Polling trajectory still shows Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic nomination. In U.S. history, there has never been a president elected by American voters who possessed the negative favorability ratings of Hillary Clinton. According to CNN, 57% of Americans find Clinton "not honest and trustworthy" and one CNN poll states 55% of Americans have an "unfavorable" view of Clinton. Ironically, every one of the polls citing Clinton's enormous lead also show that voters don't trust the former Secretary of State; a reality that undermines each of these poll results.
Even without ongoing controversy surrounding emails, I explain that Hillary Clinton is unelectable due to negative favorability ratings in this Huffington Post article and in the following YouTube segment.
Bernie Sanders has every right to address the ongoing FBI investigation of Clinton's emails, as well as every other controversy linked to the former Secretary of State. While Clinton tried to turn Sanders into Ted Nugent during the first debate, and even accused him of sexism, it's within fair play to address relevant issues with Clinton's wisdom and judgment. At least with Sanders, he won't have to make anything up, since all of these controversies are widely publicized.
On Google, "Hillary Clinton email" is the second set of search words that pop up after "Hillary Clinton."
The average American couldn't get a job if a resume read that emails were being investigated by the FBI, so the Vermont Senator should address this controversy.
In addition, Sanders should address all of Clinton's controversies, from foreign donors to weapons deals and other issues. There's a lot to work with, and to ignore the obvious won't help Democrats or the future of our nation. This is a presidential race and Sanders would only be addressing relevant issues with judgement, not "going negative."
Not everything is Benghazi. The FBI isn't part of the GOP. My motivation to write and vote only for Bernie Sanders is explained in this YouTube segment. I'm not getting paid by the Sanders campaign. For the record, I have a great deal of respect for everything Hillary Clinton has accomplished, however I have serious concerns about ongoing scandals and other issues pertaining to a possible Clinton presidency.
If the shoe were on the other foot, and Hillary Clinton faced an opponent whose personal server and emails were being investigated by the FBI, it's doubtful the Clinton campaign would refrain from addressing an ongoing scandal.
Furthermore, we already know that Hillary Clinton used a 3:00 a.m. ad against Barrack Obama in 2008 that contained a "racist sub-message" according to one Harvard sociologist. According to Orlando Patterson in a New York Times article titled The Red Phone in Black and White, the Clinton campaign engaged in a suggestion of racism and innuendo during the 2008 election:
I have spent my life studying the pictures and symbols of racism and slavery, and when I saw the Clinton ad's central image -- innocent sleeping children and a mother in the middle of the night at risk of mortal danger -- it brought to my mind scenes from the past. I couldn't help but think of D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society. The danger implicit in the phone ad -- as I see it -- is that the person answering the phone might be a black man, someone who could not be trusted to protect us from this threat.
...The ad could easily have removed its racist sub-message by including images of a black child, mother or father -- or by stating that the danger was external terrorism. Instead, the child on whom the camera first focuses is blond.
... It is striking, too, that during the same weekend the ad was broadcast, Mrs. Clinton refused to state unambiguously that Mr. Obama is a Christian and has never been a Muslim.
So, not only did Hillary Clinton utilize a hint of Islamophobia, but her campaign used an ad with a "racist sub-message." So much for not going negative, and Clinton's advertisement was the Democratic equivalent of the GOP's 1988 Willie Horton ad.
Add to Clinton's 3:00 a.m. advertisement the fact that her campaign receives money from prison lobbyists, in addition to the reasons Clinton waited almost three weeks to address Ferguson, and we have a candidate who might easily lose a large demographic of voters during the primaries.
As for the weapons deal controversy, not many people know about this issue, but it should be addressed in 2016. An article in Mother Jones titled Hillary Clinton Oversaw US Arms Deals to Clinton Foundation Donors highlights potential ethical issues:
In 2011, the State Department cleared an enormous arms deal: Led by Boeing, a consortium of American defense contractors would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, despite concerns over the kingdom's troublesome human rights record. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, Saudi Arabia had contributed $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, and just two months before the jet deal was finalized, Boeing donated $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to an International Business Times investigation released Tuesday.
...IBT found that between October 2010 and September 2012, State approved $165 billion in commercial arms sales to 20 nations that had donated to the foundation, plus another $151 billion worth of Pentagon-brokered arms deals to 16 of those countries -- a 143 percent increase over the same time frame under the Bush Administration.
Yes, these arms deals are potential issues with ethics and morality, especially when nations linked to instability are also linked to Clinton's foundation.
As for the entirety of the foreign donor issue, a Washington Post article titled Foreign governments gave millions to foundation while Clinton was at State Dept. highlights a potential conflict of interest:
The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration, foundation officials disclosed Wednesday.
... The Washington Post reported last week that foreign sources, including governments, made up a third of those who have given the foundation more than $1 million over time.
...Foreign governments and individuals are prohibited from giving money to U.S. political candidates, to prevent outside influence over national leaders. But the foundation has given donors a way to potentially gain favor with the Clintons outside the traditional political limits.
Yes, the foundation accepting millions of dollars from foreign governments, while Clinton was serving as Secretary of State, could be an ethical dilemma.
Then of course, there was once a recollection of being under fire. While the Brian Williams saga cost him his job, it's odd that few people remember Clinton doing something similar. A New York Times article in 2008 titled Clinton 'Misspoke' About Bosnia Trip, Campaign Says highlights a moment where recollection clashed with reality:
The Clinton campaign says Senator Hillary Clinton may have "misspoke" recently when she said she had to evade sniper fire when she was visiting Bosnia in 1996 as first lady.
She has been using the episode as an example of her foreign policy bona fides.
"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia," she said last week. "There was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady.
"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
Sadly, Brian Williams wasn't given the same opportunity to simply say that he "misspoke" about his recollection.
Of course, when FBI Director James Comey says he is "personally following closely" the investigation of Clinton's emails, Bernie Sanders has every right to utilize this fact during an election. It is possible that these scandals correlate to poor judgment, and Sanders has every right to address issues with Clinton's decision making. From emails to weapons deals and foreign donors, Bernie Sanders should address every concern pertaining to controversy and ethical issues related to Hillary Clinton. If the email scandal reminds Bob Woodward of Watergate, voters should be informed of the similarities.