"... "Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win." ..."
"... And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world." ..."
"... The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy." ..."
"... Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis. ..."
"... By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another. ..."
"... George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy. ..."
"... Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake. ..."
"... "Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now." ..."
You can hear echoes of progressive realism in the statements of leading progressive
lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna. They have put ending
America's support for the Saudi war on Yemen near the top of the progressive foreign policy
agenda. On the stump, Sanders now singles out the military-industrial complex and the runaway
defense budget for criticism. He promises, among other things, that "we will not continue to
spend $700 billion a year on the military." These are welcome developments. Yet since November
of 2016, something else has emerged alongside the antiwar component of progressive foreign
policy that is not so welcome. Let's call it neoprogressive internationalism, or
neoprogressivism for short.
Trump's administration brought with it the Russia scandal. To attack the president and his
administration, critics revived Cold War attitudes. This is now part of the neoprogressive
foreign policy critique. It places an "authoritarian axis" at its center. Now countries ruled
by authoritarians, nationalists, and kleptocrats can and must be checked by an American-led
crusade to make the world safe for progressive values. The problem with this neoprogressive
narrative of a world divided between an authoritarian axis and the liberal West is what it will
lead to: ever spiraling defense budgets, more foreign adventures, more Cold Wars -- and hot
ones too.
Unfortunately, Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have adopted elements of the
neoprogressive program. At a much remarked upon address at Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri, the site of Churchill's 1946 address, Sanders put forth a vision of a Manichean
world. Instead of a world divided by the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Communism, Sanders sees a
world divided between right-wing authoritarians and the forces of progress embodied by American
and Western European progressive values.
"Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or
democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen
American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe,
including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to
win."
A year later, Sanders warned that the battle between the West and an "authoritarian axis"
which is "committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as
limiting their access to power and wealth." Sanders calls this "a global struggle of enormous
consequence. Nothing less than the future of the -- economically, socially and environmentally
-- is at stake."
Sanders's focus on this authoritarian axis is one that is shared with his intraparty rivals
at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank long funded by some of the least progressive
regimes on the planet), which he has pointedly criticized for smearing progressive Democrats
like himself. CAP issued a report last September about "the threat presented by opportunist
authoritarian regimes" which "urgently requires a rapid response."
The preoccupation with the authoritarian menace is one Sanders and CAP share with prominent
progressive activists who warn about the creeping influence of what some have cynically hyped
as an "authoritarian Internationale."
Cold War Calling
Senator Warren spelled out her foreign policy vision in a speech at American University in
November 2018. Admirably, she criticized Saudi Arabia's savage war on Yemen, the defense
industry, and neoliberal free trade agreements that have beggared the American working and
middle classes.
"Foreign policy," Warren has said, "should not be run exclusively by the Pentagon." In the
second round of the Democratic primary debates, Warren also called for a nuclear "no first use"
policy.
And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be
one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats
(Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt
capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here
in the United States and around the world."
Warren also sees a rising tide of corrupt authoritarians "from Hungary to Turkey, from the
Philippines to Brazil," where "wealthy elites work together to grow the state's power while the
state works to grow the wealth of those who remain loyal to the leader."
The concern with the emerging authoritarian tide has become a central concern of progressive
writers and thinkers. "Today, around the world," write progressive foreign policy activists
Kate Kinzer and Stephen Miles, "growing authoritarianism and hate are fueled by oligarchies
preying on economic, gender, and racial inequality."
Daniel Nexon, a progressive scholar of international relations, believes that "progressives
must recognize that we are in a moment of fundamental crisis, featuring coordination among
right-wing movements throughout the West and with the Russian government as a sponsor and
supporter."
Likewise, The Nation 's Jeet Heer lays the blame for the rise of global
authoritarianism at the feet of Vladimir Putin, who "seems to be pushing for an international
alt-right, an informal alliance of right-wing parties held together by a shared
xenophobia."
Blithely waving away concerns over sparking a new and more dangerous Cold War between the
world's two nuclear superpowers, Heer advises that "the dovish left shouldn't let Cold War
nightmares prevent them [from] speaking out about it." He concludes: "Leftists have to be ready
to battle [Putinism] in all its forms, at home and abroad."
The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU
professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian
school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute
power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom
of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy."
Likewise, we are seeing the emergence of an "authoritarian school" which posits that the
internal political dynamics of regimes such as Putin's cause them, ineffably, to follow
revanchist, expansionist foreign policies.
Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global
movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context,
history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian"
nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis.
By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the
neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and
neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence
that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies
allegedly don't fight wars against one another.
Yet as Richard Sakwa, a British scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe, writes, "it is often
assumed that Russia is critical of the West because of its authoritarian character, but it
cannot be taken for granted that a change of regime would automatically make the country align
with the West."
George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession
with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So
too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith
and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad
policy.
True, some of the economic trends voters in Europe and South America are reacting to are
global, but a diagnosis that links together the rise of Putin and Xi, the elections of Trump in
the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Kaczyński in Poland with the
right-wing insurgency movements of the Le Pens in France and Farage in the UK makes little
sense.
Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the
neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to
anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western
interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific
to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a
mistake.
Echoes of Neoconservatism
The progressive foreign policy organization Win Without War includes among its 10 foreign
policy goals "ending economic, racial and gender inequality around the world." The U.S.,
according to WWW, "must safeguard universal human rights to dignity, equality, migration and
refuge."
Is it a noble sentiment? Sure. But it's every bit as unrealistic as the crusade envisioned
by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, in which he declared, "The survival of
liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best
hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
We know full well where appeals to "universal values" have taken us in the past. Such
appeals are not reliable guides for progressives if they seek to reverse the tide of unchecked
American intervention abroad. But maybe we should consider whether it's a policy of realism and
restraint that they actually seek. Some progressive thinkers are at least honest enough
to admit as much that it is not. Nexon admits that "abandoning the infrastructure of American
international influence because of its many minuses and abuses will hamstring progressives for
decades to come." In other words, America's hegemonic ambitions aren't in and of themselves
objectionable or self-defeating, as long as we achieve our kind of hegemony. Progressive
values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake
the world in the American self-image.
"Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these
days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which
we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max
Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war
record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist
authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now."
Neoprogressivism, like neoconservatism, risks catering to the U.S. establishment's worst
impulses by playing on a belief in American exceptionalism to embark upon yet another global
crusade. This raises some questions, including whether a neoprogressive approach to the crises
in Ukraine, Syria, or Libya would be substantively different from the liberal interventionist
approach of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Does a neoprogressive foreign policy
organized around the concept of an "authoritarian axis" adequately address the concerns of
voters in the American heartland who disproportionately suffer from the consequences of our
wars and neoliberal economic policies? It was these voters, after all, who won the election for
Trump.
Donald Trump's failure to keep his campaign promise to bring the forever wars to a close
while fashioning a new foreign policy oriented around core U.S. national security interests
provides Democrats with an opportunity. By repeatedly intervening in Syria, keeping troops in
Afghanistan, kowtowing to the Israelis and Saudis, ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela, Iran,
Russia, and China, Trump has ceded the anti-interventionist ground he occupied when he ran for
office. He can no longer claim the mantle of restraint, a position that found support among
six-in-ten Americans in 2016.
Yet with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, for the most part the Democratic field is offering
voters a foreign policy that amounts to "Trump minus belligerence." A truly progressive foreign
policy must put questions of war and peace front and center. Addressing America's post 9/11
failures, military overextension, grotesquely bloated defense budget, and the ingrained
militarism of our political-media establishment are the proper concerns of a progressive U.S.
foreign policy.
But it is one that would place the welfare of our own citizens above all. As such, what is
urgently required is the long-delayed realization of a peace dividend. The post-Cold War peace
dividend that was envisioned in the early 1990s never materialized. Clinton's secretary of
defense Les Aspin strangled the peace dividend in its crib by keeping the U.S. military on a
footing that would allow it to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously. Unipolar
fantasies of "full spectrum dominance" would come later in the decade.
One might have reasonably expected an effort by the Obama administration to realize a
post-bin Laden peace dividend, but the forever wars dragged on and on. In a New Yorker profile
from earlier this year, Sanders asked the right question: "Do we really need to spend more than
the next ten nations combined on the military, when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids
can't afford to go to college?"
The answer is obvious. And yet, how likely is it that progressives will be able realize
their vision of a more just, more equal American society if we have to mobilize to face a
global authoritarian axis led by Russia and China?
FDR's Good Neighbor Policy
The unipolar world of the first post-Cold War decade is well behind us now. As the world
becomes more and more multipolar, powers like China, Russia, Iran, India, and the U.S. will
find increasing occasion to clash. A peaceful multipolar world requires stability. And
stability requires balance.
In the absence of stability, none of the goods progressives see as desirable can take root.
This world order would put a premium on stability and security rather than any specific set of
values. An ethical, progressive foreign policy is one which understands that great powers have
security interests of their own. "Spheres of influence" are not 19th century anachronisms, but
essential to regional security: in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere.
It is a policy that would reject crusades to spread American values the world over. "The
greatest thing America can do for the rest of the world," George Kennan once observed, "is to
make a success of what it is doing here on this continent and to bring itself to a point where
its own internal life is one of harmony, stability and self-assurance."
Progressive realism doesn't call for global crusades that seek to conquer the hearts and
minds of others. It is not bound up in the hoary self-mythology of American Exceptionalism. It
is boring. It puts a premium on the value of human life. It foreswears doing harm so that good
may come. It is not a clarion call in the manner of John F. Kennedy who pledged to "to pay any
price, bear any burden." It does not lend itself to the cheap moralizing of celebrity
presidential speechwriters. In ordinary language, a summation of such a policy would go
something like: "we will bear a reasonable price as long as identifiable U.S. security
interests are at stake."
A policy that seeks to wind down the global war on terror, slash the defense budget, and
shrink our global footprint won't inspire. It will, however, save lives. Such a policy has its
roots in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address. "In the field of World policy,"
said Roosevelt, "I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor
who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the
neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a
World of neighbors."
What came to be known as the "Good Neighbor" policy was further explicated by FDR's
Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Montevideo Conference in 1933, when he stated that "No
country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Historian
David C. Hendrickson sees this as an example of FDR's principles of "liberal pluralism," which
included "respect for the integrity and importance of other states" and "non-intervention in
the domestic affairs of neighboring states."
These ought to serve as the foundations on which to build a truly progressive foreign
policy. They represent a return to the best traditions of the Democratic Party and would likely
resonate with those very same blocs of voters that made up the New Deal coalition that the
neoliberal iteration of the Democratic Party has largely shunned but will sorely need in order
to unseat Trump. And yet, proponents of a neoprogressive foreign policy seem intent on running
away from a popular policy of realism and restraint on which Trump has failed to deliver.
James W. Carden is contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation and a
member of the Board of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.
Alligator Ed
on Wed, 12/25/2019 - 11:02pm After bravely contesting a nomination she knows she cannot
win, Tulsi Gabbard has and continues to exhibit a tenacious adherence to achievement of
purpose. What is that purpose? I believe it is evident if you only let your eyes see and your
ears hear. Listen to what she says. Looks at what she does.
What this does is obvious. However, please forgive me if I proceed to explain the meaning.
People see what apparently is her home milieu. I've been to Filipino homes for dinner as many
of my nurse friends were Filipino. Tulsi is so human. Despite Hindu belief, she is respectful
to the presence and perhaps the essence of Jesus, and does not sound pandering or
hypocritical.
Getting to know Tulsi at the beginning of her hoped-for (by me) political ascendancy. Get in
on almost the ground floor of what will become an extremely powerful force in future American
life.
Why? What's the hurry?
The more support and the earlier Tulsi receives it propel the campaign. That's what momentum
means: a self-generating growing strength.
One doesn't have to be a Tulsi supporter to hopefully receive some ideas which may not have
occurred to you. This essay does not concern any specific Gabbard policy. What I write here is
what I perceive of her character and thus her selected path. Mind-reading, perhaps. Arm-chair
speculation, possibly.
Tulsi has completed phase 2A in her career. The little that I know of her early life,
especially politically (such as how she voted in HI state legislature) limits a deep
understanding which such knowledge would provide. As the tree is bent, etc.
Phase 1A: youth, formative years, military
Phase 1B: state legislature
Phase 1C: Congress
Phase 2B and possibly subsequent: interim between Congress and Presidential campaigning with
realistic chance of victory.
We are in Phase 2B. Tulsi, as I wrote in another essay, is letting the tainted shroud of
Democrat corruption fall off her shoulders without any effort of her own. The Democrat party is
eating itself alive. It is all things to all people at once. That is a philosophy incapable of
satisfaction.
Omni Democraticorundum in tres partes est (pardon the reference to the opening of Caesar's
Gallic Wars, with liberal substitution by me).
The Dems trifurcate and the division will be neither pleasant nor reconcilable. Tribalism
will be reborn after Trump crushes whomever in 2020.
Tribe one: urban/techno/überkinden.
Tribe two: leftward bound to a place where no politician has ever ventured. Not socialism.
Not Communism. We could call it Fantasy Land, although I fear Disney owns that name.
Tribe three: progressive realists. By using such positive wording, you will correctly
suspect my bias as to which Tribe I belong to.
Once again, policy will not be discussed. Only strategy and reality. Can't have good
strategy without a good grasp of reality. This is why Establidems are bereft of thematic
variability. For the past 3.3 years, they have been singing from a hymn book containing but one
song. You know the title. Orange Man Bad. Yeah, that's it. If they don't like that
title, we establidems have another song for ya. It's called Orange Man Bad. Like that
one, huh? Wazzat, ya didn't like the song the first time. Hey, we thought the song would grown
on you.
Them Dems, noses up, can't see the sidewalk. Oops. Stepped in something there, huh? Oh, yeah
like the Impeachment.
But I digress: The latter part of Phase 2B is not clear. Tulsi will continue to accept small
donor contributions, even after not obtaining the nomination next year. Public appearances will
be important but should be low key with little press attention. Press attention is something
however that won't be available when most desirable. What else Tulsi will do may be to form a
nucleus of like-minded activists, thinkers, and other supporters to promote an agenda for a
more liberal, tolerant society.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be subjected to
the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches. That includes an
examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked well for anyone,"
Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only two
things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about a
month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye towards
Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point memos,
have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape survivors. Of
course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it ain't
Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have pretty much
completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable? Not for me.
Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last go round absent a
Bernie miracle.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be
subjected to the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches.
That includes an examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked
well for anyone," Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only
two things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
@Wally
She might back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about
a month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye
towards Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point
memos, have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape
survivors. Of course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it
ain't Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have
pretty much completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable?
Not for me. Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last
go round absent a Bernie miracle.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she never
and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy record
regarding domestic affairs.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she
never and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy
record regarding domestic affairs.
@Alligator
Ed@Alligator
Ed be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would feel
comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone but
Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a Neutral
Party.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
@wokkamile
Her dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
#2.1.1.1.1.1
#2.1.1.1.1.1 be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would
feel comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last
time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone
but Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a
Neutral Party.
Don't forget that 15% state threshold for eligibility to be awarded delegates.
#2.1.1.1.1.1.2 Her
dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
I will be surprised if Tulsi gets so much as one delegate.
More than a few knowledgeable people think he has a very good shot of winning California.
I am less optimistic about NYS but I think he will do well enough to get a good number of
delegates especially if he does well in the earlier primaries (NYS comes April 28).
I don't feel solidly about making any kind of predictions at this point but given the
nature of the Democratic Party, I don't see it as falling into oblivion anytime soon or in
our lifetimes.
As far as Bernie goes, I am not optimistic but I still have some hope. I still fervantly
believe that his candidacy is the best chance we will have in our lifetimes of bringing about
any substantial change -- and if he and his critical mass of supporters can't pull it off
this time around, we're all phluckled big time, even alligators, in terms of combating
climate change and putting a kabosh on endless wars. I wish you good future luck with Tulsi
though. I just don't see it. But I've been wrong on more than one occasion in my life.
Congress' constitutional duty is putting Israel first!
House Dems Unanimously Vote to Condemn Withdrawal From Syria - Oct 16, 2019
In a Wednesday vote, the House overwhelmingly backed a resolution expressing opposition to
the end of the US war in Syria, and calling on the US to protect the Syrian Kurds from
Turkey. The vote was 354-60, with the majority of Republicans supporting it, and unanimous
support from Democrats who cast votes .
Positions from Democrat leaders suggested an unconditional opposition to Trump ending
any war and withdrawing any troops under any circumstances. They also objected to the
notion that a president could end a war without their permission .
I don't think Warren is a stalking horse for neoliberalism or whatever, but her inability
to fight back against bad press (combined with her occasional baffling decisions to give
herself bad press) is a big mark against her candidacy. There will be bad press for either of
them.
Trump can be impeached as a war criminal just for his false flag Douma attack (along with
members of his administration). But Neoliberal Dems and frst of all Pelosi are war criminals too,
with Pelosi aiding and abetting war criminal Bush.
So this is a variation of the theme of Lavrentiy Beria most famous quote: "Show me a
man and I will find you a crime"
I think tose neolib Dems who supported impeachment disqualified themselves from the running.
That includes Warren, who proved to be a very weak, easily swayed politician. It is quote
probably that they increased (may be considerably) chances of Trump reelection, but pushing
independents who were ready to abandon him, back into Trump camp. Now Trump is able to present
himself as a victim of neoliberal Dems/neocons witch hunt.
The only real check left is impeachment. It is rarely invoked and (until very recently) has
atrophied as a credible threat. But that doesn't make it any less
indispensable.
The problem was exacerbated by the Clinton impeachment fiasco, which history has proved
foolhardy. (I supported it at the time, but I was a government lawyer then, not a public
commentator.) Republicans were sufficiently spooked by the experience that they seemed to
regard impeachment as obsolete. Faithless Execution countered that this was the wrong
lesson to take from the affair. Clinton's impeachment was a mistake because (a) his conduct,
though disgraceful and indicative of unfitness, did not implicate the core responsibilities of
the presidency; and more significantly, (b) the public, though appalled by the behavior,
strongly opposed Clinton's removal. The right lesson was that impeachment must be reserved for
grave misconduct that involves the president's essential Article II duties; and that because
impeachment is so deeply divisive, it should never be launched in the absence of a public
consensus that transcends partisan lines.
This is why, unlike many opponents of President Trump's impeachment, I have never questioned
the legitimacy of the Democratic-controlled House's investigations of misconduct allegations
against the president. I believe the House must act as a body (investigations should not be
partisan attacks under the guise of House inquiries), and it must respect the lawful and
essential privileges of the executive branch; but within those parameters, Congress has the
authority and responsibility to expose executive misconduct.
Moreover, while egregious misconduct will usually be easy to spot and grasp, that will not
always be the case. When members of Congress claim to see it, they should have a fair
opportunity to expose and explain it. To my mind, President Obama was the kind of chief
executive that the Framers feared, but this was not obvious because he was not committing
felonies. Instead, he was consciously undermining our constitutional order. He usurped the
right to dictate law rather than execute it. His extravagant theory of executive discretion to
"waive" the enforcement of laws he opposed flouted his basic constitutional duty to execute the
laws faithfully. He and his underlings willfully and serially deceived Congress and the public
on such major matters as Obamacare and the Benghazi massacre. They misled Congress on, and
obstructed its investigation of, the outrageous Fast and Furious "gun-walking" operation, in
connection with which a border patrol agent was murdered. With his Iran deal, the president
flouted the Constitution's treaty process and colluded with a hostile foreign power to withhold
information from Congress, in an arrangement that empowered (and paid cash ransom to) the
world's leading sponsor of anti-American terrorism.
My critics fairly noted that I opposed Obama politically, and therefore contended that I was
masquerading as a constitutional objection what was really a series of policy disputes. I don't
think that is right, though, for two reasons.
First, my impeachment argument was not that Obama was pursuing policies I deeply opposed. I
was very clear that elections have consequences, and the president had every right to press his
agenda. My objection was that he was imposing his agenda lawlessly, breaking the limitations
within which the Framers cabined executive power, precisely to prevent presidents from becoming
tyrants. If allowed to stand, Obama precedents would permanently alter our governing framework.
Impeachment is there to protect our governing framework.
Second, I argued that, my objections notwithstanding, Obama should not be impeached in the
absence of a public consensus for his removal. Yes, Republicans should try to build that case,
try to edify the public about why the president's actions threatened the Constitution and its
separation of powers. But they should not seek to file articles of impeachment simply because
they could -- i.e., because control of the House theoretically gave them the numbers to do it.
The House is not obliged to file impeachment articles just because there may be impeachable
conduct. Because impeachment is so divisive, the Framers feared that it could be triggered on
partisan rather than serious grounds. The two-thirds supermajority requirement for Senate
conviction guards against that: The House should not impeach unless there is a reasonable
possibility that the Senate would remove -- which, in Obama's case, there was not.
I also tried to focus on incentives. If impeachment were a credible threat, and Congress
began investigating and publicly exposing abuses, a sensible president would desist in the
misconduct, making it unnecessary to proceed with impeachment. On the other hand, a failed
impeachment effort would likely embolden a rogue president to continue abusing power. If your
real concern is executive lawlessness, then impeaching heedlessly and against public opinion
would be counterproductive.
I've taken the same tack with President Trump.
The objections to Trump are very different from those to Obama. He is breaking not laws but
norms of presidential behavior and decorum. For the most part, I object to this. There are lots
of things about our government that need disruption, but even disruptive presidents should be
mindful that they hold the office of Washington and Lincoln and aspire to their dignity, even
if their greatness is out of reach.
That said, impeachment is about serious abuse of the presidency's core powers, not behavior
that is intemperate or gauche. Critics must be mindful that the People, not the pundits, are
sovereign, and they elected Donald Trump well aware of his flaws. That he turns out to be as
president exactly what he appeared to be as a candidate is not a rationale for impeaching
him.
The president's misconduct on Ukraine is small potatoes. Democrats were right to expose it,
and we would be dealing with a more serious situation if the defense aid appropriated by
Congress had actually been denied, rather than inconsequentially delayed. If Democrats had
wanted to make a point about discouraging foreign interference in American politics
(notwithstanding their long record of encouraging it), that would have been fine. They could
have called for the president's censure, which would have put Republicans on the defensive.
Ukraine could have been incorporated as part of their 2020 campaign that Trump should be
defeated, despite a surging economy and relative peace.
Conducting an impeachment inquiry is one thing, but for the House to take the drastic step
of impeaching the president is abusive on this record. Yes, it was foolish of Trump to mention
the Bidens to President Zelensky and to seek Ukraine's help in investigating the Bidens. There
may well be corruption worth probing, but the president ought to leave that to researchers in
his campaign. If there is something that a government should be looking into, leave that to the
Justice Department, which can (and routinely does) seek foreign assistance when necessary. The
president, however, should have stayed out of it. Still, it is absurd to posit, as Democrats
do, that, by not staying out of it, the president threatened election integrity and U.S.
national security. Such outlandish arguments may make Ukraine more of a black eye for Democrats
than for the president.
But whoever ultimately bears the brunt of the impeachment push, I have to ask myself a hard
question: Is this the world I was asking for when I wrote a book contending that, for our
system to work as designed, impeachment has to be a credible threat? I don't think so . . . but
I do worry about it.
Back to the Clinton impeachment. I tried to make the point that that impeachment effort --
against public opinion, and based on misconduct that, while dreadful, was not central to the
presidency -- has contributed significantly to the poisonous politics we have today. Democrats
have been looking for payback ever since, and now they have it -- in a way that is very likely
to make impeachment more routine in the future.
I don't see how our constitutional system can work without a viable impeachment remedy. But
I may have been wrong to believe that we could be trusted to invoke the remedy responsibly. I
used to poke fun at pols who would rather hide under their desks than utter the dreaded I-word.
Turns out they knew something I didn't.
"Change we can believe in" the second series ? That's a real warning sign ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and Buttigieg. ..."
"... as the neoliberal corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking ship .. ..."
So, the fact that Obama is willing to put in a good word for Warren on behalf of the
wealthy elite should give you a clue as to which side Warren is really on. While many
non-political "normies" look upon the Obama years with rose-tinted glasses, I wonder if the
disillusionment that many people had in retrospect with Obama has sunk in to mainstream
political consciousness yet. If that is the case, an Obama endorsement might actually
backfire among progressives, seeing as how it has become evident that Obama was basically a
silver-tongued neoliberal in the same mold as Clinton and Pelosi.
I know that Warren is a political careerist at heart, but I was willing to give her the
benefit of the doubt when she first launched her 2020 presidential campaign. However, it has
become increasingly clear that she has hitched her wagon to the wrong horse as the neoliberal
corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking ship. I honestly do not
think that she would even be fit to be Sander's vice presidential pick at this point
considering how wide the political gulf between Warren and Sanders actually is. A better
choice would be Nina Turner as Sander's running mate, with Tulsi Gabbard as his Secretary of
State if he gets that far.
My guess is that this is why he's working behind the scenes, minimizing the chances of a
backfire on the left. Of course, how behind-the-scenes is it if it's reported by Politico?
Still.
I'm actually undecided on Warren. There was that story last week about her supposedly
pushing Hillary in 2016 to name decent people to her cabinet if elected. But then you have to
ask why that particular story surfaced at the particular time when Warren was sinking in the
polls.
If true, though, and if what the new Politico story says about her clashes with Obama are
true, maybe Warren isn't quite as objectionable as we tend to think. Then again, she came
right out last week (I believe) and said Medicare for All would be a matter of choice under
her plan, emphasizing that "choice" factor.
So I'm confused. But maybe that's what she, her campaign and various surrogates want at
this stage.
It starts with an ambitious goal: consistent with the objectives of the Green New Deal,
the Pentagon should achieve net zero carbon emissions for all its non-combat bases and
infrastructure by 2030.
having the pentagon 'lead the fight' against climate change is akin to appointing prince
andrew as head of the global task force against pedophilia and child trafficking.
A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like
Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's
finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and
Buttigieg.
A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like
Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's
finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and
Buttigieg.
Buttigieg takes no votes from Sanders. While Warren does on the margins. I think Obama's
calculation is simple as that. She also has special appeal to the virtue signaling liberals
that are Obama's base.
as the neoliberal corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking
ship ..
Bingo. Trump's letter goes right to the heart of it. These clowns are completely exposed
and Obama hawking Warren to donors while the blob talks up a gay McKinsey/CIA Indiana Mayor
shows just how far they have fallen.
It would be impossible for Trump to re-energize his base in any other way. Pelosi acts as
covert agent for Trump re-election? Peloci calculation that she can repar "Mueller effect" of
2018 with this impeachment proved to be gross miscalculation.
Warren who stupidly and enthusiastically jumped into this bandwagon will be hurt. She is such
a weak politician that now it looks like she does not belong to the club. Still in comparison
with Trump she might well be an improvement as she has Trump-like economic program, which Trump
betrayed and neutered. And her foreign policy can't be worse then Trump foreign policy. It is
just impossible.
I am convinced that the Dems are not actually interested or focused on defeating Trump, or
they would adopt an effective strategy. The question I keep wrestling with is, what is the point
to the strategy that is so ineffective?
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water, by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump. ..."
"... fake impeachment procedure ..."
"... For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be what makes for a successful impeachment. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they deserve whatever they believe'. ..."
"... little else can explain the reasoning behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.". ..."
"... "We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy, angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes president. ..."
"... He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy – the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins." ..."
"... We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of the stigma of impeachment. ..."
And so it came to pass, that in the deep state's frenzy of
electoral desperation, the 'impeachment' card was played. The hammer has fallen. Nearly the
entirety of the legacy media news cycle has been dedicated to the details, and not really
pertinent details, but the sorts of details which presume the validity of the charges against
Trump in the first place. Yes, they all beg the question. What's forgotten here is that the use
of this process along clearly partisan lines, and more – towards clearly partisan aims
– is a very serious symptom of the larger undoing of any semblance of stability in the US
government.
The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water,
by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent
to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the
Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar
patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump.
Only in a country that produces so much fake news at the official level, could there be a
fake impeachment procedure made purely for media consumption, with no real or tangible
possible victory in sight.
For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment
possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This
would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term
Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would
reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be
what makes for a successful impeachment.
Don't forget, this impeachment is fake
Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they
deserve whatever they believe'. And her aim appears to be the one who makes them believe
things so that they deserve what she gives them. For little else can explain the reasoning
behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has
assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the
same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill
so that you can find out what is in it.".
In both cases, reality is turned on its head – for rather we will know how the Senate
intends to conduct its procedure as soon as it has the details, which substantively includes
the impeachment documents themselves, in front of them, and likewise, legislators ought to know
what's in a major piece of legislation before they vote either way on it. Pelosi's assault on
reason, however, isn't without an ever growing tide of resentment from within the progressive
base of the party itself.
We have quickly entered into a new era which increasingly resembles the broken political
processes which have struck many a country, but none in living memory a country like the US.
Now elected officials push judges to prosecute their political opponents, constitutional crises
are manufactured to pursue personal or political vendettas, death threats and rumors of coups
coming from media and celebrities being fed talking points by big and important players from
powerful institutions.
This 'impeachment' show really takes the cake, does it not? We will recall shortly after
Trump was elected, narrator for hire Morgan Freeman made a shocking public service
announcement. It was for all intents and purposes, a PSA notifying the public that a military
coup to remove Trump would be legitimate and in order. Speaking about this PSA, and recounting
what was said, would in any event read as an exaggeration, or some allegorical paraphrasing
made to prove a point. Jogging our memories then, Freeman spoke to tens of millions of viewers
on television and YouTube
saying :
"We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy,
angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of
the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes
president.
He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy
– the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to
attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false
information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their
political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins."
This really set the tone for the coming years, which have culminated in this manufactured
'impeachment' crisis, really befitting a banana republic.
It would be the height of dishonesty to approach this abuse of the impeachment procedure as
if until this moment, the US's own political culture and processes were in good shape. Now
isn't the time for the laundry list of eroded constitutional provisions, which go in a thousand
and one unique directions. The US political system is surely broken, but as is the case with
such large institutions several hundreds of years old, its meltdown appears to happen in slow
motion to us mere mortals. And so what we are seeing today is the next phase of this
break-down, and really ought to be understood as monumental in this sense. Once again revealed
is the poor judgment of the Democratic Party and their agents, tools, warlords, and
strategists, the same gang who sunk Hillary Clinton's campaign on the rocks of hubris.
Nancy Pelosi also has poor judgment, and these short-sighted and self-interested moves on
her part stand a strong chance of backfiring. Her role in this charade is duly noted. This
isn't said because of any disagreement over her aims, but rather that in purely objective terms
it just so happens that her aims and her actions are out of synch – that is unless she
wants to see Trump re-elected. Her aims are her aims, our intention is to connect these to
their probable results, without moral judgments.
The real problem for the Democrats, the DNC, and any hopes for the White House in 2020, is
that this all has the odor of a massive backfire, and something that Trump has been counting on
happening. When one's opponent knows what is probable, and when they have a track record for
preparing very well for such, it is only a question of what Trump's strategy is and
how this falls into it, not whether there is one.
Imagine being a fly on the wall of the meeting with Pelosi where it was decided to go
forward with impeachment in the House of Representatives, despite not having either sufficient
traction in the Senate or any way to control the process that the Senate uses.
It probably went like this: ' We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say
he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of
the stigma of impeachment. '
Informed citizens are aware that whatever their views towards Trump, nothing he has done
reaches beyond the established precedent set by past presidents. Confused citizens on the other
hand, are believing the manufactured talking points thrown their way, and the idea that a US
president loosely reference a quid pro quo in trying to sort a corruption scandal in dealings
with the president of a foreign country, is some crazy, new, never-before-done and
highly-illegal thing. It is none of those things though.
Unfortunately, not needless to say, the entirety of the direct, physical evidence against
Trump solely consists of the now infamous transcript of the phone call which he had with
Ukrainian president Zelensky. The rest is hearsay, a conspiracy narrative, and entirely
circumstantial. As this author has noted in numerous pieces, Biden's entire candidacy rests
precisely upon his need to be a candidate so that any normal investigation into the wrongdoings
of himself or his son in Ukraine, suddenly become the targeted persecution of a political
opponent of Trump.
Other than this, it is evident that Biden stands little chance – the same polling
institutions which give him a double-digit lead were those which foretold a Clinton electoral
victory. Neither their methods nor those paying and publishing them, have substantively
changed. Biden's candidacy, like the impeachment, is essentially fake. The real contenders for
the party's base are Sanders and Gabbard.
The Democratic Party Activist Base Despises Pelosi as much as Clinton
The Democratic Party has two bases, one controlled by the DNC and the Clintons, and one
which consists of its energized rank-and-file activists who are clearer in their populism,
anti-establishment and ant-corporate agenda. Candidates like Gabbard and Sanders are closest to
them politically, though far from perfect fits. Their renegade status is confirmed by the
difficulties they have with visibility – they are the new silent majority of the party.
The DNC base, on the other hand, relies on Rachel Maddow, Wolf Blitzer, and the likes for their
default talking points, where they have free and pervasive access to legacy media. In the
context of increased censorship online, this is not insignificant.
Among the important reasons this 'impeachment' strategy will lose is that it will not
energize the second and larger base. Even though this more progressive and populist base is
also more motivated, they have faced – as has the so-called alt-light – an
extraordinarily high degree of censorship on social media. Despite all the censorship, the
Democrats' silent majority are rather well-informed people, highly motivated, and tend to be
vocal in their communities and places of work. Their ideas move organically and virally among
the populace.
This silent majority has a very good memory, and they know very well who Nancy Pelosi is,
and who she isn't.
The silent majority remembers that after years of the public backlash against Bush's war
crimes, crimes against humanity, destruction of remaining civil liberties with the Patriot Act,
torture, warrantless search – and the list goes on and on – Democrats managed to
retake the lower house in 2006. If there was a legitimate reason for an impeachment, it would
have been championed by Pelosi against Bush for going to war using false, falsified,
manufactured evidence about WMD in Iraq. At the time, Pelosi squashed the hopes of her own
electorate, reasoning that such moves would be divisive, that they would distract from the
Democrats' momentum to take the White House in '08, that Bush had recently (?) won his last
election, and so on. Of course these were real crimes, and the reasons not to prosecute may
have as much to do with Pelosi's own role in the war industry. Pelosi couldn't really push
against Bush over torture, etc. because she had been on an elite congressional committee
– the House Intelligence Committee – during the Bush years in office which starting in
2003 was dedicated to making sure that torture could and would become normalized and
entirely legal.
It seems Pelosi can't even go anywhere with this impeachment on Trump today, and therefore
doesn't even really plan to submit it to the Senate for the next stage .
The political stunt was pulled, a fireworks show consisting of one lonely rocket that sort of
fizzled off out of sight.
Trump emerges unscathed, and more to the point, we are closer to the election and his base
is even more energized. Pelosi spent the better part of three years inoculating the public
against any significance being attached to any impeachment procedure. Pelosi cried wolf so many
times, and Trump has made good on the opportunities handed to him to get his talking points in
order and to condition his base to receive and process the scandals in such and such way. This
wouldn't have been possible without Pelosi's help. Thanks in part to Pelosi and the DNC, Trump
appears primed for re-election.
Trump energizes his base, and the DNC suppresses and disappoints theirs. That's where the
election will be won or lost.
Where is AOC in all this? She was the prime mover on impeachment, specifically impeachment
over a phone call rather than concentration camps and genocide.
And now with impeachment she gave Pelosi cover to sell the country out again.
I was wondering why many libreral centrists were expreasing admiration for her, a
socialist. Maybe they recognized something?
"Prime mover"? What planet are you from? They were Schiff, Nadler, and Pelosi. Did you
miss that Russiagate was in motion while AOC was still tending bar? AOC isn't even on any of
the key committees (Judiciary and Intel).
I shouldn't have said THE prime mover, but ONE OF the prime movers in the House in
actually pushing it over the line against Pelosi's opposition. It seems like the House Dem
consensus ever since Russiagate was just to tease their base with it and milk the suspense
for all it was worth, until AOC, among others, rallied the base.
There were other reps who pushed for impeachment, but AOC has one of the biggest platforms
and crucially, expanded popular support for impeachment outside the MSNBC crowd. So yes, a
key figure in the political/PR effort to move from conspiracy theories to actual
impeachment.
"AOC is one of the highest-profile members of Congress and she blasted Pelosi for
resisting impeachment since May."
Liz Warren is the one who made it a part of her campaign before anyone else. Rashida
Tlaib was the one who made t-shirt with her "impeach the mf'er" quote on it. A lot of them
were "blasting" Pelosi for dithering. AOC also "blasted" her for giving ICE more money and a
lot of their things .
Your central focus on AOC for the impeachment fiasco while ignoring her active role in
spotlighting so many other issues of importance which no one else speaks about is
interesting. Did you catch any of her speaking at the Sanders rally in LA today? Any other
"high profile" Dems pushing such important issues and campaigns?
Thanks for this comment. I don't trust *any of them* except Sanders, but AOC has been
making more good noises than bad, and to claim that it was she who's been driving Pelosi to
impeachment is quite a stretch. Poor, helpless/hapless Rep. Pelosi sure.
Pelosi has repeatedly stared down the progressives in the House. The overwhelming majority
of the freshmen reps are what used to be called Blue Dogs, as in corporate Dems. AOC making
noise on this issue would not move Pelosi any more than it has on other issues.
IMHO Pelosi didn't try to tamp down Russiagate, and that created expectations that
Something Big would happen. Plus she lives in the California/blue cities bubble.
What Dem donors think matters to her way more than what AOC tweets about. If anything,
Pelosi (secondarily, I sincerely doubt this would be a big issue in her calculus) would view
impeachment as a way to reduce the attention recently given to progressive issues like single
payer and student debt forgiveness.
"... My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden. ..."
"... Amfortas the hippie , December 21, 2019 at 5:40 pm ..."
"... that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday, again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides. ..."
"... "let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from whats really important " ..."
"... Hepativore , December 21, 2019 at 6:49 pm ..."
"... Happy winter Solstice, everyone! ..."
"... Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure to stop Sanders at all costs. ..."
Please bone up on US procedure. It's not good to have you confuse readers.
The Senate can't do anything until the House passes a motion referring the impeachment to
the Senate. The House ALSO needs to designate managers as part of that process.
Michael
Tracey argued that it's only Senate rules that require that the House formally transmit
the impeachment verdict. The Constitution says that the Senate has to try an impeached
president, and the Constitution trumps the Senate's rules. Logically, then, the Senate could
just modify its rules to try the president.
But the whole delay is weird and impeachment has only been done twice before, so not a lot
of precedent.
My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as
to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden.
that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday,
again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides.
"let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from
whats really important "
Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a
one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence
of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure
to stop Sanders at all costs. Plus, if the Democrats get the brokered convention they
are after, he can bow out, satisfied that he helped the DNC protect the donor class from the
Sanders threat.
Mark Galli, its current editor (who is leaving the publication in two weeks)
takes on Trump directly -- a courageous move on his part, as his magazine has largely been
apolitical. "The facts in this instance are unambiguous: the president of the United States
attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of
the president's political opponents," Galli writes. He draws the obvious conclusion for
Christians: "That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is
profoundly immoral." Galli goes further, digging into the behavior of the man in the Oval
Office, noting that Trump "has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration." He gets
specific: "He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals." As if
that wasn't enough, Galli adds, "He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his
relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone -- with its
habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders -- is a near perfect example of a
human being who is morally lost and confused." Galli's warning to Christians is clear. "To the
many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we
might say this: remember who you are and whom you serve," Galli writes. "Consider how your
justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an
unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump's immoral words and behavior
in the cause of political expediency. If we don't reverse course now, will anyone take anything
we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?" Galli also
acknowledged Friday in an interview on CNN's "New Day" that his stand is unlikely to shake
loose Trump's strong hold on this voter segment, a crucial portion of his political base.
Galli's move is even more admirable when you consider that he published his editorial even
knowing that, as he said in his interview, he's not optimistic that his editorial will alter
Trump's support among white evangelicals. It's not a stretch to say that white evangelicals put
Trump into office in 2016. About
80% of them voted for him. They did so because of the abortion issue, mostly. They wanted
pro-life judges throughout the justice system. But this was a devil's bargain, at best.
<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us"
src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg">Faith
could bring us together. But too often it divides us Younger evangelicals, those under 45,
have been slowly but steadily
moving away from Trump during the past two years or so, unhappy about his example. A key
topic that has driven them away is immigration. Loving your neighbor as yourself has always
been a bedrock Christian value. And Trump's stance on immigrants (especially those of color)
has upset the younger generation of evangelicals, with two-thirds of them saying in surveys
that immigrants strengthen our country, bringing their work ethic and talents with them from
Mexico or Central America or Syria. Climate change is another issue that has caught the
imagination of younger evangelicals. "I can't love my neighbor if I'm not protecting the earth
that sustains them and defending their rights to clean water, clean air, and a stable climate,"
Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, a national organizer for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told
Grist . Needless to say, Trump's contempt on this subject grates badly on these young
Christians. Perhaps naively, Americans have always looked to the presidency for exemplary moral
behavior, and when there are obvious personal or moral failures, as with Nixon and Clinton,
there is disappointment, even anger. But if you're a Christian -- and I lay claim to this for
myself -- you understand that it's human to fail at perfect behavior. There is always
forgiveness. And, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "Humility is endless."
Humility lies at the heart of
Christian behavior. As does honesty. In these, Trump has set a terrible example, and he's now
been taken down for this by an important Christian voice. If only another 10 percent of
evangelicals take this seriously, and I suspect they will, Donald J. Trump's presidency is
destined for the ash heap of history.
Delaying the Senate trial erodes the Democrats' argument that impeachment was so urgent that
they could not wait for the courts to act on Trump's aggressive claims of privilege.
Seven Democratic presidential candidates who gathered on a debate stage in Los Angeles on
Thursday represent another argument for moving beyond impeachment.
... ... ...
Washington is fixated on the daily turns of the impeachment saga, but polls indicate that
most Americans are not. Business executive Andrew Yang pointed out that, even when the current
president is gone, the struggles of many people will remain, particularly in parts of the
country that helped elect Trump in 2016.
"We blasted away 4 million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in Ohio, Michigan,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri. I just left Iowa -- we blasted 40,000 manufacturing jobs
there," Yang said. "The more we act like Donald Trump is the cause of all our problems, the
more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what's going on in our communities and solve
those problems."
That is what voters are waiting to hear, and the sooner the better for Democrats.
"... Trump's performance record as president is comprised of an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles violated, and intentions abandoned. ..."
"... despite another supposedly positive personal relationship, the Trump administration has applied more sanctions on Moscow, provided more anti-Russian aid to Ukraine, further increased funds and troops to NATO Europe, and sent home more Russian diplomats than the Obama administration. ..."
"... Worse, Washington has made no serious effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine. No one imagines Moscow returning Crimea to Ukraine or giving in on any other issue without meaningful concessions regarding Kiev. Instead of moderating and minimizing bilateral frictions, the administration has made Russia more likely today than before to cooperate with China against Washington and contest American objectives in the Middle East, Africa, and even Latin America. ..."
"... Although Trump promised to stop America's endless wars, as many - if not more - U.S. military personnel are abroad today as when he took office. He increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and is now seeking to negotiate an exit that would force Washington to remain to enforce the agreement. This war has been burning for more than eighteen years. ..."
"... The administration has maintained Washington's illegal deployment in Syria, shifting one contingent away from the Turkish-Kurdish battle while inserting new forces to confiscate Syrian oil fields-a move that lacks domestic authority and violates international law. A few hundred Americans cannot achieve their many other supposed objectives, such as eliminating Russian, Iranian, and other malign influences and forcing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to resign or inaugurate democracy. However, their presence will ensure America's continued entanglement in a conflict of great complexity but minimal security interest. ..."
"... This is an extraordinarily bad record after almost three years in office. Something good still might happen between now and November 3, 2020. However, more issues are likely to get worse. Imagine North Korean missile and nuclear tests, renewed Russian attempts to influence Western elections, a bloody Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, increased U.S.-European trade friction, more U.S. pressure on Iran matched by asymmetric responses, and more. At the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the resulting confrontations would turn out well. ..."
Trump's performance record as president is comprised of an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles
violated, and intentions abandoned.
North Korea may have been the one issue on which President Donald Trump apparently listened to his predecessor, Barack Obama,
when he warned about the serious challenge facing the incoming occupant of the Oval Office. Nevertheless, Trump initially drove tensions
between the two countries to a fever pitch, raising fears of war in the midst of proclamations of "fire and fury." Then he played
statesman and turned toward diplomacy, meeting North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, in Singapore.
Today that effort looks kaput. The North has declared denuclearization to be off the table. Actually, few people other than the
president apparently believed that Kim was prepared to turn over his nuclear weapons to a government predisposed toward intervention
and regime change.
Now that this Trump policy is formally dead, and there is no Plan B in sight, Pyongyang has begun deploying choice terms from
its fabled thesaurus of insults. Democrats are sure to denounce the administration for incompetent naivete. And the bipartisan war
party soon will be beating the drums for more sanctions, more florid rhetoric, additional military deployments, new plans for war.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) already has dismissed the risks since any conflict would be "over there," on the distant Korean Peninsula.
At which point Trump's heroic summitry, which offered a dramatic opportunity to break decades of deadly stalemate, will be judged
a failure.
If the president had racked up several successes-wars ended, peace achieved, disputes settled, relations strengthened-then one
disappointment wouldn't matter much. However, his record is an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles
violated, and intentions abandoned.
There is no relationship more important than that between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Despite Trump's
supposed friendship with China's Xi Jinping, the trade war rages to the detriment of both countries. Americans have suffered from
both the president's tariffs and China's retaliation, with no end in sight. Despite hopes for a resolution, Beijing is hanging tough
and obviously doubts the president's toughness, given the rapidly approaching election.
Beyond economics, the relationship is deteriorating sharply. Disagreements and confrontations over everything from geopolitics
to human rights have driven the two countries apart, with the administration lacking any effective strategy to positively influence
China's behavior. The president's myopic focus on trade has left him without a coherent strategy elsewhere.
Perhaps the president's most pronounced and controversial promise of the 2016 campaign was to improve relations with Russia. However,
despite another supposedly positive personal relationship, the Trump administration has applied more sanctions on Moscow, provided
more anti-Russian aid to Ukraine, further increased funds and troops to NATO Europe, and sent home more Russian diplomats than the
Obama administration.
Worse, Washington has made no serious effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine. No one imagines Moscow returning Crimea to
Ukraine or giving in on any other issue without meaningful concessions regarding Kiev. Instead of moderating and minimizing bilateral
frictions, the administration has made Russia more likely today than before to cooperate with China against Washington and contest
American objectives in the Middle East, Africa, and even Latin America.
Although Trump promised to stop America's endless wars, as many - if not more - U.S. military personnel are abroad today as when he
took office. He increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and is now seeking to negotiate an exit that would force Washington
to remain to enforce the agreement. This war has been burning for more than eighteen years.
The administration has maintained Washington's illegal deployment in Syria, shifting one contingent away from the Turkish-Kurdish
battle while inserting new forces to confiscate Syrian oil fields-a move that lacks domestic authority and violates international
law. A few hundred Americans cannot achieve their many other supposed objectives, such as eliminating Russian, Iranian, and other
malign influences and forcing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to resign or inaugurate democracy. However, their presence will ensure
America's continued entanglement in a conflict of great complexity but minimal security interest.
The Saudi government remains corrupt, incompetent, repressive, reckless and dependent on the United States. Only Washington's
refusal to retaliate against Iran for its presumed attack on Saudi oil facilities caused Riyadh to turn to diplomacy toward Tehran,
yet the president then increased U.S. military deployments, turning American military personnel into bodyguards for the Saudi royals.
The recent terrorist attack by the pilot-in-training-presumably to join his colleagues in slaughtering Yemeni civilians-added to
the already high cost of the bilateral relationship.
The administration's policy of "maximum pressure" has proved to be a complete bust around the world. As noted earlier, North Korea
proved unwilling to disarm despite the increased financial pressure caused by U.S. sanctions. North Koreans are hurting, but their
government, like Washington, places security first.
Russia, too, is no more willing to yield Crimea, which was once part of Russia and is the Black Sea naval base of Sebastopol.
Several European governments also disagree with the United States, having pressed to lighten or eliminate current sanctions. The
West will have to offer more than the status quo to roll back Moscow's military advances.
Before Trump became president, Iran was well contained, despite its malign regional activities. The Islamic regime was hemmed
in by Israel and the Gulf States, backed by nations as diverse as Egypt and America. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA,
sharply curtailed Iran's nuclear activities and placed the country under an intensive oversight regime. Now Tehran has reactivated
its nuclear program, expanded its regional interventions, interfered with Gulf shipping, and demonstrated its ability to devastate
Saudi oil production. To America's consternation, its Persian Gulf allies now are more willing to deal with Iran than before.
Additionally, the Trump administration has largely destroyed hope for reform in Cuba by reversing the Obama administration's progress
toward normalizing relations and discouraging visits by-and trade with-Americans. The entrepreneurs I spoke to when I visited Cuba
two years ago made large investments in anticipation of a steadily increasing number of U.S. visitors but were devastated when Washington
shut off the flow. What had been a steadily expanding private sector was knocked back and the regime, with Raoul Castro still dominant
behind the scenes, again can blame America for its own failings. There is no evidence that extending the original embargo and additional
sanctions, which began in 1960, will free anyone.
For a time, Venezuela appeared to be an administration priority. As usual, Trump applied economic sanctions, this time on a people
whose economy essentially had collapsed. Washington threatened more sanctions and military invasion but to no avail. Then the president
and his top aides breathed fire and fury, insisting that both China and Russia stay out, again without success. Eventually, the president
appeared to simply lose interest and drop any mention of the once urgent crisis. The corrupt, repressive Maduro regime remains in
power.
So far, the president's criticisms of America's alliances have gone for naught. Until now, his appointees, all well-disposed toward
maintaining generous subsidies for America's international fan club, have implemented his policies. More recently, the administration
demanded substantial increases in "host nation" support, but in almost every negotiation so far the president has given way, accepting
minor, symbolic gains. He is likely to end up like his predecessor, whining a lot but gaining very little from America's security
dependents.
Beyond that, there is little positive to say. Trump and India's Narendra Modi are much alike, which is no compliment to either,
but institutional relations have changed little. Turkey's incipient dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, receives a free pass from the
president for the former's abuses and crimes. But even so Congress is thoroughly arrayed against Ankara for sins both domestic and
foreign.
The president's aversion to genuine free trade and the curious belief that buying inexpensive, quality products from abroad is
a negative has created problems with many close allies, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and multiple European
states. Perhaps only with Israel are Washington's relations substantially improved, and that reflects the president's abandonment
of any serious attempt to promote a fair and realistic peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
This is an extraordinarily bad record after almost three years in office. Something good still might happen between now and November
3, 2020. However, more issues are likely to get worse. Imagine North Korean missile and nuclear tests, renewed Russian attempts to
influence Western elections, a bloody Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, increased U.S.-European trade friction, more U.S. pressure
on Iran matched by asymmetric responses, and more. At the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the resulting confrontations
would turn out well.
Most Americans vote on the economy, and the president is currently riding a wave of job creation. If that ends before the November
vote, then international issues might matter more. If so, then the president may regret that he failed to follow through on his criticism
of endless war and irresponsible allies. Despite his very different persona, his results don't look all that different from those
achieved by Barack Obama and other leading Democrats.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and the
author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
rshimizu12 • 15 hours ago
Personally I think Trumps foreign policy has had mix results. Part of the problem is that Trump has adopted a ad hoc foreign policy
tactics. The US has had limited success with North Korea. While we have not seen any reductions of nuclear weapons. He probably
has stopped flight testing of ICBM's. The daily back and forth threats of destroying each other countries have stopped. We should
have been making more progress with N Korea, but Trump has not been firm enough. Russia on the other hand is a much tougher country
to deal with. As for China we will have to keep up the pressure in trade negotiations.
The Trump Card was and is a masterstroke of scripting live, non-stop, divisive, politically
paralytic distraction while the US oligarchy goes all-tard-in for private power.
Since the whole impeachment farce already has been a political loser for the idiot Democrats,
they'd have to be doubly stupid to double down on political stupidity by obstructing the
transmission to the Senate, when most Americans just want this crap to be over with.
Meanwhile the Senate Republicans, once they get the charges, would be stupid to do
anything but vote them down immediately. Otherwise they'll become complicit in the odious
circus and rightly incur their share of the political blame.
It still amazes me that people actually think impeachment accomplishes anything other than
diverting attention from the Dems giving Trump everything he wants. Kayfabe.
I'm starting to think the whole trump presidency is a con by making him look like a target
for the deep state and anti establishment, he continues the empire while people who want real
change get sunk.
I have had this thought more than once since Trump was selected to play president. He makes
too many unforced errors that are timely for democrats to jump on. He could have nipped Russia
Gate in its tracks by having the NSA show how Russia did not hack into the DNC computers. I'm
sure that there were other things he could have done, but never did. But if the Huber
investigation has legs and someone actually gets held accountable for taking the country on
this 3 year insanity I'll rethink my opinion.
Pelosi risk to turn the case into personal vendetta and DemoRats will be burned as the
result. McConnell just need to wait a couple on months as time works for him.
This pressure from Pelosi actually helps Trump opening interesting lines of the attack:
"McConnell said on the Senate floor that Pelosi and House Democrats "may be too afraid to even
transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate." Trump tweeted as Pelosi spoke Thursday
morning, saying that "Pelosi feels her phony impeachment HOAX is so pathetic she is afraid to
present it to the Senate".
The Deep State Sunk The Democratic Party
Notable quotes:
"... she would delay naming impeachment managers -- who would argue the House case in the Senate -- until the Senate lays out its procedures for the trial. ..."
41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"--US Dept. of
Agriculture. That number of people constituted a crisis for FDR when he delivered his One-Third
of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded on that issue in
his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship; 3.Freedom from want;
4.Freedom from fear.
Faced with a similar situation, Trump advances plans to cut more people from the food stamp
program thus increasing immiseration. One might say Trump's out of step with traditional
American values; but were Obama, Bush, or Clinton any better?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday extended her standoff with Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell over starting President Donald Trump 's impeachment trial,
insisting she's waiting to see whether Republicans will agree to a "fair" process.
Pelosi surprised many House Democrats Wednesday night after the House impeached Trump when
she said she would delay naming impeachment managers -- who would argue the House case in
the Senate -- until the Senate lays out its procedures for the trial.
"When we see what they have, we'll know who and how many we will send over," she said at a
news conference Thursday. Pelosi cast it as a procedural matter and cited the Senate's
ability to come up with a bipartisan trial plan after President Bill Clinton was
impeached.
... ... ...
McConnell and other GOP senators have been indicating they want a quick
trial, with arguments presented by the House managers and Trump's counsel without witnesses.
McConnell was giving no ground.
"It's beyond me how the speaker and Democratic leader in the Senate think withholding the
articles of impeachment and not sending them over gives them leverage," he told reporters at
the Capitol. "Frankly, I'm not anxious to have the trial."
... ... ...
McConnell called the House impeachment process rushed and shoddy.
"If the speaker ever gets her house in order, that mess will be dumped in the Senate's
lap," he said on the Senate floor. "If the nation accepts this, presidential impeachments may
cease being a once-in-a-generation event."
>> On top of this Putin himself has made some critical mistakes due to his Naive
personality, especially his falling for Trumps phoney reset (Trumps policies towards Russia
have been harsher then any president since Pappi Bush) and in the aftermath of that flop,
running into the arms of "Red" China's fake belt and Road which will be used to get Russia
completely dependent on the biggest U$ satellite
I don't agree that China is pro-US, with tome China will grow and the US will diminish,
BRI will leads towards that, but I do agree that Trump has been the most anti-russian
president since the 80s. Be objective. Do not look at what they say, look at what they do,
the maxim says. Defacto, Trump has been far more aggressive and hostile to Russia than Obama.
And he made everything possible to increase military budgets.
She also failed to mention that Trump activated Second Fleet in the Atlantic (that Obama
actually disabled) for Russia containment.
Trump is just a military puppet seeking to prolong the US Empire on the cheap. That is -
no more nation building, and let others pay for propping up the US empire.
@ Posted by: lysias | Dec 16 2019 1:46 utc | 25 and Posted by: Passer by | Dec 16 2019 1:39
utc | 24 writing about who was instrumental in being negative towards Russia.
It was during Obama's term that Russia changed the trajectory of the war in Syria.
But lets get real, there is only one "Party" in America, the private finance/money party
and both Obama and Trump are/were puppets for it. And those folks have know for some time
about the integration of China/Russia geopolitical views so the policy has been "consistent"
for probably a decade or more.
Warren's awkward attempts to portray herself as a woman of color, even if a etsy weeny
tiny bit, always seemed strange to me, ignoring the resume nonsense. It makes sense with the
realization that Women of Color, have become a new politically privileged class, in spite of
some of them being not very oppressed.
Indian (subcontinent) women come from a tradition of a caste based society of wealth and
privilege. The most succesful ones intuitively home in on and game American race-based
identity politics in spite of their advantages, such as being one of the wealthiest religious
groups in the nation,
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/
No Bernie style economic class based socialism for them, no way. It's maintain privilege,
Silicon Valley corporate caste based salaries, Republican reductionism, Hillary hopium and
yet, they proudly proclaim their affiliation with real women of color, on whose backs they
surf, like last generation's black cleaning women, the grandparents of which might have
actually been slaves.
3 examples: Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, Neera Tanden and Kamala Harris.
Women-of-color in general are not a privileged class. The not-very-poor women of color are
perhaps a newly privileged class.
The Goldman Sachs women-of-color have become a new privileged class, in line with the
tenets of Goldman Sachs Feminism. " The arc of history is long, and it bends towards rainbow
gender-fluid oligarchy."
As Dean Baker pointed out in his book Rigged, the neoliberal capitalism of America is
rigged to benefit the top 1%. After all, they were the architects. Most Americans appreciate
that. Nevertheless, the vast majority willingly wade into its rigged quicksand. All economies
are rigged in the sense that there is a structure to it all. Moreover, the architects of that
system will ensure there is something in it for themselves – rigged. Our school system
does not instruct Americans on how their own economic system works (is rigged), so most of us
become its victims rather than its beneficiaries.
Books by Liz Warren and her daughter offer remedial guidance on how to make the current US
economic system work for the average household. So, in a sense, Liz comes across as an
adherent to the system she is trying to help others master .
This seems to be a losing proposition for candidate Warren because most Americans want a
new system with new rigging; not a repaired system that has been screwing them for
generations.
A few days ago, veterans' group VoteVets endorsed Pete Buttigieg. It has previously supported
Tulsi Gabbard. Details:
New York Times, "Liberal Veterans' Group Endorses Pete Buttigieg in 2020 Race":
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-votevets-endorsement.html
"... Public choice economics has big influence and a bad name. It is a school of economic thought that has at different times been associated with scholars at the University of Rochester, Virginia Tech, and George Mason University. ..."
"... Samuelson, in his famous and influential textbooks, saw a clear role for government in regulating markets. Public choice scholars vehemently disagreed . For political and theoretical reasons, they instead saw government as a fountain of corruption. Public choice economists argued that government regulations were the product of special interest groups that had "captured" the power of the state, to cripple rivals and squeeze money from citizens and consumers. Regulations were not made in the public interest, but instead were designed to bilk ordinary citizens. ..."
"... The conventional story is that as Warren moved from the right to the left, she abandoned the public choice way of thinking about the world, in favor of a more traditional left-wing radicalism. A more accurate take might be that she didn't abandon public choice, but instead remained committed to its free-market ideals, while reversing some of its valences. ..."
"... A recent popular history book, which qualified as a finalist for the National Book Award, depicts public choice as a kind of stealth intellectual weapons program , developed by economist James Buchanan to provide Chilean President Augusto Pinochet with the justification for his dictatorial constitution, and the Koch brothers with the tools to dismantle American democracy. ..."
"... Warren's ideas have a close family resemblance to those of Olson, a celebrated public choice theorist. (Perhaps she has read him; perhaps she has just reached similar conclusions from similar starting points.) Olson, like other public choice scholars, worried about the power of interest groups. He famously developed a theory of collective action that shows how narrowly focused interest groups can dominate politics, because they can organize more cheaply and reap great benefits by setting rules and creating monopolies at the expense of the ordinary public. This means that government programs often actively harm the poor rather than helping them. ..."
"... Olson also castigated libertarian economists for their "monodiabolism" and "almost utopian lack of concern about other problems" so long as the government was chained down. He argued that the government was not the only source of economic power: Business special interests would corrupt markets even if the government did not help them. ..."
"... Warren shares far more intellectual DNA with Mancur Olson and his colleagues than with traditional socialism. However, there are important differences. Olson wrote his key work in the 1980s, before the globalization boom. His arguments for free trade depend on the assumption that open borders will disempower special interests. ..."
Elizabeth Warren's politics seem like a tangle of contradictions. She wants free markets,
but also wants to tax billionaires' capital. Her enemies on the right claim that
she is a socialist , but Warren
describes herself as "capitalist to my bones."
Warren's politics are so confusing because we have forgotten that a pro-capitalist left is
even possible. For a long time, political debate in the United States has been a fight between
conservatives and libertarians on the right, who favored the market, and socialists and
liberals on the left, who favored the government.
It has been clear since 2016 that the traditional coalition of the right was breaking up.
Conservatives such as U.S. President Donald Trump are no fans of open trade and free markets,
and even favor social protections so long as they benefit their white supporters. Now, the left
is changing too.
Warren is reviving a pro-market left that has been neglected for decades, by drawing on a
surprising resource: public choice economics. This economic theory is reviled by many on the
left, who have claimed that it is a Koch-funded intellectual conspiracy designed to destroy
democracy. Yet there is a left version of public choice economics too, associated with thinkers
such as the late Mancur Olson. Like Olson, Warren is not a socialist but a left-wing
capitalist, who wants to use public choice ideas to cleanse both markets and the state of their
corruption.
Public choice economics has big influence and a bad name. It is a school of
economic thought that has at different times been associated with scholars at the University of
Rochester, Virginia Tech, and George Mason University. Public choice came into being in fervent
opposition to the mainstream of economics, which was dominated by scholars such as Paul
Samuelson.
Samuelson, in his famous and influential textbooks, saw a clear role for government in
regulating markets. Public choice scholars vehemently disagreed . For
political and theoretical reasons, they instead saw government as a fountain of corruption.
Public choice economists argued that government regulations were the product of special
interest groups that had "captured" the power of the state, to cripple rivals and squeeze money
from citizens and consumers. Regulations were not made in the public interest, but instead were
designed to bilk ordinary citizens.
Perhaps the most influential version of public choice was known as law and economics. For
decades, conservative foundations supported seminars that taught judges and legal academics the
principles of public choice economics. Attendees were taught that harsh sentences would deter
future crime, that government regulation should be treated with profound skepticism, and that
antitrust enforcement had worse consequences than the monopolies it was supposed to correct. As
statistical research by Elliott Ash, Daniel L. Chen, and Suresh Naidu has shown
, these seminars played a crucial role in shifting American courts to the right.
Warren was one of the young legal academics who attended
these seminars , and was largely convinced by the arguments. Her early work on bankruptcy
law started from public choice principles, and displayed a deep skepticism of intervention.
The conventional story is that as Warren moved from the right to the left, she abandoned the
public choice way of thinking about the world, in favor of a more traditional left-wing
radicalism. A more accurate take might be that she didn't abandon public choice, but instead
remained committed to its free-market ideals, while reversing some of its valences. Her work as
an academic was aimed at combating special interests, showing how the financial industry had
shaped bankruptcy reforms so that they boosted lenders' profits at borrowers' expense.
Notably, she applied public choice theory to explain some aspects of public choice, showing how
financial interests had funded scholarly centers which
provided a patina of genteel respectability to industry's preferred positions.
Now, Warren wants to to wash away the filth that has built up over decades to clog the
workings of American capitalism. Financial rules that have been designed by lobbyists need to
be torn up. Vast inequalities of wealth, which provide the rich with disproportionate political
and economic power, need to be reversed. Intellectual property rules, which make it so that
farmers no longer really own the seeds
they sow or the machinery they use to plant them, need to be abolished. For Warren, the problem
with modern American capitalism is that it is not nearly capitalist enough. It has been
captured by special interests, which are strangling competition.
It is hard to see how deeply Warren's program is rooted in
public choice ideas, because public choice has come to be the target of left-wing conspiracy theories. A recent popular
history book, which qualified as a finalist for the National Book Award, depicts public choice as a kind of
stealth intellectual weapons program , developed by economist James Buchanan to provide
Chilean President Augusto Pinochet with the justification for his dictatorial constitution, and
the Koch brothers with the tools to dismantle American democracy.
For sure, the mainstream of public choice is strongly libertarian, and the development of
the approach was funded by conservative individuals and foundations. What left-wing paranoia
overlooks is that there has always been a significant left-wing current of public choice, and
even a potent left-wing radicalism buried deep within public choice waiting to be uncovered.
The free-market ideal is a situation in which no actor has economic power over any other. As
many of Warren's proposals demonstrate, trying to achieve this ideal can animate a radical
program for reform.
Warren's ideas have a close family resemblance to those of Olson, a celebrated public choice
theorist. (Perhaps she has read him; perhaps she has just reached similar conclusions from
similar starting points.) Olson, like other public choice scholars, worried about the power of
interest groups. He famously developed a theory of collective action that shows how narrowly
focused interest groups can dominate politics, because they can organize more cheaply and reap
great benefits by setting rules and creating monopolies at the expense of the ordinary public.
This means that government programs often actively harm the poor rather than helping them.
However, Olson also castigated libertarian economists for their "monodiabolism" and "almost
utopian lack of concern about other problems" so long as the government was chained down. He
argued that the government was not the only source of economic power: Business special
interests would corrupt markets even if the government did not help them.
The result, according to Olson, was that societies, economies, and political systems became
increasingly encrusted with special-interest politics as the decades passed. Countries
benefited economically from great upheavals such as wars and social revolutions, which tore
interest groups from their privileged perches and sent them tumbling into the abyss.
Olson wanted to open up both politics and the economy to greater competition, equalizing
power relations as much as possible between the many and the few. He argued that under some
circumstances, powerful trade unions could benefit the economy. When unions and business groups
were sufficiently big that they represented a substantial percentage of workers or business as
a whole, they would be less likely to seek special benefits at the expense of the many, and
more likely to prioritize the good of the whole. Olson also believed strongly in the benefits
of open trade, not just because it led to standard economic efficiencies, but because it made
it harder for interest groups to capture government and markets. Northern European economies
such as Denmark, which combine powerful trade unions with a strong commitment to free markets,
represent Olsonian politics in action.
Warren shares far more intellectual DNA with Mancur Olson and his colleagues than with
traditional socialism. However, there are important differences. Olson wrote his key work in
the 1980s, before the globalization boom. His arguments for free trade depend on the assumption
that open borders will disempower special interests.
As economists such as Dani Rodrik and political scientists such as Susan Sell have shown,
this hasn't quite worked out as Olson expected. Free trade agreements have become a magnet for
special interest groups, who want to cement their preferences in international agreements that
are incredibly hard to reverse. The U.S. "fast track" approach to trade negotiations makes it
harder for Congress to demand change, but allows industry lobbyists to shape the
administration's negotiating stance. Investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms provide
business with a friendly forum where they can target government rules that hurt their economic
interests. All of this helps explain why Warren is skeptical of arguments for the general
benefits of free-trade agreements: they aren't nearly so general as economists claim.
Close attention to Warren's public choice influences reveals both her radicalism and its
limits. Like Olson, she is committed to the notion that making capitalism work for citizens
will require changes that border on the revolutionary. The sweeping proposals she makes for
changes to America's gross economic inequality, its economic relations with the rest of the
world, its approach to antitrust legislation, and its tolerance of sleazy relationships among
politicians, regulators, and industry are all aimed at creating a major upheaval. Where she
proposes major state action, as in her "Medicare for All" plans, it is to supplant market
institutions that aren't working, and are so embedded in interest group power dynamics that
they are incapable of reform.
Yet this is a distinctly capitalist variety of radicalism. Socialists will inevitably be
disappointed in the limits to her arguments. Warren's ideal is markets that work as they
should, in contrast to the socialist belief that some forms of power are inherent within
markets themselves. Not only Marxists, but economists such as Thomas Piketty, have suggested
that the market system is rigged in ways that will inevitably favor capital over the long run.
The fixes that Warren proposes will at most dampen down these tendencies rather than remove
them.
If Warren wins, she will not only disappoint socialists. Her proposals may end up being too
radical for Congress, but not nearly radical enough to tackle challenges such as climate
change, which will require a rapid and dramatic transformation of the global economy if
catastrophe is to be averted. Libertarians and mainstream public choice scholars will attack
her from a different vantage point, arguing that she is both too skeptical about existing
market structures and too trusting of the machineries of the state that she hopes to use to
remedy them. State efforts to reform markets can easily turn into protectionism.
What Warren offers, then, is neither a socialist or deep green alternative to capitalism,
nor a public choice justification for why regulators ought to leave it alone. The bet she is
making is that capitalism can solve the major problems that the United States faces, so long as
the government tackles inequality and defangs the special interests that have parasitized the
political and economic systems. Like all such bets, it is a risky one, but one that might
transform the U.S. model of capitalism if it succeeds.
Henry Farrell is a professor of
political science and international affairs at George Washington University.
"... "I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United States." ..."
"... Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8 billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza." ..."
"... J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum of understanding. ..."
"... Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank. ..."
"... The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes ..."
The Jews try to run US policy ..but lately the Dem base (and part of the party) has become
more pro Palestine.
Democratic (Jewish) lawmakers reckon with 2020 rhetoric on Israel aid
December 6, 2019
Presidential candidates who want to place conditions on Israeli military aid have prompted
pro-Israel House Democrats to go on the offensive.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
It's becoming harder and harder for pro-Israel Democrats on
Capitol Hill to ignore the increasingly critical voices of the US ally within their party and
the presidential race.
House Democratic leaders -- who happen to be some of the staunchest Israel supporters on
Capitol Hill -- this week added language supportive of the annual $3.8 billion military aid
package to Israel to a symbolic resolution that endorses a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The stalled resolution passed 226-188, largely along party lines, today. But pro-Israel
Democrats only came on board after House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel,
D-N.Y., added their new language to the bill. The new provision is a response to the fact
that several presidential candidates have come out of the woodwork in recent months with
calls to place conditions on the largest recipient of US military aid.
"I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel
told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see
no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that
way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United
States."
When Engel's committee first advanced the resolution in July, Democratic leaders opted not
to put it on the floor, even as they passed another nonbinding resolution condemning the
pro-Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions movement 398-17, which was backed by the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
That changed last month after the Trump administration repealed a decades-old legal
opinion maintaining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international
law.
"There are those on the far-left side of the Democratic Party -- and some of the
presidential candidates -- who are pushing for new conditions on aid, especially in their
interactions with Gaza, which is run by Hamas -- a terrorist organization," Gottheimer told
Al-Monitor.
An October poll from the liberal Center for American Progress found that 56% of
American voters, including 71% of Democrats, oppose "unconditional financial and military
assistance to Israel if the Israeli government continues to violate American policy on
settlement expansion or West Bank annexation."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli
military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and
all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8
billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza."
J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for
placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum
of understanding.
Presidential hopefuls Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South
Bend, Indiana, have jumped on board with J Street's position. However, the current
front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden, has flatly ruled out conditioning the aid.
Notably, J Street did not oppose the effort to amend the Lowenthal resolution with the
military aid language. That said, progressive Democrats do not necessarily view that
provision as incompatible with calls to attach strings to that assistance. Congressional
Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., called the Engel language
"meaningless."
"It's just restating what current practice or current law is," Pocan told Al-Monitor. "We
don't really see it as affecting the bill one way or the other. At any time if we feel like
we're better off putting conditions on money and holding back money, Congress could always do
that with any country through the normal process."
Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as
Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military
equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly
conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to
inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes
Could Tax Increases Speed Up the Economy?
Democrats Say Yes https://nyti.ms/2RlDbJx
NYT - Jim Tankersley - December 5
WASHINGTON -- Elizabeth Warren is leading a liberal rebellion against a long-held economic
view that large tax increases slow economic growth, trying to upend Democratic policymaking
in the way supply-side conservatives changed Republican orthodoxy four decades ago.
(Warren Would Take Billionaires Down
a Few Billion Pegs https://nyti.ms/2CtMPRN
NYT - November 10)
Generations of economists, across much of the ideological spectrum, have long held that
higher taxes reduce investment, slowing economic growth. That drag, the consensus held, would
offset the benefits to growth from increased government spending in areas like education.
Ms. Warren and other leading Democrats say the opposite. The senator from Massachusetts,
who is a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, contends that her
plans to tax the rich and spend the revenue to lift the poor and the middle class would
accelerate economic growth, not impede it. Other Democratic candidates are making similar
claims about their tax-and-spend proposals. Some liberal economists go further and say that
simply taxing the rich would help growth no matter what the government did with the
money.
Democrats in the past, including the party's 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, have argued
that a more modest combination of tax increases and spending programs would expand the
economy. But no Democratic nominee before Ms. Warren had ever proposed so many new taxes and
spending programs, and leaned so heavily into the argument that they would be, in economist
parlance, pro-growth.
That argument tries to reframe a classic debate about the economic "pie" in the United
States by suggesting there is no trade-off between increasing the size of the pie and
dividing the slices more equitably among all Americans.
Ms. Warren has proposed nearly $3 trillion a year in new taxes on businesses and
high-earners, largely focused on billionaires but sometimes hitting Americans who earn
$250,000 and above per year. The taxes would fund wide-reaching new government spending on
health care, education, and family benefits like universal child care and paid parental
leave.
Last month, Ms. Warren wrote on Twitter that education, child care and student loan relief
programs funded by her tax on wealthy Americans would "grow the economy." In a separate post,
she said student debt relief would "supercharge" growth.
The last batch of economists to disrupt a political party's consensus position were
conservative -- the so-called supply-siders who built influence in the late 1970s and gained
power in the Reagan administration. Previous Republican presidents had focused on keeping the
budget deficit low, which constrained their ability to cut taxes if they did not also cut
government spending. Supply-siders contended that well-targeted tax cuts could generate big
economic growth even without spending cuts. ...
Ms. Warren is making the case that the economy could benefit if money is redistributed from
the rich and corporations to uses that she and other liberals say would be more productive.
Their argument combines hard data showing that high levels of inequality and wealth
concentration weigh down economic growth with a belief that well-targeted government spending
can encourage more Americans to work, invest and build skills that would make them more
productive.
They also cite evidence that transferring money to poor and middle-class individuals would
increase consumer spending because they spend a larger share of their incomes than wealthy
Americans, who tend to save and invest.
"The economy has changed, our understanding of it has changed, and we understand the
constricting effects of inequality" on growth, said Heather Boushey, the president of the
Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a think tank focused on inequality.
Inequality has widened significantly in America over the last several decades. The
Congressional Budget Office estimates that the incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans more
than tripled from 1979 to 2016, before taxes and government transfer payments are taken into
account. For the middle class, incomes grew 33 percent. More than a decade after the
recession, wage growth for the middle class continues to run well behind previous times of
economic expansion, like the late 1990s.
Research by the economist Emmanuel Saez and colleagues shows that the last time such a
small sliver of Americans controlled such a large share of the nation's income and wealth was
in the late 1920s, just before a stock market crash set off the Great Depression. World Bank
researchers have warned that high levels of inequality are stifling growth in South Africa,
which has the globe's worst measured inequality.
"We have an economy that isn't delivering like it used to," said Ms. Boushey, who advised
Hillary Clinton's 2016 Democratic presidential campaign. "That's leading people to say let's
re-examine the evidence."
The contention that tax and spending increases can lift economic growth is not the only
challenge to traditional orthodoxy brewing in liberal economic circles. Some Democrats have
also embraced modern monetary theory, which reframes classic thinking that discourages large
budget deficits as a drag on growth. Its supporters, including Representative Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez of New York and the economist Stephanie Kelton, an adviser to Senator Bernie
Sanders of Vermont, argue that the United States government should be spending much more on
programs to fight inequality, like a federal job guarantee, without imposing new taxes.
Some of the inequality-focused economists say they are hoping to build new economic models
to predict the effects of their policies, though they acknowledge few of those models exist
yet. Instead, they rely on evidence about the likely effects of individual programs, added
together.
Many economists who study tax policy contend that Ms. Warren's plans -- and other large
tax-and-spend proposals from Democratic candidates this year -- would hurt the economy, just
as classic economic models suggest.
"Some elements of the large increase in government spending on health and education
proposed by Senator Warren would promote economic growth" through channels like improved
education, said Alan Auerbach, an economics professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, who has written some of the most influential research in the profession on the
relationship between tax rates and growth.
But, he said, "I am very skeptical that these growth effects would offset the negative
effects on growth of the higher taxes, particularly given that the spending increases are not
specifically targeted toward enhancing growth."
Ms. Warren disagrees. In the latest Democratic debate, she said the spending programs
funded by her wealth tax would be "transformative" for workers. Those plans would raise
wages, make college tuition-free and relieve graduates of student debt, she said, adding, "We
can invest in an entire generation's future."
An emerging group of liberal economists say taxes on high-earners could spur growth even
if the government did nothing with the revenue because the concentration of income and wealth
is dampening consumer spending.
"We are experiencing a revolution right now in macroeconomics, particularly in the policy
space," said Mark Paul, an economist who is a fellow at the liberal Roosevelt Institute in
Washington. "We can think of a wealth tax as welfare-enhancing, in and of itself, simply by
constraining the power of the very wealthy" to influence public policy and distort markets to
their advantage.
Taken together, Ms. Warren's proposals would transform the role of federal taxation. If
every tax increase she has proposed in the campaign passed and raised as much revenue as her
advisers predict -- a contingency hotly debated among even liberal economists -- total
federal tax revenue would grow more than 50 percent.
The United States would leap from one of the lowest-taxed rich nations to one of the
highest. It would collect more taxes as a share of the economy than Norway, and only slightly
less than Italy.
Mr. Sanders's plan envisions a similarly large increase in tax levels. Former Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s proposals are much smaller in scale: He would raise taxes on
the wealthy and corporations by $3.4 trillion over a decade, in order to fund increased
spending on health care, higher education, infrastructure and carbon emissions reduction.
If Ms. Warren's tax program is enacted, said Gabriel Zucman, an economist at Berkeley who
is an architect of her wealth tax proposal, "in my view, the most likely effect is a small
positive effect on growth, depending on how the revenues are used."
Another economist who has worked with the Warren campaign to analyze its proposals, Mark
Zandi of Moody's, said he would expect her plans to be "largely a wash on long-term economic
growth."
Researchers at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College projected this summer that Ms.
Warren's wealth tax and spending policies would generate a 1.7 percent increase in the size
of the economy. A preliminary study of a wealth tax like Ms. Warren's proposal, by the Penn
Wharton Budget Model, found that it would reduce the size of the economy by a similar 1.7
percent. The model uses the sort of classic methodology that liberals are now rebelling
against and did not evaluate Ms. Warren's spending proposals.
Historical experience offers few parallels for assessing the economic effects of a
taxation-and-spending program on the scale of Ms. Warren's ambitions. A 2002 study of wealth
taxes in rich countries found that those taxes, most of which have since been abandoned,
reduced economic growth slightly on an annual basis.
Conservative economists roundly disagree that large tax increases can spur faster growth,
even those who say government spending on paid leave and child care may get more Americans
into the labor force. They say a wealth tax on the scale of Ms. Warren's proposal would
greatly reduce savings and investment by the rich.
"What a wealth tax does is, it directly taxes savings," said Aparna Mathur, an economist
at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who favors a narrow paid leave program and
whose research finds benefits from reducing tax rates on business and investment. "If you're
taxing savings, you're implicitly taxing investment. So how can that possibly be
pro-growth?"
The supply-side economists' plans were similarly denounced -- George Bush called them
"voodoo economic policies" while running for president in 1980 -- but in time dominated
Republican proposals.
Some members of the new liberal revolt against tax orthodoxy welcome the comparison to the
supply-side uprising.
"While I think that the supply-siders were wrong, and were always wrong, they were
reacting to very real economic problems in the 1970s," said Michael Linden, the executive
director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal policy and advocacy group. "There was
something really wrong with the economy at the time. I think there is now."
It has long required the support of the wealthy -- and a certain level of personal wealth --
to run for president of the United States. In 2016, billions of
dollars were raised by Donald Trump's and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaigns. But the
rich control much
of this cash flow . In 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the
top .01 percent of all income earners in the United States accounted for 29 percent of all
political committee fundraising.
There are many reasons why this is a dangerous thing. But a big one is accountability.
Said it before and I'll say it again, Warren's personal ambition is often what
manifests her poor political instincts. Why did she claim Native American Heritage? Why did
she endorse HRC in 2016? Why did she ambiguously support, then unambiguously back away from,
M4A?
This trend leads me to suspect that she will not easily back out of the race, and
cannot be trusted finally to endorse Sanders in 2020 any more than she could be in 2016. I
suspect, in any case, that many of her voters would not default to Sanders but to Buttigieg
in any case. They seem to be mostly white professionals between 30-60yrs old who make
$120,000/year.
Wow, Sanders has really been pulling ahead of Warren if the polls over the past few days
are to be believed. I am hoping that this trend continues. Warren's overly-complicated
healthcare proposal which she decided to backpedal on at the last moment seems like it has
really cost her.
I kind of wonder at this point why Warren decided to run for president in the first place.
She seems like the type of person who would rather follow than lead, and would be ill-suited
to be president as she would be forced to take a position on something. Warren would have
been better served to be clear about what her actual positions are instead of trying to have
it both ways. Her constant mind-changing and backpedaling in response to whomever has the
political upper-hand at the moment has angered both the DNC establishment as well as the
progressive left.
Or, as Abraham Lincoln put it in a letter to "Mr FJ Hooker" as he was contemplating a push
across the Rappahannock in the wake of Lee's move westward in June 1863,
"like a bull stuck across a fence that cannot gore to the front or kick to the rear"
I think it was you, Lambert, who drew my attention to "Rich and Tracey's Civil War
podcast", and I am grateful.
I think Warren is running for treasury secretary in a Biden administration. The theory
being that that will be her reward for stopping Sanders. Everybody has an angle. Except
Bernie. Can someone show me his angle?
Lesson for 2020 -- Trump is a shape and color shifting chameleon. His statement that he "escaped GOP "mainstream republicans"
(read hard core neoliberals) shackles" was a blatant lie. He never escaped and did not even have intent to escape... He did
their bidding, which was most clearly demonstrated in Trump tax cut
Notable quotes:
"... Trump later tweeted "the shackles have been taken off me". ..."
"... It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to. ..."
"... With the exception of cheating Bernie out of the nom the Dems have always proven to be far more loyal to each other than the Republicans! ..."
"... Disloyal R's are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all sides. They don't know how to win - I will teach them! ..."
Donald Trump is attacking House Speaker Paul Ryan. He's calling him ''very weak and ineffective''
a day after the House speaker said he would not campaign for the Republican nominee.
Ryan told Republican lawmakers on a conference call Monday that he would focus instead on helping
the party keep control of the House.
Trump referred to that call in his tweet Tuesday morning. He said Ryan ''had a bad conference
call where his members went wild at his disloyalty.''
Trump later tweeted "the shackles have been taken off me".
The real estate mogul also claimed Democrats were more loyal to their party than Republicans.
House Speaker Paul Ryan all but abandoned Donald Trump, obliterating whatever bounce he may
have received from Sunday's debate.
It was his second tweet of the morning targeting Ryan. The other said Ryan's ''zero support''
was making it hard for Trump to do well.
Ryan did face some pushback from members upset he was abandoning Trump. The House Speaker continues
to endorse the nominee.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Despite winning the second debate in a landslide (every poll), it is hard to do well when
Paul Ryan and others give zero support!
8:16 AM - 11 Oct 2016
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan, had a bad conference call where his members
went wild at his disloyalty.
9:05 AM - 11 Oct 2016
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America
the way I want to.
10:00 AM - 11 Oct 2016
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
With the exception of cheating Bernie out of the nom the Dems have always proven to
be far more loyal to each other than the Republicans!
10:15 AM - 11 Oct 2016 · Queens, NY, United States
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Disloyal R's are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all
sides. They don't know how to win - I will teach them!
"... A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters. ..."
"... The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them. ..."
aul MacDonald and Joseph Parent
explain in detail that Trump hasn't reduced U.S. military commitments overseas:
But after nearly three years in office, Trump's promised retrenchment has yet to
materialize. The president hasn't meaningfully altered the U.S. global military footprint he
inherited from President Barack Obama. Nor has he shifted the costly burden of defending U.S.
allies. To the contrary, he loaded even greater military responsibilities on the United
States while either ramping up or maintaining U.S. involvement in the conflicts in
Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. On practically every other issue, Trump departed radically
from the path of his predecessor. But when it came to troop deployments and other overseas
defense commitments, he largely preserved the chessboard he inherited -- promises to the
contrary be damned.
MacDonald and Parent's article complements my earlier
post about U.S. "global commitments" very nicely. When we look at the specifics of Trump's
record, we see that he isn't ending U.S. military involvement anywhere. He isn't bringing
anyone home. On the contrary, he has been sending even more American troops to the Middle East
just this year alone. While he is being excoriated for withdrawals that never happen, he is
maintaining or steadily increasing the U.S. military presence in foreign countries. Many Trump
detractors and supporters are so invested in the narrative that Trump is presiding over
"withdrawal" that they are ignoring what the president has actually done. Trump's approach to
U.S. military involvement might be described as "loudly declaring withdrawal while maintaining
or increasing troop levels." Almost everyone pays attention only to his rhetoric about leaving
this or that country and treats it as if it is really happening. Meanwhile, the number of
military personnel deployed overseas never goes down.
The authors offer a possible explanation for why Trump has been able to get away with
this:
A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military
footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic
politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few
in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political
moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are
broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military,
flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from
the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and
influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same
fantasy world as voters.
Trump is further insulated from scrutiny and criticism because he is frequently described as
presiding over a "retreat" from the world. Most news reports and commentary pieces reinforce
this false impression that Trump seeks to get the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. There are
relatively few people pointing out the truth that MacDonald and Parent spell out in their
article. The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump
may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them.
Clinton curse sill is hanging over Democratic Party candidates like Damocles sword. 25 year
of betrayal of their core constituency and their alliance with Wall Street has consequences,
which they now feel. Obama now is openly despised by Democratic voters as the person who betrayed
his electorate and then enriched himself in classing "revolving door" corruption scheme. The
phrase "change is can believe in" became a curse. Bill Clinton is mired in Epstein scandal. You
can't get worse cheerleaders for the party and it does not have anybody else.
Notable quotes:
"... Obama was directly addressing Silicon Valley's wealthiest Democratic donors, telling them to "chill" in their debate over the party's candidates, and seeking to ease the tensions among tech billionaires who have broken into separate camps backing Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and -- most surprisingly -- Elizabeth Warren ..."
"... Gallup released a poll last week that had some troubling news for Democrats, as only 66% of the party faithful said they're enthusiastic about the upcoming election. ..."
While there are still 15 candidates running for the Democratic nomination (after the
withdrawal of Kamala Harris earlier today), only four are polling in double digits, with most
either at 1% or 0%. But Obama said whoever gets the nod should get the vote.
"There will be differences" between the candidates, Obama said, "but I want us to make sure
that we keep in mind that, relative to the ultimate goal, which is to defeat a president and a
party that has taken a sharp turn away from a lot of the core traditions and values and
institutional commitments that built this country," those differences are "relatively
minor."
"The field will narrow and there's going to be one person, and if that is not your perfect
candidate and there are certain aspects of what they say that you don't agree with and you
don't find them completely inspiring the way you'd like, I don't care," he said. "Because the
choice is so stark and the stakes are so high that you cannot afford to be ambivalent in this
race."
Obama was directly addressing Silicon Valley's wealthiest Democratic donors, telling
them to "chill" in their debate over the party's candidates, and seeking to ease the tensions
among tech billionaires who have broken into separate camps backing Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden,
and -- most surprisingly -- Elizabeth Warren , according to recode.
Obama may have his job cut out for him: with many Democratic voters confused or merely bored
silly by the current roster of candidates, two newcomers, Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval
Patrick and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entered the race adding further to
the confusion. Last month, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, drew fewer than
100 people to a South Carolina "Environmental Justice" forum. And she's a frontrunner!
Meanwhile, Gallup released a poll last week that had some troubling news for Democrats,
as only 66% of the party faithful said they're enthusiastic about the upcoming election.
And while for Republicans the number is 65%, "this differed from the typical pattern Gallup has
seen over the years, whereby those who identify with the political party of the incumbent
president have been less enthusiastic about voting than members of the opposing party," Gallup
wrote.
Ironically, Obama isn't alone in saying Democrats need to hold their nose when they vote for
the eventual nominee. Joe Biden's wife, Jill, said in August that her husband might not be the
best candidate, but told voters "maybe you have to swallow a little bit" and vote for him
anyway.
"Your candidate might be better on, I don't know, health care, than Joe is," Jill Biden said
on MSNBC, "but you've got to look at who's going to win this election, and maybe you have to
swallow a little bit and say, 'OK, I personally like so-and-so better,' but your bottom line
has to be that we have to beat Trump."
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, she repeated the point. "I know that not all of you
are committed to my husband, and I respect that. But I want you to think about your candidate,
his or her electability, and who's going to win this race. So I think if your goal -- I know my
goal -- is to beat Donald Trump, we have to have someone who can beat him," she said.
In his foreign policy Trump looks like a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy
is a Deep State controlled republican. Why is the Deep State is attacking him is completely unclear. May be they just do not like unpredictable,
inpulsive politicians
Despite his surrender "Neocon crazies from the basement" still attack his exactly the same way as they attacked him for pretty
mundane meeting with Putin and other fake "misdeeds" like Ukrainegate
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans and former Sanders supporters, who voted
for him in 2016 to block Hillary election.
And in no way he is an economic nationalist. He is "national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on
treaties and prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties. And his "fight" with the Deep state
resemble so closely to complete and unconditional surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two. Most of
his appointees are rabid neocons. Just look at Pompeo, Bolton, Fiona Hill. That that extends far beyond those obvious crazies.
Washington Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his discussions with Russian President
Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private
conversation in Helsinki last summer.
"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn't care less."
"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which only the leaders and their translators
were present -- as "a great conversation" that included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."
"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the president of various countries. I
do it with all countries." -
Politico
In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed by Republicans. "The Washington Post
is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump said. When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York
Times report that the FBI had opened an inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you
ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?" "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think
it's the most insulting article I've ever had written."
Trump went on an
epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting
that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, &
as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations
with Russia again!"
While Obama organized 2014 coup data that smashed contitutional oder in Ukraine and installed far-right nationalists in power (Nulandgate) Obamam did not suppled arms toUkrains; Trump did
In his foreign policy Trump looks
like a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy is a Deep State controlled republican. Why
is the Deep State is attacking him is completely unclear. May be they just do not like unpredictable, impulsive politicians
Despite his surrender "Neocon crazies from the basement" still attack his exactly the same way as they attacked him for
pretty mundane meeting with Putin and other fake "misdeeds" like Ukrainegate
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans
and former Sanders supporters, who voted for him in 2016 to block Hillary election.
And in no way he is an economic nationalist. He is
"national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on treaties and
prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties. And his "fight" with the Deep state resemble so closely to complete and unconditional
surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two. Most of his appointees are rabid neocons. Just look at Pompeo, Bolton, Fiona Hill. That that extends far beyond
those obvious crazies.
Washington
Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his
discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a
phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private conversation in
Helsinki last summer.
"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I
couldn't care less."
"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which
only the leaders and their translators were present -- as "a great conversation" that
included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."
"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the
president of various countries. I do it with all countries." -
Politico
In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed
by Republicans. "The Washington Post is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump
said. When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York Times report that the FBI had opened an
inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you ever
worked for Russia, Mr. President?" "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think it's
the most insulting article I've ever had written."
Trump went on an
epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former
FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush
or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often
said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday
we will have good relations with Russia again!"
"... "The next president will, for example, have to deal with the enormous loss of U.S. credibility during the past three years, which has stemmedin large part from Trump's reneging on or withdrawing from agreements such as the Paris accord on climate change, arms control accords withRussia, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Iran's nuclear program." ..."
"... What is the PURPOSE of US Foreign Policy? To protect the US homeland and US interests abroad (freedom of navigation, freedom of commerce and trade, and the protection of US citizens travelling abroad to name a few). ..."
"... Unfortunately, US Policy really refers to US interventionism across the globe. Covert activities are presumably necessary to protect US interests so as to thwart the covert activities of our enemies. In practice, what the US really does is protect the interests of friendly countries and US-based multi-national corporations...and the whole thing is smoke and mirrors (hidden from the American people). Thus, we really have NO IDEA what US Foreign Policy is, or what we are doing behind the scenes. That's on both Democrats and Republicans. ..."
This is still a race for a party nomination, and it is well known how political battles at this stage typically focus narrowly
on what are perceived to be the parochial concerns of the party's base and take on a different character in the general election.
But positions taken now can impose constraints later on. Moreover, Democratic primary voters ought to be learning about what difference
the various contenders would make in executing the powers of the presidency, not just in who has the most attractive ideas about
policies that cannot be imposed by fiat.
Foreign policy is where more attention and debate are most required, and not just because foreign policy nearly always gets inadequate
attention in political campaigns. It also is where a president has the most power to make a difference even without getting Congress
to go along with the president's program. This fact is reflected in how many presidents late in their presidencies, especially in
second terms, have turned more of their attention to foreign relations as an area where they can make a difference after experiencing
frustration in trying to get their domestic programs through Congress.
Many issues in foreign policy could profitably be discussed more than they are now, but priority should be given to those subjects
on which Trump has caused the most damage. Candidates should explain how they intend to repair that damage, not just what their policies
would be if they somehow could be written on a clean slate. The slate on which the next administration's foreign policy will be written
starts out very dirty. Coming after Trump will be a major, task-defining fact about the next administration's foreign policy challenges.
The heavy damage to U.S. relations with the European allies represents another especially dirty part of the slate that the next
administration will have to tend to. Brexit will be an added complication in addressing this problem and in a sense is another part
of Trump's legacy given the way he has cheered on the Brexiteers,
contrary to U.S. interests.
Issues examined by the current impeachment proceeding represent more damage-repair needs. Ukraine is a large and important country
and constructing a U.S. policy that adequately reflects Ukraine's delicate situation between East and West would be a challenge in
any event. Now it has been made more difficult by Trump and Rudy Giuliani's
setting back of Ukraine's efforts to stamp out corruption and subordinating an aid relationship to dirt-digging for domestic
political reasons. What are the Democratic candidates' specific ideas for repairing this damage, and for fitting the repairs into
a sensible policy toward not just Ukraine but also Russia?
To emphasize these foreign policy challenges is not to diminish the amount of Trump-inflicted damage that extends to domestic
matters as well, and the need for the next administration to repair that damage as well. Perhaps the greatest over-arching damage,
spanning both the domestic and foreign sides, is that the nation seems to have become inured to wrongdoing because of the sheer volume
of it, with attention to each offense quickly fading as it is succeeded by a new offense or attention-hogging presidential outburst.
What will the next president do to restore a sense of national outrage over wrongdoing whenever it occurs, be it blatant self-dealing,
corruption of U.S. foreign relations, or something else?
Such problems may not have as much resonance in Iowa caucuses as the cost of health care, but they have a lot more to do with
who will make the best president.
Paul R. Pillar is Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and Nonresident
Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is a contributing editor to The National Interest, where he writes
a blog.
"The next president will, for example, have to deal with the enormous loss of U.S. credibility during the past three years,
which has stemmedin large part from Trump's reneging on or withdrawing from agreements such as the Paris accord on climate change,
arms control accords withRussia, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Iran's nuclear program."
What a load of hooey this article is. U.S. credibility with whom? Failed Merkel? Failed Macron?...
Failure of the past three years but no mention of the failures of Obama? Sending an aging hippie James Taylor to console islamic terrorist victims in Paris apparently counts as a major foreign policy
success and that mean Trump refuses to perpetuate. And then there's the cross the red line in Syria and we'll do nothing.
Or maybe ship weapons secretly to Islamic terrorists calling them freedom fighters and surprise surprise, the weapons from
Obama are used to murder American diplomats in Benghazi. Then cover that up by blaming it on a video from a guy in Los Angeles
and sending out a team to blatantly lie about the event.
Now there's real foreign policy you can depend on - from the Democrats.
What is the PURPOSE of US Foreign Policy? To protect the US homeland and US interests abroad (freedom of navigation, freedom
of commerce and trade, and the protection of US citizens travelling abroad to name a few).
Unfortunately, US Policy really refers
to US interventionism across the globe. Covert activities are presumably necessary to protect US interests so as to thwart the
covert activities of our enemies. In practice, what the US really does is protect the interests of friendly countries and US-based
multi-national corporations...and the whole thing is smoke and mirrors (hidden from the American people). Thus, we really have
NO IDEA what US Foreign Policy is, or what we are doing behind the scenes. That's on both Democrats and Republicans.
Warren's New Proposal for Prescription Drugs Is Flying Under the Radar
By Dean Baker
Earlier this month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren put out a set of steps that she would put
forward as president as part of a transition to Medicare for All. The items that got the most
attention were including everyone over age 50 and under age 18 in Medicare, and providing
people of all ages with the option to buy into the program. This buy-in would include large
subsidies, and people with incomes of less than 200 percent of the poverty level would be
able to enter the Medicare program at no cost.
These measures would be enormous steps toward Medicare for All, bringing tens of millions
of people into the program, including most of those (people over age 50) with serious medical
issues. It would certainly be more than halfway to a universal Medicare program.
While these measures captured most of the attention given to Warren's transition plan,
another part of the plan is probably at least as important. Warren proposed to use the
government's authority to compel the licensing of drug patents so that multiple companies can
produce a patented drug.
The government can do this both because it has general authority to compel licensing of
patents (with reasonable compensation) and because it has explicit authority under the 1980
Bayh-Dole Act to require licensing of any drug developed in part with government-funded
research. The overwhelming majority of drugs required some amount of government-supported
research in their development.
These measures are noteworthy because they can be done on the president's own authority.
While the pharmaceutical industry will surely contest a president's use of the government's
authority to weaken their patent rights, those actions would not require congressional
approval.
The other reason that these steps would be so important is that there is a huge amount of
money involved. The United States is projected to spend over $6.6 trillion on prescription
drugs over the next decade, more than 2.5 percent of GDP.
The government has explicit authority under the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act to require licensing of
any drug developed in part with government-funded research.
This is an enormous amount of money. We spend more than twice as much per person on drugs
as people in other wealthy countries.
This is not an accident. The grant of a patent monopoly allows drug companies to charge as
much as they want for drugs that are necessary for people's health or even their life.
While other countries also grant patent monopolies, they limit the ability of drug
companies to exploit these monopolies with negotiations or price controls. This is why prices
in these countries are so much lower than in the United States.
But even these negotiated prices are far above what drug prices would be in a free market.
The price of drugs in a free market, without patent monopolies or related protections, will
typically be less than 10 percent of the U.S. price and in some cases, less than 1
percent.
This is because drugs are almost invariably cheap to manufacture and distribute. They are
expensive because government-granted patent monopolies make them expensive.
The rationale for patent monopolies is to give companies an incentive to research and
develop drugs. This process is expensive, and if newly developed drugs were sold in a free
market, companies would not be able to recover these expenses.
To make up for the loss of research funding supported by patent monopolies, Warren
proposes an increase in public funding for research.
To make up for the loss of research funding supported by patent monopolies, Warren
proposes an increase in public funding for research. This would be an important move toward
an increased reliance on publicly funded biomedical research.
There are enormous advantages to publicly funded research over patent monopoly-supported
research. First, the government is funding the research. It can require that all results be
fully public as soon as possible so that all researchers can quickly benefit from them.
By contrast, under the patent system, drug companies have an incentive to keep results
secret. They have no desire to share results that could benefit competitors.
Public funding would also radically reduce the incentive to develop copycat drugs. Under
the current system, drug companies will often devote substantial sums to developing drugs
that are intended to duplicate the function of drugs already on the market. While there is
generally an advantage to having more options to treat a specific condition, most often,
research dollars would be better spent trying to develop drugs for conditions where no
effective treatment currently exists.
Ending patent monopoly pricing would also take away the incentive for drug companies to
conceal evidence that their drugs may not be as safe or effective as claimed. Patent
monopolies give drug companies an incentive to push their drugs as widely as possible.
The opioid crisis provides a dramatic example of the dangers of this system. Opioid
manufacturers would not have had the same incentive to push their drugs, concealing evidence
of their addictive properties, if they were not making huge profits on them.
In short, Senator Warren's plans on drugs are a really huge deal. How far and how quickly
she will be able to get to Medicare for All will depend on what she can get through Congress.
But her proposal for prescription drugs is something she would be able to do if elected
president, and it would make an enormous difference in both the cost and the quality of our
health care.
"... However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her." According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren. ..."
In November, Barack Obama, who had avoided commenting on the Democratic presidential
primary, came out forcefully in opposition to the extreme positions taken by some leading
progressive contenders, positions that could cause the Democrats to be beaten by Trump in the
2020 election. Obama was a very popular president among Democrats, and what he has to say
carries considerable weight with them. While this may not be his intent, Obama's position could
open the field for Hillary Clinton to enter the fray and quite possibly become the Democrats'
nominee, given the lackluster performance of leading "moderate" Joe Biden, whose weaknesses
have been brought out by the mainstream media, despite their animosity toward Trump.
Now many in the Democratic Party leadership, as well as wealthy Democratic donors, have been
concerned for some time about the radical nature of some of the economic policies advocated by
the leading progressive Democratic contenders. They fear that instead of the 2020 election
revolving around Trump with his low approval ratings, and very likely his impeachment, which
would seem to be a slam-dunk victory for Democrats, it would focus on those radical economic
proposals. Many voters are skeptical about how free college for all, free health care for all,
high-paying jobs in "green energy" -- after greatly reducing the use of fossil fuels, free
childcare for all, just to name some of the "free" things that have been promised, would really
work. Instead of raising taxes on the middle class, most of these free things would purportedly
be paid for by the super-wealthy, which would exclude mere millionaires such as Bernie Sanders
(estimated wealth $2 million) and Elizabeth Warren (estimated wealth $12 million) who are the
leading progressive contenders.
Obama began stressing his concern about the danger of radicalism in an October speech at the
Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago. And he did this not by dealing with presidential candidates
but with youth who think they can immediately change society. "This
idea of purity and you're never compromised, and you're always politically woke and all
that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama lectured. "The world is messy. There are
ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws."
It was at a gathering of Democratic donors in Washington, D.C., in November that Obama
cautioned Democratic candidates not to go too far to the left since that would antagonize many
voters who would otherwise support the Democratic candidate. "Even as we push the envelope and
we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in
reality ," Obama asserted. "The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear
down the system and remake it." Although Obama did not specify particular Democratic
candidates, his warning was widely interpreted as being directed at Elizabeth Warren and Bernie
Sanders.
Currently, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, according to national polls,
is Joe Biden, who is considered a moderate. But Biden has a number of problems. He continues to
make gaffes while speaking, and during his long career in the Senate took positions that are
antithetical to the Democratic Party of today. Moreover, he lacks the charisma to attract large
crowds to his events. Thus, it is questionable that he has the capability to attract large
numbers of Democratic voters to the polls in November 2020.
According to Politico Magazine , Obama was recently discussing election tactics with
an unnamed current candidate and "pointed out that during his own 2008 campaign, he had an
intimate bond with the electorate" and he is quoted as adding, "And you know who really
doesn't have it ? Joe Biden."
Biden's appeal already seems to be waning. For example, in November, a Marquette Law School
poll, which is considered the gold-standard survey in swing state Wisconsin, which the
Democrats need to win the 2020 election, shows
Trump leading Biden 47 percent to 44 percent. In October, Trump had trailed Biden by 6
points (44 percent to 50 percent), and in August, Trump trailed Biden by 9 points (42 percent
to 51 percent). In short, Biden is losing support. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by a slender
margin of 0.77 percent, with 47.22 percent of the total votes over the 46.45 percent for
Hillary Clinton.
Another problem Biden faces is the corrupt activities of his son Hunter and brother James,
who have taken advantage of their connection with him. The mainstream media has so far largely
kept this mostly under wraps, but this tactic won't be successful as the election approaches.
In fact, the progressive Democrats such as Bernie Sanders are likely to bring this up in a
desperate effort to be nominated. And already these issues are being mentioned by the
alternative media. For instance, there is an article in the non-partisan, anti-government
Intercept
titled, "Joe Biden's Family Has Been Cashing in on His Career for Decades. Democrats Need to
Acknowledge That," and comparable articles in the conservative Washington Examiner such
as, "Hunter Biden-linked company r
eceived $130M in special federal loans while Joe Biden was vice president," and "Hunter
Biden has
99 problems , and Burisma is only one."
David Axelrod, Democratic strategist and longtime aide to Barack Obama, said concerns about
Biden's electability clearly influenced multi-billionaire (estimated $53 billion) and
former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's entrance into the contest for the Democratic
nominee for president. "There's no question that Bloomberg's calculus was that Biden was
occupying a space, and the fact that he's getting in is a clear indication that he's not
convinced Biden has the wherewithal to carry that torch," Axelrod said. "So yeah, I don't think
this is a positive development for Joe Biden."
Similarly, Democratic strategist Brad Bannon contended that "centrist Democrats and wealthy
donors have
lost confidence in Biden's ability to stop Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders from winning
the nomination." Bannon added that with Bloomberg entering the Democratic presidential race,
"Biden's fundraising will get even shakier than it already is. There's only room for one
moderate in this race and Bloomberg threatens Biden's status as the centrist
standard-bearer."
Bloomberg's "stop and frisk"
policy as mayor , which largely targeted blacks and Hispanics, should make it virtually
impossible that he could be the Democratic nominee, despite his recent apology. Unless he has
become senile in his late 70s, Bloomberg should well understand this since he did not make his
billions by being stupid. It could be that he intends to serve as a stalking horse to draw
Hillary Clinton into the contest by showing the weakness of Biden. Then like Superwoman,
Hillary can enter the fray, appearing not to act for her own sake but to save the country from
a likely second term for President Trump.
Similarly, Mark Penn, who was chief strategist for Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 presidential
campaign, said Bloomberg's entrance
could cause Clinton to consider to run and decide there's "still a political logic there for
her."
As Biden's support slips away, Clinton's should rise. Clinton has been recently promoting a
book she co-wrote with her daughter, Chelsea, in Britain. In an interview with BBC Radio 5
Live , Clinton said "many, many, many people" are
pressuring her to jump into the 2020 presidential race and that she thinks about this "all
the time." Clinton told the host that she is under "enormous pressure" but said it is not in
her plans, though she cryptically added that she would "never say never."
Dick Morris, who was once a close confidant of the Clintons during Bill Clinton's time as
Arkansas governor and U.S. president recently said in a radio interview that Hillary Clinton
likely wants to run for the presidency in 2020. "My feeling is that
she wants to ," Morris said. "She feels entitled to do it. She feels compelled to do it.
She feels that God put her on the Earth to do it. But she's hesitant because she realizes the
timing is bad."
However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out
because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her."
According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the
leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren.
Morris has not been in touch with the Clintons for many years, and has become strongly
critical of them, so his claim might be questionable. Nonetheless, his portrayal of Hillary's
current thinking seems quite reasonable.
A Fox News poll included Clinton along with the active Democratic candidates in a
hypothetical election with Trump, and Hillary came out ahead of him by two percentage
points. While some actual candidates did somewhat better than Hillary, she did quite well for
someone who is not currently running for office.
Furthermore, a Harris Harvard poll in late October asked the question, "Suppose Hillary
Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, and John Kerry decides [sic] to enter the race, who would you
support as a candidate for President?" Joe Biden received the support of 19 percent of Democrat
respondents while Clinton was a
close second with 18 percent. Elizabeth Warren came in third at 13 percent, John Kerry was
at 8 percent, and Bloomberg was at 6. Again, Clinton does quite well for someone who is not
actually running for president.
One might think that if references to family members' corruption damaged Biden, then Clinton
would be subject to worse damage in that area, since she and her husband Bill were connected
with far more corrupt activities -- Whitewater, Travelgate, the Lewinsky affair, the Paula
Jones affair, t the death of Vince Foster, the Clinton Foundation, her private server, and so
on. But these issues are already known and are presumably already taken into account by the
voters, whereas the Biden family's corrupt activities are so far largely unknown.
It should be pointed out that Clinton has a number of positives as a presidential candidate.
Although losing in the Electoral College in 2016, Clinton had garnered 3 million more votes
more than Trump. The election was decided by a total of 80,000 votes in three states. It is
highly unlikely that such a fluke could be duplicated.
Clinton's staff had been overconfident assuming victory, which was based on their polling of
various states, and as a result began to focus on competing in states well beyond those Clinton
needed for victory.
Moreover, one key event outside the control of Clinton's staff was FBI Director James
Comey's investigation of Clinton's use of a personal email server during her tenure as
secretary of state. Most crucial were his July 2016 public statement terminating the
investigation, with a lengthy comment about what Clinton did wrong, and his October 28
reopening the inquiry into newly discovered emails and then closing it two days before the
election, stating that the emails had not provided any new information. The October 28 letter,
however, probably played a key role in the outcome of the election. As statistician Nate Silver
maintains: "Hillary Clinton would probably be president
if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which
said the FBI had 'learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the
investigation into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended
the news cycle and soon halved Clinton's lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the
Electoral College.'"
[Silver's organization FiveThirtyEight had projected a much higher chance (29
percent) of Donald Trump winning the presidency than most other pollsters]
Clinton has also helped to convince many Democrats and members of the mainstream media that
the 2016 election was stolen from her by Russian agents If this were really true – which
is very doubtful – then Hillary should be the Democrats' candidate for 2020 since Russian
intervention should not be as successful as it allegedly was in 2016.
In endorsing Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, Obama stated. "I don't think that
there's ever been someone
so qualified to hold this office." He has yet to make such an endorsement for Biden and
privately, as mentioned earlier, said he is a poor choice for a nominee. He might ultimately
endorse Biden, but he certainly would not renege on what he said four years ago about Clinton
if she became the Democrats' standard-bearer.
Should Clinton opt to run, she would have no trouble raising money since she set a record in
2016 of $1.4 billion
and wealthy donors want a moderate to be the Democratic nominee. It would seem likely that she
would enter the contest if Biden has serious trouble. She would miss some state primaries since
it would be too late to register in them but given the crowded field of candidates, there is a
likelihood that there will be a brokered convention, that is, the convention will go past the
first ballot. Since the superdelegates would be allowed to vote in all rounds after the first,
they could determine the winner, which would probably mean the selection of a candidate who
would be seen to have the greatest chance of winning, and that would likely be Hillary Clinton,
if she has entered the fray.
I discussed the merits of Pete Buttigieg in a previous article in
Unz Review, and what I write here might seem to conflict with that. However, while Buttigieg is
doing quite well
in the polls, he still does not get much support
from blacks and Latinos, which is essential to become the Democrats nominee for president.
Buttigieg could, however, be nominated for vice president or, more likely, given an important
cabinet position since the vice-presidential slot would probably be reserved for a black or
Latino if a white person were picked as the presidential nominee, which currently seems
likely.
But because of Buttigieg's relatively hardline foreign policy
, which largely meshes with that of Clinton's, and his wide knowledge and language ability,
Buttigieg would fit well in the all-important position of secretary of state in a Clinton
administration. Moreover, Buttigieg, whose tenure as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will end in
January 2020, would almost certainly be willing to take such a position, which could serve as a
jumping-off point for the presidency in the future.
"... and now Obama weighs in to warn against the real danger to the democrats, Bernie Sanders. that's who they have to beat, and Gabbard. They don't give much of a damn about beating Trump. ..."
"... This pretty much confirms my and many others here hypothesis that the Dems are fighting a "war on two fronts": one against Trump nationalist capitalism and the other against the "democratic socialists" who have been flocking to their party machine since 2014. ..."
"... Clearly, the goal is to prevent the US Polity from clawing back power from the 10% and enacting policies to their benefit. Meanwhile, a new form of Transnational Nationalism continues to take shape that will soon present a serious threat to the Financialized Globalizers and their Cult of Debt. Too many seem to laugh off the entire situation by dismissing it as Kabuki Theatre, which I see as self-serving and shortsighted since there're several very real crises we're in up to our collective armpits. ..."
"... A full blown impeachment trial that exposes the entire Russia-gate/Ukraine-gate/Whatever-gate sham is what this country needs. ..."
"... Bet the MSM sells Ukrainegate this way: Trump is guilty in Ukrainegate and should be impeached, but Democrats are moving on to focus on the election. And besides, Dems will tell us, the dastardly Republicans in the Senate will corruptly block Trump's impeachment. ..."
"... That is what they call a "trial balloon." If there isn't too much of a freakout among the true-believer base, and I don't think there is, it'll be an option they will at least take seriously. Not that I'm encouraging anyone to bet on rational thinking at this point. Anyway I agree it's the best move for congressional Democrats. ..."
"... I am liking all the commenters here that understand that there is only one empire party with two mythical faces. I think this kabuki is necessary if you don't have a major WAR to keep the masses focused on or otherwise distracted from the underlying R2P which I translate to Rape2Protect. ..."
"... If this show should teach people in the US anything (again), it is how both US parties descend like vultures onto countries where they manage to take over the government. Five billion poured into Ukraine with the requisite murder and mayhem, and who knows how many billions come pouring back out. It's a real jackpot for those in the right positions to scoop it into their pockets. ..."
"... The average people in the US don't even have a genuine safety net. Important for all those productive resources to go to pedophile islands and sinecures for coke head sons of politicians, obviously. ..."
"... The GOP is the party of the rich. The Democrats are the party the rich pay to keep the left at bay when the Republicans lose. ..."
"... the deck is stacked even more against independents than it is against actual mildly leftist candidates who run as democrats. there are a substantial number of people who think the only way to change the country is to take over the democratic party. frankly, that isn't going to happen, and nobody is going to win as an independent candidate with all the procedural rules making it so hard to even get on the ballot, while the state government, which is invariably controlled by one of the two parties, throws every roadblock, legal and illegal, in the way. my gut feeling is things are going to have to get quite a bit worse before the citizenry starts to explode, and there's no telling how that process will work out, and no way to control it once it reaches critical mass. ..."
"... the Democrats won't want to censure Trump for matters in which they themselves are equally complicit, as has been discussed here. ..."
"... "The party's true function is thus largely theatrical. It doesn't exist to fight for change, but only to pose as a force which one fine distant day might possibly bestir itself to fight for change. Thus the whole magic of the Dem Party -- the essential service it renders to the US power structure -- lies not in what it does, but in its mere existence: by simply existing, and doing nothing, it pretends to be something it's not; and this is enough to relieve despair & to let the system portray itself as a "democracy." ..."
"... Trump is up against an entrenched powerful bureaucracy and people who buy ink by the 55 gallon barrel. The democrats need to take a hard turn towards Mayor Pete and Tulsi. The rank and file Democrats are tired of the elite political class ..."
"... The real Trump move would be to hit the twitter right before the house impeachment vote and announce that he has instructed the House Republicans to vote for impeachment. ..."
"... He could lay out his story about how the American People never got to hear the full story because of house dems, and how the Senate would fully investigate the 2016 election, Russiagate, Ukraine, and whatever else they want. Maybe even make Hillary testify. Heads would explode and his base would love it. ..."
"... To the people here clamoring for Bernie Sanders to go independent: The American electoral system is very unique. The two parties -- GOP and Dems -- are much more than mere political parties: they are the American electoral machine itself. It is impossible to win the presidency without being the candidate of one of the two, that's why Trump also didn't go as an independent either. ..."
"An impeachment trial in the Senate would be a disaster for the Democrats.
I can not see why the Democrats would want to fall into such a trap. House leader Nancy
Pelosi is experienced enough to not let that happen."
The real reason in my opinion that Pelosi went along with impeachment was that she saw
Bernies message getting through, and even though the DNC pushed all the conserva-dem
candidates they could into the race, Bernie is still doing well and gaining. An impeachment
trial would require Bernie to attend the hearings rather that campaigning. Also Wall Streets
best friend Obama has just stated that Bernie is not a Democrat and that would require Obama
to get on the speaking circuit to campaign against him - you know for the sake of the
corporations - and those 500k speaking thank you gigs. They would rather elect Trump than
Bernie - that is why I think Pelosi would go along with an impeachment trial in the Senate -
Bernie is the greater threat.
The idea to censure Trump and move on has been aired since mid 2017. The latest was
Forbes.com billwhalen 26 September 2019
Link
I ordered a truckload of pop corn to snack on during the trial in the Senate. Just imagine
Joe Biden under cross examination as he flips 'n flops! "Was that me in the Video, I can't
recall."
With interest (even among Democrats) in the impeachment process sliding, the House
Judiciary Committee is set to take over the impeachment probe of President Trump next week,
scheduling a Dec. 4 hearing.
As The Hill reports, behind Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the committee
will hear from legal scholars as Democrats weigh whether the evidence turned up in their
weeks-long impeachment inquiry warrants the drafting of articles aimed at removing the
president from office.
The hearing, scheduled for next Wednesday, will focus on the definition of an
impeachable offense and the formal application of the impeachment process. The panel
will invite White House lawyers to attend and participate.
Ahead of the hearing, Nadler wrote to Trump requesting his participation - or
that of White House counsel - as part of ensuring "a fair and informative process."[.]
Trump will take a page from the other president who campaigned on the "do nothing
congress"
and now Obama weighs in to warn against the real danger to the democrats, Bernie Sanders.
that's who they have to beat, and Gabbard. They don't give much of a damn about beating
Trump.
b, there seems to be a critical flaw in your analysis--you seem to base it on a premise that
the goal of the Democratic establishment is to win elections/gain power/govern. It's not,
it's to ensure the continuing enrichment of themselves and their oligarch peers, financial
industry, military, pharma, etc.
The question people like Pelosi (worth $100 million or so btw along with her husband whose
business she enriches via her position) are pondering isn't "Will doing x, y, z help Trump
win?" It's "Will doing x, y, z ensure Bernie Sanders doesn't win?"
This pretty much confirms my and many others here hypothesis that the Dems are
fighting a "war on two fronts": one against Trump nationalist capitalism and the other
against the "democratic socialists" who have been flocking to their party machine since
2014.
Of all the things that the Democrats could impeach President Trump over, the one thing they
seized upon was the issue that had the most potential to blow back on them and destroy Joe
Biden's chances of reaching the White House. Whoever had that brilliant idea and put it as
the long straw in a cylindrical prawn-chip can along with all the other straws for pulling
out, sure didn't think of all the consequences that could have arisen. That speaks for the
depth (or lack thereof) of the thinking among senior Democrats and their worker bee analysts,
along with a narrow-minded outlook, sheer hatred of a political outsider and a fanatical zeal
to match that hatred and outlook.
The folks who hatched that particular impeachment plan and pitched it to Nancy Pelosi must
have been the same idiots in the DNC who dreamt up the Russiagate scandal and also pursued
Paul Manafort to get him off DJT's election campaign team. Dmitri Alperovich / Crowdstrike,
Alexandra Chalupa: we're looking at you.
Impeachment takes Sanders out of the campaign and that opens things up for the
CIA/establishment's "Identity Politics Candidate #3" , Mayor Butt-gig.
That said, since "Everyone who doesn't vote for our candidate is a deplorable
misogynist!" didn't work as expected, I wonder what makes them think "Everyone who
doesn't vote for our candidate is a deplorable homophobe!" will work any better?
Lots of agreement here with the overall situation becoming clearer with Bloomberg's entrance
and the outing of Obama's plans. I just finished writing my response to Putin's speech before the annual
United Russia Party Congress on the Open Thread and suggest barflies take 10 minutes to
read it and compare what he espouses a political party's deeds & goals ought to be versus
those of the West and its vassals.
Clearly, the goal is to prevent the US Polity from clawing back power from the 10% and
enacting policies to their benefit. Meanwhile, a new form of Transnational Nationalism
continues to take shape that will soon present a serious threat to the Financialized
Globalizers and their Cult of Debt. Too many seem to laugh off the entire situation by
dismissing it as Kabuki Theatre, which I see as self-serving and shortsighted since there're
several very real crises we're in up to our collective armpits.
A full blown impeachment trial that exposes the entire
Russia-gate/Ukraine-gate/Whatever-gate sham is what this country needs.
Obviously, a sufficient number of secure Republican representatives are needed to vote in
favor of impeachment to allow this circus to continue to its bizarrely entertaining,
Democratic Party destroying end.
The MSM will declare Trump guilty - that is, he has earned impeachment for Ukrainegate.
There are Democrats still under the illusion that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the
election. Dems tell us that Trump *obstructed* the Mueller investigation thus Trump could not
be nailed, nonetheless Trump is guilty of collusion until proven innocent.
Back to Ukrainegate. Bet the MSM sells Ukrainegate this way: Trump is guilty in
Ukrainegate and should be impeached, but Democrats are moving on to focus on the election.
And besides, Dems will tell us, the dastardly Republicans in the Senate will corruptly block
Trump's impeachment.
Tulsi
Gabbard Tweet not specifically about impeachment but begs numerous questions:
"My personal commitment is to always treat you and all Americans with respect. Working
side-by-side, we can defeat the divisiveness of Donald Trump, and usher in a 21st century of
peace, human dignity, & true equality. Working side by side, we can make Dr. King's dream
our reality ." [My Emphasis]
Questions: Is Trump divisive, or is it the D-Party and Current Oligarchy that make him so;
and which is more important to defeat? Which party "usher[ed] in the 21st century" with
several wars and abetted the next two? How did Obama, Slick Willie or his wife advance "human
dignity & true equality"? How does her last sentence differ from "Hope you can believe
in"? Hasn't her D-Party worked tirelessly for decades to circumvent the goals she espouses?
Wouldn't Gabbard have a better chance running as an Enlightened Republican than as a Renegade
Democrat if her goal's to defeat Trump?
American Democracy is political professional wrestling, Kabuki Theater, and mediocre Reality
TV all rolled into. by: AK74 @ 4 <= binary divide <=conducted by the USA, is not about
America, Americans or making America great again, its about the welfare of [the few<=
which most Americans would not call fellow Americans].
Sasha.@ 23 I don't understand where you are coming from.. thank Korlof1 @18 for posting
that Putin talk alert. excerpts from the talk.. => The priority [of United Russia has
been] the protection of the people's interests, the interests of [the] Motherland, and
..responsible [approach] to ..country, its security, stability and people's lives in the
long-term perspective.
The party.. offered a unifying agenda based on freedom and well being, patriotism,
..traditional values, a strong civil society and a strong state. The key issue in the party's
work .being together with the people, Karlof1@18 <=this talk suggest change in Russian
leadership that are not congruent with your [Sasha] comment @23. I hope you will make more
clear what you spent sometime writing ( and for that effort I thank you) but it is not yet
clear what you mean.. .
Re: Brenda Lawrence talking about censure rather than impeachment:
That is what they call a "trial balloon." If there isn't too much of a freakout among
the true-believer base, and I don't think there is, it'll be an option they will at least
take seriously. Not that I'm encouraging anyone to bet on rational thinking at this point.
Anyway I agree it's the best move for congressional Democrats.
Yet another other option is to continue the investigation indefinitely. I'm going to say
it is their default move actually. In that case, the House Judiciary Committee would spend a
few weeks putting on their own show, then say they would like more evidence to be really
sure, returning matters to the House Intelligence Committee, and we repeat the cycle.
I am liking all the commenters here that understand that there is only one empire party
with two mythical faces. I think this kabuki is necessary if you don't have a major WAR to
keep the masses focused on or otherwise distracted from the underlying R2P which I translate
to Rape2Protect.
It is sad to see us all talking about which of the lesser of horrible evils will continue
the leadership of American faced empire.....I hope it crashes soon and takes the global elite
down with it.....how many barflies are ready to stand up and say NO to the owners of the
Super-Priority derivatives that will say they own the world because of their casino (no skin
in the game) bets that are currently "legal" in America when the crash comes?
American "Democracy" is a mask for the American Empire and its capitalist
system--including especially the American Military and its Intelligence apparatus (aka The
Deep State). If the American people don't identify with these institutions, you would see
much greater hostility to -- if not outright rebellion against--the American military and
spooks.
Instead, you see the very opposite: the American people saluting, glorifying, "thanking
for their service," and politically fellating the US military and spy agencies every chance
they get. That should tell you all you need to know about Americans.
If this show should teach people in the US anything (again), it is how both US parties
descend like vultures onto countries where they manage to take over the government. Five
billion poured into Ukraine with the requisite murder and mayhem, and who knows how many
billions come pouring back out. It's a real jackpot for those in the right positions to scoop
it into their pockets.
The average people in the US don't even have a genuine safety net. Important for all
those productive resources to go to pedophile islands and sinecures for coke head sons of
politicians, obviously.
Re: #3 Allen – well said. The GOP is the party of the rich. The Democrats are the
party the rich pay to keep the left at bay when the Republicans lose.
The problem with this prediction is that the MSM has been breathlessly pronouncing that THIS
IS EXPLOSIVE EVIDENCE!!!! pretty much every day and after every witness testimony.
So if you are a member of the public who gets their "information" from the MSM (and, be
honest, that is most of the people in the USA) then you have been force-fed is that Trumps
defense against these allegations has already been shredded, and that his guilt has already
been established beyond any reasonable doubt.
How can those opinion-makers then turn around and say "Nah, it'll be fine" and settle for
a mere censure?
Wouldn't the Sheeple respond with a fully-justified "Hey, hang on! What gives?"
The Democrats has leapt on a Tiger. Nobody made them do it, but now they are there I don't
think they are going to be able to leap off.
Some of the first-term nobodies, maybe, but not the Schiffs and the Pelopis and the
Nadlers.
Hang on for dear life and hope for a miracle is probably their only option now.
And, who knows, that trio may be so incompetent that they actually think they are going to
win.
james, the deck is stacked even more against independents than it is against actual
mildly leftist candidates who run as democrats. there are a substantial number of people who
think the only way to change the country is to take over the democratic party. frankly, that
isn't going to happen, and nobody is going to win as an independent candidate with all the
procedural rules making it so hard to even get on the ballot, while the state government,
which is invariably controlled by one of the two parties, throws every roadblock, legal and
illegal, in the way. my gut feeling is things are going to have to get quite a bit worse
before the citizenry starts to explode, and there's no telling how that process will work
out, and no way to control it once it reaches critical mass.
The US is a one party State-- Pepsi _Pepsi Lite. Both parties are capitalist. It is rather
humorous the attention paid to a Dim vs Repug argument. Small thinking for small minds---
As I posted at the beginning of the impeachment process, the Dems would be foolish to hang it
all on the arcane shenanigans in Ukraine but rather should impeach Trump on the numerous more
serious breaches and crimes that he has committed. I also worried that the Democratic Party
leaders would blow the opportunity to demonstrate that Trump and the Republican Party are
rotten to the core and harmful to the country. And so they have blown it. What an inept pack
of asses.
I would think that even censure is still going to be a hot potato for the Democrats. Looking
at the procedure as far as wikipedia describes it, it hasn't done anything of significance
when it comes to being used against a president, especially as the Democrats won't want
to censure Trump for matters in which they themselves are equally complicit, as has been
discussed here.
That means they would be censuring on the same shaky grounds that they would have
impeached him, which only prolongs attention upon the dubious claims of the indictment. It
seems to me Trump will, rather than be shamed by the process, only be saying 'Make my day',
and hopefully have his Attorney General come forward with exonerating revelations on that
issue in the judicial proceeding that it was my contention the impeachment effort had been a
last ditch one to forestall such.
Wishful thinking on that, I know - but at least that probe has merit.
Thanks for your reply! And thanks for linking the Keen video! Made a comment on that
thread.
As I wrote when the possibility of Trump's impeachment arose almost as soon as he was
inaugurated, the entire charade reminds me of Slick Willie's impeachment, trial and
exoneration--the Articles of Impeachment utilized were such that he'd avoid conviction just
as they will be for Trump.
Allen @ 3 said; "The party's true function is thus largely theatrical. It doesn't exist
to fight for change, but only to pose as a force which one fine distant day might possibly
bestir itself to fight for change. Thus the whole magic of the Dem Party -- the essential
service it renders to the US power structure -- lies not in what it does, but in its mere
existence: by simply existing, and doing nothing, it pretends to be something it's not; and
this is enough to relieve despair & to let the system portray itself as a
"democracy."
With very few exceptions, you nailed it..Your description of the Dem. party is sad, but
true.....
Not having much time to watch the show trial it appears to me the Democrats still have a set
of very weak candidates. Anyone who knows Biden knows he in not now and never will be able to
handle a campaign against Trump.
Trump is up against an entrenched powerful bureaucracy and people who buy ink by the
55 gallon barrel. The democrats need to take a hard turn towards Mayor Pete and Tulsi. The
rank and file Democrats are tired of the elite political class in the same fashion that
the rank and file Republicans were tired of the political establishment which caused then to
turn to Trump.
Is the Democrat political establishment smart enough to take a few steps back and push
forward some outsiders? I doubt that but they would not lose much if they did. Any new
leaders would have the same stable of bureaucrats to pick from which will still be there long
after they are gone.
The real Trump move would be to hit the twitter right before the house impeachment vote
and announce that he has instructed the House Republicans to vote for impeachment.
He could lay out his story about how the American People never got to hear the full
story because of house dems, and how the Senate would fully investigate the 2016 election,
Russiagate, Ukraine, and whatever else they want. Maybe even make Hillary testify. Heads
would explode and his base would love it.
The...***The***...core takeaway, the battle at the heart of Russiagate/Ukrainegate, is that
it does not matter who the People elect as President and what platform he was elected on the
Deep State will decide foreign policy.
democrats republicans makes no difference both teams are managed by self serving scum who
refuse to allow "what the people want" to distract them from the big one. "what can I
steal?".
People meed to appreciate two things about both the dems and the rethugs. The first is
they supply a much-needed insight into: "How low can I go as a worthless hang off the wagon
by me fingernails, careerist. The second? That every hack must understand that eventually
every talking head is seen for the ugly sellout which they are.
There is no 'honourable way through this mess', one either quietly resigns pulling the pin
on the worst of us all, or one accepts the previously unacceptable, that we are most likely
both musically n functionally illiterate but it never matters what-u-say, what really counts
is what you do.
Whoever it was the Democrats should shun that person before it creates more damage to
their party.
I would disagree here. If the Democrats continue they will destroy themselves hopefully
leading to Mutually Assured Destruction as they would need to do something very drastic to
destroy the Republicans in return e.g. expose 9/11, Iraq etc, let the swamp / Deep State go
M.A.D. and from the political ashes parties and politicians can rise who are actually working
for the betterment of the USA and its people.
To the people here clamoring for Bernie Sanders to go independent: The American
electoral system is very unique. The two parties -- GOP and Dems -- are much more than mere
political parties: they are the American electoral machine itself. It is impossible to win
the presidency without being the candidate of one of the two, that's why Trump also didn't go
as an independent either.
Bernie Sanders is different from all other independent presidential candidates in American
History because he was the first to really want to win. That's why he penetrated the
Democratic machine, even though he became senator many times as an independent. He read the
conjuncture correctly and, you have to agree, he's been more influential over American
political-ideological landscape than all the other independents put together (not considering
Eugene Debs as an independent).
American "Democracy" is a mask for the American Empire and its capitalist
system--including especially the American Military and its Intelligence apparatus (aka The
Deep State). If the American people don't identify with these institutions, you would see
much greater hostility to--if not outright rebellion against--the American military and
spooks.
Instead, you see the very opposite: the American people saluting, glorifying, "thanking
for their service," and politically fellating the US military and spy agencies every chance
they get.
That should tell you all you need to know about Americans. by: AK74 @ 34
<= No not yet do I agree with you.. The American young people are forced into the
military in order to afford to be educated, and in order to have access to health care and
good-level workforce entry jobs especially the military is default for children of struggling
parents that cannot fund a college education or for the kids who are not yet ready to become
serious students.
The USA has not always discounted America or denied Americans. When I grew up, a college
education was very affordable, health care was available to even the most needy at whatever
they could afford, most of us could work our way through the education and find decent entry
level jobs if we were willing to dedicate ourselves to make the opportunity of a job into a
success (education, degrees, licenses were not needed, just performance was enough).
Unfortunately third party private mind control propaganda was used to extend into fake space,
the belief that the USA provides a valuable service to American interest. As time went on,
the USA had to hid its activities in top secret closets, it then had to learn to spy on
everyone, and it had to prosecute those (whistle blowers) who raised a question. Hence the
predicament of the awaken American dealing with friends that still believe the USA is good
for America.. Others hope the good times will return but the USA tolerance for descent is
dissipating. After the 16th amendment and the federal reserve act in 1913 the USA began to
edge America out in favor of international globalization.
Most of the really important parts of what made the USA great for Americans has been sold
off [privatized] and the protections and umpiring and refereeing that the USA used to provide
to keep the American economic space highly competitive and freely accessible to all
competitors has not only ceased, but now operates as a monopoly factory, churning out laws,
rules and establishing agencies that make the wealthy and their corporate empires wealthier,
richer and more monopolistic at the expense of everyday Americans.
The USA began to drop America from its sights after WWII. The USA moved its efforts and
activities from American domestic concerns to global concerns in 1948, neglected its advance
and protect American ideology; it imposed the continental shelf act in 1954 and the EPA act
in 1972, in order to force American industry out of America (the oil business to Saudi Arabia
and OPEC); by 1985-95 most businesses operating in America were either forced to close or
forced to move to a cheap third world labor force places.. .<=the purpose is now clear, it
was to separate Americans from their industrial and manufacturing know-how and to block
American access to evolving technology . At first most Americans did not notice.
Many Americans are only now waking to the possibility that things topside have changed and
some are realizing just how vulnerable the US constitution has made the USA to outside
influence. .. thanks to the USA very little of good ole America remains. but the humanity
first instinct most Americans are born with remains mostly unchanged, even though the
globalist have decimated religious organizations, most Americans still believe their maker
will not look favorably on those who deny justice, democracy or who abuse mankind. The USA
has moved on, it has become a global empire, operating in a global space unknown to most
Americans. The USA has created a world of its own, it no longer needs domestic America, it
can use the people and resources of anyone anywhere in the world for its conquest.
The last two political campaigns for President were "Change=Obama" and "Make America Great
Again=Trump"; neither of these two would have succeeded if Americans did not feel the
problem.
"... Doesn't Warren claim to have indigenous ancestors herself and was proud of it? She caused Trump to call her "Pocahontas"? She agrees to support the unelected interim president Jeannine Ańez, who refers to indigenous inhabitants as satanic? Warren is a very horrible person, inhumane, amoral, and rather stupid overall, who wants to get rich. ..."
"... I personally think that capitalism with "human face" and robust public sector is the way to go. But imperialist imposition and aggression is not the part of "human face" that I imagine. ..."
"... I'm sorry but you all need to come to terms with the farce that is the American political system. Anyone who was supporting Warren or even considering voting for her for ANY reason is apparently either in denial or is being duped. Warren is a Madison Avenue creation packaged for US liberal consumption. ..."
"... She hangs out with Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright, two evil women if ever there were. Now they make the three witches brewing one coup/regime change after another. She's not smart enough to see that HRC and MA are leading her around by her nose. People should call out this phoney everywhere she goes. BTW, Rachel Maddow completes an odious clique. ..."
"... This is a bit of exaggeration. The three ladies are more like good students, they did not write the textbook but they good grades for answering as written, or like cheerleaders, they jump and shout but they do not play in the field. Mind you, "interagency consensus" was formed without them. ..."
"... The DNC's strategy for this election is to ensure that Bernie doesn't go into the Convention with enough delegates to win the first ballot. (Once voting goes past the first ballot, super-delegates get to weigh in and help anoint a candidate who's friendly to the Party's plutocratic-oligarch principals.) ..."
"... That's the reason the DNC is allowing and encouraging so many candidates to run. Warren's specific assignment is to cannibalize Bernie's base and steal delegates that would otherwise be his, by pretending to espouse most of his platform with only minor tweaks. She's been successful with "better educated," higher-income liberal Democrats who consider themselves well informed because they get their news from "respectable" sources -- sources that, unbeknownst to their target audiences, invariably represent the viewpoint of the aforementioned plutocratic oligarchs. ..."
"... if Warren becomes the nominee, I will support her over Trump. It's a lesser of two evils choice, but we must recognize that no candidate will be perfect–ever. ..."
"... Zionism is typically the gateway drug for Democratic would-be reformers. Once they've swallowed that fundamental poison, the DNC feels secure it's just a matter of time before they Get With the Program 100%. Given that "Harvard" and "phony" are largely synonymous, what else could've been expected? ..."
Reiterates Her Neoconservative Policies Against Venezuela
Elizabeth Warren repeated her support for regime change in Venezuela in an interview in September with the
Council on Foreign Relations , a central gear in the machinery
of the military-industrial complex. "Maduro is a dictator and a crook who has wrecked his country's economy, dismantled its democratic
institutions, and profited while his people suffer," Warren declared. She referred to Maduro's elected government as a "regime" and
called for "supporting regional efforts to negotiate a political transition." Echoing the rhetoric of neoconservatives in Washington,
Warren called for "contain[ing]" the supposedly "damaging and destabilizing actions" of China, Russia, and Cuba. The only point where
Warren diverged with Trump was on her insistence that "there is no U.S. military option in Venezuela."
Soft-Pedals Far-Right Coup in Bolivia
While Warren endorsed Trump's hybrid war on Venezuela, she more recently whitewashed the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia.
Warren refused to comment on the putsch for more than a week, even as the far-right military junta massacred dozens of protesters
and systematically purged and detained elected left-wing politicians from MAS.
Finally, eight days after the coup, Warren broke her silence. In a short tweet, the putative progressive presidential candidate
tepidly requested "free and fair elections" and calling on the "interim leadership" to prepare an "early, legitimate election."
What Warren did not mention is that this "interim leadership" she helped legitimize is headed by an extreme right-wing Christian
fundamentalist, the unelected "interim president"
Jeanine Ańez. Ańez has referred
to Bolivia's majority-Indigenous population as "satanic" and immediately moved to try to overturn the country's progressive constitution,
which had established an inclusive, secular, plurinational state after receiving an overwhelming democratic mandate in a 2009 referendum.
Ańez's ally in this coup regime's interim leadership is
Luis Fernando
Camacho , a multi-millionaire who emerged out of neo-fascist groups and courted support from the United States and the far-right
governments of Brazil and Colombia. By granting legitimacy to Bolilvia's ultra-conservative, unelected leadership, Warren rubber-stamped
the far-right coup and the military junta's attempt to stamp out Bolivia's progressive democracy. In other words, as The Grayzone
editor Max Blumenthal put it, Liz's
Big Structural Bailey compliantly rolled over for
Big IMF Structural Adjustment Program
.
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone , and the producer of the "
Moderate Rebels " podcast, which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His
website is BenNorton.com , and he tweets at @
BenjaminNorton .
A vote for evil is never a good choice, and choosing a candidate you perceive as a lesser evil still condones evil. Allowing
the Oligarchy to limit your choice gives them the power to continue advancing evil policies. They control both major parties.
You may succeed in getting non-gender specific restrooms in your Starbucks, but the murdering war machine will continue unabated.
Now, we are seeing the true colors of candidates, who have professed to be progressive. Sanders went on a "tirade" against
Maduro during the last "debate" I saw. Tulsi Gabbard has stayed against US Imperialism, but, I'm sure the Democratic policy controllers
will never nominate her. I foresee I'll be voting for the Socialist next year.
Raymond M. , November 22, 2019 at 18:09
""""On Nov. 10, the U.S. government backed a far-right military coup against Bolivia's democratically elected President Evo
Morales bla blla bla".
And the 3 right wing candidates spent more time slinging mud at at each other than at Morales. Had the CIAs top front man Ortez stepped aside, the vote would not have split and allowed Morales to claim a first round victory and avoid
a run-off that he would have lost. And the right wing Christian fundamentalist for sure was a CIA plant who manged to split the
vote further.
Under the Trump administration, the CIA can even run a coup right.
If only those anti-Western rulers seen the light and joined RBWO (rule* based world order, * rules decided in DC, preferably
by bipartisan consensus), then the economy would run smoothly and the population would be happy. Every week gives another example:
By The Associated Press, Nov. 21, 2019, BOGOTA, Colombia
Colombians angry with President Iván Duque and hoping to channel Latin America's wave of discontent took the streets by the tens
of thousands on Thursday in one of the biggest protests in the nation's recent history. [ ] Police estimated 207,000 people took
part. [ ] government deployed 170,000 officers, closed border crossings and deported 24 Venezuelans accused of entering the country
to instigate unrest.
So if only Iván did not start unnecessary conflict with Maduro, these 24 scoundrels would stay home and the trouble would be
avoided. Oh wait, I got confused
CitizenOne , November 21, 2019 at 22:10
You must imagine that when candidtes suddenly become mind control puppets what is going on. The scariest thing in American
Politics is how supposedly independent and liberal progressives somehow swallow the red pill and are transported into the world
of make believe. Once inside the bubble of fiction far removed from human suffering which is after all what politicians are supposed
to be about fixing they can say crazy things. Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump are the only souls to retain their independent (yet
opposite) minds and both of them got the boot for being different.
Hide Behind , November 21, 2019 at 20:44
The puppet masters are experts, on the one hand there is A Republican, and on the other is a Democrat, but even they mess up
now and then get the different strings tangled.
Some come back on stage on the different hand so to save time they give a puppet two faces.
Watching same puppets gets old so every so often 2-4-6 they restring an old one that was used as props in past, change their makeup
a bit to give them new faces.
We do not actually elect the puppet, we instead legitimize the Puppeteers who own' s the only stage in town.
Those who choreograph the movements and change the backgrouds, media outlets and permanent bureaucrats know the plays before they
are introduced, and they know best how to get adults to leave reality behind and bring back their childhood fantacies.
Days of sugar plums, candy canes, socks filled with goodies and not coal, tooth fairys, and kind generous Fairy God Mothers.
Toy Nutcracker soldiers that turn into Angelic heros, Yellow brick roads, Bunnies with pocket watches, and and magic shoes of
red, or of glass in hand of handsome Princes and beautiful Princesses, all available if we vote.
So who votes, only those who control the voting puppets know that reality does not exist, they twitch we react, and at end of
voting counts one of hand's puppets will slump and cry, while others will leap and dance in joy, only for all to end up in one
pile until the puppeteers need them for next act.
Frederike , November 21, 2019 at 17:30
"What Warren did not mention is that this "interim leadership" she helped legitimize is headed by an extreme right-wing Christian
fundamentalist, the unelected "interim president" Jeanine Ańez.
Ańez has referred to Bolivia's majority-Indigenous population as "satanic" and immediately moved to try to overturn the country's
progressive constitution, which had established an inclusive, secular, plurinational state after receiving an overwhelming democratic
mandate in a 2009 referendum."
Doesn't Warren claim to have indigenous ancestors herself and was proud of it? She caused Trump to call her "Pocahontas"?
She agrees to support the unelected interim president Jeannine Ańez, who refers to indigenous inhabitants as satanic?
Warren is a very horrible person, inhumane, amoral, and rather stupid overall, who wants to get rich.
Everything she agreed to in the interview listed above is pathetic. I had no idea that she is such a worthless individual.
arggo , November 22, 2019 at 19:57
"neocon" explains this. She seems to have the support of very foundational structures that enabled Hillary Clinton Democrats to attack
and destroy Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Warren has not lost my vote for the simple reason she never had it in the first place. None of this, sickening as it is, comes
as any surprise. Warren is an unapologetic capitalist. She's like Robert Reich in that regard. They both believe capitalism–if
reformed, tweaked a bit here and there–can work. To give her credit, she's always been very honest about that. And of course our
doctrine of regime change is all in the service of capitalism. Unless I'm simply confused and mistaken.
Sherwood Forrest , November 22, 2019 at 09:38
Yes, Capitalist First! That makes it so difficult for any aware person to believe she sincerely supports a wealth tax, Universal
Healthcare, Green New Deal, College loan forgiveness, family leave or anything else the 1% oppose. Because promising like Santa
is part of Capitalist politics, and then saying," Nah, we can't afford it."
I personally think that capitalism with "human face" and robust public sector is the way to go. But imperialist imposition
and aggression is not the part of "human face" that I imagine.
So Warren's imperialist positions are evil and unnecessary to preserve capitalism, how that projects at her as a person it
is hard to tell. A Polish poet has those words spoken by a character in his drama "On that, I know only what I heard, but I am
afraid to investigate because it poisons my mind about " (Znam to tylko z opowiada?, ale strzeg? si? tych bada?, bo mi truj? my?l
o ) As typical of hearsay, her concept of events in Venezuela, Bolivia etc. is quite garbled, she has no time (but perhaps some
fear) to investigate herself (easy in the era of internet). A serious politician has to think a lot about electability (and less
about the folks under the steam roller of the Empire), so she has to "pick her fights".
It is rather clear that American do not care if people south of the border are governed democratically or competently, which
led Hillary Clinton to make this emphatic statement in a debate with Trump "You will not see me singing praises of dictators or
strongmen who do not love America". One can deconstruct it "if you do not love America you are a strongman or worse, but if you
love America, we will be nice to you". I would love to have the original and deconstructed statement polled, but Warren is not
the only one afraid of such investigations. So "electability" connection to green light to Bolivian fascist and red light to Bolivarians
of Venezuela is a bit indirect. Part of it is funding, part, bad press.
brett , November 21, 2019 at 15:15
I'm sorry but you all need to come to terms with the farce that is the American political system. Anyone who was supporting
Warren or even considering voting for her for ANY reason is apparently either in denial or is being duped. Warren is a Madison
Avenue creation packaged for US liberal consumption.
She is a fraud and a liar. One trained in psychology can see, in her every
movement and utterance, the operation that is going on behind the facade. Everything Warren says is a lie to someone. She only
states truth in order to later dis-inform. Classic deception. She (her billionaires) has latched on to the populism of the DSA
etc. in order to sabotage any progressive momentum and drive a stake in it.
Rob Roy , November 22, 2019 at 00:40
She hangs out with Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright, two evil women if ever there were. Now they make the three witches
brewing one coup/regime change after another. She's not smart enough to see that HRC and MA are leading her around by her nose.
People should call out this phoney everywhere she goes. BTW, Rachel Maddow completes an odious clique.
This is a bit of exaggeration. The three ladies are more like good students, they did not write the textbook but they good
grades for answering as written, or like cheerleaders, they jump and shout but they do not play in the field. Mind you, "interagency
consensus" was formed without them.
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 14:53
The DNC's strategy for this election is to ensure that Bernie doesn't go into the Convention with enough delegates to win the
first ballot. (Once voting goes past the first ballot, super-delegates get to weigh in and help anoint a candidate who's friendly
to the Party's plutocratic-oligarch principals.)
That's the reason the DNC is allowing and encouraging so many candidates to run.
Warren's specific assignment is to cannibalize Bernie's base and steal delegates that would otherwise be his, by pretending to
espouse most of his platform with only minor tweaks. She's been successful with "better educated," higher-income liberal Democrats
who consider themselves well informed because they get their news from "respectable" sources -- sources that, unbeknownst to their
target audiences, invariably represent the viewpoint of the aforementioned plutocratic oligarchs.
Absolutely nothing in Warren's background supports her new calculatedly progressive primary persona. She was a Reagan
Republican. When the Republican Party moved right to become the party of batshit crazy and the Democratic Party shifted right
to become the party of Reagan Republicans, she became a Democrat. She's not a good actress, and it takes willing suspension of
disbelief to buy into her performance as a savvier, wonkier alternative to Bernie. And when she's pressed for details (Medicare
for All) and responses to crises (Venezuela and Bolivia), the cracks in her progressive façade become patently obvious. She's
a sleeper agent for Democratic-leaning plutocrats, like Obama was in 2008, and she would never get my vote.
PS: Impressed by Warren's progressive wealth-tax plan? Don't be. Our country's billionaires know she won't fight for it, and
that if she did, Congress would never pass it. (They know who owns Congress.) Besides, do you really think Pocahontas would
beat Trump? Do you think Sleepy Joe would? The billionaires wouldn't bet on it. And they're fine with that. Sure, they'd like
someone who's more thoroughly corporatist on trade and more committed to hot régime-change wars than Trump is, but they can live
just fine with low-tax, low-regulation Trump. It's the prospect of a Bernie presidency that keeps them up at night
and their proxies in the Democratic Party and allied media are doing everything they can to neutralize that threat.
mbob , November 21, 2019 at 18:13
@Peter
Thanks for this beautiful post. I agree with it 100%. I've been trying to figure out why Democrats are so consistently unable
to see through rhetoric and fall for what candidates pretend to be. Part of it is wishful thinking. A lot of it is, as you wrote,
misplaced trust in "respectable" sources. I have no idea how to fix that: how does one engender the proper skepticism of the MSM?
I haven't been able to open the eyes of any of my friends. (Fortunately my wife and daughter opened their own eyes.)
Warren is, if you look clearly, driven by her enormous ambition. She's the same as every other candidate in that regard, save
Bernie.
Bernie is driven by the same outrage that we feel. We need him.
In the last Israeli massacre on Gaza she was all for the IDF killing Palistinians. Americans like to look at the CCP and cry
about China being a one party state. Well is the US not a one party state?= Are the views of the Democrats and Republicans not
the same when it comes to slaughtering people in the third world? There is not a razor`s edge between them. Biden, Warren, Sanders,
Trump, Cruz and Pense they are all war criminals, or if elected will soon become war criminals.
From someone who at the beginning showed promise and humanity, she has turned into Albright and Clinton. How f**king sad is
that?
Dan Kuhn , November 21, 2019 at 14:33
Better to see her for what she really is now then after the election if she were to win. She is disgusting in her inhumanity.
Rob , November 21, 2019 at 13:43
This Is, indeed, disturbing and disappointing. Warren seems so genuinely right on domestic economic and social issues, so how
could she be so wrong on foreign policy issues? The same principles apply in both–justice, fairness, equity, etc. That said, she
is no worse than any of the other Democratic candidates in that regard, with the exceptions of Sanders and Gabbard, so if Warren
becomes the nominee, I will support her over Trump. It's a lesser of two evils choice, but we must recognize that no candidate
will be perfect–ever.
Far better to stick to your principles and write in " None of the above." believe me with this article we can easily see that
Trump is no worse nor better than Warren is. They are both pretty poor excuses as human beings.
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 16:04
@Rob:
If you'll allow me to fix that for you, "What Warren tactically claims to support, in the primaries, seems so genuinely
right on domestic economic and social issues ." I'm convinced Warren is an Obama 2.0 in the making. I don't think anyone
can match Obama's near-180° turnabout from his 2008 primary platform and that if Warren is elected, she will try to make Wall
Street a little more honest and stable, maybe advocate for a $12 minimum wage, and maybe try to shave a few thousand dollars off
student-loan debts. I suppose that technically qualifies as less evil than Trump. But I fully expect her to jettison 90% of her
primary platform, including a progressive tax on wealth and Medicare for All. And when you factor in her recently confirmed approval
of US military and financial imperialism -- economic subversion and régime-change operations that cost tens of thousands of innocent
foreign lives, and other peoples their sovereignty -- at what point does "less evil" become too evil to vote for?
John Drake , November 21, 2019 at 13:13
" presidential candidate tepidly requested "free and fair elections". Such a statement ignores the fact that Evo Morales term
was not up; therefore elections are not called for. This means she supports the coup. Restoration of his position which was illegally
and violently stolen from him are in order not elections until his term is up.
Her position on Venezuela is nauseating; as the article states classic neo-conservative. Maybe Robert Kagan will welcome her into
their club as he did with Hillary.
Warren used to be a Republican, she has not been cured of that disease; and is showing her true colors. Maybe it's best as she
is differentiating herself from Bernie. I was concerned before she started down this latest path that she would do an Obama; progressive
rhetoric followed by neo-liberal-or worse- behavior once in office. Maybe she is more honest than Obama.
Guy , November 21, 2019 at 12:40
Warren can't be very informed about what democracy actually means .Democracy is not the same as capitalism .
Not a US citizen but am very disappointed with her stated platform .
Short of divine intervention Tulsi will never make it but Sanders for president and Tulsi as VP would do just fine to re-direct
the US foreign policy and maybe ,just maybe make the US more respectable among the rest of the nations of the world.
It would make a lot of sense from actuarial point of view. The chances that at least one person on the ticket would live healthily
for 8 years would be very good, without Tulsi
Punkyboy , November 21, 2019 at 12:02
I was pretty sure Warren was a Hillary clone; now I'm absolutely sure of it. Another election between worse and worser. I may
just stay home this time, if the world holds together that long.
Socratic Truth , November 21, 2019 at 11:42
Warren is just another puppet of the NWO.
Ma Laoshi , November 21, 2019 at 11:12
I remember years and years ago, I guess about when Lizzie first entered Congress, that she went on the standard pandering tour
to the Motherland and an astute mind commented: Zionism is typically the gateway drug for Democratic would-be reformers. Once
they've swallowed that fundamental poison, the DNC feels secure it's just a matter of time before they Get With the Program 100%.
Given that "Harvard" and "phony" are largely synonymous, what else could've been expected?
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 15:32
@Ma Laoshi:
Speaking of Harvard, having contemplated the abysmal track record compiled by our "best and brightest" -- in Congress,
in the White House, and on the federal bench -- I am now almost as suspicious of the Ivy League as I am of the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security (WHINSEC, formerly known as the School of the Americas). The mission of both is to train capable,
reliable, well-compensated servants to the US plutocracy. (And the only reason I say "almost" is because a non-negligible number
of black sheep have come out of the Ivy League and I'm not aware of any that have come out of WHINSEC.)
Sam F , November 23, 2019 at 18:59
Harvard admissions are apparently largely bought, and doubtless those of Yale and others.
MIT was strictly militarist warmongers in the 1970s, and one compete with 80% cheaters.
Dfnslblty , November 21, 2019 at 11:12
" The only point where Warren diverged with Trump was on her insistence that "there is no U.S. military option in Venezuela."
"
Hell, one doesn't need a military option after immoral, illegal and crippling sanctions.
This essay is the most disturbing piece all year-2019.
Vote anti-military – vote nonviolence.
Don't give these murderers anything but exposure to humane sensibilities.
I didn't think Trump supported a military solution in Venezuela. That was John Bolton's baby and Trump fired him as one would
hope he would soon fire Pompeo as has been hinted at. Trump campaigned on ending wars of choice but has given in to the MIC at
almost every turn. Maybe he will resign in leiu of being impeached. We might then see a Rand Paul vs. Bernie Sanders. I could
live with either one
Skip Scott , November 21, 2019 at 09:12
Once again the Democratic Party is pushing to have our choice for 2020 be between corporate sponsored war monger from column
A or B.
I wish Tulsi would "see the light" and run as an Independent in 2020. There is absolutely no way that she gets the nod from
the utterly corrupt DNC. She is abandoning her largest base (Independents) by sticking with the Democratic Party. Considering
the number of disgruntled non-voters, she could easily win the general election; but she will never win the Democratic primary.
The field is purposely flooded to ensure the "superdelegates" get the final say on a second ballot.
AnneR , November 21, 2019 at 08:50
Warren is as inhumane, amoral and imperialist as anyone in the WH and the US Congress, and she is certainly kindred in spirit,
thought and would be in deed, as Madeline Albright, the cheerful slaughterer of some 500,000 Iraqi children because the "price
was worth it." Of course, these utterly racist, amoral people do not have to pay "that price" nor do any of their families. (And
let us not forget that Albright and Killary are good friends – Warren is totally kindred with the pair, totally.)
And clearly Warren – like all of the Demrat contenders – is full on for any kind of warfare that will bring a "recalcitrant"
country into line with US demands (on its resources, lands etc.). She is grotesque.
She and those of her ilk – all in Congress, pretty much, and their financial backers – refuse to accept that Maduro and Morales
*both* were legally, legitimately and cleanly re-elected to their positions as presidents of their respective countries. But to
do that would be to go against her (commonly held) fundamental belief that the US has the right to decide who is and is not the
legitimate national leader of any given country. And what policies they institute.
Anyone who supports economic sanctions is supporting siege warfare, is happily supporting the starvation and deprivation of
potentially millions of people. And shrugging off the blame for the effects of the sanctions onto the government of the sanctioned
country is heinous, is immoral and unethical. WE are the ones who are killing, not the government under extreme pressure. If you
can't, won't accept the responsibility – as Warren and the rest of the US government clearly will not – for those deaths you are
causing, then stay out of the bloody kitchen: stop committing these crimes against humanity.
Cara , November 21, 2019 at 15:25
Please provide documentation that Sanders is, as you claim, a "full-on zionist supporter of "Israel" and clearly anti-Palestinian."
Sanders has been quite consistent in his criticism of Israel and the treatment of Palestinians: timesofisrael.com/bernie-sanders-posts-video-citing-apartheid-like-conditions-for-palestinians;
and; jacobinmag.com/2019/07/bernie-sanders-israel-palestine-bds
"Sanders is less so, but not wholly because he is a full-on zionist supporter of "Israel" and clearly anti-Palestinian"
Sanders is definitely not "full-on zionist supporter", not only he does not deny that "Palestinians exist" (to died-in-the-wool
Zionists, Palestinians are a malicious fiction created to smear Israel etc., google "Fakestinians"), but he claims that they have
rights, and using Hamas as a pretext for Gaza blockade is inhumane (a recent headline). One can pull his other positions and statements
to argue in the other direction, but in my opinion, he is at the extreme humane end of "zionist spectrum" (I mean, so humane that
almost not a Zionist).
And again, if we do win despite all the structural injustices in the system the Rs inherited and seek to expand, well, those
injustices don't really absolutely need to be corrected, because we will still have gotten the right result from the system
as is.
This is a pretty apt description of the mindset of Corporate Democrats. Thank you !
May I recommend you to listen to Chris Hedge 2011 talk
On Death of the Liberal Class At least to the first
part of it.
Corporate Dems definitely lack courage, and as such are probably doomed in 2020.
Of course, the impeachment process will weight on Trump, but the Senate hold all trump cards, and might reverse those effects
very quickly and destroy, or at lease greatly diminish, any chances for Corporate Demorats even complete on equal footing in 2020
elections. IMHO Pelosi gambit is a really dangerous gambit, a desperate move, a kind of "Heil Mary" pass.
Despair is a very powerful factor in the resurgence of far right forces. And that's what happening right now and that's why
I suspect that far right populism probably will be the decisive factor in 2020 elections.
IMHO Chris explains what the most probable result on 2020 elections with be with amazing clarity.
The opposing positions of Warren and her primary opponent Bernie Sanders on Bolivia
highlight an increasingly clear policy gap between the two Democratic frontrunners.
11-20-19
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential nomination frontrunner Elizabeth Warren
endorsed the recent U.S. backed military coup d'état in Bolivia Monday. Warren's
statement carefully avoided using the word "coup," and instead referred to the new government
of Jeanine Añez as an "interim leadership," effectively validating the new
administration.
She stated that the Bolivian people "deserve free and fair elections, as soon as
possible," implying that the October 20 vote, won convincingly by President Evo Morales, was
not clean, thus taking essentially the same position as the Trump administration, who made no
secret of their relief that Morales was ousted.
The opposing positions of Warren and her primary opponent Bernie Sanders on Bolivia
highlight an increasingly clear policy gap between the two Democratic frontrunners.
11-20-19
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential nomination frontrunner Elizabeth Warren
endorsed the recent U.S. backed military coup d'état in Bolivia Monday. Warren's
statement carefully avoided using the word "coup," and instead referred to the new government
of Jeanine Añez as an "interim leadership," effectively validating the new
administration.
She stated that the Bolivian people "deserve free and fair elections, as soon as
possible," implying that the October 20 vote, won convincingly by President Evo Morales, was
not clean, thus taking essentially the same position as the Trump administration, who made no
secret of their relief that Morales was ousted.
"In 2019, the bottom 99% of families will pay 7.2% of their wealth in taxes, while the top
0.1% of households will pay just 3.2%."
~~Elizabeth Warren~
do you see how EW has finally opened our eyes?
sure! poor people think about wealth as being income. they think about Wealth as being
their salary. from the perspective of a wealthy senator wealth is a function of assets. EW
had the guts to share this perspective with us, to open our eyes to reality.
we should not be taxing the payroll we should not be taxing the capital gains and other
income. we should be taxing non productive assets, assets which cannot be hidden which cannot
be taken off shore.
the Swiss have such a tax. all of their real estate is taxed at a rate of 0.3% per annum.
it would be easy for us to stop all local taxes All County taxes all state taxes and all
federal tax then initiate a 1% tax on all real property unimproved and on all improved real
property. we should continue this tax until our federal debt is completely discharged. such a
taxation shift would revv up our productive activity and increase our per capita GDP. as
usual there would be winners and there would be losers. the losers would be those who want
more inequality and the winners would be
"... Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral." ..."
"... Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with " Obama rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012. ..."
No, the really intense backlash against Warren and progressive Democrats in general is
coming from
Wall Street . And while that opposition partly reflects self-interest, Wall Street's Warren
hatred has a level of virulence, sometimes crossing into hysteria, that goes beyond normal
political calculation.
What's behind that virulence?
First, let's talk about the rational reasons Wall Street is worried about Warren. She is, of
course, calling for major tax increases on the very wealthy, those with wealth exceeding $50
million, and the financial industry is strongly represented in that elite club. And since
raising taxes on the wealthy is highly popular , it's an
idea a progressive president might actually be able to turn into real policy.
Warren is also a big believer in stricter financial regulation; the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, which was highly effective until the Trump administration set about gutting
it, was her brainchild.
So if you are a Wall Street billionaire, rational self-interest might well induce you to
oppose Warren. Neoliberal_rationality/ does not, however, explain why a money manager like Leon Cooperman
-- who just two years ago
settled a suit over insider trading for $5 million, although without admitting wrongdoing
-- would circulate an embarrassing, self-pitying open letter
denouncing Warren for her failure to appreciate all the wonderful things billionaires like
him do for society.
Nor does it explain why Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren
adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of
economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral."
The real tell here, I think, is that much of the Wall Street vitriol now being directed at
Warren was previously directed at, of all people, President Barack Obama.
Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating
financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He
and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared
with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that
financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And
the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with "
Obama
rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012.
I wonder, by the way, if this history helps explain an odd aspect of fund-raising in the
current primary campaign. It's not surprising that Warren is getting very little money from the
financial sector. It is, however, surprising that the top recipient isn't Joe Biden but
Pete
Buttigieg , who's running a fairly distant
fourth in the polls. Is Biden suffering from the lingering effects of that old-time Obama
rage?
In any case, the point is that Wall Street billionaires, even more than billionaires in
general, seem to be snowflakes, emotionally unable to handle criticism.
I'm not sure why that should be the case, but it may be that in their hearts they suspect
that the critics have a point.
What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy? Unlike the robber barons
of yore, today's Wall Street tycoons don't build anything tangible. They don't even direct
money to the people who actually are building the industries of the future. The vast expansion
of credit in America after around 1980 basically involved a surge in
consumer debt rather than new money for business investment.
Moreover, there is growing evidence that when the financial sector gets too big it actually
acts as a drag on the economy -- and America is well past that point .
Now, human nature being what it is, people who secretly wonder whether they really deserve
their wealth get especially angry when others express these doubts publicly. So it's not
surprising that people who couldn't handle Obama's mild, polite criticism are completely losing
it over Warren.
What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies
would have dire effects. Such claims don't reflect deep economic wisdom; to a large extent
they're coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted
appropriately. The Times is committed to publishing
a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of
our articles. Here are some tips
. And here's our email: [email protected]
.
"... The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing along. ..."
Recent class history of US is quite simple: the elite class first tried to shift the burden
of supporting the lower classes on the middle class with taxation. But as the lower class
became demographically distinct, partially via mass immigration, the elites decided to ally
with the ' underpriviledged ' via identity posturing and squeeze no longer needed
middle class out of existence.
What's left are government employees, a few corporate sinecures, NGO parasitic sector, and
old people. The rest will be melded into a few mutually antagonistic tribal groups providing
ever cheaper service labor. With an occasional lottery winner to showcase mobility. Actually
very similar to what happened in Latin America in the past few centuries.
The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are
'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of
corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing
along.
Unlike the USA (under Neocon stewardship) China has not squandered twenty trillion dollars
of its national solvency bombing countries which never attacked it post 9-11.
China's leaders (unlike our own) never LIED its people into launching obscenely expensive,
illegal wars of aggression across the middle east. (WMD's, Mushroom clouds, Yellow Cake,
etc.)
China has used its wealth and resources to build up its infrastructure, build out its
capital markets, and turbo charge its high tech sectors. As a consequence, it has lifted
nearly half a billion people out of poverty. There has been an explosion in the growth of the
"middle class" in China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are now living comfortable "upwardly
mobile" lives.
The USA, on the other hand, having been defrauded by its "ruling elites" into launching
and fighting endless illegal wars, is now 23 trillion dollars in catastrophic debt.
NOT ONE PENNY of this heinous "overspending" has been dedicated to building up OUR
infrastructure, or BUILDING OUT our middle class.
It has all gone into BLOWING UP countries which never (even) attacked us on 9-11.
As a consequence , the USA is fast becoming a failed nation, a nation where all its wealth
is being siphoned into the hands of its one percent "war pilfer-teers".
It is so sad to have grown up in such an amazing country , with such immense resources and
possibilities, and having to bear witness to it going down the tubes.
To watch all our sovereign wealth being vaporized by our "lie us into endless illegal war"
ruling elites is truly heartbreaking.
The white middle class is the only group that might effectively resist Globohomo's designs on
total power.
Blacks? Too dumb. Will be disposed of once Globohomo is finished the job.
Hispanics? Used to corrupt one party systems. Give them cerveza and Netflix and they're
good.
East Asians? Perfectly fine with living like bug people.
South Asians? Cowardly; will go with the flow.
The middle class is almost completely unique to white people.
Racial aliens cannot wrap their minds around being middle class. They think I'm crazy for
appreciating my 2009 Honda Accord. They literally cannot understand why somebody would want
to live a frugal and mundane life. They are desperate to be like Drake but most end up broke.
It will be very easy for GloboHomo to control a bucket of poor brown slop.
There IS a black middle class, but a big chunk of that works for governments of all
shapes and sizes.
Strictly speaking, there is no more "middle class" in the sense of the classical
economists: a person with just enough capital to live off the income if he works the capital
himself or herself. By this definition professionals (lawyers, dentists, physicians, small
store owners, even spinsters [1] and hand loom operators in a sense) were middle class. Upper
class had enough property to turn it over to managers, lower class had little or no property
and worked for others (servants and farm workers, for example). Paupers didn't earn enough
income per year to feed themselves and didn't live all that long, usually.
What we have is "middle income" people, almost all of whom work as an employee of some
organization -- people who would be considered "lower class" by the classical economists
because they don't have freedom of action and make no independent decisions about how the
capital of their organizations is spent. Today they are considered "intelligentsia", educated
government workers, or, by analogy, educated corporate workers. IMHO, intelligentsia is a
suicide job, and is responsible for the depressed fertility rate, but that's just me.
Back in the AD 1800s and pre-AD 1930 there were many black middle class people. usually
concentrating on selling to black clientele. Now there are effectively none outside of
criminal activities, usually petty criminal. And so it goes.
Of course, back then there were many white middle class people also, usually concentrating
on selling to white clientele. Now there are effectively none, except in some rural areas.
And so it goes.
Counterinsurgency
1] Cottagers who made their living spinning wool skeins into wool threads.
@unit472 A
lot of the middle class are Democrats but not particularly liberal. Many of them vote
Democrat only when they personally benefit. For example, my parents were suburban public
school teachers. They voted for Democrats at the state level because the Democrats supported
better pay and benefits for teachers but voted for Republicans like Goldwater and Reagan at
the national level because Republicans would keep their federal taxes lower. They had no
political philosophy. It was all about what left them financially better off. My parents also
got on well with their suburban neighbors. Suburbanites generally like their local school
system and its teachers and the suburban school systems are usually careful not to engage in
teaching anything controversial. A lot of the government employed white middle class would be
like my parents. Except in situations where specific Republicans talk about major cuts to
their pay and pensions they are perfectly willing to consider voting Republican. They are
generally social moderates, like the status quo, are fairly traditionalist and don't want any
radical changes. Since the Democrats seem be trending in a radical direction, this would put
off a lot of them. Trump would be more appealing as the status quo candidate. When running
the last time, he carefully avoided talking about any major cuts in government spending and
he's governed that way too. At the same time, his talk of cutting immigration, his lack of
enthusiasm for nonwhite affirmative action, and his more traditional views on social issues
is appealing to the white middle class.
The term middle class is used in the U.S. to mean middle income. It has nothing to do with
class. Why not just say what you mean? Most of the middle class that we say is disappearing
is really that rarest of phenomenons. A prosperous working class. The prosperous American
working class is no longer prosperous due to the Neoliberal agenda. Free trade, open borders
and the financialization of everything.
Americans know nothing of class dynamics. Not even the so called socialists. They don't
even see the economy. All they see is people with infinite need and government with infinite
wealth. In their world all of Central America can come to the U.S. and the government (if it
only wants to) can give them all homes, health care and education.
Lets stop saying class when we mean income. Not using the word class would be better than
abusing it.
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists. If
the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with the
Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
Are we to the point where we've collectively resigned ourselves to the death of the
middle class?
In the neoliberal worldview, the middle class is illegitimate, existing only as a
consequence of artificial trade and immigration barriers. Anytime Americans are spied out
making a good living, there is a "shortage" that must be addressed with more visas. Or else
there is an "inefficiency" where other countries could provide said service or produce said
product for less because they have a "comparative advantage."
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists.
If the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with
the Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
I don't know about that anymore. Increasingly, "middle class" means Asian, with Whiteness
being associated with the lower middle class (or perhaps "working class"). Sometimes the
media uses the term " noncollege Whites," which I think is actually very apt. They are the
ones who identify with Whiteness the most.
Thank you, @BlackWomxnFor ! Black trans and
cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I
don't take this endorsement lightly. I'm committed to fighting alongside you for the big,
structural change our country needs. https://t.co/KqWsVoRYMb
People need to remember that we literally didn't even have democracy until the trans
movement started and finally brought us to The Right Side of History.
Deval Patrick served on the board at subprime mortgage giant Ameriquest. Melody Barnes
is on the board at bigwig defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Textbook cases of the
revolving door corruption Warren frequently attacks. https://t.co/KU3Ct3j9eC
If she really cared about the policies she is running on she would have endorsed Bernie.
Period. It was during the primary that Hillary said, "single payer will never ever happen
here."
Bernie was running on it and yet Warren did not endorse him for it. If she actually wants to
help us she would drop out and tell people to vote for Bernie. Sure everyone has the right to
run for president, but we know or believe that she is only running to keep Bernie from becoming
president.
She is lying to us about not taking money from rich people and corporations because she
took their money for her senate campaign and transferred it to her presidential campaign. If
she isn't up front about this then how can we trust her on anything else?
Elites eliting about elites while elitseplaining to working Americans about how they are
going to vote for some elites and beat the Republicans elite. https://t.co/l0W8QPUT0E
"Who is to the left of Bloomberg on guns and climate change?" Hmm let me think...of course
it's not Biden. Nor Harris...Kilobits.... Buttigieg or even Warren. Doh!
Warren did that(what Alex Thompson tweeted about) at her town hall here. Called herself a
teacher, really pushed her teacher history, and asked "Are there any teachers in the crowd",
etc etc. It was so fake and pandering. I wanted to barf. Do people really fall for this
stuff? The folksy garbage was poured on mighty thick. I was sitting there thinking "Come on,
lady-you've been a professor at the highest profile law school in the country for how long
now?"
Yep.
It's funny-I spent 10 years at Harvard, and I lived near The Yard and the law school. I knew
a lot of faculty at H, and was privy to a lot of the politics that went on. My bs detector
was honed there. At the town hall, I could see right through her. It was all so familiar.
Don't underestimate the cunning and doublespeak. What is that quote-"When someone shows you
who they are, believe them"?
Why didn't she proclaim her great groundbreaking achievement of being Harvard's "first
woman of color" professorial appointment? Isn't she proud of that any more?
Dog, that woman seems to be in a race to seem the least authentic. Can't her staff tell
her to act natural?
After I post this comment, I'm gonna get me a beer.
Why assume that what we see isn't her natural self, such as it is? Or, rather, that
there's anything more genuinely human underneath the pandering, opportunistic surface? As
Petal cited above, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."
"... They also failed to note the voice-modulated phone calls received by the law offices of the Becks which contained a caller-ID corresponding to the law offices of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a defendant in the case. In light of this context, the Becks hardly appear to be peddlers of conspiracy theory. ..."
The defense counsel also took issue with Jared Beck for what they termed as: " Repeatedly promoted patently false and deeply offensive
conspiracy theories about the deaths of a former DNC staffer and Plaintiffs' process server in an attempt to bolster attention for
this lawsuit." This author was shocked to find that despite the characterization of the Becks as peddlers of conspiracy theory, the
defense counsel failed to mention the motion for protection filed by the Becks earlier in the litigation process.
They also failed to note the voice-modulated phone calls received by the law offices of the Becks which contained a caller-ID
corresponding to the law offices of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a defendant in the case. In light of this context, the Becks hardly
appear to be peddlers of conspiracy theory.
The DNC defense lawyers then argued:
" There is no legitimate basis for this litigation, which is, at its most basic, an improper attempt to forge the federal courts
into a political weapon to be used by individuals who are unhappy with how a political party selected its candidate in a presidential
campaign ."
The brief continued:
" To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege based on their animating theory would run directly contrary
to long-standing Supreme Court precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties,
especially when it comes to selecting the party's nominee for public office."
It appears that the defendants in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit are attempting to argue that cheating a candidate in the primary process
is protected under the first amendment. If all that weren't enough, DNC representatives argued that the Democratic National Committee
had no established fiduciary duty "to the Plaintiffs or the classes of donors and registered voters they seek to represent." It seems
here that the DNC is arguing for its right to appoint candidates at its own discretion while simultaneously denying any "fiduciary
duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the belief that the DNC would act impartially towards the
candidates involved.
Adding to the latest news regarding the DNC Fraud Lawsuit was the recent
finding by the UK Supreme
Court, which stated that Wikileaks Cables were admissible as evidence in legal proceedings.
If Wikileaks' publication of DNC emails are found to be similarly admissible in a United States court of law, then the contents
of the leaked emails could be used to argue that, contrary to the defendant's latest brief, the DNC did in favor the campaign of
Hillary Clinton over Senator Sanders and that they acted to sabotage Sanders' campaign.
The outcome of the appeal of the DNC Fraud Lawsuit remains to be seen.
Elizabeth Vos is the Co-Founder and Editor in Chief at
Disobedient Media .
"... There is a collection of Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on policy details. ..."
"... They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes. ..."
"... He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside Syria. ..."
"... Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence ..."
" In a sense, the current NeoMcCartyism (Russophobia, Sinophobia) epidemic in the USA can
partially be viewed as a yet another sign of the crisis of neoliberalism: a desperate attempt
to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade using scapegoating -- creation of an
external enemy to project the problems of the neoliberal society.
I would add another, pretty subjective measure of failure: the degradation of the elite.
When you look at Hillary, Trump, Biden, Warren, Harris, etc, you instantly understand what I
am talking about. They all look like the second-rate, if not the third rate politicians.
Also, the Epstein case was pretty symbolic."
I had decided to stay on the sidelines for the most part after making a few earlier
comments, but I liked this summary, except I would give Warren more credit. She is flawed like
most politicians, but she has made some of the right enemies within the Democratic Party.
On Trump and " the Deep State", there is no unified Deep State. There is a collection of
Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and
governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but
also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on
policy details.
They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is
antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes.
He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose
him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is
incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game
right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say
he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside
Syria.
But yes, scapegoating is a big thing with liberals now. It's pathetic. Our policies are
influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go
to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence .
For the most part, if we have a horrible political culture nearly all the blame for that is
homegrown.
Donald 11.07.19 at 4:40 am (no link)
Sigh. Various typos above. Here is one --
Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but
would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about
Russian influence.
--
I meant to say I would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from
liberals talking about Russian influence.
Steven Rattner's Rant Against Warren
By Dean Baker
The New York Times gives Steven Rattner * the opportunity to push stale economic bromides in
columns on a regular basis. His column ** today goes after Senator Elizabeth Warren.
He begins by telling us that Warren's plan for financing a Medicare for All program is "yet
more evidence that a Warren presidency a terrifying prospect." He goes on to warn us:
"She would turn America's uniquely successful public-private relationship into a dirigiste,
*** European-style system. If you want to live in France (economically), Elizabeth Warren
should be your candidate."
It's not worth going into every complaint in Rattner's piece, and to be clear, there are
very reasonable grounds for questioning many of Warren's proposals. However, he deserves some
serious ridicule for raising the bogeyman of France and later Germany.
In spite of its "dirigiste" system France actually has a higher employment rate for prime
age workers (ages 25 to 54) than the United States. (Germany has a much higher employment
rate.) France has a lower overall employment rate because young people generally don't work and
people in their sixties are less likely to work.
In both cases, this is the result of deliberate policy choices. In the case of young people,
the French are less likely to work because college is free and students get small living
stipends. For older workers, France has a system that is more generous to early retirees. One
can disagree with both of these policies, but they are not obvious failures. Large segments of
the French population benefit from them.
France and Germany both have lower per capita GDP than the United States, but the biggest
reason for the gap is that workers in both countries put in many fewer hours annually than in
the United States. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an
average worker in France puts in 1520 hours a year, in Germany just 1360. That compares to 1780
hours a year in the United States. In both countries five or six weeks a year of vacation are
standard, as are paid family leave and paid sick days. Again, one can argue that it is better
to have more money, but it is not obviously a bad choice to have more leisure time as do
workers in these countries.
Anyhow, the point is that Rattner's bogeymen here are not the horror stories that he wants
us to imagine for ordinary workers, even if they may not be as appealing to rich people like
himself. Perhaps the biggest tell in this piece is when Rattner warns us that under Warren's
proposals "private equity, which plays a useful role in driving business efficiency, would be
effectively eliminated."
Okay, the prospect of eliminating private equity, now we're all really scared!
Dirigisme is an economic doctrine in which the state plays a strong directive role, as
opposed to a merely regulatory role, over a capitalist market economy.
Maybe this is the wake-up call that Democrats need.
My old colleagues at The Upshot published a poll yesterday (*) that rightly terrified a
lot of Democrats (as well as Republicans and independents who believe President Trump is
damaging the country). The poll showed Trump with a good chance to win re-election, given his
standing in swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida.
This was the sentence, by Nate Cohn, that stood out to me: "Nearly two-thirds of the Trump
voters who said they voted for Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 say that they'll
back the president" in hypothetical match-ups against Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth
Warren.
Democrats won in 2018 by running a smartly populist campaign, focused on reducing health
care costs and helping ordinary families. The candidates avoided supporting progressive
policy dreams that are obviously unpopular, like mandatory Medicare and border
decriminalization.
The 2020 presidential candidates are making a grave mistake by ignoring the lessons of
2018. I'm not saying they should run to the mythical center and support widespread
deregulation or corporate tax cuts (which are also unpopular). They can still support all
kinds of ambitious progressive ideas -- a wealth tax, universal Medicare buy-in and more --
without running afoul of popular opinion. They can even decide that there are a couple of
issues on which they are going to fly in the face of public opinion.
But if they're going to do that, they also need to signal in other ways that they care
about winning the votes of people who don't consider themselves very liberal. Democrats, in
short, need to start treating the 2020 campaign with the urgency it deserves, because a
second Trump term would be terrible for the country.
What would more urgency look like? Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would find some way
to acknowledge and appeal to swing voters. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would offer more of a
vision than either has to date. Pete Buttigieg, arguably the best positioned to take
advantage of this moment, would reassure Democrats who are understandably nervous about his
lack of experience. And perhaps Cory Booker or Amy Klobuchar can finally appeal to more of
Biden's uninspired supporters. ...
* One Year From Election, Trump Trails Biden but
Leads Warren in Battlegrounds https://nyti.ms/2NDDeNb
NYT - Nate Cohn - November 4 - Updated
E stablishment Democrats and those who amplify them continue to project
blame for the public's doubt in the U.S. election process onto outside influence, despite the clear history of the party's subversion
of election integrity. The total inability of the Democratic Party establishment's willingness to address even one of these critical
failures does not give reason to hope that the nomination process in 2020 will be any less pre-ordained.
The Democratic Party's bias against Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential nomination, followed by the DNC defense counsel
doubling down on its right to rig the race during the
fraud lawsuit brought
against the DNC , as well as the irregularities in the races between former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova,
indicate a fatal breakdown of the U.S. democratic process spearheaded by the Democratic Party establishment. Influences transcending
the DNC add to concerns regarding the integrity of the democratic process that have nothing to do with Russia, but which will also
likely impact outcomes in 2020.
The content of the DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks demonstrated that
the DNC acted in favor of Hillary Clinton in the lead up to the 2016 Democratic primary. The emails also revealed corporate media
reporters acting as surrogates of the DNC and its pro-Clinton agenda, going
so far as to promote Donald Trump during the GOP primary process as a preferred "
pied-piper candidate ." One cannot assume that similar evidence will be presented
to the public in 2020, making it more important than ever to take stock of the unique lessons handed down to us by the 2016 race.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a 2016 Democratic primary debate. (YouTube/Screen shot)
Social Media Meddling
Election meddling via social media did take place in 2016, though in a different guise and for a different cause from that which
are best remembered. Twitter would eventually admit to actively suppressing
hashtags referencing the DNC and Podesta emails in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Additional
reports indicated that tech giant Google also showed measurable "pro-Hillary
Clinton bias" in search results during 2016, resulting in the alleged swaying of between 2 and 10 millions voters in favor of Clinton.
On the Republican side, a recent episode of CNLive! featured
discussion of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which undecided voters were micro-targeted with tailored advertising narrowed with
the combined use of big data and artificial intelligence known collectively as "dark strategy." CNLive! Executive Producer
Cathy Vogan noted that SCL, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, provides data, analytics and strategy to governments and military
organizations "worldwide," specializing in behavior modification. Though Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018, related companies
remain.
The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The
barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock
were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding
for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The
LA Times described the project as meant to
"to appear to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is
highly paid and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton
campaign.
In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have
purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls
before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found
broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution
for the breach was ever attempted.
Though the purge was not explicitly found to have benefitted Clinton, the admission falls in line with allegations across the
country that the Democratic primary was interfered with to the benefit of the former secretary of state. These claims were further
bolstered by reports indicating that voting results from the 2016 Democratic
primary showed evidence of fraud.
DNC Fraud Lawsuit
"Bernie or Bust" protesters at the Wells Fargo Center during Democrats' roll call vote to nominate Hillary Clinton. (Becker1999,
CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The proceedings of the DNC fraud lawsuit provide the most damning evidence of the failure of the U.S. election process, especially
within the Democratic Party. DNC defense lawyers argued in open court for the party's
right to appoint candidates at its own discretion, while simultaneously denying
any "fiduciary duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the impression that the DNC would act impartially
towards the candidates involved.
In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued
against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process
was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers
argued that it was the party's right to select candidates.
The Observer noted the sentiments of Jared Beck, the attorney representing the plaintiffs of the lawsuit:
"People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the Democratic nominee -- nominating process
in 2016 were fair and impartial, and that's not just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that
we live in a democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But that's what the Democratic
National Committee's own charter says. It says it in black and white."
The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's
right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was
protected by the First Amendment . The DNC's lawyers wrote:
"To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege would run directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court
precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties, especially when it comes
to selecting the party's nominee for public office ." [Emphasis added]
The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication
that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race,
Tim Canova's Allegations
Tim Canova with supporters, April 2016. (CanovaForCongress, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
If Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference
was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district.
Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election
in which Canova ran as an independent.
Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal
ballot destruction , improper
transportation of ballots, and generally
shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial
results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the
Sun-Sentinel reported at the time:
"[Canova] sought to look at the paper ballots in March 2017 and took Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to court three months
later when her office hadn't fulfilled his request. Snipes approved the destruction of the ballots in September, signing a certification
that said no court cases involving the ballots were pending."
Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies.
Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms.
Republicans appear no more motivated to protect voting integrity than the Democrats, with
The Nation reporting that the GOP-controlled
Senate blocked a bill this week that would have "mandated paper-ballot backups in case of election machine malfunctions."
Study of Corporate Power
A 2014
study published by Princeton University found that corporate power had usurped the voting rights of the public: "Economic elites
and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
In reviewing this sordid history, we see that the Democratic Party establishment has done everything in its power to disrespect
voters and outright overrule them in the democratic primary process, defending their right to do so in the DNC fraud lawsuit. We've
noted that interests transcending the DNC also represent escalating threats to election integrity as demonstrated in 2016.
Despite this, establishment Democrats and those who echo their views in the legacy press continue to deflect from their own wrongdoing
and real threats to the election process by suggesting that mere discussion of it represents a campaign by Russia to attempt to malign
the perceptionof the legitimacy of the U.S. democratic process.
Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former
Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments
externalize what Gabbard called the "rot"
in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet.
Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon
in a recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed
titled: " Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," Jamali
argued :
"Moscow will use its skillful propaganda machine to prop up Gabbard and use her as a tool to delegitimize the democratic process.
" [Emphasis added]
Jamali surmises that Russia intends to "attack" our democracy by undermining the domestic perception of its legitimacy. This thesis
is repeated later in the piece when Jamali opines : "They want to see a retreat
of American influence. What better way to accomplish that than to attack our democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of our
elections." [Emphasis added]
The only thing worth protecting, according to Jamali and those who amplify his work (including former Clinton aide and establishment
Democrat Neera Tanden), is the perception of the democratic process, not the actual functioning vitality of it. Such deflective
tactics ensure that Russia will continue to be used as a convenient international pretext for
silencing domestic dissent as we move into 2020.
Given all this, how can one expect the outcome of a 2020 Democratic Primary -- or even the general election – to be any fairer
or transparent than 2016?
Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter, co-host of CN Live! and regular contributor to Consortium News.
If you value this original article, please consider making
a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
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It appears that the DNC is responsible in fomenting this new cold war with Russia.
The party has become a war party and made the world very unsafe.
Instead of taking responsibility for Russiagate, it simply has progressed on to impeachment, no apologies simply moving on
to the next tactic.
And why you might ask?
And weren't we a bit put off by our own intelligence agencies contributing to the overthrow of the Trump administration using
the NYT and WAPO to spread innuendo and political chaos ?
Great analysis, yes it is the DNC, but larger than that it is the corporate oligarch which monoplize the power in both so-called
parties which gave us Trump and which still prefer him to Sanders.
Perception is everything. That is why the rigged "superdelegate" system was so effective. Clinton's sham "lead" became self-fulfilling
prophesy. Many people told me, "I like Bernie but I'm voting for Hillary because she's more electable." Pure perception.
To test this widely held view, in March 2016 I started tallying every poll (at Real Clear Politics) that pitted Sanders and
Clinton not against each other, but against GOP contenders including a reality-show buffoon named Trump. I did this all the way
through early June, tallying 150 polls with no cherrypicking.
Result? Sanders outperformed Clinton against GOP candidates in 135 of 150 polls. That's 90 percent of the time. You can still
see the results posted at my site BernieWorks.com.
What's more, Sanders remained consistently strong. It was so remarkable, so I dubbed him Iron Man Sanders. Meanwhile, Clinton's
pattern of results across dozens upon dozens of polls showed disturbing signs of electoral weakness.
No one was paying attention. The corrupt system's rigged structure played a crucial role. The criminally fraudulet DNC and
complicit corporate media played their respective roles.
So, disastrously wrong public perception won.
My tallies clearly show that if Sanders had become the nominee, he would have wiped the floor with Trump. And we would be living
in a different world.
vinnieoh , November 6, 2019 at 12:01
As to your last sentence: yes I think he would have won handily, but no we would not be living in a different world. Recall
that virtually no-one who should have endorsed Sanders did so – not Warren, and certainly not that oft-touted icon of "progressivism"
my own Senator Sherrod Brown; in fact none in the D party that I can think of. They all obeyed the dictate of their undemocratic
ruling central cabal. You need friends and allies to propose and enact legislation, and Bernie would have had few. As for foreign
policy, aka WAR in US-speak, there was a completely unacknowledged military coup in 2000, right here in the good ol' US. The POTUS
does not direct the ambitions of this empire.
Do I wish he would have won – absolutely, and that possibility yet exists. We've all watched the very unsubtle way in which
the media is colluding with the D establishment. As soon as one candidate rises in the polls the media ignores them and focuses
on one of the vote diluters inserted there to staunch the gathering rebellion. There was a piece by Jake Johnson on CD about the
Sanders' campaign rightfully complaining about blatant misrepresentation of Sanders popularity in the polls. When distortion or
silence proves ineffective look for primary election fraud to ensue.
My younger brother was one that was under the spell of that establishment party perception in '16 and I argued with him several
times about it. I was flabbergasted and somewhat angry to hear him say recently that "Sanders could have won" then, but he can't
now.
Good points in the article the main point being the democratic party was far more guilty of interfering with the democratic
primaries by undermining Sanders. The media was complicit and should be considered an accessory to election rigging.
We the people didn't hold the democratic party heads accountable and therefore we are seeing a repeat happening again. I refuse
to be forced to vote force someone I deplore just because they aren't republican. I will always vote for the best candidate. The
duopoly is fiercely maintained by the oligarchs for just that reason. They correctly predict that consumer zombies will stay loyal
to their team and I think they lost control of the process in 2016 by thinking if they ran Krusty the Clown Trump against Hillary,
she certainly win. They didn't have a good handle on the animosity so many people had for Hillary, including millions of progressives
who were are bitter about the wicked, illegal, immoral, unethical, un-American machinations by the democratic henchmen as laid
out expertly in the article.
Korey Dykstra , November 5, 2019 at 22:48
It must be nearly impossible to be an honest politician when many charges made against you are based on lies couched as the
truth (with out evidence) which in turn has to be defended in a way that conveys knowledge and truthfulness. Extremely difficult
against an opponent versed in or deflecting from factual and/or provable information. Great article. I have not read too mcu on
Consortium but will read it consistently from now on
Manqueman , November 5, 2019 at 20:35
Actually, far more harm to democratic institutions has been done not by the DNC or Russians and foreign interests but by our
own GOP.
Ash , November 6, 2019 at 14:55
Thank you for that totally unbiased and nonpartisan viewpoint.
Maura , November 5, 2019 at 19:19
How foolish to use Russia in their plots against republicans.And still nothing gets done!
Walton Andrews , November 5, 2019 at 18:40
Impeachment is all about manufacturing a crime and using an investigation to damage your political opponent. The goal is to
give your friends in the establishment media excuses for an endless series of negative headlines slamming your opponent. The "Russia
collusion" charges were extremely useful in generating propaganda even though they fizzled out when it came time to present some
actual evidence. Today, the Democrats are running the investigations. But the Republicans are open to the same tactics (Remember
the Benghazi hearings?). Congress doesn't have time to address the real problems of the country – they are playing political games.
I will vote third party in 2020 because any vote for a Democrat or a Republican is sending the message that you will go along
with the degenerate system in Washington.
mary-lou , November 6, 2019 at 12:17
vote, but make your ballot paper invalid (in Europe we do this): this way they can see you support the democratic process,
but not the political system. cheers!
Nathan Mulcahy , November 5, 2019 at 18:03
Until Obama's first election in 2008 I was Dem leaning. That's when I started to complain to my Democratic supporting friends
that I find it more meaningful and satisfying to debate and discuss political issues with Republicans as opposed to Democrats.
My rationale was that while I do not agree with the Republicans' worldview I see a rationale. In contrast, Democrats argue illogically
and irrationally.
I was smart enough to recognize what a fraud Obama is, and Ended up not Voting Obama. Instead I voted for the Greens.
Needless to say that that cost me a lot, including friendships Only now do I realize how perceptive I was. The irrationality
and cognitive dissonance of the Dims (among the way I thought it appropriate to change the name of the Party) are in full bloom
now. Only the sheeple are unable to recognize their mental disorder.
Mike K , November 6, 2019 at 02:43
In contrast, Democrats argue illogically and irrationally.
Yes, yes they do.
Richard Annotico , November 6, 2019 at 05:06
[And Look How Well They Did .You are Brilliant
You thereby might be responsible fot TRUMP the CON MAN !!! Take A bow !!!!
Skip Edwards , November 5, 2019 at 16:29
As our country is ever more exposed to be the democratic hypocrisy that it is, we are finding that oligarchic empires never
last. History certainly has proven that time and again. What leaves me in dismay, however, is how seemingly educated, intelligent
societies continually fall asleep while any basic securities that the majority of those populations rely on are stolen away. It
is like sailors whose ship has gone down, we cling to any flotation available to hold us up for one last breath of air as the
sharks circle. What is the answer, you might be asking? Is there an answer? That we certainly cannot be sure of. But one thing
is for certain; and that is, taking the same steps to solve this problem and expecting anything different from the usual results
does not speak wisely of an intelligent people. As the article states, or maybe it was a comment, elections have not, and will
not, change one thing in our entire existence as a nation. Taking to the streets just might be our only answer if we are to retain
any pride in ourselves. And, without pride, what are we?
Mike K. , November 6, 2019 at 03:01
Those sharks you speak of consist of among others, the multinational companies who bribe congresspeople to pass bad trade bills
and rewrite tax code which allowed those companies to offshore good paying jobs and otherwise exfiltrate our wealth. The election
of Trump may well change some things in Washington DC. After the investigations by Durham, Barr, and Horowitz are completed, you
will see the depths that govt officials and various media pundits, descended in their illegal, unconstitutional effort to overturn
the 2016 election results. Hopefully, congress will retract their claws long enough to pass a bill giving congress vastly more
oversight of our IC including the NSA and CIA, along with the FBI.
Lois Gagnon , November 5, 2019 at 16:28
Western Empire centered in the US is being challenged and its illegitimacy exposed by increased wars of aggression abroad and
creeping authoritarianism domestically. Those profiting off the system for decades will resort to the usual tactics of lies, smears
and violence to prevent having to surrender their power.
Elections have no doubt been rigged for a long time, but it's being done in the open now. Those who continue to believe they
live in a functioning democracy being attacked by Russia are probably beyond hope for the short term. The cognitive dissonance
is more than they can deal with. Trump's mistaken elevation to the presidency seems to have turned once functioning brains into
easily controlled masses of obedient children. It's been surreal to watch the transformation.
Perhaps after another election fiasco for the ruling establishment, people will being to question who is really responsible
for the way things are. Then again, maybe not.
karlof1 , November 5, 2019 at 16:13
Pardon me, but how many people were cited to have committed felonies but were never prosecuted for their criminality? Might
I presume that's merely the tip of an iceberg and that the truth of the matter is the entire electoral process within the USA
is utterly corrupt and thus illegitimate?! And of course there's a bipartisan effort to ensure no legislation regulating political
parties ever gets to a vote so we the people have no means to alter their behavior!
I've looked long, hard and deep into the USA's fundamental problems and have mused about various bandages for the 1787 Constitution
that might put the nation back into the hands of those in whose name it was organized–The People–but most people just don't seem
to give a damn or argue that the situation isn't all that bad and just greater citizen activism is all that's required. What was
it JFK said–"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." If the electoral process
is completely illegitimate as it certainly appears to be, then the only real recourse citizens retain is revolution. Have the
corporate pukes at the DNC & RNC thought through the outcome of their behavior; or perhaps revolution is what they want to see
occur so they can crush it and establish the dictatorship their actions deem they prefer.
Yes Ill join the revolution but please, just one more game of Candy Crush first. Can't you see I'm busy.
Charlene Richards , November 5, 2019 at 16:00
Progressives will NEVER have a seat at the Democrat Party table.
The Democrats and the DNC are hopelessly corrupt and the only way to strip them of their power is for ALL true Progressive
Americans to walk away and refuse to vote for ANY Democrat, Trump or no Trump.
Just as Sanders got screwed by them and he and his supporters KNEW it and he STILL supported and campaigned for Hillary Clinton
who is a known liar and corrupt criminal!
I will vote for Tulsi in the California primary only because she had the guts to call out Clinton for what she is.
But I can promise all of you, if necessary the Superdelegates will step in to stop Sanders and when the corruption happens
again next year I will start campaigning for Trump.
Believe me. Not playing their games with them is the ONLY way to stop them.
And I hope Canova will run against DWS again as an Independent. She is evil!!
Skip Edwards , November 5, 2019 at 16:52
Thank you, Charlene, for your simple clarity on a viable, trustworthy candidate to work for. That person is Tulsi Gabbard.
Bernie lost it for me when he "supported and campaigned for Hillary Clinton" after what the Clinton/DNC did to him in the last
election (sorry Bernie; but, you showed your true staying power with that one). Though again I will say it; it will take most
of us in the streets to make the changes we need. Climate change is our real enemy with regards to our survival. US created endless
wars blind us from this reality along with the silent killer, unrelenting population growth on a finite planet. If you care about
any future for those coming after us, those three issues are all that really matter.
ML , November 5, 2019 at 20:07
It seems to me though, that not voting at all would be preferable in the circumstances you describe, to voting for such a one
as trump. I'll never give my vote to any wickedly repulsive human being, no matter their party affiliation. Most Green Party candidates
have been ethical, reasonable, kind, highly intelligent, and have good plans for the commons. But of course, to each his or her
own, Charlene. Cheers, regardless.
Mike K , November 6, 2019 at 03:35
ML one more thing, would you vote for a candidate who hasn't initiated any regime change type of war and is doing his best
to extricate us from the ones he inherited?
Even saint obama sent mountains of arms to Syria via Libya, which ended up in ISIS hands and killed US troops. Despicable!
rosemerry , November 5, 2019 at 15:28
"casting doubt on the legitimacy of our elections". I am not an American but cannot believe that anyone could even pretend
that there is any aspect of democracy in the US electoral process. As well as gerrymandering, the overwhelming effect of donors"
ie bribes, and the appointment of partisan judges to SCOTUS and most of the other courts in the land make the selection and election
of candidates a completely undemocratic procedure.Interference by Russia could never be significant, especially if, as Pres. Putin
pointed out, the difference between the policies o the two Parties is minimal.
Steve Naidamast , November 5, 2019 at 15:27
I am a Green I don't care anymore :-(
Michael Crockett , November 5, 2019 at 14:03
I agree with your assessment of the DNC. They deflect from their own reprehensible conduct to blame Russia for interfering
in our elections. No evidence is needed. It just a mind numbing stream of Russia! Russia! Russia! US elections are among the most
corrupt in the world (Carter Foundation). It appears that our criminal justice system, to include our courts, can not or will
not offer any remedy to this crisis.
Hopelb , November 5, 2019 at 13:55
The only way we US citizens can circumvent this undemocratic treachery is to hold a parallel vote on paper ballots that can
be publicly counted if the election results are contested. Just read that Amazon or was it google has the cloud contract for tabulating
votes in 40% of our elections.
HRC/the DNC not screaming night and day for I hackable paper ballots/publicly counted puts the lie to their Russia hoax.
Thanks for the great article! Love your show.
DH Fabian , November 5, 2019 at 13:42
We've spent years reading and talking about the illegitimacy of elections, interspersed with people railing against those who
don't vote. Each election is "the most important of our lifetimes," and "every vote counts," and if Democrats lose, we're back
to shouting that (fill in the blank) stole the election.
We've gone over "politics 101" a thousand times. Most votes come down to economic issues, and these are the very issues by
which the Clinton right wing divided and conquered the Dem voting base., middle class vs. poor. The Obama years confirmed that
this split is permanent. It isn't the result of arcane ideological differences, much less "Facebook trolls," but of the suffering
caused by the policies of the Democrat Party. Predictably, we once again see much work going into to setting the stage to blame
an expected election defeat on anything/everything other than this.
Antiwar7 , November 5, 2019 at 13:12
One cannot?
The Democratic Party will probably annoint Warren or Biden, one of the establishment candidates. After all, they could point
to Trump as justification for "managing" their primary voters!
And then anyone with a brain and a heart will vote third party.
C.K. Gurin , November 5, 2019 at 18:52
Anyone with a brain and a heart will vote Bernie.
Why the heck do you think the DNC IS working so hard to stab him in the back again.
Mike from Jersey , November 5, 2019 at 13:11
Excellent article.
It seems that dishonesty is not just acceptable to the two political parties and to the media but it is now considered "accepted
practice."
This, of course, has nothing to do with real democracy. Real democracy requires honesty to function properly.
One can only conclude that we no longer have a democracy in this country.
Sam F , November 5, 2019 at 13:00
Very well said. While the DNC corruption is the proper focus for reformers, the Repubs celebrate corruption as an ideal. In
Florida where "Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes [but] Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor"
I have an ongoing investigation of racketeering involving the theft of over 100 million in conservation funds by wealthy scammers
in government, all of whom do far are Repubs. They regularly sell public offices to donors (get yours now): $2K for committee
memberships and $32K for chairmanships, including your state university board of trustees, no qualifications at all required.
They include judges state and federal, governors, prominent senators, you name it. Money=virtue=qualification is the core of their
belief system, and white-collar theft is their profession and only skill.
I am astounded that Canova got a summary judgment against Snipes, but not that Snipes had no prosecution or penalty and remained
in the very office in which the public trust was utterly betrayed.
michael , November 6, 2019 at 07:40
Your comment calls out corruption by Republicans, but the one concrete example you give is of Brenda Snipes, a Democrat, stealing
a Democratic primary for Wasserman Schultz over Canova? As Federal and Florida judge Zloch noted, primaries are a mere formality.
The DNC can pick any candidates they want, votes are meaningless. The GOP has always been the party of business, mean and corrupt.
But since the Clintons, the DNC has passed them in Wall Street support, corruption and war mongering; and of course they have
abandoned their constituents, the Poor, the Working Class, and Progressives, knowing they will not vote for Republicans and "have
nowhere else to go".
Thank you for reinforcing my cynicism in the two party system in America. Both parties are at fault here of denigrating the
public's confidence in the electoral process. How better than to blame the Russian boogie man in trying to rig our already rigged
system. That's the purview of the plutocrat and oligarch cabal and their elite enablers in government. Stay in your lane.
Jill , November 5, 2019 at 12:50
This article makes many excellent points.
The US hasn't had an authentic election in a very long time. Even if the process was at one time more transparent, the CIA
and OGA/other entities have taken out presidents who they didn't like. Then we come to 2000 where the election for president was
clearly stolen by Bush and again in 2004, there was a likely election theft by Bush. (These thefts may have been by agreement
of both legacy parties, as opposed to actual election theft. I say this because the Democratic party did not fight tooth and nail
to make votes count or challenge voter roll purges that were happening in plain sight.)
What has changed now are the tools available to engage in mass election theft/voter disenfranchisement. Microsoft will be determining
the coming election as they are the ones rolling out the voting machines. This is why we desperately need paper ballots. I lived
in Ohio and I knew people who saw their vote changed in front of their eyes. As we will not get paper we need to figure out some
way around unverifiable machine votes. That may be by filming one's vote or community efforts to have people come out of the polls
and mark a citizen provided private paper ballot. Basically, a citizen run paper parallel voting apparatus that could provide
some basis to challenge unverified machine votes.
This article points out some other things which have changed in the current society. The ability to ignore what most people
really want is endemic. This is coupled with the ability to manipulate people to "want" someone they actually wouldn't "want"
as a candidate where it not for massive propaganda and information restriction. Further, the government is lawless. The powerful
will not be held to account for rigging or stealing elections. That has been made perfectly clear. The lack of legal accountability
has necessitated making certain that citizens will not ask for evil and illegal actions committed by "their" parties' candidate/office
holder to be questioned or called out. The government/corporate amalgam needs a closed system, no legal questions, no citizen
questions. This allows complete impunity for all wrongdoing.
Thus we find ourselves in an incredibly dangerous place. People cling to a party/candidate with a zeal once reserved for cult
leaders. As the cults run most of the discourse and have most of the information (as cults generally do) I think we must look
at ways that people have successfully left cults and apply these stories to our own lives. We must break out of the cult.
Dfnslblty , November 5, 2019 at 12:48
Thanks for a good essay
Keep writing
torture this , November 5, 2019 at 12:30
LOL! I just changed from unaffiliated to Democrat so I can caucus/vote* for the least worst Democrat knowing that I'll end
up voting Green-no-in-between anyway when the multi-party rigged election happens. I never feel dumber than when I waste my time
filling out ballots or showing up for caucuses.
* Colorado changed procedures and I haven't given enough of a shit to figure out what I have to do, yet.
Jeff Harrison , November 5, 2019 at 12:11
The Economist, of course, has called the US a flawed democracy and they were probably being kind. On top of the chicanery Ms.
Vos identifies here, we have the Republicans doing their dead level best to suppress the vote of anyone that even looks like they'd
vote for someone else besides a Republican.
This is the Republicans pure and simple. They are the ones that are focused on winning at all costs. And both parties are now
Republicans. There is, of course, the Republican party which has become extremely right wing in the wake of St. Ronnie, driving
any moderate Republican out of the party and those people have infested the Democratic party as DINOs. Three Names herself is
a former Goldwater Girl. The highly anticipated rematch between Donnie Murdo and Three Names will be a real disaster. (Hint: Donnie
Murdo might get impeached but he'll never be convicted in the Senate)
Was there ever a better argument put forth that would prove that the Chinese Communist Party is a far better form of government
than is the corrupt democratic process in the USA. At least the CCP gives the Chinese people a competant government, with the
over all well being of the population first and foremost. Just look at where this democratic????? system of government has gotten
us. The entire system looks like the movie " The Gangs of New York" with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the rival gang leaders.
Well one thing is certain, we won`t be seeing this op ed in the New York Times or Newsweek or any other major American news
outlet any time soon.
Antonio Costa , November 5, 2019 at 11:25
Yes the rot that is the DNC!
Thank you for this great summary, that brings us to now.
These parties must be eliminated. They cannot be reformed.
Paul , November 5, 2019 at 11:23
When I read this I have to wonder if the Russia agenda is anything less than a raging success. The Democrat party is doing
the work for them by splitting the country by their single minded focus on Impeaching Trump. I do not know if that was the intent
but it certainly is the result.
michael , November 5, 2019 at 11:08
According to REAL CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou a Russian "asset" is someone paid by the Kremlin. The only people paid by
Putin were the Clintons who received $500,000 for a talk to Putin's bank in Moscow while Hillary was Secretary of State.
The only recent documented interference in Elections was by New Knowledge pretending to be Russians to swing the Alabama US
Senate race from Moore to Jones: a 'technological advance that we'll see much more of from NSA/State department spin-offs in 2020).
And by Ukraine's fake Black Ledger which knocked Paul Manafort from Chairman of the Trump Campaign, thus helping Hillary Clinton
in the 2016 Campaign. Manafort is a sleazy corrupt politico just like the Bidens, Ciaramalla, the Podestas and Greg Craig, the
latter two working closely with Manafort in the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine.
jmg , November 5, 2019 at 10:24
A prediction from 2016 that turned out to be correct:
"Hillary Clinton just planted a bomb under American Democracy . . .
"By far the most irresponsible and dangerous Hillary Clinton has done is however to accuse a foreign power – Russia – of meddling
in the election in order to prevent her winning, and to impose Donald Trump on the American people.
"This is dangerous and irresponsible at so many levels that it is difficult to know where to start.
"Firstly, it is not true. . . ."
(Hillary Clinton just planted a bomb under American Democracy -- The Duran -- Oct 31, 2016)
Great article. The use of Russia as the red herring to confuse the public and to serve the Democratic Party apparatchiks. Not
a surprise as ordinary folks like me can see it yet it works. Witnessing the venom in Mueller's voice when he spoke about the
evil Russians interfering in our elections says a lot about the Washington mindset.
Then the point that people don't matter, money does is not a new idea but a telling one about the way we select our leaders.
Throw in the media that benefits most from the money flow and you get what Ms. Vos eloquently describes in the article, a very
corrupt and damaging system.
Skip Scott , November 5, 2019 at 09:16
Excellent commentary! It is apparent to anyone who bothers to think that the DNC did more to destroy our democratic process
than anything Russia could ever be capable of. They constantly cry about the electoral college, yet they have "superdelegates"
set up in the primary process to ensure that "corporate sponsored warmonger from column B" becomes the only Democratic Party option
in the General Election. To call it blatant hypocrisy is an understatement.
Democracy has always been a farce in the USA, and Russia has nothing to do with it.
If everyone started boycotting corporate news shows, it would go a long way toward ending their negative influence over our
lives. There is no excuse for watching CNN, MSNBC or any of the other corporate news outlets, unless of course you want to hear
the lies that the billionaires want you to hear.
Sixty years now of mass delusion. The southern strategy has worked well during the decades.. BUT. This president has exposed
it all. Money Honey, and the Southerners are starting to feel.. STUPID.
I must say, of all of it's confessions, the "we left enough soldiers to protect the oil" (In Iraq/Iran) was casually blurted out
as plain speech.
It's the beginning of the end..good riddance gop.
Paul Ellis , November 5, 2019 at 04:19
Thank you very much for putting all this together in one article. It's great to have as a resource to help people see what's
going on with the DNC.
Jeff Harrison , November 5, 2019 at 01:26
Fortunately, the DNC doesn't want any of my money or support for their candidates. And the RNC is, if anything worse.
torture this , November 5, 2019 at 12:32
Are you crazy (I know you're not)? They lust for your vote and will do ANYTHING they can to get it except offer you anything
you need.
Realist , November 5, 2019 at 00:09
As a life-long registered Democrat I have felt totally betrayed by the DNC for the fraudulent and illegal acts that Ms. Vos
so lucidly and comprehensively outlines in her piece. It is beyond my understanding why so many rank and file party members continue
to embrace the lies and seditious acts that the organisation they entrust with defending their constitutional rights has never
stopped perpetrating, even after being repeatedly caught red-handed. Undoubtedly the collusion of a fully partisan mass media
has a great deal to do with this sad reality. However, one must insist that Trump Derangement Syndrome and extreme Russophobia,
widely propagated by that corrupt media, are not valid reasons to adopt the same sleazy standards and morals reflexively attributed
by Democrats to Republicans for generations. Maybe it used to be only half the country, when Democrats purportedly stood for strictly
objective empirical truth, impartiality and fair play, but now, in light of proven shameless Democratic fraud, deception, false
narratives and phony alibis, most of the country insists upon brazenly embarrassing itself beyond all belief. People don't seem
to care whether they are governed by a rigorously open constitutional process or a demagogic dictator who seizes or sneaks into
power through fraud, as long as that dictator is from "their" tribe. Shameful.
Ditto! It's like a pass interference call in football. My team never deserves a flag and the other side always does.
Sam F , November 5, 2019 at 13:05
Yes, primitive tribalism remains at the core of politics, due to the extreme political ignorance spawned by our corrupt mass
media.
michael , November 6, 2019 at 09:52
"It is beyond my understanding why so many rank and file party members continue to embrace the lies and seditious acts that
the organisation they entrust with defending their constitutional rights has never stopped perpetrating, even after being repeatedly
caught red-handed. "
The rank and file party members have nowhere else to go and the DNC leadership knows it.
jadan , November 4, 2019 at 23:27
Our electoral system doesn't work because no one can have any confidence that their vote is counted as cast in a state wide
or national venue. Aside from gerrymandering, the purging of voter rolls, and other tricks and techniques of election rigging,
there is the manipulation of numbers in computerized vote counts that undermines the validity of US election results. It's not
the Russians or any other outside influence. It's not possible as a practical matter to do a recount of a presidential election.
Why would any rational person have confidence in the outcome?
Fixing the electoral system would be easy in theory but too many players depend on a rigged system. Fact is, no one wants a
true count of the majority vote because it would run counter to special interests that have grown accustomed to buying elections.
The DNC becomes just another special interest. An electoral system that counted every vote as cast and could be recounted would
destroy the oligarchy.
"Our democracy" is a fantasy. Funny how no politician calls for reform of the electoral process. Not even Bernie.
Sam F , November 5, 2019 at 13:12
Yes, and the reforms are quite easy, although some require amendments to the Constitution:
1. Limiting campaign contributions to the average day's pay annually (or similar means) with accounting and penalties.
2. Monitor public officials and all relatives and associate for life, with heavy penalties for payoffs etc.
3. Similar measures to isolate mass media (say over 10% of market in subject area or region) from economic power.
4. Strict monitoring of voting machine design/production/usage, or requirement of manual balloting.
But as you note, "too many players depend on a rigged system."
DH Fabian , November 5, 2019 at 13:52
Agree, and while such reforms have been needed for decades, they would not change the consequences of Democrats successfully
splitting apart their own voting base. By now, middle class liberals simply appear to be unaware of, or unconcerned about, this
split, making it a lost cause.
Bethany , November 5, 2019 at 16:18
Right. Not even Bernie. And no one talks about Julian Assange either. None of them, including Bernie, wanted what WikiLeaks
revealed to be revealed. Bernie's refusal to fight the obvious rigging last time and his subsequent directive to vote for Hillary
were very enlightening. His weak defense of Tulsi Gabbard was also enlightening. Every day I am aware of what Hannah Arendt described
as 'the iron bands' of totalitarianism tightening and don't foresee relief in the future.
nondimenticare , November 5, 2019 at 17:45
It puts me in mind of the election of Liberal Justin Trudeau, who campaigned on a platform of reforming the unfair, he said,
Canadian voting system of first past the post to a form of proportional representation. (This was after years of a Conservative
government.) What a surprise that when he won the election with a majority government, he had a middle-of-the-night epiphany that
the voting system is quite fine as is.
The same reason we haven't gotten tax reform in the US even when people had a modicum of power: Everyone was sure that s/he
was a rich person hiding in a poor person's body and, by golly, when that rich person emerged s/he wanted to keep all the loot.
A pipe dream then, a virtual impossibility now.
Erelis , November 5, 2019 at 22:16
"Fixing the electoral system would be easy in theory but too many players depend on a rigged system. " Indeed. First, I have
worked many an election and the ONLY people who can steal an election are the people inside the electoral infrastructure. That
is, no Russian hacker sitting in Moscow who can change the results of an election. In America it is Americans cheating other Americans.
(Just look to the the centuries long disenfrancshment of African America voters or recently in Georgia–not a Russian in sight.)
In 2000 I thought the democratic party leadership would lead the way to electoral reform as there were just a ton of compliants
about computer based voting machines. Nada. Instead the democrats blamed Nader. There is only one conclusion. Neither the democrats
nor republicans want to give up their electoral advantages to change and alter and the direction of the outcomes of an election.
Zhu , November 4, 2019 at 23:23
I first voted in the US in 1972. Nothing important has ever improved because of voting. We get more wars on third world people,
more homelessness, no matter which team wins. No wonder more than half never vote!
Sweet William , November 5, 2019 at 11:30
that's just silly. Encouraging people not to vote has been highly successful in this country. thanks for your help in making
it a successful tactic. CN plays a part in that same old sorry: both sides are equally evil.
ML , November 5, 2019 at 20:30
This is to Sweet William: Denying party leaders legitimacy, which they both richly deserve to be denied them, is but one way
to deal with the utter sham that comprises our electoral system. I don't judge people for not voting out of sheer outrage and
protestation. I have always voted and since I could not abide either candidate in 2016, I voted Green, but don't judge people
for making the decision not to participate in protest. It's one thing to be completely incurious and apathetic, it's quite another
to be raging mad and calling the system out for what it is- a completely corrupted unethical mess like our fascistic, lying, murdering,
bellicose empire, the USA. I am not proud to be an American. But my right to vote includes my right NOT to, Sweet William.
jadan , November 5, 2019 at 23:01
People do not believe their votes are counted as cast because they aren't. There is no way to recount a national election.
Nothing changes for most people by and large while great benefits accrue to the elites. The war racket continues. exploitation
of the environment and labor continues. People do not trust their government to work for them, so why vote? This is the result
of a rigged system that is not transparent. It is easy to fix the system. Paper ballots will not solve the problem. We need to
develop a block chain system for voting. Just as a bitcoin is secure, so can a voter's ID be secure. You could easily check to
see if your vote was counted as cast. The election itself could be recounted quickly and easily. The majority of people are not
right wing libertarian or left wing radicals. If the voice of the genuine majority were delivered in an election, the oligarchy
would collapse.
Jeffery Denton , November 4, 2019 at 22:11
Next I would like to hear your take on WHY the Republicans went along with the russiagate conspiracy theory. And what Joe thinks
as well.
Skip Scott , November 5, 2019 at 09:20
The MIC funds both parties to a large extent. Trump's musings about detente with Russia made him the enemy of the establishment
on both sides of the aisle.
Antiwar7 , November 5, 2019 at 13:15
Because either 1) they're on the national security gravy train, or 2) they can be easily pressured by all the forces of 1).
DH Fabian , November 5, 2019 at 13:54
Republicans fully support the "Russia-gate" insanity because they see how it has driven away more Dem voters, making Democrats
too dangerous to vote for.
ML , November 5, 2019 at 20:42
I think Antiwar7 has it just about right and so does Skip Scott. I'd add that Trump's musings on detente with Russia went no
further in his tiny, grasping mind than "what will I get out of this personally" if I encourage rapprochement with Russia? Except
that the word "rapprochement" isn't in his vocabulary- but you get the idea.
Noah Way , November 4, 2019 at 21:54
Despite the blatant manipulation of the 2016 election by the Dems (to Hillary's chagrin, LOL) and the coordinated post-election
disenfranchisement of the elected president (no matter how awful he is) by the collapsed accusations of RussiaGate and likewise
the totally fabricated UkraineGate (just think about this for a millisecond – they're using an anonymous CIA "source" to blame
Trump for something Biden actually did, and which has been a basic tool of US foreign policy since WWII), this is only part of
domestic election meddling by both parties that includes gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, media manipulation, unlimited
anonymous money in politics, electronic vote hacking, supreme court interference, etc., etc., etc.
The entire system is corrupt from the top to the bottom.
"... First the constitution emerging from Philadelphia in 1787 did not contain the bill of rights, a fact prominently exposed when the states refused to ratify the constitution their own representatives at the Philadephia convention voted for. The states said, no to ratification unless and until, as a minimum, the first ten amendments were added. <= I assert the founders and their then corporations d\n want the governed to have any privileges or rights. ..."
"... One of the ongoing impediments to broad American public understanding of the US Constitution is its elevation to 'sacrosanct' status, thus placing it above critical discussion. ..."
"... And then you have the mantra of mass continual frequent typically hypocritical/false/programmed swearing of allegiance to it, and also, of all things, the linked elevation into 'symbolic deity' of a flag. ..."
it noted =>America's representative appointed by the electoral college into the
position of CEO of the USA interpreted the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military
Force==> <=to mean=> executive privilege includes the right to assassinate US
Citizens ?
WOW! Does that means person of wealth, corporation or foreign government can pay to get
the USA to assassinate whom ever?
The article says: The democratic institutions, including the press, ..have been neutered.
It notes that the Wealth and power once attributable to Americans is now consoliated inside
and located behind the access controlled walls of privately owned corporate enterprise; where
the dark hole of board room policy establishes how the corporation wealth and power will rape
its next million or so victims...? the article discusses how America's wealth is eqally
divided between 99% (wealth of 350,000,000 Americans) = and 1% (wealth of 35,000 in control
of America) .
But I do not subscribe to the idea that it is deep state that is the problem. I think the
problem lay in the construction of the constitution of the United States.. the deep state is
just using the highly skewed distribution of power [between the governed and the governors
placed in the constitution) to accommodate their for profit purposes. The constitution was
never intended to protect governed Americans from exploitation by those who govern; its
purpose was to protect those with the wealth and power from the Americans its federalism was
designed to govern. Its pure propaganda that the constitution is to be interpreted as a
democratic win for the governed.
First the constitution emerging from Philadelphia in 1787 did not contain the bill of
rights, a fact prominently exposed when the states refused to ratify the constitution their
own representatives at the Philadephia convention voted for. The states said, no to
ratification unless and until, as a minimum, the first ten amendments were added. <= I
assert the founders and their then corporations d\n want the governed to have any privileges
or rights.
Secondly, it was not until the 17th amendment(1913) that Americans were empowered to vote
for who would fill any of the 100 highly paid, very powerful, US Senate jobs, even today, no
American can vote for but 2 senators each. <=to date Americans have no say by vote as to
who shall be paid to be the President or VP of the USA [<=the electoral colleges
determines the President and the states each appoint whomever they wish to the electoral
college]. America is a democracy; the USA is a Republic, the states are trickle down versions
of the USA.
Thirdly, ratification was invented and placed in the constitution to avoid offering all
Americans the chance to decide for themselves if Americans wanted federalism or states
rights, or if the excluded persons (Indians and 3/5 of other persons) wanted to be excluded
or governed by federalism (federalism destroys states rights); had a popular vote been taken,
I believe federalism w\h\b soundly defeated). Ratification (Article VII)<=regime changed
[1788] the Articles of Confederation Government (AOCG: Hanson first President of the USA in
Congress) [it was the AOCG that defeated the British Armies in America [1777] and that
contributed the 1776 Declaration of Independence to the world, not the USA]. After regime
change; USA, old British wealth and corporate cronies were back in charge of governing
America. Today they might be called the deep state.
Fourthly, We, the American public, are spectators. An audience by Jackrabbit @ 36..
Fifthly, no president I am familiar with, has done in office what was promised in the
campaign.
I think the governed must look to the constitution to see how the governors have made this
happen.
My take is that civil liberties never existed in America.. the only civil liberties that
Americans have ever enjoyed were those expressed in contractual promises (offered in the
first 10 <=amendments of the COUS) and that courts were obliged to affirm because it would
defeat the propaganda that such rights actually exist. How enforceable do you think a promise
in a contract are that governors will not infringe the human rights promises made
therein?
Over 200 years, during war time, the governors have suspended such rights and during
normal times the only way to prevent infringement has often been to engage lawyers and costly
expensive courts.. to remind the governors that it is important for propaganda purposes to
honor the promises made in the amendments to the constitution? Its a joke to assume that a
clause in an amended contract would be honored when it is inconvenient to the promissors; ie.
Julian Assange?
even in the 'good articles', even in 'noble efforts' its pretty hard not to slip into,
what? Let's call it, Empire Speak. Or is that Swamp Speak? by: Robert Snefjella @ 42 <=
the mind control weapons that fire bullets made of propaganda are extremely powerful..
One of the ongoing impediments to broad American public understanding of the US
Constitution is its elevation to 'sacrosanct' status, thus placing it above critical
discussion.
Its 'supreme' status renders thoughts of ongoing improvement disabled. And then you
have the mantra of mass continual frequent typically hypocritical/false/programmed swearing
of allegiance to it, and also, of all things, the linked elevation into 'symbolic deity' of a
flag.
This is helped along by a frequent stirring rendition of the national anthem, which has
bombs exploding for the land of the "brave and the free".
(As an aside note of some curiosity and immeasurable impact, in Canada there is much
swearing of allegiance to the very aged titular head of the dysfunctional 'Royal Family' of
the UK.) Sigh.
"... At a first approximation, democracy is the alliance of the city dwellers for the power of the city, ignoring tribes and rural aristocrats, carefully contained so the landowners keep their land, and the slaves are kept under control. Or, to update it, the class collaboration of the wealthy (nowadays some sort of capitalist,) the middling strata and the common people for the power of the nation, carefully arranged so the people with great property make the decisions about the economy. ..."
"... As an example, it's only in the last few years I've wakened up to the extraordinary tendency to people to ignore either the progressive content of bourgeois revolutions, such as in pretending that destroying a national secular state in Iraq or Syria and replacing it with a cantonal confederation is a step backward. Or in surreptitiously pretending that democracy has nothing to do with the democratic state needing fighters against other states. Like most people on the internet, i do tend to get a little trendy, and repetitive. But apparently I'm too socially backward to get the memo on the correct trendy, and repetitive. ..."
"... The classic model of course was the Roman Republic. By coincidence I was reading Livy's first five books and the relationship between rights for the plebs and the need for them in war, stands out. Macchiavelli's Discourses on Livy makes this even plainer. In the US much of this was conveyed to the Americans via Algernon Sidney's Discourses on Government as refracted through Cato's Letters. (I hope to live long enough to read Discourses on Davila by John Adams, solely because of the title.) ..."
"... It would seem to me that the answer to the question "what is democracy" is best answered by another question: who gets (and doesn't get) the franchise? ..."
I went to see occasional Timberite Astra Taylor's remarkable film What is
Democracy? last night. It takes us from Siena, Italy to Florida to Athens and from Ancient
Athenian democracy through the renaissance and the beginning of capitalism to the Greek debt
crisis, occupy and the limbo life of people who have fled Syria and now find themselves stuck.
It combines the voices of Plato and Rousseau with those of ordinary voters from left and right,
Greek nationalists and cosmopolitans, ex-prisoners, with trauma surgeons in Miami, Guatemalan
migrants in the US, with lawmakers and academics, and with refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.
All the while it poses the questions of whether democracy is compatible with inequality and
global financial systems and the boundaries of inclusion.
steven t johnson 10.23.19 at 3:05 pm (no link)
At a first approximation, democracy is the alliance of the city dwellers for the power of the
city, ignoring tribes and rural aristocrats, carefully contained so the landowners keep their
land, and the slaves are kept under control. Or, to update it, the class collaboration of the
wealthy (nowadays some sort of capitalist,) the middling strata and the common people for the
power of the nation, carefully arranged so the people with great property make the decisions
about the economy.
It doesn't sound like this is very informative or useful, so I will wait until I have a
cheaper way to see it.
In my opinion, democracy as an actually existing property of a society is only imperfectly
described in terms of institutional arrangements, philosophical constructs, political system
or (as steven t johnson would have it) power relations between social groups. In addition to
all that, but probably prior to all that, democracy relies on principles which are
anthropological in nature, that pertains to the particular way human beings relate to
each other on a given territory.
This means that I absolutely believe in the necessity of a "we" to underlie democracy but
I doubt that this "we" needs to be (or indeed is ever) constitutive, it exists primarily if
not exclusively as a matter of human relations not as a constitutive abstraction. This also
means that I'm not surprised by the general absence of convergence in democratic forms around
the world (much to the bemusement of English-speaking political philosophers, or in the last
20 years, German and Flemish politicians) and that I believe that global citizenship is under
present circumstances a meaningless concept with respect to democracy. Some people understand
this to be arguing for a national, ethnic or cultural definition of democracy, in which only
people with a specific national identity, or a particular ethnicity, or specific cultural
practices or (in the contemporary American libertarian version) specific personality traits
may participate, as a matter of normative or positive judgment, depending on various
proponents of this theory. This seems to me to be a rather ironic analytical error: if indeed
a core property of democracy is rooted in the characteristic ways people relate to each
other, it is highly implausible that this could change under the influence of even a
substantial minority (in one direction or the other).
Incidentally, the idea that democracy is originally native to North-America is somewhat
classical (Voltaire championed it, but as usual with him, it is hard to vouch for his
seriousness). Since then it has resurfaced periodically for instance in William James Sidis
(disturbed) book The Tribes and the States or in the works of Bruce Johansen. Serious
discussions of this question lead, I believe, to the seemingly paradoxical observation that
English and Dutch settlers came to adopt the democratic principles of the Haudenosaunee
because they were themselves rather primitive (temporally speaking), and hence
democratic, in their anthropological values. Suc discussion would also lead to the far more
pessimistic conclusion that beyond their political models, native people in North-America
facilitated the establishment of a political democracy by providing a large neighboring group
to exclude out of humanity.
LFC@10 uses a reason for waiting as an excuse for a rhetorical question meant as a taunt. The
reason I might see it, if it's cheap enough, is because new facts and the (rare) new
perspective, if any, would seep into my thinking. The idea that my thinking doesn't change is
unfounded. It changes, it just doesn't change by conversion experience. The cogent arguments
of the wise on the internet are like Jesus on the road to Damascus, not quite able to be
described consistently, but still irrefutable.
But, try as I may, continual reworking of old ideas by new -- to me -- information
inevitably leads to the change. The process usually goes A Is that really true? B My old
ideas get a parenthesis added. C The parenthesis gets worked into the rest of the paragraph
so that I'm more consisten. D I've always believed that. The step where I abjectly plead for
forgiveness for being a moron is never there, any more than actually being consistent.
As an example, it's only in the last few years I've wakened up to the extraordinary
tendency to people to ignore either the progressive content of bourgeois revolutions, such as
in pretending that destroying a national secular state in Iraq or Syria and replacing it with
a cantonal confederation is a step backward. Or in surreptitiously pretending that democracy
has nothing to do with the democratic state needing fighters against other states. Like most
people on the internet, i do tend to get a little trendy, and repetitive. But apparently I'm
too socially backward to get the memo on the correct trendy, and repetitive.
For a less contentious example, as part of the process I've realized that ancient Sparta
was on the democratic spectrum, not least because of two kings which is definitely not twice
the monarchy. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it is still true, despite authority. But a
true expert who actually cared could revise the elementary insight into a much more
sophisticated, much superior way that might not even seem controversial. It might even seem
just like the answer to the questions: Why did Sparta ever ally with Athens in the first
place? Why did both Athens and Sparta ally (at different times) with Persia?
I will admit to a general prejudice against every historical discovery that a particular
place etc. was the birth of virtue.
steven t johnson 10.24.19 at 3:20 pm (no link)
Re the Haudenosaunee as exemplars of democracy, this is as I recall long known to be true of
Benjamin Franklin, one of the disreputable founders, nearly as disgraced as Tom Paine.
(Indeed, the notion that the revolutionaries weren't the founders, but Philadelphia lawyers'
convention was, is remarkable, though unremarked on.) But, what did Franklin admire about the
Iroquois League? I think it was the power through unity of different "tribes." The league
essentially genocided the Hurons to control the fur trade; launched long distance military
expeditions to drive away many other peoples from large areas in the Ohio valley to free up
hunting grounds; when it was convenient, they sold their rights, lands, there to the US. (The
treaty of Fort Stanwix) was later repudiated, verbally at least, by other.
The classic model of course was the Roman Republic. By coincidence I was reading Livy's
first five books and the relationship between rights for the plebs and the need for them in
war, stands out. Macchiavelli's Discourses on Livy makes this even plainer. In the US much of
this was conveyed to the Americans via Algernon Sidney's Discourses on Government as
refracted through Cato's Letters. (I hope to live long enough to read Discourses on Davila by
John Adams, solely because of the title.)
It would seem to me that the answer to the question "what is democracy" is best answered by
another question: who gets (and doesn't get) the franchise?
Elizabeth Warren Releases $20.5 Trillion Plan to Pay
for 'Medicare for All' https://nyti.ms/2N9lI4F
NYT - Thomas Kaplan, Abby Goodnough
and Margot Sanger-Katz - November 1
WASHINGTON -- Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday proposed $20.5 trillion in new spending
through huge tax increases on businesses and wealthy Americans to pay for "Medicare for all,"
laying out details for a landmark government expansion that will pose political risks for her
presidential candidacy while also allowing her to say she is not raising taxes on the middle
class to pay for her health care plan.
Ms. Warren, who has risen steadily in the polls with strong support from liberals excited
about her ambitious policy plans, has been under pressure from top rivals like former Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to release details about paying for her biggest plan, "Medicare
for all." Her new proposal marks a turning point for her campaign, in which she will have to
sell voters on a tax-and-spending plan that rivals the ambitions of the New Deal and the
Great Society while also defending it against both Democratic and Republican criticism.
Under Ms. Warren's plan, employer-sponsored health insurance -- which more than half of
Americans now receive -- would be eliminated and replaced by free government health coverage
for all Americans, a fundamental shift from a market-driven system that has defined health
care in the United States for decades but produced vast inequities in quality, service and
cost.
Ms. Warren would use a mix of sources to pay for the $20.5 trillion in new spending over a
decade, including by requiring employers to pay trillions of dollars to the government,
replacing much of what they currently spend to provide health coverage to workers. She would
create a tax on financial transactions like stock trades, change how investment gains are
taxed for the top 1 percent of households and ramp up her signature wealth tax proposal to be
steeper on billionaires. She also wants to cut $800 billion in military spending.
Ms. Warren's estimate for the cost of Medicare for all relies on an aggressive set of
assumptions about how to lower national health care costs while providing comprehensive
coverage to all Americans. Like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, she would essentially
eliminate medical costs for individuals, including premiums, deductibles and other
out-of-pocket expenses.
Critically, her new plan would not raise taxes on middle-class Americans, a question she
has been asked over and over but has not answered directly until now. When confronted on the
campaign trail and debate stage, she emphasized instead that her plan would result in higher
overall costs for wealthy people and big corporations but lower costs for middle-class
families. ...
"A key step in winning the public debate over Medicare for all will be explaining what
this plan costs -- and how to pay for it," Ms. Warren wrote in her plan. To do that, she
added, "We don't need to raise taxes on the middle class by one penny."
The issue of health care helped Democrats win control of the House in last year's midterm
elections, after unsuccessful attempts by President Trump and Republicans in Congress to
repeal the Affordable Care Act. It has been a central issue again this year as Ms. Warren and
other Democrats have competed for their party's presidential nomination, highlighting a
divide on policy between the party's moderates and its liberal wing that favors
transformative change. ...
Ms. Warren's proposal shows just how large a reorganization of spending Medicare for all
represents. By eliminating private health insurance and bringing every American into a
federal system, trillions of dollars of spending by households, employers and state
governments would be transferred into the federal budget over the course of a decade.
Her financing plan is based on cost estimates that are on the low side, relative to those
from other serious economists who have assessed the program. Her estimate of $20.5 trillion
over 10 years is based on a recent cost model by the Urban Institute, but with several
different assumptions that lower the cost from Urban's estimate of $34 trillion over the same
period.
Ms. Warren attempts to minimize fiscal disruption by asking the big payers in the current
system to keep paying for health care through new taxes. She would create a new "employer
Medicare contribution" that would effectively redirect what employers are already paying to
health insurers, totaling $8.8 trillion over a decade. Small businesses would be exempt if
they are not currently paying for their employees' health care.
Ms. Warren has also proposed that states pay the federal government much of what they
currently spend to cover state workers and low-income residents under the Medicaid
program.
But she also describes new revenue streams to replace the other big chunk of health
spending: the money spent by households on premiums, deductibles and direct payments for
services like dental care that are not always covered by insurance.
Ms. Warren would raise $3 trillion in total from two proposals to tax the richest
Americans. She has previously said that her wealth tax proposal, another signature of her
campaign, would impose a 3 percent annual tax on net worth over $1 billion; she would now
raise that to 6 percent. She would also change how investment gains are taxed for the top 1
percent of households.
In addition to imposing a tax on financial transactions, she would also make changes to
corporate taxation. She is counting on stronger tax enforcement to bring in $2.3 trillion in
taxes that would otherwise go uncollected. And she is banking on passing an overhaul of
immigration laws -- which itself would be a huge political feat -- and gaining revenue from
taxes paid by newly legal residents.
Ms. Warren's plan would put substantial downward pressure on payments to hospitals,
doctors and pharmaceutical companies. She expects that an aggressive negotiation system could
lower spending on generic medications by 30 percent compared with what Medicare pays now, for
example, and spending on prescription drugs could fall by 70 percent. Payments to hospitals
would be 10 percent higher on average than what Medicare pays now, a rate that would make
some hospitals whole but would lead to big reductions for others. She would reduce doctors'
pay to the prices Medicare pays now, with additional reductions for specialists, and small
increases to doctors who provide primary care. ...
This seems almost uniformly great. I only have two quibbles.
One is that a 6% wealth tax is actually too high, confiscatory even. The reason is that if
expected ROI is about 6%, the tax takes all the expected return. In perpetuity that is
equivalent to taking the entire net worth. Property tax is a pretty good guide here, 1-1.5%
works, perhaps a bit more.
Two is that the slant shows up immediately with this reporter. One example: "Ms. Warren
would use a mix of sources to pay for the $20.5 trillion in new spending over a decade..."
Note the use of "new spending". This may make sense if the subject is limited to government
spending, but we all know the game is to distract from the good lowered-aggregate spending
and emphasize the component spent by the evil government. We may see much more of this
misdirection including by primary opponents.
She is basically proposing to municipalize the entire payment flows for healthcare, much
as proposals now exist for California to municipalize PG&E, both excellent ideas.
Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday released her proposal to pay for Medicare for All, a
plan to move every American to government-run health insurance that would reshape the US
health care system.
Warren's plan, outlined in a 9,275-word Medium post, included complex ideas for paying for
health care costs after private insurance is ended . It's a lot to digest, so here are five
takeaways.
Much of it is based on the Medicare for All Act
The plan released by Warren on Friday is primarily aimed at answering the question of how to
pay for single-payer health care. When it comes to the nuts and bolts of how her health care
plan would work, Warren points to the existing Medicare for All Act, that "damn bill" Senator
Bernie Sanders colorfully reminded debate viewers that he wrote.
Under the Medicare for All Act, introduced by Sanders in April and cosponsored by Warren,
all US residents would be automatically enrolled in a national health care plan administered
by the federal government. In addition to traditional medical coverage, the Medicare for All
Act includes vision and dental, plus long-term care services.
It relies on a lot of assumptions
At the outset, Warren acknowledges that it's difficult to predict what health care costs
will be in the future, and she notes that current projections about how much Medicare for All
would cost vary widely. Because the Medicare for All Act leaves open questions about how the
single-payer system would work, including major ones like the amount that health care
providers would be compensated, Warren fills in the gaps to arrive at a total cost estimate.
Outside analysts, including two local experts, cited by Warren estimate her plan would result
in overall US health care costs that are slightly lower than what the nation currently
spends.
Arriving at a specific cost allows Warren to figure out how she will pay for it, and there
are some assumptions here, too.
