February 20, 2016

T'm tired of this BS - another deception brought to us by the Clintons

Here are four pdf links to the congressional record in June 2007 when they were debating this:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-25/pdf/CREC-2007-06-25-pt1-PgS8337.pdf#page=2
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=11
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=13
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=14

Bernie said a lot on the floor of the Senate. String search for Sanders in those documents to read it all. It's in a few places - at least two major speeches. Once again, Bernie is telling the truth. Hillary is not. Here are some excerpts:

As I think we all know, this is a long and complicated bill. An important part of this bill deals with illegal immigration --how do we make sure we stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country; how do we finally begin to deal with employers who are knowingly hiring illegal immigrants; what do we do with 12 million people who are in this country who, in my view, we are not going to simply, in the middle of the night, throw out of this country. These are difficult and important issues.

On those issues I am in general agreement with the thrust of this legislation. But, Mr. President, I wish to tell you there are areas in this bill where I have strong disagreement, and one is the issue of legal immigration , what we are doing in terms of bringing people into this country who, in my view, will end up lowering wages for American workers right now.

Here's one part where it gets "good". Who can name the corporation Hillary sat on the board of directors for? I'll let Bernie name them and why:

The argument there is Americans don't want to do the work. They say: We can't find American workers to do the work. That is a crock, in many instances. It is not true. One of the groups that has come to Congress to tell us how much they are concerned about the need to find workers because they can't find Americans to do the jobs is our old friends at Wal-Mart.

As many Americans know, Wal-Mart pays low wages. They often hire people for 30 hours a week rather than 40 hours a week, and they provide minimal health care benefits. Yet Wal-Mart has come in and said: Well, we can't find the workers. Bring us in more low-wage workers.

Well, guess what. Two years ago, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a new store in Oakland, CA, guess how many people showed up for that job in Oakland, CA, at a Wal-Mart. Eleven thousand people showed up--11,000 people showed up in Oakland--filled out applications for a job when only 400 jobs were available. Eleven thousand people for 400 jobs.

Wal-Mart says they need more low-wage workers coming in from around the world because they can't find workers. Well, that was a couple of years ago. So you might say: Well, that doesn't happen today. In January of 2006, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a store in Evergreen Park, just outside of Chicago, in your home State, Mr. President, 24,500 people applied for 2,325 jobs. Yet Wal-Mart and their friends are coming in here saying we can't find Americans who want to work.

Let us be clear. Wal-Mart does not provide good wages, does not provide good benefits, does not provide good health care,

How do you like them apples? In 2007, "Wal-Mart" had been lobbying to bring in cheap labor and their ex-board of director is all for it. And it's screwing up the immigration bill that Sanders would have otherwise voted for but they won't drop it. Could this have something to do with it?

Disclosures to the Federal Election Committee reveal how lobbyists for Wal-Mart, Chevron, Facebook and Goldman Sachs have been acting as fundraising captains for Clinton

See how that works?

Hillary was there for the vote. She heard where Bernie stood, that he supported much of the legislation and why he couldn't vote for it - for what Walmart was up to. So what does Hillary do in this campaign? Turns it around, deceptively spinning it that Bernie was against Latinos - while she had sold out American workers for her Walmart bundling. And it's no joke because this garbage is all over Nevada taking votes from Bernie.

I do not know how you Clinton supporters sleep at night. This is not a nice, ethical woman. She's deceitful, ruthless and doesn't care who gets thrown under the bus.

In essence, this bill didn't die because of people hating Latinos. It died because folks wouldn't go along with the corporate greed - it was too much and too obvious.

Bernie goes on later in his speech

Many of the largest corporations in this country are supporting this legislation. And you know why? It is not because they are staying up late at night worrying about some Mexican kid in Detroit or Chicago and what will be the future of that kid. They are not worrying about that. What they want to see is a continued influx into this country of cheap labor. They are not content with outsourcing millions of good-paying jobs. They are not content with fighting against working people who want to form unions. They are not content with their opposition, successful until recently, of keeping the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour for 10 years. That is not good enough. Now they are saying: Gee, we can't move Wal-Mart from America to China, we can't move hotels to China, we can't move restaurants to China, so what is the best way to continue keeping wages low for those workers?
....
Reclaiming my time, Mr. President, the Senator makes an important point, and that is we have all been educated that economics is about supply and demand. If you don't get the workers you want, you raise wages and you raise benefits. You don't simply open the door and bring in other workers at low wages.

