Bernie is giving up.
Joyce Karam – @Joyce_Karam – 15:27 UTC · Apr 8, 2020
BREAKING: Bernie Sanders is Ending his Campaign for 2020, making Joe Biden essentially the presumptive Dem. Nominee to face Trump.
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April 8, 2020
2020 Presidential Election Thread 07
Comments
Circe #32
Bernies flag from day one 🏳️
The peoples flag 🚩and more recently 🦺
The DNC desperados will replace Biden IMO with a younger clone where the only difference will age.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 8 2020 23:36 utc | 101
After the last Bernie capitulation it should have been clear this time he would have quit even if he was the last man standing going to the general election.
Posted by: Tobi | Apr 8 2020 23:43 utc | 102
I think now is a good time to step back from Bernie, from Trump, Biden… and look in the mirror: what are we addicted to? suspend the finger pointing for a bit. What are my/our drugs? Alcohol? tobacco? weed? sugar? corn syrup? doritos? Wapo? the Guardian? ok, self disclosure… MOA.
What do we feel compelled to do when we get up? throughout the day… facebook…?
Get off line and read a book. Try Gabor Mate (Aaron’s dad), a true, self aware, humble, courageous human. He’s also a holocaust survivor and no longer (as of the late 60s) supports Israel.
Talk to neighbors. Listen to them. Learn how to understand and appreciate their story. Push your agenda too. Washington is not the center of life. You are. your neighbor is. We are.
Posted by: michael egan | Apr 8 2020 23:45 utc | 103
A little history is in order here.
In 1988 The League of Women Voters stopped sponsoring presidential debates because of interference by the two parties, which then jointly formed the official-sounding “Commission on Presidential Debates”.
In 1992 Ross Perot scared the pants off the duopoly (REPs & DEMs) by taking 19% of the popular vote running as an Independent with a half-assed on-again off-again campaign. The duopoly then changed the rules and made it all but impossible for third parties to enter debates. At the same time the media arm of the establishment stopped covering third parties.
Bernie ran as a Democrat because there was no other way for him to enter the race or get media coverage of his platform.
Reference ‘Spin’, a film by Brian Springer. Also ‘Orwell Rolls In His Grave’ by Robert Kane Papps. Both deal with media manipulation centered on the 1992 presidential election.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” — JFK
Posted by: Noah Way | Apr 8 2020 23:58 utc | 104
King Lear #77 etc.,
lizard #81 did respond perfectly and totally.
We have been pulled down into the grave of neoliberal economics and warmongering ignorance.
That light held up by Trump that people imagine is the end of the tunnel is actually the bottom of the pit.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 9 2020 0:06 utc | 105
Sanders bailed without leaving or anointing a new leader. It is sort of like Lyndon Johnson bailing out in 1968 with troops stuck in Vietnam. The closest to him anointing a new leader was pushing AOC which between her, Trump, Biden, and Sanders looks like the dumbest of dumb and dumber.
The Democrats do not want to win the presidency at this point. I predict Biden will pick Stacy Abrams throwing the election to Trump. If they leave him there the dementia will become quite obvious to all. He may bail out at the convention due to his obvious illness. Pushing a mentally addled person forward is seriously strange.
Posted by: dltravers | Apr 9 2020 0:09 utc | 106
What happens if both Trump and Biden come down with the coronavirus?
Posted by: Shule | Apr 9 2020 0:10 utc | 107
uncle tungsten @109: That light held up by Trump …
You have a great way with words sometimes uncle.
!!
Posted by: ja | Apr 9 2020 0:11 utc | 108
So it appears that when Election Day rolls around, I will again be writing in the name “Vladimir Putin” as a protest vote. by: Antoinetta III @| 12.. <= After my all male high school elected Sue Grommit Home Coming Queen my senior year,.. several hopeful females committed suicide.. The media clamoured to interview this charming young person, but school officials could not locate this victorious person. Her campaign had no pictures, she never appeared in public, her name was unknown to the administration of the school yet .. How did that happen? I think it might have been a conspiracy, designed to embarrass the hated headmaster of the school, the board soon released the headmaster, and a new vote was taken two days before the home coming.
The US Supreme court in all of its wisdom ruled corporations are citizens of the USA, so does that make it possible for Americans to find a corporation that meets Article II, Section 1, paragraph [5] of the USA, it reads "No person except a natural born citizen [all corporations are natural born?], .. shall be eligible for the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five years, and has been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
So what is to stop the voting Americans who are eligible to vote in elections held by the United States of America from electing, by write-in, a corporation that meets the above definition? Any thirty five year or older USA corporation, seems likely to qualify at least as far as i understand the courts decision..
So my question: if Americans governed by the USA were to acquire a 35 year old domestic corporation and rename it for one of the <=Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled March 1, 1781 to March 3, 1789
from https://www.johnhanson.net/ which website has many other facts.
Samuel Huntington March 1, 1781 to July 6, 1781
Samuel Johnston July 9, 1781 to Declined Office
Thomas McKean July 10, 1781 to November 4, 1781
John Hanson November 5, 1781 to November 3, 1782
Elias Boudinot November 4, 1782 to November 2, 1783
Thomas Mifflin November 3, 1783 to June 3, 1784
Richard Henry Lee November 30, 1784 to November 22, 1785
John Hancock November 23, 1785 to June 5, 1786
Nathaniel Gorham June 6, 1786 to February 1, 1787
Arthur St. Clair February 2, 1787 to January 21, 1788
Cyrus Griffin January 22, 1788 to January 21, 1789
and elect by write in ballet that corporation to be the President of the united States, <=does that mean each person in America, governed by the USA, could be a stockholder in the presidency of the USA.
Could it be that by writing in the name of a corporation, whose shares are owned 1 voting share each, by every American governed by the USA, that the Article II person, under the constitution, would be the democracy the Oligarchs fear so much?
Posted by: snake | Apr 9 2020 0:14 utc | 110
@ circe (17)
Lol … I could care less what you think, or spew. Every president in my memory at least has been an Israeli
whore. Trump is simply one of the worst ones. I do not like Trump, as much as I do not like America. His
policies are bringing America low, and that is just dandy in my book.
I entirely agree with tannenhouser … you are classless.
Posted by: rgl | Apr 9 2020 0:15 utc | 111
Shule @110
I think Hillary’s been practicing Kabbala voodoo while self-isolating so anything is possible./sarc
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 9 2020 0:15 utc | 112
Talk to neighbors. Listen to them. Learn how to understand and appreciate their story. Push your agenda too. Washington is not the center of life. You are. your neighbor is. We are.
Posted by: michael egan | Apr 8 2020 23:45 utc | 107
I feel humbled when I see this level of deep thoughts. OTOH, what kind of achievement is “holocaust survivor and no longer supporting Israel”?
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 9 2020 0:17 utc | 113
@ JR 75
Biden ain’t got a snowball’s chance in the Gobi desert; much less against Trump.
His dirty laundry is being smothered by COVID-19 24/7 coverage. And Senate probe and subpoenas on hold.
Watch the day when Biden will embrace Bernie’s ideas on healthcare for all
because polls show most Democrats support Medicare-for-all.
