Election 16: Donald Trumps wins Presidency. God Help us all!

[88Comrade2000]

I'm the one who said there will be an alternative should Hillary stumble.  I think it was Kilmer though who predicted someone will run.

 

Who will that be?  When will that be?

 

I don't see anyone getting into the race into the fall, after it's clear Hillary is stumbling.  Is that too late?  In the Democratic field; no.

 

The only other candidate who is thinking of running is Jim Webb. I can see either a bunch of retreads John Kerry, Joe Biden, Al Gore give consideration should Hilly stumble.  Of course, you got your dreamy Elizabeth Warren. Maybe some other female Senator should Hillary stumble.  Noone else would get in; unless she's stumbling.

[nonniey]

...........

The only other candidate who is thinking of running is Jim Webb. I can see either a bunch of retreads John Kerry, Joe Biden, Al Gore give consideration should Hilly stumble.  Of course, you got your dreamy Elizabeth Warren. Maybe some other female Senator should Hillary stumble.  Noone else would get in; unless she's stumbling.

Should she stumble??? Exactly what has she being doing the past 3 months if not stumbling?

[Redskins3D]

Should she stumble??? Exactly what has she being doing the past 3 months if not stumbling?

Shh...let them be happy. Hillary had this locked up

[88Comrade2000]

Should she stumble??? Exactly what has she being doing the past 3 months if not stumbling?

Has she lost the nomination?  At this point, you seriously see any of her 3 current challengers taking the nomination from her?

If her numbers are tanking in the swing states against the Big 3 contenders; then that would be stumbling.

 

Nothing from the past 3 months is going to deny her the nomination.   If she has stumbled badly as you right wingers feel she has; then why haven't other legit Dems decide to enter the race?

[Redskins3D]

Has she lost the nomination? At this point, you seriously see any of her 3 current challengers taking the nomination from her?

If her numbers are tanking in the swing states against the Big 3 contenders; then that would be stumbling.

Nothing from the past 3 months is going to deny her the nomination. If she has stumbled badly as you right wingers feel she has; then why haven't other legit Dems decide to enter the race?

Because the DNC said no?

Because Biden is old? Because omalley can be beat with 2 words? (Rain tax)

Her favorability rattings are slipping and GOP without a nominee is catching up

[s0crates]

Sanders could be kept of New York ballot.

http://gothamist.com/2015/06/18/bernie_sanders_new_york.php

Pay attention to the last quote.

Now I don't know, but this sounds like BS to me. Bernie has been a Democrat as long as he has been a Senator, he isn't really "crossing party lines."

If that happens, then our political system is even more ****ed than I'd imagined.

[88Comrade2000]

Now I don't know, but this sounds like BS. Bernie is a Democratic Senator, he crossed party lines a long time ago.

Pretty sure he's registered as a Socialist. He just happens to caucus with the Dems.

[s0crates]

Pretty sure he's registered as a Socialist. He just happens to caucus with the Dems.

Pretty sure the powers that be are scared of Bernie. Keep throwing **** like this at him, since he can't be beaten on his platform.

He has been a Dem for a long time. He ran as a Dem the past two Senate elections. If the Dems keep him off the ballot in NY, that just proves democracy is officially dead in America.

I like this quote from the comments, "Let's end all the pretense. Let's just have corporate America and Wall Street announce who our next president will be and get it over with."

[Redskins3D]

Pretty sure he's registered as a Socialist. He just happens to caucus with the Dems.

 

He isn't. Like everyone here at ES he is (say it with me)  INDEPENDENT!    

[s0crates]

Bern 'em!

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/18/bernie-sanders-draws-union-support-pressing-pensions-issue/

Bernie Sanders Draws Union Support Pressing Pensions Issue

With union members chanting “Bernie! Bernie” behind him, Senator Bernie Sanders sought to burnish his populist credentials for president on Thursday as he introduced a bill to protect the pensions of millions of retirees from the threat of deep cuts.

