How Hillary Clinton Became the New Nixon. Transcripts and All.

From almost the beginning of his political career well into his presidency, Richard Nixon had a nickname bestowed upon him by the press that stuck. It was Tricky Dick. There was even a famous political poster showing a smiling Nixon with the words, "Would You Buy a Used Car From This Man"?

Nixon it seems always had a political trick up his sleeve and rarely played it straight. He was known for underhanded political tactics and he couldn't be trusted.

The same can now be said for Hillary Clinton who has demonstrated how easily it is for her to be dishonest, unscrupulous and as underhanded as Richard Nixon or for that matter Barrack Obama who might have told more lies and reneged on more promises than any president in history which makes Clinton's under the table political deal with Obama and her willingness to lie and be underhanded understandable.

Clinton's transformation began with her sell out to Obama to serve her own personal ambition. When Axelrod wrote in his campaign memo in 2008 that  Clinton "has no convictions and will shift positions based on political expediency" little did he know that would become even more apparent in 2016 with her 180 degree reversals on Obama. Clinton went from calling Obama a liar in '08 on his claim of being a law professor,said he was unqualified even to be Vice President, to unqualified praise of Obama and his largely failed policies and  her promise to continue them. This is in return for Obama's influence and control of the DNC to do what it can to rig the process for Clinton orchestrated by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Obama's hand picked chair of the DNC and has been so obvious that David Gergen said on CNN as far back as February that "its obvious the DNC is in the tank for Clinton".

The Sanders campaign knows it too.

Here's a look at some of Clinton's lies, policy reversals, underhanded tactics and political dirty tricks.

In 2008 when it was politically expedient Hillary Clinton told a campaign rally in Indiana that she was "pro gun" and talked about how her father taught her to shoot when she was a little girl.  In 2016  when it was politically expedient Clinton campaigned as anti-gun and tried to exploit the tragedy in Sandy Hook for her own political gain,something that might have made even Nixon cringe. She was also caught lying about Sanders and claims about more guns coming from Vermont used in murders in New York city than any other state.  It was poetic justice that her attempts at exploiting Sandy Hook got her nothing. The CT primary results ended up so close that even though she technically claimed it as a "win" she ended up splitting the delegates with Sanders almost 50-50 netting one more delegate than Sanders. Her attempt at using the heartbreaking murders to serve her political ambitions got her nothing. But revealed a lot about her character.

That Nixonian character was revealed further by her attempt to smear Sanders with a monumental lie about Vermont as the biggest source of guns used in murders in New York city. It was exposed as a lie by both the Washington Post and Politifact.

A closer look at her Vermont claim shows just how dishonest Clinton can be and how Nixonian, willing to stoop to any deciet to try and win.

In terms of the number of guns used in murders committed in New York city, the overwhelming majority of those guns, 1,375,came from New York city itself. Second on the list was Virginia where 375 guns were used in New York city murders.Vermont wasn't even in the top ten. In fact the number of guns used in New York city murders that could be traced to Vermont was 55 making Vermont number 15. So how did Clinton decide she could get away with her claim? Dana Bash weakly tried to pin Clinton down during a Democratic debate by asking how she justified that statement and Clinton refused to answer. Clinton tried to filibuster, going off in another direction on unrelated tangents.Three times Bash told Clinton "youre not answering the question" and three times Clinton went in circles avoiding the answer.

Later Clinton tried to justify her claim by using the term " per capita".It was as sleazy a way of trying to justify a dishonest attack on an opponant in recent memory. Clinton's lie was based, not on the number of guns but the number of people living in Vermont. Vermont has a population of only 612,000 compared to say New York with 20 million; So Clinton and her equally dishonest campaign manager Robby Mook,known for putting out phony campaign memos designed to be "leaked to the press" filled with self serving "analysis" and what is "mathematically impossible",decided they could make the statemen by using "per capita" as the justification,the number of guns divided by the small population of the state of Vermont.That is the depth of political dishonesty Hillary Clinton is willing to go and only re-enforces why the majority of Americans don't trust her. And what makes her so Nixon-like.

