RiverLover
RiverLover's JournalBernie Sanders DEFINITELY met privately with Pope Francis
Washington Post
4/16/2016
Bernie Sanders meets privately with Pope Francis
ROME — U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders met privately with Pope Francis during his overnight trip here, his spokesman said.
The brief meeting took place at the papal residence early Saturday, according Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs.
"They discussed the issues that the senator raised, that the pope has raised so often, at the conference yesterday," Briggs said, adding that there was no discussion of U.S. politics or Sanders's candidacy.
"He said that there was radiance in his presence and that he was very honored and humbled to have the opportunity to meet with the pontiff."
Sanders does not consider the meeting in any way an endorsement of his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Briggs said.
Under Vatican rules there were no photographs of the meeting because it took place at the papal residence, Briggs said.
A source inside the Vatican, speaking on condition of anonymity, also confirmed the meeting.
"It was a private meeting and was not supposed to become public," the source said. "It had been planned for, and it happened."
And the Pontifical Academy of Sciences confirmed the meeting via Twitter.
Casina Pio IV @CasinaPioIV
4:00 AM - 16 Apr 2016
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/16/italian-media-sanders-met-privately-with-pope-francis/
If even for just 5 minutes, what a THRILL for Bernie. I'm so happy for him!
Beyond Hil and Bern—for Lefties, It’s the Battle for New York’s Soul
Daily Beast
Beyond Hil and Bern—for Lefties, It’s the Battle for New York’s Soul
by David Freelander
......snip.........
“This is a proxy battle,” said Democratic strategist and former Cuomo advisor Hank Sheinkopf. “It is going to show how much of the traditional left really exists in New York State. If Bernie Sanders is able to get into the mid-40’s, it will force politicians who want to stay in power to move further to the left.”
Liberals in New York have seethed almost since Cuomo was elected. In his first term, despite passing marriage equality legislation and a strict new gun law, he refused to help Democrats in their fight to retake control of the State Senate, which meant that many liberal priorities were shelved.
Cuomo cut Medicaid and school funding and reduced taxes for millionaires and home owners. He engaged in long-running feuds with Schneiderman and de Blasio. And when it came time to seek the endorsement of the influential Working Families Party, in 2014 Cuomo made a point of showing his reluctance to even be consorting with such an outfit. “We now know that Democrats cannot count on New York’s supposedly Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, as an ally, and every Democratic primary voter in the entire country should know that, too,” decried MSNBC host Chris Hayes, a sentiment that was repeated often in the liberal mediasphere at the time.
........snip.......
This isn’t a campaign—it’s a movement,” said Masters. “And what we have seen over the last few months is that polling doesn’t really capture the kind of self-mobilization that is Bernie’s campaign.”
................“This is a good state for Bernie,” said George Arzt, a Democratic consultant and former Clinton advisor. “The electorate has gotten younger, and there are geographic pockets that can be targeted by Bernie in almost every borough and college towns throughout the state in which he would be strong. He should do very well.”
Added Arzt, “If he loses by more than 10, or by more than the polls say, then people will say maybe this state isn’t as progressive as we thought.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/14/beyond-hil-and-bern-for-lefties-it-s-the-battle-for-new-york-s-soul.html
.........Cutting Medicaid & school funding is REPUBLICAN. Reducing taxes on the wealthy, AKA Trickle Down, is REPUBLICAN.
Much like Hillary's love of outsourcing American jobs & globalizing slave wages & war in the name of massive profits for the already massively wealthy & working for BigOil by globalizing fracking, to name a few, all are REPUBLICAN
This is a fight for Democrats to actually BE Democrats. To OPPOSE republicans beyond just giving good rhetoric when running for office.
This is a fight for "We The People".
GO Bernie! Go NY Progressives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is so obvious what's going on here.
People & Planet over Profits. This is what we ALL should want.
Those who don't are corporate whores or are working for them.
I weep for America.
