In this Real News Network interview, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) responds to former interim chair Donna Brazile’s revelation that the Clinton campaign had effective control of the DNC. Gabbard was a vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee until February 28, 2016, when she resigned to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Primary.
Brazile published her book excerpt in Politico, Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC. If you’ve yet to read it, don’t miss.
AARON MATÉ: It’s The Real News. I’m Aaron Maté. During the 2016 Democratic primary, supporters of Bernie Sanders complained that the Democratic National Committee was plagued by internal corruption, and rigging the nomination for Hillary Clinton. Well today, the former interim chair of the DNC has come out to say exactly that. Writing for Politico, Donna Brazile details a scheme wherein the Clinton campaign effectively took over the DNC. Facing a major funding shortfall, the DNC agreed to let the Clinton campaign control the party’s finances, strategy, donations, and staffing decisions in exchange for the Clinton campaign’s financial help.
But, this did not happen after Clinton became the nominee. In fact, this agreement was made in August 2015, months before a single primary vote was cast. Among many things, this meant that the DNC was able to act as a money laundering operation for the Clinton campaign. Tens of millions of dollars in donations to state democrats across the country ultimately was kicked back to Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn, well, earlier I spoke to someone who has been a prominent vocal critic of the DNC process from the start. Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard represents Hawaii’s second congressional district. She was vice chair of the DNC until February 2016 when she resigned to endorse senator Bernie Sanders. I spoke to her about Donna Brazil’s revelations. Congressmember Gabbard, welcome. Your response, what we’ve heard from Donna Brazile today.
TULSI GABBARD: I was not surprised to read what she was detailing in what was printed today. This was something that when I was vice chair of the DNC I didn’t have knowledge of the details, but it was something that some folks were actually talking about and were concerned about at that time
AARON MATÉ: I want to quote more from Donna Brazile. She writes “If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.” She’s referring especially to this financial arrangement in which the Clinton camp gives the DNC money but in exchange, the DNC hands over control of basically every single decision. Your thoughts on that? Were you surprised by her revelation?
TULSI GABBARD: Again, this is not something I wasn’t privy to the inner workings of how these decisions were made, because at that time the decisions were really ultimately coming from the chair of the DNC. But I had heard some concerns from folks from different state parties actually. Executive directors and chairs and people who were involved in the grassroots organizing and trying to again increase involvement in the process. Their concerns around this joint fundraising agreement that Donna Brazile talked about in her article and her book was that the funds that were being raised through this agreement were not actually benefiting the party, but they were kind of being used as a pass through for lack of a better word. Their concerns again were about getting more support for the work that parties do on the ground and grassroots organizing. Turning out the vote, going and knocking on doors. Doing all the things that happened on the ground in states all across the country. Again, this was not something that I was terribly surprised by in reading that Donna detailed, but it’s something that hasn’t been laid out in the way that she has in this way.
AARON MATÉ: Yeah. She provides a figure when it comes to the money element. She says that of $82 million that was raised in state fundraisers, less than half of 1%, half of 1% got to go to the state parties, and said the rest went back to Brooklyn for the Clinton campaign. What kind of difference do you think that made on the election outcome when it comes to democratic efforts at the state level?
TULSI GABBARD: It’s hard to say. I can’t exactly quantify that. But I do know that some of the state party officials who I had spoken to at different times during the campaign had actually expressed these concerns and decided not to sign onto this joint fundraising agreement for that specific reason. They saw at that point, look we’re not going to be used by anyone’s campaign. If you want to talk about how to help strengthen local parties, let’s have that conversation, but this was clearly not an effort in that direction.
AARON MATÉ: You recently spoke out about some more decisions by the DNC at the national level, in terms of their staffing of key committees. Can you comment there on what you were most upset by, and your thoughts on what should be done?
TULSI GABBARD: At a time when many people and many voices are calling for unity within the Democratic party, it was really disturbing to see that there was kind of a purge of party officials from both the at large committee, as well as the executive committee within the DNC. That really had one common thread of the people who were booted out of those seats that they had held. Some for decades. The commonality was that these were people who had either supported Bernie Sanders for president or supported Keith Ellison for DNC chair, or both. If the message is that we’re going to get rid of people who may have dissenting opinions, or may be calling for different kinds of reform or retaliating for positions that they’ve taken this is not the direction that the democratic party should be going in. The democratic party should be going in the direction of openness, inclusiveness, transparency, accountability, which is why I’ve been calling for two major but very basic kinds of reform. Getting rid of the non democratic superdelegates who make up one third of all of the votes cast that a nominee needs to secure the nomination, and to secure open or same day registration primaries so that again, open the doors. Let’s let everybody in and get involved in the process.
AARON MATÉ: In your statement about these recent DNC appointments, you said that we must put people over profits.
TULSI GABBARD: We must put people over profits and progress over special interests.
AARON MATÉ: In what way is the DNC right now or have they been putting profits over people?
TULSI GABBARD: You know, a friend of mine, Jim Zogby, he was the only Arab American there who was on the executive committee. He was someone who’s been very active in democratic politics probably for over two decades, and actually going out and organizing, and getting people more engaged and involved with the process. Connecting with minorities, whether they be religious minorities, ethnic minorities, minorities in underprivileged communities. He is somebody who was booted out and a lobbyist or someone else came in and took his place. I don’t have the full list in front of me, but the fact that you would take out somebody who has been so committed like Jim Zogby, again the only Arab American there, and replace him with somebody who is a lobbyist or a consultant for the DNC, to me it doesn’t represent democratic values.
AARON MATÉ: Finally congresswoman Gabbard, you resigned in February 2016 from the DNC as vice chair to openly endorse for Bernie Sanders. Do you feel betrayed that those who stayed behind were working behind the scenes to elect Sander’s opponent?
TULSI GABBARD: It’s not about me, Aaron. This isn’t about me or my feelings or what impact they’ve had on me. I think the important question here is what has the impact been on our democracy. That is the critical point. That’s what we should all be concerned about. I don’t care who you supported in the presidential election, whether it was Hillary or Bernie or somebody else. The point here is about strengthening our democracy and coming together to enact real reforms that will actually do that in a real way. I think the time for kind of pointing fingers and infighting and bickering is long past. There is so much at stake here. I’m just encouraging people whether you’re involved with Democratic politics in a very direct way or if you’re not involved at all, now is the time for us all to stand up and raise our voices and say this is the kind of democracy that we want and actually fight for those changes to make it happen.
AARON MATÉ: Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii’s second congressional district, thanks very much.TULSI GABBARD: Thanks Aaron. Aloha.AARON MATÉ: Aloha and thank you for joining us on The Real News.