Hillary Clinton's politically expedient reversals from 2008 when she was running against Obama include Clinton calling Obama a liar, not once but twice for calling himself a law professor and presented evidence to refute Obama's claims. In 2016 pandering for votes in front of an African American audience she said what a great Supreme Court justice Obama would make  because "he has the credentials. He's a law professor."

And recently during a dust up between Sanders and Clinton over who said who was unqualified what went completely ignored by the news media and especially Rachel Maddow in an interview with Jane Sanders, was that in 2008  in answer to a question about whether Clinton would consider Obama as a running mate Clinton said Obama wasn't  even qualified to be Vice President.Yet in 2008 in  return for not contesting the 2008 nomination at the convention she made a deal and accepted the position of Secretary of State which meant carrying out the policies of a president she said was"unqualified".Again ambition ahead of principle.

Which plays right into Axelrod's assessment in 2008 that Clinton has no convictions and will reverse herself for political expediency. She has done just that on fracking, the XL pipeline,and TPP though Sanders is making that very difficult.

As for more dirty tricks, her super delegate count has been her way of fraudulently padding her delegate totals and  to sucker a lazy, dishonest and incompetent news media into presenting them as part of her pledged delegate total. Democratic party rules are clear that super delegate declarations or endorsements do not count, and would not count unless and until actually cast at the convention, something that hasnt happened in 32 years.

Something else has never happened. Never since super delegates were created in 1981 has any super delegates indicated a preference (and thats all it is since they are non-binding and noncommittal) before the end of the primary season. Never.

Only once before have super delegates indicated a preference before the convention and that was 2008 but not until the end of June and after the last primary. Clinton rounded up super delegates with the help of Debby Wasserman-Schultz and the DNC in January and February to get them to declare and obeying party bosses they did to make it look like Clinton's totals were far greater than they really were. And like these trained seals at CNN and MSNBC, these so called "journalists" include these "preferences" thrown at them along with the actual pledged delegates won in primaries and count them when showing Clinton's total. Also for their own self serving reasons in kowtowing to a party establishment they will want to be friendly with in the future.

There is also concrete evidence of a little something called voter fraud that has taken place on Clinton's behalf in NY, the 18th District in Chicago, Nevada, Colorado, Ohio, and South Carolina, something even Nixon didn't get his hands dirty with.

In New York the Attorney General is investigating what they are calling "irregularities" in  the NY primary including 140,000 people wrongly purged from voter rolls who were kept from voting. But there is more than that to investigate

The biggest "irregularity"  which signaled voter fraud were the exit polls in New York, the most reliable polling there is and conducted by one firm, Edison Research, who does the polls then licenses the results to various news organization including CNN, MSNBC, Fox and the three networks. Exit polls have been shown to be accurate within 3/10ths of a percent to the final vote totals. They are far more accurate than telephone polls.The exit polls showed Clinton winning a very tight race in New York 52-48 which would have not only been humiliating for Clinton but would have resulted in splitting the delegates with Sanders 50-50. That would have called her very candidacy into question. While the exit poll showed a Clinton win by 4 points, the  final result was Clinton by 16. A Huffington Post statistical analysis that the final results could have been that far off the exit polls and NOT be voter fraud was 123,000-1.

A close examination of  the fraud in four other states, South Carolina, Ohio, Nevada, the 18th district in Chicago and Colorado will be the subject of another piece.

Add to this a current federal investigation of  NY Mayor Bill DiBlasio one of Clinton's biggest supporters into DiBlasio's illegal fundraising that an investigator said has produced enough evidence to warrant a criminal prosecution and the closer one looks the uglier it gets for Clinton.This came on the heels of  the Sanders campaign filing a complaint with the DNC against Clinton herself engaging in illegal fundraising involving bundling and money raised at events that were supposed to go to down ticket Democrats but 80% of which went to Clinton. Every legal expert looking into it came to the conclusion that if it wasnt illegal it was definitely "unethical".

But what has been perhaps the most blatant comparison to Nixon are the Clinton transcripts of speeches made to Wall Street and the health insurance industry behind closed doors over the last two years for which she was paid $21 million in speaking fees. Clinton is determined to keep voters from seeing what's in them.

