By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
TPP/TTIP/TISA
Kaine on TPP (1): “A Clinton aide confirmed to CBS News that Kaine had made a private commitment to Clinton that he would now oppose TPP, falling in line with the former secretary of state’s declared view on the trade deal” [CBS] A “private commitment. ” Oh, OK. Kaine in public, last week: “I do see at least right now that there is one element that I do have some very significant concerns about. And that is the dispute resolution mechanism. And I’ve got a lot of concerns about that. But long before there would be a vote on that I’m trying to climb the learning curve on the areas where I have questions. So again, much of it I see I think as a significant improvement over the status quo. The dispute resolution mechanism I still have some significant concerns about.” Of course, Kaine voted for Fast Track, one of 13 Democrats to do so. Apparently, the “learning curve” wasn’t so important to him then.
Kaine on TPP (2): Based on this story in WaPo, Politico carries water for the Clinton campaign, reporting as fact — “Kaine gives timely disavowal of TPP” — what is in fact a “private commitment” putatively made to the Clinton campaign:
Just in time for the convention, presumptive vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine has gone on record opposing the TPP. Kaine spokeswoman Amy Dudley confirmed Saturday to POLITICO that the Virginia Democrat shared his negative views on the trade deal with Hillary Clinton late last week, even though he spoke favorably of the trade deal as recently as last Thursday
CBS says “private conversation.” The WaPo story to which Politico links says “a subject this past week in [Clinton and Kaine’s] discussions.” In no sense whatever has Kaine gone “on the record,” as Politico claims, and treating the words of a Kaine spokesman as “confirming” anything just adds to the fun. C’mon, Politico. Consider a career in reporting, instead of stenography?
Pelosi on TPP: “Success! Leader Pelosi Stands Up for Users and Opposes the TPP” [EFF]. What Pelosi said: “Please be assured that I will oppose the TPP as it is currently written.” Please. We’re not children. I can already see liberal the liberal nomenklatura writing the budget for the campaign to “fight for” whatever meaningless change they have in mind. Idea: “Say, I think Richard Trumka should join the conversation.” Etc.
“Donald Trump took another step toward blowing up the TPP in his speech accepting the Republican Party nomination on Thursday, declaring the United States will no longer join big trade agreements and concentrate instead on enforcing and renegotiating existing trade pacts” [Politico].
2016
Policy
“US: Basic Income Panel at DNC Cancelled” [BIEN].
The Voters
“How Donald Trump Broke The Conservative Movement (And My Heart)” [Buzzfeed]. “Nearly absent from this speech — Trump’s coronation before millions of people — were many of the issues that have defined and dominated the Republican Party in recent years (abortion, Israel, soluble entitlements) at the exclusion of one (immigration). More to the point: Trump is all about government. He is for a government that takes care of you. He is disinterested in talk of democratic principles. He is concerned with the inactivity of the state, not the tyranny of power. The idea that you don’t want government in your life, the premise of movement conservatism for six decades, is gone.”
A fine tweetstrrom on liberals and politics, from former blogger Who is IOZ?
Money
“The DNC emails show how the party has tried to leverage its greatest weapon — the president — as it entices wealthy backers to bankroll the convention and other needs. At times, DNC staffers used language in their pitches to donors that went beyond what lawyers said was permissible under a White House policy designed to prevent any perception that special interests have access to the president” [WaPo]. “The leaked emails reveal the relentless art of donor maintenance that undergirds the system: the flattery, cajoling and favor-bestowing that goes into winning rich supporters. It’s a practice that the party fundraisers themselves often find dispiriting.” Of course, the Sanders fundraising model proves that “winning rich supporters” isn’t a requirement to run a national campaign. That model has also been thoroughly erased from the discourse. So I don’t really think the fundraisers find sucking up to the 1% “dispiriting” at all. They enjoy it, and want to keep doing it.
Philly
“Putting Sanders’ name in the nomination at the convention was the insurgent camp’s order of business Monday morning. Sanders volunteers fanned out across the delegation breakfasts of 50 states Monday to gather the signatures needed to place Sanders name in nomination. This would give Sanders’ supporters an opportunity to vote on the floor for their man” [Washington Examiner].
“Democratic discontent with Hillary Clinton was on full display at the California delegation breakfast Monday morning ahead of the first night of the Democratic National Convention” [Roll Call]. “[W]henever a speaker talked about uniting to elect Clinton in November, the crowd balked. They booed Rep. Michael M. Honda. And chanted, ‘Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!’ during Rep. Barbara Lee’s address…. Pelosi tried to unify the room by emphasizing the commonalities in the room rather than the divisions. ‘The differences that we have are not so great compared to the chasm between us and Republicans [to whom Clinton is attempting to appeal, for pity’s sake],” [Pelosi] said. But the crowd wasn’t having it. When a ‘Bernie’ sign was thrust in Pelosi’s face on stage, she remained calm, saying, ‘I don’t consider it a discourtesy even if it is intended as one.’ With one final call for unity, and rallying calls to take back the House and the Senate, Pelosi walked off stage to more ‘Bernie’ chants.”
@DWStweets is Wasserman Schultz:
.@DWStweets booed off the stage at her own FL delegation breakfast @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/GMe0g9t1JQ
— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) July 25, 2016
The #DNCLeaks lesson Donna Brazile learned isn't conduct yourself ethically. It's don't get caught. @statehousenews https://t.co/Eav8mGJs24
— Scott Wooledge (@Clarknt67) July 25, 2016
(Note that both DNC chair Brazile and new Convention chair Martha Fudge are black women. So you can imagine how booing them will be framed.)
“Live Coverage of the Democratic National Convention: Day 1” [The Atlantic].
“Why Philadelphia DNC protests are already bigger than anything in Cleveland: A reporter’s journal” [Los Angeles Times].
The Trail
Kaine’s role in gutting Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy: “For four years under Howard Dean the Democratic National Committee funded a 50 state strategy which paid for DNC field organizers on the ground in every state. These organizers built local and county organizations which assisted candidates at every level. [Then, after 2008, Obama] replaced Gov. Howard Dean as Chair of the DNC and appointed Tim Kaine who immediately dismissed the 183 DNC field organizers and terminated the 50 State Strategy” Fast forward to the 2010 debacle. [The Pennsylvania Progressive]. So if you’re looking for the man to purge the Democrat Party of leftist insurgents post-election, Tim Kaine would be your man.
“With DNC Leaks, Former ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Is Now True––and No Big Deal” [FAIR]. Article also discusses the other conspiracy theory: That the leak was the work of the legendary Russian FSB, successor to the KGB; so legendary they left the metadata on the files, so the “computer forensics” experts could hand the DNC a hefty bill for “finding” them. Fascinating to see liberals like Josh Marshall and Paul Krugman cross the line from being mere hacks — who among us, and so on — to completely losing their minds. 2016 has been a wonderfully clarifying year.
“How Putin Weaponized Wikileaks to Influence the Election of an American President ” [Defense One]. Full of jargon, even more full of qualifications; less so of analysis. Anyhow, Putin must be totally ticked to go to all this trouble, and then end up strengthening the Democrats by defenestrating Wasserman Schultz. Somebody should ask Brazile how she feels about being the beneficiary of a Russian intel operation. But this is the Democrat establishment’s story, and they’re sticking to it. Some sort of Ems Dispatch deal for an October surprise, maybe, except digital
“‘The FBI is investigating a cyber intrusion involving the DNC and are working to determine the nature and scope of the matter,’ the agency said in a statement. ‘A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously, and the FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace'” [CNN]. Another institution thrown into the giant sucking pit of need that is the Clinton campaign [mental picture of tiny waving arms, G-Man hat, disappearing into the vortex]. I mean, wasn’t Comey “exonerating” Clinton enough?
If you’re a Russian mole, don’t answer this ad from the Hillary campaign.
“Does Hillary Clinton have a political death wish?” [Brent Arends, MarketWatch]. Among the many pieces of supporting evidence, this one: “Her staggeringly bone-headed decision to go on ’60 Minutes’ and complain about a ‘Hillary standard‘ that is supposedly tilted against her — weeks after getting a remarkable pass from the head of the FBI over her private email server. Really?”
“The Clinton campaign, which provided traveling reporters Friday night with a press release in background, bullet point form about the process, was carefully nudging narratives throughout. In late June, they purposefully seeded the same story to multiple reporters that the shortlist was Kaine, Warren and Castro—though they’d already all but ruled out Warren and Castro—in a successful effort to get stories out about the different possible factors that might make the decision, and to see the response those generated” [Politico]. That’s really funny. I wonder how Warren feels about degrading herself during her audition process that wasn’t?
“Debra Messing stumps for Hillary Clinton, speaks at Women’s Roundtable discussion in Glenside” [Montgomery News]. Talking points at Dino’s [!!] Backstage, in Abington, PA.
“Feel the Bern Adult Coloring Contest Winners” [Seven Days].
Stats Watch
Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey July 2016: “Headline troubles eased in the Dallas Fed manufacturing sector… Details also show improvement but less so, with new orders still deeply in negative ground” [Econoday]. “Inventories are in contraction and delivery times are shortening, both indications of weakness. Price data do show some pressure, with input costs and wages & benefits both up but selling prices still down. Simply enough, low energy prices continue to hurt the oil patch.” But: “A bit better than expected, and the narrative sounds hopeful, but the chart still looking like there’s a long way to go to get back to where we were before the collapse of oil capex. And no sign of emergence of deficit spending- private or public- to drive top line growth” [Mosler Economics].
Employment Situation: “Based on experience with national unemployment, analysts have viewed sharply higher state joblessness as signaling possible further deterioration. However, analyses indicate increasing state-level unemployment by itself does not indicate a recession, and that applying rule-of-thumb properties regarding recession to state economies is misguided” [Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas].
Retail: “Kmart workers believe all the stores are going to be imminently shut down” [Yahoo Finance]. “If you go to the purging stock rooms then that means the store will be closing soon no matter what they tell you,’ one person wrote [on a K-Mart message board]. ‘Could be a month, maybe six, but they are already in the process of planning for it to close once they put it all out on the sales floor.’ … ‘We are currently rolling out a phased project to refine our inventory replenishment process whereby deliveries are directed to Kmart store shelves instead of the stock rooms,’ [Sears spokesman Howard Riefs said].”
Oil: “So, why have we seen such a exponentially increasing rate of productivity [in the Utica]? In part, it’s because the frackers are getting better at what they do; ie, their fracking techniques have improved. But another big factor is that with prices so depressed, they’re no longer fracking half the state willy-nilly, like Chesapeake did during the McClendon era. They are only fracking in those locations where they believe that profitable production is pretty much a sure thing, and hence they’re now producing as much gas and oil from new wells running a dozen rigs than McClendon and his boys did two years ago with 4 dozen rigs” [Economic Populist].
The Bezzle: “The NYC Tech Ecosystem: Catching Up to the Hype” [Matt Turck]. By a VC. A market isn’t an “ecosystem,” of course.
The Banks: “Central bank digital currency: the end of monetary policy as we know it?” [Bank Underground].
Political Risk: “How the pieces are falling into place for another global financial crisis” [Satyajit Das, MarketWatch]. “Any new banking crisis likely will be significant. Banks are networked both domestically and internationally through inter-bank lending and derivative transactions. Problems at one bank can quickly infect others and spread across the financial system. Public finance problems follow as governments and central banks are forced to support banks to ensure continuance of essential payment and credit flows. The only guarantee at this point is that banking problems will remain a continued source of economic instability.” What Yves calls “tight coupling.” Italy, Brazil, India, China, Germany, Italy, and European banks generally all have problems.
