October 31, 2015

Unelectable and Unafraid

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/10/bernie-sanders-clinton-democratic-primary-socialism/

The Sanders-Clinton exchange (FIRST DEBATE) may not have reached the heights of Lincoln-Douglas, but it was a rare and worthwhile discussion of a real political question. Equally revealing was the way Cooper repeatedly tried to end the discussion. Cooper’s insistence that “the question is really about electability” often passes for practical wisdom in politics, yet it’s entirely untrue. The most important progressive changes in our history have been spearheaded by protest leaders — abolitionists and suffragettes, brawling strikers and ACT UP-ers — who were all wildly unelectable.

Of course, protest movements are different from presidential campaigns, where it stands to reason that electability should matter more — but not in the narrow and self-serving way that mainstream political consultants and pundits instinctively use the term. In their view, it’s just simple math why Bernie Sanders isn’t going to be president — according to polls, only about a third of Americans like socialism. The underlying assumption is that people’s ideas are unchanging — even when the idea in question is socialism, which few people have ever heard a positive word about in polite society until the Sanders campaign. But even if Bernie really is unelectable because of socialism’s low public opinion ratings, you might think that the Republicans’ virtually identical approval numbers would make them equally impotent. Yet here they are, running both houses of Congress and statehouses across the country, making the world a meaner and stupider place one day at a time.

The problem, as political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue, is that the US is not a democracy but an oligarchy:


In other words, American democracy is like American cheese — a synthetic, democracy-like product that is chemically altered to eliminate almost all traces of organic popular power...

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October 31, 2015

Silicon Valley's Cash Remains Cold to White House Hopefuls

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-30/silicon-valley-s-cash-remains-cold-to-white-house-hopefuls


White House hopefuls have yet to see the depth of Silicon Valley wealth that helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency. Silicon Valley is playing hard to get.

None of the candidates seeking the White House in 2016 has yet been able to unlock and consolidate the vast wealth of tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who have pumped tens of millions of dollars into previous elections, according to a new analysis by Crowdpac Inc.

As of Sept. 30, candidates had raised only about $1.92 million from the tech industry, according to Crowdpac, a Palo Alto, California-based group that tracks political contributions. The industry gave another $4.82 million to outside groups in the first half of the year, most of which was made up by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s $3 million donation to the super-PAC backing Republican Marco Rubio.



SILICON VALLEY MONEY MAY BE STYMIED BY BERNIE'S REFUSAL TO SUPER-PAC....MORE

October 31, 2015

Hillary Clinton Rattles Prison Stocks With a Single Tweet

WALL ST. IS GETTING UPSET...ADD THIS TO THE THREAT TO DISSOLVE THE INSOLVENT BANKS, AND YOU ARE INSULTING YOUR BASE!

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-30/hillary-clinton-rattles-prison-stocks-with-a-single-tweet


For the second time in three weeks, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination wiped millions of dollars off the value of an industry... Hillary Clinton may not be president, but she's moving the markets like she is one. For the second time in three weeks, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination wiped millions of dollars off the value of an industry with a single tweet.

On Friday, private prison stocks dropped sharply after Clinton said we needed to "end the era of mass incarceration."

"We need to end private prisons. Protecting public safety...should never be outsourced or left to unaccountable corporations," she said in a tweet drawn from comments she made during a speech on the criminal justice system in Atlanta.

Corrections Corp. of America fell more than 6 percent, lopping off approximately $200 million in value, while GEO Group Inc. dropped 4.2%, losing about $100 million....It was not the first time she's voiced concerns about private prisons and earlier this month her campaign said it would no longer take donations from the industry's lobbyists and PACs.

Earlier this month, biotech stocks tanked after Clinton slammed Turing Pharmaceuticals for increasing the price of a drug by 50 fold. "Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous," she tweeted at the time.