Mr. Sanders railed against a spending bill approved by Congress last December — and signed into law by President Obama — that included a provision allowing certain multiemployer pension plans to make deep cuts in benefits to retirees to shore up their finances.

At a news conference in Washington, Mr. Sanders said the economic system was “rigged” against working-class retirees. With wealthy Americans given tax breaks and myriad financial perks, “the very least that we can do is to keep our promises to people who worked and earned their pensions,” he said.

. . .

[s0crates]

For those of you who watch too much TV (you know who you are, and I do too b/c you parrot this drivel).

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/18/4_subtle_and_not_so_subtle_ways_the_media_undermines_bernie_sanders_partner/

4 Ways the Media Undermines Bernie Sanders

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has been in the race for over a month, but to the casual media consumer you’d hardly notice. His candidacy has largely been dismissed by the mainstream media as a “protest” campaign or a means of “moving Clinton to the left” (whatever that means). It’s a stunted worldview that presumes it’s the media’s job to vet “serious” candidates before the voters get to have any say in the matter. And because fundraising precedes voting, it inevitably becomes a power-serving and harmful tautology: the media insists Sanders is not a “serious” challenger because Clinton has big money support; they then internalize this conventional wisdom, and before a single vote is cast, dismiss him. It’s a perverse feedback loop that puts undue influence in the hands of early power signifiers and bears little resemblance to a healthy democracy.

Here are four ways the media has embraced this toxic logic and how it manifests in their coverage of the Vermont senator.

. . .

[s0crates]

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18038/bernie_sanders_president_inequality

JUNE 17, 2015

Why Bernie Sanders Is the Perfect Candidate for This Moment in American Politics

Sanders’s laser-like focus on inequality is perfectly in sync with the nation’s current political climate.

BY THEO ANDERSON

The day before President Barack Obama gave his 2014 State of the Union address, in which he made economic inequality the centerpiece, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) made an appearance on CNN’s “Situation Room.” About halfway through the segment, he started to lose his cool.

Sanders and Michele Bachmann, the former Republican representative from Minnesota, had been trading verbal jabs for several minutes and stepping all over each other’s lines, when they landed on the subject of Social Security.

“Do you believe in the chained CPI?” Sanders asked Bachmann, referring to an idea then being considered that would have decreased payments for cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security benefits. He wanted Bachmann to concede that the GOP aimed to cut Social Security. She alternately dodged the question and scolded him for lying.

“I asked you a question, and you wouldn’t give me an answer,” Sanders thundered after repeating the question five times.

“Well, calm down.”

“Do you support a chained CPI?”

“Calm down.”

Bachmann then expressed sympathy for an unemployed woman who had been featured in an earlier segment of the show: “The reality is, we want Ann’s life to be better.” Sanders responded with an eye roll.

The exchange was typical of Vermont’s junior senator, who entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in late April. He ventured deep into the policy weeds—at the risk of confusing viewers who had no idea what he meant by a chained CPI—and he was impatient, confrontational and determined to get his point across.

That passion and focus can carry Sanders—who famously identifies as a democratic socialist and represents Vermont as an independent—right up to the edge of seeming like a crank. And if he had run against Bill Clinton in the Democratic primary 20-odd years ago, he no doubt would have been dismissed as just that, and easily ignored.

But this is not 1992. Bernie Sanders cannot be ignored—his message speaks too powerfully to the current political moment. And he certainly will not calm down—not when, as he says at every opportunity, 99 percent of all new income is going to the top 1% of Americans, the “real” unemployment rate is 12.7 percent and the United States has the highest rate of child poverty in the developed world.

Sanders’ passion and single-mindedness seem to be grounded, in large part, in his childhood in Brooklyn, growing up in a small apartment. His father, who immigrated to the United States from Poland as a teenager, was a paint salesman. It was his mother’s dream, never realized, for the family to own a home. “What I learned as a kid,” Sanders told an audience at the Brookings Institution in early February, “is what the lack of money does to a family … the kind of stresses and pressures.”

