Spice gull: seabird turns orange after falling into vat of curry Guardian (Richard Smith)
Rescue for orphaned bear cub hiding in apple tree Siberian Times (guurst). Many cute photos.
New Fossils Hint ‘Hobbit’ Humans Are Older Than Thought National Geographic (furzy)
Archaeologists discover massive Petra monument that could be 2,150 years old Guardian
Massive sinkhole engulfs street and causes gas leak in Canada’s capital, Ottawa Independent (Chuck L)
What About this War on Meat? Big Picture Agriculture (km)
Natural Gas Is Already Losing To Renewables OilPrice
Ransomware and the New Economics of Cybercrime Atlantic (resic)
CBS and its (new?) Matrix trick OffGuaridan (margarita f)
The world lost more than $13 trillion last year because of war Washington Post (furzy). I am sure resilc would have something tart to say about this….Update: He obliged by e-mail: “But the number of new Teslas and designer olive oil shoppes in DC has expanded greatly.”
China?
China says its propaganda just isn’t strong enough Washington Post
A Steel Mill Lives Again, in a Setback for China New York Times
The use of ECB liquidity Bruegel
Flat-pack policies: new Podemos manifesto in style of Ikea catalogue Guardian (YY)
Ireland Abortion Ban Violated Woman’s Human Rights, U.N. Panel Says New York Times
Brexit?
Brexit might trigger run on Britain’s record financial debts, S&P warns Telegraph (martha r)
Brexit and the UK’s euro-clearing exposure FT Alphavile (Richard Smith)
Britain’s defiant judges fight back against Europe’s imperial court Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph (Chuck L)
Syraqistan
‘The Way to the Spring’ is a sobering look at Palestinian life and resistance in the West Bank Los Angeles Times (Judy B)
Why the U.N.’s Decision to Cave Under Saudi Pressure Matters American Conservative (resilc)
One Man’s War, Bringing Iraq to America TomDispatch
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
US intelligence wants real-time behavior monitoring software engadget (guurst)
How Even the FTC’s Lead Technologist Can Get Hacked Wired (Robert M)
Clinton E-mail Tar Baby
Emails in Clinton Probe Dealt With Drone Strikes Wall Street Journal. Lead story.
White House calls FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails a ‘criminal investigation’ Daily Mail (martha r)
2016
How It Begins PA Progress. Martha r: “Rallying cry. Good quotes from MLKing toward the end.”
Democrats Will Learn All the Wrong Lessons From Brush With Bernie Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
Bernie Sanders White House Driveway Remarks CSPAN. It sounds as if he will stump very hard v. Trump, which means for Hillary.
What’s Next After Sanders? Seeds of Political Movement Building teleSUR (martha r)
Where are the Missing California Primary Votes? Counterpunch (martha r)
Was there a “Secret Win” conspiracy between AP and Clinton’s team? Sure looks like it…. Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Elizabeth Warren’s Facebook Fans on Clinton Endorsement: Noooooooooooo! Mother Jones (furzy). A guy in the gym who reads NC pulled me aside in the gym last evening to say how bothered he was by Warren “selling out” and he was afraid Sanders would do the same.
Elizabeth Warren on Donald Trump – Secretary of Shade Doesn’t Need VP Rumors Charles Pierce, Esquire (resilc)
Bill Clinton May Have Encouraged Donald Trump to Run for President Vanity Fair
Why don’t more women like Hillary Clinton? Financial Times. I’m offended by the identity politics, that I should support women because they are women, particularly when Clinton herself has done no such thing. I’m stunned that older women support her as a professional who supposedly broke barriers, when she rode Bill’s coattails. See Identity Politics and Interest Ian Welsh (martha r). “Being gay, or female or colored is a really strong asset when dealing with most modern left-wing types because they tend to assume clustering, discount sell-outs and not understand that their assumptions are being used against them by con-artists.”
Hillary Clinton’s Truth Problem Atlantic (resilc)
Hillary Clinton’s State Department Gave South Sudan’s Military a Pass for Its Child Soldiers Intercept (resilc)
Donald Trump’s own lawyer donated maximum amount to Hillary Clinton campaign Independent. YY: “I think the weirdest part of this business is that the lawyer is allowing the client to publicly dis the judge presiding over his case. This is close to nuzzoid if not just pure brazen idiotic but fun behavior. Doesn’t the judge need to approve any settlements?”
Trump’s Business Tactics Left a Trail of Unpaid Bills Wall Street Journal
Anarchists for Donald Trump—Let the Empire Burn Daily Beast (furzy)
Leftists for Trump: What Is to Be Done About These Insufferable Nihilists? Slate (resilc). Doubles down on the Clinton campaign tactic of belittling those who find Clinton’s political positions unacceptable. And the bit about catharsis is pure projection. The out of tune Clinton version of “I am woman, hear me roar” earlier this week was about trying to give women a catharsis! Hello!
There Are More White Voters Than People Think. That’s Good News for Trump New York Times. MS: “Also a lot of Latinos self identify as white.” A top political scientist has said for a while to me privately that the identity politics strategy that Clinton has embraced would win in the primaries but lose in the general.
Trump’s Fundraising Plan Puts RNC in Control Wall Street Journal. So this is how the party hopes to bring Trump to heel, by controlling the checkbook. But will it work?
U.S. elections ranked worst among Western democracies. Here’s why. Washington Post (martha r). From March, clearly still germane.
Exclusive: Charles Koch and his company launch ‘end the divide’ ad campaign USA Today. Bill C: “Just….WOWLike Hillary, the Kochs can be anything…” He also provided a link to the Koch commercial.
Liberal lawmakers call for investigation into House panel targeting abortion providers Women’s Health Policy Report (Judy B)
Stanford Rapist Brock Turner Will Get Out of Jail Three Months Early Vice (resilc)
Gunz
Court Upholds ‘Concealed Carry’ Restrictions Wall Street Journal
Goldman Sachs is sponsoring a Scientology-based jail ‘re-education’ program — and it’s growing Raw Story (furzy)
Bill Gross warns over $10tn negative-yield bond pile Financial Times
WSJ Survey: Economists Sharply Lower Estimates of Job Growth in the Next Year Wall Street Journal
US Tax Receipts Signaling Recession? Michael Shedlock (furzy)
Guillotine Watch
You Won’t Believe the Latest Trend Among the Super Rich Alternet
Class Warfare
Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City New York Times (martha r)
Uber and Its Executives Are Fined in France New York Times
Antidote du jour (Richard Smtih). This lizard, an Argentine red tegu, has a fan club!
And a bonus video, from the Oregon Zoo. The story in FAZ (hat tip Tom F) says this has gone viral:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Comments are closed.
Followup on article I posted yesterday in the “water cooler”.
http://thebernreport.com/have-we-witnessed-an-honest-primary-election/
Same author; just rewritten for popular audience.
Original link to the paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6mLpCEIGEYGYl9RZWFRcmpsZk0/view?pref=2&pli=1
As I keep telling people, the United States of America simply doesn’t do open, fair and honest elections. It’s just not our thing.
The California Secretary of State’s election page is showing these voting results from Tuesday’s election, with 100% of precincts reporting and Clinton having been declared the winner.
Clinton 1,983,025
Sanders 1,532,707
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/president/party/democratic/
However, the California Secretary of State also has a page showing the ballots that have not yet been processed, mostly mail-in ballots and “provisional” ballots. At 5:16 yesterday afternoon, the total estimated unprocessed ballots stood at
2,586,331
http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/statewide-elections/2016-primary/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf
So in old school terms, we’ve got 56.7% of precincts reporting.
This is about the rate votes were counted in Cali’s first presidential election of 1852, when some of the results had to be delivered on horseback.
What I I wonder is, Were more votes counted coming off those horses’ backs than will be counted of the currently unprocessed 2.5 million ballots?
Here in San Francisco alone, there are about 54,000 unprocessed votes, mostly mail-in and “provisional” ballots. My sister expects her mail-in ballot to end up in San Francisco Bay, where ballots have been known to end up before.
No you have votes from all precincts maybe, just not from all voters in all precincts. But if so it is hard to explain, is it the mail in or the in person votes that are not being counted? It could be the provisional ballots but if there are actually THAT MANY provisional ballots – wow that would be amazing in itself as the rules to get a provisional ballot was indeed limited cases (you had a mail in and entirely lost it for instance – the official rules were limited to things like that). Was there a deadline to mail in votes? Are some votes still in the mail?
They say all votes won’t be counted till mid-July.
The above-linked “Estimated Unprocessed Ballots” are broken down by categories — 1,801,816 “Vote-By-Mail” ballots and 705,489 “Provisionals.”
Not sure about the deadline.
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration/vote-mail/
From what I’ve heard, on a radio show this morning (Your Call, on KALW, which included Brad Friedman, who follows electoral issues in the US), as you said, the votes that are not counted are the mail-in ballots and the provisional ballots. That radio show said. according to the Secretary of State, all those ballots will be counted by July 15.
If NPP voters received a vote-by-mail NPP ballot and wanted to, instead, get a “cross-over” ballot (e.g., a Democratic ballot) at the polling place, and did not bring the ballot they were sent to exchange, they would, as a matter of course, get a provisional ballot. That could be quite a few ballots.
The “100% of precincts partially reporting,” pointed to by Goyo Marquez yesterday and today, refers, at least, to those ballots that were cast at the polling stations that were not provisional—all those votes have been counted, again, according to that radio show, referring to the office of the Secretary of State.
Thank you, Jeff W, for those clarifications.
I meant to thank “marym” for locating and posting here yesterday the page of “unprocessed ballots.”
I had a friend suggest that the obvious solution to all of these voting “irregularities” is to take the matter to the Supreme Court. We all know how good they are with issues of electoral credibility. They can have Antonin Scalia write the decision.
The first link shows a time of (around) 7PM, 6/9/16 (i.e. last night).
The second link shows a time of around 5PM the same day when it (the whole file) was updated, but the components of the whole file, the various precincts or districts last updated a day (6/8/16) or two (6/7/16) before. Those numbers could have changed quite a bit when they did most (presumably) of their counting on 6/8/16 or 6/9/16.
Yes, I’d seen that and thought surely some of those “unprocessed” ballots have been counted before the latest results were posted last night. But I don’t think it’s been many.
I can’t find an archive for when the “100% of precincts” mark was officially reached, but I did find the news account below from 5:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, when 94% of precincts had reported. The totals were 1,841,285 for Clinton and 1,416,747 for Sanders. That’s a total of 3,258,032. The current total for Clinton and Sanders at the Secretary of State’s website is 3,515,732 — a difference of 257,700. But, again, that’s based on the morning of June 8 when there were 6% of precincts missing. The difference from the current figure would have been less than 257,700 when the 100% mark was reached.
But even with the 257,770 figure, there must still be well over 2 million unprocessed votes given the 2.5+ million figure in the report from yesterday afternoon.
http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2016/06/california_new_jersey_primary.html
Justice Thomas remains quite capable of channeling his mentor, Scalia.
Give him two votes on the court, I say!
As I tried to point out yesterday the Secretary of States page says, 100% of precincts partially reporting.
That seems a strange locution to me, designed, perhaps, to confuse people into thinking that 100% of the votes have been counted. If all precincts reported that they had counted 1 vote that statement would still be true.
It looks like this was another stolen election. Had the election been fair, Sanders would probably have won by a small margin.
What that means is that for the progressives to win, they have to win by a huge margin, something like 70%, which would translate into something like 55% with all the rigging.
I think if there are still around 2,500,000 votes to be counted right now, it would be dereliction of duty on the part of the Sanders campaign not to coordinate and mobilize their supporters to challenge the result.
Agreed.
It’s time for A FUTURE TO BELIEVE IN.
IT’S TIME TO REBEL KIDS OF AMERICA!
Soooooo MAKE IT SO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVCzpR0qVtA
I completely understand and sympathize with anyone who is against Clinton for any rational reason (it would be dishonest to say that there aren’t people out there who oppose her for personal or idiotic reasons, like she’s a Feminazi or just because she is a woman–such people certainly exist and I’ve run into them). What I have a problem with, as a socialist, a democrat, and a civil libertarian, are people who are for Trump. His statements on Scalia, his list of possible SC choices, his business practices, the fact that he peddled gambling to the most vulnerable among us, and his asinine statements towards Mexicans, Muslims, and handicapped people and about the minimum wage all preclude me from any consideration of voting for a man who has all the credibility of P.T. Barnum. Anyone who says that they support Sanders on principle and for his policy positions cannot say they support Trump for the same reasons. They can only do it out of opposition to, fear of, or hatred for Clinton, which is an entirely different thing. And for a Sanders supporter to try and make Trump sound like a good guy and a tribune of the people is just laughable. It’s the rush to rehabilitate Trump that is so dishonorable and foolish, not any reasoned opposition to Clinton. The distinction is important, because Trump has a very good chance of being president, and excusing his bad ideas and bad behavior before he even takes office is both immoral and bad politics. Give this schmuck no cover folks, because we are going to have to fight him on a host of issues come January 20th.
Not everyone supports a particular candidate for the same reasons. A person voting for Sanders could also vote for Trump in good conscience, as a protest against the failed political establishment. Other people have different priorities.
You suggest a protest (opposition) to Hillary. Exactly one of the reasons Levy says is, an entirely different thing (meaning legitimate).
Levy’s beef (if I understand it), shared by many btw, is about trying to rationalize, glamorize or otherwise Trump into something he isn’t to justify support; “Don’t fool yourself”. The subtext to that (again if I understand) is be aware of the poison you use to combat the Hillary poison.
The Trump option is meant to defy the iron law of institutions. If the Dems want to run a corrupt neoliberal rather than an honest New Dealer they need to see that their base will discipline them by refusing them power. I’ll take the bombastic newbie over the corrupt insider. Trump will spark defiance from across all corners and his worse excesses will be curbed. Hillary would actually get things done.
It seems counter-productive, but look at it this way- the Tea Party saved Social Security. Hillary style Dems will Grand Bargain us into oblivion while the ‘progressive’ establishment cheers at the seriousness of the ‘hard choices’. If Trump tried to do the same?
Exactly. Only a neoliberal “democrat” can dismantle the New Deal.
Which is why the neoliberal elites of both parties are trying to crush Trump in every way they possibly can.
I really believe this. But, I am one of those privileged people who can vote for anyone because I live in a deep red state. Or that’s what I’ve been told.
I wouldn’t put it past Trump to dismantle the New Deal if elected (Private accounts in the form of “The Donald Retirement Fund”.) Doing it as payback for GOP donor $$$ for the general election. Beware, the dude is a hustler, a schemer, who’s shown an ability to shift gears in policy on the campaign trail.
Well he’s on record for advocating devolving Medicare to the states which would destroy it (because most states have some funding problems and in addition a lot are red states and don’t want to fund social programs period ever regardless of budget concerns). Of course he changes his positions regularly but …
Only a Democrat could dismantle the new deal seems like wishful thinking to me. Yes they could. And so could Republicans.
Same logic applies to Bill Clinton. L’affair Lewinsky shut down his plan to privatize Social Security.
Agree. Well put. It’s just that I don’t really see James disagreeing with this pov – especially as you state it..
Be that as it may, I completely agree with you (particularly gridlock as the only effective option we have left) and am likely to vote for Trump for the additional reason that a vote for Trump is like two votes against Hillary. Obviously I don;t know just how bad Trump will be – not even Trump knows that – but I have a pretty grim idea of how bad Hillary would be including the ability of a Democrat to do to the safety net (not to mention privatization of all sorts of resources) what no Republican can. I am also of the mind that breaking the LOE cycle of implicit and helpless acquiescence to our own destruction is critical.
Thank you and exactly.
When Hillary says she’ll protect social security she means protect it by keeping it from going into default by cutting benefits, blah, blah, blah, blah, deficit, blah, blah, United States going broke blah, blah, blah, and etc.
I don’t think that it’s entirely a protest against Hillary, as a person, as it is against Hillary, for what she represents. The same establishment that has normalized the corruption embodied by Clinton is now telling everyone how horrible a person that Trump is, and how he would be a disaster. Taken from that point of view, I could see why people would consider supporting him, if only to stick it to that establishment. I don’t know if many of Trump’s supporters are really trying to rationalize him beyond the context of him being a protest candidate.
That being said, barring some strange turn of events, he will be the Republican nominee. The way that our system is set up, the simple fact of being the Republican or Democratic nominee provides legitimacy to that person. The safe outlet for protests to this system has been third parties. If ever a time was ripe for third party activism, it’s now. However, the reigning duopoly has managed to marginalize third parties as an effect political force.
Trump has found a weakness in this system, and he’s exploiting it. As reprehensible as he is, what comes after him could be far worse.
As near as I can tell, Trump is just hillary with bad manners and weird hair. Their actual stated policies aren’t that different, and much of what people fear from Trump, they’ve already *gotten* from Clinton. Frankly, I think she’s *much* more dangerous, because she has the establishment to implement her horrific notions. Trump will get tons of pushback, and hence is much less likely to succeed.
There really should be a version of Godwin’s Law for “think of the Supreme Court!” arguments on electoral politics.
Garland’s Law?
Going to have to steel that, TY
Trump is not a good guy or choice. But it you are an informed voter the only option left is a strategic vote. The Democrats cannot be allowed to win, else they are validated for their repugnant neoliberalism once more and for the crap they pulled all throughout the primary. They are the more poisonous of the two parties.
A strategic vote works one of two ways: either you abstain or vote third party/write in (one strike against the Democrats) or you vote GOP (two strikes against the Democrats).
I think Clinton needs to be defeated to put dynasty politics to bed (for now at least) and that the Democrats need to be embarrassed for abandoning people. Regardless of what comes out of Trump’s mouth, we know Clinton kills innocent people and that her overall regard for life is abhorrent. She is took money from all the usual suspects, then says she will fight CU. She plays deaf identity politics. She has zero convictions (unless it is about the military, I think that is true Clinton). She still has not released the Wall Street speeches, because they are damning, she wears clothing that cost more than some people can scrounge together in a year, then dares to talk about inequality…. and she is passing for the progressive Democrat!? Neoliberalism and its perverted justifications for conservative policies needs to be stamped out.