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i went to see if the guardian were reporting on this story. they were not.
Of course the Guardian isn’t yet reporting this. The paper has been a HillBot since the word go and still takes every possibility imaginable to splash her picture on the online frontpage. Bernie Sanders didn’t exist for the Guardian until near the election. He just couldn’t be ignored anymore. It has become all about glitz, glamor, celebrity interspersed with some fairly decent investigative journalism about specific subjects which touch the heartstrings of the educated, corporate, privileged circles the Clintons represent (for instance today male rape in Libya as a means of exerting power!). So now we know. Didn’t HRC once say that she had to give money to the DNC because it was broke? But I don’t remember her telling us what she and her clique got in return. Of all people Donna Brazile spills the beans. For once I can say good on her.
Yes, completely ignoring it. The Guardian occasionally does excellent reporting, but their coverage of US politics has been an absolute disgrace (with the occasional exception of a few part hidden Thomas Frank articles). They’ve been called out for it innumerable times below the line – they can’t be unaware that a huge chunk of their readers are not buying it – I can only assume that they have some financial backers who are insisting on this, it goes well beyond just bias into what can only be described as deliberate deception.
This might be of some help – from Jonathon Cook featuring Glenn Greenwald, Seumus Milne & Nafeez Ahmed :
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-sham-of-guardians-scott-trust/
Now that is interesting, thanks.
You are very welcome.
Terrible yet unsurprising. I searched on the NYT and nothing as well.
nyt not reporting either, except in a debunking aside in their glowing report of hillary’s award and the tears shed.
All three major networks ignored it as well.
Note that among the state parties that signed up to the Hillary Victory Fund,
Florida – Trump +1%
Michigan – Trump +0.3%
Pennsylvania – Trump +0.7%
Wisconsin – Trump +0.7%
and Puerto Rico
Great dot-connecting. Incredible irony that HRC’s diversion of funds from swing states to her high-spending campaign was one of the proximate causes of her losing the electoral college.
David
November 3, 2017 at 6:52 am
excellent insight!
Yep. Here in Maine, where the state party was part of the Victory Fund kick-back scheme, Trump ended up winning one of the state’s electoral votes (Maine allows splitting by congressional district) — the first time a Republican took a Maine electoral vote since 1988.
The End Justifies the Means.
Would any of this have come out had we been ‘with her?’
The link at the FEC was dated 9/16/15 and shows only 32 states and the Democratic Party of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Open Secrets shows 38 states eventually signed on to the Hillary Victory Fund shows 38 states (Iowa, NJ, Del, KS, NM and SD added), with each participating state a “beneficiary” of around $3M. Nada to the Democratic Party of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
https://www.opensecrets.org/jfc/summary.php?id=C00586537
Georgia, OR, RI, Miss., and WV were among the top “vendors/recipients,” netting ~$2M. Does that mean these states only churned ~$1M back to Hillary in this money laundering scheme? https://www.opensecrets.org/jfc/expenditures.php?id=C00586537&cycle=2016
These $3M expenditures pale to Hillary for America ($120,822,326), DNC Services Corp ($55,639,930), Bully Pulpit Interactive ($40,881,995), and Chapman, Cubine et al ($25,432,057).
Every penny of DNC Services Corp’s (d/b/a DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE) Independent Expenditures, Communication Costs and Coordinated Expenses went to Hillary: $22,813,448. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/indexpend.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00010603
Incidentally, I was not able to track these funds at the Oregon Secretary of State with Orestar, the online tool to search campaign finances. As I looked closely at the filings, it appears the FEC requires expenditures by (not contributions to) the Democratic Party of Oregon to federal political committees be recorded. I only see ~$275K contributed back (aggregated expenditures) to “Democratic Party of Oregon Federal Account” and “Democratic Party of Oregon Forward Oregon Transfer Down Acct.” in the 2015 and 2016 calendar years (though an additional $123,404.48 has gone to Democratic Party of Oregon Federal Account in 2017).
“Open Secrets shows 38 states eventually signed on to the Hillary Victory Fund shows 38 states (Iowa, NJ, Del, KS, NM and SD added)…”
Oh, so that’s why the KS Dem party officials claimed they couldn’t afford $20k for a mailer for Thompson in the KS-04 special election race this spring…. A race he almost won, without that help!
Good job, KS Dem party officials! /s
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/republicans-kansas-special-election-2017-236961
Here is one example, from the 2016 financials of the Wisconsin Dem Party. Unity is the name of the joint fundraising project:
Unity Income: $8,595,958
Unity Expenses: $8,591,262
DPW contributions to Unity: $282,000
So for Wisconsin at least, it is not true that the state party made anything (even half of 1 percent) from the “joint” fundraising. Clinton took all but $4700 of the proceeds AND took another $282,000 from the state party.
Just like Charles Koch, she just wanted her fair share; all of it.
Tell me please, how is this different from republican efforts to exterminate Obama Care by de-funding every bit of its supporting infrastructure?
Whether it was Hilary’s intent to exterminate the Democratic party or not, the effect seems quite similar.
Though it seems Obama”Care” was, as an “infrastructure,” doing a fine job of self-extermination. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/09/sickness-american-healthcare.html
82 mil
410k total paid to 33 States
12,400 per State.
Seems like at least 33 States party peeps who agreed to this should be shown the door if they haven’t bowed their heads and left in shame.
She didn’t want to exterminate it, she wanted to become it. Dictator of the party, and then pass the mantle on to Chelsea when the time came.
Her goal does seem to be “L’etat c’est moi”
Too bad she isn’t my congressman.
Raul Grijalva is mine.
At first, I didn’t think that he was anything more than your classic identity politician. Then I needed constituent service. Matter of fact, I needed it a couple of times. Let me tell you, his staff aced it. They were that good.
As far as I am concerned, Raul has my vote for as long as he wants to stay in office.
Finally one shoe has dropped. The second one about to drop is that the DNC emails were not hacked by Russia in any capacity, directly or indirectly by the Kremlin, whatever. They were most probably leaked. HRC started the Russia hysteria when she called President Trump a pupped of Putin in one of the debates. This is only one small example of her manipulative arrogance.
In Roger Stone’s book, The Making of the President 2016, Stone said that he thought that the e-mails were leaked by Seth Rich.
