Sunday Funnies

Revolution News Update, Vol. 4 Surrender Bernie edition

(Yesterday), Chris Cuomo had the temerity to use conditional language in speaking of Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming the Democratic nominee for President.

It didn’t go over well.

The relevant portion of the transcript is below:

CUOMO (CNN): So you get into the general election, if you’re the nominee for your party, and —

CLINTON: I will be the nominee for my party, Chris. That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I won’t be.

CUOMO: There’s a Senator from Vermont who has a different take on that —

CLINTON: Well —

CUOMO: He says he’s going to fight to the end —

CLINTON: Yeah, it’s strange.

It’s hard to take Clinton’s first comment as anything but a statement that nothing California could possibly do in its primary could change the outcome of the Democratic race — even though it’s now widely accepted that Clinton can’t win the primary with pledged delegates alone. This means that the Democratic nomination will be decided by super-delegates, who don’t vote for more than two months — at the Democratic National Convention, to be held in Philadelphia on July 25th. As the DNC has repeatedly advised the media, those super-delegates can and often do change their minds — and are free to do so up until they actually vote this summer.

CNN analyst Carl Bernstein noted several times Wednesday night that between mid-May and late July countless things could happen that would cause super-delegates to move toward Sanders en masse.

Seth Abramson is a dreamer, a bit ungrounded, but it's the Queen's reality I'm having more trouble with.  Just a bit too dictatorial for my taste.  "California, your votes won't be counted because they don't matter"?  Once upon a time -- not too long ago, in this galaxy -- Democrats called tactics like that voter suppression and disenfranchisement.

I had a brief conversation with one of David Brock's employees on Twitter this past week, mentioned something about 'tyranny of the majority", she didn't know what that meant and refused to try to figure it out.  You can't make the horse's asses drink the water.

My two observations about Hillbot behavior this cycle are 1) they just don't care that she's a war-mongering, lying, corporate shill, and 2) they see people like me saying things like that about Hillary as a personal attack upon themselves.  This is chosen ignorance.  The blind who will not see.

It's hard to hold them fully accountable for their obtuseness and misdirected anger when it is coming directly from the top.  I'm trying real hard, Ringo, to give 'em a pass, but on some level the only thing left to do is disengage.  That's what I have done and am doing with the worst and dumbest among their lot.

-- Maha:

I told someone this morning that it’s starting to feel like 1971 again; Sanders supporters are the antiwar movement, and the Democratic Party and its loyalists are the Nixon Administration. What should have been a temporary disagreement is turning into a generation-changing moment that will hurt the Democratic Party for years to come.

It feels more like 1980 to me, with Sanders as Ted Kennedy and Clinton as Jimmy Carter.  That ugly split in the Democratic Party gave us Ronald Reagan, and the Dems, in their shock, awe, and fear turned toward more autocratic, top-down authority in their candidate selection process, aka superdelegates, the unelected Democratic nobility.

What parties do tend to do is to react to the last election. 1972 was a real trauma for the Democrats—the beginning of the end of the New Deal coalition. Then Jimmy Carter loses in 1980—two Republican landslides in 10 years. In each case, the Democrats were very unhappy with their nominees and their president, for different reasons. They thought George McGovern was too far to the left, that his coalition alienated the regular party and so on. 1972 was also what created the Reagan Democrats who by 1980 were voting Republican.

[...]

How did the bitter fight between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination in 1980 figure in the Hunt Commission’s deliberations?

It was a particularly ugly fight that left very deep wounds in the party. As those floor debates were going on and Kennedy was making his statement speech, there were no party leaders on the floor. There was nobody there to put things back together.

The McGovern-Fraser reforms were aimed at opening up the party to other factions, particularly the anti-war faction in the late ’60s and early ’70s. But that didn’t mean that they wanted to cut out the entire party apparatus, which is what happened. A lot of what the Hunt Commission talked about was restoring the balance at the nominating convention.

The Hunt Commission brought the theory of superdelegates into practice; that, as Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has enunciated, "Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists."

