There was no violence in Nevada convention. I was there 8 hours – Nina Turner

 

RT America | May 18, 2016

Senator Bernie Sanders issued a stinging rebuke to the Democratic Party’s leadership for criticizing his supporters’ protests at the Nevada convention last weekend, saying it had used its power “to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place.” The mainstream media has used the word “violence” to describe some political angst vented by Bernie backers that night. However, not everybody agrees with that assessment, as Nina Turner, national surrogate for the Bernie Sanders campaign, tells RT America’s Ed Schultz.

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Democratic Leadership Needs to Understand That the Political World Is Changing

Bernie Sanders | Reader Supported News | May 18, 2016

.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday issued the following statement:

“It is imperative that the Democratic leadership, both nationally and in the states, understand that the political world is changing and that millions of Americans are outraged at establishment politics and establishment economics. The people of this country want a government which represents all of us, not just the 1 percent, super PACs and wealthy campaign contributors.

“The Democratic Party has a choice. It can open its doors and welcome into the party people who are prepared to fight for real economic and social change – people who are willing to take on Wall Street, corporate greed and a fossil fuel industry which is destroying this planet. Or the party can choose to maintain its status quo structure, remain dependent on big-money campaign contributions and be a party with limited participation and limited energy.

“Within the last few days there have been a number of criticisms made against my campaign organization. Party leaders in Nevada, for example, claim that the Sanders campaign has a ‘penchant for violence.’ That is nonsense. Our campaign has held giant rallies all across this country, including in high-crime areas, and there have been zero reports of violence. Our campaign of course believes in non-violent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals. But, when we speak of violence, I should add here that months ago, during the Nevada campaign, shots were fired into my campaign office in Nevada and apartment housing complex my campaign staff lived in was broken into and ransacked.

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Indicting Hillary

William Boardman | Reader Supported News | May 16, 2016

It’s the server, stupid!

 

t’s not yet clear whether Hillary Clinton will be indicted. It’s not even clear in the broader sense whether Hillary Clinton should be indicted. But it’s crystal clear that, even on the limited amount of credible evidence now available, Hillary Clinton could be indicted. She could be indicted for what might be characterized as privatizing her government office. That, in effect, is what the Secretary of State did when she moved pretty much all her public government communication to a private email server at her home in Chappaqua, New York. That deployment of a private server for a government official is, as far as we know, unprecedented. The public business of the Secretary of State does not belong in anyone’s private domain. It’s a gross violation of sane and honest public policy. And it’s also illegal.

That’s why Hillary Clinton could be indicted. She has committed a unique offense. But how serious is the offense? Until the FBI completes its investigation, including thousands of emails as well as the server, we can’t begin to know what weight to give it legally. Politically, we can infer that the Clinton camp is terrified of any full reckoning, since Clinton and her surrogates have been minimizing and lying about the case from the beginning.

When Bernie Sanders said in an early debate that people were sick and tired of hearing about Hillary Clinton’s “damn emails,” he may well have executed a shrewd and deft bit of political jiu jitsu. First, he framed himself as more interested in substantive issues, rather than political gossip. He surely knew that, if an email of actual importance turned up, the case would take on a well-deserved life of its own. Meanwhile he could take the high road, ignoring mere peccadillos. And quite possibly, Sanders understood even then that the core issue was the server, not the emails, and that the FBI under James Comey was a good bet to carry out a thorough and honorable investigation. Sanders successfully took a principled position on the “damn emails,” while knowing that all he had to do was wait to make the move a win-win for him (if that’s the way it would turn out, with nothing to lose if it didn’t).

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DNC hires Wall Street-funded politician to oversee convention

 

RT America | May 12, 2016

The Democratic National Committee has hired former Congressman Barney Frank to oversee the convention in Philadelphia, reportedly to counter Bernie Sanders on Wall Street related issues. For more on this, Larry Cohen, former President of the Communications Workers of America and Bernie Sanders supporter joins ‘News With Ed’.

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Why Bernie Will, Should and Must Stay in the Race

James Hightower | AlterNet | April 27, 2016

Surprisingly, this week’s prize for Stupidest Political Comment in the Presidential Race doesn’t go to Donnie Trump or Ted Cruz. Rather, the honor goes to the clueless cognoscenti of conventional political wisdom. These pundits and professional campaign operatives have made a unilateral decision that Bernie Sanders must now quit the race for the Democratic nomination. Why? Because, they say, he can’t win.

Actually, he already has. Sanders’ vivid populist vision, unabashed idealism and big ideas for restoring America to its own people have jerked the presidential debate out of the hands of status quo corporatists, revitalized the class consciousness and relevance of the Democratic Party, energized millions of young people to get involved, and proven to the Democratic establishment that they don’t have to sell out to big corporate donors to raise the money they need to run for office.

Bernie has substantively—even profoundly—changed American politics for the better, which is why he’s gaining more and more support and keeps winning delegates. From the start, he said, “This campaign is not about me”—it’s a chance for voters who have been disregarded and discarded to forge a new political revolution that will continue to grow beyond this election and create a true people’s government.

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What Began at Occupy Wall Street Is Reverberating in Today’s Democratic Primary

Charles Pierce | Esquire | Reader Supported News | April 27, 2016

But it’s happening on a different part of the ballot that doesn’t get enough coverage.

t looks to be a big night for the two presidential frontrunners, which leaves next week’s ‘do in Indiana as the last possible chance for anything to shift at that level. But tonight’s action is enlivened because there are a number of critical down-ballot races, especially as regards the Democratic chances of regaining the Senate this fall. In Maryland, Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards, both incumbent congresspeople, are locked up in a serious hooley that could go either way, Edwards being the choice of what can loosely be called the Sanders/Warren wing of the party, and a darling of the Netroots. Also in Maryland, there’s an expensive three-way congressional race between a wealthy dilettante, a very promising young Democratic neophyte, and the wife of Chris Matthews. There also is a vigorous primary campaign for mayor of Baltimore.

