RiverLover
RiverLover's JournalAbout Bernie voting for the Clinton & Biden Violent Crime Bill of 1994....
Surrounded by lawmakers, President Bill Clinton hugs then-Sen. Joseph Biden after signing the $30 billion crime bill at the White House on Sept. 13, 1994.
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So mass incarceration isnt working. Does Bernie agree?
Definitely. Bernie has been a long-time critic of our justice systems over-reliance on incarceration as an answer to lower crime rates. Even in 1991, Bernie spoke against what he saw as a, so-called crime prevention bill lets be honest, this is not a crime prevention bill this is a punishment bill
1991~
Tell me more about this crime prevention bill.
There were several crime bills proposed in the early 1990s. The 1991 bill that Bernie is talking about in the above video was an earlier version of the bill that was eventually signed into law. Introduced by Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) and signed by President Bill Clinton, The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (commonly referred to as the Crime Bill) was the largest crime bill in U.S. history providing for almost $10 billion in funding for prisons and $6 billion for crime prevention programs, among many other controversial provisions such as mandatory minimum sentencing and bans on certain assault weapons.
Did the bill work to reduce crime?
As mentioned above, most studies find that tough on crime laws only slightly decrease crime rates at the expense of devastating low-income communities of color. The National Academy of Sciences published an impressive, comprehensive study on the effects of increased incarceration on crime rates. They found only a modest relationship between incarceration and lower crime rates. For more info on the effects of mass incarceration, see above.
What did Bernie have to say about the bill at the time?
As seen in the above video, Bernie denounced an earlier version of the bill as a punishment bill, a retribution bill, a vengeance bill. He has always maintained that instead of putting our money into prisons, we should attack the root of crime by investing more in education and economic development. For more on this, see below.
If you have a few minutes, check out Bernie discussing the bill just months before voting on it:
If Bernie was so against this bill, why did he vote for it?
Got it. What else has Bernie said about mass incarceration?
More recently, Bernie has highlighted the unspeakable tragedy that, if recent trends continue, one in three black males born in this country can expect at some point in their lives to spend time in prison or jail.
Bernie ties criminal activity to lack of economic opportunities, and research shows that people behind bars are more likely to be young people of color who havent had access to good education or work training. As Bernie stated in a June 2015 Senate address:
Listen to Bernie explain the importance of this provision as the reason for his support of the Crime Bill:
http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-criminal-justice/
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America. This is a great man. Enough with the polished, made for TV versions. I want this rumpled REAL PERSON with a great heart & mind truly working for US. The people. As our leader.
What a world this could be.
In One Paragraph, Why Liberal Dems Are Skeptical of Hillary (Hill's banker speeches)
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/why-liberal-democrats-are-skeptical-of-hillary-clinton-in-one-paragraph/282304/
Hillary just lost women to Bernie. But don’t blame Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem
By Janell Ross February 10
Perhaps the Clinton campaign's internal polling had, by this weekend, made it clear just how poorly Hillary Clinton was doing among New Hampshire women. Maybe that triggered some kind of distress signal broadcast to Clinton's high-profile female supporters and surrogates.
Maybe that helped set in motion the entire Madeleine Albright-Gloria Steinem-Hillary Clinton fiasco this week.
But now, with the New Hampshire primary done, Clinton's rather dire situation with women particularly young white women in that state is pretty clear for all to see.
Clinton did not simply lose New Hampshire on Tuesday night to Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) by around 20 points; she also narrowly lost New Hampshire women to Sanders, too. In fact, early exit polling indicated that Clinton lost the quest for female voters to Sanders. Late Tuesday night, Sanders led her among women by around 10 points, according to exit polls reported by CNN.
That's right. The group that the Clinton campaign and if we are honest many a political prognosticator long assumed would form a strong contingent of Clinton's voters due, at least in some part, to the thrilling prospect of casting votes that might help to put the first woman in the White House, appears to have opted for Sanders instead.