“Verizon agreed to buy Yahoo’s core internet business for $4.83bn (£3.62bn) in cash on Monday, marking the final chapter in the struggling fortunes of the fading web pioneer” [Guardian]. ” The Alibaba and Yahoo Japan investments are worth about $40bn, while Yahoo had a market value of about $37.4bn as of Friday’s close. … [Verizon] is hoping that a combined AOL and Yahoo will create a strong third player to compete with Alphabet and Facebook for online revenues.” Yeah, that’ll work.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 84, Extreme Greed (previous close: 85, Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 91 (Extreme Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 25 at 12:32pm. Drifting down. Sad!
Black Injustice Tipping Point
“The Tamir Rice Story: How to Make a Police Shooting Disappear” [GQ].
Police State
“There’s Something Disturbing About The Way Cops Act Just After They’ve Shot Somebody” [HuffPo]. “[A]s scene after scene unfolds on shaky screens and in grainy contours, another element of the violence is beginning to come into focus: the pattern of officers showing no concern for the person they have shot, often fatally.”
Our Famously Free Press
“The Case Against the Media. By the Media” [New York Magazine]. Very meta, since it’s an aggregation of quotes from players, albeit good quotes and skilled players, most of whom are not outright weasels. Best subhead ever — “Plus: 113 Journalists on Why They’re So Despised” — links to this useful survey.
“Media: Oligarchs Go Shopping” [Reporters without Borders].
Class Warfare
“The Donald’s patented phrase that ‘we aren’t winning anymore’ is what’s really striking a deep nerve on Main Street. His rhetoric about giant trade deficits, failed foreign military adventures and other shortcomings of America’s collective polity self-evidently touches that chord” [David Stockman]. “[M]ost of America’s vast flyover zone has been left behind, and not simply because real wages and household incomes have been relentlessly shrinking, as shown above. Even more strikingly, the bottom 90% of families have no more real net worth today than they had in 1985. The top 1% are an altogether different matter. Their average real net worth has grown from $5 million to $14 million and now stands at nearly 300% of its level three decades ago.”
News of the Wired
“Crispr: Chinese scientists to pioneer gene-editing trial on humans ” [Guardian]. CRISPR is one of the more creepy acroyms…
“It’s a little unexpected to find yourself staring at a work of North Korean propaganda in Washington, D.C. It’s even more unexpected to find the artistry of the work completely transfixing” [National Geographic]. “‘Most of the history of Western art was propaganda for the church,’ [American University Art Museum director Jack Rasmussen says], also noting how similar these works are to American paintings in the 1940s (think Rosie the Riveter). ‘This succeeds at every level art should succeed at.'”
“The Psychology of Human Misjudgment” (pdf) [Charles Munger].
“But what libraries meant to my childhood cannot be divorced from the physical place. By all measures, as a nine-year-old, I had very little human capital. I’d walk two and a half miles on summer days to sit for hours in the library’s air-conditioning. By design, the building was rambling and given to nooks that were recessed deep between bay windows, where one could be both hidden from and able to watch the outside world. From my favorite nook, at the far end of the children’s section, I could see the street and sidewalk and library garden. ” [The Hedgehog Review (Re Silc)]. “Access to libraries may or may not help a child on the economic margins move up to a more comfortable social class. It can, however, offer poor children one of the few opportunities to escape the grinding inequities of our late-capitalist economy and experience the rich and quiet life the wealthy can so easily buy”
“Why Libraries Are Everywhere in the Czech Republic” [New York Times]. “There are libraries everywhere you look in the country — it has the densest library network in the world, according to a survey conducted for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. There are more libraries than grammar schools. In fact, there is one library for every 1,971 Czech citizens, the survey found — four times as many, relative to population, as the average European country, and 10 times as many as the United States, which has one for every 19,583 people.”
“Just call 917-ASK-NYPL, and a live librarian will try to answer your question, using vast archives collected over 120 years” [Quartz].
Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And here’s today’s plant (Re Silc):
A lovely Vermont tree-scape….
Readers, if you want to send me some videos of plants in whole systems (bees and blossoms, for example, or running streams) — I can use them to practice with FFmpeg and hopefully post them. Because of download times, they’ll have to be measured in seconds, rather than minutes. Thank you! Adding, I got another one today! Please keep sending them; they will ultimately appear!
I have finally finished sending thank you notes to the people who helped out during the quick and successful Water Cooler Mini-Fundraiser by sending in checks. Thank you, readers! So, to my knowledge, all should have been thanked, and for those of you who used PayPal, if you have not been, and you have checked your spam folder, don’t hesitate to complain using my contact form.
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“How Donald Trump Broke The Conservative Movement (And My Heart)”
Michael Corleone: I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!
….
Michael Corleone: Fredo, you’re nothing to me now. You’re not a brother, you’re not a friend. I don’t want to know you or what you do. I don’t want to see you at the hotels, I don’t want you near my house. When you see our mother, I want to know a day in advance, so I won’t be there. You understand
Theres nothing really damaging in the DNC email leaks. What would be really damaging would be explicit directives to purge voters in Brooklyn, close voting stations in AZ, etc… As is, the leaks are so innocuous, mostly water-cooler gossips, they could almost be a DNC false flag operation to taint Trump by association with Russia.
RRRRight. That’s so likely.
I think, if that is the case, Hillary just surrendered to the Russians, sacking her best field marshal from her job publicly (though privately, putting her in another office – but nevertheless, a publicity Stalingrad)
“Friday 22 July 2016 at 10:30am EDT, WikiLeaks releases 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments”
https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/
I think you are relying on secondary sources for your assessment. If you have gone through twenty seven thousand items in three days, you qualify as an exceptional individual.
Maybe big news or opposition organizations have the man power to do the job.
Hard for a single mortal Little People person to do….certainly not me.
Reddit is doing it for the people. It was posted here most likely in links, otherwise watercooller. Admittedly I haven’t checked it out (who wants to wade through a reddit thread) , but it is being done by an agent of the people, which is very important.
Interesting take.
All the meaty charges have not been linked so far. Are not they valid or are the Russians are trying to protect Isthar?
To Emiliano – Perhaps you should take a closer look. In the words of Julian Assange care of Democracy Now:
“…the spreadsheets that we released covering the financial affairs of the DNC. Those are very rich documents. There’s one spreadsheet called “Spreadsheet of All Things,” and it includes all the major U.S.—all the major DNC donors, where the donations were brought in, who they are, identifiers, the total amounts they’ve donated, how much at a noted or particular event, whether that event was being pushed by the president or by someone else. That effectively maps out the influence structure in the United States for the Democratic Party, but more broadly, because the—with few exceptions, billionaires in the United States make sure they donate to both parties.”
I think Emiliano was looking for the voter purging fraud smoking gun.
It could still surface later. Right now, we are still waiting.
This is what I think he meant, but for many people, this could be the smoking gun already in the George Allen sense.
Back in 2006, I had heard many George Allen stories. I’ve heard stuff I won’t share, but those were just rumors. Yes, every reporter, politico, and elected had heard stories about Allen’s youth. He was apparently not hard to miss at UVA Law. When he was seen on tape making a comment which would have been ignored without the rumors from credible sources, Allen confirmed the rumors with his famed flub. The general apparatus of the state, media, and political institutions turned on Allen. People who were hesitant about Jim Webb became enraged volunteers.
The DNC leaks and the subsequent McCarthyism turn the rumors of Hillary as Nixon into Hillary is Nixon.
Hopefully, it unfolds in a similar fashion.
“You can only brainwash all the people some of the time. But not this time.”
Can someone pls direct me to the ‘famous flub’? Nothing on wiki seems to fit.
Allen Quip Provokes Outrage, Apology
Oh, is that then when ‘Enough is enough”?
It seems to be enough for Debbie.
More wouldn’t hurt though when taking down the big one.
And while we’re on the matter of “big ones”:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/prince-george-third-birthday-gift-royal-family-inequality-poverty-in-britain-a7150631.html
“The gift of perspective” which the “Grandmother has in abundance” must be referring to Carole Middleton, the coal miner’s granddaughter, not the one, with crown atop, who sits on a gold throne in Parliament decreeing austerity measures….
Was the writer joking when she wrote this:
Just now received an email from ActBlue, begging for even $3 only, because the Russians are backing Trump…. my first thought is how do I unsubscribe from these assholes, and my second thought is what about those donations to the Clinton Foundation from certain mid-eastern countries… Not a peep about that I noticed… I mean, WOW these people really are not very self-aware are they?
I suppose they wouldn’t be doubling down on it if it didn’t make money.
The stupid! It b-u-r-r-r-n-n-n-n-n-n-s-s-s-s-s!
“Of course, the Sanders fundraising model proves that “winning rich supporters” isn’t a requirement to run a national campaign. That model has also been thoroughly erased from the discourse. So I don’t really think the fundraisers find sucking up to the 1% “dispiriting” at all. They enjoy it, and want to keep doing it.”
Now I could be wrong, but these class based activities, sucking up, farting down, tend to leave a vast residuum of resentment at the nether of the pyramid. No doubt, there is an increasing pleasure in assigning others to grovel and squirm in the presence of the $elect which accrues to the top. And the more one colludes with the $elect to be like them, the more $ociopathic one becomes and the more suitable for Democrat Leadership: methinks from the chanting at Pelosi, to the extent the Democrat pyramid still has a “base” it is close to rebellion.
HRC, for instance, shows up like the Queen and commiserates with the $elect about all the hardships inflicted on them by the little people after dozens of such have paved her path, and that of the $elect, with roses: it is only a diminishing minority of these who still have their $inuses blocked. Its a wedge, use it well.
I just enjoy the skunk-at-the-picnic appeal of it all happening at the start of the national convention’s unity lovefest.
Just now got an email from ActBlue, going on about how the Russians did this to support Trump. And could I send them $3?
No and No. I unsubscribed.
I think these people are alnmost completely un-self-aware. Going on about Russians influencing an election as if the Israelis, Saudis, and the entire Fortune 500 aren’t. Didn’t hear a peep about them. If only there was some ver forceful way to tell an entire organization to STFU.
Wow. They’ve really lost it. Who knew those vast right wing conspiracies crossed borders and could even include slavs?
And these are highly credentialed, really “smart” people, the best and the brightest.
And they’ve completely lost their minds.
Even Howie Klein…
I Just Got Back From Moscow… Where I Didn’t Get A Chance To Discuss Trump With Putin
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/07/i-just-got-back-from-moscow-where-i.html
Heh, they’ve triangulated themselves out of the rational sphere and are digging in their heels. Would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous.
that’s a constant danger in 11 dimensional chess.
Here’s what is really driving me crazy. Forgive me if another dedicated NC reader has flagged this. I haven’t seen it anywhere in the MSM.
Doesn’t this “Russia’s behind the DNC hack” thing make anybody wonder if Hillary’s e-mail server was compromised? Wouldn’t that be the real story — that her nonsecure e-mail system put vast quantities of classified information at risk? Why on earth would Russia help Trump? That has to be one of the most patently ridiculous things I’ve heard in a while. If the Russians supposedly have information about HRC campaign operations should we not be concerned that Secretary of State operations were similarly compromised? That’s the linkage that I think they risk creating by accusing the Russians but nobody in the MSM seems to be going there. Instead, we are supposed to believe that the Russians are in league with Trump.
Just when I think it can’t get any more ridiculous, then it does.
