Live Blog: Yet another chance to hear Bernie Downer endlessly give his old Stump Speech in the Democratic Debate on PBS
Posted: February 11, 2016 Filed under: Civil Rights, Live Blog 153 Comments
Another Democratic Debate is being held tonight at 9 PM ET live on PBS and streaming on YouTube
This should be interesting after a day of BernieBros whitesplaining civil rights in extremely racist and rude ways to Congressman John Lewis. Lewis was distinctly unimpressed with Sanders civil rights creds and endorsed Hillary Clinton.
Civil rights leader John Lewis on Thursday dismissed Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ 1960s work on racial equality, saying, “I never saw him. I never met him.”
The Georgia congressman — a stalwart of the Freedom Rides through the South, lunch counter sit-ins and the 1963 March on Washington — raised questions about Sanders’ involvement in the movement when the Vermont senator was a college student.
Lewis has endorsed Sanders’ chief rival, Hillary Clinton, and his comments come at a critical time as the two White House contenders focus on the upcoming primaries in Southern states with predominantly African-American Democratic voters. He made the remarks at a Capitol Hill news conference where members of the Congressional Black Caucus’ political action committee delivered a full-throated endorsement of Clinton.
On his campaign website, Sanders says he has a “long history of fighting for social equality and the rights of black Americans — a record that goes back to the early 1960s.” While a student at the University of Chicago, Sanders was involved in the Congress on Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He also was arrested while protesting segregation.
“I never saw him. I never met him,” Lewis told reporters. “I chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for three years from 1963 to 1966. I was involved in the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, the march from Selma (Alabama) to Montgomery and directed the voter education project for six years. I met Hillary Clinton, I met President Clinton.”
The Sanders campaign had to heel their trolls.
This is another opportunity to relearn patience and dedication.
PLEASE do not engage in what is described as “bernie bro” activity. Do not diminish statements made by Lewis for the sake of defending Bernie. Right or wrong this is something that the campaign needs to deal with before we can get involved.
I have not seen any overt or subvert racism, but I know how this can sometimes devolve. Opportunities like these arise and give us a chance to grow. They are not chances to grab and hold the attention of our brothers and sisters to “explain” to them how Bernie is better. And racism can come in many forms. Assuming that African Americans or other people of color are not educated on Bernie and need to be “brought to the light” is a stance full of pity and arrogance… and is incredibly demeaning to those whose respect we need and must earn.
Needless to say, the African American Twitterati will pretty righteously pissed.
We also found out that the Hilary and Bernie split the Democratic vote in New Hampshire so that he won with votes from non-Democrats. Plus, Al Sharpton complained about Bernie Downer’s tin ear on intersectionality of racism and economic issues..
Bernie may have some ‘splaining to do.
So, join our live blog as we watch what goes down and comes up..
Thursday Reads: I’ve Had it with the Haters.
Posted: February 11, 2016 Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Cliven Bundy, FBI, Hillary Clinton, Hillary haters, Oregon standoff 47 Comments
Good Morning!!
This morning I feel as if I’ve gone through a long dark tunnel and come out the other side. I’ve finally accepted that Hillary Clinton will be continue to be attacked unmercifully by the media and her opponents on both the right and left forever. I’m sure the attacks will continue if she gets the Democratic nomination and even if she becomes President of the United States. I don’t care anymore.
Can you imagine if Bernie Sanders–or Donald Trump for that matter–were being attacked as personally and as relentlessly as Hillary is? They would both be screaming bloody murder. In fact, they both whine and complain at the slightest criticism. Hillary is strong as steel. She never gives up. She will fight for the presidency so she can fight for us from the most powerful position in the world. She will fight for women and children around the world as she did for four years as Secretary of State.
I’ll stand with her to the end, through thick and thin. I’ve had it with the haters, especially the fake “progressive” ones.
There is another Democratic debate tonight, this one in Milwaukee. Someone will start a live blog to discuss it later tonight.
Now to the news.
Oregon Standoff
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton greets the children of U.S. Embassy employees at the embassy in Tokyo Sunday, April 17, 2011. Clinton is on a brief visit to Tokyo intended as a morale boost to the crucial U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
The Oregonian reports: Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy arrested by FBI in Portland.
Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who touched off one armed showdown with federal authorities and applauded another started in Oregon by his sons, was arrested late Wednesday at Portland International Airport and faces federal charges related to the 2014 standoff at his ranch.
Bundy, 74, was booked into the downtown Multnomah County jail at 10:54 p.m.
He faces a conspiracy charge to interfere with a federal officer — the same charge lodged against two of his sons, Ammon and Ryan, for their role in the Jan. 2 takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns. He also faces weapons charges.
The Bundy Ranch Facebook page reported Cliven Bundy was surrounded by SWAT officers and detained after his arrival from Nevada.
He was arrested at 10:10 p.m., authorities said.
The Bundy patriarch had traveled to Portland with plans to go on to Burns, where four occupiers had been the remaining holdouts of the refuge occupation.
Bundy has been under federal scrutiny since his ranch standoff with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. He has not paid grazing fees on federal land and he owes the agency $1 million in unpaid fees and penalties. He and militia supporters confronted federal agents who had impounded Bundy’s cattle that were found on federal property.
