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Greetings Hillary Clinton supporters! Welcome to the HNV, where I am filling in for Lysis while he is on vacation. Tomorrow and Thursday, Rugbymom will take up the call, while Swiffy will head things up Wednesday. I’ll be back Friday.
In today’s lineup we have some caucus analysis, an op-ed from Clinton herself, a reminder about misogyny, an honor from the Puyallup tribe, words from black women backing Hillary, some herstory, a recipe, and some more individual stories, including a long-lost childhood fan letter to Hillary Clinton.
First: sympathies to the survivors and families of victims in yesterday’s terrorist bombing in Lahore. Clinton offered her prayers and thoughts on Twitter:
xMy prayers are with the victims of the horrific Easter Day attack in Lahore. Pakistan and all nations must confront & defeat terrorists. -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 28, 2016You can read about all of the presidential candidate’s reactions here.
Bernie Sanders won big in Saturday’s caucuses. Congratulations to Senator Sanders and his supporters! His campaign worked very hard in those states, and it shows. The state of the race, however, leaves Clinton plenty to feel good about:
The high-turnout, big-percentage wins are a momentum boost to the Sanders campaign, although Clinton still maintains a large lead in the pledged delegate count.
That lead means even the victories Sanders has been raking in this weekend might not change the overall delegate math much. Heading into the day, he needed to win about 58 percent of all the remaining pledged delegates to clinch the nomination.
Based on AP's current count, Saturday's wins shifted that must-win percentage to 57.
Washington state hasn't yet allocated all of its delegates. But based on the delegates divvied out so far, Saturday gave 55 delegates to Sanders and 20 to Clinton.
That brings the pledged delegate count to 1,243 to Clinton and 975 for Sanders. Their totals with the so-called super-delegates takes Clinton to 1,712, with 1,004 for Sanders. It takes 2,383 to win the nomination.
The most recent polls were good for Clinton in upcoming races in Wisconsin and New York:
The most recent statewide poll, taken by the Emerson College Polling Society March 14-16, Clinton held a daunting lead, 71%-23%. The automated survey of 373 likely Democratic primary voters, taken only of landline phones, has a margin of error of +/- 5 percentage points.
In Wisconsin, an Emerson poll taken March 20-22 showed Clinton with a narrower lead, 50%-44%. The survey of 354 likely Democratic primary voters has an error margin of +/-5.2 points.
Clinton will be heading to Wisconsin today for more campaigning.
Although she spent a quiet Easter weekend with her family, in an op-ed published in the New York Daily News on Sunday, Clinton promised to take concrete steps to stem gun violence as president:
An average of 90 people a day are killed by gun violence in the U.S. Thousands of parents every year have to bury their children. Imagine it. You pour your heart and soul into raising your kids, teaching them about the world, listening to every worry, cheering every victory, and encouraging them to dream big dreams and doing everything you can to help them achieve them. And then one day, a distant siren, an unexpected phone call, or a breaking news alert on TV could mean that someone with a gun has taken all those dreams away.
It's time — long past time — that we do what it takes to put a stop to it.
Not just in some neighborhoods or some cities — but in every corner of this country where guns continue to destroy innocent lives.
… First, we need to repeal the law that gives the gun industry sweeping liability protections, so companies that make and sell guns can be held accountable when their products kill people. When the NRA pushed that misguided law through Congress, they said that preventing lawsuits was their top legislative priority. Now it's making it harder for families who lost children in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, to sue Bushmaster for marketing its AR-15 assault rifle to civilians. As President, I'll stand with the families victimized by guns, not the corporations that profit from them.
Second, we should implement comprehensive background checks. President Obama recently issued several executive orders designed to strengthen this federal system. Surveys have shown that even 85% of gun owners favor these checks. And it's hard to believe that we still allow people on the no-fly list to purchase firearms. I think it's pretty simple: If it's too dangerous for you to be allowed on an airplane, it's too dangerous for you to own a gun.
Third, we need to close the so-called "Charleston loophole." Right now, a person with an arrest record can walk into a gun store to buy a gun, and if their background check isn't completed within three business days, they can walk out with a firearm. It makes absolutely no sense. More than 55,000 gun sales that would otherwise have been blocked have been allowed to proceed because of this loophole. One of them was the gun bought by the white supremacist who murdered nine parishioners at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston last year.
