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February 28, 2016
Hillary Clinton,‘Smart Power’and a Dictator’s Fall--NYT Investigative Report: Parts 1 & 2
The Libya Gamble: An examination of the American intervention in Libya and Hillary Clinton’s role in it.
Hillary Clinton,‘Smart Power’and a Dictator’s Fall
By JO BECKER and SCOTT SHANE
FEB. 27, 2016
The president was wary. The secretary of state was persuasive. But the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi left Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven.
Part 1
Hillary Clinton, ‘Smart Power’ and a Dictator’s Fall
Part 2
A New Libya, With ‘Very Little Time Left’
(This is a Very Long investigative read with video, photos--but, well worth it)
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html?_r=0
Hillary Clinton,‘Smart Power’and a Dictator’s Fall
By JO BECKER and SCOTT SHANE
FEB. 27, 2016
The president was wary. The secretary of state was persuasive. But the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi left Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven.
Part 1
Hillary Clinton, ‘Smart Power’ and a Dictator’s Fall
Part 2
A New Libya, With ‘Very Little Time Left’
(This is a Very Long investigative read with video, photos--but, well worth it)
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html?_r=0
February 27, 2016
CONTINUED Read at:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15747
How The People's Movements Fueled the Sanders Candidacy--TRNN
Interesting Interview with a Long Time Activist, Professor Frances Fox PivenProf. Frances Fox Piven says movements bring up issues that politicians left to themselves would ignore - and it's the movements like Fight for 15 and Black Lives Matter that make Bernie Sanders a credible candidate - February 26, 2016
Partial Transcript Follows the You Tube:
Full Transcript, Here:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15747
On Thursday night, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was put in the hot seat by Chris Matthews of MSNBC. They discussed foreign policy, the Black Lives Matter movement, and income inequality. Let's take a look.
BERNIE SANDERS: You and I look at the world differently. You look at it inside the beltway. I'm not an inside the beltway guy. I am an outside the beltway guy.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: But the people who vote on taxes are inside the beltway.SANDERS: And those people are going to vote the right way when millions of people demand that they vote the right way. On this issue I have no doubt that as president of the United States I can rally young people and their parents to say that if Germany does it, Scandinavia does it, countries around the world do it, we can do it. And yes, we bailed out Wall Street. It is Wall Street's time to help the middle class.
DESVARIEUX: Now joining us to give us her take on last night's discussion is Frances Fox Piven. She's a distinguished professor of political science in sociology at the graduate center of City University of New York, and the author of many books, including Poor Peoples' Movements, and Why Americans Don't Vote, and Why Politicians Like It That Way.
Thank you so much for joining us, Frances.
So Frances, in the clip we just saw Chris Matthews was questioning Bernie Sanders on whether or not his goals are realistic, we often hear that term, asking him to name senators who would vote in favor of his policies. Do you think of Sanders is elected his hands will be tied to make real reforms once he's in the White House?
PIVEN: Well, yes. People will try, insiders in the Beltway, certainly the Congress of the United States, will try to block his initiatives, because he is, as he says he is, he's challenging the tycoons of the American political economy.But what Sanders is saying in response to Chris Matthews is that people are going to rise in protest at the effort to make gridlock the tune of the day. And that because people will be rising, they'll be marching, they'll be striking, they'll be clamoring, that the opposition in the Beltway will have to give way. And that may be true.
DESVARIEUX: Okay. If people are going to rise up, the question always is why haven't se seen them do it already? I mean, there are protests, but usually they're in the hundreds, thousands, maybe. But we're not really seeing hundreds of thousands of people out there in the streets. What would you suggest? You've worked with a lot of movements, and grassroots organizations. How do people take that energy, who might become politically conscious during this election cycle, and really transform that into a movement?
PIVEN: Well, I think there are movements that are unfolding right now in the United States and elsewhere in the world. You know, neoliberal capitalist economics is not good for people. It breaks the promises that they've come to expect. And so people are rising up in protest. We're in a protest era, actually. Again with Wisconsin, remember all of the students and workers occupying the state capital. It spread to Occupy. Occupy took place in hundreds of cities across the United States, and it had tremendous impact on the way Americans discuss politics. And then there was Black Lives Matter which, again, has sprung up in city after city, and the Fight for $15. The Fight for $15 is a movement, and it's unfolding among workers in retail and fast food establishments everywhere.So I don't know what you think a movement is, but it's not like an army. It isn't all coalesced. People are not marching in battalions. It springs up here and there, and people rally for it.
DESVARIEUX: How do you get more people, though, in the mix, though? I mean, the numbers are significant, but they could be more. I mean, if you compare it to the '60s and those kind of eras of protests, how do you reach that tipping point where it's really a mass, mass movement?
PIVEN: The movements are going to enlarge. And partly they will enlarge because they get a kind of encouragement from the election campaign itself, and particularly Sanders' contribution to the election campaign. I don't think that if it had been Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley that we would have the same kind of intensity about the election, and that spreads to the movements. The movements here are a kind of echo of their own grievances in the voices of national politicians. I mean, notice how Sanders has pushed Hillary to the left. She may not stay there if she actually wins the nomination. But she has so far been pushed to the left.
So I think movements energize electoral politics. They bring up issues that politicians left to themselves would ignore. And it's the movements, in a way, that make Bernie Sanders a credible candidate. Sanders didn't do it by himself, as the Congressman and then the senator from Vermont. He's been around for a very long time. And now certainly he's blossoming, he's become a kind of national hero. And that's partly due to the way the movements are at his back. They're pushing him and they're also energizing him, and they're creating a kind of audience for the issues he is raising.
Partial Transcript Follows the You Tube:
Full Transcript, Here:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15747
On Thursday night, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was put in the hot seat by Chris Matthews of MSNBC. They discussed foreign policy, the Black Lives Matter movement, and income inequality. Let's take a look.
BERNIE SANDERS: You and I look at the world differently. You look at it inside the beltway. I'm not an inside the beltway guy. I am an outside the beltway guy.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: But the people who vote on taxes are inside the beltway.SANDERS: And those people are going to vote the right way when millions of people demand that they vote the right way. On this issue I have no doubt that as president of the United States I can rally young people and their parents to say that if Germany does it, Scandinavia does it, countries around the world do it, we can do it. And yes, we bailed out Wall Street. It is Wall Street's time to help the middle class.
DESVARIEUX: Now joining us to give us her take on last night's discussion is Frances Fox Piven. She's a distinguished professor of political science in sociology at the graduate center of City University of New York, and the author of many books, including Poor Peoples' Movements, and Why Americans Don't Vote, and Why Politicians Like It That Way.
Thank you so much for joining us, Frances.
So Frances, in the clip we just saw Chris Matthews was questioning Bernie Sanders on whether or not his goals are realistic, we often hear that term, asking him to name senators who would vote in favor of his policies. Do you think of Sanders is elected his hands will be tied to make real reforms once he's in the White House?
PIVEN: Well, yes. People will try, insiders in the Beltway, certainly the Congress of the United States, will try to block his initiatives, because he is, as he says he is, he's challenging the tycoons of the American political economy.But what Sanders is saying in response to Chris Matthews is that people are going to rise in protest at the effort to make gridlock the tune of the day. And that because people will be rising, they'll be marching, they'll be striking, they'll be clamoring, that the opposition in the Beltway will have to give way. And that may be true.
