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99th_Monkey
99th_Monkey's Journal
99th_Monkey's Journal
February 13, 2016
We are going to ignore the fact that Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl, or that you once stated to a Clinton biographer that, “[t]he first time I ever heard of Bill Clinton was the 1970s”, or that it has already been well-established that Sanders worked with the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) at the University of Chicago in the 1960s. We are also going to leave aside the fact that every mention of Bill Clinton in your book Walking With The Wind described an instance that he opposed some policy that you cherished.
Instead, we are going to talk about another person that you never saw or met.
Dorothy Marie Boone-Anderson was born in Gates County, North Carolina in 1935 as one of seven children. She left formal schooling in the eighth grade to go into the fields and work to support her family. Times were always hard for the Boones, and the lack of educational prospects for the family meant that times would always be hard. That was a legacy of a segregation that always kept Black families at the edge of the American Dream; close enough to be eternally tortured by a success that was constantly visible yet always elusive. In early 1953, Dorothy became pregnant by a man named Douglas Washington Williams. Her son, Luther, would be born on September 21, 1953.
It was the birth of my father that spurred my grandmother into organizing within the Civil Rights Movement, determined that her children would never have to live in a world where economic and political opportunities were denied to them because of their race. She organized alongside Haywood Riddick at the Nansemond County SNCC and organizations like the Wilroy Civic League, which acted as a locus for social and political activity in the neighborhood that they lived in. As I am sure you know, it made sense for them to focus on integrating the public school system. My father went to Wilroy School, an elementary school that was built with $900 from the Rosenwald Fund. This fund, set up by Sears and Roebuck executive Julius Rosenwald, was necessary to ensure that Black children received education in areas where the state refused to provide them. It stood as a testament to the disregard that the Commonwealth of Virginia showed to its most vulnerable populations.
Continued at link, here: https://thesouthlawn.org/2016/02/12/an-open-letter-to-rep-john-lewis/
An Open Letter to US Rep. John Lewis
AN OPEN LETTER TO REP. JOHN LEWIS.
by Douglas Williams * Feb 12, 2016 * The South Lawn
Yesterday, you stated the following about Bernie Sanders’s record on fighting for civil rights in the 1960s:
“I never saw him. I never met him. I was chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for three years, from 1963 to 1966. I was involved with the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, the march from Selma to Montgomery and directed (the) voter education project for six years. But I met Hillary Clinton. I met President (Bill) Clinton.”
We are going to ignore the fact that Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl, or that you once stated to a Clinton biographer that, “[t]he first time I ever heard of Bill Clinton was the 1970s”, or that it has already been well-established that Sanders worked with the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) at the University of Chicago in the 1960s. We are also going to leave aside the fact that every mention of Bill Clinton in your book Walking With The Wind described an instance that he opposed some policy that you cherished.
Instead, we are going to talk about another person that you never saw or met.
Dorothy Marie Boone-Anderson was born in Gates County, North Carolina in 1935 as one of seven children. She left formal schooling in the eighth grade to go into the fields and work to support her family. Times were always hard for the Boones, and the lack of educational prospects for the family meant that times would always be hard. That was a legacy of a segregation that always kept Black families at the edge of the American Dream; close enough to be eternally tortured by a success that was constantly visible yet always elusive. In early 1953, Dorothy became pregnant by a man named Douglas Washington Williams. Her son, Luther, would be born on September 21, 1953.
It was the birth of my father that spurred my grandmother into organizing within the Civil Rights Movement, determined that her children would never have to live in a world where economic and political opportunities were denied to them because of their race. She organized alongside Haywood Riddick at the Nansemond County SNCC and organizations like the Wilroy Civic League, which acted as a locus for social and political activity in the neighborhood that they lived in. As I am sure you know, it made sense for them to focus on integrating the public school system. My father went to Wilroy School, an elementary school that was built with $900 from the Rosenwald Fund. This fund, set up by Sears and Roebuck executive Julius Rosenwald, was necessary to ensure that Black children received education in areas where the state refused to provide them. It stood as a testament to the disregard that the Commonwealth of Virginia showed to its most vulnerable populations.
