April 5, 2016

From the Guys Who Brought You George W. Bush

If the cast of celebrities and surrogates supporting Bernie Sanders looks familiar, it’s because many of them were steadfast cheerleaders for another insurgent candidate: Ralph Nader.

The team that brought you the George W. Bush administration in 2000 has gathered behind a new candidate: Bernie Sanders.
A host of prominent Ralph Nader backers has joined team Sanders in 2016, excited by his message discipline and aggressive fight against the establishment powers that be.

In the Democratic socialist from Vermont, they see a flag-bearer for the same issues while the Democratic establishment views him as a persistent pest who is raking in money by the fistful without a clear and obvious path to the nomination.

And the same way that Nader’s staunchest supporters had no kind words for the eventual nominee then-Vice President Al Gore, some of Sanders’s surrogates are spending their time bashing Hillary Clinton, making it even more difficult for the party faithful to rally around him.

Throughout Nader’s consecutive failed presidential bids, he picked up a cadre of high-profile endorsers ranging from actress Susan Sarandon to academic Cornel West. The rest of the roster backing both men includes actor Danny Glover, former National Nurses United Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro, musician Ani DiFranco, country singer Willie Nelson, and Ben Cohen, one of the founders of Ben & Jerry’s, just to name a few


“There are some pretty obvious parallels,” Oliver Hall, Nader’s lawyer and long-time friend said in an interview with The Daily Beast.

While the players on the bench supporting these candidates are remarkably similar, so far Sanders hasn’t drawn the collective ire of the Democratic Party quite nearly as much as Nader did. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.

After all, many personally blamed Nader for pulling Democratic votes away from Gore in 2000—ushering in Bush.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/05/bernie-sanders-from-the-guys-who-brought-you-george-w-bush.html?via=desktop&source=twitter

March 30, 2016

Democrats’ caucuses aren’t very democratic

Maybe the state Democratic Party should change its name. Because it isn’t at all democratic how they’re choosing a presidential nominee.

The caucuses held here last weekend were described in media reports as “packed” and “bursting at the seams.” Lines around the block were reported, as well as crowds in overflow rooms. It gave the feeling of massive civic engagement.

But in reality, only 5.8 percent of the state’s registered voters showed up. That means 94 percent of voters didn’t. Even the most moribund municipal election for, say, water commissioner, gets turnout rates five times that amount.

This also means that Bernie Sanders’ landslide win was earned with the backing of just 4?percent of our 4 million registered voters.

Can you call something a peoples’ revolution with that few people?

The problem isn’t with the candidates or their caucusing supporters. It also isn’t just public apathy.

It’s the hidebound political party that simply refuses to let the people fully into its nominating process.

We could have voted in a primary election this year, using mail-in ballots, but the state Democratic Party flatly rejected that. They stuck with a caucus system that, quaint as it may be, dramatically suppresses the vote.

The party likes it because people have to give their email addresses and phone numbers. This contributes to “party-building,” meaning the recruitment of volunteers and the creation of fundraising lists. What it does not contribute to is equity, access or the enfranchisement of the people, especially for marginalized populations — all things the Democratic Party says it cares deeply about.http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/democrats-caucuses-arent-very-democratic/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=article_title_1.1

I wrote to my State Senator about this and they are considering changing back to primary for presidential elections. Working on a petition.

March 28, 2016

Hillary About to Speak - live feed

unless MSNBC decides to pull her because Trump farts

http://www.livenewschat.eu/politics/

March 27, 2016

Bernie Delegate Gets In The Face Of

a lifelong Democrat, Vietnam Veteran, Hispanic, owner and operator of residential patient facilities for paroled adults and teens by providing vocational research, treatment, shelter etc. today at the Denver Democratic County Convention/Assembly about his super-delegate vote for Hillary.

The gentleman is and has been a DNC super-delegate for a while, he was for Hillary in 08 also and did not switch to Obama.

My son was there and filmed this BS supporter berate this man yelling at him, calling him one of the elite and he should switch his vote to Sanders because he personally registered thousands of new Democrats which resulted in millions of votes for Sanders in Colorado. (only 120,000 Democrats participated in this years caucus) He wouldn't let the man speak or leave until he was finished splaning in a very loud and condescending manner. Sadly Sanders supporters think Hispanics and African-American Democrats are low-information-voters and need to be told how wrong they are.

My son will upload it and I will post it when he emails it to me - pretty disgusting stuff.

March 20, 2016

Hillary Clinton Secretly Pushed Cuba Deal for Years

By Josh Rogin
Although President Barack Obama is taking the credit for Wednesday’s historic deal to reverse decades of U.S. policy toward Cuba, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, she was the main architect of the new policy and pushed far harder for a deal than the Obama White House.

From 2009 until her departure in early 2013, Clinton and her top aides took the lead on the sometimes public, often private interactions with the Cuban government. According to current and former White House and State Department officials and several Cuba policy experts who were involved in the discussions, Clinton was also the top advocate inside the government for ending travel and trade restrictions on Cuba and reversing 50 years of U.S. policy to isolate the Communist island nation. Repeatedly, she pressed the White House to move faster and faced opposition from cautious high-ranking White House officials.

