May 24, 2016

The Return of Democratic Socialism

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/23/the-return-of-democratic-socialism/

Short, but good article.

May 24, 2016

Hillary Clinton Now Losing To Donald Trump

Remember when Clinton won all those early primaries and the biggest, or one of the biggest, reasons people supported her was her "electability" (always a reality-less talking point that never had any basis in reality)?

May 24, 2016

NPR Tries To Keep Calm Amid Hillary’s Plummeting Polls

If Clinton supporters respond, try focusing on the facts and logic that Cenk talks about, and not everything else.

May 23, 2016

Sanders and Class Struggle in the Democratic Party

The article was from a video produced by the Real News Network, and is worth reading and watching. The parts of the article I posted below point to why the Democratic Party is not proving itself to be a vehicle for progressive change (and hasn't, frankly, in my lifetime).

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/sanders-and-class-struggle-in-the-democratic-party.html

...And from the beginning, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been dishonest and double-dealing in how she’s handled this. So I wish that earlier in the campaign, rather than going after them in that same tone or character, that they’d simply made the point it’s time for these people to go. We need a new generation of leaders. And the second thing here, however, is that it isn’t just her. On the one hand it is, it is valid to say that a congresswoman who has really violated the rules of the Democratic National Committee in her conduct of her job relative to this campaign, and who in the Congress itself is a virtual lobbyist for the payday loan industry, it’s valid to call for her resignation. It’s valid to call her out for all the things she’s done.

It’s also valid to say that the entire Democratic National Committee is little better than a closely-held political action committee. That all 456 of the DNC superdelegates who are elected by no one and accountable to no one, who even their DNC posts no one in the country can primary for. It’s one of the very few offices that is absolutely impervious to outside accountability, to new blood, to democratic process. The whole thing has to go. And they’ve been, fooled with him from the beginning. He’s been a victim of the process from when she first cut the number of debates from 26 in 2008 to 6 this year, and scheduled them all on weekends and during popular sporting events if she could. There’s been a point when, from the very first point of this campaign, from the very beginning she’s rigged the system as well as she could for Clinton. She ought to go. I think her going ought to be a precondition of support for the ticket.

But at the same time, it’s not just–you don’t want to just get into name calling. You don’t want to just be re-litigating these factual questions that neither side can prove. The problem here is the entire system. She’s the perfect emblem of it, and she’s done many things wrong and she should go, and then the whole system should go. And last, I’ll just say one thing. The DNC members themselves who are all voting as delegates, when Wasserman Schultz did things like end Obama’s ban on federal contractors giving to the Democratic Party. When she set up this whole money laundering scheme, really, by which Clinton takes these large donations and works the state parties back into her own PAC. When she did all of these things there was never even a meeting of the DNC. There was never notice to the public or a recorded vote or a vote of any kind. There were no minutes. She’s making these huge decisions on behalf of the entire political party in what ought to be the greatest democracy of the world in close consultation with a couple of Hillary people, maybe the candidate herself, a couple of White House people. No one’s even been able to participate in this. And so from top to bottom, including in Nevada, in other caucus states where the party has not played, you know, fairly with the Sanders–. But from top to bottom, this party has not functioned as a political party ought to.

...And what I think you really hit on is that yes we can go into the DNC and personalities and so on, but fundamentally the reason this conflict is happening is that the party elites never have understood what this political revolution is about. They’ve not been, I’ve traveled to dozens and dozens of citizen towns. I’ve been in big rallies, I’ve been in rooms with people who are part of this political revolution, some of them for the very first time being involved in politics. Others had taken a hiatus because they’re fed up with the system but have come back. And really the reason the party elite doesn’t get this idea is when they call for party unity, that’s secondary to a lot of the people who are out there talking about a political revolution, which is what you essentially underscored. What the people who are engaged in this movement are about is completely blowing up the system, or at least demanding the changes that Bernie’s articulated. Single-payer healthcare. Getting rid of these bad trade agreements. You go down the list and many of these are fundamentally in contrast, in contradiction, to the policy not just of the DNC but, frankly, of the president of the United States. And so that conflict is expressing itself out there in terms of actual people going out to vote. They’re voting for a very different thing, in some ways very different from, as you point out, other contests, where at the end of the day in ’92 or ’88 the candidates were pretty much the same. They might have differed about some things, but party unity was simple because it was really about uniting factions about the same, that were part of that same system. Here it’s much different.