He didn’t elaborate, but he believes that a growing number of Americans know precisely what he means.

“When you take on the billionaire class, it ain’t easy,” he said at Brookings. He was still deciding whether to run for president. To mount a campaign, he said, “We would have to put together the strongest grassroots movement in the modern history of this country, where millions of people are saying, ‘You know what? Enough is enough.’ ”

He entered the race two months later, apparently persuaded that he can organize a grassroots campaign around the idea that enough is, in fact, enough.

. . .

[s0crates]

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/bernie-sanders-inequality-president-interview

Bernie Sanders Goes Biblical on Income Inequality

The Senate's pugilistic progressive on timorous Dems, America's greed problem, and whether he'll run for president.

—Josh Harkinson on Thu. April 2, 2015 6:15 AM PDT

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the longest-serving independent in Congress and its only self-described democratic socialist, is best known for his stands against wealthy special interests and in favor of government programs that help the poor and the middle class. Now 73, Sanders announced last year that he may run for president in 2016. During a swing through San Francisco this week, he stopped by Mother Jones HQ to talk to us about America's greed problem, the fecklessness of Democrats, and how to catalyze the progressive movement.

Mother Jones: What have you been up to lately?

Bernie Sanders: I'm going around the country talking about what I believe is the most important issue facing the American people: the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality. The Koch brothers and a few others are attempting to buy the United States government, and that should be of concern to everybody.

MJ: How bad is inequality now, in your view?

BS: Between 2013 and 2015, the wealthiest 14 people saw their wealth increase by $157 billion. This is their wealth increase, got it? Not what they are worth. Increase. That $157 billion is more wealth than is owned by the bottom 40 percent of the American people. One family, the Walton family, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent.

MJ: To be the devil's advocate, why should we care about that?

BS: I think this goes back to the Bible. There is something immoral when so few have so much and so many have so little. I don't come to San Francisco very often, but we've driven around the city and seen people sleeping out on the streets. In my state, you've got people working 40, 50 hours a week and going to emergency food shelves because they don't earn enough money to feed their families adequately. You have millions of young people graduating college deeply in debt. They can't get their lives started, can't get married. So I think the issue of income and wealth inequality is in fact a moral issue.

Second of all, it becomes a political issue. The Koch brothers will end up spending far, far, far more than all of the Democratic billionaires. But even if it were equal, which it is certainly not, you're a billionaire and I'm a billionaire—you want to control the political process from your point of view and I from my point of view. That is not what American democracy is about. Which is why I believe we've got to overturn Citizens United and move to public funding of elections.

MJ: The problems of inequality and money in politics have been getting worse for a long time. Do you think we've lost the will to fix this?

BS: It's not a question of have we lost the will; it's that the billionaire class is much more aggressive now than it used to be. There was a time in the '60s or '70s when the rich wanted to get richer, but they kind of understood that it wasn't the worst thing in the world that their employees had a union; it wasn't the worst thing in the world that people had Medicare or Medicaid and that college tuition was often very low. But in the last 35 or 40 years, there has been an increasingly aggressive effort on the part of the top 1 percent to take it all. And that aggression has not been effectively countered by middle-class and working families.

. . .

[s0crates]

Serious question: Does this help or hurt Bernie?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bernie-sanders-awkward-history-with-guns-in-america-119185.html#ixzz3dV2bpgxK

Bernie Sanders’ awkward history with guns in America

The renewed debate about gun violence could resurface Sanders’ erratic record on gun control.

By Jonathan Topaz

6/18/15 7:30 PM EDT

Bernie Sanders is a liberal standard-bearer on nearly every single policy issue, from climate change to taxation to financial regulation. But there’s one notable exception – guns.

With President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton calling for a gut check on gun violence in America after the mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., the Vermont senator’s awkward history with the issue of gun control now seems poised to resurface.

Arguably, the independent senator from Vermont has taken a pragmatic approach – his state prides itself on a deep hunting and gun culture and has traditionally fiercely defended its lax guns laws.