Continued at link, here: https://thesouthlawn.org/2016/02/12/an-open-letter-to-rep-john-lewis/
February 13, 2016
By Nicole Gaouette * Feb. 12, 2016 * CNN
Washington (CNN)President Barack Obama's former top military intelligence official said Hillary Clinton should pull out of the presidential race while the FBI investigate her use of a private email server for official government communication while secretary of state.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the retired chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, made the call in an interview with Jake Tapper on "The Lead."
"If it were me, I would have been out the door and probably in jail," said Flynn, who decried what he said was a "lack of accountability, frankly, in a person who should have been much more responsible in her actions as the secretary of state of the United States of America."
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon later told Tapper the general's suggestion was "just silly" and pointed to similar FBI probes of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and of aides to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"In both of those two cases, you now have the same agency looking at their emails, personal emails, and saying that there is information that in retrospect they think should be treated as classified," Fallon said. "The exact same situation playing out in the two previous secretaries before Secretary Clinton. So I think that tells you everything about the relative seriousness of this."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/12/politics/hillary-clinton-michael-flynn-email-fbi-investigation/index.html
BREAKING-CNN: Former Obama intel official: Hillary Clinton should drop out
Former Obama intel official: Hillary Clinton should drop outBy Nicole Gaouette * Feb. 12, 2016 * CNN
Washington (CNN)President Barack Obama's former top military intelligence official said Hillary Clinton should pull out of the presidential race while the FBI investigate her use of a private email server for official government communication while secretary of state.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the retired chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, made the call in an interview with Jake Tapper on "The Lead."
"If it were me, I would have been out the door and probably in jail," said Flynn, who decried what he said was a "lack of accountability, frankly, in a person who should have been much more responsible in her actions as the secretary of state of the United States of America."
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon later told Tapper the general's suggestion was "just silly" and pointed to similar FBI probes of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and of aides to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"In both of those two cases, you now have the same agency looking at their emails, personal emails, and saying that there is information that in retrospect they think should be treated as classified," Fallon said. "The exact same situation playing out in the two previous secretaries before Secretary Clinton. So I think that tells you everything about the relative seriousness of this."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/12/politics/hillary-clinton-michael-flynn-email-fbi-investigation/index.html
February 13, 2016
Hey Sandernistas! Are you watching this? LIVE PoC & Bernie Forum on Race & Economic Opportunity
February 12, 2016
What's up with this LIVE Bernie Sanders Forum on "Race & Economic Opportunity" TODAY
in Minneapolis ... happening TODAY, I think at 3:30pm Central Time .. but not sure I heard
that part correctly.
Here's a link to some guy covering it live on Youtube.
February 12, 2016
by Dan Froomkin * Feb. 12 2016 * The Intercept
The sparring during Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders over whether Henry Kissinger is an elder statesman or a pariah has laid bare a major foreign policy divide within the Democratic Party. ~snip~
Kissinger is an amazing and appropriate lens through which to see what’s at stake in the choice between Clinton and Sanders. But that only works, of course, if you understand who Kissinger is — which surely many of today’s voters don’t. ~snip~
Kissinger is reviled by many left-leaning observers of foreign policy. They consider him an amoral egotist who enabled dictators, extended the Vietnam War, laid the path to the Khmer Rouge killing fields, stage-managed a genocide in East Timor, overthrew the democratically-elected left-wing government in Chile, and encouraged Nixon to wiretap his political adversaries.
First, let’s review what happened at the debate. Here’s the video, followed by the transcript:
And now, some background about Kissinger.
Greg Grandin, a history professor at New York University, just published a timely book called Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman. In an article in the Nation last week, “Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton’s Tutor in War and Peace,” he offered this pithy summary:
Let’s consider some of Kissinger’s achievements during his tenure as Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy–maker. He
(1) prolonged the Vietnam War for five pointless years;
(2) illegally bombed Cambodia and Laos;
(3) goaded Nixon to wiretap staffers and journalists;
(4) bore responsibility for three genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh;
(5) urged Nixon to go after Daniel Ellsberg for having released the Pentagon Papers, which set off a chain of events that brought down the Nixon White House;
(6) pumped up Pakistan’s ISI, and encouraged it to use political Islam to destabilize Afghanistan;
(7) began the U.S.’s arms-for-petrodollars dependency with Saudi Arabia and pre-revolutionary Iran;
(8) accelerated needless civil wars in southern Africa that, in the name of supporting white supremacy, left millions dead;
(9) supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America; and (10) ingratiated himself with the first-generation neocons, such as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who would take American militarism to its next calamitous level. Read all about it in Kissinger’s Shadow!
