In the end she needs Sanders' supporters. Her job as a leader, is to reach out to Sanders and his supporters and get them behind her. I still think she and the DNC need to give him the primary Prime Time spot during the convention, and they need to give other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus a large percentage of the time during the convention. That move, along with a good progressive VP candidate (I think Dennis Kucinich for reasons I've detailed before) would go a long way to helping secure the nomination. And as pointed out by @newtboy, her supporters in '08 were Democrats, so it isn't nearly the same story as what Sanders is doing now. The Democrats will continue to vote for her, it is the independents that you need to turn out and vote against Trump. Trump is doing better than expected at getting the Republicans behind him, and their hatred of Clinton can't be understated. Not to mention of course fears of indictment and other issues ahead of Clinton, such as the likely hood the Republicans would try to impeach her first thing... even if they don't impeach her, they'll stonewall congress like they have against Obama anyhow. They need to get the independents out to vote against the Republicans and have a Senate change as well, and I don't see them really working to that end yet, which mystifies me to no end.

As much as I am a Sander's supporter. I can't support the idea of him running as an independent. That would split the Democratic vote too much, and the idea of a Trump Presidency is far too dangerous. I think the fact that the polls show again and again that Sanders would do much better against Trump should show the DNC that Hillary needs Sanders and his supporters far more than Sanders needs her and her supporters.

If I were Hillary I'd offer Sanders the VP spot. Even if he doesn't accept, he gets the prime time keynote spot. Then you also promise the Congressional Progressive Caucus get's at least 60% of the rest of the prime time spots, with moderates getting 40% of the prime time spot. Off prime time the CPC still gets 40% (no less than 33%). Between Sanders and the CPC having the bulk of the prime time spots, it helps move the progressive message forward.

She then needs to have a known progressive on her ticket. If she can't secure Sanders, she'd probably consider Warren, but unfortunately, two women might make too many independent voters nervous. So I'd push for Dennis Kucinich. The advantage with Kucinich is that he's a known progressive, and he'd help give Clinton Ohio. If you can't get him, then find a rising member of the CPC. Again, the idea is to push the progressive agenda. Warren and Sanders have to have spots in the cabinet though if they want in.

There's enough hate of Trump in the Republican ranks that I think this year is the year to push for 3rd parties, especially the Libertarian party since that is the one most likely to pull votes from Republicans looking for an alternative to Trump... it won't pull the religious right who'll stick with Trump, but the more sane minded Republicans will probably consider it over absentee voting. The anti-Trump Republicans need to push the idea of the Libertarian party, and then push for Republicans for the Senate and House to avoid loosing the Senate, which is possible...

The Democrats meanwhile need to do something to get people out and vote. Democratic turnout keeps going down, beyond what one would expect purely from the Voter ID laws Republicans put in to lower Democratic votes. They need to rally the base into actually getting out and voting. To secure not only the Presidency from Trump, but to overtake the Senate and start making a push for the House. Of course one of the main way they do this is start appealing to Sanders supporters, and the party seems so intent on dissing his supporters.

The DNC is way too dismissive of the actions in Nevada. The Nevada people went out of their way to make sure Sanders didn't win, they knew people were still trying to get in when they made rule changes... people they were holding back on purpose so they could push those changes through, then when those people got in, they of course were upset. The DNC, a party that publicly tries to support those who have been disenfranchised from voting, is going out of their way to disenfranchise a large percentage of its base... all just because it's Clinton's turn or something. Fine, let it be her turn, but don't shut out the movement. She needs to step to the left, and add a large number of progressive voices to her team. She and the DNC needs to reach out to Sanders supporters and other progressives and unite the party... Trump seems to be pulling in the moderates to his side. As split as the Republicans were at the start, they are starting to pull together far better than the Democrats are... and it isn't up to Sanders to drop out and push his support to her, she needs to be the one to offer an olive branch and start wooing him and his supporters. Right now they seem to think it's Sander's job... no, it's the leader's job... It isn't the Republican moderates reaching out to Trump, it is Trump meeting with them and wooing them. Some to less success than others, true enough, but he's doing far better at starting an appeal to the moderates than Clinton is to Sanders, his supporters and the progressives.