Every piece of what we’ve learned so far, unfolding over months, is as bad as or worse than we had thought: The DNC works to engineer a Clinton/Trump match-up, the combination most likely to assure a Democratic loss. It vehemently denies that it is tilted favorably toward Clinton—which turns out to be true, in a technical sense, because it is controlled by Clinton. The establishment Democrats accuse Sanders of not working for down-ballot Democrats while the DNC is siphoning money from the states to help Clinton’s campaign. “Maintaining ties to Wall Street makes economic sense for Democrats and keeps their coffers full,” one “pollster and senior political adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000” helpfully assures us two weeks ago in the NYT, except when it doesn’t, such as when Donna Brazile discovers, to her horror, that the party is, fact, broke, probably due, in no small part, to paying consultants—like the one writing in the Times—whose expertise has led the decimation of the party. (And, on top of all that, the DNC, professing “unity,” purges long-time members who supported Bernie Sander or Keith Ellison and appoints anti-minimum wage lobbyist Dan Halpern to the Finance Committee.)
Every part of the story turns out to be a colossal train wreck—and all this from establishment/élite types who spent the entire campaign season reminding everyone else that they knew what was realistic, pragmatic, achievable, so on and so forth. It’s unreal, really.
Nice synopsis.
..even obama said russians not involved..as did WikiLeaks-Julian Assange…
“…but it was something that some folks were actually talking about and were concerned about at that time”
===================================
Why does this remind me of Harvey Weinstein?
its like deja vu or something…
I think we have to go back and find out who ‘endorsed’ Harvey. How many?
And we go back, research and publish the names of those who knew, and yet still endorsed Hillary.
To be fair to Rep. Gabbard, the excerpt published by Ms. Brazile clearly indicates that Rep. Wasserman-Shulz (DWS) was not keeping the rest of the DNC leadership fully informed of relevant business and financial arrangements.
If Brazile’s account is accurate, the question arises, why did the DNC board tolerate that situation for so long, given their legal responsibilities? Given the anomalous behavior by DWS, you have to wonder how the DNC board could have been comfortable in their roles, and why action wasn’t taken against DWS earlier. That leads one to a suspicion is that there was an outside force supporting (controlling?) DWS and intimidating the others.
Ah yes, but Brazile’s account is a self-serving CYA attempt to get ahead of a story that was obvious as it was happening to anyone paying attention 18 months ago. Notice no mention of passing debate questions from CNN to Clinton ahead of time. It undercuts your “bombshell” if you have to say “it was rigged…and I helped”
Debbie will be the sacrificial lamb. Still waiting for anyone in the mainstream to publish the name “Awan”.
am I just imagining that gabbard spent the interview repeating that she, vice chair that she was, didn’t know what was going on? stand up, woman!
Nearly a year after the Nov 2016 general election, this issue is finally beginning to be elevated. Senator Elizabeth Warren also responded affirmatively to a question about whether some primary elections were rigged against Sanders on PBS Newshour yesterday evening.
Somewhat related in terms of the scramble to get ahead of the Den estab breakdown:
In an interesting coincidence the recent meeting of the AFL-CIO saw labor leaders say it’s time to stop automatically giving Dems support.
“The time has passed when we can passively settle for the lesser of two evils,” reads the main political resolution passed Tuesday by delegates. Lee Saunders, chair of the AFL-CIO’s political committee and president of AFSCME (link is external), and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (link is external), introduced the resolution. They lead the labor federation’s two largest unions. Convention managers yoked the resolution to another measure it also approved discussing a labor party, though not by name.”
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/afl-cio-calls-for-a-break-with-lesser-of-two-evils-politics/
Many AFT members were very unhappy (understatement) when Weingarten announced support for Hillary without first polling members. AFT lost a lot of members over that. I’m not sure this isn’t a PR scramble by labor leaders to keep their jobs, instead of any real change in outlook. But it’s an interesting data point about the current state-of-play.
LONG past time.
This is just an example of the reason the unions are in such bad shape.
AFT member here. I was livid about the sham endorsement “process” that happened; it was rushed through, months before the first contest, with absolutely no consultation from the rank and file.
Weingarten’s infamous text messages about the National Nurses Union basically solidified for me that she’s nothing but pond scum. She’s not a teacher, she’s an attorney. And clearly, not a very clever one, at that. I am obligated to be an AFT member, and if I were only to become a “partial” member I’d still be paying about 88% of the dues anyway. I still support my AFT local.
The national AFT and its pathetic misleadership can go to hell.
If it’s any consolation, your situation appears to be the norm with the long-established unions. Their clearly-stated bias aside, the World Socialist Web Site covers labor disputes and has shown over and over that the mainstream unions have sold their rank-and-file out. Ironically, just this week I read where an activist group has done some major housecleaning at the Teamsters—and it only took them 41 years.
During the primary, the outrage among SEIU members when their Fearless Leader not only announced for HRC but tried to pretend it was “what our people want” by posting to Facebook photos of a half-dozen blue-shirted members heading out to knock on doors. It didn’t go over well.
I was a teacher in NYC when Weingarten was head of the union there.
The word on the street was that Weingarten barely had two years of experience as a classroom teacher before becoming a career union politician. Certainly, she’s spent waaaay more time in that capacity than as a teacher. Has anyone researched this?
By the way, NYC teacher’s union elections are a sordid joke. When I was there, they actually allowed *retired* teachers to vote for the president of the union. They were the biggest block for Weingarten’s Unity Caucus (the union, called the UFT, is so big it effectively has political parties and Unity is like Mexico’s PRI in its heyday).
Did Senator Warren admit that her refusal to endorse Bernie was bought by the Hillary Victory Fund? In other words, does this indicate that the great fighter against Wall Street corruption was bought off by Wall Street?
Got any proof of that?
Was Massachusetts one of the participating states? She wouldn’t have made any friends there exposing the money-laundering, if so. And had Clinton beaten the odds and won, she would have been toast, especially given she has a huge target on her back painted by the GOP. The Clintons notoriously hold grudges, and have long memories.
The Margot Kidder piece in Counterpunch linked to in Montanamaven’s comment lists 31 of the 33 participating states. Massachusetts is one of them. (It’s not clear which are the other two states or why they aren’t listed.)
*Sigh*. Warren is a blockbuster fundraiser for the party. She is a net contributor to them. She doesn’t need the DNC.
Other than her stance against corruption, particularly Government – finance industry revolving door driven corruption, she’s pure neo-liberal, pretty much pro-war, and gets a lot of big money donations, some of which flows to the party. Otherwise Obama would have stuck it to her long ago for raining on his retirement rainmaking.
Margot Kidder was on this last spring. I wonder what Montana Democratic State party officials are saying now? Clinton Bought Loyalty of 33 State Dem Parties
I’ll ask.
Thanks so much for that link.
How is it that such a plain-spoken explanation of what was really happening was totally ignored until Donna Brazile fesses up?