DESVARIEUX: Okay. If people are going to rise up, the question always is why haven't se seen them do it already? I mean, there are protests, but usually they're in the hundreds, thousands, maybe. But we're not really seeing hundreds of thousands of people out there in the streets. What would you suggest? You've worked with a lot of movements, and grassroots organizations. How do people take that energy, who might become politically conscious during this election cycle, and really transform that into a movement?
PIVEN: Well, I think there are movements that are unfolding right now in the United States and elsewhere in the world. You know, neoliberal capitalist economics is not good for people. It breaks the promises that they've come to expect. And so people are rising up in protest. We're in a protest era, actually. Again with Wisconsin, remember all of the students and workers occupying the state capital. It spread to Occupy. Occupy took place in hundreds of cities across the United States, and it had tremendous impact on the way Americans discuss politics. And then there was Black Lives Matter which, again, has sprung up in city after city, and the Fight for $15. The Fight for $15 is a movement, and it's unfolding among workers in retail and fast food establishments everywhere.So I don't know what you think a movement is, but it's not like an army. It isn't all coalesced. People are not marching in battalions. It springs up here and there, and people rally for it.
DESVARIEUX: How do you get more people, though, in the mix, though? I mean, the numbers are significant, but they could be more. I mean, if you compare it to the '60s and those kind of eras of protests, how do you reach that tipping point where it's really a mass, mass movement?
PIVEN: The movements are going to enlarge. And partly they will enlarge because they get a kind of encouragement from the election campaign itself, and particularly Sanders' contribution to the election campaign. I don't think that if it had been Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley that we would have the same kind of intensity about the election, and that spreads to the movements. The movements here are a kind of echo of their own grievances in the voices of national politicians. I mean, notice how Sanders has pushed Hillary to the left. She may not stay there if she actually wins the nomination. But she has so far been pushed to the left.
So I think movements energize electoral politics. They bring up issues that politicians left to themselves would ignore. And it's the movements, in a way, that make Bernie Sanders a credible candidate. Sanders didn't do it by himself, as the Congressman and then the senator from Vermont. He's been around for a very long time. And now certainly he's blossoming, he's become a kind of national hero. And that's partly due to the way the movements are at his back. They're pushing him and they're also energizing him, and they're creating a kind of audience for the issues he is raising.
CONTINUED Read at:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15747
February 27, 2016
SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: It's the Real News Network.
I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore.With the South Carolina Democratic primaries coming up this Saturday, polls are indicating that Hillary Clinton has a greater chance of walking away with the victory. However, according to our next guest, Dr. Ron Daniels, Bernie Sanders' campaign matters a lot more than it is getting credit for. Dr. Ron Daniels is president of the Institute for a Black World 21st Century, and distinguished lecturer at York College at City University of New York. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Daniels.
RON DANIELS: It's good to be with you.
PERIES: So, Dr. Daniels, last week the Congressional Black Caucus PAC endorsed Hillary Clinton, and now you've just met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC, who endorse Hillary Clinton. So what did you say to them when you met with them, and who did you meet with?
DANIELS: Well, we weren't really meeting with them about the Bernie Sanders campaign, or about the Hillary Clinton campaign. We were talking about the UN Decade for People of African Descent. The Congressional Black Caucus every Wednesday has a luncheon in which its members come together to take up major issues, and we were delighted to have an opportunity for Mireille Fanon-Mendes France, who essentially is in charge of the civil society aspect of this program for the United Nations, to have an opportunity to share a few thoughts with the Congressional Black Caucus, and there is subsequently going to be a briefing about that.So we didn't get into any politics.
These are, many of these are folks that I know. They are friends of mine, I have worked with many of them over the years. We just have a difference of opinion in terms of who is the more visionary candidate in relationship to not only black people, but for the nation. And so that's how, I guess, politics works. So we'll agree to disagree, at least with many of them. There are some within the Congressional Black Caucus, I suspect, who are leaning towards Bernie Sanders. But they've been very, very cautious and very, very careful at this point, and many of them have endorsed the incumbent. Not the incumbent, but the presumed nominee, so to speak.
PERIES: Dr. Daniels, in the article you wrote that we just cited, you wrote: “Under fierce assault from reactionary forces on the right, for decades the Democratic party has retreated from the hard-fought gains secured over generations.” You wrote that this is contained in the Roosevelt's New Deal. Give us a sense of why you wrote that and what's meant by it, and relate it to the Bernie Sanders campaign.DANIELS: I mean, the fact of the matter is for from the Clinton era on what you've had is a kind of centrist approach, a kind of center-left, center-right approach. And this is what the Clintons represent. This is what they profess to be. There's something called the Democratic Leadership Conference, and some people may have forgotten. I haven't forgotten about it. When Jesse Jackson ran for president in 1988 I was deputy campaign manager. He ran on a slogan of bold leadership in a new direction. He was talking about, you know, how to build a better society, how to hold corporate America accountable.
How to, in fact, get masses of people involved in creating, for lack of a better word, a counterrevolution based on economic common ground.After that election was over, the Democratic party under the leadership of Clinton made a calculated decision that that would not win, that the way to win in their judgment was to take an incremental approach. It was to become Republican lite. Adopt--end welfare as we know it, for example, adopt trade policies that would be sort of a free trade system, or a free market system, as the Republicans call it, and to be tough on defense. And that's the way the Democratic party essentially has been rolling, and when on key questions like privatization, the privatization of public institutions, the Democratic party has been retreating.The fact of the matter is the public space, public hospitals, public schools, public education, this is the equalizer in a capitalist, political economy. And yet under the assault of the right wing, Democrats have not stood firm. And what Bernie Sanders' campaign is doing--this is why it matters--you see, now, stretching our imagination to envision what America could be. It's not a question of what we can afford, at this point. It's what are we willing to fight for. Because the Democrats have not been willing to fight for very much. It's been a kind of holding action. Bernie Sanders is coming out clearly saying there is a 1 percent, and that 1 percent is controlling an incredible amount of wealth in this society, and it is polluting the entire system, and it is, in fact, you know, devastating the lives of millions and millions of people in the middle class and working class people and the poor.And that's why this campaign matters, because there is a vision that's involved here.
And I think that's why many young people are inspired by it, because they're tired of just hearing what's practical, what's realistic. Of course we have to be realistic. But when you have nations in Europe where you have universal healthcare, you have universally across the board in Western societies paid pregnancy leave, paid sick leave, you have long vacations and whatever, here we in the United States are made to feel as if somehow we should feel privileged to be able to work for, you know, to be worked to death, indeed by these corporate bandits, if you will. And Bernie Sanders is railing against that in a very, very effective way.
PERIES: Dr. Daniels, recently we've had a lot of very good public intellectuals in this country in the African-American community such as Cornel West and Michelle Alexander, Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic. We have also had stars like Danny Glover and others endorsing Bernie Sanders' campaign. So I guess you're in good company here.Now, my question to you is, why is these kinds of very important endorsements not having traction in places like South Carolina?
