Revolution news update

-- No More Mister Nice Blog:

I foresee a big uptick in attention for Jill Stein, starting as soon as Sanders concedes. What the hell else will Salon do when Sanders is out of the race? I'm certain that H.A. Goodman and Walker Bragman will instantly switch over to being tireless Stein supporters. And why wouldn't the mainstream media reach out for yet another Everyone-hates-Hillary story? On the right, I expect the Murdoch media to begin encouraging her campaign -- I'm guessing we'll see Stein regularly on Fox in the fall.

Look at the tightening Clinton-Trump poll from Reuters, and consider Thomas Edsall's observation that Trump does best in online polls, a sign that he may have support from many voters who don't want to acknowledge their Trump leanings to in-person or telephone pollsters. (Mike the Mad Biologist has already referred to this as the "Trump effect," a mirror-image "Bradley effect.") This race could get ugly.

"Could"?

-- The 2014 New York gubernatorial candidate with some searing truth.

Jill Stein's Green Party campaign for president ought to be the first stop for Sandernistas who refuse to vote for corporate Clinton. Stein will give voice to popular demands and movements and help shape political debate during the election. But more than anything, the Stein campaign is a party-building campaign. It's about securing ballot lines that can be used in future local elections for municipal, state legislative and congressional seats. It's about creating campaign committees that continue after the election as local Green parties.

Local independent left candidates can win. Kshama Sawant has shown that in her Seattle City Council races. Over 150 Greens have shown that in cities and towns across the country.

When even critics contend that the Greens should focus on state and local races, well... this is exactly where the county parties should move forward.  Now, not in mid-November.

Ballot access barriers, winner-take-all elections, private campaign financing and inherited two-party loyalties are real obstacles to building a left third party. But the idea that they are insurmountable is just wrong because viable third parties have been built and independent candidates have won. The abolitionist, populist, and socialist parties from the 1840s to the 1930s garnered enough support to really affect American politics. Greens, socialists, and independent progressives, including Bernie Sanders himself, have won office in recent decades. What's been missing since the 1930s is a left that understands that independent politics is the road to power and change. Most of the self-described left today practices dependent politics. It depends on the corporate-sponsored Democrats to enact changes.

Sanders' campaign has revealed there is a mass base for left party that is ready to be organized. His campaign shows that millions are ready to vote for what public opinion polling has shown for decades--that there is majority support for progressive economic reforms like single-payer, progressive taxation, tuition-free public higher education, and climate action. Sanders' campaign also shows that millions will fund a campaign for these reforms with small donations at a level that can compete with the candidates of the corporate rich.

If this doesn't happen (and it didn't happen after Jesse Jackson's bid in 1988, Howard Dean's in 2004, and Dennis Kucinich's in 2008) then ...

If the Greens are going to be the vehicle for an independent left political insurgency, they will need to reorganize as a mass-membership party with membership dues and local branches for sustainable self-financing, democratic accountability, and grassroots dynamism. The Greens will remain underfunded, weakly organized, and politically marginal if they continue to be organized like the Democrats and Republicans with an atomized base of voters who only have the right to vote in primaries, with no locally organized base to elect and hold leaders accountable, and with minimal funding from intermittent fund appeals.

In other words, what they have always been (in my personal experience).

There is no shortcut through the Democratic Party to building a mass party on the left. That shortcut is a dead end. Hopefully, many new activists energized by the Sanders campaign will come to the realization that road to "political revolution" for "democratic socialism" lies not inside the Democratic Party, but in an independent left party that is opposed to and starts beating the Democrats.

The peasant revolt never occurs within the castle walls.

Budweiser acknowledges failure of brand, changes name to 'America'

It was supposed to be a summer fling, but like Donald Trump's White House aspirations, it's going all the way to November.

