Tallest tree in the tropics discovered in Malaysia TreeHugger (resilc)
The most mysterious star in the Galaxy Kickstarter. EM: “On of the more interesting Kickstarter campaigns.”
Gene Drives That Tinker with Evolution Are an Unknown Risk, Researchers Say MIT Technology Review (David L)
Changing Direction, Big Food Decides to Label Products Containing GMOs Food Tank
Tesla Knows When a Crash Is Your Fault, and Other Carmakers Soon Will, Too MIT Technology Review (David L)
China?
China sets regional ‘red lines’ to cut coal, water and energy use South China Morning Post/blockquote>
GLYPHOGATE — HOW MONSANTO TRIPPED UP IN EUROPE’S WEEDKILLER WARS Politico
ECB, Commission wrongly define States with worst deflation as price stability “best performers Prime Economics (guurst)
Distrust of the EU isn’t just a right-wing cause Quartz (resilc)
Refugee Crisis
Europe Is Slamming Its Doors Shut to a Growing and Historic Humanitarian Crisis Alternet (Sid S)
Brexit?
FRANCE’S PLAN FOR A BLOODY BREXIT Politco. A scorched earth policy will increase the cost to everyone, not just the UK.
Paris courts bankers threatened by Brexit Financial Times
What would Brexit mean for British sovereignty? Telegraph
Citigroup warns staff of Brexit jobs risk Guardian
James Meek · How to Grow a Weetabix: Farms and Farmers London Review of Books (resilc)
A more accurate version of the Vote Leave poster would run: ‘Let’s abolish farm subsidies, raise taxes and use all the money we save by leaving the EU so we can spend an extra £350 million a week on the NHS.’ Wordy, but, for a lot of left-leaning Britons, an attractive plan. Throw in the promise of cheaper food if we drop tariffs on agricultural imports from Africa, Australasia and the Americas, as Michael Gove wants to do, and it gets even better. Just not for farmers. The spectre haunting the British farmyard is that the EU debate will turn public attention to what’s happening down on the farm, whatever the referendum result. There is, after all, another possible version of Vote Leave’s poster: ‘Let’s give our NHS the £75 million our farmers take every week.’
Grexit?
Court cases could face 10-year wait due to lawyers’ strike ekathimerini. FWIW, I recall reading in 2015 that the courts are so backlogged that 6 year delays are routine.
Europe Prepares to Pick Who Can Run Greece’s Banks Wall Street Journal
Ukraine/Russia
Ukraine’s Out of Control Arms Bazaar in Europe’s Backyard Daily Beast (resilc)
Syraquistan
Two Important Lessons From Israel’s Attack on the USS Liberty Examiner (Judy B)
Clash Looming? Russia-backed Syrian Army heading for ISIL’s al-Raqqa in race with US-backed Kurds Juan Cole
CIA and Pentagon Bicker While Russia Wipes Out U.S.-Backed Rebels Daily Beast (resilc)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Destroyers will break down if sent to Middle East, admits Royal Navy Guardian (guurst)
Retire the Foreign Policy Elites National Interest (resilc)
Clinton E-mail Hairball
Voters Will Be Left Hanging by State Department’s Clinton Email Slow-Walk TruthOut
2016
California Ballot Status California Secretary of State (Dan K), Circulate this link widely:
Under the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, every voter who casts a provisional ballot is entitled to find out from his/her county elections official if the ballot was counted and if not, the reason why it was not counted.
Under California Elections Code sections 3017 (PDF) and 3019.5 (PDF), a voter who casts a vote-by-mail ballot can find out if the ballot arrived at his/her county elections office, if the ballot was counted, and, if not, the reason why it was not counted.
Each county elections official allows voters to check the status of his/her vote-by-mail and provisional ballot either through the county website, by telephone, or both.
To find out if your vote-by-mail ballot was received by your county elections official or if your provisional ballot was counted, please click on the appropriate link below or call the phone number listed for the county elections office. For further information about the elections services provided in your county, visit our County Elections offices page.
California Primary: Millions Of Vote-By-Mail Ballots Are Still Uncounted, Will Alter The Final Count Inquisitur (Dan K). Assuming they are counted. Per above, demand an accounting!
Fake ballots with Sanders’ name scratched out distributed in Hudson County News 12 New Jersey (martha r). Lambert : “THIS is the explanation for why Sanders does well in caucus states. Elections without Democrats controlling the balloting are, in fact, more democratic.
Analyst: Surge in Younger Voters Failed to Materialize in California Primary KQED
Anthem for Bummed Youth Thomas Frank, Baffler (Phil U)
‘The Struggle Continues’: Sanders Refuses to Bend the Knee to Establishment Common Dreams (martha r)
Bernie Sanders Supporters Attack Reporters Online After Hillary Clinton Declared Nominee Huffington Post. Steve C: “More Bernie Bro disinformation. It’s a tsunami today and everywhere.”
Biden: Democrats ‘should be a little graceful’ in waiting for Sanders to drop out Business Insider (David L)
Obama hopes Democrats ‘pull together’ BBC
Robert Reich’s Open Letter to Bernie Sanders Is Going Viral USUncut (martha r)
Sanders surrogate: ‘This is bigger than the math’ The Hill (martha r)
Get Out Now, Bernie New Republic. Resilc: “You cannot have a revolution unless you blow shit up. Shit being the DNC and Clintoon crips in control of GOP lite favor of the Democrats currently.”
How Bernie Changed the Game American Conservative (resilc)
Hillary’s Support Falls American Mirror (Jim Haygood)
Clinton’s ‘Comeback’ That Wasn’t American Conservative (resilc)
Democrats Are Now the Aggressive War Party Consortiumnews (Chuck L)
Clinton Tells WSJ She Plans to Take Aim at Trump’s Economic Agenda, Calling His Ideas Misguided Wall Street Journal. As Lambert pointed out, foreign policy heavyweights weren’t impressed by her speech, and more to the point, I’m not sure it moved voters. Plus she’s exposing her strategy early. This gives Trump time to course correct if he really wants to win, which is something I regard as in doubt.
Elizabeth Warren To Endorse Hillary Clinton: Report Huffington Post
Elizabeth Warren Rips Into Paul Ryan’s Anti-Poverty Plan Mother Jones. Resilc: “Running hard for VP.”
Is Trump Being Racist About Judge Curiel? Benjamin Studebaker. Jeff W:
Even though the topic is Trump and Judge Curiel, the post is really about how the idea that someone’s identity (racial, sex, etc.) takes precedence in determining their views or actions has become normalized—so Trump’s view of Judge Curiel is no different than the Clinton camps’ view of “Berniebros” disliking Clinton because of misogyny—and that idea is itself racist or sexist. It’s basically a critique of identity politics.
Cult Deprogrammer: Here’s How to Stage an Intervention for Your Trump-Supporting Friend Alternet. Wowsers. Totally dismisses the idea that there could be a rational basis for supporting Trump. And looks like more than a bit of projection. The sycophancy in Clinton’s team (per e-mails) is awfully cultish and there are also some signs among her diehard loyalists.
Elected Officials Are Leaving the Republican Party Over Trump Pacific Standard (Chuck L)
Trump’s Actual Racism and How It’s Thrived Bill Moyers
Donald Trump prepares charge sheet against Hillary Clinton POLITICO
Pfizer CEO Can’t “Distinguish Between the Policies” of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Intercept
Paul Krugman. VSP The Pub. Important.
Brownback’s Abject Tax Policy Failure in KS Barry Ritholtz (resilc)
Dry Taps and Lagoons of Sewage: What America’s Water Crisis Looks Like Nation
Police State Watch
Oklahoma Cops Can Now Seize Money From Prepaid Debit Cards, Without Filing Criminal Charges Forbes
Norman Seabrook, NYC correction officers’ union head, arrested on federal corruption charges New York Daily News (Abigail Field)
Why Are Fewer People Getting Married? The Conversation
BLS Says Jobs Openings Up; Actually, Openings Falling Fast Michael Shedlock (EM)
Worldwide Alcohol Consumption Went Down Last Year—Except in the United States Alternet
Fidelity snubs Dimon’s best practice plan Financial Times
Franklin CEO: asset management industry will consolidate Financial Times
The secret to investing in hedge funds: avoid almost all of them Business Insider
A Bearish George Soros is Trading Again Wall Street Journal
Class Warfare
After 350,000 Layoffs Oil Companies Now Face Worker Shortages OilPrice
Migrant workers in US seafood industry exposed to forced labor conditions Guardian
Coder fired after 6 years for automating his job Boing Boing (resilc)
The incredible crushing despair of the white working class Washington Post
They Died of Progress Archdruid. Lambert: “This is the Archdruid’s version of crapification.”
Antidote du jour. Alex F: “The Orange Cat. ???? – 2016. RIP.”
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Democracy Delusion Deprogramming
Don’t you get sick and tired of getting your hopes up only to have them dashed to pieces?
Remember the Scottish separation referendum?
Remember Bernie Sanders?
Do you think elites will allow democracy to vote for a Brexit?
Humans invented religion to balance the intelligence that allowed us to contemplate our own death. Too bad we aren’t smart enough to contemplate our own life.
The 2 beliefs humans throughout history all around the world have in common, are the beliefs in God and Money, but both of those things are not real. We just made them up.
I am dubious of a diagnosis of Brexit as the elites v the people.
The UK newspapers are, with few exceptions, strongly pro-Brexit. I interpret that as meaning that their owners want the UK out.
Why might that be? In my opinion it is likely to be so that they can increase their grip on the UK political scene.
So in future politicians would not be able to say ‘I would love to jump Mr M. but European legislation prevents me’. It would more likely just be ‘how high Mr M.?.
So I see it as much more likely a power struggle between one part of the elite (principally the newspaper owners), who want to increase their power, and another – the politicians and senior officials – who want to preserve some freedom of manouevre for themselves.
I doubt it is a coincidence that the two most heavyweight leaders of the Out campaign are former Times and Telegraph journalists, one of whom still writes a frequent column (for which he is very well paid)
But then I am a cynic with many years exposure to UK public life.
To some degree I share your frustration, but I don’t think it’s right to say money doesn’t exist because we “made it up.” When we make something up, and enough of us go around acting as if it’s real, it becomes real, in the sense that it changes who we are and how we act. What’s your standard for reality? Because if it’s ‘something that would exist independent of any human being,’ than pretty much every part of your daily life, excluding Laws of Nature and the like, could be defined as not real. In addition to money, we made up democracy, the nation-state, epic poems, shirt collars, and the Internet. I doubt you would consider all those things to be in the same category as God (whose existence is a weirder and very different question.) Would you? Anyway, the point is we can’t get burned out and just wish money away because it’s had some pernicious consequences. It’s as much a part of human life as bacteria and traffic jams, and we have to deal with it.
Clinton Tells WSJ She Plans to Take Aim at Trump’s Economic Agenda, Calling His Ideas Misguided
*EXPLOSION* For the love of…. her Economic Agenda is “Bill Clinton”!! Who is the fool here? I hope Trump rinses Clinton like a dirty dishrag. I cannot wait for his press conference about her next week.
So, is this when she pivots back to supporting the TPP? It’ll be fun to watch all the Clintonistas suddenly claim that TPP is wonderful without any apparent awareness or shame at what they’re doing…
…someone should write a book.
Ah, but first she’ll see to it that a semi-colon replaces a comma somewhere in the text, then claim this made all the difference, converting a faulty document into the “gold standard” she promised all along. And, her millions of self-deluded minions will invade social media proclaiming, “See, this is just one example of all that experience “working for you.”
(Twitter & Facebook may actually self-Immolate on day of announcement)
Yep, a bubble counts as real economic progress, and “Fiscal Responsibility[tm]”-induced budget surpluses are presumed to be helpful….
For an antidote, read Randall Wray’s exposee of what really happens when you have Federal Budget surpluses [hint: Great Depression-sized holes in the economy].
Pelosi: If Hillary Is Elected, TPP Will Be ‘Easy’ To Pass
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/09/pelosi-if-hillary-is-elected-tpp-will-be-easy-to-pass-video/
and bernie will sign on to this????????????
‘Pass’ now changed to ‘Defeat,’ along with some of article. That was fast…
“…easy to deal with” is what they report now. Grrrrrrr.
The AdJ brought back memories of my family’s own dear cat — Chairman Meow, also RIP.
The name was pinched IIRC from William Gaddis’s brilliant novel JR, which came out around 1975. It is very long and very complicated, but a darkly comic, scathing story of American capitalism. (The title character is a 12 year old kid who ends up running a huge corporation.) Highly recommended. Gaddis was a true original. He worked for a while in an advertising firm, which might partly explain his cynicism.
We had a cat that looked just like that one. We gave her a name, but she only ever answered to “Kitty.”
An orange tabby has been a part of my ‘family’ for a few years now, but I named him “Shredder”! (A previous cat was “Velcro”)
I don’t remember how I first stumbled upon NC, but as a wildlife/western photographer, I do remember that what lured me in were the awesome photos each morning.
What has kept me here is the content.