I sure don't have a problem with those words. They were right in 2007 and they're still true today.

The next day, Bernie rises to propose an amendment. He hasn't given up on the bill. He's trying to solve the problem so he can vote for it.

In a moment, I want to talk about an amendment I will be offering with Senator Grassley to the immigration reform bill. That is amendment No. 1332. I should mention this amendment has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO. It was endorsed by the Programmers Guild and by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
...
This bill also carves out a path to citizenship which, frankly, is the right thing to do. But also what this bill does not do is analyze effectively the impact of various aspects of this legislation--the guest worker program, H-1B program--on the lives of American workers. The basic premise under which this bill operates in those areas is a false one. ...
...
What I fear the most is if we keep going in the direction in which we are moving now economically, what we are going to see is our children are going to have a lower standard of living than we do. In fact, according to a recent joint study by the Pew Charitable Trust and Brookings Institute, men in their thirties earned on average 12 percent less in 2004 than their fathers did in 1974, after adjusting for inflation. Incredibly, men today are earning less than their fathers did despite a huge explosion in technology and worker productivity.
...
During the debate over NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China--which I participated in as a Member of the House of Representatives--we were told by all the corporate interests who pushed that legislation on the Congress not to worry about the blue-collar jobs we would lose. I remember it distinctly. They said: Well, yes, it is true. If we open up our markets, yes, it is true we are going to lose a lot of these factory jobs. They are going to go to China, Mexico, whatever. But don't worry because if your kid does well in school, becomes computer proficient, your kid is going to have a great job out there at good wages. That is the future of America. Don't worry about the blue-color jobs. You have all these white-color information technology jobs.

Well, guess what is happening. From January of 2001 to January of 2006, we have lost 644,000 information sector jobs. Alan Blinder, the former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has told us between 30 and 40 million jobs in this country are in danger of being shipped overseas.
---
What upsets me is how our young people feel about this situation. These are kids who go to school—sometimes they borrow a lot of money to go to college—they work hard, and what
they are looking forward to, whether through a BA or a BS or an MA or a Ph.D., is a good, secure, challenging, meaningful job with a decent income. What they are seeing is companies saying: We do not want you. We want somebody from abroad who will work at lower wages than you. I think that must be very discouraging for so many of our young people.

Madam President, the amendment I am offering today, along with Senator GRASSLEY, is a pretty simple amendment. What it would do is it would prohibit companies that have announced mass layoffs from receiving new visas of any kind, unless these companies could prove that overall employment at their companies would not be reduced by these layoffs. In other words, we are calling their bluff, and we are saying: You can’t lay off large numbers of American workers and then tell us you desperately need workers, professionals from abroad. Those companies which are truly experiencing labor shortages would not be impacted by this amendment and could continue to receive increases in foreign workers, but companies that are reducing their U.S. workforce by laying off thousands of Americans would be prevented from importing workers from abroad. The bottom line is, the companies that are laying off thousands of Americans shouldn’t be allowed to import workers from overseas. Let us stand up for the American people. Let us stand up for American workers. Let us support
this amendment.

Here's his amendment. They ignored it - didn't even vote on it:
https://www.congress.gov/amendment/110th-congress/senate-amendment/1332/actions

Someone else made this comment:

Three weeks before we had the final vote and Senator Reid pulled it down, after the debate continued a couple of weeks ago, a Rasmussen poll showed support for the bill in the high 20s. Then fell to 23 percent, and the last poll showed only 20 percent of Americans supported this bill. Only 20 percent of the American people said we should pass this bill.

In spite of all that, the bill fell just a few votes short.

I see crap like this and start to wonder about Trump if Hillary wins. If Hillary wins Nevada tonight, it will be in significant part because the people of Nevada got hammered with this deception to steal votes. Sanders made himself crystal clear what they were up to in 2007. It is beyond debate.