[.]Biden keeps winning, but most Democrats embrace an idea closely associated with Sanders: Medicare-for-all.
Take Florida, where Biden soundly defeated Sanders, winning 62 percent of the vote to the senator’s 23 percent. It was Biden’s biggest win of the day, and one of his strongest showings in the primary so far, but even there, 55 percent of primary voters said they support “a government plan for all instead of private insurance,” as compared to the 33 percent who opposed such a shift. In Illinois and Arizona, Biden won smaller-but-still-commanding victories. Yet 61 percent of Illinois primary voters and 58 percent of Arizona primary voters prefer a government plan to the current system.[.]
This COVID-19 crisis will finally change the US healthcare system.
Of all the news agencies there is this by Reuters:
Bernie Sanders may yet get his healthcare dream Reuters Link
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) – The last few months have been volatile for Bernie Sanders. On Wednesday the U.S. senator from Vermont said he is suspending his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, a hard-fought battle that shifted the party to the left. Less than two months ago he won around two-thirds of pledged delegates in the Nevada caucuses, becoming the race’s clear front-runner. Then Covid-19 started making the presidential election – and Sanders – feel like afterthoughts. Yet the ongoing pandemic may bring closer his universal healthcare dream.[.]
The health crisis is also highlighting the potential virtues of a more comprehensive and connected approach to healthcare. The U.S. system’s fragmented fragility has been laid bare, as has the danger of viewing health as an individual matter. Universal coverage of some kind now seems far more likely – even if it’s not the senator’s so-called Medicare-for-all plan.
In U.S. politics there’s a concept called the Overton window. It’s the range of ideas that are politically tolerable in a society at any given moment, and it may shift over time. Sanders’ greatest legacy may be that he widened the Overton window – making space for Covid-19 to push America through it.
The reason the DNCC manoeuvred Biden to be stand bearer remains in the subtle continuation of the failed impeachment – thinking Trump, having been indicted, will not touch Ukrainegate. In electioneering dirt floats and Biden will swim in it.
Posted by: Likklemore | Apr 9 2020 0:21 utc | 115
Are we having an election in November?
Are the bookies taking bets on whether the coronavirus thing will be sufficiently over that the lockdown (which isn’t a lockdown) gets lifted in time?
Are they taking bets on whether releasing the lockdown in time for the election and then having everyone go to the polls produces a “second wave” of coronavirus?
As an anarchist, I don’t vote anyway. And since we have a choice between an ignorant narcissistic lunatic and a dementia case, I mean, really, who gives a shit?
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 9 2020 0:33 utc | 116
Taking out all of the personalities, ideology, and personal opinions, you kind of have to be perversely impressed at a system so completely f’d up that continually places in front of the “voters” the two most grotesque and unpopular human beings possible.
Posted by: Guest77 | Apr 9 2020 0:33 utc | 117
@lizard(81) …
CARE legislation 1: 2 trillion USD.
CARE legislation 2: another 2 trillion USD
Your little ditty … priceless!
Put some music to it … you’ll be in the top ten!
Posted by: rgl | Apr 9 2020 1:08 utc | 119
The takeaway is not that Sanders is a disappointment or turncoat, he was neither. The takeaway is the neo-liberal establishment does not respect the people and will not change their way, and that the system is impervious to reform.
Posted by: jayc | Apr 8 2020 20:50 utc | 83
If we suppose that Trump, inadvertently or on purpose, is exposing the corrupted mendacity of the rulers, we ought also to suppose that Sanders has been doing the same. Whenever this happens the cumulative disillusion on the part of the US public mounts. There will come a tipping point.
Posted by: juliania | Apr 9 2020 1:22 utc | 121
@ c1ue #96
That $1200 handout from Uncle Donald amounts to 1/5 of US median MONTHLY income – not even 1 week’s pay. The $4.5 trillion lavished on Wall St. in the past weeks is on top of 12 years of ongoing bailouts that only further enriched the owners of this country.
Posted by: Noah Way | Apr 9 2020 1:26 utc | 122
“Don’t blame him for failing, put the blame where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of the corrupt corporate government.”
Bernie Sanders’ 2019-20 campaign was incredibly inept and for that he must take most of the blame. I wouldn’t call him a coward but he sure as hell showed that he’s not a fighter. Even worse, he misled his supporters by giving them false hope that he might actually win the campaign and run against Trump in November. The most Sanders could ever achieve was raise peoples’ consciousness in how their government has failed them and to put forth a case for a universal public health care system to replace the existing for-profit system. Bernie’s schtick served a useful purpose to the blue team who understood how his populist reforms could be deceptively used to burnish Democratic ideals as the party that fights for the middle class – the people’s party. Maybe they could fool enough people to win in November. Not with Bernie Sanders of course. And experienced politician that he is, Sanders would certainly understand this dynamic. But he willingly played the game nevertheless.
Posted by: krypton | Apr 9 2020 1:28 utc | 123
“The $4.5 trillion lavished on Wall St. in the past weeks is on top of 12 years of ongoing bailouts that only further enriched the owners of this country.”
An economist might explain it this way: If there’s a drought it’s more efficient to seed the clouds and bring rain than to water individual plants on the ground.
Posted by: krypton | Apr 9 2020 1:36 utc | 124
“Bashing Bernie for failing to score a victory in a game rigged against him from top to bottom is asinine. Bernie has been leading the political charge on universal health care for decades. Don’t blame him for failing, put the blame where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of the corrupt corporate government”
Sorry, not buying another “mainstream” excuse for Sanders. I was going to vote for this fake but he’s revealed himself to be a stone-cold bitch. Bernie is a pathetic coward whose sole purpose is to herd disaffected progressives into the Democratic Camp. Bernie will go down in history as a feckless failure. Stop making excuses for this poseur. This pussy never intended to win and on a certain level I’m glad that he’s withdrawn because Trump would have eaten his punk-ass alive! Bernie deserves to be relegated to the dustbin of history as a loser par excellence.
Bernie is not giving up, as he was never in the “fight” to win.
Posted by: Trisha | Apr 9 2020 1:42 utc | 126
@ 116 piotr berman.. michael egan makes some good sense @107… he could have stopped earlier and just recommended gabor mate and i would 2nd his viewpoint on the merits of reading a gabor mate book too! the extra bit was unnecessary info..
@ 123 snake… check the previous thread.. it is all about that… cheers..
Posted by: james | Apr 9 2020 1:44 utc | 127
here in canada those not able to access EI – known as unemployment insurance to some – can apply for CERB and are able to get 2000 every month they apply so long as they need it.. not sure how long this goes on for, but it highlights one difference between how canada is working thru this verses how the usa is working thru this.. as a musician, all my work from mid march has been cancelled and it is unclear when it will start up again… i am happy to have a gov’t that is willing to help out as many people as they can that need it..
Posted by: james | Apr 9 2020 1:48 utc | 128
@rgl 8
Thanks for that, and so succinctly articulated. But why bother, even in lol fashion, to respond to the hysterical circe?