Those dirty hippies.  Freaking peasants, what do they know?

-- The Bradblog interviews Jill Stein on their most recent podcast, which means you can listen to it at your leisure.  Here's bit from it.

"The guys running the show in the Democratic Party are basically the funders --- and that's predatory banks, fossil fuel giants, war profiteers, and insurance companies," Stein tells me. "With the Democratic Party you see basically a 'fake left-go right' situation, where they allow principled, inspired campaigns to stand up and be seen, but they sabotage them when push comes to shove. That, unfortunately, is what we see going on right now with the Sanders campaign, which is making a valiant effort here to do the right thing and change the party."

[...]

"This politics of fear that tells you you have to vote against what you're afraid of, instead of for what you believe in --- the politics of fear has a track record. It has delivered everything we were afraid of. All of the things you were told you had to bite your tongue and let the 'lesser evil' speak for you --- we've gotten all those things, by the droves. The expanding wars, the meltdown of the climate, the offshoring of our jobs, the attack on immigrants. We've gotten all of that." Stein says. "Not that there aren't some differences between the two parties, but they're not enough to save your life, to save your job, or to save your planet. This is a race to the bottom between the two sold-out corporate parties."

-- And just so we don't leave anybody out: Gary Johnson of the Libertarians has picked his running mate for 2016, and it's former Massachusetts Governor William Weld.  That's the #NeverTrump wing of the GOP's very best option.  Need to do what I can again to help those folks along, if only so that the Hillbots don't keep hatin' on the player, and not the plutocratic game.

Related to that, a report that the Koch Bros would funding the Johnson-Weld ticket to an eight-figure tune was gently denied by the campaign.

Five and a half months to go 'til November, the TDP state convention in a month -- I predict another Hillaryian shitshow like Nevada, what with the odious Gilberto Hinojosa already spreading his hate of Sandernistas in a now-deleted FB post -- and then the disrupting going on at both national conventions this summer.  Hurricanes or no, we're in for a really rough ride.

And starring Ron Reynolds as Ken Paxton

Hasn't been within disgust tolerance limits for me to weigh in on, so thanks to the Observer for doing the dirty job.  The only difference between this guy and the AG is he's playing the race card instead of the 'persecuted Christian' card.

If Texas state Representative Ron Reynolds loses his fight against a 2015 conviction for ambulance chasing, the popular Fort Bend County Democrat may go to jail. But the three-term House member is running for reelection anyway — and using the conviction, which he says is racially motivated, as fuel for his campaign.

No wait, it's the Clarence Thomas card.

Since Reynolds’ conviction, which was handed down by a Montgomery County jury in November, the incumbent has [been] saying that he was “singled out because of [his] status as an African-American elected official.” He has also characterized the conviction as a “modern-day lynching” coming from a predominantly white county.

“Those are strong words,” Reynolds told Houston’s ABC affiliate. “I believe that this was so severe in the way that they went after me, and the way they went out to attack my character. They wanted nothing more than to paint me as a bad, bad black politician.”

Mustafa Tameez, a Houston area communications and public affairs consultant, says the conviction seems to be working in Reynolds’ favor.

“We’re seeing scandals, rather than [negatively] affecting the candidates, are becoming a rallying cry to galvanize the base,” he said. “There is a tactic in American politics now, that if you attack the media and you attack the system … that your primary electoral base is likely to give you a pass.”

Tell me about those differences between the GOP and the Dems again?

It’s a strategy that’s worked well for Republicans in recent months. In his run to secure the GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked reporters. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who has come under fire for spending taxpayer dollars on personal trips, has attributed his troubles to the “liberal left” attacking his Christian beliefs.

And then there’s Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was facing a potential securities fraud indictment during his 2014 runoff against Dan Branch. He still managed to win 66 percent of the vote. In July 2015 — seven months after taking office — he was formally indicted and now faces an additional federal lawsuit.

Like Reynolds, Paxton is vowing to fight the charges to the end.

It's gone like this for a long time now for Reynolds.