February 19, 2016

When the CIA and Inspector General read the emails, they had a different reaction

January 14, 2016 IC IG Response to Congressional Inquiry (page 1)

...“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and TOP SECRET/SAP levels. According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources.”....

Charles McCullough, Inspector General Intelligence Community

February 4th, 2016 State Department Press Briefing

QUESTION: "... for the emails ... but in terms of the special access program intelligence, there are two sworn declarations from the CIA that they were top secret at the moment they were transmitted to the server. So why do you use the term “upgraded?”

MR KIRBY: "When we talk about upgrade, Catherine, it’s a process issue. ... in doing that, our job is not ... to make an assessment of the degree to which it was classified at the time ..."

QUESTION: "Right. So are you challenging sworn declarations from the CIA that they were top secret at the time of transmission?"

MR KIRBY: "As I said last week, it was at the request of the intelligence community that we specifically upgraded that traffic to top secret."

QUESTION: "Okay, so you don’t dispute that."

MR KIRBY: "If we had disputed it, we wouldn’t have upgraded it --"

QUESTION: "Okay."

Clinton Foundation received subpoena from State Department investigators

Investigators with the State Department issued a subpoena to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation last fall seeking documents about the charity’s projects that may have required approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state, according to people familiar with the subpoena and written correspondence about it.

The subpoena also asked for records related to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide who for six months in 2012 was employed simultaneously by the State Department, the foundation, Clinton’s personal office, and a private consulting firm with ties to the Clintons.

Back to your quote: "In those emails, I discovered a Hillary Clinton I didn’t even know existed."
If the CIA or FBI find that, I think you'll find "a woman ... worried" about herself.

February 19, 2016

AP-GfK Poll: Voters increasingly see Sanders as electable

link

WASHINGTON (AP) — The more Democrats learn about Bernie Sanders, the more they appear to like him.

A greater percentage of Democratic registered voters view the Vermont senator as likable, honest, competent and compassionate than they did just two months ago, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. Seventy-two percent now believe he could win the general election, a 21 percentage point increase from the last time the survey was conducted in December.

The findings underscore the challenge facing Hillary Clinton as she enters the Democratic contest's pivotal spring stretch, when primaries across the country mean that many of the party's voters will finally get their say on her candidacy.

Clinton's campaign has argued that as voters learned more about his record, Sanders will begin to lose support. Instead, it seems that as Sanders has gotten more scrutiny, support for him has only grown. While Clinton continues to be the Democratic candidate who's most well-liked within her own party, Sanders is gaining on her.

I've seen that improving with other pollsters as well.

I'm now feeling pretty comfortable saying if Bernie had more time, he would beat Hillary.

Right now, they have a lot of states between now and March 1 they have to catch up in. I don't think SC is one of them. If Bernie wins Nevada, Hillary has a real problem. Close would be ok as Nate Silver said but win and he goes up in the Super Tuesday polls - which I think he needs.

February 19, 2016

Bernie is within 4.3 pts of Hillary Nationally in RealClear Poll of Polls

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_democratic_presidential_nomination-3824.html

Arguably, it might be a statistical tie, as he may be within the margin of error.

Before New Hampshire, Hillary was +13.7. In less than a week, he's really closed the gap.

Time. The only question now seems to be if he has enough time. Because he's still winning people over.

February 18, 2016

Here's part of Bernie's plan

1: If nothing else is done to healthcare and rates and everything else remained the same and they just remove the insurance companies admin and their profits, they would save:
- somewhere between $120 - $280 billion saved of the $1 trillion private heath care dollars
(estimates vary from 15%-31% but 3% would be needed for Medicare admin)
Economists just love the ten year figure so over ten years that is:
$1.2 Trillion to $2.8 Trillion dollars saved.

2: Other things Bernie wants to do like:
https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/
Progressive income tax rates.
- Revenue raised: $110 billion a year
Taxing capital gains and dividends the same as income from work.
- Revenue raised: $92 billion per year.
Limit tax deductions for rich.
- Revenue raised: $15 billion per year.
The Responsible Estate Tax.
- Revenue raised: $21 billion per year.
===========================
$ 2.38 Trillion in additional revenue over 10 years

3: Negotiate lower drug prices because we have the hammer.
https://berniesanders.com/issues/fighting-to-lower-prescription-drug-prices/
$2.9 Trillion will be spent on drugs over the next 10 years if unchecked. Canada pays 60% less. Over the next decade, conservatively, they would save
between $230 billion (8%) and $541 billion (19%).