A full tally hasn’t been done, but a back-of-the-envelope count would attribute 3, maybe 4 million deaths to Kissinger’s actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims in southern Africa.
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/12/henry-kissingers-war-crimes-are-central-to-the-divide-between-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders/
Intercept: Kissinger’s War Crimes Are Central to Divide Between Hillary and Bernie Sanders
Henry Kissinger’s War Crimes Are Central to the Divide Between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sandersby Dan Froomkin * Feb. 12 2016 * The Intercept
The sparring during Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders over whether Henry Kissinger is an elder statesman or a pariah has laid bare a major foreign policy divide within the Democratic Party. ~snip~
Kissinger is an amazing and appropriate lens through which to see what’s at stake in the choice between Clinton and Sanders. But that only works, of course, if you understand who Kissinger is — which surely many of today’s voters don’t. ~snip~
Kissinger is reviled by many left-leaning observers of foreign policy. They consider him an amoral egotist who enabled dictators, extended the Vietnam War, laid the path to the Khmer Rouge killing fields, stage-managed a genocide in East Timor, overthrew the democratically-elected left-wing government in Chile, and encouraged Nixon to wiretap his political adversaries.
First, let’s review what happened at the debate. Here’s the video, followed by the transcript:
And now, some background about Kissinger.
Greg Grandin, a history professor at New York University, just published a timely book called Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman. In an article in the Nation last week, “Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton’s Tutor in War and Peace,” he offered this pithy summary:
Let’s consider some of Kissinger’s achievements during his tenure as Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy–maker. He
(1) prolonged the Vietnam War for five pointless years;
(2) illegally bombed Cambodia and Laos;
(3) goaded Nixon to wiretap staffers and journalists;
(4) bore responsibility for three genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh;
(5) urged Nixon to go after Daniel Ellsberg for having released the Pentagon Papers, which set off a chain of events that brought down the Nixon White House;
(6) pumped up Pakistan’s ISI, and encouraged it to use political Islam to destabilize Afghanistan;
(7) began the U.S.’s arms-for-petrodollars dependency with Saudi Arabia and pre-revolutionary Iran;
(8) accelerated needless civil wars in southern Africa that, in the name of supporting white supremacy, left millions dead;
(9) supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America; and (10) ingratiated himself with the first-generation neocons, such as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who would take American militarism to its next calamitous level. Read all about it in Kissinger’s Shadow!
A full tally hasn’t been done, but a back-of-the-envelope count would attribute 3, maybe 4 million deaths to Kissinger’s actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims in southern Africa.
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/12/henry-kissingers-war-crimes-are-central-to-the-divide-between-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders/
February 11, 2016
BY DAVID SIROTA @DAVIDSIROTA & ANDREW PEREZ * 02/11/16 * IBT
In conceding defeat in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton cast herself as an opponent of money’s influence in politics, a future president who would challenge corporate power.
“You're not going to find anybody more committed to aggressive campaign finance reform than me,” Clinton said, promising to “crack down on corporations that game the system.”
Only days later, Clinton’s campaign is launching a fundraising blitz that includes events with representatives of industries that have significant business interests before the federal government. An International Business Times review of fundraising invitations found that the Clinton campaign’s nationwide tour includes events with corporate officials from the food, investment and energy sectors — all of which have vested financial interests in the policies that the next presidential administration will decide.
According to fundraising information collected by the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to appear Friday at a Hillary Clinton campaign fundraiser in Cincinnati chaired by Allan Berliant , CEO of frozen food conglomerate Best Express Foods ... Three days later, Chelsea Clinton is scheduled to be in Columbus, Ohio, for a campaign fundraiser at the home of Susan Tomasky, who is listed as a board member of the multibillion-dollar energy behemoth Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG). The New Jersey company is one of the nation’s largest utilities, and has nuclear power plants and gas pipeline interests.