Thank you NC for all you do.
voteforno6
June 9, 2016 at 8:25 am
EXACTLY the same with me…well I haven’t named her except to call her kitty. I was going to follow Holly Golightly and call her cat, but when I say that she ignores me…
my kitty has two traits: to be outside when she is inside and too be inside when she is outside – If only I had Schrodinger’s cat….except instead of alive/dead it would be both inside and outside simultaneously….
We had named ours ‘Gato’….Often calling him ‘G*dd*mn Cat!’…….while scraping regurgitated mousy bits & chunks off the carpet….
….so there is something to be said for redundency
My cat Arnold looks just like him, also. 23 lbs. We don’t know where he came from, but we’ve had him for 10 years. He doesn’t catch rats anymore, but still will climb a tree occasionally.
+1 for the Gaddis reference – that book is a slog but one of the best I’ve ever read.
“A Frolic of His Own”, Gaddis’ take on the legal system, is excellent too.
I loved that one as well… the protagonist ends up suing himself over a car accident based on legal advice. And the court case about the public art work.
“Carpenter’s Gothic” — much more accessible (one-tenth the length) but remarkably prescient about corrupt right-wing politicians and preachers looting Africa for rare minerals. I had the pleasure and honour of meeting Gaddis himself at a book signing for it in London back in the 80s.
I must slog through (as you put it) JR again some day, it is indeed a masterpiece full of small gems of comedy. The kid JR meant to call his company “Alaska Enterprises” or the like but misspells it so it is “Alyeska Enterprises”. The jaded cynical Higgs (I believe that was his name)… he mentions to someone how as a child he thought it was “Baby Jeepers and the Three Wide Men” and then it becomes a hit rock band using his name… Gaddis, one of a kind!
Sanders campaign works to take control of WA state Democratic convention
Looks like the hippies will not go gentle into that
coronationgood night.There was no one in charge of Sanders supporters in the Nevada convention?
And this can, in part, prevent it?
Under no circumstances should anyone do their weight lifting (ie. chair lifting) exercise in the room.
Do push-ups instead.
Glyphosate Wars in Europe—What I’m wondering is there any way to actually be glyphosate-free. It’s everywhere in the planet from what I’ve been able to gather. Especially everywhere in the US. People spray it around golf courses, bike trails, yards, everything else. Not to mention farms. You can filter your drinking water—that might get some of it. Then you have to filter your shower water too? What if you go swimming somewhere? I applaud the Europeans trying to do something constructive over there—but when the Europeans go on vacation to Asia or anywhere else, they are exposed to glyphosate also.
It’s a chemical, not a virus. Dose makes the poison.
Some poisons need a lower dose to work than others. And some take lethal effect years or decades after intaken. For example, one atom of unstable plutonium inside your lung is enough to give you cancer if it fisses and a released alpha hits and cancerizes the DNA within the nucleus of a cell in that alpha particles flight path. ( I hope I remembered correctly what a fissing plutonium atom releases.)
It takes relatively few molecules of a hormone-mimic endocrine disrupter to cause bad health effects in the body.
Soooo . . . . what bad effects might in-body glyphosate cause years in the future and how few molecules would be an effective dose to have that poisonous future effect?
The essential answer is no – glyphosate (or to be more precise, its breakdown products) have become pretty universal. Unless you go live in a deep forest far from any agricultural land, golf course or urban area, and avoid eating anything but certified organic, its unavoidable.
I would say though that as persistent man made poisons go, there are worse ones which have become universal, in particular organochlorines as their impacts are very subtle, but very serious even at very low levels.
there’s always fluoridated water as a fall back if glyphosate doesn’t cut the mustard…..
Warren endorsing Clinton??? I won’t read HuffPo for the time being – I imagine too much gloating going on over there.
But as to Warren endorsing Clinton, that would rip it for me as far as Warren is concerned. Needless to say, accepting VP offer would do the same. It’s one thing to play the game, it’s another to be the game.
Adding, Sanders also has a big problem in my opinion. He should have been far more careful in the way he promised to endorse Hillary. After the cheating, the misinformation, the astoundingly orchestrated media silence and breath taking disinformation on so many issues, the voter suppression, Debbie Wassermann Schultz, and on and on, any endorsement of Clinton by Sanders is taking “keeping one’s word” far beyond the level of simply cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
And it’s not just Sander’s integrity anymore; it’s the integrity and honesty of so many people and all the countless hours of work and hopes and contributions they put in against the very thing that Sander’s must now “endorse” in order to keep his word.
If Sanders endorses Clinton, I’m done with him.
Sure, but NOT what he stood for. I was never consumed by Bernie, only his agenda and policies. They are a good starting point. Also, if he does actually endorse her, it doesn’t mean anything (to me). He doesn’t control my vote. His endorsement (or not) of Hillary has no bearing on my November vote.
There are ‘Never Trump’ people.
And there are ‘Never Hillary’ people.
There was a marriage of convenience the last few months.
Sanders is one of those ‘Never Trump’ people.
Many of his supporters are ‘Never Hillary’ people.
Many of his supporters including yours truly are “Never Trump, Never $hillary”
Also that as well.
Pretty tough for them at the moment.
:D I’ve been thru worse. Even if Sanders didn’t win against a rigged system, at least we *had* somebody for the first time since Reagan
Anderson, Perot, Edwards, Dean, JFK Jr., and Gore come to mind.
All ground up by the machine, some to death.
I’d go further and say Sanders was irrelevant to a few of us. I thought his refusal to attack Clinton or the Ds made him look like a weak candidate who was doing it because he wanted nothing more than to ‘start a conversation’.
I worked to get him elected locally but had even unsubscribed from his campaign. I wanted a policy change, he was simply a means to attempt that.
Oh sure, you hoped. I saw you hoping over there. It’s ok that those hopes were dashed, that’s life, it happens. Like Buddha above, I’m glad that we actually had a candidate with some integrity and honesty in the running, for the first time in my entire life as far as I know, as a gen xer.
So you agree with inode_buddha that Reagan had “honesty and integrity”. LOL.Reagan was the biggest fraud ever, well, maybe until Obama.
I didn’t say that.
What happens however when hope is pitted against a rigged game? When the scrappy little bunch of weaklings finally gets on the playing field against the Big Team, and scores lots of points and looks like they might even win, but then the Big Team just moves the goalposts? When the Big Team starts throwing punches but the ref doesn’t care? Do the weaklings just say “I’m never playing THAT game again’?
I believe when the time comes and we build enough momentum, it’s not going matter who’s president. So we focus on building that momentum. Or alternatively, tipping the system over by surgical resonant pushes at the right times and places.
But only one side plays by the rules or even believes in them.
The Big Team doesn’t care about the rules, and, in fact, uses those very rules and the consciences of the weaklings (and their desires to be fair) as a bludgeon against them. So much so, that a majority of the weaklings can’t see, can’t even conceive that the Big Team would cheat or break the rules to win at all costs.
Heaven forbid the only evidence isn’t some bended knee mea culpa and begging forgiveness of the guilty party (a la some cheating preacher), or else there’s no way the weaklings will ever believe they’ve been cheated–they will continue on with their belief that fair’s fair and they just lost (or some version of the math’s the math).
I don’t care a ton about what he “says” regarding a tepid endorsement. I’m much more interested in what action he takes AFTER the election. If Obama tries to sneak TPP through, I hope he throws a fit and organizes rallies and whatever to stop it.
As soon as Clinton starts warming up for some overseas adventure, prob Syria, I want him rounding up votes and flooring legislation to oppose it.
He may not be President, but he’s got the gravitas now to be able to put a block on the excessively rotten parts of her agenda. Yes, that may include teaming up with Republicans from time to time.
I want Clinton to spend 4 years with Sanders and the Republicans constantly shining a light and putting heat on her for whatever she tries to pull off. Who knows, maybe he can push her into being a decent, non-destructive president? Nah….probably not…
https://news.vice.com/article/obama-is-meeting-sanders-in-an-attempt-at-party-unity-behind-clinton
That didn’t take long
Sanders has worked with the Ds for decades. He’s a loyalist. He always has and always will support the D. He supports the system, he just thinks it needs a little tweaking.
He didn’t say when. Maybe he’ll endorse her on August 31 (right before early voting starts).
And there are many ways to endorse. He can just say “she’s better than Trump”.
Also btw, voter suppression is a general thing, not a Democratic Party thing. The Dems can say “let’s under-staff or discard ballots at this or that precinct”, or “let’s purge a bunch of voters because they don’t count anyway”, the states and local counties do that. Primary elections are administered by government agencies and paid for with taxpayer money. Election dysfunction disproportionately affects poorer voters, more of whom are Dem than Rep. Do the DNC and RNC know about it and look the other way? Oh hell yes, at least after the fact. But DNC leadership doesn’t want to ask their $$$ donors to fund election integrity drives, because the donors don’t want to fund anything that doesn’t go back into their own pockets sooner of later.
I think Bernie should endorse Hill on November 31.
It all depends on your definition of IS keeping you’re word.
*still chuckling* Perfect!
But he shouldn’t give his full endorsement until 2090.
Right on!
On the same (convenient, post-election day) the State Department Releases Hillary Clinton-Era TPP Emails.
To be fair, an endorsement should come before the election. I recommend September 31.
CORRECTION:
The Dems
cancan’t say …… sorry!
He can just say “she’s better than Trump”.
Or that Hillary is “better than drowning in the septic tank in your own backyard.” :-)
Well, he just swapped a few names out in his 1992 endorsement of Bill Clinton, I could live with it:
“In terms of who to support for president, the choice is really not difficult. I am certainly not a big fan of Bill Clinton’s politics. As a strong advocate of a single-payer health care system, I opposed his convoluted health care reform package. I have helped lead the opposition to his trade policies, which represent the interests of corporate America and which are virtually indistinguishable from the views of George Bush and Newt Gingrich. I opposed his bloated military budget, the welfare reform bill that he signed, and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, which he supported. He has been weak on campaign finance reform and has caved in far too often on the environment. Bill Clinton is a moderate Democrat. I’m a democratic socialist.
Yet, without enthusiasm, I’ve decided to support Bill Clinton for president. Perhaps “support” is too strong a word. I’m planning no press conferences to push his candidacy, and will do no campaigning for him. I will vote for him, and make that public. Why? I think that many people do not perceive how truly dangerous the political situation in this country is today. If Bob Dole were to be elected president and Gingrich and the Republicans were to maintain control of Congress, we would see a legislative agenda unlike any in the modern history of this country. There would be an unparalleled war against working people and the poor, and political decisions would be made that could very well be irreversible.
Medicare and Medicaid would certainly be destroyed, and tens of millions more Americans would lose their health insurance. Steps would be taken to privatize Social Security, and the very existence of public education in America would be threatened. Serious efforts would be made to pass a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, affirmative action would be wiped out, and gay bashing would intensify. A flat tax would be passed, resulting in a massive shift in income from the working class to the rich, and all of our major environmental legislation would be eviscerated.
The Motor Voter bill would be repealed, and legislation making it harder for people to vote would be passed. Union-busting legislation would become law, the minimum wage would be abolished, and child labor would increase. Adults and kids in America would be competing for $3.00-an-hour jobs.
You think I’m kidding. You think I’m exaggerating. Well, I’m not. I work in Congress. I listen to these guys every day. They are very serious people. And the folks behind them, the Christian Coalition, the NRA, the Heritage Foundation, and others, are even crazier than they are. My old friend Dick Armey is not some wacko member of Congress laughed at by his colleagues. He is the Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Check out his views. No. I do not want Bob Dole to be president. I’m voting for Bill Clinton.
Do I have confidence that Clinton will stand up for the working people of this country—for children, for the elderly, for the folks who are hurting? No, I do not. But a Clinton victory could give us some time to build a movement, to develop a political infrastructure to protect what needs protecting, and to change the direction of the country.”
Source: Outsider in the White House
What people seem to keep forgetting is that it’s not about Bernie winning. It’s about changing the rules. Given the choices will be Clinton or Trump, why would anyone who’s been paying attention believe Bernie would rescind his stated intention of preventing Trump from being elected? Since we’re speaking of his integrity.
To quote someone whose views I think can be trusted:
“That’s always been the intent. Right from the beginning, it’s been a two prong approach: run for president–and the most important thing is not electing Bernie president–the most important thing is starting a political revolution. Bernie said that since the day he announced.” — Dr. Jane Sanders
Clearly, a whole lot of people forgot the point of the Sanders campaign in their desire to beat the Clinton monarchy. Bernie didn’t, and it’s my opinion that those who threaten to “drop him” if he doesn’t behave the way the want him to have no knowledge either of what he’s trying to do or of the man himself.
i’m not dropping him for that, but it won’t sway me to vote for clinton. nor would her choosing the ghost of mother jones as vp.
Please explain how endorsing Clinton or doing anything else for her is going to help the movement. Bonus if you can explain how Trump is any worse or even different than Clinton.
Bernie Sanders, in order to run as a Democrat, had to agree to support the Democratic nominee. If that offends you, fine. However, he may find it equally offensive to not be a man of his word.
