By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
TPP/TTIP/TISA
“But when protesters interrupted [Sanders] with chants of “No TPP!”, Sanders responded to them: ‘We have got to make sure that TPP does not get to the floor of the Congress in the lame-duck session,’ he said, adding a line that had not been included in his initial transcript” [Politico]. Whoever organized those protesters — chants and printed signage — did a good job, with the exception of shouting down Rep. Elijah Cummings, not received kindly on black twitter.
“Clinton will put the maligned Asia-Pacific trade deal and other new trade initiatives in the rear-view mirror if elected, focusing instead on ‘things that are clear job creators,’ a top economic adviser to the former secretary of State said on Monday. Gene Sperling, a former White House adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, told Pro Trade’s Adam Behsudi in Philadelphia that the priorities will be things like infrastructure, immigration reform, higher education relief and family medical leave” [Politico]. Says nothing about the lame duck (and notice Clinton’s priorities list getting more and more incremental by the day).
2016
Policy
“What a Hillary Clinton economy might look like” [Mark Thoma, CBS News]. “If we want to maintain support for a dynamic, innovative and open economy, we must do a better job of sharing the gains from international trade and technological change and insulating workers from the costs.” Who’s “we”? Lots of weak tea proposals, and I would imagine what Clinton really comes up with will be weaker still.
The Voters
“[H]owever, overwhelming shares of all Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters – including 90% who consistently supported Sanders for the nomination – back Clinton in the general election against Donald Trump” [Pew Research Center]. More importantly: “The age divide seen throughout the primaries is reflected here in differences in loyal support for Clinton and Sanders: While 39% of Democratic voters 65 and older consistently backed Clinton, just 11% of those under 30 did so. Conversely, 35% of those under 30 were consistent Sanders supporters compared with smaller shares of those in other age groups.”
“Democrats always prove the commies right” [Frederick DeBoer]. “It’s essential to understand: the purpose of the scorched-earth campaign waged against Sanders and his supporters by the Democratic establishment and its mouthpieces at Vox, the Daily Beast, the Washington Post, etc., is not merely to prevent a Sanders nomination. The point is to so tar Sanders supporters with slurs and empty accusations of bigotry as to ensure that they gain no appreciable influence within the party in the future.”
“We have worked from the 2012 elction results to create a hypothetical electoral college win for Hillary Clinton with an equally hypothetical popular vote win for Donald Trump. First, here are the final totals for the 2012 election” [Econintersect]. “In the preceding post on presidential elections, we pointed out the futility of national opinion polls unless the popular vote difference is more than 4%. This hypothetical has a popular vote difference well below 2%. No polling result would have been able to predict this result with any certainty. If almost all polls indicated very similar results (say Trump winning the popular vote with a margin between 1% and 2%) then the uncertainty would be greatly reduced and the aggregate results would be quite accurate. However, such close agreement between polls is not that likely.”
Money
“Leaked emails show the Democratic National Committee scrambled this spring to conceal the details of a joint fundraising arrangement with Hillary Clinton that funneled money through state Democratic parties” [Politico]. This is the Clinton Victory fund debacle, where the Clinton campaign laundered its money through the state parties. “During the three-month period when the DNC was working to spin the situation, state parties kept less than one half of one percent of the $82 million raised through the arrangement — validating concerns raised by campaign finance watchdogs, state party allies and Bernie Sanders supporters. … The fund is a bad deal for state parties, said one operative who works with state party committees. State party officials have been buzzing about the WikiLeak emails, said the operative, arguing they show that ‘the extent to which the game has been rigged goes much deeper at the DNC than what many of us expected.'” (Remember that we showed yesterday that when Donna Brazile replaced DWS as DNC head, her first concern was not ethics but secrecy or, more politely, public relations: “Stop emailing. Pick up the phone.” Therefore, we can expect more of the same from the DNC, especially directed against any insurgent candidates not endorsed by Clinton. Canova and Teachout should take care.)
“DNC Leak Shows Mechanics of a Slanted Campaign” [Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone]. “If you supported Hillary Clinton, it probably won’t bother you that the Democratic National Committee is revealed in these documents to have essentially acted as an arm of the Clinton campaign during the contested primary season.” Like Politico, Taibbi hones in on the Clinton “Victory Fund.”
“During his campaign, Sanders railed against [what would have been wrong with “inveighed against,” or even “criticized”?] the influence of big donors, of course. In return, it seems to many of his supporters, the D.N.C. conspired against him. That view might be exaggerated, but when you have evidence that the organization’s chief financial officer, who hails from the South, suggested in an e-mail to his colleagues that they bring up whether Sanders was an atheist, adding that it ‘could make several points difference with my peeps,’ it is hard to explain away” [The New Yorker]. Strong Hirohito Award contender, there.
“Ms. [Shefali Razdan Duggal] wanted a reminder of how much she had raised for President Obama and the Democrats (the answer: $679,650) and whether it qualified her for the premium package of hotel rooms and V.I.P. invitations at the party’s convention in Philadelphia. She asked whether she could have an extra ticket to Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s holiday party, so she could bring her children. But most on her mind, it seemed, was getting access to an exclusive November gathering at the White House. ‘Not assuming I am invited…just mentioning/asking, if in case, I am invited :)” [New York Times]. “:).” Indeed.
Philly
“Read: Bernie Sanders’s Democratic National Convention speech” [Vox]. I should have more to say about this shortly.
“Bernie Sanders delegates can support their candidate in roll call vote” [Los Angeles Times]. I hope that’s true. It’s not on the schedule.
“Unity! Bernie will turn over all his delegates tomorrow night during roll call. All states to vote” [Daily Kos]. Party unity, my sweet Aunt Fanny…
If you ever want to see real hate, get a liberal started on the working class (the image has gone viral). From a Vice correspondent:
The arena seems to be filled with suicidal Marxists who work at TGI Friday’s pic.twitter.com/dtYBr3cJX3
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) July 26, 2016
After Michelle and Booker, “when Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders took the stage later in the evening, the convention began to sound much more like the campaign Gore actually ran: the dark and angry, ‘people versus the powerful'” [The Atlantic]. There’s that word, “dark,” previously used of Trump. For Democrats of a certain class, things must always be “light,” like a sunny loft space in a repurposed brick mill building in a freshly gentrified — yet still so authentic! — neighborhood. (Also, Gore’s “people vs. the powerful” theme was only adopted late in the 2000 campaign, after Gore spent most of the election running away for Clinton and populism.)
“Sanders’s delegates began the convention session by loudly booing every mention of Clinton’s name. Later, however, it seemed that most Sanders delegates — with the exception of a small group of dead-enders — decided to behave themselves (that is, cheering Sanders but not booing Clinton or shouting down the speakers)” [Bloomberg]. Funny what’s infantilized and what isn’t…
“Yes, of course Donald Trump can win” [Chris Cilizza, WaPo]. “[T]he electoral map clearly favors Clinton and that Trump is on the wrong side of the massive demographic changes sweeping the country…. [But] Clinton is a uniquely flawed candidate. She has been in the national eye for a very long time and people have largely made up their minds about her. It is very hard for her to change those perceptions. What that means is she has a hard and relatively low vote ceiling. In a binary choice election — which is what this is — Trump benefits from the fact that he is simply not Clinton. What’s happened to date in the race — pre-GOP convention — is that support has peeled off Clinton but not gone to Trump. Rather, it’s moved to ‘undecided.’ The GOP convention, as Philip Bump documented here, led to some movement to Trump. Hence the tightening in polls. What this all means is that the race is close today and there’s plenty of reason to believe it will stay like that all the way until the election.”
“Clinton’s convention lineup wasn’t designed to contrast with Trump’s brigade of C-list celebrities and agitators, though it did do that. It was instead meant to serve as a demonstration that Clinton is widely respected in the Democratic Party, which is much less divided than a handful of Sanders delegates would have you believe. Where Trump insists to the public that Republicans are unified, Clinton and her supporters showed that they are” [Brian Beutler, The New Republic]. The case for the defense.
“There was a haze that hung low and very sweet. It was brutally hot and there was a thick glaze on everyone as clouds darkened over the distant skyline and the sky began to smell of rain” [Charles Pierce, Esquire]. That’s Phllly in the summer, especially the thick glaze part. Pierce encounters ” the #UpToUs movement, a kind of independent Sanders auxiliary who took his call to political revolution so seriously that the candidate himself has become rather irrelevant to its mission. (In fairness, Sanders made this argument all year on the stump.)” From the video they’re making:
“Hi, Bernie. You started a beautiful revolution. Millions of people across the globe, across this country, have sacrificed so much. People have given up their homes, given up relationships.”
People on welfare have given money,” YahNe jumped in. Anne continued, and suddenly, what she was saying sounded like one of the prayers from Good Friday, an invocation of sacrifice in pursuit of reward, all minor keys and dark grace notes.
“We need you to stand with us now the way we’ve stood with you. We understand that you are a noble man and that you have integrity and that you never break your word. But you have given your word to a party that has since been found out to be corrupt and that has lied to us, cheated us, and a party that simply not for the people any more. And you’re a man of the people. We’re sorry that we didn’t come to you quicker and stronger, but we’re all here now for you. You always said it’s not about you, it’s about us. So we’re making this call to you. It is no longer your decision if you’re going to run for president, it’s ours. So come be with us. It’s not you, it’s us.”
The Trail
“‘No homo!’ How DNC staffers under Wasserman Schultz used anti-gay slurs, mocked the name of an African-American assistant and created a sexist Craigslist job posting to humiliate Donald Trump” [Daily Mail]. All these seem hateful to me; once of the Democrat establishment talking points that I find most irritating is the idea that they are against hate, when in fact they are no more immune to this human failing than anyone else.
“Trumputin! And the Leak(s) ” [China Matters]. ” One thing for sure is that the Clinton campaign is desperate to find a bigger villain to shift the focus away from the DNC’s abysmal security practices and sleazy electioneering revealed by the leak.” A long and detailed exposition. Must read.
“The same people on the Clinton team who made enormous efforts to claim her private email server—which operated unencrypted over the Internet for three months, including during trips to China and Russia, and which contained top-secret national-security data—was not hacked by the Russians now are certain that the DNC server was hacked by the Russians” [The American Conservative].
Robbie Mook on Trump-Putin: “‘It’s a theory that is being put forward now by CNN, by the Washington Post, by the New York Times, these are the experts speaking out on this,’ Mook told the Today show’s Savannah Guthrie who brought up that Republican Donald Trump has called these accusations a ‘conspiracy theory.’ “s [Daily Mail]. “Mook noted that CNN had reported yesterday that the FBI is investigating the DNC hack, but admitted that no government official had confirmed the connection to the Clinton campaign. ‘hey have not communicated that to us,’ Mook said. ‘I am simply going off what the reporting is telling us.’ ” First, the Wikileaks trove makes Mook’s assertion that “I am simply going off what the reporting is telling us” risible; it’s just as likely that the stories were planted. Second, this hasn’t been a good year for experts; see Thomas Frank on the credentialed classes in Listen, Liberal. Oh, and the gossip column locuation “speaking out” is a tell; they’re not speaking out, as if they’re voices have been suppressed; in fact, they’re fanning a (profitable) media firestorm.
“A trove of hacked party emails posted by WikiLeaks show that Democratic National Committee officials had worked to undermine the underdog campaign of Mr. Sanders. Weeks before the firestorm erupted, culminating in the resignation of party chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a group of plaintiffs brought a lawsuit in federal court alleging that DNC ‘actively concealed its bias’ from its donors and Democrats backing Mr. Sanders.
[Wall Street Journal, “DNC Seeks Dismissal of Lawsuit Alleging Donor Deception”]. “‘[T]he DNC was biased in favor of one candidate – Hillary Clinton – from the beginning and throughout the process,’ the plaintiffs state in their complaint, which seeks class-action status. ‘[I]n spite of the [DNC’s] governing Charter and its multiple public statements, the DNC devoted its resources to propelling Clinton’s candidacy ahead of all of her rivals, even if this meant working directly against the interests of Democratic Party members, including Bernie Sanders’ supporters.'”
“In a video posted under the banner of 60 Minutes Overtime and touted as an “unaired” clip from the interview, [CBS’s Scott Pelley] asked Clinton and Kaine about the [Wikileaks DNC email leak] [Weekly Standard].
Pelley began by reading some of the emails among DNC staff members suggesting ways to undermine Sanders’s campaign. “Did you know anything about any of that?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t know anything about it, and I haven’t read any of those,” Clinton responded.
Pelley kept pressing. “You have people in the Democratic National Committee who are supposed to be, if you will, agnostic about who the nominee is going to be, and they seem to have their thumb on the scale for you. They seem to be working against Bernie Sanders, their fellow Democrat.”.
“Again, I don’t know anything, I don’t know anything about, uh, about these emails. I haven’t followed it,” Clinton responded..
“In your view, any effort in the DNC to favor one candidate or another would have been improper?” Pelley asked..
“Again, I don’t have any information about this, and so I can’t answer specifically,” Clinton said.
She can’t even make a ritual condemnation? (Incidentally, DWS was heaved over the side at the DNC — and then promptly rescued by the Clinton campaign — because of a subordinate’s brainstorming an anti-semitic attack on Sanders, for which the DNC apologize, and not for “thumb on the scale” behavior (the less polite word is “rigging”), for which the DNC did not apologize. The simplest explanation is that neither they, nor Clinton, think they did anything wrong. The DNC’s lack of neutrality has been apparent for some time, and here’s an article from Politico in 2015 that quotes the appropriate clause in the DNC Bylaws:
DNC rules, designed to ensure all candidates get a fair shake in presidential primaries, state: “The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and even-handedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process.”
No objective observer reading the WIkileaks DNC emails would conclude the DNC was impartial or even-handed.
“Given all of the news here in Philadelphia, perhaps Monday’s biggest news was about Colorado — in the Clinton campaign’s decision to pull down its TV ads there, because it feels confident enough about its standing versus Trump in that battleground state. The campaign, however, will continue to advertise in eight other states – Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia” [First Read]. Leaving Sanders free to campaign in Colorado for single payer and against fracking. One assumes.
If you’re a Russian mole, don’t apply for this job: Security Engineer at Hillary for America (Tech Team).
Stats Watch
Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index, July 2016: “Manufacturing activity in the Fifth District picked up strongly in July” [Econoday]. “Looking ahead, manufacturers anticipated even more positive conditions.” And: “Of the four regional Federal Reserve surveys released to date, three are in expansion and one is in contraction” [Econintersect].
Purchasing Manager’s Index Services Flash, July 2016: “New orders are hard to get” [Econoday]. “A big positive in the report is a jump in business confidence which, post-Brexit, is up from a record low and at its best level since the start of the year. A negative, especially for policy makers, is weakness in price readings with input costs rising at the slowest rate since January. Traction for selling prices is minimal.”