My friend and blog-colleague Liss McEwan reminds us that racism and misogyny are alive and well and coloring some white men’s preference for Trump over Clinton:
Trump exploits these resentments—and, further, he routinely unleashes racism and sexism that appeals specifically to white men who treat rights as a zero sum game in which there are winners and losers, and who are gravely concerned about Clinton talking to and about people who are not white men. And that's all she's doing—she's making explicit appeals to marginalized people. She's not saying terrible things about white men; her alleged sin is, in fact, not saying anything about them at all. Imagine, for a moment, if Hillary spoke about white men the way Trump speaks about women. Imagine if she called them dogs and pigs, said they were ugly, said: "You've gotta treat 'em like shit." If she did, white men might have a valid complaint. But a failure to center white men is not the same as being attacked, and it is not the same thing as being hated. If you want to know what it might look like if Clinton actually did attack and hate men, all you need to do is look at how Trump talks about and to women. White men desperately need to learn the difference between being attacked and simply not being catered to. And yet somehow, this is still supposed to be Clinton's fault. She is expected to magically find a way to uplift people who are not white men, while still centering white men. That is simply not possible
Rugbymom mentioned this, yesterday, but I thought it deserved another mention. In Washington, Clinton met with 19 tribal leaders from around the state, and received a moving honor:
During the meeting, Hillary heard from Tribal leaders on a range of issues—from cleaning up Puget Sound, to the future of the salmon in the Northwest, to what we can do to improve health care and education in Native communities.
But before the meeting began, Hillary was honored by the Puyallup Tribe with two powerful gifts: a blanket and a Lushootseed name.
Connie McCloud, the culture director of the Puyallup Tribe, explained what the blanket represents. “It will heal you. It will give you strength. It will help you to continue on your path … that you’ve embarked on,” McCloud said. Hillary also received a Lushootseed Indian name: tsiwələx̌ʷi. Pronounced “tsee-wuh-luh-x̌wee” which means “Strong Woman.”Catherine Lucy reports on African-American women’s support for Hillary Clinton, highlighting her connections and the work of outreach director LaDavia Drane:
From the pulpit of an African-American church in Detroit not long ago, Bishop Corletta Vaughn offered a rousing endorsement of Hillary Clinton that went far beyond politics.
With a smiling Clinton sitting a few feet away in the purple-walled Holy Ghost Cathedral, Vaughn said she had seen Clinton “take a licking and keep on ticking.” Alluding to Bill Clinton’s past infidelity, she added: “I’m not talking about politically. I’m talking about as a wife and a mother. That’s when I said: I love that woman. She taught so many of us as women how to stand in the face of adversity.”
...These efforts have been headed by LaDavia Drane, who joined the campaign last year as director of African-American outreach. She has sought out female pastors like Vaughn for Clinton’s church visits. She organized the meeting between Clinton and the mothers impacted by gun violence. And she has worked to establish grass-roots networks for black women such “Heels for Hillary” in cities around the country.
...Evelyn Simien, a professor at the University of Connecticut who studies black voting patterns, said Clinton’s outreach has been savvy. But she also stressed that black women have long been active Democratic voters and they know Clinton far better than Sanders. She said this year’s support is not just about personal connection, but that “it comes down to politics and the issues.”And now, a brief break from our regular Hillary Clinton programming...
HERSTORY BITS AND A RECIPE BITE
Roosevelt as UN delegateAs First Lady, Hillary Clinton often cited Eleanor Roosevelt as an influence. Roosevelt, like Clinton, was an integral, but often independent part of her husband’s administration. Without her advocacy on behalf of Marian Anderson, the Tuskeegee Airmen, and many others, FDR’s America would have been far more conservative in areas of racial justice than it already was. But we do a disservice in thinking of Eleanor Roosevelt as a more-liberal extension of her husband.
Like Hillary Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt broke historic ground in having an extraordinary post-FLOTUS career, one that is all too often rendered as a footnote. In December 1945, Harry Truman asked Elanor Roosevelt to serve as one of the United States’ six delegates to the newly formed United Nations. Although she had no formal experience in diplomacy, she accepted the appointment and quickly established a reputation as an able and persuasive diplomat. Thrust into a great debate over whether European WW II refugees should be returned to their country of origins or allowed to resettle where they wished, she ably matched wits with Soviet opponents and impressed her fellow representatives. When the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) appointed her to its commission on human rights in 1946, her colleagues unanimously elected her as their chair.
Over the next two years, Roosevelt led the commissioners in a long, complex, deeply learned, and frustrating attempt to formulate a UN Declaration regarding human rights. Were there truly universal human rights? What was the value of a free press, for example, in a largely illiterate country? Roosevelt found herself frequently bedeviled by Soviet opposition, but used both accommodation and toughness to deal with their demands. As The New York Times wrote in 1988:
…they pushed for the inclusion of economic and social rights - rights to employment, education, health care - which they said were no less important than political rights. After some discussion, Mrs. Roosevelt persuaded the State Department to accept the inclusion of economic rights. Had not President Roosevelt, after all, framed the postwar goal of ''freedom from want'' - ''everywhere in the world''? Despite this move to meet them part way, the Russians were stonewalling.
…When a Russian delegate turned to the theme of the plight of black Americans, Mrs. Roosevelt proposed that the Russians could send a team to observe racial problems in the United States if the United States could do the same in the Soviet Union. ''The Russians seem to have met their match in Mrs. Roosevelt,'' The New York Times observed.
