My struggles with obesity, and how I’m trying to lose weight

AUTHOR’S NOTE #1: The blog post includes measurements in both U.S. customary and metric units, with metric conversions listed in parenthesis and courtesy of Wolfram|Alpha, except for a square meters calculation that is my own.

AUTHOR’S NOTE #2: This blog post is merely a documentation of the author’s obesity problems and attempts at weight loss, and the post is not intended to give weight loss or other medical advice to anyone. When in doubt, seek advice from a licensed physician before starting a weight loss or other fitness regimen.

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4XL pants I used to wear when I weighed over 340 lbs., but are far too big for me now because I’ve lost roughly 50 lbs. since I wore these pants regularly.

I’m struggled with being severely overweight since I was about 6 or 7 years old. For many years, I’ve had habits of eating junk food excessively, eating large amounts of sugary candy, drinking several cans and/or bottles of soda pop per day, and not exercising. Several years ago, I weighed over 340 pounds (over 154.2 kilograms).

However, I’ve changed my habits. A year or two ago, I cut back considerably on soda pop and sugary candy. I now drink soda pop and sugary candy not more than 2 or 3 times per week. By changing those two habits alone, I managed to get my weight down to slightly over 280 pounds (slightly over 127 kilograms).

A few days ago, I changed more of my habits. While I still mostly eat food that isn’t healthy, I’m eating less food that I have in the past. Additionally, I’ve begun exercising on a daily basis. Since I spend most of my time in a bedroom that is 12.5 feet (3.81 meters) by 8 feet (2.44 meters), or 100 square feet (9.3 square meters), and I don’t have any exercise equipment (weight machines, treadmills, stationary bikes, dumbbells, exercise ball, etc.) at all, I’ve had to improvise with my workout routine. For 45 minutes per day, I will exercise. On most days, this will consist of 45 minutes of brisk walking back and forth across my bedroom, although I’ll sometimes do less than 45 minutes of brisk walking and fill in the remaining time with striking exercises (punches and kicks) and a core workout (mostly sit-ups). Over the weekend, I lost roughly 3 pounds (roughly 1.36 kilograms), mostly because of my significantly increased exercise.

If I lose a significant amount of weight in the coming months, I promise that I’ll share before and after photos on this blog.

An open letter to America about Scott Walker from an Illinoisan who has blogged about Walker

My fellow Americans,

Sometime tomorrow, Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker will formally launch his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

As someone who has blogged about Walker on a regular basis for the past few years, I’ve come to know Walker as a horrible politician who, with the help of his political allies in the Wisconsin State Legislature, has destroyed Wisconsin’s economy, reputation, and quality of life. In a sane world, Walker’s record as Governor of Wisconsin would be an immediate disqualifier for any future campaign for public office. To give you a description of Walker’s style of politics, if one combined the worst elements of Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, Herbert Hoover, Jerry Falwell, and Grover Norquist, you’d get Walker.

Since taking office as Wisconsin’s chief executive four and a half years ago, Scott Walker has, among other things:

• Stripped collective bargaining rights from public employee unions
• Enacted wage theft laws allowing non-union workers at unionized workplaces to refuse to join a labor union and/or pay union dues despite receiving union-negotiated wages and benefits
• Drastically cut the pay of public employees
• Made it harder for Wisconsin women to seek legal recourse if they’ve been denied equal pay for the same work as their male counterparts
• Established a corporate welfare agency in Wisconsin that is rife with corruption, cronyism, and mismanagement
• Cut funding from public elementary, secondary, and higher education
• Expanded Wisconsin’s school voucher programs that funnel taxpayer money to religious schools
• Made it harder for Wisconsin women to get the reproductive health care they want
• Given out tax breaks to big businesses and the wealthy
• Weakened environmental protections
• Arrested people for singing
• Enacted discriminatory voter ID laws designed to keep Wisconsinites from voting
• Stripped local control from counties and communities in Wisconsin that usually vote for Democratic candidates
• Openly compared the people of Wisconsin to terrorists
• Blatantly violated campaign finance laws
• Given wealthy right-wingers and big business interests virtually complete control of Wisconsin’s state government

Walker’s policies and actions have, among other things:

