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Nanjeanne

Nanjeanne's Journal
Nanjeanne's Journal
February 7, 2016

David Cay Johnston: You agree with Bernie Sanders

Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter on tax and economic issues who teaches at Syracuse University College of Law.

Worth reading the whole article. Just another reporter with a background on taxes and economic issues (and college professor) who disputes the mainstream meme that Sanders' policies are fantasy.

http://m.nydailynews.com/opinion/david-cay-johnston-agree-bernie-sanders-article-1.2521997

The zeal of Bernie Sanders supporters is a mystery to many people, especially those who cringe at the word "socialist."

How, can a geriatric Brooklyn-born Jew who speaks in long, complex sentences, his hands providing the punctuation, draw bigger crowds than Donald Trump, despite claiming a tiny fraction of the mogul's TV news coverage? How could he battle Hillary Clinton to a virtual tie in Iowa, with a good chance of beating her Tuesday in New Hampshire? How could he be closing the gap with her in national polls?

The answer is that large majorities of Americans are, like Sanders, "democratic socialists."

Sanders is not a socialist. He is a "democratic socialist." That one word makes for a world of difference. Sanders favors private ownership and markets, but with rules that protect little people from abuses and uncertainties.


<snip>

But there's a deeper issue with how we engage with our elections. You don't have to be a Sanders supporter to recognize that America's political reporters are good at covering the horse race, but terrible at explaining policies of the candidates.

<snip>

He wants to use the power of government to insulate working people from economic upheavals on Wall Street, not bail bankers out. He wants investment bankers and others held accountable for their mistakes. He wants the people who were able to get rich because they live in America to bear a larger burden in supporting the government from which they benefitted.

And when hard times come, he wants government to first take care of the little people, not the political donor class, as both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have done. Sanders also wants universal health care, paid for with tax money.

Those who call such ideas radical or outside the mainstream — including Hillary Clinton, who asserts Sanders push for universal health care would mean dismantling Obamacare — are stretching.


<snip>

Universal health care paid with taxes is an idea akin to Social Security, which now pays benefits to about 60 million people. It is the best-funded government program — with a huge surplus and a dedicated revenue stream — yet many people wrongly believe it is going broke.

More than 80% of Americans support raising taxes if necessary to permanently maintain Social Security, with strong majority support among Republicans, according to surveys by the National Academy of Social Insurance, Social Security Works and others.

This is essentially Sanders' stance. What's so radical about that?

<snip>
The average income reported on tax returns by the bottom 90% of Americans in 2014 was virtually the same as it was in 1967, once inflation is taken into account. The $30,068 average was up just $328, or 1%, more after nearly 50 years.

Count that $328 as one inch. By that standard the richest 16,000 households have seen their income soar more than a mile.

Almost as bad, the median wage — half make more, half less — in 2014 was only a dollar a working day more than it was back in 1999. Because the median wage has been stuck at less than $550 a week for so many years, large numbers of workers are worse off now than they were in the last century.


<snip>

If Sanders wins the Democratic Party nomination, we can expect all sorts of television commercials wrongly describing him, as Trump has done, as a communist.

It's unlikely we will ever get to test that proposition; Hillary Clinton remains the heavy favorite in the primary, for a host of reasons. But what we do know for sure is that our current elected federal leaders are not pursuing the economic policies that most Americans, including most Republicans, favor.

And those are the policies of the Sanders campaign.

February 7, 2016

Almost Over For Hillary: This election is a mass insurrection against a rigged system By Bill Curry

Curry was White House counselor to President Clinton and a two-time Democratic nominee for governor of Connecticut. He is at work on a book on President Obama and the politics of populism.

It would be hard to overstate what Bernie Sanders has already achieved in his campaign for president, or the obstacles he’s had to surmount in order to achieve it. Not only has he turned a planned Hillary Clinton coronation into an exercise in grass-roots democracy, he’s reset the terms of the debate. We are edging closer to the national conversation we so desperately need to have. If we get there, all credit goes to Bernie.


...

