RiverLover
RiverLover's JournalSo touching, fumesucker
Touchingly hilarious! What a way to go out the door. Leaving us laughing.
Thanks for all the good conversations & smiles. 
Beautifully stated.
Thank you for speaking for so many of us who feel exactly the same, but never could have said it so well.
(& May all of us FDR Democrats find a party to call home some day.)
Evil or crazy, our choices.
Either one won't effect me personally. I'm giving up on our govt & politics to save my sanity & quality of life. Getting pissed off isn't doing me a bit of good in my daily life.
Fast Walker, think of it this way. At some point a republican will be in the WH again. At this time, their nom is narcissistically insane but he's also stated emphatically from the beginning that social security shouldn't be cut or privatized. That's more than we can say for Hil. There are more examples, but you get the point.
My hope now lies in 2020 and maybe the Democrats will actually have a true honest primary with many true progressives to choose from. And it won't be fixed for one corrupt purchased politician. And the Democratic Party will stop being DINO and honor People & Planet.
That's my hope. If not, I'd love to be on the ground floor of a new viable truly progressive 3rd party.
Until then, wish you well...everyone, I send you love. 
WOW, hard to believe THIS, but CNN is actually posting facts about Bill Clinton
and his republican ways, which have harmed the US & continue to harm US today.
This is so great to see in MSM!!! I realize this is "just" an opinion piece, but its type of op ed that is usually consigned to an online magazine. The more people wake up to the lasting damage by this most conservative president, the better. The blinders are coming off.
Why Sanders is a better bet against Trump
By Jonathan Tasini
CNN Op-Ed
...............Snip..................
That same time period coincides with the passage and implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the creation in 1995 of the World Trade Organization. Both were championed by Bill Clinton, and his Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and endorsed by both parties. These so-called "free trade" deals have one common thread: They set up rules benefiting corporate rights, particularly the protection of capital and patents, at the expense of wages for workers.
During the 1990s, President Clinton also urged many Democrats to support other corporate-friendly measures: deregulation of the financial industry (which arguably set the stage for the recent financial crisis), welfare reform (which ripped away a safety net for millions) and tax cuts for the wealthy that exacerbated the divide between rich and poor.
Enjoy getting your high cable bills every month? You can thank the Clinton administration's 1996 deregulation of telecommunications, which ushered in a wave of anti-consumer mergers. Indeed, the much-ballyhooed Clinton economic "miracle" was significantly built on a credit bubble, not robust or sustainable wage growth.
Today's rejoinders to criticism of these policies from many establishment Democrats underscore how tone deaf the party elites have become. They claim that things would be a lot worse if Republicans had been running the show. Without a doubt, I believe that to some extent, that is true. However, "Hey, vote for us because we're not as bad as the other guys" is a lackluster slogan — a wheezing plea that lacks credibility for many voters who have been ignored for decades.
....................Snip.................
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/11/opinions/bernie-stronger-against-trump-than-hillary-tasini/
Within 7 hrs, Jeff Bezos' WaPo Squeezes Out 4 Anti-Sanders Stories From 1 Tax Study
by Adam Johnson
Washington Post Squeezes Four Anti-Sanders Stories Out of One Tax Study Over Seven Hours
5/11/16
Surely one study can’t be this important?
It’s not news that the Washington Post’s editorial board has been lobbying against Sen. Bernie Sanders since the beginning of his improbable presidential campaign. Sometimes this editorial ethos seems to extend to other parts of the paper, as it did in March, when the Post managed to run 16 negative stories about Sanders in 16 hours (FAIR.org, 3/8/16).
While the Post has published the occasional pro-Sanders piece, the Jeff Bezos–owned publication was back at it yesterday when it pounced on a tax study by the Urban Institute, running four pieces (two by Post writers, one by the editorial board and one by the AP) in one afternoon:
>1:00pm Sorry, Bernie Fans. His Healthcare Plan Is Short $17,000,000,000,000, by Max Ehrenfreund
>1:49 Confirmed: Sanders Is Selling a Fantasy Agenda, by Stephen Stromberg
>5:15pm Study: Sanders’ Economic Plan Piles $18T on Federal Debt, by AP’s Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
>7:59pm Sanders’ Plans Aren’t Just Too Good to Be True; They’re Also Fiscally Dangerous, by the Post’s editorial board
The study was irresistible for editors looking for viral outrage: huge, scary national debt numbers by a tax-and-spend liberal (entirely without any context), complete with innuendo that the campaign had been lying about its projections.
................Snip....................
....Depending on the target audience, the ideology of the study’s publisher, the Urban Institute, also changed.
