Tag: Political Failure

Only Certain Dems Are Welcome

I see for all their cheer leading about the Dems candidates I see they have reverted back to doing what they always do……only certain Dems are welcome on their process.

Have you heard that the high number of candidates can only be good for the party? Well do not believe it…it is the typical bullsh*t they always do and try to limit the candidates to those that meet a centrist criteria……

The process begins with the second deabte…only certain people can be included…..

The Democratic National Committee is upping the ante for its second round of presidential primary debates, doubling the polling and grassroots fundraising requirements from its initial summer debates. The parameters, announced Wednesday, are likely to help cull a crop of 24 candidates and, in the process, intensify scrutiny on Democratic Chairman Tom Perez and his pledge to give all candidates a chance to be heard. The DNC’s outline for its Sept. 12 debate decrees that candidates can participate only by reaching 2% in four approved polls released between June 28 and Aug. 28 while also collecting contributions from a minimum of 130,000 unique donors before Aug. 28. That donor list must include a minimum of 400 individuals in at least 20 states, reports the AP.

The top of the field likely would not be threatened by upping the threshold. That includes Joe Biden; Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren; Beto O’Rourke; and Pete Buttigieg. However, the other candidates, including more senators and several governors, remain jumbled at or near the lower thresholds set for the first round of debates, which are June 26-27 in Miami and July 30-31 in Detroit. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and author Marianne Williamson have attracted significant small-donor fundraising but have yet to hit 2% in most polls. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has struggled with fundraising and might have trouble clearing 2% consistently in polls. Jay Inslee just hit the 65,000-donor mark but would have to increase his pace to reach 130,000 by the Aug. 28 deadline, and he’s also rarely checked in at higher than 1% in polls.

The DNC is at it yet again….rigging the process in favor of certain candidates.

This process will give the voter candidates that mirror the issues of Hillary and that was a loser for Dems and 2020 will be no different.

Without the so-called “fringe” candidates then the party would have NO usable policies and will have nothing to offer but a replay of 2016 when Hillary was their candidate…… she was short on policies other than her right to rule…..

The DNC is making true progressives the enemy….the operative word is “Progressives”……not those mamby pamby liberals that like to call themselves progressives…..the DNC is choosing those over true progressives.

Why would they do this?

The young voter are leaning more Left than their older counterparts…and the DNC is running scared…..

“There is a mysterious cycle in human events,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt, accepting the Democratic nomination for president in Philadelphia in 1936. “To some generations much is given. Of others much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”

In the 20th century, many sociologists and historians flirted with the idea that generational changes could explain U.S. politics. The historians Arthur Schlesinger Sr. and Jr. wrote about “cycles of American history,” arguing that, as the generations turn, American politics rotates inexorably between liberal and conservative consensus. More recently, a new generational scheme has come into vogue. William Strauss and Neil Howe’s theory of the “fourth turning” predicts a crisis and a major political realignment every 80 to 90 years. (Strauss and Howe were briefly in the spotlight in 2016 after Steve Bannon praised their work.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/coming-generation-war/588670/

Keep an eye on the DNC…they are showing the voter just how they will lose the 2020 election.

Enjoy the ride!

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

 

The Russian “Problem”

We know that there is a tug of war going on between Left and Right (not a true analogy but will work for the limited mentality of Trump followers)…..on one side Russia is an evil entity sitting there feasting on the US cyber world and then on the other hand Russia is just a fake topic meant to bring down the Dear Leader from his Ivory Tower (the White House).

But let’s look at the Russian thing…..

The United States is – still – the world’s most powerful and most wealthy country. It cannot and will not be brought to its knees by a band of alleged mercenary Russian hackers, oligarchs and intelligence operatives, though they likely had some kind of distorting effect.

No, the assault on American democracy and its global standing originated not in Moscow but in Washington, and across the length and breadth of the United States. Like the Soviet Empire before it, America is crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions, its imperial hubris, and its squandering of vast amounts of resources to enrich the very few at the expense of the very, very, very, very many – both abroad and at home.

Russia did not create Donald Trump, the brash, abrasive and corrupt opportunist and grifter.  Russia did not transform this self-centered and self-serving business tyrant into a counter-factual television and (social) media sensation, admired by millions, who has been marketing hollow image without any substance and peddling falsehoods for decades.

Russia did not put a gun to the heads of white, conservative voters and force them to elect an alleged billionaire with zero political experience and zero interest in the plight of other people as someone who would “drain the swamp” as the representative of ordinary folk.

Even suggesting that Russia was responsible for the brainwashing of the Republican electorate would be to give it way too much credit, and too little credit to homegrown propagandists, polemicists and twisters of truth. Of course, Moscow is an old hand at fake news and propaganda. But Sputnik and RT have limited reach in America and can simply not compete with the likes of Fox News and Sinclair for the hearts and minds of Middle America.

It all comes down to the US and its self-inflicted political wounds over the decades.

This Russian thing is a bit much……not to take anything away from the on-going investigations but could we move on from this…….yes there is other stuff happening around the world that could be used to fill the time on air….just a thought.

But let’s take a look…shall we?