If you strip away all the nonsense about polls, money, firewalls and ground games, Clinton’s left with two arguments, neither one pretty. One is that Sanders is too far left. Pundits dismiss his polls by repeating her “wait till the Republicans get ahold of him” line. And they’ll say what? That he’s old? Jewish? A socialist? Everybody already knows and anyone who’d even think of voting Democratic is already down with it or soon could be. The “socialist” tag needs explaining, but so do “corrupt” and “fascist.” Both parties’ frontrunners carry baggage. For my money, Bernie’s is the lightest. As for the notion that voters can’t see that paying $1,000 in taxes beats paying $5,000 in health insurance premiums, it is an insult to the American people.

The core of Clinton’s realpolitik brief pertains not to electability but to governance. Her point is that Sanders is naïve. She says none of his proposals can get though a Republican Congress. She strongly implies that he’d roll back Obamacare, a charge that is false, cynical and so nonsensical she’ll have to stop making it soon. She says she has a plan to get to universal health care—she doesn’t—and that she’ll do it by working “in partnership” with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Who’s being naïve here? A Republican Congress won’t pass any of her ideas either. The only way to get real change is to elect Democrats to Congress and have a grass-roots movement strong enough to keep the heat on them. Nor will insurers cough up a dime of profit without a fight. Vowing to spare us a “contentious debate” over single-payer care she ignores the admonition of Frederick Douglas; “Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.” There has been a lot of talk lately about what a progressive is. Here’s a hint: if you think Douglas is wrong, you might not be one.

...

One way to sum up the case he’s trying to make might be as follows. In the 1990s a near bipartisan consensus celebrated a new age of globalization and information technology in which technology and trade spur growth that in turn fosters a broad and inclusive prosperity. Government’s job is to deregulate finance and trade and work with business in ‘public private partnerships’ for progress.

Twenty years on, Hillary still sees the world through the rose-colored glasses of that ’90s consensus. Not Bernie. He sees that in 2016 rising tides don’t even lift most boats, that growth comes at a steep price when it comes at all, and that new technology cost more jobs than it creates. He understands that when jobs flow to countries with weak governments and low wages, the American middle class can’t get a raise. He sees that public-private partnership meant pay-to-play politics, and that the whole system runs not on innovation but corruption. My guess is the middle class sees what he sees and wants what he wants: a revolution. If he can continue to drive the debate, they may get one.


http://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/its_almost_over_for_hillary_this_election_is_a_mass_insurrection_against_a_rigged_system/



February 7, 2016

MA House Dem Michael Moran Endorses Sanders -- "Most Electable"

BEDFORD, N.H. – A senior member of the Massachusetts House Democratic leadership is breaking ranks with the state’s political establishment and backing Bernie Sanders for president over Hillary Clinton, after supporting her 2008 bid.

Michael J. Moran, a Brighton Democrat and one of Speaker Robert DeLeo’s top deputies, said he will campaign Sunday for Sanders, calling him a better general-election candidate than Clinton because of Sanders’s ability to appeal to low-income voters in traditionally Republican states.


http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/02/06/michael-moran-democrat-mass-house-endorses-sanders/sHsfTKfsnQn8GnByebmacM/story.html?s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter
February 7, 2016

Bernie Sanders' foreign policy judgment is better than Clinton's experience

Trevor Timm
Trevor Timm is a Guardian US columnist and executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit that supports and defends journalism dedicated to transparency and accountability.

As Bernie Sanders has risen in the polls, he has been taking increasing heat for some of his apparently vague foreign policy positions and the fact that his campaign does not have a team of establishment foreign policy advisers, unlike typical front-running candidates.

Instead of just questioning Sanders’ choice, we should really be questioning why any of the candidates of either party are employing the same old foreign policy advisers – many of whom not only supported the Iraq war but every disastrous military intervention since. These are the same people who now think that yet another regional war will somehow fix the chaos in the Middle East.

After a series of disastrous wars overseas, we should be looking for someone who has better “judgment” rather than candidates who have “experience” but are calling for more of the same policies in the Middle East that have led us into the mess we’re in now in the first place.


More . . .

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/06/bernie-sanders-lacks-foreign-policy-experience-but-also-his-rivals-errors?CMP=fb_us

Updated to correct link
February 6, 2016

Madeleine Albright "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help eachother (Hillary)

for women who don't help each other" when she campaigns for Hillary.

As a woman I find that offensive and disgusting. I'm going to hell because I'm not "helping" HRC get the prize she so desperately wants?