DANIELS: Well, I think it's having some traction. But the fact of the matter is over the years the Clintons have cultivated an image of being very heavy on symbolism and not very good on substance. A lot of people don't remember that. They're quite good at it. I mean, Bill Clinton could play a saxophone, you know, so he's a down guy. In fact, he came to be known as the first black president.And in some ways my friends and allies in the Congressional Black Caucus are at fault, because you know, politics is a matter of making tough decisions. We had, we supported, I supported Bill Clinton during the course of his presidency not because I agreed with all of his policies, but because all of us were under assault by the vicious attack from the right. And so Clinton was sort of the firewall. He was, that was a defensive move. That didn't mean I believed in everything that he was about. I knew we needed a more visionary politics. So that was a tactical decision. But somehow this tactical decision in the black community came off as if this man was this great, you know, this really great lover of black people.
And I'm not saying that in a [inaud.] kind of way.The fact of the matter is we've had no urban policy, you know, since the Clinton era and before. I remember distinctly during the Clinton era he campaigned in urban areas after dark. He did, in the evening, he did not want to, in fact, be seen in black communities in the daytime. That was the thrust of, in fact, what Clinton was about. And of course the 1994 omnibus crime bill, which unfortunately some blacks signed off and so forth and so on, has been very, very devastating.So I think that when you look at Coates and Danny Glover, Ben Jealous of the NAACP, Spike Lee and others, they understand that we need a politics which is far more, is stronger than that. But the Clintons are good at building relationships in the black community.
And one of the things I think Bernie Sanders has needed to do is to have a clearer, more explicit position as it relates to black issues. Black Lives Matter, you know, have been pushing him on that. Ta-Nehisi Coates raised the issue of reparations. And it seems to me that Bernie Sanders could have at least said, I support HR 40. And my recommendation was that he have, in fact, he do a speech on race and lay out his positions on racial issues, including not just mass incarceration but indeed, what would he do in terms of investment in the black community? He has a bill before Congress, apparently, that would be very effective in that regard. But he's not wrapped it in a message that would be as effective as it might be.
The 1 percent issue, certainly inequality is an important issue.In one of the debates he pointed out that during the great crash it was black people whose wealth was--I mean, emaciated by the great meltdown in 2008. Those are the kind of points that he needs to make in order to tie his major theme to issues that affect black people. And we hope that some of us, Danny Glover and others, can get that message across to him so that his message will resonate.But to me, if it resonates, fine. We hope it does. But for some young people they kind of get it.
They understand that we need an America which is much better than it is now, that it can, we can do better. But we won't do better if we only focus on what is realistic, what is practical. We need to stretch the imagination of the American people, of workers, of poor people.Let me just say this. For the longest time in the Democratic party they couldn't even put poor in their mouths. They couldn't say workers in their mouths. It was actually disgusting. All we talked about--and you know, the middle class is fine. But they were being--they're captured by this consulting class, talking about the middle class, the middle class. Of course we have to help the middle class. But workers exist in this society. Poor people exist, and they need to be spoken to. And Bernie Sanders is speaking to them, and he's asking them to join this revolution. Because the biggest political party in America today is not the Democrats, it's not Republicans, it's non-voters who become apathetic, who are in fact turned off by a system that they know is rigged.
They in their gut know it's rigged.And Bernie Sanders is tapping into that. And quite frankly I'm so proud of so many young people across this country who understand that and who really want to fight for an America which is not exceptional because, you know, the only America--every Western industrial society has healthcare, and America is the exception because it does not have these things. There are so many things that can be achieved if we have a more visionary politics.And let me just say this. At the end of the day it's also important that this energy be maintained, because one of the problems we've had is we've not had a third, what I call a third force in American politics that would gather up those who are progressive, those who are visionary, to continue to battle at all levels. For school board, for city council, for state representative, senator, Congress. All the way up. That's what the Tea Party did on the right.
They not only mouthed their politics, they translated it into a force. I don't agree with that force. But it has to be reckoned with.We need to do the same thing on the left, no matter who wins the presidency. I hope Bernie Sanders wins, but if he doesn't win we need to maintain a third force in American politics.
PERIES: Dr. Daniels, on February 11 Congressman John Lewis questioned Senator Sanders' civil rights record. Let's have a look at what he said.JOHN LEWIS: Well, to be very frank--I don't want to cut you off
Continued At.....
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15735
Black Voter's Choice...Bernie Stretches Our Imagination!....This is Not a Partisan Choice!
Bernie Stretches Our Imagination!....This is Not a Partisan Choice!
VIEW HERE:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15735
OR: You Tube..Or, Transcript which Follows the YT:
Published on Feb 25, 2016
Veteran social and political activist Dr. Ron Daniels argues that Sanders' campaign vision for a more progressive America will benefit African Americans
SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: It's the Real News Network.
I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore.With the South Carolina Democratic primaries coming up this Saturday, polls are indicating that Hillary Clinton has a greater chance of walking away with the victory. However, according to our next guest, Dr. Ron Daniels, Bernie Sanders' campaign matters a lot more than it is getting credit for. Dr. Ron Daniels is president of the Institute for a Black World 21st Century, and distinguished lecturer at York College at City University of New York. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Daniels.
RON DANIELS: It's good to be with you.
PERIES: So, Dr. Daniels, last week the Congressional Black Caucus PAC endorsed Hillary Clinton, and now you've just met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC, who endorse Hillary Clinton. So what did you say to them when you met with them, and who did you meet with?
DANIELS: Well, we weren't really meeting with them about the Bernie Sanders campaign, or about the Hillary Clinton campaign. We were talking about the UN Decade for People of African Descent. The Congressional Black Caucus every Wednesday has a luncheon in which its members come together to take up major issues, and we were delighted to have an opportunity for Mireille Fanon-Mendes France, who essentially is in charge of the civil society aspect of this program for the United Nations, to have an opportunity to share a few thoughts with the Congressional Black Caucus, and there is subsequently going to be a briefing about that.So we didn't get into any politics.
These are, many of these are folks that I know. They are friends of mine, I have worked with many of them over the years. We just have a difference of opinion in terms of who is the more visionary candidate in relationship to not only black people, but for the nation. And so that's how, I guess, politics works. So we'll agree to disagree, at least with many of them. There are some within the Congressional Black Caucus, I suspect, who are leaning towards Bernie Sanders. But they've been very, very cautious and very, very careful at this point, and many of them have endorsed the incumbent. Not the incumbent, but the presumed nominee, so to speak.
PERIES: Dr. Daniels, in the article you wrote that we just cited, you wrote: “Under fierce assault from reactionary forces on the right, for decades the Democratic party has retreated from the hard-fought gains secured over generations.” You wrote that this is contained in the Roosevelt's New Deal. Give us a sense of why you wrote that and what's meant by it, and relate it to the Bernie Sanders campaign.DANIELS: I mean, the fact of the matter is for from the Clinton era on what you've had is a kind of centrist approach, a kind of center-left, center-right approach. And this is what the Clintons represent. This is what they profess to be. There's something called the Democratic Leadership Conference, and some people may have forgotten. I haven't forgotten about it. When Jesse Jackson ran for president in 1988 I was deputy campaign manager. He ran on a slogan of bold leadership in a new direction. He was talking about, you know, how to build a better society, how to hold corporate America accountable.