Are other non-Americans in this commentary also beginning to regard our American co-commenters with the “otherness” usually proscribed by the state for those who aren’t American born? The geopolitics of the world is in upheaval and U. S. hegemony is no longer a given. Do U. S. citizens perceive and feel this paradigm shift? Are they so inveigled with vicious, useless partisan political game-playing that they fail to see that they are flailing around in the swamp too?
Look, the emperor has no clothes and he’s stabbing at that picture of Dorian Gray! This is the Trumpian Age and it’s enthralling, and less traumatic, to be looking at it from a distance. Sorry about that Americans, but there you go.
And why not, now that there is forced leisure-time, read a book that is not written by an American, not written yesterday, not a best-seller and not recommend by a friend or bookclub?
Relax, and think about Easter.
Posted by: Australian lady | Apr 9 2020 1:51 utc | 129
@ Antoinetta III | Apr 8 2020 16:44 utc
I, too, will write in the name Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, because his clone would be the leader the United States needs and the world needs leading the United States.
Bernie’s quitting was most disgusting because, in his concession speech, he called Biden a “decent man” — and, so, proved that he (Bernie) was the same punk who betrayed his supporters and sucked up to Hillary when she and her minions screwed him (Bernie) in the spring and summer of 2016.
I expect — and, very reluctantly, hope — that Trump wins, because he will harm the U.S. citizenry and the world a little less than Biden would. If Biden won, the Clintons, the deep state, the military-industrial complex, and the big banks would have total, unmitigable, irresistible, relentless power. The entire bill of rights would be toilet paper. The United States would dominate, viciously, all other nations except Russia, India, and China. WWIII would threaten, grimly, every millisecond, every day.
Posted by: Loup-Bouc | Apr 9 2020 2:27 utc | 130
Australian Lady @132–
Think about the symbolism of Easter and what ceremonies preceded it, that it represents something vastly different from what’s literally portrayed.
@Antoinetta III – Post18:
That’s why we scale Candidates’ Own Spending depending on the Office.
There were Billionaires and Corporations Channeling Money.
We replace these with Limits on Individual Contributions and Candidates’ Own Funding as well.
In Other Words, CrowdFunding it All.
Posted by: IronForge | Apr 9 2020 2:48 utc | 132
Who’s running this blog now that b has obviously been replaced? Anyone who thinks the opinions being expressed here lately are those of the (probably now late) b clearly prefers to hear themselves speak than to listen to b.
Posted by: Haavara Hans | Apr 9 2020 2:51 utc | 133
I’m not disappointed in Bernie because no rational human being could believe he had any intention of running to win. The entire Dem primary was a complete orchestrated sham more akin to a professional wrestling than a real competition. Are we not entertained?
Posted by: sad canuck | Apr 9 2020 2:58 utc | 134
It’s fake, and they know, that you know, and they don’t care.
Posted by: sad canuck | Apr 9 2020 3:00 utc | 135
Biden is well into senile dementia, everyone can see it. But his handlers — (the black-hearted) Jill Biden, the corporate media, the DNC — think if they don’t speak about it voters won’t notice. The icy disdain, unearned arrogance, and rank incompetence boggle the mind. Perfect VP candidate for this abusive on every level strategy: Kamala Harris.
Posted by: fairleft | Apr 9 2020 3:12 utc | 136
This pandemic changes everything. The world is falling to shit and that means the neo-liberal laissez faire free market capitalism the dotard Reagan represented, which has been rigging elections and extending its tentacles of ownership into every inch of the unprotected commons, is over. If Bernie’s vision of social democracy is not implemented, there is horrible social distress ahead. Biden, Obama’s lackey, will have to do it, but he’s not competent. Neither party has a leader who is. There is no future without more government regulation. The libertarians are frothing at the mouth and cleaning their guns. The laissez faire model doesn’t work. The arrogant capitalists of the neo-liberal west are following China’s lead. The Communist Party is showing Trump & Co how to do it!The vicious trolls in the CIA are having difficulty justifying their existence. They are bereft without their war on terror and their geo-strategic war mongering nonsense. Deal with this virus, ass-holes, you who created it!
Posted by: jadan | Apr 9 2020 3:18 utc | 137
After every possible warning, the establishment Democrats believed their own excuses, blamed everyone but themselves for their own failure last time, and now have just DONE IT AGAIN.
Well, they’ve re-elected Donald Trump.
Now that we know that, what’s next? Impeach him again?
Posted by: Mark Thomason | Apr 9 2020 3:34 utc | 138
karlof1 and Australian lady, it is a spiritual time for many in the world – no need to trouble yourselves, that is calming many of us even in such difficult times for many faiths. We only have one world and there are many ways to cherish it this time of year. As I say, don’t trouble yourselves – one world, and one springtime – not any spiritual ritual has precedence except the one in the heart of the believer, known only to him/her – and to God, if the faith recognizes him.
I’ll point out that emotions are high on this thread because it is specifically targeted to the occasion of Bernie Sanders backing out of the race, which is a hardship to many who have supported him. That is the subject of this thread, or should be. And yes, there is real sorrow in that for me as well, even though I am not US born. I would like to see something positive result from Sanders stepping down. There is still time for a better candidate than Biden to rise and take the leadership role now standing vacant. We are not doing very well with Trump at present. Perhaps one of the State Governors who is making his/her mark against the virus, calming the populace, addressing local needs would be a good candidate. Surely someone out there is demonstrating good leadership in this critical time.
Posted by: juliania | Apr 9 2020 3:34 utc | 139
This is the Trumpian Age and it’s enthralling, and less traumatic, to be looking at it from a distance. Sorry about that Americans, but there you go.
And why not, now that there is forced leisure-time, read a book that is not written by an American, not written yesterday, not a best-seller and not recommend by a friend or bookclub?
Posted by: Australian lady | Apr 9 2020 1:51 utc | 132
As an Australian, you are the subject of the empire, paying for troops and ships to be deployed here and there, as the empire wishes, assisting in persecuting an Australian (by doing nothing) etc. Cooperating in accelerating the global warming while Australia gets hotter and drier, etc. At least, Australia has fiscally most efficient healthcare, totally un-American.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 9 2020 3:37 utc | 140
IF the “election” is held,looks like the Sr. Cuomo is being groomed by MSM to somehow sideline Biden.
We’ll see, cause’ no sane person believes Biden is competent enough to unseat DJT, the oligarchs “butt boy”. Cuomo, another safe pick for the ruling elites. Ho Hum….yawn!!
Posted by: ben | Apr 9 2020 3:45 utc | 141
Bernie has a lot of valid excuses. First he had trouble projecting his message in a crowded field, and then the epidemic diverted the attention of everyone. As a showman, he was never to nimble, now he is really old, tired etc.
The case that Biden was a reactionary in his better years and now he is an empty shell on the stings of equally reactionary advising clique is not getting enough traction. Biden now follows the natural strategy for mildly demented, namely lie low and let Trump make idiot of himself, with the assist of his son-in-low and hand picked crew.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 9 2020 3:46 utc | 142
Posted by: jadan | Apr 9 2020 3:18 utc | 140 …laissez faire free market capitalism…
For those who have no clue what “libertarianism” was about…
1) “laissez faire free market capitalism” never existed since at least the time Lincoln warned about corporations…and probably not even before then. Governments at all levels in all history have never allowed “free markets”. It doesn’t matter whether they are “democratic” or “socialist” or “monarchist” or “communist” (and in some cases even “anarchist communes”.)