But while his campaign manager says he is “very moderate” on the issue, others call him “erratic.” To wit, he has voted against the Brady Bill, voted for an assault weapons ban, voted to allow firearms on Amtrak, and voted for universal background checks — upsetting gun-control and gun-rights advocates alike.

It’s not clear if his approach on the subject will hurt Sanders, who is enjoying a surge in the polls and overflow crowds on the campaign trail.

Still, as the gun-control conversation ratchets back up in the wake of the Wednesday’s shooting, Sanders risks looking like he’s out-of-touch with his progressive base and a bit tone deaf.

Sanders didn’t ignore the tragedy in Charleston, though there was an uncomfortable moment when his rally outside the Capitol for bolstering union retiree benefits overlapped briefly with a prayer vigil nearby for the victims of the shooting at the historically black church.

He canceled a campaign event for this Sunday in South Carolina and urged supporters in an email to make a contribution to the Emanuel AME Church with a link to the church’s website. He also issued a statement saying, “The Charleston church killings are a tragic reminder of the ugly stain of racism that still taints our nation.”

The statement did not mention guns, and when asked for further comment, Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver offered a less-than-forceful call for addressing the issue of gun violence: “This sick and tragic attack is an example of why we need to ensure that guns do not end up in the hands of dangerous people. We also ask ourselves how we rid our country of the repugnant racist views which apparently fueled this killer’s depraved act against our fellow Americans while they were in the sanctuary of a house of God.”

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, delivered a more direct call to action during a speech in Las Vegas. “We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns and divisions,” she said. She asked, “How many people do we need to see cut down before we act?”

Sanders’ history with gun control issues dates back to the very beginning of his Washington career.

Sanders, the legend goes, came to Congress because of the National Rifle Association. It’s not quite as simple as that — Vermonters remember Republican Peter Smith, who lost in the 1990 rematch after beating Sanders in 1988, as an awkward candidate poorly-suited for politics.

But after Smith came out in support of an assault-weapons ban after opposing it in his successful 1988 campaign against Sanders, the NRA invested heavily in defeating him — an opposition campaign that likened Smith to Pinocchio for his flip-flop and featured bumper stickers: “Smith and Wesson — Yes, Smith in Congress — No.”

The NRA didn’t campaign for Sanders in 1990, and Jeff Weaver, the campaign manager for his presidential bid and a longtime adviser, noted that Sanders supported an assault weapons ban and never embraced a pro-gun message.

“The easy position would have been to be against the assault weapons ban,” said Weaver, pushing back on the idea that Sanders catered to the NRA for political purposes. (Weaver made the comments before the Charleston shooting, and declined to add anything on Thursday about Sanders’ latest thoughts about gun control.)

Still, people recall that Sanders, then the four-term mayor of Burlington, was cautious not to step in. “Bernie let the NRA do his dirty work on that one to sink Smith. He played it very close to the vest,” said Garrison Nelson, a professor at University of Vermont who has known Sanders for around four decades.

Instead, Sanders said that he didn’t support the proposed Brady Bill, which instituted federal background checks and a five-day waiting period, and vowed that he wouldn’t flip-flop on the issue. He won the election by nearly 20 points.

Sanders’ improbable political journey — from quixotic left-wing politician scoring in the low single-digits in statewide elections to the longest-serving independent in congressional history — is one marked by this political acumen.

“The thing about Bernie which is different from most socialists, is Bernie wants to win,” Nelson said.

While in Congress, Sanders continued to oppose the Brady Bill because of the waiting period, which he said should be determined at the state level. He voted against the bill but in favor of an amendment from then-West Virginia Democratic Rep. Harley Staggers for an instant background check for all handgun purchases.

Still, his opposition to the landmark legislation prompted backlash, including a 1991 headline from the Vermont Times: “Who’s Afraid of the NRA? Vermont’s Congressmen, That’s Who,” featuring a photo of Sanders.