To the Post, it’s “nonpartisan,” while the nominally hipper Vox (“Study: Bernie Sanders’ Single-Payer Plan Is Twice as Expensive as He Says,” 5/9/16) described them as being “left-leaning”—though to depict an organization funded by the likes of Bill Gates, Pete Peterson and JPMorgan Chase as leaning “left” is to render the description meaningless.
Traditionally, the Urban Institute has been considered “liberal,” but this has always been a loaded notion, that pro-Democrat equated to progressive.
The Urban Institute’s president, Sarah Rosen Wartell, worked in the Bill Clinton White House and co-founded the Center for American Progress in 2003 with Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and Hillary Clinton’s current campaign chair, John Podesta. The State Department, while under Clinton’s charge, donated millions to the Institute (as it did before and after her tenure).
Considering Sanders is expressly running against the “Democratic establishment,” it’s no surprise that a scion of this establishment like the Urban Institute would oppose Sanders.............
..................Snip..............
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/05/11/washington-post-squeezes-four-anti-sanders-stories-out-one-tax-study-over-seven
Amen.
Its also on the DNC. They annointed the most corrupt, purchased, conservative, pro-war, anti-worker, pro-corporate person to be our nominee. They wanted her to be our only choice. B*stards.
Tax Avoidance by the Wealthiest, like Hillary & the Donald, costs US $130 BILLION/year
Outstanding, eh?
When It Comes to Taxes, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Have 1 Thing in Common
********
Tax avoidance by the wealthiest Americans—including the presidential front-runners—costs the US government an additional $130 billion per year.
The Nation
By Nomi Prins YESTERDAY 2:59 PM
.......snip.......While the two leading candidates for the presidency, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, have indeed suggested cosmetic fixes for a situation that only grows more extreme with the passage of time, they have themselves taken advantage of numerous tax “efficiency” strategies that make money evaporate. Of course, you shouldn’t doubt for a second that they’ll change their ways once in the Oval Office.
.......Fast-forward about a century and tax dodging has been woven into the fabric of the lives of the affluent and corporate worldwide in an extraordinary way. According to an April 2016 Oxfam report, the top 50 US companies are hoarding more than $1.4 trillion in cash offshore.
What’s more, for every dollar that these firms spent lobbying Congress for “favorable” tax treatment (a collective total of $2.6 billion between 2008 and 2014), they received $130 dollars in tax breaks and $4,000 in subsidies from the US government. These companies, including Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, Dow Chemical, Chevron, Walmart, IBM, and Procter & Gamble, created “an opaque and secretive network” of more than 1,600 company subsidiaries located in tax havens that they decided to disclose. (Because of the weak reporting requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission, there could be thousands more.) According to a March 3 report from the Citizens for Tax Justice, the Fortune 500 companies are now saving $695 billion in federal income taxes on a total of $2.4 trillion in offshore holdings.
Americans can’t afford to ignore such tax games, since we’re the ones who, in effect, wind up paying the taxes these firms don’t.
For government policymakers, such tax evasion is a grim matter of attrition, since the United States (and other countries) plunge ever deeper into debt thanks to such antics and then find themselves cutting services or raising taxes on us to cover the gap between the money they’re losing and the taxes they’re collecting.
.......big huge snip of interesting stuff..........
Like many gilt-edged couples, Hillary and Bill Clinton have themselves utilized onshore and offshore tax loopholes. In 2010, they used a common tax-dodging technique by placing their multimillion-dollar home in Chappaqua, New York, in a “residence trust.” After he left office, Bill spent five years as an “adviser” to billionaire (now ex-pal) Ron Burkle’s investment fund, Yucaipa Global, which had funds registered in the Cayman Islands and Dubai. That alliance netted Bill at least $15 million.
Hillary’s bedrock thinking on money flowing out of the US and into the offshore world can best be seen in her support for the 2012 US-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement when she was secretary of state. The agreement removed “barriers to US services, including financial services,” which actually simplified the process of squirreling money away in or through Panama by allowing it to flow freely into that country.
The Clinton Foundation inhales donations from people using tax havens (including Panama). Although Hillary denounced Mossack Fonseca’s dealings on cue after the Panama Papers story broke, a number of individuals and multinationals that have contributed to the foundation used MF to establish offshore accounts, according to McClatchy....
.........snip.........
http://www.thenation.com/article/when-it-comes-to-taxes-donald-trump-and-hillary-clinton-have-one-thing-in-common/
Nothing like having unPatriotic presidential contenders. 
USA! 
Exactly. Anyone with a frickin brain can see if he had her waist, he'd be on bare skin.