How to, in fact, get masses of people involved in creating, for lack of a better word, a counterrevolution based on economic common ground.After that election was over, the Democratic party under the leadership of Clinton made a calculated decision that that would not win, that the way to win in their judgment was to take an incremental approach. It was to become Republican lite. Adopt--end welfare as we know it, for example, adopt trade policies that would be sort of a free trade system, or a free market system, as the Republicans call it, and to be tough on defense. And that's the way the Democratic party essentially has been rolling, and when on key questions like privatization, the privatization of public institutions, the Democratic party has been retreating.The fact of the matter is the public space, public hospitals, public schools, public education, this is the equalizer in a capitalist, political economy. And yet under the assault of the right wing, Democrats have not stood firm. And what Bernie Sanders' campaign is doing--this is why it matters--you see, now, stretching our imagination to envision what America could be. It's not a question of what we can afford, at this point. It's what are we willing to fight for. Because the Democrats have not been willing to fight for very much. It's been a kind of holding action. Bernie Sanders is coming out clearly saying there is a 1 percent, and that 1 percent is controlling an incredible amount of wealth in this society, and it is polluting the entire system, and it is, in fact, you know, devastating the lives of millions and millions of people in the middle class and working class people and the poor.And that's why this campaign matters, because there is a vision that's involved here.
And I think that's why many young people are inspired by it, because they're tired of just hearing what's practical, what's realistic. Of course we have to be realistic. But when you have nations in Europe where you have universal healthcare, you have universally across the board in Western societies paid pregnancy leave, paid sick leave, you have long vacations and whatever, here we in the United States are made to feel as if somehow we should feel privileged to be able to work for, you know, to be worked to death, indeed by these corporate bandits, if you will. And Bernie Sanders is railing against that in a very, very effective way.
PERIES: Dr. Daniels, recently we've had a lot of very good public intellectuals in this country in the African-American community such as Cornel West and Michelle Alexander, Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic. We have also had stars like Danny Glover and others endorsing Bernie Sanders' campaign. So I guess you're in good company here.Now, my question to you is, why is these kinds of very important endorsements not having traction in places like South Carolina?
DANIELS: Well, I think it's having some traction. But the fact of the matter is over the years the Clintons have cultivated an image of being very heavy on symbolism and not very good on substance. A lot of people don't remember that. They're quite good at it. I mean, Bill Clinton could play a saxophone, you know, so he's a down guy. In fact, he came to be known as the first black president.And in some ways my friends and allies in the Congressional Black Caucus are at fault, because you know, politics is a matter of making tough decisions. We had, we supported, I supported Bill Clinton during the course of his presidency not because I agreed with all of his policies, but because all of us were under assault by the vicious attack from the right. And so Clinton was sort of the firewall. He was, that was a defensive move. That didn't mean I believed in everything that he was about. I knew we needed a more visionary politics. So that was a tactical decision. But somehow this tactical decision in the black community came off as if this man was this great, you know, this really great lover of black people.
And I'm not saying that in a [inaud.] kind of way.The fact of the matter is we've had no urban policy, you know, since the Clinton era and before. I remember distinctly during the Clinton era he campaigned in urban areas after dark. He did, in the evening, he did not want to, in fact, be seen in black communities in the daytime. That was the thrust of, in fact, what Clinton was about. And of course the 1994 omnibus crime bill, which unfortunately some blacks signed off and so forth and so on, has been very, very devastating.So I think that when you look at Coates and Danny Glover, Ben Jealous of the NAACP, Spike Lee and others, they understand that we need a politics which is far more, is stronger than that. But the Clintons are good at building relationships in the black community.
And one of the things I think Bernie Sanders has needed to do is to have a clearer, more explicit position as it relates to black issues. Black Lives Matter, you know, have been pushing him on that. Ta-Nehisi Coates raised the issue of reparations. And it seems to me that Bernie Sanders could have at least said, I support HR 40. And my recommendation was that he have, in fact, he do a speech on race and lay out his positions on racial issues, including not just mass incarceration but indeed, what would he do in terms of investment in the black community? He has a bill before Congress, apparently, that would be very effective in that regard. But he's not wrapped it in a message that would be as effective as it might be.
The 1 percent issue, certainly inequality is an important issue.In one of the debates he pointed out that during the great crash it was black people whose wealth was--I mean, emaciated by the great meltdown in 2008. Those are the kind of points that he needs to make in order to tie his major theme to issues that affect black people. And we hope that some of us, Danny Glover and others, can get that message across to him so that his message will resonate.But to me, if it resonates, fine. We hope it does. But for some young people they kind of get it.
They understand that we need an America which is much better than it is now, that it can, we can do better. But we won't do better if we only focus on what is realistic, what is practical. We need to stretch the imagination of the American people, of workers, of poor people.Let me just say this. For the longest time in the Democratic party they couldn't even put poor in their mouths. They couldn't say workers in their mouths. It was actually disgusting. All we talked about--and you know, the middle class is fine. But they were being--they're captured by this consulting class, talking about the middle class, the middle class. Of course we have to help the middle class. But workers exist in this society. Poor people exist, and they need to be spoken to. And Bernie Sanders is speaking to them, and he's asking them to join this revolution. Because the biggest political party in America today is not the Democrats, it's not Republicans, it's non-voters who become apathetic, who are in fact turned off by a system that they know is rigged.
They in their gut know it's rigged.And Bernie Sanders is tapping into that. And quite frankly I'm so proud of so many young people across this country who understand that and who really want to fight for an America which is not exceptional because, you know, the only America--every Western industrial society has healthcare, and America is the exception because it does not have these things. There are so many things that can be achieved if we have a more visionary politics.And let me just say this. At the end of the day it's also important that this energy be maintained, because one of the problems we've had is we've not had a third, what I call a third force in American politics that would gather up those who are progressive, those who are visionary, to continue to battle at all levels. For school board, for city council, for state representative, senator, Congress. All the way up. That's what the Tea Party did on the right.
They not only mouthed their politics, they translated it into a force. I don't agree with that force. But it has to be reckoned with.We need to do the same thing on the left, no matter who wins the presidency. I hope Bernie Sanders wins, but if he doesn't win we need to maintain a third force in American politics.
PERIES: Dr. Daniels, on February 11 Congressman John Lewis questioned Senator Sanders' civil rights record. Let's have a look at what he said.JOHN LEWIS: Well, to be very frank--I don't want to cut you off
Continued At.....
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15735
February 23, 2016
By Spencer S. Hsu February 23 at 3:21 PM
Continued At:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/us-judge-weighs-deeper-probe-into-clintons-private-email-system/2016/02/23/9c27412a-d997-11e5-81ae-7491b9b9e7df_story.html
Federal Judge's Decision Makes Clinton's Candidacy Fraught With Problems Going Forward:
U.S. judge orders discovery to go forward over Clinton’s private email systemBy Spencer S. Hsu February 23 at 3:21 PM
A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that State Department officials and top aides to Hillary Clinton should be questioned under oath about whether they intentionally thwarted federal open records laws by using or allowing the use of a private email server throughout Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Washington came in a lawsuit over public records brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group, regarding its May 2013 request, for information about the employment arrangement of Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide.
A State Department official said that the department is aware of the order and that it is reviewing it but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing litigation. Discovery orders are not readily appealable. An attorney for Abedin declined to comment.
Sullivan set an April deadline for parties to work out a detailed investigative plan--subject to court approval--that would reach well beyond the limited and carefully worded explanations of the use of the private server that department and Clinton officials have given.