In the article, a Sanders adviser argued that a majority of Vermonters opposed the Brady Bill. That appeal to his constituents, some said, is an example of Sanders’ outreach to rural voters, particularly those in areas such as the conservative Northeast Kingdom, which has given him support throughout his career.

“Bernie basically has been able to appeal to groups that no one assumed would support socialists,” said Nelson — including gun-rights supporters, police during his time in Burlington and veterans’ groups as a senator. (Sanders, as chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, helped craft and pass a bipartisan, multi-billion dollar legislation to reform the Veterans Affairs Department.)

. . .

Honestly I think it would help him in the general election, but it might hurt his chances of getting there.

[Larry]

Serious question: Does this help or hurt Bernie?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bernie-sanders-awkward-history-with-guns-in-america-119185.html#ixzz3dV2bpgxK

Honestly I think it would help him in the general election, but it might hurt his chances of getting there.

 

Maybe he actually picks and chooses which gun laws to support? 

[tshile]

Serious question: Does this help or hurt Bernie?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bernie-sanders-awkward-history-with-guns-in-america-119185.html#ixzz3dV2bpgxK

Honestly I think it would help him in the general election, but it might hurt his chances of getting there.

 

He's stuck in an awkward spot, is he not?

 

He's probably going to stay away from any serious gun control measures, due to the political ramifications of doing such, but the people he's trying to not piss off by doing that... is there any way those people would vote for him? They come to mind as the ones that will be yelling about socialism and such the most...

[skinsmarydu]

Serious question: Does this help or hurt Bernie?

[Honestly I think it would help him in the general election, but it might hurt his chances of getting there.

Could go either way. I'll support states' rights, but damn...we need a better plan. I'll always be a #2 proponent, however, better background checks would help.

Btw, can anyone provide those for the shooter? Was he vetted?

[s0crates]

He's stuck in an awkward spot, is he not?

He's probably going to stay away from any serious gun control measures, due to the political ramifications of doing such, but the people he's trying to not piss off by doing that... is there any way those people would vote for him? They come to mind as the ones that will be yelling about socialism and such the most...

I see a few ways to read Bernie here:

It might be, as the article suggests, Bernie being politically savvy. Vermont is a leftist state that has a lot of gun owners. Bernie plays to win. He might play a national election differently.

It might be, as he says and his record shows, that Bernie is an ardent defender of the Bill of Rights. This is one of the things I find most appealing about him.

It might simply be, as Larry points out, that Bernie takes gun legislation on a case by case basis.

I do agree with you that his history on gun control might pose a problem for him in the primaries. I'm not sure that I agree that all supporters of the 2nd amendment are right-wing loons though. Vermont voters are a good case in point, as am I. I actually like a guy who doesn't follow the party line on every issue.

It will be interesting to see how Bernie plays this. I can see Hillary going after him here, but that might backfire in the general election. Americans love their guns.

My bet is Bernie tries to keep the focus on his main message: He represents the middle class, not billionaires. The rest is subterfuge.

[tshile]

I'm not sure that I agree that all supporters of the 2nd amendment are right-wing loons though. Vermont voters are a good case in point, as am I. I actually like a guy who doesn't follow the party line on every issue.

 

Not all supporters of the 2nd amendment are right-wing loons that play a word association game of Sanders -> Socialist -> Bad, and stop there with their analysis.

 

But majority of the people that will immediately turn against a person who suggests that there might possibly be a slight, tiny change to gun laws that we could make do fall into that category, and that was the type of people I was referring to.

 

From where I sit, most people that are willing to honestly entertain changes to gun control laws (in all directions) are also willing to listen to someone like Sanders and give him a chance to explain his convictions/opinions/plan/etc.

 

I'm with you. I like Sanders for the same reasons. I don't know if I would vote for him yet, I have a sad feeling I wont get to entertain the option.

[s0crates]

Could go either way. I'll support states' rights, but damn...we need a better plan. I'll always be a #2 proponent, however, better background checks would help.