Cold War Two is thriving, having been initiated and fostered by West and especially by the Pentagon and much of Congress, whose members benefit enormously from cash donations by weapons’ manufacturers whose generosity so far this election cycle has totaled $19,332,442 in traceable hand-outs.  The Pentagon is reported as having calculated that “overseas weapons sales by US firms rose $8.3 billion from 2016 to 2017, with American arms makers moving a total of $41.9 billion in advanced weaponry to foreign militaries last year.”  There is profit in supporting confrontation.

Development of the new Cold War was described succinctly in February 2018 by Stephen F Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, in that “[President] Clinton pursued winner-take-all policies consistent with viewing Russia as a defeated power, presiding over a massive intrusive crusade to shape that former rival into ‘the Russia we want’;  beginning the expansion of NATO, now on Russia’s borders; and bombing Moscow’s traditional Slav ally Serbia in 1999, despite Yeltsin’s protests. Indeed, the extreme vilification of Putin by former members of the Clinton administration, including Hillary Clinton, who equated him with Hitler, are not unrelated to their unwise Russia policies of the 1990s — loudly applauded, it should be added, by media journalists now also in the forefront of demonizing the current Kremlin leader.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/27/keeping-russia-as-an-enemy/

The Urban Institute | The Unwaged War on Deep Poverty

There are many that shove their heads……in the sand when it comes to poverty.  Too many think that since they are doing fine the damn country is in good shape.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, Johnson’s War on Poverty is a failure….but that blame cannot fall on his shoulders alone……every prez since LBJ is responsible for the failure……

Let’s take a look at DEEP POVERTY!

The Urban Institute | The Unwaged War on Deep Poverty.

Obama DID Have Some Success

The media has been all over the so called “failures” of Obama in his first year as president….health reform….cap and trade….card check…..although I do not consider anything a failure on his part, just business as usual in Washington…..but beyond that some attention should be drawn to what some call his first year successes……

Thanx to mediamatters.org for the list….my commentary will be in italics…..

Passing stimulus, generating jobs. On February 17, 2009, Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus bill into law. In December 2009, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a report estimating that “in the third quarter of calendar year 2009, an additional 600,000 to 1.6 million people were employed in the United States” due to that legislation. According to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, CBO has increased its estimate to 800,000 to 2.4 million additional employed through the fourth quarter of that year. Moreover, a November 20, 2009, New York Times article reported that the “consensus” among “dispassionate analysts” is that “the stimulus package, messy as it is, is working,” citing nonpartisan analyses of gross domestic product and total employment figures by several companies specializing in economic forecasting.  This was wasted money…the plan should have been to create demand, not liquidity for the banks…….l

Eliminating wasteful spending. Obama was able to achieve some significant cuts to wasteful spending — most notably, the elimination of the F-22 fighter jet program after he successfully lobbied the Senate to vote to strip out financing for more jets from a defense funding authorization bill. The Washington Times reported on January 14 that Obama won “60 percent of his proposed cuts” and also managed “to get Congress to ax several programs that had bedeviled President George W. Bush for years.”   Another good idea……unfortunately the “savings” will come from much needed domestic programs….while the biggest bureaucracies will continue with their feeding frenzy of taxpayer money…..

Sotomayor nomination. On May 26, 2009, Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to replace the retiring Justice David Souter. She was confirmed by the Senate on August 6, 2009, and sworn in August 8, making her the first Hispanic justice, and only the third woman, on the court. Good one!

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The first bill President Obama signed into law, on January 29, 2009, was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the rights of workers to sue employers over wage discrimination claims.  About damn time…thumbs up!~

SCHIP expansion. On February 5, 2009, Obama signed a bill expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover 4 million more lower-income children.  Well Done!

Public lands bill. On March 30, Obama signed an omnibus public lands bill, which The New York Times reported “allows for 2 million more acres to be declared wilderness… [with] more than 1,000 miles designated as scenic rivers, and adds land for national trails.”  Not much news coverage but an excellent bill…at least on the surface…..

Credit card reform. On May 21, 2009, Obama signed into law a bill providing what USA Today called the “most sweeping changes to the credit card industry in 40 years,” adding restrictions on interest rate increases and fees and restricting the marketing of credit cards to college students. Good idea, but does not go far enough to reining in these guys…..

Transparency. The Washington Post reported that moves by the Obama administration to improve government transparency “included a ban on lobbyist gifts; restrictions on the hiring of lobbyists; publication of White House visitor logs and other records; and a move to bar lobbyists from serving on advisory boards.” A report by Common Cause, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, and U.S. PIRG stated that: “The cumulative effect of the Administration’s actions has been to adopt the strongest and most comprehensive lobbying, ethics and transparency rules and policies ever established by an Administration to govern its own activities.”  All in all a very good idea….just is not working out the way it was envisioned….

Tobacco regulation. On June 22, 2009, Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which, for the first time, gave the U.S. Food & Drug Administration the authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing, and sale of tobacco.  This one sucks…but then I smoke…..

National service. On April 21, 2009, Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which expands the scope of AmeriCorps and provides opportunities for young people and senior citizens to join in service programs. This one got all kinds of flap from the lunatic Right…..so I guess I think this one is a good one…..

Stem cell research. On May 9, 2009, Obama signed an executive order easing restrictions on the use of federal money for embryonic stem cell research.  About damn time!

See people….the Obama team has had some small successes…regardless what the Right would have you believe….In my opinion…not nearly enough or even close….but we will see how they fair during his second year in office…..

Stay tuned…..it can only get more bizarre as the year grows older…..