March 3, 2016

Jane Sanders about to do an interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer

I have seen her at rallies but have not heard her speak.

March 2, 2016

MSNBC is at it again

From today's MTP Daily:

Chuck Todd: "I think Bernie Sanders seems to be on board with the idea that he will go after Trump and lay off of Hillary Clinton. Do you buy that?"

Anna Greenberg, "Democratic Pollster": "I do. I think his speech sounded like a concession speech. He said this is about the movement, this is about the conversation, the big issues and he really didn't mention her at all. There was no contrast between him and Hillary Clinton, and I think this is going to be about pushing the people who give money to him to push this message, he still has a lot of money to spend."

Chuck Todd: "Mark, you could argue, we've said this before, he's already won. Hillary Clinton sounds more like Bernie Sanders today certainly than she did 6 months ago."

A bit later, from Anna Greenberg:

"I think Bernie Sanders can be very classy, and has been classy, for example in the debates. (with a smirk) Not all of his supporters have been classy."

Chuck Todd:
"Remember all the PUMAs, they rallied around Hillary then."

I felt like I was watching Pravda. I saw a portion of Bernie's speech last night and most of his speech today from Portland, Maine in which he was plenty critical of Hillary Clinton. There is no suggestion on his part whatsoever that he is conceding defeat. This is pure misinformation by MSNBC, Chuck Todd and a "pollster" who is clearly in Hillary's camp.

Anna Greenberg is a partner at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.

http://www.ibtimes.com/why-2016-candidates-are-using-their-first-names-campaign-trail-2112643

"Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Democratic polling firm that worked on former President Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign"

Stan Greenberg, who has a long time relationship to Bill Clinton and was his pollster in his 1992 campaign for President, is also a partner with the same firm. (Is he Anna Greenberg's father? I didn't find anything on that online.)

On Stan Greenberg, from his Wiki page:

<Greenberg's current and former corporate clients include British Petroleum, British Airways, Monsanto Company and General Motors.>

<In May 2010 Greenberg was linked to a controversy involving White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. As a House member, Emanuel had lived for five years in a rent-free D.C. apartment jointly owned by Greenberg's wife, Democratic House member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, and Greenberg. During this time, Emanuel was chairman of a committee that awarded large polling contracts to Greenberg's firm.[2]

Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Greenberg's work for BP became controversial. Greenberg's firm has been called a "prime architect" of BP's effort to rebrand itself as a green petroleum company.[2] As early as 2002, critics had deemed that effort "greenwashing".[3]>

March 2, 2016

Democratic versus Republican turnout in Super Tuesday states vs 2008

AL, AR, GA, MA, OK, TX, TN, VT & VA

Republican Primary Voters: 2008 5,025,685 2016 8,307,884
Democratic Primary Voters: 2008 8,228,763 2016 5,557,243

Just shown on the screen on MSNBC

March 2, 2016

Bill & Hillary and Laureate University, part 3

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-06/clinton-pitches-kkr-backed-college-chain-amid-controversy

<Inside a building on a narrow Rio de Janeiro street, nine telemarketers sit in small cubicles, talking frenetically into headsets as scripts scroll across their computer screens.

On an October morning, these salespeople are urging high school seniors to attend Centro Universitario IBMR, a for-profit university. Their supervisor, Rafael Morine, paces the room, straining to be heard above the clatter of an air conditioner.

“Remember, today we are offering 30 percent discounts,” he tells a young woman.>

<Laureate is backed by several of the biggest names in finance, including Henry Kravis, George Soros, Steve Cohen and Paul Allen. When Laureate’s founder and chief executive officer, Doug Becker, convinced these investors’ firms to take his company private in a deal worth $3.8 billion, Kravis’s firm, KKR & Co., took a $487.5 million stake.>

<Laureate has stirred controversy throughout Latin America, where it derives two-thirds of its revenue. In October, Chile’s National Accreditation Commission voted to strip accreditation from one of the company’s schools, Santiago-based Universidad de Las Americas, or UDLA.

In its decision, the commission wrote that, since 2010, UDLA’s academic standards have suffered as it has added almost 10,000 students while reducing the number of full- and half-time teachers to 399 from 408. Graduation rates were as low as 15 percent in some majors.

“The unsatisfactory results revealed in this evaluation process show a serious problem in academic operations,” the group wrote.>

March 2, 2016

Bill & Hillary and Laureate University, part 2

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-24/bill-clinton-leaves-for-profit-college-position

<Former President Bill Clinton’s role at a for-profit higher education company will end Friday, just as his wife has begun questioning some of the industry’s practices from the campaign trail.