Sullivan also suggested from the bench that he might at some point order the department to subpoena Clinton and Abedin, to return all records related to Clinton’s private account, not just those their camps have previously deemed work-related and returned.
“There has been a constant drip, drip, drip of declarations. When does it stop?” Sullivan said, adding that months of piecemeal revelations about Clinton and the State Department’s handling of the email controversy create “at least a ‘reasonable suspicion’ ” that public access to official government records under the federal Freedom of Information Act was undermined. “This case is about the public’s right to know.”
In granting Judicial Watch’s request, Sullivan noted that there was no dispute that senior State Department officials were aware of the email set-up, citing a January 2009 email exchange including Undersecretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, Clinton chief of staff Cheryl D. Mills and Abedin about establishing a “stand-alone network” email system.
The watchdog group did not ask to depose Clinton by name, but its requests in its lawsuit targeted those who handled her transition, arrival and departure from the department and who oversaw Abedin, a direct subordinate.
Sullivan’s decision came as Clinton seeks the Democratic presidential nomination and three weeks after the State Department acknowledged for the first time that “top secret” information passed through the server.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Washington came in a lawsuit over public records brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group, regarding its May 2013 request, for information about the employment arrangement of Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide.
A State Department official said that the department is aware of the order and that it is reviewing it but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing litigation. Discovery orders are not readily appealable. An attorney for Abedin declined to comment.
Sullivan set an April deadline for parties to work out a detailed investigative plan--subject to court approval--that would reach well beyond the limited and carefully worded explanations of the use of the private server that department and Clinton officials have given.
Sullivan also suggested from the bench that he might at some point order the department to subpoena Clinton and Abedin, to return all records related to Clinton’s private account, not just those their camps have previously deemed work-related and returned.
“There has been a constant drip, drip, drip of declarations. When does it stop?” Sullivan said, adding that months of piecemeal revelations about Clinton and the State Department’s handling of the email controversy create “at least a ‘reasonable suspicion’ ” that public access to official government records under the federal Freedom of Information Act was undermined. “This case is about the public’s right to know.”
In granting Judicial Watch’s request, Sullivan noted that there was no dispute that senior State Department officials were aware of the email set-up, citing a January 2009 email exchange including Undersecretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, Clinton chief of staff Cheryl D. Mills and Abedin about establishing a “stand-alone network” email system.
The watchdog group did not ask to depose Clinton by name, but its requests in its lawsuit targeted those who handled her transition, arrival and departure from the department and who oversaw Abedin, a direct subordinate.
Sullivan’s decision came as Clinton seeks the Democratic presidential nomination and three weeks after the State Department acknowledged for the first time that “top secret” information passed through the server.
Continued At:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/us-judge-weighs-deeper-probe-into-clintons-private-email-system/2016/02/23/9c27412a-d997-11e5-81ae-7491b9b9e7df_story.html
February 23, 2016
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15683
Sanders' Campaign Could Split The Democratic Party Over Moneyed Interests/TRNN
Sanders' Campaign Could Split The Democratic Party
Published on Feb 18, 2016
Paul Heideman says Sanders campaign could lead to a split in the Democratic Party over the issue of moneyed interests dominating the party leadership
Bio
Jeff Cohen is the director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, and he was the founder of the media watchdog FAIR. He is the co-founder of RootsAction.org. He joins us from Ithaca, New York.
Paul Heideman is a Ph D student in Sociology at New York University. His work has appeared in Jacobin magazine and the International Socialist Review.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15683
February 23, 2016
--------------
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay.We're continuing our discussion with Ralph Nader on Justice Scalia's passing and what comes next, and the significance of it all. Thanks for joining us again, Ralph.
RALPH NADER: You're welcome, Paul.
JAY: So I've always kind of imagined this division on the court, and the division more broadly within the elite politics of a section of the elite sort of a descendant of slave owners, in a way, they see that the ability of corporations and capital to exploit workers in a very unfettered way has--completely unfettered way was slavery, direct slavery. Well, the next step from that after slavery. There should be almost no restrictions on how a corporation can exploit or how intensely it can exploit people. Where the section of the elite that calls themselves liberals, they, they think there should be some fetters, whether it's because it makes them feel better about themselves, or because they are concerned about what it might do in terms of radicalizing the population.
Or they're, more reasonable, whatever one wants to say.That division in the court, and that reflection of that division in the elite, it's significant. It ends up with very different court decisions, depending on which section of the elite is dominating the court, and obviously the Congress and such. So talk a little bit about what that far-right represents, where it comes from in terms of American history, the trend, the right that Scalia represents, and I guess take that a little bit into where the Republican party is now. Because you have most of anyone that might win the Republican nomination is more or less on the same page as Scalia.
NADER: Well, they like to talk about market. And the marketplace is the best test for economic activity. But what they really do is they support policies that entrench what I call corporate supremacy over the people. There's always a tension between commercial values and civic values throughout world history. Every major religion in the world warned its adherents not to give too much power to the merchant class. It goes back thousands of years.
Because it's so singularly monomaniacal, the pursuit of profit, pursuit of sales, pursuit of enrichment. Running--you know, running havoc over other competing much more important values for a just society. Health, safety, freedom of people, posterity and the like.So this is nothing new. So I call them corporatists. I don't call them conservatives. They are not conservatives. They are not libertarians. Some of the most powerful critiques today of corporate power, crony capitalism, bailouts of Wall Street, come from authentic conservatives and libertarians. Some of the most authentic criticism of the military-industrial complex has come from libertarians. Not just people who call themselves liberals and progressives.So that's number one. Number two, this theme throughout history has been very --.
JAY: Actually, can I add just one thing to that. Let me just add one thing. On the foreign policy side, a lot of the libertarian critique or policy is way better than a lot of people calling themselves liberals.NADER: Yeah. Well, the corporatist liberals like Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, they don't really deserve to be called liberals. They've hijacked liberal philosophy, and given it this highly-militant, aggressive, brute force-first foreign policy. Hillary is the butcher of Libya. She opposed successfully in the White House Secretary of Defense Gates, who said, no, you topple Gaddafi, who's already coming around and disarming and cutting deals with the oil companies, you topple him and there's a huge vacuum.
And in a tribal society it's going to be chaos. And of course, with all her experience, Hillary Clinton rebuffed him, and the result is sweeping, violent chaos in larger and larger portions of northeast Africa, not just Libya. Into Mali and elsewhere.So corporatism has got to be a word we incorporate in our political discussions and our electoral campaigns. Because that's what our country's turning into: a country dominated by corporate power, merging Wall Street with Washington. We call it the corporate state. Right-wing people call it crony capitalism.
JAY: The--as much as, even if you take a Hillary, and while I think you can say in terms of corporatism she's to the right of President Obama--on the other hand, President Obama is very much in the same mould, at least on certainly all the kind of things that are serving Wall Street. There is a difference, is there not? The kind of Supreme Court nominees that an Obama or a Clinton might make--and I'm not talking about Sanders now, I'm--if Sanders was ever in such a position I assume he would appoint Supreme Court nominees that would be, you know, far more liberal than those.But even there, the liberals on the Supreme Court that were appointed by corporatist Democrats, they're still coming up with decisions that are not as coercive or onerous as these people like Scalia.