Next Tuesday, Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear at back-to-back fundraisers co-hosted by officials from Wall Street colossus BlackRock — including Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former State Department chief of staff and a current board member of the Clinton Foundation. According to Politico, a BlackRock fundraiser for Clinton had been scheduled for last week, but Clinton's campaign postponed it until after the New Hampshire primary following criticism of her Wall Street ties by her opponent, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/hillary-clinton-plans-raise-money-industries-interests-next-president-2302757
Hillary Shakes-down Corporate $$$ From Industries W/Pending Interests Before The Next President
Hillary Clinton Plans To Raise Money From Industries With Interests Before The Next PresidentBY DAVID SIROTA @DAVIDSIROTA & ANDREW PEREZ * 02/11/16 * IBT
In conceding defeat in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton cast herself as an opponent of money’s influence in politics, a future president who would challenge corporate power.
“You're not going to find anybody more committed to aggressive campaign finance reform than me,” Clinton said, promising to “crack down on corporations that game the system.”
Only days later, Clinton’s campaign is launching a fundraising blitz that includes events with representatives of industries that have significant business interests before the federal government. An International Business Times review of fundraising invitations found that the Clinton campaign’s nationwide tour includes events with corporate officials from the food, investment and energy sectors — all of which have vested financial interests in the policies that the next presidential administration will decide.
According to fundraising information collected by the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to appear Friday at a Hillary Clinton campaign fundraiser in Cincinnati chaired by Allan Berliant , CEO of frozen food conglomerate Best Express Foods ... Three days later, Chelsea Clinton is scheduled to be in Columbus, Ohio, for a campaign fundraiser at the home of Susan Tomasky, who is listed as a board member of the multibillion-dollar energy behemoth Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG). The New Jersey company is one of the nation’s largest utilities, and has nuclear power plants and gas pipeline interests.
Next Tuesday, Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear at back-to-back fundraisers co-hosted by officials from Wall Street colossus BlackRock — including Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former State Department chief of staff and a current board member of the Clinton Foundation. According to Politico, a BlackRock fundraiser for Clinton had been scheduled for last week, but Clinton's campaign postponed it until after the New Hampshire primary following criticism of her Wall Street ties by her opponent, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/hillary-clinton-plans-raise-money-industries-interests-next-president-2302757
February 11, 2016
From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.
By Michelle Alexander * February 29, 2016 * The Nation
Hillary Clinton loves black people. And black people love Hillary—or so it seems. Black politicians have lined up in droves to endorse her, eager to prove their loyalty to the Clintons in the hopes that their faithfulness will be remembered and rewarded. Black pastors are opening their church doors, and the Clintons are making themselves comfortably at home once again, engaging effortlessly in all the usual rituals associated with “courting the black vote,” a pursuit that typically begins and ends with Democratic politicians making black people feel liked and taken seriously. Doing something concrete to improve the conditions under which most black people live is generally not required.
Hillary is looking to gain momentum on the campaign trail as the primaries move out of Iowa and New Hampshire and into states like South Carolina, where large pockets of black voters can be found. According to some polls, she leads Bernie Sanders by as much as 60 percent among African Americans. It seems that we—black people—are her winning card, one that Hillary is eager to play.
And it seems we’re eager to get played. Again. ~snip~
Black voters have been remarkably loyal to the Clintons for more than 25 years. It’s true that we eventually lined up behind Barack Obama in 2008, but it’s a measure of the Clinton allure that Hillary led Obama among black voters until he started winning caucuses and primaries. Now Hillary is running again. This time she’s facing a democratic socialist who promises a political revolution that will bring universal healthcare, a living wage, an end to rampant Wall Street greed, and the dismantling of the vast prison state—many of the same goals that Martin Luther King Jr. championed at the end of his life. Even so, black folks are sticking with the Clinton brand.
What have the Clintons done to earn such devotion? Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African Americans? Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities? Did they help usher in a new era of hope and prosperity for neighborhoods devastated by deindustrialization, globalization, and the disappearance of work?
No. Quite the opposite.
http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/
Michelle Alexander: Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote
Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black VoteFrom the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.
By Michelle Alexander * February 29, 2016 * The Nation
Hillary Clinton loves black people. And black people love Hillary—or so it seems. Black politicians have lined up in droves to endorse her, eager to prove their loyalty to the Clintons in the hopes that their faithfulness will be remembered and rewarded. Black pastors are opening their church doors, and the Clintons are making themselves comfortably at home once again, engaging effortlessly in all the usual rituals associated with “courting the black vote,” a pursuit that typically begins and ends with Democratic politicians making black people feel liked and taken seriously. Doing something concrete to improve the conditions under which most black people live is generally not required.