2) The sort of “laissez faire free market capitalism” talked about by *real* libertarians did not envision corporations running the state for their benefit while ruining everyone else.
As an anarchist originally springing from the “right-wing anarchist” branch (before moving on to the “individualist anarchist branch), I understand the difference between a “free market” – which frankly means no state control – and thus no such thing as “corporations” which are *state-created entities* (as opposed to “companies” which can just be a bunch of people working together) – and “state capitalism” – which is what the US is, just as much as (so-called) “Communist” China or North Korea.
What part of “free” in “free market” don’t people comprehend?
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 9 2020 4:01 utc | 143
Karlof 46; “Few will recall my invitation for barflies to compose a Revolutionary Manifesto that deals with the genuine problems we face in prose understandable by a citizenry with a 6th grade reading level.”
I posted mine and believe with all sincerity it is a highly intelligent utterly rational beautifully written point of view as necessary and vital as it is rare – and you, you pretended not to see it.
As for Sanders, folding his tent and abandoning his supporters THE DAY AFTER Wisconsin voters faced the impossible choice of having to risk their lives to turn out for him is the most vile act of cowardice I have ever witnessed a politician commit. I hope his wickedness comes back to find him sorry sellout despicable man that he is. Throw him out of office, Vermont – he shames your beautiful state.
Posted by: Phryne’s frock | Apr 9 2020 4:49 utc | 144
@142 juliania
Perhaps one of the State Governors who is making his/her mark against the virus, calming the populace, addressing local needs would be a good candidate. Surely someone out there is demonstrating good leadership in this critical time.
Gavin Newsom could easily beat Trump in a landslide.
Posted by: Circe | Apr 9 2020 5:07 utc | 145
I posted part of this on the Kushner coronavirs thread but I am taking the liberty to post part here as it relates directly to my anger with the duplicity of Bernie Sanders.
There is another MSM story of people dying at home from the covid-19. Hacking yourself to death with its fearful convulsions and drowning is awful.
I am saddened to think of the vulgar and agonising death that that faces all those at home.
They are likely there because they a/ know their fate, b/ refuse to bankrupt their families because of a hopeless medical system in the USA (and no doubt elsewhere in the world), c/ lack financial means to respond in any way, d/are surrounded by family equally suffering and disempowered to assist.
This is a disgusting homicidal circumstance, like war – it gives visceral meaning to the term ‘callous disregard’.
It is a crime against humanity and is galling to hear of it in the richest country on earth.
Assisted death is illegal and yet many sufferers must yearn for an overdose of opioid or heroin.
This is truly sad for our fellow beings.
FU Bernie, I condemn the man most capable to have led the way to a dignified humanitarian response, who instead chose to walk away in humanities hour of high promise, high need and abysmal despair.
Bernie you put party before people in the time of their greatest need.
Bernie you raised their hope, you owed them your allegiance just as they gave their allegiance and scant donations to you.
Bernie, You turned your back at the very time the people cried out for you.
Dont ever show your Judas face again.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 9 2020 5:30 utc | 146
Phryne’s frock #147
and karlof1 #46
The preamble should contain at least the following from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon:
To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished.
It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.
That should be there to be a reference cornerstone upon which all further clauses and specifications of the manifesto be judged.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 9 2020 5:50 utc | 147
Piotr Berman #143
On being Australian, the nation that vaguely assisted the freedom of the East Timor people from their persecution by the Indonesians and then proceeded to steal the East Timorese oil in a vulgar act of border manipulation.
The nation that so ably assists the UKUSAI to murder Iraquis and Syrians and does nothing to demand the end of the war in Yemen.
The nation that abandons its neighbors in the South Pacific and turns their territory into prison camps for unwanted immigrants.
The nation that so willingly participated in that crime against humanity in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s.
Poor fella that country. But there are many who work to give it the dignity of humanity as it is not alone in the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and this beautiful planet.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 9 2020 6:02 utc | 148
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 8 2020 19:27 utc | 62
“Bernie was already ‘finished’ for anyone willing to exercise their brain.”
I’m in no mood upsetting anyone nor imposed my ideas or believes Are you sure Americans got brains? If they have, how come they keep repeating the same mistakes every 4-years. Tell me the differences between GW Bush and Obama or Hillary Clinton and Biden or even Bill Clinton and Trump?
“Only a genuine Movement(s) will change anything.”
I’ve seen a lot of Movements not sure if they are really genuine in my life long journey – so have you, they’re all fake! How about not too long ago Change, change you can believe in or MAGA…. aren’t they the same replayed every 4-yrs?
Posted by: JC | Apr 9 2020 6:11 utc | 149
Posted by: Circe | Apr 9 2020 5:07 utc | 148
“Gavin Newsom could easily beat Trump in a landslide.”
BTW, I’m a Californian and amazed, you’re so smart and intelligent beyond believed. Good lord no wonder we’re stuck in this shit hole. You really believe this chap Gavin Newsom will win by a landslide and like Obama?
Did you know Newsom? He was a Lieutenant Governor of California under Jerry Brown. I dun believe in god and dun wanna go to heaven even if it exists. Now it’s time I start praying – trust me it an’t gonna to hurt anyone.
Posted by: JC | Apr 9 2020 6:13 utc | 150
jackrabbit #111
Thank you, sometimes the muse sings in my heart.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 9 2020 6:41 utc | 151
snake #123
I can confirm that mask story and if you had not spent the hottest part of the day sleeping under a rock then you would have seen the proof on the Kuschner thread posted by b. That hot sun got the better of ya again. :O
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 9 2020 6:53 utc | 152
Circe #148
“Gavin Newsom could easily beat Trump in a landslide.”
Perhaps but in the shitslide coming with this virus, a turd in a tuxedo could look better than Trump.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 9 2020 7:03 utc | 153
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 9 2020 7:03 utc | 156
“Perhaps but in the shitslide coming with this virus, a turd in a tuxedo could look better than Trump.”
Well, what the difference Newsom’s turd or Trump’s tuxedo? Can you guarantee me there will be a president election in 3Nov? Hey brother “Disturbing video shows dead bodies loaded onto truck outside NYC hospitals” Can you be sure that Covid-19 has flatten in NYC and how many undetected Asystematic cases walking around beside NYC and other cities?
Posted by: JC | Apr 9 2020 7:35 utc | 154
What most on this blog fail to grasp is that in DC, republicans and democrats are two sides of the same coin. Regardless of who is in power we always have restrictions on liberties, wars, debt, fraud, and now a fraudulent shut down of a $22 trillion economy. Trump is not stupid but he is a threat to our republic specifically because he has Jared and Ivanka Kushner living in the White House representing Judaism and Zionists at the expense of average Americans. The same could be said of Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein in the senate.