Lastly, at this point our country deserves what it gets, it had its chance and too many people let the neolib mantra whisper in their ear, but if I can possibly prevent even a few innocent people is some foreign country from being killed for nothing, I am damn sure willing to take that chance.
+++++++++++++++++++
Also, as I’ve said several times before in comments, we rewarded the Republicans for stealing the 2000 election with a second term for Bush and then rewarded the Democrats breathtakingly brazen treachery with a second term for Obama, Manchurian candidates, both.
So, yes, Richard, we’re getting what we asked for. And the small differences between Clinton and Trump are very unlikely to result in actual directional changes in policy.
If we don’t reject Clinton decisively, we can expect much worse than Trump in the future.
That is a great summary of 2004/2012!
So, yes, Richard, we’re getting what we asked for.
__________________________________________
No, to unseat Bush in his second term, Team Blue gave us Kerry! GWB term II should have been the easiest election to win in history – but Team Blue gave us Kerry!
Next, Team Blue gave us Obama – we got to vote for something closer to what we asked for. At least closer than John McCain – then Obama delivered the goods.
So I think we need to stop blaming the voter for the current state of the country. The deck is stacked. Not to mention the massive propaganda and brainwashing that goes on at the meta level.
I think one of the most important things the Sanders campaign is doing is passing down the lost generational knowledge to the young generation – it was once a somewhat different world out there. (at least for the white middle class. But there needs to be a middle class for any demographic group to have a middle class life. I think there is an economic rule – “Shit flows downhill.”)
RE elections and democracy — and “our country deserves what it gets:”
Seems to me that there’s this presumption that there’s a fungible mass of “qualified voters” out there who somehow should be expected (if only their votes were counted) to “”choose wisely” between two or three candidates. And that these candidates, when elected, would then cooperate to somehow “do better for everyone.” And that said voters could somehow organize into a force that could enforce enlightened policies. Given that most of us just struggle to get by and minimally get along, we are easy prey for those of a different bent and that magical combination of genes, schooling, networking and opportunity that enable the Few to so effectively disenfranchise and dispossess and plague us mopes now.
Might one opine that most of us mopes are not close to being “citizens,” even by operation of law (see NSA, Ferguson, MO and Flint, MI, etc.), let alone by diligent self-information on “the issues” and tracking all the myriad parasitic actions of the Few, with an eye to cooperating amongst themselves to keep the parasites from overrunning? And that there’s a Few who are, by inclination, training and opportunity, going to stick it to the rest of us? That as is always the case, the grifters and pirates are always going to be ahead on the “taking” curve, just as the criminals are always ahead of the mechanisms of enforcement (especially once they learn how to “capture” them for their own gain, rendering stuff “no longer illegal”)? And that small set of people, because they are motivated by self-pleasing and self-aggrandizement and the smug satisfaction of putting one over on the “there’s a sucker born every minute” category, and a few other drivers that are often named here, appear to have tapped into the main flow of the entropy stream and are riding it hell for leather, gaining energy and mass as the rest of us moulder?
We get lots of back and forth here, on the mechanisms of plunder and power. As with the nature of money, maybe it’s feckless to ask what motivates the Wolves of Wall Street and the David Petraeuses and Newt Gingriches and the Koch boys and jovial old Warren Buffett and of course the Clantons? Is their appetite for and capacity to “take pleasure” and accumulate clout and “stuff” just so huge, compared to the rest of us? What drives some humans to want “more” and aspire to “have it all, all of it, everything, reduced to ownership”? Words like sociopath and psychopath are neat labels the content of which can be debated endlessly — but what makes a Bibi Netanyahoo, or a Yasser Arafat? What are they gratifying with their Great Takings? “I am Ozymandias” doesn’t seem to be much of an explanation. Nor does this:
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43588
Inquiring minds want to know… Maybe even the people in the checkout lines at Walmart and Family Dollar… But of course the Few have done such a nice job of commandeering the means of communication and education and possession — is it just fortuity that all these ugly vectors (from the mopes’ standpoint) are all coming together just now, peaking as the planet is cooking and 13% of the World Domestic Product goes to “losses to armed conflict”?
Simply, I would like to hear why a relatively few humans go off so vigorously and successfully (their definition, not mine) after the pursuit of “more, more, more,” way beyond what I personally can conceive of as the limits of satiety, even to the point of triggering the collapse of the ecology and political economy that feeds them. Maybe understanding the drive(s) might point the way to some mechanism (short of finishing the process with megaton bursts of high-energy particles, release of hyperviruses, or reduction to “grey goo,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo, or any of the many other “tech solutions” that are on offer or on the way…
Good question. Maybe monkeys was the wrong species to evolve? I really dunno.
Kings or Warlords. Democracy or Republics or Oligarchy or Dictatorships. Will we ever do it the right way?
“What drives some humans to want “more” and aspire to “have it all?”
Your question recalls a scene from Key Largo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITs-YX1yQ7o
Johnny Rocco: There’s only one Johnny Rocco.
James Temple: How do you account for it?
Frank McCloud: He knows what he wants. Don’t you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Sure.
James Temple: What’s that?
Frank McCloud: Tell him, Rocco.
Johnny Rocco: Well, I want uh …
Frank McCloud: He wants more, don’t you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Yeah. That’s it. More. That’s right! I want more!
James Temple: Will you ever get enough?
Frank McCloud: Will you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Well, I never have. No, I guess I won’t.
Of course there is not just one Rocco
I keep thinking about this issue too. It’s like a socially acceptable form of hoarding. I don’t understand how they think.
I read a cool science fiction book a number of years ago. The basic premise was that a alien species has evolved to look the same, but a small segment of the population were actually predators. That’s what our society feels like today. There’s a small segment of the population that look like humans, but they’re not thinking or behaving like it.
The “off” humans have always been here, but create catastrophic problems when they’re given the opportunity to run amok.
Maybe we don’t need to understand what makes them tick, but rather acknowledge that they will always be there and design our society to protect against them. I’m not sure how to wrestle back control now, but if we figure it out, our next structure should better plan for the predators hiding among us.
I think this is the most germane point of all. If a renewed left is to rise it must live in new generation, a generation that has grown up with the media and its techniques and intuitively understands the manipulation, can deal with it. But that generation still has to be taught by those who came before (that’s what culture is). The Sanders campaign has at least waved the flag and caught the attention of a lot of people who were not aware previously, were asleep and now are not. The next challenge is to keep that alive into the next campaign, indeed to build a campaign that can maintain a continuous presence rather than forming something new each election season.
I wish I could agree with you when you say “our country deserves what it gets” but I’m not so sure…
If you mean, by “our country”, the Deep State and Wall St, Big Pharma, the F.I.R.E leadership, Educational Leaders, etc., then you are right considering they own the election process lock, stock, and barrel.
But if you mean Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. Public, then I can’t go along with that. We have been lied to incessently for the last 45 or more years on every front from the “economy”, to war, to privatization. And most have been working too hard or been too busy surviving (not including those that have been too busy “accumulating more”) to understand how they’ve been led by the nose by the perpetrators of our present overall situation.
And the present generation isn’t isn’t the first to realize too little, too late. I remember as a kid at the dinner table back in the early days of Nixon’s second term, my parents – both born in the early 30’s – saying, “My God, we were taught to trust our Govt, and we have been lied to.”.
It’s easy to say “it’s our own fault” but the average working stiff cannot be faulted (I believe) for trusting/believing in our leaders’ constant propaganda. Trust in leadership is the operative condition for most. It’s a lot to ask for everyone to run a family, run a work life, and on top of that, run a govt.
History has shown that generally It takes a long time for even the most intelligent of people to realize they have been betrayed.
Considering the state of national politics and economics today, I’m not too sure that it really matters who wins on a National level. The die of World Empire has been cast at least since the Spanish American War and we will continue to be generally screwed with either Trump (or his replacement if he hasn’t been derailed by by the Republican PTB by August) or Clinton, and I’m not sure “we deserve it” either.
(With all that said, I think the operative mode is fight locally, think globally; it really seems to be our only recourse)
Hillary and Trump are corrupt. What they’ll do for money and power does not suffer from restrictions. So are almost every member of the House and Senate, institutions which are virtually owned by lobbyists dispensing money in exchange for tilting the table a little further in their direction every session. There’s about 35 lobbyists for each member of Congress.
Whether to vote for Hillary or Donald is a proven con game called “pick the lesser evil.” You’re the mark. Guess what? The mark can’t win in this con. You can lose or you can lose — “Do you wish to be run over by a BMW or a Mercedes?”
The only win is to shut down the con — get money out of politics. You don’t like corrupt politicians? Give them no source of funds except their salary and a publicly funded stipend for campaigning. Forbid lobbying that involves money or promises of money or favors. Whatever it costs, it will be hundreds of times cheaper than what corruption costs us now.
People talk of a 28th Amendment to overturn Citizens United. It’s on the ballot in California in November. The basic aims are to end corporate citizenship, and end the flow of money into our politics. When politicians are paid by the public dollar, they work for the public.
Under such an arrangement, neither Hillary nor Donald would even run for dogcatcher. There’s just no money in it.
This is the answer. At least it has to be the start. Corporate money is the number 1,2, 3 problem. It’s made whores of nearly all of our politicians.
I partly agree. The Democrats are the more poisonous of the two parties when they are in power. Similarly, the Republicans are the more poisonous of the two parties when they are in power. The Bush administration is sufficient proof of this.
If it’s Clinton v. Trump, vote third party. We know that no third party candidate will win, but we need to provide 5% of the votes for the third party candidate, so the candidate and party can qualify for federal grant money.
The Democrats, rhetoric and sternly worded letters notwithstanding, are almost as poisonous when when not in power/in the White House.
The same is true of the Republicans when they don’t control the Executive branch. Witness the current Congress.
Question I probably posted way too late to yesterday’s watercooler:
Why can’t Sanders work with Clinton to defeat Trump by also competing for electoral votes?
During his campaigning could he not make it explicit that any electoral votes he wins he would use to effectively bargain for concrete demands?
Isn’t that the ultimate leverage, to hold electoral votes in your pocket?
Reply ↓
Are electoral votes transferable? Also, aren’t they winner take all–ish?
If so to the second questions I think that would just cause Trump ti win the state unless Sanders could pull an entire state.
All states except Maine and Nebraska are winner take all.
What exactly are “concrete demands”?
Close gitmo? Withdraw ftom Afganistan (iraq for that matter?)
Demands are meaningless unless there is a remedy for noncompliance.
News flash! No remedy
see “Hope and Changey”
Because what will really happen if there is no winner in electoral college votes is that the election will be thrown to the House of Representatives to decide – something that Sanders will have no control over. IOW, there is no I control how they vote in the electoral college.
Off damned troll!
You’re slipping, James. You forgot “small hands,” bad hair, thin skin (h/t Liz Warren) and a possible first lady with an accent.
And not one reason to vote FOR clinton. Not a single one. Your screed would have been far more persuasive had you been able to come up with just one.
Trump is the american Brexit–there is no calamity that his election will NOT be responsible for.
You’re really gonna need to up your game. I mean “peddling gambling to the most ‘vulnerable.’ ” Seriously?
Hold on–I’ve said repeated that I am voting Green, and I said repeatedly that the criticisms of Clinton policies are justified. She should not be president.
Why does any criticism of The Donald automatically make people like you insist that the person is therefore voting for Clinton? Did every criticism of Obama mean the person was voting for McCain or Romney? Are we supposed to simply overlook everything wrong with Trump BECAUSE HILLARY? That’s both politically and ethically pretty weak behavior.
Fair enough.
I guess I just didn’t see any green references and misunderstood your three clinton references. “People like me” tend to do that.
Forgive me.
“people like you”
JL, please, yes the current bad situation and everyone’s concerns are very intense, but let us try to avoid such language here. it works against the clear thinking and debate we so desperately need to exercise right now.
Yeah, I have to agree with James Levy here. He’s not saying anything crazy and he’s not supporting Hillary. His point is valid — vote for Trump if you think it makes sense strategically, but don’t think you have to actually defend the odious orange nightmare in order to do so. Can we please avoid “thought policing” each other on the NC forums? It happens almost everywhere else, I don’t want to see it here.
“thought policing”
are you referring to my comment on JL’s expression “people like you”?
Having lived in NYC for 16 years (1977-93) during the disturbing rise of the spectacle now known as the Donald and witness to his growing business presence and public persona which was then much as it is today, loud mouthed sociopath, voting third party or not at all is the only viable option. Trump says whatever suits him at the moment, no way of knowing what he’d do as president but he has a history and it’s pretty awful.
Trump was an acolyte of Roy Cohn when Cohn was the fixer in NYC. Cohn advised the Trump’s when they were alleged to be discriminatory landlords in Brooklyn. He also tore down the art deco Bonwit Teller building before the city gave him clearance, (to make way for Trump Tower). In that episode he exploited undocumented Polish workers engaging them to do low paying extremely hazardous demo work, not paying some of them. He had BT’s bas reliefs of ‘the dancing women’ jack hammered to avoid the cost of preserving them. He got a deal on mob concrete to build his distressing contribution to the early wave of popular culture’s embrace of luxury and decadence, Trump Tower, instead of steel construction at a time when the mob controlled the industry. He bought an occupied, tear down on Central Park South and attempted to cynically use homeless people to drive tenants from the building. His casino venture in Atlantic City and other construction projects had mob links.
The country is on the verge of building a third party responsive to a motivated constituency, one possible outcome that has emerged from the Sanders / Trump rebellions. Voting for Trump and expecting instead that the collapse of the Republican shell will end in a revitalizing chaos is nihilism and abandonment of the effort that went into the Sander’s campaign.
He did abuse Polish immigrants:
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/deal-sealed-trump-tower-suit-article-1.834028
I did several searches and didn’t find evidence that he tore down the building illegally. That is a very big deal in NYC and usually results in huge fines. When Bruce Eichner demolished a building (blew it up at night), my recollection was he was prosecuted criminally. More recently. Stanley Stahl demolished 2 townhouses on the Upper East side (tenements, really), without getting all the needed approvals and was fined $2 million.
Do you have a link on the illegal demolition?
Trump is no saint but the only controversy with bon/tel was he had suggested he would hand off the built in art work to moma then had them crushed without telling moma first…claiming the 32 grand and time lost was not within his money and time budget.
The choice this november will be to which speakeasy we are going to spend our next 4 years getting drunk and tooken by…
I’m wrong re: Trump did not have clearance from the city for the demolition. In searching for links and rereading articles from the Times and the News, there were forces at the time that wanted the building landmarked but the designation was years away and Trump had permission to demolish.
The building had an interesting history of ostentation from its end of the roaring 20’s inception in 1929, weeks before the crash, Eleanor Roosevelt presiding at opening ceremony. It was originally the Stewart & Co. store but bought by Bonwit Teller within a year and modifications were undertaken that stripped out much of the interior design work including, “murals, decorative painting, and a forest of woods: satinwood, butternut, walnut, cherry, rosewood, bubinga, maple, ebony, red mahogany and Persian oak.” Surreal? Salvador Dali was hired to do the windows. It’s history is reminiscent of the Thirties Screwball comedies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/realestate/fifth-avenue-bonwit-teller-opulence-lost.html
“The Bonwit Teller store is another lost landmark of the time when the 57th Street area was the home of suave and sophisticated shops instead of the brash hyperscraper. Designed in 1929 as the Stewart & Company store, it had an entranceway that was a stupendously luxurious mix of limestone, bronze, platinum and hammered aluminum.
Although there was a small outcry, the building was demolished for the Trump Tower in 1980. Protest came both too late and too early.”
http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Trump_Tower_New_York
More controversial at the time were city tax abatements, the bas relief sculptures on the facade and the nickel, geometric decorative grill, both wanted by the Metropolitan. Nothing was in writing and Trump could legally destroy the artifacts and of course he did.
Trump received tax abatements for the luxury condo part of the development, meant to encourage middle and low income housing. The city resorted to the courts, Trump was represented by Cohn who eventually triumphed in New York State’s Court of Appeals. The ever accommodating mayor Koch was quoted, “This is not your low-income housing project, which we need, but we need this kind of building as well… There’s nothing wrong with being rich.”
I agree — vote third party!
The Republican party is barely on life-support; now it’s time to dismantle the Democrat party.
Or do we actually prefer another 4 to 8 years of the SOS? I hope not.
So it’s the MIC^2 vs. the SDs (social defilers, i.e., a significantly deviant failed state) (q.v.: Humanity re: Kissinger’s successes)
Who’m I kiddin’?
What’s so hard to understand James? The economy is tanking as we speak and desperate voters do desperate things. If you have not worked for a year (or woefully under-employed) a certain amount of unconscious game-theory goes on in the head. Yes I fully supported Bernie Sanders as the only viable way forward. With the Bernie option off the table the budding anarchist shows it’s colors and the “volatility voter” emerges. Trump is a hand-grenade. As a side benefit he will bring chaos to both parties should he win.
As of now, I plan to vote for Jill Stein. If the Republicans had nominated a Bush, Cruz or Rubio, I might have been more inclined to give in and vote for Hillary. As awful as Trump is, he’s not a Bush. He makes this election more of a throw of the dice. What’s clear is that we need a big change in direction. Hillary won’t do it. Trump may just turn into MxConnell’s tool (Obama is never more overjoyed than when he can be McConnell’s bitch). But maybe he’ll blow the machinery into little pieces. Anyway, I’m voting for Stein.
So am I. Maybe she’ll get enough votes to persuade tepid progressives the Greens can be a viable third party. I know: fat chance, right? But that’s what this election has come down to for me, at least.
The Greens will never be viable under the two-party chokehold. I was thrilled to hear Stein support the ranked choice voting initiative in Maine last night on Democracy Now! That would jar the door open.
I am no fan of trump (though I will vote for him to stop hillary), but “asinine statements on Mexicans and Muslims” he may very well believe the racist things he says about minorities, but what he says crassly, amount to the same things mainstream democrats (hillary/obama) do politely and under the table.