I hate to become yet another “checked out” American, but I think I am going to avoid anything having to do with the 2016 Presidential election for the next few months, and just read good books and seek the company of good friends, instead. In the words of the kids, “I can’t even.”
GroundZeroAndLovinIt
July 25, 2016 at 5:40 pm
I keep going on and on about the same thing – best as I can figure, I am the only person alive who hasn’t figured out the US secretary of state isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit.
The DNC is where the money is – and the Russians are all capitalists now…
Not being the tinfoil hat type, I would not speculate that HRC and DNC are playing up the Russian angle on the presumption that the latter already have the HRC private server emails and will at some point in the fall campaign release them, and so it tactically makes sense to introduce the theme of The Russians Want Trump To Win now.
As US Secretary of State, HRC approved the sale of reportedly 20% of the United States uranium resource to Rosatom via Uranium One (after contributions of $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 payment to Bill Clinton for a Moscow speech).
Somehow it doesn’t seem credible that Russia would be anti-Clinton.
They only asked me for a dollar.
I think y’all are missing the purpose of this focus on “Russian hackers.” It’s been clear to me for a fairly long time now that the Clinton Cult is developing a New Cold War narrative to justify the military buildup in eastern Europe and the “maneuvers” going on as we speak on Russian borders. The claim that Putin is “interferring in US elections” is so full of irony it ought to sink of its own weight. Considering the clear ineptitude of the Professional Class, no one needs to interfere for Trump to win. They’ll achieve it all on their boneheaded own.
Ah, the pseudo-profundity of false flag.
The damage of the leaks in their totality is that they reinforce (or, if you will confirm the biases) most Sanders supporters and delegates, who have thought the DNC had its thumb on the scales from the beginning.
Yup, nothing damaging, nothing at all. The leaks caused the biggest clusterfuck of a convention since Chicago and it’s all nothing at all.
Amazing that computer hackers are always, always, linked to Russia.
Making failure pay: Marissa Mayer could get $55-million severance for not turning Yahoo around
Leaving Roger Ailes’ $40 million and Jeff Smisek’s $37 million in the dust.
As good progressives, shouldn’t we be celebrating the glass ceiling shattering?
I wonder if her severance is contingent upon training her replacement from India?
So, absolutely no chance this will be taxed as “earned” income.
Wow, talk about failing upward. What should this be called ? Dis-Meritocracy ?
I’m sure this qualifies her for a cabinet level position in any presidential administration, perhaps as Secretary of the Department of Commerce. If Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner can do it, then Mayer can easily do it.
Where the “meritocracy” is concerned, there is no such thing as “failure.”
It’s a “learning” experience, with the “tuition” paid by someone else.
I can run a company into the ground for 1/2 the price of any of those mentioned. Hell, I’d do it for 1/4th.
If anyone is looking for a cheap alternative, I’m currently available.
Ah, there’s the problem – if you want to get hired to run companies into the ground, you gotta charge double, or nobody is gonna thing your good at it….
… and you need to demonstrate 3-5 years experience in a comparable position.
No on the job training.
greed, like charity, starts at home.
But I can do it quicker. Productivity!!
One percent + of the final sales price plus her $300 mil in salary and benefits to the Just Lean In to the trough and pig out woman.
Onward to private equity and some sort of “philanthropy” that NPR listeners will hear after the show as a “supported by”. Something about poor children and the internet and developing countries? The Melissa Mayer Foundation here we come. Taxes? Those are for other people!
That’s all Folks!
Re:
“So I don’t really think the fundraisers find sucking up to the 1% “dispiriting” at all. They enjoy it, and want to keep doing it.”
I wonder if this might be too simple an explanation. Raising campaign funding from the 99% would require campaigning on policy that would benefit the 99%, as Sanders did. And maybe the majority of people seeking election or re-election do not favor those kinds of policies — this seems plainly to be the case for the majority of Democratic office-holders and -seekers. The only way to raise money while campaigning for policies that harm the 99% is to “suck up to the 1%”. So that’s what they do. And they charge people like Sanders with “pandering” to the 99%.
First off, fundraisers make a lot of money. I’ve seen (first hand) numbers between 2% and 12% of funds raised (the percentages go up for smaller races/budgets). Sometimes it’s capped for fundraisers who work the really big donors, but those fundraisers get other opportunities, too (side gigs, investment tips). It’s stressful, but so is any commissioned sales work. People don’t come for the easy atmosphere, they come, and stay, for the money.
Secondly, and the important thing to understand, is that ultimately, the donors pick the candidates. If a candidate can’t attract donors, that is not particularly the fundraiser’s problem. Fundraisers may (usually do) advise the candidates on which issues are
saleableappealing to donors. Or sometimes fundraisers go looking for a candidate they canpeddlepromote. Mainly, the fundraiser organizes meetings between donors and candidates and handles paperwork, events, and sometimes liaison functions. The candidates need the fundraisers, but fundraisers need candidates that attract donations.Thirdly, Sanders proved that to fundraise outside of the donor class(es) you don’t need much in the way of fundraising staff if you have ActBlue, or roll your own donations platform. There may be a segment of the top 30% where there is a vacuum that could be filled by fundraisers talking to… crowds of people? Maybe a new breed or hybrid will emerge.
As for finding candidates, state legislatures, city councils, and other regional governments are the farms for federal-level candidates. There are Sanders-types to be found there (along with every other political flavor imaginable, and then some).
Good answer — thanks!
I was carelessly interacting with something that Lambert didn’t write this time, but has repeatedly done in the past, that candidates don’t have any excuse to sell themselves to wealthy donors, now that Sanders has demonstrated a viable alternative. And that thought may be valid, or maybe most candidates both enjoy selling themselves and really do prefer the policies that the big donors want to purchase.
Re working for big donors vs small ones, think of it as the diff betw having a secure job (or big customers) and being self-employed or a small retailer. Even if your steady job is hateful and will destroy the planet, you will have your paycheck every week.
Self-employed or small retail folks, we have to actually fill a real need, every single day.
Yep. And that paradigm exists across the range of commercial sectors. Communications and transportation technologies make it easier to displace economic value, concentrate it, and empower
ghostvampirezombiecorporate entities, proxying community responsibility straight into the void.Well, it’s valid… but it’s a major shift from the current pattern.
Along with money, high $$$ donors give the candidates a small group of people to meet with and listen to, so they can say (“honestly”) that they have meet and heard from their constituents on certain issues. The Sanders alternative would (or should) mean more town hall-type meetings, and other mechanisms for getting some kind of relevant input from somebody. But that’s a lot more work to gather and information to process.
It also means that a wider range of opinions and issues would emerge. So we get more issues competing for budget dollars, more hearings, and more versions of issues and solutions, which have to be merged. Basically it makes things more complicated. I think we will find that our democracy could use a few more layers, or that localized solutions will satisfy more people than one-size-fits-all-but-only-kinda-sorta-not-really federal/national ones, but who knows.
Also, candidates will have to appeal to more people, and more candidates get heard. This may sound good at first, but the downside is that easily half of them will be nut jobs, and at least as many liars as we have now. Of course our robust and trustworthy journalists will help us with their research and insight… oh wait. Like it or not, the donor class does streamline candidate vetting, even if it is not a particularly good selector. The MSM that was supposed to be a function of democracy turned into a marketing machine for the donors and political “professionals”, and then Google/Facebook/Twitter/etc gutted the newspaper advertising business structure …. yeah, we have a lot more problems than sh*tty candidates and stark class/ideological divisions.
I suppose it’s too much to expect the donor classes to get their heads out of their a**es and select candidates on issues other than their own. The would be the responsible and patriotic thing to do… Or they could just hike the wages already ($15 isn’t nearly enough, should be equity-based), and fix about 1/3 of the issues faster than government/legislation ever can.
dk
July 25, 2016 at 4:05 pm
Thanks for that – enlightening!
Raimondo on Hillary’s latest spy sleuth
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/07/24/hunt-red-trump-tober/
One quarrel with Comrade Haygood–it’s not the flake vs the crook so much as the flake vs the crook who is also a flake. But at least if the Dems insist on bringing back Bullwinkle’s Boris and Natasha Melania has the right accent.
Carolinian
July 25, 2016 at 2:21 pm
The Trump campaign is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the Trump campaign.
Kinda what Joseph McCarthy said….
=============================
I guess it can scarcely be called a parody when you only change two words….
And the whole Department of State is sure ironic….
When asked if he was Russian Guccifer said ” no I’m not Russian, I hate Russians”.
But if you “catapult the propaganda” (GWB’s phrase) then of course the content, and the truth, does not matter.
“Putin shot the plane down!” is of course received wisdom now. Pity we never got to hear the cockpit or control tower tapes or see what was in the black box.
82% of Crimeans voted to rejoin Russia, and not one shot was fired during the transition. You know there’s no actual “factuality” behind the Russia War campaign when “the invasion of Crimea” is the last straw Obama clings to when he continues to justify Russia sanctions.
This and this alone justifies my upcoming vote for Trump for me: one side insists on fabricating a terrifying new war, the other has simply stated he wants a dialogue. I couldn’t care less that he said Rosie O’Donnell was fat.
OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL
July 25, 2016 at 3:22 pm
Remember the Maine!
Or the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
Actually, too many to list.
I hate to admit it, but for most of my life I actually believed we were “a peace loving nation”
This talk of the Russians “influencing the US Presidential election” makes me laugh. As if Israel, Saudi Arabia, (insert long list of countries and multi national corporations here) aren’t.
Note that they aren’t saying any of this stuff is fake. All they can do is say “commies, commies, Trump is the Manchurian candidate” etc.
Maybe the Russians have looked at the situation, and have decided that everyone would be better off if the US wasn’t run like a Banana Republic.
All I can say is “keep it coming Vlad” (or whoever). See if your hackers can find the file with the text of the Goldman Sachs speeches. Some video would be even better. Every shindig like Hillary’s speech that I’ve ever attended has an “official” video stashed somewhere. Any Bernie bros at Goldman Sachs?
Yes if Putin really was behind it then what can you say other than: “nicely played!”
I hope he saved something for mid-October – the day of the last debate might be a good time to release it.
The election is over by mid October. No one cares about debates. This period is about identifying the unregistered and those with access problems which means volunteers. The election is being decided now, not by a speech but by the utter distaste for the modern Democratic Party.
I hated conventions when I was a Democrat because they took away from worthwhile endeavors.
Hillary will have enough resources to eke out a win because of the electoral college unless the Democratic Party is dead in the eyes of many voters which is a possibility, but they won’t retake the Senate and will possibly see major damage done down ticket in safe red and blue states.
Julian Assange has said there are more email revelations to come.
I almost wonder if this Russian connection is not a preemptive strike in anticipation of the revelation of outright saudi and israeli ownership of the clinton campaign.
Or maybe a case of “I’ll see your Mossack Fonseca disclosure damage and raise you a DNC…”
Thanks Clive, succinctly put. (Believe it or not, I have heard people call statements “too succinct”!)
Similar point made (at more length but on his regular stratospheric plane) here http://chinamatters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/trumputin-and-leaks.html by Peter Lee.
Then again, he may be saving the good stuff until after the election.
Is Russia trying to improve the integrity of US election processes somehow a bad thing? Don’t US observers get involved in election processes around the world to try to improve them?
Never mind that the Russian government is not so amateur at computer matters that they’d leave behind a giant metadata sign saying “Dmitri was here.”
This could turn out to be a lot of fun, if we don’t end up getting nuked for real. Hollywood put out a lot of campy movies and TV shows back in the era. Way better than we get now ever since the DOD figured out they can control Hollywood’s output better if they give free use of props and sets to the more supportive creative works.