"The Clinton people rewrote the news" (We saw it right here at DU in real time)
Published on
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
An ‘Unqualified’ Success at Media Manipulation
by Robin Andersen
....After the Wisconsin loss, the Hillary Clinton campaign went into high gear, sending emails out announcing a new strategy of going negative. The next day, CNN (4/6/16) ran a piece by senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny that began, “Hillary Clinton’s campaign is taking new steps to try and disqualify Bernie Sanders in the eyes of Democratic voters.”
Political strategists know well that attacks can backfire, especially for candidates with high negatives such as Hillary Clinton.
Accordingly, the Clinton campaign attacked Sanders through a common political maneuver: They used surrogates.....
....snip....
........snip........
Even more curious was the Washington Post’s (4/7/16) review of Sanders’ claim in a piece titled “Sanders’ Incorrect Claim That Clinton Called Him ‘Not Qualified’ for the Presidency.” The Post gave Sanders three-out-of-four pinocchios for dishonesty, saying: “Sanders is putting words in Clinton’s mouth. She never said ‘quote unquote’ that he was not qualified to be president…. He can’t slam her for words she did not say.”
The Post gave itself no pinocchios for headlining its own article the day before, “Clinton Questions Whether Sanders Is Qualified to Be President.” It offered instead, “The art of headline writing is an imperfect art.” Not only doesn’t the Post hold Clinton responsible for her campaign’s negative attacks, it treats her use of surrogates to make negative attacks as a positive, saying “she diplomatically went out of her way to avoid saying” that Sanders was unqualified.
....snip.......
But in the aftermath of the Wisconsin win, the media frame was not about Sanders’ momentum, Clinton’s connection to the Panamanian tax haven or, as US Uncut (4/8/16) reported, three major policy wins for Bernie Sanders, but how Sanders had gone negative and was untruthful.
It occupied the news cycle for days, knocking out a barrage of bad press that was hobbling her in the run-up to the New York primary.
With a lot of help from media friends, the Clinton people rewrote the news.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/13/unqualified-success-media-manipulation
About the Clintons parking income in Delaware to avoid paying taxes....
New York Times, 2012
By LESLIE WAYNEJUNE 30, 2012
NOTHING about 1209 North Orange Street hints at the secrets inside. It’s a humdrum office building, a low-slung affair with a faded awning and a view of a parking garage. Hardly worth a second glance. If a first one.
But behind its doors is one of the most remarkable corporate collections in the world: 1209 North Orange, you see, is the legal address of no fewer than 285,000 separate businesses.
Its occupants, on paper, include giants like American Airlines, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Cargill, Coca-Cola, Ford, General Electric, Google, JPMorgan Chase, and Wal-Mart. These companies do business across the nation and around the world. Here at 1209 North Orange, they simply have a dropbox.
What attracts these marquee names to 1209 North Orange and to other Delaware addresses also attracts less-upstanding corporate citizens. For instance, 1209 North Orange was, until recently, a business address of Timothy S. Durham, known as “the Midwest Madoff.” On June 20, Mr. Durham was found guilty of bilking 5,000 mostly middle-class and elderly investors out of $207 million. It was also an address of Stanko Subotic, a Serbian businessman and convicted smuggler — just one of many Eastern Europeans drawn to the state.
Big corporations, small-time businesses, rogues, scoundrels and worse — all have turned up at Delaware addresses in hopes of minimizing taxes, skirting regulations, plying friendly courts or, when needed, covering their tracks....
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thrives-as-a-corporate-tax-haven.html?_r=0
So how do the Clintons take advantage of this?
The article has some surprising revelations. Delaware has more corporate entities, public and private, than people. It’s a clear indication that these are almost all just shell companies – with no employees, assets or any real business dealings in the state.
A major reason for the state’s popularity is the fact that Delaware does not tax Limited Liability Companies (LLC) which do not have business operations in the state. So any company which operates in another state can simply register an LLC subsidiary in Delaware and transfer its revenue to the tax haven, thus avoiding taxation on their profits.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/delaware-the-us-tax-haven-of-choice/32218/
How do we know they do? The only ones reporting on it this week are RW sources and surely they can't be trusted.