Consumer Confidence, July 2016: “Consumer confidence is solid” [Econoday]. “Buying plans for autos are soft, down nearly 2 percentage points to 10.8 percent in a reading that will bring down estimates for July vehicle sales. Buying plans for homes and appliances are steady.” (“Observers of consumer sentiment polls should be aware they are imperfect quantifications of opinion. The question arises whether they are a rear view window or a forward looking indicator – or possibly a little of each. There is little question, however, that poor consumer sentiment corresponds to poor economic performance. Econintersect believes that consumer sentiment is mostly a coincident or lagging economic indicator” [Econintersect].)
State Street Investor Confidence Index, July 2016: Down [Econoday]. “State Street said the numbers are an unequivocal sign of a decline in institutional investor confidence, especially those in Europe who were caught off guard by Brexit, with risk aversion surging due to the wider anti-globalization implications of Brexit and Turkey’s recent geopolitical turmoil. Only Asian institutional investors remained tilted toward risk, most likely encouraged by the Chinese 2Q GDP beating consensus expectations.”
S&P Case-Shiller Housing Price Index, May 2016: “Home sales are up while home prices are down” [Econoday]. “[T]he bottom line is very clear, that home prices, despite thin supplies of homes for sale, are softening.” (“The way to understand the dynamics of home prices is to watch the direction of the rate of change. Here home price growth generally appears to be stabilizing (rate of growth not rising or falling)”) [Econintersect].
New Home Sales, June 2016: “Housing is emerging as a positive surprise for the 2016 economy. New home sales burst to their best strength of the cycle during the Spring, coming in at a much higher-than-expected” rate [Econoday]. “One negative is supply in the new home market which looks to become an increasing problem.”
Fodder for the Bulls: “July 2016 Chemical Activity Barometer Signaling Improved Economic Growth” [Econintersect].
The Banks: “RBS may charge to hold cash deposits if Bank of England takes rates below zero” [MarketWatch]. RBS. Of course.
Shipping: “The oil-train boom is waning almost as quickly as it began.” [Wall Street Journal, “Crude Slump, Pipeline Expansion Mark End of U.S. Oil-Train Boom”]. “Boom” being the operative word, especially in Lac Mégantic, Quebec.
Shipping: “Do you believe the freight-rail industry’s decline in shipment volume will ease in the second half of this year?” [Progressive Railroading]. Online poll: No, 58%. Yes, 42% (rounding).
Shipping: “Amazon is partnering with the UK Government to explore the steps needed to make the delivery of parcels by small drones a reality, allowing Amazon to trial new methods of testing its delivery systems” [Air Cargo News]. “A cross-Government team supported by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has provided Amazon with permissions to explore three key innovations: beyond line of sight operations in rural and suburban areas, testing sensor performance to make sure the drones can identify and avoid obstacles and flights where one person operates multiple highly-automated drones.” Britain is a tight little island…
The Banks: “Germany’s yield curve is getting kinky. The European Central Bank’s extraordinarily easy monetary policy has led to an unusual kink in the path of bond yields, with the 10-year bond offering a higher yield than the bond maturing in 12 years” [Across the Curve]. “More important than any kinks is the broader shape of the yield curve. With relatively little difference between bonds maturing soon and those maturing in a decade, the curve is very flat – meaning little extra reward for locking up money for the long run. This is bad for banks, and suggests little faith that the ECB’s easy money will get the region’s economy moving again.” I can’t think why. The best and the brightest are working on it.
The Bezzle: “The government’s labor agency has filed a formal complaint against WeWork” [Business Insider]. Yet another unicorn whose sky-high valuation depends on breaking the law.
The Bezzle: “Car insurers last year hauled in $200 billion of premiums, about a third of all premiums collected by the property-casualty industry. But as much as 80% of the intake could evaporate in coming decades, say some consultants, assuming crucial breakthroughs in driverless technology make driving safer and propel big changes in car ownership [Wall Street Journal, “Driverless Cars Threaten to Crash Insurers’ Earnings”]. “Assuming” is doing a lot of work in that paragraph.
The Bezzle: “A pack of technology startups seeking to upend the business of booking freight shipments for trucks is drawing rich new funding from investors” [Wall Street Journal, “Freight Booking Startups Drawing Rich New Funding”]. “These new entrants—including Los Angeles-based Cargomatic Inc., San Francisco’s Trucker Path Inc., Austin, Tex.-based uShip and Seattle-based Convoy—offer smartphone apps that connect companies looking to ship goods to truck drivers. Many describe themselves as the “Uber of trucking.” All you need is a pitch, an elevator, and the right connections….
The Bezzle: “If you look at the world fleet of cargo vessels today, it is actually only a small portion that are fully connected, beyond simple email and dialup capability. This is the main reason why digitalisation until now has had a very little impact on core shipping processes. Despite everything that has happened, most vessels are still being commercially operated on charter agreements that have in principle changed very little in the past century. The ship to shore link is still in most cases relying on manual reporting. In almost all comparable industries paradigm shifts have occurred as connectivity has made alternatives possible. Take for example the impact Uber has had on the taxi industry across the world” [Splash247]. Uber for supertankers!
The Bezzle: “Moocs can transform education – but not yet” [Inside Higher Ed]. Remember when a squillionaire with a bright idea on UVa’s board, and a bunch of Deans and other lackeys administrators, went crazy pants and fired UVa’s President over MOOCs? Good times.
The Bezzle:
i wish this wasn't a parody just because it's so believable https://t.co/9ln2n7wva5 pic.twitter.com/gLY2F2IDyA
— Internet of Shit (@internetofshit) July 20, 2016
The Fed: “A 42-year high in the number of apartment buildings under construction points to an impending surge in supply that portends a moderation in the cost of shelter, which in June capped the biggest 12-month jump in almost a decade. Any cooling in the most pronounced driver of inflation means the Fed will have to wait even longer to reach their 2 percent price target — a prerequisite for some policy makers to raising interest rates” [Bloomberg].
“A Boeing spokeswoman said in a statement that the aerospace giant is “in the process of adjusting the payment terms of suppliers.” Boeing is changing the frequency with which it pays its bills to suppliers to align with what it describes as industry norms” [Wall Street Journal, “Boeing Is ‘Delinquent’ on Payments, Says Supplier Rockwell Collins”‘]. “Boeing has long had the reputation among suppliers as having the most efficient and timely payment, according to industry officials. And Boeing’s cash flow is among the most important metrics watched by analysts and investors.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 85, Extreme Greed (previous close: 85, Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 87 (Extreme Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 26 at 12:15pm. Holding steady.
Black Injustice Tipping Point
“Hillary and Bill Clinton: Specialists in Black Misery, Foreign and Domestic” [Black Agenda Report]. Check the URL for the original headline.
“Police Commander Suspended For Alleged Fabrications About Charles Kinsey Shooting” [HuffPo]. “Bystander video shows Kinsey lying in the street with his hands up shortly before the shooting. Kinsey said he had been trying to calm a patient with autism who had run from a nearby group home. The patient’s toy truck apparently was mistaken for a gun by a 911 caller. ”
“Jailer testifies he falsified jail log in Sandra Bland case, lawyer says” [Houston Chronicle].
“Sociology professor on racism, inequality: ‘We get better'” [Virginia Commonwealth University]. Readers will recall Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote an excellent trip report from a Trump rally.
Class Warfare
“Power in the Age of the Feudal Internet” [Collaboratory]. “We’re in the middle of an epic battle for power in cyberspace. On one side are the nimble, unorganized, distributed powers such as dissident groups, criminals, and hackers. On the other side are the traditional, organized, institutional powers such as governments and large multinational corporations. During its early days, the Internet gave coordination and efficiency to the powerless. It made them powerful, and seem unbeatable. But now the more traditional institutional powers are winning, and winning big. How these two fare long-term, and the fate of the majority of us that don’t fall into either group, is an open question – and one vitally important to the future of the Internet.”
“Researchers Who Exposed VW Gain Little Reward From Success” [New York Times]. Important to remember that the tendency of the professional classes to looting and corruption, given a rentier economy, is just that: A tendency. These professionals were honorable, as was the Virginia Tech professor who helped the citizens of Flint find out their water suppy was poisoned. There really should be a formal medal of honor for whistleblowers!
News of the Wired
“Bitcoin not money, Miami judge rules in dismissing laundering charges ” [Miami Herald]. Maybe we need a rethink here. Perhaps any token that can be laundered is, in fact, money?
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 (Optimader):
I’m not a fan of bark mulch, but that’s a nice basil patch. My basil just flowered last week, and the pollinators are going nuts. They strike the plants so hard you can see them vibrate, gently.
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!
Readers, if you enjoyed what you read today, please use the dropdown to choose your contribution, and then click the hat! Your tip will be welcome today, and indeed any day. Water Cooler will not exist without your random acts of kindness.
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Well, Sycophant Monday at the DNC is now officially in the books. I’ll exclude Demi Lovato, who looked great by the way, as she’s too young to know better. Bernie Sanders and Liddy Warren, however, should know better.
On to Taco Tuesday, and here’s hoping for round two of BLM versus Bill Clinton. Round one went to Bill with his late round “she didn’t” haymaker. Let’s see if BLM can call it a comeback.
It’s official. This lady has stolen the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozDeQTB0LIs
Thank Bogart for this woman. Every Bernie delegate (at least) should be just as outraged as this woman. Thank you Portia for continuing to speak truth into reality.
Thanks for sharing.
Straight to the rant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydIbIgg7djI
Birdie joins the rant, as many Bernie Sanders supporters dont want to go into the Democrat Party cage!!! #Demexit
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0f8xnaDIAow&feature=youtu.be
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Arizona Slim, you’re link has been taken down already. You don’t remember the title, do you? Maybe someone else has posted it on youtube.
It’s The Real News Network, presented by Paul Jay. My copy is still up. The womans’ name is, Portia Boulger and she is a Bernie Delegate from Ohio.
My link is the same ‘address’ as the link in Arizona Slims’ comment.
By the way, some of the “tinfoil hat sites” I patronize are having similar ‘censorship’ problems as this. Sudden disappearances or demonetarizations of links, by order of YouTube.
Now that Verizon is buying Yahoo, I might have to really buckle down and go to Linnux and another e-mail server.
Good luck Pardner.
Re 2016 and Policy and The Voters with the Democratic Party
I’ve a bee in my bonnet today about the word MUST. You know, as in “Hillary Clinton MUST become President.” Didn’t Joseph Conrad say ‘Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.’?
A term like “must” is actually expressing the internal rules of the speaker’s modus operandi and in doing so, is generalizing that his or her rules apply to everyone. In the case of Hillary Clinton, all Democratic voters. MUST is used to talk about things that are compulsory.
Is this the right exercise of authority? To do as we’re told? Particularly when it’s in keeping with the demands of a privileged figure a la Tolstoy. Interestingly enough, Edward Bernays did not believe that it was possible to impose unwanted views on the public. That is, a public living in a genuine democracy where real debate is able to take place (both on and off mainstream media platforms….), and people are permitted and advised the right to make up their own minds.
Perhaps the continual repetition of “Hillary Clinton MUST become President” is a really neat trick for those persuaded to make it happen, to celebrate their victimhood through a woman no less! Being robbed of one of life’s pleasures, and what is an important skill in this world, to make up ones’ own mind, shows how far the current Democratic Party of America has shifted towards an imperialist and fascistic movement. So, ultimately this is preferable for present “Democratic” leaders in the US, rather than the peoples revolutionary movement so underdeveloped by Mr Bernie Sanders. Otherwise, there would have been no rigging of votes either would there?!
Leaving aside the morality of dictating how people MUST vote, who does this trick favor the most? It would be nice that if and when complying with “Hillary Clinton MUST become President” passive command, there were a little graciousness and appreciation offered to those voters by those who, in reality, benefit the most. That OUGHT to be expected, based on ‘normal’ circumstances or logic, surely?
“performative speech”
Often a bad sign…
Exactly. Add all of the “Hillary Clinton knows…”, followed by some idea that she’s not given any indication of actually knowing.
This tactic seems somehow related to the “power of positive thinking”, (from links today)-
https://aeon.co/essays/thinking-positive-is-a-surprisingly-risky-manoeuvre
-so prized by our corporate advisors.
Other people’s thoughts – yet another territory to be harvested.
Jim Tan posted this yesterday towards the end of the comments section. It bears repeating.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/hillary-clinton-wall-street-226061
“Wall Street takes a road trip to Philadelphia,
Financial services donors crowd the Democratic convention, raising the ire of progressives”.
By Ben White
07/25/16
The text of the letter from Bernie:
Our campaign has always been about a grassroots movement of Americans standing up and saying: “Enough is enough. This country and our government belong to all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.”
I just finished speaking at the Democratic National Convention, where I addressed the historic nature of our grassroots movement and what’s next for our political revolution.
I hope that I made you proud. I know that Jane and I are very proud of you.
Our work will continue in the form of a new group called Our Revolution. The goal of this organization will be no different from the goal of our campaign: we must transform American politics to make our political and economic systems once again responsive to the needs of working families.
We cannot do this alone. All of us must be a part of Our Revolution.
Join Our Revolution and help continue our critical work to create a government which represents all of us, and not just the 1 percent – a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice. Add your name here.
When we started this campaign a little more than a year ago, the media and the political establishment considered us to be a “fringe” campaign. Well, we’re not fringe anymore.
Thanks to your tireless work and generous contributions, we won 23 primaries and caucuses with more than 13 million votes, all of which led to the 1900 delegates we have on the floor this week at the Democratic convention.
What we have done together is absolutely unprecedented, but there is so much more to do. It starts with defeating Donald Trump in November, and then continuing to fight for every single one of our issues in order to transform America.
We are going to fight to make sure that the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party becomes law. This means working for a $15 federal minimum wage, fighting for a national fracking ban, and so many more progressive priorities.
The political revolution needs you in order to make all this happen and more.
Add your name to say that you will join Our Revolution and be part of the fight for our progressive vision for America.
Thank you for being a part of the continued political revolution.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
Click and you get this:
The next step for Bernie’s movement is a new group called Our Revolution, which will fight to transform America and advance the progressive agenda that we believe in.
Make a contribution to Our Revolution today.
Once you actually click to donate in the fine print it says:
ActBlue Civics is a registered charitable organization formed to democratize social welfare giving etc.
My response to the letter was going to be ‘send money’ because it’s always the same. I’m actually laughing… which is nice because I looked at the young woman and all of the reasons she might be discouraged (cops shooting black people, war slaughtered muslims, joblessness, homelessness, poverty, pollution, climate disruption, elite crime and corruption) and was bummed.
Still waiting for a legitimate independent group. So far, they are just clinging to the Ds as they have for decades.
His online campaign donations also went through ActBlue.
And, BTW, so do the donations for Brand New Congress.
Sigh.
When I get back into the mood, I’m going to send a check.