A while back Chicago lost their Oreo cookie bakery to Mexico. There are probably some dots to create and connect showing a plausible connection to Putin. I haven’t worked it out yet. Actually coming up blank. But if the voila moment strikes – I’ll be sure to post it.
I just learned [this is true stuff] Trump started doing biz with Russians all the way back to around the time the Berlin Wall fell. Then in 1991 was the official fall of the Soviet Union. So Trump may have dealt with people who may of known Gorbechev and Yeltsin too! Probably Russian Oligarchs! People with lots of money! If that doesn’t sound sinister – then I don’t know what does.
We’ll surely have to keep an eye on Trump while he’s in the White House and his kids are running Trump Corporation. Transparency is so important. Otherwise we might miss some strange dealings going on, or even the USG doing favorable things for gambling casinos.
> This could turn out to be a lot of fun, if we don’t end up getting nuked for real.
Excellent summing up of 2016 so far. With more to come!
Then there was the time when Bill Clinton allegedly gave campaigning tips to Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin had hired American campaign consultants; one was a former partner of then-Clinton confidante Dick Morris.
What I find incredibly sad but unsurprising, is that dem tribalists from, the MSM to Social Media have picked up the vlad owns trump, the Russians hacked the dnc email, etc. (basically anything bad that happens to hillary and the dems is now caused by the all powerful and omniscient God some know as Vladimir putin) trope and now have adopted it into their tribal delusions, wholeheartedly and without analysis.
Hillary is a warmonger. Dem Tribalists – “She’s only trying to stop putin”
Hillary is corrupt. Tribalists – “trump is a puppet of putin”
Hillary is a psychopath. Tribalists – “well trump is owned by uber-super-hitstaliner putin”
The dnc rigged the primaries. Tribalist – “Those are fake, everyone knows Russia fabricated those to get trump elected” (this ones a real quote, I’m quite certain the others exist I just haven’t heard them yet.)
You are so naïve. You probably won’t even acknowledge what every Democrat already knows – Putin was responsible for the Congressional redistricting after the 2010 census – Putin, and Putin alone, is why the Dems lost the House in 2010.
edmondo
July 25, 2016 at 4:49 pm
***********************************************!!!
12 extra stars for best use of cynicism in a comment rejoinder regarding Trump and communism…
It’s ALWAYS bring out the Hitler card by default……..
…shameless punks!
polecat
July 25, 2016 at 4:59 pm
Well, the good thing is that I always look for the silver lining (no I don’t ever look for the silver lining) – anywho, this has at least cleared a few items up – we can now say, TRUMP is a:
1. Fascist
2. Communist
3. Desert topping
4. general adhesive
5. toilet bowl cleaner
I have been torn as to who to vote for, but with that kinda of range and vastness of aptitude, I’m thinking Trump is the one – how many times have you been home, and you have had a leaking radiator hose, a dirty, dirty toilet bowl, and needed a desert topping and found yourself without any of those things????
Then you got misogynist and tell the wife to do some shit around the house.
Uhhhh……hmmm……. 6.Tightbond??
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Wasn’t it Clinton who arranged for and allowed Putin controlled businesses to buy 20% of the US uranium supply. I wonder how many strategically important resources Trump has supplied to Putin recently to earn this alleged favor!? You would think that Russia would be trying to help Hillary out instead, so they can procure the other 80%.
Very Rovian; assault the enemy’s strength.
Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal NYT:
But, you know… Some consultant the DNC hired says Putin hacked the DNC’s email. ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!!
You know Trump has got to be foaming at the mouth to hang that one around Hillary’s neck. I’m starting to think Hillary must be brain dead even run for Prez.
I think she was recruited heavily and her ego played to by a party with no rising stars (apologies to the Nina Turners of the world, but they were too low profile then) or sense of direction. The Democrats are basically the part of Obama, a glorified corporate suit, looking to the glory of the only past they can remember, the Clintons.
Bill probably is worried about his own legacy.
What would he be doing with uranium with thousands of warheads stockpiled or ready to launch? Ditto U. S.
Nunn-Lugar was designed to gather loose fissile material which Bush-Cheney had to be strongly urged to follow (if memory serves).
If you want to worry about something see 2015 Federation of American Scientists review:
https://fas.org/pir-pubs/right-of-boom/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060921/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!
you flipped a relay in my brain, funny movie.. must pick up at library.. One of those great movies with Alan Arkin
Carl Reiner …
Walt Whittaker
Eva Marie Saint Eva Marie Saint …
Elspeth Whittaker
Alan Arkin Alan Arkin …
Lt. Rozanov
We gotta get organized!
Jonathan Winters.
Hillary does seem to have a self-destructive impulse. The tar that sticks to her is born of her own choices and it is repeated to the point where the question “Is she stupid or evil?” is perfectly reasonable given the evidence. And that Trump is self-destructive is axiomatic, both in business and politics. Here we have two politicians that walk the line between vindication and utter annihilation. Shouldn’t we be moving away from this rather than toward it?
In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Hunter Thompson postulated the same thing about Ted Kennedy, comparing him to the giant Jack Rabbits that populate the Wyoming plains, sitting next to the road only to jump out at the noise of passing car, bobbing and weaving and being splattered or surviving to jump again. One of the great passages in modern political writing.
Your perspicuous elucidation of Trump’s self destructive streak is masterfully insightful. So insightful in fact that I doubt others understand how you came upon this knowledge.
What clued you in anyway? Was it the fact that Trump has been living on the financial edge all his live, never more than a paycheck away from homelessness and vagrancy? Or maybe it was the horrific implosion of his laughably ridiculous and ineffective primary campaign? You have surely let everyone know just how smart and informed you are by pointing Trump’s hitherto unseen penchant for self destruction. Bravo!
His only selfdestructive streak i am (maybe?) aware of is a penchant for fast food. I say maybe because i read rhat , not sure if it’s even true.
Otherwise, ftom what I do know about him is that Trump does everything he can to offload professional risk!
> ftom what I do know about him is that Trump does everything he can to offload professional risk!
… onto other people.
Typical wealthy blowhard who risks other people’s money. No “skin in the game”.
Typical wealthy blowhard who risks other people’s money
has he ever forced anyone to do business with him? Link pls
Well, there’s that documentary about his trying to force some Scottish farmers to sell their land to him to add to a golf course project.
hillary clinton is a professional politician. Trump is a New York real estate developer, a private citizen, who has decided to run for office. Something that, by the way, has been repeatedly cited as the essence of vibrant “democracy.”
As far as that “axiomatic” self-destructiveness, we should all be so lucky.
“Is she stupid or evil?”
Why is that an either/or question? I think she’s demonstrated herself to be both.
This just in:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/25/barack-obama-half-brother-malik-obama-trump
Hillary is becoming the Joe McCarthy of the 2010s. We are seeing the first big wave of commie bashing in sixty years.
On Monday leading up to the convention, the Democratic Party’s cable channel MSNBC was full of reports linking her opponent, Donald Trump, to Vladimir Putin. The pictures of the two were repeatedly shown together. A vote against Hillary – whether for Trump or for Bernie – is a vote for Putin, an act of treason. Criticizing her pro-NATO, pro-neocon stance supporting Ukraine’s military coup is a support of Putin.
But, how does Hillary’s anti-Commie hysteria work when US manufacturing is mostly done in commie China?
How do big corporations push the TPP with fear-mongering about Commie China, when they’re the ones who sent all the jobs there?
The truth doesn’t matter, when you’ve got all the money and media megaphones.
~
And they allow very important technology (military) to be manufactured in China. Putin bashing. First sign she is prepping for WW3.
Everyday getting emails from this dccc begging for at least a dollar. Everyday I mark as spam. Then there they are again.
Mainland China isn’t communist anymore. The communists live on some manmade islands in the South China Sea. They built a knockoff McDs and a knockoff Taco Bell on these islands. These are believed to be camouflaged bases for Russian nuclear subs to stop and restock food and Russian cola supplies. It is clearly copyright infringement.
We clearly have the intellectual property rights on sand islands, look at Treasure Island in SF bay. We should be taking the ChiComs to the cleaners at the Hague with our best buddies like the Phillippines and Vietnam (hello, they like us?) Freeze all the investments! Oh, wait, you mean US corporations made all the investments?
Do as the hegemon says not as it does
Michael Hudson
July 25, 2016 at 2:34 pm
The Trump campaign is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the Trump campaign.
Kinda what Joseph McCarthy said….
=============================
i sent this to Carolinian before I saw your comment, so its a rerun but it works better with your comment..
And the whole Department of State thing is sure ironic….
“At long last, madam, have you no sense of decency?”
Obviously not.
The speed and intensity with which msnbs is stoking this completely manufactured anti-Russian hysteria is truly astonishing.
But utterly predictable. Identifying the source of the hack, whether Russians, or little green people from Mars, doesn’t change who it was who wrote and responded to the emails. And whatever motive might be assigned or attributed to the hack, again, it doesn’t change the fact that these people wrote the emails.
Although I am waiting for “how do we know the hackers didn’t plant these emails to make DWS and HRC look bad?” If MSNBC hasn’t gotten there yet, you can be sure the eyes-wide-shut Clinton supporters have.
I don’t think the source of the hack has been identified – the company the DNC hired to investigate claimed it was the Russians. Independent investigators doubt they could have made a determination so quickly – see Time Magazinel.
If you consider that most of the institutions have been by the few it really is not.
Poke’-Russian Go…….
Stop! Putin hasn’t been a commie since 1991!
Prediction – Accussing Putin of hacking DNC emails might turn into Clinton’s updated WMD in Iraq moment aimed at Russia. We know it’s not true as we did WMD in Iraq. Military contractors donated more to Hillary than anyone else (I believe), war is good for their profits, the “experts” say nuclear war is winnable dispite hundreds of millions/billions of causualties (remember only profits of you donors matter). It would be pitch perfect follow through honoring her donors & matching her extensive career. Could be wrong. Hope so.
timbers
July 25, 2016 at 3:21 pm
Very good point timbers…but, the truly depressing thing is, probably just like Bush, all it does is reassure her re-election. Actually, I don’t know if you were implying that this was a bad moment for Hillary or not. Voting for Iraq doesn’t seem to have hurt anyone
Just meant Clinton is looking for a pretext to start a conflict with Russia (aka GWB’s WMD in Iraq). But thinking abt it more this may not be the right time as she’ll need be actually in the WH, and also get past convention & election distractions.
Is it overly pedantic of me to point out that Russophobia a this point has not a bloody thing to do with communism?
Pedantic, yes, but not overly so.
Awwww c’mon the duopoly motto is never let reality get in the way of a good talking point.
Exceptionally American is code for exceptionally gullible and easy to manipulate.
Darthbobber
July 25, 2016 at 4:44 pm
and the next thing you’ll tell us is that there is not one documented document of a Russian bear being a card carrying member of the communist party. But everyone knows that these bears, many of whom were gay godless atheist bears, hid their membership so that they could infiltrate our American circuses and zoos. The perfidy of the evil empire knows no bounds….
Besides that, its hard to make commercials against Russians if their animal symbols, instead of bears lumbering menacingly in the dark trees, are squirrels flitting from branch to branch and chasing their own tails….
So reality, and political commercials, never coincide
perfidy
if only it overrode the perfidy of DWS
and the sourcing of the perfidy is premature, unsubstantiated and propagandistic
Quite, though nor did the Cold War, unless you count superstitious Politburo fear of actual commies (coincidentally deceased).
