Revolution news update (3rd in a continuing series)

(If you missed the first two posts, they're here and here.)

As the dust is still unsettled following the events in Nevada and the results in Kentucky and Oregon from last night, one thing is clear: the battle between insurgent progressives and the Democratic establishment is now fully engaged.

And the sheep are nervous.  Their lackeys in the media have turned ominous.  Twitter is the zeitgeist this cycle and if you want to see what's unfolding, look at these two trending topics the morning after the tie in the Bluegrass State last night.  Look fast, though, because it won't be relevant to this conversation a week from now.

The first thing we should establish, for the benefit of the slow-thinking Hillaryians among us, is that the revolution is here, and it's here to stay.  It's not going away after Bernie finally loses the nomination fight in a week or two, it's going to be heard one final time in Philadelphia, and then it's on to November.  Calling the revolutionaries 'violent', using the D Team's rules against them in a tyranny of the majority, and even a little putzy snark casually directed at anybody who dares to think outside the two-party box just feeds the beast.

I don't think most Hillbots get that, though, and I'm lovin' that.  On to the headlines ...

-- The pot's boiling over.

It was really just a matter of time.

With the Democratic presidential primary in its twilight, frustration within the ranks over the party's handling of the primary process spilled out this week as Bernie Sanders supporters lashed out at party leaders, arguing that their candidate has been treated unfairly. 

The public outpouring of anger began last weekend at the Nevada Democratic Party convention, where Sanders supporters who said Hillary Clinton's backers had subverted party rules shouted down pro-Clinton speakers and sent threatening messages to state party Chairwoman Roberta Lange after posting her phone number and address on social media. 

That led Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and other top party leaders to demand an apology and publicly ruminate on the possibility of violence at the Democratic National Convention in July as they prepare for a general election battle with Donald Trump.

A Democratic Party managed by the likes of Ms. Lange and Ms. Wasserman-Schultz is simply not a party I can stand to be a part of. 

Throughout the year, Sanders and his supporters have complained about the nomination process and ways they believe it has helped Clinton, including debates held on Saturday nights, closed primaries in major states such as New York, and the use of superdelegates -- essentially free-agent party and union stalwarts who are overwhelmingly backing Clinton.

This has to change, because if it doesn't, their Democratic Party has set themselves up for a massive and catastrophic failure in November.

But whether that happens or not:  What kind of loser will Bernie Sanders be?  I'm hoping it's a sore one, because his supporters certainly are ... and have every right to be.  In the best example I've seen yet of the establishment's cluelessness, there's so much wrong in this piece I almost didn't include it, but you know, blind hogs and acorns.  Here's the nut.

The next chapter of Democratic politics isn’t about Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders; that battle has already been resolved. It is the war between Clinton-ism (the pragmatic progressivism that has defined the party since 1992) and Sanders-ism (an unapologetic socialism that is more ambitious, and more risky, than anything the party has proposed since the New Deal). And wars tend to be bloody.

Yeah, in revolutions chairs tend to be thrown.  Sometimes elbows and even punches.

-- In this, from Mimi Swartz, you see the same mistakes being repeated by the Elitist Caucus of the Clintonite Party, Houston chapter ... which has given the nation the very worst of the Republican Party (Tom DeLay, Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, etc.).

Hillary Clinton is coming to town, but not for any public events. Instead, she plans to appear at a fund-raiser at a loyalist’s grand Houston home. The cost of attending is detailed on the Evite: $2,700 for a Champion, $1,000 for a Fighter and $500 for an Advocate (not surprisingly, first to sell out).

No doubt Mrs. Clinton could draw an adoring crowd, but it’s accepted as a waste of time for national Democratic candidates to come here to seek actual votes, as opposed to cash. Texas has become as predictably red as California and New York are blue, with the predictable result that it has become nearly irrelevant in the presidential races.

These Democrats, like their GOP counterparts, have more money than sense.  Sheep passively lining up to be shorn, and then sent to slaughter.  Have you ever heard of a lamb sacrificing itself, though?  A mutton cutting off its own wool, or slitting its throat?