Hillary fully supported the policies that lead to more deportations under obama and the democrats than gwb and the GOP, and the new policy of imprisoning them for 6months beforehand. Hillary is in and has been a prime mover in pushing for and increased military presence in the mideast and murdering more people there, again we don’t know what trump will do (though he seems isolationist, which freaked out the beltway). So we know hillary has and wants to murder Muslims on a larger scale than Obama, to me it seems like maybe Muslims wouldn’t want to come to the US anyways if we stopped destroying their countries. something we KNOW hillary will continue to do.
Trump wants to ban Muslims which is stupid and racist, hillary will bomb them in their homes, but it’s not I your face like trumps racism so some people prefer we allow a murderer to kill them (albeit out of our view and thus out of mind for many) so they don’t have to face the evil our country perpetuates halfway around the world.
Business practices: This one made me laugh, yes trump is bad (exploits workers, and cheats people), but come on hillarys better? She has been insider trading, taking money from foreign govs. to get them arms to kill innocents (think Saudi Arabia in Yemen) and uses a “charitable” foundation to take bribes and launder money, how is that better? It seems worse to me.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone on NC trying to “rehabilitate” trump, a firm belief backed with evidence that he may very well be better than hillary has been expressed though.
Trump is crass and in your face, you can’t ignore the facts of the bad, that the US does horrible things. He pops people’s bubbles by exposing these things, while hillary allows one to maintain a level of blissful ignorance because the evil shite she does (and has done) stays just below the surface.
Again we KNOW hillary based on actions, Trump is unknown (and really you cannot get worse than hillary). I’ll take in your face racism, which also allows me to better confront the injustice and exposes to those in their bubbles that the injustice still exists (besides hillary supports what amounts to the same level of racism, she just doesn’t make you face it). If it means we stop killing Muslims, poking Russia and expanding neoliberalism. Over the neoliberal warmonger hillary any day.
So why is hillary better than trump? I want facts and proof of action not “he’s bad, goooo tribalism.”
Where on these boards have I defended Hillary Clinton or said she is in any way good? Please show readers.
I am sick and tired of every attempt to point out the deficiencies in Trump being met by Obamabot-like attacks and BUT HILLARY! pearl-clutching. Being against trump is not being FOR Clinton. Or did you all leave your critical faculties at the door?
David Sirota on Twitter had to tweet a basic bit of common sense:
“Telling the ugly truth about Hillary does not mean you support Trump.
Telling the ugly truth about Trump does not mean you support Hillary.”
I’ve been REPEATEDLY attacked on Twitter with the old Nader attack: A vote for Jill Stein (or anyone BUT Hillary) is a vote for Trump!
I’ve also been accused of being a GOP troll, happy to have a fully conservative SCOTUS, etc. I have to explain over and over that the only way a Trump appoints ANY SCOTUS judge is with support of Dems.
Makes no difference. Only the Prez matters and it MUST be Hillary.
Oh oh let’s not get *racist* here Mr. Trump, after all Obama and Hilary just LOVE brown people, they tend to hold still as drone targets, they don’t moan very much when you topple their governments (Honduras, Brazil), and they vote for you in the US even when all of your policies have been devastating for them. Yes siree Team Obama/Clinton is *for* brown people all right.
Kinda like people gasping when Trump says we should target the families of terrorists while people just yawn as Obama does exactly that day in and day out.
“What I have a problem with, as a socialist, a democrat, and a civil libertarian, are people who are for Trump.”
I am generalizing here, but I don’t think anyone here is “for trump” (to me the man is a dim narcissist) they are against hillary, all she stands for, and the destruction both economic and military she wants to unleash. Unfortunately the only effective way to stop her at present is through trump.
“It’s the rush to rehabilitate Trump that is so dishonorable and foolish, not any reasoned opposition to Clinton.”
Again I have not seen anyone here trying to “rehabilitate” trump, his faults are regularly addressed. Is not “supporting trump” (a misnomer, he does not have my support, he has my vote against hillary though) the only effective and “reasoned” opposition to hillary that currently exists at present?
I have never seen a comment of yours saying you have a problem with people who are for hillary, so by default (possibly wrongly) I took your comment as a another look how bad trump is (ignore all hillarys faults), hillary is the better choice. Hopefully I’m wrong.
If you are sick and tired: apply reason to your situation, take a break, and heal yourself. This primary season has been exhausting.
To whose honor, exactly, are we bound? My goal in this election is left-democratic policy. I’m sure your study of history has shown you that it is most often non-compliance that adjusts the balance of the status quo, for better (e.g. civil rights for Blacks, women’s suffrage) or worse (California Proposition 13, regulatory capture).
1. We stay home, and they ignore us. We comply and vote Establishment, and they ignore us. We comply with civic duty and vote third party, and get told to shut up, grow up, and suck it up as befits our station. We comply and vote in the primaries, and they ignore the vote as “advisory”. We try to elect someone from the left edge of the Establishment and we get that vote stage-managed, thrown and delegated into meaninglessness. Where and how is there left to send the message, if not by chokehold?
2. Maybe the GOP will be more receptive to left entryism after the business-moderates follow the Pantsuited Piper to bluer pastures. (A double-replacement reaction. Better living through chemistry!) Who knows what might happen to the Democratic Party once those faith-based promises to take policy under advisement in exchange for our vote have been clarified as hollow. I get the sense the battered-spouse vote (“I’ll stay with them so I can help them behave nicer”) is not insignificant.
I agree, but I also understand that Trump and Sanders do share an appeal to those fed up with the status quo. Sure, Trump is a charlatan. So is Clinton. It’s a wash. None of above.
BTW, the breathless “Oh, woe, what will become of the Supreme Court if Trump wins?” letters to the editor have already started to appear in our establishment newspapers. All the better (in the eyes of an editor, I’m sure) if they come from someone who prefaces their remarks as a die-hard supporter of Sanders. Right.
These same editors, of course, couldn’t be bothered to print letters in support of Sanders from those same Sanders supporters last week, or last month. But now, well, it’s time to unite!
Bernie Sanders is free to do as he wishes. So can his supporters. This Sanders supporter will absolutely, and under no circumstances, vote for either Trump OR Clinton. And I’ll just have to satisfy myself that I can only say this publicly on the open internet.
The same for her. I’d vote for Trump before Obama, so it’s not hatred of Clinton.
absolutely, nothing about trump is palatable. his sins, however, are pretty average for that level. who the greater evil is is fairly subjective, but nobody should have to vote for evil.
Actually James i know NO ONE agaist HRC specifically because she is female, and i interact in a prettydamn diverse crowd. What circles do you run in?
I don’t know anyone who has said that no woman should be President, but people are sometimes very careful about what they say. I suspect there are Muslims, fundamentalist Christian dominionists, Rappers, Orthodox Jews, and Mormons who would never support a woman for President.
I oppose Hillary Clinton because she’s crooked, not because she’s a woman. I oppose Trump for similar reasons.
Here’s a thought James, voting in Trump might make the democrats act un-neoliberal and actually do their jobs as democrats. We get HRC in there and all manner of evil will be allowed by both parties, as was in the case of Obomber. How about a real enemy for the democrats? One that throws their mid-deeds in their faces. Or even better, is more to the left of them on many issues – will that cause them to try to re-take the high ground of actually representing the people? If they’re going to force Hellery on us knowing she can’t win against Trump in the general, instead of someone we know would win, why should we reward them by voting in the worst candidate, just because that’s who they want. Not saying I’m voting for Trump but I do see more than a few benefits in doing so. Unless Killery adopts many or most of Bernie’s non-neoliberal stances on important issues, what’s there?
She’s going to have to win my vote – she’s not going to get it just because she says she’s a democrat. That means little nowadays. She’s going to have to prove it. I can’t stand to think of more neoliberal policies for the next 8 years. I want a progressive and she’s no progressive.
Possibility exists that the Libertarian ticket may come out of nowhere. They are at 12% now—if they get to 15% (that’s probable) they will get in the debates. Who knows what will happen then? Inasmuch as almost everybody hates the dems and repugs, the Libs might win.
Gary Johnson is a fraud and a hack and in no way should have been allowed a second chance at complete failure. He lied about his campaign finances in the last election.
Plus, he’s very close to the execrable private prison industry. Vote third party, but never for Gary Johnson.
Word. NM now littered with groundbreaking heartlessness sown by him.
Johnson is a Republican turned libertarian which is code for he just wants Bruce Springsteen or his particular non country band of choice to like him.
I’m not saying I LIKE Gary Johnson, I’m saying they might have to let him and Weld into the debates, where they will probably look good compared to Trump and HRC.
Weld might look good, dunno. I’ve seen (and heard) Gary Johnson, and he never will.
Jill Stein would look really good. Unfortunately, the Green Party, of which I am a member, seems to me to be just pathetic. The Greens have the best candidate and the most hopeless party structure. I hope my party will prove me wrong on this.
Clinton has participated in drone bombing decisions.
Trump has not participated in drone bombing decisions.
I believe that drone bombings are among the most evil actions taken by our country.
Clinton has participated in the arbitrary destruction of nations.
Trump has not participated in the arbitrary destruction of nations.
I believe that the arbitrary destruction of nations is evil.
Clinton and Trump have both participated in many immoral and narcissistic and otherwise questionable activities.
Listing arbitrary crap from Trump speeches isn’t quite as powerful (to me) as the fact that Hillary as SoS was despicable.
note that sanders, if elected president, would continue the use of drones.
———————————
The U.S. lethal drone campaign would not come to an end if Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) entered the White House, the presidential contender said on Sunday,
In an interview on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Sanders indicated that he would limit the use of drones so that they do not end up killing innocent people abroad, but declined to say that he would end the targeted killing campaign completely.
“I think we have to use drones very, very selectively and effectively. That has not always been the case,” Sanders said.
“What you can argue is that there are times and places where drone attacks have been effective,” he added.
“There are times and places where they have been absolutely counter-effective and have caused more problems than they have solved. When you kill innocent people, what the end result is that people in the region become anti-American who otherwise would not have been.”
SOURCE “sanders: i wouldn’t end drone program,” the hill, 8/30/15.
——————————–
and somehow i am not persuaded by sanders’s logic on this one.
I feel like an idiot for leaving this out. I am not exactly happy with Betnie’s foreign policy. But he is in the category of Trump … He hasn’t carried out the droning….
And who knows (with either of them) when confronted with the finality of those decisions what they would do. With Hillary, we know.
This is sort of a truism. If there are a bunch of terriorists living in caves on an Afgan mountaintop, drones may be the most effective way to go. Weddings and hospitals, not so much. The common problems we’ve had in the ME from day one are:
1) Terriorists don’t wear shiny red uniforms with bulls eyes printed on them.
2) They like to use “human shields”.
3) Many times it’s “guerilla warfare” in urban environments.
We don’t really have the technology for that.
Sanders has said the ME needs to figure out what to do about that. (not that it would be pretty either – but the USofA can’t deliver on “pretty”.)
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
The way I see it, anything that contributes to a Clinton restoration is both immoral and bad politics.
If Clinton were running against the devil, we should all make favorable reference to Lucifer wherever and whenever we can.
I agree with you Mr. Levy.
You know, I love Bernie. I love what he stands for. I hate neoliberals and their smug Martha’s Vineyard meritocracy and thus believe wholeheartedly in Tom Franks positions in Listen Liberal. We HAVE lost our way, and I worked hard in my State to see Bernie and true liberalism succeed.
However, I’m going to giggle when Bernie comes out and tells everyone to drop the pretense and work for the good of the party to defeat Trump. And he will, just watch. Why? Because like Liz Warren he’s an adult. Because he is a shrewd politician. Because he’s been around long enough to know the unmitigated disaster that would be a Trump presidency. If Hillary doesn’t get the message that has been sent to her during this primary, we make her a one term president. But in the mean time, we don’t hand the SCOTUS to the enemy, and we don’t endorse a racist.
Thus, to all the “punish the Democratic Party by voting for Trump” folks that frequent this blog, two words …
Grow up.
Bernie’s supporters are not sheep, they are independent, progressive voters.
If Bernie chooses to endorse Clinton, I would be very surprised if more than 40% of his base follows.
I would much rather have bogey man Trump elected and an honest fight from progressives for his four years in office, than another eight years of voter apathy under Hillary.
I don’t think Bernie will endorse Clinton though, he knows that it is not about him and his presidential campaign, as remarkable as that was. It is about creating, and sustaining, a movement of the people to take back America from the billionaires.
Hate to break it to you webstir but james levy has a lot more credibility here than you do, and at least he has the intellectual capacity to put forth the foil (thankless task that it is). Inoculating your lame defenses of hillary by claiming to be a bernie die hard doesn’t logically follow because hillary and bernies policies are not the same, or even similar, and your demands that we grow up and get in line sound awfully familiar, no? You can be an anyone but trump voter if you wish, if you want others to follow you there, you’re going to have to do more than moralizing. Liz Warren apparently did not endorse bernie because she had her eyes on VP, she has been republican and don’t forget has a pretty banker friendly view of student loans. I didn’t support her for bernies VP and am not too surprised she’s thrown in with hillary. What policies do you see hillary/warren ticket supporting that the average bernie voter will be able to support? Leave your punching bags out of it (trump and all of us infantile bernie supporters) and focus on selling your lipstick larded pig, and yes, voters who are not represented have not just the right but the responsibility to punish a party that claims to support them but does not. That’s right i said responsibility, as in, be a grown up and stand up for what’s right. You say we’ve lost our way, how will hillary get us back on track, you seem to think she represents some kind of change, what will she change?.
We bide our time for four years while holding her feet to the fire. If she acts like you think she will, then it should be easy to primary her out four years from now with a more liberal candidate (Bernie again maybe, Liz Warren, Feingold, Jerry Brown, etc., pick your flavor). Time is on our side. Hillary’s (and the Republican’s white bread Ozzy and Harriet’s) baby boomers are going the way of the dinosaur. In the mean time, we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. That, as I said earlier, would be childish.
And who needs intellectual capacity to put forth this argument? It’s a no brainer. All your high minded rationalizing doesn’t change the simple fact that you’re willing to trade a known loser outcome, for an unknown idealistic outcome. You know who is willing to give up ten dollars later for one dollar now? A five year old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification
Oh oh she’ll be soooo scared, you’re going to “hold her feet to the fire”. Kinda like Her Majesty herself, who says she went to Wall St in 2008 and ‘told them all to please cut it out”.
I can imagine the cackle laugh after that statement…and the follow up statement “and by the way please send my check to Citibank #123456, account name Hilary Antoinette”.
Thank you for pointing out that your argument does not require intellectual capacity, I would have to agree. A definition of rationalizing here:
“attempt to explain or justify (one’s own or another’s behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true or appropriate”
As you in your case rationalize clintons obvious weaknesses by arguing that it’s ok because trump. For you, in your childish eyes that see your view as the only view, I can understand that it’s a “no brainer” because you can’t conceive of other positions, but they exist nonetheless, as astonishing as that will certainly seem to you, my child. I’m not trading clinton for trump, or vise versa, I won’t vote for clinton because of her policy positions. Trump is another story for another day, the issue remains clinton supporters can’t sell her on her own merits. Bide your own time. And lastly, since you haven’t noticed, there’s no baby in the bathwater to throw out, it’s just a bucket of bathwater, and it’s anybody’s guess what they were washing off in there.
web-stir is a clever name.
The last 3 presidents having served 2 terms would kind of make one skeptical of the odds of Hillary being one term (and W was widely unpopular, O was somewhat unpopular. And Dems lately haven’t even been running primary opposition – Sanders is his own thing, he ran himself).
On the other hand the economy may well tank and lead to unexpected results Of course those unexpected results could be ever more R gains in congress.
Ah here it is. It was inevitable of course. I suppose in your strange little universe Hillary Clinton isn’t a racist. You know, the woman who called black youth “super-predators”, and who has the blood of more brown people on her hands than Genghis Khan.
I have an alternate view of adulthood for you: an adult doesn’t whitewash the evil that some do under cover of technocratic rationalizations. Evil is evil. Hillary Clinton is evil. And racist. And a technocratic fascist.
Bernie Sanders may endorse Hillary and work to elect her. That’s his choice. He’s made other choices that allowed him to stay on the inside in D.C. that I have questioned. But I never supported Sanders for his own sake but for the policies he espoused. When he stops supporting those policies I stop supporting him. You see, adults don’t glom onto personalities, we approach action rationally and thoughtfully. And we prefer outright racists to closet ones. Outright fascists to crypto-fascists. With Trump there’s at least a chance we’ll drop these disastrous trade deals and avoid war with Russia. With Hillary it will be more war, more trade deals, more neoliberal privatization and financial domination. Thanks but no thanks. And if the Dems are so worried about Trump’s court nominees they should do what the Repubs do: refuse to vote on them. There, fixed. This adult is taking his toys and going home.
I loved Bernie’s speech after he met Obama the other day, where he said “we are doing something no other campaign is doing: we are telling the truth”.
Doesn’t exactly sound like a ringing HRC endorsement to me
I am sick and tired of this horrendous type of vote shaming!
Shame the hell on YOU! How dare anyone try to shame me into voting one way or another. Last time I checked, the voting booth was still mine. So take your vote shaming elsewhere, thanks.
Yes. In a [ostensibly] democratic society I find vote shaming hard to defend. Unfortunately, an earful of shame shall be had by all, judging from the tone of the election. :-(
Amy Goodman played a clip this morning from E. Warren’s Trump shaming speech. I felt I was hearing the voice of Septa Unella shaming Cersei Lannister (Game of Thrones) on her walk of atonement. Manipulative moralizing mocks civility. Perhaps some people feel it’s ‘acceptable’ from ‘authority’ figures. In me, it raises nothing but suspicion.
Hmmm. Being unable to prevent her from being the Dem nominee ensures being able to deny her a second term. Fascinating concept, that.
And, “SCOTUS,” to boot. Can you not detect a bit of “get in line, if you know what’s good for you,” in that?