Bravo good sir! We just have to do what we can on all fronts and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Gee, who else used to say that?
There’s not a chance in Hell that I will ever again give a dime to any Bernie Sanders’ fronted organization.
Sorry ChiGal but this cynical old man rephrases that aphorism into: “Don’t let the Good be the enemy of the Machine.”
The one overriding lesson I’m taking from this years election, especially the Democratic Parties contributions unto, is that the pure and perfect ‘ruthless drive for power’ is running roughshod over the ‘good of the people.’ Autocrats all throughout human history have demonstrated this characteristic.
Tinfoil Hat Man suggests a version of Godwins’ Law focused on H Clinton.
Never let incrementalism be the enemy of sufficiency, either.
+
Yes, I got that letter, too. I’m a Sanders supporter. I think he’s probably sincere. But I can’t get past the hunch that on the far side of town, out at the old stockyards site, the DNC is building a large new veal pen.
mebbe Our Revolution is the 2018 version of the New Model Army. Mebbe Sanders intends to take over the Democrats the same way Simon Bolivar took over The Patriotic Society For The Development of Agriculture and Livestock
http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/2016/07/508-the-patriotic-society-for-the-development-of-agriculture-and-livestock.html
At best, HRC will be the next president. So we need to look down ballot and see what can be done this year and the regroup for the next phase.
In Omaha, the Stockyards were only less than a mile from Downtown. Now there is only a strip mall…
You are correct. From a WaPo interview with Bernie:
Here’s the thing, Bernie. The Dems decided all on their own to overthrow our constitutional democracy and form a parliamentary democracy, as shown by the DNC emails. The DNC apparatchiks decided independently who the candidate was going to be, then bullied and lobbied state party heads, newspapers, anyone they could cajole or threaten, to make it seem as though real people preferred Hillary. They were aided and abetted by polling organizations who generally managed to get every poll wrong in the primary by only massaging past numbers of a declining base of party voters. Even private clubs can’t discriminate. A savvy constitutional lawyer would have a heyday, IMO, showing that the Dems decided to institute a parliamentary system in defiance of one person, one vote. This has equally been happening at the state level for years.
I’m sorry to have to say that, at this point, I think Bernie is into a personal power trip. He wants to show that he can personally bring all these new voters into the Dem party in order to prop up his own creds within the party. Unfortunately, as the excellent writer, Dan Wright, opines, “Bernie Sanders Sells Out the “Revolution” for Nothing.” I don’t think the smart dogs are going to eat the dog food, to quote our esteemed Water Cooler author.
I disagree about the power trip and think for now it is worth supporting what he is doing
Let’s see, “for now”. So “for now” in 2008 we got a young black guy who changed not the slightest thing and proceeded with Bush Terms 3 and 4. Today we’re hearing that “for now” we can only get incremental health care change, not single payer. “For now” we need to elect the candidate of Big Wall St, Big Fracking, Big War, and Big Pharma. “For now” we need to provoke a brand new war with the brand new enemy du jour, oh look he’s a scary old Russian. “For now” we need to protect the big banks even more (thank you Mr. Kaine).
My view of “for now’? For now we get to watch a fine old principled gentleman get completely played by people he thought he could trust. Maybe we dodged a bullet by avoiding a Bernie presidency, looks like he’s just another naive and credulous person making the same old serial error of believing anything at all emanating from the mouth of HRC.
I think Obama nailed it in 2008 when he said “She will say anything, and she will change nothing”. End quote.
“…Maybe we dodged a bullet by avoiding a Bernie presidency, looks like he’s just another naive and credulous person”
+1
Ugh, no, I should have been clearer: I do not mean about supporting Hillary.
I think it’s very honorable to do all the down ticket stuff, build local, etc to effect change over the next 4,8,12 years.
But we had a real chance to GET change here, and NOW, by defeating Hilary. And I think the man, and the millions who gave him $220 million, got played.
… Bush term 3&4.
Bear in mind he resisted war with Iran. Big o is just a place holder for the real bush 3&4, pre- selected by the Dnc to avoid confusion and scheduled to begin mid Jan.
I think you are correct that the smart dogs won’t eat the dog food and I also think Sanders is OK with that, even if he can’t or won’t actively encourage it right now.
Were he not a sitting senator it might be different but he does hold a decent amount of power already and that is on the increase – people who hadn’t heard of him a year ago will notice when he takes a stand in the senate. If he goes after Clinton now, the Dems will do everything they can to cut him off at the knees.
I think a lot of people forget that he’s still an office holder and needs to walk a fine line for the time being in order to continue to wield power rather than being relegated to the back bench.
That being said, I was disappointed by the 2nd half of his speech last night. Must have been difficult to read words written for him that were completely untrue. Watching Slick Willie start grinning as Bernie talked about Hillary taking on the banks, etc. made me want to puke.
I believe that you are vastly underestimating H Clintons’ vindictiveness. She manifests the persona of an “entitled” person, such term often describing an aristocrat. H Clinton doesn’t want to be President, I’m believing now that she wants to be Queen.
The overriding ‘vibe’ I’m picking up is; “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”
And this is the point. Maybe it is on the up-and-up, but can you trust anything the Democratic Party does ever again? $100 million we don’t have to waste, and all I got was 20,000 e-mails.
If we learn nothing else from this electoral season, let it be that the Democratic Party must never ever ever be trusted again as a vehicle for social change. That party (if it ever was) is DEAD.
If you’re talking about the Democrats as the party of working people, I think that party died in the ’80s, and its successor-in-name has been coasting on brand loyalty since.
I want to throw out a question.
Could the left have more leverage under Hillary than under Obama because she doesn’t have ability to shut down a movement by the force of a charismatic personality, like Obama has had?
Obama has been immune to pressure from the left, and all he has to do, seemingly, is have his picture taken in the Oval bending down so a little African American boy can touch the top of his head, and the liberals go nuts.
Hillary has none of that “magic.” People distrust her. I suspect the left would be able to bird-dog her on TPP, Wall Street, etc., in a way they never could with Obama.
Would it even matter in the end?
Methinks that her term in office will be very short. Knowing the Republicans, they’re already hard at work on articles of impeachment.
Then there’s her health. As Yves, Lambert, and so much of the Commentariat have noted, she doesn’t look well. Doubt that the presidency will improve things for her. Watch for an early resignation.
Yea President Kaine… Anyone looking up the priest’s skirts?
I think hillary will be nearly as immune to pressure as Obama, dem tribalists have already circled the wagons around her and tossed out any who still support the movement Bernie Kickstarted, over tribal loyalty.
So while Republican tribalists will certainly hit her hard (as any tribe does to an outsider) it will not be for reasons that are applicable to the struggles the left are pursuing so she will be able to do anything and dem tribalists will support her.
A hillary presidency means the independent left will have no temporary outside support to draw on against her. Whereas a trump presidency has the benefit of drawing out dem tribalists to temporarily support left policies simply because they make a good stick to bash the other tribe with.
The temporary support by liberals of left policies would make it easier to push them into left downtickets rather than liberal ones. If the tribe is secured by hillary they are less likely to do so.
With support from the Kochs and Bloomberg is Hillary protected for the Rs?
Hillary could get a cute cat?
Wouldn’t that just remind people she left the last one when she moved out of the White House? They took everything but the cat.
The cat served his purpose.
And like others serving under the Clintons, was thrown under the bus when his usefulness was over.
Hillary could get a cute cat?
She could spay him and call him “Bernie”,. Maybe a sheepdog would be more appropriate.
Cruel, man, cruel. A step further; she already has a “cat,” and her name is…
This is going to be a uniquely ugly and dirty election campaign.
Time for a big bag of popcorn and a fifth of cheap bourbon.
I think I’ll hold my one drink a night rule in abeyance for select evenings during this election.
Why cheap bourbon? If tomorrow we die, then spring for the good stuff. Treat yourself!
Sorry, but I mix my drinks. As my late lamented uncle Terry once explained over a dram of Scots Single Malt, the not for export variety, he had bought over the pond for my Dads’ funeral; “Sip it sonny. Good booze is for savouring. Cheap booze is for ‘drinks.'” He wouldn’t even ‘bruise’ the drink with ice. “Ice melts and dilutes the taste.”
I’ve always preferred sweet drinks, so I guess my ingrown propensity for diabetic reactions guides my drinking habits. Yves once suggested Bitters in water for a quencher. I’ve done that a lot ever since. “Sugar. Mans’ Poison!”
I’ll raise one to you all tonight. Cheers!
That makes sense. I drink my whiskey neat, lest the ghosts of my Gaelic ancestors haunt me with their Calvinist loathing.
Slàinte!
puffs in solidarity
LOL! Our son was born on, wait for it, April 20. He’s as straight as a lazer when it comes to ‘recreational pharmaceuticals.’
During Bill’s presidency they did have a tuxedo cat called Socks … maybe just get a similarly cute one. But as to the naming – the suitably dynastic “Socks 2” is bad … to close to ‘sock it 2 me’ and ‘socks 2 be you.’ Boots is a cute name for Tuxedo cats, but starts with a ‘boo’. ‘Oreo’ conveys the cat coloring scheme but might be misconstrued as a snarky reference to future former occupant Obama. So, how about the nicely non-sexist – in fact I urge a female feline for reasons detailed below – ‘Mittens’?
In homage to the shining and longest-running exemplar of DC “bipartisan reaching across the aisle”, the neoliberal project, Hillary and her First-Groper hubby could even work in a Romneyesque – but suitably rebranded, say in form of a new legislative initiative dubbed the ‘Affordable Cat Act’ – “takers” theme as a warning to any would-be Welfare Queens who still dare defy Clinton-tep I’s “not welfare, workfare!” reform program, using the First Cat to illustrate. Since – in spite of yesterday’s NYT piece about hiding your cat’s food to stimulate its natural hunting behavior – the First Feline cannot be expected to forage for rats in the WH basement (however hunting for moles amongst the staff is encouraged!), here is a suitable repurposed-for-propagandistic-ends lyric by that legendary depression-era scat-erwauler, Cat Calloway, illustrating how only pampered pets of .01%ers can get away with not working for their keep:
Folks, here’s a story ’bout Mittens the Moocher
She was a white-pawed hoochie-coocher
She was the roughest, toughest frail
But Mittens had a hunger as long as her tail
Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi (hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi)
Whoa-a-a-a-ah (whoa-a-a-a-ah)
Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee (hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee)
He-e-e-e-e-e-e-y (he-e-e-e-e-e-e-y)
She messed around with a Tom named Smokey
She loved him though he was one-eyed and pokey
He took her down to Rodent Town
And he showed her how to bat the mousies around
Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi (hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi)
Whoa-a-a-a-ah (whoa-a-a-a-ah)
He-e-e-e-e-e-e-y (he-e-e-e-e-e-e-y)
Oh-oh-oh-oh (oh-oh-oh-oh)
She had a dream ’bout Cat King Oscar of Sweden
He gave her things that she was needin’
He gave her a sardine tin built of gold and steel
A diamond bell collar with a p-la-ti-num peal
Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi (hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi)
Ho-dee-ho-dee-ho-dee ho (ho-dee-ho-dee-ho-dee ho)
Skip-de-diddly-skip-de-diddly-diddly-oh (skip-de-diddly-skip-de-diddly-diddly-oh)
Bour’rrigy-bour’rrigy-bour’rrigy-oh (bour’rrigy-bour’rrigy-bour’rrigy-oh)
Gave her his scratchpost and his catnip grow-housies
Each meal she ate was a dozen mousies
She had a million dollars worth of kittie treats
She sat around and counted them all before she could eat
Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi (hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi)
Whoa-a-a-a-ah (whoa-a-a-a-ah)
He-e-e-e-e-e-e-y (he-e-e-e-e-e-e-y)
Whoa-a-a-a-ah (whoa-a-a-a-ah)
Poor Mitt, poor Mitt, poor Mitt
[The Voters “[H]owever, overwhelming shares of all Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters – including 90% who consistently supported Sanders]
The poll narrowed down to ‘consistent’ supporters and then polled to get the 90%. I registered voters, tabled literature and handed out, donated, voted etc but I am not a consistent supporter. Sanders was always irrelevant to me. I was just using him to get the policy I wanted. I agree that crushing the left is the most important to liberals, unfortunately, Obama crushed his supporters organization and Sanders dragged his to the convention to keep them from peeling off. Some Sanders delegates have had credentials removed (do they get kicked out of the hotel?) so of course the booing stopped. To have an actual movement rather than just an election season event, it would seem there needs to be a disruption of the convention as an action against power. If it just fizzles? People just drift off.
The internet situation is interesting…. people congregate in corporate spaces (like twitter), are censored (banned, hashtags disappeared) and then complain about censorship. Then there are places of being open like Reddit…. WL threatened to start something but I doubt they are serious.
I thought that Cory Booker’s speech was the most awful collection of cliches, but much of Twitter loved it. I also suspected he went on and on long enough to push Sanders off of prime time.
Nailed it.
Booker’s scum.
Cliches are about all this country has left…………as in fumes !
He was loud. That is why it caught people’s attention. 15-20 minutes of incessant shouting and contradictions.
“America was always great!” … “We must RISE UP!”
…what?
Agreed! He sickened me. I used to think he was a good one for the future too, once upon a time, when he was still mayor of Newark and appeared on the Bill Maher show occasionally. Fame seems to have gone to his head.
Did you notice Bernie Sanders’ expression while Booker was speaking and the camera settled on Bernie? It was obvious that he was hating it too.
The meme by Michele and Booker that “America is already great” will ring hollow to the 73% of voters who said all is not so great and they think the country is headed in the wrong direction.
It’s amusing/revealing to see the narrative arc of the reaction to the DNC leaks of the Clintonistas
and their media camp followers paralleling the intelligence community’s reaction to the Snowden leaks.
1. That’s crazy talk – you’d have to be a conspiracy nut to believe it.
quickly followed by
2. Of course – everybody knew that. Time to move on.
sprinkled on top with
3. Putin! Putin !! PUTIN !!!
BTW, the link to The New Yorker under Money is dead. Not that I’m complaining.
They have had at least 24 years (if not more, as their Arkansas years are excluded here) of experience handling scandals.
Rarely do the Little People get two strikes to hit (think NAFTA, bank bailout…stuff the elites want) – first in the primary phase where she nearly got dethroned, and now.
Now is Trump’s chance to stop another dynasty (Many in the country thank you – credit where credit is due – for defeating Bush, without spending much money either).
If not, probably (nothing is guaranteed in life) we have to wait another 8 years.
Hillary wouldn’t win reelection. If Trump is tied or even ahead right now, she will get destroyed in four years.
She’s running again in 2020?
*slaps hand to forehead*
Sh*t, I shoulda known. They’re NEVER going away.
You know who’s after Hillary. It will be C Clinton and her hedgie husband’s turn in the White House pay-to-play-o-rama.