The FBI is getting more confrontational with the occupiers Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Again from The Oregonian: Oregon standoff: FBI moves in on last refuge occupiers. The story begins with two recent updates:
UPDATE: 5 a.m. THURSDAY Franklin Graham, North Carolina evangelist, said on his Facebook page this morning that he was on his way to Oregon to help end the refuge standoff. He said he was on the phone with the remaining four last night as the FBI closed in. He expects to reach the refuge around 7 a.m.
UPDATE 10 p.m.: The live stream that broadcast online what appears to be the last stage of the refuge occupation stopped after more than five hours. The phone feed ended as the occupiers headed to their night camp, preparing to surrender Thursday morning. They said they have a promise that the encircling FBI agents would leave them alone overnight.
BURNS – FBI agents in armored vehicles moved in Wednesday night on the last four occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, hemming them into their rough camp and insisting they put down their guns and surrender.
The occupiers rejected the demands for hours before one of them said they will turn themselves in at a checkpoint once a national religious figure and a Nevada state legislator arrive. It was scheduled for 8 a.m. Thursday, but it wasn’t clear if the deal involved all of the four occupiers.
The standoff played out for hours through an open phone line being streamed to YouTube. At one point, an estimated 60,000 people listened as the occupiers displayed anger and panic, prayed with those on the phone and yelled at the FBI agents surrounding them.
They’re the remainders of a group of anti-government militants who took over the wildlife refuge headquarters Jan. 2. The four have been on their own since Jan. 28 — two days after the occupation leaders were arrested on a highway north of Burns and protest spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was shot and killed.
Those left at the refuge 30 miles southeast of Burns are David Fry, 27, of the Cincinnati area, Jeff Banta, 46, of Elko, Nevada, Sean Anderson, 47, and his wife Sandy, 48, of Riggins, Idaho.
Sanders Campaign Updates
CNN has finally reported on the Sanders campaign’s vile treatment of a Nevada DREAMer: Sanders campaign touts another endorsement that didn’t happen.
Brenda Romero, a Nevada student leader and DREAMer that Bernie Sanders’ campaign touted as someone who endorsed their campaign, tells CNN she never endorsed the Vermont senator and is backing Hillary Clinton.
Romero said Monday she had agreed to be part of Sanders’ Nevada Latino Steering Committee, but that she never endorsed the senator.
Sanders released the list of activists and elected officials on his Latino committee in January.
“Tomorrow, a group of highly respected community leaders will announce their support for Bernie Sanders for president,” said a statement about the press conference.
The list included Lucy Flores, former Nevada state assemblywoman and congressional candidate, and Romero, a undocumented DREAMer and class president at College of Southern Nevada.
“I didn’t agree to such an endorsement,” Romero said Monday, noting that while she agreed to be part of the steering committee, she was told that the role would be advising the “campaign and potentially Sen. Sanders about immigration issues.”
The Sanders campaign retaliated by releasing private emails between Romero and a Sanders staffer.
In an emails provided by the Sanders campaign, Romero did agree to be part of the steering committee, telling a Sanders staffer that she would be “honored to be part of this.” ….
Nowhere in the email exchange, though, does Romero agree to endorse Sanders. In fact, Romero asked not to have her title included in any campaign lists because as student body president, she has “to stay neutral to candidates.”
But because Romero has grown frustrated with the Sanders campaign, she said Monday that she is backing Clinton.
“I believe that Hillary has my back, and that she is the only candidate capable of accomplishing things in the face of Republican obstruction,” Clinton said. “She will get things done for immigrants families.” ….
I’m also disappointed by the attacks from senior staffers on the Sanders campaign on Astrid Silva,” she said. “It shows how disconnected they are from Nevada, and they should apologize to her. There is no room for hate between DREAMers in this campaign.”
In other Sanders News, there was quite a reaction on Twitter yesterday when the United Nurses superpac that supports Bernie tweeted that it was holding an education session in South Carolina for Sanders supporters on how to talk to black women. There wasn’t a single black woman in attendance. The tweets was resoundingly mocked and then deleted, but there are screenshots all over the place.
If you search for “how to talk to black women” on Twitter, you’ll see some hilarious responses.
Clinton Campaign News
Yesterday, President Obama essentially endorsed Hillary for the Democratic nomination. He had already indicated as much in an interview with Politico’s Glenn Thrush in January.
Huffington Post: Obama Speech Sure Sounds Like A Tacit Endorsement Of Clinton.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday gave a rousing speech on America’s political culture, decrying the influence of big money, encouraging compromise and warning people against believing in absolutes from either party.
“Trying to find common ground [with Republicans] doesn’t make me less of a Democrat or less of a progressive,” Obama told an audience in Springfield, Illinois. “It means I’m trying to get stuff done.”
The speech was delivered the day after two ideologues, billionaire Donald Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I), won the New Hampshire primaries by harnessing voter anger at the perceived “establishment” in politics. But Obama’s words on Wednesday sounded like a tacit endorsement of his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton….
Obama, who appointed Clinton his first secretary of state after defeating her in the 2008 Democratic primary, seemed on Wednesday to clearly fall on the Clinton side of the ideological divide.
He said that labels, such as “not a real progressive” — which Sanders has used against Clinton — are damaging to the national discourse.
“So when I hear voices in either party boast of their refusal to compromise as an accomplishment in and of itself, I’m not impressed,” Obama said. “All that does is prevent what most Americans would consider actual accomplishments, like fixing roads, educating kids, passing budgets, cleaning our environment, making our streets safe.”