MSM had to be actively ignoring/burying this story ever since then.
Makes me wonder what you have to do to be heard in this country? /snrk
I remember reading these things back then, and trying to forward them to HillBots I knew. Without exception I was poo-poo’ed as a tinfoil-hat-wearing-conspiracy-theorist-berniebro-whiner-misogynist-right-wing-conspiracy-member.
I’d love to say ‘I told you so’ to those peeps, but most of them are now fully occupied looking under their beds for Russkis. :/
Not that I know Joseph Cannon, but check out his Cannonfire site….hysteric hysteria, deny, RUSSKIS!, Brazile is a liar!!!, deny again, MORE RUUUUSSSKKKIIIIS!!!
…to me it seems to be the ‘I’m With Her’ version of a Trumpsters pizzagate rantings….I dunno, maybe I am missing something and my brain has already been washed and taken over by Cyrillic Control Mechanisms…
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com
Just to note, that expose in Counterpunch was from April, 2016, not last Spring. Guess Donna Brazile doesn’t read any left press…
I read about this on Politico yesterday. Donna Brazile? This is the lady who leaked debate topics to Clinton and was fired from CNN, right? It makes you wonder why she is writing about this now. Opportunism in order to sell books? Revenge on Clinton? Or does she sense the wind changing direction in the Democratic party?
All of the above? Which of course doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not true! :)
Sure, it’s worth wondering, alright. But if you want to learn about dirty deals, you often have to go to dirty people.
Personally I think Donna Brazile, via her story and book, is trying get her version out as she probably knows the Clinton Mafia will throw her under the bus as this story is finally getting legs..with or without Donna Brazile’s revelations.
As I’ve noted before her name is Mud with CNN, noone wants her to be a talking head. And Clinton can no longer shelter her. What does she have left but airing the dirty laundry and hoping for a payout?
Donna Brazile is wrong that this was not illegal, but only unethical. The Hillary Victory Fund was set up to evade the campaign financing laws. There is a legal limit on how much an individual can give to a candidate. Hillary’s big donors had reached those limits. She directed her donors who had exceeded the legal limits on direct contributions to her to give to the DNC and state parties with the agreement that those entities would funnel the money back to her.
That would seem to me to be evidence of intent to violate the law.
RICO? Would seem the big donors had to know what they were doing as well. But then I recall the recent lawsuit where the party claimed it could do anything and the judge agreed.
There is just no good reason for a party to operate in such a manner. Complete financial transparency in real time… whilst functioning in a democratic process among binding terms with real membership seems to be the least people should expect.
All of which is why I am a member/participant of no party and find the process illegitimate across the board. It really does come back to it’s not just if you win or lose, but how it’s played.
“If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act.” — Donna Brazile
I, too, beg to differ. Naturally a perp doesn’t see their own twisted actions as criminal.
But the basic principle behind campaign finance laws is transparency. Both the D and R parties receive extensive direct and in-kind government financing, such as the free primary elections which states run on their behalf. Consequently they are obliged to provide an accurate accounting of funds received and paid.
Does anyone think Robert “Torquemada” Mueller couldn’t indict both Hillary and Donna Brazile on a whole laundry list of federal offenses, if he were actually looking for gross electoral wrongdoing?
Lock her up!
Re “Naturally a perp doesn’t see their own twisted actions as criminal.”
Remember Brazile is famous for complaining that people were trying to “criminalize behavior that is normal”, when they complained about the blatant pay-to-play behavior revealed during the election.
Slightly off topic: The neolib Dem estab has just discovered – much to their surprise, no doubt – that’s it’s one thing to run the neoliberal economic playbook on the deplorables, but quite another thing to run the neoliberal playbook on their own establishment’s finances and organization, each for their own personal benefit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tyvhq7uhTM
Strangely, it sounds like Sears.
The judge dismissed the lawsuit because federal court wasn’t, in his opinion, the proper channel for seeking redress, not because he agreed with the DNC’s assertion it wasn’t required to abide by its charter.
the judge ruled they didn’t have standing:
“But not one of them alleges that they ever read the DNC’s charter or heard the statements they now claim are false before making their donations. And not one of them alleges that they took action in reliance on the DNC’s charter or the statements identified in the First Amended Complaint (DE 8). Absent such allegations, these Plaintiffs lack standing.”
+1
“ding, ding, ding” We have a winner!
Violating the law.
People who knew and did not speak, would they be accessories?
From Wikipedia:
Is Sanders guilty, as an accessory, as well?
I believe you are most correct & thanks for altering the direction of the comments.
The support for Sanders was a resonate echo of
support many of us felt for President Jimmy Carter.
How far we have traveled is well acknowledged when you see that Sanders lost.
For the purposes of the Naked Capitalism readers, who are studying how real money is captured & used by the Jet Setter Classes, here we have a Politico so entrenched her Unit used coercion & tricks to take for themselves all of the main tool, money, required to make the Democratic Party a real Party.
(I refuse to see Hillary Clinton as the First Woman Nominated for the Presidency, & consider her & her husband Bill, the Clinton Unit.)
I do chalk it up to the Clinton Unit’s long & destructive influence as law makers & breakers. What the Unit is about is clear when you look at their history in Haiti. We are to get the leadership & economy same as the Haitians get.
The leak that in many cases there was no sincere link at all between what Clinton Unit II said, and what she really believed & intended, meant we were to get another cipher.
“Look out kid/They keep it all hid. -Bob Dylan, comes to mind.
After Obama it is clear that the Democratic Party is and will be in the pocket of the pirate parasites of the US Financial System.
The revolution has to take place below the jet setter classes stranglehold on who writes the checks for what. (I’d be interested in knowing how much of whose money paid for the Clinton Unit’s Boeing.)
In the end we as a bunch of honest people who like justice in that form it takes in the day to day demonstration of good ethical moorings, liked how Sanders got the money for his campaign.
The Clinton Unit by taking money from down ballot candidates crippled the necessary revolution being attempted by those actually fighting to strengthen the nation.
..ummm….the “revolution” was crippled by those who refused do “transparency, oversight, accountability” of Wall $treet “control accounting frauds”, who allowed 911 go without real investigations, who stood by idly while bush-cheney fabricated Iraq and committed war crimes, destabilized (just as HW Bush warned) entire Middle-East while committing worldwide refugee crises….
U.S. only arrives at change when all lose all…
..which is reason Wall $treet was bailed by bush-cheney and obama-both political parties…(more of $ame-HC)
real question is whether “murkans” would rather have experienced worse than great depression, which appears to have been alternative?
Go, Tulsi, Go!