This country is doomed unless there is a dramatic increase in citizens taking their civic responsibility much more seriously going forward.
Posted by: Rodolfo | Apr 9 2020 8:02 utc | 156
Bernie Sanders, the ‘change the democratic party from within’ human doormat loses again. Imagine my shock. In other news, water is wet and ice is cold….
Posted by: deschutes | Apr 9 2020 8:05 utc | 157
King Lear @58
The topics of CCCP fealty to Communist ideology and RF govt political persuasions are worthy debates imo and along the lines of discourse Karlof1 is eliciting.
They are more suitable to an Open Topic thread than this one focused on US [pseudo] elections.
But my greater reluctance to engaging you is your communications posture. I experience your posts as talking “at” readers rather than “to”or with
Posted by: Екатери́на | Apr 9 2020 8:07 utc | 159
Circe is taking this reasonably well, I was expecting more humorous CAPSLOCK kicking and screaming.
Posted by: Smith | Apr 9 2020 8:15 utc | 160
I feel for the old folks thrown away in care homes, only in a sick country like america, several had to be evacuated because for several days no workers or family members showed up, 2 days they just abandoned them there
Posted by: M | Apr 9 2020 9:17 utc | 161
The US Supreme court in all of its wisdom ruled corporations are citizens of the USA, so does that make it possible for Americans to find a corporation that meets Article II, Section 1, paragraph [5] of the USA, it reads “No person except a natural born citizen [all corporations are natural born?], << snake | Apr 9 2020 0:14 utc I think corporations are "legal persons" (I have to make a historical note below), and most assuredly, they are not born at all, least of all, natural born. Those who have seen the light of day after a cesarian section, an act of incorporation, homunculi, artificial intelligences etc. are not eligible o become POTUS. That said, the right of all of the above to purchase a POTUS (or any other elected official) shall not be restricted. They can do it individually or in groups, the price of freedom is, well, a price.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 9 2020 9:54 utc | 162
Time for Tulsi to unsuspend her campaign on an ‘Anyone but Biden’ platform winning for a split convention?
Posted by: Julian | Apr 9 2020 10:48 utc | 163
Time for Tulsi to unsuspend her campaign on an ‘Anyone but Biden’ platform winning for a split convention?
Posted by: Julian | Apr 9 2020 10:48 utc | 166
Not possible. More possible that Tulsi contemplates a withdrawal from party politics. At least, from her campaign I got quite nicely looking T-shirt and sweatshirt (I should display the sweatshirt more while biking and shopping). At least, Biden, now duly endorsed, is comparatively decent person — given a choice of “grabbing by the pussy” and hair sniffing, who is the decent one? OTH, what will happen to Biden if he looses sense of smell, or, preventatively, wears a mask when he meets females? This season must be very hard on him.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 9 2020 12:34 utc | 165
@ Likklemore #118
Biden didn’t win the primaries, they were hacked, starting with the caucus app debacle in Iowa. There are large difference between the primary exit polls and vote counts. For reference, the US uses exit polls to validate foreign elections.
Biden had closed all campaign offices and stopped advertising everywhere but SC. His campaign was on life support and then suddenly he overwhelming wins 9 states?
Meanwhile the establishment has got people worried about Russians hacking the elections …
Posted by: Noah Way | Apr 9 2020 12:41 utc | 166
john mcenroe @167
That is a reasonable answer to the question posed by King Donkey Rear @98. I would have used more words, but in your brevity you still cover much of what I would have said. Thank you.
To be topical, I would like to state that with mass gatherings mooted by the covid, and online mass gathering places all being managed by neo-Nazi corporate gatekeepers, this year’s election in the empire’s heartland is already decided. There is really nothing worth discussing on the topic anymore. There is now zero (0%) chance of any political excitement or upset in the establishment plans. While Trump’s upset victory in 2016 has personally insulted members of the Deep State (CIA) who continue to blame him (and the Russians) for their shitty plans going wrong, the oligarchy is mostly satisfied with Trump and will not want further destabilization on top of all of the other crises they are juggling. The Deep State will be brought to heel and do as they are told, and Trump will get 4 more years. There is no mystery in how this will unfold so any discussion of it is like debating the outcome of a movie for which the script has already been published.
What this situation highlights is the crying need for a PUBLICLY OWNED online social media platform available as a human right to all (yes, even Alex Jones). An online public commons where anything can be discussed, regardless of how far outside the Overton Window the subject may be or how offended some people find themselves becoming by the topic. An online meeting place where people can discuss, debate, and organize. A place where feelings can be hurt and emotions elevated but the discussion goes on.
This is not even remotely a technological challenge. Sanders’ campaign had the resources to pull it off easily. Even I could write the main skeleton of such a platform over a particularly productive weekend. The only difficulty is getting a critical mass of people to engage with each other on the platform, which is something Sanders’ campaign could have accomplished. The fact that it never even occurred to Sanders to move beyond AssBook and Twatter demonstrates the shallow and non-revolutionary nature of his perspective.
Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 9 2020 12:56 utc | 167
Can you say “running mate Hillary Clinton”, boys and girls?
I have a nasty suspicion that this is a last grasp at the Presidency by Hillary. Maybe she really is that deluded and thinks Biden has a chance to win this, then after a grace period of a few months or so he can retire because his brain has obviously turned to mush.
Posted by: Zweckpessimist | Apr 9 2020 13:00 utc | 168
@William Gruff | Apr 9 2020 12:56 utc | 170
What this situation highlights is the crying need for a PUBLICLY OWNED online social media platform available as a human right to all (yes, even Alex Jones). An online public commons where anything can be discussed, regardless of how far outside the Overton Window the subject may be or how offended some people find themselves becoming by the topic. An online meeting place where people can discuss, debate, and organize. A place where feelings can be hurt and emotions elevated but the discussion goes on.
Very well stated. I agree and find this to be a very important point. Thanks.
Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 9 2020 13:04 utc | 169
when even the half timid Bernie gives up… as he actually did there’s one and only one way out for the empire.
Collapse.
The iraqi, the afghan, the ukranian, the syrian affairs were only sparkle attempts.
The biggest boost for that turned out to be the virus.
The sum of millions of sturdy ignorances (on the ballots) do not form a wisdom.
The sum of our millions of our western greeds donot shape a stable society.
but the sum of those myriad sedquential defeats is no doubt forming a ruinous collapse.
We the people of the world claim Tulsi Gabbard to be President of the United States of America.Due to heavy election fraud on all levels,and the senility of both Democrat Candidats and the obvious illegal and criminal decisions of the actual head of State,we the people of the world give all our support to Miss Gabbard.At the same time we have put a 15 millions euro reward to whoever cuts the head of Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper,criminal gang king pins.
Posted by: willie | Apr 9 2020 13:20 utc | 171
Over the years I have been voting for the Green Party. If they don’t run then I’ll write in “Vladimir Putin” as my choice candidate for POTUS.