(While the Republicans took over the state), Texas Democrats’ case of learned helplessness became chronic. They hardly bother to run for dogcatcher. Wendy Davis’s ignominious defeat in her 2014 run for governor proved it was time to start over, but strategic efforts have not taken off.

“They spend a lot of time updating voter files, but nobody knows how to use those things,” one longtime Democrat told me. The difference between pragmatism and self-pity has become hard to discern. That was never the norm.

It's tragic, I know.  Brutal self-examination prior to a pending emotional breakdown is hard intellectual work, but the alternative is full collapse.  It could get worse than it already is, if the people in charge of the Texas Democratic Party state convention -- already in possession of a three-to-one margin of delegates to national, and more than that overseeing the rules, credentials, and other committees -- try to pull off a Nevada-style purge.

-- I don't think my warnings are going to stop them, however.  So then we get to ...

Most voters are not excited about their current presidential options. Polls show that only 36 percent of the country has a favorable view of Trump, who is currently cleaving the GOP establishment in two without a hint of remorse. Hillary Clinton is doing only slightly better at 42 percent.

Only Bernie Sanders has a favorability rating above 50 percent, but his campaign has been unable to usurp the entrenched powers in the Democratic Party and is largely seen as an exercise in movement building at this point.

Another excerpt that doesn't do the original justice for its insights.

Whether widespread cynicism will motivate voters to support third-party long shots or simply drive down turnout may largely depend on how much exposure the alternative candidates get. Front-runners like Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarians John McAfee and Gary Johnson are enjoying some media coverage and appearances on network TV, but it's nothing like the daily obsession over Clinton, Sanders and especially Trump, who regularly generates headlines by offending pretty much everyone besides guaranteed Republican primary voters.

It's clear that television exposure is one key to electoral success; Trump's made-for-TV personality propelled him to the top of a major party. Thus, the Greens and Libertarians have ramped up legal efforts to force the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to require the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), the nonprofit that sponsors the debates, to include their candidates during prime-time programming.

That's pretty even-handed, yes?

(Green Pary spokesman Scott) McLarty said it appears clear that Sanders will not stage an independent campaign and will endorse Clinton if she wins the Democratic nomination. However, McLarty emphasized that the movement Sanders inspired will continue, and its first challenge to the dominant political system should be to demand that a Green Party candidate is included in the presidential debates.

"You know, if you're in the movement for single-payer universal health care, which Bernie very strongly supports, as the Green Party does too ... [and then] to say, 'well, we are not going to push for the Green Party candidate to get into the debate because we want Hillary, the lesser evil, to get elected' ... then you are basically silencing your own point of view," McLarty said. "And I don't see any movement having any success if it participates in its own silence."

So -- despite that elbow to the Berners' ribs from McLarty -- on a more direct observation, and not to let anybody off the hook here: it's on the Greens to do what they need to do in order to capture the revolutionary movement's most fervent supporters.  Either that or more "violence" (sic) is in the offing.  Sanders isn't going to move his people over to the Peace Party for them.

Clinton and her ilk is going to do all the chasing off that gets done, and that's going to be significant enough, but Stein, et.al. needs to get the net into the surf and scoop.

There's more to say and to link to, but if I wrote any longer then nobody would, you know, be able to finish reading it all or fully digest what's already in this.  So I'll probably have a fourth edition of RNU by this weekend.

Runoff voting period opens; P Slate isn't enthused

Readers made inquiries over the past few days, and I responded pithily that I wasn't all that interested in local Democratic politics, politicians, and low participation runoffs any longer.  But I realized we have to pick a county sheriff candidate, a state railroad commission candidate/ sacrificial lamb, and  a couple of county judges, so I took out my mailings and consulted a few folks online, then I went and voted about noon yesterday at the Fiesta on Kirby.