• Driven down the wages of Wisconsinites
• Stifled economic growth in Wisconsin
• Has made Wisconsin one of the most corrupt states in the entire country
• Lowered the percentage of middle-class Wisconsin households
• Left Wisconsin with severe budget problems
• Made Wisconsin the laughingstock of America

However, we don’t live in a sane world. Walker has been elected Governor of Wisconsin three times in a four-year period against weak, uninspiring corporate Democrats. I believe that, if Democrats do not nominate Bernie Sanders for president, Scott Walker will become the next President of the United States, and, given how he’s wrecked Wisconsin over the past four and a half years, that is a truly scary thought. If Walker is elected president, what little remains of the American middle class and American sovereignty will be completely destroyed, big business interests will completely take over the federal government at every level, America’s federal budget deficit and national debt will grow massively, social safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare will be privatized or outright eliminated, America’s economy will crash again, and corruption will run amok in the federal government.

You can read about Scott Walker’s horrible track record here, here, here, here, and here, among many other places. Furthermore, if you ever get in touch with these people either in person or by other means, you can ask people like Lori Compas, Wendi Kent, Karen Vieth, Kati Walsh, Chris “Capper” Liebenthal, Zach Wisniewski, Kelda Roys, Chris Taylor, Melissa Sargent, Kathleen Vinehout, Rebecca Kemble, Fred Risser, Kelly Westlund, Barbara With, Randy Bryce, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Heather DuBois Bourenane, Ingrid Laas, Sachi Komai, Laura Komai, Jenni Dye, JoCasta Zamarripa, Laura Manriquez, Mandela Barnes, LaTonya Johnson, Angela Walker, Christine Sinicki, Lisa Mux, and Mike McCabe, just to name a few, about what they think about Scott Walker…they’re all Wisconsinites, and they know how horrible Scott Walker’s policies and actions have been for Wisconsin.

As a lifelong Illinoisan and proud progressive, I would walk through fire to vote for the Democratic opponent to Scott Walker if he were to be nominated by the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States if that’s what it took for me to get to the polls.

Sincerely,
Aaron Camp
Westville, Illinois

The Democratic establishment brings out their worst people to attack Bernie Sanders

Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), who probably would have been elected Mayor of New York City two years ago had it not been for the infamous Carlos Danger sexting scandal derailing his campaign, hasn’t officially endorsed a presidential candidate to my knowledge. However, that hasn’t stopped Weiner from attacking Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders for running for the Democratic presidential nomination:

Weiner charged that Sanders has never expressed a desire to become a Democrat before entering the 2016 race.

“He was a proud socialist and thought the institutional Democratic Party was too cautious and lacking in imagination,” he said of his time in Congress with Sanders.

Weiner noted that Sanders’ reluctance to go Democrat earlier leaves the party’s voters with unanswered questions about his motivations.

This is exactly why many progressives view the Democratic Party, the left’s natural home in the two-party system that dominates American politics, as not accommodating to them. Anthony Weiner effectively said that he only wants people who are 100% loyal to Democratic Party to run for the party’s nomination for president. Not everybody who supports Democratic and progressive values has been a Democrat for their entire lifetime. In fact, Hillary Clinton was once a Republican, and, given Weiner’s close ties to the Clintons, it would absolutely shock me if he did not endorse Hillary Clinton for president, so it’s hypocritical for anyone who supports either Hillary or another Democratic presidential candidate who doesn’t have 100% lifelong loyalty to the party to attack Bernie Sanders for running as a major-party candidate for president. The Democratic Party should be as inclusive as possible while, at the same time, aggressively promoting progressive values on important issues that affect the American people.

Also, Bernie isn’t interested in being a third-party spoiler like Ralph Nader was in the 2000 presidential election (although five justices on the U.S. Supreme Court stole that election for George W. Bush. He’s running for the Democratic presidential nomination because the Democratic Party’s values are far closer to his progressive values than the values of the far-right Republican Party. As much as I despise the two-party system in this country, there’s only two political parties in this country that nominates presidential candidates and can win a general election for president, so anyone who wants to be seen as a credible presidential candidate has to run for the nomination of one of the major political parties.

The fact that some of the worst people in the Democratic establishment are attacking Bernie Sanders is damaging Hillary Clinton’s campaign and only helping Bernie build even more momentum for his presidential campaign.