And from Politico: Jay Carney: Obama wants Clinton to win.
“I think the president has signaled while still remaining neutral that he supports Secretary Clinton’s candidacy and would prefer to see her as the nominee,” Carney said on CNN Wednesday following coverage of the president’s speech to the Illinois state Senate in Springfield.
Obama will not “officially embrace her unless and until it’s clear she is going to be the nominee,” Carney said.
“I think he is maintaining that tradition of not intervening in a party primary,” he added. “But I don’t think there is any doubt that he wants Hillary to win the nomination and believes she would be the best candidate in the fall and the most effective as president in carrying forward what he has achieved.”
Today the Congressional Black Caucus will endorse Hillary. Politico: Congressional Black Caucus PAC to endorse Clinton. Bernie’s supporters are busy tweeting that the CBC doesn’t represent Black people, lol.
The Congressional Black Caucus PAC will formally endorse Hillary Clinton on Thursday.
It’s a coup for the Democratic presidential contender, as many of the black lawmakers can help leverage support for Clinton in African-American communities that will be critical during her primary battle against Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), a former CBC chair said the former Secretary of State is a better candidate for African-Americans on national security and economic security.
“It is really, really clear to people who are paying attention at this point that she probably knows more about how to move us forward,” said Fudge. “As I look at her history, she has worked with people who are undeserved for her entire career…she’s been talking about this for her entire life. I’ve only heard about it from Sanders in the last year.”
This endorsement has been planned for some time, but many in the media are reporting that the CBC is rushing to rescue a struggling Hillary Clinton. ROFLOL!
Sen. James Clyburn has not yet officially endorsed Hillary, but he made no objection to the CBD endorsement. He is reportedly thinking about endorsing her soon, and says he could never endorse Sanders.
What stories are you following today?
Live Blog/Open Thread: New Hampshire Primary Results
Posted: February 9, 2016 Filed under: U.S. Politics | Tags: Exit Polls, live blog, New Hampshire Primary results, open thread 138 Comments
Here we Go!
New Hampshire is still voting, but the results will be coming in soon. As promised, here’s a fresh thread to discuss the outcomes on both sides, but feel free to discuss anything you wish. This is an open thread. Information is coming in from exit polls.
According to CNN, half of NH voters decided on a candidate in the past couple few days, just as I have been saying all along. CNN reports: Early exit polls: N.H. voters concerned with economy, government.
The early results of the New Hampshire exit polls find a Republican race centered on discontent with both the federal government and the Republican Party, where voters’ preferences remained unsettled until the final days of the contest.
Nearly half of GOP voters interviewed as they left their polling places around New Hampshire Tuesday said they didn’t make a final decision about whom to support until the last few days, and about two-thirds said recent debates were important to their choice.
Republican voters expressed deep worries about both the economy (three-quarters were very worried) and the threat of terrorism (6-in-10 very worried). About 9-in-10 said they were dissatisfied with the federal government, including about 4-in-10 who were angry about the way it was working. And for many, the dissatisfaction extends to the GOP itself. Half said they felt betrayed by politicians from the Republican Party, and about the same share said they wanted the next president to be from outside the political establishment.
Though Democrats voting on Tuesday were less apt to say they felt betrayed by their party or to express anger with the federal government, about three-quarters said they were worried about the economy. About 4-in-10 said they thought life for the next generation of Americans would be worse than life today, and 9-in-10 said they thought the nation’s economy favored the wealthy.
Still, Democrats who went to the polls Tuesday — to vote in a race featuring two seasoned politicians — were more apt than Republicans to say they wanted the next president to have experience in politics, only about one-quarter said they preferred a president from outside the political establishment.
Only about one-quarter of Democrats said they made up their minds in the final days of the contest, well below the share of Republicans deciding late.
It also appears that independents have tended to vote Republican, which makes sense. It is more of a horse race than the Democratic side where Sanders has for some time been predicted to win handily.
NBC News: New Hampshire Exit Poll Results: Independent Voter Participation.
Early exit poll results show that 42 percent of Republican primary voters in this year’s race consider themselves to be political independents, and a similar 39 percent of voters in the Democratic primary think of themselves as independents.
In 2008, the last time both parties had an open nomination contest, slightly more voters in the Democratic primary (44 percent) identified themselves as independents than did voters in the Republican primary (37 percent).
In 2000, the share of independents in each primary was fairly comparable, just like this year — 40 percent in the Democratic primary and 41 percent in the Republican race.
The LA Times has a different take: The independent, all-knowing New Hampshire voter and other election myths.
While voters in other states are accustomed to receiving a certain level of puffery, the New Hampshire voter is put on a pedestal that would make a Nobel laureate jealous….
“While there is a kernel of truth to many aspects of this caricature, it is primarily a myth,” write David Moore and Andrew E. Smith, a pair of University of New Hampshire professors who may not be invited to many more faculty teas.
Moore, a former senior editor of Gallup Poll and founder of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, and Smith, a pollster who directs the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, lay out their case in a chapter of “The First Primary: New Hampshire’s Outsize Role in Presidential Politics,” released late last year, just in time to take all the joy from the primary season.