To fund the plan without increasing taxes on the middle class, Warren relies on enacting
seemingly unrelated legislation, including immigration reform. The pathway to citizenship for
millions of people in her immigration proposal would add to the tax base. Warren also wants
to cut defense spending.
There aren't new middle class taxes, but there are hikes for businesses and the
wealthy
Warren announced her Medicare for All plan with a major promise not to increase taxes on
the middle class, but that doesn't mean some taxes won't go up. After accounting for existing
federal spending and health care spending by employers that would be redirected to the
government, there's still a big hole. Warren fills it by levying new taxes and closing
loopholes in ways that target financial firms and large corporations. She also increases her
previously proposed wealth tax.
Some businesses would be hit harder than others. As Vox points out, if Warren asks
businesses to send their existing employee health insurance payments to the government,
businesses that currently provide inadequate insurance, or no insurance at all, fare much
better than those that provide good insurance coverage. That sets up a kind of penalty for
businesses that offer health coverage: They're helping pick up the tab for Medicare for All,
but they no longer have an advantage in attracting top talent with generous benefits.
Under Warren's plan, that situation is temporary as businesses would eventually pay into
the system at the same rate. And Warren says employers ultimately will be better off because
they won't get hit with unpredictable changes in health care costs.
It would be difficult to implement
Moving every single American to a new health care plan is a massive endeavor, so much so
that Warren says she'll release an entirely separate plan that deals with how to handle the
transition.
The transition has become a sticking point in the Democratic primary, with moderates like
former vice president Joe Biden using the lengthy time period (Sanders' plan says it would
take four years) as a reason to oppose it altogether.
And then there's the problem of passing such legislation: During the debate around the
Affordable Care Act in 2010, a proposed public option to allow people to buy into a
government-run health care plan nearly sunk the entire bill, and was stripped out of the
landmark legislation. The episode underscored the difficulty of implementing a government-run
health care program, even one popular with voters.
Warren has a plan for that, though. She wants to get rid of the filibuster, meaning the
Senate would need a simple majority to pass legislation, rather than the 60 votes currently
required to stop debate.
Warren has been reluctant to go on the offensive, but that may be changing
As she rose in the polls, Warren resisted leveling direct attacks against her primary
opponents. Warren's style has been to rail against the concept of big money fueling a
campaign, rather than directly criticizing individual candidates who have taken cash from
high-dollar fund-raisers.
But there are hints that this could be changing. Warren's lengthy Medicare for All plan
includes rebuttals to the criticism she's gotten from the moderate wing of the primary field,
calling on candidates who oppose her plan to explain how they would cover everyone.
"Make no mistake -- any candidate who opposes my long-term goal of Medicare for All and
refuses to answer these questions directly should concede that they have no real strategy for
helping the American people address the crushing costs of health care in this country. We
need plans, not slogans," she wrote.
The corporate health sub system
Intimately involves
the entire corporate system
We are on course toward
20 % of our economic output
Flowing thru our domestic
health services and products sectors
Where is the cost control mechanism
Simply in part
Progressively resourcing
And rechanneling the inflow of funds
Addresses a result not a cause
We have to address costs
We need a cap and trade market system
With a cap sector to GDP ratio that
Slowly squeezes down
the relative costs of the health sector
Public option is the transition
That empowers
people themselves
To spontaneous determine
the timing and pattern of
Their own transitioning
Anything else is political folly
Liz has set a bold end state vision
Bravely out laying where we must go eventually
And drawing in
the major shift in the share of
The total social cost burden
to the wealthy classes
But that's an end a destination
not a path
Urge choice not mandates
as the better path
The present corporate cost
burden share
is a mess
That should self dissolve over time
Now we need an optional public system
And
A means to capture the
Present corporate pay ins
Piecemeal over time as employees opt out of corporate plans into publicnplans one by one
Liz Warren would double her proposed billionaire
wealth tax to help fund 'Medicare for All' https://cnb.cx/332evbX
... Warren's wealth tax proposal would also impose a 2% tax on net worth between $50
million and $1 billion. She has previously said that it would be used to fund her ambitious
climate agenda, a slate of investments in child care and reductions in student loan debt.
But Warren is refusing to tax the middle class. She released an analysis produced by
several respected economists on Friday that suggests she will not have to.
Former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson, former Labor Department Chief Economist Betsey
Stevenson, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, wrote that Warren could pay
for her program "without imposing any new taxes on middle-class families."
The economists cite a number of possible revenue and spending options that they found
could generate $20.5 trillion in additional funding. Much of that funding is expected to come
from reallocating employer spending on health care and taxing the increased take-home pay
that employees are expected to receive under her system.
But taxes on the wealthy form a substantial portion. Doubling the billionaire wealth tax
will raise $1 trillion over 10 years, the economists found. They note in their analysis that
the calculation assumes a 15% rate of tax avoidance. ...
Despite
scant polling evidence, Joe Biden's continued
lead , and serious
concerns over her viability with the broader electorate, Elizabeth Warren's Democratic
presidential campaign has taken on an air of inevitability.
Just this fall, the emcee of the financial television circuit, Mad Money 's Jim
Cramer, has gone from wailing "She's got to be stopped" to insisting, "I don't think she's
nearly as anti-business" as commonly portrayed. Either way, Cramer continues, "I think there is
such a thing called Congress." The implication is even if the prairie populist by way of
Massachusetts goes the distance, Wall Street's network on Capitol Hill would make mincemeat of
her agenda.
In my interviews with members of Congress, especially Republicans, Warren's nomination is
generally treated as a fait accompli. Perhaps it's projection, Warren is who many partisan
Republicans think the Democrats are: female, lawyerly and anti-capitalist. The contest of
Warren vs. Donald Trump would provide, if nothing else, clarity.
The dynamic extends past Northeast Washington. Where people put their money where their
mouth is -- political gambling sites -- Warren's chances of winning the Democratic nomination
are assessed at nearing 40 percent. On PredicitIt.com, one can buy a Warren share an absurd
thirty-eight cents on the dollar.
Advertisement
The idea of Democrats nominating an aged, gaffe-prone white male popular with industry and
in the Rust Belt seems absurd on the face: "That's our nominee, right?" David Axelrod,
mastermind of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, earlier this month crowned Warren the
"front-runner."
There's just one problem with this line of thinking: it's not at all clear Warren is going
to be the Democratic nominee for president. Her principal rival, Biden, the former vice
president, still leads in some national polls. Biden is frequently compared to Jeb Bush, the
establishment favorite, paper tiger on the Republican side in the last round.
There are two problems with this analogy. Biden isn't nearly as "establishment" as the
former Florida governor. Bush was the cash-flush son and brother of two presidents, while Biden
is bleeding
dough and has failed to procure the endorsement of the president he served. Conversely,
unlike Bush, whose lead nationally evaporated by Labor Day, Biden has stubbornly stayed more or
less at the top of the heap through all of 2019.
It's Halloween and Democratic voters haven't been spooked enough by the former vice
president's at-times catastrophic performance to dump him. Unlike Bush, Biden has an ace in the
hole: the anchoring constituency of his party, African-American voters. If Bush had commanded
the acclaim of evangelical Christians he might have held on despite his other weaknesses as a
candidate. Biden is also relatively
popular , while the Bush clan is rightly still blamed for the destruction of American
prestige at home and abroad.
Biden frequently, even pathetically presents himself as an "Obama-Biden Democrat."
ButBiden's candidacy remains most similar to a non-Bush 2016 candidate: Donald Trump, the
front-runner the "smart set" claimed was doomed from the start. Like Trump, Biden is
famous . And as Biden has hit campaign troubles, the former veep's raison d'etre can
take on an air of the self-evident: I'm leading the race because I'm leading the race.
Like Trump, who would proudly spend literally hours of his campaign rallies reading off
primary poll results, Biden also seems content to run a campaign based on his own lead. After
weeks of purported political battering, Biden told 60 Minutes Sunday: "I know I'm the
frontrunner."
With almost Trump-like flare, Biden noted: "Find me a national poll with a notable a couple
exceptions." What was true of the last Democratic debate, earlier this month in Ohio, may be
true of the 2020 election as a whole. As Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National
Interest , said
: "It was a good night for the old codgers on stage."
Indeed, insistences from career progressives and conservatives that Warren is the true
Democratic standard-bearer can take on a mawkish tone. Surely, in a time of ubiquitous
partisanship, the victors will be most ideological. The Democrats are moving ever left, the
Republicans, ever right. Surely, it is time for a true believer.
But the logic is too clever by half. Templates are incomplete assessments of the world, but
play along: if Trump is Biden's proper analogue, then Warren's candidacy is perhaps most akin
to Ted Cruz's in 2016. Like Cruz, Warren is somewhat
unpopular with her colleagues, which doubles as a badge of honor with many, more
ideological activists.
But party activists perhaps understand the organization they serve less than they think they
do. Isn't it just as possible, indeed maybe even likely, that Warren, like Cruz, is waiting for
a day that will never come? Trump's "implosions" were never reflected at the ballot box. Maybe
so, it will also be with Biden.
Templates aren't perfect, however. While Cruz did well with evangelicals, Warren has failed
to make inroads among African Americans. And unlike Cruz, the establishment has warmed to
Warren's rise -- her campaign doubles as a Harvard satellite campus.
But perhaps Warren's greatest weakness as a candidate, as it was for Cruz, is that she is
not the real voice of her party's discontented. A well placed source told me that in 2012 he
advised Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, that the person who wins America's big elections
today is the most pessimistic of the two messengers.
Of the 2016 conservatives, Cruz was perhaps most polite to Trump, but in failing to ape the
future president's program, he never emerged as anything more than a poor imitation of the real
estate mogul. Immigration and ennui over America's international role were the orders of the
day, and for a core contingent, no substitutes for Trumpian nationalism would do.
Warren experiences this vulnerability, an intensity gap, not with Biden, but with Bernie
Sanders. Warren, perhaps sensing the establishment's warmth to her, takes pains to emphasize
that she is still a capitalist. Perhaps accordingly, socialist Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez, the
most powerful millennial politician, has thrown in with Sanders, the candidate she volunteered
for four years ago. For the under-forty set, which has been mired in a now-decade of low growth
and the vise-grip of rising housing, education and healthcare costs, Warrenism, like Cruzism,
may come too little, too late.
A well placed source told me that in 2012 he advised Mitt Romney, the Republican
nominee, that the person who wins America's big elections today is the most pessimistic of
the two messengers.
Ummmm... Romney LOST.
For the under-forty set, which has been mired in a now-decade of low growth and the
vice grip of rising housing, education and healthcare costs, Warrenism, like Cruzism, may
come too little, too late.
The article was nearly completely about Biden vs Warren then changed course near the end
by bring Sanders into it. So Warrenism may be "too little, too late" so Dems will go for
less with Biden? Sorry, it really seems incoherent to me.
Yeah, the analogy that makes more sense is Trump:Cruz as Bernie:Warren, except instead of
being a total fraud with no political experience, Bernie has 40 years of experience, with
lots of accomplishments, and is seen as far-and-away the most trustworthy and with the
highest favorability.
As competing right-wing and left-wing versions of the "cool nerd"? I guess so, though the
essence of the "cool nerd" is that most people don't think the "cool nerds" are cool.
Is Biden really less "Establishment" than Jeb Bush?. A lot depends on how you define
Establishment -- and the word is very slippery and hard to define. I'd say they were both
Establishment to something like the same degree. Bush has a waspy pedigree and two
presidents in his family, but 38 years in the Senate made Biden part of the Washington
Establishment to a high degree. Neither of them had much substance. Biden was sort of like
the ottoman in a Washington salon - something you might not notice until you tripped over
it - but still he was a Washington fixture. Jeb Bush had the connections, but so far as
Washington was concerned there was something provincial about him.
It doesn't really matter who wins the Democrat's party nomination or who wins the
Presidential election. The 'Deep State' runs the government and will continue to run the
government no matter which pony is the face on stage. Pick your puppet at the polls. That
is if you want to waste your time voting at all.
True of any candidate except Trump who is the only one not controlled by the Deep State.
Not that he hasn't had limited success so far in going up against them, given their control
of the FBI and CIA and ability to manufacture scandals at will such as the "Russia
Collusion" hoax.
I'll agree that Trump is somewhat outside the 'Deep State's' control. I'll state that I am
not a fan of most of his policies or the man himself and it is my firm opinion that even
though he is not an 'offspring' of the Deep State, his actions and interests are
self-focused just like those that are bred from within. None of them give a rat's behind
about Joe Public; it's the super-elites serving the interests of the super-elites.
The socalled Deep State swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. That oath comes before
their loyalty to Trump.
Trump is president, not dictator. He doesn't just get to do whatever he wants despite
the fact he thinks he can, he thinks he is above the Constitution.
"I have to the right to do whatever I want as president." - Trump
You no doubt nodded in agreement when he said that, but if a Democratic president ever
said that, you'd erupt in outrage completely forgetting how you felt when Trump said
it.
The previous Democratic president ruled largely through executive orders, if you haven't
noticed. Not a dictator, right. While those upholders of the Constitution which are so dear
to you, violated it left and right in everything foreign policy. Try better.
Actually, as Alex stated, rule by Executive Order has become more prevalent with each
successive President regardless of political party. Without going into a long explanation,
I'll just say that the Constitution has been eroded by all Branches of the government -
unfortunately, it's getting to the point where it will be completely ineffectual soon.
Warren (as well as Bernie Sanders) would have been a great candidate for the Democratic
Party to try to win back working-class whites in 2016, but nowadays it seems they are the
Republican base and big Trump supporters and aren't returning back to the fold.
Democrats would do better to find a more center-right figure to win over
neoconservatives, liberatarians, and suburban America, all alienated by Donald Trump and by
what the Republican Party has become, which could potentially get them states like Arizona,
Texas, North Carolina, and the like.
That describes most of the Democratic also-rans, and pretty much Biden, too. And Hilary
Clinton, of course, and look how inspiring she was to the Democratic electorate.
You're pretty much describing Andrew Yang. His base is currently small, but very
passionate, consisting of progressives, disaffected Trump voters, working class whites,
libertarians, etc., basically anyone on the political spectrum.
Warren is who many partisan Republicans think the Democrats are: female, lawyerly and
anti-capitalist.
A few paragraphs down, you said "Warren, perhaps sensing the establishment's warmth to
her, takes pains to emphasize that she is still a capitalist." Did you just assume your
readers would prefer the smear up front and the facts buried near the bottom?
" Franklin Foer : All the investment bankers who have voodoo dolls of you
might be a bit surprised that you recently described yourself as "capitalist to the bone."
What did you mean?
Elizabeth Warren : I believe in markets and the benefits they can produce when
they work. Markets with rules can produce enormous value. So much of the work I have done
-- the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, my hearing-aid bill -- are about making
markets work for people, not making markets work for a handful of companies that scrape all
the value off to themselves. I believe in competition."
Like Cruz, Warren is somewhat unpopular with her colleagues
Wake me up when something actually analogous to Ted Cruz happens, like if Warren calls
the eventual nominee a "narcissist" and "serial liar" for whom "morality doesn't exist" and
then goes on to phone bank for him in the general.
Well, looks like I already have to wake you up. Remember that story with her saying that it
ain't right when a veep's son serves on the board of a foreign company and then immediately
backtracking after having understood what she just said?
Sounds like Warren is thinking of "Capitalism, with fixes from outside capitalism"
I'll admit, even the criticisms make me more interested in her. Though I fear that it's
more of a 'too good to be true' concept. My time in customer service helped me to
understand that sometimes you have to give Hard Messages to people as you really can't have
Everything You Want. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing Warren as "OMG this is everything I
wanted." Which is one of the red flags I had over Trump.
It's hard though. I know that giving hard messages is basically a death sentence in
campaigns so people don't do that. But Bernie did and he's not dying. BLAH.
In any case, don't go too hard on TAC articles about democratic candidates. It's sort of
like when a US new organization puts an editorial on a foreign culture. It's not a bad
viewpoint to have, but it IS going ot be..well.. different.
It becomes more and more obvious with each day that nominating Biden is incomparably
greater priority to the Democratic Party as an institution than winning the election. Yes,
Warren is no orator (which is an extremely ill omen for a candidate when running against
someone like Trump), but neither Biden is. Warren, with all her faults, at least speaks
like a non-orator with both hemispheres functional. While Biden is simply babbling.
And that's not to mention the fact that Democrats (yet) have a candidate who would
reliably beat any opponent aside from Rand Paul - Tulsi Gabbard. But these... epitomes of
alternative genius keep on trying to drive her away from their party at all costs instead
of holding on to her for dear life.
Trump won because of the number of other Republican candidates who wanted to fight it out
to the bitter end, rather than throw in their lot with a better candidate like Cruz or even
Jeb! Had it come down to two Republican candidates, Trump and one holding more traditional
views, it is likely Trump would have lost the Republican nomination.
The Democrats look the same for 2020. Biden represents the Clinton, Republican-lite wing
of the party. He has the name recognition and the big money backing. Sanders is a true
leftist. And Warren is somewhere in-between. The question is whether or not Sanders and
Warren will fight it out to the bitter end, leaving Biden with just enough of a plurality
to win the nomination. I don't give any of the rest a chance.
I tend to think that Trump would beat Biden. For the same reasons he beat Clinton: he's
a neo-liberal, neo-conservative who could give a rat's a$$ about the pain of the working
and middle-classes. I think Warren could beat Trump. She's really not a leftist
economically, and a lot of independents would see her as a rational, thoughtful person, as
opposed to Trump's Trumpism.
My lawn chair and popcorn favorite would be a Trump/Sanders title fight. Maybe terrible
for the country, but definitely fun to watch.
I think she is probably to the right of either Nixon or Eisenhower. She's certainly not
proposing a 91% marginal income tax rate (Eisenhower) or a fully socialized health care
system (Nixon). The world has shifted so far to the right in modern times that I can
understand that some see her as far left.
The reason that Nominee Warren is unlikely to get black support is that she played a card
that was not hers to [play and doubled down on the matter and continues to play that card
inspite of the cold hard light of day that she wasn't, and is not native american.
There is a huge wave of under current simmering anger because I don't cleave to notions
of some incorrectly underpinnings of "conservatism", that are sacrosanct. I don't put much
stock in identity political machinations online. It is simply a nonfactor or less of a
factor than what is on the page as to some's ideas.
But the hijacking of someone's history that is not your own in any fashion and profiting
from the same -- for people whose history are hog to negative narratives, this simply will
not sit well.
----------------
Senator Cruz's attempts to rig the Colorado primaries violates the principles of fair
play. Making arguments about being pro-country and at the same time manipulating the
immigration arguments to favor undermining US citizens -- don't invite much enthusiasm for
his leadership.
"The reason that Nominee Warren is unlikely to get black support is that she played a card
that was not hers to [play and doubled down on the matter and continues to play that card
inspite of the cold hard light of day that she wasn't, and is not native american."
Why in the world would African Americans care one wilt about Warren claiming she was
Native American?
Af-Ams are big on identity..but the only time I've seen it brought as an issue is when
someone who's not Af-Am claims they are Af-Am.
Republicans have a big issue with her using the term. But it's similar to Democrats
hating Trump's attacks on Latinos: the ones that rage weren't considering her in the first
place.
Warren will win or lose the Black vote by whether she notes their issues and offers
options that will change their current situation, something Hillary failed to do in those
key states. Though first she'll need them win them over from Biden. Possible, though not
easily.
Not really sure why the author thinks warren is somehow outside the democratic norms, she
has worked consistently for the working voters that make up her district by trying to bring
some balance against the large corporations that pretty much control the economy. Even
conservatives, the champions of big business and the haters of unions and all social
programs seem to actually have second thoughts about crushing the life out of the common
man, or at least they write occasional comments that make nice to them while giving the
corporations massive tax cuts and cutting the social programs.
If I was a bit more cynical I would think that they are pretty nervous about an
articulate candidate with a solid slate of actual policy papers and positions that try to
lay out a way to make the economy work for the regular folks. Why they might actually be
trying to claim that she will take the side of the corporations that run conservative
politics..
I think Warren's big problem is how she talks and how she looks.
Ever since TV came into the political process, image has become incredibly important.
Look at Ted Cruz. He just looked...weird.
Warren is frenetic when she talks on the debate stage. Mute your TV during the next
debate and watch. She also talks like a school marm.
Lasty, history does not smile on wonks. People want easy-to-understand programs and
straight talk. Warren constantly dodges how she will pay for her programs. This will not
play well in 2020.
I still think it will be Sanders, with the 1980 and 2016 GOP primaries as the templates,
and the crisis in the Reagan/Thatcher/neo-liberal consensus being the bedrock of his, and
Trump's, appeal.
Trump was such a wild card in 2016 that it's hard to make connections or analogies to any
other presidential election. You don't have to see Joe Biden as some clone of Jeb Bush to
see that they both have real deficiencies as candidates. Cruz also was a lousy candidate
who wouldn't have won the nomination or the general election, but he was blindsided by
Trump, someone new from outside politics.
There's nobody in sight who could blindside Warren like that, and I get the feeling that
the Democratic Party base (the White half of it anyway) is more comfortable with Warren
than the Republican Party base was with Cruz. Even Evangelicals couldn't quite bring
themselves to love Ted. However unpopular Warren is with the electorate as a whole, party
loyalists and activists have no problem with her.
I don't see Buttigieg winning the nomination. Alice Roosevelt Longworth once said that
Tom Dewey looked like the little plastic man at the top of the wedding cake. Now that we
have gay marriage, voters are offered the a candidate who looks like the little plastic man
on top of a gay wedding cake. I suspect they won't go for him.
Had Cruz been the nominee he would have had the same advantage that Trump did: Hillary
Clinton herself. She was a deeply unlikable candidate and 2016 is best described as
"Hillary lost" as opposed to "Trump won." Pretty much any Republican, excepting maybe Bush
with his family baggage, would have bear Hillary, and with a more respectable showing.
Letting their foreign policy being hijacked (or, rather, joyridden) by neolib lunatics, the
twins of neocon wackos. That can hardly be called "competence" and "prudence".
The winners write history. Surviving losers also rewrite history ('Gone with the Wind").
Or, past lives are never written about at all. The problem is that western government has
swirled down the drain into incompetent delusion. Corporations rule. Plutocrats are in combat
over the spoils. Protests won't work until police and mercenaries realized that they aren't
being paid enough to die or to subjugate their own families.
Right now, the problem is two million Californians forced out of their homes or waiting
with no electricity for evacuation orders. The American government is simply incapable
rebuilding Puerto Rico or Northern California . Or handling global plagues such as
African Swine Fever that has already killed a quarter of the global pig population. Simply
put, climate change, overpopulation, and rising inequality assure that revolutions cannot be
orderly.
The 10% Technocrats like Elizabeth Warren will try to keep things running until they can't
anymore.
If Democrats nominate Elizabeth Warren, there will a chorus of well-funded voices
declaring that her progressivism would destroy the economy. So it's not irrelevant to look at
how that sort of thinking is holding up abroad 1/
Pocketbook Woes Drive an Unlikely Comeback in Argentine Presidential Race
President Mauricio Macri rose to office with a promise that free markets would wrest
Argentina from its boom-and-bust cycle. But with the country in recession, voters may now
turn to an archrival.
5:55 AM - 27 Oct 2019
Macri was the business community's candidate; he was going to bring sound management in
after years of populism, and things were going to be great. But he screwed up the
macroeconomics, borrowing heavily in dollars (!), and presided over recession 2/
Chile has long, as Branko Milanovic says here, been the poster child for neoliberalism. I
remember very well when Bush & co tried to sell Chile's privatized pensions as a
replacement for Social Security. But rampant inequality is now causing mass unrest 3/
Obviously governments of both left and right can mess up. But the persistent belief that
big business and the wealthy know How Things Work and can run the economy best is completely
at odds with experience 4/
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... ,
a
Without the necessary due diligence in planning both the transition and the aftermath going
into the meme, then Medicare for All is a promise for some, a threat to many more, and a boat
anchor for the Democratic Party. It could be a great plan if adequately executed, but given
the haphazard approach to leaning on buzz words and memes instead of a explanatory framework,
then this plan will be an executioner's block next November, if not just Tuesday week. The
Democratic Party has screwed itself again unless just pure outrage and at Trump and
Republican politicians can rescue the Dembots from their own idiot angels.
In her heart, Warren is more of Eisenhower (or Nixon, if you wish ) republican type then a
real fight against excesses of neoliberalism. that actually makes her chances to win 2020
elections much stronger and changes that she will bring radical chances much weaker.
First, as a general rule, politicians who propose meaningful change should get specific
enough about their idea so that voters can have a good look before they go to the polls. So
Warren is setting a good example on this front and likely raising the bar for other Democratic
party aspirants.
Second, I want to make sure I'm not falling prey to the cognitive bias called the halo
effect, which is a tendency to see people as all good or all bad. So I want to make sure my
reaction to the neoliberal frogs that sometimes hop out of Warren's mouth doesn't taint my
reading of her generally. For instance, her private equity plan is very strong, particularly
her sweeping ideas about how to make private equity firm principals liable when they bankrupt
companies. But as America's top bankruptcy scholar, the core of that plan falls in an area
where she has unparalleled expertise.
But generally, Warren's change programs have a frequent shortcoming: they do a great job of
assessing the challenge but then propose remedies that fall well short of remedying them.
As Matt Yglesias pointed out in January :
If Two-Income Trap were released today, I'd say it suffers from a striking mismatch
between the scale of the problem it identifies and the relatively modest solutions it
proposes. Tougher regulation of consumer lending would be welcome but obviously would not
fundamentally address the underlying stagnation of income.
On top of that, Warren's "I have a plan" mantra sounds an awful lot like a dog whistle to
Clinton voters. And even though I've only given a good look at two of her plans so far ex her
private equity plan, there's a lot not to like in both of them. We
covered her wealth plan earlier, and didn't treat Sanders' at the same time because hers
was sucking up all the media attention even though Sanders had proposed a wealth tax years
before she did. That was a mistake. Sanders' wealth tax plan is better than Warren's.
Even though Sanders plan has the same fundamental problem, that of not recognizing how the
IRS in recent decades has never won a large estate tax case where you have the same valuation
issues with a wealth tax, Sanders proposes a more aggressive beef up of the IRS than Warren
does, so he may have a sense of the severity of the enforcement problem and also provides for
some legal fallbacks regarding valuation. He also realistically does not depict his tax as a
global wealth tax, since there's no way to get the needed information or cooperation on foreign
holdings that aren't in bank or brokerage firms.
But even more important, both Warren and Sanders wealth tax schemes rely on the work of
economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in devising their taxes and estimating how much
they'd yield. The structure of Sanders' tax hews to their recommendations as to how to maximize
revenues and cut into inequality. Warren's does not. So contrary to popular perceptions,
Sanders' wealth tax plan
should get higher wonk points than Warren's .
So on to the next Warren plan.
Warren's Excess Lobbying Tax
Warren presented her Excessive Lobbying Tax
. The problem it is meant to solve is not just lobbying as currently defined, which is the
petitioning of member of Congress to influence legislation. Warren is out to tackle not just
that but also what she depicts as undue corporate influence in the regulatory process:
But corporate lobbyists don't just swarm Congress. They also target our federal
departments like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau .
Regulatory agencies are only empowered to implement public interest rules under authority
granted by legislation already passed by Congress. So how is it that lobbyists are able to
kill, weaken, or delay so many important efforts to implement the law?
Often they accomplish this goal by launching an all out assault on the process of writing
new rules -- informally meeting with federal agencies to push for favorable treatment,
burying those agencies in detailed industry comments during the notice-and-comment rulemaking
process, and pressuring members of Congress to join their efforts to lobby against the
rule.
If the rule moves forward anyway, they'll argue to an obscure federal agency tasked with
weighing the costs and benefits of agency rules that the rules are too costly, and if the
regulation somehow survives this onslaught, they'll hire fancy lawyers to challenge it in
court.
Before we get to Warren's remedies, there are some odd things about the problem statement.
One is that she fails to acknowledge that regulatory rulemaking devises more specific policies
in order to implement legislation. That reflects the fact that legislation often isn't detailed
enough to provide a definitive guide to agencies. And the public is entitled to weigh in on
rulemaking. So what she is objecting to is that corporate interests are able to overwhelm the
comment process. Second is that there is a significant abuse that she fails to mention, that
some proposed rule changes, such as regarding net neutrality, where ordinary citizens weighed
in heavily, saw comments on the other side that were submitted by bots, overwhelming the
agency. The bot abuse is specific and important, and it's odd to see Warren leave it by the
wayside.
Warren's plan has three main prongs. First, she would make pretty much anyone who as part of
their employment seeks to influence Federal legislation or regulation register as a lobbyist.
They would be require to make public who they'd been lobbying and what information they
provided (an interesting question here as to what gets reported from in person
discussions).
Second, she would require that "every corporation and trade organization" with over $500,000
per year in lobbying expenditures is subject to an "excess lobbying tax". Spending of $500,000
to $1 million would be taxed at a 35% rate, over $1 million, at a 60% rate, and over $5
million, 75%.
Warren states that her tax would have raised $10 billion in the last ten years and she
intends to use that for the third major leg of her programs, which is various anti-lobbyist
initiatives. She plans to spend the revenues on
A "Lobbying Defense Trust Fund" to bolster "Congressional independence from lobbyists" by
providing more money to Congressional support bodies like the CBO
Extra funding to agencies that are on the receiving of lobbying. When an entity in the
$500,000 or higher lobbying spending bracket, the agency gets a special allocation "to help
it fight back".
An Office of the Public Advocate to help ordinary citizens get better representation in
the lobbying process
She also asserts that her plan will also "shut the revolving door between government and K
Street" but she offers no mechanism to provide for that. So that is a handwave.
The Conceptual Flaws in Warren's Approach
It's hard to know how much of this Warren believes and how much of this was dreamed up by
her staffers (the document is signed "Team Warren).
Taxation is the wrong approach . Even though Warren discusses how much money her tax would
raise, her strident disapproval of lobbying and the punitive tax levels make clear that the
purpose of the tax is to discourage lobbying. But if lobbying is as bad as Warren believes it
is, she should instead be prohibiting abuses, like comments by bots. In the 1970s, economist
Martin Weitzman came up with an approach to determine when taxation was the right way to
discourage problematic behavior, as opposed to barring it.
A summary from the Bank of England's celebrated economist Andrew Haldane :
In making these choices, economists have often drawn on Martin Weitzman's classic public
goods framework from the early 1970s. Under this framework, the optimal amount of pollution
control is found by equating the marginal social benefits of pollution-control and the
marginal private costs of this control. With no uncertainty about either costs or benefits, a
policymaker would be indifferent between taxation and restrictions when striking this
cost/benefit balance.
In the real world, there is considerable uncertainty about both costs and benefits.
Weitzman's framework tells us how to choose between pollution-control instruments in this
setting. If the marginal social benefits foregone of the wrong choice are large, relative to
the private costs incurred, then quantitative restrictions are optimal. Why? Because fixing
quantities to achieve pollution control, while letting prices vary, does not have large
private costs. When the marginal social benefit curve is steeper than the marginal private
cost curve, restrictions dominate.
The results flip when the marginal cost/benefit trade-offs are reversed. If the private
costs of the wrong choice are high, relative to the social benefits foregone, fixing these
costs through taxation is likely to deliver the better welfare outcome. When the marginal
social benefit curve is flatter than the marginal private cost curve, taxation dominates. So
the choice of taxation versus prohibition in controlling pollution is ultimately an empirical
issue.
Moreover, the tax would hit all lobbyists. Who do you think has the better odds of raising
more money to offset the tax and carrying on as before: Public Citizen or the Chamber of
Commerce?
By contrast, one idea of ours that could have helpful chilling effects would be to go much
much further than merely requiring all lobbyists, broadly defined, to register and also require
them to provide reports on what government officials they contacted/met with and what
information they provided them.
We'd also make these lobbyists subject to FOIA and provide stringent standards that apply
only to lobbyists, such as:
Set strict and tight time limits for responses (California requires that an initial
determination be made in 10 days, for instance)
Require judges to award legal fees and costs to parties who successfully sue over FOIAs
where the records were withheld. Provide for awards in cases where the defendant coughs up
records as the result of a suit being filed. Set punitive damages for abuses (such as
excessive delay, bad faith responses). Strictly limit invocation of attorney/client privilege
to demonstrable litigation risks
Letting journalists and members of the public root around in the discussion between various
think tanks and their business allies would regularly unearth material that would be
embarrassing to the parties involved. It would go a long way toward denting the perceived
legitimacy of lobbying, which over time would strengthen the immune systems of the
recipients.
Warren assumes that most people in Congress and at regulators are anti-corporate but are
overwhelmed by lobbyists. First, the piece presents a Manichean world view of evil greedy
corporate interests versus noble underrepresented little people. And while this is very often
true, it's not as absolute as Warren suggests. The companies are often have conflicting
interests, which can allow for public-minded groups to ally with the corporate types who are on
their side on particular matters.
A second part of the Manichean take is the notion that the agencies aren't on board with the
corporate perspective. Unfortunately, reality is vastly more complicated. For instance, banking
regulators are concerned overall with the safety and soundness of the institutions they
oversee. They aren't in the business of consumer advocacy or consumer protection save as
required by legislation. The concern with safety and soundness perversely means that they want
the institutions they oversee to be profitable so as to help assure capital adequacy and to
attract "talent" to make sure the place is run adequately. (We've stated repeatedly we disagree
with this notion; banks are so heavily subsidized that they should not be seen as private
businesses and should be regulated as utilities). For instance, in the late 1980s, McKinsey was
heavily touting the idea of a coming bank profit squeeze. McKinsey partner Lowell Bryan in his
1992 book Bankrupt spoke with pride at how his message was being received, and in particular,
that regulators were embracing deregulation as a way to bolster bank incomes.
Another complicating factor is that in certain key posts, industry expertise and therefore
an insider status is seen as key to performing the job. For instance, it's accepted that the
Treasury Secretary should come from Wall Street so he can talk to Mr. Market. Of all people, GW
Bush defied that practice, appointing corporate CEOs as Treasury Secretary. The position wound
up being a revolving door in his Administration as his appointees flamed out. Finding a modern
Joe Kennedy, someone who knows sharp industry practices and decides to go against incumbents,
is a tall order.
Similarly, agencies have career staffers and political appointees at a senior level. That
included critical roles like the head of enforcement at the SEC. If Republicans or
pro-corporate Democrats control the Administration and the Senate, business-friendly appointees
will go into these critical posts. The optics may be better with the Democrats, but the outcome
isn't that much different. As Lambert likes to say, "Republicans tell you they will knife you
in the face. Democrats tell you they are so much nicer, they only want one kidney. What they
don't tell you is next year they are coming for your other kidney."
So Warren is also implicitly selling the idea of Team Dem as anti-corporate vigilantes, a
fact not in evidence.
And speaking of kidneys a letter from a departing SEC career employee and Goldman
whistleblower, James Kidney, shows how even staffers who want to do the right thing have their
perspective warped over time.
As we said about his missive, which you can read in full :
Two things struck me about Jim Kidney's article below. One is that he still wants to think
well of his former SEC colleagues
Number two, and related, are the class assumptions at work. The SEC does not want to see
securities professionals at anything other than bucket shops as bad people. At SEC
conferences, agency officials are virtually apologetic and regularly say, "We know you are
honest people who want to do the right thing." Please tell me where else in law enforcement
is that the underlying belief.
So it also seems unlikely that there is a cadre of vigorous regulators just waiting to be
unshackled by the likes of Warren and her anti-lobbyist funding. The way institutions change is
by changing the leadership and enough of the worker bees to send the message that the old way
of doing things isn't on any more. That does not happen quickly. And absent a system breakdown
like the Great Depression, staff incumbents know that talks of new sheriffs in town may not
last beyond the next election cycle.
And the experience of Warren's hand picks at her own pet agency shows that they were all too
willing to let corporations set the agenda. Recall that Warren recommended that Richard
Cordray, head of the CFPB when it became clear she would not get the job, and Raj Date, the
first deputy director of the CFPB, was also an ally of hers. From our 2012 post,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Launches "Make Life Easier for Lobbyists" Tool :
There is more than a little bit of NewSpeak in this idea. "Streamlining regulations" is
generally right wing code for "eliminating/relaxing regulations." Admittedly, Elizabeth
Warren during her brief time as de facto head of the nascent CFPB, proposed and launched a
project to simplify mortgage disclosure forms to combine
two required forms into one and make them easier to understand .
However, this opening of the door by Cordray does not look as likely to produce such happy
outcomes. Maybe this is a means for the CFPB to force lobbyists to provide their input in a
format that makes it easier for CFPB to process. But I can't imagine that Cordray or Raj Date
would say to the American Bankers Association: "We are trying to create a level playing
field, so we won't meet with you. Put it in writing and we'll give it due consideration."
So if this portal is a supplemental channel, who exactly is it intended to serve? The
dropdown menu on the "Tell Us About Yourself" page tells us who it expects to comment: people
from organizations, specifically:
Financial services provider
Trade association
Government agency
Community organization
Other
In other words, it does not contemplate that consumers have the expertise or motivation to
provide input. Citizens are probably assumed to be represented via the CFPB itself or perhaps
also by consumer groups, but even then, they may have specific axes to grind (think the
AARP).
More generally, this is another example of attacking the problem at the wrong level. The
reason there is so much corruption in Washington is that the pay gap between what people can
make at senior levels at regulators versus what they can make in the private sector is so
enormous. And pay matters more than ever given the cost of housing, private schools, and
college. Singapore's approach was designed explicitly to prevent corruption in government: pay
top-level bureaucrats at the same level as top private sector professional (think law firm
partners) and have tough and independent internal audit. We are a long long way from embracing
any system like that, but it's important to recognize what the real issues are.
Lobbyist "tax" walks and quacks like an attack on free speech and the right to petition the
government . Even worse, she makes it easy to attack her program in court with this section and
similar observations in her piece:
In the first four months, the DOL received hundreds of comments on the proposed
[fiducairy] rule, including comments from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Morgan Stanley, Bank
of America, BlackRock, and other powerful financial interests. After a public hearing with
testimony from groups like Fidelity and J.P Morgan, the agency received over 100 more
comments -- including dozens from members of Congress, many of which were heavily slanted
toward industry talking points. Because the law requires agencies to respond to each concern
laid out in the public comments, when corporate interests flood agencies with comments, the
process often becomes so time-consuming and resource-intensive that it can kill or delay
final rules altogether -- and that's exactly what happened.
Warren is depicting the act of making public comments as an abuse. And her clear intent is
to reduce corporate input. This particular bit is very problematic: " .many of which were
heavily slanted toward industry talking points." Was she objecting to the fact that a lot of
the submissions were highly parallel, and therefore redundant, designed to choke the pipeline
or simply that they presented familiar pro-business tropes and were low value added? Not being
well crafted is not a basis for rejecting a public comment.
Warren sets herself for a legal challenge to her idea with this bit: "..if the regulation
somehow survives this onslaught, they'll hire fancy lawyers to challenge it in court," and she
later criticizes opponents of the fiduciary rule:
Today, the Department of Labor is led by Eugene Scalia, the very corporate lawyer and
ex-lobbyist who brought the lawsuit to kill off the proposal.
Was Warren missing in action in civics class when they presented the fact that Presidents
make appointments subject to the advice and consent of the Senate? And what would she do about
future Eugene Scalias? She is intimating that he shouldn't have been allowed to serve, but
that's the call of the Senate, not hers.
But more important, Warren makes it clear that she is so opposed to undue corporate
influence that she objects to judicial review. Help me. Philosophically, the US system allows
even the devil to have the benefit of law. But apparently not former law professor Elizabeth
Warren.
Again, the problem of ordinary people and pro-consumer organizations being outmatched in
court isn't going to be solved by treating use of the legal process as illegitimate. The idea
in her scheme that struck me as the most promising was the idea of an Office of the Public
Advocate. If I were in charge, I'd throw tons of money at it, including for litigation.
The Practical Flaws in Warren's Approach
Since this post is already long, we'll address these issues briefly. The IRS is a weak
agency that loses cases against corporate American all the time. A colleague recently confirmed
that take with an insider story on enforcement matters. The short version is that the IRS was
unable even to pursue issues only of moderate complexity. The problem isn't just expertise but
apparently also poor internal communication and coordination.
Tax avoidance is completely legal. If you don't think some of the targets of Warren's tax
would find ways to restructure their operations so as to greatly reduce their tax burdens, I
have a bridge I'd like to sell you. And they'd probably do it not so much to reduce taxes ("We
need more donations due to meanie Warren" would be a powerful fundraising cry and a lot of the
heavyweight groups and big corporations that lobby directly wouldn't miss a stride) as to avoid
funding her anti-lobbying initiatives.
And who would be least able to reorganize their lives to reduce the tax hit? The smaller
public advocates, natch.
* * *
It could be that I've simply hit upon two of Warren's weakest plans. But I have a sneaking
suspicion not. A contact who is an expert on political spending gave a big thumbs down to her
campaign reform proposal. The spectacle of Warren, whose Congressional staffers would regularly
turn out pointed, well-argued, very well supported requests for information from officials that
showed her to be operating way way above legislative norms, publishing plans that score high on
formatting and saber rattling and low on policy plumbing is a bad sign.
The most charitable interpretation is that Warren has weak people on this part of her
campaign and either doesn't know or doesn't care. But Warren historically has also show herself
to be an accomplished administrator. Is she more over her head than the press has figured
out?
Just an excellent critique. My view of Warren's plans was rather shallow and limited. I
could not find any flaws in your assessment. One might think that a senator would have a
better grasp of how DC works – or at least human nature.
"... Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic growth without end/crisis. ..."
"... I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent, rigid class system ..."
"... If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive. Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners. ..."
"... The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things (despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly likely to be manipulated like Trump. ..."
"... I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral values against socialism, no matter what voters say. ..."
The headline will become operative in December, if as expected, the Trump Administration
maintains its refusal to nominate new judges
to the WTO appellate panel . That will render the WTO unable to take on new cases, and
bring about an effective return to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which
preceded the WTO .
An interesting sidelight is that Brexit No-Dealers have been keen on the merits of trading
"on WTO terms", but those terms will probably be unenforceable by the time No Deal happens (if
it does).
likbez 10.27.19 at 11:22 pm
That's another manifestation of the ascendance of "national neoliberalism," which now is
displacing "classic neoliberalism."
Attempts to remove Trump via color revolution mechanisms (Russiagate, Ukrainegate) are
essentially connected with the desire of adherents of classic neoliberalism to return to the
old paradigm and kick the can down the road until the cliff. I think it is impossible because
the neoliberal elite lost popular support (aka support of deplorables) and now is hanging in
the air. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to
be very destructive.
That's why probably previous attempts to remove Trump were unsuccessful. And if corrupt
classic neoliberal Biden wins Neoliberal Dem Party nomination, the USA probably will get the
second term of Trump. Warren might have a chance as "Better Trump then Trump" although she
proved so far to be pretty inept politician, and like "original" Trump probably can be easily
coerced by the establishment, if she wins.
All this weeping and gnashing of teeth by "neoliberal Intelligentsia" does not change the
fact that neoliberalism entered the period of structural crisis demonstrated by "secular
stagnation," and, as such, its survival is far from certain. We probably can argue only about
how long it will take for the "national neoliberalism" to dismantle it and what shape or form
the new social order will take.
That does not mean that replacing the classic neoliberalism the new social order will be
better, or more just. Neoliberalism was actually two steps back in comparison with the New
Deal Capitalism that it replaced. It clearly was a social regress.
John, I am legitimate curious what you find "exactly right" in the comment above. Other than
the obvious bit in the last line about new deal vs neoliberalism, I would say it is
completely wrong, band presenting an amazingly distorted view of both the last few years and
recent history.
Neo-liberalism is not a unified thing. Right wing parties are not following the original
(the value of choice) paradigm of Milton Friedman that won the argument during the 1970s
inflation panic, but have implemented a deceitful bait and switch strategy, followed by
continually shifting the goalposts – claiming – it would of worked but we weren't
pure enough.
But parts of what Milton Friedman said (for instance the danger of bad micro-economic
design of welfare systems creating poverty traps, and the inherent problems of high tariff
rates) had a kernel of truth. (Unfortunately, Friedman's macro-economics was almost all wrong
and has done great damage.)
"In that context it felt free to override national governments on any issue that
might affect international trade, most notably environmental policies."
Not entirely sure about that. The one case where I was informed enough to really know
detail was the China and rare earths WTO case. China claimed that restrictions on exports of
separated but otherwise unprocessed rare earths were being made on environmental grounds.
Rare earth mining is a messy business, especially the way they do it.
Well, OK. And if such exports were being limited on environmental grounds then that would
be WTO compliant. Which is why the claim presumably.
It was gently or not pointed out that exports of things made from those same rare earths
were not limited in any sense. Therefore that environmental justification might not be quite
the real one. Possibly, it was an attempt to suck RE using industry into China by making rare
earths outside in short supply, but the availability for local processing being unrestricted?
Certainly, one customer of mine at the time seriously considered packing up the US factory
and moving it.
China lost the WTO case. Not because environmental reasons aren't a justification for
restrictions on trade but because no one believed that was the reason, rather than the
justification.
I don't know about other cases – shrimp, tuna – but there is at least the
possibility that it's the argument, not the environment, which wasn't sufficient
justification?
Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every political and
institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of the free market.
In the EU, East Asia, and North America, some of what has taken place is the
rationalization of bureaucratic practices and the weakening of archaic localisms. Some of
these developments have been positive.
In this respect, neoliberalism in the blanket sense used by Likbez and many others is like
what the the ancien regime was, a mix of regressive and progressive tendencies. In the
aftermath of the on-going upheaval, it is likely that it will be reassessed and some of its
features will be valued if they manage to persist.
I'm thinking of international trade agreements, transnational scientific organizations,
and confederations like the European Union.
steven t johnson 10.29.19 at 12:29 am
If I may venture to translate @1?
Right-wing populism like Orban, Salvini, the Brexiteers are sweeping the globe and this is
more of the same.
Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing
Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional
quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face
of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular
stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't
collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic
growth without end/crisis.
I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading
system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent,
rigid class system .
If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to
hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or
nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good"
mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive.
Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but
self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social
cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners.
The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is
probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be
shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years
of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will
probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things
(despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly
likely to be manipulated like Trump.
Again, despite the fury the old internationalism is collapsing under stagnation and
weeping about it is irrelevant. Without any real ideas, we can only react to events as
nationalist predatory capitals fight for their new world.
I'm not saying the new right wing populism is better. The New Deal/Great Society did more
for America than its political successors since Nixon et al. The years since 1968 I think
have been a regression and I see no reason–alas–that it can't get even worse.
I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way
likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem
being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral
values against socialism, no matter what voters say.
It is a particular mutation of the original concept similar to mutation of socialism into
national socialism, when domestic policies are mostly preserved (including rampant
deregulation) and supplemented by repressive measures (total surveillance) , but in foreign
policy "might make right" and unilateralism with the stress on strictly bilateral regulations
of trade (no WTO) somewhat modifies "Washington consensus". In other words, the foreign
financial oligarchy has a demoted status under the "national neoliberalism" regime, while the
national financial oligarchy and manufactures are elevated.
And the slogan of "financial oligarchy of all countries, unite" which is sine qua
non of classic neoliberalism is effectively dead and is replaced by protection racket of
the most political powerful players (look at Biden and Ukrainian oligarchs behavior here
;-)
> I think every sentence in that comment is either completely wrong or at least
debatable. And is likbez actually John Hewson, because that comment reads like one of John
Hewson's commentaries
> Most obviously, to define Warren and Trump as both being neoliberals drains the
term of any meaning
You are way too fast even for a political football forward ;-).
Warren capitalizes on the same discontent and the feeling of the crisis of neoliberalism
that allowed Trump to win. Yes, she is a much better candidate than Trump, and her policy
proposals are better (unless she is coerced by the Deep State like Trump in the first three
months of her Presidency).
Still, unlike Sanders in domestic policy and Tulsi in foreign policy, she is a neoliberal
reformist at heart and a neoliberal warmonger in foreign policy. Most of her policy proposals
are quite shallow, and are just a band-aid.
> Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every
political and institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of
the free market.
This is a typical stance of neoliberal MSM, a popular line of attack on critics of
neoliberalism.
Yes, of course, not everything political and institutional development of the last 40
years comes down to the worship of the "free market." But how can it be otherwise? Notions of
human agency, a complex interaction of politics and economics in human affairs, technological
progress since 1970th, etc., all play a role. But a historian needs to be able to somehow
integrate the mass of evidence into a coherent and truthful story.
And IMHO this story for the last several decades is the ascendance and now decline of
"classic neoliberalism" with its stress on the neoliberal globalization and opening of the
foreign markets for transnational corporations (often via direct or indirect (financial)
pressure, or subversive actions including color revolutions and military intervention) and
replacement of it by "national neoliberalism" -- domestic neoliberalism without (or with a
different type of) neoliberal globalization.
Defining features of national neoliberalism along with the rejection of neoliberal
globalization and, in particular, multiparty treaties like WTO is massive, overwhelming
propaganda including politicized witch hunts (via neoliberal MSM), total surveillance of
citizens by the national security state institutions (three-letter agencies which now
acquired a political role), as well as elements of classic nationalism built-in.
The dominant ideology of the last 30 years was definitely connected with "worshiping of
free markets," a secular religion that displaced alternative views and, for several decades
(say 1976 -2007), dominated the discourse. So worshiping (or pretense of worshiping) of "free
market" (as if such market exists, and is not a theological construct -- a deity of some
sort) is really defining feature here.
"MSNBC names four renowned female journalists as moderators for November debate" [
NBC ]. "Moderating the Nov. 20 event, which is being co-hosted by MSNBC and The Washington
Post, will be Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC; Andrea Mitchell, host
of "Andrea Mitchell Reports" on MSNBC and NBC News' chief foreign affairs correspondent;
Kristen Welker, NBC News' White House correspondent; and Ashley Parker, a White House reporter
for The Washington Post." • The count of journalists is off by at least one.
Warren (D)(1): "Warren cutting into Biden's lead in new SC 2020 Democratic poll" [
Post and Courier ]. "Biden's lead in South Carolina, which had hovered around 20 percentage
points since the summer, has shrunk Biden received 30 percent to Warren's 19 percent. Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders at 13 percent and California Sen. Kamala Harris at 11 percent are the only
two other candidates with double-digit results in South Carolina . The biggest gains in the
latest poll came from fifth- and sixth-place contenders, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg
and billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer." • Everybody loves a winner, but the gains
in the third tier show SC is still fluid (though perhaps not a firewall for Biden).
Yet another case where Warren's problem statement isn't commensurate with the proposed
solution .
Impeachment
"Republicans criticize House impeachment process -- while fully participating in probe" [
WaPo ]. "Then the questions begin to fly, largely from the expert staff hired by lawmakers
on the House Intelligence Committee and other panels participating in the probe. Each side gets
an equal amount of questions, as dictated by long-standing House rules guiding these
interviews. 'It starts one hour, one hour,' said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), explaining how the
questioning moves beyond one-hour blocks for each side. 'Then it goes 45, 45, 45, 45, with
breaks, occasionally, and breaks for lunch.' Meadows, one of Trump's staunchest allies, said
each side has been allowed an unlimited amount of questions they can ask of witnesses.' Those
participating in the closed-door depositions generally say that these interviews are very
professional and that both sides have operated under
rules that were approved in January ." • As I've said, I don't like the policy on
transcripts, and my litmus test for legitimacy is that there's no secret evidence at all. I
don't much like that Republicans can't subpeona witnesses, either.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas
drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about
Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge
Trump at first threw down the gauntlet to the spies and proclaimed his autocratic
prerogative when God held off the rain for his inauguration (!) but now he would gladly get
on his knees between Gina Haspel's legs if the CIA would only help him stay in power.
What distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured.
He made it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context,
media and process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American
dream. It was a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"! It's staring us all in the face.
With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls, the Democrats have declared that the
decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country
has done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to
endless war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed
them off, declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the
choice of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by
Turkey as an existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's
a big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort
of hand wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable
person could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees.
Why must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops
to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These
forces do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed
their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John
Kerry admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign
policy was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
gjohnsit on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 5:38pm With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls,
the Democrats have declared that the decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has
done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to endless
war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed them off,
declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the choice
of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by Turkey as an
existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's a
big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort of hand
wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable person
could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees. Why
must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to
Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces
do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their
attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John Kerry
admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign policy
was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public relations
companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of the
public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
The New Arab article quote "public relations firms to brandish their image in the US" has a word usage problem. The correct
word would be burnish, not brandish. You brandish your weapon. You burnish your image.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public
relations companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of
the public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the United
States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability to
go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing a long-term
buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by Syrian/Russian/Kurdish
forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the whole
thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking Syrian
forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where it dies
down in a couple weeks.
"Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness" won't happen. The MSM won't allow it.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the
United States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability
to go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing
a long-term buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by
Syrian/Russian/Kurdish forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the
whole thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking
Syrian forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where
it dies down in a couple weeks.
(as Kurdish Syria is sometimes called) is that one
of the Kurd leaders became a follower of Murray Bookchin after spending a bunch of time as a Marxist-Leninist, and so portions
of Kurdish society are an experiment in Bookchinism. Here is a
piece by Bookchin's daughter on the correspondence between him and the Kurds. Hopefully the Kurds will find some protection
in the new Putin-brokered Syria.
Otherwise, yeah, the Kurds are an ally of convenience for the Democratic Party and its apologists on that most disgusting of
propaganda instruments, National Public Radio.
but it should have also been illegal for us to arm the same people that we had declared terrorists. Now those people are killing
the people who fought on our side against the ones now doing the killing.. my head is spinning with all the insane talking points
coming from people who have never met a war they didn't support.
This is a good read.
Former and current US officials have slammed the Turkish mercenary force of "Arab militias" for executing and beheading Kurds
in northern Syria. New data from Turkey reveals that almost all of these militias were armed and trained in the past by the CIA
and Pentagon.
By Max Blumenthal
Left: John McCain with then-FSA chief Salim Idriss (right) in 2013; Right: Salim Idriss (center) in October, announcing the establishment
of the National Front for Liberation, the Turkish mercenary army that has invaded northern Syria.
Hmm..kinda hard to explain that huh? The article talks about Idriss in detail. As well as Obama and Hillary's roles in the
'no boots on the ground' war.
This should embarrass every person who is moaning over Trump's actions in Syria. Turkey was coming in one way or another and
the only way to stop them was for our troops to stand in their way. But what really ticks me off is all of that equipment they
left behind on their bug out. Not just tents , TVs and air conditioners and everything in between, but they left weapons and bombs
there and they just blew them up. This will make the defense companies very happy!
After the ceasefire, US backed
#Kurds are deciding to hand over the north of
#Syria to Turkey rather than the
Syrian army. All trump had to promise them was a stake in
#Syria 's oil fields.
https://t.co/euat8DvIa4
Syrian Girl lives in Syria and has been a good source of information, but I'm not sure if what she is reporting is true. But
wouldn't that shut lots of people up?
Obama kept troops out of Syria until the last minute. Then he took a force small enough to justify his successor's escalation.
So when the Turks tried to genocide the Kurds - like they were certain to do - Trump gets the blame. But it was supposed to be
Hillary. What was in it for her? The joy of another country seeing genocide?
The Kurds were promised land and valuable oil fields in North Eastern Syria by... the US. What's wrong with this picture? Damascus
has I invited the Kurds to be part of the multi-ethnic Syria. The Kurds refused and took America's deal. We armed them to the
teeth with 10s of billions of dollars of weapons. What could go wrong? Well just about everything as the US offer was highly illegal,
they are stealing Syrian oil, and Turkey will not accept any Kurdish permanent enclave on her border. Syria, Russia, Iran, China,
Hezbollah, Iraq and more support the reunification of all of Syria. Why were the Kurds so stupid? Go it? Blind belief in the all
powerful US!
Warren (D)(1): "Elizabeth Warren to put out plan on how to pay for 'Medicare for All'" [
CNN ]. • "Pay for" being both delusional and a question nobody, including Warren,
ever asks about war, and "taxes on the middle class" being, shall we say, a well-worn,
content-free trope.
Warren (D)(2): "Why Criticize Warren?" [Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs ]. "What
will the right's main line of attack against Warren be? I think you can see it already,
actually: They will attempt to portray her as inauthentic and untrustworthy. She will be
painted as a Harvard egghead who has suddenly discovered populism for self-serving reasons, a
slippery elite who isn't telling you the truth about her agenda . What worries me about
Elizabeth Warren is that the criticisms of her as untrustworthy are not easy to wave away.
Warren began her 2020 campaign with a video claiming to be a Native American, even though she
isn't one. She
has now tried to bury the evidence that she did this, by deleting the video and all
accompanying social media posts .
I have tried, so far, to avoid lapsing into the usual discussions of "Bernie Sanders
versus Elizabeth Warren," but here I should note that one reason I think Bernie Sanders is
such a powerful potential candidate against Trump is that he doesn't have these kind of messy
problems of authenticity and honesty.
The thing almost nobody denies about Bernie is that you know where he stands."
As The Big Picture says above. This is a massive takedown, and I've focused on a single,
tactical issue, but this post is a must-read in full. If it's correct, the Warren campaign is
a train-wreck waiting to happen.
(Adding, the Cherokee issue really matters to me, because the Penobscots were enormously
powerful allies in the fight against the landfill (and cf. Standing Rock). It just drives me
bananas that Warren didn't check in with the Cherokees before declaring herself one of them.
I think it's an outrage, and I don't care if I get eye-rolls for it.)
"Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party"
This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do
they become members? The actual structure and functioning of political parties in the US is
seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a good description. Even a
quick review of the Wikipedia entry reveals little.
As best I can tell, a person is a party member by checking the box on the voter
registration form. The few times I have registered, I did not check a box for any party. It
is none of the state's business who I associate with or vote for.
It is also not the state's business to supervise and fund the selection of party
candidates. But that is what happens in the US. The primary voting system is a huge
financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely two
branches of the Business Party.
The electoral college is neither archaic nor unfair. We were and are a union of States. The
electoral college prevented the Executive office from being dominated by voters from heavily
populated urban centers at the expense of the rural population. It is more relevant today
than ever as the country is even more divided in disposition and ideology. If it were
abolished, most of America would be effectively disenfranchised in Presidential elections as
California, New York and a handful of other highly urbanized and ultra-liberal population
centers would always carry the day. There would be no need to vote anymore. Maybe that is the
idea......
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is paying Facebook Inc. to run false
advertisements that its Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is endorsing President Donald
Trump.
Warren's campaign sponsored the posts which were blasted into the feeds of U.S. users of
the social network, as it pushed back against Facebook's policy to exempt politicians' ads
from its third-party fact-checking program.
The ads, which begin with the falsehood, quickly backtracks: "You're probably shocked. And
you might be thinking, 'how could this possibly be true?' Well, it's not." ...
"If Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should
not be in the position of censoring that speech," Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook, said
in a statement to CNN on the ads.
This isn't the first time Warren has used Facebook's own platform to make a political
point. In March, Facebook took down ads from her campaign that called for the company to be
broken up, but later restored them.
This time, Warren's latest ads strike a more forceful tone, calling on users to hold the
Facebook CEO accountable and to back her mission.
"Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once," the ads read. "Now, they're
deliberately allowing a candidate to intentionally lie to the American people."
Great tactic, and Hilarious at that. I passed it on on my face book account. Great political
humor has been a proven vote winner. Anytime you get a chuckle, the residual resentment gets
same relief.
The term "centrist" is replaced by a more appropriate term "neoliberal oligarchy"
Notable quotes:
"... Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly, suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps. ..."
"... So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House in the first place. ..."
"... For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed path. ..."
"... In a recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point: Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as foreordained. ..."
"... Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much) change. ..."
"... These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy. ..."
"... "For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely. ..."
"... how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal oligarchy" who preceded him? ..."
"... Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the question not only goes unanswered, but unasked. ..."
"... To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie. Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed, apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse "to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war to economic inequality." Just so. ..."
"... Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's what Hillary thought too. ..."
"... Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars. ..."
"... Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no better than last time. ..."
"... I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the price that's going to have to be paid. ..."
"... At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight of hand there corporate Dems. ..."
There is blood in the water and frenzied sharks are closing in for the kill. Or so they
think.
From the time of Donald Trump's election, American elites have hungered for this moment. At
long last, they have the 45th president of the United States cornered. In typically ham-handed
fashion, Trump has given his adversaries the very means to destroy him politically. They will
not waste the opportunity. Impeachment now -- finally, some will say -- qualifies as a virtual
certainty.
No doubt many surprises lie ahead. Yet the Democrats controlling the House of
Representatives have passed the point of no return. The time for prudential judgments -- the
Republican-controlled Senate will never convict, so why bother? -- is gone for good. To back
down now would expose the president's pursuers as spineless cowards. TheNew York
Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC would not soon forgive such craven behavior.
So, as President Woodrow Wilson, speaking in 1919 put it, "The stage is set, the
destiny disclosed. It has come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of God." Of
course, the issue back then was a notably weighty one: whether to ratify the Versailles Treaty.
That it now concerns a "
Mafia-like shakedown " orchestrated by one of Wilson's successors tells us something about
the trajectory of American politics over the course of the last century and it has not been a
story of ascent.
The effort to boot the president from office is certain to yield a memorable spectacle. The
rancor and contempt that have clogged American politics like a backed-up sewer since the day of
Trump's election will now find release. Watergate will pale by comparison. The uproar triggered
by Bill Clinton's "
sexual relations " will be nothing by comparison. A de facto collaboration between
Trump, those who despise him, and those who despise his critics all but guarantees that this
story will dominate the news, undoubtedly for months to come.
As this process unspools, what politicians like to call "the people's business" will go
essentially unattended. So while Congress considers whether or not to remove Trump from office,
gun-control legislation will languish, the deterioration of the nation's infrastructure will
proceed apace, needed healthcare reforms will be tabled, the military-industrial complex will
waste yet more billions, and the national debt, already at $22 trillion --
larger, that is, than the entire economy -- will continue to surge. The looming threat posed by
climate change, much talked about of late, will proceed all but unchecked. For those of us
preoccupied with America's role in the world, the obsolete assumptions and habits undergirding
what's still called " national
security " will continue to evade examination. Our endless wars will remain endless and
pointless.
By way of compensation, we might wonder what benefits impeachment is likely to yield.
Answering that question requires examining four scenarios that describe the range of
possibilities awaiting the nation.
The first and most to be desired (but least likely) is that Trump will tire of being a
public piñata and just quit. With the thrill of flying in Air Force One having
worn off, being president can't be as much fun these days. Why put up with further grief? How
much more entertaining for Trump to retire to the political sidelines where he can tweet up a
storm and indulge his penchant for name-calling. And think of the "deals" an ex-president could
make in countries like Israel, North Korea, Poland, and Saudi Arabia on which he's bestowed
favors. Cha-ching! As of yet, however, the president shows no signs of taking the easy (and
lucrative) way out.
The second possible outcome sounds almost as good but is no less implausible: a sufficient
number of Republican senators rediscover their moral compass and "do the right thing," joining
with Democrats to create the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump and send him packing.
In the Washington of that classic 20th-century film director Frank Capra, with Jimmy Stewart
holding
forth on the Senate floor and a moist-eyed Jean Arthur cheering him on from the gallery,
this might have happened. In the real Washington of "Moscow Mitch"
McConnell , think again.
The third somewhat seamier outcome might seem a tad more likely. It postulates that
McConnell and various GOP senators facing reelection in 2020 or 2022 will calculate that
turning on Trump just might offer the best way of saving their own skins. The president's
loyalty to just about anyone, wives included, has always been highly contingent, the people
streaming out of his administration routinely making the point. So why should senatorial
loyalty to the president be any different? At the moment, however, indications that Trump
loyalists out in the hinterlands will reward such turncoats are just about nonexistent. Unless
that base were to flip, don't expect Republican senators to do anything but flop.
That leaves outcome No. 4, easily the most probable: while the House will impeach, the
Senate will decline to convict. Trump will therefore stay right where he is, with the matter of
his fitness for office effectively deferred to the November 2020 elections. Except as a source
of sadomasochistic diversion, the entire agonizing experience will, therefore, prove to be a
colossal waste of time and blather.
Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection
chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For
that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly,
suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as
punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay
in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so
that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps.
Besides, as Trump campaigns for a second term, he would almost surely wear censure like a
badge of honor. Keep in mind that Congress's
approval ratings are considerably worse than his. To more than a few members of the public,
a black mark awarded by Congress might look like a gold star.
Restoration Not Removal
So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more
favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being
pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of
impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with
Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is
to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House
in the first place.
Just recently, for instance, Hillary Clinton
declared Trump to be an "illegitimate president." Implicit in her charge is the conviction
-- no doubt sincere -- that people like Donald Trump are not supposed to be president.
People like Hillary Clinton -- people possessing credentials
like hers and sharing her values -- should be the chosen ones. Here we glimpse the true
meaning of legitimacy in this context. Whatever the vote in the Electoral College, Trump
doesn't deserve to be president and never did.
For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of
impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed
path.
In a
recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point:
Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close
to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more
important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking
repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as
foreordained.
Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political
mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal
Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much)
change.
These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as
defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating
on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a
global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they
define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees
from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to
believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and
privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American
political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore
that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy.
"For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying
a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary
precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo
interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his
mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors
The U.S. military's "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad at the start of the Iraq War, as
broadcast on CNN.
For such a scheme to succeed, however, laundering reputations alone will not suffice.
Equally important will be to bury any recollection of the catastrophes that paved the way for
an über -qualified centrist to lose to an indisputably unqualified and
unprincipled political novice in 2016.
Holding promised security assistance hostage unless a foreign leader agrees to do you
political favors is obviously and indisputably wrong. Trump's antics regarding Ukraine may even
meet some definition of criminal. Still, how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal
oligarchy" who preceded him? Consider, in particular, the George W. Bush
administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 (along with the spin-off wars that followed).
Consider, too, the reckless economic policies that produced the Great Recession of 2007-2008.
As measured by the harm inflicted on the American people (and others), the offenses for which
Trump is being impeached qualify as mere misdemeanors.
Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental
hubris. When it comes to tallying up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who
sold the war don't particularly matter. The results include
thousands of Americans killed; tens of thousands wounded, many grievously, or left to
struggle with the effects of PTSD; hundreds of thousands of non-Americans killed or injured ;
millions displaced ;
trillions of dollars expended; radical groups like ISIS empowered (and in its case
even formed
inside a U.S. prison in Iraq); and the Persian Gulf region plunged into turmoil from which it
has yet to recover. How do Trump's crimes stack up against these?
The Great Recession stemmed directly from economic policies implemented during the
administration of President Bill Clinton and continued by his successor. Deregulating the
banking sector was projected to produce a bonanza in which all would share. Yet, as a
direct result of
the ensuing chicanery, nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, while overall unemployment
shot up to 10 percent. Roughly 4 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The stock
market cratered and millions saw their life savings evaporate. Again, the question must be
asked: How do these results compare to Trump's dubious dealings with Ukraine?
Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has
been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq
War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the
question not only goes unanswered, but unasked.
Sen. Carter Glass (D–Va.) and Rep. Henry B. Steagall (D–Ala.-3), the co-sponsors of
the 1932 Glass–Steagall Act separating investment and commercial banking, which was
repealed in 1999. (Wikimedia Commons)
To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship
on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie.
Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed,
apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden
worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That
the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another
cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency
somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse
"to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war
to economic inequality." Just so.
What are the real crimes? Who are the real criminals? No matter what happens in the coming
months, don't expect the Trump impeachment proceedings to come within a country mile of
addressing such questions.
Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed
match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's
what Hillary thought too.
Now the Republicans who lost their party to Trump think they can take it back with
somebody even more lame than Jeb, if only they could find someone, anyone, to run on that
non-plan.
Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any
alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they
want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four
times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars.
Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no
better than last time.
LJ , October 9, 2019 at 17:01
Well, yeah but I recall that what won Trump the Republican Nomination was first and
foremost his stance on Immigration. This issue is what separated him from the herd of
candidates . None of them had the courage or the desire to go against Governmental Groupthink
on Immigration. All he then had to do was get on top of low energy Jeb Bush and the road was
clear. He got the base on his side on this issue and on his repeated statement that he wished
to normalize relations with Russia . He won the nomination easily. The base is still on his
side on these issues but Governmental Groupthink has prevailed in the House, the Senate, the
Intelligence Services and the Federal Courts. Funny how nobody in the Beltway, especially not
in media, is brave enough to admit that the entire Neoconservative scheme has been a disaster
and that of course we should get out of Syria . Nor can anyone recall the corruption and
warmongering that now seem that seems endemic to the Democratic Party. Of course Trump has to
wear goat's horns. "Off with his head".
Drew Hunkins , October 9, 2019 at 16:00
I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute
worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the
price that's going to have to be paid.
At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental
bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now
established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to
concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable
Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight
of hand there corporate Dems.
Of course, the corporate Dems would rather lose to Trump than win with a
progressive-populist like Bernie. After all, a Bernie win would mean an end to a lot of
careerism and cushy positions within the establishment political scene in Washington and
throughout the country.
Now we even have the destroyer of Libya mulling another run for the presidency.
Forget about having a job the next day and forget about the 25% interest on your credit
card or that half your income is going toward your rent or mortgage, or that you barely see
your kids b/c of the 60 hour work week, just worry about women lawyers being able to make
partner at the firm, and trans people being able to use whatever bathroom they wish and male
athletes being able to compete against women based on genitalia (no, wait, I'm confused
now).
Either class politics and class warfare comes front and center or we witness a burgeoning
neo-fascist movement in our midst. It's that simple, something has got to give!
Hillary Clinton has threatened to enter the 2020 presidential race for president after
President Donald Trump suggested on Twitter that she throw her hat in the ring in an effort to
"steal it away" from Elizabeth Warren. Trump tweeted Tuesday that "Crooked Hillary"
should run for president again to deprive the "Uber Left" Warren of a shot at the White
House, but only on "one condition" to be subpoenaed to "explain all of her high
crimes and misdemeanors."
I think that Crooked Hillary Clinton should enter the race to try and steal it away from
Uber Left Elizabeth Warren. Only one condition. The Crooked one must explain all of her high
crimes and misdemeanors including how & why she deleted 33,000 Emails AFTER getting "C"
Subpoena!
Five hours after Trump's jab, Clinton replied: "Don't tempt me. Do your job."
Reaction to Clinton's warning was mixed, to say the least. While mainstream media outlets
seemed to love the idea, many social media users recoiled in horror at the thought of a 2016
re-run.
"I don't think my heart could take it" if Hillary really runs again, one fan
proclaimed on Twitter.
"The president is dropping by the city on Thursday for one of his periodic angry
wank-fests at the Target Center, which is the venue in which this event will be inflicted
upon the Twin Cities. (And, just as an aside, given the events of the past 10 days, this one
should be a doozy.) Other Minneapolis folk are planning an extensive unwelcoming party
outside the arena, which necessarily would require increased security, which is expensive.
So, realizing that it was dealing with a notorious deadbeat -- in keeping with his customary
business plan, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago has stiffed 10 cities this year for bills relating
to security costs that total almost a million bucks -- the company that provides the security
for the Target Center wants the president*'s campaign to shell out more than $500,000.
This has sent the president* into a Twitter tantrum against Frey, who seems not to be that
impressed by it. Right from when the visit was announced, Frey has been jabbing at the
president*'s ego. From the Star-Tribune:
"Our entire city will stand not behind the President, but behind the communities and
people who continue to make our city -- and this country -- great," Frey said. "While there
is no legal mechanism to prevent the president from visiting, his message of hatred will
never be welcome in Minneapolis."
It is a mayor's lot to deal with out-of-state troublemakers. Always has been."
This is not about Trump. This is not even about Ukraine and/or foreign powers influence on
the US election (of which Israel, UK, and Saudi are three primary examples; in this
particular order.)
Russiagate 2.0 (aka Ukrainegate) is the case, textbook example if you wish, of how the
neoliberal elite manipulates the MSM and the narrative for purposes of misdirecting attention
and perception of their true intentions and objectives -- distracting the electorate from
real issues.
An excellent observation by JohnH (October 01, 2019 at 01:47 PM )
"It all depends on which side of the Infowars you find yourself. The facts themselves are
too obscure and byzantine."
There are two competing narratives here:
1. NARRATIVE 1: CIA swamp scum tried to re-launch Russiagate as Russiagate 2.0. This is
CIA coup d'état aided and abetted by CIA-democrats like Pelosi and Schiff. Treason, as
Trump aptly said. This is narrative shared by "anti-Deep Staters" who sometimes are nicknamed
"Trumptards". Please note that the latter derogatory nickname is factually incorrect:
supporters of this narrative often do not support Trump. They just oppose machinations of the
Deep State. And/or neoliberalism personified by Clinton camp, with its rampant
corruption.
2. NARRATIVE 2: Trump tried to derail his opponent using his influence of foreign state
President (via military aid) as leverage and should be impeached for this and previous
crimes. ("Full of Schiff" commenters narrative, neoliberal democrats, or demorats.)
Supporters of this category usually bought Russiagate 1.0 narrative line, hook and sinker.
Some of them are brainwashed, but mostly simply ignorant neoliberal lemmings without even
basic political education.
In any case, while Russiagate 2.0 is probably another World Wrestling Federation style
fight, I think "anti-Deep-staters" are much closer to the truth.
What is missing here is the real problem: the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA (and
elsewhere).
So this circus serves an important purpose (intentionally or unintentionally) -- to disrupt
voters from the problems that are really burning, and are equal to a slow-progressing cancer in the
US society.
And implicitly derail Warren (being a weak politician she does not understand that, and
jumped into Ukrainegate bandwagon )
I am not that competent here, so I will just mention some obvious symptoms:
Loss of legitimacy of the ruling neoliberal elite (which demonstrated itself in 2016
with election of Trump);
Desperation of many working Americans with sliding standard of living; loss of meaningful
jobs due to offshoring of manufacturing and automation (which demonstrated itself in opioids
abuse epidemics; similar to epidemics of alcoholism in the USSR before its dissolution.
Loss of previously available freedoms. Loss of "free press" replaced by the neoliberal
echo chamber in major MSM. The uncontrolled and brutal rule of financial oligarchy and allied
with the intelligence agencies as the third rail of US politics (plus the conversion of the
state after 9/11 into national security state);
Coming within this century end of the "Petroleum Age" and the global crisis that it can
entail;
Rampant militarism, tremendous waist of resources on the arms race, and overstretched
efforts to maintain and expand global, controlled from Washington, neoliberal empire. Efforts
that since 1991 were a primary focus of unhinged after 1991 neocon faction US elite who
totally controls foreign policy establishment ("full-spectrum dominance). They are stealing money from
working people to fund an imperial project, and as part of neoliberal redistribution of wealth up
Most of the commenters here live a comfortable life in the financially secured retirement,
and, as such, are mostly satisfied with the status quo. And almost completely isolated from
the level of financial insecurity of most common Americans (healthcare racket might be the
only exception).
And re-posting of articles which confirm your own worldview (echo chamber posting) is nice
entertainment, I think ;-)
Some of those posters actually sometimes manage to find really valuable info. For which I
am thankful. In other cases, when we have a deluge of abhorrent neoliberal propaganda
postings (the specialty of Fred C. Dobbs) which often generate really insightful comments from the
members of the "anti-Deep State" camp.
Still it would be beneficial if the flow of neoliberal spam is slightly curtailed.
"... The intemperate comments of an imperial-minded candidate for the presidency ..."
"... The democrat coup/impeach/coup machine suffers is bi-polar disorder. Every they way fill the military industry complex trough! In their war manic state they supress freedom fighters, and arm their jailers, in their war depress state they support rioters in Hong Kong. If Donbass rebels were in Macao they would get US support, in Dobass the US will suppress freedom. ..."
"... With Ukraine, because the democrat neocons want to surround Russia, US national security arms Ukriane to forcibly put down Donbass as they attempt some form of "self determination". ..."
"... In the case of Hong Kong because US is enemy to the PRC (Red China at Menzie Chinn blog) the US is all for self determination, like Hitler was for pulling Sudetenland out of Czechoslovakia in 1938! ..."
"... This bipolar morality fits with deep state surveillance on Trump in 2016 and in 2019 claiming Trump doing it to Biden so that Trump/DoJ cannot fight corrupt (all) democrats ever! ..."
Is Time for the United States to Stand Up to China in Hong Kong
Tweets aren't enough. Washington must make clear that it expects Beijing to live up to its
commitments -- and it will respond when China does not.
By ELIZABETH WARREN
It Is Time for the United States to Stand Up to China in Hong Kong
Tweets aren't enough. Washington must make clear that it expects Beijing to live up to its
commitments -- and it will respond when China does not.
By ELIZABETH WARREN
[ Shocking and appalling; unethical and immoral; discrediting. The intemperate comments of an imperial-minded candidate for the presidency. ]
The democrat coup/impeach/coup machine suffers is bi-polar disorder. Every they way fill the
military industry complex trough!
In their war manic state they supress freedom fighters, and arm their jailers, in their
war depress state they support rioters in Hong Kong. If Donbass rebels were in Macao they would get US support, in Dobass the US will suppress
freedom.
With Ukraine, because the democrat neocons want to surround Russia, US national security
arms Ukriane to forcibly put down Donbass as they attempt some form of "self
determination".
In the case of Hong Kong because US is enemy to the PRC (Red China at Menzie Chinn blog)
the US is all for self determination, like Hitler was for pulling Sudetenland out of
Czechoslovakia in 1938!
This bipolar morality fits with deep state surveillance on Trump in 2016 and in 2019
claiming Trump doing it to Biden so that Trump/DoJ cannot fight corrupt (all) democrats
ever!
1) We don't know for certain what Shokin was investigating and what he wasn't.
2) Ukraine was rife with corruption. But most likely Biden was more concerned with
uprooting pro-Russian elements calling them corrupt as shorthand. Pro-Western corruption was
most likely overlooked.
3) We don't know why Hunter Biden was appointed to the Burisma board along with one of Joe
Biden's big bundlers and the CIA-friendly former President of Poland. We do know that Hunter
was put on the board immediately after the color revolution in Ukraine and that he served a
stint on the National Democratic Institute, which promotes regime change. Much more needs to
be learned about what the Bidens were up to in Ukraine and whether they were carpet baggers
cashing out.
As I have said, I would be delighted if Trump went down and took Joe Biden with him. The
last thing this country needs is a Joe Lieberman with a smiling face serving as President
which is basically what Joe Biden is.
"As I have said, I would be delighted if Trump went down and took Joe Biden with him."
Biden was already destroyed by Ukrainegate, being Pelosi sacrificial pawn (and for such
semi-senile candidate exit now looks the most logical; he can hand around for longer but the
question is why? ), but it is unclear how this will affect Trump.
In any case each accusation of Trump boomerang into Biden. And Biden China story probably
even more interesting then his Ukrainian gate story.
CIA ears over all Ukraine-gate are so visible that it hurts Pelosi case. Schiff is a sad
clown in this circus, and he has zero credibility after his well publicized love story with
Russiagate.
The fact that Warren is now favorite increases previously reluctant Wall Street support
for Trump, who is becoming kind of new Hillary, the establishment candidate.
And if you able to think, trump now looks like establishment candidate, corrupt
interventionist, who is not that far from Hillary in foreign policy and clearly as a "hard
neoliberal" aligns with Hillary "soft neoliberal" stance in domestic policy.
As Warren can pretend that she is better Trump then Trump (and we are talking about
Trump-2016 platform; Trump action were betrayal of his electorate much like was the case with
Obama) she has chances, but let's do not overestimate them.
Pelosi help with Trump re-election can't be underestimated.
If Krugman is surprised that some Democratic donors will support Trump over Warren, he is not
an analyst.
And Obama was a Wall Street prostitute, much like bill Clinton, no questions about it. Trump
betrayal of his voters actually mirror the Obama betrayal. May suspect that Warren will be
malleable with will fold to Wall Street on the first opportunity, governing like Trump-lite.
Warren Versus the Petty Plutocrats. Why do they hate her? It's mainly about their
egos.
By Paul Krugman
Remember when pundits used to argue that Elizabeth Warren wasn't likable enough to be
president? It was always a lazy take, with a strong element of sexism. And it looks
ridiculous now, watching Warren on the campaign trail. Never mind whether she's someone you'd
like to have a beer with, she's definitely someone thousands of people want to take selfies
with.
But there are some people who really, really dislike Warren: the ultrawealthy, especially
on Wall Street. They dislike her so much that some longtime Democratic donors are reportedly
considering throwing their backing behind Donald Trump, corruption, collusion and all, if
Warren is the Democratic presidential nominee.
And Warren's success is a serious possibility, because Warren's steady rise has made her a
real contender, maybe even the front-runner: While she still trails Joe Biden a bit in the
polls, betting markets currently give her a roughly 50 percent chance of securing the
nomination.
But why does Warren inspire a level of hatred and fear among the very wealthy that I
don't think we've seen directed at a presidential candidate since the days of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt?
On the surface, the answer may seem obvious. She is proposing policies, notably a tax on
fortunes exceeding $50 million, that would make the extremely wealthy a bit less so. But
delve into the question a bit more deeply, and Warren hatred becomes considerably more
puzzling.
For the only people who would be directly affected by her tax proposals are those who more
or less literally have more money than they know what to do with. Having a million or two
less wouldn't crimp their lifestyles; most of them would barely notice the change.
At the same time, even the very wealthy should be very afraid of the prospect of a Trump
re-election. Any doubts you might have had about his authoritarian instincts should have been
put to rest by his reaction to the possibility of impeachment: implicit death threats against
whistle-blowers, warnings of civil war and claims that members of Congress investigating him
are guilty of treason.
And anyone imagining that great wealth would make them safe from an autocrat's wrath
should look at the list of Russian oligarchs who crossed Vladimir Putin -- and are now ruined
or dead. So what would make the very wealthy -- even some Jewish billionaires, who should
have a very good idea of the likely consequences of right-wing dominance -- support Trump
over someone like Warren?
There is, I'd argue, an important clue in the "Obama rage" that swept Wall Street circa
2010. Objectively, the Obama administration was very good to the financial industry, even
though that industry had just led us into the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
Major financial players were bailed out on lenient terms, and while bankers were subjected to
a long-overdue increase in regulation, the new regulations have proved fairly easy for
reputable firms to deal with.
Yet financial tycoons were furious with President Barack Obama because they felt
disrespected. In truth, Obama's rhetoric was very mild; all he ever did was suggest that some
bankers had behaved badly, which no reasonable person could deny. But with great wealth comes
great pettiness; Obama's gentle rebukes provoked fury -- and a huge swing in financial
industry political contributions toward Republicans.
The point is that many of the superrich aren't satisfied with living like kings, which
they will continue to do no matter who wins next year's election. They also expect to be
treated like kings, lionized as job creators and heroes of prosperity, and consider any
criticism an unforgivable act of lèse-majesté.
And for such people, the prospect of a Warren presidency is a nightmarish threat -- not to
their wallets, but to their egos. They can try to brush off someone like Bernie Sanders as a
rabble-rouser. But when Warren criticizes malefactors of great wealth and proposes reining in
their excesses, her evident policy sophistication -- has any previous candidate managed to
turn wonkiness into a form of charisma? -- makes her critique much harder to dismiss.
If Warren is the nominee, then, a significant number of tycoons will indeed go for Trump;
better to put democracy at risk than to countenance a challenge to their imperial
self-esteem. But will it matter?
Maybe not. These days American presidential elections are so awash in money that both
sides can count on having enough resources to saturate the airwaves.
Indeed, over-the-top attacks from the wealthy can sometimes be a political plus. That was
certainly the case for F.D.R., who reveled in his plutocratic opposition: "They are unanimous
in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."
So far Warren seems to be following the same playbook, tweeting out articles about Wall
Street's hostility as if they were endorsements, which in a sense they are. It's good to have
the right enemies.
I do worry, however, how Wall Streeters will take it if they go all out to defeat Warren
and she wins anyway. Washington can bail out their balance sheets, but who can bail out their
damaged psyches?
"Deductive reasoning" within the media message is mob control.
"It ain't what you know... it's what you know that ain't so"#. Keep reading the mainstream
media!
Given enough time [and strategy wrt 2020 election] we will get to the bottom of Obama's
"criminal influence" on 2016 election.
It takes a lot more to debunk the Biden, Clinton, Nuland, Obama Ukraine drama. To my mind,
Ukraine needs to be clean as driven snow* to "earn" javelins to kill Russian speaking
rebels.
Why do US from Obama+ fund rebels in Syria (Sunni radicals mainly) and want to send tank
killers to suppress rebels where we might get in to the real deal?
# conservatives have been saying that about the 'outrage' started by the MSM for
decades.
Warren might be an improvement over the current situation. Moreover she has some sound ideas about taming the financial
oligarchy
"Best alternative to the above? Get Liz Warren elected, IMO."
True. IMHO Warren might be an improvement over the
current situation. Moreover she has some sound ideas about taming the financial oligarchy.
The idea of taking on
financial oligarchy will find strong support of voters and in some respects she is "a better Trump then Trump" as for
restoring the honor and wellbeing of the working people mercilessly squeezed and marginalized by neoliberalism in the USA.
Her book "The two income trap"(2004) suggests that this is not just a classic "bait and switch" election trick in
best Obama or Trump style.
And I would say she in her 70 is in better shape then Trump in his 73+. He shows isolated
early signs of neurologic damage (some claim sundowning syndrome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwh6Fu9BcAw slurring speech patterns, repetitions, disorientation, etc), which is
natural for any person in his 70th subjected to his level of stress.
But it is completely unclear to me whether the impeachment favors Warren or Trump. the treat of impeachment already
cemented fractures in Trump base which now, judging from comments in forums, is really outraged.
Some people are
talking about armed resistance, which is, of course, hopeless nonsense in the current national-security state, but does show
the state of their mind.
Also nobody here can even imagine the amount of dirt Obama administration accumulated by
their actions in Ukraine. They really supported a neo-fascist party and cooperated with neo-Nazi (other important players
were Germany, Poland and Sweden). Just to achieve geopolitical victory over Russia. Kind of total reversion of WWII alliance
for me.
That avalanche of dirt can affect Warren indirectly as she proved to be a weak, unsophisticated politician by
supporting Pelosi drive for impeachment instead of pretending of being neutral. Which would be more appropriate and much
safer position.
Neoliberal democrats despite all Pelosi skills ( see https://mediaequalizer.com/martin-walsh/2017/12/gifford-heres-how-pelosi-learned-mob-like-tactics-from-her-father
) really opened a can of worms with this impeachment.
Also it looks like all of them, including Pelosi, are scared of
CIA: https://galacticconnection.com/nancy-pelosi-admits-congress-scared-cia/
== quote == In response to Senator
Dianne Feinstein’s speech last week calling out the CIA for spying on her staffers, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was asked to comment
and gave what might be the most revealing comments to date as to why Congress is so scared of the CIA:
“I salute
Sen. Feinstein,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference of the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I’ll tell
you, you take on the intelligence community, you’re a person of courage, and she does not do that lightly. Not without
evidence, and when I say evidence, documentation of what it is that she is putting forth.”
Pelosi added that she has
always fought for checks and balances on CIA activity and its interactions with Congress: “You don’t fight it without a price
because they come after you and they don’t always tell the truth. ==end==
I strongly doubt that Trump will ever
risk to drop a bomb by declassifying documents about Obama dirty actions in Ukraine; so to speak go "all in" against
neoliberal Democrats and part of intelligence community (and possibly be JFKed).
But Trump is unpredictable and
extremely vindictive. How he will behave after being put against the wall on fake changes is completely unclear. I wonder if
Pelosi correctly calculated all the risks.
I wrote the other day about Wall Street fear and loathing of Elizabeth Warren, suggesting
that it has more to do with threatened egos than with money per se 1/
Some more thoughts on reports that Wall Street Democrats will back Trump over Warren.
Obviously it's hard to know how big a deal this is -- how many of these guys are there, were
they ever really Dems, and will they back Trump as more revelations emerge 1/
So I remembered a sort of time capsule from the eve of the financial crisis that nicely
illustrated how these guys want to be perceived, and retrospectively explains their fury at
no longer getting to pose as economic heroes 2/
The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age
The new titans often see themselves as pillars of a similarly prosperous and expansive
age, one in which their successes and their philanthropy have made government less important
than it once was.
The thing is, even at the time the idea that financial deregulation had ushered in a
golden age of prosperity was flatly contradicted by the data 3/
[Graph]
And of course the financial crisis -- which is generally considered to have begun just
three weeks after that article was published! -- made utter nonsense of their boasting 4/
But they want everyone to forget about the hollowness of their claims to glory; and Warren
won't let that happen, which makes her evil in their minds 5/
When Bill was president Warren met with Hillary and persuaded her to talk Bill into killing
Biden's increased protection for lenders from rapacious borrowers. When Hillary was senator she
supported the Bill. Warren gave an interview on the subject before she was involved in
politics. She was not happy.
Warren was the single female Democratic senator who declined to give Hillary an endorsement
before the primaries started. That's an event of some significance.
During the debates Warren took actions that helped Bernie on several occasions. Someone, I
think Paul Krugman, said Glass Stegall would have done nothing to stop the meltdown because it
didn't deal with shadow banking. Bernie was able to respond that he supported Warren's proposed
Glass Stegall bill, which did have provisions to regulate shadow banking. On another occasion
someone pointed out that Warren's bill did not break up big banks. Warren stated publicly that
the bill didn't propose breaking up too big to fail banks but she supported the idea.
Warren and Sanders both supported Clinton when she had the nomination locked up. It was
Bernie's responsibility to defend his supporters from Team Clinton's smears and insults during
and after the convention.
It wasn't Warren that Clinton invited to the Hamptons to be introduced to a few dozen of her
favorite fundraisers. It was Harris.
It wasn't Warren that Clinton invited to the Hamptons to be introduced to a few dozen of
her favorite fundraisers. It was Harris.
But, even if so, Harris was to be nothing more than a Clinton place-holder to be swept
aside one HER decided to resurrect the same Dimocratic party, which she has still not
successfully destroyed, even with minor assistance from Barack, JoJo and Wild Bill. Nope. My
contention is that Hillary Rodent Clinton will sweep the field of duped pseudo-contenders in
a fixed horse race. HRC -- still with her!~
"... The first casualty of Pelosi's cause is almost certain to be the front-runner for the party nomination. Joe Biden has already, this past week, fallen behind Senator Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, New Hampshire, and California. ..."
"... By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden and son Hunter will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes. ..."
"... What did Joe do? By his own admission, indeed his boast, as vice president, he ordered then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko to either fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company that hired Hunter Biden for $50,000 a month or forego a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee that Kiev needed to stay current on its debts. ..."
"... There is another question raised by Biden's ultimatum to Kiev to fire the corrupt prosecutor or forego the loan guarantee. Why was the U.S. guaranteeing loans to a Kiev regime that had to be threatened with bankruptcy to get it to rid itself of a prosecutor whom all of Europe supposedly knew to be corrupt? ..."
"... This is bad news for the Biden campaign. And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi's decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the center of an impeachment inquiry is, again, Warren. ..."
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of ..."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
"... the Movers and Shakers in the Democrat Party have wanted Warren as their standard bearer on the belief that Biden is "yesterday" and that the rest of the field is either too loony (O'Rourke), nondescript (Booker) or -- potentially -- too corrupt (Harris).. ..."
"... Warren is the most pro-establishment candidate of all the non-establishment candidates, that is true ..."
"... Roughly 37% of Americans love Trump and will never change their mind. On the other side there are 38% who already supported impeachment based on previous investigations. That leaves 25% of Americans who are likely to be swayed one way or the other over this. In any case, those 25% are unlikely to be on this website. ..."
"... It'll be interesting to see what the voter turnout will be in 2020. 2016 --one of the most pivotal and controversial elections in modern times--saw 42% of the electorate stay home. This was a shockingly high numbter, little noted in the press. If you tack on the 6% who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, that would mean that 48% of the electorate--nearly half--did NOT vote for either Trump or Clinton. ..."
"... Well, given that Trump has already released the transcript and Zelensky has already confirmed there were no pressure in their conversation plus said that Hunter's case is to be investigated by the AG, any impeachment hearings can only be damaging to those who decide to go further with them, because, as it turns out, there is no basis for such hearings and they were started a year before the election, showing what those who started them think regarding their own chances to win. ..."
Even before seeing the transcript of the July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,
Nancy Pelosi threw the door wide open to impeachment.
Though the transcript did not remotely justify the advanced billing of a "quid pro quo," Pelosi set in motion a process that is
already producing a sea change in the politics of 2020.
The great Beltway battle for the balance of this year, and perhaps next, will be over whether the Democrats can effect a coup
against a president many of them have never recognized as legitimate and have sought to bring down since before he took the oath
of office.
Pelosi on Tuesday started this rock rolling down the hill.
She has made impeachment, which did not even come up in the last Democratic debate, the issue of 2020. She has foreclosed bipartisan
compromise on gun control, the cost of prescription drugs, and infrastructure. She has put her and her party's fate and future on
the line.
With Pelosi's assent that she is now open to impeachment, she turned what was becoming a cold case into a blazing issue. If the
Democrats march up impeachment hill, fail, and fall back, or if they vote impeachment only to see the Senate exonerate the president,
that will be the climactic moment of Pelosi's career. She is betting the future of the House, and her party's hopes of capturing
the presidency, on the belief that she and her colleagues can persuade the country to support the indictment of a president for high
crimes.
One wonders: do Democrats, blinded by hatred of Trump, ever wonder how that 40 percent of the nation that sees him as the repository
of their hopes will react if, rather than beat him at the ballot box, they remove him in this way?
The first casualty of Pelosi's cause is almost certain to be the front-runner for the party nomination. Joe Biden has already,
this past week, fallen behind Senator Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, New Hampshire, and California. The Quinnipiac poll has her taking
the lead nationally for the nomination, with Biden dropping into second place for the first time since he announced his candidacy.
By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden
and son Hunter will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes.
What did Joe do? By his own admission, indeed his boast, as vice president, he ordered then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko
to either fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company that hired Hunter Biden for $50,000 a month or forego a $1 billion
U.S. loan guarantee that Kiev needed to stay current on its debts.
Biden insists the Ukrainian prosecutor was corrupt, that Hunter had done no wrong, that he himself was unaware of his son's business
ties. All these assertions have been contradicted or challenged.
There is another question raised by Biden's ultimatum to Kiev to fire the corrupt prosecutor or forego the loan guarantee. Why
was the U.S. guaranteeing loans to a Kiev regime that had to be threatened with bankruptcy to get it to rid itself of a prosecutor
whom all of Europe supposedly knew to be corrupt?
Whatever the truth of the charges, the problem here is that any investigation of the potential corruption of Hunter Biden, and
of the role of his father, the former vice president, in facilitating it, will be front and center in presidential politics between
now and New Hampshire.
This is bad news for the Biden campaign. And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi's decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the
center of an impeachment inquiry is, again, Warren.
Warren already appears to have emerged victorious in her battle with Bernie Sanders to become the progressives' first choice in
2020. And consider how, as she is rising, her remaining opposition is fast fading.
Senator Kamala Harris has said she is moving her campaign to Iowa for a do-or-die stand in the first battleground state. Senator
Cory Booker has called on donors to raise $1.7 million in 10 days, or he will have to pack it in. As Biden, Sanders, Harris, and
Booker fade, and "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg hovers at 5 or 6 percent in national and state polls, Warren steadily emerges as the probable
nominee.
One measure of how deeply Biden is in trouble, whether he is beginning to be seen as too risky, given the allegations against
him and his son, will be the new endorsements his candidacy receives after this week of charges and countercharges.
If there is a significant falling off, it could be fatal.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided
America Forever . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators website at www.creators.com.
They would be, if it were Sanders to get the nomination. Warren's chances are, obviously, better than Biden's - anyone's, save
for complete fringe wackos, are - but, if they really wanted to win, they would need Sanders. Or, even better, Gabbard. But Sanders
is too independent, dangerously so, and Gabbard is an outright enemy of their totalitarian cult. Hence, they pick Warren, who
might be vaaaaaaaaaaguely considered Sanders-lite. But lite is not enough against someone like Trump. Or, even worse for them,
they resort to all possible and impossible machinations to still get Biden nominated. It'll be a screaming mistake, but it's not
excluded at all, given how easily the've just been lured into a trap.
Happened to tune in to Rush Limbaugh yesterday just as he was saying that Pelosi's motivation to spin the wheels was at least
in part to kill two birds with one stone--Trump AND Biden. Mehhh...maybe, but it's been clear from the beginning that the Movers
and Shakers in the Democrat Party have wanted Warren as their standard bearer on the belief that Biden is "yesterday" and that
the rest of the field is either too loony (O'Rourke), nondescript (Booker) or -- potentially -- too corrupt (Harris)..
Warren is the most pro-establishment candidate of all the non-establishment candidates, that is true . Incrowd-lite.
Bernie of course is the big unknown. Will he prevail over Warren?
If this scandal sinks Biden and Trump together, the Dems will come out ahead because they are not committed to Biden as their
nominee. I think Warren will be the biggest net winner. My prediction is that we see an impeachment with the Senate voting on
party lines to acquit. That could still be very damaging to Trump's election chances, if the portion of the public who dislikes
Trump decide that he abused his power.
Roughly 37% of Americans love Trump and will never change their mind. On the other side there are
38% who already supported impeachment based on previous investigations. That leaves 25% of Americans who are likely to be
swayed one way or the other over this. In any case, those 25% are unlikely to be on this website.
The main question, other than whether there is something damning that shows up, is whether the majority of voters think a quid
pro quo is necessary for corruption to be an impeachable offense. It is required in a criminal bribery conviction, but impeachment
isn't a criminal trial. Is the president using a diplomatic call to pressure a foreign government to dig up dirt on his political
rivals something the 25% will be okay with? If they believe the story of Biden's corruption, will they see that as justification
for using a diplomatic talk to push for an investigation into it? Will moderate voters who have a high opinion of Biden from the
his time as Vice President view this as an unfair attack on him or will they change their view of him to match Trump's narrative?
Biden is in a tough spot, because he will be smeared here whether he is guilty or not. Trump is very good as slinging mud to
distract from his actions. And most Americans are very unlikely to parse through the information overload to figure out whether
the fired prosecutor is corrupt, whether the decision to fire him came from Joe or the state department/UK/EU/local protest, whether
Hunter Biden was qualified for the job with his ivy law degree/experience on corp boards/previous consulting experience, and whether
the investigation into Burisma was actuall ongoing when Shokin was fired. Who has time to read through everything and figure out
which side is manufacturing a controversy?
But if Biden decides to go down a Martyr, it wouldn't be difficult for him to take Trump with him.
It'll be interesting to see what the voter turnout will be in 2020. 2016 --one of the most pivotal and controversial elections
in modern times--saw 42% of the electorate stay home. This was a shockingly high numbter, little noted in the press. If you tack
on the 6% who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, that would mean that 48% of the electorate--nearly half--did NOT vote for
either Trump or Clinton.
These numbers are ominous and do not bode well for the future of this thing of ours.
Well, given that Trump has already released the transcript and Zelensky has already confirmed there were no pressure in their
conversation plus said that Hunter's case is to be investigated by the AG, any impeachment hearings can only be damaging
to those who decide to go further with them, because, as it turns out, there is no basis for such hearings and they were
started a year before the election, showing what those who started them think regarding their own chances to win. If Democrats
want to cut losses, they should stop it now and, using military terms, regroup immediately, nominating Gabbard who consistently
opposed this stillborn impeachment stupidity. But something makes me think they won't. Their visceral hatred to an anti-war candidate
like her is simply too strong.
I think you are missing that Trump's lawyers can subpoena people and drag up a lot of dirt on the Democrats too. I think it can
go both ways.
Still Warren can be tough for Trump. She is not tainted by Clinton. She is a chameleon; will sound sufficiently WASP in New
England and sufficiently woke in California and new York. If Buttgig becomes her sidekick he can get all the gays on-board.
You're missing one thing about Warren: she's a wonk. And she actually has some good ideas alongside the more crazy ones. Even
Tucker Carlson praised her book.
But Warren is an absolute stiff. Zero charisma. Like Kerry or Gore on their very worst day. And in this day and age, where
the only thing that counts for the overwhelming majority of low information voters are soundbites and how telegenic you come off
in a debate, someone like Trump will chew her up and spit her out for breakfast.
Warren? OK. I don't see how she could be any worse than Trump. Plus, we might not feel like we were snorkeling in a cesspool all
the time, like we do now.
Literally every progressive I know save one is team Warren. I think there might be an age divide. Progressives under thirty are
more likely to be for Sanders, and over thirty for Warren.
I have no idea what will happen with the election. But if Trump wins it after the Dems have done nothing for four years except
impeach him - every day is going to be like Christmas.
I sincerely hope that Trump is right in thinking that Biden is his biggest threat, because this affair is going to ensure Warren
is the nominee. I think a lot of proggy Dems know this as well, which partly explains their enthusiasm for impeachment at this
particular moment (not that they haven't been itching for this since November 8, 2016).
I agree Biden and Bernie are toast but Warren is far from a sure thing. Of all the democratic candidates Tulsi is the most attractive
in more ways than one and I could see Tulsi appealing to the many Trump voters who voted for him because he claimed to be non-interventionist
only to discover he is a war-pig like the rest of them. Imagine Tulsi in a debate with Trump! If not Tulsi I would bet another
high profile Dem will enter the race because Warren is un-electable and I would not be surprised to see Hillary get in the race
at the last minute. American's love re-matches and come-back stories.
In breaking news: Pelosi has just revealed who was behind all this. It's Cardinal Richelieu Russians again.
Does the girl even understand that, by saying so, she's, basically, stating that she's the chief Russian agent out there, because
she was the one who initiated that freak show?
Jesus Harold Christ, what a travelling circus. And this passes for a parliament these days.
Ukrainegate is Watergate in reverse. The farcical impeachment unintentionally acts as a foil, amplifying the significance of the
Ukraine stories in the press (John Solomon, Andrew McCarthy) which reveal a culture of corruption and venality permeating the
Democratic leadership: the Clintons, the Bidens, the DNC, the current Democratic caucus, and the entire deep state remnants of
the obama administration. We haven't seen election interference like this since the Watergate break-in and coverup. This impeachment
is the coup-de-grâce of the Democratic Party not just Biden. The Democrat faithful now have a choice between Scylla and Charybdis
- self-proclaimed socialists with a tenuous hold on reality, or the discredited establishment. As an old-school Democrat, I can
only hope that Trump buries them in 2020, so that the Democrats finally get the message and return to their pre-Clinton roots.
It is insane to pursue impeachment this late in a divisive President's mandate. The Democrats should spend their efforts selecting
a moderate nominee that doesn't show signs of cognitive decline (Only candidate that matches these requirements is Tulsi Gabbard.
) rather than make Trump a "victim" in the eyes of many.
Drama Don is doing a good enough job himself to make sure that the Democrats win in 2020. "Trump fatigue" is going to be the
most used expression next fall if Trump runs. If Trump is pushed out before the election, the Republicans may choose a charismatic
new nominee who actually has a chance to win in 2020. The biggest asset that the Democrats have in 2020 is Trump.
Somebody, somewhere, had decided that Democrats stand little chance with Biden, because he is so old and gaffe prone. So they
have put their money on Warren. Warren will choose Buttigieg as VP candidate, primarily because they want all that gay billionaire
money flowing in. At the same time, they tick the SJW boxes -woman, gay candidates, so the left will love them. The fix is in.
Hence the stupid "impeachment " controversy, which is obviously a sham to knock Biden out.
I voted for Trump, not as a Republican because I despise both political parties. I voted for him based on the need for a nationalist
trade policy, and especially because I was so against the TPP --and President Trump rewarded me for that vote his first week in
office by pulling the US out of TPP negotiations. Also I have great respect for you, Mr. Buchanan, and learned much from the 3
of your books I've read and recommended to others. But it looks like President Trump has been using his office for personal political
gain, so I am sorry to admit I support the impeachment investigation to bring the facts to light and make a judgement of whether
it is true he used the office to solicit a foreign country to help undermine his political opponent. But even before this, I'd
decided I will not vote for him again, mainly because I have become alarmed at the looming climate crisis, and believe we need
urgent policy towards full decarbonization of the global energy economy. But that doesn't motivate me to support the impeachment
inquiry, a path I hate and regret...but it seems there is no other way to demand the President not abuse his office and manipulate
foreign governments to help his political career. That is no patriot, that is corrupt and an embarrassment to our nation.
"...effect a coup against a president many of them have never seen as legitimate and have sought to bring down since before he
took the oath of office."
Every single word of that describes the Republicans in Congress during the eight years Obama was president. Every single syllable.
Remember that birth certificate? And remember that Dick Tracy villain, Pocket-Neck McConnell, an excrescence that still infects
us, standing up and actually saying, with a straight face, "Our ONLY goal is to make Obama a one-term president." Never mind an
economy that was in free-fall, right Mitch? Or a couple of bothersome wars going on?
And what about how, for the very first time in history, Standard and Poor's downgraded America's credit rating, all because
of completely meaningless Republican obstruction about the debt ceiling? And when I say completely meaningless, I mean completely
meaningless. Now, under Trump, the deficit is approaching a trillion, and those very same Republicans couldn't give a hoot.
It's all in the great 2012 book, It's Even Worse Than it Looks, by Ornstein and Mann. We've had partisanship and gridlock before.
But what was new is how the Republicans behaved under Obama: they treated him as completely illegitimate from the word go, and
absolutely refused to work with him under any and all circumstances. The stimulus, which by the way saved the entire world economy
from complete meltdown, didn't get a single Republican vote.
But Republicans can feel proud of one thing: their disgusting, scorched-earth, win-at-all-costs tactics are now business-as-usual
in Washington. Probably for all time. Nice going, guys.
Warren is the best candidate to defeat Trump. She is super smart ,honest and works hard as heck for the non 1% to get more of
a fair shake. If she softens her hard left positions she could be a great candidate
I assume most here are sick of hearing about it further today.
I enjoy speculating on what Speaker Pelosi might do with the results of the Impeachment
Inquiry by the House.
Assumption: The House finds grounds for Impeaching Trump and hands it to Pelosi.
What will she do or rather what can she do?
She can have the full House vote to Impeach and march the Articles over to the Senate.
She can have the House Censure Trump, not vote to Impeach, and go no further at this time.
That brings Trump's crimes to light, but saves the country from a Political Trial in the
Senate, that won't convict Trump.
She can hold the Committee's report for review and not go forward until and unless she
see's the POLITICAL need.
She can, IMO, have the House vote Articles of Impeachment and then HOLD them in the House
waiting to take them to the Senate at a much later date of her choice or never.
The Senate cannot act until the Speaker delivers the Articles of Impeachment. No where
does the Constitution declare WHEN those Articles, once voted, must be delivered, only that
they are to be.
She can set a new precedent if she desires. Who can stop her?
This would allow the Articles to float over Trump's head - and the Re-Election campaign
serving to restrain Trump, like a cudgel over his head - preventing or at least limiting more
of Trump's outrageous unconstitutional and illegal acts in Office until Election 2020.
Simultaneously this would allow The House to continue its multiple investigations of
Trump, including the IRS Whistle Blower complaint, further checking Trump, and even to open
more investigations into Trump's abuse of Office, e.g., his use of AG Barr on Ukraine/Biden
as well as investigations of AG Barr pursuing Ukraine/Biden.
Not to mention other investigations into Trump including NY's pursuit of Trump's Tax
Returns, which could well be as revealing as the Ukraine phone call transcript.
So, while today was interesting in D.C., the future is far more so, imho.
1. Biden is now a zombie and has less then zero changes to beat Trump. Even if nothing
explosive will be revealed by Ukraine-gate, this investigation hangs like albatross around
his neck. Each shot at Trump will ricochet into Biden. Add to this China and the best he can
do is to leave the race and claim unfair play.
2. Trump now probably will be reelected on the wave of indignation toward Corporate Dems
new witch hunt. People stopped believing neoliberal MSM around 2015, so now neolibs no longer
have the leverage they get used to. And by launching Ukraine-gate after Russiagate they
clearly overplayed their hand losing critical mass of independents (who previously were ready
to abandon Trump_
3. If unpleasant facts about neolib/neocon machinations to launch Ukraine-gate leak via
alternative press via disgruntled DNC operatives or some other insiders who are privy to the
relevant discussions in the Inner Party, they will poison/destroy the chances of any Dem
candidate be it Warren or anybody else. Joining this witch hunt greatly damages standing of
Warren exposing her as a mediocre, malleable politician ( unlike Tulsi )
4. Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats again tried to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump. This is a huge political mistake which exposes them as
political swindlers.
Neolib/neocon in Democratic Party from now on will be viewed as "The Children of
Lieutenant Schmidt" (a fictional society of swindlers from the 1931 classic "The Little
Golden Calf" by Ilf and Petrov).
I would say that Pelosi might now be able to understand better the situation in which
Wasserman-Shultz had found herself in 2016 and resign.
IMHO this is a king of zugzwang for neoliberal Dems. There is no good exit from this
situation.
After two years of falsely accusing Trump to have colluded with Russia they now allege
that he colluded with Ukraine.
In addition to overpaying their hand that makes it more difficult for the Democrats to
hide their critical role in creating and promoting Russiagate.
Here is one post from MA which tries to analyse this situation:
== quote ==
nil , Sep 25 2019 19:37 utc | 24
I think what's going in the brain trust of the DNC is something like this:
i. Biden is a non-starter with the public. He'll be devoured alive by the Republicans, who
only need to bring up his career to expose his mendacity.
ii. Warren might be co-opted, having been a Republican and fiscal conservative up to the
mid-90s, but what if she isn't?
iii. Sanders is a non-starter, but with the "people who matter". Rather than having to
threaten him with the suspicions around his wife, or go for the JFK solution, they'd rather
[make that] he didn't even get past the primaries, much less elected.
iv. As a CNN talking head said weeks ago, it's better for the wealthy people the DNC is
beholden to that their own candidate loses to Trump if that candidate is Sanders.
So better to hedge their bets start impeachment hearings, give Trump ammunition to destroy
Sanders or Warren. That way, the rich win in all scenarios:
a. If Biden wins the nomination, the campaign will be essentially mudslinging from both
sides about who is more corrupt. The rich are fine with whoever wins.
b. If Warren gets the nomination and is co-opted, the media will let the impeachment
hearings die out, or the House themselves will quickly bury it.
c. If Warren gets the nomination and is not co-opted, or if Sanders get it, the
impeachment will suck up all the air of the room, Trump will play the witchhunt card and will
be re-elected.
That's a very good idea to concentrate on your job instead of some fluff, or worse, criminal
activity.
Millions of dollars, millions of manhours of political discourse and newsmedia coverage,
were wasted on Russiagate. That's a typical "control fraud." Control fraud occurs when a
trusted person in a high position of responsibility in a company, corporation, or state
subverts the organization and engages in extensive fraud (in this case a witch hunt) for
personal gain.
Those hours could have been used researching and discussing country foreign policy,
economic policy, healthcare policy, industrial policy, environment policy and other important
for this nation topics.
Instead the Dems chased a ghost (and they knew that this a ghost) for 3 years and now
Pelosi have just signaled that they will spend the next 6 months chasing another ghost --
trying to impeach Trump for his attempt to re-launch (in his trademark clumsy, bulling way)
investigating Joe Biden's family corruption in Ukraine. Action which is in full compliance
with The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA)
During the last two years there were actions of Trump that probably deserved launching
impeachment proceeding. For example, attempt of regime change in Venezuela. But neoliberal
Dems were fully on board with that. So the main loss which this bunch of swindlers can't
settle with is the the loss in their ability to defraud the country: I feel that the
neoliberal Democrats' real problem with Trump is that he ended their scheme of defrauding the
country in favor of his own.
Now with this Ukraine-gate scandal the US voters have, in effect, are being defrauded by a
group of the same sophisticated political swindlers that ruled the county during Clinton and
Obama administrations.
"Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats again tried to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump."
If Warren is nominated she can run on dirt because she does not have the sewage history.
If she runs on policy people will remember that she will fce 20 million families who got a
$500/month Obamacare tax. These are the families that cost Dems four elections. She should
not mention medicare at all, once she has the nomination.
Impeachment is what happens when a President has sex and lies about it. So it has become
meaningless, thanks to Repubs.
If I were Trump, I would take the impeachment and run with it. Trump will claim he got
impeached because he was hunting for Biden sewage, and there is no Biden, thanks to the
impeachment. His team agrees, take the impeachment and run with it.
Who liked Biden? None of the young turks, they want Biden out as badly as they want Trump
out. I just have this feeling, Biden is a gonner, sort of a bipartisan play if you ask
me.
For The First Time, Warren Beats Out Biden For No. 1 Spot In National Poll
--
Biden gone. Harris gone. Pete gone. Beto gone. It is between Bernie and Liz. Both of whom
will be telling 10 million families that health care is free and they will not get hit with a
$500/month tax. Problem is, voters regret on this is lifelong, a ot of voters, right here in
this blog, think Obamacare was deceptive. But these same voters now put the cost on the
federal debt machine, courtesy of Trump, and they prefer that.
Trump wins as long as there is no blue bar and Repubs avoid mass shootings in Florida or
Texas. We, this group and our favorite economists have lost credibility on medical
programs.
Sanders is spend force in any case. His endorsement does not matter much. But for Warren this
is a blunder. Tulsi is the only one out of this troika who proved to be capable politician.
As I reported on the previous thread, Sanders endorsed the impeachment proceedings in a
tweet I linked to and cited. Gabbard is apparently the only D-Party candidate that said this
decision is a mistake.
This article about her stance is actually balanced. Citing her recent interview by
FOXNews :
"'I have been consistent in saying that I believe that impeachment in this juncture would
be terribly divisive for our country at a time when we are already extremely divided,'
Gabbard explained. 'Hyper-partisanship is one of the things that's driving our country
apart.'
"'I think it's important to defeat Donald Trump. That's why I'm running for president, but
I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard, making that decision,'
she said.
"Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard, you have to give her credit on this front.
America is extremely divided today and politicians in Washington play into that. The
impeachment saga is a prime example of their role in this division ." [My Emphasis]
When one digs deeper into the forces Gabbard's attacking, she's the most patriotic one of
the entire bunch, including the Rs. I haven't looked at her election websites recently, but
from what I see of her campaign appearances, her and Sanders seem to be sharing each other's
policy proposals, although they both choose to place more emphasis on some than others. For
Gabbard, its the wonton waste and corruption of the Empire that keeps good things from being
done for all citizens at home, whereas Sanders basically inverts the two.
"... Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest of you are on your own." ..."
And yet America's policies were headed in the wrong direction. The big banks kept lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would
gut families' last refuge in the bankruptcy courts -- the same bill we describe in this book. (It went by the awful name Bankruptcy
Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, but it should have been called the Gut the Safety Net and Pay OIT the Big Banks Act.).
The proposed law would carefully preserve bankruptcy protections for the likes of Donald Trump and his friends, while ordinary families
that had been crushed by debts from medical problems or job losses were thrown under the bus.
When we wrote The Two-Income Trap, it was already pretty clear that the big banks would win this battle. The fight kept going
for two more years, but the tide of blame-the-unlucky combined with relentless lobbying and campaign contributions finally overwhelmed
Congress.
In 2005, the Wall Street banking industry got the changes they wanted, and struggling families lost out. After the law was rewritten,
about 800,000 families a year that once would have turned to bankruptcy to try to get back on their feet were shut out of the system.1
That was 800,000 families -- mostly people who had lost jobs, suffered a medical catastrophe, or gone through a divorce or death
in the family. And now, instead of reorganizing their finances and building some security, they were at the mercy of debt collectors
who called twenty or thirty times a day -- and could keep on calling and calling for as long as they thought they could squeeze another
nickel from a desperate family.
As it turned out, the new law tore a big hole in the last safety net for working families, just in time for the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, the bank regulators kept playing blind and deaf while the housing bubble inflated. Once it burst, the economy collapsed.
The foreclosure problem we flagged back in 2003 rolled into a global economic meltdown by 2008, as millions of people lost their
homes, and millions more lost their jobs, their savings, and their chance at a secure retirement. Overall, the total cost of the
crash was estimated as high as S14 trillion.2
Meanwhile, America's giant banks got bailed out, CEO pay shot up, the stock market roared back, and the investor class got rich
beyond even their own fevered dreams.3
A generation ago, a fortune-teller might have predicted a very different future. With so many mothers headed into the workforce,
Americans might have demanded a much heavier investment in public day care, extended school days, and better family leave policies.
Equal pay for equal work might have become sacrosanct. As wages stagnated, there might have been more urgency for raising the minimum
wage, strengthening unions, and expanding Social Security. And our commitment to affordable college and universal preschool might
have become unshakeable.
But the political landscape was changing even faster than the new economic realities. Government was quickly becoming an object
of ridicule, even to the president of the United States. Instead of staking his prestige on making government more accountable and
efficient, Ronald Reagan repeated his famous barb "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are Tin from the government
and I'm here to help."'8 After generations of faithfulness to the promise of the Constitution to promote general welfare, at the
moment when the economic foundations of the middle class began to tremble, our efforts to strengthen each other and offer a helping
hand had become the butt of a national joke.
Those who continued to believe in what we could do together faced another harsh reality: much of government had been hijacked
by the rich and powerful. Regulators who were supposed to watch out for the public interest shifted their loyalties, smiling benignly
as giant banks jacked up short-term profits by cheating families, looking the other way as giant power companies scam mod customers,
and partying with industry executives as oil companies cut comers on safety and environmental rules. In this book we told one of
those stories, about how a spineless Congress rewrote the bankruptcy laws to enrich a handful of credit card companies.
Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's
Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest
of you are on your own."
These shifts played nicely into each other. Every' attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules tilted
more and These shifts played nicely into each other. Every attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules
tilted more and more in favor of those who could hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers. Lower taxes for the wealthy -- and more money
in the pockets of those who subscribed to the greed-is-good mantra. And if the consequence meant less money for preschools or public
colleges or disability coverage -- the things that would create more security for an overstretched middle class -- then that was
just too bad.
Little by little, as the middle class got deeper and deeper in trouble, government stopped working for the middle class, or at
least it stopped working so hard. The rich paid a little less and kept a little more. Even if they didn't say it in so many words,
they got exactly what they wanted. Remember the 90 percent -- America's middle class, working class, and poor -- the ones who got
70 percent of all income growth from 1935 through 1980?
From 1980-2014, the 90 percent got nothing.9 None. Zero. Zip. Not a penny in income growth. Instead, for an entire generation,
the top 10 percent captured all of the income growth in the entire country. l(X) percent.
It didn't have to be this way. The Two-Income Trap is about families that w'ork hard, but some things go wrong along the way --
illnesses and job losses, and maybe some bad decisions. But this isn't what has put the middle class on the ropes. After all, people
have gotten sick and lost jobs and made less-than-perfect decisions for generations -- and vet, for generations America's middle
class expanded. creating more opportunity to build real economic security and pass on a brighter future to their children.
What would it take to help strengthen the middle class? The problems facing the middle-class family are complex and far-reaching,
and the solutions must be too. We wish there could be a simple silver bullet, but after a generation of relentless assault, there
just isn't. But there is one overriding idea. Together we can. It's time to say it out loud: a generation of I-got-mine policy-making
has failed -- failed miserably, completely, and overwhelmingly. And it's time to change direction before the entire middle class
has been replaced by hundreds of millions of Americans barely hanging on by their fingernails.
Americas middle class was built through investments in education, infrastructure, and research -- and by' making sure we all have
a safety net. We need to strengthen those building blocks: Step up investments in public education. Rein in the cost of college and
cut out- standing student loans. Create universal preschool and affordable child care. Upgrade infrastructure -- mass transit, energy,
communications -- to make it more attractive to build good, middle-class jobs here in America. Recognize that the modem economy can
be perilous, and a strong safety net is needed now more than ever. Strengthen disability coverage, retirement coverage, and paid
sick leave. And for heavens sake, get rid of the awful banker-backed bankruptcy law, so that when things go wrong, families at least
have a chance at a fresh start. We welcome the re-issue of The Two-Income Trap because we see the original book as capturing a critical
moment, those last few minutes in which the explanation of why so many hardworking, plav-by- tho-mlcs people were in so much trouble
was simple: It was their own fault. If only they would just pull up their socks, cinch their belts a little tighter, and stop buying
so much stuff, they -- and our country -- would be just fine. That myth has died. And we say', good riddance.
Minor quibbles aside -- Warren presumably doesn't derive most of her income from capital
owner-ship, and markets are compatible with socialism -- the
Massachusetts senator is right. She and Sanders draw their lineage from distinct political
traditions.
Warren is a regulator at heart who believes that capitalism works well as long as fair
competition exists; Sanders is a class-conscious tribune who sees capitalism as fundamentally unjust . Warren
frames her most ambitious reforms as bids to make capitalism " accountable
"; Sanders pushes legislation called the "
Stop BEZOS Act " and denounces ceos for exploiting
workers . Warren seeks a harmonious accord between workers and employers; Sanders
encourages workers to fight back.
Foreign policy differences spring from their respective traditions as well. While both are
suspicious of military interventionism, Vermont's junior senator has shown himself much more
willing to criticize the crimes of US empire -- famously proclaiming in
a 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton that "Henry Kissinger is not my friend." Warren, though a
critic of Bush-style adventurism, sees America's role in more conventional terms, arguing in a
Foreign
Affairs essay this year that we should "project American strength and values
throughout the world."
Warren's political tradition is the left edge of middle-class liberalism; Sanders hails from
America's socialist tradition. Or, to put the distinction in more personal terms: Warren is
Louis
Brandeis , Sanders is Eugene Debs .
"... Rudy Drops New Bombs: Slams Obama Cabinet 'Pattern Of Corruption'; Claims China 'Bought' Biden ..."
"... Warren wins the nomination because the issue is Swamp Sewage and she hasn't been around long enough to emit much of it. Biden has a ton of it. Trump has three years of it. ..."
Rudy Drops New Bombs: Slams Obama Cabinet 'Pattern Of Corruption'; Claims China 'Bought'
Biden
---
Rudy on a roll. Go look it up on a safe site.
Warren wins the nomination because the issue is Swamp Sewage and she hasn't been around
long enough to emit much of it. Biden has a ton of it. Trump has three years of it.
"... Warren proved to be a very weak, mediocre politician. By joining the calls to "Impeach Trump" she proved this again. And this is not the first time she made a very bad call. Looks like she is completely malleable candidate. The candidate without spine outside his favorite re-regulation issues. ..."
"... Ukraine-gate impeachment process (aka another attempt to demonize Trump after Russiagate fiasco) is what Trump badly needs now, as it will cement his voting block and might bring back those voters who are appalled by his betrayal of almost all election promises. ..."
"... As Ukraine-gate is based on a false rumor and actually implicates Biden, not Trump (and after Trump decision to open the transcript Dems now need to move goalposts like it was with the inner party member Parteigenosse Mueller witch hunt ). ..."
"... It portrays the Dems as clueless political scum who are ready to resort to dirty tricks in order to protect neoliberal warmonger Biden, and maintain Wall-Street favorable status quo. ..."
The Senate republicans should be forced to block trumps impeachment. This is a good election
issue in deep purple states with a senator up for re election. Plus a good house issue. Let
the people judge both party wagons
Trump and Biden make a perfect pair of party Totem heads
Tulsi is the only talented politician among those who are running on Democratic Platform.
And I applaud her courage to stand against the mob
Warren proved to be a very weak, mediocre politician. By joining the calls to "Impeach
Trump" she proved this again. And this is not the first time she made a very bad call. Looks like she is completely
malleable candidate. The candidate without spine outside his favorite re-regulation issues.
She essentially gave Trump additional ammunition to attack her and poach her supporters. I
would now attack her along the lines:
"Do not believe anything Warren say; she does have spine. Look how easily she was
co-opted to join this witch-hunt. If Warren wins, she will instantly fold and will do what
bought by Wall Street Dems leadership will ask her. I am not perfect but I withstood
Russiagate witch-hunt and that proves that with all my faults I am the only independent
politician in this race, who can go against the flow and deliver what was promised; please
give additional time and I will deliver"
Of course, this is disingenuous projection as Trump did the same, but that's politics
;-)
I still believe that Warren has chances to win against Trump. But with such moves by Dem
leadership this might no longer be true. Why Warren does not attack Trump disastrous domestic
and foreign policy record instead of making such questionable calls is not clear to me. Just
a diagram "Trump promises vs reality" as election advertisement might improve her
chances.
Ukraine-gate impeachment process (aka another attempt to demonize Trump after Russiagate
fiasco) is what Trump badly needs now, as it will cement his voting block and might bring
back those voters who are appalled by his betrayal of almost all election promises.
As Ukraine-gate is based on a false rumor and actually implicates Biden, not Trump (and
after Trump decision to open the transcript Dems now need to move goalposts like it was with
the inner party member Parteigenosse Mueller witch hunt ).
It portrays the Dems as clueless
political scum who are ready to resort to dirty tricks in order to protect neoliberal
warmonger Biden, and maintain Wall-Street favorable status quo.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has supported the nuclear agreement since its
inception, has levied criticism toward the White House. On June 18, in response to a New York
Times report titled, "Trump Adds Troops After Iran Says It Will Breach Nuclear Deal" (a
questionable media framing given that the U.S. had already violated the deal), she
tweeted:
"I hope Iran chooses a different path. But let's be clear: Trump provoked this crisis. He
has no strategy to contain it, he's burned through our friends and allies, and now he's
doubling down on military force. We can't afford another forever war."
While Warren was correct to argue against war, she opens by appearing to place blame
against Iran, neglecting to acknowledge the U.S.'s role in villainizing Iran in the first
place.
On June 20, after reports of the Navy drone were published, Warren elaborated on her
comments, adopting a stronger oppositional stance to the prospect of war with Iran.
"Trump provoked this crisis, and his reckless foreign policy by tweet will only worsen it.
I've co-sponsored legislation to prohibit a war with Iran. We need to de-escalate tensions --
not let the war hawks in this administration drag us into conflict. #NoWarWithIran"
That same day, she followed with
"Donald Trump promised to bring our troops home. Instead he has pulled out of a deal that
was working and instigated another unnecessary conflict. There is no justification for
further escalating this crisis -- we need to step back from the brink of war."
Here, Warren uses stronger language to denounce Trump's actions, but still falls short of
a moral denunciation of U.S. violence or a more incisive analysis of the Iran nuclear deal's
power relations. Meanwhile, Warren's vote for new sanctions against Iran in 2017 weakens her
legislative record. ...
Warren is far more progressive than mainstream Democrats like Joe Biden. She calls for
withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Warren campaigns for the United
State to rejoin the nuclear accord with Iran and to end trade pacts that hurt workers.
"Warren's foreign policy positions have shifted a fair amount in recent years,
particularly during the past few months," says Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics at the
University of San Francisco, who provides foreign policy advice to the Warren campaign.
That's to who political power belongs under late capitalism and neoliberalism: financial
oligarchy. He who pays the piper calls the tune: " Do you imagine those who foot those huge
bills are fools? Don't you know that they make sure of getting their money back, with interest,
compound upon compound? "
Notable quotes:
"... Here we all are, piddling around with why Nancy Pelosi won't release the hounds in the House of Representatives, and waiting for some poor bastard in intelligence to come forward with what he really knows, and with a vulgar talking yam still in office. Meanwhile, Bill Weld has cut right to the heel of the hunt. You think you can't scare this guy? Put the gallows in his eyes. I mean, wow." ..."
"... " The greatest single hold of "the interests" is the fact that they are the "campaign contributors" -- the men who supply the money for "keeping the party together," and for "getting out the vote." Did you ever think where the millions for watchers, spellbinders, halls, processions, posters, pamphlets, that are spent in national, state and local campaigns come from? Who pays the big election expenses of your congressman, of the men you send to the legislature to elect senators? ..."
"Well, Bill Weld, former governor of the Commonwealth (God save it!), really shot the moon
to begin the week. Appearing on MSNBC, Weld made it plain. From the Washington Post:
"Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election,"
Weld said during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"It couldn't be clearer, and that's not just undermining democratic institutions. That is
treason. It's treason, pure and simple, and the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is
death. That's the only penalty...The penalty under the Constitution is removal from office,
and that might look like a pretty good alternative to the president if he could work out a
plea deal.""
Well, all right, then.
Here we all are, piddling around with why Nancy Pelosi won't release the hounds in the
House of Representatives, and waiting for some poor bastard in intelligence to come forward
with what he really knows, and with a vulgar talking yam still in office. Meanwhile, Bill
Weld has cut right to the heel of the hunt. You think you can't scare this guy? Put the
gallows in his eyes. I mean, wow."
" The greatest single hold of "the interests" is the fact that they are the "campaign
contributors" -- the men who supply the money for "keeping the party together," and for
"getting out the vote." Did you ever think where the millions for watchers, spellbinders,
halls, processions, posters, pamphlets, that are spent in national, state and local campaigns
come from? Who pays the big election expenses of your congressman, of the men you send to the
legislature to elect senators?
Do you imagine those who foot those huge bills are fools? Don't you know that they make
sure of getting their money back, with interest, compound upon compound? Your candidates get
most of the money for their campaigns from the party committees; and the central party
committee is the national committee with which congressional and state and local committees
are affiliated. The bulk of the money for the "political trust" comes from "the interests."
"The interests" will give only to the "political trust."
Our part as citizens of the republic is plain enough. We must stand our ground. We must
fight the good fight. Heartsick and depressed as we may be at times because of the spread of
graft in high places and its frightfully contaminating influence, we must still hold up our
heads. We must never lose an opportunity to show that as private citizens we are opposed to
public plunderers."
"Warren's rise shakes up Democratic field" [ The
Hill ]. "A new poll showing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leading former Vice President
Joe Biden in Iowa has shaken up the Democratic nomination battle -- and insiders across the
party are gaming out what it all means. Warren currently has 22 percent support to Biden's 20
percent, according to the well-respected Des Moines Register–CNN–Mediacom poll,
released Saturday night. The two are well clear of the rest of the field, with Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) in third place with 11 percent support . With more than four months to go, the
experts all agree that it's too early to make solid predictions. But the battle for Iowa is
heating up by the day."
Is there any reason to see what is going on as more than just Biden support bailing to "Plan
C", i.e., the next most establishment-friendly candidate who has any apparent chance of
winning? Sanders' support seems solid. Admittedly, I would much rather see Sanders slowly
eating away at the "pro-establishment" fraction of Dem voters, but there is nothing to suggest
that he is losing support.
The more I see of Warren, the less I like her- and I would not have voted for her to begin
with. I'm getting very tired of moderate Republicans being packaged and sold as
"progressives".
To her credit, Warren does have a theory of change:
After dinner, "Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice," Ms. Warren
writes. "I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say
whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get
lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what
they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize
other insiders.
"• I'm not sure I agree. There are many, many, many of those "boutique lobbying or
consulting shops" -- "
And how is Trump's shakedown hotel any different from DNC dialing for dollars? Or would it
be better if he limited himself just renting out the Lincoln Bedroom like the Clintons did?
I want to reiterate the point that Yglesias seems incapable of recognizing* that a network
of small shops could create more damage than one guy, even a titan. Look at health care policy,
for example. It looks like Elizabeth Warren's daughter runs a body-shop for the kind of person
Yglesias regards as harmless. Thread:
Samuel Douglas Retweeted Samuel Douglas
I spent some time looking into Warren Tyagi's consulting firm (Business Talent Group), and I
learned some interesting things 1/
Elizabeth Warren's daughter co-founded HealthAllies, a venture capital-backed health
benefits firm which was later acquired by United Health Group, the second largest health
insurer in the U.S.
NOTE * Incapable of recognizing, because obviously professionals don't have class
interests.
Wow, thanks for this, Lambert. See my link to the story in a reply
above for yet another shady bit about Warren's daughter. I wouldn't normally find myself on
RedState, but searching 'WARren daughter WFP' in the googlygoo brought this up first and after
a read-through, seems pretty straight-up. It even includes reporting from Jordan Chariton in
the meat of the story.
It's time for Warren to drop out. She's way too compromised.
FOX NEWS HOST Tucker Carlson was saying nice things about Elizabeth Warren again.
Well, not entirely nice things.
Speaking at a conference of conservative journalists and intellectuals this summer (*), he
took a moment to label the liberal Massachusetts senator and top contender for the Democratic
presidential nomination a "joke" and a "living tragedy."
But he also spoke, in admiring tones and at substantial length, about "The Two-Income
Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke," the book Warren wrote with her daughter in
2004.
"Elizabeth Warren wrote one of the best books I've ever read on economics," he said.
By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and
declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a
pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually
"completely real" and "totally bad."
His Bolshevist pronouncements were probably not a surprise to anyone who'd watched
Carlson's show closely in the months leading up to his speech. But Fox, despite its outsize
influence, has a relatively small audience.
And it's not just Carlson's evolution that's escaped notice. It's hard to keep track of
what most of the key players on the right are saying these days, with President Trump soaking
up so much attention.
But while the commander-in-chief thrashes about, something important is taking shape in
his shadow -- the outlines of a new conservatism inspired, or at least elevated, by his rise
to power.
It's a conservatism that tries to wrestle with the post-Cold War, post-industrial angst
that fired his election -- dropping a reflexive fealty to big business that dates back to the
Reagan era and focusing more intently on the struggles of everyday Americans.
"There are many downsides, I will say, to Trump," Carlson said, in his speech this summer.
"But one of the upsides is, the Trump election was so shocking, so unlikely ... that it did
cause some significant percentage of people to say, 'wait a second, if that can happen, what
else is true?' "
The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but
among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley
of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of
opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But
it looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an
energized left.
Whether the two sides can actually forge a meaningful alliance in the glare of our
hyperpartisan politics is an open question. But a compact -- even a provisional one -- may
offer the country its best shot at building a meaningful, post-Trump politics.
. . .
CARLSON DELIVERED HIS speech at the National Conservatism Conference -- the first major
gathering aimed at forging a new, right-of-center approach in the age of Trump.
"This is our independence day," said Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political theorist and chief
organizer of the event, in his spirited opening remarks. "We declare independence from
neoconservatism, from libertarianism, from what they call classical liberalism."
"We are national conservatives," he said.
Any effort to build a right-of-center nationalism circa 2019 inevitably runs into
questions about whether it will traffic in bigotry.
And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do
just that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which
migrants are allowed into the country.
"In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off
with more whites and fewer nonwhites."
But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant.
Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately
rejecting six applicants. ...
"Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ...
Nadler:Corey what time is it? Corey :It's 2pm. Nadler: The clock shows 1:59 . Charge Corey for
lying to Congress! All a gotcha game by a group of angry haters.
Nadler:Corey what time is it? Corey :It's 2pm. Nadler: The clock shows 1:59 . Charge Corey for
lying to Congress! All a gotcha game by a group of angry haters.
"... This is no coincidence. The DNC elite, a who's who of Wall Street donors and "party insiders," have chosen Elizabeth Warren as the safest insurance policy to Joe Biden. Warren has positioned herself as the safer version of progressivism in contradistinction to Bernie Sanders' full-fledged New Deal politics. ..."
"... In recent weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been putting smiles on the faces of the Democratic Party establishment. Her performance at the DNC's summer fundraiser in San Francisco in late August received widespread positive coverage from the corporate media. The New York Times , for example, reported that Warren has been sending private messages to Democratic Party insiders to let them know that she is more interested in leading a "revival" of the Democratic Party rather than a revolution. ..."
"... In other words, Elizabeth Warren is saying and doing all the right things to position herself as the DNC's choice for the presidential nomination should the Biden campaign continue to falter. ..."
"... The DNC is looking for a candidate who will oppose Trump but support the neoliberal and foreign policy consensus that exists in Washington. At first, Warren's mimicry of Bernie Sanders' talking points raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street. While some of those eyebrows remain raised, the DNC clearly prefers Warren's "revival" over Sanders' "political revolution." ..."
From forgetting former President Barack Obama's name to having your
wife ask voters to "swallow
a little bit" of his pro-corporate positions on healthcare, the oligarchs in control of the
two-party political system in the United States are well aware of Biden's struggles .
According to the Washington Times , Biden is losing the support from the corporate
media. The editorial
cited a study from Axios which concluded that of 100 media stories about the Biden
campaign that received the most attention on social media, 77 were negative in character. While
Biden consistently leads in the polls, the DNC elite has gone fishing for of an insurance
policy for Biden's flailing campaign.
Enter Elizabeth Warren. At first, the Massachusetts Senator seemed like a dark horse in the
race and a mere thorn in the side of Bernie Sanders. Kamala Harris appeared to be the early DNC
favorite and her campaign has worked overtime to show its commitment to a neoliberal economic
and political agenda. However, Harris was stymied by Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's
thirty second run
down of her record as Defense Attorney and Attorney General for the state of California
during the second Democratic Party primary debate. Ever since, Harris has seen her stock
decline mightily
in the polls while Elizabeth Warren's polling numbers have increased dramatically.
This is no coincidence. The DNC elite, a who's who of Wall Street donors and "party
insiders," have chosen Elizabeth Warren as the safest insurance policy to Joe Biden. Warren has
positioned herself as the safer version of progressivism in contradistinction to Bernie
Sanders' full-fledged New Deal politics. As far back as late February of 2019, Warren was
deriding corporate "special interests" while signaling that she would not succumb to
"unilateral disarmament" in a general election against Trump by forgoing corporate
donations.
The progressivism of Elizabeth Warren was thus a malleable project with a history of
inconsistency, as evidenced by her constant flip-flopping on issues such as the privatization
of education in Massachusetts.
In recent weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been putting smiles on the faces of the Democratic
Party establishment. Her performance at the DNC's summer fundraiser in San Francisco in late
August received widespread positive coverage from the corporate media. The New York
Times , for example, reported that Warren has been
sending private messages to Democratic Party insiders to let them know that she is more
interested in leading a "revival" of the Democratic Party rather than a revolution.
An article
in The Atlantic provided snippet remarks from people like Don Fowler, described in the
piece as a former DNC-chair and "long-time Clinton-family loyalist," who called Warren "smart
as shit" for her inside-out approach to her political campaign. A more recent editorial in The
New York Times offered a glimpse into Warren's former big donor connections from her
2018 Senate campaign. According to the Times , Warren was able to transfer 10.4
million USD to her presidential campaign effort in part because of the generosity of the
very same corporate elite that she now condemns as holding too much influence over the
Democratic Party. NBC News further revealed that Elizabeth Warren has an open line of
communication with the much maligned but infamous Democratic Party establishment leader,
Hillary Clinton.
In other words, Elizabeth Warren is saying and doing all the right things to position
herself as the DNC's choice for the presidential nomination should the Biden campaign continue
to falter.
Donald Trump is guaranteed the nomination for the Republican Party ticket after
taking over the party in 2016 from defunct establishment figures such as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush,
and Ted Cruz.
The DNC is looking for a candidate who will oppose Trump but support the
neoliberal and foreign policy consensus that exists in Washington. At first, Warren's mimicry
of Bernie Sanders' talking points raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street. While some of those
eyebrows remain raised, the DNC clearly prefers Warren's "revival" over Sanders' "political
revolution."
That's because Warren's campaign to "revive" the Democratic Party is bereft of political
principle. Whatever Sanders' political limitations as a "left" alternative to the
establishment, the Vermont Senator is by far more progressive than Warren. Warren voted for the
Trump Administration's recent
military budget in 2017 even after tens of billions of dollars were added by Congress to
the original proposal. During Israel's 2014 massacre of the Palestinians in Operation
Protective Edge, Warren claimed Israel had a
right to defend itself. Bernie Sanders offers a clear proposal for Medicare for All already
drafted in the Senate, while Elizabeth Warren believes that Medicare for All can be implemented
in
"many different ways." In CNN's Climate Town Hall, Warren opposed public control of utilities
while Sanders supported it. A deeper look at Elizabeth Warren reveals that she is more aligned
with the establishment than she wants the public to believe.
All of this is to say that the DNC is looking for the best-case scenario for its corporate
masters, which is the worst-case scenario for working people in the United States. The
principle goal of the DNC is to stop Bernie Sanders from getting anywhere near the nomination.
Prior to Warren becoming insurance policy for Joe Biden, the DNC hoped that the Massachusetts
Senator would split supporters of Bernie Sanders down the middle. This would lead either to a
clear path to the nomination for a handpicked candidate (Biden, Harris, fill in the blank) or
to a contested convention where the unelected but very wealthy
"superdelegates" would cast the deciding vote. Should Warren have turned out a lame duck,
the DNC could still rely on over a dozen candidates with careerist ambitions to force a
contested election at the DNC convention in Milwaukee.
Workers in the United States have no insurance policy when it comes to the 2020 presidential
election or any other election for that matter. Austerity, privatization, and super
exploitation is the law of the capitalist land in the USA. Sanders is attractive to many
workers in the U.S. because of his consistent articulation of an anti-austerity platform which
includes living wage employment, a Green New Deal to help provide that employment, and a solid
commitment to Medicare for All. But Sanders remains deeply loyal to the Democratic Party and
has stated firmly on several occasions on the campaign trail that he would support any
Democratic Party candidate should he lose the nomination. Sanders frames Donald Trump as the
most dangerous element in U.S. society even as his own party colludes to prevent him from
having a fair shot at the nomination. Sanders and his supporters must realize that Elizabeth
Warren is not a friend, but an opportunist who is more than willing to profit from their
demise. The best-case scenario for the working class is that wall to wall resistance to Sanders
will lead to a mass exodus from the party and open the door for an independent worker's party
to form amid the collapse of the DNC.
"... Ms. Warren described Washington as utterly compromised by the influence of corporations and the extremely wealthy, and laid out a detailed plan for cleansing it. ..."
"... "Corruption has put our planet at risk, corruption has broken our economy and corruption is breaking our democracy," Ms. Warren said Monday evening. "I know what's broken, I've got a plan to fix it and that's why I'm running for president of the United States." ..."
"... Their version of populism, which Mr. Sanders pioneered but did not bring to fruition when he challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016, is about attacking concentrated wealth and economic power and breaking its influence over government. Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders, effectively tied for second place in their party's primary, both describe the country's political institutions as rotten and vow to make vast changes to the economy ..."
Warren and Trump Speeches Attack Corruption,
but Two Different Kinds https://nyti.ms/2IaKMVQ
NYT - Alexander Burns - September 17
In New York, Senator Elizabeth Warren described a government compromised by the influence
of the wealthy. President Trump, in New Mexico, denounced a "failed liberal
establishment."
Senator Elizabeth Warren stood beneath a marble arch in New York City, telling a crowd of
thousands that she would lead a movement to purge the government of corruption. Not far from
the site of a historic industrial disaster, Ms. Warren described Washington as utterly
compromised by the influence of corporations and the extremely wealthy, and laid out a
detailed plan for cleansing it.
"Corruption has put our planet at risk, corruption has broken our economy and
corruption is breaking our democracy," Ms. Warren said Monday evening. "I know what's broken,
I've got a plan to fix it and that's why I'm running for president of the United
States."
Only a few hours later, on a stage outside Albuquerque, President Trump took aim at a
different phenomenon that he also described as corruption. Before his own roaring crowd, Mr.
Trump cast himself as a bulwark against the power not of corporations but of a "failed
liberal establishment" that he described as attacking the country's sovereignty and cultural
heritage.
"We're battling against the corrupt establishment of the past," Mr. Trump said, warning in
grim language: "They want to erase American history, crush religious liberty, indoctrinate
our students with left-wing ideology."
The two back-to-back addresses laid out the competing versions of populism that could come
to define the presidential campaign. From the right, there is the strain Mr. Trump brought to
maturity in 2016, combining the longstanding grievances of the white working class with a
newer, darker angst about immigration and cultural change. And on the left, there is a vastly
different populist wave still gaining strength, defined in economic terms by Ms. Warren,
Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The messages underlined the possibility that the 2020 election could be the first in a
generation to be fought without an ally of either party's centrist establishment on the
ballot. While it is by no means certain that Ms. Warren will emerge as the Democratic
nominee, two of her party's top three candidates -- Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders -- are
trumpeting themes of economic inequality and promises of sweeping political and social
reform.
Their version of populism, which Mr. Sanders pioneered but did not bring to fruition
when he challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016, is about attacking concentrated wealth and
economic power and breaking its influence over government. Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders,
effectively tied for second place in their party's primary, both describe the country's
political institutions as rotten and vow to make vast changes to the economy . ...
Let's hope the Sanders campaign does not play this card.
"Senator Professor Warren continues to play error-free baseball in this here presidential
campaign. Not only does she schedule a certified Big Speech in Washington Square Park in New
York on Monday night to talk about the contributions of women to the labor movement not far
from the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, but also, in the afternoon, she scoops an
important endorsement across town. From The New York Times:
'The party endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont during the last presidential cycle,
at which time he described Working Families as "the closest thing" to "my vision of
democratic socialism." The group's endorsement of Ms. Warren on Monday, one of the few by a
prominent progressive organization this early in the primary, is sure to turn heads among
left-leaning Democrats who are desperate to defeat the current front-runner, Mr. Biden, in a
primary election where their party's ideological future is at stake.
Mr. Mitchell brushed off the possibility that the group's endorsement would be seen as a
sign of a splintering of the progressive left. The vote among "tens of thousands" of party
members resulted in a commanding majority for Ms. Warren, a party spokesman said; she
received more than 60 percent of the votes on the first ballot.'
The Sanders camp is already raising holy hell. They will now position SPW as a tool of her
corporate masters. (That's been going on for a while now among some of the more enthusiastic
adherents of the Sanders campaign. My guess is that it will become more general now.) The WFP
endorsement is an important and clarifying one. If there is a liberal lane, there's some
daylight open now."
"... I do like the author's take on the importance of corporations' fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, though. There WAS a time when a company's first priority was customer satisfaction. The moment they became corporations, however, customers went out the window in favor of the shareholders. ..."
Go to the section of Warren's website entitled
"Plans" and at the time of this writing you'll have a choice between a staggering 43 links.
Many of the plans could hugely impact our economy, but one stands above the rest in its
potential to overhaul our commercia landscape. Warren calls the reforms she envisions to
corporate mandates and governance
"accountable capitalism."
Corporations sometimes do bad things, and Warren's plan might stop some of them.
So just what is accountable capitalism? It was originally a bill proposed by Senator Warren
last year. In a fawning write-up in Vox
, Matthew Yglesias inadvertently exposed the idea's flimsy intellectual foundation:
Warren's plan starts from the premise that corporations that claim the legal rights of
personhood should be legally required to accept the moral obligations of personhood.
... ... ...
Warren's plan requires corporations valued at over $1 billion to obtain a special federal
charter. This charter exposes corporations to regulation from a new Office of United States
Corporations that "tells company directors to consider the interests of all relevant
stakeholders -- shareholders, but also employees, customers, and the community within which the
company operates -- when making decisions."
... ... ...
Warren has spent much of her career crusading against the harmful and unjust cozy
relationships between Wall Street and government, often to her credit. It's curious that
someone with such expertise in the matter doesn't seem at all concerned that this new
"accountability" would multiply the number of meetings, phone calls, and emails between senior
regulators and the titans of the private sector.
These billion-dollar corporations already employ armies of lawyers and accountants to
navigate regulatory minefields and turn them into weapons against their smaller competitors.
Does Warren believe this practice will stop overnight?
If most rent-seeking were a matter of nefarious corporate executives buying off weak or
greedy officials, we could just elect better people. The fact that this problem persists over
decades is indicative of a more subtle process. Rent-seeking is an inevitable systemic feature
in a network with thousands of contact points between business and government.
She had her chance in the '08 credit crash when she took on Wall Street & The
Banksters!
She ended up filling the Banksters & 1%'ers pockets with billions of Tarp funds some
of which were donated to her campaign while enacting competition killing Dodd Frank
compliance laws! No one was ever charged or convicted for the $9Trillion debacle!
I recall Barry the magical ***** had similar plans that disappeared the moment of his
coronation/deification. Campaign plans are like that: fictional lies that vanish like
magic.
I do like the author's take on the importance of corporations' fiduciary
responsibility to shareholders, though. There WAS a time when a company's first priority was
customer satisfaction. The moment they became corporations, however, customers went out the
window in favor of the shareholders.
These days, thanks to algos, things like revenue and performance don't even seem to matter
to stock valuation anymore, only buybacks and options seem to keep prices up.
The problem of corporation lack of empathy is not caused by capitalism, it is caused by
the lack of moral values of the people running the corporation. What is needed is a moral
framework within which to raise our young... Religion? Yes! correct answer.
I think the author is too generous with Warren's intentions. She pretends she cares, and
this is her misguided effort to "help". I don't think that's true.
Look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It, too, sounds like it's about
"helping" people. Warren proposed the whole thing, and wrote much of the legislation.
Its real purpose, if you look at its actions (which, I remind you, speak louder than
words) is to extort money from large companies in order to fund left-wing activist groups. In
nearly all its settlements, the CFPB offers companies the option to "donate" money to these
third-party groups in lieu of larger fines and penalties. They've diverted billions of
dollars to activist groups. Controlling the money allows them to control the groups, and
these groups can exert all kinds of pressure, usually in ways that would be illegal, if done
directly by the government.
It's the equivalent of having the government fund paramilitary groups or third party
propaganda.
Warren would establish this new "Office of United States Corporations" to extort even more
money, diverted to third parties to use to destroy people, companies, and anything else she'd
like to target but cannot target directly through government because of our pesky
Constitution.
She's an aspiring totalitarian dictator, using clever language and 21st century tools.
Don't pretend, for a moment, that she's interested in "helping" anyone - she'd happily kill
as many people as Hitler or Stalin ever did, if she had the chance.
Steve Peoples and Will Weissert - AP - September 16
NEW YORK -- Elizabeth Warren has released a sweeping anti-government corruption proposal,
providing a detailed policy roadmap for a fight she says is at the core of her presidential
campaign.
The Democratic senator from Massachusetts is announcing the plan Monday in Manhattan's
Washington Square Park, near the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co., which caught fire in
1911, killing 140-plus workers. Many of those deaths later were attributed to neglected
safety features, such as doors that were locked inside the factory.
Warren's plan would ban lobbyists from many fundraising activities and serving as
political campaign bundlers, tighten limits on politicians accepting gifts or payment for
government actions and bar senior officials and members of Congress from serving on nonprofit
boards. ...
Senator Elizabeth Warren is blitzing the 2020 Democratic primary field with a series of
ambitious policy proposals covering everything from student loans to the use of federal
lands.
Her proposals have become a signature part of her campaign, solidifying her reputation as
a policy wonk and spurring a new campaign slogan: "I have a plan for that."
Big Tech breakup
Child care
Clean energy
Criminal justice
Economic patriotism
Electoral college
Farmers
Filibuster
Green energy
Gun control
Higher education
Housing
Immigration
Minority entrepreneurship
Native American issues
Opioids
Pentagon ethics
Public lands
Puerto Rico
Racial wage disparities
Reparations
Roe v. Wade
Rural communities
State Department
Tax plans
Trade
Voting rights
Wall Street regulation
Those who control the public forum, as Spengler pointed out, obviously use their control to further their own interests and no
others. Why in the world would an American-hating MSM give Americans an equal voice?
Notable quotes:
"... These educated lemmings believe what they're spoon fed by CNN or Fox News. They cannot possibly accept that they're immune to facts and disproof of their cherished assumptions because they've been emotionally conditioned on a subconscious level, after which facts and reasoning are emotionally reacted to like they were personal attacks. ..."
"... A newly scripted financial crisis will complete transfer of much of America's corporate assets to the government when the $7 trillion in private retirement assets is appropriated in emergency legislation, immediately conceded by the Republicans amid the usual handwringing and crocodile tears. In exchange Americans will receive rapidly deflating gov bonds that will be accepted as the new store of wealth, which it will be for the elites who own American as surely as they do in Venezuela. ..."
Politics in America is a function of those who control the public forum via the msm. Those
who control the public forum, as Spengler pointed out, obviously use their control to further
their own interests and no others. Why in the world would an American-hating msm give
Americans an equal voice?
The msm aren't merely some unfortunate artifact of the First Amendment we have to live.
The msm control the formation of men's minds. As Jacques Ellul points out in his masterpiece
on propaganda, it's those among us who're most educated and most inclined to closely follow
the "news" who are most susceptible to brainwashing. These educated lemmings believe what
they're spoon fed by CNN or Fox News. They cannot possibly accept that they're immune to
facts and disproof of their cherished assumptions because they've been emotionally
conditioned on a subconscious level, after which facts and reasoning are emotionally reacted
to like they were personal attacks.
This explains why college educated white women are the Dems' winning edge, trading empty
moral posturing for condemning their own children and grandchildren to die hounded and
dispossessed in their own land. But there are never any consequences when they insist they
have the best of intentions. These women whose thoughts are authored by their own people's
enemies will probably put a Warren or one of the other Marxists over the top in 2020.
A newly
scripted financial crisis will complete transfer of much of America's corporate assets to the
government when the $7 trillion in private retirement assets is appropriated in emergency
legislation, immediately conceded by the Republicans amid the usual handwringing and
crocodile tears. In exchange Americans will receive rapidly deflating gov bonds that will be
accepted as the new store of wealth, which it will be for the elites who own American as
surely as they do in Venezuela.
"... By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually "completely real" and "totally bad." ..."
"... The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida. ..."
"... Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But it looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an energized left. ..."
"... And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do just that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which migrants are allowed into the country. "In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites." But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant. Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately rejecting six applicants. ... "Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ... ..."
...But he also spoke, in admiring tones and at substantial length, about "The Two-Income Trap:
Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke," the book Warren wrote with her daughter in 2004.
"Elizabeth Warren wrote one of the best books I've ever read on economics," he said.
By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and
declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a
pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually
"completely real" and "totally bad."
His Bolshevist pronouncements were probably not a surprise to anyone who'd watched Carlson's
show closely in the months leading up to his speech. But Fox, despite its outsize influence,
has a relatively small audience.
And it's not just Carlson's evolution that's escaped notice. It's hard to keep track of what
most of the key players on the right are saying these days, with President Trump soaking up so
much attention.
But while the commander-in-chief thrashes about, something important is taking shape in his
shadow -- the outlines of a new conservatism inspired, or at least elevated, by his rise to
power.
It's a conservatism that tries to wrestle with the post-Cold War, post-industrial angst that
fired his election -- dropping a reflexive fealty to big business that dates back to the Reagan
era and focusing more intently on the struggles of everyday Americans.
"There are many downsides, I will say, to Trump," Carlson said, in his speech this summer.
"But one of the upsides is, the Trump election was so shocking, so unlikely ... that it did
cause some significant percentage of people to say, 'wait a second, if that can happen, what
else is true?' "
The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but
among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley of
Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of
opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But it
looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an
energized left.
Whether the two sides can actually forge a meaningful alliance in the glare of our
hyperpartisan politics is an open question. But a compact -- even a provisional one -- may
offer the country its best shot at building a meaningful, post-Trump politics.
. . .
CARLSON DELIVERED HIS speech at the National Conservatism Conference -- the first major
gathering aimed at forging a new, right-of-center approach in the age of Trump.
"This is our independence day," said Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political theorist and chief
organizer of the event, in his spirited opening remarks. "We declare independence from
neoconservatism, from libertarianism, from what they call classical liberalism." "We are national conservatives," he said. Any effort to build a right-of-center nationalism circa 2019 inevitably runs into questions
about whether it will traffic in bigotry.
And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do just
that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which migrants
are allowed into the country. "In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off
with more whites and fewer nonwhites." But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant. Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately
rejecting six applicants. ... "Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ...
* At the National Conservatism Conference, an 'Intellectual Trumpist' Movement Begins to
Take Shape
Democracy is a loaded word. Reasoning about it in a public discussion is thus fraught with
lots of difficulties. This comment is to highlight some crucial factors that are rarely
mentioned.
1. democracy is the particular political outcome of centuries of struggles within the
context of Early-Modernity in Western European societies (14th to 18th centuries). Three
forces were in competition for the control of power: the clergy, the nobility, and the new
rich merchants (those who in France were living in the "bourgs" and were thus called the
bourgeoisie. They were also the one's who were owning the capital). The gradual expansion of
the right to vote, to all adult citizens along the 19th and 20th centuries, was calibrated by
big capital holders to act as a system serving their interests through the manipulation of
the public's opinions. And man how successful the West is at this game
2. the history of the other people, outside of western territories, is rich with their own
experiences. Even if they are largely unknown to Westerners these histories offer viable
alternatives to the Western model of democracy. But Westerners are not interested to learn
about these other models. They firmly believe that their own system is the best and they are
always ready to impose it by force
3. Western political science is relatively young (1 or 2 centuries at best). This compares
with Chinese political science that spans over 3 millennia as a written matter that finds its
origin through oral transmission from earlier times.
_________
The words "Government of the People, by the People, for the People" is an ideological logo
that never materialized on any large scale nor over any long time-span anywhere on earth.
The shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world' to East Asia and more
particularly to China is a 'fait accompli' that still has to register in the West. The longer
it takes the West to come to its senses the more painful the downfall will be and the more
totalitarian the governance system will become
The issue isn't really democracy, and in any event not liberal democracy, which is close
to an oxymoron, given that liberalism creates imbalances of power and wealth inimical to
democracy. And the argument is a bit incoherent : voting rights in most countries were based
on property ownership, not wealth as such, and much of the political conflict of the 19th
century was between traditional landowners and the emerging middle classes, who had the
wealth and wanted the power. Likewise, the move to neoliberalism had begun before the end of
the 1970s' and slower economic growth was a consequence of it, not a cause.
The real issue is that people expect political leaders, whom they elect and pay, to do
things. But modern political leaders have for the last generation or so developed the art of
saying that nothing can be done, or at least nothing that will make life better. So a
political figure who proposes to actually do something that people want is a dangerous and
disruptive force. Irrespective of their precise views and policies, they are a danger to the
current political class, which resolutely refuses to do anything useful.
+1000
The allergy to actually enacting policies that have been proven in the past to be beneficial
to the citizenry of a country is impressive in its almost pathological implementation. No
matter how bad the outcomes of neoliberal economics is, we can't possibly change those
policies. This goes beyond TINA. I look at people like Joe Biden and Jo Swinson and marvel at
their innate ability to defend the worst excesses of policies like bailing out the banks and
austerity and yet still cry crocodile tears for the people.
But if you cannot expect to elect a leader that migth do something this is another way of
saying democracy is in trouble. The result is that democracy is constrained by a dominant
ideology and this undermines democracy. Everything becomes technocratical and obscure,
particularly –but not only– monetary policy. I wonder by how much this already
short room of maneuver has to be reduced to allow claiming democracy is already dead. There
are many candidates that go with the discourse that "I will do the only thing that can be
done" so you know from the very beginning that business will go as usual an nothing will be
done. For instance, Joe Incremental Biden. A very good example in US is Health Care. A good
majority wants H.C. for all, but we migth find again that candidates that promise it are
effectively blocked because "it cannot be done (too expensive etc.)". I really think
democracy is in trouble if this occurs again.
Why should "science" have anything to do with democracy?
As someone from the united states, I live in a republic.
Our founding fathers rejected democracy as a form of government.Some of them, like alexander
hamilton loathed democracy Which is one reason I think he was an ass but that is besides the
point..
Democracy, as an ideal to be promoted in this republic with democratic assumptions . is
just something that stands on its own in the sphere of "civics"
democracy is just a practice of engaging with others. it is a discipline.
science may exemplify practical thinking and action as expressed in the scientific method
.. but democracy isn't just about what is the "most likely to be true" . it is just what
"most people choose" Now education is what lies between what those people know, how they know
it and then their choices as to what they really want . but science is a discipline that is
really to be exalted in a free society . but has no real place in the democratic institution.
IMO
People make democracy not science . and "people" is a tough nut to crack
Hitler was keen on science, to explain his motives his perversions of truth became state
mandated axioms of truth . despite being pure BS..
Under neo-liberalism, the state does little more than maintain the rights of ownership
and internal and external security through criminal justice and armed services –
notwithstanding, the state may bail out financial services if they require public
aid. Kevin Albertson [bold added]
It does more than just bail out financial services, the state PRIVILEGES them beforehand
by failing to provide something so simple, so obvious as, for example, inherently risk-free
debit/checking accounts for all citizens at the Central Bank (or National Treasury)
itself.
The result is nations have a SINGLE* payment system that MUST work through the banks or
not at all – making their economies hostage to what are, in essence,
government-privileged usury cartels.
We can have nations that are for their citizens or ones which privilege banks and other
depository institutions but not both.
*apart from mere physical fiat, paper bills and coins.
The problem may not be so much with democracy as with "representative" democracy. I
believe that it was Harvard that did a study that found that the wishes of the bulk of the
electorate were habitually ignored unless it aligned with the wishes of the wealthier portion
of society. In other words, after the elections were over, voter's wishes were not a factor.
Perhaps more imaginative ideas need to be adopted. We have secret balloting right now so how
about secret ballots in the Senate and the House of reps – on pieces of paper counted
in public under the watch of several parties. No digital crap allowed. No donor would be able
to tell what his purchased politician actually voted in any session. Every vote would then
become a conscience vote. When you think about it, there is nothing to say that how things
are now should also be the way that things always are.
" the promotion of the neo-liberal political economic paradigm need not result from a
conspiracy."
Just because it "need not" doesn't mean it does not. There is a playbook for
privatization:
1) Identify a government function that could provide a profit opportunity.
2) Deprive the dept. that provides that function of the funds needed to adequately do a
proper job of it.*
3) Point out, loudly & publicly, what a crappy job the gov't is doing.
4) Announce that "We have a solution for that" – which, of course, involves
privatization.*
*Note: steps 2 & 4 require co-operation of gov't representatives which is obtained
through lobbying & briber.. er, campaign contributions.
Well, now governments just 'restructure' and pass out contracts to justify laying off
employees. There is no need to starve a department of funds first.
My experience is that the contracted 'service' is oversold and mostly goes to pot, and the
gov will still renew the contracts for the crappy service providers over and over.
In simpler times, democracy was viewed at risk if citizens could vote themselves money.
Now citizens are at risk when pirates can dispense with the voting to get money.
A cruel twist is where those pirates and their paid pols stick the citizens with the
downside.
It seems to me, including all the above comments, underlying all of this is the pursuit of
"economic growth", which ultimately means the pursuit of economic wealth by the most powerful
of the ownership class at the expense of everyone else. And they are the group that buy and
install the politicians to ensure that pursuit remains as unimpeded as possible.
Examples of this off-the-rails philosophical and social justification of "modern"
capitalism are apparent to everyone (I hope); Shareholder Primacy, Intellectual "Property"
Laws, Health Care as a Profit Center replacing health care of citizenry, abstract legal
entities, Corporations, given the same rights (and few responsibilities) as individual
people, the taking over of education systems by this same ownership class, again primarily
for profit and propaganda, increasing for-profit, and control, surveillance, and more rule
the day.
Historically, and unfortunately, the prime reset has often been violent revolution. Mike
Duncan's Revolutions podcast teaches us many examples throughout history and should be
required listening for today's ownership class and politicians everywhere and High School
history classes.
THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH by Benjamin Friedman in the HarvardScholar link
was a thought provoking read about the linkages between affective economic growth and
morality– and visa versa.
I believe he was arguing that a cultures adopted values directs the benefits of that cultures
economic growth and applications(without direct outside meddling). And that can become a
reinforcing feedback loop–for both the held values and values had about economic
growth.
Economic Growth is often compiled in numbers in Lamberts Water Cooler at least
weekly–however, like Inflation Stats, often a lot of critical things are not considered
in the compilation(gas price in inflation and happiness in economic growth–as two
simple i.e.)
imo, We need more progress in expanding the term Economic Growth beyond consumption and
production to be pertinent in 2019.
I think this is a really good analysis in that it comes to the conclusion that we need
more democracy; we are not democratically "liberal" at all. We were just hoodwinked for about
the last 50 years. We need to be socially democratic. It will bring an end to the obscene
inequalities we see and stabilize civilization. So the apotheosis of unregulated growth and
the free-range consumer is over. Tsk tsk. That was imposed on society by the mandate for
profits (which they never wanted to admit, but it depended entirely on demand). I guess the
consumer is headed for the bone yard of Idols. We will, by necessity, have something entirely
different. A form of social demand; a cooperative of some sort. Hanging on to old worn out
ideas is all that is left – kind of like nostalgia. Like the Donald pandering to
"business" by gutting the EPA now when manufacturing has been decimated and methods of
mitigating pollution are a market in themselves. Trump is just campaigning like an old fool;
but it's probably working.
Finally, an article on Neolib Capitalism that a 5th-grader can grasp – maybe granny
too. I already shared it with a dozen friends (ironically – most with doctorates as the
choir can never be too big).
Now let's all rise and sing a rousing chorus of Dude Where's My Democracy.
After reading about the failure of the F.D.A. to regulate pharma and protect us, after
witnessing our military going into losing war after losing stalemate, after seeing
homelessness explode, drug use, the failure of schools supposedly controlled by the
Department of Education, an eroding environment, etc.
At what point do citizens stop voluntarily paying taxes and complying with federal
laws?
After the collapse of NHS care, after the oversubsciption of our local schools by a factor
of n, after there being no police in the streets to curb the harassment rowdiness and
burglary, after a complete collapse of democracy following people's vote for liberty from
shackles of giant EU squid, after the horrific waste of local councils monies on sucking up
to the terror of minorities (racial, ethnic, sexual), after our own councils ramming the
extreme numbers of noninvited imported alien population down the throats of hitherto
taxpaying funders of the target occupation environment, and so on, can I have a separate TV
station to tell you, the only thing left for the sitting target taxpayers paying for all this
largesse, abuse, and outright extortion is indeed to abandon any of the previously normal
concepts of tax, duty and bills payments, and let the local and state governments get into
the costly business of corralling each and every hitherto low lying fruit taxpayer, and
forcing monies out of them at a great expense to the target and the enforcer.
Read all the way through and never encountered the names Reagan or Thatcher. As the
principal enablers of the financial / economic disaster called the Washington Consensus,
their names should be right up there. We need an annual festival with bonfires and fireworks
when we can burn the rogues in effigy.
The author is right that prolonged peace allows power to concentrate. He does not indicate
the end result that Rome and Constantinople experienced when deprived citizens declined to
fight for the empire and the Goths / Crusaders were able to take over. We study Greek and
Roman history in school but somehow its relevance to our declining state means nothing to
us.
I've always been a huge fan of the Haynes Guides . A finer series of "how-to" books
has never been published.
Gratified to read the phrase "carrying capacity" in a political discussion. One of the
central drivers of elite power and asset hoarding is the perception of scarcity and the
compulsion to ration (i.e. cut-off supplies of "nice things" to the proles and dusky-hued
people).
Looking forward to the Haynes Guide to Eating the Rich .
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Legitimate Government
Recently,
Foa & Mounk argued that many citizens in supposed advanced democracies have become
rather disillusioned with the workings of the political system in their nation. There is good
reason to suppose the current political economic paradigm is skewed against the people.
So-called democratic deficits exist in the USA and elsewhere . In
the UK, for example, the electorate disapprove and have disapproved of
four decades of tax and welfare and
privatisation policies – yet are apparently powerless to influence these
policies.
As politicians and the donors who support them become less responsive to voters' wishes it
is hardly surprising many, perhaps the majority, of the populace will
view government as illegitimate . In consequence, voters seem increasingly inclined to
elect (so-called) populist leaders, political outsiders who may change
the rules in favour of the people .
The Left and the Right
Legitimate government, so Abraham Lincoln observes, is that which
does for a community that which the community cannot do (or cannot do so well) for themselves.
With this it is difficult to disagree. However, political theory differs on who might make up
that community.
Broadly speaking, those
on the (so-called) economic "right" argue government should enact policy for the benefit of
those who own the nation, while those (so-called) economic "left" consider policy should
prioritise the interests of citizens. By definition, therefore, capitalist governments will
take up positions on the right – particularly in nations, such as the UK, which are increasingly
owned by foreign interests . Conversely democratically accountable governments must take
positions economically to the left, prioritising the preferences of citizens.
Universal Adult Suffrage
At the dawn of democracy, only the wealthy could vote. Thus, there was less conflict between
the aspirations of the powerful and of voters. Following the extension to the adult population
of the right to vote in the late 19th and early 20th century, politicians became answerable to
a wider range of stakeholders.
In particular, from the middle of the 20th century until the late 1970s, legitimate
democratic governments held markets to account in the interests of the demos. An increasingly
affluent society facilitated profit making opportunities and thus economies grew; the interests
of capital and citizens coincided.
In response, to preserve or increase their own income growth, elites are motivated to argue
for the
"freeing" of markets . Rather than markets being held accountable to citizens through
democratic governance, it was suggested that holding governments (and through them the
citizenry) to account through reliance on market forces would facilitate a
return to economic growth.
The Washington Consensus
The economic paradigm which promotes the small state and reliance on market forces is
generally known as neo-liberalism, or the Washington Consensus . Under
neo-liberalism, the state does little more than maintain the rights of ownership and internal
and external security through criminal justice and armed services – notwithstanding,
the
state may bail out financial services if they require public aid. In the UK and the USA
politicians from both main parties adopted this point of view, often in sincere, if misguided,
belief in its validity. Thus, neo-liberalism maintains the appearance of democracy, in that
citizens may vote for political leaders, but limits the range of policies on offer to those
which are acceptable to markets – or rather, those who command market forces.
"... As in every election we're now being bombarded with propaganda about how "your vote makes a difference" and associated nonsense. According to the official version ordinary citizens control the state by voting for candidates in elections. The President and other politicians are supposedly servants of "the people" and the government an instrument of the general populace. This version is a myth. ..."
"... It does not matter who is elected because the way the system is set up all elected representatives must do what big business and the state bureaucracy want, not what "the people" want. Elected representatives are figureheads. ..."
"... Politicians' rhetoric may change depending on who is elected, but they all have to implement the same policies given the same situation. Elections are a scam whose function is to create the illusion that "the people" control the government, not the elite, and to neutralize resistance movements. All voting does is strengthen the state & ruling class, it is not an effective means to change government policy. ..."
"... What a politician says to win an election and what he actually does in office are two very different things; politicians regularly break their promises. This is not just a fluke but the outcome of the way the system is set up. Bush the second said he wouldn't engage in "nation-building" (taking other countries over) during the 2000 election campaign but has done it several times. He also claimed to support a balanced budget, but obviously abandoned that. Clinton advocated universal health care during the 1992 election campaign but there were more people without health insurance when he left office than when he took office. Bush the first said, "read my lips – no new taxes!" while running for office but raised taxes anyway. Reagan promised to shrink government but he drastically expanded the military-industrial complex and ran up huge deficits. Rather than shrinking government, he reoriented it to make it more favorable to the rich. ..."
"... Carter promised to make human rights the "soul of our foreign policy" but funded genocide in East Timor and backed brutal dictators in Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia and elsewhere. During the 1964 elections leftists were encouraged by Democrats to vote for Johnson because Goldwater, his Republican opponent, was a fanatical warmonger who would escalate US involvement in Vietnam. ..."
"... Johnson won, and immediately proceeded to escalate US involvement in Vietnam. FDR promised to maintain a balanced budget and restrain government spending but did the exact opposite. Wilson won reelection in 1916 on the slogan "he kept us out of war" but then lied us into World War One. Hoover pledged to abolish poverty in 1928 but instead saw it skyrocket. ..."
I have no Idea when this article was printed, but it matters
not. This holds true for every election ever held in America.
If voting mattered they
wouldn't let us do it.
As in every election we're now being bombarded with propaganda about how "your vote makes a
difference" and associated nonsense. According to the official version ordinary citizens
control the state by voting for candidates in elections. The President and other politicians
are supposedly servants of "the people" and the government an instrument of the general
populace. This version is a myth.
It does not matter who is elected because the way the system
is set up all elected representatives must do what big business and the state bureaucracy want,
not what "the people" want. Elected representatives are figureheads.
Politicians' rhetoric may
change depending on who is elected, but they all have to implement the same policies given the
same situation. Elections are a scam whose function is to create the illusion that "the people"
control the government, not the elite, and to neutralize resistance movements. All voting does
is strengthen the state & ruling class, it is not an effective means to change government
policy.
From the same article, a list of campaign promises never kept (needs to be updated with
Obama/Trump).
What a politician says to win an election and what he actually does in office are two
very different things; politicians regularly break their promises. This is not just a fluke
but the outcome of the way the system is set up. Bush the second said he wouldn't engage in
"nation-building" (taking other countries over) during the 2000 election campaign but has
done it several times. He also claimed to support a balanced budget, but obviously abandoned
that. Clinton advocated universal health care during the 1992 election campaign but there
were more people without health insurance when he left office than when he took office. Bush
the first said, "read my lips – no new taxes!" while running for office but raised
taxes anyway. Reagan promised to shrink government but he drastically expanded the
military-industrial complex and ran up huge deficits. Rather than shrinking government, he
reoriented it to make it more favorable to the rich.
Carter promised to make human rights the "soul of our foreign policy" but funded
genocide in East Timor and backed brutal dictators in Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Brazil,
Indonesia and elsewhere. During the 1964 elections leftists were encouraged by Democrats to
vote for Johnson because Goldwater, his Republican opponent, was a fanatical warmonger who
would escalate US involvement in Vietnam.
Johnson won, and immediately proceeded to escalate
US involvement in Vietnam. FDR promised to maintain a balanced budget and restrain government
spending but did the exact opposite. Wilson won reelection in 1916 on the slogan "he kept us
out of war" but then lied us into World War One. Hoover pledged to abolish poverty in 1928
but instead saw it skyrocket. https://www.bigeye.com/elections.htm
"... Any honest Eisenhower Republican would be a lot better than Clinton or Obama (although still capitalist and imperialist). I am worried, however, about the palling around with HRC and it seems to me that she is (willingly or unknowingly) being used as a firebreak to prevent voters from moving to Bernie. ..."
Essentially, Toback argues that Warren's project is to somehow hoodwink us into believing that she is an opponent of neoliberalism
when in reality she is committed to legitimating neoliberalism. For Warren, neoliberalism is simply really 2 legit 2 quit (I'll spare
you the MC Hammer video).
Still, while stark differences between Sanders, Biden and the rest seem obvious to most, when it comes to Elizabeth Warren,
many on the alleged left have taken to collapsing distinctions. They argue that Warren's just as, or even more progressive, equal
but a woman and therefore better, not quite as good but still a fundamental shift to the left, or at the very least, a serious
opponent of neoliberalism. Some have even fantasized that Sanders and Warren function as allies, despite the obvious fact that
they are, you know Running against each other.
All of these claims obscure the fundamental truth that Sanders and Warren are different in kind, not degree. Warren has always
been a market-first neoliberal and nothing she's doing now suggests deviation. Despite her barrage of plans and recent adoption
of left rhetorical shibboleths like "grassroots movements" and "structural change," Warren remains a neoliberal legitimization
machine. Anybody who's serious about amending and expanding the social contract and/or preserving the habitability of the planet
needs to oppose her candidacy now.
Toback nicely weaves together and systematically presents pretty much all the analysis I've seen here at C99%. It's well worth
reading as is the David Harvey interview linked above.
And for some icing on the cake, Toback quotes some lyrics from the splendid Leonard Cohen song 'Democracy':
"It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat." -- Leonard Cohen
might be someone I could support. She said all the right things. That was all I had to judge by. So I took a wait and see.
I have always been able to see the reality of actions that differ from words. Hers don't match. It's far better that she lacks
Obama's charisma and has shown who she is before she's sitting in Trump's chair.
might be someone I could support. She said all the right things. That was all I had to judge by. So I took a wait and see.
I have always been able to see the reality of actions that differ from words. Hers don't match. It's far better that she lacks
Obama's charisma and has shown who she is before she's sitting in Trump's chair.
@orlbucfan
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such as
Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of neoliberal
freedoms.
#3
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such
as Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of
neoliberal freedoms.
#3
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such
as Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of
neoliberal freedoms.
over toward Obama. I don't think she's to the left of him. Then again, I'm not really sure how much of what she says I believe.
A lot of it seems mushy and ill-defined (what is "access to healthcare?"), and she certainly isn't consistent in her support for
MFA. For that matter, how can you take large donations from the people who put us where we are if you intend to change the system
they created? Does that mean that the multi-millionaires and billionaires don't like the system they created? That they see its
destructiveness and now, finally, want to head it off? That's the only logical way you can put together "I'm going to change the
system" and "I'm going to take large donations from people who built, maintain, and profit from the system." Since I've seen no
evidence that the "smart money," or any other money, is interested in changing the system, I'd have to reject this hypothesis.
So what am I left with? I'm left with guessing that Warren is another one of those "all we need to do is tweak the system a
little" types--but if that's the case, she's not going to solve global warming, the health care crisis, the economic crisis, the
collapse of wages, the destruction of basic human rights, the destruction--or distortion--of the rule of law, or the endless wars.
All those things have been put in place by the people she wants to take lots of money from. And take it in the dark, too. Spiffing.
She was an outspoken opponent of the TPP in 2015 before she could be seen reasonably as posturing for a Presidential run. The
TPP is the essence of neoliberalism.
I have seen her as an Eisenhower Republican and therefore to the left of the Democratic leadership. I think the Consumer Protection
Agency was an attempt at moderating some of the worst effects of unrestrained capitalism.
Any honest Eisenhower Republican would be a lot better than Clinton or Obama (although still capitalist and imperialist).
I am worried, however, about the palling around with HRC and it seems to me that she is (willingly or unknowingly) being used
as a firebreak to prevent voters from moving to Bernie.
slippery...just like Clinton (Bill I mean). And don't get me started on this whole palling around with Hillary crap. I mean
really Liz?
These idiots don't hire themselves. The problem is Trump. It doesn't matter whether Bolton
(or Pompeo, or Hook, or Abrams) is in or out as long as Trump himself is in the White
House.
That realization has turned my 2016 protest vote for Trump into a 2020 protest vote for
Elizabeth Warren. The underlying principle is be the same, voting yet again for the lesser
of two evils.
Elizabeth Warren Stands Out at New Hampshire Democratic
Party Convention https://nyti.ms/2POixCr
NYT - Katie Glueck - September 7
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s backers roared supportive slogans and banged on
drums as they camped outside Southern New Hampshire University Arena. Backers of Senator
Elizabeth Warren marched as part of a jazz-inflected brass band. A fan of Senator Amy
Klobuchar admonished passers-by to consider electability, and banners associated with Senator
Bernie Sanders that highlighted his own standing in the polls appeared aimed at drawing a
contrast with Mr. Biden.
The New Hampshire Democratic Party State Convention drew 19 of the presidential candidates
and some of the state's most committed party activists -- including more than 1,200 delegates
-- to its gathering here Saturday, offering an early test of campaign organization and
enthusiasm in a contest that is traditionally a must-win for candidates from neighboring
states.
This cycle, that includes Mr. Sanders of Vermont, who won New Hampshire by a wide margin
in 2016, and Ms. Warren of Massachusetts, whose ground game is often regarded as the most
extensive in a contest that party officials describe as still fluid -- though Ms. Warren
received the most enthusiastic reception of the day, with an opening standing ovation that
stretched on for nearly two minutes.
Her supporters wielded inflatable noise makers and she received thunderous applause
throughout her address.
"There is a lot at stake and people are scared," she said. "But we can't choose a
candidate we don't believe in because we're scared."
It's a version of a line that Ms. Warren has deployed before, though it took on new
significance when she deployed it Saturday, days before she faces off against Mr. Biden for
the first time on the debate stage.
While many voters feel warmly toward Mr. Biden, some have also cited the perception that
he is the most electable candidate in the race, rather than displaying outright enthusiasm
for his campaign.
"There's that sense of, we know who Joe is and we trust him," said former State Senator
Sylvia Larsen, the former New Hampshire Senate president. "There's still a little bit of
people still looking around to say, 'Well, O.K., so what else is out there? Where are the
voices? Who else might be a voice?'"
Mr. Biden, the former vice president, was the first of the presidential contenders to
speak, and he received a polite though hardly raucous reception as attendees trickled into
the arena, which was not yet full on Saturday morning.
Mr. Biden has led in most polls here since entering the race -- though the surveys have
been relatively few. He is focused on blue-collar voters, moderates and other Democrats who
believe his more centrist brand offers the most promising path to defeating Mr. Trump, in
contrast to the more progressive coalitions Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are working to
build.
On the ground, Mr. Sanders's supporters challenged the notion that Mr. Biden is the only
candidate well positioned to defeat Mr. Trump.
"Bernie beats Trump," read one banner hanging in the arena. Outside, another banner
affixed to a pro-Sanders tent read, "In poll after poll after poll Bernie BEATS Trump."
Mr. Sanders received frequent applause throughout his speech and his supporters -- who
appeared dispersed throughout the arena -- greeted many of his remarks with loud whoops.
"Together, we will make Donald Trump a one-term president," he said. "But frankly,
frankly, it is not enough just to defeat Trump. We must do much, much more. We must finally
create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the one percent."
In a sign of organizational strength, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., was also a
prominent presence at the convention: He had a large cheering contingent that punctuated his
address with rounds of applause. Flush with a field-leading fund-raising haul, his campaign
has significantly expanded its presence in New Hampshire, and has announced the opening of 12
new offices in the state.
Senator Kamala Harris of California had a visible support section, too -- her fans wore
bright yellow T-shirts -- and she also received applause and cheers.
Yet Ms. Harris's standing in the polls has slipped over the summer, and party leaders here
say she does not have the same footprint in the state as some of the other contenders.
Perhaps reflecting those dynamics -- and a lunchtime-hour speaking slot -- her ability to
excite the room was at times uneven.
"Everybody else and the pundits can ride polls; I'm not on that roller coaster," she told
reporters after her speech. "I am working hard, we are steady, I don't get high with the
polls, I don't go low with the polls."
Senator Cory Booker, too, found himself brushing off the polls when speaking to reporters
after giving an energetic speech that resonated in the room. His candidacy has mystified some
veteran New Hampshire Democrats who note his relatively stagnant poll numbers despite
extensive on-the-ground campaign organization, endorsements and an ability to deliver a fiery
speech.
Certainly, the convention is an imperfect test of the state of the New Hampshire primary.
It's a window into the mood of the most plugged-in activists, but isn't necessarily
representative of the entire electorate that will turn out on Primary Day -- and it also drew
attendees from out of state, from places including Massachusetts, New Jersey and even, in at
least one case, California. ...
In comparison with Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, Warren is huge progress even with her warts and all.
Notable quotes:
"... the DNC is already gaming polls, cherry-picking which are "official" for their 2% threshhold. MSNBC and other networks and pundits also cherry-pick. Or even simply outright lie if the poll doesn't match what they want it to. ..."
"... Polling should either be eliminated or held to MUCH more consistent and much more scientific standards. (demographics, prediction analysis, neutral rather than leading questions, standardized formats, etc.) Until then they're simply more and more useless as predictors of the real poll, the primaries or general. ..."
"... The difference no is, that countries like Canada, the U.S., Australia, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and with the AfD Germany are either as fascist, or more fascist than ever before. Once again, Russia is hyped up to be the eternal arch enemy of 'Western fascist values', 'freedom and democracy'. How much more difficult would it be today to round up resistance against a fascist axis that is hellbent to march again Russia? ..."
"... Sure, Trudeau is nothing but a bag of lukewarm air, but he employs hard core fascists in his cabinet – paid for by the Canadian people. ..."
"... History will look at the Sanders Warren debacle in the same way it must look now at the theft of the nomination of Henry A. Wallace in favor of the person that had no whatsoever second thoughts about dropping two nukes on an enemy that had already succumbed to the Soviet forces. Henry A. Wallace would heve never dropped these nukes. He was a staunch supporter of the 'common man'. All his policies reflected that. He was a presidential nominee for, of and by the people. ..."
"... To all the mindless party members of the Democratic fascist party: if you repeat history by allowing for the second time to install a puppet of the fascist powers in the U.S., you bear the full responsibilty for the dropping of the next nukes. ..."
"... The difference between Sanders and Wallace is a painful one. Wallace fought against the theft of his nomination with all he got. Subsequently, he realized that the 'Democratic' party would never allow for a person with integrity and the well being of the people at heart to win any nomination. He would have won the following presidency as a third party nominee – Trumann however knew how to prevent that. ..."
"... Much of what is sickening about the US as an imperial power today was present well before 1944 – indeed was present during the 19th century when the US made colonies of Hawaii and the Philippines in the 1890s, and occupied Haiti in 1915 (?), not leaving that country until the 1930s. ..."
"... Forgive me for saying so, but is a party of working folks really supposed to be grovelling for favours from billionaires? ..."
"... I think Gabbard is as authentic a new voice as i have ever seen in the DNC. She may well make it as an independent. Would Sanders? ..."
"... I'd say if a Gabbard/Paul grassroots campaign run by the Sanders 'momentum' network got their act together the USA may finally mature into a proper democracy not owned by their neolib con artistes. ..."
"... America where democracy has been extinguished and their increasingly paranoid voters are under the mistaken belief that yet another talking head can return them to a fair and impartial existence. ..."
"... Too late. Money is king and those that have most want more. The sideshow of elections produces the performing clowns such as Trump, Obama, Bush etc.all spouting the same vacuous promises on behalf of their wealthy benefactors. No real choice or change and an illusion of caring for the welfare of their citizenry. Listen carefully to the clowns, it's the sound of money talking. ..."
So: the rise of Elizabeth Warren gives the billionaires a 'progressive' candidate who might either win the
nomination or else at least split progressive voters during the primaries (between Sanders and Warren) and thus give
the nomination to Buttigieg, who is their first choice (especially since both Biden and Harris have been faltering so
badly of late).
I feel like any analysis that even mentions polls is guesswork, because nowadays polls are almost
entirely useless. In that they aren't accurately measuring people who are actually going to go to
open/semi-open or even closed primaries, and caucuses. The cohort of likely voters is different from
the cohort who bothers to pick up a phone call from an unknown (polling) number. Or make it through a
whole poll. Or do any online polls. Or have a reachable phone # at all.
Plus the fact that the DNC is already gaming polls, cherry-picking which are "official" for their
2% threshhold. MSNBC and other networks and pundits also cherry-pick. Or even simply outright lie if
the poll doesn't match what they want it to.
Polling should either be eliminated or held to MUCH more consistent and much more scientific
standards. (demographics, prediction analysis, neutral rather than leading questions, standardized
formats, etc.) Until then they're simply more and more useless as predictors of the real poll, the
primaries or general.
I liked the article other than that though.
mark
"Vote for me, I'm gay!"
"Vote for me, I'm a Red Indian!"
Daniel Rich
Do these 'Democratic Party billionaires ' have names and further affiliations?
Could it be that most of these 'Democratic Party billionaires ' favor the Apartheid State?
Hmmmmm?
George Cornell
David Bradley's The Atlanticmagazine headlined on August 26th, "Elizabeth Warren Manages to Woo the
Democratic Establishment". Wooing in American politics = betraying your principles, cutting deals,
bending to the wishes of the powerful, and all round submissive boot-licking.
Roberto
That would be describing successful politics in any country at any time in history.
An unsuccessful politician would do the inverse of what you list. For those with good memories,
let's try to name some.
George Cornell
Not everyone would agree with that definition of success, but you are quite right.
wardropper
Voice in the "Emperor's New Clothes" story:
"Why don't we just ban all financial support of presidential candidates? – I thought this was supposed
to be about the person best qualified and best suited to run the country "
HEY! Somebody shut that
child up right now, will you!
The significance of Sanders is this: if he wins the nomination he will have done so by leading an
insurrectionary movement, not only within the Democratic Party but in US society itself. He simply
cannot win otherwise. And if he wins the primaries it will have been in spite of the great mass of
money and Establishment influence having been mobilised against him.
In other words he is right to call his supporters a "revolution."
It is of course equally true of the Corbyn movement- any victories are immense defeats for both the
Establishment and its media. That, in itself is important.
And nowhere more than in Canada where the third and fourth parties- the NDP and the Greens- continue
to tack further and further to the right, trying to catch up with the rightward swing of the Liberal
Party -now close to full on neo-naziism- and the ultra right Tories.
Thank You for the link. While I am keenly aware of the untold history of WWII and the fact that
Hitler would have never gotten where he was from 1933-1941 without the propping up by both U.S. and
Zionist interests (mind the redundancy), eager to crush the perceived anti-capitalist behemoth
Soviet Union, I am wondering about the present re-run of the same story unfolding.
The difference
no is, that countries like Canada, the U.S., Australia, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and with the
AfD Germany are either as fascist, or more fascist than ever before. Once again, Russia is hyped up
to be the eternal arch enemy of 'Western fascist values', 'freedom and democracy'. How much more
difficult would it be today to round up resistance against a fascist axis that is hellbent to march
again Russia?
Sure, Trudeau is nothing but a bag of lukewarm air, but he employs hard core fascists in his
cabinet – paid for by the Canadian people. The rest of the what goes for the 'value West' is more
of a disgrace than at any time before. These are the real dark ages, as I have stated before.
Nothing good can come from these psychopathic puppets in control of countries that ought to deserve
much better. Maybe, just maybe, the people of the countries in question should read Rudi Dutschke's
works about 'Extra Parliamentary Opposition' – for Dummies?
Until Turkey is able to produce S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems – it will buy weapons from Russia.
Turkey intends to buy from Russia additional S-400 air defense systems
While Bernie Sanders is no Henry A. Wallace by a long shot, Elizabeth Warren is the new Harry Trumann.
The Democrats are still the Democratic fascist Party of America and have their party base hypnotized
into believing that it has the well being of its voters on its mind.
That is of course a lie and
pure propaganda. And since the U.S. is the second most vulnerable nation to propaganda and fascism –
with Germany being the number one, in both the past and the present – the people that refuse to leave
the Democratic Fascist Party are remiscent of those people who kept following Hitler, even after it
had become clear that his 'party' would drive Germany into the abyss.
For the brownshirt-like followers of proven war criminals that both lead, or finance the 'party',
absolutely no crime is big enough that would warrant to turn their back on the fascist party.
History
will look at the Sanders Warren debacle in the same way it must look now at
the theft
of the nomination of Henry A. Wallace
in favor of the person that had no whatsoever second
thoughts about dropping two nukes on an enemy that had already succumbed to the Soviet forces. Henry
A. Wallace would heve never dropped these nukes. He was a staunch supporter of the 'common man'. All
his policies reflected that. He was a presidential nominee for, of and by the people.
That did not sit too well with the fascists and they stole the nomination from him. Present day
America has turned into this corrupt cesspool because of this stolen nomination. Everything that is
sickening about the U.S. today, started in 1944. All the surveillance, the mindcontrol, the cold war
and the transformation into a wannabe empire – they are all the result of this infamy by the hands of
the Democratic fascists.
To all the mindless party members of the Democratic fascist party: if you repeat history by
allowing for the second time to install a puppet of the fascist powers in the U.S., you bear the full
responsibilty for the dropping of the next nukes. Suffering from such deep sitting cognitive
dissonance, party members will find all kinds of excuses to prevent the truth from coming out. Just as
there was no war crime by Clinton and Obama sufficient enough to not cheer them like the greatest
baseball team ever. Leave the Democratic fascist party now, or have history piss on your graves.
Norcal
Very convincing argument and link, perfectly done. Thank you nottheonly1.
nottheonly1
Thank You, Norcal. It may be best to download these video clips, since they are all taken down
one after another based on 'copyright issues'.
The difference between Sanders and Wallace is a painful one. Wallace fought against the theft
of his nomination with all he got. Subsequently, he realized that the 'Democratic' party would
never allow for a person with integrity and the well being of the people at heart to win any
nomination. He would have won the following presidency as a third party nominee – Trumann
however knew how to prevent that. As the clip states, the American people only have to be
frightened and you can sell them their own demise on a golden platter. The ridicule and shaming
of those who want a third party can also be traced back to this time.
It is equally very disturbing that the owner class managed to brain wash the people into
accepting the use of 'oligarchs', 'billionaires', or 'donors' when in truth they are the real
fascists Henry Wallace had warned about. This must be reversed by all means available. People
must understand that the concerted use of these euphemisms will make it next to impossible to
accept what these persons really are and what their goals are.
Jen
Much of what is sickening about the US as an imperial power today was present well before 1944 –
indeed was present during the 19th century when the US made colonies of Hawaii and the Philippines
in the 1890s, and occupied Haiti in 1915 (?), not leaving that country until the 1930s. Of course
there was also the genocide of First Nations peoples through the theft of their lands, the wars
waged to force them onto reservations, and the massive slaughter of bison as a way of destroying
many indigenous cultures.
nottheonly1
Yes, but never before was the deliberate change of course towards fascism so blatant than with
the ouster of Wallace. This was the watershed moment that turned the U.S. into the greatest
threat for humanity. When You read about Wallace, You will find out that he generally wanted
reconcile with the Native Indian Nation. He wanted cooperation with the Soviet Union/Russians
for a lasting global peace and prosperity for everyone, not just a few American maggots. Present
day U.S. started at that real day of infamy.
Lysias
Wallace was also a big supporter of establishing Israel.
Seamus Padraig
So, whereas they would be able to deal with Warren, they wouldn't be able to deal with Sanders,
whose policy-record is remarkably progressive in all respects, and not only on domestic U.S.
matters.
Frankly, Bernie could be better on foreign policy. While he
did
vote against the Iraq War–I give him all due credit for that–he hasn't really opposed any of
Washington's other wars, coups and régime-change operations in recent memory. Oh: and Bernie, the
self-described socialist, once referred to Hugo Chavez as a "dead dictator". That being said, he would
still be preferable to the remaining flotsam in the today's Democrap Party.
Rhys Jaggar
Forgive me for saying so, but is a party of working folks really supposed to be grovelling for favours
from billionaires? The Republicans are supposed to be the party for the rich, not the Democrats .
And is not time for billionaires to be bumped off by politicians, not politicians bumped off by
billionaires?
A tad uncritical on Sanders, especially his foreign policies, but otherwise an excellent and closely
argued takedown of the risible but sadly widespread delusion that America is a democracy. Thanks Eric.
Wilmers31
Democracy itself does not say anything about quality of life, it's just a system. US democracy runs
on money. Most thing in life do – pretending it is otherwise, that's where the problem is.
Democracy is just the shell – if you fill it with sh1t it's bad; if you fill it with honey it's
sweet.
Biden is remote-controllable, he'd do as told – so of course big money would prefer him.
I've just the other day written
this piece on democracy
. The immediate context is
the fiasco re the UK Queen granting Boris Johnson's request to prorogue (temporarily dissolve)
parliament, but the issues run deeper and wider.
Dungroanin
I skimmed through and didn't spot one mention of Gabbard!
Seems as if she is being non-personed
and ignored as a viable candidate (much like JC has been over here).
There is a long way to that election yet. (The US, ours is finally within reach, unless some
wildebeast tramples in )
The DNC dirty tricks won't wash this time – perhaps its time to start reading and talking about
the nitty gritty of these leaked mails – if for nothing else for the bravery and ultimate sacrifice
of Seth Rich.
Well I'm already stretched perilous thin, DG, but will give it thought.
Meantime,
this piece from last week
by Katia Novella Miller, first of a two parts with second part to
follow on the same KBNB World News site, gives a precis of what Wikileaks showed the world.
The lack of mention of Gabbard is telling, as is the fact the Billionaire crowd (Rubinites) are
pushing for a candidate I ain't even heard of.
The fact remains, a Sanders – Gabbard ticket
against Trump is the preferable outcome for many observers on the Left.
Just as a reminder, neither Sanders & Gabbard are God like figures, in much the same way
Corbyn ain't, however, they are the best available at this juncture in time if we really want
some change, even if it is incremental.
Dungroanin
I think Gabbard is as authentic a new voice as i have ever seen in the DNC. She may well make
it as an independent. Would Sanders?
I read somewhere that the US electorate were self
identified as third Republican, Democrat and independent.
If they were given an independent ticket- not part of the two billionaire funded main
parties then enough may join the independent third from these.
I'd say if a Gabbard/Paul grassroots campaign run by the Sanders 'momentum' network got
their act together the USA may finally mature into a proper democracy not owned by their
neolib con artistes.
Grafter
America where democracy has been extinguished and their increasingly paranoid voters are under the
mistaken belief that yet another talking head can return them to a fair and impartial existence.
Too
late. Money is king and those that have most want more. The sideshow of elections produces the
performing clowns such as Trump, Obama, Bush etc.all spouting the same vacuous promises on behalf of
their wealthy benefactors. No real choice or change and an illusion of caring for the welfare of their
citizenry. Listen carefully to the clowns, it's the sound of money talking.
It is not vey clear for whom Epstein used to work. Mossad connection is just one hypothesis.
What sovereign state would allow compromising politician by a foreign intelligence service. This
just does not compute.
But the whole tone of discussion below clearly point to the crisis of legitimacy of
neoliberal elite. And Russiagate had shown that the elite cares about it and tried to patch the
cracks.
As Eric
Rasmusen writes: "Everybody, it seems, in New York society knew by 2000 that Jeffrey
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were corrupting teenage girls, but the press wouldn't cover it."
Likewise, everybody in New York society has long known that Larry Silverstein, who bought the
asbestos-riddled white elephant World Trade Center in July 2001 and immediately doubled the
insurance, is a mobbed-up friend of Netanyahu and a confessed participant in the controlled
demolition of Building 7 , from which he earned over 700 million insurance dollars on the
pretext that al-Qaeda had somehow brought it down. But the press won't cover that either.
The New York Times , America's newspaper of record, has the investigative talent and
resources to expose major corruption in New York. Why did the Times spend almost two
decades ignoring the all-too-obvious antics of Epstein and Silverstein? Why is it letting the
absurd tale of Epstein's alleged suicide stand? Why hasn't it used the work of Architects and
Engineers for 9/11 Truth -- including the brand-new University of Alaska study on the controlled
demolition of WTC-7 -- to expose the biggest scandal of the 21 st century, if
not all of American history?
The only conceivable answer is that The New York Times is somehow complicit in these
monstrous crimes. It must be protecting its friends in high places. So who are those friends,
and where are those high places?
One thing Epstein and Silverstein have in common, besides names ending in "-stein," is
alleged involvement in the illicit sex industry. Epstein's antics, or at least some of them,
are by now well-known. Not so for Silverstein, who apparently began his rags-to-9/11-riches
story as a pimp supplying prostitutes and nude dancers to the shadier venues of NYC, alongside
other illicit activities including "the heroin trade, money laundering
and New York Police corruption." All of this was exposed in a mid-1990s lawsuit. But good
luck finding any investigative reports in The New York Times .
Another Epstein-Silverstein connection is their relationships to major American Jewish
organizations. Even while he was allegedly pimping girls and running heroin, Larry Silverstein
served as president for United Jewish Appeal of New York. As for Epstein, he was the boy toy
and protégé of Les Wexner, co-founder of
the Mega Group of Jewish billionaires associated with the World Jewish Congress, the
Anti-Defamation League, and other pro-Israel groups. Indeed, there is no evidence that
"self-made billionaire" Epstein ever earned significant amounts of money; his only investment
"client" was Les Wexner. Epstein, a professional sexual blackmailer, used his supposed
billionaire status as a cover story. In fact, he was just an employee working for Wexner and
associated criminal/intelligence networks.
Which brings us to the third and most important Epstein-Silverstein similarity: They were
both close to the government of Israel. Jeffrey Epstein's handler was Ghislaine Maxwell,
daughter of Mossad super-spy Robert Maxwell; among his friends was Ehud Barak, who is currently
challenging Netanyahu for leadership of Israel. Larry Silverstein, too, has friends in high
Israeli places. According to Haaretz , Silverstein has "close ties with Netanyahu"
(speaking to him on the phone every weekend) as well as with Ehud Barak, "whom Silverstein in
the past offered a job as his representative in Israel" and who called Silverstein immediately
after 9/11.
We may reasonably surmise that both Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Silverstein have been carrying
on very important work on behalf of the state of Israel. And we may also surmise that this is
the reason The New York Times has been covering up the scandals associated with both
Israeli agents for almost two decades. The Times , though it pretends to be America's
newspaper of record, has always been Jewish-owned-and-operated. Its coverage has always been
grotesquely
distorted in favor of Israel . It has no interest in exposing the way Israel controls the
United States by blackmailing its leaders (Epstein) and staging a fake "Arab-Muslim attack on
America" (Silverstein). The awful truth is that The New York Times is part of the same
Jewish-Zionist "
we control America " network as Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Silverstein.
Epstein "Suicide" Illustrates Zionist Control of USA -- and the Decadence and Depravity
of Western Secularism
Since The New York Times and other mainstream media won't go there, let's reflect on
the facts and lessons of the Jeffrey Epstein suicide scandal -- a national disgrace that ought
to shock Americans into rethinking their worldviews in general, and their views on the official
myth of 9/11 in particular.
On Saturday, August 10, 2019, convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was allegedly
found dead in his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City, one of
America's most corrupt prisons. The authorities claim Epstein hanged himself. But nobody, not
even the presstitutes of America's corporate propaganda media, convincingly pretends to believe
the official story.
Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile pimp to presidents and potentates. His job was recruiting
young girls for sex, then offering them to powerful men -- in settings outfitted with hidden
video cameras. When police raided his New York townhouse on July 6-7 2019 they found locked
safes full of pornographic pictures of underage girls, along with piles of compact discs
labeled "young (name of girl) + (name of VIP)." Epstein had been openly and brazenly carrying
on such activities for more than two decades, as reported throughout most of that period by
alternative media outlets including my own Truth Jihad Radio and False Flag Weekly News . (Even
before the 2016 elections, my audience knew that both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were
blackmailed clients of Jeffrey Epstein, that Clinton was a frequent flyer on Epstein's "Lolita
Express" private jet, and that Trump had been credibly accused in a lawsuit of joining Epstein
in the brutal rape of a 13-year-old, to whom Trump then allegedly issued death threats.) It was
only in the summer of 2019 that mainstream media and New York City prosecutors started talking
about what used to be consigned to the world of "conspiracy theories."
So who was Epstein working for? His primary employer was undoubtedly the Israeli Mossad and
its worldwide Zionist crime network. Epstein's handler was Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of
Mossad super-spy Robert Maxwell. According to sworn depositions, Ghislaine Maxwell recruited
underage girls for Epstein and oversaw his sex trafficking operations. As the New Yorker
reported August 16: "In court papers that were unsealed on August 9th, it was alleged that
Maxwell had been Epstein's central accomplice, first as his girlfriend, and, later, as his
trusted friend and procuress, grooming a steady stream of girls, some as young as fourteen,
coercing them to have sex with Epstein at his various residences around the world, and
occasionally participating in the sexual abuse herself." Alongside Maxwell, Epstein's other
Mossad handler was
Les Wexner, co-founder of the notorious Mega Group of billionaire Israeli spies , who
appears to have originally recruited the penniless Epstein and handed him a phony fortune so
Epstein could pose as a billionaire playboy.
Even after Epstein's shady "suicide" mega-Mossadnik Maxwell continued to flaunt her impunity
from American justice. She no doubt conspired to publicize the August 15 New York Post
photograph of herself smiling and looking "chillingly serene" at In-And-Out-Burger in Los
Angeles, reading The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of C.I.A. Operatives .
That nauseating photo inspired the New
Yorker to accuse her of having "gall" -- a euphemism for the Yiddish chutzpah , a quality
that flourishes in the overlapping Zionist and Kosher Nostra communities.
Maxwell and The New York Post , both Kosher Nostra/Mossad assets, were obviously
sending a message to the CIA: Don't mess with us or we will expose your complicity in these
scandalous crimes. That is the Mossad's standard operating procedure: Infiltrate and compromise
Western intelligence services in order to prevent them from interfering with the Zionists'
over-the-top atrocities. According to French historian
Laurent Guyénot's hypothesis, the CIA's false flag fake assassination attempt on
President John F. Kennedy, designed to be blamed on Cuba, was transformed by Mossad into a real
assassination -- and the CIA couldn't expose it due to its own complicity. (The motive: Stop
JFK from ending Israel's nuclear program.) The same scenario, Guyénot argues, explains
the anomalies of the Mohamed Merah affair
, the Charlie Hebdo killings, and the 9/11 false flag operation. It would not be surprising if
Zionist-infiltrated elements of the CIA were made complicit in Jeffrey Epstein's sexual
blackmail activities, in order to protect Israel in the event Epstein had to be "burned" (which
is apparently what has finally occurred).
So what really happened to Epstein? Perhaps the most likely scenario is that the Kosher
Nostra, which owns New York in general and the mobbed-up MCC prison in particular, allowed the
Mossad to exfiltrate Epstein to Occupied Palestine, where he will be given a facelift, a
pension, a luxury suite overlooking the Mediterranean, and a steady stream of young sex slaves
(Israel is the world's capital of human trafficking, an honor it claimed from the Kosher Nostra
enclaves of Odessa after World War II). Once the media heat wave blows over, Epstein will
undoubtedly enjoy visits from his former Mossad handler Ghislaine Maxwell, his good friend Ehud
Barak, and various other Zionist VIPs. He may even offer fresh sex slaves to visiting American
congressmen.
This is not just a paranoid fantasy scenario. According to Eric
Rasmusen : "The Justice Dept. had better not have let Epstein's body be cremated. And
they'd better give us convincing evidence that it's his body. If I had $100 million to get out
of jail with, acquiring a corpse and bribing a few people to switch fingerprints and DNA
wouldn't be hard. I find it worrying that the government has not released proof that Epstein is
dead or a copy of the autopsy."
But didn't the alleged autopsy reportedly find broken neck bones that are more commonly
associated with strangulation murders than suicides? That controversy may have been scripted to
distract the public from
an insider report on 4chan , first published before the news of Epstein's "suicide" broke,
that Epstein had been "switched out" of MCC. If so, the body with the broken neck bones wasn't
Epstein's.
The Epstein affair (like 9/11) illustrates two critically important truths about Western
secularism: there is no truth, and there are no limits. A society that no longer believes in
God no longer believes in truth, since God is al-haqq, THE truth, without Whom the whole
notion of truth has no metaphysical basis. The postmodern philosophers understand this
perfectly well. They taught a whole generation of Western humanities scholars that truth is
merely a function of power: people accept something as "true" to the extent that they are
forced by power to accept it. So when the most powerful people in the world insist that three
enormous steel-frame skyscrapers were blown to smithereens by relatively modest office fires on
9/11, that absurd assertion becomes the official "truth" as constructed by such Western
institutions as governments, courts, media, and academia. Likewise, the assertion that Jeffrey
Epstein committed suicide under circumstances that render that assertion absurd will probably
become the official "truth" as recorded and promulgated by the West's ruling institutions, even
though nobody will ever really believe it.
Epstein's career as a shameless, openly-operating Mossad sexual blackmailer -- like the
in-your-face 9/11 coup -- also illustrates another core truth of Western secularism: If there
is no God, there are no limits (in this case, to human depravity and what it can get away
with). Or as Dostoevsky famously put it: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."
Since God alone can establish metaphysically-grounded limits between what is permitted and what
is forbidden, a world without God will feature no such limits; in such a world Aleister
Crowley's satanic motto "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" becomes the one and
only commandment. In today's Godless West, why should men not "do what they wilt" and
indulge their libidos by raping young girls if they can get away with it? After all, all the
other sexual taboos are being broken, one by one. Fornication, adultery, homosexuality,
sadomasochism, gender-bending all of these have been transformed during my lifetime from crimes
and vices to "human rights" enjoyed by the most liberal and fashionable right-thinking Western
secularists. Even bestiality and necrophilia are poised to become normalized "sexual
identities" whose practitioners will soon be proudly marching in "bestiality pride" and
"necrophilia pride" parades. So why not normalize pedophilia and other forms of rape
perpetrated by the strong against the weak? And why not add torture and murder in service to
sexual gratification? After all, the secret bible of the sexual identity movement is the
collected works of the Marquis de Sade, the satanic prophet of sexual liberation, with whom the
liberal progressivist secular West is finally catching up. It will not be surprising if, just a
few years after the Jeffrey Epstein "suicide" is consigned to the memory hole, we will be
witnessing LGBTQBNPR parades, with the BNPR standing for bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia,
and rape. (It would have been LGBTQBNPRG, with the final G standing for Gropers like President
Trump, except that the G was already taken by the gays.) The P's, pioneers of pedophile pride
parades, will undoubtedly celebrate Jeffrey Epstein as an ahead-of-his-time misunderstood hero
who was unjustly persecuted on the basis of his unusual sexual orientation.
It is getting harder and harder to satirize the decadence and depravity of the secular West,
which insists on parodying itself with ever-increasing outlandishness. When the book on this
once-mighty civilization is written, and the ink is dry, readers will be astounded by the
limitless lies of the drunk-on-chutzpah psychopaths who ran it into the ground.
Correct me if I am wrong but I thought Lucky Larry only leased the WTC buildings rather than
actually purchased them. I think I have read that his investment was in the region of 150
mill for which he has recouped a whopping 4 bill.
Would you please answer a preliminary question before I put finishing this on my busy agenda?
You stake a fair bit of your credit on what you say about Larry Silverstein and insurance. My
present understanding is that the insurance cover for WTC 1 and 2 was increased as a routine
part of the financing deal he had made for a purchase which was only months old. Not true?
Not the full story? Convince us.
As to WTC 7 my understanding is that he had owned the building for some years and had not
recently increased the insurance. Not true? And when did any clause get into his WTC7
insurance contract which might have had some effect on inflating the payout?
“Trump had been credibly accused in a lawsuit of joining Epstein in the brutal rape of
a 13-year-old, to whom Trump then allegedly issued death threats.)”
The “Katie Johnson” case collapsed in 2016 when it was revealed that
“she” was in fact a middle-aged man, a stringer for the Jerry Springer show. Just
another Gloria Allred fraud.
“a society that no longer believes in god no longer believes in the truth, since god is
the truth….blah blah blah”
This is thin gruel indeed…..just silly platitudes from a muzzie convert. There are at
least 100 billion galaxies in the universe with each galaxy containing as many as 100 billion
stars. And there is no telling how many universes there are. Does anyone really believe
Barrett’s preferred deity takes a time out from running this vast empire to service
Barrett’s yearning for “truth”? Just goes to prove that humans will believe
almost any idea as long as it’s sufficiently idiotic.
“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse
of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that
studied the collapse.”
“It is our conclusion based upon these findings that the collapse of WTC 7 was a
global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of all columns in the building and
not a progressive collapse involving the sequential failure of columns throughout the
building.”
Speaking of the truth v. parody I’d really rather work on the cause of
Epstein’s death –yes I think he’s dead– suicide or
strangulation ?
There are some things the Justice Dept. could do if they wanted to. Why they apparently
didn’t want to expose the corpse in greater detail, let media view the cell, have
correspondent(s) interview the ex- cellmate of Epstein, et.al just leads to suspicions.
This is something they should have to answer for . That includes AG Barr. Trump could make
it happen–like every thing else– if Barr says no. The President won’t.
Dostoyevsky with his “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”
overlooked the Jewish God who permits much more when it comes to Jewish gentile relations.
The Jewish God is not limited by the Kant’s First Moral Imperative. The Jewish
God’s moral laws are not universal. They are context dependent according to the
Leninist Who, whom rule.
Not so for Silverstein, who apparently began his rags-to-9/11-riches story as a pimp
supplying prostitutes and nude dancers to the shadier venues of NYC, alongside other
illicit activities including “the heroin trade, money laundering and New York
Police corruption.”
I would like to see more about the beginnings of Silverstein’s career.
Good work Kevin, Irrelevant exactly what Silverstein did in way of insurance.The FACT is
that WTC7 DID NOT FALL due to fires. Neither did WTC1 or 2. The 6 million dollar question
is ‘WHO put the ‘bang’ in the building?’ to bring them down, by
what ever means. Im in favour of nukes for 1 and 2.
Answer that! Why isnt Silverstein arrested? I think Kevin provided the answer in the
article..
I just stumbled onto your article from a link on reddit, r/epstein. You make some
convincing arguments. I was thrilled that you brought 9/11 into this – because the
Epstein “suicide” and how it is being covered reminds me so much of how I felt
after 9/11 and the run-up to the war. -But you lost me at the end with the stuff about
Godless secularism. I’ve read the bible and it is not the answer to what’s
wrong with the world.
Why did the Times spend almost two decades ignoring the all-too-obvious antics of
Epstein and Silverstein? Why is it letting the absurd tale of Epstein’s alleged
suicide stand?
One thing cannot be denied : Epstein was arrested, denied bail and jailed awaiting trail
on a Federal indictment for much the same offence he had pleaded guilty to a decade ago,
which did not involve even a single homicide yet made him universally reviled and in as
much trouble with the legal system as a man could be (almost certain never to get out
again). Epstein was in far more trouble that anyone of his financial resources has ever
been, but then that was for paying for sex acts with young teen girls.
What an awesomely impressive testament to the impunity enjoyed by the Jewish
elite Epstein is. It is no wonder that Larry Silverstein was insouciant about the risks of
a Jewish lightning fraud controlled demolition killing thousands of people in a building he
had just bought and increased the insurance coverage of. After all, it wasn’t
anything serious like paying for getting hundreds of handjobs from underage girls. And it
is not like someone like the Pizzagate nut that fired his AR15 into underground child
molestation complex beneath the Dems restaurant/pedophile centre would take all those WTC
deaths seriously enough to shoot at him just because of inevitable internet accusations of
mass murder. Mr Barrett, why don’t you step up and do it, thereby proving you
believe the things you say .
@NoseytheDuke Yes, he leased the World Trade Center buildings one and two from the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey. He built World Trade Center building seven, having
acquired a ground lease from Port Authority.
I can’t imagine why you ask this question in a public venue. I found the answer in
less than one minute on the internet.
I assume the insurance policies were for the present value of his net profits for the
duration of the leases.
I recall reading about this guy prior to the event. I believe it was USATODAY . He and a
silent partner had bought the complex with a down of 63million and had it insured for
7billion. I thought it odd that the port authority would let go of the property at the
time.
As the building deficiencies became known afterwards,my thoughts were along the line of
insurance fraud.
I came across a copy of the rand Corp “state of the world 2000” which
accurately describes the scenario and resulting culture of terror as “one possible
future “…. funny how it’s taken all these years to discover this
website.
Indeed, there is no evidence that “self-made billionaire” Epstein ever
earned significant amounts of money.
Good thing that Wexner is Jewish so we can discount the possibility that he was telling
the truth the other month when he said that Epstein stole vast amounts of Wexner money
Alongside Maxwell, Epstein’s other Mossad handler was Les Wexner, co-founder of
the notorious Mega Group of billionaire Israeli spies
Wexner and his fellow Mossad spy Maxwell leaving Virginia Roberts alive to repeatedly
sue them, and use the world”s media to accuse them of sexually abusing, trafficking,
pimping her out to VIPs, and fiming the trysts was a brilliant way to keep everything a
secret.
Mossad handler Ghislaine Maxwell, his good friend Ehud Barak, and various other
Zionist VIPs.
Yes, they are the greatest covert operatives ever.
Epstein’s crimes are simple breaches of etiquette when compared to Silverstein. I
believe the term “Silverstein valleys” has been used to describe the melted
granite discovered beneath the former towers, Silverstein grins widely in interviews, while
so many suffered horribly.
One might even consider the 9/11 deaths to be something of a “holocaust”.
Certainly one of the most evil human beings to have walked the Earth.
@Wizard of Oz Silverstein said he gave the okay for wtc 7 to be “pulled”.
The building was on fire at the time. Either someone wired it to be pulled while it was on
fire and already damaged or it was wired for demolition beforehand. The second scenario
seems a lot more likely. In that case all the insurance contract details are largely
irrelevant to the bigger picture.
The idea that the CIA is somehow independent of Mossad and that Mossad would have to warn
the CIA off of the Epstein matter is implausible to me. Guyenot’s hypothesis tends to
give cover to the CIA in the assassination of JFK by claiming that the CIA plot was set in
motion as some sort of attempt to control JFK and that it was hijacked into an actual
assassination by Mossad. That just isn’t credible.
It’s much more accurate to observe that the CIA was erected by the same zionists
who oversaw the creation of Israel and later the forming of Mossad, and that the two
agencies have been joined at the hip ever since.
@WorkingClass Bad cop good cop. NYT is trying to destroy him . Israel says to him
:” send this , do this ,allow us to do this , increase this by this amount , and we
will make sure that in final analysis you don’t get hurt ”
Trump possibly knows that the only people who could hurt him is the Jewish people of power
.
Has NYT ever criticized Trump for relocating embassy , recognizing Golan, for allowing
Israel use Anerican resources to hit Syria or Gaza , for allowing Israel drag US into more
military involvement. for allowing Israel wage war against Gaza ,? Has NYT ever explored
the dynamics behind abrogation of JCPOA and application of more sanctions?
NYT has focused on Russia gate knowing in advance that it has no merit and no public
traction, Is it hurting Trump or itself ?
People with normal IQ would believe that Epstein killed himself, if the following took
place –
Media day and night asking questions about him from 360 degree of inquiries
1 why the surveillance video were not functioning despite the serious nature of the
charges against a man who could rat out a lot in court against powerful people
2 why the coroner initially thought that Epstein was murdered
3 how many guards and how many fell asleep?
4 who and why allowed the spin story around Epstein brilliance and high IQ build up over
the years ?
5 how does Epstein come to get linked to non -Jews people who have absolute loyalty to
Israel
6 how did Epstein get involved with Jewish leaders ?
7 How did Epstein continue to enjoy seat on Harvard and enjoy social celebrity status after
plea deal ?
8 Why did Wexner allow this man so much control over his asset ?
9 Media felt if terrorism were unique Muslim thing , why media is not alluding to the fact
that pedophilia is a unique Jewish thing ?
10 why the angle of Israel being sex slavery capital and Epstein being sex slave pimp not
being connected ?
11 how death in prison in foreign unfriendly countries often become causus celebre by US
media , politicians , NGO and US treasury – why not this death ?
@Fozzy Bear Not true. A respectable civil rights attorney, Lisa Bloom, handled Katie
Johnson’s case. Shortly before the scheduled press conference at which Johnson was to
appear publicly, she received multiple death threats: “Bloom said that her
firm’s website was hacked, that Anonymous had claimed responsibility, and that death
threats and a bomb threat came in afterwards.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/3/13501364/trump-rape-13-year-old-lawsuit-katie-johnson-allegation
Johnson folded because she was terrified (and perhaps paid off).
@Twodees Partain In “Body of Secrets” by James Bamford, a newspaper article
from the Truman era is referenced where the OSS, predecessor of the CIA, is described as
“a converted vault in Washington used as an office space for 5 or 6 Jews working to
protect our national secrets” (or similar wording).
Going from memory and gave away my copy of the book….. sorry for the vague
reference, but you can look it up.
@nsa An atheist like “nsa” must concede Dosteovsky’s point from his
novel The Possessed that even for the atheist the concept of God represents the collective
consciousness, highest principles, and ontological aspirations of believers. Given this
sense, “nsa’s” real animus is more than likely an atavistic hatred of
Christians and Muslims, probably for just being alive in his paranoid mind. What imbecility
when this clown cites a multiverse of universes that has no proof and less plausibility for
its existence than the tooth fairy. I’d also bet “nsa” speaks algebra,
too, like the recently deceased mathematical genius, Jeffrey Epstein.
What’s Mr. Wexner’s, Mega’s, and Mossad/CIA’s involvement?
That’s the real question trolls like “nsa” and the Dems and Republicans
alike are crapping in their pants we’ll find out. When evidence starts to cascade out
of their ability to spin or suppress it, things will get interesting. Meanwhile, Fox News
is still doing its best from what I can tell to run cover for 911, now extended to the
suspiciously related perps in the Epstein affair.
“The Epstein affair (like 9/11) illustrates two critically important truths about
Western secularism: there is no truth, and there are no limits. A society that no longer
believes in God no longer believes in truth…..”
“While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national
consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state,
the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to
build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a
central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own
sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted
scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.
It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one
section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open
effrontery comes out as the Jewish race.”
More prophetic words were ever spoken or written by any of the statesmen of the
Twentieth Century than these, even though they themselves were insufficient to describe the
horrors that the Zionist state would bring upon the world if left unchecked- and its power
and influence have been unchecked since the 1960’s. The last time that the world
stood up to Zionist power in an appreciable way was during the Suez Crisis.
DOT.. Port loses claim for asbestos removal | Business Insurance https://www.businessinsurance.com › article
› ISSUE01 › port-loses-claim-… May 13, 2001 – The suit sought claim of the Port Authority’s huge cost
of removing asbestos from hundreds of properties ranging from the enormous World Trade
Center complex
DOT…Silverstein knew when he leased WTC 7 that he would have to pay out of pocket
for asbestos abatement removal in WTC 7, multiple millions, which is why the Port Authority
leased it so cheaply.
DOT…In May, 2000, a year before, signing the lease, he already had the design
drawn for a new WTC building. Silverstein had no plans to remove the asbestos as he already
had plans to replace it.
DOT… Larry Silverstein signs the lease just six weeks before the WTC’s twin
towers were brought to the ground by terrorists in the September 11, 2001, attacks.
DOT….After leasing the complex, Silverstein negotiated with 24 insurance
companies for a maximum coverage of $3.55 billion per catastrophic occurrence.
However, the agreements had not been finalized before 9/11.
DOT…..Silverstein tries to sue insurers for double the payout claiming 2
catastrophic occurrences because of 2 planes involved.
DOT….Silver loses that lawsuit but sues the air lines and settles for almost
another billion, $ 750,000,000.
Just another Jew insurance fire folks. He planned on tearing down WTC 7 to begin with.
The only missing DOT is who he hired to set the demolition explosives in WTC 7. Were they
imported from our ME ally?
While people do not agree of detail the main theme is common: government stories explaining
both 9/11 and Epstein death are not credible. And that government tried to create an "artificial
reality" to hide real events and real culprits.
Absence of credible information create fertile ground for creation of myths and rumors,
sometimes absurd. But that'a well known sociaological phenomenon studies by late Tamotsu Shibutani in the
context of WWII rumors ( Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor (1966)).
Now we can interpret famous quote of
William Casey "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American
public believes is false as an admission of the fact that the government can create artificial
reality" much like in film Matrix and due to thick smoke of propaganda people are simply unable
to discern the truth.
A foreign policy of "maximum pressure" and swagger: tawdry bribes, heavy-handed threats,
and complete failure ..now what group does this remind me of?
US State Dept Program Offers $15 Million to Iran Revolutionary Guards September 4,
2019
The US State Department has unveiled a new $15 million "reward program" for anyone who
provides information on the financial inner workings of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, in an
attempt to further disrupt them.
The program comes after the US declared the Revolutionary Guards "terrorists," but remains
very unusual, in as much as it targets an agency of a national government instead of just
some random militant group.
The Financial Times reports on the farce that is our government's Iran policy:
Four days before the US imposed sanctions on an Iranian tanker suspected of shipping oil
to Syria, the vessel's Indian captain received an unusual email from the top Iran official at
the Department of State.
"This is Brian Hook . . . I work for secretary of state Mike
Pompeo and serve as the US Representative for Iran," Mr Hook wrote to Akhilesh Kumar on
August 26, according to several emails seen by the Financial Times. "I am writing with good
news."
The "good news" was that the Trump administration was offering Mr Kumar several million
dollars to pilot the ship -- until recently known as the Grace 1 -- to a country that would
impound the vessel on behalf of the US. To make sure Mr Kumar did not mistake the email for a
scam, it included an official state department phone number.
The administration's Iran obsession has reached a point where they are now trying to bribe
people to act as pirates on their behalf. When the U.S. was blocked by a court in Gibraltar
from taking the ship, they sought to buy the loyalty of the captain in order to steal it.
Failing that, they resorted to their favorite tool of sanctions to punish the captain and his
crew for ignoring their illegitimate demand. The captain didn't respond to the first message,
so Hook persisted with his embarrassing scheme:
"With this money you can have any life you wish and be well-off in old age," Mr Hook wrote in
a second email to Mr Kumar that also included a warning. "If you choose not to take this easy
path, life will be much harder for you."
Many people have already mocked Hook's message for its resemblance to a Nigerian prince
e-mail scam, and I might add that he comes across here sounding like a B-movie gangster.
Hook's contact was not an isolated incident, but part of a series of e-mails and texts that
he has sent to various ships' captains in a vain effort to intimidate them into falling in
line with the administration's economic war. This is what comes of a foreign policy of
"maximum pressure" and swagger: tawdry bribes, heavy-handed threats, and complete
failure.
The Committee of 300 is an evolution of the British East Indies Company Council of 300. The
list personally last seen included many Windsors (Prince Andrew), Rothchilds, other Royals.
Some of the Americans included some now dead and other still living: George HW Bush, Bill
Clinton Tom Steyer, Al Gore, John Kerry, Netanyahu, lots of bankers, Woolsey (ex CIA),
journalists like Michael Bloomberg, Paul Krugman, activists and politians like Tony Blair,
now dead Zbigniew Brzezinski, CEOs Charles and Edgar Bronfman. The list is long and out of
date but these people control much of what goes on whether good or bad. Their hands are
everywhere doing good and maybe some of this bad stuff.
Given the facts a 10 year-old child could see that the official 911 explanation was totally
flawed. Just three of these facts are sufficient, the 'dancing Israelis', Silverstein
admitting to the 'pull (demolish) it' order and the collapse of steel-framed WTC 7 in
freefall despite not being hit. It is not hyperbole to say that America is a failed state
given that the known perpetrators were never even charged. ZOG indeed.
A respectable civil rights attorney, Lisa Bloom, handled Katie Johnson's case.
"Respectable"?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
You do realize that Lisa Bloom is the daughter of Glora Allred and defender of Harvey
Weinstein do you not?
You people are so desperate to try to link Trump to Epstein it's pathetic.
I suggest you go back to your gatekeeping nonsense of trying to discredit the 9/11 Truth
Movement by spreading misinformation about nukes in the towers.
This article stakes out much important ground of information and interpretation Kevin
Barrett. The essay resonates as a historic statement of some of our current predicaments.
What about the comparisons that might be made concerning the mysteries attending the
disappearing corpses of Osama bin Laden and Jeffrey Epstein. And according to Christopher
Ketcham, the release of the High Fivin' Urban Movers back to Israel was partially negotiated
by Alan Dershowitz who played a big role in defending Epstein over a long period.
@anon The ultimate "nutjob quackery" of 9/11 is Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission Report,
a document that stands as a testimony and marker signifying the USA's descent into a mad
hatter's imperium of lies. legend and illusion.
It is getting harder and harder to satirize the decadence and depravity of the secular
West, which insists on parodying itself with ever-increasing outlandishness. When the book
on this once-mighty civilization is written, and the ink is dry, readers will be astounded
by the limitless lies of the drunk-on-chutzpah psychopaths who ran it into the ground
@Kevin Barrett Adding to Junior's comment, I quit reading after you wrote of "credible
accusations" of Mr. Trump being involved "in the brutal rape of a 13 year old." And feminist
shakedown artist Lisa Bloom, daughter of the even more infamous feminist shakedown artist G.
Allred, is your "credible source?" Bloom has about as much credibility as the sicko democrat
women who tried to derail Judge Kavanaugh.
Regardless of how much one might hate Trump (and I'm no Trump supporter) levelling such
unfounded accusations is journalistic malfeasance. Did we elect the Devil Incarnate? Mr.
Barrett, I'm done reading you.
The special relationship between the CIA and the Mossad was driven partly by the efforts of
CIA officer James Angleton . Philip Weiss in his article in Mondoweiss entitled "The goy and
the golem: James Angleton and the rise of Israel." states that Angleton's " greatest service
to Israel was his willingness no to say a word about the apparent diversion of highly
enriched plutonium from a plant in Western Pennsylvania to Israel's nascent nuclear program "
The same program which JFK tried to curtail which efforts may have led to his assassination .
a confessed participant in the controlled demolition of Building 7,
For the love of God, this is stupid. Larry Silverstein was talking about the Fire
Commander , for fuck's sake. The Fire Commander made the decision to pull the
firefighters out of the building because they could not put the fire out and were in
unnecessary danger. That's all he meant. There is not one word in this that has anything to
do with a controlled demolition whatsoever.
In order to believe what the 9/11 Douchers would have you believe about this comment, you
would have to believe that 1) Building 7 was wired for demolition beforehand; 2) That the NYC
Fire Commander somehow knew about this; 3) That the NYC Fire Commander was perfectly okay
with allowing his men to spend hours inside a burning building in which he knew that
explosive charges had already been rigged to blow; 4) That the NYC Fire Commander had the
authority to decide when the charges should be blown and had access to the master switch that
would blow them all; 5) That after 7 hours of attempting to fight the fire, the NYC Fire
Commander (who by now can be nothing but a full-fledged member of the conspiracy) decides,
after briefly consulting with Larry Silverstein, "Oh, the hell with this! Let's just blow up
the building now!", to which Larry Silverstein agrees; 6) That after spending 7 hours in a
burning building that had fires burning randomly throughout it and that had been struck by
multiple pieces of debris, all of the explosive charges and their detonators were still in
perfect working order; 7) That none of the firefighters extensively searching the building
for survivors happened to notice any of the pre-placed explosive charges nor thought it
necessary to report about such; 8) That the NYC Fire Commander then proceeds to "pull" the
building after presumably giving some other order for the men to evacuate, which order was
never recorded because the "pull" order must have meant "blow up the building"; 9) And that
Larry Silverstein, after being part of a massive conspiracy involving insurance fraud,
murder, and arson which, if exposed, would send him to a federal death sentence, just decides
to casually mention all of this in a television interview for all and sundry to see, but it
is only the 9/11 Douchers who pick up on the significance of it.
Does any of this sound remotely believable? Did anyone subscribing to this nonsense stop
to think about the context in which this conversation took place? Do any of you 9/11 Douchers
even care that you're being completely ridiculous and grasping at nonexistent straws in your
vain attempt to establish some sort of case for controlled demolition? Do you even care that
everybody can see that what you are saying makes no sense at all? It is perfectly
obvious that Larry Silverstein is NOT talking about controlled demolition here. To
believe otherwise would require you to literally be insane, to not understand the plain
meaning of words and to have no awareness of conversational contexts; yet not only have you
swallowed all of this, you have been beating the drum of this insanity for nearly 20
years.
There is no point in reasoning with an insane person. There is, however, the possibility
that you don't really believe what you are saying and are just flogging a hobbyhorse, in
which case it is you who are engaging in mendacious journalism and trafficking in
lies. In either case, you need to be silenced. Neither lies nor insanity have any "right" to
be uttered in the public square. You 9/11 Douchers are really the ones doing everything you
accuse the mainstream media of doing, and worse. You have become a danger to the public weal
and must be stopped. Your conspiratorial nonsense just isn't cute anymore.
The official stories about the Kennedy assassination, Epstein's death, and 9/11 are
clearly suspect. No one with the capacity for critical thinking can seriously deny this.
Which elements of these stories are true and which are false will never be resolved.
Because:
The mainstream media including Fox News have abdicated their mission as fact finders and
truth tellers. They peddle entertainment and sell ad space. Rachel Maddow foaming at the
mouth about Trump's pee tape and Hannity fulminating about FISA abuse are the same product,
simply aimed at different demographics.
Nothing in the above two paragraphs is even remotely novel. It's all been said before
twenty bazillion times.
Being a feminist or Democrat (or nonfeminist or Republican) is irrelevant to a person's
credibility. It's possible that Lisa Bloom was part of a conspiracy to invent a fictitious
Katy Johnson story, in which case Bloom is guilty of criminal fraud as well as civil libel.
That would be quite a risk for her to take, to say the least. It's also possible that she was
somehow duped by others, in which case they would be running the civil and criminal
liabilities, while she would just get disbarred for negligence.
The same is true of Johnson's attorney Thomas Meagher.
It is also possible that Johnson's story is at least roughly accurate. There is supporting
testimony from another Epstein victim.
If you set aside your prejudices about Democrats-Republicans, feminists-antifeminists,
Trump-Hillary, etc., and just look at what's been reported, you'll agree with me that the
allegations are credible (but of course unproven). If you suffer emotional blocks against
thinking such things about a President, as so many did when similar things were reported
about Bill Clinton, I sympathize but also urge you to get psychiatric treatment so you can
learn to face unpleasant facts and then get to work cleaning up this country.
The release of Prof. J. Leroy Hulsey report on the finite element analysis of the WTC7
collapse should be a big news.
But won't be.
Democracy works this way. The ruling elite, via the media, Hollywood, etc., tell the
people what to think, the people then vote according to the way they think.
So the truth of 9/11 will never be known to the majority unless we have a public statement
from George W. Bush acknowledging that he personally lit the fuse that set off the explosions
that brought WTC 7 down at free-fall
speed .
This is fortunate for the intrepid Dr. Hulsey* who would, presumably, otherwise have had
to be dispatched by a sudden heart attack, traffic accident, weight-lifting accident suicide
with a bullet to the back of the head. As it is, hardly anyone will ever know what he will
say or what it means.
* Fortunate also for those who so rashly advocate for truth here and elsewhere on the yet
to be fully controlled Internets.
Nicely done. Article will not be featured on front page NYT & discussed on TV.
There are many highlights in your article. This is one.
Epstein's career as a shameless, openly-operating Mossad sexual blackmailer -- like the
in-your-face 9/11 coup -- also illustrates another core truth of Western secularism: If
there is no God, there are no limits (in this case, to human depravity and what it can get
away with). Or as Dostoevsky famously put it: "If God does not exist, everything is
permitted."
Please consult the following papers about the CIA/Mossad crimes against humanity and their
pimps who pose as 'politicians' of the fake Western 'democracy' where Epstein was their agent
serving their interest as a PIMP.
{from being the work of a single political party, intelligence agency or country, the
power structure revealed by the network connected to Epstein is nothing less than a criminal
enterprise that is willing to use and abuse children in the pursuit of ever more power,
wealth and control.}
"... What do all those "safe" candidates have in common? Oh, that's right- they all lost . ..."
"... So the more overtly neoliberal candidates are stalling or bailing, with the more progressive candidates (actually or putatively) -- Sanders and Warren -- sailing along. Is that some kind of surprise? ..."
Warren has the Acela corridor's backing and that has been expressed in some fawning
coverage from the likes of the WaPo and NYT. Krugman has hinted that she's his candidate as
well.
Unless something completely untoward happens, expect her to get great reviews in the next
debate.
I don't see how a classic Massachusetts liberal like Warren (to me she's very close to
Teddy K in her policy views ) motivates enough abstaining voters to beat Trump. Not enough
there, there.
Re the polls: Matt Taibbi recently wrote that if Biden lost ground Sanders would be the
likely gainer, since Bernie is the second choice for most Biden supporters. But it appears
Warren is benefiting as Biden slides.
Too bad. Still, maybe it's just the minority of Biden supporters who pick Warren as their
2nd choice who are bailing on Biden so far. Sanders may still gain if the more hard-core
Bidenites begin to leave.
As for Beto's plan to snatch our AK's and AR's, good for him for being so forthright. It's
a terrible idea, but one can appreciate the flat-out honesty.
" the enduring questions surrounding Biden's age and fitness for office may mean
Democrats will lack the "safe" choice they have had in the past, whether the candidate has
been former Vice President Al Gore in 2000, former U.S. Senator John Kerry in 2004 or
Clinton, the former U.S. senator and secretary of state, in 2008 and 2016."
What do all those "safe" candidates have in common? Oh, that's right- they all lost
.
That and they didn't upset the apple carts of the political consultants and the major
donors.
Funnily I think the author is missing several 'safe' candidates still in the running, all
of whom might secure the nomination on the second ballot depending on who the superdelegate
darling is. All of whom would probably be able to uphold that loss record of the safe
candidate.
I didn't click through to read if it was a joke, but I suspect "safe" for Team Blue types
means "a candidate who most assuredly won't be criticized by the Republicans."
Al Gore would blunt whining about the deficit. John Kerry was for a "stronger America."
Hillary was so qualified and had faced all arrows including machine gun fire in Serbia.
Yep, those moderate Republicans are going to eliminate the need for Team Blue elites to ever
have to worry about the poors again.
Right -- and none of them had the press openly speculating about a lack of cognitive
capacity, as is happening with the current "safe" candidate. That's what passes for "safe"
these days, I guess.
Also: "Biden's appeal wanes," Gillibrand crashes and burns, Harris "hasn't caught fire,"
and Black Lives Matter of South Bend calls for Buttigieg to resign as mayor. (What
language(s) will "Mayor Pete" give his resignation speech in, one wonders.)
So the more
overtly neoliberal candidates are stalling or bailing, with the more progressive candidates
(actually or putatively) -- Sanders and Warren -- sailing along. Is that some kind of
surprise?
I work for a law firm that represents Wall Street banks and I can tell you who they don't
like, and that is Sanders and Warren. They hate that Warren created the CFPB and blew the
whistle on Wells Fargo and all the other games being played by Wall Street banks. Therefore, I
will vote for either of them, Warren preferred.
"... A new opinion poll released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal last Sunday shows that 70% of Americans are "angry" because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power. Both Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren have also reflected on this sentiment during their campaigns. Sanders has said that we live in a "corrupt political system designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful." Warren said it's a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else." ..."
A new opinion poll released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal last Sunday shows that 70% of Americans are "angry" because
our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power. Both Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth
Warren have also reflected on this sentiment during their campaigns. Sanders has said that we live in a "corrupt political system
designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful." Warren said it's a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks
dirt on everyone else."
A New York Times opinion article written by the political scientist Greg Weiner felt compelled to push back on this message, writing
a column with the title, The Shallow Cynicism of 'Everything Is Rigged'. In his column, Weiner basically makes the argument that
believing everything is corrupt and rigged is a cynical attitude with which it is possible to dismiss political opponents for being
a part of the corruption. In other words, the Sanders and Warren argument is a shortcut, according to Weiner, that avoids real political
debate.