I'll cover IUD's first. While there is some evidence that the older style copper ParaGard might have a slightly increase in preventing a fertilized egg from implanting, the evidence for the Mirena. Here are two medical journals documenting as such:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4018277
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13625180903519885
If those are too much reading, they are summarized in http://videosift.com/video/Myths-About-IUDs

Remember Google gives personalized search results. No two people get the same results, even when signed out of Google... More details at http://videosift.com/video/There-are-no-regular-results-on-Google-anymore

I'd also agree that there are many things America gets right. Overall it's a good country.

And I think I started out by pointing out it isn't about guns, or just about guns.

Now I'm not sure what you mean assigning attributes to the right. I was pointing out policies that are consistent with the conservative right, Republican platform positions that are not pro-life.

The Death Penalty. This is a typically Republican strong stance position. And has been at various times part of the party's official platform. The Democrat party official position supports the death penalty too, after a DNA testing and post-conviction review. The point isn't wither or not the Death Penalty is right or wrong, I'd personally argue it's wrong, it's the claim of being pro-life while supporting the death penalty. There can be no way to reconcile those two positions.

One needs only to look at how Bush and the present day regime of Republicans in Washington think of handling issues in the Middle East to see what that they support a strong military and an interventionist doctrine (http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Republican_Party_War_+_Peace.htm). One of the key factors of the Bush Doctrine is preemptive strikes. While one normally wouldn't cite Wikipedia, I'll let their page on the Bush Doctrine and their references clear things up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine. Heck Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize largely just because he wasn't Bush... sadly he did little to lower US involvement in the Middle East, a situation we should have left alone ages ago. Again the Democrats aren't as peace loving as they should be, and generally the most peace loving people in Congress tend to be Libertarians (who object more to the expense of war than war itself, and love pointing out how the war in Iraq from 2001 to 2011 cost more than NASA's entire history to that point, even after adjusting for inflation (https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA)) and Libertarian leaning Republicans like Ron Paul, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus (http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/). Again, war isn't pro-life, it is perhaps one of the most anti-life things one can support short of supporting murder itself.

It's also Republicans, aka the right, that are trying to undo the Affordable Health Care Act, a program that ironically enough is modeled after the ones they tried to pass twice under Bush Sr and once under Clinton as to oppose Democrat plans to push for a Single Payer system. Prior to the passing of Obamacare, the US was spending nearly twice as much on healthcare as a percentage of it's GDP than the next nation, and getting only the 37th best results . Just listen to the crowd at the September 12 2008 Republican debate that chant over and over "let him die" as a solution to a guy who needs medical care but elected not to buy private insurance. These same people are the one's who claim to be pro-life. Affordable health care should be a right, as it is in every civilized nation but the US. Obamacare is far from ideal, but much better than the previous policy of only those with good jobs could afford health care everyone else, die or go bankrupt, driving the costs of healthcare up more. One can't say they are pro-life and oppose affordable healthcare, including for services you don't support such as IUDs (it doesn't matter that I object to our overly huge military budget that is much bigger than the next several nations combined, so it shouldn't matter if some medical services such as IUDs are supported), as quality of life matters as much as being alive.