What makes it even more Hillaryious Fractured Fairy Tail logic is that Putin / Russian are not even Commies!.. that ship sailed off the dock and sunk.
So now it’s a more base form of hatred than mere polarized economic-ideological philosophy.
Its all about her personal notion of provincial Statism… My vision of Statism is better that your vision of Statism
HRC and her flunkies are a diplomatic train-wreck
But they’ll always be commies to us.
yeaah sigh . Just another country full of people that for the most part just want to get along
Putin is the lesser of three evils?
Fab, would’ve spat coffee if was drinking… Made me go get some wine.
John k
July 25, 2016 at 6:28 pm
same here! and made me go get some wine too…alright, alright…some More wine
Yes this seems to be the latest media spin attack.
Unfortunately it’s not going to work. The ‘HRC – Media Industrial Complex’ has again misjudged the maturity of the American voter.
It’s common knowledge that Russia is no longer communist, and Putin is a nationalist – not globalist. Many Americans (and others) now respect Russia’s views as promoted via their news empire – Russia Today (second only to the BBC worldwide).
The DNC are woefully out of touch with the people – this will backfire badly.
Seen at my local shopping center this afternoon: a bumper sticker that said “Together we can stop NewVistas“. I had posted a couple of articles about it, and Yves did as well.
Terrible to say, but I find myself enjoying the Dem implosion. Keep it coming. Those in power really made a giant mess of things and it’s all collapsing. They are embarrassing themselves in every way possible and are making themselves look more incompetent and ridiculous than the GOP(which is impressive). Here in NH I have seen a couple of new HC stickers on cars and the Bernie magnets are pretty much disappeared, but all of the bumper stickers remain. However, the number of missing Bernie magnets have not been replaced by HC stickers/gear/stuff. Nor have I seen any yard signs for HC. There is zero enthusiasm for her. Cheers!
Up until a few weeks ago, central Tucson seemed like a sea of Bernie yard signs.
They started disappearing after the (rigged) CA primary. More of them vanished a couple of weeks ago. Something to do with an endorsement in Portsmouth, NH.
Are those missing signs being replaced by HC signs? A few of them are. But most of those formerly sign-ed places are now vacant.
Confirming that 2 Bernie car magnets disappeared in Maine after his endorsement and were not replaced.
I also have the displeasure of traveling domestically all over the country to major cities for my corp soul sucking job. I noticed more bumper stickers/signs for Bernie by far, followed by a significantly lesser extent for Trump. I didn’t see a single Clinton sign, must be her silent majority.
Many have soul eating jobs.
Question: What is the happily (or fulfillingly) employed employment index (HEEI)*?
The national HEEI could be something like 3% or less.
*Perhaps calculated by taking the number of happily employed over the total labor force.
I like your index idea. 3% is probably fairly accurate and you may find a correlation to income inequality. Anyway my HEEI is low or as my company likes to say disengaged and not accretive to shareholders.
TPP/TTIP/TISA
Kaine on TPP (1): “A Clinton aide confirmed to CBS News that Kaine had made a private commitment to Clinton that he would now oppose TPP, falling in line with the former secretary of state’s declared view on the trade deal” [CBS] A “private commitment. ” Hope Tim Kaine sends his private commitment by email to Clinton’s private email so it’s all legit and all.
And what with the Russian hacking, we will actually be able to see it!
Yippee!!! Is this a great country or what?
Fd you sir, (or madam for inclusiveness) are very funny! Jolly japes , wot?
Anyway, ya it still is a great country. Despite the rot at the top.
Nancy Pelosi says the docs need a bit of spit polishing, and a buff or two. Then the docs will be ready for hacking.
Oh, no. Haven’t you heard? According to Donna Brazile, he should do such a thing by phone–so there’s no record to use later to hold his feet to the fire.
IMHO, I see the story of Kaine’s ‘flip’ as nothing more than propaganda from the DNC and Clinton in an attempt to walk back the negative reaction his nomination received from those against the TPP, and to further instill in us the belief that Clinton is actually against it.
I’m not buyin’ what they’re sellin’.
On the phone thing, I’m not so sure there is no record. Maybe no record that can be easily leaked, but I’ve heard of a massive data center or two, and that voice recognition software keeps getting better and better. So, Donna and friends maybe safe for now…..
NSA and CIA Hacked Enrique Peña Nieto before the 2012 Election [Emptywheel]
My congressman, Don Beyer representing a Northern Virginia district, claimed that he had studied the TPP carefully and was not troubled by “investor-state mediation,” his term for the binding arbitration in ISDS. Now I learn that my Senator Tim Kaine voted for Fast Track before learning what was in it. (The “learning curve” shouldn’t be that steep for a Harvard lawyer, former mayor and governor, and U.S. Senator, but regardless, reading and understanding legislation before you essentially pass it should be a given. Are these people truly this incompetent or just liars? We deserve better representation.
No time, busy raising bucks from masters. Plenty of aides to read stuff, but not needed, masters let you know how to vote. Actually, masters wrote the stuff, too, so you don’t really need aides to proof read.
Really not rocket science.
Just liars
It’s Marcia Fudge.
and it’s delicious!
that’s not Fudge you’re eating……..
FYI;
IOZ was a popular commentor on the Slate Magazine blogs back in the day, previous to Slate’s make-over, which I have long suspected was a way of disrupting the free flow of opinion which in the days leading up to the great recession, had come to the point where Slate’s propagandists were being laughed at and shouted down by an ever-growing cadre of the politically and economically savvy.
IOZ was known for his quick wit, insightful analysis and a near absolute refusal to engage with fools.
His writings were some of the first where I encountered the ‘Liberal‘ as hack careerist meme, and caused me to consider the meager contributions made to our nations well-being by what we’ve started calling the ‘mis-leadership class.
I’m glad to discover he is still commenting.
You forgot the air quotes around “liberals” when referring to Marshall & Krugman.
But Krug wrote a book: “Conscience of a Liberal”, so it must be true!
Here is what I want to know — if a person donated hard-earned money to Bernie Sanders campaign, and it turns out that the DNC was undermining his bid, is there some way those donors can pull together a class-action lawsuit and try to get their money back from the DNC? :)
Yep, I sure could use the money now (jobless and broke)
Typical Sanders’ supporter.
I didn’t hear any Brospeakisms or see flying chairs.
I got called “BROSEPHUS” the other day by a blogger at Balloon Juice (Betty Cracker) shortly before being called a LYIN PUNK!
Fuckin kids, KID OFF MY LAWN!
You too? I guarantee you that I’ve already chunked more into the US economy than most of those doing the accusing. Its class warfare alright.
My stock response now that I’m out of the market is that I don’t owe anyone a split second of my time talents or education. Certainly they never paid for any of that, let alone living expenses in a first-world country.
Thirty years later this is *why* I support a progressive platform like Sanders. And organized labor (rust belt vetran here) And these punks try to act like I’m some millenial LOL I could be their father FFS!
Had work when I donated. Not that its your place to judge.
Start a crop of moringa trees; they grow like weeds. I began surviving on their leaves to save money, but after a while I really got to liking them.
so this is the true green party here
Not when Sanders has endorsed.
I think it’s hard to get your money back with that.
http://jampac.us/2016/06/21/dnc-fraud-class-action-lawsuit
Yep there’s a class-action happening it seems.
That sounds great! OMG consequences!
inode_buddha :
Your snark detector needs new batteries.
Thank you for the heads-up, and sorry bout that. I was feeling a bit Berned-out…
what if you donated money that wasn’t really earned very hard?
I donated $200 but I think it came from price appreciation in precious metals investments.
I didn’t do anything at all to earn it. At any rate, that’s something they should all understand at the DNC, so maybe it would make for even better odds of success.
I’d be happy If I can get $150 back, then I’ll go buy another Dunhill shirt and help the economy. They’re on sale. Both of them!
Personally, I’ve been convinced we are living in some sort of system where elections are rigged, for the most part, or, at least when the chips are down (maybe not every race, too obvious, but). Check out blackboxvoting
My donations to Sanders were put forth in hopes his ads and campaign could affect the narritive. So, I’m not disappointed in my investment.
anyone have an article that catalogs the HClinton 2016 D Primary election rigging/fraud? It is hard to keep up with all the myriad facets of this crime.
I just tried to post a comment with a few links but it hasn’t appeared. I’ll break it down into short posts and see if that works.
Richard Hayes Phillips on http://www.blackboxvoting.org has a recent lengthy report. It contains eye-opening details about unusual patterns in many Democratic primaries (e.g., more votes than registered voters, in some precincts). He used the black population and voting breakdown and comparisons to 2008.
A number of states & precincts have problems. Some can be audited, many cannot. He is focusing on specific issues (not all the election issues), for the purpose of identifying what places should be targeted for audits. I’m considering doing bite-size summaries of some of the things that seem especially interesting.
Sanders speech to delegates, a couple of hours ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDalFGDdccI
Thanks for this. He ain’t going out with a whimper no matter what anyone says.
In other news, the peer pressure has begun. Two arguments today initiated by fellow Bernie supporters to whom I have said I won’t vote for Hillary that escalated into extreme frustration with me, because Trump, for not backing down. Both women over 60 whom I have known for many years.
Aiee this ain’t gonna be pretty!
I’ve decided to give my friends and loved ones a pass until after the election. It’s hard to argue with someone’s feelings, especially when there’s a whole lot you have to simply overlook with Trump in order just to be taken seriously about your convictions to vote third party or leave the top of the ballot blank or whatever.
For my part, my peeps know I’m a curmudgeon, so they know there’s no convincing me.
All those I speak to are very irritable. Seems there’s nothing acceptable so people plant their flag somewhere, for whatever thin reason, and become more than normally adamant about it.
We need to feel a modicum of management or at least that there’s a way through. Not much of that right now.
I’m guessing, when we look back in a couple of years, that those who turn out to be least wrong will not be able to own their reasons. There’s too much fragility in too many directions, and things are happening fast.
Crapshoot, emphasis on crap.
SNAKE’s EYES
Did Jane Sanders really say what the comments claim she did? Certainly seems that way; I listened to it a few times. What does “your name is in for the nomination” mean in this context?
Maybe this? http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-speech-hot-mic-nomination/
At about 17 min, huge noise against voting Clinton.
Bernie was, in fact, BOOED when he said that the clinton / kaine ticket must be supported.
Has he created a monster that he can no longer control?
Hope so.
Hope so too, with all my heart. Made me smile.
Katniss, after the booing and noise, he said this:
“…And what I want to say, I want everybody to…appreciate this—there are extraordinarily wonderful and beautiful people all over this country. I have met people in every state….who have hope in their eyes and are prepared to come together to transform our country. This campaign has been a fantastic beginning….”
He is fine with the booing and what it means.
Per Chuck Todd:
“It looks like Sanders doesn’t have the influence with his supporters that the clinton campaign wishes he did.”
Amen.
Here is one of our delegates. You’ll like her, Katniss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MOiwvHkYjY
My SISTER by another mother.
She’s spectacular. Thank you for sharing.
Ditto…God it is sickening to hear Rachel Maddow say, What more do they want? They got DWS’s head on a platter.
As if that makes up for stealing the election.
wow!
Patricia: From your state? Her accent seems midwestern. She doesn’t deviate for a second from her message–which is that democracy matters. How uncool can you get: She thinks that political choices matter. A wonderful person.
Don’t know from what state she is. I meant ‘our’ as in a Bernie delegate. I supported a MI bernie delegate, so feeling rather owner-ish, apparently, heh.
