Lambert here: Readers, we are short one original post; one planned post fell through, and Yves had to spend the evening with her taxes. Sorry!
Functioning ‘mechanical gears’ seen in nature for the first time University of Cambridge
A Healthier Way to Feed Your Cat: Hide Its Meals NYT
India’s Dalits strike back at centuries of oppression by letting dead cows rot on the streets Quartz
US groups hoard cash as uncertainty grows FT
How Megyn Kelly’s Silence Signaled the Worst for Roger Ailes ABC
Pricey NYC Condos Seized In Connection With Money Laundering Investigation Curbed New York
In Athletes’ Housing at Rio Olympics: Blocked Toilets, Leaking Pipes and Exposed Wiring NYT
The Sand Fire in Santa Clarita Offers Omens of a Fiery Future Pacific Standard
Apple’s China Problem Is That Local Phones are Good — and Cheap Bloomberg
Syraqistan
Turkey ruling, opposition parties rally together after coup Reuters
Is Fethullah Gülen behind Turkey’s coup? Dani Rodrik
Turkey’s Disaster Jacobin
Exploring a Link Between Drone Strikes and Retaliation Georgetown Public Policy Review (guurst).
A Brief History of the Coup d’État in the Asia-Pacific The Diplomat
Brexit?
The Beginners’ Guide to Brexit: What Have We Learned So Far? Bloomberg
The English Revolt The New Statesman
France at War NYRB
What Makes A Great Power War Possible Russia in Global Affairs
Democratic National Convention
Scandal rocks Democratic Party truce on eve of confab AFP
Inside the scramble to oust Debbie Wasserman Schultz Politico
Sanders: ‘Awful’ DNC emails should cost party chair her job CNN
Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign as DNC chair as email scandal rocks Democrats Guardian
‘No more Debbie!’ A reporter’s journal from the Democratic National Convention Los Angeles Times
Mission Accomplished at DNC, Clinton Hires Wasserman Schultz for Top Post Common Dreams. Kick the left.
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) July 24, 2016
Points for kicking the left again by putting DWS in charge of a “50 state” “program,” given that Kaine, together with Rahm, strangled Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy.
Michael Bloomberg to Endorse Clinton at Democratic Convention Bloomberg. In a Wednesday prime-time slot. Having kicked to the left, appeal to Republicans.
10 ways to know whether Clinton convention is success McClatchy. For whom?
City Approves Four Massive Pro-Bernie Sanders Rallies During DNC NBC 10
2016
Democrats in turmoil over leaking of 20,000 emails FT
WikiLeaks emails: Pro-Clinton CNN political commentator pre-checked op-ed with DNC Erik Wemple, WaPo. Worse, the Op-Ed concerned Jon Ralston’s faked story on the Nevada “chair throwing” incident, in which no chairs were thrown. Worse, Wemple reproduces Ralston’s tweet on the fake story, reinforcing Ralson’s lie.
Here are the latest, most damaging things in the DNC’s leaked emails WaPo
Clinton campaign manager: Russians leaked Democrats’ emails to help Donald Trump WaPo
Fact-Checking That “Trump & Putin” Thing and Faith-based Attribution Jeffrey Carr, Medium
The Missing Man at the Center of Hillary Clinton’s Email Scandal Daily Beast (Re Silc). Bryan Pagliano.
Tim Kaine, and Other Faith-Based Politics Corey Robin
Clinton or Trump: Who offers best hope for change? Detroit Free Press
Why Donald Trump Could Be the Next President of the United States Truthdig
Where Donald Trump Went Off-Script WSJ. Deletions and additions. See especially the last one.
The Trump trade scam Economic Policy Institute (skippy).
Trump’s convention speech previewed the future of fascism Carl Beijer
In Six Key Senate Races, Democrats Raise More Money in Second Quarter WSJ
Class Warfare
Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People The American Conservative. Must-read, and far better than the headline.
A short introduction to the structure of the Greek oligarchy unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens
Ur-Fascism Umberto Eco, NYRB
Fighting for Seats at the Table: A Poor People’s Movement in a Rustbelt Town Truthout
Regime changes in the financial markets FT
Can sex triumph over patriarchy? Worthwhile Canadian Initiative
Antidote du jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Comments are closed.
Little debbie loses her job at dnc then congress critter status only to be put a board of pay-day-loans one day then the next she in at the Clinton foundation doing what she does best $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
It does have something of a Cosa Nostra feel to it.
This is pretty brazen, but it won’t hurt Hillary. At worst former Bernie supporters will meekly roll over and support Jill Stein and then creep quietely away, never to be heard from again. Hell even Sanders himself is wearing his green hat proudly, being all nice and cozy with Hillary and the Party that screwed his supporters.
Clinton has acted correctly in pursuing her path to victory: kick the left while gathering up the disaffected Republican vote. Nothing can go wrong, except maybe not enough Republicans getting behind her. Given all that, hasn’t Hillary been acting correctly with her strategy? I almost admire her now!
and let’s not forget, Hillary Cheated:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/04/hillary-cheated/
It is pretty brazen.
Feel free to vote for Trump if it makes you happy but lets not pretend that you are anything other than meek by bowing down to the duopoly and the options they’ve so graciously allowed you to have.
And let’s be clear the RNC let you have Donald for a reason(they believe they can control him or buy him.)
What are you talking about? I’m just complimenting Hillary’s clever strategy. She really knew who the right people to kick in the face were. Here Bernie is grinning and going along with everything, and here his supporters are, completely unable and unwilling to do anything about it but moan a bit. Get over your butthurt! Well played Hillary.
Your comments are becoming increasingly rude, obnoxious, manipulative and trollish. I and I’m sure many others would like to see you tone it down or take it elsewhere.
And I think that one of the most threatening afflictions our culture is suffering from is the rabid insistence on innofensiveness. It’s this very veneer of civility that the corrupt elites hide behind, clutching their pearls at the antics of the unruly peasants, while America falls into ruin. I’m sorry, but people should be angry right about now, and they should express it.
Hillary on Trump: “I don’t like his tone,” as if it’s Trumps tone that caused the American people to fall into such misery. There’s no substance with Hillary and her ilk. Just an anodyne insistence that everyone should get over their butthurt even as they’re getting bent over.
Heh, because conservatives haven’t been taking it in the teeth too?
The GOP totally listened to you all on the bank bailout and they totally aren’t onboard the TPP. (rolls eyes) They aren’t going to vote for a grand bargain because ….deficits.
Let’s not pretend that 99% of us haven’t been taking it in the teeth compliments of the duopoly and it’s just the hippies being punched, we’re just the ones smart enough to notice the overtness of it.
You are completely ignoring the impact of Trump on the Republican Party. Sure, he’s probably lying. But at least he’s saying the right things. And he might even get some of them done–or at least not get things like the TPP done.
Are you really willing to disregard that and take the chance of Hillary getting in there? Things might be up in the air with Trump, but there is no doubt that Hillary is drooling at the chance to jam TPP down everyone’s throat. And what is TPP? It’s the boot on the face of humanity for the rest of history. Once Hillary signs TPP the only logical step after that really will be insurrection and revolution for the people to survive. No wonder she’s so desperate to disarm everyone.
And that’s only if Hillary, in her infinite bad judgement, doesn’t manage to get us nuked to death beforehand–which is actually pretty damned likely despite the complacency and normalcy bias factors at work making people pretend that it’s “impossible”. You should play Fallout 4 as a glimpse of how America will look after Hillary is done with it.
@jgordon — I think you are missing the point of Aumua and others (if you want to know what others, well, me, for one, in this comment). Trump people telling Green/Stein sympathizers we have to vote for him “Or OMG wasted vote and HILLARY!!!” are just as obnoxious as Hillary people telling us we have to vote for her “Or OMG wasted vote and TRUMP!”
Insulting Greens or Green leaners is not the way to get them on board; the easily browbeaten Dems are going to fear Trump more than Hillary (and are not likely to be in this forum), and the easily browbeaten GOP are not likely to be in this forum, period. And really, as a strategy “you suck for not voting for us already, so hurry up and start voting for us now” is not likely to be any more effective for your stated goals than has been for the DNC establishment types who have been watching their lead slip away while they scream invectives at Berniecrats for not getting in line (my favorite thus, earlier today on twitter, the “justice editor” at Think Progress calling us “garbage people”–yay unity!!!)
I agree with you that Trump offers a slightly greater chance of being a decent president than HRC and a considerably lesser chance of war profiteering or re-starting the Cold War (or possibly a hot war, Heaven help us all), but it could be that my greater sympathy for Trump is not entirely for the logical reasons I believe, and partly for the illogical reason that Trump supporters have been annoying me vastly less than Hillary supporters. You are working overtime to be an exception, to the point I’m willing to get yelled at by the mods for telling you’re coming off as a humongous jerk who is being counterproductive to your stated cause.
I have never told people that they should not vote for the greens. It’s just that I’m terrified that a psychopath like Hillary could be on the verge of becoming president, and I would like to decrease the odds of that happening however possible.
I merely share my rationale a bit, and if a few people find that persuasive. If not, that’s fine too. At least you’ve been exposed to a few ideas outside of the echo chamber.
Oh you didn’t? Well that would be all good and well, except that it’s transparently obvious that half your posts in this discussion are saying exactly that. In a very rude and manipulative way.
It is quite likely a lot of Bernie supporters will not do anything but bitch and moan. On the other hand while how to actually achieve real social change is very far from clear cut, some will do a lot. They will support the candidates Bernie is pushing and try to build a way to support people like that in the future, they will do activism, or local politics or etc..
She’s pretty clever with that strategy, Realpolitik-wise.
Maybe that’s something a ueber-Frau would do. The end justifies the means…especially if the other side is ‘dark,’ implying your side is ‘light’ or lucent, or literally, lucifer, meaning light bringer.
Michael: Get him a drink. Don’t be afraid, Carlo. Come on, you think I’d make my sister a widow? I’m Godfather to your son.
[Carlo get handed a drink]
Michael: Go ahead. Drink. Drink. No, you’re out of the family business, that’s your punishment. You’re finished. I’m putting you on a plane to Vegas. Tom?
[Tom hands Michael an airplane ticket]
Michael: I want you to stay there, you understand?
[Carlo nods]
If things go pearshaped, a lot of hungry alligators in florida
and whatever you do, do not ride in the front seat…
Mission Accomplished at DNC, Clinton Hires Wasserman Schultz for Top Post
What? WHAT!?!? COME ON! Clinton just openly implicated herself! Is it ironic that I just finished watching Clinton Cast too? Wasn’t her campaign already weak enough?
This is unacceptable.
Evidently some other folks think so too. The Flake has now pulled ahead of The Crook by 3 points in today’s CNN poll …
… despite The Crook outspending him four-to-one with Clinton Ca$H.
Broom Hilda: damaged goods.
When Hillary introduces her family, she is sure to get the convention bounce and will no doubt vault past Trump.
Not every bounce is up.
Unacceptable? Bernie’s supporters aren’t going to do anything meaningful about it, aside from mamsy-pansy useless token gesture of voting third party. So this looks pretty darned acceptable to me since Hillary will not even get away with it, but will even profit. She’s doing the right thing.
how is any of it doing anything on the battle that really matters, which is improving society? Running for city council even on a Bernie type platform would do more there.
+
Do you have concrete alternatives in mind? Or are you just venting?
Yeah. Personally I’m going to really let them have it by voting for Trump. I am aware that most Bernie supporters don’t have the guts to do that though, so they can feel free to make whatever zero impact useless gestures they feel are appropriate outside of voting for Trump.
You know what I am going to do about this?
Voting for Jill Stein will have the same effect as voting for Trump without giving your support and stamp of citizen approval to the two-party neoliberal duopoly running America. Voting for Trump signals your support for his crackpot, reality TV, strongman, ‘Idiocracy’ style of devolved politics. A vote for Trump is a vote for the RNC and even more of Trump’s style of politics, while a vote for Stein is still a stinging rebuke to Clintons and the DNC with a legible postmark from the left. Raise a middle finger to the DNC and the Clintons by all means, but don’t compromise your progressive beliefs by drinking from the poisoned chalice of Trump. Either way, Clinton loses and the elites will see the white-hot Trump dumpster fire of huckster, vulgarian ego and destruction descend upon Washington. A third party vote is not meaningless in our carefully sliced, diced, gerrymandered, two party, swing state electoral college sytem. Trump and Clinton are running neck and neck. Nader only pulled 2% of the popular vote in 2000 yet he is still blamed for the Bush Presidency by Democrats. Imagine what will happen this year if only a fraction of Sanders supporters vote Green! Meaningless you say? Please reconsider.
+1
Trump is not running as a neoliberal. He may/probably will sell out later and adopt some neoliberal policies, but as of now that’s still in doubt. Hillary on the other hand is running on an explicit neoliberal platform.
Let’s acknowledge reality here for a moment: there is zero chance that anyone but Hillary or Trump will be president in 2017, and America doesn’t actually have all that much time left for people to be making empty political statements with their vote. Why not take a chance now on someone, Trump, who at least has a small chance of improving things before the end versus letting a known psychopath like Hillary get into power? Up to you.
I don’t know how long it has been, but always, it seems
A. Lesser of two or more unspeakables
2. More effective of two or more I-rather-forgets
3. Don’t let perfect stop you from embracing imperfection
Some one will sit on the throne.
Did you contribute, directly or indirectly, to the worse choice being elected?
Do you just vote for someone?
Do you just obey the law?
Do you disobey the law and leak documents for a great purpose?
Do you vote against someone to prevent that worse candidate?
What do we do?
So in your book jgordon a corporatist is not a neoliberal… am I right – ????
This falls into the “you’re not even wrong” category. Neoliberalism is a well defined ideological belief system with specific dearly held tenets. Trump has spoken out against these tenets of neoliberalism in every speech I’ve seen of his, and all the beltway insiders are so freaked out about Trump not least because he’s threatening to drag the Republican party away from the beltway neoliberal consensus. In short–no, Trump is not a neoliberal whatever you may be thinking.
Hard to discern how you arrive at your conclusions jgordon, saying a thing does not make it true…
From the statements you make it seems you have no idea what neoliberalism is or its Flexian attributes, something a long time reader and comment’er such as yourself should be aware of after all the hard work by Yves, Lambert and guests.
Per your comment about Trump dragging the Republican party away from the Beltway consensus – please elaborate with some vestige of evidence beyond your say so. I think you confuse diminishing the power of the evangelical Christian reconstructionists as something it is not. Being a cosmopolitan neoliberal with an aversion to flyover and southern scripture filled neoliberals is not what you think it is….
Disheveled Marsupial…. being disruptive should not be confused with being anti anything jgordon… Trump is just doing a Branson…
no, but he’s running as a racist
Right now is a golden moment to elevate a third party. Never before has the ‘lesser evil’ been so unclear–they’re both as evil as it gets. We’ve hit bottom, it’s time to throw the damned bottle away.
Trump and Clinton are both @$$holes. It doesn’t take guts to vote for an @$$hole. Often it takes guts to oppose an @$$hole, though, and I plan to oppose both @$$holes. One of them will win, but I will have played a small part in laying a foundation for future victories against the @$$holes.
Hillary Clinton is in Deep Trouble – “Hordes of Wall Street Executives” Descend Upon Philly
Michael Krieger
In this post, I will prove that as Hillary is signaling a “business as usual” approach with regard to the status quo, and in return, the status quo is uniformly and excitedly rallying around her. This will disgust most Americans and lead to a Trump victory. People who dislike Trump more than Clinton will vote for him anyway, because they dislike the status quo even more.