Their biggest beef is with the so-called independence of the New Hampshire voter. Though about 44% of the state’s residents are registered “undeclared,” only 15% actually call themselves independent in polls. They blame journalists for confusing the term “independent” with “undeclared,” a status many voters take either to avoid being identified publicly as a partisan or so they can vote in whichever party’s primary is most competitive.
But these undeclared voters may not have the impact they are credited with because they tend to show up at the polls less often than registered partisans.
The idea that independent voters can swing a primary election is also overstated, the authors conclude. Exit polls consistently show that candidates never win the top spot in their primaries without garnering the most support from registered members of their own parties.
And there is little evidence supporting the theory that undeclared voters use the open primary system to cause mischief by supporting a dolt in the party they most dislike.
Mediaite has suggestions for live-streamng the results: How to Watch the New Hampshire Primary Results Live Stream Online.
I guess I’ll watch MSNBC unless it gets too unbearable. How do you plan to follow the results?
Again, use the comment thread to discuss the NH primary or any other topic that interests you. Frankly, I’ll be glad when we move on to Nevada and South Carolina.
Have fun!
Tuesday Reads: New Hampshire Primary Edition
Posted: February 9, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics 36 Comments
Good Morning!!
I didn’t realize that the New Hampshire primary is 100 years old this year. Maybe it’s time to let another state go first–maybe one with a more diverse population? But for now, New Hampshire is what we’re stuck with.
Lately, every morning I have to psych myself up all over again to deal with the sexism and misogyny against Hillary. I never thought it could get worse than it was in 2008, but it really is a lot worse. That’s why my posts are always late these days. It takes me awhile to get my equilibrium back after reading political news and commentary the night before and then checking the headlines in the morning.
I could stop reading the news, but I feel it’s important to keep up what what’s happening in real time. I have pretty much stopped watching TV though. Actually I never got back to watching TV much after I shut it off in 2008.
Maybe the fact that the misogyny is worse this year has something to do with the person at the top? As Michael Dukakis used to say, “The fish rots from the head down.”
Tom Watson tweeted about this today.
I’m going to share some of the things I’ve been reading, and get this thing posted. We will have a live blog tonight to discuss the NH results.
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about the recent pile-on over remarks by Gloria Steinem and Madeline Albright. Last night, Jill Filipovic published an important defense of Steinem–not that it will have any impact on the Bernie bros.
Why Everyone’s Wrong About Gloria Steinem’s Controversial Comment.
Our feminist foremother has misbehaved. Gloria Steinem said young women only support Bernie Sanders because they want attention from boys. Can you believe it?
Don’t, because it’s not true. Despite media panting over feminist icons “scolding” young women,as the New York Times put it, and telling Sanders supporters “shame on you” (the Times, again), it’s not exactly the case that two batty old nags set out to wag their fingers at the sprightly young Bernie Babes. And those kinds of inaccurate, divisive characterizations do a disservice to honest political discourse about gender, feminism, and electoral politics.
Far from jumping on her soapbox to trash “kids today,” Steinem actually went on Bill Maher’s show last Friday to promote her new book, My Life on the Road, and had a bunch of good things to say about young women and feminism.“I find the young women very activist and they’re way more feminist,” Steinem said. “We were, like, 12 crazy ladies in the beginning, and now it’s the majority. I do think that gratitude never radicalized anybody. I did not say thank you for the vote. I got mad on the basis of what was happening to me, and I think that that’s true of young women too. So they’re mad as hell because they’re graduating in debt, and they’re gonna earn a million dollars less over their lifetime to pay it back, they’re mad about what’s happening to them.”
Interesting how that context has been left out of the media reports, isn’t it? So what did Steinem really say? Again, the context matters.
Maher pressed her on Sanders versus Clinton, saying that young women “really don’t like Hillary.” Steinem responded that overall, women and African-American voters strongly support Clinton, and that, unlike men, “women get more radical as we get older.”
“Men tend to get more conservative because they gain power as they age, and women tend to get more radical because they lose power as they age,” Steinem said. “It’s not fair to measure most women by the standard of most men, because they’re gonna get more activist as they grow older, and when you’re young, you’re thinking, Where are the boys, the boys are with Bernie.“
It’s that last admittedly awkward line that got Steinem in hot water. Steinem “suggested younger women were just backing Mr. Sanders so that they could meet young men,” alleged the Times. According to Politico, “Feminist icon Gloria Steinem said that young women are supporting Bernie Sanders because they’re looking for boys.”
Bernie fans demanded an apology and Steinem did apologize–not that that will make the slightest difference to Sanders’ entitled, privileged followers.
Another great read: a case for Hillary Clinton written by Ohio State graduate student Zachary Leven. I learned some things I didn’t know about Hillary’s actions and votes around bankruptcy from this excellent essay. This is a long excerpt, but I hope you’ll still go read the whole thing.
The case for Hillary Clinton is mostly a matter of rebutting the case against her. Once that’s done, you’re simply left with the most qualified candidate, and someone who is, by all reality-based measures, progressive (ranked the tenth most liberal senator). And just as important, someone who is capable of achieving results (I’ll conclude with the case against Sanders, and there’s a very, very strong case to make against him). We’ll start with this specific example, which I think is illustrative of the sorts of attacks we see made on Hillary. It begins with this video of an interview with Elizabeth Warren that’s been making its rounds on the internet….