About fifty had already done so ahead of me; two or three came and went while I was there, which was less than 5 minutes.  It took me longer to walk in from the parking lot and to sign in than it did to cast my ballot.  According to the spreadsheet I got from Stan Stanart last night after the polls closed, that was half of the 104 who also showed yesterday at the grocery store and made their voices heard.

The only one I had to ponder was sheriff.  I was originally in the bank for Ed Gonzalez, but Cody Pogue wrote something thoughtful that made me consider -- but ultimately reject -- Jerome Moore.  He's a fine candidate and would make an excellent sheriff if elected, and so will Gonzalez.

I voted for Cody Garrett for RR, quite obviously.  Fredericka Phillips is a nice lady but she's already a vice chair in the TDP, a DNC member and allegedly an uncommitted superdelegate, and that's just too much establishment cred for me so I voted for her opponent, Julie Countiss.

I flipped a coin for the other judgeship on my ballot and it came up Rabeea Collier.

JoAnn Storey and Cheryl Elliott Thornton are running against two of the lousiest people holding office in Harris County (whom I won't name again, it just gets old having to mention electeds that seem to lack basic morals or values), so vote for these women and not the incumbents.

I don't get to decide between Jarvis Johnson and Kim Willis in HD-139, but if I did, Willis would be far and away the best choice.

Charles runs down the data you need to cast your ballot (you'll get some of these races but not all of them, like I did) and Stace lists his preferences.

The Weekly Tinkle Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance would like for everyone to be able to pee in peace as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff is encouraged by a surge in voter registration from people who can't wait to vote against Donald Trump.

Libby Shaw, attending a roast of Dan Patrick at Daily Kos, received a fair share of push back when she suggested GOP primary voters defaulted to Trump because most of them understand that they've been conned by the GOP establishment. They lost because they serve billionaires. Voters finally figured it out.

SocraticGadfly looks at the Texas Supreme Court's school finance ruling and says Texas GOP voters have reaped what they have sown.

Dos Centavos expresses outrage about the administration's latest immigrant raids, and hopes that Bernie Sanders delegates to state conventions will hold fast -- and hold the Clinton delegation's feet to the fire -- on deportation issues.

A new report on fracking setback distances in Texas shows them to be inadequate, according to Txsharon at Bluedaze.

jobsanger listicles the two biggest lies Republicans tell about employment.

Egberto Willies passes along a Washington Times story about Newt Gingrich, which says that he would "probably" accept a VP slot with Donald Trump if asked.

Texas Vox says that if you are concerned about a chemical explosion similar to the one in West happening in your town, consider writing to the EPA.  Because our state government simply isn't going to do anything.

The difference between murder and manslaughter is "I didn't mean to", observes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at All People Have Value sees a lot of value in everyday life. You should as well. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

And John Coby at Bay Area Houston eulogized Carl Whitmarsh.

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

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

Chris Hooks at the Texas Observer writes about the Lyin' Ted in winter.

The WAWG Blog has a few questions for millennial Sandernistas, on behalf of boomer ones.

Grit for Breakfast asks: What does an Austin cop have to do to get charged with official oppression? Something worse than Tasering a confused, homeless man lying on the ground?

Lawflog passes on the latest from Booger (aka Robertson) County, which details a few liars, thieves and sore losers.

Lone Star Ma highlights the 10th of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): "Reduce inequality within and among countries."

Space City Weather salutes the Addicks and Barker reservoirs for their stalwart flood mitigation.

The Great God Pan Is Dead updates us on the Rokudenashiko case.

Phyllis Randolph Frye explains what the law really says about bathrooms.  And Cody Pogue would like us all to get over our bathroom issues already.

John Nova Lomax questions Houston ISD's school renamings.

BOR frets that the combination of Zika virus and anti-abortion laws could have a large and negative effect on public health in Texas.

Everything Lubbock takes note of the Hockley County game warden who got a laugh out of a woman reporting a chupacabra sighting there.

And Pages of Victory shares some of his unpopular notions.

Obama's eight years of war

Nobel Peace Prize winner and war president.