....snip.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/10/hillary-clinton-just-lost-women-to-bernie-sanders-but-dont-blame-madeleine-albright-and-gloria-steinem/
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Fundamental changes are needed to help women in our country.
The only thing fundamental with Hillary is her fundamental role in the higher echelons of the establishment.
She just isn't capable, as a thoroughly purchased politician, of doing anything to advance fundamental change. Not for women, nor PoC, nor any of US who aren't in the top 10% income bracket.
"Hey Black & Latino voters, Did YOU get the Hillary memo?"
Hillary Relying On Minority Voters, But They're Not All Relying On Her"Hey Black & Latino voters, Did YOU get the Hillary memo asking you to save her campaign?"
by Alana Horowitz Satlin
Assignment Editor, The Huffington Post
02/10/2016
Hillary Clinton may be counting on support from black and Latino voters to score the Democratic presidential nomination, but not everyone's on board with that plan.
A memo to Clinton supporters, sent by campaign manager Robby Mook, outlined her path to victory. Her campaign will soar in March, he predicted, and her favorability among minorities will hand her the win.
.....snip.......
richdoll (@richdoll54) February 10, 2016
Did YOU get the Hillary memo asking you to save her campaign?
I'm just curious. https://t.co/oDwqHhLD5b
Shaun King (@ShaunKing) February 10, 2016
GAPeach (@PoliticsPeach) February 10, 2016
JadeinNM (@Jadeinnm) February 10, 2016
S.Anderson00 (@SeanKAnderson) February 10, 2016
READ MORE~
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-memo-minorities_us_56baf116e4b0c3c5504f6f4a
I'm a Woman and I Will Vote for the Best Feminist for President: Bernie Sanders
I wont vote against Hillary Clinton because shes female, but I dont intend to vote for her because I am. We need more fundamental changes in this countrybyRoseAnn DeMoro
2/9/2016
.......snip.........
I am the executive director of the largest nurses union in the US: my members are overwhelmingly female and, not by accident, we were the first large organization to endorse Sanders. Nurses recognized Sanders as one of their own as soon as he got into the race, because they, like he, believe that all people should be treated equally especially when it comes to healthcare regardless of race, gender or ability to pay.
So lets stop the divisive rhetoric: young women, older women (and younger and older men), all have lots of reasons to vote for Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination, and the Clinton camp doesnt get to define for us the appropriate way to live up to our feminist ideals.
The Clinton campaign has tried to elevate the importance of gender above all other considerations but if the goal is a woman qua woman, then we all should have been delighted with the fine work of former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, regardless the harm suffered by so many as a result of her policies.
Were not. And we cannot let the wealthy impose a Thatcherite economy on America with the next election, with the 1% continuing to hold the vast majority of wealth in the US.
You cannot separate gender from race and class: racial and gender discrimination remain very real, incredibly widespread societal problems, impacting peoples daily lives in myriad ways, from law enforcement practices to hiring and promotion opportunities to pay inequities to a profit-focused healthcare system.
But the Sanders campaigns fundamental pitch is for equality in all aspects in social, political, economic and personal life; the mass movement and political revolution that is so intrinsic to the Sanders campaign is the only way to successfully combat racial, gender, and class discrimination.
.......snip.......
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/09/im-woman-and-i-will-vote-best-feminist-president-bernie-sanders
Girl POWER!!!
GO Bernie!
Bernie Sanders, “The Big Short” & a nation that’s had it up to here
(Nearly a decade after plutocrats exploded the economy, we're just as unequal as ever and people are fed up)
by EDWIN LYNGAR
Feb 8. 2016
...snip...The biggest financial crime of my lifetime, the financial collapse of 2008, is a historic injustice that has gone unpunished. The people who caused it also profited from it. The plutocratic class, spanning from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, manipulate politicians to get whatever they want, while the rest of us get almost nothing for our votes. This state of affairs is obvious to anyone who cares to look, and its the driving factor behind Bernie Sanders strong performance in Iowa.