How would we make Hillary a one term president without at least voting a Republican in 4 years? Maybe it won’t be Trump, it will be Rubio or Cruz or etc.. Those might be more to your taste and who you would rather appoint judges.
But if you think the Dems are going to run a serious candidate against Hillary next time, good luck with that. They hated she even had competition now, and other than independent Sanders she didn’t.
“Grow up” means be a servile nothing brown nosing for plutocrats and bending over is called “growing up”. Could your grow up be any more subservient to the powers that be if it tried to? Brownnosing is called adulthood.
Grow Up?
Clinton’s border wall comments came in response to a question from an audience member who asked “What you think about securing the border with some of the illegal immigrants that come in?”
“I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in,” Clinton said “and I do think that you have to control your borders.”
Really… what makes her so different from Trump?
(and the above does not necessarily mean I’ll be voting for Trump)
Webstir said: “But in the mean time, we don’t hand the SCOTUS to the enemy, and we don’t endorse a racist.
Thus, to all the “punish the Democratic Party by voting for Trump” folks that frequent this blog, two words… Grow up.”
Webstir, Hillary Clinton IS the enemy. The Democrat Party, whose sitting president just nominated a Republican for SCOTUS, and which is the WAR party, the end-welfare-as-we-know-it party, the privatize-whatever-the-Republicans-want party, the spy-on-every-American-NSA party, the kow-tow-to-Wall-Street-part, and so forth, IS the enemy.
So wake up and GROW UP buddy — and vote third party.
In my grown-up opinion, Trump poses the greater risk of riots in America whereas Clinton poses the greater risk of nuclear exchange with a backed-into-a-corner Russia. A nuclear exchange with Russia would be less survivable than riots in America. The grown up thing to do is to vote for Trump as the best possible way to keep Clinton out of office.
Unless of course Clinton changes between now and November into a no-risk-of-war-with-Russia candidate. It would be the grown up thing to do to recognize that if if happens. Right now, is there any reason to think it would happen?
The reason Trump is doing so well against Clinton is not that he is a far right racist. I read one article where a reporter followed Trump throughout Ohio. He was amazed that what he heard during Trump rallies did not jive with what was reported in the MSM. Trump spent the entire time talking about jobs and trade. Little mention of Muslims and Mexicans.
The fact that Trump’s rhetoric has positioned him to the left of Clinton in trade and foreign policy (less military confrontation) is the reason he could take the election. The MSM doesn’t want to cover those issues. The Establishment wants Clinton and will try to paint Trump as more of a lunatic than he actually is, as hard as that may be.
It’s both, that he is a prejudiced demagogue appeals to some and that he does talk against TPP and military adventuring appeals to others.
Dunno who here believes a word he says though…
And the percentage here who believe a single syllable uttered by Madame Clinton is…?
Two. Percent.
According to a scientific poll.
Hillary will get into office & with repubs pass everything bad for all but rich. Trump will need to fight to get anything done. He will air the dirty laundry. We middle/working class cannot win, so stop playing the game. “Monster” vs Hillary=vote for monster. Remember what Bill said, who cares what progressives want, they have no where to go.
Don’t be afraid & stop falling for it.
I love to taunt my female friends who are going to vote for Hillary “because she’s female” or “to give their daughters a role mode” by proclaiming:
“I’m going to vote for Trump because he’s a man”.
A few months ago, while I was phone banking for Bernie, I reached a hardcore Hillary supporter. And why was she going to vote for Hillary? Because she’s a WOMAN! And because having a WOMAN! in the White House would be so transformative.
Yes, she did use that word.
Needless to say, I ended the conversation quickly.
You know, its too bad nobody thought to say “having a JEW! in the White House would be so transformative.” I wonder how the Womanists would have responded to that? Too late to know, now.
As long as you don’t mis-construe my vote for someone other than HRC as a “vote for Trump,” then we can agree to agree.
James, can you reference the type of posts that you find most egregious?
I see lots of people who have claimed they will vote Trump because they are anti-Hillery (and have reasons to be so). The responses to your post seem to confirm that. If memory serves, many of those posters also resist certain strands of anti-Trump propoganda. Which seems like a reasonable thing to do, or at least there can be difference on the issues amongst reasonable people.
Those are not the people you seem to be complaining about though. So perhaps you could be more specific/precise in your articulation of the problem?
James, in case you return to this later.
I didn’t read every comment above below your first post but I did read most and scan all, and I think you have unearthed a truth that maybe you haven’t got your arms around: While I agree than no good socialist would vote for Trump, what made the Sanders’ campaign special was that he attracted the support of many people who are not socialist. This is the way it has to be. This country can’t wait until we have a socialist majority to elect a socialist president (yes, I know he is not really socialist). We need an uncorrupted socialist as president ASAP and that means a socialist candidate who can attract the votes of lots of non-socialists.
Bernie didn’t kill it this year because the country turned socialist. The country turned socialist because Bernie killed it. And he killed it not so much because of the socialism per se, but because of other traits and positions (personal integrity, no corporate funding, single payer, anti-Wall Street). Elizabeth Warren is less of a socialist than Bernie but she would have probably run on many of the same issues. The great thing about Bernie as a candidate compared to Warren is that he proudly accepted the “socialist” moniker, and so did more to promote the concept of socialism than probably all the rest of us over the last 50 years put together.
So while many Bernie supporters are now much more curious and/or positive about socialism, that still probably accounts for less than half of all Bernie voters and supporters. The rest have different economic politics, or undeveloped economic politics. I don’t find it at all surprising that many of them find Trump the best of the options left.
Latest SMBC comic: Responses to a Goose that Lays Golden Eggs
Reposting this from yesterday’s watercooler comments (hat tip Buttinsky)
Over 2.5 million ballots not yet processed in CA democratic primary (CA SoS website).
Unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf from Californian Secretary of State website .
So Clinton was declared the winner with less than 2 million votes out of 6 million. WTF*!?
From above link:
State law requires county elections officials to report their final results to the Secretary of State by July 8, 2016. The Secretary of State then has until July 15, 2016, to certify the results of the election.
Another good and galling account of voting fraud in CA:
http://justicegazette.org/bernie-defrauded-in-ca.html
We been robbed!
+ !
Wow… what the hell is going on here… or there?
***blinks and shakes head in dis-belief***
There’s been a lot of whacky stuff that has happened this primary election season. But calling the state with 40% of the vote still outstanding seems BEYOND anything (even worse than the Puerto Rico voter suppression story, which was remarkable, but it’s still Puerto Rico).
October surprise???? Bernie won CA?!?!?! Now THAT would really swing the election toward Trump!
It’s the law of stealing elections: Declare yourself the winner early and often.
If the final vote tally shows you lost, the other guy is a “spoil sport” and “whiner.” (And this is ONLY if the story comes out)
Right now the establishment has until July 8th to get Bernie out–remember one of the main arguments for staying in was that he had momentum by winning California. When he wins, that argument gets stronger again, but if he’s beaten down and/or conceded the whole thing before then then the argument is moot and muted.
If the tally gets closer, they’ll still probably need to fudge the count, just to be sure.
It wasn’t Sartre or Malcolm X who invented “By Any Means Necessary,” it was TPTB.
From the Justice Gazette piece linked to above:
“June 7, 2016. California. The Justice Gazette reporters and others are conducting an investigation into voting irregularities and the theft of Bernie Sanders’s apparent California landslide victory by those supporting Hillary Clinton. According to popular actress Frances Fisher, a lawsuit is being prepared to require the counting of all the provisional ballots. If this lawsuit is successful, the actual vote count is expected to become known and Sanders will likely have a landslide victory in California.
The theft of California hasn’t deterred Sanders from his course. He has promised to fight on while noting it is a steep uphill climb. Given all the states where vote fraud in favor of Hillary Clinton has been allowed to swing primaries from Sanders to Clinton, it is in fact a steep uphill climb to restore democracy and force the now undemocratic Democratic Party to nominate the man the vast majority of American voters have voted for or tried to vote for.
It has been learned from poll workers that 50% to 90% of voters who were supposed to have been eligible to vote in the Democratic primary were told they would have to vote provisional ballots. There were two irregularities leading to the forced use of provisional ballots instead of regular ballots. The first was that previously registered voters’ names had been removed from the rolls. The second was that someone (in most cases, not the voter) had marked them as vote by mail voters but they had received no ballot in the mail. Oddly, virtually all of those not allowed to vote and forced to vote provisional ballots were Bernie Sanders supporters. ”
Don’t concede Bernie!
I’m Canadian, so I don’t have a horse in this race, but following California Sanders supporters seem to (rightfully) be depressed, and without a motivating narrative or coordinated idea of what to do next to work towards the ideal goal of a Sanders nomination, other than taking it to the convention (some individual groups like that nurses union are presumably continuing their own plans of action). So how do you think Sanders supporters who are unhappy or unwilling to support Hillary best articulate their dissent to accomplish as many of the following goals as possible?:
1) To negate the expectation of tribal conformity, especially among independents or policy based Sanders supporters. (Hillary “won”, you’re on our team so support her/she’s the lesser evil)
2) Transition from focusing on the primary to winning the general election. (“winning” the primary doesn’t mean she’s the candidate with the best chance of winning the election)
3) Framing the dissent in a way as to minimize the ability of critics to ignore it as sour grapes or as an appeal to an unjust process. (She got more delegates, you lost, deal with it)
4) Improve morale and sense of purpose among Sanders supporters so they continue working/organizing prior to the convention and beyond in order to aid the following:
5) Give Bernie Sanders as much leverage as possible to use to convert super-delegates before the convention, and influence policy/extract public promises from Hillary at the convention.
6) Position Sanders and his supporters in the best possible way to benefit from any Hillary disasters before the convention. (email investigation, foundation investigation, or emboldening any investigators to leak documents if the investigations get sidelined, etc.)
7) Dissent in such a way as to not be condemned as helping Trump win (Sanders has been adamant about stopping trump, and super-delegates would generally need this too)
8) Dissent in a way that retains or at least doesn’t alienate Sanders supporters who will vote for Trump over Hillary, and sway undecided voters to support Sanders in polls before the convention.
9) Frame a Hillary loss in November as HER loss, not a failure of Sanders supporters. (this is Ralph Nader all over again, Trump is your fault).
10) Provide an effective and motivating narrative for organizing to punish Hillary super-delegates in the event of a Trump Win.
11) Aid Sanders and his supporters ability for post-election organizing for building new groups, institutions, and support infrastructure to provide an alternative to the Democratic Party, to promote progressive priorities, and prevent future appeals to lesser evil-ism.
The idea I keep coming back to is how to convey her lack of a positive vision/voting for something, while highlighting her lack of support among independents (who are assumed to be centrists and easily gained by moving to the center despite many being Bernie or bust). Also, how to scrap the idea that Trump is an evil clown and that Hillary will easily beat him, instead emphasizing that her supporters are still underestimating Trump and that his strength with the electorate (and her weakness) will be the cause of her defeat.
What are peoples reactions to the view that instead of seeing her as a another Clinton, or a third term for Obama, Hillary is actually just a much more damaged version of Al Gore? He was qualified, had no large personal scandals, and he was running with a fairly good economy. His campaign didn’t have a strong positive message, which would have helped to get more people (especially independents) to vote for him, though George W Bush did have such a message but wasn’t thought to be a tough opponent. Hillary is worse than Gore in multiple ways. How is this going to end better for Hillary and her supporters than it did for Gore and his supporters?
When addressing Hillary supporters and eventually super-delegates: If you could go back in time and run a candidate who polled with a ~10% better chance of beating Bush instead of Gore (but had received slightly less of the nominating delegates), wouldn’t you? Would you do that now? Her unfavorability ratings aren’t going to get any better, the campaign is going to be a mud slinging competition which is Trump’s strength, and she continues to give him ample ammunition. Nominate Sanders or we’re going to get an election that’s worse than a replay of the 2000 election, and Trump will win.
Does this put the focus on her weakness against Trump compared to Sanders, or will it just invoke a rant about Gore losing because of Nader and comparisons of Sanders to Nader?
What else can Sanders supporters say or do to accomplish the things listed above? Should these goals even be priorities at this point? Is it worth it to still push for a Sanders nomination?
Concerning Gore, Democrats hate to admit this, but he had one major flaw. He rose to prominence because of his last name. His father was a great man who fought racists and the supporters of a negative peace in the South. His father is how the Solid South was broken. Gore on the other hand embraced triangulation actively avoiding conflict..
Unlike Shrub who was a black sheep, took over the Texas GOP in a hostile takeover without his daddy’s backing, and defeated the Ann Richards machine, an impressive defeat, what did Gore do except peddle his last name that showed semblance of the qualities necessary for a candidate? Bill and Hillary might be lucky in their enemies, but they came up together. Gore simply demonstrated he was a policitican’s son.
Just to be clear, Democrats have under estimated Reagan and Shrub because they didn’t like their views ignoring they weren’t entirely unimpressive before they were President. Trump is next.
a republican winning in texas by smearing the democrat hasn’t been impressive since the south left the democrats. if the chimp didn’t have his father’s backing, that didn’t make a great deal of difference in texas because he had the support of the more rabid conservatives that have dominated state politics there.
What? In 1993, Texas had a Democratic Governor and a Democratic Senator. Shrub reorganized the GOP, brought on Democrats, and challenged the Richards machine.
They weren’t elected in the first place by accident. Richards out spent Shrub. You can blame the voters, but Democratic losses almost always start with under estimating their opponents a day expecting smugness to win, coincidentally this was Richards’ strategy in 1994.
texas had been in the process of turning republican, like the rest of the south, since the early 70’s. a lot of the democratic politicians simply changed their party affiliation. phil graham was one of the republican senators in 1993, and kay bailey hutchison became the other when she replaced lloyd bentsen. i don’t recall shrub being give credit for reorganizing the state republican party, but he got the benefit of the state republican machinery, including karl rove, who typically smeared richards as a lapsed alky and drug abuser. as for reagan, he was always something of an empty suit, but as we’ve seen with obama that is not always a handicap in politics.
yes but Gore Senior did have one outstanding quote, talking about one of his colleagues he said “he has all of the qualities of a dog except loyalty”
Thanks for your Canadian view. I agree with most of your points. I think that the most valuable way of pointing out that a person can’t support her is “dynasty.” I’m testing that on my FB page this morning. As Yves has pointed out many times, HRC is the wife of a former president. She has had hardly an independent existence. (And Rahm is Bill+Hill’s love child.)
So dynasty as lack of qualifications (the idea that she has a record to run on is ludicrous), dynasty as anti-feminist (who’s next? Barbara Bush?), dynasty as a sign of a republic in (terminal) decadance.
“11) Aid Sanders and his supporters ability for post-election organizing for building new groups, institutions, and support infrastructure to provide an alternative to the Democratic Party, to promote progressive priorities, and prevent future appeals to lesser evil-ism.”
in addition to our endless back-and-forths about the convention and the general, let us remember that presidential politics, at this point in time, are unlikely this year to yield much other than more of the same we’ve seen since the 1990s (or whenever you date the neoliberal dem sellout/takeover).
with that in mind, i propose we fund lambert strether to attend the people’s summit 6/17-19 in chicago to observe and report back.
this gathering is the continuation of the occupy movement (a movement of movements) as it seeks to grow and pick up on the energy and organizational power of the sanders campaign. i know of no one better equipped than our lambert strether to give us the immediate information we need on this historic event. historic because it will indicate, and determine, to a significant extent in what way the sanders movement will continue.
“portions” of the summit will be livestreamed, but only a keen observer, such as lambert, on the ground can capture and give us the whole picture. more important than what the speakers say will be what the attendees do and how they do it, and the only way to know that is to be there. and be the powerful bullshit detector that is lambert.
http://www.thepeoplessummit.org/
Great idea. Kinda short notice for Lambert, tho.
@ Canuck. “Does this put the focus on her weakness against Trump compared to Sanders, or will it just invoke a rant about Gore losing because of Nader and comparisons of Sanders to Nader?”
This was the argument going on at my house last night!! It invoked a rant about Gore losing because of Nader. Dunno, seems to me Bush won because HE STOLE THE ELECTION.I hate to say it but this damn election is causing some bad feelings amongst my family members. We were all behind Bernie 100% and now we are divided in deciding what to do next. It’s mainly me who can’t seem to bring myself to get behind Clinton. Every instinct in my body screams DONT VOTE FOR HILLARY! I remember the 2000 election and the sense of impending doom I had when Bush was elected. My gut told me that then, and my gut tells me the same thing now. My heart says vote for Trump to stick it to the neoliberal,credentialed cabal. My head says either don’t vote at all or vote Green again. I am waiting to see what Bernie says/does I guess. But I can’t talk politics with my own family. Sigh.
Actually, Bush won because Gore caved in Florida and handed him the election. And then there was SCOTUS. Go back and look. But you’re right, it had nothing to do with Nader.
Talk politics with your own family — are you nuts? In my experience, they’re the very LAST people I can ever talk politics with. Welcome to the club ;-)
Please do vote Green again. We need to retain ballot access, and in most states, the only way that happens is if people vote for Green Party candidates.
Thanks for that.
“10) Provide an effective and motivating narrative for organizing to punish Hillary super-delegates in the event of a Trump Win.”
A good way to use the anger to keep us moving.
Excellent thought provoking comment. I like the way you close with the DNC/media tyring to stuff sanders into the trunk of the corvair….
Being Canadian doesn’t really mean not having a horse in this race – the question of who becomes president of the US is one that concerns the whole world. Admittedly as a Canadian I’m very unlikely to personally be one of the many people blown to pink mist if Hillary wins but the election certainly is a concern to me. I recently summed up why I fear Hillary recently by saying that the most promising thing about her is that she’s been hanging around with Kissinger and that should adequately demonstrate how terrifying the prospect of her being president is. Kissinger is pure evil but even he seems to have some doubts about how the US is treating Russia and is probably sane enough to not want to provoke a nuclear war, unlike so many of the foreign policy elite at the moment.
Warren’s Facebook Fans on Clinton Endorsement: Noooooooooooo! Mother Jones (furzy). A guy in the gym who reads NC pulled me aside in the gym last evening to say how bothered he was by Warren “selling out” and he was afraid Sanders would do the same.