Reynolds entered his first primary race with more than just a conviction: Former clients have filed multiple lawsuits alleging legal malpractice, and he’s racking up significant legal expenses. Reynolds also can’t practice law during his appeal, and the Houston Chronicle called for him to drop out of the House race.

I'm sure it's all a conspiracy.

I just can't tolerate this kind of behavior as well as I used to.  If Democrats want this kind of person representing them, then that's on them.

Reynolds has the support of Houston bigwigs such as Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and state Representative Senfronia Thompson, and says dropping out would be a “disservice” to his constituents.

“The people here they think I’m doing a great job,” he said. “So why would I appease a small fraction of my constituents that don’t want to see me in office?”

Don Bankston, chairman of the Fort Bend County Democrats, describes HD 27 voters as intensely loyal, and many give Reynolds a pass.“Most people don’t relate to [ambulance chasing], they don’t see a real issue with it,” Bankston said.

That's almost exactly what RNC head Reince Preibus said about Trump and women on This Weak with Snufflelugas last Sunday morning.  Congratulations, Mr. Chairman; you've also passed your sell-by date.

Hazel Lundy, a 65-year-old Fort Bend County precinct judge and Democrat, has supported Reynolds “since day one.” Rather than the legal issues, Lundy judges Reynolds on his legislative record, especially his joint sponsorship of a bill expanding the use of police body cameras. While Lundy hesitates to call the conviction racially motivated, the way officials orchestrated Reynolds’ arrest — complete with a grey and black striped jumpsuit and handcuffs — gave her pause.

“Some of that is a bit disturbing,” she said. “I don’t want to call everything racial … but even a blind eye could see some of that.”

Reynolds and his supporters haven't just blamed the vagaries of the criminal justice system with respect to black folks, which is a legitimate concern that Reynolds has parlayed into a sympathetic appeal for himself.  What's happening to Rep. Reynolds and what happened to Sandra Bland are not comparable.

He and his runoff challenger, Angelique Bartholomew, have gone at each other hammer and tong.

Bartholomew also frequently reminds voters of Reynolds’ legal rapsheet, and Reynolds has starting firing back, highlighting Bartholomew’s four bankruptcies, which she largely attributed to the economic downturn.

Reynolds has also targeted Bartholomew’s 2005 involvement with a local Republican organization, which she confirmed, adding that she got involved at a time before she became interested in politics. She told the Observer she’s “definitely” progressive, supporting Medicaid expansion, increases to public education funding, and birth control and abortion access.

“In the process of getting active and volunteering in the community, I worked with Republican women, and I still will work with Republican women,” she said. “I work with women, and I think that women’s issues are unique to any other issue.”

Reynolds nearly won the first round with 48.5 percent of the vote, and conventional political wisdom says an incumbent would be in serious danger in a runoff.  But this part of Fort Bend County isn't conventional.

Bartholomew, who is also African American, and Reynolds are fighting to represent Texas House District 27, one of the fastest growing counties in the country. The predominantly African American and Hispanic district is home to about 170,000 voters and hasn’t seen a Democratic primary since 2010, when Reynolds beat seven-term incumbent Dora Olivo.

So I expect to see Reynolds sent back to Austin to represent the people of the 27th... for as long as he can stay out of prison, that is.

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?

TXGOP convention has secession, bathroom wars on agenda

And maybe a Trump drop-in (see below).

DALLAS - On the day before Texas Republicans were poised to open their biennial convention where delegates will pick the hottest issues they believe their Red State government should address, longtime party member Bert Keller quickly ticked off his top five. He would empower conservative, Christian principles in government; abolish firearms licenses; secure the border; cut taxes; and limit access to public restrooms for transgender people.

"Talk is cheap. It's time for action," said the Dallas family-business owner and tea party activist who said he plans to vote his conscience as an alternate delegate at the statewide meeting. "This party represents the real grass roots, and that's what the grass roots want - action."

A few steps away, Houstonian Jeanette Porter, wearing a red jacket and GOP scarf, shook her head.

"Standing up for conservative values is one thing. Crazy issues are another," she said, arguing briefly with Keller on the gun-license and restroom issues. "I vote to get away from the people who have been sniffing paint."