Related to guns however is the Republican stance on stand your ground. Watch Fox News and how they defend the use of guns, or how mass shootings would be avoided if people were carrying concealed weapons and could stop the shooters... again escalating things to a death penalty. Now in the case of a mass shooter, ideally you want to take them down alive, but if death is the only option, then I personally don't object. However stand your ground typically expands to home invasion, where criminals typically aren't looking kill, just rob the place. Here they defend the homeowner's right to shoot to kill (I've been in firearm safety classes, generally the aim is to aim for the center of mass, which will likely result in death, but the odds of making a shot at the legs to impede the crooks is very low, so if you shoot you have to assume it is to kill). This position is contrary to the pro-life stance. All life is equal... which could get into a whole other argument about how they don't value immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, people who just want to improve their lives by moving to what they hope is a better country that will allow for a better opportunity for them and their families, but the Republicans are fighting hard to stop them from improving their lives here just because an accident of birth made them born in another country than the US... heck just look at the way Republicans lined the buses of refugee children fleeing war and gang torn areas of Latin America and they shouted at the children.... children... to go home that nobody wanted them. That isn't a pro-life statement, to tell a child that nobody wants them. The pro-life position would be to want to nurture and protect the children fleeing a dangerous area... We should be moving to a world without borders, as that is the pro-life position, to realize we are all humans, and that we all must share this world, and that we should do all we can to protect one another and this world and all that inhabits it (except mosquitoes, roaches, most parasites, etc... lol)

As to high poverty rates, the Republican policy of trickle down economics helps drive that. Helps spread the ever growing income and wealth gaps in the US. The Walmart heirs alone have more wealth than the bottom 40% of the US population (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/31/bernie-s/sanders-says-walmart-heirs-own-more-wealth-bottom-/). Now true, some could argue it isn't trickle down economic that is causing the growing wealth and income gaps, but the correlation is very strong, and one is hard pressed to find any other causative points beyond the rich paying less and less to their workers while taking more and more for themselves while the government eases the tax burden on the rich more and more.

Overall I think it's clear that the people who vote Republican because they are "pro-life" are hypocrites given the party's positions in key issues that aren't pro-life. I'm sure many, especially those on the right would disagree. They'd argue the death penalty is needed to discourage others from killing and therefore protects life, and that preemptive strikes ala the Bush Doctrine keep another 9/11 from happening (although the counter to that is fairly easily that we make more extremist the more we use those strikes). So one's mileage may very. For me, I think they are hypocritical saying they are pro-life if they don't value that life as much as their own after they are born.

>> ^marinara:
How does the leader of the House Of Representatives Progressive Caucus treat Obama?
He defies him and refuses to vote for the bill without the public option.
I paraphrase the Congressional Progressive Caucus:
No public option, No bill.
Do I consider Obama enemy no. 1? Please! You are making me laugh!!!
But he's in my way and he's not one of us.
And I'm not a racist.


I've been calling members of the CPC myself, asking them to take that exact stance.

I wouldn't say that I did so because I felt a need to make a stand against Obama, but because I wanted to make sure Obama got a bill with a public option in it to sign, like he wants.

Speaking purely about the political machinations, I don't think a veto threat from Obama would have improved the likely legislation from the Congress. It just would've turned conservadems from having soft opposition into having stern opposition. Doing things this way leaves the door open to arm twisting later. So I can't really get worked up into a froth about his refusal to issue his own "no public option, no bill" threat.

I certainly am not going to call him a traitor to the progressive cause, or declare him not "one of us" over it, or anything else he's done up to this point.

I do wish he'd embrace some of his own sappy sayings like the Audacity of Hope, and the Fierce Urgency of Now, rather than the Naive Hope for Bipartisan Unicorns, and the Fierce Urgency of Whenever he seems to be practicing.

If he wins anyways, I'm willing to forgive it. If he gets rolled, I'm not. Right now we don't know what kind of record he's ultimately going to have, but so far he's 1 for 1 on major legislation (teh stimulus), and I suspect he'll win on this one too.

reply to netrunner:

How does the leader of the House Of Representatives Progressive Caucus treat Obama?
He defies him and refuses to vote for the bill without the public option.

I paraphrase the Congressional Progressive Caucus:
No public option, No bill.

Do I consider Obama enemy no. 1? Please! You are making me laugh!!!
But he's in my way and he's not one of us.

And I'm not a racist.