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October 31, 2015

The Sanders Brain Trust's Plan to Beat Hillary Clinton

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-28/bernie-sanders-brain-trust-says-he-can-beat-hillary-clinton

...his comments were telling: about both the darkening assessment of Clinton among Sanders's people and their heady confidence that they can beat her. Though Sanders's top advisers concede that the past two weeks—from the first debate to Joe Biden's decision not to run to the Benghazi hearing—have provided Clinton with a boost, they contend that the fundamentals of the race remain unchanged. That Clinton is still a markedly weak candidate, far less in tune with the Democratic nominating electorate than Sanders. That their operation is stronger financially and organizationally than the establishment grasps. And that if Sanders can prevail in Iowa (where he is currently trailing) and New Hampshire (where he leads), the nomination will be within their grasp... Sanders's lieutenants provided me with a wide-ranging and at times detailed account of their strategy for the three-month sprint to the first two must-win contests. That strategy is premised on the notion that their campaign has shifted into a new gear, moving from what Weaver calls “the introductory phase” into “the persuasion phase.” This new phase will be more aggressive, hard-edged, and focused on driving home contrasts between Sanders and Clinton. In other words, it will be more negative. Just how nasty things will get remains one of two central questions that will define the battle ahead. The other is whether Sanders, with his deep aversion to negative campaigning, is willing and able to do what is required to take down Clinton without tarnishing his brand as a different kind of politician.

It's worth recalling that a similar set of questions confronted Barack Obama eight years ago. In using the J-J as a pivot point, Sanders was mimicking Obama, who famously did the same thing in November 2007 with a speech that eviscerated the then-front-runner (“Triangulating and poll-driven positions because we're worried about what Mitt or Rudy might say about us just won't do”) without ever uttering the word “Clinton.”

But unlike Obama's assault on Clinton then, says Sanders's chief strategist, Tad Devine, his boss's attack last weekend was in part a defensive measure: a response to Clinton having gone after Sanders at the debate on guns and afterwards for suggesting that Sanders's comment that “all the shouting in the world” wouldn't fix the problem with gun violence was at once directed at Clinton and in some way sexist. (“I've been told to stop shouting about guns,” she declared at a rally last Friday in Virginia and again at the J-J. “Actually, I haven't been shouting, but sometimes when a woman talks, some people think it's shouting.”)

“We had to fire a shot across their bow, because they were going to start to have their way with us,” Devine told me. “I pushed [Sanders] hard to do what he did to let them know, if they're going to do this stuff that two of the 12,000 votes he cast in Congress about guns are the definitive votes of the election—and oh, by the way, she is yelling because she's a woman. If they are going to start going down that road, we are not going to take it. And it is going to be about a lot of issues where she's gone from one place to another. We did five of them [at the J-J] and we could do 15 more.”

LOTS MORE AT LINK

October 31, 2015

Bernie Sanders is in big trouble: You don’t have to be a neoliberal shill to see the cold, hard fact

I'M POSTING THIS FOR DISCUSSION--NOT BECAUSE I AGREE WITH IT

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/28/bernie_sanders_is_in_big_trouble_you_dont_have_to_be_a_neoliberal_shill_to_see_the_cold_hard_facts/#comments

...But if you want to know any of the reasons why Sanders is in trouble, you can start with the news yesterday that Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown has endorsed Clinton. As Matt Yglesias points out, Brown would be perhaps the most natural endorsement for Sanders in the entire Senate. He is an old-school liberal, pro-union and anti-free trade. Ideologically and personally, he and the senator from Vermont are very close. They have worked together on writing and introducing legislation as recently as earlier this month.

Yet Brown joined 33 of his Senate colleagues who have already endorsed Clinton. From a pragmatic political viewpoint, the move makes sense. Brown has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate for Clinton. He represents that most swinging swing state of Ohio, which makes his being on the ticket very attractive for her and the party. If he stays in the Senate, he’s up for re-election in the 2018. Since getting Democratic voters out to the polls in the midterms is always tough, an endorsement from President Hillary Clinton could be very helpful. Not to mention the money that the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee will be more likely to contribute to his campaign.

In terms of the Bernie Sanders campaign for president though, Brown’s endorsement is another sign that Sanders is being beaten in the invisible primary for the Democratic nomination. And winning the invisible primary is still a hugely important step for a Democrat, one that the Vermont senator has either neglected or just flat-out lost. For anyone unfamiliar with the term “invisible primary,” here is a pretty good explainer. In brief, the invisible primary is the conversation that takes place between different factions and leaders of a party in the year leading up to the start of voting in Iowa. This conversation results in the party starting to coalesce behind a front-runner. If there is more than one strong candidate, this can go all the way up to the convention. If there is only one clear front-runner, the party will start lining up early behind him or her.