God, I wish I had said that.  Looks like Ms. Porter picked the wrong weekend to try to kick the habit, though.

To some, the state's Grand Old Party appears a bit fractured in its focus, as the ultra-conservative tea party influence becomes the mainstream and as party leaders seek to retain their hold on Texas politics, even as shifting national trends suggest that some of the GOP's hard-line stances on immigration, same-sex marriage and voter ID may not be playing as well as they once did.

Examples abound.

While Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton have blasted transgender restroom mandates in recent days to the applause of many Republicans, others see little urgency in the issue.

While Gov. Greg Abbott is pushing a national campaign for a Convention of States to reframe the Constitution to give states more power over the federal government, tea party factions argue Abbott's plan would needlessly risk a disastrous liberal rewrite.

Even though it stands no chance of approval, the issue of whether Texas should secede from the United States, a plank that some activists want in the state party's platform, appears set to get a hearing before the full convention.

Even the race for party chairman has taken a nasty turn, with a mailer supporting Houston lawyer Jared Woodfill accusing current state chair Tom Mechler of Amarillo of "supporting a homosexual agenda."

"The Homo Agenda" is as old as Betty Bowers (who's been in assisted living for a decade now, but was once a dead ringer for state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst).  Charles has gotten his heavy bag work in already on the state chair race, so I'll throw some roundhouse kicks at a few other 'highlights' of the weekend coming up.

Robert Gelman, a onetime Cruz supporter, stood in a corner of the convention hotel Wednesday surrounded by Trump "Make America Great Again" campaign signs and agreed that getting a Republican elected president is the only thing that counts. Several delegates booed the signs as they passed Gellman.

"This has been a love-fest for Ted for the past four years, since he got elected to the U.S. Senate, and this year will be a welcome-home, job-well-done reception for the man who we respect as a true movement conservative," said Gelman, a Fort Worth businessman and self-identified tea party realist. "Ted led the fight to change government. Republicans are doing that. Donald Trump will do that. We must stop the Obama-crats. They are ruining the country."

It has failed to seep in over the past 3.5 years that Obama isn't running for president, isn't taking their guns, isn't a Kenyan Muslim socialist.  Horse's asses led to water and all that.  But hey, some of those in attendance may actually boo Trump -- let's keep our Twitter eyes peeled for whether that happens, if he should indeed show up -- so I suppose we should count that as progress.

Dan Patrick is prepared to general the War on Peeing and Pooping in Public, which will be 2016's rallying cry for Republicans from sea to shining sea.  Trumpeting 'freedom' while performing some kind of inspection on those who suffer the unfortunate consequence of having to urinate or defecate away from home isn't a battle to be left on the fields of North Carolina.

(I really wanted to save that one for Sunday.)

Ted Cruz still hasn't endorsed Drumpf; will that happen at his 'hero's welcome' today or tomorrow?  Will some intrepid reporter inquire of Governor Abbott (with regard to the West fertilizer plant explosion now being classified as a criminal act) whether his 2014 advice for citizens to "drive around" and ask about ammonium nitrate stored near their homes is still recommended?  Can Rick Perry and Judge Roy Moore light a fire under the Texas Eagle Forum's Christian soldiers that's hot enough to get Jared Woodfill elected chairman?  Will the secessionists' resolution carry the day?  And if so, can they please hurry up and GTFO of the USA before November, so that the state's electoral votes won't count in this year's presidential election?

(Also yesterday), the Platform Committee of the Texas Republican Party voted to put a Texas independence resolution up for a vote at this week's GOP convention, according to a press release from the pro-secession Texas Nationalist Movement. The resolution calls for allowing voters to decide whether the Lone Star State should become an independent nation.

For all you Berners saying you'll stay home on Election Day: this is what happens when you do.  You have a fresh chance coming up on the calendar to avoid being ruled by your inferiors.

Boy, that's a lot of bullshit that's going to have to be blogged.  Documenting the Texas conservative atrocities is a damned dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

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.