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/07/25/hillary-clinton-is-in-deep-trouble-hordes-of-wall-street-executives-descend-upon-philly/#more-36251
Yeah, you’re a real brave rebel voting for the billionaire that the GOP handed you.
It takes real guts to stick it to em’ by voting for a guy who is presently being sued for fraud.
I’m totally not laughing at the absurdity of you thinking you are some kind of brave soul hahahahaha Okay, so maybe I am.
I just figured if you were gullible enough to believe that Trump was some brave choice you might be gullible enough to believe I wasn’t laughing my backside off at your idea that you are some revolutionary by voting Trump.
Revolution by means of voting for reactionaries. Sounds like a plan! /sarc And Trump is textbook reactionary, if not exactly textbook neo-liberal (yea reactionaries often make populist promises, sometimes they even keep a few – if they didn’t have a heck of a downside this might make them preferable to neo-liberals, only they do).
Trump may or may not be the lesser evil, I suspect so but I could nearly as easily go the other way to Hillary is LOTE and so I think those who argue that are not bots. It’s debatable, but it’s a largely futile debate as they are both pretty bad. The debate that matters: what is to be done?
cwaltz, the GOP did not hand us Trump. The GOP hates Trump beyond imagining. They did everything they could to block him; they are stunned that it did not work. Do you read the WSJ? I do, every day. They HATE Trump – hate, hate, hate. They cannot even bring themselves to pretend a tiny bit in order to make it look like they are in some manner unbiased. This massively annoys their readers, many of whom seem to approve of or at least be resigned to Trump (you can tell from the letter section).
Trump is not a GOP candidate by any real measure. He is not a conservative, either. He appears to have a “medley” of views (some of which I vigorously disagree with), much as an actual human might.
It is hilarious that you say that one shouldn’t vote for someone who is being sued for fraud. My god, what Hillary has done, and gotten away with – fraud is the very least of it.
@jgordon re “Personally I’m going to really let them have it by voting for Trump. I am aware that most Bernie supporters don’t have the guts to do that though, so they can feel free to make whatever zero impact useless gestures they feel are appropriate outside of voting for Trump.”
Thanks for making my one and only alternative to voting for Sanders clear for me, I was at a loss what to do, being gutless and all.
Only big, strong and virile men vote for Trump, and anyone who does otherwise is well, honestly, a pussy. Right? That’s your point. I get the feeling you like pushing people around.
he gets kinda hysterical real easy – remember when he was practically foaming at the mouth insisting the Orlando shooter was a terrorist right from the get go before we really knew anything?
Maybe jgordon doesn’t like seeing Sanders being “pushed around” by Hillary and her minions. Although it’s a lot worse than “pushing around.” Not wanting your candidate to be treated like dirt (by a committee that is supposed to treat the Dem candidates equally) is hardly being macho.
According to the Democrats,voting for Jill IS voting for Donald, so I don’t see what you’re complaining about.
Of course, that depends on just how many people do it – Bernie would have won the election, and a 4-way race lowers the bar a lot. Granted, that could help your guy.
I hypothesize that Hillary is taking some medication that clouds judgment (which was less than stellar to start).
And Team Clinton is such an echo-chamber, “in club” and full of sycophants that no one can even grasp that Team Clinton’s moves are obviously bone-headed.
Hill has to be nice to Deb because ALL OF HER SUPPORTERS are some version of DWS. Sycophants expecting some reward.
Plus Debbie WS after all these years surely knows where some of the bodies are buried.
But she can now be added to the long list of Clinton road kill over the decades. Bill & Hill, the Toxic Twosome.
not so, were that true Bernie would have won. Hillary has millions of supporters who are thrilled that she is running. You would never know it to read this blog or reddit, but plenty of hard working Democrats who know how to win supported her, which is why she won in spite of herself.
The Hillarybots like to deride independents, as if she can win only with registered Democrats. It’s the liberal goodthinkers patting themselves on the back. Say hello to President Donald.
Know how to win what? Governerships? No. State houses? No. The House? Haha. The Senate? I’ll believe it when it happens.
The can win the presidency against the likes of Mitt Romney and John McCain, and maybe only that given an uber-charismatic candidate.
Or the Clintons are using their 2 year Arkansas strategy which works in Arkansas and lucked out against their opponents but have lost when facing relatively strong candidates in the 94 GOP campaign and Obama, an empty suit, in 2008.
Triangulation works when prosperity is shared by enough people, but the country is too out of whack to put a former Republican for every day of the Shrub Administration as a speaker at the DNC. It might fly in a small state where one can get reliable first hand accounts of how nice someone is (I know it’s shallow) when people aren’t that worried about more than public schools, but it fails in national elections.
Re: Medication – I seem to remember Yves speculating that Hillary is almost certainly taking Coumadin or some other blood thinner due to possible mini-strokes she has suffered.
I recall that thread as i pointed out to Yves speculation abt Coumadin aka Warfarin–(or In HRC case war-fair’in) is the go to toxic ingredient in Rat poison–(Fill in with your own mental extrapolation).
I suggested ministrokes, erratic judgement being a hall mark behavioral presentation.
Coumadin can dramatically potentiate strokes, which incidentally i believe is further complicated by the fact that it is a very challenging drug to properly calibrate dosage in particular when dietary contradictions are not observed.
An MD Pharmacist or Nurse could elaborate along this line of speculation.
Here’s hoping to a not so minii stroke.
My wife made a case for early dementia with her and Bill. The possible lack of impulse control in hopping on the AG’s plane instigated the conversation. But hey, it seemed to work, so it’s not technically crazy if the world conforms to the vision…
As a user of warfarin for 10 plus years, I believe that as long as blood tests are performed regularly, there is no reason to suspect any health problems that might affect the judging capabilities of any user.
As a user of warfarin for 10 plus years, I believe that as long as blood tests are performed regularly, there is no reason to suspect any health problems that might affect the judging capabilities of any user.
And good health to you!
My observation was based on a now passed away relative. Mini strokes, big personality change then ultimately passed on from congestive heart failure. Relationship between the meds and strokes, do know for sure
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2526210/Blood-thinning-drug-warfarin-double-risk-stroke-Patients-faulty-heart-rhythm-increased-risk-30-days.html
do not know for sure
There are a ton of new anticoagulants on the market, coumadin/warfarin has been around for all. Cheap but you need blood tests to keep it at a certain blood level depending on condition.This is annoying for many people, constant check ups. Good thing about coumadin the effects can be reversed with vit K.
The new anticoags (which cost a fortune) have no reversal agent and big pharm is really pushing them.
If she is taking a statin, now there are links to dementia like effects. If she had a stroke odds are they pushed a statin & anticoag.
http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/fda-changes-safety-information-on-statin-drugs-201202294429m
You’ve misread the article. It states that use of coumadin increases risk of stroke only for the first 30 days of use, afterwards it reduces the risk by half.
this makes sense bc reducing stroke risk is precisely the reason it is prescribed.
Does not disclosing any health risk give cause for impeachment later?
Probably not, unless you can make the case that it constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
Not if she just forgot…
Wasserman throws an election. Covertly and intentionally sabotages a candidates campaign. Isn’t this a step beyond just standard political lying and mudslinging? How is this different from miscounting or stealing votes? So she resigns but now Sanders is out. Mission accomplished and she resigns. Shouldn’t this be illegal in an honest democracy? Shouldn’t she and all involved be concerned about jail time instead of a golden parachute resignation?
Maybe I am just looking at it from the wrong perspective but this seems like a subversion of democracy and the will of the people. Shouldn’t that be a serious crime? I guess this is just a sign of the times. Caught blatantly cheating and no real consequences.
The catch is that the party nomination process is generally considered the to be the private workings of a non-governmental organization. Plenty of room for shenanigans with that sort of framing…
What about the people that gave millions of dollars to Bernie under the pretense of an honest process? Seems close to fraud to me.
I gave money to Sanders and I was not – I assure you – doing so in the expectation that the “process” was honest. I truly don’t know anyone dim enough to believe that it would be.
The hope was that he might win in spite of the obvious effort to thwart him. Failing that, that his good showing would alter the trajectory of the election. Which it has, though to a lesser degree than I’d hoped. The intense conservativism of Clinton-establishment Dems has been a bit greater than I’d expected. I truly didn’t think they would risk the election entirely in order to maintain dominance within their party.
Belief is different than evidence.
Fraudulent? Absolutely! But those of us who donated $27 have even fewer available resources to do anything else let alone pursue a effective rebuttal or practical recourse short of shedding blood & tears. And arguing or wasting time having a political discussion with sycophants is worse than banging your head against a wall.
talking about fraud….
Charles Ortel – Clinton Foundation $100 Billion Criminal Conspiracy
Published on Jul 24, 2016
How much money has the Clinton Foundation raised globally? Wall Street financial expert Charles Ortel says it’s a “$100 billion criminal conspiracy” and goes on to say, “I think it is a disgrace. To put that number into perspective, depending on how you look at the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, that was either $40 billion to $60 billion. This is $100 billion, and maybe more.”
How much Clinton Foundation money actually makes it to charitable causes? Ortel says, “It’s impossible to tell from the filings. You are supposed to tell from the filings, and it’s impossible to tell. One of the biggest expenses in the recent period in the Clinton Foundation is for
Pharmaceuticals for supposedly fighting HIV Aids. If this were a well-run charity, you would provide a detailed breakdown of what pharmaceuticals by type and at what price. There is none of that disclosure. You don’t know if that pharmaceutical number is completely made up or not. You have no way of telling, and the auditors have never done their work. This is why I say this is a text book case study in global charity fraud. It needs to be exposed as such.”
https://youtu.be/0b0EZPjUvBc
Yes. And the “democracy” we have is not the one creating havoc in your mind. The Citizens United supreme court decision should have made this clear to all.
Actually no it will never be considered a serious crime as long as the parties are considered private clubs, which they are. I think there are probably even legal cases ruling the parties are private clubs (but there are lawyers here that would actually know much better than me). So I suspect what they did is perfectly legal. Now I don’t agree with it, I think the private club business is utter nonsense, the parties are “private clubs” like your bowling club my @#$# but ….
jrs
July 25, 2016 at 11:43 am
I am a broken record on this, but I find it totally illogical that citizens don’t get a say in the selection of the choices (candidates). Its like saying you only get to decide what to eat from the Chinese menu – column A or column B. What if I want Greek, or Korean, or Indian food? Saying after you arrive at the restaurant you get to decide is no real choice at all.
Ask yourself, how did it come to the fact that the two major candidates are Trump and Clinton???
I think every citizen should get a say in who the nominees will be – I get to vote for a Green, a dem, a repub. The president, senators, and representatives is not to represent a party, but the totality of the citizens. It seems to me this “two party” system is designed to thwart the will of the people…
Private groups can set up whatever ‘rules’ they want but they also have to abide by them. Private individuals and groups are bound by verbal and written contracts and can be sued for violating them. Nothing that can’t be resolved by a little judge shopping.
Is it possible that the wikileaks email evidence would allow Sanders supporters who donated money to launch a class action against the DNC for reimbursement of all donations that were made to the Sanders campaign?
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/07/after-chaotic-weekend-for-democrats-and-wasserman-schultz-a-class-action-lawsuit-lies-ahead/
” A Federal class action lawsuit has been filed against the DNC and Wasserman Schultz alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation, deceptive conduct, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligence. The suit, Wilding et al v DNC Services Corporation and Deborah ‘Debbie’ Wasserman Schultz (Case Number 16-cv-61511-WJZ) was originally filed by the law firm Beck & Lee on June 28, 2016. An amended complaint has subsequently been filed. Jared H. Beck of the law firm has indicated that over 1,000 plaintiffs have thus far signed retainer agreements with his firm in relation to the class action lawsuit.”
Thanks. If I had donated money to the Sanders campaign I would be wanting it back right about now.
So she resigns but now Sanders is out. Mission accomplished and she resigns.
No, no. It was all a big magic trick. POOF! Now she is openly working for the candidate she rigged the primary for! See? All is well!
A lot of things should be serious crimes, and, in fact, many are. But what’s your point? :-(
A lot of things should be serious crimes, and, in fact, many are. But what’s your point? :-(
Hillary is signalling. She takes care of her loyals.
Always reward loyalty. Performance is secondary, when it’s not irrelevant.
That’s the Establishment way.
Wasn’t that how the USSR worked, party loyalty, though somehow the Red Army was able to march all the way to Berlin, with outside help (but not much, relatively speaking, if you ask the Russians)?
Wa-ha-howw!! Ole Fanboat Debbie got guccifered and has a little email hairball of her own. Never the Clintons, mind you, but this is a good start.
Makes me wonder… if Bernie had held out on the endorsement thing, maybe he’d be getting superdeledates to swing over to him right about now. It’ll be interesting to see if he goes off script in his speech tonight. I’m not holding my breath, however.
Bernie kept saying that he would take the fight to Philadelphia. Last I heard, Portsmouth, NH is nowhere near PA or Philadelphia.
So why did he endorse her? It cost him a lot of support. (Count me among those former supporters.) It also didn’t do much to help her campaign.
Sorry to say it, Bernie, but you blew it.
I’m not usually first in line for conspiracy theories but the abruptness of Bernie’s about-face, combined with how his campaign seemed to not even be aware of the endorsement until after it happened and then were (confusedly?) running two lines of messaging at once for a while, plus his hangdog appearance since then…I think someone had a talk with him and made some fairly explicit threats if he didn’t endorse/appear to concede before the convention.
Same thing that happened to H Ross Perot. I was pulling for him too. In this day and age of cellphones, I am a firm believer that certain conversations ought to be anticipated, recorded, and then televised.
In the end a good win win negotiator makes a winning offer rather than a threat.
A mutually satisfying and accepted offer is self enforcing. Any number of ways a threat can ricochet around in an unintended manner.
It doesn’t appear to me that it was a win for Bernie.
Do we have all the information of what transpired to make that assessment?
Personally, I don’t know what constitutes a win for Bernie.
If a person can be threatened once, he/she can always be threatened.
That’s one school of thought – and the basis for never negotiating with, say, kidnappers.
Is Sanders ‘tainted goods?’
Maybe he took a ride in a well known 747.
In endorsing Clinton, Bernie surely was thinking beyond the election. He made a judgment call – one that may prove to be powerful and surprising. If these animals Clinton, Trump and Sanders don’t change their stripes, I will still hold out some hope for Bernie:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/bernie-sanders-mayor/407413/
And yesterday morning, when the clinton campaign / dnc is finally forced to admit to sabotaging Bernie’s campaign as he had been saying all along, he deadpans all the interviews, sayng without any emotion that he knew it all along.
That’s it.
Couldn’t help remembering a Psych course I took long ago discussing a person’s “affect.”
One should be suspicious of behavior when a person’s “affect,” or demeanor, seems unusual given the circumstances. Bernie’s angry supporters have the “affect” I would have expected him to have.
Agreed. Very weird.
Still would love to know what prompted Bernie’s endorsement well before the Convention.
That makes three of us. I watched just one of the interviews and was wondering what happened to the fiery Bernie we saw during the stump speeches.
Can’t help thinking that somehow and somewhere, Bernie was forced to have a sit-down. “Nice family ya got there, Bernie. Be a shame if something *happened* to it.”