One, here's their 2014 tax return & you can see for yourself:
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/p/files/returns/WJC_HRC_2014_Form_1040.pdf
And two, here's an article from Bloomberg last year:
The candidate made more in a year than most Americans earn in a lifetime and used a shell company to manage money and cut down on risk. It wasn't disclosed until investigative reporters dug up the paper trail.
In 2012, the candidate was Mitt Romney and the company was Bermuda-based Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd.
This time around, it's Hillary Clinton and Delaware-based WJC, LLC.
Since late 2008, Clinton's spouse, former President Bill Clinton, has used the limited liability company as a pass-through for his speech and consulting income, an increasingly commonplace practice since LLCs can shield business owners' personal assets from some lawsuits and potentially offer some tax benefits.
........"Here's the question," the Obama video asked. "Is not technically breaking the law a high enough standard for someone who wants to be president of the United States?"
Though not exactly a parallel case, the Clinton LLC and the questions that have surfaced because of it recall some of the challenges that Romney faced during the last cycle and that Clinton is already running up against: immense wealth, and a reliance on legal and tax protections that are outside the experience of most voters.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-27/bill-clinton-s-shell-company-game
....Elsewhere around the web....
According to records, among the Clintons’ “1209 North Orange Street” companies is WJC, LLC, which was set up by Bill Clinton in 2008 as a pass-through for his consulting fees.
Another company at the same location, ZFS Holdings, LLC, in February 2013 was setup, week after Hillary Clinton left hawaii Department one. Hillary Clinton received $5.5 million from her book publisher, Simon & Schuster, through the ongoing company.
The “1209 North Orange Street” building is the headquarters for the Corporation Trust Company. The firm acts as a registered agent for a large number of corporations that aren’t actually located in Delaware, like the Clintons’ companies.
Anti-secrecy advocates say the building is prime evidence that Delaware has turned into a corporate haven that’s much like more well-known, offshore locales.
“In case a building was imagined by you with 1,000 corporations inside it, you’d imagine a building just like the Empire State building,” said Richard Phillips, a senior policy analyst with Citizens for Tax Justice. “But apparently 285,000 companies claim [1209 North Orange Street] is their address.”
“What this shows is this isn’t actually the address of companies that are doing real business. This is the address of a complete lot of companies which are just shell companies,” he added. “In cases like this, it doesn’t even appear to be they will have mailboxes. They declare that address because the places they’re conducting business just, though they’re not conducting business there even.”
http://trueviralnews.com/this-delaware-address-is-home-to-200000-shell-companies-including-hillary-clintons/
So robbing the US & its states (like New York) of much needed tax revenue is bad when others do it, but not when the Clintons do it?
Or unless its Marc Rich or friends wanting to hide money in Panama...
The NYT called these tax dodgers scoundrels & rogues back in 2012, before they knew Bill & Hill were amongst them, but now tax dodging is going to be ok?
Talk about lowering the bar.
I guess Obama only meant this when talking about Romney?
Bill’s Blunder Reveals the Fight for the Democratic Party’s Soul (If It Still Has One)
TIME
9:35 AM ET
Bill Clinton’s Blunder Reveals the Fight for the Democratic Party’s Soul
by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., the Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University, & the author of Democracy in Black.
His response to protesters shows he's two-faced on America's race problems
.........snip........
.......Last week in response to protests during a rally in Philadelphia, Clinton vehemently defended the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. Insisting that the protesters listen to the “truth,” he claimed that the crime bill led to a 25-year low in crime and a 33-year low in the murder rate. He argued that welfare reform resulted in the largest drop in African-American poverty in history.
And in one startling moment, red-faced and finger wagging,” he shouted:
"I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped on crack and sent them out into the street to murder other African American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens…. You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter. Tell the truth!