NADER: Yeah, that's true. But remember, not many important cases from a progressive point of view ever reach the Supreme Court. They're thrown out for lack of standing, they're called political questions, they don't make it past the appellate level. And the Supreme Court takes fewer cases now than ever before. They used to take 150-160 cases. They're down to about 70-75 cases. So we don't have a chance for a lot of progressive issues to be put up before the Supreme Court. Like trying to reverse the wild First Amendment rights that have been given to corporations, that have blocked a lot of consumer organized power.For example, there was a regulation, California required Pacific Gas and Electric to put an insert in the electric bill inviting customers to form, join their own nonprofit consumer action group challenging the gas and electric on rate making, on environment, on service. And the California Supreme Court upheld it. It went to the Supreme Court with [inaud.] dissenting, and the 6-3 vote, or 5-3 vote, one member recused himself, they ruled that requiring Pacific Gas and Electric--mind you, a monopoly, a legal monopoly, to put an insert at no expense to itself inviting its customers to band together into a collective voice of advocacy, violated--check this--violated Pacific Gas and Electric's First Amendment right to remain silent and not rebut the insert's contents.That's the most egregious expansion of corporate personhood, and that's what we mean when progressives say that the Supreme Court is dominated by corporatists. Citizens United was just an example.
JAY: Now, the liberals on the court voted against Citizens United. Is there a possibility that an Obama appointment could reverse such things?
NADER: Yes. A very real possibility. Because that was the law of the land until Citizens United, it was a prior well-regarded Supreme Court decision that the corporatists overruled in order to install Citizens United. Corporations were not allowed to directly give money to political campaigns for over 100 years. And that's what was reversed. So it's an easy decision to re-reverse and go back to the prior controlling Supreme Court decision. And I think that could be done.But you know, in the Senate, Paul, in the last three-four decades, the Republicans just have been more aggressive, and more demanding, and more outrageous in blocking or pushing through Supreme Court nominations than the Democrats. You know, early on under Nixon, the Democrats stop Judge Carswell from being confirmed. Then they stop Nixon's appointment of Judge Haynsworth, and then they got Justice [Blackburn], who's a pretty good justice, nominated by Nixon.Now, look what happened recently. Scalia was confirmed 98-nothing. I went up to Capitol Hill, went into Kennedy and other progressive Democrats' office, can't you at least dissent?
No. They recognized the president's prerogative. And then came along Kennedy, replacing the defeated nomination of Gore, and he was support--he was voted in 97-nothing. Every Democrat voted for him.So in those days the Democrats recognized the president's prerogative to nominated someone who, if they had any intellect and they were fairly clean, okay, vote for them. Not the Republicans. No way. And the Republicans are very, very aggressive. As a result, for example, they got Justice Thomas through 52-48 in a Senate that was dominated by a majority of Democrats, and Senator George Mitchell was the majority leader. We were up there in Capitol Hill trying to change votes. We actually changed Lieberman's vote, can you imagine. He thanked me later for alerting him to Thomas' record.But Thomas won 52-48 with about 12 Democratic senators crossing the aisle and joining with the Republicans. What are you going to do with such passive, recessive types of Democrats up against, you know, saber-tooth tiger Republicans? It's not much of a contest.
JAY: Yeah, the Republicans--.
NADER: So I wonder what's going to happen.
JAY: Well, the Republicans always seem to understand they're at a war for what they want, and the Democrats make a virtue out of being able to work across the aisle. I don't understand that part. What's your observations on the elections? On the, what's going on with the primaries and such?
NADER: Well, I think the most immediate thing is to get Hillary to, to release the transcripts of her closed-door meetings before thousands of businesspeople. The realtors, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, the chain drug stores, all of whom paid her $5,000 a minute, Paul. That's what it breaks down--$5,000 a minute to say what? Why doesn't she level, and tell the American people what she told all these business conventions in secret being paid $5,000 a minute?When she was asked this question by Chuck Todd on one of the debates, she wasn't ready for the answer. She said, well, we'll look into it. Well, there are stenographers in every one of those meetings required by her lecture contract. She required the presence of stenographers.
What's she waiting for, and what's Bernie Sanders waiting for, not demanding in the debate to have her release the transcripts? He's been too easy on her, and that may have sunk his candidacy if he doesn't turn around in the remaining three debates.As far as Trump goes, again it was Chuck Todd who said, when are you going to release your tax returns? Now, it's not legally required that he do so. But he makes such a big deal out of his business successes as a reason to vote for him for president, I think he's ethically obligated to release thousands of pages. These are huge tax returns over a period of years. What did he say when he was asked? He was asked, he said--we're looking into it, Chuck, but I didn't pay much tax, because the tax [revenues] are wasted in Washington.Well, imagine all these reporters that have access to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It never really asks the question. Day after day they deal with trivia. Did you say this about Cruz? Did you say this about Bernie? The press has not raised it to the level of its significance. It is being dragged down to the most vacuous, slander-ridden riposte, you know, all kinds of outrageous statements. It's dragged down by the candidates themselves. We accept, you know, I think, Bernie, who's actually talking about power issues and distribution of power.
JAY: The transcripts--.
NADER: Which is, by the way, which is by--which is, by the way, why they don't cover him very much. Why ABC a year ago devoted 82 minutes to Trump, and 2 minutes to Bernie Sanders, even though Bernie Sanders led the national polls. He still, you know, leads the national polls. You would know it by watching TV news.
JAY: When you put him against Trump, you mean.NADER: When you put him against anybody one-on-one, he's ahead.
JAY: I think he's about ten points behind Clinton, but the gap has greatly closed from what it was.
NADER: He's ten points behind Clinton, by Democratic voters. But if it's all the voters, all the voters, he's been in the lead.
JAY: You know, when you go back to this transcript issue, while I agree with you, Sanders should be upping the demand. He mentioned it in one of the debates, but he should up it. But I think even if, even if those speeches were just about how important it is to promote women in the corporate America, I don't think it actually matters what the heck she says. Just the fact she took the money--because if you want to keep taking that money, and you want to keep getting those enormous speaker fees, then you better not be doing anything on the policy side that's going to offend the people paying you these great big speaker fees. So just the fact she takes it is bad enough.
NADER: Oh, but the delicious words she must have used to reassure the crowds. To say, you know, I don't buy this [inaud.] the bankers. I think we're all in it together. And we have to get out of it all together. I mean, she's told these--you know, you know, Paul. You're a media-savvy person. When you're in front of an audience of 2,000 developers, or 2,000 people representing the drug industry, or hundreds of people representing Wall Street banks, you tell them what they want to hear. If you told them what you--.
JAY: Yeah, because they're all potential donors.
NADER: Yeah. You don't tell them what they don't want to hear. That's when it leaks. It's when--in fact, the Wall Street Journal wrote in an article the other day saying they interviewed some people inside these closed-door conventions. And some said she gushed. She gushed at them. That would not help her against Bernie Sanders.By the way, I think in the latest poll Bernie Sanders among the Democrats is getting closer and closer to being even, if I'm not mistaken.
JAY: Well, certainly--certainly in Nevada that's been happening. I think she still has a significant lead in South Carolina. But nationally he's getting much closer.All right. Well, Ralph, I hope you'll come back regularly, and we'll keep talking about these and many other issues.
NADER: Okay, it's a pleasure to be with Real News Network. Those of you who watch it faithfully, spread the word. Neighbors, workers, friends. It doesn't just exist for you, it exists for people who want to get the real facts and really important issues of a democratic society you can work on to get a better, more just society.