President Obama came into office seven years ago pledging to end the wars of his predecessor, George W. Bush. On May 6, with eight months left before he vacates the White House, Mr. Obama passed a somber, little-noticed milestone: He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president.

If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama’s term — a near-certainty given the president’s recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria — he will leave behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war.

Mr. Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 and spent his years in the White House trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate, would have a longer tour of duty as a wartime president than Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon or his hero Abraham Lincoln.

The greatest fear every future president will continue to have in the post 9/11 period, at least for the next 25 years or more, is being held accountable -- politically or otherwise -- for not "keeping Americans safe" from terrorists.

'My primary job is to keep our country safe' is a line repeated in various iterations often by this president.  It has translated into the extrajudicial killing of American citizens via drone for the crime of posting inflammatory YouTube videos, the crafting of so-called heroes like Chris Kyle who shoot down women and children with Oswald-ish precision via long-range sniper rifle, and by responding to theocratic guerilla warriors in five separate countries -- not counting whatever we're doing in Syria -- with an Israeli-like hamhandedness that only breeds more of the same.

America's former top diplomat under this president -- the person whose mission is to avoid war and bombings and such -- has already promised to unilaterally strike Iran if she is elected president.  She wanted to "big-stick" China, and that was too much for Obama.

(Former SecDef Robert) Gates laid out the case for diverting the (aircraft carrier) George Washington to the Yellow Sea: that the United States should not look as if it was yielding to China. Clinton strongly seconded it. “We’ve got to run it up the gut!” she had said to her aides a few days earlier. The Vince Lombardi imitation drew giggles from her staff, who, even 18 months into her tenure, still marveled at her pugnacity.

Obama, though, was not persuaded. The George Washington was already underway; changing its course was not a decision to make on the fly.

“I don’t call audibles with aircraft carriers,” he said — unwittingly one-upping Clinton on her football metaphor.

When I read people writing about Hillary's strength in foreign policy, I wince.  (That's a cringing liberal admission for my friend J. R. Behrman.)  'Foreign policy' these days -- if you're not including global trade pacts that hollow out the middle-class -- means more war: more drone killings, more long-range jets bombing more places, more special forces boots on the ground infiltrating, patrolling, shooting and dying.  A more technological and precise imperialism beyond longbows, or blankets laced with smallpox, or mustard gas, or P-51 Mustangs and B-29 Superfortresses, or even Fat Men and Little Boys, but psychopathic imperialism nonetheless.

His managing continuous war over the course of his time in office has occasionally replaced the failure to use his political capital to get universal single-payer done, in terms of my greatest objection with this administration -- and the next one -- but at the moment it's the perpetuity of this most exceptional American legacy I dread the most.

Sunday Funnies

The difference between murder and manslaughter

is "I didn't mean to".   (IANAL)

Even if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's motives for having a homebrew server were far from nefarious, "mistakes were made" and somebody must -- and will -- be held accountable.  There's eventually going to be a fall guy/gal, and today my money's on Cheryl Mills, known as the only person who says 'no' to Hillary.

Sandy Berger -- Bill Clinton's former NSA advisor -- paid a $50,000 fine, performed 100 hours of community service, lost his security clearance and his law license, all for stuffing classified documents down his pants.  David Petraeus similarly got his charges reduced to a misdemeanor, with a $100,000 fine and two years of probation for sharing classified info with his mistress/ biographer.  (He was not demoted in rank after some deliberation of that consequence by the former secretary of the Army and secretary of defense Ashton Carter, and receives a $220,000 annual lifetime military pension.)

Both cases angered investigating agents because of the leniency of punishment.

From what I can tell and from what Clinton's IT professional Bryan Pagliano may or may not be saying as a result of his immunity from prosecution, Hillary very likely is -- like Berger and Petraeus -- criminally responsible for the "mishandling of classified data".  The conversation about what is, what is not, and/or what should be classified data or not is a word-definition distraction that nobody, not even the most sycophantic of Clinton supporters, is indulging in any longer.