If the Russians did this to the DNC, the obvious question is how Hillary can be so certain that her homebrew server wasn’t hacked? I mean, the same or less security and undoubtedly a higher value target.
I agree. So does Peter Van Buren http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2016/07/26/did-russian-intelligence-hack-the-dnc-servers/
I really hope the DNC isn’t too disappointed they’ll be missing the votes of quite a few Berners I’ve known. Hell, after the email thing my lady love is tempted to pull for Trump- and she hates Trump.
How the hell can they not see the corruption? They’re worse than Nixon, this is Teapot Dome territory.
Which is why I say that HRC reminds me of President Harding.
To defend Harding again, he was not personally responsible for Teapot Dome, his crony appointees were.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teapot_Dome_scandal
“The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States from 1921 to 1922, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and two other locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. In 1922 and 1923, the leases became the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies and became the first Cabinet member to go to prison”
HRC has a more direct hand in her scandals, and her scandals involve possible money for political favors on her part (Clinton Foundation donations?) or DNC power grabs, evidenced by the emails, BEFORE she is even elected.
She is corrupting the process for personal political gain.
W.G. Harding wanted to play poker, have his babes, play golf, and drink (even though it was during prohibition)
Harding was NOT power hungry and the scandals involving his administration were not known until after he died. He was never personally implicated in any of the financial schemes..
He wanted to enjoy himself and did not corrupt the electoral process to get in office.
Clinton is really in a class of her own when it comes to seeking power by any means.,
One should not besmirch the Harding reputation by comparing him with Clinton.
I wish Clinton were more like Harding, without the corrupt cronies.
“worse than Nixon”
Haven’t you gotten the memo? It’s the hack that’s worse than Nixon, not the DNC behavior that was revealed.
The DNC Hack Is Watergate, but Worse
Now admittedly this is Slate, so who cares, but still: this is being puffed up to a casus belli.
Where is the evidence Russia had anything to do with it?
This is the most irresponsible talk I’ve seen since Bush II in 2001.
These people are unserious, insane, and deeply corrupt.
There is no real evidence. See the posts by Jeffrey Carr at:
Digital Dao.
I now recall reading that there was some evidence a Cyrillic keyboard was used. That does not support that inference that Russian agencies were behind the hack much less that Putin had this done to help Donald Trump
Especially not if the hacker was from Eastern Europe. Although it may no longer be the case, at one point, Russian was the common language for all Eastern Europeans since they were forced to learn it in their schools.
reslez
July 26, 2016 at 4:27 pm
Look at Trump and his casual and flagrant disregard for truth, his obnoxiousness, his bombast, etcetera.
And than you look at this put out by the Clintoon apparatus – a vast work effort that takes some facts, and subtly and expertly crafts them for our MSM and selectively uses them to fashion a plausible narrative that is relentlessly put forth by the Clintoon Thrid column that inhabits a good portion of the media….that may ratchet up the tensions with a NUCLEAR power needlessly.
I ask you, who is worse???
and by the way, the very worse thing the hacked documents MAY have done is helped Bernie get the dem nomination – that is Armageddon???
yeah, and saddam didn’t have wmd’s. russia does.
In certain circles, ‘deeply corrupt’ excuses all of the rest.
The FBI is very concerned about possible Russian attempts to sway the U.S. presidential election. That’s their job.
LOL “the FBI is concerned about attempts to sway the US presidential election” LOL.
Maybe they should interview Ruth Bader-Ginsberg. Maybe they can get their man Comey to look in a mirror. Maybe they can have a look at the clear violations of law where DNC contributions far over and above the legal limit were funnelled 100% to Hilary. And wouldn’t they apply some of their considerable investigative powers to see whether highly classified information stored on the SoS’ home brew servers was compromised before they start worrying about some emails discussing whether a candidate is a Jew or an atheist?
but not about possible russian attempts to hack an illegal private email server operated by the secretary of state.
People tend to blame the “other” but like people they know (the priest can’t be a rapist, he’s so nice with the kids; the star football player isn’t a rapist, he said please and sir, he’s a saint) or would like to know such as celebrities. Trump calling for countries to pony up if they want NATO is destroying the International order, but when Obama makes the same argument and mind you he is the imaginary friend of far too many adults, Obama is showing leadership.
I’m sure Bill and Hill are very nice in person, most politicians are, but people are idiots. Tim Kaine is a nervous fellow but he is so gosh darn friendly it would be creepy except wow he’s nice. Does that excuse how he opened up his term as governor by abolishing the estate tax? Not in any normal morality system, but the shallow remember his smile.
Uh, looks like they’ll be trotting Sanders out again tonight to convince his supporters to sit down, be quiet and get on board. It must be interesting just to attend but I would have bailed once there was no longer even the gesture of having votes on the platform.
Maybe his supporters thought wikileaks had something serious? I guess they missed the contempt wl had for Sanders and would wait until Clinton was nominated if they had anything.
Get on board what? The Titanic?
Don’t ask me, I don’t get it. I never got the Sanders campaign and it’s just bizarre watching him try to get the movement to comply. I can put his supporters into 3 camps (I’m sure others can come up with more) locally: those socialists that knew Sanders from decades ago, any D will do, and those that want policy change. Locally, the most active and the ones that got the delegates spots want change and they want it now.
Sanders got in front a parade of angry voters and thinks he’s leading.
Not my take.
Sanders spoke of things he’s been passionate about all his life, resonated this time because there’s so much despair and Clinton is so far to the right.
Every word appealed to me, though not to shill who rejected them all. Now trump, who wants progressive and independent votes, is starting to speak progressive… Can he be believed?
I believe him on Tpp, infrastructure, and peace with Russia rather than confrontation and war. Really don’t see how people can see her as a lesser evil, but many do.
“I never got the Sanders campaign”
I don’t understand why. I never thought he was a revolutionary; he was a bog-standard Democrat…of 50 years ago. That still made him a radical, both to voters and to the modern party. The fact is he was an opportunity for real, if imperfect, change.
And he utterly wasted it. Self-sabotaged it, in fact. I had far lower expectations of him than most, and he still managed to disappoint me. I only wanted one thing of him: take it to the convention. If he endorsed Clinton afterwards, whatever. I’d have preferred him to still run as an independent, but if he at least went down fighting, I would have been content. Especially with the leaks about how much of a conspiracy there was against him. So not only has he caved to these scumbags, but by doing so he’s missed any opportunity of denouncing them. He’s utterly debased himself, and I don’t care to see or hear from him ever again.
The Cotopaxi.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Cotopaxi
We’re all taking a trip! Next stop, The Twilight Zone.
BOHICA. But be nice and quiet while it’s happening.
Ouch! No lube dude? What, a lady with a strap-on!? Aint right, just too humiliating.
Are we seeing the Stockholm Syndrome?
I don’t believe the Democrats and even Sanders had any idea how angry people are. I suspect Sanders knew well enough to run against Hillary, but when the super delegates event breaking, he just decided to fold, not truly understanding what the Obama administration has wrought to the Democratic Party. Fear of the GOP and the promise of Hillary didn’t work in 2014 to save Democrats, but Team Blue is so wrapped In their bubble they can barely comprehend what Is occurring.
Obama has been protected, but outside of Hillary, do voters bring up Obama? No. There was no demand do for an Obama lackey. Imagine that, the sitting President couldn’t even sponsor a successor candidate.
We cant forget the Iraq War.
Well said. That was one of my core problems with the early strategy of the Sanders campaign. They thought they were (or at least, publicly positioned themselves as) running just against Clinton. But really the opposition was the leadership apparatus of hundreds of officials, the bulk of the party, from national DNC to state level officials right on down to local mayors and prosecutors.
People are upset about the whole system, the direction of the country, whatever we want to call it, and want genuine change. Interestingly, I’ve noticed this same lack of awareness amongst a lot of highly educated commenters across the liberalish spectrum, from Clinton neocons to MMT left wingers, expressing a sentiment that if people just knew more, if the general public was better educated, then that would fix things. Yet all the evidence outside the bubbles is that it’s a collective action problem, not a lack of information problem. People do know they’re getting screwed. We just haven’t figured out an effective means of organizing resources at scale to break through yet.
Part of me hopes that Sanders was a little bit of a fraud, or at least not fully serious in his run, because if even he was genuinely shocked at the state of the nation, then the underlying sea changes going on in our culture may be even bigger and more sudden when they do reach a critical mass and burst through the consciousness of establishment gatekeeping.
He lives in Burlington which is a nice college town, he helped improve, and walking distance to the Capitol Building. When he’s home he goes to events and probably sleeps in the car. When was the last time, he was in a real part of Vermont which has a fairly stable economy.
I don’t mean to dismiss Sanders, but he is part of the disconnect. Even with his free college plan, he ignored the already debt ridden. People are so desperate they didn’t notice.
His base of support in Vermont is the Northeast Kingdom. Some places do not have running water. I respect your posts but you are completely misinformed here.
Got a link on that? I would think mayor of Burlington would be a pretty strong base in a state the size of Vermont.
I lived in Vermont and I am in a relationship with a Vermonter. I’ll see if I can find you a link but his support there is very strong.
http://www.npr.org/2014/07/10/330193246/could-a-socialist-senator-become-a-national-brand
I don’t have good data in front of me, but this piece references the dynamic a bit: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/opinion/campaign-stops/bernie-sanders-made-in-vermont.html
My family lived in the Northeast Kingdom for decades. Bernie is loved there, by exactly the type of voter the modern Democratic Party openly despises: poor, white, rural. Vermont’s economy is not that stable. Once you get past the world of the summer people and touristing leaf peepers, there’s a lot of poverty and people feel trapped, especially in the Northeast Kingdom. Bernie’s socialistic approaches better their lives, helping to spread the wealth from the tourists and pockets of wealthy flatlanders to the rest of the population. He is not a traditional liberal at all. He may not be the socialist ideal, but he’s not some college town egghead. If he didn’t raise the issue of already incurred debt, it’s probably more because that’s a harder problem. Look at how they attacked him just for wanting to address the tuition problem with a tax. Imagine if the words “debt jubilee” or the equivalent were uttered.
didn’t something like 80+% of vermont just vote for him in the primary? usually in states where they don’t know you best (and he’s been serving them for how many years?) do not come out for you.
I’m not discussing his support but what Sanders sees on a daily basis. It’s virtually impossible for a U.S. Senator to not be cocoon.
In Burlington, does Sanders deal with angry people without running water? The answer Is no. In Washington, does Sanders ever walk alone In the north half of town? I’ll say probably not which Is connected to what I believe is his outlook.
Try reading before accusing someone of being misinformed and using an unrelated claim.
The capital of Vermont is in Montpellier.
Yes. It Is. Bernie lives in Burlington and Washington near the Capitol building. It’s why I had an “and” between Burlington and the “Capitol Building” which I capitalized.
I assumed most people were aware electeds to federal office lived in Washington.
> all the evidence outside the bubbles is that it’s a collective action problem, not a lack of information problem
That’s an acute comment.
Hey, thanks Lambert.
Tressie is amazing; she does a lot of interesting work on class and higher education. Some of her best essays:
The Logic of Stupid Poor People
The Discomfort Zone
Raising the Floor, Not Just the Ceiling
David Brooks’ Polluted “Moral Ecology”
Yes indeed she is amazing. On class/race/gender/education/legal violence/the whole social nervous system. One of the few who uses real life (and angry wit) to show how those things don’t just “intersect”, they constitute each other all the time.
really appreciate these links Uahsenaa
“Elevating discomfort to discrimination mocks the intent of the policy, but that’s not the whole of it. By sanctioning Gibney for making students uncomfortable, MCTC is pushing a disturbing higher-education trend. When colleges and universities become a market, there is no incentive to teach what customers would rather not know. When colleges are in the business of making customers comfortable, we are all poorer for it.”
Gibney is making the students uncomfortable?
If racism can’t be shown to be natural then it is the result of certain conditions, and we are impelled to eliminate those conditions. Zinn
Back in the 90s I used to know his brother. Zinn’s brother. In New Yawk, I had no idea who Howard Zinn was, never had heard of him, and the brother just said he wrote political books and was liberal. The brother, who I knew, was on in years at the time and had made good money in an industry that got “disrupted” by the industry I was making a living in as a disruptor. It was not agood living, I assure anyone, it was borderline freelance stuff and it was hard. The brother was a tall lanky good natured guy who’d been a WW 2 vet, a demoltions expert, and was ethical, modest, honest, good humored, collegial and very very sane. I rented office space from him aand after a few years, when I was burned out to the ground of my being, he bought my equipment and client relations from me and taught himself and did it himself, just to keep going, with enthusiasm and good humor and grace. It must have been quite a family. You wonder where those types are now. I guess they’re everywhere, in uncertain numbers that may in part be a result of something we call “culture”, but they are largely invisible unless you encounter them in a context in which their invisibility becomes a personality, and when and if you see one the way I did you say to yourself “Well, I guess there’s something here I can learn from.” I think I did, but not as much as there was there to learn. I’m still learning though, 20 years later, just by remembering. That’s how cool the dude was, to reach this far out in time and still be so real and worthy of memory and contemplation. .
that’s amazing craazy…as the world shrinks. years from now i’ll be thinking of you in the same manner…’he’s everywhere’. i’m about to put a bead on Randall Collins.
(think baaaack… you prolly had a beer with him while polishing a craft’)
Note to self: read when you have time. It’s crazy how much good stuff there is here every day and I am relocating so tearing my hair out trying to multitask which per the scientists isn’t really possible and in my case def not possible. Maybe too much of the 420 over the years, dunno…
Relocating? Your ‘houseguests’ have edged you out??!! This sounds like the plot of J G Ballards’ story, “Billennium.”
Like the lyrics to “H R Pufnstuf” say, “can’t do a little ’cause you can’t do enough.”
(Unfortunately, we know a few too many ‘burnouts,’ so H R is, unfortunately, wrong. Addictive personalities and all.)
Declining mom in North Carolina
Been there. Hardest work there is. To help a parent in decline is an honor. Filial duty at it’s best, because it is so hard. Please forgive this unsolicited advice: take some time for yourself every day to avoid burnout.
Both of Phyllis’ parents went out at the same time. Her mom, Katherine, went quickly from Alzheimers. Her dad, John, gave up, a common fate of the caretakers, especially spouses, of Alzheimers patients. She outlasted him by a few months.
Luckily, Phyl is one of four children, so the burden was shared. If you are on your own in this, do take ‘flora’s’ advice. You will need all the help you can get. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your Mom will want you to survive this intact.
if (1) the russians hacked clinton’s server, and (2) putin actually wants trump to win and (3) he’s not concerned about giving away his capabilities in doing so, we should expect the most damaging clinton emails to be leaked between her official nomination and the election date.
if that doesn’t happen, then either putin doesn’t really want trump to win, he hasn’t hacked the clinton server, or there aren’t any really damaging emails or releasing them would be not worth the cost to russia’s intelligence gathering.
of course, if the leaks do happen, it’s no proof that the russians did it: plenty of people or groups might want trump to win and guccifer proved that you didn’t need to be an elite, state hacker to get into clinton emails while at state.