4: Doctors cost around 20% of healthcare or $5.8 Trillion over the next 10 years. US doctors are paid way more than any other country. Bernie says we can reduce doctors salaries by 10%. To be conservative, I'd suggest a range of 5%-10% through single payer negotiation. So over 10 years that would be $290 billion to $580 billion saved

Those four things add up to a range of $4.1 Trillion to $6.3 Trillion financial improvement in health care with single payer.

So here's the point: at this juncture, nothing else has changed. Everybody is paying their premiums and deductibles to the government instead of the insurance companies.

Bernie has $400-600 million/yr right there to improve healthcare. And he has other areas he can go for revenue or recovery or savings.

This bickering with the economists is smoke. You can argue about the percentages I used or the figures. But it doesn't change the overall story in a big way. Single payer saves Trillions of dollars. The argument is what to do with that money and how much will it cost.

No matter what those economists say, single payer is a no brainer.

They're nitpicking over the other numbers.

February 15, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s Pay-for-Play Reality

Consortiumnews.com
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/02/11/hillary-clintons-pay-for-play-reality/

.....
But perhaps the most interesting part of Lloyd’s (Goldman Sachs CEO) warning centered on his concerns about the post-election political landscape and his sense that the real danger is not people with pitchforks taking to the street. Rather, Lloyd is worried that Washington’s political machine could stall if all that public anger hampers politicians by turning a demonstrated willingness to “compromise” into a political liability. And when Wall Streeters talk about “compromise,” they are referring to their seemingly innate ability to manufacture bipartisan consent in spite of the often-bemoaned acrimony that locks up Republicans and Democrats.
...

while other issues get inexorably stuck in Washington’s infamous gridlock. It’s the cash that lubricates the system, much like oil lubricates American foreign policy. And it’s exactly the kind of “willing to compromise” political pliability that Blankfein told Squawk Box he is afraid of losing if recalcitrant politicians like Bernie Sanders take over the system.
...

But that’s the problem with the speaking fees and, truth be told, it’s the most vexing part of what passes for payola in the two-party political racket. Most of the juiciest rewards come after service is rendered, not before. Although campaign donations and Super PAC slush funds are a great way for corporate interests to open doors to access and reward a candidate’s family and friends and ancillary business interests, the real action happens in-between stints of public service or, even better, after a seasoned pro leaves “public service” to utilize those “special insider skills” on the other side of one of a dozen revolving doors between the Beltway and a bevy of businesses and lobbying firms.

The system is not really pay for play. It’s you’ll get paid for how you played when you dutifully collected a “low” six-figure salary while toiling away in Congress or in the Executive branch. So, technically speaking, Hillary may be telling the truth. Maybe she never once changed a vote in exchange for the titanic sums of cash which, according to a new report on CNN, amounted to “$153 million in paid speeches [to her and former President Bill Clinton] from 2001 until Hillary Clinton launched her presidential campaign last spring.”

I'm not very familiar with that site.

It's a long article and my clips do not fairly represent it.

I thought the article was an interesting read. I don't how much stock to put in it but there was some food for thought on how Wall Street might be thinking about this.

February 12, 2016

Or make the case that his actions didn't pose a risk

In this case, it got him arrested. In another case, it had the cops tailing him and taking his flyers on police brutality down right after he was putting them up. It had the dean of his school asking him to take a year off.

If you attended one of these demonstrations, like the March on Washington in 1963 that Sanders did, you risked tear gas, night sticks, arrest or worse.

Aug. 28, 1963 Military police line up at the Washington Monument prior to the March on Washington. Fearing violence from the event, 30 Army helicopters patrolled the skies, swooping low over the Reflecting Pool. Four thousand troops stood ready in the Washington suburbs, and 15,000 paratroopers were placed on standby in North Carolina.

John Lewis was told he had to tone his March on Washington speech down because it was too militant. They feared he'd spark a riot.