As we know, people who are guilty of a crime are not always prosecuted for it in the American judicial system, and whether she is eventually indicted or not, whether misdemeanor or felony if so, is to be determined by the conclusions and recommendations of the FBI's investigation, director Comey, AG Lynch, and I suspect even Barack Obama himself.

(Insert "Law and Order"'s DUNH-DUNH sound effect here.)

If Guccifer is telling the truth -- and can provide evidence that backs up his allegations -- the only question I have left is: what should Clinton's penalty be for mishandling classified data?  For the record I hold no illusions that Andrew Napolitano is serious when he says the Russians are coming with 20,000 of her emails.

My final concern about this matter is when we will have the conclusions of the investigation made public: before November... or after.

Kindly note that I draw no conclusions about political consequences, though that will be at the forefront of everyone's reaction.  Once we know what we do not know today, whenever that may be.

(Too dramatic?)

Update: Hillary's got a long and tortured road ahead, no matter the outcome of the email business.

Scared, bickering Democrats update

-- It's a Breitbart production, but that's not going to draw as much ridicule as it should.

“Clinton Cash,” premiering at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, is a “devastating” documentary, according to MSNBC, alleging Bill and Hillary Clinton used the Clinton Foundation to “help billionaires make shady deals around the world with corrupt dictators, all while enriching themselves to the tune of millions.”



The film, written and produced by Breitbart News executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon and directed by M.A. Taylor, is based on the New York Times bestselling book of the same name (subtitled “The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich”) by Peter Schweizer.

MSNBC got an “exclusive first look” at the documentary, which is strategically set to hit U.S. theaters on July 24, one day before the start of the Democratic National Convention:

“The movie alleges that Bill Clinton cut a wide swathe through some of the most impoverished and corrupt areas of the world — the South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, India and Haiti among others — riding in on private jets with billionaires who called themselves philanthropists but were actually bent on plundering the countries and lining their own pockets.

“In return, billionaire pals like Frank Giustra and Gilbert Chagoury, or high-tech companies like Swedish telecom giant Ericsson or Indian nuclear energy officials — to name just a few mentioned in the film — hired Clinton to speak at often $750,000 a pop …”

Yes, it's very, very harsh.

One of the most damning follow-ups to Schweizer’s most startling accusation — that Vladimir Putin wound up controlling 20 percent of American uranium after a complex series of deals involving cash flowing to the Clinton Foundation and the help of Secretary of State Clinton — was printed in The New York Times.

Like Schweizer, the Times found no hard evidence in the form of an email or any document proving a quid pro quo between the Clintons, Clinton Foundation donors or Russian officials. (Schweizer has maintained that it’s next to impossible to find a smoking gun but said there is a troubling “pattern of behavior” that merits a closer examination.)

But the Times concluded that the deal that brought Putin closer to his goal of controlling all of the world’s uranium supply is an “untold story … that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.”

“Other news outlets built on what I uncovered and some of that is in the film,” Schweizer, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, told NBC News Tuesday. “To me the key message is that while U.S. politics has long been thought to be a dirty game, it was always played by Americans. What the Clinton Foundation has done is open an avenue by which foreign investors can influence a chief U.S. diplomat. The film may spell all this out to people in a way the book did not and it may reach a whole new audience.”

-- As you might have predicted, Clinton surrogates have lashed back ... at Bernie Sanders.

Pressure is mounting on Bernie Sanders to end his campaign for president, with Democratic Party leaders raising alarms that his continued presence in the race is undermining efforts to beat presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump this fall.

[...]

"I don't think they think of the downside of this," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a Clinton supporter who hosted the 2008 meeting that brokered post-primary peace between Clinton and then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

"It's actually harmful because she can't make that general-election pivot the way she should," Feinstein said. "Trump has made that pivot."

Clinton, her aides and supporters have largely resisted calling on Sanders to drop out, noting that she fought her 2008 primary bid again Obama well into June. But now that Trump has locked up the Republican nomination, they fear the billionaire businessman is capitalizing on Sanders' decision to remain in the race by echoing his attacks and trying to appeal to the same independent, economically frustrated voters that back the Vermont senator.