If this election becomes a referendum on that unaddressed outrage, Sanders can and should become the next president.
.........Conservatives and liberals often agree about the stupidity and injustice of bailing out Wall Street, while leaving the rest of us hanging, but conventional politicians on both sides of the aisle have done nothing to rectify this historic wrong. I would add that this incident stands as Barack Obamas greatest failure. Regular people paid the tab for the graft and corruption of Wall Street, and frustration and resentment have been brewing ever since, driving the rise of the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Donald Trump and growing white mortality. Despite the greatest economic reaming since 1929, consumers and taxpayers have answered only with self-destruction and impotent rage, while our slimy, gutless and corrupt political class begs more campaign cash from the same people who caused the mess.
.....Im not even angry about the stupidity and graft of the bloated housing market, but I am furious over what happened afterward. Nothing. American taxpayer largess was tapped to cover bad bets by the wealthiest few, while taxpayers and homeowners lost everything. I personally lost money and opportunity, and many people, family, friends and coworkers, all ended up poorer for it. My hometown of Reno, Nevada, was hit particularly hard. We are on the mend, now eight years later, but damage has been profound and lives have been unalterably disrupted. To add insult, homeowners and regular people were often blamed for a broken system by a fact-free conservative press. In the end, no one paid the price for systemic fraud, and banks were handed billions in free money that they lent back to regular people at 12 percent interest.
......The glorified mafia family we mislabel American finance is the biggest reason Bernie Sanders can and should prevail in November. It is only him (or someone like him) who can finally address the simmering, residual rage over this issue. Hillary will never do it, what with her cozy relationships to Wall Street bankers. Even if she cared to address the issue (and I doubt it), she has no credibility to do so. She is as much a creation of Wall Street collusion as anyone on the Republican ticket.
By contrast, Sanders is anti-greed, a man of modest means with wild hair and penchant for 60s idealism. He comes to the race from a time before the mantra greed is good was enshrined in American capitalism.
.....snip..........
Read in full~
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/08/in_the_age_of_all_american_anger_bernie_sanders_the_big_short_a_nation_thats_had_it_up_to_here/
WOW The ignorance showing here. Sure, wall street gave FDR $, then they realized the mistake &
worked HARD to get him thrown out of office.
I really resent any implication that Hillary is in ANY WAY like FDR.
It was a dangerous time in America: The economy was staggering, unemployment was rampant and a banking crisis threatened the entire monetary system.
The newly elected president pursued an ambitious legislative program aimed at easing some of the troubles. But he faced vitriolic opposition from both sides of the political spectrum.
"This is despotism, this is tyranny, this is the annihilation of liberty," one senator wrote to a colleague. "The ordinary American is thus reduced to the status of a robot. The president has not merely signed the death warrant of capitalism, but has ordained the mutilation of the Constitution, unless the friends of liberty, regardless of party, band themselves together to regain their lost freedom."
Those words could be ripped from today's headlines. In fact, author Sally Denton tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz, they come from a letter written in 1933 by Republican Sen. Henry D. Hatfield of West Virginia, bemoaning the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Denton is the author of a new book, The Plots Against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right.
She says that during the tense months between FDR's election in November and his inauguration in March 1933, democracy hung in the balance.
"There was a lot at play. It could have gone very different directions,"
......snip......
When Roosevelt finally took office, he embarked on the now-legendary First Hundred Days, an ambitious legislative program aimed at reopening and stabilizing the country's banks and getting the economy moving again.
"There was just this sense that he was upsetting the status quo," Denton says.
Critics on the right worried that Roosevelt was a Communist, a socialist or the tool of a Jewish conspiracy. Critics on the left complained his policies didn't go far enough. Some of Roosevelt's opponents didn't stop at talk. Though it's barely remembered today, there was a genuine conspiracy to overthrow the president.