When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights finally came for a vote in December 1948, it was adopted by a vote of 48-0, (The USSR and its allies, along with Saudi Arabia and South Africa, abstained.) And so entered into history the sentiment that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” (You can read the whole thing here. It’s well worth it!)
Roosevelt with the Spanish language Declaration of Human RightsEleanor Roosevelt was under no illusion that document would become a matter of binding international law; rather, she hoped it would be touchstone and reference, a sort of “Magana Carta” for all humanity. She regarded it as her signature accomplishment in life; like Hillary Clinton, her significance in American and global history stretched far beyond her time as First Lady. Although she resigned in 1953, she continued to volunteer to the American Association for the U. N., and was an American representative to the World Federation of the U. N. Associations. President Kennedy re-appointed her a delegate to the United Nation in 1961.
You can read more on Eleanor Roosevelt and the Declaration at the online FDR Library. Get to know Roosevelt by browsing her “My Day” columns at GWU.
And now, a recipe. Roosevelt wrote an introduction for The World’s Favorite Recipes: Over 100 Tested Dishes from the United Nations in 1951, expressing hope that it would “better international understanding. Here’s a tasty warm-weather dish from Iran, listed as coming from a “private collection.”
YOGURT AND CUCUMBER SOUP
3 cups yogurt
1 ½ cups finely cubed or grated cucumbers
½ cup seedless raisins or currants
1 tbsp fresh dill
3 tbsp minced chives or green onion tops
½ tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper, freshly gound.
Beat yogurt well. Add cucumbers and currants or raisins. Blend thoroughly and add ¾ cup water or more until the mixture is the consistency of cream soup. Add dill, chives, or green onion tops, salt and pepper. Blend well and chill. Serve very cold. For added heartiness use 2 chopped hard-boiled eggs. Yield: 4-6 servings.
Aaaand we’re back to our Hillary Clinton News and Views!
I love reading Hillary Clinton endorsements from individuals who speak about how her agenda touches their lives. Here is Florida pediatric transport nurse Sam Ruiz writing about Hillary Clinton’s dream for kids, and how it matches his own:
People may think it isn't possible for us to give each child a foundation of health and to foster each child's dreams. But as a man who is part of a team that spends our days on medical helicopters caring for critically ill children, I have a very strong sense that if we work together, anything is possible. I believe Hillary Clinton does, too.
She is ready to work to put the health of our children first. All children. As first lady, Hillary Clinton worked to champion the passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides health care to 8 million children and has earned the unwavering support of Republican and Democratic governors alike. As our next president, Clinton would build upon and strengthen the Affordable Care Act to make sure more families have better health care coverage and lower out-of-pocket and premium costs. She would take on the huge drug companies who are putting the price of life-saving drugs out of reach for far too many Americans.
Clinton also would expand access to affordable health care to families regardless of their immigration status — health care families could purchase directly through insurance companies. This is a critical change to the current law, as many Floridians who are undocumented have no health care because employers want to avoid fines and build profits. As a nurse, I can see the health care law is working, but we must do more to address skyrocketing costs for everyone, and Clinton knows our vast and complex health care system well enough to make that happen.
This is from a couple of weeks ago, but in the same vein, I love this campaign spot featuring four generations of women in an Ohio family who are supporting Hillary Clinton:
x YouTube VideoAnd finally, at KPLU in Seattle, Arwen Nicks recalls writing letters to “Hillery” Clinton as a 10 year old… and rediscovering one of them:
I remember a lesson about the elections and the presidents and getting assigned to write a letter to President Clinton. I decided not to write to Bill.
I wrote to Hillary.
It was 1993 and America was obsessed with Hillary Clinton -- but nobody seemed to like her.
I was only 9, but I liked her. Her hair seemed clean and she seemed smart and she also had a cat named Socks and I had never had a cat. I did have a dog that I named Susan Socks.
So I wrote her a letter asking questions about her cat and a month or so later got a picture of Socks in the mail. There was a paw print signature stamped on it and I thought it was very impressive.
Arwen’s letter to “Hillery”—full size at link.… I wrote Hillary again and this time I included a drawing.
The letter reads -
June 10th, 1993
Dear Miss Clinton,
I would love it if you would come to Phoenix Aug 1 - 5th because my birthday is on the 2nd and it would be the best day of my life. You are the most powerful woman in the world and I want to be just like you able to be help-full to the world and make a powerful statment. Help kids, help schools and go publike.
ps.
i'll be ten.
and your in vited to my birthday party.
your great fan and supporter
Arwen Nicks
… My dad got sick and I flew home to see him and he gave me “this adorable thing” he found the other day.
It was my letter to Hillary.
I was livid.
“I can’t believe you didn’t send this!” I could hear that teenage tone in my voice, the tone that seems to be reserved for my father, despite the fact that he may be the only person that has ever really loved me.
“Honey,” he said, “it was too cute.”
It really is.
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