Warren tells a story about the bankruptcy bill initially supported by the Clinton administration in the 1990’s. Warren wrote an op-ed opposing the bill on the grounds that it offered deadbeat dads a mechanism for cheating their ex-wives out of child support, along with a few other issues. After the op-ed was published, Hillary phoned Warren requesting a meeting. They met in private, and Warren proceeded to educate Hillary on this issue. She said that Hillary was a “quick study” and really “got it.” Hillary returned to Washington, and by all accounts, single-handedly turned around the administration’s support of this legislation. When the bill reached Clinton’s desk, he vetoed it….
The second part of the interview is where it gets quite damning. According to Warren, First Lady Clinton became Senator Clinton of New York, and then things changed. The same bankruptcy bill came through congress, and this time Hillary voted for it. When Warren is asked what changed, she replies (paraphrasing), “Hillary started receiving all this money from Wall Street, and they became her constituency.” ….
Did Hillary vote for this bill because she became beholden to special interests on Wall Street? What excuse does she have? Here’s her explanation in her own words:
I rise today in support of final passage of S. 420, the Bankruptcy Reform Act. Many of my colleagues may remember that I was a strong critic of the bill that passed out of the 106th Congress.
While we have yet to achieve the kind of bankruptcy reform I believe is possible, I have worked with a number of people to make improvements that bring us closer to our goals, particularly when it comes to child support. Women can now be assured that they can continue to collect child support payments after the child’s father has declared bankruptcy. The legislation makes child support the first priority during bankruptcy proceedings.
This year, we have made more progress. The Senate agreed to include a revised version of Senator Schumer’s amendment to ensure that any debts resulting from any act of violence, intimidation, or threat would be nondischargeable.
Earlier today, this body agreed to include a cap on the homestead exemption to ensure that wealthy debtors could not shield their wealth by purchasing a mansion in a state with no cap on homestead exemption.
In addition, I was concerned about competing nondischargeable debt so I worked hard with Senator Boxer to ensure that more credit card debt can be erased so that women who use their credit cards for food, clothing and medical expenses in the 90 days before bankruptcy do not have to litigate each and every one of these expenses for the first $750.
Let me be very clear — I will not vote for final passage of this bill if it comes back from conference if these kind of reforms are missing. I am voting for this legislation because it is a work in progress, and it is making progress towards reform.
Now I deeply respect and admire Elizabeth Warren — but it seems she left out some important details from her account. Clinton, in fact, worked with other members of congress to include amendments that addressed Elizabeth Warren’s concerns. And the bill passed 83–15. So why didn’t Warren mention this? I really have no idea — I’d love to ask her. Maybe she became so locked into this anti-bankruptcy bill stance, she couldn’t free herself from an oppositional frame of mind. Maybe Warren didn’t feel these amendments went far enough (but if that were true, why not mention that?) For whatever reason, the story Warren tells in this interview is incomplete. Clinton’s position on this bill was no different than that uber-conservative, Barbara Boxer.
Here’s what happened next — the bill went to the Republican controlled congress, they stripped out those amendments, sent the bill back to the senate, the Democrats filibustered the bill, and Clinton voted to uphold the filibuster. Another version of the bill later passed that Hillary opposed. So that woman Warren describes in the first part of her interview — the woman who “really gets it” — turns out that woman never changed after all (and currently, Warren speaks very highly of Hillary).
Also well worth reading is Melissa McEwan’s take on the bankruptcy story: Sure, But What About the Important People Who Matter?
We’ve all noticed that Bernie Sanders knows very little about foreign policy. Now Wall Street expert William Cohan writes at Vanity Fair that: Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Know Diddly-Squat About Wall Street.
Sanders is right that Wall Street still needs reform. The Dodd-Frank regulations fail to measure up; Wall Street lobbyists and $1000-an-hour attorneys work away each day to gut the meager reforms signed into law by President Barack Obama in July 2010. It is also unconscionable that Wall Street’s compensation system continues to reward bankers, traders, and executives to take big risks with other people’s money in hopes of getting big year-end bonuses. Thanks to this system, which has been prevalent since the 1970s, when Wall Street transformed itself from a bunch of undercapitalized private partnerships (where those partners had serious capital at risk every day) to a group of behemoth public companies (where the risk is borne by creditors and shareholders while the rewards go to the employees), Wall Street has become ground zero for one financial crisis after another.
But Sanders never talks about the compensation system on Wall Street. In fact, he rarely mentions anything concrete at all. Instead, he dwells on bizarre and nebulous notions such as imposing “a tax on Wall Street speculation,” as he did during his speech on Monday night. This tax, Sanders noted, will generate “hundreds of billions” of dollars in annual revenue and help pay for his proposed program to make tuition free at public colleges and universities.
But what exactly is Sanders proposing and does it make any sense? The answer to the first question is: it is difficult to tell. The candidate’s website does not really flesh out the idea, other than to say that the tax “will reduce risky and unproductive high-speed trading and other forms of Wall Street speculation.” If one goes back to a bill that Sanders introduced in the Senate last May, there is slightly more meat on these bones; still, the proposed legislation seems to have very little to do with actually taxing “Wall Street speculation” and more to do with taxing every trading transaction—the buying and selling of stocks and bonds and derivatives—that Wall Street and hedge funds engage in. This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever—why tax the very behavior the system depends upon?—and it is probably why Sanders’s legislation went nowhere and why he doesn’t talk about it anymore.