According to AdAge, which has confirmed with company officials, 12 ounce cans and bottles of Budweiser—owned by a company based in Belgium—will now bear the brand name “America.” You can look for the change as of May 23, and expect it to last straight through summer, a.k.a. “the high beer season.” But it won’t end there! The new look will stretch onward through the election season, because why not make your rebranding as ridiculous as our presidential campaign has been.

The new tagline? “America is in your hands.”

Still not ready to drop your side-chickin' with that local craft brew, traitor?

The Washington Post notes the rebranding will be even more extensive, with Budweiser changing multiple facets of its can design for maximum patriotism:

[T]he word-heavy label would include, in all capital letters, the following: “Land of the Free,” “Home of the Brave” and “From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters this land was made for you and me.” Don’t worry—there’s more. It’s topped with a diamond containing “U.S.” and a smaller “United States of America” and that is topped with the lyrics from the first four bars of the “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

"You have this wave of patriotism that is going to go up and down throughout the summertime," Anheuser-Busch InBev U.S. Marketing Vice President Jorn Socquet told AdAge. "And we found with Budweiser such a beautiful angle to play on that sentiment."

Expect some "why do you hate America" challenges from those whose patriotism can't be expressed strongly enough on the bumpers of their pickup trucks, or in a tattoo across their lower back.

I clicked on all the links but didn't find any mention of "In God We Trust", so I'm guessing there's going to be some protests and boycotts from the Religious Right's Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers Caucus.

As for me, my boycott of all things Budweiser continues unabated and unbowed.

Green presidential candidates debate today

Ongoing as this posts.  And more revolution news below.

Watching the Hawks co-hosts Tyrel Ventura, Tabetha Wallace and Sean Stone will host two live third-party presidential debates: the Green Party on May 9 and Libertarian Party on May 12.

“In 2016 it’s time the illusion of choice offered by the Democrats, Republicans, and the Washington, DC power brokers must be challenged,” Ventura said. “Thankfully, there is a cable news channel in RT that has the courage to show US citizens and the rest of the world that there are more than just two brands of politics within the United States.”

Green Party candidates Jill Stein, Kent Mesplay and Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza Curry will face off on Monday, while Libertarian Party candidates Darryl W. Perry, Austin Petersen and Marc Allan Feldman will debate next Thursday. Both debates will cover foreign policy, domestic issues, and electoral reform.

The debates will air on RT America from 4 pm to 6 pm Eastern time. You can also watch them on the RT America YouTube page.

“It is all but illegal to participate in US politics outside the twin titanic business parties. A majority of US citizens are disgusted with the status quo and want something new,” Mesplay said. “By nurturing real discussion and debate, RT America reveals an insistent international movement of polite dissent: the Green Party. Such visibility emboldens would-be voters who want a viable ‘third party’ in the United States.”

RT is “breaking the two-party stranglehold on debates and beginning the open discussion the American people are clamoring for,” Stein said in a statement.

She added that she’s excited for the Green Party debate, which she sees as “a step towards real democracy and an inspiration for the millions of Americans who are ready for a new politics that puts people, planet and peace over profit.”

America does indeed need four parties, particularly in 2016 with record-breaking distaste for Clinton and Trump.  Here's more thinking outside the two-party box.

YOU DECIDED to run a campaign independent of the two mainstream parties. Given all the excitement that Sanders has generated, many people who are very critical of Clinton are hoping it might be possible to reform the Democrats and turn them into a truly left-wing party. Even those who don't hold out much hope to reforming the Democrats will be pressured to vote for Clinton as the lesser evil in order to stop Trump. And you will, no doubt, be called a "spoiler." How do you respond to these arguments?

THERE HAS been a long and valiant effort for many decades to reform the Democratic Party. But the party has a built-in kill switch that it created in 1972 after George McGovern won the primaries as a peace candidate.

They changed the internal party system to insure that grassroots candidates would never be elected again. This included creating the superdelegates in order to empower the party insiders to call the shots. The superdelegates are about 30 percent of the total needed to win the nomination, so it's a very powerful firewall. Likewise with the the Super Tuesday primaries. So it's a doomed struggle, right from the outset, to try to reform the party.