Keep remembering Ross Perot’s claiming his family was threatened, forcing him to drop out of a race involving another clinton.
“They” said Perot was “crazy.”
If memory serves, his main issue was the toxicity of nafta.
yeah same here. no matter how cynical i get, i’m always behind events.
Knight sacrifice to take Queen.
Could still work.
Sanders had pretty much given up pursuit of the Presidency when he endorsed Clinton, so there wasn’t much to support of a Sanders campaign at that point. But that shouldn’t mean giving up on broader down-ticket organizations that Sanders is supporting—which is really the long term game that progressives and economic populists should be pursuing, e.g., Progressive Democrats of America who will not be endorsing Clinton, but will be working to elect Dems to Congress. Sanders may have opened the door, but he, in his advanced age, isn’t the future. It’s those millennials that will hopefully get hip to politics outside of the neo-liberal parameters and walk through the door that Sanders opened up.
Will Sanders be allowed to support down ticket organizations if these organization will endanger the party?
Was he threatened/coerced? Can the same device, the same threat be deployed again?
How much of his future work will be futile?
a threat to his family could definitely be employed again. as it could against most people outside of newt gingrich.
Sanders’ family was threatened???? New to me, when did this happen???
Pure speculation. Just trying to fit some rational explanation to his behavior.
Whatever was the long knife, it is still there, presumably.
“Mission accomplished.”
“a threat to his family could definitely be employed again. as it could against most people outside of newt gingrich.”
hahaha, that is actually hilarious
+++
Because the collective spirit of fuck this shit is bigger than any one person.
Down-ticket Dems are still bought and paid for unless those progressives take control at the grass roots level. And that takes savvy, dedication, money and tenacity. We’re working on it here in Washington.
There’s an earlier oddity: Bernie’s dismissal of the “damn emails”. In some ways, what he’s doing now is a continuation of that episode by other means (to paraphrase Clausewitz). To cut through the Gordian knot of psychological speculation, the sad conclusion seems to be that for whatever reason, Bernie just won’t use the weapons at hand. The only consolation might be that it’s better that it happen before his election than after. Quite reminiscent of Obama’s about-face in office. Thoroughly bummed.
Love the narwhals. Such strange, strange creatures!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3TtS1wkb7M
The have their own theme song!
Catchy!
“Narwhals narwals, swimming in the ocean causing a commotion cause they are so awesome. Narwals narwhals swimming in the ocean pretty big and pretty wide they beat a polar bear in a fight
Like an underwater unicorn, they’ve got a kick-ass facial horn, they are the Jedi of the sea, they stop cthulu eating ye!”
When even the narwhales are heading to the left, you know something it up.
Of course they’re headed left.
Right-wing politics spells their doom.
TPP, TTIP, and TISA, here we come under President Hillary.
And there goes any chance of doing anything about global warming.
~
Ocean acidification, algal blooms…the list goes on and on.
Was compelled to have a quick read about narwhals:
The narwhal tusk—most commonly found on males—is actually an enlarged tooth with sensory capability and up to 10 million nerve endings inside. Some narwhals have up to two tusks, while others have none. The spiraled tusk juts from the head and can grow as long at 10 feet…
Oil and gas development and climate change pose threats to narwhals. Increased development means more shipping vessels, creating more opportunities for collisions and more underwater noise that can interfere with communication among the whales…
Narwhals can dive a mile-and-a-half deep in the ocean. Cracks in the sea ice above allow them to pop up for air when they need it.
World Wildlife Fund
File under Nature is a Bitch: Also narwhal males gang rape the females :-(
Of course, in Alabama, the tusks are looser.
Groucho Strether!
Imagine needing a root canal on one of those…
My dictionary says ‘narwhal’ is from the old Norse for ‘corpse whale’, apparently a reference to its skin color.
And now that Lambert – ever a stand-up guy – has opened the floor: “Mister Thor-bachev, nar down this whal!”
@polecat: “what do they may of humans?”
Um, shish kebab?
I think they really need to put some tennis balls on the ends of those things. You know, for safety
Never realized that they schooled like that. Where are the Mom’s in that crowd? “You could put someone’s eye out with that thing!”
Yes…but what do they make of humans??
Good point!
Those aren’t narwhals. Those are Silicon Valley unicorns!
trump is going to be the next president of the united states, everything points to it. he won’t be a good president, but his presidency will not be all bad. it will give the left the chance to retake the democratic party. everything also indicates that he will pursue a policy of detente with russia. since a war with russia is probably the greatest threat to the world and we’re currently on that trajectory, that’s a very good thing. he’s a bonafide hustler, but there are worst things than hustlers. only by nominating sanders can a trump presidency be avoided, but the dems would rather lose with clinton than win with sanders.
Journos on acid:
Alternate reality fiction … it has its comical moments.
Likely this journo is gunning for designation as 0bama’s authorized biographer, so he can embellish 0zero’s litany of imaginary accomplishments.
Ahhh…branding and advertising….
Coke is different than Pepsi
dems are liberals
Be prepared. This will be the excuse if Hillary loses. The Party elites will conclude that the the DLCers are right and demand a conservative turn. It doesn’t matter that Trump is rhetorically running to the left of Hillery on trade, jobs, and Wall Street as an interview with economist Michael Hudson pointed out in a previous links page:
A Democratic loss would be laid at the door of a “progressive ” agenda forced on Hillary by Sanders.
And if Hillary wins, the Party elites will conclude that the DLCers are right (they won, didn’t they?) and use that as a mandate for a conservative turn. Win or lose, “move right” is the same conclusion the Democrats come to every four years.
The “party elites” & their hired shills can go rot to death. So far today on twitter, I’ve seen the pro-DNC establishment journos call Sandernistas who won’t back Clinton “Garbage People” & mock crying Bernie delegates of all sorts, from Susan Sarandon to “suicidal marxists who work at TGI Fridays”.
I do not care about reforming the Democratic Party as long as scum like that make up its inner circles. They must all go, along with all the people who think they’ve been doing an adequate job the last couple of decades.
Expecting them to deal in good faith is just silly. I WANT the blame/congratulations/responsibility if/when they lose. Not saying the Republicans are, on the whole, any better, but I MUCH prefer to deal with open enemies than the kind of jerkwads who try to pretend to be your friend and be looking out for someone other than their own self-interest when they are just angling for the best position to step on someone else’s head while they jump up the ladder.
Don’t care WHAT agenda HRC proclaims. Why should I believe a word she (or the dem leadership) says?
“The country has shifted…” Note lack of agency.
And despite the best efforts of the administration to nail the Overton Window firmly in place!
Agree that there is a good chance Trump will win.
But disagree it won ‘t be so bad. Disagree it will lead to ascendance of Progressives within Dem party.
There are so many important laws, important relics of the past that are the backbone of agency rules and legal rights that are hanging by a thread, and will likely be toppled in the next Republican administration.
The Clean Air Act coverage of green house gases.
The Davis Bacon provisions.
On budget, defense will go up. Social security will be indexed.
Abortion rights will be imperiled by judicial nominations. Gun rights will be more entrenched.
What lessons will Bluedogs learn? Go right. Cower more. Punch hippies.
How, exactly, do you think Progressives will take over? Blue dogs are the incumbents.
Many people here seem to welcome the collapse of the Dem party. But what next?
You seem to think things cannot get worse. They can. They almost certainly will.
Someone suggested that Trump will transform the Repub party in the image of Donald slogans. Trump has no power to do that. And he has no desire to do it because the slogans are just part of his con.
Tea party types are in safe districts. “Mainstream” Repubs answer to the chamber of commerce and other industry alliances.
Repub grass roots self identify with guns, anti-abortion, right to work, and less social spending — especially, in their minds, on minorities. Live Free Or Die.
I have no use for Hillary or her crowd. I have railed against all of them for years. But the election is not about them. It is about us and our children. Trump puts them at risk. Further, the collapse of the Dems into civil war risks Repub rule for a long time.
People seem to expect equilibrium in the political system. That need not occur. Republican rule can re-shape our society as profoundly as the New Deal — but in a vastly different direction.
If Republicans keep a hold on white working class for long term, it will be based on racism, resentment, and jingoistic adventures.
It is a tried and true formula.
+1
You left out Russia will be controlling our foreign policy every time Putin phones up Donald and says “would you like to play a little Solitaire?”
It is true that Trump has made it easy for Dems to crank up the scary boogie man music but then these are the people who thought Obie was serious about “change we can believe in.” For the record Trump has proclaimed himself pro-choice in the past so what he says in a Repub primary not necessarily the last word. He has also at times called himself a Democrat so he may be about as much of a Republican as Sanders is a Democrat. Certainly he will owe the Republican establishment very little should he be elected.
i think things will absolutely get worse. i just think things will get worse if clinton wins. we will have 4+ more years of the far right rising, antagonism of russia and china – my greatest fear, as a non-america, is that it will lead to a world war. i don’t fear that hilary would launch a nuclear first strike, but that any such war would end nuclear.
obama set back race relations in america by 50 years and he militarised racist police. if he wasn’t a terrible president, AAs wouldn’t be living today in a country that is as hostile to them as it was in the 60s. he probably shut the door on another black presidency for the forseeable future. you think hilary clinton becoming president would be good for women? i submit to you that, if she’s president, four years from now america is a much more mysoginist country and feminism has been set back 20 years unless she actually makes the country better. how likely do you think that is. the racism, resentment and jingoism rise when people’s economies are in the craphouse. so yeah, it can and will get worse. four more years of clinton neoliberalism and many will look longingly at the innocence of the trump days.
your fears about trump assume that he believes in all the populist crap he feeds on. i don’t believe it. most of the fears about trump are irrational. he’s a conman, not a zealot. on what evidence do you think defense spending will go up or social security indexed under trump more so than clinton? is clinton, as she claims, not influenced by her donors which include military contractors, foreign governments, private prison and security companies and social security vultures like Tom and Linda Arnold? has trump hinted at any time of restricting abortion rights or is this another thing projected unto him?
blue dogs are the encumbents which is why they will shoulder any defeat and be vulnerable to a challenge. the country shifts right when its left wing converges with the right, not when a republican is in power. as long as the dems are happy to chase the repugs right, the latter are happy to move ever further in that direction.
Obama set back race relations by 50 years is nonsense, a right wing talking point. Now this doesn’t mean I think he was good. He did nothing for economic issues disproportionately affecting minorities and driving some poor whites into the arms of pure reaction (aka Trump). He did nothing about cops killing black people. But the militarization of the police started to ramp up under W I believe, not Obama. And btw why is the countries willingness to elect another white male never set back by having horrible white male presidents like W? Because that would be about as logical. It’s not Obama’s fault that r-ism exists in this country. We’ve been electing white males forever and what have we gotten for it? Reagan, W, Clinton etc.
lambert wrote a post on here that proved that most of the militarization occurred in 2012 – in the middle of obama’s 2 terms.
with regard to your other points, i suppose latent racism is always there and comes out when the economy is in the doldrums. but AAs now have a tougher time to vote, buy a house, get a job, not get harrassed by the police, etc than they did in decades. not saying all of it is obama’s fault but, at best, he did nothing about it.
and nice touch on the right-wing talking point jab. which right-wing sources did you see it on?
I do not think electing Hillary will lead to nuclear war. If it does, our troubles are over.
But otherwise I have no high hopes for a Clinton administration.
My point is that government is a team sport. Trump will rule with the Republican team.
It is hard to explain, but the teams have established issue tussles, and goals, and psychological investment. It is not about analyzing tidbits about a candidate’s slogans or even past practices. In a lot of stuff in Congress, the President is irrelevant except as a veto threat. And the important fights are on obscure budget riders that seldom get publicity. And if the press motices, the stories are often spectacularly wrong.
There is a weight and substance to the team struggles that is very important, and it matters which party has the victory mojo, the veto, the bully pulpit, the power to make or rollback rules, and the power to make appointments.
Important New Deal and environmental laws and rules hang in the balance. Progressives (the few, the battered) have held on so far, but barely.
It is not just about electoral coat tails. Gerrymandering has given Repubs the House for the near future. In the Senate, Repubs will stay powerful no matter the election results — and MAY ride coat tails of Trump.
The Dem party needs reform. But the way forward is through primary challenges. And vocal dissent to Hillary policies.
A Trump presidency will hurt us far more than it will hurt Hillary
I understand the anger and the contempt for Hillary. But we need to look dispassionately at our options. Both suck. But there is bad and worse. The difference is important.
These were the promises made in 2001, 2005, 2009, and 2013. Clinton/Kaine is pretty good proof it can’t be changed.
Do you have anything besides empty promises? Actions we can see. DWS should have never been hired for the DNC job after Kaine’s abortion of a chairmanship. At best, she’s a flake and that was obvious then.
If you don’t have an opening offer, you have nothing to offer people who have left the Democratic party. If you aren’t a DNC troll, I suggest you consider that this isn’t a single election of bs from the Democratic Party. It’s been a long time.
It is not just the party that must change; voters play a role.
In 2000 there was no groundswell of disgust with our financial system. People clung to belief in the bubble.
Our politicians almost never lead. They head to where they think the votes are. Public emotions change, and pols struggle to adjust. The most successful put a name on the public feelings, and focus public opinion in a way that leads to votes.
Trump is blaming immigrants and the establishment.
Sanders blamed Wall Street and the Establishment.
The world is ever fluid.
Progressives are not destined to take over the Dem party. Progressives may be marginalized for a hundred years.
But there is a path for Progressives to gain influence. The reason is that times have changed and the public mood has changed.
It is not 2000, 2004, 2008 or 2012 now.
“the President is irrelevant except as a veto threat”
“A Trump presidency will hurt us”
So… almost completely irrelevant, but somehow able to hurt us a lot?
“It is not 2000, 2004, 2008 or 2012 now”
That is astoundingly profound! It’s also not late in the afternoon on the twelfth of April 1721 now.
i think these two statements get at an important truth: the worse things get, the more persuasive blame – the blame of anything – becomes.
if clinton wins, trumps argument only becomes more persuasive in four years, to be picked up by whomever wants it. david duke?
if trump will, his blame-the-immigrants theory will be discredited and we will get a new scapegoat in four years from whomever is most persuasive in arguing it. it is this that creates an opportunity for the left.
to be fair, i think a very likely outcome is that trump wins and does nothing about immigration and discredits only himself, with anti-immigration sentiment remaining high.
I’m sorry, you lost me at, “I do not think electing Hillary will lead to nuclear war. If it does, our troubles are over.”
If you want to wave her flag, it’s your call. But don’t pretend the problem is “hard to explain.” HRC has established herself as a warmonger – in Iraq, in Libya, in Honduras and Syria.
Shhesh, please read the label before use —
It absolutely is going to get worse, no matter who is president of the U.S. Even if it were Sanders. The only questions about it in my mind are: How bad does it have to get before humanity pulls its head out of its ass? And: Is that going to happen before it is too late for us as a species?
Chained CPI was an Obama proposal which Republican’s thwarted. Clinton at best wants to add additional means testing. Kaine was named a “Fiscal Hero” by Fix the Debt (h/t dcblogger). Both Clinton and Kaine favor greater government intervention between a woman and her doctor, and Kaine is “personally” opposed to abortion. Clinton is a war hawk, an arms sale facilitator, and a recipient of campaign contributions from weapons manufacturers. She supports global fracking and trade agreements that are devastating to US workers.