Re: Mulch I lay down sheets of craft paper cardboard one layer thick (pallet slipsheets) and thin layer of mulch. Punched holes in it where I planted the basil plants, hence no weeds and moist soil even in the recent blistering heat. The cardboard is pretty much gone for the most part the following spring and I add a fresh layer.
In pic perennial Dill and Garlic as well. They grow wherever the seeds have fallen or were thrown. Now passive garden crops –as in I don’t intervene, they grow where they want.
The garlic in the pic I let go to seed (the green stalks w/ the seed pods on top). I’ll never go back to store bought garlic, at least it is usually pretty beat up and dry, not even remotely comparable.
All of these plants can be grown by apartment dwellers in pots if you have some sun exposure.. and room to put a pot.
In the background a Citronella plant in pot, give a leaf a twist, very fragrant…. and the very start of an apple tree espalier.
FWIW to people in the Chicago area that grow tomatoes, I have been having very good luck w/ the blight resistant tomatoes plants from http://www.mortonarb.org/ plant sale in spring. the yellow cherry tomatoes are like candy, I eat handfuls of them sitting out there.
I like to use newspaper and straw. I fork it into a raised bed in the fall and lay down a new layer on walkways etc.
I was just out grazing… found a few blueberries, lots of strawberries and raspberries. Only have a couple of pears and they need more time and the apples smell really good. Ruffled the tarragon and the lemon verbena (oh, wow) and grabbed a handful of green beans for dipping.
Good for you WP, you get it. black currant!
“Sanders responded to them: ‘We have got to make sure that TPP does not get to the floor of the Congress in the lame-duck session,’ ”
Sanders is a Senator; couldn’t he place a “hold” on it, or try a real filibuster? Might well have the votes to support that. The session will be short, so delay counts.
Boy is this a good point. Presumably there are a few other senators willing to help…
Was thinking big or would pass his masterpiece in lame duck, maybe there’s hope.
Will pass popcorn.
Fast track means TPP isn’t subject to the filibuster. Stopping fast track was the place to stop TPP. After tea party Republicans balked, the Dems, while loudly opposing fast track, made sure they provided just enough votes to get it passed. That’s how they roll.
The only way to defeat it now is to make it so radioactive they don’t have the guts to bring it to the floor. They won’t if they don’t have the votes. If they bring it up, it means they have the votes.
Thanks for the link to the Politico article about the Clinton Victory Fund. Months ago, here at NC some of us discussed the strange Clinton fundraising events in which rich people would donatefar more than the legal limit of $2700. The standard explanation was that some of the money would go to the DNC, and some to state Democratic organizations. Naturally, there was plenty of suspicion that a lot of that money wasn’t arriving at the state organizations.
Now we know that most of the money really wasn’t going beyond the Clinton campaign. This is a clear violation of election law, and yet another example of Clinton cheating. Will anyone be prosecuted? Sure thing, as soon as the bank and hedgie executives who caused the 2008 Great Financial Collapse are prosecuted! And this, too, of course:
http://iwilllookintoit.com/
I seem to recall a principled old senator from Vermont who felt that campaign finance corruption was the single most important issue facing the nation.
He’s been awfully quiet about this exact incident of blatant law-breaking by his new BFF.
(Ah, the term “law-breaking”, brings up such fond memories of “before”, when even the protected class was not above the law of the land).
Thank you Lambert for posting the Moynihan tweet!!! I was and still am FURIOUS over that; had mentioned it in the Monday scenes thread this morning but my post went into moderation and anyway I lack the computer savvy to post the tweet w/the comment, so this is much better, and more visible.
Of course, us Berniecrat anti-HIllary holdouts are “garbage people,” to quote another pundit, and therefore presumably don’t count.
And they wonder why people have no respect for most journalists anymore, and outright hate the beltway establishment types?
+1. An ugly – and revealing – tweet. By a so-called ‘journalist’? This kind of poor judgement by a contributor should embarrass any publication with a shred of integrity.
Daughter’s response to tweet: “If I were that person, I wouldn’t give a sh*t. I mean, really, she isn’t suicidal or marxist and almost certainly doesn’t work at TGI Fridays, so whatevs. And even if she did, so what? This guy thinks he’s all that but we don’t read media; we know he’s just stupid.”
re: the internet of shit pooper app, something like that could be a huge hit in paris if it displayed where all the latest dog shit can be avoided. bet it would save thousands of pairs of shoes per year.
dog owners are the worst, by the way. they deserve a special place in hell.
I agree, vidimi. It’s gotten to the point where I avoid having friends who are dog owners. Their entitlement mentality rivals that of the DNC.
We have …uh… neighbors…who have 2 dogs…..
they pitch the dog’s poop into the vacant lot BETWEEN their’s and our’s……
……..and I go out of my way..to pick-up our hen’s droppings…DAILY…..to become compost…which is turned and aerated every few days………so as NOT to put off funky odors..
…but said neighbors………..why.. they’re special………!
Get a nice box and some gift wrapping paper. Put doggie deposits in the box, hold your nose and wrap it, and leave it on the neighbors’ doorstep.
Their reaction? Priceless.
Well, if it’s any consolation, the site is not a parody according to this article:
http://sfist.com/2016/07/25/if_you_think_this_is_great_you_are_seriously_the_laziest.php
Or at least it wasn’t intended to be. The money quote of the article?
This speaks for itself.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/bernie-sanders-delegates-vote-226205
There sure are a lot of pictures of crying female Bernie supporters. Which is odd, because the MSM led me to believe such people didn’t exist at all…
good catch.
“Democrats always prove the commies right”
On politics, absolutely.
The more I read though, the more I’m coming to the conclusion that Communism is one giant cult, and anyone who applies the same level of critical scrutiny to basic Marxist concepts, like the labor theory of value, is at risk of being declared a heretic and expelled. Looking at things like this https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/trees/trotchart2.jpg it becomes self-parody, as the whole movement self-atomizes itself into utter irrelevance.
Note the prevalence of the explusions. And the splits.
Thanks for the midday laugh, Plenue.
I noticed that one of the parties on the chart was Lambertist, so I looked up “Lambertist” in Wikipedia, and I was redirected to this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Lambert
It’s funny to see this shares again today. It was shared in the links or water cooler some weeks ago and I have had it open in a tab on my phone since then because I really enjoyed it. What do you know, relevant as ever…
“The arena seems to be filled with suicidal Marxists who work at TGI Friday’s”
That is some Grade A hippie-punching right there.
As for the “ZOMG Putin Hacked The DNC ‘Cos He Loves Trump” story, The Washington Post has this nugget of hilarity : “If the Russians were behind the leaks, said former CIA director Michael Hayden, “they’re clearly taking their game to another level. It would be weaponizing information.” He added: “You don’t want a foreign power affecting your election. We have laws against that.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-anxiety-for-democrats-are-more-leaks-to-come/2016/07/25/0d8798e8-5282-11e6-bbf5-957ad17b4385_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_democrats-hack-720a-top%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
The firm hired by the DNC to investigate their security breaches seems to have a lot of former FBI officials working there:
In late 2011, Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded and became the chief technology officer of CrowdStrike,[4] a security technology company focused on helping enterprises and governments protect their intellectual property and secrets against cyberespionage and cybercrime. CrowdStrike has brought on board senior FBI executives, such as Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director (EAD) of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch, and Steve Chabinsky, former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division. CrowdStrike has received $156 million in funding from Warburg Pincus, Accel Partners, and Google Capital.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Alperovitch
Sorry, I am feeling foily today. (Ka-ching!)
Funny how unconcerned the FBI was about possible Russian hacking of the secretary of state…O YEAH, that’s just a pure bullsh*t job…
If it’s true that “The Rooshans” are trying to “influence US elections” by peeking at Very Secial You Can’t Look At Those E-Mails(like the Israelites ,http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/netanyahu-trying-influence-american-election-5-reasons-its-not-going-work and http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/netanyahu-trying-influence-american-election-5-reasons-its-not-going-work, it sure seems a lot gentler than how our exceptional nation goes about “interfering in elections.” A couple of references, even the CIA’s own publications brag up their power to effectuate “regime change:”
“History of the CIA,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency
“35 countries where the U.S. has supported fascists, drug lords and terrorists —As the situation in Ukraine continues to fester, a handy history guide — from A (Argentina) to Z (Zaire)” , http://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/35_countries_the_u_s_has_backed_international_crime_partner/ (Last I checked, SALON loves hillary)
“America’s Coup Machine,” talking about “influencing elections”:
http://www.alternet.org/world/americas-coup-machine-destroying-democracy-1953
Which set of people that fill out the ranks of the US machinery is most likely to get the rest of us involved in a shooting war that may include nuclear weapons? And is the US such a fragile political economy that exposing some of the ruling elite’s dirty laundry is going to “influence the election (cue the scary shrieking violin music)”? But we know what this big deal is really all about, don’t we?
And let us not forget the “Republican Reagan” manipulation of the electorate via stuff like the “Bear in the Woods” commercial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_in_the_woods
Know what? I am sick of what we humans are doing to each other and the planet. So for me at least, knowing that adhering to one of the two totems held up in this binary choice that conceals so much and reveals so much, is likely to make little difference to the horrors already in play, I don’t much care.
I forget, is Vice the one that’s supposed to be the cool new hip news source for millennials? Or is that Vox? Regardless, what you really want to do is insult your young, idealistic audience. Good job.
I’m really struck by how downright gleeful so many of these media types are about the failure of Sanders. They don’t get that this is literally existential. Not just for the debt-ridden, poorly paid youth (who these well paid ‘journalists’ don’t give a crap about). But for these smug media types themselves. Because if something in the system as a whole doesn’t fundamentally change, I can genuinely foresee one of the endgame scenarios being a mass revolt, including rounding up people like Moynihan and lining them up against a wall to be shot.
That tweet was so viscerally and blatantly insulting – hurtful, really – that I feel like, sick. In its way, though, it’s revealing: it shows how the power elite really feel about the young, the poor, the unemployed, the old, those on Medicaid, those trying to pay back student loans by working at TGIF (or Chipotle, or Wendy’s, or wherever they don’t deign to eat), in brief, an overwhelming chunk of America. The absence of self-awareness, empathy, or just plain political savvy is almost beyond belief.
Honestly, somebody should try to give that tweet wings.
Michael C. Moynihan is an American journalist and the cultural news editor for The Daily Beast/Newsweek and the managing editor of Vice magazine. Before that he was a senior editor of the libertarian magazine Reason. Wikipedia
Born: 1974, Boston, MA
Education: University of Massachusetts Amherst
A goddam libertarian. If we know where he lives, can’t we?
Reason is the one kept afloat by masses of Koch money, right? There’s so much irony there; something that champions free-markets itself would be DOA if left to the whims of the market.
> somebody should try to give that tweet wings
Somebody did :-)
Yes and many thanks for snagging it, Lambert.
The image that sprang to mind as I read it was oh, say around 100,000 spare billboards across the Rust Belt. Since it appears that most of this region won’t be honored by actual campaigning, let tweets do the talking for them.
I slept on that tweet and I’m still upset.
Vice is Vox with a man-bun, yes.
So what’s Vox’s gimmick?
$250 million in funding…..
FWIW, DEBKA says it wasn’t the Russian state cyberspooks.
http://www.debka.com/article/25570/The-DNC-emails-were-not-hacked-by-Russian-GRU
I know I know, DEBKA is what it is. But if for any reason they wanted to play it straight on this story, they sure as hell are qualified to comment.
FREIGHT BOOKING? Just one of many examples of the dumb money chasing ‘apps’ still. So much of them are just adding a ‘rents’ onto already existing services. Valued at $75 million? What fools. An app to book a pick up and fix a delivery will only shave minutes off the time it takes to email a broker. And it will NOT cut down your rate if you are a regular shipper. Truckers and companies are already lean to the bone since 2009, drivers making $5 to $10 less an hour! Everyone is already hungry. We get rates now for pallets that match 90’s prices. 20 years ago. If will only work for one or two time residential pickups, people moving and stuff. Which so many other cut rate companies are completely fulfilling now. Innovation? No, just dumb money getting thrown at college kids that wouldn’t know how to even look up rail and truck tonnage dropping (!) in traffic….We’re already in a ‘shipping recession’…and they and their money are too dumb to even look it up.
Thanks. I was hoping somebody would say something like this.
These sorts of irrational investments eventually take the big hair cut. My friends and i shake our collective heads at these valuations compared to valuations of real industrial/manufacturing companies in this country that build real stuff.
It’s an artfact of recent history –an amnesia “investment” bubble by apparently narrowly experienced, high time preference people that were never exposed to and dont understand why a domestic industrial base /infrastructure are important for stewartship of the countries economic engine, a real middle class.
Trading absurdly valued “apps” for what someone’s grandfather was doing in his head and on a yellow legal pad?. Yikes
Its just another example of a lot of stupid virtual money sloshing around chasing returns that will be vaporized after mr market grows weary of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
It will be just a other casestudy for ppl to look back at and wonder wtf were they thinking?
Meanwhile, ersthile electronic interconnect Juggernaught, Molex a company started by a guy in a bungalow basement in a workingclass suburb of chicago back in the 1950’s quietly gets sold off to Koch bros for a relative yard auction valuation when they are the only serious buyer –after shopping the company was shopped around.
For whatever political -idealogical issues these guys have, they do apparently understand how to value and suck up industrial base companies.
Its all pretty pathetic
Laurie Penny keeps getting better and better.
Bad Moon Rising
Here we are in the desert of moderate liberalism. The storm has hit, and nobody was prepared.
https://medium.com/welcome-to-the-scream-room/bad-moon-rising-8cd348df50e9#.s00okgqpr
Democracy!
No kidding. This has me more upset with Bernie than his endorsement of HRC, which, as Lambert and others have pointed out, he always said he would do.
This is not just about a bunch of entitled millennials who “worked their hearts out” for Bernie and can’t deal with the disappointment. It’s about people of all ages, many of whom volunteered or contributed to a political campaign for the first time in their lives, because they honestly believed that SOMEONE in Washington finally was telling them the truth*, acknowledging their pain, and listening to them. Although “it’s not about Bernie,” the revolution belongs to all of us, it’s up to us to keep the movement going, etc., Bernie’s leadership was critical, by virtue of his being on the “inside” and a rare individual who has been there without being completely corrupted by it. For many of us, the biggest issue IS the corruption, and that’s what he campaigned on. And now, rather than respecting our legitimate protest against one of the most corrupt politicians in the world, he’s telling us to sit down, shut up, and vote for her.