Of course, Sanders will do the same. And, just like that, the two leading progressive politicians in the country are reduced to substanceless partisan attack dogs. The Democratic Party just sucks up progressives and spits them out when they lose their efficacy in advancing neoliberal candidates and policies. Until progressives reject the Democratic Party we will get nowhere.
It’s time for something new, isn’t it?
Some of us have known for years that the Democrat / Republican thing was just theatre, but thanks to this election, more people are awakening.
It’s time to do something with the growing awareness.
Turn your back on them as they are not reformable – it’s time for something fresh.
seconded.
please see my reply above to IllCanuck:
we need to send lambert to the people’s summit, june 17-19, to keep us informed on the status of the people’s organizational/revolutionary front lines.
You know what amazes me, as an “outsider”? That progressives stuck with the Dems even after Bill Clinton. I couldn’t decide if they were insane or just that stupid. (I was registered repub at the time, now I’m indie)
Agreed. It’s time for A FUTURE TO BELIEVE IN.
IT’S TIME TO REBEL KIDS OF AMERICA!
Soooooo MAKE IT SO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVCzpR0qVtA
I am reluctant to say this because it implies an “I told you so” attitude. Anyway, I met E. Warren in 2011 when she was beginning her run for the Senate. I told her that if she won as a Democrat she would inevitably end up serving the party, and this would compromise her reputation as a champion of the people. She said she disagreed and added that this would never happen. I told her that in the long term she’d be better off -if she really cared about how the public was being exploited by the FIRE economy- working from outside Washington as an advocate and rabble rouser, not as an elected politician. BTW: I do not see her as a “progressive;” whatever that ambiguous term might mean, it does not include support for Obamacare, Israel’s “right to self defense”, militarism, demonizing Putin, and so on. In my view, she’s living an untenable contradiction: a Democrat who claims to care about the citizenry.
Well, at least now you get to say, “I told you so.” Small comfort, though.
BTW: I do not see her as a “progressive;” whatever that ambiguous term might mean
People who labour under this delusion need to read her book (co authored with her daughter) The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are (Still) Going Broke. What I found particularly interesting about it is that while the public policy prescriptions are generally sound her class bias makes unannounced and unwelcome interjections throughout the book. To take one instance that stands out in my mind at one point she says, apropos nothing, that people who object to SUVs on environmental grounds want to kill babies. I want to emphasize that this brainwave comes completely out of the blue and is inserted into a section in which she is discussing a completely different issue. It not only distracts from her argument but has the potential to needlessly alienate the readers she’s trying to persuade – and there are numerous other instances of this in the book.
All of which is to say she’d be a disaster as a VP candidate. Warren is in fact an elitist upper middle class Ivy League academic who has little contact with, understanding of, or sympathy for ordinary Americans -and she’s terrible at concealing it. The conventional wisdom is that the VP should “balance” the ticket in terms of regional representation and appealing to constituencies outside of the presidential candidate’s base, and by that standard Warren is an epic failure. Not only is she a demographic and professional clone of Clinton but she would compound rather than meliorate Clinton’s notorious lack of “the common touch”. The Democratic establishment no doubt believes that Warren will appease progressives and get them to rally behind Clinton, but the more they see of her on the campaign trail and the better they get to know her the more they will realize that in spite of having had some good policy ideas she is spiritually very much a part of the very establishment they despise.
Got a link on that SUV thing? Say from Google books?
thanks DanB for this report. it is telling that she could not believe that she would become (already was becoming) compromised.
in her case, as a harvard law professor who clawed her way to that eminence, she would have to be ill equipped to understand the nature of the neoliberal/technocratic/meritocratic/credentialist professional class takeover, as she is a fully registered and committed member of the 10% that constitute that class. i think they are by and large do-goodism minded and incapable of perceiving their own complicity in the problems they think they are working to address. they do not understand or consider the structural, systemic basis of these problems. (keeping their positions, and their whole personal identities, depends on their not seeing it.)
i would wager she made deals at the very beginning of her campaign that she told herself were not really deals. i imagine she felt a strong urgency to take real power beyond her academic corner in order to help millions of people. not an easy call to resist. but then–after all–how do you get access to that power? who funded her campaign? that might be interesting to know.
as lambert has often said, this election year is providing great clarification. rather than expecting people like obama, warren, grayson etc. to lead the charge, we need to lead the charge ourselves. this moment is a great opportunity. let’s make note of the true colors that are showing, and move on to engage in the battle that so few as yet understand is necessary: a seismic shifting of the established structure and system.
The most effective way for Sanders to continue to build the movement is for him to give a lukewarm endorsement to HRC, and thus remain in the news. He can then host rallies that are ostensibly anti-Trump but where his speeches are no different from the stump speeches he’s been giving all campaign long. This will keep him in the news, relevant and promoting the real issues that HRC will be desperately trying to keep off the table.
As Ralph Nader pointed out (and he should know), why would Sanders want to squelch the movement he helped build, by running on a third-party ticket or by slipping into Green Party oblivion?
The hostile takeover of the Democrat Party is not yet dead.
agree, this would be the best course of action
Sanders did say that he can’t hand over his supporters, Hillary is going to have win them over – so your scenario sounds pretty good.
“The most effective way for Sanders to continue to build the movement is for him to give a lukewarm endorsement to HRC, and thus remain in the news.”
“Hillary — better than having a giant sewer rat climb up through the toilet, bite your crotch, and give you rabies.” :-)
Okay Jim, you finally made me laugh. Thank you.
You are a tough audience! Jim makes me laugh daily!
Like any good comedian I think he’s not so secretly happy that the circus continues apace. The email tar baby was fodder enough, but now add in calling the cali election so brazenly and now they’ll have to justify it, should be highly entertaining at the very least.
How can they be so cruel to Honest Hillary, the warmongress with a heart of gold?
I must admit that given that choice I would reluctantly vote for shill.
Wait… isn’t rabies curable?
Agreed on the lukewarm support for H. Sanders could use his energy for down ticket races that reflect the policies his campaign was built on.
That said, I am a bit despondent about it all. I feel out of sync with the world around me, I don’t understand why anyone wants perpetual war in far away countries. I don’t even know what the mission or purpose of the wars is any more.
June 10, 2016
Run, Bernie, Run: Petition Calling On Bernie Sanders To Mount Independent Run For The White House Nearing 100,000 Signatures
http://www.inquisitr.com/3188293/run-bernie-run-petition-calling-on-bernie-sanders-to-mount-independent-run-for-the-white-house-nearing-100000-signatures/#DzWZze4E8fJR4wKa.99
My theory is that they finally found the amorphous, universal threat which they were unsuccessfully seeking in Report From Iron Mountain (1967) — terrorism.
Of course, terrorism existed before then. Four FALN activists opened fire on Congress from the House visitors gallery in 1954. The House hired a couple of extra security guards and went on about its business. There were no apocalyptic cries of “America under attack; lock down the borders!” It was seen simply as a criminal incident.
Post 9/11, amplifying every terror threat through the MSM confers an ersatz legitimacy on a wholly illegitimate government. ISIS head-choppers bad; Saudi head-choppers good!
‘Fighting terrorism’ is the perfect, multigenerational formula for post-constitutional secret government, coupled with panopticon-level surveillance of its own subjects.
Welcome to our Prison Planet.
look at the vote tally, they actually want you to feel out of sync, when in reality bernie probably won, and you’re not out of sync at all
See the Shillbot quote cited below from the Taibbi comments. By virtue of their election fraud they have convinced themselves that we are a “small and vocal group of rabid Bernie supporters who tend to dominate the social media space“.
This is always the key to squelching a mass movement. Make us think that there are very few of us, that I am the only one suffering economically, that I am the only loony who wants healthcare like in other countries, that I was the only one who didn’t understand the arcane voting rules….
I don’t even know what the mission or purpose of the wars is anymore.
It’s always been shooting practice. Since the American revolution the US has managed at least one war per generation — mostly wars of conquest or attempts at econo-political hegemony (“securing our interests”), not a single one in defense of our borders. No one gets promoted to higher ranks without combat experience. And the pernicious fiction of potential “softening” on account of too much peace that frequently makes its way into
propagandaentertainment, is generally accepted as an important truth by those whose portfolios dovetail with bullets flying and bombs falling.The idea that once Sanders endorses Clinton there is much of any story to tell about him just seems way off base to me. Certainly, the suggestion that he will have any real leverage with anybody or anything in the Democratic Party is out-and-out laughable. The Clintons won’t permit it. Why should they? They don’t need him or his supporters. Those chumps either succumb to the Trump scare card or get pummeled for not doing so. I think we’re all seeing that stink weed take root.
Whether or not he can help get down-ticket Democrats elected in a Hillary-koolaid-drinking-consistent campaign seems doubtful. In any case, the House will not be taken back. Is someone suggesting that there is a Senate race where he will make a difference?
The only real story to be told will be the one about his supporters. What will they do? It depends on how much Sanders was the product versus how much his issues were the product, how much value his supporters see in putting their energies into a movement beyond the Democratic Party (the Green Party? a new party?), and how much they are willing to weather being made the villains in a Trump win and “World War III,” as I’ve read some terrorized folks heralding. That’s a deeply personal call.
But, yes, the hostile takeover of the Democratic Party is dead. And Sanders is to be thanked for, among other things, proving that such a thing is impossible.
Sander’s support for Clinton (depending a little I suppose on what that entails) will be deeply disappointing but as has been stated elsewhere necessary since he made it so unconditional from the start.
Warren, on the other hand, is really greasing herself up. It will be poetic justice if Hillary throws her to the wolves much the way Obama did (at the most embarrassing moment) just for yuks (to let those li-bar-uuls know they are still fu*king retards).
If Hillary is serious about making Warren her VP, then some really bad dope has been shipped to the Clinton advisers recently. These are two very ambitious individuals – hard to see them working well together.
It could be the answer to global warming! That would be cool, no pun intended, having an all female ticket! hahahahahah. Especially if one of them was hot!
Sweet ladies, will it please you sit? Sir Harry,
Place you that side; I’ll take the charge of this:
His grace is entering. Nay, you must not freeze;
Two women placed together makes cold weather:
My Lord Sands, you are one will keep ’em waking;
Pray, sit between these ladies.
-Shakespeare, King Henry VIII
Senator Bernie Sanders will be the same “independent” that he has always been. From Wikipedia,
There is no confusion, no fatigue, no lack of vision or inconsistency here and no need to create the illusion of it.
Hear, hear!
Donated a few more dollars to the Sanders campaign. They are still accepting money, I hope he continues all the way to the convention.
There is a primary on Tuesday, though it seems like no one cares.
you care, and so do others. This could work to suppress hillary votes in DC and irritable bernie supporters should vote early. The california story may just be another thing that the PTB can get away with, but they can’t make it go away, both we here and trump and his supporters can and will remember and talk about it. It’s just yet another weakness for hillary, as if she needed more. Yesterday, for instance, i had the unpleasant vision of bill clinton being the first first man, do you think that people have really internalized what that means or is likely to lead to? Haygoods trading is going to suffer because he’ll have to spend so much time on the comedy.
Re: Leftists for Trump
If I remember correctly, Stalin referred to Hitler as the Icebreaker of the Revolution. Maybe some of those leftists supporting Trump feel the same way.
It was delusional in 1933 and it’s delusional now.
However, I don’t think Trump is in any coherent way a fascist, and so both those who see him as an “agent of change” and those who see him as Satan incarnate are wrong. He’s a narcissistic gadfly, a showman and a salesman. He has no consistently held beliefs that I can identify, jumps to conclusions, and, oh, thinks Climate change is a hoax (forgot that little tidbit up the line when listing his negatives). He promises to be a disinterested, impulsive, ignorant, and foolish president. Worse than Clinton? Probably not. Good for the nation and the planet? Certainly not.
Still, no positive, policy-related reason why we should vote for Clinton, which reminds of this bit from Thomas Frank’s Anthem for a Bummed Youth:
Trump is merely the latest version of that lab animal. He doesn’t scare me in the slightest.
I agree. He’d likely be no worse than Clinton where it matters. A calculating neo-liberal versus an incurious circus barker. What a choice!
I’d say that the Tea Partians could restore the vim in ‘murka by restoring Article II.
I’ve been wondering for a while now if President Trump wouldn’t just be to his core voter base what Obama was to progressives in 2008. If winning the job is the only important thing, there shouldn’t be any problem compromising on all fronts with established interests and leaving all that silly campaign rhetoric behind after the inauguration.
I like most of what you’ve been writing here James. Just ask yourself the BAR question…..
Don’t ask “Who’s the LESSER evil?”, ask yourself “Who’s the MORE EFFECTIVE evil?”.
When reframed that way, suddenly trying to stomach 4 years of Trump might not be so terrible. Repubs hate him, Dems hate him….he might well be a lame duck after year 1!
For Dems, squashing upstart Sanders is one thing. HRC losing to Trump would cause massive despair and demoralizing within the Democratic Party. This would be healthy. Right now, they think they’re invincible, polls be d@mned.
Besides, as a kicker, if he buries TPP and doesn’t start any new wars or intensify any existing ones, that’s a pretty big bonus. He’d be the first prez in decades not to conduct a military intervention! That’s kind of a big deal.
With Trump and Clinton the descent into evil is so multi-faceted that the debate over greater/lesser or more/less effective has nowhere much to go, though an accurate assessment of the details of the evil is still important.
Wars:
3/10/2016
TPP
He has sent jobs overseas, employed HB2 workers, and exploited workers in the US and overseas. There’s nothing in his record that would indicate that any “deal” he would negotiate would be of benefit to working people.
“We really have no choice, we have to knock out ISIS,” Trump said. “I would listen to the generals, but I’m hearing numbers of 20,000-30,000.”
———–
I’d ask our generals if they believe they should first stop arming ISIS or whomever before figuring our troop count. ‘Course arms sales are big biz for Europe, Russia, Israel and I think now China too.
Maybe the US media is not the place for Trump or anyone else to work out the strategy. hahaha. That was a joke.
Be a great opportunity to work with our friends and enemies like Russia to come to some common agreement on how to approach ISIS/Terrorism, since there is a common goal. Everyone would need to back off on all the things they like – arms sales, regime changes, etc…, however.
Excellent article by Taibbi on the cluelessness of Washington in general and the Dems in particular. He frames the Sanders campaign, in Beltway terms, thus:
Nobody saw his campaign as an honest effort to restore power to voters, because nobody in the capital even knows what that is. In the rules of palace intrigue, Sanders only made sense as a kind of self-centered huckster who made a failed play for power. And the narrative will be that with him out of the picture, the crisis is over. No person, no problem.
Voters can be manipulated, and the Beltway insiders know it. Bush and Obama were lousy candidates (all image, no substance) and worse presidents. Both men got elected, then re-elected. This has convinced Washington that they can shove any load of crap down our throats. And if either Clinton or Trump wins (and chances right now are 99% it will be one of them) then they will again be correct in making that assumption.
BTW, a commenter at Rolling Stone said that Stein offered the Green Party nomination to Sanders yesterday: has anyone heard this, and is it true?
Jill Stein interview on Democracy Now from yesterday
Extract:
Well, the response over the last several weeks has been the same as the response over the last several years. And in fact, the Green Party reached out to Bernie Sanders before the last election to see if he might be interested in running on the Green Party ballot line. And that was in 2011. And basically, we haven’t heard back yet, so I’m not holding my breath that we are going to. And in fact, I think it was just yesterday that Senator Sanders announced that he would be meeting with President Obama to basically stay the course and to essentially move his campaign inside of the Democratic Party, which I think is a mistake and would be essentially an abandonment of the movement that has been built. We’ve seen many very principled and powerful efforts to reform the Democratic Party from within over the course of many years, and Democratic Party keeps marching to the right. So, you know, my hope, as Senator Sanders himself said, is that this is a movement, it’s not a man. And my hope is that the movement will continue. And we’ve offered—I’ve offered, basically, to put everything on the table and to see how we can work together and explore the—what it would take in order for that to happen – – to run a joint ticket, for example.
Thank you for presenting a spokeswoman of good politics.
Good policies, yes; good politics, no. The Greens, who have been on the sidelines of all the recent major mass movements in the US (Occupy, Wisconsin Spring, BLM), are a case study in how to have excellent policies and not move one inch toward getting them implemented.
At this point, given that Sanders was able to lead a presidential campaign that brought far more issues into the national debate than Stein ever has dreamed of, it should be Stein taking strategy advice from Sanders, not vice-versa.
I’m getting a little tired of the Job’s Wife’s snickering from the left: “see Bernie, we told you the D’s would stab you in the back, you shoulda run independent and never have trusted them.” His strategy has been golden so far: not for winning an unwinnable election, but for building a movement: something the Greens with their “Oval Office or Bust” mindset will never grasp.
Re: the Taibbi piece. Perhaps the motto of the Democratic party should be: “Slightly less broken than the other guys.”
I kind of like: The Democrat Party: Vote Ambidextrous! (Corrupted by the Right, We Co-opt the Left–Truly Something for Everyone)
“We’re the Democrats. We serve vegan dragon rolls. And drones.”
His focus is on the Democrats learning the wrong lessons.
Also need to consider: We learn any lessons at all from our opponent, so we can beat them in the future.
We have no control over what they want to learn. We can control what we can learn to improve ourselves.
The Wall Street Journal article on Clinton’s email server feels like a rather transparent attempt to spin her private server abuse as a heroic effort to wrestle control of extrajudicial killing from CIA and the Deep State.
The real issue is in the 30.000 deleted emails as they pertain to the Clinton Foundation money grabbing/policy selling scheme, but that’s one hair ball that will never be spat out in public, at least not by US government and media.
The world’s best hope of avoiding a likely confrontation with Russia during a likely Clinton presidency may just be that capacity for blackmail.
Article sources: “… according to congressional and law-enforcement officials briefed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe.”
“The still-secret emails are a key part of the FBI investigation that has long dogged Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, these officials said.”