You only have to look back to the era of the civil rights movement to learn this lesson. That movement was as powerful a movement as we have seen in modern history and, together with the labor movement, which was much more powerful than it is today, there was an attempt to organize what was called "realignment" inside the Democratic Party.

It did succeed in getting the conservative Southern Dixiecrats out of the Democratic Party, but that's as far as it got. It completely floundered on the effort to create a social-democratic party out of the Democrats. Why was that?

Specifically, it was the war in Vietnam that made it essential to be an imperialist or pro-war if you wanted to have the "credibility" to critique the Democratic Party. This basically shot that reform movement -- in the foot, you could say! Because at the end of the day, the Democratic Party is funded by war profiteers, predatory banks and fossil-fuel giants. So this is not where we are going to create that party of revolution. It is fundamentally a counterrevolutionary party.

About the spoiler effect, I'll say a few things. First of all, just to put it to rest. It's a myth that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the presidential election in Florida in 2000. It was the U.S. Supreme Court that stopped the vote re-count, which Gore would have won had it continued.

But beyond that, the problem is that millions of Florida Democrats didn't come out to vote for Gore. Nader's votes in Florida were a tiny fraction of the Democrats who either voted for Bush or stayed home. Blaming Nader is a self-serving fear campaign that the Democrats use to silence their opposition.

Blaming Nader or other third-party candidates is a strategy to intimidate people into a politics of fear that tells you to vote against what you fear instead of voting for what you believe. But in fact, the politics of fear has delivered everything we were afraid of.

We can list all the reasons people are told to silence themselves and vote for a lesser evil candidate: we were afraid of jobs going overseas, the climate meltdown, expanding wars, the attack on our civil liberties and on immigrant rights, expansion of the prison state, etc. Look around. This is exactly what we've gotten -- much of it under a Democratic White House with two Democratic houses of Congress.

Take the Wall Street bailout. Obama did that with a majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress in 2009. That's when that all occurred. So the politics of fear delivers what we're afraid of. The lesser evil is not the solution. It merely paves the way to the greater evil. It ensures that the Democratic Party base gets demoralized and doesn't come out to vote. So the greater evil wins. We've seen this time and again.

-- All of this news about Stein has attracted the attention of David Brock's troll brigade, and they have swarmed.  As Clinton tacks harder right, picking up disaffected Republicans and their fat checks, we'll see more of this.

Fun.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance mourns the passing of a Houston Democratic titan, Carl Whitmarsh, as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff ponders career options for Ted Cruz.

SocraticGadfly takes a snarky look at possible Hillary Clinton Cabinet nominees.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos learned that Rick Perry is looking for a job. She thinks Ted Cruz should be looking too. In another line of work: A Tale of Two Texas Republican Losers.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is shocked to hear that a Texas cemetery refuses to serve Hispanics. Surely, they are happy Trump is the nominee of their party.

It was a disgraceful Cinco de Mayo for Drumpf, as he made a fool of himself with a taco bowl and a Hispander. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs hoped he used the coupon for free breakfast tacos on the 6th, because he certainly seemed drunk on the 5th.

As the Sanders campaign moves towards the Democratic convention in July, Neil at All People Have Value found a freedom-loving Texan supporting Bernie. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

In spite of all the polling that show Bernie Sanders defeating Trump handily while Hillary Clinton struggles against the Republican nominee, Ted at jobsanger believes just the opposite.

Texas Vox covered the Democracy Awakening protest and rally in Austin weekend before last.

Burnt Orange has their podcast up about the continuing saga of Uber and Lyft in Austin, and CultureMap asked if Houston was next.

And the Lewsville Texan Journal is expanding with the "help wanted" sign out for a journalist.

================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Jonathan Tilove at First Reading wonders whether Rick Perry's official portrait at the state capital will be wearing a Trump button.

