Hi Everyone. I'm cross-posting this from Daily Kos but this is my first post here so please be patient while I learn the formatting instructions. I'm gong to have to retrieve the link codes in a second pass but I hope people can start with this. HD

In a surprising development, the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel has just published an editorial challenging Hillary Clinton's qualifications to be our next president. I’ve doubled checked that this appears to be a reputable newspaper. If it is not I will take this down. This story may be highly upsetting to many so I’ve taken care to try to stick to the facts and figure out what is going on here. I’ve kept any opinions of my own out of this report although I am a Bernie Sanders supporter. But also a Democrat who will fully support our Party’s nominee which seems likely to be Hillary Clinton in November.

Noting that in a democracy that openness and honesty is the “foundational building block of the republic" an editorial in the Wisconsin Journal, entitled Clinton's abysmal record on open government questions Hillary Clinton’s suitability to be president.

As we noted Tuesday, Republican front-runner Donald Trump is not one of those candidates. But neither is Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Her horrible track record on transparency raises serious concerns for open government under a Clinton administration — so serious we believe they may disqualify her from public office. We hope Wisconsin voters give this issue the consideration it deserves when they go to the polls on Tuesday.

In addition, regardless of Clinton's excuses, the only believable reason for the private server in her basement was to keep her emails out of the public eye by willfully avoiding freedom of information laws. No president, no secretary of state, no public official at any level is above the law. She chose to ignore it, and must face the consequences.

The Wisconsin Journal quotes from this Sunday’s Washington Post article by Robert O'Harrow Jr. which reported that Clinton and her aides continued to use their Blackberries for State Department work even after being warned by the NSA not to.

"Throughout, they paid insufficient attention to laws and regulations governing the handling of classified material and the preservation of government records, interviews and documents show. They also neglected repeated warnings about the security of the BlackBerry while Clinton and her closest aides took obvious security risks in using the basement server."

The Journal also refers to a series of devastating revelations from the conservative Judicial Watch which received a favorable ruling from U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, in their Freedom of Information Act suit, who stunned observers by granting Judicial Watch a highly unusual limited right of discovery to depose current and former members of the State Department including most of Clinton’s immediate staff.

legitimate questions have been raised about whether Clinton's staff was trying to help her to sidestep the Freedom of Information Act.

"We're talking about a Cabinet-level official who was accommodated by the government for reasons unknown to the public," Sullivan said. "And I think that's a fair statement: For reasons heretofore unknown to the public. And all the public can do is speculate."

"This is all about the public's right to know," Sullivan added.

This is just one of dozens of Freedom of Information Act suits Judicial Watch has before the courts. They are also suing to have the draft indictment from two decades ago that was dropped made public. You may remember Judicial Watch as “central headquarters” of the “vast right wing conspiracy” that has been hounding Clinton since the days of WhiteWater. They are now $20 million/year institute with over 400,000 supporters who have been waiting to oppose HIllary Clinton for most of their adult lifetimes.

The Journal notes Clinton has a long, well established pattern of behavior of trying to evade public disclosures citing five examples discussed last year by Pro Publica, as well as her refusal to release the transcripts of her speeches to banks citing the The New York Times:

"Voters have every right to know what Mrs. Clinton told these groups.... By refusing to release them all, especially the bank speeches, Mrs. Clinton fuels speculation about why she's stonewalling," the Times editorial said.

In closing the Journal asks voters to think long and hard.

Clinton has a long track record of public service but an equally long record of obfuscation, secrecy and working in the shadows to boost her power and further her ambition. We encourage voters to think long and hard about that record when choosing the next president.

A fair question for ourselves is “should we be paying any attention at all to these kinds of developments that are negative for our candidates?” As I noted here last week, we will pay a high price if we create for ourselves an intentional blind spot about negative news.

We need to discuss and better understand the details of such stories so we can use our collective intelligence to develop our best responses. When there are errors our internal experts can correct them and educate the rest of us on how best to respond when our right-wing friends bludgeon us over the heads with these developments in social gatherings.

I ask readers to adhere to the highest level of restraint and respect for other commenters. We are all on the same team here. We also have to acknowledge that while anything is possible, as of this moment, the numbers suggest that Hillary Clinton may very well be our nominee in the general election. We all should be focused on learning what the facts are so we best know how to manage this situation for the best of the Democratic Party.

This comment section should be equally safe for Clinton and Sanders supporters.

Please no gratuitous name calling. For example, instead of calling an adversary an “blithering idiot” try instead saying “someone with tremendous opportunities for learning and self-improvement.”