I don’t really understand your focus on “Blue Dogs.” For years Obama, Clinton, and establishment Democrats at the federal, state, and local levels have supported global and domestic neoliberal economic looting, endless war, promotion of drilling and fracking, suppression of dissent, militarization of police, expanded surveillance, etc. What lessons will they learn if we vote for them? Cower not at all. Punch hippies. Pass the TPP. Go to war with Russia.
I share the horror at the bigotry and xenophobia that Trump uses as a political tactic. I believe we must fight against it. However, I believe this is accomplished by promoting a vision of the common good and policies that promote that vision; not the economic, military, domestic crime and punishment, austerity, etc. policies of the Democrats that divide us into endlessly differentiated categories of supposed merit, eligibility, suspicion, and blame.
Though I voted for Jill Stein in 2012, I was prepared to vote for a lesser evil Democrat in 2016. Establishment Democrats and their cheerleaders who supposedly believe in lesser-evilism ought to have worked for, not against, his nomination. #GoJill.
From your comment, you gave up on the Dem party some time ago.
As you can tell, I think the Dem party can be changed.
Bernie could have run as an independent. Instead, he chose to fight for control of the Dem party. I think he made the right decision.
Bernie showed an enormous hunger for his message. But he did not quite win.
We need to continue the fight.
While everyone has a right to a different opinion about who to vote for, I think the practical consequences of abandoning the country to Trump/Republicans will be severe.
Please tell me that you weren’t saying “The President is not a dictator” back before Obama was a lame duck. Because the exact same checks and balances that applied to Obama will apply to Trump.
I was unclear.
Power in DC is exercised in a Balkanized way.
The President has almost complete control of foreign relations. The main counter forces are in defense and intelligence bureaucracies.
The President also controls rule making and rule rollbacks. There is some ability for outside groups to challenge based upon underlying statutes.
Congress can intervene by changing the statutes, and by demoralizing agencies with abusive oversight hearings. The main statutory route is by budget riders.
Important fights have been on-going in recent years over riders. But it is asymmetrical. Progressives have not been in position to make gains; they have played defense.
A Dem president allows us to cling to the New Deal and environmental regs. Trump shifts the precarious balance in a disastrous direction.
Obama was s Bluedog, like Hillary. Great? No. But barely enough.
The difference between Dem and Repub rule matters.
On the budget and taxes, there has been a stalemate, but the President is peripheral to those power struggles. Including infrastructure spending.
At least Dems will entertain the idea of deficit spending. This could be important in the event of another financial collapse and deflation. But it will not be important if there is a Republican president.
Appointing judges is another shared power, but a Repub president and Repub Senate is a particularly dangerous combination.
so the area in which hillary is clearly worse than trump is the area which the president has the greatest influence over. this is as close to a QED of why trump is the lesser evil as we’re going to get.
Obvious troll is obvious.
Try not to feed them.
Is groupthink your goal?
Very odd all this name calling
A form of shunning, I suppose.
I have not commented anywhere regularly for a long time. The reason I stopped by was because I admire the articles here. I knew the Kaine nomination is unpopular with progressives, and Brown is a hero to many. I thought both reactions are overwrought, so I thought I would comment.
The pro-Trump stuff astounded me. Because of my respect for the site, I have tried to add my perspective.
Apparently, this is unpopular with a certain crowd.
That speaks poorly of you, not me.
Thanks. People here are cranky right now and not really always as open to differing viewpoints as maybe they should be. I’m with you on the pro-Trump stuff, it’s hard to fathom. Desperate times and desperate measures I get, but that’s a step to far for me.
I agree with you that a Trump Presidency is no gurantee the progressive left will be reborn, in fact I agree the opposite is more likely. I also agree the left is notorious throughout history, both here and abroad for consistently underestimating the right’s effectiveness and ruthlessness when it comes to implementing extremist agendas. That said the entirety of your post is speculation. Politically Trump is an unknown quantity having never held elected office. However we have four decades of history to prove the Clintons have their own very special and consistent brand of graft, incompetence, low-brow scandal, neoliberal economic policy and the selling of public office to the extent they’re even willing to commit treason. There is no “but” with the Clintons. They’re crooked, they’re ruthless, they’re tacky, they love money, they love power and they could give two sh*ts about the environment or the America people. If Hillary Clinton is elected your childen have will still have a lot to worry about. Unless you have a crystal ball I seriously doubt your “lesser of evils” argument. Concerning Democratic party collapse. It’s happening now either way. The DNC has been exposed as succinctly un-democratic and corrupt. The wikileaks emails show them as a bunch of money-grubbing, sycophant whores who are actively collaborating with corporate media propaganda artists marauding as journalists in order to rig elections. The collapse can happen now while there’s an alternative (Sanders coalition) waiting in the wings or it can come later after every single last progressive voice has left the corrupt, neoliberal, DNC tent. I think now would be better for the country because now is an opportunity for positive change. Good opportunites for change don’t come often and frequently if the opportunity does come back around again the second chance will be a much more painful experience. Fear of Trump is an inadequate reason to support a morally and idealogically bankrupt party/candidate.
No one wants Hillary (or Bill) less than me.
But my conviction that Trump will be far worse is not speculation. It is based on two general observations.
Close contact and observation of the Republican establishment during the last 20 years.
Trump is a ruthless narcissist and a racist.
Clinton is a narcissist and racist too.
And I don’t know if you’ve taken the time to read any of these emails but the Democrat establishment is dirty and corrupt.
So yes, your observations ARE speculation and imo not very well thought out speculation.
The emails are a sideshow. Part of a propaganda play to disrupt the Dem pageant week. “Rat-fucking” in the Nixon tradition, with at least one of the same players from the old days.
The DNC role was known long ago, so I am not newly shocked.
Sorry you find my arguments unconvincing.
next you’ll claim putin was behind it.
Does not matter if it was Putin. It is a sideshow.
There are mundane realities of power in DC at stake. Whether Dems are in control or Repubs will have profound consequences.
For the kids with asthma in port communities. For workers whose wages are better because of Davis Bacon.
You don’t hear about the rider battles, nor see the daily erosion of the New Deal and environmental regulation. Big money interests, all republicans and some democrats have targeted these things for years, are slowly winning, and are gaining momentum.
We need to hold the line as best we can, and then elect Progressives.
The hysterical way that so many people here embrace the Trump con is disappointing to me. But much of the argument over various details of stated positions or possible future party realignments is just so much entertainment.
Republican rule or Democratic rule. Based upon well worn relationships and agendas, you can pretty well predict the consequences.
As for the future, Progressives might be able to capture of influence the Dems. No guaranty, but the Sanders movement was a good start.
Progressives have absolutely no future in the Republican Party. That I even feel compelled to mention this fact boggles my mind.
Clearly, I have not kept up with the most advanced insights.
the republican, specifically the neocon, establishment is flocking to clinton.
the clinton campaign referred to latinos as TACO BOWLS in their internal emails. while i agree with you that overt racism of trump’s kind is worse, clinton is racist, too; and clinton policy the most racist.
You are living in a tent and a violent thunderstorm blows through. Do you want that? No!
You are living in a tent and a tornado is bearing down on you. Would you rather have the violent thunderstorm? Yes.
yes hillary has demonstrated a real violent streak, in libya and syria and the ukraine, tornadoes are much more violent than thunderstorms. i’ve been conditioned by decades of democratic propaganda to vote the lesser of 2 evils. remember,
4 years of trump > 8 years of clinton. give the party time to readjust and wean itself of neoliberalism, start acting like democrats again.
I am not an USian so cannot take part in the Duopoly elections – I have always advocated for voting third party but after the latest Clintoon/DWS antics, I would be sorely tempted to vote for Trump – and that is even after watching his nomination speech in all its glorious craziness.
2016 provides a golden opportunity for third, fourth and fifth parties to solidify ballot access and even become eligible for federal funds in 2020. Don’t waste your vote!
I Have Strange Dreams: Thanks for the observations. Trump is P.T. Barnum plus Berlusconi. Not worth the risk. Clinton is a raging incompetent.
So stick with your idea of a third party: That’s where I am leaning.
Also: Prepare the extra bedrooms and the barn for USonians fleeing the country.
“Prepare the extra bedrooms and the barn for USonians fleeing the country.”
If Trump wins, some people are going to be sorely disappointed that you can’t just waltz into another country and demand residency—even if you have a USA passport.
I’m sorry to be honest, but there is a big whiff of entitlement when some liberals talk about magically moving to ________, as if there is a special queue for Americans.
Time for us Euros to repay the favor?
I married a Canadian ;-)
Does one have to be rich or have some special skills to be able to just get up and move to another country?
I think in Europe, refugees from Third World countries are given priority, over you, a not-investment-visa-applicant (i.e no money), even if you are starving here.
Those who can stay and fight, but don’t, would that be deserting or going AWOL?
Liberals don’t even know you have to ask permission, and may even be told no.
Had to laugh. Mexico has been firming up a financial test for resident visas in recent years. The minimums are an income of $30,000 (presumably pension?, or SS?, and or investment income?) or $150K in net worth may count and lower your minimum income level. I think this disqualifies perhaps upwards of 90% of America.
There are other rules I think if you are going to look for a job in Mexico. But I wouldn’t recommend it.
Mexico’s scheme is repeated across most of LatAm, with varying details. LatAm welcomes self-sufficient U.S. pensioners who won’t be a burden on their sketchy social services.
Rich countries, with their generous social benefits, don’t want even self-sufficient pensioners unless they have close family ties or a half million or more to invest. Canada in particular has no intention of getting swamped with U.S. migrants availing themselves of Canadian health benefits.
Americans confuse easy tourist access to most of the world with easy residency. Not the same at all, unless you’re willing to marry a local or become an illegal.
Only the celebrity crowd can afford such trite considerations…..
because….$$$$$$
Im sure there would be a looong list of Europeans/ other country citizens that would exchange passports with disgruntled US Citizens. Might actually be a fruitful exchange program.
I am in BG right now, and will be back here for good right around inauguration day. All of you sane USians are welcome to these sunny climes and tasty, real food. I haven’t decided if I will vote Trump or third party yet, all I know is that neither candidate could possibly represent me. If I vote for Trump it will be simply because I think that having Nuland as a SoS is a sure way to spark WW3.
I admire your moving to where you feel you will be most happy rather than pissing and moaning about moving. Even at best, life is too short.
Life is too short. I really hope some of you will visit Bulgaria some day, it is well worth seeing. I am not losting these days, just reading and lurking, but if you ever need recommendations on places to see and things to do just give me a shout. Later Opti, hope the heat wave has finally receded.
I may just take you up on a visit. one of these days. What city are you dropping anchor in? I recall you have an inclination for the Mountains?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/snowandski/bulgaria/
Absurdly hot here with the late evening tropical thunderstorms (which I dig at least).
Sorry for the late reply Opti, time difference… I will be in Sofia, my SO’s choice as she is a big city girl. But Vitosha mountain is only 15 minutes away so still quite nice. Anytime you feel like visiting :)
Be safe. Things are getting weird next door.
I am vacationing about 15km from the border right now, there is extra military and border police presence on the BG side right now. Had dinner at a restaurant right on the border, on the Black Sea, with the Turk and BG flags in sight. Darn good seafood with a view :)
Trump is a third party, just as Sanders would have been had his takeover been successful.
As we Irish say – turd party.
“A Clinton is never defeated as long as she can hold onto one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth.”
Talk about tenacity.
You have to admire an opponent like that.
In my best Yoda voice : ” Tenacity she has, you say….
…..”admiration she has Not ! “
Looks like the media all got the memo concerning Trump’s acceptance speech (dark, man, dark):
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CoG0Q_oXEAAJlgV.jpg
Yes, and in addition to that, the current post at Moon of Alabama lists 23 links to articles about Trump’s speech with the word “dark” in the title. Also this:
If you are hurt, you mustn’t use negative words like ‘hurt’ or ‘pain.”
Instead, use positive words like ‘happy’ etc.
“First you think it, then your Potemkin Village will come true.”
His list is not complete. Joan Walsh’s latest at the Nation is entitled:
Donald Trump’s Angry, Dark Speech Caps Off a Disastrous RNC
Didn’t read it, but when I noticed I figured Trump must have had some good things to say.
Wow. thanks for posting that.
Pretty remarkable and low common denominator blatant that looks like vintage GWB admin Sunday Morning talking points.
I did enjoy listening to Michael Hudson’s reflections on Real News yesterday.
On Tabbi, he reveals himself to be a gifted writer, but pushing below average propaganda material,
He disappoints me. and I have a different assessment of him now that he has shed his now threadbare journalistic cloaking device. Tabbi is now like a ping-pong ball vectoring into the Krugman Grand Prize Game bucket on Bozo’s Circus.
Re Carl Beijer: Trump threatens to make the US into a fascist country? Wake up jackass, we’re already a fascist country.
You would need to read the linked Vox article to understand his argument. I think both articles are fearmongering, though. The US would also be better characterized as an ‘inverted totalitarianism’ than fascism.
Of course Debbie is in charge of electing Democrats. She’s been so good at it that the Democrats have lost ground every year she’s been in charge of the DNC. For that matter, Tim Kaine was DNC chair in 2010.
I’d say Obama and Hillary have rewarded them for failure except they did exactly as they were supposed to do.
Due props: DWS was successful at deploying DNC fraud to defeat Sanders. Are there any other enemies besides him? What else is the DNC for if not to punch the hippy left?
Someone has to defeat Bernie’s new 50 state plan to help commie wannabees run for Congress!
PS – They would probably be Trump-Putin-Russian surrogates, so the DNC needs to cut that off at the astroturf level. It would be irresponsible not to. The down ticket needs to Be With Hillary.
Can anyone explain the rush to blame the Russkies for the DNC leak given the down side of making people say to themselves, Oh, the Russians are really good at breaking into an unprotected email server?
It’s Hillary’s marketing for the new product, war with Russia.
So concise, well done!
Over the weekend I was wondering how long it would be before Clinton supporters just channelled Alex Jones and started ranting about the Illuminati, but then I recalled that inflaming tensions with Russia was an important goal in itself.
Someone earlier pointed out that she’s got her eyes set on boomer nostalgia for the red menace of the 50s and 60s.
Except that it’s supposed to be Trump who wants to take the country back to the fantasy utopia of the 50’s and 60’s, and clinton who sees the “promise” of our techno-“future.”
So many contradictions, so little time.
the Hitlers are EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!
‘sigh”
The response is asymmetric propaganda.
Pick target perps that cant effectively respond “in market”. Russians? .. good choice in that regard, and may well be accurate for what that is worth..
And if it was Russians, what they are revealing is the uncontested Truth apparently.
Consequently they are doing the US a favor in the theme of Transparency.
Important considerations in my mind are
1.) It’s up to the voting public to consider the information (the source being irrelevant) and respond appropriately.
2.) It gives a pretty good insight on the Organizational Dysfunction of those knuckleheads vis a vis the ability to keep what I presume is confidential information confidential, unless they are entirely in a suspended judgment parallel reality to mine?
It’s more beneficial to blame the tattletale than to address the issue of rigging the system.
If the emails weren’t drafted and sent, there would be no materials to leak, now would there?
And speaking of “rush”, how quick was the damage control on the part of the Democrats?