Joining me now to discuss whether it makes sense to think of a political system as rigged and corrupt, and whether the cynical
attitude is justified, is someone who should know a thing or two about corruption: Bill Black. He is a white collar criminologist,
former financial regulator, and associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He's also the
author of the book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Thanks for joining us again, Bill.
BILL BLACK: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: As I mentioned that the outset, it seems that Sanders and Warren are in effect taking an open door, at least when
it comes to the American public. That is, almost everyone already believes that our political and economic system is rigged. Would
you agree with that sentiment that the system is corrupt and rigged for the rich and against pretty much everyone else but especially
the poor? What do you think?
BILL BLACK: One of the principal things I study is elite fraud, corruption and predation. The World Bank sent me to India for
months as an anti-corruption alleged expert type. And as a financial regulator, this is what I dealt with. This is what I researched.
This is a huge chunk of my life. So I wouldn't use the word, if I was being formal in an academic system, "the system." What I would
talk about is specific systems that are rigged, and they most assuredly are rigged.
Let me give you an example. One of the most important things that has transformed the world and made it vastly more criminogenic,
much more corrupt, is modern executive compensation. This is not an unusual position. This is actually the normal position now, even
among very conservative scholars, including the person who was the intellectual godfather of modern executive compensation, Michael
Jensen. He has admitted that he spawned unintentionally a monster because CEOs have rigged the compensation system. How do they do
that? Well, it starts even before you get hired as a CEO. This is amazing stuff. The standard thing you do as a powerful CEO is you
hire this guy, and he specializes in negotiating great deals for CEOs. His first demand, which is almost always given into, is that
the corporation pay his fee, not the CEO. On the other side of the table is somebody that the CEO is going to be the boss of negotiating
the other side. How hard is he going to negotiate against the guy that's going to be his boss? That's totally rigged.
Then the compensation committee hires compensation specialists who–again, even the most conservative economists agree it is a
completely rigged system. Because the only way they get work is if they give this extraordinary compensation. Then, everybody in
economics admits that there's a clear way you should run performance pay. It should be really long term. You get the big bucks only
after like 10 years of success. In reality, they're always incredibly short term. Why? Because it's vastly easier for the CEO to
rig the short-term reported earnings. What's the result of this? Accounting profession, criminology profession, economics profession,
law profession. We've all done studies and all of them say this perverse system of compensation causes CEOs to (a) cheat and (b)
to be extraordinarily short term in their perspective because it's easier to rig the short-term reported results. Even the most conservative
economists agree that's terrible for the economy.
What I've just gone through is a whole bunch of academic literature from over 40-plus years from top scholars in four different
fields. That's not cynicism. That's just plain facts if you understand the system. People like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders,
they didn't, as you say, kick open an open door. They made the open door. It's not like Elizabeth Warren started talking about this
six months ago when she started being a potential candidate. She has been saying this and explaining in detail how individual systems
are rigged in favor of the wealthy for at least 30 years of work. Bernie Sanders has been doing it for 45 years. This is what the
right, including the author of this piece who is an ultra-far right guy, fear the most. It's precisely what they fear, that Bernie
and Elizabeth are good at explaining how particular systems are rigged. They explain it in appropriate detail, but they're also good
in making it human. They talk the way humans talk as opposed to academics.
That's what the right fear is more than anything, that people will basically get woke. In this, it's being woke to how individual
systems have been rigged by the wealthy and powerful to create a sure thing to enrich them, usually at our direct expense.
GREG WILPERT: I think those are some very good examples. They're mostly from the realm of economics. I want to look at one from
the realm of politics, which specifically Weiner makes. He cites Sanders, who says that the rich literally buy elections, and Weiner
counters this by saying that, "It is difficult to identify instances in American history of an electoral majority wanting something
specific that it has not eventually gotten." That's a pretty amazing statement actually, I think, for him to say when you look at
the actual polls of what people want and what people get. He then also adds, "That's not possible to dupe the majority with advertising
all of the time." What's your response to that argument?
BILL BLACK: Well, actually, that's where he's trying to play economist, and he's particularly bad at economics. He was even worse
at economics than he is at political science, where his pitch, by the way is–I'm not overstating this–corruption is good. The real
problem with Senator Sanders and Senator Warren is that they're against corruption.
Can you fool many people? Answer: Yes. We have good statistics from people who actually study this as opposed to write op-eds
of this kind. In the great financial crisis, one of the most notorious of the predators that targeted blacks and Latinos–we actually
have statistics from New Century. And here's a particular scam. The loan broker gets paid more money the worse the deal he gets you,
the customer, and he gets paid by the bank. If he can get you to pay more than the market rate of interest, then he gets a kickback,
a literal kickback. In almost exactly half of the cases, New Century was able to get substantially above market interest rates, again,
targeted at blacks and Latinos.
We know that this kind of predatory approach can succeed, and it can succeed brilliantly. Look at cigarettes. Cigarettes, if you
use them as intended, they make you sick and they kill you. It wasn't that very long ago until a huge effort by pushback that the
tobacco companies, through a whole series of fake science and incredible amounts of ads that basically tried to associate if you
were male, that if you smoked, you'd have a lot of sex type of thing. It was really that crude. It was enormously successful with
people in getting them to do things that almost immediately made them sick and often actually killed them.
He's simply wrong empirically. You can see it in US death rates. You can see it in Hell, I'm overweight considerably. Americans
are enormously overweight because of the way we eat, which has everything to do with how marketing works in the United States, and
it's actually gotten so bad that it's reducing life expectancy in a number of groups in America. That's how incredibly effective
predatory practices are in rigging the system. That's again, two Nobel Laureates in economics have recently written about this. George
Akerlof and Shiller, both Nobel Laureates in economics, have written about this predation in a book for a general audience. It's
called Phishing with a P-H.
GREG WILPERT: I want to turn to the last point that Weiner makes about cynicism. He says that calling the system rigged is actually
a form of cynicism. And that cynicism, the belief that everything and everyone is bad or corrupt avoids real political arguments
because it tires everyone you disagree with as being a part of that corruption. Would you say, is the belief that the system is rigged
a form of cynicism? And if it is, wouldn't Weiner be right that cynicism avoids political debate?
BILL BLACK: He creates a straw man. No one has said that everything and everyone is corrupt. No one has said that if you disagree
with me, you are automatically corrupt. What they have given in considerable detail, like I gave as the first example, was here is
exactly how the system is rigged. Here are the empirical results of that rigging. This produces vast transfers of wealth to the powerful
and wealthy, and it comes at the expense of nearly everybody else. That is factual and that needs to be said. It needs to be said
that politicians that support this, and Weiner explicitly does that, says, we need to go back to a system that is more openly corrupt
and that if we have that system, the world will be better. That has no empirical basis. It's exactly the opposite. Corruption kills.
Corruption ruins economies.
The last thing in the world you want to do is what Weiner calls for, which he says, "We've got to stop applying morality to this
form of crime." In essence, he is channeling the godfather. "Tell the Don it wasn't personal. It was just business." There's nothing
really immoral in his view about bribing people. I'm sorry. I'm a Midwesterner. It wasn't cynicism. It was morality. He says you
can't compromise with corruption. I hope not. Compromising with corruption is precisely why we're in this situation where growth
rates have been cut in half, why wage growth has been cut by four-fifths, why blacks and Latinos during the great financial crisis
lost 60% to 80% of their wealth in college-educated households. That's why 70% of the public is increasingly woke on this subject.
GREG WILPERT: Well, we're going to leave it there. I was speaking to Bill Black, associate professor of economics and law at the
University of Missouri, Kansas City. Thanks again, Bill, for having joined us today.
BILL BLACK: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.
Well, Sanders certainly knows that elections are rigged. But he's not quite right when he says that money does the rigging.
It would be more accurate to say that powerful people are powerful because they're criminals, and they're rich because they're
criminals.
Money is a side effect, not the driver. Specific example: Hillary and Bernie are in the same category of net worth, but Bernie
isn't powerful. The difference is that Bernie ISN'T willing to commit murder and blackmail to gain power.
> Hillary and Bernie are in the same category of net worth
Clinton's net worth (says Google) is $45 million; Sanders $2.5 million. So, an order of magnitude difference. I guess that
puts Sanders in the 1% category, but Clinton is much closer to the 0.1% category than Sanders.
There's also a billion-dollar foundation in the mix.
We had our choice of two New York billionaires in the last presidential election. How is this not accounted for? It's like
the bond market, the sheer weight carries its own momentum.
Very similar to CEO's. I may not own a private jet, but if the company does, and I control the company, I have the benefit
of a private jet. I don't need to own the penthouse to live in it.
"We came, we saw, he died. Tee hee hee!"
"Did it have anything to do with your visit?"
"I'm sure it did."
From a non-legal perspective at least, that makes her an accessory to murder, doesn't it?
Is it fair to say the entire system is rigged when enough interconnected parts of it are rigged that no matter where one turns,
one finds evidence of corruption? Because like it or not, that's where we are as a country.
Yes. And it is also fair to say, and has been said by lots of cynics over the centuries, that both democracy and capitalism
sow the seeds of their own destruction.
Burns me to see yet another "water is not wet" argument being foisted by the NYT, hard to imagine another reason the editorial
board pushed for this line *except* to protect the current corrupt one percenters who call their shots. Once Liz The Marionette
gets appointed we might get some fluff but the rot will persist, eventually rot becomes putrefaction and the polity dies. Gore
Vidal called America and Christianity "death cults".
"Due to technical difficulties, comments are unavailable"
Pisses me off that I gave the propaganda rag of note a click and didn't even get the joy of the comments section. I'm sure
there's some cynical reason why
The other thing is that the NYT runs this pretty indefensible piece by a guy who is a visiting scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute. Just how often does NYT -- whose goal,
according to its
executive editor, "should be to understand different views" -- run a piece from anyone who is leftwing? What's the ratio of pro-establishment,
pro-Washington consensus pieces to those that are not? Glenn Greenwald
points out that the political spectrum at the NYT op-ed page "spans the small gap from establishment centrist Democrats
to establishment centrist Republicans." That, in itself, is consistent with the premise that the system is, indeed, rigged.
I think we have to drill down another level and ask ourselves a more fundamental question "why is cynicism necessarily bad
to begin with?" Black's response of parsing to individual systems as being corrupt is playing into the NYT authors trap, sort
to speak.
This NYT article is another version of the seemingly obligatory attribute of the american character; we must ultimately be
optimistic and have hope. Why is that useful? Or maybe more importantly, to whom is that useful? What is the point?
In my mind (and many a philosopher), cynicism is a very healthy, empowering response to a world whose institutional configuration
is such that it will to fuck you over whenever it is expedient to do so.
Furthermore, the act of voting lends legitimacy to an institution that is clearly not legitimate. The institution is very obviously
very corrupt. If you really want to change the "system" stop giving it legitimacy; i.e. be cynical, don't vote. The whole thing
is a ruse. Boycott it .
Some may say, in a desperate attempt to avoid being cynical, "well, the national level is corrupt but we need to increase engagement
at the community level via local elections ", or something like that. This is nothing more than rearranging the chairs on the
deck of the titanic. And collecting signature isn't going to help anymore than handing out buckets on the titanic would.
So, to answer my own rhetorical question above, "to whom is it useful to not be cynical?" It is useful to those who want things
to continue as they currently are.
So, be cynical. Don't vote. It is an empowering and healthy way to kinda say "fuck you" to the corrupt and not become corrupted
yourself by legitimizing it. The best part about it is that you don't have to do anything.
Viva la paz (Hows that for a non cynical salutation?)
Uh this sounds like the ultimate allowing things to continue as they currently are, do you really imagine the powers that be
are concerned about a low voting rate, and we have one, they don't care, they may even like it that way. Do you really imagine
they care about some phantom like perceived legitimacy? Where is the evidence of that?
Politicians do care about staying in office and will respond on some issues that will cost them enough votes to get booted
from office. But it has to be those particular issues in their own backyard; otherwise, they just kind of limp along with the
lip service collecting their paychecks.
IMO, it is sheer idiocy to not vote. If you are a voter, politicians will pay some attention to you at least. If you don't
vote, you don't even exist to them.
"I don't think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you've served in Congress," said Ocasio-Cortez.
"At minimum there should be a long wait period."
"If you are a member of Congress + leave, you shouldn't be allowed to turn right around&leverage your service for a lobbyist check.
I don't think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you've served in Congress."
–AOC, as reported by NakedCapitalism on May 31, 2019
I try to be despairing, but I can't keep up.
Attributed to a generation or two after Lily Tomlin's quote about cynicism.
Out of curiosity, would it be cynical to question that political scientist's grant funding or other sources of income? These
days, I feel inclined to look at what I'll call the Sinclair Rule* , added to Betteridge's, Godwin's and all those other, ahem,
modifications to what used to be an expectation that communication was more or less honest.
* Sinclair Rule, where you add a interpretive filter based on Upton's famous quote: It is difficult to get a man to understand
something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
It's good to look at funding sources. But it's kind of a slander to those who must work for a living when assuming it's paychecks
(which we need to live in this system) that corrupt people.
If it's applied to the average working person, maybe it's often true, maybe it has a tendency to push in that direction, but
if you think there are no workers that realize the industry they are working in might be destructive, that they may be exploited
by such systems but have little choice etc. etc., come now there are working people who are politically aware and do see a larger
picture, they just don't have a lot of power to change it much of the time. Does the average working person's salary depend on
his not understanding though? No, of course not, it merely depends on him obeying. And obeying enough to keep a job, not always
understanding, is what a paycheck buys.
With all the evidence of everyday life (airplanes, drug prices, health insurance, Wall Street, CEO pay, the workforce changes
in the past 20 years if you've been working those years etc) this Greg better be careful as he might be seen as a Witch to be
hanged and burned in Salem, Ma a few hundred years ago.
It's cynical to say it's cynical to believe the system is corrupt.
Greg Weiner is cynic, and his is using his cynicism to dismiss the political arguments of people he disagrees with.
And just this week, I found out I couldn't even buy a car unless I'd be willing to sign a mandatory binding arbitration agreement.
I was ready to pay and sign all the paperwork, and they lay a document in front of me that reserves for the dealer the right to
seek any remedy against me if I harm the dealer (pay with bad check, become delinquent on loan, fail to provide clean title on
my trade); but forces me to accept mandatory binding arbitration, with damages limited to the value of the car, for anything the
dealer might do wrong.
It is not cynical at all when even car dealers now want a permission slip for any harm they might do to me.
Okay, a few more. We are literally facing the possibility of a mass extinction in large part because of dishonesty on the par
of oil companies, politicians, and people paid to make bad arguments.
"Assad (and by implication Assad's forces alone) killed 500,000 Syrians."
"Israel is just defending itself."
I can't squeeze the dishonesty about the war in Yemen into a short slogan, but I know from personal experience that getting
liberals to care when it was Obama's war was virtually impossible. Even under Trump it was hard, until Khashoggi's murder. On
the part of politicians and think tanks this was corruption by Saudi money. With ordinary people it was the usual partisan tribal
hypocrisy.
The motivator is "
Gap Psychology
," the human desire to distance oneself from those below (on any scale), and to come nearer to those above.
The rich are rich because the Gap below them is wide, and the wider the Gap, the richer they are .
And here is the important point: There are two ways the rich widen the Gap: Either gain more for themselves or make sure
those below have less.
That is why the rich promulgate the Big Lie that the federal government (and its agencies, Social Security and Medicare) is
running short of dollars. The rich want to make sure that those below them don't gain more, as that would narrow the Gap.
Negative sum game, where one wins but the other has to lose more so the party of the first part feels even better about winning.
There is an element of sadism, sociopathy and a few other behaviors that the current systems allow to be gamed even more profitably.
If you build it, or lobby to have it built, they will come multiple times.
A successful society should be responsive to both threats and opportunities. Any major problems to that society are assessed
and changes are made, usually begrudgingly, to adapt to the new situation. And this is where corruption comes into it. It short
circuits the signals that a society receives so that it ignores serious threats and elevates ones that are relatively minor but
which benefit a small segment of that society. If you want an example of this at work, back in 2016 you had about 40,000 Americans
dying to opioids each and every year which was considered only a background issue. But a major issue about that time was who gets
to use what toilets. Seriously. If it gets bad enough, a society gets overwhelmed by the problems that were ignored or were deferred
to a later time. And I regret to say that the UK is going to learn this lesson in spades.
'Sanders has said that we live in a "corrupt political system designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful." Warren said
it's a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else."'
Yet the rest of the article focuses almost entirely on internal US shenanigans. When it comes to protecting wealth and power,
George Kennan hit the nail on the head in 1948, with "we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3 of its population.
This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the
object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us
to maintain this position of disparity." This, which has underpinned US policy ever since, may not be corrupt in the sense of
illegal, but it certainly seems corrupt in the sense of morally repugnant to me.
About Kennan's comment. That's interesting because no one questioned the word "wealth". Even tho' we had only 6.3% of the world's
population we had 50% of the wealth. The point of that comment had to be that we should "spread the wealth" and we did do just
that. Until we polluted the entire planet. I'd like some MMT person to take a long look at that attitude because it is so simplistic.
And not like George Kennan at all who was sophisticated to the bone. But that's just more proof of a bred-in-the-bone ignorance
about what money really is. In this case Kennan was talking about money, not wealth. He never asked Nepal for advice on gross
national happiness, etc. Nor did he calculate the enormous debt burden we would incur for our unregulated use and abuse of the
environment. That debt most certainly offsets any "wealth" that happened.
Approaching from the opposite direction, if someone were to say "I sincerely believe that the USA has the most open & honest
political system and the fairest economic system in human history" would you not think that person to be incredibly naive (or,
cynically, a liar)?
There has been, for at least the last couple of decades. a determined effort to do away with corruption – by defining it away.
"Citizens United" is perhaps the most glaring example but the effort is ongoing; that Weiner op-ed is a good current example.
What is cynical is everyone's response when point out that the system is corrupt. They all say " always has been, always will be so just deal with it ".
Strawmannirg has got to be the most cynical behavior in the world. Weiner is the cynic. I think Liz's "the system is rigged
" comment invites discussion. It is not a closed door at all. It is a plea for good capitalism. Which most people assume is possible.
It's time to define just what kind of capitalism will work and what it needs to continue to be, or finally become, a useful economic
ideology. High time.
Another thing. Look how irrational the world, which is now awash in money, has become over lack of liquidity. There's a big
push now to achieve an optimum flow of money by speeding up transaction time. The Fed is in the midst of designing a new real-time
digital payments system. A speedy accounting and record of everything. Which sounds like a very good idea.
But the predators are
busy keeping pace – witness the frantic grab by Facebook with Libra. Libra is cynical. To say the least. The whole thing a few
days ago on the design of Libra was frightening because Libra has not slowed down; it has filed it's private corporation papers
in Switzerland and is working toward a goal of becoming a private currency – backed by sovereign money no less! Twisted. So there's
a good discussion begging to be heard: The legitimate Federal Reserve v. Libra. The reason we are not having this discussion is
because the elite are hard-core cynics.
"... It also has Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, front-runners for the presidential nomination, who reject the neoliberal economic policies that the Democratic Party has been championing since the waning days of the Carter administration. ..."
"... In calling them front-runners, I haven't forgotten Joe Biden, still in the lead in most polls. It is just that I think that, after nearly three years of Trump, the candidacy of a doddering Clintonite doofus doesn't – and shouldn't -- merit serious consideration. I trust that this will become increasingly apparent even to the most dull-witted Democratic pundits, and of course to the vast majority of Democratic voters, as the election season unfolds. ..."
"... The better to defeat Trump and Trumpism next year, Sanders or Warren or whichever candidate finally gets the nod, along with the several rays of light in Congress – there are more of them than just the four that Trump would send back to "where they came from" -- will undoubtedly make common cause with corporate Democrats at a tactical level. ..."
With Trump acting out egregiously and mainstream Democrats in the House doing nothing more about it than talking up a storm, it
would be hard to imagine the public mood not shifting in ways that would force a turn for the better.
Thus, despite the best efforts of Democratic National Committee flacks at MSNBC, CNN, and, of course, The New York Times, The
Washington Post, and, worst of all, PBS and NPR, the Democratic Party now has a "squad" with which its Pelosiite-Hoyerite-Schumerian
leadership must contend.
It also has Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, front-runners for the presidential nomination, who reject the neoliberal
economic policies that the Democratic Party has been championing since the waning days of the Carter administration.
In calling them front-runners, I haven't forgotten Joe Biden, still in the lead in most polls. It is just that I think that,
after nearly three years of Trump, the candidacy of a doddering Clintonite doofus doesn't – and shouldn't -- merit serious consideration.
I trust that this will become increasingly apparent even to the most dull-witted Democratic pundits, and of course to the vast majority
of Democratic voters, as the election season unfolds.
The better to defeat Trump and Trumpism next year, Sanders or Warren or whichever candidate finally gets the nod, along with
the several rays of light in Congress – there are more of them than just the four that Trump would send back to "where they came
from" -- will undoubtedly make common cause with corporate Democrats at a tactical level.
This is all to the good. Nevertheless, the time to start working to assure that it goes no deeper than that is already upon
us.
When the dust clears, it will become evident that the squad-like new guys and the leading Democrats of the past are not on the
same path; that the former want to reconstruct the Democratic Party in ways that will make it authentically progressive, while the
latter, wittingly or not, want to restore and bolster the Party that made Trump and Trumpism possible and even inevitable.
... ... ...
Could the Israel lobby be next? As Israeli politics veers ever farther to the right, its lobby's stranglehold over the Democratic
Party, though far from shot, is in plain decline -- as increasingly many American Jews, especially but not only millennials, lose
interest in the ethnocratic settler state, or find themselves embarrassed by it.
... ... ...
ANDREW LEVINE is the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and
POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell)
as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is
In Bad Faith: What's Wrong With the
Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy)
at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics
of Illusion (AK Press).
Strawmannirg has got to be the most cynical behavior in the world. Weiner is the cynic. I
think Liz's "the system is rigged " comment invites discussion. It is not a closed door at
all. It is a plea for good capitalism. Which most people assume is possible. It's time to
define just what kind of capitalism will work and what it needs to continue to be, or finally
become, a useful economic ideology. High time.
Burns me to see yet another "water is not wet" argument being foisted by the NYT, hard to
imagine another reason the editorial board pushed for this line *except* to protect the
current corrupt one percenters who call their shots. Once Liz The Marionette gets appointed
we might get some fluff but the rot will persist, eventually rot becomes putrefaction and the
polity dies. Gore Vidal called America and Christianity "death cults".
Donald Trump will be remembered as a humorous yet sad 4-year blip in the history of
America, where the People regrettably admit that this "entertainment age" was responsible for
their lack of judgement in 2016, and they learned that they shouldn't play games with
something as important to our country's honor and integrity as the office of the Presidency.
Fool me twice, shame on me.....
All true from both yourself and Paine/Plp except "Hard for the status quo to form a
consensus" which is inherently false based purely on semantics. The status quo must always be
a consensus of sorts or it would not be the status quo regardless of how sordid a sort of
consensus it represents. At the very least our status quo represents the effective majority
consensus of the political elite over matters of governing and simultaneously the effective
consensus of the governed to not overwhelmingly reject the majority consensus of the
political elite. This is not to say that the governed are happy about what they get, but if
they overwhelmingly rejected the political establishment then it would no longer be the
status quo political establishment. Elites learned since the Great Depression that if they
limited their abuse of the common man sufficiently then the combination of general public
apathy regarding politics and the bureaucracy along with the inherent fear of ordinary people
taking action to bring about uncertain change would forever preserve complete elite control
of government apparatus.
"... I have been for Tulsi because of her foreign policy and wanted her to be able to give voice to her position during the primary so as to move Bernie to improve his foreign policy positions and also the public. Tulsi was the one who quit the DNC during the 2016 primary over how Bernie was cheated, so is not afraid to stand up to power - and why they hate her ..."
"... I believe that the Democratic leadership does not want Tulsi in the debates because they do not want her to take out another candidate like she did in the second debate to Harris at -12% at around 5% now - not a top tier candidate now. ..."
"... They have given numerous hit job articles to Bernie, while all of Warrens - including today - are glowing. That should be a clue about Warren. Also in 2016 she sided with Hillary, not Bernie. ..."
Michael Tracey is the one that wrote the RCP article and also has a video on the topic.
He also does a great job calling out the Russiagate BS.
"Tulsi getting screwed by the DNC" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZMMlQNidlQ&t=440s
There is only one more qualifying poll Monmouth ( tomorrow) before the debates and she
needs two more. Even though the she has qualified in numerous polls such as the Boston
Globe that are not allowed by the DNC. Yes they screwed her.
"It's Official--Tulsi to be Screwed Out of 3rd Debate!!" https://caucus99percent.com/content/its-official-tulsi-be-screwed-out-3rd-debate
I have been for Tulsi because of her foreign policy and wanted her to be able to
give voice to her position during the primary so as to move Bernie to improve his foreign
policy positions and also the public. Tulsi was the one who quit the DNC during the 2016
primary over how Bernie was cheated, so is not afraid to stand up to power - and why they
hate her .
I believe that the Democratic leadership does not want Tulsi in the debates because
they do not want her to take out another candidate like she did in the second debate to
Harris at -12% at around 5% now - not a top tier candidate now.
I am loving now how Bernie is taking on the corporate media and their BS to their
faces.
"Bernie Sanders took a well-deserved shot at The Washington Post this week, saying that
the Jeff Bezos-owned paper doesn't like him because he routinely goes after Amazon for the
horrible treatment of their workers. NBC wasn't too happy about this, and claimed that
Bernie was assaulting "the free press," and said his attacks were just like Trump's"
The powers that be really wanted Joe Biden, but it will become obvious in the coming
months that he has serious cognitive issues - ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Q0E2dzTJw
).
The only other viable candidate against Bernie is Warren , which it appears the elite
are falling in love with. Warren didn't become a Democrat until 2011 or when she was 62. In
the 90's Warren was on the side of Dow Chemical in the breast implant cases, helping to
reduce payouts to the victims. She will be like Obama - Hope and Change during the election
and Neoliberal when president. I read the NYTimes to see what the Oligarchs are up too.
They have given numerous hit job articles to Bernie, while all of Warrens -
including today - are glowing. That should be a clue about Warren. Also in 2016 she sided
with Hillary, not Bernie.
Trump does not want a new trade deal with China. He wants to decouple the U.S.
economy from the future enemy.
That may well be what is going on here. Something between total insanity and managed
insanity. The next president will unravel all of this in a year or so of effort. That is what
is so damaging. No business can plan on what is next. No policy is long term.
This is pure Trumpian logic unhinged. Hit them twice as hard as they hit you. I would not
dare to guess who is winding him up and pointing him in this direction. Trump has had one of
his busiest weeks yet.
I see Elisabeth Warren's crowd sizes are getting very large. I will feel better when no
one shows up to a Trump rally. China has time to wait this out and the ability to raise some
chaos on their own to help undermine Trump.
I see Elisabeth Warren's crowd sizes are getting very large. I will feel better when no one
shows up to a Trump rally.
I sympathize, but Elizabeth Warren is terrible on foreign policy. When the IDF was
slaughtering civilians in Gaza in 2014 she pushed to release a few hundred million dollars to
"help" Israel "defend" itself. The MSM loves Warren. She is a neoliberal capitalist, liberal
interventionist and splits Sanders' vote.
In the recent Camp Kotok MMT discussion (recording for the public posted here https://soundcloud.com/user-529956811/mmt-discussion-raw
), two things stood out for me (believe both were stated by Samuel Rines @SamuelRines on
twitter):
– MMT is "inevitable" (although it is arguable whether his definition and understanding
is correct)
– Warren is the assumed democratic nominee (Bernie or anyone else was not mentioned at
all in ~30 min of this recording)
So, sounds like the FIRE sector is looking to get nice and comfortable while nominally
paying tribute to the plebeians (lest they revolt, that was intimated by above mentioned
Sam)
Yes, is way Warren is a connuation of "Trump tradition" in the USA politics: reling of hate
toward the neoliberalism establishment to get the most votes.
...in a piece
Warren wrote for Medium in which she (rightly) warned of "a precarious economy that is
built on debt -- both household debt and corporate debt." Notably missing was the national
debt, which amounts to around $182,900 per taxpayer and which Warren's policies would only
steepen. How exactly is a government flailing in red ink supposed to make the country solvent?
And what of the fact that some of the economy's woes -- student loan debt, for example -- were
themselves at least in part caused by federal interventions?
Those objections aside, it would be wrong to dismiss Warren as just another statist liberal.
She's deeper than that, first of all, having written extensively about economics, including
her book The Two-Income Trap . But more importantly, she's put her finger on something very
important in the American electorate. It's the same force that helped propel Donald Trump to
victory in 2016: a seething anger against goliath institutions that seem to prize profit and
power over the greater welfare. This is firmly in the tradition of most American populisms,
which have worried less about the size of government and more about gilded influence rendering
it inert.
Warren thus has a real claim to the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, which is
deeply skeptical of corporate power. She could even try to out-populist Donald Trump. She's
already released more detailed policy proposals than any of her Democratic rivals, everything
from sledgehammering the rich with new taxes to canceling student debt to wielding antitrust
against big tech companies to subsidizing childcare. All this is chum to at least some of the
Democratic base (old-school sorts rather than the SJWs obsessed with race and gender), and as a
result, she's surged to either second or third place in the primary, depending on what poll you
check. She's even elicited praise from some conservative intellectuals, who view her as an
economic nationalist friendly to the family against the blackhearted forces of big.
America has been in a populist mood since the crash of 2008, yet in every presidential
election since then, there's been at least one distinctly plutocratic candidate in the race. In
2008, it was perennial Washingtonian John McCain. In 2012, it was former Bain Capital magnate
Mitt Romney. (The stupidest explanation for why Romney lost was always that tea party activists
dragged him down. Romney lost because he sounded like an imposter and looked like the guy who
fired your brother from that firm back in 1982.) And in 2016, it was, of course, Hillary
Clinton, whose candidacy is what happens when you feed a stock portfolio and a government
security clearance into a concentrate machine.
If Elizabeth Warren wins the Democratic nomination next year, it will be the first time
since Bear Stearns exploded that both parties' candidates seem to reflect back the national
temperament. It will also pose a test for Warren herself. On one hand, her economic policies,
bad though they might be, stand a real chance of attracting voters, given their digestibility
and focus on relieving high costs of living. On the other hand -- this is where Fauxcahontas
comes back in -- a white woman claiming Indian status in order to teach at Harvard Law is
pretty much everything Americans hate about politically correct identity politics.
The question, then, is which image of Warren will stick: one is a balm to the country's
economic anxiety; the other is unacceptable to its cultural grievances. Right now we can only
speculate, though it seems certain that Trump will try to define her as the latter while much
of the media will intervene in the other direction.
Her entire political theory seems to have been that giant corporations should not be
allowed to utterly screw the common man. That is about it, and for this she is called a
commie radical. I like her, little afraid of foreign policy
Warren was born into a middle class family, Trump wasn't. Trump is playing the populist, he
has no idea what average Americans deal with.
Warren was raised on the family lore of having native ancestry and she does. Not much
but she does and that's all it takes to start family lore. Her Native American ancestor was
from around the time of the American Revolution and it's easy to see how that legend could
be passed down. There is no proof she ever benefited from this, she was just proud to have
Native American ancestry.
Funny how the RW is so outraged by this one thing. Maybe it would be better for her to
con people, lie and make stuff up nonstop like Trump. It seems a never ending blizzard of
lies and falsehoods renders one immune.
Let's remember that our only effective populist, in fact our only effective president, was
a rich patrician. FDR's roots went back to the Mayflower, yet he was able to break the
influence of the banks and give us 50 years of bubble-free prosperity. The only thing that
counts is GETTING THE WORK DONE.
Her economics aren't bad. She herself claims to be a capitalist, she just wants our massive
economy to also benefit regular folks instead of just the elites. And whatever economic
program she proposes is most likely further left than she thinks necessary because that's a
better negotiating position to start from. Remember every proposal has to go through both
branches of Congress to become law, and they will absolutely try to make everything more
pro-corporate because that is their donor base.
"And what of the fact that some of the economy's woes -- student loan debt, for example --
were themselves at least in part caused by federal
interventions?"
Mr. Purple might want to remind himself that 75% of federal student financial aid in the
1970's was in the form of grants, not loans, and that it was only after the intervention of
conservative Republican congressman Gerald "Jerry" Solomon and the Reagan Administration
that the mix of federal student financial aid was changed to be 75% loans and only 25%
grants. I believe the Congressman used to rail against free riding college students, which
is all well and good until one finds that the "free hand of the market" becomes warped by
so many people being in so much debt, and all of them being too small to save.
Democrats might want to ask Joe Biden about this, considering his support for
legislation that made it harder to discharge student debt in bankruptcy proceedings. They
might also ask Senator Warren about this subject.
Warren believed her family story. Trump, on the other hand, knew that his family was not
Swedish, but knowingly continued the lie for decades, including in "The Art of Deal " -
claimin his grandfather came "from Sweden as a child" (rather than dodging the draft in
Bavaria who made his fortune in red light districts of the Yukon territory before trying to
return to the Reich).
Warren made no money from her heritage claims, but the $413 million (in today's dollars)
given to Trump by his daddy was made by lying to Holocaust survivors in Brooklyn and Queens
who, understandably, did not want to rent property from a German.
Vanity Fair asked him in 1990 if he were not in fact of German origin. "Actually, it was
very difficult," Donald replied. "My father was not German; my father's parents were German
Swedish, and really sort of all over Europe and I was even thinking in the second edition
of putting more emphasis on other places because I was getting so many letters from Sweden:
Would I come over and speak to Parliament? Would I come meet with the president?"
This column was pretty much as I expected. It started out by rehashing all of the Fox News
talking points about Warren, without debunking those that were without merit.
After that it touched on Morning Joe's take on her, just to make it 'fair and
balanced'.
Then it acknowledged, briefly, that she has been correct in many areas. No comment on
how the CFPB recovered hundreds of millions of $$ from corporations that abused their power
or broke the law.
Then it mis-characterized the impact of her policies "sledgehammering the rich",
"economic policies, bad though they might be".
Dismiss Warren all you want. She could very well be the nominee, or the VP. She would
eviscerate Trump in a debate. Her knowledge of issues, facts and policies would show Trump
to be what he is. A narcissistic, idiotic, in-over-his-head clueless and dangerous buffoon.
I anticipate Trump would fall back on his favorite tropes. Pocahontas, socialist,
communist, and MAGA.
My opinion is that the average American is getting really tired of Trump's shtick. The
country is looking for somebody with real solutions to real problems. This reality tv star
act is getting pretty old....
Good article. Especially enjoyed this turn of phrase:
"And in 2016, it was, of course, Hillary Clinton, whose candidacy is what happens when
you feed a stock portfolio and a government security clearance into a concentrate
machine."
Really enjoyable.
I don't think anyone is going to care about the pocahontas thing. This election will be
squarely about Trump. I think Warren is by far the best candidate the dems can bring out if
they want to beat him. A Warren/Buttigieg or a Warren/Tulsi ticket would likely be a
winner.
Bernie's a little too far to the left for Joe Lunchbucket, Joe Biden is a crooked
Hillary wannabe, Kamala Harris is unlikeable, and the rest won't rise out of the dust.
The whole business about her supposed Native American ancestry and whatever claims she made
will make no difference to anybody other than folks like Matt Purple who wouldn't support
her under any circumstances anyway.
Consider that the best-known advocate of the "Pocahontas" epithet is of course Donald
Trump, whose entire reputation is built on a foundation of bulls--t and flim-flam.
"Thus in retrospect was it the "Obama" in "Obamacare" that was the primary driver of
opposition from conservatives, only for their concerns over federal intrusion to mostly
disappear once Trump was at the controls."
No. What disappeared was the Individual Mandate. THAT was what rankled me...the
government can do whatever stupid thing they want as long as they don't try to force me
into it.
Backlash to neoliberalism fuels interest in national socialism ideology... and netional
socialist critique of financial oligarchy controlled "democratic states" was often poignant and
up to a point. Which doesn't means that the ideology itself was right.
However, as the people cannot spontaneously make and express their opinion on a mass scale,
the media comes to play a critical role in shaping public opinion: "The decisive question is:
Who enlightens the people? Who educates the people?" The answer is, of course,
the media. In this, Hitler's assessment is an exaggerated version of what Alexis de Tocqueville had
observed a century earlier in his classic work, Democracy in America :
When a large number of press organs manage to march along the same path, their influence
in the long run becomes almost irresistible, and public opinion, always struck upon the same
side, ends up giving way under their blows.
In Western democracies, Hitler claims: "Capital actually rules in these countries, that is,
nothing more than a clique of a few hundred men who possess untold wealth." Furthermore
"freedom" refers primarily to "economic freedom," which means the oligarchs' "freedom
from national control." In a classic self-reinforcing cycle, the rich and powerful get
richer and more powerful through influence over the political process. Today, this has
culminated in the existence of the notorious "1%" so demonized by Occupy Wall Street.
The oligarchs, according to Hitler, establish and control the media:
These capitalists create their own press and then speak of "freedom of the press." In
reality, every newspaper has a master and in every case this master is the capitalist, the
owner. This master, not the editor, is the one who directs the policy of the paper. If the
editor tries to write something other than what suits the master, he is outed the next day.
This press, which is the absolutely submissive and character slave of its owners, molds
public opinions.
Hitler also emphasizes the incestuous relations and purely cosmetic differences between
mainstream democratic political parties:
The difference between these parties is small, as it formerly was in Germany. You know
them of course, the old parties. They were always one and the same. In Britain matters are
usually so arranged so that families are divided up, one member being conservative, another
liberal, and a third belonging to the Labour Party. Actually all three sit together as
members of the family and decide upon their common attitude.
This cliquishness means that "on all essential matters . . . the parties are always in
agreement" and the difference between "Government" and "Opposition" is largely election-time
theatrics. This critique will resonate with those who fault the "Republicrats," the
"Westminster village," or indeed the various pro-EU parties for being largely
indistinguishable. This is often especially the case on foreign policy, Chomsky's area of
predilection.
Hitler goes on, with brutally effective sarcasm, to describe how it was in these democracies
where the people supposedly rule that there was the most inequality: "You might think that in
these countries of freedom and wealth, the people must have an unlimited degree of prosperity.
But no!" Britain not only controlled "one-sixth of the world" and the impoverished millions of
India, but itself had notoriously deep class divisions and suffering working classes. There was
a similar situation in France and the United States: "There is poverty – incredible
poverty – on one side and equally incredible wealth on the other." These democracies had
furthermore been unable to combat unemployment during the Great Depression, in contrast to
Germany's innovative economic policies.
Hitler then goes on to mock the Labour Party, which was participating in the government for
the duration of the war, for promising social welfare and holidays for the poor after the war:
"It is is remarkable that they should at last hit upon the idea that traveling should not be
something for millionaires alone, but for the people too." Hitlerite Germany, along with
Fascist Italy, had long pioneered the organization of mass tourism to the benefit of working
people. (Something which traditionalists like the Italian aristocrat Julius Evola bitterly
criticized them for.)
Ultimately, in the Western democracies "as is shown by their whole economic structure, the
selfishness of a relatively small stratum rules under the mask of democracy; the egoism of a
very small social class." Hitler concludes: "It is self-evident that where this democracy
rules, the people as such are not taken into consideration at all. The only thing that matters
is the existence a few hundred gigantic capitalists who own all the factories and their stock
and, through them, control the people."
... ... ...
In practice, Western liberal regimes' democratic pretensions are exaggerated. Various
studies have found that when elite and majority opinion clash, the American elite is over time
able to impose its policies onto the majority (examples of this include U.S. intervention in
both World Wars and mass Third World immigration since the 1960s, opposed by the people and
promoted by the elite)
... ... ...
In fact, all regimes have different elite factions and bureaucracies competing for power.
All regimes have a limited ideological spectrum of authorized opinion, a limited spectrum of
what can and cannot be discussed, criticized, or politically represented. This isn't to say
that liberal-democratic and openly authoritarian regimes are identical, but the distinction has
been exaggerated. I have known plenty of Westerners who, frothing at the mouth at any mention
of the "authoritarian" Donald Trump or Marine Le Pen, were quite happy to visit, do business,
or work in China, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, or Israel (the latter being a perfect
Jewish democracy but highly authoritarian towards the Palestinians). Westerners really are sick
in the head.
The liberals' claim to uphold freedom of thought and democracy will ring hollow to many: to
the Trump supporters and academics (such as Charles Murray) who were physically assaulted for
attending public events and to those fired or punished for their scientific beliefs (James
Watson, James Damore, Noah Carl).
What the ideal regime is surely depends on time and place. Jean-Baptiste Duchasseint, a
politician of the French Third Republic, had a point when he said: "I prefer a parliamentary
chamber than the antechamber of a dictator." Liberal-democracies allow for regular changeovers
of power, transparent feedback between society and government, and the cultivation of a habit
of give-and-take between citizens. But it would be equally dishonest to deny
liberal-democracy's leveling tendency, its unconscious (and thereby, dangerous) elitism and
authoritarianism (dangerous because unconscious), its difficulty in enforcing values, its
promotion of division among the citizenry, or, frequently, its failure to act in times of
emergency. The democrats claim they are entitled to undermine and destroy, whether by peaceful
or violent methods, every government on this Earth which they consider "undemocratic." This
strikes me as, at best, unwise and dangerous.
The question is not whether a society "really has" free speech or democracy. In the
absolute, these are impossible. The question is whether the particular spectrum of free
discussion and the particular values promoted by the society are, in fact, salutary for that
society. In China, unlike the West, you are not allowed to attack the government. Yet, I
understand that in China one is freer to discuss issues concerning Jews, race, and eugenics
than in the West. These issues, in fact, may be far more important to promoting a healthy
future for the human race than the superficial and divisive mudslinging of the West's
reality-TV democracies.W
Nice well written & researched thought provoking article by Guillaume Durocher.
Hitler most likely served the Zionist Bankers, as his "Night of the Longknives" –
1934, rid the Nazi movement of its anti-capitalist element.
Hitler did not effectively criticize Zionism or the ruinous financial system. He blamed
the Versailles Treaty for most of Germany's ills.
Noam Chomsky has had more serious political and economic analysis to offer over the
decades, than most any other American. He has authored more than 100 books.
Hitler and his movement led the German people into the trap (perhaps a Zionist trap), of
ruinous (to Europe), Imperialist Conflict, and in that, and in his racialist approach,
resembles Churchill, and the British Royal Family more than he could ever admit.
Strikingly, Hitler does not mention Jewish media ownership or influence at all,
At 3:21 in the archive.org video he refers to "das auserwählte Volk" (the chosen
people) which supposedly controls and directs all parties for its own interests.
Anyway, do you really think it's a good idea for modern nationalists to link themselves to
Hitler and the 3rd Reich (because many of your articles could be interpreted that way, as if
Hitler was some profound thinker who has to be read by every nationalist today)?
Yes, the man wasn't as stupid as is often claimed today, and some elements of Nazism are
certainly attractive if seen in isolation but the fact remains that Hitler, without any
really compelling necessity, initiated one of the most destructive wars in history and then
had his followers commit some of the worst mass murders ever.
The "revisionists" posting on UR may be able to ignore that, but most people won't.
In practice, Western liberal regimes' democratic pretensions are exaggerated. Various
studies have found that when elite and majority opinion clash, the American elite is over
time able to impose its policies onto the majority (examples of this include U.S.
intervention in both World Wars and mass Third World immigration since the 1960s, opposed
by the people and promoted by the elite).
That's it? "Western liberal regimes' democratic pretensions are exaggerated"?
There are differences in _every_ society between different groups, which include different
income levels. In the Western liberal regimes of the 1950s and 1960s, daily life was more or
less left alone, and it was quite possible to over-rule the rich. There was a 90% tax on
income over a fairly modest amount of income! As for the "American elite is over time able to
impose its policies onto the majority" it wasn't the rich who do that back then, nor is it
the rich who do it now. It's the Left, acquiesced to by the rich. The difference is that the
rich now rich with political sufferance, or perhaps because of politics, which was much less
the case back then.
In other words, the article as a deception from start to end. Minerva's owl flies at dusk
(you understand things when they're ending), and the deception becomes more obvious as our
current system fails.
Another one whitewashing Fascism to make it an acceptable ideology to save the white race.
The first edition killed 12 million Germans, twice as many Russians and many more millions of
other Europeans. What for? To make America great, perhaps
The author is unfurling his full colours; maybe grateful for Hitler's mercy on France?
Agree that the article is a very good one. Clever idea to compare Hitler with Chomsky,
"bien étonnés de se trouver ensemble." However, Hitler was certainly not
alone in his lucid criticism of "western democracy," nor is Chomsky the only lucid
post-Hitlerian critic of what is called democracy. Who does not recall Michael Parenti's
wonderful Democracy for the Few, from 1974?
As for Hitler being genuine, or intellectually honest in his criticism, better not even
ask. Like all major politicians, including FDR, the repulsive Churchill, Stalin e tutti
quanti, Hitler was a psychopath and a murderer. Anyone still nurturing romantic thoughts
on Hitler better read Guido Giacomo Preparata, Conjuring Hitler. How Britain and America
Made the Third Reich (2005). Best proof that Preparata was absolutely right with his
richly documented book is the fact that his academic career was abruptly ended: no tenure for
dissidents, especially when they write books containing uncomfortable truths.
The only people allowed to tell "uncomfortable truths" are used-car salesmen and swindlers
such as Al Gore.
Adolf Hitler Speech: Löwenbräukeller Munich November 8 1940
When I came to power, I took over from a nation that was a democracy. Indeed, it is now
sometimes shown to the world as if one would be automatically ready to give everything to
the German nation if it were only a democracy. Yes, the German people was at that time a
democracy before us, and it has been plundered and squeezed dry. No. what does democracy or
authoritarian state mean for these international hyenas! That they are not at all
interested in. They are only interested in one thing: Is anyone willing to let themselves
be plundered? Yes or no? Is anyone stupid enough to keep quiet in the process? Yes or no?
And when a democracy is stupid enough to keep quiet, then it is good. And when an
authoritarian government declares: "You do not plunder our people any longer, neither from
inside nor from outside," then that is bad. If we, as a so-called authoritarian state,
which differs from the democracies by having the masses of the people behind it; if we as
an authoritarian state had also complied with all the sacrifices that the international
plutocrats encumbered us with; if I had said in 1933, "Esteemed Sirs in Geneva" or
"Esteemed Sirs," as far as I am concerned, somewhere else, "what would you have do? Aha, we
will immediately write it on the slate: 6 billion for 1933, 1934, 1935, all right we will
deliver. Is there anything else you would like? Yes, Sir we will also deliver that" Then
they would have said: "At last a sensible regime in Germany."
Western media is not "cooperative", they are owned.
JP Morgan famously bought up controlling interest in major newspapers in 1917 to prevent
significant media opposition to the US entering WWI. The Counsel on Foreign Relations was
created in the early 1920s to maintain control over the national dialog and they have ever
since. The CIA Project Mockingbird tightened control. Every presidential cabinet since is
saturated with CFR members. As a result most Americans are disastrously misinformed about
just about everything. 1984 happened decades before 1984.
@Hans Vogel Parenti's book is one of the few assigned college textbooks I still have on
my shelf. A classic that I rarely hear spoken of; I guess my liberal arts education wasn't
entirely wasted.
Extolling Hitler and/or the Nazis is, apart from anything else, totally counter-productive.
We can argue about the rewriting of history but the simple fact is that any association with
him/them is poisonous to the public mind.
What I took from the piece was that Hitler, despite being an evil bastard, was right about
some things. This shouldn't be surprising and isn't a defense of Nazism (which as a Christian
I have to regard as evil.) The fact that Hitler and Chomsky agree shows this isn't a defense
of Nazism.
@German_reader So called revisionists are bunch of morons. Hitler was, without lapsing
into moralizing, a very specific product of a very specific time, a charismatic leader of a
great humiliated nation during a deep crisis in all Western civilization (this includes
Russia, too).
Now, Europe & Europe-derived peoples face a completely different crisis (or various
crises), so that what Hitler was or wasn't is utterly irrelevant to our contemporary
condition & its challenges.
It does no good to try to defend Hitler, regardless of the many correct observations he made
over the years of his public life. He was as important a commentator as, say, Paul Krugman,
but his opinions will never overcome his actions. Comparing him to Krugman or Chomsky makes
an interesting debating point, but ultimately fails for lack of context.
If you are trying to argue that capitalist democracy, Anglo-American style, has grievous
flaws, you're going to have to show what they are and why they will lead to calamity. I'd say
we need a real discussion on federal budgeting insanity, for one, which threatens the
economic downfall of the West and, probably, of the universe, except maybe for Russia, which
has already suffered through its great downfall. How that connects to Anglo-American
democracy is simple: the British borrowed and made war around the world to its virtual
collapse and then had the great insight to be able, via FDR, to tie the prosperity of the
United States to its failures, until the great engine of prosperity that we once were comes
clanking to pieces.
The fascists weren't wrong on policy during peacetime, but were too optimistic about being
able to take over the world by war.
Both the liberal (Democratic) and conservative (Republican) wings of the U.S.
aristocracy hate and want to conquer Russia's Government. The real question now is whether
that fact will cause the book on this matter to be closed as being unprofitable for both
sides of the U.S. aristocracy; or, alternatively, which of those two sides will succeed in
skewering the other over this matter.
At the present stage, the Republican billionaires seem likelier to win if this internal
battle between the two teams of billionaires' political agents continues on. If they do,
and Trump wins re-election by having exposed the scandal of the Obama Administration's
having manufactured the fake Russiagate-Trump scandal, then Obama himself could end up
being convicted. However, if Trump loses -- as is widely expected -- then Obama is safe,
and Trump will likely be prosecuted on unassociated criminal charges.
To be President of the United States is now exceedingly dangerous. Of course,
assassination is the bigger danger; but, now, there will also be the danger of
imprisonment. A politician's selling out to billionaires in order to reach the top can
become especially risky when billionaires are at war against each other -- and not merely
against some foreign ('enemy') aristocracy. At this stage of American 'democracy', the
public are irrelevant. But the political battle might be even hotter than ever, without the
gloves, than when the public were the gloves.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of
acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the
more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking
going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the
limits put on the range of the debate."
Yes that quotation by Chomsky is exactly correct, and Chomsky is an expert in that
area.
He is a loyal servant of the oligarchs, the MIT intellectual who has devoted his life
to keeping the lid on acceptable debate but is silent on the most important event of the 21st
Century in order to serve his Zionist masters.
Any person who goes beyond that accepted level of debate is either ostracized, imprisoned
or assassinated.
Liberal-democracies allow for regular changeovers of power, transparent feedback between
society and government, and the cultivation of a habit of give-and-take between
citizens.
Except that is not true at all. All major Western countries today, UK, France, USA and
Germany, are ruled by an effective one-party state, stabilized and its agenda multiplied by
its media companies, often state owned, the agenda enforced by apparatschiks, secured by the
police force and internationalized physically with the military and with great propaganda by
the media-entertainment complex – today even effectively monopolized by US companies
like Google/YouTube and Facebook.
Whether you look at BREXIT, votes on an EU constitution, or the Donald Trump presidency:
what the majority of the people want is not important to the permanent ruling and owning
class.
The politicians and sanctioned talking-heads are there to deceive us. Obama und Trump are
two sides of the same coin: carefully crafted advertisement campaigns to secure the interests
and goals of the elite in the long run.
Progressiv interests first with Obama and now reactionary interests have been encorporated
as messages and propaganda to neuter both. Now the left talks about gender neutral toilets,
trans kids and pronouns, instead of stagnant wages for decades and a predatory elite. Just
like the right talks about Trump's tweets, Q and is lost in the media skinner-box and his
personality cult, while Trump himself broke every single point he campaigned on (Except those
that serve the 1% and Israel.) and is owned by the same lobby which produces the artificial
reality Trump cultists bought into.
Political-media theater was and is orchestrated, so the true core of power stays untouched
and stable: the very small capitalist class who owns 90% of the net wealth in the USA (it's
getting increasingly similar in Europe as it is being Americanized in the process of
globalization); the superordinate megacompanies; the military-industrial complex; Wall Street
and (Central) Banking; special interests and lobbies of which the Israeli-Jewish Lobby is the
strongest.
And the cultural totalitarianism of today and its artifical reality is superior to
that of the old physical dictatorships, because in mass-media democracy not only does the
subject believe himself to be free, because the tools of his own enslavement are not visible;
only in it the subject gives his own concession to his own subjugation by his vote. While all
paths to real change, revolution or revolt are as cut off from him as under Stalin or
Mao.
Well, if the idea is to spread the message, any mention or reference to Hitler will be
totally devastating in the public arena. It's like participating in a marathon run and start
off by cutting off your legs.
Just recently I saw some posts on facebook from someone local to me preaching about Nordic
brotherhood. He posted few pictures and all of them had Hitlers face somewhere in the
background. FB shut it down within hours
What's interesting is the same message could have been presented differently without much
effort. Sliding past FB filters for days or even weeks and possibly influenced some people in
the meantime. So I wonder who was actually behind it – my guess is either a complete
idiot or someone eager to vilify nationalism and people concerned with racial issues.
@Exile " . . . [I]f sources as divergent as Hitler and Chomsky agree on the flaws of
capitalism/neo=liberal democracy, it lends credibility to those criticisms . . .".
Exile, that's exactly how I read it.
Our political problems aren't that difficult to understand:
Democrats – Sell-out to crony capitalism and global capitalism. Offers an Identity
Politics Plantation for rent-seekers and legitimacy-seekers as political camouflage.
Republicans – Sell-out to crony capitalism and global capitalism. Offers a Freedom
and Opportunity Plantation as political camouflage.
As far as I can tell, we really don't have an American or Americanist politics that tells
me I ought to give a meaninful damn about my fellow citizens in the 'hood, the gated 'burbs,
and everywhere else because, fuckin' 'ey, they're my fellow Americans.
Durocher's not romanticizing or white-washing here, he's making a serious point: if
sources as divergent as Hitler and Chomsky agree on the flaws of capitalism/neo=liberal
democracy, it lends credibility to those criticisms and makes it harder to refute them by
ad hominem or accusations of bias on the part of the critics.
Lordy. _That_ is your argument? The big loser in WW II and an academic agree that US
society should be reorganized? Add in Pol Pot, Stalin, Marx, Trotsky, Putin, Mussolini, and
BLM, not to mention the Wobblies, if you like. The argument remains unconvincing. Peterson's
"first, demonstrate your competence by cleaning and organizing your room and then your home
and your affairs, _then_ try to re-make the world. None of the above, except perhaps Putin,
could have passed that test.
Q: Is Marxism a science or a philosophy?
A: Philosophy. If it were a science they'd have tried it out on dogs first.
@Miggle And how can there be "checks" when everything is "classified", and when Julian
Assange has to be murdered in a US prison but it will be made to look like suicide?
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of
acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the
more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking
going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the
limits put on the range of the debate. – Noam Chomsky"
COMMENT: Chomsky is talking about the Overton window: the range of ideas that "The Powers
That Be" (TPTB) will allow in public discussion.
EXAMPLES:
(1) Tucker Carson recently went outside the Overton window, when he said "white supremacy is
a hoax", then TPTB immediately "vacationed" him for political reeducation, and now he is
safely back within the window, rattling his cage on issues harmless to TPTB.
(2) The Controlled Protest Press (CPP) will often blame economic problems on the
Federal-Reserve making wrong moves, and suggest the right moves the Fed should make instead,
as the correct solution. But the CPP will never suggest that the correct solution is to end
the Fed and the private currency they issue, and to return the currency-issuing power to the
government, as required by the constitution (Article I Section 8). Because that's outside the
Overton window.
(3) The CPP will often complain about the government ignoring warning signs before the
9/11 attack, and botching their response after it happened. But the CPP will never suggest
the whole thing was an inside job to garner public support for bankers oil wars in the middle
east. Because that's outside the Overton window.
when elite and majority opinion clash, the American elite is over time able to impose
its policies onto the majority (examples of this include U.S. intervention in both World
Wars and mass Third World immigration since the 1960s, opposed by the people and promoted
by the elite).
@Professional Stranger CHOMSKY himself always stays within the Overton window, and makes
a show of it:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZrEDo9ChSdQ?feature=oembed
Chomsky goes beyond maintaining a strategic silence on 9/11, to inciting smear-campaigns
against skeptics of the official narrative of 9/11. He demeans "truthers": "Their lives are
no good Their lives are collapsing They are people at a loss Nothing makes any sense They
don't understand what an explanation is They think they are experts in physics and civil
engineering on the basis of one hour on the Internet."
I think you should ask the Slavic untermenschen; Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Byelorussians &
Ukranians what their experience of occupation by the Wehrmacht was like. Poland alone lost 5
million civilians with Ukraine losing a similar number.
To be President of the United States is now exceedingly dangerous. Of course,
assassination is the bigger danger; but, now, there will also be the danger of
imprisonment. A politician's selling out to billionaires in order to reach the top can
become especially risky when billionaires are at war against each other -- and not merely
against some foreign ('enemy') aristocracy.
Interesting concept. When the elites go after each other; that is when you know empire is
in rapid decline.
Other powers may just simply wait it out.
@JackOH You summed up very well the nature of the duopoly ruling the US for donkey's
years. Representative democracy is a licence for political power by a small clique over the
people. Obviously, both Fascism (Hitler) and Socialism (Marx) agree on that, but for
different reasons. And so does anyone with some basic understanding of how the political
process works.
But the article goes further than stating the obvious: the intention – in my mind
– is to show that, because Hitler and Chomsky are in agreement about the deception of
"democracy", then Fascism is a reputable ideology, so much so that Chomsky, by association,
gives his imprimatur to that perception. Durocher (a self-declared racist) is just another
purveyor of the Nazis' lies attempting to dress that ideology with respectable robes.
Nothing new there. Afterall Hitler also called his political party "Socialism", the term
stolen from the party he infiltrated for its popular appeal. As soon as he grabbed
dictatorial power he imprisoned the socialists.
@Biff Roman elites started to attack each other in 133 B.C., and the civil wars lasted a
century. The Roman Empire survived several centuries after that.
@Mikemikev Why not stick to discussing the ideas in the essay?
It is pathetic to fall back on the ad hominem "Hitler!" excuse for not engaging with the
ideas.
Perhaps Durocher is wrong in the ideas he attributes to Hitler.
For myself I have always found it interesting that the basic concept of "national"
"socialism" (let's just look at those words separately) seems to bear thinking over: A
socialism that is not a international system but is based on a nation. Obviously how you
define a nation is pretty important.
Interestingly, now the Jews/Zionists have defined themselves as a nation (whether or not
the citizens of this nation actually live in Israel). And the point of this nation certainly
appears to be to confer all of the benefits of citizenship in the nation only on that
nation's citizens and on no others. Many of the benefits of citizenship seem to be of a
socialist nature: quite a few freebies such as education, health care, vacations at the
seashore in special hotels, free housing (on land stolen from the natives), etc. etc. So,
this Jewish nation certainly seems to espouse a version of socialism that is nation-based.
I.e., national socialism.
@The_seventh_shape We'll see. Stalin asked "how many divisions does the Pope have?" The
Chair is still there, the Soviet Union is gone – God works in mysterious ways.
TURTLE in COMMENT 169: There is. or at least was, a professor in the Department of
Materials Science & Engineering at MIT, where Chomsky is Professor Emeritus of
Linguistics, who spoke out publicly regarding certain anomalies found in the debris of the
twin towers (not Building 7). Prof. Chomsky could have simply walked across campus and, no
doubt, gotten an audience with his fellow faculty member, had he chosen to do so.
Ridiculing the public statements of someone with actual expertise in a relevant field by
implying that none who have spoken out are qualified to do so is intellectually dishonest
in the extreme.
Chomsky is a fraud.
STRANGER: Agreed! There are also the 1500 architects and engineers at "Architects &
Engineers for 9/11 Truth" https://www.ae911truth.org/ who have spoken out, and who
are well qualified to do so. Same goes for Pilots for 9/11 Truth http://pilotsfor911truth.org/ .
Fascinating! I'm reminded of Noam Chomsky's Manufactured Consent quite a bit lately
due to the reckless deplatforming. As a "recovering anarchist," I sometimes wonder have I
moved right? Or has the left moved left? Thank you for writing!
Chomsky has valid critiques of US power and its use. He points out the evil done in the name
of the people re: capitalism (which benefits those who live off their capital. These people
travel the world in search of people to screw over and drop like bad habits. See – wood
and coal industries in West Virginia, USA.
That Israel is a ethno state is no coincidence, it is exactly the belonging to the group
which makes for a strong nation. All of "us" against all of "them". That Israel doesn't have
the mass influx of aliens as white European nations must suffer should be instructive. They
learned this from the NDSP as evidenced by the tactics of ghettoization on the Palestinians.
They even have the strange belief that walls work.
Civic nationalism makes a lotta sense, but one must feel connection to the land, the
people and the overarching nation of which they are a part. What multicultural gubbamint has
lasted without friction between its peoples and for how long? Most western nations are the
only ones with the multiculti death wish. Why do people migrate to hideous racist white
nations? Do they can gripe about whatever they want while living high on the hog, of
course!
Why don't people migrate to Israel, Japan, Cape Verde or Burundi? Because they either
don't let many "others" in by defacto law or nobody wants to go because of dejure common
sense.
They are afraid to admin that a color revolution was launched to depose Trump after the
elections of 2016. Essentially a coup d'état by intelligence agencies and Clinton wing of
Democratic Party.
Notable quotes:
"... The 53 House Intel interviews. House Intelligence interviewed many key players in the Russia probe and asked the DNI to declassify those interviews nearly a year ago, after sending the transcripts for review last November. There are several big reveals, I'm told, including the first evidence that a lawyer tied to the Democratic National Committee had Russia-related contacts at the CIA. ..."
"... The Stefan Halper documents. It has been widely reported that European-based American academic Stefan Halper and a young assistant, Azra Turk, worked as FBI sources . ..."
"... Page/Papadopoulos exculpatory statements. Another of Nunes' five buckets, these documents purport to show what the two Trump aides were recorded telling undercover assets or captured in intercepts insisting on their innocence. Papadopoulos told me he told an FBI undercover source in September 2016 that the Trump campaign was not trying to obtain hacked Clinton documents from Russia and considered doing so to be treason. ..."
"... The 'Gang of Eight' briefing materials. These were a series of classified briefings and briefing books the FBI and DOJ provided key leaders in Congress in the summer of 2018 that identify shortcomings in the Russia collusion narrative. ..."
"... The Steele spreadsheet. I wrote recently that the FBI kept a spreadsheet on the accuracy and reliability of every claim in the Steele dossier. According to my sources, it showed as much as 90 percent of the claims could not be corroborated, were debunked or turned out to be open-source internet rumors. ..."
"... The Steele interview. It has been reported, and confirmed, that the DOJ's inspector general (IG) interviewed the former British intelligence operative for as long as 16 hours about his contacts with the FBI while working with Clinton's opposition research firm, Fusion GPS. It is clear from documents already forced into the public view by lawsuits that Steele admitted in the fall of 2016 that he was desperate to defeat Trump ..."
"... The redacted sections of the third FISA renewal application. This was the last of four FISA warrants targeting the Trump campaign; it was renewed in June 2017 after special counsel Robert Mueller 's probe had started, and signed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein . It is the one FISA application that House Republicans have repeatedly asked to be released, and I'm told the big reveal in the currently redacted sections of the application is that it contained both misleading information and evidence of intrusive tactics used by the U.S. government to infiltrate Trump's orbit. ..."
"... Records of allies' assistance. Multiple sources have said a handful of U.S. allies overseas – possibly Great Britain, Australia and Italy – were asked to assist FBI efforts to check on Trump connections to Russia. ..."
"... Attorney General Bill Barr's recent comments that "the use of foreign intelligence capabilities and counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign, to me, is unprecedented and it's a serious red line that's been crossed." ..."
As the Russiagate circus attempts to quietly disappear over the horizon, with Democrats
preferring to shift the anti-Trump narrative back to "racist", "white supremacist",
"xenophobe", and the mainstream media ready to squawk "recession"; the Trump administration may
have a few more cards up its sleeve before anyone claims the higher ground in this farce we
call an election campaign.
As
The Hill's John Solomon details, in September 2018 that President Trump told my Hill.TV
colleague Buck Sexton and me that he would order the release of all classified documents
showing what the FBI, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other U.S. intelligence agencies may
have done wrong in the Russia probe.
And while it's been almost a year since then, of feet-dragging and cajoling and
deep-state-fighting, we wonder, given Solomon's revelations below, if the president is getting
ready to play his 'Trump' card.
Here are the documents that
Solomon believes have the greatest chance of rocking Washington, if declassified:
1.) Christopher
Steele 's confidential human source reports at the FBI. These documents, known in bureau
parlance as 1023 reports, show exactly what transpired each time Steele and his FBI handlers
met in the summer and fall of 2016 to discuss his anti-Trump dossier. The big reveal, my
sources say, could be the first evidence that the FBI shared sensitive information with
Steele, such as the existence of the classified
Crossfire Hurricane operation targeting the Trump campaign. It would be a huge discovery
if the FBI fed Trump-Russia intel to Steele in the midst of an election, especially when his
ultimate opposition-research client was Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National
Committee (DNC). The FBI has released only one or two of these reports under FOIA lawsuits
and they were 100 percent redacted. The American public deserves better.
2.) The 53 House Intel interviews. House Intelligence interviewed many key players in
the Russia probe and asked the DNI to declassify those interviews nearly a year ago, after
sending the transcripts for review last November. There are several big reveals, I'm told,
including the first evidence that a lawyer tied to the Democratic National Committee had
Russia-related contacts at the CIA.
3.) The Stefan Halper documents. It has been widely reported that European-based
American academic Stefan Halper and a young assistant, Azra Turk,
worked as FBI sources . We know for sure that one or both had contact with targeted
Trump aides like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos at the end of the
election. My sources tell me there may be other documents showing Halper continued working
his way to the top of Trump's transition and administration, eventually reaching senior
advisers like Peter Navarro inside the White House in summer 2017. These documents would show
what intelligence agencies worked with Halper, who directed his activity, how much he was
paid and how long his contacts with Trump officials were directed by the U.S. government's
Russia probe.
4.) The October 2016 FBI email chain. This is a key document identified by Rep. Nunes and
his investigators. My sources say it will show exactly what concerns the FBI knew about and
discussed with DOJ about using Steele's dossier and other evidence to support a Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign in October 2016. If
those concerns weren't shared with FISA judges who approved the warrant, there could be major
repercussions.
5.) Page/Papadopoulos exculpatory statements. Another of Nunes' five buckets, these
documents purport to show what the two Trump aides were recorded telling undercover assets or
captured in intercepts insisting on their innocence. Papadopoulos told me he told an FBI
undercover source in September 2016 that the Trump campaign was not trying to obtain hacked
Clinton documents from Russia and considered doing so to be treason. If he made that
statement with the FBI monitoring, and it was not disclosed to the FISA court, it could be
another case of FBI or DOJ misconduct.
6.) The 'Gang of Eight' briefing materials. These were a series of classified
briefings and briefing books the FBI and DOJ provided key leaders in Congress in the summer
of 2018 that identify shortcomings in the Russia collusion narrative. Of all the
documents congressional leaders were shown, this is most frequently cited to me in private as
having changed the minds of lawmakers who weren't initially convinced of FISA abuses or FBI
irregularities.
7.) The Steele spreadsheet. I
wrote recently that the FBI kept a spreadsheet on the accuracy and reliability of every
claim in the Steele dossier. According to my sources, it showed as much as 90 percent of the
claims could not be corroborated, were debunked or turned out to be open-source internet
rumors. Given Steele's own effort to leak intel in his dossier to the media before
Election Day, the public deserves to see the FBI's final analysis of his credibility. A
document
I reviewed recently showed the FBI described Steele's information as only "minimally
corroborated" and the bureau's confidence in him as "medium."
9.) The redacted sections of the third FISA renewal application. This was the last of
four FISA warrants targeting the Trump campaign; it was renewed in June 2017 after special
counsel Robert
Mueller 's probe had started, and signed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein . It is the one
FISA application that House Republicans have repeatedly asked to be released, and I'm told
the big reveal in the currently redacted sections of the application is that it contained
both misleading information and evidence of intrusive tactics used by the U.S. government to
infiltrate Trump's orbit.
10.) Records of allies' assistance. Multiple sources have said a handful of U.S.
allies overseas – possibly Great Britain, Australia and Italy – were asked to
assist FBI efforts to check on Trump connections to Russia. Members of Congress have
searched recently for some key contact documents with British intelligence . My sources
say these documents might help explain Attorney General Bill Barr's
recent comments that "the use of foreign intelligence capabilities and
counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign, to me, is
unprecedented and it's a serious red line that's been crossed."
These documents, when declassified, would show more completely how a routine
counterintelligence probe was hijacked to turn the most awesome spy powers in America against a
presidential nominee in what was essentially a political dirty trick orchestrated by
Democrats.
I disagree with Solomon. Nothing will "doom" the swamp unless the righteous few are
willing to indict, prosecute and carry out sentencing for the guilty. Exposing the guilty
accomplishes nothing, because anyone paying attention already knows of their crimes. Those
who want to believe lies will still believe them after the truth comes out.
It's ALL A WASTE OF TIME unless we follow through.
Does anyone see a pattern here after the 2009 Tea Party movement began?
2009 - Republicans: "If we win back the House, we can accomplish our agenda."
2011 - Republicans: "If we win back the Senate, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE:
After winning back the House)
2012 - Republicans: "If we win back the Senate, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 2
YEARS After winning back the House)
2013 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE:
1 YEAR after winning back the House and the Senate)
2014 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE:
2 YEARS after winning back the House and the Senate)
2015 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE:
3 YEARS after winning back the House and the Senate)
2016 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE:
4 YEARS after winning back the House and the Senate)
2017 - Republicans: "Now that we've won back the Presidency, we can accomplish our
agenda." (NOTE: After winning back the House 6 YEARS AGO and the Senate 4 YEARS AGO)
2018 - Republicans: "Now that we've won back the Presidency, we can accomplish our
agenda." (NOTE: After winning back the House 7 YEARS AGO and the Senate 5 YEARS AGO)
2019 - John Solomon - "If Trump Declassifies These 10 Documents, Democrats Are Doomed"
I hate to say it, but I DON'T BELIEVE YOU, JOHN.
ALL WE HAVE HEARD OVER THE COURSE OF THIS DECADE IS "IF THIS HAPPENS...THEN THEY ARE
DOOMED / WE CAN ACCOMPLISH OUR AGENDA / YADDA YADDA YADDA.
WHEN THE FOLLOWING ARE FOUND GUILTY OF TREASON, THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL I BELIEVE YOU:
CLINTONS
OBAMA
BIDEN
KERRY
BRENNAN
CLAPPER
COMEY
MCCABE
MUELLER
WEISSMAN
STRZOK
RICE
POWERS
LYNCH
YATES
ET AL
WHY ARE THESE TREASONOUS, VILE, CORRUPT CRIMINALS NOT INDICTED FOR TREASON?
As if there's any major philosophical difference between the Librtads and Zionist
Cocksuckvatives.
Both sides use the .gov agencies to subvert and ignore the Constitution whenever possible.
Best example is WikiLeaks and how each party wished Assange would just go away when he
revealed damaging information about both sides on multiple occasions.
"... So far, that wager has netted Americans nothing. No money. No deal. No bridges, roads or leadless water pipes. And there's nothing on the horizon since Trump stormed out of the most recent meeting. That was a three-minute session in May with Democratic leaders at which Trump was supposed to discuss the $2 trillion he had proposed earlier to spend on infrastructure. In a press conference immediately afterward, Trump said if the Democrats continued to investigate him, he would refuse to keep his promises to the American people to repair the nation's infrastructure. ..."
"... Candidate Donald Trump knew it was no joke. On the campaign trail, he said U.S. infrastructure was "a mess" and no better than that of a "third-world country. " When an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia in 2015, killing eight and injuring about 200 , he tweeted , "Our roads, airports, tunnels, bridges, electric grid -- all falling apart." Later, he tweeted , "The only one to fix the infrastructure of our country is me." ..."
"... Donald Trump promised to make America great again. And that wouldn't be possible if America's rail system, locks, dams and pipelines -- that is, its vital organs -- were "a mess." Trump signed what he described as a contract with American voters to deliver an infrastructure plan within the first 100 days of his administration. ..."
"... He mocked his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton's proposal to spend $275 billion. "Her number is a fraction of what we're talking about. We need much more money to rebuild our infrastructure," he told Fox News in 2016 . "I would say at least double her numbers, and you're going to really need a lot more than that." ..."
"... In August of 2016, he promised , "We will build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, seaports and airports that our country deserves. American cars will travel the roads, American planes will connect our cities, and American ships will patrol the seas. American steel will send new skyscrapers soaring. We will put new American metal into the spine of this nation." ..."
"... That contract Trump signed with American voters to produce an infrastructure plan in the first 100 days: worthless. It never happened. He gave Americans an Infrastructure Week in June of 2017, though, and at just about the 100-day mark, predicted infrastructure spending would "take off like a rocket ship." Two more Infrastructure Weeks followed in the next two years, but no money. ..."
"... This year, by which time the words Infrastructure Week had become a synonym for promises not kept, Trump met on April 30 with top Democratic leaders and recommended a $2 trillion infrastructure investment. Democrats praised Trump afterward for taking the challenge seriously and for agreeing to find the money. ..."
"... Almost immediately, Trump began complaining that Democrats were trying to hoodwink him into raising taxes to pay for the $2 trillion he had offered to spend. ..."
"... Trump and the Republicans relinquished one way to pay for infrastructure when they passed a tax cut for the rich and corporations in December of 2017. As a result, the rich and corporations pocketed hundreds of billions -- $1 trillion over 10 years -- and Trump doesn't have that money to invest in infrastructure. Corporations spent their tax break money on stock buybacks, further enriching the already rich. They didn't invest in American manufacturing or worker training or wage increases. ..."
"... I have seen this movie before. A State builds a highway, it then leases that highway to a corporation for a bucket of cash which it uses to bribe the electorate to win the next election or two. The corporation shoves brand new toll booths on the highway charging sky high rates which puts a crimp in local economic activity. After the lease is up after twenty years, the State gets to take over the highway again to find that the corporation cut back on maintenance so that the whole highway has to be rebuilt again. Rinse and repeat. ..."
"... Promises by any narcissist mean nothing. You cannot hang your hat on any word that Trump speaks, because it's not about you or anyone else, but about him and only him. ..."
"... Here is a heads up. If any infrastructure is done it will be airports. The elite fly and couldn't give a crap about the suspension and wheel destroying potholes we have to slalom around every day. They also don't care that the great unwashed waste thousands of hours stuck in traffic when a bridge is closed or collapses. ..."
Yves here. In a bit of synchronicity, when a reader was graciously driving me to the Department of Motor Vehicles (a schlepp in
the wilds of Shelby County), she mentioned she'd heard local media reports that trucks had had their weight limits lowered due to
concern that some overpasses might not be able to handle the loads. Of course, a big reason infrastructure spending has plunged in
the US is that it's become an excuse for "public-private partnerships," aka looting, when those deals take longer to get done and
produce bad results so often that locals can sometimes block them.
No problem, though. President Donald Trump promised to fix all this. The great dealmaker, the builder of eponymous buildings,
the star of "The Apprentice," Donald Trump, during his campaign, urged Americans to bet on him because he'd double what his opponent
would spend on infrastructure. Double, he pledged!
So far, that wager has netted Americans nothing. No money. No deal. No bridges, roads or leadless water pipes. And there's
nothing on the horizon since Trump stormed out of the most recent meeting. That was a three-minute session in May with Democratic
leaders at which Trump was supposed to discuss the $2 trillion he had proposed earlier to spend on infrastructure. In a press conference
immediately afterward, Trump said if the Democrats continued to investigate him, he would refuse to keep his promises to the American
people to repair the nation's infrastructure.
The comedian Stephen Colbert described the situation best, saying Trump told the Democrats: "It's my way or no highways."
The situation, however, is no joke. Just ask the New York rail commuters held up for more than 2,000 hours over the past four
years by bridge and tunnel breakdowns. Just ask the
American Society of Civil Engineers , which gave the nation a D+ grade for infrastructure and estimated that if more than $1
trillion is not added to currently anticipated spending on infrastructure, "the economy is expected to lose almost
$4 trillion in GDP , resulting in a loss of 2.5 million jobs in 2025."
Donald Trump promised to make America great again. And that wouldn't be possible if America's rail system, locks, dams and
pipelines -- that is, its vital organs -- were "a mess." Trump signed
what he described as a
contract with American voters to deliver an infrastructure plan within the first 100 days of his administration.
He mocked his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton's proposal to spend $275 billion. "Her number is a fraction of what we're
talking about. We need much more money to rebuild our infrastructure,"
he told Fox News in 2016 . "I would say at least double her numbers, and you're going to really need a lot more than that."
In August of 2016, he promised
, "We will build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, seaports and airports that our country deserves. American
cars will travel the roads, American planes will connect our cities, and American ships will patrol the seas. American steel will
send new skyscrapers soaring. We will put new American metal into the spine of this nation."
In his victory speech and both of his State of the Union addresses, he pledged again to be the master of infrastructure. "We are
going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, school, hospitals. And we will put millions of
our people to work," he said the night he won.
That sounds excellent. That's exactly what
75 percent of respondents
to a Gallup poll said they wanted. That would create millions of family-supporting jobs making the steel, aluminum, concrete, pipes
and construction vehicles necessary to accomplish infrastructure repair. That would stimulate the economy in ways that benefit the
middle class and those who are struggling.
That contract Trump signed with American voters to produce an infrastructure plan in the first 100 days: worthless. It never
happened. He gave Americans
an Infrastructure Week
in June of 2017, though, and
at just about the 100-day mark, predicted infrastructure spending would "take off like a rocket ship." Two more Infrastructure
Weeks followed in the next two years, but no money.
Trump finally announced
a plan in February of 2018, at a little over the 365-day mark, to spend $1.5 trillion on infrastructure. It went nowhere
because it managed to annoy both Democrats and Republicans.
It was to be funded by only $200 billion in federal dollars -- less than what Hillary Clinton proposed. The rest was to come from
state and local governments and from foreign money interests and the private sector. Basically, the idea was to hand over to hedge
fund managers the roads and bridges and pipelines originally built, owned and maintained by Americans. The fat cats at the hedge
funds would pay for repairs but then toll the assets in perpetuity. Nobody liked it.
That was last year. This year, by which time the words
Infrastructure Week had
become a synonym for promises not kept,
Trump met on April 30 with top Democratic leaders and recommended a $2 trillion infrastructure investment. Democrats praised
Trump afterward for taking the challenge seriously and for agreeing to find the money.
Almost immediately, Trump
began complaining that Democrats were trying to hoodwink him into raising taxes to pay for the $2 trillion he had offered to
spend.
Trump and the Republicans relinquished one way to pay for infrastructure when they passed a tax cut for the rich and corporations
in December of 2017. As a result, the rich and corporations pocketed hundreds of billions --
$1 trillion over 10 years -- and Trump doesn't
have that money to invest in infrastructure. Corporations spent their tax break money on stock buybacks, further enriching the already
rich. They didn't invest in American manufacturing or worker training or wage increases.
Three weeks after the April 30 meeting, Trump snubbed Democrats who returned to the White House hoping the president had found
a way to keep his promise to raise $2 trillion for infrastructure. Trump dismissed them like naughty schoolchildren. He told them
he wouldn't countenance Democrats simultaneously investigating him and bargaining with him -- even though Democrats were investigating
him at the time of the April meeting and one of the investigators -- Neal -- had attended.
Promise not kept again.
Trump's reelection motto, Keep America Great, doesn't work for infrastructure. It's still a mess. It's the third year of his presidency,
and he has done nothing about it. Apparently, he's saving this pledge for his next term.
In May, he promised Louisianans
a new bridge over
Interstate 10 -- only if he is reelected. He said the administration would have it ready to go on "day one, right after the election."
Just like he said he'd produce an infrastructure plan within the first 100 days of his first term.
He's doubling down on the infrastructure promises. His win would mean Americans get nothing again.
The whole thing seems so stupid. The desperate need is there, the people are there to do the work, the money spent into the
infrastructure would give a major boost to the real economy, the completed infrastructure would give the real economy a boost
for years & decades to come – it is win-win right across the board. But the whole thing is stalled because the whole deal can't
be rigged to give a bunch of hedge fund managers control of that infrastructure afterwards. If it did, the constant rents that
Americans would have to pay to use this infrastructure would bleed the economy for decades to come.
I have seen this movie before. A State builds a highway, it then leases that highway to a corporation for a bucket of cash
which it uses to bribe the electorate to win the next election or two. The corporation shoves brand new toll booths on the highway
charging sky high rates which puts a crimp in local economic activity. After the lease is up after twenty years, the State gets
to take over the highway again to find that the corporation cut back on maintenance so that the whole highway has to be rebuilt
again. Rinse and repeat.
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act in 1956, can you imagine how history would have gone
if they had been handed over to a bunch of corporations who would have built toll booths over the whole network? Would have done
wonders for the American economy I bet.
One of the things discussed at our town hall meeting the other night, was a much needed $481k public bathroom, and that was
the low bid.
It has to be ADA compliant with ramps, etc.
$48,100 seems like it'd be plenty to get 'r done, as you can build a house with a couple of bathrooms, and a few bedrooms,
a kitchen and living room for maybe $200k.
And if toll revenues don't come as high as expected, mother state will come to the rescue of those poor fund managers. I find
it amazing that Trump uses the stupid Russia, Russia, Russia! fixation of democrats as an excuse to do nothing about infrastructure.
Does this work with his electorate?
Promises by any narcissist mean nothing. You cannot hang your hat on any word that Trump speaks, because it's not about
you or anyone else, but about him and only him.
Here is a heads up. If any infrastructure is done it will be airports. The elite fly and couldn't give a crap about the
suspension and wheel destroying potholes we have to slalom around every day. They also don't care that the great unwashed waste
thousands of hours stuck in traffic when a bridge is closed or collapses.
Well, fix the airports and you've still got Boeing, self-destructing as fast as it can. And Airbus can't fill all the orders
no matter how hard it tries. Guess everybody will just have to . stay home.
Are all the coal jobs back? How about the manufacturing? NAFTA been repealed and replaced with something better yet? How's
the wall coming and has Mexico sent the check yet? Soldiers back from Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria yet?
Got that tax cut for rich people and a ton of conservative judges through though, didn't he?
"It couldn't have gone any better," Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., told the Washington Post,
even though Neal was investigating Trump for possible tax fraud.
What a surprise. It's simply "amazing" that the insane status quo jihad that has been waged against Trump since he announced
his candidacy had real consequences for the country. Who would have thought that calling ANY president ignorant, ugly, fat, a
liar, a traitor, a cheater, an agent of Putin, a racist, a misogynist, a xenophobe, a bigot, an isolationist and an illegitimate
occupant of the White House 24/7 since he or she won the election would make actual accomplishment nearly impossible.
The mere mention of his name on college campuses has even been legitimized as a fear-inducing, "safety"-threatening "microagression."
It's just so rich that having determined to prevent Trump from doing absolutely anything he promised during the campaign by
any and all means, regardless of what the promise was or how beneficial it may have been, his numerous, bilious "critics" now
have the gonads to accuse him of not getting anything done.
With all due respect to the author of this piece, the result he laments was exactly the point of this relentless nightmare
of Trump derangement to which the nation has been subjected for three years. I tend to think that the specific promise most targeted
for destruction was his criticism of NATO and "infrastructure" was collateral damage, but that's neither here nor there.
The washington status quo has succeeded in its mission to cripple a president it could not defeat electorally, and now tries
to blame him for their success. Cutting off your nose to spite your face has always been a counterproductive strategy.
"... When Trump was first elected, I tried to calm down friends with advanced TDS, who expected Kristallnacht to be directed at their favorite brunch spots, by saying that "This is what empires in decline look like." ..."
"... In this sordid world, girls/women have absolutely no value ..."
"... Don't forget the young boys who get traded around like fudge recipes. Something quick on the Hollywood angle on bent dicks. It applies almost everywhere in America now: https://news.avclub.com/corey-feldman-made-a-documentary-about-sexual-abuse-he-1834310252 ..."
"... My reinterpretation of your comment would be; In this sordid world, people without power have absolutely no value. ..."
"... Epstein's World was tied in with Hollywood and Wall Street. Both are homoerotic paedophile havens. The world of the Vatican is tied in to Wall Street; it has it's own bank, the Instituto per le Opere de Religioni. ..."
"... As is true with the continued withholding of key documents in the JFK assassination, I believe that if the lousy reporting and official screwups in the Epstein case persist, it will be perfectly fine for the public to conclude and believe the absolute worst and act accordingly. ..."
"... Given the spotiness and inadequacy of reporting on the Epstein affair I wonder if an avenue for exploration might be that of a more direct involvement of media moguls and highly placed media staff in being serviced by Epstein i.e., the decision-makers regarding what gets covered and published are themselves subject to exposure, embarrassment, and other things that befall men caught in such matters. ..."
I can't add much to Yve's excellent post and the follow-up comments, except to say that the events of recent days and weeks
have made Pizzagate (as deranged as it was) into some kind of weird Jungian premonition which is to say, the s&#* is out of control.
When Trump was first elected, I tried to calm down friends with advanced TDS, who expected Kristallnacht to be directed
at their favorite brunch spots, by saying that "This is what empires in decline look like."
In regard to this sordid tale, I'm reminded of Robert Graves' (and the superb BBC TV version of) "I, Claudius."
My reinterpretation of your comment would be; In this sordid world, people without power have absolutely no value.
Otherwise, I'm with you all the way. Abuse is abuse. No other definition is logical.
Epstein's World was tied in with Hollywood and Wall Street. Both are homoerotic paedophile havens. The world of the Vatican
is tied in to Wall Street; it has it's own bank, the Instituto per le Opere de Religioni.
Who knows? Perhaps there will be some Prelates unearthed from the Lolita Express passenger log.
As is true with the continued withholding of key documents in the JFK assassination, I believe that if the lousy reporting
and official screwups in the Epstein case persist, it will be perfectly fine for the public to conclude and believe the absolute
worst and act accordingly.
Given the spotiness and inadequacy of reporting on the Epstein affair I wonder if an avenue for exploration might be that
of a more direct involvement of media moguls and highly placed media staff in being serviced by Epstein i.e., the decision-makers
regarding what gets covered and published are themselves subject to exposure, embarrassment, and other things that befall men
caught in such matters.
Who covers the press and roots out its secret malefactions? Rogue reporters? And who publishes them? Indeed!
Donald Trump will win reelection, or not, based primarily on his performance in office. The voters will ask, in their
collective judgment, such questions as: has he scored at least one major accomplishment in domestic policy? Has he
maintained strong economic growth? Has he avoided major foreign policy failures? Has he presided over a major foreign
policy victory? Is he scarred by scandal? Are Americans better off than they were before his inauguration? Is the
country better positioned in the world?
Looking at the Trump presidency through the prism of such questions, it is
possible to produce a kind of preliminary report card. Recognizing that the voters won't render their own grades for
more than a year, we can still compile a general overview of the president's likely standing when the votes are counted.
This overview suggests that he resides upon a knife's edge of political fate. Events between now and November of next
year could easily push him into defeat, though he could also squeak through to victory. But defeat is more likely.
Before we get to the report card, two general points need to be made. First, irrespective of Trump's fate next year,
he is and will remain a significant figure in American political history. He transformed the national debate by exposing
the chasm in political sensibilities between the elites of the coasts and angry Americans in the heartland. In spite of
his crude and often distasteful ways (and sometimes because of them), he created a tight knot of political sentiment
that stands antagonistic toward the elite vision of globalism, diversity, open borders, overseas dominance, and free
trade -- most of it enforced with the cudgel of political correctness.
The heartland ethos, by contrast, includes an end to illegal immigration, a more restrictionist legal immigration
system to foster the absorption of those already here, a trade system attuned to industrial America, realism and
restraint in foreign policy, respect for the country's cultural heritage, and a hostility to the insidious impact of
identity politics.
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This is a huge chasm, yet when the 2016 campaign began, hardly a politician on the scene perceived it or understood
its ramifications. Trump did, and that got him (barely) elected. The result now is that we all now know about the chasm,
and it will be America's defining political pivot for years to come.
But if this political sagacity got Trump elected, it won't help him much in 2020. Challengers can win on talk if it
resonates sufficiently with the electorate; incumbents can only win on performance.
The second point is that, while the president enjoys the solid support of a highly loyal and unwavering contingent of
Americans, he has proven incapable of building a governing coalition. Throughout his presidency, his approval rating,
based on the aggregate numbers pulled together by the political web site FiveThirtyEight, has hovered between 39 percent
and 43 percent. This doesn't mean he can't get up to the 50 percent or so needed for reelection. Ronald Reagan's rating
was just 45 percent at this point in his presidency, and he went on to a landslide reelection win. But Trump's level of
approval has been so consistent that it is difficult to see how he might rise above it during his final months in
office.
Further, state-by-state poll numbers indicate that the president has lost considerable ground in key states needed
for reelection. According to surveys conducted by the online polling firm Civiqs, his approval rating is in negative
numbers in 10 states he carried in 2016, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Texas. None of the
states carried by Hillary Clinton seem poised to flip to the president.
This reflects Trump's general standing with the American people, and it means that he doesn't have sufficient
political juice to dominate the national debate on major issues and get Congress to take action. Trump supporters no
doubt will blame the Democrats, as presidential loyalists always do when their man can't get the job done. But in our
presidential system, chief executives don't get a pass by pointing fingers at the opposition.
Richard Nixon, a 43 percent victor in 1968, had to contend with a hostile Democratic majority in both houses of
Congress, and still amassed a record that buoyed him to a massive reelection victory in 1972. Reagan had a hostile House
Democratic majority and yet managed to galvanize the American people to such an extent that the House leadership lost
control of its own chamber, as frightened Democrats crossed over to Reagan's positions on major issues, particularly
fiscal ones.
How do presidents manage to overcome a hostile opposition? By shrewdly selecting issues to be pursued; by presenting
brilliant and coherent narrations on what those issues mean; and by deftly negotiating at the end to bring along just
enough of the opposition to carry the day. After his Democratic Party lost both houses of Congress in 1994, Bill Clinton
embarked on his brilliant "triangulation" strategy. Trump hasn't demonstrated any such capacity.
Which brings us to the report card:
Health care:
Trump failed all three of the tests for political success on this issue. He chose it
before it was ripe for serious legislative action (GOP lawmakers wanted to repeal and replace Obamacare but didn't have
anything approaching a viable replacement); he didn't explain it well because it wasn't well joined and because he
didn't seem to understand it; and he didn't seek any compromise with opposition members. Grade: D.
Immigration:
A massive Trump failure. He was the first president in decades who had enough
credibility with restrictionists to fashion a grand bargain that might have included legal status for the so-called
Dreamers (and perhaps their immediate families; not cousins and uncles). He might have also taken serious action on
other illegals in the country, on stemming the inward flow through every means possible, and on overhauling current
immigration policies, including ending family-based migration and the lottery, instituting a merit-based system, and
curbing the inflow enough to get the percentage of foreign-born people in America returned to more historical levels.
Was this even remotely possible? Perhaps not. But Trump campaigned as a man who would address the country's festering
immigration problem. That required that the issue be presented with sensitivity and clarity as to the harm that decades
of neglect have done to America. Nobody wants the United States to be a heartless country, but polls also indicate that
Democrats have come too close to open borders for the comfort of most. Therein was the opportunity.
But Trump didn't even talk to the American people about the issue; he communicated only to his base, thus ensuring
that the immigration chasm would continue with no end in sight. Grade: D.
Economic growth:
We can't issue a final grade here until the end of the semester, but prospects are
good for solid marks, even if an A doesn't appear likely. If growth continues through the third quarter of next year,
Trump will merit a solid B; if it slows, perhaps a B-; if it picks up, a B+. But an A would require the kind of growth
seen in Reagan's last six years in office (including annual percentages of 7.9, 5.6, 4.2, 4.5, and 3.8) or Clinton's
second term (4.4, 4.5, 4.9, 4.8). That isn't likely. Further, if the economy slips into recession, all bets are off.
This is a wait-and-see category. Grade: B, based on midterms, though the final exam will determine the outcome.
Trade:
Trump has taken a riverboat gamble on his trade dispute with China, which has been a commerce
thug for years -- stealing intellectual property, forcing U.S. companies in China to transfer technology, dumping goods
into U.S. markets, subsidizing state-owned companies, and manipulating its currency. White House aide Peter Navarro says
these "deadly sins" have destroyed some 70,000 factories in America and five million manufacturing jobs. China has been
bilking the United States in part to cadge vast sums of money to finance its geopolitical ambitions in Asia. There's a
strong argument that something had to be done, and only Trump among recent presidents had the fortitude to join the
issue.
In doing so, Trump has emphasized a central reality of American geopolitics, which his critics refuse to
accept -- namely that China, and not Russia, represents America's greatest long-term threat. But will the American people
and Congress accept the sacrifices that will likely be necessary to force China to change its ways? That may be
difficult for the president to pull off, given his less-than-robust standing with the American people. He's doing the
right thing in demanding reciprocal trade behavior from the Chinese, but his inability to forge a national consensus may
retard his prospects for success. Grade: Incomplete.
Foreign Policy:
Trump has not presided over any serious foreign policy failures, such as George W.
Bush's Iraq fiasco or Barack Obama's Libyan misadventure. Indeed, he has not led the country into any serious foreign
wars at all, which may be a significant accomplishment in comparison to his three predecessors. At the same time, he has
kept U.S. troops in Syria and Afghanistan beyond any worthwhile rationale. And he has not scored any significant foreign
policy successes -- nothing approaching Nixon's outreach to China or Jimmy Carter's Camp David Accords or Reagan's Cold War
breakthrough. The problem has been that he doesn't seem to possess any kind of coherent view of the world in our time.
He seems to have an instinctive understanding that the old global order is crumbling. But he doesn't have any idea of
what could or should replace this fading status quo or how America should operate in a changing world.
And Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement and seek to bring Iran to its knees economically
through "maximum pressure" could destabilize the entire Middle East even beyond George W. Bush's mindless Iraq invasion.
If so, the combustion likely won't occur until after Trump's current term, under whomever is president at the time. But
the burden of responsibility for any untoward developments emanating from that questionable policy will rest firmly upon
Trump. Grade: C-.
Scandal:
Any serious scandal that attaches to the upper reaches of an administration becomes a net
negative in the next election. It's difficult to assess the full political impact of the Russian scandal that has roiled
the nation since even before Trump was sworn in. On the one hand, the allegation of electoral "collusion" has been
exposed as a fraud. On the other, opponents have continued assaulting Trump for supposedly seeking to obstruct the
investigation. Their arguments are largely specious, but politics unfolds on the margin, and the marginal impact of all
this is likely to redound to Trump's detriment at reelection time. Besides, Trump doesn't seem to care much about how he
is perceived or about the old-style niceties of political discourse. That provides an opening for opposition arguments
about his loose ethics. Grade: C+.
General national welfare:
On those questions regarding whether Americans are better off today than
they were four years ago and whether America stands taller in the world, it's a bit of a mixed bag. The economic
statistics (growth, unemployment, job market participation, productivity, inflation, the stock market) are solid,
stemming largely from Trump's tax and regulatory policies. If they continue, the president will get general kudos from
the electorate on this crucial area of performance.
The voters' view of America's global standing is more difficult to assess. No doubt Trump's base is comfortable with
his performance on the world stage, but has he conducted himself in a way that will capture those swing voters who will
be crucial to his reelection prospects? It doesn't seem likely.
And that's reflective of the overall Trump presidency. This utterly unconventional politician who got elected in
utterly unconventional ways had an opportunity to fashion an unconventional brand of conservative politics -- wary of big
business and the nexus between government and big finance; hostile to coastal elites; protective of working class
Americans who have been abandoned and slandered by the Democratic Party; concerned about economic inequality; suspicious
of vehement libertarianism; opposed to promiscuous foreign policy adventurism; anti-globalist; nationalist; and
enthusiastic about the looming epic task of forging a new political order at home and a new geopolitical order in the
world.
Trump has demonstrated a vague sense of this opportunity, but he never seemed to grasp its complexities and nuances
or show any ability to forge a coherent strategy to make it a reality. The result: an overall grade of C. It would be a
gentleman's C if Trump were a gentleman. The question is whether the voters will grade on a curve.
"Trump has demonstrated a vague sense of this opportunity, but he never
seemed to grasp its complexities and nuances or show any ability to
forge a coherent strategy to make it a reality."
I don't think any national politician today, not Trump, not Bernie, not anyone,
really grasps just how seething with rage the public is right now.
Wanna know why
we have mass shootings? Think of those people that snap as a sort of warning sign of
the public mood. Expect to see a lot more of them, no matter who is in office.
For that matter, the election of Trump is a similar indicator. Think of Trump as
the "
Roll the dice, we've got nothing to lose!
" candidate, compared to the
establishment darling HRC.
Of course, long after Trump is gone from office, the forces that gave rise to
Trump will still be there. That said, the establishment will tar every populist for
years to come with Trump's weakness, stupidity, recklessness and incompetence. "
Remember
what happened the last time you didn't vote as instructed?
"
Already, Trump has proven the best campaign ad the European establishment could
ask for. He prevented the election of Le Pen in France, and prevented the German
establishment parties from complete meltdown. The campaign slogan goes something
like this: "
Vote for us, unless you want a buffoon like *him* in office!
"
I agree. For the first time in my life I am seriously concerned about the
future of this country. We are one serious financial or foreign policy
calamity away from serious social breakdown.
Robert: Thank you this very sober, very reasonable assessment. I hate Trump's stinking
rotten guts with the white hot fury of a thousand suns, and I disagree strongly with some
of the points you are making here, but this is a terrific piece.
He gets a "C" in foreign policy, but everything domestic is so bad that he may as well not
even call himself right wing at all. The illegal and legal immigration problems have
exacerbated under Trump (look up the numbers). Of course he has deported very few and now
advocates for increased legal immigration.That is not what anyone voted for. He
incessantly proclaims how much he has done for demographics that will never vote for him,
while even openly making fun of the struggles that working class white men (his base) face
in society. He has now come out in support of red flag laws as well because of one event
presumably. He even gave us a "criminal justice reform bill" to let out criminals to be
even more of a plague on society. Why?
"fashion a grand bargain that might have included
legal status for the so-called Dreamers (and perhaps their immediate families; not cousins
and uncles)." --> This is not acceptable. This is not reform, but merely a concession of
the inability of our country to have laws or moral legitimacy.
A solid F. Trump's weakness has failed to lead to any major policy successes, even when he
had majorities in both houses of Congress. Trump's incompetence has given the
establishment loads of ammunition and recruits that they didn't have a few years ago.
Hell, Trump has made even doofus Uncle Joe Biden look like a viable alternative. Sad!
One major problem with the author's analysis of the Trump Administration's scandals is
that it is limited entirely to the Russia scandal. Ignored are a host of acts of
corruption that have marked the Administration of the man who constantly bragged that he
would appoint "only the best people." So let's examine just a few of them. His National
Security Advisor Michael Flynn was convicted of felonies and sent to prison. His Secretary
of HHS Tom Price resigned in the wake of insider trading investigations. Interior
Secretary Ryan Zinke left the Trump administration amid mounting federal investigations
into his travel, political activity and potential conflicts of interest. EPA Administrator
Scott Pruitt was facing more than a dozen investigations into his taxpayer-funded travel,
questionable spending decisions, use of aides to conduct personal errands and other
matters when he resigned. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigned over his scandalous
granting of a sweetheart plea deal to Jeffrey Epstein. I could go on to the other members
of Trump's inner circle who are in prison or who have been forced to resign under a cloud
of scandal. I could point to New York State shutting down the Trump Foundation as a
fraudulent charity that scammed people out of their denotations. I could note the Trump
University scam whose victims received a $25 Million dollar payment from Trump after he
was elected. The author gives Trump a grade of C+ on scandals? An F would be more
accurate.
Healthcare: I actually don't blame Trump on this one. All he really did was trust his
party when they said they had plans and just needed the power to do them. It would've been
great if HE had a plan himself but in the end that's Congress' job more than anything. So
he gave them that power, said "DO IT!" and they failed him. He should've struck at
immigration first but as far as healthcare itself.
So I give him a B for effort.
Republicans get an F.
Immigration: "A massive Trump failure. He was the first president in decades who had
enough credibility with restrictionists to fashion a grand bargain that might have
included legal status for the so-called Dreamers (and perhaps their immediate families;
not cousins and uncles). He might have also taken serious action on other illegals in the
country, on stemming the inward flow through every means possible, and on overhauling
current immigration policies, including ending family-based migration and the lottery,
instituting a merit-based system, and curbing the inflow enough to get the percentage of
foreign-born people in America returned to more historical levels."
Remotely not possible? Legal Status for Dreamers, push for more efficient deportations,
merit based systems, and curbing the visa system?
That is VERY much possible to get all of most of that. The first is what the opposition
is wanting and most of his side wouldn't scream against. He didn't even provide it as a
bargaining chip (at best a "we'll revisit it later" delay).
Higher deportations would bring it to Obama levels. It just becomes hard to do when you
open the debate with blasting all latinos as criminals sparking off the PC bee hive.
Though that's moot since he could've, instead of a symbolic wall he could've asked for
more funding for more centers and more judges to speed up the deportation trials (since
isn't the point to actually DEPORT them, not lock them up for months under the pay of
taxpayers). he used up his capital to maintain a marketing gimmick. By the time we got
serious, he had moderates so pissed they tune the whole thing out and the left so angry
they'll contemplate decriminalizing the whole thing just to snub him.
A merit based system WOULD'VE been a decent sell before all that mess or simply done
when republicans had Congress. It also requires snubbing the "merit=europe" peanut
gallery. Now no one is even listening.
The visa issue would've been an easy sell to both sides. It brings in a mass of
non-citizens specifically to fill up job slots and then leaves them to be abused by their
employers under threat of deportation if they don't comply. I can throw that exact line up
in almost any forum and get a mob of support from the radical left to the far right.
There's insanely difficult topics about immigration. Most of your wish list was low
hanging fruit in 2015. Trump turned it into the third rail. He didn't spark debate or open
anything up. He got everyone so angry they aren't even discussing it properly anymore.
Lastly, if he wanted a wall that badly, he should've tried it in the first two years of
his election. Trying it RIGHT AFTER it became impossible reeks of wanting to LOOK like he
wanted it, sort of like if I waited until someone filled a box with cement then tried to
lift it and said "I'll try HARD to make this happen."
Pure F.
I agree with you on Economics. On Trade I'm not as "China BAD" as you but overall I'm
willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, though I'm not a farmer.
Foreign Policy, There's no really any further places to GO to spark a war other than
Iran itself. And as you said he's not doing well there. That said it's probably close to
what you said, though I'd put him a D+ as we're not in war with Iran just yet (sadly that
is an accomplishment) but I can't see any way to really fix what we ruined at this point.
At BEST they'll go the way of North Korea.
Scandal: If this is on how he's handled scandal I'd give him a B-. He know how to
handle angry people and keep them barking with no bite. It would've been a B+ but I think
the current racial ones was a big overreach especially since it's causing his party to
throw their feet into their mouths 2008 style and further souring immigration issues.
Overall: Trump's big advantage is that he touched on an area that Americans desperately
needed but everyone wanted to ignore. Republicans wanted to go back to Bush. Democrats
forgot that they won on "Change" not on "more of the same".
His disadvantage is that he doesn't have much to actually offer to fix it. He touched
on immigration but sparks the fears of racism from the left and focuses on a symbolic, but
less effective, wall. He touches on poor workers but taxes rarely affect them and the
corporate elite is still tightening their grip just as effectively. He spoke of wars but
his biggest accomplishment is that we've run out of places to invade-except Iran which
we're 1 misfire from entering.
All he has is an economy that was rising before he joined in and is slowing down 1-2
years after his main policies have taken effect. Thankfully that's the most important. Not
thankfully, presidents have the least amount of control over it.
Which means he's mostly banking on a car that was built without a steering wheel and
hoping it doesn't slam into a tree.
Meanwhile I glance at the whiplash the size of a tornado that's to my left and wonder
just how insane things get when they grab the reigns again.
Very, very good analysis. I am a former Republican that now votes Democrat since the
lunatics are running the Republican asylum. I was the only one, of all my
progressive friends, that said maybe Trump can actually get something done. He owed
the Republicans nothing. Nada. Zip. He beat them all, without the help of the
Republican machine.
Trump could have formed a center right coalition. Starting
with infrastructure that wasn't a wall. Then he could have gone after Big Pharma and
the Medical Industrial Complex.
But no..... He immediately jumped as far right as possible. He went after every
right wing wet dream he could. He was like a drunken 4 year old that was thrilled to
break every toy of his sandbox rival (Obama). Now everything that he says that might
be somewhat reasonable is drowned out and eclipsed by his insanity, narcissism, and
general idiocy.
The Republicans are going to really, really hate 2020. Can't say it happened to a
more deserving bunch of folk though. Bless their little hearts.
This is a good point; the only Republican who could have actually broken the
consensus within the Republican Party and suggested that a) healthcare should
be improved for everyone b) the rich could be taxed more, and the poor less
and c) foreign wars of aggression are a bad thing got in to office and cut
taxes massively for the rich, tried to simply repeal the only step forward in
healthcare for decades, and antagonised everyone abroad (Israel and Saudi
excepted)
"The first [Dreamers] is what the opposition is wanting and most of his side
wouldn't scream against."
I cannot echo this loudly enough. I live right in the
middle of what has become red-meat hard-right Republican land -- but you can still
find support for the Dreamers here. They're not
desperate
for those kids
(illegal spouses of immigrants currently in military service dominate that
conversation), but they're absolutely willing to keep them -- at least as legal,
lifelong residents. And particularly if their families receive no similar benefit.
If you can swing that here, from people who're beginning to lean somewhat
xenophobic and feel strongly that illegal immigration is hurting them -- then man,
you have a powerful foundation from which to build.
Immigration is a massive Trump failure? Where was the GOP when he got elected? They have
said for years if they got the House, Senate, and White House they would build the wall
and fix immigration. They did nothing. Zero.
Obama/Hillary "misadventure" in Libya? Wow....talk about putting a sugar coating on a
disaster. They put 1 million plus "refugees" into Europe and created a thriving slave
market in Libya. Way to go!
No foreign policy success? How about calling out various NATO members for being dead
beats? Especially Germany. How about getting out of that fraud "Paris Accord?". Out of the
Iran Nuke Deal? Getting NK to Singapore? Taking on the failed NAFTA "deal?" Dumping TPP?
...And the big one...defeating ISIS!!!....Something the "glory boy", Obama could not
accomplish.
Russian scandal? No, Coup attempt by members of Deep State, i.e. Justice Dept.,
Intelligence agencies and the MSM. Trump failed in not having midnight SWAT team raids on
hundreds of coup plotters.
As far as I know, President Trump is the first person elected to the Presidency with
little to no support in any national political Party or organization.
Nor any experience in any form of government at all.
The only President that comes close is General Eisenhower.
Frankly, When I voted for him
in 2016.
I did not expect him to last this long. Two years max was my guess.
As Hillary Clinton was far, far worst than any alternative.
So I am surprised he is far better that what I was lead to believe.
I will be voting for President Trump in 2020.
Because he has no support in any of the current major political parties.
But has been relatively successful despite that political situation.
As both major political parties have proven themselves not to be working in the
interests of the American People. And have longstanding histories of working against the
American Middle-Class. And exploiting their political positions for their political and
monetary gain. At the public's expense.
Its Donald Trump or the Asteroid Strike as old the joke goes.
President Trump will do if I can not get two Asteroids striking Washington DC and New York
City simultaneously.
Trump's presidency is a failure and you don't have to be a Democrat to see that. In many
ways, Trump was a man ahead of his time, but a major part of his failures is his inability
to personally invest any of his time into the issues. Take Afghanistan - he keeps saying
he wanted out from the moment he took office, yet here we are, over two years later, with
still no end in sight. The fact is, Trump's an empty vessel. I've never gotten the sense
he's a true believer and, even if he were, he's become more worried about re-election,
which means he's become just another politician.
I'd never vote for a Democrat, with the
possible exception of Andrew Yang, in 2020. But it's time to face the music - Trump's
going to lose re-election. And maybe that's a good thing, for it's not the establishment
that needs to be broken up yet, it's the American right. We need to replace the Mitch
McConnells and Lindsay Grahams with the Matt Gaetz and Josh Hawleys. The greatest thing
Trump will ever have done is kickstart this nationalist moment, but he won't be able to
sustain it. That's up to the people willing and able to do the work we expected him to do
as president.
Trump proved to be Hillary in disguses "very much a hawk." I would say reckless hawk. Stephen Cohen
characterization of Hillary is fully applicable to him now if you substitute Russia for China "Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, was
very much a hawk. When she said publicly that Vladimir Putin has no soul, you could not commit
or utter a more supreme statement of ant i-diplomacy, and particularly addressing the Russians,
who put a lot of stock in soul. "
Notable quotes:
"... Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, was very much a hawk. When she said publicly that Vladimir Putin has no soul, you could not commit or utter a more supreme statement of anti-diplomacy, and particularly addressing the Russians, who put a lot of stock in soul. ..."
PAUL JAY: Well, my question is, I think when you are saying positive things about
Trump diminishing tensions with Russia, which I think is correct, but I think you need to add
this guy does not have peaceful intentions, he's very dangerous.
STEPHEN COHEN: I live in a social realm–to the extent that I have any social
life at all anymore– where people get very angry if I say, or anybody says, anything
positive about Donald Trump. When Trump was campaigning in 2016, he said, "I think it would be
great to cooperate with Russia." All of my adult life, my advocacy in American foreign
policy–I've known presidents, the first George Bush invited me to Camp David to consult
with him before he went to the Malta Summit. I've known presidential candidates, Senators and
the rest, and I've always said the same thing. American national security runs through Moscow,
period. Nothing's changed.
In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever
more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons–Putin
announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they're real–that can elude any
missile defense. We spent trillions on missile defense to acquire a first strike capability
against Russia. We said it was against or Iran, but nobody believed it. Russia has now thwarted
us; they now have missile defense-evading nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to
missiles. And Putin has said, "It's time to negotiate an end to this new arms race," and he's
100 percent right. So when I heard Trump say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had
already become convinced–and I spell this out in my new book, War with Russia?–that
we were in a new cold war, but a new cold war more dangerous than the preceding one for reasons
I gave in the book, one of them being these new nuclear weapons.
So I began to speak positively about Trump at that moment–that would have been
probably around the summer of 2016–just on this one point, because none of the other
candidates were advocating cooperation with Russia. And as I told you before, Paul, all my life
I've been a detente guy. Detente means cooperate with Russia. I saw in Trump the one candidate
who said this is necessary, in his own funny language. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, was
very much a hawk. When she said publicly that Vladimir Putin has no soul, you could not commit
or utter a more supreme statement of anti-diplomacy, and particularly addressing the Russians,
who put a lot of stock in soul. To say somebody has no soul and then go on to equate him with
Hitler, I found that so irresponsible. I didn't vote for Trump, but I did begin to write and
broadcast that this was of vital importance that we have this discussion, that we needed a new
detente because of the new and more dangerous Cold War.
Since he's been president, I think he's been ineffective in regard to pursuing detente with
Russia for a couple of reasons. I think that the people who invented Russiagate were the
enemies of detente, and they piled on. So they've now demonized Russia, they've crippled Trump.
Anything he does diplomatically with Putin is called collusion. No matter what Mueller says,
it's collusion. This is anti-democracy, and detente is pursued through democracy. So whatever
he really wants to do–it's hard to say–he's been thwarted. I think it's also one of
the reasons why he put anti-detente people around him.
"... The real concern is the US Senate. Currently, the GOP holds a six-seat majority (if you count the two Independent senators, who caucus with Democrats, as Democrats). Thirty-four seats are up in 2020. According to this analysis , at this point, 18 of them are in play, and four of those 18 are toss-ups ..."
"... An anti-Trump landslide at the top of the ticket could wash the GOP Senate majority away. We would then have a Democratic president and Congress -- and they would be in a score-settling mood. ..."
"... a recession, which is growing more likely by the day, would be something extremely hard for Trump to overcome. The new Fox poll has Trump at 56 percent unfavorable, with only 42 percent favorable -- and this is in good economic times. ..."
"... UPDATE: Douthat speculates today on what a recession would mean for the country , starting with the presidency: ..."
"... First, the easy part: Donald Trump loses re-election . It will be ugly and flailing and desperate and -- depending on recession-era geopolitics -- potentially quite dangerous, but there is no way a president so widely disliked survives the evaporation of his boom. ..."
"... But, as Douthat points out, getting rid of Trump doesn't do much to address the factors that led to his rise in the first place. ..."
"... The real truth is that the Republicans have a problem their rich globalist donors have abandoned them for Democrats blue Dog Dems as they are called, while their base will support them if they lead. Leading means angering their mega donors. ..."
"... Normally Republican Funder Hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman said Democrats need to regain control of Congress "for the good of the country". His money has had found its way to 56 Democrats running for House seats and 22 Democrats running for the U.S. Senate. This is millions. His reason was a tax cut he neither needed nor wanted, Huh? ..."
"... if it is business as usual they will lose the Senate and not gain the house. ..."
( PBS News Hour screenshot ) Anything could
happen between now and November 2020, but this new Fox News poll is not good news for the president. If the vote were held today,
Joe Biden would clobber him, which is no surprise. But also, a geriatric New England socialist would beat the stuffing out of Trump.
So would a preachy Harvard professor and a militantly progressive black woman from the San Francisco Bay Area:
Again, anything could happen, but you know what's probably going to happen between now and Election Day? A recession. That's hard
for any incumbent president to overcome, but this one will already be starting out in a deep hole, and I think most of us can agree
that in the event of an economic downturn, is unlikely to dazzle with his scintillating competence.
New from the AP:
The financial markets signaled the possibility
of a U.S. recession this week, sending a jolt of anxiety to investors, companies and consumers. That's on top of concerns
over Trump's plans to impose punishing tariffs on goods from China and word from the United Kingdom and Germany that their economies
are shrinking.
Though a pre-election recession here is far from certain, a downturn would be a devastating blow to the president, who has
made a strong economy his central argument for a second term. Trump advisers fear a weakened economy would hurt him with moderate
Republican and independent voters who have been willing to give him a pass on some his incendiary policies and rhetoric. And White
House economic advisers see few options for reversing course should the economy start to slip.
Trump has taken to blaming others for the recession fears, mostly the Federal Reserve, which he is pushing for further interest
rate cuts. Yet much of the uncertainty in the markets stems from his own escalation of a trade war with China, as well as weakened
economies in key countries around the world.
If the economy goes into recession, what's the compelling argument for voting Trump? I know what the argument is for social and
religious conservatives: judges. But only a minority of American voters care so strongly about judges.
The real concern is the US Senate. Currently, the GOP holds a six-seat majority (if you count the two Independent senators,
who caucus with Democrats, as Democrats). Thirty-four seats are up in 2020. According to
this analysis , at this point, 18 of them are in play,
and four of those 18 are toss-ups. Only one of those four toss-ups -- Doug Jones in Alabama -- is a Democrat. Jones will probably
lose no matter what -- Alabama went for Trump by 30 points, and Jones only won because his GOP opponent was creepy Roy Moore.
An anti-Trump landslide at the top of the ticket could wash the GOP Senate majority away. We would then have a Democratic
president and Congress -- and they would be in a score-settling mood.
One more time: anything could happen between now and Election Day 2020. But a recession, which is growing more likely by the
day, would be something extremely hard for Trump to overcome. The new Fox poll has Trump at 56 percent unfavorable, with only 42
percent favorable -- and this is in good economic times.
First, the easy part: Donald Trump loses re-election . It will be ugly and flailing and desperate and -- depending on recession-era
geopolitics -- potentially quite dangerous, but there is no way a president so widely disliked survives the evaporation of his
boom. The rules of politics have changed, but they haven't been suspended. Polarization will keep Trump from being defeated
in a landslide, but not from being beaten handily, and in a recession the Democrats can nominate any of their candidates and expect
to evict the president with ease.
Having guaranteed Trump's removal from office, in other words, the recession would also set the stage for Trumpism's eventual
return.
I see a number of pro-Trump commenters below are pointing out that the pundits didn't see Trump coming, so their forecasts of
Trump's defeat in 2020 shouldn't be taken seriously. Sure, that's true -- but Trump in 2016 was elected in a booming economy. Had
the economy not been in good shape, Trump might have been elected anyway, riding high on economic anxiety. Neither of these factors
will be present should Trump have to run for re-election in a recessionary economy. And, Trump was running against a candidate representing
the incumbent White House party. Now, he is a member of the incumbent White House party.
But, as Douthat points out, getting rid of Trump doesn't do much to address the factors that led to his rise in the first
place.
Let me point out for the hundred-eleventieth time: anything can happen between now and November 2020. Polls aren't worth much
now. But they do remind us that Trump is extremely unpopular, and will have trouble getting re-elected even if the economy is in
good shape next year. If it's not, what, exactly, will he run on?
Trump has had historically awful numbers since about a month after he was inaugurated. The Fox News poll is coming as a wake-up
call because for a long time, the liberal media were too busy hanging out in Rust Belt diners interviewing Trump voters -- the
alleged "Real Americans" -- to pay much mind to the fact that much of the actual country detests the guy. Not saying he can't
win in '20, but recessions aside, one thing he won't have going for him this time is the element of surprise: Everyone will know
that it's obviously possible for him to win, and that if your main goal is to prevent that then you simply have to vote
for the Democrat -- no staying home, no Jill Stein or Evan McMullin-type nonsense, at least not if you're in a state whose outcome
is remotely in doubt. Eight years of Obama had made too many voters complacent, and Trump has helpfully focused people's minds.
I will gladly vote for the Democratic nominee, regardless of who it is. (Unless he/she is worse than Trump, which is probably
impossible, since Genghis Khan is not available.) I would vote for the toad in my back garden if he/she gets the nomination. Everyone
reading this knows why. Some people are able to overlook the obvious, but I find that I can't.
Unhappily I am in California, so it really doesn't matter who I vote for.
Yea, I think part of the reason Trump won in 2016 was because he took everyone by surprise. Few people thought he could win (except
Nate Silver and the LA Times, I guess, and a few of the commenters here): even he didn't think he was going to win until the Michigan
results started coming in.
Another weak story board based on polls that already in question. Fox is not above the fold to skew polls to keep stories going.
The left and the media has made a pseudo state of fear of even wearing a MAGA hat in public. This pseudo state has armed low information
and low IQ Americans willing to attack Senators while they are mowing their lawn, or enabling professors swinging bike locks at
rallies against Trump supporters.
The Senate and the House will loose not on the coattails of Trump, but based on their own silence and failures, and business
as usual. Again and Again these articles throw up the importance of saving the Republican party, but before Trump the party was
over. The party knew that as they went after rigging of the polls rather than winning the votes through addressing problems.
The real truth is that the Republicans have a problem their rich globalist donors have abandoned them for Democrats blue
Dog Dems as they are called, while their base will support them if they lead. Leading means angering their mega donors. Trump
has 65 percent individual donors, far above any of the Dems, even combined. Tom Steyer is paying millions to get thousands that
are from individual donors.
Normally Republican Funder Hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman said Democrats need to regain control of Congress "for the
good of the country". His money has had found its way to 56 Democrats running for House seats and 22 Democrats running for the
U.S. Senate. This is millions. His reason was a tax cut he neither needed nor wanted, Huh?
Uihlein gave $2.5 million to Ives in a single week this past January -- essentially bankrolling her campaign to defeat Rauner
in a Republican primary on Tuesday.
Koch Brothers also followed the same suit. I could go naming more and more that switch sides, but also tried to finance Trump
Inauguration where things were more laxed and flooded in, and tried to line up on his door step. Instead he closed the door.
Trump showed that Campaign funds don't really matter if you have heart and the desire to win, having a bad candidate to run
against doesn't hurt either, but the Dems have tons of bad candidates.
With Harvesting Vote laws California is lost, but the rest of the country is in play. If they lead and lead for the people
they will win, if it is business as usual they will lose the Senate and not gain the house.
There's a lot wrong here -- although Warren is a terrific story teller -- but it's really
too bad that Obama didn't say "accounting control fraud," instead of "predatory lending."
Although it's not clear that Warren would have understood him if he had.
You're damn right there's problems with Warren's Obama story: he does five minutes of
research about her career and focus before she arrives, makes sure to be backlit upon her
entrance, rings what comes across as a transparently canned bell and she swoons!
I get that that most people were taken in by that talented, fraudulent shapeshifter, but
this is painful to watch.
At this point who cares? Tweets aside Trump has turned into the corporate/donor class
Republican he ran against in 2016 and in some cases even worse with his recent about face on
the second amendment which I've been predicting since he banned bump stocks. He's now bought
the lie that as long as the U.S. enjoys sustained economic growth the multiracial madhouse
that is contemporary murica won't ever derail.
Trump the candidate promised:
* A strong economy which he's partially delivered on
* A wall on our Southern border
* A drastic reduction in H1B and other work visas that allow American elites to displace
Americans from the work force
* Decreases in legal immigration
* Unwavering support for the 2nd amendment
* Law and order
Trump the president has given us:
* More moral, material and financial support to Israel than ever
* Moved the embassy to Jerusalem
* Forcing foreign nations to decriminalize homosexual sodomy
* Letting Antifa and other assorted left wing crazies run wild and attack people in the
streets while prosecuting his right of center supporters for fighting back
* Early prison release for violent black and other felons
* Potentially the largest influx of legal immigrants and illegal aliens in U.S. history
coupled with the lowest number of deportations
* No wall (yet)
* Formally condemned white nationalism and so called white supremacy but not black and brown
supremacy or left wing terrorism
* Potentially infringing upon the 2nd amendment even more than Bill Clinton and far more than
Barack Obama
At this rate Trump will probably give us the green new deal, black slave reparations, a
white privilege tax and deny "anti-semites" first and second amendment rights should he win a
second term. History has shown that the radical left makes some of its greatest political
gains under Republican presidents and Trump has done nothing to buck that trend.
America was and is looted by wealthy Americans looking for a quick buck. Globalization and
offshoring in the 19080's was all about greedy wealthy Westerners, especially Americans,
wanting to make more money. To blame the looting in others just demonstrates Buchanan's
stupidity.
@Hanrahan Notice the
continued exclusion of Representative Gabbard and her criticism of the destructive Empire --
despite focusing on Beltway politics, he hasn't typed her name since June 28. He wants the
"Elizabeth Warren-Bernie Sanders-AOC Democrats" to go even kookier because this website's
"Mr. Paleoconservative" has become a Beltway fixture, cheerleading for Team Red in the next
Most Important Election Ever.
"the Great Arsenal of Democracy was looted by" the military-industrial complex Arsenal &
it's unending wars & nothing short of nuclear annihilation is going to change that. There
is no Democrat who is willing to bet their chance at the presidency on pulling it down. And
the American public, by and large, is put to sleep by lengthy discussions of the intricacies
of trade policy. The election will be waged, like the primaries, around race-baiting. Biden
will be the first victim. The other white candidates are running scared & becoming more
shrill in their denunciations of whites in general by the hour. There's no telling where it
all may lead but it's becoming clearer day by day that the hostility will outlast the
primaries & the general election will be a very ugly affair. There's no turning back to
the soothing center now, it will be an us-vs.-them type election & hopefully, Pat
Buchanan, still America's shrewdest pundit, will keep us fully apprised.
@Charles Pewitt
Basically I agree with Erebus's comment.
What you don't seem to get is that the China situation is of the US's own making. US Co's in
the 90's & naughtier literally salivated at getting there production into China (or
Mexico) Then -- they were happy to accept Chinese conditions, as was the US government.
So, your ridiculous, punitive tariffs are going to HURT the thousands of US companies who
happily moved production to China. Nor will US Co's move home (unless the government acts
aggressively) -- they'll move to Vietnam or where ever.
Of course such punitive tarrifs will justify the Chinese into further devaluing their
currency.
Would be interesting to see the affects on US inflation were your program followed.
Implied in your comment is the apparent fact that you do not understand this US/China
issue.(which is OK, because Trump & CO certainly don't understand the imperatives
here)
You seem to think it's about trade. Actually it about China's sovereignty. The US position is
that China NOT become a leading economy such as the US, Japan & Germany are. The US
demands China cease it's drive to lead in high tech'. The Chinese simply can not give-in. US
demands amount to China becoming a second rate power, essentially a US vassal.
How could any country, let alone China with its humiliating history of being a victim of
western imperialism, do anything else but fight?
President Donald Trump's reelection hopes hinge on two things: the state of the economy
in 2020 and the identity of the Democratic nominee.
That's the first sentence and that's where I should have stopped reading. This is the kind
of out of touch political insider horse trading irradiated bullshittery that no one should
waste their time on anymore.
Trump's is finished if he doesn't fulfil his US immigration promises from 2016. He's also
finished if he doesn't stop channelling his Jewish handlers with embarrassingly stupid
anti-white rhetoric. That's it. That's where "reelection hopes" should focus on.
Trump's most obvious failed promise is not putting the deep state under constitutional
control, after the Obama/Clinton escapades.
"Justice, FBI and ICE are turning into partisan organizations."
Wrong! The deep state is in the DNC's pocket. Barr is fixing the extent Obama attempted to
coup the 2016 election using the DNC' deep state.
BTW your Leninist DNC armed appendage aka antifa is now responsible for 4 attacks on IC
offices. The latest a gun shot through a window of an ICE office in San Antonio, Tx.
That the deep state has not closed them is deep state obeisance to the DNC.
Isn't it interesting that the Democrats are only about a third of the country now, but
because they and the other rotten party have rigged our political system so no other parties
can emerge, that they essentially will determine who will go up against Trump? The Democratic
voters are just as lost as the politicians they vote for. Turnout is often low for primaries
within that party, in a party that only a third of the country identifies with, and there is
little chance that anyone will get a majority of voters. So, it is entirely possible that the
person chosen to go against Trump will have support of, what, 4-5% of the US electorate? And
if they are stupid enough to choose Biden, and they are, the general election will be Biden
vs Trump. The USSR at least ended in interesting ways. We're just going to vote in two
corrupt, out of touch and mentally declining frauds to throw hot garbage at each other, and
what is the left supposed to do? There will never be a better argument for a third party if
those two are the options given to us by the duds in the two major parties. I can't even
contemplate who Biden would choose as his VP, and possibly lock us into a decade of hell, and
then the environmental crisis hits.
It is not an issue in regards to difficulty, generally, it is the options people are given
and how often it is that the options people are given are net negatives regardless as to who
wins, and people realizing that what the general public wants is not reflected in policy.
Bernie is an exceptuon, and look at all the nonsense thrown at him, and all the undemocratic
means those in power use to maintain their power. I am not saying that justifies inactivity,
but it does help to explain it. But, lets say Biden or someone similar is chosen by Democrats
in the primaries. What percentage of the electorate, given all I mentioned, will have chosen
him?
If the US electorate allows 4-5% to decide, then they deserve who they get. It’s not
difficult to vote in a primary.
Depends where you live. If you live in most states and you want to vote in a Democratic
Party presidential primary, you have to be registered as a Democrat. Here in AZ I can vote for
every office except president by being a No Party Preference voter registrant. If I want to
vote against Joe Biden, I have to change my voter registration to “D”. Not gonna
happen.
“Here in California, owned and operated by the Democratic Party, voting for someone
other than the approved candidate could quickly get your vote “lost” or
“disqualified” and that is not mentioning the rigging of convention
delegates.”
This ultimately why Bernie is up against it. I think he has a real shot to win and am not
very concerned about the polls, he is doing well despite all that is aligned against him.
Palast showed what that rotten party did in 2016 in the primaries (it is entirely possible that
Bernie won the state or at least came even closer to winning), and you could include tons
since. My favorite was how they used superdelegates at the state level in California to get
Bauman to lead the state party, and he had to resign in shame. He was previously a pharma
lobbyist that was paid to lobby the state against bargaining down the price of drugs. Then
there is stuff like this:
As the DNC has argued in court though, they don’t have to run a fair primary and can
pick whoever those at the top of the party want, right? It would be amazing if someone within
the DNC and the state party here (I live in Southern California) would leak what they are
doing. Not expecting it, but it would be great.
True. However, if one is voting™ for
a non-corporatist candidate, getting
that vote counted has been problematic,
and I expect it to be more so in 2020:
'The senator had tough words for one of Joe Biden's signature laws'
by Gideon Resnick, Political Reporter...08.14.19...10:57AM ET
"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) suggested in an interview Tuesday evening that she would
seek the repeal of the 1994 crime bill -- a historic though highly controversial measure tied
closely to one of her closest competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination.
It "needs to be changed, needs to be rolled back, needs to be repealed." Warren said of
the law, which has become widely bemoaned by criminal justice reform advocates for its
tough-on-crime measures, harsh sentencing guidelines, and general encouragement of the war on
drugs."...
"Biden just 1 point ahead of Warren in new weekly tracking poll"
By Julia Manchester...08/14/19...11:04 AM EDT
"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by just 1
point in a new Economist–YouGov weekly tracking poll.
Biden sits at 21 percent support in the survey, while Warren is close behind at 20
percent. The next candidate is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 16 percent support among
voters."...
Pennsylvania voters have very strong -- and mostly negative -- views about President
Donald Trump, and about half say they will vote against him no matter his opponent, according
to a new poll of registered voters across the state.
Over multiple questions and surveys, a clear portrait emerges of an electorate deeply
polarized over the president, with strongly held feelings on either side.
About half of voters had a "strongly unfavorable" opinion of the president, twice the
number who held a "strongly favorable" opinion.
And while the divisions among Democratic voters are real during this primary election,
especially across groups such as age, race, and income, the real divide is between the
parties and ideologies: Most Democrats, regardless of which candidate they support, say they
will vote against Trump no matter what. ...
MONACA, Pa. (AP) -- President Donald Trump sought to take credit Tuesday for the
construction of a major manufacturing facility in western Pennsylvania as he tries to
reinvigorate supporters in the Rust Belt towns who helped send him to the White House in
2016.
Trump visited Shell Oil Co.'s soon-to-be completed Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex,
which will turn the area's vast natural gas deposits into plastics. The facility, which
critics claim will become the largest air polluter in western Pennsylvania, is being built in
an area hungry for investment.
Speaking to a crowd of thousands of workers dressed in fluorescent orange-and-yellow
vests, Trump said, "This would have never happened without me and us."
In fact, Shell announced its plans to build the complex in 2012, when President Barack
Obama was in office.
A Shell spokesperson said employees were paid for their time attending Trump's
remarks.
Trump used the official White House event as an opportunity to assail his Democratic
rivals, saying, "I don't think they give a damn about Western Pennsylvania, do you?"
The focus is part of a continued push by the Trump administration to increase the
economy's dependence on fossil fuels in defiance of increasingly urgent warnings about
climate change. And it's an embrace of plastic at a time when much of the world is sounding
alarms over its impact.
"We don't need it from the Middle East anymore," Trump said of oil and natural gas,
calling the employees "the backbone of this country."
Trump's appeals to blue-collar workers helped him win Beaver County, where the plant is
located, by more than 18 percentage points in 2016, only to have voters turn to Democrats in
2018's midterm elections. In one of a series of defeats that led to Republicans' loss of the
House, voters sent Democrat Conor Lamb to Congress after the prosperity promised by Trump's
tax cuts failed to materialize.
Beaver County is still struggling to recover from the shuttering of steel plants in the
1980s that surged the unemployment rate to nearly 30%. Former mill towns like Aliquippa have
seen their populations shrink, while nearby Pittsburgh has lured major tech companies like
Google and Uber, fueling an economic renaissance in a city that reliably votes
Democratic.
Trump claimed that his steel and aluminum tariffs have saved those industries and that
they are now "thriving." a description that exaggerates the recovery of the steel
industry.
Trump also took credit for the addition of 600,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs. Labor
Department figures show that roughly 500,000 factory jobs have been added under his
presidency. ...
(Apparently, workers' pay would be docked if they
did not attend; and they were advised to 'behave'.)
For what it is worth ( Not much), I have spoken to about a dozen people about Epstein's
death. Not one of them believes Epstein committed suicide. I asked a wide range of people
from small town mayors to Realtors to a commercial fisherman.
I have insufficient information to make a judgement, however I do consider it more likely
than not that Epstein was killed. My opinion is based on nothing more than 60 plus years of
paying attention to how things really work, it was a mighty convenient death.
"... This is doomed to dissolve. To a greater and significant degree, the public is finding true justice wanting, and thus holds no trust in Government, at All levels. ..."
Then you get a tame judge assigned (and that's nothing new, even Johnny Carson used to
joke "do you know how bad the economy is these days?" [sidekick] "no, Johnny, just how bad is
the economy?" "it's so bad, organised crime has had to lay off 5 judges this week ") to let
Epstein off with a slap on the wrist, a year at the Four Seasons low security penitentiary
and early release through time served.
Much simpler than any of the other notions and achieves exactly the same result (Epstein
is subject to "the full force of the law" but stays happily alive to tell the tale and keep
his finger off the Dead Mans Switch).
If you were in charge of all this, which solution would you try first? If you've ever
worked in a big, but incompetent, organisation (and if they're big, they're almost certainly
going to be incompetence personified), you wouldn't even need to ask yourself that
question.
This is doomed to dissolve. To a greater and significant degree, the public is finding
true justice wanting, and thus holds no trust in Government, at All levels.
But hey that's just conspiracy theory talk .. right ?
"How many other millionaires and billionaires were part of the illegal activities that he
was engaged in?" he asked. Even the BBC website has as its heading of a news story today "Jeffrey Epstein: Questions raised over financier's death."
"... And at no point will there be any of the damage limitation that a trial, requiring and weighing evidence, would have put on the mushrooming of charges, rumours and speculations which has been taking and will continue to take place. ..."
"... In realistic terms the damage to the system of a few outliers, like Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew or Dershowitz being driven, red faced from public life, would be minimal. In fact it could easily be spun as am indication that the system worked and that, in the end, an obscure former masseur could be vindicated against Princes and ex-Presidents. ..."
The Epstein case is very simple: had a trial taken place-and proper trials are increasingly
rare in the USA, as the record of his Florida 'trial' shows- it had the potential of being
extremely embarrassing to a number of prominent and powerful people.
On the other hand, now that he is dead, there can be no limit to the enormous number of
allegations that can be made against him and them.
From the point of view of The Establishment, this death is far from convenient. It will
redound to the advantage of many individuals but in the long run it will contribute to an
increase in popular distrust of the entire system. And at no point will there be any of the
damage limitation that a trial, requiring and weighing evidence, would have put on the
mushrooming of charges, rumours and speculations which has been taking and will continue to
take place.
In realistic terms the damage to the system of a few outliers, like Bill Clinton, Prince
Andrew or Dershowitz being driven, red faced from public life, would be minimal. In fact it
could easily be spun as am indication that the system worked and that, in the end, an obscure
former masseur could be vindicated against Princes and ex-Presidents.
The danger is that this sordid but very routine 'scandal' will blot out real and important
matters that require public debate. How many US Presidents and English princes have not been
involved in the sort of things said to have been facilitated by Epstein? So far as Princes
go, I can think of none. And many of them, including future Kings, have done a lot worse
things than fuck teenage girls, though that has been routine for all who didn't prefer
boys.
It would be interesting to learn what lessons it is thought this affair should teach us?
Should the age of consent laws be revised to ban sexual relations between rich and poor? Or
to legislate against sexual partnerships involving an age differential of more than, say, ten
years?
Or should class society and the capitalist system, which commodifies everything and puts
the poor majority in positions in which they are vulnerable to prostitution, be abolished?
This would involve something a little more substantial than a lynch mob led by unprincipled,
loudmouth demagogues feeding off the obsessions and frustrations of the sexually
disfranchised.
These last we have had in America since the Pilgrim Fathers stumbled ashore, clutching
their Old Testaments angrily and looking for others to blame. And be punished.
As to the nonsense that Epstein has been spirited away, is not really dead and will, like
Merlin, one day return...that way madness lies.
"... I am just now reading David Martin's new book "The Assassination of James Forrestal", about a 1949 murder by the Zionists disguised as suicide. ..."
"... He can sit around with the Skripals and talk over old times. ..."
"... He probably became more of a liability and/or stepped on some toes higher up in the food chain. How many former Israeli prime ministers will attend his funeral? Ghislaine's lawyers will be happy, she was a victim of Epstein too. Poor child. ..."
"... Well said. Indeed, loss of trust in governments is key, and this event utterly destroys the little trust that remained. Other western governments have the same problem also. ..."
Reports are that he was 'found dead' at 7:30 am local time, he was supposedly on suicide
watch, he was a tremendously valuable witness, he could trade his testimony for leniency, a
lot of very important people were worried.
No one will believe that Epstein committed suicide voluntarily, I certainly don't.
Not extraditing. I am just now reading David Martin's new book "The Assassination of James Forrestal",
about a 1949 murder by the Zionists disguised as suicide.
He probably became more of a liability and/or stepped on some toes higher up in the food
chain.
How many former Israeli prime ministers will attend his funeral? Ghislaine's lawyers will be happy, she was a victim of Epstein too. Poor child.
Why would anyone watch House of Cards? The real life soap called American politics is way
more fun and interesting.
Make no mistake, Ghislaine will never be extradited by TPTB, for they are still designating
her a "Madame"; just a very naughty lady who was adept at pleasing her clients and her
"partner". Not a spy, not a slave trader, just an independent and shrewd Mommy of sorts. "
Lady Madame Ghislaine". A glamour girl to the end. And without a doubt she'll get the
same state funeral as her father when her time comes. That is, if Israel is still a state
when she kicks the bucket.
Jeffry Epstein suicided- makes it obvious, that the deep state mafia regime in control was
feeling intense heat, some one(s) important in the deep state decided overt killing a
prisoner in federal prison and trying to defuse the news and public' obvious disbelief in
cause and method, is worth killing him and divert and defuse the mess. For sure the names
that would have become public was going to destabilize the DC regime. In next few days before
the news is buried, we will see how MSM will divert the narrative, away from the names it is
trying to protect. For sure at one time he was "made" and one the "Goodfellas" .
kooshy , Aug 10 2019 14:40 utc |
18Lysander , Aug 10 2019 14:40 utc |
19
The only way his 'suicide' can be considered an actual suicide is if his handlers had so much
leverage over him that they could persuade that he (and any loved ones he might have) would
all be much better off if he did it himself than if he forces them to do it for him.
That's a possibility I suppose. But the idea that he did just because he couldn't handle
life anymore simply doesn't warrant any consideration at all.
I responded to Your last response to me on this thread:
The MoA Week In Review - OT 2019-45
It is the last entry on that thread. Just wanted to let You know.
-----
How convenient that Epstein is no longer in the perpetrator protection program. The
witness protection program was obviously never considered, or applied. Someone wrote that the
Epstein case proved that there are two justice systems in the US: one for the rich and one
for the suckers. Although that is not quite correct, as the one for the suckers must be
called Injustice System.
It also goes to show, that while people desperately attempt to change their 'elected
officials', they have no whatsoever control over the 'unelected officials'. Those decide over
the (In-)Justice system with impunity. How would the 'Supreme' Court look like if The
People would elect its members? Citizen United would have never happened? But that it did
- outside of any say of the population it affected the most - is one reason why the truth
about Epstein's Johns will never surface. How many of the supreme court justices visited
'penetrate-a-minor-girl island?
Correct. No evidence has yet to emerge. Your beliefs notwithstanding.
If I were Epstein I would have a powerful motive to commit suicide. And some may have
powerful motive to murder him. There is nothing yet to suggest her was murdered.
I cite this as an example of the disinformational slippery slope which in other contexts
leads to the election of Trump, for instance, or the passage of Brexit.
IOW, suicide is not the only form of self-inflicted self-harm.
That probably means he was just a really rich pervert whose luck ran out rather than a Mossad
or CIA asset tasked with collecting kompromat on influential people. A pampered twit
like Epstein, used to a life of luxury and leisure, in jail on a sex charge would be eaten
alive and quite possibly killed. I speculated after he was arrested that he would try to kill
himself if he faced a long stretch in jail and it looks like that's what happened. Of course
plenty of people will claim his suicide was faked etc. but unless they have credible evidence
to back that up I will go with 'Occam's razor' on this.
We live in a national security state run by criminals. Expecting justice from the legal
system is like expecting to elect a president who will drain the swamp. It is a democracy
theme park, where the levers and handles are not attached to anything.
Epstein's death - assuming he hasn't been "spirited" away to somewhere welcoming and
unwilling to extradite, ever, (I wonder which "country" that might be) - and its timing is
awfully convenient.
And the fact that he was supposedly on suicide watch after his "apparent" attempt some
days earlier gives one pause. Either the so-called suicide watch is really negligent and
Epstein was given/allowed both the "space" and the means (surely the means would, under
suicide watch, be rendered null?) or his death by *suicide* is questionable.
We forget that there are still other (((predators))) on the loose to include Polanski, Woody
Allen, and a list of others. I will not say that they are all jews because George Bush Sr,
was a known pedophile and he died at a ripe old age of 94 (and some people believe in
karma..yeah right). Of course he was also the head of the CIA and the Warren commission, so
he could afford to do what he did and get away with it. Don't believe me, check into the
Franklin Child Abuse scandal and this Washington Times article. http://www.voxfux.com/features/bush_child_sex_coverup/franklin.htm
Unless "We the People" take these predators down, they will continue to destroy
children.
Since hollywood is so bankrupt for ideas i wonder if someone will do a citizen kane type
story based on epistein, For those who dont know citizen kane was basically an unflattering
biography about a thinly veiled william randolph hurst expry (Hurst did everything possible
to try to kill the film when he heard about it). This might be the only way we get anything
close to even an approximation of what the truth was behind Epistein
div> Can't help but think about Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known as the "D.C.
Madam," was also suicided.
I especially like how his suicide was staged on a Friday evening when people wont be paying
that much attention. That has always been the best time for governments to release bad news
I wonder if they will do an autopsy, or maybe he will get "cremated" right away? If the
former, I'd say maybe he actually did kill himself, if the latter, definitely not. Of course
autopsies don't have to be accurate either. "Who gets the remains?" is another good question.
"Why the heck did he show up to get arrested like that?" is another one.
Wow!! Those suckers at the BBC manage NOT to mention Maxwell or Prince Andrew (ok... they are
mentioned in some of the links they give, but come one!!) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49306032
Epstein, never married, no acknowledeged children. Odd for someone who wanted to populate the
world with his progeny... someone suggested that now his estate(s) canbe freely searched. We
will see if this all goes away or if some pitbulls in Miami keep after others who have been
implicated. When the DC Madam was murdered/committed suicide every lead went dark and her
little black book disappeared as I recall...
lysias 11
I read that book last month! The official story still stands but the truth is out there. And
it was not surprising to see that any evidence contrary to the official story of a paranoid,
crazy man committing suicide didn't go anywhere.
I expect the Epstein story and its details to fade as well because many in power want it
to. It's been interesting to read of the ties between Bill Browder, Robert Maxwell, and
Jeffrey Epstein. Very shady dealings with so much submerged.
does this require elaboration? I read your linked Daily News article. I have spent some
time behind bars myself (although not for sex crimes I hasten to add) and while not in
possession of as lavish lifestyle as Epstein I would probably have a difficult time
tolerating much of the rest of my life spent in similar conditions.
And I get that Club Fed is a much better living environment than pre-trial holding cells
but only by degrees...and he was going to be held in pre-trial for a long time while
the press and alt media had a field day with his story.
The Clinton conection of course leads to all sorts of rightwing created conspiracy
theorues which Barflies too love to swarm all over like a fresh batch of dogshit on the
sidewalk.
Clinton likes/liked having sex with young, possible underage girls?
They all say they cut ties with Epstein 12 years ago when the charges first surfaced. And
yet, Epstein still got around and hobnobbed with the rich and shameless ever since then.
Epstein by all recent accounts wasn't actually "smart", just pathologically driven and
well-funded. Someone gave him a leg-up very early on; just an undeniable fact if you study
his bio. He would not have any incriminating evidence stored at his properties or in his
personal effects, it would've been funneled to whoever he was working for long ago. Point is,
he trusted his bosses. His brain, Ghislaine's brain; those are the only two places outside of
Tel Aviv that the info was still stored.
If he had prepared a dead man's switch, he would have pulled it years ago.
I find the Pavlovian reactions shown here by quite a number of people very painful to
witness.
Like there can be any doubt Epstein would have more than enough reason to kill himself.
A sexual marauder, a high-roller, the world's no. 1 pimp, probably an "Intelligence" asset
in a class of its own, a guy who knew none of the boundaries us mortals usually face
– confined to a tiny cell and prison life. With the prospect of having your sad and
perverse life dissected in court, of having to explain and justify your actions, of having
to go through harrowing witnesses' statements. Yeah, what's not to look forward to in
there?
Yours is by far the most Pavlovian reaction to this news. Or is it 'news'?
Let me get this straight for your to think about it. The guy has enough money to spend
after he gets out of jail. How any years would he get in a Justice system that was lenient in
the first place? Different folks now in the Justice Department? Let's say he would get five
years, no make it ten. I seriously doubt he wouldn't get parole after some time for exemplary
behavior. And he promised to not continue his crimes. Remember that it suffices to confess to
the public and apologize for what you did - for the evangelical faction to forgive you. Hell,
make that 'Christian faction'. He would sign a confidentiality agreement in exchange for his
life to those who would take it otherwise. Lots of money to use in a corrupted society.
Jeffrey Epstein would know that the average attention span of Americans is as long as the
trail of a shooting star in the night. Another mass shooting and "Who? Epstein? Never heard
of him."
It is you, who fits the findings of Pavlov quite well. However, from personal experience
at the Humane Society, I know that there is no dog that cannot be re-trained, or
re-conditioned to be a friendly doggie.
My first thought. In fact, I had this thought as soon as I heard of the first Epstein
suicide "attempt." I am sure I am not alone. Just when we thought we were going to see whose
names actually were in her little black book, she conveninetly disappears, and the little
black book slides down the memory hole.
Remember it was Reagan who said: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on
me.
Oh, yes, and Gary Webb supposedly also committed suicide. And a number of the JFK
witnesses who planned to come forward some years/decades after his death---poof! Heart attack
the day before the planned interrogation (see Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable).
Anyone who believes this new (and richly predicted) suicide story is a fool. Gimme an
effing break!
The guy was on "suicide watch"! That can only mean that the people in charge of this supposed
watch were the ones who administered the tiny shot (leaves no trace in the skin) that brought
about heart failure.
How convenient, just after Florida opened its own investigation into the original plea
arraignment that threatened to unseal Epstein's financial records. But just because Epstein's
no more doesn't mean the investigation should end; others in the DoJ broke the law then, not
Epstein. Plus, his operation was what's known as a "ring", a conspiracy, a racketeering
operation involving numerous others, some known, some not. I wonder what his will says?
The flaw in your argument is that Epstein wasn't getting out this time and he knew it.
He may have been killed and he may have killed himself precisely because of what is to
follow.
I believe like Karlof1 that the investigation should definitely continue because of what
is to follow and also now should include whether or not Epstein was "suicided".
And if Clinton or Prince Andrew or wtf is found guilty of sex crimes then he should rot in
jail too.
After all, Bill Cosby, white Amerikkka's favourite black father figure went to jail didn't
he? Although granted he is black and he is also forgotten at this point in the ever rushing
news cycle....but he is still behind bars, isn't he?
willie , Aug 10 2019 16:37 utc |
88DontBelieveEitherPr. , Aug 10 2019 16:41 utc |
89
To those who think "suicide watch" is some magical way to prevent suicide, and that his death
would imply some action by a third party to kill him, maybe i can shed some light on the
procedure, as it is handled in Germany (And very likely at least inspired from US
procedures):
1. The inmate does get a cell with a fellow inmate, so he is not alone, and is observed by
that inmate too.
2. Additionally, to normal security measures, the inmate gets taken away all things with
which he could harm himself
3. Wardens control the inmate visually in a pre determined interval of e.g. 15 minutes, 30
minutes, 60 minutes.
4. In special cases inmates are transferred into special cells with rubber walls and floors,
like one would think in a mental hospital (Gummizelle is the German term).
Now, in consequence:
1. When the other inmate does not look, sleeps or simply does not give a shit, this has no
effect
2. While belts, show laces and sharp things are removed, one can easily improvise a rope from
a piece of bed linen etc. to hand themselves on the water fountain or classically on the
window grille, jump from a double story bed head first breaking ones neck or bleeding
themselves, slitting the wrist to bleed to death (something sharp can always be found or
made, overdosing on drugs the inmate acquired from other inmates...
I myself have witnessed multiple people successfully kill themselves under suicide watch
in the pretty short times i myself was an inmate in a maximum security prison. And i myself
have been at times under suicide watch, and I know myself that if you want to do it, you got
plenty of options.
After some days you know how the system works, and have multiples options if you choose
so.
Plus, guards are always lazy, and cheat on the interval. E.g. checking only once an hour
instead of every 15 minutes.
But even the 15 minutes is plenty of time.
So him being on suice watch and still killing himself IS NO PROOF OF NOTHING.
That said, i dont exclude something like this.
Maybe he had a conscience. Maybe he felt ashamed. Maybe not, and only had not the balls to
face what he did.
Maybe some told him it would be better for him, or that there are actually people he loved
and that he got threatened that those people would be hurt.
Who knows? Not we certainly.
IMHO it is TYPICALL for such people as him to commit suicide.
He may have some smarts concerning the rich and famous, but in a federal jail, he is
FUCKED.
EVERYONE WILL TRY TO GET A PIECE OF HIS ASS AND MONEY!
JUST LIKE EVERY FUCKING PEDO IN EVERY JAIL ON EARTH!
And no solitary confinement (Already gone on suicide watch, where he is at least in a 2 man
cell) can protect him.
Taking a shower, free time, sport, work, visiting waiting cell.. Countless times to get that
mofo, and put a shank to his dick.
A pedo is already done in prison, but a prominent pedo???
He killed himself to not get assfucked till it bleeds, to not have to get abused like he
abused.
He had no future, and he doing himself was realizing he played out.
As chance would have it, AOC appears to have a House of Representatives oversight role
with regard to Epstein's 'suicide' and is loudly demanding answers; she sounds a lot more
sceptical than you!
This is a good opportunity to show if she has substance. Let's see what she does!
One self-proclaimed corrections officer said on Reddit that Epstein's suicide should
never have been possible.
I'm a corrections officer. This should never have been possible. During the intake
process due to the nature of his crimes and being famous he should have already been on
special watch. Then after the first attempt he would have been in a special cell. He
would be in what we call a "pickle suit" it's a green suit that you can't tear or tie to
anything. His blankets would be the same material. He would only get hygiene products
under supervision. Only thing allowed in his cell would be a book and court papers. Then
we would be monitored more closely. This is a huge failing on the jail. I want a massive
investigation on how this was able to happen.
/div> The NYT this morning is reporting that it is not known if Epstein was
on a suicide watch. Clearly, he should have been after the recent incident in which he was
found unconscious and with injury marks around his neck. I think it is not at all unlikely that
he did commit suicide, but also that he was allowed or even aided in doing so.
The NYT this morning is reporting that it is not known if Epstein was on a suicide watch.
Clearly, he should have been after the recent incident in which he was found unconscious and
with injury marks around his neck. I think it is not at all unlikely that he did commit
suicide, but also that he was allowed or even aided in doing so.
It's probably too early to draw the curtains on the Epstein nothing-burger. It's not at all
clear to me that ANY of the under age women were pre-pubescent children. Bonking under age
females with breasts and pubic hair is known as Statutory Rape in most Western countries; the
assumption being that the bonkee is deemed to be too young to give Informed Consent to sex
with an adult male. If there's no allegation or evidence of coercion by the bonker then it's
not a hanging offense.
The mystery surrounding Epstein's rags to riches good fortune has not yet been fully
explained, although if it's true that he had charisma then he was probably capable of
seducing/ charming males as well as females.
IF he was running a honey-trap blackmail scam as a sole trader then he will fade from
History surrounded by a blizzard of "???". If on the other hand he was a "useful idiot"
running the scam on behalf, and for the benefit of, powerful people then one suspects that he
will have left a "dead man's letter" so that he'd have the last laugh.
A dead man's letter is only as good as the entity one trusts to ensure that it's
disseminated. WikiLeaks would be my top pick for a trustworthy publisher and The Swamp is
moving Heaven and Earth to keep Assange incommunicado until he can be suicided.
I think you are missing the fundamental issue regarding the circumstances of Epstein's
death, it is no longer Epstein's crimes and that of his co-conspirators, it is a systemic
loss of Trust in the government and political elites. The allegations against Epstein and his
associates were extremely serious, at the absolute minimum they involved major political and
economic figures involved in sex trafficking and the sexual abuse of minors, the worst
allegations were that foreign individuals or governments had gained compromising information
about these figures and used it subvert the government policies for their benefits. I do not
know if all of these allegations were, but at least some of these allegations involving
sexual abuse were truth (Epstein himself admitted as much when he took the original guilty
plea).
In re-arresting Epstein under new charges, the government itself also asserted that 1)
they believed Epstein committed other crimes and 2) they were reasonably likely to get a
conviction at a trial (prosecutors are not supposed to bring charges against people unless
they think they can get a conviction at trial). Again, I do not know if all of these
allegations were true, but in bring a case the government said that they believed that they
were. Lastly, in refusing to grant bail to Epstein, the government clearly and publicly took
on the responsibility of protecting Epstein from ALL THREATS (including himself, other
inmates, guards, health issues, everything) while he was in their custody.
The fact that Epstein, allegedly, tried to commit suicide a week ago and was then moved to
the highest level of care and security by the government where he then dies after "allegedly"
committing suicide is a huge, public and devastating failure of the government to fulfill
their obligations to society, the courts and even Epstein (that is assuming Epstein really is
dead). This is made all the worst by the fact that many, many people (Zerohedge, moon of
alabama, RT, infowars, the Duran among others) had stated their fears that Epstein would be
murdered in such a way by powerfully forces within the government and political elites, in
the eyes of these people, their concerns have been fully vindicated. By failing to fulfill
their obligations in such a public way, especially after being warned repeatedly by people
concerned about just such a situation unfolding, the US government has hugely discredited
itself and legitimized the believe that the US government and the political elite is deeply,
systematically corrupt.
Now, undoubtedly the US government and society will not be fatally undermined by a single
event such as this. But for the prior 30 years (at least), the US government and society seem
unable to generate successes for anyone except the top 1% and indeed seems openly hostile to
the very idea that government should ever create a benefit for anyone except the 1% or that
the political and economic elite should ever be held accountable for any failure or crimes
they commit (the 2001 tech bubble, the Iraq war, the 2008 financial crisis, Libya, Syria,
Iran, Venezuela and now the Epstein scandal). At some point a critical threshold will be
breeched and people will slowly stop believing in the various government narratives on events
and public policies. Many American already reject the US government's narrative on 9/11, the
Iraq war, Syria now some of them will add the Epstein episode to their list of disbelieved
narratives. Unless the US government reverses course and starts rebuilding it's legitimacy
and trust, this rejection of US government narratives will spread to the most fundamental
government narrative, that the US government is the legitimate government of the people. Once
that narrative is disbelieved by as little as 1/3 of the population, the US (as it currently
exists) is doomed. When will that happen, that's the $64 question although I personally
believe it will be within the next 20 years unless some reforming figure arises
Since he was certainly a spook it makes sense that he knew he had to commit suicide by
himself. Suicided, yes, but by his owners who dropped him. The guy still thought recently he
could be released on bail.
Now what about the many pages missing from the published documents?? and those pages where
she starts talking about some big guys and have a lot of black on the lines??
The details of Trump's only ride on an Epstein plane, from Florida to NY, he 'hitched a
ride' - no girls. It is curious, as Ilargi, no Trump fan, points out the MSM has never
bothered to report this, plus keeps on suggesting that Trump is involved with Epstein,
insinuating guilt by association (sex trafficking, pedophilia, prostitution, abuse,
blackmail, etc.) Publishing that photo of Epstein w. Trump and Maxwell, Melania, over and
over.
Giuffre (> recent doc release) confirms - Trump never flirted with her, she never saw
Trump involved with any girls. (see also dan 77)
The MSM goes so far as to not report court cases, witness testimony, legal conclusions,
etc. from the US judiciary (itself notoriously corrupt!) -> even the minor attempts to
uphold say, the first amendment / some small parts of the rule of law.. are ignored, hidden,
flatly denied..
Circe might accuse me of supporting Trump! - NO, no..no...
Posted by: donkeytale | Aug 10 2019 16:55 utc | 103
You know what, you are right... I can't say 100 percent what exactly happened but this has
to have everybody's BS detector on full alert.
As Posted by: Kadath | Aug 10 2019 17:01 utc | 106
"At some point a critical threshold will be breeched and people will slowly stop believing in
the various government narratives on events and public policies. Many American already reject
the US government's narrative on 9/11, the Iraq war, Syria now some of them will add the
Epstein episode to their list of disbelieved narratives. Unless the US government reverses
course and starts rebuilding it's legitimacy and trust, this rejection of US government
narratives will spread to the most fundamental government narrative, that the US government
is the legitimate government of the people. Once that narrative is disbelieved by as little
as 1/3 of the population, the US (as it currently exists) is doomed. "
The lies haven't got so blatant that the narrative managers are asking to disregard any
logic to believe their stories. This Epstein case I have personally been following since
2015. From all that I read of the guy, suicide doesn't seem like his way. Ratting everyone
else out seemed more his style. Thus I lean more on a hit job more than anything.
I didn't really know Jeffrey. He was like Boo Radley in the corner of the room. After I met
him, he became Jeffrey Epstein, he had no interest in me. He knew right out of the box who
the players were, the people who would stay out all night, people who had interests in
extracurricular objectives, and who the hitters were. That wasn't me." ... The Wall Street
names in the book range from the highly prominent to the obscure, and, for some unknown
reason, a disproportionate number of names of bankers in it worked once upon a time at
Lazard, my old firm.
Cohan dutifully records passing events in the outside world, such as the near-bankruptcy of
New York, which Mr Rohatyn averted, and various mergers and acquisitions. But the
interesting action was taking place in Lazard's allegedly dingy (they never seemed that bad
to me) offices in the Rockefeller Center, where the "great men" who advised big companies
plied their trade.
The emphasis was on the "men". Cohan records that partners from Meyer to Mr David-Weill
and Mr Rohatyn imported a French attitude to extramarital liaisons and the first women who
worked there as bankers were apparently propositioned constantly. One young woman is even
said to have been raped by two junior bankers, and according to Cohan's account the
bankers were eased out to avoid embarrassment.
But just because Epstein's no more doesn't mean the investigation should end
Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 10 2019 16:11 utc | 78
This can't be stressed enough.
The Great US of A are absolutely FUCKEDUP. Remember what's at stake are proven and alleged
public order crimes, that it was not a victim that perished, that sex trafficking, of minors
or otherwise, are criminal organization type crimes. These crimes shall be prosecuted
under the law. Except there is no law to be under anymore.
We can all speculate on suicide vs "suicided" but in my opinion this is several degrees
below the bar, at this point I don't even think it matters that part of the discussion. I'm
slightly disappointed at today's comments, but since I can't myself bring up to par, I extend
it myself.
There isn't any hard evidence that Epstein was murdered, true. But if the death of the sole
named accused in arguably the most high profile case in decades, involving the most
well-connected elites, steeped foreign intelligence connections, in a federal prison, on
suicide watch, alone in a cell wearing a paper suit, with no shoelaces, under 24/7 watch
doesn't arose your suspicions, you are a special kind of obtuse. Suicide watch is designed
specifically to not allow what supposedly happened. At a minimum, it is a scandal in its own
right. But to happen to Epstein now, just as the trail was getting rolling, on Friday - the
day known to 'bury' stories, in a federal facility in Manhattan, is as fishy as fishy gets.
If you want to mock those who point that out, it reflects much more on your naivety than
anyone else's.
He wasn't just "bonking" underage women, he was trafficking them - internationally and on
a large scale. And he threatened them as well. These women were fearful.
If your daughter had been one of those "bonked", trafficked, and threatened at 15 or 16
years old maybe you wouldn't be so cavalier.
Furthermore, it's difficult to believe a wealthy person like Epstein would risk their
wealth and prestige so blatantly without some belief that they were protected. Many believe
that his protection came from Mega/Mossad. So the serial rapist was likely part of a criminal
conspiracy that was aided and abetted by a foreign government.
I used to think you had a functioning moral compass.
My BS detector has been bleeping almost non-stop since the US war on Serbia, as far as I'm
concern when the US makes an assertion they need to provide verifiable evidence to back up
their claims. my personal opinion is that Epstein didn't commit suicide, heck, I'm not even
sure if he's really dead but if he is dead, he was probably murdered.
Kadath @106 Well said. Indeed, loss of trust in governments is key, and this event utterly destroys the
little trust that remained. Other western governments have the same problem also.
Epstein was in custody of someone. Whether Epstien was "suicided" or his death was faked, in a functioning state that
someone would be brought to justice, and that would go up the chain of command until the highest culprit is found. But we live
in a system that is either a Banana Republic or a Mafia State
Had you given thought to: Banana Mafia State Democracy ?
Formerly T-Bear , Aug 11 2019 19:46 utc |
8james , Aug 11 2019 20:04 utc |
9
false choices and a
load of shite.. how is a crony capitalism, banana mafia run country supposed to be a sovereign state?? personally i can't
see it.. pat lang as usual is for the most part, off his rocker..sovereign state my ass..
FWIW New Eastern Outlook is running a story by Gordon Duff on Epstein's murder including citing Bill Richardson and plutonium
theft from USA stockpile. Messad gets a mention.
I put investigative journalism between quotation marks because the editors of the NYT probably already know who killed Epstein.
"Playing along" with the investigative narrative would be the more appropriate term.
Even the New York Times is reporting that 2 guards who were supposed to check on Epstein every 30 minutes since he was in "protective"
custody didn't do their rounds, or not all of their rounds, on Friday night into Saturday morning:
Mr. Epstein was supposed to have been checked by the two guards in the protective housing unit every 30 minutes, but that
procedure was not followed that night, a law-enforcement official with knowledge of his detention said.
Nothing to see here, move along, don't care that the doctors at Parkland said publicly and unambiguously that day that JFK
was shot from the front.
If you look at Epstein, he was a cog in the one of the largest White Slave trade endeavors for a country that begins with I and
ends in an L (or better known as Occupied Palestine). Israel has been noted for years to have one of the largest white slave sex
trade operations in the world. Bringing in young white Estonian, Latvian, and other eastern european white girls for jobs as maids,
nanny's, and other domestic help, until upon arrival their passports are taken and they have to work in brothels for 16 hours
a day to pay off fees the fends impose upon them. I could provide sources from the UN to other bodies but look it up yourself.
Epstein was only doing God's work for the chosenites.
Responding to several questions in the last open thread, I mentioned the fact that Epstein's case reflects the great amount of
corruption prevalent within the Outlaw US Empire, and it's that aspect of the case that might be used as a campaign issue, particularly
since Sanders is going to great lengths to point to the utterly corrupt and immoral nature of "health" insurance and Big Pharma.
That was exactly the line he presented on today's
Face The Nation program, despite the primary fccus being gun control:
"'The American people are sick and tired of powerful corporate interest determining what goes on in Washington,' Sanders said.
'You know that's whether it's the healthcare industry, whether it is the fossil fuel industry, whether it is the NRA.'"
The other important point Sanders made was the divisive nature of Trump's rhetoric--that becoming more divided now isn't in
the nation's best interest:
"He is creating the kind of divisiveness in this nation that is the last thing we should be doing."
Ah, but that's exactly what the Current Oligarchy wants done--create an ever more divisive nation such that solidarity--and
thus Movement Building--becomes ever harder to attain and realize.
Any NYT reporting on Epstein is meant as a distraction -- to cover up the facts.
The NYT is the elites' protector, it punches down instead of up.
The NYT 'revelations' about guards are a) punching down to protect elites and b) a distraction to protect elites.
The NYT is one of the Augean Stables.
IMO, it matters not whether Epstein's alive or dead. What matters is that a person like Epstein was able to become what Epstein
became, which was enabled through the great, vast cesspool of corruption that the global elite inhabit. Epstein ought to become
the Poster Boy for ridding the nation of government and elite corruption that affects every aspect of life here and everywhere.
As many have said, Billionaires ought not to exist--no one individual should have that much wealth and power. The thesis embodied
within
Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth (PDF) ought to be made into law such that it's ensured that those fortunate enough
to become well-off thanks to the public--directly or indirectly via government--return a great proportion of that wealth to their
benefactors. IMO, had such a law been in force, the corruption that enabled Epstein would have had a more difficult time doing
what it did.
Yes, there are other factors/actors involved that aided Epstein's racket. We have an excellent idea of who and what--China
has the proper solution for such corruption. Ridding the world of those factors/actors ought to be equivalent to the Quest for
The Grail.
At least comfort can come from knowing that the evil within Syria is currently being eradicated, and that additional evil plans
are being thwarted thanks to the Forces of Resistance.
Given the overwhelming evidence of Mr. Epstein's connection to powerful US leaders as well
as, quite possibly, a foreign intelligence service, isn't it time for the American People to
demand a hard hitting, "leave no stone unturned" special prosecutor investigation ?
If this does not have all the earmarks of influence peddling in both our democracy and our
policy decisions , I cannot imagine what would.
"... Among the reasons why Biden, Sanders, and Warren will be difficult to topple from the top tier: a significant portion of their supporters say they have made up their minds about the race. ..."
"... This is especially the case with Sanders. Nearly half -- 48 percent -- of his supporters said they would definitely vote for him... ..."
A new poll out Tuesday on the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary shows the
outcome is anyone's guess between former vice president Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Beyond which candidate had what level of support in the first-in-the-nation presidential
primary -- scheduled for February 2020 -- a deeper dive into the Suffolk University/Boston
Globe poll provides a number of other big-picture takeaways.
The top tier is hard to crack
Biden, Sanders, and Warren are the only candidates with support in the double digits (21
percent, 17 percent, and 14 percent, respectively), and a closer read suggests that might not
change anytime soon. Much of this has to do with the fact that a significant portion of their
support is locked down. Nearly half of Sanders' and Biden's supporters in the poll say they
their mind is made up and they aren't looking at supporting anyone else in the field.
Something dramatic could occur, of course, but odds are that the status quo will remain for a
while.
Further, if there are big changes in the race, the poll found that Warren, not someone
else outside of the top three, is in the best position to benefit. Warren was the "second
choice" of 21 percent of respondents. No one else was even close to her in that category.
While Sanders has support locked down now, and Warren has the best potential to
grow , Biden, it appears, has his own lane of supporters that no other candidate is even
contesting. Biden's support is very strong among older voters, moderates, and union members.
For the most part, these voters aren't even looking at other options.
New Hampshire Democrats are moderate
For all the conversation about how far left the Democratic Party has moved in recent
years, the poll shows likely Democratic primary voters have not moved the same way. Yes, a
majority back the Green New Deal concept and Medicare for All, but more than 50 percent
describe themselves as either moderate, conservative, or very conservative. This is compared
with the 45 percent who say they are either liberal or very liberal. While this might seem
like a near tie, consider this survey polled likely Democratic voters -- the party's base --
which is the most liberal. ...
... In fourth place is Senator Kamala Harris of California at 8 percent, followed by South
Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 6 percent and Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii at 3
percent.
Among the reasons why Biden, Sanders, and Warren will be difficult to topple from the
top tier: a significant portion of their supporters say they have made up their minds about
the race.
This is especially the case with Sanders. Nearly half -- 48 percent -- of his
supporters said they would definitely vote for him...
President Donald Trump saw the same day that bombs must have been used on the WTC towers on
9/11/2001.
From his experience building steel sky scrapers, he knew they were built to be strong,
even against a jet. He stated to the reporter that bombs must also have been involved.
What I have yet to see satisfactorily explained is how a huge (or even yuuuge) skyscraper can
fall – within its footprint – when subjected to asymmetrical forces.
Put aside whether the jets had enough fuel, burned hot or long enough, etc. Taking the
footage at face value, the buildings were SLAMMED from one direction. There is no way that
could have caused symmetrical damage. Any structural component closer to impact received
orders of magnitude of force more than those on the opposite side, resulting in unequal
weakening. Yet what everyone saw was a symmetrical collapse within footprint, as though all
structural components were equally and simultaneously weakened.
Who you gonna believe, the gubmint, or your own lying eyes?
"... The establishment's "Democracy Works!" propaganda seeks to stifle such Movements, directing attention to establishment candidates voice those concerns. But those candidates invariably prove to be ineffective because they can never get enough support to win and their efforts largely end with the election. ..."
Well you don't trust any of them, but you vote for the ones pushing policy you want to see happen, and you vote for the
ones that try to make that happen, and you abandon them immediately if they renege.
Obama's election and betrayal proved that this strategy doesn't work.
Tulsi is not anti-war', she's anti- dumb wars . Just as Colin Powell was ('Powell Doctrine' LOL). Just as
Obama was ("don't do stupid stuff"). Just as Trump is (amid howls of "isolationist!" LOL).
The fact is, every candidate will salute the flag as soon as the requisite false flag outrage occurs.
Furthermore, even if you ardently support Tulsi because she voices something that appears to be anti-war, you have to contend
with passionate supporters of other candidates: those who want a candidate of color, those who want an older
more experienced candidate, those who want a women candidate; those who want a socialist candidate, etc. In this way the electorate
is played against each other and in the end the establishment's favored candidate emerges naturally as the "democratic choice"
(with the help of establishment money and media support) .
Relying on voting for change is not enough . There has to be independent Movements for each fundamental change:
Democracy, Anti-war; Economic fairness. Like the Yellow Vest Movement.
The establishment's "Democracy Works!" propaganda seeks to stifle such Movements, directing attention to establishment candidates
voice those concerns. But those candidates invariably prove to be ineffective because they can never get enough support to win
and their efforts largely end with the election.
Remember all those lies Krugman, EMike and Kurt said about "Bernie Bros?" Well turns out they
are the out of touch elites, not Sanders supporters. They were projecting. Krugman won't even
go all in for Warren!!!
Sanders and Warren voters have astonishingly little in common
His backers are younger, make less money, have fewer degrees and are less engaged in
politics.
By HOLLY OTTERBEIN
07/12/2019 05:01 AM EDT
PHILADELPHIA -- Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are two of the most ideologically
aligned candidates in the Democratic primary -- both left-wing populists who rail against a
"rigged" economic system.
But the fellow enemies of the 1 percent have surprisingly different bases of support.
In poll after poll, Sanders appeals to lower-income and less-educated people; Warren beats
Sanders among those with postgraduate degrees. Sanders performs better with men, Warren with
women. Younger people who vote less frequently are more often in Sanders' camp; seniors who
follow politics closely generally prefer Warren.
Sanders also has won over more African Americans than Warren: He earns a greater share of
support from black voters than any candidate in the race except for Joe Biden, according to
the latest Morning Consult surveys.
For progressive activists, who are gathering this week in Philadelphia at the annual
Netroots Nation conference, it's both promising and a source of concern that the two leading
left-wingers in the primary attract such distinct fans. It demonstrates that a progressive
economic message can excite different parts of the electorate, but it also means that Sanders
and Warren likely need to expand their bases in order to win the Democratic nomination.
Put another way, if their voters could magically be aligned behind one or the other, it
would vastly increase the odds of a Democratic nominee on the left wing of the ideological
spectrum.
The fact that Warren and Sanders' bases don't perfectly overlap hasn't garnered much
public attention, but it's something very much on the minds of their aides and allies.
"It shows that the media does not base their perceptions on data that is publicly
available," said Ari Rabin-Havt, chief of staff to the Sanders campaign. "I think people
develop overly simplistic views of politics that presume that people who live in the real
world think the same way as elite media in D.C. and New York."
It's not a given that Sanders voters would flock to Warren, or vice versa, if one of them
left the race and endorsed the other. In Morning Consult, Reuters-Ipsos and Washington
Post-ABC News polls, more Sanders supporters name Biden as their second choice than Warren --
and a higher percentage of Warren voters pick Kamala Harris as their No. 2 than Sanders,
according to recent surveys.
Wes Bode, a retired contractor in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa,
illustrates the point: He said he likes that Sanders has "new ideas," such as free college
tuition, and recently attended one of his town halls in the state. But he's fond of Biden,
too, because he's "for the working man."
It might seem unusual that a voter's top picks for 2020 are the two candidates who best
represent the opposite poles of the Democratic Party. But a person like Bode is actually more
common than someone like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose favorites are Sanders and
Warren.
For Sanders, the need to grow his base is a problem that dates back to his 2016 run. He
failed to win the nomination that year in large part because he was unable to win over older
voters, especially older voters of color.
"Two places where Bernie has always struggled with is older voters and women to some
degree," said Mark Longabaugh, a top strategist to Sanders in 2016. "Warren is identifiably a
Democrat and runs as a Democrat, so I think many more establishment Democrats in the party
are more drawn to her -- whereas Bernie very intentionally ran for reelection as an
independent and identifies as an independent, and appeals to those who look inside the
Democratic Party and think it's not their thing."
During the 2020 campaign, Sanders' advisers have acknowledged that he needs to appeal more
to older voters, and he's recently been holding more intimate events in the early states that
tend to attract more senior crowds than his rallies do. His team is also trying hard to
expand the primary electorate by turning out infrequent voters.
Warren, meanwhile, is aggressively working to win African American support. Her allies
argue that her performance at events such as Al Sharpton's National Action Network convention
and the She the People conference show that she has room to grow among black voters.
"If you were looking to buy a rising stock, you would look at future market share and
indicators of strong fundamentals," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change
Campaign Committee, which backs Warren. "Elizabeth Warren has consistently connected on a gut
level with black audiences ... getting standing ovations after connecting her inspiring plans
to her personal story of struggle growing up poor in Oklahoma and being a single mom in
Texas."
Several Democratic operatives said they believe Warren has the ability to expand her base
to include black women in particular.
"She impressed 2,000 top women of color activists at [our conference]," said Aimee
Allison, founder of She the People. "Elizabeth Warren has deepened, sharpened and made racial
justice a grounding component of her policies."
A look at their poll numbers shows how distinct the pools of support for Sanders vs.
Warren are.
Twenty-two percent of Democratic primary voters who earn less than $50,000 annually
support Sanders, while 12 percent are for Warren, according to an average of the past four
weeks of Morning Consult polling. Of those without college degrees, 22 percent are behind
Sanders; 10 percent back Warren.
Roughly the same percentage of voters with bachelor's degrees -- 16 percent and 15
percent, respectively -- support Sanders and Warren. But among those with postgraduate
degrees, 12 percent are for Sanders and 19 percent are for Warren.
There's a similar split based on age, gender and interest in politics. Sanders wins more
than one-third of the 18- to 29-year-olds, while Warren gets 11 percent of them. Warren has
the support of 13 percent of those aged 30 to 44, 12 percent of those aged 45 to 54, and 13
percent of those aged both 55 to 64 and 65 and up. Sanders' support goes down as the age of
voters goes up: He is backed by 25 percent of 30- to 44-year-olds, 17 percent of 45- to
54-year-olds, 12 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds, and 8 percent of those 65 and older.
Twenty percent of men support Sanders and 11 percent support Warren; 18 percent of women
are behind Sanders and 14 percent are behind Warren.
Warren also performs best among voters who are "extremely interested" in politics (winning
17 percent of them), while Sanders is strongest among those who are "not at all interested"
(26 percent).
As for black voters, 19 percent are behind Sanders, while 9 percent support Warren.
With Biden still atop most polls, even after a widely panned performance at the first
Democratic debate, some progressives still fear that Warren and Sanders could divide the left
and hand the nomination to the former vice president.
"There's a lot of time left in this campaign," said Sean McElwee, co-founder of the
liberal think tank Data for Progress. "But one thing that's clear is that it's very important
for the left that we ensure that we don't split the field and allow someone like Joe Biden to
be the nominee."
"Elizabeth Warren on student loans: New bill would cancel debt for millions"
By Katie Lobosco, CNN...18 hrs ago
"Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is introducing a bill Tuesday that would cancel the
student loan debts of tens of millions of Americans, a plan she first proposed on the
campaign trail in April.
The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate is partnering with South Carolina Rep. James
Clyburn, also a Democrat, who will sponsor companion legislation in the House.
The bill would forgive $50,000 in student loans for Americans in households earning less
than $100,000 a year, resulting in immediate relief to more than an estimated 95% of the 45
million Americans with student debt.
For those earning more than $100,000, the bill would offer partial debt relief with the
amount getting gradually smaller until it phases out. Households that make more than $250,000
are not eligible for any debt relief.
Warren's campaign has said that she would pay for the debt relief -- as well as her plan
to make tuition free at public colleges -- with revenue from her proposed wealth tax. It
would assess a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth above $1
billion.
The one-time debt cancellation could cost $640 billion, the campaign has said."...
Warren's campaign has said that she would pay for the debt relief -- as well as her plan
to make tuition free at public colleges -- with revenue from her proposed wealth tax. It
would assess a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth above $1
billion.
The one-time debt cancellation could cost $640 billion, the campaign has said.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, another Democratic presidential hopeful, also has a student
debt cancellation proposal. But his goes further and would cancel all $1.6 trillion in
outstanding loan debt. There would be no eligibility limitations and it would be paid for
with a new tax on Wall Street speculation. Sanders has proposed making tuition free at public
colleges, as well.
As proposed, Warren's bill would ensure that the debt canceled would not be taxed as
income. Those borrowers with private loans would be allowed to convert them into federal
loans so that they could be forgiven. ...
When the United States government wants to raise money from individuals, its mode of
choice, for more than a century, has been to tax what people earn -- the income they receive
from work or investments.
But what if instead the government taxed the wealth you had accumulated?
That is the idea behind a policy Senator Elizabeth Warren has embraced in her presidential
campaign. It represents a more substantial rethinking of the federal government's approach to
taxation than anything a major presidential candidate has proposed in recent memory -- a new
wealth tax that would have enormous implications for inequality.
It would shift more of the burden of paying for government toward the families that have
accumulated fortunes in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. And over time, such
a tax would make it less likely that such fortunes develop.
What is the Warren plan?
Developed by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two University of California, Berkeley,
economists who are leading scholars of inequality, the proposal is to tax a family's wealth
above $50 million at 2 percent a year, with an additional surcharge of 1 percent on wealth
over $1 billion.
Mr. Saez and Mr. Zucman estimate that 75,000 households would owe such a tax, or about one
out of 1,700 American families.
A family worth $60 million would owe the federal government $200,000 in wealth tax, over
and above what they may owe on income from wages, dividends or interest payments.
If the estimates of his net worth are accurate, Mr. Buffett would owe the I.R.S. about
$2.5 billion a year, in addition to income or capital gains taxes. The Waltons would owe
about $1.3 billion each.
The tax would therefore chip away at the net worth of the extremely rich, especially if
they mainly hold investments with low returns, like bonds, or depreciating assets like
yachts.
It would work a little like the property tax that most cities and states impose on real
estate, an annual payment tied to the value of assets rather than income. But instead of
applying just to homes and land, it would apply to everything: fine art collections, yachts
and privately held businesses.
What are the arguments against it?
They are both philosophical and practical.
On the philosophical side, you can argue that people who have earned money, and paid
appropriate income tax on it, are entitled to the wealth they accumulate.
Moreover, the wealth that individual families accumulate under the current system is
arguably likelier to be put to work investing in large-scale projects that make the economy
stronger. They can invest in innovative companies, for example, or huge real estate projects,
in ways that small investors generally can't. ...
2016 was widely recognized as the year of "populism," more adequately described as the year
of revolt against the political Establishment -- in both Parties. The Democratic Primary in
2016 was a battle of progressive forces against the Democratic Establishment, and the battle
lines were clearly drawn. Those lines remain much the same as we approach 2020.
On the Progressive or Populist side were those who opposed the endless wars in the Middle
East, and on the Establishment side those who supported those long and bloody wars. On the
Progressive Side were those who supported badly needed domestic reforms, most notably Medicare
for All, which after all is a reform of almost 20% of the entire economy and a reform that has
to do with life itself. In contrast on the Establishment side were those who supported
ObamaCare, a device for leaving our health care to the tender mercies of the Insurance
behemoths with its ever increasing premiums and ever decreasing coverage.
In 2016 the pundits gave progressives little chance of success. Hillary Clinton was a
shoo-in, we were all assured by a horde of "reliable sources." And given the control that the
Clintonites exercised over the Democratic Party apparatus, there was little prospect of a
successful rebellion and every chance of having one's career badly damaged by opposing Party
elite. Summer soldiers and duplicitous candidates were not interested in challenging the
Establishment.
In 2016 Bernie Sanders was the only politician who was willing to take on the Establishment.
Although not technically a Democrat, he caucused with them and worked with them. And he was a
lifelong, reliable and ardent advocate for Medicare for All and a consistent opponent of the
endless wars. For these things he was prepared to do battle against overwhelming odds on the
chance that he might prevail and because from his grass roots contacts he sensed that a
rebellion was brewing.
In 2016 only one among the current crop of candidates followed Bernie, supported him and
joined him on the campaign trail -- Tulsi Gabbard. At the time she was a two term Congresswoman
and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), a career building position, from
which she would have to resign in order to support one of the candidates. Moreover, reports
said she bridled at the internal bias of the DNC in favor of Hillary. To express her
displeasure with the DNC and to support Bernie, she had to defy the Clinton Establishment,
which might even have terminated her political career. But she was a foe of the endless wars,
partly based on her own experience as a National Guard member who had been deployed to Iraq in
a medical unit and saw the ravages of war first hand. So she joined Bernie, introducing him at
many of his rallies and strengthening his antiwar message.
Bernie and Tulsi proved themselves in the defining battle of 2016. They let us know
unequivocally where they stand. And Bernie might well have won the nomination were he not
cheated out of it by the Establishment which continues to control the levers of power in the
Democratic Party to this day.
In 2016 these two stood in stark contrast to the other 2020 Democratic candidates. Let us
take one example of these others, Elizabeth Warren, a darling of the main stream media which
often refers to her as ideologically aligned to Bernie Sanders. Perhaps she is so aligned at
times -- at least in words; she is after all in favor of Medicare for All, although she hastens
to add that she is "open to other approaches." That qualifier is balm to the ears of the
Insurance behemoths. Translation: she has already surrendered before the battle has begun.
In 2016 a critical primary for Bernie was Masschusetts where Senator Warren wields
considerable influence. Clinton defeated Sanders there by a mere 1.5% whereas she had lost to
Obama there by 15% in 2008. Wikipedia has this to say of the
primary:
"Following the primary, Elizabeth Warren, the state's senior US senator, was widely
criticized by Sanders supporters online for her refusal to endorse him prior to the primary.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders have argued that an endorsement from Warren, whose political
positions were similar to that of Sanders's, and who was a frequent critic of Hillary Clinton
in the past, could have handed Massachusetts to him. "
One must conclude that either Warren does not genuinely share the views of Sanders or she is
loath to buck the Establishment and fight for those views. In either event she, and the others
who failed to back Bernie in 2016, are not made of the stuff that can win Medicare for All,
bring an end to the regime change wars and illegal sanctions of the last four or more
administrations, begin serious negotiations to end the existential nuclear peril, and address
the many other problems facing us and all of humanity.
“Bernie walked the walk”
When was that? The time he toured through Baltimore and called it a third world city while
assiduously not discussing how, why, and because of who it became so?
The way he openly sold out to Clinton and ducked into his new third manor house to avoid
being held to task for leaving his base out to dry the very moment they were ready to
seriously break ranks from the neolib political machine?
Is he walking the walk now as he tries to rationalize away his underpaying of his campaign
workers and cuts hours to minimize the costs of the 15 dollar floor price he demanded for
everyone other employer?
The man is a DNC stooge through and through.
And Tulsi being anti-war out of personal squeamishness doesn’t make up for the rest of
her painfully party-line-compliant platform, particularly when the Deep State has multiple
active avenues available to at the very least keep our military presence still existing
military presence trapped and held hostage. All the dove cooing in recorded world history
won’t hold up when, not if, Britain or France or whoever deliberately sinks another
navy vessel and drags her by the hair into another desert scrum.
@Tusk As with the 1960 Presidential Election, Hillary stole that election fair and
square. Had Sanders went full third party, it would’ve destroyed the Democrats
outright. Despite Clinton’s cheating, Bernie went ahead and bent the knee. Strangely
enough, Trump’s victory saved Sanders and his faction. Had Clinton won, she
would’ve purged the Sanders supporters relentlessly.
There is such a thing as a tactical retreat. Now he’s able to play again.
is that our “establishment elite” have failed the United States of
America.
How, you may ask ?
The answer is simple.
By defrauded us into multiple illegal wars of aggression they have bankrupted the entire
nation.
The iron fact is that because our “elites” lied us into illegal war we are now
22.5 trillion dollars in heinous debt.
Why is this okay ?
The answer is simple.
It is not okay, NOT AT ALL .
And it is not enough (anymore) to just demand we “end our wars”, Mr.
Walsh.
The cost in treasure has been too high and the burden on the US taxpayer too obscene.
Without demanding “accountability” from our elites, who lied us into this
catastrophe, our nation is most probably going under.
I say…. make them pay …”every penny”…. for the cost of
the wars they lied us into.
An initiative, like the “War fraud Accountability Act” (retroactive to 2002)
would do just that.
it would replenish the coffers of our nation with all the assets of the larcenous
profiteers who deceived us all….into heinous war debt.
As we witness the rise of China as the new global economic powerhouse, we can see first
hand how a nation can rise to immense wealth and global influence “precisely
because” it was never deceived by its “ruling class” into squandering all
its resources initiating and fighting endless criminal wars.
Just imagine where the USA would be today, had we chosen the same course.
Until Dems are willing to refuse to depend on Haim Saban’s “generous
donation” to the Dem candidate, none of their candidates will deserve to be the the
POTUS candidate. Ditto for the Republicans and their fetish with Shelly Adelson. Candidates
must kowtow to Israel or else there will be no dough for them and they might even be
challenged in their incumbencies next time around by ADL/AIPAC. Until we get rid of Israeli
money and political power, we are toast.
1)Both Sanders and Gabbard are onboard for going to war against Christian Russia over
Crimea..Sanders has gone so far as saying that a Military response against Russia is an
option if all else fails in getting Russia out of Crimea…
2)Both Sanders and Gabbard are waging a war of RACIAL EXTERMINATION against Working Class
Native Born White American Males….And that’s WHITE GENOCIDE!!!!
@Kronos Bernie “bent the knee” once and got to enjoy his lakeside home and
his wife protected from fraud prosecution after she stole money from People’s United
Bank for her college scam.
He is owned.
If Tulsi were a serious threat she would be neutralized one way or another.
“Progressives” are virtue signaling fools–the kleptocracy marches on and
laughs at them.
One has to wonder where Dems like Warren and their identity politics is taking the US.
Will everyone who even slightly disagrees with them be labeled a terrorist?
Donald Trump: billionaire of the people. When he ran for office,
he said , "The American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and
fight for them."
And how's that working out for the American worker? Not very well, actually, not very well.
When it comes down to picking sides -- standing up for workers' rights or lining the pockets of
CEOs and shareholders -- Trump aligned himself and his policies with the fat cats. This cost
workers money and safety. The truth is that American corporations got a president who protected
them and fought for them
OK, obviously I need to weigh in on Elizabeth Warren's trade proposal. I've been a huge
fan of her plans so far. This one, not so much, although some of the critiques are overdone
1/
Last month, I released my economic patriotism agenda -- my commitment to fundamentally
changing the government's approach to the economy so that we put the interests of American
workers and families ahead of the interests of multinational corporations. I've already
released my ideas for applying economic patriotism to manufacturing and to Wall Street. This
is my plan for using economic patriotism to overhaul our approach to trade.
8:41 AM - 30 Jul 2019
The truth is that this would have been a bad and destructive plan if implemented in, say,
1980. At this point it's still problematic, but not disastrous (this is going to be a long
tweet storm) 2/
Background: the way we currently do trade negotiations is that professionals negotiate out
of public view, but with input from key business players. Then Congress gets an up or down
vote on the result 3/
This can sound like a process rigged in favor of special interests. But it was created by
FDR, and its actual intent was largely the opposite. It took away the ability of
Congresspeople to stuff trade bills with goodies for their donors and districts 4/
And while business interests certainly got a lot of input, it was set up in a way that set
different groups against each other -- exporters versus import-competing industries -- and
this served the interests of the general public 5/
Without this system we wouldn't have achieved the great opening of world markets after
World War II -- and that opening was a very good thing overall, especially for poor
countries, and helped promote peace 6/
So what has changed? The key point is that the system pretty much achieved its goals;
we're a low-tariff world. And that has had a peculiar consequence: these days "trade
negotiations" aren't mainly about trade, they're about intellectual property and regulation
7/
And it's not at all clear that such deals are actually good for the world, which is why I
was a soft opponent of TPP 8/
Not to keep you in suspense, I'm thumbs down. I don't think the proposal is likely to be
the terrible, worker-destroying pact some progressives assert, but it doesn't look like a
good thing either for the world or for the United States, and you have to wonder why the
Obama administration, in particular, would consider devoting any political capital to getting
this through.
So what Warren proposes is that we partially unravel the system FDR built, making trade
negotiations more transparent and giving Congress a bigger role in shaping the deals. This
sounds more democratic, but that's a bit deceiving 9/
Mainly it would substitute one kind of special interest distortion for another. That would
have been a clearly bad thing when trade deals were actually about trade. Today, I think it's
ambiguous 10/
Warren would also expand the criteria for trade policy to include a number of non-trade
goals, like labor rights and environmental protection. Here again there are arguments on both
sides 11/
On one side, the potential for abuse would be large -- we could be slapping tariffs on
countries for all kinds of reasons, turning trade policy into global power politics, which
would be really bas for smaller, weaker countries 12/
On the other hand, there are some cases where trade policy will almost surely have to be
used to enforce some common action. If we ever do act on climate change, carbon tariffs will
be needed to discipline free riders 13/
"President Obama on Sunday praised the energy bill passed by the House late last week as
an 'extraordinary first step,' but he spoke out against a provision that would impose trade
penalties on countries that do not accept limits on global warming pollution."
And I also think the report gives a false impression of what this is about, making it seem
as if it's nothing but dirty politics...
Overall, this is the weakest Warren plan so far. (Still waiting to hear from her on health
care! Harris has taken point there, and done it well) But it's not bad enough to change the
verdict that she's the strongest contender on policy grounds 14/
He backs Harris's attempt to split difference on health care reform.
The problem with PK and Kurt and EMike is that if you don't deliver better services and
rising living standards - no matter the excuses we don't care about your excuses -
you're going to get more racism, demagogues like Trump and toxic politics.
The Dems's track record for the past 40 years is objectively awful. PK lives in a rich
man's bubble if he believes corporate trade has been good for humanity and peace.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) sparred Tuesday night
over her proposed "no first use" policy on nuclear weapons during the Democratic debate.
In defending the proposed policy, Warren argued for diplomatic and economic solutions to
conflict, saying "we should not be asking our military to take on jobs that do not have a
military solution."
But Bullock opposed that proposal, saying, "I don't want to turn around and say, 'Well,
Detroit has to be gone before we would ever use that.'"
Warren is the lead sponsor of the Senate version of a bill that would make it U.S. policy
not to use nuclear weapons first.
It has long been the policy of the United States that the country reserves the right to
launch a preemptive nuclear strike.
Former President Obama reportedly weighed changing the policy before leaving office, but
ultimately did not after advisers argued doing so could embolden adversaries.
Backers of a no first use policy argue it would improve U.S. national security by reducing
the risk of miscalculation while still allowing the United States to launch a nuclear strike
in response to an attack.
During the debate, Warren argued such a policy would "make the world safer."
"The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons preemptively, and we need to say so
to the entire world," she said. "It reduces the likelihood that someone miscalculates,
someone misunderstands."
Bullock argued he wouldn't want to take the option off the table, but that there should be
negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.
"Never, I hope, certainly in my term or anyone else would we really even get close to
pulling that trigger," he said. "Going from a position of strength, we should be negotiating
down so there aren't nuclear weapons. But drawing those lines in the sand at this point, I
wouldn't do."
Warren shot back that the world is closer to nuclear warfare after Trump's presidency,
which is seeing the end of a landmark arms control agreement with Russia, the development of
a low-yield submarine-launched warhead and the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear
agreement.
"We don't expand trust around the world by saying, 'you know, we might be the first one to
use a nuclear weapon,'" she said. "We have to have an announced policy that is one the entire
world can live with."
Bullock said he agreed on the need to return to nonproliferation standards but that
unpredictable enemies such as North Korea require keeping first use as an option.
"When so many crazy folks are getting closer to having a nuclear weapon, I don't want them
to think, 'I could strike this country,'" he said. "Part of the strength really is to
deter."
----
Long-standing US policy has been to lump chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons in a single
category. So, our guv'mint implicitly reserves the
right to respond to a chemical attack (say) with
nuclear weapons. This was how the US got het up
about Iraq's supposed 'weapons of mass destruction',
which is how the US lumps them together under
the heading 'CBN' weapons. Iraq certainly
had chemical weapons, possibly biological ones,
and much less plausibly a nuclear weapons program.
It was all about those mysterious 'aluminum tubes',
which supposedly could be used for uranium-enriching centrifuges. (Not these tubes,
apparently.)
But I digress. Suffice it to say, the US has
quite a few self-serving policies.
Now, the real question is, how much longer
do we want to have Mr Trump in control
of the nuclear football, as the nuke-
authorizing gadget is known?
Democracy was the next step, but it only works in small polities.
And for very short periods of time.
Anyway, yours is a key concept that most 'Merkins are completely ignorant of, yet some of
the anti-federalists were aware of it. Here, Brutus questions whether "democracy" is sensible
in a nation of three million !
Now, in a large extended country, it is impossible to have a representation, possessing
the sentiments, and of integrity, to declare the minds of the people, without having it so
numerous and unwieldly, as to be subject in great measure to the inconveniency of a
democratic government.
The territory of the United States is of vast extent; it now contains near three
millions of souls, and is capable of containing much more than ten times that number. Is it
practicable for a country, so large and so numerous as they will soon become, to elect a
representation, that will speak their sentiments, without their becoming so numerous as to
be incapable of transacting public business?
It certainly is not.
Brutus, (Robert Yates), To the Citizens of the State of New-York, October 18, 1787
"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years.
He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military
banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This
will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump
won't fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."
Linh Dinh, "Orlando Shooting Means Trump for President," @ The Unz Review (June 12, 2016).
Note how the 'free press' of the US has been not only complicit in all this every step of the way but is coordinated with it,
staying silent about things in front of its nose and launching propaganda campaigns on cue. Obviously the media is in close cooperation
with elements of the political establishment. Oh, but we have the freest media in the world. I know so because I read it in the
newspaper.
"... This isn't a glitch. It's a pattern. Although Trump is fond of surrounding himself with union members and asserting that they love him, he doesn't really like unions, especially ones that challenge him or dare to question his lies. Remember how he personally attacked Steelworker Chuck Jones who exposed Trump and Pence for claiming to save 1,100 jobs at Carrier when they really preserved only about half that many -- and then only after a grant of $7 million from the taxpayers of Indiana? ..."
"... A president who supported organized labor would oppose freeriders who won't pay their fair share but still want all the benefits of union membership. A president who supported unions would not issue executive orders crippling unions representing federal workers. A president who supported unions would not delay or eliminate health and safety regulations designed to protect workers from sickness and death. ..."
"... That's not Donald Trump. He supported Mark Janus, an Illinois government employee who wanted everything for nothing. Janus was fine with collecting the higher wages that the labor union representing him secured for workers, but Janus didn't want to contribute one red cent for that representation. ..."
"... So with right-wing corporate billionaires picking up the tab for him, Janus took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered unions to provide workers like Janus with essentially a free lunch. That is, the court said unions must represent freeloaders like him, but those workers don't have to pay anything for all they get -- no dues, no fees, nothing. ..."
"... And then there are his labor secretary choices. First he wanted Andy Puzder, CEO of the restaurant corporation that owns Hardee's and Carl's Jr., an opponent of raising the minimum wage who said he preferred machines to humans. Puzder withdrew, and Alexander Acosta took over until he was forced to resign last month as a result of the unconscionable plea deal he gave an accused molester a decade ago when Acosta was a federal prosecutor. ..."
"... Now the interim secretary is Patrick Pizzella, who lobbied for years to prevent Congress from extending minimum wage requirements to the Northern Mariana Islands , a commonwealth of the United States, where workers were paid as little as $1 an hour but the corporate bosses got to mark the merchandise produced there as Made in America. I guess that's how you Make America Great Again, huh? ..."
"... Now, Trump has picked Scalia, son of the late, anti-worker Supreme Court justice. This is the guy who killed a proposed ergonomics rule to protect workers against injuries from repetitive motions, denigrating the research as "junk science" and "quackery." ..."
"... This is the guy who stopped the fiduciary rule that would have required brokers to act in clients' best interest rather than brokers' personal financial benefit by forbidding brokers from recommending investments that paid brokers big commissions but provided clients with low returns. This corrupt practice costs workers and retirees about $17 billion a year . ..."
"... Scalia is a corporate shill. And he'd be reporting to Trump, whose slavish support of corporate bosses over working Americans has revealed he's nothing more than a poser in a red MAGA baseball cap. ..."
"... The decline of the unions has been 50 years in the making under Democrats and Republicans. Blaming Trump is a convenient scapegoat and pinata for the left, but just the icing on the cake for decades of bad DC policies. Trump didn't create the Rust Belt or sign NAFTA. ..."
"... The strange thing is that with the Trump administration attacking all of the American friends/allies, no one is willing to step in and help America with curtailing Chinese trade abuses. ..."
"... I think the point they're making is by no means that this started with Trump, or that the Democrats have been all that great. Merely that he's been significantly worse (and many of the examples are egregiously anti-labor actions that would not have been done under a Clinton ((or a Bush or Romney for that matter)) and that the preposterousness of his thin pretence at being a friend of labor is an order of magnitude greater even than Biden's. ..."
By Tom Conway, the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW) . Produced by the Independent Media
Institute
Donald Trump: billionaire of the people. When he ran for office,
he said , "The American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and
fight for them."
And how's that working out for the American worker? Not very well, actually, not very well.
When it comes down to picking sides -- standing up for workers' rights or lining the pockets of
CEOs and shareholders -- Trump aligned himself and his policies with the fat cats. This cost
workers money and safety. The truth is that American corporations got a president who protected
them and fought for them.
The proof is in Trump'slegislation, regulation and secretary selections. The most recent
example is Trump's Twitter
appointment of Eugene Scalia as Secretary of Labor. This is the department specifically designated to "foster,
promote, and develop the welfare of wage earners, job seekers, and retirees." Scalia, though,
has made his fortune over decades by fighting to ensure that the big guys -- corporations --
don't, in fact, have to abide by regulations intended to foster, promote, and develop the
welfare of the little guys -- wage earners, job seekers, and retirees.
That is who Trump chose to protect wage earners -- a corporatist so egregious that when
former President George W. Bush wanted Scalia as Labor Department solicitor, Bush had to give
him a recess appointment because
Republicans in the Senate balked at approving him.
This isn't a glitch. It's a pattern. Although Trump is fond of surrounding himself with
union members and asserting that they love him, he doesn't really like unions, especially ones
that challenge him or dare to question his lies. Remember how he
personally attacked Steelworker Chuck Jones who exposed Trump and Pence
for claiming to save 1,100 jobs at Carrier when they really preserved only about half that
many -- and then only after a grant of $7 million from the taxpayers of Indiana?
A president who supported organized labor would oppose freeriders who won't pay their
fair share but still want all the benefits of union membership. A president who supported
unions would not issue executive orders crippling unions representing federal workers. A
president who supported unions would not delay or eliminate health and safety regulations
designed to protect workers from sickness and death.
That's not Donald Trump. He supported Mark Janus, an Illinois government employee who
wanted everything for nothing. Janus was fine with collecting the higher wages that the labor
union representing him secured for workers, but Janus didn't want to contribute one red cent
for that representation.
So with right-wing corporate billionaires picking up the tab for him, Janus took his
case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered unions to provide workers like Janus with
essentially a free lunch. That is, the court said unions must represent freeloaders like him,
but those workers don't have to pay anything for all they get -- no dues, no fees,
nothing.
Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The whole point of Janus' and the
billionaires' court crusade was to bankrupt and try to kill unions. And Trump was on their
side.
If Trump really were the billionaire of the people, he'd have stood with the union. That's
who Trump promised that he would protect, the organization of average people trying to earn an
honest living and standing up to big government and big corporations.
But he didn't.
That was in June of last year.
Just last week , Trump went to court seeking enforcement of his executive orders
restricting unions representing federal workers and enabling him to quickly fire workers. The
unions contend Trump does not have this authority. This is not settled in court yet, but Trump
is asking a judge to let him impose the orders before it is.
That sounds like a president using all of the power of big government to step on the tens of
thousands of little guys who do the grueling work, day after day, to ensure the federal
government serves the American people reasonably well.
There's even more. So much more.
Trump slow-walked implementation of silica
and beryllium
exposure safeguards intended to save workers' lives and
delayed a rule requiring mine operators to identify potential hazards before workers begin
their shifts. He helped
thwart an attempt to extend overtime pay to 4 million
workers. Trump
blocked a rule that would have made it harder for corporations that violate labor laws to
get federal contracts. Trump lifted not one finger to help those crushed by a starvation $7.25
minimum wage not raised
in a decade .
And then there are his labor secretary choices. First he wanted Andy Puzder, CEO of the
restaurant corporation that owns Hardee's and Carl's Jr., an opponent of raising the minimum
wage who said
he preferred machines to humans. Puzder withdrew, and Alexander Acosta took over until he
was forced to resign last month as a result of the unconscionable plea deal he gave an
accused molester a decade ago when Acosta was a federal prosecutor.
Now, Trump has picked Scalia, son of the late, anti-worker Supreme Court justice. This
is the guy who killed a proposed ergonomics rule to protect workers against injuries from
repetitive motions, denigrating the research as "junk
science" and "quackery."
This is the guy who argued that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an
agency of the Labor Department, had no authority to regulate worker safety at SeaWorld after a
12,300-poundorca that had
killed twice before attacked and drowned a trainer
in front of hundreds of horrified children.
This is the guy
who stopped the fiduciary rule that would have required brokers to act in clients' best
interest rather than brokers' personal financial benefit by forbidding brokers from
recommending investments that paid brokers big commissions but provided clients with low
returns. This corrupt practice costs workers and retirees about $17
billion a year .
This guy is among the lawyers representing a petroleum producers' trade association that is
suing to overturn a California regulation calling for worker participation to improve refinery
safety. The state passed the legislation after a refinery fire in Richmond, California, sent
15,000 nearby residents to hospitals and doctor's offices for treatment, mostly for breathing
problems. The lawsuit was filed in July, just days before an explosion and fire at an Exxon
Mobil refinery in Texas that injured 37 people.
Scalia is a corporate shill. And he'd be reporting to Trump, whose slavish support of
corporate bosses over working Americans has revealed he's nothing more than a poser in a red
MAGA baseball cap.
So this is whats exasperating, if the Democrats actually hammered on these issues the
would have so much support, instead its Russia Russia Russia all the time. "Inauthentic
opposition" its like they don't want to win.
Come on, nobody likes dealing with unions, not even Bernie. I suspect he's been hoist by his
own petard because he's now on the horns of the pay dilemma of private enterprise due to his
campaign workers unionizing and making pay demands.
Dealing with a labor union presents me with a conundrum. While I agree with the philosophy
of a labor union, and for them having a voice because they 'should', I break with them in favor
of management's view of union labor. Why? It's because the union members aren't good team
players.
Sadly – and proving my pay grade doesn't extend high enough to have all the answers
– I also break with one of management practices. This because I feel management are also
poor team players because they pay themselves so darned much it seems unfair.
Basically I feel like one for all and all for one works for Musketeers and teams, the spirit
falls apart with private capital. And that Marx business of, "from each according to their
ability, to each according to their need" is a proven loser.
I theorize each time it's because labor and management aren't really working for one team.
How is Southwest's vaunted employee owned doing? Everybody happy? I doubt it. I almost wish
there were privately held companies where there's an owner and employees, and employee-owned
only. And publicly held must be accountable to government oversight to prevent abuses.
Why? I suspect if 'all' shares of Southwest were owned by the employees 'only' then the
collectively 'they' would be rich in fact because only they owned the means of production
(moving people and cargo via air for lucre).
Anyway, the key part everybody forgets about Marx is he prefaced the above in part with . .
."after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want."
This is an important point being overlooked because it presupposes people 'want' to go to
work. Don't know about you but I don't really know many who want to work. Most would rather sip
margaritas on the beach instead of going into work. Thus, as long as this is the case, the
Marxist dream is just that, a pipe dream because most folks are 'lazy' – or put another
way – don't want to exist only to work. Don't really blame them.
Anyway, if we recognize the truth of this (that many don't especially want to work), then it
follows we also receive less productive work from some vs. others, then paying everybody the
same is inherently unfair. And by extension, setting a minimum pay means everybody at that
level is worth the same, and we know this isn't true!
So if you here are are forced to accept the validity of some of this, e.g. some who will
show up and be a warm body – but – won't be a team player and give their heart to
doing the best job, and others won't show up for a paycheck at all if not forced by want, then
everybody isn't worth the same wage! In fact, is it unreasonable to presuppose some simply
aren't worth a minimum amount of pay? Further to the point, forcing a minimum pay becomes in
some terms, almost immoral and the antithesis of freedom because we don't receive some fair bit
of labor in exchange from some.
Could this be why so many, especially amongst the working poor, are simply against
Socialism/Communism/Marxism even if they can't put the 'why they're against it' into words?
Yes, I know they're not the same but they'll be tarred with the same brush by Capitalist forces
so the answers needs must.
Anyway, circling back, I am delighted with Bernie's newfound union involvement from
management's perspective. Why? It's because I very much look forward to see how his views
evolve.
I think the American neoliberal matrix has shifted social perspectives during its decadal
tenure E.g. there is only the Market where one can become a Kardashian, Entertainment, IT,
YouTube Vloger, et al and Brand Name Commodity for sale . individual needs and wants expressed
in a manner Marx never envisioned.
The financial elites are already on Mars for all intents and purposes .
Oh please, all this team player talk and some people don't deserve a minimum wage do you
have any idea how massively the US employee is exploited and trashed by the "team players" in
management?
Everyone, even those who don't want to work, deserve to live. You have apparently imbibed
the capitalist mantra that work defines moral value so fully that anyone who can't or won't
work should starve.
The fact is our society produces so much surplus value it could (and does) afford to support
a substantial number who don't work for various reasons (mainly disability due to working
physically demanding jobs for decades that ruin their bodies). Work doesn't equal morality. Try
to dig yourself out of the neoliberal mindset, its inhumane and morally hollow.
+1000 even those who don't want to work, deserve to live.
Besides the fact that I suspect there are actually VERY FEW who don't want to do any work.
The beef isn't actually with this tiny minority but that they don't work to some capitalists
definition of optimum (explotation). When a medieval peasant spent less time working than we
do. So maybe they are working like medieval peasants which should actually be MORE THAN
possible, if technology has done anything, but oddly since all the wealth funneled to the top,
it's not.
Anyway, if we recognize the truth of this (that many don't especially want to work),
then it follows we also receive less productive work from some vs. others, then paying
everybody the same is inherently unfair. And by extension, setting a minimum pay means
everybody at that level is worth the same, and we know this isn't true!
No doubt some workers do more and/or better work than others but, for almost all jobs, it is
a myth that there is an economically fair way to pay workers based on their productivity.
Because outside of a few truly solo occupations, all output is collective output – there
is no way to distinguish each individual worker's contribution to that output. So pay is always
a socio-economic outcome, based as much on social convention and bargaining power as any
putative economic contribution. At one time, this was well and truly understood. But economists
have massively obfuscated this common-sense point.
The fairest pay for production workers (regardless of what industry they work in or what
goods or services they produce) is the pay that those workers, via their union, determine to be
most fair. The reason why unions always push for equal pay for the same job is because they
view favoritism as a more serious offense against fairness than someone not as talented getting
the same pay as someone more talented.
Well, defacto, President Trump doesn't actually have a problem with such a recession because
he's on Mars with the rest of the elites. It's 'we the people' who have the problem because
we're the ones who actually suffer in a recession.
" Not very well, actually, not very well. When it comes down to picking sides --
standing up for workers' rights or lining the pockets of CEOs and shareholders -- Trump
aligned himself and his policies with the fat cats . "
Oh, if only Democrats were in complete control of the White House, Senate and House at some
point within the past 10 years!
The decline of the unions has been 50 years in the making under Democrats and
Republicans. Blaming Trump is a convenient scapegoat and pinata for the left, but just the
icing on the cake for decades of bad DC policies. Trump didn't create the Rust Belt or sign
NAFTA.
NAFTA is a big nothing. It helped boost capital flows which capital needs for production. US
growth is running above shrinking supply, which rejects your point.
The post-war era is the only time in is history, workers made such gains. Pretty clear
why.
The USA has had trade surpluses with Canada under NAFTA:
The United States has a $12.5 billion trade surplus with Canada in 2016. Canada has
historically held a trade deficit with the United States in every year since 1985 in net
trade of goods, excluding services. The trade relationship between the two countries crosses
all industries and is vitally important to both nations' success as each country is one of
the largest trade partners of the other.
And yet Trump blackmailed Canada into the USMCA which is far worse than NAFTA for both
countries, and provides more benefits to large multi-national corporations.
Lets hope that the American congress kills USMCA, and leaves NAFTA in place.
The strange thing is that with the Trump administration attacking all of the American
friends/allies, no one is willing to step in and help America with curtailing Chinese trade
abuses.
I think the point they're making is by no means that this started with Trump, or that
the Democrats have been all that great. Merely that he's been significantly worse (and many of
the examples are egregiously anti-labor actions that would not have been done under a Clinton
((or a Bush or Romney for that matter)) and that the preposterousness of his thin pretence at
being a friend of labor is an order of magnitude greater even than Biden's.
Not all prayers are answered. The two party system intervened in the US political process to
elect its representation and leadership a long time ago. The two party system is not
constitutional, but it is not unconstitutional either. It just is. The two party system takes
all the air out of the political room. The two party system institutionalizes the capture of
the political process by special interests, dichotomized into two differently armed powers of
equal importance. The first is the moneyed interests of corporate wealth and power which
provide media access and control. The second is the social interests of large voting blocks
that are not in certain conflict with corporate money. To get elected politicians must then
pander for cheap votes and the money to buy them with. How could Russians possibly compete
with that?
Remember that the Bill of Rights was just an afterthought to the US Constitution that was
deemed necessary to obtain ratification without further insurrection by the people. The US
Constitution itself had not blatantly encompassed the creation of the two party system, but
such division of special interests was evident from the participants division of economic
interests. First and foremost, the US Constitution was about the preservation of property
rights despite the division between what was considered valuable property in the North and
what was considered valuable property in the South. A stable, yet plutocratic, republic was
necessary for the preservation of all property rights. The US was founded as an ownership
state, "for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People," ( John Wycliffe
in 1384 subsequently quote by Abe Lincoln) just not for and by all the people.
Why do I have the larger view here? Well, the Constitution is fairly simple when the two
other branches do their job. The other two branches cannot do their job. Obama couldn't do
his job without losing four elections. The current Congress cannot do its job, for a variety
of reasons. We are in that period when legislation is not working, the money is tied up in
interest payments, and the new generation refuses to pay for all the rolled over losses from
past Congressional failures. We are sort of stuck with an inoperable Constitution.
A two party system is just one step from a one party system. Tight oligopoly instead of
monopoly.
The wealthy have to spread their largesse around a little bit more, but not as much as
they would if they had to buy 4-5 parties. Plus, in a two party system, there are always
stooges in waiting, eager to serve, in case the incumbent stooges go too far off the
rails.
Who gives a monkeys? The real issue is that the selfish, disorientated and cowardly way the
Dems are conducting this race is handing Trump a winning platform for 2020.
After long hard thinking I have come to the sad conclusion that Trump is right and that he is
indeed a genius. He has achieved what he had set out to do. He has polarised the standard
bearer for democracy in the world. He has enriched himself and his family. He has broken
American society, possibly irreversibly. He has brought about change in the worlds economies.
He has also managed to set the debate and the stage to win in 2020. Now some may say he has
been an awful president, but looking at his strategy he has been highly successful. He may
not be what we want but he has certainly been better at feeling the pulse of America and
deciding which medicine to give. A truly evil genius indeed.
Sanders and Warren are the only two with some kind of personality. The others look like they
were created by lobbyists and corporate donors in a lab on a computer like Kelly Lebrock from
Weird Science.
The point about taxes going up is a red herring and a straw man argument. If you get
insurance through your employer, you pay anywhere from $300/month to $1200/month for yourself
and family. Through a Medicare for all plan, that payment would disappear. Yes, you'd pay
more in taxes to cover your health insurance, but it would likely be lower than private
insurance, a net gain, with better coverage, no deductible or co-pays. Even if it was the
same, it's still a wash. You're eliminating an expense for a tax. Plus, you're not paying for
some executive's perks and exorbitant salary.
Personally, I'd feel better paying $50,000-$75,000/year to a government administrator than
$10M-$20M/year + perks to a CEO.
Obama was simply being honest there. By any standard, Obama, both Clinton's, Gore (except for
climate change) and Biden are at best moderate Republicans. Each would qualify as being to
the right of Richard Nixon (leaving aside the issue of integrity).
In the case of Bill Clinton, Americans had not got woken to the fact that, while a little
less by Democrats, the middle class was nontheless being screwed by both parties. Obama's
rhetoric was enough cover to fool the public into thinking he would fight for real change.
Both Gore and especially Hillary showed what the public now thinks of "moderates". Bernie
Sanders and/or Elizabeth Warren are the only chances to beat Trump in 2020.
Reparations for slavery, the elimination of private insurance, free health care for anyone
who overstays a visa or walks over from Mexico, and a crystal lady.
We are in trouble. My nightmare of a Trump re-election is more and more likely.
Warren and Sanders clearly demonstrated that a party wanting to win should nominate one of
them.
They enthralled the audience, and showed they possess a vision for the future that every
other Democratic candidate claims to eventually want, when there's time, maybe, perhaps if
they get a majority someday.
Clearly Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were the clear winners of the night! They shamed
the listless other candidates, none of whom exhibited a similar energy, excitement &
vision for the future of the country. Despite a definite veneer of displeasure by your
account, both the audience at the event, and those watching at home felt the excitement of
progressive proposals won the day.
When Sanders declared he's in favor of free healthcare and free education for illegal
immigrants there was -at best - muted criticism from the other candidates.
Most Americans are likely outraged by this suggestion and this will play in Trump's
favor.
It's obvious that John Delaney is simply a plant by Big Business (which has both the centrist
Democrats and all of Republicans in its pocket) to troll and derail the candidacy of
progressives Sanders and Warren. His sole function is to throw a monkey wrench in their path
and be a "nattering nabob of negativism" (to quote Agnew) regarding their policies. That's
all he does all day and all night, and the centrist-loving moderators and journalists love
giving him infinite time to do his damage
The answer is obvious: if you want your best shot at 86-ing the orange pestilence, then it
has to be Warren/Sanders or Sanders/Warren. You're not supposed to signal your vice-president
until after you've got the nomination, I know, but surely having Trump as president has
shredded all previous norms? Go now, right now, and say that it'll be you two. You can even
keep it open and say that you don't know who'll head the ticket but it will be Warren and
Sanders. That would crush all opposition and keep churning interesting as a guessing game.
Maybe Warren should head the ticket. I know that Sanders is very sharp and he plays
basketball but if he was president then he'd be asking for a second term and to get sworn in
when he's 83 and being in one's eighties might be too much of a psychological barrier. My
suggestion, though, would be it's Sanders/Warren but on the promise that Sanders will step
aside during his first term, after two years and one day (meaning that Warren could serve out
the rest of the term and still then run for two more terms under her own steam).
That would guarantee the first female president and so quieten down the phoney-baloney
identity politics drones; better, it would mean that the US would get an excellent leader in
Elizabeth Warren, no matter her bodily organs; it would pull together the Crooked H.
adherents and get them on side, if they truly care about getting female in there and if it
doesn't it will expose them as the phonies they are. And it would keep matters on policy,
when Trump is weak, rather than personalities, which is the territory on which Trump wants to
fight.
Warren: "We beat it by being the party of big structural change." The issue is whether
"regulation" is big enough and structural enough.
Sanders: "To stand with the working class* of American that for the last 45 years has been
decimated." Then the Canada bus trip. "We need a mass political movement. Take on the greed
and the corruption of the ruling class of this country." Plugs website.
Sanders was better; working the bus trip in was good.
NOTE *
Guardian paraphrase : "Bernie Sanders pledged to stand by the US middle class , recounting his recent trip to Canada to
emphasize the high price of insulin in America." Lol.
The allergy to the phrase "working class" is not accidental. They want as many Americans
as possible thinking they're just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
As someone who has spent most of my life in the working class, made it to the middle, got
knocked down again, and made my way back up to the middle again, there is most certainly a
difference.
When was the last time (if ever) that someone said the words "ruling class" in a
presidential debate? (I assume that Eugene Debs was never invited to any presidential
debate.)
Even that Bernie said "working class" won points with me. Typical of the Guardian to change
it to "middle class".
Williamson was impressive.
I liked that Warren showed fire and guts. Her policies would be a real change for the better,
especially if pushed farther. My real question about her is whether she would stand up to the
other side and fight to win.
For me, the biggest difference between Bernie and Warren is that I am starting to hope that
Warren would really fight, but I know Bernie would.
I like Bernie better, but I like Warren too, and I *DO* trust her to fight.
The big tell was when she went to Washington as a Senator and Larry Summers said don't
criticize us in public if you want to be part of the club, and she not only ignored that but
told on him publicly!
Two actually GOOD people! They were my dream team last night.
I agree. I'm highly skeptical of Warren delivering anything (especially a victory), and I
don't really trust her to try very hard to implement her plans. Watching her in this debate
opened a thin crack in my icy wall of distrust. I hope she proves me wrong.
Eh . Warren for all her sociopolitical baggage is a completely different animal to the
Blue Dog Corporatist DNC fundie or the Free Market Conservative slash Goat picked me to
administrate reality for everyone dilemma.
But yeah feel [tm] free [tm] to play curricular firing squad and then wonder why ones head
is sore from the effects of banging on an sacrilegious edifice .
I think a photo finish by Sanders and Warren, Buttigieg in the running followed by
Klobuchar, Beto fading, the centrists losing big, Williamson a dark horse coming up on the
outside.
By one key metric -- Google interest -- Marianne Willamson was the dominant figure of the debate. and that's tells a lot about
debate aorgnizers which are not interested in real political debase. Just interested in the debate as a political show. They
are too interested in promoted identity politics to devide the electorate, to allow discussion of really important for the
nation question such as rampant militarism.
Notable quotes:
"... A lot of liberals will love her for her quip, "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running to the president of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for." ..."
"... Of course, she's celebrating one of the big problems in our political system -- no presidential candidate wants to acknowledge the limits of the power of the office, the presence of the opposition party, judicial review, the inherent difficulties of enacting sweeping changes through legislation, or the limit of government policy to solve problems in society. ..."
"... One of the reasons Americans are so cynical is that they've seen plenty of politicians come and go, with almost every one of them promising the moon and very few living up to the hype. ..."
A lot of liberals will love her for her quip, "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of
running to the president of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for."
Of course, she's celebrating one of the big problems in our political system -- no presidential
candidate wants to acknowledge the limits of the power of the office, the presence of the opposition party,
judicial review, the inherent difficulties of enacting sweeping changes through legislation, or the limit of
government policy to solve problems in society.
One of the reasons Americans are so cynical is that they've seen plenty of politicians come and go, with
almost every one of them promising the moon and very few living up to the hype.
Advertisement
Warren shamelessly insisted that the government could pay for quality health care for every American -- and
illegal immigrants, too! -- just by raising taxes on billionaires and big corporations. Warren made clear
tonight that she's not going to let a little thing like fiscal reality get in between her and the nomination.
... ... ...
Tonight was another night where you could easily forget Amy Klobuchar was on stage. Back when Klobuchar's campaign was in the
nascent stage, people wondered how "Minnesota nice" would play on a national debate stage. We can now declare it boring,
predictable, and forgettable.
"... I like Elizabeth Warren, I would vote for her, . Not fond of some of her foreign policy positions, and I don't like how worked up Trump gets her. Forget about Trump, lets here what you plan on doing with the presidency E. Warren! ..."
"... Biden and Harris are both IMO DNC monsters like Clinton who will get us into nuclear war due to a combination of excessive hubris and flat out neocon/neolib stupidity. ..."
"... Warren's okay but it's hard to get past her support for Hillary in 2016 and not for Sanders whose policies reflect hers. So for me, Sanders is still the best, Warren 2nd. However, Trump will destroy him with Socialist scaremongering. ..."
"... Biden is older and will not want war (with any country) complicating his Presidency, and may choose a VP ready to succeed him if he decides not to run for a second term. He will return to the JCPOA. I don't like Biden's ingratiation with Zionists, but the reality is that Biden and Trump will be the choices, so hold your nose, because it's Biden or war and further regime change ambitions with Trump and maybe even a manipulated Trump 3rd term using war as the excuse to prolong his mandate! ..."
"... Biden has no conception of giving up office. As to war he will be as ready to start wars as he was when he and Obama and Hillary were all part of the same administration. ..."
I like Elizabeth Warren, I would vote for her, . Not fond of some of her foreign policy positions, and I don't like how worked
up Trump gets her. Forget about Trump, lets here what you plan on doing with the presidency E. Warren!
In the primaries I will support Gabbard, I believe she is as real of an anti-war candidate as there is, not perfect, but it
is all relative.
Sanders would get my vote, too, although I do fear he is a bit of a "sheep-dog" but I'd give him a shot.
If not one of those candidates, oddly, I'll vote for Trump. Biden and Harris are both IMO DNC monsters like Clinton who will
get us into nuclear war due to a combination of excessive hubris and flat out neocon/neolib stupidity.
I see a repeat of the 2016 election on the horizon, with the DNC doubling down on idiocy and losing in a similar fashion. They
haven't learnt a thing from 2016 and think hyperventilating while screaming Trump, Trump, Trump is going to win the election.
Warren's okay but it's hard to get past her support for Hillary in 2016 and not for Sanders whose policies reflect hers. So
for me, Sanders is still the best, Warren 2nd. However, Trump will destroy him with Socialist scaremongering.
My bet is that the nominee will be Biden, because Biden can beat Trump in the election and Democrats, at the last minute, will
vote out of fear of running someone who might lose to Trump.
My feeling is that there will be war in Trump's second term. Trump will be much bolder and more fascist after getting another
mandate and having nothing to lose. Trump will be a war President having invested more than any other President on military hardware
and itching to show it off. He hasn't fired his hawks for a reason. He will be more full of himself and his own importance in
history. His Zionist financiers will get their money's worth in spades. His agenda will be more hostile on Iran and China and
he'll finish what he started in Venezuela. He will lose the detente with NK, and after the election, he will no longer give friendly
lip service to Russia especially on Syria and Venezuela and will expect Russia to go along with what he has planned for Iran.
Biden is older and will not want war (with any country) complicating his Presidency, and may choose a VP ready to succeed him
if he decides not to run for a second term. He will return to the JCPOA. I don't like Biden's ingratiation with Zionists, but
the reality is that Biden and Trump will be the choices, so hold your nose, because it's Biden or war and further regime change
ambitions with Trump and maybe even a manipulated Trump 3rd term using war as the excuse to prolong his mandate!
"My bet is that the nominee will be Biden, because Biden can beat Trump in the election and Democrats, at the last minute,
will vote out of fear of running someone who might lose to Trump....."
Biden is Hillary without the feminist support. No way that he could beat Trump.
"Biden is older and will not want war (with any country) complicating his Presidency, and may choose a VP ready to succeed
him if he decides not to run for a second term. .."
Biden has no conception of giving up office. As to war he will be as ready to start wars as he was when he and Obama and Hillary
were all part of the same administration.
There is only one Democrat, among the announced candidates, who can beat Trump and his name is Sanders.
The purpose of the "Clintonized" Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent to neoliberal rule in an orderly fashion. The
militarization of US economy and society means that by joining the war coalition, the Democratic party doesn't have to win any presidential
elections to remain in power. Because military-industrial complex rules the country.
Yes Clinton neoliberals want to stay in control and derail Sanders, much like they did in 2016. Biden and Harris are Clinton faction
Trojan horses to accomplish that. But times changed and they might have to agree on Warren inread of Biden of Harris.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with. ..."
"... Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their priorities). ..."
"... So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have. ..."
"... I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt and hamstring any legislation that he proposes ..."
"... electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin. ..."
"... The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that doesn't make it impossible. ..."
"... Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you; they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go. ..."
"... In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan. ..."
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street – at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession perhaps or maybe even worse. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
"... By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort to 'money.' In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead. ..."
"... Could that be why "our" three-letter agencies have been stocking up on that substance for awhile, now? ..."
"... " The purpose of the Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion." ..."
"... Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the election to maintain standing with big biz donors. ..."
"... Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America. ..."
"... actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else. ..."
"... the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power at the expense of the party and the country. ..."
"... The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations, social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy and for Main Street businesses. ..."
"... The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street businesses forced to compete with monopolies. ..."
That 2020 existential battle, of course, is always cast as between the Democrats and the Republicans.
But there's another existential battle going on, one that will occur before the main event -- the battle for control of the Democratic
Party. In the long run, that battle may turn out to be more important than the one that immediately follows it.
... ... ...
Before mainstream Democrats can begin the "existential battle" with the forces of Trump and Republicanism, they have to win the
existential battle against the force that wants to force change on their own party.
They're engaged in that battle today, and it seems almost all of the "liberal media," sensing the existential nature of the threat,
is helping them win it. Katie Halper, in a second perceptive piece on the media's obvious anti-Sanders bias, "
MSNBC's Anti-Sanders
Bias Is Getting Truly Ridiculous ," writes: "When MSNBC legal analyst Mimi Rocah (
7/21/19 ) said that Bernie Sanders 'made [her] skin crawl,'
though she 'can't even identify for you what exactly it is,' she was just expressing more overtly the
anti-Sanders bias that pervades the network."
... ... ...
MSNBC is clearly acting as a messaging arm of the Democratic Party mainstream in its battle with progressives in general and Sanders
in particular, and Zerlina Maxwell, who's been variously employed by that mainstream, from her work with Clinton to her work on MSNBC,
is an agent in that effort.
Let me repeat what Matt Taibbi wrote: " [Sanders'] election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic Party, forcing
everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector. "
Agreed. Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that
money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now
surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with.
Trump campaigned on enforcing the laws against illegal immigration and limiting legal immigration, but he's now pretty much
given up, the southern border is open full "Camp of the Saints" style and he's pushing for more legal 'guest' workers to satisfy
the corporate demands for cheap labor – and the Democrats are for this (though Sanders started to object back in 2015 before he
was beaten down).
Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for
himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow
of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their
priorities).
Soon I expect that Trump will propose massive regressive tax increases on the working class – which of course the Democrats
will be fine with ('to save the planet').
So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have.
And elections are pretty much pointless. Even if Sanders does win, he'll get beaten down faster even than Trump was.
I think people have a hard time with real inflection points. Most of life uses more short-term linear decision making. But
at inflection points we have multiple possibilities that turn into rather surprising turns of events, such as Brexit and Trump.
We still have people saying in the UK – "but they wouldn't do that!" The hell "they" won't. Norms are thrown out of the window
and people start realising how wide the options are. This is not positive or negative. Just change or transformation.
That is my philosophical way of agreeing with you! It is easy to point at the hostility of the mainstream media and DNC as
there being no way for Sanders to win. After all in 2004, look what the media and DNC did to Howard Dean. But people weren't dying
then like they are now. The "Great Recession" wasn't on anyone's radar. People felt rich, like everything would be fine. We are
not in that situation – the facts on the ground are so wildly different that the DNC and mainstream media will find it hard to
stay in control.
I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly
of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt
and hamstring any legislation that he proposes.
If Sanders should win against Trump expect the establishment to go into full revolt. Capital strike, mass layoffs, federal
reserve hiking interest rates to induce a recession, a rotating cast of Democrats siding with Republicans to block legislation,
press comparing him to worse than Carter before he even takes office and vilifying him all day every day.
I wouldn't be shocked to see Israel and the Saudis generate a crisis in, for example, Iran so Sanders either bends the knee
to the neocons or gets to be portrayed as a cowardly failure for abandoning our 'allies' for the rest of his term.
You've just convinced me that the American Experiment is doomed. No one else but Sanders can pull America out of its long slow
death spiral and your litany of the tactics of subversion of his presidency is persuasive that even in the event of his electoral
victory, there will be no changing of the national direction.
I'm reading a series of essays by Morris Berman in his book "Are We There Yet". A lot of critics complain that he is too much
the pessimist, but he presents some good arguments, dark though they may be, that the American Experiment was doomed from the
start due to the inherent flaw of Every Man For Himself and its "get mine and the hell with everybody else" attitude that has
been a part of the experiment from the beginning.
He is absolutely right about one thing, we are a country strongly based on hustling for money as much or more than anything
else, and both Trump and the Clintons are classic examples of this, and why the country often gets the leaders it deserves.
That's why I believe that we need people like Sanders and Gabbard in the Oval Office. It is also why I believe that should
either end up even getting close, Nax is correct. Those with power in this country will not accept the results and will do whatever
is necessary to subvert them, and the Voter will buy that subversion hook, line, and sinker.
No. The point is that electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that
a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin.
The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that
doesn't make it impossible.
Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public
sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on
the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you;
they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go.
In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one
of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan.
The high ground is being able to express a new vision for the common good, 24/7, and do something to bring it about. You win
even if you suffer losses.
Without that, life in the USA will become very disruptive to say the least.
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
Pretty bad optics on MSNBC's part being unable to do simple numbers and I can fully believe that their motto starts with the
words "This is who we are". Jimmy Dore has put out a few videos on how bad MSNBC has been towards Bernie and Progressives lately
so it is becoming pretty blatant. Just spitballing a loose theory here but perhaps the Democrats have decided on a "poisoned chalice"
strategy and do want not to win in 2020.
After 2008 the whole economy should have had a major re-set but Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street
– at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's
policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession
perhaps or maybe even worse.
Point is that perhaps the Democrats have calculated that it would be best for them to leave the Republicans in power to own
this crash which will help them long term. And this explains why most of those democrat candidates look like they have fallen
out of a clown car. The ones capable of going head to head with Trump are sidelined while their weakest candidates are pushed
forward – people like Biden and Harris. Just a theory mind.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort
to 'money.'
In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead.
If the nation wishes true deliverance, not just from Trump and Republicans, but from the painful state that got Trump elected
in the first place, it will first have to believe in a savior.
No, no, no, no, no. No oooshy religion, which is part of what got us into this mess. Cities on a hill. The Exceptional Nation(tm).
Obligatory burbling of Amazing Grace. Assumptions that everyone is a Methodist. And after Deliverance, the U S of A will be magically
re-virginated (for the umpteenth time), pure and worthy of Manifest Destiny once again.
If you want to be saved, stick to your own church. Stop dragging it into the public sphere. This absurd and sloppy religious
language is part of the problem. At the very least it is kitsch. At its worst it leads us to bomb Muslim nations and engage in
"Crusades."
Other than that, the article makes some important points. In a year or so, there will be a lot of comments here on whether
or not to vote for the pre-failed Democratic candidate, once the Party dumps Bernie Sanders. There is no requirement of voting
for the Democrats, unless you truly do believe that they will bring the Deliverance (and untarnish your tarnished virtue). Vote
your conscience. Not who Nate Silver indicates.
Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the
election to maintain standing with big biz donors. The leading issue of the day (Iraq/GWOT/Patriot Act) was erased from mainstream
US politics and has been since. Don't for a minute think they won't do a similar thing now. Big donors don't particularly fear
Trump, nor a 6-3 conservative supreme court, nor a Bolton state dept, nor a racist DHS/ICE – those are not money issues for them.
Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting
that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America.
The candidate who would fight and would govern for the 90% of Americans is a revolutionary.
The fact that it can be said as a given that neither major Party is being run specifically to serve the vast majority of our
country is itself an admission for that the class war begun by Reagan has been won, in more of a silent coup, and the rich have
control of our nation.
Sadly, actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war
continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for
the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else.
Sanders is considered a revolutionary merely for stating the obvious, stating the truth. That is what makes him dangerous to
those that run the Democratic Party, and more broadly those who run this nation.
Sanders would do better to cast himself not as a revolutionary, but as a person of the people, with the belief that good government
does not favor the wants of the richest over the needs of our country. That is what makes him a threat. To the rich unseen who
hold power, to the Republican Party, and to some Democrats.
I agree with the thesis here, and confess to being puzzled by comments on LGM (for example) politics threads of the ilk "I'm
with Warren but am good with Buttigieg too," or "I'm with Sanders but am good with Harris, too," etc.
I love reading Taibbi, but in
his article , that quote, " Sanders is the revolutionary. His election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic
Party, forcing everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector ," should be the lede, and its buried
2/3 of the way down.
This primary season is about how the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power
at the expense of the party and the country.
Yves writes: it is unfortunate that this struggle is being personified, as in too often treated by the media and political
operatives as being about Sanders.
I agree. Sanders represents the continuing New Deal-type policies. The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been
working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations,
social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy
and for Main Street businesses.
The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion
of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street
businesses forced to compete with monopolies.
The MSM won't talk about any of the programmatic differences between the two sides. The MSM won't recognize the New Deal style
Democratic voters even exist; the New Deal wing voters are quickly labeled 'deplorable' instead voters with competing economic
policies to the current economic policies.
So, we're left with the MSM focusing on personalities to avoid talking about the real policy differences, imo.
When Bernie talks about a revolution, he explains how it must be from the grassroots, from the bottom up. If he manages to
get elected, his supporters have to make sure they get behind the politicians who also support him and, if they don't, get rid
of them.
Without continuing mass protests, nothing is going to happen. Other countries have figured this out but Americans remain clueless.
Warren's plan would overhaul the process by which the U.S. proposes, writes, finalizes and
enforces trade deals while imposing strict standards for any nation seeking or currently in a
free trade deal with the U.S.
ADVERTISEMENT
In a Medium post outlining the
extensive trade proposal, Warren said her approach to trade is centered on using the United
States' immense leverage to protect domestic industries and workers.
Warren argued U.S trade policy has ceded too much power to international corporations,
squandering the country's ability to defend its manufacturers, farmers and laborers.
"As President, I won't hand America's leverage to big corporations to use for their own
narrow purposes," Warren wrote. "We will engage in international trade -- but on our terms and
only when it benefits American families."
Trump has imposed more than $250 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, foreign steel and
aluminum, solar panels, and washing machines since taking office in 2017. The president has
used import taxes as leverage in trade talks and inducement for companies to produce goods in
the U.S., but manufacturing job gains and activity have faded throughout the year.
U.S. farmers and ranchers have also lost billions of dollars in foreign sales due to
retaliatory tariffs imposed on American agricultural goods.
Warren acknowledged that while tariffs "are an important tool, they are not by themselves a
long-term solution to our failed trade agenda and must be part of a broader strategy that this
Administration clearly lacks."
Warren said she instead would pursue deals and renegotiate current agreement to "force other
countries to raise the bar on everything from labor and environmental standards to
anti-corruption rules to access to medicine to tax enforcement."
To do so, Warren would expand the ability of Congress and noncorporate advocates to see and
shape trade deals as their being negotiated, not after they have been submitted to lawmakers
for approval
Warren proposed staffing trade advisory panels with a majority of representatives from labor
and environmental and consumer advocacy groups. She also called for special advisory panels for
consumers, rural areas and each region of the country, "so that critical voices are at the
table during negotiations."
Under Warren's plan, trade negotiators would be required to submit drafts of pending
agreements to Congress and submit them for public comment through the same process used by
federal regulators to propose and finalize rules.
Warren's plan also raises the bar for entry into a trade deal with the U.S. and seizes more
power for the federal government to enforce agreements.
Warren proposed a list of nine standards required of any country seeking a U.S. trade deal
including several international tax, climate and human rights treaties. She noted that the U.S.
"shamefully" does not comply with some of these standards, but would do so under her
presidency.
The plan also excludes any nation on the Treasury Department's currency manipulation
monitoring list from a potential U.S. trade deal. As of May, that list includes China, Germany,
Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.
Nations in trade deals with the U.S. would also be required to support subsidies for green
energy, follow U.S. food inspection standards, pay a fee on goods produced using
"carbon-intensive" processes and agree to stricter anti-trust standards.
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
I wish conservatives would stop understating Fusion GPS. "Fusion GPS is the arm of the
Clinton Campaign that colluded with a foreign agent, Christopher Steele, to work with
Russians to obtain opposition research against Trump"
I think Mueller was laying the groundwork for his upcoming trial. His lawyers will use a
defense claiming he's old possible dementia or alzheimer's disease.
Republicans have known for a long time that Mueller was not competent and even they were
shocked at this hearing. Just think how Democrats must be feeling after building him up for
three years as Captain America....LMFAO!
We learned Mueller never interviewed anyone or wrote his report. Who did? And what did he
do for 2 1/2 years besides drink? Also Volume 2 is all speculation of " sources" aka MSM
propaganda. A FAKE report of a FAKE investigation based on a FAKE dossier! 3 years of FAKE
NEWS ON A FAKE CLAIM!!!
Robert Mueller wasn't in charge of his own investigation. He was told who to hire and then
did zero work. He was a figure head. Someone to give credibility to an attempted coup.