Why a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for Scott Walker

There is one simple reason why Hillary Clinton cannot defeat Scott Walker in next year’s general election for president: too many people have an opinion of Hillary.

If one were to look at page 50 of the latest polling data from Public Policy Polling (PPP) in North Carolina, a swing state that narrowly went for Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election, one will find that Scott Walker leads Hillary Clinton 47%-43% in a hypothetical general election matchup, with 10% of those unsure of who to vote for if the general election is between Hillary and Walker. However, of those who self-identify as Democrats, only 6% are unsure, whereas 9% of self-identified Republicans and 19% of independents (independents are a Republican-leaning group of voters in North Carolina) are unsure of who to support. To put that another way, most of the undecided voters in a Hillary vs. Walker matchup in North Carolina lean towards Walker, so it’s virtually impossible for Hillary to win North Carolina against Walker.

If one were to scroll down a page to page 51 of the polling data, one will find that Scott Walker leads Bernie Sanders 43%-35% in a hypothetical general election matchup in North Carolina, with 22% of those unsure of who to vote for if the general election is between Bernie and Walker. However, of those who are Democrats, 27% are unsure, compared to 12% of Republicans and 26% of independents. This means that Bernie is in a far better position to gain support in North Carolina than Hillary is, because there’s still a lot more people considering supporting Bernie in the general election should he win the Democratic nomination than those who are considering supporting Hillary should she win the Democratic nomination.

North Carolina isn’t necessarily a must-win state for Democrats in next year’s presidential election, but Democrats winning North Carolina would leave Republicans with very little chance of winning the presidential election. Should Scott Walker win the Republican presidential nomination, the only Democratic candidate who can defeat Walker in North Carolina is Bernie Sanders.

Milwaukee’s ticking oil train time bomb (Cochant train de pétrole la bombe à retardement de Milwaukee)

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following article includes a French translation, courtesy of Google Translate. I have no actual working knowledge of the French language. Below the first page break is the English-language article, and below the second page break is the French-language translation.

NOTE DE L’AUTEUR: L’article suivant contient une traduction en français, gracieuseté de Google Translate. Je ne connais pas de travail effectif de la langue française. Ci-dessous le premier saut de page est l’article de langue anglaise, et en dessous de la deuxième saut de page est la traduction en langue française.

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Two years and three days ago, a train carrying crude oil from the Bakken rock formation along the border between the United States and Canada in the northern Great Plains derailed in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada, causing explosions of oil tank cars that destroyed dozens of buildings in the central part of Lac-Mégantic and killed 47 people.

The train that derailed in Lac-Mégantic passed through Milwaukee, the largest city in the American state of Wisconsin, where a railroad bridge responsible for carrying trains loaded with oil tank cars has deteriorated so badly, some of the beams supported the place have been rusted hollow. Earlier this week, a protest was held at the bridge, which runs right next to lofts in the Fifth Ward area of Milwaukee that would likely be destroyed in the event that an oil train derails and explodes, whether it occurs because of the bridge collapsing or for some other reason. Protesters were critical of both the deteriorating condition of the bridge and the oil trains that use it frequently, and they called for the release of bridge inspection reports and for the development of an evacuation plan in the event that either an oil train or other type of train carrying hazardous materials were to derail.

The deteriorating railroad bridge in Milwaukee is owned by Canadian Pacific Railway, a company, which is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, that runs freight trains through the United States and Canada. Under United States federal law, Canadian Pacific is legally responsible for inspecting the bridge and maintaining inspection reports. However, because the bridge has rusted and deteriorated so badly, a proper inspection of the bridge is impossible, according to a steel engineer that WITI-TV, a local television station in Milwaukee, brought to the bridge with them. Despite requests from WITI, Canadian Pacific has repeatedly refused to make the bridge inspection reports available to them. Additionally, the United States Federal Railroad Administration, the only government entity in the United States that can demand the release of bridge audits from Canadian Pacific, has claimed to have never asked for the Milwaukee bridge inspection reports from Canadian Pacific.

Because of deteriorating railroad infrastructure and more trains carrying tank cars full of highly-explosive oil across America, places like Milwaukee could become the next Lac-Mégantic if action isn’t taken to fix our crumbling infrastructure and increase the amount of energy being generated from renewable sources like solar and wind.