I’ve been waiting to see how he would spin his unprecedented support into a continuing movement, but I’m becoming more depressed by the day. His “Our Revolution” email, mentioned by others in above comments, didn’t help.
* not “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” type truth, but astonishing compared to other politicians.
Count me as someone who never, EVER volunteered for a presidential campaign before Bernie 2016. At this point, it will be a cold day in hell before I volunteer for another.
I’ve done a bit, but I felt that with TPP, climate and never ending war that something had to shift. So I worked and donated for someone I never thought was serious about winning but could be pushed over the finish line. Really discouraged about how corrupt and craven our system is and don’t believe it has any chance of change through voting.
I’m tempted to imagine that this outcome was the intent all along. Bernie wasn’t a ‘sheepdog,’ but became, in the end, the Judas Goat for “Insurgent” Democrats everywhere.
Given than Clinton land is much more likely to be covered in Russian mushroom clouds, I’ll take Trump.
One of the best articles on the convention. Thanks for the link.
Here are some paragraphs.
…..
… I added the bold
I can’t quote any more. There are more and more excellent paragraphs. Good for a laugh in the face of the coup d’etat that has happened.
Still, the convention is an event. The issues like TPP, the environment, income inequality, etc. will not go away and separate groups will continue to press them. If Hillary is elected, while fighting off impeachment from the right, she will have to deal with pressure on the issues from both sides.
+1. Nice to hear from another Penny fan.
Better at what? I found little of substance in there.
“Every candidate should be held up to the sort of scrutiny Hillary Clinton has faced, but it just so happens that only women are.”
What substantive scrutiny has the mainstream subjected Clinton to? Calling her out on being massively corrupt isn’t ‘scrutiny’, it’s a simple statement of fact. And the media has done precious little of even that.
When was the last time they talked about her destroying a country?
“Clinton is inarguably competent.”
She destroyed a country! I guess that’s a kind of competence, if death and destruction are your goal.
I didn’t get very much from that piece; already knew the substance, and the style doesn’t really work for me.
Anyway, with the “better and better”: please keep in mind she also wrote this hate-mongering bit when she was feeling down recently: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/i-want-my-country-back
” overwhelming shares of all Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters – ”
Self-described Democrats are at about 29% (also polling data – a number of states don’t register by party, so registrations aren’t a good indicator). The number probably took a hop during Bernie’s campaign, is not sliding again. Haven’t seen anything real recent.
Hard to compare different polls, because they all use different parameters – how does this one compare with one that just asks Democrats?
Donald Trump Rally in Winston-Salem, NC (7-25-16)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRE55l6QgjM
Donald Trump says “Wouldn’t it be nice if we got along with the Russia? Not so bad” (applause).
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we got together with Russia and a few other countries and knocked the Hell out of ISIS and had a safe World again?” RAPTUROUS APPLAUSE
at 1 hour and 37 minutes of the youtube
a miracle (IMO)
Unlikely heroes arise at times of greatest need; for instance, Joan of Arc, a 19 year old courageous peasant girl. Who would have ever imagined?
clarky90
July 26, 2016 at 3:50 pm
If people see it (and most won’t – it doesn’t fit the NARRATIVE or the BRAND) they won’t think he is serious…its like the presidential candidate appearing in Detroit, and saying, “maybe these cars aren’t so great…what if we rode more bicycles?” WE MUST make cars, and WE MUST oppose the Russkies…..
Trump is The Peace and Prosperity Candidate.
Clinton is The War and Austerity Candidate.
The Republican Party was once the Party of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. Has the wheel turned? The People want Peace! My oldest son is 25 yo, and the USA has been at war for his entire lifetime!
Compare Trump’s attitude with Hillary’s clique of neocon advisors, as documented in The Intercept:
–Robert Kagan and Other Neocons Are Backing Hillary Clinton
My current view is as follows:
HRC: Greedy, corrupt, dishonest, reckless, neocon/neoliberal warmonger
Trump: Greedy, corrupt, dishonest, reckless, prefers to “be friends with Russia and China”
Hmm…not such a hard choice after all. I’d still probably vote for Jill Stein. I note that many libertarians are pissed off that Gary Johnson isn’t playing up non-interventionism (but it would be hard to do with warmonger Bill Weld as VP).
demodogs hack and Putin.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/07/exclusive-interview-putin-dnc-emails-russia-love.html
Oh my God! Politics breaks out at the democratic convention
Politics—Good, Loud, and Passionate—Breaks Out at the DNC
Oh, so “party unity” suddenly becomes “a sign of vibrancy”, I see how this works.
it’s the new new coke.
She was disgusting. I heard her acknowledge there was some basis for Bernie folks feeling betrayed in the WikiLeaks release and in the next breath instead of apologizing say they need to stop “griping”. I think she was talking to Tweety.
More on how Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento, dismantled a historic association.
http://deadspin.com/secret-emails-show-kevin-johnson-spying-on-attempting-1784042899
Just stopped in to say: Michael C Moynihan – Christ, what an asshole.
Here’s a tip Mike: as far as your masters are concerned if you work for a paycheck, no matter how large, you’re working class too.
I’m not even asking for solidarity at this point, just some common human f***ing sympathy.
But before she (Michelle Obama) closed, she delivered a message unmistakably aimed at the billionaire businessman. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that this country is not great, that somehow we need to make it great again,” she said. “Because this right now is the greatest country on Earth.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/michelle-obama-hillary-clinton-226182
===================================
I once interviewed my grandma — we called her Mamaw — for a class project. After 70 years filled with marriage, children, grandchildren, death, poverty and addiction, the thing about which Mamaw was unquestionably the proudest and most excited was that she and her family did their part during World War II. We spoke for minutes about everything else; we spoke for hours about war rations, Rosie the Riveter, her dad’s wartime love letters to her mother from the Pacific, and the day “we” dropped the bomb. Mamaw always had two gods: Jesus Christ and the United States of America.
…
And as president, his (Barrack Obama) term started just as so many in the white working class began believing that the modern American meritocracy was not built for them. We know we’re not doing well. We see it every day: In the obituaries for teenagers that conspicuously omit the cause of death (reading between the lines: overdose), in the deadbeats we watch our daughters waste their time with, and in the fast food jobs that offer little money and even less pride.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/25/how-the-white-working-class-lost-its-patriotism/
===========================================
Who believes this is the greatest country on earth and who no longer does …
fourth turning here we come!
It wouldn’t surprise me if Michelle ran for Congress in 2018
She’d have a bit of a problem, since I believe the Obamas are staying in DC until the younger daughter finishes at [pricey non-public school] Sidwell. DC has only a “non-voting” congressional representative.
The Strauss–Howe generational theory is about as erudite as Glen Becks reading of Revelations…
“The theory has been influential in the fields of generational studies, marketing, and business management literature. However, it has been criticized, by several historians, and a few political scientists and journalists, as being overly-deterministic, “non-falsifiable,” and unsupported by rigorous evidence.[46][47][48]”
Disheveled Marsupial…. Maybe they were channeling Rand or Von Mises as both enjoy writhing scripture….
DNC Lawyers Now Implicated in Email Leaks as Giving ‘Pro-Hillary’ Advice
There are many suits around the stolen primary that Hillary “won.” Several are about stripping voters and flipping the counts from machines and other illegal actions.
This particular suit involves the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
150 have joined the suit and
DNC Lawyers Now Implicated in Email Leaks as Giving ‘Pro-Hillary’ Advice
“attorneys from Perkins Coie are representing both the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign”
Hey, what’s the problem? The Clintons ARE the Democratic Party.
Lord knows they’ve made tremendous sacrifices to build the party into what it is today. /sarc
The mass graves of the Roosevelt consensus.
last week i overheard our apartment admin explain to a young man why his rent was 300.00 higher than his new neighbor…”the day your neighbor signed their lease the demand was low and the day you moved in the demand was high”. i musta laff’d a bit louder than i realized bc when i looked up they were both staring at me..so i asked “how’s that volatility going for customer attraction?” when i got home i looked up how our apartments are priced online and WoW…$1200.00 to 2060.00 2bd/2ba. (we’re paying around 780.00 but they want our apartment NOW…i staved’em off till end of October thinking i might see a tiny mkt adjustment but nooooooooooo its going higher.) my realtor says tums is his new food group.
and a mark ta marketing we go
i can’t wait till surge pricing comes to food.
maybe to cushion some of that shock, keep an eye on this site http://www.foodsecurityportal.org/significant-volatility-soybeans-supply-and-stocks-still-good
…there’s a rumor 300% rise in 4 increments up to half of 2018
i expect it, it’s the way things are going. and water, water everywhere, but the drops are expensive cause privatization.
smart phone to get food, that will be meritocracy
ROLL CALL VOTE TO TAKE PLACE MOMENTARILY
Just turned on CNN hoping to catch Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination speech for Bernie. She announced on FB that it would take place at 5 p.m. but evidently it was earlier, so I missed it. There were two other speeches, then a brief cut to talking heads and a banner saying that a roll call vote would be taking place “momentarily.”
late today CNBC said Hillary will reinstate the Glass-Siegel Act…ponder if Bill will mention it tonight. guess i’ll have to read about it somewhere…no hive ointment left for the rah rahs.
“Perhaps any token that can be laundered is, in fact, money?”
Pantsu-denominated JGBs imminent
Here’s the text of Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination speech. The union guy who followed her urged Bernie supporters to vote for Hillary in November, but Tulsi evidently didn’t mention her. Nor did the third speaker (I think she said she was the head of the Vermont delegation).
https://medium.com/@TulsiGabbard/tulsis-speech-nominating-bernie-sanders-for-president-of-the-united-states-ef9fa1302888#.hov6sng82
roll call vote going on right now.
Alaska goes Bernie!
>The arena seems to be filled with
… seems to be filled with female Bernie “Bro’s”, scrolling thru the pictures at the link….weird huh? They must have just come on board as the MSM would never misrepresent reality that badly.
TWTR is trading down 11% after-hours…
The best way to engage honestly with the marketplace via Twitter is to never use the words “engage,” “honestly,” or “marketplace. Jeffrey Zeldman
major equity dump?
probably by those in the know: Twitter’s upper management has been going through some major upheavals lately. Announced back in June, Chief Executive Dick Costolo departed the company in a sudden move; however, he remains on the Board of Directors. And right before its second-quarter earnings were posted, two executives announced their exits: product manager Todd Jackson is moving to Dropbox and VP of product management Christian Oestline is going to Google Inc’s ( GOOG , GOOGL ) YouTube.
These management changes, having come within weeks of one another, is perhaps a sign that the troubles over at Twitter are worse than originally thought, and concern more than just poor user growth.
Twitter is really a commons. It should have all the high-tech appeal of CraigsList. Not suitable for venture capital at all.
Can’t resist:
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2016/07/23
+
The White House is making a special Twitter account to answer questions about the new nuclear agreement. Finally using Twitter for what it was designed for — explaining complex, international nuclear agreements involving several nations. ~Seth Meyers
“The same people on the Clinton team who made enormous efforts to claim her private email server—which operated unencrypted over the Internet for three months, including during trips to China and Russia, and which contained top-secret national-security data—was not hacked by the Russians now are certain that the DNC server was hacked by the Russians” [The American Conservative].
===================================
I am too simple – cause I can not get over how the hacking of a political party is more important than the hacking of the secretary of state.
And the vaunted FBI….extremely incurious about if Russia ever got national security from the Clintoon server – Didn’t Comey essentially say, not our job???
O yeah
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-no-evidence-clintons-email-was-hacked-by-foreign-powers-but-it-could-have-been/2016/07/05/93334ba0-42dc-11e6-8856-f26de2537a9d_story.html
Well, not to be totally anti Clinton, I will say this: I was out in my garden, mulching and pulling up some crabgrass, and I confirm that I as well found NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that Russians got any US state department top secret stuff….
so that settles that….
Is the linking of Putin to Trump on the DNC hack a pre-emptive strike in case Hillary’s top secret emails are released? Plant the narrative that Trump is in bed with Putin so when the emails are released Hillary supporters become even more enraged at Putin and Trump, disregarding the security implications and reckless behavior on Hillary’s part.
It is a full-time job, with overtime, trying to keep one step ahead of Hillary’s blunder. Her operatives care less that blaming the DNC hack on Putin is crazy, so long as the faithful buy into it. But losing a percent or two of the voters over blunder after blunder will eventually cost Hillary the election.
If only Nixon had plumbers as skilled as Hillary’s he could have finished his term.
the taco bowl stuck with me
Harvard humorous condescension or maybe it was the Florida idiots angle
interesting speculation ,ScootW.
A twofer – 1. diversion and 2. goading Putin into moving first (and she can have her whatever)…He shall live in infamy…
She is very smart…too smart for us mortals, and I always say, beware of smart people.
Circus Circus hits the road: In 2014, Michell Espinoza was on trial for selling $1,500 worth of Bitcoin for cash. After exchanging the virtual currency with undercover police officers for money they claimed was obtained illegally, Espinoza was arrested. He was charged with two counts of money laundering and one count of acting as an unlawful money transmitter/payment seller.
After reviewing the case, Judge Pooler dropped the charges against the defendant. Since Bitcoin is not considered real currency, Espinoza cannot be charged with illegally transmitting or laundering money.
“The court is not an expert in economics; however, it is very clear, even to someone with limited knowledge in the area, the Bitcoin has a long way to go before it the equivalent of money.”
For money laundering charges to stick, someone must be conducting a “financial transaction” with money that comes from illegal activity. Agreeing with the Espinoza’s defense, the judge ruled Bitcoin does not fall under the definition of a “payment” instrument.
During the trial, defense attorney Frank Andrew Prieto presented a 1966 U.S. quarter to the court and asked expert witness Charles Evans, who was paid $3,000 in Bitcoins for his appearance, if Bitcoin was a real coin. Evans, a Barry University economist, answered, “No.”
“Basically, it’s poker chips that people are willing to buy from you,” he added.
Espinoza’s case was the first money laundering prosecution that involved Bitcoin. Florida’s law lacks clarity when it comes to the classification of virtual currency.
“Nothing in our frame of references allows us to accurately define or describe Bitcoin,” Judge Pooler wrote.
The Internal Revenue Service considers Bitcoin physical property and is taxed as such. If an individual sells it, any profit made is taxable in the same manner as selling a house or share of stock. In 2015, the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission deemed virtual currencies as commodities for regulatory purposes.
Judge Pooler must have considered these definitions in her eight-page opinion…
“This court is unwilling to punish a man for selling his property to another, when his actions fall under a statute that is so vaguely written that even legal professionals have difficulty finding a singular meaning. There is unquestionably no evidence that the defendant did anything wrong, other than sell his Bitcoin to an investigator who wanted to make a case.”