Hillary is looking to gain momentum on the campaign trail as the primaries move out of Iowa and New Hampshire and into states like South Carolina, where large pockets of black voters can be found. According to some polls, she leads Bernie Sanders by as much as 60 percent among African Americans. It seems that we—black people—are her winning card, one that Hillary is eager to play.
And it seems we’re eager to get played. Again. ~snip~
Black voters have been remarkably loyal to the Clintons for more than 25 years. It’s true that we eventually lined up behind Barack Obama in 2008, but it’s a measure of the Clinton allure that Hillary led Obama among black voters until he started winning caucuses and primaries. Now Hillary is running again. This time she’s facing a democratic socialist who promises a political revolution that will bring universal healthcare, a living wage, an end to rampant Wall Street greed, and the dismantling of the vast prison state—many of the same goals that Martin Luther King Jr. championed at the end of his life. Even so, black folks are sticking with the Clinton brand.
What have the Clintons done to earn such devotion? Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African Americans? Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities? Did they help usher in a new era of hope and prosperity for neighborhoods devastated by deindustrialization, globalization, and the disappearance of work?
No. Quite the opposite.
http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/
February 10, 2016
Latest Bernie smear: "Snake Oil Salesman Extraordinaire"
Probably a good thing I've been banned from posting here: 
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110744638
February 10, 2016
You constantly hear about how Bernie Sanders is disliked by his colleagues — but this is simply untrue.
A simple Google search will reveal otherwise, and the fact that the media portrays him in such a different light says far more about them, and the lack of substantial journalism in this country, than Bernie Sanders himself.
He is excellent at building coalitions, compromising, and getting things done.
He is well-liked and well-respected by other senators, and has often worked with them to bring real change to the American people ( Sanders passed the most amendments of any representative serving alongside him while in the House).
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/10/1482833/-8-Quotes-From-Congress-About-Bernie-Sanders
Quotes by Sanders' Congressional colleagues
8 Quotes From Congress About Bernie Sanders
By HumanOfEarth * Wednesday Feb 10, 2016 * Kos
1) Senator Jeff Sessions — Republican, Alabama
“I’ve always respected Bernie and we’ve gotten along personally well.”
* *
2) Senator Jack Reed — Democrat, Rhode Island
“[He’s] a gentleman, thoughtful, a leader… If you want to have a pleasant discussion on not only policy issues but just issues of the day, he’s a pleasant guy.”
* *
3) Senator Richard Burr — Republican, North Carolina
“[Sanders is] one who’s willing to sit down and compromise and negotiate to get to a final product.”
* *
4) Senator Roger Wicker — Republican, Mississippi
“I learned early on not to be automatically dismissive of a Bernie Sanders initiative or amendment… He’s tenacious and dogged and he has determination, and he’s not to be underestimated.”
* *
5) Senator Sherrod Brown — Democrat, Ohio
“[Sanders] would call them ‘tripartite amendments’ because we’d have him and he’d get a Republican, he’d get a Democrat and he’d pass things.
He’s good at building coalitions.”
* *
6) Senator John Mccain — Republican, Arizona
“[While working on the Veterans Affairs legislation], I found him to be honorable and good as his word.”
* *
7) Senator Chuck Schumer — Democrat, New York
“He knew when to hold and knew when to fold and, I think, maximized what we could get for veterans.”
* *
8)Senator Jack Reed — Democratic, Rhode Island (again)
“Frankly, without him, I don’t think we would have gotten [the Veterans Affairs legislation] done…
It was a great testament to his skill as a legislator.”
You constantly hear about how Bernie Sanders is disliked by his colleagues — but this is simply untrue.
A simple Google search will reveal otherwise, and the fact that the media portrays him in such a different light says far more about them, and the lack of substantial journalism in this country, than Bernie Sanders himself.
He is excellent at building coalitions, compromising, and getting things done.
He is well-liked and well-respected by other senators, and has often worked with them to bring real change to the American people ( Sanders passed the most amendments of any representative serving alongside him while in the House).
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/10/1482833/-8-Quotes-From-Congress-About-Bernie-Sanders
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