"... But Dean Baker, the co-founder of the liberal Centre for Economic and Policy Research, said that the increase in corporate debt has corresponded with higher profits and manageably low interest rates. "The idea that you're going to have this massive cascade of defaults - it's very hard to see," Baker said. ..."
"... Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Centre for American Progress, said that most predictions about recessions were wrong, not just those offered by politicians. ..."
"... But he interpreted Warren's essay as a broader warning about how Trump's efforts to support growth by curbing regulations and attacking government institutions might eventually be destructive ..."
"... With my total lack of understanding of world economics I predict a stock market crash sometime between May 2020 and October 2020 and a recession, including Australia (worse than the unofficial one we have really been in here in Australia for the last 10 years), over following few years. ..."
Elizabeth Warren became a household name thanks to her prescient warning of what became a global financial crisis.
Now she's staking her credentials on another forecast of fiscal trauma ahead. The Democratic presidential candidate published an
online essay this week saying that a rise in consumer and corporate debt is imperilling the longest expansion in US history.
"Whether
it's this year or next year, the odds of another economic downturn are high - and growing," Warren wrote.
Her prediction could help
her win over primary voters by tapping into anxieties about middle-class economic stability despite broad gains over the past decade.
But Warren's opponents could seize on her warning to undermine her credibility should a crash fail to materialise before next year's
election, and some economists sympathetic to her agenda say that - for the moment - her conclusion of a looming recession is overblown.
Recessions are notoriously difficult to forecast. Warren first warned in 2003 about subprime mortgage lending, yet it was roughly
five years later when the US housing market fully collapsed.
And although her dire forecast echoed in style some warnings made by
Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, Warren hasn't aligned with him in portraying her potential election to the White
House as the only way to avert disaster. "I went through this back in the years before the 2008 crash, and no one wanted to listen.
So, here we are again," Warren said on Capitol Hill last week. "I'm trying to point out where the warning signs are. I hope
our regulators and Congress listen, make changes, and that the economy strengthens."
Even economists who like her prescription are skeptical about her diagnosis. Warren rooted her concerns about
the economy in a Federal Reserve report that found a 6.8 per cent increase in household debt over the past decade, allowing the Massachusetts
senator to write that American families are "taking on more debt than ever before." But that figure is not adjusted for inflation,
nor is it adjusted for population growth - and the number of US households has risen by 9.5 per cent during the same period, meaning
that Fed data also shows debt levels have fallen on a per capita basis.
"I don't see a huge bubble on the other side of household
debt that is going to savage people's assets," said Josh Bivens, director of research at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. At
the moment, families can afford their debt because of low interest rates, and that minimises the risks to the economy. American households
are devoting less than 10 per cent of their disposable income to debt service, down from roughly 13 per cent in 2008, according to
the Fed. This doesn't mean that Warren is wrong to conclude that families are burdened by student debt and childcare costs, just
that data suggests the debt produced by those expenses is unlikely to cause a downturn.
Part of Warren's forecast hinges on a spike
in interest rates that seems unlikely as most benchmark rates have declined since November. Warren has assembled a litany of proposals
aimed at bringing down household debt, through student loan forgiveness and affordable childcare availability as well as a housing
plan designed to lower rent costs. She touted her policy agenda - which has propelled her higher in the polls - as ways to avert
her predicted crash.
Warren's warning of a downturn is a somewhat unique maneuver for a presidential candidate. Past White House hopefuls have waited
for the downturns to start before capitalising on them. Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992, for example, on a post-recession
message summed up by then-adviser James Carville's edict to focus on "the economy, stupid."
Warren also warned this week that an increase in corporate borrowing could crush the economy.
But Dean Baker, the co-founder of the liberal Centre for Economic and Policy Research, said that the increase in corporate debt
has corresponded with higher profits and manageably low interest rates. "The idea that you're going to have this massive cascade
of defaults - it's very hard to see," Baker said.
While the US economy may not be entering into a recession, many economic forecasters say growth is still slowing because of global
and demographic pressures. Evidence of this has already caused Fed officials to signal that they plan to cut interest rates at their
meeting next week. Trump has repeatedly called for the Fed to make even steeper cuts to improve his economic track record.
Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Centre for American Progress, said that most predictions about recessions were wrong, not
just those offered by politicians.
But he interpreted Warren's essay as a broader warning about how Trump's efforts to support growth by curbing regulations and
attacking government institutions might eventually be destructive. "It's hard to say what a debt-driven problem would look like until
it happens," Madowitz said.
"I think it's also reasonable to elevate concern at the moment given how politicised Trump has made apolitical economic institutions
like the Fed. That's not a free lunch. It creates real risks, so it's more important than usual to think about what happens if things
go bump in the night."
AP Mick 8 hours ago
I really have no idea about economics - seriously the mechanics of world financing, where every country seems
to in debt baffles me. But if you look at the last 40 years or so - my adult life - there seems to be a stock market crash about
each 10 years and a recession in the USA about each 10 years. From memory, stock markets in 1987, 1997, 2008 (I suppose also dot
com stuff in around 1999/2000 as well). Recessions in the US in early 90's, early 2000's, 2009 into 2010's.
With my total lack of understanding of world economics I predict a stock market crash sometime between May 2020 and October 2020
and a recession, including Australia (worse than the unofficial one we have really been in here in Australia for the last 10 years),
over following few years.
I wonder how my predictions will stand up to the experts. Gillespie 8 hours ago No facts seem to be the hallmark of your post.
"Warren first warned in 2003 about subprime mortgage lending" shshus 10 hours ago The incoming economic meltdown in a insanely indebted
global ponzi scheme is a no brainer. Despite Trump's usual bombast, the US economy is hardly growing and manufacturing is already
in recession. The lunatic policies of central banks to offer free money at almost zero interest rates has caused a greed based credit
frenzy that is simply unsustainable. The coming economic collapse will be far worse as the trade wars between US and China and rest
of the world will simply compound the problem. Australia is particularly vulnerable in both economic and strategic terms. Time to
batten the hatches, rather than pile on more consumer debt.
All we're doing is waiting for the fake "prosperity" to crumble, and the resulting
loss of credibility and legitimacy will follow like night follows day.
The citizenry of corrupt regimes ruled by self-serving elites tolerate this
oppressive misrule for one reason and only one reason: increasing prosperity, which
we can define as continual improvement in material well-being and financial security.
The legitimacy of every corrupt regime ruled by self-serving elites hangs on this
single thread: once prosperity fades, the legitimacy of the regime evaporates, as the
citizenry have no reason to tolerate their rapacious, predatory overlords.
A broken, unfair system will be tolerated as long as every participant feels
they're getting a few shreds of improvement. This is why there is such an enormous
push of propaganda touting "growth"; if the citizenry can be conned into believing that
their deteriorating well-being and security are actually "prosperity," then they will
continue to grant the status quo some measure of credibility and legitimacy.
When the gap between the propaganda and reality widens to the breaking point, the
regime loses its credibility and legitimacy. This manifests in a number of ways:
1. Nobody believes anything the state or its agencies reports as "fact": since it
misreported economic well-being and security to benefit the few at the expense of the
many, why believe anything official?
2. Increased lawlessness: since the Ruling Elites get away with virtually everything,
why we should we obey the laws?
3. Opting out: rather than become a target for the state's oppressive organs of
security , the safer path is to opt out : quit supporting a parasitic and
predatory Status Quo of corporations and the state with your labor, slip into the shadows
of the economy, avoid debt like the plague, get by on a fraction of your former
income.
4. Breakdown of Status Quo political parties: since all parties are bands of
self-serving thieves, what's the point of even nominal membership?
5. Increasing reliance on anti-depression and anti-anxiety medications, more
self-medication/drug use, and other manifestations of social stress and breakdown.
6. Those who can move away from crumbling high-tax cities, essentially giving up civic
hope for fair, affordable solutions to rising inequality and social disorder.
7. Increasing defaults and bankruptcies as households and enterprises no longer see
any other way out.
8. Increasing mockery of financial/corporate media parroting the propaganda that
"prosperity" is real and rising-- S&P 500 hits 3,000, we're all getting better in
every way, every day, etc.
Truth is the most essential form of capital, and once it has been squandered to
serve insiders, vested interests and Ruling Elites, the nation is morally, spiritually,
politically and financially bankrupt. All we're doing is waiting for the fake
"prosperity" to crumble, and the resulting loss of credibility and legitimacy will follow
like night follows day.
That bill alone makes Warren a viable candidate again, despite all her previous blunders. She is a courageous woman, that
Warren. And she might wipe the floor with the completely subservant to Israel lobby Trump. Who betrayed his electorate
in all major promises.
Notable quotes:
"... Not only would Warren's legislation prohibit some of the most destructive private equity activities, but it would end their ability to act as traditional asset managers, taking fees and incurring close to no risk if their investments go belly up. The bill takes the explicit and radical view that: ..."
"... Private funds should have a stake in the outcome of their investments, enjoying returns if those investments are successful but ab-1sorbing losses if those investments fail. ..."
"... Critics will say that Warren's bill has no chance of passing, which is currently true but misses the point. ..."
"... firms would share responsibility for the liabilities of companies under their control, including debt, legal judgments, and pension obligations to "better align the incentives of private equity firms and the companies they own." The bill, if enacted, would end the tax subsidy for excessive leverage and closes the carried interest loophole. ..."
"... The bill also seeks to ban dividends to investors for two years after a firm is acquired. Worker pay would be prioritized in the bankruptcy process, with guidelines intended to ensure affected employees are more likely to receive severance pay and pensions. It would also clarify gift cards are consumer deposits, ensuring their priority in bankruptcy proceedings. If enacted, private equity managers will be required to disclose fees, returns, and political expenditures. ..."
"... This is a bold set of proposals that targets abuses that hurt workers and investors. Most readers may not appreciate the significance of the two-year restriction on dividends. One return-goosing strategy that often leaves companies crippled or bankrupt in its wake is the "dividend recap" in which the acquired company takes on yet more debt for the purpose of paying a special dividend to its investors. Another strategy that Appelbaum and Batt have discussed at length is the "op co/prop co." Here the new owners take real estate owned by the company, sell it to a new entity with the former owner leasing it. The leases are typically set high so as to allow for the "prop co" to be sold at a richer price. This strategy is often a direct contributor to the death of businesses, since ones that own their real estate usually do so because they are in cyclical industries, and not having lease payments enables the to ride out bad times. The proceeds of sale of the real estate is usually dividended out to the investors, hence the dividend restriction would also pour cold water on this approach. ..."
"... However, there is precedent in private equity for recognizing joint and several liability of an investment fund for the obligations of its portfolio companies. In a case that winded its way through the federal courts until last year ( Sun Capital Partners III, LP v. New England Teamsters & Trucking Indus. Pension Fund ), the federal court held that Sun Capital Partners III was liable under ERISA, the federal pension law, for the unfunded pension obligations of Scott Brass, a portfolio company of that fund. The court's key finding was that Sun Capital played an active management role in Scott Brass and that its claim of passive investor status therefore should not be respected. ..."
"... Needless to say, private equity firms have worked hard to minimize their exposure to the Sun Capital decision, for example by avoiding purchasing companies with defined benefit pension plans. The Warren bill, however, is so broad in the sweep of liability it imposes that PE firms would be unlikely to be able to structure around it. It is hard to imagine the investors in private equity funds accepting liability for what could be enormous sums of unfunded pension liabilities ultimately flowing onto them. Either they would have to set up shell companies to fund their PE investments that could absorb the potential liability, or they would have to give up on the asset class. Either way, it would mean big changes to the industry and potentially a major contraction of it. ..."
"... I am surprised that Warren sought to make private equity funds responsible for the portfolio company debts by "joint and several liability". You can get to economically pretty much the same end by requiring the general partner and potentially also key employees to guarantee the debt and by preventing them from assigning or buying insurance to protect the guarantor from being liable. There is ample precedent for that for entrepreneurs. Small business corporate credit cards and nearly all small business loans require a personal guarantee. ..."
"... Warren's bill also has strong pro-investor provisions. It takes on the biggest feature of the ongoing investor scamming, which is the failure of PE managers to disclose to the investors all of the fees they receive from portfolio companies. The solution proposed by the bill to this problem is exceedingly straightforward, basically proclaiming, "Oh yeah, now you will have to disclose that." The bill also abolishes the ability of private equity managers to claim long term capital gains treatment on the 20 percent of fund profits that they receive, which is unrelated to the return on any capital that the private equity managers may happen to invest in a fund. ..."
"... We need a reparations movement for all those workers harmed by private equity. Seriously. ..."
"... It's so nice to see someone taking steps to protect the rights and compensation of the people actually doing the work at the companies and putting their interests first in case of bankruptcy. That those who worked hardest to make the company succeed were somehow the ones who took it in the shorts the worst has always struck me as a glaring inequity bordering on cruelty. ..."
Elizabeth Warren's
Stop Wall Street Looting Act , which is co-sponsored by Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, Mark Pocan and Pramila Jayapal, seeks to
fundamentally alter the way private equity firms operate. While the likely impetus for Warren's bill was the spate of private-equity-induced
retail bankruptcies, with Toys 'R' Us particularly prominent, the bill addresses all the areas targeted by critics of private equity:
how it hurts workers and investors and short-changes the tax man, thus burdening taxpayers generally.
That Time Warren Cheered Trump. Well, this was disappointing... Elizabeth Warren stands up
and applauds Trump's promise that "America will never be a socialist country." https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=416898935744430
"The Epstein story touches everywhere, discredits American justice, American media, reaches into the White House, perhaps through
numerous occupants and eventually settles in, a continuing mystery, still protected by a controlled media as it leads us to not
one but 20 billionaires, a secret society tied to Epstein, that represents the power of Israel over the governments of the US,
Britain and Canada."
"What is the real story? First of all, sex with children is nothing new in America. Child sex was the norm when the Pilgrims
landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620 and little changed other than it becoming a convenient tool to smear political opponents.
For two centuries, girls as young as 12 were regularly married off, sometimes forcibly, to men as old as 70 while others were
sold into slavery to work in the mills or join the endless hordes serving in America's brothels."
Looks like Warren weakness is her inability to distinguish between key issues and periferal
issues.
While her program is good and is the only one that calls for "structural change" (which is
really needed as neoliberalism outlived its usefulness) it mixes apple and oranges. One thing
is to stop neoliberal transformation of the society and the other is restitution for black
slaves. In the latter case why not to Indians ?
I'd argue that Warren's newly tight and coherent story, in which her life's arc tracks the
country's, is contributing to her rise, in part because it protects her against other stories
-- the nasty ones told by her opponents, first, and then echoed by the media doubters
influenced by her opponents. Her big national-stage debut came when she
tangled with Barack Obama's administration over bank bailouts, then set up the powerhouse
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). But she was dismissed as too polarizing, even by
some Democrats, and was passed over to run it. In 2012, Massachusetts's Scott Brown mocked Warren as
"the Professor," a know-it-all Harvard schoolmarm, before she beat him to take his Senate seat.
After that, Donald Trump began
trashing her as "Pocahontas" in the wake of a controversy on the campaign trail about her
mother's rumored Native American roots. And Warren scored an own goal with a video that announced
she had "confirmed" her Native heritage with a DNA test, a claim that ignored the brutal
history of blood-quantum requirements and genetic pseudoscience in the construction of
race.
When she announced her presidential run this year, some national political reporters
raised
questions about her likability
, finding new ways to compare
her to Hillary Clinton, another female candidate widely dismissed as unlikable. A month into
Warren's campaign, it seemed the media was poised to Clintonize her off the primary stage. But
it turned out she had a plan for that, too.
I n the tale that is captivating crowds on the campaign trail, Warren is not a professor or
a political star but a hardscrabble Oklahoma "late-in-life baby" or, as her mother called her,
"the surprise." Her elder brothers had joined the military; she was the last one at home, just
a middle-schooler when her father had the massive heart attack that would cost him his job. "I
remember the day we lost the station wagon," she tells crowds, lowering her voice. "I learned
the words 'mortgage' and 'foreclosure' " listening to her parents talk when they thought
she was asleep, she recalls. One day she walked in on her mother in her bedroom, crying and
saying over and over, " 'We are not going to lose this house.' She was 50 years old,"
Warren adds, "had never worked outside the home, and she was terrified."
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This part of the story has been a Warren staple for years: Her mother put on her best dress
and her high heels and walked down to a Sears, where she got a minimum-wage job. Warren got a
private lesson from her mother's sacrifice -- "You do what you have to to take care of those
you love" -- and a political one, too. "That minimum-wage job saved our house, and it saved our
family." In the 1960s, she says, "a minimum-wage job could support a family of three. Now the
minimum wage can't keep a momma and a baby out of poverty."
That's Act I of Warren's story and of the disappearing American middle class whose
collective story her family's arc symbolizes. In Act II, she walks the crowd through her early
career, including some personal choices that turned her path rockier: early marriage, dropping
out of college. But her focus now is on what made it possible for her to rise from the working
class. Warren tells us how she went back to school and got her teaching certificate at a public
university, then went to law school at another public university. Both cost only a few hundred
dollars in tuition a year. She always ends with a crowd-pleaser: "My daddy ended up as a
janitor, but his baby daughter got the opportunity to become a public-school teacher, a law
professor, a US senator, and run for president!"
Warren has honed this story since her 2012 Senate campaign. Remember her "Nobody in this
country got rich on his own" speech ? It was an explanation of how the
elite amassed wealth thanks to government investments in roads, schools, energy, and police
protection, which drew more than 1 million views on YouTube. Over the years, she has become the
best explainer of the way the US government, sometime around 1980, flipped from building the
middle class to protecting the wealthy. Her 2014 book, A Fighting Chance , explains how
Warren (once a Republican, like two of her brothers) saw her own family's struggle in the
stories of those families whose bankruptcies she studied as a lawyer -- families she once
thought might have been slackers. Starting in 1989, with a book she cowrote on bankruptcy and
consumer credit, her writing has charted the way government policies turned against the middle
class and toward corporations. That research got her tapped by then–Senate majority
leader Harry Reid to oversee
the Troubled Assets Relief Program after the 2008 financial crash and made her a
favorite on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart . Starting in the mid-2000s, she
publicly clashed with prominent Democrats,
including Biden , a senator at the time, over bankruptcy reforms, and later with
then–Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner over the bank bailouts.
Sanders, of course, has a story too, about a government that works for the "millionaires and
billionaires." But he has a hard time connecting his family's stories of struggle to his
policies. After his first few campaign events, he ditched the details about growing up poor in
Brooklyn. In early June, he returned to his personal story in a New York Timesop-ed .
W arren preaches the need for "big structural change" so often that a crowd chanted the
phrase back at her during a speech in San Francisco the first weekend in June. Then she gets
specific. In Act III of her stump speech, she lays out her dizzying array of plans. But by then
they're not dizzying, because she has anchored them to her life and the lives of her listeners.
The rapport she develops with her audience, sharing her tragedies and disappointments --
questionable choices and all -- makes her bold policy pitches feel believable. She starts with
her proposed wealth tax: two cents on every dollar of your worth after $50 million, which she
says would raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years. (She has also proposed a 7 percent surtax on
corporate profits above $100 million.)
Warren sells the tax with a vivid, effective comparison. "How many of you own a home?" she
asks. At most of her stops in Iowa, it was roughly half the crowd. "Well, you already pay a
wealth tax on your major asset. You pay a property tax, right?" People start nodding. "I just
want to make sure we're also taxing the diamonds, the Rembrandts, the yachts, and the stock
portfolios." Nobody in those Iowa crowds seemed to have a problem with that.
Then she lays out the shocking fact that
people in the top 1 percent pay roughly 3.2 percent of their wealth in taxes, while the bottom
99 percent pay 7.4 percent.
That "big structural change" would pay for the items on Warren's agenda -- the programs that
would rebuild the opportunity ladder to the middle class -- that have become her signature:
free technical school or two- or four-year public college; at least partial loan forgiveness
for 95 percent of those with student debt; universal child care and prekindergarten, with costs
capped at 7 percent of family income; and a pay hike for child-care workers.
"Big structural change" would also include strengthening unions and giving workers 40
percent of the seats on corporate boards. Warren promises to break up Big Tech and Big Finance.
She calls for a constitutional amendment to protect the right to vote and vows to push to
overturn Citizens United . To those who say it's too much, she ends every public event
the same way: "What do you think they said to the abolitionists? 'Too hard!' To the suffragists
fighting to get women the right to vote? 'Too hard!' To the foot soldiers of the civil-rights
movement, to the activists who wanted equal marriage? 'Give up now!' " But none of them
gave up, she adds, and she won't either. Closing that way, she got a standing ovation at every
event I attended.
R ecently, Warren has incorporated into her pitch the stark differences between what
mid-20th-century government offered to black and white Americans. This wasn't always the case.
After a speech she
delivered at the Roosevelt Institute in 2015, I heard black audience members complain about her
whitewashed version of the era when government built the (white) middle class. Many black
workers were ineligible for Social Security; the GI Bill didn't prohibit racial
discrimination ; and federal loan guarantees systematically excluded black home buyers and
black neighborhoods. "I love Elizabeth, but those stories about the '50s drive me crazy," one
black progressive said.
The critiques must have made their way to Warren. Ta-Nehisi Coates recently
toldThe New Yorker that after his influential Atlanticessay
"The Case for Reparations" appeared five years ago, the Massachusetts senator asked to meet
with him. "She had read it. She was deeply serious, and she had questions." Now, when Warren
talks about the New Deal, she is quick to mention the ways African Americans were shut out. Her
fortunes on the campaign trail brightened after April's She the People forum in Houston, where she joined eight
other candidates in talking to what the group's founder, Aimee Allison, calls "the real
Democratic base": women of color, many from the South. California's Kamala Harris, only the
second African-American woman ever elected to the US Senate, might have had the edge coming in,
but Warren surprised the crowd. "She walked in to polite applause and walked out to a standing
ovation," Allison said, after the candidate impressed the crowd with policies to address black
maternal-health disparities, the black-white wealth gap, pay inequity, and more.
G Jutson says:
July 4, 2019 at 1:00 pm
Well here we are in the circular firing squad Obama warned us about. Sander's fan boys vs.
Warren women. Sanders has been our voice in DC on the issues for a generation. He has changed
the debate. Thank you Bernie. Now a Capitalist that wants to really reform it can be a viable
candidate. Warren is that person. We supported Sanders last time to help us get to this
stage. Time to pass the baton to someone that can beat Trump. After the Sept. debates I
expect The Nation to endorse Warren and to still hear grumbling from those that think moving
on from candidate Bernie somehow means unfaithfulness to his/our message .
Kenneth Viste says: June 27, 2019 at 5:52 am
I would like to hear her talk about free college as an investment in people rather than an
expense. Educated people earn more and therefore pay more taxes than uneducated so it pays to
educate the populous to the highest level possible.
Jim Dickinson says: June 26, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Warren gets it and IMO is probably the best Democratic candidate of the bunch. Biden does
not get it and I get depressed seeing him poll above Warren with his tired corporate ideas
from the past.
I have a different take on her not being progressive enough. Her progressive politics are
grounded in reality and not in the pie in the sky dreams of Sanders, et al. The US is a
massively regressive nation and proposing doing everything at once, including a total revamp
of our healthcare system is simply unrealistic.
That was my problem with Sanders, who's ideas I agree with. There is no way in hell to
make the US into a progressive dream in one election - NONE.
I too dream of a progressive US that most likely goes well beyond what most people
envision. But I also have watched those dreams collapse many, many times in the past when we
reach too far. I hope that we can make important but obtainable changes which might make the
great unwashed masses see who cares about them and who does not.
I hope that she does well because she has a plan for many of the ills of this nation. The
US could certainly use some coherent plans after the chaos and insanity of the Trump years.
Arguing about who was the best Democratic candidate in 2016 helped put this schmuck in office
and I hope that we don't go down that path again.
Caleb Melamed says: June 26, 2019 at 2:13 pm
I had a misunderstanding about one key aspect of Warren's political history. I had always
thought that she was neutral in 2016 between Sanders and Hillary Clinton. On CNN this
morning, a news clip showed that Warren in fact endorsed Hillary Clinton publicly, shouting
"I'm with her," BEFORE Sanders withdrew from the race. This action had the effect of
weakening Sanders' bargaining position vis a vis Clinton once he actually withdrew. Clinton
proceeded to treat Sanders and his movement like a dish rag. I am now less ready to support
Warren in any way.
Robert Andrews says: June 26, 2019 at 12:17 pm
I have three main reasons I do not want Senator Warren nominate which are:
Not going all out for a single payer healthcare system. This is a massive problem with
Warren. With her starting out by moving certain groups to Medicare is sketchy at best. Which
groups would be graced first? I am sure whoever is left behind will be thrilled. Is Warren
going to expand Medicare so that supplemental coverages will not be needed anymore? Crying
about going too far too fast is a losing attitude. You go after the most powerful lobby in
the country full bore if you want any kind of real and lasting changes.
With Warren's positions and actions with foreign policy this statement is striking, "Once
Warren's foreign policy record is scrutinized, her status as a progressive champion starts to
wither. While Warren is not on the far right of Democratic politics on war and peace, she
also is not a progressive -- nor a leader -- and has failed to use her powerful position on
the Senate Armed Services Committee to challenge the status quo" - Sarah Lazare. She is the
web editor at In These Times. She comes from a background in independent journalism for
publications including The Intercept, The Nation, and Tom Dispatch. She tweets at
@sarahlazare.
Lastly, the stench with selling off her integrity with receiving corporate donations again
if nominated is overpowering.
For reference, she was a registered Republican until the mid 1990's.
Joan Walsh, why don't you give congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard any presence with your
articles? Her level of integrity out shines any other female candidate and Gabbard's
positions and actions are progressive. I don't want to hear that she isn't a major player,
because you have included Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Gabbard's media blackout has been
dramatic, thank you for your contribution with it also.
Robert Andrews says: June 27, 2019 at 8:29 am
I was impressed with Warren on the debate, especially since she finally opened her arms to
a single payer healthcare system.
Caleb Melamed says: June 26, 2019 at 2:35 pm
Gabbard is playing a very important role in this race, whatever her numbers (which are
probably higher than those being reported and are sure to go up after tonight). In some ways,
her position in 2020 resembles that of Sanders in 2016--the progressive outlier, specifically
on issues relating to the U.S. policy of endless war. Gabbard makes Sanders look more
mainstream by comparison on this issue (though their difference is more one of emphasis than
substance), making it much harder for the DNC establishment to demonize and ostracize
Sanders. (Third Way really, really wants to stop Sanders--they have called him an
"existential threat.") Gabbard's important role in this respect is one reason the DNC and its
factotums are expending such effort on sliming her.
By the way, Nation, you have now reprinted my first comment to this article five (5)
times!
Clark Shanahan says: June 26, 2019 at 1:19 pm
Tulsi,
Our most eloquent anti-military-interventionism candidate, hands down.
Richard Phelps says: June 26, 2019 at 1:29 pm
Unfortunately EW doesn't beat Trump past the margin of error in all the polls I have seen.
Bernie does in most. The other scary factor is how so many neoliberals are now talking nice
about her. They want anyone but the true, consistent progressive, Bernie. And her backing
away from putting us on a human path on health care, like so many other countries, is
foreboding of a sellout to the health insurance companies, a group focused on profits over
health care for our citizens. A group with no redeeming social value. 40,000+ people die each
year due to lack of medical care, so the company executives can have their 8 figure salaries
and golden parachutes when they retire. Also don't forget they are adamantly anti union.
Where is Warren's fervor to ride our country of this leach on society? PS I donated $250 to
her last Senate campaign. I like her. She is just not what we need to stop the final stages
of oligarchic take over, where so much of our resources are wasted on the Pentagon and
unnecessary wars and black opps. It is not Bernie or bust, it is Bernie or oligarchy!!!
Walter Pewen says: June 27, 2019 at 10:52 am
Frankly, having family from Oklahoma I'd say Warren IS a progressive. Start reading
backwards and you will find out.
Clark Shanahan says: June 26, 2019 at 1:24 pm
You certainly shall never see her call out AIPAC.
She has since tried to shift her posture.. but, her original take was lamentable.
You really need to give Hillary responsibility for her loss, Andy
Also, to Obama, who sold control of the DNC over to Clinton Inc in Sept, 2015.
I'll vote for Warren, of course.
Sadly, with our endless wars and our rogue state Israel, Ms Warren is way too deferential;
seemingly hopeless.
Walter Pewen says: June 28, 2019 at 11:22 am
I don't want to vote for Biden. And if he gets the nomination I probably won't. And I've
voted the ticket since 1976. I DO NOT like Joe Biden. Contrary to the media mind fuck we are
getting in this era. And I'll wager a LOT of people don't like him. He is a dick.
Karin Eckvall says: June 26, 2019 at 10:50 am
Well-done article Ms. Walsh. Walter, I want to vote for her but can't because although she
has plans to deal with the waste and corruption at the Pentagon, she has not renounced our
endless militarism, our establishment-endorsed mission to police the world and to change
regimes whenever we feel like it.
The extent of Israeli spying directed against the United States is a huge story that is
only rarely addressed in the mainstream media. The Jewish state regularly tops the list for ostensibly friendly countries that
aggressively conduct espionage against the U.S. and Jewish American Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1987 for spying for
Israel, is now regarded as the most damaging spy in the history of the United States.
Last week I wrote about how
Israeli spies operating more-or-less freely in the U.S. are rarely interfered with, much less arrested and prosecuted, because there
is an unwillingness on the part of upper echelons of government to do so. I cited the case of Arnon Milchan, a billionaire Hollywood
movie producer who had a secret life that included stealing restricted technology in the United States to enable development of
Israel's nuclear weapons program, something that was very much against U.S. interests. Milchan was involved in a number of other
thefts as well as arms sales on behalf of the Jewish state, so much so that his work as a movie producer was actually reported to
be less lucrative than his work as a spy and black-market arms merchant, for which he operated on a commission basis.
That Milchan has never been arrested by the United States government or even questioned about his illegal activity, which was
well known to the authorities, is just one more manifestation of the effectiveness of Jewish power in Washington, but a far more
compelling case involving possible espionage with major political manifestations has just re-surfaced. I am referring to Jeffrey
Epstein, the billionaire Wall Street "financier" who has been arrested and charged with operating a "vast" network of underage girls
for sex, operating out of his mansions in New York City and Florida as well as his private island in the Caribbean, referred to
by visitors as "Orgy Island." Among other high-value associates, it is claimed that Epstein was particularly close to Bill Clinton,
who flew dozens of times on Epstein's private 727.
Alex Acosta (L) Jeffrey Epstein (R)
Epstein was arrested on July 8th after indictment
by a federal grand jury in New York. It was more than a decade after Alexander Acosta, the top federal prosecutor in Miami, who
is now President Trump's secretary of labor, accepted a plea bargain involving similar allegations regarding
pedophilia
that was not shared with the accusers prior to being finalized in court. There were reportedly hundreds of victims, some 35 of whom
were identified, but Acosta deliberately denied the two actual plaintiffs their day in court to testify before sentencing.
Acosta's intervention meant that Epstein avoided both a public trial and a possible federal prison sentence, instead serving
only 13 months of an 18-month sentence in the almost-no-security Palm Beach County Jail on charges of soliciting prostitution in
Florida. While in custody, he was permitted to leave jail for sixteen hours six days a week to work in his office.
Epstein's crimes were carried out in his $56 million
Manhattan mansion and in his oceanside villa in Palm Beach Florida. Both residences were equipped with hidden cameras and microphones
in the bedrooms, which Epstein reportedly used to record sexual encounters between his high-profile guests and his underage girls,
many of whom came from poor backgrounds, who were recruited by procurers to engage in what was euphemistically described as "massages"
for money. Epstein apparently hardly made any effort to conceal what he was up to: his airplane was called the "Lolita Express."
The Democrats are calling for an investigation of the Epstein affair, as well as the resignation of Acosta, but they might well
wind up regretting their demands. Trump, the real target of the Acosta fury, apparently did not know about the details of the plea
bargain that ended the Epstein court case. Bill and Hillary Clinton were, however, very close associates of Epstein. Bill, who flew
on the "Lolita Express"
at least 26 times , could plausibly be implicated in the pedophilia given his track record and relative lack of conventional
morals. On many of the trips, Bill refused Secret Service escorts, who would have been witnesses of any misbehavior. On
one lengthy trip
to Africa in 2002, Bill and Jeffrey were accompanied by accused pedophile actor Kevin Spacey and a number of young girls, scantily
clad "employees" identified only as "massage." Epstein was also a major contributor to the Clinton Foundation and was present at
the wedding of Chelsea Clinton in 2010.
With an election year coming up, the Democrats would hardly want the public to be reminded of Bill's exploits, but one has to
wonder where and how deep the investigation might go. There is also a possible Donald Trump angle. Though Donald may not have been
a frequent flyer on the "Lolita Express," he certainly moved in the same circles as the Clintons and Epstein in New York and Palm
Beach, plus he is by his own words roughly as amoral as Bill Clinton. In June 2016, one
Katie Johnson filed lawsuit in
New York claiming she had been repeatedly raped by Trump at an Epstein gathering in 1993 when she was 13 years old. In a 2002
New York Magazineinterview
Trump said "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy he's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful
women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life."
Selective inquiries into wrongdoing to include intense finger pointing are the name of the game in Washington, and the affaire
Epstein also has all the hallmarks of a major espionage case, possibly tied to Israel. Unless Epstein is an extremely sick pedophile
who enjoys watching films of other men screwing twelve-year-old girls the whole filming procedure smacks of a sophisticated intelligence
service compiling material to blackmail prominent politicians and other public figures. Those blackmailed would undoubtedly in most
cases cooperate with the foreign government involved to avoid a major scandal. It is called recruiting "agents of influence." That
is how intelligence agencies work and it is what they do.
That Epstein was perceived as being intelligence-linked was made clear
in Acosta's comments when being
cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked "Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?" "Acosta
had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he'd had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He'd cut the non-prosecution
deal with one of Epstein's attorneys because he had 'been told' to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. 'I was told Epstein
belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.'"
Questions about Epstein's wealth also suggest a connection with a secretive government agency with deep pockets. The New York
Timesreports that
"Exactly what his money management operation did was cloaked in secrecy, as were most of the names of whomever he did it for. He
claimed to work for a number of billionaires, but the only known major client was Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of several
retail chains, including The Limited."
But whose intelligence service? CIA and the Russian FSB services are obvious candidates, but they would have no particular motive
to acquire an agent like Epstein. That leaves Israel, which would have been eager to have a stable of high-level agents of influence
in Europe and the United States. Epstein's contact with the Israeli intelligence service may have plausibly come through his associations
with Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly served as his key procurer of young girls. Ghislaine is the
daughter of Robert Maxwell , who
died or possibly was assassinated in mysterious circumstances in 1991. Maxwell was an Anglo-Jewish businessman, very cosmopolitan
in profile, like Epstein, a multi-millionaire who was very controversial with what were regarded as ongoing ties to Mossad. After
his death, he was given a state funeral by Israel in which six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence listened while Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized
: "He has done more for Israel than can today be said"
Trump (left) with Robert Maxwell (right) at an event
Epstein kept a black
book identifying many of his social contacts, which is now in the hands of investigators. It included fourteen personal phone
numbers belonging to Donald Trump, including ex-wife Ivana, daughter Ivanka and current wife Melania. It also included Prince Bandar
of Saudi Arabia, Tony Blair, Jon Huntsman, Senator Ted Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, David Koch, Ehud Barak, Alan Dershowitz, John Kerry,
George Mitchell, David Rockefeller, Richard Branson, Michael Bloomfield, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Elizabeth, Saudi King Salman and
Edward de Rothschild.
Mossad would have exploited Epstein's contacts, arranging their cooperation by having Epstein wining and dining them while flying
them off to exotic locations, providing them with women and entertainment. If they refused to cooperate, it would be time for blackmail,
photos and videos of the sex with underage women.
It will be very interesting to see just how far and how deep the investigation into Epstein and his activities goes. One can
expect that efforts will be made to protect top politicians like Clinton and Trump and to avoid any examination of a possible Israeli
role. That is the normal practice, witness the 9/11 Report and the Mueller investigation, both of which eschewed any inquiry into
what Israel might have been up to. But this time, if it was indeed an Israeli operation, it might prove difficult to cover up the
story since the pedophile aspect of it has unleashed considerable public anger from all across the political spectrum.
Senator Chuck Schumer , self-described
as Israel's "protector" in the Senate, is loudly calling for the resignation of Acosta. He just might change his tune if it turns
out that Israel is a major part of the story.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational
foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected]
aanirfan.blogspot.com in an article entitled " Epstein , Trump, 9/11 ' has identified Epstein's links not only to Mossad
but to his business relationships with CIA controlled airlines and perhaps to the false flag attacks on 9/11 .According to Aangirfan
, Epstein is a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. The CIA and Mossad have strong
ties resulting from the efforts , according to the Wall Street Journal no less, of former CIA chiefs William Casey and James
Angleton . As Acosta has confirmed , Epstein has links to "intelligence " .
The presence of Ghislaine Maxwell is proof of Mossad's ownership of Epstein's kompromat operation. Ghislaine's father, Robert
Maxwell, created the Neva network -- a consortium of technology companies, banks, and Russian and Bulgarian organized crime
networks -- for his Mossad masters. Keeping up the family business, Ghislaine was running Epstein for the Israelis.
Speculation or scenario: the highest levels of the CIA and Mossad have been closely allied since the late 1940s (see especially
the role of James Angleton) and are pursuing common strategic objectives.
The New York Post remarked in March 2000:
"Epstein is an enigmatic figure. Rumors abound -- including wild ones about a career in the Mossad and, contrarily, the CIA."
Perhaps Epstein has been sponsored, funded, directed and protected by both agencies working in combination.
"Those blackmailed would undoubtedly in most cases cooperate with the foreign government involved to avoid a major scandal.
It is called recruiting "agents of influence." That is how intelligence agencies work and it is what they do."
But would not a single intelligence agency typically target and trap one isolated person, not a whole set of interconnected
people? That is, this is more like the way the P2 lodge worked in Italy, that is, a society.
With all the mystery surrounding how Epstein obtained such great wealth, I can't help but think it may be a global money
laundering operation connected to the global drug trade.
Books have been written about the CIA's involvement in cocaine and heroin distribution. Whether it's HW Bush and Iran Contra(cocaine)
and Bill Clinton with Mena, AR airport complicity in same or the explosion in poppy (HW's nickname just a coincidence ) production
in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion, drugs seem to connect all these dots and more.
And, let's not forget the Israeli "Art Student" operation that targeted DEA offices.
A way for Epstein to get out from under this with the CUFI crowd might be to point out Mary, mother of Jesus, was pregnant
out of wedlock at 14 so what's the big deal?
NYT and Bloomberg have been writing about the mysterious source of Epstein's wealth. Epstein's hedge fund is established
offshore and has a hush-hush list of "clients". He was once sued by a guy named Michael Stroll who said he lost all $450k of
his money investing with Epstein, and he told an interviewer that everyone thought Epstein "was some kind of genius, but I never
saw any genius, and I never saw him work. Anyone that wealthy would have to work 26 hours a day, Epstein played 26 hours a day."
Bloomberg estimated that at best his net worth is $77m, which obviously is not enough to support his lavish lifestyle with 12
homes, a private island, private jet, 15 cars.
Epstein was "let go" by Bear Sterns because of his involvement in an insider trading case involving Edgar Bronfman, whose
firm Seagram was in a hostile takeover bid of another firm. Bronfman, former president of World Jewish Congress, and his two
daughters are investors in NXIVM which was recently charged with sex trafficking and other corruptions. Bronfman and Les Wexner,
the single largest investor in Epstein's "hedge fund", were co-founders of the Zionist org. Mega. All these people are in one
way or another connected with Israel.
I suspect Epstein and Bronfman were in fact running an international sex trafficking-racketeering ring on behalf of Mossad.
That would explain his mysterious source of wealth. His little black book is rumored to include 1,500 names of who's who in
politics, business and arts, and includes royalty, several foreign presidents and a famous prime minister.
Acosta needs to show some integrity and resign. But of course, if he had any, he would never have signed that plea bargain
to begin with.
First Mueller, now Epstein, two chances for Barr to turn the Deep State inside out, upside down once and for all. Will he
do it? I have my doubts. William Barr's father, Donald Barr, was the one who recruited Jeffrey Epstein, a two time college dropout,
to be a calculus and physics teacher at the prestigious Dalton School in NYC when he was the headmaster there. Donald Barr,
born Jewish but "converted" to Catholicism, was later ousted by a group of "progressive" parents at Dalton for being too conservative.
But he was the one who gave Epstein the foot in the door. From there he got to teach the son of Bear Stern's CEO Ace Greenberg,
and was recruited by the latter to work at Bear Sterns.
I wouldn't count out the CIA here. It is telling that one of Epstein's havens was overseas, several of them. These are locations
where the CIA could legally operate. After collecting dirt, they could then funnel some of it selectively to the Israelis for
distribution so the CIA could maintain plausible deniability while having a wall of separation between themselves and the Mossad-picked
third party that leaked the info.
In fact, this is the most plausible scenario; it fits with everything we know: 1) "intelligence" reportedly told Acosta to
back off 2) Epstein has been linked to the CIA 3) some of these locations were overseas, giving the CIA a legal justification
for spying 4) these were largely American politicians and American allies 5) the CIA reportedly threatened Trump when he came
into office by implying they would leak stuff on him: the Micheal Wolfe book, Fire and Fury I believe it was, related a story
of Trump being pressured to set up a meeting with the CIA where he'd speak to them and, essentially, pledge loyalty to them
because they would be his enemies otherwise (that's treason, btw); Trump dutifully complied 6) Epstein's mysterious wealth and
property management would have attracted CIA attention long ago, meaning they should have been aware of this unless they helped
set it up, including the guy's fake wealth (a front to get close to the powerful) anyone got a tax return for this guy?
This smells like CIA-Mossad joint op. If it were solely Mossad, the CIA should have stepped in and broken up this guy's little
operation considering his targets. They should have followed up by either eliminating Epstein as a message to Mossad not to
leak any of their dirt or threatened Epstein with punishment if he leaked or continued his activities. Tellingly, they covered
for the guy.
Also, does this sorry state of affairs make it more likely that Trump will "Wag the Dog" on Iran? Would the Epstein arrest
have even happened if Trump had done Bibi's bidding and attacked Iran when the False Flag of the drone shoot down had been teed
up for him like a driver smacking a golf ball. Conspiracy Theories is all we have left in the crumbling Empire of Lust and Greed.
Perhaps I'm just paranoid.
Milchan was involved in a number of other thefts as well as arms sales on behalf of the Jewish state
One of many apparently.
The scum described here was rewarded with becoming the mayor of Jerusalem.
We've been involved in everything we've been asked to do [re Israel].
[Dad] went and he bought all of the equipment from the plant. It ended up being shipped to Israel. Because you know at
that time, there was a complete embargo from the United States, and what little [the Israelis] got– well Most of what
they got were smuggled in.Most of them were illegal, all the arms. That's what Teddy Kollek did. That was his job before
he became a mayor [of Jerusalem]. He was a master smuggler. And he was good. Oh was he good! [laughter]
The honey trap is one of the most powerful (and legitimate) ways to compromise public officials, including heads of state.
Epstein is almost certainly Mossad.
This has been the talk and pretty obvious conclusion now for some time. Of COURSE Epstein was/is a MOSSAD asset if not agent.
What's more his usefullness to them isn't over yet, especially if Trump is one of the names he has.
I think if Trump caves next false flag and has a go at Iran, it will imply that Trump is dirty and Epstein can prove it.
I'm saying MOSSAD could be behind Epstein going down now as it makes his blakmail potential an imperitive. Hopefully Trump is
clean and there are indications he is. If not then he just lost any ability to resist whatever the zippers now want of him.
The sort of influence Zionist "Israel" needs to wield and does requires exactly such an interconnected and multilayered stable
of highly placed assets. Redundancy built in and how else do you think they manage to control so much AND avoid accountability?
They cast a wide net. But you knew that I think.
@Tired
of Not Winning deal with one of Epstein's attorneys because he had "been told" to back off, that Epstein was above his pay
grade. "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone," he told his interviewers'
#4 Offshore Tax Schemes / Money Laundering
Deutsche Bank seems to be the Gordian Knot of financial filth and corruption. Epstein was a client of Deutsche Bank's 'special
services department' same as Trump and Kushner ..same Deutsche bank as already fined for money laundering.
Possible Epstein and whoever was behind him engaged in all of these. If congress is going to question Acosta .first question
should be who told him Epstein belonged to intelligence.
That 2002 New York piece Phil mentioned has some great tid-bits:
For more than ten years, he's been linked to Manhattan-London society figure Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the mysteriously
deceased media titan Robert Maxwell
He is an enthusiastic member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Indicative of globalism, Zionism and Jewish group interest.
those close to him say the reason he quit his board seat at the Rockefeller Institute was that he hated wearing a suit.
Obviously a falsely contrived reason, wonder what the deal was here
"I invest in people – be it politics or science. It's what I do," he has said to friends. And his latest prize addition
is the former president [Bill Clinton].
Certainly suggestive of an intelligence operative mindset.
Before Clinton, Epstein's rare appearances in the gossip columns tended to be speculation as to the true nature of his
relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell. While they are still friends, the English tabloids have postulated that Maxwell has
longed for a more permanent pairing and that for undetermined reasons Epstein has not reciprocated in kind. "It's a mysterious
relationship that they have," says society journalist David Patrick Columbia. "In one way, they are soul mates, yet they
are hardly companions anymore. It's a nice conventional relationship, where they serve each other's purposes."
Friends of the two say that Maxwell, whose social life has always been higher-octane than Epstein's, lent a little pizzazz
to the lower-profile Epstein. Indeed, at a party at Maxwell's house, her friends say, one is just as apt to see Russian
ladies of the night as one is to see Prince Andrew.
Another interpretation is that his combination with Ghislaine was bringing a bit too much public attention to Epstein and
his activities and therefore it was decided to let things die down a bit.
in 1976, he dropped everything and reported to work at Bear Stearns, where he started off as a junior assistant to a
floor trader at the American Stock Exchange. His ascent was rapid.
At the time, options trading was an arcane and dimly understood field, just beginning to take off. To trade options,
one had to value them, and to value them, one needed to be able to master such abstruse mathematical confections as the
Black-Scholes option-pricing model. For Epstein, breaking down such models was pure sport, and within just a few years he
had his own stable of clients. "He was not your conventional broker saying 'Buy IBM' or 'Sell Xerox,' " says Bear Stearns
CEO Jimmy Cayne. "Given his mathematical background, we put him in our special-products division, where he would advise
our wealthier clients on the tax implications of their portfolios. He would recommend certain tax-advantageous transactions.
He is a very smart guy and has become a very important client for the firm as well."
In 1980, Epstein made partner, but he had left the firm by 1981. Working in a bureaucracy was not for him
Obviously, important facts are being left out. He is a talented options analyst but they have him advising clients on investment
structures to save taxes? Why wouldn't they put him on principal trades for Bear if he was such an options whiz?
And why did he leave? Trading firms are notoriously NOT bureaucracies, and anyone with a talent for making money, especially
in the early 80s, would find few fetters. Whole story not given here.
In 1982, according to those who know Epstein, he set up his own shop, J. Epstein and Co., which remains his core business
today. The premise behind it was simple: Epstein would manage the individual and family fortunes of clients with $1 billion
or more. Which is where the mystery deepens. Because according to the lore, Epstein, in 1982, immediately began collecting
clients. There were no road shows, no whiz-bang marketing demos – just this: Jeff Epstein was open for business for those
with $1 billion–plus.
Getting clients in asset management is a cut-throat business. But Epstein did not even have to make a pretense of competing
for business?
His firm would be different, too. He was not here just to offer investment advice; he saw himself as the financial architect
of every aspect of his client's wealth – from investments to philanthropy to tax planning to security to assuaging the guilt
and burdens that large sums of inherited wealth can bring on.
the conditions for investing with Epstein were steep: He would take total control of the billion dollars, charge a flat
fee, and assume power of attorney to do whatever he thought was necessary to advance his client's financial cause. And he
remained true to the $1 billion entry fee. According to people who know him, if you were worth $700 million and felt the
need for the services of Epstein and Co., you would receive a not-so-polite no-thank-you from Epstein.
Minimum $1b invested, no track record by the asset manager, and he claims the clients give him carte blanche? This is not
normal wealth management.
Turning down giant new stakes just because they fall short of $1b? Nonsense. The name of the game on the buy side on Wall
Street is size, because that gives you negotiating power with the sell side.
Epstein runs a lean operation, and those close to him say that his actual staff – based here in Manhattan at the Villard
House (home to Le Cirque); New Albany, Ohio; and St. Thomas, where he reincorporated his company seven years ago (now called
Financial Trust Co.) – numbers around 150 and is purely administrative. When it comes to putting these billions to work
in the markets, it is Epstein himself making all the investment calls – there are no analysts or portfolio managers, just
twenty accountants to keep the wheels greased and a bevy of assistants – many of them conspicuously attractive young women
– to organize his hectic life. So assuming, conservatively, a fee of .5 percent (he takes no commissions or percentages)
on $15 billion, that makes for a management fee of $75 million a year straight into Jeff Epstein's pocket.
Epstein makes all the daily investment decisions on $15b, yet no one on the sell side knows him? In other words Epstein does
not invest in new issues. But new issues are the gravy for making money on the buy side – think IPO discount. This is not normal
asset management.
some have speculated that Wexner is the primary source of Epstein's lavish life – but friends leap to his defense. "Let
me tell you: Jeffrey Epstein has other clients besides Wexner. I know because some of them are my clients," says noted m&a
lawyer Dennis Block of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. "I sent him a $500 million client a few years ago and he wouldn't
take him. Said the account was too small. Both the client and I were amazed. But that's Jeffrey."
You can always trust the word of an M&A lawyer. They would never mislead anyone for advantage.
he found himself spending there [in Santa Fe], talking elementary particle physics with his friend Murray Gell-Mann,
a Nobel Prize–winning physicist and co-chair of the science board at the Santa Fe Institute.
his covey of scientists that inspires Epstein's true rapture. Epstein spends $20 million a year on them
Gerald Edelman won the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine in 1972 and now presides over the Neurosciences Institute
in La Jolla. "Jeff is extraordinary in his ability to pick up on quantitative relations," says Edelman. "He came to see
us recently. He is concerned with this basic question: Is it true that the brain is not a computer? He is very quick."
Stephen Kosslyn, a psychologist at Harvard. Epstein flew up to Kosslyn's laboratory in Cambridge this year to witness
an experiment that Kosslyn was conducting and Epstein was funding. Namely: Is it true that certain Tibetan monks are capable
of holding a distinct mental image in their minds for twenty minutes straight?
Epstein has a particularly close relationship with Martin Nowak, an Austrian biology and mathematics professor who heads
the theoretical-biology program at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Nowak is examining how game theory can
be used to answer some of the basic evolutionary questions – e.g., why, in our Darwinian society, does altruistic behavior
exist?
Danny Hillis, an MIT-educated computer scientist whose company, Thinking Machines, was at the forefront of the supercomputing
world in the eighties, and who used to run R&D at Walt Disney Imagineering
An intelligence operative would certainly have no interest in cultivating, buying or blackmailing scientists in the fields
of nuclear physics, controlling human behavior or supercomputers!
And by the way, the need to explain "altruism" in terms of game theory is a tip-off that Epstein and Nowak have no spiritual
life and cannot comprehend of it in other people. No surprise to find "do what thou wilt" as his guiding principle.
Strangely enough, given his scientific obsessions, he is a computer-phobe and does not use e-mail.
Before taking a big position, Epstein will usually fly to the country in question. He recently spent a week in Germany
meeting with various government officials and financial types, and he has a trip to Brazil coming up in the next few weeks.
On all of these trips, he flies alone in his commercial-jet-size 727.
Friends of Epstein say he is horrified at the recent swell of media attention around him
He has never granted a formal interview, and did not offer one to this magazine, nor has his picture appeared in any
publication.
The final straws. If he's not an intelligence operative, he's doing everything he can to give that impression!
He "flies alone." LOL! Poor Jeffrey, he so ronery!
When Bob Maxwell died at sea or disappeared it turned out that he had used or stolen every penny of ALL the pensions of his
employees .which were never recovered. After her father was given a state funeral in Israel (not England where he and his family
lived and worked) there followed a 2 year court case in which his 6 children were finally excused from any responsibility for
these pensions, despite inheriting his money and two of them working in his companies.
And now Ghislaine turns up as a US socialite, multi-decade pedophile procurer and international human trafficker. Nice family
.nice values! ...
Since the Little SAINT James pedo-island
that was allegedly owned by Jeffery Epstein did not have an airport (the closest one being
Curil E King airport in St. Thomas (about ten miles away)) that
means the 'guests' would either have to take a boat trip or a helicopter trip. Since Little SAINT James does have a
clearly marked helicopter landing site at the north central east part of the island (when viewed on google maps in satellite
view) one would suspect that is how these so-called 'guests' arrived at this pedo-island.
Those activities are not mutually exclusive. It could be #5: All of the above. We all know how Mossad operates. Nothing is
beyond them. The end justifies the means.
Acosta is a distraction .and possibly innocent since he did what he was told which was to go easy on an intelligence asset.
Forget the small fry and concentrate on the real criminals please.
Senator Chuck Schumer, self-described as Israel's "protector" in the Senate, is loudly calling for the resignation of
Acosta. He just might change his tune if it turns out that Israel is a major part of the story.
Schumer would already have been tipped of if is was an Israeli operation. It's an anti Trump thing.
The fact that the case has been moved to the Southern District of New York validates your cynicism.
Has the Only Democracy in the Middle East decided to sacrifice Epstein (he can be sprung later, his jig was up anyway) so
that an Epstein circus can replace Russiagate?
From renfro, the following great point:
"If congress is going to question Acosta .first question should be who told him Epstein belonged to intelligence."
, renfro! Thanks & my respect.
Because I have special enthusiasm for renfro's advice to "Congress," such will not fly with "congress."
Quote: "It will be very interesting to see just how far and how deep the investigation into Epstein and his activities goes."
Reply: We'll get a glistening kabuki show, with lots of wailing [walls], thunder and lightening, twists and turns, but, in
the end [as this case will go on and on – Harvey Weinstein, anyone?] people will forget about it.
I fear that this is all rapidly turning into a modified limited hangout. A whole lot of dirt will be inconclusively exposed
and, even though everyone will have a pretty good idea of what happened, there won't be enough will to do anything about it.
The caveat will be when the financial system finally implodes. A horde of jobless and desperate people will rapidly lose
their patience for being governed by a bunch of incompetent pedophile oligarchs, but until then everyone will just go with the
flow.
@Rabbitnexus
ut it looks more like a millionaire club. Intelligence agencies prefer to use secretaries and other less visible people as spies.
I would look for some association of friends of Israel, something that has lots of money, wants lots of power, spies on people,
both enemies and friends, and has some special love for Israel.
I maybe wrong, but this does not seem to me to be a single intelligence agency of any country. It operates in an age old
method of a secret society, like mafia or masons. It is neither mafia nor masons, but some that especially likes to help Israel
and probably created it. I guess there are such friends of Israel organizations, several.
In social science it is often assumed that people are selfish. The attempt to show that altruism contributes positively to
the prospects for survival and reproduction is important in defeating the presumption of underlying selfishness. It's not a
very deep idea. If ten people carry a gene that causes one of them to throw himself on a hand-grenade, thereby saving the other
nine, that gives the gene a better chance of being passed along than if the grenade goes off and most or all of the carriers
are killed. If interested, see the book Evolution of the Social Contract by Brian Skyrms.
First a question: who says the telephone numbers were the sort only an intimate or ultimate insider would have? Queen Elizabeth's
would surely have had to be the Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham or Balmoral switchboard.
Then there is what a sleazy or dangerous guy like Epstein might be expected to do, namely toss in a whole lot of names (with
or without true up to date direct line numbers) to confuse and provide diversion and cover. Cute though isn't that he was supposed
still to be using an old fashioned address book in the 21st Century rather than an encrypted or at least password protected
smartphone.
The Palm Beach mansion Epstein owned was rigged with hidden cameras in some of the guest bedrooms according to an article
I read a couple of years back.
Im glad we have forums like this so the word can get out: honeypot operations are not a thing of just the KGB/Cold War past,
but of the Soros/intel orgs/globalist/Establishment present.
Future politicians and wealthy businesspersons need to be aware of this. The Bible has a great old verse that goes something
like, "Be sure your sins will find you out".
"Pedophilia"? Has anyone accused Epstein of mistreating pre-pubescent girls? I don't think so. If Mr. Giraldi wants to deplore
what Epstein is accused of, fine. But don't try to confuse us by suggesting that he attacked children rather than underage teens.
@follyofwar
even Israel understand this would not be regime change business as usual.
U.S. war gamers for years have been saying there's no way the U.S. could significantly "win" the war. It would surely drive
gas prices way up, and wake up the American public, creating a probably insurmountable political problem for Trump. Israel is
liable to get pelted from all sides -- Hezbollah has promised to attack in the event of war, and there are probably ways of
striking from Syria and Iran. Then there are the wild cards of Russia and China. No one knows for sure what Putin would do if
Iran were attacked, but he could certainly turn Israel into a parking lot very quickly if he wanted to.
Well founded scepticism. Still, now we know the extent of what Bernie Madoff got away with perhaps someone who was clever
and charming and appealed to those who wouldn't have invested with Madoff just might have put together enough billion dollar
portfolios to be able, as long as he managed his tax affairs well to become very rich during the 80s. It would be interesting
to know how he handled the October 1988 melt down.
One aspect of this entire Epstein Talmudic child abuse saga that really p*sses me off is the active participation of the
IRS. It was the same with Madoff and Maxwell. None of these talmudic ponzi's could have gotten off the ground if these gangsters
had been correctly filing all the correct tax forms like all the other goy schmucks.
Since 2012, with the Statute of Limitations retroactively extended 3 years to a total of 6 years backwards to 2006, all undeclared
foreign bank accounts of US persons or green card holders on IRS FBAR forms (Foreign Bank Account Report), and since 2012 form
8948 (Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets), which is even more intrusive, face IRS penalties of 50% of the highest
annual balance, and many tax sinners have been forced to pay more in taxes than these bank accounts ever contained. This is
the tip of the iceberg compared to jewish charity and foundation and estate fraud.
Epstein supposedly was "gifted" the NY mansion from his "mentor" at the defunct and fraudulent money changer Bear Stearns
for what must have been more than 50 Million. Rick Wiles drilled down in detail into this gift on
Thursday .
These kinds of shenanigans, like flying "friends" around the world to your various child abuse temples in your private jets,
are taxable gifts. In fact double taxed, taxed first as income and second with the gift tax. The Lolita Express could never
be declared as a business expense either.
The entire rotten affair stinks on every level and it gets more putrid at every layer of talmudic control is peeled bank.
At each level more Jews and Zionists come wiggling out and scurrying off to disappear from social and dinosaur media. But also
as each layer gets peeled bank we get closer to the core, which with ever more certainty is ritual child sacrifice used for
talmudic control.
Forget the small fry and concentrate on the real criminals please.
It's going to be difficult
Maurene Comey, one of the lead prosecutors who is handling the Epstein case, happens to be James Comey's daughter, the ex
FBI boss.
It remains to be seen if she will be giving Bill Clinton special treatment, just like her father gave to Hillary's "lock her
up".
Moreover, Judge Berman who preside the case, happens to be also a Clinton appointee (in 1998).
In 1982, according to those who know Epstein, he set up his own shop, J. Epstein and Co., which remains his core business
today. The premise behind it was simple: Epstein would manage the individual and family fortunes of clients with $1 billion
or more. Which is where the mystery deepens. Because according to the lore, Epstein, in 1982, immediately began collecting
clients. There were no road shows, no whiz-bang marketing demos – just this: Jeff Epstein was open for business for those
with $1 billion–plus.
The fly in the ointment of this carefully cultivated cover story:
"Statistics published in Forbes magazine's annual survey of America's billionaires expose this little known but shocking
reality. In 1982 there were 13 billionaires; in 1983 15″
There's no need for anything so crude as either the head of the CIA or FBI reporting directly to the Mossad when both agencies
are riddled from top to bottom with de facto Israeli espionage agents.
It's a Fool's Errand to think you can solve Epstein like a puzzle. Most, like Giraldi, are engaged in bias confirmation.
That isn't to say his speculations are entirely wrong but that we're all part of the play in one way or another.
In my view timing is rarely if ever coincidental. That seems glaringly obvious here. The Epstein scandal was resurrected
now for a reason. I suspect that like the Academic Admissions scandal the Permanent Government is throwing its weight around.
Warning (once again) that it can inflict casualties if exposing its 2016 malefactions is taken too far.
Weinstein served the same function -- with poor Meryl Streep the Sgt. Schultz headliner.
Put yourself in the mind of the various filth (e.g. Brennan) implicated in attempting to throw the election to Hillary and,
failing that, frame-up and destroy the duly elected POTUS. They think they're entitled to a pass given all they've turned a
blind eye to over the years.
Epstein's arrest strikes me as a shot across the bow in the context of the upcoming IG Report/Durham Investigation. I'm not
picking on Giraldi but all of his fans here should note he's been Mumble Mouth at best on those malefactions. Nor am I saying
that isn't the wise move for him.
The scandal that needs to be buried is that they built a global surveillance (and storage) apparatus, including of the American
people. There was widespread, systematic abuse of it during the Obama Administration ('000s of people). Whatever limitations
there were, effectively Mutually Assured Destruction with the establishment factions keeping an eye on each other, collapsed
as they all united to stop Trump.
Epstein, like Weinstein and the Academic Admissions scandal, is both distraction and a warning to the Governing and Business
Classes -- keep you heads down and mouths shut about these powerful intelligence/national security entities.
I generally think waiting to see how matters fall out is a very good idea. But when I read the information of Mr. Acosta's
interview, I sank a bit. Because it strongly suggested vested interest by the government – not to get to the truth.
That even the circus that usually comes to surround even credible cases will so muddy the waters as to avoid a rendering
of what actually took place.
And given how compromised the collusion matter is was or will continue to be – the stakes may be higher here such that muddying
the waters will be some relief for those involved.
Myth of brilliance has been created to explain origin of his wealth . But even that shit was not enough , more myths had
to be created like capacity of having brilliant discussions with Nobel laureate ( Physics) or with great educators , and with
world renowned economist .
I guess authorities can get away with saying what F lies they can say until it blows up on their faces . Jew thinks goym
are stupid , so tell them whatever come to mind like having a great autonomous brain that doesn't depend on education or training
or publicly visible job to figure out the finances , economy, hard computer , physical and cognitive sciences and earning millions
,
while busy with
1 taking nude picture and storing them in 3-4 different areas
2 ferrying big guns from 3 different continents to Orgy Islsnd
3 Getting their intimate information , charting them connecting them and storing them
4 having parties with semi nude girls but attended by celebrities
5 holding message parkour parties from girls procured from shanty , trailer park ,
6 having serial girl friends
– there are more .
Oh yeah!!! No wonder people under pressure , lack of information , from removal of connecting dots , undue respect for glory
money power , fear for being seen as ' naysayer ' or pessimist or low IQ uninformed , and fear of public ridicule can believe
or can feign to believe the wildest whoopers / lies/ plaint shit dished out by the upper echelon of the society .
( then we wonder why people believe in UFO , big foot ,
, personal angels , apparitions, or America is a force for good )
Epstein in my opinion is a mossad officer whose agenda is to compromise zio/US politicians for the benefit of Israel and
in this he is just one of many in the zio/US and in fact the zio/US gov is infested with dual Israeli citizens whose first and
only loyalty is to Israel.
Read the book Blood in the Water by Joan Mellen about the attack on the USS Liberty by Israel and the US government to see
how intertwined the mossad and the CIA are and remember the joint Israeli and zio/US gov attack on the WTC on 911, the zionists
rule America!
"CIA and the Russian FSB services are obvious candidates, but they would have no particular motive to acquire an agent like
Epstein."
This is an assertion with nothing to back it up. The CIA, in particular, has every reason to use an 'Epstein' for its nefarious
purposes as it IS the deep state or at least a major part of it.
The CIA owns the drug trade in Afghanistan and Mena, Arkansas can easily be connected to CIA activities along with gun running
in Mexico. The CIA is the official criminal organization within the US gov't and it went rogue decades ago. It can afford to
have multiple 'Epstein' clones running around to make sure it can control the US political class to not investigate its activities
too closely.
The CIA and Israel are indistinguishable from each other. Israel runs US foreign policy via the CIA and their own Mossad.
Come on, Phil Giraldi. Do you believe in an independent American justice system? What a joke. It's corrupt to the bone. Weinstein,
Epstein, Maxwell, Adelson, Saban, Koch you name it, have America in their pocket like Sharon used to say. During a furious beef
between Sharon and Shimon Peres, Sharon turned toward Peres, saying "every time we do something you tell me Americans will do
this and will do that. I want to tell you something obvious, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people,
control America, and the Americans know it."
Could anyone but an intelligence agency get away with all of the following: 1) harassing witnesses (forcing their cars off
the road public highways), 2) searching the trash of police officers in an attempt to find dirt on the officers and 3) obtaining
a sweet heart plea bargain when the police had dozens of victims (who didn't even know each other) telling the exact same story
and ready to testify – as well as photos of nude adolescents seized in a search.
Who could have done such things and got away with it.
Epstein must have been an operative. The only question is: for whom did he work?
Gasp!!! Are you suggesting sweet, innocent Monica was blowing Slick Willie for reasons other than his taking advantage
of her?
In his book Gideon's Spies the late Welsh author Gordon Thomas claimed Mossad had tapes of the same for blackmail
reasons. However, this has never been confirmed.
Epstein will "cop a plea" and avoid a trial. That is certain.
A couple of things I'd like to ask the brilliant Epstein: Why did you engage in your nefarious sexual activity in New York
State and Florida? The "age of consent" in both states is 18. In New Jersey, PA and other states, it's 16. Now US federal law
prohibits sex between people 12 to 16 if one of the participants is 4 years or more older than the other. The law says "between"
not inclusive of 16. So 16 might be OK. That's young enough.
Also Jeffrey, why didn't you take your "Lolita Express" to Tel Aviv? It's legal in Israel and no one checks up of the actual
ages of the "working girls." And most are the tall blond/blue and slim types from Eastern Europe.
"Pedophile" is incorrect, as a commenter noted. The age cutoff is 13 for pedophilia. DSM-5. These escapades comprise different
serious felonies. However, the Epstein colleagues can rest easy, if Rush's instinct about prosecuting Hillary is correct. Rush
has said that prosecuting Hillary will not happen, because it would "roil" the nation. Same here. I expect to see a lot of MSM
passive voice, and intransitive verbs, but no roiling. "The car drove off the side of the bridge."
Asimov's father once wrote a book called "The Sensuous Dirty Old Man." Hmm .
More seriously, did it ever occur to you that someone might want to know your source before accepting your claim that Mueller
"supposedly classified Epstein as an informant"? Supposed by whom?? Eh????
believes Epstein allegedly preyed on Araoz when she was 14 because she was vulnerable.
"She had just transferred to a new school and didn't know anybody," attorney Kimberly Lerner said in an interview. "She
didn't have a father. Her mother was very poor. She was from a single-parent home. She was really struggling, and she wanted
to be a model and an actress. He absolutely preyed upon the most vulnerable."
@Lou123
n Ring' which supposedly was providing child prostitutes to high level US politicians who in turn were then being blackmailed
by the existence of surreptitious recordings having been made of these incidents by US intelligence agencies.
The below newspaper article explains what ultimately happened to the lead investigator of the case. Gary Caradori had been
hired by the Nebraska state legislature to find out what had actually transpired regarding the alleged Nebraska based ring.
Needless to say his investigation was unexpectedly 'cut short'.
What if .Acostoa is just a stooge, In fact he probably insisted on SOME jail time here. Otherwise the rest of the US "justice"
system could care less. Even NYC is complicit. It's a snow job of theater, this democracy is. It's a joke. It only looks like
a democracy on tv.
Mossad, CIA, FBI, MI5, who cares? All of these are criminal enterprises, just like the governments providing them cover and
"legitimacy".
Really interesting aspect of any elite in-fighting is that it exposes an "uncomfortable truth" that there is only one elite
running the show. That there is only Republicratic party, which regularly organizes (for the benefit of sheeple still believing
in "democracy") puppet shows called elections, where ostensibly Democrats battle Republicans. In fact, both are just two hands
of the same puppet master. That's why the same criminals are prominent at all "Republican" and "Democratic" functions.
The other thing that the story of that Epstein character clearly shows is that all those "respectable people" are nothing
more than rich criminals, and the only reason they aren't in jail is that they have enough money to get away with any crime.
@Talha
refully scripted to identify girls who could be vulnerable to manipulation, have a chaotic family life, need money, need social
connections for career advancement . The female procurer would report to Epstein and receive instructions to abandon or continue
to recruit the "candidate". A female procurer is used as she will not arouse suspicion in a young girl. These are simple techniques
that have been used for centuries worldwide. A father must cultivate a close relationship with his daughter, know when she is
OK or not OK, and most importantly be an example of a quality man that his daughter will compare to every man she meets(being
overprotective merely makes her more vulnerable).
Meh. Get ready for a tidal wave of MSM articles talking about how the deranged, alt-right internet conspiracy theorists are
having a field day with the Epstein case, after which your average American moron will be programmed to just smirk and roll
his eyes whenever the facts touched on in this article are brought up.
Ms. Aroaz's father was deceased before she met the female procurer
Well, then I take back what I said – obviously can't blame a dead man for not being there.
A father must cultivate a close relationship with his daughter, know when she is OK or not OK, and most importantly be
an example of a quality man that his daughter will compare to every man she meets
I don't know if Giraldi is a plant or not. However, the first law of understanding "intelligence agents" or ex spooks is
to always be suspicious of everyone. The group he belongs too seems legitimate enough but we have been set up before. I've be
reading Giraldi a long time and he has a similar "theme" in every piece but he also leaves small things out that should be in
his articles. The Devil is in the Details and man with his experience should be "Detailed Oriented."
He should know about Epstein and Muller and a few other things since this is the stock and trade of all intelligence agencies.
The interesting thing about this case is, the left wants it exposed because they think it'll take down Trump, the right wants
it exposed because they think it'll take down Bill Clinton. My guess is, more Dems will go down than Republicans. Trump was
a Democrat and a big supporter of Clintons and Chuck Schumer before he decided to run as a GOP in 2016. He could've gone either
way.
Sex scandals tend to plague the left, especially sexual perversions like porn, prostitution, child sex or gay sex. It's coz
the left is dominated by Jews who are prone to sexual perversion, and also because liberals believe feelings and passion trump
all, anything you do is not your fault as long as you are just following your feelings.
One reason Trump is so pro-Israel and hell bent on attacking Iran could be because the Jews have something on him, which
is not too hard since he's been in business with them for a lifetime and is as unctuous and unscrupulous as any of them. They
might be getting impatient with him on Iran and wants someone who can get the job done like Mike Pence to take over. Epstein
could take down both Clinton and Trump, Clinton has outlived his usefulness to them since Hillary didn't win, he'll be the sacrificial
lamb while they take out Trump for Pence.
Republic asked the following critical question which should not be cast away:
"If Epstein worked for Mossad, why wasn't he tipped off in Paris not to return to the US?"
! Mossad deception is sophisticated & patterns of telling a lie upon another improved lie ar characteristic.
Also, Mossad's implemented practices/techniques are adaptable to circumstances which seem supportive of what dumb goyim consider
"justice served," but they actually benefit Israel.
A thought. I figure Epstein knew what fate awaited him prior to landing at Teterboro Airport tarmac.
Well, Giraldi did work there and would have heard people complaining about the presence and influence of Israeli spies. Colonel
Kiatowoski's book about the presence of Israeli spies in the Pentagon made it clear Pentagon personnel resented the Israeli
spies but could do nothing about it.
@Talha
ing to a recently divorced man whose x-wife hates him (nothing new), and who has two teenage daughters. The x has poisoned the
daughters against him, (nothing new), and because he was trying to be strident with his elder daughter vis-a-vis drugs, (nothing
new), he now is not allowed to have any contact with them via the skewed courts, (nothing new).
They're doing a Weimar regime redux. That was the apex of their heyday, when the children of Germany were their playthings,
and Berlin was a giant brothel- girls and boys for sale, especially the ones whose fathers had died in their holocaust
that was WWI.
@j2
has maybe 10 Israeli immigrants or American Jews who work for him. Each has 10-15 American Jews who can be called upon. So it's
a wide network.
You're right that clerks secretaries accountants have great access to information. But the Israeli system is widespread.
Plus, the information needn't always come from Jews.
It really does exist. There's an Israeli who hosts sabbath dinners in Los Angeles. He invites American Jews to be briefed
on what's going on in Israel. I'm positive he also recruits agents in place he spots at those dinners. Guests who have no access
to anything useful at least get to feel they're participating in the cause.
@AnonFromTN
he only reason they aren't in jail is that they have enough money to get away with any crime.
True. And this Epstein coverage is bringing out more nooks and crannies of how the really rich control systems for their
own benefit.
Like why was Epsteins tax rate on his NY mansion only 0.6% .why is Bill de Blasio tax rate on his mansion only 0.2% ..when
other NY'ers taxrate is 12%.
@ChuckOrloski
howed the original twelve members in indecent poses . At the entrance to the abbey, there was an inscription which read Fay
ce que voudras – do what thou wilt – a term which Aleister Crowley borrowed nearly 200 years later. "
Ben Franklin likely would have been a prominent visitor to Little St. James, just as he was to
West Wycombe in his day.
Thomas Paine too.
There is regular sex and "deviation", pornography, pedophilia
There is drugs, illegal and legal, hard and soft
Then there is finance, always pimping, always on exploitation, abuse of minors, as young as not yet born, globally, and to
be comitted legally. Pedophilia and drugs are soft core, barely leveling at the sock suspenders of our financiers.
A few hundred of the top tier Wall Street-ers belong in jail, as rats eating their own tail, they only can be administered
there. Starting with Mnuchin. Epstein should be let alone, so he can decoy a little longer, and await his turn, pecking order
obliges. Ah, the public sector, the ones with faces, real fungi are minding the dark.
Linked on this same site today, Michael Hudson, seems to attribute Empire and financial capitalism, debt, the demise of the
dollar, to Trump. ?. Of all men, another scripted clown gets the blame. The shredding is spoiling the carpet.
If unz.com is so willingly pointing out the third liners, as Maya sacrifices to the deities in the shades, then there you
have one more reason the rag is impervious to censorship.
Gardner's and retail store clerks have personal phone numbers of the rich and famous. For instance, clerks at high
end retail clothing stores are supposed to cultivate shoppers on a personal level so they can call them up with the great news
of items they'd like to buy.
Actors producers directors numbers and home addresses can be obtained from people who work at their agents accountants PR
and attorney offices
Police departments have access to all phone numbers. Most of the Find a Number websites don't have the private number of
celebrities. But there are plenty of people who can access all the cell phone records.
How to get away with blackmailing without blackmailing.
First, you need to recruit people in. Have lots of massive parties at your spacious home for wealthy men. Have lots of women
mostly teens and under aged.
Sooner or later there will be some mingling going on. Some billionaire will get handsy and end up in a room with a girl ..and
hidden cameras.
Epstein informs him later the girl was really 15, but offers him a nice, neat way to buy silence: a large allocation to his
hedge fund, which charges 5% ..with power of attorney for himself.
To ease the pain for the black mailee Epstein puts the money in something as safe as treasury notes or money market fund.
Then Epstein collects his 'fees' ..x millions on the interest from treasury notes or etc..
Soooo no traceable blackmail payoff checks or wire transfers from his fellow pedos.
Epstein may also try this on other important political figures, mayors, prosecutors, etc. He doesnt blackmail them to 'invest'
in his fund but has them in his pocket.
The evidence would probably be in a deposit box in his offshore Caribbean bank.
One reason Trump is so pro-Israel and hell bent on attacking Iran could be because the Jews have something on him, which
is not too hard since he's been in business with them for a lifetime and is as unctuous and unscrupulous as any of them.
They might be getting impatient with him on Iran and wants someone who can get the job done like Mike Pence to take over.
Epstein could take down both Clinton and Trump, Clinton has outlived his usefulness to them since Hillary didn't win, he'll
be the sacrificial lamb while they take out Trump for Pence.
Just what I was going to write, but you got there first.
Thank you very much. pedophilia stops at the victims 13th birthday. Then it's various degrees of molestation of a minor .
It's usually 13 and 14, then 15. Then 16 and 17. In some states the age of consent is 16. Epstein's activities weren't just
molestation of minors. They were procuring for prostitution as well.
I have been meaning to ask this for a while, Dr. Giraldi, let’s say stuff you write about Israel is all true, you are ex-CIA,
then can we assume there are many like you or is that not the case? If that’s the case, then why none of them stand up and oppose?
Or are they too afraid of standing up for their country?
There are at least nine factions in the CIA concerning Israeli politics:
1. anti-Israel for emotional reasons (instinctive hostile feelings towards Jews, Judeophobia)
2. anti-Israel for ideological reasons (reasoned opposition towards Judaism and Zionism as doctrines)
3. anti-Israel for strategic reasons (bad for long-term American interests)
4. pro-Israel for emotional reasons (warm feelings towards Jews)
5. pro-Israel for ideological reasons (for instance, Christian Zionists)
6. pro-Israel for occult reasons (the world’s most powerful secret society mandates support as part of a grand mystical scheme)
7. pro-Israel for reasons of personal self-interest (issues concerning bribery, blackmail, careerism, etc.)
8. pro-Israel for strategic reasons (good for long-term American strategic interests)
9. pro-Israel for strategic reasons AND hostile to Jews (Jewish nationalists provide a counterweight to Jewish leftists in
the Diaspora, divide and conquer tactics)
Since the late 1940s, the pro-Israel factions in the CIA have easily dominated the anti-Israel (or Israel-skeptical) factions.
By the way, most CIA employees, including many high level employees, don't have a full understanding of what is going on
in the CIA, including knowledge of the most influential players and operations and their connections.
You can bet that the likes of Rachel Maddow will never change their tune on the subject
of Russiagate.
However, with the election season heating up, it might seem wise for them to
start singing a different tune altogether, such as Sanders and Warren are too radical to have
any chance of defeating Trump.
The saddest thing of all is that the Dems' fixation on Russia
and Putin is now coming back to bite them in the ass. Trump could not have asked for a better
gift.
This debauchery is a part of the crisis of neoliberalism. It does increases the level of de-legitimization of neoliberal elite.
As one commenter pointed out: we need the names of scum, wealthy perverts from the United States who travelled to Epstein
island-sized rape dungeon off the coast of Saint Thomas.
Notable quotes:
"... This appears to be something of a pattern. "What is so amazing to me is how his entire social circle knew about this and just blithely overlooked it," Ward says of Epstein's pederasty. "While praising his charm, brilliance and generous donations to Harvard, those [I] spoke to all mentioned the girls as an aside." ..."
"... The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one. It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes ..."
"... our elites still love Epstein, even if he does rape little girls ..."
"... This is how America is. This is how our ruling class works: Democrat, Republican, whatever. As the inimitable Matthew Walther points out , there's a reason people believe in Pizzagate. The Hellfire Club is real. And for decades, we've emboldened them considerably. ..."
"... Surely I'm not the only one who noticed that the Epstein sex abuse timeline is nearly identical to the Catholic Church sex abuse timeline. Both investigations were initiated in the early 2000s. Both revealed that the exploitation of children was an open secret in the highest echelons of power. Both investigations were closed a few years later, though not resolved. We assumed justice would take its course, and slowly began to forget. And then within two years of each other, both scandals emerged again, more sordid than ever. And on both occasions, we realized that nothing had changed. ..."
"... Of course, we know where that leads us. For two centuries, conservatives have tried to dampen the passions that led France to cannibalize herself circa 1789. ..."
"... Yes: those passions are legitimate. We should feel contempt for our leaders when we discover that two presidents cavorted with Epstein, almost certainly aware that he preyed on minors. We should feel disgust at the mere possibility that Pope Francis rehabilitated Theodore McCarrick. And we should be furious that these injustices haven't even come close to being properly redressed. ..."
"... This isn't about politics. This is about common decency and respect for the most vulnerable. Clinton? Trump? Who cares? If--and that's a big "if"--it comes to pass that either or both were involved in the Epstein festivities then either or both are scum and should be punished accordingly --along with the rest of their playmates at the Epstein playground. ..."
"... Does the author have some evidence to prove that President Trump is a pedophile, as he suggests in this article? Are all persons who may have been friends with Epstein perverts and criminals? ..."
"... If our decadent elite falls at all, it will be from imperial over-reach and losing a major foreign war, not from pedophilia, which is rapidly being normalized along with the rest of LGBTQWERTYUIOP. ..."
"... The so called elites seem above reproach. Our morality has been skewed through the soul. ..."
"... I applaud the courageous outliers like Ryan Dawson and Phil Giraldi that have considerably more guts than me. Blessings ..."
"... I don't think there is going to be a revolution, whether in UK or US, at most people would be outraged for couple of weeks and then forget. ..."
"... Excellent article. But off the mark on one key point. The corruption of the elites and Ruling Class -- and they are sickeningly corrupt -- is only a reflection of, or if you will a leading indicator, of a related corruption of the body politic. ..."
"... So Trump simply makes a comment, has no record of any flights, attendance or participation and this article would have you believe that it equates as despicable as a frequent flyer on the Lolita Express? This author is no different than the fake news. ..."
"... Trump did allegedly make one flight on the plane, from the NY area to Florida. No records show him flying to the "orgy island". ..."
"... Actually, the logs don't show that he was on the plane. Epstein's brother CLAIMS he was on the plane...the most anybody else has said to support that is that Trump looked at the plane on the ground. ..."
"... It's a Trump problem insofar as he continues to defend Acosta. This is the Sec of Labor who effectively let Epstein walk and who now oversees anti-human trafficking efforts (which he has repeatedly tried to gut the funding for). ..."
"... Did you see Acosta's press conference? The local State DA wanted to let Epstein walk - on a lesser state charge through a Grand Jury. Acosta's US Attorney office stepped in to get the charges increased as much as they could so that Epstein would do SOME jail time and - more importantly - have to register as a sex offender. ..."
"... I agree. As much as I detest Trump, I don't think that he was involved with Epstein's debauchery. However, I do believe the women that claim being assaulted, because he is on tape claiming to do what they describe. And there is so many of them. And he has had multiple documented affairs while married to every one of his wives. But no evidence yet of him with underage girls. ..."
"... Right, because those Kavanaugh accusers were so credible, right? No evidence, decades later? Nope. Unlike Kavanaugh, Trump was on a big stage for decades and was a pretty easy target with the tabloids looking for dirt...but none of them came forward. ..."
"... Trump owes America an apology, reading his comments it is obvious he was aware of, and disapproved of, Epstien proclivities, but didn't have the guts to stand up. (I do not believe the stories of Trump being involved, but if it turns out I am wrong on that, fry him ) ..."
Our elites cavorted with a pedophile, almost certainly aware of what he was up to. This is how revolutions begin.
Bill Clinton (Wikipedia Commons); Jeffrey Epstein mugshot (public domain) and Donald Trump
(Gabe Skidmore /Flickr)
For once, I'm with New York Times writer Michelle Goldberg: Jeffrey Epstein is the ultimate symbol of plutocratic rot.
In her
latest column , Goldberg interviews Vicky Ward, who covered the 2003 revelations of Epstein's sex abuse for Vanity Fair
. Ward's editor, Graydon Carter, allegedly ran interference for the high-flying pervert, nixing her discussion with two women
who claimed to have been assaulted by Epstein. "He's sensitive about the young women," Carter explained to Ward.
This appears to be something of a pattern. "What is so amazing to me is how his entire social circle knew about this and
just blithely overlooked it," Ward says of Epstein's pederasty. "While praising his charm, brilliance and generous donations to
Harvard, those [I] spoke to all mentioned the girls as an aside."
Back to Goldberg:
The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political
scandal, if not a partisan one. It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very rich
can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes. If it were fiction, it would be both too sordid and
too on-the-nose to be believable, like a season of "True Detective" penned by a doctrinaire Marxist.
Of course, Goldberg -- being a Democrat -- doesn't want us to think of this as a partisan scandal. Yet Nancy Pelosi's daughter
conspicuously tweeted that it's "quite likely
that some of our faves are implicated." We all know by now that President Bill Clinton was a
frequent flyer on the Lolita Express, Epstein's
private jet, which ferried wealthy perverts from the United States to his island-sized rape dungeon off the coast of Saint Thomas.
Still, a few Republicans will almost certainly be implicated, too. Now, look: I voted for President Donald Trump in 2016. If
I don't vote for him in 2020, it will be because I've lost faith in the whole democratic process and have moved to a hole in the
ground to live as a hobbit. Having said that, Trump is definitely tainted by Epstein. In a 2002 interview with New York Magazine
, the president called him a "terrific guy." "It
is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do," Trump said, "and many of them are on the younger side."
Don't pretend that's an innocent remark. It's like when Uncle Steve passes out face-down on the kitchen floor at the family Christmas
party and Uncle Bill says, "I guess that one likes to drink." We still love Uncle Steve, even if he does overdo it on the
fire water. And our elites still love Epstein, even if he does rape little girls. None of us is perfect, after all.
This is how America is. This is how our ruling class works: Democrat, Republican, whatever. As the inimitable Matthew Walther
points out ,
there's a reason people believe in Pizzagate. The Hellfire Club is real. And for decades, we've emboldened them considerably.
Remember how Democrats and centrist Republicans mocked conservatives for making such a stink about Monica Lewinsky's blue dress?
The media elite competed to see who could appear the most unfazed by the fact that our sax-playing president was getting a bit on
the side. "I mean, heh heh, I love my wife, but, heh, the 1950s called, man! They want their morality police back."
Well, look where that got us. Two confirmed adulterers have occupied the White House in living memory; both are now under fire
for cavorting with a child sex slaver on Orgy Island. Go ahead and act surprised, Renault.
♦♦♦
Surely I'm not the only one who noticed that the Epstein sex abuse timeline is nearly identical to the Catholic Church sex abuse
timeline. Both investigations were initiated in the early 2000s. Both revealed that the exploitation of children was an open secret
in the highest echelons of power. Both investigations were closed a few years later, though not resolved. We assumed justice would
take its course, and slowly began to forget. And then within two years of each other, both scandals emerged again, more sordid than
ever. And on both occasions, we realized that nothing had changed.
Whew. Now I get why people become communists. Not the new-wave, gender-fluid, pink-haired Trots, of course. Nor the new far Left,
which condemns child predators like Epstein out one side of its mouth while
demanding
sympathy for pedophiles out the other.
No: I mean the old-fashioned, blue-collar, square-jawed Stalinists. I mean the guy with eight fingers and 12 kids who saw photos
of the annual Manhattan debutantes' ball, felt the rumble in his stomach, and figured he may as well eat the rich.
Of course, we know where that leads us. For two centuries, conservatives have tried to dampen the passions that led France to
cannibalize herself circa 1789.
Nevertheless, those passions weren't illegitimate -- they were just misdirected. Only an Englishman like Edmund Burke could have
referred to the reign of Louis XIV as "the age of chivalry." Joseph de Maistre spoke for real French conservatives when he said
the decadent, feckless aristocracy deserved to be guillotined. The problem is, Maistre argued, there was no one more suitable to
succeed them.
Yes: those passions are legitimate. We should feel contempt for our leaders when we discover that two presidents cavorted
with Epstein, almost certainly aware that he preyed on minors. We should feel disgust at the
mere
possibility that Pope Francis rehabilitated Theodore McCarrick. And we should be furious that these injustices haven't even
come close to being properly redressed.
"Us Democrats"??? This isn't about politics. This is about common decency and respect for the most vulnerable. Clinton? Trump?
Who cares? If--and that's a big "if"--it comes to pass that either or both were involved in the Epstein festivities then either
or both are scum and should be punished accordingly --along with the rest of their playmates at the Epstein playground.
The only question is whether or not those who participated in this apparent debauch will ever be brought to justice--so,
on that note--let the dissembling begin!
Does the author have some evidence to prove that President Trump is a pedophile, as he suggests in this article? Are all
persons who may have been friends with Epstein perverts and criminals?
You are as my grandfather told me repeatedly: "You are your associates & colleagues, their morality or lack thereof, will
in time infect you as well, despite all protests to the contrary; choose wisely."
If our decadent elite falls at all, it will be from imperial over-reach and losing a major foreign war, not from pedophilia,
which is rapidly being normalized along with the rest of LGBTQWERTYUIOP.
In France, the generation of aristocrats and especially
the royal family who were guillotined were relatively conservative in their sexual habits compared to the bloodthirsty sexual
revolutionaries who murdered them. And the libertine aristocrats of Great Britain (I believe that's where the actual hellfire
club was from) led the war against Napoleon and the temporary victory of the old order which followed his defeat.
The so called elites seem above reproach. Our morality has been skewed through the soul. Tribalism is alive and well. Wars,
diversity, erasing of our most cherished values, and a mainstream media that is in lockstep the rulers and those who see fit
to erase Freedom of Speech and make arbitrarily decisions as to what we can and cannot say. It is like living a bad dream.
I
applaud the courageous outliers like Ryan Dawson and Phil Giraldi that have considerably more guts than me. Blessings
It's the mainstream media that forced this into the light. The elites and the justice system did all they could to cover
it up, same as with the Catholic Church.
As for "our most cherished virtues", this has all been going on forever. Kings and courtiers, masters and slaves, the son
of the manor and the serving girls. Give me a break.
The only thing that is changing it is a shift in power to women.
"Paederasty" is better reserved for relationships between patrician
men, and boys, in which there was an expectation that the boy would
eventually approximate the social rank of his lover. Not to be applied
to a man running a little-girl brothel.
In UK thousands of girls were raped and nobody lost their job over it. Well, correction, people who tried to bring attention
to the horrific crimes happening lost their jobs or were prosecuted. After the scandal could no longer be contained and arrests
were finally made, there was no reckoning. No people marching in the streets, demanding heads of the goverment. I don't think
there is going to be a revolution, whether in UK or US, at most people would be outraged for couple of weeks and then forget.
Or might possibly be that upon examination, it became abundantly clear that the allegations were highly exaggerated as is
typically the case in these matters.
It might be a good idea to keep a clear head and hope that evidence "actual evidence" will determine events as opposed to
the salacious hysetria that usually surrounds these cases.
"...the decadent, feckless aristocracy deserve to be guillotined. The problem is...there is no one suitable to replace them."
100%. And I work as a psychiatric RN in a busy Emergency Room. Believe me, depravity in this country is not in the least
bit confined to 'elites'. They just make convenient scapegoats. I can tell you hundreds of stories. But conservatively, I would
estimate that anywhere from 50% to 75% of the women I care for were abused as children. And I have cared for literally thousands
of women over the years.
"This is how revolutions are born."
Not so fast. The French peasants were rioting over bread, not aristocratic decadence. In 21st Century America, no one is
starving. The poor in this country are obese, for Chr-sakes! And half the country is implicated in so-called 'aristocratic decadence',
through online porn.
And like John Lennon once wrote, "You say you want a revolution?" Be careful what you wish for...
Prosecutors will tiptoe around anything that puts them in an awkward position vis-a-vis the rich and powerful.
These are people that prosecutors want to owe you favors, and these are also people that can ruin the lives and career prospects
of law enforcement.
This explains why, to give instance, Comey engaged in comically tortured legal reasoning to justify not bringing charges
against HRC for servergate, when she would be cooling her heels in a SuperMax if she were a normie. According to conventional
wisdom, HRC was going to be the next president, already anointed practically, and that meant that she was someone that would
be in a position to do Comey big favors, and at the same time, someone that you did not want to make an enemy of.
Excellent article. But off the mark on one key point. The corruption of the elites and Ruling Class -- and they are sickeningly
corrupt -- is only a reflection of, or if you will a leading indicator, of a related corruption of the body politic.
The Clintons, for example, have been getting away with sordid and even criminal behavior for a long time. It didn't stop
a major political party from putting one of them at the top of its presidential ticket only a few years ago nor a majority of
voters from pulling the lever for her.
In fact, going back to the Lewinsky saga, it was not only the elites who pooh-poohed the whole thing; it was also the citizenry.
Check the record. Yeah, the Clintons are Exhibit A of the Real Problem. Anyway, there ain't gonna be a revolution, at least
not the kind that Michael Warren Davis warns of.
"In fact, going back to the Lewinsky saga, it was not only the elites who pooh-poohed the whole thing; it was also the citizenry.
Check the record. "
The equivalent today would have been if Mueller's replacement spent a few more years 'investigating' Trump, only to set him
up with a perjury trap over whether or not he committed adultery.
This piece at the very least is not well researched hit piece on Trump but seems more to be a rabble rousing class warfare
type click bait filler. James Patterson reports that Trump kicked Epstein out of Maro-a-Lago 15 years ago after there were complaints
that he was abusive to women and more recently has said he is not a fan of Epstein. I've seen no evidence that Trump participated
in the abuse of underage girls with Epstein. Trump is no saint but sensationalizing this story and implicating Trump to sell
your copy is not journalism.
So Trump simply makes a comment, has no record of any flights, attendance or participation and this article would have you
believe that it equates as despicable as a frequent flyer on the Lolita Express? This author is no different than the fake news.
And it was a comment made three years before the first known report to police about Epstein's behavior.
I read Trump's comment as Trump being Trump. Unless he is responding to a personal attack, Trump tends to layer on the compliments
and tries to speak positive about people.
Trump did allegedly make one flight on the plane, from the NY area to Florida. No records show him flying to the "orgy island".
Actually, the logs don't show that he was on the plane. Epstein's brother CLAIMS he was on the plane...the most anybody else
has said to support that is that Trump looked at the plane on the ground.
The author throws around "revolution" so casually... The guillotine definitely needs a resurgence; unfortunately, it's not just the aristocracy that needs it; moreover, there
are still none better suited to take over after they chopping has stopped.
And throws without not even a thought but also without care to learn or now.
It is funny that American journo is now invoking Stalin's ghost, but.... Stalinists were COUNTER-revolutionaries.
And he says he is sure he knows who they felt?
.
Inflation, words means nothing today for journos, being merely a click-bait
It's a Trump problem insofar as he continues to defend Acosta. This is the Sec of Labor who effectively let Epstein walk
and who now oversees anti-human trafficking efforts (which he has repeatedly tried to gut the funding for).
Also, Trump supposedly told a campaign aide that he barred Epstein. Perhaps that's true. Hard to know with this inveterate
liar.
Did you see Acosta's press conference? The local State DA wanted to let Epstein walk - on a lesser state charge through a
Grand Jury. Acosta's US Attorney office stepped in to get the charges increased as much as they could so that Epstein would
do SOME jail time and - more importantly - have to register as a sex offender.
Now, should the Feds have interfered in a State case is a matter for another discussion. But Actosta's office did MORE than
what they should and everything they could with the evidence at the time.
As to Trump banning Epstein - it isn't "Trump told some aide", it is in the court records of the trial. Trump was subpoenaed
and talked voluntarily to the attorney for the girls. The attorney for the girls researched it and he says, and it is in the
court record, that Trump banned Epstein.
This is not a "Trump problem" as the media is trying to make it...this is a Dem problem.
I agree. As much as I detest Trump, I don't think that he was involved with Epstein's debauchery. However, I do believe the
women that claim being assaulted, because he is on tape claiming to do what they describe. And there is so many of them. And
he has had multiple documented affairs while married to every one of his wives. But no evidence yet of him with underage girls.
Right, because those Kavanaugh accusers were so credible, right? No evidence, decades later? Nope. Unlike Kavanaugh, Trump
was on a big stage for decades and was a pretty easy target with the tabloids looking for dirt...but none of them came forward.
THAT is your biggest clue that their claims are, as the judge recently said in dismissing one of these laughable cases, ""As
currently stated, the Complaint presents a political lawsuit, not a tort and wages lawsuit,"
Then, of course, the Trump lawyers just released a video of what happened that shows he gave her a peck on the cheek during
a conversation as he was leaving. She lied.
I think some conservative, maybe Rubio, needs to stand up and simply state they are going to lead on this, and then do so.
Simply go after anyone that is involved and make the casual nature of peoples knowledge of this kind of behavior into a something
that has to be repented of.
Trump owes America an apology, reading his comments it is obvious he was aware of, and disapproved of, Epstien proclivities,
but didn't have the guts to stand up. (I do not believe the stories of Trump being involved, but if it turns out I am wrong
on that, fry him )
For a republican leader to stand up as I am suggesting, would force the left to make a decision. Either abandon their current
attitudes towards sexual permissiveness, or defend them. Either way conservatives win.
That comment was from three years before Epstein was charged. But YOUNG does not mean TOO young, always, and Trump was obviously
speaking of what OTHERS say, not what he knew for a fact.
Davis--and many TAC readers--voted for Trump even though the then-candidate sexually assaulted women and got caught bragging
about it.
While I welcome conservatives to the #metoo era, it must be acknowledged that their "outrage" didn't come to life until they
could attach the dirty deeds to Bill Clinton and other "elites" (whatever that overused term means).
No, it came with Weinstein...who proved what Trump ACTUALLY said on the bus to be true. Not that HE, Trump, HAD grabbed women,
but that young women seeking fame would LET the rich and famous grab them. Shortly after we found out that this was true when
we found out about Weinstein and what those young starlets allowed. What people knew, all good Hollywood liberals and Dems,
and LET continue while accepting Weinstein's political contributions and working with him professionally.
Essentially Epstein run a brothel for influential politicians and other stars. Girls were paid so they were hired prostitutes.
That fact that he did it with impunity for so long suggest state sponsorship.
Notable quotes:
"... In fact, the case against Epstein seems so overwhelming that it's already been reported , albeit not confirmed, that his lawyers are seeking a plea bargain. Yet even if Epstein doesn't "flip," it's a cinch that many luminaries -- in politics, business, and entertainment -- will at least be named, if not outright inculpated. ..."
"... Yet perhaps the most aching parallel to Epstein is the NXIUM sex slave case, which has already led to guilty pleas and entangled not only Hollywood stars but also heirs to one of North America's great fortunes, the Bronfmans. ..."
"... In 1944, film legend Charlie Chaplin, too, found himself busted on a Mann Act rap. Chaplin was accused of transporting a young "actress" across state lines; he was acquitted after a sensational trial, but not before it was learned that he had financed his lover's two abortions. Chaplin's career in Hollywood was effectively over. ..."
"... In fact, if one takes all these horrible cases in their totality -- Varsity Blues, NXIUM, Epstein -- one might fairly conclude that the problem is larger than just a few rich and twisted nogoodniks. ..."
"... Hardly. It merely puts it into historical perspective. Epstein is but one of a long line of serial sexual predators through the ages. ..."
"... Biological parentage is no guarantee of virtue towards children. Predatory behaviour towards children is most likely to come from within the family. ..."
"... Bill Clinton had at least 26 international trips on Epstein's private plane, including 18 to Epstein's private Caribbean island, which was reportedly staffed with dozens of underage women, mostly from Latin America. It was referred to as "Orgy Island" or "Pedo Island" by the locals. ..."
"... I disagree show me where the Progressives have any morals after all look at Clinton. Even the so called fake republicans are guilty. Our country is in the toilet . The schools are hotbeds of moral decay teaching kids LGBT sex education etc. ..."
"... Marx himself understood, capitalism is a fundamentally chaotic, disruptive, even revolutionary force that destroys everything that conservatives value the most (and want to "conserve.") The free-market fundamentalism that so many conservatives accept as gospel truth really is nothing more than a "false consciousness." ..."
"... If ever a situation called for rendition, this is it. I've been following this since 2007, and my intuition tells many more important people are involved than those we know. ..."
"... Be very skeptical. Why is DOJ suddenly resurrecting a case that was settled 10 years ago? I can't help to wonder if this isn't yet another part of the coup attempt. ..."
"... Trump also gave other evidence and information he had gleaned to prosecutors during the first Epstien trial. ..."
"... We should point this out as often as possible because liberal media is trying to smear Trump by including his name next to Epstien in every article. ..."
Jeffrey Epstein's trial may do what no other could: Bring populists and progressives together against predatory elites.
By JAMES P. PINKERTON •
July 10, 2019
Jeffrey Epstein mugshot (public domain)
The legal proceedings against financier Jeffrey Epstein are going to be spectacular. The sober-minded New York Times is
already running
headlines such as "Raid on Epstein's Mansion Uncovered Nude Photos of Girls," describing the victims as "minors, some as young
as 14." So, yes, this story is going to be, well, lit .
Epstein is the pluperfect "Great White Defendant," to borrow the phrase from Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities.
In Epstein's case, even the left, normally indulgent on crime, is going to be chanting: lock him up.
In fact, the case against Epstein seems so overwhelming that it's already been
reported , albeit not confirmed, that
his lawyers are seeking a plea bargain. Yet even if Epstein doesn't "flip," it's a cinch that many luminaries -- in politics, business,
and entertainment -- will at least be named, if not outright inculpated.
Which is to say, the Epstein case is shaping up as yet another lurid look at the lifestyles of the rich, famous, and powerful,
sure to boil the blood of populists on the right and class warriors on the left. In this same vein, one also thinks of the "Varsity
Blues" college admissions scandal, as well as the post-Harvey Weinstein #MeToo movement.
Yet perhaps the most aching parallel to Epstein is the
NXIUM sex slave case, which has already led to guilty pleas and entangled not only Hollywood stars but also heirs to one of
North America's great fortunes, the Bronfmans.
In that NXIUM case, it's hard not to notice the similarity between "NXIUM" and "Nexum," which was the ancient Roman word for
personal debt bondage -- that is, a form of slavery.
The Romans, of course, were big on conquest and enslavement, and such aggression always had a sexual dimension, as has been the
case, of course, for all empires, everywhere. Thus we come to a consistent theme across human history, namely the importation of
pretty young things from the provinces for the lecherous benefit of the rich and powerful.
It's believed that Saint Gregory the Great, the pope in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, gazed upon English boys at
a Roman slave market and remarked, non Angli, sed angeli, si forent Christiani ; that is, "They are not Angles, but angels,
if they were Christian." Gregory's point was that such lovely beings needed to be converted to Christianity, although, of course,
others had, and would continue to have, other intentions.
If we fast-forward a thousand years or so, we see another kind of enslavement, resulting, at least in part, from profound economic
inequality. William Hogarth's famous prints , "A
Harlot's Progress," follow the brief life of the fictive yet fetching Moll Hackabout, who comes from the provinces to London seeking
employment as a seamstress -- only to end up as a kept woman, then as a prostitute, before dying of syphilis.
Interestingly, a traditional song about descent into earthly hell, "House of the Rising Sun,"
made popular again in the '60s , also makes reference
to past honest work in the garment trade -- "my mother was a tailor."
If we step back and survey civilization's sad saga of exploitation, we see that it occurs under all manner of political and economic
systems, from feudalism to capitalism to, yes, communism. As for ravenous reds, there's the notorious case of Stalinist apparatchik
Lavrenti Beria, whom one chronicler
says enjoyed "a Draculean sex life that combined love, rape, and perversity in almost equal measure."
In the face of such a distressing litany, it's no wonder that there have been periodic reactions, some of them violent and extreme,
such as the original "bonfire of the vanities" back in the 15th century, led by the zealously puritanical cleric, Savonarola.
Yet for most of us, it's more cheering to think that prudential reform can succeed. One landmark of American reform was the
White-Slave Traffic Act , signed into law in 1910
("white slavery," we might note, is known today as "sex trafficking"). That law, aimed at preventing not only prostitution but also
"debauchery," is known as the Mann Act in honor of its principal author, Representative James R. Mann, Republican of Illinois, who
served in Congress from 1897 to 1922.
Mann's career mostly coincided with the presidential tenures of two great reformers, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. And
it's hard to overstate just how central to progressive thinking was the combatting of "vice." After all, if the goal was to create
a just society, it also had to be a wholesome society; otherwise no justice could be sustainable. Thus when Roosevelt served
as police commissioner of New York City in the mid-1890s, he focused on fighting vice, rackets, and corruption.
Of course, Mann, Roosevelt, and Wilson had much more on their minds than just cleaning up depravity. They saw themselves as reformers
across the board; that is, they were eager to improve economic conditions as well as social ones.
So it was that Mann also co-authored the Mann-Elkins
Act , further regulating the railroads; he also spearheaded the
Pure Food and Drug Act
, creating the FDA. It's interesting that when Mann died in 1922, The New York Times ran an entirely admiring
obituary , recalling him as "a dominating figure in the House [a] leader in dozens of parliamentary battles." In other words,
back then, the Times was fully onboard with full-spectrum cleanup, on the Right as well as the Left.
To be sure, the Mann Act hardly eradicated the problem of sex-trafficking, just as Mann's other legislative efforts did not put
an end to abuses in transportation and in foods and drugs. However, we can say that Mann made things better .
Of course, the Mann Act has long been controversial. Back in 1913, the African-American boxer Jack Johnson was convicted according
to its provisions. (Intriguingly, in 2018, Johnson was posthumously
pardoned
by President Trump.)
In 1944, film legend Charlie Chaplin, too, found himself busted on a Mann Act rap. Chaplin was accused of transporting a
young "actress" across state lines; he was acquitted after a sensational trial, but not before it was learned that he had financed
his lover's two abortions. Chaplin's career in Hollywood was effectively over.
Cases such as these made the Mann Act distinctly unpopular in "sophisticated" circles. Of course, criticism from the smart set
is not the same as proof that the law is not still valuable. That's why, more than a century after its passage, the Mann Act is
still on the books, albeit much amended. Lawmakers agree that it's still necessary, because, after all, there's always a need to
protect women
from wolves .
Now back to Epstein. If we learn that he was actually running something called the "Lolita Express," that would be a signal that
prosecutors have a lot of work to do, rounding up the pedophile joyriders. So it was interesting on July 6 to see Christine Pelosi,
daughter of the House speaker, posting a stern
tweet : "This Epstein case is horrific and the young women deserve justice. It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated
but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may -- whether on Republicans or Democrats."
So we can see: the younger Pelosi wants one standard -- a standard that applies to all.
In fact, if one takes all these horrible cases in their totality -- Varsity Blues, NXIUM, Epstein -- one might fairly conclude
that the problem is larger than just a few rich and twisted nogoodniks.
That is, the underlying issues of regional and social inequality -- measured in power as well as wealth -- must be addressed.
To put the matter another way, we need a bourgeoisie that is sturdier economically and more sure of itself culturally. Only then
will we have Legions of Decency and other
Schlafly-esque activist groups to function as counterweights to a corrosive and exploitative culture.
Of course, as TR and company knew, if we seek a better and more protective American equilibrium, a lot will have to change --
and not just in the culture.
Most likely, a true solution will have "conservative" elements, as in social and cultural norming, and "liberal" elements, as
in higher taxes on city slickers coupled with conscious economic development for the proletarians and for the heartland. Only with
these economic and governmental changes can we be sure that it's possible to have a nice life in Anytown, safely far away from beguiling
pleasuredomes.
To be sure, we can't expect ever to solve all the troubles of human nature -- including the rage for fame that drives some youths
from the boondocks. But we can at least bolster the bourgeois alternative to predatory Hefnerism.
In the meantime, unless we can achieve such structural changes, rich and powerful potentates will continue to pull innocent angels
into their gilded dens of iniquity.
James P. Pinkerton is an author and contributing editor at . He served as a White House policy aide to both Presidents
Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
"Most likely, a true solution will have "conservative" elements, as in social and cultural norming, and "liberal" elements,
as in higher taxes on city slickers coupled with conscious economic development for the proletarians and for the heartland."
Neither of which will happen with the blue megacities having political control.
"(T)here's always a need to protect women from wolves." It should be noted that boys who are sex-trafficked also fall under
the Mann Act. This may not be clear from Wikipedia.
Wow! What a wonderful article! The compassion for the young victims just jumps off the screen along with the disgust at the
corruption that has allowed this predator to damage so many lives over at least three decades.
No, the fact is that your dispassionate, detached, political assessment objectifies and dehumanizes the girls that
were abused by Epstein and by the stupidly named "justice system" and reflects the obnoxious rot at the root of our society
when it comes to the abuse of women and children.
When it comes right down to it, this doesn't really matter to you, it is just another political amusement.
"Most likely, a true solution will have "conservative" elements, as in social and cultural norming, and "liberal" elements,
as in higher taxes on city slickers coupled with conscious economic development for the proletarians and for the heartland.
Only with these economic and governmental changes can we be sure that it's possible to have a nice life in Anytown, safely far
away from beguiling pleasuredomes."
Liberal "social and cultural norming" (as in feminism, consent, discussion of sexual matters (gasp!) in the public sphere,
#MeToo, etc.) is what is making a difference more because such things are encouraging victims and giving them support. The (cough)
"justice" system needs reform so that rape kits get processed, victims are listened to instead of shamed, cases are actually
investigated, rapists aren't let off because "he comes from a good family" etc. The Nevada Legislature with it's recent legislation
is leading the way, because it has a female majority. THAT is what will change things FINALLY.
His "historical perspective" is just more of the same sh*t we have heard for millennia as are his prescriptions for solutions.
A key conclusion of the article is that Epstein and other recent scandals about the abuse of power mean "issues of regional
and social inequality -- measured in power as well as wealth -- must be addressed."
So if all regions and all social classes were equal, this would go away? First, gifts have always been and will always be
distributed unequally, so this egalitarian utopia will never be obtained -- leading to the indefinite justification "we have
more work to do" to force people and society into an unattainable intellectual ideal, and justifying endless injustices in the
process. Second, the article itself points out that the Soviets who ostensibly pursued an egalitarian state had a famous abuser
among the ranks of their political bosses (and likely had others we don't known about).
Ultimately, kids are best cared for and defended in family with their biological parents -- the very unit of society that's
been under unceasing attack for decades. Support the family and support small business which is responsible for something like
80% of new jobs created in the US. Then vigorously enforce the laws that are already on the books. A key problem with Epstein
was the law was for years or decades not enforced against him, I strongly suspect because he had very highly placed political
connections, probably several of which were sexually abusing young girls (and/or boys?) Epstein "introduced" them to. What amount
of social engineering or experimentation is going to eliminate that kind of political corruption? I highly doubt any will. Once
it's discovered, everyone involved should be prosecuted and exposed -- and any other cases of sex slavery rings discovered in
the process likewise have all their members prosecuted & exposed.
Lavrenti Beria as the prescient symbol of Soviet Babbitry v. worldwide immorality! So was Ernst Rohm! Thank god for the KGB
and SS as harbingers of true moral concern over sex abuse!
"Ultimately, kids are best cared for and defended in family with their biological parents "
LMAO. Historically the family and biologoical parents were part and parcel in many of the deals involved with these trades.
Biological parentage is no guarantee of virtue towards children. Predatory behaviour towards children is most likely
to come from within the family. I can't remember the family name but there was a family that made a big thing of their
"Proper Christian Family" even while one son was abusing his younger sister/s and the Parents protected and shielded him.
"In Epstein's case, even the left, normally indulgent on crime, is going to be chanting: lock him up." - You almost lost
me on that one. The Left is not normally 'indulgent on crime'. However, The Left is resistant to making 'immorality' (pot smoking,
sodomy, gambling, gay marriage, etc) criminal, given how driving 'vice' underground and making it illegal has unintended consequences
(such as creating the mafia and Latin American drug cartels) that are worse than 'the crime', but I decided to read on.
"That is, the underlying issues of regional and social inequality -- measured in power as well as wealth -- must be addressed."
- All in for that one. Glad to see your 'wokeness'. Please send a check to Bernie.
"In the meantime, unless we can achieve such structural changes, rich and powerful potentates will continue to pull innocent
angels into their gilded dens of iniquity" - Like Donald Trump, Roger Ailes, Roy Moore, David Vitter, Dennis Hastert, Chris
Collins, Duncan Hunter, Michael Grimm, and on and on.
The Democrats have shown they are more than willing to ostracize members of their own team (Al Franken) for alleged and actual
wrongdoing. The Republicans, not so much, since they usually overlook all kinds of deviance if a politically expedient. Such
as Tim Murphy from PA and Scott DesJarlais from TN, both married 'anti-abortion' zealots caught urging their mistresses to have
abortions.
"The Democrats have shown they are more than willing to ostracize members of their own team (Al Franken) for alleged
and actual wrongdoing."
Like Bill Clinton. The same Team D Wokemon champions who insisted that any form of sexual or romantic contact between a male
supervisor and a female subordinate was by definition sexual harassment suddenly changed their tune when Bill Clinton was the
supervisor.
Not only that, but they came up with the most hilarious tortured redefinitions of "perjury" in order to justify their hero.
For the record: I am not a Team R fan either, but I am not so naive as to think the problem is limited to one team.
It is not. Bill Clinton was a cad. No doubt. But I find it very interesting that Juanita Broaddick recanted her allegations
against Clinton when Ken Starr put her under oath.
The only outrage Democrats will actually express over Epstein is to again tar and feather Trump in the usual fashion: Nibble
at the toes of hapless political operatives and bureaucrats like Acosta, and then accuse the President of colluding in his own
purported ignorance and self-enrichment.
There is an elephant in the room I think many conservatives are ignoring right now. A real big one...
"President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the 66-year-old hedge fund manager charged this week with sex trafficking and
conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, were the only other attendees to a party that consisted of roughly two dozen women at
his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, according to a New York Times report."
"In 1992, the women were reportedly flown in for a "calendar girl" competition that was requested by Trump, The Times said.
"At the very first party, I said, 'Who's coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming,'" former Trump associate George Houraney
reportedly said. "It was him and Epstein."
"I said, 'Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPs. You're telling me it's you and Epstein," he recalled saying."
"Houraney claimed to have warned Trump about Epstein's behavior and said the real estate tycoon did not heed his notice.
Houraney, a businessman, reportedly said Trump "didn't care" about how he had to ban Epstein from his events."
This is an old elephant. It raised its head during the campaign and did not make much in the way of waves. Will it come back
to bite the president today -- one hopes that its all rumor hearsay and gossip.
I am willing to grant that the president may have been a "masher" in his day. Whether that means relations with children
is another matter.
Bill Clinton had at least 26 international trips on Epstein's private plane, including 18 to Epstein's private Caribbean
island, which was reportedly staffed with dozens of underage women, mostly from Latin America. It was referred to as "Orgy Island"
or "Pedo Island" by the locals.
One is a retired politician. The other is the current POTUS. If Bill is guilty, lock him up. If Trump is guilty - we need
to know ASAP and he can no longer be the president.
If Jeffery Epstein is such a monster then what is one to make of a man who has been quoted as saying "You can do what ever
you want, grab them by the *****." and then during a presidential debate shamelessly state "I have great respect for women.
Nobody has more respect for women than I do."?
Laughing good grief --- First I have to get passed the suggestion that guys bragging nonsensically about their female conquests
is the same hiring teens to for relations.
Good grief . . . these types of issues are ripe for hysterics.
excuse my politically incorrect suggestion of making the categorical distinctions
I disagree show me where the Progressives have any morals after all look at Clinton. Even the so called fake republicans
are guilty. Our country is in the toilet . The schools are hotbeds of moral decay teaching kids LGBT sex education etc.
Cultural Marxism is at play and next they will soften up and normalize pedophile. As far as the women's movement they are bitter
progressives who on there Facebook moaning about how they make less money then men. Who is taking of the kids? There are no
real men any more they have become boys!! Sex is every where and no one cares they all going along with the new world order!
You forgot to mention our current thrice divorced President who cheats on his wife with porn stars and pays them to stay
quiet. Strong moral leadership....
If this happened, my faith in the "rule of law" and in prosecutors and law enforcement treating everyone equally might be
restored. But, alas, we all know this is not going to happen.
"...the younger Pelosi wants one standard -- a standard that applies to all."
Don't we all. But if history teaches us anything it teaches that the higher up the socioeconomic food chain we go, the more
"flexible" that standard becomes.
So we'll see about Epstein--and all the other big shots who were in on this debauch.
"...the younger Pelosi wants one standard -- a standard that applies to all."
Does she want that single standard to apply to people that flaunt our laws by having, say, a clandestine and illegal email
server that was used for classified correspondence?
Mr. Pinkerton apparently (like many) needs to learn what the definition of pedophile is (hint: It's doesn't mean any and
all sex under he legal age of consent). However illegal (to say nothing of distasteful and immoral) Epstein's actions may have
been, based on the claims I've seen, he is not a pedophile.
I also find it hard to believe that Clinton and others didn't know. Rumours of Epstein's proclivities, and his plane being
called "Lolita Express," have been around for along-time, but Epstein has been protected by his connections and wealth. Clinton
flew nearly 30 times on Epstein's private jet. Is he the only person in the world who never heard the stories about him? What
did he know and when did he know it?
If you're asking that question about Clinton- a 90s has-been politician whose own party has moved on past him, then I hope
you're also asking it about the current president who was also a bosom buddy to Epstein.
According to flight manifests, Trump flew one time, from New York to Palm Beach, on Epstein's plane. Clinton took at least
26 international trips on the Lolita Express, including 18 trips to Epstein's private Caribbean island, where he supposedly
had dozens of underage women from Latin America kept. The locals referred to it at 'Orgy Island" and "Pedo Island". We're not
exactly comparing apples to apples here, are we?
Compare the Mueller soap opera. The characters in that story were sleazy international fixers and blackmailers who worked
for everyone. Same type as Epstein. They worked for KGB, CIA, Clinton, Trump, Mossad, Saudi. Despite the universality of the
crimes, Mueller meticulously "saw" only the crimes that involved Trump and Russia. FBI always works that way. Any accusation
or evidence that doesn't fit the predefined story disappears.
Muller had a specific investigatory mission. He was not empowered to look into every government scandal since Alexander Hamilton
was blackmailed by Maria Reynolds.
Part of what doomed the post-WWII "Right" was the "fusionism" between conservatism and capitalism. While the latter got real
policy results, the former was merely pandered to during elections but otherwise ignored. As a result, leftists and centrists
mistakenly came to believe that being "right-wing" means being a corporate shill lobbying to cut taxes for the rich and pay
for it by cutting programs for the poor.
At the same time,
as Marx himself understood, capitalism is a fundamentally chaotic, disruptive, even revolutionary force that destroys
everything that conservatives value the most (and want to "conserve.") The free-market fundamentalism that so many conservatives
accept as gospel truth really is nothing more than a "false consciousness."
Many traditionalists (such as Russell Kirk) resisted fusionism for placing too much emphasis on markets and not enough on
the conservative commitment "to religious belief, to national loyalty, to established rights in society, and to the wisdom
of our ancestors." And many libertarians (such as F.A. Hayek) explicitly rejected conservatism for being too nationalistic
and hostile toward open systems.
If conservatives want any political future in this country, then they're going to have to "de-fuse," so to speak, with capitalism,
which has been exploiting their support in order to advance policies against their own interests and values. If
"Woke Capitalism" isn't the final straw, then what will it take? Conservatives could learn a lot from the Progressive Movement
of the 1890s-1920s, which despite its name was far more conservative than the David-Frenchist National Review is nowadays.
Indeed, the Progressives' reformist playbook (which recognized that the rapid changes brought by industrialization, immigration,
and urbanization had caused corruption, poverty, and vice) could and should be dusted off for today.
As far as Epstein goes, I'm rather pessimistic that he'll ever be punished and that the public will ever learn the full extent
of his crimes. While Nancy Pelosi's daughter may be principled (and good for her), the fact that so many wealthy and powerful
people may be incriminated is precisely why he'll be let off easy and the evidence will be covered up, just like last time.
I have zero confidence in our justice system, particularly in the hyper-politicized SDNY.
If ever a situation called for rendition, this is it. I've been following this since 2007, and my intuition tells many
more important people are involved than those we know. Anyone involved would be terrified; they'll have to break someone
to get the facts. As someone who was almost abducted at age 9, I say get on it.
Be very skeptical. Why is DOJ suddenly resurrecting a case that was settled 10 years ago? I can't help to wonder if this
isn't yet another part of the coup attempt.
Twisted sisters will do what they do with or without social disparities. All you can do is bury them when you catch them.
If the rich and famous get caught up, no ones fault but their own.
The Mann Act mainly served to enforce Roman Catholic ideas about marriage's being somehow special. The Bible offers no such
thing as an example of a religious marriage, whether Muslim, Catholic or Protestant, unless it be that of Job.
You expect a free pass for this term paper theory that downright American types are going to unite to stop sexual predation,
and their brains will swirl with reminiscences of St. Gregory and Sen. Mann?
I am unaware that Chaplin's career was "effectively over" after his sex trial. Chaplin made "Monsieur Verdoux" in 1947 in
good time after the modern Bluebeard of France, Marcel Petiot made headlines (this predator swindled Jews of safe passage money
out of France, poisoned them, and burned their bodies in his home. No time of reckoning for France or Francophiles here). Five
years later he released "Limelight", which could be called a loving tribute to vaudeville and silent film at the same time (Buster
Keaton appeared, and it is said that many omitted segments were his finest hour in the sound era. Note that financially and
at box office, Keaton was as ruined and burned out as countless others, but was in the end a hard working trouper who even made
it to Samuel Beckett!). Chaplin flagged thereafter, but made films at exactly the pace he wished, as characterized by the slow
linger from "Modern Times" to "The Great Dictator".
Errol Flynn on the other hand was boosted by his sex scandal as alleged with a 15 year old. His release "They Died With Their
Boots On" made reference to the allegation that Flynn was naked except for a pair of boots. And remember the original Hollywood
Confidential scandal that rounded up dozens of celebrities including Lizbeth Scott in a prostitution ring? All forgotten.
So if your going to make big analogies between Hollywood, celebrity, and yet another paroxysm of soon to evaporate Puritan
righteousness, at least know what you're talking about.
For the record, I believe that if Epstein punched 8 years above his weight in his choice of femmes, he might never have been
caught.
The article is way to long and I read the first paragraph and after the words "The sober-minded New York Times" I jumped
to the comments. The headline was enough for me...I agree, Lock Him Up.
"... Bear Stearns -- the bank that had given Mr. Epstein his start -- was still among his investments when the crisis hit. According to a lawsuit he later filed against the bank, Mr. Epstein controlled about 176,000 shares of Bear Stearns, worth nearly $18 million, in August 2007. ..."
"... Mr. Epstein sold 56,000 shares at $101 each that month. He sold the remaining 120,000 shares in March 2008 as the firm was collapsing -- 20,000 at $35 and the rest at $3.04, losing big. He also lost about $50 million in one of Bear's hedge funds. ..."
"... By the time Bear Stearns came apart, Mr. Epstein was at the center of his first abuse case. He pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in 2008, receiving a jail sentence that allowed him to work at home during the day but also required him to register as a sex offender ..."
"... The court document alleges: "Epstein also sexually trafficked the then-minor Jane Doe (a name used in US legal proceedings for people with anonymity), making her available for sex to politically connected and financially powerful people. ..."
"... "Epstein's purposes in 'lending' Jane Doe (along with other young girls) to such powerful people were to ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political, and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information. ..."
"... Journalist George Webb, watch his Youtube channel, has been following Epstein 'activities' for decades, connecting him all the way back to the Bush Sr. and Jr. Boys Town White House peadophile ring. Epstein was the 'go to guy' for rat line trafficking missions, into Kosovo, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, every war zone across the world one can think of, to move dark ops in and out of, closely linked to DynCorp, which core business is 'aviation security services' and infamous for enabling and promoting underage transgressions of all of its personnel in Yugoslavia where Bill Clinton has murdered many thousands unbeknownst to the gullible and rather retarded Americuh public ..."
Jeffrey Epstein's wealth has long been a topic of discussion since becoming known as a 'billionaire pedophile' and other similar
monickers. Described by prosecuitors this week as a "man of nearly infinite means," a
2011 SEC filing has
provided a window into the registered sex offender's elite Wall Street links, according to the
Financial Times .
Epstein, who caught a lucky break tutoring the son of Bear Stearns chairman Alan Greenberg before joining the firm, left the
investment bank in 1981 to set up his own financial firm. While he reportedly managed money for billionaires for decades, most of
Epstein's dealings have been done in the shadows.
A 2011 SEC filing reveals that Epstein's privately held firm, the Financial Trust Company , took a 6.1% stake in Pennsylvania-based
catalytic converter maker Environmental Solutions Worldwide (ESW) backed by Leon Black, the billionaire founder of Apollo Global
Management .
ESW itself has a checkered past. In 2002, its then-chairman Bengt Odner was accused by the SEC of participating with others in
a $15 million "pump and dump" scheme with ESW stock. The case was settled a year later according to FT , with Odner ordered to pay
a $25,000 civil penalty. Of note, ESW accepted Epstein's investment several years after he had registered as a sex offender in a
controversial 2008 plea deal in Florida.
Epstein's connection to Black doesn't stop there - as the financier served as a director on the Leon Black Family Foundation
for over a decade until 2012 according to IRS filings. A spokeswoman for the foundation claims that Epstein had resigned in July
2007, and that his name continued to appear on the IRS filings "due to a recording error" for five years. A 2015 document signed
by Epstein provided to the Financial Times appears to confirm this.
Epstein also built his wealth with Steven J. Hoffenberg and Leslie H. Wexner, the former of whom was convicted of running a giant
Ponzi scheme, and the latter a clothing magnate.
Mr. Epstein's wealth may have depended less on his math acumen than his connections to two men -- Steven J. Hoffenberg, a
onetime owner of The New York Post and a notorious fraudster later convicted of running
a $460 million Ponzi scheme , and Leslie H. Wexner, the billionaire founder of retail chains including The Limited and the
chief executive of the company that owns Victoria's Secret.
Mr. Hoffenberg was Mr. Epstein's partner in two ill-fated takeover bids in the 1980 s, including one of Pan American World
Airways, and would later claim that Mr. Epstein had been part of the scheme that landed him in jail -- although Mr. Epstein
was never charged. With Mr. Wexner, Mr. Epstein formed a financial and personal bond that baffled longtime associates of the
wealthy retail magnate, who was his only publicly disclosed investor. -
New York Times
"I think we both possess the skill of seeing patterns," Wexner told Vanity Fair in 2003. "But Jeffrey sees patterns in politics
and financial markets, and I see patterns in lifestyle and fashion trends."
Those around Wexner were mystified over Wexner's affinity for Epstein.
" Everyone was mystified as to what his appeal was ," said Robert Morosky, a former vice chairman of The Limited. "I checked
around and found out he was a private high school math teacher, and that was all I could find out. There was just nothing there."
As the New York Times
noted on Wednesday, Epstein's "infinite means" may be a mirage, as while he is undoubtedly extremely rich, there is "little
evidence that Mr. Epstein is a billionaire."
While Epstein told potential clients he only accepted investments of $1 billion or more, his investment firm reported having
$88 million in capital from his shareholders, and 20 employees according to a 2002 court filing - far fewer than figures being reported
at the time.
And while most of Epstein's dealings are unknown, his Financial Trust Company also had a $121 million investment in DB Zwirn
& Co, which shuttered its doors in 2008, and had a stake in Bear Stearns's failed High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced
Leverage Fund - the collapse of which helped spark the global financial crisis.
Epstein was hit hard by the financial crisis a decade ago, while allegations of sexual abuse of teenage girls caused many associates
- such as Wexner - to sever ties with him.
Bear Stearns -- the bank that had given Mr. Epstein his start -- was still among his investments when the crisis hit.
According to a lawsuit he later filed against the bank, Mr. Epstein controlled about 176,000 shares of Bear Stearns, worth nearly
$18 million, in August 2007.
Mr. Epstein sold 56,000 shares at $101 each that month. He sold the remaining 120,000 shares in March 2008 as the firm was
collapsing -- 20,000 at $35 and the rest at $3.04, losing big. He also lost about $50 million in one of Bear's hedge funds.
By the time Bear Stearns came apart, Mr. Epstein was at the center of his first abuse case. He pleaded guilty to prostitution
charges in 2008, receiving a jail sentence that allowed him to work at home during the day but also required him to register
as a sex offender. -
New York Times
In trying to determine what Epstein is actually worth, Bloomberg notes that " So little is known about Epstein's current business
or clients that the only things that can be valued with any certainty are his properties. The Manhattan mansion is estimated to
be worth at least $ 77 million , according to a federal document submitted in advance of his bail hearing."
He also has properties in New Mexico, Paris and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he has a private island, and a Palm Beach
estate with an assessed value of more than $12 million . He shuttles between them by private jet and has at least 15 cars, including
seven Chevrolet Suburbans, according to federal authorities. -
Bloomberg
Deutsche Bank, meanwhile,
severed ties with Epstein earlier this year - right as federal prosecutors were preparing to charge him with operating a sex-trafficking
ring of underage girls out of his sprawling homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, according to Bloomberg , citing a person familiar
with the situation. It is unknown how much money was involved or how long Epstein had been a client.
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FKTHEGVNMNT , 1 hour ago
That black book is still missing, it is actually a meticulous journal. His butler who died at 60 due to mesothelioma kept
it as insurance, those snippets was just him saying " I got the goods.
Dr.Strangelove , 1 hour ago
The Feds should do what they did with Al Capone, and put him in the slammer on tax evasion charges. I'm sure Epstein has
reported all of his ill gotten billions to the IRS tax man.....NOT.
CheapBastard , 43 minutes ago
I wonder how many human assets, aka, slave girls, he owns? I guess they could value the slave child based on how much revenue
they brought in.
FKTHEGVNMNT , 2 hours ago
The court document alleges: "Epstein also sexually trafficked the then-minor Jane Doe (a name used in US legal proceedings
for people with anonymity), making her available for sex to politically connected and financially powerful people.
"Epstein's purposes in 'lending' Jane Doe (along with other young girls) to such powerful people were to ingratiate himself
with them for business, personal, political, and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information.
I wonder if Prince Andrew has deleted him from Facebook
marcel tjoeng , 3 hours ago
Journalist George Webb, watch his Youtube channel, has been following Epstein 'activities' for decades, connecting him
all the way back to the Bush Sr. and Jr. Boys Town White House peadophile ring. Epstein was the 'go to guy' for rat line
trafficking missions, into Kosovo, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, every war zone across the world one can think of, to move dark
ops in and out of, closely linked to DynCorp, which core business is 'aviation security services' and infamous for enabling
and promoting underage transgressions of all of its personnel in Yugoslavia where Bill Clinton has murdered many thousands unbeknownst
to the gullible and rather retarded Americuh public.
Trafficking underage girls from Ukraine back and forth to the USA to pimp out to every diplomat from every country that bought
and sold state secrets, flying underage girls to the Middle East to peddle to oil sheiks, involved with obtaining and exchanging
state secrets of for instance American DARPA, the top secret military research giant, to any 'diplomat' connected to the secretive
network of an 'Illuminati' type deep state collusion, the power brokers of war and sex.
The Irgun of Menachem Begin, the Mossad of Moshe Dayan were infamous for their poolside parties where all the jewish female
'pretty' Israeli agents were used and trained to be honey pot sex objects, with mandatory sex orgies that lasted for days, the
worst of a James Bond type environment but without the glitter.
on the contrary, the secret world of parasites that practice and trade in massive scale rape, war, torture, sex aberrations,
***********, blackmail, extortion, paedophilia, child trafficking, international orphan trafficking, drugs, trafficking underage
sex slaves to be used as dolls and much much worse,
that is who is Jeffrey Epstein is.
The front cover of rape, murder and mayhem international Inc., the go-to-boy of sick Wall Street, Washington DC, the CIA,
NSA, Dyncorp, the power brokers within the DNC and the GOP,
all the usual sick subjects whose code mantra is 'we have unlimited funding', which means the FED, Wall Street, the BIS,
the whole of the Central Bank System that originated in Europe in Venice, and then spread to Amsterdam, the Dutch House of Orange,
London, New York, the British paedophile Empire,
Epstein lives in what is reputed to be the largest private dwelling in New Mexico, on an $18 million, 7,500-acre ranch
which he named Zorro.
Jeffrey Epstein's palatial New Mexico home is relatively near to a top military base. The Epstein home is in Stanley
in New Mexico.
Albuquerque now has a variety of Jewish synagogues and a Chabad house.
Mossad sex party, according to former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky
There were about 25 people in and around the pool and none of them had a stitch of clothing on.
The second-in-command of the Mossad -- today, he is the head -- was there.
Hessner. Various secretaries. It was incredible. Some of the men were not a pretty sight, but most of the girls were
quite impressive. I must say they looked much better than they did in uniform! Most of them were female soldiers assigned
to the office, and were only 18 or 20 years old.
Some of the partiers were in the water playing, some were dancing, others were on blankets to the left and the right
having a fine old time vigorously screwing each other right there...
It was the top brass all right, and they were swapping partners. It really shook me. That's sure not what you expect.
You look at these people as heroes, you look up to them, and then you see them having a sex party by the pool.
-- Ostrovsky, Victor, By Way of Deception, (1990), pg. 96
ReflectoMatic , 2 hours ago
Because what George Webb is saying is so important in expanding the scope of understanding what is going on:
George Webb on youtube
JSBach1 , 3 hours ago
Researcher Wayne Madsen: Trump's Connection to Epstein Needs to Be Exposed
I like Miles' work a lot, but I don't always agree with the results of his studies. There are a great many fabricated events.
Events like those are cover for other very real events. The clowns will fake (or real) blow up townships just to prevent a case
from going to trial or getting news feed, OKC comes to mind. And there's always more than one reason for it behind the BS cover
story. It's tactical. Ep is just another arm of the octopus: Ep is definitely a middle man, a bag man, a front man, an intel
asset (for several agancies no doubt) and he got his cover job as a "financier" along with a client that got rich selling women's
underwear and kids clothes as whitewash. A guy who wrote a paper on how America perceives Israel and how to influence that perception.
That is the definition of magic and it's intel.
Ep definitely uses his own product... He had to be sure he could bounce those children off his clients, for one. Years of
grooming, investing in an asset, categorizing each one. It's an industry, for sure. I don't think the numbers are fabricated.
I don't think his black book was fabricated. Bloomberg was in there, btw, along with Bronfman, and Murdoch. The remoteness of
7500 acres in New Mexico, an Island, the planes, all neon signs that say "SECRET". But, you have to recruit from large population
areas to find suitable victims, er, individuals. I think it's more likely that this is real world and not a manufactured event.
Look: there are theories. I collect theories. Miles is a great researcher and he makes distinctions and observations that
are all very good. Reading him, I throw a lot of theories and music and vomit in the trash after. But when you peel back all
the fake events... the "Kansas"... One day Kansas is gone. Once and for all. What's left is this: there's some very real ****
on the down-low going on that has, until now, been permitted and some people who liked it that way are gonna be on the news
for it. Pelosi's kid tweeted it. What about, say, what might a sheriff of a certain New Mexico county know? Santa Fe is totally
compromised because it's an "Art" hub, for one. The unincorporated location is called "Stanley" which ought to ring bells. Right
by a military base, Kirtland and Los Alamos Demo Army base, god knows what else. It's the perfect M.O. of the fake events Miles
writes about. Miles sees patterns.
There is everything that is not real, and then there is everything that is real. For me it comes down to the Cartesian Brain
in a Vat theory, that, indeed, is "the Matrix" pop culture go-to of today, err, 20 years ago. Red pilled means you can't go
back. Get blue pilled you Get woke and go broke. It doesn't mean that everything is fake, but for all I know 2012 was real and
we live on this timeline now and maybe I am a brain in a vat. So cogito ergo sum. And that is kind of a statement of faith or
belief. It's the deep irony of philosophy. It's the glitch.
Ep is not the psyop. He's the guy you do the psyop to cover up. It's a better question to ask what generation MK Ultra are
we on? What subset? What might Cathy O'Brien have to say about it? Don't flame the victims, or make Miles look stupid because
you think it's all fake. Andrew Breitbart didn't think this **** was fake and he's dead. God bless him.
Theosebes Goodfellow , 3 hours ago
~Those around Wexner were mystified over Wexner's affinity for Epstein.~
Apparently those around Wexner were not familiar with the term "fourteen year-old spinner".
Lumberjack , 3 hours ago
...
Dershowitz was one of several heavy-hitters on Epstein's first legal defense team. Epstein's lead attorney in the Florida
case was Jack Goldberger, who now represents New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. His legal team also included Roy Black,
Jay Lefkowitz, Gerald Lefcourt, former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis and Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor who investigated Bill
Clinton's sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Asked why he took Epstein as a client, given the unsavory nature of his alleged crimes, Dershowitz stated bluntly, "That's
what I do."
"I take controversial cases and I will continue to do so," he told Sinclair Broadcast Group in a Tuesday interview. "I defended
Jeff Epstein for the same reason John Adams defended the people accused of the Boston Massacre
On that note, Schumer said he'll give the money he received to help children and women.
I'd bet twice that amount it goes to Israeli causes. Not to real victims and the kahkzucker gets another nice write off.
Epstein's intel connections must be brought forth. My guess is when Kraft got busted that there were really big names that
are still being hidden. A long time and VERY TRUSTED ZH member that I know a bit and collaborated a bit with on the Linda Green
fiasco caught on and commented about it including providing solid evidence.
Maybe they should stop blaming Iran and Russia and look at Linda herself.
"... As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... "The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy with Russia against his own country." ..."
"... Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). ..."
"... Mr. McGovern you are right in your analysis. Obama is in this up to his neck, however there will be a limited investigation at best because the Jews and Israel don't want this. They are involved and a real investigation would show what control they have over the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... The world is controlled by the Corporate Fascist Military-Intelligence Police State in which governments are nothing more than Proxies with Intelligence Agencies who work against the average citizen and for the Corporations. Politicians like Trump are nothing more than figureheads who must "Toe the Line" or else. ..."
As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees
prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being
drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top
Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic
public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA.
"There is no doubt to me there was severe, serious abuses that were carried out in the FBI
and, I believe, top levels of the CIA against the President of the United States or, at that
time, presidential candidate Donald Trump," according to The Hill.
King (image on the right), a senior congressman specializing in national security, twice
chaired the House Homeland Security Committee and currently heads its Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He also served for several years on the House Intelligence
Committee.
He asserted:
"There was no legal basis at all for them to begin this investigation of his campaign
– and the way they carried it forward, and the way information was leaked. All of this
is going to come out. It's going to show the bias. It's going to show the baselessness of the
investigation and I would say the same thing if this were done to Hillary Clinton or Bernie
Sanders It's just wrong."
The Long Island Republican added a well aimed swipe at what passes for the media today:
"The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous
thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy
with Russia against his own country."
According to King, the Justice Department's review, ordered by Attorney General William Barr
, would prove that former officials acted improperly. He was alluding to the investigation led
by John Durham , U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. Sounds nice. But waiting for Durham to complete
his investigation at a typically lawyerly pace would, I fear, be much like the experience of
waiting for Mueller to finish his; that is, like waiting for Godot. What about now?
So Where is the IG Report on FISA?
That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his
report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan , former FBI Director
James Comey , former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe , former Deputy Attorneys General Sally
Yates and Rod Rosenstein , and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA
applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at
last report, he is FBI General Counsel!).
The DOJ inspector General's investigation, launched in March 2018, has centered on whether
the FBI and DOJ filing of four FISA applications and renewals beginning in October 2016 to
surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page amounted to abuse of the FISA process.
(Fortunately for the IG, Obama's top intelligence and law enforcement officials were so sure
that Hillary Clinton would win that they did not do much to hide their tracks.)
The Washington Examiner
reported last Tuesday, "The Justice Department inspector general's investigation of
potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is complete, a Republican
congressman said, though a report on its findings might not be released for a month." The
report continued:
"House Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R, Texas) said Monday he'd met with DOJ
watchdog Michael Horowitz last week about his FISA abuse report. In a media interview,
Ratcliffe said they'd discussed the timing, but not the content of his report and Horowitz
'related that his team's investigative work is complete and they're now in the process of
drafting that report. Ratcliffe said he was doubtful that Horowitz's report would be made
available to the public or the Congress anytime soon. 'He [Horowitz] did relay that as much
as 20% of his report is going to include classified information, so that draft report will
have to undergo a classification review at the FBI and at the Department of Justice,'
Ratcliffe said. 'So, while I'm hopeful that we members of Congress might see it before the
August recess, I'm not too certain about that.'"
Earlier, Horowitz had predicted that his report would be ready in May or June but there may,
in fact, be good reason for some delay. Fox News reported Friday that "key
witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz
(image on the left) early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have
come forward at the 11th hour." According to Fox's sources, at least one witness outside the
Justice Department and FBI has started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Durham was
assigned to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia case that
led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie
investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or
reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge.
Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all
they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former
colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 ,
prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information).
It is far from clear that DOJ IG Horowitz and Attorney General Barr will prevail in the end,
even though President Trump has given Barr nominal authority to declassify as necessary. Why
are the the stakes so extraordinarily high?
What Did Obama Know, and When Did He Know It?
Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of
counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI
Director McCabe, Lisa Page , wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president
"wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that
the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark
about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire
to provide him with "plausible denial."
It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about
the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that
Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort
to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him.
Moreover, one should not rule out seeing in the coming months an "Obama-made-us-do-it"
defense -- whether grounded in fact or not -- by Brennan and perhaps the rest of the gang.
Brennan may even have a piece of paper recording the President's "approval" for this or that --
or could readily have his former subordinates prepare one that appears authentic.
Reining in Devin Nunes
That the Deep State retains formidable power can be seen in the repeated
Lucy-holding-then-withdrawing-the-football-for-Charlie Brown treatment experienced by House
Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, Devin Nunes (R-CA, image on the right). On April 5,
2019, in the apparent belief he had a green light to go on the offensive, Nunes
wrote that committee Republicans "will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous
individuals involved in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be
held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future."
On April 7, Nunes was even more specific, telling Fox News that he was preparing to send
eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice "this week," concerning alleged
misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation, including leaks of "highly classified
material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the FISA court. It seemed to be
no-holds-barred for Nunes, who had begun to
talk publicly about prison time for those who might be brought to trial.
Except for Fox, the corporate media ignored Nunes's explosive comments. The media seemed
smugly convinced that Nunes's talk of "referrals" could be safely ignored -- even though a new
sheriff, Barr, had come to town. And sure enough, now, three months later, where are the
criminal referrals?
There is ample evidence that President Trump is afraid to run afoul of the Deep State
functionaries he inherited. And the Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr
leans hard on the president to unfetter Nunes, IG Horowitz, Durham and like-minded
investigators, all hell may break lose, because the evidence against those who took serious
liberties with the law is staring them all in the face.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to
follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and
prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Mr. McGovern you are right in your analysis. Obama is in this up to his neck, however
there will be a limited investigation at best because the Jews and Israel don't want this.
They are involved and a real investigation would show what control they have over the FBI and
CIA.
Trump by now realizes these agencies can make anything up and the Jewish owned and
controlled media will do their bidding. I have to assume that Trump has come to the
conclusion that he wasn't suppose to win and that the NWO wasn't happy with that because he
stands in their way especially on World Trade and Immigration.
The world is controlled by the Corporate Fascist Military-Intelligence Police State in
which governments are nothing more than Proxies with Intelligence Agencies who work against
the average citizen and for the Corporations. Politicians like Trump are nothing more than
figureheads who must "Toe the Line" or else.
I believe Trump knows he could be assassinated at any time. Obama the "God King" did his
part for NWO and that's why he gets a King's Ransom for his speeches for reading a
teleprompter and banging on his chest and saying, "I did that." What he is really saying is I
did that for you -- now where's my check!
Gabbard is NOT a member of the CFR. She has by her own admission, attended some meetings
as an invited guest. According to her, it was to engage members and find out what their
inside game is. I don't know if Gabbard is for real. I voted for Trump because I perceived
him to be the anti-war and anti-intervention candidate. Period. So, as I said, I don't know
what to think about the lady. I do now understand however, why some individuals in olden
times became hermits.
beemasters , 22 hours ago
Epstein's arrest tells me he's now out for blood.
Dotard has no control over what Epstein will say. Mossad does and it is the one out for
blood.
Justapleb , 22 hours ago
Mike Cernovich got records unsealed that prove Epstein got away with serial raping and
pimping for elites that were then blackmailed.
It is not because Trump is out for blood. It is because nothing could stop the criminal
conduct of prosecutors being exposed.
The #Metoo crowd knew Clinton was a violent rapist, and sent uniformed, armed officers out
to retrieve interns for sex whie governor. Smoking a cigar while having his cigar smoked by
Monica Lewinsky, while talking to a Chinese official on the phone.
So no, this won't do anything but continue proving how the #Metoo movement are just
leftist hypocrites.
ZD1 , 22 hours ago
"The news is speculative about whether Epstein was being protected by Robert Mueller's
special counsel's office, and why the Department of Justice acted now, given that he's been
problematic for years. There's also his role as a bigfoot Democrat donor, same as Ed Buck and
other perverts who've financed the Democrats. But one thing's pretty clear, based on a tweet
by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter Christine: Democrats knew.
All kinds of Democrats are going to be found in Epstein's little black book of clients,
not just Bill Clinton.
President Trump, by contrast, banned the pervert from his Mar-a-Lago club years ago. So
much for pinning the scandal on Trump as Democrats had hoped."
The photo provides further proof of Epstein and his associates' close ties to the Clinton
dynasty.
Epstein's pimp Maxwell, whose social circle includes members of the UK royal family, has
been named in several lawsuits as the woman who helped procure and transport underage girls
which provided the billionaire massages and ultimately sexual favors.
The Miami Herald has
more on Maxwell's connections to Epstein:
Lawyers for Epstein's victims, in court filings, have often likened Epstein's sex
operation to an organized crime family, with Epstein and Maxwell at the top, and below them,
others who worked as schedulers, recruiters, pilots and bookkeepers.
For her part, Maxwell, whose social circle included such friends as Bill and Hillary
Clinton and members of the British Royal family, has been described as using recruiters
positioned throughout the world to lure women by promising them modeling assignments,
educational opportunities and fashion careers. The pitch was really a ruse to groom them into
sex trafficking, it is alleged in court records.
At least one woman, Sarah Ransome, claimed in a lawsuit that Maxwell and Epstein
threatened to physically harm her or destroy any chance she would have of a fashion career if
she didn't have sex with them and others.
Maxwell has thus far managed to escape charges, but a lawyer for one of the women suing
Epstein predicts she'll eventually be swept up in the sex trafficking litigation.
"The one person most likely in jeopardy is Maxwell because the records that are going to
be unsealed have so much evidence against her," said David Boies, the attorney for Epstein
accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre. "She is in a particularly vulnerable position and will have
an interest in cooperating, even though she may have missed that opportunity."
Those 26 trips by Billy Boy on the Lolita Express are only the ones in the log book. How
many were there that were not logged? Isn't it amazing that the mainline press never picked
up on this. It just shows how corrupt and fraudulent they are. I hope there is a deal and
Epstein furnishes the names of his associated scum with proof. I wonder how many congressmen,
senators, Judges, etc. There are.
And Hillary went to the sex slave island at least six times .
my new username , 21 hours ago
Wikileaks had a Hillary email about Chelsea bringing a young Haitian girl into the USA,
past immigration, on one of those CGI/State Department/Haiti Earthquake flights from Port au
Prince.
8iron , 21 hours ago
so Trump is now deciding who to prosecute AND tell the SDNY to do it? This author is as
retarded as the Left.
Epstein's case is being unsealed. SDNY knew this was coming so as to not look like idiots,
they found some "new" victims. This guy makes most the ***-pedo-sex perverts (but I repeat
myself) look like Rabbi's and he needs his d*ck connected to 'ol sparky but WTF?
Something else is going on...clearly nothing being reported or guessed (like above)
Spectorman , 22 hours ago
There are so many ways for these mutually guilty power rapists to cut deals with each
other and avoid the real rap. Some patsys might get snipped, but thinking this will be the
stake in the heart seems wishful thinking. These guys are busy raping America with an
information/internet/media chokehold and a money printing press. That's probably bigger than
child rape, and it will take more than a federal prosecutor to stop it.
beemasters , 22 hours ago
The author's theory doesn't make sense at all. They are all Lolita Island visitors. They
are friends. Dotard would have implicated himself if he was the one taking Epstein route to
get to Killary. Killary is much more vicious and vindictive and will drag him down along with
Epstein. Dotard wouldn't dare!
There is already enough evidence to throw the Clintons in jail by the private-server case
alone.... if Dotard wanted them them in jail. He really doesn't.
Buck Johnson , 23 hours ago
So true, it's hard to justify ******* and having sex with 14 year old girls. That is why
no one is defending this piece of **** and when he starts to sing it's going to take down
alot of people (ALAN DERSHOWITZ, hate the ******).
I totally agree that this guy has blackmail material on everyone, everyone. A man like
this that was able to do what he was doing for years and still get the president, Alan and
alot of others to go to his private island knowing what he did.
Nope, this man is a dirt bag that thought he had the fix in and he went ham in having sex
with these girls. Not realizing that someone else in power could go after him and force him
to rat out any and everyone.
With this so public there is no way that the fed is going to give him anything light, he's
going away for decades unless he could out people to help his case.
Mr. Barr said he is recused because he once worked for one of the law firms that
represented Epstein "long ago," the report said. He did not name the law firm.
bobcatz , 23 hours ago
Tom Luongo is filtering this event through a deep-seated hope that Trump the Potus is not
too far from Trump the candidate he voted for.
Hate to tell you, Tom, you just got played. Nothing of your estimation will occur. If
anyone goes down, it'll be some insignificant nobodies.
CNN reported this morning that Epstein's arrest ropes in Trump's Labor Secretary,
Alexander Acosta, who evidently was Epstein's Florida attorney who let Epstein walk.
swmnguy , 23 hours ago
No, Acosta was the US Attorney in Florida during the GW Bush Administration, who let
Epstein walk over the full-throated objections of every attorney on his staff. Acosta went
around behind their back, behind the court's back, to give Epstein a sweetheart deal that
raised eyebrows throughout the legal community at the time, in early 2008.
Epstein's actual attorney was somebody else, who wrote Acosta a very grateful letter
thanking Acosta for going beyond even what Epstein's own attorney was hoping for in terms of
clemency.
There's a reason Acosta did that; beyond the insipid excuses Acosta has gotten away with
until now. Just as there's a reason Attorney General William Barr just recused himself on all
matters Epstein; above and beyond the stupid and unconvincing reasons Barr just gave.
SummerSausage , 23 hours ago
Acosta worked for the DOJ and the way Epstein's case was handled is almost identical to
the way they handled Hillary a few years later.
Only difference is Mueller was head of FBI for the Epstein investigation.
Acosta didn't have the authority to give the deal on his own. It had to come from higher
up
j0nx , 22 hours ago
Agreed. US attorneys don't do **** unless the AG tells them to. It's preposterous to think
the SDNY is some rogue agency running around prosecuting who they want. If Bill Barr says no
then they say yes sir. Of course all of this comes from up high. It's either that or Bill
Barr like Jeff Sessions has lost all control of his department.
June 12 1776 , 23 hours ago
A pathetic useless attempt to appease status quo uniCRIME, uniPARTY chimp army.
"But something had to be done to keep our faith in our political and social
institutions intact. Because otherwise that way leads to only chaos and collapse."
Wrong, through out all human history, all criminal, unconstitutional outlaw, political and
social institutions natural law and faith of nature is COLLAPSE AND DESTRUCTION, one way or
another.
bobcatz , 23 hours ago
Tom Luongo is filtering this event through a deep-seated hope that Trump the Potus is not
too far from Trump the candidate he voted for.
Hate to tell you, Tom, you just got suckered. Nothing of your estimation will occur. If
anyone goes down, it'll be some insignificant nobodies.
SirBarksAlot , 23 hours ago
Maybe.
But I think this is the big payback for their failed attempt to impeach him via a
fabricated "dossier." This is the first chance he has been out from under the shadow of that
witch hunt that was supposed to prevent this investigation into the Satanists from going
forward.
He's just playing Bolton and his buddies by keeping them by his side. Letting them think
they're running the show, like they did under Bush, then deciding not to invade Iran at the
last minute. Where is Bolton now? Mongolia? He gives a little with the space program, then
takes away from the expensive, endless wars to nowhere.
That's why the British tanker is stuck at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz instead of
running right though it. Britain royally fucked up.
Solio , 1 day ago
George Washington: "If the laws are to be trampled upon with impunity and a minority is to
dictate to the majority, there is an end put at one stroke to republican government."
September 9, 1774 at the beginning of the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania, from Ron
Chernow's book "Alexander Hamilton," 2004, p. 473
Nunyadambizness , 1 day ago
I most certainly hope that the author is correct, and this vile corrupt sewer in DC gets
weeded out--forcefully if necessary.
We the People have allowed unelected bureaucrats to ru(i)n our lives for far too long,
protected by those who lust for power and who will do anything for it--yes Cankles, I'm
speaking of you AND your former boss Barry Obozo, among dozens (if not hundreds) of others in
the sewer. Protected by a wink-and-a-nod to those in power, they've done whatever they wanted
knowing that they were untouchable. Here's hoping that this is just the first of dozens of
arrests and ultimately convictions of these scumbags and their kin.
Drain the SEWER. FLUSH DC STARTING AT THE TOP.
SummerSausage , 1 day ago
Just a reminder - Mueller was head of the FBI during the Epstein investigation. If Trump
had been involved in any way Mueller would have found a way to put it in the Mueller
report.
turbojarhead , 23 hours ago
I think Kunstler is exactly right-this is the Trump faction counterstrike.
Conservative Treehouse actually caught something I did not in the indictment:
While these items were only seized this weekend and are still being reviewed, some of the
nude or partially-nude photographs appear to be of underage girls, including at least one
girl who, according to her counsel, was underage at the time the relevant photographs were
taken. Additionally, some of the photographs referenced herein were discovered in a locked
safe, in which law enforcement officers also found compact discs with hand-written labels
including the following:
The defendant, a registered sex offender, is not reformed, he is not chastened, he is not
repentant;6 rather, he is a continuing danger to the community and an individual who faces
devastating evidence supporting deeply serious charges." ( cloud
– pdf link )
Notice the young Name + NAME------gee, you think that NAME might be the creeps Epstein was
blackmailing? Hahahahhh
SummerSausage , 23 hours ago
That info didn't come from the indictment I don't think. It came from the letter to the
judge about bail.
The indictment was drawn up to arrest Epstein. The search of his home took place at the
same time as the arrest or just after.
Reportedly, Epstein had quite a few surveillance cameras in his homes. It will be
interesting to know what's on the CD's. Hard to believe he didn't have some "insurance"
tucked away for a rainy day.
SummerSausage , 23 hours ago
Acosta wasn't Epstein's lawyer. He was US Attorney for S Fl.
The Epstein treatment reads like a dress rehearsal for the Hillary FBI/DOJ whitewash -
except instead of just the associates getting of scot-free Hillary did, too. (read the Miami
Herald series from Nov https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html
Since Trump hasn't fired him but this story has been circulating for more than 6 months,
Acosta was probably ordered to follow the deal cut at the highest levels of Mueller's FBI and
the DOJ bureaucracy.
Acosta may well know where the bodies are buried.
NumberNone , 1 day ago
The people in the 'deviant' circles got comfortable after the Obama election. They put the
people they wanted in power and the Evil Queen Hillary was guaranteed to be President to
reside over 8 years of destroying their enemies. Life was going to be good. There was no
reason to hide or be afraid.
Look at Epstein, the guy got off with a handslap and was so fearless rather than destroy
his kiddie-****...he still kept in the open.
Now they are in a panic and throwing everything they can at Trump. If you are facing the
death sentence, nothing is off-limits to save yourself.
If you are right or left in your political beliefs and think that this sort of absolute
evil needs to be weeded out then please shut the hell up about Trump or Clinton and simply
demand that no stone be unturned in the pursuit of justice. A golden opportunity has been
placed in front of all of us to purge this scum.
Occams_Razor_Trader_Part_Deux , 1 day ago
Pelosi's daughter:
Christine Pelosi warns it's 'quite likely that some of our faves are implicated' in
'horrific' Epstein case.
What does it say when some of your "faves" are pedophiles?
jutah , 1 day ago
BullFuckinShit. He's had 3 years as President and many years prior to that where he was
aware of exactly what was going on and did and said nothing . Oh, correction, he did say
something when he praised Epstein; ""I've known Jeff (Epstein) for fifteen years. Terrific
guy. He's a lot of fun to be with . It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as
I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
It's too late for that ****. That ship has sailed. These traitors should have been
executed on day 1. All the evidence of criminal activities was well documented before you
even became president. You are a sorry sack of **** coward to let this continue for so long
and in my book an accomplice to it- you and ever other neo-zio-con who went along with it.
Now, youre all worried about your re-election campaign, image and being indicted yourself.
**** off you Orange Clown. Go ahead and bomb Iran as a distraction as your masters order you
to do
Kafir Goyim , 1 day ago
There's video of Trump saying Clinton would have trouble because of his frequent and
suspicious (no Secret Service) associations with Epstein. There is a record of Trump helping
prosecutors going after Epstein. There is record of Trump barring Epstein from Mar a
Lago.
I think you are a little confused ... or engaged in purposeful disinformation, which is
more likely.
Next time, don't quote Fusion GPS. The article that quote came from was a puff piece about
Epstein from 2002. It extolled his brilliance and philanthropy with quotes from the Dem Sen
Leader, Harvard scientists and just about everyone they could find.
At the time, Epstein served on the board of the Trilateral Commission with Kissinger,
Summers and a dozen CEO's of Fortune 50 companies, the Rockefeller Foundation and
Harvard.
SirBarksAlot , 23 hours ago
No kidding!
He really does have a blackmail racket going on there!!!!!!!
WhackoWarner , 22 hours ago
Let's not disregard Prince Andy. (old article from Guardian but still...)
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were running a Mossad blackmail operation.
Rahm Emmanuel was kicked out of the Clinton WH by the FBI. They had a file on him
"Security Risk"...then he got back in with Obama ?
Trump is too smart for the blackmail ****. Roy Cohn taught him that.
BUT Jared Kushner is Trumps Achilles heel. Kushner's father spent two years in prison for
blackmail/extorsion.
ZD1 , 1 day ago
Epstein hung with Democrats and donated to them.
No doubt Epstein found what the commie muzzie *** from Kenya craved?
Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker, Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos, and Woody Allen are some
of the celebrities who reportedly traveled and partied with Epstein in the past.
Even Stephen Hawking made a visit to Epstein's island.
Props to Michael Cernovich, and then there's the make-up Queen Shep Smith who show's
Epstein and Trump together, Trump banned this Fukk Epstein from his club and the Clinton's
had enough frequent flyer on Epstein's plane to Lolita Island for 2 round trip tickets to
Paris. Shepp & the golden sperm seed piss punks of Murdoch must share something in common
wonder what it is?
JBLight , 1 day ago
As this continues to pour out, I look forward to seeing the faces of the people I know who
voted for Hillary. They voted for child trafficking.
John Law Lives , 1 day ago
This article sounds like speculation, but I am ready to see privileged scumbags get their
due. This has been a long time coming (imo).
BandGap , 1 day ago
This is the opening of the portal to hell for a lot of kids' agonies, even deaths.
Watch the names of the rich and famous tumble out. If you read previous articles you know
that they also seized tapes Epstein was holding of young girls with older men. This is what
fuels the blackmail, and hence the corruption.
The Weiner laptop is also in play with the NXVIUM convictions.
The Clintons remain free and Trump keeps elitists like Ross, Pompeo and Bolton in the
White House. Comey's daughter is one of the prosecutors for Epstein and Epstein is already
claiming immunity. He might go to jail again, he might not. But nothing is going to happen
with the Epstein thing as far as the fall of the banksters. Nothing.
pmc , 1 day ago
I don't think Trump is behind his arrest. I think it's the head NY prosecutor trying to
make a name for himself in order to run for president at a late time! We'll see where this
all goes but my money is on the procecutor!
onewayticket2 , 1 day ago
Trump should be "out for blood" but it's the SDNY...and we KNOW they are "out for
blood"....trump's. So my read is the opposite. The SDNY is never going to do something that
will harm the clintons. The ONLY goal is keeping Trump out of office for these guys. all
roads lead to trump at the SDNY...it's job 1.
evoila , 1 day ago
It's ahead of muellers testimony for a reason.
yaright , 1 day ago
Agree, timing is everything
Snípéir_Ag_Obair , 1 day ago
Pedosadist Elites Panic: Congress Bill Wants To End Child **** In Pentagon Networks;
Epstein Arrested, Files To Be Unsealed On Powerful Clients
America is receiving a hell of a Christmas in July present – a bill in Congress is
being pushed to end child **** sharing in Pentagon networks, and Jeffrey Epstein was
arrested for child trafficking. Additionally, an appeal court ordered that all files
pertaining to Epstein's case of wealthy powerful clients will be released to the press and
public.
Congress is aiming to halt child **** distribution within Pentagon networks according to
a bipartisan bill (The End
Network Abuse Act) that was introduced by Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Mark
Meadows (R-N.C.)
The National Criminal Justice Training Center, one of the groups that has thrown its
weight behind the bill, reported in 2018 that DOD's network was ranked 19th out of almost
3,000 nationwide networks on the amount of peer-to-peer child *********** sharing.
Spanberger described the issues of child sexual exploitation and abuse as "horrific
crimes."
"The notion that the Department of Defense's network and Pentagon-issued computers may
be used to view, create, or circulate such horrifying images is a shameful disgrace, and
one we must fight head on," Spanberger said in statement. (Source:
The Hill )
So... if I send child **** to anyone the entire law enforcement apparatus on planet Earth
descends upon my location with the full weight of every alphabet agency. Yet, when child ****
is trafficked within a government agency we need to pass a bill thru Congress in order to
stop it. WTF.
Nekoti , 22 hours ago
Rules for thee, not for me.
chunga , 1 day ago
That's some pretty wild speculation there, but I hear angels singing just the same.
caconhma , 1 day ago
<Epstein's Arrest Tells Me Trump Is Now Out For Blood> Wrong.
Trump and Bill Clinton were willing participants in these crimes.
Don't be surprised when Trump's name will appear in all legal documents. Remember, the
lead prosecutor is from Demo New York and Epstein will behave no different from Trump's loyal
lawyer Cohen. After all, this case was not resurrected from dead to promote justice in
Americ
Friedrich not Salma , 1 day ago
Do a Youtube search for * Trump BBC 1998 * and jump 5 minutes into the vid. You will
realize Trump will be out for blood. He waits until the right time.
BBC: "You talk in your book about getting even. The importance of getting even. Is revenge
sweet?"
Trump: "I believe strongly in getting even. If someone has hurt you. If someone's gone out
of their way to hurt you. I think that if you have the opportunity, you should certainly go
out of your way to do a number on them."
I didn't believe in the "the indictments are coming from Jeff Sessions" lines, but I do
believe Trump will nail these people when the time presents itself and that time is coming up
fast.
"... A reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The most serene republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800, first as a democracy, later as an oligarchy. ..."
"... Much like us, including having the most feared secret service in Europe at the time, Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't hoist the new president up on a chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall Street the way that a new Doge would. ..."
Thank you, Ray. Forgive my cynicism but the US government is so corrupt, has wielded
illegitimate power for so long, and has covered the tracks of countless functionaries who
have not upheld the constitution that I doubt this will go anywhere.
I have been quoting Ben Franklin for some time "you have a republic, if you can keep it."
I don't think we can.
A reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The
most serene republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800,
first as a democracy, later as an oligarchy.
Much like us, including having the most feared secret service in Europe at the time,
Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't hoist the new president up on a
chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall Street the way that a new Doge
would.
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter says that sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein had a "state sponsor" backing him and that his
operation was a way to blackmail powerful men.
During an appearance on 790 KABC, Coulter suggested that Epstein is merely the front man for a far more powerful network.
"Epstein according to both the girls accounts, he wanted them to have sex with powerful men, come back to him and report on it,
describe what they wanted what their fetishes were and he had cameras throughout the house so this is obviously for blackmailing
purposes," said Coulter.
"It just seems to me something much bigger is behind this -- perhaps a state sponsor -- powerful enough people it just seems
to me there's something a very powerful force behind what's going on here and I am still nervous about this not coming to a conclusion,
somehow this getting compromised," she added.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/eNbK-hkZMLY
Coulter said that it remained a mystery as to how Epstein became a billionaire and that the source of his money should be investigated.
Former President Bill Clinton attempted to distance himself from Epstein last night, claiming he only flew on the infamous 'Lolita
Express' private jet four times despite flight logs showing at least 26 trips.
As we
reported yesterday, speculation is swirling that Epstein may give up names of influential people who used his network in order
to secure a maximum prison sentence of no more than five years.
"... In an inspiring op-ed on the 4th of July, the now-former Republican Congressman Justin Amash took to destroying the idea of identity politics, notably the two-party system, which he says is destroying the country. ..."
"... Amash declared that he is no longer going to identify with a party and declared himself an independent. ..."
July 4, 2019 Brave Congressman Blasts 2-Party System as 'Existential Threat to America' then
Quits His Party
In an inspiring op-ed on the 4th of July, the now-former Republican Congressman Justin Amash
took to destroying the idea of identity politics, notably the two-party system, which he says
is destroying the country.
Amash declared that he is no longer going to identify with a party
and declared himself an independent.
"... you cannot fight the establishment with the establishment and Trump -who is a billionaire FFS- is another one who represents that. If he didn't he would not have been allowed to run. ..."
"... It is strange and telling that the discourse within the American public over the last 40 years or so allowed themselves to discuss and tackle to various levels of success issues like sexism, racism, institutional racism, misogyny, xenophobia, even sexuality and yes, even gun laws but one thing that is an absolute no-no in discourse is the economical and subsequentially political system. ..."
"... As long as people believe the American Dream is within reach to them, just like they believe it was for individuals like Trump, the economic system will remain its status quo and that is: riches for a few, struggles for many. ..."
"... You correctly state that you cannot fight the establishment with Trump. But I suggest he is the best choice. You assume a choice has been made to get that single person to help them. I suggest a choice has been made to plant a suicide bomber in the establishment. ..."
"... With Trump in that position, the entire credibility of the establishment has been destroyed. Trump is a clown. An idiot. Every time he spouting something misogynistic or racist he became a better weapon for the public to use to against the establishments structures. No better place for him than to have him as the Icon of the establishment. The (now) unacceptable face. ..."
"... As you say, the power is with the people. But they first must be angry and disgusted at the establishment. Clinton was not distasteful enough to rally the lefts anger. Trump is perfect. ..."
"... Trump will not stop the wars. All anyone had to do was look at the voting records of the republicans in office( that were reelected) that voted for more war equipment. They also wanted TTIP. Until the public realizes we have to change our state representatives nothing will change. ..."
This election will spawn losers all over the place; the most tragic losers will be those
that voted a supposed maverick into the high office in order to fight the 'liberal' or
whatever establishment hoping to bring jobs back to the people.
However, you cannot fight the
establishment with the establishment and Trump -who is a billionaire FFS- is another one who
represents that. If he didn't he would not have been allowed to run.
Just for the same reason
that Bernie was squeezed out, not that I think he is a real socialist but one who would have
come too close to do some real change. To quote Rosa Luxemburg: If an election would mean
real change it would have been abolished
It is strange and telling that the discourse within the American public over the last 40
years or so allowed themselves to discuss and tackle to various levels of success issues like
sexism, racism, institutional racism, misogyny, xenophobia, even sexuality and yes, even gun
laws but one thing that
is an absolute no-no in discourse is the economical and subsequentially political system.
As
long as people believe the American Dream is within reach to them, just like they believe it
was for individuals like Trump, the economic system will remain its status quo and that is:
riches for a few, struggles for many.
The establishment will see for that and always find ways to maintain. One thing that has
always worked perfectly fine is to find scapegoats like foreigners, immigrants, people on
welfare, coloured people , minorities and so on. Can't even say this is typically American,
it has worked most recently in the UK within the brexit discussion and in Germany and other
places.
The power is with people, I remain optimistic; an election, though, will not change
anything
You correctly state that you cannot fight the establishment with Trump. But I suggest he
is the best choice. You assume a choice has been made to get that single person to help them.
I suggest a choice has been made to plant a suicide bomber in the establishment.
The problem has been that Obama has put an empathetic, intelligent and articulate face on
the front of a deeply corrupted system. To attack the system one appears to be attacking him
and that can be awkward.
With Trump in that position, the entire credibility of the establishment has been
destroyed. Trump is a clown. An idiot. Every time he spouting something misogynistic or
racist he became a better weapon for the public to use to against the establishments
structures. No better place for him than to have him as the Icon of the establishment. The
(now) unacceptable face.
As you say, the power is with the people. But they first must be angry and disgusted at
the establishment. Clinton was not distasteful enough to rally the lefts anger. Trump is perfect.
One thing particular about Killery: I believe she was meant to deliver more war for her
Davos employers. I've had enough of 'Mericuh's wars for profit, and to protect the Bankers
fortunes. At this point I'm ready to vote for Idi Amin, if it stops the banker wars being
waged for them by their proxy the United States.
Trump will not stop the wars. All anyone had to do was look at the voting records of the
republicans in office( that were reelected) that voted for more war equipment. They also
wanted TTIP. Until the public realizes we have to change our state representatives nothing
will change.
"... Just like Dubya. Just like Obomber. Just like the Orange Baboon. Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus. ..."
Same old, same old, same old, same old. Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired
old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be different.
There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel. Honest.
Just like Dubya. Just like Obomber. Just like the Orange Baboon. Whilst simultaneously
begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.
The problem here is that the US population is too brainwashing with jingoism and Exceptionalism to value Tulsi message. The
US army is mercenary army and unlike situation with the draft people generally do not care much when mercenaries die. That makes
any anti-war candidate vulnerable to "Russiagate" smear.
He/she need to have a strong domestic program to appeal to voters, So far Warren is in better position in this area then
Tulsi.
Notable quotes:
"... The Drudge Report website had its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the debate. ..."
"... On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced an article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of Defense." ..."
"... In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable." ..."
"... Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment, saying that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end." ..."
"... Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to "defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging ..."
"... In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the Vietnam War back in 1968. ..."
"... And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be at war with Russia and possibly also with China. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities, leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past twenty years. ..."
"... Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. ..."
"... She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren, who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups, but she has moderated her views recently. ..."
"... To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
Last Wednesday’s debate among half of the announced Democratic Party candidates to become their party’s nominee for
president in 2020 was notable for its lack of drama. Many of those called on to speak had little to say apart from the usual
liberal bromides about health care, jobs, education and how the United States is a country of immigrants. On the following
day the mainstream media anointed Elizabeth Warren as the winner based on the coherency of her message even though she said
little that differed from what was being presented by most of the others on the stage. She just said it better, more
articulately.
The New York Times’
coverage was typical, praising Warren for her grasp of the issues and her ability to present the same
clearly and concisely, and citing a comment "They could teach
classes in how Warren talks about a problem and weaves in answers into a story. She's not just
wonk and stats." It then went on to lump most of the other candidates together, describing
their performances as "ha[ving] one or two strong answers, but none of them had the electric,
campaign-launching moment they were hoping for."
Inevitably, however, there was some disagreement on who had actually done best based on
viewer reactions as well as the perceptions of some of the media that might not exactly be
described as mainstream. The Drudge Report website
had
its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of
Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing
paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search
engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the
debate.
On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced
an
article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by
Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot
to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of
Defense."
Tulsi, campaigning on her anti-war credentials, was indeed not like the other candidates,
confronting directly the issue of war and peace which the other potential candidates studiously
avoided. In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has
to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had
been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers
who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will
tell you that answer is unacceptable."
At another point she expanded on her thinking about America's wars, saying "Let's deal with
the situation where we are, where this president and his chickenhawk cabinet have led us to the
brink of war with Iran. I served in the war in Iraq at the height of the war in 2005, a war
that took over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniforms' lives. The American people need to
understand that this war with Iran would be far more devastating, far more costly than anything
that we ever saw in Iraq. It would take many more lives. It would exacerbate the refugee
crisis. And it wouldn't be just contained within Iran. This would turn into a regional war.
This is why it's so important that every one of us, every single American, stand up and say no
war with Iran."
Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment,
saying
that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after
the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned
tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end."
Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to
"defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is
clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging. So why was there
such a difference between what ordinary Americans and the Establishment punditry were seeing on
their television screens? The difference was not so much in perception as in the desire to see
a certain outcome. Anti-war takes away a lot of people's rice bowls, be they directly employed
on "defense" or part of the vast army of lobbyists and think tank parasites that keep the money
flowing out of the taxpayers' pockets and into the pockets of Raytheon, General Dynamics,
Boeing and Lockheed Martin like a perpetual motion machine.
In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her
must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out
undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the
Vietnam War back in 1968. McCarthy was right and Lyndon Johnson and the rest of the Democratic
Party were wrong. More recently, Congressman Ron Paul tried twice to bring some sanity to the
Republican Party. He too was marginalized deliberately by the GOP party apparatus working
hand-in-hand with the media, to include the final insult of his being denied any opportunity to
speak or have his delegates recognized at the 2012 nominating convention.
And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National
Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be
marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating
from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be
at war with Russia and possibly also with China.
Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be
difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities,
leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past
twenty years. To qualify for the second round of debates she has to gain a couple of points in
her approval rating or bring in more donations, either of which is definitely possible based on
her performance. It is to be hoped that that will occur and that there will be no Debbie
Wasserman Schultz hiding somewhere in the process who will finagle the polling results.
Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is
not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal
Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also
breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning,
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren,
who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss
Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu
and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her
view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups,
but she has moderated her views recently.
To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the
mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine
antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. It is essential
that we Americans who are concerned about the future of our country should listen to what she
has to say very carefully and to respond accordingly.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a
501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more
interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is [email protected]
"... Brand's fast-talking, plain-speaking criticism of the existing political order, calling it discredited, unaccountable and unrepresentative, was greeted with smirking condescension by the political and media establishment. Nonetheless, in an era before Donald Trump had become president of the United States, the British media were happy to indulge Brand for a while, seemingly believing he or his ideas might prove a ratings winner with younger audiences. ..."
"... Then he overstepped the mark. ..."
"... Instead of simply criticising the political system, Brand argued that it was in fact so rigged by the powerful, by corporate interests, that western democracy had become a charade. Elections were pointless . Our votes were simply a fig-leaf, concealing the fact that our political leaders were there to represent not us but the interests of globe-spanning corporations. Political and media elites had been captured by unshored corporate money. Our voices had become irrelevant. ..."
"... But just as Brand's rejection of the old politics began to articulate a wider mood, it was stopped in its tracks. ..."
"... These "New Labour" MPs were there, just as Brand had noted, to represent the interests of a corporate class, not ordinary people. ..."
"... It wasn't that Corbyn's election had shown Britain's political system was representative and accountable. It was simply evidence that corporate power had made itself vulnerable to a potential accident by preferring to work out of sight, in the shadows, to maintain the illusion of democracy. Corbyn was that accident. ..."
"... The system was still in place and it still had a chokehold on the political and media establishments that exist to uphold its interests. Which is why it has been mobilising these forces endlessly to damage Corbyn and avert the risk of a further, even more disastrous "accident", such as his becoming prime minister. ..."
"... Listing the ways the state-corporate media have sought to undermine Corbyn would sound preposterous to anyone not deeply immersed in these media-constructed narratives. But almost all of us have been exposed to this kind of " brainwashing under freedom " since birth. ..."
"... The initial attacks on Corbyn were for being poorly dressed, sexist, unstatesmanlike, a national security threat, a Communist spy – relentless, unsubstantiated smears the like of which no other party leader had ever faced. But over time the allegations became even more outrageously propagandistic as the campaign to undermine him not only failed but backfired – not least, because Labour membership rocketed under Corbyn to make the party the largest in Europe. ..."
"... As the establishment's need to keep him away from power has grown more urgent and desperate so has the nature of the attacks. ..."
In the preceding two years, it was hard to avoid on TV the figure of Russell Brand, a
comedian and minor film star who had reinvented himself, after years of battling addiction, as
a spiritual guru-cum-political revolutionary.
Brand's fast-talking, plain-speaking criticism of the existing political order, calling it
discredited, unaccountable and unrepresentative, was greeted with smirking condescension by the
political and media establishment. Nonetheless, in an era before Donald Trump had become
president of the United States, the British media were happy to indulge Brand for a while,
seemingly believing he or his ideas might prove a ratings winner with younger audiences.
But Brand started to look rather more impressive than anyone could have imagined. He took on
supposed media heavyweights like the BBC's Jeremy
Paxman and Channel 4's Jon
Snow and charmed and shamed them into submission – both with his compassion and his
thoughtful radicalism. Even in the gladiatorial-style battle of wits so beloved of modern TV,
he made these titans of the political interview look mediocre, shallow and out of touch. Videos
of these head-to-heads went viral, and Brand won hundreds of thousands of new followers.
Then he overstepped the mark.
Democracy as charade
Instead of simply criticising the political system, Brand argued that it was in fact so
rigged by the powerful, by corporate interests, that western democracy had become a charade.
Elections were pointless
. Our votes were simply a fig-leaf, concealing the fact that our political leaders were there
to represent not us but the interests of globe-spanning corporations. Political and media
elites had been captured by unshored corporate money. Our voices had become irrelevant.
Brand didn't just talk the talk. He started committing to direct action. He shamed our do-nothing
politicians and corporate media – the devastating Grenfell Tower fire had yet to happen
– by helping to gain attention for a group of poor tenants in London who were taking on
the might of a corporation that had become their landlord and wanted to evict them to develop
their homes for a much richer clientele. Brand's revolutionary words had turned into
revolutionary action.
But just as Brand's rejection of the old politics began to articulate a wider mood, it was
stopped in its tracks. After Corbyn was unexpectedly elected Labour leader, offering for the
first time in living memory a politics that listened to people before money, Brand's style of
rejectionism looked a little too cynical, or at least premature.
While Corbyn's victory marked a sea-change, it is worth recalling, however, that it occurred
only because of a mistake. Or perhaps two.
The Corbyn accident
First, a handful of Labour MPs agreed to nominate Corbyn for the leadership contest,
scraping him past the threshold needed to get on the ballot paper. Most backed him only because
they wanted to give the impression of an election that was fair and open. After his victory,
some loudly regretted having assisted him. None had
thought a representative of the tiny and besieged left wing of the parliamentary party stood a
chance of winning – not after Tony Blair and his acolytes had spent more than two decades
remaking Labour, using their own version of entryism to eradicate any vestiges of socialism in
the party. These "New Labour" MPs were there, just as Brand had noted, to represent the
interests of a corporate class, not ordinary people.
Corbyn had very different ideas from most of his colleagues. Over the years he had broken
with the consensus of the dominant Blairite faction time and again in parliamentary votes,
consistently taking a minority view that later proved to be on the
right side of history . He alone among the leadership contenders spoke unequivocally
against austerity, regarding it as a way to leech away more public money to enrich the
corporations and banks that had already pocketed vast sums from the public coffers – so
much so that by 2008 they had nearly bankrupted the entire western economic system.
And second, Corbyn won because of a recent change in the party's rulebook – one now
much regretted by party managers. A new internal balloting system gave more weight to the votes
of ordinary members than the parliamentary party. The members, unlike the party machine, wanted
Corbyn.
Corbyn's success didn't really prove Brand wrong. Even the best designed systems have flaws,
especially when the maintenance of the system's image as benevolent is considered vitally
important. It wasn't that Corbyn's election had shown Britain's political system was
representative and accountable. It was simply evidence that corporate power had made itself
vulnerable to a potential accident by preferring to work out of sight, in the shadows, to
maintain the illusion of democracy. Corbyn was that accident.
'Brainwashing under freedom'
Corbyn's success also wasn't evidence that the power structure he challenged had weakened.
The system was still in place and it still had a chokehold on the political and media
establishments that exist to uphold its interests. Which is why it has been mobilising these
forces endlessly to damage Corbyn and avert the risk of a further, even more disastrous
"accident", such as his becoming prime minister.
Listing the ways the state-corporate media have sought to undermine Corbyn would sound
preposterous to anyone not deeply immersed in these media-constructed narratives. But almost
all of us have been exposed to this kind of " brainwashing under freedom
" since birth.
The initial attacks on Corbyn were for being poorly dressed, sexist, unstatesmanlike, a
national security threat, a Communist spy – relentless, unsubstantiated smears the like
of which no other party leader had ever faced. But over time the allegations became even more
outrageously propagandistic as the campaign to undermine him not only failed but backfired
– not least, because Labour membership rocketed under Corbyn to make the party the
largest in Europe.
As the establishment's need to keep him away from power has grown more urgent and desperate
so has the nature of the attacks.
There were no Jews anywhere around most native Britons. And yet the Empire was banked most
importantly by Jews back to at least the post-Glorious Revolution closing the 17th century,
and that pattern of Jewish bankers being indispensable to the UK and the Brit WASP Empire
goes back to Oliver Cromwell.
You guys don't need a peace candidate you need a War Consigliere like the Godfather had! You
people are being attacked from all angles and you are evaluating which Dem or Rep is going to
fix the problems you face. Remember Bush Senior, (Iraq, Granada, Panama and CIA drug
trafficking), Clinton, (Oklahoma City, Waco, Yugoslavia, Mena, AR Drug Money Laundering), Bush
Junior, (9-11, Iraq, Afghanistan), Obama (Syria, Libya and Fast & Furious), Trump (Yet to
be seen).
What does that tell you people? They are all the same! ...
They tell you what they are going to do, (conspiracy theories, movies and fake news). They
bet on you do nothing and dependent on the fake elections.
Tulsi was the only participant who said something sensible. Which means that she won't be
a presidential candidate from any of the two main parties. Deep State won't let it
happen.
Was LBJ the same as JFK? Was Nixon the same as Carter? Was Bush II the same as Reagan? Was
Bush I the same as Gerald Ford?
No.
Why did Obama go through all the trouble of the JCPOA with Iran only to have orange clown
trash it?
Why didn't Obama deliver Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine? Why didn't the Jerusalem Boys
Choir sing praises to Obama?
I'll tell you why: Because they're NOT all the same. And as we get closer and closer to
planetary extinction, those differences become very significant.
Just in time for the 2020 presidential election, the Democrats have discovered that there is
real economic inequality in the United States. But they have not yet fully addressed the role
that the Democratic party and its leaders have played in creating this vast inequality that led
to the election of President Donald Trump in 2016.
The presidential candidates have been slow to fully recognize the role that former President
Bill Clinton's globalization policies (NAFTA and WTO) played in the outsourcing of American
jobs or the lowering of wages for workers.
As the Democratic presidential debates have shown, Vice President Biden is having a hard
time defending his long public record, especially as an opponent of federally mandated "forced"
busing to integrate our public schools decades after the Supreme Court's overturning of racial
segregation in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). As a Senator Joe Biden was a free
trade advocate as well.
But Senator Biden played a large role in creating inequality in two additional realms. He
was a strong backer of a 2005 bankruptcy "reform" law that made it harder for people to file
personal bankruptcy and to wipe out all of their debts. Given that perhaps as many as fifty
percent of all personal bankruptcies in America are caused by debt incurred from health care
not covered by insurance, this was an especially cruel blow to those seeking relief from their
heavy debt loads.
In "'
Lock the S.O.B.s Up: Joe Biden and the Era of Mass Incarceration ," The New York
Times documents his decades-long support of tough on criminals legislation, culminating in
the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. This bill, signed into law by President
Clinton, has been blamed for the jailing of high numbers of African Americans and other
minorities, in particular.
Unlike the Republicans whose goal is to increase inequality by lowering taxes on the
wealthy, at least the Democrats seem sincere about reducing it. To do this, they have fallen
all over themselves to offer free college tuition and to reduce student loan debt. Sen. Bernie
Sanders recently proposed to
eliminate all student loans entirely .
Why have Democrats focused on college as a means of solving economic inequality? Statistics
have shown that in general the more education you have, the higher your lifetime earnings will
be. For example, men with bachelor's degrees earn nearly a million more
dollars in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates.
"... If her trend of seriously closing the favorability gap with Joe Biden is any indication, if her broad but incomplete acceptability to the Clinton and the Sanders wings of the Democratic party is any indication, we would have to answer that question with a fairly emphatic, "yes, she can." ..."
On the first night of the first Democratic debates, Elizabeth Warren gave a master class in
when to speak and when to keep one's mouth shut. This is a lesson former Vice President Joe
Biden could learn a ton from.
When Waren did speak, it was clear, passionate, on point, and richly factual. On health
care, she even surprised a bit by committing to eliminating private insurance where she has
previously hedged her betting.
... ... ...
Can Warren beat Biden? If her trend of seriously closing the favorability gap
with Joe Biden is any indication, if her broad but incomplete acceptability to the Clinton and
the Sanders wings of the Democratic party is any indication, we would have to answer that
question with a fairly emphatic, "yes, she can."
Whether she will depends on a number of factors, some within, some beyond her control. In my
view, the most critical tasks within her control are finding a way to a coherent foreign policy
position and pivoting to an efficient answer on the DNA testing question that simultaneously
educates regarding and firmly rejects blood quantum theories of race.
"... Sanders and Warren are not what they claim to be. They are both updating Roosevelt's New Deal and more closely resemble the Social Democrats that have governed western European democracies for years, delivering higher standards of living than that experienced by Americans. ..."
"... In May 2009, the moderate Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, said: "The banks – hard to believe when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." ..."
"... In the new book, Banking on the People , by Ellen Brown, readers can get an idea of the way large banks, insurers, and the giant shadow banking system – money market funds, hedge funds, mortgage brokers, and other unregulated financial intermediaries – speculate and shift deep risk and their failures onto Uncle Sam. These corporate predators gouge customers, and, remarkably, show a deep aversion for productive investment as if people matter. ..."
"... Control of our political economy is not a conservative/liberal or red state/blue state issue. When confronted with the specifics of the corporate state or corporate socialism, people from all political persuasions will recognize the potential perils to our democracy. No one wants to lose essential freedoms or to continue to pay the price of this runaway crony capitalism. ..."
"... The gigantic corporations have been built with the thralldom of deep debt – corporate debt to fund stock buybacks (while reporting record profits), consumer debt, student loan debt, and, of course, government debt caused by drastic corporate and super-rich tax cuts. Many trillions of dollars have been stolen from future generations. ..."
Trump Invites Debates over Omnivorous Crony Capitalism
Donald J. Trump's 2020 election strategy is to connect
his potential Democratic opponents with "socialism." Trump plans to use this attack on the
Democrats even if Senator Bernie Sanders, who proudly calls himself a "democratic socialist,"
doesn't become the presidential nominee (Sanders has been decisively re-elected in Vermont).
Senator Elizabeth Warren is distancing herself from the socialist "label." She went so far
as to
tell the New England Council "I am a capitalist to my bones."
Sanders and Warren are not what they claim to be. They are both updating Roosevelt's New
Deal and more closely resemble the Social Democrats that have governed western European
democracies for years, delivering higher standards of living than that experienced by
Americans.
The original doctrine of socialism meant government ownership of the means of production
– heavy industries, railroads, banks, and the like. Nobody in national politics today is
suggesting such a takeover. As one quipster put it, "How can Washington take ownership of the
banks when the banks own Washington?"
Confronting Trump on the "socialism" taboo can open up a great debate about the value of
government intervention for the good of the public. Sanders can effectively argue that people
must choose either democratic socialism or the current failing system of corporate socialism.
That choice is not difficult. Such an American democratic socialism could provide almost all of
the long overdue solutions this country needs: full more efficient Medicare for all;
tuition-free education; living wages; stronger unions; a tax system that works for the people;
investments in infrastructure and public works; reforms for a massive, runaway military budget;
the end of most corporate welfare; government promotion of renewable energies; and the end of
subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power.
In my presidential campaigns I tried to make corporate socialism – also called
corporate welfare or crony capitalism – a major issue. Small business is capitalism
– free to go bankrupt – while corporate capitalism – free to get bailouts
from Washington – is really a form of corporate socialism. This point about a corporate
government was documented many years ago in books such as America, Inc. (1971) by Morton
Mintz and Jerry Cohen.
Now, it is even easier to make the case that our political economy is largely controlled by
giant corporations and their political toadies. Today the concentration of power and wealth is
staggering. Just six capitalist men have wealth to equal the wealth of half of the world's
population.
The Wall Street collapse of 2008-2009 destroyed eight million jobs, lost trillions of
dollars in pension and mutual funds, and pushed millions of families to lose their homes.
Against this backdrop, the U.S. government used trillions of taxpayer dollars to bail out, in
various ways, the greedy, financial giants, whose reckless speculating caused the collapse.
In May 2009, the moderate Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, said: "The banks – hard
to believe when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still
the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."
Is there a single federal government agency or department that can say its most powerful
outside influence is NOT corporate? Even the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations
Board are under more corporate power than union power.
Who better than Trump, on an anti-socialist fantasy campaign kick, can call attention to the
reality that Big Business controls the government and by extension controls the people? In
September 2000, a Business Week poll found over 70 percent of people agreeing that big
business has too much control over their lives (this was before the horrific corporate
crimes and scandals of the past two decades). Maybe that is why support in polls for
"socialism" against "capitalism" in the U.S. is at a 60 year high.
People have long experienced American-style "socialism." For example, the publicly owned
water and electric utilities, public parks and forests, the Postal Service, public libraries,
FDIC guarantees of bank deposits (now up to $250,000), Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,
etc.
What the public is not sufficiently alert to is that Big Business has been profitably taking
over control, if not outright ownership, of these public assets.
In the new book, Banking on the
People , by Ellen Brown, readers can get an idea of the way large banks, insurers, and
the giant shadow banking system – money market funds, hedge funds, mortgage brokers, and
other unregulated financial intermediaries – speculate and shift deep risk and their
failures onto Uncle Sam. These corporate predators gouge customers, and, remarkably, show a
deep aversion for productive investment as if people matter.
Moreover, they just keep developing new, ever riskier, multi-tiered instruments (eg.
derivatives) to make money from money through evermore complex, abstract, secret,
reckless, entangled, globally destabilizing, networks. Gambling with other people's money is a
relentless Wall Street tradition.
The crashes that inevitably emerge end up impoverishing ordinary people who pay the price
with their livelihoods.
Will the Democrats and other engaged people take Trump on if he tries to make "socialism"
the big scare in 2020? Control of our political economy is not a conservative/liberal or red
state/blue state issue. When confronted with the specifics of the corporate state or corporate
socialism, people from all political persuasions will recognize the potential perils to our
democracy. No one wants to lose essential freedoms or to continue to pay the price of this
runaway crony capitalism.
The gigantic corporations have been built with the thralldom of deep debt – corporate
debt to fund stock buybacks (while reporting record profits), consumer debt, student loan debt,
and, of course, government debt caused by drastic corporate and super-rich tax cuts. Many
trillions of dollars have been stolen from future generations.
No wonder a small group of billionaires, including George Soros,
Eli Broad , and Nick Hanauer, have just publicly urged a modest tax on the super wealthy.
As Hanauer, a history buff and advocate of higher minimum wages, says – "the pitchforks
are coming."
We’ll see how neoliberal MSM will spin this, but I would say Sanders emerged unscathed, Harris attacked and "wounded" Biden, Biden
sounded like a lightweight, Gillibrand seems to be a very unpleasant person although different form Harris...
Notable quotes:
"... as if polling on donald trump and stuff is just so interesting ..."
"... Kamala Harris got more floor time than anyone else. Harris ended Biden's campaign. The debate is rigged against Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... Did Harris get the debate questions in advance? ..."
"... Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage. ..."
"... Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala The Cop. ..."
Pathetic, the whole scene is pathetic. What a way to run a putative democracy, bring back the league of women voters to run
the debates and that idiot with the graphs during commercial breaks while watching this online, I want to break his freaking head
sorry.
I had the idea that your sensibilities were rather more refined than that, knowing anything about or not.
Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who
is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying
from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage.
FWIW, Boot Edge Edge’s prehensile sincerity was masterful in my view – shows some real talent.
I’m just observing this out of academic interest and hope we’ll all have a chance to vote for Bernie in the general. But from
tonight, Boot Edge Edge to me stood out as a talent – and everyone else (besides Bernie who was reliably on message and will keep
going more or less the same after this) was garbage or unnecessary (Biden is a disgrace), and the first debate was better.
Cal2, June 27, 2019 at 11:19 pm
In that case, Donald Trump gets our votes, as well as keeping all the potential crossovers, who had supported Trump last time,
and would have voted for Sanders-Gabbard.
Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala
The Cop.
Sanders-Harris would be political suicide for the Democrats.
This dude (Trump) has spent more than two years, and a ton of money, trying to pull the
undercurrent of dissent in the American population into his camp and under his wing.
In all of his 'fighting with the establishment' he has managed to change exactly nothing
and bring exactly nobody to justice. He has gathered the entirety of the Bush/Rumsfeld
faction directly into his tent, while miraculously failing to so much as arrest a single
member of the Clinton faction. And to top it off he just ordered an armed attack on an
independent nation (which failed in spectacular fashion as thr first targeting drone was
vaporized while he was watching the livestream). Come on dude.
"... Warren's announcement of her presidential candidacy made clear that she considers Trump to be merely a symptom of this larger problem – the detritus of a crumbling democracy. Just cleaning up the garbage is not going to solve the systemic problem of plutocracy from which he emerged. If not systemically fixed today with more than cosmetics, Warren understands, the corrupt plutocracy is capable of generating even more toxic products tomorrow. ..."
Sanders, by contrast, was not a troublemaker at all. He talked about his blue-sky political
ideals as something he believed in passionately, but he separated that idealism from his
practical legislative work, which was grounded in vote counts." In other words Warren put
principles over party in the interest of advancing the issues she cared about, like a true
progressive. Sanders' messaging "revolution" was all talk and bluster but no show. Warren has
been praised
for "picking strategic battles she won with a specific set of political skills. 'I would say
she's the best progressive Democratic politician I've seen since Bobby Kennedy,'" reports the
political writer Robert Kuttner. Before she went into electoral politics Warren had already
received credit from Obama and others for establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
(CFPB) a progressive half-billion dollar New Deal-type agency. Can another person be named who
has been responsible for establishing a comparable key regulatory agency in recent decades? By
contrast the not easily dismissed explanation about
Sanders' lack of such accomplishments is "in a business where personal relations count, Sanders
is viewed as a brusque and inflexible loner."
Which then is the true WaPo "Revolutionary?" The tame lion who talks a good game or the
principled brinkswoman who plays a good game? It is Warren who complained to the NYT: " Democrats have been unwilling to get out there and fight." Warren did fight during
her campaign for and service in the Senate, even acquiring a reputation
(among
males , at least) for "stridency" as she was learning the ropes for coping with a
systemically corrupt political order. We should doubt anyone within such a system who is not as
strident or angry as Warren. That stance tended to enhance her power to change the system, at
least until she decided to campaign for president as a way to acquire more power to reform it.
She then appropriately revealed
"a folksier, more accessible side that wasn't always apparent in her role" in the Senate.
Former congressman Barney Frank, always a sharp observer of such matters, said of Warren,
after she had barely completed two years of her brand new "strident" career in electoral
politics: "Right now, she's as powerful a spokesperson on public policy as you could be in the
minority . She has an absolute veto over certain public-policy issues, because Democrats are
not going to cross her . Democrats are afraid of Elizabeth Warren." Can anything remotely
similar be said of Sanders after his 30 years in Washington? Indeed, Frank expressed what
Politico reported as a consensus view
that "[Sanders'] legislative record was to state the ideological position he took on the left,
but with the exception of a few small things, he never got anything done . He has always talked
about revolution, but on Dodd-Frank and Obamacare, he left the pitchfork at home and joined the
Democrats."
Warren acquired power to make change. After two more years she was so powerful that the
Clinton establishment unsuccessfully pressured her to endorse Clinton in the primaries, and
Sanders' acolytes would blame her for not making Sanders the victor by performing as his
unsolicited super-endorser. It takes exceptional strategic and other political skills, focus
and commitment to gain such power in such a short time. Unlike Sanders, even Warren's enemies
do not claim she is ineffective.
Warren, no less than Sanders, has clearly stated that the reason for her candidacy is to
fight "against a small group that holds far too much power, not just in our economy, but also
in our democracy." She says her purpose is not "to just tinker around the edges --
a tax credit here, a regulation there. Our fight is for big, structural change" of
plutocracy, "a rigged system that props up the rich and the powerful and kicks dirt on everyone
else." WaPo must have missed these parts of Warren's presidential
announcement speech which promised this challenge to the power of the systemically corrupt
plutocracy. It is the central motif of her campaign. And of course, "she has a plan for that"
– her first plan. It is her
bill S.3357. 15 th Cong. – the "Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity
Act."
Warren's announcement of her presidential candidacy made clear that she considers Trump to
be merely a symptom of this larger problem – the detritus of a crumbling democracy. Just
cleaning up the garbage is not going to solve the systemic problem of plutocracy from which he
emerged. If not systemically fixed today with more than cosmetics, Warren understands, the
corrupt plutocracy is capable of generating even more toxic products tomorrow.
Therefore, from the very start of her highly effective campaign Warren positioned herself in
opposition not just to Trump but to the economically "rich and powerful [who] have rigged our
political system as well. They've bought off or bullied politicians in both parties to
make sure Washington is always on their side." Like Sanders at his best , she calls this system by its proper name. "When
government works only for the wealthy and well-connected, that is corruption --
plain and simple. Corruption is a cancer on our democracy. And we will get rid of it
only with strong medicine -- with real, structural reform. Our fight is to
change the rules so that our government, our economy, and our democracy work for
everyone." She emphasized to Emily Bazelon, writing for the NYT: " It's structural change that interests me." She
toldTIME "If we want to make real change in this country, it's got to be systemic
change."
Ignoring the fetid distraction of Trump to focus her advocacy instead on the necessary
systemic reforms is a winning progressive strategy. Establishment Democrats will again
predictably
ignore this strategy, as they did in 2016, at their peril. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has already
accurately
predicted the result of sending what Naomi Klein calls ,
"tepid centrists carrying the baggage of decades of neoliberal suffering" to battle against
mobilized totalitarians: "We have a very real risk of losing the presidency to Donald Trump if
we don't have a presidential candidate that's fighting for true transformational change in
lives of working people in the United States."
Warren has taken on the task of defeating, not appeasing, the corrupt establishment which is
willing in 2020 as it was in 2016 to take just that risk in order to preclude a progressive
revival. Warren's plan is, "First: We need to change the rules to clean up Washington. End the
corruption." This is not an opportunistic aspersion by a political con-artist, like Trump's
totally phony "drain the swamp" slogan, soon belied by his own most corrupt administration in
recent history. With Trump second to none in pandering to plutocrats, even a broad section of
his own base has abandoned the remaining mere 23% of
Americans who think he has made any progress on this central campaign promise. In Warren's
case, according to a New Yorkerprofile , "her agenda
of reversing income inequality and beating back the influence of corporate power in politics .
are issues that Warren has pursued for three decades." Her mission has nothing to do with
political calculation. It constitutes hard-earned strategic wisdom about priorities.
Once the systemic corruption is ended all the other crises from climate change and energy to
health and food policy and much more can finally all respond to currently disempowered
majorities. Systemic anti-corruption reform sustains itself first through the watchdog agencies
it creates; solutions for these other issues are not similarly sustainable once the corrupt
plutocracy refocuses its purchased influence on any modest measures that may filter through its
defenses in singular and usually highly constricted moments of reform. For example Obama's
singular unambiguous reform – the Iran nuclear deal – and other more modest Obama
reforms have been killed or wounded by Trump, because Obama left the MIC, Big
Pharma, Wall Street and the other components of the corrupt plutocracy with even
more power than he found them. Through his strategic malfeasance, for motives that
historians will need to pick over, Obama's 8 years were therefore not just unproductive, but
counterproductive for democracy and social justice.
For Warren this issue of the corrupt plutocracy is not just a majoritarian favorite adopted
to boost a political campaign. Obama campaigned
as one "tired of business as usual in Washington" who would "overcome all the big money and
influence" there and get the "lobbyists [who] dominate our government system in Washington" and
their "undue influence" out of "our way." But he woke up president not so "tired of business as
usual in Washington"after all. Refreshed by record-setting campaign cash from the Wall Street
plutocracy he did the opposite
of what many thought to be his central campaign promise. Roger D. Hodge, Mendacity of Hope:
Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism (2010) ( Obama
"the best friend Wall Street could hope for").
Warren does not seem to be just another mendacious politician on this priority issue of the
day. It is one for which Warren's prior expertise and activism drew her into politics. This is
uniquely her
own issue, emergent from a highly successful academic and policy career which brought her
into contact with the corruption which then shaped her views about its centrality. It is less
that Warren needs to be president in the mode of the usual megalomaniacal career politician
than that this paramount issue calls her to bring to the presidency her unique skills acquired
during an extraordinarily successful career outside of electoral politics. Warren herself
confides : "I know why I'm here. I have ideas for how we bring systemic change to this
country. And we're running out of time." As a University of Chicago economist told the
NYT ,
"Wall Street and its allies are more afraid of her than Bernie because when she says she'll
change the rules, she's the one who knows how to do it." Such knowledge is a relevant strategic
distinction, unlike WaPo's "Revolution versus Reform" nonsense, for the very reason that
progressive failure has for two generations been driven by lack of competent strategy not lack
of motivational ideology.
Zach Carter's
argument quoted above can be interpreted to suggest another answer than WaPo's misguided
theory for this key question of the difference between Sanders and Warren. Some claim their
differences are merely symbolic, "differences of temperament, style," " and
world views," much in the same manner as the other candidates who are mining the plutocratic
wing's war-chest of symbolic and diversionary identity politics, and single issue politics,
while at the same time they raise
money from plutocrats to seed and foster those divide and conquer divisions and strategic
errors among progressives. That argument goes that these are just different flavors of
progressivism, wholly unrelated to strategic success. But to deny the existence of objectively
important – indeed decisive strategic – differences between the two progressives in
the race would also be just as wrong as the ridiculous and disputable subjectivity of the
"Revolution versus Reform" distraction marketed by WaPo and others. It invites progressives to
distribute themselves randomly according to the subjective appeal of various styles and smiles
rather than be guided by disciplined thoughtful strategic choice which has become the decisive
factor for recovering democracy.
In the face of such distracting theories of difference, it is important for progressives to
debate and answer this question for themselves, well before the primaries, so as not to
squander their resources of time, finances and conviviality fighting
among themselves over largely subjective triggers during the important lead-up to the primary
elections. For the primaries they must be strategically united in order to win against a
plutocracy which rarely finds itself strategically impaired. I have argued at length
elsewhere that the contemporary uniquely extended failure of democracy in America since
Buckley – which can be quantified by the metric of rising economic inequality
– is fundamentally due to the failure of progressives over two generations to unite
behind effective strategy to fight the corrupt plutocracy as their priority. At those times of
similarly profound crises in the past, progressives have successfully formulated and united
behind effective strategy. In the United States, due to its own systemic cultural legacy of
racist slavery, genocide, and imperialism, joined by more universally shared issues of
patriarchy and plutocracy, there will always be fertile soil for the emergence of latent
anti-democratic elements into a totalitarian mobilization when an authentic and competent
opposition is laking. This was understood from early days, such as Franklin's famous
qualification "if you can keep it."
Trump is the direct and predictable product of the progressive failure to have forged an
effective opposition to corrupt plutocracy by the time of that strategic moment when popular
trust has been lost in the plutocratic "
center ." Lack of a unifying progressive strategy meant that volatile and highly
manipulable proto-totalitarian element would look elsewhere. As Slavoj Zizek, Trouble in
Paradise (2014) 115, posits: "The rise of Fascism is not only the Left's failure, but also
proof that there was a revolutionary potential, a dissatisfaction, which the Left was not able
to mobilize." Proto-totalitarian Trumpism is what arises when progressives are unable to unite
strategically.
The Plutocracy and its propagandists take a keen and well-financed interest in prolonging
this division among progressives. They now back Biden, or Trump. Recent reliable polling shows
Biden 30% – Sanders 19% – Warren 15%. This current data shows that supporters of
the two progressives, if united, would defeat the
plutocracy 's
status quo candidate. As the progressive choice between Sanders and Warren lingers through
the summer of 2019 in a mere contest of subjective tastes it will aggravate yet another in a
series of historical failures by progressives to unite strategically and competently at a time
when the stakes are now the highest. Continued progressive failure to act strategically for
decisively wresting control of the Democratic Party from its corrupt plutocratic establishment
will only move the country further in the direction of totalitarianism. Sanders failed at this
task in 2016 though progressives provided him resources and support to do the job. Yet another
progressive failure to organize strategically behind a competent progressive in the 2020
primaries could be terminal. The likes of WaPo will not do it for them. The necessary exercise
of their own strategic judgment in this choice needed to prevail in 2020 will be a useful
exercise of an unexercised muscle by progressives. To elect a strategist progressives must
master the strategy.
The purpose of this article is to discuss four issues for which there is evidence of an
objectively salient strategic difference between these two leading alternatives to Biden beyond
those already discussed. Though the " eminently
beatable" Biden currently leads the plutocracy's large stable of compromised candidates, it is
difficult to imagine Biden not tripping fatally over his own serial, legendarily tone-deaf and
unrepented gaffes. The plutocracy may need to draw on its deep bench in later innings.
Progressives need be prepared. The objective evidence below can assist progressives in making
the necessary early strategic choice between the two progressives for opposing the plutocracy's
eventual candidate which will help them to resist predictable distractions. The alternative to
such a strategic decision is bickering over subjective, standard-free, factually contested
assertions that too often seem to belie unattractive motivations if not actual bot
provocateurs.
Some might object that 2019 is too early for progressives to rely on polls or even to make
such a choice. My own experience in authoring a long 2015 Huffington Post article strongly
supporting Sanders is that discerning use of early polling data can provide a reliable guide to
what will remain as the decisive factors through to the end of the campaign cycle, and even
beyond. The present piece is offered in the same spirit as my 2015
article which remains relevant as an example of how early the disastrous outcome of the
establishment Democrats' 2016 status quo approach could be predicted. Since the decisive
factors are now discernible there is no advantage and great risk in delaying the inevitable
choice that progressives will make.
I disclose my personal views at the outset, if they are not already clear. Though I
supported Sanders extensively through advocacy and as a state delegate for Sanders in 2016,
lending a good deal of my time and even some money to the effort, my experience produced high
regard for self-organizing Sanders supporters but quite the opposite for the man himself.
Certainly by the time of his craven speech
at the Democratic Convention in July, if
notearlier , I had
concluded he was an incompetent
betrayer of the important role and opportunity he had been granted by his supporters, which
he wasted at a crucial moment in American history. When he is compared to Elizabeth Warren, I
now find Sanders to be
unreliable , inauthentic, and wrongly motivated as a career politician with no other
relevant skill base. This perspective has been elaborated at greater length by Jeffrey St.
Clair (2016), as referenced below.
Sanders is concededly good at expounding majoritarian policies and his nominal independence
allows him rhetorical distance from the plutocratic wing of the Democrats, which creates guilt
by association and a fat target
for the proto-totalitarian (also called "populist") right-wing. I do not deny the sincerity of
his progressive views. He has a role. That role is not a leadership role. The problem with
Sanders is execution. Chris Smith
makes a similar point in Vanity Fair when he observes that Sanders "is very good at
raising money .what Sanders was less good at in 2016 was spending his large pile of money to
win votes. Particularly the crucial Democratic primary votes of women and African-Americans.
Sanders is showing little sign that he's going to get it right this time around." Marketing
strategy is not political strategy. Sanders ran a both lucrative and wasteful 2016 campaign in
these respects and also in his failure to elaborate detailed strategy to support his big
themes, which also drew justifiable criticism of his competence.
If Bernie Sanders has not, Elizabeth Warren clearly has learned each of these lessons from
Sanders' flawed campaign. She has been generating detailed policy at such a fast pace it is
difficult to see anyone catching up to her, though Sanders has tried by feebly issuing a less
nuanced version of Wilson's college debt plan. Warren has demonstrated her ability to run a
highly effective campaign on limited funds. Spending money effectively is a strategic skill.
There do not seem to be any third-string cronies around her siphoning off funds into useless
sideshows. One imagines that if Warren possessed Sanders' 2016 mostly wasted pile of loot she
would already have reorganized the Inauthentic Opposition party – as Sheldon Wolin described the Democrats
in 2008 – into a true opposition party that it was designed by Martin Van Buren
to be at its inception.
As for Sanders' problem with reaching African-Americans, according to Rev. Al
Sharpton his progressive rival has no such problem. Of course, "Kamala [Harris] connects
with black-church audiences. Cory Booker, too," says Sharpton. "And I'll tell you who surprised
me: Liz Warren. She rocked my organization's convention like she was taking Baptist preacher
lessons." Warren thus readily solves the biggest demographic problem Sanders had and still has:
black women, particularly in the south. And this Oklahoma woman might also surprise with her
ability to use "
southern charm " to flip the script for white women still living under the South's
unreconstructed patriarchy. Her primary-election campaign strategy has been preparing her with
the experience to play an unprecedented role in American political history in the 2020 general
election.
An establishment Democratic Congressman offered
a similar observation about Warren's potential: "If she can make the leap to being a candidate
that played in the rural Midwest it could be really interesting to watch." By comparison
Sanders, used to "giving the same stump speech at event after event, numb to the hunger of the
beast he had awakened," St. Clair (2016) 8, brings a known and dated turn to the stage, which
like Biden's has little potential to surprise on its up side potential among new demographics
in this manner. The sooner Warren becomes the acknowledged front runner in the party, the
sooner she can use her proven networking skills within the party to bring some order to the
crowded primary field for purposes of deploying them effectively to reach various such
disaffected demographics. She is the person most capable of turning the lemon of an overcrowded
field of contenders into lemonade. Organizing such cooperation is something foreign to Sanders'
experience, which was demonstrated in his shutting out potential allies from his campaign. Yet
it is a significant potential strategic factor that Warren can uniquely bring for the essential
redefinition of the Democratic Party in 2020.
We already know Sanders capitulated to the plutocracy in 2016 for no
reason that he could credibly
explain . After promising his supporters to carry the fight to the Convention floor he
folded long prior to the Convention. What exactly is to be gained by progressives in trusting
Sanders not to do the same thing again? We now have the alternative of Warren who gives us no
reason to doubt and some reason to trust that she will " persist " with strategic intelligence rather
than capitulate under similar circumstances. She combines the unique qualities of a true policy
expert with the ability to communicate. But most important she is someone who has not been a
career politician, and therefore is not, like Sanders, "year after year: a politician who
promises one thing and delivers, time and again, something else entirely." St. Clair (2016) 18.
In 2016 this habit, in the form of deference to the plutocracy he campaigned against, delivered
Trump.
Having disclosed this general point of view toward the two progressives, I try to remove
these subjective understandings largely derived from my involvement in 2016 on behalf of
Sanders' effort from the analysis below of four objective factors that distinguish Sanders'
from Warren based on opinion polling of their supporters. Those with a different experience
than mine can nevertheless use these objective factors to make a strategic progressive choice.
The issue raised here is not so much about the contested fact-based considerations above, but
about the necessity for progressives to made a strategic decision based on uncontested
objective facts. The argument is that there is no reason to delay making that strategic
choice.
... ... ...
If it is true that Warren is attracting support on her merits and not for her
gender, the men who are supporting Sanders in excess numbers and at the same time prioritized a
progressive victory in 2020 should make a primary choice only after they a) get better informed
about Warren, b) read the writing of polling trendlines on the wall, c) not be fooled by
Sanders' "socialism" gambit, and d) eschew even the appearance of gender bias by immediately
unifying progressive support behind Warren.
2016 was then, 2020 is already now. Warren is not remotely a Clinton.*
* This article is based in part on the author's book, "Strategy for Democracy: From
Systemic Corruption to Proto-Totalitarianism in the Second Gilded Age Plutocracy, and
Progressive Responses" which is currently available as a free ebook .
Rob Hager is a public interest litigator who filed an amicus brief
in the Montana sequel to Citizens United and has worked as an international consultant on
anti-corruption policy and legislation.
"... The Democratic Party, thanks largely to the Clintons and their DLC nonsense, has certainly moved to the right. So far right that I haven't been able to call it the Democratic Party. ..."
"... Every Democrat should sign on to FDR's 1944 Economic Bill of Rights speech. It is hardly radical, but rather the foundation of the modern Democratic Party, or at least was before being abrogated by the "new Democrats." Any Dem not supporting it is at best one of the "Republican-lights" who led the Dem party into the wilderness. It would also behoove the party to resurrect FDR's Veep Henry Wallace's NY Times articles about the nature of big businesses and fascism, also from '44. Now that was a party of the people. 7 Replies ..."
In its most recent analysis, Gallup
found that from 1994 to 2018, the percentage of all Democrats who call themselves liberal more
than doubled from 25 percent to 51 percent.
Over the same period, the percentage of Democratic moderates and conservatives fell
steadily, with the share of moderates dropping from 48 to 34 percent, and of conservatives
dropping from 25 to 13 percent. These trends began to accelerate during the administration of
George W. Bush and have continued unabated during the Obama and Trump presidencies.
... ... ...
The anti-establishment faction contributed significantly to the large turnout increases in
Democratic primaries last year.
Pew found that from 2014 to 2018, turnout in House primaries rose from 13.7 to 19.6 percent
of all registered Democrats, in Senate primaries from 16.6 to 22.2 percent and in governor
primaries from 17.1 to 24.5 percent.
... ... ...
The extensive support among prospective Democratic presidential candidates for
Medicare for All , government-guaranteed jobs and a higher minimum wage reflects the
widespread desire in the electorate for greater
protection from the vicissitudes of market capitalism -- in response to "increasingly
incomplete risk protection in an era of dramatic social change," as the political scientist
Jacob Hacker put it in "
Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy
Retrenchment in the United States ." Support for such protections is showing signs of
becoming a litmus test for candidates running in the 2020 Democratic presidential
primaries.
... ... ...
Sawhill looks at the ideological shifts in the Democratic electorate less from a historical
perspective and more as a response to contemporary economic and social dislocation. Among both
conservatives and liberals, Sawhill argued, there is "an intellectual awakening about the flaws
of modern capitalism" -- a recognition of the failings of "neoliberalism, the idea that a
market economy with a few light guardrails is the best way to organize a society." This
intellectual climate may result in greater receptivity among voters to more radical
proposals.
These "big, bold leftist ideas" pose a strategic problem for liberals and the Democratic
Party," (sigh). Here we go again. I am an older guy (Caucasian). I attended Texas A&M
University from 1978 to 1982. My tuition payments during that entire time was $4 per credit
hour. Same for every Texas resident during that time. Roughly $128 per year. Had Texas
A&M not offered education at this modest entry point financially, I would still be
working in the Holiday Inn kitchen washing dishes. Like I was in high school. So, I don't
understand why older guys who went to school on the cheap, like me, and probably like Mr.
Edsall, are writing articles about "radical" proposals like "free" or at least "affordable"
education for Americans. We could achieve this very easily if America refocused on domestic
growth and health and pulled itself out of its continuous wars. America has spent $6 Trillion
dollars on war since 2001. For what? Nothing. Imagine how much college tuition we could have
paid instead. Imagine how that would change America. What is radical is killing people of
color in other countries for no goal and no reason. Let's refocus on domestic USA issues that
are important. Like how to get folks educated so they/we can participate in the US economy.
Mr. Edsall, what did you pay to
go to school per year? Was that "radically" cheap? For me, it was not radical to pay $128 per year. It was a blessing.
Bruce Rozenblit Kansas City, MO
Jan. 23 Times Pick
To the conservative, liberal means socialist. Unfortunately, they don't know what socialism
is. They think socialism is doing nothing and getting paid for it, a freeloader society.
Socialism is government interference in the free market, interference in production.
Ethanol
is socialism. Oil and gas subsidies are socialism. Agricultural price supports are socialism.
Tax breaks and subsidies are socialism. The defence industry is socialism. All of these
socialist policies greatly benefit big business. What liberals want is socialism of a similar
nature that benefits people. This would include healthcare, education, public transportation,
retirement, and childcare. Currently, people work their tails off to generate the profits
that pay for corporate socialism and get next to nothing in return. Daycare costs as much as
many jobs pay.
Kids graduate from college $50,000 in debt. Get sick and immediately go
bankrupt. They have to work past 70. Pursuing these policies is not some far out leftist
agenda. They are the norm in most industrialized nations.
It's hard to live free or die if
you don't have anything to eat. It's easy to be a libertarian if you make a million bucks a
year. Liberals are not advocating getting paid for doing nothing. They want people to have
something to do and get paid for it. That is the message that should be pushed. Sounds pretty
American to me. 27 Replies
This old white (liberal) man regrets that I was born too late for the FDR New Deal era and
too early to be part of this younger generation taking us back to our roots. I lived in
America when we had a strong middle class and I have lived through the Republican
deconstruction of the middle class, I much preferred the former.
Economic Security and FDR's second bill of rights is a very
good place for this new generation to pick up the baton and start running. 4 Replies
Are these really moves to the left, or only in comparison to the lurch further right by the republicans. What is wrong with
affordable education, health care, maternal and paternal leave, and a host of other programs that benefit all people? Why
shouldn't we have more progressive tax rates? These are not radical ideas. 6 Replies
As a senior, who has been a healthcare provider for decades, I hope that people will not be
afraid if they get sick, that people will not fear going bankrupt if they get sick, that they
do not have to fear they will die needlessly if they get sick, because they did not have
proper access to haeathcare treatment. If a 29 year old woman from Queens, Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, can fulfill my hopes and dreams, and alleviate these fears, just to get humane
healthcare - then I say "You Go Girl!" What a wonderful world that would be..... 9 Replies
Moving to the left??? I'm 64 years old. I started out on the left and haven't moved leftward
in all these years. I'm just as far left now as when I registered to vote as a Democrat when
I was 18. We called it being liberal and the Democratic Party reflected my beliefs.
The
Democratic Party, thanks largely to the Clintons and their DLC nonsense, has certainly moved
to the right. So far right that I haven't been able to call it the Democratic Party. So far
right that I have seriously considered changing my party affiliation. Right now, the only
think keeping me in the party is this influx of vibrant new faces. One thing that will make
me leave is any ascendancy of the corporate lapdog "New Democrat Coalition" attempting to
keep my party in thrall to the Republicans. No. The electorate has not shifted sharply
leftward. We've been here all along. Our party went down a wrong path. It had better get back
on track or become a footnote. 12 Replies
I work with young adults in a university setting. The university I work for used to be really
inexpensive. It is still relatively inexpensive and still a bargain. Most of the students
have student loans. They can not make enough money in the summer or during the term to pay
for tuition, fees, housing, and food. They need jobs that will pay enough to pay for those
loans. They also need portable health care. As the employer based health insurance gets
worse, that portable health care becomes a necessity so they can move to where the jobs are.
So if a livable wage and universal health care are far left ideas then so be it. I am a
leftist. 1 Reply
Every Democrat should sign on to FDR's 1944 Economic Bill of Rights speech. It is hardly
radical, but rather the foundation of the modern Democratic Party, or at least was before
being abrogated by the "new Democrats." Any Dem not supporting it is at best one of the
"Republican-lights" who led the Dem party into the wilderness. It would also behoove the
party to resurrect FDR's Veep Henry Wallace's NY Times articles about the nature of big
businesses and fascism, also from '44. Now that was a party of the people. 7 Replies
@Michael. Pell grants and cheap tuition allowed me to obtain a degree in aerospace
engineering in 1985. I'd like to think that that benefited our country, not radicalized it.
I don't think that's entirely accurate, and even if true, leaving students to
the predations of private lenders isn't the answer. Although I'm willing to entertain your
thesis, soaring tuition has also been the way to make up for the underfunding of state
universities by state legislatures.
At the same time, there's been an increase since the 70s
in de luxe facilities and bloated administrator salaries. When administrators make budget
cuts, it isn't for recreational facilities and their own salaries -- it's the classics and
history departments, and it's to faculty, with poorly paid part-time adjuncts teaching an
unconscionable share of courses. So universities have been exacerbating the same unequal
division between the people who actually do the work (faculty) and the people who allocate
salaries (administrators) -- so too as in the business world, as you say.
I have a friend who lives on the West Coast and is constantly posting on social media about
"white privilege" and how we all need to embrace far left policies to "even the playing
field" for minorities. I always bristle at this, not because I don't support these policies,
but because this person chooses to live in a city with actually very few minorities. She also
lives in a state that's thriving, with new jobs, new residents and skyrocketing real estate
values. I, by contrast, live in a state that's declining....steadily losing jobs, businesses
and residents....leaving many people feeling uneasy and afraid. I also live in a city with a
VERY high minority crime rate, which also makes people uneasy and afraid. Coastal liberals
like my friend will instantly consider anyone who mentions this a racist, and hypocritically
suggest that our (assumed) racism is what's driving our politics. But when I look around here
and see so many Trump supporters (myself NOT included), I don't see racists desperately
trying to retain their white privilege in a changing world. I see human beings living in a
time and place of great uncertainty and they're scared! If Dems fail to notice this, and fail
to create an inclusive message that addresses the fears of EVERYBODY in the working/middle
class, regardless of their skin color, they do so at their own peril. Especially in parts of
the country like mine that hold the key to regaining the WH. Preaching as my friend does is
exactly how to lose. 5 Replies
A majority of Americans, including independent voters and some Republicans favor Medicare for
all, a Green New Deal, and higher taxes on the rich. While Trump has polarized voters around
race, Ocasio-Cortez is polarizing around class -- the three-fourths of Americans working
paycheck to paycheck against the 1 percenters and their minions in both parties. Reading the
tea leaves of polls and current Democratic Party factions as Edsall does, is like obsessing
about Herbert Hoover's contradictory policies that worsened the Depression. If Ocasio-Cortez
becomes bolder and calls for raising the business taxes and closing tax incentives,
infrastructure expansion, and federal jobs guarantee, she'll transform the American political
debate from the racist wall meme to the redistribution of wealth and power America needs. 1
Reply
Labels such as 'liberal" fail to characterize the political agenda articulated by Bernie
Sanders. By style and substance, Sanders represented a departure from the hum-drum norm. Is
something wrong about aspiring to free college education in an era when student debt totals
$1.5 trilliion? His mantle falls to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her followers. One hundred
years ago, American progressivism was spawned by Robert La Follette. As governor and senator
from Wisconsin, and as failed third party candidate for president, La Follette called for
laws to protect youth from horrendous labor practices. He called for laws to protect civil
rights. In time, many of La Follette's positions became mainstream. Will history repeated
itself? Maybe. The rise of "liberalism" in the Democratic Party is therapeutic, as evidenced
by youthful audiences who attended the Sander's rallies. Increasing voter turnout will take
back government from a minority that undermines the essence of a democratic system. A
Democratic counterbalance to the Republican "Freedom Caucus" may appear divisive to some. To
others, it offers a path to the future. 4 Replies
Ok, from the perspective of a rural white midwest retiree independent with post graduate
education, the issues weren't the democrats moving to the left, it was the Republican party
turning right (and they show no signs of stopping). Who is against an equal opportunity for
an equal quality education for everyone? My college costs years ago could be met with a
barely minimum wage job and low cost health insurance provided by the school and I could
graduate without debt even from graduate school. Seeing what years of Republican rule did to
our college and university systems with a raise in tuition almost every year while
legislative support declined every year, who is happy with that? Unions that used to provide
a majority of the apprenticeships in good jobs in the skilled were killed by a thousand tiny
cuts passed by Republicans over the years. The social safety net that used to be a hand up
became an ever diminishing hand out. What happened is those that had made it even to the
middle class pulled the ladder up behind them, taking away the self same advantages they had
in the past and denying future generations the opportunity. The young democrats and
independents coming along see this all too clearly. 1 Reply
These so-called liberal and progressive ideas aren't new. They work now in other countries
and have so for many, many years, but the rich keep screaming capitalism good, socialism bad
all the while slapping tariffs on products and subsidizing farmers who get to pretend that
this is somehow still a free market. It's fun to watch my neighbors do mental gymnastics to
justify why subsidizing soy bean farmers to offset the tariffs is a strong free market, but
that subsidizing solar panels and healthcare is socialism AKA the devil's work. All of this
underscores the reality that, much like geography, Americans are terrible with economics.
The tensions between progressive and moderate positions, liberal and conservative positions
in the Democratic Party and in independents, flow from and vary based on information on and
an understanding of the issues. What seems to one, at first glance, radically
progressive/liberal becomes more mainstream when one is better informed. Take just one issue,
Medicare for all, a progressive/liberal objective. At first glance people object based on two
main points: costs and nefarious socialism. How do you pay for Medicare for all? Will it add
to the debt? Will socialism replace our capitalist economy? People who have private medical
insurance pay thousands in premiums, deductibles, co-pays each year. The private insurance is
for profit, paying CEO's million dollar salaries and returns to stockholders. People paying
these private insurance premiums would pay less for Medicare and have more in their own
pockets. Medicare for all is no more nefariously socialistic than social security. Has social
security ended capitalism and made America a socialist country? I think not. Is social
security or Medicare adding to the national debt? Only if Congress will continue to play
their tribal political games. These programs are currently solvent but definitely need
tweaking to avoid near term shortfalls. A bipartisan commission could solve the long term
solvency issues. The more we know and understand about progressive/liberal ideas, the less
radical they become. The solution is education. 17 Replies
@Bruce Rozenblit Absolutely correct. According to the Bible of Saint Reagan, Socialism for
corporations and the rich: Good. Socialism for the poor and working class: bad.
@Michael - cheaper tuition starts with getting the Federal Govt out of the student loan
business, it's as simple as that. Virtually unlimited tuition dollars is what drove up
tuition rates. Higher Ed is a business, make no mistake.
@Bruce, have you ever considered creating a new "reality" network where the truth about
things could be told? You're quite good at articulating and defining how the world works,
without all the usual nonsense. I really appreciate your comments.
Can we please, please stop talking about AOC? Sure, she's young and energetic and is worthy
of note, but what has she accomplished? It's easy to go to a rooftop- or a twitter account-
and yell "health care and education for all!' But please, AOC, tell us how you are going to
not only pay for these ideas but actually get them through Congress and the Senate? It's just
noise, until then, and worse, you're creating a great target for the right that will NOT move
with you and certainly can label these ideas as leftist nutism- which would be fine, if we
weren't trying to get Trump out of office ASAP.. Dreams are great. Ideals are great. But
people who can get stuff actually done move the needle...less rhetoric, more actual plans
please.. 10 Replies
Its ok for a far right bigoted clown to be elected to the president and a tax cut crazy party
that wants to have a full scale assault against the environment and force more medical
related bankruptcies to be in charge? The safe candidate protected by 800 superdelegates in
2016 was met with a crushing defeat. The Democratic establishment wants a safe neo con
corporatist democrat. Fair taxation and redistribution of wealth is not some far out kooky
idea. The idea that the wealthiest Americans getaway with paying tax at 15%, if at all, is
ruinous to the country. Especially since there is an insane compulsion to spend outlandish
trillions on "national security". Universal health care would save the country billions of
dollars. Medicare controls costs much more effectively than private insurers. As with defense
the US spends billions more on health care than other countries and has worse medical
outcomes. Gentrification has opened fissures in the Democrats. The wealthy price out other
established communities. The problems of San Francisco and Seattle and other places with
gentrification need to be addressed before an open fissure develops in the party. 2 Replies
@Midwest Josh It's time for higher education to stop being a business. Likewise it's time to
stop electing leaders who are businessmen/women. 38 Replies
One could argue that many of these ideas are not that far left - rather it's a result of more
and more Americans realizing that WE are not the problem. Clean water and air, affordable
health care and affordable education are not that radical.
@Midwest Josh Hmmm, how old are you Midwest Josh? There were student loans back in the 1970s
when college cost me about $400 a year. Maybe something happened when that failed Hollywood
actor spouted slogans like "Government is not the solution, government is the problem" (and,
no, it was not taken out of context, he most definitely DID mean that government is the
problem - look it up) www.remember-to-breathe.org 38 Replies
You are studying this like it represents some kind of wave but in fact it is just a few
districts out of 435. These young women seem extraordinarily simply because the liberal media
says they are extraordinary. If the media attention on these new representatives were to
cease, no one except their families, their staff, and maybe Stephen Colbert would notice. 9
Replies
Finally, the left came out of its hibernation. We have spent the last decade or more either
sleeping or hiding, while at the same time, the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, Trump, and his
minions were taking over our government---It is such a breath of fresh air to finally listen
to airwaves filled with outrage over CEO's making millions of dollars an hour, of companies
that have become monopolies, of tax plans that bring back the middle class---it took us a
while, but we are back. 2 Replies
For so long (40+ years) the political spectrum has been pulled wildly and radically to the
right across so many issues. The Democratic party has for the most part ''triangulated''
their stances accordingly to essentially go along with republicans and corporate interests
for a bargain of even more tax/corporate giveaways to hold the line on social issues or
programs. It has now gotten to the point that continuous war has been waged for two (2)
decades and all the exorbitant costs that go along with that. There has been cut, after cut
after cut whereas some people and businesses are not paying any taxes at all now.
Infrastructure, social spending and education are all suffering because the cupboard is now
bare in the greatest and most richest country in the world. It just came out the other day
that ONLY (26) people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the entire world's
population. That amount of wealth in relation to dwindling resources of our planet and
crushing poverty for billions is abjectly obscene on so many levels. Coupled with all of the
above, is the continued erosion of human rights. (especially for women and dominion over
their own bodies) People are realizing that the founding fathers had a vision of a secular
and Progressive nation and are looking for answers and people that are going to give it to
them. They are realizing that the Democratic party is the only party that will stand up for
them and be consistent for all.
Democrats just don't like to win presidential elections. Go ahead. Move left. But remember,
you are not taking the rest of the country with you. As a NeverTrump Republican, I'll vote
for a moderate Democrat in 2020. No lefties. Sorry. Don't give the country a reason to give
Trump four more years. Win the electoral college vote instead of complaining about it. The
anti-Trump is a moderate. 5 Replies
"These "big, bold leftist ideas" pose a strategic problem." No they don't. The Real Problem
is the non-thinking non-Liberal 40% of Democrats and their simpatico Republicans who are
programmed to scream, "How will we pay for all that?" Don't they know all that money will
just be stolen? They were silent when that money was stolen by the 0.1% for the Tax Giveaway
(they're now working on tax giveaway 2.0) and by the military-industrial complex (to whom
Trump gave an extra $200,000,000,000 last year), various boondoggle theft-schemes like the
Wall, the popular forever Wars (17 years of Iraq/Afghanistan has cost $2,400,000,000,000 (or
7 times WW2)), and the Wall Street bailouts. Don't those so-called Democrats realize whose
money that was? First of all, it's our money. And second, our money "spent" on the People is
a highly positive investment with a positive ROI. Compare that to money thrown into the usual
money pits which has no return at all - except more terrorists for the military, more income
inequality for the Rich, and Average incomes of $422,000 for Wall Street. When the People's
money is continually stolen, how can anyone continue to believe that we're living in a
democracy?
Bruce, a succinct summary of your post is this: What we have now is socialism for the wealthy
and corporations (who, as SCOTUS has made clear, are people, too) and rugged individualism
for the rest of us. What we're asking for is nothing more than a level playing field for all.
And I hope that within my lifetime SCOTUS will have an epiphany and conclude that, gosh,
maybe corporations aren't people after all. We can only hope. 27 Replies
Edsall writes with his normal studious care, and makes some good points. Still, I am growing
weary of these "Democrats should be careful and move back to the center" opinions. Trump
showed us that the old 'left-right-center' way of thinking is no longer applicable. These
progressive policies appeal to a broad majority of Americans not because of their ideological
position, but because so many are suffering and are ready to give power to representatives
who will finally fight for working families. Policies like medicare for all are broadly
popular because the health insurance system is broken and most people are fed up and ready to
throw the greedy bums out. We've been trying the technocratic incrementalism strategy for too
long, with too little to show for it. Bold integrity is exactly what we need. 1 Reply
@Bruce Rozenblit Thank you; as others have commented already, this is so well said. To build
on your point: just yesterday, a commenter on a NYT article described AOC as a communist.
Incredible. The extent to which decent, pragmatic and, in a bygone era, mainstream, ideas are
now painted as dangerous, extreme, and anti-American is both absurd and disturbing. 27
Replies
If Hillary were President, there would never have been a shutdown. That is the lesson that
Mrs. Pelosi, AOC and Democrats should carry forward to 2020. 5 Replies
@LTJ No one is promoting ''free stuff'' - what is being proposed is that people/corporations
pay into a system Progressively upwards (especially on incomes above 10,000,000 dollars per
year) that allowed them and gave them the infrastructure to get rich in the first place. I am
sure you would agree that people having multiple homes, cars, and luxury items while children
go hungry in the richest nation in the world is obscene on its face. Aye ?
@Ronny Respectfully, President Clinton had a role in the deconstruction of the middle class.
My point is many of the folks in the news today were in congress that far back. Say what you
will about President Trump and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez,I believe they both have exposed
the left,the right,the press for what they are. Please choose your own example. I don't agree
with all of her positions, but I can't express how I enjoy her making the folks that under
their watch led us to where we find ourselves today squirm and try to hide their anger for
doing what she does so well. I've been waiting 55 years for this. Thank you AOC.
@Bruce Rozenblit Bruce, spot on. The point of the New Deal was not to replace capitalism with
socialism, but to save capitalism from itself by achieving the balance that would preserve a
capitalist economic system but one in which the concerns of the many in terms of freedom from
want and freedom from fear were addressed. In other words, the rich get to continue to be
rich, but not without paying the price of not being hung in the public square - by funding an
expanding middle class. A middle class that by becoming consumers, made the rich even richer.
But then greed took over and their messiah Saint Reagan convinced this large middle class
that they too could be rich and so cutting taxes for the wealthy (and in the process
redistributing the wealth from the expanding middle class to the wealthy) would one day
benefit them - when they were wealthy. Drunk on the promise of future wealth, and working
harder than ever, the middle class failed to notice whose ox was being gored and voted
Republican. And now finally, the pendulum swings. Amen. 27 Replies
@Socrates I'm reminded of a poll I saw several years ago that presented positions on issues
without attaching them to any individual politician or affixing labels of party or ideology.
The pol aimed to express the issue in neutral language without dog whistles or buzzwords.
When the pollsters had the data, they looked for the member of Congress whose positions best
reflected the view of the majority of respondents. It was Dennis Kucinich, the scary liberal
socialist bogeyman of his day.
I lived in Europe for a long time. Not even most right wing parties there wish to abolish
universal healthcare, replace low or tuition-free colleges with college debt, etc. The US has
politically drifted far to the right when the center Democrats were in charge. Now Trump is
lurching the country to extreme raw capitalism at the cost of national debt, even our
environment and climate, Democrats need to stop incrementalism. Simple as that. 1 Reply
@Michael Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was opposed to the eternal triumvirate axis of inhumane
evil aka capitalism, militarism and racism. King was a left-wing socialist community
organizer. In the mode of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. And the Nazarene of Matthew 25:
31- 46. America's military and prison industrial complexes are the antithesis of America' s
proclaimed interests and values. America is number one in arms, money and prisoners. MAGA? 38
Replies
Bernie and AOC don't seem all that radical to me for the reason this op-ed points out -- I
grew up in a New Deal Democratic family. My Grampa was an electrician supervisor for the City
of Chicago and my Granma was a legal secretary. They wanted universal health care and free
education and jobs for all. Those things made sense then, and they make sense now. They
provide solutions to the deep problems of our society, so who wouldn't want them? We've had a
lab test -- other than actual jobs for all Northern Europe has these things and we don't.
Neo-liberalism, its Pay-Go formula for government, and its benefits for the rich fails on
most counts except producing massive inequality and concentrated wealth. Bernie voters want
solutions to inequality and climate change, and they are readily available if government can
be wrested from the hands of Republicans like Trump and neo-liberals.
@Michael To me, the key sentence in your excellent post is that American needs to "refocus on
domestic growth and health and pull itself out of its continuous wars." All policiticians
hoping for our votes in the future need to make clear where they stand on this. As to those
who say that making all those weapons creates jobs, is there any reason that we couldn't
instead start producing other quality goods in the U.S. again? 38 Replies
@chele Me too! I am 72 y/o, retired, college educated at a rather tough school in which to
gain entrance. Lived below my means for over 40 years. Parents are both WW2 Marine Corps
officers(not career), who voted Republican and were active in local elections. They would be
shocked and disgusted at what that "party" represents now.
I think you look at all this in a vacuum. Democrats veered left because there was a need to
counterbalance what was happening on the right. They see Republicans aggressively trying to
undo all the gains the left had achieved the previous several decades. Civil rights, Womens'
rights, anti-poverty efforts, and so on all not just being pushed to the right, but forced to
the right with a bulldozer. It got to a tipping point where Democrats could clearly see the
forest for the trees. A great deal of this was a result of Republicans inability to candy
coat their agenda. Universal healthcare....not being replaced by affordable alternatives, but
by nothing. Tax cuts that were supposed to help the middle class, but, as evidenced by the
government shutdown, giving them no economic breathing room. And, in fact, making their tax
cut temporary, something nearly impossible to reverse with such a high deficit. Attacking
immigrants with no plan on who, actually, would do the work immigrants do. The list goes on
and on. In the past, many social programs were put in place not so much to alleviate
suffering as to silence the masses. Now Republicans feel the time has come to take it all
back, offering easily seen through false promises as replacements. That the left should see
the big picture here and say "Not so fast" should come as absolutely no surprise. All they
need now is a leader eloquent enough to rally the masses.
I think the Democratic Party is finally returning to its roots. We are now engaging in the
same politics which gave us control of the House for about fifty years. I went to my first
International Union convention is 1972 at which Ted Kennedy was one of the featured speakers.