Here, distilled for all to see, Clinton revealed one of his contrasting sides. Not the smooth, white Southern politician who moves among African Americans with ease and grace, but the smug and paternal Southern white boy who simply wants you to hush and swallow his lies whole.
We know, and so does Bill Clinton, that the 1994 crime bill was not the reason for the reduction in crime during this period. In her book, The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America, Naomi Murakawa has powerfully demonstrated the impact of Clinton’s emphasis on “punishment, police, and protection,” and its role in expanding the carceral state.
We know, and so does Bill Clinton, that welfare reform actually expanded the misery of the poorest of the poor. People living in extreme poverty increased more than twofold as a result of that legislation.
...snip.......
Clinton, our so-called first black president, reveals the lie. His Janus-faced approached to black communities, an approach that has defined the Democratic Party for generations now, has only deepened our racial neurosis, and he and it are finally being held to account.
The devastating effects of the crime bill, welfare reform, deregulation, NAFTA, strategies of triangulation (crime was, after all, a “realignment issue”), and the racial dog whistles around personal responsibility can’t be ignored by those who have borne the brunt of these policies and this rhetoric.
The Great Recession of 2008 wiped away most of the economic gains of the 1990s for African Americans. Perhaps, it dispelled our illusions, too.
Many of the protesters don’t want to wear the mask anymore. They don’t want to do the racial jig that it requires. Instead, they want a politics that addresses directly and honestly the crisis in their communities. So the protests and interruptions weren’t just about “good television,” as Bill Clinton suggested. They cut much deeper. They reveal a fight, in part, over the soul of the Democratic Party—if the Party still has one.
Please read in full here~
http://time.com/4288491/bill-clintons-blunder/
Four Myths Keeping Clinton Afloat
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Four Myths Keeping Clinton Afloat
by
John Atcheson
Published by Common Dreams
Myth # 1 – Hillary is more likely to beat Republicans in the general election
For months now, polls show that Sanders has done better against Republican opponents than Hillary. In fact, he wins against opponents she loses to. In the latest polling, for example, she beats Trump by only 9 points, ties Cruz, and loses to Kasich. Meanwhile, Sanders beats Trump by 20 points, Cruz by 12 and Kasich by 11. And Republicans are plotting on ways to select a more electable candidate if the convention is deadlocked, so running Hillary is risky for Democrats.
This is especially true since her trustworthiness and likability ratings are both negative, (exceeded only by Trump’s) which makes it difficult for her to pick up support beyond what she now has. Sanders, on the other hand, has the highest likeability and trustworthiness rating of any candidate, Republican or Democrat, which means he is likely to pick up more support the longer he runs.
Bottom line: not only does Hillary do worse against Republicans than Sanders, she has unique vulnerabilities that make her a risky candidate for Democrats to run. Indeed, running Hillary may be the only way the Democrats could lose the Whitehouse.
Myth #2 – Hillary knows how to get things done
This is one of her favorite lines and it gets picked up by her many surrogates in the press. The fact is, it doesn’t bear scrutiny. For example, she only sponsored 3 Bills that became law during her 8 year tenure. One established an historic site in New York, another renamed a Post Office, and the third named a portion of a highway in New York after Timothy J. Russert.
How about her claim of being able to work with Republicans? Politifact, which normally finds at least a little truth in just about any statement, rated her claim that “…every piece of legislation, just about, that I ever introduced had a Republican co-sponsor” as flat out false.
Ms. Clinton also didn’t rank as particularly progressive, according to GovTrack.us, a non-partisan organization which has been keeping stats on legislators for several decades. And while she introduced a lot of Bills, she had a very low rate of getting them to become law, relative to the average Senator over the years.
Bottom line: She didn’t get a whole hell of a lot done, and she wasn’t particularly progressive.
Incidentally, Sanders also sponsored 3 bills during his Senate tenure that became law. Two were largely ceremonial, much like those Clinton sponsored. The third Bill added $17 billion to the Veterans Health care system, gave the Administrator of the Veteran’s administration broad powers to fix a broken system, and extended educational benefits to veterans and their dependents. In short, it was consequential. And Bernie got it done with bi-partisan support.