Is there a large and notable set of organized people who vote, lining up behind Tulsi Gabbard as the next Great Hope of the Mope (GHOTM)? Able and willing to go to the mat for her? Trusting that she is not just another screen on which people can project their images?
Got to have leaders, don’t we? Because most of us just go along, go along, go along… But leaders are just other flawed humans, so easy to corrupt and failing that, to remove from the game board by other means… Too bad the Occupy model, whatever that actually was/is, seems not to work effectively, especially against the organized on the other side of the crowd-control technologies…
I don’t think people learned/practiced an occupy model for the most part. Folk were expected to bite off more than they could chew in due haste. Remember the media immediately asking what are your demands before people could figure out wtf was going on beyond we are the 99 percent? Establishing a new practice was of course difficult to do while wondering if you would be busted for just being there. Like the problems with parties people just keep rolling with what they know (top-down), hammering their familiar square peg in a round hole – rather than attempt/establish new process.
We really have no idea what a democratic process looks like.
“We” have no idea what a democratic process looks like:” And that is after what, 50,000 years of humans organizing in groups of increasing size and what we call “sophistication”? “Democrats And The Iron Law Of Institutions: Read this if you’re driven insane by the Democrats,” http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001705.html, for one interesting thread, and this set of observations: “Why Hierarchies Must Sign Their Own Death Warrant To Survive,” https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/12/02/why-hierarchies-must-sign-their-own-death-warrant-to-survive/#32212bcf4d68
And one more for fun: “Under The Rainbow: The Inevitability of the Modern World,” https://killtoparty.com/2015/12/31/under-the-rainbow-the-inevitability-of-the-modern-world/
Always a valid concern, but she’s put her money where her mouth is numerous times now, beginning with leaving the DNC in protest over its unethical practices.
And also, it’s not up to her, is it? That screen thing is not about what she is, it’s about what people do. On a practical level, that move that Gabbard decries — killing off local party organizations — is truly a step the wrong way. Real citizens have more to do than just project their images.
That isn’t why Tulsi Gabbard resigned as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. She resigned because the person in that position is supposed to remain neutral in presidential primaries, and she decided she wanted to publicly endorse Sanders.
In other words, she was following the party rules. This separates her from all those DNC officers who stayed on board while putting their thumbs on the scale for Clinton.
In order to survive, you have to trust SOMEBODY! Whom do you trust JT? I get what you are saying and agree 100%, but what next? I think that is the meaning of accountability. You have to trust someone and make that trust the basis for your life. Screw me over and you are out. Mopes are mopes because they keep placing their trust in the wrong place or for whatever social reason, don’t have an option.
The twisted logic of Margaret Thatchers now famous line-” there is no society”, is a case in point. The entire quote is,”I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the champions of Neoliberalism and the recasting of the Divine right of Kings as a means of ordering society. The Market is Supreme, the Noble Families (Corporations and Insiders, the 10%, are in direct communion with the divine, and the rest of us need to worship and obey. We have no power because we have not earned it. It is a recasting of the Feudal order. But what she fails to articulate is the obligation of the system to the people? In her ideology, there is no reciprocal obligation. The systems owes nothing. It is a system where the powerful hold control and the subjects are held in check by blind faith.
Thatcher is right for the wrong reasons. Trust starts with the family and successful, healthy families have a better chance of surviving over time due to the natural support they provide. But she takes for granted, or is totally blinded by her own history. The Feudal order failed for a reason. It breeds war and corruption. It thrived on ignorance and violence. Offer a different vision, and the power center shifts.
Leadership is important as everyone knows. With proper leadership, much is possible. Leadership is achieved when guided by some vision or goal. Is it any wonder why individuals that can communicate a vision of brotherhood and solidarity are killed or marginalized by Authoritarians? Where collectivism is shunned at every turn. How the meaning of family values is cynically turned on its head.
Obligation is right. What is screwed up is how obligations have been distorted, and continue to be distorted in a capitalist system. If you believe in social evolution, then the strength of the family unit can serve as the fundamental immortal unit that provides the basis for continued human existence. It is a buffer against the excesses of the capitalist system. It is the source from which positive change will come. Support the family unit by guaranteeing affordable housing, healthcare, and work. A basic income firmly grounded in social contribution. What institutions are left that have not been corrupted by the Neoliberal disease?
The problem making inroads is that the current political power still thinks this is a game. It is not. The first duty for people who desire a better world for themselves, their families, and their future generations need to see the obligation to protect the commons, their families being the basic unit connected to a larger whole.
By destroying the middle class, capitalists have sown the seeds of their own destruction. How many people are willingly going to walk into bondage? The promise of Neoliberalism is failing and the mopes/masses know it- they live it. They just don’t know where to turn. It is a slow motion grinding into dust.
Communities are begging for relief. The organizations that need to be constructed are ones that allow people to extend themselves out into the world and take risks, at the same time, providing them with the assurance and concrete reality that if they fail, there is a place or institution that will not let them perish. Capitalists buy loyalty. Individuals in their club always fail upwards. No one is EVER left behind.
There is nothing to prevent other groups from achieving that same sense of solidarity except fear.
…well known instructor of physical arts noted, “It’s always the disempowered who ask for fair..”
says it all…
Well said.
Wow. I chew through the restraints and wander away from The Interface for a couple of days, and the World grows exponentially more surreal.
Reckon even blatant ass covering can be instructive.
Brazille should probably avoid small aircraft and shark pools.
Such is the world we live in.
Of course, none of this should be all that surprising.
History is littered with such behaviour…Rome, Borgias,East India Trading Company…
It’s just they have better tools.
……
What you say about the family as the basic unit of society is spot on. I note that I can find no evidence from either of my boys’ schooling…nor from the text books my teacher wife brings for my review…that the Idea of Social Contract is even mentioned at my local public school.
Worse, none of the teachers, school board members or what have you seem to know what I’m on about.
Being a rather Red place, there is lots of talk of “Family”, but it has a more exclusive and narrowly orthodox set of meanings…and mention of the “social” in Social Contract seems to set the anticommie saliva running.
I’ve been experimenting with Catholic Worker rhetoric here lately, to some effect.
The Democratic Party at the national level needs to be thrown out. It’s beyond reform. Dissolve the org.
New articles of incorporation, new bylaws, new people, new bank accounts, new everything.
You know that scandal-ridden Hollywood production company?
Nobody would even buy it for next to nothing.
We kid ourselves, I believe, to think anyone can come along and take over this party.
The same is true of the Republican party — nationally it’s owned by the Koch brothers and other billionaires, and locally, pretty much the same. Neither organization is going away in the near future.