One of the themes of the convention was healthcare for all. Now it treated as some sort of
radical proposal from the left. I am not certain why clean air and water, affordable health
care and housing, combating climate change, raising wages, taxing the highest income
brackets, updating our infrastructure, solving the immigration issue, and providing aid not
weapons to other nations, are considered liberal or socialistic. I think it represents the
thinking of a progressive society looking to the future rather than living in the past. 1
Reply
@David G. I would also say that many people think a cooperative economic enterprise, such as
a worker owned factory, is Socialism. But this is blatantly wrong and is pushed by the rich
business and stock owners to denigrate these types of businesses. Cooperatives have often
proven themselves quite successful in navigating a free market system, while simultaneously
focussing on workers rights and ownership. We need more if this in North America. 27 Replies
@Samuel She's been in office less than a month. You want to shut down the conversation that
is finally bringing real hope & passion to average people, & is bringing a new set of
goals (& more integrity) to the Democratic Party? Paying for single-payer has been
rehashed many times; just look at all the other 'civilized' countries who have it. For once,
try putting the savings from ending co-pays, deductibles, & premiums into the equation.
Think about the savings from large-group bids, & negotiations for drug prices, & the
savings from preventative medicine heading off more expensive advanced treatment. Bernie
Sanders has been explaining all this for years now. 'Less rhetoric'? The conversation is
(finally) just now getting started! You start by explaining what is possible. When enough
people understand it, the needle will start to move. Watch.
@JBC, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was voted into congress and then the media took notice. It wasn't
the other way around. My only hope is that she stays the course.
@Bruce Rozenblit And don't forget the biggest socialist project of our time - the wall! And
withholding 800k employee checks to do so? That's socialism at gun point. 27 Replies
There are two points left out of all of the analysis of both Pressley's and Ocasio-Cortez's
campaigns. First of all, both women did old fashioned retail politics, knocking on doors,
sending out postcards, gathering as many volunteers as they could and talking about the
issues with voters face to face. They took nothing for granted. This is precisely what
Crowley and Capuano did not do. Second, they actually listened to the voters regarding what
they needed and wanted in Congressional representation. What both of the stand for is neither
Liberal or Conservative. What they stand for human values. This is not to say that Capuano
and Crowley did not stand for these same values, but they took the voter for granted. That is
how you lose elections. The Democrats are going back to their roots. They have found that the
Mid-terms proved that issues of Health Care, minimum wages, good educations for all despite
economic circumstances, and how important immigration is to this country really matter to the
voters. They need to be braver in getting this across before the next election And the press
might want to start calling the candidates Humane, period. 1 Reply
@MIMA Yes, absolutely. I'm retired from the healthcare field after practicing 38 years. It is
unconscionable that we question the access of healthcare to everyone. The complaint usually
heard from the right is about "the takers." Data I've seen indicates that the majority on
"the dole" are workers, who can't make ends meet in the gig economy or the disabled. That
some lazy grubbers are in the system is unavoidable; perfection is the enemy of the good.
@Stu Sutin I agree, "Liberal" is too broad a term, as so-called liberals do not agree on
everything, especially the degree. We can be socially liberal, while economically
moderate--or vice versa. Some believe in John Maynard Keynes economics, but appose abortion.
Some want free college tuition, while others support public schools but do not support the
public paying for higher education. Our foreign policy beliefs often differ greatly. What
joins us is a belief in a bottom up economy, not top down--and a greater belief in civil
liberties and a greater distribution of wealth. Beyond that, our religious and cultural
beliefs often differ.
I think the Internet has provided an influx of new understanding for the American left.
They've learned that things considered radical here are considered unexceptional in the rest
of the developed world. There is a realization that the only reason these are not normal here
is because of a lack of political will to enact them. That will is building as the ongoing
inequities are splashed across the front pages and the twitter feeds. It is the beginning of
the end for American exceptionalism (a term coined by Stalin as America resisted the wave of
socialism spreading around the world in the early 20th century). Unbridled capitalism lasted
longer than communism but only because its costs were hidden longer. We need to find the
sustainable middle path that allows for entrepreneurship along with a strong social safety
net (and environmental protection). This new crop of progressive Democrats (with strong
electoral backing) might lead the way.
at 63, I was there. I don't want second Trump administration either, but the route to a
Democratic victory is not cozying up to the corporations and the wealthy, but by stating
clearly, like FDR, "they are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred." We
need people who are willing to say that the rich deserve to be taxed at a higher rate,
because they have benefited more from our society, that no income deserves to be taxed at a
lower rate than the wages paid to working people, and that vast wealth needs to be earned,
not inherited. Emmanuel Saez makes persuasive arguments, but they need to be made in the
language of the working people. 12 Replies
@Michael Your $128 a year would be more like $414 or so in today's dollars. Still . . . I
went to Brooklyn College, part of the tuition-free City University of New York from
1969-1973. We paid a $53 general fee at the start of every semester ($24 for a summer
semester), and that was it. Wealthy or poor, everyone paid the same amount (about $334 in
today's dollars). 38 Replies
@JRS Democratic party leaders have been in favor of more border security and an overhauled
immigration system for as long as I've been alive. The suggestion (clearly this comment's
intention) that Democrats favor "open" borders, ports, etc., is a myth propagated by an ever
more influential right wing. And it's working: it's been repeated so often that it's now
virtually an assumption that Democrats favor open borders, despite that fact that any
critical thought on the subjection indicates the opposite is true.
I'm a very moderate Democrat -liberal on social issues and very supportive of free global
trade- who would vote for any of the current Democrats over Trump, but would leave the party
if AOC's ideas became the norm. I don't have a problem in principle with a 70% top marginal
tax rate or AOC's Green New Deal- Meaning, these aren't moral issues for me per se. I just
believe they would bankrupt the economy and push us into a chaos far worse than what we're
seeing under Trump. 5 Replies
@Michael The increase in fees for education to include the books along with the lowering of
standards for the classes taken is part and parcel of the reagan revolution to remake
American society. One of the most problematic things for those seeking to undo what FDR did
was the plethora of well educated and well read people American had managed to create. How
were they going to be able to overcome this? You can deduce whatever methods you may know but
I saw them tank the economy on purpose and prey on the fear that it created with more and
more radical propaganda. Once they got into office they removed the best and brightest of our
Civil Service and began making legal the crimes they wanted to commit and changing laws and
procedures for how things were done so that people would eventually come to think of this as
the "right" way when it was in fact purpose designed to deny them their due. 38 Replies
Younger candidates, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, appeal to younger voters. John Kennedy
appealed to WWII veterans, most of whom were in their 30s when they elected him. One of the
reasons for Barack Obama's support in 2008 among younger voters is that he was a younger
candidate and they identified with a younger candidate. That appeal to a younger electorate
will play a larger role in future elections. Don't focus too strongly on issues. Democrats
will win by a landslide in 2020 if they nominate a younger candidate that can inspire younger
voters. November 3, 2020. 1 Reply
@Samuel Actually, running a campaign and getting elected is a significant accomplishment.
Before anyone decides about what bills to promote and means of paying for them, we need a
momentum of discourse, and promoting that discourse is another major accomplishment. You and
many millions of others, also, have good reasons to be frustrated. Let's just try to actually
"work" at talking the talking and walking the walk, and maybe we will--or maybe we
won't--arrive some place where we can see some improvement.
The interesting part of this piece is the statement about politicians moving unwillingly. So
some Democratic Congressmen and Congresswomen are allowing their personal beliefs to be
compromised for the glory of being elected or re-elected? Sounds like someone I would not
care to support. 2 Replies
A great essay! The wild card in all this analysis, of course, is what happens when these
(now) young voters, age, eventually partner, and have kids. As every generation has shown,
the needs of a voter changes as they age. I'm surrounded by many new neighbors with little
kids who moved out of Brooklyn and Jersey City who suddenly find themselves concerned about
rising property taxes- they now see the balance between taxes and services. Not something
they worried about a few years ago. 2 Replies
@Tracy Rupp I am a senior citizen heterosexual white male. I do not apologize for my race,
gender, etc. In fact, I am proud of our accomplishments. I do apologize for my personal
wrongs, and strive to improve myself.
"This will be difficult, given the fact that what is being proposed is a much larger role for
government, and that those who are most in need of government support are in the bottom half
of the income distribution and disproportionately minority -- in a country with a long racist
history." True enough, but if progressives want actual people in that bottom half to lead
happier lives, the focus of any programs should not be to employ armies in left-leaning and
self-perpetuating "agencies," but rather to devise policies to help people develop the
self-discipline to: A) finish high school, B) postpone the bearing of children until marriage
(not as a religious construct but as a practical expression of commitment to the child's
future), and; C) Find and get a regular job. These are supported by what objective, empirical
data we have. These have not struck me as objectives of the rising left in the Democratic
party. Mostly, I see endless moral preening, and a tribal demonizing of the "other," just
exactly as they accuse the "other." In this case the "other" is we insufficiently "woke" but
entirely moderate white folks who still comprise a plurality of Americans. I see success on
the left as based primarily on an ability to express performative outrage. But remember, you
build a house one brick at a time, which can be pretty boring, and delivers no jolt of
dopamine as would manning the barricades, but which results in a warm, dry, comfortable place
to live. 4 Replies
@Concerned Citizen For your information, Holiday Inns typically had a restaurant in the hotel
in the days Michael is talking about so... whatever! 38 Replies
My father fought in Germany during WWII, then came home and went to college on the GI bill.
Both my parents received federal assistance for a loan on their first house. Later, during
retirement, they were taken care of by Medicare and given an income by Social Security. They
worked hard, kept their values, lived modestly, and voted for Democrats. Apparently, they
were wild-eyed, leftist-socialist radicals, and I never knew it.
@Bruce Shigeura AOC in some ways is doing what Bernie was doing -- mobilizing people around
class as you say -- but the difference is that AOC doesn't shy away from issues of racial
justice. Bernie seemed to want to unite people by ignoring issues of race, as if he was
afraid that mentioning race too much might drive Whites away. AOC seems able to hold whites
on the class issue while still speaking to the racial justice issues that are important to
non-Whites. She's an extraordinary phenomenon: smart, engaging, articulate and with personal
connections to both the White and Non-White worlds, so she threatens neither and appeals to
both.
@Stu Sutin "Is something wrong about aspiring to free college education in an era when
student debt totals $1.5 trilliion?" Yes. If you're the Congressperson who gets his/her
funding from the lenders.
A O-C has yet to open a district office. A O-C is more interested in "national" issues and
exposure than those of her district. What A O-C may have forgotten is that it is her district
and constituents that have to re-elect her in less than 2 tears (or not): "Would you rather
have a Congress member with an amazing local services office, or one that leads nationally on
issues?" she queried her 1.9 million followers on Instagram -- a number that is well over
twice the population of her district. The results strongly favored national issues."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/nyregion/aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-district-office.html
As Mr. Edsall points out, her district is not necessarily progressive and liberal and while
there may be national issues, at the bottom line, many of her instagram groupies are not her
constituents. Democrats like to constantly point out that Ms. Clinton won the popular vote,
and she was the non-liberal-progressive Democrat. I am sure that the Republicans pray for the
success of the Democratic left. They seek to give voice to that left. That will bring the
swing votes right back to or over to the Republicans, without, but possibly even with Mr.
Trump (if the Democrats cross a left-wing tipping point). Bottom line, instagram is fine and
likes are great, twitter is good for snappy answers, but representatives to the House have to
deliver to their district and constituents. A O-C leads, but to the salvation of the
Republican party. 6 Replies
@Joshua Schwartz M. Ocasio-Cortez explained on The Late Show the other night that the reason
she has not opened her district office is due to the Government Shutdown. The people charged
with setting up the office are on furlough, the money for the office is being held up and she
staff or furnish the office.
Isn't this somehow the natural swing of things? Years of heavy-handed politics benefitting
small minorities on the right have taken their toll, so now new ideas are up at bat. By the
way, these ideas aren't really that bold at all - many countries have living minimum wages or
mandatory healthcare, and are thriving, with a much happier population. Only in the context
of decades-long, almost brainwash-like pounding of these ideas as 'Un-American' or
'socialist' can they be seen as 'bold'. American exeptionalism has led to a seriously
unbalanced and dangerously threatened social contract. Tell me again, Republicans: why is a
diverse, healthy and productive population living under inspiration instead of constant fear
so bad?
The "experts" offering advice here seem to have forgotten that Hillary Clinton listened to
them in 2016: the party decided that appealing to suburban Republicans and Jeb Bush voters
was more important than exciting the Democratic party base. The other hazard of calculated
politics is that the candidate is revealed to be a phony, believing in nothing but power or
that it's simply "her turn" -- an uncompelling program for a voter. 1 Reply
They will all face primary challengers in 2020. Tlaib and Omar didn't even win a majority of
the primary vote. There were so many candidates running in those primaries, they only managed
a plurality. And let's be honest about the demographic changes in the districts Pressley and
Ocasio Cortez won. They went from primarily ethnic White to minority majority. Both women
explicitly campaigned on the premise that their identity made them more representative of the
district than an old White male incumbent. Let's not sugarcoat what happened: they ran
explicitly racist campaigns. They won with tribalism, not liberal values. Democrats actually
need more candidates like Lucy McBath, Antonio Delgado, and Kendra Horn if they want to
retain Congressional control and change policy. And many minorities and immigrants aren't
interested in the far left faction. We don't have a problem with Obama and a moderate
approach to social democracy.
@JABarry - Some data: Canada has a program like Medicare for All, and its bottom line health
care statistics are better than ours in spite of a worse climate. We paid $9506.20 per person
for health care in 2016. In Canada, they paid $4643.70. If our system we as efficient as
Canada's, we would save over $1.5 TRILLION each and every year. This is money that can be
used for better purposes. If one uses the bottom line statistics, we see that both Canada and
the UK (real socialized medicine) do better than we do: Life expectancy at birth (OECD):
Canada- 81.9, UK - 81.1, US - 78.8 Infant Mortality (OECD)(Deaths per 1,000): Canada - 4.7,
UK - 3.8, US - 6.0 Maternal Mortality (WHO): Canada - 7, UK - 9, US - 14 Instead of worrying
how we would pay for it, we will have the problem of how to spend all the money we would
save. BTW can you point to a period where too high federal debt hurt the economy? In 1837 the
federal debt as a percentage of GDP was 0%; it was 16% in October of 1929. Both were followed
horrendous depression. It was 121% in 1946 followed by 27 years of Great Prosperity.
Best comment in some time. I work and live too much in the'big flat'. I am a very hard core
Chicago Democratic Liberal from birth, but the distressed towns and small cities are facing
extinction. then what?
@In the know I'm formerly Republican, and female. I'm on the ACA, and while premiums were
going up slowly, they've exploded in the past two years due to Republican sabatoge. They are
certainly no reason to vote for Trump.
@Midwest Then the rich will only be eligible for college. Give me government intervention any
time. I am retired military . Off base in Lewes De a mans hair cut is now 20.00 plus tips.
Just a plain cut. On base with gov intervention it 12.00 . Capitalism you support is only for
the 1 percent the 99 percent never gets ahead. 38 Replies
She has a massive throng of twitter followers, is completely unconcerned with facts, uses
publicity to gain power and seems unwilling to negotiate on her positions. Remind you of
anyone else? 3 Replies
The establishment is trying so hard to spin the progressives push on the issues of Medicare
for All, free state college and university tuition, a livable wage of $15/hr as ponies and
fairy dust and an extreme "socialist" makeover/takeover of America. But from all the polls
that I've seen, these policies are actually quite popular even with a majority of
Republicans. Yes, a majority of Republicans. A Medicare for All would cover everybody,
eliminate health insurance premiums for individuals and businesses ( which by the way are
competing with businesses in other countries that have a single-payer system) and would save
$2 trillion over ten years (Koch bothers funded study). The result would be a healthy and
educated populace. But how to pay for this? Well, we spend over $700 billion on our military
while Russia spends $20 billion and China spends $146 billion, so there seems to be plenty of
money that is already being spent to be redirected back to us without compromising national
security. A Medicare for All system supports a private healthcare system just as it is now,
except instead of giving some insurance company our premium who then skims off a big chunk
for their profit, we pay it to our government who then administers the payments to the
healthcare provider(s). The system is in place and has been for people 65 years and older and
works very well with high satisfaction rates. Just expand it to all. 2 Replies
@Midwest Josh Wrong!!! Tuition's have skyrocketed because for past 35 years States have
slashed support for public universities. The Federal Government took over student loan
business from predatory banks which was a very good thing but unfortunately have kept
interest rates high ... Student loans is a profit center for Federal Government 38 Replies
@Concerned Citizen Go ahead and check the holiday inn in Palestine Texas. It had a small
restaurant in 1978. I was their dishwasher. There was no ford plant nearby. 38 Replies
@Bruce Rozenblit Well put. As Martin Luther King Jr. said: "We all too often have socialism
for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor." 27 Replies
@stuart They used to call it the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party". I was glad when
Thomas Edsall finally got around, in this piece, to mentioning that what is often thought of
as a radical leftist turn today, due to just how far to the right our general political
discussions had gone, was actually pretty much mainstream Democratic policy for much of the
middle 20th century.
@Len Charlap Quite simply Canada's healthcare quality is ranked 16th in the world, while ours
is lower ranked at 23rd. And we pay twice as much. That indicates some funny business going
on.
It is remarkable that "big, bold leftist ideas" include - preserving the historical
relationship between the minimum wage and the cost of living - lowering the cost of college
to something in line with what obtained for most public colleges and universities in the 50s,
60s and 70s and exist in the rest of the Western world today - adapting our existing Medicare
system to deliver universal coverage of the kind generally supported across the political
spectrum in Canada and the UK Democrats should reject the "leftist" label for these ideas and
explain that it is opposition to these mainstream ideas that is, in fact, ideological and
extreme. 2 Replies
@Marc Except that's outright false. Offices are open. All the other new Congress members from
New York are setup and taking care of people. She doesn't care about constituent service. She
revels in the media attention, but isn't getting anything done even in the background. NY has
three Congress members (Lowey, Serrano, Meng) whose under-appreciated work on the
appropriations committee actually helps ensure our region's needs and liberal priorities are
reflected in federal spending. Meanwhile Ocasio Cortez is working on unseating Democrats
incumbents she deems insufficiently leftist e.g. Cuellar, Jeffries. Who needs Republicans
when you have Socialists trying to destroy the Democratic Party.
The NYT should consider getting some columnists who reflect the new (FDR? new?) trends in the
country and in the Democratic party. The old Clinton/Biden/Edsall Republican lite approach --
all in for Wall Street -- is dying. Good riddens. BTW I'm a 65 year old electrical engineer.
1 Reply
You're missing something big here, sir. Capuano was a Clinton superdelegate in 2016 who
declared well before the primaries (like all other Mass superdelegates, save for Warren who
waited until well after the primaries.) Thereby in effect telling constituents that their
vote was irrelevant, as they were willing to override it. Somerville went for Sanders 57% to
42%. Putting party over voters maybe isn't a great idea when 51% of voters in Massachusetts
are registered Unenrolled (Independent) and can vote in primaries. Bit rich to signal that
our votes don't matter, but then expect it later as it maybe actually does matter after all.
Pressley was all in for Clinton, which is of course suspect. But like me, she had only one
vote.
@C Wolfe Wow. Funky Irishman has been, for many months, writing about and presenting
excellent data showing that the US is actually a center-left (if not strongly progressive)
country. I used to present this evidence to Richard Luettgen (where has he gone??) who kept
insisting we are center-right (but never, as was his custom, presented any evidence for
this). your example is the best I've ever seen. I'm a member of a 4000-strong Facebook group,
the "Rational Republicans" (seriously - a local attorney with a decidedly liberal bent
started it and almost beat regressive Patrick McHenry here in Asheville). I've been making
this point on the FB page for the past year and people are stunned when they see the numbers.
I'm going to post your example as well. Excellent!
It's funny to watch people shocked when she makes her proposal. Her ideas are very old and
have worked in the past in various cultures. But the point that she can voice them is because
she can. Her people put her there because she said those things with their approval. She
reflects her community ideals. Just like Steve King.
I'm already tired of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I'm a liberal and Hispanic...its constant
overkill, everybody falling over her, total overexposure. The news media has found their
darling for the moment. Let's see what she accomplishes, what bills she proposes and passes
that is the work to be done not being in the news 24/7.
Until the left figures out that every single one of their most desired Policy Implementations
are only feasible with controlled immigration and secured borders doesn't matter who the
messenger is. Want Single Payer Healthcare? Can't have it and Open Borders too. Want free
College? Can't have it and Open Borders too. Want Guaranteed Basic Income? Cannot have it in
any form without absolutely controlling the Border. So, either you want that influx of new
voters to win elections or you want to see new policy changes that will benefit all
Americans. Pick one and fight for it. You seem to have chosen the new voters. 3 Replies
@Matt Williams But they are extraordinary, relative to their bought and paid for colleagues.
That came first and the media is reporting it. Their authenticity is naive, but it shouldn't
be, and that's the story. It's a glimmer of hope for democracy that may be extinguished -
let's celebrate this light in the darkness, while it lasts.
@Bruce Rozenblit This is. Spot. On. The socialism of: Privatize the profits, socialize the
losses. It's defined American economic and social policy for the last 30+ years and we can
see the results today. 27 Replies
@shstl I agree and as a moderate Democrat, I already feel like an outsider, so imagine what
independents are thinking. AOC stated that she wants to primary Hakeem Jeffries, who is a
moderate. With statements like these, made before spending a day in congress, who needs the
GOP to tear apart the Democratic party? Sanders didn't even win the primary and his
supporters claim the primary was stolen. We lost the house and senate all by ourselves. I
already have AOC fatigue and my rejoice for the blue wave is still there but fading.
The Democratic party was shoved to the right with Bill Clinton's Third Way ideology that made
its focus the same wealthy donor class as the Republicans, while breaking promises to its
former base, the middle and working class. This led to the unchecked capitalism that produced
the Crash of '08, and the subsequent bail out to Wall St. The powers running the DNC - all
Third Way disciples, like Hilary - refused to take up any of these "socialist" causes because
their wealthy donors didn't want to have their escalating wealth diminished. Meanwhile these
Democrats In Republican Clothing were banking on continued support from those they had
abandoned. And they got it for years...until now. Now, finally, we're getting candidates who
represent those abandoned, and who are refusing to hew to the poobah's Third Way agenda. But
the Old Guard is trying to retain their power by labeling these candidates as "socialists",
and "far left". Well, if that's true, then FDR was a "socialist" too. Funny though how all
those "socialists" who voted for FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ enjoyed such capitalistic benefits
like good paying jobs, benefits, home ownership, good education, and the fruits of Big
Guv'mint like the Interstate Highway system, electricity, schools, the Space Program and all
the benefits that produced. It was only when we turned our backs on that success and relied
on unchecked capitalism that most of America began their slide backwards. We need to go left
to go forward.
Why is the media lionizing this ignorant, undisciplined child? She should shut up, sit down,
learn how to listen and learn from her elders in government. She is acting like a college
student, who has no one to hold her accountable for her reckless, stupid behavior. Why does
the media seem to be enamored of her?????
@Michael Lucky for you. I went to the University of Michigan at roughly the same time and it
was no where near that cheap--not even close. And housing? Don't get me started on that. Even
then it took my breath away. 38 Replies
@chele That which you are pleased to call the DLC nonsense originated not with the Clintons,
but with one of the worst presidential defeats the Democratic party ever suffered: the 1972
campaign of George McGovern. That debacle resulted in a second Nixon administration and I
hope that the current trends within the Democratic party do not result in a second Trump
administration.
It is exceeding strange to me that "Conservatives" in the US consider Medicare for all and
universal access to higher education as being radical, pie-in-the-sky, proposals. Here in
Canada we have had universal medicare for a half a century and it has proven itself to be
relatively effective and efficient and has not driven us into penury. As for free access to
education beyond high school, I remember learning a while ago that the US government
discovered that it had earned a return of 700% on the money spent on the GI Bill after WWII
which allowed returning GIs to go to colleges and universities. The problem with American
conservatives is that they see investments in the health, welfare and education of the
citizenry as wasteful expenditures, and wasteful expenditures such as the resources going to
an already bloated military, and of course tax cuts for themselves as investments.
@chele Amen to you! I too am old guy (79) and think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a savior of
the Democratic Party! She is young and has great ideas. I agree with you about the Clintons,
they led the party down a sinkhole. I agree with just about everything I have heard
Alexandria espouse. She is refreshing. Glad she is kicking the butts of those old guard
Democrats that have fossilized in place--they are dinosaurs. 12 Replies
@Tracy Rupp The problem with blaming a group based on demographics, rather than behavior or
ideology, is that you are likely to be disappointed. There are a lot of people who are not
old white men who are just as seduced by money, power, and local privilege as was the old
guard. Feminists writing letters to condemn a male student who made charges of being sexually
harassed by his female professor; African American activists who refuse to reject the
antisemitism of charismatic cult leaders. Human beings in charge will be flawed, regardless
of their race, gender identity, or sexual orientation. As the balance of power changes hands,
corruption too will become more diverse. 6 Replies
Money is the mother's milk of politics, so let me comment on "many of whom did not want the
Democrats to nominate a candidate with deep ties to party regulars and to the major donor
community." Include me. Because the major donor community is Charles E Schumer, Leader
Democrats, House Top Contributors, 1989 - 2018 1 Goldman Sachs 2 Citigroup Inc 3 Paul, Weiss
et al 4 JPMorgan Chase & Co 5 Credit Suisse Group That is Wall Street Nancy Pelosi,
leader Democrats, House Top Contributors, 2017 - 2018 1 Facebook Inc 2 Alphabet Inc (Google)
2 Salesforce.com 4 University of California 5 Intel Corp $13,035 That is Silicon Valley . The
U of CA should spent its money on students What is the interest of these donors ? For Wall
Street, it is maximizing profits by suppressing wages, outsourcing to of enterprises it owns
to low wage countries, and immigration of people willing to work for less For Silicon Valley
it is Mining your data, violating your privacy, and immigration of people willing to work for
less via H1B To win general (not primary) elections you need large amounts of money. At in
return for this money, you need to take care of your donors, lest you find you without money
in the next election Until the Democratic Party frees itself of this system, it will spout
liberal rhetoric, but do little to help average Americans As Sanders showed, it can do so,
running on small donations. DNC, eye on frightened donors, killed his attempt. 1 Reply
"The most active wing of the Democratic Party -- the roughly 20 percent of the party's
electorate that votes in primaries and wields disproportionate influence over which issues
get prioritized -- has moved decisively to the left." Yet it seems that you feel that the
party should ignore them and move to the center right in order to capture suburban Republican
women, who will revert back to the Republican party as soon as (and if) it regains something
resembling sanity. Do you seriously think that its worth jettisoning what you describe as
"the most active wing of the party" for that? 2 Replies
@David G. See Norway, Denmark, Germany, England and Finland. Citizens have jobs and health
care; education is affordable and subsidized. Not all young people attend universities; many
go to vocational schools which prepare them for good jobs. We could do the same. 27 Replies
@Midwest Josh That is so NOT true Midwest Josh. The unattainable loans and interest problems
are because the private sector has been allowed into the student loan game. The government
should be the underwriter for all student loan programs unless individual schools offer
specialized lending programs. Whenever the government privatizes anything the real abuse
starts and the little guy gets hurt. 38 Replies
@Bruce Rozenblit, at the end of a long line of commenters, I add my congratulations for a
well-articulated overview of our political dilemma. Both "trickle-down"economics and
"neo-liberalism" have brought us to this pass, giving both Democrats and Republicans a way of
rewarding their corporate masters. I believe both Cinton and Obama believed they could find a
balance between the corporate agenda and a secure society. We see with hindsight how this has
hailed to materialize, and are rightly seeking a more equitable system – one that
addresses the common sense needs of all of us. I, for one, am overjoyed that the younger
generation has found its voice, and has a cause to support. My recollection of demonstrating
against the Viet Nam war (and the draft), marching for civil rights, and even trying to
promote the (then largely inchoate) women's rights movement, still evokes a passionate
nostalgia. We have witnessed an entire generation that lacked passion for any cause beyond
their individual desires. It's good to have young men and women reminding us of our values,
our aspirations, and our power as citizens. As the bumper sticker says, "If you think
education is expensive – try ignorance." Thanks again for a fine post. 27 Replies
@Quiet Waiting That was FIFTY YEARS AGO. People who fought in the Spanish-American War were
still casting ballots, for heaven's sake. McGovern has been used by Third Way apologists as a
cautionary tale to provide cover for doing what they clearly wanted to do anyway. The other
reality is that the McGovern/Nixon race took place in a time when there was broad consensus
that many of the social programs Republicans are now salivating over privatizing weren't
going anywhere. 12 Replies
Abolishing ICE is tantamount to having open borders. No modern country can allow all people
who are able to get to its borders to just move in, and take advantage of its government
services. If a country were to start offering Medicare for All, no or reduced college
tuition, a universal jobs guarantee, a $15 minimum wage, and wage subsidies to the entire
bottom half through an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, paid maternity/paternity
leave, and free child care, it would need tax-payers to support these plans. It could not
afford to support all of the poor, uneducated migrants who have been illegally crossing our
borders, let alone all of those who would run here if ICE were to be abolished. Look at
Canada which has more of a social safety net than is offered in our country. It has
practically no illegal immigrants. (A long term illegal immigrant had to sue for the
government to pay for her extensive medical care, and the court decisions appear to have
limited government payment of her medical bills just to her and not to other illegal
migrants.) It picks the vast majority of its legal immigrants on a merit system that
prioritizes those who would contribute a special needed skill to the Canadian economy, who
are fluent in English and/or French, and who could easily assimilate. Thus, most of Canada's
immigrants start paying hefty taxes as soon as they move to Canada, helping to support the
country's social safety net. 1 Reply
@Samuel To pay for universal health care you capture all the money currently being spent for
the health care system. That includes all the employer insurance premiums, VA medical care
costs, military medical costs, all out-of-pocket expenses, everything. That provides plenty
of money for our health care needs as exemplified by the costs in other advanced countries
with better systems. Also re-activate parts of the ACA that were designed to control and
reduce costs but that have gone unfunded. Reduce hospital and hospital administration costs,
which are exorbitant and provide little real health care benefit. There will be plenty of
funds for actual provider salaries (physicians, nurses, technicians, pharmacists, etc). 10
Replies
You have to accept some of this polling data with a grain of salt. Most of the population has
no idea what "moderate," "slightly liberal," or extremely liberal mean. These tend to be
labels that signify how closely people feel attached to other people on the left side of the
ideological spectrum. The same is true, btw, of people on the right. The odd thing is that if
you ask Trump voters about the economic policies they favor, they generally agree that social
security ought to be expanded, that the government has an obligation to see that everyone has
medical care, that taxes on the rich should be higher and that we ought to be spending more
money, not less on education. Where you see a divergence is on issues tightly aligned with
Trump and on matters that touch on racial resentment. Trump voters do not favor cuts in
spending on the poor, though they do support cuts in "welfare." The moral of the story is
that a strategic Democratic politician who can speak to these Trump voters on a policy level
or at the level of values -- I'm thinking Sharrod Brown -- may be able to win in 2020 with a
landslide.
I saw AOC on the Colbert Show recently and one of her first statements was in regards to
wearing red nail polish. I turned it off. Enough of the red lipstick as well. Please. Next
she'll discuss large hoop earrings. 1 Reply
O'Cortez is a "Fantasy Socialist. She says the stupidest and most outlandish things so the
media puts a microphone in front of her face. She hates when folks fact check her because
nothing she is saying adds up. O'Cortez has all of the same "spread the wealth" tendencies as
the previous president who was much more cunning and clever at hiding his true Socialist
self.
@chele Right on. I expect there is a very large contingent of us. It is disheartening to be
associated by age and ethnicity with the corporatist financial elite power mongers who
control both parties and the media. But we can still continue vote the right way and spread
the word to fight corruption and corporatism. Eschew New Democrats like ORourke. The first
commitment to find out about is the commitment to restore democracy and cut off the power of
the financial elite in politics. All the other liberal sounding stuff is a lie if that first
commitment is not there. Because none of it will happen while the financial elite are
controlling votes. There will always be enough defectors against, for example, the mainstream
support for medicare for all national health care to keep it from happening if New Democrats
aren't understood as the republican lite fifth column corrupters they really are. 12 Replies
Chock full of very interesting data, but we tend to to believe Zeitz's conclusion that Dems
are just returning to their roots, following the spectacular 2008 failures that saw no
prosecutions - in starkest contrast to the S&L failure and boatload of bankers charged:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/only-one-top-banker-jail-financial-crisis.html
To the extent this primary voter data is replicated across the country in Dem primaries, and
not just the AOC and Ayana Pressley races, we could be convinced some massive swing is
occurring in Dem primary results. Until then, we tend to believe that the cycle of 30-50
House seats which swing back and forth as Dem or GOP from time to time (not the exact same
30-50 districts each cycle, but about 30-50 in total per election cycle or two) is a
continuation of a long-term voting trend. Unpacking the egregious GOP'er gerrymandering, as
is the goal of Eric Holder and Barack Obama: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/voting-gerrymander-elections.html
which has blunted Dem voter effects, will be of far more consequence - get ready !
@Michael Gig'em dude. Class of '88, and I feel the same way. And as far as I can tell, the
increase has been almost totally because state support has fallen in order to fund tax cuts
for the people, like us, who got the free education. Who says you can't have your cake and
eat it too? You just have to raid everyone else's plate. 38 Replies
I understand the Andy Warhol concept of everyone having 15 minutes of fame. But it's absurd
that AOC's 15 minutes of fame coincide with her first 15 minutes in office.
Ocasio-Cortez and the rest haven't been in Congress a month. Get back to me when anyone of
them even gets a bill passed naming a Post Office. Until the, maybe you ought to learn your
jobs?
@In the know, Your party invented the fundamental ACA program. It was the brainchild of the
Heritage Foundation that started this fiasco that you'd like to blame on Dems. Also, you
simply cannot argue that the Republicans attempted to implement the program in good faith.
They have done everything they can to sabotage it. In the end, Republicans don't want people
to have affordable health care. It doesn't fit their "family-unfriendly" philosophy.
Furthermore, the only real business-friendly ideas Republicans embrace are a) eliminate
taxes, b) remove regulations, c) pay employees nothing. If you as a woman believe these are
notions that strengthen you or your family, I'm at a total loss in understanding your
reasoning.
@Matt Williams - You are ignoring the many statistics in the article that apply to the
Democratic party as a whole. For example: "From 2008 to 2018, the percentage of Democrats who
said the government should create "a way for immigrants already here illegally to become
citizens if the meet certain requirements" grew from 29 to 51 percent, while the share who
said "there should be better border security and stronger enforcement of immigration laws"
fell from 21 to 5 percent." There are many others.
"...as millennials and minorities become an ever-larger proportion of the party, it will have
a natural constituency..." I would counter that as they start to actually pay taxes then the
millennials will adopt the standard liberal plaint, 'raise the taxes on everybody except me'
@D I Shaw I think the precise point is that would much easier to do A,B, and C if there were
universal health care, job guarantees, and clean water to drink. It is much easier to make
good long-term decisions when you aren't kept in a state of perpetual desperation.
These 'new' ideas are not new, nor are they 'progressive democrats'', nor are they even the
democratic party's per se. More importantly, the 'issue', for which no one has come up with a
solution, is the same -- how are we going to pay for this all? The GAO reported in '16 that
Sander's proposal for payment was completely unsustainable. Similarly, Cortez's plan for a
tax rate of 70% of earnings (not capital gains) over $10mm per annum does not come close to
funding 'medicare for all', 'free collage/trade school', and 'the New Green Deal'. Our
military is a 'jobs program' rooted in certain state's economy -- it is going to be very
difficult to substantially reduce those expenditures any time soon. The purpose of government
is governance -- what politician is going to have the integrity and cujones to tell the
American people that we need these 'liberal' policies, but that every single one of us is
going to have to contribute, even those at the far lower income strata? Are we all willing to
work longer in life and live in much smaller houses/apartments to do what is necessary? If
the answer is yes, then and only then can any of us claim the moral high ground. Until then,
it's just empty rhetoric for political gain and personal Aggrandizement of so-called
progressives. 5 Replies
@chele I'm an "elder millennial" in my 30s. The first US election I really paid attention to
was in 2000. Remember how all of the Democrats would gripe about, "oh I really *like* Nader,
but the Green Party candidate is never going to win..." It's a party in dire straights when
the ideological base doesn't even particularly love its candidates on the issues. Repeat in
2004 with Kerry. Obama managed to win based on charisma and the nation's collective disgust
with the neocons, but then we did it again with Hillary. 12 Replies
Sorry libs, but with the exception of the Left Coast, and Manhattan, there is not alot of
attention given AOC and her silly class warfare 70% tax nonsense, that goes with the Dem/Lib
territory--nothing new or exciting with her. Being a certain ethnicity or gender is not
exciting or inherently "good" as Progressives attempt to convince others. Identity politics
is nonsense. When she does something of merit, not simply engage in publicity stunts and
class warfare nonsense then maybe she will get some attention outside of Lib/Wacko world.
"With all the attention that is being paid to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley,
Rashida Tlaib" Other than these opinion pages and the Lib coasts, not so much. 2 Replies
Since Reagan there has been a steady drumbeat to the right and far-right policies. We've
lived so long in this bubble that we've normalized these For-the-Rich policies as centrist.
So I don't accept the writer's premise that the Democratic party is moving to a radical left.
The Democratic party is simply embracing pro middle class policies that were once the norm
between 1935-1979. And I welcome the shift of the pendulum. 1 Reply
@Giacomo That's right, this country can afford trillions for the Pentagon system--the
military-industrial complex, to coin a phrase--and foolishly criminal wars, but it can't
afford national health insurance, something that some industrialized countries have had since
the late 19th century. Anybody who thinks these ideas are "radical" or "leftist" clearly
understands nothing about politics.
The shift claimed by Mr. Edsall among democratic voters who claim to be liberal or
progressive is more illusion than reality. With President Obama more democrats are willing
and indeed proud that our party represents the cutting edge principle that we protect the
needs and interests of those struggling to find a place in our society. For a long time
Democrats bought into the notion that the word liberal was some how shameful. But now with
the machinations of a McConnell and Trump it becomes obvious that Democratic principles of
justice for all and fighting for economic equality are not outside ideas, but actually
central to the growth of our country. No longer will we kow tow to a false stilted opinion,
but stand up proudly for what we believe and fight for.
AOC behaves like a sanctimonious know-it-all teenager....entertaining for about 5 minutes,
then just plain annoying and tiresome. Does not bode well for the Democratic Party,...
Actually, people like AOC or Bernie aren't that far left at all. Internationally, they'd be
considered pretty centrist. They're simply seen as "far left" because the Overton window in
DC is far to the right. Even domestically, policies like universal healthcare and a living
wage enjoy solid majority support, so they're perfectly mainstream
I understand what you are saying, but please remember- half of this country thinks- rightly
or wrongly- that AOC and many of her ideals are unobtainable and socialist. Whether they are
or are not is NOT the point. We need ideas that are palatable to the mainstream, average
American- not just those of us on the liberal wings. And I AM one of those. Since you bring
up Bernie- how well did that work out? The country isn't ready for those ideas. And rightly
or wrongly, pursuing them at all cost will end up winning Trump the next election.
@Jose Pieste Well here in Australia its 10 minute waits for appointments made on the same
day. I have MS and see my specialist without a problem. And the government through the PBS
prescription benefit scheme pays $78 of my $80 daily tablets. We are not as phenomenally
wealthy a country as the USA and we mange it with universal health care. I pay about $30
Australian for each doctor's visit and sometimes with bulk billing that is free too. You
reflect a uniquely American attitude about social services that is not reflective of what is
done in other modern democracies. I really do feel for you my friend and for all Americans
who have been comprehensively hoodwinked by the "can't afford it" myth. You can pay for
trillion dollar tax cuts for people who don't need it. Honestly mate - you have been conned.
@Samuel Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has sponsored or co-sponsored 18 bills in the House, including
original co-sponsor with Rep. Pressley of H.R.678 -- 116th Congress (2019-2020) To provide
back pay to low-wage contractor employees, and for other purposes. 10 Replies
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, as is well documented here and throughout world media, prefers spotlights
and baffling interviews to opening her district office and serving her electorate. As with
every other media creation, the shiny star that it has made of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez will fade
soon. The arc of her House career will as well. 4 Replies
"What pundits today decry as a radical turn in Democratic policy and politics actually finds
its antecedents in 1944." This quote in the article should have been the lede. Instead, it
appears 66 paragraphs into the article. What is now being called "left" used to be called
"center." It used to be called the values and the core of the Democratic party.
@Derek Flint There was a reason for the DLC's decision to be more center left. The Democrats
were losing and this gave them a chance to win, which they did with Clinton, almost Gore, and
Obama. 12 Replies
@Jason A. Representatives should represent their constituents. For example, if most of the
voters one represents want Medicare, perhaps that's a sign that one should reconsider their
anti-Medicare views. And think about why constituents want Medicare.
The leftward swing of the Democrats is in direct proportion to the rightward swing of the
Republicans and a gut reaction to the GOP's failure to do anything constructive while in
power -- i.e. failure to replace Obamacare with Trump's promise of "cheaper and better;"
failure to repair our crumbling infrastructure, and yet another failed attempt at
trickle-down economics by robbing the U.S. Treasury with a massive tax cut for the rich that
provided absolutely no benefits for the middle class and the poor. As always, what the
Republicans destroy the Democrats will have to fix.
@Quiet Waiting, the DLC was officially formed after Mondale's loss, in '85. the DLC's main
position is that economic populism is not politically feasible. But I don't recall either
McGovern or Mondale's losses being attributed to being too pro-worker, too pro-regulation of
capitalism, or making tax rates progressive again. Further, the idea that economic populism
has no political value was just disproved by a demagogue took advantage of it to get elected.
The RP's mid-term losses and other data points show that people in the middle are realizing
Trump's not really a populist. Those economic Trump voters, some of whom voted for Obama
twice, are up for grabs. Why would you be afraid that the DP's shift to raising taxes on the
wealthy and being pro-worker will result in a Trump victory? 12 Replies
@Michael The cost of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security has increased as a fraction of
tax receipts. Twice the as many people go to college as when you went, so the subsidies are
spread more thinly. Colleges have more bureaucrats than professors because of multiple
mandates regarding sex, race, income, sexual preference, etc. People have not been willing to
see taxes raised, so things like college subsidies get squeezed. The US decided in the 1940s
that the only way to avoid a repeat of WW1 and WW2 was to provide a security blanket for
Western Europe and Japan (and really, the world), and prevent military buildups in either
region while encouraging economic development. The world is as a result more peaceful,
prosperous, and free than ever in human history, despite "its continuous wars" as you put it.
For the US to pull back would endanger the stability that gave us this peace and prosperity,
but Trump is with you all the way on that one, so it must be a good idea. Liberal reforms
will mean tax increases, especially Medicare for all, but also more college subsidies, which
largely benefit the middle class and up. Liberal reformers need to convince the public to
send more money to the IRS, for which there is no evident support. Let's not confuse
opposition to Trump with a liberal groundswell. 38 Replies
Why do Political Commentators and Analysts keep operating under the delusion that people vote
their skin colour ? People vote their economic interests. I am all in favour of National
Health Care Letting Immigrants who have not committed a crime stay and become citizens. But I
am also in favour of stricter Border Control as I feel our duty is to the poor citizens of
America. Send Economic aid to poorer countries, help them establish just governments. As for
Ocasio-Cortez, she is aiming too high and has too many lies about her past to go much higher.
The meanings of these labels--liberal, left, center, conservative--, and of the spectrum
along which they supposedly lie, changes year to year, and most pundits and politicians seem
to use them to suit their own purposes. When you realize that a significant group of people
voted for Obama and then for Trump, you realize how radically the politics of the moment can
redefine the terms. The Democrats could create a narrative that unites the interests of all
economically disadvantaged people, including white people. Doing so would create a broad
majority and win elections, but it would arouse the fury of the oligarchs, who will demonize
them as "socialists." But as Obamacare proved, if actually you do something that helps people
across the board even the Republicans and the media will have a hard time convincing people
that they are oppressed, for example, by access to health insurance. For the oligarchs, as
for the Republicans, success depends on creating a narrative that pits the middle class
against the poor. In its current, most vulgar form, this includes pitting disadvantaged white
people against all the rest, but the Republicans have an advantage in that their party is
united behind the narrative. Democratic politicians may be united against Trump, but that
means nothing. The challenge will be uniting the politicians who run on economic justice with
the establishment Democrats who have succeeded by hiding their economic conservativism behind
identity politics.
I applaude AOC. I am 72 white male. I have been waiting for someone like AOC to emerge. I
wish her the best and will work for her positions and re-elections and ultimate ambitions.
She is a great leader, teacher, learner, whip smart, and should not be taken likely. Go for
it AOC! Realize your full potential.
Someone as thoroughly imbedded in the establishment as this Op-Ed writer is necessarily going
to need to be educated on what the political center of gravity really is. The Democrats have
shifted RIGHT over the past few decades. Under Bill Clinton and Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein
and Obama. They are not left, not center-left, not center, but instead center-right. They
have pursued a center-right agenda that does not engage with the rigged economy or widening
inequality, or inadequate pay, or monopolist abuse of power, or adequate regulation and
punishment of corporate crime. They have enthusiastically embraced our deeply stupid wars of
choice, and wasted trillions that could have been put to productive use at home. The new
generation of progressive Democrats seek to move the debate BACK TO THE CENTER or Center-Left
if you will. Not the Left or Far-Left. They want to address the issues the current Democrat
Establishment have ignored or exacerbated, because they are in essence, the same rarified
rich as the lobbyists and donors they mingle with. The issues that affect MOST of us, but not
the FEW of them. The endgame of this shift is that Obama engineered a pseudo-recovery that
saw the very rich recover their gains, but the poor become MORE impoverished. Such is the
rigged economy, 21st Century style. Things have to change, the old guard have to be neutered.
Too much wealth and power is concentrated in too few hands, and it's too detrimental to our
pseudo-democracy.
This is the difference between R & D's. OAC may get her support from well-to-do, educated
whites, but her platform focuses on those left behind. Even her green revolution will provide
jobs for those less well off. R's, on the other hand, vote only for candidates that further
their selfish interests.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and her legislative cohorts are a much needed breath of fresh, progressive
air for the U.S. Congress. And I say that as someone going on age 70 who was raised and
educated in the conservative Deep South. Go left, young people!
@Bruce Rozenblit Unfortunately, the hot button on fox is the word socialism. so undo the
negative press there and have a chance of implementing fairer policies. 27 Replies
@Samuel "It's easy to go to a rooftop- or a twitter account- and yell "health care and
education for all!'" Its not easy to get anyone to listen. The moral impetus precedes the
"actual plans," which come out of the legislative process, Why would you be against this
getting attention?Unless, of course, you oppose health care and education for all. 10 Replies
The further the Democrats go Left with all the cultural politics including white people
bashing and calling Men toxic, the further I am heading towards the right. I personally can't
stand what the Democratic Party has turned into. We'll see who wins in 2020. I think a lot of
people forget what happens in mid term elections. People vote for change and then, after
seeing what they wrought, switch back.
I am a old white male geezer and lifelong liberal living in complete voter disenfranchisement
in Florida due to gerrymandering, voter suppression and rigged election machines (how else
does one explain over 30,000 votes in Broward County that failed to register a preference for
the Senate or Governor in a race where the Republican squeaked in by recount?). I am pleased
to finally see the party moving away from corporatist and quisling centrists to take on
issues of critical import for the economy, the environment and the literal health of the
nation. As "moderate" Republicans come to a cognitive realization that they too are victims
of the fascist oligarch billionaire agenda to end democracy; they too will move to the left.
So, I for one am not going to worry an iota about this hand-wringing over something akin to
revolution and instead welome what amounts to the return of my fellow New Deal Democrats.
Too much attention here to this new cohort of self important attention seekers presenting as
civil servants. Not one of them has had any legislative experience in their lives how can
they do all they say they want. They have no grasp of policy economics and politics. Are they
too good to recall the wise words of Sam Rayburn - "Those who go along get along" or is that
too quaint outdated and patriarchal for them? Why dont journalists and other pols call them
out. Example, AOC calls for 70% marginal tax rate - saying we had it before, ha ha. Yes but
only when defense spending as percent of gdp was 20-40 percent, in the depth of WW2 and the
cold war, life and death struggles - it is now 5%, no one has the stomach for those rates
now, and no need for them to boot. Free school, free healthcare, viva la stat! yeah ok who
will pay for it? Lots of ideas no plans, flash in the pan is what it is, it will die down
then settle in for a long winter.
There is a difference between posturing as a leader and actually leading. So, there is
another, and very direct, way for real Americans to end the shutdown: Recall petitions. With
very little money, why not target Mitch McConnell. Laid off federal workers could go
door-to-door in Kentucky. The message, not just to the Senate majority leader, would be
powerful. And this need not be limited. There are some easy targets among GOP senators.
Perhaps Ms. Ocasio-Cortez can achieve greater national standing with a clipboard and pen down
on the hustings.
All this fuss over a bright young person who stopped complaining and ran for office. She has
a platform. Time will tell how effective she will be. Right now, she's connecting to those
young and old who believe we can do better. If you had a choice who would you rather share a
beer with?A Trump supporter who has no interest beyond building an ineffective wall or an
Ocasio-Cortez supporter, full of ideas, some fanciful, some interesting but most off all
energy and light versus fear and hate?
I'm a liberal Democrat and I remain very skeptical regarding the platforms of these new
members of Congress. Youthful exuberance is admirable, but it's not sufficient to address
complicated issues related to fairness. Fairness does not always mean equity of wealth. Some
people have more because they have worked more, worked longer, or took more risks with their
money. Should the nurse who worked three jobs to make $150,000/year be made to sacrifice a
significant portion for those who chose to work less? Such an anecdotal question may seem
naive, but these are the kinds of questions asked by regular Americans who often value social
programs, but also value fairness. The claim that only some tiny fraction of the 1% will bear
the cost of new programs and will alone suffer increased taxation is simply untrue, and those
who are making this claim know it. This tiny group of wealthy knows how to hide its money
off-shore and in other ways, as documented in the Times last year. Everyone knows the
low-lying fruit for increased taxation is the upper middle class: Those who work hard and
save hard and are nowhere near the top of the wealth pyramid. It's that nurse with the three
jobs, or the small business owner who now clears $200,000 a year, or the pair of teachers
who, after 25 years of teaching, now bring home $150,000 combined. Those are the targets of
the proposed "new" taxes. Don't believe the hype. I'm a liberal, and I know what's up with
these people. 4 Replies
Ocasio-Cortez represents the success of a progressive in ousting a white liberal in a safely
Democratic district. While interesting, that doesn't provide much of a blueprint for winning
in 2020 in districts and states that voted for Trump. As noted elsewhere in this newspaper,
of the roughly 60 new Democrats in Congress elected in 2018, two-thirds, were pragmatic
moderates that flipped Republican seats. Progressives were notably less successful in
flipping Republican seats.
Just keep in mind that what the author deems "radical" ideas are considered mainstream in the
rest of the developed world. We are an extreme outlier in lacking some form of universal
health care, for example. Also, while the NYT clearly saw Bernie's 2016 campaign as
shockingly radical, the very people Edsall says we must court were wild about Bernie. His
message about income inequality resonates with anyone living paycheck to paycheck and the
only thing "radical" about it is that he said the truth out loud about the effects of
unbridled capitalism. The neoliberal types that the NYT embraces are the milquetoast people
who attract a rather small group of voters, so, I am not too eager to accept his analysis. I
fully expect the Times to back Gillibrand and Biden, maybe even that other corporatist,
Booker. They don't scare the moneyed class.
The Dems have been drifting to the right for decades, egged on by pundits who keep telling
them to move to the center. Do the math: moving to the center just moves the center to the
right. Frankly, Nixon was more liberal than most of today's Dems. A move to the left is long
overdue.
The rumblings in the Democratic party may represent a realization that WE THE PEOPLE deserve
a bigger slice of the pie. Democrats such as Sanders, Warren and AOC are tapping into a
reservoir of voters who have been excluded from the American Dream by design. The new message
seems to be "fairness". I think that translates into government which does the most good for
the greatest number of people. Candidates who embody that principle will be the new leaders.
Ignore at your peril.
@Quiet Waiting: if voters believe republicans are helping them economically then follow them
off the cliff. Hopefully enough voters will try a more humane form of capitalism. 12 Replies
Ms Ocasio Cortez is a partial illustration of Reagan's dictum that "The trouble with our
liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so". In
the case of AOC she is not only very ignorant but she believes many things that are actually
not true. For her to actually believe that the "world will end in 12 years" and
simultaneously believe that, even if true, Congress could change this awful fact is so
breathtakingly ignorant one hardly knows where to start.
Maybe it's worth considering that a lot of those spooky millennials, the stuff of campfire
scare stories, themselves grew up in the suburbs. They are the children of privilege who have
matured into a world that is far less secure and promising than that of their swing-voter
soccer moms. Health care, student debt, secure retirement, and the ability to support a
family are serious concerns for them. And don't even get me started on climate change and the
fossil fuel world's stranglehold on our polity.
@dudley thompson, if you are one of those elite moderate liberals against the "lefties"
concern about college and medical costs, protections for workers and the environment, and
progressive taxation, then in the end getting your vote isn't worth sacrificing the votes of
all the other people who do care about those things. Your "moderate" way may calm those swing
voters who fear change, and allow them to vote for the Democrat, but it also demoralizes and
disappoints the much larger group of potential Democratic voters that craves change.
@Jessica Summerfield ..."article described AOC as a communist." And I saw an article describe
Ross Douthat as a "columnist"... equally misleading. Will the calumny never cease? 27 Replies
Thomas, this "left" used to be known as the middle. A commitment to housing instead of an
acceptance of homelessness. Dignity. A tax system designed to tax wealthy people, not, as we
have now, a tax system designed to tax the middle class and poor. Can we all just take a look
at what is being promoted -- look at what AOC is proposing compared to Eisenhower era tax
rates. We have lurched right so that event center-right is now considered left.
Rage is the political fuel that fires up the Left. Rage also is the source of some very bad
ideas. Having bad ideas is the reason people don't vote for a political party in a
presidential election. The democrats are now the party of socialism, open borders, very high
taxes, anti-religious bigotry, abolishment of free speech, rewriting the constitution,
stuffing the Supreme Court, impeachment of the President, and being intolerance of other
views. They have also alienated 64 million Americans by calling them deplorables, racist and
a host of other derogatory terms. Not a good strategy to win over voters in swing states.
They also have attacked all men and white men in particular. They think masculinity is toxic
and that gender is not biological but what a person believes themselves to be (noticed that I
used the plural pronoun?). So far a long list of bad ideas. Let's see how it plays out in
2020. 1 Reply
We need to be careful what we refer to as left. Is the concept that we have access to
affordable housing, healthcare, and decent jobs really a position of the far left? Not
really. The 1944 progressives saw access to basic life as a right of all people. This is why
young educated progressives support policies that encourage success within the unregulated
capitalist economy that has been created over the last 40 years. The evidence illustrates
that federal and state governments need to help people survive, otherwise we are looking at
massive amounts of inequality that affect the economy and ultimately affect the very people,
the extremely rich, who support deregulation.
@Bruce Rozenblit The Republicans great skill has been selling lies to the socially
conservative to get their greedy financial agenda through. They have never cared about their
voters other than how best to spin their rhetoric. 27 Replies
Moving left takes a twitter account, a quixotic mentality and the word free. Its sedition
arousing rhetoric is blinkered by the lack of a viable strategy to support and move it
forward. Liberals thrive on the free media attention which feeds their rancor and aplomb.
Liberals are the infants of the Democratic Party. They're young, cute and full of amusing
antics. They have an idyllic view of what the world can be but without efficacy. When they
are challenged, or don't get enough attention, they revert to petulance. As all mammals do,
most liberals eventually grow up to join the Democratic median. Those that don't become the
party regalers brought out when the base needs energized. They grow old and fade away,
remembered only for their flamboyance and dystopian view of the world. The Democratic Party
has never been more fractured since its inception. With close to thirty potential candidates
for President, it is going to take a coalition within their party in order to put forth a
viable nominee. Then the party infighting will commence which will lead the party into
defeat. Democrats must focus on a untied party platform which is viable and will produce
results for the American people. Enough of the loquacious hyperbole and misandrous language;
it's time to stop reacting and start leading.
If it looks like the Democrats are moving strongly to the left, it's because they have
stopped chasing the GOP over the cliff in a vain effort to meet them in some mythical middle.
That's why the gap is widening; Republicans have not slowed in their headlong rush to
disaster. In truth it is the Republican Party and its messaging machine that has been doing
its best to drag America to the extreme right by controlling the narrative and broadcasting
talking points picked up and amplified by the Mainstream Media. The Mainstream Media has its
own issues. Increasingly consolidated under corporate ownership into fewer and fewer hands,
it has developed a reflex aversion to anything that looks too 'left' and a suspicion of
anything that looks progressive. The desperate battle for eyeballs in a fragmenting market
has also taken a toll; deep journalism or reporting that risks alienating any part of the
shrinking audience for traditional news is anathema to the bean counters who have
financialized everything. Deliberate intimidation by the right has also taken a toll.
Republicans have no answers; Democrats do - and that's the gist of it. The real challenge is
to prevail against a party that has embraced disinformation, the politics of resentment and
destruction - and the Mainstream Media that has failed to call them out on it.
We are looking at a future Speaker of the House. Watch out Republicans, this woman is not
afraid of you white, stodgy, misogynistic and racist haters. Your party, once a viable and
caring party, is dead.
The Republican Party used to be a moderate political party that was fully capable of
governing. Over the years, the right wing of the party assumed control and they became a
radically conservative party that basically hated government and did nothing for the benefit
of average Americans. As a result, many voters came to believe that a more liberal stance was
preferred to what the Republicans had become. Basically, the Republican Party veered sharply
to the right and went off and left a lot of their earlier supporters, like me.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the perfect foil to the Trump twitter fest we've been subjected
to for the past 2 years. However, enough of the tit for tat -- I would still like to see the
freshman representative put forth some legislation for a vote.
In terms of policies, this "sharp shift to the left" represents a return to the New Deal and
the Great Society and a renewed commitment to civil rights. It is a return to things we never
should have turned away from.
@Tracy Rupp Don't be so quick to condemn. The really old white men of today defeated Germany
and Japan. Then those same old white men went into Korea and then Vietnam. Ok so maybe you
have a point.
Shifted to the LEFT? After decades of movement to the Right, by the GOP and even assisted by
Dems such as the Clintons, etc., this political movement is merely a correction, not a
radical shift as your article contends.
Just as the reader comments from yesterday's opinion piece on the Covington School story by
David Brooks reveal rampant confirmation bias, the comments here reveal an equally relevant
truth: nobody, but nobody, eats their own like the left. The "Down With Us" culture in full
effect.
I am confused about what message, what issues resonate with the "moderate" people who are
disaffected from the liberal message of the Democrats on the left. What policies would bring
them to vote Democratic, what is it about health care for all, a living wage and opening the
voting process to all people are they opposed to. Is it policy or message that has them
wavering?
@dudley thompson Do you consider Eisenhower leftist? (highest tax rates ever). How about
Nixon? (established the EPA). We have lurched so far right in this country that the middle
looks left. I'm sick of the labels -- listen to what these leaders are actually proposing. If
you don't understand how the marginal tax rate works, look it up. If you don't realize we
once didn't accept mass homelessness and mass incarceration as a fact of life in America,
learn some history. We're living in a myopic, distorted not-so-fun-house where up is down and
center is left. We need to look with fresh eyes and ask what our communal values are and what
America stands for. 5 Replies
Here is a thought I would like to share with the New York Times: Thomas Edsall's article is
excellent. The corollary I draw from it that the paper that projects itself as the voice of
the liberals in this county has to understand that it has fallen behind times. If the
statistics and commentary accompanying it is a criteria to consider, The Times should move to
a more progressive editorial platform. The sooner, the better! The support given by this
paper to Hillary Rodham Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016 is unforgivable. The attitude
exhibited towards Elizabeth Warren is hardy different. This has to change if you want to keep
your relevance unless you believe publishing Edsall's essay is just part of your "diversity"
policy. What the followers of AOC and other progressives are clamoring for are very basic
human needs that have been delivered in affluent (and not so affluent) societies all over the
globe. No need to name those countries, by now the list is well known. What do we need
delivered: Universal Healthcare, Free Public Education K through College, No Citizens United,
Total Campaign Finance Reform, Regulation of Wall Street, Regulation of Pharma, Regulation of
Big Tech, Gender Equality, 21st Century Infrastructure. All paid for by cutting the Military
and Defense Budget Waste (cf Charlie Grassley, a buddy of Karl Marx) and taxing the top
percent at levels AOC cites and Professors Suez and Zucman concur with in their Times OpEd.
Democrats need to win elections first. Progressive ideas may have support on the coasts and
cities but fall flat in red states where there is still widespread dislike for immigrants and
minorities and strong opposition to "having my hard-earned tax money supporting free stuff
for the undeserving who can't/won't take care of themselves." Because the Electoral College
gives red states disproportionate representation the Democrats must win some red states to
win a presidential election. Running on a strong progressive platform won't work in those
Republican-majority states. What Democrats need is a "Trojan Horse" candidate. Someone who
can win with a moderate message that has broad appeal across the entire country but who will
support and enact a strong progressive agenda once he/she is elected. And on a local election
level, Democrats need to field candidates whose message is appropriate for their local
constituency -- progressive in liberal states, more moderate in conservative areas. Winning
elections comes first. Let's do what it takes to win and not let our progressive wish list
blind us to the importance of winning elections.
@Westchester Guy: Leftists want amnesty and, eventually, open borders. This is utterly and
totally incompatible with their push for "free" college, universal health care, and so forth.
The fiscal infeasibility is so obvious that one could only believe in these coexisting
policies if they were blinded by something, like Trump hatred, or just plain dishonest. The
"leftist" label for the new Democrat party is entirely appropriate. You also have your own
bigots to counter Trump. The difference is that their bigotry is sanctioned by most of the
mainstream media.
Has AOC or any other liberal offered any feasible policy to improve the lives of the people
they claim to help? Just take a good hard look at NYC where AOC is from which for many years
the Public Housing Authority cannot even provide adequate heat in the building the city owns.
So while AOC dreams of taxing the wealthy 70% perhaps she needs to slow down and catch up to
reality to realize what she offers is only building towards another Venezuela.
This article is half poison pill. By reading it, you learn a lot about Democratic Party
voting patterns, but you also have to endure a number of false ideas, the worst of which is
Edsall's warning that radical Democrats will foment internal chaos leading to electoral loss.
The fact is, it is the corporate democrats, who in the last 40 years abandoned the base of
working, blue collar democrats in favor of their Wall Street overlords. It is the corporate
democrats who created the billionaire class by reducing corporate tax rates. It is the
corporate Democrats who by reducing marginal tax rates created the plutocracy. It is the
corporate democrats who gave *Trillions of Dollars* to Bush and Obama's perpetual wars and
$70 Billion more than the defense department asks. This impoverishing the citizenry with debt
is their legacy as much as the Republicans. This shoveling of money to the 1% who abandoned
the middle class has been a train ridden by Corporate Democrats. It is the Corporate
Democrats who caused all this friction by letting the middle class fall off the edge of the
economic cliff -- all the while proclaiming how much they care. They show up on MLK day and
read flowing speeches from the podium when what we really need is activism and changes in
marginal tax rates, defense spending and the Medical Insurance and care oligopoly. So now
there is revolution brewing in response to the Corporate Democrats' appeasement of the
Oligarchy? Good. Bring it on.
Honestly, it is the centrist, neoliberal wing of the Democratic party that gave up on talking
to the Midwest and focused on the coasts. That was the Clinton strategy and it didn't work.
Although AOC comes from an urban area, her message is broad: she is for the struggling,
working person. Edsall underestimates AOC's basis in economic thinking and her appeal to
flyover country. She speaks carefully and justly to social issues, but she also speaks to the
"kitchen table" issues that middle America is concerned with--in a much more real way than
the neoliberal Dems have figured out how to.
Please end you outsized coverage of AOC. I really don't know how you justify all the news
coverage. She is one of 435 representatives, and a new one at that. No accomplishments, just
a large Instagram following.
@John Patt Everybody over the age of 50 should apologize for giving our young people
catastrophic climate change, endless wars, broken healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, ever
widening income and wealth disparates, unaffordable post-secondary education, rampant gun
violence, no voice for labor. We over 50 didn't care enough to vote and to make enough
political noise to keep these things from happening. We over 50 all have personal
responsibilities for this messed up world we're leaving the young. 6 Replies
@Zor The answer is no. Remember Schumer saying that for every urban vote Democrats lost by
running Hillary, they would gain 2 suburban votes. It didn't turn out that way. The centrist,
corporatist Democrats (including Hillary and Biden) have no clue how to reach the working
class of any race. The working class focus of AOC is the Democratic Party's best chance at a
future. But of course the establishment, centrist, corporatist Democrats are still focused on
helping their big money donors. Here's another question: Just how are establishment,
centrist, corporatist Democrats different from Republicans?
Here's my thing- though I'm a deeply liberal person who shares a lot of political beliefs
with Ocasio-Cortez, I'm am not the least bit interested in her. Why? Because she's one
representative of a district all the way across the country from where I live. I care about
about my newly flipped district in Sherman Oaks. I care about my solidly Democratic district
in Santa Rosa. Just because one charismatic representative from Brooklyn has a good Twitter
feed doesn't mean that I have to care or that she deserves a highly-placed role on an
important committee. She's a freshman. Let her learn. And then, go ahead and tell me she
deserves a seat.
There really is not a far left in America. You guys have this weird aversion to moderate
sensible socialism that -as the saying goes- is only in America. Our conservative government
in Australia accepts it as a given the things AOC is fighting for. There is nothing weird
about universal health care in modern advanced countries. The conservatives have a magic word
in the USA that they us as a bogeyman and the word is socialism. Ironically they don't mind
Trump snuggling up to extreme left dictators like Kim and ex KGB Soviet operatives like Don's
supervisor Vlad Putin who by definition had to be a card carrying communist to get to his
position. But moderate socialism is all over northern Europe, NZ, UK and Australia. You
people are oppressed by conservatives playing the "that's socialism" card at every turn. We
never ask where does the money come from? here. The money seems to be there in all the
countries that take care of the health of their citizens. America is a wonderful country with
fantastic people- I love visiting... but to use an Aussie word - crikey I wouldn't want to
live there. 1 Reply
A.O.C. Alexandria "Overexposure" Cortez. This young woman is talented but should pace herself
a bit. It's not a marathon but it's not a sprint either. Let's call it "middle distance" in
track terms. You need to save some breath for when it's really needed. Pace for long term
influence on policy. Or be a "one hit wonder".
@Matt Williams Exactly. I'm a Democratic in a conservative area, and all my Democrat friends
think this woman is nuts. Our Senator Jon Tester is wonderful. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Hard
pass. 9 Replies
@Cass You may self-identify as a moderate but you sound like a conservative. Please go join
the other party of no ideas if AOC strikes you as radical. The majority of Democrats don't
agree with you.
Ideology fails when it meets reality. Trump and McConnell are busy teaching the American
middle class what it is to be reduced to poverty - health care they can't afford, rising
taxes on those who have had some economic success, elimination of well paying jobs, and on
and on. Those voters are understandably interested in pocket book issues, the resurgence of
progressive candidates meets this newly emphasized need. In addition, look at the population
demographics. The baby boomers were a "bump" in population, they in turn have produced a new
bump in their children, who are now adults. The boomers were quite left, their children have
inherited some of this belief system - equal rights and protection and support of those with
less opportunity. The voters in general are also completely fed up with politicians lying to
them and taking away their benefits. They generally have a mistrust both of the right wing
destruction of our norms, and the Democrats failure to fight back (Garland should have been
appointed even in the face of McConnell's calumny). The new face of the Democratic party
feeds pocketbook issues, a belief that America is, in fact, a melting pot, and the need for
restoration of our Democracy. This pretty much covers all the bases, the Democrats just need
to get better at educating the populace.
By and large, the majority of 2600+ counties that Trump carried are not economically well
off. However, they are socially very traditional. Do the Democrats have a message that will
resonate with millions of these traditional white middle/lower middle class voters in the
hinterland? 1 Reply
have you listened to her interviews? she doesn't say much of anything. all political about
all these socialist ideas with no means or method of how to get there. and thank goodness she
has no clue how to get there
I used to be friends with a very high-achieving guy I met as a 15-year-old on a teen summer
tour in Israel, run by the national Reform synagogue movement, in 1985. In the course of our
frienship spanning the final years of high school through the beginning of college, gradually
fading to an email or 2 once every couple years; our different paths & outlooks became
very stark, though we'd both call ourselves liberals. My friend left no stone unturned in his
unambivalent achievement orientation, embracing w/religious fervor the absolute virtue of
success, the unimpeachable morality & integrity of our meritocracy, & meritocratic
ideals/ethos. Naturally, he wound up at Harvard, majoring in government, followed by Harvard
Law. What struck me throughout was the unvarnished "empiricism" of his outlook: rarefied,
lofty principles or romantic ideals seemed alien: the nitty gritty of practical &
procedural realities were the whole picture. The one time we explicitly discussed comparative
politics, he only gravitated toward the topic of Harold Washington's coalition-building
prowess. He was an ardent Zionist ("Jewish homeland!"), with little apparent interest in
theology or spirituality for that matter. Eventually he went into corporate law, negotiating
executive compensation. I think he epitomized the Clinton Democrat: A "Social justice," equal
opportunity for all, meritocracy "synthesis." In a word, that peculiarly "practical,"
pragmatic liberalism was *ultimately conservative*.
Let us all remember that since Reagan the "center" has moved decidedly right. So when we talk
about a move left, we are moving back to where we were in the 1950s-1970's. For example take
AOC's tax proposal. Right out of that time period. Look at the GOP platform in the 1950's. It
reads like a progressive platform today. So let's put this in perspective. Everything is
relative and we have adjusted to right wing dominant politics today.
Edsall looks at the fact the Democrats (and, indeed, the whole country) are moving in a
progressive direction. He does not look at the question of why. I maintain that with an
increase in educated voters, the country is moving towards policies that work, that are good
for the country as a whole, not just for a minority. The other wealthy countries, all with a
universal government health care system such as an improved Medicare for all, get BETTER
health care as measured by all 16 of the bottom line public health statistics for ALL of
their people at a cost of less than HALF per person as we pay. High inequality has been bad
for the economy and governance of this country. Look at what happened in 1929 and 2008 both
preceded by periods of high inequality. Compare that with the long period of low inequality
after WWII of Great Prosperity. Today as a result of terrible SCOTUS decisions, the Super
Rich pushing the country towards oligarchy. The situation at our borders was actually better
before 2003 when ICE was created. It has perpetrated so many atrocities, rightly garnered
such a terrible reputation, why isn't it time to abolish the thing and start over with a new
more humane organization. After all, the Germans did not keep the Gestapo after the war. I
running out of space, but let me end by saying we are now getting more progressive voters
that say that 2 + 3 = 5, and fewer conservative ones who say 2 + 3 = 23 and fewer moderates
who want to compromise on 2 + 3 = 14.
@Concerned Citizen, likewise, public education is funded largely by property taxes, even on
those who do not have children in school, or whose children are out of school. This is not
"someone else's" money! It is all our money, and this is the way we choose to employ it
– to educate all our children, realizing, I hope, that educated children are a major
asset of a developed country. 38 Replies
Until AOC starts to achieve some actual LEGISTATIVE VICTORIES, I'm not prepared to follow her
ANYWHERE. I'm willing to listen to what she has to say, some of which I agree with and some I
question. I lean Left on most issues but I'm not a fanatic, and fanatics exist on BOTH sides
of the political spectrum. I believe that one must PROVE themselves before being beatified.
In substance, I'm open to the "new wing" of the Democratic party which I am, officially, a
member of. Let me add that I will NEVER cast a vote for anyone calling themselves a
Republican because that very label is forever tainted in my book. But I don't much care for
the 'tit for tat' Tweeting from AOC either, writing about Joe Lieberman (whom I do not like)
"who dat"? What is "dat", Miss AOC?
The insane part of this never gets addressed. Why should Americans political interests and
aspirations be controlled by two monopolistic parties? 1 Reply
The country may be in a need of a more social agenda, but this agenda must perceptible help
the depressed white rural folk first. Nothing will work what make those, who are already
falling behind feel like a "basket of deplorables". I hope AOC will find a way not just to
become a poster star of the progressive urban left, but also understand the ailing of the
depressed rural right.
The Democratic Party needs to do a very good job of educating an electorate (and possibly
some of its own members) that has for more than 30 years drunk the kool-aid of the "lower our
taxes," small government, and deregulation gurus. We have such a predatory capitalism now,
with government failing over and over again to reign in huge corporations headed by those who
think they should be determining everything from economic to housing to health to foreign
policy. Enough already. Most of the young members of Congress need a lot more experience and
more immersion in the nitty gritty of creating legislation before they can take the reins,
but they can educate their constituents. And maybe they can convince others that everyone
gains through a more level playing field.
Calling these ideas left is a joke. AOC and Bernie Sanders would practically be conservatives
in Canada and Europe. What we have are 3 unofficial parties: 1. The party of people with good
ideas who aren't afraid to speak about them because they aren't beholden to big donors 2. The
party of watered down, unpopular ideas that are vetted by 20 pollsters and donors before
seeing the light of day 3. The party that gets into office by tapping into people's primal
fears, and avoids policy altogether Republicans have been moving the goalposts for decades
now, how can you even tell left from right anymore?
@A. Stanton Since 1990, there have been funding gaps, shutdowns or serious threats of
shutdowns almost every year. The have become routine tactics in the effort of each party to
drive a hard bargain.
Running up the Democratic vote in Blue states by pandering to left leaning views will not
unseat DJT in 2020. Winning the popular vote by 3 or 3 million yields the same results.
Unless or until we adopt the Nation Popular Vote Intrastate Compact or reapportion the House
more equitably, Republicans will continue to exploit the Electoral College's
antimajoritarianism. Courting the minority of lefties mimics DJT's courting of his base; last
November proved that elections are won in the middle. Appealing to moderates in purple states
is the only path to 270. If you have any doubt, ask private citizen HRC how much good the
Democratic over-vote did for her.
@Bruce Rozenblit What is exceedingly strange to me is that those who rail against socialism
completely misread socialism at it's very roots; Family. 27 Replies
Yes, because all these pundits got 2016 so right. They are people with their own opinions,
just like everyone else, except the punditry has a vested interest in maintaining the status
quo that has been so good to them for so long. Enough already! Times, you're as much to blame
as these pundits for 2016!
When progressive solutions are proposed, the opposition yells "socialism" while others bring
up the cost of progressive solutions. No one talks about the significant portion of our
nation's wealth spent on the military. We don't audit the Pentagon or do due diligence on the
efficiency of huge projects undertaken by the military nor do we question the profits of the
industrial-military complex. Meanwhile, Russia manipulated our latest presidential race,
underscoring the worry over cyber attacks. Climate events in the country mean our citizens
experience life changing events not brought on by terrorists or immigrants. A medical event
in a family can initiate bankruptcy; we all live on that edge. Our infrastructure projects
have been delayed for so long that America looks like a second rate country. Income
inequality is ongoing with no sign of lessening. Suicide is on the increase while death by
drugs is an epidemic. An education for students can mean large debt; efforts to train the
workforce for the technological world are inconsistent. For many of us, the hate and fear
promoted in this country is repulsive. Because our society works for an ever smaller number
of us, Americans are increasingly understanding that a sustainable, just society works for
all it's citizens. We are exhausted by the stalemate in Washington leaving us caring very
little about the labels of progressive, moderate, or conservative. We just know what needs to
change.
Edall's final point that thsese are Democrats returning to Democratic roots and not a wave of
radicalism. I along with a lot of other older voters was infected with a kind of gradualism.
I voted for Hilary, much now to my dismay. AOC among others is stating what she, and what
many of us want. The old Democratic party was a mirror image of Republicans, with taking the
same money, voting for the same wars, and within it all a kind of shame,liberal as a kind of
curse, where we were afraid to make our own agenda, make our own plan for America. taking the
burden, in health care, college education, immigration, is an investment in the future
The New Democratic approach in essence is taking wealth and redistributing it, along with
promising free goods and services. Is that high-minded or simply a Brave New World. The
underlying assumption seems to be the rest of America will not find that worrisome, and that
what happened in MA and NY represents a nationwide trend. 3 Replies
These voters are not moving to the left. They are correcting a trend to the right that
accelerated with Reagan: the rise of corporate dominance and societal control; the loss of
worker rights, healthcare and protections through destruction of our unions; and the mass
incarceration of our nation's young African American men for minor drug offenses, thus
destroying their futures and communities. These "left" liberals are fighting to bring back
democratic norms and values that were once taken for granted among those of all political
stripes.
I have always voted in every primary. I have always voted for the most "leftist" available.
So did my whole family, and all the people with whom I discussed our voting. The issue was
always "most leftist available." That often was not very leftist at all. That is what has
changed. Now the option is there. It isn't because we vote for it. We vote for it now because
now we can, now the choice is there. What has changed is not so much the voters as the
invisible primary before anyone asks us voters. What changed is the Overton Window of
potential choices allowed to us. I think voters would have done this a long time ago, if
they'd had the opportunity. So why now? Abject failure of our politics to solve our problems
has been true for decades, so it isn't mere failure. I'd like to think it was voter
rebellion. We just wouldn't vote for their sell outs. Here, that meant Bernie won our
primary, and then we did not turn out for Her. We finally forced it. The money men could not
get away with it anymore.
It is strange that Mr Edsall frames Medicare 4 All , Free College , and higher taxes on
wealthy as RADICAL leftist ideas .. when it fact each of these proposals have the majority of
support from Americans.. The most current poll shows 70% support for Medicare 4 All.. so you
are only radical if you DON'T support.
Unless the progressives start addressing the concerns of the middle class, they will drive
the Democratic Party right off the cliff. You remember us, don't you? People who have tried
to do things right and work hard. Granted, our cares and concerns aren't that sexy or
tweetable so it's easy for you newly elected firebrands to overlook us. Don't forget, we are
the ones who will ultimately foot the bills for your giveaways.
The notion that democrats are moving leftward is borne on revisionist history. There's
nothing new or bold being proposed; Zeitz is right on the money.
"Medicare for All, government-guaranteed jobs and a higher minimum wage" I have a question to
all the "progressive" Democratic voices in Congress - how are you going to pay for such an
agenda? Money doesn't just grow on trees. Either you will have to cut funds from another
program, or raise taxes. Most of these progressive people favor raising taxes on the wealthy.
But what is your definition of "wealthy"? $10 million in annual income? $1 million in annual
income? $500k? $200k? Almost all the proposals I have seen coming from progressives involves
increasing tax rates for families making more than $200k, either through higher rates, phased
out deductions, or ineligibility for certain programs. A professional couple where both are
software engineers could easily surpass this threshold, but they are not rich. They struggle
to pay the mortgage, save for the future, pay taxes, and provide for their children. Why
should they be forced to pay more in taxes percentage-wise than a family earning $100k or
$60k? It is for these reasons that I as an independent will never support progressive
candidates. These candidates lack basic math abilities and a basic notion of fairness. So if
the Democratic party starts to embrace some of the policies espoused by these progressives,
they are on a path to lose elections in the future. 1 Reply
@AutumnLeaf Mitch McConnell blocked Obama at every turn; he denied him the appointment of a
moderate respected Judge to the SC, a Judge the GOP had voted for on the Superior Court.
Congress wasted time with 40 attempts to declare the ACA unconstitutional; the Plan was
modeled on a Romney Plan in MA. Scalia's Citizens United Decision declared that corporations
are people; Scalia knew that he was using a Superior Ct. Decision with a transcription error:
word spoken: corporation; word transcribed: individual. Scalia spent a lot of time at
corporate lodges, "hunting"; mainly eating until he finally ate himself to death. McConnell
spends his time with mine owners. Trump spends his time with lobbyists for Israel and Saudi
Arabia. 9 Replies
I think this article underscores the incredible opportunity available to the left if they
pick a radical democratic socialist candidate. If they are already winning the college
educated crowd that is gentrifying these major urban areas and losing the poorer minority
crowd that is voting for people like the Clinton's over Sanders or Crowley over AOC; we are
getting the people whom one would think would be less incentivized to vote for our platform
and we can gain the people who would benefit more from our platform.Therefore, it is really
just a question of exposure and talking to these people. Reaching out to minorities; talking
about mass-incarceration, how it disproportinately affects precisely these minority voters
that we have to gain; and how the moderate democrats have been benefiting economically and
politically from the chaos and inequities in these communities for years. It is a question of
messaging. Minorities are our natural allies. They are disproportinately affected by the
inequality; and as soon as we can reach them; tell them that there brothers, husbands, sons
are coming home, and that we have a job for them to support their family when they do, that
is a huge % of voters that will swing our way, and accelerate the pace of our revolution--and
what critics will come to remember as the end of their decadence and control over all facets
of society, to the detriment of everyone else. The end is coming--and a new, better society
is on the verge of being reborn 1 Reply
Of all of those quoted in this article, the only one who really gets it right is Joshua
Zeitz. FDR's 1944 State of the Union address should be required reading for every Democrat,
and every Establishment talking head who warns against alienating suburban voters by
advocating for a New Deal social safety net. I share the sentiments of many on who have
responded by noting that it was, and is, the leadership of the Democratic Party that has
moved right rather than the Democratic electorate that shifted left. Don't believe me? Go
back through the sixteen years of the Clinton and Obama presidencies and see how many times
each referenced Ronald Reagan versus even mentioning Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or
Lyndon Johnson.
Medicare for all? Get ready for 6-week waits for a 10 minute appointment (and that will be
just for primary care). After that, expect to wait 6-12 months to see a specialist. 1 Reply
@José Franco I will not dig out social security trustees' projections of future
funding requirements or the possible solutions bandied about by politicians (google them),
but one single tweak would eliminate any projected shortfalls. Currently the FICA
contribution is limited to earnings of $132,900. Those who earn over that amount pay no FICA
tax on the earnings above that level. The person earning a million dollars in 2019 will stop
paying FICA on his earnings by mid-February. Applying FICA to all earnings of all earners
would keep social security solvent. No raise in retirement age, no reduction in benefits, no
insolvency. As to Medicare's solvency and public benefits, see the excellent comments of Len
Charlap. 17 Replies
There are several issues upon which I and my like-minded moderate family members will cast
our votes in 2020: - Border security and the end to the brazen exploitation of our citizenry
by the millions of foreign migrants who illegally, and with an attitude of entitlement,
trespass into our sovereign country year after year...costing our taxpayers billions. -
Reckless proposals to increase government benefit programs that aren't affordable without
raising taxes, threatening our already stressed social security safety net. - The rise of
Antisemitism and the mendacious obsession with Israel amongst leftists within Congress, as
well as within the ranks of their constituents. Democrats will need to address these issues
to our satisfaction if they want our votes. 2 Replies
Ed, it's time to retire. If you spent time looking at the actual data, Democratic primary
voters, particularly those in overly restrictive closed primary states like New York, are
older, wealthier, "socially liberal" and "fiscally conservative." They are what we would have
called moderate/Rockefeller Republicans 40 years ago, but they vote Democratic because that's
who their parents voted for. Most progressive voters today, the ones who support Medicare for
all, investment in public higher education, taxation on wealth (you know, those pesky issues
that mainstream Democrats used to support 30-40 years ago) are younger and more likely to be
unaffiliated with any political party. This is why Bernie did much better in states with open
primaries, and Hillary did better in closed primary states like NY AOC won in spite of NY's
restrictive primary system. She was able to achieve this because many of the older Democratic
establishment voters who would have voted for Crowley stayed home, and she was able to
motivate enough first-time young voters in her district to register as a Dem and vote for
her. (First time voters in NY can register with party 30 days prior to primary election)
Let's be clear though: your premise that Dem primary voters are driving the party's shift to
the left couldn't be further from the truth--the progressive shift in the body politic you
describe is coming from younger, independent, working class voters and is redefining the
American left.
From the NYT , Edsall April 19, 2018 The Democrats' Gentrification Problem "Conversely, in
the struggling Syracuse metropolitan area (Clinton 53.9 percent, Trump 40.1 percent),
families moving in between 2005 and 2016 had median household incomes of $35,219 -- $7,229
less than the median income of the families moving out of the region, $42,448." Syracuse, a
democratic City in one of the most democratic States in the US, so assuredly democratic that
Democratic Presidential candidates rarely show up has been left by the Democrats and the
Democratic Governor ,Cuomo, in a death spiral of getting poorer by the day That in a State,
that includes NYC, the international capital of the global billionaire elite. Exactly, what
have the Democrats done to help ?
"Sawhill argues that if the goal of Democrats is victory, as opposed to ideological purity,
they must focus on general election swing voters who are not die-hard Democrats." Wow, what
an original argument! I have been hearing the exact same thing since I registered to vote at
age 18 in 1977. Democrats are always urged to support the "sensible, centrist" candidates who
keep on losing elections to Republicans who drag their party, and the whole country by
default, even further to the right. JFK was called a communist and worse by pundits like this
and he would have won by a landslide in 1964. How about if Democrats for once push for
policies that are backed by 90 percent of Americans, like Medicare For All, the higher
minimum wage, universal college education, renewable energy and the rest of the Green New
Deal and higher marginal tax rates for the rich. I would love to see just one presidential
candidate run on this platform before I die so I can fill out my ballot without holding my
nose. 1 Reply
Kind of make sense considering how far to the right the Republican Party has gone with the
Donald. And he's a guy who was a Democrat at one point. He's a dangerous mr nobody. Let's
counter going far to the left so we can come back to some middle ground.
@Len Charlap Canada can also more easily afford universal healthcare and a stronger social
safety net because it doesn't have the outsized military budget that we do. 17 Replies
@Ronny I agree with you - have a subsidized education - (rather I prefer to say equal access
to education) as well as health care guarantees to a greater extent equality of opportunity -
which is what all democratic societies should strive for. It's not equality of outcome but
equality of opportunity. Children should not be punished for have parents of lesser means or
being born on the wrong side of the tracks...
Until I see well-crafted legislation that is initiated by her that will help improve the
lives of many she's just another politician with sound bite platitudes. She doesn't even have
a district office in the Bronx yet to the chagrin of many of the constituents.
@Midwest Josh Perhaps student loans made by the FED at the rates they charge the big banks in
their heist of the American economy achieved back in 1913. 38 Replies
AOC is a liberal darling who's stated (on 60 Minutes) that unemployment rates are low because
everyone is working two jobs; I might add, that has nothing to do with how unemployment rates
are figured and come on, "everyone?" And recently she's stated that the world will end in 12
years if we don't do something about climate change. Come on, this is silliness, ignorance
and borderline stupidity. If she's the poster child for the Democrats, then she's the gift
that will keep on giving to the GOP.
I grew up during the Vietnam War, and over the years came to admire the American people who
ultimately forced their government to withdraw from an immoral (and disastrous) military
adventure. This is rare in human history. Rare in American history too, as the follies in
Iraq drag on and on to remind us. Perhaps the American people are becoming themselves again.
I wouldn't call it drifting left at all.
Thomas Edsall's column is yet another conservative spin on Democrats from The New York Times.
Where are the voices of progressive Democrats, who form the overwhelming majority of New York
City residents? Of New York state residents? Who form the core of the Democratic Party's
support. The Times insists that these conservative voices are the only ones deserving of
publication here. Where in the world did the notion come from that The Times was a "liberal"
publication?
@Chris Young, It seems you aonly approve of departments that teach what you consider
"productive." If schools become an adjuct to the marketplace, then only the material,
quantifiable results will be the metric by which the value of education is measured. This
will leave us, as in some ways we are already becoming, a population that emulates robots,
and has no use for critical thinking, ethics, or art. The profit in education is in the
quality of the students it turns out into the world, not on a corporate balance sheet. 38
Replies
It's all good but important to expand the focus on the entirety of the Democrats in Congress
- and the amazing age range and gender mix. The opportunities are vast - an intergenerational
government of forward thinking, principled women and men. Please media pundits - avoid focus
on only 1 or 2. There are brilliant ideas pouring forth - let the ideas from every corner
flow! Remember that the intense media focus on Trump, liberal as well as conservative,
contributed significantly to what happened in election 2016.
If by liberal you mean the circular firing squad of the politics of aggrievement, no. My
politics fall in line with FDR's Second Bill of Rights. Here he describes them in 1944
https://youtu.be/3EZ5bx9AyI4
"...true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security & independence.
"Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry & out of a job are the stuff of
which dictatorships are made... We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under
which a new basis of security & prosperity can be established for all -- regardless of
station, race, or creed. Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job...; The
right to earn enough to provide adequate food & clothing & recreation; The right of
every farmer to raise & sell his products at a return which will give him & his
family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an
atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition & domination by monopolies at home or
abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care &
the opportunity to achieve & enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the
economic fears of old age, sickness, accident & unemployment; The right to a good
education." That is where Democrats used to be. Then came the Corporate Democrats, the DLC
and the Clintons.
This piece misses more than it hits. Where it misses particularly is in it's insistence that
the Class interest of working class Democrats pulls the Party right, rather than left, and
that the insurgents are mostly young, white gentrifying liberals. This is not altogether
false, but misses that many of the gentrifiers are not middle class themselves, but lower
middle class young people with huge college debt who could never dream of living in upper
middle class enclaves like most of the opinion writers in the Time for example. So they move
into the inner city, make it safe for professionals, and then yes, Brooklyn goes white.
Harlem goes white. Berkeley loses its working class majority. Etc. The big problem for the
left of the Democratic Party is not that its mostly young, white and middle class; it is that
the very term "liberal" is now widely understood by working class people as meaning
"establishment." And they are against the "establishment". As it happens, so are the young
insurgents. This then is the task for the left of the Democrats; to unite the culturally
conservative working class with the emerging multi-racial, multi-ethnic youth vote to take
down both the reactionary Right and the Liberal establishment. And the only reason such a
sentiment seems crazy is that the New York Times, far from being a bastion of the resistance
to Trump is actually a bulwark of that Liberal Establishment. Stats are stats but the future
is unwritten.
AOC is pretty interesting. She's charismatic, fearless....and I'm trying to think of
something else. OH, she's personally attractive. If the government gig falls apart she can
probably get TV work. But as an intellectual light or a rational political leader -- she is
clearly lacking. OF course that may not matter as the earth will come to an end in 12 years.
Which is even more ludicrous than saying the earth is only 6000 years old. She is simply
spouting far left talking points which are driven by emotion, not rational thought. And she
keeps making unforced errors in her public speaking engagements. She really doesn't appear to
understand what she's talking about and can't respond to reasonable questions about her
policy positions. But then, that's not too unlike much of the left. So maybe she's a perfect
fit for a fact free faction which is beginning to run the dem party. 1 Reply
One commenter gave a really insightful look at socialism for corporations and the rich here,
otherwise known to most of us as corporate welfare, including subsidies to oil companies, who
seem rich enough, but nevertheless, extend their "impoverished" bank accounts for more of our
dollars. Successful corporations, will reward investors, CEO's, hedge fund managers, all
those at the top, but the worker, not too much for that drone, who was part of the reason of
the success of that corporation. Socialism has been tainted by countries with autocratic
rulers , uneducated masses, and ofttimes, as in Latin America, religious masses. But,
Scandinavia, has shown us a socialism to envy. It's confident citizens know that much of what
makes life livable has been achieved. Finland rates as one of the happiest countries in the
world. Taxes are high, but one isn't bankrupted because of illness, one doesn't lose a home
because of a catastrophic illness, education is encouraged, and one doesn't have to pay the
debt off for 30 years or more. The infrastructure is a priority, war is not. It just seems
like it's a secure way to live. This is socialism I wish we could duplicate. Does anyone
consider that socialism also includes our police, libraries, fire stations, roads, and so
much more? Used for the good of society, it's a boon for all, rather than unregulated
capitalism which enriches the few at the expense of most of us. 3 Replies
@Reilly Diefenbach "Democratic socialism" isn't a thing, but implies two contradictory
ideals. Social democracy is thing, a good thing, and in line with what Nordic nations have.
38 Replies
Never has someone gotta so much for doing so little. None of this means anything if it
doesn't become law. As a life long Liberal Democrat (there, I said it) myself, I find it
infuriating when Liberal/Progressive politicians get out-sized credit for their good
intentions while those same good intentions threaten party unity. The Progressive idea of
party unity seems to be limited to getting what they want or they'll walk away. They just
know better, so there's no need for compromise. Never mind that they have no way of enacting
any of this legislation -- and more often than not Progressives lose at the polls. These
"kids" need to wake up and realize that there are no moral victories in politics. The ONLY
goal of any Democrat has to be unseating Trump and McConnell, everything else is a noise, and
a dangerous distraction.
I support universal health care, free college for students who meet enhanced entrance
requirements and raising marginal tax rates to 70% on wealthy Americans. Yet I do not support
an expansion of the EITC, ending immigration enforcement or putting workers on boards of
directors. So where do I stand? All my life I've voted Democratic. But there has been a
seismic shift in politics. And after the shift I will most likely vote Republican or for a
third party. The issue that causes my change in affiliation is the Me Too movement. I find it
repugnant that feminists seem to argue that the media rather than the courts should determine
guilt or innocence in sexual assault cases. Bill Cosby had an agreement with Andrea Constand
in their case. But feminists weren't happy with the outcome. So they resorted to extra-legal
means to get Cosby convicted. This included a media campaign in which the NY Times and the
New Yorker wrote stories highlighting accusations of 60 women for which statutes of
limitations had elapsed. But statutes of limitations are there for a reason. This became
clear in the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh which degenerated into a trial for rape. Nobody
except maybe the accuser could remember in any detail events at the party in which the rape
had presumably occurred. So the confirmation became one of character assassination in which
Kavanaugh was convicted of drinking beer. I will NEVER vote for any politician who supports
the Me Too movement.
"... protection from the vicissitudes of market capitalism"? People want protection from
monopoly capitalism. The left-right frame is a fallacy. If you put the actual policies on the
table, the great majority want single payer, clean elections, action on climate change, etc.
Pitting Left v. Right only redounds to tribalism. It ends up with a President who shuts down
the business of which he himself is the CEO. That's not great.
"... The massive student-debt jubilee would be financed with a tax on Wall Street: Specifically, a 0.5% tax on stock trades, a 0.1% tax on bond trades and a .005% tax on derivatives trades. ..."
"... By introducing the student-debt plan, Sanders has outmaneuvered Elizabeth "I have a plan for that" Warren ..."
In his latest attempt to one-up Elizabeth Warren and establish his brand of "democratic
socialism" as something entirely different from the progressive capitalism practiced by some of
his peers, Bernie Sanders is preparing to unveil a new plan that would involve cancelling all
of the country's outstanding $1.6 trillion in student debt.
The massive student-debt jubilee would be financed with a tax on Wall Street:
Specifically, a 0.5% tax on stock trades, a 0.1% tax on bond trades and a .005% tax on
derivatives trades.
Additionally, Sanders' plan would also provide states with $48 billion to eliminate tuition
and fees at public colleges and universities. Thanks to the market effect, private schools
would almost certainly be forced to cut prices to draw talented students who could simply
attend a state school for free.
Reps Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Pramila Jayapal of Washington have already signed on to
introduce Sanders' legislation in the House on Monday.
The timing of this latest in a series of bold socialist policy proposals from Sanders -
let's not forget, Bernie is largely responsible for making Medicare for All a mainstream issue
in the Democratic Party - comes just ahead of the first Democratic primary debate, where
Sanders will face off directly against his No. 1 rival: Vice President Joe Biden, who has
marketed his candidacy as a return to the 'sensible centrism' of the Democratic Party of
yesteryear.
By introducing the student-debt plan, Sanders has outmaneuvered Elizabeth "I have a plan
for that" Warren and established himself as the most far-left candidate in the crowded
Democratic Primary field. Hopefully, this can help stall Warren's recent advance in the polls.
The plan should help Sanders highlight how Biden's domestic platform includes little in the way
of welfare expansion during the upcoming debate.
My federal student loan monthly statement says I don't have to make a payment. I don't
qualify for any forgiveness because I'm responsible. Nonetheless, I pay the loan every month.
The balance goes down but every month it's still the same story.
I have to imagine the provider prefers students to see that it says zero dollars owed this
month with the hope that they don't pay because it says 0 dollars owed, default, and rack up
a bunch of fees and interest that the student doesn't see in the fine print.
The provider can then get paid by the taxpayer no questions asked. Much more profit and
payment is significantly faster.
Education costs are in the stratosphere 'because' of conversion of univeristires into
neoliberal institution. Which mean that the costs will skyrocket even more.
Somebody once said: If the neoliberal government took over management of the Sahara
desert, in five years, there would be a shortage of sand.
The only way to rein in neoliberals in government is to stop giving them so damned much
money...
The guaranteed student loan program created a mechanism that increases the price of
education. Before the program, graduates could expect 10 times the cost of a years' tuition.
Now, they'de lucky to get one year. The Americans were pushed out of this business and the
UN-Americans replaced them. This goes on for decades until the marks realized that they've
been screwed. ... The victims are in full support since they've been systematically dumbed
down that it seems like a good idea. It's not. This is a bailout of a failed neoliberal
institution.
Establishment comedian Bill Maher warned that if 2020 Democrats run "a campaign based on reparations and concentration camps"
it will be "very hard to win the election" against President Trump.
Warren reintroduced the Refund Equality Act, a bill that would allow same-sex couples to
amend past tax returns and receive refunds from the IRS.
"The federal government forced legally married same-sex couples in Massachusetts to file
as individuals and pay more in taxes for almost a decade," Warren said in a statement.
"We need to call out that discrimination and to make it right - Congress should pass the
Refund Equality Act immediately."
"... Sanders supported Clinton too in the general election. He also actively campaigned for her. ..."
"... apples and oranges, Thomas and Herr, Would you care to defend her "posture" on NATO? Ditto, for her contributing to the "Evil Vlad" narrative? Israel?? Wiki: Warren states she supports a two state solution, but she believes Palestinian application for membership in the UN isn't helpful.[63] ..."
"... "Warren lied about her ancestry to circumvent diversity quotas. Why should anyone believe anything she has to say?" You are going to be told this a million times before 11/20 but that's bullshit. It's been well established that she didn't get any job because of that. ..."
"... "In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth Warren's professional history, the Globe found clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools. At every step of her remarkable rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman." ..."
"... With Warren and Sanders talking complete sense about our oligarchy, the electorate's expectations are going to improve. Nothing could be better. We've been asked to settle for Republican-lite servants of mammon for too long in the Democratic Party and that's going to change. ..."
"... Hell, if we're going to fine them for data breaches, do we start with the DNC? ..."
"... In a poll last week of 2,312 registered voters in South Carolina, Warren gained nine points to reach 17% compared to Biden's 37%. Among 18-34 year olds, Warren is leading 24% to Sanders' 19% and Biden's 17%. ..."
"... I keep hearing from the mainstream media that Biden is leading in the polls. But we ought to note that Biden's up against a group including Warren, Sanders, Harris etc who are pushing a progressive policies, and if you take their percentages together, Biden cannot compete. Once one of these progressive takes the lead in the group, and hires all the others as running mate, cabinet members etc, he or she will be unbeatable against both Biden and Trump. ..."
"... The latest of that polling features Sanders and Biden nearly neck and neck as far as approval goes. Funny you don't hear about that on CNN or MSNBC. ..."
"... American voters have spent so long being treated like idiots by politicians and to an even greater extent the press that Warren comes across as something new and interesting by comparison. ..."
"... This election won't be decided by defecting Trump voters. ..."
"... Those who would be swayed by Trump using "Pocahontas" as a slur or would even pay attention to it wouldn't vote for Warren anyway. He's not going to change any minds with it, just rile up his existing sheep. ..."
"... That's a very narrow view of her position on Israel. She also supported the Iran treaty, boycotting Netanyahu's speech to the Senate, called on Israel to stop colonizing the West Bank and to recognize the right of Palestinians in Gaza to peaceful protest – her comments about aggression toward Gaza were about Israeli response to missiles fired by Hamas. I don't mind her having a nuanced response to what is in fact a very complex situation. ..."
"... Nerd used to be just an insult, aimed at anyone more intelligent, thoughtful or better-informed than the speaker. But I think now, like 'queer' and other words, it has been reclaimed and repurposed in a much more positive light. ..."
Clinton said vote for me because I am a woman, Warren says vote for me because I am a potential leader who happens to be a woman.
Good luck to her and the US
Don't get me wrong. I would certainly vote for her, if needed. I believe she's quite green behind the ears on foreign policy and
how inequality is a global issue. Her backing of our entitled neoliberal wife of an ex-president & neocon dismayed me.
Sanders gets the bigger picture on poverty, race, and war/ neocolonialism:
if you wish: MLK Jr's take on "The Three Evils".
apples and oranges, Thomas and Herr, Would you care to defend her "posture" on NATO? Ditto, for her contributing to the "Evil
Vlad" narrative? Israel?? Wiki: Warren states she supports a two state solution, but she believes Palestinian application
for membership in the UN isn't helpful.[63]
In a town hall meeting in August 2014, Warren defended Israel's shelling of
schools and hospitals during that summer's Israel–Gaza conflict, stating that "when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals,
next to schools, they're using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at
that point, to defend itself". She also questioned whether future US aid to Israel should be contingent on the halting of Israeli
settlements in the West Bank.[64] In addition she defended her vote in favor of granting Israel $225 million to fund the Iron
Dome air defence system.[65]
While the 2020 election feels critical, the 2024 election will decide the future. Like Trump himself, his base is filled with
old people who are still loyal to Ronald Reagan's Republican Party. Old people watch FoxNews, old people vote, old people love
Trump and in 2016, old people decided the election.
Younger people do NOT vote. The younger someone is, the less likely they are to vote. However, young people voted for Obama,
twice, but when Hillary came along, they stayed home and let the old people choose the president.
And then, in 2018 the young voted again and we learned the next generation plans to take this country into the future. If the
young vote in 2020, Trump is toast. If the young stay home, Trump will see a second term.
However, by 2024 the young will assume their rightful place in history and the age of old white men running the country, and
the world will come to an end.
You are making assumptions that old people are idiots. Making assumptions that middle aged people do not exist or are small in
numbers. Trump gets 200 or so electoral votes. He loses. I don't see any case he wins. He is past his 'used by date' even for
Republicans. You loose Tx to the Ds its game over, add PA and OH to the list. It doesn't even matter what crazy FL man thinks.
Don't forget modern geriatric medicine, by which the dinosaurs in the senate and elsewhere in the hardening arteries of the US
body politic will live - and hold ofice - for even longer than Strom Thurmond. They can afford the private medical insurance to
pay for it.
By the way, MeRaffey , I hope you meant to omit to punctuate in your last phrase so that it would read: ... the age
of old white men running the country and the world will come to an end . Your comma has me worried.
Warren/Harris, said it before but it makes sense. I would've preferred Biden to Clinton but I can't see him getting the same turnout
as Warren. Opinions on Trump are now fixed, it's a red herring to worry about "firing up" Trump supporters, they are already as
fired up as they can get. Swing voters are probably going to vote by where the economy is which is out of our control. Ideally
Democrats will be just as fired up as Trumpists, the investigations will suppress their enthusiasm somewhat (though they wouldn't
care if he killed someone so...) and the coming Trump recession will be brought on by his trade wars and the blame will therefore
fall where it should.
Warren lied about her ancestry to circumvent diversity quotas. Why should anyone believe anything she has to say? Furthermore,
What exactly is she promising that is any different then any of the other radical leftists running right now? It's all "Free Stuff"
that she's going to make the rich pay for. Um..yeah, that always works out doesn't it? Who needs real math when fuzzy math makes
us believe the combined wealth of the richest Americans will finance all this "free" stuff to say nothing about why so many Americans
feel entitled to the earnings of others. Remember folks, if a politician says 2+2=6 then it must be true.
"Warren lied about her ancestry to circumvent diversity quotas. Why should anyone believe anything she has to say?" You are
going to be told this a million times before 11/20 but that's bullshit. It's been well established that she didn't get any job
because of that.
She claimed Native American ancestry on her application to Harvard, a job she got and it wasn't the first time she played this
card either. But hey, in a political party that loves to change races and genders and expects everyone else to go along with the
charade by all means go ahead and believe what you want to believe.
A lie, see Snopes, see any link you've been given each time you post this lie. She got it on merit.
"In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth Warren's professional history, the Globe found clear evidence, in
documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted
resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools. At every step of her remarkable
rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman."
With Warren and Sanders talking complete sense about our oligarchy, the electorate's expectations are going to improve. Nothing
could be better. We've been asked to settle for Republican-lite servants of mammon for too long in the Democratic Party and that's
going to change.
The danger, of course, is that in this transition period Biden gets nominated. However much centrists will clamor for voters
to hold their nose and vote for him, that's not an electoral strategy. Trump's best chance of winning is that Biden gets nominated
and the progressive base of the Democratic Party is totally demoralized and lacking energy by late 2020.
After the US public allowed themselves to be hypnotized by Trump's campaign of fatuous lies, empty promises and racist dog whistles,
I doubted the electorate possessed the wit to understand actual policies. Maybe they've finally woken up - time will tell.
Do you understand how elections work? The US public were hypnotized? He lost the popular vote. The fault lies with the Republican
establishment for letting him put the R after his name. Perot ran on essentially the same ticket back in 92 as a third party candidate.
He got 18% of the vote. Had he run as a Republican he could well have won.
Oh dear. The question is, do you know how US elections work? The popular vote is irrelevant. He's the 5th POTUS who lost
the popular vote. Almost 63 million hypnotized dolts voted for him, and he won - that's why he currently resides in the WH
Or neither "hypnotized" nor "dolts." The people I knew who voted for him in North Carolina thought he was an asshole. But they
wanted a conservative Supreme Court for the next two decades and he has delivered that for them. Why do you assume that people
on the right are idiots who don't know what they want? That essential presumption by the left is one of the reasons the left lost
last time.
As one who used to be a Warren supporter, I think she is both patronizing voters and pandering to them. These policies have some
detail, sure, but they don't deal with the consequences that Warren knows very well lurk in the wings and as a result they don't
necessarily make sense.
Her proposal for free college is one example – sounds great, while in reality it would benefit the better-off middle class
at the expense of the most vulnerable students and create a cascade of problems that she has no plans to fix.
Again, fining companies for data breaches? Surely we should fine them *if* they don't immediately report data breaches to their
customers– or maybe if they haven't maintained appropriate data security, although I'd love to see proving that one to a court.
Hell, if we're going to fine them for data breaches, do we start with the DNC?
PS To be clear, I'd still take her in a second over Fat Nixon, I just wish she would pander less and keep her plans to the sensible
and achievable, like her consumer protection bureau, which was a fantastic idea.
Yes, (politely) do you? The fines for HIPAA violation have to do with noncompliance with the act, not with an uncontrollable data
breach. The fines increase on a sliding scale if "willful neglect" has been found (the data were not properly secured) or if the
company delays in reporting a data breach/violation.
Yep - No more old white guys - just being disgusted by Trump is not enough - people want new ideas. EW all the way - with AOC
by her side as well hopefully.
There is nothing Trump fears more than the stigma of being a one term pres - his ego would implode.
Oh, I think he fears going to prison more. Michael Cohen was right – the minute Trump is no longer protected by the presidency
he is going to be facing charges, on tax evasion if nothing else. He will do anything to keep his protection for more years. He's
probably hoping to die in office. (I'd add something to that, but I don't want the Secret Service visiting me!)
The DNC is again placing it's foot on the scale in favor of Biden. I believe that they know Bernie is less likely to win because
of America's irrational fear of the word, "socialism." That's why they put Biden and Sanders on the stage together and pushed
out Elizabeth Warren to the other debate with lesser known and less popular candidates. They do not what her, with her solid plans,
to confront Biden, which would give her a greater boost in the polls and more recognition across the nation.
And who was watching the drawing? Who set up the drawing? Are you saying that there was independent oversight on its setup? Or
do you just take the DNC's word for it?
An inability to believe in coincidence will take you to some strange places. If Sanders and Warren drawn the same night you could
make an argument that Biden was getting set up to look good against the lightweight opponents. Or had Sanders drawn the undercard
that he was being marginalized. Warren will do fine either way. She's a great candidate. Biden isn't.
Biden rides high on President Obama's very long coat tails and Wall Street money even without detailed plans that actually help
the working class and the poor. Bernie is riding high on his honest fight for the working class and the poor.
Elizabeth Warren is rising fast because she not only agrees with Bernie on fighting for the working class and the poor,
but she has detailed plans that are holding up to independent economic scrutiny.
Both Warren and Sanders are honest in their fight for economic justice for all and recognize that the root cause of poverty
and lower middle class' struggle is corporate and wealthy-individual money in politics. They aim to stop it.
Biden claims he can negotiate with McConnell. Obama reached out to McConnell his entire term and drew back a nub. The same
will be true of Biden. For the Republicans and Trumpians, it's all about making Democrats fail no matter how much it hurts the
working class and the poor. Their propaganda network will always assist and sustain them by appealing to the emotions and prejudices
of millions of Americans.
Biden claims he can negotiate with McConnell. Obama reached out to McConnell his entire term and drew back a nub. The same
will be true of Biden.
The same will be true of any Democrat though. There is no way around it except by expanding the powers of the office
of the President, which is what has given Trump such a wide ability to repeal Obama-era policies.
Any Democrat coming up against a Republican Senate will have the same thing happen to them, although I can imagine the Republicans
will hate Biden marginally less than Obama given that he's not black.
There is no way around it except by expanding the powers of the office of the President, which is what has given Trump such
a wide ability to repeal Obama-era policies.
Not the first year of his presidency. His Republican Party controlled Congress and they mostly hated Obama as well. As long
as there was full control of congress, it was easy. It was not easy to remove the ACA because so many Americans liked it.
Now remember that the reasons Trump was appointed to office by the EC, was that enough far-right people voted, together with
the "conservative" media adding to Russia's concentration of propaganda in the key states (stats provided to the Russians by the
Trump campaign) and lifted him just enough to overcome the votes of ~3 million voters. Far more voters are now counting on voting
against him and for the best Democratic candidate.
Progressives do not want to expand the powers of the Oval Office. That is the wrong thing to do. True change for the better
can only come through the ballet box and by educating the voters to exactly why our government is dysfunctional and is replete
with corruption.
I think the most popular message to all voters (from farmers to all others in the working class) is that corporate and private
money in politics is the root cause of government corruption and dysfunction and why the collective wealth of the working class
is steadily redistributing to the uber-wealthy.
The only candidates who what to change the economy to a DEMAND-side economy is are those who actually and loudly advocate it.
But just voting for a progressive president while putting the "conservative" obstructionists (those who maintain the high capacity
money pipeline that runs from Wall Street to their pockets) back into Congress will mean the corruption and dysfunction will continue.
Voters must be replaced by a super-majority liberal/progressive Congress, and with that, Elizabeth Warren will make that change.
I think she also knows that she should've and easily could've been president right now. That strange piece yesterday, talking
about Biden and Sanders standing in front of good female candidates of today: leaving aside a keen Biden getting bullied out of
2016 by Clinton already having things sewn up, Sanders was notoriously late jumping into 2016 because he was waiting on Warren.
If Warren was going to run against the wretched Clinton, he wouldn't. Warren choked so Sanders had to do it himself. Warren must
know that she would have dismantled Crooked H and, seeing as Clinton was the only person who could've lost to el diablo naranja,
Warren would've hammered Trump too. Hence, Warren's got some making up to do and seems very determined.
She's always been my tip. If I was an American, I would vote for Tulsi Gabbard in a second but Warren is a strong candidate
and I always thought that her announcing on the last day of last year was going to give her licence to say to other candidates:
"I've been running since 2018!". Warren is the candidate that liars for Clinton tried to pretend that Clinton was. A note of caution,
though: someone posted a Republican survey of exactly four years ago yesterday. Bush was on 22%, Trump was polling 1%. Long time
to go yet.
In a poll last week of 2,312 registered voters in South Carolina, Warren gained nine points to reach 17% compared to
Biden's 37%. Among 18-34 year olds, Warren is leading 24% to Sanders' 19% and Biden's 17%.
I keep hearing from the mainstream media that Biden is leading in the polls. But we ought to note that Biden's up against
a group including Warren, Sanders, Harris etc who are pushing a progressive policies, and if you take their percentages together,
Biden cannot compete. Once one of these progressive takes the lead in the group, and hires all the others as running mate, cabinet
members etc, he or she will be unbeatable against both Biden and Trump.
There is no sure way of knowing how that would play out. You may be interested in looking at the Morning Consult Poll, which comes
out weekly. If you scroll down to Second Choices... it gives possible outcomes for where votes may fall. According to MC poll
the 2nd choice for Sanders voters is Biden, 2nd for Biden is Sanders, 2nd for Warren is Harris, 2nd for Buttigieg is Biden, and
2nd for Harris is Biden. The poll also shows results for early primary states, if you click on "Early Primary States". https://morningconsult.com/2020-democratic-primary
/
Only one question: are these the same polls that were running in ninth 2016? And if they are why do we give a crap what any of
them say since we know they are all horribly wrong?
The latest of that polling features Sanders and Biden nearly neck and neck as far as approval goes. Funny you don't hear about
that on CNN or MSNBC.
It's clear to me that the US public want action, and that means progressive policies. They were conned last time into thinking
Trump represented change. But a Hillary Mark II candidate such as Biden will lead to another Trump victory.
American voters have spent so long being treated like idiots by politicians and to an even greater extent the press that Warren
comes across as something new and interesting by comparison.
There is no doubt that Warren is the best policy brain in the Democratic Party. She also has some good ideas, and some not so
good ones.
Were I American, I would be tempted to vote for her. But her candidacy is hopeless. It may be unfair, but the Pocahontas issue
will kill her bid stone dead in the general election. Trump would be licking his chops over a Warren run.
Those who would be swayed by Trump using "Pocahontas" as a slur or would even pay attention to it wouldn't vote for Warren
anyway. He's not going to change any minds with it, just rile up his existing sheep.
That's a very narrow view of her position on Israel. She also supported the Iran treaty, boycotting Netanyahu's speech to
the Senate, called on Israel to stop colonizing the West Bank and to recognize the right of Palestinians in Gaza to peaceful protest
– her comments about aggression toward Gaza were about Israeli response to missiles fired by Hamas. I don't mind her having a
nuanced response to what is in fact a very complex situation.
Warren has treated voters as adults, smart enough to handle her wonky style of campaigning. Instead of spoon-feeding prospective
voters soundbites, Warren is giving them heaps to digest – and her polling surge shows that voters appreciate the nerdy policy
talk.
If talking sense and enunciating real policies is regarded as "wonky"and "nerdy"in the USA then Warren doesn't have a hope and
Trump is a shoe-in.
Nerd used to be just an insult, aimed at anyone more intelligent, thoughtful or better-informed than the speaker. But I think
now, like 'queer' and other words, it has been reclaimed and repurposed in a much more positive light.
Mr. Biden had
support from 32% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents - in line with his 33%
support from last month.
Ms.
Warren , meanwhile, is now at 15% - up 5 points from last month - and Mr. Sanders was at 14%
support.
... ... ...
The Monmouth survey of 306 registered voters who identified themselves as Democrats or
Democratic leaners was taken from June 12-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.6
percentage points.
... ... ...
And a new survey from the firm Avalanche Strategy
found that when the notion of "electability" was taken off the table, Ms. Warren was the top choice of
Democratic voters at 21%, followed by Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders at 19% apiece.
"... There's a simple reason for Warren's sudden rise in the polls : the public has an appetite for policy. Of all the Democratic candidates, Warren's campaign has been by far the most ideas-driven and ambitious in its policy proposals. And voters love it. ..."
"... Week in and week out, she has been crisscrossing the country to tell receptive voters her ideas for an ultra-millionaire tax, student debt cancellation and breaking up big tech. She has also weighed in on reproductive rights, vaccines, the opioid crisis and algorithmic discrimination in automated loans. Her bevy of white papers demonstrates that there isn't a policy area Warren won't touch and she isn't worried about repelling anyone with hard-hitting proposals. ..."
"... Better than any other candidate, Warren has articulated a connection between her personal and professional struggles and her ideas, lending an air of authenticity to her campaign. Her backstory – teacher turned reluctant stay-at-home mom turned Harvard Law School professor – clearly resonates with voters in important states such as Iowa and South Carolina. ..."
"... Rule of thumb that is true for all politicians regardless of party. Most of what they promise they will do will never happen and much of does happen does not occur in the way they promised when they campaigned. ..."
n Friday, the Massachusetts senator
Elizabeth Warren co-sponsored a bill to impose mandatory fines on companies that have data
breaches. It was the kind of consumer welfare legislation that in the past would have been
unremarkable. But in an era when Congress has consistently shirked its duty to shield
consumers, the bill stood out.
The legislation capped a week in which Warren surged in the polls. Less than eight months
before the Iowa caucus, Warren is making strides in 2020 primary polls. According to an
NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey of 1,000 adults, 64% of Democratic primary voters in
June were enthusiastic or comfortable with Warren, compared with 57% in March. Fewer of these
voters were enthusiastic or comfortable with Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who have
lost 11 and six points, respectively, since March.
There's more. In a poll last week of 2,312 registered voters in South Carolina, Warren
gained nine points to reach 17% compared to Biden's 37%. Among 18-34 year olds, Warren is
leading 24% to Sanders' 19% and Biden's 17%.
There's a simple reason for Warren's sudden rise in the polls: the public has an appetite
for policy
There's a simple reason for
Warren's sudden rise in the polls : the public has an appetite for policy. Of all the
Democratic candidates, Warren's campaign has been by far the most ideas-driven and ambitious in
its policy proposals. And voters love it.
Rather than condescend to voters, like most politicians, Warren has treated voters as
adults, smart enough to handle her wonky style of campaigning. Instead of spoon-feeding
prospective voters soundbites, Warren is giving them heaps to digest – and her polling
surge shows that voters appreciate the nerdy policy talk.
Indeed, since Warren declared her candidacy for president, she has been offering policy
prescriptions for our country's most pressing ailments – and she hasn't been
brainstorming in a bubble.
Week in and week out, she has been crisscrossing the country to tell receptive voters her
ideas for an ultra-millionaire tax, student debt cancellation and breaking up big tech. She has
also weighed in on reproductive rights, vaccines, the opioid crisis and algorithmic
discrimination in automated loans. Her bevy of white papers demonstrates that there isn't a
policy area Warren won't touch and she isn't worried about repelling anyone with hard-hitting
proposals.
Better than any other candidate, Warren has articulated a connection between her personal
and professional struggles and her ideas, lending an air of authenticity to her campaign. Her
backstory – teacher turned reluctant stay-at-home mom turned Harvard Law School professor
– clearly resonates with voters in important states such as Iowa and South Carolina.
That sense of reciprocity has turned Warren into a populist rock star. Instead of appealing
to the lowest common denominator among the voting public, she's listening to and learning from
voters in an ideas-driven campaign that doesn't take voters for granted.
The strategy is paying off – and proving wrong the outdated political wisdom that
Americans don't care about the intricacies of government.
In May, Warren traveled to Kermit, West Virginia, the heart of Trump country, to pitch a
$2.7bn-a-year plan to combat opioid addiction.
"Her stance is decisive and bold," Nathan Casian-Lakes
told CBS News . "She has research and resources to back her ideas."
Jill Priluck's reporting and analysis has appeared in
the New Yorker, Slate, Reuters and elsewhere
I've decided that I want to see Warren as President. She is honest and has many good ideas
about the economy and offering a leg up to minorities and the poor. Her integrity is
unimpeachable. I have donated small sums to her campaign. Bernie has not spoken in detail the
way Warren has although his democratic socialism goes in a positive direction. There are many
voters who feel that he is too old. I hope that he will approve Warren as the best candidate
in the running. Biden's moment is long gone. For now I believe that another recession lurks
in the near future and Warren, as a wonk, is the best person to deal with it.
She also does not take a dime of PAC money, which helps keep her mind cleared of hidden
agendas. Because of that, she is the first candidate who campaign I've donated to.
Rule of thumb that is true for all politicians regardless of party. Most of what they promise
they will do will never happen and much of does happen does not occur in the way they
promised when they campaigned.
In the case of Sen Warren she talks a lot of wonderful stuff,
paid by rich people. Expect the same results. The courts will probably shoot down the wealth
tax as described by Warren anyway which means everything she promises just dies.
Technocratic, neoliberal, Clinton Democrat ideas which have already proven to fail.
She's for the working class, so long as that working class wears a white collar.
but she declared that she will take "the money" in the general election if she wins the nomination. Do you expect that money
to come with no strings attached. Clearly this video
implied that she knows differently.
This video shows that as a member of Congress she is cognizant of the "as Senator Clinton, the pressures are very different"
Warren knows EXACTLY what she is doing when she says she will take the money in the general if nominated.
Okay, Warren made a mistake in claiming Native American heritage, which enabled her to
advance professionally as a "diversity" candidate. But that would have to count as a venial
not mortal sin. She is doing considerable good on the campaign trail, and I believe that she
means to try to follow through on her detailed promises.
"... 780 billion per year on defense without a enemy in sight, and no nation spending a tenth that, seems to be a place one could get a dollar or two. ..."
"... As Chomsky notes in 'manufacturing consent', the mass media that is not 'Right' is 'Centrist' and will support a centrist candidate over one advocating more radical change. ..."
"... Here's an idea. If Warren was a true progressive she wouldn't have been a registered Republican for 5 years, and she would have endorsed Bernie over Hillary in the 2016 primaries. ..."
Her backstory – teacher turned reluctant stay-at-home mom turned Harvard Law
School professor – clearly resonates with voters in important states such as Iowa and
South Carolina.
Working people who are struggling in Iowa and South Carolina say: "She's just like
us!"
Please expand upon the "Constitutional issues of a wealth tax".
Looks pretty clear to me.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes,
Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general
Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout
the United States.
"Please expand upon the "Constitutional issues of a wealth tax".
"Looks pretty clear to me."
The point is that the question would go to a Republican Supreme Court which could indeed
find a wealth tax unconstitutional. If you want to know why, do a search. There's lots
written on it.
I don't know. Seems a lot more substance this go round than the last, near as I can tell.
Last go round climate change got one question and 45 seconds in response, by both candidates
in the general. The media certainly wants and will allow that to happen, but any dem who does
would be a idiot.
Seems last go round gender preference was a main thing. Warren will I think not fall into
that trap. White male midwestern industrial voters are at large, what lost HRC key states,
she took for granted. White male voters and usually their spouses, will not have a part of a
program that seems to leave them out of things.
Substance is the name of the game for warren, but to counter Trump one needs to throw out the barbs as well, as she did in
her twitter post on not being on his propaganda outlet Fox.
"I won't do a town hall with Fox News because I won't invite millions of Democratic primary
voters to tune in, inflate ratings, and help sell ads for an outlet that profits from racism
and hate. If you agree, sign our petition.
Yes that is Elizabeth Warren calling them racists and haters. A guy like Trump calls names
and it is par for the course. A woman who conducts herself as your local librarian or grade
school teacher, and you have to take pause and listen, is there substance to this? Seems
there is.
This new Elizabeth Warren, name calling and all, I find must more to my liking than that
before. Which is the why to her newfound popularity. Substance and calling a pig a pig not a
dog or some other thing.
I think you made a good case. she isn't my favorite but still acceptable.
In no particular order, for me it is Gabbard, Sanders, Williamson, Warren or Yang. the other
18 would be like voting for the GOP with some protection against the conservative slant on
social issues.
The right wingers that post here won't debate me because I'll expose them. They know how
the system works and they use it to their advantage. Socialism is about getting free stuff
but the issue here is who gets the free stuff. Supply side econ says that the rich are
entitled to the free stuff and the less fortunate aren't entitled to it. this is killing
upward mobility.
Iceland, Denmark and Sweden repealed their wealth taxes because they don't work. The
Scandinavian countries pay for their safety net by embracing capitalism and taxing the hell
out of everyone. Maybe we should embrace that model? Or does Warren's base simply all of the
benefits of that system without paying for it?
They're not similar countries to the USA, at all. US citizens are taxed no matter where they
choose to live on earth. This is not the case in most countries.
The Scandinavian countries pay for their safety net by embracing capitalism and taxing
the hell out of everyone. Maybe we should embrace that model?
It would be a hell of a lot better than the government acting as the paymaster for large
corporations - paying their workers with food stamps because the corporations don't pay them
sufficiently to live on.
You do know that is how the US works, right? Corporations don't pay their workers enough, so
the government (i.e. taxpayers) pick up the tab.
To add the average family of four, assuming one stays with the kids so they do not pay day
care costs, at Walmart earning a average salary , is eligible for federal food assistance and
in most states, Medicaid.
California for several decades paid for most of kids college education and even today, New
Mexico does the same. New Mexico is indeed one of the poorest states, and if they figured out
how to do that(under a republican governor years ago), most places could. The tax rate here
is about on average, no higher than most.
780 billion per year on defense without a enemy in sight, and no nation spending a tenth
that, seems to be a place one could get a dollar or two.
Smart and lucid. All the right ideas, without using the " S " word that people in the
USA do not really understand, and have a big fear of
I'd extent that from "The USA" to "The USA & the editorial staff of most papers in
England", and include some writers for this paper in that catchall.
'Socialist' Sanders and 'Left Wing' Labour as personified by Corbyn are all very well as
useful poles to beat the Right with in polemics, but when it looks like they might actually
gain access to the corridors of power, suddenly they become villains that have to be defeated
so that sensible 'moderates' can retain power....
Warren was receiving more support from this particular paper even before she announced her
candidacy than Sanders has or I suspect will even if he gains the nomination.
As Chomsky notes in 'manufacturing consent', the mass media that is not 'Right' is
'Centrist' and will support a centrist candidate over one advocating more radical change.
Those labels are totally irrelevant in the USA. Calling someone 'right' or 'left' or
'socialist' in the USA has nothing to do with dictionary definitions. They all mean to say
one thing: I disagree with them because they're wrong.
On Friday, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren co-sponsored a bill to impose
mandatory fines on companies that have data breaches.
Warren is the politician who operates like a blind-folded person desperately trying to hit
a pinata. In her political realm, such companies simply twist in the wind and make easy
targets. Her policy is equivalent to any store or home being burglarized and then being fined by
government for being a victim of crime. Complete mindlessness describes the policy.
Yes. Of course every politician should simply lie down and let the corporations get away with
every damn thing. I mean, that's worked really well for most Americans since Reagan.
Agreed that is a stupid policy.
If the company suffers a data breach owing to poor security or conceals or unduly delays
disclosure of the data breach, then it would make sense to fine the company or to hold the
company civilly liable to those injured by the data breach. But a blanket fine for any company that suffers a data breach is dumb.
The Labor party in Australia surprised me with the boldness and coherency of their plans and
it was a great thing to see a party running a campaign on ideas and principles.
They lost the election.
Here's an idea. If Warren was a true progressive she wouldn't have been a registered
Republican for 5 years, and she would have endorsed Bernie over Hillary in the 2016
primaries.
What a really stupid thing to write and think. Do you have any inkling of the history of the
Republican and Democratic parties? I was born in a Republican household (progressive) and it
took me living overseas for 20 years to realize what a nasty little insurgency had taken the
Republicans from what Teddy Roosevelt championed to what he described as swine; the
Dixiecrats. Ignorance is not bliss no matter how hard you try to pretend.
One thing that needs to be done involves an honest discussion about the costs of Warren's
proposals and the fact that the US already has a $22 TRILLION national debt with more than $1
TRILLION being added each year at a minimum. A former US Comptroller General stated in 2015
that even the official National Debt figure is a misrepresentation and that taking into
account an honest understanding of the nation's actual legal obligations the figure was
actually $65 TRILLION.
If anyone wants to see it even worse just look at economist Lawrence Kotlikoff's infinite horizon estimates that placed future already promised commitments at
$220 TRILLION. My point is that Warren and everyone else in the DC political establishment,
is "blowing smoke" and that the US is bankrupt and needs a serious strategy to mitigate that
fact rather than reckless proposals aimed to attract votes.
That is not going to happen and
the country is in a fundamental financial crisis.
Its repinlicans who increase your deficits. Reagan believed deficits don't matter.
The bush tax cuts...and now Trumps tax cuts and QE. He's expanding credit, which looks like
real growth, but is it? Only the US can do this, because it runs the global dollar. We should
have had the Bankor. But the yanks ensured that did not happen.
Nobody expects Congress to deliver on a president's campaign promises. That's not how
the system works.
True. We use to call it "obstructionist" when the other party in congress
unreasonably opposed a president's proposals. We no longer use that term, though. Now we call
it "resistance". I'm sure there are at least a few republicans who see being part of the
"resistance" exciting if Warren wins the White House.
At first I thought she must be mad, running for president. Then I started listening to her
ideas and looking at how they were being received.
There are millions of young people, youngish people, and parents whose lives would actually
be changed by her college loan plan. Even conservatives admit that "her math is correct" and
"it's doable."
Then I started watching her in town halls and found her to be VERY different from that
awkward lady in the kitchen having a beer. She's warm, direct, funny, casually
self-deprecating, and easily able to translate complex ideas into readily understood ones.
Free college and health care, and the rich pay. Who wouldn't get on board with that?
Well, since you asked. I don't have any student debt and I don't need any more
health care. If we are buying votes with "free" stuff, what do I get for free?
I do like a good brisket. Can we carve out some of that tax on those nasty millionaires
for my grocery fund?
Well, as a rock ribbed Republican, you only one choice.
Not applicable since I'm not a republican. I did vote for Trump, after voting
for Obama twice. I'm an independent, and we outnumber either republicans or democrats.
For me it's a toss-up between Warren and Sanders. When it comes to who will actually get to
run against Trump, if a dining room set and 4 chairs gets the Democratic nomination, they get
my vote in the general election.
The fix is already in I think. Your table and chairs name is Sleepy Joe Biden.
Of course, it's still a long time to the election and mortality rates may kick in.
Warren is rising fast because A) she stands for something and B) she does an excellent job of
explaining how America can make the journey from where it is (including rampant inequality)
to where it needs to be to offer a future to all its people, not just to those who are white,
rich and privileged! Plus, she is super smart & sassy!
For her entire career, Warren's singular focus has been the growing fragility of America's
middle class. She made the unusual choice as a law professor to concentrate relentlessly on
data, and the data that alarms her shows corporate profits creeping up over the last 40 years
while employees' share of the pie shrinks. This shift occurred, Warren argues, because in the
1980s, politicians began reworking the rules for the market to the specifications of
corporations that effectively owned the politicians. In Warren's view of history, "The constant
tension in a democracy is that those with money will try to capture the government to turn it
to their own purposes." Over the last four decades, people with money have been winning, in a
million ways, many cleverly hidden from view. That's why economists have estimated that the
wealthiest top 0.1 percent of Americans now own nearly as much as the bottom 90 percent.
As a presidential candidate, Warren has rolled out proposal after proposal to rewrite the
rules again, this time on behalf of a majority of American families. On the trail, she says "I
have a plan for that" so often that it has turned into a T-shirt slogan. Warren has plans
(about 20 so far, detailed and multipart) for making housing and child care affordable,
forgiving college-loan debt, tackling the opioid crisis, protecting public lands, manufacturing
green products, cracking down on lobbying in Washington and giving workers a voice in selecting
corporate board members. Her grand overarching ambition is to end America's second Gilded
Age.
"Ask me who my favorite president is," Warren said. When I paused, she said, "Teddy
Roosevelt." Warren admires Roosevelt for his efforts to break up the giant corporations of his
day -- Standard Oil and railroad holding companies -- in the name of increasing competition.
She thinks that today that model would increase hiring and productivity. Warren, who has called
herself "a capitalist to my bones," appreciated Roosevelt's argument that trustbusting was
helpful, not hostile, to the functioning of the market and the government. She brought up his
warning that monopolies can use their wealth and power to strangle democracy. "If you go back
and read his stuff, it's not only about the economic dominance; it's the political influence,"
she said.
What's crucial, Roosevelt believed, is to make the market serve "the public good." Warren
puts it like this: "It's structural change that interests me. And when I say structural, the
point is to say if you get the structures right, then the markets start to work to produce
value across the board, not just sucking it all up to the top."
Warren (D)(1): "Elizabeth Warren to introduce bill cancelling up to $50,000 in student debt
for most borrowers" [
MarketWatch ]. "The Democratic Senator of Massachusetts plans to introduce legislation in
the coming weeks that mirrors her presidential campaign proposal
Under the proposal
Warren released as part of her presidential campaign in April, borrowers with a household
income of less than $100,000 would have $50,000 of their student debt cancelled and borrowers
with an income between $100,000 and $250,000 would be eligible for some student debt
cancellation -- though not the full $50,000. Borrowers earning $250,000 or more would receive
no debt cancellation.
Her campaign estimated the plan would cost $640 billion, which would be paid through a tax
on the ultra-wealthy." • I don't think it makes sense to introduce free college without
giving relief to those who, because they chose to be born at the wrong time, are subject to a
lifetime of debt, so kudos to Warren.
That said, note the complex eligibility requirements; Warren just can't help herself. Also,
of course, you can drown in an inch of water, so pragmatically, even $50,000 might not mean all
that much, especially since servicers gotta servicer.
Warren (D)(2): "Elizabeth Warren's plan to pass her plans" (interview) [Ezra Klein,
Vox ]. Klein: "Do you think that there's a way to sequence your agenda such that you're
building momentum as opposed to losing it?" Warren: "Here's my theory: It starts now. That's
what true grassroots building is about. Green New Deal. More and more people are in that fight
and say that matters to me. Medicare-for-all, that fight that matters to me [No, it doesn't.
–lambert]. As those issues over the next year and a quarter get clearer, sharper, they're
issues worth fighting for, and issues where we truly have leadership on it, have people out
there knocking doors over it . You asked me about my theory about this. This is the importance
of engaging everyone. The importance not just of talking to other senators and representatives
but the importance of engaging people across this country." • This language seems awfully
vague, to me. For example, when Sanders says "Not me, us," I know there's a campaign structured
to back the words up. I don't get that sense with Warren. I also know that Sanders knows who
his enemies are ("the billionaires"). Here again, Warren feels gauzy to me ("the wealthy"). And
then there's this. Warren: "I believe in markets But markets without rules are theft." This is
silly. Markets with rules can be theft too! That's what
phishing equilibria are all about! (And the Bearded One would would argue that labor
markets under capitalism are theft , by definition.) But I'd very much
like to hear the views of readers less jaundiced than I am. Clearly Warren has a complex piece
of policy in her head, and so she and Klein are soul-mates.
Warren (D)(1): [Team Warren, Medium ]. "The
rising cost of rent reflects a basic supply-and-demand problem. There aren't enough places to
rent that are affordable to lower-income families. That's because developers can usually turn
bigger profits by building fancier new units targeted at higher-income families rather than
units targeted at lower-income families. The result is a huge hole in the marketplace."
•
I'm not a housing maven by any stretch of the imagination, but I think a story that doesn't
consider the role of private equity in snapping up distressed housing after the Crash is likely
to be a fairy tale.
Warren (D)(2): "The Memo: Warren's rise is threat to Sanders" [
The Hill ]. "'She certainly does seem to be taking votes away from him,' said Democratic
strategist Julie Roginsky. 'It seems as if, as she is rising, he is falling.'" • The
national averages don't show that.
"... As it is, it seems that the corporate Democrats and Clintonites new strategy is to promote Warren and then start leaning on
her heavily in an effort to convert Warren to the neoliberal "dark side" or have her not be a problem for them. ..."
"... Her stance on single payer is troubling and telling, and her foreign policy positions and worldview are absolutely atrocious.
She has good policy ideas (not great political instincts), but none of the ideas at the present time have movements behind them and
would need those movements to push them through. ..."
"... As for Warren, I believe she could have value in a narrowly defined (finance-related) role in a Sanders administration. I will
not vote for her for president. Her foreign policy is atrocious, she doesn't support single payer, and she has proven herself to be
a garden variety neoliberal on all but her own niche issues. ..."
As it is, it seems that the corporate Democrats and Clintonites new strategy is to promote Warren and then start leaning
on her heavily in an effort to convert Warren to the neoliberal "dark side" or have her not be a problem for them.
Warren has unfortunately shown just how easy it is to get her to back down under pressure and there is also the fact that she
has been willing to carry water for the Clintonites before to advance her own political career like she did in the 2016 election.
At this point, I would seriously consider Yang to be my third choice after Sanders and Gabbard if it came down to it. Warren
would probably be either incapable or unwilling to face any serious political opposition either from Trump or neoliberal Democrats
and would probably cave.
Her stance on single payer is troubling and telling, and her foreign policy positions and worldview are absolutely atrocious.
She has good policy ideas (not great political instincts), but none of the ideas at the present time have movements behind them
and would need those movements to push them through.
Is she the person to lead movements and to help them grow? I can't see anyone making that case. She has had an impact on issues,
with the CFPB, which is good, but that was her work within academia. Different animal than actual movement building. Here, we
have single payer and she has backtracked.
So, changes that may happen down the road, great. At least provides some alternatives and possibly a path from here to there.
But, the fights we could win in the shorter term? Waffles. No thanks. I think she can play a great role in her current position
or if Bernie were to win, in his administration, but I think she would be very problematic as a general election nominee. Just
my opinion. I like her more than Biden and a number of others running but that says more about them than her.
The first thought that entered my mind when I saw that quote from Biden was that he really is suffering from cognitive decline.
As for Warren, I believe she could have value in a narrowly defined (finance-related) role in a Sanders administration.
I will not vote for her for president. Her foreign policy is atrocious, she doesn't support single payer, and she has proven herself
to be a garden variety neoliberal on all but her own niche issues.
The only candidates besides Sanders I would vote for (Gabbard and Gravel) have less chance of getting the nomination than he
does. If Sanders is not the Democratic nominee, I will once again be voting Green.
This just in from the Big Island. The natives seem restless.
"Imagine if you will, in a few short years, that information on current events will only be available from a narrow band of sources
sanctioned by the government/corporate media. And this Orwellian future will be embraced by the majority of people because it
provides security, both ideological and emotional.
Any dissension, criticism, whistle-blowing, anti-exceptionalism coming from critical voices will be labeled extremist. And
this has been embraced by the two monopoly political parties.
I just received a questionnaire from the Democrats posing the question, "What's the most important issue in the upcoming
election?"
The very first multiple choice answer to pick from was - "Russian aggression and increasing global influence" Russia, a country with a small population and an economy that is a fraction of the US or Europe is our dire threat? Let's
just ignore the expansion of NATO onto Russia's borders, or that the US State Dept. spent 5 billion dollar to change the politics
of Ukraine.
Second most important issue asked on the questionnaire, "Protecting America from foreign cyber attacks" Let's ignore
the fact that the NSA is spying on all Internet traffic, that the CIA has misinformation programs like, "Operation Mockingbird"
and many other covert activities to influence perceptions domestically.
The third Democratic Party priority question is "China's increasing economic and military strength" China's state controlled
mercantile success lies directly on the twin shoulders of the US Government and it's multi-national corporations. The US granted
China, Most Favored Nation status in 1979, which gave it exposure to US markets with low tariffs. Almost immediately, corporations
went to China and invested in factories because of the cheap Chinese labor while abandoning the US worker. And in May 2000 Bill
Clinton backed a bipartisan effort to grant China permanent normal trade relations, effectively backing its bid to join the WTO.
We live in a country whereby the US Government has made it possible for corporations to pay little or no taxes, to be deregulated
from government laws designed to protect the public, and allow corporate crimes to go unpunished while maintaining vast influence
over the political system through campaign contributions and corporate ownership of the mass media.
This US Government/corporate partnership smells a lot like Fascism. Instead of Mussolini we have Trumpolini. And so our time's
brand of corporatism has descended over the eroding infrastructure of America."
"... "When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise -- to deny the political character of the modern corporation -- is not merely to avoid the reality. It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that disguise are those we instruct in error." ..."
"There
was time when average Americans could be counted upon to know correctly whether the country was going up or down, because in those
days when America prospered, the American people prospered as well. These days things are different.
Let's look at it in a statistical sense. If you look at it from the middle of the 1930's (the Depression) up until the year
1980, the lower 90 percent of the population of this country, what you might call the American people, that group took home 70
percent of the growth in the country's income. If you look at the same numbers from 1997 up until now, from the height of the
great Dot Com bubble up to the present, you will find that this same group, the American people, pocketed none of this country's
income growth at all.
Our share of these great good times was zero, folks. The upper ten percent of the population, by which we mean our country's
financiers and managers and professionals, consumed the entire thing. To be a young person in America these days is to understand
instinctively the downward slope that so many of us are on."
Thomas Frank, Kansas City Missouri, 6 April 2017
"When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief,
it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise -- to deny the political
character of the modern corporation -- is not merely to avoid the reality. It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that
disguise are those we instruct in error."
John Kenneth Galbraith
One of the older male anchors on financial TV today noted, in a very condescending tone, that for some reason Elizabeth Warren
'has an attitude' when it comes to corporations.
I hope she and some of her like minded fellows get their opportunity to extend the hand of equal justice to these smug serial
felons, pampered polecats, and corporatist clowns. It has been a long time coming.
"... "I feel duped," said the voter, Renee Elliott, who was laid off from her job at the Indianapolis Carrier plant. "I don't have a lot of faith in political candidates much anymore. They make promises. They make them and break them." ..."
"... Warren rose to her feet. "The thing is, you can't just wave your arms," the she said, gesturing energetically. "You've really got to have a plan – and I do have a plan." ..."
"... But despite the burst of momentum, Warren's path to the nomination has two major roadblocks: Sanders and Biden. Her success will depend on whether she can deliver a one-two punch: replacing Sanders as the progressive standard bearer while building a coalition broad enough to rival Biden. ..."
"... "She sounds like Donald Trump at his best," conservative Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson told his largely Republican audience as he read from Warren's proposal during the opening monologue of his show this week. The plan calls for "aggressive intervention on behalf of American workers" to boost the economy and create new jobs, including a $2tn investment in federal funding in clean energy programs. ..."
"... His praise was all the more surprising because Warren has vowed not to participate in town halls on Fox News, calling the network a "hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists" ..."
The senator's 'I have a plan' mantra has become a rallying cry as she edges her way to the
top – but is it enough to get past the roadblocks of Biden and Sanders?
Elizabeth Warren at a campaign rally in Fairfax, Virginia, on 16 May. Photograph: Cliff
Owen/AP Plan by plan, Elizabeth Warren is making inroads
and gaining on her rivals in the 2020 Democratic race to take on Donald Trump.
This week a Morning Consult poll saw Warren break
into the double digits at 10%, putting her in third place behind Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.
A recent
Economist/YouGov poll found Warren was making gains among liberal voters, with Democrats
considering the Massachusetts senator for the Democratic presidential nomination in nearly
equal measure with Sanders.
Her intense campaigning on a vast swathe of specific issues has achieved viral moments on
the internet – even including one woman whom
Warren advised on her love life – as well as playing well during recent television
events.
At a televised town hall in Indiana this week, Warren listened intently as a woman who voted
for Trump in 2016 described her disillusionment – not only with a president who failed to
bring back manufacturing jobs as he said he promised but with an entire political system
stymied by dysfunction.
"I feel duped," said the voter, Renee Elliott, who was laid off from her job at the
Indianapolis Carrier plant. "I don't have a lot of faith in political candidates much anymore.
They make promises. They make them and break them."
Warren rose to her feet. "The thing is, you can't just wave your arms," the she said,
gesturing energetically. "You've really got to have a plan – and I do have a plan."
That mantra – a nod to the steady churn of policy blueprints Warren's campaign has
released – has become a rallying cry for Warren as she edges her way to the top of the
crowded Democratic presidential primary field.
But despite the burst of momentum, Warren's path to the nomination has two major roadblocks:
Sanders and Biden. Her success will depend on whether she can deliver a one-two punch:
replacing Sanders as the progressive standard bearer while building a coalition broad enough to
rival Biden.
Warren began that work this week with a multi-stop tour of the midwest designed to show her
strength among working class voters who supported Trump. Ahead of the visit, Warren unveiled a
plan she described as "economic patriotism", which earned startling praise from one of Trump's
most loyal supporters.
"She sounds like Donald Trump at his best," conservative Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson
told his largely Republican audience as he read from Warren's proposal during the opening
monologue of his show this week. The plan calls for "aggressive intervention on behalf of
American workers" to boost the economy and create new jobs, including a $2tn investment in
federal funding in clean energy programs.
His praise was all the more surprising because Warren has vowed not to participate in town
halls on Fox News, calling the network a "hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to
racists and conspiracists".
The debate over whether
Democrats should appear on Fox News for a town hall has divided the field. Sanders, whose
televised Fox News town hall generated the highest viewership of any such event, argued
that it is important to speak to the network's massive and heavily Republican audience.
As Warren courts working-class voters in the midwest, she continues to focus heavily on the
early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. After jumping into the race on New Year's Eve 2018,
Warren
immediately set to work , scooping up talent and building a massive
operation in Iowa. Her campaign is betting a strong showing in the first in the nation
caucuses will propel her in New Hampshire, which neighbors Massachusetts, and then boost her in
Nevada and South Carolina.
But as Warren gains momentum, moderate candidates are becoming more vocal about their
concern that choosing a nominee from the party's populist wing will hand Trump the
election.
"If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the
answer," former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper told Democrats in California last weekend.
Though his comments were met with boos and jeers among the convention's liberal crowd, his
warning is at the heart of the debate over who should be the Democratic presidential
nominee.
Warren has pointedly distinguished herself as a capitalist as opposed to a socialist or a
democratic socialist, but she has not backed away from a populist platform that embraces
sweeping economic reforms.
In her address to the California Democratic party, Warren rejected appeals for
moderation.
"Some say if we all calm down, the Republicans will come to their senses," she said. "But
our country is in a time of crisis. The time for small ideas is over."
Citizens can be appalled by outside of rare moment of social upheaval that does not matter:
iron law of oligarchy suggests that the state in ruled in the interests of oligarchy not common
citizens. It was as true fro the USSR as is the USA now.
Notable quotes:
"... We are appalled by these actions of the military and government officials. You are being unfair, totally inaccurate and perpetuating a false notion, as to how the great majority of citizens feel about all that is happening around the world, with those who are involved with the pathos that is being experienced by other human beings. ..."
You are very wrong when you assert that most American citizens want this and are as blood
lust as these agencies and other government and military leaders.
We are appalled by these actions of the military and government officials. You are being
unfair, totally inaccurate and perpetuating a false notion, as to how the great majority of
citizens feel about all that is happening around the world, with those who are involved with
the pathos that is being experienced by other human beings.
It is a constant never ending source of pain, frustration, rage and disbelief that our
nations leaders are acting the way that we are now all very aware of, thanks to those who
have exposed the travesty.
What in God's name do you expect from the citizens who are also suffering extremely dire
circumstances because of how the greedy criminals have left many homeless, hungry and dying
because of not having enough money for healthcare. We are also being abused, abandoned, and
marginalized into oblivion.
Many who are well off enough, are trying to appeal to the government to take control of
their part of any global and national crises. It is all everyone is capable of doing to bring
about change.
We are not " them, " so stop making such reprehensible comments about an entire
nation of mostly good people who care very deeply, and are effected very grievously.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: Good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson Tonight. Let's begin
tonight with a thought experiment: What if the Republican leadership here in Washington had
bothered to learn the lessons of the 2016 election? What if they'd cared enough to do that.
What if they'd understood, and embraced, the economic nationalism that was at the heart of
Donald Trump's presidential campaign? What would the world look like now, two and a half years
later? For starters, Republicans in congress would regularly be saying things like this.
Quote:
"I'm deeply grateful for the opportunities America has given me. But the giant 'American'
corporations who control our economy don't seem to feel the same way. They certainly don't act
like it. Sure, these companies wave the flag -- but they have no loyalty or
allegiance to America. Levi's is an iconic American brand, but the company operates only 2% of
its factories here. Dixon Ticonderoga -- maker of the famous №2
pencil -- has 'moved almost all of its pencil production to Mexico and China.'
And General Electric recently shut down an industrial engine factory in Wisconsin and shipped
the jobs to Canada. The list goes on and on. These 'American' companies show only one real
loyalty: to the short-term interests of their shareholders, a third of whom are foreign
investors. If they can close up an American factory and ship jobs overseas to save a nickel,
that's exactly what they will do -- abandoning loyal American workers and
hollowing out American cities along the way. Politicians love to say they care about American
jobs. But for decades, those same politicians have cited 'free market principles' and refused
to intervene in markets on behalf of American workers. And of course, they ignore those same
supposed principles and intervene regularly to protect the interests of multinational
corporations and international capital. The result? Millions of good jobs lost overseas and a
generation of stagnant wages, growing inequality, and sluggish economic growth. If Washington
wants to put a stop to this, it can. If we want faster growth, stronger American industry, and
more good American jobs, then our government should do what other leading nations do and act
aggressively to achieve those goals instead of catering to the financial interests of companies
with no particular allegiance to America.... The truth is that Washington policies --
not unstoppable market forces -- are a key driver of the problems American
workers face. From our trade agreements to our tax code, we have encouraged companies to invest
abroad, ship jobs overseas, and keep wages low. All in the interest of serving multinational
companies and international capital with no particular loyalty to the United States....It's
becoming easier and easier to shift capital and jobs from one country to another. That's why
our government has to care more about defending and creating American jobs than ever
before -- not less. We can navigate the changes ahead if we embrace economic
patriotism and make American workers our highest priority, rather than continuing to cater to
the interests of companies and people with no allegiance to America."
End quote. Now let's say you regularly vote Republican. Ask yourself: what part of that
statement did you disagree with? Was there a single word that seemed wrong? Probably not.
Here's the depressing part: Nobody you voted for said that, or would ever say it. Republicans
in congress can't promise to protect American industries. They wouldn't dare. It might violate
some principle of Austrian economics. It might make the Koch brothers angry. It might alienate
the libertarian ideologues who, to this day, fund most Republican campaigns. So, no, a
Republican did not say that. Sadly.
Instead, the words you just heard are from, and brace yourself here, Senator Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts. Yesterday, Warren released what she's calling her "plan for economic
patriotism." Amazingly, that's pretty much exactly what it is: economic patriotism. There's not
a word about identity politics in the document. There are no hysterics about gun control or
climate change. There's no lecture about the plight of transgender illegal immigrants. It's
just pure old fashioned economics: how to preserve good-paying American jobs. Even more
remarkable: Many of Warren's policy prescriptions make obvious sense: she says the US
government should buy American products when it can. Of course it should. She says we need more
workplace apprenticeship programs, because four-year degrees aren't right for everyone. That's
true. She says taxpayers ought to benefit from the research and development they fund. And yet,
she writes, "we often see American companies take that researchand use it to manufacture
products overseas, like Apple did with the iPhone. The companies get rich, and American
taxpayers have subsidized the creation of low-wage foreign jobs." And so on. She sounds like
Donald Trump at his best. Who is this Elizabeth Warren, you ask? Not the race hustling, gun
grabbing, abortion extremist you thought you knew. Unfortunately Elizabeth Warren is still all
of those things too. And that is exactly the problem, not just with Warren, but with American
politics. In Washington, almost nobody speaks for the majority of voters. You're either a
libertarian zealot controlled by the banks, yammering on about entrepreneurship and how we need
to cut entitlements. That's one side of the aisle. Or, worse, you're some decadent trust fund
socialist who wants to ban passenger cars and give Medicaid to illegal aliens. That's the other
side. There isn't a caucus that represents where most Americans actually are: nationalist on
economics, fairly traditional on the social issues. Imagine a politician who wanted to make
your healthcare cheaper, but wasn't ghoulishly excited about partial birth abortion. Imagine
someone who genuinely respected the nuclear family, and sympathized with the culture of rural
America, but at the same time was willing to take your side against rapacious credit card
companies bleeding you dry at 35 percent interest. Would you vote for someone like that? My
gosh. Of course. Who wouldn't? That candidate would be elected in a landslide. Every single
time. Yet that candidate is the opposite of pretty much everyone currently serving in congress.
Our leadership class remains resolutely libertarian: committed to the rhetoric of markets when
it serves them; utterly libertine on questions of culture. Republicans will lecture you about
how payday loan scams are a critical part of a market economy. Then they'll work to make it
easier for your kids to smoke weed because, hey, freedom. Democrats will nod in total
agreement. They're on the same page.
Just last week, the Trump administration announced an innovative new way to protect American
workers from the ever-cascading tidal wave of cheap third-world labor flooding this country.
Until the Mexican government stops pushing illegal aliens north over our border, we will impose
tariffs on all Mexican goods we import. That's the kind of thing you'd do to protect your
country if you cared about your people. The Democrats, of course, opposed it. They don't even
pretend to care about America anymore. Here's what the Republicans said:
MITCH MCCONNELL: Look, I think it's safe to say – you've talked to all of our
members and we're not fans of tariffs. We're still hoping this can be avoided.
"We're not fans of tariffs." Imagine a more supercilious, out of touch, infuriating
response. You can't, because there isn't one. In other words, says Mitch McConnell, the idea
may work in practice. But we're against it, because it doesn't work in theory. That's the
Republican Party, 2019. No wonder they keep losing. They deserve it. Will they ever change?
Warren (D)(1): "Elizabeth Warren's latest big idea is 'economic patriotism'" [
Vox ].
"The specific Warren proposal on this score has three parts, a Green Apollo
Program, a Green Marshall Plan, and a Green Industrial Mobilization. The Apollo Program is a
ten-fold increase in clean energy R&D funding, the Marshall Plan is a $100 billion
program to help foreign countries buy American-made clean technology, and the Industrial
Mobilization (which it would perhaps be more natural to call a 'Green New Deal,' were that
name not already taken) proposes a massive $1.5 trillion federal procurement initiative over
10 years to buy 'American-made clean, renewable, and emission free products for federal,
state, and local use and for export.'
That's roughly the scale of federal spending on defense
acquisition and would of course turn the federal government into a huge player in this
market."
• I bet Warren's policy shop didn't copy and paste from other proposals
either
Readers here are brainwashed. Industrial policy is based on a partnership between
manufacturing, banks and finance, government, and workers. All of these relationships are
built on trust and all the members stand to profit. This is the secret of Germany's and
Scandinavia's over 200 years of success. It is called stakeholder capitalism. It includes all
members of society. Germany is the world's largest exporter for a reason. It has
approximately 1,500 banks, 70% of them are non-profit and restricted to lending for loans
that are productive - create jobs and add value.
The English/American model of capitalism is called shareholder capitalism. Shareholder
because the owners are absentee landlords. The financial markets rule, all other members
serve. The communities are shells - people are distrustful of each other and of the social
institutions. Shareholders don't live in the communities that add the value. They are the
elites, and are spread throughout the world.
Readers here might not like Elizabeth Warren, and that's ok. I don't really like her. But
her ideas are good. No Republican or corporate Democrat would ever embrace her ideas.
The irony is that Trump campaigned on similar ideas as Warren's. Why do you people think
Trump is engaging in all the trade war rhetoric? It's for the same ends as Warren's ideas,
except her ideas are more complete. Trump doesn't bring enough to the table. He needs to
include labor, banks, manufacturers, and government. He hasn't because his ideas are not
developed.
All the blabber mouths on Zero Hedge complaining about how full of **** academia is and
now is your chance to actually stand for something. Do you think industrial policy is built
on "snowflake" studies in Harvard?
No, it's in vocational schools and mentoring. Apprenticeships, and so forth.
Un-*******-believable. Zero Hedge is no different from Rush Limbaugh, a big fat closeted
queen.
What ever happened to states rights? Ever increasing central governmental control is not
the answer, and was never intended to be. The Democrats spout about "Democracy!!!". This is
nothing of the sort. They are perfectly happy to tell someone in Nebraska what to do, even if
they have no idea corn grows in dirt. Narcissistic sociopaths is what they are. It's time to
neuter them.
Unfortunately, a fair number of people are listening to her. The article below warns that
her push towards socialism as many progressives, liberals, or those simply left of center are
proposing, would be a grave mistake. Socialism is not the answer to combating inequality.
Well, down here in Australia we had a Federal election a couple of weeks ago, and the
opposition party, the Labor Party(ie the equivalent of your Democrats) was soundly defeated
partially because of their radical "climate change" policies.
Quite obviously the left cannot grasp the fact that not everybody buys into the climate
change hoax/industry. After the election many "journalists" who work for our national
broadcaster, the ABC, which is funded by the Feds, came out on social media describing the
result as a catastrophe for the climate and branded Australians as stupid. Sound familiar,
just like a certain someone who labeled half of America as deplorables.
Australians are not stupid, and realised that the changes Labor were proposing were too
radical. Their plan called for a 45 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. It should be
noted that despite rhetoric to the contrary by Labor, it is a well established fact that
Australia is far exceeding it's Kyoto & Paris targets.
Yet, the Labor party wanted to take these steps.
Labor, a party which is supposed to be in support of the workers, had they have won
governmengt, would have no doubt done everything in their power to prevent the Adani coal
mine in Queensland going ahead!
FFS, what sort of a world are we living in where coal mining is viewed by the left as a
criminal activity?
The result of Labor's insanity, they did not win back a single seat in Qld, and in the
Hunter Valley in NSW, a massive coal mining town, one particular seat there has been held by
Labor for 25 years with a healthy margin. The local Labor candidate, Joel Fitzgibbon, managed
to still hold onto the seat despite a 20 percent swing against him!
The fact is, as I am sure you are all aware being intelligent people on ZH, is you cannot
take radical steps like what was proposed by Labor & in the process destroy the economy.
These changes, if they are to be implemented, need to happen over the course of decades,
four, five, maybe six, I don't know.
But more importantly, there needs to be serious discussion as to whether man made "climate
change" is real because it does not seem to be, and obviously the vast majority of people are
not buying into it. much to the chagrin of the left.
In Australia, and I am sure the same happens in America, the only people buying the
climate change ******** are the cafe latte/upper class inner city snobs.
The other thing that escapes the minds of the left in Australia is simple mathematics. We
are a population of 24 million in a world of 7.5 billion, that makes us 0.33 of 1 percent of
the world population. Even if Australia cut it's emissions to zero tomorrow, it will make no
difference to the world when we have China & India building coal fired power
stations.
Ironically, the high priest of climate change, Al Gore, is down here at the moment, in
Queensland of all places where voters told the left where to get off, on a $300,000 taxpayer
funded love-in. From memory, didn't Al Gore state in his doco in 2006 that within 10 years
the Earth would be facing a climate catastrophe? lol
You go girl.... Lynn Rothschild will back you once she counts con-tracts and loans
filtered back into her " All Inclusive Capitalism" banking system... She's got your back. She
was was only kiddig about rewrting an ecconomic plan for Hillary and ditching yours....xoxo
Lynn
"on Tuesday Elizabeth Warren proposed
spending $2 trillion on a new "green manufacturing" program that would invest in research
and exporting American clean energy technology."
"In my administration, we will stop making excuses. We will pursue aggressive new
government policies to support American workers."
"In my administration, we will NOT stop making excuses. We will pursue aggressive new
government TOTALITARIAN policies to support American Stalinist ideals ."
Dems only need few select states to campaign in and they will win elections all the time.
Everybody is playing the racists card when they do not like what is said or done!!
"... There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth. ..."
"... There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase. ..."
"... Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus. ..."
"... When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed. ..."
"... I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. ..."
"... If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. ..."
"... These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president. ..."
"... The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke. ..."
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the
right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a
minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"" – Bill Hicks
Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fake-news
mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the "Us versus Them" narrative. It's
almost as if "they" are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill
Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire
continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda
techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their
assigned puppets.
Most people can't discern they are being manipulated and duped by the Deep State
controllers. The most terrifying outcome for these Deep State controllers would be for the
masses to realize it is us versus them. But they don't believe there is a chance in hell of
this happening. Their arrogance is palatable.
Their hubris has reached astronomical levels as they blew up the world economy in 2008 and
successfully managed to have the innocent victims bail them out to the tune of $700 billion,
pillaged the wealth of the nation through their capture of the Federal Reserve (QE, ZIRP),
rigged the financial markets in their favor through collusion, used the hundreds of billions in
corporate tax cuts to buy back their stock and further pump the stock market, all while their
corporate media mouthpieces mislead and misinform the proles.
There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social
issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The
real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it
appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the
Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare.
Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort
whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The
proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as
the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of
Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out
"legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions.
The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote
against a defense spending increase.
Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing
from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too
Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy
in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as
people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus.
When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are
bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed
billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge
tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in
every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no
legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed.
I've never been big on joining a group. I tend to believe Groucho Marx and his cynical line,
"I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". The "Us vs. Them" narrative
doesn't connect with my view of the world. As a realistic libertarian I know libertarian ideals
will never proliferate in a society of government dependency, willful ignorance of the masses,
thousands of laws, and a weak-kneed populace afraid of freedom and liberty. The only true
libertarian politician, Ron Paul, was only able to connect with about 5% of the voting public.
There is no chance a candidate with a libertarian platform will ever win a national election.
This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Bill Hicks somewhat foreshadowed the last
election by referencing another famous cynic.
"I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one
who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking
and screaming into the White House." ― Bill Hicks
Hillary Clinton wanted to be president so badly, she colluded with Barack Obama, Jim Comey,
John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch and numerous other Deep State sycophants to ensure
her victory, by attempting to entrap Donald Trump in a concocted Russian collusion plot and
subsequent post-election coup to cover for their traitorous plot. I wouldn't say Donald Trump
was dragged kicking and screaming into the White House, but when he ascended on the escalator
at Trump Tower in June of 2015, I'm not convinced he believed he could win the presidency.
As the greatest self-promoter of our time, I think he believed a presidential run would be
good for his brand, more revenue for his properties and more interest in his reality TV
ventures. He was despised by the establishment within the Republican and Democrat parties. The
vested interests controlling the media and levers of power in society scorned and ridiculed
this brash uncouth outsider. In an upset for the ages, Trump tapped into a vein of rage and
disgruntlement in flyover country and pockets within swing states, to win the presidency over
Crooked Hillary and her Deep State backers.
I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. I hadn't voted for a Republican since
2000, casting protest votes for Libertarian and Constitutional Party candidates along the way.
I despise the establishment, so their hatred of Trump made me vote for him. His campaign
stances against foreign wars and Federal Reserve reckless bubble blowing appealed to me. I
don't worship at the altar of the cult of personality. I judge men by their actions and not
their words.
Trump's first two years have been endlessly entertaining as he waged war against fake news
CNN, establishment Republicans, the Deep State coup attempt, and Obama loving globalists. The
Twitter in Chief has bypassed the fake news media and tweets relentlessly to his followers. He
provokes outrage in his enemies and enthralls his worshipers. With millions in each camp it is
difficult to find an unbiased assessment of narrative versus real accomplishments.
I'm happy he has been able to stop the relentless leftward progression of our Federal
judiciary. Cutting regulations and rolling back environmental mandates has been a positive.
Exiting the Paris Climate Agreement and TPP, forcing NATO members to pay their fair share, and
renegotiating NAFTA were all needed. Ending the war on coal and approving pipelines will keep
energy costs lower. His attempts to vet Muslims entering the country have been the right thing
to do. Building a wall on our southern border is the right thing to do, but he should have
gotten it done when he controlled both houses.
The use of tariffs to force China to renegotiate one sided trade deals as a negotiating
tactic is a high-risk, high reward gamble. If his game of chicken is successful and he gets
better terms from the Chicoms, while reversing the tariffs, it would be a huge win. If the
Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global
recession is a certainty. Who has the upper hand? Xi is essentially a dictator for life
and doesn't have to worry about elections or popularity polls. Dissent is crushed. A global
recession and stock market crash would make Trump's re-election in 2020 problematic.
I'm a big supporter of lower taxes. The Trump tax cuts were sold as beneficial to the middle
class. That is a false narrative. The vast majority of the tax cut benefits went to
mega-corporations and rich people. Middle class home owning families with children received
little or no tax relief, as exemptions were eliminated and tax deductions capped. In many
cases, taxes rose for working class Americans.
With corporate profits at all time highs, massive tax cuts put billions more into their
coffers. They didn't repatriate their overseas profits to a great extent. They didn't go on a
massive hiring spree. They didn't invest in new facilities. They did buy back their own stock
to help drive the stock market to stratospheric heights. So corporate executives gave
themselves billions in bonuses, which were taxed at a much lower rate. This is considered
winning in present day America.
The "Us vs. Them" issue rears its ugly head whenever Trump is held accountable for promises
unkept, blatant failures, and his own version of fake news. Holding Trump to the same standards
as Obama is considered traitorous by those who only root for their home team. Their standard
response is that you are a Hillary sycophant or a turncoat to the home team. If you agree with
a particular viewpoint or position of a liberal then you are a bad person and accused of being
a lefty by Trump fanboys. Facts don't matter to cheerleaders. Competing narratives rule the
day. Truthfulness not required.
The refusal to distinguish between positive actions and negative actions when assessing the
performance of what passes for our political leadership by the masses is why cynicism has
become my standard response to everything I see, hear or he read. The incessant level of lies
permeating our society and its acceptance as the norm has led to moral decay and rampant
criminality from the White House, to the halls of Congress, to corporate boardrooms, to
corporate newsrooms, to government run classrooms, to the Vatican, and to households across the
land. It's interesting that one of our founding fathers reflected upon this detestable human
trait over two hundred years ago.
"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental
lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity
of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has
prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." – Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine's description of how moral mischief can ruin a society was written when less
than 3 million people inhabited America. Consider his accurate assessment of humanity when over
300 million occupy these lands. The staggering number of corrupt prostituted sociopaths
occupying positions of power within the government, corporations, media, military, churches,
and academia has created a morally bankrupt empire of debt.
These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans.
They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't
care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others.
They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their
unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of
controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every
politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head,
MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the
president.
The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households
around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them. The answer to that question
will strongly impact the direction and intensity of the climactic years of this Fourth Turning.
What I've noticed is the shunning of those who don't take an all or nothing position regarding
Trump. If you disagree with a decision, policy, or hiring decision by the man, you are accused
by the pro-Trump team of being one of them (aka liberals, lefties, Hillary lovers).
If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers. I
don't want to be Us or Them. I just want to be me. I will judge everyone by their actions and
their results. I can agree with Trump on many issues, while also agreeing with Tulsi Gabbard,
Rand Paul, Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi on other issues. I don't prescribe to the cult of
personality school of thought. I didn't believe the false narratives during the Bush or Obama
years, and I won't worship at the altar of the Trump narrative now.
In Part II of this article I'll assess Trump's progress thus far and try to determine
whether he can defeat the Deep State.
"The scientific and industrial revolution of modern times represents the next giant
step in the mastery over nature; and here, too, an enormous increase in man's power over
nature is followed by an apocalyptic drive to subjugate man and reduce human nature to the
status of nature. Even where enslavement is employed in a mighty effort to tame nature, one
has the feeling that the effort is but a tactic to legitimize total subjugation. Thus,
despite its spectacular achievements in science and technology, the twentieth century will
probably be seen in retrospect as a century mainly preoccupied with the mastery and
manipulation of men. Nationalism, socialism, communism, fascism, and militarism,
cartelization and unionization, propaganda and advertising are all aspects of a general
relentless drive to manipulate men and neutralize the unpredictability of human nature. Here,
too, the atmosphere is heavy-laden with coercion and magic." --Eric Hoffer
If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the
Trumpeteers
That's not true. When Trump kisses Israeli ***, most "Trumpeteers" are outraged. That does
not mean they're going to vote for Joe "I'm a Zionist" Biden, or Honest Hillary because of
it, but they're still pissed.
These predators (((them))) need to fear the Victims, us! That is what the 2ND Amendment is
for. It's coming, slowly for now, but eventually it speeds up.
Any piece like this better be littered with footnotes and cited sources before I'm
swallowing it.
I'll say it again: this is the internet, people. There's no "shortage of column space" to
include links back to primary sources for your assertions. Otherwise, how am I supposed to
distinguish you from another "psy op" or "paid opposition hit piece"?
"The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households
around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them."
If you still ponder this question, then you are pretty frickin' thick. It is obvious at
this point, that he betrayed everything he campaigned on. You don't do that and call yourself
one of "us".......damn sure aren't one of "me".
If I couldn't keep my word and wouldn't do what it takes to do what is right.....then I
would resign. But I would not go on playing politics in a world that needs some real
leadership and not another political hack.
The real battle is between Truth and Lie. No matter the name of your "team" or the "side"
you support. Truth is truth and lies are lies. We don't stand for political parties, we stand
for truth. We don't stand for national pride, we take pride in a nation that is truthful and
trustworthy. The minute a "side" or "team" starts lying.....and justifying it.....that is the
minute they become them and not one of us.
Any thinking person in this country today knows we are being lied to by the entire
complex. Until someone starts telling the truth.....we are on our own. But I be damned before
I am going to support any of these lying sons of bitches......and that includes Trump.
Dark comedy. All the elections have been **** choices until the last one. Take a look at
Arkancide.com and start counting the
bodies.
Anyone remember the news telling us how North Korea promised to turn the US into a sea of
fire?? Trump absolutely went to bat for every single American to de-escalate that
situation.
Don't tell me about Arkancide or the Clintons. I grew up in Arkansas with that sack of
**** as my governor for 12 years.
NK was never a real threat to anyone. Trump didn't do ****. NK is back to building and
shooting off missiles and will be teaming up with the Russians and Chinese. You are a duped
bafoon.
I don't think anybody thought NK was an existential threat to the US. It has still been
nice making progress on bringing them back into the world and making them less of a threat to
Japan and S. Korea. Trump did that.
Dennis Rodman did that, or that is to say, Trump an extension thereof ..
Great theater..
Look, i thought it was great that Trump went Kim Unning. I mean after all, i had talked
with a few elderly folks that get their news directly from the mainstream of mainstream,
vanilla news reportage. Propaganda central casting. I remember them being extremely
concerned, outright petrified about that evil menace, kim gonna launch nukes any minute now.
If the news would have been announced a major troop mobilization, bombing campaigns, to begin
immediately they would have been completely onboard, waving the flag.
Frankly, it is only a matter of time, and folks can speculate on the country of interest,
but it is coming soon to a theater near you. So many being in the crosshairs. Iran i suspect
.. that's the big prize, that makes these sociopaths cream in their panties.
Probably. In the second term .. and so far, if ones honestly evaluates the "brain trust" /
current crop of dimwit opposition, and in light of their past 2 plus years of moronic
posturing with their hair on fire, trump will get his second term ..
Until the last one? You are retarded, the last election was a masterpiece of Rothschilds
Productions. The Illuminati was watching you at their private cinema when you were voting for
Trump and they were laughing their asses off.
The author does not realize that everyone in America, except Native American Indians, were
immigrants drawn towards the false promise of hope that is the American Dream, turned
nightmare..
Owning your own home, car, & raising a family in this country is so damn expensive
& risky, that you'd have be on drugs or an idiot to even fall for the lies.
I don't see an us vs them, I see the #FakeMoney printers monetized every facet of life,
own everything, & it truly is RENT-A-LIFE USSA, complete with bills galore, taxes galore,
laws galore, jails & prisons galore, & the worst fkn country anyone would want to
live in poverty & homelessness in.
At least in many 3rd world nations there is land to live off of & joblessness does not
= a financial death sentence.
Sure. Lets all go back to living in huts.....off the land....no cars.....no
electricity.....no running water......no roads....
There is a price to pay for things and it is not always in the form of money. We have
given up some of our freedom for the ease and conveniences we want.
The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare
because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want
to puke.
There is a balance. Don't take the other extreme or we never find balance.
This article is moronic. One can easily prove that Trump is not like all the others in the
poster. Has this author been living under a rock for the last 2.5 yrs? The past 5 presidents
represent a group that has been literally trying to assassinate Trump, ruin his family, his
reputation, his buisness and his future, for the audacity to be an ousider to the power
network and steal (win) the presidency from under their noses. He's kept us OUT of war. He's
dissolved the treachery that was keeping us in the middle east through gaslighitng and a
proxy fake war that is ISIS, the globalists' / nato / fiveys / uk's fake mercenary army
The greatest threat to the USA is its own dumbed down drugged up citizens who cannot
compete with anyone. America is a big military powerhouse but that doens't make successful
countries
Notice how modern narrative is getting manipulated. What is being reported and referenced
is completely different from how things are. And knowing that we can assume that the entire
history is a fabricated lie, written by the ruling class to support its status in the minds
of obedient citizens.
This article is garbage propaganda that proves that they think we aren't keeping score or
paying attention. The gaslighting won't work when it relies on so much counterthink, willful
ignorance, counterfacts and weaponized omissions
The reality is the de-escalation of wars, the stability of our currency and our economy,
and the moral re-grounding of our culture does not occur until we do what over 100 countries
have done over the centuries, beginning in Carthage in 250AD.
The congress are statusquotarians. If they solved the problems they say they would,they'd
be out of a job. and that job is sitting there acting like a naddler or toxic post turtle
leprechaun with a charisma and skill level of zero. Their staff do all the work, half of them
barely read, though they probably can
I still think 1st and 2nd ammedment is predicated on which party rules the house. If a Dem
gets into the WH, we're fucked. Kiss those Iast two dying amendments goodbye for good.
If we rely on any party to preserve the 1st or 2nd Amendments, we are already fucked. What
should preserve the 1st and 2nd Amendments is the absolute fear of anyone in government even
mentioning suppressing or removing them. When the very thought of doing anything to lessen
the rights advocated in these two amendments, causes a politician to piss in their pants,
liberty will be preserved. As it is now citizens fear the government, and as a result tyranny
continues to grow and fester as a cancer.
You may very well be right. I still hold out hope, but upon seeing what our society is
quickly morphing into, that hope seems to fade more each and every day.
If you think the 1st and 2nd amendments are reliant on who is in office, then you are
already done. Why don't you try growing a pair and being an American for once in your
life.
I will always have a 1st and 2nd "amendment" for as long as I live. Life is meaningless
without them.....as far as I am concerned. Good thing the founders didn't wait for king
George to give them what they "felt" was theirs.....by the laws of Nature and Nature's
God.
I hope the democrats get the power......and I hope they come for the guns......maybe then
pussies like you will finally have to **** or get off the pot......for once in your life.
There are worse things than dying.
This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Unless we get rid of *** influencing
from abroad and domestically. Getting rid of English King few hundred years ago was a joke!
this would be a challenge because dual-citizens masquerading as locals.
Last revolution (1776) we targeted the WRONG ENEMY.
We targeted King George III instead of the private bankers who owned of the Bank of
England and the issued of the British-pound currency.
George III was himself up to his ears in debt to them by 1776, when the bankers installed
George Washington to replace George III as their middleman in the American colonies, by way
of the phony revolution.
Phony because ownership of the central bank and currency (Federal-Reserve Banks,
Federal-Reserve notes) we use, remains in the same banking families' hands to this day. The
same parasite remains within our government.
It is this strangely incomplete calculus that creates the shifting Loser world of
rifts and alliances. By operating with a more complete calculus, Sociopaths are able to
manipulate this world through the divide-and-conquer mechanisms. The result is that the
Losers end up blaming each other for their losses, seek collective emotional resolution,
and fail to adequately address the balance sheet of material rewards and losses.
To succeed, this strategy requires that Losers not look too closely at the non-emotional
books. This is why, as we saw last time, divide-and-conquer is the most effective means for
dealing with them, since it naturally creates emotional drama that keeps them busy while
they are being manipulated.
lysias: A president doesn't have to obey the orders of the powers that be ...
Well, that's why they select the President beforehand to ensure there are no inconvenient
difficulties with a new President.
In fact, our President's have generally had a connection to CIA: Bush Sr. was CIA,
Clinton is said to allowed their flights into Arkansas, GW Bush was son of CIA, Obama is said
to have come from a CIA family (grandfather and probably mother) , and some have pointed to
Trump's first casino deal as a possible CIA tie (related to money laundering of CIA drug
money)
Pretending otherwise furthers the democracy works! narrative. Isn't it already
clear that the West is feudal and Empire First (aka globalist) - despite Trump's
faux populist pretense? US foreign policy has been remarkably consistent for over 20
years. US congressmen takes oaths to Israel. Western propaganda sing the Deep State tune.
"... United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old, it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting. That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are voting for. ..."
"... Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers. ..."
Uh, no, Tom, she won't be collecting a lot of voters, well, at least not near enough. Biden
has already been "chosen" like Hillary was over Bernie last time. You should know by now Tom,
we don't select our candidates, they're chosen for us for our own good. 2 hours ago
This is going to take a long time. You just can't turn this ship around overnight.
US Political System:
United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical
literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old,
it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a
system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the
nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be
fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting.
That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are
voting for.
This is not an accident. America was founded on the principle, explained by the Founding
Father that the primary goal of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against
the majority. That is how the US Constitution was designed sort of ensuring that there will be
a lot of struggle. US is not as the same as it were two centuries ago but that remains the
elites ideal.
Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of
capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of
elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made
possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of
political powers.
A republic is SUBORDINATE to democracy. Polyarchy can't be subordinated to any form of
Democracy. 2 hours ago Is the author, to use an English term, daft? Tulsi Gabbard won't get out
of the primaries, much less defeat Sanders or Biden. Farage achieved his goal (Brexit), then
found out (SHOCK!) that the will of the people doesn't mean anything anymore.
If Luongo had wanted to talk about the people's uprising, he should've mentioned the Tea
Party. 3 hours ago Gabbard appears to have some moral fibre and half a backbone, at least for a
politician, regardless of their views, Farage is a slimy charlatan opportunistic populist shill
3 hours ago (Edited) I like Tulsi Gabbard on MIC stuff (and as a surfer in my youth - still
dream about that almost endless pipeline at Jeffreys Bay in August), but...
On everything else?
She votes along party lines no matter what bollocks legislation the Democrats put in front
of Congress. And anyone standing full-square behind Saunders on his socialist/marxist
agenda?
Do me a favour. 1 hour ago (Edited) Farage left because he saw what UKIP was becoming...a
zionazi party.
Also Gabbard is a CFR member. 3 hours ago Gold, Goats and Guns? Certainly not guns under
President Gabbard! Here's her idea of "common sense gun control:"
I'm totally against warmongering, but I have to ask - what good is it to stop foreign
warmongering, only to turn around and incite civil war here by further raping the 2nd
Amendment? The CFR ties are disturbing as hell, too. And to compare Gabbard to Ron Paul? No,
just...no! 3 hours ago Always been a fan of Bernie, but I hope Gabbard becomes president. The
world would breathe a huge sigh of relief (before the assassination). 4 hours ago By this time
in his 1st term, Obama had started the US Wars in Syria and Libya and has restarted the Iraq
War.
Thus far Trump has ended the War in Syria, pledged not to get us dragged into Libya's civil
wars and started a peace process with North Korea.
Venezuela and Iran look scary. We don't know what Gabbard would actually do when faced with
the same events. Obama talked peace too.
Warren (D)(1): "Trump backers applaud Warren in heart of MAGA country" [
Politico ].
West Virginia: "It was a startling spectacle in the heart of Trump country: At least a dozen
supporters of the president -- some wearing MAGA stickers -- nodding their heads, at times
even clapping, for liberal firebrand Elizabeth Warren . LeeAnn Blankenship, a 38-year-old
coach and supervisor at a home visitation company who grew up in Kermit and wore a sharp pink
suit, said she may now support Warren in 2020 after voting for Trump in 2016.
'She's a good ol' country girl like anyone else,' she said of Warren, who grew up in Oklahoma. 'She's
earned where she is, it wasn't given to her. I respect that.'"
Also: "The 63-year-old fire
chief, Wilburn 'Tommy' Preece, warned Warren and her team beforehand that the area was 'Trump
country' and to not necessarily expect a friendly reception. But he also told her that the town would welcome anyone, of any party, who wanted to address the opioid
crisis ." ( More on West
Virginia in 2018 .
Best part is a WaPo headline: "Bernie Sanders Supporter Attends Every
DNC Rule Change Meeting. DNC Member Calls Her a Russian Plant." • Lol. I've been saying
"lol" a lot, lately.)
Warren (D)(2): "Our military can help lead the fight in combating climate change"
[Elizabeth Warren,
Medium ]. "In short, climate change is real, it is worsening by the day, and it is
undermining our military readiness. And instead of meeting this threat head-on, Washington is
ignoring it -- and making it worse . That's why today I am introducing my
Defense Climate Resiliency and Readiness Act to harden the U.S. military against the threat
posed by climate change, and to leverage its huge energy footprint as part of our climate
solution.
It starts with an ambitious goal: consistent with the objectives of the Green New
Deal, the Pentagon should achieve net zero carbon emissions for all its non-combat bases and
infrastructure by 2030 .. We don't have to choose between a green military and an effective
one . Together, we can work with our military to fight climate change -- and
win." • On the one hand, the Pentagon's energy footprint is huge, and it's a good idea
to do something about that. On the other, putting solar panels on every tank that went into
Iraq Well, there are larger questions to be asked. A lot of dunking on Warren about this. It
might play in the heartland, though.
Her call for impeachment procedures is a blunder. She is trying to play the dominant mood of the Dems crowd, not
understanding that in this case Biden will be the winner.
Notable quotes:
"... Beto O'Rourke, the rich-kid airhead who declared shortly before the Mueller report was released that Trump, "beyond the shadow of a doubt, sought to collude with the Russian government," will not fare much better. ..."
"... Sen. Elizabeth Warren meanwhile seems to be tripping over her own two feet as she predicts one moment that Trump is heading to jail , declares the next that voters don't care about the Mueller report because they're too concerned with bread-and-butter issues, and then calls for dragging Congress into the impeachment morass regardless. ..."
Besides Fox News – whose ratings have soared while Russia-obsessed CNN’s have plummeted – the chief beneficiary is Trump.
Post-Mueller, the man has the wind in his sails. Come 2020, Sen. Bernie Sanders could cut through his phony populism with ease.
But if Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post succeeds in tarring him with Russia the same way it tried to tar Trump, then the Democratic
nominee will be a bland centrist whom the incumbent will happily bludgeon.
Former Vice President Joe Biden – the John McCain-loving, speech-slurring, child-fondler who was for a wall along the Mexican
border before he was against it – will end up as a bug splat on the Orange One’s windshield.
Beto O'Rourke, the rich-kid airhead who
declared shortly before the Mueller report was released that Trump, "beyond the shadow of a
doubt, sought to collude with the Russian government," will not fare much better.
Sen.
Elizabeth Warren meanwhile seems to be tripping over her own two feet as she predicts one
moment that Trump is
heading to jail , declares the next that voters
don't care about the Mueller report because they're too concerned with bread-and-butter
issues, and then calls for dragging Congress into the
impeachment morass regardless.
Such "logic" is lost on voters, so it seems to be a safe bet that enough will stay home next
Election Day to allow the rough beast to slouch towards Bethlehem yet again.
Good domestic policy suggestions and debate skills. Horrible understanding of foreign policy
(he completely subscribes to the Russiagate hoax)
His capitulation to Hillary in 2016 still linger behind his back despite all bravado. he
betrayed his followers, many of who put money of this while being far from rich. he betrayed them
all. As such he does not deserve to run.
Warren and Tulsi are definitely better options then Sanders for 2020.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., became a household name in 2016 when he ran a progressive
campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and came close to securing it. He's back
in the 2020 race, but this time up against more than 20 other candidates. Sanders sits down
with Judy Woodruff to discuss trade with China, health care, student debt, Russian election
interference and more.
Here's a summary of the day thus far: Donald Trump praised attorney
general William Barr for opening what appears to be a broad investigation of the Russia
counterespionage investigation that swept up the Trump campaign. Barr appointed a US attorney
to lead the inquiry and reportedly has got the CIA and DNI involved.
Senator Elizabeth Warren took a "hard pass" on an offer to do a Fox News town hall event,
calling the network "hate-for-profit".
Warren definitely have the courage to put forward those important proposals. Lobbyists like
Cory Booker of course attack them.
Notable quotes:
"... It's called Anti-Trust laws not her "opinions"... ..."
"... Let's be honest, Booker isn't fit to shine Warren's shoes! I wonder if Cory's ass is jealous of all the shit that just came out of his mouth!! SMDH ..."
"... CB bought and paid for by drug companies. Of course he doesn't like Warren. But ask him about Americans right to free speech and he puts after the needs of any foriegn country ..."
"... He who looks like a slick bouncer for the big money monopolies, is looking to get a piece of it ..."
Cory- .Most Americans will NOT think you are Presidential Caliber.Where's the MONEY coming
from? Small donor contributions? I don't even think you'll get the Black & hispanic
vote.Why do this?
You are stealing the votes from way more qualified candidates. Bad idea if
you want to have Democratic POTUS in 2020
CB bought and paid for by drug companies. Of course he doesn't like Warren. But ask him
about Americans right to free speech and he puts after the needs of any foriegn
country
After that Trump remark, Cory can bite my butt. Whatever disagreements I may have with
Warren, she has some very daring, intelligent, and discussion-worthy policies. We need her in
the next administration, whether as potus or in the cabinet. Sheesh, Cory, burn your bridges,
sir.
@ Laquerre 60 My impression was that the intellectual class (my contacts) still hate the Islamic regime
as much as they ever did. Iran is a divided country.
Is that unusual, for people to be divided and for some to hate their government?
I think not.
The US is certainly divided currently. France too, and others.
According to the Real Clear Politics US polls:
--President Trump job approval 45%
--Direction of country wrong track 54-50% here
Also, 42% of US the voting-eligible population did not vote in the 2016 election
Bottom line: The US with its many domestic problems including historic racism and
mysoginism should keep its nose out if others peoples' domestic affairs.
"... It's not obvious to me that universal access to college education is a progressive goal. ..."
"... I think it is extremely important to understand where Warren is coming from on this. Warren initially became active in politics because she recognized the pernicious nature of debt and the impact it had on well-being. I ..."
"... Warren's emphasis in this particular initiative, it seems to me, is to alleviate debt so that individuals can pursue more advanced functionings/capabilities. ..."
"... The more a college degree is the norm, the worse things are for people without one. Making it easier to get a college degree increases the degree to which its the norm, and will almost inevitably have the same impact on the value of a college degree as the growth in high-school attendance (noted by Sam Tobin-Hochstadt above) had on the value of a high school degree. ..."
"... The debate on this subject strikes me as misguided because it says nothing about what students learn. A good high school education should be enough to prepare young people for most kinds of work. In most jobs, even those allegedly requiring college degrees, the way people learn most of what they need to know is through on the job training. Many high school graduates have not received a good education, though, and go to college as, in effect, remedial high school. ..."
by Harry on May 6, 2019 Ganesh Sitaraman argues in
the Garun that, contrary to appearances, and contrary to the criticism that it has earned,
Elizabeth Warren's college plan really is progressive, because it is funded by taxation that
comes exclusively from a wealth tax on those with more than $50 million in assets. Its
progressive, he says, because it redistributes down. In some technical sense perhaps he's
right.
But this, quite odd, argument caught my eye:
But the critics at times also suggest that if any significant amount of benefits go to
middle-class or upper-middle class people, then the plan is also not progressive. This is
where things get confusing. The critics can't mean this in a specific sense because the plan
is, as I have said, extremely progressive in the distribution of costs. They must mean that
for any policy to be progressive that it must benefit the poor and working class more than it
benefits the middle and upper classes. T his is a bizarre and, I think, fundamentally
incorrect use of the term progressive .
The logic of the critics' position is that public investments in programs that help
everyone, including middle- and upper-class people, aren't progressive. This means that the
critics would have to oppose public parks and public K-12 education, public swimming pools
and public basketball courts, even public libraries. These are all public options that offer
universal access at a low (or free) price to everyone.
But the problem isn't that the wealthy get to benefit from tuition free college. I don't
think anyone objects to that. Rather, the more affluent someone is, on average, the more they
benefit from the plan. This is a general feature of tuition-free college plans and it is built
into the design.
Sandy Baum and Sarah Turner explain:
But in general, the plans make up the difference between financial aid -- such as the Pell
Grant and need-based aid provided by states -- and the published price of public colleges.
This means the largest rewards go to students who do not qualify for financial aid. In plans
that include four-year colleges, the largest benefits go to students at the most expensive
four-year institutions. Such schools enroll a greater proportion of well-heeled students, who
have had better opportunities at the K-12 level than their peers at either two-year colleges
or less-selective four-year schools. (Flagship institutions have more resources per student,
too.) .
For a clearer picture of how regressive these policies are, consider how net tuition --
again, that's what most free-tuition plans cover -- varies among students at different income
levels at four-year institutions. For those with incomes less than $35,000, average net
tuition was $2,300 in 2015-16; for students from families with incomes between $35,000 and
$70,000, it was $4,800; for those between $70,000 and $120,000, it was $8,100; and finally,
for families with incomes higher than $120,000, it was more than $11,000. (These figures
don't include living expenses.)
Many low-income students receive enough aid from sources like the Pell Grant to cover
their tuition and fees. At community colleges nationally, for example, among students from
families with incomes less than $35,000, 81 percent already pay no net tuition after
accounting for federal, state and institutional grant aid, according to survey data for
2015-16. At four-year publics, almost 60 percent of these low-income students pay
nothing.
If you take progressivism to mean "improvement of society by reform", Warren's plan is
clearly progressive. It reduces the pie going to the rich, greatly improves the lot of
students who are less than rich, and doesn't harm the poor.
Who cares – as long as this plan -(and hopefully an even more extended plan) puts an
end to a big part of the insanity of the (stupid and greedy) US education system?
In other words – let's call it "conservative" that might help to have it passed!
The difficulty with the plan as proposed is not whether it is progressive or not but that it
targets the wrong behavior – borrowing for education. If the goal is to make education
more accessible – subsidize the university directly to either facilitate point of
admission grants in the first place or simply bring down tuition cost to all attendees.
Under this proposal (assuming one thinks Warren would win and it could get passed) the
maximizing strategy is to borrow as much as one possibly can with the hope/expectation that
it would ultimately be forgiven. If that's the "right" strategy, then it would benefit those
with the greatest borrowing capacity which most certainly is not students from low income
families but is in fact families which could probably pay most of the cost themselves but
would choose not to in order to capture a benefit they couldn't access directly by virtue of
being 'too rich' for grants or other direct aid.
"Rather, the more affluent someone is, on average, the more they benefit from the plan. "
This doesn't seem like a fair description of what's going on. If Starbucks gives a free muffin to everyone who buys a latte, it's theoretically helping
the rich more than the poor under this way of looking at things. The rich can afford the
muffin; the poor can't. So the rich will get more free muffins. But the rich don't give a
crap. They can easily just buy the damn muffin in the first place. They're not really being
helped, because the whole damn system helps them already. They're just about as well off with
or without the free muffin.
Same here. My kid's going to Stanford. I'm effin rich and I don't give a crap about
financial aid. If it was free I'd have an extra 75k a year, but how many Tesla's do I need
really? How many houses in Hawaii do I need? But when I was a kid I was lower middle class. I
didn't even apply to Stanford because it was just too much. Yeah, I could have gone rotc or
gotten aid, but my parents just couldn't bust out their contribution. Stanford just wasn't in
the cards. And Stanford's a terrible example, it had needs blind admissions and can afford
to just give money away if it wants.
I don't understand the fear, in certain areas of what's apparently the left, of giving
benefits to people in the middle of the income/wealth curve.
The expansion of the term "middle class" doesn't help with this, nor does the expansion of
education. These debates often sound as if some of the participants think of "middle class"
as the children of physicians and attorneys, who moreover are compensated the way they were
in the 1950s.
The ability to switch between "it's reasonable to have 100% college attendance within 5
years from now" and "of course college is only for the elite classes" is not reassuring to
the average more or less educated observer (who may or may not be satisfied, depending on
temperament and so on, with the answer that of course such matters are above her head).
The actual plan is for free tuition at public colleges. So not "the most expensive
four-year institutions" that Baum and Turner discuss. [HB: they're referring to the most
expensive 4-year public institutions]
There's also expanded support for non-tuition expenses, means-tested debt cancellation,
and a fund for historically black universities, all of which make the plan more progressive.
And beyond that, I could argue that, for lower-income students on the margin of being able to
attend and complete school, we should count not only the direct financial aid granted, but
also the lifetime benefits of the education the aid enables. But suffice it to say, I think
you're attacking a caricature.
the college plan does not actually offer 'universal access'
Given that something like one third of Americans gets a college degree, Warren's plan
seems good enough. It's not obvious to me that universal access to college education is a
progressive goal.
I think it is extremely important to understand where Warren is coming from on this. Warren
initially became active in politics because she recognized the pernicious nature of debt and
the impact it had on well-being. If you are trying to get out from under the burden of debt
your capabilities for flourishing are severely restricted, and these restrictions can easily
become generational. One of the more difficult debts that people are facing are student
debts. This was made especially difficult by the 2005 bankruptcy bill which made it close to
impossible for individuals to get out from under student debt by entering in to Chapter 7
bankruptcy.
Warren's emphasis in this particular initiative, it seems to me, is to alleviate debt so
that individuals can pursue more advanced functionings/capabilities. So if you think that the
definition of progressive is creating situations where more individuals in a society are
given greater opportunities for flourishing then the plan does strike me as progressive (an
Aristotelian interpretation of Dewey such as promoted by Nussbaum might fall in this
direction). There is another issue however that might be closer to the idea of helping those
from lowest social strata, something that is not being discussed near enough. Internet
technologies helped to promote online for profit universities which has (and I suppose
continues to) prey and those most desperate to escape poverty with limited resources. The
largest part of their organizations are administrators who help students to secure loans with
promises of high paying jobs once they complete their degrees. These places really do prey on
the most vulnerable (homeless youth for instance) and they bait individuals with hope in to
incurring extremely high debt. The loan companies are fine with this I am guess because of
the bankruptcy act (they can follow them for life). This is also not regulated (I think you
can thank Kaplan/Washington Post for that). Warren's initiative would help them get out from
under debt immediately and kick start their life.
I agree k-12 is more important, but it is also far more complicated. This plan is like a
shot of adrenaline into the social blood stream and it might not even be necessary in a few
years. I think it dangerous to make the good the enemy or the perfect, or the perfect the
critic of the good.
– and how cynical does one have to be – to redefine a plan canceling the vast
majority of outstanding student loan debt – as some kind of ("NON-progressive") present
for "the rich"?
But even apart from that, the argument of the post seems like it would suggest that many
things that we currently fund publicly are not progressive in a problematic way. Everything
from arts to national parks to math research "benefits" the rich more than the poor. There's
possibly a case that public provision of these goods is problematic when we as a society
could spend that money on those who are more disadvantaged. But that's a very strong claim
and implicates far more than free college.
Finally, it's worth comparing the previous major expansion of education in the US. The
point at which high school attendance was as widespread as college attendance is now (about
70% of high school graduates enroll in college of some form right away) was around 1930, well
after universal free high school was available. I think moving to universal free college is
an important step to raise those rates, just as free high school was.
It strikes me that the argument made here against a universal program of tuition free college
is not all that different than an argument made against social security -- that the benefits
go disproportionately to middle class and professional class individuals. Since in the case
of Social Security, one has to be in gainfully employed to participate and one's benefits
are, up to a cap, based on one's contributions, middle class and professional class
individuals receive greater benefits. Poor individuals, including those who have not been
employed for long periods of time, receive less benefits. (There are quirks in this 10 second
summary, such as disability benefits, but not so much as to alter this basic functioning.)
Every now and again, there are proposals to "means test" social security, using this
functioning as the reasoning. A couple of points are worth considering.
First, it is the universality of social security that makes it a political 'third rail,'
such that no matter how it would like to do away with such a 'socialist' program, the GOP
never acts on proposals to privatize it, even when they have the Presidency and the
majorities that would allow it to get through Congress. The universality thus provides a
vital security to the benefits that poor and working people receive from the program, since
it makes it politically impossible to take it away. Since social security is often the only
pension that many poor and working people get (unlike middle class and professional class
individuals who have other sources of retirement income), the loss of it would be far more
devastating to them. There is an important way, therefore, that they are served by the
current configuration of the system, even given its skewing.
Second, and following from the above, it is important to recognize that the great bulk of
proposals to "means test" Social Security come from the libertarian right, not the left, and
that they are designed to undercut the support for Social Security, in order to make its
privatization politically viable.
Most colleges and universities "means test" financial aid for their students, which is one
of the reasons why it is generally inadequate and heavily weighted toward loans as opposed to
grants. I think it is a fair generalization of American social welfare experience history to
say that "means tested" programs are both more vulnerable politically (think of the Reagan
'welfare queen' narrative) and more poorly funded than universal programs.
There are additional argument about the skewing of Social Security benefits, such as the
fact that they go disproportionately to the elderly, while those currently living in poverty
are disproportionately children. This argument mistakes the positive effects of the program
-- before Social Security and Medicare the elderly were the most impoverished -- for an
inegalitarian design element.
The solution to the fact that children bear the brunt of poverty in the US is not to
undermine the program that has lifted the elderly out of poverty but to institute programs
that address the problem of childhood poverty. Universal quality day care, for example,
provides the greatest immediate economic benefits to middle class and professional class
families who are now paying for such services, but it provides poor and working class kids
with an education 'head start' that would otherwise go only to the children of those families
that could afford to pay for it. And insofar as day care is provided, it makes it easier for
poor and working class parents (often in one parent households) to obtain decent
employment.
So the failings of universal programs are best addressed, I would argue, by filling in the
gaps with more universal programs, not 'means testing' them.
To the extent that Warren's 'free tuition' proposal addresses only some of the financial
disadvantages of poor and working people obtaining a college education, the response should
not be "oh, this is not progressive," but what do we do to address the other issues, such as
living expenses. It is not as if there are no models on how to do this. All we need to do is
look at Nordic countries that provide post-secondary students both free tuition and living
expenses.
Having grown up and gone to university in Germany it is simply incomprehensible to me that
there is tuition supporters on the political left in the U.S. It's true that free college
isn't universal in the same sense free K-12 education is. But neither are libraries (they
exclude those who are functionally illiterate completely, and their services surely go mostly
to upper middle class people who have opportunity and education to read regularly), for
example. Neither are roads – the poor overwhelmingly live in inner cities, often take
public transport – it's middle class suburbanites that mostly profit. Speaking of
public transport, I assume Henry opposes rail; it is very middle class, the poor use buses.
(The last argument actually has considerable traction in Los Angeles, it's not completely far
fetched.)
I agree that Warren's free college and debt forgiveness plans would not be very progressive,
but I'd propose that I think the dynamic mechanism built in would make it worse than a static
analysis shows.
(Note that most of my siblings and in-laws do not have college degrees; this perspective
is based on my own observations.)
The more a college degree is the norm, the worse things are for people without one. Making
it easier to get a college degree increases the degree to which its the norm, and will almost
inevitably have the same impact on the value of a college degree as the growth in high-school
attendance (noted by Sam Tobin-Hochstadt above) had on the value of a high school degree.
(We're already seeing this: many positions that used to require a college degree now require
a specific degree, or a masters degree.) This will increase age discrimination, and further
worsen the position of the people for whom college is unattractive for reasons other than
money.
To give a particular example of a mechanism (idiosyncratic, but one I know specifically).
Until a couple decades ago, getting a KY electrician's license required 4 years experience
under a licensed electrician, and passing the code test. Then the system changed; now it
requires a 2-year degree and 2 years experience, OR 8 years experience. This was great for
colleges. The working electricians don't think the new electricians are better prepared as
they used to be, but all of a sudden people who don't find sitting in a classroom for an
additional 2 years attractive are hugely disadvantaged. Another example would be nursing
licenses; talk to any older LPN and you'll get an earful about how LPN's are devalued as RNs
and BSNs have become the norm.
I suspect tuition reform will be complex, difficult and subject to gaming. Being simple
minded I offer an inadequate but simple palliative. Make student loan debt dischargeable in
bankruptcy. You can max out your credit cards on cars, clothes, booze or whatever and be able
to discharge these debts but not for higher education.
The inability to even threaten bankruptcy gives all the power to collection companies.
Students have no leverage at all. The threat of bankruptcy would allow for negotiated
reductions in principal as well as payments.
Bankruptcy does carry a lot of negative consequences so it would offset the likely
objections about moral hazards, blah, blah. I would also favor an additional method of
discharging student debt. If your debt is to a for-profit school that can't meet some minimum
standards for student employment in their field of study then total discharge without the
need for bankruptcy. For-profit vocational schools intensively target low income and minority
students without providing significant value for money.
Progressivity looks much better if the program sticks to free community college, at least
until there is universal access to 4-year schools. That's what Tennessee did (IIRC the only
example that is actually operational).
Harry: it doesn't seem as if you responded to my comment. I'll try again.
1. A policy is progressive if it is redistributive.
2. Warren's plan is redistributive.
3. Thus, Warren's plan is progressive.
Comments about how effective the redistribution is are fine, but to claim a non-ideal
distribution framework invalidates the program's claims to being progressive seems spurious.
And I don't think this definition of progressive is somehow wildly ideosyncratic.
To whine that free college is somehow not progressive because not everyone will go to college
is a ridiculous argument, one of those supposedly-left-but-actually-right arguments that I
get so tired of. To assume that the class makeup of matriculators will be unchanged with free
college is to discount knock-on effects. This is a weird, weird post. I guess I'm going back to ignoring this site.
The debate on this subject strikes me as misguided because it says nothing about what
students learn. A good high school education should be enough to prepare young people for
most kinds of work. In most jobs, even those allegedly requiring college degrees, the way
people learn most of what they need to know is through on the job training. Many high school
graduates have not received a good education, though, and go to college as, in effect,
remedial high school.
Readers who attended an average American high school, as I did long ago, will know that
there are certain students, especially boys, who are itching to be done with school. It is
far more productive to give them a decent high school education and have them start working
than to tell them they need another two to four years of what to them is pointless
rigamarole.
Rather than extending the years of education, I would reduce the high school graduation
age to 17 and reduce summer vacations by four weeks, so that a 17 year old would graduate
with as many weeks of schooling as an 18 year old now. (Teachers would get correspondingly
higher pay, which should make them happy.)
Harry Truman never went to college. John Major became a banker and later prime minister of
Britain without doing so. Neither performed noticeably worse than their college-educated
peers. If a college education is not necessary to rise to the highest office in the land, why
is it necessary for lesser employment except in a few specialized areas?
An experiment that I would like to see tried is to bring back the federal civil service
exam, allowing applicants without college degrees who score high enough to enter U.S.
government jobs currently reserved for those with college degrees.
I would love to have a social conservative who was as red-hot on the abuse of corporate
power as she is. Of course there's no way she would ever win the Democratic nomination if she
were a social conservative, nor would she be a US Senator from Massachusetts.
Back in 2011, when she announced for the Massachusetts Senate race on an anti-big business
platform, I wrote in this space that she was "a
Democrat I could vote for." In 2014, observing how far gone she is on cultural leftism, I
lamented that
I wanted so bad for her to be good -- but hey, you can't always get what you want.
Warren's vision of human flourishing is fundamentally a conservative one -- or at least it
would be if the family were still at the center of the conservative conception of politics.
What she argues for is the right of families to thrive, not be the slave of financial
interests, corporate power, housing monopolies, the educational establishment, or any other
external force. She believes, radically, alas, in 2018, that we all have a right to food,
water, housing, education, and medical care. The idea that hard-working Americans should be
able to raise their children in comfort and with a sense of dignity is not, or at least
should not be, the exclusive purview of any one politician or party. The fact that Warren
very frequently does seem to be among the only elected officials in this country who both
affirms these things and has taken the trouble to think carefully about them is a reminder
that the centrism rejected by her and fellow travelers on the left and the right alike is not
only noxious but omnipresent.
Warren's economic vision of human flourishing -- that is, the economic conditions she
believes must be in place for people to flourish -- is fundamentally conservative, in an older,
more organic sense. Old-fashioned Catholic reactionaries understand exactly what she's talking
about, and so would the kind of Christian conservatives who read Wendell Berry and
Crunchy Cons (which, alas, came out about 13 years too early).
Elizabeth Warren said that out loud. Nobody seemed to mind. She'd never say that today.
It's not allowed like so much else that is true and important. She can't talk about the
things that she believed 10 years ago. No modern Democrat can.
If anyone had suggested to me five years ago that the most incisive public critic of
capitalism in the United States would be Tucker Carlson, I would have smiled blandly and
mentioned an imaginary appointment I was late for. But that is exactly what the Fox News host
revealed himself to be last week with an extraordinary monologue about the state of American
conservative thinking. In 15 minutes he denounced the obsession with GDP, the tolerance of
payday lending and other financial pathologies, the fetishization of technology, the
guru-like worship of CEOs, and the indifference to the anxieties and pathologies of the poor
and the vulnerable characteristic of both of our major political parties. It was a
masterpiece of political rhetoric. He ended by calling upon the GOP to re-examine its
attitude towards the free market.
Carlson's monologue is valuable because unlike so many progressive critics of our social
and economic order he has gone beyond the question of the inequitable distribution of wealth
to the more important one about the nature of late capitalist consumer culture and the
inherently degrading effects it has had on our society. The GOP's blinkered inability to see
beyond the specifications of the new iPhone or the latest video game or the infinite variety
of streaming entertainment and Chinese plastic to the spiritual poverty of suicide and drug
abuse is shared with the Democratic Socialists of America, whose vision of authentic human
flourishing seems to be a boutique eco-friendly version of our present consumer society. This
is lipstick on a pig.
And:
It is difficult for me to understand exactly why conservatives have come around to their
present uncritical attitude toward unbridled capitalism. It cannot be for electoral reasons.
Survey after survey reveals that a vast majority of the American people hold views that would
be described as socially conservative and economically moderate to progressive. A
presidential candidate who spoke capably to both of these sets of concerns would be the
greatest political force in three generations.
The answer is that for conservatives the market has become a cult. No book better explains
the appeal of classical liberal economics than The Golden Bough , Sir James Frazer's
history of magic. Frazer identified certain immutable principles that have governed magical
thinking throughout the ages. Among these is the imitative principle according to which a
favorable outcome is obtained by mimicry -- the endless chants of entrepreneurship, vague
nonsense about charter schools, calls for tax cuts for people who don't make enough money to
benefit from them. There also is taboo, the primitive assumption that by not speaking the
name of a thing, the thing itself will be thereby be exorcised. This is one reason that any
attempt to criticize the current consensus is met with whingeing about "socialism." This
catch-all talisman is meant to protect against everything from the Cultural Revolution to
modest restrictions on overdraft fees imposed at the behest of consultants.
"In the real world you are going to have to keep companies from getting too powerful if you
want a free(ish) market."
"So, is it possible that in this everything-can-be-bought-and-sold culture that the
massive corporations made the very rational choice to buy themselves a government?"
Noah makes an excellent point about the differences between public- and private-sector unions
and collective bargaining units. I would personally add that public-sector unions would never
have been necessary if governments were not run under the same philosophy as private-sector
employers: minimize the cost of employees by any means possible. I've always held that
regardless of any definition of necessity, public-sector unionization was and remains a bad
idea.
I also don't know of a better alternative. Sometimes it's the evil you must handle, rather
than the lesser of two evils.
As for the shifts in the socio-economic realities, there's a necessary categorization
necessary when discussing women in the workforce. I offer these broad categories which are
likely arguable. It's a starting point, not a line in the sand.
Families at or below the poverty line: when you control for the benefits of a stay-at-home
parent, these families only ever had one option to get above the poverty line enough to no
longer need public assistance, and that was a second income. The entire motivation for
minimum wage, stable work hours and such was an attempt to mitigate the need for a second
income. It gets politicized and complicated from there, partially for good reasons, but
unless you look at a given family's income limitations before criticizing the woman's working
instead of being at home, you are ignoring the consequences of poverty, which cannot be
mitigated by parenting.
The woman has a higher income potential: it started well before the employment argument,
as in decades previous women were "permitted" to attain higher education in skill and content
areas beyond nursing and teaching. One reaction to that, an analysis conclusion I arrive at
personally, was to routinely discriminate against female employees in both compensation and
promotion. The prevailing "wisdom" (again, my personal POV) was that women are going to get
pregnant anyway, why encourage them away from that? If the only disparity in compensation was
for unpaid leave due to pregnancy and childbirth, you might have avoided a large part of the
feminist revolution.
The broad mix of "women belong in " arguments based on some moral construct (religious or
other): this is where the feminist revolution was inevitable. It comes down to personal
agency and choice. I have an Orthodox Jewish relative whose wife fully, happily and
creatively embraces her religiously mandated role. She's very intelligent, an erudite writer
and speaker, and is as much a pillar of her community as any male in it. We should avoid
extreme examples like Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, but her plight without fatal consequences is
precisely what many women face, and want to escape. Feminism simply states that such women
have the right to make that different choice, and the power the men of their community have
over them is a denial of a human right.
I'm sure other broad categories need to be described. I'll leave this before it gets
beyond being too long.
@kgasmart "I defy Elizabeth Warren, or any other prominent lefty, to publicly restate her
thesis that the entry of women into the workforce has ultimately harmed the family.
Imagine the furious tweetstorms. How dare she suggests it's been anything but wonderful
for women themselves – and thus, for society as a whole. Evidence to the contrary be
damned as 'hateful,' of course."
You don't understand the left. And no, having once been in favor of SSM doesn't mean you
understand the left. I and many others will happily say the following: "Society was not
prepared for the mass entry of women into the workplace. Childcare suffered, work-life
balance suffered, male-female relations suffered."
The problem here is that we follow that up with: "The problem was not women having basic
aspirations to the dignity and relative economic security work offers. The problem was a
government captured by the rich who don't understand what policy for families that can't
afford nannies would look like. The problem was also a social structure which valued families
less than it valued proscribed gender roles. Time to chart a different course."
Trust me, feminists talk all the time about how much harder it is to have a family these
days. We just don't think the problem exists because women selfishly wanted basic economic
security.
Warren is a smart, informed academic with some solid views on economic issues.
On the other hand, she is a terrible politician, and not suited for high executive office.
She lacks gravitas and has no intuition for the optics of what she does, going from gaffe to
gaffe. She'd be chewed up and spit out before she became a contender.
While I think HRC had terrible ideas, I never questioned her capacity to project authority
and credibility, that is, "act presidential". In contrast, Obama's dork factor got him in
trouble on a number of occasions (although his "communist salute" stands out), and Warren is
many times more a dork than Obama.
"I confess I have never understood her appeal. She is the very model of a useless New England
scold, constantly seeking to regulate just about everything. There is almost no problem that
more government, more regulation – usually with no oversight – cannot fix. No,
thank you."
This sounds like someone who has not researched Warren's writings and positions
and just does not like her style (i.e. New England Scold). I think her style, which would
be fine in a man (e.g. who is a scold if not Bernie) will primary her out.
The market is not a Platonic deity, floating in the sky and imposing goodness and
prosperity from on high. It is the creation of our choices, our laws, and our democratic
process. We know, for instance, that pornography has radically altered how young boys
perceive their relationships with women and sex, and that the pornography industry has
acquired a lot of wealth in the process of creating and distributing that content. Just last
month, we learned that a Chinese entity created the first gene-edited baby, using a
technology developed in the United States. Some company, here or there, will eventually
create a lot of prosperity by using this gene-editing technology (called CRISPR) in an
unethical way, quite literally playing God with the most sacred power in the universe -- the
creation of human life. In the past few years, it has become abundantly clear that Apple --
despite self-righteously refusing to cooperate with American security officials -- has
willingly complied with the requirements of the Chinese surveillance state, even as China
builds concentration camps for dissidents and religious minorities. And, as Carlson
mentioned, there are marijuana companies pushing for legalization, though we know from the
Colorado experience that legalization increases use, and from other studies that use is
concentrated among the lower class, causing a host of social problems in the process.
I'm an anti-capitalist so of course I'd agree with JD Vance that there's no good reason to
trust the free market or the owners of capitalist enterprises. Nonetheless, I can't join him
in his specific criticisms of free markets here, and I think this kind of underscores the
difficulties there may be in building bridges between social conservatives and social
liberals. Bridges can certainly be built, for sure, but it will take some work and some
painful compromises, and this is a good example of why: several of the things that JD Vance
points to as examples of free markets gone wrong, are things that I'd say are good
things, not bad ones.
I'm not going to defend pornography (although I'm not particularly going to criticize it
that much either: while I distrust conservative / orthodox Christian sexual ethics, I don't
really care about pornography per se and would be happy if the more violent / weird /
disturbing stuff was banned). Gene editing of humans though strikes me as a clearly good
thing: why wouldn't we want our species to be more peaceful, better looking, more pro-social
and more healthy? And why wouldn't we, at the margins, want to raise people who might
otherwise be born with serious physical or mental handicaps to be 'fixed'? I have a lot of
fears for the future of the world, but the idea that gene editing of our species might become
commonplace is one of the things that makes me hopeful. I also think it's a good thing that
tech companies are cooperating with the Chinese state: not because I like China and its
government, particularly, but because I believe strongly in the sovereign nation state and in
the right of national governments to decide how foreign companies are going to behave on
their territory. I'd much rather a world in which companies in China are constrained by the
Chinese state than one in which they're constrained by no rules at all other than their own
will. Finally, the legalization of marijuana and other soft drugs seems to me to be a good
thing as well.
I'm sure that JD Vance and I can come to lots of agreement over other issues, but I did
want to point out there may be stumbling blocks over social issues as well- precisely because
these issues do matter. They don't matter as much as the economic issues, but they do matter
somewhat.
"We believe that family, local communities, and voluntary associations are the first
guarantors of human dignity, and cultivate mutual care. National institutions and policies
should support, not supplant them."
Quite seriously, the entire party could have been invented by Rod, and I mean that as the
highest endorsement.
"You think creating a power vacuum will prevent big businesses from imposing their will on
the population? Go back and look at your beloved 19th century and tell me that absent
government intervention corporations won't crush peoples lives for a few extra cents."
Absolutely. Absent government help, businesses can't do anything except offer people goods
or services, or offer to purchase their labor or goods or services, on terms the individuals
may or may not find advantageous compared to the status quo. When Big Business ran roughshod
over people in the 19th Century, it was because government helped them (e.g., court cases
letting businesses off the hook for their liabilities because of the supposed need for
"progress").
Not all specialties are created equal. It is clear that a person who take loan to became
obtain a degree in communications is deeply misguided as chances to get a well paying job with
this specially are close to zero. Many "humanitarian" specialties are similar -- unemployment is
almost guaranteed and if a person was misled we should prosecute greedy university administrators
and jail some of them. Such specialties should have a disclaimer: employment is difficult to
obtain. Unemployment is almost garanteed. Take the courses at your own risk.
At the same time for STEM degrees Warren proposal makes more sense as people who enrolled
into those specialties tried a more realistic approach, but probably job market turned bad or
level of talent is not enough or both. while people in this specialties are needed but their
chances for employment are crippled by the flow of H1B applicants so part of those costs should
be subsidized by fees for large H1B employers, such as Microsoft and Google. Or something like
that.
At the same time why we should forgive a person the debt if the particular person specialized
in, say, dance? What is the social value of oversupply of dancers? So probably subsidies should
be selective and limited to STEM specialties and selected "high social value" humanitarian
specialties.
So the loan forgiveness is a crippled, somewhat unfair but still a reasonable approach.
But the key problem is not loads but greed of neoliberal educational institutions. Cost of
tuition skyrocketed after 1980 and that's not accidental: this is drect result of neoliberalism
corruption of higher education. The ability of government to prosecute "too greedy" colleges is
important. Limits of salary of administrators and especially president and vice president and
deens are critical.
Notable quotes:
"... The total cost of Warren's plan would be $1.25 trillion over 10 years, with the debt forgiveness portion consisting of a one-time cost of $640 billion. Warren plans to pay for her plan by imposing an annual tax of 2 percent on all families that have $50 million or more in wealth. ..."
"... Warren is right to focus attention on the matter of student loans. This is a major issue for young people and experts have been warning of a crisis for years. ..."
"... After all, they are victims of a scam perpetrated by the education cartel and the federal government. ..."
"... Here's how it works: the education cartel sells the lie that only those with four-year college degrees can succeed in life. Then they steer everyone with a pulse towards a university. ..."
"... The government steps in and subsidizes student loans that allow almost anyone to go to college, regardless of their ability to pay the loans back. ..."
"... College is not for everyone and there's no reason to keep promoting that idea. ..."
"... Reduce the overabundance of administrators. The number has exploded since the 1990s. ..."
"... A lot of required courses are just padding to make the experience drag on for four years. That creates unneeded expenditures of time and money. ..."
"... several nations currently do offer virtually free college educations & I don’t believe their diplomas are of less value for it. ..."
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren recently jolted the Democratic presidential primary
race by tackling one of the most important issues of our time: student loans and the cost of
higher education. Warren called for
canceling up to $50,000 of student loan debt for every American making under $100,000 a
year. In addition, she would make two- and four-year public college tuitions free for all new
students.
The total cost of Warren's plan would be $1.25 trillion over 10 years, with the debt
forgiveness portion consisting of a one-time cost of $640 billion. Warren plans to pay for her
plan by imposing an annual tax of 2 percent on all families that have $50 million or more in
wealth.
Warren is right to focus attention on the matter of student loans. This is a major issue
for young people and experts have been warning of a crisis for
years.
But in most cases, it isn't right to blame student loan borrowers for their predicaments.
After all, they are victims of a scam perpetrated by the education cartel and the federal
government.
Here's how it works: the education cartel sells the lie that only those with four-year
college degrees can succeed in life. Then they steer everyone with a pulse towards a
university.
The government steps in and subsidizes student loans that allow almost anyone to go to
college, regardless of their ability to pay the loans back. These loans are a trap, and
not just with regard to their cost. The government, which
took over the student loan industry , forbids borrowers from discharging that debt in
bankruptcy proceedings.
How do such cheap and easy student loans affect universities? For starters, they have caused
a proliferation of degrees that offer poor returns on
investment . In addition, they have led to the dilution of the value of previously
marketable degrees such as those in the humanities and international relations, as more
students enter those programs than could ever hope to work in their respective fields. For
example, in 2013, half of all those who had graduated from college were working in jobs that
did not require degrees .
But worst of all, the easy access to student loans has destroyed the price mechanism, which
is so important for determining the real supply and demand of a product. Since government is
the ultimate payer, tuition has been pushed sky high. The rate of tuition increase has
actually
outpaced inflation threefold .
Is Elizabeth Warren's plan the solution? No! It will only make things worse.
For starters, the wealth tax that she would use to fund her plan is likely
unconstitutional . But even if it was upheld by the Supreme Court, it would still be bad
policy. Countries that have imposed wealth taxes like France and Sweden have found that the
rich simply
leave and take their assets with them rather than pay more.
As for the idea of universal student loan debt forgiveness, it is a bad policy on the
merits. For starters, it does not make economic sense to forgive the debts of those who will
earn at least $17,500 more a year than those who don't go to college.
Also, although the student loan bubble has been inflated by the actions of both the
education cartel and government, at the end of the day, loans are a contract. Those who are
able to pay them down should and not be bailed out.
... ... ...
Finally, we need to promote alternatives to college. There are many well-paying jobs out
there that
don't require degrees . There are also apprentice programs offered by organizations like
Praxis . We should encourage
entrepreneurship, which is how so many in this country have lifted themselves out of poverty.
College is not for everyone and there's no reason to keep promoting that idea.
Kevin Boyd is a freelance writer based in Louisiana. He is a contributor to The
Hayride, a southern news and politics site. He has also been published in , The Federalist, The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution , and The New York Observer among other publications.
How to make college cost effective. Two major reforms
1. Reduce the overabundance of administrators. The number has exploded since the
1990s.
2. Restructure college. Most programs don’t need to be four years long. Most can be
cut to 2 1/2 – 3 years. A chemistry student should be taking courses required for a
chemistry degree, nothing more (unless he/she wants to). A lot of required courses are just
padding to make the experience drag on for four years. That creates unneeded expenditures of
time and money.
After doing the above, then maybe we can talk about “free” college.
I personally believe that we should each pay our own way through life as much as possible,
but several nations currently do offer virtually free college educations & I don’t
believe their diplomas are of less value for it.
I agree with you that other avenues like trades should be encouraged. A four year degree
isn’t necessary for everyone.
Too often caught between Randian individualism on one hand and big-government collectivism
on the other, America's working-class parents need a champion.
They might well have had one in Elizabeth Warren, whose 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap , co-authored with her daughter Amelia
Warren Tyagi, was unafraid to skewer sacred cows. Long a samizdat favorite among socially
conservative writers, the book recently got a new dose of attention after being spotlighted on
the Right by Fox News's
Tucker Carlson and on the Left by Vox's
Matthew Yglesias .
The book's main takeaway was that two-earner families in the early 2000s seemed to be less,
rather than more, financially stable than one-earner families in the 1970s. Whereas
stay-at-home moms used to provide families with an implicit safety net, able to enter the
workforce if circumstances required, the dramatic rise of the two-earner family had effectively
bid up the cost of everyday life. Rather than the additional income giving families more
breathing room, they argue, "Mom's paycheck has been pumped directly into the basic costs of
keeping the children in the middle class."
Warren and Warren Tyagi report that as recently as the late 1970s, a married mother was
roughly twice as likely to stay at home with her children than work full-time. But by 2000,
those figures had almost reversed. Both parents had been pressed into the workforce to
maintain adequate standards of living for their families -- the "two-income trap" of the book's
title. Advertisement
What caused the trap to be sprung? Cornell University economist Francine Blau has helpfully
drawn a picture of women's changing responsiveness to
labor market wages during the 20th century. In her work with Laurence Kahn, Blau found that
women's wage elasticities -- how responsive their work decisions were to changes in their
potential wages -- used to be far more heavily driven by their husband's earning potential or
lack thereof (what economists call cross-wage elasticity). Over time, Blau and Kahn found,
women's responsiveness to wages -- their own or their husbands -- began to fall, and their
labor force participation choices began to more closely resemble men's, providing empirical
backing to the story Warren and Warren Tyagi tell.
Increasing opportunity and education were certainly one driver of this trend. In 1960, just
5.8
percent of all women over age 25 had a bachelor's degree or higher. Today, 41.7 percent of
mothers aged 25 and over have a college degree. Many of these women entered careers in which
they found fulfillment and meaning, and the opportunity costs, both financially and
professionally, of staying home might have been quite high.
But what about the plurality of middle- and working-class moms who weren't necessarily
looking for a career with a path up the corporate ladder? What was pushing them into full-time
work for pay, despite consistently
telling pollsters they wished they could work less?
The essential point, stressed by Warren and Warren Tyagi, was the extent to which this
massive shift was driven by a desire to provide for one's children. The American Dream has as
many interpretations as it does adherents, but a baseline definition would surely include
giving your children a better life. Many women in America's working and middle classes entered
the labor force purely to provide the best possible option for their families.
Warren's academic work and cheeky refusal to fold under pressure when her nomination as
Obama's consumer ('home ec.'?) finance czar was stymied by the GOP are worthy of respect. I'd
like to see her make a strong run at the dem nomination, but am put off by her recent
tendency to adopt silly far-left talking points and sentiments (her Native DNA, advocating
for reparations, etc.). Nice try, Liz, but I'm still leaning Bernie's direction.
As far as the details of the economic analysis related above, though, I am unqualified to
make any judgment – haven't read the book. But one enormously significant economic
development in the early 70s wasn't mentioned at all, so I assume she and her daughter passed
it over as well. In his first term R. Milhouse Nixon untethered, once & for all, the
value of the dollar from traditional hard currency. The economy has been coming along nicely
ever since, except for one problematic aspect: with a floating currency we are all now living
in an economic environment dominated by the vicissitudes of supplies and demands, are we not?
It took awhile to effect the housing market, but signs of the difference it made began to
emerge fairly quickly, and accelerated sharply when the tides of globalism washed lots of
third world lucre up on our western shores. Now, as clearly implied by both Warren and the
author of this article, young Americans whose parents may not have even been born back then
– the early 70s – are probably permanently priced out of the housing market in
places that used to have only a marginally higher cost of entry – i.e. urban
California, where I have lived and worked for most of my nearly 60 years. In places like this
even a 3-earner income may not suffice! Maybe we should bring back the gold standard, because
it seems to me that as long as unfettered competition coupled to supply/demand and (EZ credit
$) is the underlying dynamic of the American economy we're headed for the New Feudalism. Of
course, nothing could be more conservative than that, right? What say you, TAColytes?
"Funny that policy makers never want to help families by taking a little chunk out of hedge
funds and shareholders and vulture capitalists and sharing it with American workers."
Funny that Warren HAS brought up raising taxes on the rich.
The military sucks up 54% of
discretionary federal spending. Pentagon bloat has a huge effect on domestic priorities; the
nearly $1
trillion a year that goes to exploiting, oppressing, torturing, maiming and murdering
foreigners could go to building schools, college scholarships, curing diseases, poetry slams,
whatever. Anything, even tax cuts for the rich, would be better than bombs. But as then GOP
presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said in 2015, "The military is not a social experiment.
The purpose of the military is to
kill people and break things ." If you're like me, you want as little killing and breaking
as possible.
Unfortunately, no major Democratic presidential candidate favors substantial cuts to
Pentagon appropriations.
Current frontrunner Joe Biden (
33% in the polls) doesn't talk
much about defense spending. He reminds us that his son served in Iraq (so he cares about
the military) and that we shouldn't prioritize defense over domestic programs. Vague. Though
specific programs might get trimmed, Lockheed Martin could rest easy under a President
Biden.
"Since he arrived in Congress, [runner-up] Bernie Sanders [19%] has been a fierce
crusader against Pentagon spending , calling for defense cuts that few Democrats have been
willing to support," The Hill reported in 2016. "As late as 2002, he supported a 50 percent cut
for the Pentagon." Bernie is
still a Pentagon critic but he won't commit to a specific amount to cut. He wouldn't
slash and Bern. He'd trim.
Elizabeth Warren (8%) wants "to identify which programs actually benefit American security
in the 21st century, and which programs merely line the pockets of defense contractors -- then
pull out a sharp knife and make some
cuts ."
... ... ...
Kamala Harris (5%) has not weighed
in on military spending. She has received substantial campaign contributions from the
defense industry, though.
The Democrats on Wars for Fun
As senator, Biden voted for the optional wars against
Afghanistan and
Iraq . He
lied about his votes so maybe he felt bad about them. He similarly seems to regret
his ro le in
destroying Libya.
Sanders voted to invade Afghanistan . His
comment at the time reads as hopelessly naïve about the bloodthirsty Bush-Cheney regime:
"The use of force is one tool that we have at our disposal to fight against the horror of
terrorism and mass murder it is something that must be used wisely and with great discretion."
Sanders voted against
invading Iraq , favored regime change in Libya (
albeit nonviolently ) and voted to bomb Syria .
There have been no major new wars since 2013, when Warren joined the Senate so her antiwar
bona fides have not been tested. Like many of her colleagues, she wants an end to the "forever
war" against Afghanistan. She also wants us out of
Syria .
Democrats on NSA Spying Against Americans
... ... ...
Joe Biden, though to the right on other foreign-policy issues, was a critic of NSA spying
for years, going
back at least to 2006. Under Obama, however, he
backtracked . Even worse, Biden
called the president of Ecuador in 2013 to request that he deny asylum to NSA whistleblower
Edward Snowden.
"... Railing against Trump only sets up the next smooth-talking stooge who will start a fresh new con. ..."
"... Dore traces the problem primarily to Democratic Party's turning to identity politics instead of representing the working class. They sold us out. Clinton and Obama are just "Republican light" aka "Centrist" "Third Way" Democrats. "Centrist" = establishment-serving con artists. ..."
"... "Managed democracy" or "guided democracy" : is a formally democratic government that functions as a de facto autocracy. Such governments are legitimized by elections that are free and fair, but do not change the state's policies, motives, and goals. ..."
Dore makes the same point I have: "Trump is a Symptom of 40 years of NeoLiberalism and
the Corporate Capture of the U.S. government."Railing against Trump only sets up the
next smooth-talking stooge who will start a fresh new con.
Dore traces the problem primarily to Democratic Party's turning to identity politics
instead of representing the working class. They sold us out. Clinton and Obama are just
"Republican light" aka "Centrist" "Third Way" Democrats. "Centrist" = establishment-serving
con artists.
"Managed
democracy" or "guided democracy" : is a formally democratic government that functions as a de facto autocracy. Such
governments are legitimized by elections that are free and fair, but do not change the
state's policies, motives, and goals.
In other words, the government controls elections so that the people can exercise all
their rights without truly changing public policy. While they follow basic democratic
principles, there can be major deviations towards authoritarianism. Under managed
democracy, the state's continuous use of propaganda techniques prevents the electorate from
having a significant impact on policy.
The concept of a "guided democracy" was developed in the 20th century by Walter
Lippmann in his seminal work Public Opinion (1922) and by Edward Bernays in his work
Crystallizing Public Opinion.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
RT has a good video on Yellow Vest protestors (on rt.com homepage). It's kind long for the
info that it provides. I suggest skipping some parts.
span y davidgmillsatty on Mon, 04/29/2019 - 7:26pm
@lotlizard
Well being a hippie myself and a staunchly anti-war advocate since the late sixties, I could
finesse this and say that I got my skepticism from that era. However, truth be told it was 35
years of practicing law and all the skepticism a law practice engenders that makes me have this
opinion.
Years ago I was determined to be an educated voter, only to discover that no one wants
voters to know the truth.
When it comes to matters of war, the government just does not want you to know. Period. No
matter how diligent you are, the government has no intention of letting the citizens know what
is going on about matters of war. And it is pretty much the same about anything that is
important.
Lawyers are privy to a lot more government information than other citizens. And I was always
frustrated trying to figure out what the government was up to.
So I think it is an exercise in self delusion when people think they can become educated
voters or citizens. It is not happening.
Direct Democracy, like Term Limits, assumes that politics is easy and anyone can do it
without training, which is not true of lawyers, doctors, teachers, soldiers, salesmen,
mechanics, even screw machine operators. Some things are easier to learn than others. Some
take innate talent.
One of the demands of XR (extinction rebellion) are citizen assemblies.
The system is no longer functional...bought and paid for by the very corporations
which threaten our ecosystem and promote (nuclear) war. We have to do an end around. What
if we just started citizen councils? If nothing else than to combat the mass distortion
and misinformation and begin a demand for change. XR sure did well last week. https://rebellion.earth/2019/04/25/update-7-to-parliament-and-beyond/
I find myself on the other side of the river from the main stream flow...so real democracy
isn't real for me. In other words people are brainwashed and don't make good decisions.
People don't have assess to accurate information and don't reach rational conclusions.
However I don't see our system capable of dealing with the emergency. If survival is an
option, we will be forced to act without and beyond the government IMO.
As to direct democracy...I saw through WMD and russiagate....took me a while to recognize
the the Obummer con. Awoke me with the peace prize speech arguing war is peace. Most people
want M4all, $15/hr, get out of war, etc. I think we would vote for those things if that was
an option instead of R or D? Now getting there is the rub.
#4
grabbing the wheel of a car careening out of control?
Direct Democracy, like Term Limits, assumes that politics is easy and anyone can do it
without training, which is not true of lawyers, doctors, teachers, soldiers, salesmen,
mechanics, even screw machine operators. Some things are easier to learn than others.
Some take innate talent.
span y The Voice In th... on Sun, 04/28/2019 - 8:38pm
I find myself on the other side of the river from the main stream flow...so real
democracy isn't real for me. In other words people are brainwashed and don't make good
decisions. People don't have assess to accurate information and don't reach rational
conclusions. However I don't see our system capable of dealing with the emergency. If
survival is an option, we will be forced to act without and beyond the government
IMO.
As to direct democracy...I saw through WMD and russiagate....took me a while to
recognize the the Obummer con. Awoke me with the peace prize speech arguing war is peace.
Most people want M4all, $15/hr, get out of war, etc. I think we would vote for those
things if that was an option instead of R or D? Now getting there is the rub.
It was established to protect the non-majority, too, and to give the non-majority a voice
in what was going on.
Small or non-populous states would have no voice at all had the system been direct.
And I am glad, even with today's gridlock, that this exists. I don't want a direct
democracy given the mob-like people who have no knowledge of concepts like due process,
innocent until proven guilty, habeas corpus, or notions related to corruption of the blood
and guilt by association.
We have already had two great examples (Kavanaugh, Trump)of how horribly the mob would
rule, had they enough power. We already know how the mob would suppress freedom of speech,
now that states are having to pass laws forcing universities to allow conservative
speakers.
#4
grabbing the wheel of a car careening out of control?
Direct Democracy, like Term Limits, assumes that politics is easy and anyone can do it
without training, which is not true of lawyers, doctors, teachers, soldiers, salesmen,
mechanics, even screw machine operators. Some things are easier to learn than others.
Some take innate talent.
Whether a system is bicameral (as in two houses of Congress) or unicameral (one house)
doesn't seem to me to be the issue when the discussion is about direct democracy versus
representative democracy. If we have direct democracy, we need zero houses.
Claiming the minority have no voice at all in a popular vote is untrue. One person, one
vote. Everyone has exactly the same amount of "voice" in a popular vote, whether they live in
a sparsely-populated state or a populous states. Unpopular views , however, do get
voted down, but not states and not people.
Absent unanimity, which is a pipe dream, rule by a majority of the people is the fairest,
even if extraordinary majorities are sometimes required.
As long as allegedly elected alleged representatives to govern us, the golden rule will
not change: He, she or it with most of the gold will make all of the rules for the rest of
us. A few wealthy people decide everything, thanks to our bought and paid for legislators;
and a vast majority of Americans have no say at all. That is the reality and it sucks
scissors. Anything that gives a tiny minority of people power over the vast majority of the
people is not democracy or fair or anything good.
Moreover, a state is a political unit, best known to most of us as some lines within a map
of the United States. I am fine with people in both heavily-populated states and sparsely-
populated states having 100% of political power, and lines on a map having zero political
power. However, less populous states do have power, no matter what. States have the power in
the electoral college (just ask Hillary, the popular vote President) and in ratification of
Constitutional amendments. IMO, that is more than enough power for lines on a map.
I don't give a rat's tail how the wealthy Framers felt about it in 1789. (In those days,
it was the slave states with their huge plantations that were the more sparsely-populated
ones. Gee, I wonder why they feared the popular vote, what with John Adams and other
Northerners recommending that the new nation be founded without slavery.)
As far you, me, Caucus99percenters and the rest of our fellow citizens being "the mob,
James Madison, is that you? You and your fellow citizens are a mob? As opposed to what? The
corrupt, deceitful war mongers in BOTH houses of Congress who sell their souls-- and
ours --to the very rich? I'd love to know why that out-of- touch, pampered, corrupt
crappy, soul-less lot should have more power over our lives and the lives of our kids and
grandkids than we and our fellow citizens do.
#4.2 the reason the
founding fathers established a bi-cameral legislature.
It was established to protect the non-majority, too, and to give the non-majority a
voice in what was going on.
Small or non-populous states would have no voice at all had the system been
direct.
And I am glad, even with today's gridlock, that this exists. I don't want a direct
democracy given the mob-like people who have no knowledge of concepts like due process,
innocent until proven guilty, habeas corpus, or notions related to corruption of the
blood and guilt by association.
We have already had two great examples (Kavanaugh, Trump)of how horribly the mob would
rule, had they enough power. We already know how the mob would suppress freedom of
speech, now that states are having to pass laws forcing universities to allow
conservative speakers.
@HenryAWallace
As you probably know, the house was set up to be representative by population. The senate was
set up to have 2 senators.
You've never heard the concept of tyranny of the majority?
You fault our past, bringing up the usual slavery issue. Do you forget that it was our
system that finally gave full rights to blacks, that the US finally passed laws against
various isms? Do you forget that it was our system that gave women the right to vote? Do you
forget that our system allowed for the passage of laws to protect various classes of people?
Do you realize that most of these changes came without ruinous violence (compared to the rest
of the world), and most of the time, issues get talked about and resolved via elections? You
lose, you live with the consequences until you win.
Frankly, I can do without the constant violent changes in governments and constant warring
among peoples. Do you wish to be like the Tutsis and Hutu? Or the Serbs and Bosnia? What
about the Sunnis and Shiites?
There is a reason that the US does not have similar murderous uprisings between whatever
groupings of people that might exist. It is because our political system flexes and it is
designed to flex.
Currently, I have no doubt that a huge group of democrats would imprison people based on
speech, wearing a MAGA hat, religion, and baseless evidence-free accusations if they had the
power to do so, or that they would try to overthrow elected officials on a whim. Our current
system has held, for now, against these types of actions.
People are unhappy with the electoral college. Good luck trying to pass a constitutional
amendment that does away with it; certainly the smaller and mid-size states would never pass
such an amendment, and there are probably blue states that wouldn't like the idea of being
run by California and New York.
Whether a system is bicameral (as in two houses of Congress) or unicameral (one house)
doesn't seem to me to be the issue when the discussion is about direct democracy versus
representative democracy. If we have direct democracy, we need zero houses.
Claiming the minority have no voice at all in a popular vote is untrue. One person,
one vote. Everyone has exactly the same amount of "voice" in a popular vote, whether they
live in a sparsely-populated state or a populous states. Unpopular views ,
however, do get voted down, but not states and not people.
Absent unanimity, which is a pipe dream, rule by a majority of the people is the
fairest, even if extraordinary majorities are sometimes required.
As long as allegedly elected alleged representatives to govern us, the golden rule
will not change: He, she or it with most of the gold will make all of the rules for the
rest of us. A few wealthy people decide everything, thanks to our bought and paid for
legislators; and a vast majority of Americans have no say at all. That is the reality and
it sucks scissors. Anything that gives a tiny minority of people power over the vast
majority of the people is not democracy or fair or anything good.
Moreover, a state is a political unit, best known to most of us as some lines within a
map of the United States. I am fine with people in both heavily-populated states and
sparsely- populated states having 100% of political power, and lines on a map having zero
political power. However, less populous states do have power, no matter what. States have
the power in the electoral college (just ask Hillary, the popular vote President) and in
ratification of Constitutional amendments. IMO, that is more than enough power for lines
on a map.