But then, people here want a war-mongering republican wall street corporate purchased politician to be in the WH while erroneously & libelously labeling herself a Democrat.
This is the last straw for me.
The country will get what it deserves.
Idiocracy.
I'll miss you djean. Maybe see you at JPR? 
I like "The People's Party" with a platform exactly like this~
Rebuild America for the 21st Century and Create Jobs for All.
America’s public infrastructure – from roads to rail to water and energy systems – is increasingly dangerous to our health and a drag on our economy. National investment in rebuilding America will create millions of high-quality jobs, bid wages up, help close the racial jobs gap, and make America a better place to live and work.
Raise Wages, Empower Workers and Reverse Inequality.
Inequality has reached new extremes, as more and more jobs become contingent and part-time, with low pay and few benefits. We should lift the floor under every worker by guaranteeing a living wage, paid sick and vacation days, and affordable health care. We should empower workers to form unions and bargain collectively. We must curb perverse CEO compensation policies that give executives personal incentives to plunder their own companies.
Invest in a Green Economy.
Catastrophic climate change is a clear and present danger. The United States should lead the global green revolution that builds strong and resilient communities. Public investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency can create jobs and opportunity, particularly in communities of color that have borne the worst consequences of toxic corporate practices.
Eliminate Institutionalized Racism to Open Opportunity to All.
In a society of increasing diversity, ending systemic racial disparities is vital to building economic prosperity. This begins with comprehensive immigration reform, expanded voting rights and an end to mass incarceration and the systematic criminalization of people of color.
Guarantee Women’s Economic Equality.
We will ensure that women are guaranteed the same pay, protections and opportunities as men in the workplace and in society. Families must have access to high-quality child care and paid leave from the workplace for childbirth, illness and vacation. Women must also be guaranteed affordable health care and a secure retirement – with Social Security credit for work in the household.
Provide a High-Quality Education to Every Child
Every child must have the right to high-quality, free public education from preschool to college. This requires providing the basics – preschool, smaller classes, summer and after-school programs, and skilled teachers. Free four-year, post-high school education should be available for all who seek it. We must also provide relief to the generation now burdened with a student debt that they may never pay off.
Expand Shared Security for the 21st Century.
No child should go hungry in America. Health care should be a right, not a privilege. Every worker deserves a secure retirement. A job should be available to everyone willing and able to work. We will strengthen and expand America’s shared security programs – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, food support and housing assistance. Greater shared security makes the economy more robust by enabling entrepreneurs and workers to take risks, knowing that they can survive failure.
Enforce Fair Taxes on Corporations and the Wealthy.
Our tax code rigs the rules to favor the few. Multinationals pay lower tax rates than small domestic businesses. Billionaire investors pay lower rates than their secretaries. Top income tax rates have been lowered even as working people face ever-higher sales taxes and fees. It is time for the rich and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes so that we can invest in an economy that will work for all.
Forge a Global Strategy that Works for Working People.
Our global trade and tax policies are rigged by multinational companies to drive down pay and worker protections while harming the environment. We need more but balanced trade, global standards that protect the rights of workers, consumers and the environment. That requires a crackdown on tax havens, currency manipulation, and deals that allow corporation to trample basic labor rights here and abroad.
Make Wall Street Serve the Real Economy.
Financial deregulation has devastated our economy and protected banks that are too big to fail, too big to manage and too big to jail. The financial casino fosters ever more dangerous speculation, while investment in the real economy lags. The resulting booms and busts devastate families and small businesses. We need to break up the big banks, levy a speculation tax, and provide low-income families with safe and affordable banking services. We should crack down on payday lenders and other schemes that exploit vulnerable working families.
Change Priorities to Address Real Security Needs.
Our current national security policies commit us to policing the world. The result costs lives and drains public resources. We need a real security policy that makes military intervention a last resort, and focuses on global threats like climate change, poverty and inequality. We should reduce military budgets and properly support humanitarian programs.
Fight for Democracy and Curb the Power of Big Money.
From big-money politics to the assault on the right to vote and a corrupted lobby culture in Washington, our democracy is under assault. It is no accident that the assault has escalated as a new majority of people of color, young people and working women has begun to emerge. We need to close the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, and expose the entrenched interests that buy our legislators. We need public financing of elections that bans corporate and big money. We must guarantee the right to vote, with easy access to registration and the polls.
https://populism2015.org/the-new-populist-agenda/
Populists rock!
Thank you. She is a republican. Clear as day.
A DINO, making the entire party Democrat In Name Only. Sad times.
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Gender: FemaleHome country: USA
Member since: Thu Dec 1, 2011, 12:59 PM
Number of posts: 7,830