Since 2010, Clinton has been honorary chancellor of Laureate International Universities, part of Laureate Education Inc. the world’s largest chain of for-profit colleges. His departure has nothing to do with the campaign, the company and the former president's office said, telling Bloomberg that he had agreed to a five-year term in the position.>

<Clinton's view of the industry fits with her efforts to be seen by voters as a populist defender of the working class. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts,has been outspoken about her concerns, blasting the federal government for "currently subsidizing a for-profit industry that is ripping off young people."

Laureate hired Bill Clinton just as the Obama administration was working on its first try at controversial regulations on “gainful employment” and as then-Senate HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) launched a series of hearings scrutinizing the industry, which relies heavily on federal student aid grants and loans for revenue.>

March 2, 2016

Bill & Hillary and Laureate University, part 1

http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/02/new-emails-show-hillary-assisting-for-profit-college-that-paid-bill-16-million/

<New emails released from Hillary Clinton’s email server reveal that while she was secretary of state, Clinton did a favor for a for-profit education company that later paid her husband more than $16 million.

In 2009, just a few months after Hillary took over at the Department of State, she was involved in planning a private dinner on education policy that featured herself, several State Department staff, and about a dozen individuals involved with higher education.

In one email, sent Aug. 2, 2009 and first noted by Inside Higher Ed, Clinton discusses the upcoming dinner and what guests should be invited. She urges the department to invite a representative of the for-profit chain Laureate International Universities to the dinner.

“And [redacted] works for the fastest-growing college network in the world, Laureate Universities, started by Doug Becker who Bill likes a lot,” Clinton says. “It’s a for-profit model that should be represented.”>

<While on the campaign trail, Clinton has been sharply critical of for-profit education, pledging in her college plan to “crack down on law-breaking for-profits” and promising to “bring integrity” to the field of online education, which for-profits are strongly associated with. She’s never criticized Laureate, though, while Bill has offered substantial praise for the company.>

March 2, 2016

Bernie about to speak from Vermont on CNN

March 1, 2016

Why is DWS going after Elizabeth Warren a surprise?

The Democratic establishment's position on Warren has varied between wary and complete disdain.

From the Naked Capitalism website, August 1, 2010

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/08/knives-out-for-elizabeth-warren.html

<It should come as no surprise that a financial services industry powerful enough to water down meaningful reform in the US and internationally (Basel III rules were weakened to allow, for instance, that mortgage servicing rights be included in regulatory capital calculations) would probably have its way in blocking the nomination of Elizabeth Warren as head of the new consumer finance protection agency.

Let’s face it: the plan to deep six the consumer watchdog was set when it was changed from being an independent body as originally proposed and instead moved into the Fed, the most bank friendly and arguably the least industry expert of the US bank regulators. It might have had a hope of being effective had it been housed at the FDIC, which does not like cleaning up bank messes and therefore is less prone to swallow industry BS than the other Federal bank overseers, but it is now clearly meant to be a mere election time talking point (not that that is working either, since a surprisingly large majority, 80%, understands that financial “reform” is merely branding by the Obama Ministry of Truth). So why would Congress do a 180% change and allow someone with the moxie, legal expertise, and profile with the media to make the agency effective take the reins?

In case you missed it last week, Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, washed his hands as far as Warren’s candidacy was concerned. From Bloomberg:

Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard University professor touted to head a new consumer protection bureau, may not have sufficient support to win confirmation to the post, Senator Christopher Dodd said in a radio interview…

“Elizabeth would be a terrific nominee,” said Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who leads the Senate Banking Committee. “The question is, ‘Is she confirmable?’ And there’s a serious question about it.”

Yves here. Note Dodd employs the time-tested formula of bigots out to cover their footprints: “Personally, I’m all in favor of hiring (fill in minority in question, such as blacks, woman, transexuals, former drug addicts, one-eyed midgets). But I’m not sure (fill in preferred scapegoat, such as “our customers” or “our organization”) is ready to accept them.”>

March 1, 2016

Tulsi Gabbard about to appear on Maddow

February 29, 2016

Plutocrat warns the top 0.01% the pitchforks are coming

A rich guy who was the first outside investor in Amazon.com understands what's going on. Most of this could be in Bernie's stump speech. He talks about how a $15 an hour has worked in cities like Seattle and San Francisco and says that rich people don't create jobs, middle income people with money in their pockets do because they create demand for products and services.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014

"At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.

But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.

And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when."

Bernie gets this. Hillary does not.