Is this article the first salvo of retributional FBI leaks, uncoincidentally timed for the very evening of Obama’s corrupt
conspiracymeeting with the attorney general?Beyond my pay grade to say, but it seems plausible enough. Who is Deep Throat?
The email bombshell we have expected has gone off:
ABC has a devastating story on the nexus between Clinton’s State Department tenure and donations to the Clinton Foundation. I expected something to give after Obama’s vocal support for Clinton yesterday, but I figured the leak would be from outraged FBI investigators. Turns out the emails came from the State Department. Hmmmm. Either way, the media is sure to smell blood in the water now. Finally.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/09/seagull-turns-orange-after-falling-into-vat-of-chicken-tikka-masala
I wouldn’t think being coated in curry is harmful, so what is the point of washing the seagull??? Unless the other seagulls really, really, really like curry coated …birds?
“Staff at the hospital used washing-up liquid to remove the bright orange from the seagull’s feathers. They returned him to its original white colour but have not been able to wash away the smell of curry.
Lucy Kells, veterinary nurse at the hospital, said: “He really surprised everyone here – we had never seen anything like it before. He had fallen into a waste vat of curry that was outside, it was chicken tikka masala. The thing that shocked us the most was the smell. He smelled amazing, he really smelled good.”
I REALLY like Indian food….I’ve never had seagull tikka masala….but I am willing to give it a try.
I understand the seagull is clerking at a 7-11 until he can get back on his wings…
Oddly enough, I’m making tikka masala this weekend; but I’m using the more traditional chicken.
Vindaloo is the best. Then rogan josh.
I got a great indian cookbook a couple of years ago that explained all the spices and how to roast them and have been hooked ever since. Lately there’s been fresh turmeric at the market on lopez, and like the gull, i cannot get the stains off the cutting board, anyone have any tips?
Turmeric is sort of like mustard or red wine–in other words, if at all possible, you don’t want to have to remove it from anything you own. That being said, if your cutting board is wood, you can try sanding it down to fresh wood. If your cutting board is plastic, try some Barkeeper’s Friend. If you aren’t already using a plastic cutting board, I strongly recommend it for things like turmeric, that stain, or for cutting meat and poultry, where you want to be able to use really hot water to clean off the board.
Bake at 320 for two hours, eat the board?
Love rogan josh. It’s one of my staples, since it works with chicken, lamb, beef, or pork.
If there was any fat in the vindaloo, it could gum the gulls feathers just like an oil slick would, and destroy the gull’s feathers’ ability to keep the gull insulated and warm . . . and to float on water ( which gulls sometimes like to do). So, yes, the gull would have to have the vindaloo-fat washed out of its feathers.
Latest threat to online lenders: ‘stacking’ of multiple loans
On the bright side, no humans need be held responsible by the SEC for the resulting debacle.
You don’t want to mess with Mary Jo – if your initials are A.I.
Fished this comment out of the toxic comment sludge on Taibbi’s piece:
To which Yoda responds: “And that is why you fail”.
yes, the contempt is the most poisonous thing in the Clinton campaign and support
These roboton Dem voters see value in Sanders’ supporters only if they vote down-ticket for ANYONE with a “D” by their name, regardless of what they stand for. They think that it ONLY matters to maximize the number of “Ds” in Congress in mid-terms, happily ignoring the fact that many of the Party selected candidates were Republicans not too long ago, switched parties without changing their policy beliefs. They ignore the fact that having a “D” by one’s name means nothing. They ignore that many “Ds” are neoliberal stalwarts, war stalwarts so there’s literally no reason to vote for them.
To hell with “down ticket”. I will NOT vote for a Republican or neoliberal regardless of what letter they stick by their name.
I used to underestimate the millennials, until Occupy and now Bernie. With that alone they’ve done more than anything people my age (on the cusp of the Baby Boom and Gen X) have done. But then, the stakes are much higher now. It’s easy to be complacent when you’re earning a fat salary. The fat salaries have left the building.
Many if not most of those who drip with contempt for the millennials are people our age. Rough fifty………… and enraged that the yutes aren’t falling into line.
Some excellent links today. Thnx.
bernie supporters on my facebook feed are already getting in line and falling behind $hillary.
the disgust i feel is visceral. the argument that trump is the greater evil that must be stopped is so flimsy it’s based on nothing but projection. he is the bogeyman candidate. while i harbour no illusions he would be a good president, the existential threat is $hillary. she has done so much evil in her four years as secretary of state alone, and nearly caused world war in her doings in syria and ukraine.
remember your ABC’s, folks.
There’s going to be an all out attempt to demoralize Sanders supporters. ‘Resistance is futile.’
(Resistance is not futile. It’s voltage divided by current. – old joke)
ABC.
Que up the Star Wars music…….specifically the imperial march.
Encouraging words are valid tender.
The White House spokesman qualifies the investigation into the Clinton email scandal as criminal only an hour after Obimini licks Clinton’s toes in public.
Mistake or brazen? (admitting it’s a criminal investigation, not the toe wash).
Because whee, we can!!! and you can live with it, scum.
When you consider the effort Obama has put into other ventures, is there any evidence he knows or cares?
“No drama, Obama” was marketed as a slogan about how Obama would keep his eye on the price and not get bogged down. Now, I think it mea the he doesn’t like to receive unpleasant news and simply doesn’t deal with it.
The stench around Shinseki was really bad when Obama finally allowed him to resign. How long did it take to get into the Obama bubble? ACA? I don’t see why this would be any different.
I suppose that means an exoneration will be an ever greater triumph.
Speaking purely as a spectator of an 11 dimensional chess game, of course.
If Sanders has run as an Independent or joined the Greens, his voice and or movement would continue through at least November.
Now at best the flogging will continue until the D platform is penned and ignored forevermore.
“Progs” are Democrats first and foremost. Older than our great great grandparents and yet 95 plus percent of Americans couldn’t tell you what Prog means or would believe there are even a dozen in Congress. For more years than I can count they have been the largest caucus in the U.S. House. They have failed so miserably, so thouroughly in every way…. it’s beyond absurd to consider them anything other than part of the problem… certainly within the anti-democracy private party.
Alan Grayson created a hedge fund.
Warren and Sanders will be pro Clinton.
Al Franken isn’t even funny anymore… and he’s in the most humor rich envirionment the world has ever known.
Kucinich was toast (morally and politically) the day he gave into Obama on the plane with promise to cast his Obamney not care vote.
Virtually all other progs who had super delegate status supported Clinton from the get go.
Virtually every prog act blue/blue america candidate over the last 12 years have been liars and grifters.
When you stand for nothing, you fall for everything.
Mohammed = Bernie
Mountain = Greens
If he had run as an Independent or joined the Greens, he would have reached almost no one to begin with. There would not even be enough Sanders supporters to self-organize into a longer-term movement, if that is what they decide to do. Especially if he had joined the preening dilettante, vanity-party Greens.
Rescue for orphaned bear cub hiding in apple tree Siberian Times (guurst). Many cute photos.
People going on about the Russian bear – now that I’ve seen it, doesn’t look dangerous at all.
Incrementalism vs. abrupt change (well, as abrupt as his outsider status allows). Man, we’re really stuck in quite the vise here. Even now, I still can’t believe that she did it; following Twitter, I had heard about her Tweet tirades against Trump and just figured it was party pandering. Is this Warren’s “five minutes to ruin it” with regards to her reputation?
The world lost more than $13 trillion last year because of war
Yes well lost is maybe the wrong word?
I have a pretty good idea where it went.
yeah. Some people won $13 trillion. ka-ching! as Lambert likes to say.
Yep, thats the law of conservation of money.
Which implies that world GDP was $13Tril higher than it would have been otherwise. If you subtract that out, I wonder if there would have been a recession.
If you stop a cat from scratching one sofa, he or she will just scratch another.
Or three other ones.
“That’s for denying me my favorite sofa!!!”
Agree, but moving on down the chain much of that $13 trillion went on to money heaven as the “assets” purchased and those targeted were both destroyed. Although I applaud their effort to quantify the cost of war, the Global Peace Index does not consider what I view as the biggest costs: lost and impaired lives, & environmental destruction.
One must always be wary of the “broken window” fallacy. But if the recipients of the 13 trillion were careful to just blow up other peoples stuff in undervalued lands, then it’s all good GDP.
Then don’t forget – re-construction is good for next years GDP. The “broken window” fallacy still hasn’t been completely discredited. Also too, refugees, as long as they’re in a good mood and want to work in the developed world.
OTOH, all the dead people and scorched earth could be considered an unwanted side effect.
Re: Identity Politics and Interest … I agree with the general thrust of the article, but I’ve been seeing something in a few of these anti-Hillary/anti-Obama articles lately: something along the lines of “Under Obama, all the income gains went to the top 3-5%. Hillary would be the same”.
The idea that the president has that much control over the distribution of income gains in the economy is preposterous. See increasing returns to education because of tech and low tax rates at the top, for which Congress is to blame.
Firm Bernie supporter here, but I suppose I’m a bit more center than much of the readership here, and it seems to me the reason is just unrealistic expectations for Obama. I suspect that if Bernie had somehow won, disappointment would have reigned supreme for him too.
the president has a bully pulpit, and is the head of his party. a president can choose to push for more equality, or more inequality. b clinton and obama chose a path leading to more inequality, and h clinton seems to be firmly on the same path.
i wouldn’t expect bernie to use the power of the office to push for noxious trade treaties, republican health plans, or to persecute whistleblowers.
++++++
Bernie would have to strike some uncomfortable compromises but I doubt he would unmask himself so quickly as a sellout like Obama did. Obama had a huge majority in Congress and could have had a boffo jobs program. His dilemma was how to sit on that majority and do as little for the people as possible and as much for Wall Street as possible. Entrusting Obamacare to Max Baucus ensured that would be a cluster%#}*, which was a feature, not a bug.
I also don’t think Bernie would employ Obama’s technique of negotiating with himself with his patented precompromes.
Agreed. IMHO, Bernies’s revolution is to have the American people behind him demanding change. Obama had that and squandered it away along with his political capital in the first 75 days in office. Perhaps our country is too divided and not ready yet, but I’m sure 8 more years of The hills or 4 more of Trump might be able to wake the working class. Bernies’s has done a lot to awaken the young but the working class is too busy surviving, and the professional class are trying to protect their meritocracy. They got us right where they want us.
How to sell TPP to brain dead public:
“Aww yeah, President Obama stimulated long term growth in both the public and the private sector.”
Ok, so, I guess it helps a bit that, of everyone in politics, Barack Obama is probably the most naturally flirty. Like, if they did this with Jeb Bush, a joke about him being blocked by congress and finding “a way in through the back door” would probably make you feel somehow violated. Instead, Barack Obama seduces you with lines about the Iran nuclear deal, diplomatic ties with Cuba, and being “down with TPP” before leaving you in the morning because “daddy’s got a Hawaiian vacation booked”. Yeah baby!
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/watch-barack-obama-and-jimmy-fallon-eulogise-the-past-8-years-of-american-politics
will it work, work, work??????
I saw this first thing this morning. I have to admit I was lol. “TPP, ya you know me”
I pondered posting link here but ultimately decided against.
The prez also names the atty general, and supposedly advises them (what happened at the lynch/obama meet up yesterday?) so that sets the tone for enforcement or the lack thereof
Expectations for obama WERE unrealistic, but not because of the “powerlessness” of the presidency. He was a talented ringer willing to exploit voters desperate to leave the the repressive bush years behind, and unconflicted about finessing the betrayal with a toothy smile and gospel-preacher rhetorical style.
hillary’s shtick is essentially the same, albeit without the charisma, which is being replaced by some fairy tale notion of everybody’s Mother Goose selflessly smashing her bonnet against tempered glass.
And the excuses never seem to get too old to be recycled.
Old Mother Goose,
When she wanted to wander,
Would ride through the air
On a very fine gander.
Jack’s mother came in,
And caught the goose soon,
And mounting its back,
Flew up to the moon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Goose
He largely didn’t try to advance ideas that would help. Think about it in terms of the ACA. He not only didn’t fight for something better and negotiate down to the ACA, he took the something better off the table before the negotiation began. And if you know anything about the process of reconciliation, then you know that the Public Option was not just NOT impossible it could have happened. There is nothing to provide downward pressure on premiums and upwards pressure on providing health care because that was stripped away with their knowledge.
The opening rhetoric sounds good, disappears and the exact opposite happens was the Obama modus operandi. ACA, Immigration Reform, Home Owner Assistance…But how often did he work for or push budget reform and even the Grand Bargain. (Thank you, Tea Party.)As to his power, well his DoJ spent more time going after medical marijuana than it did going after bankers. And he has the record when it comes to droning countries we are not officially at war with, and look at the record deportations. And lets talk those trade treaties HIS people have been busy negotiating. The President can decide the focus of much of our domestic and foreign policy. And as others have pointed out, there is the bully pulpit.
So lets look at things that might have helped regarding income inequality. Not only can you use the bully pulpit for higher minimum wage you can address the recession from the bottom up not the top down. If you think the gains going to the top would have been the same if someone had been working for a real infrastructure stimulus plan, you are not the realist you claim to be. Especially since in many cases these could easily have been assigned to the Department of Defense. Remember the highway system was about defense. This is history. How easy is it to make the case to increase public demand that bridges, clean water and the electrical grid ARE terrorist targets. If the Bushies can push through mass surveillance you can push through needed bridge repairs. Next the policies to help homeowners could have been to actually help home owners not “foam the runway for the banks”. Both of these were easily within his ability.
But no, he couldn’t do anything, it wasn’t a matter of will or desire or choice. You keep telling yourself that.
Excellent summary of the Obama train wreck.
Thank you for mentioning budget reconciliation. Democrats conveniently forget about reconciliation because it belies their narrative about being helpless in the face of the big bad Republicans. Budget reconciliation is routine for the Republicans. It’s how Bush got all his tax cuts.
I think people are severely overestimating the capacity of the “bully pulpit” to reverse structural changes in the economy that have been at work since the 1970s.
I agree Obama could have done more to prosecute the bankers. I agree that he could spend less time bombing poor people in the Middle East. I agree the ACA could be better, though I’m still of the opinion that it’s a fucking miracle that it even passed. However, none of these things have anything to do with income inequality.
One thing he could have done is devote more attention to raising the minimum wage. That, I agree with. However, even then, would it have totally fixed the problem? The issue is that decent-paying manufacturing jobs have been fleeing overseas for decades. Meanwhile, white collar employees are becoming more and more productive because the computer allows them to do more. This also eliminates middle class jobs for professions such as typists, secretaries, etc. On top of that, executives are paying themselves exorbitant salaries beyond what any sane compensation for actual productivity would dictate.
Can Obama, or any president, do something about that? It’s probably impossible. Maybe there’s a slight chance, it would be an extraordinary accomplishment. Not something you blame Obama for not doing.
Regarding “real infrastructure stimulus”, last time I checked, Obama did push through a stimulus package to the tune of $800 billion. I guess you’re arguing that the stimulus package should have been formulated better, which is probably true, but a perfect stimulus wouldn’t redistribute income gains to the level of stopping growing inequality.
O’s infrastructure stimulus was great for banksters who wanted to float bond deals on public works projects but didn’t do much for us down here on planet earth among the many blossoming tent cities (unless that’s what you mean by infrastructure?)
It’s the D party’s “big tent,” comrade.
Why is this so difficult? I see a very simple way to fight income inequality while forcing worker pay upwards without passing a minimum wage law. You change corporate tax law. You set it on a slider. The greater the difference between top exec pay and average worker pay in a corporation, the higher the corporate taxes. You minimize corporate taxes when top exec compensation equates to NO MORE than, say, 50-60x average worker pay in that corporation (INCLUDING TEMPS so you cannot game the system by firing workers and replacing them with “temps”. You ALSO prevent them from gaming the system by making a lot of people part-time. Income of average worker includes the ACTUAL take-home of temps or part-timers. This would force worker pay up and CEO pay down AND discourage use of Temps and part-timers).
You can do all kinds of things with corporate taxation. You can discourage off-shoring by raising corporate taxes on any corporation that off-shores more than 25% of their workforce. It’s not like corporations can run to other countries to get higher CEO pay vs worker pay. The highest CEO pay I saw OUTSIDE the US was something like 60x worker pay. ONLY in the USA is it ~300-500x. It doesn’t have to be that way. There are simple tools to force it down to be the average for the developed world but politicians act as if it is natural law and there’s nothing that can be done about it.
It’s not like corporations have a right to even exist. There’s nothing in the Constitution creating the right to incorporate. It is PURELY a privilege and service voluntarily provided by government.
A president has great power. Under existing law, any president can choose to:
Appoint AG/direct Doj to prosecute white collar criminals with great vigor,
Similarly appoint/direct an Sec chair to regulate corps,
to utilize existing anti-trust legislation to the fullest,
to encourage whistle blowers rather than prosecuting them,
To avoid foreign foreign adventures,
end revolving door between banks and treasury,
Refuse grand bargains to cut Entitlements,
Avoid trade deals that give sovereignty to corps,
Utilize platinum coin to eliminate gov shutdowns and maybe begin discussion of how economy really works,
Appoint liberal justices as opposed to conservatives, e.g. Reps will no doubt approve Obama rep nominee in lame duck session,
Etc.
Granted, over the past quarter-century our elected presidents have mostly not exercised these powers…
Btw… Based on the above, who Is the lesser evil in Nov?
flora posted a great link yesterday to a story showing how Merrick Garland upheld Citizens United. Way to go to war for us little people o-man….better vote for hillary if you want more of that, the beatings will continue until morale improves and all…
Judging by your responses, the last 8 years have been good to you.
Me too. But not to anyone I know.
But hey, you got yours.
Some of Clinton’s supporters don’t seem to have gotten the message that it’s all about party unity. Here’s a thread from a blog I sometimes read–the blogger, Fred Clark, is sometimes interesting when writing about evangelical Christianity and politics, but is otherwise a centrist liberal who pretty much follows whatever LawyersGunsandMoney or Josh Marshall write.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2016/06/09/the-transcript-of-a-life-scandalously-unscandalous/#disqus_thread
What’s interesting is that the people in the thread obviously think of themselves as pragmatists, yet clearly what matters to them is that they are right about everything and Sanders and his supporters are all horrible people who are at best idiots and at worst narcissistic spoiled brats. I haven’t read the whole thread, but I don’t see a single acknowledgement in the part I did read that maybe some of the things Sanders and his supporters want might be valid.
