reveal Americans’ continued prejudice against women caught in the act of asking for power…”

And yes this is the kind of statement that many people will find reflexively annoying. But that doesn’t make it any less true, and the data certainly seems to support it. Even NBC news, looking back over decades of their own polls, stated that, “she's struggled to stay popular when she's on the campaign trail.” If this has nothing to do with gender, then wouldn’t the same thing happen to men when they campaign? But it doesn’t. Why not?

So let’s look at the issues people are currently using to disparage Clinton. Let’s consider the issues of dishonesty, scandals, money and Wall Street.

1) Honesty — In terms of honesty, I’ve already addressed that. Hillary is a politician, and like all politicians she is no stranger to “massaging” and/or exaggerating the truth. And yes on occasion she will let loose a whopper. But is she worse than other politicians? As I’ve already discussed, the evidence suggests that she is no worse, and actually better, than most other politicians. Internet videos like the “13 minutes of Hillary lying” appear to be mostly examples of Hillary changing her position over several decades, combined with annoying but typical political behavior. But similar videos of Donald Trump exist showing him doing an even more extreme version of the same thing. Why is he not being accused of this type of mendacity? In fact there is very little dispute that Trump has been SIGNIFICANTLY less honest on the campaign trail than Hillary. According to Politifact he is in fact the least honest candidate they’ve ever analyzed! So if the issue of honesty is really that important, why are so many people (on the right and left) holding Hillary to such an obviously different standard than Trump?

2) Scandals — Webster’s dictionary defines a scandal as, “an occurrence in which people are shocked and upset because of behavior that is morally or legally wrong.” But here’s a question: Are scandals still scandals if nobody actually did anything wrong? And I think that’s a fair question, because Hillary’s political foes love to point out all the times she has been implicated (directly or indirectly) in scandals. Not surprisingly, however, they fail to point out that she has always been cleared of any wrongdoing.

So if she’s always innocent, why then does she find herself caught up in so many scandals? For that answer, perhaps we should look at the Wikipedia definition of scandal, which states, “A scandal can be broadly defined as an accusation or accusations that receive wide exposure. Generally there is a negative effect on the credibility of the person or organization involved.” Notice the important difference? Perhaps the “negative effect on credibility” is not so much the RESULT of these scandals as it is the INTENT of those who create them.

Did you know that Republicans once spent 10 days and 140 hours investigating the Clinton’s use of the White House Christmas Card list? Because that is a real thing that actually happened. As the Atlantic recently pointed out, “No other American politicians—even ones as corrupt as Richard Nixon, or as hated by partisans as George W. Bush—have fostered the creation of a permanent multimillion-dollar cottage industry devoted to attacking them.” (And for an impressive presentation of this issue I highly recommend Hanna Rosin’s piece “Among the Hillary Haters”, also in the Atlantic.)

Compare for example the treatment Hillary is getting due to her private email “scandal” to that of General David Petraeus. Hillary has been accused of hosting a personal email server that “might” have made classified documents less secure, even though the documents in question were not classified as secret at the time she received and/or sent them. (Side note: some government documents receive secret classifications “at birth”, while other can be retroactively classified as secret.) In order for Clinton to have committed a criminal act, she would have had to knowingly and willfully mishandle material that was classified at the time she did so. After months of investigation no one has accused her of doing that, and it doesn’t appear as if anyone will.

General Petraeus on the other hand, while he was Director of the CIA, knowingly gave a journalist, who was also his mistress, a series of black books which according to the Justice Department contained, “classified information regarding the identities of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and mechanisms, diplomatic discussions quotes and deliberative discussions from high level National Security Council meetings and [Petraeus’] discussions with the president of the United States of America.” Petraeus followed that up by lying to numerous government officials, including FBI agents, about what he had done. And lets not forget that according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, adultery is itself a court-martial offense. And I remind you that none of this is in dispute. Petraeus admitted to all of it.

Petraeus’ violations were significantly more egregious than anything Clinton is even remotely accused of. And yet Republicans and other Hillary foes are howling about her issue, wearing “Hillary for Prison 2016” t-shirts while insisting that this disqualifies her from public office. Meanwhile even after pleading guilty to his crimes Petraeus continued to be the recipient of fawning sentiments from conservatives. Senator John McCain stated that, “All of us in life make mistakes and the situation now, I hope, can be put behind him…” Politico quoted a former military officer who worked with Petraeus as calling the entire situation “silly”. Prominent Republicans have already made it clear that they would call him back to work in the highest levels of government if they win the Presidency. And some are still attempting to convince him to seek the Presidency himself.