This is what has happened with Hillary Clinton. Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight has been keeping track of endorsements with this chart, which makes it starkly clear just how much of a lead Clinton has over Sanders in that area. Something to keep in mind is that many of those endorsers (including Sherrod Brown) are superdelegates, who are free to pledge their support to a candidate regardless of how the voting went in their state’s primary. Two months ago, Bloomberg reported that Clinton had already unofficially locked up commitments from 440 of the approximately 713 superdelegates who will cast ballots at next summer’s Democratic convention...

SINCE NONE OF THOSE DELEGATES ARE CEMENTED IN PLACE, AND SINCE THE CLINTON FOUNDATION IS IN DEEP DOO-DOO, I REFUSE TO ACCEPT DEFEAT BEFORE THE BATTLE HAS EVEN STARTED.

AND WHILE THE PARTY MAY THINK IT'S IN CHARGE OF THE PROCESS, THEY HAVE ANOTHER THINK COMING. IT'S OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE, AND AS DEMOCRATS, THEY BETTER START ACTING LIKE IT.

October 30, 2015

Weekend Economists' Devil Nights October 30-November 1, 2015

Such a weekend we have in store! Devil's Night, Hallowe'en or All Hallow's Eve, All Saints' Day, and el Dia de Los Muertes...

all derived from the ancient Celtic Festival Samhain (pronounced /ˈsɑːwɪn/ SAH-win or /ˈsaʊ.ɪn/ SOW-in Irish pronunciation: [sˠaunʲ])

October 29, 2015

It's not a good day to be Obama, or Hillary by extension

Slapped down by the EU over the Russian sanctions,

Slapped down at the UN over Cuba,

Slapped down by the EU again over Snowden's persecution...

But damn, it feels good personally to be on the right side of the question!

October 28, 2015

The Real Kingmakers in the G.O.P. By Ryan Lizza

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-real-kingmakers-in-the-g-o-p

Top Republican strategists have begun to argue that Donald Trump could win the nomination...Political parties are rarely suicidal in Presidential campaigns. While it’s not uncommon for a party to nominate an unelectable candidate in a Senate or House election, the Presidential nominating systems used by both Democrats and Republicans only occasionally produce a fringe candidate. The last time that the Republican Party truly misfired was in 1964, when it nominated Barry Goldwater, who lost forty-four states in the general election. On the Democratic side, the last time the party produced a fringe candidate was in 1972, when George McGovern, who took advantage of new nominating rules that he had helped to write, lost forty-nine states.

HEY, WHAT ABOUT ROMNEY? THAT WAS A MISFIRE! MCCAIN/PALIN, A MISFIRE IF EVER THERE WAS ONE! DEMETER

The question that has hung over the Republican race for the past few months is whether the party is on the path to producing another historic loser by nominating an unelectable candidate, like Donald Trump or Ben Carson, or whether Republican voters, many of whom don’t make up their minds until the final days before a caucus or primary, will settle down with a more traditional—and electable—candidate, such as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, or even the voluble Ted Cruz...Ever since June, when Trump announced his candidacy, the conventional wisdom among G.O.P. and media élites has been that Trump was a soufflé candidate who would collapse just like fringe outsiders in previous contests, such as Herman Cain, in 2012. But recently, a number of prominent observers have stepped forward to declare that, actually, Trump could win the Republican nomination.

In August, Norm Ornstein, a longtime and well-regarded political observer, made the most comprehensive argument that Trump could prevail. Ornstein pointed to several factors: a conservative media that has fostered a deeper anti-establishment sentiment among G.O.P. voters, who are less likely to get news from outside an ideological bubble; a more extreme G.O.P. electorate, especially on the issue of immigration; the absence of a consensus establishment alternative to Trump; the emergence of Super PACs, which might encourage the traditional candidates to stay in the race longer and divide up the non-Trump vote; and the fact that Trump is “a far more savvy candidate” than Cain and the like. More recently, Alex Castellanos, who worked for Mitt Romney, echoed Ornstein’s arguments, and wrote, “Slow learner that I am, I’ve resisted the idea that Donald Trump could and would become the Republican nominee. Unhappily, I’ve changed my mind.” Steve Schmidt, a veteran of John McCain’s 2008 campaign, has repeatedly argued that Trump could win. Ron Fournier, the National Journal columnist, said in June that Trump “won’t win the G.O.P. nomination,” but this week he changed his mind and wrote, “I was wrong to rule out Trump winning the nomination or the presidency.” Ironically, the recent burst of Trump-could-win commentary occurred just as Trump lost his lead in Iowa to Ben Carson, and, in at least one poll, nationally as well. (Trump is dealing with this development as one would expect: by questioning Carson’s religion and the validity of the polls.)