The fact that he endorses someone doesn’t detract from his movement unless people cluelessly thought that Sanders was responsible for this movement(rather than listened to what he said about each of us being responsible for moving things like single payer health care, $15 wages, etc, etc, forward.)
Yes, I agree with your statement. But I think it mind-bogglingly stupid to run as a Democrat. As if you are going to change anything from within – nope, you aren’t. The Dems are half of the problem, just like the Repubs. And if the movement was so strong then why was everyone afraid of not being able to get on the ballot as an Independent?
The movement needs a strong leader at this point in time – a focal point of direction. Sanders happens to be that point, and I think it will continue to be that way for a year or two. I think that endorsing Clinton will be seen as weakness and it will dissipate a lot of political energy. I *do* understand and sympathize that Sanders has to live with himself and his own conscience. I’ve been there.
I’m in it for the long haul, just like he is. But nope, never as a Democrat. Nor Repub, nor anything else. Because you never win when your opponent is making the rules. Earth to Bernie: The Dems are *NOT* your friends, never were and never will be.
As for myself, he can endorse whomever he wants. I’ll write-in in the general.
Okay, I’m going to repeat myself. Sorry.
Write ins for President don’t matter, since we don’t directly vote for Presidential candidates; we vote for electors to the Electoral College. If Sanders isn’t the Democratic candidate, please vote for a third party candidate.
There are 3 separate goals here;
1. Presidency or Bust
2. Changing the rules.
3. To stop Trump
The public impression, as it appears, is that the main goal keeps changing. And thus the confusion you mentioned.
Today, after meeting with Obama, it seems Bernie’s main goal now is not even #2, as stated by Dr. Sanders, but #3.
Dear Brooklin Bridge,
You point out that Sanders must now “endorse” in order to keep his word. With this unique situation, I disagree entirely with you, and hope instead, that Sanders will be the leader many of us assume him to be. One which the US sorely needs today.
So, for the benefit of others, that is, all his supporters, future generations to come, and democracy itself (if it is to have a glimmer of hope….), Sanders is now obliged to step up and show integrity, for which he will undoubtedly be crucified.
Politics is not about stopping an opponent from gaining power which appears to be the “be all and end all” with such zeal of the present co-called Democratic party under Hillary Clinton, or the “grab what this country can do for me me me” if you will. It is, or should be rather about what you can do for your country. You don’t persist in denying people their rights, turning them away, and cheating on them in a real democracy.
Sanders can achieve so much more, and make people truly feel better for it, by encouraging his nation to live with integrity. Because if he doesn’t, the shit is only going to continue to accumulate.
So, Sanders, if he’s a good leader, will own his shit by informing everyone that he cannot keep his word in this situation. He also needs to explain how he then intends to create positive impact for the people by not having kept his word.
I’m probably in a small minority here but I think Bernie should keep his word and formally–and tepidly–endorse Hillary, while at the same time hotly opposing almost every policy she is likely to pursue. He isn’t naive, he knew what he was likely to face when he made the bargain and the bargain served him very well indeed in spite of the best efforts of the Democrat Party to deny him that. His “endorsement” of Bill above in the comment string is a pretty good template for the sort of endorsement/non-endorsement that I think would satisfy the spirit of his pledge.
You may be in the minority but you certainly aren’t alone.
We already have enough politicians that say one thing and then do another. I prefer knowing that he’s a person of his word.
Principled action is louder than words.
Power to a future to believe in.
ps. as an ‘epilogue’ I dedicate the above to the following EPIC trailblazing American women who were there way before Hillary Clinton: VICTORIA WOODHULL, BELVA LOCKWOOD, GRACIE ALLEN, CHARLENE MITCHELL, LINDA JENNESS, MARGARET WRIGHT, ELLEN MCCORMACK, SONIA JOHNSON, LEONORA FULANI, CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, JILL STEIN, ROSEANNE BARR
A thoughtful reply! Indeed there is a higher obligation than that of endorsement. If Sanders had promised to reccomend a certain enterprising business man and then subsequently discovered that man was All Capone who ruthlessly corrupted the rules and killed hundreds of people, would one feel Sanders still had the duty to live up to his promise? Granted the comparison isn’t fair since Capone couldn’t even begin to touch Hillary’s kill list and as to corrupting the rules, he’s a babe in the woods compared to the Hill.
If the started-by-Sanders movement can’t become self-propelled and keep working on what its members are described as wanting and supporting . . . regardless of what Sanders does or doesn’t do . . . . then it really isn’t much of a movement, and never will be.
Sanders brought a bunch of people into an awareness of eachothers’ existence. They will now have to bring eachother together and keep eachother together . . . if they can.
IIRC, most of this dastardliness occurred after he made that promise. I suspect that even he didn’t really fathom the depth of depravity she was capable of at that time. It does put him in a bit of a bind, tho. His most recent statements have been very careful. And I suppose he does regard the specter of a Trump presidency with extreme horror. He’s worked with her in the past without being in a position to see the worst in her until now. I have a hunch he’s going through a bit of a moral crisis over it, while also getting pressure from Obama. When CA gets all the votes counted, it may improve the situation. Although understanding that the same people that lied to and suppressed the voters are doing the count, I’m not holding my breath, either. As Bernie has said repeatedly, he can’t do it alone.
Her lack of endorsement for Sanders did not sit well with me as a measure of her true character. But this is even worse evidence that when it comes down to it, she subscribes to the establishment. Democrats are blowing the dog whistle and it is time for the weak to come to heel at the party’s feet.
But what can we expect from a former Republican? And she was a Republican because she thought they did a better job of protecting the markets.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/189657–liberal-favorite-elizabeth-warren-admits-she-was-a-republican
Warren accepting VP if offered would be her end in two ways. First, the VP position is crap. It’s empty. It would merely serve to silence her, prevent her from speaking out freely for or against anything that isn’t Hillary-approved first. Second, it would end her for the reason you state: she shows herself to be a creature of the machine, morphing herself into Establishment. She loses all luster if she accepts VP.
I tend to believe that Warren is looking bigger picture in her potential endorsement of Clinton: I think she, more than a VP position, wants a cabinet role in setting economic and financial sector regulatory policy–in either a Clinton or Sanders administration. I don’t think she’s a purist, she just wants to get in a position to get something done in the economic/financial sector that would be good for the 99%. She may have been warned by Clinton that you will not get a position in my administration if you endorse Sanders and I end up winning. By waiting until the dust settles on a more than likely winner of the primary (Clinton), she puts herself in a better position to get into a position of influence to effect change in policy, even if she doesn’t totally buy into Clinton’s agenda; From her standpoint, I believe she’d rather be in a position to effect some change in policy than not at all even if she could get less change in a Clinton administration than a Sanders one.
That being said, much of this would go out the window if she accepted the VP slot.
What change in policy is possible and doesn’t upset the big bank donors to the Hillary campaign too much. Maybe some change is, but this reality (and it IS the reality), doesn’t exactly leave one very hopeful.
I would even question Warren’s judgment if so, yea she bet on the likely winner (by herself contributing to Hillary’s win) but Hillary is less likely to be able to DO anything due to her donors – a position in a Sanders cabinet could simply accomplish a lot more than her tied hands will in a Clinton administration. So no it doesn’t seem a clear choice to me at all.
One is supposed to learn from their mistakes. Why would that work out better under Clinton than it did under Obama?
Maybe Hillary laid a more convincing line on her, promised more power?
OMG The Thomas frank piece is poetry
Movement4Bernie?? The frequency of emails from this group is growing. Who is Ty Moore? And the domain is @gmail? Been donating to Bernie via ActBlue (yes I know kinda stupid but I’m lazy and they make it easy). If there is one thing that changed as a result of this primary is my willingness to give money. Now I’m afraid that has made me a huge target.
The movement is run by “Kshama Sawant, Seattle’s socialist City Councilmember” she may be one of the down-ticket beneficiaries of Bernie’s campaigning and splitting the money. Not sure about that tho. I did in fact go over there and sign their petition, since I totally agree with the logic they outlined. The rolls seem to be growing quite rapidly and momentum is accelerating.
I’m already getting emails that I can’t get stopped. Unsubscribing is not effective. My email service is not good getting rid of the emails I put in SPAM. (If it gets bad, I’ll phone.)
ActBlue sent me emails asking me to donate to stop Trump. That didn’t work so now I get lefty emails and I don’t recognize the organizations. All good lefties have Hillary’s goals–right?.
Here is one of those emails I can’t stop with unsubscribe.
Citizen’s Trade Campaign
TAKE ACTION: Ask Nancy Pelosi to join Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in opposing the TPP both before and after the election.
We can’t afford this back-room deal that puts corporate interests ahead of human needs on jobs and wages, human rights, access to medicine, climate change and more.
I used Act Blue and haven’t gotten other Bernie messages, save from MoveOn.
I wonder if you signed a MoveOn proBernie petition (which I did not) and that is the culprit?
I may have. Several years ago, someone signed me up for MoveOn with asking my permission. I unsubscribed, but . . .?. I am absolutely sure they sell their lists.
Yet ActBlue has solicited me for “anti-Trump” contributions.
Re: Elizabeth Warren endorses Hillary Clinton
That’s what her anti-Trump Twitter spurt was all about: it was an audition
I have no interest left in her whatsoever.
So it turns out that Professor Warren was just being the prima donna at all. I was quite fine with her staying out of the race, but this getting in once you find out who the winning side is just smacks me of the same kind of materialism we are down on Hillary for. No thanks. If she’s jumping on board the S.S.Hillary, she can just as well get off my ship at the same time.
Or she is positioning herself just in case Clinton Foundation goes down?
The optimist angel on my right shoulder whispered this in my ear.
I wouldn’t have a problem with Warren endorsing at this point.
She seems to truly care about her agenda, and not kissing the ring
would put that at risk in a Clinton presidency.
As for the Warren for VP talk, that’s disinformation intended for the feeble-minded
and will never happen. Evan Bayh or Tim Kaine are more Clinton’s style.
I cut her slack on the failure to endorse. Say she really wanted to endorse Bernie. If it went sour (as it seems to be due to fraud, etc) then she’d be a pariah in the Dem Party. She would see knives come out for her small and large. If she endorsed Hillary, it would have shown her to be all mouth, no substance. A sellout who would have lost ALL cred with the progressives in the Dem sphere. By waiting until it is fait accompli then she doesn’t burn her progressive bridges and doesn’t cause the drawing of the knives from fellow Democraps.
Endorsing and then accepting a position in a $Hillary Admin would be another story. The story of a willing sell-out.
she and paul k should get a room……
I never had a lot of interest in any of them, but even less now!
Bernie Bernie!
QED
Bernie’s gonna win.
I didn’t know I’d be so upset
Cause I was always a lazy fool
But they should know by now
that we’re not their tools
You always showed you knew right from wrong
We need your help, Bernie, please be strong
We may be young at heart, but we know what we’re saying
You’re the one they warned us all about
You’re the one they said we’d have to do without
But we’re in an awful mess
And I don’t mean maybe
Please…
Bernie don’t quit
I been losin sleep
Bernie don’t quit
we’re in trouble deep
and I made up my mind
Yeah their killin’ our country
(They’ll Kill our country, yeah oh yeah
They say that they’re the Democrats
But theyze just a pack of money rats
The road we’re on is a one-way sacrifice
All their hacks say to give it up
But they can’t kill the dream, we gotta live it up
You can’t get nowhere with a soul on ice, So Please…
Bernie don’t quit
I been losin sleep
Bernie don’t quit
we’re in trouble deep
and I made up my mind
Yeah their killin our country
(They’;ll Kill our country, yeah oh yeah
Oh well, I think he quit today.
I was getting my haircut at the barber shop and saw him on TV talking about the DC primary and how Washington DC should have a congressperson. That wasn’t all he said, but you got the picture pretty clearly.
Back to Youtube! No more politics for me! Until I vote “Trump” in November. After 5 beers. And a Xanax. And a shot of whisky. And a bourbon. One bourbon, One scotch and one beer.
Well I ain’t seen no Bernie
since a back in the spring
Thought he be the winner
thought hed changed everything
Now I look around and see the hacks everywhere
As long as there’s a Youtube well I won’t even care
Hey bartender come on down here
Say “what you want?”
A one bourbon, a one scotch and one beer
In my highly expert opinion, go with Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout and you won’t need the scotch and bourbon!
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/112/412/
When I looked at Warren’s speech on college debt I was shocked. Solid neoliberal talking points throughout. She actually seems to believe them. Never cynical enough. You can’t use corrupt language like “skin in the game” uncritically and not be corrupt. Not possible.
That is true. “Skin in the Game” is grounds for voting out of office. We live, therefore we have skin.
Isn’t that prostitution? Skin in the game?
I read someplace that there’s a web site something like SugarDaddy where college girls with big tuition bills look for rich guys to pay it off for them, in exchange for “companionship” on a temporary basis.
Life drives you to do things, and then you rationalize them and then you do them. Then later on, if you survive emotionally and physically, you look back and crying isn’t even nearly enough and you don’t even know who to blame. Skin in the game, huh?
What the game? Did she say?