Why is Hillary Clinton being held to such an obviously different standard than Petraeus? Is it really only politics? ( or sexism? )

3) Money — OK let’s talk about her money. Hillary has a lot of it. And she has earned most of it through well-paid speaking fees. And the idea of getting paid $200,000 or more for a single speech seems so ludicrous to many people that they assume that it simply must be some form of bribery. But the truth is that there is a large, well-established and extremely lucrative industry for speaking and appearance fees. And within that industry many celebrities, sports stars, business leaders and former politicians get paid very well. At her most popular for example, Paris Hilton was being paid as much as $750,000 just to make an appearance. Kylie Jenner was once paid over $100,000 to go to her own birthday party, and to this day Vanilla Ice gets $15,000 simply to show up with his hat turned sideways.

And let’s talk about the more cerebral cousin of the appearance agreement, which is the speaking engagement. Is $200k really that unusual? In fact “All American Speakers”, the agency that represents Clinton, currently represents 135 people whose MINIMUM speaking fee is $200,000. Some of the luminaries that get paid this much include: Guy Fieri, Ang Lee, Carla Delevingne, Chelsea Handler, Elon Musk, Mehmet Oz, Michael Phelps, Nate Berkus, and “Larry the Cable Guy”. And no that last one is not a joke. And if you drop the speaking fee to $100k, the number of people they represent jumps to over 500. At $50,000 the number jumps to over 1,200. And All American Speakers are obviously not the only agency that represents speakers. So there are in fact thousands of people getting paid this kind of money to give a speech.

For millions of Americans struggling to pay their bills, the very idea that someone can make $100,000 or more for just giving a speech or hanging out at a Vegas nightclub is obscene. But as Richard Nixon used to say, “don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Hillary didn’t invent the speaking engagement industry, and she isn’t anywhere near the first person to make a lot of money from it. And while her fees are in the upper range of what speakers make, neither they nor the total amount of money she has made are unusual. It’s just unusual FOR A WOMAN.

And yes, I’m back on that, because I feel compelled to point out that before he ran for President in 2007, Rudy Giuliani was making about $700,000 a month in speaking fees with an average of $270k per speech. It’s estimated that in the 5 years before his run he earned as much as $40 million in speaking fees. Nobody cared, no accusations of impropriety were made, and there was almost no media interest. So why did Giuliani get a pass, while Hillary stands accused of inherent corruption for making less money doing the same thing?

And speaking of corruption, after leaving the Florida governor’s office Jeb Bush made millions of dollars in paid speeches. This includes large sums he collected from a South Korean metals company that reaped over a BILLION dollars in contracts from his brother’s presidential administration. Speaking to an Indian newspaper about this type of thing Bush said, “This is the life of being the brother of the president.” Do you remember reading all about that while Jeb was running for President? I didn’t think so. Jeb got a pass too.

So if this discussion is really about money in politics that’s fine. But I’m going to need someone to explain to me why we only seem to focus on it when the person making the money has a vagina.

4) Wall Street — First things first. No, the majority of the money Clinton has made from speaking fees did not come from Wall Street. In fact it’s not even close. She has given nearly 100 paid speeches since leaving the State Dept., and only 8 were to “Wall Street” banks. Nearly all of her speeches were to organizations like American Camping Association, Ebay, Cisco, Xerox, Cardiovascular Research Foundation, United Fresh Produce Association, International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Association, California Medial Association, A&E Television Networks, Massachusetts Conference for Women, U.S. Green Building Council, National Association of Realtors, American Society of Travel Agents, Gap, National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, etc.

Corporations and Associations pay large fees for important speakers all of the time. And Hillary got booked fairly often because she is interesting and popular, and because there’s a great deal of status attached to having her speak at an event. Ignoring all of this however, a large contingent of anti-Hillary people continue to insist that all speaker’s fees from Wall Street banks were bribes, and that because of this they “own” her. But by that logic shouldn’t we all be asking what the fuck the American Camping Association is up to?

