Gmak
Gmak's JournalOf course they would! The status quo, which Trump will continue without a ripple, is really all
they desire. I have watched and listened for 65 years to Dem politicians defend their not being able to enact progressive/liberal policies whether in power or out. There has essentially been no difference in their impotence whether Dems had the White House, one or both houses of Congress & a majority on the SC. Always some good excuse but I have a simmering contempt and abhorrence of almost all our so-called reps in Washington and at state level, as their own self-interest has corroded any idealism, public spirit, character they might have started with, or they just get worn down by the pervasive corruption. Which is why Bernie is such a phenomenon, a character so ironclad that 35 years of fighting for us has only made him more determined to change our world.
We need to rebuild the D party from the ground up, starting with the elections themselves, which are thoroughly corrupt. Machines flipping votes in Chicago and it's ignored. Not enough ballots printed and voters disenfranchised, nothing done and no remedy. Voters forced to share a polling place with 21,000 other voters and stand in line over 5 hours, legislature says tut tut, too bad. At a minimum, in IL alone, tens of thousands of voters were turned away in the primary due to deliberately printing too few ballots.
Hacker testifies in Congress how easy it is to change software in voting machines and then the sound of silence. I believe in blue states that the Dems skew the votes the same way it's done in red states. As witness the fact that exit polls were considered to be extremely accurate until machine voting became the rule. Now exit polls can be off 10 to 15%! Why otherwise wouldn't there be a huge outcry from the DNC and state parties to go back to paper ballots? Is it any wonder only 29% of voters identify as Dems?
Thanks to gerrymandering by both parties, most super delegates have safe seats and the lobbyists among them win either way. As long as they can still serve their corporate masters in some capacity, since if they lose office they become lobbyists or get appointed to a cabinet or agency post, then run for office again and their corporate sugar daddy kicks in and they win because they are better funded! Why the hell would they want anything in gov. to change?
Thomas Frank hit the nail on the head. Democrats now stand for staying the course as it benefits the professional classes, who really don't have the time or inclination to inquire into the welfare of their fellow citizens on the lower rungs of society, as they seldom encounter them. I like to say the secret slogan of Republicans is "I got mine, screw you". Unfortunately that can now be said about both parties, and Hillary is a neon-lit skyscraper-sized poster for that slogan, as is Drumpf. I have had a nagging suspicion ever since Trump announced that his function, possibly at the instigation of Bill Clinton, was to eliminate the R candidates that she might have trouble with, he wins the nomination, then throws the election and gets some giant secret perk from The Clinton Machine and his brand is definitely enhanced. I am old and won't live to see the fruits of the Revolution that Bernie is leading, but I have more hope for this country and our world, thanks to him, than I have in 40 years.
Interesting tidbit from 2008 NY Dem primary race...
...I copied this from a facebook post in We Want Bernie Sanders:
"Obama lost NY. This is far from over. Bernie still gathered a significant portion of the vote and delegates. Hope lives on!
Also, in 2008 the initial primary vote is quite interesting. Some areas showed "0" for Obama even in black neighborhoods. After the vote was retallied that figure changed drastically, though Clinton still won.
From Wikipedia: ""After the votes were initially counted on election night, certain districts near New York City were found to be missing their vote tallies for Obama.[2] The New York Times conducted a review of the unofficial results from the primary. They found that, among New York City's 6,106 election districts participating, 80 districts did not record a single vote for Obama, including heavily black districts like Harlem, as well as districts next to others where Obama had very favorable results. City election officials reviewed the vote tallies and found several inaccuracies. For example, in Harlem where Clinton led Obama 141 to 0, the recounted vote was counted as 261 to 136, Clinton.[3] In Brooklyn the primary night vote was 118 to 0, Clinton, whereas the recounted vote went 118 to 116, Clinton.[3]
Democratic leaders blamed the discrepancies on "human error" due to weary election officials on primary day. According to ABC News, however, other candidates such as John Edwards did not have this problem; it seemed to be almost exclusive to Obama.[4]"
Voter turnout caused our County Clerk to be threatened with impeachment.