May 21, 2016

Establishment Dems Fight to Defeat 'Medicare-for-All' in Colorado

There's no divide in this party? If so, is this what the Democratic Party now stands for?

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/05/20/establishment-dems-fight-defeat-medicare-all-colorado

"Pro-Clinton Democrats join Big Pharma and state Republicans in fighting to defeat first-in-the-nation ballot measure for statewide single-payer plan"

Highlighting the divisions in the Democratic party this election, Colorado's ballot measure for a universal, single-payer healthcare plan is facing unexpected resistance from the very same party that has been calling for such a healthcare plan since the 1990s.

"There is a disconnect between the powers that be and the people," said state senator Irene Aguilar, a former doctor and the chief architect of the statewide 'Medicare-for-all,' called ColoradoCare, in an interview with the Guardian. "The powers that be are incrementalists. There hasn't been a courage of conviction to try and deal with healthcare coverage."

...Clinton's campaign is directly linked to Coloradans for Coloradans, the most prominent organization opposing ColoradoCare. Formed solely to defeat the measure, Coloradans for Coloradans is being funded by the very same consultant firm currently working for the Clinton super PAC Priorities USA, as Lee Fang reported in the Intercept...Indeed, in Colorado the "anti-single-payer effort is funded almost entirely by health care industry interests," Fang reported, "including $500,000 from Anthem Inc., the state’s largest health insurance provider; $40,000 from Cigna, another large health insurer that is current in talks to merge with Anthem; $75,000 from Davita, the dialysis company; $25,000 from Delta Dental, the largest dental insurer in the state; and $100,000 from SCL Health, the faith-based hospital chain."

May 20, 2016

Barbara Boxer: Bernie Supporters Made Me Fear For My Safety

At about the 6:50 mark, you see media outlets now admit that there is no evidence of violence at the convention. A lot of posters on this site, and many in the DNC, lied about what happened.

May 19, 2016

The Empire Strikes Back At Bernie Sanders

This propaganda is a coordinated attack on the supporters of a candidate of theirs in order to essentially force him from the race, and they're blatantly lying. After focusing attacks on his supporters (never saw a party attack their own people in this way leading into a likely to be tough election, especially given that the likely nominee is polling horribly and is already on thin ice), these same people are then assumed to turn around, forget that, and fall in line as a means to "unify the party". It's fascinating, they have utter contempt for the left and don't try to hide it, sign of just how much things have changed in the Democratic Party. So, are they right? Does the left just fall in line, and more importantly stop pushing and critiquing her? Her supporters essentially argue for us to give the right a monopoly on pushing and critiquing her, and they want that to happen as quickly as possible.

May 19, 2016

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Doubles Down On Bernie Lies

Wonderful leader for the Democrats.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/23/were-baaack-dnc-reverses-ban-corporate-cash-fund-convention

"We're Baaack...": DNC Reverses Ban on Corporate Cash to Fund Convention
The Democratic National Committee is luring corporate lobbyists with VIP rewards

Reversing a previous position that sought to limit corporate influence in politics, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is sweetening the pot for lobbyists and political action committees (PACs) that donate toward next year's nominating convention in Philadelphia.

According to documents seen by The Hill, those who give donations and bundled cash could see returns ranging from "preferred booking in a premiere hotel" to a photo-op at the official convention podium to VIP access to "the official Host Committee celebration, featuring celebrities and other luminaries, live music, and catering by Philadelphia's most recognized chefs."

The Hill reports that DNC chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) and other party officials met on Wednesday evening with approximately 50 people including "high-profile lobbyists" to go over the "menu of reward offerings."

May 18, 2016

"Democrats Claim Bernie Sanders Supporters Are Violent"

Pretty much. Despicable and immoral propaganda by the DNC and Clinton.

May 17, 2016

Nevada Democrats Screw Over Bernie Supporters

And Orwellian Clinton supporters want to focus on claims of damn chair throwing, this week's version of "English only" I guess. Pathetic!