Persoanly I think Sanders is just playing the cool customer whilst holding the high ground… this way people can watch both Trump and Hillary roll around in the mud.
The exact moment he lost the crowd.
On gene-editing, I was all against this, but now that they’ve perfected changing the colors of mouse fur, I’m all for it.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep07621
Replacing people’s DNA! How can this possibly go wrong?
Can they make everyone a genius?
Edit those genes.
“Dear goddess, for my birthday, please edit my grammar genes, so I will never make another mistake.”
So who gets to decide whether we all turn out looking like Paul Newman and the early Raquel Welch, or more like Woody Allen or Debbie Wasserman-Schultz? And whether we will be “liberal,” or “conservative?” But gee, the guy who spent years of pain and surgery to turn himself into a simulacrum of Darth Maul, think what the rest of us could do with a little CRISPR tune-up?
Inequality in many forms.
“Why can’t I dunk a basketball, and make, if not hundreds of millions, just a few million dollars?”
CRISPER CRITTERS ………
…soon to be us….??
Crunchier than soylent green. Isn’t crunchier good?
Crunch is good.
Unconsciously, crunchy food makes the chewer feel as if he/she is crushing through the animal bone to get to the marrow part.
fuk we’re all gonna be slanty eyed in the future. hahahahahhhh
sorry.
when I was a kid I read Yellow River by I.P. Freely and Spots on the Wall by Hu Flung Doo.
I was always a China-phile.
Then I discovered Li Po, but Beef told me he was Persian! A little gene editing can fix that right up. He actually looks like it in the pictures on the internet. Jesus, you think maybe he’d be mullah or something if he was alive now. That’s weird.
“The Tamir Rice Story: How to Make a Police Shooting Disappear” [GQ].
Rerun posting. Just because I feel so strongly about exposing our legal system’s elaborate verbosity and simulacrum of justice, but when examined closely and carefully, is a festering pile of bullsh*t,
fresno dan
July 23, 2016 at 11:53 am
http://www.gq.com/story/tamir-rice-story
The witness, a retired cop named Roger Clark, thought the gun was a curious prop for a grand jury. The boy was dead, and had been for more than a year. He’d been accused of no crime, ever. Why the toy? …. There is no need for theatrics in grand-jury proceedings. They are entirely one-sided forums. Prosecutors decide what witnesses to call and what evidence to present. T It also is done entirely in secret. Who was a prop supposed to impress?
…
Clark wasn’t even there to testify about the boy. The grand jury was investigating two Cleveland police officers—the rookie who fired and his veteran partner—to determine if there was probable cause to believe that they’d acted unreasonably and unlawfully when they drove to within ten feet of the boy and, even before stopping, shot him. Clark is an expert in that general area, police shootings.
…
Clark had studied all of the available evidence in this case—video, witness statements, forensic reconstructions—and he had prepared a report detailing his findings. He did not believe the officers acted reasonably, and he did not believe the shooting was justified. When he was called to testify, on December 7, he expected he would summarize those opinions, answer a few clarifying questions, then be dismissed with a polite thank-you for his time and effort.
“Instead,” he told me, “it was immediately very hostile.”
…
The prosecutors reminded Clark, and the grand jurors, that the officers had responded to a 911 call about a black male with a gun in a park—an “active shooter,” they said, though no shots had been fired, there was no one nearby to be shot when police arrived, and the black male turned out to be a 12-year-old boy alone in a gazebo. Active shooter. The phrase was used repeatedly, Clark told me. “They had to be brave,” the pacing prosecutor, Matthew Meyer, said. “They were brave that day.”
…
Meyer stopped, pivoted, swung his arm up, aimed his fake gun at Clark’s face. “Does he have to point it at you like this before you shoot?” Clark remembered Meyer asking. “That would scare you, right?” Clark looked at him for a moment. “No,” he said. He’d had guns pointed at him before. But it would scare most people. Probably scare the good citizens sitting on a grand jury in a city with a miserably high crime rate.
The prop was for them. But it was only theater. Because the boy never pointed a gun at a cop. He wasn’t given the chance to even put his hands up.
….
“If you don’t trust the grand jury,” McGinty said, quoting a local judge, “you don’t trust your neighbors.”
That is disingenuous. Grand jurors, almost without exception, follow where prosecutors lead them. And when they don’t return indictments in high-profile cases, it’s almost always because the prosecutor does not want them to.
=======================================
I commented about the black woman thrown to the ground recently in ?Austin? TX. I expressed doubt that the grand jury looking into the matter would do anything, given the carte blanche given the police by our fellow citizens, typically steered that way by the prosecutors (aka police defense attorneys)
Read the above article to understand my cynicism regarding grand juries – a ploy that allows prosecutors to deflect responsibility and accountability for not prosecuting police accused of wrong doing…Superficially it sure looks like a fair system.
And a super example of the simulacrum of justice. This elaborate process that appears to be completely objective and dispassionate. No bias there….no manipulation at all…just blind justice.
And if you ponder it long enough, maybe you can see analogies with our political process as well…
The local media in KC are all doing Tim Kaine stories, following the “look, one of us made good!” theme.
Uhhhh, no, he isn’t “one of us”.
All you need to know is that he’s a Rockhurst High School grad.
(Rockhurst High = The Catholic/Jesuit, all male, $13,000/year private high school that all of the 1%ers in the KC area send their kids to………because the Blue Valley, Olathe, and Shawnee Mission school districts aren’t exclusive enough)
I only want to point out that daycare costs that much these days.
Hey I went to one of those….
JESUIT NOLA was on the cheaper end of private Catholic high schools in New Orleans when I attended in the early aughts, ~5K a year.
We already “know” that the DNC wikileaks e-mails came from “Romanian hacker” Guccifer 2, so why the Russian hysteria? Surely the Russian SSSR (their equivalent of the NSA or GCHQ) just vacuums up everything the same as their Western counterparts?
The DNC hack is small potatoes, in terms of both its revealed message (the DNC was in the tank for Ms. Clinton from the outset– duh!) and its size and significance (fairly sure real hackers would generally prefer to spend their time stealing money). This strikes me as classic misdirection. Surely the Russian security services have had the entire contents of Clinton’s private e-mail server(s) since well before Mr. Pagliano attempted to wipe them. And nobody’s talkng about that.
If these people can’t protect their systems, how are they sophisticated enough to figure out who hacked them. Could be some kid somewhere.
Guccifer 1 is Romanian and had been hacking GW Bush and the Romanian Defense Minister and Colin Powell and then Clintons emails to Blumenthal and he had posted heaps of his tricks on the open and dark web. Every state security agency in the USA and presumably the Russian Federation and plenty of others would have been trying to track him as he was of the highest security interest to all.
Guccifer 2 is someone else entirely and the so called Russian insignias in the leaked DNC emails are of serious dubious validity.
The fact that Hillary Clinton ran a ramshackle security on her server indicates that she is most likely been hacked by other state security systems. It also indicates a reasonable probability that the Clinton Foundation servers have been hacked. The same tech people set both up. The same world of hackers has no doubt been avidly in search of cracking it.
Hillary Clinton as POTUS is most likely totally compromised, totally susceptible to blackmail, by some other world power whenever they choose to apply the pressure. She is useless as POTUS as has been Obama.
Remember the Russian donation of $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation for one of Bill’s speeches when Hillary was Sec State approving Russian ownership of US uranium mines. THAT is a high order vulnerability. A blackmailers dream come true.
Re: the North Korean “propaganda” art exhibit and, ‘Most of the history of Western art was propaganda for the church,’
One thing artists do is fit on. It may not seem that way, especially if you believe the stereotypes, but it is that way. If you happened to be born in the Italian Renaissance, and were a man, you might have received a lot of support for your work, but even then, it had to please the patrons and the Church, or you were out of luck. In our own enlightened era, you’ve got to please the critics and buyers who may not know anything at all.
I like to look at the human figures, especially the small, less conspicuous ones, and the faces, in paintings, because if you really look, you can see the artists in every era sending you secret little messages about what the people were really like, and what was really going on in their time. It’s one of the most fun things about art, and it’s totally subversive, and it’s even in propaganda art.
What about folk art?
From Animal House, from their way to pick up some sorority girls.
“Mention modern art, civil rights or folk music, and you’re in like Flynn.”
Couldn’t they be serious about civil rights at least?
Charlie munger…kreed of the mamonites…should be reworked for the click thru crowd.
“how to step over homeless people and other people you helped destroy, and feel good about it”
Verizon buys Yahoo: And Valley self-entitled Wonder Grifter Melissa Mayer – already paid ca. $162mil in her 4-yr. stint as Yahoo CEO – could get another $57mil fuck-you money when deal closes (according to WaPo story), but tells employees that “I’m not going anywhere, I’m sticking around.” Oh, jolly good, Melissa, nice of you to have our backs…oh, wait. This woman could even have had a worse stretch as a company CEO than Carly Fiorina or Meg Whitman, but never mind, compensation boards OK the salary+bennies, everybody happy…only in the meritocratic, “libertarian” Valley does one “fail upwards”.
And, what’s Verizon even going to do with both AOL and Yahoo? Create a museum of Internet 1.0 companies? More to the point, a mausoleum. Must be some huuuuuuuge tax advantages to this acquisition – $9bil net for those two turkeys?
The WaPo article on Melissa Mayer’s net compensation from Yahoo:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/07/25/marissa-mayers-total-pay-as-yahoo-ceo-could-end-up-reaching-almost-219-million/
Here’s a livestream to the convention, Cspan w youtube chat. The berners are making a big stink lol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4B2CGpB86E&feature=youtu.be
CNN correspondent
https://twitter.com/jeffzeleny/status/757679223536545792
NPR reporter
https://twitter.com/samsanders/status/757678948033695744
So, insulting your opponent’s supporters (who make up 45% of your party) nonstop and labeling them with an infantile pejorative like `BernieBros’ has consequences? Who knew?
“‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed / When not to be, brings reproach of being.”
Hillary: “Where is that noise cancellation app? Have to get one for my coronation.”
Hahaha, maybe She can fly in the noise canceling machine used to block reporters from hearing her speech!
I’d linked to a youtube via the right wing (because that’s what I often do, just to see). But this pbs link is clearer/cleaner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7-GbkAZclc
It’s worth checking in. Berners are berning.
The youTube chat peanut gallery is hilarious:
“Clinton Lives Matter”, Liar Liar Pantsuit on Fire, Hillary for Prison 2016, Hillary Likes Your Money…
when the NY delegates walk onstage: “Circus Music”…
Without that, the mendacity oozing from every speaker would be hard to take
A couple of aspects of the DNC email flap that intrigue me:
OK, so D W-S is fired (or pushed out) – why does Hillary turn around and hire her right back to work for her campaign? Is she really that tone-deaf? Or does she just want to keep her close at hand?
And – What else is there? Because you know this isn’t it.
Now DWS can work openly for Clinton; Clinton, as it were, made an honest woman of her.
Someone said what I think is the key: Hillary is showing that when you do her dirty work, she’ll protect you and enrich you. She could have promised DWS something quiet at the Foundation, if the goal was just to buy her silence. But this is a public signal, not just a huge fuck you to Bernie, but to tell the vast sprawling network of cronies and courtiers that if you do as you’re bid, you’ll get your reward. This will help incentivize them for the ugly months ahead.
Is the email hairball moot now?
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/serious-questions-raised-after-state-dept-reveals-the-3-clinton-aides-who-exchanged-top-secret-info/
If Hillary wins, is there any doubt that she will enact the Clinton playbook against Bernie’s movement and crush it forever?