Making Clinton's stonewalling on her transcripts even more Nixonian has been Carl Bernstein saying on CNN that Clinton must release the transcripts.

Sanders has made an issue not just of the speeches but Clinton's refusal to make the transcripts public so voters can see for themselves what Clinton told Wall Street executives behind closed doors and how it compares with what she tells voters campaigning. It is as valid a campaign issue as income inequality or healthcare and something Clinton  wants to bury.

There are things we do know however. We know that Hillary Clinton, Bill, her campaign manager Robby Mook and closet most trusted staff have gone over every one of those transcripts and have concluded they are too damaging to Clinton's candidacy to be released.Nixon concluded the same which is why he released transcripts with the most damning passages redacted. It didn't work.

It's clear that if Clinton's transcripts weren't so damaging and damning she would have released them by now and made Sanders look foolish.So its obvious there is nothing in them that would do Clinton any good. Given her penchant for underhanded tactics and lies if those transcripts would have benefitted her in any way they would have been released long ago. But Clinton is hiding them and using one lame excuse after another to justify not releasing them. Each excuse makes her look worse.

One excuse: she will release them when everyone else does even though no one else other than Trump has made any speeches and it isnt known if he were paid for them or not. Besides, what Republicans do in their primary campaign to choose their candidate is none of Clinton's business. No Republican is going to do anything because Clinton says so. Saying she'll do it when everyone else does is so juvenile it wouldn't fly in Pre-K.

Her other excuse is she doesnt want to be "held to a different standard than everyone else". A news flash to Hillary Clinton: presidents are always held to a different standard than everyone else and so are those who are candidates. If Clinton doesnt want to be held to a different standard than everyone else she has no business running for president so she should get out now.

Ironically Clinton has released her tax returns so we can know what she was paid for these speeches but not what's in them.What does that say?

Sanders can make Clinton's refusal to release her speeches as damning as what would happen if she did release them. Its also amusing that everytime Sanders brings up the speeches and her refusal to release the transcripts she complains he is attacking her character.

Sanders is often asked what his path is to the nomination. One is winning the majority of pledged delegates. Nancy Pelosi is on record in 2008 saying super delegates are obligated to vote for the candidate who won the most delegates in the primaries. If Democrats did anything to try and change the standards for Clinton all hell will break loose in Philadelphia.

If nothing else, super delegates in states Sanders won and won by landslides should be obligated to vote for him. If they dont they will face certain defeat in primaries next time they run for ignoring the will of their voters and catering to party bosses to vote for Clinton. Sanders has rightly said he deserves the super delegates in the states he has won and if he gets them he can win..There will be more hell to pay if that doesnt happen.

Then there is Donna Brazile's statement in 2008 when it looked like super delegates were deserting Obama for Clinton that " if super delegates decide this nomination I will quit the Democratic party." If Clinton gets the nomination through shady political tactics especially through super delegates she didnt earn, Sanders voters will also quit the Democratic party and that will mean disaster for Democrats in November.

But there is one other scenario, admittedly remote but still hanging out there like the Sword of Damocles and one more reason Sanders will never quit and go all the way to the convention:  that somehow Clinton's transcripts gets leaked by someone. If that ever happened, once they became public Democratic party officials would probably tell Clinton to drop out. Every super delegate would run for cover. It would be similar to what Republicans did with Nixon when what was redacted from his transcripts were eventually made public through the tapes. They told Nixon he had to resign.

NOTE: A Politico investigation published today (5/3) revealed that the Hillary Clinton fundraising scheme mentioned above, the Hillary Victory Fund, was being used to circumvent campaign finance laws. The fund, whose creation and purpose was to raise money for down ticket and state Democrats is actually a virtual slush fund for Clinton, Politico describing it as " a money laundering conduit for Clinton". The scheme has seen all but 1% of the $61 million raised go to Clinton's campaign for her use and not the state parties they were intended.  It's a money laundering scheme trying to get around the law that has more in common with drug dealers or organized crime than someone wanting to be president.Which makes Clinton not so much the New Nixon, but a politician so unethical as to be looking up at him.