I think it must be politics. She couldn’t have meant Life, could she? That would have been so low it would be hard to even find it on the floor
get me the fuk out of moderation.
These are deep thoughts! :-)
waiting to be sprung upon the world like blooming dream flowers that light the darkness of the mind
The “left” really needs to do some serious soul-searching as to why Senator (Weak Tea) Warren deserves all this respect. So she embarrassed a few bankers in a senate hearing. CFPB? Payday lenders can’t charge me more than 36% APR? Yea that really curls my toes.
More respectfully…I guess that Bernie has pushed the Overton Window far enough that Warren risks credibility and the appearance of becoming rather passé.
Could it be that Elizabeth Warren has been replaced by a clone? We should consider all possibilities. It wouldn’t be the first time..
The difficulty with the upcoming press conference is that the media will try to bury it, just like the did with after a quick bit with her $225,000 speeches. For whatever reason, the elites want this woman as president, and I don’t think they care if she stinks with over-priced visits to Wall Street of $100 million scams with 3rd world dictators. What do they care, after all, if dictators are all weaponed up if Hillary came, Hillary saw, and they died (Hah! Hah! Hah!) whenever they got out of line. It’s all business.
I hate Fox news, but they cover Trump. Wherever I go that has a tv running for a bored crowd I am always disgusted to find Fox news on. So, don’t worry his message will get out, just not from NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN or MSNBC.
I wonder why Murdoch is so positive about Trump when all the corps ran away?
Murdoch is a good businessman. He’s a crummy guy, but Murdoch knows if he crosses Trump he will be labeled along with Jeb. It’s cheaper to keep existing customers than find new ones, and the over evangelical nature of much of the GOP hasn’t sat well for a long time especially with Catholic Republicans. Many of the evangelicals watch the 700 Club. They aren’t Fox’s audience as much as libertarian (an irrational lot), local country club republicans, and engineers. Trump’s real base. Seniors are the core of FoxNews, but at this point, they will be worm food before watching something other than FoxNews and CBS’ most recent edition of NCIS. The other networks are more poorly run. The networks also raise money through ads. They have a vested interest in pushing the status quo to convince advertisers to drop money expecting a return.
George W was a unique figure who papered over certain GOP divides. Democrats liked to under estimate Shrub and suffered in Texas and nationwide because of that.
On the article about whether Trump is being racist:
Huh? This reduction of identity politics to a kind of “racism” doesn’t quite sit right. First, there is such a thing as prejudice.
Maybe this perspective has fallen out of fashion, but I understood there needed to be an imbalance of power to practice discrimination (racism, sexism), while anyone can be prejudiced (there is plenty of (understandable) prejudice within the AA community on the south side of Chicago).
So the notion that Curiel is biased against Trump because of Trump’s stance on illegal immigrants does not qualify as racist. His Hairness is not oppressed on the basis of his ethnicity or any other demographic be belongs to. Rather he is a beneficiary of white privilege.
This is like – who was it, Bakke? – crying foul.
Sorry, but I don’t think steps taken to redress the institutional impacts of discrimination qualify as discrimination. (Not that Curiel is doing that, so far as we know.)
The organization La Raza is racist by its very name, is it not?
“Raza” doesn’t translate literally from Spanish to English.
An Iranian judge was ordered by the DOJ to recuse herself from cases involving Iranian Americans immigrating to the United States and is now suing:
http://www.paaia.org/CMS/judge-ashley-tabaddor-files-suit-against-department-of-justice-for-violating-first-amendment-and-civil-rights-act-of-1964.aspx
August 12, 2014, Los Angeles, CA – The Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA) was today informed of a suit filed against the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) by Judge Ashley Tabaddor, an immigration judge for the U.S. Immigration Court. In this suit, Judge Tabaddor challenges an order that indefinitely recuses her from hearing cases involving Iranian nationals, citing that the order violates her First Amendment rights of free speech and association. The suit also notes that the order is racially discriminatory under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The suit, Tabaddor v. Holder et al., charges that the DOJ based its disqualification order on racially-motivated and discriminatory criteria, specifically Judge Tabaddor’s Iranian heritage and her leadership role within the Iranian American community.
It’s only “racist” when a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad man who threatens to upset the status quo apple cart does it.
It’s somewhat like use of the “n” word in that regard.
Great catch.
Singling out a “Mexican Judge” is hate speech.
Impeaching a “White Jury” is service to humanity.
Ugh! This kind of sarc is reductionist and wrong-headed at best…false equivalencies, anyone?
Katniss, I found mention of that, obliquely, on a donald message board. Sometimes you have to wade into the froth to pluck out the truth, I guess.
Good for her and shame on the DOJ!
Now . . . if the judge is a man, then I can complain? Cool.
I really would like to know what organizations to trust now. Seems like some people and groups I once relied on for information are really in the business to capture my time and money and move me to their goals in the long run, rather than my own. This site has been invaluable in helping in this regard.
What about Americans for Financial Reform? So far they seem credible.
For the curious (including myself), I tracked down the case. It was settled with the DOJ in November 2015 by way of a settlement agreement that included a lifting of the recusal order, a payment of $200,000 to the judge (mostly for legal fees), and a statement that there had never been any allegation against the judge of bias.
https://www.cooley.com/files/Settlement%20Agreement%2011-3-15_%20Fully%20Executed.pdf
Are we bandying semantics now in our attempts to convince ourselves that supporting Donald Trump is an acceptable compromise? “He’s not racist, he’s prejudiced. There’s already racism in the system anyway, so it’s not a big deal. Never Clinton! etc..”
Trump is implicitly racist, and quite a few of his supporters are overtly and explicitly racist. A trump presidency serves to legitimize the most ignorant and backwards elements of American (and world) society. I don’t know.. it seems like it’s all sliding in that direction anyways, but we don’t have to help it along.
I know Cliton’s just as bad in other ways.
Hmm. Remind me what color the civilian bodies in Iraq, Libya, and Hondurus were?
I’m willing to bet their blood was red.
Once again, it’s not about how bad Clinton is, it’s about not cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If Clinton is more likely to cause a nuclear exchange with Russia than Trump would be, then yes it is too about how bad Clinton is.
The Orange Cat RIP….
As of this last fortnight our family experienced the loss of a member of 13 years, the first dog our kids grew up with, a black and white maltese shih tzu named Biddie. From inception nothing was as advertised, mom and kids bought young pup from up the road pet shop with the information it was a male. Strangely after a bit I started to question the sex as the bits had not dropped, but we fixed that by changing the name from buddy to biddie, all is well.
Years went on with all concerned, especially the kids taking turns lavishing love and affection on biddie and having it reciprocated, always up for a play and a bit of mischief, best 4 Kilo bush turkey deterrent or another unwanted guest. At night she would make the rounds to have a bit of a cuddle in everyone’s bed whilst during the day if not lounging in the sun would find happiness up against someones thigh.
Maternal to a fault she helped our cat nurture her kittens by cleaning them and getting in the box to comfort them, not to mention the tug of war over relocation. This was high lighted by her near two year stint with me after my head injury which had me surfing the couch quite a lot after 30 min of activity due to head dramas, would curl right up on my chest and stay till when ever.
Sadly she had a bit of a stroke a few years back and recovered to everyone’s surprise, tho of late it was obviously taking a toll, heaps of motor skill and eye sight dramas, we knew it was getting towards the end.
Tragically I was in the kitchen by myself whilst all the kids and mom were at work or school and she went past me to the 2nd story deck, a min later and I heard a soft thump in the leaf litter thinking it was something from a tree that had fallen. Then I heard a few yelps, I raced outside on to the deck and could not find her, only to look over the deck to find her on the ground struggling to get her back paws under her. Having done a quick check of broken or dislocated limbs I called the wife a work to deliver the bad news. 20 min later the wife made it back home and we assessed biddie together. Obviously we called the vet and had her down there in less than 10 min, tho it was not very pretty with wife in ambo gear and clearly all out of sorts.
The x-rays unfortunately showed a brake in the spinal cord around the shoulders and outcomes were never on the offer. So with a wife that deals with all kinds of horrific stuff and an ex military – farm sort all flooding the vet office with tears and repressing deep sobs…. we had to make the choice…
The wife held biddie whilst the vet injected the syringe into the catheter and I watched as the recognition in biddie eyes leave and the wife felt the life leave her body, thankfully it was almost immediately. The egress from the vet must have been most disconcerting for all those in the waiting area and more so on exit. The next rolling wave of misfortune was waiting for the kids to come home and deliver the news, like dominoes. each balling their eyes out one after another. She now rests in the back yard with a head stone I hand cut under a frangipani tree.
Disheveled Marsupial…. I would take this opportunity to say… I would happily devalue every materialistic thing in my life to have more time with her… if such a thing was possible… stuff does not love me back nor does it fill the void… amends all…
A fitting tribute. So sorry for your loss, sounds like the ingeniously (re)named Biddie was an old soul.
The funny thing is it is not a loss… the pain is indicative of more and not less or loss… the hurt is conformation of something better than… other values of worth…
Disheveled Marsupial… defectively yours
… … …
I think I understand what you mean. The pain is just part of all the love and joy you had with your cat. Not having the pain now would mean not having had the love; that would be the true loss. At least, that is how I feel about all the beloved pets who are no longer with me.
joy and loss, two faces of the same coin.
I realized this when I lost my 16-yr old cat last winter. The greatest delights are not bought or owned but freely given—gifts for a lifetime, lasting far beyond their leaving. It is good to know this against the strange materialism that our society deems most important and own-able by those who have “earned” them.
Cheers for all the replies…
One more. We lost ours almost two years ago. Old age. We also had to take her to the Vet and we were both broken afterwards. Warmest regards.
We are NC…. its a start of another relationship… of another kind… and with that take an account on what that – really – means… regardless of outcomes… beyond our control…
She died in the arms of those she loved, and who loved her… is there a better way to go?
Rest in peace, Biddy.
Touching story, something that all pet lovers can relate to rather easily. I have a former pooch of 17 years buried in my back yard. Like you, I held her as she was put down. I also have two gorgeous litter-mate kitties, a boy and a girl, four years-old now, whom I love endlessly. The boy in, in fact at this moment, curled up next to me by the computer. Hope they both outlive me so I don’t have to deal with their demise.
As for the cat in the picture, looks like a wonderful little critter. Condolences to the family.
Rest in peace, Sweet Biddie. You were lucky to have your human family and they were blessed to have you for this far too short a time.
KQED link: they appear to be drawing conclusions about young voter turnout based on young voter mailed ballots. Why, were late registrants required to vote by mail?
Translation: “They will decide when it is your fault and will try to get everyone else to believe it.”
Which people likely will, for a few decades until forensic researchers disprove it time and time again as they have with bite marks and arson “puddling”.
No. They will charge insurance companies fees for sharing the data…
And insurance companies will charge you and me fees to cover the fees.
And thus the nightmare of technologically advanced bureaucracy grinds on.
Futurists predict wonderful results of super efficient computing and paperless processes, when in reality, these technologies are co-opted by the powerful and used to further cement the class structure in whatever form is most useful for them.
progress………archdruid style!
Will Tesla blame the driver when the batteries malfuntion and blow…..destroying the car in the process??
Will Tesla blame the driver when the batteries malfuntion and blow…..destroying the car in the process??
Greer and Druids…… wheeeeee….
“John Michael Greer is currently the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), a Druid Companion of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD), a certified Tarot Grandmaster, and a practicing Geomancer. Since 1996 he has authored numerous books on magic and the occult including: Paths of Wisdom: Cabala in the Western Tradition, Natural Magic: Potions and Powers from the Magical Garden, Circles of Power: Ritual Magic in the Western Tradition and Inside a Magical Lodge. He has also contributed articles for: Renaissance Magazine, the Golden Dawn Journal, the Journal of Asian Martial Arts, Mezlim, New Moon Rising, Gnosis, and Alexandria.
John Michael Greer was born in 1962 in Bremerton, a small town suburb of Seattle, in Washington State, USA. Raised in a non-religious family, his parents, John D. Greer and Jo Ann M. Greer (nee Smith) were both schoolteachers in the local area, and as John reveals: “They were not so much atheists as simply apathetic toward religion, which simply didn’t matter to them,” as such they had no influence on his own later religious evolution. John also has a sister Pamela J. Smith (nee Greer).
As a child, John was very much a loner and often shied away from social interaction, however it was clear to those who knew him, his parents and schoolteachers, that he was also a very bright child, if a little obsessive about things that gained his interest. It was not until much later in his life, that a name was put to this obsessive side of his nature. In 1998 he was diagnosed with a condition called Asperger Syndrome (AS). AS is a sub-group of autism, it contains many of its symptoms but without it’s history of language delay. Those with AS are most likely to have a better than average IQ, but have trouble learning social skills, instead they take up obsessive interests to make up for their lack of social contact.
One of John’s early interests was reading fantasy fiction, and by the age of ten he had discovered his first role model, the wizard Gandalf from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, an obsession that led to his later interests in Spirituality, Mythology and Esoteric traditions. Indeed while still attending Highline High School in Burien, WA (another small suburb of Seattle), he was already studying the Golden Dawn system of Hermetic magic.