I don't give a rat's tail how the wealthy Framers felt about it in 1789. (In those
days, it was the slave states with their huge plantations that were the more
sparsely-populated ones. Gee, I wonder why they feared the popular vote, what with John
Adams and other Northerners recommending that the new nation be founded without
slavery.)
As far you, me, Caucus99percenters and the rest of our fellow citizens being "the
mob,
James Madison, is that you? You and your fellow citizens are a mob? As opposed to what?
The corrupt, deceitful war mongers in BOTH houses of Congress who sell their souls--
and ours --to the very rich? I'd love to know why that out-of- touch, pampered,
corrupt crappy, soul-less lot should have more power over our lives and the lives of our
kids and grandkids than we and our fellow citizens do.
As you probably know, the house was set up to be representative by population. The
senate was set up to have 2 senators.
Of course. Everyone knows that. My point was that unicameral vs. bicameral is not the
issue when discussing direct democracy vs. representative democracy. In a direct democracy,
no houses are necessary. In a representative democracy, you can have an infinite number of
houses or only one.
You've never heard the concept of tyranny of the majority?
Yes, of course. Mostly from rightists, though. I've also heard of the tyranny of the
minority.
You fault our past,
Actually, that not what I did.
bringing up the usual slavery issue.
The "usual slavery issue?" That seems unduly dismissive. In any event, I referenced the
colonies whose economies involved slaves, not out of the blue, but because they were directly
relevant to the reason the Framers gave sparsely-populated states undue power.
Do you forget that it was our system that finally gave full rights to blacks, that the
US finally passed laws against various isms? Do you forget that it was our system that gave
women the right to vote? Do you forget that our system allowed for the passage of laws to
protect various classes of people? Do you realize that most of these changes came without
ruinous violence (compared to the rest of the world), and most of the time, issues get
talked about and resolved via elections? You lose, you live with the consequences until you
win.
Frankly, I can do without the constant violent changes in governments and constant
warring among peoples. Do you wish to be like the Tutsis and Hutu? Or the Serbs and Bosnia?
What about the Sunnis and Shiites?
And, in your estimation, these things happened because a minority of people was allowed a
veto over the majority of people Because states, lines on a map, were given power over
people? If so, I strongly disagree. If anything, allowing minority rule delayed many positive
changes. If that is not the reason you're bringing up these historical events, I am not
understanding why you are bringing them up. And, btw, many nations effect change without
either violence or giving undue power to lines on a map.
There is a reason that the US does not have similar murderous uprisings between whatever
groupings of people that might exist. It is because our political system flexes and it is
designed to flex.
I think you are vastly oversimplifying the reasons for uprisings, which are often against
murderous, tyrannical regimes. Second, again, it's not allowing the minority to override the
majority that makes our system either fair or flexible.
People are unhappy with the electoral college. Good luck trying to pass a constitutional
amendment that does away with it. Good luck trying to pass any constitutional amendment.
However, my prior post said nothing about abolishing it. I simply cited it as one example
of states--political units, lines on a map--getting to override the will of a majority of
human Americans.
#4.2.2.1 As you
probably know, the house was set up to be representative by population. The senate was
set up to have 2 senators.
You've never heard the concept of tyranny of the majority?
You fault our past, bringing up the usual slavery issue. Do you forget that it was our
system that finally gave full rights to blacks, that the US finally passed laws against
various isms? Do you forget that it was our system that gave women the right to vote? Do
you forget that our system allowed for the passage of laws to protect various classes of
people? Do you realize that most of these changes came without ruinous violence (compared
to the rest of the world), and most of the time, issues get talked about and resolved via
elections? You lose, you live with the consequences until you win.
Frankly, I can do without the constant violent changes in governments and constant
warring among peoples. Do you wish to be like the Tutsis and Hutu? Or the Serbs and
Bosnia? What about the Sunnis and Shiites?
There is a reason that the US does not have similar murderous uprisings between
whatever groupings of people that might exist. It is because our political system flexes
and it is designed to flex.
Currently, I have no doubt that a huge group of democrats would imprison people based
on speech, wearing a MAGA hat, religion, and baseless evidence-free accusations if they
had the power to do so, or that they would try to overthrow elected officials on a whim.
Our current system has held, for now, against these types of actions.
People are unhappy with the electoral college. Good luck trying to pass a
constitutional amendment that does away with it; certainly the smaller and mid-size
states would never pass such an amendment, and there are probably blue states that
wouldn't like the idea of being run by California and New York.
Democracy in America was written in the mid 1800's.
Why am I dismissive toward people who knock the constitution vis-à-vis slavery and
bigotry issues? Because slavery and bigotry have been around forever, amongst numerous
peoples, yet our system allowed for its correction and continuous improvement. There are
still countries where religious and racial bigotry are the norm (Israel, China anyone?).
Instead, the US has ultimately decided against isms, as evidenced by regulations and Supreme
Court decisions.
"And, in your estimation, these things happened because a minority of people was allowed a
veto over the majority of people Because states, lines on a map, were given power over
people?"
I have no idea where you reached that conclusion. People won a war of ideas and effected
change.
I just find it amusing the number of people who knock a system without even understanding
how or why it arose, talking like it was a horror from which all must be destroyed. The fact
is, our system adjusted, and continues to adjust, to the needs and wants of its people. And
the changes are being done with pens, not violence.
I suppose a member of one of the many aggrieved groups could have acted violently
throughout the US instead of waiting for cases to wind through courts and waiting for
legislation to pass. I guess MLK could have taken up arms and shot as many whites as
possible. I guess women could have taken up arms and killed whole legislative bodies. Maybe
gays should have bombed all of the capitols in the US instead of pushing for legislation.
As you probably know, the house was set up to be representative by population. The
senate was set up to have 2 senators.
Of course. Everyone knows that. My point was that unicameral vs. bicameral is not the
issue when discussing direct democracy vs. representative democracy. In a direct
democracy, no houses are necessary. In a representative democracy, you can have an
infinite number of houses or only one.
You've never heard the concept of tyranny of the majority?
Yes, of course. Mostly from rightists, though. I've also heard of the tyranny of the
minority.
You fault our past,
Actually, that not what I did.
bringing up the usual slavery issue.
The "usual slavery issue?" That seems unduly dismissive. In any event, I referenced
the colonies whose economies involved slaves, not out of the blue, but because they were
directly relevant to the reason the Framers gave sparsely-populated states undue
power.
Do you forget that it was our system that finally gave full rights to blacks, that
the US finally passed laws against various isms? Do you forget that it was our system
that gave women the right to vote? Do you forget that our system allowed for the
passage of laws to protect various classes of people? Do you realize that most of these
changes came without ruinous violence (compared to the rest of the world), and most of
the time, issues get talked about and resolved via elections? You lose, you live with
the consequences until you win.
Frankly, I can do without the constant violent changes in governments and constant
warring among peoples. Do you wish to be like the Tutsis and Hutu? Or the Serbs and
Bosnia? What about the Sunnis and Shiites?
And, in your estimation, these things happened because a minority of people was
allowed a veto over the majority of people Because states, lines on a map, were given
power over people? If so, I strongly disagree. If anything, allowing minority rule
delayed many positive changes. If that is not the reason you're bringing up these
historical events, I am not understanding why you are bringing them up. And, btw, many
nations effect change without either violence or giving undue power to lines on a
map.
There is a reason that the US does not have similar murderous uprisings between
whatever groupings of people that might exist. It is because our political system
flexes and it is designed to flex.
I think you are vastly oversimplifying the reasons for uprisings, which are often
against murderous, tyrannical regimes. Second, again, it's not allowing the minority to
override the majority that makes our system either fair or flexible.
People are unhappy with the electoral college. Good luck trying to pass a
constitutional amendment that does away with it. Good luck trying to pass any
constitutional amendment. However, my prior post said nothing about abolishing it. I
simply cited it as one example of states--political units, lines on a map--getting to
override the will of a majority of human Americans.
@dfarrah
y
some people have just difficulties to accept majorities. But imho majorities elected in a
direct democratic vote are the most honest representation of what the population wants. I am
rather abused by a majority than by a minority. At least it deson't make sense to me why I
would accept a minority to enforce their will over a majority.
#4.2.2.1 As you
probably know, the house was set up to be representative by population. The senate was
set up to have 2 senators.
You've never heard the concept of tyranny of the majority?
You fault our past, bringing up the usual slavery issue. Do you forget that it was our
system that finally gave full rights to blacks, that the US finally passed laws against
various isms? Do you forget that it was our system that gave women the right to vote? Do
you forget that our system allowed for the passage of laws to protect various classes of
people? Do you realize that most of these changes came without ruinous violence (compared
to the rest of the world), and most of the time, issues get talked about and resolved via
elections? You lose, you live with the consequences until you win.
Frankly, I can do without the constant violent changes in governments and constant
warring among peoples. Do you wish to be like the Tutsis and Hutu? Or the Serbs and
Bosnia? What about the Sunnis and Shiites?
There is a reason that the US does not have similar murderous uprisings between
whatever groupings of people that might exist. It is because our political system flexes
and it is designed to flex.
Currently, I have no doubt that a huge group of democrats would imprison people based
on speech, wearing a MAGA hat, religion, and baseless evidence-free accusations if they
had the power to do so, or that they would try to overthrow elected officials on a whim.
Our current system has held, for now, against these types of actions.
People are unhappy with the electoral college. Good luck trying to pass a
constitutional amendment that does away with it; certainly the smaller and mid-size
states would never pass such an amendment, and there are probably blue states that
wouldn't like the idea of being run by California and New York.
@HenryAWallace
I am as mystified as anyone else why we keep electing people who support the mess you
described.
IMO, the choices are culled at local levels, so the locals in power, supported by the
rich, need to be overpowered.
Mobs to me means the women who were banging on the SC door, the people who have been
mobbing repubs at dinner/movies at Maxine Waters' (Booker's, Holder's)behest, people who
attack people for wearing Maga hats, people who have been mobbing conservative speakers at
universities and at tables promoting conservatives or Trump.
It is astounding to me that my side has behaved so badly and irrationally.
Whether a system is bicameral (as in two houses of Congress) or unicameral (one house)
doesn't seem to me to be the issue when the discussion is about direct democracy versus
representative democracy. If we have direct democracy, we need zero houses.
Claiming the minority have no voice at all in a popular vote is untrue. One person,
one vote. Everyone has exactly the same amount of "voice" in a popular vote, whether they
live in a sparsely-populated state or a populous states. Unpopular views ,
however, do get voted down, but not states and not people.
Absent unanimity, which is a pipe dream, rule by a majority of the people is the
fairest, even if extraordinary majorities are sometimes required.
As long as allegedly elected alleged representatives to govern us, the golden rule
will not change: He, she or it with most of the gold will make all of the rules for the
rest of us. A few wealthy people decide everything, thanks to our bought and paid for
legislators; and a vast majority of Americans have no say at all. That is the reality and
it sucks scissors. Anything that gives a tiny minority of people power over the vast
majority of the people is not democracy or fair or anything good.
Moreover, a state is a political unit, best known to most of us as some lines within a
map of the United States. I am fine with people in both heavily-populated states and
sparsely- populated states having 100% of political power, and lines on a map having zero
political power. However, less populous states do have power, no matter what. States have
the power in the electoral college (just ask Hillary, the popular vote President) and in
ratification of Constitutional amendments. IMO, that is more than enough power for lines
on a map.
I don't give a rat's tail how the wealthy Framers felt about it in 1789. (In those
days, it was the slave states with their huge plantations that were the more
sparsely-populated ones. Gee, I wonder why they feared the popular vote, what with John
Adams and other Northerners recommending that the new nation be founded without
slavery.)
As far you, me, Caucus99percenters and the rest of our fellow citizens being "the
mob,
James Madison, is that you? You and your fellow citizens are a mob? As opposed to what?
The corrupt, deceitful war mongers in BOTH houses of Congress who sell their souls--
and ours --to the very rich? I'd love to know why that out-of- touch, pampered,
corrupt crappy, soul-less lot should have more power over our lives and the lives of our
kids and grandkids than we and our fellow citizens do.
I am as mystified as anyone else why we keep electing people who support the mess you
described.
Because the rich have always had power here, from the East India Company and George III
and his colonial governors to the Koch brothers and Soros.
IMO, the choices are culled at local levels, so the locals in power, supported by the
rich, need to be overpowered.
Of course they do. But, the system is rigged in their favor and always has been.
Mobs to me means the women who were banging on the SC door, the people who have been
mobbing repubs at dinner/movies at Maxine Waters' (Booker's, Holder's)behest, people who
attack people for wearing Maga hats, people who have been mobbing conservative speakers at
universities and at tables promoting conservatives or Trump.
That is not how your prior post read. However, of course, some unruly activity exists in
the US and elsewhere that is not extremely despotic. But, in a population of about 300
million, they people whom you describe constitute a miniscule minority. Your point in your
prior post, however, seemed to be that direct democracy as a form of government-all citizens
voting on matters like war, taxes, etc. would be mob rule. And my response was that I'd
rather be governed by a majority of my fellow citizen than by "our" corrupt, deceitful,
insulated, etc. selected (sic) unrepresentatives (sic).
#4.2.2.1 I am as
mystified as anyone else why we keep electing people who support the mess you
described.
IMO, the choices are culled at local levels, so the locals in power, supported by the
rich, need to be overpowered.
Mobs to me means the women who were banging on the SC door, the people who have been
mobbing repubs at dinner/movies at Maxine Waters' (Booker's, Holder's)behest, people who
attack people for wearing Maga hats, people who have been mobbing conservative speakers
at universities and at tables promoting conservatives or Trump.
It is astounding to me that my side has behaved so badly and irrationally.
span y The Voice In th... on Sun, 04/28/2019 - 8:53pm
@HenryAWallace
Sometimes the many seize power. But they always lose it because they don't know how to hold
it because they are not power drunk fanatics. The rich, the ultra-rich are psychotics that
need to have more so that someone else has less. To the ordinary man having lots of money
means spending it on pleasurable things. To the rich it means power and ego-enhancment. What
sane man wouldn't be content with having a billion dollars and not be consumed with envy
because a dozen or so men in the world have more. Who wouldn't enjoy life and have fun and
help others? But just look at the world's richest men. They spend long hours consumed with
envy that there is someone who has more, to become the first trillionaire. Truly obsessive
sickness to cause misery and poverty to the men and women working for you just to add some
meaningless zeros to your net worth. Net "worth", I hate that phrase. Gandhi and Mother
Teresa had more worth than these sick deranged people.
I am as mystified as anyone else why we keep electing people who support the mess
you described.
Because the rich have always had power here, from the East India Company and George
III and his colonial governors to the Koch brothers and Soros.
IMO, the choices are culled at local levels, so the locals in power, supported by
the rich, need to be overpowered.
Of course they do. But, the system is rigged in their favor and always has been.
Mobs to me means the women who were banging on the SC door, the people who have been
mobbing repubs at dinner/movies at Maxine Waters' (Booker's, Holder's)behest, people
who attack people for wearing Maga hats, people who have been mobbing conservative
speakers at universities and at tables promoting conservatives or Trump.
That is not how your prior post read. However, of course, some unruly activity exists
in the US and elsewhere that is not extremely despotic. But, in a population of about 300
million, they people whom you describe constitute a miniscule minority. Your point in
your prior post, however, seemed to be that direct democracy as a form of government-all
citizens voting on matters like war, taxes, etc. would be mob rule. And my response was
that I'd rather be governed by a majority of my fellow citizen than by "our" corrupt,
deceitful, insulated, etc. selected (sic) unrepresentatives (sic).
If you don't agree with them, why refer to them as "my side?"
#4.2.2.1 I am as
mystified as anyone else why we keep electing people who support the mess you
described.
IMO, the choices are culled at local levels, so the locals in power, supported by the
rich, need to be overpowered.
Mobs to me means the women who were banging on the SC door, the people who have been
mobbing repubs at dinner/movies at Maxine Waters' (Booker's, Holder's)behest, people who
attack people for wearing Maga hats, people who have been mobbing conservative speakers
at universities and at tables promoting conservatives or Trump.
It is astounding to me that my side has behaved so badly and irrationally.
span y The Voice In th... on Sun, 04/28/2019 - 8:56pm
Whether a system is bicameral (as in two houses of Congress) or unicameral (one house)
doesn't seem to me to be the issue when the discussion is about direct democracy versus
representative democracy. If we have direct democracy, we need zero houses.
Claiming the minority have no voice at all in a popular vote is untrue. One person,
one vote. Everyone has exactly the same amount of "voice" in a popular vote, whether they
live in a sparsely-populated state or a populous states. Unpopular views ,
however, do get voted down, but not states and not people.
Absent unanimity, which is a pipe dream, rule by a majority of the people is the
fairest, even if extraordinary majorities are sometimes required.
As long as allegedly elected alleged representatives to govern us, the golden rule
will not change: He, she or it with most of the gold will make all of the rules for the
rest of us. A few wealthy people decide everything, thanks to our bought and paid for
legislators; and a vast majority of Americans have no say at all. That is the reality and
it sucks scissors. Anything that gives a tiny minority of people power over the vast
majority of the people is not democracy or fair or anything good.
Moreover, a state is a political unit, best known to most of us as some lines within a
map of the United States. I am fine with people in both heavily-populated states and
sparsely- populated states having 100% of political power, and lines on a map having zero
political power. However, less populous states do have power, no matter what. States have
the power in the electoral college (just ask Hillary, the popular vote President) and in
ratification of Constitutional amendments. IMO, that is more than enough power for lines
on a map.
I don't give a rat's tail how the wealthy Framers felt about it in 1789. (In those
days, it was the slave states with their huge plantations that were the more
sparsely-populated ones. Gee, I wonder why they feared the popular vote, what with John
Adams and other Northerners recommending that the new nation be founded without
slavery.)
As far you, me, Caucus99percenters and the rest of our fellow citizens being "the
mob,
James Madison, is that you? You and your fellow citizens are a mob? As opposed to what?
The corrupt, deceitful war mongers in BOTH houses of Congress who sell their souls--
and ours --to the very rich? I'd love to know why that out-of- touch, pampered,
corrupt crappy, soul-less lot should have more power over our lives and the lives of our
kids and grandkids than we and our fellow citizens do.
have the means to change, using "means" to encompass the funding and other things. The
Constitution and everything that preceded and followed it was geared to the group we now
refer to as the elites. And they've had literally centuries and billions of dollars over that
time to insulate themselves from us.
One of the demands of XR (extinction rebellion) are citizen assemblies.
The system is no longer functional...bought and paid for by the very corporations
which threaten our ecosystem and promote (nuclear) war. We have to do an end around. What
if we just started citizen councils? If nothing else than to combat the mass distortion
and misinformation and begin a demand for change. XR sure did well last week. https://rebellion.earth/2019/04/25/update-7-to-parliament-and-beyond/
have the means to change, using "means" to encompass the funding and other things. The
Constitution and everything that preceded and followed it was geared to the group we now
refer to as the elites. And they've had literally centuries and billions of dollars over
that time to insulate themselves from us.
We liberals and progressives have to shoulder at least some of the blame for this. To
ensure our progeny experienced few bumps in life, we cocooned them in classrooms where
learning was secondary to political correctness, we let them participate in sports where
nobody loses, and we downgraded working hard for your grades to a system of grading everyone
high on the curve.
I'm embarrassed by the ignorance of our successor generations regarding simple math
(making change without a cash register telling them what to do), basic grammar and spelling
skills, and fundamental knowledge of history.
We failed our children and grandchildren.
span y thanatokephaloides on Sat, 04/27/2019 - 6:21pm
We liberals and progressives have to shoulder at least some of the blame for this. To
ensure our progeny experienced few bumps in life, we cocooned them in classrooms where
learning was secondary to political correctness, we let them participate in sports where
nobody loses, and we downgraded working hard for your grades to a system of grading
everyone high on the curve.
I'm embarrassed by the ignorance of our successor generations regarding simple math
(making change without a cash register telling them what to do), basic grammar and
spelling skills, and fundamental knowledge of history.
Doesn't matter, though. Whether we have children or not, we still interact with and are
affected by the actions and misdeeds of other people's children.
So, yes, we agree there, though honestly I'm at a loss to figure out why we are focusing
on "bad Presidents" here. They've all been bad, starting with Reagan, and Carter brought the
trend in by promising to be bad in his losing 1980 reelection campaign. This is by
design.
It seems to me that if we want to focus upon this contingency, we ought to be promoting an
activist "Plan B." What if the Democrats screw Bernie again, and set up
useful idiot Joe Biden to win the convention with the help of the superdelegates? Bernie
endorses Joe, and hope is once again replaced by despair. Such a contingency would be one
possible fruit of the "elect a better President" strategy which appears as the first option
for activism in America. What then? Perhaps we ought to be planning for this possibility?
So, yes, we agree there, though honestly I'm at a loss to figure out why we are
focusing on "bad Presidents" here. They've all been bad, starting with Reagan, and Carter
brought the trend in by promising to be bad in his losing 1980 reelection campaign. This
is by design.
It seems to me that if we want to focus upon this contingency, we ought to be
promoting an activist "Plan B." What if the Democrats screw Bernie again, and set up
useful idiot Joe Biden to win the convention with the help of the superdelegates?
Bernie endorses Joe, and hope is once again replaced by despair. Such a contingency would
be one possible fruit of the "elect a better President" strategy which appears as the
first option for activism in America. What then? Perhaps we ought to be planning for this
possibility?
So, yes, we agree there, though honestly I'm at a loss to figure out why we are
focusing on "bad Presidents" here. They've all been bad, starting with Reagan, and Carter
brought the trend in by promising to be bad in his losing 1980 reelection campaign. This
is by design.
It seems to me that if we want to focus upon this contingency, we ought to be
promoting an activist "Plan B." What if the Democrats screw Bernie again, and set up
useful idiot Joe Biden to win the convention with the help of the superdelegates?
Bernie endorses Joe, and hope is once again replaced by despair. Such a contingency would
be one possible fruit of the "elect a better President" strategy which appears as the
first option for activism in America. What then? Perhaps we ought to be planning for this
possibility?
@Cassiodorus
as I wrote in a comment the other day, Reagan ran on a platform to govern almost identically
to what the Carter administration had been doing: increase defense spending, decrease
regulation, reduce deficits.
not much doubt that he's been one of the bestest ex-presidents of all time, though.
So, yes, we agree there, though honestly I'm at a loss to figure out why we are
focusing on "bad Presidents" here. They've all been bad, starting with Reagan, and Carter
brought the trend in by promising to be bad in his losing 1980 reelection campaign. This
is by design.
It seems to me that if we want to focus upon this contingency, we ought to be
promoting an activist "Plan B." What if the Democrats screw Bernie again, and set up
useful idiot Joe Biden to win the convention with the help of the superdelegates?
Bernie endorses Joe, and hope is once again replaced by despair. Such a contingency would
be one possible fruit of the "elect a better President" strategy which appears as the
first option for activism in America. What then? Perhaps we ought to be planning for this
possibility?
@Cassiodorus
Hunter. Like father, like son. Will Trump smite the upper echelons of his enemies such as
Killary and the empty suit?
So, yes, we agree there, though honestly I'm at a loss to figure out why we are
focusing on "bad Presidents" here. They've all been bad, starting with Reagan, and Carter
brought the trend in by promising to be bad in his losing 1980 reelection campaign. This
is by design.
It seems to me that if we want to focus upon this contingency, we ought to be
promoting an activist "Plan B." What if the Democrats screw Bernie again, and set up
useful idiot Joe Biden to win the convention with the help of the superdelegates?
Bernie endorses Joe, and hope is once again replaced by despair. Such a contingency would
be one possible fruit of the "elect a better President" strategy which appears as the
first option for activism in America. What then? Perhaps we ought to be planning for this
possibility?
...They've all been bad, starting with Reagan, and Carter brought the trend in by
promising to be bad in his losing 1980 reelection campaign. This is by design...
(I'm particularly interested in your comments on Carter.)
So, yes, we agree there, though honestly I'm at a loss to figure out why we are
focusing on "bad Presidents" here. They've all been bad, starting with Reagan, and Carter
brought the trend in by promising to be bad in his losing 1980 reelection campaign. This
is by design.
It seems to me that if we want to focus upon this contingency, we ought to be
promoting an activist "Plan B." What if the Democrats screw Bernie again, and set up
useful idiot Joe Biden to win the convention with the help of the superdelegates?
Bernie endorses Joe, and hope is once again replaced by despair. Such a contingency would
be one possible fruit of the "elect a better President" strategy which appears as the
first option for activism in America. What then? Perhaps we ought to be planning for this
possibility?
...They've all been bad, starting with Reagan, and Carter brought the trend in by
promising to be bad in his losing 1980 reelection campaign. This is by design...
(I'm particularly interested in your comments on Carter.)
span y The Voice In th... on Sat, 04/27/2019 - 9:11pm
@Cassiodorus
Perhaps his having been a Naval officer had something to do with it. I do know that his old
boss, Admiral Rickover had a big influence on him.
...position. And, while it doesn't mention it in the
commentary, below , the fact of the matter is that Carter did more to bring peace to the
mideast than any president, perhaps, since the formal independence of the State of Israel, in
1948. From the link, earlier in this paragraph...
Jimmy Carter - Military policy
Carter had inherited a wide variety of tough problems in international affairs, and in
dealing with them, he was hampered by confusion and uncertainty in Congress and the nation
concerning the role the nation should play in the world. A similar state of mind prevailed
in the closely related area of military policy, and that state of mind affected the
administration. At the beginning of his presidency, Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft
evaders and announced that American troops would be withdrawn from South Korea. He also
decided against construction of the B-1 bomber as a replacement for the aging B-52,
regarding the proposed airplane as costly and obsolete, and also decided to cut back on the
navy's shipbuilding program. Champions of military power protested, charging that he was
not sufficiently sensitive to the threat of the Soviet Union.
In recent years, the Soviets had strengthened their forces and influence, expanding the
army, developing a large navy, and increasing their arms and technicians in the Third
World. As Carter's concern about these developments mounted, he alarmed critics of military
spending by calling for a significant increase in the military budget for fiscal 1979, a
substantial strengthening of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, and the
development and deployment of a new weapon, the neutron bomb. Next, he dismayed advocates
of greater military strength by first deciding that the bomb would not be built and then
announcing that production would be postponed while the nation waited to see how the
Soviets behaved.
In both diplomatic and military matters, the president often found it difficult to stick
with his original intentions. He made concessions to demands for more military spending and
more activity in Africa and became less critical of American arms sales. He both responded
to criticism of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and sought to restore its
effectiveness, regarding it as an essential instrument that had been misused.
Critics, including Henry Kissinger, Henry Jackson, and many Republican senators, found
him weak and ineffective, confusing and confused. They suggested that his administration
had "seen that its neat theories about the world do not fit the difficult realities" and
that "it must now come to grips with the world as it is." One close observer, Meg
Greenfield of Newsweek magazine, wrote in 1978 that while "many of our politicians, more
traumatized than instructed by that miserable war [Vietnam], tend to see Vietnams
everywhere," more and more congressmen "seem . . . to be getting bored with their own
post-Vietnam bemusement," and "under great provocation from abroad, Carter himself is
beginning to move."
@bobswern
Unfortunately, he was more or less a true believer in neo-liberalism, before that formulation
even existed. Perhaps he just had too much faith in people. I don't know. I do know that, as
I've said in my other comments here, Reagan ran against him by promising to do everything
that Carter was already doing -- plus tax cuts.
Indeed, Reagan himself believed in working towards a peaceable end to the cold war, at
least at some point. Years ago, I saw an astonishing clip from Firing Line, with Reagan and a
couple of other Republicans. The other guys were belching a super-hard line on relations with
the USSR. Reagan, speaking coherently and intelligently -- as I say, it was
astonishing -- stated that the right had no business asking for people to vote for
them, if they had nothing to offer but inevitable nuclear war.
...position. And, while it doesn't mention it in the
commentary, below , the fact of the matter is that Carter did more to bring peace to
the mideast than any president, perhaps, since the formal independence of the State of
Israel, in 1948. From the link, earlier in this paragraph...
Jimmy Carter - Military policy
Carter had inherited a wide variety of tough problems in international affairs, and
in dealing with them, he was hampered by confusion and uncertainty in Congress and the
nation concerning the role the nation should play in the world. A similar state of mind
prevailed in the closely related area of military policy, and that state of mind
affected the administration. At the beginning of his presidency, Carter pardoned
Vietnam War draft evaders and announced that American troops would be withdrawn from
South Korea. He also decided against construction of the B-1 bomber as a replacement
for the aging B-52, regarding the proposed airplane as costly and obsolete, and also
decided to cut back on the navy's shipbuilding program. Champions of military power
protested, charging that he was not sufficiently sensitive to the threat of the Soviet
Union.
In recent years, the Soviets had strengthened their forces and influence, expanding
the army, developing a large navy, and increasing their arms and technicians in the
Third World. As Carter's concern about these developments mounted, he alarmed critics
of military spending by calling for a significant increase in the military budget for
fiscal 1979, a substantial strengthening of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
forces, and the development and deployment of a new weapon, the neutron bomb. Next, he
dismayed advocates of greater military strength by first deciding that the bomb would
not be built and then announcing that production would be postponed while the nation
waited to see how the Soviets behaved.
In both diplomatic and military matters, the president often found it difficult to
stick with his original intentions. He made concessions to demands for more military
spending and more activity in Africa and became less critical of American arms sales.
He both responded to criticism of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and sought to
restore its effectiveness, regarding it as an essential instrument that had been
misused.
Critics, including Henry Kissinger, Henry Jackson, and many Republican senators,
found him weak and ineffective, confusing and confused. They suggested that his
administration had "seen that its neat theories about the world do not fit the
difficult realities" and that "it must now come to grips with the world as it is." One
close observer, Meg Greenfield of Newsweek magazine, wrote in 1978 that while "many of
our politicians, more traumatized than instructed by that miserable war [Vietnam], tend
to see Vietnams everywhere," more and more congressmen "seem . . . to be getting bored
with their own post-Vietnam bemusement," and "under great provocation from abroad,
Carter himself is beginning to move."
@UntimelyRippd
into inevitable nuclear war in his first term. The admin's bellicose rhetoric directed at the
Sov Union, including his FEMA director stating that we could win in a nuke exchange if people
would only build enough fallout shelters in their back yard, brought the two countries to a
very perilous position by 1983.
That anti-nuke movie which Ronnie saw in the WH, The Day After, began to undermine his
narrow and reckless attitude. Then the world lucked out when the reasonable, reform-minded
and détente focused Gorbachov came to power in 85. Gorby wanted a complete elimination
of nukes on both sides, and almost got RR to agree, but the DeepState boys intervened to
block it.
I do think Jimmy the C was very inconsistent in FP, one day listening more to his SoS Sigh
Vance, mostly a moderate-liberal non-interventionist type, and his nat'l security advisor
Zbig Brzezinski, a hawk's hawk who saw evil Soviet designs everywhere. JC was like a
ping-pong ball being batted back and forth.
But at least JC didn't get the US involved in any new wars during his term, and was
totally screwed by the Reagan-Bush team of crooks and liars and traitors who illegally
sabotaged Carter's 1980 efforts to get the hostages released. Poppy and Bill Casey, at the
least, should have ended up behind bars.
But for that October Surprise, and maybe the Carter team's failure before the one debate
to get their hands on Reagan's 1962 vinyl record showing how staunchly anti-Medicare he was,
Jimmy would have won another term.
#6.5.1.2
Unfortunately, he was more or less a true believer in neo-liberalism, before that
formulation even existed. Perhaps he just had too much faith in people. I don't know. I
do know that, as I've said in my other comments here, Reagan ran against him by promising
to do everything that Carter was already doing -- plus tax cuts.
Indeed, Reagan himself believed in working towards a peaceable end to the cold war, at
least at some point. Years ago, I saw an astonishing clip from Firing Line, with Reagan
and a couple of other Republicans. The other guys were belching a super-hard line on
relations with the USSR. Reagan, speaking coherently and intelligently -- as I say, it
was astonishing -- stated that the right had no business asking for people to vote
for them, if they had nothing to offer but inevitable nuclear war.
@wokkamile
Reagan's team defined Carter (and his administration) as big-spending, big-guvmint, and
weak-on-defense, in complete contradiction to Carter's actual record, and the Carter campaign
failed to communicate any meaningful correction.
Remember, Kennedy challenged Carter from the left.
#6.5.1.2.1 into
inevitable nuclear war in his first term. The admin's bellicose rhetoric directed at the
Sov Union, including his FEMA director stating that we could win in a nuke exchange if
people would only build enough fallout shelters in their back yard, brought the two
countries to a very perilous position by 1983.
That anti-nuke movie which Ronnie saw in the WH, The Day After, began to undermine his
narrow and reckless attitude. Then the world lucked out when the reasonable,
reform-minded and détente focused Gorbachov came to power in 85. Gorby wanted a
complete elimination of nukes on both sides, and almost got RR to agree, but the
DeepState boys intervened to block it.
I do think Jimmy the C was very inconsistent in FP, one day listening more to his SoS
Sigh Vance, mostly a moderate-liberal non-interventionist type, and his nat'l security
advisor Zbig Brzezinski, a hawk's hawk who saw evil Soviet designs everywhere. JC was
like a ping-pong ball being batted back and forth.
But at least JC didn't get the US involved in any new wars during his term, and was
totally screwed by the Reagan-Bush team of crooks and liars and traitors who illegally
sabotaged Carter's 1980 efforts to get the hostages released. Poppy and Bill Casey, at
the least, should have ended up behind bars.
But for that October Surprise, and maybe the Carter team's failure before the one
debate to get their hands on Reagan's 1962 vinyl record showing how staunchly
anti-Medicare he was, Jimmy would have won another term.
didn't help jimmy's campaign. I often wonder where we would be now had we stayed on
Jimmy's path of energy independence. The establishment dims worked against him too tip
O'Neil...and didn't Ted Kennedy try to primary him? Maybe it was Kennedy in law Shriver.
Plus RR had several years on the big and little screen much like Trump the unreality
star.
#6.5.1.2.1.1
Reagan's team defined Carter (and his administration) as big-spending, big-guvmint, and
weak-on-defense, in complete contradiction to Carter's actual record, and the Carter
campaign failed to communicate any meaningful correction.
Remember, Kennedy challenged Carter from the left.
@Lookout
primaried Carter in 1980 even as many in his inner circle advised against it. Sargent Shriver
ran as McGovern's VP in 1972 after George dumped his first pick Eagleton. Shriver ran for
prez in 76, in a large field loaded with liberals who tended to dilute each other's
votes.
didn't help jimmy's campaign. I often wonder where we would be now had we stayed on
Jimmy's path of energy independence. The establishment dims worked against him too tip
O'Neil...and didn't Ted Kennedy try to primary him? Maybe it was Kennedy in law
Shriver.
Plus RR had several years on the big and little screen much like Trump the unreality
star.
@UntimelyRippd
insulted Ted personally early on, even before taking office, when after his victory Jimmy was
really feeling his oats, thinking it was his own greatness alone that got him elected. Ted
did not forget or forgive. And on policy, he was greatly dismayed at Carter's unwillingness
to work for major health care reform, and a few other matters where JC was taking a
center-right position. But the policy differences probably were far less important than the
personal in deciding to challenge Carter.
Jimmy also unnecessarily aggravated and insulted House Speaker Tip O'Neil early on and
repeatedly, until after getting a personal ultimatum of sorts from Tip, Jimmy finally got the
message. That's just stupid, insulting the two most powerful Dems in Congress. You don't need
to have a PhD in Politics from Harvard in order to understand not to do that.
The Carter admin also did lousy messaging and PR, too much on the defensive, not often
enough out there effectively promoting their (definitely mixed-bag) policies. The MSM went
after him consistently as of 1978 and I don't think the Carter admin was prepared to deal
with it or adequate to the task. The in-bred Beltway Press treated Carter and his people from
Georgia like backwoods hicks and mostly were successful in painting the portrait of a weak,
incompetent presidency.
#6.5.1.2.1.1
Reagan's team defined Carter (and his administration) as big-spending, big-guvmint, and
weak-on-defense, in complete contradiction to Carter's actual record, and the Carter
campaign failed to communicate any meaningful correction.
Remember, Kennedy challenged Carter from the left.
@wokkamile
to heel. mobil was posting the largest profits of any corporation in american history, while
people couldn't afford gasoline. an attack on Mobil was built into Kennedy's stump
speech).
#6.5.1.2.1.1.1 insulted
Ted personally early on, even before taking office, when after his victory Jimmy was
really feeling his oats, thinking it was his own greatness alone that got him elected.
Ted did not forget or forgive. And on policy, he was greatly dismayed at Carter's
unwillingness to work for major health care reform, and a few other matters where JC was
taking a center-right position. But the policy differences probably were far less
important than the personal in deciding to challenge Carter.
Jimmy also unnecessarily aggravated and insulted House Speaker Tip O'Neil early on and
repeatedly, until after getting a personal ultimatum of sorts from Tip, Jimmy finally got
the message. That's just stupid, insulting the two most powerful Dems in Congress. You
don't need to have a PhD in Politics from Harvard in order to understand not to do
that.
The Carter admin also did lousy messaging and PR, too much on the defensive, not often
enough out there effectively promoting their (definitely mixed-bag) policies. The MSM
went after him consistently as of 1978 and I don't think the Carter admin was prepared to
deal with it or adequate to the task. The in-bred Beltway Press treated Carter and his
people from Georgia like backwoods hicks and mostly were successful in painting the
portrait of a weak, incompetent presidency.
#6.5.1.2.1.1.1 insulted
Ted personally early on, even before taking office, when after his victory Jimmy was
really feeling his oats, thinking it was his own greatness alone that got him elected.
Ted did not forget or forgive. And on policy, he was greatly dismayed at Carter's
unwillingness to work for major health care reform, and a few other matters where JC was
taking a center-right position. But the policy differences probably were far less
important than the personal in deciding to challenge Carter.
Jimmy also unnecessarily aggravated and insulted House Speaker Tip O'Neil early on and
repeatedly, until after getting a personal ultimatum of sorts from Tip, Jimmy finally got
the message. That's just stupid, insulting the two most powerful Dems in Congress. You
don't need to have a PhD in Politics from Harvard in order to understand not to do
that.
The Carter admin also did lousy messaging and PR, too much on the defensive, not often
enough out there effectively promoting their (definitely mixed-bag) policies. The MSM
went after him consistently as of 1978 and I don't think the Carter admin was prepared to
deal with it or adequate to the task. The in-bred Beltway Press treated Carter and his
people from Georgia like backwoods hicks and mostly were successful in painting the
portrait of a weak, incompetent presidency.
@HenryAWallace
I wasn't aware you had previously written extensively on the health care subject. But looking
at the cites I didn't see something which definitely nailed the story on Carter v TK on
health care reform, just 2 people who detested each other with differing views, and a
statement supposedly from Ted, which again I didn't see a cite for, admitting fault in the
Carter proposal. (I have not read his book of memoirs.) If the latter assertion is true, then
it is a bit of a puzzle why Carter would blame a then-deceased TK on 60Minutes over blocking
his health care proposal, when all he had to do was cite Ted's supposed confession of guilt
in his memoirs. (will now go to review the video of this interview, which I've not yet
seen.)
According to this HNN article from a 3d party academic on
the Carter proposal, it was indeed a weak one and only a partial and perhaps badly flawed
first step, which Kennedy may well have been right to oppose as Carter didn't commit,
according to the author, on specifics for a followup comprehensive plan other than Carter
would propose keeping the private insurance system intact, no public option. Jimmy just
offered hospital care cost cutting and continuation of private insurance.
On the earlier Nixon proposal, Kennedy, as I recall from the literature, was opposed as
the health care major reform backers linked to the AFL-CIO and other Big Labor thought Ted
should wait until a better proposal came along from a Dem president, as surely they would get
a good one in the 76 election in the wake of Watergate. But it might also be true that TK
regretted this move and had second thoughts about not taking the bird in hand and waiting for
the two in the bush. As it turned out, he got only a third of a bird by waiting with
Carter.
@wokkamile
I forgot he was a Democrat. He was Reagan's big enabler.
#6.5.1.2.1.1.1 insulted
Ted personally early on, even before taking office, when after his victory Jimmy was
really feeling his oats, thinking it was his own greatness alone that got him elected.
Ted did not forget or forgive. And on policy, he was greatly dismayed at Carter's
unwillingness to work for major health care reform, and a few other matters where JC was
taking a center-right position. But the policy differences probably were far less
important than the personal in deciding to challenge Carter.
Jimmy also unnecessarily aggravated and insulted House Speaker Tip O'Neil early on and
repeatedly, until after getting a personal ultimatum of sorts from Tip, Jimmy finally got
the message. That's just stupid, insulting the two most powerful Dems in Congress. You
don't need to have a PhD in Politics from Harvard in order to understand not to do
that.
The Carter admin also did lousy messaging and PR, too much on the defensive, not often
enough out there effectively promoting their (definitely mixed-bag) policies. The MSM
went after him consistently as of 1978 and I don't think the Carter admin was prepared to
deal with it or adequate to the task. The in-bred Beltway Press treated Carter and his
people from Georgia like backwoods hicks and mostly were successful in painting the
portrait of a weak, incompetent presidency.
Who betrayed the Russians when the US said it wouldn't tighten its military circle around
Russia? Was it Obama or Bush II that broke that promise?
#6.5.1.2
Unfortunately, he was more or less a true believer in neo-liberalism, before that
formulation even existed. Perhaps he just had too much faith in people. I don't know. I
do know that, as I've said in my other comments here, Reagan ran against him by promising
to do everything that Carter was already doing -- plus tax cuts.
Indeed, Reagan himself believed in working towards a peaceable end to the cold war, at
least at some point. Years ago, I saw an astonishing clip from Firing Line, with Reagan
and a couple of other Republicans. The other guys were belching a super-hard line on
relations with the USSR. Reagan, speaking coherently and intelligently -- as I say, it
was astonishing -- stated that the right had no business asking for people to vote
for them, if they had nothing to offer but inevitable nuclear war.
@dfarrah
to Gorby not to move NATO one inch eastward towards Russia, in return for the Sov Union
agreeing to a reuniting of Germany, began under Bush I, Poppy, or at least the anti-Russia
attitude began then, after the verbal agreement was made, and continued with all presidents
thru Obama and Trump.
#6.5.1.2.1.2 to Gorby
not to move NATO one inch eastward towards Russia, in return for the Sov Union agreeing
to a reuniting of Germany, began under Bush I, Poppy, or at least the anti-Russia
attitude began then, after the verbal agreement was made, and continued with all
presidents thru Obama and Trump.
armscontrol.com, but part of the gist was
that he hadn't wanted to seem 'like a wimp' while running against bob dole. i'm agnostic on
that, but what a fucked up cold war 2.0 organization that it. now, you might be right about
dubya creating one evil stepchild of nato, and he did create the neo-colonizing africom. it's
motto is (or was) 'we fight chaos in african nations', while forgetting that they also use
CIA agents and such to...create the chaos, then help install U-friendly puppet gummints.
on later edit : it gets worse, if more honest. i was on black alliance for peace's twit
account for my own current diary, they were protesting against africom, and one tweet led to
an article on africom with these lines:
"When AFRICOM was established in the months before Barack Obama assumed office as the
first Black President of the United States, a majority of African nations -- led by the
Pan-Africanist government of Libya -- rejected AFRICOM, forcing the new command to instead
work out of Europe.
But with the U.S. and NATO attack on Libya that led to the destruction of that country
and the murder of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, corrupt African leaders began to
allow AFRICOM forces to operate in their countries and establish military-to-military
relations with the United States. Today, those efforts have resulted in 46 various forms of
U.S. bases as well as military-to-military relations between 53 out of the 54 African
countries and the United States. U.S. Special Forces troops now operate in more than a
dozen African nations.
Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, first and former deputy of AFRICOM, declared in 2008,
"Protecting the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market is one of
AFRICOM's guiding principles."
We say AFRICOM is the flip side of the domestic war being waged by the same repressive
state structure against Black and poor people in the United States. In the U.S. Out of
Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign, we link police violence and the domestic war waged on
Black people to U.S. interventionism and militarism abroad.
#6.5.1.2.1.2 to Gorby
not to move NATO one inch eastward towards Russia, in return for the Sov Union agreeing
to a reuniting of Germany, began under Bush I, Poppy, or at least the anti-Russia
attitude began then, after the verbal agreement was made, and continued with all
presidents thru Obama and Trump.
span y thanatokephaloides on Sat, 04/27/2019 - 8:42pm
It seems to me that if we want to focus upon this contingency, we ought to be promoting
an activist "Plan B." What if the Democrats screw Bernie again, and set up useful idiot Joe
Biden to win the convention with the help of the superdelegates? Bernie endorses Joe, and
hope is once again replaced by despair. Such a contingency would be one possible fruit of
the "elect a better President" strategy which appears as the first option for activism in
America. What then? Perhaps we ought to be planning for this possibility?
It seems to me that if we want to focus upon this contingency, we ought to be
promoting an activist "Plan B." What if the Democrats screw Bernie again, and set up
useful idiot Joe Biden to win the convention with the help of the superdelegates?
Bernie endorses Joe, and hope is once again replaced by despair. Such a contingency
would be one possible fruit of the "elect a better President" strategy which appears as
the first option for activism in America. What then? Perhaps we ought to be planning
for this possibility?
But voting for people who have never held office in their lives just seems pointless. It
would be nice if a green actually got elected somewhere before he or she decided to run for
President.
I live in a red state, so my vote doesn't matter. I could vote for Mickey Mouse and do as
much good. Maybe that is why I am so cynical about presidential elections now.
My gut tells me that Sanders can't beat Trump in 2020 when he could have in 2016. Sanders
let so many people down in 2016, that there will not be the enthusiasm this time. And Trump
will have lots of never-Trumpers on board in 2020.
#6.6
Heads I vote Green again
Tails I go get drunk on election day instead
span y The Voice In th... on Sun, 04/28/2019 - 10:52pm
But voting for people who have never held office in their lives just seems pointless.
It would be nice if a green actually got elected somewhere before he or she decided to
run for President.
I live in a red state, so my vote doesn't matter. I could vote for Mickey Mouse and do
as much good. Maybe that is why I am so cynical about presidential elections now.
My gut tells me that Sanders can't beat Trump in 2020 when he could have in 2016.
Sanders let so many people down in 2016, that there will not be the enthusiasm this time.
And Trump will have lots of never-Trumpers on board in 2020.
World peace is possible and with real leadership, America could usher it into being.
You sound really like an American President. Are you running? Sigh. I have to say
considering what is going on in the world, I find that sentence pretty unconvincing, if not
an attempt of misleading the sheeps.
What matters in a Congressman and Senator, might be more important to know.
No offense meant, it's just that the times are over when these nice words would still
work.
@mimi I
know what you mean, Mimi. I realize how unlikely it seems given the horrifying present, yet I
insist that, at least in theory, it doesn't have to be this way and that with sufficient will
we could reverse the hate and war. I may well be wrong, but I believe it. If we wanted peace
as badly as we wanted to go to the moon or build the atomic bomb, we'd stand a good chance of
getting there.
World peace is possible and with real leadership, America could usher it into
being.
You sound really like an American President. Are you running? Sigh. I have to say
considering what is going on in the world, I find that sentence pretty unconvincing, if
not an attempt of misleading the sheeps.
What matters in a Congressman and Senator, might be more important to know.
No offense meant, it's just that the times are over when these nice words would still
work.
Perhaps with f@ck Bill Clinton and his media consolidation - tip
of the iceberg.
Next up has to be Jane Fonda. "I guess the lesson is we shouldn't be fooled by
good-looking liberals no matter how well-spoken they are."
And following behind, this is one hell of a good question.
Now, having seen the wreckage a horrible president can wreak on a helpless nation, I'm
starting to re-question why none of the 'good' presidents ever had much impact. They had
the same power to do good as he has to do evil. I'm starting to think they didn't want to
change anything. Or were paid not to. (Shocking, I know.)
I think every person running for office should have to pass a lie detector test in order
to declare his/her candidacy. Questions to be written by his/her enemies. Next up, every
voter must pass a current events test in order to vote. If you have no clue, you should have
no vote. I'm tired of having our country's fate determined by crooks and people who don't
know better and could care less.
@dkmich
Unfortunately, most of the sheeples don't realize that "honest politician" is an
oxymoron.
Perhaps with f@ck Bill Clinton and his media consolidation -
tip of the iceberg.
Next up has to be Jane Fonda. "I guess the lesson is we shouldn't be fooled by
good-looking liberals no matter how well-spoken they are."
And following behind, this is one hell of a good question.
Now, having seen the wreckage a horrible president can wreak on a helpless nation,
I'm starting to re-question why none of the 'good' presidents ever had much impact.
They had the same power to do good as he has to do evil. I'm starting to think they
didn't want to change anything. Or were paid not to. (Shocking, I know.)
I think every person running for office should have to pass a lie detector test in
order to declare his/her candidacy. Questions to be written by his/her enemies. Next up,
every voter must pass a current events test in order to vote. If you have no clue, you
should have no vote. I'm tired of having our country's fate determined by crooks and
people who don't know better and could care less.
span y davidgmillsatty on Sun, 04/28/2019 - 9:23pm
*If* a president of this nation can bring peace about, the epic barriers to third party
candidates need to be reversed (especially toward the Greens), but they won't be. the only
potential peace candidate would need to both anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist (not just
claim to be anti-war for some™, imo. in the duopoly, there simply isn't one, although
many will claim that tulsi gabbard is.
You're always "spot-on." But, this time, you hit it out of the park!
Wanted to turn you on to some new music...
1.) Irish singer-songwriter Hozier , just came out with his new album "Wasteland,
Baby!" (easily, one of the best, politically-oriented songwriters of the current
generation):
You're always "spot-on." But, this time, you hit it out of the park!
Wanted to turn you on to some new music...
1.) Irish singer-songwriter Hozier , just came out with his new album "Wasteland,
Baby!" (easily, one of the best, politically-oriented songwriters of the current
generation):
During my high school World History class, several of us approached our instructor to
change some of the elements of the class. We were tired of memorizing dates of wars and
battles. Her response was: "The history of the world is the history of war." I hope I live to
see this instructor proven wrong.
It is, unfortunately. Solving systemic corruption is always a complex and difficult
task.
But if we can find not only someone who we believe in but someone who also believes in
us, then why can we not progress?
Because those whose continued ill-gotten gains depend on us not progressing anywhere apply
their money power to make sure we do not progress.
Exhibit A: Bernie Sanders in 2016. The moneyed power brokers wanted Hillary Clinton. And,
the desire of us hoi polloi to the contrary notwithstanding, she's what we got.
And Donald Trump bought his way into the Presidency.
Who are these other entities?
The ultra-wealthy, whose continued un-earned profits depend on no change occurring. The
forever war industry, whose continued un-earned profits depend on no peace occurring,
ever. The fossil-fuel industry, whose continued un-earned profits depend on no change
occurring to how we power our lives. The mega-banks and the Wall Street Casino, which depend
on all the above and others like them.
After all, there are more of us, than there are of them
Not where it counts (dollars under single-individual control).
So chins up!
If Nike says 'Just do it' then so should we!
Do please describe how we are supposed to "just do it". I would be most interested in how
you suppose we should proceed here. But I must ask a favor: please don't suggest anything
which has already been tried to exhaustion. Thank you.
#12
But if we can find not only someone who we believe in but someone who also believes in
us, then why can we not progress?
Who are these other entities?
After all, there are more of us, than there are of them
What I see as the problem is the deep state stopping any person in the Oval Office from
accomplishing progressive goals. These war-mongers have a vice grip on our government. If the
person elected would have the courage to stand up for the people instead of the deep state,
then I think we have a chance.
This day will come, but it might be until the 2024 or 2028 election.
World peace is possible and with real leadership, America could usher it into being.
Forget America, it will never happen. We have not had a single world class president in my
lifetime. Democracy does no such thing as guarantee a better outcome, it only provides more
legitimacy. Our congress critters are a bunch of spineless cheerleaders for some odd concept
of patriotism in America. They would vote to nuke Cuba if they thought that it would advance
their careers. The deep-state's goal is more and better lethality of the military on an ever
ballooning budget. The ultra-rich and the corporations and banks control everything. What
path do you see to peace and justice? The American people vote these bastards into office.
This is what they want. The only good outcome I see is if the world learns to get along
without the US, and sanctions the US to the bone. I have no idea where these abstract
concepts of a greater purpose for the American Hegemon ever came from. They have no
relationship to reality. The best that we could do is to try to return the nation to the
belief in isolationism as was popular between the two world wars.
span y thanatokephaloides on Sun, 04/28/2019 - 5:16pm
The ultra-rich and the corporations and banks control everything. What path do you see
to peace and justice? The American people vote these bastards into office.
False.
The selection of non-choice (or Hobson's Choice) candidates is locked-in ages before any
of us hoi polloi get to vote on anything.
World peace is possible and with real leadership, America could usher it into
being.
Forget America, it will never happen. We have not had a single world class president
in my lifetime. Democracy does no such thing as guarantee a better outcome, it only
provides more legitimacy. Our congress critters are a bunch of spineless cheerleaders for
some odd concept of patriotism in America. They would vote to nuke Cuba if they thought
that it would advance their careers. The deep-state's goal is more and better lethality
of the military on an ever ballooning budget. The ultra-rich and the corporations and
banks control everything. What path do you see to peace and justice? The American people
vote these bastards into office. This is what they want. The only good outcome I see is
if the world learns to get along without the US, and sanctions the US to the bone. I have
no idea where these abstract concepts of a greater purpose for the American Hegemon ever
came from. They have no relationship to reality. The best that we could do is to try to
return the nation to the belief in isolationism as was popular between the two world
wars.
The ultra-rich and the corporations and banks control everything. What path do you
see to peace and justice? The American people vote these bastards into office.
False.
The selection of non-choice (or Hobson's Choice) candidates is locked-in ages before
any of us hoi polloi get to vote on anything.
@TheOtherMaven
"I have no advice for others in this election. Are you voting Democratic? Well and good; all
I ask is why? Are you voting for Eisenhower and his smooth team of bright ghost writers?
Again, why? Will your helpless vote either way support or restore democracy to America?
Is the refusal to vote in this phony election a counsel of despair? No, it is dogged hope. It
is hope that if twenty-five million voters refrain from voting in 1956 because of their own
accord and not because of a sly wink from Khrushchev, this might make the American people ask
how much longer this dumb farce can proceed without even a whimper of protest."
It is hope that if twenty-five million voters refrain from voting in 1956 because of
their own accord and not because of a sly wink from Khrushchev, this might make the American
people ask how much longer this dumb farce can proceed without even a whimper of
protest."
More than that stayed home last election and yet here we are again getting ready to do the
voting process again over a half century since Dubois said that. The funniest thing about
that Russia allegation of interfering with the election is that the GOP have gerrymandered
the hell out of so many states, the democrats have let them do it and democrats not only
refuse to put enough voting machines in districts with heavy turnout they don't insist on
using paper ballots.
During the last primary in New York alone thousands of people were kicked off the voting
rolls and had their party affiliation changed and even after the person who did that admitted
it nothing was done. Next up was Brenda Snipes in Florida who destroyed lots and lots of
ballots and she not only wasn't punished for doing it, she got to retire with her full
pension.
DuBois condemns both Democrats and Republicans for their indifferent positions on the
influence of corporate wealth, racial inequality, arms proliferation and unaffordable health
care.
1956
I've been bitchin about what Trump is doing with the regulatory agencies and once again I
found out how badly Obama was before him... I shouldn't have been surprised huh?
#15.1.1 "I have no
advice for others in this election. Are you voting Democratic? Well and good; all I ask
is why? Are you voting for Eisenhower and his smooth team of bright ghost writers? Again,
why? Will your helpless vote either way support or restore democracy to America?
Is the refusal to vote in this phony election a counsel of despair? No, it is dogged
hope. It is hope that if twenty-five million voters refrain from voting in 1956 because
of their own accord and not because of a sly wink from Khrushchev, this might make the
American people ask how much longer this dumb farce can proceed without even a whimper of
protest."
@Big
Al
and if it would be a direct democratic vote like in a parliamentary system, I think it would
be worth voting.
Voting in the US seems to be worthless these days.
#15.1.1 "I have no
advice for others in this election. Are you voting Democratic? Well and good; all I ask
is why? Are you voting for Eisenhower and his smooth team of bright ghost writers? Again,
why? Will your helpless vote either way support or restore democracy to America?
Is the refusal to vote in this phony election a counsel of despair? No, it is dogged
hope. It is hope that if twenty-five million voters refrain from voting in 1956 because
of their own accord and not because of a sly wink from Khrushchev, this might make the
American people ask how much longer this dumb farce can proceed without even a whimper of
protest."
Update 10: Though she isn't in the room today, Sen. Elizabeth Warren felt she needed to
communicate a very important message to Barr: That she would like him to resign.
AG Barr is a disgrace, and his alarming efforts to suppress the Mueller report show that
he's not a credible head of federal law enforcement. He should resign -- and based on the
actual facts in the Mueller report, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against the
President.
This is
the second in two recent
Real News Network interviews with Bill Black, white collar criminologist and frequent Naked
Capitalism contributor. Bill is author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and teaches
economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC).
Bill argues that the problem isn't deficient laws, which is Warren's focus. He says
instead:
It's far better to focus on using the existing criminal laws but changing the things in
the system that are so criminogenic and changing institutionally the regulators, the F.B.I.,
and the prosecutors, so that you go back to systems that we've always known how to make work.
The simple example is task forces. What produced the huge success in the savings and loan,
the Commercial Bank, and the Enron era fraud prosecutions? It was these task forces where we
brought everyone together to actually bring prosecutions. They killed those criminal task
forces, both under the Bush administration and under the Obama administration.
I think this is cause for optimism. For it means we don't have to go through the long and
torturous process of passing new laws to get somewhere with fixing a deeply broken system. The
Dodd-Frank Act wasn't passed until July 2010, despite the huge clamor to do something about the
banks that created the Great Financial Crisis. And then it took many years for all affected
agencies to finish rule-makings necessary to administer and enforce the law. Imagine if we had
to do that again to get somewhere with the necessary clean-up.
Instead, we merely have to elect politicians who will appoint necessary personnel to
confront the prevailing criminogenic environment. I know, I know – that's a big ask too.
But believe me, it would be even bigger if we must also take the preliminary step of passing
new legislation as well.
MARC STEINER Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Mark Steiner. Always good to have you
with us. Now if you were watching the previous segment and you saw what Bill Black and I were
talking about, you saw that we were kind of diving into the history of this. Why it's so
difficult to prosecute or maybe it's not, and we're finding out why. But what we didn't jump
into was about Elizabeth Warren's proposal. Do they make sense? If they passed, will they
actually make a difference. What is it that we do we need, more laws like that or do we need
more regulation? What would solve the crisis that we seem to constantly be falling into? And
we're still here with Bill Black as always, which is great. So Bill, let me just jump right
into this. Her proposals -- do they meet muster? Do they actually make a difference? Some
people say she's piddling around the edges. What do you think?
BILL BLACK So for example, the proposed bill on Too Big to Jail would largely recreate the
entities that we had during the great financial crisis, which led to virtually no prosecutions. So yes, we need more resources, but bringing back SIGTARP, the special inspector general for
the Treasury, would have next to no effects.
The criminal referrals have to come from the
banking regulatory agencies. They have essentially been terminated. You need new leadership at
those entities that were actually going to make criminal referrals. The second part -- would it
change things to be able to prosecute simply by showing negligence? Well yes, but it would
still be a massive battle to show negligence in those circumstances and at the end of the day,
the judge could just give probation. And judges are going to be very hostile to it,
particularly after Trump gets all these judicial appointees.
You would just see a wave, if you
used a simple negligence standard of conservative judges who didn't think it was fair to make
it that easy to prosecute folks. They would give people probation. Prosecutors wouldn't want to
go through a huge fight just to get probation and such. And so, it would be immensely
ineffective, and it would break.
There'd be maybe some progressive judges that would actually
give the maximum term, but that's only one year under her proposal. So you're not going to get
significant deterrence through those mechanisms. It's far better to focus on using the existing
criminal laws but changing the things in the system that are so criminogenic and changing
institutionally the regulators, the F.B.I., and the prosecutors, so that you go back to systems
that we've always known how to make work. The simple example is task forces.
What produced the
huge success in the savings and loan, the Commercial Bank, and the Enron era fraud
prosecutions? It was these task forces where we brought everyone together to actually bring
prosecutions. They killed those criminal task forces, both under the Bush administration and
under the Obama administration. So we don't have to reinvent the bike. We don't have to design
a new vehicle. We have a vehicle that works for successful prosecutions. We actually need to
use it and to do that, we need people in charge who have the will to prosecute elite
white-collar criminals.
MARC STEINER So you do agree with a critique of these bills, saying what we need is just to
have greater regulation and enforce regulations we have? We don't need new prosecutorial tools?
Is that what you're saying?
BILL BLACK No I completely reject that view in Slate that is by two folks who have really
extreme views. One thinks that we prosecute and sentence elite white-collar criminals way too
much and much too heavily. And the other, for example, has written an article saying, we
shouldn't make wage theft which is theft, a crime.
Even though it's Walmart's dominant strategy
and it makes it impossible for more honest merchants to compete against Walmart, that is an
insane view. And of course, it will never happen because you're going to put the same people in
charge who don't believe. If they don't believe in prosecuting, you think seriously they
believe in regulating the big banks?
MARC STEINER What I'm asking you though Bill, to critique that, what do you think? Are the
bills that Elizabeth Warren is suggesting unnecessary, other than maybe putting more money into
regulatory agencies to oversee all of this? Are you saying that we have enough prosecutorial
tools?
BILL BLACK They're unnecessary. The specifics in the bills are unnecessary. But that doesn't
mean that regulation is the answer to it, although it's part of the issue.
MARC STEINER I got you. Right.
BILL BLACK What you need is leaders who will use the tools we know work, to do the
prosecutions. And they made absolutely sure -- that's Lanny Breuer who you talked about in the
first episode of this thing, that actually said to a nationwide audience on video that he was
kept awake and fearing not what the bank criminals were doing but fearing that somebody might
lose their job in banks because of it.
You know he doesn't represent the American people at
that point. If you put Lanny Breuer in, you could put 10,000 F.B.I. agents and you would still
get no prosecutions, because Lanny Breuer simply isn't going to prosecute just like Eric Holder
simply wasn't going to prosecute.
It's not just the US, but the UK, too. Readers may be aware that the British government is seeking a successor to Mark Carney at
the Bank of England, which has resumed most, but not all, of its former supervisory
responsibilities this decade.
One of the candidates, Andrew Bailey, a former Bank official and currently head of the
conduct risk regulator, is desperate for the Bank job and publicly and privately speaking
about lightening the regulatory load. Not only that, Bailey is also reluctant to take action
against the well connected and have anything going on that will have an impact on his
application, vide the current London Capital Finance scandal.
At a recent address to asset managers, Bailey said that not on Brexit + day 1, but soon
after the red pen would be applied to the UK rule book. He implied that prosecutions would be
a rarity. It was very much a plea to firms to stay after Brexit and to lobby for his
candidacy.
I am old enough remember clearly the Blue Arrow case in the 1980's ( easily looked up )
but essentially a share rigging operation. The smokescreen advanced by the establishment in
these cases had always been the same; that company fraud is far to complicated for ordinary
mortals to understand . But in the Blue Arrow case they ( the jury ) did understand it, which
terrified the establishment, and word came down from on high that no such prosecutions should
ever happen again . And then we had ' light touch regulation '. And then we had the Great
Financial Crash.
I do indeed Colonel. Both scandals seem almost quaint in the light of the scale of the
manipulation and fraud in the years leading up to the GFC and subsequently; and the
unwillingness of both the UK and US government to even attempt to bring about prosecutions.
The intertwining of politics and big business ( ' the revolving door ' ) has played a large
part in this and IMHO distressed the wider public to such an extent that when they had the
opportunity to show their displeasure they did so and voted for Brexit and Trump.
Those regulators and their ilk need trips to the Old Bailey, although that is not likely
to happen in the foreseeable future. Too much is riding on the Brexit preparations, until the
next panic, and then the following panic. All of those militate against any action that would
harm the fabric of, ahem, pay packets.
If you put Lanny Breuer in, you could put 10,000 F.B.I. agents and you would still get
no prosecutions, because Lanny Breuer simply isn't going to prosecute just like Eric Holder
simply wasn't going to prosecute.
IMHO, you could put Bill Black in, many, if not most of those 10,000 F.B.I. agents would
passively resist, and you would still get no prosecutions.
We're seeing, with Trump, what passive resistance looks like, the same will be done to
Bernie if elected.
The massive momentum of neo-liberal rule is baked in, and has been quite successful at
making sure Trump doesn't screw any of their plans up, in fact Trump derangement syndrome
seems to be working better than they could ever have dreamed to cover the really nasty stuff
that's going on while the people are treated to Russia, Russia, Russia! 24/7.
Bernie would face the same, but probably worse, more intense resistance from what would be
a unified, bi-partisan resistance, the 10%, with forty years worth of Washington Consensus
training under their belts, all either chanting in unison against the evils of socialism, or
sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting Na, Na, Na, Na!
After 9/11, the FBI pulled thousands of agents off white collar crime and switched them to
fighting terrorism, in hindsight, this seems closer to evidence of a plan than an accident of
history.
By now, most, if not all those agents have decided that for the sake of their careers,
they had better forget about what they used to think was important.
It would probably take all of Bernie's first term to bring the public up to speed, and in
alignment with the effort to prosecute the banksters, and that's being optimistic.
Right now, half the electorate believes that dead-beat borrowers crashed the economy in
2008.
You don't need the FBI to prosecute bank crimes. In his book version of Inside Job,
Charles Ferguson laid out the evidence for WaMu (and IIRC another bank) that was sufficient
to be able to indict executives. There was plenty of evidence in the public domain.
Yes, and what is it we are discussing, the reasons why no indictments were made, and what
is to be done about it?
My point is that changes in leadership, IMO are insufficient to prompt those indictments
into being in the near term because in the period since 2008, everything possible has been
done to load the federal bureaucracy with politically reliable persons dedicated to helping
defend the status quo.
I might add that ' The Resistance' has, IMO, been focused almost exclusively on
making sure Trump is not reelected, thereby protecting democratic rice bowls, and sadly, not
so much on preventing his destroying regulatory systems, the courts, and every remnant of the
New Deal.
The situation we're facing is the Augean Stables, except that it's been 40 years, not 30,
that the filth has been building up without a proper cleaning.
So, being wildly optimistic, we elect Bernie Sanders, and if we're lucky, start a
generation long process against a strong head wind.
That said, I remain wildly optimistic that that is what will happen, I just can't help
myself.
I'm not a legal expert but what about going after banks, most of which do business in NY
state, by using the existing Martin Act like Eliot Spitzer. According to
this older article :
"Spitzer's big gun was New York's Martin Act. The law allowed him to subpoena virtually
any document from anyone doing business in the state. Because the law permits prosecutors to
pursue either civil or criminal penalties, Spitzer could refuse to tell suspects which one he
was seeking. Spitzer's willingness to wield the considerable powers permitted by the Martin
Act turned the New York AG's office from a backwater into a rainmaker and made the SEC, which
could impose only puny civil penalties, look like a peashooter.
Spitzer used the Martin Act
to drag angry and unwilling corporate executives into his office for questioning. Then he'd
subpoena huge company files.
Dedicated staff combed through them and, almost inevitably,
found a smoking gun: secretive after-hours trading between mutual funds and hedge funds;
alleged bid rigging at Marsh; and emails from Wall Street analyst Jack Grubman bragging to
his mistress about how he'd recommended a shoddy company in a three-way deal to help his
boss, Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill, humiliate a corporate foe.
Spitzer would then wave "the
bloody shirt," as journalist Roger Donway puts it, in front of the cameras, show off the
worst offenses he had uncovered and use them to tar and feather an entire industry."
An honest politician is a biological phantasm, such as minotaurs. Wish as much as you
might, you cannot will either minotaurs or honest politicians into being. Alas, I must
include Tulsi into that concept (though she is certainly the best of the bunch).
We've had honest politicians before. They're not chaemeras, but they are rare.
Many, such as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, were Republican. And the most honest
of Democratic Presidents, also named Roosevelt, was as honest as he was in large part because
he admired and emulated his kinsman Theodore.
They can be cultured. But the first step in culturing them is for We The People as a
whole to completely quarantine themselves from ever voting for bullshit. Give the likes of
Tulsi Gabbard an opportunity to stay honest, and she will. But she needs that opportunity. Can
we give it to her?
I my early days, before I really indulged in the swamp, known as politics, my thoughts
were identical to yours.
Presumably, everyone wants a composed, well spoken president, one that can conduct him
or herself with a trace of grace, some modicum of decorum, one who won't embarrass us
every time they speak or try to close an umbrella. Being nice looking also matters since
we have to look at this person a great deal more than we really want. A good smile, nice
teeth, real hair; all of that matters – to some extent. Just not all that much. An
attractive appearance and a suave command of the language actually guarantees very
little. If anything such characteristics have the potential to conceal deep flaws and
questionable actions and policies. Glib good-looking people get away with a lot of
crap.
A perfect exemplar of good teeth, glib words and a smile is Bubba, known as Mr. HRC
these days. What a walking piece of excrement.
I propose a biological comparison of looking for Mr. Goodbar president. This
is the process of birth. Despite genetics, we all to some degree get molded by the
transpelvic experience of our own births. The only exception is Caesarean section, which
involves a vicious intact on mother's anatomy. Can one exit unscathed from such a
beginning. Do all who aspire to speak for others always have at least some degree of
self-aggrandizement? Not necessarily money, but always power over others. It takes enormous
self-belief to imagine any individual capable of making life/death decisions for millions
with adopting the associated power that comes from so doing.
My faith in man/woman is reinforced by such as Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange.
Disregarding for the moment their mutual imprisonment, neither of those would be interested
in holding political office.
An honest politician is a biological phantasm, such as minotaurs. Wish as much as you
might, you cannot will either minotaurs or honest politicians into being. Alas, I must
include Tulsi into that concept (though she is certainly the best of the bunch).
up 11 users have voted. --
"I say enough! If Israel wants to be the only superpower in the Middle East then they can
put their own asses on the line and do it themselves. I want to continue to eat." -- snoopydawg
@thanatokephaloides
that was easy. I'm not sure the word honest would be among the first descriptives about FDR.
Skillful politician, successful president, flexible attitude, good intelligence, concern for
his country's less well off come to mind. I wouldn't apply "honest" to Pearl Harbor or FDR's
seeming unconcern about the Jews of Europe.
Honest also isn't sufficient. Jimmy Carter was one of the most honest presidents. He too
was intelligent, so even that isn't enough. What FDR was very good at was applying his
personal abilities and the media tools of the time to sell the people on his programs. He was
also skillful at keeping his awkward Dem coalition together. Honest Jimmy not so good in
either category.
An honest politician is a biological phantasm, such as minotaurs. Wish as much as
you might, you cannot will either minotaurs or honest politicians into being. Alas, I
must include Tulsi into that concept (though she is certainly the best of the
bunch).
We've had honest politicians before. They're not chaemeras, but they are rare.
Many, such as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, were Republican. And the most
honest of Democratic Presidents, also named Roosevelt, was as honest as he was in large
part because he admired and emulated his kinsman Theodore.
They can be cultured. But the first step in culturing them is for We The People
as a whole to completely quarantine themselves from ever voting for bullshit. Give the
likes of Tulsi Gabbard an opportunity to stay honest, and she will. But she needs that
opportunity. Can we give it to her?
@wokkamile
Jimmy Carter, I think his actions in Afghanistan supported the growth of terrorism, and his
efforts to deregulate led to the monopolies we're stuck with now.
#3.2 that was easy. I'm
not sure the word honest would be among the first descriptives about FDR. Skillful
politician, successful president, flexible attitude, good intelligence, concern for his
country's less well off come to mind. I wouldn't apply "honest" to Pearl Harbor or FDR's
seeming unconcern about the Jews of Europe.
Honest also isn't sufficient. Jimmy Carter was one of the most honest presidents. He
too was intelligent, so even that isn't enough. What FDR was very good at was applying
his personal abilities and the media tools of the time to sell the people on his
programs. He was also skillful at keeping his awkward Dem coalition together. Honest
Jimmy not so good in either category.
#3.2.1 Jimmy Carter, I
think his actions in Afghanistan supported the growth of terrorism, and his efforts to
deregulate led to the monopolies we're stuck with now.
@thanatokephaloides
make the case that lincoln was honest. his speeches were carefully tailored to his particular
audiences. he said so many contradictory things that we'll never know for certain what he
thought about slavery and racial equality.
Senator Elizabeth Warren's Q&A at the March 7, 2013 Banking Committee hearing entitled
"Patterns of Abuse: Assessing Bank Secrecy Act Compliance and Enforcement." Witnesses were:
David Cohen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, United States Department
of the Treasury; Thomas Curry, Comptroller, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and
Jerome H. Powell, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
HSBC has a long history dealing in illicit, immoral drugs. In fact, the bank was
established to facilitate such. "After the British established Hong Kong as a colony in the
aftermath of the First Opium War, local merchants felt the need for a bank to finance the
growing trade between China and Europe (with traded products including opium). They
established the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company Limited in Hong Kong (March 1865) and
Shanghai (one month later)." ~ Wikipedia Another good source is the book "Dope, Inc." RESIST
!!!
Obviously nobody wants to take responsibilities. They would not even consider what is
morally wrong or acceptable. These are the people we pay salaries to protect us, 316 million
Americans? So we still pay a hefty salary to Senator Powell and David Cohn in Treasury
department? Are these people in cahoots with those who laundered money at J P Morgan ? Do
they make money from both sides? Peel off the tax payers and get bribes from the banks which
launder the money ? I assume this is just a game. Banksters on Wall Street who suck our blood
are still outside on the prowl. They did it in 2008 and are looking for the next move
soon.
What gets me is these banks are part of the illicit drug trade with no chance of jail
time, but if one of the peasants gets busted with a single joint.Prosecution,jail, fines, you
name it, it's throw the book time.We need more people like Warren in government.
Elizabeth Warren may have smart policies. But Bernie Sanders has mass politics.
Last week I wrote
an article
praising Elizabeth Warren for advancing the student debt conversation. While I think her proposal falls short of what we
deserve -- a full-on student debt jubilee, no means-testing or exceptions -- I'm impressed by how seriously it takes the
problem of student debt, leaving Obama-style "refinancing" behind in favor of large-scale debt forgiveness, commensurate
with the gravity of the crisis.
The student debt proposal was one of many recent plans released by Warren in recent
months, ramping up in the last few weeks. Some are better than others. Her
Ultra-Millionaire Tax
is a winner, as is her
Real
Corporate Profits Tax
. Warren's universal childcare plan is promising overall, though it retains
unnecessary
fees
for users. Her
affordable
housing plan
is one-sidedly market-based: its central proposal is to incentivize local governments to remove zoning
restrictions. That needs to be complemented by heavy investments in social housing, a policy
recently
floated
by the People's Policy Project.
But criticisms aside, Warren's proposals trend in a
positive direction. At the very least, they demonstrate a willingness to tackle working people's real problems
with debt, housing, health, and childcare. If they were to materialize, many of these proposals would
significantly improve life for working people -- maybe not as much as we'd like, but enough to be considered a
positive development, especially after decades of Democratic disinterest in policies that threaten corporate
profits or meaningfully redistribute wealth.
So it's understandable why many on the Left have reacted to
Warren's policy blitz with delight. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The proposals she's pumping out are
exciting, but more to the point, they are a strategy for raising her campaign's profile.
It's not standard in presidential politics to bust out
of the gate with a constant stream of detailed policy ideas. The other candidates aren't
behind
on
releasing policy proposals -- Warren is way ahead, doing something unusual. Bernie Sanders doesn't even have
his policy team fully assembled yet, nor do the others. We need to ask why Warren feels compelled to adopt
this early traction-gaining strategy to begin with.
In my view, Warren's policy blitz is a bid to
distinguish herself in light of her difficulty thus far in cohering an organic base. Put bluntly, Warren is
turning her campaign into a policy factory because she's had trouble inspiring people with a broad-strokes
political vision the way her closest ideological competitor, Bernie Sanders, has.
This strategy may work to boost her campaign prospects, but it's a bad omen for any presidential
administration seriously committed to taking on the ruling elite. If you can't impart to millions of working
people the sense that they are carrying out a historic mission during your campaign -- a "
political
revolution
" driven by "
Not
Me, Us
" -- you won't be able to mobilize them to exert pressure on the state to challenge the interests
of capital when it really counts, during your presidency.
Part of Warren's trouble in the area of mass politics can be traced to the fact that she's neither an
establishment plaything nor an opponent of capitalism. To her credit, Warren won't take corporate money (at
least
during the primary
), and she evades the regular donor circuit. That means that to make her campaign
viable, she needs masses of ordinary people to believe in her project strongly enough to donate their own
hard-earned money to her campaign. Unlike Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, or certainly Joe
Biden, she can't
paper
over
her lackluster popular support with fat checks from elites.
So far, those masses have failed to materialize. That's largely because Warren's temperate political
ideology makes it hard for her to say the things necessary to get their attention. She's great at diagnosing
the worst problems of capitalism and has plans to address them, but her rhetoric doesn't polarize along
class lines. She therefore struggles to define her constituency and identify who exactly that constituency
is up against.
Warren hates egregious inequality, but
fundamentally believes
in the superior rationality of markets. She has unwavering faith in capitalism,
calling herself
"a capitalist to my bones" -- her primary concern is that it has been led astray. At a
time when socialism is
becoming synonymous
with efforts to put people over profit, Warren disavows it. When Donald Trump
declared that "America will never be a socialist country" a couple of months ago, Sanders stayed slouched in
his chair, while Warren
rose to
her feet
in applause.
This means that while Warren knows down to the last detail what she'd like better regulations to look
like, she's not quite solid on the antagonists and protagonists, i.e. which broader social forces need to be
arranged against which other forces to make change.
Sanders's vision of social conflict is quite clear, and is summed up by the name of his
town hall
last year:
CEOs vs. Workers. To make favorable policy materialize and to protect it from reversal, the forces of
workers need to be arranged against the forces of CEOs. Nearly everything Sanders says and does leads back
to this core belief in the power of ordinary working people to take on capitalist elites themselves. As he
puts it
, "Real change never takes place from the top on down. It always takes place from the bottom on
up."
In Warren's case, where oppositional rhetoric appears at all, the contest more often comes across as
"Smart Progressive Policymakers vs. Bad Rules." Not only is there no room in that rivalry for ordinary
people, but the enemy is also faceless. The enemy is incorrect policy, and it must be corrected by expert
policy correctors. Elect Warren, on the basis of her demonstrated expertise, and she will deftly set about
changing the rules so that capitalism doesn't produce so many awful externalities.
Sanders may as well have been winking at Warren when he said, in a
video
screened recently to thousands of self-organized groups of Bernie supporters in every congressional
district:
No president, not the best intentioned, not the most honest person in the world, no one person can do
it alone. Now why is that? Because this is what is not talked about in the media, not talked about in
Congress: the power structure of America is such that a small number of wealthy individuals and large
corporate entities have so much influence over the economic and political life of this country that no
one person can do it.
You think we're gonna pass Medicare for All tomorrow because the president of the United States says
that's what we should do? You think we're gonna take on the fossil fuel industry and effectively and
aggressively combat climate change change because the president of the United States thinks we should do
that? A lot of presidents say, "Gee I have a great idea. I woke up yesterday and I think health care
for all's a good idea." That's not the way it happens. It happens when millions of people stand up and
demand it.
It's unsurprising that Bernie's broad vision of social conflict is more inspiring than Warren's. After
decades of skyrocketing living costs and stagnating wages, many working people are spoiling for a fight.
That nascent fighting spirit can be seen in the popular protest movements that began in 2011, the
unprecedented popularity of Sanders's dark-horse candidacy in 2016, and the teachers strike wave that kicked
off last year.
Unencumbered by an awkward mixture of admiration for capitalism and disapproval of its ugliest excesses,
Bernie Sanders is uniquely capable of picking that fight -- and making ordinary working people feel like
they're at the center of it, that it's theirs to win.
It's the trouble Warren has had breaking through in this way that explains why she has turned to cranking
out hyper-detailed proposals. She's making up with wonkery what she lacks in big-picture political clarity.
In the process, she's successfully grabbing headlines and winning the hearts of left technocrats with
prominent platforms. That might translate into some boost in popular support. But it's not obvious that such
support will ever rival that of a
candidate who tells workers
, "This is class warfare, and we're going to stand up and fight."
We are right to admire many of the ideas coming out of the Warren campaign. Best-case scenario, they will
spur a progressive policy arms race, which would be to the benefit of all.
But we shouldn't see her policy blitz purely as a sign of strength. It may actually be an SOS message, a
panicked response to her campaign's shortcomings in the field of mass politics. And of course, mass politics
are necessary for creating durable and militant constituencies that can
self-organize
outside the state, which is in turn necessary to win and preserve a progressive policy
agenda against the interests of capitalists -- an agenda that Warren and Sanders largely share.
Warren's policy blitz strategy may pay off in the short term. But in the long term, there's no substitute
for naming the sides, picking a side, and building up your side to fight the other side. And that's Bernie's
game.
She rips the Obama White House for its allegiance to Citibank. But she does nto understadn that the problem is not with
Citibank, but with the neoliberalism as the social system. Sad...
Democrats and Republicans are just two sides of the same coin as for neoliberalism. Which presuppose protecting banks, like
Citigroup, and other big corporations. The USA political system is not a Democracy, we have become an Oligarchy with a two Party
twist (Poliarchy) in whihc ordinary voters are just statists who have No voice for anyone except approving one of the two
preselected by big money candidates. It's time we put a stop to this nonsense or we'll all go down with ship.
Anyway, on a positive note
"Each time a person stands up for an ideal to improve the lot of others, they send forth a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistence." RFK
This budget deal is absolutely disgusting. More financial deregulation, the potential for
a second TARP, cuts to pensions, and cuts to funding for Pell Grants to help out students.
Once again, the people lose.
So tough, so strong, and so right. And I love that she's not afraid to rip into Democrats
and the White House for their complicity in selling out our country and tax dollars to the
big banks. We need more strong politicians on both sides of the aisle like this.
It's not party specific, though the Republicans are the worst. Both parties are to be
blame. The biggest blame goes to the Americans who do not vote and those who have no clue who
or what they are voting for. The government is the way it is, it's because of the attitude of
Americans towards politics. Majority do not give a shit and hence you have that pile up in
Washington and states legislature.
Elizabeth Warren is like a fictional do gooder character from Hollywood. No one take her
seriously.
Blame all the politicians you want, you Americans voting or not voting are the lousiest
employers in the world, because you hire a bunch of corruptors into your government. These
corruptors in fact control your lives.
They abuse your money, spending every penny on everything but on you. You would not hand
over your wallet or bank accounts to a strangers, yet are precisely doing that by putting
these corruptors in the government.
This speech encapsulates and exposes all that is wrong with America in general and with
our governance in particular. Taking the heinous provision out of the bill would be a great
first baby step toward cleaning up our politics, economy and collective spirit as a nation.
All the "smart money" says that Warren is engaged in a Quixotic attempt to do something good
in a system that is irredeemably corrupted by money and the lust for power. The cynics may be
right, perhaps America is doomed to be consumed by the parasites to the last drop of
blood...but maybe not. Maybe this ugly indefensibly corrupt malevolent move to put the
taxpayers back on the hook for the next trillion dollar bail out theft will be sufficient to
wake up hundreds of millions of us. When the people wake up and turn on the lights, the
crooks and the legally corrupt will slither away back into their hole...and many may just
wind up in prison, where they belong. But so long as corrupt dirty dastardly interests can
keepAmerica deceived and asleep, they will continue to drain our nation's life's blood dry.
Please share this video widely. If half as many folks watch this speech as watched the Miley
Cyrus "Wrecking Ball" YouTube, the provision to which Warren is objecting will be taken out
very quickly indeed.
As George Carlin said a decade ago,who are we going to replace these politicians with?
They did not fall out of the sky or come from a distant planet. They are US. You can vote all
you want and replace every last one of them but nothing will change. It is human nature.
Besides the road from being on the local town council, to the mayor,Gov then into the Capital
is littered with test to weed out anyone who might really pose a danger to the system. The
occasional odd one that does make it to power is castrated or there simply to give the
illusion that elections matter. Unless you can eliminate the attraction of greed,ego and
power nothing will ever change. Just a quick look back at history tells you what is happening
now and what will be going on in our future. The only difference is there are more zeros.
"... Although the causal relationships are difficult to untangle, there are solid grounds for believing that the rise in monopoly power has played a role in exacerbating income inequality, weakening workers' bargaining power, and slowing the rate of innovation. ..."
"... The debate about how to regulate the sector is eerily reminiscent of the debate over financial regulation in the early 2000s. Proponents of a light regulatory touch argued that finance was too complicated for regulators to keep up with innovation, and that derivatives trading allows banks to make wholesale changes to their risk profile in the blink of an eye. And the financial industry put its money where its mouth was, paying salaries so much higher than those in the public sector that any research assistant the Federal Reserve System trained to work on financial issues would be enticed with offers exceeding what their boss's boss was earning. ..."
"... It is a problem that cannot be overcome without addressing fundamental questions about the role of the state, privacy, and how US firms can compete globally against China, where the government is using domestic tech companies to collect data on its citizens at an exponential pace. And yet many would prefer to avoid them. ..."
"... At this point, ideas for regulating Big Tech are just sketches, and of course more serious analysis is warranted. An open, informed discussion that is not squelched by lobbying dollars is a national imperative. ..."
The debate about how to regulate
the tech sector is eerily reminiscent of the debate over financial regulation in the early 2000s. Fortunately, one US politician
has mustered the courage to call for a total rethink of America's exceptionally permissive merger and acquisition policy over the
past four decades.
CAMBRIDGE – Displaying a degree of courage and clarity that is difficult to overstate, US senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth
Warren has taken on Big Tech, including Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple. Warren's proposals amount to a
total rethink of the
United States' exceptionally permissive merger and acquisition policy over the past four decades. Indeed, Big Tech is only the poster
child for a significant increase
in monopoly and oligopoly power across a broad swath of the American economy. Although the best approach is still far from clear,
I
could not agree more that something needs to done, especially when it comes to Big Tech's ability to buy out potential competitors
and use their platform dominance to move into other lines of business.
Warren is courageous because Big Tech is big money for most leading Democratic candidates, particularly progressives, for whom
California is a veritable campaign-financing ATM. And although one can certainly object, Warren is not alone in thinking that the
tech giants have gained excessive market dominance; in fact, it is one of the few issues in Washington on which there is some semblance
of agreement . Other
candidates, most notably Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, have also taken
principled stands
Although the causal relationships are difficult to untangle, there are solid grounds for believing that the rise in monopoly power
has
played a role in exacerbating income inequality, weakening workers' bargaining power, and slowing the rate of innovation. And,
perhaps outside of China, it is a global problem, because US tech monopolies have often achieved market dominance before local regulators
and politicians know what has happened. The European Union, in particular, has been trying to steer its own course on
technology regulation . Recently,
the United Kingdom commissioned an expert group, chaired by former President Barack Obama's chief economist (and now my colleague)
Jason Furman , that produced a
very useful report on approaches to the tech sector.
The debate about how to regulate the sector is eerily reminiscent of the debate over financial regulation in the early 2000s.
Proponents of a light regulatory touch argued that finance was too complicated for regulators to keep up with innovation, and that
derivatives trading allows banks to make wholesale changes to their risk profile in the blink of an eye. And the financial industry
put its money where its mouth was, paying salaries so much higher than those in the public sector that any research assistant the
Federal Reserve System trained to work on financial issues would be enticed with offers exceeding what their boss's boss was earning.
There will be similar problems staffing tech regulatory offices and antitrust legal divisions if the push for tighter regulation
gains traction. To succeed, political leaders need to be focused and determined, and not easily bought. One only has to recall the
2008 financial crisis and its painful aftermath to comprehend what can happen when a sector becomes too politically influential.
And the US and world economy are, if anything, even more vulnerable to Big Tech than to the financial sector, owing both to cyber
aggression and vulnerabilities in social media that can pervert political debate.
Another parallel with the financial sector is the outsize role of US regulators. As with US foreign policy, when they sneeze,
the entire world can catch a cold. The 2008 financial crisis was sparked by vulnerabilities in the US and the United Kingdom, but
quickly went global. A US-based cyber crisis could easily do the same. This creates an "externality," or global commons problem,
because US regulators allow risks to build up in the system without adequately considering international implications.
It is a problem that cannot be overcome without addressing fundamental questions about the role of the state, privacy, and how
US firms can compete globally against China, where the government is using domestic tech companies to collect data on its citizens
at an exponential pace. And yet many would prefer to avoid them.
That's why there has been
fierce pushback against Warren for daring to suggest that even if many services seem to be provided for free, there might still
be something wrong. There was the same kind of pushback from the financial sector fifteen years ago, and from the railroads back
in the late 1800s. Writing in the March 1881 issue of The Atlantic , the progressive activist Henry Demarest Lloyd
warned that,
"Our treatment of 'the railroad problem' will show the quality and caliber of our political sense. It will go far in foreshadowing
the future lines of our social and political growth. It may indicate whether the American democracy, like all the democratic experiments
which have preceded it, is to become extinct because the people had not wit enough or virtue enough to make the common good supreme."
Lloyd's words still ring true today. At this point, ideas for regulating Big Tech are just sketches, and of course more serious
analysis is warranted. An open, informed discussion that is not squelched by lobbying dollars is a national imperative.
The debate
that Warren has joined is not about whether to establish socialism. It is about making capitalist competition fairer and, ultimately,
stronger.
Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University
and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund
from 2001 to 2003. The co-author of This Time is Different:
Eight Centuries of Financial Folly , his new book, The Curse of Cash , was released in August 2016.
MARC STEINER Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Mark Steiner. Great to have you all with
us. Senator Elizabeth Warren is attempting to make waves with her bold pronouncements during
her bid for this presidency. She's introduced two bills into the Senate. The first is called
the Corporate Executive Accountability Act, which will hold corporate executives of
million-dollar corporations criminally liable for negligence with potential prison time. The
other is called The Too Big to Jail Act, creating a corporate crime strike force. In the wake
of the 2008 meltdown, where there were no criminal prosecutions of note despite ruining
millions of lives in our country, it's led to a roiling discontent in America. Why has it been
so difficult to prosecute bankers and corporate leaders and executives in our country? Why has
the government been so reluctant to do so? And in the unlikely circumstance that Warren's bills
will get passed in the Senate, what would be the result and complications if they did? Joining
us once again to sort through all of this is a man who knows a thing or two about white-collar
crime. Bill Black -- Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of
Missouri-Kansas City, white- collar criminologist, former financial regulator, the author of
the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One, and a regular contributor here at The Real
News. Bill, welcome back. Good to have you with us. Thank you. So this has obviously been
building since 2008. People have been wanting some answer, but I think most folks don't know
really what that means. I've been reading a lot of pieces that are pro and con about what
Elizabeth Warren is suggesting. Let's go through what she's suggesting and get your initial
read and analysis of that.
BILL BLACK Okay. So as you said, there are two different acts. She just rolled one of them
out a couple of days ago and they fit together. One is addressed more directly to the financial
crisis and the other one is prompted by the financial crisis, but broader than it. That second
one would propose to change the requirement to get a guilty verdict to a demonstration of
negligence on the part of officers when they commit the really serious crimes. The other act
would basically provide more resources to go after elite, white-collar criminals.
MARC STEINER In the New York Times, there was a quote from Lanny Breuer who is a Justice
Department, Criminal Division official former head. He said on Frontline, "when we can't prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a criminal intent, then we have a constitutional duty
not to bring those cases." And Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate committee that some
banks would become "too big," that prosecuting them would have negatively affected the economy.
In other words, they've become too big to jail. And then, in Britain there it was said that if
you start prosecuting these people, then it threatens the very foundations of the free
enterprise system. So Bill, what's the problem here?
BILL BLACK So the problem is the people at the top in both the United States and the United
Kingdom. For example, Prime Minister Blair complained at a time when the Financial Supervisory
Authority -- which is referred to over there as the Fundamentally Supine Authority [laughter]
-- was absolutely not regulating anything, that it was outrageous overregulation, and how dare
they treat bankers as potential criminals. We have the combination of Breuer and Holder where
the only issue is, which of them was more moronic on this subject, and it was a dead tie.
MARC STEINER So tell me why do you use the word "moronic?"
BILL BLACK Because it's a family show.
MARC STEINER [laughter]
BILL BLACK So seriously, to go through these things, let's recall that in much more
difficult cases in the savings and loan debacle, we oriented the prosecutions entirely towards
the most elite defendants. And here's the first thing: There is never a problem to the
financial system from prosecuting individual criminals. It is not good for a financial system
to be run by criminals. You strengthen the financial system when you convict and remove
criminals from running the largest bank. [laugher]
MARC STEINER Let me just ask you a question about that. But is the nature of the competition
among banks and the competition to make as much money as humanly possible -- like the scandal
that happened in 2008 that tanked our economy for a while and put millions of people into huge
financial jeopardy -- that seems to me to be the daily workings of those institutions. And the
issue
BILL BLACK No, no.
MARC STEINER Go ahead. Tell me why you say no.
BILL BLACK Banks don't do anything.
MARC STEINER The people in them do, though.
BILL BLACK The bankers do things and bankers shape the institutions, so institutions matter
enormously. And that's the first big thing in a critique of Senator Warren. If anybody is close
to Senator Warren, please send her this link. [laughter] We can really help. She's got exactly
the right ideas, but she isn't an expert in criminology. She wasn't part of the efforts to
prosecute folks successfully that I'm about to describe. We can really, really help her be
effective and we're willing to help any candidate be effective on these issues. Two enormous
institutional changes have made the world vastly more criminogenic. Those changes are: we got
rid of true partnerships where you had joint and several liability. Therefore, it really paid
to make sure that you didn't make a partner, someone who was super sleazy, because then they
could sue you -- not them, not the sleazy partner, but you and it was absolutely no defense
that you had nothing to do with it. Your entire net worth could be taken. That's what a true
partnership was. We got rid of true partnerships throughout the financial world. The second
thing is modern executive compensation. Modern executive compensation not only creates the
incentives to defraud, because you can be made wealthy. It provides the means to defraud. This
allows you to convert corporate assets to your own personal wealth in a way that has very
little risk of prosecution and it allowed you to suborn the controls but also [allowed] the
lower officers and employees to actually commit the fraudulent acts, which are usually
accounting for you in a way that you'd have plausible deniability. We can change both and we
must change both of those incredibly perverse incentives if we want to deal with fraud
successfully. So that's the missing part of her plan and I think she would agree with
everything I've said. Now we have a detailed plan -- we being the bank whistleblowers united --
that we put out two years ago in the election, two and a half years ago. We'll put this on the
website, or at least the links to it for folks who want to know the kind of institutional steps
you need to start changing this. But even with what I've said about this much more criminogenic
environment, it remains true that we could have prosecuted successfully elite officers and
every one of the major participants that committed these frauds. Indeed in many ways it would
have been easier than during the savings and loan debacle, because unlike the savings and loan
debacle, we have superb whistleblowers -- literally hundreds of whistleblowers who can say
explicitly that these frauds occurred. And then we do it the old-fashioned way. That would give
us the ability to prosecute midlevel officials and we can take it up the food chain by flipping
them so that they give us information on the more senior folks. In some cases, our
whistleblowers were right there in the C-suite and that would have included for example, a dead
to rights prosecution against Robert Rubin. That's as senior as you can get at city, a dead to
right prosecution of Mozilo at Countrywide. And we have other institutions like Wells Fargo
where the following happened, so it's easy to look at liar's loans. Liar's loans again had a
fraud incidence of 90 percent -- nine-zero. So the only entities doing liar's loans as a
significant product are fraudulent. Similarly, if they're doing appraisal fraud, extorting
appraisers to inflate appraisals, that only occurs at fraudulent shops. So Wells actually
checked and it's easy to check and that's an important point. The fact that the Department of
Justice never did this, and the banking agencies never did this, is a demonstration that they
didn't want to actually conduct investigations. Here's how you check: so in a liar's loan, you
don't verify the borrower's income, but the borrower signs at the same time a permission that
says you can check this against my I.R.S. forms. And here's a hint: none of us deliberately
inflate our income on our income tax returns because we'd have to pay more taxes. [laughter] So
in the case of both Countrywide and Wells Fargo, we know that senior management who was given
the results said, these kinds of loans, liar's loans, are majority frauds. And we know that
senior management in both cases said, you know what we should do? Many, many more of those.
That is a great criminal case. At J.P. Morgan, we have a great criminal case.
MARC STEINER Let me just interrupt you for a second, Bill. I want people to understand this
because everything you're reading in the press right now, almost every article, whether they
seem to like what Elizabeth Warren is suggesting, or oppose it, have questions about it. Almost
everybody to a person I've read has said, it's almost impossible to prosecute these cases. We
don't have a law to do it, that prosecuting somebody for, as she's suggesting, for negligence
would not get the job done even if her bill ever passed. And so, talk a bit about that though.
I'm very curious since clearly, you're going against the common wisdom that most people would
have and anything they read -- whether it's The New York Times or anywhere else -- that we
don't have the laws to make prosecutions work, which is one of the reasons why we're not
prosecuting people.
BILL BLACK Okay so everybody you've read, has never been involved in these successful
prosecutions.
MARC STEINER No, but if they're journalists and they've studied it, they should know what
they're talking about.
BILL BLACK Seriously? [laughter]
MARC STEINER You would think, right? Well I would hope so. Anyway, but go ahead.
[laughter].
BILL BLACK No, I would not think so. I don't think that at all because otherwise, they would
have talked to people like us who actually did it. So let's go back. Under the same laws in the
savings and loan debacle, we were able to hyper-prioritized prosecutions against the most elite
folks. So we're going after folks in the C-Suite -- the C.E.O.s, the chief operating officers,
the boards of directors, and such. We got over a thousand convictions in these cases, just the
ones designated as major. We did over 600 prosecutions of the most elite of the elite, against
the best criminal defense lawyers in the world with the same laws, and we got over a ninety
percent conviction rate. So can it be done? Of course it can be done. We've shown that it can
be done. Maybe our cases were just simple because it was just savings and loans and these are
big banks. Actually, the prosecutions in many of these cases were easier. The loans in the
savings and loan debacle, were actually much more complicated than home loans. They were
commercial construction loans, $80-90 million dollars at-a-pop often. That's far more complex
to explain to a jury, than a home loan and something as easy as a liar's loan and extorting an
appraiser. In addition, there are massively more whistleblowers. I cannot remember the name of
a significant whistleblower in the savings and loan debacle that was critical to prosecutions.
I'm sure there were a couple, but again we have literally hundreds of whistleblowers who came
forward in this crisis. This crisis occurred because first the Bush administration and then the
Obama administration, were unwilling to investigate, unwilling to prosecute. And here's again
the key. There are about two F.B.I. white-collar specialists per industry in the United States
-- not per firm, per industry. So that means they don't have expertise in individual industries
and they don't walk a beat, or they'd never find it. They only come when there's a criminal
referral. Our agency, our much tinier agency back in the savings and loan debacle, made over
thirty thousand criminal referrals. All of the federal banking regulatory agencies, much bigger
in the great financial crisis, made fewer than a dozen criminal referrals, 30,000 to under a
dozen. That means that the banking regulatory agencies basically ceased functioning in terms of
criminal referrals. And why? That's the third big change and the third big change is
ideological. What you saw is, both under the Republicans and under Bill Clinton -- the
Democratic Party, the due Democrats, the Wall Street wing of the party -- they were simply
unwilling to even think of bankers as criminals. I got out of the regulatory ranks when under
Bill Clinton we were ordered, and I witnessed personally, to refer to the industry as our
customers. Not the American people as our customers, the industry as our customers. Well do you
make criminal referrals on your customers?
MARC STEINER So we're here talking to Bill Black and we've been covering some of the history
of this. What we are going to do is we're going to take a break here and come back with another
segment shortly and really probe into what Elizabeth Warren has said she wants to make into
law. Would that make a difference? Does it fall short and it could lead to more prosecutions?
We're going to come back to that. So you want to hit the next segment with Bill Black and Marc
Steiner. Bill, thank you once again for being with The Real News. It's always a pleasure to
have you with us.
BILL BLACK Thank you.
MARC STEINER And I'm Mark Steiner here for The Real News Network. Take care.
"... To be perfectly honest with you PL, when Trump was elected I thought to myself, WoW! for the first time since JFK or LBJ ..."
"... I thought he was going to be the first non-neoconservative president, possibly a crude 2016 resurgence of paleoconservatism, hence his intense focus on immigration, culture wars and identity politics mixed with authentic economic nationalism and non-interventionism (hence his lively attacks on the very ideology of neoconservatism) but obviously his admin is significantly more hawkish than the old Vulcans(!) back in the Bush days. ..."
"... One could even argue that from 2006 to 2008, Bush somewhat learned the ropes and distanced itself from the crazy Vulcans and more toward Realism, hence Condi Rice's handling of the 33-day war between Israel and Lebanon, as well dismissing the like of Perle, Wolfowitz, and others later on. But with Trump, given his knack for indifference to what is right and wrong and his method of shilling for whoever is willing to chip in the most, any progression toward common sense inside Donald Trump is highly unlikely to happen. ..."
To be perfectly honest with you PL, when Trump was elected I thought to myself, WoW! for
the first time since JFK or LBJ (possibly as far back as Truman) someone "new" has become
president of the U.S. who does not come from the Washington elite circle/Borg/Blob. I
remember watching the debates and the way he politically neutralized the likes of Bush,
Rubio, and Ted Cruz and on top of that, Hilary Clinton.
I thought he was going to be the first non-neoconservative president, possibly a crude
2016 resurgence of paleoconservatism, hence his intense focus on immigration, culture wars
and identity politics mixed with authentic economic nationalism and non-interventionism
(hence his lively attacks on the very ideology of neoconservatism) but obviously his admin is
significantly more hawkish than the old Vulcans(!) back in the Bush days.
One could even argue that from 2006 to 2008, Bush somewhat learned the ropes and
distanced itself from the crazy Vulcans and more toward Realism, hence Condi Rice's handling
of the 33-day war between Israel and Lebanon, as well dismissing the like of Perle,
Wolfowitz, and others later on. But with Trump, given his knack for indifference to what is
right and wrong and his method of shilling for whoever is willing to chip in the most, any
progression toward common sense inside Donald Trump is highly unlikely to happen.
In terms of the admin's policy in the ME, I think the immediate focus of the U.S-Israel
policy in the region is "Lebanon" and Trump's ME policies among other things is deeply
attached to Lebanon and that specific patch of land. Even Hassan Nasrallah has sounded the
alarm and in his recent TV speech during which he warned the Lebanese people of a possible
incoming war in the Summer with Israel that would be devastating to the people in the
region.
Regarding Russia, in the past 1+ years it has become clear that Russia is going to play a
stronger role in the ME, possibly even replacing the U.S. there, especially given the warm
relations between Putin and Netanyahu where the former has not raised any objection against
the latter's constant illegal bombings in Syria and Iraq among other things.
The false impression was that Putin is going to stand up to Netanyahu and form some sort
of diplomatic and even military resistance to its aggression in the ME, but that is clearly
not the case. Andrew Korybko of Eurasiafuture has written extensively on this interesting and
unfolding new dynamic between the two. All in all I hope a shred of common sense prevails
inside the head of these Hard Neocons and Trump himself and stop its belligerence against
Iran and other ME countries. Nobody wants war and nobody needs war
P.S. I am an avid reader of your valuable analyses and I would like to offer my deepest
thanks to you for this great website.
Befitting of his status as a former VP and the leader in most national polls, Biden managed
to beat out Bernie Sander's day-one haul of $5.9 million, despite the still-simmering
controversy over 'gropegate' and the backlash over his treatment of Anita Hill, a young black
female lawyer who accused Supreme Court nominee (now Justice) Clarence Thomas of sexual
harassment. Hill rejected a personal apology from Biden earlier this week, even as Biden
clarified during an interview on ABC's "the View" that he wasn't apologizing for his personal
behavior, but rather for the treatment she was subjected to during a hearing of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, which he led at the time.
Biden's day-one haul also beat out the $6.1 million raised by Texas Congressman Beto
O'Rourke during his first day, though recent polls show that enthusiasm for O'Rourke among
Democrats has waned as South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg has benefited from a media blitz of
fawning coverage.
After all the manipulated outrage, the electoral choices will most likely still be between
about whom it can essentially be said "meet the old boss, same as the old boss." Underneath
the thin layers of standard rhetorical ******** the same strings connect the puppets to the
puppet masters.
In case anyone is wondering what kind of thug Kolomoisky (Hunter biden's sponsor at
burisma), here is a run down of the murder of Russians in Odessa on 2 May 2014 and
kolomosky's close involvement.
What I read was "Biden is a typical American politician." All the career politicians
depend on big checks from the rich and corporate elites who greatly appreciate their services
rendered. America is pay to play. It has been for a long time.
Looks like she is incompetent beyond her narrow specialty and financial issues. This way she
deprive herself of votes that otherwise belong to her. And what she is trying to achieve ?
President Pence? Come on !
The most aggressive response to the full Mueller report has, naturally, come from the most
liberal wings of the Democratic Party. Last month, I sketched out six chief
Democratic blocs (from most liberal to most moderate): the Super Progressives, the Very
Progressives, the Progressive New Guard, the Progressive Old Guard, the Moderates and
Conservative Democrats. Many of the party's Super Progressives , including U.S. Reps.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York,
Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and
Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, are already talking about impeachment, as is a key voice in the
party's Very Progressive bloc, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
"... foreign policy scarcely moves the needle in the US electorate at large so that won't necessarily help Trump nor hinder Bernie except on the outer fringes. Americans are tired of endless wars so the Demotards should generally be favoured on this issue whether or not warranted so long as they play their cards right. ..."
"... US Presidential elections definitely turn on the economy. A slowdown or recession before 11/2020 and Trump is toast. Also, the conversation has clearly moved left on economic inequality and healthcare. Bernie owns these issues and to the extent he can make his way through the primaries he will stand a great chance of unseating Trump. ..."
"... Warren does too but as you stated she is not telegenic nor peronable. Her .01% Native American schtick really hurt her credibility. That was a dumb move. ..."
"... Gabbard is certainly telegenic and hasn't been blackballed as much as she is simply not well-known. She's in the field at the moment. Her chances appear more real farther down the road so running now could be seen as a first step in the eventual process. I doubt Bernie will choose her as VP but who knows? ..."
Russiagate will scarcely matter to most voters by election time 2020. Trump has already
received whatever positives he will receive courtesy of Barr's whitewashing. It is clear
among
a majourity of Americans that Trump obstructed justice and the drip drip of continued
information, hearings, etc will not improve his standing. May not hurt him but definitely
will not help him gain voters at the margins.
Likewise, foreign policy scarcely moves the needle in the US electorate at large so that
won't necessarily help Trump nor hinder Bernie except on the outer fringes. Americans are
tired of endless wars so the Demotards should generally be favoured on this issue whether or
not warranted so long as they play their cards right.
Trump may gain an advantage among more conservative-tinged independent voters if he
continues to work in concert with Russia and Israel on Middle East issues in the sense that
many may see these alliances as promoting strength and peace (whether warranted or not). The
coming deal with China on trade will benefit Trump too...as long as the economy keeps humming
along.
US Presidential elections definitely turn on the economy. A slowdown or recession before
11/2020 and Trump is toast. Also, the conversation has clearly moved left on economic
inequality and healthcare. Bernie owns these issues and to the extent he can make his way
through the primaries he will stand a great chance of unseating Trump.
Warren does too but as you stated she is not telegenic nor peronable. Her .01% Native
American schtick really hurt her credibility. That was a dumb move. Are some of her problems
related to gender bias? Without a doubt. However, as I have long said, the first American
female president will not come from the baby boom. The first American female president will
more likely be a millenial.
Gabbard is certainly telegenic and hasn't been blackballed as
much as she is simply not well-known. She's in the field at the moment. Her chances appear
more real farther down the road so running now could be seen as a first step in the eventual
process. I doubt Bernie will choose her as VP but who knows?
That's a blunder, but it does not matter as much as her blunder with "reparations"
Warren is not telegenic nor personable. Her .01% Native
American schtick really hurt her credibility.
Notable quotes:
"... On facebook in May 2017, "We know that the Russians hacked into American systems to try to influence our election." ..."
"... Warren is crap. There are only two genuine leading candidates, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders that offer some serious prospect of change and either could get there. ..."
re Warren, she is also a "Russia! Russia! Russia!" type.
On facebook in May 2017, "We know that the Russians hacked into American systems to try to
influence our election."
The other day on CNN she said, re the Mueller report, "Three things just totally jump off
the page. The first is that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election in order
to help Donald Trump. The evidence is just there. Read it, footnote after footnote, page
after page documentation. ..."
Not saying that most other candidates aren't the same.
Thank you spudski #26, Warren is crap. There are only two genuine leading candidates, Tulsi
Gabbard and Bernie Sanders that offer some serious prospect of change and either could get
there. Any change away from the Belligerant faction would be welcome. But it needs a Congress
and a Senate to combine with the change agenda to make a concrete, durable new direction.
That is a daunting task but achievable in these times.
It will be interesting to watch Creepy Joe Biden eat shit but he is just the bait, I look
forward to the switch being revealed. Nothing will surprise me.
The new narrative is that of an embattled president trying against the odds to do the
right thing
the new narrative is they got him, Watergate 2.0
*if* that is correct the changes to expect are
– media going easier on him
– corporate dems going easier on him (while smirking a lot)
– more war
– more corporate donors as they might prefer a controlled Trump to a Sanders
– they might throw him a symbolic bone on immigration to help him win in 2020
– more corporate donors as they might prefer a controlled Trump to a Sanders
– they might throw him a symbolic bone on immigration to help him win in 2020
The Deep State will never allow an uncontrolled candidate to win.
I see that there are mainly two opposing explanations:
a) Donald Trump really wanted to break with the neocons, but he is under such enormous
pressure that he had to give in to them (at least temporarily, maybe, according to that
interpretation, there is still hope)
b) Donald Trump wanted to behave this way from the start, and if there is a conspiracy, he
is a part of it. He just said some things about not involving the US in conflicts that are
not in its interest because that was popular in order to get elected, but he never had any
intentions of going through with it.
I think there are problems with both explanations.
The main problem with a):
Even if Trump had to make concessions because he was under such enormous pressure, it is
hardly plausible that there really was a need to surround himself with neocons to such a
degree and go much further with neoconservative policies in some areas than many mainstream
Republicans would probably have gone.
The main problem with b):
If Trump really belongs to the inner circle, it does not seem very plausible that
intelligence services and establishment politicians would go to such lengths constructing a
conspiracy theory (setting up meetings of Papadopoulos with Mifsud and Downer, the Steele
dossier, campaign surveillance), which is not only a lot of effort, but also lays bare some
elements of the "deep state" they would normally prefer to keep hidden.
How one might attempt to save a):
While the neocons are generally very influential in the US, they normally operate in the
background. They don't have full control over lawmakers. However, some members of Congress
are very close to neocons, and many of them (in both parties) were among the strictest
anti-Trumpers. The most concrete danger of impeachment for Trump was that some Republicans
closely connected with neocons would unite with Democrats against him. Appointing lots of
neocons and increasing their influence might have been the best option of placating these
neoconservative Republican anti-Trumpers (or even to make these Republican neocons stop being
anti-Trumpers).
How one might attempt to save b):
While the whole Russiagate conspiracy theory is somewhat risky for the (overt and deep)
establishment, it is also a great distraction. Furthermore, I think Russiagate was not
primarily directed against Trump, but more against Russia and in favor of increasing military
spending from which many in the establishment profit. Generally, Democrats used to be
somewhat less hawkish than Republicans, and since they already hate Trump fervently (but
mostly didn't care much about Russia), Russiagate was a great opportunity for making
Democrats even more ardent supporters of the new cold war, the intelligence services, and the
security state. One could hardly invent such an efficient means for making Democrats hate
Russia and support the surveillance state except by associating their boogeyman with Russia.
Many Republicans would go along with the new cold war, anyway, winning over Democrats for the
CIA, anti-Russian hatred and military spending was particularly valuable.
So, I think both a) and b) are probably partially true.
I don't think Trump was really a part of an inner circle. As someone from the outside,
some of the bipartisan neoconservative dogmas were probably alien to him. There are some
leaks (e.g. in the book by Bob Woodward) that show that Trump questioned the large number of
expensive military bases around the world. He probably looked at it from a business
perspective, and it seems hard to justify such enormous expenses. Furthermore, he had some
ideas about the rivalry with China, and the idea of alienating and antagonizing Russia,
China, and some medium-sized countries (and to some degree even Western Europe, though it
mostly still follows the US) all at once, which pushes them into closer collaboration
probably seems odd to someone from the outside who has not been surrounded by people from
neoconservative think tanks for most of his life. On the other hand, I don't think there were
any deep convictions behind the things Trump said in his campaign. He just said things that
a) seemed to be popular and b) he probably mostly agreed with himself, but when it became
clear to him that it was more convenient for him to do something very different from what he
had said during the campaign, he hardly hesitated.
I think that for the (both overt and deep) establishment someone "naïve" from the
outside was seen as a threat. On the other hand, they probably also understood that Trump
hardly has strong convictions and therefore would give in relatively easily under pressure.
So, the Russiagate conspiracy theory was probably a good idea from the perspective of the
(overt and deep) establishment for bringing Trump into line.
Then, I would also distinguish some things. Trump probably was very pro-Israeli from the
start. But being pro-Israeli does not have to mean being anti-Russian, after all the Israeli
and Russian government have relatively good relations, even though their interests diverge in
many areas.
"Your analysis fails to account for the fact that Trump essentially ran as a third party
candidate."
Deep state sleeper agent Trump ran as an "outsider" opposed to everything that deep state
agent Hillary Clinton stood for. His candidacy was a carefully calculated bait and switch
fraud which leveraged his non-career-politician status.
"His original agenda of sealing up the border and ending Bush-Obama regime change ran
counter to both parties."
Since his campaign strategy was to present himself as an outsider, of course he had to
pretend to take positions that ran counter to both parties. It's now painfully obvious that
his "original agenda" was nothing but disingenuous BS.
"There's been no one more hostile to Trump since Jan. 2017 than Paul Ryan and Mitch
McConnell, both Republicans."
Talk is cheap.
"As Darren Beattie said, McConnell's tactic with Trump all along has been to block him
on everything except for federal judges. And McConnell's winning."
Everything, or just the things that Trump pretends to want but doesn't really want? Funny
that nobody's been able to deter him from his war crimes and his provocations and his
apparent drive to start WW3.
"Now you'll probably say, it's all theater, they're all in on it together, wake up &
smell the coffee."
How will smelling coffee change the fact that it is all political theater?
"I don't believe it."
LOL! You think Trump is honest? Seriously?
"Trump could have run as a Jeb Bush Republican and done just fine, but he didn't."
Or so you barely assert; and so you barely assert without explaining how Jeb Bush lost the
primary to Trump.
"He took a huge risk saying the stuff he did, and won."
He won because agent Obama, agent Clinton and their deep state handlers helped him win. Or
do you think it was just a coincidence that Obama attacked the Syrian army at Deir Ezzor in
Sept. 2016, for example, which greatly escalated tensions with Russia just as the election
was coming into the home stretch?
To understand what the Deep State will and will not tolerate answer these questions.
What do both parties agree on? If they appear to disagree, look to see if anything changes
when one party has the power to cause change or does the party in power make excuses to avoid
change? Those things that the populus is against but never change or get worse are what the
Deep State wants
The Deep State wants a constant state of tension with 'hostile' countries (Iran, Russia,
Venezuela, China, Syria and others). This scares the crap out of ignorant Americans and
allows unjustifiable spending on war matériel.
The Deep State wants a steady supply of cheap foreign labor to provide wealth to the
supporters of the Deep State.
The Deep State wants our financial institutions to never fail (FED 2009) even at the
expense of 90% of Americans. The Deep State wants financial institutions to provide financial
products to the wealthy which cripples the vast majority of Americans.
The silly internecine squabbles within the Deep State are a ruse to misdirect the public
from important issues like constant war, legal and illegal immigrants taking jobs from
Americans and the increased transfer of wealth for the 90% to the supper weathy.
There will never be a wall and illegal immigration will continue to be a problem.
All the investigations into Trump, the DNC, Hillary and all the rest will never come to
justice.
The wealth transfer will not stop
Until Americans realize these diversions for what they are and put an end to it through
what ever means necessary
it was successful as Trump was likely forced to turn his back on his better angels and
subsequently hired Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams.
Oh plezzze .you sound like you've been drugged.
Trump never had any better angels as any reporter and journalist whoever interviewed or
investigated him would tell you.
And come on! .You know damn well Adelson sent Bolton and you should also know damn well
why the Orange Boy staffed his adm with Zio Jews. .no one in NY except Jews would associate
with Trump.
i think some of the conspiracy was about controlling Trump's foreign policy going forward but
i also think some of it was people like Brennan worried CIA collusion with Saudi funded
jihadist groups since 9/11 (and possibly before) might come out.
Trump biggest regret is going to be that he ever ran for President. Impeached or not
impeached all his dirty laundry is going to be exposed. Even if he secured a second term
there is no statute of limitations on what he could be prosecuted for .so the minute he steps
down from the WH he's going to have to spend everything he's got on lawyers fighting the
charges the SDNY is going to bring against him.
David Cay Johnston: What Is Trump Hiding in His Tax Returns?
The Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter explains what's likely in Trump's
returns.
By Jon WienerTwitter
David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter who previously
worked at The New York Times. He's the founder and editor of DCReport.org.
Jon Wiener: The chair of the House Ways and Means Committee formally requested six years
of Trump's personal and business tax returns earlier this month. Trump, of course, refused to
comply, and said the law is "100 percent" on his side. Does the IRS have to hand over Trump's
tax returns to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee?
David Cay Johnston: If they follow the law, they absolutely have to hand them over. Under
a 1924 anti-corruption law that was passed because of Teapot Dome, a Harding-administration
scandal, Congress can look at anybody's tax return at any time. In the 85-year history of
this law, the IRS has always responded appropriately to the request and turned over
everything that was requested.
[Hide MORE]
JW: What are the exceptions to this law?
DCJ: There aren't any. It says, "Congress shall provide upon written request." That's it.
Well, they have a written request, it's a specific request, and therefore they shall provide.
The statement by Donald Trump that the law is 100 percent on his side is just classic
Trumpian lying: Take something that is true, and state the exact opposite.
JW: Does the IRS commissioner have any alternative to handing over Trump's tax returns?
What happens if he doesn't comply?
DCJ: There's another section of the tax code which says that any federal employee dealing
with any aspects of the tax code who either does not comply, or who fails to act -- covering
both sins of omission and commission -- "shall be removed from office, and is subject to
prosecution and upon conviction, five years in prison and a $10,000 fine."
JW: Who enforces this law? It's not just up to Attorney General William Barr -- is that
right?
DCJ: That's correct. First of all, a US Attorney's office could enforce the action,
although that seems unlikely in this administration. But the next administration, if it
chooses, could go back, and even if the IRS commissioner has left, prosecute him for failure
to turn over the documents. Of course, Congress can hold the commissioner in contempt, and
Congress can also go to federal court to enforce its orders. It can. And has in the distant
past even tried people itself.
JW: The IRS commissioner is a man named Charles Rettig, and he's a Trump appointee. Tell
us a little about Charles Rettig.
DCJ: At DCReport we call him "Donald Trump's man at the IRS." Almost every IRS
commissioner has been a tax lawyer, but Charles Rettig is not like most of those other tax
lawyers. He isn't in the business of tax planning. He's in the business of representing tax
cheats who get caught, and his specialty is keeping them from being indicted. As we put it,
"He's one of the foxes who is not just in charge of the hen house. He's in a position to
redesign the hen house."
JW: Trump's personal lawyer last week urged the Treasury Department not to hand over
Trump's tax returns. He said that to comply with their request would turn the IRS into a
political weapon of the radical Democrats. Is that a good legal argument?
DCJ: No. It may be a good political argument with Trump's base, but as a legal matter, if
my students at Syracuse Law were to bring that up, I would have to work hard not to laugh at
them -- because it's a ridiculous argument. There is no limit in Section 6103 that says you
can only ask for a tax return if you're a Republican, or if you hew to certain political
views. It simply says, "Upon written request, the return shall be provided." It could not be
more clear.
JW: The boss of the IRS commissioner is the treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin. He said
sort of the opposite of what Trump's personal lawyer said. He said, "Our intent is to follow
the law." How do you explain the difference between the legal positions of Trump's personal
lawyer and Trump's treasury secretary?
DCJ: This is exactly what got me onto this story. I noticed that Trump, his lawyers, and
the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, were making these wild, reckless,
lawless statements. But Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and Rettig, the IRS commissioner,
both made nuanced statements, and carefully avoided refusing to comply, and instead said,
"We're trying to understand how to comply with law. It is our intent to comply with the law,
but we need more time to learn what the law says." It should take you literally about 10
seconds to learn what the law says. That's when I thought, "What's going on here?" It's what
got me on to the section of the tax code that says, in effect, that any federal employee who
interferes, obstructs, or fails to act, is subject to removal, prosecution, and fine. I think
what Mnuchin is trying to do here is thread a needle. He wants to continue to show his
loyalty to Trump. Not to our Constitution, as his oath of office requires, but to Trump. He's
trying to evade the law that says there must be compliance with the request, without going to
jail.
JW: The New York Times news story on this reported that "The fight over Mr. Trump's tax
returns is expected to turn into a protracted legal battle that will likely make its way to
the Supreme Court." Do you think that's right, and does the Republican majority on the court
have a way to rule in Trump's favor?
DCJ: It may lead to a protracted fight. It's also possible that this will get fast-tracked
and get right to our Supreme Court. As someone who reads Supreme Court decisions, I don't
particularly care for the jurisprudence of John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the United
States, but nothing in his opinions suggests that he would sell the soul and the integrity of
the court to favor Donald Trump. Every indication is that he would uphold the law. I would
not be surprised if you got a 7-2 or 9-0 decision from the Supreme Court that the IRS has to
turn over the documents.
JW: The really interesting question is, what do you think is in Trump's tax returns? Why
do you think he's trying so hard to keep them secret?
DCJ: There are at least three reasons here. Number one, Trump's tax returns will show that
he is not anywhere near as wealthy as he claimed. Remember during the campaign he kept saying
he was worth more than $10 billion. But after he became president, he signed under oath his
financial disclosure statement, and 90 percent of his wealth vanished. Even that statement,
which I've analyzed, overstates his wealth. There's never been a scintilla of verifiable
evidence that Trump is a billionaire. And I'm the guy who revealed, back in 1990 when he said
he was worth $3 billion, that he wasn't a billionaire. We eventually found that he had
negative net worth of about $295 million -- minus $295 million.
Secondly, Donald Trump is a tax cheat. He had two civil trials for income tax fraud, one
by the State of New York and the other by the City of New York. In both cases he lost. In one
of those trials, his own long-time tax attorney and accountant, Jack Mitnick, testified
against him. Mitnick was shown the filed tax return, which was a photocopy, and testified,
"That's my signature on the return, but neither I nor my firm prepared that tax return."
That's as good a badge of fraud as you're ever going to find. It indicates that Donald Trump
took the tax return that was prepared, changed it, and then with a photocopy machine put the
signature of Jack Mitnick on it. Donald Trump is also a confessed sales tax cheat. Mayor Ed
Koch of New York said he should have served 15 days in jail for his crime. Trump has a long
history of hiding records from auditors, cheating governments, using two sets of numbers. So
his tax returns are highly likely to show tax cheating.
Finally, the returns may well establish how much money he has been getting from Russians,
Saudis, people from the Emirates, and elsewhere. They may show whether he has been engaged in
money laundering for these people through real estate transactions and other actions that
make no business sense, but, when closely examined, show exactly what we see when there's
money laundering. I think the record is pretty clear that he has been doing that.
JW: A technical question: Where do you report payments from Russian oligarchs on your tax
return?
DCJ: Trump has over 500 business entities, and the tax return is the beginning point for
an audit. You then would examine the books and records that are behind it. Now, Trump has a
long history of destroying or claiming he destroyed business records to thwart auditors. This
happened particularly with the City of New York when he tried to cheat the city out of about
$2.9 million. But there may actually be transactions reported right in the tax return that
would tell you where money came from–because it may list entities to which he is
obligated, or is in partnership with, or received money from, or shared profits with. The
request by Chairman Neal of the House Ways and Means Committee was very targeted. It cited
six specific Trump businesses -- out of over 500 businesses. That suggests to me that they
know what they were looking for .
JW: What do you think the political effect would be if voters learned from Trump's tax
return that he has been a tax cheat? As I recall, this was a huge issue in the final downfall
of Richard Nixon.
DCJ: That's right. This was a big scandal in 1974. Nixon was pardoned, so nothing happened
to him, but his tax lawyer went to prison. By the way, the very law that exposed Nixon as a
tax cheat is the same law that the Trump people are now trying to resist. I frankly think
that among people who are strong Trump supporters, this will have little impact. The impact
that would matter is on people on the margin. People who have been with Trump but are uneasy
with him because of all of his other behavior. And if he has committed federal tax crimes,
then he has committed New York State tax crimes, because New York State tax law hews very
closely to federal law. ".
how do you explain his hiring so many Deep State denizens Bolton, Pompeo et al.?
I would suggest, they have "great guy" Epstein dirt on Trump. Seems so obvious to me, the
entire swamp is either bought or blackmailed with this kind of dirt.
If the masses would find out about this kind of dirt, there was probably a violent purge
taking place, a lynching of the entire swamp.
Btw, you are right, Us political circus works like WWE.
It's just an opinion, but mine is that boat has already sailed. Trump has been giving the
finger to his "base" from the outset, and his ego-driven government shutdown was probably the
last straw. There are always going to be a few knuckleheads who will love him forever, and my
estimate of that group would be on the order of 25%. Unless the Democrats put up a candidate
who is even worse, the man is a goner in political terms.
This means Pompeo has to move quickly. If the fat slug picked up anything at West
Point, he understands that to mobilize the US requires the other side to shoot first. In the
case of his nominal boss, you can put that in neon lights. Trump is a gullible old man, and
Pompeo needs to be able to point to something 'drastic' so as to galvanize Trump into
action.
The CIA torture woman found faked pictures of dead ducks (!) and sick children worked.
Pompeo would find a sizable number of US military men or women in body bags extremely
useful in his desperate efforts to suck up to the pissant apartheid state and hopefully pull
the ripcord of The Second Coming.
On the other side of this, Iran needs to avoid starting the shooting, no matter what! The
Confederates attacked a US fort to start the Civil War. It was about the most stupid thing
possible for them to have done. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor - again the dumbest thing
imaginable. I'd expect Iran has been consulting with India and China about its options. China
probably has every storage tank in the country topped off, and will be immune to an "oil
shock" for a long time.
In any event, it can afford to outbid everybody else is things came to that. Just off the
top of my head, Iran mining the Strait of Hormuz, then making a public announcement about it
looks like a workable plan. The US mine-sweeping capability is beyond-belief awful - and why
that is I don't understand. Any mines there which are found and destroyed can be easily and
quickly be replaced by small boats, submarines, or aircraft dropping them.
For anyone of a social democratic (or lefter) persuasion, and/or see war as something that
should only be used as an absolute last resort (due to it invariably being a moral horror),
then the Democrats have indeed been the lesser of two evils, and Republican-lite.
Take Obama for instance. He ran a cleverly ambiguous campaign where he sounded to many as
being progessive and left, a breath of fresh air, something finally that would put a stop to
limitless capitalism and unwind the Bush era. But in fact he's a 'centrist', which really means
thoroughly neoliberal. He's prepared to file some of the sharp edges off capitalism, but he
neither promised nor offered a genuine alternative to a lightly regulated free market.
I mean, look at his most famous legacy: the health care reforms. This is a thoroughly
market-based solution that leaves the marketplace largely as it was. Nationalization was
nowhere in sight. And the policy was based on one his elecotoral opponent enacted when he was
governing Massachusetts! It is literally the case that voting in Democrats at the national
level gets you the policy of Republican presidential candidates.
Also, he's quite happy to unilaterally blow up stuff, including innocent people, in other
countries, in order to crush his enemies and to look good domestically. We have no problems in
calling this 'evil' when our enemies do anything like this.
Brian 04.21.19 at 2:43 pm (no link)
I think the real question is not whether Trump is successful or not. That question is a red
herring in American politics today. The real question is whether or not the Democratic
"leadership" can allow nomination of a candidate that the Democrat rank and file want. Bernie
Sanders should have won the nomination last time. But the superdelegate system gives a
literal handful of mandarins the ability to fake the primary process. (I say that as someone
who has significant issues with some of Sanders positions.)
Trump won because Hillary was a horrific candidate. Voters stayed home, disgusted. Trump
won because the Obama administration didn't deliver hope nor change. He delivered a
government of the corporate criminal bankers for them. Middle and working class America got
screwed. Black people got screwed worst. Trump won because the utter corruption at the heart
of the DNC was exposed for all to see in the emails. Trump win because of the Obama
administration making a trade deal top secret classified and trying to force a vote through
congress. Not seeing any point in voting, Democrats didnt.
All the evidence since shows the DNC leadership didn't learn anything. They are just as
contemptuous of voters, just as manipulative with their window dressing as ever. The
Democratic party is the party of endless war even more than the Republicans. It's a party
that stopped every effort by Trump to wind down or end war posture with Russia and North
Korea. There's now 2 parties in Netanyahu's pocket implementing Likuds insane middle east
ideas.
Put some solar energy and LGBTQ butter on it with a side of women's rights bullshit and
it's "Democrat". But the politicians are just as venal. The legislature just as wildly right
wing war mongering.
The 1960's is long over. The Democratic party hasn't seen a new idea since and has
converted to govern to the right of Nixon. Way to Nixon's right. The Democratic party is the
tool of the Uber-ization of not just America, but the whole world. Flour and break the law to
pauperize the working class, and suck money to a few in the SF Bay Area. That's policy
now.
You can see it already. Sanders is ahead. But Buttigieg is being anointed. He's the
perfect candidate. He's gay! He's out of the closet! And he's a corporate tool who can talk
smoothly without speaking a clear word. Best of all, he has ZERO foreign policy experience or
positions. So he'll be putty in the hands of the corporations that want endless war for
profits. Wall Street wants him. And the street owns the Democratic party. Will he give a
flying f*@k about the middle and working class? Will he be anything but another neo-liberal
who can be differentiated from a neo-conservative only by mild difference in racism? (Overt
vs.covert)
At least Buttigieg isn't Beto O'Rourke, the most completely empty skin in Congress.
There's that.
All the evidence I see is no. The Democrat "leadership" don't understand. I predict a
Trump win, or else a squeaker election that barely scrapes by with a win.
No matter what, the idiot Democrats won't get it. Pelosi will do her best to cast the
Republicans anti-tax anti-government (federal) government culture war in concrete with
balanced budget horse manure. The Democrats will continue to force a new cold war on Russia.
They will keep backing companies that steal from the middle and working class. (Yes, Uber and
Lyft are massive theft operations. They implemented taxi service without licenses. Those
licenses cost a lot of money to those who bought them. They put the public at risk causing
multiple deaths and assaults from unlicensed taxi drivers.)
Trump's appeal is that he at least talks a game of "f*@k you". Domestically it's all lies
on all sides. He lies to everyone. But at least he doesn't lie smoothly like the "good
Democrat" candidates do.
On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released
a wide-ranging plan to fix the U.S. college system, with proposals including making two-year
and four-year public college free and expanding the size and scope of the federal Pell Grant
program. And one particularly radical idea is sure to grab the attention of young people around
the country: wiping out student loan debt for the vast majority of American borrowers. "The
time for half-measures is over," Warren, one of many politicians and public figures hoping to
secure the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, wrote in a post published Monday on Medium.
"My broad cancellation plan is a real solution to our student debt crisis. It helps millions of
families and removes a weight that's holding back our economy." Last year, outstanding student
debt in the U.S. topped $1.5
trillion , a growing financial burden that Warren argues is "crushing millions of families
and acting as an anchor on our economy." "It's reducing home ownership rates," she wrote. "It's
leading fewer people to start businesses. It's forcing students to drop out of school before
getting a degree. It's a problem for all of us." To address the problem, Warren is suggesting
what she calls a "truly transformational" approach: wiping out $50,000 in student loan debt for
anyone with a household income below $100,000. People with student loans and a household income
between $100,000 and $250,000 would receive substantial relief as well. At that point, "the
$50,000 cancellation amount phases out by $1 for every $3 in income above $100,000," Warren
wrote.
That's a third Warren blunder after reparations blunder and Indian heritage blunder. She
might be out of the race soon...
Does not she understand that impeachment of Trump means President Pence? What is idiotic
statement. She is definitely no diplomat and as such does not belong to WH.
Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday called for lawmakers to start impeachment proceedings
against President Trump, saying he obstructed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation
into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Warren became the first of the Democratic presidential candidates to unambiguously call
for impeachment proceedings. Most senior Democrats in Congress have stopped far short of it
following the delivery of Mueller's 448-page report.
"The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside
political considerations and do their constitutional duty,'' the Massachusetts Democrat said
on Twitter. "That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the
President of the United States."
Also Friday, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for an
unredacted version of Mueller's report as Congress escalates its investigation. Trump and
other Republicans dismissed the report's findings.
The redacted version of Mueller's report details multiple efforts Trump made to curtail a
Russia probe he feared would cripple his administration. While Mueller declined to recommend
that Trump be prosecuted for obstruction of justice, he did not exonerate the president, all
but leaving the question to Congress.
The report stated, "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that
the President did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she doesn't support impeachment without bipartisan
backing because it would be too divisive for the nation She signaled she wanted the House to
continue to fulfill its constitutional oversight role.
''We believe that the first article -- Article 1, the legislative branch -- has the
responsibility of oversight of our democracy, and we will exercise that,'' she said in
Belfast on Friday.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee,
said, ''It now falls to Congress to determine the full scope of that alleged misconduct and
to decide what steps we must take going forward.'' He expects the Justice Department to
comply by May 1.
On Twitter Friday, Warren said the report "lays out facts showing that a hostile foreign
government attacked our 2016 election to help Donald Trump and Donald Trump welcomed that
help. Once elected, Donald Trump obstructed the investigation into that attack."
She said Mueller "put the next step in the hands of Congress," adding in another tweet
that "[t]o ignore a President's repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own
disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would
suggest that both the current and future Presidents would be free to abuse their power in
similar ways."
According to a Warren aide, the senator started to read the Mueller report Thursday during
a plane ride back to Boston following campaign stops in Colorado and Utah.
Warren, according to the aide, felt it was her duty to say what she thought after reading
the report but does not plan to emphasize impeachment on the campaign trail.
Mary Anne Marsh, a Boston-based Democratic strategist who is not connected to any
presidential campaign, said Warren has been the first Democratic candidate to stake out
numerous policy stances during the campaign. Her impeachment statement will force everyone
else running for president to take a position, Marsh said.
"More often than not the field is reacting to her positions," she said.
Warren's call for impeachment proceedings, Marsh said, "shows she's willing to lead."
"She's willing to make the hard calls," Marsh said.
After the Mueller report's release, Trump pronounced it ''a good day'' and tweeted ''Game
Over.'' Top Republicans in Congress saw vindication in the report as well. On Friday, Trump
was even more blunt, referring to some statements about him in the report as "total
bullshit."
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy said it was time to move on and said Democrats were
attempting to ''vilify a political opponent.'' The California lawmaker said the report failed
to deliver the ''imaginary evidence'' incriminating Trump that Democrats had sought. ...
Now, liberals are pressing the House to begin impeachment hearings, and the issue is
cropping up on the presidential campaign trail.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat who is running for president, was asked
Friday if Trump should be impeached as he made an appearance at a Stop & Shop union
picket line in Malden .
"I think that Congress needs to make that decision," he said. "I think he may well deserve
it, but my focus, since I'm not part of Congress, but I am part of 2020, is to give him a
decisive defeat at the ballot box, if he is the Republican nominee in 2020."
On Friday, Julián Castro, a former housing secretary running for the Democratic
nomination, said he thought "it would be perfectly reasonable'' for Congress to open
impeachment proceedings.
Senator Kamala Harris, a California Democrat who is running for president, told MSNBC on
Thursday that she also thinks Mueller should testify. When asked about impeachment
proceedings, she told that outlet, "I think that there's definitely a conversation to be had
on that subject, but first I want to hear from Bob Mueller."
Cory Booker, the New Jersey senator running for president, was asked about impeachment
during a campaign trip to Nevada. Specifically in regard to impeachment, he said, ''There's a
lot more investigation that should go on before Congress comes to any conclusions like
that.''
In the House, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is now signed on to an
impeachment resolution from fellow Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
But senior leaders remain cool to the idea.
Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the number two in the House Democratic leadership,
told CNN on Thursday, "Based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is
not worthwhile at this point." However, Hoyer quickly revised his comments, saying "all
options are on the table."
I think the ancestry scandal is about as important as wearing white pants after Labor
day.
You are far too partisan, you ignore the creation of the CPA and all the benefits it give
the public when Republicans at this very moment are looking to loosen the Pay Day Loan
lending rules.
I guess a 1400% interest rate is just not enough, do you support the loan sharks and rip
off banks? Yes or No.
What does Alcoholics Anonymous have to do with Elizabeth Warren?
By AA he meant Affirmative Action, not Alcoholics Anonymous. Although people with lots of
Native American DNA often have drinking problems. prudence would dictate "don't sell whiskey
and guns to Elizabeth Warren."
Look at the spin machine in action. She used the benefits of lying about her American
Indian ancestry to further her career and derive perks. We all know it. AA is a joke and
utter reverse racism in action.
No, she kept pushing it even to the point of claiming that her genetic result of 1/1024
Indian proved her claim. The lack of judgement -- both technical and political -- is simply
astounding. Then she apologized to the Cherokee for pretending to be one of them since she
doesn't meet the tribal criterion. To my knowledge she has never back off her claim beyond
that -- and never apologized to Whites for trying to get out of OUR Tribe, the one she was
born into.
I always try to look at the big picture, the whole episode was foolish but she harmed no
one and gained nothing.
Has she pushed the anti Russian crap? That would bother me as we have been the aggressor
with Russia and that is really dangerous.
As we speak nuclear armed bombers are flying daily close the the Russian borders and
Russia has to scramble jets to ward them off. One pissed off Russian fighter pilot and there
goes the world!
She is pushing for criminalizing White Nationalism -- as if We aren't persecuted enough
already. Foolishness to the nth degree. Whites have been amazing passive as their Nation has
been stolen from them. And those who make peaceful change impossible ..
Here we need to look at the candidate political history, their actions before the election. "Trump scam" like "Obama
scam" was based on the fact that they do not have political history, they were what Romans called "Tabula
rasa". A "clean state" politician into which
voters can project their wishes about domestic and foreign policy. That was a dirty. but very effective trick.
But the most important factor in Trump win was the he was competing against despicable warmonger Hillary Clinton, the
establishment candidate who wanted to kick the neoliberal globalization can down the road. So the "lesser evilism" card was
also in play consciously or unconscionably as well. So with Hillary as the opposition candidate it was a kind of
implementation of the USSR style elections on a new level. but with the same with zero choice. Effectively the US
electorate was disenfranchised when FBI has thrown Sander under the bus by exonerating Hillary. In a way FBI was the
kingmaker in 2016 elections.
And please note that the Deep State launched a color revolution against Trump to keep him in check. Only later it became
evident that he from the very beginning was a pro-Israel neoconservative, probably fully controlled by pro-Israel forces. That Trump
electorate bought MIGA instead of MAGA from the day one.
Notable quotes:
"... The question is even if we got a candidate against the War Party & the Party of Davos, would it matter? Trump, the candidate who campaigned on the wasteful expenditures in our endless wars has surrounded himself with neocons and continues to do Bibi's bidding ratcheting up tensions in Latin America, Middle East and with Russia. What's changed even with a candidate that the Swamp disliked and attempted to take down? ..."
In a recent call from Trump requesting his opinion on China, Jimmy Carter noted that China
has not spent a dime on war since 1979, whereas we've spent trillions & continue to spend
even more.
China invested trillions in their infrastructure while ours crumbles. They've invested in
building the world's manufacturing capacity while we dismantled ours. We spend twice per
capita on healthcare compared to any other western country, yet chronic diseases like
diabetes keeps growing. We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined yet
how superior is our weaponry compared to the Russians who spend one-tenth of what we spend?
We've financialized our economy and socialized speculative losses of Wall St mavens but when
some politicians talk about spending on the commons then socialism is labeled bad.
The question is even if we got a candidate against the War Party & the Party of Davos,
would it matter? Trump, the candidate who campaigned on the wasteful expenditures in our
endless wars has surrounded himself with neocons and continues to do Bibi's bidding
ratcheting up tensions in Latin America, Middle East and with Russia. What's changed even
with a candidate that the Swamp disliked and attempted to take down?
STEPHEN COHEN: But the point here is that Russia has been torn between East and the West forever. Its best policy, in its
own best interest, is to straddle East and West, not to be of the East or the West, but it's impossible in this world today. And
U.S.-led Western policy since the end of the Soviet Union, and particularly since Putin came to power in 2000, has persuaded the
Russian ruling elite that Russia can not count any longer, economically, politically, militarily, on being part of the West. It has
to go elsewhere. So all this talk about wanting to win Russia to an American position that's anti-Iranian and anti-Chinese is conceived
in disaster and will end in disaster. They should think of some other foreign policy.
...Haven't these people learned anything from the implosion of their pathetic Russiagate hysteria? The Russophobes won't be
happy until we're at war with a nuclear power and the nukes are about to land.
Here are things Trump has actually done, as opposed to red-limned fantasies drawn from the fever-dreams of Putin haters:
Unilaterally abandoned 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty
Expelled 60 diplomats and closed 3 Russian diplomatic annexes
Bombed Syria, a Russian ally, with Russian troops in country
Sold arms to Ukraine, which is actively at war with Russia
Threatened Germany to cancel a new Russian pipeline through the Baltic (effort failed)
Even more sanctions against Russia and Russian nationals
Stationed missile defense systems on the Russian border in violation of arms treaties
Massive military exercises in Europe on the Russian border
Stationed troops in Poland
Negotiating with Poland to build a permanent US military base in Poland
Yet another delusional remark at odds with reality. Haven't these people learned anything from the implosion of their pathetic
Russiagate hysteria? The Russophobes won't be happy until we're at war with a nuclear power and the nukes are about to land.
Here are things Trump has actually done, as opposed to red-limned fantasies drawn from the fever-dreams of Putin haters:
I don't know about others on SST but while he may not have been a good DIA man or the best
NSA, Gen. Flynn was thrown under the bus by Trump and Pence and railroaded by Mueller.
Shameful!
Trump previously also voiced doubts about official narrative of 9/11. Now he emerged as an avid supporter of the official
narrative. Nice metamorphose.
No matter where you personally stand on 9/11 events Trump is double dealer.
Notable quotes:
"... Today, some of their names – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush – are prominently engraved on airports, federal offices, and library halls around the country. Others became the subject of rowdy bestsellers such as "Charlie Wilson's War," or saw their exploits dramatized in Cold War kitsch productions like "Rambo III." And then there were those who waged America's dirty wars from the shadows, and whose names will scarcely ever be known. ..."
"... Today, as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – the lone foreign policy dissenter within the Democratic presidential field – pointed out , they are doing it all over again through their protection of the world's largest Al Qaeda franchise in Syria's Idlib province, which came into being thanks in large part to U.S. intervention in the country. ..."
"... These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign Islamist fighters. ..."
"... These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the aisle in Congress. ..."
"... "Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant." ..."
A s Donald Trump sharpens his re-election messaging, he has sought to make a foil out of
freshman Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, homing in on her identity as a black Muslim immigrant and
her brazen defiance of what was once a bipartisan pro-Israel consensus. Trump's most recent
attack was the most inflammatory to date, implying through a characteristically dishonest
Twitter video that Omar had played some role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Trump was referencing comments Omar made this month during a banquet of the Los Angeles
chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR): "CAIR was founded after 9/11,
because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose
access to our civil liberties," Omar said during a 20-minute-long denunciation of public
bullying and violent attacks against Muslims living in the West. (CAIR was founded in 1994,
contrary to Omar's claim).
As innocuous as Omar's comments might have seemed, they were easily spun by a right-wing
bigot-sphere seeking to portray her as not merely insensitive to the deep wound Americans
suffered on 9/11, but as a possible terror-sympathizer. As Bernard Kerik, the disgraced former
NYPD commissioner and convicted felon , said of Omar
on Fox News, "she's infatuated with Al Qaeda, with Hamas, with Hezbollah."
For Trump, the manufactured outrage offered yet another opportunity to advance his rebranded
version of the Southern Strategy, painting Omar as the face of a Democratic Party overrun by
socialists, Muslims, MS13 and trans radicals – as a clear and present danger to the
reactionary white exurbanites commonly referred to in mainstream media as "swing voters."
Amid an onslaught of menacing condemnations and online death threats triggered by Trump's
tweet, prominent Democrats mobilized to defend Omar. However, many were too timid to mention
her by name, apparently fearing that doing so would play into Trump's cynical strategy. Some
refused to defend her at all. And among those willing to speak up, most felt compelled to lead
their defense by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves
anti-Muslim narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion
of it must be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi.
In Washington, 9/11 is understood as an act of inexplicable evil that materialized out of a
clear blue sky. "They hate us because we're free," Americans are still told in a semi-official
drone, conveniently excising the attacks that took place on 9/11 from their historical context.
This ruthlessly enforced interpretation has had the effect of displacing blame from those who
bear direct or indirect responsibility for the attacks onto much more convenient scapegoats
like the Islamic faith and its diverse mass of adherents.
In my new book, " The Management of
Savagery ," I explain which people did what things to lay the groundwork for the worst
terror attack on U.S. soil. Not all of those people were Muslim, and few have faced the kind of
scrutiny Omar has for her seemingly benign comment about 9/11. As I illustrate, many of them
maintained lustrous reputations well after the ash was cleared from Ground Zero. Today, some of
their names – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush – are prominently
engraved on airports, federal offices, and library halls around the country. Others became the
subject of rowdy bestsellers such as "Charlie Wilson's War," or saw their exploits dramatized
in Cold War kitsch productions like "Rambo III." And then there were those who waged America's
dirty wars from the shadows, and whose names will scarcely ever be known.
While these figures lay claim to the mantle of "national security," their true legacy was
the callous abandonment of that concept in order to advance imperial objectives. During the
Cold War, they forged partnerships with theocratic monarchies and armed Islamist militants,
even distributing jihadist textbooks to children in the name of defeating the Soviet scourge.
Today, as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – the lone foreign policy dissenter within the Democratic
presidential field – pointed out , they are doing
it all over again through their protection of the world's largest Al Qaeda franchise in Syria's
Idlib province, which came into being thanks in large part to U.S. intervention in the
country.
To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a
superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a critical history that has been
suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the attacks occurred, when "some
people did something." Many of those people served at the highest levels of U.S. government,
and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an international network
– and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.
Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red
Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy weapons
in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi clerics such
as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of dollars worth
of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them to commit acts
of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to wreak havoc on
the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with
the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct
assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of
Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign
Islamist fighters.
These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the
Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept
watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the
Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed
by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.
These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names
like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the
aisle in Congress.
When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided
Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a
war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the
Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.
"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?"
remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the
Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were
unimportant."
Trump previously also voiced doubts about official narrative of 9/11. Now he emerged as an avid supporter of the official
narrative. Nice metamorphose.
No matter where you personally stand on 9/11 events Trump is double dealer.
Notable quotes:
"... Today, some of their names – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush – are prominently engraved on airports, federal offices, and library halls around the country. Others became the subject of rowdy bestsellers such as "Charlie Wilson's War," or saw their exploits dramatized in Cold War kitsch productions like "Rambo III." And then there were those who waged America's dirty wars from the shadows, and whose names will scarcely ever be known. ..."
"... Today, as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – the lone foreign policy dissenter within the Democratic presidential field – pointed out , they are doing it all over again through their protection of the world's largest Al Qaeda franchise in Syria's Idlib province, which came into being thanks in large part to U.S. intervention in the country. ..."
"... These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign Islamist fighters. ..."
"... These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the aisle in Congress. ..."
"... "Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant." ..."
A s Donald Trump sharpens his re-election messaging, he has sought to make a foil out of
freshman Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, homing in on her identity as a black Muslim immigrant and
her brazen defiance of what was once a bipartisan pro-Israel consensus. Trump's most recent
attack was the most inflammatory to date, implying through a characteristically dishonest
Twitter video that Omar had played some role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Trump was referencing comments Omar made this month during a banquet of the Los Angeles
chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR): "CAIR was founded after 9/11,
because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose
access to our civil liberties," Omar said during a 20-minute-long denunciation of public
bullying and violent attacks against Muslims living in the West. (CAIR was founded in 1994,
contrary to Omar's claim).
As innocuous as Omar's comments might have seemed, they were easily spun by a right-wing
bigot-sphere seeking to portray her as not merely insensitive to the deep wound Americans
suffered on 9/11, but as a possible terror-sympathizer. As Bernard Kerik, the disgraced former
NYPD commissioner and convicted felon , said of Omar
on Fox News, "she's infatuated with Al Qaeda, with Hamas, with Hezbollah."
For Trump, the manufactured outrage offered yet another opportunity to advance his rebranded
version of the Southern Strategy, painting Omar as the face of a Democratic Party overrun by
socialists, Muslims, MS13 and trans radicals – as a clear and present danger to the
reactionary white exurbanites commonly referred to in mainstream media as "swing voters."
Amid an onslaught of menacing condemnations and online death threats triggered by Trump's
tweet, prominent Democrats mobilized to defend Omar. However, many were too timid to mention
her by name, apparently fearing that doing so would play into Trump's cynical strategy. Some
refused to defend her at all. And among those willing to speak up, most felt compelled to lead
their defense by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves
anti-Muslim narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion
of it must be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi.
In Washington, 9/11 is understood as an act of inexplicable evil that materialized out of a
clear blue sky. "They hate us because we're free," Americans are still told in a semi-official
drone, conveniently excising the attacks that took place on 9/11 from their historical context.
This ruthlessly enforced interpretation has had the effect of displacing blame from those who
bear direct or indirect responsibility for the attacks onto much more convenient scapegoats
like the Islamic faith and its diverse mass of adherents.
In my new book, " The Management of
Savagery ," I explain which people did what things to lay the groundwork for the worst
terror attack on U.S. soil. Not all of those people were Muslim, and few have faced the kind of
scrutiny Omar has for her seemingly benign comment about 9/11. As I illustrate, many of them
maintained lustrous reputations well after the ash was cleared from Ground Zero. Today, some of
their names – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush – are prominently
engraved on airports, federal offices, and library halls around the country. Others became the
subject of rowdy bestsellers such as "Charlie Wilson's War," or saw their exploits dramatized
in Cold War kitsch productions like "Rambo III." And then there were those who waged America's
dirty wars from the shadows, and whose names will scarcely ever be known.
While these figures lay claim to the mantle of "national security," their true legacy was
the callous abandonment of that concept in order to advance imperial objectives. During the
Cold War, they forged partnerships with theocratic monarchies and armed Islamist militants,
even distributing jihadist textbooks to children in the name of defeating the Soviet scourge.
Today, as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – the lone foreign policy dissenter within the Democratic
presidential field – pointed out , they are doing
it all over again through their protection of the world's largest Al Qaeda franchise in Syria's
Idlib province, which came into being thanks in large part to U.S. intervention in the
country.
To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a
superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a critical history that has been
suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the attacks occurred, when "some
people did something." Many of those people served at the highest levels of U.S. government,
and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an international network
– and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.
Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red
Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy weapons
in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi clerics such
as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of dollars worth
of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them to commit acts
of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to wreak havoc on
the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with
the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct
assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of
Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign
Islamist fighters.
These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the
Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept
watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the
Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed
by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.
These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names
like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the
aisle in Congress.
When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided
Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a
war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the
Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.
"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?"
remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the
Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were
unimportant."
Trump essentially rules as Bush III with Bush II coterie of neocons in his administrations
and an unusual level of pandering to Isreal. All he election promises were fake.
People in other countries, meanwhile, will be looking on with awe and anxiety. For seventy
years, the United States has led a global order based on mutual interest, enhanced trade, and,
ultimately, America's role as the global hegemon (co-hegemon until 1989). Rhetorically, at
least, Trump's accession to power marks a break with this order. Describing himself as an
America Firster, he has talked scathingly about many of the institutions that have girded the
Pax Americana, including NATO , the European Union, and the World Trade Organization. He
has criticized American military interventions -- sometimes, it must be said, with good cause.
And he has pledged to renegotiate trade deals, and, if he deems it necessary, to slap heavy
tariffs on goods from Mexico, China, and other countries
Surveying Trump's victory and the
rise of xenophobic populism in many other Western countries, Martin Wolf, the Financial
Times' senior economics commentator, recently pronounced , "We are, in
short, at the end of both an economic period -- that of western-led globalisation -- and a
geopolitical one -- the post-cold war 'unipolar moment' of a US-led global order."
That judgment could still turn out to be premature. The world economy is so closely
integrated these days that it would take huge shocks, or policy changes, to turn the clock
back. American multinational companies, like Apple and Facebook and General Motors, are some of
globalization's biggest beneficiaries and supporters. To his Cabinet, Trump has appointed both
Rex Tillerson, the former head of ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil company, and Gary Cohn,
the former president of Goldman Sachs, the world's leading investment bank. Trump himself
claims to favor trade, but what he terms "fair trade."
In his Inaugural Address, however, Trump made clear that he will at least try to tilt
globalization in favor of American manufacturing workers. Reverting to the populist rhetoric
that had propelled his campaign, he said, "The wealth of the middle class has been ripped from
their homes and redistributed across the world," adding, "From this day forward, it's going to
be only America first, America first. Every decision will be made to protect American workers
and American families."
On the geopolitical front, it is far less clear what Trump will do, and that's the greatest
concern for many people, here and around the world. Despite his claims that America's armed
services have been run down, the United States remains by far the world's biggest military
power, the only country able to project its will anywhere on the globe. But how will Trump live
up to this responsibility? In his speech, he pledged to "reinforce old alliances and form new
ones" and to "eradicate" Islamic terrorism "completely from the face of the earth." But he also
sounded some of the neo-isolationist themes that he put forward during the campaign, saying
that America had "subsidized the armies of other countries" and "defended other nations'
borders while refusing to defend our own." His language and tone suggested that the days when
America viewed itself as the benevolent global leader, willing to make sacrifices to the mutual
benefit of all countries, were coming to an end.
"People get into a lot of conversations about political strategies I might get in trouble for saying this, but what does
it matter if we beat Donald Trump, if we end up with someone who will perpetuate the very same crony capitalist policies, corporate
policies, and waging more of these costly wars?"
And just to drive home this point, quote:
"This is not a joke. This is not about me. This about all of us. This is about our future. About making sure we have
one."
Tulsi did get in to trouble. A day after the video posted on Twitter, it had been deleted by Twitter without explanation
Mark Dierking , April 18, 2019 at 15:53
Thanks to you any everyone that has responded for the thoughtful comments. If you are able to edit yours, a more accessible
link for the Safari browser is:
IRT B's request not to waste effort on challenges likely not to make a difference. I
observe no Trumpy program yet, promises to improve America nor reverse the ever declining
quality of life Americans are experiencing (As wages double, costs triple as federal grants
increase, the corporations are getting wealthier). Make the USA Oligarchs Wealthier programs
all expose Americans to more risk and greater loss of wealth. Fracking, 5g energies, wars,
better internal surveillance tailored to capture the most minute behaviors of every American,
and foreign management of Americans via the USA as a conduct.
In a statement to the Senate released by the White House, Trump called the joint resolution
"unnecessary", warned it represents a "dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional
authorities" and argued it would negatively affect U.S. foreign policy. What he really meant is
that the US military-industrial complex stood to lose billions in potential revenue from the
biggest US weapons client. As a result countless innocent civilians will continue to die for an
unknown period of time but at least the stock price of Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon
will not be put in jeopardy.
... ... ...
As a reminder, last month the Senate voted 54-46 to pass a resolution requiring the
president to withdraw any troops in or "affecting" Yemen within 30 days unless they are
fighting al Qaeda. The House passed the measure earlier this month with a 248-177 vote. Neither
was enough to override Trump's veto.
If Trump pardoned Assange, I would consider that draining the swamp. But Orange Jewlius is
a Deep State **** socket, so the swamp has grown to a lagoon
Clearly the US government has zero respect for Australia, Australian Law or Australian
citizens. The case is shite, else they would allow Assange to be deported to Australia and
the extradition hearing to be heard there. They refuse because they know their case is shite
and they would have to prove it in Australia before they could get extradition.
The USA is not an ally of Australia because it does not respect Australian law, not in the
least. Prove US respect of Australians by deporting Assange to Australia and holding the
extradition hearings there, else look as guilty as shite and never ever to be trusted by
Australians.
The US Govt respects NOBODY but its own Interests. It's the Australian Govt that's
complicit in this travesty of Nil justice. The Gutless Australian Govt has NO interest in
helping Julian Assange because they were persuaded NOT to by their American masters. It hurts
that your own Govt are total A$$holes & follow USA into Crimes with out question. The
Australian Govt has a History of lip service only when assistance Overseas is required. ****
them !
Assange probably is a narcissist. So what? All the people criticizing him are, too. At
least he's an honest narcissist. In everything he's published, not a single item has even
been allegedly false. Can any of these other so-called "journalists" demonstrate that level
of accuracy?
Here is a good article on Assange. Explains the cat. Things were okay for him under the
real elected president of Ecuador, except no sunlight thanks to US spooks.
It is normal that others see weakness in the U.S. before we do. The notion in the United
States is that what we want to be true is true. Fantasy is a comforting mechanism but it sure
is painful when everything falls apart. Our reality gap has not slammed shut but it will.
Disappointing but not surprising. I do hope at some point his mind will be changed. Give
full credit to the 16 Republicans in the House and 7 Republican Senators for supporting this
resolution.
It is possible, now that Assange has been arrested, that the American charge against him is
relatively minor only in order to encourage the UK to extradite him. Once he is in American
custody those charges may well change.
btw Trump suddenly dropping any love for Wikileaks after enthusiastically stating his
approval of them over 100 times during the last election is going to cause a lot of damage to
his chances of being reelected.
Wikileaks is probably already putting him under the microscope, and there are all the
Wikileaks fans to contend with as well.
Bad move Donald, you just sacrificed a bishop to no advantage and placed yourself in
danger of checkmate. More people are starting to see your 'veracity' as the facade it is.
"... Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future. ..."
"... And there was a video of him bringing her to the microphone on the subject of 5G which amazed me: Trump Invites Ivanka To Talk About 5G Deployment In The U.S. I think Trump truly believes Ivanka is presidential material! ..."
"... Tinfoil-hat opinion time: if you have a credible threat against Ivanka, you control Trump. If you want to gain a different kind of leverage - like to talk him into quitting in 2020 - promise him you'll work hard to put her in the White House. ..."
"... Still tin-foiling, but I think a version of this happened in 1992. Iran Contra was closing in, and the Democrats had the goods on Bush Senior. I buy into the conspiracy notion Bush Sr. was offered a deal where the matter would be dropped if he left office, and with a "sweetener" that one of his boys would be advanced to the White House. This didn't hurt the Powers That Be, for the chosen democrat was a rare Pro-Choice Republican posing as a democrat. ..."
"... Bill Clinton was a warmongering neocon nut who governed domestically as a Republican. ..."
"... The problem lies with people in generation after generation being fooled by the same or similar ruses used before, which is why The Who exhorted people to not let themselves "get fooled again." ..."
"... The UK & EU both face crises caused by their adherence to Neoliberal economics, but Neoliberal governments hold sway in almost every EU nation and UK despite the damage they've caused. ..."
"... Here's a link for anyone who still doesn't believe Trump is on the dark side: Trump vetoes resolution ending U.S. involvement in Yemen ..."
"... Looks like Trump is only a compassionate humanitarian on behalf of Syrian kids. With 14 school children killed in Yemen a week ago, not so much. ..."
"... Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives. ..."
"... The Brits were lying, Haspel was lying, and either Trump believed her or pretended to. ..."
By "meaningful intellectual activity", Craig Murray is referring to critical thinking skills, having an open mind and being
able to consider all options and possibilities. We can agree that Theresa May and the people who make up her Cabinet and government,
and a sizeable proportion of the Tories, may well be deficient in these activities.
I have read something of how David Cameron worked his way up to leadership of the British Conservatives years ago. Coming from
a wealthy family (his father was a stockbroker who enjoyed posthumous notoriety when his name surfaced in the Panama Papers),
Cameron went to the "right" schools (which count Prince Andrew and Prince Edward as former students, btw), Eton College and then
Oxford University where he enrolled in the politics / economics course that prepares students for careers in politics - it's popularly
called "PPE". After university he went to work for the Conservative Party.
You could say Cameron's path had already been mapped out for him and the decision was not his to deviate from it. Probably
the same can be said of some other people in Theresa May's Cabinet.
And what can be said of a UK Defence Secretary of whom the love of his life is a pet Mexican tarantula?
You are being sarcastic, tongue in cheek, correct? I also wonder who could have done such a thing?
But seriously, the value of Solzhenitsyn is not in the quality of his prose, which is very difficult to read, then in the relevance
of his topics. He did document how power over others and ultimately totalitarianism manifest themselves in the fallible human
nature. Humans cannot rule themselves properly, but usually psychopaths must rule (use & abuse) others. A whole system can be
created on top of psychopathy of a few individuals (does this ring a bell?). Of course, the claim that Solzhenitsyn was a critic
of Communism is equivalent to the claim that Animal Farm is a description of Communism. Both are good social critique turned into
yet another political/brainwashing tool. It is art because it describes human nature across artificial boundaries, especially
the ideological one: left versus right.
On another matter, I have started skipping comments where Trump is being bashed. In addition to being leftist TDS, this is
a perfect indication that the commenter has got no clue what is really going on, so how could he/she explain anything to others?
Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She
wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future.
If an idea like that ever gets into Trump's head, Haspel is a goner. Have you noticed how he said he considered Ivanka for
the World bank?
"Donald Trump reveals he considered making Ivanka head of World Bank because she's 'good with numbers'"
Tinfoil-hat opinion time: if you have a credible threat against Ivanka, you control Trump. If you want to gain a different
kind of leverage - like to talk him into quitting in 2020 - promise him you'll work hard to put her in the White House.
Still tin-foiling, but I think a version of this happened in 1992. Iran Contra was closing in, and the Democrats had the
goods on Bush Senior. I buy into the conspiracy notion Bush Sr. was offered a deal where the matter would be dropped if he left
office, and with a "sweetener" that one of his boys would be advanced to the White House. This didn't hurt the Powers That Be,
for the chosen democrat was a rare Pro-Choice Republican posing as a democrat.
Bill Clinton was a warmongering neocon nut who governed domestically as a Republican.
As it turns out, the "smart one" (Jeb) lost his first step by not immediately getting to be Governor of Florida. That left
the Codpiece Commander, and all his sins were airbrushed away, the Supreme Court intervened, and he entered the White House. Good
deal for Pappy Bush, BTW. Him and Reagan got to keep their gold shine, and President Dumbya did all which was expected of him.
Thanks Jen & Piotr for your comments regarding my take on Murray's missive.
The problem lies with people in generation after generation being fooled by the same or similar ruses used before, which
is why The Who exhorted people to not let themselves "get fooled again."
The UK & EU both face crises caused by their adherence to Neoliberal economics, but Neoliberal governments hold sway in
almost every EU nation and UK despite the damage they've caused.
It's certainly a muddle. Trump vetoing the legislation to cease supporting Saudi in Yemen will further help the turn to the
East. And tomorrow will bring something else.
400 children killed since January 2019 in Yemen and 85,000 have died from malnutrition in the past 3 and a half years and Trump
vetoes resolution to end U.S. involvement.
So far as I understand your question, the Neocon York Times link from above had this about the kids and the ducks:
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened
by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were
inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
The Brits were lying, Haspel was lying, and either Trump believed her or pretended to.
"... Therefore, both individuals were both an admission that the change in the system is needed and that the ruling regime is into life-extension by means of "whatever it takes". Once the "change" potential is exhausted, repression must take over as the principal life extension mechanism; clearly, these methods do not have a sharp start-over points in time - they overlap. ..."
"... It is an interesting connection of dots that Bloody Gina is Brennan's protégée and thus that Trump has truly stacked up his administration with former i.e. current enemies, But this only shows that Trump works for the same masters as his political enemies. Again, nothing new. ..."
Trump is like a voodoo doll into which every sh**bag sticks pins. Firstly, it is
irrelevant whether he was a swamp creature before election or was coopted into it after.
Secondly, Trump was transparently chosen to be the "agent of change" for the other half of
the US population, just as Obama before.
Therefore, both individuals were both an admission that the change in the system is needed
and that the ruling regime is into life-extension by means of "whatever it takes". Once the
"change" potential is exhausted, repression must take over as the principal life extension
mechanism; clearly, these methods do not have a sharp start-over points in time - they
overlap.
This is where we are now, Assange was the most prominent member of the real
opposition to the regime, where they try to confuse with plenty of faux opposition.
Therefore, the Assange's head had to be chopped off publicly and his slowly rotting corpse
will now be on display through "courts of justice" for the next couple of years as a warning
to the consumers of alternative media. Go back to reading the approved "journalism" or ... To
understand better one just needs to read/re-read Solzhenitsyn.
The other major ongoing life-extension activity, overlapping with repression, is the
confiscation of guns from the last remaining armed Western population (lots of leftist oxen
pulling that cart). Having too many guns amongst the population is bad for resolving personal
conflicts peacefully, but it is even worse for the abusive, exploitative regime. Thus, taking
the guns away is doing the right thing for a totally wrong reason.
It is an interesting connection of dots that Bloody Gina is Brennan's
protégée and thus that Trump has truly stacked up his administration with
former i.e. current enemies, But this only shows that Trump works for the same masters as his
political enemies. Again, nothing new.
Therefore, where is a Western Solzhenitsyn to document artistically what transpires in a
society deeply in debt and in social & moral decline?
@The
Alarmist Trump doesn't strike me as someone with principles or opinions of his own. He
will say and do whatever his base of "deplorables" likes to hear and whatever helps him get
what he wants.
Tears came to my eyes - happy tears - when you were elected! A seemingly impossible feat was accomplished that day in November.
I understood when you faced tremendous resistance in your first 200 days from Demorats. It seemed you were unphased and determined
- all was good.
You called the stock market a bubble when you were campaigning, but just a few months after you won the election you called
the stock market a great accomplishment of your administration. What changed? I got confused. Worse, you cursed when the Fed
raised interest rates to 2.5% and the market started to crash. That doesn't sound like an awesome economy. It sounds like a
highly manipulated one by central actors.
You lobbed some Tomahawks into Syrian sand - that worried me.
Then you lobbed a hundred or so more after a couple of Wahhabists wearing white hats, funded by Britain and the CIA, staged
a fakenews chemical attack and put it on social media. Dear Donald, were these missiles close to their expiry date? Were you
playing 4D chess? Some of those failed missiles flew near a major Russian base, were you at all concerned that one or two of
them might malfunction and accidentally bomb the Russians? I guess not. The Russians however were concerned -- which
is why they prepared to attack your fleet, along with the French and Canadian boats - just in case. But I guess it was just
another day at the Oval Office.
You said Hillary should be in jail. It is nearly three years since you said that. She's not in jail. Instead, several patriots
were dragged through the mud by Mueller and/or the Democrats - all you've had to say is that it was terrible! You can't even
seem to properly handle retarded people like Maxine and Nancy.
You claimed you were winning, but you lost the lower House to the Dems in the midterms.
You said America is leaving Syria for others to deal with -- which probably was a reference to Saudi Wahhabists and Israeli
Zionists. Why are you still there protecting Al Q'aida?
You seem to be eager to wreak havoc against Iran - was that part of the deal to bring home our troops?
You brought NK and the rest of the world to the brink of nuclear war. Luckily NK started packing-up their nuke program.
It wont be for long though. You've done nothing since, except appoint John Bolton. If I were the leader of NK I wouldn't really
trust you.
You campaigned on bringing home troops from all the useless wars. Now you're thinking of attacking Venezuela. What gives?
I'm more confused.
You said working with Russia would be a good thing - you've hit Russia fairly hard with sanctions and diplomatic retribution.
Maybe we can blame the fakenews MSM and the Dems and forgive you for playing into their whims.
You offered tax credits for corporations, they fraudulently bought back their own stocks. You offered tax credits to the
people, they used most of it to pay down their overdue credit cards. Some apparently used the money as a down-payment on a
new pickup that they'll either have to sell soon or risk repo - nothing changed in the long-run.
You promised a wall paid for by Mexico....
Why does the American military require three-quarters of a trillion dollars per year? Yet you're willing to pay even more.
Most of all, you kept referring to Wikileaks, and its publication of the HRC emails, as proof of a corrupt DNC. Two years
later, you jailed its editor. It doesn't end there. It really does look like you want to drag this Australian/Ecuadorian to
America to imprison, torture, and possibly execute, someone who hasn't committed any crime (except skipping bail on a highly
questionable extradition to Sweden in response to a 'she said / he said' accusation that the complainants and the Swedish prosecutors
dropped, much like those lobbed at your SCOTUS pick that you vehemently and rightly criticized).
Mr. President, if that's how you treat your allies and friends, I'd rather be your enemy. At least your enemies so far
seem to get away with everything and anything. your friends on the other hand get fired or jailed or both.
Mr. President, sir if you are a populist, you sure don't act like one surrounding yourself with the Deep State...
Please note that unz.com used be forum of stalwart Trump supporters. Times change.
Notable quotes:
"... This will at least wake up those morons at places like Breitbart that Trump is nothing more than a neocon swine. I mean how much more evidence do they need to see that he is invite the world, invade the world. ..."
"... One doesn't have to be stupid to support Trump but it helps. The same can be said for his prominent enemies though. To unconditionally and faithfully support Trump, Hillary Clinton, or Nancy Pelosi, one would have to be stupid or totally controlled by one's emotions. ..."
"... You and I are voting right now just by publicly engaging in politics. Voting on election day is worth it in the same way posting comments online is worth it. ..."
"... Wouldn't a smart person recognize that falling for a grifter who cares not about Heritage America and who dances to Bibi's tune is never a good option? ..."
"... Yes. But during the election, Trump was the least bad option who sometimes seemed like a good option. That's still true today. ..."
This will at least wake up those morons at places like Breitbart that Trump is nothing more
than a neocon swine. I mean how much more evidence do they need to see that he is invite the
world, invade the world.
On top of that mass censorship being unleashed under Trump, how can anyone still be conned
into supporting him.
@Colin
Wright For one, its not reposing any confidence, faith, and trust in DJT. He is a
charlatan who appeals to low IQ whites.
Why do so many intelligent people delude themselves into rationalizing their support and
vote for Trump upon the basis of the lesser of two evils loser mindset?
Look at the labor participation numbers. Worse under Trump than under the Kenyan
mulatto.
Look at the rate the debt is increasing. Look at the total increase in the debt since the
serial adulterer took office.
Look at the surge in immigration under this congenital prevaricator.
One doesn't
have to be stupid to support Trump but it helps. The same can be said for his prominent
enemies though. To unconditionally and faithfully support Trump, Hillary Clinton, or Nancy
Pelosi, one would have to be stupid or totally controlled by one's emotions.
That being said, a smart person could still support Trump. A smart person could recognize
Trump finishing his term as the least bad option. In 2020, this same smart person might
recognize that, amazingly, a Trump second term had become the least bad option. People can
scream and throw around insults or they can present an alternative to Trump.
Wouldn't a smart person recognize that his vote does not matter?
Wouldn't a smart person recognize that Stalin's maxim, "its not who votes that counts, its
who counts the votes" controls?
Wouldn't a smart person recognize that falling for a grifter who cares not about Heritage
America and who dances to Bibi's tune is never a good option?
@Liberty MikeWouldn't
a smart person recognize that his vote does not matter?
You and I are voting right now just by publicly engaging in politics. Voting on election
day is worth it in the same way posting comments online is worth it.
Wouldn't a smart person recognize that falling for a grifter who cares not about Heritage
America and who dances to Bibi's tune is never a good option?
Yes. But during the election, Trump was the least bad option who sometimes seemed like a good
option. That's still true today.
The fact that she lied about her ethnicity in the past in hopes of gaining a leg up will
backfire spectacularly if she's the DNC nominee for POTUS. Conservatives will beat this point
over and over and over.
Is the Left secretly trying to put Trump in the WH for another term? It sure looks like
it.
the chances that Dems supporting a candidate who does not win the primary would boycott
the election and put Trump back in the White House are vanishingly small this time
around
They were warned that that would happen last time, and they still let it happen. The
"Bernie bros" are back out in force, and not only have they not learnt their lesson, they
feel validated by Clinton's defeat to the extent where they are even more determined that
their old man should be the candidate and nobody else. These are people who abandoned the
Democrats for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who managed to make Sarah Palin look
intelligent. They will do it again because they are largely white, male and think just
because they read liberal newspapers that means they don't have a sense of entitlement.
Both Michigan and Pennsylvania would have gone to Clinton if only 20% of Green voters
hadn't lodged protest votes. These people don't want Elizabeth Warren, they don't want Kamala
Harris, they don't want Beto O'Rourke, they don't want Pete Buttigieg. They want Bernie. If
Bernie isn't the Democrat, they won't vote Democrat.
You can dismiss this as much as you like, but I placed a bet on Trump winning the
Republican nomination when he was the joke candidate and when he won the nomination I bet on
him winning the presidency. I think that would be an even safer bet this time round.
That's just funny. She's been behind some of the major legislation that enacted the things
that Bernie Sanders talks about. And Wall Street is scared crapless of her -- why do you
think they're going after her so hard?
This conjecture is entirely fiction at best but centrist neo libeberal bollocks as a
certainty. Warren was and is a republican. She is a corporate bootlicker, a thrall of Hillary
and has no serious attachment to truth. I regret to admit that I am a US citizen, 68 years of
age. I have wittnessed Warren's shameless plagirising of Bernie Sanders' arguments and am
sickened to see her lionized by people who, if honest, should know better.
The columnist is right about Warren's intellectual stature and influence, and anyone who's
looked at what she's accomplished for Massachusetts (or for that matter watched her takedown
of the sleazy head of Wells Fargo during the Senate hearings) knows she's tough. She also has
a *workable* vision of what the Democrats could offer Americans. From affordable childcare to
making college tuition affordable again to helping out working-class people like the
fisherman in Massachusetts, while reigning in the banks and making sure we don't have another
crash – it's the blueprint.
There's something hysterically funny about all the people who have signed in here, clearly
skipped the article, just to yell "squirrel!" – or in this case -- "oh no she filled
out the optional ethnicity box and it turns out her family stories were mistaken!"
What they're missing, what Warren is laying out and the article is pointing out, is what
the GOP will really be up against in the future.
I don't like this argument: she may not win the primary, but it's her ideas that will
dominate the conversation.
It worked for Bernie supporters to console themselves.
If we elect someone, it needs to be the person who will be passionate about that idea (as
opposed to lukewarm like Pelosi is on Green New Deal). We need someone who knows what it will
take to get it done. What will get in the way. How to get around it.
Warren not only had the idea for CFPB. She actually set it up. Then Obama lacked the moral
courage and political spine to have her lead the agency - just because Wall Street had
pressured the Democrats against it.
Warren is the right candidate for the right time. She has ideas to fix the country and
doesn't just rail against people. That's why even Steve Bannon is scared of her policy
positions that they could be theirs.
Democrats need to stop playing pundits and go with their heart. If they vote for someone
they like less but because he (why is it always a 'he' who is electable?) can win - we will
end up with a candidate no one really cares about and how is that a winning strategy?
Democrat primary voters need to recognise that defeating Trump is going to be very difficult.
Since WW II, only Jimmy Carter and George Bush Sr. have failed to win re-election, in both
cases to superb campaigners who captured the public's imagination and, critically, swing
voters.
Which of the potential Democrat challengers is a Ronald Reagan or a Bill Clinton? Or,
indeed, a Barack Obama?
For a dose of reality, Democrats could do worse than read Mike Bloomberg's piece on his
decision to stay out of the race:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-05/our-highest-office-my-deepest-obligation
Warren rules -- her policy ideas are creative, intelligent and moral, and the world would be
an indescribably better place if people like her were ever allowed into positions of
authority. That anyone on the planet would prefer to be represented by someone like Biden,
never mind Trump, is utterly depressing.
Sadly, FOX News has already issued their proscribed talking points on Sen.Warren. You will
find them listed and repeated anywhere Elizabeth's Warren's candidacy is discussed (including
here). Most of it will be lies or exaggerations, claims that she received jobs and promotions
based on her claims of Native American ancestry, claims that she received scholarships or
some kind of preferential treatment by calling herself an "Indian". They will insist that
this is an obvious character flaw, that she's a liar and some sort of cultural thief.
Sadly, too many American's still imagine FOX News and it's ilk are purveyors of fact. They
imagine the propaganda they are being fed about Elizabeth Warren is a truth the "mainstream
media" won't mention. We saw all of this with Hillary Clinton. 30% of Republican voters still
think Sec. Clinton ran a pedophile ring out of a DC pizza parlor.
If Sen.Warren, or any other rational candidate has a fair chance at running for President,
if all the lies and propaganda of the right-wing media establishment are to be countered, the
left and the center of US politics needs an effective counter to right-wing narrative.
A presidential campaign is not about specific, detailed policy proposals. It's about a vision
for the country. A vision that must be consistent with voters' feelings and expectations; and
must be communicated in a clear, energetic way by an effective messenger. That's the way
Reagan, Clinton, Obama and Trump won.
Does anybody remember Trump's healthcare policy?
People don't vote for policy manifestos. People vote for candidates that inspire and
convince.
If Warren is the 'intellectual powerhouse' of the Democratic party, then god help them. Not a
word about 1 trillion dollar budget deficits and rising (under Trump)-but remember Obama was
little better; in 15 years time the US state pension system will be bankrupt, various other
states' pension schemes are also effectively bankrupt (see Illinois, Tennessee) as are
various cities (Chicago), and all Warren and Trump can think of is more debt, and nor will
MMT help (we know this is just deficit spending on steroids). None of these people are
'progressive' - by not tacking the key problem of runaway debt it just robs everyone by
forcing a default - not an 'honest' one, but rather the route taken by all politicians,
namely rapid devaluation of the currency; something that robs all people, and destroys
savings. Instead all we get are jam today, and bankruptcy tomorrow.
She changed her ethnicity from white to Native American at the University of Pennsylvania Law
School. Also, a large majority of Americans have Native American DNA....and EW has less than
the average American (which is 5%)...she has 0.20. She abused a privilege and got called out.
She's too damn smart, is the problem. Along with all her qualifications she has also a lot of
very solid wins that she brought home for the people of Massachusetts as a senator, from
helping fisherman to low-income students suffering from college debt -- emphasizing that
she's actually helped working class people and people in student debt should be a no brainer.
And yet she seems not to have a savvy political operator advising her – she sure as
hell hasn't gotten out ahead of the Native American thing, and I don't know why no one is
doing that for her.
"Elizabeth Warren is the intellectual powerhouse of the Democratic party"
Then they really are in trouble.....
Just take 1 point....
"She has called for abolishing the electoral college, the unfair institution the US used
to elect executives "
Well that requires a constitutional amendment, that requires a two thirds majority in both
houses and then ratification by three quarters of the States. The ERA was proposed in 1923
didn't get through Congress until 1972 and is still short of the 38 State ratifications to
adopt it. That's an issue of direct concern to at least half the population. The idea that a
procedural change to the constitution for partisan benefit is getting through the process is
blatantly laughable. Particularly as there appear to be about 27 states that have enhanced
importance under the current system ( http://theconversation.com/whose-votes-count-the-least-in-the-electoral-college-74280
) and only 13 are needed to kill it.
Warren has the same foreign policy as all the others, invade, sanction, destroy. Steal oil,
gold and assets. The US has become a deluded neurotic police state rife with addiction and so
addled it is no longer a force for good in any sphere.
In short it is now a part of the
problem and no longer a part of any workable solution. Who becomes POTUS is therefore
irrelevant.
Warren is flawed ideologically and personally, US citizens need to wake up and recognise that the POTUS is an irrelevant position with no authority and that until you
tackle the neocon ridden nature of US politics nothing will ever change.
There is no hope in
systems, only hope in people. Politics has become irrelevant in the face of our impending
extinction.
"... Posturing as a would-be American native and supporting racial retributions is as far from qualifying as an intellectual powerhouse as it gets. She would be better than Trump, obviously, but then anybody would. ..."
It may well not be Warren who wins the Democratic nomination, but whoever does will be
campaigning on her ideas
since her initial announcement in December, Warren's campaign has rolled out a series of
detailed policy proposals in quick succession, outlining structural changes to major
industries, government functions, and regulatory procedures that would facilitate more
equitable representation in the federal government and overhaul the economy in favor of the
working class. These policy proposals have made Warren the Democratic party's new intellectual
center of gravity, a formidable influence who is steadily pushing the presidential primary
field to the left and forcing all of her primary challengers to define their political
positions against hers.
Warren has become the Democratic party's new intellectual center of gravity
Warren herself is an anti-trust nerd, having come to the Senate from a career as an academic
studying corporate and banking law. On the stump, she's most detailed in the same areas where
she is most passionate, like when she talks about about breaking
up huge tech companies such as Amazon and Google, and implementing a 21st-century --
version of the Glass-Steagall act that would separate commercial and investment banking (she
has also called for prosecuting and
jailing bank executives who break the law). But her policy agenda is broader than that,
taking on pocketbook issues that have resonance with working families.
Warren outlined a huge overhaul of the childcare system that would revolutionize the
quality, cost and curriculum of early childhood education, with subsidies for families and a
living wage for caregivers. It's a proposal that she talks about in the context of her own
career when, as a young mother and fledgling legal mind, she almost had to give up a job as a
law professor because childcare for her young son was too expensive.
Warren has also proposed a housing plan
that would limit huge investors' abilities to buy up homes, give incentives for localities to
adopt renters' protections, and build new public housing. Crucially, and uniquely, her housing
plan would also provide home
ownership grants to buyers in minority communities that have historically been "redlined",
a term for the racist federal housing policies that denied federally backed mortgages to black
families. The provision, aimed to help black and brown families buy their first homes, is a
crucial step toward amending the racial wealth gap, and it has helped sparked a broader
conversation within the party about the need to
pay reparations to the descendants of slaves -- a concept that Warren has also
endorsed.
Taking her cues from pro-democracy and voting rights advocates such as Stacey Abrams, Warren
has also taken on anti-majoritarian constitutional provisions, aiming to make American
democracy more representative and less structurally hostile to a progressive agenda. She has
called for abolishing the
electoral college , the unfair institution the US uses to elect chief executives that makes
a vote in New York count less than a vote in Wyoming, and which has resulted in two disastrous
Republican presidencies in the past two decades. She has advocated eliminating the filibuster
, an archaic procedural quirk of the Senate that would keep the Democrats from ever passing
their agenda if they were to regain control of that body. And she has signaled a willingness to
pack the
courts , another move that will be necessary to implement leftist policies such as Medicare
for All -- because even if the next Democratic president can pass her agenda through Congress,
she will not be able to protect it from the malfeasance of a federal bench filled with
conservative Trump appointees eager to strike it down.
When other candidates campaign, Warren's strong policy positions force them to define
themselves against her
Warren has been the first to propose all of these policies, and it is not difficult to see
other candidates falling in line behind her, issuing belated and imitative policy proposals, or
being forced to position themselves to her right. Warren has promised not to go negative
against other Democrats , but her campaign's intellectual
project also serves a political purpose: when other candidates campaign, her strong policy
positions force them to define themselves against her.
After Warren announced her childcare overhaul, senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris
rolled out plans similarly designed to combat gendered economic injustice, calling for
guaranteed family leave and
better teacher
pay , respectively. After Warren rolled out her pro-democracy agenda of eliminating the
electoral college, abolishing the filibuster and packing the courts, her ideological rival
Bernie Sanders was forced to come out against
both eliminating the filibuster and
packing the courts , damaging his reputation with a party base who knew that without these
interventions, a progressive agenda will probably never be enacted. The pressure eventually
forced Sanders to cave to Warren's vision and concede that he would be open to eliminating the
filibuster in order to pass Medicare for All.
There's still a long time before the first contests, and it's possible that Warren will
succumb to the flaws that her critics see in her campaign. In particular, she might not be able
to raise enough money. She's decided not to take any Pac money and not to fundraise with
wealthy donors, a position that may be as much practical as it is principled: the super-rich
are not likely to donate to Warren anyway, since she has such a detailed plan, called the
Ultra Millionaire Tax , to redistribute their money. She may fall victim to the seemingly
unshakable controversy over her old claims of Native American ancestry, and she seems doomed to
be smeared and underestimated for her sex, called
cold and unlikable for her intellect and then, as with other female candidates, derided as
pandering when she tries to seem more relatable.
But it would be a mistake to write Warren off as a virtuous also-ran, the kind of candidate
whose intellectual and moral commitments doom her in a race dominated by the deep divisions in
the electorate and the craven demagoguery of the incumbent. Elizabeth Warren does not seem to
be running for president to make a point, or to position herself for a different job. Instead,
she is making bold interventions in the political imagination of the party. It may well not be
Warren who wins the Democratic nomination, but whoever does will be campaigning on her
ideas.
Thanks Ken and Thomas. I couldn't have said it better myself. Are we going to pare down the
list of Democratic candidates on the basis of one or two stupid missteps? Looking through the
Bible, I note that Jesus lost his temper at the money-changers and put down the hard-working
Martha. So, he's out too.
Not only the USA, with everyone becoming wealthier, the need for education has declined,
across the western world, being liberal or educated has become a swear word. Social media and
lazy journalists are doing the rest, its all propaganda now, and permanent contradictory
stories means only simple messages cut through the noise, hatred, immigrants, islamophobia,
anti-semitism, etc. are classic messages that get through and stir people's emotions.
Intellect doesn't win elections with a gullible electorate
It was a mistake and it was self-interested and it was unethical. And it was a different time
before tribal groups in the US developed and enforced laws regarding membership status. Had
Trump not shown disdain for her and all native Americans by calling her Pocahontas as though
it were a racial slur, few would have made a big deal from this mistake.
Warren did confess without need to do so that she had purchased distressed mortgages to turn
a profit as a young lawyer like so many of her ethically misguided law colleagues.
If you are
or intimately know more than two attorneys you know this was and in some towns and cities
still is common practice for building wealth among lawyers who have first notice when these
“deals” are posted at the local Court House. Find me a “clean” lawyer
anywhere if you can and I doubt you can — they write law and protect themselves and
wealthy constituents mightily in doing so.
If you can help remove most of them from political
office and replace them with people working professions of greater merit I stand with you.
Congress needs intellectual strength and diversity
of backgrounds.
Unfortunately she opposes wars of choice from the position of an impressive service record
in Iraq so she gets ignored in favour of the ridiculous Elizabeth Warren here and in other
places. Warren's window was last time anyway when she was coming off the back of viral public
speeches about inequality.
Posturing as a would-be American native and supporting racial retributions is as far from
qualifying as an intellectual powerhouse as it gets.
She would be better than Trump, obviously, but then anybody would.
While I'd prefer the genders reversed, I think she would be an ideal running mate for the
front-runner among the declared candidates.
Sanders has much more assiduously defined the moral center that any candidate for
president must have: unapologetic confrontation with the oligarchy. Warren is the
intellectual weapon such an administration could deploy on the specifics of banking and
anti-trust.
This is all the more practical given that Warren has failed to tie race, social justice
and criminal justice issues all together in her values-based worldview -- certainly not to
the extent that Sanders has, his being well beyond any other candidate's efforts.
Because Obama was a canny corporate move to place someone that offered such qualities as
intelligence and grammar in sharp relief to GW Bush while remaining closely controlled by the
oligarchy.
Do you include her fraudulent and offensive claims to Native American heritage in that?
As CNN has reported, as far back as 1986 she was falsely claiming "American Indian" heritage
on official documents.
Despite repeated calls by the leaders of the Tribal Nations, she has still failed to
apologise. That's some intellectual powerhouse..
This will at least wake up those morons at places like Breitbart that Trump is nothing more
than a neocon swine. I mean how much more evidence do they need to see that he is invite the
world, invade the world. On top of that mass censorship being unleashed under Trump, how can
anyone still be conned into supporting him.
This is why Anglo-Saxon propaganda is so very effective. They have freedom of speech,
see? Though of course saying politically incorrect things might socially kill you, so it's
understood you won't do that. You will say PC (including anti-Russian, etc.) platitudes
always. So people will not even notice PC propaganda, like fish don't notice they're wet.
And when trying to convince a normie, you have to break a very long, almost infinite chain
of assumptions, which you won't know how to do.
Take a look at the career of Charles Austin Beard, for example.
He was one of the single most highly-regarded historians in America; his contributions to
the field were well-known and massively important. But even he could not break through the
pillars of propaganda when he published his book about the folly of Franklin Roosevelt's
foreign policy. The "court historians" like Samuel Eliot Morison and Schlesinger, et al,
blackballed his work and dismissed it with the most flippant arrogance and lack of care for
detail. The major newspapers and periodicals followed suit. Overnight he became all but a
pariah. Only a few regional newspapers were willing to treat his work with serious care. To
his credit, Beard had anticipated this reaction, but published his works anyway.
After World War 1, revisionism became par for the course in America – the vast
majority of historians, journalists, together with the public as a whole, came to agree that
America's entry into that conflict had been a selfish mistake. But during and after World War
Two, what you call "Anglo-Saxon propaganda" tightened up to a remarkably successful degree,
and to this day the pro-interventionist myth of the "great crusade" is all but unimpeachable
among the masses. In fact, the anti-revisionists, the "court historians," even managed to
defeat the old inter-war consensus about World War One, so that even it is now regarded as an
idealistic crusade for democracy! Very remarkable stuff, though sad!
I would probably do the same thing in Putin's situation. At a very basic level you simply
cannot trust people like Assange. Giving refuge to a spy is one thing; you're not going to
let him near any state secrets so it's not like he could betray you even if he wanted to (and
it's easy to keep an eye on him). For somebody like Assange there's the constant threat that
he could turn against you: acquire damaging information and use it as leverage, or simply
release it for the sake of his own ego or murky ideals. Too much potential for embarrassment.
Snowden was closer in spirit to a spy imo; Assange is more like bin Laden or a mafia boss,
the head of a shadowy international organization with significant reach and resources.
It's sort of like the French Foreign Legion: they take a dim view of British and American
recruits and generally won't let them join unless they speak French or have prior military
experience. The reason is psychological unsuitability: no sensible British or American person
interested in a military career would volunteer to be a mercenary for a foreign country over
serving in his own country's well-funded armed forces. Romantics and escapists are inherently
flaky and unreliable people. That's also why Brazilians are regarded as the best Legion
soldiers: they just do it to get EU citizenship
Ecuador rented a house opposite their main offices in Knightsbridge, and had three agents
in the house to permanently monitor Assange on cameras (for a cost of $1 million a year).
So they might be more intelligent than we think?
At the same time, Ecuador's politicians had problems justifying the costs of this to their
media.
Perhaps it seems more like this was perceived by Ecuador, as an intelligence operation, to
monitor Assange, and get intelligence information they could would use as leverage with the
Americans.
Today, the Ecuadorian interior minister is suddenly boasting about how they monitored and
have knowledge about two hackers who worked with Assange.
@reiner Tor Scotland yard
tried to play down their own costs of hanging outside the Ecuadorian embassy, which in 2015
was already estimated to be well over £10m over the prior three years, by saying that a
lot of that cost was money they would have spent on policing anyway: Tell that to the rapidly
increasing numbers of families of murder victims in the Capital. Oops, careful about saying
that in the UK, as the police there will pick you up for a thought-crime.
Elites around the globe protect each other more than they protect the interests of non-elites
in their own nations and any who side with non-elites in any non-trivial way, so it makes
sense that Latin American elites side with US elites who favor the mass immigration that has
driven down wages for 40 years and the mass exportation of US jobs to Latin American since it
1) boosts the profits of American elites and 2) relieves pressure on Latin American elites.
Ecuador seemed to get fed up with Assange – cutting him off from the world, badmouthing
him in MSM, etc – early 2018 when he was mostly tweeting about Catalonia. Spain is
supposedly Ecuador's closest partner in Europe. The timing could've been coincidental but
probably not.
@neutral He was always
scum but he was still the better choice than Hillary Clinton. He may still be better than his
opponent in 2020. That's how bad things are at the centre of the American empire.
Trump had the potential to be better than he is now but Washington has pushed his back
against the wall and his shitty character has thus shown itself in full. He could have been a
better President under different circumstances; even with these same character flaws.
@neutral Trump was and
still is the chaos candidate. When a better option than sabotage presents itself, then Trump
will become the second best choice.
Many, if not most, people knew he was the sabotage candidate when they supported him.
Hillary was understood to be worse because she'd maintain and even strengthen a bad system
while Trump would bugger it up.
@Thorfinnsson The Deep
State might already be beyond repair. So perhaps, come the Revolution, new, revolutionary
state organs will need to be set up in a clean break with the obscurantist blank slatist
regime. The state secrets of these new, revolutionary organs should be protected by any means
necessary. But then we'll have free countries for ourselves.
Until then, we don't need to protect the secrets of the oppressive obscurantist
regime.
Disagree here, he's energised the left to a degree that wouldn't have happened had he not
been elected and his policies are now no different to what Clinton's would have been. In
American politics, what you say appears to matter much more than what you do, so we've now
got the perfect storm of someone who talks like a right wing populist, and the resulting
backlash, but nothing to show for it. I remember ak mentioning that the only saving grace of
his administration being that it had alienated allies, but even that hasnt materialised. The
guy is a conman and a sellout, but he's very clearly noticed the fact that European
governments will unquestionably obey the US, so it's pointless to treat them with any respect
whatsoever: THATs the one and only positive thing I can say about him. Still not looking
forward to his successor.
@The
Alarmist Trump said he liked Wikileaks at that time, because they released some
embarrassing emails about Hilary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential election.
If they released embarrassing emails about Trump, he would have said the opposite.
Trump will not have any specific principles that would make him support asylum for
leakers, or generalized protection for dissidents, unless it might specifically be explained
that it would help him in some way (and unless there are emails to leak about his opponent in
2020, how will it help him?).
@reiner Tor But Trump
would say anything that would get him elected, and he would do many of these things. But, as
plutocrat surrounded by plutocrats, he'll never open the market for housing (allow easier
re-zoning), or transportation (dismantle the dealership racket), or hospitals / doctors.
Yeah, apparently he lacks the levers to reduce housing costs, but he can always fix, or
promise to fix, something about Assange, or about Christian-Obamacare conflicts –
despite them being equally remote from his mandate. Watch the idiotic boomers drooling all
over unz.com about Trump's "efforts" to fix immigration.
These being the highest expenses of an American, I can see who is the idiot here.
@simple_pseudonymic_handle
The most obvious parallel was the UK's refusal to extradite Gary McKinnon to the US.
McKinnon gained access to 97 US military and NASA networks between early 2001 and 2002. he
was also very very shit at covering his tracks.
The US sought extradition; McKinnon's lawyers challenged it on a bunch of grounds;
McKinnon won.
Part of the range of stuff that got him off was the refusal of the US to make guarantees
that he would not be housed in a SuperMax and that he would not be placed in solitary
confinement, That, plus McKinnon's "Asperger's" (diagnosed after he was arrested), was
enough for the system to tell the US government to pound sand.
I as among the people who warned JA not to go to the UK when he was leaving Sweden. (I've
known the guy as a nodding acquaintance since the 1980s and WANK; I'm in he & Suelette's
book, under a different pseudonym).
He was warned against one of the classic blunders.
The first two classic blunders are known to all –
① never start a land war in Asia , and
② never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line .
The third is less well-known:
③ when you've been honeypotted, DO NOT SEEK REFUGE ON A FUCKING ISLAND
.
When he ignored us, he was dropped from several DMSes.
For a very smart bloke, his judgement was always suspect: he allowed a fucking nappy like
Dumb Shitberg (Domscheit-Berg) inside his circle of confidants.
This whole damn country is a pile of lies. I don't know how you guys keep your sanity.
I think America may crack in the next ten years.
I live in a "minority-majority" area. It is all bullshit.
Hey, let's take all the worlds nations, races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, lifestyles,
sexual orientations, etc and stick them in one place!
On top of this we have a government that doesn't listen, ruled by special interest group.
My god, how long America?
I can't stand this place anymore.
It's going to be very interesting to see the next 10 years. The country is cracking up.
For my part, I'm learning a foreign language right now, it will come in handy when I have
enough money to bail.
Gentleman, there is nothing here worth left of preserving, only rot.
I miss a consideration, that wikileaks could be a Mossad/Unit8200 operation.
If I look at the wikileak's site, menu "partners", all is clear to me, "Der Spiegel" and
truth are mutually exclusive.
Wikileaks "revealed" an EU plan to use military against the poor human traffickers and
Israeli NGOs who bring in these Africans and "refugees". Fascinating, they have once in their
evil life a good plan in Brussels, and wikileaks shoots against it.
I think the question for Russian asylum is the same question why Russia did not spell the
beans on 911.
@Meimou The leader of
progressives, the dual-loyalty opportunist and CIA stooge Schumer:
Chuck Schumer
@SenSchumer
Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his
meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government.
@Hyperborean Trumpstein
and his sleazy family keep delivering for the vile jooies and the JudenPresse, JudenTV, and
JudenNet will make sure he gets reelected especially if he attacks Iran. Where is Titus now
that we need him?
"... Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time. ..."
"... In his own words, Donald Trump reveals his hypocrisy about Iraq, immigration, health care, abortion, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and more. ..."
@WorkingClass
Alex Graham is right. I voted for Trump because he promised:
(1) to end the wars the US is fighting as a sock puppet of Israel and her domestic agents,
the so-called neocons and the traitorous Zionist fifth column in this country, exemplified by
Adelson, Saban, Kushner, et al.;
(2) to restore the rule of law regarding illegal aliens in this country by removing these
criminals post haste;
(3) to restore order at the border and end the massive stream of illegals and contraband
entering our country every day;
(4) to establish reasonable laws and policies regulating immigration and naturalization so
that new immigrants and citizens improve rather than diminish the quality of life for current
citizens; and
(5) to eliminate and/or restructure trade agreements so they are bilateral and not
destructive of the USA's industrial and economic base.
Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I
suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his
sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe
personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time.
By all means, do not vote for Trump ever again. I don't intend to. But please don't
consider voting for a Democrat. They will just more efficiently screw us than Trump is doing
now.
Of course it's a Trump thing as well. The 'deep state' IS the state! TRump serves the
purpose of 'opening doors' for the rest of the gangsters, much the same way as successive
Labour govts, here in the UK, opened the door for even more reactionary Tory govts.
It's an issue of style versus substance. Ignore Trump's 'style', not that he has much, and
concentrate on events. They're seamless. The process continues as it has done for
decades.
"... Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985, for instance. ..."
"... Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view, but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.) ..."
"... Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board of his National Council for the American Worker (which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders in its job postings. ..."
"... There are more former Goldman Sachs employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined. ..."
"... It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives ..."
"... As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon. " ..."
"... Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the passing of a bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional $550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation. ..."
"... Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better. ..."
"... We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more" ..."
"Unlike other presidents, I keep my promises," Trump boasted in a
speech delivered on Saturday to the Republican Jewish Congress
at a luxury hotel in Las Vegas. Many in the audience wore red yarmulkes emblazoned with his name. In his speech, Trump condemned
Democrats for allowing "the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism to take root in their party" and emphasized his loyalty to Israel.
Trump has kept some of his promises. So far, he has kept every promise that he made to the Jewish community. Yet he has reneged
on his promises to white America – the promises that got him elected in the first place. It is a betrayal of the highest order: millions
of white Americans placed their hopes in Trump and wholeheartedly believed that he would be the one to make America great again.
They were willing to endure social ostracism and imperil their livelihoods by supporting him. In return, Trump has turned his back
on them and rendered his promises void.
The most recent example of this is Trump's failure to keep his promise to close the border. On March 29, Trump threatened to close
the border if Mexico did not stop all illegal immigration into the US. This would likely have been a highly effective measure given
Mexico's dependence on cross-border trade. Five days later, he suddenly retracted this threat and said that he would give Mexico
a " one-year warning
" before taking drastic action. He further claimed that closing the border would not be necessary and that he planned to establish
a twenty-five percent
tariff on cars
entering the US instead.
Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened
before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985,
for instance.
Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak
into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador
is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs
that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view,
but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.)
The past two years have seen a surge in illegal immigration without precedent in the past decade. Since late December, the Department
of Homeland Security has released 125,565 illegal aliens into the country. In the past two weeks alone,
6,000 have been admitted. According to current projections, 2019 will witness around 500,000 to 775,000 border crossings. Additionally,
about 630,000 illegal aliens will be added to the population after having overstayed their visas. By the end of the year,
more than one million illegal aliens will have been added to the population:
These projections put the number of illegal aliens added to the U.S. population at around one to 1.5 million, on top of the
11 to
22 million illegal aliens who are already living across the country. This finding does not factor in the illegal aliens who
will be deported, die over the next year, or leave the U.S. of their own will. As DHS data has revealed, once border crossers
and illegal aliens are released into the country, the overwhelming majority are never deported.
In February, Trump signed a
bill allowing the DHS
secretary to add another 69,320 spots to the current H-2B cap of 66,000. On March 29, DHS began this process by announcing that it
would issue an additional
30,000 H-2B visas this year. The H-2B visa program allows foreign workers to come to the US and work in non-agricultural occupations.
Unlike the H-1B program, a Bachelor's degree is not required; most H-2B workers are employed in construction, maintenance, landscaping,
and so on. The demographic most affected by the expansion of the H-2B program will be unemployed working-class Americans. This flies
in the face of Trump's promise to protect American workers and stop importing foreigners.
Trump has indicated that he has plans to expand the H-1B visa program as well. "We want to encourage talented and highly skilled
people to pursue career options in the U.S.," he said in a
tweet in January.
Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board
of his National Council for the American Worker
(which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has
expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders
in its job postings.
Trump has been working on legal immigration with Jared Kushner, who has quietly been crafting a
plan to grant
citizenship to more "low- and high-skilled workers, as well as permanent and temporary workers" (so, just about everyone). Kushner's
plan proves the folly of the typical Republican line that legal immigration is fine and that only illegal immigration should be opposed.
Under his plan, thousands of illegal aliens will become "legal" with the stroke of a pen.
There is a paucity of anti-immigration hardliners in Trump's inner circle (though Stephen Miller is a notable exception). Trump
has surrounded himself with moderates: the Kushners, Mick Mulvaney, Alex Acosta, and others. There are more former Goldman Sachs
employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined.
The new DHS secretary, Kevin McAleenan, who was appointed yesterday following Kirstjen Nielsen's resignation, is a middle-of-the-road
law enforcement official who served under Obama and Bush and is responsible for the revival of the "
catch-and-release " policy, whereby
illegal aliens are released upon being apprehended. It was reported last week that Trump was thinking of appointing either Kris Kobach
or Ken Cuccinelli to a position of prominence (as an "
immigration czar "),
but this appears to have been another lie.
Trump's failure to deliver on his promises cannot be chalked up to congressional obstruction. Congress. As Kobach said in a recent
interview , "It's not like we're powerless and it's not like we have to wait for Congress to do something. . . . No, we can actually
solve the immediate crisis without Congress acting." Solving the border crisis would simply demand "leadership in the executive branch
willing to act decisively." Kobach recently outlined an intelligent
three-point plan that Trump could implement:
Publish the final version of the regulation that would supersede the Flores Settlement. The initial regulation was
published by the Department of Homeland
Security in September 2018. DHS could have published the final regulation in December. Inexplicably, DHS has dragged its feet. Finalizing
that regulation would allow the United States to detain entire families together, and it would stop illegal aliens from exploiting
children as get-out-of-jail free cards. Set up processing centers at the border to house the migrants and hold the hearings in one
place. The Department of Justice should deploy dozens of immigration judges to hear the asylum claims at the border without releasing
the migrants into the country. FEMA already owns
thousands of travel trailers and mobile homes that it has used to address past hurricane disasters. Instead of selling them (which
FEMA is currently doing), FEMA should ship them to the processing centers to provide comfortable housing for the migrants. In addition,
a fleet of passenger planes should deployed to the processing centers. Anyone who fails in his or her asylum claim, or who is not
seeking asylum and is inadmissible, should be flown home immediately. It would be possible to fly most migrants home within a few
weeks of their arrival. Word would get out quickly in their home countries that entry into the United States is not as easy as advertised.
The incentive to join future caravans would dissipate quickly. Publish a proposed Treasury regulation that prohibits the sending
home of remittances by people who cannot document lawful presence in the United States. This will hit Mexico in the pocketbook: Mexico
typically brings in well over $20 billion a year in
remittances , raking in
more than $26 billion in 2017. Then, tell the government of Mexico that we will finalize the Treasury regulation unless they do two
things to help us address the border crisis: (1) Mexico immediately signs a "safe third country agreement" similar to our agreement
with Canada. This would require asylum applicants to file their asylum application in the first safe country they set foot in (so
applicants in the caravans from Central America would have to seek asylum in Mexico, rather than Canada); and (2) Mexico chips in
$5 billion to help us build the wall. The threat of ending remittances from illegal aliens is a far more powerful one than threatening
to close the border. Ending such remittances doesn't hurt the U.S. economy; indeed, it helps the economy by making it more likely
that such capital will be spent and circulate in our own country. We can follow through easily if Mexico doesn't cooperate.
It would not be all that difficult for Trump to implement these proposals. Kobach still has faith in Trump, but his assessment
of him appears increasingly to be too generous. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in
curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions
of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives . At the same time, he wants to
maintain the illusion that he cares about his base.
As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish.
The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon.
"
Nearly everything Trump has done in the name of restricting immigration has turned out to be an empty gesture and mere theatrics:
threatening to close the border, offering protections to "Dreamers" in exchange for funding for the ever-elusive wall, threatening
to end the "anchor baby" phenomenon with an executive order (which never came to pass), cutting off aid to Central American countries,
claiming that he will appoint an "immigration czar" (and then proceeding to appoint McAleenan instead of Kobach as DHS secretary),
and on and on.
While Trump has failed to keep the promises that got him elected, he has fulfilled a number of major promises that he made to
Israel and the Jewish community.
First, he moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump claimed that the move would only cost $200,000, but in
reality it will end up being more than
$20 million . The construction
of the embassy also led to a series of bloody protests; it is located in East Jerusalem, which is generally acknowledged to be Palestinian
territory.
Second, he pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu
claimed on Israeli TV that Israel was responsible for convincing him to exit the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran. (Both Trump
and Netanyahu falsely alleged that Iran lied about the extent of its nuclear program; meanwhile, Israel's large arsenal of chemical
and biological weapons has escaped mention.) Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the
passing of a
bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional
$550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation.
Fourth, he recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights (in defiance of the rest of the world, which recognizes the
Golan Heights as Syrian territory under Israeli occupation). Trump's Golan Heights proclamation was issued on March 21 and was celebrated
by Israel. Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed
to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most
credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess
game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better.
If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story
of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.
I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is,
and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.
Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?
Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on
BookTV .
Yep. Trump's a lying POS pond scum like the rest of the DC swamp that he said he was going to drain, turns out he is one of them
all along. We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more. He needs to change his campaign slogan to MIGA, Make Israel
Great Again, that was the plan of his handlers all along.
What I want to know is, who are those idiots who still keep showing up at his rallies? Are they really that dumb?
Even Sanders came out and said we can't have open borders. I've also heard him said back in 2015 that the H1b visa program
is a replacement program for American workers. If he grows a pair and reverts back to that stance, teams up with Tulsi Gabbard,
I'll vote for them 2020. Fuck Trump! Time for him and his whole treasonous rat family to move to Israel where they belong.
His "implicitly white" supporters would have abandoned him in droves, not wanting to be associated with a racist, thus pointing
up the weakness of implicit whiteness as a survival strategy. And is it actually a survival strategy? A closer look at it makes
me think it's more of a racial self-extermination strategy. After all, what kind of a survival strategy is it that can't even
admit its goals to itself? And it's exactly this refusal of whites to explicitly state that they collectively want to continue
to exist as a race that is the greatest impediment to their doing so. It's an interesting problem with no easy solution. How
do you restore the will to live to a race that seems to have lost it? And not only lost its will to live, but actually prides
itself on doing so? Accordingly, this "betrayal" isn't a betrayal at all. It's what American whites voted for and want. Giving
their country away and accepting their own demographic demise is proof of their virtue; proof of their Christian love for all
mankind.
You are definitely onto something here.
Still, I feel it's not that deep and complicated. It could be that they simply don't believe that the danger is closing in.
Boils down to wrong judgment. People who haven't had the need to think hard about serious things tend to develop that weakness.
I guess that boils down to "good times make weak men."
Hard times are coming and they'll make hard men.
The catch is simple: will be enough of them in time ?
Switching to the Democrats is no solution. The DNC has proven itself to be a criminal organization through sabotaging Sander's
campaign and then being instrumental in creating Russophobia, in collusion with Obama, the CIA, the FBI, and the DoJ. The DNC
has rules in place stating that super delegates – elitists aligned with the DNC – can vote if one nominee does not win on the
first ballot at the National Convention.
Because we have a HUGE number of hats in the Democratic ring, the chances that the nomination
will not be decided on a first vote are extremely high, with the result being that the Democratic nominee is not going to be decided
by voters in the primaries but by super delegates, i.e., the elitists and plutocrats.
Democracy exists when we vote to support
candidates chosen by the elites for the elites; when we stop doing that, the elites turn on democracy. It is a sham; we will have
a choice in 2020: between Pepsi and Coke. You are free to choose which one you prefer, because you live in a democracy. For more
on the rigging of the democratic primaries for 2020, see
At least 60 companies reported an effective federal tax rate of zero, meaning they owe
nothing in federal taxes for 2018, and that tax burden then falls on the rest of us. Senator
Elizabeth Warren has a plan to fix that. She joins Stephanie Ruhle in her first interview since
unveiling her proposal.
60 years ago every job offered health insurance, retirement plans, paid vacation, and all
sorts of other benefits. It's time to have them pay a share of our societies costs, they use
the same roads, breathe the same air, and drink the same water...
Warren has consistently amazed me with her proposals... I hope she will make it to the
debates, since everyone's fawning over Bernie and Beto for their fundraising capabilities, I
hope they are not trying to sink her...
Warren Buffet, who saved 28 or so million on his, himself said trumps tax deal was
foolish..but he also said he wouldn't turn it down, which i don't blame him on that..
Senator Warren makes some excellent points (as usual): "market" implies a competitive
environment, so when huge corps squeeze out competitors, it's no longer a "market".
Corporations/rich individuals always say they made their profits themselves (independently of
others or of any social structure systems). Really? If you were living/doing business on a
mountaintop, disconnected from everyone else and any infrastructure support, you would have
done just as well? That's a load of crap, and if they had any responsibility at all (as
opposed to just pure greed), they'd be willing to give back a bit and contribute to the
system(s) they build their wealth on.
The fact is that the wealthy all over the world do not want their position of privilege to
be challenged. This is why Bernie Sanders has been saying (for several DECADES) that the only
way to move our society forward is to build from the bottom up... not the top down. And he is
100% correct.
Odd thing, but suddenly I remember how John McCain came out of nowhere back in 2008.
Polling in single digits, suddenly the man is hyped like hell and becomes the candidate.
Perfect foil for Obama, I suppose.
Somehow reminds me of 2016, but then Obama was an unknown, not the most hated politician
in the US.
^^^
As for "why now" on the arrest of Assange, it diverts attention from a lot of other
topics. Some of those will probably never re-surface.
The main way big corporations corrupt the movement is by lobbing for tax preferential regime.
Neoliberalism included "voodoo" supply side economics thory that speculates that lower taxes
increase employment, while in reality they mostly increase the wealth of capital owners. This
theory is brainwashed itno people minds by relentless neoliberal propaganda machine -- all major
MSM are controlled by neoliberals. Common people have no say in this gbig game.
But tax regime is the battlefield were big capital fights labor and big capital since 1970
won all major battles.
Notable quotes:
"... "Because of relentless lobbying, our corporate income tax rules are filled with so many loopholes and exemptions and deductions that even companies that tell shareholders they have made more than a billion dollars in profits can end up paying no corporate income taxes," Warren wrote in a Medium post unveiling the plan. "Let's bring in the revenue we need to invest in opportunity for all Americans. And let's make this year the last year any company with massive profits pays zero federal taxes." ..."
"... Warren's plan is aimed at large corporations -- ones that have generally paid lower tax rates than smaller companies in recent years. The GOP tax cut law nearly doubled the number of publicly held companies that paid no federal taxes from 30 to 60 in the last year alone, according to a recent study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. ..."
"... This is the latest significant tax proposal the Massachusetts senator has unveiled as part of her campaign platform, which also includes a two percent surtax on people with more than $50 million in assets and a three percent surtax on those who have $1 billion. ..."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) unveiled a major plank in her
platform to tax the rich on Thursday, introducing plans for a new tax on all corporations that
clear $100 million in annual profits.
Warren's "real corporate profits tax" is aimed at large corporations like Amazon that have
generated huge profits in recent years while almost entirely avoiding federal taxes through a
series of loopholes and credits.
"Because of relentless lobbying, our corporate income tax rules are filled with so many
loopholes and exemptions and deductions that even companies that tell shareholders they have
made more than a billion dollars in profits can end up paying no corporate income taxes,"
Warren
wrote in a Medium post unveiling the plan. "Let's bring in the revenue we need to invest in
opportunity for all Americans. And let's make this year the last year any company with massive
profits pays zero federal taxes."
The plan would institute a seven percent tax on profits over $100 million in addition to
current taxes. An economic analysis released by Warren's campaign estimated that at least 1,200
companies would be forced to pay new taxes under the plan, generating a net revenue boost of at
least $1 trillion for the government.
Warren's plan is aimed at large corporations -- ones that have generally paid lower tax
rates than smaller companies in recent years. The GOP tax cut law nearly doubled the number of
publicly held companies that paid no federal taxes from 30 to 60 in the last year alone,
according to a recent study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic
Policy.
This is the latest significant tax proposal the Massachusetts senator has unveiled as part
of her campaign platform, which also includes a two percent surtax on people with more than $50
million in assets and a three percent surtax on those who have $1 billion.
The plans have earned her plaudits on the left and drawn concern from some more
business-friendly moderate Democrats.
But so far, they haven't proven a game-changer in the presidential race. Warren continues to
struggle to siphon off a significant chunk of voters who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) last
election, her natural base of support. She's regularly polled in the mid- to upper-single
digits in recent state and national polls, in the second tier of candidates.
And she
raised just $6 million in her first quarter in the campaign, her team announced yesterday.
That's not a terrible haul in a crowded field, especially since she's sworn off big donors, but
it's nothing compared to the huge sums she pulled in as a Senate candidate -- and trailed even
upstart South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D).
She also spent almost all of that money, having
built out a large staff in the early primary states with a high payroll.
And Sanders isn't giving her much room on her left: He reintroduced a
sweeping Medicare for all plan on Wednesday, which she cosponsored, a move that puts
pressure on Warren and other Democrats to keep up as they try to woo the progressive wing of
the party base.
"... He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague ..."
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from
within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner
openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling
through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears
not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and
their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He rots
the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of
the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to
fear. The traitor is the plague."
Trump betrayed white workers because he knows he can get away with it. For the last thirty years of the 20th century millions of
white families were wrenched out of the middle class without a squeak out of any major news outlet or national level politician. Trump
himself stiffed his workers in those days and got away with it.
Notable quotes:
"... “In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider. ..."
"... A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won’t fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics.” ..."
"... Yes, it would have been worse with the Cackling Hyena, but what does that tell ya? ..."
I'm not sure why the author of this article seems to be surprised by the actions of Trump and his administration. The collective
image of him as a blood-thirsty racist whose hatred of all peoples queer 'n' colored runs marrow and generations-deep -- think
of a cross between a street corner John Galt and Ian Smith, daubed with vague overtones of Archie Bunker mingling with Clint Eastwood
-- is purely an invention of the media, the left as well as that of the right.
Why or how he became the impromptu pope of white nationalism escapes me. Anyone with ears to listen and eyes to see could find
for themselves that he never so much as intimated even muted sympathy for that movement, not during his campaign and certainly
not as head of state, media accusations of "dog whistles" and the like notwithstanding.
But a demoralized white working and middle class were willing to believe in anything, deluding themselves into reading between
the barren eruptions of his blowzy proclamations. They elevated him to messianic heights, ironically fashioning him into that
which he publicly claims to despise: an Obama, a Barry in negative image, "hope and change" for the OxyContin and Breitbart set.
Like his predecessor, Trump never really says anything at all. There are grand pronouncements, bilious screeds targeting
perceived enemies, glib generalities, but rarely are any concrete, definitive ideas and policies ever articulated. Trump, like
Obama, is merely a cipher, an empty suit upon which the dreams (or nightmares) of the beholder can effortlessly be projected,
a polarizing figurehead who wields mostly ceremonial powers while others ostensibly beneath him busy themselves with the actual
running of the republic.
To observe this requires no great research or expenditure of effort -- he lays it all out there for anybody to hear or read.
Unfortunately, the near totality of this country's populace is effectively illiterate and poorly equipped to think critically
and independently, preferring to accept the verdicts of their oleaginous talking heads at face value without ever troubling themselves
to examine why. (The dubious products of the glorified diploma mills we call "higher education" are often the most gullible and
dim-witted.) Trump is the dark magus of racism and bigotry -- boo! Trump is the man of sorrows who will carry aloft Western Civilization
resurgent -- yay!
Just as the hysterical left was quickly shattered by the mediocrity that was Barack Obama, so too does the hysterical right
now ululate the sting of Donald Trump's supposed betrayal. As with their ideological antipodes, they got what they deserved. Pity
that the rest of us have to be carted along for the ride.
Politics, at least at the national level, is a puppet show to channel and periodically blow off dissent.
“In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush
years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of
our military banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger.
This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump
won’t fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics.”
Linh Dinh, “Orlando Shooting Means Trump for President,” published at The Unz Review, June 12, 2016.
"... Then, flayed and pillaged by these gentry as they never were by the old-time professionals, they go back in despair to the latter, and are flayed and pillaged again." ..."
Reed was wrong here. The American voter, for the most part, still doesn't realize any of
this.
In June 1922 the Zionist halter was firmly reaffixed
round the neck of American State policy, and though American voter only slowly
realized this, it became immaterial to him which party prevailed at elections.
"First the poor taxpayers, robbed by the politicians of one great party and then by
those of the other, turn to a group of free-lance rogues in the middle ground --
non-partisan candidates, Liberals, reformers, or what not: the name is unimportant.
Then, flayed and pillaged by these gentry as they never were by the old-time
professionals, they go back in despair to the latter, and are flayed and pillaged
again."
Trump is attacked relentlessly by Israel firsters (both left and right) prior to, and after
his investiture as POTUS. How does he respond? How has he responded to relentless attacks on
his base? The man has no spine, and no sense of gratitude or morality.
'Not worth feeding' my late grandfather would have said. Although he has made a lot of
wealthy petulant people (who despise him and laugh behind his back) even wealthier.
What is needed is a billionaire who has genuine sense of noblesse oblige. Hopeless!
Of course Trump was a gamble. I clearly remember him saying he wanted to get out of Syria,
put an end to the endless wars, and he declared himself neutral on the Israel/Palestine
issue–those were the biggest reasons I voted for him. Turns out he lied big time.
Now what? Looking at the clown car of presidential candidates just induces political
nausea. No matter who gets elected it will be a government of, by, and for
Jewish/Israeli/Zionist interests.
In the meantime I see no real progress on putting the brakes on illegals flooding the
country. I see no economic miracles in spite of all the spin. Actual unemployment in the US
was at 21.2% in March, really not much better than it has been since the 2008 crash (
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
), and record numbers of people are behind on mortgages and car payments, suicide and drug
casualties have been skyrocketing.
Our political system is not going to bring any solutions, it has been far too corrupt for
far too long.
"... When Trump officials insisted that the 2017 tax cut would lead to a decade of miraculous growth, their claim made no sense in terms of the underlying economics, and it flew in the face of decades of evidence. But it was a prediction, not a statement of fact, and it's conceivable (barely) that Trump's people actually believed it. ..."
"... But when Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, went on TV Sunday to declare that "every single plan" Trump has put forward "covered pre-existing conditions," that was just a lie. ..."
Republican Health Care Lying Syndrome: Even Trump supporters don't believe the party's
promises.
By Paul Krugman
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and Republican claims about health
care.
O.K., it's not news that politicians make misleading claims, some more than others.
According to a running tally kept by Daniel Dale of The Toronto Star, as of Monday morning,
Donald Trump had said 4,682 false things as president.
But G.O.P. health care claims are special, in several ways. First, they're outright,
clearly intentional lies -- not dubious assertions or misstatements that could be attributed
to ignorance or misunderstanding. Second, they're repetitive: Rather than making a wide
variety of false claims, Republicans keep telling the same few lies, over and over. Third,
they keep doing this even though the public long ago stopped believing anything they say on
the subject.
This syndrome demands an explanation, and I'll get there eventually. Before I do, however,
let's document the things that make G.O.P. health care lies unique.
First, as I said, I'm not talking about mere dubious claims. When Trump officials insisted
that the 2017 tax cut would lead to a decade of miraculous growth, their claim made no sense
in terms of the underlying economics, and it flew in the face of decades of evidence. But it
was a prediction, not a statement of fact, and it's conceivable (barely) that Trump's people
actually believed it.
But when Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, went on TV Sunday to
declare that "every single plan" Trump has put forward "covered pre-existing conditions,"
that was just a lie.
Here's what the Congressional Budget Office said in its assessment of the Republicans'
American Health Care Act, which would have caused 23 million to lose coverage, and would have
passed if John McCain hadn't voted "No": "People who are less healthy (including those with
pre-existing or newly acquired medical conditions) would ultimately be unable to purchase
comprehensive nongroup health insurance at premiums comparable to those under current law, if
they could purchase it at all."
But Mulvaney's pre-existing conditions lie, along with his lie about nobody losing
coverage if the lawsuit against Obamacare succeeds, was normal by G.O.P. standards. Which
brings me to the second reason this particular form of lying is exceptional: Republicans just
keep telling the same lies, over and over. Again and again they have promised to maintain
coverage and protect pre-existing conditions -- then offered plans that would cause tens of
millions to lose health insurance, with the worst impact on those already suffering from
health problems.
The funny thing -- which is my third point -- is that almost nobody seems to believe these
lies. On the eve of last year's midterm elections, the public trusted Democrats over
Republicans to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions by 58 percent to 26 percent. A
margin this big tells us that even Trump supporters knew their man was lying on this
issue.
So what's behind the persistence of R.H.L.S. -- Republican health care lying syndrome?
Well, public opinion here is clear: Americans want everyone to have access to health care.
There isn't even that much of a partisan divide: An overwhelming majority of Republicans
don't believe insurance companies should be allowed to deny coverage or charge more to those
with pre-existing conditions.
This public near-unanimity is one reason Medicare is so popular. Getting older -- and thus
joining a group with much higher average health costs than the rest of the population -- is,
after all, the ultimate pre-existing condition.
But there are only two ways to cover people with pre-existing conditions, and both are
anathema to conservative ideology.
One is to have taxpayers pay the bills directly, which is what Medicare does.
The other combines regulation and subsidies. Insurance companies must be prohibited from
discriminating based on medical history -- a prohibition that must include preventing them
from issuing bare-bones policies that will appeal only to those in good health -- but that
won't do the job by itself. Healthy people must also be induced to sign up, to provide a good
risk pool, which means subsidizing premiums for those with lower incomes and, preferably
although not totally necessary, imposing a penalty on those without insurance.
If the second option sounds familiar, it should. It's what countries like the Netherlands
and Switzerland do; it's also a description of, you guessed it, Obamacare.
But Republicans cannot admit that the only way to protect pre-existing conditions is to
emulate Democratic policies. The party of Eisenhower, or even the party of Nixon, might have
been able to do such a thing, but the party of Fox News cannot.
Nor, however, do Republicans dare admit that they have no interest in providing protection
that a vast majority of voters demands. So they just keep lying.
You may, by the way, have heard talk about G.O.P. members of Congress opposed to Trump's
new health care push. But they share his goals; they're just questioning his timing. The
whole party still wants to take away your health care. It just hopes to get through the next
election before you find out.
"If the second option sounds familiar, it should. It's what countries like the Netherlands
and Switzerland do; it's also a description of, you guessed it, Obamacare."
Not quite:
"Unlike insurers offering the basic coverage plan, private insurers can be for-profit.
Often an insurance company in Switzerland will have a non-profit branch offering mandatory
public insurance and a for-profit branch offering additional private medical insurance. ...
"
"Most hospitals and health insurers in the Netherlands are privately run, non-profit
foundations, whereas most healthcare insurers are non-profit companies."
Why do hide the big difference between the US and other countries; that US health
insurance and the majority of providers are "for profit", while most other countries that use
non government insurers deny them profit?
List the US' not for profit insurers and a link to a description of their "business model".
I have worked with a few of DoD's federally funded R&D corps, They have no profits but
their loaded rates are half again the customary and reasonable..........
Exploitation by extraction
of a share of the value created
by an organization's job force
can be conducted by non profits
No profits can be
profit producers
distributing the profits
by other means
Then share holder dividends
NEW YORK -- Senator Elizabeth Warren lobbed another policy grenade into the Democratic
primary Friday, announcing she supports drastically changing the Senate by eliminating its
legendary filibuster to give her party a better chance of implementing its ambitious
agenda.
The move puts her campaign rivals on the spot to explain how they would pass their own
ambitious legislative priorities if the Senate keeps its rule in place requiring a 60-vote
supermajority to advance most bills.
Warren's announcement allows her to swerve to the left of Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont in a meaningful way at a time when she's straggling far behind him in early polls and
grass-roots fund-raising.
Sanders, who popularized proposals like free college and Medicare for All among Democrats
during his 2016 run for president, has been reluctant to support scrapping the filibuster.
That raises questions about how he would be able to pass his sweeping proposals into law
should he become president, given Democrats are extremely unlikely to have 60 seats in the
Senate.
"I'm not running for president just to talk about making real, structural change," Warren
told a group of activists at a conference organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton, where she
announced her opposition to the filibuster. "I'm serious about getting it done. And part of
getting it done means waking up to the reality of the United States Senate."
The appearance in New York caps off a three-week run that has seen Warren call for making
it easier to send executives to jail for corporate crimes, unveil a proposal to break up farm
monopolies, endorse forming a commission to study reparations for the descendants of slaves,
and say she would like to abolish the Electoral College so presidents are elected by popular
vote.
"Bernie Sanders, nobody's to his left on policy, but there's lots of running room on his
left on procedural changes that would be necessary to enact those policies," said Brian
Fallon, a former top Hillary Clinton aide and the founder of the liberal advocacy group
Demand Justice.
Sanders said he's not "crazy about" the idea of getting rid of the filibuster in an
interview in February, but said in a later statement that he is open to reform.
Getting rid of the Senate filibuster, which has been around since the mid-1800s, was once
seen as a radical proposal that would undermine the chamber's ability to take a deliberative
approach to major issues. But Democratic and Republican majorities have chipped away at it in
recent years, jettisoning filibusters for Cabinet and Supreme Court nominees.
Just this week, Senate Republicans infuriated Democrats by unilaterally reducing the
amount of debate time for other executive branch and judicial nominees before a filibuster
could be ended.
The move to ditch the filibuster has gained currency among liberals frustrated that the
Senate is more Republican than the general public because of liberals clustering on the
coasts and the constitutional requirement that all states get two senators regardless of
population.
President Trump and Barack Obama have complained about the filibuster, with Obama saying
last year that it made it "almost impossible" to govern.
Though probably too wonky a proposal to reach the average voter, the debate over the
Senate filibuster animates the Democratic activists who are watching the primary the most
closely and whose support the candidates are vying to win. Those activists are unmoved by
candidates who say they'll be able to persuade Republicans to sign onto their ambitious
liberal legislation.
"The idea that you can win people over by inviting them over for drinks on the Truman
Balcony -- that is completely out of vogue," Fallon said.
Other candidates have also called for getting rid of the filibuster, including Governor
J*a*y Inslee of Washington and Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who is pondering
a run. However, Warren is the first sitting senator in the race to do so. Senator Kamala
Harris of California, who signed a letter in 2017 affirming the filibuster, now says she's
conflicted about it.
The filibuster's defenders say it protects the rights of the minority party, and forces
the majority to compromise. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who also signed the 2017
letter, has said he is concerned that getting rid of the filibuster would mean Republicans
would be able to more easily pass legislation in the future over Democrats' objections.
In her speech to the National Action Network's activists, a largely black crowd, Warren
framed the filibuster as a tool of "racists" who used it for decades to block civil rights
legislation, including a bill to make lynching a federal crime that was first introduced in
the early 1900s. The legislation finally passed this year.
"We can't sit around for 100 years while climate change destroys our planet, while
corruption pervades every nook and cranny of Washington, and while too much of a child's fate
in life still rests on the color of their skin," she said.
After her speech, Warren told reporters that she is concerned about the bills Republicans
would be able to pass without the filibuster, but that getting rid of it is worth it for
Democrats. "Of course I'm worried. But I'm also worried about a minority that blocks real
change that we need to make in this country," she said.
The calls to eliminate the filibuster are part of a larger debate among Democrats about
reforming US democracy after they lost the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections despite
winning the popular vote. Warren, along with several other Democrats, has also called to
abolish the Electoral College. Warren, Harris, and former representative Beto O'Rourke of
Texas are also open to the idea of the next president expanding the number of seats on the
Supreme Court to offset its conservative majority.
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who pushes a host of liberal policies, has
been more conservative on these proposals than many of his presidential campaign rivals. He
is against expanding the court, arguing it would be a slippery slope that Republicans could
also take advantage of, and is still on the fence about ditching the filibuster and
abolishing the Electoral College.
Warren declined to call out her Senate colleagues when asked whether she was surprised
they had not endorsed the idea of ending the filibuster. "All I can do is keep running the
campaign I'm running and talking about these ideas," she said.
Too often caught between Randian individualism on one hand and big-government collectivism
on the other, America's working-class parents need a champion.
They might well have had one in Elizabeth Warren, whose 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap , co-authored with her daughter Amelia
Warren Tyagi, was unafraid to skewer sacred cows. Long a samizdat favorite among socially
conservative writers, the book recently got a new dose of attention after being spotlighted on
the Right by Fox News's
Tucker Carlson and on the Left by Vox's
Matthew Yglesias .
The book's main takeaway was that two-earner families in the early 2000s seemed to be less,
rather than more, financially stable than one-earner families in the 1970s. Whereas
stay-at-home moms used to provide families with an implicit safety net, able to enter the
workforce if circumstances required, the dramatic rise of the two-earner family had effectively
bid up the cost of everyday life. Rather than the additional income giving families more
breathing room, they argue, "Mom's paycheck has been pumped directly into the basic costs of
keeping the children in the middle class."
Warren and Warren Tyagi report that as recently as the late 1970s, a married mother was
roughly twice as likely to stay at home with her children than work full-time. But by 2000,
those figures had almost reversed. Both parents had been pressed into the workforce to maintain
adequate standards of living for their families -- the "two-income trap" of the book's
title.
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What caused the trap to be sprung? Cornell University economist Francine Blau has helpfully
drawn a picture of women's changing responsiveness to
labor market wages during the 20th century. In her work with Laurence Kahn, Blau found that
women's wage elasticities -- how responsive their work decisions were to changes in their
potential wages -- used to be far more heavily driven by their husband's earning potential or
lack thereof (what economists call cross-wage elasticity). Over time, Blau and Kahn found,
women's responsiveness to wages -- their own or their husbands -- began to fall, and their
labor force participation choices began to more closely resemble men's, providing empirical
backing to the story Warren and Warren Tyagi tell.
Increasing opportunity and education were certainly one driver of this trend. In 1960, just
5.8
percent of all women over age 25 had a bachelor's degree or higher. Today, 41.7 percent of
mothers aged 25 and over have a college degree. Many of these women entered careers in which
they found fulfillment and meaning, and the opportunity costs, both financially and
professionally, of staying home might have been quite high.
But what about the plurality of middle- and working-class moms who weren't necessarily
looking for a career with a path up the corporate ladder? What was pushing them into full-time
work for pay, despite consistently
telling pollsters they wished they could work less?
The essential point, stressed by Warren and Warren Tyagi, was the extent to which this
massive shift was driven by a desire to provide for one's children. The American Dream has as
many interpretations as it does adherents, but a baseline definition would surely include
giving your children a better life. Many women in America's working and middle classes entered
the labor force purely to provide the best possible option for their families.
In the search for good neighborhoods and good schools, a bidding war quickly became an arms
race. There were "two words so powerful the families would pursue them to the brink of
bankruptcy: safety and education ." The authors underplay the extent to which
policy had explicitly sought to preserve home values, driven by their use as investment
vehicles and retirement accounts, a dynamic covered expertly by William Fischel's The Homevoter Hypothesis . But their broader
point is accurate -- rising house prices, aided and abetted by policy choices around land use,
have made it harder for families to afford the cost of living in 21st-century America.
Another factor in the springing of the trap? Divorce. In her 2000 book about how feminism had failed women, Danielle
Crittenden writes about how fear of dependency, especially in an era of no-fault divorce, had
caused women to rank financial independence highly.
These two factors, along with others Warren and Warren Tyagi explore, made it difficult for
families to unilaterally disarm without losing their place in the middle class. "Today's
middle-class mother is trapped," they write. "She can't afford to work, and she can't afford to
quit."
A quiet armistice may have been declared in the so-called "mommy wars," but the underlying
pressures haven't gone away since The Two-Income Trap was published. If anything,
they've gotten worse.
Warren and Warren Tyagi propose severing the link between housing and school districts
through a "well-designed voucher program," calling the public education system "the heart of
the problem." They correctly note that "schools in middle-class neighborhoods may be labeled
'public,'" but that parents effectively pay tuition by purchasing a home within a carefully
selected school district. Breaking the cartel that ties educational outcomes to zip codes would
increase choices for families and open the door to further educational pluralism.
Warren and Warren Tyagi are also unafraid to tell unpopular truths about the futility of
additional funding for colleges (identifying "faith in the power of higher education [as] the
new secular religion"), housing affordability ("direct subsidies are likely to add more
ammunition to the already ruinous bidding wars, ultimately driving home prices even higher"),
universal child care (which "would create yet another comparative disadvantage for
single-income families trying to compete in the marketplace"), and usurious credit (Warren's
long work on bankruptcy requires deeper treatment than this space allows, but their questioning
of our over-reliance on consumer debt deserves a fuller hearing).
Warren's presidential campaign contains elements of this attempt to make life easier for
families, but the shades of her vision of a pro-family economic policy seem paler than they
were a decade and a half ago.
Her universal child
care plan , for example, seemingly contradicts her prior stated worries about
disadvantaging stay-at-home parents. While she explicitly -- and wisely -- steers clear of a
subsidy-based approach, her attempt to "create a network of child care options" does less to
directly support families who aren't looking for formal care. In a sense, Warren would
replicate the public school experience for the under-five crowd -- if you don't want to
participate, that's fine, but you'll bear the cost on your own. A true pro-family populism
would seek to increase the choice set for all families, regardless of their work-life
situations.
Warren's housing plan has
similarly good intentions, seeking to increase the supply of affordable housing rather than
simply trying to subsidize demand. Her competitive education grant would reward municipalities
for relaxing restrictive zoning requirements. But while her campaign has yet to release a plan
on education, it seems unlikely we'll see the kind of bold approach to educational choice she
espoused in 2003. Populist sympathizers of all ideological stripes should hope I'm proven
wrong.
Warren's attempt at pro-family progressive populism seems honest. If not for certain
infamous biographical missteps, her personal story would be one of how America is still a land
of opportunity -- the daughter of a Oklahoma department store salesman who worked her way to a
law degree, a professorship, and a Senate seat. There's a congruence in her positioning of
economic security as a family values issue and the resurgent interest in a pro-worker,
pro-family conservative agenda. And unlike so many politicians, her personal experience seems
to have instilled an understanding of why so many dual-earner families see work as a means to
the end of providing a better life for their children rather than an end in itself.
A politician willing to question the sacred cows of double-income families, more money
for schools, and easy credit is the kind of politician this populist moment requires. A
candidate willing to call into question an economic model that prioritizes GDP growth over all
else would boldly position himself or herself as being on the side of families whose vision of
the American Dream involves a better life for their children, yet who are exhausted and hemmed
in by costs.
How Warren needs to position her platform to navigate the vicissitudes of a Democratic Party
primary will likely not be the best way to address the needs of the modern American family. But
in a crowded field, an uncompromising vision of increased choice for families across all
dimensions -- not just within the public school system, for example, but among all options of
education -- would be an impressive accomplishment and a way of distinguishing herself from the
pack. An explicit defense of parenthood as a social good would be unconventional but
welcome.
Still, a marker of how far the conversation around families has shifted from the early 2000s
is the extent to which Warren's and Warren Tyagi's view of parenthood as something more than an
individual "lifestyle choice" would now be viewed as radical, particularly on the Left. "That
may be true from the perspective of an individual choosing whether or not to have a child,"
they write, "but it isn't true for society at large. What happens to a nation that rewards the
childless and penalizes the parents?"
