Corporate masters want Clinton as US president: Journalist

The corporate masters want Hillary Clinton as president of the United States, and they are using many different tools to fix elections in order to put her in the White House, an American anti-war activist and journalist in Maine says.

Bruce Gagnon, the coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday, after US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' campaign called widespread reports of voting irregularities in New York state "a disgrace."

Clinton, a former New York senator, took 58 percent of the vote in New York on Tuesday, winning 139 more delegates, while Sanders clinched 106 delegates.

After the win in New York, where 247 delegates were up for grabs in the Democratic primary, the Clinton campaign declared that Sanders has no pathway toward victory.

“In the year 2008 New York state primary, Barack Obama won only one county out of 64 counties in Hillary Clinton’s ‘home state’ of New York. This time around, Bernie [Sanders] took 50 counties, and Hillary only won 12,” Gagnon said.

“We turned to CNN the other night just after the polls closed in New York at 9:00 pm and heard the report that exit polls -- normally considered reliable -- were reporting that Clinton won the race 52% to 48% -- only a four percent margin.  Anything that close would be considered a 'huge' loss for Clinton,” he added.  

“But then later we learnt that Clinton won the primary by a margin of almost 58 percent for her and 42 percent for Sanders. So I can’t help to wonder what happened to those exit polls,” he stated.    

Sanders votes got lost

“There were reports that some New York City precincts opened two hours later then they were supposed to, and would-be voters whose names couldn't be found on registration lists were sent packing without being able to vote,” Gagnon said.

“Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that ‘a number of voters said they showed up at their usual polling sites to discover the site has been moved without any notice whatsoever,’” he said.

“The New York City Comptroller says that the [New York] City Board of Elections ‘confirmed’ that ‘more than 125,000 voters in Brooklyn were removed from voter rolls.’ No figure is given for the many who were removed in New York's other massive Boroughs -- Queens, Manhattan, etc.,” he noted.

“So what happened to all those votes? They got lost. They were not allowed to vote,” the analyst said.

Incompetence, or systemic suppression of voting process?

“Now is all this just gross incompetence, as some people would like to say, or are we witnessing a systemic suppression of the voting process across America?” Gagnon asked.  

“For me, having lived in Florida during the infamous 'hanging chad' election in 2000, when George W. Bush stole the election, I am clearly convinced that the corporate oligarchy uses elections to create the illusion of democracy but that they use many different tools to fix, or rig, elections to put in place the candidates that they sponsor,” the activist stated.

“Forget the fact that in New York 30% of eligible voters across the state were not allowed to vote at all because they are 'independent'.  Even Bernie Sanders, who has been relatively quiet during these recent rigged primary elections in places like Arizona and Nevada, the other night said, ‘I am concerned about the conduct of the voting process in New York.’  It’s a pretty mild statement for sure but at least he finally said something!” he said.

“The corporate masters want Hillary Clinton as president and they know that the vast majority of the public does not like her. So they knew they had to come up with an even more hated Republican candidate who voters would fear so much that they'd hold their noses and pull the lever for Clinton.  Thus we see the reason that Donald Trump is in the race and will likely be the Republican nominee that will face Clinton in November's general election,” the journalist pointed out.

Will Sanders betray his voters?

Elsewhere in his remarks, Gagnon said, “It will be interesting to see if Bernie Sanders turns around and endorses Clinton after the Democratic 'super delegates' hand the nomination to her.”

“Millions of people who have thrown their hearts and souls behind Sanders will have a big decision to make -- do they betray the call for 'revolution' by voting for Hillary or do they turn to the Green Party – for example -- which offers the opportunity to keep the momentum going for building a real and much needed revolution in the United States of America?” he concluded.

Sanders, whose campaign was boosted by landslide victories in Alaska, Washington, Hawaii and Wisconsin, was hoping to cut further into Clinton’s lead in New York.

Sanders has long been critical of US foreign policy and was an early opponent of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clinton, in contrast, is almost universally recognized as being far more hawkish and inclined to use military force.

Sanders, 74, is also a leading proponent of issues such as income equality, universal healthcare, parental leave, climate change, and campaign finance reform in the US.

However, the incomes of Bill and Hillary Clinton put them at the upper end of the top 0.1 percent of earners in the US population, according to government data. The exorbitant pay for light work can distance them from the realities most Americans experience at their jobs.

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