Jimmy Carter::

Jimmy Carter:

Call it, Skinner!!!!

(too soon?)

Just heard on MSNBC...Biden succumbs to triangulation. no link. nt

Superdelegates:

Hillary Clinton: GOP Uniter

Republicans expect to be battered and fractured by the time they finally find a presidential nominee. But party operatives hoping for unity see a sliver of silver lining: Nothing brings the GOP together quite like the Clintons.

“If you were going to choose one person who unites the Republican Party, it would be Hillary Clinton,” says Peter Wehner, a veteran of the past three GOP administrations.


Republicans have been preparing to run against Clinton in 2016 for the past three years, at least, with well-funded political groups, political action committees, and opposition research teams dedicated to taking her on. In its nascent stages, the GOP presidential primary was essentially an audition for the best candidate to run against Clinton.

But as much as the Republican establishment was ready for such matchup, it did not anticipate nominating a person it disliked almost as much as the presumptive Democratic nominee. And thus, Donald Trump has become a possible spoiler to the Clintons’ power to rally Republicans against them.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/04/25/hillary_clinton_gop_uniter.html

The best reason for Bernie Sanders to fight on: Hawkish, neoliberal Clintons need a watchful eye

The best reason for Bernie Sanders to fight on: Hawkish, neoliberal Clintons need a watchful eye from progressives

Yes, Sanders needs to play it smart from here. But let's not forget that we need a check on Hillary's deep failings

JIM SLEEPER

If Bernie Sanders loses most of today’s primaries in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island, the wise and the mighty of the Democratic Party and the press will call more loudly than they already have for him to stand down as a candidate and to focus his and his supporters’ energies instead on helping Hillary Clinton to discredit Donald Trump or any Republican opponent.

Their logic seems compelling, so let me mention and rebut a few of its most convincing points before mentioning the…, ah, elephant in the argument that could embarrass Democrats and actually worsen conditions in the United States even if Clinton wins the White House and the Senate.

The first argument for Bernie to pack it in as a candidate and go all out for Hillary is that we can’t afford to underestimate the dangers of Trump’s slippery demagoguery and many voters’ susceptibility to it. To defeat him or any other Republican nominee, Clinton will have to move rightward, not leftward, as she had to do to head off Bernie in the primaries.

This argument doesn’t reckon clearly enough with the reality that Democrats would be uniting behind a corporatist, neoliberal grand strategy that Clinton has always supported but whose successes and credibility are nearly exhausted but that she has shown neither the inclination or capacity to change. Breaking glass ceilings and curbing racist and xenophobic policies are absolutely necessary preconditions for American renewal, but they’re also absolutely insufficient. Curbing the national-security mania, the militarist juggernaut, and predatory marketing and lending that have trapped us like flies in a spider’s web of 800-numbered, sticky-fingered pick-pocketing machines would require out-strategizing powerful enemies in ways that nothing in Clinton’s record proves she can or will do.

more: http://www.salon.com/2016/04/26/the_best_reason_for_bernie_sanders_to_fight_on_hawkish_neoliberal_clintons_need_a_watchful_eye_from_progressives/

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic (from last year)

This piece first appeared at Web of Debt.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.

— Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution

A republican form of government is one in which power resides in elected officials representing the citizens, and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. In The Federalist Papers, James Madison defined a republic as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people . . . .”

On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers.

The secretive TPP is an agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries that affects 40% of global markets. Fast-track authority could now go to the full Senate for a vote as early as next week. Fast-track means Congress will be prohibited from amending the trade deal, which will be put to a simple up or down majority vote. Negotiating the TPP in secret and fast-tracking it through Congress is considered necessary to secure its passage, since if the public had time to review its onerous provisions, opposition would mount and defeat it.

more: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_trans-pacific_partnership_and_the_death_of_the_republic_20150426

FBI's Clinton probe expands to public corruption track

The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible “intersection” of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News.

This new investigative track is in addition to the focus on classified material found on Clinton’s personal server.

"The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed," one source said.

Clinton, speaking to the Des Moines Register, on Monday pushed back on the details of a second investigative track. According to reporter Jennifer Jacobs, Clinton said Monday she has heard nothing from the FBI.

more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/11/fbis-clinton-probe-expands-to-public-corruption-track.html

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Anyone know if this is still an active part of the investigation? I can't keep up...

I don't care if the FBI vindicates her before the Convention. Bernie is right, she has

horrendous judgement. I can't associate myself with that mess.