JAY: Thanks very much, Ralph.NADER: Okay. Thank you, Paul.JAY: And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.
Bio
Ralph Nader was named by The Atlantic as one of the hundred most influential figures in American history, and by Time and Life magazines as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century. Ralph Nader has helped us drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water and work in safer environments for more than four decades. The crusading attorney first made headlines in 1965 with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a scathing indictment that lambasted the auto industry for producing unsafe vehicles. The book led to Congressional hearings and automobile safety laws passed in 1966, including the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. He was instrumental in the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). Many lives have been saved by Nader's involvement in the recall of millions of unsafe consumer products, including defective motor vehicles and in the protection of laborers and the environment. By starting dozens of citizen groups, Ralph Nader has created an atmosphere of corporate and governmental accountability.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15717
Ralph Nader: Scalia, Hillary, and the Upholding of Corporate Supremacy
Published on Feb 22, 2016
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader says the both the Republican and Democratic parties are subservient to corporate power
TRANSCRIPT BELOW THE YOU TUBE or GO HERE:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15717
--------------
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay.We're continuing our discussion with Ralph Nader on Justice Scalia's passing and what comes next, and the significance of it all. Thanks for joining us again, Ralph.
RALPH NADER: You're welcome, Paul.
JAY: So I've always kind of imagined this division on the court, and the division more broadly within the elite politics of a section of the elite sort of a descendant of slave owners, in a way, they see that the ability of corporations and capital to exploit workers in a very unfettered way has--completely unfettered way was slavery, direct slavery. Well, the next step from that after slavery. There should be almost no restrictions on how a corporation can exploit or how intensely it can exploit people. Where the section of the elite that calls themselves liberals, they, they think there should be some fetters, whether it's because it makes them feel better about themselves, or because they are concerned about what it might do in terms of radicalizing the population.
Or they're, more reasonable, whatever one wants to say.That division in the court, and that reflection of that division in the elite, it's significant. It ends up with very different court decisions, depending on which section of the elite is dominating the court, and obviously the Congress and such. So talk a little bit about what that far-right represents, where it comes from in terms of American history, the trend, the right that Scalia represents, and I guess take that a little bit into where the Republican party is now. Because you have most of anyone that might win the Republican nomination is more or less on the same page as Scalia.
NADER: Well, they like to talk about market. And the marketplace is the best test for economic activity. But what they really do is they support policies that entrench what I call corporate supremacy over the people. There's always a tension between commercial values and civic values throughout world history. Every major religion in the world warned its adherents not to give too much power to the merchant class. It goes back thousands of years.
Because it's so singularly monomaniacal, the pursuit of profit, pursuit of sales, pursuit of enrichment. Running--you know, running havoc over other competing much more important values for a just society. Health, safety, freedom of people, posterity and the like.So this is nothing new. So I call them corporatists. I don't call them conservatives. They are not conservatives. They are not libertarians. Some of the most powerful critiques today of corporate power, crony capitalism, bailouts of Wall Street, come from authentic conservatives and libertarians. Some of the most authentic criticism of the military-industrial complex has come from libertarians. Not just people who call themselves liberals and progressives.So that's number one. Number two, this theme throughout history has been very --.
JAY: Actually, can I add just one thing to that. Let me just add one thing. On the foreign policy side, a lot of the libertarian critique or policy is way better than a lot of people calling themselves liberals.NADER: Yeah. Well, the corporatist liberals like Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, they don't really deserve to be called liberals. They've hijacked liberal philosophy, and given it this highly-militant, aggressive, brute force-first foreign policy. Hillary is the butcher of Libya. She opposed successfully in the White House Secretary of Defense Gates, who said, no, you topple Gaddafi, who's already coming around and disarming and cutting deals with the oil companies, you topple him and there's a huge vacuum.
And in a tribal society it's going to be chaos. And of course, with all her experience, Hillary Clinton rebuffed him, and the result is sweeping, violent chaos in larger and larger portions of northeast Africa, not just Libya. Into Mali and elsewhere.So corporatism has got to be a word we incorporate in our political discussions and our electoral campaigns. Because that's what our country's turning into: a country dominated by corporate power, merging Wall Street with Washington. We call it the corporate state. Right-wing people call it crony capitalism.
JAY: The--as much as, even if you take a Hillary, and while I think you can say in terms of corporatism she's to the right of President Obama--on the other hand, President Obama is very much in the same mould, at least on certainly all the kind of things that are serving Wall Street. There is a difference, is there not? The kind of Supreme Court nominees that an Obama or a Clinton might make--and I'm not talking about Sanders now, I'm--if Sanders was ever in such a position I assume he would appoint Supreme Court nominees that would be, you know, far more liberal than those.But even there, the liberals on the Supreme Court that were appointed by corporatist Democrats, they're still coming up with decisions that are not as coercive or onerous as these people like Scalia.
NADER: Yeah, that's true. But remember, not many important cases from a progressive point of view ever reach the Supreme Court. They're thrown out for lack of standing, they're called political questions, they don't make it past the appellate level. And the Supreme Court takes fewer cases now than ever before. They used to take 150-160 cases. They're down to about 70-75 cases. So we don't have a chance for a lot of progressive issues to be put up before the Supreme Court. Like trying to reverse the wild First Amendment rights that have been given to corporations, that have blocked a lot of consumer organized power.For example, there was a regulation, California required Pacific Gas and Electric to put an insert in the electric bill inviting customers to form, join their own nonprofit consumer action group challenging the gas and electric on rate making, on environment, on service. And the California Supreme Court upheld it. It went to the Supreme Court with [inaud.] dissenting, and the 6-3 vote, or 5-3 vote, one member recused himself, they ruled that requiring Pacific Gas and Electric--mind you, a monopoly, a legal monopoly, to put an insert at no expense to itself inviting its customers to band together into a collective voice of advocacy, violated--check this--violated Pacific Gas and Electric's First Amendment right to remain silent and not rebut the insert's contents.That's the most egregious expansion of corporate personhood, and that's what we mean when progressives say that the Supreme Court is dominated by corporatists. Citizens United was just an example.
JAY: Now, the liberals on the court voted against Citizens United. Is there a possibility that an Obama appointment could reverse such things?
NADER: Yes. A very real possibility. Because that was the law of the land until Citizens United, it was a prior well-regarded Supreme Court decision that the corporatists overruled in order to install Citizens United. Corporations were not allowed to directly give money to political campaigns for over 100 years. And that's what was reversed. So it's an easy decision to re-reverse and go back to the prior controlling Supreme Court decision. And I think that could be done.But you know, in the Senate, Paul, in the last three-four decades, the Republicans just have been more aggressive, and more demanding, and more outrageous in blocking or pushing through Supreme Court nominations than the Democrats. You know, early on under Nixon, the Democrats stop Judge Carswell from being confirmed. Then they stop Nixon's appointment of Judge Haynsworth, and then they got Justice [Blackburn], who's a pretty good justice, nominated by Nixon.Now, look what happened recently. Scalia was confirmed 98-nothing. I went up to Capitol Hill, went into Kennedy and other progressive Democrats' office, can't you at least dissent?