“The arena seems to be filled with suicidal Marxists who work at TGI Friday’s”
Is this guy an ass or what? Wait, has that already been said like a million times today? Well, frak it. One Million and One!!!!
Regarding the “Russian” hacking of e-mails, I am sure every spy agency in the world has dirt on every government in the world (including their own). It is likely that this information is constantly in play behind the scene. This time it’s bubbled to the surface. So? It’s not like this is the first time.
And purely in the interest of democracy, they have done us a favor by exposing this type of behind the scenes crap. In our “system”, it is the job of the press to expose malfeasance such as this, but apparently, they were complicit in it.
Finally… What is it authorities always like to say to little people when they intrude in their private affairs? “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about!”
How do we know it wasn’t the Chinese hacking the emails?
Why would they bother? They have 24/7 access to everything she reads and writes and everything she says and hears on her Blackberry.
I wish I was joking about that. The NSA warned her. It’s why she wasn’t supposed to use that Blackberry.
Total freak-out by the DNC because the truth was revealed in the DNC emails. Just goes to show what a bunch of liars and schemers they have been and will continue to be. It doesn’t matter where it comes from if it’s the truth. Immediate shifting blame to Russia, as if there should be any blame going around that isn’t the DNC’s. Sickening lack of any moral character. HRC would have the nomination by hook or crook and it wouldn’t bother her 1 bit, and it doesn’t. I’m not sure who’s more morally bereft HRC or Trump. I’ll wait and and see how it plays out but I’m leaning towards Trump until he convinces me otherwise. If it was in her character to apologize for herself and Bill, I might go for her, till then….
Their immediate response to being exposed as corrupt liars is to try to scare people about the Russian Threat that they had no proof existed – in essence saying that it’s okay we commit crimes in private, after all – we’re protecting you. They acted just like bully’s in the playground getting exposed for something they’ve done – by saying it was the other kids. The worst lie ever.
Great Water Cooler, today. Thanks!
Comments are sizzling too!
Who Should Bernie Voters Support Now? Robert Reich vs. Chris Hedges on Tackling the Neoliberal Order https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr4cXH3Fil8
As they say, this election cycle has been wonderfully illuminating. Reich was already dubious at best, but he rolls out all the talking points here: Trump is scary! Supreme court nominations! He thinks Clinton will be a good president, though Sanders would have been better. But Sanders lasting achievement will be that he galvanized people into politics, and that progressive tide should continue…by, um, voting for Clinton? He wishes there was a viable third-party, but doesn’t think people should vote third-party to make it viable.
And he reveals that his much-vaunted regret over free-trade is that suitable protections weren’t included, not that it is inherently a crock of shit. He isn’t sad people lost their jobs, he’s sad there weren’t clauses to help people after they lost their jobs.
I love the emergence of the word “operative”. Like these guys were badazzes, like CIA, SEALS, Blackwater, or something like that.
I prefer the old description myself……..”Hacks” “Tools” and “Flunkies”
“Remember that Princeton thing that said the US is an oligarchy? Not quite right. More like a country run by a weird professional assoc.”, tweeted Jacob Bacharach, and those last three terms you suggested are irreconcilably unprofessional. But as long as the offensive s–t is verbatim, go for it.
Helicopter Money and ECB Backdoor Bailouts | MishTalk
Not well-covered in the piece is the question ‘would not expansion of a CB’s balance sheet via asset purchases with no intention of in future shrinking balance sheet – as the FedHeads have signaled will like be the case in the U.S. – constitute a form of helicopter money?’ Solely for the crooked, reckless banks, obviously – the only helicopters the 99% ever get are the kind that surveil and blow shit up. And re. ‘buying bonds that later default’ is/is-not a bailout, that is less an issue for the Fed – at least so far – since in the wake of the GFC it bought only government-guaranteed mortgage bonds and such (and yes, very much a financial circle jerk there), but if the Fed overpays for such purchases relative to the private market – precisely what Bernanke said the Fed *should* do in a speech around that time – without a requirement-to-repurchase-at-later-date-at-same-price-plus-interest, it is very much a bailout for the seller-to-the-Fed of the bonds. OTOH once CBs start gobbling up corporate bonds, the risk of default becomes very real – and again if the CB overpays for said bonds it is indeed a bailout with a concomitant mispricing-of-risk, ever the favorite sport of the modern central banker.
If the central banks start buying corporate bonds, we have just entered a world of Central Bank, Inc and we should think thru where that may lead. It surely won’t be MMT for the little people.
No “if” about it – ECB already buying corporate debt hand over fist. Here is Bloomers in April reporting the latest Draghi Bazooka operation, which started last month:
ECB to Start Corporate Bond Buying in June as It Expands QE – Bloomberg
Can I open a checking acct at the FED now?
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2016/07/plutocracy.html
Some great, great quotes:
Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after ‘the present unpleasantness’ ceases.
They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.
Henry Wallace, 9 April 1944
Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.
If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.
Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation, June 2012
Enough, already. Can we please drop the narrative that everyone is supposed to be shocked (SHOCKED, I TELL YOU) that political parties are corrupt? And that, somehow, the Democrats are suddenly worse than anything on the planet. Look up “Boss Tweed.” Look up why we now elect senators instead of letting state legislatures appoint them (and spare me the “we need to start doing that again” nonsense).
Politics is corrupt and has been since, oh, 1789? I can forgive the people who only just woke up to the possibility they might actually have the power to do something about the mess that is the US, because I’m discovering just how abysmally ignorant a lot of people are about civics and history. But given the intelligence level displayed here on a daily basis, how is it none of US is accepting the responsibility for allowing things to get this far? Hmm? Which, by the way, I’ve been doing for the last several days.
Like the Professional Class, I was comfortable in my bubble and I let myself become oblivious. Worse, I let myself become ignorant. So, if the Democratic Party I’ve been a member of since I was old enough to vote isn’t what I signed up for, I’m at least responsible insofar as I should have been paying more attention. And it’s now my job to make sure those people who don’t understand corruption is pretty much business as usual also understand that letting the other party take control of everything isn’t going to help.
Some of us have been trying to curtail the corruption, by talking to friends about it, sending letters to the editor of periodicals, sending letters to our elected representatives, donating money to organizations (supposedly) dedicated to reform, and voting in both primary and general elections. I’m not perfect, but I am not the cause of political corruption. What are we supposed to do? Immolate ourselves in protest?
the neocons used to be in the other party. there is a reason they’ve migrated to clinton. the way to stop the corruption is to kick out the corrupt. the republicans got a candidate through who questioned party pieties, the democrats screwed sanders. it’s time to start paying attention, and not let them get away with it.
Care to elaborate exactly what about letting the other party take control harms your interests? Other than your imaginary friend the Democratic Party, I mean, for whom you seem to be making any number of excuses for.
You’re an enabler. Stop it.
The perfect response. Well said, hunkerdown.
Or as the headline on a survivalist website says:
Stay tuned for Bill “Lolita Express” Clinton, soon to appear on your TV.
There are hundreds if not thousands of examples. But let’s pick an issue important to you.
Pick the issue.
Do you like what the Republican House position is on that issue?
That is what your Trump vote will enable.
Fact.
Actually, the Republican right wing got it right on the bailouts in 2009; it took Democrats to pass them. And I can’t bring a House member to mind, but Jeff Sessions gets it absolutely right on TPP and loss of national sovereignty. (There’s a lot he doesn’t get right, but he gets that right.)
Did they win?
You should look past the sound bites to the power structure.
I well know the populist right fears and resentments toward Wall Street. It goes nowhere in the Republican Party. That stuff is locked down.
Where it suits big business, the rightwing populists are encouraged to run wild — especially on environment.
Do not be distracted by the sideshows.
With Trump comes the Republican power structure. And THOSE boys are organized.
They were SO organized they boycotted the GOP convention.
i like trump’s position on the iraq war. i don’t like the neocons’ position on the iraq war. the neocons are deserting the republicans en masse to support clinton. vote for clinton and you get pnac rebooted.
Which position?
Different day, different audience, different con.
Donald just wants to parade around.
Put an unprincipled egotist in an environment surrounded by the military and intelligence agencies and associated industry lobbies and you have no idea what Trump will do.
Our best bet will be some restraining influence in the exhausted military.
Donald is impetuous, vain and a blohard. With violent rhetoric about brown people.
He is your prince of peace?
pick an issue, do you like Hillary Clinton’s position on that issue? Hmm no, and well no, and no not that either and ok apple pie is good.
Hillary is not the whole Dem party.
Pitiful as the influence looks at times, Dems care about cities, unions, trial lawyers, and environmentalists.
To Republicans, those groups are the enemy.
By the way, to Republicans, there is a special ring in hell for the NC crowd.
Just sayin’
But you’ll find out on your own some day.
Clouseau: You are forgetting the most important fact – motive.
Think the (R) house wants to reduce the NATO footprint?
When Donald Trump wins the presidency (I am hoping!), there will be an opportunity for the Bernie Brothers and Sisters to storm the Democratic Party and take it over. Throw the Neo-Totalitarians out. Boy would I love to see revitalized Democratic and Republican Parties hammering out solutions to pressing problems. Real debates, real discussions, real compromises, real deals!
I love a good miracle.
I think Trump will win in a landslide (a tsunami!). The democratic Party will be in disarray and panic. The Party will be easy pickings for an organized force. Maybe this is what the Bernie People are planning? Good luck and best wishes to them, because I think that they can do it. The long suffering People will be right behind them. 25 years of war, from the old Dem and old Republican Parties. Let us (everybody on Earth) and our children and our grandchildren, LIVE IN PEACE, finally.
It is a theory.
Like most stuff I have been reading here in recent days. Trains of logic, floating free.
WHAT exactly will happen?
WHO will do it?
Because the Dems have never been whacked at the polls before, right? Oh, they have been.
But the Left swooped in and took over the Dem party then, right? Oh, that did not happen.
No prior miracles. Gee whiz.
Reality is a lot more trouble.
And if you think things won’t be worse under Republican rule, you are mistaken about that too.
Bernie has operated in the real political world for a long time. You should consider his advice more respectfully. He has earned your respect.
You have never experienced a miracle? My heart goes out to you! Open your eyes dear PH. Start a garden, be a parent, have a dog companion.
The prob for you Clintonoids–and despite protestations to the contrary you obviously are one–is that you really have no idea what Trump will do whereas Hillary has shown by her record quite plainly what she will do. Just to repeat, since you seem to be a bit dense on this point, Trump is not a lifelong Republican and therefore the notion that he will move in lockstep with a Republican congress is simply your assertion. Saying lots of things without evidence to back them up is empty rhetoric, one sentence per paragraph. Guess a thin argument takes up more space that way.
“Fact.”
“Liberal religious tenet that you’re not buying” you mean.
“The fact that leftists come into the boardroom howling about the moral dimension of all this just seems so *unprofessional*.” -Jacob Bacharach
What a pathetic, infantile human being you must be, feeling the need to point to your lords to validate your every thought. PH, look me deep in the eyes as I tell you:
NO.
You liberals are on your own. The left has disclaimed you as the woo-deluded authoritarian businesstwits you are and we no longer tolerate your continued assertion of some imagined right to trespass our boundaries because credentials. If it takes the left and right unifying to destroy the Democratic Party, good. You traitors earned the pains you’re about to receive.
You don’t get breakup sex. Your pwecious values are barely of a standard for the composting toilet. Your Party is a corporation off the leash and needs to be euthanized. You aren’t worth pleasing. Do I make myself clear? Go play Lucy football with people who care.
As Chris Hedges wrote:
Bravo!
Standing ovation, HD. You win the internet today.
Wow!
You mention what you reject. Who you imagine you will hurt.
Tell me about the aspects of Republican rule you look forward to.
Do you imagine that it will as good as gwb’s reign?
Or even better with the grown power of the Koch boys?
I do not care what you think of me. Try to add that to a new found reality based perspective.
Hi PH, apparently I missed all the reasons you’ve listed for a person to support hillary? I’m glad you’ve found the rhetorical device helpful, but once again, where is your list of reasons to support hillary, preferably without referencing any other candidate. For the record, since you are a recent addition to the comment queue, the general view is that the republican administration will be less effective, being outsiders and subject to your own political class’ obdurate disdain, will do less, along with a stated opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership and it’s sister acts TTiP,TiSA, and the odious ISDS so strongly supported by Democrat President Barack Obama, and until it became toxic to do so, by his heir apparent hillary clinton, as well as her VP choice Tim Kaine, one of the blue dogs you claim to oppose. hillary is a machine politician and as anyone can see the DNC machine is corrupt to the core, and as any working person can plainly see, is not on the side of working people of any race creed or sex. That machine has been created to be effective, and will be effective at continuing to ruin the lives of your aforestated ordinary americans in one of your many condescending lectures over the past few days. Hillary is the more effective evil, of this fact there is no question. The Koch’s support your candidate. Your realism is in fact fantasy. Re read the Michael Moynihan tweet. That is who you and all hillary supporters are. Mean spirited people living in your own reality, and needing all of us to coddle your fragile and uninspired world view. Now that list of reasons to support hillary in 5 4 3 2…
I apologize.
My view was that Elizabeth Burton was being bullied, and I came to her defense. I do not regret that. But I can see that my tart tone has just resulted in more heat than light.
As satisfying as making a jab may feel, it does not convince people. I will try to do better.
The whole “corrupt to the core” stuff is overwrought.
Who do you think fights for protective drinking water standards? Who do you think has been fighting against the rollback of Davis Bacon? Who fights the indexing of social security?
Are all these things exercise of corruption?
I know what happens in DC day to day. Some of you may also know.
To say, or imply, that all Democrats are useless or evil is simply inaccurate — even by your own standards of the public good.
On many policies, I disagree with the Bluedogs, but they are not all corrupt or evil.
Many people here are angry at Hillary and do not trust her. I see.
But I have made a simple point that no one has addressed: Trump means Republican rule, and progressive goals will suffer under Republican rule.
Folks offer dreams of a political apocalypse followed by Progressive victory, but no one has described how this victory will occur.
The defeat of Hillary — yes, that has been described. But no one has described how it leads to Progressive victory.
On the other hand, I have described how defeat will not lead to a Progressive control of the Dems. Blue dogs are the incumbents. They will say they need to be more rightwing to beat Repubs in next election, Bluedogs control party funds, and have most access to free media. Blue dogs will be furious and ever more determined to crush Progressives.
Do you think that analysis is wrong? Which part?
My proposal of alliance against Trump and organizing primary challengers is not necessarily going to be successful. I understand. But there is a possibility of progress in that way. Almost no possibility that Progressives sweep into control of Dem party after a Hillary defeat.
The name calling to try to push out a dissenting view is ugly. But worse, you unbind yourselves from skepticism. Why would you want that?
I came to the site because I respect the articles. Those articles do not appear by accident. I respect the talent and integrity that goes into collecting them. I respect the people with the gumption and awareness to come read those articles.