Also, with the possible exception of one speech given to Deutsche Bank, all of Hillary’s 8 speeches to Wall Street were for a speaking fee of $225,000. That does not even break the top 20 of her highest paid speeches. For example she received over $275,000 each in three speeches she gave to The Vancouver Board of Trade, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, and Canada 2020. So apparently Canadians also “own” her. And I don’t know what those nefarious Canadians are up to, but it probably has something to do with goddamn poutine. Which would really piss me off except I just remembered that I kind of like poutine so never mind.

Listen, does Wall Street have influence with Hillary? Grow up, of course they do. Wall Street is one of the key engines of the American economy, and as such has enormous influence with everyone. EVERYONE. Don’t kid yourself on that point. And aside from anything else, she was a 2-term Senator of New York, and this made Wall Street an important corporate member of her constituency. The issue is not influence. The issue is whether or not paid speeches and campaign donations alone are proof of corruption. And they’re not. And the last time I checked there was an important difference between association and guilt, between proof and slander.

And again: why is Hillary being held to a standard that never appears to be applied to her male counterparts? Am I not supposed to notice that a media frenzy has been aimed at Hillary Clinton for accepting speaking fees of $225,000 while Donald Trump has been paid $1.5 MILLION on numerous occasions with hardly a word said about it? Am I supposed to not notice that we are now in an election season in which Donald Trump, a proud scam artist whose involvement in “Trump University” alone is being defined by the New York Attorney General as “straight-up fraud”, is regularly calling Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary” and getting away with it? ( sexism?)

What the actual fuck is going on here? What’s going on is what we all know, but mostly don’t want to admit: presidential campaigns favor men, and the men who campaign in them are rewarded for those traits perceived as being “manly” - physical size, charisma, forceful personality, assertiveness, boldness and volume. Women who evince those same traits however are usually punished rather than rewarded, and a lot of the negativity aimed at Hillary over the years, especially when she is seeking office, has been due to these underlying biases. There is simply no question that Hillary has for years been on the business end of an unrelenting double standard. And her battle with societal sexism isn’t going to stop because of her success anymore than Obama’s battle with racism stopped once he was elected. These are generational issues, and we are who we are.

And actually, this only makes her victory all the more amazing. And maybe it’s OK if we pause for a moment from the accusations and paranoia and just acknowledge her enormous accomplishments. 
In the entire history of our nation, only 6 Presidents have also served as Secretary of State. Only 3 have served both as Secretary of State and in Congress. By any objective measure Hillary Clinton is not just the most qualified candidate this season, she’s one of the most qualified people to ever seek the office. The New York Times in endorsing her stated that, “voters have the chance to choose one of the most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in history.” Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg stated that, “she is probably the best qualified presidential candidate ever.” Even Marco Rubio, one-time choice of the GOP establishment (and tea-party love-child) stated in a Republican debate that, “If this is a resume contest, Hillary Clinton is going to be the new President of the United States.”

Hillary is nobody’s idea of perfect. Fine. But in my view if a man with her qualifications were running in the Democratic primary, Bernie would have been done before he even started. And if a man with her qualifications had been running for the Republicans, they’d be anointing him the next Reagan while trying to sneak his face onto Mount Rushmore.

Most of the people who hate Hillary when she’s running for office end up liking her just fine once she’s won. And I have every confidence that history will repeat itself again this November. As for myself, I have been watching Presidential elections since Nixon. And never in my life has there been an easier or more obvious choice than now. Trump is not merely a bad choice, he is (as many leading Republicans have already admitted) a catastrophic choice, unfit in every possible way for the office of the Presidency.

As such, I happily voted for Hillary in my primary. And I will proudly vote for her in November. Yes she will disappoint us all on occasion. Who doesn’t? But I think she’s also going to surprise a lot of people. She will fear neither consensus when possible nor ass-kicking when necessary. She will safeguard us from the damage a right-wing Supreme Court would inflict on the nation. She will stand for the rights of women, LGBT Americans, and minorities. She will maintain critical global relationships, and she will react to dangerous situations with the temperament of a seasoned and experienced professional. And in a nation that didn’t even allow women to vote until 1920, she will make history by shattering the very highest glass ceiling, and in doing so forever change the way a generation of young women view their place in our Republic. 
She’s going to be a fine President. 
I’m with her.