Finally, GovTrack rates Sanders as one of the most progressive members of Congress.
In short, he’s a real progressive who got real things done.
Myth #3 – Sander’s isn’t a real Democrat and he isn’t doing anything to help the Party’s downballot candidates
Where you stand on this depends upon how you define a Democrat. If it’s merely a label that can be worn by anyone regardless of their positions, then Sanders is guilty as charged. And certainly Hillary has offered financial and other help to Democrats that Sanders has not.
But if you believe that being a Democrat is about values, not labels, then Sanders is doing a tremendous amount to help the Democratic Party at all levels of government.
The fact of the matter is, the Democratic Party left the people behind decades ago, when they embraced the pay-to-play political model that now dominates our elections and our governance.
Hillary helps status quo Democrats who wear the label, without necessarily embracing the values that once defined the Party as the Party of the people.
So what is Sanders doing to help Democrats? He’s making it safe run on the New Deal values that defined the Party for much of the 20th Century. That’s the Party that brought unprecedented prosperity to our country from the end of World War II until the 1980’s. Since then, the Party has been running from the notion that government can be a force for good; that it could and should assure a level playing field for all, both economically and socially; that capitalism was in need of strong regulation and restraint if it was to serve the masses rather than the few; that our planet was worthy of protection and preservation.
These were not only ethically correct; they were winning political issues too. And as Americans are strongly progressive on an issue-by-issue basis they still could be, if Democrats hadn’t been bought off and scared off ever since Reagan’s big con.
Finally, Sanders is attracting new voters to the Party, and these voters will ultimately help elect more progressives at every level of government – something Democrats desperately need if they are to avoid the disastrous low turnout that crippled the Party in 2014, when a mere 36.4 per cent of eligible voters showed up -- the lowest voter turnout in 72 years – and Republicans won big at all levels of government.
Bottom line: Sanders has made it safe to be a real Democrat again and he’s attracting much needed new voters, and is likely to have the coattails to help Democrats in Congressional and state races. Hillary is busy propping up the status quo, which will limit turnout.
Myth #4 – Her experience gives her an edge
At the end of the day, experience counts for you only if you got things right, or at least learned from your mistakes.
Hillary is pretty much batting zero on all counts. Her foreign policy is basically the same as the neocons. She voted for the Iraq war, then compounded the error by supporting regime change in Libya and Syria. Her economic policies are soft on Wall Street and she’s refused to back the $15 minimum wage. Finally, all this experience seems not to have given her a consistent view of policy. She’s flip-flopped on energy policy, trade agreements, crime issues, tax policy, regulation of the big banks … on and on it goes.
Bottom line: Ms. Clinton has loads of experience but she’s demonstrated poor judgment.
Experience without judgment merely allows her the opportunity to make the same mistakes over and over again. Experience without independence assures that she will. And taking money from Wall Street, fossil fuel interests, the pharmaceutical industry and other fat-cats assures that she has no independence.
Sanders, on the other hand, has demonstrated good judgment in both domestic and foreign affairs and he is dependent only upon the people of the United States – as our Constitution intended.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/12/four-myths-keeping-clinton-afloat
*********
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
(Bold for emphasis is my own.)
GO Bernie!!!!
The Guardian: "I'm the real-life Gordon Gekko and I support Bernie Sanders "
I'm the real-life Gordon Gekko and I support Bernie Sanders
~Asher Edelman
‘Bernie Sanders is the only independent candidate who escapes the malaise of being bought.’ Photograph: Allstar Picture Library
Banking is the least understood, and possibly most lethal, of all the myriad issues at stake in this election. No candidate other than Bernie Sanders is capable of taking the steps necessary to protect the American people from a repeat of the recent debacle that plunged the nation into a recession from which we have not recovered.