Posted by: Nathan Mulcahy | Apr 9 2020 13:38 utc | 172
uncle T 150
That Proudhon description of government – I say all governments are pirates if you let them be pirates. We humans have let extreme concentration of wealth go so far that our governments have been devoured by it and cannot help us as things stand now. But what did people expect would happen when they allowed a no-limits to personal fortunes economics? We take our every breath awash in commerce and still have no clue the can of worms we opened when we embarked upon the community project known as division of labor. University econ departments actually teach that it is right, ok, harmless, good, inevitable to use specialization of our work as an excuse to erect an overpay-underpay ratio that now resides in the billions! Who in their right mind could not see that the gigarich will always buy governments and use them to keep manufacturing evermore new legal thefts?
With all-grab-for-all, grab-off-grab-back economics we have government by pirates, but it certainly does not have to be that way. With a limited-fortunes justice system there is nobody able to buy government because nobody is physically capable of doing enough work to get the overfortune needed. I went to D.C. with my 10 bucks to buy a politician and they said come back when you have a million.
Once everybody has clarity via education and internalizes the unsurvivabilty of an overpayunderpay dystem, all the worst global problems including corruption in gov are solved. It’s the overpayunderpay RATIO that is killing us all and this planet; the enemy and the problem is AN IDEA, the diabolically stupid, worst idea that ever entered a human head idea, the idea to allow a RATIO caused by UNJUSTICE IN WEALTH to roil and boil and spoil everyone’s everything.
We’re never going to NOT have government – government is us – humans – getting together to organize our affairs to maximize our happiness. Government won’t disappear until the third from the last person disappears – as soon as you have group you have government. We constitute governments as a necessary evil for the benefits we wouldn’t have without them. Of course we have to watch our governments like a hawk – people have to stop being so unvigilant, so immature.
Erect wealthpower giants for no REASON under the sun then fight them endlessly for your rights – this in a nutshell is what humanity has been doing and keeps on doing. And when the egalitarian comes along and says ‘this is dumb and unnecessary lets stop it’ she is ignored, marginalized, as if justice in wealthgetting is something only crazies would discuss instead of obviously the most important thing there is on earth to set right.
Humans have fucked up, oppressive, unresponsive government because their myopia and lack of seriousness makes them tolerate (or applaud) an easily eradicable RATIO. And plenty of “activists” just want to do what gives them a good reputation without ever going near what would solve the problems.
ENOUGH.
We must define pay justice. How can we know just how much people should have and should pay unless we have sound, fundamental ideas of pay justice? James Madison said “The purpose of government is justice”. The state built on injustice cannot stand – so to be democratic, for the people to do their job of ruling, to save the state, to be patriotic, to love your country, to love yourself, to pursue happiness (of which pay justice is a very important part), you need to be able to locate pay justice.
At the moment, many are saying: these people should have less, these others have more. But how much should they have? What are the principles of pay justice? Happiness [everyone’s everything], safety, good governance, peace, order, satisfaction – all depend on justice. Those are ‘pretty important’ things, yet we look in vain for thoughtful study of where pay justice is. It should have been the focus of all education, from young age right through.
People should have been very sophisticated about pay justice, able to pinpoint it by good principles. Instead, all the debate we hear boils down to: they should have less, no, they shouldn’t have less, they should have more, no, they shouldn’t have more.
Pay justice is the great wallflower, waiting to give us the world average pay per hour, which is approximately US $40 per hour including paying housewives and students. Pay justice waits to give us peace and plenty – and give us our future back.
Pay ranges widely while no one asks how widely it should range. How are people going to be able to say: “This far and no further. This is the line between right and wrong, between fairpay and robbery, between fairpay and overpay-underpay.” Children should all grow up knowing that overpay-underpay is the cause of the shaking of societies to pieces. People should worry about their society being shaken to pieces. People should know that every empire so far has been shaken to pieces by pay injustice.
There is no subject closer to civic responsibility and pursuit of happiness – no subject more worth our care and mental labour – and it is utterly neglected. Vigilance is the price of liberty – but vigilance about what? Very few can answer that question.
Proper pay is what a person’s work would win them in a state of nature, plus an equal share of the benefits of division of labour. An equal share, since division of labour is a community effort, with equal contribution, so everyone has right to reap the benefits equally.
Pay justice is no-pay for no-work, pay only for work [= sacrifice], equal pay for equal sacrifice. Pay justice is taking out of the social pool of work as much as you put in, as your work puts in. We pool the workproducts because of division of labour, and trade is ideally the exchange of items of equal workvalue, in order to remix goods separated by division of labour, job specialisation, to get the mix of goods everyone wants and needs.
The variety of goods we take out is ideally (justly) of equal workvalue to the workproducts we produced in our job. Anything more or less than this is overpay or underpay, and overpay-underpay is unjust, causing tensions which escalate endlessly as people try to get justice and people tug to and fro, causing violence, war, crime, weaponry growth – which has grown for 3000 years – and brought us to superextreme pay injustice and danger, and corruption, tyranny, slavery, wageslavery, disorder, undemocracy, falling states – all our gigantic problems.
People don’t want to look at justice because they fear it will mean less money – they never suspect that justice will mean more money and the destruction of violence.
How could stopping myself from getting pay for things that are not my own work give me *more* money? It doesn’t make sense to people – it doesn’t make sense to people because they are looking at a tiny part of the picture – themselves only. Not being paid yourself for non-work things gives you more money because it stops others being paid for these things at your expense. Overpay, pay for nonwork, is funded by work for no pay, underpay, by others. The overpay buys things other people have worked to make. Your participation in this injustice prevents you stopping others benefiting from this leak – the line is crossed, erased, and there are no principles of justice left to limit pay, to prevent unlimited pay/hr, hence we have pay per hour, after 3000 years’ growth of inequality, from $10,000,000 to 1cent – an inequality violence misery war crime weaponry tyranny slavery undemocracy unliberty unfraternity corruption brutality torture state-terrorism private-terrorism warmongering cannonfoddering disinformation rights-trampling factor of one billion, and rising – to extinction soon, thanks to e=mc2. Happy people have no history. We have heaps of history – and history is now accelerating exponentially.
Get the idea of pay justice, and we get a history-free golden age. Keep faith with pay injustice, and we get oblivion. The bombs are global. Global means every house. Culture is based on ideas. Our idea for 3000 years has been wrong – it has produced underpay misery for 99%, overpay misery for 1%, and violence for everyone.
Posted by: Phryne’s frock | Apr 9 2020 14:11 utc | 173
I see over at DailyKos they’re spitting on Bernie’s supporters who won’t cave to their Corporatist candidate and decoy for another Ziofascist Trump victory.
After hating on Bernie for months, cause they’re all rabid Zionist Israel-humping Neoliberals there, they can’t understand why progressives, who’ve been twice burned, want nothing more to do with the DemCon Party. After the DNC rigged the primary by throwing all their weight on the Biden scale, starting with Warren’s betrayal and ending with Uncle Tom, Clyburn, they will have to grovel for every thousandth of a percent of progressives, but the jig is up; even that won’t work and they know it. That’s why they’re spitting mad over at DNC propaganda HQ DailyKos.