What indeed. Paging the Elizabeth Warren of 2003 -- your country needs you.
Patrick T. Brown ( @PTBwrites ) is a master's of public affairs student at
Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Doe anyone think the middle and especially upper middle class would be in favor of a school
choice plan that would cause their housing values to take hit? And there's another big
roadblock with a school choice program: the need for transportation. Two years ago my next
door neighbors who were able to place their young son in a good school across town sold their
house and moved to be closer to the school since the daily cross-town commute at rush hour
was just too much.
They might well have had one in Elizabeth Warren, whose 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap,
co-authored with her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi, was unafraid to skewer sacred cows.
It's more recent than that. The first edition was 2003, but a second edition came out in
2016, by which time Mom probably knew she might be running for president. It's got a new
introduction by the authors, so obviously it was done with their cooperation.
I haven't read either edition, so I don't know what's been changed in the new one.
I am struck again and again, by the unbelievable power of the forces in the political
arena pushing everyone who is a Democrat because they are fiscally liberal* to ALSO become
socially liberal,* and everyone who is a Republican because they are socially conservative*
to ALSO become fiscally conservative.*
The net result of the laws of motion seem to systematically take the ideological space of
"socially conservative, fiscally liberal" (the old New Deal) and push everyone in it either
out to the usual left "fiscally liberal, socially liberal" or the usual right "socially
conservative, fiscally conservative" quadrants.
This article shows how it's happening with Elizabeth Warren in one direction, and it's
happened constantly with socially conservative Republicans who get yanked back to the proper
quadrant anytime they try to move to a direction of economic policy that doesn't involve tax
cuts for the rich and actually help their constituents.
One can have all the opinions on better ways to do things for the good of society, but if
those ideas are not politically viable, it creates a change in directions. Warren probably by
now .realizes how complicated all of these policy issues are and the unintended consequence
of these policies are always a factor and a risk. Elizabeth Warren seems to have a good grasp
of complicated issues, but that never get her the support she would need to prevail in this
campaign. We currently live in the age of "Fantasyland" spewed by both the Trump RINOs and
the Lunatic Left. Warren is a thinker. That is not helpful these days.
What happened is that Warren wants the Team D nomination, and Team D, like Team R, could not
care less about the 99.9% of Americans who are not non-campaign bundlers or big contributors.
In fact, Team D (again, just like Team R) is actively hostile to any proposal that might
take money out of the pockets of the .1%, or otherwise affect the way the the economic pie is
sliced.
If this was the 1970s Warren would probably have supported busing. Pocahontas – leave
my safe neighborhood, my children's schools, and my home equity alone. Because these well
meaning social engineering schemes seldom work out as planned. As a middle class American I
will probably get the short end of the stick.
Funny that policy makers never want to help families by taking a little chunk out of hedge
funds and shareholders and vulture capitalists and sharing it with American workers. Talk
about "the heart of the problem."
My wife and I did a sort of calculation. In our state child care would be about 11,000 per
child per year. Also, you can't drop them off if they are sick, so you have to use your sick
days for them. Oh, and if you don't use the child care if you're on vacation, you still need
to pay to hold the slot. With two kids and taxes, she has to clear well over 30k per year to
about break even.
Add in the fact you'll be missing out on their childhood, spending maybe three or so hours
per day with them, is it really worth it?
The more I see the 'big tech' developments, they are basically things your pay for to let
you work so you can afford to work. TaskRabbit, Fivrer, DoorDash, etc basically give you free
time so you can work more.
"What happens to a nation that rewards the childless and penalizes the parents?"
Laughing.
They become liberals, democrats, anarchists, socialists, communists . . . supporters of
murdering children in the womb, efficiency advocates by way of eugenics . . . and other
assorted malcontents against ordered society.
But in my view, what has damaged economic sociology has been the shift in practice without
any assessment what it would do to the traditional family dynamic between husbands and wives
in family construction. That simply demanding that space be made for women and millions of
women would seriously tighten the job market for all and disrupt the pillars upon which our
nation was built, despite its problems.
Power dynamic, chivalry outran practical realities and that remains the case in
increasingly stratifying civil demands.
And while I sympathetic to the complaint about bussing, that had a very little impact on
the employment numbers which government and businesses and edication raced to fill the
discrimination expectations with women, and primarily white women.
tired comment, but accurate nonetheless, so instead of hiring men in response to
discrimination, those men were instead replaced by women, most of whom already had access via
the cultural dynamics of the majority.
Warren and Warren Tyagi propose severing the link between housing and school districts
through a "well-designed voucher program," calling the public education system "the heart of
the problem." [ ]
In my opinion, Warner's education voucher proposal by guaranteeing voucher dollar
enrollment in the affluent zip codes ignores the heart of the education problem. Affluent zip
codes do not ensure a child's academic success via 'better' teachers and educational
materials. Public schools in the big cities are filled with teachers who have their masters
and Ph.D's along with continuing education requirements.
Student success is fundamentally based upon parental commitment and community involvement.
Are the parents committed to their children's academic success? Does the parent(s) provide a
conducive and safe home environment? Does the child have a quiet space to study, do their
homework and prepare for school? Does the parent(s) sit down and teach? Review the child's
homework? Do the parents volunteer at the school? Are they involved with school events? Is
education a top priority? Or is school a babysitting service to drop off and pick up?
Those affluent zip codes are more than a number. For the most part, they are a supportive
community of families.
A child's academic success is assuredly tethered to the parental guiding hands. Simply, a
child's success begins at home with parents who care about their children's future.
Probably, every conservative will agree, that the basic flaw is materialism. Thus, with
materialism, personal values that cannot be sold or bought for money, are neglected in favour
of the gross domestic product per capita philosophy. Such personal values are, for instance,
family values, that is, children need both a mother, especially when they are below teenage,
and a father, especially when they are teenagers, and perhaps most important, a father and a
mother need one another. All this family thing does, however, not enter into the money
economy of big government. Whence, on the side of families, those need to take quite brave
choices, to choose morals above money. And on the side of the government, this needs to tax
the rich and help the poor. In fact, according to the World Bank, economic growth is
stimulated best, if governments help the poor directly, rather than with obscure subsidies to
the economic system. However, there is also the difficulty with difficult access to regular
jobs. By no doubt, abortion genosuicide decreases demand on the most simple of goods and
services, causing unemployment for the poor, and driving up costs of raising children.
Society then goes into socialism, with genosuicide instead of economic growth, while the
money flows into pension funds of the upper middle class. Governments must simply help the
poor. Humankind has always been able to produce twice the amount of good food that it needs,
but bureaucratic governments keep the poor enslaved, to fill them with lie.
Warren's academic work and cheeky refusal to fold under pressure when her nomination as
Obama's consumer ('home ec.'?) finance czar was stymied by the GOP are worthy of respect. I'd
like to see her make a strong run at the dem nomination, but am put off by her recent
tendency to adopt silly far-left talking points and sentiments (her Native DNA, advocating
for reparations, etc.). Nice try, Liz, but I'm still leaning Bernie's direction.
As far as the details of the economic analysis related above, though, I am unqualified to
make any judgment – haven't read the book. But one enormously significant economic
development in the early 70s wasn't mentioned at all, so I assume she and her daughter passed
it over as well. In his first term R. Milhouse Nixon untethered, once & for all, the
value of the dollar from traditional hard currency. The economy has been coming along nicely
ever since, except for one problematic aspect: with a floating currency we are all now living
in an economic environment dominated by the vicissitudes of supplies and demands, are we not?
It took awhile to effect the housing market, but signs of the difference it made began to
emerge fairly quickly, and accelerated sharply when the tides of globalism washed lots of
third world lucre up on our western shores. Now, as clearly implied by both Warren and the
author of this article, young Americans whose parents may not have even been born back then
– the early 70s – are probably permanently priced out of the housing market in
places that used to have only a marginally higher cost of entry – i.e. urban
California, where I have lived and worked for most of my nearly 60 years. In places like this
even a 3-earner income may not suffice! Maybe we should bring back the gold standard, because
it seems to me that as long as unfettered competition coupled to supply/demand and (EZ credit
$) is the underlying dynamic of the American economy we're headed for the New Feudalism. Of
course, nothing could be more conservative than that, right? What say you, TAColytes?
"Maybe we should bring back the gold standard, because it seems to me that as long as
unfettered competition coupled to supply/demand and (EZ credit $) is the underlying dynamic
of the American economy we're headed for the New Feudalism."
I take it you think the old one has departed.
It was in the area of how businesses and government were reciprocating unhealthy and
unfair business practices is where I think her advocacy was most accurate. But she has
abandoned all of that.
"Funny that policy makers never want to help families by taking a little chunk out of hedge
funds and shareholders and vulture capitalists and sharing it with American workers."
Funny that Warren HAS brought up raising taxes on the rich.
"... "I'm not running for president just to talk about making real, structural change. I'm serious about getting it done," the speech reads. "And part of getting it done means waking up to the reality of the United States Senate." ..."
"... Advocates including Warren also say the end of the filibuster would make it easier for the Senate to pass meaningful legislation to combat the climate crisis and to further other progressive causes. ..."
"... "We can't sit around for 100 years while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful and everyone else falls further and further behind," Warren's speech reads. "We can't sit around for 100 years while climate change destroys our planet, while corruption pervades every nook and cranny of Washington, and while too much of a child's fate in life still rests on the color of their skin. Enough with that." ..."
"We can't sit around for 100 years while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful
and everyone else falls further and further behind."
The 2020 presidential candidate is expected to endorse the proposal in a speech
at the National Action Network Convention in New York Friday morning.
"When Democrats next have power, we should be bold and clear: We're done with two sets of
rules -- one for the Republicans and one for the Democrats," Warren is expected to say. "And
that means when Democrats have the White House again, if Mitch McConnell tries to do what he
did to President Obama and puts small-minded partisanship ahead of solving the massive problems
facing this country, then we should get rid of the filibuster."
"I'm not running for president just to talk about making real, structural change. I'm
serious about getting it done," the speech reads. "And part of getting it done means waking up
to the reality of the United States Senate."
Getting rid of the filibuster -- the Senate procedure which allows a minority party to delay
a vote by drawing out debate and block legislation from passing by requiring a "supermajority"
of 60 senators to approve it -- would be a key step toward passing progressive measures,
advocates say.
At the NAN Convention, Warren is expected to note that the filibuster has stopped the Senate
from passing radical justice legislation for decades, including an
anti-lynching bill which was first introduced a century ago but didn't pass until December
2018.
"It nearly became the law back then. It passed the House in 1922. But it got killed in the
Senate -- by a filibuster. And then it got killed again. And again. And again," Warren plans to
say. "More than 200 times. An entire century of obstruction because a small group of racists
stopped the entire nation from doing what was right."
Advocates including Warren also say the end of the filibuster would make it easier for the
Senate to pass meaningful legislation to combat the climate crisis and to further other
progressive causes.
"We can't sit around for 100 years while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful
and everyone else falls further and further behind," Warren's speech reads. "We can't sit
around for 100 years while climate change destroys our planet, while corruption pervades every
nook and cranny of Washington, and while too much of a child's fate in life still rests on the
color of their skin. Enough with that."
Warren joins
fellow 2020 Democratic hopefuls Pete Buttigieg and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in endorsing the
end of the filibuster. Her speech Friday will represent her latest push for "structural change"
that she says would have far-reaching positive effects on the lives of working Americans. Since
announcing her candidacy in January she has called for a tax on the wealth of the
richest Americans to combat economic inequality and fund progressive programs, a
universal childcare plan, and a breakup
of powerful tech giants , among other proposals.
span y arendt on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 7:31pm The old politics is dead. Citizens United
granted unlimited, anonymous political bribery to the transnational billionaire class. The
legacy media has been conglomerated down to six companies, while the platform media companies
(Google, Facebook, Twitter) have instituted censorship and banning. Sock puppets, trolls,
doxers, and other slime have demolished the promise of honest intellectual internet debate.
@Cassander There is no democracy in US. There is civil war between two dysfunctional
parties. How come you did not notice? Or you just came from enchanted kingdom?
"... Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ." ..."
"... I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or (IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite power/control efforts. It might not be about private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes sense ..."
" Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its
complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. Because of the immediate arrival of the
collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us
so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ."
... I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or
(IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite power/control efforts. It might not be about
private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes sense
Yes, "Trump was selling himself as a traitor to a corrupt class, someone who knew how soulless and greedy the ruling elite was because
he was one of them. " But he turned to be a fake, a marionette who is controlled by neocons like hapless Bush II.
Notable quotes:
"... Last weekend, I published a book chapter criticizing the Russiagate narrative, claiming it was a years-long press error on the scale of the WMD affair heading into the Iraq war. ..."
"... The overwhelming theme of that race, long before anyone even thought about Russia, was voter rage at the entire political system. ..."
"... The anger wasn't just on the Republican side, where Trump humiliated the Republicans' chosen $150 million contender , Jeb Bush (who got three delegates, or $50 million per delegate ). It was also evident on the Democratic side, where a self-proclaimed "Democratic Socialist" with little money and close to no institutional support became a surprise contender . ..."
"... Trump was gunning for votes in both parties. The core story he told on the stump was one of system-wide corruption, in which there was little difference between Republicans and Democrats. ..."
"... Perhaps just by luck, Trump was tuned in to the fact that the triumvirate of ruling political powers in America – the two parties, the big donors and the press – were so unpopular with large parts of the population that he could win in the long haul by attracting their ire, even if he was losing battles on the way. ..."
"... The subtext was always: I may be crude, but these people are phonies, pretending to be upset when they're making money off my bullshit . ..."
"... Trump was selling himself as a traitor to a corrupt class, someone who knew how soulless and greedy the ruling elite was because he was one of them. ..."
Faulty coverage of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign later made foreign espionage a more plausible explanation for his ascent to power
Last weekend, I published a book chapter criticizing the Russiagate
narrative, claiming it was a years-long press error on the scale of the WMD affair heading into the Iraq war.
Obviously (and I said this in detail), the WMD fiasco had a far greater real-world impact, with hundreds of thousands of lives
lost and trillions in treasure wasted. Still, I thought Russiagate would do more to damage the reputation of the national news media
in the end.
A day after publishing that excerpt, a
Attorney General
William Barr sent his summary of the report to Congress, containing a quote filed by Special Counsel
Robert Mueller : "[T]he investigation did not establish
that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
Suddenly, news articles appeared arguing people like myself and Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept were
rushing to judgment
, calling us bullies whose writings were intended to leave reporters "cowed" and likely to "
back down from aggressive coverage of Trump ."
This was baffling. One of the most common criticisms of people like Greenwald, Michael Tracey, Aaron Mate, Rania Khalek, Max Blumenthal,
Jordan Chariton and many others is that Russiagate "skeptics" - I hate that term, because it implies skepticism isn't normal and
healthy in this job - were really secret Trump partisans, part of a "horseshoe" pact between far left and far right to focus attention
on the minor foibles of the center instead of Trump's more serious misdeeds. Even I received this label, and I once wrote a book
about Trump called Insane Clown President .
A typical social media complaint:
@mtaibbi and all his deplorable followers. The truth will come out
and your premature celebrations are embarrassing.
It's irritating that I even have to address this, because my personal political views shouldn't have anything to do with how I
cover anything. But just to get it out of the way: I'm no fan of
Donald Trump .
I had a well-developed opinion about him long before the 2016 race started. I once interned for Trump's nemesis-biographer, the
late, great muckraker Wayne Barrett
. The birther campaign
of 2011 was all I ever needed to make a voting decision about the man.
I started covering the last presidential race in 2015 just as I was finishing up a book about the death of Eric Garner called
I Can't Breathe . Noting that
a birther campaign started by "peripheral political curiosity and reality TV star Donald Trump" led to 41 percent of respondents
in one poll believing Barack Obama was "not even American," I wrote:
If anyone could communicate the frustration black Americans felt over Stop-and-Frisk and other neo-vagrancy laws that made
black people feel like they could be arrested anywhere, it should have been Barack Obama. He'd made it all the way to the White
House and was still considered to be literally trespassing by a huge plurality of the population.
So I had no illusions about Trump. The Russia story bothered
me for other reasons, mostly having to do with a general sense of the public being misled, and not even about Russia.
The problem lay with the precursor tale to Russiagate, i.e. how Trump even got to be president in the first place.
The 2016 campaign season brought to the surface awesome levels of political discontent. After the election, instead of wondering
where that anger came from, most of the press quickly pivoted to a new tale about a Russian plot to attack our Democracy. This conveyed
the impression that the election season we'd just lived through had been an aberration, thrown off the rails by an extraordinary
espionage conspiracy between Trump and a cabal of evil foreigners.
This narrative contradicted everything I'd seen traveling across America in my two years of covering the campaign. The overwhelming
theme of that race, long before anyone even thought about Russia, was voter rage at the entire political system.
The anger wasn't just on the Republican side, where Trump humiliated the Republicans' chosen
$150 million
contender , Jeb Bush (who got three delegates, or
$50 million per delegate ). It was also evident on the Democratic side, where a self-proclaimed "Democratic Socialist" with little
money and close to no institutional support became
a surprise contender
.
Because of a series of press misdiagnoses before the Russiagate stories even began, much of the American public was unprepared
for news of a Trump win. A cloak-and-dagger election-fixing conspiracy therefore seemed more likely than it might have otherwise
to large parts of the domestic news audience, because they hadn't been prepared for anything else that would make sense.
This was particularly true of upscale, urban, blue-leaning news consumers, who were not told to take the possibility of a Trump
White House seriously.
Priority number-one of the political class after a vulgar, out-of-work game-show host conquered the White House should have been
a long period of ruthless self-examination. This story delayed that for at least two years.
It wasn't even clear Trump whether or not wanted to win. Watching him on the trail, Trump at times went beyond seeming disinterested.
There were periods where it looked like South Park's "
Did I offend you? " thesis was true, and he was
actively trying to lose, only the polls just wouldn't let him.
Forget about the gift the end of Russiagate might give Trump by allowing him to spend 2020 peeing from a great height on the national
press corps. The more serious issue has to be the failure to face the reality of why he won last time, because we still haven't done
that.
... ... ...
Trump, the billionaire, denounced us as the elitists in the room. He'd call us "bloodsuckers," "dishonest," and in one line that
produced laughs considering who was saying it, "
highly-paid ."
He also did something that I immediately recognized as brilliant (or diabolical, depending on how you look at it). He dared cameramen
to turn their cameras to show the size of his crowds.
They usually wouldn't – hey, we don't work for the guy – which thrilled Trump, who would then say something to the effect of,
"See! They're
very dishonest people ." Audiences would turn toward us, and boo and hiss, and even throw little bits of paper and other things
our way. This was unpleasant, but it was hard not to see its effectiveness: he'd re-imagined the lifeless, poll-tested format of
the stump speech, turning it into menacing, personal, WWE-style theater.
Trump was gunning for votes in both parties. The core story he told on the stump was one of system-wide corruption, in which there
was little difference between Republicans and Democrats.
...
Perhaps just by luck, Trump was tuned in to the fact that the triumvirate of ruling political powers in America – the two parties,
the big donors and the press – were so unpopular with large parts of the population that he could win in the long haul by attracting
their ire, even if he was losing battles on the way.
...
The subtext was always: I may be crude, but these people are phonies, pretending to be upset when they're making money off my
bullshit .
I thought this was all nuts and couldn't believe it was happening in a real presidential campaign. But, a job is a job. My first
feature on candidate Trump was called "
How
America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable ." The key section read:
In person, you can't miss it: The same way Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house, Donald on the stump can see his future.
The pundits don't want to admit it, but it's sitting there in plain view, 12 moves ahead, like a chess game already won:
President Donald Trump
It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that any half-bright con man with
the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go.
And Trump is no half-bright con man, either. He's way better than average.
Traditional Democratic audiences appeared thrilled by the piece and shared it widely. I was invited on scads of cable shows to
discuss ad nauseum the "con man" line. This made me nervous, because it probably meant these people hadn't read the piece, which among other things posited the failures
of America's current ruling class meant Trump's insane tactics could actually work.
Trump was selling himself as a traitor to a corrupt class, someone who knew how soulless and greedy the ruling elite was because
he was one of them.
...
The only reason most blue-state media audiences had been given for Trump's poll numbers all along was racism, which was surely
part of the story but not the whole picture. A lack of any other explanation meant Democratic audiences, after the shock of election
night, were ready to reach for any other data point that might better explain what just happened.
Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in
what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither
Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing
to vote for Donald Trump."
Post-election, Russiagate made it all worse. People could turn on their TVs at any hour of the day and see anyone from Rachel
Maddow to Chris Cuomo openly reveling in Trump's troubles. This is what Fox looks like to liberal audiences.
Worse, the "walls are closing in" theme -- two years old now -- was just a continuation of the campaign mistake, reporters confusing
what they wanted to happen with what was happening . The story was always more complicated than was being represented.
At CNN's town hall
event on Monday, the American people saw something we'd been told was impossible: Elizabeth
Warren winning over a crowd.
The Massachusetts senator took aim at a variety of subjects: the Electoral College,
Mississippi's racist state flag, the rise of
white nationalism . Always, she was met with thunderous applause. Even a simple Bible verse
-- from Matthew 25:35–40, about moral obligation to the poor and hungry -- prompted
cheers so loud and prolonged that Warren had to pause and repeat herself in order to make her
voice heard over the noise. Yet this was the same woman the media routinely frames as too
wonky, too nerdy, too socially stunted. But then, Warren has always been an exceptionally
charismatic candidate. We just forget that fact when she's campaigning -- due, in large part,
to our deep and lingering distrust for female intelligence.
Warren is bursting with what we might call "charisma" in male candidates: She has the folksy
demeanor of Joe Biden, the ferocious conviction of Bernie Sanders, the deep intelligence of
fellow law professor Barack Obama. But Warren is not a man, and so those traits are framed as
liabilities, rather than strengths. According to the media, Warren is an uptight schoolmarm, a
" wonky
professor ," a scold, a wimpy Dukakis, a wooden John Kerry, or (worse) a nerdier Al
Gore.
The criticism has hit her from the left and right. The far-right Daily Caller accused
her of looking
weird when she drank beer ; on social media, conservatives spread vicious (and viciously
ableist) rumors that Warren took antipsychotic drugs that treated "irritability caused by
autism ." On the other end
of the spectrum, Amber A'Lee Frost, the lone female co-host of the socialist podcast Chapo
Trap House , wrote for The Baffler (and, when The Baffler retracted her
article, for Jacobin) that Warren was "
weak " and "
not charismatic ." Frost deplored the "Type-A Tracy Flicks" who dared support "this Lisa
Simpson of a dark-horse candidate."
Casting Warren as a sheltered, Ivory Tower type is odd, given that her politics and diction
are not exactly elitist. Yet none of this is new; the same stereotypes were levied against
Warren in 2011, during her Senate campaign.
Strangely, the first nerdification of Warren was a purely local phenomenon -- one which
happened even as national media was falling in love with her. Jon Stewart publicly
adored her , and her ingenuity in proposing the creation of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau a few years prior earned her respect among the rising populist wing of the
party. Her fame was further catapulted when a speech -- a video of Warren speaking, seemingly
off-the-cuff , in a constituent's living room -- went viral. "Nobody in this country got
rich on his own, nobody," Warren proclaimed, pointing up the ways entrepreneurs benefit from
publicly funded services like roads and schools and fire departments.
"First-time candidates don't usually articulate a progressive economic message quite this
well," the Washington
Monthly declared . The New Yorker called it " the most important political
speech of this campaign season. " That enthusiasm continued throughout Warren's first
Senate bid. Writing for the New York Times , Rebecca Traister noted
that "the early devotion to Warren recalls the ardor once felt by many for Obama." (Obama
himself famously echoed
Warren's message -- "you didn't build that" -- on the 2012 campaign trail.)
Locally, Warren prompted a much different discussion, with scores of Massachusetts analysts
describing her as stiff and unlikable. Boston-based Democratic analyst Dan Payne bemoaned her
"know-it-all style" and wished aloud she would " be more authentic I want her to
just sound like a human being, not read the script that makes her sound like some angry,
hectoring schoolmarm." In a long profile for Boston magazine, reporter Janelle Nanos
quoted Thomas Whalen, a political historian at Boston University, who called Warren a "flawed
candidate," someone who was " desperately
trying to find a message that's going to resonate. " In that same article, Nanos asked
Warren point-blank about her "likability problem." Warren's response seemed to stem from deep
frustration: "People tell me everywhere I go why they care that I got in this race," she said.
"I can't answer the question because I literally haven't experienced what you're talking
about."
By demanding that Warren disguise her exceptional talents, we are asking her to lose.
Thankfully, she's not listening.
There's an element of gaslighting here: It only takes a reporter a few sources -- and an
op-ed columnist a single, fleeting judgment -- to declare a candidate "unlikable." After that
label has been applied, any effort the candidate makes to win people over can be cast as
"inauthentic." Likability is in this way a self-reinforcing accusation, one which is amplified
every time the candidate tries to tackle it. (Recall Hillary Clinton, who was asked about her
"likability" at seemingly
every debate or
town hall for eight straight years -- then furiously accused of pandering every time she
made an effort to seem more "approachable.")
It's significant that the "
I hate you; please respond" line of political sabotage only ever seems to be aimed at
women. It's also revealing that, when all these men talked about how Warren could win them
over, their "campaign" advice sounded suspiciously close to makeover tips. In his article,
Payne advised Warren to "lose the
granny glasses," "soften the hair," and employ a professional voice coach to "deepen her voice,
which grates on some." Payne seemed to suggest that Elizabeth Warren look like a model and
sound like a
man -- anything to disguise the grisly reality of a smart woman making her case.
Warren won her Senate race, and the "schoolmarm" stereotype largely vanished as her national
profile grew. By 2014, grassroots activists were begging her to run for president; by mid-2016,
CNN had named her " Donald Trump's chief antagonist ." She's
since given a stream of incendiary interviews and handed the contemporary women's movement its
most popular
meme . All this should be enough to prove any candidate's "charisma." Yet, now that she's
thrown her hat into the presidential ring, the firebrand has become a Poindexter once
again.
The digs at Warren's "professorial" style hurt her because, on some level, they're true.
Warren really is an intellectual, a scholar; moreover, she really is running an exceptionally
ideas-focused campaign, regularly turning out detailed and exhaustive policy proposals at a
point when most of the other candidates don't even have policy sections on their websites.
What's galling is the suggestion that this is a bad thing.
Yes, male candidates have suffered from being too smart -- just ask Gore, who ran on climate
change 20 years before it was trendy. But just as often, their intelligence helps them. Obama's
sophistication and
public reading lists endeared him to liberals. And just a few days ago, Indiana Mayor Pete
Buttigieg was widely praised for learning
Norwegian in order to read an author's untranslated works. Yet, Warren is dorky, a teacher's
pet, a try-hard Tracy Flick, or Lisa Simpson. A "know-it-all."
The "schoolmarm" stereotype now applied to Warren has always been used to demean educated
women. In the Victorian era, we called them "bluestockings" -- unmarried, unattractive women
who had dared to prioritize intellectual development over finding a man. They are, in the words
of one contemporary writer, "
frumpy and frowly in the extreme, with no social talents ." Educators say that 21st century
girls are still afraid to talk in class because of "sexist bullying" which sends the message
that smart girls are unfeminine: "For girls, peers tell them 'if you are swotty and clever and
answer too many questions, you are not attractive ,'" claims Mary
Bousted, joint general-secretary of the U.K.'s National Education Union. Female academics still
report being made to feel " unsexual, unattractive, unwomanly, and
unnatural. " We can deplore all this as antiquated thinking, but even now, grown men are
still demanding that Warren ditch her glasses or "soften" her hair -- to work on being prettier
so as to make her intelligence less threatening.
Warren is cast as a bloodless intellectual when she focuses on policy, a scolding lecturer
when she leans into her skills as a rabble-rouser; either way, her intelligence is always too
much and out of place. Her eloquence is framed, not as inspiring, but as "angry" and
"hectoring." Being an effective orator makes her "strident." It's not solely confined to the
media, but reporters seem anxious to signal-boost anyone who complains: Anonymous male
colleagues call her "irritating," telling Vanity Fair that "she projects a 'holier than
thou' attitude" and that "
she has a moralizing to her. " That same quality in male candidates is hailed as moral
clarity.
Warren is accused, in plain language, of being uppity -- a woman who has the bad grace to be
smarter than the men around her, without downplaying it to assuage their egos. But running in a
presidential race is all about proving that you are smarter than the other guy. By demanding
that Warren disguise her exceptional talents, we are asking her to lose. Thankfully, she's not
listening. She is a smart woman, after all.
"... I suspect that the cool aid is not working effectively these days and that far too many people see through the charades and lies. An interesting story lurks behind this and the entire 'hate Russia' and 'monkey Mueller' episode. ..."
"... The attitudes of the masses are spinning out of the manipulative hands of the deep state and the oligarchs ..."
"... Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. ..."
"... Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ..."
"... the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or (IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite power/control efforts. It might not be about private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes sense ..."
"... Most of those reporters were going to slant their stories the way their bosses wanted. Their jobs are just too nice to do otherwise. Getting Trump as Hillary's opponent had to have been a goal for the majority of them. He was the patsy who would become squished roadkill in the treads of The Most Experienced Presidential Candidate In History. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton is a knowledgeable, well-prepared, reasonable, experienced, even-tempered, hardworking candidate, while her opponent is a stubbornly uninformed demagogue who has been proven again and again to be a liar on matters big and small. There is no objective basis on which to equate Hillary Clinton to her opponent. ..."
"... The author had it half right. Turns out the voters knew quite a bit about Trump, and still preferred him to the Butcher of Libya. ..."
Thaks b, now that is a delightful question to pose on the eve of April fool's day.
My suggestion is that Cambridge Analytica and others backing Trump and the yankee imperial
machine have been taking measurements of USA citizens opinions and are staggered by the
results. They are panicked!
I suspect that the cool aid is not working effectively these days and that far too many
people see through the charades and lies. An interesting story lurks behind this and the
entire 'hate Russia' and 'monkey Mueller' episode.
The attitudes of the masses are spinning out of the manipulative hands of the deep state
and the oligarchs. Do any of our comrades have a handle on this type of research and the
implication for voter attitudes?
" Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent
political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure
to see it coming.
Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf
Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us
so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ."
As a peedupon all I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or
(IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite power/control efforts. It might not be about
private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes sense
Thanks for the Taibbi link. I hadn't seen it, and found him to be in good form. I do think
he ought to have spoken more about how bad Trump's Primary opponents were.
Most of those reporters were going to slant their stories the way their bosses wanted.
Their jobs are just too nice to do otherwise. Getting Trump as Hillary's opponent had to have
been a goal for the majority of them. He was the patsy who would become squished roadkill in
the treads of The Most Experienced Presidential Candidate In History. More on that for people
with strong stomachs:
Hillary Clinton is a knowledgeable, well-prepared, reasonable, experienced, even-tempered,
hardworking candidate, while her opponent is a stubbornly uninformed demagogue who has been
proven again and again to be a liar on matters big and small. There is no objective basis
on which to equate Hillary Clinton to her opponent.
The author had it half right. Turns out the voters knew quite a bit about Trump,
and still preferred him to the Butcher of Libya.
As we noted previously, The Hill reports , Woolsey, who was a senior advisor to President-elect Donald Trump , said: "I don't think people ought to say they know for sure there's only one. I don't think they're likely to be proven correct. It
shouldn't be portrayed as one guilty party," "It's much more complicated than that. This is not an organized operation that is hacking into a target. It's more like a bunch
of jackals at the carcass of an antelope ."
Woolsey suggested China and Iran could be behind cyber breaches in the U.S. Is it Russian? Probably some," he said. "Is it Chinese and Iranian? Maybe. We may find out more from Mr. Trump coming up today." This follows Trump's comments on Sunday hinting he would reveal new information about alleged Russian hacking during a New Year's
Eve celebration at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
"[I know] things that other people don't know," he said. "I just want them to be sure because it's a pretty serious charge. I
think it's unfair if they don't know."
To which Woolsey contentiously also commented:
"There's a possibility that he is [playing us] a little bit."
But as is clear, Woolsey's belief that the Russians "were in there" still goes further than what Trump has said about the hacks
... which may be why Woolsey has announced in a formal statement
"Effective immediately, Ambassador Woolsey is no longer a Senior Adviser to President-elect Trump or the transition," Woolsey's
spokesman, Jonathan Franks, wrote in a statement that was first reported by CNN's Jeremy Diamond.
"He wishes the President-elect and his Administration great success in their time in office."
Furthermore, The Washington Post's Philip
Rucker reports, Woolsey resigned after being cut out of intelligence talks with Trump and his national security adviser, retired
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
Here we go, this is from Buzzfeed so according to the NYT's and Washington Post this source would qualify as "fake news"...lol...but!...
"The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the FBI's Cyber Division and its Washington (DC) Field Office, the Department
of Justice's National Security Division, and U.S. Attorney's Offices, and it responded to a variety of requests for cooperation,
but the FBI never requested access to the DNC's computer servers," Eric Walker, the DNC's deputy communications director, told
BuzzFeed News in an email."
...but!...just looky here...we've got an actual non-anonymous, real life, people-type person who is not speaking from the shadows
in an underground parking garage its, Eric Walker, the DNC's deputy communications director.
I still think it is independent patriots assited by patriotic insiders who exposed the DNC's criminal activity.
Anyway, when do we get the criminal investigation into the contents of the leaks? That's where the meat is. Not that someone
exposed the crimes; they deserve a medal.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey, was a vocal advocate of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq who promoted allegations that
Saddam Hussein harbored illegal weapons of mass destruction.
No he does not. The claim of Trump desire to cut Neocon Deep State sounds like humor now
But the idea of dual personalities of the US Deep State with "Neocon-Neoliberal Deep State" as the dominant personality
-- "We came, we saw, he died" personality is still valid.
Notable quotes:
"... I have long held that America's Deep State --the unelected National Security State often referred to as the Shadow Government-- is not a unified monolith but a deeply divided ecosystem in which the dominant Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchy is being challenged by elements which view the Neocon-Neoliberal agenda as a threat to national security and the interests of the United States. ..."
"... I call these anti-Neocon-Neoliberal elements the progressive Deep State ..."
"... If you want a working definition of the Neocon-Neoliberal Deep State, Hillary Clinton's quip-- we came, we saw, he died --is a good summary: a bullying, arrogance-soaked state-within-a-state pursuing an agenda of ceaseless intervention while operating a global Murder, Inc., supremely confident that no one in the elected government can touch them. ..."
I have long held that America's Deep State --the unelected National Security State often referred to as the Shadow Government--
is not a unified monolith but a deeply divided ecosystem in which the dominant Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchy is being challenged by
elements which view the Neocon-Neoliberal agenda as a threat to national security and the interests of the United States.
I call these anti-Neocon-Neoliberal elements the progressive Deep State.
If you want a working definition of the Neocon-Neoliberal Deep State, Hillary Clinton's quip-- we came, we saw, he died --is
a good summary: a bullying, arrogance-soaked state-within-a-state pursuing an agenda of ceaseless intervention while operating a
global Murder, Inc., supremely confident that no one in the elected government can touch them.
Until Trump unexpectedly wrenched the presidency from the Neocon's candidate. The Neocon Deep State's response was to manufacture
a mass-media hysteria that Russia had wrongfully deprived the Neocon's candidate (Hillary Clinton) of what was rightfully hers: the
presidency. (The Neocons operate their own version of the divine right of Political Nobility .)
The Neocon-Neoliberals' strategy was to delegitimize Trump's victory by ascribing it to "Russian Hacking," a claim that remains
entirely unsubstantiated. Now that this grasping-at-straws Hail Mary coup attempt by a politicized CIA and its corporate media mouthpiece
has failed, the Neocon Deep State is about to find out the Progressive Deep State finally has a president who is willing and able
to cut the Neocon-Neoliberals off at the knees.
If you want documented evidence of this split in the Deep State--sorry, it doesn't work that way. Nobody in the higher echelons
of the Deep State is going to leak anything about the low-intensity war being waged because the one thing everyone agrees on is the
Deep State's dirty laundry must be kept private.
As a result, the split is visible only by carefully reading between the lines, by examining who is being placed in positions of
control in the Trump Administration, and reading the tea leaves of who is "retiring" (i.e. being fired) or quitting, which agencies
are suddenly being reorganized, and the appearance of dissenting views in journals that serve as public conduits for Deep State narratives.
I have also long held that Wall Street's political dominance is part and parcel of the Neocon-Neoliberal ideology , and the progressive
elements in the Deep State also want to (finally) limit the power of the big banks and the rest of the Wall Street crowd.
The split in the Deep State is a reflection of the profound political disunity that is occurring in the U.S. In other words, it
isn't just disunity in the masses or the political elites--it's a division in all levels of our society.
The cause is not difficult to discern: the concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of the few is generating levels
of inequality that threaten democracy, the social order and the vitality of the economy:
As someone who has studied the Deep State for 40 years, I find it ironic that so many self-identified "progressives" do not understand
that the U.S. military is now the Progressive element and it's the civilian leadership--the Neocon-Neoliberals-- who are responsible
for leading the nation into quagmires and handing the keys to the chicken coop to the wolves of Wall Street.
When military leaders such as Eric Shinseki questioned the Neocon's insane "strategy" in Iraq--essentially a civilian fantasy
of magical-thinking--the Neocons quickly cashiered him (Shinseki was a wounded combat veteran of Vietnam who rose through the ranks--the
exact opposite of the coddled never-get-my-hands-dirty Elites in the civilian Neocon-Neoliberal leadership.)
To the degree that the U.S. has become a Third World Oligarchy owned and controlled by a financial-political Elite, then the U.S.
military is one of the few national institutions that hasn't been corrupted by top-down politicization and worship of Wall Street.
Shinseki et al. did not amass a fortune from Wall Street like Bill and Hillary Clinton. The simple dictum-- follow the money --maps
the lay of the land rather neatly.
The Neocon-Neoliberals have run the nation into the ground. They must be fired and put out to pasture before they do any more
harm. That includes the Fake-"Progressives" and the fake-"Conservatives" alike who have enriched themselves within the Neocon-Neoliberal
Oligarchy.
If you are surprised that the Democratic Party, the CIA and Wall Street are all hugging each other in the same cozy Neocon-Neoliberal
Oligarchic embrace, you shouldn't be. Open your eyes.
The problem is that the deep state owns most if not all the wet workers.
They will do whatever the DS says since their paychecks depend upon it.
Best thing would be to ID the wet workers and give them X amount of time to come in from the cold, then give them the choice
of taking a payoff and staying out of trouble or getting their wings clipped for violating parole, or turning state's evidence
in exchange for a job or getting their spawn into good schools/jobs.
If they miss the deadline they default into "problems" and get dealt with accordingly.
If Trump can cut the neo-fascist deep-state off at the knees, America can be great again!
The Spanish-American Inquisition : Mexican propaganda was the reason that people voted for Hillary Clinton. NYT largest shareholder
is Carlos Slim who has lost 40% of his net worth in the last 2 years as a result of the peso. Trump would diminish his own personal
empire by further devaluation of the peso and by reducing Mexican manufacturing.
The Mexican propaganda was not merely limited to the NYT. Telemundo also played a large part in this. The infiltration of Mexican
spies and propagandists through telemundo owned by Comcast, the country's largest media organization has completely compromised
Comcast! All of their companies endorsed Hillary in order to benefit the Mexican economy!
Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post in order to spread Cuban propaganda. His adopted father was from Cuba. Since Jeff Bezos
purchased WaPo, Obama has restored relations with Cuba. Coincidence?! We think not!!!
CNN is Chilean propaganda -- What lengths will they go to in order to mislead the public as the Chilean president owns Chilevisian
which is a Time Warner subsidiary and Time Warner owns CNN?! Trump's plan of rewriting NAFTA would be less favorable to Chile
than it is in its current form! CNN is trying to get people to put the needs of the Chilean people above the needs of American
people!
Congress has the right to declare war, but the president is the commander in chief. Let congress declare war on Russia and
go and fight the Russians themselves. They can declare war, but there will be nobody to fight it, unless they do it themselves!
The Fed and the TBTF banks run Deep State, and according to the latest article in the WSJ, Trump is beyond indebted to the
TBTF banks. If true, this is scary and gives Trump a pretty serious reason for putting so many Goldmanites in positions of power
in his Administration.
(Wall Street Journal)
"More than 150 financial institutions hold debt from President-elect Donald Trump's businesses or businesses in which he is
at least a 30 percent stakeholder, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
That amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars in potential conflicts of interest as Trump prepares to begin his presidency.
When Trump submitted a required financial disclosure form with the Federal Election Commission in May 2015, he listed 16 loans,
collectively worth $315 million in debt, that his businesses had received from 10 companies, according to the newspaper.
The Journal's analysis goes beyond those loans and includes debt held by companies in which Trump is at least a 30 percent
stakeholder, including, for example, the companies which control 1290 Avenue of the Americas.
That building, owned by a partnership of companies that is 30 percent owned by Trump, received $950 million in loans in 2012
from UBS Group AG, Bank of China, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank, according to the report.
Deutsche Bank, a German institution, is currently under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for its equity trading
with wealthy Russian clients.
In the case of Goldman Sachs, the bank now counts several its former employees among the highest levels of the incoming Trump
administration, including former bank president Gary Cohn, who was appointed director of Trump's National Economic Council."
"The Neocon-Neoliberals have run the nation into the ground. They must be fired and put out to pasture before they do any more
harm. That includes the Fake-"Progressives" and the fake-"Conservatives" alike who have enriched themselves within the Neocon-Neoliberal
Oligarchy."
My ass!!!!! Mr Trump is the right man at the right time to send these war criminals to hell where they belong! HW, W, Bozo,Their
globalists war cabinets,Their corrupt underlings, #MAGA #Drain the Swamp
Trump needs to distract them quickly. So I have given this a few quick moments of thought and came up with what should be Trump's
first executive order. Congress and all Federal employees are now required to use Obamacare as their health plan.
Standard Disclaimer: Aside from watching Congressional critter's heads explode, the disaster known as Obamacare would be either
repealed or fixed in a NY minute.
There were high hopes after Trump election. now they all dissipated. He betrayed his electorate and should be fired.
Notable quotes:
"... I was one of the millions of people that believed in you. Believed what you said. Heard you. You got "hired" by 60 MILLION people. WE are your boss. YOU BECAME THE EMPLOYEE. Something you are not used to. I myself convinced nearly 20 people to vote for you over these last two years. Know what I said? "He's NOT a politician. He's a business man. He's an outsider – something Washington, D.C. SORELY needs. He's NOT the same 'business as usual' guy. Mr. Trump will change things for the better in Washington. Clean it up. Make peace with Russia – not war. Trump is a BUILDER – not a destroyer. He'll negotiate FAIR deals with countries. Install sensible immigration policies. Reverse the stranglehold on health care policies that have bankrupted millions." I made them see how biased the media was against you. How they lied by omission – and sometimes outright lied about you. (To a person, they NO LONGER WATCH, TRUST, OR HEED the media anymore.) ..."
I was one of the millions of people that believed in you. Believed what you said. Heard you. You got "hired" by 60 MILLION people. WE are your boss. YOU BECAME THE EMPLOYEE. Something you are not used to. I myself convinced nearly 20 people to vote for you over these last two years. Know what I said? "He's NOT a politician. He's a business man. He's an outsider – something Washington, D.C. SORELY needs. He's NOT the same
'business as usual' guy. Mr. Trump will change things for the better in Washington. Clean it up. Make peace with Russia – not
war. Trump is a BUILDER – not a destroyer. He'll negotiate FAIR deals with countries. Install sensible immigration policies. Reverse
the stranglehold on health care policies that have bankrupted millions." I made them see how biased the media was against you.
How they lied by omission – and sometimes outright lied about you. (To a person, they NO LONGER WATCH, TRUST, OR HEED the media
anymore.)
He'll change the culture of Washington – because that's EXACTLY WHAT IT NEEDS. CHANGE."
Washington has become a den of vipers. Self-enriching criminals that have sucked the life blood out of US – YOUR EMPLOYERS
. The phrase; "You're FIRED" must be repeated often to MANY people over the next few years. People that have engorged themselves
because of the previous employees, who have mismanaged the nation, and lied to it's people.
Your very words from your speeches that convinced us to hire you. Your platform. Your slogans;
"Make America Great Again." "I'll take back this country for you".
You said that to 60 MILLION of us – and we hired you based on it.
We hired you because we're SICK AND TIRED OF CAREER POLITICIANS. We hired you because we are sick of the GREED, DUPLICITY,
THE CORRUPTION of Congress and the past administrations that have enriched the elite, while robbing from the American taxpayer.
Already, the public has noticed that you have had a LOT of the old-guard/same ol' same ol' Republican Washington "insiders"
advising you. We understand that you will need some guidance in the first few months. All "apprentices" do.
However, we, as your employers, will NOT TOLERATE THE SAME OL' SAME OL' ANYMORE.
We hired YOU to do the right THINGS. "Drain The Swamp" "Take Our Country BACK".
Commencing January 21, 2017, that's exactly what we demand of you – our new employee.
WE WILL WANT RESULTS. ACTIONS. CHANGE.
WE WILL WANT INVESTIGATIONS. ARRESTS. PROSECUTIONS OF THE PEOPLE THAT WRONGED THIS NATION. STOLE FROM IT. CORRUPTED IT. DAMAGED
IT.
Just like you monitored your "apprentices", and judged them on their performances, WE ARE JUDGING YOU. And we are NOT going
to be fooled, like the oppositions legions were and are; by a biased media that lies to them. No one is going to get a "pass"
anymore. Especially like your immediate predecessor.
That's over. On January 21, 2017, your official duties commence. We all wish you the best, and are with you. The last thing we want to do is tell you;
Concern that President-Elect Trump may not have foreseen what a Medusas' head of Snakes the .gov is. Think Ron Paul has forewarned him. It's a nasty and corrupt business.
What!? How does the last line jive with the rest above it?
You must have meant "If you don't perform and deliver as promised, then You're Fired! In the meantime, You're Hired! Welcome
Aboard."
Read it again.
"On January 21, 2017, your official duties commence. We all wish you the best, and are with you. The last thing we want to do is tell you;
You're Fired."
-----------------------------
IF Trump even reads it (doubtful), he'll get it. I get your point though Captain.
it was just yesterday that I had posted the following to a friend... very similar.
I know, well the Internet people that elected him may and can put tremendous pressure on him to do the right thing... And I
expect that to happen...I expect the people to demand through social media that they keep their promises and that they do what
they are told by the people that elected them.....can you imagine the damage that could happen if the trump supporters starting
to Diss him because he didn't do what he was told by the people that elected him.
I think in the very near future countries will be run by the people of the country via the Internet where everybody's voice
counts and the people that want to share their voice will be the actual leaders of the country and the people that want to watch
sports and stick their head in the sand will be sheeple.
I think referendums will be a much more common item
I wrote that in the hopes that someone on the "TTT" (Trump Transition Team) reads it, and maybe, maybe, shows Trump himself. We all know he trolls different sites - and I'll bet he trolls ZH.
I agree with you; the "internet people" elected him. The "alt-right" (which IS the new media) elected him. If we had no internet, and had to rely on the MSM, Clinton would have been elected.
Or worse. But they are now the "old guard ". It is funny....sickening...and sad to watch them flail away like they have relevancy -
THEY don't.
In a big way, this election was a wake up call to THEM (like the NYT piece on here shows), to clean up THEIR act.
NO MORE business as usual. CFR meets and Washington insider parties of poo.
I actually DID convince 18 people to switch from Clinton to Trump (really, it was 12 from Cruz/Bush/Sanders, and 6 outright
flip Clinton to Trump).. and ALL of them HAD been a daily staple of watching the MSM.
Getting them to stop was akin to getting a smoker off cigarettes. Some still do - but they NOW know how the MSM LIES.
(One way I showed them? A tape on YouTube of 60 Minutes "editing techniques", linked below, which REALLY opened some eyes)
The video embedded in this thread - when Ann Coulter was on Bill Maher and got mocked for her backing Trump - in several instances
- was me in 2014 and 2015. I got laughed at by many for coming out for Trump back then.
However, what I wrote is true. I literally changed 18 people into Trump supporters from then to now.
The reasons are many - but the MAIN one is;
I'm. PISSED. OFF.
I'm angry as to the mis-management, lies and over-regulation that has killed the little guy in businesses. I'm angry as to
the lies and deceit from the bought of main stream media. A whole LOT of other reasons as well.
I am giving free reign for anyone here to re-post this on ANY internet forum they want; Brietbart, Drudge, and ANY online newspaper
comment op-ed section they wish.
I only am a commenter here. I choose not to become one on any other forum.
Please copy and paste it anywhere you'd like.
I'm just a little guy. A "peon". However, I did work hard for Trump. I expect no compensation. No recognition.
I DO expect Trump however - to DO WHAT he said. As a political outsider.
I am concerned as to the vipers, old guard Washington insiders, and of course, the Deep State - along with Israel - getting
to Trump.
WE didn't elect them. We elected HIM.
So please - have at it. Post away.
I hope my post inspires others to do their own "Apprentice" type open letters to Trump.
He needs to hear from us (and I bet he does troll ZH and other finanical sites.)
Some people understood the situation in 2017, when most Trump voters were still full of illutions.
Notable quotes:
"... you like most losers are driven by your own projections. You projected your hopes and wishful thinking on Trump and it worked perfectly for him. He got elected. ..."
"... now after firing Bannon there is nothing left. He was the last and the only guarantor of your hopes. That's why MSM hated Bannon so much. ..."
"... torture, Guantanamo and stealing their oil ..."
This turn of events is the biggest challenge ever to my support of Trump. If he really goes the way he is indicating, he will
lose the support of people like me -- and there may be millions like me. We have no alternative candidate, but we will never
again be led down this road.
If Trump turns, that is the end of everything.
" we will never again be led down this road." You will, you will because you like most losers are driven by your own projections.
You projected your hopes and wishful thinking on Trump and it worked perfectly for him. He got elected.
But now after firing Bannon there is nothing left. He was the last and the only guarantor of your hopes. That's why MSM
hated Bannon so much.
The only pre-election promises that actually will be retained are torture, Guantanamo and stealing their oil. Did you vote
for these items? Anyway, that is all you are left with. Get used to it:
That never materialized... Also appointment of Pompeo show that Trump is a marionette
I was actually surprised by the amount of Trump hating comments to this article.... What is so criminal in trying to reorganize
two of 12 Us intelligence agencies. Which might become too bloated and deviate from their original purposes. Is not how restructuring
is used in business world ? And the number of commenters blaclmpousing Putin and Russia create great alarm. Looks like the US MSM managed
to brainwash the US population like in 50th during "Red Scare". Some comments looks like hate sessions from 1984.
Notable quotes:
"... Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 - Amends the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to provide for the preparation and dissemination of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, including about its people, its history, and the federal government's policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, including social media, and through information centers and instructors. ..."
"... This use of propaganda on the American public effectively nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion. ..."
"... The NDAA in its current form allows the State Department and Pentagon to go beyond manipulating mainstream media outlets to directly disseminate campaigns of misinformation to the U.S. public. ..."
"... They refused to brief Congress. They were never allowed to release their findings publicly, because they still haven't. They leaked their conclusions. All to attempt to undermine the stability of their own country. And you don't see this. ..."
"... This is why Wikileaks exists. What the MSM can no longer deliver (the TRUTH and credible news), Wikileaks can deliver to the American people. ..."
"... Are you claiming the US hasn't done all it can to destabilize and destroy Russia? ..."
"... This blame Russia frenzy is a loser strategy. The sole purpose is to deligitimize Trump's victory. Can't wait for Trump to start firing a**es. ..."
"The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world [is] becoming completely politicized," an individual close to Trump's
transition operation said. "They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring agencies and how they interact."
Trump is targeting the CIA and the ODNI as he publicly wars with the U.S. intelligence community over its conclusion that Russia
interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump wants to shrink the ODNI, as he believes the agency established in 2004 as a response to the 9/11 terror attacks has become
bloated and politicized.
Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 - Amends the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize
the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to provide for the preparation and dissemination of information
intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, including about its people, its history, and the federal government's
policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, including social media,
and through information centers and instructors.
The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 passed Congress as part of the NDAA 2013 on December 28, 2012.
This use of propaganda on the American public effectively nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids
information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion.
The NDAA in its current form allows the State Department and Pentagon to go beyond manipulating mainstream media outlets
to directly disseminate campaigns of misinformation to the U.S. public.
But the US public learned quickly and they are not buying the misinformation anymore.
1) Renewables: "I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth." - April 2016
2) Social media: "I understand social media. I understand the power of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook maybe better
than almost
anybody, based on my results, right?" - November 2015
3) Debt: "Nobody knows more about debt. I'm like the king. I love debt." - May 2016
4) Taxes, again : "I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world. Nobody knows more about
taxes." - May 2016. I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can
fix them. #failing@nytimes
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2016
They refused to brief Congress. They were never allowed to release their findings publicly, because they still haven't. They
leaked their conclusions. All to attempt to undermine the stability of their own country. And you don't see this.
No, we haven't, and we didn't. In fact, his former boss -- Yeltsin -- hired Republican political consultants to help his campaign.
Putin would like the world to believe that Russians fed up with bribery, extortion, the fall of the ruble, and the fact that their
votes don't count rising up and protesting was about outside meddling, but it was internal.
And he responded by making protests illegal, getting rid of the election of governors (he appoints them now), closing down
critical reporting outlets, and some journalists were murdered.
You moron, I served the US for 20 years in the military, but facts are facts and we need to butt the he!! out of other countries
business, and until we do, they will continue to come after us. How long were you in?
Trump has described his son-in-law as a "great guy". The president-elect has also reportedly taken the unprecedented step of requesting
security clearance for Kushner to attend top-secret presidential briefings, the first one of which was on Tuesday. It's unclear if
the request will be approved. It marks an astonishing departure and invites the accusation of nepotism.
Kushner's options for a White House job are limited given his family ties to the president, Richard Painter, who served as President
George W Bush's White House ethics lawyer, told the Associated Press. Congress passed an anti-nepotism law in 1967 that prohibits
the president from appointing a family member – including a son-in-law – to work in the office or agency they oversee. The measure
was passed after President John F Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, as attorney general.
But the law does not appear to prevent Kushner from serving as an unpaid adviser, and few doubt that Kushner will play a decisive
role in shaping the Trump presidency, acting as policy adviser and gate-keeper. As
Trump and Barack Obama met privately at the White House last week, Kushner strolled the mansion's South Lawn, deep in conversation
with Obama's chief of staff. As Kushner walked through the bustling West Wing during Trump's visit last week, he was heard asking
Obama aides: "How many of these people stay?", apparently blissfully unaware that the entire West Wing staff will leave at the end
of Obama's term.
His contacts already include Henry Kissinger and Rupert Murdoch; he has received foreign ambassadors. Like Trump, Kushner has
never had a formal role in government, but he now appears set to be more important than many who do.
Comey was a part of the coup -- a color revolution against Trump with Bremmen (possibly assigned by Obama) pulling the strings. That's right. This is a banana republic with nukes.
Notable quotes:
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
FBI and National
Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an
effort to help Donald Trump win the White House, US media report.
FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced that Russia was behind cyberattacks
that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta,
The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees.
"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among
us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials
who have seen it.
"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this
issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI," it continued.
If if 2016 there were some hope not we know that Trump folded. Completely. He actually is not a President. he is a marionette.
Notable quotes:
"... Bankers & Trump: Bankers know you capture catch more flies with money honey. ..."
"... " former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has known Trump socially for decades and is currently advising the president-elect on foreign policy issues " - I really, really hope this is just Hammerin' Hank tooting his own horn, as he and his sycophants in the FP establishment and MSM are wont to do. ..."
"... "Trump dumps the TPP: conservatives rue strategic fillip to China" (Guardian) Another wedge angle for Trumps new-found RINO "friends" to play. Trump will have as many problems with Ayn Ryan Congress as Obama/Clinton on economic issues. ..."
"... And if Abe's Japan were really an independent country, they'd pick up the TPP baton and sell it to China. ..."
"The Trump campaign, meanwhile, delved into message tailoring, sentiment manipulation and machine learning." - Oh, please,
this sounds like a stereotypical Google-centric view of things. They of course left out the most important part of the campaign,
the key to its inception, which could be described in terms like "The Trump campaign, meanwhile, actually noticed the widespread
misery and non-recovery in the parts of the US outside the elite coastal bubbles and DC beltway, and spotted a yuuuge political
opportunity." In other words, not sentiment manipulation – that was, after all, the Dem-establishment-MSM-wall-street-and-the-elite-technocrats'
"America is already great, and anyone who denies it is deplorable!" strategy of manufactured consent – so much as actual *reading*
of sentiment. Of course if one insisted on remaining inside a protective elite echo chamber and didn't listen to anything Trump
or the attendees actually said in those huge flyover-country rallies that wasn't captured in suitably outrageous evening-news
soundbites, it was all too easy to believe one's own hype.
" former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has known Trump socially for decades and is currently advising the president-elect
on foreign policy issues " - I really, really hope this is just Hammerin' Hank tooting his own horn, as he and his sycophants
in the FP establishment and MSM are wont to do.
"Trump dumps the TPP: conservatives rue strategic fillip to China" (Guardian) Another wedge angle for Trumps new-found
RINO "friends" to play. Trump will have as many problems with Ayn Ryan Congress as Obama/Clinton on economic issues.
"The TPP excludes China, which declined to join, proposing its own rival version, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
(RCEP), which excludes the US." You see, it is all China's fault. No info presented on why China "declined" to join.
And if Abe's Japan were really an independent country, they'd pick up the TPP baton and sell it to China.
One of the rare early realistic assessments of Trump foreign policy. most were wrong. Circe was right in major points. The
appointment of CIA director was the litmus test and Trump failed it by appointing neocon Pompeo.
Trump foreign policy is a typical neocon foreign policy. People just tried to overlook it in vain hopes that Trump will change the US
foreign policy
Notable quotes:
"... 95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time. ..."
"... And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason. ..."
"... Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,". ..."
"... Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon -unfriendly President was elected. ..."
"... Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms. ..."
"... And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly. ..."
"... What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense. ..."
"... he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh? ..."
95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated
obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is
a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This
is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.
And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden
is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him
to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already
stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for
treason.
Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the
Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern
of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,".
That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up the Iran deal.
Many of you here are extremely naďve regarding Trump.
b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run by a deep-state faction that found
the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.
Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke
of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly
President was elected.
Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The
'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to
fund security agencies and buy arms.
And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder
until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad
as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.
What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military
(note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.
And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel
or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh?
The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:
>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?
>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only check on elites are other elite factions?
An enormous cultural failure that has produced a brittle social fabric.
>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow the another to gain power?
Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction
or a real attempt at a 'color revolution'.
Trump failed his electorate in this critical metric. And as such does not deserve a reelection
Notable quotes:
"... Trump's success of failure will be measured by one thing: number of factory jobs added or lost, series MANEMP at the St. Louis FRED website.* If he doesn't create at least about 100,000 a year, he's in trouble. ..."
"... Disruption of neoliberal status quo and sending Hillary and some other neocon warmongers packing is already an achievement, not matter how you slice it. ..."
"... And a hissy fit that some factions of CIA demonstrated just before inauguration (it should not be considered as a monolithic organization; more like feudal kingdom of competing and often hostile to each other and to Pentagon and FBI factions ) was a reaction to this setback to neoconservatives in Washington. ..."
"... If Trump does what he promised in foreign policy: to end the wars for the expansion of neoliberal empire and to end of Cold War II with Russia it will be a huge achievement, even if the US economics not recover from Obama's secular stagnation (oil prices probably will go higher this year, representing an important headwind) . ..."
"... While we are writing those posts nuclear forces of both the USA and Russia are on high alert, and if something happen (and proliferation of computers make this more rather then less likely), the leaders of both countries have less then 20 minutes to decide about launching a full scale nuclear war. Actually Russia now has less time because of forward movement of NATO forces. ..."
Trump's success of failure will be measured by one thing: number of factory jobs added or lost, series MANEMP at the St. Louis
FRED website.* If he doesn't create at least about 100,000 a year, he's in trouble.
*assuming the data continues to be reported if it goes south on him, or he doesn't insist that the method of measuring change.
Something that is a real fear.
Slightly OT, there is one well-known wonky government data site I am watching. I think there are better than 50/50 odds it
disappears within the next two weeks.
Disruption of neoliberal status quo and sending Hillary and some other neocon warmongers packing is already an achievement,
not matter how you slice it.
And a hissy fit that some factions of CIA demonstrated just before inauguration (it should not be considered as a monolithic
organization; more like feudal kingdom of competing and often hostile to each other and to Pentagon and FBI factions ) was a reaction
to this setback to neoconservatives in Washington.
If Trump does what he promised in foreign policy: to end the wars for the expansion of neoliberal empire and to end of
Cold War II with Russia it will be a huge achievement, even if the US economics not recover from Obama's secular stagnation (oil
prices probably will go higher this year, representing an important headwind) .
No further escalation in geopolitical conflicts represents an important tailwind and might help.
While we are writing those posts nuclear forces of both the USA and Russia are on high alert, and if something happen (and
proliferation of computers make this more rather then less likely), the leaders of both countries have less then 20 minutes to
decide about launching a full scale nuclear war. Actually Russia now has less time because of forward movement of NATO forces.
Professor Stephen Cohen thinks that this is worse then Cuban Missile Crisis and he is an expert in this area.
"... Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding? ..."
"... If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint. ..."
"... Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative destruction to government ..."
"... Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt. ..."
"... Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain. The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again ..."
"... One quibble: The destruction he applies will not be creative. It will be thorough but entirely unimaginative. ..."
"... Why do you think a war is brewing? What do you think is going to happen? They'll give him bad intel like they did with Bush? ..."
"... The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread. ..."
"... Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general I mean a state of mutual distrust. ..."
Just as an aside - not really economics, but I am really worrying about what the war between the future white house team and the
CIA that seems to be brewing. I don't see good solutions to this. It is sort of unprecedented in a major western country. Can
you think of a similar case (where the intelligence services - and perhaps the military as well regarded there own government
head as an enemy agent)?
Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up
countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding?
If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint.
Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative
destruction to government
Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt.
As with Obamacare, the idea is to destroy it and replace it with something better. Most revolutions find it easy to destroy
and very much harder to build Most sane leaders recognize this difficulty and modify the existing rather than destroy and never
getting around to replacement or find the replacement to be worse than the existing.
Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will
give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain.
The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again
I don't believe in "creative destruction", I believe in "destructive creation" which is something quite different. But that is
not the point. This is not about the government as such, it is about the security apparatus in itself. It could get very nasty
if that ends up either totally alienated or politicized.
If I were President, provoking an organization whose specialty is covert operations and which has track record of bringing about
the demise of insufficiently agreeable leaders would not be high on my to-do list.
The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would
have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread.
Trump is an isolationist who repeatedly said the Iraq war was a disaster, which it was. If the CIA is going after Trump they're
doing a bad job. The worst they could come up with is some unverified accounts that Trump likes pee-pee parties.
Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it
ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general
I mean a state of mutual distrust.
This commenter Libezkova was right: Trump folded. And probably he was a phony fighter with neoliberalism and globalization from
the very beginning. So voters were deceived exactly like they were with Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... It's hilarious that the progressive neoliberals like DeLong, Krugman, Drum, Yglesias etc have said exactly nothing about Trump's tweets at Congressional Republicans over the independent ethics committee. ..."
"... There is a propaganda technique where you describe straw-person characterizations then undermine them. When in fact the whole longwinded campaign depends on readers and listeners not bothering or too tired to focus and see the mischaracterizations in the straw. ..."
"... This whole thing is an apologia, for propaganda purposes, as I see it. We all need to take care. It takes a lot of money and effort to organize such propaganda exercises. Please take care in using and reusing these type things. ..."
"... Theoretically that might give Democrats a chance, but I think the Clintonized Party is too corrupt to take this chance. "An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." ;-) ..."
"... In any case, 2018 elections will be very interesting as I think that the process of a slow collapse of neoliberal ideology and the rise of the US nationalist movements ("far right") will continue unabated. ..."
"At every point of the race, Mr. Trump was doing better among white voters without a college degree than Mitt Romney did
in 2012 - by a wide margin. Mrs. Clinton was also not matching Mr. Obama's support among black voters."
"Mrs. Clinton's gains were concentrated among the most affluent and best-educated white voters, much as Mr. Trump's gains
were concentrated among the lowest-income and least-educated white voters."
Trump won the Republican primary and general election.
""Trump dominated - in the primary and general elections - those districts represented by Congress's most conservative members,"
Tim Alberta wrote in National Review (he is now at Politico):
They once believed they were elected to advance a narrowly ideological agenda, but Trump's success has given them reason to
question that belief.
Among these archconservatives, who in the past had been fanatical in their pursuit of ideological purity, the realization that
they can no longer depend on unfailing support from their constituents has provoked deep anxiety."
These archconservatives who say that Trump's flimsy mandate is just based on just 80,000 votes in the rustbelt are in for a
rude awakening. He won the primary. In Northern States. In Southern States. Everywhere.
It's hilarious that the progressive neoliberals like DeLong, Krugman, Drum, Yglesias etc have said exactly nothing about
Trump's tweets at Congressional Republicans over the independent ethics committee.
There is a propaganda technique where you describe straw-person characterizations then undermine them. When in fact the whole
longwinded campaign depends on readers and listeners not bothering or too tired to focus and see the mischaracterizations in the
straw.
This whole thing is an apologia, for propaganda purposes, as I see it. We all need to take care. It takes a lot of money
and effort to organize such propaganda exercises. Please take care in using and reusing these type things.
"Trump has converted the GOP into a populist, America First party" is an overstatement. He definitely made some efforts
in this direction, but it is premature to declare this "fait accompli".
If we consider two possibilities: "GOP establishment chew up Trump" and "Trump chew up GOP establishment" it is clear that
possibility is more probable.
Theoretically that might give Democrats a chance, but I think the Clintonized Party is too corrupt to take this chance.
"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." ;-)
In any case, 2018 elections will be very interesting as I think that the process of a slow collapse of neoliberal ideology
and the rise of the US nationalist movements ("far right") will continue unabated.
This is the same process that we see in full force in EU.
"... It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with considerable distinction. ..."
"... To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the presidency, getting elected only gets you so far. Governing matters. ..."
"... But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great again. ..."
"... Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that. ..."
"... "Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-ŕ-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism." ..."
"... Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line. ..."
The Trump Administration http://tws.io/2iFd3rC
via @WeeklyStandard
Nov 28, 2016 - William Kristol
Who now gives much thought to the presidency of Warren G. Harding? Who ever did? Not us.
But let us briefly turn our thoughts to our 29th president (while stipulating that we're certainly no experts on his life or
times). Here's our summary notion: Warren G. Harding may have been a problematic president. But the Harding administration was
in some ways an impressive one, which served the country reasonably well.
It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president.
And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified
men who served with considerable distinction.
Andrew Mellon was a successful Treasury secretary whose tax reforms and deregulatory efforts spurred years of economic growth.
Charles Dawes, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget, reduced government expenditures and, helped by Mellon's economic
policies, brought the budget into balance. Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state dealt responsibly with a very difficult
world situation his administration had inherited-though in light of what followed in the next decade, one wishes in retrospect
for bolder assertions of American leadership, though in those years just after World War I, they would have been contrary to the
national mood.
In addition, President Harding's first two Supreme Court appointments -- William Howard Taft and George Sutherland -- were
distinguished ones. And Harding personally did some admirable things: He made pronouncements, impressive in the context of that
era, in favor of racial equality; he commuted the wartime prison sentence of the Socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs. In these ways,
he contributed to an atmosphere of national healing and civility.
The brief Harding administration-and for that matter the eight years constituting his administration and that of his vice president
and successor, Calvin Coolidge-may not have been times of surpassing national greatness. But there were real achievements, especially
in the economic sphere; those years were not disastrous; they were not dark times.
President-elect Donald J. Trump probably doesn't intend to model his administration on that of President Warren G. Harding.
But he could do worse than reflect on that administration's successes-and also on its failures, particularly the scandals that
exploded into public view after Harding's sudden death. These were produced by cronies appointed by Harding to important positions,
where they betrayed his trust and tarnished his historical reputation.
Donald Trump manifestly cares about his reputation. He surely knows that reputation ultimately depends on performance. If a
Trump hotel and casino is successful, it's not because of the Trump brand-that may get people through the door the first time-but
because it provides a worthwhile experience thanks to a good management team, fine restaurants, deft croupiers, and fun shows.
If a Trump golf course succeeds, it's because it has been built and is run by people who know something about golf. The failed
Trump efforts-from the university to the steaks-seem to have in common the assumption that the Trump name by itself would be enough
to carry mediocre or worse enterprises across the finish line.
To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the presidency, getting elected only
gets you so far. Governing matters.
It would be ironic if Trump's very personal electoral achievement were followed by a mode of governance that restored greater
responsibility to the cabinet agencies formally entrusted with the duties of governance. It would be ironic if a Trump presidency
also featured a return of authority to Congress, the states, and to other civic institutions. It would be ironic if Trump's victory
led not to a kind of American Caesarism but to a strengthening of republican institutions and forms. It would be ironic if the
election of Donald J. Trump heralded a return to a kind of constitutional normalcy.
If we are not mistaken, it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (though sadly unaware of the phenomena of either Warren G. Harding
or Donald J. Trump) who made much of the Irony of History.
But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory
over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the
reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great
again.
(Harding-Coolidge-Hoover were a disastrous triumvirate that ascended to power after the Taft & Wilson administrations, as the
GOP - then the embodiment of progressivism - split apart due to the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt.)
Peter K. -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the
"Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that.
It is the neocon's taking a back seat! Kristol is co-founder of PNAC along with a Clinton mob long time foggy bottom associate's
husband.. Trump is somewhat less thrilled with tilting with Russia for the American empire which is as moral as Nero's Rome.
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Prescient: dumping Kristol's PNAC will strengthen the republic.
"Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom"
of American capitalism vis-ŕ-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the
former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should
support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity
than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of
the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic
Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism."
Is it better to ignore this fault line and try to paper it over or is it better to debate the issues in a polite and congenial
manner?
Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line
up with the agreed-upon party line.
Kristof panic was premature and just shows that he is a really has no political analyst
talent whatsoever. Trump was quickly co-opted by neocons.
It is interesting that Kristof, even at such an early stages of Russiagate was already
"FullOfSchiff"
"... The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and,
according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree
with that conclusion. ..."
"... Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character
by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack
on the United States. ..."
"... Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager.
Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with
Russia's "Order of Friendship." ..."
In 1972, President Richard Nixon's White House dispatched burglars to bug Democratic Party
offices. That Watergate burglary and related "dirty tricks," such as releasing mice at a
Democratic press conference and paying a woman to strip naked and shout her love for a
Democratic candidate, nauseated Americans - and impelled some of us kids at the time to pursue
journalism.
Now in 2016 we have a political scandal that in some respects is even more staggering.
Russian agents apparently broke into the Democrats' digital offices and tried to change the
election outcome. President Obama on Friday suggested that this was probably directed by
Russia's president, saying, "Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin."
In Watergate, the break-in didn't affect the outcome of the election. In 2016, we don't know
for sure. There were other factors, but it's possible that Russia's theft and release of the
emails provided the margin for Donald Trump's victory.
The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and,
according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree
with that conclusion.
Both Nixon and Trump responded badly to the revelations, Nixon by ordering a cover-up and
Trump by denouncing the CIA and, incredibly, defending Russia from the charges that it tried to
subvert our election. I never thought I would see a dispute between America's intelligence
community and a murderous foreign dictator in which an American leader sided with the
dictator.
Let's be clear: This was an attack on America, less lethal than a missile but still
profoundly damaging to our system. It's not that Trump and Putin were colluding to steal an
election. But if the CIA is right, Russia apparently was trying to elect a president who would
be not a puppet exactly but perhaps something of a lap dog - a Russian poodle.
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely (and unfairly) mocked as President George
W. Bush's poodle, following him loyally into the Iraq war. The fear is that this time Putin may
have interfered to acquire an ally who likewise will roll over for him.
Frankly, it's mystifying that Trump continues to defend Russia and Putin, even as he
excoriates everyone else, from CIA officials to a local union leader in Indiana.
Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character
by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its
attack on the United States.
Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager.
Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with
Russia's "Order of Friendship."
Whatever our personal politics, how can we possibly want to respond to Russia's interference
in our election by putting American foreign policy in the hands of a Putin friend?
Tillerson's closeness to Putin is especially troubling because of Trump's other Russia
links. The incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, accepted Russian money to attend
a dinner in Moscow and sat near Putin. A ledger shows $12.7 million in secret payments by a
pro-Russia party in Ukraine to Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. And the Trump
family itself has business connections with Russia.
In two years neocons completely occupied Trump administration.
Notable quotes:
"... It's a cliche to say that the cushiest positions of influence in any US administration go to figures who were seen to have brought something to the table during the campaign. ..."
"... a lot of high-ranking neoconservatives are expecting the exact opposite, figuring that they can step right into positions of power and influence despite openly campaigning against Trump. ..."
"... There are more than a few people who would normally be in line for top positions in a Republican White House, but who were very publicly part of the "Never Trump" crowd, attacking him throughout the primary and the general election. These same people are now making public their "willingness" to work with Trump. ..."
"... In other words, they want the usual spoils of victory, but having positioned themselves as so firmly in opposition to Trump's worldview, and to Trump in general, it's not at all clear how willing Trump's transition team is to consider such candidates for important positions. ..."
"... For many of the neocons, this is likely less about getting cushy jobs or fancy titles and more about ensuring that the US remains aggressively interventionist abroad. Indeed, many of these people split with Trump in the first place over concerns he was insufficiently hawkish, and now want jobs that would put them in a position to shift his new administration in those same hawkish directions. ..."
There are more than a few people who would normally be in line for top positions in a Republican White House, but who were
very publicly part of the "Never Trump" crowd, attacking him throughout the primary and the general election. These same people are
now making public their "willingness" to work with Trump.
In other words, they want the usual spoils of victory, but having positioned themselves as so firmly in opposition to Trump's
worldview, and to Trump in general, it's not at all clear how willing Trump's transition team is to consider such candidates for
important positions.
The early indications are that a lot of the foreign policy-related positions are going to be led by high-ranking former military
officials who backed Trump's candidacy, with officials noting that long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left them with a lot of
such officials to choose from.
For many of the neocons, this is likely less about getting cushy jobs or fancy titles and more about ensuring that the US
remains aggressively interventionist abroad. Indeed, many of these people split with Trump in the first place over concerns he was
insufficiently hawkish, and now want jobs that would put them in a position to shift his new administration in those same hawkish
directions.
"... Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course. ..."
"... Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy mess in Iraq and now Syria. ..."
"... This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what? No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.' ..."
"... If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ..."
"... Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases, acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it. ..."
What I found most impressive this time was the reaffirmation of America's dedication to the peaceful transfer of political power.
This was the 45th time this miracle has happened. Saying this is perhaps banal, but the handover of power never fails to make me
proud to be an American and thankful we had such brilliant founding fathers.
This peaceful transfer sets the United States apart from many of the world's nations, even Britain and Canada, where leaders under
the parliamentary system are chosen in a process resembling a knife fight in a dark room. The US has somehow managed to retain its
three branches of government in spite of the best efforts of self-serving politicians to wreck it.
Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will
be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted
attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course.
Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits
America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy
mess in Iraq and now Syria.
This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what?
No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a
great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.'
Trump will struggle to find a face-saving retreat from these unnecessary conflicts and shut his ears to the siren songs of the
war party and deep state which just failed to stage a 'soft' coup to block his inauguration. Waging little wars against weak nations
is a multi-billion dollar national industry in the US. America has become as addicted to war as it has to debt.
If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the
hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a
Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Trump appears to have been gulled into believing the canard that Mideast-origin violence is caused by what he called in his inaugural
speech, radical Islamic terrorism. This is a favorite device promoted by the hard right and Israel to de-legitimize any resistance
to Israel's expansion and ethnic cleansing. The label of 'terrorism' serves the same purpose.
Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the
US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases,
acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it.
Unfortunately, President Trump is unlikely to get this useful advice from the men who now surround him, with the possibly exception
of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Let's hope that Tillerson and not Goldman Sachs bank ends up steering US foreign policy.
(Reprinted from EricMargolis.com by permission
of author or representative)
"... And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist. ..."
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naďve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump] plans to do what is best for
the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then,
let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony, he is going to have to put raw
elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.
And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is
who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff
and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist.
Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign.
He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably
picked him because he is in so tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment,
thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment
agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out at worst.
On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right"
media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington,
D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naďve about the New World Order. I don't
believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it.
To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE
than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State
in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical
New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But
Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment of cozying up to (and "supporting")
Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint
him to a key cabinet post in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential administration.
Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind
(NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he
appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration, I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the
swamp." You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump
would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.
Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating
and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true
judgment of his presidency. But for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of
what we need to know.
What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume
that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because
at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.
There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic ones over the past few decades.
And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian, pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults
against our liberties are sound asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give
the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.
The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington
establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will
NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected.
I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly, if this opportunity is squandered,
there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.
"... "kicked India and Turkey out of a decades-old US program that allows developing countries to export thousands of goods to the United States without paying duties," in a scheme known as the Generalized System of Preferences or GSP. ..."
"... The reasons given by the US Trade Representative for Trump's orders were that India had failed "to provide the United States with assurances that it will provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets in numerous sectors" while "Turkey's termination from the GSP follows a finding that it is sufficiently economically developed and should no longer benefit from preferential market access to the United States market." ..."
"... In the case of India, Washington has been trying for years to wean India away from its defense and trade association with Russia, concurrent with encouraging it to join the Pentagon in confronting China. The US Defence Department stated in September 2018 that "A decade ago, US arms sales to India amounted to virtually nothing. Today, the United States is the second-largest arms supplier to India, and US officials say they hope to increase that business," and the US focus on China has resulted in stronger military ties, with a joint statement last December indicating the intention "to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation as a key pillar of the strategic partnership between India and the US." ..."
"... There is a Russia factor in the US-Turkey relationship, because Ankara has placed an order for world-beating S-400 surface-to-air missiles, which has riled Washington, as has India's forthcoming acquisition of the same system. The Military-Industrial Establishment in Washington made its feelings known on March 8, when chief Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers told reporters that "If Turkey takes the S-400, there would be grave consequences in terms of our relationship, military relationship with them." But this doesn't seem to worry President Erdoğan, who had already made it clear that "The S-400 is a done deal, there can be no turning back. We have reached an agreement with the Russians. We will move toward a joint production. Perhaps after the S-400, we will go for the S-500." ..."
There is
a saying in the worlds of politics and business that most people who come to prominence are those who in defeat bear malice and in
victory seek revenge. It is therefore unsurprising that President Donald Trump displays both characteristics in international as
well as domestic affairs, although his targets vary erratically between friend and foe. His near-psychotic concentration on achieving
the destruction of Iran is understandably malicious and revengeful, given the nature of the man, but his latest exhibitions of would-be
superiority involve allies, which even for Trump is dramatically misguided.
The Trumpian United States has few friends, mainly because in his two years in the White House Trump has gone out of his way to
belittle, demean and insult long-standing partners and antagonise those who may have been considering seeking closer ties with Washington.
His announcement
last December that "America is respected again" was wide of the mark, because, unfortunately, America has become a global joke --
but a dangerous joke whose president may be a raving booby, but is still powerful and appears intent on upsetting what little tranquillity
remains in this turmoil-stricken world.
One recent diatribe
was unprecedented in length, vulgarity and volatility. When he spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2 he
set a new low for absurdity in what the commentator Stephen Colbert described as being an "epically weird" harangue which The
Atlantic said was
the longest presidential oration in history . Moving on from this bizarre performance, Trump turned to international affairs
and, as Politicoreported
on March 5, "kicked India and Turkey out of a decades-old US program that allows developing countries to export thousands of goods
to the United States without paying duties," in a scheme known as the Generalized System of Preferences or GSP.
The reasons given by
the US Trade Representative for Trump's orders were that India had failed "to provide the United States with assurances that
it will provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets in numerous sectors" while "Turkey's termination from the GSP follows
a finding that it is sufficiently economically developed and should no longer benefit from preferential market access to the United
States market."
In the case of India, Washington has been trying for years to wean India away from its defense and trade association with Russia,
concurrent with encouraging it to join the Pentagon in confronting China. The US Defence Department
stated
in September 2018 that "A decade ago, US arms sales to India amounted to virtually nothing. Today, the United States is the second-largest
arms supplier to India, and US officials say they hope to increase that business," and the US focus on China has resulted in stronger
military ties, with a
joint statement last December indicating the intention "to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation as a key pillar of
the strategic partnership between India and the US."
Washington has been intensifying its confrontation with China in the South China sea, where in addition to overflights by nuclear-capable
bombers it conducts what are absurdly
called "freedom of navigation patrols" in waters where there has never been a single case of interference with any of the vast
number of merchant ships that pass though every year. The rationale is given as support for the Convention on the Law of the Sea
which, most ironically, Washington
refuses to ratify . Nevertheless,
the US has been trying hard to persuade the Indian government that it should contribute warships to join US patrols in the South
China Sea, which, so far, India has
refused
to do . So it might be thought that the Trump Administration would do its best to encourage India to buy more US weapons and
to cooperate in its anti-China antics (however unwise that would be) by keeping their relationship friction-free. But this isn't
the way Trump works.
Washington's unfortunate timing of the announcement that it will penalise India in trade arrangements extends to India's domestic
circumstances, because there are national elections due in April, and the party of Prime Minister Modi (an arch-nationalist and no
mean war-drummer himself) was already having difficulties, and is looking shakier day-by-day. Indeed the whole bizarre affair was
well summed-up by Professor Harsh Pant of King's College London when he said "the discourse in this country has been that America
needs India to balance China, and the question will be: Why is America doing this to India?"
But there doesn't seem to be a sensible answer to that question.
The same holds for Washington's treatment of NATO ally Turkey, whose President
said on February 26 that Ankara might buy the US Patriot missile system "if you [the US] provide us good conditions." But it's
blindingly obvious that the US declaration that Turkey "should no longer benefit from preferential market access to the United States
market" is not going to make President Erdoğan keen on buying Patriot missiles -- or anything else stamped "made in the USA."
There is a Russia factor in the US-Turkey relationship, because Ankara has placed an order for world-beating S-400 surface-to-air
missiles, which has riled Washington, as has India's
forthcoming acquisition of the same system. The Military-Industrial Establishment in Washington made its feelings known on March
8, when chief Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers
told reporters that "If Turkey takes the S-400, there would be grave consequences in terms of our relationship, military relationship
with them." But this doesn't seem to worry President Erdoğan, who had already
made it clear that "The S-400 is a done deal, there can be no turning back. We have reached an agreement with the Russians. We
will move toward a joint production. Perhaps after the S-400, we will go for the S-500."
The signals are that Turkey is moving further away from the US and is possibly considering leaving NATO. After all, the US has
torn up favourable trade arrangements, and NATO has done nothing for Turkey which is working with Russia in many spheres. The most
recent example of regional military cooperation was on March 6-8 when four Turkish and Russian vessels conducted a
minor
exercise in the Black Sea, aimed at demonstrating and sharing techniques involved in mine-avoidance.
Trust is fostered by cooperation based on preparedness to understand differing viewpoints. Even more importantly, it is stimulated
by adopting pragmatic policies aimed at establishing confidence, rather than by ceaselessly confronting and confounding others. For
so long as Trump considers that "Make America Great Again" depends on confrontation and malevolence then his country will achieve
neither trust nor cooperation world-wide. And when he casts allies aside with sneering condescension, taking revenge for what he
considers to be unwarranted favouritism in the past, he is destroying America's path to Greatness.
A version of this piece appeared in Strategic Culture Foundation on March 12.
That's a devastating for Trump post by Ann Coilter. She was his supporter in previous election cucle.
Notable quotes:
"... NUMBER OF MILES OF WALL BUILT ON OUR SOUTHERN BORDER SINCE TRUMP HAS BEEN PRESIDENT: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF TIMES TRUMP HAS CLAIMED ON TWITTER HE'S ALREADY BUILDING THE WALL: 16 BY MY COUNT. ..."
"... NUMBER OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS ENDING THE ANCHOR BABY SCAM -- AS TRUMP PROMISES WHENEVER AN ELECTION IS COMING: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS ISSUED BY TRUMP RESCINDING OBAMA'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIEN "DREAMERS": ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF EXTENSIONS OF THE E-VERIFY SYSTEM TO PREVENT ILLEGALS FROM BEING HIRED OVER AMERICANS: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF H1-B FOREIGN WORKERS IN THIS COUNTRY WHEN TRUMP TOOK OFFICE: APPROXIMATELY 1 MILLION. ..."
"... NUMBER OF H1-B FOREIGN WORKERS IN THIS COUNTRY TODAY: APPROXIMATELY 1 MILLION. ..."
"... NUMBER OF ASYLUM LOOPHOLES CLOSED: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF CARRIED INTEREST LOOPHOLES ELIMINATED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF GOLDMAN SACHS EMPLOYEES PUT IN TOP ADMINISTRATION POSITIONS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: 7 -- or "more than Presidents Bush and Obama combined." ..."
"... (For someone unable to fulfill the most basic of his immigration promises, Trump has been amazingly competent in accomplishing the things Wall Street wanted, but no one else did.) ..."
"... PERCENTAGE OF THE BASE THAT TRUMP CAN AFFORD TO LOSE IN 2020, AFTER MILLIONS OF OLDER, WHITER AMERICANS HAVE DIED OFF, AND MILLIONS OF IMMIGRANTS HAVE TURNED 18 AND BEGUN VOTING: ZERO. ..."
It is now clear that Trump isn't waiting for a better moment. This was not an anomaly. It's not an accident.
After he signed his third spending bill with no wall funding, which he claims to need, all sentient beings were forced
to conclude that the president has no intention of ever doing anything we wanted on immigration.
In fact, Trump is steadily moving in the precise opposite direction of what he promised.
Illegal immigration is on track to hit the highest levels in more than a decade, and Trump has willfully decided to keep amnesty
advocates Jared, Ivanka, Mick Mulvaney, Marc Short and Mercedes Schlapp in the White House. For all his talk about immigration, did
he ever consider hiring people who share his MAGA vision?
A (diminishing) percentage of the base is annoyed when I point this out. They think that the moment something comes out of Trump's
mouth, IT HAS HAPPENED.
Yes, Trump talks a good game. He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish.
The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice ... now here's your salmon.
If he refuses to do what we hired him to do, he's not getting a good Yelp review.
I've decided to discuss the Trump presidency in purely mathematical terms. It's not his fault! He's trying! Never has a president
been under such attack! -- these are more in the nature of "excuses," not facts.
Under my new approach, I will provide a numerical evaluation of the Trump presidency, which I call:
TRUMP BY THE NUMBERS!
No editorializing, no invective, no opinion.
** ** **
NUMBER OF MILES OF WALL BUILT ON OUR SOUTHERN BORDER SINCE TRUMP HAS BEEN PRESIDENT: ZERO.
** ** **
NUMBER OF MILES OF FENCE, BOLLARD OR GARDEN TRELLIS BUILT ALONG OUR 2,000-MILE BORDER SINCE TRUMP HAS BEEN PRESIDENT: 26.
** ** **
NUMBER OF TIMES TRUMP HAS CLAIMED ON TWITTER HE'S ALREADY BUILDING THE WALL: 16 BY MY COUNT.
** ** **
NUMBER OF TIMES TRUMP HAS COMPLAINED ON TWITTER THAT CONGRESS WON'T GIVE HIM FUNDS TO BUILD THE WALL THAT HE SAYS HE'S ALREADY
BUILDING: AT LEAST 30 BY MY COUNT.
** ** **
NUMBER OF WALL "PROTOTYPES" DESTROYED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: ALL OF THEM.
** ** **
NUMBER OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS ENDING THE ANCHOR BABY SCAM -- AS TRUMP PROMISES WHENEVER AN ELECTION IS COMING: ZERO.
** ** **
NUMBER OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS ISSUED BY TRUMP RESCINDING OBAMA'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIEN "DREAMERS": ZERO.
** ** **
NUMBER OF ILLEGAL ALIENS WHOSE PRESENCE HAS BEEN EXCUSED BY TRUMP: 11 TO 50 MILLION (depending on whether you believe the propaganda
or the facts).
** ** **
NUMBER OF EXTENSIONS OF THE E-VERIFY SYSTEM TO PREVENT ILLEGALS FROM BEING HIRED OVER AMERICANS: ZERO.
** ** **
NUMBER OF H1-B FOREIGN WORKERS IN THIS COUNTRY WHEN TRUMP TOOK OFFICE: APPROXIMATELY 1 MILLION.
** ** **
NUMBER OF H1-B FOREIGN WORKERS IN THIS COUNTRY TODAY: APPROXIMATELY 1 MILLION.
** ** **
NUMBER OF ASYLUM LOOPHOLES CLOSED: ZERO.
... ... ...
Apart from immigration, probably the single most important campaign promise Trump made was to end the carried interest loophole.
Most Republicans would break out into a cold sweat if asked to raise taxes on George Soros. FINALLY, we had a Republican (or Democrat)
who wasn't beholden to Wall Street!
During the campaign, Trump said this tax scam allowed hedge fund managers to "get away with murder" and vowed to eliminate it.
Americans who hadn't voted for 30 years said: How do I register to vote?
Let's take out the slide rule!
** ** **
NUMBER OF CARRIED INTEREST LOOPHOLES ELIMINATED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: ZERO.
** ** **
TOTAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS IN 2016 GIVEN BY GOLDMAN SACHS TO HILLARY CLINTON: $388,000.
** ** **
TOTAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS GIVEN BY GOLDMAN SACHS TO TRUMP: $5,607 (or 70 times less than Goldman gave to Hillary).
** ** **
NUMBER OF GOLDMAN SACHS EMPLOYEES PUT IN TOP ADMINISTRATION POSITIONS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: 7 -- or "more than Presidents Bush
and Obama combined."
(For someone unable to fulfill the most basic of his immigration promises, Trump has been amazingly competent in accomplishing
the things Wall Street wanted, but no one else did.)
** ** **
NUMBER OF ACTIONS TAKEN TO DEFEND THE FREE SPEECH RIGHTS OF TRUMP'S BIGGEST SUPPORTERS BEING DEPLATFORMED AND CENSORED, SUCH AS
MILO YIANNOPOULOS, GAVIN MCINNES, LAURA LOOMER AND ALEX JONES:
ZERO.
** ** **
PERCENTAGE OF THE BASE THAT TRUMP CAN AFFORD TO LOSE IN 2020, AFTER MILLIONS OF OLDER, WHITER AMERICANS HAVE DIED OFF, AND
MILLIONS OF IMMIGRANTS HAVE TURNED 18 AND BEGUN VOTING: ZERO.
Comey was a part of the coup -- a color revolution against Trump with Bremmen (possibly assigned by Obama) pulling the strings. That's right. This is a banana republic with nukes.
Notable quotes:
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
FBI and National
Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an
effort to help Donald Trump win the White House, US media report.
FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced that Russia was behind cyberattacks
that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta,
The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees.
"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among
us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials
who have seen it.
"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this
issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI," it continued.
"... Donald Trump is about to break the record of withdrawing his promises faster than any other US president in history. It's not only the fact that his administration has been literally taken over by Goldman Sachs, the top vampire-bank of the Wall Street mafia. ..."
"... The 'anti-establishment Trump' joke has already collapsed and the US middle class is about be eliminated by the syndicate of the united billionaires under Trump administration. ..."
"... Paul Singer whose nickname is "the vulture", he didn't get that nickname because he is a sweet an honest businessman. This is the guy who closed the Delphi auto plants in Ohio and sent them to China and also to Monterrey-Mexico. Donald Trump as a candidate, excoriated the billionaires who sent Delphi auto parts company down to Mexico ..."
"... Paul Singer has two concerns: one of them is that we eliminate the banking regulations known as Dodd–Frank. He is called 'the vulture' cause he eats companies that died. He has invested heavily in banks that died. He makes his billions from government bail-outs, he has never made a product in his life, it's all money and billions made from your money, out of the US treasury ..."
"... The Mercers are the real big money behind Donald Trump. When Trump was in trouble in the general election he was out of money and he was out of ideas and he was losing. It was the Mercers, Robert, who is the principal at the Renaissance Technologies, basically investment banking sharks, that's all they are. They are market gamblers and banking sharks, and that's how he made his billions, he hasn't created a single job as Donald Trump himself like to mention. ..."
"... Both the vulture and the Mercers, they don't pay the same taxes as the rest. They don't pay regular income taxes. They have a special billionaires loophole called 'carried interest'. ..."
"... They were two candidates who said that they would close that loophole: one was Bernie Sanders and the other, believe it or not, was Donald Trump, it was part of his populist movie, he said ' These Wall Street sharks, they don't build anything, they don't create a single job, when they lose we pay, when they win, they get a tax-break called carried interest. I will close that loophole. ' Has he said a word about that loophole? It passed away. ..."
Donald Trump is about to break the record of withdrawing his promises faster than any other US president in history. It's
not only the fact that his administration has been literally taken over by Goldman Sachs, the top vampire-bank of the Wall Street
mafia.
Recently, Trump announced another big alliance with the vulture billionaire, Paul Singer, who, initially, was supposedly against
him. It looks like the Trump big show continues.
The 'anti-establishment Trump' joke has already collapsed and the US middle class is about be eliminated by the syndicate of the
united billionaires under Trump administration.
As Greg Palast told to Thom Hartmann:
Paul Singer whose nickname is "the vulture", he didn't get that nickname because he is a sweet an honest businessman. This
is the guy who closed the Delphi auto plants in Ohio and sent them to China and also to Monterrey-Mexico. Donald Trump as a candidate,
excoriated the billionaires who sent Delphi auto parts company down to Mexico.
Paul Singer has two concerns: one of them is that we eliminate the banking regulations known as Dodd–Frank. He is called 'the
vulture' cause he eats companies that died. He has invested heavily in banks that died. He makes his billions from government bail-outs,
he has never made a product in his life, it's all money and billions made from your money, out of the US treasury.
He is against what Obama created, which is a system under Dodd–Frank, called 'living wills', where if a bank starts going bankrupt,
they don't call the US treasury for bail-out. These banks go out of business and they are broken up so we don't have to pay for the
bail-out. Singer wants to restore the system of bailouts because that's where he makes his money.
The Mercers are the real big money behind Donald Trump. When Trump was in trouble in the general election he was out of money
and he was out of ideas and he was losing. It was the Mercers, Robert, who is the principal at the Renaissance Technologies, basically
investment banking sharks, that's all they are. They are market gamblers and banking sharks, and that's how he made his billions,
he hasn't created a single job as Donald Trump himself like to mention.
Both the vulture and the Mercers, they don't pay the same taxes as the rest. They don't pay regular income taxes. They have a
special billionaires loophole called 'carried interest'.
They were two candidates who said that they would close that loophole: one
was Bernie Sanders and the other, believe it or not, was Donald Trump, it was part of his populist movie, he said ' These Wall
Street sharks, they don't build anything, they don't create a single job, when they lose we pay, when they win, they get a tax-break
called carried interest. I will close that loophole. ' Has he said a word about that loophole? It passed away.
His political activities include funding the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and he has written against raising taxes
for the 1% and aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act. Singer is active in Republican Party politics and collectively, Singer and others affiliated
with Elliott Management are "the top source of contributions" to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
A number of sources have branded him a "vulture capitalist", largely on account of his role at EMC, which has been called a vulture
fund. Elliott was termed by The Independent as "a pioneer in the business of buying up sovereign bonds on the cheap, and then going
after countries for unpaid debts", and in 1996, Singer began using the strategy of purchasing sovereign debt from nations in or near
default-such as Argentina, ]- through his NML Capital Limited and Congo-Brazzaville through Kensington International Inc. Singer's
business model of purchasing distressed debt from companies and sovereign states and pursuing full payment through the courts has
led to criticism, while Singer and EMC defend their model as "a fight against charlatans who refuse to play by the market's rules."
In 1996, Elliott bought defaulted Peruvian debt for $11.4 million. Elliott won a $58 million judgment when the ruling was overturned
in 2000, and Peru had to repay the sum in full under the pari passu rule. When former president of Peru Alberto Fujimori was attempting
to flee the country due to facing legal proceedings over human rights abuses and corruption, Singer ordered the confiscation of his
jet and offered to let him leave the country in exchange for the $58 million payment from the treasury, an offer which Fujimori accepted.
A subsequent 2002 investigation by the Government of Peru into the incident and subsequent congressional report, uncovered instances
of corruption since Elliott was not legally authorized to purchase the Peruvian debt from Swiss Bank Corporation without the prior
approval of the Peruvian government, and thus the purchase had occurred in breach of contract. At the same time, Elliott's representative,
Jaime Pinto, had been formerly employed by the Peruvian Ministry of Economy and Finance and had contact with senior officials. According
to the Wall Street Journal, the Peruvian government paid Elliott $56 million to settle the case.
After Argentina defaulted on its debt in 2002, the Elliott-owned company NML Capital Limited refused to accept the Argentine offer
to pay less than 30 cents per dollar of debt. With a face value of $630 million, the bonds were reportedly bought by NML for $48
million, with Elliott assessing the bonds as worth $2.3 billion with accrued interest. Elliott sued Argentina for the debt's value,
and the lower UK courts found that Argentina had state immunity. Elliott successfully appealed the case to the UK Supreme Court,
which ruled that Elliott had the right to attempt to seize Argentine property in the United Kingdom. Alternatively, before 2011,
US courts ruled against allowing creditors to seize Argentine state assets in the United States. On October 2, 2012 Singer arranged
for a Ghanaian Court order to detain the Argentine naval training vessel ARA Libertad in a Ghanaian port, with the vessel to be used
as collateral in an effort to force Argentina to pay the debt. Refusing to pay, Argentina shortly thereafter regained control of
the ship after its seizure was deemed illegal by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Alleging the incident lost Tema
Harbour $7.6 million in lost revenue and unpaid docking fees, Ghana in 2012 was reportedly considering legal action against NML for
the amount.
His firm... is so influential that fear of its tactics helped shape the current 2012 Greek debt restructuring." Elliott was termed
by The Independent as "a pioneer in the business of buying up sovereign bonds on the cheap, and then going after countries for unpaid
debts", and in 1996, Singer began using the strategy of purchasing sovereign debt from nations in or near default-such as Argentina,
Peru-through his NML Capital Limited and Congo-Brazzaville through Kensington International Inc. In 2004, then first deputy managing
director of the International Monetary Fund Anne Osborn Krueger denounced the strategy, alleging that it has "undermined the entire
structure of sovereign finance."
we wrote that " Trump's rhetoric is concentrated around a racist delirium. He avoids to take direct position
on social matters, issues about inequality, etc. Of course he does, he is a billionaire! Trump will follow the pro-establishment
agenda of protecting Wall Street and big businesses. And here is the fundamental difference with Bernie Sanders. Bernie says no more
war and he means it. He says more taxes for the super-rich and he means it. Free healthcare and education for all the Americans,
and he means it. In case that Bernie manage to beat Hillary, the establishment will definitely turn to Trump who will be supported
by all means until the US presidency. "
Yet, we would never expect that Trump would verify us, that fast.
Warren supported Hillary that the;s a huge black spot on her credentials. She also king of a hawk in forign policy diligitly repeated
stupid Depart of State talking points and making herself a fool. I especially like here blabbing about authoritarian regimes. From former
Harvard professor we should expect better that this.
To a certain extent he message about rigged system is authentic as She drive this horse for a long time. But that does
not means that she can't betray here electorate like Trump or Obama. She perfectly can. And is quite possible. Several details of her
biography suggest that she is a female careerist -- using dirty tricks to be promoted and paying her gender as an offensive weapon
(looks also at her use of Cherokee heritage claim)
But there is no ideal people and among establishment candidates she is the most electable despite all flows of her foreign
policy positions.
Notable quotes:
"... Comparing Elizabeth Warren to Trump is disingenuous. Trump is just ranting and defensive, without any evidence to back up his claims. What Elizabeth Warren is saying is just a matter of paying attention. ..."
"... This analysis completely ignores the outrageous, overarching influence of money and financial privilege over American politics. Equating Bill Clinton's dalliance with Trump's disrespect for all norms of decency and the truth? Please. Warren is right. Just look at the legislative obscenity of the recent tax bill and then try and equivocate they left and the right. I am not buying this false equivalency. ..."
"... Please, Elizabeth Warren is nothing like Trump. She's a brilliant, honest, tireless fighter for ordinary Americans. She wants a fair shake for them, just as FDR wanted a fair shake -- a "New Deal" -- for our Country. ..."
"... The so-called "left" in America (moderates anywhere else on the globe) have never varied from saying that money = power. They still say that today, and raise money like crazy for candidates thereby proving their own point. ..."
"... Conservatives in America (far-right extremists anywhere else on the globe) are much quieter about the influence of dough, but raise money like crazy for candidates thereby proving the "left's" point. ..."
The president and the senator both want you to know that our system is "rigged."
... ... ...
For decades, the left sought to dethrone the idea of truth. Truth was not an absolute. It was a matter of power. Of perspective.
Of narrative. "Truth is a thing of this world," wrote Michel Foucault. "Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics'
of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true."
Then Kellyanne Conway gave us "alternative facts" and Rudy Giuliani said, "
Truth isn't truth"
-- and progressives rushed to defend the inviolability of facts and truth.
For decades, the left sought to dethrone reverence for the Constitution. "The Constitution," wrote progressive historian Howard
Zinn, "serves the interests of a wealthy elite" and enables "the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law
-- all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity."
Then
Donald Trump attacked freedom of the press and birthright citizenship, and flouted the emoluments clause, and assailed the impartiality
of the judiciary. And progressives rediscovered the treasure that is our Constitutional inheritance.
... ... ...
To an audience of nearly 500 new graduates and their families at the historically black college, the Massachusetts senator laid
out a bleak vision of America. "The rules are rigged because the rich and powerful have bought and paid for too many politicians,"
she said. "The rich and powerful want us pointing fingers at each other so we won't notice they are getting richer and more powerful,"
she said. "Two sets of rules: one for the wealthy and the well-connected. And one for everybody else," she said.
"That's how a rigged system works," she said.
It was a curious vision coming from a person whose life story, like that of tens millions of Americans who have risen far above
their small beginnings, refutes her own thesis. It was curious, also, coming from someone who presumably believes that various forms
of rigging are required to un-rig past rigging. Affirmative action in college admissions and aggressive minority recruitment
in corporations are also forms of "rigging."
But however one feels about various types of rigging, the echo of Trump was unmistakable. "It's being proven we have a rigged
system," the president said
at
one of his rallies last year . "Doesn't happen so easy. But this system -- gonna be a lot of changes. This is a rigged system."
Trump's claim that the system is rigged represents yet another instance of his ideological pickpocketing of progressives. From
C. Wright Mills ("The Power Elite") to Noam Chomsky ("Manufacturing Consent"), the animating belief of the far left has been, as
Tom Hayden put it, that we live in a "false
democracy," controlled by an unaccountable, deceitful and shadowy elite. Trump has names for it: the globalists; the deep state;
the fake news. Orange, it turns out, is the new red.
Of course, Warren and Trump have very different ideas as to just who the malefactors of great wealth really are. Is it Sheldon
Adelson or George Soros? The Koch brothers or the Ford Foundation? Posterity will be forgiven if it loses track of which alleged
conspiracy to rig the system was of the far-right and which was of the far left.
What it will remember is that here was another era in which a president and one of his leading opponents abandoned the prouder
traditions of American politics in favor of paranoid ones. Compare Warren's grim message to Bill Clinton's sunny one from his first
inaugural: "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."
At some point, it will be worth asking Senator Warren: Rigged compared to when? A generation ago a black president would have
been unthinkable. Two generations ago, a woman on the Supreme Court. And rigged compared to what? Electoral politics in Japan, which
have been dominated by a single party for decades? The class system in Brazil, dominated by a single race for centuries?
Bret L. Stephens has been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at
The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post.
Warren is saying the system is rigged to suppress the middle class and poor in favor of the wealthy, which is easy to substantiate.
Trump is saying the system is rigged to suppress the white right, which is easy to refute. One statement is an economic fact,
the other is a racist trope. There is no equivalence here. ScottW Chapel Hill, NC Dec. 20, 2018
Sen. Warren supports Medicare for All, meaningful banking/financial regulations, regulations that benefit consumers, a living
wage, etc. Trump supports none of these policies--not a one. Trying to equate Trump with Warren is just stupid.
Comparing Elizabeth Warren to Trump is disingenuous. Trump is just ranting and defensive, without any evidence to back up his
claims. What Elizabeth Warren is saying is just a matter of paying attention. I don't need to list all the ways in which money
buys everything in politics. It's always a matter of following the money. Bret Stephens conveniently avoids looking at economics.
His supposed counterexamples are at best irrelevant to the issue: We've had a black President. We have women on the Supreme Court.
How are those examples proof that the system isn't rigged in favor of the wealthy and corporations? No doubt he thinks Plutocracy
is part of the natural order of things. He should go back to the Wall Street Journal where his myopia is more appropriate. MarnS
Nevada Dec. 20, 2018 Times Pick
Unfortunately Bret there are no "optimists" in the GOP, including yourself being one who has bounced back and forth in your
positions regarding the Trump presidency. Though you have found your way on CNN or MSNBC spouting your disappointments about the
state of the nation, the fact remains is that your a hardened, right wing opinion writer who may have less of an ideal when it
comes to America being a democratic nation. No, you can conveniently ignore the actions of your conservative party in there gerrymandering,
in their changing the rules for governors of the Democrat persuasion, or gross deliberate voter suppression that has placed your
party in power positions by, in effect, stealing elections. You are a writer with a forked tongue trying, at times in a passive
manner, to separate yourself from Trump, and the evilness of the current GOP Party without understanding that the definition of
"conservative" has changed to the radical. And that is documented by your writings in the WSJ. Yet, you cannot even dream about
truly being on the left side of an argument other than beating your breast with the fact that the GOP has disappeared, as we have
known it, in the hands of radicalism (which prior to Trump you participated in the escalation of radical conservatism), and your
party can never be revived as it once was...and we all pray it never will be so.
This analysis completely ignores the outrageous, overarching influence of money and financial privilege over American politics.
Equating Bill Clinton's dalliance with Trump's disrespect for all norms of decency and the truth? Please. Warren is right. Just
look at the legislative obscenity of the recent tax bill and then try and equivocate they left and the right. I am not buying
this false equivalency.
FYI, Foucault was offering critiques of "regimes of truth," not of truth itself. That's very different. Like most historians,
he spent an impressive amount of time in archives where he collected evidence in order to write books that give truthful accounts
of the past. You make a caricature of Foucault, and then of the entire left.
Rich Casagrande Slingerlands, NY Dec. 20, 2018 Times Pick
Please, Elizabeth Warren is nothing like Trump. She's a brilliant, honest, tireless fighter for ordinary Americans. She wants
a fair shake for them, just as FDR wanted a fair shake -- a "New Deal" -- for our Country. While much of the rest of the world was
turning to communism or fascism, FDR saved American capitalism by shaking it up. Oh how we could use a large dose of that today.
Whoa! Line by line, Mr Stephens offers statements that are way off base and should be refuted. Are you saying you disagree
with Warren? Do you think the "system" in America for the last 400 years has not been generally "rigged" against African-Americans?
But the gist of his column, and the main argument of conservatives these days, is that the left and the right are equally out
of line; that what the right says and does may be bad, but the left does the same sort of thing and is just as bad. This is not
true Bret, and you know it. The left desperately tries to find the high road, and anyone who supports Trump these days or believes
in most of his policies is either someone who has abandoned morality or is a fool. And that is the truth, Bret.
Calling out our system as "rigged" is nothing new for Sen. Warren. She's been stating that publicly since being a regular Bill
Moyer's guest on his PBS program 20 years ago -- and clearly already on a "prep for national politics" stump. What undercuts her
own integrity regarding "rigged" is that she chose, after much wait & anticipation, to throw her support to Hillary Clinton in
the summer of 2016. Not Bernie Sanders. She knew HRC had little integrity. And it's highly likely she knew the DNC primary was
rigged in favor of Clinton -- as it's widely been proven.
My point here highlights one of several reasons why Sen. Warren is unelectable
in the 2020 presidential general election. This is not to compare her in any way to Trump -- he's a venal, disturbed & dangerous
traitor to our country. However, if winning the WH in 2020 is the goal, Elizabeth Warren ain't got the goods to get the necessary
votes across our Republic.
There's a good case to be made that the far left exists in two separate dimensions. I offer myself in evidence. Among the policies
and social changes I advocate: Medicare for all Aggressively progressive taxation.
I don't recognize any freedom to corner as much wealth as one can while other people must labor at two or three jobs just to
feed their families on peanut butter.
I do think there's a bit of rigging afoot. Restrictions on the ownership of firearms comparable to those in Japan.
A society free from all forms of identity discrimination or prejudice. I'm bitterly opposed to racism, anti-Semitism, sexism,
homophobia; any example you care to give, including those without short handles, such as prejudice against Muslims or transgender
people.
Yes, I know I have this in common with decent conservatives, but I'm thinking of partisan realities in the US today. I should
add that I don't mind the prospect of WASPS like me becoming just another minority.
But-- I can't picture myself as a socialist -- hair combed straight back, and all that.
The rigorously progressive personality type rubs me the wrong way. Leftist cant grates on every fiber of my being. Che Guevara
T-shirts make the lip curl. When my knee jerks, it jerks against things like that old leftist conceit that truth is what you make
it. I look at the far-left agenda and see a lot to like. I look at the far-left milieu and see didactic arrogance, frigidity,
and pat attitudes. I'm a Democrat in disarray.
The so-called "left" in America (moderates anywhere else on the globe) have never varied from saying that money = power. They
still say that today, and raise money like crazy for candidates thereby proving their own point.
Conservatives in America (far-right
extremists anywhere else on the globe) are much quieter about the influence of dough, but raise money like crazy for candidates
thereby proving the "left's" point.
Reality? Money in America is everything. Period. Just try to run for office, influence policy,
and/or change the direction of the country as a sole, intelligent, concerned poor person and see how far you get.
Carlson is saying Trump's not "capable" of sustained focus on the sausage-making of right-wing policy.
The clickbait (out of context) headline makes it sound like a more general diss. I'm not supporting Trump here [standard disclaimer],
but these gotcha headlines are tiresome.
"... Until the Crash of the Great Recession, after which we entered a "Punitive" stage, blaming "Those Others" for buying into faulty housing deals, for wanting a safety net of health care insurance, for resurgent terrorism beyond our borders, and, as the article above indicates, for having an equal citizen's voice in the electoral process. ..."
"... What needs to be restored is the purpose that "the economy works for the PEOPLE of the nation", not the other way around, as we've witnessed for the last four decades. ..."
Just finished reading this excellent book on how corporatist NeoLiberalism and the Xristianists merged their ideologies to form
the Conservative Coalition in the 1970s, and to then hijack the RepubliCAN party of Abe, Teddy, Ike (and Poppy Bush).
The author describes three phases of the RepugliCONs' zero-sum game:
The "Combative" stage of Reagan sought to restore "family values" (aka patriarchal hierarchy) to the moral depravity of Sixties
youth and the uppity claims to equal rights by blacks and feminists.
In the "Normative" stage of Gingrich and W Bush, the NeoConservatives claimed victory over Godless Communism and the NeoLibs
took credit for an expanding economy (due mostly by technology, not to Fed policy). They were happy to say "Aren't you happy now?"
with sole ownership of the Free World and its markets, yet ignoring various Black Swan events and global trends they actually
had no control over.
Until the Crash of the Great Recession, after which we entered a "Punitive" stage, blaming "Those Others" for buying into
faulty housing deals, for wanting a safety net of health care insurance, for resurgent terrorism beyond our borders, and, as the
article above indicates, for having an equal citizen's voice in the electoral process.
What was unexpected was that the libertarian mutiny by the TeaParty would become so nasty and vicious, leading to the Pirate
Trump to scavenge what little was left of American Democracy for his own treasure.
What needs to be restored is the purpose that "the economy works for the PEOPLE of the nation", not the other way around,
as we've witnessed for the last four decades.
"... The Druze minority that lives in occupied Golan was critical of the move, saying that even with Israel, and now the US, considering the Golan Heights to be part of Israel, would still be considered to have "Syrian" blood under Israeli law. ..."
"... Jordan also opposed the move , saying they still consider Golan part of Syria. It's clear why in this case, as Israel occupied parts of Syria and Jordan in the same war, and the US recognition of the annexation of the Syrian part may open Israel to annexing the West Bank and getting US approval for that as well. ..."
The Druze minority that lives in occupied Golan was critical of the move, saying that even
with Israel, and now the US, considering the Golan Heights to be part of Israel, would still be
considered to have "Syrian" blood under Israeli law.
Jordan
also opposed the move , saying they still consider Golan part of Syria. It's clear why in
this case, as Israel occupied parts of Syria and Jordan in the same war, and the US recognition
of the annexation of the Syrian part may open Israel to annexing the West Bank and getting US
approval for that as well.
The most direct opposition was from Syria, who echoed Russia and Iran in saying it violates
several UN resolutions on Golan's status.
Syria also added that they intend to ultimately recover the territory from Israel, whether
the US recognizes it or not.
Chickenhawks are usually more militaristic then people who served. This is kind of inferiority complex compensation. Trump
is a chichenhawk.
Notable quotes:
"... One set of moral priorities – a different one – would end our endless wars and use the vast wealth of this nation to end poverty and lead to true security for all of us. It would invest in healthcare, well-paying jobs, affordable higher education, safe drinking water and clean air for all of us. ..."
"... With this budget, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and disperses fully $750bn to the military. Out of every taxpayer dollar , in other words, 62 cents go to the military and our militarized Department of Homeland Security. (Veterans' benefits take another seven cents.) ..."
"... The budget falsely claims to adhere to strict spending limits set by Congress for the military. But it hides an extra $174bn for the Pentagon in plain sight by adding it to a war spending account – despite the fact that the president has said he wants to bring back thousands of troops from Syria and Afghanistan. This gimmick brings total military spending all the way up to $750bn, even while the administration claims it is cutting the base Pentagon budget ..."
Donald Trump recently unleashed his dark vision for our
nation and our world, in the form of his
budget request to Congress
.
A budget shows our values more clearly than any
tweet, campaign speech or political slogan. It's what
marries detailed, dollar-and-cents policy decisions to
deeper political – and moral – priorities.
One set of moral priorities – a different one – would
end our endless wars and use the vast wealth of this
nation to end poverty and lead to true security for all
of us. It would invest in healthcare, well-paying jobs,
affordable higher education, safe drinking water and
clean air for all of us.
The proposed Trump budget drops bombs on that vision
– almost literally.
With this budget, Trump takes more than $1tn in
taxpayer money and disperses fully $750bn to the
military. Out of
every taxpayer dollar
, in other words, 62 cents go
to the military and our militarized Department of
Homeland Security. (Veterans' benefits take another
seven cents.)
... ... ...
At every turn, the Trump budget finds vast billions for
militarization, while it cuts much smaller poverty and
other programs, claiming the goal is to save money.
It
includes $164bn in war funding, but it cuts $4.7bn in
economic development and food assistance to other
nations. It finds $14bn for a vanity project military
branch called the space force, while it cuts $1.2bn for
a program that's built and preserved more than 1m
affordable homes. It includes $11bn for contractor
Lockheed Martin to build more F-35 jet fighters, but it
cuts $3.7bn in heating and cooling assistance for 6m
poor households.
And it includes more than $12bn for a wall at our
border, while it cuts $1bn for Job Corps, the program
that provides yearly training and work experience to
50,000 poor (and mostly black) youths.
The budget falsely claims to adhere to strict
spending limits set by Congress for the military. But it
hides
an extra $174bn
for the Pentagon in plain sight by
adding it to a war spending account – despite the fact
that the president has said he wants to bring back
thousands of troops from Syria and Afghanistan. This
gimmick brings total military spending all the way up to
$750bn, even while the administration claims it is
cutting the base Pentagon budget
But sophistication of intelligence agencies now reached very high level. Russiage was pretty dirty but pretty slick operation. British
thre letter againces were even more devious, if we view Skripals poisoning as MI5/Mi6 "witness protection" operation due to possible
Skripal role in creating Steele dossier. So let's keep wanting the evnet. The election 2020 might be event more interesting the Elections
of 2016. Who would suggest in 2015 that he/she elects man candidate from Israel lobby instead of a woman candidate from the same lobby?
Notable quotes:
"... The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an attack on them. ..."
"... Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared him perfectly for his present role. ..."
"... the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than by any intrinsic superiority. ..."
"... The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance, functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds. ..."
"... Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. ..."
"... Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged. ..."
"... Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. ..."
One might object that Trump, a billionaire TV star, does not resemble his followers. But this misses the powerful intimacy that he
establishes with them, at rallies, on TV and on Twitter. Part of his malicious genius lies in his ability to forge a bond with people
who are otherwise excluded from the world to which he belongs. Even as he cast Hillary Clinton as the tool of international finance,
he said:
I do deals – big deals – all the time. I know and work with all the toughest operators in the world of high-stakes global finance.
These are hard-driving, vicious cut-throat financial killers, the kind of people who leave blood all over the boardroom table
and fight to the bitter end to gain maximum advantage.
With these words he brought his followers into the boardroom with him and encouraged them to take part in a shared, cynical exposure
of the soiled motives and practices that lie behind wealth. His role in the Birther movement, the prelude to his successful presidential
campaign, was not only racist, but also showed that he was at home with the most ignorant, benighted, prejudiced people in America.
Who else but a complete loser would engage in Birtherism, so far from the Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Harvard aura that elevated
Obama, but also distanced him from the masses?
The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but
it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an
attack on them. 'The fascist leader's startling symptoms of inferiority', Adorno wrote, 'his resemblance to ham actors and asocial
psychopaths', facilitates the identification, which is the basis of the ideal. On the Access Hollywood tape, which was widely assumed
would finish him, Trump was giving voice to a common enough daydream, but with 'greater force' and greater 'freedom of libido' than
his followers allow themselves. And he was bolstering the narcissism of the women who support him, too, by describing himself as
helpless in the grip of his desires for them.
Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far
more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising
slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared
him perfectly for his present role. According to Adorno,
the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them
psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than
by any intrinsic superiority.
To meet the unconscious wishes of his audience, the leader
simply turns his own unconscious outward Experience has taught him consciously to exploit this faculty, to make rational use
of his irrationality, similarly to the actor, or a certain type of journalist who knows how to sell their sensitivity.
All he has to do in order to make the sale, to get his TV audience to click, or to arouse a campaign rally, is exploit his own
psychology.
Using old-fashioned but still illuminating language, Adorno continued:
The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous
spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance,
functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds.
Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well
as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was
particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. As with the Birther movement or Access
Hollywood, Trump's self-debasement – pretending to sell steaks on the campaign trail – forges a bond that secures his idealised status.
Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the
neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic
Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged.
Yet no one who lived through the civil rights and feminist rebellions of recent decades can believe that an economic programme
per se is a sufficient basis for a Democratic-led politics.
This holds as well when it comes to trying to reach out to Trump's supporters. Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent
approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. But if we understand the personal
level at which pro-Trump strivings operate, we may better appeal to the other half, and in that way forestall the coming emergency.
In 2016, Cannon wrote that Warren would indeed bring more warmth than Clinton,
pointing to an anecdote she shared on Facebook about how she would bake her mother a "heart
shaped cake" as a child. He contrasted that with Clinton's sarcastic "I suppose I could have
stayed home and baked cookies"
comment from 1992 , which was a response to ongoing questions about why she chose to
continue her law practice when her husband was governor of Arkansas.
For some Bernie Sanders supporters, meanwhile, praising Warren was a way to deflect
accusations of sexism. In a 2016
Huffington Post opinion piece titled, "I Despise Hillary Clinton And It Has Nothing to Do
With Her Gender," Isaac Saul wrote that he "and many Sanders supporters would vote for
Elizabeth Warren if she were in the race over Hillary or Bernie." (
Saul apologized to Clinton for being a "smug young journalist" and "Bernie Bro" in a follow
up article months later, writing that his views of her changed after he endeavored to learn
more about her history).
So what's going on here? Has Warren become incredibly unlikable over the past two years? Or
is this change more an indication of her growing power. High-achieving women, sociologist
Marianne Cooper wrote in a 2013 Harvard Business
Review article , are judged differently than men because "their very success -- and
specifically the behaviors that created that success -- violates our expectations about how
women are supposed to behave." When women act competitively or assertively rather than warm and
nurturing, Cooper writes, they "elicit pushback from others for being insufficiently feminine
and too masculine." As a society, she says, "we are deeply uncomfortable with powerful women.
In fact, we don't often really like them."
The former interim head of the Democratic Party just accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of
"unethical" conduct that "compromised the party's integrity." The Clinton campaign's alleged sin: A hostile takeover
of the Democratic National Committee before her primary with Sen. Bernie Sanders had concluded.
Donna Brazile's op-ed in Politico
is the equivalent of taking the smoldering embers of the 2016 primary and
throwing some gasoline on them. Just about everything she says in the piece will inflame Sanders's passionate
supporters who were already suspicious of the Democratic establishment and already had reason to believe -- based on
leaked DNC emails
-- that the committee wasn't as neutral in the primary as it was supposed to be.
But the op-ed doesn't break too much new provable, factual ground, relying more upon Brazile's
own perception of the situation and hearsay. In the op-ed, Brazile says:
Clinton's campaign took care of the party's debt and "put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on
her campaign for survival, for which [Clinton] expected to wield control of its operations." She described
Clinton's control of the DNC as a "cancer."
Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Clinton's campaign, told her the DNC was (these are Brazile's
words) "fully under the control of Hillary's campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp."
She "couldn't write a news release without passing it by Brooklyn."
Then-Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose
pressured resignation after the leaked emails
left Brazile in charge as interim chairwoman, "let Clinton's
headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired" because she didn't want to tell the party's leaders how dire the DNC's
financial situation was. Brazile says Wasserman Schultz arranged a $2 million loan from the Clinton campaign
without the consent of party officers like herself, contrary to party rules.
Brazile sums it up near the end: "If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control
of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw
it, it compromised the party's integrity."
None of this is truly shocking. In fact, Brazile is largely writing about things we already knew
about. The joint fundraising agreement between the Clinton campaign and the DNC
was already known about and the subject of derision
among Sanders's supporters. But it's worth noting that
Sanders was given a similar opportunity and passed on using it, as Brazile notes.
There were also those emails from the DNC hack released by WikiLeaks that
showed some at the DNC were hardly studiously neutral
. One email chain discussed bringing Sanders's Jewish
religion into the campaign, others spoke of him derisively, and in one a lawyer who worked for both Clinton and the
DNC advised the committee on how to respond to questions about the Clinton joint fundraising committee. The emails
even cast plenty of doubt on Brazile's neutrality, given she shared with the Clinton campaign
details
of questions to be asked at a pair of CNN forums
for the Democratic candidates in March 2016, before she was
interim chair but when she was still a DNC official. Brazile, who was a CNN pundit at the time, lost her CNN job over
that.
The timeline here is also important. Many of those emails described above came after it was
abundantly clear that Clinton would be the nominee, barring a massive and almost impossible shift in primary votes.
It may have been in poor taste and contrary to protocol, but the outcome was largely decided long before Sanders
ended his campaign. Brazile doesn't dwell too much on the timeline, so it's not clear exactly how in-the-bag Clinton
had the nomination when the alleged takeover began. It's also not clear exactly what Clinton got for her alleged
control.
This is also somewhat self-serving for Brazile, given the DNC continued to struggle during and
after her tenure,
especially financially
. The op-ed is excerpted from her forthcoming book, "Hacks: The Inside Story of the
Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House." Losses like the one in 2016 will certainly lead
to plenty of finger-pointing, and Brazile's book title and description allude to it containing plenty of that.
But taking on the Clintons is definitely something that most in the party wouldn't take lightly.
And Brazile's allegation that Clinton was effectively controlling the DNC is the kind of thing that could lead to
some further soul-searching and even bloodletting in the Democratic Party. It's largely been able to paper over its
internal divisions since the primary season in 2016, given the great unifier for Democrats that is President Trump.
Sanders himself has somewhat toned down his criticism of the DNC during that span, but what he
says -- especially given he seems to want to run again in 2020 -- will go a long way in determining how the party moves
forward.
Warren is trying to treat not just the symptoms but the underlying disease. She has
proposed a universal child-care
and pre-K program that echoes the universal high school movement of the early 20th century. She favors not only a tougher approach
to future mergers, as many Democrats do, but also
a breakup of Facebook
and other tech companies that have come to resemble monopolies. She wants to require corporations to include worker representatives
on their boards -- to end the era of "shareholder-value maximization," in which companies care almost exclusively about the interests
of their shareholders, often
at the expense of their workers, their communities and their country.
Warren was also the first high-profile politician to call for
an annual wealth
tax , on fortunes greater than $50 million. This tax is the logical extension of research by the economist Thomas Piketty and
others, which has shown how extreme wealth perpetuates itself. Historically, such concentration has often led to
the decline
of powerful societies. Warren, unlike some Democrats, comfortably explains that she is not socialist. She is a capitalist and,
like Franklin D. Roosevelt, is trying to save American capitalism from its own excesses.
"Sometimes, bigger ideas are more possible to accomplish," Warren told me during
a
recent conversation about the economy at her Washington apartment. "Because you can inspire people."
... ... ...
Warren's agenda is a series of such bold ideas. She isn't pushing for a byzantine system of tax credits for child care. She wants
a universal program of pre-K and child care, administered locally, with higher pay for teachers and affordable tuition for families.
And to anyone who asks, "But how will you pay for that?" Warren has an answer. Her wealth tax
would raise more than $250 billion
a year, about four times the estimated cost of universal child care. She is, in her populist way, the fiscal conservative in the
campaign.
"... Elizabeth Warren has infuriated bankers and alienated half of Washington, all in the name of a new consumer protection agency she may not get to run ..."
"... At this point, Warren says, the banker made a confession. "We recognize that we have an unsustainable model, and it cannot work forever," she says he told her. "If we told people how much these things cost, they wouldn't use them." ..."
"... Warren's life is a blur of building and promoting the agency she dreamed up -- and that she may never get to lead. On leave from Harvard, she has spent hundreds of hours on Capitol Hill visiting with members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, and flown across the country meeting with the heads of the nation's major banks and many smaller ones. If most financial firms have yet to embrace the bureau, she's made some headway, at least, among the community banks. "Some of my colleagues have not gotten there yet because they are convinced she's close to the antichrist," says Roger Beverage, the head of the Oklahoma Bankers Assn. "I don't think she's doing anything but speaking from the heart on community banks." ..."
"... While Washington bickers, Warren has built the CFPB largely to her specs and almost entirely free of interference from Congress and the Administration, which devotes most of its attention to fixing the economy. Few Cabinet secretaries can claim to have left as indelible a mark on the departments they lead as Elizabeth Warren has already left on the one she doesn't. ..."
Elizabeth Warren has infuriated bankers and alienated half of Washington, all in the name of a new consumer protection agency
she may not get to run
Elizabeth Warren's admirers often refer to her as a grandmother from Oklahoma. This is technically true. It's also what you might
call posturing. Warren, 62, is a Harvard professor and perhaps the country's top expert on bankruptcy law. Over the past four years
she has managed to stoke a fervent debate over the government's role in protecting American consumers from what she sees as the predatory
practices of financial institutions, and she has positioned herself as the person to oversee a new federal agency to rewrite the
rules of lending. Warren is a grandma from Oklahoma in roughly the same way Ralph Nader is a pensioner with a thing about cars.
If the grandmother perception is plausible, it's largely because Warren has a gift for parables and for placing herself in the
middle of them as the embodiment of moral force. Thus, her account of the precise moment she realized that changing the way banks
lend was going to require a new federal bureaucracy -- and that it was up to her to create it.
Warren begins her tale in the spring of 2007, before the housing crash and the financial crisis. She was on a plane back to Boston
after a series of discouraging meetings with credit-card company executives. She had tried to sell them on an idea called the "clean
card" that grew out of her academic work and her side gig as a guest on such shows as Dr. Phil , where she dispensed empathy
and advice to audience members who were one bad check away from losing everything. The concept was simple: Offer the equivalent of
a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to any credit-card company that disclosed all of its costs and fees up front, no fine print.
After a few meetings in which she was politely rebuffed, one executive walked Warren to the door and, with his arm around her,
let her in on a trade secret: If he admitted that his card's actual rate was 17 percent, while his competitors were still claiming
theirs was only 2.9 percent, his customers would desert him for the seemingly cheaper option, seal of approval or not. No credit-card
company would ever go along with a clean card unless all of them did. And the only way to get all of them to do it was to require
it by law.
At this point, Warren says, the banker made a confession. "We recognize that we have an unsustainable model, and it cannot
work forever," she says he told her. "If we told people how much these things cost, they wouldn't use them."
Here she pauses for effect, and to take a sip of herbal tea. Warren is slight and kinetic, with wide, pale blue eyes behind rimless
glasses. She punctuates her sentences with exclamations like "Holy guacamole!" It's difficult to tell whether these are spontaneous
or deliberately deployed to soften her imposing professorial mien. Warren, who grew up poor and went to college on a debate scholarship,
understands the power of expression. When she wants to underline a point, she leans in to conspire with her listener; then her voice
goes quiet, as it does when she says she knew instantly the condescending executive was right. Her clean card was a flop.
And so, on the flight home, Warren turned to the problem of how to push those credit-card companies into doing the right thing.
By landing time, she says, she had her answer: a powerful new federal agency whose sole mission would be to protect consumers, not
only from confusing credit cards but from what she calls the "tricks and traps" of all dangerous financial products. The same way
the Consumer Product Safety Commission guards against dangerous household products or the Food and Drug Administration watches out
for contaminated produce and quack medications. The way Warren tells it, she pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack and got
to work right there on the plane. "I started sketching out the problem and what the agency should look like."
It's a good story, even if the timeline is a little off. Warren's aides say she first pitched the idea of a consumer financial
protection agency to then-Senator Barack Obama's office months before her fateful meeting with the executive. Whatever the idea's
provenance, there's no doubting its influence. In a summer 2007 article in the journal Democracy , Warren outlined what her
guardian agency would look like. "It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning
down your house," she wrote. "But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance
of putting the family out on the street -- and the mortgage won't even carry a disclosure of that fact to the homeowner." One was
effectively regulated. The other was not.
The annals of academia are stuffed with provocative proposals. Most die in the library. A little over four years after she first
dreamed it up, Warren's has become a reality. Last summer, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act, a package of financial reforms meant to prevent another economic meltdown. One of the bill's pillars is Warren's
watchdog agency, now called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
On July 21, exactly a year after Dodd-Frank became law, the CFPB is scheduled to open for business with a broad mandate to root
out "unfair, deceptive, or abusive" lending practices. Consolidating functions previously scattered across seven different agencies,
the bureau will have the power to dictate the terms of every consumer lending product on the market, from mortgages and credit cards
to student, overdraft, and car loans. It will supervise not only banks and credit unions but credit-card companies, mortgage servicers,
credit bureaus, debt collectors, payday lenders, and check-cashing shops. Dozens of researchers will track trends in the lending
market and keep an eye on new products. Teams of examiners will prowl the halls of financial institutions to ensure compliance. The
bureau is already at work on its first major initiative: simplifying the bewildering bank forms you sign when you buy a house.
Warren's life is a blur of building and promoting the agency she dreamed up -- and that she may never get to lead. On leave
from Harvard, she has spent hundreds of hours on Capitol Hill visiting with members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, and flown
across the country meeting with the heads of the nation's major banks and many smaller ones. If most financial firms have yet to
embrace the bureau, she's made some headway, at least, among the community banks. "Some of my colleagues have not gotten there yet
because they are convinced she's close to the antichrist," says Roger Beverage, the head of the Oklahoma Bankers Assn. "I don't think
she's doing anything but speaking from the heart on community banks."
One other person she has not yet won over: Barack Obama. The President has not nominated her to head the bureau. Instead, last
fall he gave her the title of special assistant to the President and special adviser to the Treasury and tasked her with getting
the place up and running. For now, she is the non-head of a non-agency. The White House refuses to say whether Obama will eventually
put her up for the job, allowing only that he is considering several candidates. In the coded language of appointment politics, it
is a signal that they are seriously considering passing Warren over for someone else. A White House official says the Administration
would like to have a nominee in place before Congress leaves for its August recess.
There's a reason for their wariness. The White House is reluctant to antagonize congressional Republicans in the middle of contentious
negotiations over the federal debt ceiling. Warren's position requires Senate approval, and Republicans, many of whom regard the
CFPB as more clumsy government meddling in the free market, are vehemently opposed to allowing its creator to be installed at its
helm. Republicans have used a parliamentary maneuver to keep the Senate from officially adjourning for its traditional summer break,
thus depriving Obama of the opportunity to sidestep their objections and make Warren a recess appointment.
"She's probably a nice person, as far as I know," says Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Banking Committee,
which will hold hearings on the eventual nominee for the post. Shelby has said Warren is too ideological to lead the agency, a judgment
shared by many of his Republican colleagues. "She's a professor and all this," he says in a tone that makes it clear he is not paying
her a compliment. "To think up something, to create something of this magnitude, and then look to be the head of it, I wouldn't do
that," Shelby says. "It looks like you created yourself a good job, a good power thing."
Warren is not waiting for permission to do the job she may never get. She and her small team have hired hundreds of people, at
a recent clip of more than 80 per month. The agency has already outgrown its office space and is divided between two buildings in
downtown Washington -- with branches to be opened across the country. A fledgling staff of researchers is cranking out the CFPB's
first reports, and its first bank examiners are being trained. Meanwhile, the office softball team has compiled a 2-3 record.
Above all, an institutional culture is emerging, and it is largely loyal to Warren and her idea of what the agency should be.
She has attracted several top hires from outside the federal government. The bureau's chief operating officer, Catherine West, was
previously president of Capital One; its head of research, Sendhil Mullainathan, is a behavioral economist and star Harvard professor;
the chief of enforcement, Richard Cordray, is the former attorney general of Ohio; Raj Date, her deputy and head of the bureau's
Research, Markets and Regulation Div., is a former banker at Capital One and Deutsche Bank. Warren, whose reputation as a scholar
rests on her pioneering use of bankruptcy data, has imbued the place with her faith in quantitative analysis. Researchers she recruited
and hired have begun to build the bureau's database of financial information, with a broad mandate to keep track of lending markets
and find ways to make financial information more easily digestible.
While Washington bickers, Warren has built the CFPB largely to her specs and almost entirely free of interference from Congress
and the Administration, which devotes most of its attention to fixing the economy. Few Cabinet secretaries can claim to have left
as indelible a mark on the departments they lead as Elizabeth Warren has already left on the one she doesn't.
The CFPB's main offices are on two floors of a russet-colored office building a few blocks northwest of the White House. The government-gray
cubicles and hallways spill over with new hires -- many of them young -- working 12- and 14-hour days elbow to elbow, pale and exuding
a dogged cheerfulness that suggests that, no, they do not miss the sun. By the elevator bank is a calendar counting down the days
until July 21.
Ten years ago, before she became a liberal icon, Warren was a popular Harvard professor known for taking a maternal interest in
the students she chose as research assistants. She was famous, but only in the small corner of academia that cared about bankruptcy.
"In my opinion she is the best bankruptcy scholar in the country," says Samuel Bufford, a law professor at Penn State who got to
know Warren decades ago as a bankruptcy judge in California's Central District.
Work Warren did with Jay Westbrook, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and Teresa Sullivan, a sociologist who
is now president of the University of Virginia, reshaped the scholarly understanding of bankruptcy. Analyzing thousands of filings
and interviewing many of the debtors themselves, they found that those who go bankrupt weren't, as commonly assumed, primarily poor
or financially reckless. A great many of them were solidly middle class and had been driven to bankruptcy by circumstances they did
not choose or could not control: the loss of a job, a medical disaster, or a divorce. The explosion in consumer credit in recent
decades had only exacerbated the situation -- almost without realizing it, households could now slide faster and further into debt
than ever before.
Warren, Westbrook, and Sullivan all saw their bankruptcy findings as a window into the broader travails of the financially fragile
middle class. More than her co-authors, though, Warren sought a larger audience for the message. In 2003, along with her daughter,
Amelia Warren Tyagi, she wrote The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers Are Going Broke , a book that combined
arguments about the political and economic forces eroding middle-class financial stability with practical advice about how households
could fight them. The language was sharper than in her academic work: "Subprime lending, payday loans, and the host of predatory,
high-interest loan products that target minority neighborhoods should be called by their true names: legally sanctioned corporate
plans to steal from minorities," Warren and Tyagi wrote.
The book got attention and Warren became a frequent TV guest. She was invited to give speeches and sit on panels on bankruptcy
and debt. She was a regular on comedian Al Franken's radio show on the now defunct Air America network. "She's quite brilliant. She
was always just an excellent guest," recalls Franken, now a Democratic U.S. Senator from Minnesota. "She has a very good sense of
humor."
In 2003, Warren attended a fundraiser in Cambridge for Barack Obama, then running for U.S. Senate. When she walked up to shake
his hand, he greeted her with two words: "predatory lending." As a senator, Obama would occasionally call Warren for her thoughts,
though the two never became close.
It was the financial crisis that made Warren a star. In November 2008, in a nod to her growing reputation as a consumer advocate,
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid chose Warren to chair the congressional panel overseeing the TARP financial rescue program. The
reports she helped produce over the next two and a half years and the hearings she helped lead gave the panel a higher profile than
even its creators had predicted, as she articulated concerns that many Americans had about the wisdom of a massive Wall Street bailout.
In perhaps her most famous moment, Warren grilled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on AIG's share of the aid money and how it
was that so much of it had ended up simply reimbursing the investment banks the insurer owed money.
Warren used her role on the panel, and the newfound visibility it gave her, to push for her agency. She worked the idea into a
special report the committee released in January 2009, among a list of recommendations to head off fut ure financial crises. She
wrote op-ed pieces, was on TV constantly, and met with at least 80 members of Congress. She also brought the idea to the Administration.
Over a long lunch at an Indian restaurant in Washington, she pitched the concept to White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers,
whom she knew from his tenure as Harvard's president. Inside Treasury, the idea was taken up by Michael Barr, a key architect of
Dodd-Frank and a lawyer Warren had known for years. At least within the White House, Barr recalls, it wasn't hard to build support.
"I think there was a general consensus that built pretty quickly that this was a good option," he says. "I didn't get any significant
pushback on the idea." Barr's inside advocacy, combined with Warren's PR blitz, paid off. In June 2009, Obama released a "white paper"
laying out his own financial regulatory proposals, and Warren's agency was in it.
Among the CFPB staff there is a strongly held belief that they have the opportunity not only to reshape an industry but reinvent
what a government agency can be, to rescue the idea of bureaucracy from its association with sclerosis and timidity. People there
emphasize that they are creating a 21st century agency. Still, there's a throwback Great Society feel to the place, with its faith
in the abilities of very smart unelected administrators, armed with data, to iron out the inefficiencies and injustices of the world.
"Nobody looks at consumer finance regulation as it existed over the past decade and says, 'Yeah, that seemed to work all right, let's
do more of that,' " says Raj Date, a square-jawed 40-year-old who speaks in the confident, numbers-heavy parlance of Wall Street.
Regardless of whether the CFPB has a director by its July 21 "transfer date," there are certain things it will immediately begin
to do. One is to send teams of examiners into banks and credit unions to make sure they are complying with existing consumer finance
regulations. When the bureau is fully staffed up -- initially, it will have some 500 employees and an annual budget of around $500
million -- a majority of the people who work there will be examiners. The bureau has only supervisory power over banks with assets
of more than $10 billion, though the rules it writes will still apply to smaller banks. Banks on the low end of the scale will see
a team of examiners for a few weeks every two years, unless there are specific complaints to investigate. Most of the biggest banks,
those with assets of $100 billion and up, will have CFPB examiners in residence year-round. The examiners will go to work parsing
the terms of mortgages and other loans, searching for evidence of consumer harm. They'll look at how the products are marketed and
sold to make sure it's done transparently, that costs and fees are disclosed up front.
What the bureau will not be able to do without a director is send its examiners into nonbank financial institutions. Dodd-Frank
gives the CFPB jurisdiction over payday lenders, check cashers, mortgage brokers, student loan companies, and the like. Because this
is an expansion of regulatory powers, it will not take effect until a permanent director is in place.
The bureau is less willing to discuss the specifics of what will happen when it finds evidence of wrongdoing. The press office
refused to make the head of enforcement, Richard Cordray, available for an interview. Like other enforcement agencies, the CFPB will
have a variety of measures at its fingertips: It will be able to give firms a talking-to, or issue so-called "supervisory guidance"
papers on problematic financial products. It will be able to send cease-and-desist orders. And if all else fails, the bureau will
be able to take offenders to court.
The CFPB will also have broad rule-making powers over everything from credit-card marketing campaigns to car loan terms to the
size of bank overdraft fees. For now, it has confined itself to initiatives less likely to arouse wide opposition among financial
firms. The major one at the moment is developing a clear, simple, two-page mortgage form that merges the two confusing ones borrowers
now confront. Bureau staff met with consumer advocates and mortgage brokers last fall, then put up two versions of a possible new
form on the bureau's website, where consumers were invited to leave critiques. About 14,000 people weighed in. The forms are now
being shown to focus groups around the country. A new version is due out in August.
This lengthy process is meant to demonstrate the bureau's commitment to a sort of radical openness to counter accusations that
it's a body of unaccountable bureaucrats. In another gesture, Warren's calendar is posted on the website so that anyone can see who
has a claim on her time. The undeniable sense among bureau staffers that they are political targets tempers that commitment to transparency
a bit. The press office is jittery about allowing reporters to talk to staff on the record, and Warren agreed to two interviews on
the condition that Bloomberg Businessweek allow her to approve quotes before publication.
If the supervision and enforcement division is the long arm of the bureau, its eyes and brain will be Research, Markets and Regulations,
headed by Raj Date. Teams of analysts will follow various markets -- credit cards, mortgages, or student loans -- to spot trends
and examine new products. Economists and other social scientists on staff will help write financial disclosure forms that make intuitive
sense. The benefits of this sort of work, Date argues, will extend beyond just protecting consumers. It will help spot signs of more
systemic risks. If the bureau and its market research teams had been in place five years ago, he says, they would have spotted evidence
of the coming mortgage meltdown and could have coordinated with the bureau's enforcement division to head it off. "If it was someone's
job to be in touch with the marketplace and monitor what was going on," Date says, "it would have been very difficult not to notice
that three different kinds of mortgages had gone from nothing to a very surprising share of the overall marketplace in the span of,
honestly, like three years."
Were it not for a head of prematurely gray hair, Patrick McHenry could still pass for the college Republican he once was. Elected
to Congress from North Carolina seven years ago at age 29, he speaks through an assiduous smile and arches his eyebrows as he listens
-- furrowing them quizzically at arguments he disagrees with. In late May, McHenry assumed the role of Warren's chief antagonist
in Congress. At an oversight hearing he was chairing, McHenry accused Warren of misleading Congress about whether she had given advice
to Treasury and Justice Dept. officials who were investigating companies for mortgage fraud. McHenry said she had concealed her conversations.
Warren insisted she had disclosed them.
The hearing then took a bizarre turn. McHenry called for a recess so members of the committee could go to the House floor for
a vote. Warren replied that she had agreed to testify for an hour and could not stay any longer. "Congressman, you are causing problems,"
she said. "We had an agreement." Offended, McHenry shot back: "You're making this up, Ms. Warren. This is not the case." Warren's
response, an outraged gasp, was played on cable news.
In a conversation a month later in his Capitol Hill office, McHenry is eager to emphasize that his problem is not with Warren,
but with the bureau itself. That's not to say he feels he has anything to apologize for. "I've asked questions of a litany of Administration
officials from Democrat and Republican Administrations, and I've never seen an action by any witness like I saw that day," he says.
Like most congressional Republicans -- and a broad array of business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Financial
Services Roundtable, and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions -- McHenry opposed the creation of the CFPB and voted
against Dodd-Frank. At the time, the bureau's opponents argued that its seemingly noble goals would not only hurt financial firms
-- depriving them of the ability to compensate for risky borrowers by charging higher interest rates -- they would also hurt borrowers.
The prospect of limits on the sort of rates and fees they could charge would cause banks and payday lenders alike to lend less and
to not lend at all to marginal borrowers at a time when the economy needed as much credit as it could get.
Where it's not actively harmful, McHenry argues, the bureau will be redundant. If there's fraud or deceptive marketing in the
consumer lending market, the federal government can prosecute it through the Federal Trade Commission. Clearer mortgage forms are
all well and good, but Congress can take care of that, he says, noting that he introduced legislation for a simpler mortgage form
three years ago. In response to arguments like these, Warren simply points to the record of those existing regulators: the Fed and
the Housing & Urban Development Dept. have haggled over a simpler mortgage form for years. As for fears that the bureau will cap
the interest rates companies can charge, she notes that Dodd-Frank explicitly prevents it from doing that.
Warren has been uncharacteristically tightlipped about her own ambitions. She refuses to say whether she even wants the job and
has never publicly expressed a desire for it. In a way, the White House may do her a favor by not nominating her. If the President
decides to go with a compromise candidate to appease Republicans, she will be spared the indignity of being tossed aside. She can't
be said to have lost a job she was never offered.
Yet Warren gives the distinct impression that she will not suffer long if the President passes her over. Harvard has more than
its share of celebrity professors who have gone to Washington and returned. The experience could also lead to a different kind of
life in politics: Democrats in Massachusetts have been urging her to come home to run for Senate against Republican Scott Brown.
There would be books to write, television appearances to make, and, who knows, maybe a show of her own. And whatever happens, she
will get to tell the second half of the story of how she started a government agency. Whether the story ends with her confirmation
or being driven from town, it's almost certain that the character of Elizabeth Warren will come out looking just fine.
( Corrects the year Elizabeth Warren moved to Washington to work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau )
Elizabeth Warren had a good speech at UC-Berkeley. She focused on the middle class family balance sheet and risk shifting.
Regulatory policies and a credit based monetary system have resulted in massive real price increases in inelastic areas of demand
such as healthcare, education and housing eroding purchasing power.
Further, trade policies have put U.S. manufacturing at a massive disadvantage to the likes of China, which has subsidized
state-owned enterprises, has essentially slave labor costs and low to no environmental regulations. Unrestrained immigration policies
have resulted in a massive supply wave of semi- and unskilled labor suppressing wages.
Recommended initial steps to reform:
1. Change the monetary system-deleverage economy with the Chicago Plan (100% reserve banking) and fund massive infrastructure
lowering total factor costs and increasing productivity. This would eliminate
2. Adopt a healthcare system that drives HC to 10% to 12% of GDP. France's maybe? Medicare model needs serious reform but is
great at low admin costs.
3. Raise tariffs across the board or enact labor and environmental tariffs on the likes of China and other Asian export model
countries.
4. Take savings from healthcare costs and interest and invest in human capital–educational attainment and apprenticeships programs.
5. Enforce border security restricting future immigration dramatically and let economy absorb labor supply over time.
As I have said in other comments, I like Liz Warren a lot within the limits of what she is good at doing (i.e. not President)
such as Secretary of the Treasury etc. And I think she likes the media spotlight and to hear herself talk a little to much, but
all quibbling aside, can we clone her??? The above comment and video just reinforce "Stick to what you are really good at Liz!".
I am not a Liz Warren fan boi to the extent Lambert is of AOC, but it seems that most of the time when I hear Warren, Sanders,
or AOC say something my first reaction is "Yes, what she/he said!".
The column praises Elizabeth Warren. Leonhardt (like his colleague Paul Krugman) is careful
to refrain from declaring his intention to vote for her in the primary. I am planning to vote
for her. I mostly agreed with the column to begin with, but was not convinced by Leonard's
praise of Warren's emphasis on aiming for more equal pre-fiscal distribution of income rather
than just relying on taxes and transfers to redistribute.
In particular, I was not convinced by
This history suggests that the Democratic Party's economic agenda needs to become more
ambitious. Modest changes in the top marginal tax rate or in middle-class tax credits aren't
enough. The country needs an economic policy that measures up to the scale of our
challenges.
Here two issues are combined. One is modest vs major changes. The other is that
predistribution is needed in addition to redistribution, as discussed even more clearly
here
"Clinton and Obama focused on boosting growth and redistribution," Gabriel Zucman, a
University of California, Berkeley, economist who has advised Warren, says. "Warren is
focusing on how pretax income can be made more equal."
The option of a large change in the top marginal tax rate and a large middle class tax
credit isn't considered in the op-ed. I think this would be excellent policy which has
overwhelming popular support as measured by polls (including the support of a large fraction of
self declared Republicans). I note from time to time that, since 1976 both the Democrats who
have been elected president campaigned on higher taxes on high incomes and lower taxes on the
middle class (and IIRC none of the candidates who lost did).
After the jump, I will make my usual case. But first, I note Leonardt's excellent argument
for why "soak the rich and spread it out thin" isn't a sufficient complete market oriented
egalitarian program. It is phrased as a question.
"How can the next president make changes that will endure, rather than be undone by a future
president, as both Obama's and Clinton's top-end tax increases were?"
Ahh yes. High taxes on high income and high wealth would solve a lot of problems. But they
will be reversed. New programs such as Obamacare or Warren's proposed universal pre-K and
subsidized day care will not. Nor will regulatory reforms such as mandatory paid sick leave and
mandatory paid family leave. I am convinced that relatively complicated proposals are more
politically feasible, not because it is easier to implement them, but because it is very hard
to eliminate programs used by large numbers of middle class voters.
I'd note that I had already conceded the advantage of a regulatory approach which relies on
the illusion that the costs must be born by the regulated firms. Here I note that fleet fuel
economy standards are much more popular than increased gasoline taxes. One is a market oriented
approach. The other is one that hides behind the market as consumers don't know that part of
the price of a gas guzzler pays the shadow price of reducing fleet average milage.
OK my usual argument after the jump
It is unusual for me to disagree with Baker, Leonhardt, and (especially) Krugman. I am quite
sure that the Democratic candidate for president should campaign on higher taxes on the rich
and lower taxes for the non-rich.
To be sure, I can see that that isn't the only possible policy improvement. Above, I note
the advantages of hiding spending by mandating spending by firms and of creating entitlements
which are very hard for the GOP to eliminate. I'd add that we have to do a lot to deal with
global warming. Competition policy is needed for market efficiency. I think unions and
restrictions on firing without cause have an effect on power relations which is good in
addition to the effect on income distribution.
But I don't understand the (mildly) skeptical tone. I will set up and knock down some straw
men
1) Total straw -- US voters are ideological conservatives and operational liberals. They
reject soaking the rich, class war, and redistribution. To convince them to help the non rich,
one has to disguise what one is doing.
2) Extremely high marginal tax rates are bad for the economy. Here this is often conceded,
in particular by people arguing for modest increases in the top marginal tax rate. The claim is
not supported by actual evidence. In particular the top rate was 70% during the 60s boom.
3) High tax rates cause tax avoidance. This reduces efficiency and also means that they
don't generate the naively expected revenue. There is very little evidence that this is a huge issue . In
particular there was a huge increase in tax sheltering after the 1981 Kemp-Roth tax cuts and
reforms. It is possible to design a tax code which makes avoidance difficult (as shown by the
1986 Kemp-Bradley tax reform). It is very hard to implement such a code without campaigning on
soaking the rich and promoting class uh struggle.
4) More generally, redistribution does not work -- the post tax income distribution is not
equalized because the rich find a way. This is super straw again. All the international and
time series evidence points the other way.
I don't see a political or policy argument against a large increase in taxes on high incomes
(70% bracket starting at $400,000 a year) used to finance a large expansion of the EITC (so
most households receive it).
I think a problem is that a simple solution does not please nerds. I think another is that a
large fraction of the elite would pay the high taxes and it is easier to trick them into trying
to make corporations pay the costs.
First, whenever anybody (that I hear or read) talks about what to do with the revenue from
higher taxes on the rich, they always suggest this or that government program (education,
medical, housing). I always think of putting more money back in the pockets of my middle 59%
incomes to make up for the higher consumer prices they will have to pay when the bottom 40%
get unionized.
Of course the 59% can use that money to pay taxes for said government programs -- money is
fungible. But, that re-inserts an important element or dimension or facet which seems
perpetually forgotten (would not be in continental Europe or maybe French Canada).
Don't forget: predistribution goal = a reunionized labor market. Don't just look to Europe
for redistribution goals -- look at their predistribution too.
Bert Schlitz , March 17, 2019 10:14 pm
Nobody in the 60's that was taxed at a marginal 70% rate paid 70%. The top effective rate
was about 32-38%, which was far higher than today, but you get the point. The income tax code
was as much control of where investment would take place as much as anything ..Ronald Reagan
whined about this for years. Shove it grease ball. There was a reason why.
Redistribution won't work because the system is a debt based ponzi scheme. The US really
hasn't grown much since 1980, instead you have had the growth in debt.
You need to get rid of the federal reserve system's banks control of the financial system,
which they have had since the 1830's in terms of national control(from Hamilton's Philly,
which was the financial epicenter before that) and de Rothschild free since the 1930's(when
the bank of de Rothschild ala the Bank of England's reserve currency collapsed). Once we have
a debt free currency that is usury free, then you can develop and handle intense changes like
ecological problems ala Climate Change, which the modern plutocrats cannot and will not
solve.
They have been ramming debt in peoples face since 1950 and since 1980 it has gotten
vulgar. They know they are full of shit and can't win a fair game.
run75441 , March 18, 2019 6:09 am
Robert:
Would you agree a secure healthcare system without work requirements for those who can not
afford healthcare is a form of pre-distribution of income? Today's ACA was only a step in the
right direction and is being tampered with by ideologs to limit its reach. It can be improved
upon and have a socio-economic impact on people. Over at Medpage where I comment on
healthcare, the author makes this comment:
"Investing in improvements in patients' social determinants of health -- non-medical areas
such as housing, transportation, and food insecurity -- is another potentially big area, he
said. "It's a major opportunity for plans to position around this and make it real. The more
plans can address social determinants of health, [the more] plans can become truly
organizations dedicated to health as opposed to organizations dedicated to incurring medical
costs, and that to me is a bright future and a bright way to position the industry."
Many of the "social determinants of health" are not consciously decided by the patient and
are predetermined by income, social status or politics, and education. What is being said in
this paragraph makes for nice rhetoric and is mostly unachievable due to the three factors I
suggested. And yes, you can make some progress. People can make healthy choices once the
pre-determinants to doing so are resolved.
Another factor which was left dangling when Liebermann decided to be an ass is Long Term
Healthcare for the elderly and those who are no longer capable. Medicare is only temporary
and Medicaid forces one to be destitute. There is a large number of people who are
approaching the time when they will need such healthcare till death. We have no plans for
this tsunami of people.
The tax break was passed using Reconciliation. In 7-8 years out, there is a planned shift
in taxes to be levied on the middle income brackets to insure the continuamce of Trump's tax
break for the 100 or so thousand households it was skewed towards. If not rescinding the tax
break then it should be fixed so it sunsets as did Bush's tax break due to its budget
creating deficit. Someone running for the Pres position should be discussing this and
pointing out how Republicans have deliberately undermined the middle income brackets.
We should not limit solutions to just income when there are so many areas we are lacking
in today.
Mu $.02.
Robert Waldmann , March 18, 2019 4:47 pm
I guess I consider food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security old age pensions and
disability pensions to be redistribution. My distinction is whether it is tax financed.
Providing goods or services as in Medicare and food stamps seems to me basically the same as
providing cash as in TANF and old age pensions.
There is also a difference between means tested and age dependent eligiability, but I
don't consider it fundamental.
I assert that Medicare (especially plan B) is a kind of welfare basically like TANF and
food stamps.
(and look forward to a calm and tranquil discussion of that opinion).
run75441 , March 18, 2019 9:01 pm
Robert:
Medicare is 41% funded by general revenues. The rest comes from payroll taxes and
beneficiary premiums. Advantage plans cost more than traditional Medicare for providing the
same benefits and also extract a premium fee. I do not believe I have been mean to you. I
usually question to learn more. I am happy to have your input.
I am writing for Consumer Safety Org on Woman's healthcare this time and also an article
on the Swiss struggling to pay for cancer fighting drugs.
And then Trump administration supplied weapons to Ukraine
Notable quotes:
"... This is not much of a dissent from the hawkish line on foreign policy, but it is a rejection of one of the more thoughtless and irresponsible foreign policy proposals out there. The report predictably puts the most negative spin possible on this move, perhaps because this is the first sign in months that Trump and his allies aren't just going to roll over for whatever the most hawkish Republicans want. Whatever their reasons for doing this, it happens to be the right call as a matter of policy. ..."
Daniel DePetris observes that most of the Republican platform on foreign policy and national
security shows that the hawks remain firmly in charge of the party's agenda, and I agree. It is
worth noting, though, that the Trump campaign has gone against the hawkish consensus on at least
one issue. Josh Rogin reports that Trump campaign operatives managed to work with pro-Trump
delegates to delete language that called for sending weapons to Ukraine:
The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican
platform won't call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces,
contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington.
This is not much of a dissent from the hawkish line on foreign policy, but it is a
rejection of one of the more thoughtless and irresponsible foreign policy proposals out there.
The report predictably puts the most negative spin possible on this move, perhaps because this is
the first sign in months that Trump and his allies aren't just going to roll over for whatever
the most hawkish Republicans want. Whatever their reasons for doing this, it happens to be the
right call as a matter of policy.
"... Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president. ..."
"... Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells. ..."
"... Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars. ..."
"... "Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run. ..."
"... Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks. ..."
When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was
more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders,
said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004
liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals,
saying they would damage women's rights
in Afghanistan.
The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003,
warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill
Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.
Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal
viewers by peddling
wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist
Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck
standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that
nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."
The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic
presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC,
Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what
their liberal audiences currently want or will accept.
Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick
to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.
... ... ...
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with
Senator Rand Paul.
The antiwar movement is not a "liberal" movement. Hundreds of mainly your people addressed the San Francisco board of supervisors
asking them to condemn an Israeli full-fledged attack on Gaza. When they were finished, without objection from one single supervisor,
the issued was tabled and let sink permanently in the Bay, never to be heard of again. Had the situation been reversed and Israel
under attack there most probably would have been a resolution in nanoseconds. Maybe even half the board volunteering to join the
IDF? People believed Trump would act more objectively. That is why he got a lot of peace votes. What AIPAC wants there is a high
probability our liberal politicians will oblige quickly and willingly. Who really represents America remains a mystery?
"That abiding hatred will continue to play an outsized and often illogical role in determining what most Democrats believe about
foreign policy."
True, but the prowar tendency with mainstream liberals ( think Clintonites) is older than that. The antiwar movement among
mainstream liberals died the instant Obama entered the White House. And even before that Clinton and Kerry and others supported
the Iraq War. I think this goes all the way back to Gulf War I, and possibly further. Democrats were still mostly antiwar to some
degree after Vietnam and they also opposed Reagan's proxy wars in Central America and Angola. Some opposed the Gulf War, but it
seemed a big success at the time and so it became centrist and smart to kick the Vietnam War syndrome and be prowar. Bill Clinton
has his little war in Serbia, which was seen as a success and so being prowar became the centrist Dem position. Obama was careful
to say he wasn't antiwar, just against dumb wars. Gore opposed going into Iraq, but on technocratic grounds.
And in popular culture, in the West Wing the liberal fantasy President was bombing an imaginary Mideast terrorist country.
Showed he was a tough guy, but measured, unlike some of the even more warlike fictitious Republicans in that show. I remember
Toby Ziegler, one of the main characters, ranting to his pro diplomacy wife that we needed to go in and civilize those crazy Muslims.
So it isn't just an illogical overreaction to Trump, though that is part of it.
Won't happen. Gabbard is solid and sincere but she's not Hillary so she won't be the candidate. Hillary is the candidate forever.
If Hillary is too drunk to stand up, or too obviously dead, Kamala will serve as Hillary's regent.
The problem isn't THAT Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The problem is HOW Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria.
The Left isn't fighting about 'keeping troops indefinitely in Syria' vs pulling troops out of Syria'. Its a fight over 'pulling
troops out in a way that makes it so that we don't have to go back in like Obama and Iraq' vs 'backing the reckless pull out Trump
is going to do'.
For Democrats, everything depends on what the polls say, which issues seem important to get elected. They will say anything,
no matter how irrational & outrageously insane if the polls say Democrat voters like them. If American involvement in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan are less important according to the polls, Democratic 2020 hopefuls will not bother to focus on it.
For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally
right, & what is morally evil.
"I am glad Donald Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the intervention."
Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US
military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan
(!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells.
Kasoy: "For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is
morally right, & what is morally evil."
I think that needs the trademark symbol, i.e True Christians™
The Second Coming of Jack Hunter. Given his well-documented views on race, it's no surprise he's all in on Trump. That surely
outweighs Trump's massive spending and corruption that most true libertarians oppose.
Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in
Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars.
Of course, the left would come out against puppies and sunshine if Trump came out for those things.
But if they are smart, they'd recognize that on war, or his lack of interest in starting new wars, even the broken Trump clock
has been right twice a day.
The flip side of this phenomenon is that so many Republican voters supported Trump's withdrawal from Syria. Had it been Obama
withdrawing the troops, I suspect 80-90% of Republicans would have opposed the withdrawal.
This does show that Republicans are listening to Trump more than Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio on foreign policy. But once
Trump leaves office, I fear the party will swing back towards the neocons.
"Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace
platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case?
At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run.
Dopey Trump campaigned on something different and has now surrounded himself with GOP hawks, probably because he's lazy and
doesn't know any better.
Bernie, much like Ron Paul was, 180 degrees away, is the only one who might do different if he got into office, and the rate
the left is going he may very well be the nominee.
Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't
go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks.
The least bad comment on Democrats is that everyone in DC is a hawk, not just them.
"Three companies have vast power over our economy and our democracy. Facebook, Amazon, and
Google," read the ads which began to run on Friday, According to Politico
. "We all use them. But in their rise to power, they've bulldozed competition, used our private
information for profit, and tilted the playing field in their favor."
As these companies have grown larger and more powerful, they have used their resources and
control over the way we use the Internet to squash small businesses and innovation , and
substitute their own financial interests for the broader interests of the American people. To
restore the balance of power in our democracy, to promote competition, and to ensure that the
next generation of technology innovation is as vibrant as the last, it's time to break up our
biggest tech companies. -Elizabeth Warren
Facebook confirmed with Politico that the ads had been taken down and said said the
company is reviewing the matter. "The person said, according to an initial review, that the
removal could be linked to the company's policies about using Facebook's
brand in posts ."
Around a dozen other ads placed by Warren were not affected.
Note that the candidate swears to be "faithful" to the "interests, welfare and success of
the Democratic Party," but not to its principles. That's because there aren't any.
Readers may enjoy picking through the bafflegab, because I think you could drive a whole
fleet of trucks through the loopholes. Here, for example, is Benjamin
Studebaker's view : "A Second Term for Trump is Better Than Beto."
Nobody, after all, said that success had to be immediate ; perhaps a short term
failure improves the ultimate welfare and prospects for success for the party.
In a way, this McCarthy-ite armraising is a kludge, another symptom of a fraying system:
Exactly as we can no longer, apparently, trust voters to pick a President, and so must give
veto power to the intelligence community, so we can no longer trust primary voters to pick a
candidate, and the "National Chairperson" must step in if they somehow get the wrong answer.
Pesky voters!
"... I'll be honest here and admit that Democrats irritate me more than Republicans for this one simple reason. ..."
"... I've come to expect Republicans to be malicious -- there is honesty in their advertisement. However, it's the Democrats who smile like foxes as they pretend to be our allies only to stab us in our backs the minute they get elected. ..."
"Foxes and wolves usually are of the same breed. They belong to the same family -- I think
it's called canine. And the difference is that the wolf when he shows you his teeth, you know
that he's your enemy; and the fox, when he shows you his teeth, he appears to be smiling. But
no matter which of them you go with, you end up in the dog house."
It took a mean mugging by reality -- one that shook me out of cognitive dissonance -- for me
to realize that Democrats are no different than Republicans. They differ in their methods, but
in the end they feast on us regardless of their gang affiliation. Both parties are subsidiaries
of corporations and oligarchs; our entire political system is based on two factions bamboozling their
respective bases while manufacturing dissension on all sides.
... ... ...
Now that I've shed my political blinders, I see how this game is played. I'll be honest here
and admit that Democrats irritate me more than Republicans for this one simple reason.
I've
come to expect Republicans to be malicious -- there is honesty in their advertisement. However,
it's the Democrats who smile like foxes as they pretend to be our allies only to stab us in our
backs the minute they get elected.
They have maintained power for decades by successfully
treading on the pains of marginalized groups as they concurrently enact legislation and
regulations that inflame the very injustices they rail against.
If there is one group that has been leveraged the most by Democrats, it's the descendants of slaves and "black" diaspora
as a whole. For generations, supposed liberals -- who now call themselves progressives -- have
cunningly used the pains of "African-Americans" to further their own agendas. The Democrat's
most loyal voting bloc have time and time again been taken advantage of only to be tossed to
the side as soon as Democrats gain power. They talk a good game and pretend to be for us right
up until election day, soon as the last ballot is counted, they are nowhere to be found.
On Friday she called for legislation that would designate large technology companies as
"platform utilities," and for the appointment of regulators who'd unwind technology mergers
that undermine competition and harm innovation and small businesses.
"The idea behind this is for the people in this room," for tech entrepreneurs who want to
try out "that new idea," Warren told a packed and enthusiastic crowd. "We want to keep that
marketplace competitive and not let a giant who has an incredible competitive advantage snuff
that out."
Warren said venture capital "in this area" has dropped by about 20 percent because of a
perceived uneven playing field. She didn't provide more detail or say where she obtained her
figures.
Elizabeth Warren's proposal to break up "Big Tech" companies is sure to stoke debate and add to the tension
between the Democratic Party and reliably Democratic Silicon Valley. While breaking up Big Tech isn't likely to
happen anytime soon, one nuance in her proposal is worth thinking about, and that's whether tech companies that
operate large marketplaces should also be able to participate in said marketplaces.
The most obvious impact this would have would be on Amazon. While in the universe of the American retail
industry Amazon's market share remains in the single digits, in e-commerce it's got around
50
percent market share
. When consumers shop on Amazon, they're presented with items sold by Amazon, and also
items that Amazon doesn't own or warehouse but merely hosts the listings. It's also increasingly getting into the
advertising business, so that when you're searching you'll be presented with a list of sponsored products in
addition to whatever results a search may generate.
A third-party seller on Amazon has a difficult relationship with Amazon, which can act both as partner and
competitor. Amazon can use its huge data sets to see how successful third-party sellers and products are, and if
they meet a certain profitability threshold Amazon can decide to compete with that third-party seller directly.
Someone might say, isn't that what grocery stores or Costco do with private label goods or Costco's Kirkland
brand? But the difference is that in physical retail, there are all sorts of stores where a producer can sell
their products -- Walmart, Target, Costco, major grocery chains, and so on. In e-commerce, with half the market
share, Amazon has a dominant position. While in the short run Amazon being able to compete with its third-party
sellers may be good for consumers, who can end up with lower prices, in the long run it may mean fewer producers
even bother to come up with new products, feeling that eventually Amazon will crowd them out of the marketplace.
Would restricting Amazon, which has grown so quickly and is popular with consumers, harm the economy?
Government's antitrust fight with Microsoft a generation ago ended up paying dividends for innovation. In the
2000s a common critique of Microsoft was that it "missed" the internet, and smartphones, and social media, but to
some extent that may have been because the company feared an expansion in emerging technologies would bring back
more scrutiny from the government. As a result, new tech platforms and companies bloomed. The same could happen in
the next decade if Amazon's ambitions were reined in a little.
"Break up Big Tech" is an easy emotional hook, but hopefully Warren's proposal will get all Americans to think
more about the power of tech companies and their platforms, and whether regulatory changes would best serve both
consumers and producers.
tNot so puzzling if you buy into the "Fake Wrestling" theory. Since Bill Clinton
each party gets 8 years on the throne then hands off to the other party. Dems just playing
their part as they did in the 2016 election. Both parties controlled by the corporate and
cognitive elites pursuing their globalist agenda thats occasionally masked by nationalism to
appease the herd.
China has multiple parties within the CCP. The CCP is the visible face of authority. In
the West the CCP equivalent is hidden, preferring to allow each party in turn to accept the
blame for executing their agenda. Every 8 years the herd votes for Hope and Change or the
lesser evil and watches in amazement as nothing changes and lesser evil becomes more, only to
try again in the next cycle. Kind of like Groundhog Day.
When half the population has an IQ under 100, its easy for those with IQ's 4-6 SD above
average to manipulate the herd given the tools they have today. People can be made to believe
anything and much of what people believe is not true.
"Every 8 years the herd votes for Hope and Change or the lesser evil and watches in
amazement as nothing changes and lesser evil becomes more, only to try again in the next
cycle. Kind of like Groundhog Day.....When half the population has an IQ under 100, its
easy for those with IQ's 4-6 SD above average to manipulate the herd given the tools they
have today. People can be made to believe anything and much of what people believe is not
true."
My guess is that this contempt for "the herd" must be accompanied by a very generous
estimation of your own independence of mind and superiority of intellect.
My question, is how can democracy work in the world which you describe? Or would it just
consist of the idiotic "herd" listening to your ideas, applauding and carrying out
orders?
In a recent issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD,
Matt Labash highlighted
the sad story of Trump University, one of the Donald's biggest failures. Here's an excerpt:
But most egregious was Trump University, a purported real estate school that attracted the attention of New York's attorney general,
who brought a $40 million suit on behalf of 5,000 people. The New York Times described Trump U as "a bait-and-switch scheme,"
with students lured "by free sessions, then offered packages ranging from $10,000 to $35,000 for sham courses that were supposed
to teach them how to become successful real estate investors." Though Trump himself was largely absentee, one advertisement featured
him proclaiming, "Just copy exactly what I've done and get rich." While some students were hoping to glean wisdom directly from
the success oracle, there was no such luck. At one seminar, attendees were told they'd get to have their picture taken with Trump.
Instead, they ended up getting snapped with his cardboard cutout. What must have been a crushing disappointment to aspiring real
estate barons is a boon to Republican-primary metaphor hunters.
Read the whole article
here , which documents
Trump at his Trumpiest, from his penchant for cheating at golf to his sensitivity to being called a "short-fingered vulgarian."
Michael Warrenis a senior writer at The
Weekly Standard.
The problem with your views is that there is no liberals in the USA per se. Most are in
reality neoliberals and as such are the part of the right, if we define right as those who
want to increase the power of capital vs. labor.
This flavor of democracy for top 1% the they promote (one dollar one vote) should be
property called "oligarchy" or at best "polyarchy" (the power of the top 10%).
The rest (aka "Debt slaves") are second class citizens and are prevented from political
self-organization, which by-and-large deprives them of any form of political participation.
In best Roman tradition it is substituted with the participation in political shows ("Bread
and circuses"). In a way US election is the ultimate form of "bait and switch" maneuvers of
the ruling elite.
The two party system invented by the elite of Great Britain proved to be perfect for
neoliberal regimes, which practice what Sheldon Wolin called inverted totalitarism.
The latter is the regime in which all political power belongs to the financial oligarchy
which rules via the deep state mechanisms, and where traditional political institutions
including POTUS are downgraded to instruments of providing political legitimacy of the ruling
elite. Population is discouraged from political activity. "Go shopping" as famously
recommended Bush II to US citizens after 9/11.
"A pension is not a 'gratuity.' A pension is wages you could have taken in cash, but
prudently and conservatively set aside for your old age. It's your money. If your
employer, for every pay period, does not set aside and designate it to go into a
pension plan, your employer is stealing from you. The way to get this is to require pay
stubs to itemize the amount of money that has been contributed to your pension plan."
David Cay Johnston
"Capitalism is at risk of failing today not because we are running out of innovations,
or because markets are failing to inspire private actions, but because we've lost sight
of the operational failings of unfettered gluttony. We are neglecting a torrent of
market failures in infrastructure, finance, and the environment. We are turning our
backs on a grotesque worsening of income inequality and willfully continuing to slash
social benefits. We are destroying the Earth as if we are indeed the last generation."
Jeffrey Sachs
"We are coming apart as a society, and inequality is right at the core of that. When
the 90 percent are getting worse off and they're trying to figure out what happened,
they're not people like me who get to spend four or five hours a day studying these
things and then writing about them -- they're people who have to make a living and get
through life. And they're going to be swayed by demagogues and filled with fear about
the other, rather than bringing us together.
President Theodore Roosevelt said we shall all rise together or we shall all fall
together, and we need to have an appreciation of that.
I think it would be easy for someone to arrive in the near future and really create
forces that would lead to trouble in this country. And you see people who, they're not
the leaders to pull it off, but we have suggestions that the president should be
killed, that he's not an American, that Texas can secede, that states can ignore
federal law, and these are things that don't lack for antecedents in America history
but they're clearly on the rise.
In addition to that, we have this large, very well-funded news organization that is
premised on misconstruing facts and telling lies, Faux News that is creating, in a
large segment of the population -- somewhere around one-fifth and one-fourth of it --
belief in all sorts of things that are detrimental to our well-being.
So, no, I don't see this happening tomorrow, but I have said for many years that if we
don't get a handle on this then one of these days our descendants are going to sit down
in high-school history class and open a textbook that begins with the words:
The
United States of America was
and then it will dissect how our experiment in
self-governance came apart."
Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) is expected to introduce a new tax bill today. The senator
says his bill would tax the sale of stocks, bonds and derivatives at a 0.1 rate. It would apply
to any transaction in the United States. The senator says his proposal would clamp down on
speculation and some high frequency trading that artificially creates more market
volatility.
Trump actually proved to be very convenient President to CIA., Probably as convenient as Obama... Both completely outsourced
foreign policy to neocons and CIA )in this sense the appointment of Pompeo is worst joke Trump could play with the remnants of
US democracy_ .
Notable quotes:
"... "The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street." ..."
"... "It's agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world's worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads." ..."
"... Greenwald asserts the the CIA preferred Clinton because, like the clandestine agency, she supported regime change in Syria. In contrast, Trump dismissed America's practice of nation-building and declined to tow the line on ousting foreign leaders, instead advocating working with Russia to defeat ISIS and other extremist groups. ..."
"... "So, Trump's agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted," Greenwald argued. "Clinton's was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they've been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him." ..."
"... But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They're barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. ..."
"... He also points out the left's hypocrisy in condemning Flynn for lying when James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence during the Obama administration, perpetuated lies without ever being held accountable. ..."
And on the heels of
Dennis Kucinich's warnings , The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with
the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of undermining Trump is dangerous.
As TheAntiMedia's Carey Wedler notes ,
Greenwald asserted in
an interview with Democracy Now, published on Thursday, that this boils down to a fight between the Deep State and the Trump administration.
Though Greenwald has argued the leaks were "wholly justified" in spite of the fact they violated criminal law, he also questioned
the motives behind them.
"It's very possible - I'd say likely - that the motive here was vindictive rather than noble," he wrote. "Whatever else is true,
this is a case where the intelligence community, through strategic (and illegal) leaks, destroyed one of its primary adversaries
in the Trump White House."
"The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies:
the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the
Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement
of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street."
As Greenwald explained during his interview:
"It's agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate
disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the
world's worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads."
Greenwald believes this division is a result of the Deep State's disapproval of Trump's foreign policy and the fact that the intelligence
community overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton over Trump because of her hawkish views. Greenwald
noted that Mike Morell,
acting CIA chief under Obama, and Michael Hayden, who ran both the CIA and NSA under George W. Bush, openly spoke out against Trump
during the presidential campaign.
Greenwald asserts the the CIA preferred Clinton because, like the clandestine agency, she supported regime change in Syria.
In contrast, Trump dismissed America's practice of nation-building and declined to tow the line on ousting foreign leaders, instead
advocating working with Russia to defeat ISIS and other extremist groups.
"So, Trump's agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted," Greenwald argued. "Clinton's was
exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they've been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout
the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him."
"[In] the closing months of the Obama administration, they put together a deal with Russia to create peace in Syria. A few
days later, a military strike in Syria killed a hundred Syrian soldiers and that ended the agreement. What happened is inside
the intelligence and the Pentagon there was a deliberate effort to sabotage an agreement the White House made."
Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of
undermining Trump is dangerous. "Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated
and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving," he said, likely alluding to a recent court ruling that nullified Trump's travel
ban.
He continued:
"But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They're barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to
urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity."
He argues that mentality is "a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it," highlighting that members
of both prevailing political parties are praising the Deep State's audacity in leaking details of Flynn's conversations.
As he wrote in his article, " it's hard to put into words how strange it is to watch the very same people - from both parties,
across the ideological spectrum - who called for the heads of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Tom Drake, and so many other Obama-era
leakers today heap praise on those who leaked the highly sensitive, classified SIGINT information that brought down Gen. Flynn."
He also points out the left's hypocrisy in condemning Flynn for lying when James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence
during the Obama administration, perpetuated lies without ever being held accountable.
"... As Sen. Elizabeth Warren has famously said with respect to cabinet and other political appointments, "Personnel Is Policy." You can see the outline of the Trump administration's real policies being shaped before our eyes via his proposed cabinet appointees, covered by Politico and other sites. ..."
"... Sanders, Warren and others should hold Trump's feet to the fire on the truly populist things he said and offer to work with him on that stuff. Like preserving Social Security and Medicare and getting out of wars. ..."
Not surprised at all. The election is over, the voters are now moot. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren
has famously said with respect to cabinet and other political appointments, "Personnel Is Policy."
You can see the outline of the Trump administration's real policies being shaped before our eyes
via his proposed cabinet appointees, covered by Politico and other sites.
Also no mention of NAFTA or renegotiating trade deals in the new transition agenda. Instead
there's just a bunch of vague Chamber of Commercesque language about making America attractive
to investors. I think our hopes for a disruptive Trump presidency are quickly being dashed.
Sanders, Warren and others should hold Trump's feet to the fire on the truly populist things
he said and offer to work with him on that stuff. Like preserving Social Security and Medicare
and getting out of wars.
As to the last point, appointing Bolton or Corker Secretary of State would be a clear indication
he was just talking. A clear violation of campaign promises that would make Obama look like a
choirboy. Trump may be W on steroids.
I can't imagine how he's neglected to update his transition plan regarding nafta. After all,
he's already been president-elect for, what, 36 hours now? And he only talked about it umpteen
times during the campaign. I'm sure he'll renege.
Hell, it took Clinton 8 hours to give her concession speech.
On the bright side, he managed to kill TPP just by getting elected. Was that quick enough for
you?
This just in .Saint Obama is no longer infallible among Dems. Winds of change are blowing. Six months ago, you couldn't get
away with saying this kind of thing.
"The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Obama will receive the sum - equal to his annual pay as president - for a speech
at Cantor Fitzgerald LP's healthcare conference, though there has been no public announcement yet."
=======================================
Sheer coincidence that what Obama campaigned on and what Obama governed on appear to be influenced by rich people. Physics prevents
single payer health care .dark energy, dark matter, dark, dark, money ..
Until a strong majority of dems are ready to say what is patently obvious to anyone even mildly willing to acknowledge reality,
i.e., that policy is decided not by a majority of voters, but by a majority of dollars, than there is simply no hope for reform.
... just as the day was ending, news broke that Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.), an early Trump backer,
was indicted for misusing campaign funds for personal expenses big and small, including dental bills and a trip to Italy.
And this sort of behavior isn't even what Warren is targeting.
Warren's bill takes on what is usually termed the legalized corruption, the dirty dealings of Washington. Among other things,
the legislation would:
Increase salaries for congressional staffers, so they will be less tempted to "audition" for lobbying jobs while working for government.
Ban the "revolving door" for elected officials expand how lobbying is defined to include anyone who is paid to lobby the federal
government as well as halt permitting any American to take money from "foreign governments foreign individuals and foreign companies"
for lobbying purposes.
Prohibit elected officials from holding investments in individual stocks require that presidential candidates
make their tax returns public
The goal? To make government once again responsive to voters, not the corporations and the wealthy donors responsible for the
vast majority of the $3.37 billion spent lobbying Washington in
2017. That money buys results, but only for the people paying the bills. As Warren said:
Corruption has seeped into the fabric of our government, tilting thousands of decisions away from the public good and toward
the desires of those at the top. And, over time, bit by bit, like a cancer eating away at our democracy, corruption has eroded
Americans' faith in our government.
This is not hyperbole. A 2014
academic study found the U.S. government policy almost always reflected the desires of the donor class over the will of the majority
of voters, while a 2016 report by the progressive think tank
Demos determined
political donors have distinctly different views from most Americans on issues ranging from financial regulation to abortion rights.
A tax reform package that showers benefits on corporations and the wealthiest among us? Consider it done. But a crackdown on drug
pricing, buttressing of Social Security without cutting benefits, expansion of Medicare and Medicaid, or progress combating global
warming, all of which majorities say they want? Not so fast.
Sen. Warren (D-Mass.) said on June 5 that she will introduce "sweeping anti-corruption legislation to clean up corporate money sloshing
around Washington." (Georgetown Law)
It's not just what laws get passed, but who is held accountable under those laws. No one in a high position went to jail for the
financial crisis. Foreclosure fraud on the part of the banks was punished with a slap on the wrist – if that. All too many corporations
treat their customers with complete impunity, as scandals ranging from the
Equifax hack to
Wells Fargo's many misdeeds demonstrate. It feels as if there is no one minding the store -- if you are rich and connected enough,
that is.
This behavior leaves us enraged, feeling like outsiders peering in on our own elected government. A Gallup poll found 3 out of
4 voters surveyed described corruption as "
widespread throughout the government " -- in 2010. There's a reason Trump's claim he would "drain the swamp" resonated. No one,
after all, thought Trump was clean. His stated argument was, in fact, the opposite. He claimed his success a businessman navigating
the corrupt U.S. system gave him just the right set of insight and tools to clean up Washington.
We all know now that was just another audacious Trump con. The tax reform package almost certainly benefited his own bottom line,
though we don't know that for sure since he has not released his taxes.
Andrew Wheeler , the acting head
of the Environmental Protection Agency, is a former lobbyist for the coal industry.
Alex Azar , the secretary of Health and Human Services, is a former top executive of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. At the Education
Department, the revolving door is alive and well, with
former George W. Bush administration officials who went on to work at for-profit institutions of higher education
returning to government
service to advise Betsy De Vos who is -- surprise! -- cutting the sector multiple breaks.
And all this, under our current laws, is allowed.
To be clear, this is not a matter of Republicans Good, Democrats Bad. As Warren put it on Tuesday, "This problem is far bigger
than Trump." An Obama-era attempt to slow the revolving door
was riddled with loopholes
that allowed the appointment of Wall Street insiders to too many regulatory posts. Subsequently, more than a few Obama appointees
have gone on to work for big business as lobbyists.
Corruption, legal or illegal, rots the system from the inside out. In an environment where it seems anything goes, it's not hard
to think that, well, anything goes -- like Cohen and Manafort, who almost certainly would have gotten away with their behavior if
not for the Mueller investigation, and Hunter, who ignored multiple warnings from his campaign treasurer and instead continued to
do such things as pass off the purchase of a pair of shorts as sporting equipment intended for use by "wounded warriors."
There is, of course, no way Warren's bill would clean up this entire festering mess. But healthy democracies need government officials
-- elected and unelected -- to behave both ethically and honestly. Warren is putting our governing and business classes on notice.
Simply saying the law is on your side isn't good enough. The voters won't stand for that.
On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren
addressed the National Press Club , outlining with great specificity a host of proposals on
issues including eliminating financial conflicts, close the revolving door between business and
government and, perhaps most notably, reforming
corporate structures .
Warren gave a blistering attack on corporate power run amok, giving example after example,
like Congressman Billy Tauzin doing the pharmaceutical lobby's bidding by preventing a bill for
expanded Medicare coverage from allowing the program to negotiate lower drug prices. Noted
Warren: "In December of 2003, the very same month the bill was signed into law, PhRMA -- the
drug companies' biggest lobbying group -- dangled the possibility that Billy could be their
next CEO.
"In February of 2004, Congressman Tauzin announced that he wouldn't seek re-election. Ten
months later, he became CEO of PhRMA -- at an annual salary of $2 million. Big Pharma certainly
knows how to say 'thank you for your service.'"
But I found that Warren's tenacity when ripping things like corporate lobbyists'
"pre-bribes" suddenly evaporated when dealing with issues like the enormous military budget and
Israeli assaults on Palestinian children.
... ... ...
Said Warren of her own financial reform proposals: "Inside Washington, some of these
proposals will be very unpopular, even with some of my friends. Outside Washington, I expect
that most people will see these ideas as no-brainers and be shocked they're not already the
law.
Why doesn't the same principle apply to funding perpetual wars and massive human rights
abuses against children?
Sam Husseini is an independent journalist, senior analyst at the Institute for Public
Accuracy and founder of VotePact .org.
Follow him on twitter: @samhusseini
August 22, 2018,
10:46 am OpenSecrets shows that Senator Warren has received funds from the pro-Israel
PAC Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs for the 2018 election cycle. Among the
largest funders of this PAC are billionaire venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker and his wife. At
the start of Israel's 2014 massacre in Gaza, the PAC issued a statement in support of Israel.
August 22, 2018,
12:36 pm No surprise there, ckg. I cannot think of anyone in Congress nor in the US cabinet
that is not 99-100% in Israel supporters' pockets. Nor can I think of anyone that is
diplomatically focused. Nor can I think of anyone that is seriously objecting to the slaughter
in Yemen, the ongoing attempt to topple Assad, and the endless war in Afghanistan, etc.
Then there's this: the US and too many others pay/subsidize Israel for the privilege of
dictating foreign policy and for their own selfish, ridiculous claims of being 'surrounded by
enemies'. A nuclear- armed state (though never inspected nor properly declared) keeps this
trope/cliché alive???
How many billions should Americans and others pay to Israel for nothing in return?
August 23, 2018, 7:10 am
Standing up to the Israel lobby now is suicidal. Nobody will risk a career to support a
dissident until the dam breaks as it always does.
Power doesn't work linearly. It goes in cycles. Zionism is tied up with money which is a
function of the economic system. Warren is playing a long game. She knows the people at the Fed
are clueless. She knows there is going to be an awful crash. She knows there will be a new
economic system based on the people rather than the elites..
"... By Joshua Weitz, a research associate at the Academic-Industry Research Network and an incoming graduate student in the PhD program in political science at Brown University ..."
By Joshua Weitz, a research associate at the Academic-Industry Research Network and an incoming
graduate student in the PhD program in political science at Brown University
Since leaving office President Obama has drawn widespread criticism for accepting a
$400,000 speaking fee from the Wall Street investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, including from
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Only a few months out of office, the move has been
viewed as emblematic of the cozy relationship between the financial sector and political elites.
But as the President's critics have voiced outrage over the decision many have been reluctant
to criticize the record-setting
$65 million book deal that Barack and Michelle Obama landed jointly this February with Penguin
Random House (PRH). Writing in the Washington Post, for example,
Ruth Marcus argues that while the Wall Street speech "feels like unfortunate icing on an already
distasteful cake," the book deal is little more than the outcome of market forces fueled by consumer
demand: "If the market bears $60 million to hear from the Obamas, great."
Obama centrists don't have to worry just about Sanders' popularity. Elizabeth Warren, who is increasingly appearing as a plausible
presidential candidate for 2020, has also risen as an economic populist critic of the former president.
She has been perfectly willing to challenge Obama by name, saying he was wrong to claim at a commencement address at Rutgers last
year that "the system isn't as rigged as you think." "No, President Obama, the system is as rigged as we think," she writes in her
new book This Fight Is Our Fight. "In fact, it's worse than most Americans realize." She even went so far as to say she was "troubled"
by Obama's willingness to take his six-figure speaking fee from Wall Street. There is indeed a fight brewing, but it's not Obama
v. Trump, but Obama v. Warren-Sanders.
And this is where the real difficulty lies for the Democrats. The trouble with the popular and eminently reasonable Sanders-Warren
platform-reasonable for all those, Obama and Clinton included, who express dismay over our country's rampaging levels of Gilded Age-style
inequality-is that it alienates the donor class that butters the DNC's bread. With Clinton's downfall, and with the popularity of
economic populism rising in left circles, Obama has to step in and reassert his more centrist brand of Democratic politics. And what
better way to do so than by conspicuously cashing a check from those who would fund said politics?
Oh please, stop quoting Andy Slavitt, the United Healthcare Ingenix algo man. That guy is
the biggest crook that made his money early on with RX discounts with his company that he and
Senator Warren's daughter, Amelia sold to United Healthcare.
He's out there trying to do his own reputation restore routine. Go back to 2009 and read
about the short paying of MDs by Ingenix, which is now Optum Insights, he was the CEO and
remember it was just around 3 years ago or so he sat there quarterly with United CEO Hemsley
at those quarterly meetings.
Look him up, wants 40k to speak and he puts the perception out there he does this for
free, not so.
I think you're missing the context. Lambert is quoting him by way of showing that the
sleazy establishment types are just fine with him. Thanks for the extra background on that
particular swamp-dweller, though.
Alex Azar is a Dartmouth grad (Gov't & Economics '88) just like Jeff Immelt (Applied
Math & Economics '78). So much damage to society from such a small department!
Since 2014, Ross has been the vice-chairman of the board of Bank of Cyprus PCL, the
largest bank in Cyprus.
He served under U.S. President Bill Clinton on the board of the U.S.-Russia Investment
Fund. Later, under New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Ross served as the Mayor's
privatization advisor.
She raise important question about Trump university
Notable quotes:
"... That was brutally enlightening. I mean, I heard from the news that she didn't have a clue about education, but I didn't know it was this bad. America's education system desperately needs to be improved, but I don't see that coming with her... ..."
"... Senator Warren's zeal and interrogation skills are both admirable. ..."
I am an Australian observer, What I see of Elizabeth Warren, she should be the next
American President, 1, she has a brain, 2, she has dignity, 3, she knows what she is dong,
(she has a clue, unlike the current one ) no one scares this woman.
Betsy deVos got raked over the coals by both Franken and Warren... deVos isn't qualified
to be a teacher's aid for a kindergarten class much less run the D. of Ed. scary!
We need more Elizabeth Warrens in America. And we need new rules in our governance. Can
you imagine if this was a real life corporate board interview. Would DeVos be hired by that
board? Be honest....... DeVos was beyond stupid here.
That was brutally enlightening. I mean, I heard from the news that she didn't have a clue
about education, but I didn't know it was this bad. America's education system desperately
needs to be improved, but I don't see that coming with her...
I am not a fan either way of DeVos, but this was nothing but a platform for Warren to fast
talk over her, and a way to slam Trump, call him a crook and fraud, and be condescending
non-stop.
Elizabeth Warren has some good ideas at times, but this was bullying and
showboating on her part and she wasted her time lecturing instead of really giving her a real
opportunity to answer a few strong questions to see where she stood on certain topics. Pity.
Has Warren been held accountable for the billions of waste and fraud committed by the
congress in the past 8 years on failed policies, laws, etc.
And by the way, how many people
in Washington, D C have had experience running a Trillion dollar bank? What a rather dumb
question since the answer is NOBODY.
"Destroys?" She basically ask her a bunch of questions she already knew the answer to just
to point out she hasn't taken out a student loan or has experience overseeing a trillion
dollar program. Then Liz proceeds to derive her own answer prior to Besty answering herself.
A cop may not have saved someones life before so by that logic the cop is not qualified to
save lives? Sure, she may not have experience with student loans but that doesn't mean she
doesn't understand compound interest, inflation and economics. Maybe these hearings would be
a better use of tax payer's money if they weren't merely a forum to broadcast the fact that
you don't like someone's political affiliations.
So having focused on being a community organizer is fine for running for president, but
somehow NOT for running a federal agency under a president? Meanwhile, when it comes to
following the spirit of regulations as opposed to regulations themselves, which (if any) were
NOT violated when a certain senator used to be a professor at Harvard and proclaimed that she
was of American Indian heritage, while such a classification "coincidentally" benefited
whomever claimed it?
Having said that, Senator Warren's zeal and interrogation skills are
both admirable. So is the way in which Betsy Devos diplomatically handles such an onslaught
of pointed questions that some say are agenda-driven.
This is democracy at work and it's
refreshing to see. Thanks Youtube and all who helped bring this about.
Senator Warren. You are a US Senator. What is your plan for insuring the United States
won't run up 10's of trillions of debt which will bankrupt our country? Senator Warren, have
you ever balanced a budget? Do you know what a balanced budget is? Senator Warren, what is
your plan for protecting US citizens from criminal illegal aliens? Do you know, Senator
Warren, we already have laws in place to protect US citizens from criminal illegal aliens?
They're called immigration laws.
Tim Sloan has all the characteristics of a crook. He is remorseless, misleading, lacks
responsibility, tries to cause confusion of the facts, and a manipulator. This guy was the
CFO and claims he was removed from the scams. Yeah right!
I know Tim Sloan did not do a good job and Senator Warren grilled him to the point where I
feel bad for him. She is so good at finding out the truth and cornering the guilty like a
rat.
I don't know all the ins-and-outs of Tim Sloan, probably some fair criticism, but he
doesn't strike me as a crook. For Pocahontas to say he should be "fired", the same charge
could be made at Pocahontas - that she should resign (fire herself from the Senate); the scam
of her claiming Native American heritage to further her career was TOTALLY bogus.
If she would shut up about being an Indian and attacking Trump and focus on attacking the
banks she would win I'm a Trump supporter and I would vote for her. She is great on the
fed
Trump is a dangerous and in his own way very capability media person, a propagandist who is
capable fully exploit this story. She really needs to call Trump Pinocchio to neutralize this
line of attack
Notable quotes:
"... She has too much excess baggage to run for president. She reminds me a little bit of Hillary mixed with Trump. She used to or still supports Susie Orman, the self proclaimed financial wizard. Orman is a lier and has cheated many people and has made a lot of money off people who fell for her get rich sceems. Orman is a lot like Trump. I don't mind having a woman president but just not this ine! ..."
"... Donald and Fred Trump both claimed that their family is from Switzerland when they are are actually 2nd and 3rd generation German immigrants and still have a whole town of living relatives in Germany. I'm sure we need to demand Donald Trump take a DNA test and also exhume and test Fred Trump's remains . I mean since these matters are clearly so important to everyone. Come on let's dig up the president's dead father to solve a petty political dispute! ..."
"... CNN literally can't do an interview without being obsessed with race. ..."
"... She mentions her native ancestry. It's a point of pride to her, she has no shame of it. Trumps bullying her lead her to get the DNA test. It made her look foolish, like she would do anything to shut the bully up. Whatever her action they have a reaction of insulting her. Because they are racist. ..."
"... OMG, What controversy with Warren?? No one outside of DC cares about the ancestry.. Trump is literally a Mob Boss... ..."
Most White ppl in the U.S. think they are Cherokee, even though they aren't. In fact, I
know White conservatives who claim Cherokee. Sure she went a step too far 30-40yrs ago, but
at least she actually cares about Natives. Conservatives, on the other hand, claim to be
Native Americans, support DAPL, could care less about them and mock Natives any chance they
get
--Principal Chief Richard Sneed "It's media fodder. It's sensationalism. That's what it
is,. All it takes is for one person to say they're offended, and then everybody does a dog
pile. But to me, it's 'Wait a second. Let's get to some of the facts here.' Sen. Warren has
always been a friend to tribes. And we need all the allies we can get."
I see the hate on the comments...it looks like the KKK types are here donning their MAGA
hats. Are they tight? Lowering your, already low, IQs further? Yeah
The whole DNA thing is such a silly, irrelevant distraction. It's so utterly unimportant.
But we're now going to find that those sideshows become the focus of the race rather than any
real discussion on policy. I'm becoming more and more convinced that people are increasingly
too stupid or simply lazy and cynical to bother thinking about things that actually
matter.
Why? The poor learned the loopholes just like the rich. That's why she checked the
native American box. And the hypocrisy of "President" Trump's past brought out from the time
he stated he was running, this women was right next to Hillary knocking him down.
I don't buy the soft casual talk about not going to the past. She messes with the wrong
man and then her skeletons came our of the closet. She deserved it
Nothing we First Nations people despise more than a white person so ashamed of themselves
try and pretend they are one of us . We have more respect for white people who are strong and
proud of their own people . She is not only very weak , she is a traitor to her people . We
do not respect people ashamed of themselves .
I also hope all you upright citizens are out there demanding a boycott of Chuck Norris.
I'm sure you're outraged by Walker Texas Ranger, correct? You know that tv show where one of
the whitest guys in America claimed both in the show and outside of the show for marketing
purposes that he is native American. I assume you all want Chuck Norris to take a DNA test
and prove it right? Guys? Right?
They should simply agree on what is the proper genetic mix that is acceptable
ideologically to determine which genetic mix is less or not acceptable so that the proper
mistreatment of the lesser sort can be determined and enforced by popular consensus. This
seems almost to be having the force and effect of law socially and politically. This is
becoming a strange mix of nostalgic notions of virtue while at the same time embracing the
basic premise of Nuremburg.
She has too much excess baggage to run for president. She reminds me a little bit of
Hillary mixed with Trump. She used to or still supports Susie Orman, the self proclaimed
financial wizard. Orman is a lier and has cheated many people and has made a lot of money off
people who fell for her get rich sceems. Orman is a lot like Trump. I don't mind having a
woman president but just not this ine!
Donald and Fred Trump both claimed that their family is from Switzerland when they are are
actually 2nd and 3rd generation German immigrants and still have a whole town of living
relatives in Germany. I'm sure we need to demand Donald Trump take a DNA test and also exhume
and test Fred Trump's remains . I mean since these matters are clearly so important to
everyone. Come on let's dig up the president's dead father to solve a petty political
dispute!
CNN literally can't do an interview without being obsessed with race. Warren would
probably had a chance if they gave her a support like they do Harris. ...now here comes the
twist I actually do not support her or anyone on the left but she didn't even get a solid
chance she might as well drop out now and endorse someone.
She mentions her native ancestry. It's a point of pride to her, she has no shame of it.
Trumps bullying her lead her to get the DNA test. It made her look foolish, like she would do
anything to shut the bully up. Whatever her action they have a reaction of insulting her.
Because they are racist.
It's so annoying how anytime a decent person fucks up nowadays they're forced to spend
like an entire year apologizing, and that's only if they don't automatically lose their
entire career right after said fuck up. She admits she shouldn't have done it, great, now
lets get back to policy.
I just don't understand how some people can't accept her apology for the Native American
fiasco, yet they give trump all the slack in the world. This is a man who bragged about
grabbing women by the pussy..... The double standard is just ridiculous.
Taxation itself does not solve the problem. You also need to cut MIC. Only in this case
orginary americans will benefit. Andf that Mmieans that Eligeth Warren will face tremendous
slander campaign neocons.
If Elizabeth Warren is nominated for president, and I hope she will be, I believe we will
see the most virulent, vile and vituperative campaign imaginable against her by the right,
the wealthy and the corporate interests. It will be a battle for the soul of this country.
But if anyone can make the case to the middle class for real economic and tax reform in the
face of the attacks that such a plan will face, Elizabeth Warren is the person to do it. She
has a first class intellect, she has remarkable communication skills and, as she says, this
is her life. She's not running in order to "be" president, she's running to enact policies
that have the potential of turning the tide in this country in favor of the people and away
from the plutocrats. And in this, she will face real opposition from many within her own
party. It's going to be an interesting two years.
Paul, it would be great if you could compare the revenue effects of this Warren proposal
with the actual tax policies that were in effect during the Eisenhower administration. It
seems that the progressive taxation rates of that era, topping out at about 90% marginal
rates, should and could be the "gold standard" for comparison with current plans.
The neolib/libertarian campaign, stretching back to those years and even earlier, has been
wildly successful in brainwashing Americans with regard to both public finance and the link
with tax structures. And the removal of controls on money in politics has us in a truly toxic
environment that in my view has already tipped us into an oligo-klepto-plutocracy. The
ravaging of all three branches of government has reached critical mass, and we're teetering
on the brink in a way that may not be reversible.
Any candidate who is promising health care for all and a substantial response to climate
change and crumbling infrastructure, has to be talking taxation of the wealthy either by
income tax or wealth tax or both. Otherwise, they are just blowing smoke. Elizabeth has that
combination in her platform.
It is a tragic commentary on the American political system that FDR felt he had to make a
compromise with the Devil in order to gain the passage of progressive legislation.
The situation continues today with the institutions of the electoral college and
especially the US Senate, where the population of several small easily manipulated states can
hold equal power to representatives of states with many times more people. In our times the
circumstances often result in gridlock when the Senators from progressive states refuse to
compromise with these who represent minority viewpoints.
Warren Buffett and other billionaires who are socially committed should endorse Senator
Warren's proposal and her candidacy. Let Trump call her names; she knows what she's doing and
is truly on our side.
The national debt as a % of GDP was higher after WWII than it is now. Then we had three
decades of prosperity along with a steady decline in the debt. How? High marginal tax rates.
Since Reagan's election the debt has steadily increased, so that now it's almost as high as
it was in 1945. We solved this problem before, we can solve it again. Warren and AOC are
right on.
There is a very simple logic to focus on; The corruption of Republicans from campaign
donations to legislation as directed by wealthy's lobbyists enriching their wealthy
benefactors, to gross wealth inequality as a result, is overwhelming justification to get
that wealth back to the nation through progressive taxation. Tax the wealthy before they
export America's wealth. It isn't trickling down as much as trickling Up and Out of the
country.
The idea that a couple of extra percentage points of taxes on fifty million dollars could
be considered to be outrageous shows how radical the right-wing has become in this
country.
Someone who has that much income- I was going to say "earned", but it's the lower-class
working people who earn it for them- would not even miss that money. And how much money can
you actually spend in a way that makes you happy, or happier, anyway?
In real life, Obama already increased taxes for the extreme rich, and Hillary's campaign
agenda included additional tax increases. So this is merely a logical continuation of what
Democrats have always stood for.
I've noticed two things that have happened in my lifetime. Many Billionaires and near
billionaires have proliferated while at the same time social security has become more
precarious and homelessness has exploded.
And of course our overall national debt has dramatically increased. Nobody needs a billion
dollars or even ten percent of it for that matter. Not sure if Warren's plan is the best but
it would generate a ton of money to improve the collective good and it still wouldn't dent
the billionaires much.
The downside to this proposal is that my newest Bugatti Veyron I was planning to
gold-plate may have to be silver-plated instead. Worse, my tenth beach house estate I was
planning on building on the island I purchased off Fiji may have to be scaled back to a
bungalow occasionally rented out to cover the utilities. Oh, the pain. And forget about me
trying a hostile takeover of a major media outlet I will not name.
Prof. Krugman, why do you give credit to Elizabeth Warren's party rather than to Elizabeth
Warren herself? Her party will deserve credit if they can get beyond the corporatists and
nominate her. Otherwise, no. Last night on Lawrence O'Donnell, Sen. Warren explained how the
wealthy have manipulated the system for years to accumulate more and more wealth.
Their lobbyists persistently ask Congress for small, subtle changes in the law that
benefit them. Because the individual changes seem minor, Congress often goes along, but, over
the years, they add up to major benefits allowing the wealthiest to accumulate more and more
assets.
Billionaire Howard Schultz's ability to self-fund a presidential campaign and the Koch
political network's efforts to make its own preferred policies exemplify another reason for
taxing the wealthiest. They can and do use their vast resources to cause significant harm to
the country.
Watched Sen. Warren on MSNBC last night and she did well to explain her plan to us
"regular folks," rare for a politician. Just ask Paul Ryan.
This plan can work if we don't let Republicans lie about its benefits. Nail the Fox crew
to the wall in siding with their uber rich boss Murdoch, who loathes the plan (I wonder why).
This plan can work if it still contains tax break goodies for the 90%---all levels. We all
have to join together and we all have different economic concerns. That's a fact.
This plan can work if the public realizes it prevents tapping into Social Security or
Medicare or cutting benefits. This plan can work if we can hear over and over again how the
money will be spent on climate change, healthcare, college tuition, infrastructure, cyber
security, and poverty, to name a few. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. This plan will work if they
point to the Republican tax debacle giveaway of 2018 did NOTHING to help any of those
problems but was a major giveaway to the rich who did not reinvest into the economy but
cashed in instead.
The ripple effects of more fair, adequate, progressive tax rates are huge throughout the
society. Low tax rates and tax havens for the rich and corporations lets mega donors keep
increasing their donations (investments) in our politicians and elections, thus their
dominance over lawmaking.
This effectively subverts our professed ideals of equality and citizen influence. It
subverts our constitution, bill of rights, and the safeguards of our 3 equal branches. Big
money values infect our executive, legislative and judicial branches. The S. Court legalized
unlimited donor money (investments) in our elections, pretending that any limits would
subvert the 1st Amendment's Free Speech. We see the effects on tax laws and weak regulations
giving huge advantage to the donor elites. In effect they are regulating our govt.
You are wrong in every argument you make. You don't live in isolation, you live in an
organized society that makes your wealth possible. There would be no wealth in the US if we
didn't have a functioning society, and there would be no functioning society without taxation
and government functions. And "the rich" didn't go anywhere in the fifties and sixties when
the taxation was much higher than today. Also these 0.1 to 0.01% that Warren is proposing to
tax don't pay vast majority of the taxes, it's the upper 10% that pays the majority.
I agree that the tax rates from the 1950's were economically, fiscally and socially sound.
Were it not a violation of the constitutional ban on bills of attainder, I would propose a
more rigorous tax be applied to the Kochs and the Adelsons. When it comes to spending more on
Medicare (which I interpret to mean more than the current 17-18% of GDP), however, we should
not. I recently had a health problem while traveling in Germany. I spent 4 days in a teaching
hospital (University Clinic of Bonn--UKB). Not only did I receive excellent care, which my
American doctor told me was as good as any care available here, but the bill came to around
$4300 (€3700). That included three diagnostic procedures. The Medicare-approved payments
for the same care would have been about $28,000. Throwing more money down the bottomless pit
of U.S. medical practice is futile. The proceeds of such a capital levy as that proposed by
Ms.Warren would be better spent on addressing hunger, on infrastructure and on retiring some
of the national debt
A tax on significant accumulated wealth is past due. The same for inherited wealth.
Apparently the hated "Death Tax" doesn't go far enough. Many self-made millionaires promote
the benefits of pulling one's self up by one's boot straps. Why are they so adamant about
denying the opportunity to their children?
When Warren Buffett turned over much of his wealth to charity through Bill Gates, he was
asked if he wasn't giving away his children's inheritance. Buffett responded, (paraphrase,)
"My children have enough to do whatever they want. They do not have enough to do nothing." In
my perfect world, it would be difficult to be very rich or very poor, and no one would ever
go without.
Nice headline---Eliz Warren does Teddy Roosevelt--- who broke up the trusts in the
progressive era. And Bernie Sanders aimed to do Franklin Roosevelt. Sanders had the quixotic
idea to restore the New Deal. But he was soundly bashed and trashed by Krugman and most NYT
columnists/reporters.
Even if he wasn't their ideal candidate, his proposals should have been given the respect
of serious discussion, like we now are getting for Ocasio and Warren. Do a compare and
contrast on policy---Warren and Sanders. Interesting to see what we can learn.
Speaking of billionaires, I just heard Howard Schultz on NPR trashing Warren's wealth tax
plan. So what does this say? Even a so-called progress wealthy person really doesn't want to
give up a scintilla of coin. I think the counter-argument, that increasing the income of the
0.1% with tax breaks, does not lead to significant increases in prosperity for everybody -
the "lifts all boats" ruse. A recent article in the NY Times shows that this is the case.
That is, yachts are being lifted, dinghies are getting shredded by their propellers.
Ignoring the irrelevance of the Teddy Roosevelt comparison (hardly has anything to do with
the rest of his article anyway), this is pretty good from a guy who did all he could to kill
Bernie against Hillary. Bernie would have said pretty much the same as Warren then and
probably would agree with the proposals now. So Dr K, good to have you back in the midst of
the progressives and assume you had a lapse of reason for the past 3 or 4 years. Saez,
Piketty and Zucman are fantastic. I am delighted the first two are helping Warren. Ps. All
three deserve the Nobel Prize. At least as much as you did.
I was disappointed that she didn't run in 16. She knows that large swaths of our
population are under-educated, superstitious, and under the impression that their little
arsenals will make a dent should their conspiracy theories that heroically place them behind
bushes at Lexington and Concord at odds with the US government somehow come to pass. As
someone who has taught school, she appears to understand that trying to engage the back row
not only fails to produce positive results but also annoys and appalls those who showed up in
good faith. Similarly, she appears to know that the best way to enlighten is to lay out the
facts as accessibly as possible and trust that those viewing the facts can come to logical
conclusions. Note that if her theory is fatally flawed, so is the Republic. Adlai Stevenson,
when told that every thinking American would vote for him, reportedly was chagrined and noted
that to win he needed a majority. That was in the 1950's, when sensible tax policies had not
been hijacked by dark messaging funded by those who had so much to gain if American safety
nets such as Social Security and, in the 1960's, Medicare, could be misconstrued as the
insidious tentacles of the Red Menace. The messengers of deceit, thanks to Citizens United,
no longer have to whisper doom from the shadows. Rest assured that if EW moves toward the
nomination we will be frightened by slick ads that equate gross wealth not with a cancerous
concentration but with American lifeblood.
@JW Not sure why anyone on the left sneers at Sanders. Did you know that Sanders has an
approval rating of something like 80% in Vermont, a state that used to be full of Republicans
and still has plenty of conservatives? People who pay serious attention to Sanders like and
respect him. We'll actually be very lucky if we get someone with Sanders' magnetism. If you
listen closely, his anger is at injustice, not at other people. He cares about everyone.
Why do we have college football coaches making $6million per year ? Because slightly
lesser coaches make $5million per year. They could all get by very nicely on a quarter
million per year. It's the same with the 1% : they need their fortune only in comparative
terms. In the meantime 80% of us live in an economy comprising about 20% of our country's
wealth, a very poor country in itself indeed.
Liz has always been ahead of the curve. She knows well that it's time for Democrats to
right the ship of state by reducing income and wealth inequality before it sinks our
democracy. Go Liz! Go Dems! Go big .. before it's too late!
"...public opinion surveys show overwhelming support for raising taxes on the rich." Yet,
congress refuses to support such tax reform. I guess that tells us that most politicians are
serving and protecting their wealthy political donors rather than our country.
One summer in Sigourney, Iowa, when I was a small boy, my grandfather took me into the
library Carnegie built and talked about it with great pride. By the way, he served in both
world wars and was a prominent Republican. Oh, how times have changed.
This is going to be a tough choice for average voters. Work till the day you die, live in
squalor and penury in old age as the social safety net is cut, and condemn your family to
ever decreasing living standards -- or in the alternative, tax the accumulated wealth of
billionaires. Decisions, decisions, decisions...
RICH- THE ANSWER IS NOT CLASS WARFARE VS THE RICH...I'm not rejecting this proposal out of
hand but Warren/Picketty have been putting the cart before the horse-she needs to identify
and focus on a fiscal need, THEN assemble tax policy to pay for it in an earmarked way...and
it has to be gradual, ideally phased in over 10 plus years. Suggestions ? What do we need to
establish Medicare for all ? Or address infrastructure problems over next 10-20 years ? Or
make SS solvent ? Determine the revenue you need, not the "revenge" you might want vs the
"rentiers" - and I think a very good place to start would be top tax advantages accounts very
heavily at high rates.Its absurd Mitt Romney has like what $200 million in his IRA and hes
only taking the RMD ?? Tax any income to an IRA with a balance over say $10 million....nobody
needs a tax break at that level.
But billionaires are the job creators, the noble stewards of finance and cap... and I'm
laughing. Tax the rats. If they complain, tax them more. Let them move to Singapore and share
their crocodile tears with crocodiles (does Singapore have crocodiles?)
America's oligarchs have given the working class 40 years of wage slavery and we've given
them a life in the clouds. Time to renegotiate.
It's I thought was about taxing the rich more, not only on high incomes but on high net
worth also. Rajiv said about how the rich donate to causes that reduce their taxes, by say,
electing more tax-cutting Republicans. The Koch brothers are good examples. I didn't quite
get your criticism of Rajiv.
This column " Elizabeth Warren does Teddy Roosevelt " says a lot about Professor Warren
but very little about Teddy. I read a column yesterday by Charlie Pierce where he goes into
detail about TR`s New Nationalism speech.
There are parts of this speech that are real eye openers such as - The true friend of
property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not
the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the
servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must
effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.
Or- We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people
may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their
management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be
passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes;
it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate
expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service
corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political
affairs. This speech spends a lot of time praising the Saviors of our Country, The Civil War
Veterans. And it also says a lot about the proper place for Capital and Corporations,
servants not masters.
I might agree with you if this was a momentary phenomenon, but it's not. The imbalance
that is finally plain to all began with subtle changes in the balance between capital and
labor in the early 1970s. The truly rich understood what they were doing. They found a
fulcrum that allowed them to pry money and power from the increasingly vulnerable middle and
lower classes, so they did. To correct this by less drastic means will take at least that
long again. I doubt we can wait another 45 years, so yes. We need to use the taxation
authority as the fulcrum to pry back the people's fair share. There is no other option as far
as I can see.
Your characterization of the argument as suggesting that "we should just take all the
money from individuals because we can" is as complacent as your reference to Lenin and Mao.
Did you miss the part where Krugman points out that we have already used progressive taxation
in this country to advance the collective economic good? U.S. economic policy from the Great
Depression to Reagan unleashed a rising tide that truly floated all boats in the U.S.
economy.
It was the gratuitous tax giveaways to the wealthy advocated by Milton Friedman, among
others, that gave our wealth distribution its present hourglass configuration.
Let's add another thing: scrap the cap on the amount of wages subject to the 6.2%
Social Security tax, currently set at $128,400. Why should someone making $20 million a year
only pay the SS tax on the first $128,400? Scraping the cap would make SS solvent forever,
and could even reduce the percentage we're taxed.
@Robert Elizabeth Warren is a good explainer, and when she starts banging on a point she's
convincing. Importantly, she doesn't do it just once, she makes it a theme to be
hammered.
A great lesson of the Vietnam War was that it is *repetition* that drives change -- in
that case, TV news repeatedly showing flag-draped coffins coming home, covering marching
protesters, exposing atrocities, etc.
Whether through timidity or laziness or slavishness to big money donors, Democrats have
failed to create a momentum on the idea of wealth inequality that would persuade the public.
This will change with Elizabeth Warren and, if he chooses to run, Bernie Sanders. In this
regard, a prediction: At some point before November 2020, we will hear the phrase "I welcome
their hatred."
Far from radical, the ideas of Warren, Sanders, and AOC are sensible, logical, and fair.
Bring on any politician who means business such as these proposals and can articulate them,
isn't a billionaire already, and doesn't have a tawdry history of being entangled with Wall
Street, and watch him/her win.
Progressive taxation isn't all that progressive anymore. Capital gains and even earned
income of incredible amounts of money as well as stock options are taxed at low rates. In
case no one has noticed, the AMT is a bust. It doesn't work and when it does, it harms the
upper middle class rather than the super-rich.
The "high-end earners" pay a lot (but not enough) because they are the only ones who have
so much income that taxing them does not adversely affect the economy. We have rich folks who
can afford giant yachts and not so rich folks who can't survive an unexpected $400 bill. That
is not the way the economy should work. Eventually, income inequality will even weaken
corporate profits and destroy the economy. Even large corporations need customers who can buy
their products.
FDR 2.0 must address the social class the Great Recession created. Those are the now 50-60
year olds and millennials who lost jobs, pensions, and are still underemployed and in the gig
economy.
Starting in ten years, if nothing is done,very will have 95 million or so homeless.
Leaving it to states to construct affordable housing won't do. We need Universal Basic
Income. This is needed regardless of whether the GOP and Trump's scams cause a depression.
Bernie and Elizabeth would easily demand Congress act on these ideas. Bloomberg and Schultz?
Not on your life. A decent future is progressive. We need FDR 2.0. we need to be done with
triangulation.
The GOP is an untrustworthy partner. --- Things Trump Did While You Weren't Looking [2019]
https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-3h2
Let's hope Warren succeeds, whether she becomes President or not. I recall that under
Eisenhower-era rates of taxation, the middle class and the working class had a lot better
deal than we have today. Heck, we even had a better deal under Nixon-era rates of taxation.
It's weird to be nostalgic for Nixon, but look at what's in the White House now.
Thanks for a great column again, and yes, Ms. Warren in on the right track. Now if we
could only get the corporate media to stop trivializising her policies as "nerdy" we might
get somewhere.
While Warren's proposal and ACO's marginal tax ideas both have merit, let's be honest-
ideas such as these have no chance until campaign finance reform occurs. Given the current
composition of the SOCTUS that seems impossible for several decades, as the obscenely rich
simply buy the government they want.
I suggest that you rethink your position. I appreciate the frustration with the current
system but the public school system is habitually underfunded. The $40k is not a direct
benefit to each child. Look into that. And maybe look at Finland where schooling is
considered one of the most important benefits to a country. As a result you see the best
university graduates going into teaching because they make a very good salary and they are
supported by an administration that supports their efforts, efforts that come with passion
for helping kids.
A 2% tax on wealth is not much more than what many of us pay the financial industry to
'manage' our savings. The investment funds take their percentage, and the companies managing
the portfolio take theirs. Small investors tend to pay a higher percentage in fees than
larger investors. When all is taken into account, people living paycheck to paycheck pay the
highest percentage, of what ends up being zero wealth. This 'wealth tax' would help rectify
the imbalance.
I'm very impressed with Elizabeth Warren,not just for her tax proposals, but because she
is so intelligent - and genuine. Some say that she is too heady to win but she certainly has
more charisma than Adlai Stevenson, who lost in the 1950s because he was too intellectual.
And he didn't have a catchy slogan such as "I Like Ike." Unfortunately, it's all about how
politicians are perceived. I would like to see Warren more poised and not afraid to express
her sense of humor.
If talent and drive - particularly talent - were the deciding factor in wealth
accumulation, the descendants of Fred Trump would be living on the street.
We have a Carnegie library in our small town of 2400 in rural Indiana. It is still in use
as a community resource center and town history museum. It is a beautiful sturdy brick
building and I assume it will be around for 100 more years. We just outgrew it and had to
build a new one. Carnegie will be remembered for this, not his great wealth. Same with Gates
and Buffett.
I've generally been impressed with Warren's economic analyses, going back a couple of
years before she ran for Senate. A close version of this plan deserves support. If it seems
"radical," it's probably because the USA drifted so far to the right. I blame disco and
"Grand Theft Auto."
Her tax proposal would be a nightmare to implement. How do you value thinly traded assets
(real estate, art, antiques, etc.)? Hire a valuation expert? Have the IRS contesting it every
year? Litigate? Please, tax all dividends as ordinary income, eliminate/change the duration
for long term cap gains treatment, make inherited assets have a zero cost basis, etc. Simple
to implement, enforce, ideas.
In 1906, Representatives and Senators did not spend 4.5 days a week, every in a cubicle,
begging for money, calling rich people all day. We have elected telemarketers. (no insult
intended to telemarketers.)
It's not surprising that "the usual suspects" are already trying to disarm Elizabeth
Warren's well thought out tax plan. Many American billionaires are nouveau riche, and don't
have the sense of responsibility that the very wealthy used to feel towards the less
fortunate. And the Republican party is right there egging them on to resist fair
taxation--like Elizabeth Warren's proposal.
I'm all for her. Warren is by far the smartest presidential candidate in the Democratic
pack and I'm all for supertaxing the superrich -- as well as making mega-corporations pay the
proper taxes they've been evading for so long.
The confiscation of excessive wealth is exactly the point and that point is a practical
one -- to mitigate the tendency of unregulated large scale economies to form parasitic
aristocracies that lead to resource deprivation in vast portions of the society's population.
And this is not a scapegoating of the wealthy, it is refusing to worship them, it is to call
them back to Earth and ask of them what is asked of each of us.
"Malefactors of great wealth," Theodore Roosevelt called them. Prosperity that delivers
unbelievable amounts of wealth to a very few while the other 99% struggle is not
sustainable.
TR was no wild-eyed Socialist: he was a man of wealth and property and wished to remain
so. He and FDR were both blue-blooded aristocrats. Both were saving capitalism by restraining
its excesses.
Whether you realize it or not, the good old USA takes away the wealth of individuals and
hands it over to the government to allocate. The rest of your statement, about tyrants, is
just wrong. You are equating communism with taxation, a silly thing to do. Educate
yourself.
I agree with you 1000%. I'm tired of people arguing that certain persons would not be good
candidates because they sound too smart. That's the dumbest argument I've heard so far. If
someone sounds smart, then GOOD. I hope they ARE smart.
Right now we are a laughing stock of the world because our leaders are actually proud
to sound stupid and boorish. Out with charisma and in with intellect and expertise, please. I
wouldn't want Tom Hanks performing brain surgery on me, nor do I want him in the White House
(much as I enjoy seeing him on the big screen
This isn't about taxing wealth. It's about taxing power, privilege and greed. This
isn't about punishing oligarchy. This is about saving democracy. The concentration of wealth
parallels the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: it is economic climate change
with consequences equally as dire as global warming on all lifeforms.
The challenge will be no less difficult, replete with a powerful lobby of deniers and
greed-mongers ready for war against all threats to their power and position. Their battle cry
is apres moi, le deluge -- as if taxing wealth and privilege is barbarians at the gate and
the demise of civilization rather than curbing cannibals driven not by hunger but voracious
greed. Everywhere climate change deniers are being drowned out by a rational majority who now
see the signs of global warming in every weather report and understand what this means for
their children if we continue to emulate ostriches.
Likewise, the same majority now sees the rising tide of inequality and social
dysfunction and what that means for the future as a global caste system condemns nearly all
of us -- but mainly our progeny -- to slavery in servitude to our one percent
masters.
Elizabeth Warren is no nerd. She's our Joan of Arc. And it's up to us to make sure she
isn't burned alive by the dark lords as she rallies us to win back our country and our
future.
the two issues, inequality of wealth and global warming, are related. The vast wealth of
the Koch Brothers enables them to drown out rational debate with propaganda. Propaganda must
be abolished.
@FunkyIrishman I think Trump intentionally or inadvertently has destroyed anything
resembling the status quo. It's the political equivalent of Newton's Third Law of Motion:
that for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Trump is the ugly face of unbridled power and privilege, leavened only by vainglory
ignorance.
He's the equivalent of melting icecaps and stranded polar bears when it comes to the
concentration of wealth and economic climate change. His utter failure will be the rational
majority's success in plowing a better and more equitable path forward. There's been nothing
more radical than Trump. He's made radical solutions compelling and necessary. And
inevitable.
@Yuri Asian: "This isn't about taxing wealth. It's about taxing power, privilege and
greed." Their is plenty of power, privilege and "greed" in our nation's capital, and it is
practiced daily by individuals who are elected and un-elected.
@Jim Thanks for your reply and appreciation. I'm lucky to be an Editor's Pick as there are
so many great comments by thoughtful and articulate NYT readers, particularly those who
follow Krugman's columns. I agree with your sense of wealth as a social disease that's highly
contagious. We need a vaccine and I hope Sen. Warren is it and she inoculates a strong
majority by 2020.
November 2018 has Come; 2020 is Coming Vallejo Jan. 28
@Anne-Marie
Hislop
I agree, Anne - Marie. There was a time when being rich carried a responsibility to
contribute more to the world than those with less; a responsibility to serve society overall,
and one's country and community in particular. Also the rich were expected to have better
manners and more discerning taste than those who worked because they had the free time to
study and model grace and refinement.
In addition, the wealthy were expected to be patrons of the arts, the sciences, and
religion by contributing money and time to support practioners, research, and experimentation
in these areas.
Finally, the wealthy were expected to raise children who were role models, leaders, and
volunteers who contributed emotionally and spiritually to their schools and communities.
Compare Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt to Paris Hilton or the tRump family.
Amen and hallelujah, and I'm an atheist. For those asleep or oblivious, we're in the new
gilded age. But faux gold, as evidenced by the occupant sitting in the Oval Office.
These " Job Creators " are creating Jobs only for shady attorneys and accountants
specializing in creative mathematics, sham Corporations, Trusts and TAX avoidance. See: the
Trump Family.
What's the average, law abiding citizen to do ??? Absent actually eating the Rich, WE must
overhaul the entire system.
Warren is very nerdy, and very necessary. Unfortunately, the great majority of Men will
not vote for any Woman, not yet. See: Trump. She would be a most excellent choice for VP, the
back-up with a genius IQ and unstoppable work ethic. President ??? A modern day, working
man's Teddy OR Franklin Roosevelt, and His name is Senator Sherrod Brown, Of the very great
state of Ohio. MY native state. Think about it, it's the perfect pair.
I particularly like Elizabeth Warren's ability to talk policy. But as a career academic
I also realize that she sounds to most like a law professor giving a lecture. Unfortunately,
I don't think this is a winning formula but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
Yesterday a billionaire threatened the Democratic Party with certain defeat in the 2020
Presidential election if the Party chose a candidate not to his liking. Increasing
concentration of wealth in the hands of a few will ultimately spell the end of our
democracy.
If there were ever a politician for our time, the second and more egregious gilded age,
it should be Elizabeth Warren. She INVENTED the Consumer Financial Protection Burueau! She
has studied the big banks and Wall Street for decades! She knows how they operate better than
anyone on the planet. She is the Teddy Roosevelt of our time, but are we smart enough to
elect her?
My wife and I find Warren to be the most impressive candidate we've seen in a long time.
She has the mastery of detail that can actually move our country to where it should be. No
lazy demagoguery, either -- and she communicates well.
The primary purpose of taxes should be to raise necessary revenues, not the confiscation
of "excessive" wealth. Making the case for the moral and practical necessity to contribute
more would be more effective than the tiresome scapegoating of the wealthy.
@RR I happen to live in one of those Scandinavian paradises. I, nor my family, have ever
had a problem with ''care''. We also have higher education paid for through a moderately
higher tax structure. (perhaps 10% average higher than the U.S.) I sleep like a baby and all
is taken care of. (as well as 5 weeks vacation per year) You are welcome to visit
anytime.
@Shiv, the wealthiest 20% of Americans also have about 90% of the wealth (as of 2013,
probably higher now). According to the Wall Street Journal, the top 20% in income paid about
87% of individual federal income taxes in 2018. But income tax is just a portion of tax.
Personal income taxes were about 48% of federal revenues in 2017, payroll tax was 35%.
Since payroll taxes are regressive, the top 20% of income tax payers pay a considerably
lower percentage of total taxes than the percentage of the nation's wealth they control.
Saying those paying more in taxes than they receive in direct benefits and services are
'paying all the taxes' is simplistic and deceptive. It isn't even accurate to say that they
are completely funding the transfers and services to the bottom 50%, since the federal
government operates at a deficit.
The deficit is covered in large part by debt owed to the social security fund, which is
funded through payroll taxes. When you include state and local taxes, it looks like the
percentage of total taxes paid by each income quintile is not far off from the percentage of
total income that they bring in.
We probably all remember the scene where Chinatown's detective, J. J. Gittes, asks the bad
guy, Noah Cross, "How much are you worth?" And Cross says, "I've no idea."
There are two take-aways from this. One is the low marginal utility of wealth at Mr.
Cross's level. This is what makes the optimal progressivity of a wealth tax positive. But the
second is the literal take-away: he really doesn't know. Nobody knows.
So, as Prof. Piketty points out (pp. 518ff of his book), the value of even a nominal
wealth tax in terms of transparency -- forcing the system to determine what the distribution
of wealth actually is -- is substantial, aside from revenue generation. If we're going to
give wealth a vote, via Citizens United etc., then wealth should at least have to
register.
As this op-ed shows, even a majority of Republicans ALREADY supports this idea. So the
problem is not so much getting rid of the GOP's fake news, but having a voter turnout where
the demographics of those who vote reflect the demographics of the entire population. In
2016, a whopping 50% of citizens eligible to vote, didn't vote. And the lack of political
literacy among many progressives has certainly been a factor here. So what is needed is for
ordinary citizens to start engaging in real, respectful debates with their family, friends,
neighbors, colleagues etc. again, to make sure that everybody votes. Only then will we have
more impact on what happens in DC than Big Money.
This is a superb insight you are providing....the 'critique' of Late Capitalism from the
perspective of 'Systems Stability'. I work in the field of Distributed Systems Management
though Cloud for Living. The way with Distributed Decision Making is, in a number of
situations it is a lot more resilient and powerful. There are advantages of Command &
Control decision making (war for example). But in Late Capitalism that concentration of
Decision Making in hand of few has gone too far.
To understand all this, to figure out the relevance of Distributed Decision Making, to
articulate all this to masses and then to formulate sane policy proposals out of all that -
that is not a simple task. So Sen. Warren, please continue the 'nerding'. I am Kamala Harris
constituency, but the intellectual heft Warren is bringing to this campaign; I love that. She
needs to bring her such big guns for a couple of marquee social issues as well as about
America's Foreign Policy. Obviously, it cannot degenerate into 63 details policy papers like
HRC.
The trick is to make the campaign about few core issues and then there to 'have the house
cleaned' - completely worked out theory, understanding, explanation and policy proposals.
Hope E. Warren does that, she is capable no doubt. (Predictable election cycles - such a good
thing with American System....for a while just to think and discuss things apart from the
Orange Head in White House - it is so refreshing...)
J suspect that the notion that proposals to raise taxes sharply on the wealthy are too
left-wing for American voters is wishful thinking or propaganda by the wealthy, on whom many
pundits and analysts rely, one way or another, for their jobs. "It's difficult to get a man
to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." I don't know
whether I agree with Warren on enough things to support her, but I hope this idea influences
the Democratic platform and becomes reality.
@Tom The current Republican Party is toxic – to democracy, truth, ethics, human
health, human survival, equality, education, nature, love... most anything a decent person
values. We can get rid of it and still have a two-party system of reasonable people who
disagree on the best way to solve problems.
I read somewhere that the Davos crowd was intent on speeding up the development of robots
to do those jobs so they wouldn't have to deal with pesky humans who want an occasional
break.
As a person who has done fairly well, there is no end to your "needs" once your start
getting wealthy. Let's take flying. First, you are happy to get a deal every now and then on
a flight to Hawaii. After a while, you earn status, so now you want to be first in line, have
baggage privileges and get into premium economy with an extra 5 inches of leg space. Then,
it's enough status to "earn" business class upgrades. Next you have to have business class on
every flight, so you pay up. There's first class, but now you can afford NetJets where you
get fractional ownership of a jet to fly almost anytime you like. If you get even wealthier,
you get your own jet with an on demand staff. It's "worth it" as your time is valuable. It
goes on and on. Every time you get more, you can't live without it. You feel like you deserve
it because you've worked so hard for that money. Knowing some of those super rich, they will
complain about those fascist attacking their success. They "donate" a lot to candidates whose
job it is to protect their wealth. While Warren's ideas via Piketty are really interesting,
maybe we need to work on our culture and values so people understand what they are doing when
they expect that jet with a staff that waits in them like royalty. Then let's invest in the
IRS to stop the cheating that deprives our citizens of at least $200 billion/year. After
that, let's look at closing loopholes and increasing taxes.
Until we get the money out of elections, the moneyed will control those elected. I'm not
sure what our elected officials are more afraid of - meeting with their electorate and facing
our anger, or voting against Grover Norquist et al.
During the primaries and the subsequent campaign, Democratic candidates should run
explicitly and continually as new Teddy Roosevelts, using his words and images of him --
presenting the Democratic Party as the Roosevelt Republican alternative when it comes to
taxation policy. It would reduce right-wing attempts to cast them as Maduros-in-waiting to
pure late-night comic fodder: which is what they properly are. In fact, they should identify
past Republican champions of as many of their policy proposals as possible and run as
"Democrats: the Real Republicans."
Warren, Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie have blown open up a discussion that had been locked
down since Reagan -- tax the rich. Krugman is too timid.
Time to radically redistribute wealth from the capitalist class to the people in the form
of jobs and social benefits.
Tax the banks and corporation to 40+% and end all tax incentives -- corporate welfare.
Apple used its tax break to buy back stock to enrich investors. Facebook bought up
competitors like Instagram and suppresses start-ups. A hedge fund bought Toys R Us, loaded it
with debt, then bankrupted it.
The right-wing turn of rural white Americans is largely due to economic anxiety resulting
from the industrialization of agriculture and global commodification of grain -- all the
profits leave farm communities for mega-corporations based in cities and Wall Street, as well
as global capitalist de-industrialization.
Americans on both the right and left believe the system is rigged, because it is. Warren's
tax on personal assets is the first baby step. To win 2020, Democrats have to secure the vote
of minorities, women, and Millennials, and peel off some white working-class voters. They
have to fight for working people against the capitalists.
And we have to keep educating people, in large part at taxpayers expense, so they can
continue to speak up as you have. The idea that everything, education, healthcare,
prescriptions, housing, food, etc has to be on a max-out-profit basis is not sustainable for
a decent society. If you look into the history of successful billionaire families who might
profess that government should not be used to create equal financial opportunity, you may
find that they have benefited from U.S. government policies themselves to get to where they
are. So why prevent others from having the opportunity to join them ?
@Bill A small transaction tax on sales of stocks would not raise that much money. What it
would do is much more useful -- put program trading and the arbitraging of tiny, tiny price
differences on huge, huge trades out of business. The sort of liquidity they provide is not
needed by the market and is not worth the price we pay for it.
Absolutely agree with R. Law--the carried interest loophole has got to go. That's probably
contributed more to the aggrandizement of oligarchical fortunes than just about anything
else. But I'd also add two more modest suggestions: --Eliminate the cap on individual Social
Security contributions. There's no reason it should fade to black at $132,900 gross annual
income. It should be applicable to ALL earned (and unearned) income. --Institute a small
stock trade/financial transactions tax; even a 0.1% rate here would raise significant
revenue, and it also might curb a lot of wild equities speculation. But, of course, none of
this is likely until we can get big money out of politics; it's impossible to get
representatives to represent their actual constituents, rather than their oligarchic campaign
funders, if the latter are the prime source of campaign money. So, as the risk of repeating
myself: --Publicly funded elections, with low three digit limits on individual campaign
contributions and NO corporate, organizational, church, or (yes, even) union contributions.
No PAC's, 501's, or any other letter/number combinations. --Reinstatement of the Fairness
Doctrine. --Legislative repeal of the Citizens United decision.
@Tom "Wealthy people reinvest their money in economic ventures that grow their wealth,
which generates greater productivity while creating jobs and wealth for the society." Like,
for example, the investments that caused the 2008 Republican Great Recession for example?
That plan hasn't worked since Reagan. And taxing 2%-3% of enormous wealth is hardly taking
away "all the wealth of individuals!" We also need to roll back estate tax to pre-Reagan
policies.
So businessmen and financiers need checks and balances, and these checks and balances
include high taxation and occasionally breaking a business into pieces because it is too big
and powerful. We broke up Rockefeller's company. We should be thinking about Amazon, Google,
Facebook, and even Microsoft. We are using Word and Excel because Microsoft owned the
operating system they run under, not because they were better products. Now we are stuck with
their strengths, weaknesses, and odd habits.
Boy do I wish I could share Dr, Krugman's hopefulness. But after the Supreme Court
decision equating money with speech and one of the two major political parties literally a
"wholly owned subsidiary" of those very 0.01%, as the ancestral Scot in laments, "I hae me
doots."
@Blair A Miller....Rewarded for hard work and talent? Well that is the myth. There is a
case to be made that capitalism rewards greedy and unethical people who have a talent for
working the system. There is also no question that it rewards monopolists and the
fortunate.
@Kurt Heck It doesn't. That's precisely why we have to stop the GOP strategy to pass tax
cut after tax cut for the wealthiest all while making life even more difficult for the other,
very hard-working 99%. And if you believe that in order to be a billionaire today you must
work hard, it's time to update your info. Most of them inherited a fortune already, together
with the knowledge needed to engage in financial speculation, which in the 21st century is
totally disconnected from the real economy - or rather, they PAY experts to engage in
financial speculation, and that's it.
It's time for the most industrious to at least be able to pay the bills, get the education
and healthcare they want, and become represented in Congress again. THAT is why we need a tax
increase for the extreme rich, all while increasing the minimum wage, and expanding Medicaid
and Medicare. THAT is how we'll finally become an entirely civilized country too. Not by
adding trillions and trillions to the debt just to make the extreme wealthy even wealthier,
as the GOP just did again.
The NYTimes reported in October, "Over the past decade, Jared Kushner's net worth has
quintupled to almost $324 million. And yet, for several years running, Mr. Kushner paid
almost no federal income taxes." Let's not get lost in the details of how we do it:
taxing wealth, making income taxes more progressive, restoring the estate tax, or something
else. Let's remember that Jared Kushner is the poster boy for our current (extremely unfair)
tax system.
I care about taxes and wealth inequality, so I like that Warren is talking about them. I'm
also a bit of a policy wonk, so I like the fact that Warren focuses on policy issues. As a
classically trained economist, though, I know how quickly others' eyes glaze over when I get
too excited about anything related to finance or economics. The vast majority of people lack
the patience for it. Too many think they understand far more than they really do because they
read a handful of articles and watched CNBC a couple times. And when people believe they
already know something, they're unlikely to greet new ideas with an open mind. A wealth tax
makes sense to me on a lot of levels. I just hope Senator Warren keeps the explanation as
simple as possible. For every wonk she wins over, she risks pushing two rubes away if she
makes it any more complicated. It's unfortunate that we live in the Twitter era of gadfly
attention spans, but we do. Dems need to do a better job of distilling their platform to
bumper stickers. If they do that, the polity might actually remember some of their talking
points.