This just strikes me as more ‘blame the whistleblower’ nonsense. The exposure of sunlight doesn’t disinfect if you aren’t already infected.
What damage control? I see a spokesman making an unsubstantiated and stupid claim. One person resigning only to be handed another job. And crickets.
I know there is some snark here, but I am amazed at how inept this all is. Beyond the sycophants, this is not going to play well with anyone, too many people face real consequences outside the Washington bubble.
This is a fascist country, and fascists desperately need an other to blame which is both all powerful, causing rain during weddings, and simultaneously incompetent to distract from the fascists wrong doing but not raise questions about why fascists are in charge.
Don’t look for rationality when discussing the views of fascists.
Morris Berman believes the American indentity is a negative one, that is it is built on opposition. Originally the natives, the black, later communists and then Muslims. I would argue that is also the case for Israel and maybe Canada. The identity requires a war and it disintegrates the moment there is no enemy.
The Voices in Kos’s Head are all telling each other that Putin Pwns Trump (they even have a bumper sticker for ya! You are supposed to put that on the Right end of your bumper, and the official Clinton/Twaine on the Left end!) and the Evil Rooskies are responsible for the Evil Incursiion Into Sacred Clinton E-Mailspace And Obviously Traitorous Release Of What Honest People Would Treasure As Secret Protectd Content!!!!! http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/24/1551904/-New-Trump-Logo-Unveiled
This, from the “realty-based committee…’
Is Markos Moulitsas the second coming of Jim Jones ????
the Daily Kos seems to have become totally unhinged!
I suspect Trump and Putin are similarly inclined pragmatic Wheeler Dealers , just cultivated in very different backgrounds.
HRC is not pragmatic or a Wheeler Dealers, she is imperious, and I believe that is due to an inability to actually make judgment calls. She has a very bad record of results when she has had to take a position. Uncannily bad actually. Really similar to GWB in that regard.
Remember when JFK squeaked past Nixon in 1960 on the argument that the Republicans were soft on communism and that the Eisenhower/Nixon regime had let the Soviets get ahead in the “missile gap”?
Plus ça change.
And, as it turned out, the missile gap favored the USA. It wasn’t even close.
Don’t forget the “bomber gap” RAND Air Farce invention by counting the Soviet Bomber flight of I think it was 8 airplanes over and over as it circled the Kremlin on May Day, and assuming that Soviet aircraft factories used the same floor planning as Boeing and the rest… Lies, all lies, known to be such at the time.
And the “window of vulnerability,” absolute loony forking insanity: http://russianforces.org/podvig/2008/06/the_window_of_vulnerability_that_wasnt.shtml
Now we are come to the next phase of the Nuclear Great Game: One foot and a couple of toes in the grave…
It is all part of an “up is down” campaign by the Hillary camp to show they know how to handle national security better than Donald Trump.
They expect people to support them while giving evidence they are unable to secure their strategy and tactical emails from hackers who may be Russian.
It has to be the “Russians did this because they fear Hillary Clinton” argument, to distract from a message of incompetence, “The DNC had plenty of time to learn from Hillary Clinton’s email troubles and secure their server, but did not”
To further weaken the DNC’s case, they can’t prove the Russians are behind this.
Maybe the Russians are behind this because of a fear of Clinton, the fear is of her incompetence.
So, we’re supposed to choose between one candidate who isn’t afraid to go to war with Russia, and another who doesn’t want to? Have the Democrats really thought this through?
voteforno6
July 25, 2016 at 10:49 am
Sad to say, it seems to me that the ending of the draft, combined with technology, and never ending terrorism propaganda, has divorced many Americans from the seriousness of war.
On the other hand, Kennedy ran on the missile gap, so war mongering is a time honored bipartisian strategy….
I don’t think they fear her incompetence nearly as much as her bloodlust for regime change and another Cold War.
Like a criminal who blames the folks that call 911.
I work hard at putting myself in other people’s shoes and trying to see the world from their perspective and honestly as a potential moderate republican-lite voter who Team Hillary is obviously trying to court…how can they possibly view this Russian angle as anything other than down right kooky, absurd, unhinged and transparently desperate. Soccer mom’s worried about cyber security? Maybe but it’s a HUGE stretch.
I blame a vast right-wing, erm I mean former-commie-now-turned-the-new-Hitler-(#1 of 17 such), conspiracy.
I realize those are the kind of “dark musings” the official messaging Pollyannas at team DNC decry as un-American and threats to national security. Sorry, guys! If I could just still afford my happy pills, but even though they’re generics, the price for them jumped 400% last year!
How is it nobody in the media has made the connection between Russia and the DNC hack of Debbie’s Clinton primary rigging and Clintonlands email server with at least 7 classified threads being hacked – not least the missing 30000 emails?
Sam Adams
July 25, 2016 at 7:56 am
I commented on this yesterday – I’m with you – I don’t get it.
I would add one point – there seems to be hysteria about the Ruskkies, but somehow their hacking of the secretary of state seems unworthy of investigation….
fresno dan
July 24, 2016 at 6:40 pm
Katniss Everdeen
July 24, 2016 at 2:32 pm
The idea that the Russians broke into the DNC servers…..WOW!!! JUST WOW!!!!
Hmmmmm….so, what does that mean?
1. The Russians also broke into Hillary’s server???? (saving that stuff for later???)
2. The defacto server of the US secretary of state is so useless that it is of less value than a US vice president, i.e., a bucket of warm spit???
Uh, maybe it wasn’t such a bright idea bringing up Russian hackers of servers…
Yes, this was exactly my question: why would they pump up the Russian angle when the next question from anyone with a pulse would be, And YOUR emails lying unprotected up in the leafy suburbs? THOSE weren’t hacked by the Russians?
Well that didn’t take long little debbie is back and as always the bounce is up.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/chaotic-start-dnc-wasserman-shultz-resigns-disgrace-only-be-elevated-clinton-key
#JeSuisPayDayLenders
#DWSstrong
Wonder if she got a raise? More responsibility and all.
Dunno why this is surprising. Hillary got a tongue lashing from the FBI, then onward and upward to break the glass ceiling. It’s how meritocracy works.
From the Hillbilly Elegy author interview:
Well, it’s almost the flip side: stop pretending that every problem is a structural problem, something imposed on the poor from the outside. I see a significant failure on the Left to understand how these problems develop. They see rising divorce rates as the natural consequence of economic stress. Undoubtedly, that’s partially true. Some of these family problems run far deeper. They see school problems as the consequence of too little money (despite the fact that the per pupil spend in many districts is quite high), and ignore that, as a teacher from my hometown once told me, “They want us to be shepherds to these kids, but they ignore that many of them are raised by wolves.” Again, they’re not all wrong: certainly some schools are unfairly funded. But there’s this weird refusal to deal with the poor as moral agents in their own right. In some cases, the best that public policy can do is help people make better choices, or expose them to better influences through better family policy (like my Mamaw).
….
Liberals have to get more comfortable with dealing with the poor as they actually are. I admire their refusal to look down on the least among us, but at some level, that can become an excuse to never really look at the problem at all.
It seems like the interviewer, interviewee, and the subsequent reader mail all really focus in on this point but I don’t think I understand it and it sounds to me like they’re all just patting themselves on the back. How exactly do they intend for “individual agency” to scale? It reeks of the underlying ideological justification for the dumbest neoliberal policies like Clinton’s student loan deferral for entrepreneurs.
I was at first taken aback by that aspect of the interview as well. Didn’t read the comments and shame if they pick up only on that point. But I’d like to read the book, just as I read Coates. I might learn something.
There has to be a way of finding balance that acknowledges and redresses systemic barriers AND allows for the empowerment or agency of individuals.
Surely erasing “poor whites” from the conversation or relegating them to stereotypes and caricatures are not the only choices.
I struggle living with a disabling disease. It is similar in some ways to this paradox with the effects of poverty.
As an individual, if you get caught up thinking about the obstacles and failures, you can die inside. That is when alcohol and opiods become extremely attractive to forget reality. It is psychologically imperative to focus on small successes, to keep trying within what is possible. Sometimes when you do that you stretch what is possible for you into something that is very unlikely for a member of your group. If you stop trying because the odds are against you, that never happens. See among many others the stories of Helen Keller, or Erin Brockovich. If you fight you probably lose but if you don’t fight you won’t win.
At the same time, a just society will acknowledge the differences, obstacles and hardships and make accomodations. Hopefully without destroying the dignity and self worth of those receiving help. Feeling useless, helpless, is psychological poison.
The coping skills for living long term with external hardships like poverty and disability are in some ways antithetical to success. Life becomes the art of the possible. But then with poverty, that limited sense of possible, however realistic and adaptive for the adults, gets passed to children who never have a chance for more unless they reject it.
empower them to what though? To be good little worker cogs in the capitalist machine? That battle isn’t even worth fighting! If it’s to empower them to deal with real problems they might have like drug addiction or child abuse or something all too the good (of course I realize those aren’t just poor problems). But if the ideal is just cogs, which is the unspoken assumption among most people, it’s very uninspiring. Most people in this country are not empowered in any real sense. They might hold their life together which is no small accomplishment, but that’s not the same as actually being empowered (politics would be very different if they were).
It reminded me oif the time when hillary noted that if banks were reformed, there would still be racism.
In the case of the poor in the US, if there was a lot more of individual agency , responsibility, etc. (i.e., reform of the poor), there would still be inequality and poverty! It’s a question of upon whose back the monkey (of responsibility and reform) should be placed. But somehow, when I hear that the burden (monkey) should be shared, a subtext “*you* not I should bear more responsibility.” enters my thoughts.
So I’m taking the hillbilly author with grains of salt.
poverty is a necessary feature of the system no doubt. Now I do suspect at the extremes there is a lot of other dysfunction going on like child abandonment and so on. And there are also government backed charities that specifically deal with teaching people how to work as families etc.. The point there isn’t even that if they make the family function better people will have more chance of economic advancement. While probably true, better family functioning, less addiction, more ability to deal with the ordinary parts of life in some sense are ENDS IN THEMSELVES for making life somewhat better. And yes it’s true in some places several siblings all from different fathers whom noone knows are brought into an over strained horrible ghetto school.
But more and more people are falling into poverty and they haven’t all SUDDENLY become extremely dysfunctional!!! Poverty is a necessary feature of the system.
Teachers are a poor frame of reference here, as school funding is sometimes high, but it can not overcome the severe lack of a social funding otherwise in American society. School funding is high, but this country has massive poverty, and that affects things more than school funding.
++++
also see the NC post today following the links on how much mis-finance costs, exactly; these costs need to be in the “conversation” as well. (please pardon the use of the word ‘conversation’)
I think why the idea that people have little agency over their lives is perhaps growing in popularity has very little to do with “the poor” (as in multi-generational poverty) at all maybe. When middle class people who by and large do not make “bad choices” (they may obviously not make optimal choices which are often known only in retrospect, but their choices are seldom a complete train wreck) find their ability to survive increasingly precarious, the kid who took on massive debt who can’t get a job, the middle aged person who has worked all their life and finds themselves increasingly unemployable etc.. then THEY conclude the system is rigged. And at that point they maybe can’t even hear that families in Applachia are dysfunctional (whether this is true or not), they are too deep in “I did everything right and I’m looking poverty right in the eyes wtf …”.
jrs
July 25, 2016 at 12:36 pm
Well, and this has nothing with whether Reagan was good or not, but a good line is a good line:
When your neighbor loses his job, its a recession. When you lose your job, its a depression.
When I was young I was skeptical of the “system” accounting for most people’s problem. Now I am the polar opposite (i.e., I think most people’s problems ARE caused by the “system” we’re in).
It took the bank bailouts to open a lot of people’s eyes, but competition is only for the little people.
The View From 30,000 Feet:
And Ms. Clinton knows exactly what about “the poor as they actually are?”
It truly is the S S Hillary. She almost patched the hulk together before the coronation show and Sunday starts by exposing her consigliere openly.
So I just saw some people invoke the white male privilege Bernie Bro meme once again–the claim is that Sanders supporters who refuse to vote for Clinton are white males with privilege and female Sanders supporters are with Clinton. I know there are counter examples here, but is there any polling data on it?
Btw, I am a lesser evil Clinton voter ( will gnaw my hand off after I vote), but I want to know if the meme has any validity at all. Needless to say the polls won’t change the facts about her ugly record.
Have you tried doing any research instead of dropping a spurious claim using an old rhetorical device which isn’t clever in English?
On the research, no. If nobody has the answer I may try later. Sometimes one can get lucky and there will be someone out there who happens to have the answer at his or her fingertips. There are a lot of people who know much more about political polling than me.
You apparently think I typed the question in bad faith. Nope.
Reasonable answer, Donald, to a not polite rhetorical question.
Score one for civility over cleverness
There is no validity at all to that claim. Women are too scatter-brained and emotional to understand weighty matters (other than diet programs), and so they vote with their “feelings”. That’s why they’re evidently going to make the mistake you cite.
If you vote using rationality and clear-minded assessment of policy, you’ll certainly either vote for Sanders anyway, for Dwight Eisenhower under the theory that, even when dead, he may be more effective than the other candidates, or you’ll stay home and watch Lana Del Ray videos like the one she did of Lee Hazelwood’s Summer Wine. I may vote for Trump though, just because I think it would be hilarious to tell people what I did and watch their reactions.
You are definitely a craazyman, both you guys. I haven’t met any female that is voting for Hillary & Billy-boy. Bernie, Trump & third party. Here is who I have met that are voting for these grifters-white businessmen, that’s it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYRUOd_QoM
Link to Clinton Cash
I know two women who like Hillary Clinton and will vote for her, and the husband of one will also vote for her. I know another man who hates Clinton, but will vote for her because he hates Trump more. I’m trying to convince him to vote for the Green candidate, but I haven’t had any success (yet).
Several other friends are too sneaky to let me know whether they will vote for her or not.
Serious Green voters dye their hair Green.
Serious Trump supporters dye theirs Orange.
Thanks! That could be useful! :-)
craazyman
July 25, 2016 at 8:37 am
I like Ike
You know, that is the best idea I have seen this political season!
DIG HIM UP! DIG HIM UP!
Kind of pithy, but it has a ring to it….
I thought Bernie Sanders WAS Eisenhower.
Recalculating…
I could go for either one – it just seems lately that Ike is more animated…
I hear say that Ike is an “entrenched” conservative.
I watched the Lana Del Ray Summer Wine vid and it was really good. I wonder who Lana will vote for? She doesn’t seem scatterbrained at all, at least while singing a song. But that could be because of use of a teleprompter. Her duet partner is obviously a Bernie-Bro – not a high squeaky voice from taking too many birth control pills(does that really work, or do they get pregnant anyway?) like the typical “I’m With Her” Hillary supporter. But neither a overly low, mouth breather voice like you would expect from a Trump supporter. His voice seems just right.
Lana seems to have a country-western influence, so I can’t be sure if Lana “Is With Her”. And you gotta admit that starts sounding a little gay, if you ask me. Maybe Lana doesn’t want to say who she’s voting for. That would be my bet.
I wish I could grow my hair that long and as look cool as he does.
Fortunately I can look cool with short hair, Dunhill shirts and Chelsea Boots.
Or at least room temperature!
I wonder if Lana will even vote. She might be too spacey and distracted, all the musical shlt, the words, the songs, the melodies, pouring through her head all the time like moonshine, making her dazed and delirious. She might start drinking wine that early afternoon and wake up hungover the next day and forget there was an election at all. I hope that happens to me.