Now they’re using the excuse that Bernie went after 30% of the vote bullshet. The majority of Bernie’s Chairpersons and advisors were people of color. He joined with the Poor People’s Campaign by adopting the same platform. He gave town halls in Black communities and visited poor neighborhoods. That gripe is pure bull. Blacks who followed Clyburn’s lead, voting against their best interests for Biden only because he served Obama, who did nothing for blacks except become a half black President, deserve the big zero they’ll get from Biden. If they mean Sanders didn’t embrace the Neoliberal side of the Party, i.e. the 20% shysters who are destroying the Party, because he was threatening to cut funding to Israel for Palestinian rights and cut MIC funding…good on him!
The Democratic Party made its bug-infested bed, now lie in it, theiving morons.
Trump will get to replace 2 more Supreme Court Justices, he will turn all the lower courts deep red for decades, he will do nothing to slow Climate Change, he will start war with Iran and occupy Venezuela’s resources and he will make Israeli Apartheid legal and binding.
And then when Gavin Newsom finally decides to rescue the country, Trump will have left such an indelible fascist mark, there will be nothing to rescue left, cause even Houdini won’t be able to undo what Trump locked in.
Stupid dingbat Democrats traded 4 years of Bernie Sanders for Ziofascist Trump.
Posted by: Circe | Apr 9 2020 14:21 utc | 174
Some may recall the old joke about the two azzholz on a camel riding into a dusty town. Too crude for this whisky bar. It ends with “(spitting “all I’m getting is mud, hold his head higher”.
In this line one thinks naturally about The Clown of Orange and The Byedin a-riding to the ‘ PPE – the phonyphuckinlection.
It’s a joke. Yer senile crook Byedinz entirely fake, while the Clown is also crooked fake. Both are totally incompetent. What’s left is theater. Distraction.
Whatever you do, do not look behind that green curtain.
Wally recalls that Cheney and gang created COG…and turned it on. What he’d like to know is just when did COG stop?
Oh, nobody knows? Is an “election” part of COG? If so, what would it be?
Theater.
Posted by: Walter | Apr 9 2020 14:26 utc | 175
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ //
2020 Presidential Election Thread 07
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 8 2020 18:58 utc | 46
Few will recall my invitation for barflies to compose a Revolutionary Manifesto that deals with the genuine problems we face in prose understandable by a citizenry with a 6th grade reading level. And since we’re all marooned on our little islands of social distancing, perhaps now provides the time/opportunity for composition.
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have been working very diligently on a project that is in some sense analogous to a ‘Revolutionary Manifesto’ since 2004.
I have started a new blog devoted to this project, although I have found it astonishingly difficult to organize the material, partly because so much has been happening in the (fraudulent) ‘ranked choice voting’ (RCV) movement.
I will soon add more material there to explain the crisis that almost no one is aware of. And it will explain the only way to escape the so-called ‘two party system’ (which is much better described as: corporate fronted, perceived viability, two/few party lock-in). I believe this could be a very important project! The new website is:
Ranked Choice Voting Is A Fraud
Bernie reminds me of Lyndon Johnson in ’68 announcing he is not running for another term and leaving the troops on the battlefield in Nam. We are winning the battles but we lost the war.
Who is his successor? AOC? Woff Woff
Posted by: dltravers | Apr 9 2020 14:48 utc | 177
The trajectory of the USA, hoisted upon the petard of its own hubris, is akin to the moment Wile E Coyote, a step off of the cliff, smiles weakly before free-fall into the abyss – from which he always manages to live to chase the bird another day. It’s Collapse or Bust as the craven political class loots the future to keep the plates spinning in the here and now. The New Normal is same as the Old Normal but with ankle monitors.
There is no political solution in the USA.
Posted by: gottlieb | Apr 9 2020 15:00 utc | 178
Phryne’s frock | Apr 9 2020 4:49 utc | 146–
I’m sorry I missed what you wrote. I can’t monitor this website 24/7/365, although I appear to be here a lot. So, I apologize for my oversight and ask if you’ll repost it to this thread. Better yet, would be to post it as a comment to my VK page, which is linked to my user name.
@ Posted by: Enrico Malatesta | Apr 8 2020 16:27 utc | 9
You must not have listened to Trump for the last 3 years. Really.
Posted by: TominAZ | Apr 9 2020 15:43 utc | 180
@ Posted by: Circe | Apr 8 2020 16:08 utc | 4
There is no way a 3rd party wins, unless you think a Republican 3rd party takes way enough votes from Trump for the Democrats to win. No third party is going to win in the US this election. No matter which side. So, you are good with four more years of this non-stop crime spree, because, again, you are butt hurt. Do I have that right? After your non-stop screeching for the past few days.
TominAZ
Posted by: TominAZ | Apr 9 2020 15:52 utc | 181
I think both parties have been happy to use Bernie to draw out and crush any chances of government by the people. After all, every remotely unbiased poll has shown a significant majority of the US public, from both parties, support many of the “socialist” ideas that now have been equated with Sanders…a loser. The policies were strong, Sanders as a person has shown himself repeatedly to be weak. The perfect embodiment to use to gin up support, get people excited that finally something might be changing, and then crush them in the most humiliating way possible. Think how many otherwise vibrant, radical activists had their guts ripped out by Sanders’ capitulation in ’16, walking away from political activism in disgust. And the extra tough nuts? Yeah, well Sanders the DNC (and RNC) just gutted them again, didn’t they? Yet another generation of potentially troublesome voters being taught their lesson: pick a shade of crayon from the permitted crayon box, or just quit…so long as you submit. Is Sanders knowingly complicit? Does it matter? He’s probably happy. He’s the now almost mythical “face of the little people” without having to ever be tarnished by trying to implement any socialist ideas against the might of the machine.
Posted by: J Swift | Apr 9 2020 15:56 utc | 182
Bernie went on a $150 million joy ride with the donations of 5 million hardworkng Americans. He never had a plan to win. He played his role as a safety valve for the far left to a tee. As a revoluitonary, he couldn’t lick Casto’s boots.
Posted by: RenoDino | Apr 9 2020 16:20 utc | 183
Thanks to blues, uncle tungsten and Phryne’s frock for writing or providing a link; they’ve all been put into the folder I’m using for this project.
As for the 2020 election, one aspect seldom gets any attention and that’s what I call the Chemistry of Congress, which is every bit as important as who become POTUS. The same can be said for the 50 states. Telescoping on POTUS politics places unwarranted emphasis on the office. And if the severity of the coming economic tsunami is anywhere close to being as devastating as predicted, then who’s running your state will be more important than the POTUS.
@Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 8 2020 21:46 utc | 89
Thanks for this, you have been well worth keeping track of on these things. The crash I believe was coming with or without CoVid-19. This is what we get for not jailing every big banker is this country. They got to skate, and 10 years later they have made it worse than later. And got to keep their looted gains.
Posted by: TominAZ | Apr 9 2020 16:39 utc | 185
@I came just to see Circe lose it…
Posted by: Pepe | Apr 9 2020 0:37 utc | 120
Well, if we have the time, there is that ;^)
Posted by: TominAZ | Apr 9 2020 16:56 utc | 186
@ Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 9 2020 4:01 utc | 145
Corporations should have the shit regulated out of them with only the one protection given is that shareholders only lose their investment as liability. Now board members and officers should get none. Ever. No payments in shares.