The Wall Street Putsch, as it's known today, was a plot by a group of right-wing financiers.
"They thought that they could convince Roosevelt, because he was of their, the patrician class, they thought that they could convince Roosevelt to relinquish power to basically a fascist, military-type government," Denton says................
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/12/145472726/when-the-bankers-plotted-to-overthrow-fdr
Reich says succintly what I don't have time for re: this~
http://robertreich.org/
He also has a great article out yesterday that I hope you & others like you can open your minds to. Our country can't continue with 2 right wings....
Sunday, February 7, 2016
Instead of Yes we can, many Democrats have adopted a new slogan this election year: We shouldnt even try.
We shouldnt try for single-payer system, they say. Well be lucky if we prevent Republicans from repealing Obamacare.
We shouldnt try for a $15 an hour minimum wage. The best we can do is $12 an hour.
We shouldnt try to restore the Glass-Steagall Act that used to separate investment and commercial banking, or bust up the biggest banks. Well be lucky to stop Republicans from repealing Dodd-Frank.
We shouldnt try for free public higher education. As it is, Republicans are out to cut all federal education spending.
We shouldnt try to tax carbon or speculative trades on Wall Street, or raise taxes on the wealthy. Well be fortunate to just maintain the taxes already in place.
Most of all, we shouldnt even try to get big money out of politics. Well be lucky to round up enough wealthy people to back Democratic candidates.
We-shouldnt-even-try Democrats think its foolish to aim for fundamental change pie-in-the-sky, impractical, silly, naïve, quixotic. Not in the cards. No way we can.
I understand their defeatism. After eight years of Republican intransigence and six years of congressional gridlock, many Democrats are desperate just to hold on to what we have.
And ever since the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision opened the political floodgates to big corporations, Wall Street, and right-wing billionaires, many Democrats have concluded that bold ideas are unachievable.
In addition, some establishment Democrats Washington lobbyists, editorial writers, inside-the-beltway operatives, party leaders, and big contributors have grown comfortable with the way things are. Theyd rather not rock the boat theyre safely in.
I get it, but heres the problem. Theres no way to reform the system without rocking the boat. Theres no way to get to where America should be without aiming high.
Progressive change has never happened without bold ideas championed by bold idealists.
Some thought it was quixotic to try for civil rights and voting rights. Some viewed it as naïve to think we could end the Vietnam War. Some said it was unrealistic to push for the Environmental Protection Act.
But time and again weve learned that important public goals can be achieved if the public is mobilized behind them. And time and again such mobilization has depended on the energies and enthusiasm of young people combined with the determination and tenacity of the rest.
If we dont aim high we have no chance of hitting the target, and no hope of mobilizing that enthusiasm and determination.
The situation were in now demands such mobilization. Wealth and income are more concentrated at the top than in over a century. And that wealth has translated into political power.
The result is an economy rigged in favor of those at the top which further compounds wealth and power at the top, in a vicious cycle that will only get worse unless reversed.
Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than the citizens of any other advanced nation, for example. We also pay more for Internet service. And far more for health care.
We pay high prices for airline tickets even though fuel costs have tumbled. And high prices for food even though crop prices have declined.
Thats because giant companies have accumulated vast market power. Yet the nations antitrust laws are barely enforced.
Meanwhile, the biggest Wall Street banks have more of the nations banking assets than they did in 2008, when they were judged too big to fail.
Hedge-fund partners get tax loopholes, oil companies get tax subsidies, and big agriculture gets paid off.
Bankruptcy laws protect the fortunes of billionaires like Donald Trump but not the homes of underwater homeowners or the savings of graduates burdened with student loans.
A low minimum wage enhances the profits of big-box retailers like Walmart, but requires the rest of us provide its employees and their families with food stamps and Medicaid in order to avoid poverty an indirect subsidy of Walmart.
Trade treaties protect the assets and intellectual property of big corporations but not the jobs and wages of ordinary workers.
