Madbolter, youi are clearly very, very both uninformed and misinformed.

The Democrats never, ever during Obama's Presidency, had 60 Dems in the Senate.

What part of that do you not understand?

For a very short period of time they had 58 Dem and need both Independents to vote with them to override the Republicans in the Senate.

Bernie shook Hillary's hand because he's an honorable gentleman, they are friends and he knows the e-mail baloney is an over-hyped partisan diversion by the Republicans. And he's honest. He's talking to thousands of people every week and nobody in his range gives a rats ass about the issue.

That August West quote is dead-on.

Richard Nixon is generally considered one of the worst American Presidents - impeachment and resignation tends to have that effect. But his foreign policy record is more mixed. His accomplishments are among the most consequential of the Cold War, in particular, his opening to China in 1971 and his efforts at détente with the Soviet Union. Considering that these had been his two overriding priorities upon taking office it's even more impressive.

Of course the ledger on the other side is pretty ugly. It took Nixon four years to wind down the Vietnam War (with tens of thousands more American dead as a result). This came after he and his top foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger, had scuttled a potential breakthrough only days before the 1968 presidential election (an act that to the less charitable might be considered borderline treason). His decision to bomb and then later invade Cambodia led to the ascendance of the Khmer Rouge and the death of a million Cambodians. He escalated the bombing of North Vietnam to get a final peace deal, which led to horrible civilian casualties; and then when that deal was reached his political problems at home over Watergate helped to undermine the case for continuing to support South Vietnam. There was also the deposing of Prime Minister Allende in Chile, Nixon's virtual nervous breakdown during the Yom Kippur War (although Kissinger's subsequent shuttle diplomacy paved the way for the Camp David Accords) and, the stain of Watergate badly undermined the US image in the world.


From the narrow perspective of US interests, Nixon had important successes and might even be considered an above average presidency; but with the fuller range of human consequences of his policies is considered it's much harder to give him a passing grade.

My vote is still for Bernie because he is focused on what I see as the biggest threat to our democracy- the rise of power of corporations and ultra-rich to the detriment of most individual citizens.

IMO, that is hardly the biggest threat to our democracy.

10b4me

Social climber
Retired

Oct 14, 2015 - 06:17pm PT

My vote is still for Bernie because he is focused on what I see as the biggest threat to our democracy- the rise of power of corporations and ultra-rich to the detriment of most individual citizens.

IMO, that is hardly the biggest threat to our democracy.
Once again, you all are forgetting that the president can't do a whole lot unless he/she has a cooperative congress.

Here is one proposed to comprehend all the functionaries of the government executive, legislative & Judiciary, all officers of the army or navy, governors of the states, learned institutions, the whole body of the clergy who will be 19/20 of the whole association, and as many other individuals as can be enlisted for 5. D. apiece. For what object? One which the government is pursuing with superior means, superior wisdom, and under limits of legal prescription. And by whom? A half dozen or dozen private individuals, of whom we know neither the number nor names, except of Elias B. Caldwell their foreman, Jedediah Morse of Ocean memory their present Secretary & in petto their future agent, &c. These clubbists of Washington, who from their residence there will be the real society, have undertaken to embody even the government itself into an instrument to be wielded by themselves and for purposes directed by themselves. Observe that they omit the President’s name, and for reasons too flimsy to be the true ones. No doubt they have proposed it to him, and his prudence has refused his name. And shall we suffer ourselves to be constituted into tools by such an authority? Who, after this example, may not impress us into their purposes?