Even if Sanders eventually elaborates on his plan more fully, does taxing Wall Street speculation even make any sense? That one is simple: nope, and it actually reveals the candidate’s ignorance about our banking system.
Please read the rest at the link.
I’m running out of space, so I’ll just share a few more links, headlines only.
Newsweek: The Best Historical Moments of the New Hampshire Primary.
Washington Post: A black Princeton professor says she was handcuffed to a table for her unpaid parking tickets. This woman has been tweeting that the cops are still harassing her, even calling her cell phone!
Ta-Nehisi Coates: A History of Liberal White Racism. How bigotry enabled progressive domestic policies of the early 20th century.
Huffington Post: #ItsNotOver: Why the One Year Anniversary of Natasha McKenna’s Death Matters. Natasha was tasered to death by police officers.
The People’s View: #DontBernMeBro: Why Sanders is Parroting GOP Talking Points on Obama’s Jobs Record.
Mike Konzal at the Roosevelt Institute: Why I (Still) Think Shadow Banking is Key to Financial Reform.
Alex Seitz-Wald at MSNBC: For Sanders, campaign finance purity not always possible.
Dana Millbank: Bernie Sanders is no revolutionary.
Hillary Clinton after winning the NH primary in 2008
Have a great day, Sky Dancers and don’t let the haters get you down. What stories are you following today?
Lundi Gras Reads
Posted: February 8, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Afternoon Reads | Tags: Beyonce, Black Lives Matter, Cam Newton, lundi gras, Marco Rubio, Proteus, Superbowl 34 Comments
So, we’re headed into Mardi Gras 2016 down here in New Orleans. Some big football game in some other city just wrapped up the season. New Hampshire has its first in the country presidential primary tomorrow and somewhere out there Marco Rubio is having a terrible very bad day! Yasssssss!!! Oh, and Happy Year of the Male Fire Monkey!!! Tashi Losar! This is a very eventful lunar period in many ways.
Lundi Gras is the traditional resting day for us before the big day. My plans include making groceries at Rouse’s and picking up dog food at Bark Market. The Kings of Rex and Zulu will appear today. Today there is one parade. It’s the Krewe of Proteus which was founded in 1882. Their floats are quite historical as they use the original chassis and keep many of their traditional designs.
The Krewe of Proteus parade is based on Egyptian mythology. Proteus was the son of Poseidon, herded Poseidon’s seals, the great bull seal at the center of the harem. He can tell the future, change his shape and will only answer to someone who can capture him.
The images today are historical drawings of old floats and costumes from Proteus.
Here’s some more information on Proteus from the NOLA History Guy. One of the things he mentions is the Ordinance passed by the City Council to get Krewes to be more racially diverse. The New Orleans Celebration does have some really deep roots in racism as well as class.
The Council’s unanimous vote came after leaders of six prominent, mostly white parade clubs had pledged to begin trying to integrate “racially and ethnically” by 1993.
Despite objections from civil rights advocates, the Council followed the recommendation of a committee appointed by Mayor Sidney Barthelemy to study the issue. The committee began its deliberations during the furor that arose after the law was proposed last fall by Councilwoman Dorothy Mae Taylor, who is black.
As passed by the Council in December, the ordinance, which takes effect in 1994, would have denied parade and liquor permits to any Carnival clubs, called krewes, that had membership barriers based on “race, creed, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex or sexual orientation, age, physical condition or disability.”
Krewes would have had the burden of proving they did not discriminate, and leaders of clubs found to be in violation would have been subject to a $300 fine and up to five months in jail. Watered Down Twice
In February, the Council deleted the jail-sentence provision and removed the burden of proof from the clubs, placing it instead on their accusers.
On Thursday the Council allowed krewes to remain all-male or all-female and softened enforcement of the law. The city now must dismiss any discrimination complaint against a krewe if the club submits an affidavit pledging that it does not discriminate. Change Called ‘Absurd’
If you’d like to read more on this, I suggest Jame’s Gills’ Book Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans. I read it last year and it was quite enlightening.
I’ve been thinking about these things because of Beyonce and the release of her new video Formation which is fierce by any standard
. She’s gone full throttle social justice advocate for women, girls, and African Americans. It’s got slaps at the response to Katrina and a major nod to BLM. It openly celebrates female sexuality too. She sang at that football game whose name I just can’t quite recall. Responses to both video and performance include a plethora of items that show our country just cannot get beyond the racial divide. Panther’s quarterback Cam Newton and Beyonce have both been the subject of some rather nasty Twitters and such.
Members of the National Sheriffs’ Association meeting in Washington turned their backs on Beyonce during a Super Bowl halftime party, angered the NFL allowed her to sing a song they consider anti-police.
The Association told Secrets that when Beyonce performed a snippet of her hit “Formation,” the sheriffs holding their annual legislative meeting at the J.W. Marriott turned off the volume and video.
The video is marvelously controversial and includes scenes of New Orleans and the wonderful voice of our own Queen Diva Big Freedia. You can believe the internet is alive with chatter.