At the same time, countervailing power is disappearing. Labor union membership has plummeted from a third of all private-sector workers in the 1950s to fewer than 7 percent today. Small banks have been absorbed into global financial behemoths. Small retailers dont stand a chance against Walmart and Amazon.
And the pay of top corporate executives continues to skyrocket, even as most peoples real wages drop and their job security vanishes.
This system is not sustainable.
We must get big money out of our democracy, end crony capitalism, and make our economy and democracy work for the many, not just the few.
But change on this scale requires political mobilization.
It wont be easy. It has never been easy. As before, it will require the energies and commitments of large numbers of Americans.
Which is why you shouldnt listen to the we-must-not-try brigade. Theyve lost faith in the rest of us.
We must try. We have no choice.
http://robertreich.org/
This is beautiful, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist....
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/flea-why-i-support-bernie-sanders-20160205
"The concept of a president in this country who is not beholden to corporate lobbyists is such a beautiful idea," Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea says
....snip....
A year ago, nobody really cared about Bernie Sanders or knew who he was. And here's a guy that is not relying on fear-mongering or Super PACs or billions of dollars. He's just talking about issues that really affect us as human beings, like caring about each other and evening the playing field.
...snip....
People try to demonize it like, "Socialism is the next step to communism." That's just insane silliness. Bernie isn't talking about eliminating the spirit of capitalism in terms of the competitive spirit of people being able to lift themselves up by their bootstraps through discipline and hard work and creativity and ingenuity.
He's not trying to eliminate making something great of yourself and being part of the American dream. He's just saying, "Let's even the playing field so everybody can get a decent education and have an opportunity to get health care and take care of themselves and educate themselves." That's what civilization should be about.
....snip....
The bottom line is that everybody deserves to get a good education. This country is completely capable economically of providing a high-grade education for everybody regardless of their economic class. And everybody deserves to have a high grade of health care regardless of their economic class.
That is what's going to help [reduce] crime and poverty. That is what's going to make this country a beautiful, vibrant place.
Beyond economic issues, the thing that drives my interest the most in any presidential candidate is the one that's least likely to go to war and least likely to start some bloodthirsty murderous war campaign in order to keep the Military Industrial Complex going and make billions for the corporations at the expense of human life.
I think Bernie is the least likely to start a cockamamie war.
....snip....
The entire article is worth reading.
If you're a Bernie supporter, you'll love reading more of his beautiful & succinct articulation of why we support this amazing person.
If you're for Hillary, it will help explain why those of us for Bernie are so damn passionate.
"Look, let's get this straight." (Tell it, John!!!)
by John Atcheson
Common Dreams
2/5/16
.......snip.........
Look, lets get this straight.
It wasn't very long ago when Hillary Clinton favored the TPP, the Keystone XL Pipeline and the death penalty.
She also opposed gay marriage and reinstating Glass-Steagall.
Her foreign policy is closer to the neocons who got us into Iraq (which she voted for) than what the American people favor.
Shes flipped on immigration, gun control, and NAFTA.
Thats not progressive.
She attributes her changes towards progressivism to evolving as a result of new information.
But as Politico points out, for most of these issues, there was no new information. For example, whats changed on gay marriage, other than public opinion?
It also begs a question: if Sanders could see the folly of invading Iraq, or the stupidity of repealing Glass-Steagall, or the gross inequity of trade pacts, why couldnt she?
Either she has bad judgment, or shes being disingenuous about flip-flopping.
But now its apparent that the American people are taking a progressive turn and so, Hillary is shedding her moderate coat, and donning her progressive one.
When Mrs. Clinton filled with righteous indignation says lets talk about issues and lets look forward, what shes really saying is lets not talk about my campaign financing, or my policy history, because it wont bear the scrutiny my new, new, new progressive brand demands.
........snip......
Read in full~
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/progressive-30-beware-latest-version-hillary-clinton
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