I’m hoping this cross dressing thing is just a fade and I can skip it.
Jebus. Dunhill shirts! Hope you got those on sale. Oh ick! Chelsea Boots?? I had to look that up – that’s dangerously close to heading down the cross dressing path and next thing you know you’ll be a metrosexual and donating money to the DNC.
But then I saw the pics and those are what I used wear to work. I’m relieved.
You never know with musicians. Even guy musicians can be less than lucid all the time. Does make one jealous tho.
There are some good reasons for voting for Trump. If Trump wins:
1. No one on the planet will take US leadership of world affairs seriously anymore
2. Remember how “free trade” and bank deregulation came about. The people voted for a Democrat who they trusted to watch out for their interests. Clinton then was able to pass legislation Republicans could never get through on their own against his own base.. This was a bad thing
Now here I’m probably getting way over optimistic, but if Trump has the trust of the xenophobic population he could do more for race relations than anyone else in changing their attitudes and getting real changes made.. If (and it is a big if) he really wanted to. This would be a good thing.
The first point is a for sure, The second is probably a nice fairy story, but you have to try to find some silver lining in this mess.
You should keep your hand.
Once hillary starts a nuclear war with Russia, you’re probably gonna need it.
Keep your head as what? A radiation shield?
Or is this Clinton’s twofer program to defeat both Russia and global warming – a nuclear winter?
I wrote keep your hand not head, a reference to his comment that he would “gnaw his hand off” after voting for hillary.
I was thinking along the lines of needing TWO hands to dig yourself a backyard fallout shelter, thought, by many, to be a household necessity during the previous era of “the Russians are coming!”
All things old are new again.
Up in the hill country, a nice roomy cave in the side of the mountain will do. Really old things will be new again.
They’ve been openly lying about the demographics of Hillary’s support throughout this campaign.[1] Why would this be any different?
Myself, I doubt scolding is going to get them too many votes beyond the diehard Democrat base, but what do I know?
[1] Here’s one debunking, for example: http://www.carlbeijer.com/2016/02/is-gender-driving-clinton-vs-sanders.html
Thanks, that’s the sort of thing I am looking for. Later I will see if my Google fu is good enough to find any updated polls on the question.
There is plenty of information in the article here on NC yesterday ‘Will independents decide….’ Along with links. Clinton doesn’t even seem to have a gender advantage with Trump according to some polling.
Could Hillary be this year’s Mittens? (with regard to polling)
And that would make Debbie Schultz Wasserman on MSNBC on election night play the part of Karl Rove??? There are precincts in Ohio not reporting !!!!
Please, Dan — do not call her Mittlary. :-)
That’s the most succinct portmanteau yet. It has a little bit of everything: Mitt, Military, Hitler, Hillary….
Start those bumperstickers printing!
Thank you, kind sir.
I’ll donate the copyright to NC if Yves wants to sell them.
Mittlary 2016!
Jim Haygood
July 25, 2016 at 11:08 am
If that is not your best, it must be in your top five bon mots!!!
You brought it up – from now on, NOTHING BUT Mittlary (at least when discussing polls)
Thanks, I will check it out. My Google fu is lousy, as I found some interesting polls, but not quite what I wanted. However, I did find this picture on my yahoo front page showing a bunch of obvious non white Bernie non bros protesting DWS. Score one for dumb luck. Scroll down a bit and you will see it
https://www.yahoo.com/news/wasserman-schultz-booed-dnc-philadelphia-000000725.html
Couldn’t load for me, here’s a youtube.
the clinton campaign thinks that the TACO BOWLS will come out to vote en masse for her in november
Nature magazine recently published an in-depth study on the differences between BernieBros and male I’m-With-Hers. Some of their key findings:
1. Testicular rigidity – BernieBros consistently score about 20% higher but critics claim this may be linked to the fact that BernieBros also hold an edge in testicular mass by 35%.
2. Testosterone Levels — The I’m-With-Hers showed dangerously low levels of testosterone while BernieBros were above average. Critics claim the tests may be false readings due to the sensors being confused by the I’m-With-Hers high estrogen levels.
3. Number of Sex Partners – Almost all BernieBros scored well into double digits on the number of sex partners. I’m-With-Hers on the other had far more women who considered them really good and trusted friends.
4. One strange anecdote was that while 43% of the I’m-With-Hers sleep in Onesies, not a single BernieBro who took part in the study did.
The article concluded that the Bernie phenomenon may in fact be a symptom of toxic masculinity running rampant. Or it may just be a way to hook up with hot BernieBabes. They just don’t know.
The BernieBabes definitely did it for me.
hahahahaha
lol
Please post this at DailyKos. Please, pretty please?
And just under the conclusion, an addendum…..describing the discovery of an (congenital?!) anomaly for those Bernie Bros deviating from the norm……
They were far more inclined to present green family jewels to Jill Stein of the Green Party.
Scientists concluded it was the “Hulk Hot Flash”!
This is not “research” but the majority of Bernie supporters (or at least, the majority of the most vocal Bernie supporters) in my twitter feed are female (I follow over 1,000 people, at least 2/3 of which I picked up during the Bernie campaign). The majority of them were not on board with Clinton as of last night. The (three) people who have told me I am crazy for not getting on board w/Clinton and unfollowed me were all male. The two most prominent of the former Sandernistas I follow who are VERY vocally advocating for Trump are female (one of these, a military vet who HATES Hillary, actually blocked me from her twitter account when she said anyone who wasn’t getting on board w/Trump needed to unfollow her, and I asked what about those of us who were voting Green).
OTOH, I’m male and I’d rather be shot in the head than support the Dem establishment as they currently stand, and I say this without any exaggeration whatsoever. It is not limited to Hillary but to the whole lot of them, excepting those who are willing to stand up to the majority of their party leadership (Gabbard, Feingold, Grayson, etc; & I have very high hopes for Teachout and some of the other new ones). So there’s that.
And the thing to prepare yourself for is there’s more good bad news to come. The democrats are going to have to throw their coronation, even Biddin’.
Lambert brought up a point the other day about how the Whigs simply failed to recognize the crisis of the day and collapsed suddenly.
The Democrats have no plan b. The party apparatus down to the local level is in a fantasy. The Biden discussion was from shallow liberals who only learned the name Biden in 2008 when Obama announced him as his running mate before finding out how awful he is and Blue Dogs who are worried Hillary isn’t concerned with undermining social security as they are.
Sanders voters won’t even be the problem in November for Democrats. Sometimes Democrats have been lied to often enough the connection between Democrats and their voters is breaking. Fear of the Republicans simply isn’t overcoming fear of how to pay the rent.
Not entirely true about the Whigs. There were deep cleavages in the party between anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions, and it lead to the anti-slavery faction denying incumbent Whig president Fillmore the nomination in 1852 (Gen. Winfield Scott got it instead). The party fell apart after that on those lines and was reconstituted in the North as the Republican Party (mostly) with some supporters drifting into the Dems in the South and the Constitutional Union Party in the Upper South. Whigs were mostly united over opposition to Jackson’s Dems and were a party representing banker/manufacturing interests of economic modernization (which would be subsumed into the Republican Party’s late 19th century platform).
The dems are relying on life-long democrats for whom it’s almost a religion to vote the straight dem ticket. Maybe their ancestors made a living at union jobs, etc. But that’s ancient history now. More and more of this demographic are finally giving up on the democratic party, especially after Bernie got f#$@$d. The shill yesterday tried to appeal to this demographic by talking about the importance of party identification, etc. If that’s the best they can come up with, they are doomed.
NotTimothyGeithner
July 25, 2016 at 8:35 am
I think we who read, write, and comment on blogs forget how the overwhelming majority really don’t pay much attention to politics – there is a LOT of inertia in human affairs. I always use the example of priests abusing children, and so many parents either not believing it or putting up with it due to some misguided belief in supporting the church. PEOPLE tolerated the sexual abuse of their CHILDREN far longer than I ever would have thought….
I think it is indisputable that both parties act against the interests of the vast majority of their constituents*. Due to the great number of candidates in the repub primary, Trump was able to prevail – I’m not sure the repubs will ever be the same. I think Trump, in taking up so much attention, actually harmed Sanders chances at overcoming Clintoon because Trump was such a money maker for the media no other story could be covered – but her and dems time is coming.
The fact that the parties are starting to fracture just shows how long, and how bad things have to get before people start paying attention.
*
https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/
I’ve done my campaign bit for king and country (I was close to giving up and moving to New Hampshire last fall; very close), and my view is the mass of voters are savvy in their own way. They remember “explicit” promises and want respect, respectfully disagreeing is fine as a candidate demonstrates this respect.
Hillary’s popularity surged when she served as Secretary under Obama and seemed briefly on be concerned with more than moving back into the white House demonstrating respect. Telling Hispanics they will love Kaine because he took high school Spanish isn’t respectful. Kaine when he ran pushed a message of strengthening education and working to pass transportation reforms. Transportation is basically the third rail in Virginia. He didn’t set out to pander or at least the respectful side outweighed his pandering, and he won a commanding victory. A common refrain from sometimes voters was “i don’t know much about how he will make this education plan work but he answers every question and talks about it non stop. He cares.” Kaine’s trip to church yesterday with cameras was was light years from respectful. From my experience, people notice this. Hillary can’t go on a listening tour or tell us how great of a listener she is. She has to demonstrate she has listened by discussing relevant issues. Ultimately, this is the failure of the Democrats since 2008.
I don’t think Republican politicos are completely crazy when they argue for pushing a message of conservatism to minorities. People would listen to terrible ideas if the GOP wasn’t so racist and could muster respect which is largely why Jeb went no where. Jeb demanded respect.
Reading the comments to D.R. Tucker’s post at Washington Monthly is like swimming in Kool-Aid; I didn’t read too far, but the sum of what I did read essentially took the position that there was nothing to this, that the DNC chair always resigns after the convention, and that this is all just a bunch of stuff about nothing. There are even suggestions that it was DWS who was reining in the more eager-to-trash-Sanders staffers at the DNC. Yeah, okay – whatever.
That being said, I have no idea why you get someone involved in a 50-state committee to elect/re-elect Dems who has already proved that she isn’t good at that kind of strategic thinking. Or why you’d want this person to be your surrogate – well, other than to reward her for having Clinton’s back.
That’s Clinton, I guess. But then I remember that Clinton also has an uncanny ability to choose the absolute worst strategy to pivot to. This guarantees the issue stays alive – much like the Melania Trump speech debacle – and only serves to fire up the Sanders supporters. Not that Clinton cares one whit about those rabblerousers, but it will be interesting to see what the media make of it.
Not sure I can watch Sanders tonight – the disconnect is going to be too much to make sense of. All I can say is that Sanders must have been threatened within a millimeter of his political life, that he’s still going to go out there and rally the troops in the wake of this DNC/DWS email debacle, for one candidate who had her thumb on the scale, and a VP candidate whose views do not align with his.
What a sh!tshow.
I turned off the TV June 7 when she was about to make her premature victory speech and haven’t watched since. But tonight I gotta watch him, sending good vibes doncha know, and also cuz there will be so much spinning this way and that, I need to see for myself.
Trump is now up 5%, and 68% of voters think Hillary is untrustworthy. The Democrats would prefer to lose to Trump than let Bernie win. Un freaking believable.
They made that so clear to me at least that all the anti-Trump fearmongering comes off as bald faced lies. The more frightened they are of him, the more I wonder if he actually intends to follow through on the populist stuff and consider voting for him.
The entire establishment, media, finance paper trading, MIC, the bureaucracy, has its foot to the death metal of the scale, not just incompetent Hillary with her thumb.
Breaking news. I watched MSNBC for a couple of minutes just now.
Alan Greenspan’s wife thinks Michael Bloomberg will take down Trump during his DNC speech.
Will Bloomberg take down Trump as well as Andrea Mitchell’s husband took down the country?
No, Mrs. Greenspan, Michael Bloomberg ‘s going to endorse Trump. How could she get it so wrong? As wrong as her duplicitous husband was about the US economy after The Boy-Man W stole the election.
The same Bloomberg that only plowed the snow where the rich people live. I am sure Trump people will really care what he has to say.
The same bloomberg who has to stand on a box in order to see over the lectern.
Dear God the Beltway is clueless. So are the Clintons. I live in NY, Bloomberg is widely despised here. Outside of NY he isn’t even that we’ll thought of. The only reason a threatened Bloomberg candidacy was problematic was he might have done enough in NY and maybe California from other rich people to deny Sanders the victory in the General if he had been allowed to take his rightful nomination. He is not going to convince Replicans to go I’m With Her, Sanders will have better luck and we’ve seen how well that is going. Have these idiots ever bothered to listen to people talk about NY? That bubble is is apparently made of titanium.
Speaking of which, has anyone bothered to remove the rock so Tony Blair can slither out and endorse Mittlary?
I believe that H Clinton and her minions would prefer that to read, ‘roll away the stone.’
Oh yes, they’ve listened to the people in NY. Specifically the ones in Manhattan. Being from Buffalo, we despise NYC, DC, and Albany just as widely as you guys despise Bloomberg ;) And likely for the same reasons.
Oh, their circle is pretty small even for Manhattan. Specifically only people who own their own brownstones or multi-million dollar condos and can make multiple five figure donations. You know those who largely work on or have insider ties to Wall Street. You might be surprised how despised Bloomberg is in large portions of Manhattan. There isn’t as much hatred for him or Cuomo as they deserve here, but suffice it to say that pretty much anyone dependent on social security or rent stabilization knows better even in Manhattan.
Are the Hillary Trolls now recognizing how toxic their man is and adopting weird disinformation tactics? I just read a long thread at Sic Semper Tyrannis and one poster went on and on about evil Russian influence on our election process by releasing these incriminating emails of Hillary’s and the dnc’s, but the writer still had to admit the tarnish of Hillary.
Now we get Bernie Bros are breaking for Trump (Russian stooge) and the Bernie Girls are with it and with her.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/07/httpoilpricecomlatest-energy-newsworld-newsrussia-is-reportedly-set-to-release-intercepted-messages-from-clintons-priv.html
Re the piece on Trumps convention speech.
I wish people wouldn’t spend so much time trying to brand trump a fascist. It is a distraction. To the extant that fascists of the 30s and 40s had an agenda, it’s not clear that Trump believes in it. He is an authoritarian but the only thing that he truly seems to believe in is himself. He believes that only HE can solve our problems. How? He’ll figure that out later. Other than adopting nativist and anti free trade rhetoric his policy prescriptions and beliefs are flexible, unformed even. He’s kind of like Ernie Hudson in the first ghostbusters….”If there’s a steady paycheck in it, I’ll believe anything you say.”
Ditto for the attempts to “prove” that Trump is part of some sort of conservative “cabal.” If a certain class of business conservative activists are clustering around him, I don’t believe that it is because he is in secret cahoots with them. But they are all about exchanging money for power and he is all about exchanging anything for money, so it is natural that they would flock to him. And people are vying to be the “Trump whisperer,” because they (correctly, I believe) sense that he will quickly become bored with governing and simply start doing whatever the last advisor told him to. In an authoritarian or monarchist regime, power is all about being close to the throne and getting the (kings/el heffes/generalisimos) ear. I find it easier to believe that Trump really is as uninformed and uninterested as he appears than to believe that it is all an anti-intellectual mask that he has put on to get elected. Because really, if he toned down the dumb, he would have an easier time of it.