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Il ya deux ans et trois jours, un train transportant du pétrole brut de la formation rocheuse Bakken long de la frontière entre les États-Unis et au Canada dans les Grandes Plaines du Nord a déraillé dans la ville de Lac-Mégantic, Québec, Canada, provoquant des explosions de wagons-citernes de pétrole qui a détruit des dizaines de bâtiments dans la partie centrale de Lac-Mégantic et tué 47 (quarante-sept) personnes.

Le train qui a déraillé à Lac-Mégantic passé par Milwaukee, la plus grande ville dans l’état américain du Wisconsin, où un pont responsable de l’exécution des trains chargés de wagons-citernes d’huile de chemin de fer a tellement détériorée, quelques-unes des poutres supportées l’endroit ont été rouillé creux. Plus tôt cette semaine, une manifestation a eu lieu sur le pont, qui passe juste à côté de lofts dans la cinquième zone de pupille de Milwaukee qui serait susceptible d’être détruite dans le cas où un train d’huile déraille et explose, si elle se produit en raison du pont effondrement ou pour une autre raison. Les manifestants ont critiqué à la fois l’état de détérioration du pont et les trains de pétrole qui l’utilisent fréquemment, et ils ont appelé à la publication des rapports d’inspection des ponts et pour l’élaboration d’un plan d’évacuation dans le cas où soit un train de pétrole ou autre type de train transportant des matières dangereuses étaient à dérailler.

Le pont de chemin de fer détérioration de Milwaukee est possédée par Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique, une société, qui est basée à Calgary, Alberta, Canada, qui gère les trains de marchandises à travers les États-Unis et au Canada. États-Unis en vertu de la loi fédérale, le Canadien Pacifique est légalement responsable pour inspecter le pont et le maintien de rapports d’inspection. Cependant, parce que le pont a rouillé et tellement détériorée, une bonne inspection du pont est impossible, selon un ingénieur en acier qui WITI-TV, une station de télévision locale à Milwaukee, a apporté sur le pont avec eux. Malgré les demandes des WITI, le Canadien Pacifique a refusé à plusieurs reprises que les rapports d’inspection des ponts à leur disposition. En outre, les Etats-Unis la l’administration des chemins de fer fédéraux, la seule entité du gouvernement des États-Unis qui peuvent exiger la libération des audits de pont du Canadien Pacifique, a affirmé avoir jamais demandé les rapports d’inspection des ponts Milwaukee de Canadien Pacifique.

En raison de la détérioration des infrastructures de chemin de fer et plus de trains transportant des wagons-citernes plein d’huile hautement explosive à travers l’Amérique, des endroits comme Milwaukee pourraient devenir la prochaine Lac-Mégantic si des mesures ne sont pas prises pour corriger notre infrastructure en ruine et d’augmenter la quantité d’énergie produite à partir de de sources renouvelables comme l’énergie solaire et éolienne.

Bruce Rauner pushing more unconstitutional pension theft bills in Illinois

Republican Governor Bruce Rauner is publicly pushing for more pension theft legislation here in Illinois, despite the fact that the legislation appears to blatantly violate the Illinois Constitution:

Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday announced a massive pension overhaul bill that he said would save billions of dollars while incorporating reform ideas from various leaders.

The lengthy bill — all 500 pages of it — would cut retirement benefits for police officers, firefighters and public teachers. It would also give local governments a way to file for bankruptcy “as a last resort” after a review or the declaration of a fiscal emergency.

Cutting pension benefits that have already been guaranteed to our state’s public employees is explicitly unconstitutional, according to Article XIII, Section 5 of the our state’s constitutional, which states the following:

Membership in any pension or retirement system of the State, any unit of local government or school district, or any agency or instrumentality thereof, shall be an enforceable contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.

The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously ruled earlier this year that a pension theft bill signed into law by then-Democratic Governor Pat Quinn in 2013 violates the Illinois Constitution because it cut pension benefits that are supposed to be guaranteed to those who are currently publicly employees once they retire. Bruce Rauner, State Senate President John Cullerton, and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle are supporting more pension theft legislation that is likely to get struck down by the courts for cutting constitutionally-guaranteed pension benefits to our state’s public employees. While our state has a major pension debt problem, it should be dealt with without cutting benefits to current public employees and retirees.