Really?? George W Bush – Richard Cheney were dems??
(historical false equivalency showing)
The most powerful aspect of the last election cycle is the eye opening role that money plays in politics. Everyone knows the fundamental influence money has, but the false narrative that has been acting for decades was finally turned on its head. Namely, that large sums of money are needed to compete in the political process and only by funneling that capital flow into the pockets of corporate entities can anything get done. Sanders campaign proved without a doubt that self financing is possible and money alone is not enough to carry victory. Its who controls that money, and what can be done with it, are the important factors. Money didn’t win the election for Trump, corruption did.
The lies and crookedness of the existing power structure has been laid bare and only the completely uninformed still believe it or are directly paid off by the process. No wonder silence and an outside forces- RUSSIA- must be deployed. There is nothing left to mask the class warfare. This process reminds me of rats fleeing a sinking ship, and good riddance- they all need to drown or just scatter away into obscurity.
But until those money flows can be directed towards the commons, the corruption will not be driven out of our society. Democracy will die.
The silence and obfuscation on these important developments just highlight the crisis capitalism, as a system, is facing and how the existing political structure is incapable of dealing with the problem. The level of corruption is the problem, along with the extent lies and misinformation are needed to maintain control. It is dysfunctional.
Once again, the rallying cry is for a social guarantee. A guarantee for work, healthcare, housing, and a basic standard of living. Neoliberalism says no to all the above. Their worldview is that there are no guarantees. Only competition where the strong prevail and the weak perish. Boiled down once again to the fight between socialism and capitalism. Third way politics is no longer functional. Hard choices must be made.
But what is the source of that power? Physical strength? Intellect? Mind control- the ability to convince others? All of the above? The mind returns to social evolution. Forces trying to maintain the status quo and counter forces seeking to alter the system. The constant tension of forces exerting pressure until something gives. The faults and cracks are everywhere. What holds it together is the peoples willingness to exert pressure where they are directed to by their leadership. There is a crisis of leadership.
Finally, people are waking up to the notion that following crooks and thieves does not make their lives better or secure. The nation needs leaders who are not cynical opportunists, here in America and around the world. As the Trump administration makes painfully obvious, America’s standing in the world diminishes in proportion to its level of naked corruption. We have become that which we professed we were against. The next true Revolution must be that Scoundrels cannot run the world. Yea, I know Utopia. But if you can’t dream about Utopia what do humans have? All that comes to mind is a capitalist nightmare. ( As seen from the Bottom)
Just as the Soviet Union collapsed in a breathtaking short time, the Rube Goldberg construction that is todays capitalist system might meet the same speedy end. Just as the old guard soviet apparatchiks held on for dear life, supporting a known failed experiment due to their privileged position, if feels like the capitalist system is headed for a similar fate. A quick, catastrophic failure instead of a slow, incremental adjustment. A failure brought about form outside forces and the system not being able to deal or cope.
Donna Brazile can now make money revealing how she and the Democratic party screwed over working people in this country and lied to the constituency she was supposed to serve. If this helps people understand how they are fundamentally mislead, if only indirectly and unintended, all the better. Its NOT about the money alone, it shows what the cynical manipulation of money makes you become.
Re “Once again, the rallying cry is for a social guarantee. A guarantee for work, healthcare, housing, and a basic standard of living. Neoliberalism says no to all the above. Their worldview is that there are no guarantees. Only competition where the strong prevail and the weak perish.”
One cannot get a government controlled by special interests and large corporations to provide social guarantees that are worth a damn and won’t be corrupted. Indeed, the heart of the problem is that the New Deal guarantees and post-Depression regulations (e.g. Glass-Steagall), or even the earlier antitrust laws, have all been eroded.
There is a historical American worldview, not neoliberal, but also not “Third Way”, in which there are no Big Brother guarantees, yet there is strong social protection of those in need. It contains a greater level of self-reliance, in the sense that one does not place one’s hope in corruptible governments as the solution. And yet not self-reliance, because it trusted in neighbors to help neighbors. And it also renounces personal greed as a prime motivator. The pioneers had this worldview – self reliance with a recognition of a common interest, and thus a moral duty, leading to a willingness to help others, building an entire nation, one barn raising party at a time, so that their children would have a better life.
I am no historian, but gut experience informs me that what you are talking about is a true American sentiment. The desire for individual freedom struggling simultaneously to forge a lasting social bond with your fellow countrymen. At its heart, our nation was formed in the embrace of a contradiction. The promise of freedom connected to the chains of bondage. The age old dilemma of the rights of the rulers over the ruled. Freedom was sought above all else and the historical opportunity presented itself for a great experiment. Open land available for occupation, far from a ruling power, devoid of a powerful local social force.
The delusion, and betrayal, is the fact that reconciling this contradiction is no longer the driving force of American politics. Neoliberal ideology has short circuited the political system- on should we say, perfected it in that the ruling elite in America never intended to share power with the unwashed masses. With the destruction of a functioning two party system, even the pretense cannot be upheld any longer. Without a viable opposition party, the power of private property can do as it pleases- and is doing it.
In America, we just had lots of space to spread out into and put off the day of reckoning. Well, that day has arrived.
You mention barn raising, but that is an Amish tradition, to my limited understanding, the Amish rejected American culture and wished to separate themselves from the broader culture to ensure that their values could be preserved. It is an honest attempt to live christian values. They are a-political and want to be left alone. I can’t say much for other christian denominations other than they are connected at the hip to capitalist values. That is not working out so well on a cognitive dissonance level.
The cooperation that you speak of is more along socialist lines. And once again on an intuitive level, most sane and healthy human beings, this is their normal state. The default desire is to aid a person in need or to take satisfaction from assisting your neighbor instead of abusing them. This natural human desire is prevented from becoming embodied in a political force because that would spell the end to individual opulence, and we can’t have that. Charity is acceptable, a natural state of care and social equality is unacceptable.
The question is can you have a secular society that is dedicated to human care? Or a theocratic society that does not become bogged down in religious dogma. American Democracy seemed to point in that direction but appears to have stalled out due to resistance and lack of trying.
Big Brother guarantees is code language for destroying the social responsibilities embodied in New Deal legislation. Functioning Democracy is supposed to protect from corruption by being able to vote the crooks out. This becomes impossible when the crooks take control of the government and citizens are convinced that their government itself is the problem. You have the revolving door policy that we see today. National government captured by special interests.
Until a two-pronged attack can be instituted on a large scale- communities taking care of one another along with demand for honest representation by the government, only small scale resistance will be possible. Evil and hardship will prevail.