But on some things I think some commenters are mistaken.
And I am not afraid to say so.
PH, Just want to let you know your posting style is very pompous—-turning each sentence into its own paragraph as though it were absolutely essential that all the inferior peons reading your nuggets of wisdom should endeavor to absorb and savor each and every one of your magnificent perceptions. As for me, after reading one and a half of your posts, I now completely ignore all of them.
Apparently we’re smart enough to realize you don’t fight corruption by voting for it
Agreed, and bravo to Tulsi Gabbard (D – Hawaii) who is an awesome leader for having just done what Todde points out! Thanks to “3.14e-9” above for bringing her convention speech to our attention.
As for Elizabeth Burton and her comments, I’d suggest that voting for the Johnson/Libertarian Party or the Stein/Green Party instead of either of the two major corrupt parties would go a fair way to reducing the “Punch & Judy” politics we continue to see today in US politics.
Achieving that 15% required would affect both major corrupt parties, and the long-term political force they’ve been and taken for granted, along with their prospects to persist in such a comical fashion. They would be forced to improve the way they do things. Real choice and competition would be a good thing for the American people…..Just perhaps not for the prospects of those many who earn their Pain Poilâne Bread and Président Butter so well ie. the Roves, Carvilles and Begalas of this world, by enabling such status quo to remain en force…….
A very long term plan, Emma.
And I think you would find the world much changed for the worse before your planned day of reckoning arrives.
On the contrary, surely having greater and real choice and competition is a good thing? That is what we’re so often told with regards to pretty much anything else, isn’t it? Besides, I’m not an advocate of retribution, rather instead, a fervent believer and supporter of amelioration.
Emma,
You strike me as thoughtful and sincere.
I simply think that your dream of future events is extremely unlikely.
The mono-focus here on the flaws of the Dems ignores a lot. Ignores too much to be accurate.
It is not wise. Indeed, it is dangerous to the goals and values that people profess.
i think you will find the world much changed for the worse before your planned day of progressive reform arrives.
Sometimes meaningful change resulting in positive reform occurs when there is indeed risk of conflict, but also when people know the risks, are prepared for those risks, and spread those risks to reduce those risks…..in this way, a more stable and secure environment is created to bring about positive change.
just to be clear, i was replying to ph’s post regarding the desirability of voting for clinton. i regard the risk of war as unacceptably high; i think trump winning is the lesser risk.
I’ll come right out and say I’d rather have civil war here than another SW Asian imperial pick-up-artist operation, if that is the choice to be had.
Sadly, pretzel attack’s prediction is the first thing that he has written that I agree with.
The Republicans didn’t suffer a reckoning after the Bush Jr. disaster because Obama let them off the hook with his seductive bipartisanship. Maybe the Democrats need to suffer a reckoning to pay for eight years of Obama’s “centrism.”
I thought the dumb and dumber election of 2000 was as low as we could go…
Now we have the overconfident idiotress and the undermanned lunatic to “select” from…
Wake me up in february…onto 2018…
@Philae2014 says goodbye:
It’s time for me to say goodbye. Tomorrow, the unit on @ESA_Rosetta for communication with me will be switched off forever…
Please Philae, don’t come back as V’Ger and chastise the Federation.
Forgive me if this has already been said. Site doesn’t seem to be updating for me. Per Andrea Mitchell Bernie is not going to raise $ for Clinton or turn over email list.
to see the latest comments in a thread i usually have to update the thread then click on the comment.
Not to worry. Bernie’s list is probably a lot smaller than it was two weeks ago. I think it took a big dive after the Portsmouth Sellout.
How is that ‘doing all can I to get HRC to the White House’ or something to that effect?
Is he breaking a promise?
“all I can” has wiggle room…
Some Sanders delegates walked out …. to media row. Silent, peace signs, mouths taped etc. Police locked it down and are negotiating.
https://twitter.com/kencf0618/status/758086903790837761
Likely no one inside knows or cares…
https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/758083440864432128
Thanks for the links. Here’s a string of tweets from about the last hour with photos from an nbc/msnbc reporter. Says a there will be a press release.
https://twitter.com/aseitzwald
aaand, it’s over. I think it lasted about an hour. PennyRed tweets they may go back inside to stand with BLM. Going to the media area was a good idea, but I don’t have cable and don’t see print reporting.
I know things are getting absurd when the police lock down and ‘negotiate’ with peaceful protesters who are also delegates. Why is resolving this a police matter? The DNC should be on the spot about resolving internal political disputes. By bringing in the police, the DNC has abandoned what is arguably their primary duty, the peaceful resolution of political issues. This is a direct manifestation of Police State thinking.
When I first read this comment, I really thought it was snark of some sort. One cannot be cynical enough these days.
Video from inside after the walkout. As one wag has already noted, the biggest crowd Hillary’s ever got.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGRo1mH2_8w
wtf do they need cops there for? i guess we should be grateful they aren’t gunning people down.
“…. to media row.”
I suppose it’s churlish to point out that the MSM media doesn’t know they’re the hired help. (and how sad that ignorance is.)
Bernie Sanders Stays Cranky to the End [NYT]
So sayeth a member of the American aristocracy, the former editorial page editor of The New York Times who inherited the position from his father. (Feel the meritocracy!) Just in case you thought that the Sanders campaign had earned the respect of the PTB. It’s almost as if they’re daring Sanders supporters to vote for Trump.
I can’t go there, but will understand those that do.
Trial marriage – it’s a modern thing, I am told.
How about a trial presidency – if after 6 months, people are not happy, they can do another election whether to retain the Nov. winner.
Let Trump try it for 6 months?
Better yet, how about a vote of confidence for all elected officials, every month? There won’t be time to confabulate maudlin melodramas if they are held to account for their performance.
omg he encouraged his supporters to fight for what they believe in! but pravda nyc is here to tell them what they should believe in.
Medal for Muckraking/Whistle-blowing – Needs to be a get out of jail/civil courts card instead. Few want a reward, the main reason there is ever less reporting is that the system does such an effective job of punishing those who are openly honest. Punishing not just the journalist/whistle-blower themselves, but as much as possible everyone dear and near to their heart. The DNC threats against the even the milktoast Morning Joe were not idle nor empty. Obama has done a record job of throwing honest men in jail, to match his killing of innocent civilians.
https://pando.com/2015/05/28/seymour-hersh-and-the-dangers-of-corporate-muckraking/
That didn’t take long
What, did big money get nervous for a second?
Leaks show DNC asked White House to reward donors with slots on boards and commissions
Assange Timed WikiLeaks Release of Democratic Emails to Harm Hillary Clinton
Clearly a Russian operation. You might even say, Six Degrees of Separation:
Putin -> Corbyn -> Cameron -> MI-5 -> Metropolitan Police -> Ecuadorean Embassy -> Bingo!
Reminds me of that book by Carl Sagan, A Demon-Haunted World. If it’s not Putin, it’s Assange.
I don’t understand this knee-jerk nonsense. Of course they are aimed to hurt Clinton, she is the benefactor of all of this corruption. How could they not be aimed at harming her campaign? They are dishonest, that is their fault.
It doesn’t have to be that deep. Remember he has been locked away in an embassy compound for years to avoid being extradited for an American show trial. And Clinton has been one of the big cheerleaders of Obama’s war on whistleblowers. She is sure to continue the policy.
But it’s the f*cking Russians who are tampering with our elections. Alrighty then.
Yikes! Bill looks terrible. Got the shakes somethin’ fierce.
He’s making me tear up… *sniffle* …ugh
This might be one of the most boring speeches I have ever heard. What happened to him???
It’s painful.
I wonder if Bill can feel the pain of people listening to him…
(When will the speech end? It’s so painful, I have to inhale this time).
and this costs goldman $400,000?!?
i’m moving my money to lehman!
frostyyyyyyyy it’s too late to laff this hard…me pulled somethin
I thought it was a clever approach, but boy, did it go on. I let my attention wander for a moment, heard “2003” and thought “Oh gawd, thirteen years to go!”
So somebody else noticed the tremor. Not a new thing, apparently.
Wow – I am so depressed. Really? Hill or Donald? Listening to Bill speaking at the DNC – as if he and Hill have the greatest love story of all times…literally 15 plus minutes on how they met and he was trying “just so hard” to get her to marry him…but she just kept on saying “No”. Really? Hey Bill- do you and Hilary still “do it”? Just asking….
Eight more years!
Eight more years!
Eight more years!
Eight more years!
(I get tired just typing that).
wait till you gotta pay for it!
there are other forms of sex. although bill may not define them that way ..
Sanders delegates want to leave and join protestors. (B Clinton speaking) Police won’t let them.
https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/758128354583252992
Also, I did not realize they put a barrier around the stage for these events. Seems like a wall to me.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CoQ5WGsUAAARZ88.jpg:large
Not a wall!!!!
Did they make Sanders delegates pay for that?
Boring speeches inside. Pretty dead outside. No news clips created. Is this what they mean by ripdnc…. that it just collapses of dreariness.
I do feel bad for Nina Turner. She works hard.
https://twitter.com/RoseAnnDeMoro/status/758130864165228544
This is the second time someone has mentioned Turner in Twitter without explaining what the hell they are talking about. What is the scoop?
Tried editing: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/26/nina-turner-prominent-sanders-delegate-ejected-dnc
so they can’t get to the stage, and they can’t leave. freedom!
I picture them like gerbils in a wheel trying to figure out what to do. The external and internal fences, the police presence is over the top. I don’t think any of these people ever watched a Sanders rally, the peace signs, the singing?
Meanwhile the movement is chanting:
https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/758137779595378688
and grumbles for Trump:
@mtracey
Hearing scattered chatter among the Bernie protest crowd about how Trump would be preferable to Hillary
Now glorifying “Founders” in a video. Silicon Valley bullshit [gag].
More gag:
https://twitter.com/brianefallon/status/758133374506577920
This is Clinton’s press secretary.
how do you think he got the job?
Thomas Frank discusses Democrats at the Convention:
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/live_from_philadelphia_thomas_frank_and_robert_scheer_on_day_2_of_the_dnc_v
Bill managed to make her look like Florence Nightingale – always so caring about others. And the children! Wonder if the Edelman’s had their gag bag nearby. The irony of her saving those jobs in upstate NY that were going to move to Mexico – because of NAFTA, of course.
Is it done for the night? Are we done now?
It is better to remain ignorant if the source of our knowledge is Vladimir Putin.*
That seems to be the liberal goodthinker position.
* Arguendo…
Do we know how many Sanders delegates walked out?
I am confused. There were several reports. Some left after Sanders spoke etc. Some walked out when Nina Turner was stripped of her credentials and thrown out.
dozens or
https://nypost.com/2016/07/26/sanders-supporters-walk-out-of-dnc-after-clinton-nomination/
100…WYNC stated 100s
NBC says a walkout left 100s of empty seats….http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/how-sanders-delegates-organized-walkout-under-everyone-s-nose-n617521
http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-sanders-delegates-walkout-dnc/
Nina Turner was stripped of her credentials???
I have heard since this morning that that part was not true, but she was ejected or something. Everyone I see on twitter that knows references it but won’t actually say what happened. Nina has yet to publicly address it.
I shared a report from last night above (Common Dreams).
This is supposed to be an image of the walkout but I have no sourcing.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CoVorPbUkAEd8ol.jpg:large
Video of walkout. It’s a little dark, but here ya go. I found it on the #demexit.
https://twitter.com/sci_solar/status/758117863441825792
Now I need to go put my chickens in.
Clinton’s on the jumbotron! She didn’t show up for her own nomination?
“I am now in Sing Sing. I am now in Sing Sing.”
Wizard of Oz: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
Wizard of Oz: You people should consider yourselves lucky that I’m granting you an audience tomorrow instead of 20 years from now.
Couldn’t get enough bulletproof glass in time, I suspect.
OMG! Some guy shoulda run up with a big hammer and smashed the screen !!!
A day after calling for party unity, Bernie Sanders goes back to being an independent
http://fusion.net/story/329994/bernie-sanders-independent/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialshare&utm_content=theme_top_desktop
Hah! Thanks for sharing.
In recent months, I’ve been hearing quite a bit of discussion from various camps about the real need for establishing trust relationships within communities and the larger society. Once trust begins to erode, it breeds more conditions that synergistically undermine it further.
I think it’s going to be pretty challenging to maintain (or re-establish) trust relations between the public and many institutions going forward. This is particularly disheartening when I revisit some of the contexts in which the prior discussions were taking place. A lot of the same people who have been talking about the importance trust have been publicly exposed as violating it. It also doesn’t seem to be confined to one or two public institutions but instead cuts a broad swath through media, politics, economics, public safety, education…
Somebody over at the Atlantic channeled a bit of it yesterday with:
At the Democratic Convention, All Hell Breaks Loose
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/all-hell-breaks-loose-at-the-democratic-convention/492998/
Of course, ripping open a few boxes of secrets everybody already suspected, but never actually attempted to prove before agitates the laundry quite a bit right now. But if we clean things up enough (overturn Citizen’s United, change the SuperDelegate structure, advocate for racial justice on our streets etc), trust can be re-established. The ways things have been going is just rotting us from the inside-out and upside-down.
I’m going to take a pretty lonely position this morning and say bluntly that Bernie Sanders has not disappointed or betrayed me one little bit. I think he has done an amazing job. I’m so amazed all he has accomplished and he earned my vote for inclusion in JFK’s Profiles In Courage league. And to top it off, I thought Amy Goodman’s show was quite illuminating tonight with some interesting discussion between Jill Stein and Ben Jealous.
We sure do got a long way to go before we get to where we’re headed.
I agree. I am not disappointed in Bernie Sanders. I am disappointed that his actions are being characterized as betrayal of his supporters. I believe that he did all he could.
I have a different slant because when I listened to his speech as he
emphasized “Hillary understands” as he reiterated the platform he stands on, I think it was something in its cadence that made a surprising echo in my mind which was “I come to bury Caesar not to praise him”.
I think he was appealing to Hillary’s delegates in the way Marc Antony was appealing to citizens of Rome.
It might have worked. It worked for Marc Antony. It is so confusing when so much distortion is created that we must doubt people who do not deserve it.
Bezzle link: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/07/27/commentary/japan-commentary/fraud-called-retail-electricity-liberalization/
Three months have passed since the retail sale of electric power was fully liberalized. Approximately 300 companies have since entered the business of generating and selling electricity, and more than 1 million consumers have signed contracts with them, switching from the major power companies that have monopolized each region.
Some of those consumers may be feeling satisfied with new lower power rates, but their satisfaction could be short-lived. They may well end up shouldering the huge cost of the liberalization program.
Thanks Cry Shop…they’re selling the oars of leaky rafts in the storm of the century. US laws against living off grids have positioned us for this exact scenario. the Pay as you goers are about to rue the day when they so easily dismissed the majority as leeches