But has the Republican Party really lost its mind? Is it really going to nominate someone like Trump (or Carson), whose views are are so far outside the mainstream that either would pave the way for a historic Democratic landslide?

It’s doubtful.

The overwhelming majority of Republican voters have repeatedly told pollsters this year that, whatever their choice in any given poll, they haven’t made up their minds yet....

MORE, AND IT'S NOT REASSURING, EITHER

Ryan Lizza is the Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, and also an on-air contributor for CNN.

October 27, 2015

UPS Continues Its “Wreck the Post Office” Campaign, Presses for Increases on Parcel Prices

By Mark Jamison, a retired postmaster. He can be contacted at markijamison01@gmail.com. Originally published at Save the Post Office

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/ups-continues-its-wreck-the-post-office-campaign-presses-for-increases-on-parcel-prices.html

One of the “too many to count” looting operations underway is the effort to make the constitutionally-mandated Post Office uncompetitive in price terms so that private contractors like UPS and Fedex have a greater and more lucrative share of parcel and letter delivery.

The latest offense is an under-the-radar effort by UPS to argue that the Post Office is pricing its products unfairly, and overcharging on services like first class letter delivery to subsidize parcel shipments.

This post is a bit lengthy because it goes into important detail as to how UPS is mounting its attack and the procedural mechanisms it is using. The author, Mark Jamison, describes worryingly how the traditional Post-Office haters, which were stalwart right-wingers as well as Post Office competitors, have recently been joined by neoliberals. ...

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LENGTHY AND DETAILED REPORT FOLLOWS

October 27, 2015

Elizabeth Warren: How Clinton Backed Student Loan, Mortgage Debt Slavery with Bankruptcy “Reform” “

Elizabeth Warren on How Clinton Backed Student Loan and Mortgage Debt Slavery with 2005 Bankruptcy “Reform” Vote

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/elizabeth-warren-on-how-clinton-backed-student-loan-and-mortgage-debt-slavery-with-2005-bankruptcy-reform-vote.html

A sorry chapter of Hillary Clinton’s legislative record was her vote in support of the 2005 bankruptcy “reform” bill. This bill had been keenly sought by the credit card industry, had come up repeatedly in Congress and had managed to be beaten back….until 2005, when it became law. One of its biggest proponents was the big credit card issuer MBNA, which is now part of Bank of America. MBNA has estimated that getting the bill passed would enable them to get an additional $10 a month from consumers who were eligible for bankruptcy, which would mean an additional $85 million a year to them in profits.

In addition to restricting access to Chapter 7 bankruptcies, which enabled borrowers to wipe out their debts, and forced more into Chapter 13 bankruptcies, which force borrowers to negotiate a 60 month repayment plan with budgets that require them to live at an extremely meager level (one indicator: the amounts allotted for food are stunningly low, and one wonders how people who are juggling multiple jobs can possibly find the time to shop for food bargains and cook so as to stay within these restrictions). Many people cannot complete their Chapter 13 plans due to ‘shit happens” (an unexpected expense, like a medical emergency or car problem, can lead to a borrower missing his repayment schedule). And that’s before you get to bad faith conduct by the lender intended to make the borrower fail or appear to fail, which we documented regularly during the foreclosure crisis (the objective was to enable the bank to proceed with a foreclosure).

As most readers know well, the provisions of the 2005 bankruptcy “reform” bill on student debt were even more draconian. The overwhelming majority of Student loan borrowers are barred from discharging these debts in bankruptcy. Moreover, Social Security payments can be garnished to repay student loans. putting parent/grandparent co-signers and middle aged students presumably seeking to qualify themselves for new careers at risk.*

As you can see in this Bill Moyers segment, Elizabeth Warren recounts how Hillary Clinton sought out Warren’s advice on the bankruptcy bill in 1999, and persuaded her husband to veto it, one of the last acts he took as an outgoing President. Warren points out that this bill at the time was not very high priority pro-business measure and by implication was not unduly costly for a departing Chief Executive to veto...

MORE AND VIDEO AT LINK