I don't know if this happened anywhere else in IL, but our R county clerk only had enough ballots printed for a 30% turnout, altho the state regs say to be prepared for 110% of registered voters. He justified the decision saying there was a 23% primary turnout in 2012 and a 35% in 2008. The Dem ballots were gone b/4 noon, and the Rs in middle of the afternoon, as there was roughly a 60% voter turnout overall. We have 2 colleges in our small city, and wonder if that was a factor, tho almost all precincts ran short early. Have to believe Bernie was a factor, plus, as an open primary could have been crossover votes against Trump, as Kasich did well, and Cruz just slightly behind Trump in votes counted so far.
Lots of voters didn't get to vote at all, as they couldn't stay for the 4 to 5 HOURS, that it took for more ballots to be delivered to the precinct sites. A judge ruled that polls had to stay open til 8:30, but still that wasn't enough time for all to vote, plus the folks who had to leave w/o voting due to jobs or health issues. This was the CC's 1st presidential primary since being elected in 2014 and may be his last in office as there are calls for him to step down. The biggest local race was for State's Attorney, and that won't be officially decided until possibly March 28th, as the hurriedly printed ballots had smudges and couldn't be read by the electronic reader, so all those ballots have to be copied to real ballots by county election officials, then put through the reader.
IL has early voting, like 40 days of it, so I had voted for Bernie weeks ago, and reports were that the early voting was double or triple that of previous elections, so why was he not prepared for a larger voter turnout? Other than that he was trying to save money at ultimately the taxpayers expense. I haven't heard of other similar situations in neighboring counties yet.
All Repub. presidential candidates together had roughly 12,000 votes against 3300 for HRC and BS at this point. This is a 60+% senior citizen town, with a small professional class and lots of low wage retail & service workers. Newspaper, TV and radio stations all right-leaning. Local TV station calls the Washington Times their national reporters. Hate radio from dawn to dusk. Closest Bernie campaign office was in Springfield, the state capital, 2 hours away. The people I have talked to about politics this time have all liked what they know about Bernie, even tho they vote Republican, and vigorously dislike Hillary and are afraid of Trump. Did manage to get my neighbor who has never voted in a primary before to go out for Bernie!
Our local paper won't allow online readers unless you have a subscription.
Edited to add this link from today's issue of local Quincy Herald Whig.
http://www.whig.com/article/20160317/ARTICLE/303179787
UPDATE: on 3/18/16; IL Attorney General goes to appellate court to stop voting in Adams County
After a local judge ordered the County Clerk to allow people who were turned away at the polls last Tuesday, due to lack of ballots, to vote all of next week, Lisa Madigan, the AG, went to the ap. court in Springfield to stop the voting. The Adams County Clerk estimates that as many as 100 people at all 34 voting locations may have been prevented from voting. My daughter, who lives in one of the most prosperous & R supporting parts of town voted in the late afternoon, for Bernie, and had no problems, but in the poorest i.e. Dem. precincts, D ballots ran out mid-morning. Her boyfriend did not get to vote although he went back twice.
Madigan's argument sounds a little like Scalia's in Bush v Gore, in that the available vote totals have been published so allowing more voting would somehow compromise the results.
See article below for more details.
http://www.whig.com/article/20160318/ARTICLE/160319975#
Edit to change number of voting locations in the county to 34, as that's how TODAY'S edition of newspaper has it in their editorial.
Whenever I hear that Hillary is a strong candidate, I have to resist the urge
to scream or beat my head against the wall. How can anyone with a memory write such a thing! She tried to get in the forefront of every important initiative when Bill was president, but now, when some of those same policies have turned out to be disastrous, we are reminded that it was his job. Can't have it both ways, my dear, or at least we peons can't.
I may get in trouble with DU admin over this post, but I don't care. I don't come here to speak my mind or argue my point of view, as you can see from my profile, usually just read the latest and greatest and enjoy others, but today I need to say this.
So we want this same pair being the face of the Democratic party for another 4 to 8 year?! What are we? A monarchy? I admit that I have a store of bile for the Clintons and it comes from living and suffering through the Reagan and Bush 1 years, watching my city lose almost all of their good-paying union jobs, high school kids not being able to find after school jobs as family men and women had to take them, IBM laying off for the 1st time in their history, by the thousands, watching all the young people leaving for greener pastures so that now, we are mainly a town of senior citizens, and service workers, and having so much hope that some of the damage they had inflicted on the innocent and suffering in our society would be mitigated at last, only to watch in horror as some of the meanest, cruelest measures in terms of those most in need were enacted, because it helped their personal agendas. How she keeps the support of a majority of black voters just speaks to the power of corporate media propaganda. Wanting to hide in shame at Bill's shenanigans and knowing there will be media salivating to find more disgraceful behavior on his part.