After finishing High School in 1980, John started his college education studying Comparative History at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington State, but in 1983 took a 7-year break from his academic studies to concentrate on developing his skills as a writer. Shortly after starting his break, John met his future wife Sara Carroll, a Ceremonial magician, herbalist, musician and a Priestess in the Pagan arm of the Universal Gnostic Church. They were married on the 28th July 1984.
Throughout the remaining 1980’s, John took on a variety of jobs to make ends meet, including: work as a certified nurses aide in nursing homes, a clerk in a photocopy shop, work in a dry cleaning shop, and work as a microfilmer. In 1991, he returned to complete his college education at the University of Washington in Seattle, from where he graduated in 1993 with a BA (magna cum laude) degree in Comparative History.
By this time John was becoming dissatisfied with some aspects of the Golden Dawn system of Hermetic magic, and wanted to explore a more nature based spirituality, which led him to Druidry. In 1995 he started a correspondence course taught by the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD). The OBOD is an English Druidic Order founded by Ross Nichols in 1964, and is now the largest Druidic Order in the world with an international following. The Order takes it’s named from its three traditional grades, each of which normally takes seven years to complete. The first grade “Bard” focuses on the powers and gifts of song and poetry, the second grade “Ovate” teaches medical knowledge and healing (herb craft etc), while the third and final grade “Druid” is centered on spirituality in conjunction with nature.
A year later John’s career as a writer took-off when his first book: Paths of Wisdom: Cabala in the Western Tradition (1996), a handbook based on the Golden Dawn’s cabalistic philosophy and published by Llewellyn Publications. Since then he has averaged at least one new book each year. By the end of the decade and in order to supplement his correspondence studies, John tried to make contact with other Druidic Orders in America. One such was the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), a Church of Druid nature spirituality founded in 1912 by a Dr. James Manchester M.D. However, the Order had been going through a management crisis, and during the late 1990’s had become non-active. Unable to make contact with them at that time, in 2001 John joined the Ar nDraiocht Fein (ADF), a modern Druid Order founded by Isaac Bonewits in 1983. Both John and his wife Sara, who had also joined the ADF, allowed their membership of the ADF to lapse in 2004, this due to other pressing commitments.” – snip
He is no better than a self help mystic author, biblical antiquities spoofer [chariots at the bottom of the red sea, ark on a mountain, Jmans tomb under a apartment complex, bible code et al], pyramid power, crystal power, etc, etc….. and he makes his living off it – all – phualeazeee….
Disheveled Marsupial…. can he levitate too – ???? – remember that mob or shall I retort with some Hare Krishna metaphysical navel gazing… save the planet…. join a cult…. barf….
predestination by any other name…
It’s “new” or “modern” or “whole” and the status quo ante, sexed up a little bit. Not much mind you, these are Adults, that would be wrong. Very serious people, drawn to the truth, as spoken by the ancient betters.
Hypnotic Beard[o]s methinks…
Technologies are co-opted by the powerful.
And (today’s) best explanations (by the Scientific Method) are confused with truths, and applied indiscriminately to meddle with Nature.
Esoteric narratives [Technologies] are co-opted by the powerful. – fixed…
(This was intended as a response to Qrys, but Praedor beat me to it!)
…who will then pass that cost on to the insured–with additional fees for processing same.
(You may then receive a bill for the full amount of repairs/replacement, since it was proven to be your fault & for some mysterious reason your particular ‘foolish’ act was not covered under your policy).
Yeah. We get it.
I wonder how many people are afraid to take up hobbies or protest precisely because a capricious health insurer might cite recklessness.
I do trust an auto manufacturer to report data honestly and objectively, and not fabricate or with old data which does not favor their position.
Don’t you trust them too? Or don’t you trust them.
But it was logged by a computer, and we all know that computers can’t lie.
Usufructuary policies in action.
The underlying meaning is: Use? Fruct U, eh!
Seems like they want easy answers rather than having the messy process that we usually have with an accident. I am always skeptical with easy answers. Life is complicated.
Will Tesla blame the driver when the batteries malfuntion and blow…..destroying the car in the process??
MMM..
I’m curious about how Tesla can know the circumstance that result in data?
Perhaps Tesla can acquire time -clocked telemetry of brake/throttle, steering wheel position & rate of change, headlight and windshield wiper state, 3D accelerometer values, wheel rotation ect ect.
Is that enough to assign fault in all circumstance? I think not.
What if all of that data merely characterizes a circumstances wherein the driver swerved into a ditch to avoid a drunk driver, someone blowing a red light, a stack of pallets falling off the beater pickup-truck, a deer in the headlights, a wandering bike rider/pedestrian with earbuds in? The Toyota Corolla taking a right turn from the left most lane directly in front of you (I see this kinda sht way more frequently than you would think–and I wont go into driver gender/ethnicity).
It was the same Chinese lady that did it to me in OC, CA. She must have moved to Chi Town? And it was a Toyota Corolla, and also on the freeway at 60mph!
Vote-by-mail
Request Status – 6/7/2016 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTION
Application processed on: 3/27/2016
Ballot Issued: 5/9/2016
Received by Registrar:5/28/2016
So, does that mean counted, or uncounted?
It means counted. Like early-in-person voting, the ballot is scanned into the system on receipt. The entry is included in electronic counting that takes place on election day. And that entry is being referenced for the “received” date displayed in the response to your query.
In contrast, provisional ballots are entered (“counted”) after the ballot has been reviewed for validity. What gets checked varies on the circumstances under which the provisional ballot was issued. If it was in lieu of a lost of damaged vote-by-mail ballot (or request), they check whether that VBM ballot was received or not (otherwise, double voting is possible).
The Rolling Stone just published an excellent article entitled: 4 Reasons Bernie Sanders Could Fight On.. As with most of their coverage this cycle the article is well reasoned and well written.
The reasons boil down to:
This isn’t 2008: Obama and Clinton agreed on policy, Clinton and Sanders do not and that has not changed.
Sanders’ fight is bigger than the nomination: Sanders is fighting on principle to change the nation and not just to please superdelegates.
Sanders won’t muzzle his movement: Unlike Obama the Sanders movement is not a vehicle for his white house run but a genuine movement designed to change politics. He will not (I might even say cannot) shut that down.
It ain’t actually over: She did not get enough to prevent a contested convention so yes the race goes on.
I urge everyone to read it in full.
Oops bad formatting on the list, here is a better version:
The reasons boil down to:
This isn’t 2008: Obama and Clinton agreed on policy, Clinton and Sanders do not and that has not changed.
Sanders’ fight is bigger than the nomination: Sanders is fighting on principle to change the nation and not just to please superdelegates.
Sanders won’t muzzle his movement: Unlike Obama the Sanders movement is not a vehicle for his white house run but a genuine movement designed to change politics. He will not (I might even say cannot) shut that down.
It ain’t actually over: She did not get enough to prevent a contested convention so yes the race goes on.
And, Washington DC votes on Tuesday. For some reason, everyone keeps glossing over the fact the primary is still going.
Bernie has a long history of describing himself as an Independent who caucuses with the Democratic party. He’s not a made man of the D mafia like the Clintons.
Now Bernie holds the pin on the grenade: by mounting a third party challenge, he could definitively pull the plug on Hillary’s candidacy by splitting the Democratic vote. Don’t piss him off!
What can Obama offer, in his repeated phone calls, that Bernie wants? Nothing. If Trump wins and the R party holds Congress, the lame-duck president has no bargaining chips to hand out. Well, maybe an executive order to mint a Vermont nickel or something. Chickensh*t, in other words.
Meanwhile, time is on Bernie’s side. With the grifter Clintons, one can be certain that new scandals will emerge, new depositions will be conducted in the civil FOIA suits (including, potentially, Hillary), and perhaps even the FBI’s slow-walk investigation will finally bear some fruit.
As with her idol and mentor, Dick Nixon, Hillary is being left to twist slowly, slowly in the wind in her fine bright cheap intransigent Kim Jong Un potato sack.
If I’m Bernie….I tell Obama I want Senate Majority Leader and that Obama should support him getting the role. Obama bursts into laughter. Sanders says he wasn’t joking and walks out. Meeting over.
Dems can strip his committee seats, he can blow up the election and/or party by bolting and bringing people with him. They can both still hurt each other. It’s in their mutual interests to make nice.
Only thing that might upset the balance is if HRC goes down in flames and they try to stick Biden in there. That would prob make Sanders flip his lid and walk.
Of course, Obama would laugh at that demand. Hillary will drive turnout down enough to make sure the Dems don’t retake the Senate.
One thing (at least one thing) Sanders has changed over the years – he changed from being an Independent to a Democrat.
It’s not quite the case that he is exactly the same now as he was, say, 30 years ago.
I just looked up the population of my county in CA, Alameda. As of 2013, the population was 1.5 million people (7th largest in all of California). From this population a grand total of 90K votes were tallied for Sanders, while Clinton “won” with 107K.
In 2012, there were a total of 423K registered Democrats in Alameda, and 184K registered as No Party Preference. In this uncontested primary, Obama received 153K votes. I was among the thousands that didn’t bother to vote.
And now, in 2016, in a closely contested election, this only results in 200K total votes?
Puerto Rico is NOT an outlier, it seems. Either that, or voter apathy is chronic in this county and elsewhere and we truly deserve the awful government we get.
I honestly don’t blame Europe for being ill-at-ease with the huge wave of migration they are facing. Such displacements do, in fact, have an economic cost and there is the loss of cultural cohesion and trust that are part and parcel of such a thing. It is one thing to take in your neighbors, from a similar culture with a similar religion. It is another entire to take in hundreds of thousands, or millions, of military aged young men from a hostile, foreign culture with different mores and norms.
It strikes me as rather odd that most of the people who push for more and more universal migration and the end of borders and nations are the comfortable and the well fed. Note that such people never seem to place the refugee centers in their own enclaves…
When will Alternet bemoan the utter failure of the US to take in the millions of refugees that Clinton and Obama created with their ill-advised regime change ops? Why should Eastern and Southern Europe in particular pay the costs of US imperialism, and the spineless backing of it by the Western European colonies?
That is the real issue, of course. For years the Europeans have taken advantage of great social programs–education, health, pensions–by shifting all the major costs of conflict onto the U.S/NATO instead of their own budgets. Now the chickens, and the actual costs, are coming home to roost. I wonder how much of the push for the Eurozone was actually tied to decreasing military budgets in order to fund social welfare.
Unfortunately for the Europeans, this strategy is blowing up in more ways than just finding themselves inundated with migrants. The Dutch eliminated mandatory conscription a number of years ago. The rationale was that since most calls for Dutch military participation were either U.N. or NATO, fewer troops were required. The Dutch also believed that they could form a superior military with top-notch volunteers. According to my Dutch-speaking friend, the Dutch press is now reporting that the military has found the volunteers to be sub-standard and are looking to re-institute conscription, since they don’t have enough qualified individuals to make up even the drastically reduced numbers set by the new policy.
Lol, I love this argument. The US creates chaos and thus insecurity, then promises to protect its “allies” from the chaos it created, but browbeats them about being “freeriders” and “moochers”, tells them “its guns or butter, can’t have both”, and thus neocolonialism begets neoliberalism begets the destruction of all the gains the working class has made since WW2. Funny, isn’t it, that Cold War 1 did not result in having to choose between guns and butter, but the supposed end of it resulted in choosing guns over butter…
So tell me, why should regular Europeans pay the costs of US imperial chaos, and of their elites having been bought, coopted, and coerced into supporting the imperial project at great harm to Euros own interests?
I think many of the policies undertaken by the US are widely supported by the EU elite. It’s not just a matter of browbeating, in many cases the European elites are active proponents and supporters.
Britain and France have a sordid Mideast past and various interests in the area. Many times, not all the time, those interests coincide with US interests.
I think it’s inaccurate to portray those nations as somehow passive victims without agency. This is not to say that the citizens of either the US or the EU have much say in the matter, but the elite share more in common with each other than they do with the citizenry of their countries.,
Hence my question in my original post: ” Why should Eastern and Southern Europe in particular pay the costs of US imperialism?” And let’s not forget that the US listened in on Merkel’s cell phone. So the US also does coerce, that much is abundantly clear.
But the U.S. as a whole does not create that chaos, a fraction of the U.S. that is the ruling class creates chaos. Maybe they should all take refugees into their 1%er enclaves.
Why should Americans pay the costs of US imperial chaos, most of them only very indirectly if at all benefit from it (one could argue the west as a whole exploits the rest of the world and it’s not wrong, but to say the bottom 50% of the U.S. are experiencing great benefit from this is just dubious).
Doubtless the new Dutch conscription system will be gender-neutral, religiously inclusive, GMO-free and LGBT friendly. So the troops will wield a “kinder, gentler machine-gun hand.”
Some likely will advocate following the lead of America’s little apartheid project on the Mediterranean by excluding Muslims from conscription (the white man’s burden, as it were).
NATO turned out to be a doomsday machine for Europe (and America).