As far as a greater level of self-reliance and not placing all one’s hopes in corruptible governments I definitely think that’s what the radical labor movement aimed at, a lot of bottom up left movements do, just have limited power these days. This is fighting back to reclaim the wealth the 1% (or 1% of the 1%) have captured.
Charity likely doesn’t even work with such inequality for several reasons: Although you can always give a dollar to a homeless person, charity fails to do that much good when almost all of the wealth in a society is controlled by fewer and fewer people to a greater and greater degree. A bunch of paupers can only do so much in helping each other (except in trying to fight to reclaim the wealth from the 1% of the 1%). They can’t do much else when the very few control the businesses, the agriculture, own most of the property and use their charity (Bill Gate’s charity as it were) as a means of control (whatever little good it may or may not also do).
Has this happened in other elections? Is this a first? The counterpart of this story is the nuts and bolts of how the U.S. press is controlled by various interests.
This is a story which should not disappear down the memory hole.
I don’t know if this exact situation is paralleled, but extreme corruption in the Democratic party is hardly new:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall
” This was something that when I was vice chair of the DNC I didn’t have knowledge of the details, but it was something that some folks were actually talking about and were concerned about at that time”
Boy, is there a big question mark hanging over THAT. Apparently she didn’t respond to the rumors by asking impertinent questions. And if the vice-chair didn’t know who really owned the joint, it was a purely ornamental office. Rather like Ellison’s now.
Ellison should quit with as big a stink as possible.
Brazile said in her Politico article that even she had a hard time finding out what was going on. She said she couldn’t even issue a press release without an okay from Brooklyn.
That looks like a big, fat lie. Of course she COULD have, and faced whatever consequences there were – but remember, the deal had to be kept quiet. “Consequences” would merely have confirmed the scandal.
It’s halfway credible that vice-chair was a purely honorary position with little access; it isn’t even slightly credible that the chair was.
She gets credit for blowing the whistle now; apparently her conscience got to her. But now is too late to do much good, aside from confirming the essential crookedness of the party.
I knew the cat was in the bag the moment nearly all of the super delegates publicly supported Hillary Clinton before a single primary was held. (Are you listening, Sen. Shumer?) I also knew it had to be a quid pro quo because it was obvious they were doing it for campaign money for their re-elections. A lot of this appeared in print long before Donna Brazile “discovered” the affirming document. This, and the way Bernie supporters were treated at the convention, is why I will never give the DNC a penny.
Tulsi seemed a bit tongue tied on some questions… in her position and not knowing what was going on? Not credible to me.
She gets credit for quitting and endorsing Bernie, and big credit for anti war, but she does not have history as a progressive, though moving in that direction.
Similarly Liz is no progressive irrespective of anti bank position, though similarly inching in that direction.
Both want to move up, seem to be sensing changing winds.
If Bernie runs, who would he pick? Both usefully female, but neither brings any ev’s he won’t get anyway. Tulsi brings looks and youth… and she endorsed… Liz better at treasury, and she might be happy there.
I think Liz would be a great Treasury Secretary. As for Bernie’s VP pick, I think that Tulsi would, ahem, appeal to a certain portion of our male electorate.
I also think that he could also do well by choosing Nina Turner as his VP. Unlike Tulsi, whose oratorical style puts me to sleep, Nina knows how to sign, seal, and DELIVER a speech.
Look up Pramila Jayapal, whose history, unlike that of Tulsi Gabbard, is solidly progressive.
Here are four bills in the House that could be considered litmus tests for progressives:
H.R.676 – Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act
H.R.790 – Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2017
H.R.1587 – Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2017
H.J.Res.48 – Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that the rights extended by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only.
Gabbard is a co-sponsor of all 4, and Jayapal is a co-sponsor of all but HR1587. I believe you that Gabbard isn’t always progressive, but she does pretty well most of the time, and (for now) she’s better than Jayapal on the very dangerous issue of antibiotic overuse.
I don’t know people taking positions on things that aren’t likely to pass isn’t all that. Ok if enough Dems were on board and they controlled congress or some Reps were AND they had a president who wouldn’t veto then maybe Medicare for All etc. Even getting enough Dems on board to pass it even if they had the majority is a long way from where we are now.
However a constitutional amendment is in a whole other category of unlikely than that as the requirement to get one passed are super majorities we are never going to see. So some of the former may be difficult and mostly grandstanding at this point, but I really regard the last as impossible.
Another way to take a public position is to refuse to co-sponsor high profile bills such as these. People in the PACs notice if a member of Congress co-sponsors something that they don’t like, or if the member chooses to avoid co-sponsoring it.
Of course none of these bills will pass in the current Congress. However, it is important to get some momentum for them so that they will have a greater chance in future Congresses, and co-sponsorship is a way to generate some of that momentum.
HR676 has been introduced in every Congress since 2003, and this is the first Congress in which it has gained more than 100 co-sponsors. HR1587 has also been introduced since 2003, although it has always had a different bill number. Its number of co-sponsors has gone up and down.
Perhaps too many people are paying too much attention to Trump’s twitter account, and not enough attention to the wonkish reality of how bills can become laws. People need to push their Representatives to support these bills.
Born in Chennai, India, thus not qualified for VP.
DNC has long stood for Democratic National CLUB not Committee. Under Perez, I see little evidence of movement toward a “democratic” “committee.” This is not about Anti-Sanders it is apparently about maintaining Clintonism when the electorate wants more progressivism. DNC is pushing many of us to vote for a qualified Republican over a Clintonite Democrat. That is very stupid – very sad.
Good laws make a good society, bad laws make a bad society. Good people make better laws than bad people.
All people are good, but some do more bad, sure, go ahead and think of it that way.
I only get to vote for people.
“The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.” Steve Bannon
It’s not often your opponent does you the favor of telling you why you are losing. I pissed away some money on the Democrats last election (not because I liked Hillary; I just despise Trump). What I got for my money was four or five emails a day asking for more money. That and the ignominious, gut-wrenching loss. Many of the emails were from Donna Brazile and almost all of them were about identity politics issues, usually tsk-tsk’ing some nasty thing Trump said about one group or another. I remember thinking how dumb this was. They already had the identity politics voters and getting them to turn out was going to be a ground game play. While they sang to their choir, Trump and Bannon were out energizing an aggrieved white middle and working class, which could have been Hillary’s. Non-stop ads with Trump’s ugly face on the screens of Pennsylvania and Ohio saying “you’re fired” would have been good. Every time the Democrats waxed indignant about an identity issue, they lost some more aggrieved white voters, who took the message as further confirmation that the Dems really didn’t care about them and their problems. Trump walked right in. Comey’s timing, the Russians, etc all mattered, but net net the Democrats gave Trump the win. The top of their organization is full of people who seem to be better at identity politics than anything else, except maybe backstabbing. They’re crap at strategy.