She was a terrible candidate in 2008, arrogant, entitled, using dirty tactics against Obama, and revealing that she will say anything just to get elected. How is 2016 any different? She was a bad Sec. of State, in that it has been shown that she pushed Obama to take a more hawkish approach several times, as another sign of her bad judgment, or was it because of Clinton Foundation donations? She's on record as calling the Egypt's dictator Mubarak family friends. As a Senator, she did not introduce a single bill of consequence. Yes, I know she co-sponsored some. She has fawned at Wall Street's feet for, lo these many years, and taken an obscene amount of money from the very people who crashed the economy and will do it again! How do you reconcile that playing well in an anti-establishment year while millions still try to get by on several part-time jobs and live in fear of any illness that can't be cured with over-the-counter meds?
Her judgment is flawed in so many ways. Not least in that she really believes we owe her the presidency for all she has suffered over the years. Her handlers have not allowed her to speak to the reporters who travel with her every day for over 2 months.
In conclusion, she is a celebrity, so we should vote for her. The Donald is a celebrity too, by the way. Do you want to gamble on which one wins the popularity contest?
I attended a Bernie rally on my 78th birthday this week
I have been a political junkie for a number of years, reading and belonging to DU, but never posting (afraid of ridicule) and an avid supporter of Majority Report, among other podcasts and Internet sites of the Liberal persuasion, but always with a heavy heart as I could not convince myself that the plutocracy could be knocked off their perch.
Bernie has changed all that. Not just with the integrity he's shown during his time in politics, but the passion and conviction he exudes. And, I believe he is plainly the smartest and wisest choice out there. He states plainly that he can't do it alone, which Obama had to learn the hard way.
So, when I got an email notice that he would be appearing at a rally in Burlington Ia Sept. 3rd, an hour and a half away from my home in Quincy IL. I jumped at the chance to go. It was held at 7:30PM in a livestock arena at the county fairgrounds, which is a concrete floor, surrounded by a wooden fence with a roof suspended over all. No A/C, and no cooling breezes either.
I took a neighbor who had never heard of Bernie Sanders just a week previously. I had enlightened her of course, risking turning her off him by too much policy talk, but she was very impressed with his record and policy proposals. While I have never asked her about her politics, she is quite conservative by nature. And, my 22 year old grandson drove from Champaign IL, where he got his bachelor's degree this spring. I had encouraged him to learn about Bernie and I think he may apply for a job with his campaign soon. His degree is in political science.
We arrived at 6:30, just as the doors opened, and there were already a couple of hundred people there. Don't know the capacity of the space, but by the time Bernie arrived, all seats were full and a double row standing in the back. The temperature that day was somewhere above 90 degrees and the humidity about that number. Water was being handed out and we used our Bernie signs for fans. Attendees tended to be more young people in their 20s, but a generous supply of seniors too. My grandson said I was probably the oldest one there. Am sure the weather kept some at home.
Bernie was greeted with a standing cheer that was more of a roar. He was interrupted by applause with every statement, and brought people to their feet when talking about veterans care, Citizens' United, and unions. Burlington, like most of this area, has lost most all their good-paying union jobs. He spoke for an hour and 5 minutes, and tho it was supposed to be a townhall-type meeting, there were no questions. By the end of his speech, Bernie's shirt was damp from collar to belt, so don't believe any stuff you hear about him being too elderly for the Presidency. He was just as fervent and energetic at the end of the speech as at the beginning.
I feel really hopeful for our country for the first time in 30 years, since we unbelievably put Ronald Reagan in office. Previous Democratic candidates and officeholders have pretended to have the concerns of working people in the forefront, but somehow, even when we had majorities in Congress, could never quite overcome Republican obstruction, and the DLC types always ran things. It was truly unbelievable. I feel in my bones that Bernie is different!
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: Quincy, IL
Home country: USA
Current location: Quincy
Member since: Wed Jan 20, 2010, 03:28 PM
Number of posts: 88