It’s not quite the revolution devours its own children, or in a similar way, love to hatred turned, when your leader endorses the more effective evil.
But as the Chinese say, he who rides the tiger can not get off.’
He might become bored, but the momentum could possibly carry him and his team.
Trump is not an ideologue and therefore not a fascist. He could however represent a stage before, that ushers fascism in. Though it would also be hard to label him a proto fascist, a Trump regime could pave the way to fascism, as you said, “they (a ‘class of business conservative activists’ ) are all about exchanging money for power and he is all about exchanging anything for money, so it is natural that they would flock to him.”
That is one element of a fascist state, some other elements Trump has shown a tendency to indulge, intolerance, manipulating mob anger and violence to suppress dissent, as you note he has authoritarian tendencies and there is a strain of purity in his expressed dislike of what he perceives as ethnic threats (Mexicans and Muslims). When those with similar sympathies find access to power it might well create fertile ground for fascism.
You also note he might, “Quickly become bored with governing and simply start doing whatever the last advisor told him.” If the array of Republican Convention speakers is an indication of who he will surround himself with and he does lose interest and falls under the sway of Blue Lives Matter, etc. his administration could well set some foundation stones for an American fascism.
There are those in the NC commentariat that like to throw out that the US is already a fascist state, I think they know better; it may no longer be a functioning democratic republic and it is militaristic with authoritarian big brother tendencies and an elite class but it is not yet fascist, though considering the corrupted governing mechanism, it may not have far to go.
That is the fascist threat Trump presents, his election could be a threshold event to fascism, even his nomination might be. Still It is clear that there is the possibility of dissent in the US, there are a variety of outlets like NC, Bernie Sanders came close to winning the nomination.
There is always the ‘possibility’ of dissent. The more important question is, will dissent cause changes in the policies of the governing elites? Anything else is Potemkin Village stuff.
what ushers fascism in is malaise, not a personality. war and economic collapse are an accelerated course
RE: “The Trump Trade Scam”, by Economic Policy Institute—Trump used EPI’s own studies about how NAFTA and other trade deals, as well as trade with China, screwed the US workers but they can’t condone a Republican–A REPUBLICAN!!– using their studies or coming out against the trade deals, so they attempted a hit piece on Trump. They say NAFTA would not have passed without GOP votes. True, but it also surely wouldn’t have passed without the treachery of HRC’s beloved husband. The one comment on the bottom shows the aburdity of their weak attempt at slamming Trump.
BTW, the use of the word “scam” is evidently a meme the dems are trying to throw at Trump at every opportunity, even if it doesn’t quite fit.
Sir James Goldsmith back in the day, conservative vs the Clinton people on Charlie Rose discussing trade deals. Clinton peeps foam at the mouth to say how great these deals would be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwmOkaKh3-s
Trump can claim the GOP has been reformed or changed….they seem to get the done job, without much, or as much, drama.
The D party has no basis to say that.
It was a good thing for the republicans when Boehner finally checked in his gavel. Anybody that cries all the time in public is too weird for me. But now Boehner is FREE—free to tell the Stanford audience that Ted Cruz is a “miserable son of a bitch.”
Clinton & Kaine said on 60 Minutes that they are ready to work with the Republican Party. Kick the Left!
To Clinton & Kaine, the R party is a spot on the map, a geographic location.
In the meantime, Trump has circled around them and moved his team of Republicans – living, breathing citizens – left, cutting C&K from many ‘sovereignty-from-TPP, no more bad trade deals, more infrastructure projects” 99percenters.
Governor Tim Kaine Kept Study on Virginia’s Health Reform Secret
Americans know health care has become increasingly unaffordable and unavailable under high deductible plans where the individual is responsible for a greater portion of health care bills as employers shed their traditional responsibility to insure workers and retirees. For most workers rising health insurance costs quickly ate up paltry wage increases employers infrequently doled out.
If Mrs. Tavenner’s name sounds familiar she was head of President Obama’s HHS. Many will recall Congressman grilling her over the abysmal rollout of public health insurance exchanges. She’s now the head of AHIP, the health insurance lobbying group. That group had undue influence in reforming our healthcare system. PPACA passed in part due to President Bill Clinton.
Today’s abysmal, overly expensive healthcare system is a product of both political parties putting corporate will and welfare over that of citizens. Tim Kaine helped this change happen in Virginia behind closed doors. Obama’s White House did the very same.
Those who like their healthcare: Tim Kaine and Hillary Clinton are for you.
http://peureport.blogspot.com/2016/07/governor-tim-kaine-kept-study-on.html
Clinton, Kaine, and more pain.
Clinton + Kaine = More Pain
Now there’s a bumper sticker slogan!
The Pain of Kaine stays with the Little People simple and plain.
Say it again!
The Pain of Kaine stays with the Little People simple and plain.
(Can you translate that into Spanish?)
+1
Well, the neocons can’t wait!:
They are practically drooling.
This would almost make me respect Obama a little, if 1.) he had fired Clinton and her little war mongering group of neocons, and 2.) weren’t out there trying to get her elected so this nonsense could continue.
And yes, as many mistakes as I believe Kerry has made as SoS he has been a vast improvement on Clinton. Vast.
Most “progressive” platform evah!
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/25/as-the-election-turns-trump-the-anti-neocon-hillary-the-new-darling-of-the-neocons/
Counterpunch had a similar article featuring Michael Hudson.
But … but the Republican party is the reason Obama couldn’t get anything done … see he wanted good things done and was willing to work with the Republicans … but those stubborn Republicans weren’t willing to work with him. So being that those Republicans are so stubborn what is Hillary on about again?
(the Dem party can’t even keep a consistent story, the Republicans one day are the reason for obstructionism and the next day are people they are willing to work with. But if they really are that obstructionist – and truthfully they are even though the Dems are also in on it – then what are they going to work together on? Nothing good anyway, maybe a Grand Bargain)
Function mechanical gear in Nature…
Again, the idea has already been there all the time, in their own world.
We didn’t ‘invent’ that mechanical gear idea.
Somewhere along the space-time continuum, we, some one, some human, got a glimpse into the Idea Realm and caught sight of that idea.
“I saw that butterfly first. It is MINE…my butterfly…my precious.”
Nature does not do full rotation (like a wheel on a axle), for obvious reasons.
There is no mechanism to supply nutrient to the rotating member, the axle, and so it connote grow nor be repaired in place.
Thus we creatures have reciprocating motion and leverage. All parts can receive nutrition and be repaired in place.
Actually, full-rotating molecular-biological systems are known. Have a gander at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_machine
Re: Bryan Pagliano
His employment situation at State was unusual, to say the least. I have never heard of a political appointee being put in a tech support position. It would be interesting to see some more digging into that, especially by someone who could compel testimony.
“His employment situation at State was unusual,”
Clintoon apologist…er, I mean spokesperson:
His employment situation at State was groundbreaking,
His employment situation at State was out of the box
His employment situation at State was innovative
His employment situation at State was ingenious
His employment situation at State was state of the art
His employment situation at State was cutting edge
well, you get the idea…
His employment situation at State was disruptive!
His employment situation at State was collaborative!
Oh, brother. This stuff makes me tired.
Speaking of compelling testimony, I wonder if this week U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan will rule on whether HRC will have to testify in the Judicial Watch case. Seems that has fallen off of the radar with all of the other bombshells last week.
NATO must prepare for an overnight Russian invasion of Poland (say the experts)
Our leaders, the ‘experts’ and the media have been overcome by a kind of collective madness. War seems inevitable but most Americans remain ‘blissfully unaware’.
I used to think how could people be so stupid to get us into WWI. Now I think its amazing we don’t have a world war every 20 years. Any supposition that we have LEARNED anything since WWI is preposterous….
Cross guarantees such as the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance helped turn an assassination in an obscure corner of Europe in 1914 into a continent-wide war.
So the U.S. (which totally screwed the pooch at Versailles, paving the way for WW II) did what after WW II? That’s right, launched an even bigger cross-guarantee scheme called NATO.
Now we have a well-defined escalation path, so that if a Russian soldier lobs a rock into an Estonian border station, it can advance to a US-Russian nuclear exchange in 24 hours.
Brilliant!
yeah, I had read an article about how all those alliances did not so much protect small countries, as give them carte blanche to act brazenly. Sometimes, prudent awareness of your neighbors interests is the best defense…
Tightly coupled systems and perverse incentives.
It helps me to remember that fifth-order equations are insoluble, and the next iteration is just as likely to have a result opposite to what our lower-order minds think is a likely outcome.
And that there are hard-eyed realists like Lawrence Wilkerson and Sergey Glazyev that can act as islands of stability that decrease radioactive outcomes.
“It helps me to remember that fifth-order equations are insoluble,..”
do “our best and our brightest” know that?
I guess when your really, really, really smart one’s vanity prevents one from saying, “I can’t fix that – best leave it alone”
It helps me to remember that fifth-order equations are insoluble, and the next iteration is just as likely to have a result opposite to what our lower-order minds think is a likely outcome.
For anyone interested, the Abel–Ruffini theorem and Galois theory (formulated at age 18 by Galois, two years before his death) are the basis of this statement. I can wade out pretty far into these waters but admit I haven’t put the time in to fully understand these theories.
i’m not sure that’s a correct interpretation. in 1939, there wasn’t anything poland could do, or not do, to avoid a german attack.
in 1914, the black hand undermined its government because it wanted the formation of a pan-slavic state in the balkans.
WWI shows, if anything, that defense treaties can be used as kindling by forces that want nations to fight
Poland was acquired by both Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 – the USSR’s involvement was hushed up at the time.
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact August 23, 1939
Excellent point made:
And let us not forget:
And there are thousands of these weapons on both sides.
A Healthier Way to Feed Your Cat: Hide Its Meals NYT
If you have a house cat, you probably end up dealing with cat vomit on a regular basis, says Dr. Liz Bales, a Philadelphia veterinarian and the owner of a one-eyed hairless cat named Carlos. But, she maintains, it doesn’t need to be that way.
One culprit is what is known as scarf-and-barf syndrome, in which the cat overindulges at mealtimes to a calamitous degree. Other common cat behaviors she has observed are the relentless stalking of food bowls in hopes of a refill, the nocturnal demands for food while owners are trying to sleep and a contentious relationship with the litter box that results in a hit-or-miss pattern of use.
As Dr. Bales views it, an underlying issue behind all of these problems is that living indoors suppresses cats’ natural hunting instincts. This dynamic has increasingly come to light at the professional conferences she has attended in her 16 years as a veterinarian. She has also discussed it with animal behaviorists and animal nutritionists.
“They need portion control. They need regular exercise. They really should be in charge of their own feeding schedule,” Dr. Bales says she has learned. “All these factors boil down to cats should not be eating from bowls.”
==================================
The cat that adopted me threw up for the first time ever last week. I think maybe the extreme heat and scarfing down the food was the reason – of course, she rolls around in the weeds and gets about a zillion stickers stuck to her that she licks out may have something to do with it. But she is outdoors except for the few minutes to nibble and get petted, and than she WANTS OUT – which when it is 107 out there and 75 inside seems strange to me…
By the way, I think everything they say about cats applies to people. Now that I go out naked at 3am to hunt small mammals (think of it as sushi with fur), I’m leaner, my hair is silkier, and I’m more regular….
Oh, I forgot – I scarcely miss the litterbox anymore…
and now small enough to get through the cat flap ?
Is that because you’re ‘outside’ … and have no need to use one……. ? ;’)
re the trump taking of russian money
whether true or not, why is this more newsworthy than clinton’s open taking of saudi money?
If it’s US dollars we are talking about, it’s American money.
“I printed those. I ought to know.”
I skim a HillaryBot blog occasionally. I read a new post stating that
1 HClinton did no cheating in the 2016 D Primary process & won every vote fairly
2 In contrast, 0bama was an extreme cheater in the 2008 D Primary
3 Anybody labeling HClinton as a neoliberal or evil (presumably from Lesser Evil discussion) is “delusional”.
Cult of Personality: not just for right-wingers, as 0bamabots showed us. Once again exhibited with the HillaryBots emotionally disturbed by any criticism of Dear Leader HClinton.
She is Isthar.
She is become Kali.
I’m done with the Democrats and any self-respecting progressive should be too. At this point all they’re fighting for is for Hill the Shill to sit on the throne.
I’m voting for Jill Stein. I don’t even care at this point that it may make Trump more likely to win (even if record numbers of Republicans are deserting for Gary Johnson). I refuse to grant the party and Hillary herself the legitimacy of voting for them.
I think the polls show that Gary Johnson gets more dem support than repub, maybe because LEGAL MARIJUANA, which is a popular issue. More repubs will desert Trump and vote HRC, if they want TPP, war, etc.
Did they miss that Johnson and Weld are pro-TPP, pro-Citizens United, pro-email-privatization…
So they are pretty close to Hill except LEGAL MARIJUANA.
Guess they didn’t miss it after all.
How Megyn Kelly’s Silence Signaled the Worst for Roger Ailes ABC
At the center of this year’s presidential campaign, Kelly was being asked, cajoled and even pressured outright to pledge her support for Ailes in the first days after sex-harassment claims were lodged, two sources said. And when Kelly declined to play along, a sense of doom quickly creeped over Ailes and his cabinet of advisers.
“And what about Megyn?” was the question asked inside Ailes’ war room. “There’s a problem with Megyn. Let’s talk offline.”
…
In keeping with Ailes’ take-no-prisoners style, it was decided that the defense would be a blistering offense. And key to that would be a campaign of public pronouncements of support from Fox employees, to be led by those with the highest profile and best ratings. Quickly, the litany of A-listers coming out in support of their embattled boss would include Van Susteren, O’Reilly, Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Neil Cavuto.
===========================================
Just as “contradictions” hit the repub party hard this year, so too contradictions hit their media advocate FOX. I was reading about why evangelicals stick with Trump – they have finally figured out how they are played by the repubs. Why not render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, live a life not of this world, and at least have a job?
FOX, which is undoubtedly the most lecherous (hey, I’m a lecher! I love lechery – but I don’t pretend to represent Christians or to be all prim and proper) network in history, is starting to find its “coalition” cracking, as the repub party dogma for the first time started to be challenged. What, a repub candidate said Iraq was stupid?!!?!?! (But, but, but neocons are repubs, and they ALL think Bush kept us safe….) Maybe the biggest effect of Trump will be the toppling of the FOX edifice???
And the guy who runs FOX is a leach??? Hmmmm…for a network that used to talk anti gay / social conservative based on how much they represented Christians, not too consistent…
Seems like FOX won’t cover Ailes departure. Hmmm…If I was CNN, it would be non-stop questions of FOX “talent” about if they ever observed sexually harassment, and if they didn’t, doesn’t that prove they are not too observant??????????????
I am feeling super duper schadenfreude – a really excessive amount….but as Mae West said, too much of a good thing is…wonderful.
While Fox trounces its cable competition, it still only attracts about 3mm viewers, almost all of whom are very old. I wouldn’t call that a “coalition.” Or an edifice.
Secondly, Fox won’t die because the Beltway loves it, even needs it. How else could the Dems gin up support for their “program,” if there wasn’t a perpetual, immediate need to counter/appease the crazy Fox-led Repugs. LOTE always requires the presence of a Greater Evil.