Win or lose, Elizabeth Warren will bring the lion's share of ideas to this presidential
season. It's one to say that you support a trendy concept, but it's quite another to have
thought through the implications of your proposals - and be prepared to first defend, and
then implement them. Warren is, and will be - from Day 1. We shouldn't settle for "hope and
change" this time; we need a President in 2021 capable of thinking her way through a maze of
societal problems, and unafraid to passionately, untiringly champion her preferred
option.
Paul, as an aside, do you think that we would have lost the House of Representatives in
2010 if someone had opted for that much larger stimulus package that you, Joe Stiglitz and
Robert Reich were recommending (thus causing the economy to more quickly and fully rebound in
time for the midterms)?
@Tom A 2% tax on wealth from $50 million to $1000 million, will have minimal impact on the
mega rich, with hopefully maximum benefit going to those who need government assistance.
The primary purpose of Citizens United was to allow the wealthy a back door into
stealing our public institutions and public contracts along with reducing the taxes on
passive income for their own personal expansion of wealth. While I agree this is a form of
class warfare, the rich have won the war. Instead of thinking of this as confiscation,
consider it insurance for keeping your head up.
As Yascha Mounk has been saying for years, democracy isn't about a firm belief in the
power of the people, or a belief in personal liberty - above all, its support is determined
by one thing: whether it is delivering results for the majority of the population. If it
doesn't, it loses support; and unfortunately, for decades now, it hasn't been delivering
results. Even Obama, the great liberal hope, stacked his cabinet and advisors with the likes
of Geithner, Bernanke, and Sommers, appointing people to the FTC who were too soft to
trust-bust or aggressively tackle mergers. I am of the belief that Trump was a warning. We
got him because ordinary people have been losing faith that the government is working for
them. If we want to regain that faith, we need a government (meaning both an Executive and a
Legislature) that is prepared to go full FDR in 2021. Trust bust corporations that have
decreased power of workers by consolidating labor market, and the power of consumers by
monopolizing goods and services. Expand social security. Cut the red tape to build millions
of desperately-needed housing units. Take away the excess wealth of the plutocrats, and their
political power. Expand voting rights. Make unionization easier, and healthcare more
affordable by socializing it. Without this, we run the risk of losing our democracy. 2020 is
do or die. Warren has a record of fighting for this. She has my vote.
If the people who make their fortunes in America because of Americans don't want to
support the country that helped them perhaps they should consider this: our sweat, our hard
work, and our tears were a vital part of their success. It doesn't matter how brilliant the
idea is or smart the inventor is or how cleverly the product is marketed. If the public isn't
ready for it, it won't sell and money won't be made. There is a lot of luck involved in
making a fortune. Part of that luck depends upon us and our willingness to buy into what is
being sold. Yes, the inventor or the creator has to have the drive to succeed. S/he has to
accept failure, work very hard, and have faith that s/he will succeed.
It's nonsense to claim that Bill Gates would not have created Windows if he knew he'd be
taxed at very high rates. He didn't know if it would succeed as well as it did. The purpose
of taxes is to support the country. It's to have a government that can fund basic research to
help us, create nationwide rules to ensure that milk in New York is milk in North Dakota, and
to regulate those little things like roads, bridges, water safety, and keep the country safe.
Any exceedingly rich corporation or person who doesn't want to support that is not patriotic
in the least. They are greedy.
The American Revolution was a revolt of American born property holders, not of the
peasants or the slaves. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are both very strong on
property rights. The rights of an individual to own property free from seizure by the
government is at the heart of Liberalism. We live in a two party state. If we truly
eliminated the Republican party we'd be no different than China. America only gets better if
the Republican party gets better. The Democratic party could use some improvement too. I
support Warren's tax plan. It's a reasonable and sensible move, not just a bunch of poorly
thought out hot air.
This is but one in a long line of cogent reasonable suggestions to tax mega rich a little
more. Unfortunately while the economics makes sense, these schemes fail politically because
enough of the vast majority of much poorer people in the middle class can be convinced that
there is something unfair by singling out the successful.
The Steve Jobs story, whereby a poor boy with a great idea should be able to make tons of
money. The only way a change will come is if the middle class' eyes can be opened to the fact
that for every Steve Jobs there are thousands of Jay Gatsbys who inherited their wealth and
privilege and who now spend much of their time and money ensuring that the laws are written
so that they can keep their wealth.
The inequity of the present laws, via tax loopholes and corporate subsidies to favour the
very rich should be highlighted, showing the middle class how they are constantly being
ripped off in order to fund the rich.
There are polls and then there is reality. In Alabama in 2003, a newly-elected
conservative Republican governor proposed a constitutional amendment to raise taxes on the
wealthiest Alabamans. The measure was defeated 67.5%-32.5% with low-income voters opposing it
by a significant margin. In Washington in 2010, voters defeated a referendum to impose a
modest income tax on the state's wealthiest residents. (There is no income tax in
Washington.)
It seems unlikely that in the state with the country's most regressive tax system that 65%
of the voters are wealthy. Despite language in the referendum that guaranteed it could never
be applied to lower incomes without a vote of the people and a provision to lower property
taxes by 20%, paranoia, not reason, ruled the day. It lost 65%-35%.
Polling is easy. But when concrete proposals go to the voters, the wealthy interests
overwhelm voters with fear and lies, and the voters, complacent and ill-informed, can be
easily manipulated. Conservative Alabama and liberal Washington State both defeated measures
that would have helped their state finances significantly.
The money raised was to be spent on education, health care for the elderly and other
radical things some of which would have helped the poor, but lower income voters cast their
votes as though, despite their current conditions, they'd be subject to the taxes tomorrow or
next month or next year.
@Acajohn "Why isn't there one billionaire or multi billion dollar company that actually
takes pride in paying their fair share?" Like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the two richest
men in America, who have pledged to follow Carnegie's example, and taken actions to do
so?
The notion that Sanders has no deep understanding of the policies that he champions is a
stroke of common wisdom that is not very wise, as anyone who ever bothered going to he web
site would find. In 2016, at least, it was chalk full of issues and positions with a long
section on how it could be paid for.
Krugman seemed to shun him for reasons that were never clear to me, but Sanders' proposals
had the ear of quite a few economists.
Even Krugman's crush, Thomas Piketty was intrigued. I'm thrilled that both Warren and
Sanders are in this, and if the primary were today I could probably toss a coin. But I find
this constant picking at Bernie Sanders and his "flailing arms" to be grating and uninformed.
It's akin to asking him to just smile more.
Not just Roosevelt. "The consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery
to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing
property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all
from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in
geometrical progression as they rise." - Thomas Jefferson, October 28, 1785.
"An enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the
rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state
hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property." - Benjamin Franklin,
July 29, 1776.
"All property ... seems to me to be the creature of public convention. Hence the public
has the right of regulating descents and all other conveyances of property, and even of
limiting the quantity and the uses of it." - Benjamin Franklin, December 25, 1783.
Senator Warren should consider a few adjustments to her plan. First, tax capital gains
income at the same rate as earned income. Eliminate the carried interest deduction and close
some other egregious loopholes (including the new "pass through" income loophole). Finally,
give the wealth tax a nine year period after which it would have to be renewed. Call it a
"Patriotism Tax". Pledge to use it for infrastructure improvements and debt reduction. I
think that could be very popular.
That is a radical plan, one tried many times before. It fails because humans are not
perfect, and not perfectible. They try to accumulate wealth and power, are jealous of each
other's possessions and mates, and try to create circumstances that favor their offspring
over others of the next generation.
The fields of human evolutionary biology and psychology tell us that your plan can not and
will not work. Not only that, countless Utopians have tried this in the past. Most fail
within months, even with a small group of people who all supposedly love one another. All
societies founded on the belief that humans are perfectible have failed. Societies founded on
the belief that humans will be venal, corrupt, and power-hungry tend to have the safeguards
that allow them to survive. That's why the constitution is full of "checks and balances".
Don't think you can replace them with a society of peace and love where we will all live in
quiet harmony. You can only replace them with better checks and balances if you hope to
succeed. John Lennon's "Imagine" is a lovely song. But it's just a wish list, not a
manifesto.
Yes, what kind of person, especially one with obscene wealth, prefers to keep every penny
rather than pay taxes that make our country function? Why isn't there one billionaire or
multi billion dollar company that actually takes pride in paying their fair share?
Sanders said little about taxation. In his debates with Clinton, he advocated scrapping
the ACA and starting de novo, whereas Clinton suggested legislation to improve it. Thanks in
part to Sanders' attacks on Clinton, both personally and on policy, Trump got elected and the
Republicans have tried in every possible way to destroy it. On this issue, will Pelosi and
Warren follow the so-called progressivism of Sanders?
I don't get your criticism of Rajiv either. Rajiv know what he is talking about. The rich
can never have enough; more is not enough. We see it all the time. We need to eliminate the
dynasties and equalize the democracy.
Existing wealth and annual income are two very different things. Both are now problems.
Existing wealth disparity is the accumulation of all the last 40 years of income disparity,
plus the "work the money did" to pile itself up higher. Our laws magnified the wealth
disparity. That was deliberate and calculated. Our laws allow it to pile up without the
former taxation at death to trim it back. We charge only half the tax rate on the "work" of
the money itself, the special "capital gains" rate. It is specially privileged from taxes,
which is entirely new over these last few Presidential Administrations. It was said that
would encourage job growth. It never did. Nobody who knew anything about the subject ever
really believed it would. What is now proposed by Warren is to fix what they so deliberately
broke. This would not come up if they had not done that first. And if we hadn't done this,
we'd have had the job growth this stifled, from the consumer purchasing power it took to pile
up as wealth, much of it speculative and overseas.
Conservative voters are against taxes because *if* they get rich they don't want to pay
them. As a liberal I, on the other hand, would be *delighted* to have to pay this tax!
By all means let's tax the rich. But what I find most alarming is Kamala Harris's call for
yet ANOTHER tax cut for the middle class. Every since the days of Saint Ronnie, Americans
have been misled into believing they deserve tax cut after tax cut. And the result for the
commons (those goods and services that we share) has been disastrous. Americans already pay
lower taxes than most of the developed world. Yet the candidates are also calling for more
benefits: Medicare for All and free college. The defense establishment continues to clamor
for more resources. What we need is to increase taxes on the rich along with a robust tax
enforcement system, so that Americans see that EVERYONE is pulling their weight, according to
their means.
Redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation is as American as apple pie. In
addition to taxing wealth, there should be a significant estate tax on the top 1%. Getting
rich is for many the American Dream, but that does not entitle the rich to endless wealth
forever. Others should have an opportunity to take their shot.
A couple of points: at the turn of the 20th Century (about the time that Teddy
Roosevelt was railing against the rich), John D Rockefeller had more lawyers on staff than
the United States Government. Rockefeller's net worth at that point (they had not yet broken
up Standard Oil at that point), was $1 billion, at a time when the total receipts of the US
Government were $700 billion.
Krugman also mentions Piketty and his book. A central theme in Piketty's book, not
mentioned here, was that there is no countervailing force that naturally takes us back to a
more equitable distribution of wealth.
That only occurred because the world suffered through two world wars, and a depression,
out of which came a determination by FDR to use government as a countervailing force. And so
it is not an accident that the Republican Party is trying to kill government because that is
the only large, countervailing force known to be effective. Do we really want a world where a
Jeff Bezos has more lawyers on staff than the US Government? Don't laugh; something similar
has happened in the past.
@dajoebabe For the last 40 years, we have had the GOP tell us that government is the
problem and lower tax rates will supercharge economic growth. Now we have a nation with a
superpower's army, third rate infrastructure, a porous social safety net and a mediocre
education system. Granted that government cannot solve all problems (nor should it try!), but
the evidence is clear that the effects of our disinvestment in ourselves is now coming to the
fore. If we are truly at the point where raising the marginal tax rate on a very small number
of households will cause economic collapse, then our capitalist system has failed and should
be replaced.
Interesting ideas, but to get Americans (read Republicans) to swallow this whole is
doubtful. Perhaps some marketing is in order. Let's not call this a tax. Let's call it a
gift. High value households would give to the government agency of their choice (Social
Security, Veteran's Affairs, EPA etc..), garner a modest tax credit as in charity donations,
and as a plus receive a full accounting of how their money was spent by an independent
auditor. Their gifts could be publicized on social media, thus generating the kind of
attention that could generate higher and higher donations. Just a thought.
We could also use Teddy Roosevelt's anti-corruption and environmental values as well. I
think he is one Republican completely disowned by the current Republican Party. While I
do not believe Elizabeth Warren has any chance to be President, her candidacy will certainly
force intelligent debate on the Democratic Platform for 2020. She will make a tremendous
Treasury Secretary and break the Goldman Sachs stranglehold on that position.
Let's not stop with progressive taxes on the income and wealth of corporations and
individuals. We need to ban monopolies outright, and limit the market share of oligopolies to
something like 20%. And we should even limit the fraction of a corporations' shares (e.g.
10%) that can be owned by any one entity (corporal or corporate), and make privately-held
corporations go public once they reach a certain size.
There's a lesson we can learn from Mother Nature: "Too big to fail" really means "Too
big to exist"!
Maybe Piketty instead of Teddy Roosevelt -- but the rates for the wealthy should be
higher, especially for passive income, to force the rich if for no other to avoid taxation to
invest their money in the economy.
@Linda: Your comment is just wonderful, and gets to the crux of what is right, fair,
decent, moral. Some super wealthy people will always be superficial and greedy, and others
will always be generous, and have profound character and depth.
People who are remembered with the greatest respect, fondness, reverence, and joy, are not
those who have amassed fortunes, but those who have done what they could with their fortunes,
for those who would never have fortunes. Or people who sacrificed for others, if not with
their fortunes, then by other means. It is not desirable to be remembered for being selfish,
greedy, and financially predatory like trump and his ilk.
Aside from the fact that a a massive concentration of wealth is inimical to a functioning
democracy because it inevitably leads to a concentration of power, if the tax code is meant
to give incentives to productive behavior, what is less of an incentive to being productive
than inheriting hundreds of millions of dollars?
I personally knew an heiress from one of the most famous wealthy families of the 20th
century; the name would be familiar. She was a good person, but a drug addict. So was her
brother. No one needs to start life with a hundred million dollars. It's not healthy.
tax and spend is what a government is for. Spending it on infrastructure as opposed to
increasing the already bloated pentagon budget and not on a wall, would be preferable.
And reallocation, so that for instance teaching becomes a viable career choice again, would
be a very useful government task. I don't know whether mr. Coctosin ever worked in the
private industry but if he did he must have seen a lot of waste. Though willful blindness is
of course "so expected from" the right.
"Conficatory taxes on excessive wealth" is a sin tax-a tax on greed. There is only so
much money on person can use in a lifetime if it is to be more than a competitive status and
power symbol and is not given back as an investment to build society and the future.
The numbers-$50 million are HUGE. Anyone, with that kind of money who could resent paying
1% toward the future and toward society is simply, selfishly and sinfully, GREEDY! It's about
time the excessively wealthy, who do not allow their wealth to trickle down as wages, or even
trickle through the economy as investments for the benefit of society, are taxed because it
has become apparent that only taxes will force them to let go of their wealth.
Trump making his tax returns public has nothing to do with IRS staffing. And yes, a better
staffed IRS does a better job of catching tax cheats. (No idea why they never nailed Trump's
father, though.)
We will only have a government for the people if it's a government BY the people. That
means politicians who REALLY are just like you and me, not always very charismatic, not
always your ideal best friend, or a "savior", or common sense spiritual leader such as
Michelle Obama, but instead people who flaws, all while being decent citizens, with a very
clear moral compass, AND the skills and intellectual capacity to know how to design new,
science-based law projects and how to obtain political agreements in DC without even THINKING
of starting to stop implementing already existing law (= shutting down the Executive branch
of government).
Warren would be an excellent Cabinet member. But people vote for President on an emotional
level, and I don't think Warren has that emotional charisma. It's excellent that she is
running and running early, because that way she can set some of the parameters of discussion,
which is what she's doing now.
Just how much money does somebody really need? The Bezos divorce is going to result in two
people having "only" 70 billion dollars each. 1 billion, 10 billion, 70 billion; at some
point, how can you tell? At some point, doesn't it just become a number?
@Yuri Asian Best comment I have read on this subject, Thank you. It should be understood
that the wealthy just don't care and are very un- American. Wealth in our society will equal
slavery for everyone else and it has already begun. See the republican tax plan if you have
any doubts.
Two points: If you add the compound interest forgone on the amount paid in SS taxes I
wonder if the calculation changes. The wealth of the over 65 group is very differentially
distributed, just like wealth in general. Think what the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, the
Walmart heirs and Warren Buffet do to that distribution.
Just because Ellen is 70 does not mean she is participating in the relative wealth growth
of the over 65 cohort you note. I imagine with few exceptions most very wealthy people are
over 65, but that does not mean the reverse is true, that most over 65 are wealthy or even
comfortable. For a large number SS is their main source of support, and rampant ageism makes
it very difficult for even healthy over 65 years to find a job to supplement it.
Taxing SS is a form of double taxation. People with high incomes could still be taxed on
their income after excluding SS. Or, since you are so concerned about the people collecting
more in SS than they paid in, taxation could start on all benefits exceeding that figure.
(And you seem totally unconcerned with all the people who collect nothing or much less than
they paid in. If you are worried about one group not being in balance you should be equally
worried about the other group not being in balance.
I am ok with both because I consider SS to be an insurance program. I don't pay income
taxes on my insurance proceeds paid for by premiums on which I did pay taxes.
The shutdown taught a clear lesson: people squarely located in the middle class (in this
case, federal workers) cannot afford to miss a single paycheck.
Add that awareness to the cluelessness of the wealthy who, with the attention brought to
them by their position in the trump administration, put that cluelessness on full display --
and add the awareness that the trump tax break benefitted the wealthy only while saddling the
nation with debt -- put those together, and we will find positive support for what amounts to
a relative pinprick of sacrifice from the ultra wealthy, as proposed by Warren and likeminded
Congresswomen.
American public policy is designed to concentrate wealth at the top and impoverish the
bottom. Progressive taxation is but one measure to correct the economic structure that
results in death and destitution, even among fully employed workers. Health care for all and
living wages are additional measures.
Extreme poverty in America is a result of public policy which further enriches the
wealthy. Course correction is a moral imperative.
It's a giant leap to say that a 2% tax or a higher marginal rate is the confiscation of
wealth. It's also a giant leap imply that only the very wealthy reinvest their money. Where
do you think the dividends and gains in your 401K account go? They are reinvested! The key
point is that many of the very wealthy have used their wealth and influence to change the tax
code and other laws to their benefit. There is zero evidence that a lower marginal tax rate
on the wealthy has any correlation to job creation, but there is a very strong correlation
between lower tax rates and income disparity.
Taxes are the necessary fact of a thriving civilization. When confronted by the trained
mindset of anti-tax rhetoric issuing from a clone of selfish leadership, I simply say; if it
were not for taxes, we'd all be driving on rutted dirt roads and dying young. Tax the rich so
they survive the slings and arrows of discontent they created. They will thank us for it
later.
You already pay a wealth tax, if you own a home. It's called "property tax". Why should
the very wealthy not pay a property tax, too? But in the present condition, they do not, and
can easily hide their wealth from view, and pass it to their heirs without paying any tax.
Which just adds and adds to the concentration of wealth among the few.
Of course it makes perfect sense. Which is why those uber-rich people will not allow this
to happen. They'll do everything they can to shut down Ms. Warren. It's what they do
If I were doing tax policy from scratch, I'd include both the Warren wealth tax, a
progressive income tax culminating with the AOC 70% marginal rate, treat capital gains as
regular income, eliminate the carried interest loophole, and investigate the taxing of all
"non-profits" including religious and political organizations. I would replace the standard
deduction and personal exemption with a universal basic income. I would reduce the military
budget and provide at least a buy-in to medicare.
Anything less that than, I don't consider "radical."
If the Democratic party continues to do nothing to address the problem of the top .1
percemt owning 90 percent of American wealth, we are destined to sit idly by as the
heartbreaking inequities and divisions of this country deepen.... and this means, too, that
we will be doing very little to address the deeper causes of a certain kind of American
desperation and violence.
It's time to address the radically warped system with sensible countermeasures. This is,
in my view, a moderate position that moderate, sensible politicians will promote. Doing
nothing to address this enormous problem is the most radical position of all.
I work and pay taxes and have done so for 40 years. I'm happy to pay taxes, not because
I'm dependent on them, but because I realize a few things that make you uncomfortable:
1. No one does it by themselves; we all rely on others at work, at home and in life; we're
part of society; we are not solo warriors on some mystical heroic island
2. Not everyone is as fortunate as I; I'm glad the poor, the disabled, the unlucky, the
elderly, the uneducated and the unskilled can get a modicum of government assistance when
their chips are own
3. Canadians and Europeans and the Japanese do not suffer from 'dependency' syndrome;
they're hardworking people with healthy market economies who have decent government that
regulate healthcare extortion and corporate extortion to a minimum; it's a pretty humane
arrangement
4. Corporations and CEO's have been redistributing upward for about fifty years; 20:1
CEO:worker pay was the 1960's norm....now a 350:1 ration is common.
5. Tax rates for the rich and corporations have collapsed from the 1950's to 2019; the
right-wing pretends they're high, but they're not. 6. America has the greatest health-care
rip-off in the world at 17% of GDP; it's an international 'free-market' disgrace that no
foreign country would touch a 300-foot pole because it would bankrupt them, just as it
bankrupts Americans.
Keep living in a 1787 time tunnel and see where it gets you. Or buy a calendar...and
evolve.
[Drive toward] Equality is the basis of society; it has always been close to my heart.
Thank you, Paul Krugman, for standing clearly for economic equality.
The purpose of taxes is not only to fund public necessities, but also to encourage society
to behave in a manner which is good for all of society.
Thus, in World War 2 income tax was set quite high, to discourage consumption of scarce
resources.
It is not scapegoating the wealthy to have them pay a proportional share of their wealth
to fund the public good, and to, in a small way, discourage inherited wealth. It is through
our society that they are able to accumulate their wealth, it follows that they should have
incentive to preserve and further that society.
I agree completely with a progressive tax on net wealth. Piketty proposed this in "Capital
in the Twenty-first Century" back in 2014. I'm happy to hear that Elizabeth Warren has picked
up the idea.
The elegance of it is that it does not prevent the wealth-motivated from seeking high
incomes and accumulating a lot of wealth in their lifetime. But it reduces the incentive to
earn an ever-higher income, and it prevents the wealthy from creating wealth dynasties.
And consider this: even a 90% tax on inherited wealth would mean, for someone who
accumulated a $10 billion estate, that their heirs would receive a $1 billion inheritance as
a grubstake. Not a bad start in life, if I say so myself.
Almost any tax measure to re-distribute wealth is appropriate in a nation that values
economic justice. However, answering the question of just how people accumulate billions,
while so many others struggle so hard to remain in place. First, it is necessary to dispense
with the fiction that the wealthy earned it so let them keep it.
No one person or one family EARNS billions. The hard work necessary to create wealth
belongs to many hard working and creative people and to numerous public institutions that
make its creation possible.
Both are entitled to a fair share of the wealth they help to create. It is the laws and
even traditions that allow one individual to CAPTURE and keep so much wealth. And those laws
and traditions need to be changed.
Start with a Living Wage plus full benefits for all workers and salary scales that are
reasonable, not the 1:300 that some CEO's currently enjoy. End golden parachutes for retiring
or even fired executives and tax unearned income at the same rate as earned income. Equal
opportunity cannot stand without economic justice.
No, part of the purpose of taxes should be to counteract the normal power of capital
that causes the formation of massive personal fortunes which distort the economy relied on by
all. It's not scapegoating to try to put our economy back in balance, to curtail its division
into the Main St. economy, currently starved by that wealth division so heavily favoring the
fabulously wealthy, and the shadow economy of Wall St. gambling, commodity market
manipulation, and asset ownership.
I like the idea, although it may be very difficult to value certain kinds of assets and
how they may have appreciated. For example, if the Republican Congressman you bought as a
freshman goes on to win a Senate seat, how much would his value have increased?
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Sunday said that President Donald Trump "may not even be
a free person" by 2020, suggesting the president might become ensnared by the special counsel's
investigation before she has a chance to face him in a general election.
"Every day there is a racist tweet, a hateful tweet -- something really dark and ugly,"
Warren said during a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "What are we as candidates, as
activists, as the press going to do about it? We're going to chase after those every day?"
She added: "Here's what bothers me. By the time we get to 2020, Donald Trump may not even be
president. In fact, he may not even be a free person."
The jab marks Warren's first foray into campaign-trail skirmishing with Trump since entering
the Democratic presidential fray with a Saturday announcement event in Lawrence, Mass.
During her kickoff speech, Warren, a consumer protection advocate and former Harvard Law
School professor, attacked Trump as being part of a "rigged system that props up the rich and
the powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else."
Earlier Saturday, Trump mocked Warren's rollout and took aim at the controversies
surrounding her past claims of Native American heritage, which intensified Wednesday after The
Washington Post revealed that she had identified herself as American Indian on her Texas State
Bar registration card.
"Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for
President," Trump tweeted. "Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate,
or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore?"
"See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!" the president added, in what many Democrats judged to
be a reference to the forced relocation of several Native American tribes in the Southeast U.S.
in the 1830s known as the Trail of Tears.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced Monday her campaign will shun fundraising through
some of the old-fashioned means: dinners, donor calls and cocktail parties.
In an email to supporters Monday, Warren also said she won't sell access to big-name donors
as candidates often do to raise money for a presidential bid.
Warren has demonstrated as much in organizing events where she poses for photos with anyone
who stands in line and requests it. Typically, candidates put a premium on such access,
sometimes charging thousands of dollars for a personal photograph.
"My presidential primary campaign will be run on the principle of equal access for anybody
who joins it," Warren said in a message to supporters.
"That means no fancy receptions or big money fundraisers only with people who can write the
big checks. And when I thank the people giving to my campaign, it will not be based on the size
of their donation. It means that wealthy donors won't be able to purchase better seats or
one-on-one time with me at our events. And it means I won't be doing 'call time,' which is when
candidates take hours to call wealthy donors to ask for their support."
The self-imposed restrictions allow Warren to distinguish herself from the field at a time
when candidates are in a mad race for donations from small donors.
The Democrat, who launched a full-fledged campaign earlier this month, has already vowed not
to take money from lobbyists or super PACs.
She has rejected all PAC money and challenged others in the sprawling field of candidates to
reject PAC money. A group of competitors have said they wouldn't take corporate PAC money --
including Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Amy
Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, a prospective candidate, shattered
records in the 2018 midterms after rejecting PACs and relying on small-dollar donors.
Warren's move, though, takes that promise a step further, saying she won't spend time making
donor calls or that she will host private fundraising dinners or receptions.
While Warren did hold fundraisers in her years as a senator, she hasn't held any since she
first launched her exploratory bid Dec. 31, according to her campaign.
Warren has a proven network of small dollar donors, but she's also seemed to lag others in
the primary field in early fundraising, including Harris and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose
one-day $6 million haul swamped all his competitors in the field.
It did not take long before we knew there was no hope of change from President Obama. But at least he went into his inauguration
with an unprecedented number of Americans on the Mall showing their support for the President of Change. Hope was abundant.
But with Trump, we are already losing faith, if not yet with him, at least with his choice of those who comprise his government
even before Trump is inaugurated.
Trump's choice for Secretary of State not only sounds like the neoconservatives in declaring Russia to be a threat to the United
States and all of Europe, but also sounds like Hillary Clinton in declaring the South China Sea to be an area of US dominance. One
would think that the chairman of Exxon was not an idiot, but I am no longer sure. In his confirmation hearing, Rex Tillerson said
that China's access to its own South China Sea is "not going to be allowed."
Here is Tillerson's statement: "We're going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops, and second,
your access to those islands also not going to be allowed."
I mean, really, what is Tillerson going to do about it except get the world blown up. China's response was as pointed as a response
can be:
Tillerson "should not be misled into thinking that Beijing will be fearful of threats. If Trump's diplomatic team shapes future
Sino-US ties as it is doing now, the two sides had better prepare for a military clash. Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power
strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories."
So Trump is not even inaugurated and his idiot nominee for Secretary of State has already created an animosity relationship with
two nuclear powers capable of completely destroying all of the West for eternity. And this makes the US Senate comfortable with Tillerson.
The imbeciles should be scared out of their wits, assuming they have any.
One of the reasons that Russia rescued Syria from Washington's overthrow is that Russia understood that Washington's next target
would be Iran and from a destroyed Iran terrorism would be exported into the Russian Federation. There is an axis of countries threatened
by US supported terrorism-Syria, Iran, Russia, China.
Trump says he wants to normalize relations with Russia and to open up business opportunities in the place of conflict. But to
normalize relations with Russia requires also normalizing relations with Iran and China.
Judging from their public statements, Trump's announced government has targeted Iran for destabilization. Trump's appointees as
National Security Advisor, Secretary of Defense, and Director of the CIA all regard Iran incorrectly as a terrorist state that must
be overthrown.
But Russia cannot allow Washington to overthrow the stable government in Iran and will not allow it. China's investments in Iranian
oil imply that China also will not permit Washington's overthrow of Iran. China has already suffered from its lost investments in
Libyan oil as the result of the Obama regimes overthrow of the Libyan government.
Realistically speaking, it looks like the Trump Presidency is already defeated by his own appointees independently of the ridiculous
and completely unbelievable propaganda put out by the CIA and broadcast by the presstitute media in the US, UK, and Europe. The New
York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and BBC have lowered themselves below the National Enquirer.
If the Chairman of Exxon and a Lt. General are not capable of standing up to the imbecilic Congress, they are unfit for office.
That they did not stand up is an indication that they lack the strength that Trump needs if he is to bring change from the top.
If Trump is unable to change US foreign policy, thermonuclear war and the destruction of Earth are inevitable.
"... I like the use of "careerist" ; it should be used more often, as it describes the motivation of a rather large number of decision-makers I've met. ..."
"... I would hate to see it used more often. I have heard of its being applied to a grad student who–wait for it!–actually hoped to have an academic career and recognized the forms that had to be gone through to achieve that. There are places where it is an appropriate description, but it is one of those vogue words (like narcissistic) which become void of meaning through overuse. ..."
Team Trump is working on a plan "to restructure the Central
Intelligence Agency, cutting back on staffing at its Virginia
headquarters and pushing more people out into field posts around the
world,"
And the main reason Clinton Democrats are jumping on this bandwagon is
that they want to blame their gross electoral failure on "external forces",
not their own terrible record of sabotaging the middle class in favor of
elite Wall Street interests. Their current fear is progressive Sanders
Democrats kicking them out of the DNC and other party organization
leadership positions (which just happened in California); hence their
willingness to get behind bogus claims on DNC hacking and Russians running
Trump.
As far as the FBI's Comey, notably he acted to protect Clinton when the
great fear was that she'd be defeated by Sanders; notably the FBI didn't
access DNC servers to look for evidence of a hack (it was probably an
internal leak), and Comey's refusal to recommend criminal charges for
Clinton during the primary was a service to the Clinton Democrats.
And the DNC was just so sleazy, no wonder they alienated all the Sanders
supporters for the general election:
It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to
ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has
a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make
several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would
draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.- DNC CFO Brad
Marshall
I would hate to see it used more often. I have heard of its being applied
to a grad student who–wait for it!–actually hoped to have an academic career
and recognized the forms that had to be gone through to achieve that. There
are places where it is an appropriate description, but it is one of those
vogue words (like narcissistic) which become void of meaning through
overuse.
"... I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia. (My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.) ..."
"... IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU. ..."
"... 'Obama Urges Trump to Maintain Pointless, Hyper-Aggresive Encirclement of Russia Strategy, Acknowledge Nuclear Apocalypse "Inevitable"' ..."
"... In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office. ..."
"... The good people of the US are awaiting DHS' final report on Russia's attempts to hack our elections. We deserve as much. ..."
"... If there's any basis to the allegations it's about time someone provided it. Up till now it's been unfounded assertions. Highly suspect at that. ..."
"... My guess is the whole Russian boogeyman was a ploy to attract those "moderate Republicans" who liked Romney. ..."
"... "My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow exactly our approach." ..."
"... Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international norms ..."
"... Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things like that without vomiting? ..."
I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia.
(My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another
place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.)
IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted
to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might
have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his
own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU.
Which I am sure he will do once everyone recognizes that that is the appropriate thing to do.
But as we well know everyone else will have to do the heavy lifting of figuring that out before
he will even acknowledge the possibility.
In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter
and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he
goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go
the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office.
In this case, Obama is probably too vain and Michelle being the saner of the two might rein
him in? Best of any world would, as you say, STFU. (As the Ex Prez. Obamamometer, that is probably
not in the cards.)
Maybe he will end up like Geo Bush, sitting in the bathtub drooling while he paints childish
self-portraits
Or maybe he will end up like OJ, where he tries to go hang out with all his cool friends and they
tell him to get lost
Ppl still mention him as a master orator, etc. Lots of post presidency speaking engagements
I suppose. I'd prefer him not to but then again if he makes enough annually from it to beat the
Clintons we might get the satisfaction of annoying them
"My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach,
finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that
the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values
and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow
exactly our approach." What Obama is saying is he wants Russia to join America in bombing
hospitals, schools, children, doctors, public facilities like water treatment plants, bridges,
weddings, homes, and civilians to list just few – while arming and supporting terrorists for regime
change. And if anyone points this out, Russia like the US is supposed to say "I know you are but
what am I?"
Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so
enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international
norms
Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things
like that without vomiting?
Is this the same Russia that just hacked our election and subverted our fine democracy? Why,
President Obama, I believe it behooves you to stand up to Russia yourself. Show President-Elect
Trump how it is done sir!
Once again, I remind everyone that we saw THE EXACT SAME THING with Obama. Failures were
NEVER attributed to Obama despite the fact that Obama kept "failing" over and over again.
What is "failure" to us is success for the establishment.
That's how the faux populist leader psyop works. I've been writing about Trump as a
faux populist like Obama for about 18 months. But those who hope that Trump is their
hero refuse to see what they don't want to see . And then there are those that
deliberately want to push the pretense that hero Trump is repeatedly confounded by his
advisors.
steven t johnson @6 has it right: Believing Trump is or ever was open to breaking with
US imperialism is Trumpery.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Anyone trying to excuse Trump is a fool or worse. Trump is not hero, he's a member of the
team. He is is part and parcel of the anti-democratic scam. He is the Empire's spokesperson,
and a tool of the Deep State.
Trump's 11 dimensional chess is a lot like Obama's 11 dimensional chess. Neither could figure
out a way to keep warmongers and hateful pricks out of their cabinets, or curtail the war
machine in any way, or to stop handing out tax giveaways to people who don't need them.
"... "That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image." ..."
"That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely
nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and
in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire
administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until
they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image."
Now that's writing worth reading. If the Nobel committee did not serve the Global Empire,
it would give the Literature Prize to Hopkins.
The late 19th and 20th century Russians had the horror of dealing with Nihilists running
amuck in their country. Now the Nihilists rule the world as multi-billionaire Globalists.
"That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely
nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and
in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire
administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until
they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image."
Now that's writing worth reading. If the Nobel committee did not serve the Global Empire,
it would give the Literature Prize to Hopkins.
The late 19th and 20th century Russians had the horror of dealing with Nihilists running
amuck in their country. Now the Nihilists rule the world as multi-billionaire Globalists.
What's wrong with Tulsi's fundraisers? They are not PAC money and $125/plate is not that
expensive. Tulsi has a huge disadvantage, because she isn't getting any coverage. Tulsi's
dinners are not sponsored by Corporate money.
Warren said to Cenk Uygur(in a NEW interview!) that her refusal of corporate donations
only extends to the primaries. She said [we] need corporate donations- or as she calls them-
"everything in our arsenal to beat Trump". Still want to lump her in with Bernie?
Never Completely Trust anyone, so thoroughly research everyone before supporting anyone on
anything to be fully aware of who benefits and how, since you may or may not benefit at all
11:16
hours Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, 26 February 2019
Interview is about forthcoming book "Peak
Trump" In "Peak Trump", Stockman goes after all the sacred cows: Military spending, entitlement spending, MAGA, Trump's tax cut,
the intelligence budget, and the Wall. Trump is a symptom of the problem. He wanted to drain the swamp but failed to do so. He never
really had a good chance of doing that, but he failed to make the most of the chance he had. We are where we are because of decades
of Congressional and monetary mismanagement
All in the name of empire... the Deep state in non-particular and Trump proved to be a "naked king"
At 15:49 min Ron Paul asks the question about Tulsi... She positioned herself as noninterventionists and has similar foreign policy
as Ron Paul used to have. Stockman answer was very interesting and informative.. MSM journalists are essentially federal contractor,
lobbyists of MIC.
He also mentioned that Trump falls from the bait. And the appointment of Elliot Abrams was real betrayal of his voters.
Notable quotes:
"... He was smart enough to understand that the commonplace observation codified as the Laffer Curve, while true, didn't mean that DC could just go on an endless spending spree and expect increased tax revenues to exceed the avarice of politicians, though. ..."
"... No, I don't think Stockman's rhetoric was a lie. He did end up getting shoved out of the Reagan regime, after all, precisely because he resisted giving every cabinet secretary all the money they wanted and, as you say, insisted that the tax cuts needed to be accompanied by spending cuts. ..."
"... But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy in the direction of central planning . Its premise is that instead of production being driven by diffuse demand, money should be concentrated in the hands of a few who "know better" what should be produced. ..."
"... And in practice, the "entrepreneurs" intended to benefit were the businesses who already had the clout to make themselves part of the political class, not the guy in his garage designing a better mousetrap. ..."
"... The Laffer Curve is an interesting but much over-used (and badly used) observation: There is a tax revenue curve with a top to it. That is, as you raise taxes, revenues go up ... until the taxation gets onerous enough that additional earnings beyond bare subsistence strike people as not worth the input, beyond which point tax INcreases produce revenue DEcreases. ..."
David Stockman was one of my conservative heroes during the Reagan years. He was the one person in the Administration who seemed
to have an honest understanding of economics. It's nice to see that his experiences with the reality of the DC swamp have made
him go all the way to describing himself as a libertarian, rather than a conservative.
He could have sold out, given up any modicum of principle, and simply become a multi-millionaire Republican Party establishment
hack.
I would venture to say he and I have some policy differences, but it's always nice to see when someone embraces their best,
rather than their worst, instincts.
My recollection of Stockman's economics from those years (based on e.g. The Triumph of Politics) was that he was all-in on
"supply side" economics, which is twaddle. He was smart enough to understand that the commonplace observation codified as
the Laffer Curve, while true, didn't mean that DC could just go on an endless spending spree and expect increased tax revenues
to exceed the avarice of politicians, though.
Yes, supply side is bogus, but my observations were that Stockman was quite critical of the spending increases that the Administration
put forth. He approved of the so called tax-cuts, but he did so with the understanding that there would be spending cuts along
with them.
My own recollections (I was alive back then, but not as politically conscious as I am now) were that Stockman was not endorsing
the supply side theory so much as his own idea that cuts in government spending were necessary, and that tax cuts would put pressure
on Congress and the administration to cut spending. The irony is that, for whatever reason, tax revenues overall increased by
60% in Reagan's two terms, yet spending increased almost 100%. This certainly disproves the idea that there was ever a revenue
problem, and that it has always been a spending problem.
In any event, Stockman was just about the only person with an official capacity in DC, who actually worked toward spending
cuts. Unless you are saying that his rhetoric was a lie, and he was just like all the others. If that is the case then, of course,
you could always be right.
No, I don't think Stockman's rhetoric was a lie. He did end up getting shoved out of the Reagan regime, after all, precisely
because he resisted giving every cabinet secretary all the money they wanted and, as you say, insisted that the tax cuts needed
to be accompanied by spending cuts.
But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy in the direction of central planning .
Its premise is that instead of production being driven by diffuse demand, money should be concentrated in the hands of a few who
"know better" what should be produced.
True, the central planning class in question was, broadly and not very honestly defined, "entrepreneurs" rather than government
bureaucrats, but the principle was the same. And in practice, the "entrepreneurs" intended to benefit were the businesses
who already had the clout to make themselves part of the political class, not the guy in his garage designing a better mousetrap.
"But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy"
Perhaps the most damning thing about it was that the stated goal was to increase the federal government's revenue. What person
in their right mind would wish to give even more money and power to the federal government?
The Laffer Curve is an interesting but much over-used (and badly used) observation: There is a tax revenue curve with a
top to it. That is, as you raise taxes, revenues go up ... until the taxation gets onerous enough that additional earnings beyond
bare subsistence strike people as not worth the input, beyond which point tax INcreases produce revenue DEcreases.
Liz Warren is talking about what Bernie talked about in '16. I'm concerned that she has
progressive rhetoric but centrist instincts. Her voting record isn't as progressive as I
believe is necessary. She needs to be able to withstand scrutiny if she hopes to attract
progressive voters. Rhetoric and platitudes aren't enough... #LeadersNeedToLeadByExample
I don't think I'm alone in finding a big difference that was not mentioned in the video.
While I greatly appreciate Elizabeth Warren, and those clips you showed from earlier today
were very encouraging, there is just a quality Bernie and Tulsi share that is very rare among
politicians. Something about the way they speak, their past actions, and ways they don't
speak, just hit home really hard a believability that they are extremely genuine and from the
heart. I see some of this from EW, but, Bernie and Tulsi are just incredibly impressive in
regard to this quality... it doesn't feel like supporting a politician, it feels like
supporting a kind of way of being and appreciation for what we all are so many of us try to
make our way of life. fwiw, I think it's also a big part of AOC's appeal.
Elizabeth Warren is a cautious, cowardish (her behaviour during 2016 was disgusting), but pretty energetic careerist. Her views will
quickly change under pressure, so good talking points will never translated into real policies.
The fact the wealthy control the USA is not news. This is the fact of life and always be. the
question is how to reach optimal middle point when interest of the bottom 80% standard of living
do not deteriorate.
Probably close to Barack Obama who also utters all right things during election complain and then blatantly betrayed his
voters.
She clearly is the top anti-corruption candidate and will expose the level of corruption in
Washington. So she is preferable to Kamala Harris and other establishment candidates.
The fight between organized and rich few and unorganized and poor many became hotter right
now. But what is the power base of anti-neoliberal movement. That can be only trade unions, which
were decimated. So the first step might be to restore the power of unions.
Notable quotes:
"... Elizabeth Warren is a progressive with no backbone who supports the military industrial complex ..."
"... Warren missed her moment when she failed us in 2016. She'd be VP today, and thinking about running in 2024. She shied away and instead, we have Trump ..."
Elizabeth Warren is weak. She did not have the courage to stand up to the Clinton machine
in 2016 when she could have made a difference by standing up against corruption. Now she is
waffling on what it means when she says she supports Medicare for All, as now she is open to
tweaking the Republican "Affordable" Care Act. She won't fight for us. We need real fighters.
We need Bernie and Tulsi.
I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Elizabeth Warren but in the last few years
she's shown that she's not as reliable as i thought she was. She's way to soft when it comes
to calling out the corruption in the dem party. She's also shown she's more willing to bend
to the will of the Dem establishment and that is not the kind of President we need right now.
I'll be posting a video on her campaign soon & unfortunately I'll have to tear into her a
lot more than you did in this video
Elizabeth Warren is a progressive with no backbone who supports the military industrial
complex. She will lose to Trump if she gets the nominee. Tulsi is a real progressive with
balls. #Tulsi2020
Warren missed her moment when she failed us in 2016. She'd be VP today, and thinking about
running in 2024. She shied away and instead, we have Trump.
I don't think she has the ability
to motivate she could have had back then. I don't think she has the savvy to beat Trump. We
need Tulsi or Bernie, the rest would lose in the general.
tomjulio2002, 1 week ago
Sorry but there is no comparison between Warren and Sanders.
Warren is either at best a coward (see primary 2016) or at worst a con (at lot of words but no action when it matters). So
not much will change with her, except that Trump would be gone. Then we will get a worse than Trump next time around when
people get even more disappointed and desperate.
For Sanders, you know for sure that he means what he says and that he intends to try.
The question is whether he will have the courage to go for it when the going gets tough. Or will he buckle like he did at
the 2016 convention thinking best to get half a loaf than risking to get nothing.
With Sanders, there is at least a chance (albeit a slim one in my opinion) of big changes happening on the issues like
Medicare for all, Green New Deal, Free public college...
For me, Warren is a no go.
Also Gabbard is clearly a fighter but I am still hazy on some of her positions. But I will take her before I even take
another look at Warren (if somehow Warren becomes the nominee).
"... Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations. ..."
"... The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to slaughter people who do not obey. ..."
Venezuela invasion thing is double-faceted: a trap for Trump & a bluff. if the
invasion is, then bye-bye 2020 election, mission accomplished. if no invasion on sight then
the bluff of Pompeo-Bolton-Abrams is called & the 2020 reelection assured. Venezuela in
the role of bait.
The real issue lies in the voting class which cowers in fear all day long and
seeks saviors every four years via rigged circus. Trump = Obama = CIA meddling in every
country. Presidents never change, only the perception of the morons changes.
Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every
country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka
morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations.
The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to
slaughter people who do not obey. Freedom at the point of a gun. Nothing quite says
democracy like having the US president tell the Venezuelans how to run their country.
"... Voters support Elizabeth Warren's proposed tax on large fortunes by a three-to-one majority. Only a small minority want to see cuts in Medicaid, even though such cuts have been central to every G.O.P. health care proposal in recent years. ..."
Donald Trump, who ran on promises to expand health care and
raise taxes on the rich , began betraying his working-class supporters the moment he took
office, pushing through big tax cuts for the rich while trying to take health coverage away
from millions.
... ... ...
Meanwhile, the modern Republican Party is all about cutting taxes on the rich and benefits
for the poor and the middle class. And Trump, despite his campaign posturing, has turned out to
be no different.
... ... ...
Polling is unambiguous here. If you define the "center" as a position somewhere between
those of the two parties, when it comes to economic issues the public is overwhelmingly left of
center; if anything, it's to the left of the Democrats. Tax cuts for the rich are the G.O.P.'s
defining policy, but two-thirds of voters believe that taxes on the rich are actually too low,
while only 7 percent believe that they're too high.
Voters support Elizabeth Warren's proposed tax on large fortunes by a three-to-one
majority. Only a small minority want to see cuts in Medicaid, even though such cuts have been
central to every G.O.P. health care proposal in recent years.
Why did Republicans stake out a position so far from voters' preferences? Because they
could. As Democrats became the party of civil rights, the G.O.P. could attract working-class
whites by catering to their social and racial illiberalism, even while pursuing policies that
hurt ordinary workers.
... ... ...
In any case, if there's a real opening for an independent, that candidate will look more
like George Wallace than like Howard Schultz. Billionaires who despise the conventional parties
should beware of what they wish for.
I consider myself socially conservative and economically liberal and I very bitterly
reject the idea that I am a "racist". The left has to stop tossing around the word "racist"
to essentially mean "anything they dislike" and "anyone they disagree with". I am not a
racist, and I defy anyone to prove I am. Dr. Krugman, if you are going to call 50% of the
voters in the US "racists"....well, consider what happened when your pal Hillary called us
"deplorables in a basket". How'd that work out for her?
Democrats love to eat their own. We have one of the most racist presidents to ever hold
office in modern times, yet some Democrats are going after Northam over some dumb stunt that
happened decades ago. Is he a good leader NOW? Does he support good policies NOW? Is
Northam's behavior really any worse (blackface versus sexual misconduct) than someone who
just got a seat on the Supreme Court? Wow, this is like watching an episode of The Twilight
Zone. Republicans have a strategic advantage because, while Democrats get all twisted up in
identity politics, Republican leaders are only tightly focused on serving the rich and
powerful at the expense of average Americans. No party disunity there. Democrats need to
start focusing on the basic, kitchen table issues that average Americans care about, like
affordable health care, affordable housing and affordable higher education. With that strong
streak of self-destruction that runs through Democrats, Nancy Pelosi is needed more than ever
in the people's House where badly needed legislation has to move forward.
A Democrat could beat Trump if he was pro-single payer, pro family, pro-union, anti-war,
and for the aggressive taxing of ultra high wealth if he could just shut down the flagrant
abuse of our immigration laws and border. That candidate can't win the primary though because
not welcoming the infinite number of suffering illegal immigrants to share these expensive
benefits or wanting law and order to immigration earns a label of "racist" in the Democratic
Party. Trump will win in 2020 unless dems stop with the wild misuse of the word racist.
"Racial hostility" is what I, a white male, feel from the Democrats. It's a common thread
among the reluctant Trump supporters I know - they are disgusted by Trump, but they won't
support the Democrats for that reason. My 66-year-old father recently said to me, for the
first time, "well, you know, I'm a racist."
This man voted for Obama, but I wouldn't be surprised if he casts his vote for Trump in
2020 because the left has lost all credibility in his eyes. They call my dad a racist over
and over, but he knows he's a fair person, so he's accepted that the "racist" label isn't
that big of a deal.
"... To that end, the senator from Florida on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to limit corporate buybacks. Unlike a plan pitched by Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer earlier this month, Rubio's plan would seek to end preferential tax treatment of share buybacks, by decreeing that any money spent on buybacks would be considered - for tax purposes - a dividend paid to shareholders, even if individual investors didn't actually part with any stock. ..."
"... Any tax revenue generated by these changes could then be used to encourage more capital investment, Rubio said. As part of the proposal, Rubio would make a provision in the tax law that allows companies to deduct capital investment permanent (that provision is currently set to expire in 2022). ..."
"... But before lawmakers take their next steps toward regulating how and when companies should return excess capital to shareholders, they might want to take a look at a column recently published by WSJ's "Intelligent Investor" that expounds a concept called "the bladder theory." ..."
"... But the law most likely to govern here is the Law of Unintended Consequences. ..."
"... That companies bought back a record $1 trillion worth of stock last year while employers like GM slashed jobs and closed factories has stoked criticisms of the Trump tax cuts, but as the gulf between the rich and the poor grows ever more wide (a phenomenon for which we can thank the Federal Reserve and other large global central banks) it's worth wondering: facing a simmering backlash to one of the most persistent marginal bids in the market place, have investors already become too complacent about proposals like Rubio's? ..."
"... Worse, since they're largely funded by increased corporate debt (!) they amount to corporate strip-mining by senior management. This is disgraceful and dangerous. The debt will bust some corporations when the inevitable next downturn comes. ..."
"... This buyback cancer, which has grown rapidly because of corrupt SEC thinking and perverse tax incentives, requires urgent treatment. ..."
For better or worse, Republican Senator and one-time presidential candidate Marco Rubio
isn't about to let
the Democrats own the fight to curtail one of the most flagrant examples of post-crisis
corporate excess. And if he can carve out a niche for himself that might one day help him
credibly pitch himself as a populist firebrand, much like the man who went on to claim the
presidency after defeating him in the Republican primary, well, that sounds to us like a
win-win.
To that end, the senator from Florida on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to limit corporate
buybacks. Unlike a plan pitched by Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer earlier this month, Rubio's
plan would seek to end preferential tax treatment of share buybacks, by decreeing that any
money spent on buybacks would be considered - for tax purposes - a dividend paid to
shareholders, even if individual investors didn't actually part with any stock.
According to CNBC
, the plan calls for every shareholder to receive an imputed portion of the funds equivalent to
the percentage of company stock they own, which, of course, isn't the same thing as directly
handing capital to shareholders (it simply changes the tax rate that the company buying back
the shares would pay).
Ultimately, Rubio hopes that these changes would discourage companies from buying back
stock. Those companies that continued to buy back shares would help contribute to higher
revenues by increasing the funds that can be taxed, while also raising the rate at which this
money can be taxed. Any tax revenue generated by these changes could then be used to encourage
more capital investment, Rubio said. As part of the proposal, Rubio would make a provision in
the tax law that allows companies to deduct capital investment permanent (that provision is
currently set to expire in 2022).
But before lawmakers take their next steps toward regulating how and when companies should
return excess capital to shareholders, they might want to take a look at a column recently
published by WSJ's
"Intelligent Investor" that expounds a concept called "the bladder theory."
Overall, however, buybacks (and dividends) return excess capital to investors who are free
to spend or reinvest it wherever it is most needed. By requiring companies to hang onto their capital instead of paying it out, Congress might
- perhaps - encourage them to invest more in workers and communities.
But the law most likely to govern here is the Law of Unintended Consequences. The history of investment by corporate managers with oodles of cash on their hands isn't
encouraging. Hugh Liedtke, the late chief executive of Pennzoil, reportedly liked to quip
that he believed in "the bladder theory:" Companies should pay out as much cash as possible,
so managers couldn't piss all the money away.
That companies bought back a record $1 trillion worth of stock last year while employers
like GM slashed jobs and closed factories has stoked criticisms of the Trump tax cuts, but as
the gulf between the rich and the poor grows ever more wide (a phenomenon for which we can
thank the Federal Reserve and other large global central banks) it's worth wondering: facing a
simmering backlash to one of the most persistent marginal bids in the market place, have
investors already become too complacent about proposals like Rubio's?
We ask only because
the Dow soared more than 350 points on Tuesday, suggesting that, even as Rubio added a
bipartisan flavor to the nascent movement to curb buybacks, investors aren't taking these
proposals too seriously - at least not yet.
Celotex
This still doesn't address the insider trading aspect of stock buybacks, with insiders front-running the buyback.
vladiki
No one's arguing that if a company's groaning with cash then buybacks make sense. But it's the other 95% of of them that
are the problem. Compare the 20 year graphs of buybacks with corporate profits, corporate debt, corporate tax paid, corporate
dividends paid.
They tell you what everyone in higher management knows - that they're a tax-free dividend mechanism pretending to be
"capital rationalisation".
Worse, since they're largely funded by increased corporate debt (!) they amount to corporate strip-mining by senior
management. This is disgraceful and dangerous. The debt will bust some corporations when the inevitable next downturn comes.
This buyback cancer, which has grown rapidly because of corrupt SEC thinking and perverse tax incentives, requires
urgent treatment.
james diamond squid
Everyone is in on this ponzi. I'm expecting tax deductions for buying stocks/homes.
The USSR had elections of various types. They meant nothing because the Party owned
everybody.
We have elections that are far more like Soviet elections than the average 'conservative'
voter can allow himself to imagine. The great difference Soviet elections and ours today is
who – what entity – owns the system, meaning which cultural values rule,
dictate.
Ours is the Anglo-Zionist Empire. This is the end game of the Judaizing heresies that
destroyed Christendom. This nightmare is where WASP culture leads and always lead.
Trump has tried to turn his presidency into a personality cult rather than MAGA. That is a mistake because Trump's campaign positions
were more popular than Trump and it doesn't lift the entire party.
Every Hillary voter I meet, male or female, buys every one of the stupid narratives being pushed and are fired up to vote.
The Bernie voters don't automatically buy every narrative but they despise Trump and want him out and Democrats to regain control.
I agree with Derb that the hearing may make up some of the enthusiasm gap. A lot of conservative men had to have been looking
at that hearing and thinking how easy it would be for them to get similar treatment at work or school.I imagine a good number
of conservative women don't want their husbands and sons to face similar inquisitions.
"... By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans. ..."
"... Quip, then Clear, Simple Statement. ..."
"... The thing that worries me is that congress might find some way to remove her or shut her up if she continues to ruffle neoliberal feathers like this. ..."
"... Fascinating as this is, I worry that AOC might get the "Rosa Luxembourg" treatment from the present day power elites. ..."
This is a must-watch clip. I hesitate to add much commentary, as anything I write will
likely not add all that much, and might instead only distract from the original.
Nonetheless, full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes! I will hazard adding some commentary.
I only ask that you watch the clip first. It'll only take five minutes of your time. Just
something to ponder on what I hope for many readers is a lazy, relaxing Sunday. Please watch
it, as my commentary will assume you've done so.
How to Explain What's At Stake with a Complex Subject
I've spent many, many years thinking about how business influences public policy – and
trying to get people to understand some of the details of how that's done, in a variety of
contexts.
Here, AOC breaks down one aspect of the problem, and clearly and succinctly explains what's
the deal, in terms that've obviously resounded with people and led them to share her primer
with their friends.
Quip, then Clear, Simple Statement. She opens with a self deprecating aside –
perhaps a bit too self-deprecating, as she doesn't pause long enough to elicit many chuckles.
Am I imagining a sense of "What's she up to?" emanating from the (sparse) crowd in that quick
initial establishing shot of the hearing chamber?
And then explains what she's up to:
Let's play a lightning round game.
I'm gonna be the bad guy, which I'm sure half the room would agree with anyway, and I want
to get away with as much bad things as possible, really to enrich myself and advance my
interests, even if that means putting my interests ahead of the American people.
I've enlisted all of you as my co-conspirators, so you're going help me legally get away
with all of this."
Framing. Turning this into a lightning round taps into popular culture. Most TV
viewers know what a lightning round is, certainly far more than regularly watch congressional
hearings on C-Span.
And using the Q & A format requires those summoned to testify at the hearing to affirm
each of her points. This reminded me a bit of the call and response technique that some
preachers employ.
By structuring this exercise in a lightning round format, each witness can only answer yes
or no, allowing little room to obfuscate – I'm looking at you, Bradley A. Smith, chairman
of the Institute for Free Speech (IFS). (Here's a link to the Washington Post op-ed AOC refers
to:
Those payments to women were unseemly. That doesn't mean they were illegal. )
AOC has no time for any waffling, "Okay green light for hush money, I can do all sorts of
terrible things, It's totally legal now for me to pay people off " She's not just working from
a great script – but is quick on her feet as well. Nice!
Simple Language, Complex Points
The language is simple, and sounds like the way ordinary people speak – "bad
guy," Followed later by "super bad guy."
"Totally."
"Okay great."
"Fabulous."
"Okay, so, awesome."
I think it's easier for her to do this, because she's not a lawyer. Even when she's
discussing questions of legality, she doesn't slip into legalese -- "super legal" isn't the
sort of phrase that would trip easily from the tongues of most lawyers– even recovering
ones, or those who got sidetracked into politics.
Repetition of One Point: This is All Legal
AOC channels Michael Kinsley's observation, "The scandal isn't what's illegal, the scandal
is what's legal." I hesitate to repeat that saying here, as for political junkies, it's been
been heard all too many times before.
AOC fleshes out the details of a message many Americans understand: the system is broken,
and under the current laws, no one's going to jail for doing any of this stuff. Instead, this
is standard operating procedure in Washington. And that's the case even though as this May
headline for report by the Pew Research Centre's headline makes clear:
Most Americans want to limit campaign spending, say big donors have greater political
influence .
AOC has great skill in understanding how language works, it is kind of mesmerizing
watching her thinking and talking on her feet -- she intertwines big narratives with smaller
ones seamlessly. Just brilliant.
She is gifted. She has demonstrated remarkable poise in her reactions to Pelosi. She
refuses to sling dirt, instead acting in deference to her power with a confidence that her
own principles will eventually prevail. It's an incredibly wise approach and extremely
counter-intuitive to most.
by supporting pelosi, calling her a progressive she shows acknowledgement of her role in
the system. it may be the confidence that her principles of being part of the club will
prevail. if you pay any attention at all to the system you'd understand it isn't broken, it
works as designed.
This past summer right around the time she went to Iowa with Bernie that she was on a
Sunday morning talk show. The host asked a question that was pointed and would pin most pols
into a corner they'd likely not want to be pinned to. AOC hesitated, thought, and said, "Yes,
i'll grant that. I agree with that." or something very similar.
Her hesitation and then acceptance told me two things:
1. She knows herself and she's not frightened by it. Other pols lapse into meaningless
nonsense and think defense first. AOC just moves forward aggressively because she's confident
in what she believes in.
2. She knows her audience. She understands who she's talking to.
Criticism just bounces off someone like that.
I had already seen the Now This video, and what is striking to me is that we have social
media content producers like Now This that are willing to treat AOC seriously and give a
platform for her ideas, unlike the TV news or most newspapers. Now This and AJ+ (Al Jazeera
social video) specialize in making videos viral, so they are the proximate cause of this
video going viral, unlike some earlier AOC videos.
Now This is owned by Group Nine Media which is an independent
startup that has received millions in venture funding as well as a significant investment by
Discovery Media, according to Wikipedia.
Also, Facebook's role is interesting because they are still allowing at least some
left-leaning videos to go viral.
How much longer will we have these outlets before they turn into CNN, MSNBC, NYT,
etc.?
Thanks for this, JLS. I was very impressed with AOC when I first saw her campaign video in
her race against Joe Crowley. Since that time she has become a force of nature not just in
Washington but across the country and internationally. I believe she is most impressive
politician I have ever seen and I am in my late sixties. She is simply thrilling to watch and
I think she appeals to many outside of her progressive base. Naturally the Washington Post,
with its neocon and neoliberal editorial page, will use every tool at its disposal to
discredit her and any other progressive.
The thing that worries me is that congress might find some way to remove her or shut
her up if she continues to ruffle neoliberal feathers like this.
While it would be a very extreme measure, do you think that Congress might try to place
her under Censure, and possibly even try building a case for Congressional Expulsion on bogus
charges? It would be a very underhanded thing to do, but on the other hand, the neoliberals
in both parties in Washington D.C. probably want to mount her head on a wall at this
point.
AOC isn't beholden to the corporate donor/lobbyist/consultant owners of the Dem estab. If
she isn't spending 30 hours a week dialing-for-dollars, and is free to represent her voters
interests, she might give other Dems ideas, especially the younger ones . Gasp! can't have
that! (/s)
I saw this one on Friday .captivating and jaw-dropping. I almost couldn't believe she just
got as blunt as that.
I wonder if she's preparing anything to get a little revenge on Pelosi for the brilliantly
withering scorn she dropped on the GND, turning it into the "Green Dream". I found myself
laughing and annoyed at the same time.
Pelosi knows she's got a grip on the reigns of power and she's happy to rub it in the face
of the new freshman class of what she sees as little more than noisemakers (not to dismiss
the power of the noisemakers, they've done more than I could have anticipated).
AOC and friends have cards to play .let's see how they play them. They can't directly
attack her, of course, they need her. But they can get attention, pressure and embarrass her
to take various actions.
AOC is not reacting to Trump's socialism challenge. She is ignoring it as if it came from
someone unqualified to be president. Imagine that. Or from masterful legislators so
compromised by corruption they will only change when they get good and frightened. It might
take a while because they have been too impervious to fear anything for so many decades they
might not realize they are in danger. They might as well be very, very stupid. No, she's not
taking the bait. Instead, she is pointing out what a corrupt thing both branches of
government are, the legislature and, even worse and more dangerous, the president, and not
merely because he is controlled by the military. She's playing chess for now. Checkmate will
probably come from left field in the form of an economic collapse. Nothing to see here. Move
along.
Fascinating as this is, I worry that AOC might get the "Rosa Luxembourg" treatment
from the present day power elites.
Murder has become a standard operating procedure for American operatives overseas; see drone
warfare as an example. The logic of Empire predicts that in general, the tactics used by the
Empire overseas will be brought back to the Homeland for eventual use against domestic
'enemies.'
The 'Tinfoil Hat Cadres' can cite numerous examples of domestic killings with suspicious ties
to internal politics. In the main, these 'examples' of evil are tied to individuals and
smaller groups of the power elites. I fear that political murder has become normalized inside
America's political classes.
Many here joke about "Mr. or Mz. 'X' better not take any small airplane flights for the
foreseeable future." It may be a 'joke' to us, but it certainly is not a joke to those
viewing their impending demise from 10,000 feet up in the air.
They probably will not have to go to that much trouble. They can always invent a
quasi-legal or illegal procedure to remove her from the senate, like the example I gave above
with Censure or Expulsion. Plus, this will be officially-sanctioned by Washington D.C. and
all of the major media outlets will be able to portray it as getting rid of a troublemaker
who did not want to be a team player.
Freuddian slip that, " remove her from the senate"? Actually, there have been open calls
from within the establishment to primary her, or most recently, to gerrymander her House
district out of existence. But that would just free her up to run for US Senate. It has been
suggested that possibility might cause Sen. Schumer to put the kabosh on any effort to
eliminate her district. As for a primary challenge, while it certainly would mean lots of
walking around money for a select group of Democratic political consultants (the Republicans
seem to have slurped up all the foreign regime-change work for this cycle), given AOC's
position as the first or second most popular politician in the country (right up there with
Bernie), that seems like a fool's errand.
Nice to know that anyone is saying this in a public forum.
In a bit of coincidence, I heard and adviser to Jerry Brown recite the current political
system's creed, saying that just because candidates get money from special interests doesn't
mean they're captives to those interests. It was astonishing to hear because the speaker said
this without the slightest hesitation The rest of us in the room paused for a moment.
I replied that psychological studies demonstrate that if I give you a piece of gum, not
millions in campaign contributions, you're likely to be more favorably disposed to what I
say.
so we agreed to disagree. Personally, I've interpreted reciting this creed as a kind of
initiation the prerequisite to belong to the religion that currently governs the country, not
as something the guy actually believed. Like Michael Corleone's recitation at his children's
christening Sure, it's a toxic religion, but there are so many of those the cult of
vengeance, for example (why else would Americans incarcerate so many people).
The context of AOC's hypothetical 100%-PAC-financed campaign:
Meet the Most Corporate PAC-Reliant Reps in Congress
Here are the eight House representatives who took more than two-thirds of their overall
campaign funding in the 2018 cycle from PACs representing corporations and corporate trade
associations:
My interpretation of the relationship between Pelosi and AOC.
I don't think at all that Pelosi is out to crush AOC. She certainly does not agree with
most of AOC's policies (after all Pelosi's path to power was different and she is irrevocably
wedded to it) but I think she operates on a different plane here.
Pelosi's rise to power was arduous and her success came from her brilliance in overcoming
a wide range of obstacles. She is focused, smart, relentless and ruthless. She earned her
power and will not give it away. (what she uses her power for is not really relevant in this
discussion)
I think she recognizes in AOC a woman not that dissimilar to herself but separated by a
couple of generations. She will not try and destroy her as AOC is not a meaningful threat to
her and she can leverage politically from AOC's huge impact in ways only Pelois is likely to
know how to do. She will make AOC earn her own power by proving she can overcome obstacles
and has the smarts and fortitude to take what she wants in spite of what her opponents do to
stop her (opponents come from all directions in politics) – just as she did. That kind
of behavior is what Pelosi respects. She could have prevented AOC from being on the committee
she used as a platform for the above exposure of corruption but she did not – and it is
certain that Pelosi was aware of the potential for AOC to use it to her advantage, or not. So
AOC just passed a test there will be many more. She may eventually fall, or she may be one of
the rare occurrences of someone rising to prominence and changing the world. She is where she
is at at 29 years old! I am sure that scares the crap out of her political opponents as
anyone can see tremendous upside for her should she continue to develop. Here's wishing her
luck – we need people like her more than any other kind by far.
I'd take it, but sounds wishful. Never underestimate incompetence. Pelosi is where she is
not because of brilliance but because she is the bag lady.
Pelosi might have made a deal to get her support for speaker, which was more important to
her.
Or she might think that AOC would quiet down once she got up on the totem pole, just as she
would have done.
Seems unlikely for somebody that believes in the rich and powerful Uber alles would otherwise
support somebody that wants to topple that temple.
AOC's appointment to Fin Svcs is an interesting one. House Oversight Environmental sub
committee is useful to Pelosi to have AOC go after Trump, but I'm not sure what Pelosi gets
out of the Fin Svcs committee. A quid pro quo for Speaker support makes some sense on the
surface.
Interesting as well, AOC turned down an appointment to the Select GND committee and
explained it as a timing issue, being asked after her previous two appointments and
not having the bandwidth to take on the Select committee and do her job well.
I can read some things into that:
– AOC values those two committee assignments. She's pretty wise to not bite off more
than she can chew.
– That Select committee is pretty meaningless. She got the resolution she wanted
introduced.
– Did Pelosi underestimate her early and then try to bury her with work? Or did she
force her to compromise either the spotlight she will have tearing people up on FS and
Oversight or the content of the GND resolution?
I think you have two very savvy political women facing off here, both know it, and both
are working a long term game of chess. The generational gap is a huge advantage and
disadvantage for both. For now, they are going to leverage it/each other and play their
roles. Sometime before the DNC convention in 2020 pieces are going to be played that changes
the dynamic. The outcome of that will dictate the path post 2020 convention. The odds of a
progressive House are slim. Progressive President a little better. AOC will need Pelosi
especially with a Progressive Presidency. Pelosi will need her with a Progressive President.
Centrist President relegates AOC to noise in terms of actual House business.
AOC is exposing the corruption of paid politics. Virginia Democrats, Donald Trump, and
Jeff Bezos illuminate the dark secrets that the plutocratic system uses to keep the connected
in line. This is breaking down. Oligarchs are at war. Neoliberalism is stealing life away
from the little people and destroying the world. She is a noble in the good old fashion
classical sense. Compare her to Adam Schiff. This is visceral. This is good versus evil.
Brings back fond memories of Alan Grayson's rundowns of the republican healthcare plan (if
you do get sick, die quickly) and socializing losses (now we all own the red roof inn).
AOC was even more riveting than Alan Grayson. I'd forgotten about the Bernanke grilling,
although his marvelous skewering of the Fed general counsel (Alvarez, I think his name was)
about where all the gazillion dollars of bailout money went was also pretty special. "Answer
the question." "Congressman, I did answer the question." "No you didn't. Answer the
question."
We're going to see more of this in the future remember, AOC doesn't do "call time," so
she'll have plenty of opportunities to engage in hearings like this.
She and the panel missed an important opportunity to point out that what gets you on a
committee is raising money from the industry regulated by that committee. Instead they just
said there is no illegality in working on related legislation.
Maybe this uniquely Article I corruption, didn't fit with her The President Is Even Worse
thesis. But she has the skills to tie it to Article II, revolving door scams. I hope she does
so soon.
I know that Big Oil is a baddie nic on AOC's quiver, but why not hit at the black heart of
HighFinance,, and their kin, WhiteShoeBoy Big-n-Legal who are, mostly likely, some of the
biggest, and most manipulative donors around. I think loosing arrows constantly the earl
cos., to the exclusion of other nefarious principals might loose some steam, especially when
most of the country's citizens rely considerably on FFs as a means of fueling their ground
transport, to say nothing of air travel. An example : She could hit Biden by name, with
regard to his imput and substantial influence, in passing legislation that has only screwed a
generation .. or few !!
So, if she's serious for change, for the better, for the Commons, she needs some specific
bulleyes to aim at, many of whom are within her own party !
It's not clear to me how this hearing happened, Can anyone enlighten? Can AOC just
schedule her own hearings on her own topics, call her own witnesses? I have no idea how those
committees work.
I've been alive forever
And I wrote the very first law
I put the weasel words together
I am power and I write the laws
I write the laws that make my wealth increase
I write the laws of war and other hateful things
I write the laws that let the poor folks die
I write the laws, I write the laws
My home lies far above you
But my claws are deep into your soul
Now, when I ignore your cries
I'm young again, even though I'm very old
I write the laws that make my wealth increase
I write the laws of war and other hateful things
I write the laws that let the poor folks die
I write the laws, I write the laws
Oh my greed makes you dance
And lets you know you have no chance
And I wrote foreclosure laws so you must move
Dejection fills your heart
Well, that's a real fine place to start
It's all for me it's not for you
It's all from you, it's all for me
It's a worldwide travesty
I write the laws that make my wealth increase
I write the laws of war and other hateful things
I write the laws that let the poor folks die
I write the laws, I write the laws
I write the laws that make my wealth increase
I write the laws of war and other hateful things
I write the laws that let the poor folks die
I write the laws, I write the laws
I am power and I write the laws
'We have a system that is fundamentally broken.' -- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is
explaining just how f*cked campaign finance laws really are.
" Subscribe to NowThis:
http://go.nowth.is/News_Subscribe
In the latest liberal news and political news, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made
headlines at a recent congressional hearing on money in politics by explaining and inquiring
about political corruption. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, aka AOC, went into the issues of
lobbyists and Super PACs and how the political establishment, including Donald Trump, uses big
money to their advantage, to hide and obfuscate, and push crooked agendas. Alexandria Ocasio
Cortez is a rising star in the Democratic Party and House of Representatives.
NowThis is your premier news outlet providing you with all the videos you need to stay up to
date on all the latest in trending news. From entertainment to politics, to viral videos and
breaking news stories, we're delivering all you need to know straight to your social feeds. We
live where you live.
Love this feisty congresswoman. I can see why AOC is dislike by the right and even many
democrats. She's in DC to work for the American ppl and not enrich herself or special
interest. Love the 2018 class and hope they make changes and clean up DC.
AOC is amazing, pointing out all the fundamental wrongs in our political system. I hope
she stays in Congress as long as possible to spread her influence.
AOC is speaking out when no one else will about the corruption in Washington. She is
disliked because she is actually fighting for people. This makes me want to move to New York
just so I can vote for her. Keep it up the pressure.
She is going to be needing extra security. She's poised to take them down and we know how
these things have been handled in the past. I'm loving her fearlessness but worry for her
safety. May she be protected and blessed. SMIB
@NoseytheDuke
Face it -- he neither believed nor understood those Stephen Miller speeches. Coming from the
mouth of Donald Trump, they were lies.
Why do so many of you intelligent people still buy into the political puppet show,
expecting BigGov to fix itself? Electoral politics, judicial confirmations, etc, are
orchestrated conflict to keep dissidence channeled and harmlessly blown off as the Empire
lurches along.
There are other columnists here at Unz who have been calling the Beltway BS for years. For
example:
"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and
bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class.
Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking
complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as
a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war
abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his
election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."
"... The imperialists want to grab the rich oil fields for the US big oil cartel ..."
"... Venezuela must not become an example for other countries in the region on social-programs policy ..."
"... Venezuela must not turn to cooperation with rival powers like China and Russia. Such a prospect may give the country the ability to minimize the effects of the economic war ..."
"... So, when Trump declared the unelected Juan Guaido as the 'legitimate president' of Venezuela, all the main neoliberal powers of the West rushed to follow the decision. ..."
"... Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance. ..."
Even before the 2016 US presidential election, this blog supported that Donald Trump is
apure sample of neoliberal barbarism . Many almost laughed at this perception because Trump was being already promoted,
more or less, as the 'terminator' of the neoliberal establishment. And many people, especially in the US, tired from the economic
disasters, the growing inequality and the endless wars, were anxious to believe that this was indeed his special mission.
Right after the elections, we supported that the
US establishment
gave a brilliant performance by putting its reserve, Donald Trump, in power, against the only candidate that the same
establishment identified as a real threat: Bernie Sanders.
In 2017 , Trump bombed Syria for the first time, resembling the lies that led us to the Iraq war disaster. Despite the fact that
the US Tomahawk missile attack had zero value in operational level (the United States allegedly warned Russia and Syria, while the
targeted airport was operating normally just hours after the attack), Trump sent a clear message to the US deep state that he is
prepared to meet all its demands - and especially the escalation of the confrontation with Russia.
Indeed, a year later, Trump built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish neocons. And then, he ordered a
second airstrike against Syria, together with his neocolonial friends.
In the middle of all this 'orgy' of pro-establishment moves, Trump offered a controversial withdrawal of US forces from Syria
and Afghanistan to save whatever was possible from his 'anti-interventionist' profile. And it was indeed a highly controversial action
with very little value, considering all these US military bases that are still fully operational in the broader Middle East and beyond.
Not to mention the various ways through which the US intervenes in the area (training proxies, equip them with heavy weapons, supporting
the Saudis and contribute to war crimes in Yemen, etc.)
And then , after this very short break, Trump returned to 'business as usual' to satisfy the neoliberal establishment with a 'glorious'
record. He achieved a 35-day government shutdown, which is the
"longest shutdown in US history"
.
Trump conducted the longest experiment on neoliberals' ultimate goal: abolishing the annoying presence of the state. And this
was just a taste of what Trump is willing to do in order to satisfy all neoliberals' wet dreams.
And now, we have the Venezuela issue. Since Hugo Chavez nationalized PDVSA, the central oil and natural gas company, the US empire
launched a fierce economic war against the country. Yet, while all previous US administrations were trying to replace legitimate
governments with their puppets as much silently as possible through slow-motion coup operations, Trump has no problem to do it in
plain sight.
And perhaps the best proof for that is a statement by one of the most warmongering figures of the neocon/neoliberal cabal, hired
by Trump . As John Bolton cynically and openly
admitted recently,
" It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and
produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. "
Therefore, one should be very naive of course to believe that the Western imperialist gang seriously cares about the Venezuelan
people and especially the poor. Here are three basic reasons behind the open US intervention in Venezuela:
The imperialists want to grab the rich oil fields for the US big oil cartel, as well as the
great untapped
natural resources , particularly gold (mostly for the Canadian companies).
Venezuela must not become an example for other countries in the region on social-programs policy, which is mainly funded by
the oil production. The imperialists know that they must interrupt the path of Venezuela to real Socialism by force if necessary.
Neoliberalism must prevail by all means for the benefit of the big banks and corporations.
Venezuela must not turn to cooperation with rival powers like China and Russia. Such a prospect may give the country the ability
to minimize the effects of the economic war. The country may find an alternative to escape the Western sanctions in order to fund
its social programs for the benefit of the people. And, of course, the West will never accept the exploitation of the Venezuelan
resources by the Sino-Russian bloc.
So, when Trump declared the unelected Juan Guaido as the 'legitimate president' of Venezuela, all the main neoliberal powers of
the West rushed to follow the decision.
This is something we have never seen before. The 'liberal democracies' of the West - only by name - immediately, uncritically
and without hesitation jumped on the same boat with Trump towards this outrageously undemocratic action. They recognized Washington's
puppet as the legitimate president of a third country. A man that was never elected by the Venezuelan people and has very low popularity
in the country. Even worse, the EU parliament
approved this action
, killing any last remnants of democracy in the Union.
Yet, it seems that the US is finding increasingly difficult to force many countries to align with its agenda. Even some European
countries took some distance from the attempted constitutional coup, with Italy even
trying to
veto EU's decision to recognize Guaido.
Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes
the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism
with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and
ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance.
This unprecedented action by the Western neoliberal powers to recognize Guaido is a serious sign that neoliberalism returns to
its roots and slips towards fascism. It appears now that this is the only way to maintain some level of power.
I just had this insight and wanted to share it here.
I am 70 and am thinking that when I was growing up the US Democrats represented the
concepts of socialism and the Republicans that of capitalism. Today I see the Democrats as
representing capitalism and Republicans representing fascism.
A commenter on another thread asked me about my China socialism focus and referred to the
US Interstate highway system initiated in the Eisenhower era when the marginal tax rate was
in the low 90 percent range. America has and continues to embrace aspects of socialism they
refuse to believe exists in America.......the effects of MSM brainwashing and propaganda.
China is attempting a mixed economy favoring socialism AFAICT
Meanwhile, the modern Republican Party is all about cutting taxes on the rich and benefits for the poor and the middle class.
And Trump, despite his campaign posturing, has turned out to be no different.
Hence the failure of our political system to serve socially conservative/racist voters who also want to tax the rich and preserve
Social Security. Democrats won't ratify their racism; Republicans, who have no such compunctions, will -- remember, the party establishment
solidly backed Roy Moore's Senate bid -- but won't protect the programs they depend on.
Paul Krugman is a baby boomer, pissant globalizer bastard, but he has made reasonable comments about immigration in the past.
Paul Krugman is a high IQ moron who has occasional bouts of clarity on the anti-worker aspects of mass legal immigration and illegal
immigration. Krugman had it right in 2006 when he said that mass immigration lowers wages for workers in the USA.
Krugman in NY Times 2006:
First, the benefits of immigration to the population already here are small. The reason is that immigrant workers are, at least
roughly speaking, paid their "marginal product": an immigrant worker is paid roughly the value of the additional goods and services
he or she enables the U.S. economy to produce. That means that there isn't anything left over to increase the income of the people
already here.
My second negative point is that immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants. That's just
supply and demand: we're talking about large increases in the number of low-skill workers relative to other inputs into production,
so it's inevitable that this means a fall in wages. Mr. Borjas and Mr. Katz have to go through a lot of number-crunching to turn
that general proposition into specific estimates of the wage impact, but the general point seems impossible to deny.
However, Krugman is also a relentless partisan hack. So his expert analysis always ends up supporting the current Democrat
talking points -- whatever they may be.
Here, Krugman is disparaging any move to the center as the DNC wants to keep the Dems unified on the left and keep Schultz
(or anyone like him) out of the race. Of course, the real reason Schultz has massively negative polling is because the Democrat
establishment has been savaging him for precisely this reason.
Likewise, to Krugman a "Racist" politician is anyone who holds the same immigration position as Krugman did in 2006, which
is now anathema to the Dem's new Open Borders electoral strategy.
It's only a matter of time until Krugman starts talking up Kamala Harris as the best thing that could happen for the economy.
Bottom line: Krugman – like any economist who was gifted with a fake Nobel Prize in Economics by his wealthy patrons (the Nobel
Prize in Economics does not exist – check out wikipedia!) – is a whore whose only function is to protect the left flank of our
corrupt and rapacious elite.
He's not a moron, and he's certainly not a liberal. His job – which pays very well mind you – is to pretend to be a sorta-kinda
Keynesian New Dealer, but in reality, anything that the rich wants, he will end up defending. And even if he sorta kinda claims
to be opposing something that the rich want which will impoverish the rest of us, when it comes to the bottom line, he will ruthlessly
attack any opposition to these policies.
"... This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions. ..."
"... The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures. ..."
Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National
Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt,
or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from
storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons
are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that
we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that
it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not
notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the
Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).
And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of
the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in
spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred
principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean
toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to
condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of
dignity.
...Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid
as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they
felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the
strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the
Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top
positions.
The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian
Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White
House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight "
and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all
their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.
"... This isn't about taxing wealth. It's about taxing power, privilege and greed. This isn't about punishing oligarchy. This is about saving democracy. ..."
"... The concentration of wealth parallels the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: it is economic climate change with consequences equally as dire as global warming on all lifeforms. The challenge will be no less difficult, replete with a powerful lobby of deniers and greed-mongers ready for war against all threats to their power and position. Their battle cry is apres moi, le deluge -- as if taxing wealth and privilege is barbarians at the gate and the demise of civilization rather than curbing cannibals driven not by hunger but voracious greed. ..."
"... Likewise, the same majority now sees the rising tide of inequality and social dysfunction and what that means for the future as a global caste system condemns nearly all of us -- but mainly our progeny -- to slavery in servitude to our one percent masters. ..."
This isn't about taxing wealth. It's about taxing power, privilege and greed. This
isn't about punishing oligarchy. This is about saving democracy.
The concentration of wealth parallels the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere: it is economic climate change with consequences equally as dire as global warming
on all lifeforms. The challenge will be no less difficult, replete with a powerful lobby of
deniers and greed-mongers ready for war against all threats to their power and position.
Their battle cry is apres moi, le deluge -- as if taxing wealth and privilege is barbarians
at the gate and the demise of civilization rather than curbing cannibals driven not by hunger
but voracious greed.
Everywhere climate change deniers are being drowned out by a rational majority who now see
the signs of global warming in every weather report and understand what this means for their
children if we continue to emulate ostriches.
Likewise, the same majority now sees the rising tide of inequality and social
dysfunction and what that means for the future as a global caste system condemns nearly all
of us -- but mainly our progeny -- to slavery in servitude to our one percent
masters.
Elizabeth Warren is no nerd. She's our Joan of Arc. And it's up to us to make sure she
isn't burned alive by the dark lords as she rallies us to win back our country and our
future.
"The net worth of the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans is almost equal to that of the
bottom 90 percent combined." This describes a truly radical concentration of wealth that
should raise red flags for anyone who genuinely cares about the future of this country. How
long can such a situation last...or grow even worse...without resulting in social upheaval on
a massive scale, such as happened in France in the late 1700's or Russia in the early 1900s?
And exactly what do those 0.1 percent want so much wealth for anyway? While some people of
great wealth do try to use it to make the world a better place, far too manty of them seem
not to know what to do with it, except to let it pile up to gloat over or use it to influence
politicians to create policies that will give them even more. Proposals for higher taxes on
the very wealthy are derided as too radical. But the economic chasm that exists in this
country between the very wealthiest and everyone else represents a radical challenge that
must be addressed.
All you smarties ignored us when your Globalism took away all our jobs. Prez Clinton aimed
for middle with his love of approval. Our situation became worse so in desperation we
believed the Huckster Trump and called him our "NEW DEAL" Trump has failed us and there is a
chance for Dem government in two years. A cautious, donor friendly, middle of the road
Democratic administration just like the last one will send us on the hunt again for a leader
to save us from peonage.
@Charlie As enticing as is your suggestion, let's not lower ourselves that far down to
Tweety's "standards of behavior". Pinocchio redeemed himself in the end; Tweety never will,
and many hope he ends up sharing a cell with Bernie Madoff.
Thank you for this review of reactions from the experts -- and for the list of experts who
focus on this topic. And thank you for sharing your views. The challenge with Warren's
proposal isn't devising a good policy. The challenge will be explaining it to voters who
don't understand economics or Piketty's book. It's a voter-education problem more than an
economics problem. I wish Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez well in their efforts
to explain their proposals. It seems a tall order, but it's just the kind of medicine we
need.
Thanks to Trump we, as a nation, got to see that even Federal workers can barely get by.
This was quite a revelation for many. There has long been a stigma in this country about
sharing the truly dismal state of one's economic affairs. It's why we've made so little
progress along the lines discussed here. It's also the reason once-middle class people place
themselves in a debt spiral, to compete with others who, unbeknownst to them, are doing
likewise. There will be much more discussion now of just how unequal and insecure this
society is. The powers that be have tried to muffle the conversation for long enough. And
kudos to Wilbur Ross for opening his fat mouth and provoking everyone's ire!
@dajoebabe Another sign that ours is "a system that is the only one in the world where
such vast sums can be accumulated with so little being required in return" is the way foreign
capital is swamping our property markets because people from un-free countries are trying to
buy access to the rule of law. There aren't that many places in the world for the rich to
flee where public infrastructure and the rights of citizenship are quite as robust as here in
the US.
@Ana Luisa Amen!! Very well said. I hope you're correct in projecting that the U.S. "will
finally become an entirely civilized country too." I fear that the 'Kochtopus' will strangle
the initiatives proposed by Warren and other progressives before they can be enacted. But I
won't roll over and give up. Dr. Krugman's columns and the comments from others such as
yourself inspire me to continue to push back against the Repubs and support candidates such
as Sen. Warren. Bravo Zulu to you and all the other NYT readers who speak up to state that
the United States can strive to be the shining example of equality and fairness that does
truly function to promote governance that works for the common good of ALL U.S.
citizens.
Dr. Krugman uses the argument of "marginal utility value" as the crux of one of his
statements. Marginal utility, briefly described, is the value one might put on he first
milkshake he's had in years. Probably very high. But what about the 10th milkshake in the
same day? ("Yuck" would do nicely.) So it is with "the second $50 million", as Dr. Krugman
argues. Quite right. After a given point - depending on the individual - wealth ceases to
play an important part in one's life. Would a billionaire miss a million?... one thousandth
of his net worth? Hardly. But when arguing such a point, beware the Slippery Slope argument
(a classic fallacy). "Yeah, maybe just a million today; but tomorrow? Maybe TEN
million!!
"Taxing the superrich is an idea whose time has come -- again." Let's hope Democrats have
their ducks in a row with this legislation when they regain the presidency and full control
of Congress in 2020. And if we want to get even more radical with the "swollen" wealthy, we
could rescind their recent trillion-dollar tax cut. Perhaps that will start acclimating them
to what needs to be our new normal. We should consider cuts to our bloated defense budget as
well. We can use all of this money to shore up Social Security and Medicare, in addition to
Medicaid, and to promote more affordable public education, infrastructure to fight climate
change, and universal health care. This additional revenue is not just something we should
see as a windfall for society. In the end, it may prove to be what saves what's left of our
society.
@Mike Rowe The only people that this would effect are the people who can't afford lawyers
and accountants. I have been audited twice. Both times it turned out the government owed me
money, but the money I was owed, was eaten up because I had to pay and accountant to defend
me. Trump still has not put forward his tax documents, do you really think that adding a few
more IRS agents would change that.
@Orthoducks Let's be honest: every society that has taken away the wealth of individuals
and handed it to the government to allocate has been ruled by tyrants and has reduced their
citizenry to penury at the point of a gun. Wealthy people reinvest their money in economic
ventures that grow their wealth, which generates greater productivity while creating jobs and
wealth for the society. If there is too much concentration of wealth (there is), let's tax it
back down, but don't ever suggest that we should just take all the money from individuals
because we can. That's the route Lenin and Mao went down; I thought we had learned that
lesson.
Whether you agree with Warren's proposal or not it's a good thing that this issue is being
put out in the public domain because we've now reached the stage where income and wealth
inequality is eroding the effectiveness of the open and dynamic capitalist economy that we
all need. Some of the more perceptive of the super rich like Warren Buffett and Michael
Bloomberg have recognized this and the dangers it threatens. It was a problem recognized in
the 30's by J. M. Keynes speaking in America when he said "If the new problem of inequality
is not solved the existing order of society will become so discredited that wild, foolish and
destructive changes will become inevitable." It's worth remembering that Maduro and Chavez
before him were the products of the vast inequalities in Venezuelan society. And there are
plenty of other examples of a similar dynamic at work.
The people who don't like a wealth tax are a) very wealthy, or b) corrupt politicians, or
c) pundits who like to sound like they know everything. Yes, tax the wealthy. Even Willie
Sutton could tell you that if you want money (tax revenue) go where it is. The time is right.
They can choose: higher taxes or the guillotine.
@Shiv Taxes were at this rate in the 50's and inequality was nowhere as bad as it is now.
Undertaxing Bezos and his ilk (and the way our tax system is now set up, generally), directs
money to the CEOs and other muckety mucks, not to their employees. Republicans seem to think
that there's a "natural" (as in, arising out of nature) situation where money goes to the
person who has "earned" it. That's simply not true. The economy is a construct, created by
law and custom. And right now, the law makes sure that Bezos gets a whole lot more than he
should be getting, while his hapless employees (the folks who do the actual work) get way
less than they should.
I have admired Warren since she entered the political spectator sport. She has a lot of
guts for a woman. I gathered from your essay that only 75,000 or so Americans hold as much
wealth as the lower 90 percent of the entire population of 320,000,000 Americans. Decades
have passed since Eisenhower rightly paid down the debt of the great war. In that time,
fairly dispersed wealth trickled up to a few who employed "Trickle Down" propaganda and
political manipulation, all too often agreed to, to reduce their tax burden thereby heaping
all responsibilities of maintaining the nation on everyone but the rich. "Trickle Down
Economics" was always a lie we all saw through. Party politics, bought and paid for, happily
accepted wealthy dollars in exchange for legislation outlined by the wealthys' lobbyists. The
reality has always been "Trickle Up" and "Trickle Out" economics as American wealth is
grossly concentrated at the top. I like the taxation plan as presented. It still leaves the
filthy rich, well, filthy rich. It started as our money they now have amassed. Decades of
lies and corruption justify any new taxes on the wealthy who need to be convinced their
absent patriotism should be reestablished by law. If the wealthy are going to "Crowd Source"
America, let's make them "Crowd Pleasers". It's a great way to keep the peace. We do want
peace, don't we?
@DJS Ummm, wealthy people, no matter how well meaning or even well-acting (and there are
many who are neither), do not (or should not) be in charge of infrastructure, public health,
national defense, public education and so on. As far as "helping needy people, who never see
it," I wonder what you are thinking. I assure you that the recipients of food stamps,
unemployment, social security, medicare and medicaid benefits certainly "see" it. As do the
rest of us when we have clean air and water (currently under attack by Republicans), safe air
flight (ditto), and well-maintained roads (also ditto).
@Registered Repub (Reply to your reply to FunkyIrishman) Could you please explain how
American workers can be simultaneously 30-40% more productive than Scandinavian workers, and
all American "socialists" (which for you seems to be a synonym with Democrats, and as a
consequence refers to the majority of the American people) "lazy" ... ? And of course America
hasn't a 40% higher productivity rate than Scandinavian countries. In 2015, the US ranked
merely fifth on the OECD's productivity list - after Luxemburg, Ireland, Norway and Belgium.
A US workers adds $68 per hour to the GDP, a Danish worker half a dollar less, and a Swedish
worker $9 dollars less. And maybe Americans "own more cars and live in bigger houses", but
Norwegians are FAR happier, as all studies show. Producing tons of money as a country's
highest ideal is clearly not the best way to have a happy, healthy and well-educated
population and economy that works for all citizens. And funny enough, in the US it's
precisely the party that loves to call itself "the party of values" that indeed
systematically sees money as its main value ... http://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries
/
@Paul Rogers Agree except for abolishing propaganda, which offends the First Amendment.
Better to help others recognize political manipulation and reject irrational or emotional
appeals. Thanks for your reply.
It doesn't matter whether large majorities of Americans or economists or tax experts
support a wealth tax or higher marginal rates. The only poll that matters limits itself to
535 people, the members of the House and Senate. And the net worth of those 535 people is on
average 5 times larger than that of the rest of America. Fourteen have net worths larger than
the $50 million of the proposal. Will they vote to tax themselves more? Though the number may
be small, in a contentious matter and a highly partisan and divided body, every vote
matters.
Let's start simple: close the carried interest loophole. For all the talk of Obama being
about the working class, he didn't get this done. Hedge fund guys had his administration and
Dems lobbied up to prevent closing this. So it's not just the Republicans supporting the
oligarchy. Democrats are guilty too.
Us Americans need to stop seeing ourselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, that's
the problem. I don't care how we do it, either by raising rates, closing loopholes, or both,
but the 1%, the 0.1%, and the 0.01% need to take home less money. They don't "work harder"
than the rest of us, that's complete garbage. Maybe we pass a tiered law stipulating an
allowed pay ratio between the CEO and lowest level employee, based on either company size as
the number of people, or revenue, or some other formula. Or maybe we say you get a lower tax
rate if you meet that ratio, and higher taxes if you don't. I'm glad people are moving the
overton window though.
@Taz Obama was also a moderate Republican. This time, we need a liberal. Who was the last
president to be nearly universally popular? (Except with the mega-rich) FDR. And remember
what he said about his wealthy enemies? "I welcome their hatred!"
Existing US infrastructure is so degraded, the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers)
estimates it will cost $2 trillion just to bring it back up to code. President Trump cut
taxes on the 1%, which will cost about that much in increased debt over ten years. Candidate
Trump floated the idea that this imminent infrastructure cost should be born by the 'little
people' via toll booths, as they schlep themselves to work and back each day just trying to
make their rent money. Americans need to realize something about our government: it costs
money, and that money is not in question. Someone is going to pay that bill: 'nothing is
certain but death and taxes'. As the infrastructure debate illustrates, we can either make
the wealthy pay that cost, or they will make us pay it. But somebody is going to pay it, of
that you can be sure. (Just a suggestion: that $2 trillion is just for delayed maintenance on
existing infrastructure. But that infrastructure was originally constructed, i.e. out of
nothing, back at a time when the maximum marginal income tax was over 90%).
Benjamin Franklin founded the first communally funded public hospital and library, and
Jefferson the the first communally funded public school. Both also touted the benefits of
capitalism, including Franklin in his autobiography, stressing self discipline and creativity
in business; and Jefferson famously said, paraphrasing here, that he 'admired industry and
abhorred slavery' while they touted science and technologies' advances and natural law.
Therefore, they believed in and instantiated a mixed economics plan for the future of the
nation, with both capitalist and socialist dimensions. This was over the objections and boos
of men of lesser ideals, at the time. But the founders became Founders, and the other men of
lesser ideals did not. Therefore, it is the ideals of the founders that should live on in our
country, not other ideals. We can all take a simple pride in the American Exceptionalism that
led Ben Franklin to maneuver against powerful loyalist-capitalists in the 1750's in
Pennsylvania colony, and found the first hospital in Philadelphia above their private
disbelief that it would ever work; the hospital would unquestioningly take in any and all
from off of the streets who needed assistance. The combined ideal vision of America's
founding fathers broke the mold of two-tiered monarchy capitalism, and established mixed
capitalism on the new plateau of democracy. There's no need to apologize, if we aim to
fulfill this vision in a now more pluralist America.
Simply: the USA has perhaps the largest set of overpaid, underperforming rich people the
world has ever seen. Yes, there are always rich people ... but ... at some point they realize
the only significant remaining goal is to make humankind ... well, more human. Teddy R and
Franklin R "got it", even Dwight. But certainly not Saint Ronald. Without implementation of
the Warren or other plans, we will let the rich destroy the fundamentals of society which
allowed them to become rich. Rich includes: law and order, free speech, little corruption
among police, ... children who will grow up and support the rich in their
dotage.
To me the current trend in concentration of income at the top looks like inflation. In
places like San Francisco you have to earn 7 digit incomes to be able to afford housing. In
response housing gets more expensive, and Google will have to increase your salary to make
your ends meet. So now houses will get more expensive... Of course, if you are a school
teacher, or a baker or a cashier at the supermarket, your goose is cooked. If a hedge fund
manager can afford to pay $200+ million for a penthouse where you used to live, you are going
to be homeless
The real justice of such a plan is that money could be made to move throughout the system
stimulating the economy and shared prosperity. What should be obvious to all and hopefully
will before the next election cycle is that the Dems are imaginatively searching for
solutions and coming up with great ideas.
@Baldwin - How about property tax? Tax on your same home over an over again, with the home
itself paid for with money that was already taxed. T'would be no worse than
that.
We have no hesitation in shaming those who get a dopamine rush from alcohol or from drugs
or from sex or (occasionally) from an obscene accumulation of power. But as the saying goes,
you can never be too rich or too thin. Well, that's a cultural meme not a Platonic truth, one
probably dating back to at least Freud (if not Augustine) who preferred we "sublimate" our
sexual lust for money/power lust because the latter is, at least theoretically, more
"productive" for society. Except when it isn't. And when dopamine (a/k/a/ greed) driven
plutocrats use their wealth to corrupt the system so that they can continue to accumulate
more wealth and power, it isn't. Neuter them.
It's time we ask ourselves this: What happens if we do nothing versus if we do something?
If we do nothing, we continue with a small group of family dynasties that owns everything,
whose primary commitment is only to amassing more wealth. We have a precedent for this in the
robber barons of the late 1800's. The outcome? They drove the U.S. economy off the cliff in
the 1920's. (Yes, simplified, but not much.) What happens if we do what Warren proposes -- or
something similar? More tax money to solve problems, and we need the money. We just gave
these people around $1.5 trillion in tax breaks, and the data clearly show they will not
trickle down on us. And we're not remotely addressing climate change or crumbling
infrastructure -- situations that will strain our social and economic capacity for perhaps a
century. But just as important, it would cap the capacity of 75,000 people to make all the de
facto decisions for our society. Democracy would be reinvigorated. Throw in the destruction
of Citizens United, and it would usher in a new era in America. Of course, it is guaranteed
that the ultra-rich, their super-rich pals, and the politicians they buy through Citizens
United will fight this tooth and nail. For them it would be: to the barricades! Just like
corporations, their loyalty is to themselves and their wealth, not to their
country.
Wealth Redistribution is only one of the four legs of the stool of an inclusive society.
Prof Krugman, AOC and Democrats would do well to expand the narrative to address right wing
concerns: 1. Effective government spending on public services that improve welfare and
national wealth and risk taking and knowledge generation (eg NASA) that the private sector
just wont do - root out inefficiencies in the system, ensure incentives for productivity are
maximized and keep operations lean and accountable to society. 2. Campaign finance reform:
mandate air time for election coverage as a public good and give parties public funds and
budget ceilings to ensure a level playing field. Also ensure redistricting makes all races
competitive scross party lines as the preeminent rule. Eliminate the electoral college and
moderately shift senate power to more populous states. 3. Equalise access to educational
opportunities by removing the link between geography and housing and education quality and
massively supporting early education programmes across the board. Improve educational
outcomes to ensure the majority of society is capable of critical thinking. 4. Redistribute
wealth and limit the power of elites to tilt the system in their favour: both in government
policy and in how the judicial system operates (no more a la carte legal representation
quality based on ability to pay).
@Michael Who says it will be changed? You? Progressive taxation is not seizing assets.
Without it a modern state cannot function. And the AMT came into existence because of the
efforts of people like Donald Trump to evade taxation.
Income inequality along with climate change are the two BIG issues that need to be
addressed. The rollback in the progressive income tax that began with Ronald Reagan needs to
be reversed. The proposals by Sen. Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Steven Rattner in
today's Times need to be debated and carefully evaluated. But, there are related issues that
are relevant to this debate concerning how to cope with automation and artificial
intelligence that will dramatic effect the labor market for those still struggling for decent
paying jobs. Democrats must not lose sight of their base--blue-collar, lower- and
middle-class voters still struggling with wage stagnation and the loss of manufacturing jobs.
That's where Hillary Clinton lost the last election, and while Democrats may feel good about
taxing the rich, they must not forget the 99 plus percent who are still in need of
help.
I feel this is exactly what this country needs. The rich have become richer and seem to
demand more and more. Time to stop this incredible greed and put some of those dollars back
to work in the country. Hopefully all of the Dems will agree with this.
Excellent article and kudos to Elizabeth Warren. On top of her and AOC's proposals I would
add a 100% inheritance tax on estates over $1M. This isn't my idea but that of my favorite
law school professor: the taxee doesn't care because s/he's dead; any money passed on to
children is a complete windfall to them. Let's end the aristocracy.
The time has got to be ripe for these kinds of proposals. The primary source of
unhappiness in the working class throughout the western world is the feeling of being left
behind and not having their problems addressed. In the US we need to fix our crumbling
infrastructure, provide a livable minimum wage and universal health care. These goals can
easily be achieve by addressing the outrageous accumulation of wealth by the top 1%.
Implement Warren's plan, AOC's 70% tax, tax capital gains the same as income, and add a 1%
fee on all stock trades. The money the rich are hoarding needs to be invested in the
betterment of society. That would truly make America great again.
@Alice...Inflation has been low and stable for 20 years and quantitative easing has had no
effect on it, despite the forecasts of most right-wing economists. If you knew anything about
macroeconomics you would be aware that in the past some governments have had serious
struggles with the control of inflation.
It's a sad, very sad day, when in order to have a very brief but concrete idea about what
Warren just proposed, you have to read an op-ed, not a NYT article, as that article just
skips the very content of her speech and instead focuses on what most MSM constantly focus
on: a politician as an individual wanting a career in DC, and whether this or that will
advance or hurt that career (supposedly based not on policy but "likability"). MSM, I really
hope that this time you will do your job! That Trump and the lying GOP won the 2016 elections
is as much due to Fox News constant barrage of fake news as to MSM's tendency to
systematically silence the most relevant facts (most of the time not in order to distort the
truth, as Trump falsely claims, but simply because of their "small" concept of political
journalism, which often seems closer to a sports match report than to a way to build a truly
informed and engaged democratic civil society, even though that's precisely the crucial job
of the fourth branch of government, in a democracy).
@Linda Helping the poor seems to be your prescription for salvation. But what hope is
there for those who don't help the poor when they actually made and continue to make people
poor?
It's the T word that hangs people up. On any given day, the paper wealth of billionaires
can gain or lose one or two percent based on the fluctuations of the stock market. They
happily play the numbers to stabilize -- and hopefully improve -- their portfolios, but they
manage to take the lumps without having to alter their lavish lifestyles. They're fixated on
control, which they believe is stolen from them by big government. But in the long run, they
really don't feel the pain on a personal level. Let 'em be taxed.
Bully for Elizabeth Warren! Take the time to read or skim the engaging books she has
written about the economic plight of the American family---available on Amazon, and in your
local library.
If her bid for the nomination fails the winning candidate should commit to her being their
Treasury secretary. She knows how to reform and tame finance.
@Ana Luisa Hillary totally ignored the blue-collar voters in the Midwest "blue wall"
states and did not advocate for stronger unions. In fact, she never agreed with the
progressive proposal for a $15/hr. minimum wage. She was a centrist, establishment, Wall
Street candidate who picked a center-right running mate rather than uniting the party by
picking a progressive like Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. The election NEVER should have been
close, but Clinton was out-of-touch with the working class and most Sanders progressives--and
it cost her.
@carlyle 145 This has nothing to do with globalism, and everything with the fact that for
too long, many people didn't vote, allowing the GOP to fire up their base with fake news and
as such force Democrats in DC to move more and more to the right, each time they had to
compromise with the GOP because "we the people" didn't give them the votes to control DC. And
in a democracy, ALL real, radical, lasting, democratic progress is step by step progress. So
as long as progressives don't see that Democrats' are their natural allies and simply wait
until someone comes along who claims to be able to single-handedly change everything
overnight, it's the lying GOP and their Big Money corruption that will continue to destroy
the country. Conclusion: stop "hunting for a leader to save us", in a democracy only "we the
people" can save us. So instead of standing at the sidelines yelling "not enough!" to those
fighting in the mud each time they managed to get us one step closer to the finish line,
start focusing on that finish line too, then roll up your sleeves and come standing in the
mud too, and then the next step forward will be taken much faster
"... Why does everyone make Trump out to be a victim, poor ol Trump, he's being screwed by all those people he himself appointed, poor ol persecuted Trump. Sounds like our Jewish friends with all the victimization BS. ..."
"... I think Israel is just a capitalist creation, nothing to do with Jews, just a foothold in he middle east for Wall St to have a base to control the oil and gas there, they didn't create Israel until they discovered how much oil was there, and realized how much control over the world it would give them to control it. ..."
"... It is the love of money, the same thing the Bible warned us about. Imperialism/globalism is the latest stage of capitalism, that is what all of this is about, follow the money. ..."
I heartily dislike and find despicable the socialist government of Maduro, just as I did
Hugo Chavez when he was in power. I have some good friends there, one of whom was a student
of mine when I taught in Argentina many years ago, and he and his family resolutely oppose
Maduro. Those socialist leaders in Caracas are tin-pot dictator wannabees who have wrecked
the economy of that once wealthy country; and they have ridden roughshod over the
constitutional rights of the citizens. My hope has been that the people of Venezuela,
perhaps supported by elements in the army, would take action to rid the country of those
tyrants.
Hard to take this guy seriously when he spouts Fox News level propaganda.
Why does everyone make Trump out to be a victim, poor ol Trump, he's being screwed by
all those people he himself appointed, poor ol persecuted Trump. Sounds like our Jewish
friends with all the victimization BS.
Its clear that voting no longer works folks, this is an undemocratic and illegitimate
"government" we have here. We let them get away with killing JFK, RFK, MLK, Vietnam, we let
them get away with 9/11, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria. They've made a mess in Africa. All
the refugees into Europe, all the refugees from Latin America that have already come from CIA
crimes, more will come.
We wouldn't need a wall if Wall St would stop with their BS down there!
You can't just blame Jews, yes there are lots of Jews in Corporate America, bu t not all
of them are, and there are lots of Jews who speak out against this. We were doing this long
before Israel came into existence. You can't just blame everything one one group, I think
Israel/Zionist are responsible for a lot of BS, but you can't exclude CIA, Wall St,
Corporations, Banks, The MIC either. Its not just one group, its all of them. They're all
evil, they're imperialists and they're all capitalists.
I think Israel is just a capitalist creation, nothing to do with Jews, just a foothold
in he middle east for Wall St to have a base to control the oil and gas there, they didn't
create Israel until they discovered how much oil was there, and realized how much control
over the world it would give them to control it.
Those people moving to Israel are being played, just like the "Christian Zionists" here
are, its a cult. Most "Jews" are atheists anyhow, and it seems any ol greedy white guy can
claim to be a Jew. So how do you solve a "Jewish Problem" if anybody can claim to be a Jew? I
think solving the capitalist problem would be a little easier to enforce.
All of the shills can scream about communists, socialists and marxists all they want.
Capitalism is the problem always has been always will be. Its a murderous, immoral,
unsustainable system that encourages greed, it is a system who's driving force is maximizing
profits, and as such the State controlled or aligned with Corporations is the most advanced
form of capitalism because it is the most profitable. They're raping the shit out of us,
taking our money to fund their wars, so they can make more money while paying little to no
taxes at all. Everything, everyone here complains about is caused by CAPITALISM, but nobody
dares say it, they've been programmed since birth to think that way.
We should nationalize our oil and gas, instead of letting foreigners come in and steal it,
again paying little or no taxes on it, then selling the oil they took from our country back
to us. Russia and Venezuela do it, Libya did it, Iraq did it, and they used the money for the
people of the country, they didn't let the capitalists plunder their wealth like the traitors
running our country. We're AT LEAST $21 trillion in the hole now from this wonderful system
of ours, don't you think we should try something else? Duh!
It is the love of money, the same thing the Bible warned us about.
Imperialism/globalism is the latest stage of capitalism, that is what all of this is about,
follow the money. Just muh opinion
The opposition hates me. I can do no right. The
Trumptards blindly support me. I can do no wrong. There are not enough independent thinkers
to make a difference as the two main sides bitterly fight each other over every minute,
meaningless issue. I can pretty much do as I please without consequence ..like pay off all my
buddies and pander to the jews/globalist/elites.
I'd add: and by doing the last, I could cut a deal with the real TPTBs as to for what happens
after I leave White House.
This article from 2017 looks like it was written yesterday. Trump betrayal of his elctorate on multiple levels, essentially on all
key poin of his election program mkes him "Republican Obama".
What is interesting about Trump foreign policy is his version of neoliberal "gangster capitalism" on foreign arena:
might is right principle applied like universal opener. Previous administrations tried to put a lipstick on the pig. Trump
does not even bother.
In terms of foreign policy, and even during the transition before Trump's inauguration, there were other, more disturbing signs
of where Trump would be heading soon. When Fidel Castro died on November 25, 2016,
Trump seemed jubilant as if he had somehow been vindicated, and took the opportunity to slander Castro as a "brutal dictator" who
"oppressed his own people" and turned Cuba into a "totalitarian island".
Notable quotes:
"... However, when he delivered his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, Trump appeared to reaffirm his campaign themes of anti-interventionism. In particular he seemed to turn the government's back on a long-standing policy of cultural imperialism , stating: "We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone". In addition he said his government would "seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world," and he understood the importance of national sovereignty when he added, "it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first". ..."
"... Yet when it came to Russia, Trump could have instantly removed sanctions that were imposed by Obama in his last weeks in office -- an irresponsible and dangerous act by Obama, where foreign policy was used as a partisan tool in the service of shoring up a crummy conspiracy theory about "Russian hacking" in order to deny the Democrats any culpability in their much deserved defeat. ..."
"... The entire conflict with Russia that has developed in recent years, on the US side, was totally unnecessary, illogical, and quite preventable. ..."
"... Just two weeks after violating his promise to end the US role as the world's policeman and his vow to extricate the US from wars for regime change, Trump sold out again. "I love WikiLeaks -- " -- this is what Trump exclaimed in a speech on October 10, 2016. Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks is thus truly astounding. ..."
"... AP: If I could fit a couple of more topics. Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, is taking a tougher line suddenly on Julian Assange, saying that arresting him is a priority. You were supportive of what WikiLeaks was doing during the campaign with the release of the Clinton emails. Do you think that arresting Assange is a priority for the United States? ..."
"... AP: But that didn't mean that you supported what Assange is doing? ..."
"... AP: Can I just ask you, though -- do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to arrest Julian Assange? ..."
"... While there is no denying the extensive data about the severe impacts of NAFTA on select states and industries in the US, witnessed by the closure of tens of thousands of factories and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is little support for the claim that Canada and Mexico, as wholes, have instead fared well and that the US as a whole has been the loser thanks to them. ..."
"... Since NAFTA was implemented, migration from Mexico to the US skyrocketed dramatically. US agricultural industries sent millions of Mexican farmers into food poverty, and ultimately drove them away from agriculture ..."
"... As for per capita GDP, so treasured by economists, NAFTA had no positive impact on Mexico -- in fact, per capita GDP is nearly a flat line for the entire period since 1994. Finally, Trump does not mention that in terms of the number of actual protectionist measures that have been implemented, the US leads the world . ..."
"... To put Trump's position on NAFTA in bold relief, it is not that he is decidedly against free trade. In fact, he often claims he supports free trade, as long as it is "fair". However, his notion of fairness is very lopsided -- a trade agreement is fair only when the US reaps the greater share of benefits. ..."
"... As argued in the previous section, if Trump is to be the newfound champion of this imperialism -- empire's prodigal son -- then what an abysmally poor choice he is ..."
"... On the one hand, he helped to unleash US anti-interventionism (usually called "isolationism" not to call it anti-imperialism, which would then admit to imperialism which is still denied by most of the dominant elites). On the other hand, in trying to now contain such popular sentiment, he loses credibility -- after having lost credibility with the groups his campaign displaced. ..."
"... As for Trump's domestic opposition, what should be most pertinent are issues of conflict of interest and nepotism . Here members of Trump's base are more on target yet again, when they reject the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the White House ("we didn't elect Ivanka or Jared"), than are those distracted by identity politics. ..."
"... As Trump leverages the presidency to upgrade the Trump family to the transnational capitalist class, and reinforces the power of US imperialism which that class has purchased, conflict of interest and nepotism will be the main political signposts of the transformation of the Trump presidency, but they could also be the targets for a refined strategy of opposition. ..."
Trump could have kept quiet, and lost nothing. Instead what he was attacking -- and the irony was missed on his fervently right
wing supporters -- was someone who was a leader in the anti-globalist movement, from long before it was ever called that. Fidel Castro
was a radical pioneer of independence, self-reliance, and self-determination.
Castro turned Cuba from an American-owned sugar plantation and brothel, a lurid backwater in the Caribbean, into a serious international
actor opposed to globalizing capitalism. There was no sign of any acknowledgment of this by Trump, who instead chose to parrot the
same people who would vilify him using similar terms (evil, authoritarian, etc.). Of course, Trump respects only corporate executives
and billionaires, not what he would see as some rag-tag Third World revolutionary. Here Trump's supporters generally failed, using
Castro's death as an opportunity for tribal partisanship, another opportunity to attack "weak liberals" like Obama who made minor
overtures to Cuba (too little, too late).
Their distrust of "the establishment" was nowhere to be found this time: their ignorance of Cuba and their resort to stock clichés
and slogans had all been furnished to them by the same establishment they otherwise claimed to oppose.
Just to be clear, the above is not meant to indicate any reversal on Trump's part regarding Cuba. He has been consistently anti-communist,
and fairly consistent in his denunciations of Fidel Castro. What is significant is that -- far from overcoming the left-right divide
-- Trump shores up the barriers, even at the cost of denouncing others who have a proven track record of fighting against neoliberal
globalization and US interventionism. In these regards, Trump has no track record. Even among his rivals in the Republican primaries,
senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul had more of an anti-interventionist track record.
However, when he delivered his inaugural address
on January 20, 2017, Trump appeared to reaffirm his campaign themes of anti-interventionism. In particular he seemed to turn the
government's back on a long-standing policy of
cultural imperialism
, stating: "We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone". In addition he said his government would "seek friendship and goodwill
with the nations of the world," and he understood the importance of national sovereignty when he added, "it is the right of all nations
to put their own interests first".
Russia
Yet when it came to Russia, Trump could have instantly removed sanctions that were imposed by Obama in his last weeks in office
-- an irresponsible and dangerous act by Obama, where foreign policy was used as a partisan tool in the service of shoring up a crummy
conspiracy theory about "Russian hacking" in order to deny the Democrats any culpability in their much deserved defeat.
Instead, Trump continued the sanctions, as if out of meek deference to Obama's policy, one founded on lies and antagonism
toward Trump himself. Rather than repair the foul attempt to sabotage the US-Russian relationship in preparation for his presidency,
Trump simply abided and thus became an accomplice. To be clear,
Trump has done precisely nothing
to dampen the near mass hysteria that has been manufactured in the US about alleged -- indeed imaginary -- "Russian intervention".
His comments, both during the electoral campaign and even early into his presidency, about wanting good relations with Russia,
have been replaced by Trump's admissions that US relations with Russia are at a low point (Putin agreed: "I would say the level of
trust [between Russia and the US] is at a workable level, especially in the military dimension, but it hasn't improved. On the contrary,
it has degraded " and his spokesman called
the relations " deplorable ".)
Rather than use the power of his office to calm fears, to build better ties with Russia, and to make meeting with Vladimir Putin
a top priority, Trump has again done nothing , except escalating tensions. The entire conflict with Russia that has
developed in recent years, on the US side, was totally unnecessary, illogical, and quite preventable. Russia had actively facilitated
the US' war in Afghanistan for over a decade, and was a consistent collaborator on numerous levels. It is up to thinking American
officials to honestly explain what motivated them to tilt relations with Russia, because it is certainly not Russia's doing. The
only explanation that makes any sense is that the US leadership grew concerned that Russia was no longer teetering on the edge of
total socio-economic breakdown, as it was under the neoliberal Boris Yeltsin, but has instead resurfaced as a major actor in international
affairs, and one that champions anti-neoliberal objectives of enhanced state sovereignty and self-determination.
WikiLeaks
Just two weeks after violating his promise to end the US role as the world's policeman and his vow to extricate the US from
wars for regime change, Trump sold out again.
"I love WikiLeaks --
" -- this is what Trump exclaimed in a speech on October 10, 2016. Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks is thus truly astounding.
After finding so much use for WikiLeaks' publication of the Podesta emails, which became incorporated into his campaign speeches,
and which fuelled the writing and speaking of journalists and bloggers sympathetic to Trump -- he was now effectively declaring WikiLeaks
to be both an enemy and a likely target of US government action, in even more blunt terms than we heard during the past eight years
under Obama. This is not mere continuity with the past, but a dramatic escalation. Rather than praise Julian Assange for his work,
call for an end to the illegal impediments to his seeking asylum, swear off any US calls for extraditing and prosecuting Assange,
and perhaps meeting with him in person, Trump has done all of the opposite. Instead we learn that Trump's administration may
file arrest charges against Assange
. Mike Pompeo ,
chosen by Trump to head the CIA, who had himself
cited WikiLeaks as a reliable source of proof about how the Democratic National Committee had rigged its campaign, now declared
WikiLeaks to be a "
non-state hostile intelligence service ," along with vicious personal slander against Assange.
Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks was one that he defended in terms that were not just a deceptive rewriting of history, but one
that was also fearful -- "I don't support or unsupport" WikiLeaks, was what Trump was now saying in his dash for the nearest exit.
The backtracking is so obvious in this
interview
Trump gave to the AP , that his shoes must have left skid marks on the floor:
AP: If I could fit a couple of more topics. Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, is taking a tougher line suddenly on
Julian Assange, saying that arresting him is a priority. You were supportive of what WikiLeaks was doing during the campaign with
the release of the Clinton emails. Do you think that arresting Assange is a priority for the United States?
TRUMP: When Wikileaks came out never heard of Wikileaks, never heard of it. When Wikileaks came out, all I was just saying
is, "Well, look at all this information here, this is pretty good stuff." You know, they tried to hack the Republican, the RNC,
but we had good defenses. They didn't have defenses, which is pretty bad management. But we had good defenses, they tried to hack
both of them. They weren't able to get through to Republicans. No, I found it very interesting when I read this stuff and I said,
"Wow." It was just a figure of speech. I said, "Well, look at this. It's good reading."
AP: But that didn't mean that you supported what Assange is doing?
TRUMP: No, I don't support or unsupport. It was just information .
AP: Can I just ask you, though -- do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to
arrest Julian Assange?
TRUMP: I am not involved in that decision, but if Jeff Sessions wants to do it, it's OK with me. I didn't know about that decision,
but if they want to do it, it's OK with me.
First, Trump invents the fictitious claim that WikiLeaks was responsible for hacking the DNC, and that WikiLeaks also tried to
hack the Republicans. Second, he pretends to be an innocent bystander, a spectator, in his own administration -- whatever others
decide, is "OK" with him, not that he knows about their decisions, but it's all up to others. He has no power, all of a sudden.
Again, what Trump is displaying in this episode is his ultimate attachment to his class, with all of its anxieties and its contempt
for rebellious, marginal upstarts. Trump shuns any sort of "loyalty" to WikiLeaks (not that they ever had a working relationship)
or any form of gratitude, because then that would imply a debt and therefore a transfer of value -- whereas Trump's core ethics are
those of expedience and greed (he admits that much).
This move has come with a cost , with members of Trump's support base openly denouncing the betrayal. 6
NAFTA
On NAFTA , Trump claims he has not changed his position -- yet, from openly denouncing the free trade agreement and promising
to terminate it, he now vows only to seek modifications and amendments, which means supporting NAFTA. He appeared to be
awfully quick to obey the diplomatic pressure of Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and Mexico's President, Enrique Peńa
Nieto. Trump's entire position on NAFTA now comes into question.
While there is no denying the extensive data about the severe impacts of NAFTA on select states and industries in the US,
witnessed by the closure of tens of thousands of factories and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is little support
for the claim that Canada and Mexico, as wholes, have instead fared well and that the US as a whole has been the loser thanks to
them.
This really deserves to be treated at length, separately from this article. However, for now, let's keep in mind that when
Trump complains about Canadian softwood lumber and dairy exports to the US, his argument about NAFTA is without merit. Neither commodity
is part of the NAFTA agreement.
Moreover, where dairy is concerned, the problem is US overproduction.
Wisconsin alone has more
dairy cows than all of Canada . There is a net surplus , in the US' favour, with respect to US dairy exports to Canada.
Overall,
the US has a net surplus in the trade in
goods and services with Canada. Regarding Mexico, the irony of Trump's denunciations of imaginary Mexican victories is that he
weakens his own criticisms of immigration.
Since NAFTA was implemented,
migration from Mexico to
the US skyrocketed dramatically. US agricultural industries sent millions of Mexican farmers into food poverty, and ultimately
drove them away from agriculture.
As for per capita GDP, so treasured by economists, NAFTA had no positive impact on Mexico -- in fact,
per capita GDP is nearly a flat
line for the entire period since 1994. Finally, Trump does not mention that in terms of the number of actual protectionist measures
that have been implemented, the
US leads the world .
To put Trump's position on NAFTA in bold relief, it is not that he is decidedly against free trade. In fact, he often claims
he supports free trade, as long as it is "fair". However, his notion of fairness is very lopsided -- a trade agreement is fair only
when the US reaps the greater share of benefits.
His arguments with respect to Canada are akin to those of a looter or raider. He wants to block lumber imports from Canada, at
the same time as he wants to break the Canadian dairy market wide open to absorb US excess production. That approach is at the core
of what defined the US as a "new empire" in the 1800s. In addition, while Trump was quick to tear up the TPP, he has said nothing
about TISA and TTIP.
Mexico
Trump's argument with Mexico is also disturbing for what it implies. It would seem that any
evidence of production
in Mexico causes Trump concern. Mexico should not only keep its people -- however many are displaced by US imports -- but it should
also be as dependent as possible on the US for everything except oil. Since Trump has consistently declared his antagonism to OPEC,
ideally Mexico's oil would be sold for a few dollars per barrel.
China
Trump's turn on China almost provoked laughter from his many domestic critics. Absurdly, what figures prominently in most renditions
of the story of Trump's change on China (including his own), is a big piece of chocolate cake. The missile strike on Syria was, according
to Wilbur Ross, the "
after-dinner entertainment ". Here, Trump's loud condemnations of China on trade issues were suddenly quelled -- and it is not
because chocolate has magical properties. Instead it seems Trump has been willing to settle on
selling out citizens' interests , and
particularly those who voted for him, in return for China's assistance on North Korea. Let's be clear: countering and dominating
North Korea is an established favourite among neoconservatives. Trump's priority here is fully "neocon," and the submergence of trade
issues in favour of militaristic preferences is the one case where neoconservatives might be distinguished from the otherwise identical
neoliberals.
North Korea
Where North Korea is concerned, Trump chose to manufacture a "
crisis ". North Korea has actually done nothing
to warrant a sudden outbreak of panic over it being supposedly aggressive and threatening. North Korea is no more aggressive than
any person defending their survival can be called belligerent. The constant series of US military exercises in South Korea, or near
North Korean waters, is instead a deliberate provocation to a state whose existence the US nearly extinguished. Even last year the
US Air Force publicly boasted of having
"nearly destroyed" North Korea -- language one would have expected from the Luftwaffe in WWII. The US continues to maintain roughly
60,000 troops on the border between North and South Korea, and continues to refuse to formally declare an end to the Korean War and
sign a peace treaty
. Trump then announced he was sending an "armada" to the Korean peninsula, and boasted of how "very powerful" it was. This was in
addition to the US deploying the THAAD missile system in South Korea. Several of his messages in Twitter were written using highly
provocative and threatening language. When asked if he would start a war, Trump glibly replied: "
I don't know. I mean, we'll see ". On another occasion Trump stated, "There is a chance that we could end up having a
major, major conflict with North
Korea. Absolutely". When the world's leading military superpower declares its intention to destroy you, then there is nothing you
can do in your defense which anyone could justly label as "over the top". Otherwise, once again Trump posed as a parental figure,
the world's chief babysitter -- picture Trump, surrounded by children taking part in the "Easter egg roll" at the White House, being
asked about North Korea and responding "they gotta behave". Trump would presume to teach manners to North Korea, using the only tools
of instruction that seem to be the first and last resort of US foreign policy (and the "defense" industry): bombs.
Syria
Attacking Syria , on purportedly humanitarian grounds, is for many (including vocal supporters) one of the most glaring contradictions
of Trump's campaign statements about not embroiling the US in failed wars of regime change and world policing. During the campaign,
he was in favour of Russia's collaboration with Syria in the fight against ISIS. For years he had condemned Obama for involving the
US in Syria, and consistently opposed military intervention there. All that was consigned to the archive of positions Trump declared
to now be worthless. That there had been a change in Trump's position is not a matter of dispute --
Trump made the point himself :
"I like to think of myself as a very flexible person. I don't have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go
the same way, I don't change. Well, I do change and I am flexible, and I'm proud of that flexibility. And I will tell you, that
attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me -- big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing. And I've been watching
it and seeing it, and it doesn't get any worse than that. And I have that flexibility, and it's very, very possible -- and I will
tell you, it's already happened that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much. And if you look back over the last
few weeks, there were other attacks using gas. You're now talking about a whole different level".
Bending to the will of the prevailing Cold War and neo-McCarthyist atmosphere in the US, rife with anti-Russian conspiracy theories,
Trump found an easy opportunity to score points with the hostile media, ever so mindful as he is about approval ratings, polls, and
media coverage. Some explain Trump's reversals as arising from his
pursuit
of
public adulation -- and while the media play the key role in purveying celebrity status, they are also a stiff bastion of imperialist
culture. Given his many years as a the host of a popular TV show, and as the owner of the Miss Universe Pageant, there is some logical
merit to the argument. But I think even more is at work, as explained in paragraphs above.
According to Eric Trump it was at the urging of Ivanka that Donald Trump decided to strike a humanitarian-militarist pose. He
would play the part of the Victorian parent, only he would use missiles to teach unruly children lessons about violence. Using language
typically used against him by the mainstream media, Trump now felt entitled to pontificate that Assad is "evil," an "
animal ," who would
have
to go . When did he supposedly come to this realization? Did Assad become evil at the same time Trump was inaugurated? Why would
Trump have kept so silent about "evil" on the campaign trail? Trump of course is wrong: it's not that the world changed and he changed
with it; rather, he invented a new fiction to suit his masked intentions. Trump's supposed opponents and critics, like the Soros-funded
organizer of the women's march Linda Sarsour, showed her
approval of even more drastic
action by endorsing messages by what sounded like a stern school mistress who thought that 59 cruise missiles were just a mere "slap
on the wrist". Virtually every neocon who is publicly active applauded Trump, as did most senior Democrats. The loudest
opposition
, however, came from Trump's
own base , with a number of articles
featuring criticism from Trump's
supporters , and one conservative publication calling him outright a "
weakling
and a political ingrate ".
Members of the Trump administration have played various word games with the public on intervention in Syria. From unnamed officials
saying the missile strike was a "one off," to named officials
promising more if there
were any other suspected chemical attacks (or use of barrel bombs -- and this while the US dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb in
existence on Afghanistan); some said that
regime change was not the goal,
and then others made it clear that was the ultimate
goal ; and then Trump saying, "Our policy is the same, it hasn't changed.
We're not going into Syria " -- even
though
Trump himself greatly increased the number of US troops he deployed to Syria , illegally, in an escalation of the least
protested invasion in recent history. Now we should know enough not to count this as mere ambiguity, but as deliberate obfuscation
that offers momentary (thinly veiled) cover for a
renewal of neocon policy .
We can draw an outline of Trump's liberal imperialism when it comes to Syria, which is likely to be applied elsewhere. First,
Trump's interventionist policy regarding Syria is one that continues to treat that country as if it were terra nullius ,
a mere playground for superpower politics. Second, Trump is clearly continuing with the
neoconservative agenda and its hit list of
states to be terminated by US military action, as famously confirmed by Gen. Wesley Clark. Even Trump's strategy for justifying the
attack on Syria echoed the two prior Bush presidential administrations -- selling war with the infamous "incubator babies" myth and
the myth of "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs). In many ways, Trump's presidency is thus shaping up to be either the seventh term
of the George H.W. Bush regime, or the fifth straight term of the George W. Bush regime. Third, Trump is taking ownership of an extremely
dangerous conflict, with costs that could surpass anything witnessed by the war on Iraq (which also continues). Fourth, by highlighting
the importance of photographs in allegedly changing his mind, Trump has placed a high market value on propaganda featuring dead babies.
His actions in Syria will now create an effective demand for the pornographic trade in pictures of atrocities. These are matters
of great importance to the transnational capitalist class, which demands full global penetrability, diminished state power (unless
in the service of this class' goals), a uniformity of expectations and conformity in behaviour, and an emphasis on individual civil
liberties which are the basis for defending private property and consumerism.
Venezuela
It is very disturbing to see how Venezuela is being framed as ripe for US intervention, in ways that distinctly echo the lead
up to the US war on Libya. Just as disturbing is that Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has a clear conflict of interest
regarding Venezuela, from his recent role as CEO of
Exxon
and its conflict with the government of Venezuela over its nationalization of oil. Tillerson is, by any definition, a clear-cut
member of the transnational capitalist class. The Twitter account of the
State
Department has a battery of messages sternly lecturing Venezuela about the treatment of protesters, while also pontificating
on the Venezuelan Constitution as if the US State Department had become a global supreme court. What is impressive is the seamless
continuity in the nature of the messages on Venezuela from that account, as if no change of government happened between Obama's time
and Trump's. Nikki Haley, Trump's neocon ambassador to the UN, issued
a statement that read like it had been written by her predecessors, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, a statement which in itself
is an unacceptable intervention in Venezuelan internal affairs. For Trump's part, from just days
before the election, to a couple of weeks
after his inauguration, he has sent explicit
messages of support for anti-government
forces in Venezuela. In February, Trump
imposed sanctions on Venezuela's
Vice President. After Syria and North Korea, Venezuela is seeming the likely focus of US interventionism under Trump.
NATO
Rounding out the picture, at least for now (this was just the first hundred days of Trump's presidency), was Trump's outstanding
reversal on NATO -- in fact, once again he stated the reversal himself, and without explanation either: "
I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete ". This came just days after the US missile strike against Syria, and just as
Ivanka Trump was about to represent
his government at a meeting of globalist women, the
W20 . NATO has served as
the transnational military alliance at the service of the transnational capitalist class, and particularly the military and political
members of the TCC. 7
Saving Neoliberalism?
Has Trump saved neoliberal capitalism from its ongoing demise? Has he sustained popular faith in liberal political ideals? Are
we still in the dying days of liberalism
? If there had been a centrally coordinated plan to plant an operative among the ranks of populist conservatives and independents,
to channel their support for nationalism into support for the persona of the plant, and to then have that plant steer a course straight
back to shoring up neoliberal globalism -- then we might have had a wonderful story of a masterful conspiracy, the biggest heist
in the history of elections anywhere. A truly "rigged system" could be expected to behave that way. Was Trump designated to take
the fall in a rigged game, only his huge ego got in the way when he realized he could realistically win the election and he decided
to really tilt hard against his partner, Hillary Clinton? It could be the basis for a novel, or a Hollywood political comedy. I have
no way of knowing if it could be true.
Framed within the terms of what we do know, there was relief by the ousted group of political elites and the liberal globalist
media at the sight of Trump's reversals, and a sense that
their vision had been vindicated.
However, if they are hoping that the likes of Trump will serve as a reliable flag bearer, then theirs is a misguided wishful thinking.
If someone so demonized and ridiculed, tarnished as an evil thug and racist fascist, the subject of mass demonstrations in the US
and abroad, is the latest champion of (neo)liberalism, then we are certainly witnessing its dying days.
Is Trump Beneficial for Anti-Imperialism?
Once one is informed enough and thus prepared to understand that anti-imperialism is not the exclusive preserve of the left (a
left which anyway has mostly shunned it over the last two decades), that it
did not originate with the
left , and that it has a long and distinguished history
in the US itself , then we can move
toward some interesting realizations. The facts, borne out by surveys and my own online immersion among pro-Trump social media users,
is that one of the
significantreasons
why Trump won is due to the growth in popularity of basic anti-imperialist principles (even if not recognized under that name): for
example, no more world policing, no transnational militarization, no more interventions abroad, no more regime change, no war, and
no globalism. Nationalists in Europe, as in Russia, have also pushed forward a basic anti-imperialist vision. Whereas in Latin America
anti-imperialism is largely still leftist, in Europe and North America the left-right divide has become blurred, but the crucial
thing is that at least now we can speak of anti-imperialism gaining strength in these three major continents. Resistance against
globalization has been the primary objective, along with strengthening national sovereignty, protecting local cultural identity,
and opposing free trade and transnational capital. Unfortunately, some anti-imperialist writers (on the left in fact) have tended
to restrict their field of vision to military matters primarily, while almost completely neglecting the economic and cultural, and
especially domestic dimensions of imperialism. (I am grossly generalizing of course, but I think it is largely accurate.) Where structures
such as NAFTA are concerned, many of these same leftist anti-imperialists, few as they are, have had virtually nothing to say. It
could be that they have yet to fully recognize that the transnational capitalist class has, gradually over the last seven decades,
essentially purchased the power of US imperialism. Therefore the TCC's imperialism includes NAFTA, just as it includes open borders,
neoliberal identity politics, and drone strikes. They are all different parts of the same whole.
As argued in the previous section, if Trump is to be the newfound champion of this imperialism -- empire's prodigal son --
then what an abysmally poor choice he is. 8
On the one hand, he helped to unleash US anti-interventionism (usually called "isolationism" not to call it anti-imperialism,
which would then admit to imperialism which is still denied by most of the dominant elites). On the other hand, in trying to now
contain such popular sentiment, he loses credibility -- after having lost credibility with the groups his campaign displaced.
In addition to that, given that his candidacy aggravated internal divisions in the US, which have not subsided with his assumption
of office, these domestic social and cultural conflicts cause a serious deficit of legitimacy, a loss of political capital. A declining
economy will also deprive him of capital in the strict sense. Moreover, given the kind of persona the media have crafted, the daily
caricaturing of Trump will significantly spur anti-Americanism around the world. If suddenly even Canadian academics are talking
about boycotting the US, then the worm has truly turned. Trump can only rely on "hard power" (military violence), because "soft power"
is almost out of the question now that Trump has been constructed as a barbarian. Incompetent and/or undermined governance will also
render Trump a deficient upholder of the status quo. The fact that nationalist movements around the world are not centrally coordinated,
and their fortunes are not pinned to those of Trump, establishes a well-defined limit to his influence. Trump's antagonism toward
various countries -- as wholes -- has already helped to stir up a deep sediment of anti-Americanism. If Americanism is at the heart
of Trump's nationalist globalism, then it is doing all the things that are needed to induce a major heart attack.
As for Trump's domestic opposition, what should be most pertinent are issues of conflict of interest and nepotism
. Here members of Trump's base are more on target yet again, when they reject the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner
in the White House ("we didn't elect Ivanka or Jared"), than are those distracted by identity politics.
As Trump leverages the presidency to upgrade the Trump family to the transnational capitalist class, and reinforces the power
of US imperialism which that class has purchased, conflict of interest and nepotism will be the main political signposts of the transformation
of the Trump presidency, but they could also be the targets for a refined strategy of opposition.
"... This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty, as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification." ..."
"... Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan." ..."
"... Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021. ..."
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has effectively collapsed following the
US announcing Friday that it's suspending all obligations under the treaty. Predictably
Moscow's response has been swift, with President Vladimir Putin saying in a meeting with his
foreign and defense ministers that Russia will now pursue missile development previously banned
under its terms .
Putin said "ours will be a mirror response" in a tit-for-tat move that the Russian president
ultimately blames on Washington's years-long "systematic" undermining of the agreement. "Our US
partners say that they are ceasing their participation in the treaty, and we are doing the
same," the Russian president said . "They say that they are doing
research and testing [on new weapons] and we will do the same thing."
Crucially, however, he noted that there were no plans to deploy short and mid-range missiles
to Europe unless the US does it first -- a worst nightmare scenario that has rattled European
leaders ever since talk began from Trump that the 1987 treaty could be scrapped.
Putin still seemed to allow some degree space for last minute concessions as "still on the
table" possibly in line with the Trump administration's desire to modernize and update a new
treaty taking into account new technological and geopolitical realities, such as China's
ballistic missile capabilities.
"Let's wait until our partners mature sufficiently to hold a level, meaningful conversation
on this topic, which is extremely important for us, them, and the entire world," Putin said.
But also lashing out during the press conference that followed the meeting with top officials
Putin
described :
Over many years, we have repeatedly suggested staging new disarmament talks, on all types
of weapons. Over the last few years, we have seen our initiatives not supported. On the
contrary, pretexts are constantly sought to demolish the existing system of international
security .
Specifically he and FM Sergei Lavrov referenced not only Trump's threats to quit the
agreement, which heightened in December, but accusations leveled from Washington that the
Kremlin was in violation. The White House has now affirmed the bilateral historic agreement
signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan will be suspended for 180 days. Lavrov insisted
that Moscow "attempted to do everything we could to rescue the treaty."
This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted
that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing
drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty,
as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be
used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."
Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the
INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are
scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan."
Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long
term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021.
" as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can
be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."
US trying to get from Russia top position first-response list and get Europe on that
position.
Neocons should be remembered as oldcons because their bag of tricks is so well known that
they don't fool anyone. Think about this Reagan era fossil who tries to arrange his little
coup in Venezuela and will fall flat on his face. Think also about these Pompeo and Bolton
who are so desperate that they didn't even spend the necessary time to learn the checkers
rules before trying to take on Putin in his favorite chess play. No really, the level of
mediocrity and the lack of strategy or even sheer preparedness of these dudes is so low that
they may even be hung by their own subordinates who can't even stand that stench of fool
play. Trump should be ashamed he hired these clowns to ride their one trick ponies while the
titanic goes down. History will not be kind with him.
Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military
attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the
one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO
were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.
Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older
9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:
This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of
the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .
About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.
Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military
attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the
one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO
were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.
Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older
9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:
This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of
the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .
About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.
"... My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945 have now become like the people we fought. ..."
The launch of INSTEX -- "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges" -- by France, Germany, and the UK
this week
to allow "legitimate trade" with Iran, or rather effectively sidestep US sanctions and bypass SWIFT after Washington was able
to pressure the Belgium-based financial messaging service to cut off the access of Iranian banks last year, may be too little too
late to salvage the Iran nuclear deal .
Tehran will only immediately press that more than just the current "limited humanitarian" and medical goods can be purchased on
the system, in accordance with fulfilling the EU's end of the 2015 JCPOA -- something which EU officials have promised while saying
INSTEX will be "expansive" -- while European companies will likely continue to stay away for fear of retribution from Washington,
which has stated it's "closely following" reports of the payment vehicle while reiterating attempts to sidestep sanctions will "risk
severe consequences" .
As a couple of prominent Iranian academics
told Al Jazeera this week: "If [the mechanism] will permanently be restricted to solely humanitarian trade, it will be apparent
that Europe will have failed to live up to its end of the bargain for Iran ," said political analyst Mohammad Ali Shabani. And another,
Foad Izadi, professor at the University of Tehran, echoed what is a common sentiment among Iran's leaders: "I don't think the EU
is either willing or able to stand up to Trump's threat," and continued, "The EU is not taking the nuclear deal seriously and it's
not taking any action to prove to Iran otherwise... People are running out of patience."
But Iranian leadership
welcomed the new mechanism as merely a small first step: "It is a first step taken by the European side... We hope it will cover
all goods and items," Iranian Deputy FM Abbas Araqchi told state TV, referencing EU promises to stick to its end of the nuclear deal.
The European side also acknowledged it as a precondition to keeping the nuclear deal alive, which EU leaders sea as vital to their
security and strategic interests : "We're making clear that we didn't just talk about keeping the nuclear deal with Iran alive, but
now we're creating a possibility to conduct business transactions," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas
told reporters on
Thursday . "This is a precondition for us to meet the obligations we entered into in order to demand from Iran that it doesn't
begin military uranium enrichment," Maas said.
What is INSTEX?
A "special purpose vehicle" that will allow European businesses to trade with Iran, despite strict US sanctions.
According to media reports, INSTEX will be based in Paris and will be managed by German banking expert Per Fischer, a former
manager at Commerzbank. The UK will head the supervisory board.
The European side intends to use the channel initially only to sell food, medicine and medical devices in Iran. However,
it will be possible to expand it in the future. --
DW.com
Technically US sanctions allow some limited humanitarian trade and limited goods; however the White House's "maximum pressure"
campaign on Iran has still scared away European giants like Seimens, Maersk, Total, Daimler, Peugeot, Renault, and others.
This brings up the central question of whether skittish European countries will actually return to doing business with Iran, the
entire purpose on which the new mechanism rests. The dilemma was summarized at the start of this week by outspoken Iran hawk Sen.
Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who told the AP
"The choice is whether to do business with Iran or the United States." He warned, "I hope our European allies choose wisely."
Thus far a number of analysts and observers have remained far less optimistic than the European sponsors of INSTEX. One particular
interview with geopolitical analyst and journalist Luc Rivet, cited in Russian media, outlines
the likelihood for failure of the new payment
vehicle : "I don't know what companies will make use of that mechanism to sell to Iran," Rivet said, noting that countries still
consider it "dangerous" to be caught working with Iran.
Addressing the current restriction of INSTEX facilitating medical and pharmaceutical goods transactions, he continued:
Who produces this equipment? You think that Siemens will sell to Iran? Never, because they sell to America many other things
as well And Siemens is afraid of losing the American market.
No matter if a handful of companies resume or continue business with Iran he explained that an "incredible number of companies"
won't. He added: "It's much easier for Chinese and Russian companies to make deals with Iran. The Europeans are scared in an incredible
way. The companies are afraid by ricochet of being in the eye of the storm with the Americans."
He concluded, "That's very dangerous for European companies," and repeated, "I don't know anybody who will dare to go with this
Instex system."
And the New York Times in asking the same question --
But Will Anyone Use
It? -- concludes similarly that "given that most large companies have significant business in the United States, very few --
if any -- are likely to use the trading mechanism for fear of incurring Washington's wrath."
However, the test will be whether or not a steady trickle of small companies gives way to bigger companies. The NYT report
continues :
But the financial mechanism could make it easier for smaller companies with no exposure in the United States to trade with
Iran and could promote trade in medicine and food, which are not subject to sanctions. European diplomats say that, in the beginning,
the concentration will be on goods that are permitted by Washington, to avoid an early confrontation .
But much could also depend on just how fierce the White House reaction will be. If the past months' Trump administration rhetoric
is any indicator, it will keep large companies scared and on the sidelines.
Europe has had double the tariffs on American cars than we had for theirs. It's time for us to quadruple the tariff on European
cars, to make up for the tariff imbalance that Europe has taken advantage of for decades.
Before World War II the question was, "Who will stand up to the demands of Germany?" Now the question is, "Who will stand up
to the demands of the United States?" It is clear that as far as means and methods are concerned Washington flies the swastika.
History has come full circle.
The following quote from J. R. R. Tolkien makes the point, "Always after a defeat and a respite," says Gandalf, "the shadow
takes another shape and grows again." The irony of our times is that the shadow has moved from Germany to the US.
Consternation and craven refusal to confront the reality of our times is again in vogue. We are walking towards madness crying,
"Let the other fellow fix this!"
My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945
have now become like the people we fought.
"... UN should be probing Washington and allies for regime-change crimes Identical condemnations from the US and allies and the synchronicity show that Venezuela is being targeted for regime change in a concerted plot led by Washington. ..."
"... It is so disappointing that Americans yet to come to realization that this criminal Jewish Mafia does not standing at the end of the old republic. He is DEEPLY involved, but his STYLE is different. He kills and terrorize the same as Regan, Carter, Clinton, Bush, Obama who have killed millions of people. His sanction is the KILLING MACHINE to topple governments TO STEAL THEIR RESOURCES FOR THE DUMMIES. I have NO respect for the liars who are trying to paint a criminal as someone 'standing against' the deep state. TRUMP IS PART OF THE DEEP STATE, ONLY DUMMIES DO NOT GET IT. ..."
"... No matter the situation in Venezuela, whatever the US government and media are saying is just hostile propaganda as they couldn't give a rat's ass about the people living there. The Libyan people were doing well out of their oil, as were the Iraqis, living in reasonable wealth and security, and look at them now after the US decided to meddle in their affairs. Now after all that, even if something the US government says may be true, why believe it? How many times do you need to be fooled to stop being a fool? ..."
"... The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report it. ..."
"... Why does everyone make Trump out to be a victim, poor ol Trump, he's being screwed by all those people he himself appointed, poor ol persecuted Trump. Sounds like our Jewish friends with all the victimization BS. ..."
"... By now Trump must be near bat shit crazy. Imagine hundreds of vampires descending on every exposed artery and vein. Does he have a chance in 2020? Not with the people who are around him today ..."
"... Regardless of what the MSM reports, the population is fed-up with all the malarkey, and the same old faces. ..."
"... If he can he should issue an executive order allowing important items like immigration to go directly to public referendum, by passing congress. We're tired of idiots with personal grudges holding our President hostage. Stern times calls for sterner measures. ..."
"... Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington's elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization. ..."
Agent76 says:
January 30, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT 100 Words Jan 24, 2019 Catastrophic Consequences What's Really Happening in Venezuela
In this video, we give you the latest breaking news on the current situation in Venezuela with Maduro, the election, and Trump's
response.
UN should be probing Washington and allies for regime-change crimes Identical condemnations from the US and allies and the
synchronicity show that Venezuela is being targeted for regime change in a concerted plot led by Washington.
@Sergey Krieger Negotiations are not necessarily a sign of weakness. However, Maduro should negotiate with the puppet masters,
not with the puppet. I don't think that killing that pathetic Guaido is a good strategy: you don't want to make a martyr out of
nonentity.
And, in effect, I wish for the success of Juan Guaido in his struggle with Maduro, and I support American diplomatic and
economic pressure on Maduro to step down. After all, Venezuela is in our back yard with huge oil reserves.
FUCK YOU! Venezuela is not "our" back yard. And the oil does not belong to "us".
[Donald Trump, for all that and for his various faults and miscues, is in reality the only thing standing in the way of the end
of the old republic. ]
It is so disappointing that Americans yet to come to realization that this criminal Jewish Mafia does not standing at the
end of the old republic. He is DEEPLY involved, but his STYLE is different. He kills and terrorize the same as Regan, Carter,
Clinton, Bush, Obama who have killed millions of people. His sanction is the KILLING MACHINE to topple governments TO STEAL THEIR
RESOURCES FOR THE DUMMIES. I have NO respect for the liars who are trying to paint a criminal as someone 'standing against' the
deep state. TRUMP IS PART OF THE DEEP STATE, ONLY DUMMIES DO NOT GET IT.
The ignorant Jewish mafia 'president' IS MORE DANGEROUS because he like his 'advisors' is totally ILLITERATE. It is a family
business dummies.
Are dummies going to hold petty people like Bolton who lie to get money from MEK to buy a new suit and new shoes, is responsible
for the policy of the Trump regime where he wages WARS, economic sanction, to starve children to surrender? Then NO ONE Trusts
you. MEK people are not more than 20, but are funded by the US colony, Saudi Arabia where MBS transfers money to the Jewish mafia
family funding US wars.
Maduro has EVERY SINGLE RIGHT to arrest Juan Guiado, a gigolo who is taking orders from a US and an illiterate 'president',
where its dark history known to every living creature on earth. US has massacred millions of people in all continents including
Latin America.
Maduro has every single right to arrest him and put on trail and execute him as a traitor and an enemy of the state. How many
years the people in Venezuela should suffer for the US 'regime change' and its crimes against humanity in Venezuela to STEAL ITS
RESOURCES.
"So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few facebook ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and
ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world and interfere with elections is perfectly fine? Because democracy? Riiiiiiight."
:
[The last Venezuelan Presidential election was a joke. ]
YOU ARE A JOKE ZIONIST IDIOT.
The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela's Coup Leader
[Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington's elite regime change trainers. While posing as
a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.]
Illiterate Jewish Mafia 'president' must be kicked out of the office. Hands of Israel is all over the SELECTION.
The ignorant 'president' is MORE DANGEROUS THANT OTHER CRIMINAL US REGIMES because on top of being a criminal, he is ILLITERATE
as well.
[In 2009, the Generation 2007 youth activists staged their most provocative demonstration yet, dropping their pants on public
roads and aping the outrageous guerrilla theater tactics outlined by Gene Sharp in his regime change manuals.This far-right group
"gathered funds from a variety of US government sources, which allowed it to gain notoriety quickly as the hardline wing of opposition
street movements," according to academic George Ciccariello-Maher's book, "Building the Commune."
That year, Guaidó exposed himself to the public in another way, founding a political party to capture the anti-Chavez energy
his Generation 2007 had cultivated.]
@By-tor See, this is the typical lie. Socialism fails, so the socialist blames the outside wrecker for causing the problem.
If Moscow freezes, then it is because of the wreckers. If Moscow starves, then it is because of the wreckers.
If Venezuela collapses, then it is because of "sanctions," not the failure of the new socialist economy.
America has the right to lock anyone out of its economy that it wants, for whatever reasons. This should not matter because
that nation can still trade with the rest of the world, like China. Venezuela could get everything it wants by simply selling
oil to China in exchange for goods. The problem is, there is not enough oil production to do so and other nations are reluctant
to replace American investment for fear of losing their assets as well.
Think about how wrong-headed the Chavez policy has been. If the Venezuelans have problems with their local ruling class and
want to get rid of them fine do so. But, why go after the American oil company? The Americans don't care who rules Venezuela as
long as their contracts are honored. Chavez could have then been a true socialist an allocate a greater dividend to Venezuelans
that was previously being hoarded by the ruling class an arrangement similar to what Alaskans have with American oil companies.
But no there was an immediate seizure of assets because the only purpose of socialism is to make the socialist leaders rich.
And Chavez and Maduro became very rich indeed.
@AnonFromTN I would happily martyr gorbachov , Yeltsin and all their gang. I think everybody would have been far better of
then. Same is applied to the puppet. Nikolai II was martyred and things got a lot better. What is important is winning and final
outcome, while making some martyrs in the process.
@Harold Smith Trump's personnel picks are mind-boggling. I cannot see how he disapproves Eliot Abrams for deputy SoS with
one breath, then blandly allows Pompeo to appoint him an envoy to a trouble-spot. Bolton, Pompeo, Goldberg et al.
NEOCON America does not want Russian bombers in South America.
Real America doesn't give a f*ck. Bombers are so last century, might as well put up machine-gun equipped Union Pacific Big
Boys to make it marginally more steampunk and become a real danger for the USA.
@Tyrion 2 There is not a single complaint here that did not exist before the election or before Pres Chavez.
There are poor management leaders all over the globe. That';s their business. Hey we have some right here in the US I take
it your solution is a military coup or better yet a coup fostered by the EU or the OAS, or maybe ASEAN or SDG . . .
It would be nice if someone simply asked Trump why it is he originally wanted to get along with Russia and pull out of the middle
east and generally opposed the "neoconservative" approach and now seems to be hiring neocons and doing what they want. Is he trying
to placate Sheldon Adelson and Adelson's lackeys, or what? I don't know of his being asked about this directly.
Venezuelan lawmaker Jose Guerra dropped a bombshell on Twitter Tuesday: The Russian Boeing 777 that had landed in Caracas the
day before was there to spirit away 20 tons of gold from the vaults of the country's central bank. Guerra is a former central
bank economist who remains in touch with old colleagues there. A person with direct knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg News
Tuesday that 20 tons of gold have been set aside in the central bank for loading. Worth some $840 million, the gold represents
about 20 percent of its holdings of the metal in Venezuela.
No matter the situation in Venezuela, whatever the US government and media are saying is just hostile propaganda as they
couldn't give a rat's ass about the people living there. The Libyan people were doing well out of their oil, as were the Iraqis,
living in reasonable wealth and security, and look at them now after the US decided to meddle in their affairs. Now after all
that, even if something the US government says may be true, why believe it? How many times do you need to be fooled to stop being
a fool?
No, Chavez had popular legitimacy. Maduro has nothing but force to keep himself in power now. Yes, there's easy definition
for the above but Chavismo is decrepit.
Pressure for a reasonable Presidential election is based on that.
The Trumptards blindly support me. I can do no wrong.
There are not enough independent thinkers to make a difference as the two main sides bitterly fight each other over every
minute, meaningless issue.
I can pretty much do as I please without consequence ..like pay off all my buddies and pander to the jews/globalist/elites.
I'd add: and by doing the last, I could cut a deal with the real TPTBs as to for what happens after I leave White House.
Chavez had popular support . He felt the need to intimidate opponents from the beginning. Like Bill Bellicheck and Tom
Brady feeling the need to cheat.
Makes sense. They owe a big chunk of money to Russia and a payment of 100 million is coming due. Russia gets security for future
payments while it holds their gold in a safe place. They may ship the rest to China if they are smart
The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her latest neo-nazi stunt was to join
protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone
at a tiny New York rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to overthrow their
President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report it.
She's being paid no doubt by the usual suspects. She is personally 1 million in debt and has signed with a Speakers agency
to give speeches for 200,000 a pop.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV)
"Haley is currently quoting $200,000 and the use of a private jet for domestic speaking engagements, according to CNBC
In October 2018, when Haley resigned, she said, she would be taking a "step up" into the private sector after leaving the U.N.
According to a public financial disclosure report based on 2017 data, at the rate quoted for her engagements, just a handful would
pay down more than $1 million in outstanding debt that was accrued during her 14 years
3. There are not enough independent thinkers to make a difference as the two main sides bitterly fight each other over every
minute, meaningless issue.
Well people you need to explore this move to take over Venezuela in the context of what having that oil control will mean for
the US and Israel in the increasingly likely event we blow up Iran and up end the ME for Israel.
So what could happen that might make control of oil rich Venezuela necessary? Why has Venezuela become a Bolton and Abrams
project? Why is Netanyahu putting himself into the Venezuela crisis ?
We, otoh, would need all the oil we could get if we blew up the ME, specifically Iran, figuratively or literally. The US signed
a MOU with Israel in 1973 obligating us to supply Israel with oil ( and ship it to them) if they couldn't secure any for themselves.
@Hibernian I hate those two guys so much, and the owner Kraft also. I'm hoping for a helmet to helmet collision for Brady
early in the second quarter with his bell ringing for the rest of the game. (Evil grin)
@Tyrion 2 Yes, the int'l monitors said the elections were fair as Maduro received over 60% of the vote. You think the 'deplorables'
of venezuela elected the known US-Wall Street neo-liberal puppet Guaido? No, the US Tape Worm groomed this twerp, all-the-while
his backers and paymasters in the American neo-Liberal ruling class claim Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections. The shamelessness
and hypocrisy is astounding.
@Tyrion 2 Pres Hugo Chavez's admin was very controversial. And the conditions you speak of have plagued Venezuela even before
Pres Chavez came to government.
This really is none of our affair. We don't have a mandate to go about the planet tossing out whoever we think is crazy. He
is not a threat to the US. There's no indication that he intends to harm US businesses.
Their polity means their polity. You'll have to do better than he's crazy, mean, a despot, etc. That's for them to resolve.
@Commentator Mike Seems some will never learn the definition of insanity, especially the NeoCons who have been running America
for far too long. I recommend John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" for the less informed among us here today. Maybe
at some point they will get a clue.
I heartily dislike and find despicable the socialist government of Maduro, just as I did Hugo Chavez when he was in power.
I have some good friends there, one of whom was a student of mine when I taught in Argentina many years ago, and he and his
family resolutely oppose Maduro. Those socialist leaders in Caracas are tin-pot dictator wannabees who have wrecked the economy
of that once wealthy country; and they have ridden roughshod over the constitutional rights of the citizens. My hope has been
that the people of Venezuela, perhaps supported by elements in the army, would take action to rid the country of those tyrants.
Hard to take this guy seriously when he spouts Fox News level propaganda.
Why does everyone make Trump out to be a victim, poor ol Trump, he's being screwed by all those people he himself appointed,
poor ol persecuted Trump. Sounds like our Jewish friends with all the victimization BS.
Its clear that voting no longer works folks, this is an undemocratic and illegitimate "government" we have here. We let them
get away with killing JFK, RFK, MLK, Vietnam, we let them get away with 9/11, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria. They've made a
mess in Africa. All the refugees into Europe, all the refugees from Latin America that have already come from CIA crimes, more
will come.
We wouldn't need a wall if Wall St would stop with their BS down there!
You can't just blame Jews, yes there are lots of Jews in Corporate America, bu t not all of them are, and there are lots of
Jews who speak out against this. We were doing this long before Israel came into existence. You can't just blame everything one
one group, I think Israel/Zionist are responsible for a lot of BS, but you can't exclude CIA, Wall St, Corporations, Banks, The
MIC either. Its not just one group, its all of them. They're all evil, they're imperialists and they're all capitalists. I think
Israel is just a capitalist creation, nothing to do with Jews, just a foothold in he middle east for Wall St to have a base to
control the oil and gas there, they didn't create Israel until they dicovered how much oil was there, and realized how much control
over the world it would give them to control it. Those people moving to Israel are being played, just like the "Christian Zionists"
here are, its a cult. Most "Jews" are atheists anyhow, and it seems any ol greedy white guy can claim to be a Jew. So how do you
solve a "Jewish Problem" if anybody can claim to be a Jew? I think solving the capitalist problem would be a little easier to
enforce.
All of the shills can scream about communists, socialists and marxists all they want. Capitalism is the problem always has
been always will be. Its a murderous, immoral, unsustainable system that encourages greed, it is a system who's driving force
is maximizing profits, and as such the State controlled or aligned with Corporations is the most advanced form of capitalism because
it is the most profitable. They're raping the shit out of us, taking our money to fund their wars, so they can make more money
while paying little to no taxes at all. Everything, everyone here complains about is caused by CAPITALISM, but nobody dares say
it, they've been programmed since birth to think that way.
We should nationalize our oil and gas, instead of letting foreigners come in and steal it, again paying little or no taxes
on it, then selling the oil they took from our country back to us. Russia and Venezuela do it, Libya did it, Iraq did it, and
they used the money for the people of the country, they didn't let the capitalists plunder their wealth like the traitors running
our country. We're AT LEAST $21 trillion in the hole now from this wonderful system of ours, don't you think we should try something
else? Duh!
It is the love of money, the same thing the Bible warned us about. Imperialism/globalism is the latest stage of capitalism,
that is what all of this is about, follow the money. Just muh opinion
@Tyrion 2 From the people fool not by the C.I.A. declaring that well we like the other fellow best for president,after all
using the logic you fail to have Hillary could have said call me madam president and leave the orange clown out in the dark,stupid,stupid
people
"And, in effect, I wish for the success of Juan Guaido in his struggle with Maduro, and I support American diplomatic and
economic pressure on Maduro to step down. After all, Venezuela is in our back yard with huge oil reserves."
OMG, Cathey really said that. Is he always such a shit? He certainly has Venezuela completely wrong.
@AnonFromTN This phylosophical questions should not led to no actions. Modern Russia is actually in much better position now
than it was in 1913. True. There is never final. Sorry for wrong words choice. Dialectics.
@Wizard of Oz The scenario you describe is an accurate. And requires me to make judgments about a dynamic I am unfamiliar
with -- no bite. Several sides to this tale and I have heard and seen it before.
I may however make a call.
In 2017 2/3 of the states in the region chose not to interfere. They have not changed their minds on intervention.
ohh by the way I did ask and here's the familial response:
But reading the data sets makes it clear that what they want is some humanitarian relief. B y and large I have the family telling
me to mind my own business, but they would like a meal, some medicine and some water.
By now Trump must be near bat shit crazy. Imagine hundreds of vampires descending on every exposed artery and vein. Does he
have a chance in 2020? Not with the people who are around him today.
Regardless of what the MSM reports, the population is fed-up with all the malarkey, and the same old faces.
In Trump's remaining 2 years he must throw off the parasites, bring in real men, and go to work on infrastructure, health
care, and real jobs. He has to out the naysayers, the creeps and the war mongers. Throw Bolton from the train, and divorce Netanyahu
and Israel. Appeal directly to the public.
If he can he should issue an executive order allowing important items like immigration to go directly to public referendum,
by passing congress. We're tired of idiots with personal grudges holding our President hostage. Stern times calls for sterner
measures.
@RobinG That would be an easy, almost optimistic explanation: some people are venal enough to say or write anything for money.
Pessimistic explanation is that some people who can read and write are nonetheless dumb or brainwashed enough to sincerely believe
the BS they are writing.
Can you define what capitalism is ? Once that idea is refined, finessed, and compared to multiple color changes of capitalism,
it becomes easier who to fit in the plastic infinitely expandable box of ideas of capitalism starting with the chartered company
to patient laws to companies making military hardwares paid by tax payers to tax cut by government to seizure of foreign asset
by US-UK to protection of the US business by military forces to selling military gadgets to the countries owned by families like
Saudi royals Gulf monarchs and to the African ( American installed ) dictators to printing money .
A great article I posted in another thread few days ago dives deep into who Juan Guaido is and his past grooming for the past
10+ years:
Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington's elite regime change trainers. While posing
as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.
It's not hard to see the parallels of how the US is treating China today compared with
Japan in 1939. The US sanctioned Japan and stopped them from importing Iron and Oil and today
China is being technologically sanctioned throughout the West with Huawei.
The US is bludgeoning every Govt throughout the world to get its own way both allied and
contested. This attitude can only lead to War eventually. Venezuela today, Iran tomorrow
which will continue to box in China and Russia.
The US is needing a war to rally its people around the flag and to attempt to keep its
hand on the Rudder of the world.
China will be forced to sink an American ship or shoot down an American Jet to save face
re Taiwan and their Islands in the China Sea.
The West is begging for war and the parallels now and before WW11 is scary.
Just one more to a long list of Trump appointments. I believe Trump is some kind of pervert,
like the ones that like to get whipped, only Trump likes to get stabbed in the back.
Betrayed
He does what Sheldon and Bibi tell him.
You think you're so ******* smart, but this some how eludes you?
napper , 3 hours ago (Edited)
Donald Trump's House of Cons, Clowns, Crappolas, Criminals, and Conspirators:
Mike Pence
Mike Pompeo
Steven Mnuchin
John Bolton
Elliot Abrams
Nikki Haley
Gina Haspel
Peter Navarro
Wilbur Ross
Kirstjen Nielsen
Robert Lighthizer
Dan Coats
and Donkey Drumpf managed to convince a big bunch of brainless sheeple that he's going to
make America great again with the help of those career swamp dwellers???
Gotta give it to the Donkey. He's good at acting at least.
TGF Texas, 3 hours ago
Shitty appointment, you bet! Regime Change, back on, after a 2 yr vacation, time will tell,
but it sure looks that way! Remembering, Seth Rich, and the Guy who shot himself in the head,
twice with a revolver, and the Clintons had the cops rule it a suicide, or the fact that she
actually asked people if we could drone Assage...
Yes you can vote for the third party. The question is, does it affect anything?
Notable quotes:
"... And voting for direct democracy sends the message that the people are angry at the system, not just the players that run it. ..."
"... Not voting is also a valid protest. But using one's vote to send a message, instead of just withholding legitimacy, seems more powerful as other disaffected people are more likely to join in a Movement for direct democracy. ..."
Yes. Any vote for a third party is a protest vote.
I think that only a Party that promotes direct democracy has any chance of drawing
sufficient votes to embarrass the establishment.
And voting for direct democracy sends the message that the people are angry at the
system, not just the players that run it.
Similarly to the Yellow Vests (part of their demands is an increase in direct democracy
via referendums) .
Not voting is also a valid protest. But using one's vote to send a message, instead of
just withholding legitimacy, seems more powerful as other disaffected people are more likely
to join in a Movement for direct democracy.
Well, that's the way I see it now. There's still a lot of time before the election.
I agree with what you said regarding elections... The usa has something around 55-60%
turnout for elections and it continues to slide.
I gave-up voting after the 2008 election, when Cynthia McKinney was my choice for
president. I realized that voting only feeds the beast and if we could get less than 50%
turn-out people might wake-up to what farce elections in the usa are.
What difference does it really make voting for two slightly different forms of cancer? I'd
rather be thought as stupid or moronic for not voting than to choose the lesser of two evils,
which is the only really choice we have when we vote.
All those die hard political types don't realize that not voting is a vote too.
And a big thanks to the MoA community for continually posting the most interesting
discussions on the Web.
As George Carlin observed, it's a big club and you aren't in it. Hiring Elliott Abrams makes Trump a variation on theme of Bush II: the more things change that more they
stay the same. BTW Bush also campaigned on withdrew troops and no national building .
Notable quotes:
"... When did he hire Hillary? ..."
"... There is not much difference between Hillary and Pompeo. Pompeo is basically Hillary with a **** and a religious twist ..."
"... Who knew that in electing Trump we were electing the ultimate politician? His "art of the deal" is nothing but politics 101: Blame both sides, apologize for your side, and immediately surrender your stronger points while praising the weak points of your opponent. And when you have a chance, give up; sacrifice your friends and appoint their enemies, and, last but not least, look everybody in the eye and say, "I didn't steal the money, "mistakes were made." ..."
Trump is a psychopath and he loves to hire even bigger psychopaths. Your whole admin is a swamp of sociopaths, psychopaths
and other sick deranged people.
There is not much difference between Hillary and Pompeo. Pompeo is basically Hillary with
a **** and a religious twist
bshirley1968, 2 hours ago
Thinking? Well that's a stretch of the imagination, but let me suggest this......
The opposition hates me. I can do no right.
The Trumptards blindly support me. I can do no wrong.
There are not enough independent thinkers to make a difference as the two main sides bitterly fight eachother over
every minute, meaningless issue.
I can pretty much do as I please without consequence.....like pay off all my buddies and pander to the jews/globalist/elites.
That could be what he is thinking. But I can bet you anything that there isn't a Trumptard out there that can comment
here and give us a rational reason for this appointment. Oh, they can down vote because they don't like being called
Trumptards. .....but they don't mind being one.
NAV, 2 hours ago
Who knew that in electing Trump we were electing the ultimate politician? His "art of the deal" is nothing but
politics 101: Blame both sides, apologize for your side, and immediately surrender your stronger points while praising the
weak points of your opponent. And when you have a chance, give up; sacrifice your friends and appoint their enemies, and,
last but not least, look everybody in the eye and say, "I didn't steal the money, "mistakes were made."
"... The French bourgeoisie is the politically most experienced ruling class in Europe. It has no illusions about the challenge it faces. Le Point put its file on the revolt of the vests under the self-telling title "What is waiting us". ..."
"... But it's not only the king who is naked. The whole system is naked. In the many pages devoted by the magazine to demonstrate that what the Vests want is unfeasible, not even a single serious word is written about what needs to be done to deal with the deep causes which led the French to revolt. Today's capitalism of Macron, Merkel and Trump does not produce a Roosevelt and New Deal or Popular Fronts – and we have to wait to see if it will produce a Hitler as some are trying to achieve. For the time being, it only produces Yellow Vests! ..."
"... In Oscar Wilde's masterpiece "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the main character looks every night at his horrible real self in the mirror. But he looks at it alone. ..."
"... This is where Macron made his most fatal mistake, being arrogant and markedly cut off from reality – with the confidence given to him by the mighty elite forces, which elected him and by his contempt of the common people which characterizes him. ..."
"... Observing Macron, the people understood what lied ahead for them. They felt their backs against the wall – they felt that they had only themselves to rely on, that they had to take themselves action to save themselves and their country. ..."
"... This was the decisive moment, the moment the historical mission of Macron was achieved . By establishing the most absolute control of Finance over Politics, he himself invited Revolution. His triumph and his tragedy came together. ..."
"... Many established "leftists" or "radical" intellectuals, who used to feverishly haul capitalism over the coals – although the last thing they really wanted was to experience a real revolution during their lifetime – they too, stand now frightened, looking at an angry Bucephalus running ahead of them. They prefer a stable capitalism, of which they can constitute its "consciousness", writing books, appearing on shows and giving lectures, analyzing its crises and explaining its tribulations. They idea that the People could at some point take seriously what they themselves said, never crossed their minds either! ..."
"... Today, four out of five French people disapprove of Macron's policies and one in two demands that he resigns immediately. We assume that this percentage is greater than the percentage of Russians who wanted the ousting of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. ..."
"... France is currently almost in a state of Power Vacuum . The president and the government cannot in essence govern and the people cannot tolerate them. It is not a situation of dual power, but a situation of dual legitimacy , in Mélenchon 's accurate description. ..."
"... This is a typical definition of a revolutionary situation . As history teaches us, the emergence of such a situation is necessary but not sufficient condition for a victorious Revolution. What is required in or order to turn a rebellion into a potentially victorious Revolution, is a capable and decided leadership and an adequate strategy, program and vision. These elements do not seem to exist, at last not for now, in today's France, as they did not exist in May 1968 or during the Russian Revolution of February 1917. Therefore, the present situation remains open to all possible eventualities; there must be no doubt however, that this is the beginning of a period of intense political and class conflicts in Europe, and that the Europe, as we know it, is already history. ..."
"... Or at least, for the people to be given the opportunity to develop an effective way of controlling state power. ..."
"... By reversing Marx's famous formula in German Ideology , the ideas of the dominant class do not dominate society. This is why the situation can be described as revolutionary. ..."
"... Although it is difficult to form an opinion from afar about how the situation may unfold, the formation of a such a United Front from grassroots could perhaps offer a way out with regards to the need for a political leadership for the movement, or even of the need to work out a transitional economic program for France, which must also serve as a transitional program for Europe . ..."
"... Contrary to how things were a century ago, certain factors such as the educational level of the lower social classes, the existence of a number of critical, radical thinkers with the necessary intellectual skills and the Internet, render such a possibility a much more realistic scenario today, than in the past. ..."
The magazine LePoint is one of the main media outlets of the French
conservative "centre-right". One of its December issues carries the cover title France
Faces its History. 1648, 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 four centuries of revolutions.
The cover features also a painting by Pierre-Jérôme Lordon, showing people
clashing with the army at Rue de Babylone , in Paris, during the
Revolution of 1830. Perhaps this is where Luc Ferry, Chirac's former minister, got his idea
from, when, two days ago, he asked the Army to intervene and the police to start shooting and
killing Yellow Vests.
Do not be surprised if you haven't heard this from your TV or if you don't know that the
level of police repression and violence in France, measured in people dead, injured and
arrested, has exceeded everything the country has experienced since 1968. Nor should you
wonder why you don't know anything about some Yellow Vest's new campaign calling for a
massive run on French banks. Or why you have been lead you to believe that the whole thing is
to do with fuel taxes or increasing minimum wage.
The vast majority of European media didn't even bother to communicate to their readers
or viewers the main political demands of the Yellow Vests ; and certainly, there hasn't
been any meaningful attempt to offer an insightful interpretation of what's happening in
France and there is just very little serious on-the-ground reporting, in the villages and
motorways of France.
Totalitarianism
Following Napoleon's defeat in Waterloo, European Powers formed the Holy Alliance banning
Revolutions.
Nowadays, Revolutions have just been declared inconceivable (Soros – though not just
him – has been giving a relentless fight to take them out of history textbooks or, as a
minimum, to erase their significance and meaning). Since they are unthinkable they cannot
happen. Since they cannot happen they do not happen.
In the same vein, European media sent their journalists out to the streets in Paris on
Christmas and New Year's days, counted the protesters and found that they weren't too many
after all. Of course they didn't count the 150,000 police and soldiers lined up by Macron on
New Year's Eve. Then they made sure that they remain "impartial" and by just comparing
numbers of protesters, led viewers to think that we are almost done with it – it was
just a storm, it will pass.
The other day I read a whole page article about Europe in one of the most "serious" Greek
newspapers, on 30.12. The author devoted just one single meaningless phrase about the Vests.
Instead, the paper still found the way to include in the article the utterly stupid statement
of a European Right-Wing politician who attributed the European crisis to the existence of
Russia Today and Sputnik! And when I finally found a somewhat more serious article online
about the developments in France, I realized that its only purpose was to convince us that
what is happening in France surely has nothing to do with 1789 or 1968!
It is only a pity that the people concerned, the French themselves, cannot read in Greek.
If they could, they would have realized that it does not make any sense to have "Revolution"
written on their vests or to sing the 1789 song in their demonstrations or to organize
symbolic ceremonies of the public "decapitation" of Macron, like Louis XV. And the French
bourgeois press would not waste time everyday comparing what happens in the country now with
what happened in 1968 and 1789.
Totalitarianism is not just a threat. It's already here. Simply it has omitted to
announce its arrival. We have to deduce its precence from its results.
A terrified
ruling class
The French bourgeoisie is the politically most experienced ruling class in Europe. It has
no illusions about the challenge it faces. Le Point put its file on the
revolt of the vests under the self-telling title "What is waiting us".
A few months ago, all we had about Macron in the papers was praise, inside and outside of
France – he was the "rising star" of European politics, the man who managed to pass the
"reforms" one after the other, no resistance could stop him, he would be the one to save and
rebuild Europe. Varoufakis admired and supported him, as early as of the first round of the
2017 elections.
Now, the "chosen one" became a burden for those who put him in office. Some of them
probably want to get rid of him as fast as they can, to replace him with someone else, but
it's not easy – and even more so, it is not easy given the monarchical powers conferred
by the French constitution to the President. The constitution is tailored to the needs of a
President who wants to safeguard power from the people. Those who drafted it could not
probably imagine it would make difficult for the Oligarchy also to fire him!
And who would dare to hold a parliamentary or presidential election in such a situation,
as in France today? No one knows what could come out of it. Moreover, Macron does not have a
party in the sense of political power. He has a federation of friends who benefit as long as
he stays in power and they are damaged when he collapses.
The King is naked
"The King is naked", points out Le Point's editorial, before, with almost sadistic
callousness, posing the question: "What can a government do when a remarkable section of the
people vomits it?"
But it's not only the king who is naked. The whole system is naked. In the many pages
devoted by the magazine to demonstrate that what the Vests want is unfeasible, not even a
single serious word is written about what needs to be done to deal with the deep causes which
led the French to revolt. Today's capitalism of Macron, Merkel and Trump does not produce a
Roosevelt and New Deal or Popular Fronts – and we have to wait to see if it will
produce a Hitler as some are trying to achieve. For the time being, it only produces Yellow
Vests!
They predicted it, they saw it coming, but they didn't believe it!
Yet they could have predicted all that. It would have sufficed, had they only taken
seriously and studied a book published in France in late 2016, six months before the
presidential election, highlighting the explosive nature of the social situation and warning
of the danger of revolution and civil war.
The title of the book was "Revolution". Its author was none other than Emmanuel Macron
himself. Six months later, he would become the President of France, to eventually verify, and
indeed rather spectacularly, his predictions. But the truth is probably, that not even he
himself gave much credit to what he wrote just to win the election.
By constantly lying, politicians, journalists and intellectuals reasonably came to believe
that even their own words are of no importance. That they can say and do anything they want,
without any consequence.
In Oscar Wilde's masterpiece "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the main character looks every
night at his horrible real self in the mirror. But he looks at it alone.
This is where Macron made his most fatal mistake, being arrogant and markedly cut off from
reality – with the confidence given to him by the mighty elite forces, which elected
him and by his contempt of the common people which characterizes him.
Unwise and Arrogant, he made no effort to hide – this is how sure he felt of
himself, this is how convinced his environment was that he could infinitely go on doing
anything he wanted without any consequences (same as our Tsipras). Thus, acting foolishly and
arrogantly, he left a few million eyes to see his real face. This was the last straw that
made the French people realize in a definite way what they had already started figuring out
during Sarkozy's and Hollande's, administration, or even earlier. Observing Macron, the
people understood what lied ahead for them. They felt their backs against the wall –
they felt that they had only themselves to rely on, that they had to take themselves action
to save themselves and their country.
There was nobody else to make it in their place.
Macron as a Provocateur.
Terror in Pompeii
This was the decisive moment, the moment the historical mission of Macron
was achieved . By establishing the most absolute control of Finance over Politics, he himself invited
Revolution. His triumph and his tragedy came together.
It was just then, that Bucephalus (*) sprang from the depths of historical Memory,
galloping without a rider, ready to sweep away everything in his path.
Now those in power look at him with fear, but fearful too are both the "radical right" and
the "radical left". Le Pen has already called on protesters to return to their homes and give
her names to include in her list for the European election!
Mélenchon supports the Vests – 70% of their demands coincide with the program
of his party, La France Insoumise – but so far he hasn't dared to join the
people in demanding Macron's resignation, by adopting the immense, but orphan, cry of the
people heard all over France: "Macron resign". Perhaps he feels that he hasn't got the steely
strength and willpower required for attempting to lead such a movement.
The unions' leadership is doing everything it can to keep the working class away from the
Vests, but this stand started causing increasing unrest at its base.
Many established "leftists" or "radical" intellectuals, who used to feverishly haul
capitalism over the coals – although the last thing they really wanted was to
experience a real revolution during their lifetime – they too, stand now frightened,
looking at an angry Bucephalus running ahead of them. They prefer a stable capitalism, of
which they can constitute its "consciousness", writing books, appearing on shows and giving
lectures, analyzing its crises and explaining its tribulations. They idea that the People
could at some point take seriously what they themselves said, never crossed their minds
either!
In fact, this is also a further confirmation of the depth of the movement. Lenin ,
who, in any event knew something about revolutions, wrote in 1917: "In a revolutionary
situation, the Party is a hundred times farther to the left than the Central Committee and
the workers a hundred times farther to the left than the Party."
"Revolutionary
Situation" and Power Vacuum
Today, four out of five French people disapprove of Macron's policies and one in two
demands that he resigns immediately. We assume that this percentage is greater than the
percentage of Russians who wanted the ousting of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917.
France is currently almost in a state of Power Vacuum . The president and
the government cannot in essence govern and the people cannot tolerate them. It is not a
situation of dual power, but a situation of dual legitimacy , in
Mélenchon 's accurate description.
This is a typical definition of a revolutionary situation . As history
teaches us, the emergence of such a situation is necessary but not sufficient condition for a victorious Revolution. What is required in or order to turn
a rebellion into a potentially victorious Revolution, is a capable and decided leadership and
an adequate strategy, program and vision. These elements do not seem to exist, at last not
for now, in today's France, as they did not exist in May 1968 or during the Russian
Revolution of February 1917. Therefore, the present situation remains open to all possible
eventualities; there must be no doubt however, that this is the beginning of a period of
intense political and class conflicts in Europe, and that the Europe, as we know it, is
already history.
People's Sovereignty at the center of demands
Starting from fuel tax the revolting French have now put at the centre of their demands,
in addition to Macron's resignation, the following:
preserving the purchasingpower of the poorest social strata, e.g.
with the abolition of VAT on basic necessities to ensure decent standards of living for the
entire population,
the right of people to provoke referendums on any issue, the Citizens'
Initiative Referendum (RIC), including referendums to revokeelectedrepresentatives (the President, MPs, mayors, etc. ) when they violate their mandate,
all that in the context of establishing a SixthFrenchRepublic .
In other words, they demand a profound and radical " transformation " of the
Western bourgeois-democratic regime, as we know it, towards a form of directdemocracy in order to take back the state, which has gradually and in a totalitarian
manner – but while keeping up democratic appearances – passed under direct and
full control of the Financial Capital and its employees. Or at least, for the people to be
given the opportunity to develop an effective way of controlling state power.
These are not the demands of a fun-club of Protagoras or of some left-wing or right-wing
groupuscule propagating Self-Management or of some club of intellectuals. Nor are they the
demands of only the lowest social strata of the French nation.
They are supported, according to the polls and put forward by at least three quarters of
French citizens, including a sizeable portion of the less poor. In such circumstances, these
demands constitute in effect the Will of the People, the Will of the Nation.
The Vests are nothing more than its fighting pioneers. And precisely because it is the
absolute majority of people who align with these demands, even if numbers have somewhat gone
down since the beginning of December, the Vests are still wanted out on the streets.
By reversing Marx's famous formula in German Ideology , the ideas
of the dominant class do not dominate society. This is why the situation can be
described as revolutionary.
And also because it is not only the President and the Government, who have been debunked
or at least de-legitimized, but it's also the whole range of state and political
institutions, the parties, the unions, the "information" media and the "ideologists" of the
regime.
The questioning of the establishment is so profound that any arguments about violence and
the protesters do not weaken society's support for them. Many, but not all, condemn violence,
but there are not many who don't go on immediately to add a reminder of the regime's social
violence against the people. When a famous ex-boxer lost his temper and reacted by punching a
number of violent police officers, protesters set up a fundraising website for his legal
fees. In just two hours they managed to raise around 120.000 euro, before removing the page
over officials' complaints and threats about keeping a file on anyone who contributes money
to support such causes.
Until now, an overwhelming majority of the French people supports the demands while an
absolute majority shows supports for the demonstrations; but of course, it is difficult to
keep such a deadlock and power-void situation going for long. They will sooner or later
demand a solution, and in situations such as these it is often the case that public opinion
shifts rapidly from the one end of the political spectrum to the other and vice versa,
depending on which force appears to be more decisive and capable of driving
society out of the crisis.
The organization of the Movement
Because the protesters have no confidence in the parties, the trade unions, or anyone else
for that matter, they are driven out of necessity into self-organization, as they already do
with the Citizens' Assemblies that are now emerging in villages, cities and motorway camps.
Indeed, by the end of the month, if everything goes well, they will hold the first "
AssemblyofAssemblies ".
Similar developments have also been observed in many revolutionary movements of this kind
in various countries. A classic example is the spontaneous formation of the councils (
Soviets ) during the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917.
Although it is difficult to form an opinion from afar about how the situation may unfold,
the formation of a such a United Front from grassroots could perhaps offer a
way out with regards to the need for a political leadership for the movement,
or even of the need to work out a transitional economic program for
France, which must also serve as a transitional program for Europe .
Contrary to how things were a century ago, certain factors such as the educational level
of the lower social classes, the existence of a number of critical, radical thinkers with the
necessary intellectual skills and the Internet, render such a possibility a much more
realistic scenario today, than in the past.
Because the movement's Achilles' Heel is that, while it is already in the process of
forming a political proposition, it still, at least for now, does not offer any economic
alternative or a politically structured, democratically controlled leadership.
Effective Democracy is an absolute requirement in such a front, because it is the
only way to synthesize the inevitablydifferentlevels of
consciousness within the People and to avoid a split of the movement between "left"
and "right", between those who are ready to resort to violence to achieve their ends and
those who have a preference for more peaceful, gradual processes.
Such a " front " could perhaps also serve as a platform for solidifying a
program and vision, to which the various parties and political organizations could
contribute.
In her CritiqueoftheRussianRevolutionRosaLuxemburg , the leader of the German Social Democracy was overly critical
of the Bolsheviks , even if, I think, a bit too severe in some points. But she closes
her critique with the phrase: " They at least dared "
Driven by absolute Need, guided by the specific way its historical experience has formed
its consciousness, possessing a Surplus of Consciousness, that is able to feel the
unavoidable conclusions coming out of the synthesis of the information we all possess, about
both the "quality" of the forces governing our world and the enormous dangers threatening our
countries and mankind, the French People, the French Nation has already crossed the
Rubicon.
By moving practically to achieve their goals at a massive scale, and regardless of what is
to come next, the French people has already made a giant leap up and forward and, once more
in its history, it became the world's forerunner in tackling the terrible economic,
ecological, nuclear and technological threats against human civilization and its
survival.
Without the conscious entry of large masses into the historical scene, with all the
dangers and uncertainties that such a thing surely implies, one can hardly imagine how
humanity will survive.
"... We saw the exact same dynamic when Obama was the populist hero. As Obama betrayed his base and acted against what people had expected from him, Obamabots insisted that Obama was playing 11-dimensional chess and that their hero's intentions were pure. It was all bullshit. ..."
"... Trump brought on Nikki Haley, Bolton, and Pompeo. Trump nominated Gina Haspel, acolyte of his supposed nemesis Brennan, for CIA director. Trump approved termination of JCPOA. ..."
"... And Trump's duplicity extends beyond Russia and Syria. He pretended to make a peace deal with North Korea but refuses to complete it. He railed against TPP but included TPP provisions in the new North America free-trade agreement. He said he would prosecute Hillary but backed within days of being elected saying: "the Clintons have been through enough" (what have they been through?!?), he said he would "drain the swamp" but has added to it, he put Jared Kushner - a supporter of illegal settlement building - in charge of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, etc. ..."
"... It was obvious from jumpstreet what Obama was all about! I never for once believed anything ..."
"... It is very unusual for a populist to win office in USA. I would say that today it is virtually impossible due to the money-based US electoral system. Once this fact is understood, it becomes clear that BOTH Trump and Obama are each faux populists ..."
"... The faux populist leader model is actually well suited for an inverted totalitarian government like USA. And I've previously described a number of elements that make up this model such as the need for partisans (Obamabots/Trumptards) that vehemently defend the popular hero as he betrays his base while bogus accusations from political opponents spark a knee-jerk reaction in the hero's base and prepare the ground for the next faux populist leader. ..."
"... In 2008, the Deep State needed to "turn the page" from Bushes militarism and Obama embodied that "change". In 2016, the Deep State needed a nationalist that could revive patriotism in order to meet the challenge from Russia and China. I don't think this was accidental. ..."
There are other signs a confrontation is coming soon. The U.S. has objected to Iran's
pending launch of two space satellites, saying these look like tests of missiles designed
to deliver nuclear warheads....
In short, forces are moving in this country and in Israel to bring about a U.S.
confrontation with Iran -- before our troops leave Syria [NYT says troop withdrawal is
estimated to take 4-6 months] .
But the real questions here are not about Bolton or Pompeo.
They are about Trump .
We saw the exact same dynamic when Obama was the populist hero. As Obama
betrayed his base and acted against what people had expected from him, Obamabots insisted
that Obama was playing 11-dimensional chess and that their hero's intentions were pure. It
was all bullshit.
Trump brought on Nikki Haley, Bolton, and Pompeo. Trump nominated Gina Haspel, acolyte
of his supposed nemesis Brennan, for CIA director. Trump approved termination of
JCPOA.
And Trump's administration claims to have defeated ISIS. They say that USA actions were
responsible for 99% of the anti-ISIS effort. Why make such a claim after Trump said in his
campaign: "Let Russia take care of ISIS"? My best guess: They want to portray
themselves as the 'good guy' to Western audiences and when they act against Syria in the
future, they will attempt to convince the Syrian people that the 'Assad must go'
Coalition was responsible for eliminating ISIS.
And Trump's duplicity extends beyond Russia and Syria. He pretended to make a peace
deal with North Korea but refuses to complete it. He railed against TPP but included TPP
provisions in the new North America free-trade agreement. He said he would prosecute Hillary
but backed within days of being elected saying: "the Clintons have been through enough" (what
have they been through?!?), he said he would "drain the swamp" but has added to it, he put
Jared Kushner - a supporter of illegal settlement building - in charge of Israeli-Palestinian
peace efforts, etc.
We saw the exact same dynamic when Obama was the populist hero. As Obama betrayed his base
and acted against what people had expected from him, Obamabots insisted that Obama was
playing 11-dimensional chess and that their hero's intentions were pure. It was all
bullshit.
It was obvious from jumpstreet what Obama was all about! I never for once believed
anything he said but I looked at what he did. A gangster from Chicago. In some
respects he was a black Carter, designed to act as an interregnum. It was Carter who
kickstarted the occupation of Afghanistan. It was Carter who bumped up the nuclear weapons
programme.
Trump is just a naked version of every prior US prez.
Trump is just a naked version of every prior US prez.
It is very unusual for a populist to win office in USA. I would say that today it is
virtually impossible due to the money-based US electoral system. Once this fact is
understood, it becomes clear that BOTH Trump and Obama are each faux populists.
The faux populist leader model is actually well suited for an inverted totalitarian
government like USA. And I've previously described a number of elements that make up this
model such as the need for partisans (Obamabots/Trumptards) that vehemently defend the
popular hero as he betrays his base while bogus accusations from political opponents spark a
knee-jerk reaction in the hero's base and prepare the ground for the next faux populist
leader.
"Untethered from any political responsibility whatsoever, he can be expected to capitalize fully on his new status as
political martyr and leader of a new "resistance" that will make today's look supine."
Trump campaigned as a populist, the principal time the term applies, and also as
president. Witness the current impasse over a border wall which is an appeal to the ordinary
people who elected Trump, and he often wears that silly MAGA cap which appeals to his
electorate.
populist: a person, especially a politician, who strives to appeal to ordinary
people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
Trump on the campaign trail was a populist as you admit at your link: "Trump was the ONLY
populist on the Republican side (out of 19 contenders!)." That's how he got nominated and
then elected in a huge upset, appealing to ordinary people which the other candidates
couldn't do. Trump wasn't chosen by anybody, but he was (and is) ridiculed by many.
How Trump and Obama got elected is clear. But just because they ran as populists doesn't
mean that they have a populist agenda. I think I've been pretty clear that they have each
made decisions and taken actions that furthered the establishment over the people.
And running as a populist doesn't mean an automatic 'win'. For example, voters are going
to be skeptical about the motives of a billionaire running for office, question the ability
of a novice politician, and be distrustful of a man who has had 3 wives and 4
bankruptcies.
In 2008, the Deep State needed to "turn the page" from Bushes militarism and Obama
embodied that "change". In 2016, the Deep State needed a nationalist that could revive
patriotism in order to meet the challenge from Russia and China. I don't think this was
accidental.
@ karlof1 | Jan 15, 2019 8:29:05 PM | 30 Which are more salient--domestically: The attacks on Russia or those against
Trump?
Of course the attacks against Trump by the establishment are more important, designed to
bring him down. The American people have been conditioned by the press in American
Exceptionalism, so they expect that those people in the world who were not wise enough to be
born Americans ought to suffer for it especially if they are -- yuk -- Russian. So anything
the US government does against Russia is accepted as a given, no big deal, run-of-the-mill.
When is Trump's "delivering" for Israel (i.e. not Russia) going to be examined?
Let's examine it -- Trump is delivering a crushing defeat to Israel by backing out of Syria,
and thereby conceding the "Shia Crescent" to Iran, backed by Russia and Turkey.
Thanks b that sets out the nature of the great distraction and the transparent BS that it
represents. So now that USAians can see the nonsense could they please get on with the
substance of making change and making USA great again by taking to the streets. Its about
time for a large wage increase and dropping taxes that impact on low to medium wage people.
Given the special role played by France in the USA struggle for independence, its about
time the the Gillet Jaune manifested in the USA. The low and middle income people already
Occupy the nation so now they should demand reform. Those few old and new progressive leftish
congresscritters should don the yellow vest and meet their allies on the street corners for
discussions and talk of equity and wage and tax justice. Its Rules for Radicals time or its
going nowhere time. Will they choose? May I suggest the first Rule for Radicals could be the
wearing of a yellow vest by the Congressional and Senate supporters of wage and tax justice
at the next and all subsequent pressers and attendances.
If not I gather they have all guzzled the cool aid and are content with the noise emitted
from the great distractor.
I've made a substantial case for Trump's having been chosen to follow Obama. I look forward
to any comments you may have regarding that the argument that I've set forth.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 15, 2019 6:20:14 PM | 24
That was a joke, right?
Anyone so hampered by dotage that he forgets, several times a day, that he's already repeated
the substance of his 'newest' meme several times in the same thread, and a majority of
others, should probably consider getting a good night's sleep as an anti-dote.
"crushing defeat"? what utter provocative BS Don! Trump withdrawal leaves all the local
belligerents and malign Syria haters to do the job any way they wish. This fantasy that Trump
has abandoned Israel's regional domination is totally unsupported by fact and sounds to me
like a typical AIPAC alarmist trope.
Trump has being saying for some years now that others need to shoulder the burden.
Lets look at what the burden in Syria is shall we. Not only does USA give billions to
Israel to guarantee the colony but it also fights its wars for it in Syria. Then there are
all those charities raising money in the USA for the IDF. Then there is all the armaments
transfers by numerous clandestine channels to head choppers trying to destroy the Syrian
people's government and society. Many of those armaments transfers are paid with by USA black
dollars possibly to be accounted for in that $21 trillion fund that the USA Defense
Department has been wallowing in.
It is bleedingly obvious to me that Israel in not being crushingly defeated by anyone.
Syria nearly was!!!!!
When a self professed progressive country such as Israel is incapable of getting on with
the most religiously diverse border nation as Syria or Lebanon then there is a hoax somewhere
in the dialogue. The manifestation of a Shia crescent (a BS straw man)is because the
belligerent nations self defeated their allies: the Sunni murderers.
Mind you Don, I don't see any Shia crescent, I see a few nations bombed and shot to hell
desperately trying to establish normalcy of some sort BECAUSE of the manipulations of Saudi
and Israel governments and their pawns.
Half of Americans don't bother voting for president. Why is the American media full only of people who insist that the country
is divided in half between Democrat and Republican supporters? Where are the people of influence who think it's a problem and
reflects poorly on the country that half of eligible voters don't see a reason to participate, and that it's worth changing things
in order to get more people to change their minds about that?
Both parties are content with being unpopular, but with political mechanisms ensuring they stay in power anyway. The Democrats
aren't concerned with being popular. They're content with being a token opposition party that every once in a while gets a few
token years with power they don't put to any good anyway. It pays more, I guess.
It still looks like if Americans want to live in a progressive country, they'll have to move to one. But as it is clear that the
neoliberalism of establishment Democrats has little or nothing to offer the poor and working class, or to non-wealthy millennials,
the times they are a-changing.
These corporate-Dem candidates are not being forced to sell out to win elections. Quite the
opposite in fact. They are risking losing their elections for the sake of selling out.
Surely, many will comment that Democrats have no choice but to take the money in order to be
competitive. I have one truism for such folks to ponder: Why would you trust your allegiance
to those who don't care if you win?
Basic logic: rich people win the general election either way, so long as the
primary-winning Democrat is in their pocket (the GOP is always on their side). So this
monetary affection is certainly more about fixing an no-lose general than it is about ousting
Trump, or any Republican.
Trump was elected using Adelson money. That;s probably is what is wrong with Trump.
Is Trump a Republican Obama? As in "Brain dead Dems kept saying Obama would do the right thing by the nation, that he was
playing 4D chess, up till the moment he was no longer president, and in the end he was a
narcisstic, self-aggrandizing politician who transferred trillions to the 0.1% and made
America worse by any standard."
Notable quotes:
"... The struggle between the neocons and Trump over control of foreign policy has become ridiculous. One must remember that he can dismiss them all with the stroke of a pen, just he can dismiss his non civil service tormentors in the justice department and the FBI. ..."
"... Bolton has tried to countermand Trump's decision in Syria. His attempt and that of Jeffrey were rebuked in Ankara and DoD then announced an immediate commencement of the withdrawal. ..."
"... And yet the unholy trio of Pompeo (first in the hearts of his USMA class), Jeffrey, a career neocon hack at State, and Bolton (the mustachioed menace) are still in their jobs? Say what? ..."
"... And then there is the Great Southern Border Crisis. The Democrats have repeatedly voted for a great deal of money for barrier systems on the border. Chancy (Chuck and Nancy) were in the lead in such votes over the years. Now Nancy (who may not remember her votes) is denying Trump "a single dollar" for border barriers. ..."
"... To say that barriers are ineffective is dishonest. By now Trump knows that he can declare a national emergency and fund the barriers after however much litigation the Dems can arrange. There is ample money available for the purpose. So, why does he not do it? ..."
"... I voted for Trump. He lost me when he filled his cabinet with swamp creatures and then further when he replaced the generals with neo-cons like Bolton. You cant change the government if you don't understand how the government works - its not a real estate business that you can declare bankruptcy to make a buck. ..."
"... Brain dead Dems kept saying Obama would do the right thing by the nation, that he was playing 4D chess, up till the moment he was no longer president, and in the end he was a narcisstic, self-aggrandizing politician who transferred trillions to the 0.1% and made America worse by any standard. ..."
"... If he cared about illegal immigration, how about enforcing laws against employing illegal immigrants ..."
According to Hido, Washington's Special Representative for Syria, James Jeffrey, delivered
several messages to the leadership of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) demanding them to slow
down the negotiations with Damascus and promising to discuss the idea of establishing a no-fly
zone over northeastern Syria.
The Kurdish political described Jeffery's messages as "disturbing" and called on the Kurdish
leadership to deal with them in careful manner.
Furthermore, Hido stressed that the SDF should take a decision on the talks with the
Damascus government as soon as possible and regretted that some Kurdish officials are still
pinning their hopes on a possible change in the
U.S. decision to withdraw from Syria .
"Talks with the Syrian government are still ongoing in a positive atmosphere," RT quoted
Hido as saying.
Jeffrey made a visit to Turkey recently, where he tried to strike a deal with Ankara over
northeastern Syria. However, Turkey's plans to attack US-backed Kurdish forces and invade the
region hindered his efforts.
It appears to be that the SDF's only real option is the deal with Damascus as any U.S.
solution would likely involve Turkey, which has demonstrated its agressive attitude towards
Syrian Kurdish groups during its operation in Afrin in 2018." SF
------------
The struggle between the neocons and Trump over control of foreign policy has become
ridiculous. One must remember that he can dismiss them all with the stroke of a pen, just he
can dismiss his non civil service tormentors in the justice department and the FBI.
Bolton has
tried to countermand Trump's decision in Syria. His attempt and that of Jeffrey were rebuked in
Ankara and DoD then announced an immediate commencement of the withdrawal.
What could that have
been other than a renewed presidential order to the Defense Department? And yet the unholy trio
of Pompeo (first in the hearts of his USMA class), Jeffrey, a career neocon hack at State, and
Bolton (the mustachioed menace) are still in their jobs? Say what?
And then there is the Great Southern Border Crisis. The Democrats have repeatedly voted for
a great deal of money for barrier systems on the border. Chancy (Chuck and Nancy) were in the
lead in such votes over the years. Now Nancy (who may not remember her votes) is denying Trump
"a single dollar" for border barriers.
BTW, any soldier will tell you that the purpose of
barriers IS NOT to stop all movement. No, it is to slow up movement and canalize it so that
Quick Reaction Forces (QRF) can get there first with the most. To say that barriers are
ineffective is dishonest. By now Trump knows that he can declare a national emergency and fund
the barriers after however much litigation the Dems can arrange. There is ample money available
for the purpose. So, why does he not do it?
On Smerconish's show today, Bob Baer, spy extraordinaire, (read his books) asserted that the
various bits and pieces of circumstantial "evidence" about Trump's contacts with and attitude
toward Russia, as well as those of his flunkies and relatives amount to a "good enough" case
for Trump being a Russian agent of influence. That is how a HUMINT spook judges such things. It
is a matter of probabilities, not hard evidence. Assets of an alien government are not always
witting (understanding) of their status from the POV of the foreign government, but that does
not necessarily make other than agents. Sometimes they think they are merely cooperating in a
good and normal way when, in fact, the relationship is much deeper. Jane Fonda in North Vietnam
would be an example.
OTOH the president is responsible for the conduct of US foreign policy and is not under an
obligation to accept the perhaps hackneyed views of his subordinates. Perhaps his world view is
quite different and he is not mesmerized by the group think of the Borg. If that is so ...
But, how does one explain his lack of action on the border? Does someone or some thing in
Russia, Israel, the UK, his former business associates, have something really juicy on Trump,
something that he fears to unleash through decisive action? pl
Sir, I think he's just being cautious and exhausting all other options because half of the
country has been made to believe he's a dictator. He's being sensitive to that. He will act.
Give it time.
Sensitive? Cautious? Caring about Americans not in his base (whatever his base means)? Doesnt
sounds like president Donald Trump the last two years. He acts more like he is confused about what the president's powers are while the
wormtongues he appointed and replaces with more of the same continue to whisper in his
ear.
Contrary to all the TDS out there, maybe he prefers to do things the right way and have
Congress make laws and budgets that work for all of us whether or not we all understand how.
If that was the case, why so many signing statements (particularly since republicans control
congress ). He is on target to pass Obama. who also preferred not to do things by laws.
http://www.coherentbabble.c... Its just that the trend towards an imperial, unitary presidency keeps getting worse with
full acquiescence of congress who suckles on the corporate money teat, under both Dems and
Repubs.
I voted for Trump. He lost me when he filled his cabinet with swamp creatures and then
further when he replaced the generals with neo-cons like Bolton. You cant change the
government if you don't understand how the government works - its not a real estate business
that you can declare bankruptcy to make a buck.
Brain dead Dems kept saying Obama would do the right thing by the nation, that he was
playing 4D chess, up till the moment he was no longer president, and in the end he was a
narcisstic, self-aggrandizing politician who transferred trillions to the 0.1% and made
America worse by any standard.
-----
Here's a nice plot - US apprehensions comparable to 1970 when the US had a much smaller
population.
Now if Trump shut the govt down until congress did something about big pharma and the opioid
crisis because Congress is in their pocket he would have my support. But then the republicans
and dems would jointly impeach him to keep the money spigot flowing.
Decreasing life expectancy is what happens in the sh-tholes to use his term. If he cared about illegal immigration, how about enforcing laws against employing illegal
immigrants. Don't republicans who theoretically support capitalism (as opposed to crony
capitalism) understood supply and demand? (If there is a demand, then supply will meet
it)
Oh, because illegal immigrants are good for the bottom line of people, like, well,
Trump:
"... Yes, plus they could have at least tied in the Rosenstein attempt to wear a wire to trap Trump via the 25th amendment as hatched by McCabe too. Lousy article. ..."
Yes, plus they could have at least tied in the Rosenstein attempt to wear a wire to trap
Trump via the 25th amendment as hatched by McCabe too. Lousy article.
"... As it happens, neocons are in luck. Most Americans know little of the ideas that animated their country's founding. They're more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the classical-liberal philosophy of the Founders, and, hence, wish to see the aggrandizement of the coercive, colossal, Warfare State. That's just the way things are. ..."
"... If past is prologue, Ron Paul is probably right when he says the CIA is likely meddling in Iranian politics. ..."
"... Then US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, a woman as dumb and dangerous as Nikki Haley, was cool with the carnage. (One almost misses Henry Kissinger's realpolitik . At least the man was highly educated and deeply knowledgeable about history and world affairs. Second only to Jared Kushner, of course.) ..."
"... No one would deny the largely neoconservative nature of Trump's National Security Strategy . Tucked in there somewhere is the Trumpian theme of "sovereignty," but in watered-down words. The promised Wall has given way to "multilayered technology"; to the "deployment of additional personnel," and to the tried-and-tested (not!) "vetting of prospective immigrants, refugees, and other foreign visitors." ..."
"... These are mouthfuls Barack Obama and Genghis Bush would hardly oppose. ..."
"... "It's often said that the Trump administration is 'isolationist,'" wrote historian Andrew J. Bacevich, in the UK Spectator. Untrue. "In fact, we are now witnessing a dramatic escalation in the militarization of US foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan. This has not been announced, but it is happening, and much of it without any debate in Congress or the media." ..."
"... To some, the normalizing of neoconservatism by a president who ran against it is a stroke of genius; of a piece with Bill Clinton's triangulation tactics. To others, it's a cynical sleight of hand. ..."
"... So Trump did morph into Hillary. Actually, it was something I was afraid of once I got the good news of Hillary losing, but expected, considering that I view presidents as empty suits, and the National Security State calling the shots. ..."
"... The Trump holdouts that maintain his turncoat buffoonery is actually 5d chess are the 2018 equivalent of the 2009 hopey changey Obots and can't accept their big daddy is a liar and a spineless turncoat. The system is broken and cannot be fixed from within. ..."
"... The signs were already there before the election, too many people were hoping that this time it will be different (it never is) and ignored them. He has jewish children and did say how he was anti Iran, he was always a neo cohen servative. ..."
"... I'm a little more sanguine about a Zionist President who approaches problems from a business and deal-making position than from one who comes a neocon political position (e.g., Hillary, every other GOP candidate except Rand Paul). The former are pragmatic and will avoid conflict, especially stupid conflict, at all costs. While the latter believe they are virtuous in going to war and/or attacking countries. Did you hear Hillary threaten to shoot down Russian planes in Syria during the campaign (WTF??!). ..."
It's fact: Neoconservatives are pleased with President Trump's foreign policy.
A couple of months back, Bloomberg's Eli Lake let it know he was in neoconservative
nirvana:
" for Venezuela, [Donald Trump] came very close to calling for regime change. 'The United
States has taken important steps to hold the regime accountable,' Trump said. 'We are prepared
to take further action if the government of Venezuela persists on its path to impose
authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people.'"
"For a moment,"
swooned Lake , "I closed my eyes and thought I was listening to a Weekly Standard
editorial meeting."
Onward to Venezuela! Mr. Lake, a neoconservative, was loving every moment. In error, he and his kind confuse an
expansionist foreign policy with "American exceptionalism." It's not.
As it happens, neocons are in luck. Most Americans know little of the ideas that animated
their country's founding. They're more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the
classical-liberal philosophy of the Founders, and, hence, wish to see the aggrandizement of the
coercive, colossal, Warfare State. That's just the way things are.
So, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have enlisted the West in "a proxy Sunni-Shia
religious war," Riyadh's ultimate aim. Donald Trump has been perfectly willing to partake. After a campaign of "America First," the president sided with Sunni Islam while demonizing
Iran. Iranians have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks in the US between
1975-2015; Saudi Arabians
murdered 2369 !
Iranians recently reelected a reformer. Pray tell who elected the Gulf petrostate
sheiks?
Moderates danced in the streets of Tehran when President Hassan Rouhani was reelected.
Curiously, they're currently rioting.
If past is prologue, Ron Paul is probably right when he says the CIA is likely meddling in
Iranian politics. For the Left and the pseudo-Right, this is a look-away issue. As the
left-liberal establishment lectures daily, to question the Central Intelligence Agency -- its
spooks are also agitating against all vestiges of President Trump's original "America First"
plank -- is to "undermine American democracy."
Besides, "good" Americans know that only the Russians "meddle."
In Saudi Arabia, a new, more-dangerous regime is consolidating regional power. Almost
overnight has the kingdom shifted from rule by family dynasty (like that of the Clintons and
the Bushes), to a more authoritarian style of one-man
rule .
When it comes to the Saudi-Israeli-American-Axis-of-Angels, the Kushner-Trump Administration
-- is that another bloodline in-the-making? -- has not broken with America's ruling dynastic
families (the Clintons and the Bushes, aforementioned).
It's comforting to know Saudi Arabia plays a crucial role in the UN's human rights affairs.
In January of last year, the Kingdom executed 47 people in one day, including a rather benign
Shiite cleric. Fear not, they went quickly,
beheaded with a sword .
Then US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, a woman as dumb and dangerous as Nikki Haley,
was cool with the carnage. (One almost misses Henry Kissinger's realpolitik . At
least the man was highly educated and deeply knowledgeable about history and world
affairs. Second only to Jared Kushner, of course.)
Our bosom buddies, the Saudi's, are currently
barricading Yemeni ports. No aid gets through her hermetically sealed ports. Yemenis are
dying. Some Twitter followers twittered with joy at the sight of starving Yemeni babies, like
this
one . Oh well, Yemeni babies can be sinister.
No one would deny the largely neoconservative nature of
Trump's National Security Strategy . Tucked in there somewhere is the Trumpian theme of
"sovereignty," but in watered-down words. The promised Wall has given way to "multilayered
technology"; to the "deployment of additional personnel," and to the tried-and-tested (not!)
"vetting of prospective immigrants, refugees, and other foreign visitors."
These are mouthfuls Barack Obama and Genghis Bush would hardly oppose.
"It's often said that the Trump administration is 'isolationist,'" wrote
historian Andrew J. Bacevich, in the UK Spectator. Untrue. "In fact, we are now witnessing a
dramatic escalation in the militarization of US foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa and
Afghanistan. This has not been announced, but it is happening, and much of it without any
debate in Congress or the media."
Indeed, while outlining his "new" Afghanistan plan, POTUS had conceded that "the American
people are weary of war without victory." (Make that war, full-stop.) Depressingly, the
president went on to promise an increase in American presence in Afghanistan. By sending 4000
additional soldiers there, President Trump alleged he was fighting terrorism, yet not
undertaking nation building.
This is tantamount to talking out of both sides of one's mouth.
Teasing apart these two elements is near-impossible. Send "4,000 additional soldiers to add
to the 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan," and you've done what Obama and Bush before you did
in that blighted and benighted region: muddle along; kill some civilians mixed in with some bad
guys; break bread with tribal leaders (who hate your guts); mediate and bribe.
Above all, spend billions not your own to perfect the credo of a global fighting
force that doesn't know Shiite from Shinola .
The upshot? It's quite acceptable, on the Left and the pseudo-Right, to casually quip about
troops in Niger and
Norway . "We have soldiers in Niger and Norway? Of course we do. We need them."
With neoconservatism normalized, there is no debate, disagreement or daylight between our
dangerously united political factions.
This is the gift President Trump has given mainstream neoconservatives -- who now
comfortably include neoliberals and all Conservatism Inc., with the exceptions of Pat Buchanan,
Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson.
How exactly did the president normalize neoconservatism: In 2016, liberals accused candidate
Trump of isolationism. Neoconservatives -- aka Conservatism Inc. -- did the same.
Having consistently complained of his isolationism , the Left and the phony Right
cannot but sanction President Trump's interventionism . The other option is to admit
that we of the callused
Old Right, who rejoiced at the prospects and promise of non-interventionism, were always
right.
Not going to happen.
To some, the normalizing of neoconservatism by a president who ran against it is a stroke of
genius; of a piece with Bill Clinton's triangulation tactics. To others, it's a cynical sleight
of hand.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but
you cannot fool all the people all the time.
But you can fool the whole country all the time in American bi-partisan system. Clinton,
Bush, Obama, Trump each were brought to power by fooling their electorate.
So Trump did morph into Hillary.
Actually, it was something I was afraid of once I got the good news of Hillary losing, but
expected, considering that I view presidents as empty suits, and the National Security State
calling the shots.
I'm waiting for another one of those "Trump's Truth in Action" moments when describes the
real political atmosphere in Washington.
Trump was asked about something he said in a previous interview: "When you give, they do
whatever the hell you want them to do." "You'd better believe it," Trump said. "If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of
the people on this stage I've given to, just so you understand, a lot of money."
I think its time to dump the label "neoconservative". The appropriate term is
"interventionists without a cause" (IWAC or IWC) or some other descriptor.
The real problem that Pres Trump has and I remain a Pres Trump supporter is two fold:
1. He seems to have forgotten he won the election.
2. He seems to have forgotten what he was elected to do.
And nearly everyone of these issues on foreign policy the answer rests in respecting
sovereignty – that of others and our own.
I didn't need to read,"Adios, America" to comprehend the deep state damage our careless
immigration policy has on the country. I don't need to reread, "Adios, America" to grasp that
our policies of intervening in the affairs of other states undermines our own ability to make
the same case at home.
If I weren't already trying to plow my way through several other books, documentaries and
relapsing to old school programming such as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and now the Dick
Van Dyke show, i would reread,
"Adios , America."
In Col. Bacevich's book,
Washington Rules, he posits a distressing scenario that the foreign policy web is so
tangled and entrenched, the executive branch is simply out his league. The expectation was
that Pres trump had the will to turn the matter. I hold out hope, but maybe not. There's
time.
@J.RossThe Trump holdouts that maintain his turncoat buffoonery is actually 5d chess are the 2018
equivalent of the 2009 hopey changey Obots and can't accept their big daddy is a liar and a
spineless turncoat. The system is broken and cannot be fixed from within.
The signs were already there before the election, too many people were hoping that this time
it will be different (it never is) and ignored them. He has jewish children and did say how
he was anti Iran, he was always a neo cohen servative.
I have a question for all the Trump supporters still in denial, what will it take to break
your delusions? He is not going to build a wall, mass immigration is up, the left wing are
mass censoring and essentially running everything now, his foreign policy is now endorsed by
the all the never Trumpers – so what is your limit, is there anything he must do to
lose your support?
Jews and the Jewish Media normalized Jewish NeoCons by guaranteeing that they always
have a voice and airtime in American culture and media. Never called out by the
WashingtonPost and NY Times for their previous blunders, they continue to shape American
foreign policy. And, of course, the end game here is Israel and the Israeli agenda at all
costs, you Jews are one issue folk. And You definitely do your part, with the subtle
subterfuge at work in the articles that you write.
No one should be surprised by Trump promoting Israeli interests über alles. For
decades he was so involved in Israel events in New York I debated whether he was actually
Jewish or not. Bannon said the embassy move to Jerusalem was at the behest of Adelson,
Trump's old casino buddy. In the campaign Trump got a lot of support from NY Jewish
billionaires (Icahn, Feinberg, Paulson, et al.). They know him and how he operates.
But being pro-Israel doesn't necessarily equate to neocon. The neocons are the dumb Jews
with serious inadequacy issues who could never make it in business and instead went into
politics and journalism. The latter are still staunchly opposed to Trump even after a lot of
pro-Israel moves. They might warm up to Trump's bellicosity towards a lot of Israel's enemies
(a long list with degrees of separation), but so far they've simply moved left.
I'm a little more sanguine about a Zionist President who approaches problems from a
business and deal-making position than from one who comes a neocon political position (e.g.,
Hillary, every other GOP candidate except Rand Paul). The former are pragmatic and will avoid
conflict, especially stupid conflict, at all costs. While the latter believe they are
virtuous in going to war and/or attacking countries. Did you hear Hillary threaten to shoot
down Russian planes in Syria during the campaign (WTF??!).
Lastly, I like to think Trump surrounded himself with neocons (McMaster, Haley, et al.) to
placate the GOP establishment because he knows he has to play the game.
People are inclined to believe that any activity -- in this instance, voting for the
red/blue puppets in Washington -- in which their participation is patronized must be
legitimate and effectual. Many duped in November 2016, even those who now feel betrayed by
that farce, were still around here a few weeks ago acting like a Senator Moore in Alabama
would be pivotal to reform, his defeat devastating.
That's how Ms. Mercer and her pundit ilk
(Buchanan, Napolitano, etc.) thrive -- supporting the Empire by never questioning its
legitimacy, just taking sides within the Establishment. And they'll be buying into the 2018
congressional contests, ad nauseum.
Of course, what is done to us, and to others in our name and with our money, never changes
to any meaningful degree. Americans might realize this if they thought critically about it,
so they don't. Instead, they lap up the BS and vote for who tells them the lie they like to
hear. When there are identity politics involved, the delusion seems even deeper. There are
self-styled "progressives" who used to advocate single-payer, nationalized health care who
are elated over the retention of so-called "Obamacare," the legislation for which was written
by and for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
Me? I cope by boycotting national elections and mass media, participating in forums like
this, and hoping that when the tottering tower of debt and gore tips over, as few innocents
and as many guilty as practicable are among those crushed.
The Zionist neocons and Israel did 911 and got away with it and everyone in the U.S. gov
knows it and they tried to sink the USS LIBERTY and got away with it and so normal is an
Orwellian society where Zionists can kill Americans and destroy the Mideast and nobody does
jack shit about it.
The neocons are Satanists warmongers and will destroy America.
Neocons are about as evil as proudly proclaimed Leftists, and they are obviously more
duplicitous.
Either Neocons will be refuted and publicly rebuked and rejected, or Neocons will
eventually destroy the country. Their long term fruits are destruction of that which they
have used to destroy so many others.
@anonymous
Far from all Neocons are Jews. However, virtually all Neocons are militantly pro-Israel to
the point of making Israel's foreign policy desires central to their assessment of what
America needs in foreign policy.
And the source is Anglo-Saxon Puritanism, which was a Judaizing heresy. Judaizing heresy
necessarily produces pro-Jewish culture. WASP culture is inherently pro-Jewish, as much as it
is anti-Catholic and anti-French and and anti-Spanish and anti-Irish, etc.
And all that means that WASP is opposed to the nest interests of the vast majority of
white Christians while being pro-Jewish.
Jews did not cause any of that. Anglo-Saxon Puritan heretics did.
@neutral
Pres Trump is a situational leader. It's a rare style, for good reason. However, he is openly
situational. That was clear during the campaign season. however,
I thought his positions were sincere. I don't think that this was any kind of slight of
hand, "watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat". His positions on Israel, same sex behavior,
marijuana, healthcare remain what they were going in. His foreign policy and immigration
positions have been buffered and he seems incapable of standing where he came in.
It was no secret he intended an assertive military. However, he seems easily convinced
that strong means aggressive, and that needlessly aggressive policy is a substitute for a
strong US -- that is a mistake. Syria cruise strike was the first sign that he was giving in
to the men whom he chose as advisers. As it it turns out winning the election has been easier
than governing. I assumed he had a much stronger backbone, than he has been willing to
exhibit in office.
@Jake
The Israeli/AIPAC bribery of American bible thumper preachers, especially in the
fundamentalist southern American states has more to do with it than the reformation.
The preachers get huge donations to pay for their churches and TV shows. They get free
trips to Israel for themselves and their families all the time.
On their Israel trips they pay more attention to the OT Jewish and holocaust sites than
the Christian ones
It's true that the reformation was a return to Judaism and a rejection of Christianity,
but that was 500 years ago.
What's important now is the vast amounts of money the Israeli government and the lobby
funnels into those fundamentalist churches.
If the southern fundamentalists only knew what Jews think of them. I really got an earful
of Jewish scorn and hate for southerners and fundamentalists during the recent Roy Moore
election.
Read Jewish publications if you want to learn what they think of southern
fundamentalists
@Twodees
Partain Trump appointed Haley because Sheldon Adelson told him to.
And contrary to the myth of trump funding his own campaign he did not the only money he put
in his campaign was a 1o million loan to it. Adelson was his biggest contributor just like
Saban was Hillary's.
Not coincidentally, however, neocon hopes may lie as well with the generous political
funding provided to Haley by Sheldon Adelson, the GOP's and Trump's single biggest donor.
Between May and June, 2016, Sheldon Adelson contributed $250,000 to Haley's 527 political
organization, A Great Day, funds that she used to target four Republican state senate rivals
in primaries. (Only one was successfully defeated.) Adelson was the largest contributor to
her group,
which raised a total of $915,000.
This powerful Adelson-funded Israel lobby could soon rival AIPAC's https://www.haaretz.com › U.S.
News
Oct 31, 2017 – Sheldon Adelson(L), The 3rd annual IAC National Conference, in
September, 2016, and Nikki Haley. . will feature, for the first time ever, a prominent
speaker from the ranks of the U.S. government: U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who is
a favorite among the right-leaning "pro-Israel" crowd.
The Jews have bought this government and trump and Haley are nothing but junk yard
dogs.
Not that there are good alternatives but anyone who stills supports trump is as crazy as he
is.
The title is ridiculous. Neo conservatives have been normal for decades.
The neocon movement was normalized in 2001 by the PATRIOT Act. The domestic side of the
neocon worldview -- or world-system -- was joined with the international or interventionist
side, just as anti-Palestinian actions by Israel were joined by way of repression of free
speech with the Charlottesville protest by conservatives of the desecration of monuments.
@renfro
I'm sure the evangelical preachers con their followers into donating money to Israel. I've
seen those late night ads begging for donations to feed ancient old holocaust survivors in
Israel.
But the Israelis pay for all those luxury trips to Israel And a lot of the money to start
those TV shows and for the big salaries come from Israel and AIPAC so does the money to set
up those big churches that just appear from nowhere
@Grandpa
Charlie I have always wondered why its okay to say WASP but not Jew in public.
One is more pc, the other is not allowed.
I have seen some articles about Jews replacing wasp, even from Jewish authors.
As for Neoconservatives. It depends how we define it.
I see it as a case of American imperialism fused with pro Israel sentiment. Large overlap,
but not always.
From what I know modern Neoconservativism started somewhere around the 70s,80s? Became
dominant around the Bush years. (during Reagan years they got rid of many Paleocons).
@Twodees
Partain Not only Nikki is a prank, she is also a godsend. Now the world get to see USG
naked without usual pretension.
Trumps is probably the most honest Potus with highest integrity & bravery in American
history(stupid aside). He means what he said without mind boggling hypocrite lies, he tried
fulfilling all his election promises, fighting bravely with his only little weapon tweeter
besiege by entire states organs, CIA/FBI, both parties, MSM, world allies,
He put US Embassy in Jerusalem that all other Potus promised but never keep, he tried to
revise immigration policy that people blocked, building prototype wall now, try befriend
Russia become a treason act, reneged nuclear agreement with Iran, make US military great(of
course need hyper tension like nuclear NK), scraped Obacare, TTP, Climate deal, try to grab
Killary, bring back jobs with tax heaven .
Mann, this is really a man of his word. Didn't these are what you people voted him for, to
drain the swamp? He gotta shock the entire MSM brainwashed nation up to see the deeply
corrupted USG, collapse it quickly for a new one to move in(by whoever after his prank). As
Trumps had asked:"what you got to lose to vote me?"
@Twodees
Partain Yes..ues i admit, don't shoot. Im just been sarcastic, USG is in such a laughing
stock to the world now, many americans probably are exasperated if not yet numb. I am not
judging he is good, DT is just less evil typical business man..imo
But frankly, i do see why people are voting DT now. He is at least more entertaining and
blunt to screw up WH deep states show. Per msm (fake news), he is honouring all his campaign
promises rt? So that make him above hypocrite liar Obama who speak on peace(Nobel prize), but
drenched in Libyan and Syrians blood.
US msm brainwashed people need lot of shock & awe to wake up to reality, then they
might have hope to drain the swamp in unity or just await to implode and suck down whole
world.
Believing that the current world system no longer sufficiently advances American
interests ever since Washington lost control of its institutional tools, and that the
eventual outcome of this increasingly multipolar state of affairs is that the US will in
turn lose its global empire, Trump has decided to become the Agent of Chaos in bringing
about its destruction.
I know with certainty that Hillary is a beast from depth of hell.
Meh, hyperbole.
Hillary is no different from most politicians. She's in it for the wealth and power. She
got herself a real smart, duplicitous, pussy-chasing beast of a husband, and made the most of
the opportunity.
People -- the American people -- should be able to see this rather-evident characteristic
of politicians. They should be adequately educated, at least to the extent of being able to
detect the base chicanery and corruption that radiates from political personalities.
But, they don't. They don't see the evil. The media deftly conceals it, because the beasts
of the media, like jackals, feed on the morsels of wealth that fall to the ground as the
politicians devour the carcass of well, hell, freedom and democracy is as useful a metaphor
as any.
In this context, I am reminded of British comedian Alexei Sayle. When asked what he does
when he watches a really talented satirist performing, Sayle replied: "I go back stage and
tell him he'll never make it."
Indeed, the attitude to my work over 20 years has been the best proof of its quality.
If the Comments threads about "ilana mercer," on the Unz Review, prove anything (other
than that anti-Semitism lives), it is that mediocre "men" (for the most) hate a woman who can
out-think them. As a defender of men, this saddens me, but it is, nevertheless, true.
Ron Unz, our wonderful editor, chose the image appended to the column. (The brilliant Mr.
Unz is one of the few intellectually honest individuals I know in this biz. He, columnist
Jack Kerwick, and a handful of others.)
In reply to kunckle-dragger's sniveling: I'll continue to refrain from interacting with
his ilk ("fanboys") on my column's thread. But this particular dreadful cur (with apologies
to dogs, which I love) further embarrasses himself when he offers up the non sequitur that
engaging him is the litmus test for being a "good writer."
I see it as a case of American imperialism fused with pro Israel sentiment. Large
overlap, but not always.
Agreed. American imperialism has a long long history (going back to at least the mid-19th
century). That's why the neocons were able to gain so much influence. They were appealing to
a pre-existing imperialist sentiment.
There is a large group of US politician non Jews
who also are pushing this policies. So these two groups together would be called
Neocons.
There is a large group in US population, that find this idea very appealing.
That's why Make America Great Again was such a popular slogan. It appeals to mindless
American jingoism and imperialism.
@dfordoom
Edward Dutton stated that it was a trade-off between intelligence on one side and instinct on
another – both are necessary for survival. For me, intelligence does not seem to
correlate directly to wisdom.
If so, that reinforces my view that Trump doesn't know anybody in the Swamp
You are exactly right.
Trump really knew no one to hire or appoint to anything except his NY cronies , mainly his
Jewish lawyers and Kushner contacts.
So he appointed anyone they and his biggest donors recommended to him.
His ego and insecurity demanded he surround himself with his NY cohorts and close family.
" It appeals to mindless American jingoism and imperialism" = "Make America great
again"
So you would prefer : "Make America powerless and insignificant again"
How about "Make America a normal nation that respects other nations' sovereignty, that
doesn't plant military bases on foreign soil, that doesn't bomb other people's countries,
doesn't try to impose its views and its culture on the rest of the world, doesn't undermine
the governments of other countries and doesn't threaten any country that dares to disagree
with it." Would that be too much to ask?
I would have thought that someone "Mensa" qualified since 1973 could understand that
greatness should not be equated with behaving like a thug or a schoolyard bully. America's
aggression does tend to look like the manifestation of a massive inferiority complex.
I commend Ms. Mercer for publishing this which will no doubt bring to light an ugly truth
about many of her own tribesmen since there many of her other views which I wholly or
partially disagree with
And as was said sometime before, the thought process of earlier elites (the banking,
Hollywood and the neo-con, neo-lib crowd which was almost exclusively Zio-Jewish and is
disproportionately still is) has creeped into the very being of what constitutes to be an
"elite" in the west these days. Unlimited warfare and welfare using fraudulent money,
disturbing the social and sexual fabric of a society! Satan would be quite proud of this scum
bunch
So the zionist cabal still calls the shots and the slavish goyim second tier elites now
willingly go along and in fact share the same mentality
"... Behind the candidate's rhetoric there never was enough strategic sense, necessary knowledge, or even caring about foreign affairs to ward off the maneuvers of a determined hawk like Bolton once he was in position to do damage. ..."
Pillar
comments on Bolton's maneuvers to keep us at war in Syria:
The episode involving withdrawal and non-withdrawal of U.S. troops in Syria should be a
lesson for those who mistakenly placed hopes in Trump for a more restrained and less
militaristic U.S. foreign policy. Applause lines on the campaign trail have been mistaken for
deeper thought. Behind the candidate's rhetoric there never was enough strategic sense,
necessary knowledge, or even caring about foreign affairs to ward off the maneuvers of a
determined hawk like Bolton once he was in position to do damage.
If the first two years of Trump's presidency didn't already make it clear, the last few
weeks should have laid to rest any suspicions that the Trump administration is going to put an
end to unnecessary foreign wars. It isn't happening. For one thing, everyone around Trump
doesn't want those wars to end and will go to considerable lengths to ensure that they
continue. That is a result of Trump's own poor personnel choices and bad judgment. It isn't
possible to have a "more restrained and less militaristic U.S. foreign policy" when the
president's national security team is dominated by reflexive hawks that have never seen a
military intervention they didn't want to support. Trump put Bolton in the position he now
occupies, and unless he wants to start in on his fourth National Security Advisor within two
years we are going to be stuck with the unfortunate consequences of that bad decision for a
while longer.
Pillar writes:
The de facto reversal of Trump's withdrawal decision is a victory only for those who --
like Bolton, who still avers that the Iraq War was a good idea -- never met a U.S. military
intervention in the Middle East they didn't like and never stop seeing regimes they would
like to change with force.
One big problem with the Trump administration is that it is filled with the people who never
met an intervention they didn't like. People like that have been the ones shaping
administration policies in the region for the last two years, and on Syria they have prevailed
once again. It could scarcely be otherwise when there is essentially no one willing or able to
make the arguments for the other side of these issues. It is extremely difficult for hawks to
lose an internal administration debate when there is no one in the administration that opposes
hawkish policies.
Obama strategy in Syria was replica of Clinton strategy in Yugoslavia during the Balkan Wars. Divide everybody up by ethnicity
or religion (Croats are Catholics, Serbians are Orthodox not to mention the various Muslims and Albanians lurking about), arm
them, create false flags to set them at each other's throats. Enjoy the results.
Obama like Clinton before him was a real wolve in sheep's clothing
Notable quotes:
"... Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving US imperialism a pleasing face. ..."
"... Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump. ..."
But the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he
plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each
other, is bizarre.
I would've agreed with you before Obama. I followed the criticisms of Obama from true
progressives closely. It was clear within 2 or 3 years that Obama was betraying his 'base'.
His lofty rhetoric didn't match his actions. His Nobel Peace Prize can only be viewed
today as a ruse. He talked of peace and fairness but worked behind the scenes to further the
establishment.
Fast forward to the 2016 election where Sanders was a sheepdog and Hillary ran a terrible
campaign. It's difficult to look back and not be at least somewhat suspicious of the 2016
election. A populist nationalist was what the Deep State NEEDED to face the threat from
Russia and China to their NWO project. And that is what they got. After recognizing the
threat in 2013-14 (when Russia countered the Empire in Syria and Ukraine).
Similar excuses are made for both Obama and Trump. We are told that they were FORCED to
succumb to Deep State scheming and political power. But a much more logical view is that
these "populists" know exactly what they are doing: they know what their 'job' is to serve
the establishment and act as the leader of the Deep State's political arm. In return they get
financial gain, social standing, and life long protection. Sweet.
Obama 'turned the page' on the Bush Administration's warmongering. He promised a more
peaceful USA. But he conducted covert wars and bragged of his drone targeting.
Trump 'turned the page' on Obama's deceitfulness. He promised to put 'America First' but
within months attacked Syria with missiles "for the babies". Evidence that his first attack
was prompted by a false flag didn't deter him from attacking AGAIN - also based on a false
flag. Trump is still helping the Saudis in Yemen. And he's not doing what's necessary to get
peace in Korea.
Obama promised 'transparency' ("Sunlight is the best disinfectant") but 'no drama' Obama
protected CIA torturers, NSA spies, and bankers. Trump promised to "drain the swamp" but has
welcomed oligarchs and neocons into his Administration.
How much sly BS do we have to see before people connect the dots? A real populist will
NEVER be elected in USA unless there is a revolution; USA political elites are fully
committed to a neoliberal economics that make society neofeudal, and a neoconservative-driven
foreign policy that demands full spectrum dominance that brooks no opposition to its NWO
goals.
Anyone who believes otherwise has drunk the Kool-Aid, an addictive, saccharine concoction,
provided without charge and in abundance.
Glenn Brown | Jan 5, 2019 10:27:14 PM |
39@ 10 17
Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he
was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope
inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving
US imperialism a pleasing face.
Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too
blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major
sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump.
Yes, their public rejection of Trump is partly motivated by the need to be able to claim that Trump is an aberration from
all previous US Presidents, as opposed to Trump and his policies being just a particularly explicit continuation of the same
underlying trends.
But I see no reason to doubt that the US elites really wish they had someone as President who was better at supplying the
right propaganda and less obviously an incompetent fool. So I don't understand why you think the US oligarchy and deep state
would have thought they needed someone like Trump, or would have greatly preferred him to Hillary Clinton.
Numerous MSM articles appear about Trump's standing up to the Generals: Mattis, Kelly, Dunford, etc. Yet Bolton feels free to
conspire against the President's agenda? The narrative that Trump is fighting for his campaign promises, but allows Bolton and
Pompeo to scheme against him does not make any sense.
A more realistic take is that rump is a faux populist. He is the Republican Obama - pretending to be a populist
peacemaker while working for the establishment. The "populist hero" is a gimmick that reinforces people's belief in USA democracy
and the righteousness of USA actions. The Trump/Deep-State conflict is a propaganda psy-op.
The major inconsistency here is why the Deep State is hell bent of deposing him. Is The Trump/Deep-State conflict
is a propaganda psy-op? I do no not think so.
Trump is certainly a 'faux populist' as all right wing populists are: promises to the people while promoting the interests of
the 1%. But there is a genuine struggle going on within the ruling class due to the crisis of neoliberal governance. The world is
a complex place and Washington's influence is declining. No surprise that parts of the US elite that got used to "full spectrum
dominance" are panicking. And it is all real.
Notable quotes:
"... "The president's statement offered the latest illustration of the dramatic gyrations that have characterized his foreign policy and fueled questions about whether his senior advisers are implementing his policies or pursuing their own agendas." ..."
"... Here we have the question asked, in effect: Are Trump's senior people going rogue? Does the master of spin Washington Post, by putting the question in a manner sympathetic to Trump and unsympathetic to Bolton and Pompeo, and by extension the hordes denouncing Trump's decision to reduce US involvement in Syria suggest a new orientation in the Mockingbird media? ..."
The Washington Post article that b links to ("never signed off") has the headline " 'They
can do what they want' Trump's Iran comments defy his top aids"
The "They" in the quote in the headline is a reference to Iran in Syria. "President Trump
stuck a dagger in a major initiative advanced by his foreign policy team:
Iran's leaders, the president said, "can do what they want" in Syria.
With a stray remark, Trump snuffed out a plan from his national security adviser, John
Bolton, who this fall vowed that the United States would not leave Syria
"as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders." Pompeo has of course also obsessed
over Iran.
Now the next paragraph in the WP piece is I think quite remarkable: "The president's
statement offered the latest illustration of the dramatic gyrations that have characterized
his foreign policy and fueled questions about whether his senior advisers are implementing
his policies or pursuing their own agendas."
Here we have the question asked, in effect: Are Trump's senior people going rogue? Does
the master of spin Washington Post, by putting the question in a manner sympathetic to Trump
and unsympathetic to Bolton and Pompeo, and by extension the hordes denouncing Trump's
decision to reduce US involvement in Syria
suggest a new orientation in the Mockingbird media?
Also note that acting Defense Sec Patrick Shanahan, who was injected immediately into his
position when Trump gave Mattis the boot, is becoming part of the strategic scene.
From the NYT: "He is the brightest and smartest guy I worked with at Boeing," said Carolyn
Corvi, a former executive at the company. "He has the ability to see over the horizon and
{implement needed change]."
"Ana Mari Cauce, the president of University of Washington, worked with Mr. Shanahan ....
She said his outsider perspective was helpful in questioning old practices,
forcing people to look at problems in different ways."
At the inception of this entire RussiaGate spectacle I suggested that it was a political
distraction to take the attention away from the rejection by the people of neoliberalism which
has been embraced by the establishments of both political parties.
And that the result of the investigation would be indictments for perjury in the covering up
of illicit business deals and money laundering. But that 'collusion to sway the election' was
without substance, if not a joke.
Everything that has been revealed to date tends to support that.
One thing that Aaron overlooks is the evidence compiled by William Binney and associates
that strongly suggests the DNC hack was no hack at all, but a leak by an insider who was
appalled by the lies and double dealing at the DNC.
In general, RussiaGate is a farcical distraction from other issues as they say in the video.
And this highlights the utterly Machiavellian streak in the corporate Democrats and the Liberal
establishment under the Clintons and their ilk who care more about money and power than the
basic principles that historically sustained their party. I have lost all respect for them.
But unfortunately this does open the door for those who use this to approve of the
Republican establishment, which is 'at least honest' about being substantially corrupt servants
to Big Money who care nothing about democracy, the Constitution, or the public. The best of
them are leaving or have already left, and their party is ruined beyond repair.
This all underscores the paucity of the Red v. Blue, monopoly of two parties, 'lesser of two
evils' model of political thought which has come to dominate the discussion in the US.
We are heavily propagandized by the owners of the corporate media and influencers of the
narrative, and a professional class that has sold its soul for economic advantage and access to
money and power.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us" src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg"> Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us Younger evangelicals, those under 45, have been slowly but steadily moving away from Trump during the past two years or so, unhappy about his example. A key topic that has driven them away is immigration. Loving your neighbor as yourself has always been a bedrock Christian value. And Trump's stance on immigrants (especially those of color) has upset the younger generation of evangelicals, with two-thirds of them saying in surveys that immigrants strengthen our country, bringing their work ethic and talents with them from Mexico or Central America or Syria. Climate change is another issue that has caught the imagination of younger evangelicals. "I can't love my neighbor if I'm not protecting the earth that sustains them and defending their rights to clean water, clean air, and a stable climate," Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, a national organizer for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told Grist . Needless to say, Trump's contempt on this subject grates badly on these young Christians. Perhaps naively, Americans have always looked to the presidency for exemplary moral behavior, and when there are obvious personal or moral failures, as with Nixon and Clinton, there is disappointment, even anger. But if you're a Christian -- and I lay claim to this for myself -- you understand that it's human to fail at perfect behavior. There is always forgiveness. And, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "Humility is endless."
Note that the candidate swears to be "faithful" to the "interests, welfare and success of the Democratic Party," but not to its principles. That's because there aren't any.
Category: Crony Capitalism , social security , Stealing Social Security Older Posts
<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us"
src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg">