Wisconsin Republicans pass awful state budget, and how legislators should handle criticism of their legislative proposals

The Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Assembly passed the most awful state budget in American political history in a 52-46 vote, and the budget is currently on Republican Wisconsin Governor and presidential candidate Scott Walker’s desk.

When I say that the Wisconsin budget that the Republicans passed is the most awful state budget in American political history, it’s not hyperbole, it’s the cold hard truth. The Wisconsin budget, among many other things, demonizes the working poor in Wisconsin by replacing the words “living wage” with the words “minimum wage” in state statutes, fast-tracks an expansion of a tar sands oil pipeline in Wisconsin and Illinois that will be even bigger than the Keystone XL pipeline would be, cuts funding to public K-12 and higher education in Wisconsin, effectively prohibits Wisconsin wineries from hosting weddings, and gives Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele even more unchecked power to sell off public property in Wisconsin’s largest county to his political cronies. This budget does a lot to pander to far-right voters that Scott Walker is trying to win over in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and does virtually nothing to benefit the people of Wisconsin in any way. You can read press releases from Democratic Wisconsin State Representatives Melissa Sargent of Madison, Dianne Hesselbein of Middleton, Amanda Stuck of Appleton, LaTonya Johnson of Milwaukee, and Andy Jorgensen of Milton, as well as from Minority Leader Peter Barca of Kenosha, at the links in this sentence.

However, prior to the Republicans in the Assembly passing the state budget, Katrina Shankland, the Assistant Minority Leader of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Stevens Point, tried to amend the state budget to require that future proposals of non-fiscal policy measures in future state budgets get their own separate public hearing before a standing legislative committee (the Republicans rejected Shankland’s amendment). I criticized Shankland’s proposal, because it would not outright prohibit Walker or whoever else is Wisconsin Governor once Walker leaves office from proposing public policy in state budgets. Shankland responded to my criticism of her proposal via Twitter:

@AaronApolloCamp thanks for your feedback, it's a "low-hanging fruit."ALL policy should be out, but GOP just voted against a public hearing!

— Katrina Shankland (@RepShankland) July 9, 2015

Anyone who holds political office, is running for public office, or is thinking about running for public office should take note of Shankland’s response to my criticism of her. She didn’t talk down to me, she didn’t belittle me, she didn’t attack me, and she didn’t try to change the subject. Instead, she directly addressed my criticism of her proposal by saying that she thinks that policy measures don’t belong in state budgets, and she defended her proposal by saying that the Republicans voted against allowing public hearings on policy proposals.

Katrina Shankland has been very respectful to me, even when I’ve disagreed with her, which isn’t often.

Wisconsin Democrats’ bill regarding policy provisions in state budget doesn’t go far enough

Wisconsin State Rep. Katrina Shankland (D-Stevens Point), the assistant minority leader of the Wisconsin State Assembly, has proposed legislation that would change how policy provisions in Wisconsin state budgets are dealt with by the Wisconsin State Legislature, but the proposed legislation would not outright ban policy provisions in budgets.

Currently, all provisions in the Wisconsin budget, whether it be budget provisions or policy provisions that have little or nothing to do with the budget, are handled by the Wisconsin State Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee (JFC). If Shankland’s bill were to become law, policy provisions of the budget would be handled by standing committees of the Wisconsin State Legislature responsible for the area of policy in question.

Maybe it’s because I’m from Illinois, and I have zero tolerance for any kind of BS from politicians, but I think Shankland’s bill doesn’t go far enough. In fact, if I were a member of the Wisconsin State Legislature, I’d vote against Shankland’s bill for not going far enough to crack down on Scott Walker’s abuse of the Wisconsin state budget process.

Wisconsin Governors of recent times, most notably Jim Doyle and Scott Walker, have used the state budget to enact policy measures with little oversight. Shankland’s bill would give Walker, and any Wisconsin Governor who holds the office after Walker leaves it, explicit power to enact policy provisions that have no place in the state budget and should be considered by the Legislature as stand-alone legislation. Currently, Walker doesn’t have explicit power to propose policy in the state budget, but there’s no legal ban on the practice. The only way that the Wisconsin state budget process is going to be free of policy provisions that aren’t fiscal in nature is for the practice of the governor proposing policy provisions in the state budget to be explicitly banned. State governors shouldn’t be using the budget process to legislate from the governor’s mansion. In my home state of Illinois, the state government is currently shut down because a Republican governor is using the state budget to try to force a Democratic-controlled state legislature to support non-fiscal policy items that the governor supports. What Shankland’s bill in Wisconsin would do is effectively condone that practice in Wisconsin instead of prohibiting it there.

