March 17, 2016

Apparently, someone determined that insulting Sanders and his supporters is the path

to party unity. That should work well!

March 17, 2016

It's Donation O'Clock for real!

I am not sure why I added "for real." It's been Donation O'Clock "for real" since Bernie announced. We are his only source of funds.

If you think Bernie is losing, you have not been paying attention. He has won so much, it's unbelievable.

"Sanders has already won." [url]http://www.democraticunderground.com/12778005[/url]

"Sea changes in US politics, thanks to Senator Sanders and his supporters."
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?5448-Sea-changes-in-US-politics-thanks-to-Senator-Sanders-and-his-supporters[/url] or
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280109865

Aside from that, Bernie AGAIN did better Tuesday than polling predicted and is just now entering the part of the primary where we thought he would do best. He didn't wait around Tuesday to give a concession speech. He went to campaign in another state.

Beyond that, this is not only a primary, it's a revolution; and Sanders and we have been winning the revolution since the day in 2014 that he announced he was exploring a run for the Presidency. If you want more sea changes in politics, if you want people to know you mean it, this is the time to let them know in the only language they understand. TODAY.

Please don't even think about telling me you can't spare even $1.00 today or you are going to wait for your IRS refund. Today is the day to make the biggest statement you can possibly make. You can always send more later when that other check arrives or the tooth fairly finally leaves you that dollar, plus interest, for the molar you lost when you were twelve.

Minimum donation is $1.00, but this is not the day for small ball: Donate as much as you possibly can, "RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"


This is the JPR link: [url]https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/jackpineradicals4bernie[/url] (almost $15,00 since late December or early January, and counting).

This is the DU link: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/duforbernie (almost $60,000 since June, and counting)



Despite my stern tone, I love us. (I am such a wimp!)

March 14, 2016

MSNBC is airing wall to wall, live coverage for endorsements of Trump.

I don't watch MSNBC all the time, but I've now seen extended, live coverage of Palin endorsing Trump, of Carson endorsing Trump and now of Christie endorsing Trump. Are you kidding me? And, now, they're discussing Trump.

Seriously? These are our choices for political coverage as a great nation, CNN, FOX and TrumpNBC?

Fascism, here we come!

March 10, 2016

Bernie Butter - the low, low, low-priced spread. I won't buy it. I wouldn't even accept it free.

In fact, I wouldn't take it if you paid me.

"I'm for Bernie but....."

This is often followed by full-throated defense of Hillary, or some attack on Senator Sanders and/or supporters of Senator Sanders.

I don't know why anyone has to begin a statement with which candidate they support in the general. Either the content of your statement stands on its own or it does not. Please don't attempt to give your support of Hillary or your attacks on Senator Sanders or on us by attaching his name to your nonsense. Attempts to misappropriate his credibility for nonsense that attempts to deceive others are disgraceful.

Also, I have news for all the wannabe purveyors of Bernie Butter: Supporters of Sanders have a very good idea of who supports Sanders and who does not. So, any effort to endow your statements with Sanders' credibility is not likely to fool anyone but you. Don't waste your breath.

The above applies in real life, on this board and everywhere on the internet. In the event of any doubt as to a claim made on this board in particular, though ,search DU for the name of the poster and Hillary, then search again for the name of the poster and Bernie Sanders. My guess is that the search results will tell a discerning DUer all he or she needs to know.

March 8, 2016

Thank you so much, karynnj.

Was Gore serious in 1988, or was that part of the plan for 1992 and beyond, to begin to get Gore known nationally and perceived nationally as Presidential timber?

With Bubba, Hillary, Lieberman and others, Gore had been a founding member of the DLC. This anecdote may (or may not) have been about something that happened in 1989, but I believe that Bubba was always supposed to be the first DLC POTUS. Gore, with a famous political and liberal surname, and a Senator from Tennessee in his own right, was a near perfect running mate for the Governor of Arkansas, including from the standpoint of a Southern Strategy, which Democrats desperately needed by then.

A little after four o’clock on the afternoon of April 6, 1989, I walked into the office of Governor Bill Clinton on the second floor of the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock.

“I’ve got a deal for you,” I told Clinton after a few minutes of political chitchat. “If you agree to become chairman of the DLC, we’ll pay for your travel around the country, we’ll work together on an agenda, and I think you’ll be president one day and we’ll both be important.” With that proposition, Clinton agreed to become chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, and our partnership was born. With Clinton as its leader, the New Democrat movement that sprung from the DLC over the next decade would change the course of the Democratic Party in the United States and of progressive center-left parties around the world.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/recruiting-bill-clinton/281946/

My personal opinion is that this is spin, at least as to timing, if nothing else The DLC, which was founded in 1985 as a conservadem organization, did not just have an epiphany after the 1988 election to decide that being a conservadem was the way to go. Bill Clinton, a founding member of the DLC, hardly needed to be recruited in 1989, whether it was to head any political organization of which he had been a member since about 1985, or to be President, which his own words tell us he wanted to be since he went to Washington as a high schooler and shook JFK's hand.

Then again, I don't trust Al From as far as I can throw him.

Anyway, my point is, I don't know how seriously Gore was running for POTUS in 1988. I think the agenda all along was for Clinton to be the first DLC President. After all, being Senator Fulbright's mentee since high school and working in the Democratic Party for decades, it was his turn.

I don't like to speculate about what imaginary or dead Presidents would have done. Ironically, Democrats who were in office at the start of World War I, World War II, the Korean "Police Action," the Bay of Pigs, and the Vietnam "Era," have, since at least the anti-Vietnam movement, been defensive about being weak on defense. They have taken measures to counter that, including appointing Republicans as Secretaries of Defense, as did both Bubba and Obama.

After having been drawn into the Bay of Pigs, JFK became leery of the CIA and the Pentagon and had his brother to weave him through potentially mutually assured destruction during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Democrats, starting with Johnson seemed to have forgotten all those lessons and, thanks to some turd, we lost RFK and no one has replaced him.

Anyway, the inexplicable defensiveness of Democrats on the (snort) "defense" issue may have led Gore to do something precipitous after 911, rather than avoiding war, nas most seem to assume he would have. Heck, even Sanders voted for the Afghanistan War. That'll teach those tribal farmers to go into Pakistan and turn Ben Laden over to the US!

Anyway, we'll never know. And, as nice as it is to imagine that Gore would most certainly done better after 911, I also think it's potentially dangerous to America to assume that we know exactly how imaginary (even real) will behave. Inasmuch as it's moot anyway, I don't see a reason to engage in a way of daydreaming that I consider potentially dangerous.

Sorry. As must be obvious, the imaginary President thing is a pet issue of mine. That's my only excuse, such as it is, for rambling about it. Come to think of it, the DLC is also a pet issue, so you were smack between Scylla and Charybdis, you poor thing.

March 3, 2016

Attention supporters of Sanders: This week's vocabulary word seems to be "narrative."

Used in a sentence: The narrative Bernie supporters are pushing is wrong.

I will check in with you next Wednesday with next week's word of the week.

Thank you ever so.