Has Ailes got any connections over at the weather channel? Recently I have noticed some new skinny blondes over there that would look right at home in a FOX newscaster spot.
Barack Obama’s half-brother endorses Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/25/barack-obama-half-brother-malik-obama-trump
HAHA! This is great! Whoever thought we’d get to read stuff like this in a non-Onion news source?
LOL, literally.
Imperial Collapse Watch:
Paul Graig Roberts posted at ICH this youtube exchange between “Russia’s Trump” and a German in the audience. I have no idea how representative this is but the attitudes of each side are informative and chilling. The German seems incapable of understanding why Russia is alarmed by the build of of German troops and attack missiles (or missiles that can readily be converted to attach missiles as Putin himself as so stated) so close to Russian borders saying at one point something like “why shouldn’t we help out?…do you see anyone like a Hitler in Germany today?…” He see’s the anger of the Russian, but just doesn’t get it and does not question WHY this incredible military buildup on Russia’s borders is happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQm8L8d8uDc
What I don’t understand and I don’t even want to try is why anyone, anywhere, could be in the slightest doubt over the Russian reaction if a German boot advanced even 1mm onto Russian soil. It may be called the Bundeswehr now but for them it will always be the Wehrmacht and the memories of 20 million dead June 1941 -> May 1945.
Could Sanders’ donors sue the DNC for damages? How about donors to the DNC who were expecting the rules to be followed?
Not sure why the “Sand Fire” story was featured in the links. There’s nothing new at all about the California fires.
Eighteen houses have burned and 1,500 more are endangered. It’s a big deal if you live there.
Unlike the neighboring interior southwest where the hottest summer temps occur in June (thanks to the July monsoon), along the Cali coast summer peak temps can occur in late August or even September. Map of summertime peaks:
From a Cali perspective, this is still an early season fire, coupled with plenty of dry tinder fuel from five years of drought. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into an even bigger catastrophe.
The coming August and September is not something to look forward, seeing what has transpired weather-wise since the beginning of summer….I guess that was about 30 days ago.
The fires happen every year. Maybe some day either concrete houses will be mandated or houses forbidden altogether. California is in a drought; it is past time to start acting like it.
Houses forbidden?
What other options are there?
I can only think of boats, caves, or sleeping under the ‘never quite visible with all the city lights’ stars
Sorry, I may have been unclear. In Washington state it is forbidden (via zoning) to construct houses in a mudslide area. I argue California should adopt zoning laws specific to areas that have annual fires – either fireproof houses (concrete) or ban them altogether. My proposed ban is only in areas that have annual fires.
We’ve seen a similar response on the east coast – home insurance in hurricane zones is now difficult to get, and I believe (please correct if wrong) govt insurance is no longer available.
Same philosophy as flood zones.
@ Jim H
That’s now 10,000 houses evacuated. The fire was 52 sq miles yesterday afternoon. Expect it to be considerably larger now. Containment was minimal (shifting winds and shear size…) and smoke is now over Vegas – which is nice because the fine particulates blanketed downtown hell-A on Saturday and made breathing a chore.
Right it’s early in the California fire season. Yes fires happen, yes burning every 50 years or so is natural (even without climate change) but conditions really do seem to be changing (I mean obviously they are changing when you look at Arctic data and so on, it’s not deniable, but I’m talking about local conditions as well).
According to the article:
Their point is that there is something new with this fire.
If you actually read the article, there is nothing “not normal” about this fire. Thus my complaint.
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting has an article on the DNC email publications that includes links and timelines about the DNC response and Russian conspiracy
http://fair.org/home/with-dnc-leaks-former-conspiracy-theory-is-now-true-and-no-big-deal/
Roger Ailes:
The silence of Nixon’s majority, in refusing to issue any public statements of support (i.e. to vote) for decades worth of candidates – does that signal anything?
I guess we are brainwashed, sorry, taught, or maybe it;s ”educated,’ to not to connect dots or interpret things like that
The defining characteristic of the Russian state in its various permutations over the last 800 years has been that they are really short of warm water ports through which they can trade with the wider world. Without those warm water ports, Russia is landlocked, and its economy is subject to the whims of its trading partners.
Russia currently has three major ports that aren’t frozen solid part of the year — Sebastopol on the Black Sea, St. Petersburg on the Baltic, and Vladivostok on the Pacific.
NATO is currently fond of screaming about Russian aggression, especially their “seizing” and “annexation” of the Crimea in 2014, which took place as a plebiscite in which the Crimean public approved of remaining a part of Russia by 90% to 10%. There is every possibility that this vote was rigged, but in terms of realpolitik, no one should be surprised that Russia simply will not permit the loss of one of its three major ports. Do you imagine we would give up New Orleans, or San Diego, or Pearl Harbor? No we would not, and to hell with what the voters say.
NATO is currently moving troops and missiles into the three tiny Baltic states, which makes them an excellent jumping-off point for rapidly seizing or disabling St. Petersburg, Russia’s only port on the Baltic. Do you think we would permit troops and missiles and nuclear weapons in Cuba if they were pointed at us? In Nova Scotia? In Nogales? Hell no, we would let it be known that whoever put those things there has about three days to remove them or we will.
Very few human wars have begun without both sides using the defense of self-defense, defending one’s land, one’s honor, one’s heritage, whatever. NATO if aggressively provoking Russia under this rubric of self-defense, and Russia is taking them seriously, and getting ready to defend itself from a war launched in self-defense of Western Europe.
As if Russia wanted the Baltic states, or Ukraine, or Poland. Russia has had those dance partners, and doesn’t want them again.
What Russia does want is a big buffer between Russia and the crazies of NATO, whose only justification for existing is to have fevered dreams about the USSR coming back again. What Russia will not accept, absolutely, is parking missiles and nukes right on its border, leaving them with a maximum of about 5 seconds to respond to a launch on Moscow. We wouldn’t accept it from Cuba in 1962, and we should not expect Russia or any other state to accept it from us.
Unfortunately we are ruled by people who 1.) ignore history, 2.) ignore human nature, and 3.) are the real fantasists.
Some questions for the idiots, and I do not use that term lightly, formulating our foreign and military policy with regards to Russia:
1.) Why do you think actions that done similarly in regard to the US would cause us to threaten to bomb the crap out of someone are not threatening?
2.) Why do expect Russia to mildly go to their corner and sulk when you threaten them?
3.) When was the last time anyone won a war with Russia?
4.) When was the last time America won a war or military misadventure?
5.) How many nuclear weapons does Russia have? And when has that dandy fancy star wars dream of Reagan’s worked in any non-rigged test?
6.) How many Americans have to die for you to realize that you are dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed near dull scissors much less anything else more deadly?
Yes, and it is actually worse than that.
In the summer of 2013 the US Navy was seeking bids on contracts for infrastructure development in Sevastopol.
The US expected that it would be in full possession of Crimea (through proxies, of course) by 2014.
–Gaianne
Antifa
July 25, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Göring: Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
===========================
Being young and naive what I first read the above, I didn’t think it was true. With the years, I have come to believe it is the most profound thing I have ever read…
It may not be in most people’s interest to have a war, but it certainly is in some people’s…
The caveat being – we now have weapons that make certain types of war extinction level events.
CNN chyron: “Clinton hopes to reintroduce herself to America”
Clinton 2016 reinvention #7247
I think she will need another re-introduction one next month.
“The neo-neo-Hillary.”
The first neo covers neoliberalism.
The second relates to neoconvervatism.
One day, she will have neo-progressivism.
Good lord, how many synonyms are there for ‘grifter’?!
Not that CNN would be so honest, but that should be followed by “as the Republican she always has been.” Or “Bwahahaahahaahahahahaaha, like that’s going to work!”
“The dogs won’t eat the dog food.”
Michael Moore’s always good for a laugh: 5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win. He starts off by calling Trump a “sociopath”. As compared to whom?
moore’s reasoning is solid for why trump will win, but falls on emotion to argue why that’s so bad. he’s cavalier about clinton starting another war, he hasz “no doubt” she will; but trump!
trump is a boogeyman. the left project their greatest fears onto him. he is a hitler or the crazy colonel from apocalypse now. in reality, as shady as his business practices are, they are not especially noteworthy. he is a WWE heel.
There is something to be said for this comment over at Common Dreams for the article about HRC immediately employing DWS as an honorary chairman to her 50 state campaign:
Honorary Chairman . . . that’s a Mafia term, isn’t it? It means enforcer.
… or both at the same time. Which should make for an “interesting” general.
just watched coverage of DWS attempting to give opening speech? at convention breakfast…….to the cajoling, shouts, and booos from many attendants….while she tells said pissed-off attendees to “settle down” ………
“The condescension is strong in this one……..”
“Feel the Berned”…………..
For whatever reason, I just read a couple of links today, scanned the headlines & went to comments. At the time I’m typing this, it shows 209 comments. I’ve read every one showing so far.
Now this is why I keep “tuning into” NC! Comments are particularly interesting today.
I don’t know if anyone except Yves and/or Lambert ever reads this far down, but I just want to thank them and the NC “commentariat” for providing such an interesting blend of news, information & entertainment.
Keep it up y’all.
Re: Can sex triumph over patriarchy?
“A Room of One’s Own” is the answer and by that I mean the wife should have her own money (not just an allowance from the husband) and then I think the sex and the patriarchy will both benefit.
The problem I had with that was that in reality, only cultures and subcultures that can reproduce survive. So when a culture has a lot of men dropping out and women childless, it is likely to be overtaken by a more vital culture.
Under social Darwinism, perhaps. But vital cultures, or rather, pompous a-hats that believe they’re the opposite of the plague upon humanity that they are, can be instructed as to their proper place in society, and they can also be neutered.
Good afternoon,
Just wanted to point out that the DNC/Clinton response to the leaks and their resultant fallout–“Russia did it”–is working, at least on the comment boards of the sites I’ve visited today.
Instead of arguing about what a racket the DNC is and how it should be reformed (or better yet, abandoned), the internet conversation has devolved to “OMG RUSSIA and TRUMP are BFFs!!!!,” the corollary of which is “we therefore must vote for Hillary.”
It’s hard to escape the “red team/blue team” framing the media has conditioned us to follow. Which is why I like NC: the hosts and most of the peanut gallery seem to have stepped over/around that particular pile of BS.
With that in mind, I’ll definitely be voting for Dr. Stein again. The lesser of two evils is still evil, and I’m done voting for evil.
Thanks,
SB
“Mom gently explained to Babe that it is a well known fact that democrat sheep are stupid…..”
“Mission Accomplished at DNC, Clinton Hires Wasserman Schultz for Top Post Common Dreams. Kick the left.”
How many kicks does it take?
“Can sex triumph over patriarchy?”
Very interesting. Implicitly raises a couple of factors that are NOT tangential here: lag time, and transition costs. Basically, its point is that while gender roles have changed tremendously at work, in peoples’ personal lives, not so much. Years ago, before the Great Recession, Alternet ran an article, based on interviews with some very highly-paid young women, that made the same point. Both they and the men they met were very uncomfortable with the situation, and puzzled by it. Carrying out the obvious role reversals? Not so much, again.
Arguably, all that is just lag; the culture that affects personal behavior is much slower to change, and most people aren’t prepared to defy it. Of course, there’s another possibility: those roles might be at least partially hard wired. Since Women’s Liberation has now run for two full generations, we have to wonder. Could be very awkward.
Transition costs, in this case, are the personal misery that results, as well as the social costs of adapting to a new reality. For instance, we still haven’t solved the problem of child care. There’s an obvious progressive approach: large amounts of parental leave, available to both parents, and a shorter work week. But the political climate is hostile to that sort of thing.
Or, of course, we could just legalize prostitution (both sexes) and grant sex workers the respect they deserve, along with some public health resources.
Maybe it’s just a transition cost, but at the moment, I’m not real optimistic.
Let me tell you, as a someone who managed to get a ton less gender role stereotyping than most Americans do (you can’t escape it entirely due to going to school), it’s very largely culturally imprinted. If you watch people interact with kids, the gender behavior signals are very strong and start early. Now there are studies that confirm parental prejudice in how they deal with crying! Cries by baby boys get a faster response than baby girls, which the researchers viewed as “girls are wimps and therefore cry more easily than boys” assumptions by parents. Of course, it could also be “male children are more valuable, so we need to be more attentive to them.”
A Healthier Way to Feed Your Cat: Hide Its Meals NYT
If you really want a healthier way to feed your cat, get them off of dry food entirely. It’s surprising to me that a vet would go to the trouble of inventing this more “natural” way to feed your cat and then use dry food. The trouble is that cats are obligate carnivores and dry food contains way too much carbohydrates. Even a lot of wet food is packed with carbs like rice, corn, etc. It’s cheaper than meat, so naturally that’s what the cat food makers like to use. Cats need mostly protein and the excessive carbs in their diets often cause them to be obese and diabetes and other diseases soon follow.
I weened my male Maine Coon off of dry food and his diabetes went away. That’s right. If you catch it early you have maybe a 50-50 chance of reversing the disease. It wasn’t easy I can tell you but it was much better than having to give him insulin shots every day, usually twice a day is required. Even so-called prescription diets are often packed with carbs. You need to read labels and do research in order to come up with a healthy menu. And no, I don’t make my own cat food. That’s great if you’ve got the time and energy but it’s not necessary.
Feeding moist food to cats? Prepare for regurgitation.
Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People The American Conservative.
Very good, manages to peel back some layers, but then stops about halfway, then Dreher and Vance scurry back to conservative class “values”.
True that it’s not discussed, but otherwise misses that within their socio-economic context, people can still succeed relative to the context. A successful drug dealer, thief, or racketeer may not be recognized positively outside of their narrower context, but they are demonstrating the same skills that can acheive success in any context: patience, careful evaluation, calculation, and the will and energy to take action to completion. If they never “amount to anything”, it’s due to society’s failure to appreciate their potentials, and provide opportunities which benefit the society more directly. (There is of course considerable social benefit to dealing, thieving and racketeering, when they’re called doctoring, banking/financing, or enforcing the law).
Well, Vance’s own stories about his marital and his military experiences and how his skills were extended beyone what he had learned at home, illustrate that the human interaction is vital to the transmission of such missing skills. Once one sees how it works, one can do it as an application of technique (although dispassion will interfere with the operative mechanism). It’s something that money and administration can support; but it requires immediate and continuous human interactions, with general structure but no fixed agenda for completion (it’s faster that way). If personal involvement is too much of a challenge, then let’s say that. But it’s a mistake to conclude (or believe) that wealth and government cannot play their roles and contribute to remedies for dysfunctional (and dangerous) social behaviors.
No, it doesn’t, it’s an insult. But poor people tend to have little defense against being treated condescendingly as victims. At first they think, maybe this is the beginning of some help? After repeated encounters, they realize that the sympathy was nothing more than a hollow pretense of compassion. Real (rational) compassion would ask, if there are victims, where are the perpetrators? Victims should be recognized as evidence of some failure (intended or unintended), by individuals operating as independently or as a group (system). The only reason poor people politely accept the sympathy is that they are hoping for some token, a handout being the least desireable (but poor folk can’t be too choosy) but an attack on their victimisers being the prefered eventuality. The fact that Vance totally missed this suggests that his distance from his roots is larger than he realizes. Go ask some poor people, once you get their respect as a peer, they’ll tell you how much it pisses them off. This is usually associated with liberals, but “compassionate” conservatives and church people do it, too.