Yeah, but it’s good for MIC’s bidness. Grayslady fails to appreciate that her argument can be reduced down to “The Euros need to buy more weapons from the US MIC.” And it’s not like they don’t, the Dutch (since she brought them up) are buying the F35 to replace the F16. It’s just that the MIC and its salesmen and saleswomen in the US gubmint want groaf, and thus the great meme about Euro freeriders is born to pressure the Euros into buying more defective wares like the F35. And like all good colonial subjects, the Euros are rushing to comply and are raising their defense budgets. And what for, to protect themselves from Russia?! What a crock. And all it took to create groaf is a litttle color revolution in Ukraine…
I’m not sure what sort of “argument” you think I’m making. In case I didn’t make myself clear, I think that the Europeans sold out to NATO in return for a few years of economic well-being. Now they are paying for the consequences of those decisions–in lots of ways. My beef with the Europeans is that they outsourced their military requirements–and, consequently, their decision-making ability about which conflicts truly affected their national interest–and now they are complaining about the blowback. To me, it’s no different than outsourcing your health care system to private insurance companies and then wondering why you have disastrous results and ever increasing costs. Most activities of government are not meant to be profit-making ventures, just break-even, or sometimes even a loss.
As to the Dutch, I was only commenting on the perception among the Dutch military that the caliber of potential recruits is declining. I don’t care who they buy their weapons from or what weapons systems they think they need. Based on the Dutch vote against Ukraine being admitted to the EU, I don’t think the average citizen is as suckered in by the Dutch press as the average U.S citizen is suckered in by our propaganda media. Other than the former Iron Curtain countries, I don’t see the same level of anti-Russia fearmongering in Europe that I see here.
Wow, might as well be listening to John Bolton’s mustache. This is the argument that US exceptionalists/neocons keep throwing around: the Euros freeloaded on poor wittle America. Except that they did not. NATO is America’s control lever, not a free umbrella. The costs of this umbrella are very high, and the Euros have been paying them in full since Ukraine happened. May be a nice feeling to feel victimized by a bunch of Speedo wearing Euros on their monthlong summer vacations, but the narrative simply runs afoul of the fact that Europe has been paying a far-heavier economic price for US’ follies than the US itself.
I actually agree with almost everything you just said. (I don’t think Europe has paid a heavier economic price–more a heavier social price. But that happened after the European colonial misadventures, as well.) So why are you trying to put a different spin on my words? I don’t think the Euros “freeloaded”. I think they made economic decisions that have probably not turned out well for them in the long run. There was never a Plan B. I also agree that the U.S. was undoubtedly instrumental in the persuasion process for its own empire-building interests, aided by certain “elites” in Europe. Personally, I don’t believe in American Exceptionalism, empire-building or most of the other foreign policy dictates we seem so hell-bent to impose on the rest of the world.
It has more than economic costs. It can have social costs…people coming in and not assimilating, not accepting the way things are in the West (free speech-ish, free expression, women in shorts, tank-tops, dating, alcohol consumption, pot, free socializing). A smattering come in and they are subsumed by the mass of society. When a MASS comes in they are a separate society on their own, resistant to change.
More than that. The mores of society are not determined by the vast majority of people, but by small dedicated groups. John Michael Greer believes France will become a Muslim country. And considering that the French Muslims are strongly influenced by Saudi radical Islam and have recently become higly anti-semitic, the change is likely to be pretty dramatic.
http://news.rpi.edu/luwakkey/2902
You’re making some good points here. The reason that lots of people in Europe are very angry about this, comes down to exactly your points. And this is aggravated by politicians and media, that denounce anyone being even slightly critical about the way things are handled. And let’s not forget about the blatant lies:
– It’s mostly families with children – nope, mostly young men.
– The “refugees” are highly educated – nope, most of them aren’t.
– There are extensive checks to make sure no “wrong” people pass through – nope, we’ve seen potential ISIS supporters come along, people NOT coming from Syria, and lots of incidents related to the “enlightened” nature of these people (anti-gay, anti-Christian, violence between groups, rapes, crime).
How some media outlets still go hammering on and on about our responsibility for taking in these people is beyond me. There’s no critical voice in the mainstream media anymore, and they just tell stories they are told to publish. This is currently the most important cause of the growing support for more right-wing political parties.
elizabeth warren as vp might be the only thing that can make a significant majority of sanders voters to hold their nose and vote clinton in november. it’s a very shrewd move and, if warren wants the job, $hillary would be mad not to give it to her. of course, should $hillary croak during her term that would make a bank-hostile warren the president, so it wouldn’t shock me if something horrible were to happen to warren in year 1 of a clinton presidency. say, while on a trip to russia. that way, the banksters dodge warren, the MIC gets its world war, and everyone is happy. except for the 7 billion other schlubs inhabiting the planet.
Few, if any, of the Sanders supporters I know/interact with will be swayed to vote for Clinton by her choosing Warren as her VP.
Someone posted a query yesterday on a Sanders FB page, asking if people would vote for Clinton if Sanders were her running mate and the response was overwhelmingly, often emphatically, negative, with multiple commenters asking the admins to take the post down, as they considered it offensive on its face.
Indeed. Warren as VP is a muzzled and tamed Warren.
It wouldn’t cause me to vote for HC, it would cause me to lose what little respect I had left for Warren.
Same here.
Speaking for myself and the Sanders supporters I queried, a Warren endorsement [or VP position] does nothing to sweeten a sour Clinton deal. The move will bring some voters ‘into the fold’ but it’s another example of the ‘think chasm’ in the D party. Liberals think Warren is progressive, leftists do not. See Lambert upthread on her school loan speech for just one example.
Team Blue needs more than the votes. They need the time and energy of Sanders supporters. I live in Virginia, a swing state Hillary win by a huge margin. The Democrats are dead. There Is no reason to wait for a nominee. They are just dead as a party. Ive seen two Hillary bumper stickers, and I know both those Democrats and how useless they are. They have a particular talent for asking for yard signs for the neighbor who is sure to swing the election if he has a sign at the end of his cul de sac. The Democratic dead enders who voted for Hillary. They didn’t do anything to grow the party. They didn’t do anything in 2006. They didn’t do anything in 2000. Being a Democrat is just their professional sports team.
The bourgeois walker brigades won’t register voters in poor areas. At this point, they are the ones who need rides to the polls .
Warren as VP just sidelines an important Senator.
win win if you’re the $hildebeest
It won’t get me to vote for Clinton. If a Clinton/Warren ticket loses, will Warren still stay in the Senate till her term ends? Can she run for VP without actually having to resign her Senate seat?
Re Brexit and farmers, this is beyond silly. Entry into the EU destroyed Bulgarian small and medium farmers, they could not compete with the high subsidies of the western European farmers. Milk, fruits, veggies: these farmers were completely decimated by the supposedly beneficial common market, and the only way to eat Bulgarian meats, fruits, and veggies is if you grow them yourself or if granny and grandpa do at home. So cry me an effing river if Brexit decimates British farmers (unlikely), they did quite a job decimating their Bulgarian brethren.
Why were there (even when all are counted?) so many fewer voters in California in 2016 than in 2008? I thought more people were registering.
This came up in comments in yesterdays’ Links. Something does indeed look suspicious here.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/links-6916.html#comment-2611011
The opportunity for a first Black president probably had more push (esp. among non-white voters) than old white Bernie, so some decline over 2008 isn’t completely incredible in principle.
But 1,535,089 less is a lot, given a late surge in registration.
But the massive vote-by-mail volume hasn’t all been counted either; so it’s not actually over yet, and the published numbers are not final… they’d better not be!
The 2014 numbers were a disaster for Team Blue, and Team Blue promised in 2012 to behave themselves and that ACA would work. There is ample reason to expect a major decline at all levels for the Democrats.
Despite the apparent energy of the Sanders campaign, how many people are permanently lost? On the surface, how different does Sanders sound from Obama in 2008? Promising single payer or gubbermint run Healthcare without explaining ACA and the malfeasance of the President will only remind people of promises made by Obama and Democratic volunteers.
Virginia is one of the great demographic wave states. The incumbent Mark Warner squeaked by Ed Gillespie, who has no job except Republican fundraiser. With loss of the Senate at stake, Mark Warner had less votes than noted racist George Allen had in 2006. The relatively scandal free Warner, if you don’t count his terrible record, had less votes than an exposed racist after eight years of population growth that should favor the Democrats in a state relatively untouched by the recession except for the shut down caused by Republicans. The die hards don’t want to admit to a problem, but I think the Democrats might have had problems even with Sanders.
I’m not sure where I got these links yesterday. Possibly from a commenter on here?
Very interesting. Could answer many questions & confirm suspicions.
But how can this info be used ‘for the good’ & be effective?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huBHR9IBSsQ&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPCPnh7O0rI
Forgive me if everyone has already seen them.
I’m just blown away by what’s revealed & think more people should be made aware.
Thanks. It’s worse than even this embittered cynic thought.
Is it time for a National Elections System?
Paper ballots. Without hardcopy, there is no way to independently certify any form of electronic counting.
The problem with a centralized national system is that it makes corruption easier (single point of control/failure). I know that Dems are big on federal regulation, this is because they suck at systems analysis. It’s a scale issue. Regional administration localizes problems, making them easier to recognize and cheaper to fix. Centralized federal government has to become huge in order to properly service the needs of a vast population; this is not a small country. And oversight of huge systems approaches impossibility much faster than the system approaches efficiency.
Also consider that an national election system will be functionally equivalent to a national ID system, not the most popular idea (although not without benefits in terms of service delivery and analysis of program effectiveness).
But the problems in the current election systems really begin with the vendors of equipment and services. Few at any level of government have the technical expertise to question or test modern electronic products, even if they had access to the proprietary systems of these vendors; a problem not limited to election technology, see also numerous examples of failures of military technology programs like the F-35.
Real election integrity in the electronic age could be achieved through open-source principles (for hardware and software), permitting independent and ongoing review and testing end-to-end. There are some things that don’t do well under privatization; election are one of them.
And one of the more common ways of crippling the election system is to under-fund it. Fewer polling locations, less staff (usually for poorer precincts whose complaints will be ignored/under-reported), old/defective equipment, or newly purchased equipment used without adequate training, these things have all been happening for years across the country, and the magic words “budget cuts” (and “oops!”) have explained them away while their scale remained small (voter participation was low, as from the 1980’s to the late 2000’s). And let’s not forget the election or appointment of administrators who have no clue literally about how these systems should or do work, and are all to ready to accept elaborate brochures and simplified proposals from equipment and data service vendors.
When political activity is estimated to churn through $5 billion this year, while the election systems of counties across the country are hobbled by underfunding, poor administration, and lack of expertise, something is seriously wrong. But it’s not isolated from identical problems across the range of administrative problems in government at every level.
Real election integrity in the electronic age is probably a lot less likely to be achieved than just going back to paper ballots and hand counting. Yes open-source makes it easier to seek for outright obvious malfeasance but subtle bugs on the other hand are often notoriously not found by such processes.
The lady in the presentation said she had someone that knew SQL inspect the file she found. She didn’t mention which brand, but in MSFT terminology it would have to have been a SQL Server DB file and the system was using stored procedures written in Transact SQL. She claims this is where they were making the “racial vote count” adjustment. Somehow the guy was able to open the DB file with the appropriate SQL Server DB management tools without a password?
I wasn’t too impressed with the quality of the presentation. I think Scot Adams could have done better in a 4 panel Dilbert cartoon. So I’d rate the credibility here low. Not to say Diebold or the field contractors aren’t up to something – just that we need better police work to believe it.
You can look up the voting history in Contra Costa County (where that disenfranchised Richmond voter tried to vote), and compare the results from Tuesday with 2012 or 2008 and see that the numbers just don’t add up.
http://www.cocovote.us/elections-results/election-results/
I did the same for my own county, Alamada, which is right next door. And yes, 75K fewer votes reported in Alameda Tuesday than in 2008. Where are they?
I suspect a lot of votes were tossed in the provisional pile and won’t get counted at all or will be reported so late as to be meaningless against the fait accompli of Clinton’s “historic victory”.
Actually, this has happened in state after state during this primary. The numbers of Dem voters, even in ostensibly Dem-leaning states, has been way down compared with 2008. The numbers are so large that it isn’t simply black voters affecting the totals.
I followed up of some links and found the following:
SandersforPresident on Reddit estimates that at close of day after voting (Wed 9th) there were still over 1.5 million votes to be counted.
For example, over 0.5 million ballots remaining to be processed in LA County:
240,063 provisional;
125,280 VBM returned at polls;
204,946 VBM rec’d via mail.
And ballots left to counted in Orange County: 217,485
So basically only 2/3 of the votes cast in the CA democratic primary have been processed. But that won’t stop the AP from doin’ their thang ;)
The California Secretary of State’s website describes the results as:
“100% of precincts partially reporting.”
Whatever that means.
re: Brownback’s Abject Tax Policy Failure in KS
It’s even worse than the story conveys, if that’s possible. The KS lege has a state constitutional mandated duty to adequately and equally fund the k-12 public schools, which they haven’t been doing since Brownie cut taxes. The KS Supreme Court has ruled several times they must adequately fund the schools and given the lege deadlines to comply. The lege has snubbed the court. Now the court has taken the step of ruling the lege must fund the schools or they may order the schools closed July 1 or impose their own funding formula (probably like the formula the state used before the lege “block granted” reduced funding – watch out for block grants).