I often wonder about the psychology at work in politics. I see some of the darker (or to be less dramatic, dumber) impulses in myself–it can be hard to set aside one’s own desire to be seen as right about everything.
People hate con men, but they hate being conned even more. For a party that prides itself on being smug, a simple explanation of Hillary’s record attacks the core image of the Democrat as smart and pragmatic. It’s especially true with Obama who was an empty suit at best. His followers just projected onto him.
This is why they despise Nader. He didn’t spoil the election. He just is a reminder of what nothings Gore (with Tipper; when theu started to spend more time apart, I started to really like Al) and DLC Democrats really are. Nader attacks their identity. Sanders did well with our group people because their identity is less set in stone. The major break in the primary voting ages is whether you voted for Clinton in 1996 or notl
This. Until you accept that you were a mark and got taken human nature is to attack anyone who tries to get you to realize that you are throwing away your rent money on the psychic with the cure for curse you are under.
Perhaps this is why Obama infuriates me so. I fell in love along with the rest of the chumps. But his betrayal was apparent to anyone who looked at his appalling behavior.
It’s basically the same with the Clintons. She does well with people who voted for Bill in 1996 which would make one 38, where the big break between Sanders and Hillary occurs. 1996 was marked by low turnout.
“clearly what matters to them is that they are right about everything.”
i have not read the linked piece, but what you are describing is the ingrained attitude of thomas frank’s 10 percent: the neoliberal, merito-technocratic, professional class whose basic perspective is that they are entitled to act as the decision makers for our society because they are smart, are successful in their chosen professions, and have the credentials that, in their minds, prove that intelligence and ability. of course, they generally are very clever in some ways, but their worldview renders them clueless in other ways. they think they do good and are pragmatic; but they completely lack a true moral compass.
perhaps “intelligentsia” would be a useful term for them, since they consider themselves so intelligent.
at any rate, i think it is very rare for someone who has gone through our society’s credentialing system and succeeded at it to recognize the way they are part of the problem. to stand up for the right thing when that choice confronts you, if you even recognize that moment of choice, you pretty much have to be willing to become marginalized, renounce whatever status and earnings you’ve accumulated and expected to continue to accumulate, not to mention a good bit of whatever power you’ve had to reach a large audience.
fortunately, there are a few who consciously retain a moral compass, and some who surprise themselves by discovering one under pressure. they will never be a majority. i find it helpful to refer to the mccarthy era as an example. more recently, the whistleblowers who have risked everything, including their lives.
There’s a reason James Joyce called them “the Dead”.
I like “the Froth”. An add on whose substance has been inflated by a lot of hot air whose importance rests upon concealing the accomplishments of the base. Froth without coffee is useless just like that entire class is operationally helpless without us plebs. The 3 of the other definitions also ring true: 1) something trivial or insubstantial – doubles back on the original metaphor 2) high prices unwarranted by economic fundamentals – like their compensation levels 3) a fit of anger or vexation – makes me plenty angry.
I read Fred Clark (raised in conservative religion and now liberal) and also Libby Anne at Love Joy Feminism (raised in home-schooling conservativism and now agnostic) for a while, curious about the Evangelical church and it’s malcontents.
These bloggers and their crews fought hard all their younger lives to be free of awful backgrounds and I think it is beyond them to take up a similar battle in broader culture. They cannot see the even larger layer of similar coercive crap because they feel tremendous relief after getting out of that subculture. I’ve tried but they become mean in their denial. They are establishment Dems all the way through. They’ve traded one form of authoritarianism for a smoother more hidden form.
Pride in their own emancipation gets in the way, too. Its too bad because their former battles are not dissimilar to what needs doing now but perhaps people have limits. Anyway, I don’t check in on them anymore.
thanks for this very interesting report. maybe most people just have one major life standup in them (if even that). if it’s standing up to your entire family and the actively brainwashing cult they belong to, boy what does that take.
That’s pretty insightful. I don’t read Libby Anne much, but you are probably right about Fred. In fairness to him, he’s not as bad as some of his commenters–Fred doesn’t want to see any difference between Sanders and Clinton and wants party unity for real. Many of his commenters hate Sanders, so they are worse.
Elizabeth Warren has declared herself willing to be Clinton’s running mate according to The Guardian.
My question is, why? What does she gain out of that. Clinton has diametrically different views on regulation than Warren. She has taken money and is beholden to the very people that want to neuter Warren. And lest we forget the VP has no official power other than to break ties.
By joining the ticket Warren would be setting herself up to get blamed if Clinton loses. Or, if she wins Warren would be surrendering her actual power in exchange for … nothing. Except perhaps the hope that she would be the next VP. But while she is out of the Senate she would be powerless to impose any regulations or change the way the finance industry runs.
Meanwhile her pet issues would be handed over to someone like Harry Reid who disagrees with her, and her main claim to fame, that is her strong stand on regulation and financial issues, would be undermined by her willingness to join with a woman who takes millions in bribes (ahem “Speaking Fees”) and who always does the bidding of the finance industry.
“I do not propose to be buried until I am dead sir.”
Why would she hand them the shovel?
she’s ambitious, and clinton may overall be closer to her politically than sanders (she’s always liked republicans except when they cheat too much). i don’t know how well it would work, warren doesn’t strike me as the kind of asskisser clinton prefers, but it certainly helps her corral the less principled sanders supporters while she resumes pivoting back to the right for the general. i’ve never heard warren disavow reagan’s foreign policy, maybe i just missed it.
So far as I can tell Warren has never carved out a real identity on foreign policy. She is known primarily as a wall street regulator. It may very well be that she is a Neocon at heart.
But even if we posit that in all unknown areas she is identical with Clinton, and accept that in some knowns she is a lot closer, it still just doesn’t make sense to me.
For Warren this would mean expending a lot of effort to gain symbolic status but lose real power. Sitting U.S. Senators can hold up any bill they want and hold hearings on anything and everything. Just by using her ability to obtain and disseminate information she has done a great deal. As VP she does not have those abilities and only has the access and the power that the President grants her.
It is possible that Clinton will make big promises to her behind closed doors. But I don’t see how those promises will hold in the light of day.
i think vp can be a ticket to the presidency. whether it is a better platform than the senate is up for debate, especially if clinton doesn’t back her later, but that’s a judgement call.
Maybe Liz won’t have to wait 8 years to sit in the big chair. The Clintons are prone to unethical behavior bordering on the illegal. Impeachment is a real possibility with Madame Secretary.
I do think many people are literally scared by Trump’s bigoted comments, that they could be swept up by Trump’s bigotry.
1 Those who look vaguely Mestizo or Native American are afraid of getting swept up in a deportation raid – whether they are among the 12 Million undocumented, or are US Citizen Latinos, or US Citizen non-Latinos that may be vaguely mistaken as Mestizo or Native American.
2 Those US citizens who look vaguely Middle Eastern or South Asian fear crossing any US border, even say Detroit & Windsor, ON, Canada, & not allowed to return back home; be they US citizen Muslims, or someone mistaken for a Muslim – such as a Sikh South Asian.
Keep in mind that some Brown-skinned people might get mistaken for both groups.
Since both summary deportation of undocumented, & not allowing US citizen Muslims back into the US is UnConstitutional anyways, why would you presume a racist and moronic Trump Admin would take the time/effort/cost to actually clearly ascertain if a person was actually in the group Trump is persecuting. So the victims of Trump’s persecution could extend to other people “mistaken” for the persecuted group, to add the injustice of the persecution of the “correct” people in these 2 groups.
It will be very hard to convince any person with such a fear, that Trump is a Less Effective Evil / Lesser Evil than H Clinton is.
on the other hand, it might be hard to convince muslim citizens that clinton won’t continue to invade counties they have strong ties with, or continue the nsa spying that disproportionately affects them, or even kill some of their relatives with drones or by starting yet more wars in the middle east or africa.
I am confused about who is the Less Effective Evil / Lesser Evil bt H Clinton & Trump.
US political economy subject matter experts, who I admire, who I precieve as generally very intelligent, & specifically more informed than myself on the US political economy, are coming up with contradicting conclusions. Lambert & many NC commenters, & IIRC editorialist Ian Welsh are concluding Trump is the Less Effective Evil. Podcaster Sam Seder is concluding H Clinton is the Less Effective Evil (SCOTUS – abortion rights, public sector unions; ACA Medicaid), as is Prof. Noam Chomsky, & podcaster Kyle Kulinski.
I am reminded of what appears to happen frequently in human health, where dueling PhD experts claim opposite conclusions, for example on moderate alcohol or caffeine usage being mildly pro or anti-health, whereas a clueless laymen is left to guesstimate whose advice is correct.
Complicating the issue further, is that H Clinton & Trump are epic pathological liars & flip-floppers, as shown in this campaign, albeit with Trump taking it to a cartoonish level, flip-flopping 3 times on abortion within an a 5 minute interview. Also H Clinton’s record seems consistently bad, neoliberal, anti-99%. Trump has no political record, his business record shows consistent bad treatment or abuse of his workers, tenants, & business partners.
Perhaps Lambert or Yves could debate Sam Seder on this topic. Sam debated Jimmy Dore on Bernie or Bust, Jimmy pro, Sam anti. I like Dore, but IMHO Dore was not as informed & smart as Lambert/NCers.
Perhaps Honduras still has its democratically elected government?
So hard to parse.
Once again, Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report, sees things the clearest: This is Sander’s Moment of Truth
Movements are made by moves, and if Sanders capitulates to Clinton he will have proven that he is not serious, and/or that he is in fact another wolf in sheep’s clothing.
I must admit I’m surprised by anyone who is shocked because Obama, Warren and/or Sanders eventually endorse HRC. That was always a given. She is declared the winner, no matter how prematurely, and it was going to happen. It was never a given that the same could be said about Sanders, but that is another issue. Obama was just biding his time. He has his own goals in all this. But the others…
No matter how those of us here see it, Warren and Sanders are appalled and terrified by Trump. They really do see him as the greater evil. They may know that Clinton is a product of the corruption they see around them, but she is also a person they have dealt with. They are too close and think they know what they are getting. It is not being able to see the forest for the trees.
pat, this seems quite insightful to me.
True that! What they don’t seem to understand is that the Clintons gravitate toward scandals like white on rice. I’m afraid they’re going to be collateral damage…
I admit I’m kind of hoping that Obama gets hit by shrapnel in the latest or next Clinton corruption eruption.
Heh heh.
Off thread PSA: John Stweart was recently interviewed by David Axelrod. Stweart is still himself, offering systemic critiques that make “The Axe” nervous. Axelrod counters with well worn retorts of Washington misdirection: in a (snort) democracy the people are responsible for changing the systems, and obstructionist Rebulicans are to blame for “Team Dem” not transforming America over the last 8 years. Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da5VYSPsoE0
Republicans perform the necessary task of dragging the Dems to the right. Dems allow the Republicans to be so awful by being so lame and corrupt.
It all works out so nicely.
So if I follow BigMedia correctly
1 Muhammad Ali was a great & moral man, partially for being vocal & courageously being anti-war, specifically anti-Vietnam War.
2 ML King Jr was a great & moral man, however purposely omitting ML King Jr’s similar anti-War position.
3 0bama is a great & moral man, omitting how 0bama was mildly anti-War during his 2008 Campaign, & then Flip-Flopped to become a Warmonger as President, in some aspects, including drones & dictator-murdering US citizens on non-US soil sans judicial process, even worse than Bush43.
Which is it BigMedia re War?
It reminds me of US BigMedia & BigPolitrickian’s treatment of state-owned oil company whose profits fund citizen universal healthcare & education
4 Venezuela does it under Chavez, it is highlighted as Commie/dictatorish.
5 Norway did it before Chavez, for decades, it is ignored by BigMedia/BigPol, & if confronted, they would say “that is Scandinavian Social Democracy, they are more left than we in the US are, but Norway is a good ally” or some such.
Again, which is it?
Hypocrisy galore.
The first two are dead and no longer a threat?
Socialism has an obvious northern bias?
I was just tumblring through photos of Siberian settlements…
re: Was there a “Secret Win” conspiracy between AP and Clinton’s team? Sure looks like it….
The AP, as a reliable source of accurate unbiased information, has joined the ranks of credit ratings agencies Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch.
Hillary’s biggest supporter, Univision owner Haim Saban, is represented on AP’s board by Isaac Lee, Univision’s chief news and digital officer.
http://www.ap.org/annual-report/2015/AssociatedPress_2015FinancialStatements.pdf
This is what having highly placed fixers in the MSM is all about.
Correlation is not causation.
“We were robbed” is but one of many factors that have contributed to the outcome.
I would also focus on learning from our adversary.
The Guardian needs to hire a new fact-checker. The subhead on the Podemos article reads: “Party hoping for ‘most-read manifesto ever’ with candidates pictured at home watering plants and feeding fish”
Dearest Guardian, a) stop being a propaganda mouthpiece for the PTB, and b) that’s a Minature Pinscher she feeding in the picture and they’re dogs, not fish.
The subhead writer did, however, at least manage to identify the plants correctly…
the guardian these days lives to be a mouthpiece for the ptb, but has not been noted for accuracy in covering this campaign. consistency!
The Kochs create Americans for Prosperity which kicks off the tea party. The tea party are voting for Trump, along with Independents & Bernie or bust people. Now they want to do something about income inequality.
This is too funny. What is agenda, since it cannot be a change of heart. Are they really nervous about Trump or are we being manipulated.
” The network recently launched a new arm, dubbed Stand Together, which has set attacking poverty and boosting educational quality as early goals. ”
Sounds good until you realize the tax cuts rammed thru the Kansas legislature have benefited the Kochs the most and have lead to dangerously reduced funding of the public schools. My guess is the Kochs think private schools, charter schools, and other ALEC business profit ventures are just the ticket. The KS lege is now talking about a constitutional amendment to make it illegal for the KS Supreme Court to hear school funding cases. They’d love to force a constitutional crisis. Doubt the lege came up with that idea on its own. The KS safety net programs have been slashed to ribbons.
The joke around here is that if the lege rolls back any part of the tax cuts to restore funding for schools and safety net programs the Kochs will have to lay off some politicians.
After watching the Kochs for a while I am convinced that, at least in their minds, they really do believe in what they say. They believe that the free market works, and they believe that they are defending it. The fact that they themselves profit from all of the policies that they push only serves to strengthen their faith.
In many respects I think that this is why people like Gates and the Waltons push for them so much, not because they hate Teachers or children but because the solution makes sense to them. They are business people. They have succeeded in business, of course business solutions will work. It is an act of faith as much as a pragmatic policy.
The fact that they never have to spend time around the people that their policies have destroyed only serves to enhance their faith.
I’ll add your assessment; the Kochs are libertarians at heart. David Koch was the Libertarian Party VP candidate in 1980, running against Carter and Reagan. The Libertarian party didn’t get enough traction to enact their platform. In 1983/4 they jumped to the GOP. Here’s an interesting Sanders page (no need to answer the questions. Just read the highlights of the 1980 Libertarian platform.)
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/polls/1980-libertarian-party-koch
Adding:
“The Koch brothers are freezing out Donald Trump from their influential political operation — denying him access to their state-of-the-art data and refusing to let him speak to their gatherings of grass-roots activists or major donors.
“Despite a long and cordial relationship between the real estate showman and David Koch, as well as a raft of former Koch operatives who are now running Trump’s presidential campaign, the Koch political operation appears to have concluded that Trump is the wrong standard-bearer for the GOP. “
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/kochs-freeze-out-trump-120752
These people know exactly what they are doing. I have met a few squillionaires, and they engage in these practices to increase their wealth and power. Things like charitable donations are conduits for indebting public institutions to their political power, and their push for these business solutions is because they know there is much wealth to be earned by funneling public funds into private hands.
If you are voting for Trump, you are no lefty, you are fascist. There are non Hillary choices available, vote for Jill Stein or some other emergent party candidate.
Get a grip. A Trump victory is the most damaging outcome for the Democratic party. If one’s desire is the implosion of both Republican and Democratic parties, Trump is the best vote to make.
And if you vote for Hillary you are also a fascist. I’m not about to pull for some party who is lucky to have any name recognition at all. I would rather my vote go towards someone who will actually get in and accomplish stuff.
1. Is this ‘the lesser of two evils’ again?
2. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing.
That is, if you do nothing to prevent a fascist, you are responsible. Will voting Green do anything to prevent that? Does it do nothing to prevent?
I assume Y and L are assiduous enough that this isn’t a sockpuppet.
I will forever regard your nym as pro-nuclear winter.
*Really,right here, right now, tell us how seriously Hillary is committed to avoiding pushing Russia too far. Show me that she is concerned about the possibility of pushing Russia too far.
re War on Meat: There is no War on Meat any more than there is a War on Christmas. What is occurring is a clear-eyed assessment of longheld assumptions and resource depletion. The article places a lot of stock in free range meat and practices. All well and good as far as it goes, but free range accounts for something like 3% of demand, i.e., that ain’t cutting it. The authors don’t even mention population growth, water depletion, and animal husbandry’s contribution to a collapsing antibiotics regime.
From the article:
It’s time to ban factory farms, which destroy the effectiveness of antibiotics, and which are Auschwitzes for animals. Eating meat in moderation isn’t a big problem, but the way that the meat industry behaves is a giant disaster.
In moderation, and be grateful to the animal that gave its life so we may live.
“Thank you, my sacred bull.”
I wonder if we will see a ban on meat one day?
No smoking and no meat.
And no smoked meat either.
For me, I would love to see a ban on any piece of clothes, dress (or handbag etc) over $10,000.
But then what would Hillary Clinton wear when she tells us how concerned she is about inequality?
Now that we’re on the topic, I wonder how much Donald Trump’s suits cost? I’ve read that Brioni suits, which he wears, can cost more than $10,000.