Despite the event being organized to be a nonviolent protest, authorities had set up crowd control measures out of fear of a riot breaking out. Military police lined the National Mall and dozens of Army helicopters patrolled the skies over the march. Nearly 6,000 police officers were on duty, as well as 2,000 men from the National Guard. Four thousand soldiers stood at the ready in the D.C. suburbs alone, and 15,000 paratroopers were on standby. The march took place without major incident, however.

Partly due to mistrust and partly due to risk in business or socially, there were not a lot of whites really standing up for blacks in 1962-3. The movement was growing but not there yet. So supporting them got you labeled things like "nigger-lover". About 1/4 of the people in the March on Washington were white. But I bet the vast majority didn't go to work the next day bragging about being at the demonstration. There were still a lot of prejudice people having trouble accepting it.

Actions have consequences. If you protest darn near anything, you're taking some sort of risk - particularly in the early 60s. To suggest Bernie didn't take risks is inaccurate and unfair. John Lewis and MLK took much bigger risks. It got MLK killed and for example, John Lewis was beaten by mobs as a Freedom Rider and in a protest for voting rights at Selma, the cops attacked them and fractured Lewis's skull here:

So to maintain perspective, Bernie actions were not as risky as the ones John Lewis took but he did take some risks standing up for the same cause.

February 12, 2016

I believe that if minorities knew the whole story about Bernie and Hillary,

the majority would handily support Bernie.

Yes, he fought for civil rights. But his fight for economic equality or fairness for minorities and those with low income or in poverty has been sincere and relentless his whole adult life.

Someone recently criticized Sanders for talking so much about criminal justice with respect to blacks. So I won't dwell on that here.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/183572/race-divides-views-race-relations-top-problem.aspx

The top problems that blacks saw facing the country in the latest quarter were race relations (13%) and unemployment (13%)

Other issues that are more glaring for blacks than for whites are crime and violence as well as poverty, homelessness and hunger. The latter may reflect that blacks have lower average incomes than whites and are more likely to be living in poverty. This is also consistent with a Gallup and Healthways finding that blacks are twice as likely as whites to report having struggled to afford food at least once in the previous 12 months.

Poverty in the US
Blacks 27%
Hispanic/Latino 25%
Other 15%
Whites 10%

Mean Household Income by Ethnicity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
Asian alone $90,752
White alone $79,340
Hispanic or Latino $54,644
Black $49,629

Who is getting the short end of the deal in the above charts?

A key to Sanders single payer is that it cover the 10% of Americans who do not have healthcare insurance. It is an economic benefit to those in poverty or with low income.

A key to Sanders free tuition for college is to give those students in poverty or with low family income hope that if they get through high school, they'll have a much better shot at a college education.

A key to Sanders $15/hr minimum wage is to reach out to those who cannot make ends meet because they're not being paid a living wage.

Sanders has complained that 51% of blacks who have graduated from high school do not have a job. He has talked about stimulating jobs by rebuilding infrastructure and efforts to develop clean energy. His plan to improve income inequality will also stimulate the economy and deliver more jobs because many more Americans will have more disposable income.

The race that benefits from Sanders policies most are blacks because they're the most in poverty and have the lowest average income. Latinos are next.

The next thing that needs some discussion is beyond that, for example, when jobs come available, how do we reach these unemployed black high school graduates and get them employed? Maybe some outreach to let them know there is help. Maybe training programs are needed to help finish the job of making them more employable. Maybe some career counseling, resume preparation or helping them sell themselves to the job market. I don't know as I'm not an expert in that area. Something like that to close the deal and help salvage the lives of those in need now - to meet the problem head on is needed.

Not only would Bernie be approachable on that, I think he'd do it.

February 12, 2016

No he wasn't arrested from this

This sit in was about segregation and discrimination in student living quarters that prohibited blacks living with whites (something like that)

I think it helped lead to the dean asking him to take time off school

Sanders was arrested while demonstrating for desegregated public schools in Chicago in 1962. (a different cause and protest related to civil rights)

February 12, 2016

Five of those photos in his second post

https://dektol.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/more-bernie-civil-rights-photos-found/


have him wearing a sweater/top and pants that look the same in the disputed photo.


The different shades are development or lighting

... a little more evidence ...