Dee: Beyoncé has been accused of not caring enough about Black Lives Matter and of being a bad feminist (or not one at all); on “Formation,” she raises two middle fingers to all sides of her Illuminati-truthing haters with a bold intersection of the two fights. She is a black feminist, full stop. This is a video made for women — she speaks directly to “ladies” in the song’s blazing call to action — and it is clear she is done living for the will and want of men (and has been for a minute, actually). She’s “so possessive” of Jay Z’s love and his power that she wears his “Roc necklaces.” (Still, Hov’s got the hottest chick in the game wearing his chain.) She won’t stand by and watch young black women snatch their noses so far that they can no longer take pride in their Jackson 5 nostrils.
This is a new negro spiritual hymn, one that hits me deeper than Kendrick’s “Alright,” because every look, every lyric, every outfit, every moment is a statement of Black Girl Magic. Of course, I’m moved by that fly little black boy in a hoodie who joyfully dances in front of a barricade of white cops in riot gear. But I’m politically inspired when Beyoncé gives the Black Power salute atop a New Orleans cop car. Am I reaching to call this a protest song? I just can’t get “Mississippi Goddam” out of my head when I see it.
Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton showed his personality all season with his dabbin’ and dancing.
Many loved him for it.
Some criticized him for it.
The 2015 league MVP showed his personality again after Sunday night’s 24-10 loss to Denver in Super Bowl 50 with short answers and an abrupt exit from his postgame news conference.
It wasn’t pretty. The player known for his infectious smile and designer attire answered seven questions with a frown and black hoodie pulled over his head.
It’ll get Newton more criticism than love.
But it was raw emotion just like his dabbin’.
Newton hates to lose, and he wears that emotion on his sleeve as boldly as he wore those Versace zebra-print pants on the trip to California.
Continue reading that article and you’ll see that Cam’s labelled as having “childlike behavior”. Now the best I can be is a white ally but that description is not what I’d imagine one should say about a grown black 
man who even thought he makes that much money basically tossing balls around in a game. With so much shit coming down in the world and this country, you would think that folks could be more upset by the level of child poverty in the country, the poisoning of children in a poor community by a state government, or say sending drone attacks down on a village. But, no, we get all excited about a game and some artistic expression. And, it variably turns into a white denial of institutional racism on parade.
Or, you could be like me and be genuinely upset by assholes running to be the leader of the Free World like the aforementioned Marco Rubio. I really hope the man has a horrid week because THIS. I want his goose cooked until its cinder.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) promised on Sunday that he would sign an abortion ban as president that provided exceptions for rape even though he preferred for pregnant victims to have their rapists’ babies.
Following a Saturday night’s Republican Presidential Debate on ABC News, host George Stephanopoulos noted during a Sunday interview that Rubio had been hammered for his belief that abortion was wrong even in cases of rape or incest.
“Abortion to me is not a political issue,” Rubio insisted. “It’s a human rights issue. And so, if [Jeb Bush] wants to make it a political issue, that’s his right. For me, it’s not.”
“I do require an exception for life of the mother because I’m pro-life,” he continued. “Number two, as I’ve said, if they pass a law in Congress that has exceptions, I’ll sign it. Because I want to save lives.”
“What do you say to that mom when you look her in the eye?” the ABC host wondered.
“It’s a terrible situation,” Rubio replied. “I mean, a crisis pregnancy, especially as a result of something as horrifying as that, I’m not telling you it’s easy. I’m not here saying it’s an easy choice. It’s a horrifying thing that you’ve just described.”
“I get it,” he added. “I really do. And that’s why this issue is so difficult. But I believe a human being, an unborn child has a right to live, irrespective of the circumstances of which they were conceived. And I know that the majority of Americans don’t agree with me on that.”
“And that’s why any law that passed will almost certainly have exceptions. And I’ll sign it.”
That’s right neighborly of him.
Those of you that actually watched the debate with us on Saturday night know that Chris Christie went after Rubio with a relish and Rubio folded like an empty sack of flour. We’ve frequently talked about Rubio’s penchant for sounding like he’s speaking from memorized 3×5 index cards. You know, the kind that they used in high school bates backed in the day. Christie nailed him on it and all Rubio did was repeat the same thing over about 4 times. The polls have taken a turn. Rubio is no longer the flavor of the month and the Twitter and Gifs have not been kind either.
An internal poll conducted on Sunday suggests that Marco Rubio’s fumbled debate performance has damaged his prospects heading into the New Hampshire primary.
The poll, conducted by the pro-John Kasich New Day for America Super PAC, shows Rubio plummeting to fourth place in the primary here, with 10 percent of the vote. Most of the polling conducted in the immediate days before the debate showed Rubio in second place.
The survey, which was based on phone calls to 500 likely voters (margin of error plus or minus 3 percent), was conducted Sunday, the day following the latest Republican debate. Rubio came under scathing attack from Chris Christie, who cast the first term Florida senator as too unready, ambitious, and superficial to occupy the Oval Office.
Donald Trump holds a wide lead in the survey, receiving 35 percent. He more than doubles runner-up Kasich, who has 15 percent. In third is Jeb Bush, with 13 percent. Behind Rubio in fifth and sixth place, respectively, are Christie and Ted Cruz. Both receive 8 percent.
The results are welcome news for Kasich and Bush, both of whom have made New Hampshire the centerpiece of the primary campaigns. Strong performances on Tuesday will give them reason to fight on to the South Carolina primary, which will be held Feb. 20.