As the drama escalates Brownback has called a special lege session to deal with court’s school finance ruling.
I think Brownback’s handlers want him to setup a deal to make it look like the court is the bad guy – in this an election year when 4 court justices will be up for a retention vote. Earlier Brownback changed the way Supreme Court judges are selected and appointed. No more Bar Assn vetting or bipartisan committee vetting. The lege gave Brownback pretty much control in appointing judges. Brownback has appointed 1 judge, if he can appoint 4 more then he and ALEC will own the KS Supreme Court.
adding, per Brownie’s original statement: ” It will leave more than a billion dollars in the hands of Kansans. An expanding economy and growing population will directly benefit our schools and local governments.”
It leaves over a billion dollars in the hands of 330,000~ Kansans, and leaves over half of that billion dollars in the hands of just 2 or 3 Kansans. Koch Industries is incorporated in Kansas. It’s all a coincidence.
As for all the rest of Kansans, sales taxes on everything, including grocery store food, has gone up to nearly 10%.
Kind of funny. What percentage of their income and wealth do the Koch’s spend on groceries?
My guess is .0000000001 % as it’s only two cheap guys.
Sort of reminds me of an interview of Jack Welch talking about social security. He was all excited to say that to fix social security they could have his share, then his eyes got all beady and hard, but to leave the rest of his loot alone.
Maybe Kansas should try raising taxes. This is from Jared Dillian, ex-Connecticut resident:
[no link — received in an email]
Believe me, all the people (both Rs & Ds) in Kansas know and say the tax cuts must be rolled back; all the people except the ALEC controlled lege and the few beneficiaries. This year, for the first time in my memory, there are challengers to all the sitting R legislators, including primary challenges by sane R’s to the machine R’s that passes this tax cut.
“Voters Will Be Left Hanging by State Department’s Clinton Email Slow-Walk TruthOut”
“Another batch of emails from Secretary Clinton’s staff won’t be released until after 2090. In a court filing last week, the department claimed that it would take “75 years in total” to respond to a Republican National Committee request for all the email records belonging to Clinton’s top staff at State.”
Really? These are probably the plans Hillary drew up for the Fusion Power Machine.
Really? These are probably the plans Hillary drew up for the Fusion Power Machine.
I’ve heard that not only has she drawn up the plans, she has built a working prototype and has been carrying it around with her under her expensive Armani jacket. From one of the links in the article:
State Department lawyers argue in a filing made last Wednesday that gathering 450,000 pages of records requested for former Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Jacob Sullivan and top State Department official Patrick Kennedy would take three quarters of a century.
“Given the Department’s current FOIA workload and the complexity of these documents, it can process about 500 pages a month, meaning it would take approximately 16-and-2/3 years to complete the review of the Mills documents, 33-and-1/3 years to finish the review of the Sullivan documents, and 25 years to wrap up the review of the Kennedy documents — or 75 years in total,” the State Department argued in the filing.
State Dept.: 75-year wait for Clinton aide emails
450,000 pages of records
They are busy bodies!
I imagine it must take much, much longer to read tweets than write tweets.
Adding – Didn’t we just celebrate 750,000 comments at NC? 9 years of the entire comradeship?
Now that’s what I call Bureaucratic Triage.. Put the documents to the side til they die..or at least until a statute of limitation condition rolls over.
Time to hire some interns.. Maybe even pay them? Nah.. they should work for the experience!
Good and galling account of primary chaos in CA:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/09/where-are-the-missing-california-primary-votes/
Argh!
We are a banana republic.
Also good account with new (though uncited) information about the mechanics of voter roll manipulation (in AZ, NY, CA) that supports the hypotheses of the Fraction Magic people, i. e., that known information about voter-type can quickly and easily be used to weight /discount individual votes on a mass scale.
http://justicegazette.org/bernie-defrauded-in-ca.html
Today’s headline in the local rag (SF Chronicle) says “Sanders let down by turnout – newly fired-up young enthusiasts didn’t follow through with ballots. Apparently, these newly fired-up young enthusiasts were more interested in attending jamming rallies and concerts than voting.” I’m older than 65 and this is not only insulting to his supporters, but also to Bernie’s message.
It’s sickening what goes on here in the media. Anyone who has half a brain knows what is going on. I’ll never vote for Hillary no matter who’s on for the VP. We truly are a banana republic.
This isn’t new, but still relevant:
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01/30/clinton-system-donor-machine-2016-election/
A little bit more research on the history of voting in the Dem Primary in Alameda County, CA.
2008 Alameda CA Presidential Primary
In 2008, a total of 275K votes were cast. Obama won with 162K votes versus Clinton’s 136K. And now, in 2016, we’re supposed to believe that 75K fewer votes were cast? And Clinton wins with 150K?
So, despite the close election, and despite reports of a surge in voter registration leading up to the election, that all those people who turned out for Sanders’ rallies across the state just didn’t bother to vote?
Sorry to belabor this, but I smell a rat.
I’ve had some conversations with a few Clinton supporters, and they typically say something such as “I like Hillary.” I haven’t been able to get a clear explanation of why they like Hillary. I suspect they like her because she’s a woman or because the Republicans treated her harshly. They never cite her votes in the Senate, because then they might have to admit that she’s a terrible choice for President.
The Democrats are their identity. Hillary is the leader. Replace proper nouns with Red Sox or Yankees and Dustin and whoever is on the fourth place Yankees. Everything makes sense. Hillary is dear leader. They will love her until she is gone. Why did people who nominally despise pedophiles line up to see Pope Ratzinger, the head of their pedophile protection racket? Because he’s dear leader. They’ve dropped him hard since he retired because he was a pedophile, but not while he was their leader. They don’t question the leader. They hide behind excuses such as “Hillary is a woman” because it’s not a reason but an inarguable point. Hillary is a woman. It stops the conversation and misdirected from the simple reality is they don’t have a reason and have likely never put much thought into their choices because they are simply sports fans. Sports fans hate when the kid is called up to replace an aging veteran.
Obama took an advantage of a boomlet going through the population. Many of those people have left. Hillary still won black votes in 2008, often doing better than she did in 2016. Bernie just was unknown to the non tribalists, more than anything, and has to deal with people who have permanently left the party plus.voter suppression efforts. ACORN is gone. The GOP never stops trying to suppress. The Hillary campaign didn’t want to risk a challenge and likely quietly supported these efforts, but that was an additional problem.
NotTimothyGeithner
June 9, 2016 at 10:44 am
http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2015/02/01
I would disagree with one point from the comic strip – sports teams don’t give you anything if they win. Politicians typically take away something from you if they win…
Parties – doing an even better job of encouraging mindless fandom than sports teams.
Found this on the cryptogon.com website, Never10 is an app that windows 7 and 8 users can use to block automatic upgrades to windows 10
http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=48934
https://www.grc.com/never10.htm
I just used it, told me that my system was set up for an automatic upgrade to windows 10 (even though I thought I had manually deleted the files for that) and now it’s not. Thank you!
Talked to one of my partners yesterday who told me the reason he hasn’t sent me any emails or pictures is because his system was automatically upgraded to windows 10 and how he doesn’t know how to use his computer anymore. He’s an old guy who has never had much experience with computers, so he’s back to square one – how to find his home page to his email….
A lot of articles about Obama meeting with Bernie. Gave cash to signal not to cave. He is a brawler though. Hope my pocket change stays with Bernie or people he likes and can never end up with Clinton/DNC.
Astute commenter on the American Conservative piece “Clinton’s Comeback That Wasn’t”.
I rarely agree with ‘conservatives’ but in the Dept. of Strange Bedfellows:
“JovianStorm says:
June 8, 2016 at 12:10 pm
What’s most remarkable is that Clinton had so many problems garnering the nomination considering that:
1. The democratic party is largely a clinton machine at this point, with many of its leadership affiliated in one way or another with the Clinton’s personally.
2. The DNC and democratic party put their fingers on the scales and ensured the contest between Clinton and Sanders would be as lopsided as possible.
3. The media greatly favors Clinton as the lone status-quo candidate after Trump wiped the republican field out.
4. Bernie sanders is a jewish socialist in a nation with a lot of antisemitism and that views socialists as one step removed from Al-Qaeda.”
Weak candidate!
Given all those advantages Hillary STILL nearly threw it all away. She has a special kind of anti-charisma that’s unique in modern politicians. She reminds me of Martha Coakley, the D politician from Mass who managed to lose to an R in a state where it’s nearly impossible to do so. What’s interesting is she and Hillary share a lot of the same characteristics. Coakley felt entitled to the position and it seemed to annoy her to have to actually campaing, and voters could sense it.
I get the same vibe from Clinton, It’s “her turn” after all. We’ll see what the voters think given a choice between her or Trump.”
whoops, where is ‘edit’?
I added “Weak candidate” *after* the quoted comment.
refers to Clinton, not Sanders.
nycTerrierist
June 9, 2016 at 10:46 am
I agree. Trump showed the emperor has no clothes. Sanders would have demolished the dems, save for the total take over of the dems by “Davos Man” – the fact that Sanders came as close as he did with such baggage shows that some huge changes are coming. Its not an earthquake – its a glacier. Slowly, slowly, people have realized that IF there are benefits to “free trade” it only helps those at the tippy top, while harming the vast majority. We can change it IF WE WANT TO.
You know it’s an interesting point. She is a famously arrogant and entitled person.
I can easily see her becoming visibly “impatient’ at having to wage a protracted, exhausting fight against an “unworthy” oaf such as Trump for a prize that she feels should be easily hers.
Especially if he starts gong after things like the clinton foundation influence peddling, warmongering, bill’s dalliances and, of course emails which she never thought she’d have to confront.
Could be fun to watch.
Helloo Trump campaign, anyone listening here?
My meager consolation: to see him call out Crooked Hillary on all of the above.
“Crooked Hillary” lacks alliteration.
How about “Heinous Hillary”?
Or — if the electorate isn’t wholly irony-proof — “Honest Hillary”? Talk about packing a sting in the tail!
‘Honest Hillary’ – nice!
“I am not a crook.” Just ask Kissinger.
The alliteration is Crooked Clintons – remember, they’re a package
“Honest Hillary” would be very effective.
90% of Trump supporters don’t know what “heinous” means.
Brand of underwear, ain’t it?
I thought that was “Hernious” underwear.
Hillary is a pretty hard “H”
Not sure honest or heinous would count as alliteration, technically.
Horrible. Good, solid, hard H.
Hillary the Horrible. Kids should be scared-
“you’d better eat all your vegetbles or Hillary the Horrible will invade another country.”
How about Harridan Hillary of the Crooked Clintons?
The perfect sobriquet (if one has a dictionary handy)!
Obama’s endorsement: ‘Hillary Clinton is a liar’
https://youtu.be/UTtizmetQMY
I now expect Martha Coakley to be Hillary’s VP choice.
She reminds me of Tony Blair. Complete lack of insight.
Uber and Its Executives Are Fined in France
Wow, $500,00 is a lot. Why, that’s almost .00001 of Uber’s alleged valuation.
Regarding the article about Bernie supporters blasting AP reporters online, it saddens me to see the content of the messages. They sound more like the useless vulgarity coming from Trump supporters in defense of their candidate. Down & dirty with no clear message other than hate.
While I wholeheartedly agree with ‘calling out’ the AP, I disagree with the particular language used to do so in the examples given. It gives a very poor impression of Bernie’s supporters & fuel for his distractors. I doubt very much Bernie would approve of it, either.
I hope ALL of his supporters will retain some dignity(?) in the future with their reproaches, rather than lowering to such name-calling. That only reduces our effectiveness & is a poor representation of us all.
Don’t in any way take this to mean I’m not pissed about what’s happened in this country, because I certainly am!
I have lived through a lot of civility and polite language during my life. It usually comes in the form of a White male, clean cut, in a suit, or military garb. They have led to the deaths of more civilians than any other Country in the World since WW II, and have tanked our economy.
What we actually need more of in this country is raw, directed anger, than civility accepting the status quo. Not advocating physical violence (unlike the leaders of our Country), but the “tone” and “civility” police have only one objective–maintaining the status quo. Some times all one can come up with is a well directed %$#$%^,
Sanders is a gentleman who is civil.
Perhaps that description is not accurate or that is not enough.
Or the online comments using vile language could just be David Brock’s paid trolls continuing their efforts to dirty the Sanders campaign’s image. We’ll never know.
Re the Clintonistas, only those with specious motives and/or immaturity insist that when a few in a group act vulgarly, the whole group is liable. Reminds me of a teacher who made the class skip recess because someone stole her chalk. Even in third grade, we knew that was absurdly unfair.
I knew this bunch was narrow and selfish, but I still get surprised at the extent of their ethical sogginess and how stupid it makes them. It is butt-ugly to see such immaturity in adults, esp when combined with condescension.
So, IMO, pffffft.