Monica AlbaVerified account
?@AlbaMonica
.@madeleine in Concord introducing @HillaryClinton: "Just remember, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other"
February 6, 2016

Big Campaign Cash for Clinton From Monsanto Lobbyist - Madame Frankenfood

By Carey Gillam

Carey Gillam has been recognized as one of the top food and agriculture journalists in the United States, winning several awards for her coverage of the industry, and appearing as an expert commentator on radio and television broadcasts. After a 17-year career at Reuters, one of the world's largest news organizations, Gillam joined US Right to Know as Research Director.


A Monsanto Co. lobbyist, who is seen as Hillary Clinton's "main man" in Iowa, was among the top financial bundlers of contributions to benefit Hillary Clinton's run for the White House in the most recent quarter, new Federal Election Commission reports show.

Jerry Crawford of the Crawford & Mauro Law Firm in Des Moines, Iowa, bundled $151,727 for the campaign over the quarter ending Dec. 31, FEC documents show. Crawford is senior adviser to Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and was the Midwest Co-Chair of the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign in 2007-08. His firm listed Monsanto as a client in the most recent quarter, reporting $60,000 in lobbying income from Monsanto. Monsanto is known as one of the nation's most powerful corporations, and is currently engaged in a range of public policy debates over regulation of its genetically modified crops and top herbicide product, Roundup.

Another Monsanto lobbyist, Steve Elmendorf, bundled $20,295 in contributions for the Hillary for America organization during the quarter, FEC documents show. Elmendorf also does work for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which has been battling against mandatory labeling laws for foods made with GMOs.


. . . http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34688-big-campaign-cash-for-clinton-from-monsanto-lobbyist
February 6, 2016

Controversial Israel supporter Haim Saban is pouring millions into Clinton SuperPac

As a Jew - I am horrified and offended by people like Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson. The idea that Saban has given $5 million in one year to Clinton's Super PAC Priorities USA Action absolutely disgusts me. If only the media found things like this worth reporting instead of "buttongate" or "emailgate".

Recent disclosures reveal vocal BDS opponent Haim Saban has poured millions of dollars into the Clinton campaign
SARAH LAZARE, ALTERNET

Recent disclosures show media mogul and controversial Israel supporter Haim Saban is pouring millions of dollars into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

Haim Saban and his wife Cheryl together contributed $5 million to the Hillary Clinton Super PAC—Priorities USA Action—between 2015 and 2016 alone, according to disclosures available on OpenSecrets.org, affiliated with the Center for Responsive Politics.

While the contributions are not surprising from long-time Clinton-backers, $3 million of them notably poured in after the presidential hopeful authored a letter to Haim Saban in July of 2015, seeking advice on “how we can work together” to defeat the growing movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction (BDS) Israel.

In the note, Clinton touted her record of defending Israel “at every turn,” including her obstruction of efforts to hold Israel accountable for war crimes. “I have opposed dozens of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, the Human Rights Council, and other International organizations,” she wrote.

“I condemned the biased Goldstone Report, making it clear that Israel must be allowed to defend itself like any other country,” Clinton continued, referencing a United Nations fact-finding mission into Israel’s December 2008 to January 2009 military assault on Gaza that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.

“I know you agree that we need to make countering BDS a priority,” Clinton continued in the letter, which was released by Saban to the press.


Palestinian civil society organizations issued the call for BDS in 2005, seeking global backing for their efforts to win human rights and self-determination using tactics similar to those employed to transform apartheid South Africa.


The movement’s growing power has attracted fierce blowback, including from Saban, co-owner and chairman of Univision and one of the top donors to the Democratic party under both the Obama and Clinton administrations. The Sabans’ newly-disclosed contributions to Priorities USA Action are nothing new, as the couple has shelled out at least $10 million of their own money to the Clinton Foundation, and Cheryl sits on the institution’s board.


more: http://www.salon.com/2016/02/06/hillarys_controversial_american_israeli_supporter_heres_whos_contributing_to_her_super_pac_partner/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
February 6, 2016

Ben Jealous - Full Endorsement Statement

and it's wonderful. Also Mr. Jealous is campaigning all day today in SC with State Rep Justin Bamberg! Lots of events.