Case in point: the “Task Force” to review the superdelegate system? Apparently she thinks I just fell off the turnip truck.
Correct, and it’s already started. See a former Clinton Administration official threaten a journalist and threaten to “gleefully and comprehensively trash” people, presumably economists and journalists who supported Bernie, after the election:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/clinton-loyalist-autclinton-loyalist-authoritarianism-brad-delong-threatens.html
As you can probably tell, I’m considering swallowing hard and voting for Trump. He’s against TPP, the single most significant issue at stake in this election, IMHO. If he’s posing on TPP, nothing is lost over Hillary. The Dems can block the rest of his agenda. The carnage in the DNC if Trump wins IS REQUIRED to pave the way in 2020 for Bernie and/or Elizabeth, and, more importantly, for Bernie’s movement. WHICH. MUST. HAPPEN.
Is Trump winning the ONLY WAY IT WILL?
Please, tell me if and why I am wrong!
You could be right.
Trump win = Sanderite win.
If Trump were to flip on TPP, Team D would have an excuse not to support it. Because Trump.
Just as it took a Bill Clinton to get Team D to follow along on NAFTA, Glass Steagal and welfare “reform”.
Let me put it this way: If Trump wins, who (and what ideas) gets swept out of the party forever? And who is left standing? And how much juice do those left standing now have?
If Trumps wins, I think Sanders and Sanderites win as well.
Or mathematically.
Trump win = Sanderite win.
They get to remake the D party.
That’s my thinking, but, damn, its a tough swallow, and it just seems too simple. I’m hoping someone can intelligently challenge this idea. Cause I might puke all over the place if I do pull that lever for Trump. But I just don’t see any other way. And I cannot see Trump winning a second term against a D party that gets real and gets united on the true path.
It’s not going to be that simple.
I also think that you aren’t going to have a united party because more and more people are splintering away from the political parties as it is.
By all means do what you think you need to do but don’t fool yourself into thinking that the entrenched interests at the DNC are going to give up after one election cycle or that you are going to have it any easier than those of us choosing to leave the party and stake out alternatives to that party.
Your right, it will never be simple. But damn, if it is EVER going to happen (and don’t get me wrong, a part of me doubts that it ever will) the best chance is if the Republican wing of the Democratic party gets their a$$ handed to them by Trump, and Bernie and/or Elizabeth LEVERAGES that result (another question mark).
And as I write these words, CNN reports that basically Bernie and Hillary have conspired to rid the arena of those holding anti-TPP signs. And that Bernie texted his supporters to do him a personal favor…
Maybe Bernie will be THE scapegoat if Trump wins…
When she loses, there is a vacuum in what is left of the D party (many have left, are leaving, but can always come back anytime).
TPP loses with her. She won’t lose in this election because of LGTB, min. wage, free college tuition, etc.
The D party that emerges can’t look to win with TPP in the future.
So, yes, Bernie and Hillary can go on ridding those holding anti-TPP signs
I plan to pull for Jill Stein, then sit back and watch Trump win anyhow.
That is if the meme that the unicorn and tin foil hat wearing Sanders voters who didn’t grow up, get real and get ‘with Her’ cost the Democrats the election and see how bad it is doesn’t work a second time. And that is no matter what the polls say, the facts on the ground or all the information out there about how badly Clinton and her team misread the public (as they are and they will continue to do).
I wish I thought that Clinton losing was going to be the nail in the coffin for the Democratic National Party as it is now made up, but I think it will still be an uphill battle.
OTOH, if she doesn’t loses it is lost for probably another decade until it implodes under its own weight. It will just lumber along losing state house after state house and being unable to win a House or meaningful Senate majority, but maybe managing to elect a President.
If they lose because of you own it proudly.
Yes, I tanked your weak and corrupt candidate and if you hand me another weak and corrupt candidate next cycle I’ll tank that one too.
DNC you don’t own my vote. You earn it with good policy and candidates that I believe will deliver. If you fail to deliver those things then be prepared to lose over and over.
Preach!
Or, vote for the DNC candidate this cycle because the next POTUS will be nominating at least 1 and probably multiple Supreme Court candidates.. and if the DNC doesn’t get it, you will achieve zero progressive agenda items for at least the next 30 years.
Agree. If Trump wins, both the establishment GOP AND the DNC will be very damaged. But if Hillery wins the DNC/neoliberalism is even more entrenched and the GOP establishment is also vindicated for opposing Trump. Net result of a Clinton win – no change anywhere.
If Hillary wins, everyone else loses.
Yves, I mentioned in a different thread that Peter Daou pretty bluntly threatened Van Jones Monday, for a mild statement on Twitter. The policing is getting more obvious.
Why is the DNC hack of FBI interest. They are not a government agency. Can anyone explain this?
It is true that the Democrat Party is a private entity (which is why it gets to retain its crazy pants voting rules, since it’s like a private club). On the other hand, fascism is the merger of the corporations and the state, so looked at in that light, the hack is an assault on the state. And looking at how the political class operates — the WikiLeaks email lift the lid off that hot mess — it’s hard to say that’s wrong.
Thanks. I doubt the FBI would be too worried if the CPUSA’s server was hacked.
Hacking a “protected” computer is a federal crime:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
Or the lay version:
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/how-computer-hacking-laws-make-you-criminal-f1B8022563
Yes, and sometimes when it comes to “serious” matters, such as the american pastime baseball, they do prosecute and punish, like what recently happened to the Cardinals’ employee who received 4 years for hacking into the Astros’ H.S. scouting reports.
Fbi wants to retain their monopoly on hacking… Guccifer is on their turf.
For some reason I have a morbid fascination at what goes on at those bottom-feeder sites like TPM…they’re seriously talking about Trump as some sort of Russian agent. That was after Josh Marshall waived away the very real ties of the Clintons with a “Nothing to see here” post. And I thought that the Sanders supporters were the conspiracy nuts, for claiming that the system was rigged.
His love of Slavic women?
Maybe his wife’s parents speak Russian?
“Just use your wild, wild imagination.”
The Acela riders have lost their minds. I don’t see anybody can talk them back from the ledge at this point, because they’ve committed to so much foolishness. Their only option will be to double down.
Note that post-election, assuming Clinton to be elected, this “Red Scare” is a two-fer, since it allows them to consider the Trump and the left as a single enemy. I don’t know if the liberal hive mind is even conscious of that possibility now, because they’ve gone so crazy pants, but at some point cooler minds will take over.
Not just Trump and the left…
There is part of me that hopes that polls are extremely tight, come mid-October. If you think that they’ve lost their minds now…
On the other hand, we might see some real violence. I would be concerned about that, if I was afraid of getting beat up by Paul Krugman or Ezra Klein.
We already have seen violence, 9/11, certainly has an aspect of the elites manuevering to promote their interests, the recent mass murders of gays in Orlando and California
Check out comments at Eschaton. Worse than DailyKos. I clicked over after the DWS resignation and it’s Putin Putin Putin. Is it that hard to curate comments? Atrios appears to have absolutely no control or perhaps doesn’t care.
Is she really that wickedly smart, or did no one ever go broke under-estimating the intelligence of American Democrats?
Wait till they realize everyone is laughing their nuts off at them. It might take a few days.
Re. Pelosi not going to vote for TPP in its’ ‘current form’……
Fracken Heyzeus on a pike!
Nancy wouldn’t know the truth….if it smack-landed on her San Fran Sourdough!
…..disingenuous doesn’t begin to describe just how awful she & her ilk truly are…
who are they fooling??
In its current form.
What does it mean?
You change a semi-colon, and you change its current form.
It also implies she’s read it to know what’s in it this time. I would wager a pretty penny she hasn’t.
Whatever that wants that turd passed hasn’t given enough to those who don’t like it in its current form, Hillary, Pelosi, Kaine changed his position from pro to no but a few bribes will get him back to pro
“I will oppose the TPP as it is currently written.”
What exactly is the meaning of “is” here?
It’s hard to believe Donna Brazile is so stoopid and tone-deaf. Jeezus. It’s like they all WANT to lose this election.
Do you mean how can anyone be so stupid or are you not familiar with Donna Brazille until recently? Crossfire has been off the air for a long time where she was a regular and people could see her, but she was the architect of the Gore 2000 campaign. Kerry basically conceded to her campaign demands back in 04 when he went from primary Kerry to general election Kerry.
LOL, point taken. How can anyone be so stoopid??
Always read the blog for a interesting take but its too irrational now. Electing Trump is not going to ‘blow up the system’ in any way and you know it. So, is hating Hilary (and her 4 year term) really worth putting a conservative justice in office for 20 some years? This would functionally end unions amongst many other important issues. It’s not even close to worth it for me.
Does anybody but me find it funny, in a if I don’t laugh I’ll cry way that Debra Messing is actually using the analogy of how she wanted gay marriage for years but it didn’t come overnight in her stumping for Clinton and her incrementalism. Or is she totally unaware that Clinton was outright against gay marriage until it was done deal, and that it would never have happened if anyone depended on her for even mild support. Obama woke up and smelled the roses before Clinton did.
Once again, a Hillary supporter proves themselves to be utterly uninformed about her actual positions. (Since Messing is so into women’s reproductive rights I’m sure she has found a way to twist herself into a pretzel to excuse Clinton’s statement she would consider further restrictions on abortion if women were protected in the case of rape or their health…)
The ignorance of Hell’s celebrity fans about her actual record is too depressing to contemplate.
They’re professional posers after all, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.
It’s all about jumping on the bandwagon for the D’s fake brand.
You silly, all circuses have acrobats…..
and clowns……
What made you think the DNC circus was going to be different than the RNC circus?
I’ve noticed this among Hillary supporters as well. They tend to ignore her record and even recent past positions going with what ever came out of her mouth last. They also think all the scandals including the recent e-mail one are nothing more then right-wing mudslinging. I’ve also noticed the “Votes Not For Hillary Are Votes For Trump” contingent criticizing Trump for things that also apply to Hillary, in some cases even more so.
In my head I’ve built this up as Mythary Clinton, the imaginary candidate that Hillary supporters actually think they are supporting.
Do they sound like they are chanting and repeating incantations to their goddess?
At this point, much like Obama worshippers, what does it say about a Clinton supporter who missed the warning signs?
It’s far worse.
Hillary has been around forever, we know what she’s about.
Obama’s record in the Senate wasn’t all that bad. Certain people knew what he was about it, but it wasn’t that easy for regular people to find this stuff out if they were stuck on mainstream news sites.
There is no excuse for not knowing what Hillary, or the Clintons in general, are about. I cannot tell you how many people I talk to don’t understand how corrupt the Clinton Foundation is. I was trying to explain it to a few friends the other day, they were being dismissive, I finally said, listen, google “Clinton Foundation Haiti” and go to town, but they refused.
Yes, and if you want to change it, you work within the system to gain votes to change it.
You know, like Hillary and everyone else who has spent their entire lives doing anything.
Do you walk into a party and start telling everyone who’s been there for hours how they’re partying wrong?
Purity doesn’t gain you anything but feelings within yourself.
You want to change something? Then instead of stomping around like a spoiled brat, become a part of it and change it from the inside. But, of course, that would require actual work and actual time and actual buy-in — and you simply don’t care enough to bother with that.
Even if the presidency excites you, it’s probably the down-ticket races that bore you with the tedium of the work required to actually make a change.
Taking an intellectual position and telling yourself that you “know the truth” won’t actually get your position furthered — and it won’t get you any closer to that truth which you assert.
The question isn’t “purity or Trump” — the question is what will you do to further your goal… ALONG WITH other people who are furthering their goals?
