Pro-Hillary PAC attacks Bernie over his health

Although the official Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has not yet begun airing any attack ads against Bernie Sanders (despite a promise from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that Hillary will do so), a pro-Hillary political action committee (PAC) called Correct the Record is going on the attack against Bernie in the form of television ads:

Pro-Clinton super PAC Correct the Record will begin airing attack ads, calling for Senator Sanders to release his medical records.

The new assault on Senator Sanders comes as the polls tighten in Iowa, and he holds a commanding lead in the first primary state of New Hampshire.

The ad will reportedly call for Sanders to release his medical records before Iowans go to caucus on February 1st.

Presumably, the ad will air in Iowa, and possibly other early primary/caucus states as well.

This is a disgusting invasion of Bernie’s right to medical privacy. If Bernie and/or an outside group supporting Bernie ran attack ads calling for Hillary to release her medical records, I’d be just as disgusted and outraged. If a presidential candidate wishes to release his/her medical records, that’s his/her own prerogative. If a presidential candidate declines to release his/her medical records, that’s he/she reserving his/her right to medical privacy that is afforded by federal law.

This is different than, for example, tax returns, which, in my opinion, should be public record (currently, federal tax returns are not public record, although there may be some states where state tax returns are public record), and I call for all presidential candidates, regardless of party affiliation, to release at least 10 years worth of federal and state tax filings, if they have not already done so.

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Rahm Emanuel hiding emails from the public

Remember when Rahm Emanuel promised to make Chicago’s city government more transparent? Well, he’s certainly not living up to his promises:

Heading into the final days of campaigning for re-election, incumbent Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has faced intensifying criticism for being too close to the city’s financial elite. Precisely how close, though, remains a matter of conjecture — and most likely will remain so until after the Tuesday runoff vote. That’s because Emanuel’s administration has for weeks blocked the release of correspondence between his administration and one of the Democratic mayor’s top donors, Michael Sacks. The administration has also refused to release details about tens of millions of dollars in shadowy no-bid city payments to some of Emanuel’s largest campaign contributors.

Yes, you read that correctly: Rahm Emanuel, who is facing a difficult re-election battle in this year’s Chicago mayoral runoff, is hiding emails between his administration and Michael Sacks, the CEO of the private equity firm Grosvenor and big-money Rahm donor. The fact that Rahm is hiding emails between his administration and one of his big-money campaign donors tells me that, more than likely, Rahm is hiding something that he doesn’t want Chicagoans to know about.

Let me make my position clear on public officials and email transparency: If it’s an email through a government email account, an email about government business, or both, it should be made available as public record. I am so sick and tired of politicians trying to hide their emails from the public eye. Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and many other politicians in both major parties have hid government-related email accounts and other online communications from the public. Now, you can add Rahm Emanuel to that growing list of secretive politicians.

If you live in Chicago and want someone who will restore integrity to the city, please vote for Chuy Garcia. The runoff election will be held Tuesday.

Democratic Party of Wisconsin praises likely Republican presidential candidate and misogynist employer Jeb Bush in a tweet

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which is supposed to be promoting Democratic candidates for various offices in Wisconsin, sent out a tweet praising Jeb Bush, a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in next year’s presidential race who recently hired a rabid sexist to run his campaign’s technology operation should he run for president:

Today @JebBush released hundreds of thousands of emails, while @ScottWalker refused questions from the press. #transparency

— Democratic Party WI (@WisDems) February 10, 2015

While I admire transparency in politics, I find it highly inappropriate for a state-level Democratic Party organization to use its social media accounts to praise Republicans, which is far too common in the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Past examples of Republican praising by Wisconsin Democrats include U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, 2014 Democratic Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, and 2014 Wisconsin State Senate candidate Martha Laning, among others, running TV ads praising Republicans, as well as numerous Democrats and many progressives praising former Republican Wisconsin State Senator Dale Schultz. Also, for the DPW to praise Jeb Bush for transparency is absolutely asinine, especially when one considers the fact that, in the document dump that the DPW apparently referenced, Jeb revealed the social security numbers of many Florida residents, which is a major violation of people’s privacy.

The DPW’s pro-Jeb Bush tweet and the culture of Republican praising that is far too commonplace in the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is one of many reasons why Mike Tate, Jason Rae, and Chris “Boss” Abele, which is what I like to call the troika of Wisconsin Democratic politics, as well as the rest of the joke of a “leadership” team has failed Wisconsin Democrats on many levels and absolutely sucks at political messaging.