The potential for a depression looms heavily on the horizon. As a trained economist who has spent more than 20 years on Wall Street – and one of the models for Gordon Gekko’s character – I know the financial system is in urgent need of regulation and responsibility. Yet Hillary Clinton is beholden to the banks for their largesse in funding her campaign and lining her pockets. The likelihood of any Republican candidate taking on this key issue is not even worthy of discussion.
The recession of 2007-2016, and the persistent transfer of wealth from the 80% to the 1% is, mostly the result of banking irresponsibility precipitated by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.
The law separated commercial banking (responsible for gathering and conservatively lending out funds) from investment banking (more speculative activities).
A new culture emerged that rewarded bankers for return on equity rather than sound lending practices. The wild west of risk-taking, staked on depositors’ money, became the best sport in town.
Why not? If management won, they got rich. When they lost, the taxpayer took on the responsibility. If that sounds like a good wager, it was (and is).
....snip....
Remarkably, today the derivatives positions held by the large banks approach 10 times those of 2007-2008. In four banks alone, they exceed the GDP of the entire world. This is the interesting consequence when unchecked risk management rests in bankers’ hands.
When Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall, it was the culmination of the largest ever lobbying effort by the banking community to that date, $300m spent to convince Congress that Clinton, aided by Robert Rubin (US treasurer, previously with Goldman Sachs) and Alan Greenspan, a Milton Friedman-style supply-side economist, that the restraints on speculation should be removed.
The banking community’s gratitude was and is unending. Who can blame them?
Wait, there’s more....
....big huge snip of MUCH MORE.....
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/12/real-life-gordon-gekko-supports-bernie-sanders-wall-street-banks-regulation
Tax haven? Exactly.(duh) New York Times 2012 talks about this exact address used as tax haven.
By LESLIE WAYNEJUNE 30, 2012
NOTHING about 1209 North Orange Street hints at the secrets inside. It’s a humdrum office building, a low-slung affair with a faded awning and a view of a parking garage. Hardly worth a second glance. If a first one.
But behind its doors is one of the most remarkable corporate collections in the world: 1209 North Orange, you see, is the legal address of no fewer than 285,000 separate businesses.
Its occupants, on paper, include giants like American Airlines, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Cargill, Coca-Cola, Ford, General Electric, Google, JPMorgan Chase, and Wal-Mart. These companies do business across the nation and around the world. Here at 1209 North Orange, they simply have a dropbox.
What attracts these marquee names to 1209 North Orange and to other Delaware addresses also attracts less-upstanding corporate citizens. For instance, 1209 North Orange was, until recently, a business address of Timothy S. Durham, known as “the Midwest Madoff.” On June 20, Mr. Durham was found guilty of bilking 5,000 mostly middle-class and elderly investors out of $207 million. It was also an address of Stanko Subotic, a Serbian businessman and convicted smuggler — just one of many Eastern Europeans drawn to the state.
Big corporations, small-time businesses, rogues, scoundrels and worse — all have turned up at Delaware addresses in hopes of minimizing taxes, skirting regulations, plying friendly courts or, when needed, covering their tracks....
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thrives-as-a-corporate-tax-haven.html?_r=0
"rogues, scoundrels and worse"....yep.
The Clintons are playing the con of the century, Democrats In Name Only.
But you knew that.
The superdelegates "follow the will of the voters"...unless they're lobbyists, which many are.
The DNC has been corrupted by money.
The Reason Why Dozens of Lobbyists Will Be Democratic Presidential Delegates
ABC, Feb 2016
On July 25, these superdelegates will cast votes at the Democratic National Convention for whomever they want, regardless of primary and caucus outcomes. Democrats like to describe superdelegates as mostly elected officials and prominent party members, including President Obama and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
But this group, which consists of 21 governors, 40 senators and 193 representatives, only makes up about a third of the superdelegates.
Many of the remaining 463 convention delegates are establishment insiders who get their status after years of donations and service to the party.
Dozens of the 437 delegates in the DNC member category are registered federal and state lobbyists, according to an ABC News analysis.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/reason-dozens-lobbyists-democratic-presidential-delegates/story?id=37289507
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