Trump will send a message — the message that the end state which you assert on a forum is your goal.. is not actually your goal, because Trump moves reality FARTHER from achieving your goal.
Even if you disagree with 100% of Clinton’s policies, there’s still reason enough to vote for Clinton:
The appointment of Supreme Court justices.
On what planet do you live where this actual election, which has a serious chance to see the next POTUS appoint 1 for certain but up to 3 justices, won’t have an outsized impact over every single proposed policy for the rest of your lifetime?
Welcome to the land of the possible. If that differs from feelings and purity, so be it. We’re closer now than we were before.
While it’s not a reason to vote for Trump, at least if he appoints SC justices who are corporatist, pro-TPP, pro-war, anti-abortion, pro-surveillance we’ll get to hear Dems say how terrible this is. If Clinton does so, there will be silence or excuses.
Show your list of 4 current US district court justices who are none of those things.
Yes, you.
What’s that, you haven’t considered it? Why, exactly, is that – because instead of looking at the actual options and coming up with a practical solution, your chief objective is to whine and complain how nothing ever will be good enough, without bothering to even contemplate the hard work of taking an idea and MAKING it happen.. in the topsy-turvy changing world of reality?
Sad.
um…. two words: Dale Carnegie. (no, I don’t think he’s a judge.)
Longtime lurker here. Not a troll – but hey, keep deleting my posts because I don’t fit the you’re-the-most-special-progressive-ever narrative you want to hear.
You want people to do things for you? Then YOU do things for OTHER people. What, exactly, have you done to push forward politics? What city or county Dem representative have you canvassed for? Who have you worked the phones for?
Let me guess: Nobody, because you’re a unique snowflake.
But each of your asserted policy positions are about nothing other than people doing things for YOU. No hypocrisy there!
We don’t delete comments save of people who have been banned and managed to circumvent that, or (once in a great while) ones that are exceptionally abusive.
I suggest you read our Policies. You appear not to have done that. The reason we are generally cited as having the best comments section among financial blogs is that this is NOT a chat board. We have rules and we enforce them. They are about the manner of making comments, and not about content unless readers are making stuff up (as in presenting information that is demonstrably inaccurate and not backing up their claim with links. If they are repeating bad information they got from somewhere else, that is forgivable even though they will get an argument, and beaten up if their link is from a dodgy source unless the source is so rancid we don’t want to dignify it).
Your posts did not appear because the content violated existing software rule. Lambert and I do not remotely have the time to moderate all comments. And if we are not letting them out, it is because you are persistently violating our standards for argumentation. People who are opposed to the view of most of the members of the commentariat often do that because the readers are tough and rigorous. The opponents often can’t stand up to being challenged and rapidly descend to bad faith argumentation, such as ad hominem attacks, shifting ground, misrepresenting information, etc.
Shorter”: if your comments are not being approved, it’s about you, not about us. You need to adhere to our rules and up your game. And attacking the site earns you troll points.
Talking about one (1) post from yesterday, not today.
And yes, I can see that I have comments in moderation.. because I included a link that should have gone thru tinyurl first, and because I used the abbreviation of Balloon Juice.
And that’s it.. No, really, that’s all. If I can’t find the post to respond.. it’s not that I can’t “stand up” to an argument.. it’s that I don’t recall where it is..
To the fainting couches, forthwith!
Thing about this Dem monkeyhouse shitfight, the more cathartic it is, the more deceptive it is. The parties function as an ablative shield for the state. The public is trained to blame the opposing party for what the state does. Even now that dissenters realize their own party screws them even worse, the meltdown just displaces the rage.
When the treaty bodies and charter bodies are grilling the US on its human rights compliance, they don’t want to hear about the other party – just like they don’t want to hear whining about judicial or legislative or local obstruction. The treaty party, the party on the hook, is the state. If this state can’t meet its commitments and obligations, this state does not deserve to exist. Loss of legitimacy got rid of Apartheid South Africa, Idi Amin, Goni’s banana republic, the USSR. Now it’s the USA’s turn. Knock it over, break it up, destroy its defense industrial base – did Russia a world of good, you shoulda been there, it was great fun. Just like it’ll be great fun when we do it here.
Fuck voting. I’m gonna join a revolutionary cell. This is what’s going to happen anyway when the final state collapse hits, and the civilized world extends reconstruction assistance, so we might as well get a jump on it. Go over their head to the world. It’s the most seditious and subversive thing.
New York’s Bernie Delegates Irritated at DNC [WXXI]
[For those of you keeping track at home, that’s Clinton’s `home state’ delegation.]
That is, Tuesday, November 31.
It’s almost like the `organizers’ of the convention were intentionally p*ssing off Sanders’ supporters.
Is the DNC an FSB front?
Sounds like Occupy. Don’t let them find a space to meet up. Pathetic.
What about steerage?
Can they meet there?
They’ve long since given up on Bernie supporters, the gap is far too wide. Dealing with them is damage control.
Shill is a neocon rep, always has been. She yearns to bring on board reps, and has succeeded with rep neocon elites… But their more war all the time is not popular outside the mil ind comp, so no hope from the rank and file… Unless they can revive the Cold War…
This is trumps to lose… But he’s already appealing to progressives, might get half of Bernie’s, to his horror.
Re: “Does Hillary Clinton have a political death wish?”
No, she really believes she’s been treated unfairly. That sense goes to the core of who Hillary Clinton is, just like the perpetual need to prove she’s tougher than a man.
One thing I have observed in dealing with the elite is that their sense of grievance is as large as their capacity for shame is small.
And we’re all a bunch of sexists! For treating her unfairly!
The thing is, there’s no doubt she’s endured horrific sexist abuse throughout her career. But she has a longstanding habit of weaponizing that fact, of crying sexism at the first sign of legitimate political criticism. And that kind of cynicism makes it kind of hard to feel bad.
And it makes things a lot harder for those of us trying to fight sexism out here in real life.
She has proven she is tougher than a man.
But is she tougher than a woman?
That same grievance mindset exists across the US culture. I think crappy televised entertainment in the previous decades helped to promulgate it, now it’s several generations deep. That crappy media has also spread it around the world, to some extent.
Memes really do behave virally, that’s not some new internet thing.
The Politico article on the scramble to oust DWS is like some adult version of Calvinball where everyone is Calvin and all of them are changing the rules and the story. Wading through the manure what you get is:
What I get from all this: The President’s people knew she was incompetent but for some reason the President thought it was going to be a hassle to get rid of DWS. Why, if the Clinton camp wanted her gone? No hassle if that was the case. Biggest pile of manure – that the Clintons wanted her gone. Nope, the only reason DWS was around was the Clinton camp wanted her. They finally realized there was no way she was not going to be a huge problem with almost half the delegates hating DWS and booing her. They ousted her in the least professional manner possible because they did it so last minute. No one from Politico talked to anyone from the Sanders camp. They are just making an assumption based on something that was told them months ago and probably not by anybody in the Sanders camp that they are happy with Brazille.
Oh, and one other thing I get from this. Politico is now more afraid of the Clintonites than the Obama team. Hence the emphasis on how much the President just didn’t care, despite the disconnect in logic that there was no hassle if everyone wants DWS out.
How is this an issue of any sort?
The Democratic National Committee is biased towards the lifelong Democrat who has worked tirelessly to get Democrats elected at all levels – local, state, national – over the guy who wasn’t a Democrat until 4 minutes ago.
Yeah, and?
Or is this only an issue because you’re shocked at how groups of people who organize to do anything actually function, because you don’t have any experience doing it yourself?
FYI, out here in the reality-based world, if you’re going to engage in mythologizing in service to power, you might at least ground your hyperventilating in a little bit of reality so you can kinda sorta sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Nevermind your lack of familiarity with the governing documents of the DNC (length of party membership is not a criteria), Hillary Clinton doesn’t even describe herself as a lifelong Democrat. Oops.
Warren’s a legal wonk, if she’s after any particular post, it would be POTUS, or maybe the Justice Dept. VP would have no interest for her.
I don’t believe it. Huge number of veeps end up pres…
Truman, Nixon, Johnson, bush I.
Some got the nom, lost on bad campaigns. Humphrey, gore.
thats six out of eleven presidents if I’m counting right… There’s no better predictor of getting at least three nom than promotion from veep.
Amazing to me kasich didn’t want it.
Anyway, I believe she really wanted the veep, quite astounding she didn’t get that shill masters would never have allowed Liz at treasury, justice or veep. She was snowed.
and now has soiled herself with progressives…
She is anyway no progressive other than anti bank corruption, worthy as that is.
Every factual point you made, such as her being a one item wonk, goes against your emotional bases. Warren maybe intensity focused, but she’s no idiot. A presidency isn’t a one man job, it’s a facilitator of many interests – to whit Obama’s inability to even order his own administration to shut down the concentration camp/torture center at Guantanamo Bay Base. Warren isn’t the sort of person who can make being President work, much less be interested in such a dirty job and process.
Apologies if already covered, but this was refreshing to see in the press.
http://observer.com/2016/07/clinton-rewards-wasserman-schultzs-shady-behavior-with-new-job/
Just got e-mail from Rep. Mike Honda, overall a decent enough guy IMO, but could not resist a reply to the following:
I clicked ‘Other’, and in the explain-field (100-char limit) wrote So where was the outrage in May 2011, when Obama said the border fence is ‘now basically complete’?
I know, gonna burn in the circle of hell reserved for freethinkers and apostates, I am.
FWIW, the Team Hillary crowd that makes fun of Trump’s wall conveniently fails to mention that Hillary proposed a fence at the Mexico border. So while there is good reason to object to the Great Wall of Trump, protests by Team Dem are, as usual, less credible than they’d like you to believe.
And in the same manner, lets ignore her position on raising the minimum wage until just recently as Dems pile onto Trump regarding his admittedly further right position.
JULIAN ASSANGE: “Well, I mean, that’s interesting. We have seen that with a lot of other publications. I guess there’s a question: What does that mean for the U.S. Democratic Party? It is important for there to be examples of accountability. The resignation was an example of that. Now, of course, Hillary Clinton has tried to immediately produce a counter-example by putting out a statement, within hours, saying that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a great friend, and she’s incorporating her into her campaign, she’s going to be pushing for her re-election to the Congress.
“So that’s a very interesting signaling by Hillary Clinton that if you act in a corrupt way that benefits Hillary Clinton, you will be taken care of. Why does she need to put that out? Certainly, it’s not a signal that helps with the public at all. It’s not a signal that helps with unity at the DNC, at the convention. It’s a signal to Hillary Clinton partisans to keep on going on, you’ll be taken care of. But it’s a very destructive signal for a future presidency, because it’s—effectively, it’s expanding the Overton window of corruption. It doesn’t really matter what you do, how you behave; as long as that is going to benefit Hillary Clinton, you’ll be protected.”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/07/julian-assange-slams-hillary-clinton-first-interview-following-wikileaks-dnc-email-release-video/
i don’t know if anyone is still following, but the labour coup against corbyn is back on:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2016/jul/26/labour-leadership-corbyn-owen-smith-patriotism-politics-live
a labour donor is suing alleging that labour rules were misapplied by allowing corbyn to automatically appear on the ballot.
this could get ugly.
I don’t think even the PLP has the balls for his (or the NEC would have just done it). Too many prior leaders have been allowed on the ballot without signatures.
That was an exoneration? He dumped enough innuendo out there to feed even the conspiracy theorists at NewsMax and Red State. As they say, with friends like that you don’t need enemies.