Posted by: TominAZ | Apr 9 2020 17:06 utc | 187
@Noah Way #124
Oh, I fully agree it is a token.
But again, who is ordering the lockdowns and resultant job losses? It isn’t Trump…
Posted by: c1ue | Apr 9 2020 17:49 utc | 188
the Democrats have handed Trump his re-election on a silver platter. Trump may be a lot of bad things, but he is smart enough to run circles around a clueless Biden in the debates
Posted by: Daniel C | Apr 9 2020 17:51 utc | 189
@Circle #147
If you are putting your faith into Gavin Newsom now, you are doubling down on idiocy.
Newsom is the poster child for the SF limousine liberal crowd: the Gettys among them. You can count Pelosi as a big Newsom fan.
You might call him a “white Obama”.
Posted by: c1ue | Apr 9 2020 17:52 utc | 190
@ Posted by: RenoDino | Apr 9 2020 16:20 utc | 185
Yup. Bernie the sheep dog. What’s new?
Just like DNC, Bernie is not legally obligated to his small donors.
Posted by: Nathan Mulcahy | Apr 9 2020 18:01 utc | 191
Mr. b said dun feed the trolls else you’ll be deleted. I feel another cleanup is imminent and you’ll be banned.
Posted by: JC | Apr 9 2020 18:07 utc | 192
Sanders says he “suspends” his campaign, so Biden will have a majority of delegates in Milwaukee. But what Bernie has not done is to release his delegates – they’re still bound to him. And when he announced this, he also repeated his contention that “the candidate with the most votes should be the nominee”.
Putting all this together, what happens in the event that Biden is somehow shoved aside at the convention? Will Sanders meekly swallow that turd as well? And if he does, what about his true believers?
Posted by: carl | Apr 9 2020 18:26 utc | 193
He worked hard to get money to every American. etc etc.
c1ue at 5, on what Trump will argue, etc.
Before the present ‘stimulus’:
.. how much paychecks changed after tax reform for people at every income level from $20,000 to $269,000 a year (trump’s)
take-home pay changes for 2 weeks pay, after taxes, dollars, rounded, extra, selected ex.:
bartender 14, taxi driver 16, barber 20, butcher, meat industry 21
models 27, construction workers 29, travel agents 30
firefighters 51, family therapist 56, electrician 59, librarian 63
accountants, auditors 82, real estate brokers 85, detectives 88, programmer 90
Almost or around 100, electrical engineers, vets, nurses, mathematicians.. etc.
(I am not defending Trump, but his base has ‘reasons’ beyond Orange Cult.)
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-law-paycheck-calculator-every-income-level-2018-3?r=US&IR=T
Posted by: Noirette | Apr 9 2020 18:44 utc | 194
Circe,
If you’re ever in Southern Oregon, give me a ring.
I can be a shoulder/box of tissues to cry on.
You should have known Bernie would cave again.
Posted by: Cadence calls | Apr 9 2020 18:48 utc | 195
Bernie as coward or as realist – bit of both I reckon. To repeat myself, today there is no space in US politics for ‘socialistic’ (left of center as judged by European standards) policies, stances, etc. Their mention is allowed, even welcomed in certain ways, in the mainstream, as performance art to justify the myth of pluralistic opinions counting, a-hem, in a “just and democratic society.”
The Dems as I and many others have said since 2016 or even before prefer to loose to Trump. Their ‘staged’ role as opponents to the Oligarchy (cruel corporate state with dodgy pol. front-men, disaster capitalism, mafia rackets, ‘war’ economy, slave labor disguised, etc.) which brings in bucks is hard to keep up, the pretense wears thin, diminishing by the day, as they are part of that Oligarchy.
The Dem playing card, hold, grip, is identity politics, coupled with some class and tribal divisions (“deplorables” vs “antifa”, Dems vs. Reps, etc.), vague reformist proposals (ex. Medicare for all) …
The Dems still serve a purpose and won’t be summarliy junked, sent to the dustbin of history soon, as they fulfill an essential role.
Interesting is that all the parties seem to be carrying on ‘as per usual’ treating the COV crisis as a temporary bump on the road. The two topics – Pres. elections – and handling COV appear to be divorced, unrelated, though as usual superficial oppositions abound. (Everyone is keeping cards up their sleeves.)
Posted by: Noirette | Apr 9 2020 18:56 utc | 196
Bernies an old guy and might not want to continue wasting energy on a corrupt primary for a corrupt election for a corrupt office when there’s lots else to do at this time. US Solidarity?
Biden looks like a horse that isn’t going to make it over the finish line and Trump can’t do rallies anymore. The latter hasn’t yet been carried out tied to his chair and polls are reported to have shown his approval rating up! in the pandemic shitshow.
Perhaps this will be the last US election post by b. for a while; the topic has been exhausted and has lost alot of relevance.
Posted by: TDeL | Apr 9 2020 19:04 utc | 197
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 8 2020 21:19 utc | 84
What I like best about George Galloway is his sly way of putting things, as in:
“Like the Grand Old Duke of York, though with far more than 10,000 men, he [Sanders] has marched his army of young and blue-collar activists – which once looked likely to sweep him to power – up to the top of the hill only to march them down again. Twice.”
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/485339-sanders-biden-trump-irony/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGvEQTQaTbQ
Posted by: carl | Apr 9 2020 19:27 utc | 198
I would like to get a two things ‘straight’ (ha ha). Firstly, I’m sick and tired of hearing about Trump ‘ushering in fascism’. I hardly ever heard anybody bother to mention that in regard to George W. Bush, who pushed us 1,000 times further down that awful road than Trump has (as did ‘Bill’ Clinton also). We need to get real about this. Trump is merely a successful mid-size, very debauched con artist — who is a excessively conservative dinosaur of an amazingly old-fashioned vintage. Yes he is quite dreadful, but nothing so horrifying as was George W. Bush.
Secondly, I take it personally the the outlaw Democrat Party has insulted my citizenship with the unacceptable, ongoing BidenGate drama. I want to sue these dirty low-down scum.
And in addition, I plan to picket voting places with a sign:
VOTERS ARE
LOSERS
And, then maybe I will write in Noah Wynn VIII, 000 Skid Road. I will explain to the folks who had seen my sign that my vote counts for more, now that I have convinced some others to neglect to vote.
In 2012 when Ron Paul folded his presidential campaign, I was heartbroken. Could he have won? No, of course not. But I felt to honor his volunteers, he should have carried the fight all the way to the convention. The more I thought about him (who I still admire) I sensed he didn’t want to be commander in chief, but professor in chief. He wanted the platform to preach the gospel of liberty.
I feel Bernie began his second campaign with similar motivation: He wanted a stage on which to preach his socialist ideas. He never had the guts or determination to actually hold the most stressful political office in the world-just enough fortitude to become Karl Marx 2.0.
Posted by: Skip | Apr 9 2020 19:38 utc | 200