In Pennsylvania, there’s quite the brawl to run against incumbent Senator Pat Toomey, who is seen as one of the more vulnerable Republican incumbents. Katie McGinty has the White House and most of the Democratic establishment and donor class behind her. She was supposed to walk in. But, at the moment, she’s running behind now-perennial candidate Joe Sestak, a former admiral who has consistently told the Democratic Party hierarchy to go whistle over the past three election cycles. Here, also, is the rare race in which the populist S/W wing is genuinely divided. Sestak is running as an outsider, based almost entirely on the number of famous Democrats he’s alienated, but there’s also the clamorous presence of John Fetterman, the eccentric mayor of Braddock, who is much closer to Sanders on the issues, and is quite the piece of work besides.

“We’ve lost 90 percent of our population and 90 percent of our buildings,” he said. “Ninety percent of our town is in a landfill. So we took a two-pronged approach. We created the first art gallery in the four-town region, with artists’ studios. We did public art installations. And, I don’t know if you consider it arts, exactly, but I consider growing organic vegetables in the shadow of a steel mill an art…”

Can’t argue with that.

Anyway, these elections represent the first serious stirrings at the ballot box of the efforts to reform the Democratic Party that began outside the party structure, in Zuccotti Park and in the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore, and that provided the energy to campaigns like the one that put Warren in the Senate and the one that Sanders has kept rolling throughout the spring. This is not simply the Democratic Party demonstrating its admirably diverse inability to get out of its own way. There is power behind what’s happening here; neither as formidable as it may become, nor particularly well-focused, this power is nonetheless real and its issues and concerns must be addressed. The party must have room for Donna Edwards, Joe Sestak, and John Fetterman, and for their constituents and supporters. Otherwise, a very big opportunity already is lost.

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Is Hillary Stealing the Nomination? Will Bernie Birth a Long-Term Movement?

Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman | Reader Supported News | April 27, 2016

t this delicate moment in the primary season, we all need to take a deep breath and evaluate what comes next.

Bernie Sanders has a mathematical chance to win. But Hillary seems the likely Democratic nominee.

Donald Trump has an army of delegates. But if he doesn’t win on the first ballot, Paul Ryan could be the Republican nominee.

Oy!

For a wide variety of reasons, we believe Hillary and Bernie could beat Trump. But we’re not sure about Ryan, who we find absolutely terrifying.

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The Endgame of 2016’s Anti-Establishment Politics

Robert Reich | Roberts Reich’s Blog | Reader Supported News | April 25, 2016

ill Bernie Sanders’s supporters rally behind Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination? Likewise, if Donald Trump is denied the Republican nomination, will his supporters back whoever gets the Republican nod?

If 2008 is any guide, the answer is unambiguously yes to both. About 90 percent of people who backed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries that year ended up supporting Barack Obama in the general election. About the same percent of Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney backers came around to supporting John McCain.

But 2008 may not be a good guide to the 2016 election, whose most conspicuous feature is furious antipathy to the political establishment.

Outsiders and mavericks are often attractive to an American electorate chronically suspicious of political insiders, but the anti-establishment sentiments unleashed this election year of a different magnitude. The Trump and Sanders candidacies are both dramatic repudiations of politics as usual.

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How Bad Could Hillary Clinton Be?

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. (photo: Scott Olson/Darren McCollester/Getty Images)

 

Steve Weissman | Reader Supported News | April 24, 2016

hile Bernie Sanders still has a statistical chance to win the Democratic nomination, the time has come to face the big question. How will those of us who support Bernie respond to the likely contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?

The answer depends. What will Bernie choose to do in the coming weeks and months? And how badly do millions of ordinary Americans – black, Latino, Asian, white, and mixed – want the political revolution that a grumpy old Socialist Jew proclaimed?

Bernie’s choices are limited. When he decided to run in the Democratic primaries, many purists like Chris Hedges condemned him for embracing the dark side. Had Bernie run as an independent, would he have enjoyed anywhere near the same impact? Absolutely not. But he did pay a price, going easy on Obama and all the money the president had taken from Wall Street in his first campaign. Hillary used Obama’s ties to the street of Capitalist dreams as an easy way to justify her own funding and speaking fees.

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Hillary Clinton’s Image Among Democrats Reaches a New Low

Frank Newport | Gallup | April 24, 2016

Recent activity in the presidential election campaign is clearly taking a toll on the images of the leading presidential candidates, as Hillary Clinton drops to her lowest net favorable rating among Democrats since Gallup began tracking her in July, and as both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump return to near their all-time lows among Republicans.

We can start with the Democratic side of the ledger, where Clinton’s current net favorable rating of +36 among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents is based on 66% who give her a favorable rating and 30% who give her an unfavorable rating.

Clinton’s image has undergone ups and downs over the course of the campaign season, just as it has over her entire 25-year career in the national spotlight. Overall, however, April so far has not been kind to the former secretary of state. Her net favorable rating has descended steadily to her current low point — in the midst of a crucial stage of the primary season, which will help determine whether she’ll emerge the clear winner over Bernie Sanders before the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this July.

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