Btw, can anyone provide those for the shooter? Was he vetted?

FWIW, I think Bernie's response to the horror in SC is good. He asks his supporters to donate to the church, which is probably the best thing we could do, and he really emphasizes the issue of racism, when others have been more shy to do so.

[skinsmarydu]

FWIW, I think Bernie's response to the horror in SC is good. He asks his supporters to donate to the church, which is probably the best thing we could do, and he really emphasizes the issue of racism, when others have been more shy to do so.

Agree, and prayers upon prayers have been sent. Great grief over here. Thanking whoever that I'm in Hank's district (formerly Cynthia's)...my girl, get it for the Green Party.

To be honest, I never supported her while living in her district. The gerrymandering put my new district into her old one (let's group the brown folk together,'cuz the whites just hate everyone not like they matter, and let's lump their votes with brown folks, ya know, cuz that district is the same as the ones next to it...

GOOD GOD, THIS IS ATLANTA!!!! THE MELTING POT OF THE SOUTH!!!!

[nonniey]

Agree, and prayers upon prayers have been sent. Great grief over here. Thanking whoever that I'm in Hank's district (formerly Cynthia's)...my girl, get it for the Green Party.

To be honest, I never supported her while living in her district. The gerrymandering put my new district into her old one (let's group the brown folk together,'cuz the whites just hate everyone not like they matter, and let's lump their votes with brown folks, ya know, cuz that district is the same as the ones next to it...

GOOD GOD, THIS IS ATLANTA!!!! THE MELTING POT OF THE SOUTH!!!!

 

 

Really Cynthia McKinney? The David Duke of the left?

[Hersh]

I don't think this was posted, but I have Bernie fatigue in this thread so I figured why not. Rand Paul released his tax "plan." 2 Trillion cut over 10 years and the wealthiest get a massive tax break. I honestly don't understand how Republicans think that cutting revenue is going to help deal with the problems facing this country. For example, do any Republicans actually have a plan to fix the infrastructure problem in this country or do Republicans and their voters really not care about that as an issue? (Yes, I know Bernie Saunders has a plan, I don't particularly want to hear about it in this case Do they care about reducing the national debt, because this doesn't actually help to do that. Cutting government massively isn't a realistic scenario for either party in order to achieve any goal. I guess I really don't get the Republican priority of constantly cutting taxes when there are things that need to be done.  

 

 

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul called Thursday for a "fair and flat tax" that would "blow up" the nation's tax code, offering a proposal his campaign said would cut taxes by $2 trillion over the next decade. 

The first-term senator from Kentucky released the outline of a plan to institute a 14.5 percent income tax rate on all individuals and on businesses. It was among the first major policy proposals released by Paul's presidential campaign, although he did not make the full plan available for review. 

"Basically my conclusion is the tax code can't be fixed and should be scrapped," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We should start over." 

[tshile]

Paul's tax plan is the outline I want - flat tax, with no deductions - but implemented terribly.

 

The federal government needs more revenue not less. Until we fix our budget and get on track for managing our debt, decreasing revenue is dumb.

 

When I read it I was disappointed. Those percentages need about 10% added to them.

 

50k is about where I would have drawn the line too, so I was happy to see him and I are on the same page in that regard.

[PeterMP]

Serious question: Does this help or hurt Bernie?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bernie-sanders-awkward-history-with-guns-in-america-119185.html#ixzz3dV2bpgxK

Honestly I think it would help him in the general election, but it might hurt his chances of getting there.

 

Considering that the Brady Bill was ineffective in preventing homicides, I doubt it'll become an issue.

 

His answer easily writes itself.  

 

Why would I or anybody else support laws that don't do any good?

 

There's no way that Clinton is going to press somebody on the fact that they didn't support the Brady Bill in a debate.

 

On the larger issue, it depends on where he stands now and how he wants to position himself.  Not supporting the Brady Bill isn't an obstacle from him taking almost any position on the issue.