After Obama announced the deal Wednesday, which included the release of aid contractor Alan Gross, Clinton issued a supportive statement distributed by the National Security Council press team. “As Secretary of State, I pushed for his release, stayed in touch with Alan’s wife Judy and their daughters, and called for a new direction in Cuba," she said. "Despite good intentions, our decades-long policy of isolation has only strengthened the Castro regime's grip on power.”

Yet Clinton played down her own role in the issue, which will surely become important if she decides to run for president. Top prospective Republican candidates, including Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have all come out against the president’s policy shift.http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-12-18/hillary-clinton-secretly-pushed-cuba-deal-for-years

March 20, 2016

Live Link of First Family Tour Havana

It hasn't started yet, but there's some nice catchy Cuban tunes to dance to.

March 12, 2016

Sanders had big ideas but little impact on Capitol Hill

Democrats who worked with the Vermont senator say he contributed to the debate, but rarely forged actual legislation or left a significant imprint on it.


At the heart of Bernie Sanders’ campaign is a promise to bring about sweeping change. But on some of the top issues at the center of Sanders' presidential bid -- health care, taking on the big banks and corporations, fighting for rights, raising attention to income inequality -- the revolution has been slow in the 25 years he's spent in Congress.

Sanders and Clinton both repeatedly turned to his Senate record at the Democratic debate in Miami Wednesday night. Clinton hit him for voting against the TARP II bailout, arguing that “if everyone had voted as he voted, we would not have saved the auto industry,” and attacked him for voting against the 2007 immigration reform bill.


"Madam Secretary, I will match my record against yours any day of the week," Sanders responded, in one of the many moments he brought up his Senate work.

He was on the committee that wrote Obamacare, he said again, and he introduced what he called “the most comprehensive climate change legislation in the history of the Senate.”

“I have been criticized a lot for thinking big, for believing we can do great things as a nation,” Sanders said.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/bernies-record-220508#ixzz42jBbicuz

February 28, 2016

A Quote About Voting

“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and bern their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

Abraham Lincoln

February 18, 2016

The Cause of This Nightmare Election? Media Greed and Shameless Traffic Worship

The Subprime-itization of Our Media Has Created Our Toxic Election

I am talking, of course, about our media system. A system in which tens of thousands of reporters—bloggers—chasing online traffic bonuses produce sensational, inflammatory and outright dangerous “news” at the expense of the public they are supposed to be serving. A system in which speculative, high valence news—whether it starts as a tweet or a rumor—is packaged, dissected, repacked, and passed along from outlet to outlet until a thinking person can hardly follow what is real and what is fake.


There is no clearer example of this systemic manipulation than the presidential train wreck which has unfolded before us in recent months. First, look at how the election cycle is deliberately elongated—not for the benefit of the voters or even at the request of the audience, but rather because longer election cycles mean inflated traffic cycles. Second, notice how quickly the campaign is turned into a reality show, with its never ending cast of superficial characters, drama, and drama (did I mention drama?). It was bad in 2008 and 2012, but worse now than perhaps it’s ever been. Yet, you can’t look away can you? Third, atypical candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are effectively subsidized by the media in order to provide the story lines those outlets require to create the compelling spectacles they need to keep the cycle going and audiences hooked.

It is in this last area that we see the highest manipulation. In Donald Trump we have a candidate who has received so much media coverage that he did not need to run his first TV campaign ad until January—some seven months after entering the race and five months after the first televised debate. Has anyone in history gotten as much free media coverage as Donald Trump? Besides Joseph McCarthy and Tim Tebow (and maybe Apple, whose product launches are what the media theorist Daniel J. Boorstin would have described as blatant pseudo-events), one would be hard-pressed to find a more egregious example of the tail wagging the dog. In fact, at one point Mr. Trump was receiving more coverage than all the Democratic candidates combined. The recent observation from Josh Dawsey, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, says it all: “Every candidate but Trump is here in SC [South Carolina], and most are at forum. Every TV anchor in back is filing on Trump.”

On the other end of the spectrum, the rise of Bernie Sanders simply doesn’t pass the smell test. This is a candidate who Nate Silver shows is extremely unlikely to win, who would be 75 year old on Inauguration Day, who embraces, quite openly, the word “socialist” in a country that considers the word more dangerous politically than “atheist,” and who is drowning in headlines. Many of those headlines reveal the great lengths the media is willing to go to legitimize him on the one hand, and on the other, with the rise of the fake “Bernie Bros” trend, the lengths they’re willing to go to turn him into a Trump-level sideshow.

Why are we even talking about either of them? I’ll tell you why. These two unlikely candidates happen to attract massive passionate internet audiences. One gives outlets the traffic of the disaffected, angry Fox News crowd (and its enemies). The other affords the opportunity to soak up millennial audiences.

http://observer.com/2016/02/the-cause-of-this-nightmare-election-media-greed-and-shameless-traffic-worship/