One can push for all of the accountability for bad ideas that one wants, but they’re still bad ideas.

A country music and NASCAR-loving atheist responds to Si Robertson’s offensive remarks about atheists

Si Robertson, who is a member of the cast of A&E’s Duck Dynasty, publicly claimed that atheists don’t exist because the calendar that we Americans use is based on Jesus Christ:

Duck Dynasty star Si Robertson doubts the existence of atheists. The TV reality show star recently said that he doesn’t believe it is possible for a person to not believe in God but still use a calendar.

“There’s a lot of skeptics,” Robertson told the Christian Post. “I don’t believe there’s such a thing as an atheist. Because there’s too much documentation. Our calendars are based on Jesus Christ.”

There’s two reasons why Si Robertson’s claim is absolutely false:

1. Atheists do exist, in fact, I’m one of them. I like country music, NASCAR, and some other aspects of Southern culture, but I don’t believe in God; I believe in reality.
2. The only part of the Gregorian calendar, the civil calendar of the United States, that is based on Jesus in any way is the number of each year, and even that is inaccurate. This is because year 1 in the Gregorian calendar is supposed to represent the year in which Jesus was born, when, in reality, Jesus is believed by scholars, who have studied the Bible and events that occurred in the Roman Empire during and around the time of Jesus’s life, to have been born approximately 4 to 6 years before year 1 in the Gregorian calendar. The months of the year were all named by the Romans, and the days of the week were named after objects in our solar system.

You can view my video response to Si Robertson’s offensive remarks about atheists, featuring me speaking in an Southern accent instead of my normal voice or my announcer voice that I normally use in YouTube videos, here:

Why Bernie Sanders is the Democrats’ most electable presidential candidate

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has become one of the toughest tickets in America, and he backed that statement up once again by drawing several thousand people to a political rally in Portland, Maine, a city with a population of 66,194 people.

You might be asking yourself…why is Bernie Sanders gaining so much support? Well, long story short, Bernie is actually the most electable presidential candidate that Democrats could nominate, and there’s a number of reasons why:

• Bernie is a progressive – When I say that Bernie was progressive before it was cool, that’s the truth. Bernie has stood up for workers’ rights, LGBT rights, progressive taxation, and other progressive ideals for decades. With America becoming more and more polarized politically, Democrats need someone who stands up for progressive values to be the party’s standard bearer.
• Bernie talks about ideas – The political hallmark of Bernie is that, when he talks about politics, he talks about actual political issues. While far too many politicians and the corporate media view politics as if it were a sporting event or a soap opera, Bernie talks about actual issues that affect the American people, such as infrastructure, the environment, income inequality, and college affordability.
• Bernie is consistent – Throughout his decades-long political career, Bernie’s views on most political issues have gone unchanged. Very few politicians can claim that.
• Bernie is not a puppet for the wealthy – Bernie is for the people, not the billionaires. In fact, his campaign has received its financial support from people donating small amounts of money to his campaign, and his campaign message has reflected the fact that he’s not for the billionaires.
• Bernie inspires people – Bernie has drawn large crowds to rallies in places like Madison, Wisconsin and Portland, Maine. That’s because his campaign message and platform resonates with a large segment of the American population
• Hillary Clinton is too insular to win the general election – While I’m not a fan of the corporate media in this country, operatives for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign recently used a lasso to keep the media away from Hillary at a parade in New Hampshire. The fact that Hillary thinks that she can win a presidential election while her operatives treat members of the press like cattle gives you a general idea of how much of a trainwreck Hillary’s campaign is, and the fact that Hillary has run an insular campaign so far isn’t helping matters at all.
• Berniementum has left no room for Democrats other than Bernie or Hillary to gain traction – The rise of Bernie’s presidential campaign has made Bernie the progressive standard-bearer against Hillary, the Democratic establishment’s candidate for president. That leaves other Democrats running for president without any ability to build a political base, and they don’t have any chance of winning the Democratic nomination.