They have earned whatever vitriol is thrown their way. But again, as with the “BernieBros” thing, how does anyone know that the crass commenters you take issue with are really Sanders supporters. And yes, it does give fuel to the Bernie distractors (sic), but isn’t that the point of a false flag mission?
And Hillary turning Libya into a slave market is just so fucking civil.
It reflects well on her supporter’s that you can buy a person there now?
In what universe…?
….because markets…for people…
Argh.
Re: Shedlock
Shedlock once again shows us how to leverage illiteracy, confirmation bias, and dunning-krueger effects for fun and profit. He must be an inspiration to so many in the Poli-FIRE sector! I am surprised he didn’t go full on Larry Summers and declare a [growth] recession!
Thanks for sharing your ad hominem yammering. Do you have anything substantive to say on his analysis of the numbers discrepancy?
I don’t think ad hominem means what you think it does. I didn’t attack his character/person.
Wrt to the “discrepancy” between JOLTZ and the private analytics firm he cites: There is no discrepancy. They do not ‘measure’ the same thing. Think of it like this: one measures births and the other population. The latter can go up even when the former goes down…
Second Shedlock uses the “forecast” of private firm to support his headline, but posts quotes from an ex-fed (literally a couple paragraphs before) which says uncertainty makes forecasts have larger error bars. Evidently economic uncertainty only messes up government forecasts…
Third, Shedlock thinks JOLTZ data cannot be believed, or at least is inferior to the private firm ‘data’, because of sample problems. Under the reasons to believe the private ‘data’ he explicitly says that the sample is unrepresentative of the general population… which means sample problems. Evidently poor methodology is actually a reason to believe the results. At least if they come from the “right” people. That doesnt even touch the problems of sourcing “from the internet”.
Shall I go on about the ‘data’ itself? Hint: examine the graphs closely.
I have no reason to think Mike is below average intelligence, so it makes me wonder why he would post such badly disguised rubbish. The simple and most direct explanation would be that he profits from it in some way,shape,or form.
FWIW I continue to check the #movement4bernie link & roughly estimate it’s getting around 1,500 signatures per hour, perhaps more, since I began watching it last night. Approaching 70,000 currently.
So here’s a practical question that follows upon the increasing evidence for systemic election fraud as being a feature and not a bug of our politics:
What is the best strategy for generating enough popular support for a nationwide push for paper ballots counted in public by hand in full view of citizens?
This is the kind of issue that both (paleo/libertarian) conservatives and democratic socialists/progressives could get behind in a big way.
But how and at what level government is it best pursued?
It’s very important to realize that the Republicans and the Democrats can pick whoever they want as their presidential candidates. The candidate selection process is not governed by federal election rules.
The DNC and RNC can gather up all those primary and caucus votes and set them on fire in front of you, laugh in your face, and say “well what are you gonna do about it?” So when people say the primaries are rigged, they don’t need to actually prove this — there are no laws preventing it from happening.
I’m guessing a Constitutional amendment. But why start and stop there? Establish ourselves as a Democracy with and entirely new Constitution since the current one doesn’t even use the D word once. Eliminate parties, at least as private entities. Eliminate any and all possibility of foreign influence/funding in our election process. So much as one penny of foreign owned stock should eliminate the possibility of a charity or business or even a dual citizen from contributing in any manner. Establish proportional voting. One citizen, one vote, no delgates or electorals. All citizens of voting age registered automatically… including convicts.. I mean we could elect a convict if we want, and those certainly deserving prosecution can run, convicts are certainly affected by government, so why not make sure all citizens can vote?
Ranger and Eureka,
Points well taken. But I don’t think the parties can risk going to the extreme imagined by Rick, which is why the illusion of democratic accountability is so important to them. Since they are committed, hypocritically, to this illusion, how best to take advantage of it, and force the issue?
As for Eureka’s points, again, all well-taken, but I don’t see a Constitutional
Convention happening without at first effecting reforms sufficient to actually register the will of the electorate. That’s why I think it’s more important to focus on changing local, state, federal election laws to the extent that it’s possible to do so.
If we can’t at least make sure that the elections are real elections, then no reform within the entire system will be possible and we’re looking at a very different, possibly violent, and unlikely to succeed, revolution of the masses. That scenario has more often than not simply led to the cooption and subsequent suppression of the masses by an emergent elite (early plebian Roman Rev., French Rev, Russian Rev, Egypt uprising, etc). I think that any large scale rev. of this sort in the US (and most other western nations) would quickly become a military coup.
P.S. Which is why I have come around to the view that, while Fukuyama’s announcement of the “end of history” in the (middle?) 90’s was absurd on its face in many respects, it was probably right at least in this one respect: namely, that the sheer quantity of centralized force available to most western states is powerful enough to moot an earlier kind of political mass action, “taking it to the streets”, as it were. (This is also why, if the Second Amendment really ever did serve as the peoples ‘ protection against tyranny, it is laughable to think that it could serve that function today. Earlier tyrants didn’t have universal surveillance capability or drones, etc, and today state military power could easily overwhelm and annihilate any civil resistance it wanted to. So there is no non-apocalytic “out” from the current global alignment of corporate-military power, and for that reason history really is at an end.
What better time than now to pen drafts and suggestions/debates of the next Constitution? In the midst of an uprising seems to be a worse time to me. If for no other reason than the regular people would most certainly have less voice/input in times of greater desperation.
As for that old second amendment… For the sake of argument, not my suggestion or belief system – During OWS the feds were prepared and ready to take out a few leaders by sniper if “leaders” reared their heads. They didn’t need to carpet bomb.
The massess, such as we are, usually take out each other as we see now with most gun violence and warfare…. but a few iphonless second amendment believers focusing on a few “rich leaders”…. well, it does make one wonder just how little violence n reverse could effect dramatic change?
I mean that old taliban sure does know how to whip some empires butts time after time with very little money, tech and weaponry.
Tribalism.
RE: Voters Will Be Left Hanging by State Department’s Clinton Email Slow-Walk TruthOut
It would appear that david brock at “Corrupt the Record” has taken up residence in the comments section. And he’s calling himself “Diane.” Here’s a taste–per “Diane”:
A commenter responded that Bernie has a better chance of beating Trump because he has high poll numbers against Trump. False assumption. You can find articles on the Internet that explain this: Bernie’s numbers against Trump are artificially high because Bernie has never been vetted in the media.
You don’t see calls for his tax returns; nothing about his essay on women fantasizing about being gang raped, or his illegitimate child; nothing about his ongoing support for Castro imposing communism in Cuba, or Bernie with protestors in Latin America who are chanting ‘death to America’; nothing about his votes to fund military action in Middle East; nothing about his vote against banning assault weapons, or against the Violence Against Women Act.
Picture Trump’s ad against Bernie – Bernie’s face on a red flag with yellow sickle and hammer. Or the clenched first that represents socialism. These are symbols that will turn off 99% of Americans.
If Bernie. his campaign manager and his supporters would stop lying and making misleading statements about Clinton, her numbers would go up also.
Biting.
An aside: Joshua Green of Bloomberg Businessweek on msnbs this morning comparing the $ number of “attack ads” run against Trump and clinton during the primaries. Result? $62 million spent on attack ads against Trump. Green’s take–people forget because “ultimately” they were “ineffective.” $0 spent against clinton–not a “single dollar.” Green’s take–unprecedented. “We’ve never had a situation where a nominee has gone through a primary season essentially untouched.”
Well, well.
Re: Democrats Are Now the Aggressive War Party
Just dropped my membership in the “Democrat” Party. And to be honest it felt great! My entire life has been lived under a state of perpetual war and my former party nominates a war hawk, who so clearly represents everything wrong with the American political system today the argument writes itself.
With a clear opportunity to embrace new ideas advanced by an honest, upright citizen, my former party chose a woman, despised by a majority of Americans, under multiple federal investigations.
My initial thought as I was dropping my affiliation was “I really don’t want to be a part of this” but then I realized, given how completely dismissive the Party was to the alternative (Sanders) that so bravely presented itself this election season, it must also be true that this “Democrat” Party must not want me.
Brava!
My only regret is that I could only leave it once.
Sanders comments after meeting with Obama.
Still competing in DC primary, still wants to defeat Trump, didn’t endorse Clinton, “suspect[s]” full California vote tally will be much closer.
http://time.com/4363007/bernie-sanders-barack-obama-white-house-transcript/
Here’s another take.
https://news.vice.com/article/obama-is-meeting-sanders-in-an-attempt-at-party-unity-behind-clinton
C-span had call in from only Bernie supporters feeling them out to see if they will vote for H, it seemed the majority of callers felt she was a crook and would never vote for a Clinton.
Corporatists are nearing the end, people seem fed up,
Heard it on radio…something about a meeting with Clinton soon to work out how best to stop Trump.
“Never Trump.”
I guess, that means, even if the other option is Hillary.
As Lambert pointed the other day, did the bern pass over his money list to dnc?
Sheep Dog throws his followers under the bus, nothing see here please move along.
Does it matter? If a person can become aware of Bernie, they can find other campaign races. This isn’t a situation of unlisted phone number of donors in the 1980’s.
Hillary has had plenty of “good” Democrats endorse her with impressive lists. Obama and Hillary endorsed all of the lovers in 2014. This is philosophical difference, and there is no one of sufficient credibility who can overcome this gap.
A person donating $27 (obviously it was in increments of 25, 30, 50, 75, 100; no one gives 27) isn’t donating to diametrically opposed opposition. They might vote, but the Democrats need their time more than their vote. The loyalist Team Blue fanatics aren’t suddenly going to start volunteering after having not volunteered all these years. They aren’t going to give extra money until right before the election if they haven’t already.
jo6pac: I haven’t seen anything to indicate that Sanders turned his list over to the DNC/Clinton campaign, and I was a recurring monthly donor. I wouldn’t leap to the conclusion that anyone has been thrown under the bus (or that Sanders is a sheep dog).
NTG: You’d be surprised. Quite a few Sanders supporters donate $27, including me in some of my “supplemental” donations. It’s actually one of the pre-set options when you go onto his site to make a donation.
Thanks for the transcript!
FWIW
California Secretary of States website describes election results as:
100% of precincts partially reporting.
Probably will not change the overall result that has Clinton with over 50% of the pledged delegates.
I think it’s time to think about phase 2 of the election – how to stop Hillary or Trump.
That article on the USS Liberty is pretty anti-semitic. It’s possible to talk about that attack without loony commentary on the religion. James Bamford did a good job in Body of Secrets that didn’t sound like that at all.
Agree 100%, it’s really outrageous, here’s an example “The USS Liberty is teaching us about the heartless Jewish state of Israel and that it cannot be expected that such a state that is based on such a twisted mindset as is found in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament would be any different than it is.”
Are you saying Conway’s Law is invalid?
That is a sweet marmalade cat, and I’m sure greatly missed. Thank you for sharing, Alex F. Few things are as cuddly as a ginger tabby.
Hillary Clinton admits some undisclosed foundation donors may have ‘slipped through the cracks’ The Week
Oops. I would like to hear from that subset of Clinton’s base of women in the professional class on this one: If you are running a non-profit, and donors “slipped through the cracks” on your watch, how would your Board feel about that? If you were a Board member, and a candidate for CEO had “slipped through the cracks” on their resume, would you move their resumé to the top of the pile?
I’m not a professional woman, and was also rooting for Bernie, but since I’m here I’d suggest “double entry book keeping”. And not just because everybody is doing it – it has some useful advantages. For one it’s the only way to know you are a non-profit after paying friends and relatives their salaries. If you made a profit, even accidentally, that could get you in trouble with the IRS! Then, when donors come by with suitcases or big burlap sacks of cash, that should be deposited in a bank. It’s safer that way than just leaving it laying around and everyone wondering where all the money came from. Accountants know how to handle bank statements as part of the Foundation’s double entry book keeping and could even make a note who made the donation, in case anyone wants to know. Many times they are even agreeable to making “management reports” summarizing information like this to execs and board members.
World has been changed, power constallation is not in US..but remove to Asia such as Cina, Pakistan , India and Iran. Candidate who will win the presidential nominee should be boosting communication with countries in Asia regions so they can welcome for US products. TPP is one of challenge for US goverment to show fair trade among pacific countries. All pacific countries will respect to US goverment if it being signed,
CIA and Pentagon Bicker While Russia Wipes Out U.S.-Backed Rebels Daily Beast
What a cush job Nancy Youssef of the Daily Beast has as “an Official” Pentagon
MouthpiecePress Association Member. As long as she plays ball, the Pentagon will even help write most of her report for her.http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/04/01/the-top-25-centrist-columnists-and-commentators.html
Despite their laughable ‘rebel’ image, everyone the Daily Beast profiled, with the exception of Peggy Noonan, shares a broad political orthodoxy: Progress is Good, Technology is Good, Religious Morality is Bad, Capitalism is Good, Racism is Bad, Immigration is Good, and most importantly, their Big Media is Really, Really Good. In other words, their ideology is little else than diluted bourgeois idealism, and they hew to this ideology as passionately and single-mindedly as the most rabid of party faithful.