So, what’s more important in the scheme of things? A football game, a video, the potential return of another Bush? Oh, and of course, Rubio’s a Republican so it’s the media’s fault for emphasizing that he repeated
the same damned thing about Obama 4 times.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent a fundraising email Monday that passed off New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) attacks on the freshman senator’s canned talking points as a controversy ginned up by the media.
The email said the media pounced on the Rubio campaign’s “building momentum” by making hay out of the fact that the senator “pointed out a few times” during Saturday’s Republican presidential debate “that President Obama has been very deliberate about achieving his bad policies.”
“This isn’t the first time the media has tried to distract people,” the email read. “We can’t afford to let the media get away with this.”
Rubio had said some variation of the line, “Barack Obama is undertaking an effort to change this country, to make America more like the rest of the world,” four times during the debate. Christie repeatedly attacked Rubio’s repetition on the stage, calling the Obama line the senator’s “memorized 25-second speech.”
In the fundraising email, which didn’t mention Christie, Rubio said he would stick with the language.
Good luck with that.
If I wanted to give you all a headache, I’d start in on how horrible MoDo was this weekend. But, BNR has done it for me so I’ll leave it at that.
Dowd is the leading purveyor of Rovian anti-Hillary memes, sophisticated negative character frames crafted in conservative oppo shops to undermine Hillary’s candidacy. Dowd believes that as a woman, she is immune from claims of sexism, so her Hillary-bashing screeds are bursting at the seams with blatantly sexist language, lies and innuendo.
Her latest column includes the following verbatim phrases:
- Hillary still has not learned the art of seduction on stage
- Overplays her feminist hand
- Feels too competitive with her husband
- Bill could tell her not to shout her way through rallies, adding to her authenticity problem
- Her campaign cries sexism too often
- Hillary huffily said…
- And she’s still not likable enough for the young women who were supposed to carry her forward as a Joan of Arc.
- With Hillary, there are three things [that make her stupid]: sex, money and the need for secrecy.
- Nixonian obsession with secrecy by the woman who was once an idealistic lawyer
- Hillary was there sucking at the teat
- She tried to drag in others to excuse her own ethically lax behavior
Dowd’s hate masquerading as an editorial is nothing new. She’s been doing this for two decades. But she got sloppy this time, slipping in a line accusing America’s first African American president of “using race” to get elected:
Then there’s the pile on the Big Dawg for a few things he said in a speech and what Madeline Albright said in a speech and what Gloria Steinem said in a speech. Yes, BernieBros, the Clintons control the media narrative. You can sure tell it by the nasty ass coverage of all this including the ginning up of your basic catfight.
Nearly defeated in Iowa, trailing in New Hampshire, and worried about everywhere else,Hillary Clinton’s campaign is bringing out the big guns, releasing political kraken Bill Clinton and summoning feminist icons Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright to reclaim young female voters who have flocked to Bernie Sanders.
In a sign that the formerly inevitable nominee is growing anxious, Bill went all-out against Sanders during a speech Sunday in New Hampshire that sparingly mentioned the Vermont senator by name, but implied that he was a hypocrite whose ideals were untethered to reality. “When you’re making a revolution, you can’t be too careful with the facts,” he sniped, according to The New York Times. But Bill didn’t stop there, accusing the Sanders campaign of fomenting the alleged “Bernie Bro” phenomenon, described by Politicoas a group “who harass female Clinton supporters online and accuse them of ‘voting with their vagina’ and call them ‘bitches.’” Condemning what he called “vicious trolling,” Bill said the attacks on his wife are “literally too profane … not to mention sexist.” (Sanders has denounced any sexism among the ranks of his supporters, saying misogyny has no place in his campaign.)
But Bill was not alone in his unusually harsh words for Sanders and his supporters. The Clinton campaign also tapped Steinem and Albright, two prominent, glass-ceiling-shattering women, to join in chastising young female voters for not supporting one of their own. “We can tell our story of how we climbed the ladder, and a lot of you younger women think it’s done,” Albright said Saturday during a Hillary event, according to The New York Times. “It’s not done. There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” Steinem, never one to mince words, suggested Friday on Real Time with Bill Maher that young women are supporting Sanders’s campaign because “the boys are with Bernie.” Steinem and Albright both received significant backlash for their comments, with the Times reporting that some young women were insulted by the suggestion that they were “misinformed and stupid” for not voting along gendered lines.
The series of seemingly coordinated moves underscores how much Clinton, who made women’s rights a core mission during her time as secretary of state, has stumbled with female voters. Recent polls suggestthat women under 35 overwhelmingly prefer Sanders by a 20-point margin, citing their disapproval of Clinton’s Wall Street ties and her less progressive positions on economic problems like student debt and a weak job market for entry-level positions. Hillary hasn’t recovered well from these attacks, recently refusing to release transcripts of her speeches to large banks and organizations—for which she received compensation well into the six figures—unless everyone else “who’s ever given a speech to any private group under any circumstances” does so as well.
Since this is getting long, I’m going to let you add the links to the criticism for all that if you want along with your thoughts. Or, we can talk about what kind of challenges we have in this country and who is the best to deal with them.
Meanwhile, did you know there’s a video with a black woman suggesting that the police should stop killing unarmed black people and that a black quarterback with his own kind’ve style upset reporters by leaving a presser early?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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