So limit one’s consumption to ecologically-correct meat and keep ecologically correct meat-growers standing on the land. Boycott the other 97% (if that really is the correct figure) of the meat which is eco-destructive shit-meat.
Here’s a cartoon about the choice between voting and staying home:
http://wondermark.com/c1229/
A third choice – vote (or work) from home.
“Stay (in the comfort and safety of) home and vote.”
> It sounds as if he will stump very hard v. Trump, which means for Hillary
That depends. It’s a hard circle to square, but if you take or rather assume, tactically, the position that anything that drags the Overton Window left helps Clinton — because she’s a true progressive at heart, right? — then some space opens up. I think a key point, yet to be determined, is the institutional role of Sanders. Reporting to Clinton campaign staff? Free agent? Or…. both? (with subsequent heart-burning by Clinton staff to be savored).
I am re-highlighting the War on Meat essay in case anyone wants to take a break from the election stuff. Its really worth reading:
http://bigpictureagriculture.blogspot.com/2016/06/what-about-this-war-on-meat.html
Someone did make a disapproving comment on the essay (I agree with the points in the essay btw). One item of note about the ecological crisis is how quickly and thoroughly public discourse on the subject in the US got swallowed up by identity politics. This is more true on the red state/ brass n’ muck side but does also apply to the blue state/ green side. I have theories as to why but they are tentative.
Good points about small farms and rotational grazing.
After going through the above commentary, I seriously suggest that the Links posts have to be split, with one Links posts related to the US elections this year, and one for everything else. I realize there are two Links posts a day as it is, one from Yves and one from Lambert, but maybe one could do the elections-only Links and one the everything else Links.
Otherwise I can see the US elections monopolizing the comments. Its only June.
Ed,
Thanks for this.
I agree, agree, agree. The elections are already monopolizing the comments.
Have the non-election Links at the top, is my suggestion.
But then I won’t read about politics at all ( imagine a wink emoticon here)
Maybe just a combined “VP ruminations” with “Bernie should run as …” entry each day would keep the cogent stuff in the Links/WC?
Open season on the Hildabeest: ABC News — relying on another trove of FOIA’d emails — reveals how a high frequency trader got hisself appointed to an intelligence advisory board after donating to the Clinton Foundation.
From this day forward, the “dirt dumps” on the Clintons are going to turn into a brown, Amazonian river of reeking toxic sludge.
So many scandals, so little time! :-)
How do you think Michael `Heckuva job, Brownie’ Brown got appointed head of FEMA? Welcome to D.C.
This story should get some legs. The central figure is one Rajiv “Raj” Fernando, here’s his incredibly padded–and yet *still* lacking–bio page at the “intelligence board” website
http://www.americansecurityproject.org/about/board-of-directors/raj-fernando/
The first sentence is about him is, “Raj Fernando is the founder and CEO of The Chopper Group, which is working on a new Internet venture.” Websearch the name of the company..
Here’s Hillary’s price tag, the doc listing what Raj/Chopper paid on Sept. 14th of last year to the “Hillary Victory Fund”,
http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00586537/1029544/sa/AL
I’m maybe less shocked by the corruption–the quid pro quo–here than I am by the billionaire couch change amounts Hillary can apparently be bought for.
Ian Welsh asks: “Why are politicians bought so cheaply?” and answers: “It’s like selling your neighbor’s car for twenty bucks.”
that’s an excellent analogy. strangely – or not – in countries with strongman leaders, buying off national property is a lot more expensive.
Did anybody see Biden’s letter to the Stanford victim that was making the rounds? Touching, for sure, but an icky part of me wonders why his profile is suddenly being raised with the convention a little more than a month away…
So far, everything that the establishment has hinted they’d do, they did. It’s been going around for ages that Plan B if Clinton gets indicted is they would drop in Biden and have Warren be his VP.
So, I am assuming all that is still on track. The only issue is, will all the Clinton pledged delegates and bought superdelegates comply? I’m guessing no, frankly. I think there’s a not insignificant number of Clinton pledged delegates that are disgusted by her now, and freed of their requirement to back her, would back Bernie rather than Biden. And I think there are superdelegates who freed of their fear of Clinton would likewise back Bernie, realizing that Biden is a probably loser and Bernie would infuse the state parties and lesser pols with money and influence. He wouldn’t need that many. It’s looking more and more like he’ll win California. I don’t think Padilla has the access he needs to dump or switch all those Bernie voted ballots still being counted.
re the stanford rapist
the outrage in this case is certainly justified, but i don’t remember there being this much of it in the previous affluenza case where a rich, texas scion fatally mowed down two people in a drunken joyride and only got probation.
i think this is for two reasons. the first, is that american society is so cavalier about murder. it’s ubiquitous on tv, dispensed liberally in muslim countries, and even the cops shoot an average of three human beings daily. death no longer moves them.
another is the bizarre attitude towards rape. we pretend it never happens, whereas in reality, it’s as ubiquitous in society as murder is on tv, yet it’s taboo to talk about and victims are disbelieved when they speak out. when it finally is acknowledged, it is considered as worse than murder. a woman who has been raped is considered to be used goods; she has lost her value. and this cultural stigma adds enormously to the victim’s trauma. it’s a worldwide phenomenon (much worse in muslim countries). a teenage girl here in france just last month live-streamed her suicide after having been raped, deciding that the rest of her life as not worth living. it’s hard to imagine the horror but i can only imagine that if society didn’t put that stigma on her she would still be alive today.
we also, in america, pretend that war does not happen. veterans’ suicides and ruined lives (of both sexes) represent the same kind of fallout for individuals. many veterans can accept the hypocritical glory they get as fit reward for what they’ve been through. many cannot.
when you start asking questions like why is rape made so shameful, you have to ask why war is made so glorious, also. anthropologists who have studied societies where rape is prevalent, or not, have perceived that warrior cultures are shame cultures and are rape cultures.
i think rape and war both arise with the spread of cultivation, agriculture, property, and a powerful state apparatus. ownership of women comes with ownership period. treatment of women as chattel leads to the need for men to damage other men’s goods, their wives, sisters, daughters. and these women must be made to carry the lion’s share of the shame that comes to the man who cannot protect the women he owns.
that’s a thoughtful comment and you’re probably right. i can imagine hunter-gatherer societies treating it as a dangerous brush with death then shrugging it off. i hadn’t thought to link war with rape culture – thinking instead that these were two separate attitudes that sometimes converge (eg rape is a weapon in war)
Stanford afluenza rapist brock…dear judge…put down the crackpipe…no danger to others ? …
because it is every young womans wet dream to meet a loser jock and have a romantic first date with a candle light dinner in an alley next to a dumpster…
what are you smoking ?
Do you need a breathalyzer attached to your gavel before you get on the bench each day ?
What type of degenerate disrespects himself and the woman he claims to be with by consent, and does his 20 minutes of action next do a dumpster in an alley…???
I am sure a vanilla candle will deal with the wonderful aroma flowing from the grounds next to where a dumpster regularly sits…
Is that not by definition a threat to society ??
So this whole nonsense is obviously due to his fathers security clearance, which needs to be pulled…period end of story…anyone who waves his importance to the national security apparatus as a “get out of jail free card” is a danger to the national security…
Lindsey graham or no Lindsey graham…
Period, end of story…
i think this is a clear case of the judge seeing his younger self in brock. this sort of conduct must have been commonplace in his time at stanford.
hoisted from Tiabbi’s article from today. Things are really heating up in the comment section but this one made me mad: Hillary has spent this campaign going all over this country LISTENING to people, their needs, problems. She’s created REAL policy prescriptions to address a multitude of issues with thoughtfully crafted solutions aimed at REALLY helping PEOPLE.
Hillary WON this primary BECAUSE she was listening to REAL people. She HEARD them. They felt heard. That is why they VOTED for Hillary in overwhelming numbers.
Bernie has been saying the same things for 30 years with little effective result. Younger people who do not work and depend on their parents, and those that are unemployed or underemployed are susceptible to the promise of “free” from Bernie Sanders, a man who has NEVER held a private sector job in his entire life and was unemployed until he was 40 yrs old.
Those of us who have worked all our lives and most likely worked our way through college and paid for our own kids college know you have to work for what you have in this life. Bernie has illuminated the crazy inequality that has arisen for many years & was exploded along with our economy under George W Bush. (Who inherited a strong economy and budget surpluses from Bill Clinton). GWBUSH was ushered in with a messy butterfly ballot in Florida and the Supreme Court stopped the recount. All those “progressives” who voted for Nader helped elect Bush. Thanks for nothing.
All these “angry” “idealistic” young voters who have the time & their parents money love being part of the newest trend of going to see Bernie yell his oft repeated tag lines at his Huuge rallies. Notice Bernie talks at them vs. Listening to anybody. And so his candidacy is ending with Sanders having a hard time facing reality accepting his loss with class.
Older voters know you have to VOTE DOWN BALLOT for Democrats. Young people don’t vote or skip the down ballot (as they did in CA)! If there is a GOP led Congress, Democrats can’t do squat to pass laws and help people.
To say Democrats are the same as Republicans, as Bernie has outrageously misled these young voters, is the worst aspect of his campaign. Change is HARD WORK. Tag lines and yelling demands won’t do the job. But, hardworking, wonky, tough, compassionate, whip smart Hillary will. So VOTE. And those online petitions to your Congressmen and Senators are an excellent way to have them HEAR us. (Gives them concrete evidence constitutes concerns). I volunteered to help elect Hillary in primary & now it’s time to get her elected President. If you want a stronger economy, jobs, increased incomes, higher minimum wage, be able to start a business, debt free college, infrastructure, renewable energy, clean water, better trade policy and a Better Brighter Future then a wonky policy oriented LEADER is the ticket. Hilllary is going to be the BEST President we’ve ever had with a White House that listens.
So VOTE for HILLARY & DEMOCRATS Down Ballot! You will only then get the Change you want.
I am having trouble navigating today sorry. That comment was from Diane at the comment section. Way to throw millennials under the bus and to spew misinformation. I mean really Bernie was unemployed until age 40????
Umm last i checked he was the mayor of Burlington VT for one…..jeez. People like Diane are the problem!!
Misinformation, propaganda the list goes on.
The above comment that ends “So VOTE for HILLARY….” was not a parody compilation of Clinton talking points, but a single comment?!
If so, would you provide a link? Thanks!
That was the full comment. I can provide the link to the Taibbi article but not a specific comment. There are over 2000 comments. I went back and saw some other comments by Diane and upon further observation I am pretty sure this may be a paid for troll by Correct the Record. I may screen shot the other comments just because it is so obvious.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/democrats-will-learn-all-the-wrong-lessons-from-brush-with-bernie-20160609
ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!
I wonder if it’s possible, given inputs in the form of a corpus of comments, for an algorithm to determine through some similarity metric, how many of them were from a common source? Readers? (Software that determines whether papers are plagiarized would be similar.)
Gawker Media files for bankruptcy, to go up for sale
Score: billionaire glibertarian 1, freedom of speech 0.
Indeed. The Freedom of speech associated with posting sextapes, nude pics, and other private material (not to mention making snarky comments about them) has truely suffered a major blow today. It is saddening to see that the rich can so easily remove the celebrity smut we are entitled to!
How true. Media platforms should only support themselves by providing content that is totally edifying, according to the Edification Manual provided by… provided by….
Do consider adding real value with your comments?
I am confused Lambert. Are you saying that media should be allowed to air legally protected material because it generates income?
Or are you claiming that freedom of speech entitles a media company to ignore the privacy rights of individuals?
Or was my comment just too snarky of a response to the scoreboard style post?
Public persons whose entire net worth is based on kayfabe and howard stern and talking about ones verility while living a libertine life…such a public person is in fact Not able to hide behind the privacy rights argument…was dsk given any privacy rights ? Yes dsk is a p.o.s. Dog libertine, but all that was private, yet we end up hearing about sex parties in paris…so how is a man with the stage name of hulk hogan protected by privacy rights ??
“Bernie Sanders White House Driveway Remarks CSPAN. It sounds as if he will stump very hard v. Trump, which means for Hillary. ”
OK, well, what else is he (or Elizabeth Warren) going to do? Join the Green Party? They don’t want to be seen as being a “Nader” (no matter how wrong it is) and helping Trump win. Bernie stands to be head of the Budget Committee, which is very powerful. That would be more useful than grandstanding with the Green Party and totally losing. This from Jill Stein on Democracy Now two days ago:
“But in terms of my own view, you know, I’m a physician, not a politician. I don’t have a vested interest in a particular political career or a particular political office. My job is to do everything that I can to create an America and a world that we can live in and that we can survive in.”
OK, she’s a nice speechmaker who hasn’t done much else. I may vote for her as a protest but, honestly, she doesn’t have the chops to be president. And the Green Party is an ineffectual mess not really worth supporting. I would be more inclined to invest some time/energy into the Working Families Party as they’ve done a lot more (notwithstanding their blunder in endorsing Cuomo last time).
I have heard that Hillary “won” in CA by 400,000 votes. There are 2 million votes still to be counted. Could be a gamechanger (although not in any real sense since Bernie has all but acknowledged she will still be ahead in pledged delegates, although without enough to have actually won).
I’ve read recently here that more younger and Latino voters vote by mail. I thought older voters were more likely to do that.
Maybe it’s due to all the new voters who registered recently.
But it could be that Hillary actually increases her total.
Hillary isn’t going to increase her total unless Padilla has paid off enough staff in the many county registrar’s offices to switch out the actual voted ballots. Is that possible? Yes — I mean, at this point, no amount of corruption would shock me.
However, so far, that’s not what’s happening. A bunch of counties flipped to Bernie today. I have seen reports that watchdogs did get in to observe the ballot counting in the very populated counties, and those ballots are heavily for Bernie. There will be some late Vote By Mail ballots and some provisional ballots for Hillary. I know because I worked the polls in a very rich, white, conservative precinct. But those Hillary provisionals are coming from people who signed up for Vote By Mail, threw that ballot out, then strolled in the polling place. If you couldn’t physically surrender your mail-in ballot, you HAD to use a provisional, so they could make sure you didn’t vote twice. There will not be that many.
By comparison, tons and tons of Bernie voters got their Vote By Mail ballots fairly late, so they got mailed later. Many who registered as No Party Preference didn’t know they had to separately request the Democratic ballot as well. They had to then either contact the registrar by the end of May to get it mailed to them, or come into the polling place to surrender their NPP ballot and exchange it for the Democratic ballot. They SHOULD have been able to simply scan that into the machine, like any other normal voter. But apparently, all over the state, poll workers made them put that crossover Democratic ballot in a provisional envelop. Padilla did apparently pull off some registration shenanigans, including not sending the updated pages for new registrants. My rich white Hillary/Trump precinct had our blue update pages. But UCLA (surprise, surprise) didn’t get theirs. All those properly registered college kids then had to use provisional ballots.
There is almost no possibility Hillary’s lead holds, if those late Vote By Mail ballots and all the provisionals are counted, as we have been promised they will be. There was late polling showing Bernie up by somewhere between 20-30 points when you combined both Democratic voters and NPP voters, and the gap with new registrants (remember: more likely to be late mailers or provisional) was BIGGER.
They pulled that crap with the AP for a reason. They started counting the Vote By Mail ballots a week before election day. I’m assuming they were also seeing the data from the early voting sites, as well.
I believe 40% of the ballots are yet to be counted. I’m sure they have managed to reduce Bernie’s margin through suppression so that he can’t get ahead of her in the pledged delegate count, as he would have otherwise. But it looks more and more like he’ll win.
Here it comes, Obamacare-401K
http://www.c-span.org/video/?410407-3/washington-journal-roundtable-retirement-security-savings
Hillary fixing SS?!
This Petra article is the worst. They found an awesome site are then unwilling to feed me speculation about its purpose. Responsible archaeologists are awful.
Even if you have health insurance, you may want to pay cash Los Angeles Times
As long as cash is legal, of course.
I used to work in the medical insurance business. You would be astonished at where your supposedly private medical information goes. All sorts of third parties are privy to your sexual diseases and mental illness claims. HIPAA does not protect your information. I cannot stress this enough – the data goes to all sorts of third parties. As long as they encrypt the data at rest they can analyze it to their heart’s content.
Billing is a separate issue. Certainly a conversation with a provder regarding cash is a good thing.
Also, did you know that now providers are required to get a photograph of you? Providers are now considered equivalent to a bank, so have to do the same anti-fraud. You can have an “interesting” conversation with the billing specialist, as almost no one knows (or is willing to say) why the new photographs are required.
On further reflection, I’m surprised the MSM would write about this issue. USC 15 prohibits monopoly pricing, but that is exactly what the medical industry has.
I have extensive experience in PPO network pricing. I was always astonished that the entire practice was not shut down by the FBI.
There is no way a consumer can price a procedure. That is the exact definition of a violation of the anti-monopoly laws. It is also a direct repudiation of the premise of the Health Saving Accounts – that is, consumers *cannot* compare by price because they have no way to get the price in the first place!!!
One of the best things Sanders or Trump could do is go after the medical industry for monopoly violations of USC 15. This requires just the Justice Department – Congress is not required to cooperate.
Re : Tax Receipts
From Shedlock:
The chart shows federal tax receipts are still climbing not falling.
The chart shows similar if not larger declines in the Evercore in ’99, ’04, ’06, ’12, and ’14. Times we were not in recessions.
But hey, lets not ruin a good narrative!
The chart shows federal tax receipts are still climbing not falling.
The chart shows similar if not larger declines in the Evercore in ’99, ’04, ’06, ’12, and ’14. Times we were not in recessions.
YoY Federal receipts have fallen to just +0.1%, which is noise-level-indistinguishable from zero.
Your statement re. the Evercore State Receiots survey is factually wrong – Evercore is the blue line in the chart, and the last times it had dropped to the current level of 41 were early 2001 and early 2008. Granted, those occasions were both on much clearer and pronounced downslides from more robustly positive-trend highs than the anemic and choppy sawtooth of the post-GFC “recovery”, such as it is.