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The Nation: Bernie Sanders Is Actually Quite Serious About This ‘Political Revolution’
Bernie Sanders Is Actually Quite Serious About This ‘Political Revolution’ Thing
With a rock concert, a rally, and a key speech in Iowa, the insurgent signals that he intends to remain an insurgent.
By John Nichols
...........
“What this campaign is about is not just electing a president, it is transforming America,” the candidate told the crowd of young people, labor and community activists that assembled to march him into the hall where the dinner was to be held. “To do that we need millions of people—people who have given up on the political process, people who are demoralized, people who don’t believe that government listens to them. We need to bring those people together to stand up loudly and clearly and to say ‘Enough is enough.’ This country belongs to all of us, not just wealthy campaign donors.”
“In a few minutes we will be marching. This march will not only get us to the event tonight, it is a symbolic march,” Sanders continued. “It makes me think about the great marches for civil rights, immigration reform, social justice, addressing our environmental crises. This is a march which will end up in a year when you will join me in the White House.”
That was the takeaway message from a weekend of high-stakes politics in which Sanders positioned himself as a candidate whose long-term commitment to progressive ideals, and whose willingness to act on those ideals even in the most challenging of moments, suggested not just “authenticity”—to borrow the buzzword of the moment—but a context in which Democrats might assess his promise to “govern based on principle not poll numbers.”
“I pledge to you that every day I will fight for the public interest not the corporate interests,” Sanders told the Jefferson-Jackson dinner crowd, as his young supporters answered with thunderous applause. “I will not abandon any segment of American society—whether you’re gay or black or Latino, poor or working class—just because it is politically expedient at a given time.”
Way more:
http://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-is-actually-quite-serious-about-this-political-revolution-thing/
Kansas public official suggests that students and other “slow learners” shouldn’t vote
State agency spokeswoman calls League of Women Voters ‘left-wing’ agitators
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De Rocha’s dismissal of students voting looks especially bad in Kansas, a state that has perhaps gone farther out of its way than any other state to make it difficult for people who aren’t rich, old and white to vote in recent years.
It’s precisely because Kansas has gone to such great lengths to make voting more difficult that voter education courses like the one the League of Women Voters is promoting here have become necessary. As the Eagle pointed out, more than 40 percent of people on the state’s “suspended voters list” — a list of people who are eligible to vote but did not submit proof of citizenship when they registered — are under the age of thirty. Many live on or near college campuses. As Kansas is one of just two states in the country that keeps separate voter rolls — one list for voters eligible to vote in all elections, and one for voters who are only eligible to vote in federal elections — the average citizen probably does need to sit down and have the process explained to them if they want to understand it fully. What’s more, the particulars of Kansas’s voting laws and how they differ from the rest of the country’s are not included in the state’s social studies curriculum or civics classes, so an optional college course seems to be the least the state could do to educate its citizens about how to participate in their own self-governance.
Of course, this flies in the face of what we generally think the principles of a democratic society should require. Voting is supposed to be easy precisely because we place only the most basic restrictions on eligibility. Being ruled mentally incapacitated by a judge is a valid reason to prevent someone from casting a ballot; failing to read up on the particulars of Kris Kobach’s latest regulation concerning voter registration procedures is not.
That is, as long as you think that the process really should be open to everyone.
MORE:
http://americablog.com/2015/10/kansas-public-official-slow-learners-shouldnt-vote.htmlhttp://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/prairie-politics/article41544393.html
If Carson The Surgeon Was As Nutty As Carson The Candidate
Dr. Ben: Nurse, this is a very delicate brain operation, so let's proceed carefully.
Nurse: Yes, doctor. Ready when you are.
Dr. Ben: Rib spreader…
Nurse: Beg pardon?
Dr. Ben: Rib spreader! Rib spreader!
Assistant Surgeon: Doctor, shouldn’t you put the patient under first?
Dr. Ben: Who the heck are you? What's your name?
Assistant Surgeon: I'm Dr. Mohammed, your assistant. And shouldn't you be wearing a mask and gloves?
Dr. Ben: Muslims can't be doctors! You're too radical! Out of my operating room! Nurse, we need to knock this patient out---gimme the mallet.
(Whomp!]
Dr. Ben: Good. He's in la-la land. Now gimme the nutcracker.
[Crack!]
Dr. Ben: Oh, hey, looka those brains!
Nurse: Dr. Carson, this is a highly irregular procedure.
Dr. Ben: Quiet, nurse! One more word out of you and I'm putting a note in your personnel file that says you're worse than the holocaust! Now c'mere and re-light my cigar.
Nurse: What???
Dr. Ben: I heard that! That was a word! One more and I'll add that you're also worse than slavery! Now send this patient's brain to the dry cleaners and tell 'em to put extra starch in the occipital lobe. My work is done here. When he wakes up tell him he owes me 80 billion dollars. And nurse?
Nurse: Yes, doctor?
Dr. Ben: Before you fill the skull cavity with packing peanuts, get in there and see if you can find my watch. Toodles!
(ker-SLAM!]
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/28/1440562/-Cheers-and-Jeers-Wednesday?detail=hide
Rallygoer to Trump: ‘We Can’t Wait Until Melania Puts Class Back Into the First Lady
A woman at Donald Trump‘s Iowa rally tonight said she and others can’t wait for Melania Trump to bring “class” back to the role of First Lady.
The woman did not say anything directly about Michelle Obama, but simply told Trump, “We can’t wait until Melania puts class back into the First Lady.”
She continued, “She’s beautiful, and we can’t wait to see class.”
Trump agreed with her and said, “She’s a great person.” He then made some remark about bringing his wife to Iowa before taking the woman’s question on the Keystone pipeline.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rallygoer-to-trump-we-cant-wait-until-melania-puts-class-back-into-the-first-lady/
Ta-Nehisi Coates on James Comey's remarks about the "Ferguson effect."
The Creationist Style of Crime ControlWhen the director of the FBI questions public scrutiny of policing, he sends a profoundly anti-democratic message.
TA-NEHISI COATES
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This is creationism, or crime-fighting on a hunch. But creationism is a respected tradition in America, extending from “draeptomania” to “they’re raping our women” to “negro cocaine fiends,” to “crack babies,” to “super-predators,” to “wilding,” to “the knock-out game” and now to “the Ferguson Effect.” There is something of a trend here—the creationist-style of crime control takes a special and discriminating interest in black communities. This is our heritage.
It worth considering what manner of America Comey’s creationism would have us build. On Monday a black student in Columbia, South Carolina, refused to move out of her seat. She was then assaulted by a police officer. The officer then told the other students in the class, “I’ll put you in jail next.” The officer has been the subject of two civil-rights suits. In James Comey’s America, the actions of this officer are not recorded, and not scrutinized. The creationist style of crime control renders the beating of Marlene Pinnock invisible. Policing on a hunch allows that Walter Scott was resisting arrest and that his killer feared for his life. Indeed it asserts, implicitly, that Scott’s murder wasn’t the problem, so much as the fact that citizens saw it.
Creationist crime-fighting may take special interest in black communities, but its effects have always been widespread. James Comey was not simply indicting scrutiny of the police in black neighborhoods. Police serve on behalf of the public. If that public is discouraged from healthy scrutiny, who is actually working for whom? A theory of government which tells citizens to invest agents of the state with the power to mete out lethal violence, but discourages them from holding those officers accountable is not democracy. It is fascism.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/james-comeys-crime-creationism/412585/
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