"I would just hope that he would understand that we need to begin consolidating our vote sooner rather than later," said New York Rep. Steve Israel, a Clinton backer and former chief of efforts to elect Democrats to the House. "Democrats cannot wait too long."

Though Clinton has for the past few weeks largely focused her rhetoric on Trump, campaign aides say the two-front effort hampers their ability to target both Sanders supporters and Republican-leaning independents that may be open to her candidacy. It also means she's spending time in primary states, rather than battlegrounds that will decide the general election.

'Please do not moan to me about Hillary Clinton's problems'. 

While they can talk up Clinton, Sanders' determination to contest every state remaining has kept Obama and Vice President Joe Biden largely on the sidelines, benching two of her most powerful advocates.

"It all sort of slows the takeoff of her general-election campaign," said Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a member of the party's liberal wing from a perennial battleground.

Sanders is having none of it, frequently telling the thousands of supporters who attend his rallies that he still has a narrow path to the nomination.

"Please do not moan to me about Hillary Clinton's problems," Sanders said in a recent interview with MSNBC. "It is a steep hill to climb, but we're going to fight for every last vote."

Coffee's brewed, Berners.

Yet there is no question his campaign is on its last legs. His fundraising dropped by about 40 percent last month and he's laid off hundreds of staffers. Biden said this week he "feels confident" that Clinton will be the nominee. Even Obama is pointing out the realities of the delegate math, which puts Clinton on track to capture the nomination early next month.

By every measure, Clinton is handily winning the Democratic contest. She has won 23 states to Sanders' 19, capturing 3 million more votes than her rival along the way. She has 94 percent of the delegates needed to win the nomination, which means she could lose all the states left to vote by a landslide and still emerge as the nominee — so long as all her supporters among the party insiders known as superdelegates continue to back her.

Oh, let's go ahead and catch a little moaning, shall we?

White House officials believe Obama has the ability to coax some die-hard Sanders' fans into the Clinton camp, particularly young people and liberals. But if he moves before Clinton officially captures the nomination, he risks angering those voters and undermining that effort.

Clinton faces a similar calculus. While her international expertise could attract foreign policy-focused Republicans and suburban women, highlighting her record on those issues now might encourage Sanders to resurrect attacks on her vote in favor of the Iraq war.

"When his rhetoric takes a sharper tone against her, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "I know that can be used as ammunition."

Okay, that's all the moaning I can take.  How about you?

-- Anonymous Congress critter, allegedly a Democrat, is about to spill the beans on exactly how corrupt Congress has become.

A forthcoming book called The Confessions of Congressman X, purportedly written by a sitting (and rumored to be Democratic) congressman, promises to be an anonymous revelation of everything terrible you've always suspected about America's representatives in Washington. Choice quotes about Congress include:

• "Most of my colleagues are dishonest career politicians who revel in the power and special-interest money that's lavished upon them."
• "My main job is to keep my job, to get reelected. It takes precedence over everything."
• "Fundraising is so time consuming I seldom read any bills I vote on. Like many of my colleagues, I don't know how the legislation will be implemented, or what it'll cost."

But voters aren't spared his poison pen, either:

• "The average man on the street actually thinks he influences how I vote. Unless it's a hot-button issue, his thoughts are generally meaningless. I'll politely listen, but I follow the money."
• "Voters are incredibly ignorant and know little about our form of government and how it works."
• "It's far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification."

The Confessions of Congressman X is published by Mill City Press, a vanity imprint in Minnesota, and will be available on May 24.

Sounds a lot like Alan Grayson to me.  I'd love to see Grayson in the Senate (he's running against the Bluest of Dogs, you know) and I'm just sorry Harry Reid won't be around next year to get his ass whipped by an actual fighting progressive.

Let's try to focus on the easy job, Dems: flipping the Senate.  Screwing that up really ought to be more difficult than losing the White House to Trump, shouldn't it?