Texas for Public Justice's Andrew Wheat, writing for the Observer, sees the big money dogs abandoning scandal-ridden AG Ken Paxton.

The Texas Tribune and Ballot Access News report on the independent candidate who won a plurality of the vote in the 120th Texas House special election to replace retiring Ruth Jones McClendon.

The Great God Pan Is Dead tells a NSFW story about art, obscenity, and the jailing of Rokudenashiko for making a kayak in the shape of a vagina.

Houston Tomorrow is looking for its next executive director.

Make West Texas Great Again documents (and complains about) the rise of the "suburbatarians" in rural parts of the state.

Andrea Grimes invites out-of-staters who cheer the idea of Texas seceding to come here and help us do the work needed to turn our state around.

Progress Texas rounds up the best "Ted Cruz drops out" reactions from Twitter. (WARNING: You will never be able to un-see the image at the top of this post. Click over at your own peril.)

Raise Your Hand Texas hopes you thanked a teacher last week.

And in a touching Equality Texas video for Mother's Day, a lifelong Texan shares her joys -- and fears -- of raising her transgender son.

Sunday Funnies

Good news for Hillbots

Not those crapholes who do the posting at Blue Nation Review... all of them.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has shifted 11 states on its election scorecard toward Democrats since Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

“This has been an exceedingly unpredictable year,” the analyst said. “Although we remain convinced that Hillary Clinton is very vulnerable and would probably lose to most other Republicans, Donald Trump's historic unpopularity with wide swaths of the electorate — women, millennials, independents and Latinos — make him the initial November underdog.”

Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin were all shifted from toss-up states to leaning Democratic. The “solid Republican” states Missouri and Indiana were downgraded to “likely Republican.” New Mexico is now solidly Democratic, and North Carolina is a toss-up after leaning Republican.The analyst also shifted Arizona and Georgia from likely Republican to leaning Republican.

Cook also moved one House race toward Democrats: Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which was considered solid for Republicans and is now classified as a toss-up race.

Maine’s 2nd District was the only reclassification that favored the GOP, going from solid Democrat to likely Democrat. The Report classifies congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska because they are the only two states that don’t award their Electoral College votes on a winner-take-all basis.

The shifts is good news for Clinton and down-ballot Democrats, who are increasingly seeking to tie their GOP opponents to Trump.

Take a look again at the Electoral College map that Politico posted earlier this week that showed Hillary as a prohibitive favorite already.

Now flip three of the states in yellow above that Cook lists -- CO, FL, VA-- to blue and you have Clinton with 298 EC votes, or 28 more than enough to win.  If NC is a true tossup and she collects OH by tapping Sen. Sherrod Brown as V-P, we're into LBJ landslide territory.  (There's a very good reason that Julián Castro's bubble is suddenly losing air, and FWIW Brown has pretty clearly said -- more clearly than people in his position usually say -- that he's not interested.)

I still think Clinton picks a Latino -- Tom Perez seems to me to have moved ahead of Castro just lately -- to seal the deal, especially in the wake of this past week's TacoBowlgate.

And as long as we're rumor-mongering running mates, Sen. Joni "Make 'Em Squeal" Ernst checks all the boxes for Drumpf: she's looney-tunes conservative, she has a vagina, and she brings swingy Iowa with her.  The Republican nominee is going to need all the help he can get, and she's the mostest in a general election that is (or should be) over before it begins.

Discounting the V-P prognostications above, only Vermont, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, and maybe North Carolina are up for grabs.  That's a lot of states where Americans who can't stand the Republican or Democratic nominees can vote for a Libertarian or a Green for president... without being guilted for doing so.

So the two-horse race is really over unless Hill screws it up pretty badly.  That could happen, but the chances of anything damaging coming out of the FBI investigation into the use of her private email server -- specifically to avoid FOI requests -- grow slimmer by the day. 

My feet are sound asleep; what about yours?