I clipped the endorsement but it's so good - it was real hard to leave anything out. Read it here: https://berniesanders.com/i-endorse-bernie-sanders-for-president/?platform=hootsuite

I Endorse Bernie Sanders for President
FEBRUARY 5, 2016| BY BEN JEALOUS

As prepared for delivery on February 5, 2016:

Thank you. It’s good to be back in New Hampshire. People may wonder why a former head of the NAACP would come all the way up here to speak on behalf of a senator from New England. So let me explain why I’m here.

I am here because my family, like our American family, stretches from the White Mountains of New Hampshire to the black soil of the South. My black grandparents fell in love at Virginia State University, and my white grandparents fell in love right here in Lebanon, New Hampshire, at the local high school.

Growing up in a family that mirrors much of our American family, I can attest to the fact that, if there is one thing that unites our nation as a family, it is our love for our children and our growing concern that the American Dream must not die on our watch. I’ve been awakened by phone calls about a black cousin murdered in Maryland’s streets. I have lain awake at night worried about a white family member, raised not far from here, who was struggling with drug addiction.

I have sat amongst the young people warehoused in our prisons — the most incarcerated Black, Brown, Red and, yes, White men and women on the planet.

And as I speak at colleges and universities across our country, I leave each event haunted by the uniquely high levels of debt borne by our children of all colors who are lucky enough to make it to college…. and the despair that comes from not being able to remember when our nation was not at war.

Each time I travel I come face to face with the violence and addiction that flourishes amongst joblessness.

Each time I travel I am confronted by that joblessness, which has been accelerated by bad domestic policies and even worse foreign policy.

<snip>

And I recall the words of the late great Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that “a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.”

And that is why I am here today.

Bernie Sanders has been principled, courageous, and consistent in fighting the evils that Dr. King referred to as the “giant triplets” of racism, militarism, and greed:

As a student in the early 1960s, he got arrested fighting to integrate university housing in Chicago.

Today, as a Senator…. he has an A+ rating from the NAACP.

As a candidate for president, he has the best plan for ending mass incarceration and improving community policing.


<snip>
In short:

Bernie Sanders has the courage to confront the institutionalized bias that stains our nation.

Bernie Sanders leads with the sort of freedom-minded conviction that strikes fear in the Military Industrial Complex, the Prison Industrial complex, and the worst of Wall Street.

And most importantly, Bernie Sanders is the type of leader we can trust to fight for the future of all our nation’s children as if they were his very own.

It is for all these reasons, that I am proud to endorse Bernie Sanders for President of the United States.
February 6, 2016

Bernie Sanders’ Refreshingly Sane Foreign Policy

This is from end-November but might be a good time to revisit this article by: Sean Illing is a USAF veteran and a former political science professor.

Sanders gave a major speech last week at Georgetown University, the central theme of which was democratic socialism. Understandably, much of the coverage focused on Sanders’s efforts to situate his brand of socialism in the broader American tradition. However, Sanders also used his speech to talk about our foreign policy dilemma in the Middle East.

His remarks were what we’ve come to expect from Sanders: honest. Because he doesn’t spin the way other politicians do, Sanders brings a kind of clarity to this conversation, a clarity that’s desperately needed in our current climate. Conservatives will likely dismiss Sanders as a dovish liberal who doesn’t understand foreign policy, but that’s because they don’t want to hear what he has to say.


<snip>

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanderss-refreshingly-sane-foreign-policy#.VrWAHMfCo3l.twitter
February 6, 2016

What Wall St attendees said about Clinton speech

While we wait for Holl to decide about her transcripts.

From an older article from Politico. Holding mine.

But Clinton offered a message that the collected plutocrats found reassuring, according to accounts offered by several attendees, declaring that the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish. Striking a soothing note on the global financial crisis, she told the audience, in effect: We all got into this mess together, and we’re all going to have to work together to get out of it. What the bankers heard her to say was just what they would hope for from a prospective presidential candidate: Beating up the finance industry isn’t going to improve the economy—it needs to stop. And indeed Goldman’s Tim O’Neill, who heads the bank’s asset management business, introduced Clinton by saying how courageous she was for speaking at the bank. (Brave, perhaps, but also well-compensated: Clinton’s minimum fee for paid remarks is $200,000).


More in the article

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/wall-street-white-house-republicans-lament-of-the-plutocrats-101047#ixzz3zOeEKcsV

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