“While they sang to their choir, Trump and Bannon were out energizing an aggrieved white middle and working class, which could have been Hillary’s.”
And the proverbial simians may exit my posterior. HRC was widely known to be one of the most despised politician’s in US history. She was only the nominee because she bought the party. She promoted Trump with the “pied piper” strategy to the MSM, effectively picking her GOP opponent, an opponent somehow equally despised by most Americans, after sabotaging someone who contemporaneous polls showed would’ve actually won, and she STILL lost. “Worst Campaign Evah” doesn’t even come close.
Are you assuming there was some messaging trick, some electoral strategy, that these same geniuses could’ve use that would’ve made people who were never, ever going to vote for someone they’d spent decades loathing suddenly “Hers”? Or maybe different geniuses? Whatever, it couldn’t be the case that there was no way in hell, not even by massive, blatant, premeditated-years-in-advance rigging, that HRC could win, could it?
You argument seems to assume the voters have little agency of our own. That any candidate, however odious, can make us theirs with just the right strategy. Recent history shows we ain’t dead yet.
She wasn’t the person of the hour. Sanders was. She, herself, personally, thwarted the will of the electorate, if not the nation. I can only hope that someday she realizes the full enormity of it.
Some time ago, I suspect, she crowned herself Queen of America. She assumed the presidency years ago, at least in her calculating mind. All her hangers-on did, too. They all assumed they were working for the heir apparent, so anything goes, we’ll be in power after this and then raise the royal finger.
Alas, it all turned into a case of pseudosubinfeudation. She didn’t really have the crown, she was just pretending. Now she and her failed court live in a world they can’t imagine: they have no more influence. The horror!
Face it, MarkE, there was no way HRC could’ve won. Definitely agree, though. They are the worst at strategy. Only took $46K in Facebook ads to beat them.
JK, I actually agree with you on the identity issues. I like how it’s been discussed here on NC: as divide and conquer. Whose idea was it anyway? Guess I’ll have to look that up sometime.
What’s most unsettling is to see mass hysteria induced by the collusion between Clintonites, the intelligence agencies, and the MSM with this enduring propaganda campaign. I found a new article, dated today, on Phys.org, ffs.
Who’s in whose camp? Who’s pulling whose strings? Whodathunk the intelligence agencies were political players right here on their home turf? The infamous “knock on the door” isn’t so abstract these days.
If a Sanders or a Gabbard does somehow win election as POTUS, what will this same coalition do about it?
Hillary wasn’t that despised– she won the popular vote by a margin of 3 Mn. It’s just that the 3 Mn were in the wrong places, which was a strategy mistake. She lost key electoral votes by slim margins, so there clearly was a way she could have won. Her loss wasn’t inevitable – almost everyone thought she would win, despite all her baggage. She and her dysfunctional party machine just blew it. She lost too many swing states because she and her party let Trump dominate the middle class economic security message while they focused on identity politics. Decisive numbers of Rustbelt voters who had traditionally voted Democratic and had voted for Obama crossed over when they felt Hillary didn’t speak to their concerns.
I strongly encourage those who have Democratic friends and relatives to be sure that those friends and relatives have seen the article by Donna Brazile. Don’t be afraid to be a pest (although I do recommend politeness). Many of those friends and relatives will be voting in primaries next year, and they need to know what is happening in the Democratic party.
It doesn’t just indict Hillary, although that is what gets the focus, it is a condemnation of Obama as well for leaving the Dem party in so much debt. So Obama as well sacrificed the Dem party for his own campaign. By slightly different means (running up debt rather than funneling money) but to the same end. What a self-seeking bunch, to the destruction of even their own party, the Dem top ticket has been (yea cheeto is no better, but that’s it’s own thing).
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2989759-Impartiality-Clause-DNC-Charter-Bylaws-Art-5-Sec-4.html
DNC Bylaws state that the Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party
Presidential nominating process.
Since that obviously didn’t happen, I would assert that Hillary being the Democrat nominee is null and void.
so if you donated to the DNC I am pretty sure you could sue DWS personally to get your money back.
When they rig an election, everyone participates in the election (voting or running) is a victim.
Even people watching it become victimized (like the quiz shows in the 1950s, TV viewers were victims).
(So, you, me and all the other guys had the primary election stolen.)
And if Donna Brazile tells you it’s rigged, it’s not up to you, but up to all of us, to absorb the insider information (you can’t withhold all those secret details) and to decide on the verdict.
It can not be ‘What are her chances?’
It’s up to all of us.
Vegas was taking odds, wonder if the mob was in the loop, or right now is out buying trash barrels and bags of cement.
nevermind – we’ve already litigated this
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/03/trump-fbi-clinton-russia-donna-brazile
the guardian finally noticed it happened! in the context of an article attacking trump, but baby steps.
“The victory fund agreement was signed in August 2015 and widely reported during the course of the campaign, amplifying the friction between Sanders and the DNC that had already been fueled by disagreements over the primary debate schedule and access to the party’s voter database.”
oh well then nothing to see here, let’s just go back to bashing russia.
Wasn’t Brazile the one who said that while the DNC is supposed to be neutral, she was working on behalf of Clinton over Bernie? So as we all knew, then and now, grifters gotta grift and Brazile is no better than anyone else at the DNC who keeps failing upwards and being rewarded for her part in the grift.
Sociologist Diane Vaughan coined the term Normalization of Deviance regarding misconduct within large organizations. A term apropos to Donna Brazile’s delusional belief whereby her participation was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.” She’s referring especially to this financial arrangement in which the Clinton camp gives the DNC money but in exchange, the DNC hands over control of basically every single decision.
The Cost Of Silence: Normalization of Deviance and Groupthink is defined by Vaughan, “Social normalization of deviance means that people within the organization become so much accustomed to a deviation that they don’t consider it as deviant, despite the fact that they far exceed their own rules…. People grow more accustomed to the deviant behavior the more it occurs. To people outside of the organization, the activities seem deviant; however, people within the organization do not recognize the deviance because it is seen as a normal occurrence. In hindsight, people within the organization realize that their seemingly normal behavior was deviant.”
8 symptoms of Groupthink include: Illusion of invulnerability, belief in inherent morality of the group, collective rationalization, out-group stereotypes, self censorship, illusion of unanimity, direct pressure on dissenters, and self-appointed Mindguards.
So she was Vice Chair (Gabbard) but didn’t know details about what happened, where the money was going, anything? NO responsibility? Odd.