No. They recognized the president's prerogative. And then came along Kennedy, replacing the defeated nomination of Gore, and he was support--he was voted in 97-nothing. Every Democrat voted for him.So in those days the Democrats recognized the president's prerogative to nominated someone who, if they had any intellect and they were fairly clean, okay, vote for them. Not the Republicans. No way. And the Republicans are very, very aggressive. As a result, for example, they got Justice Thomas through 52-48 in a Senate that was dominated by a majority of Democrats, and Senator George Mitchell was the majority leader. We were up there in Capitol Hill trying to change votes. We actually changed Lieberman's vote, can you imagine. He thanked me later for alerting him to Thomas' record.But Thomas won 52-48 with about 12 Democratic senators crossing the aisle and joining with the Republicans. What are you going to do with such passive, recessive types of Democrats up against, you know, saber-tooth tiger Republicans? It's not much of a contest.
JAY: Yeah, the Republicans--.
NADER: So I wonder what's going to happen.
JAY: Well, the Republicans always seem to understand they're at a war for what they want, and the Democrats make a virtue out of being able to work across the aisle. I don't understand that part. What's your observations on the elections? On the, what's going on with the primaries and such?
NADER: Well, I think the most immediate thing is to get Hillary to, to release the transcripts of her closed-door meetings before thousands of businesspeople. The realtors, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, the chain drug stores, all of whom paid her $5,000 a minute, Paul. That's what it breaks down--$5,000 a minute to say what? Why doesn't she level, and tell the American people what she told all these business conventions in secret being paid $5,000 a minute?When she was asked this question by Chuck Todd on one of the debates, she wasn't ready for the answer. She said, well, we'll look into it. Well, there are stenographers in every one of those meetings required by her lecture contract. She required the presence of stenographers.
What's she waiting for, and what's Bernie Sanders waiting for, not demanding in the debate to have her release the transcripts? He's been too easy on her, and that may have sunk his candidacy if he doesn't turn around in the remaining three debates.As far as Trump goes, again it was Chuck Todd who said, when are you going to release your tax returns? Now, it's not legally required that he do so. But he makes such a big deal out of his business successes as a reason to vote for him for president, I think he's ethically obligated to release thousands of pages. These are huge tax returns over a period of years. What did he say when he was asked? He was asked, he said--we're looking into it, Chuck, but I didn't pay much tax, because the tax [revenues] are wasted in Washington.Well, imagine all these reporters that have access to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It never really asks the question. Day after day they deal with trivia. Did you say this about Cruz? Did you say this about Bernie? The press has not raised it to the level of its significance. It is being dragged down to the most vacuous, slander-ridden riposte, you know, all kinds of outrageous statements. It's dragged down by the candidates themselves. We accept, you know, I think, Bernie, who's actually talking about power issues and distribution of power.
JAY: The transcripts--.
NADER: Which is, by the way, which is by--which is, by the way, why they don't cover him very much. Why ABC a year ago devoted 82 minutes to Trump, and 2 minutes to Bernie Sanders, even though Bernie Sanders led the national polls. He still, you know, leads the national polls. You would know it by watching TV news.
JAY: When you put him against Trump, you mean.NADER: When you put him against anybody one-on-one, he's ahead.
JAY: I think he's about ten points behind Clinton, but the gap has greatly closed from what it was.
NADER: He's ten points behind Clinton, by Democratic voters. But if it's all the voters, all the voters, he's been in the lead.
JAY: You know, when you go back to this transcript issue, while I agree with you, Sanders should be upping the demand. He mentioned it in one of the debates, but he should up it. But I think even if, even if those speeches were just about how important it is to promote women in the corporate America, I don't think it actually matters what the heck she says. Just the fact she took the money--because if you want to keep taking that money, and you want to keep getting those enormous speaker fees, then you better not be doing anything on the policy side that's going to offend the people paying you these great big speaker fees. So just the fact she takes it is bad enough.
NADER: Oh, but the delicious words she must have used to reassure the crowds. To say, you know, I don't buy this [inaud.] the bankers. I think we're all in it together. And we have to get out of it all together. I mean, she's told these--you know, you know, Paul. You're a media-savvy person. When you're in front of an audience of 2,000 developers, or 2,000 people representing the drug industry, or hundreds of people representing Wall Street banks, you tell them what they want to hear. If you told them what you--.
JAY: Yeah, because they're all potential donors.
NADER: Yeah. You don't tell them what they don't want to hear. That's when it leaks. It's when--in fact, the Wall Street Journal wrote in an article the other day saying they interviewed some people inside these closed-door conventions. And some said she gushed. She gushed at them. That would not help her against Bernie Sanders.By the way, I think in the latest poll Bernie Sanders among the Democrats is getting closer and closer to being even, if I'm not mistaken.
JAY: Well, certainly--certainly in Nevada that's been happening. I think she still has a significant lead in South Carolina. But nationally he's getting much closer.All right. Well, Ralph, I hope you'll come back regularly, and we'll keep talking about these and many other issues.
NADER: Okay, it's a pleasure to be with Real News Network. Those of you who watch it faithfully, spread the word. Neighbors, workers, friends. It doesn't just exist for you, it exists for people who want to get the real facts and really important issues of a democratic society you can work on to get a better, more just society.
JAY: Thanks very much, Ralph.NADER: Okay. Thank you, Paul.JAY: And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.
Bio
Ralph Nader was named by The Atlantic as one of the hundred most influential figures in American history, and by Time and Life magazines as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century. Ralph Nader has helped us drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water and work in safer environments for more than four decades. The crusading attorney first made headlines in 1965 with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a scathing indictment that lambasted the auto industry for producing unsafe vehicles. The book led to Congressional hearings and automobile safety laws passed in 1966, including the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. He was instrumental in the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). Many lives have been saved by Nader's involvement in the recall of millions of unsafe consumer products, including defective motor vehicles and in the protection of laborers and the environment. By starting dozens of citizen groups, Ralph Nader has created an atmosphere of corporate and governmental accountability.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15717
February 21, 2016
"Morgan Freeman dishes on Obama's presidential library"
Morgan Freeman dishes on Obama's presidential library
By Judy Kurtz - 02/19/16 04:16 PM EST
http://thehill.com/video/in-the-news/270064-morgan-freeman-dishes-on-obamas-presidential-library
President Obama has at least one star helper assisting him in creating his presidential library: Morgan Freeman.
The five-time Academy Award winner says he dined with the commander in chief at a downtown Washington restaurant this week to discuss plans for the space that’s slated to be built in Chicago.
“There was a bunch of us there to start helping him design the Obama center,” Freeman tells host Larry King on an episode of Ora.tv’s “Larry King Now,” airing Feb. 29. Actor Tom Hanks was also reportedly eyed among the guests at the exclusive dinner with the president.
“We’re not going to call it the library,” Freeman, 78, says to King with a smile. “It’s going to be called the Obama Center.
“[The president’s] anxious to make it so that when people visit, they come away with maybe a little incentive to take part in the process,” Freeman added. Construction on the presidential center is reportedly poised to be complete in 2020 or 2021.
Calling himself “a big fan,” the "Million Dollar Baby" star, who donated $1 million to a pro-Obama super-PAC in 2012 and narrated a campaign ad that year for Obama’s re-election bid, heaped praise on the president.
“Ever since I read [Obama’s 2006 book ‘The Audacity of Hope’], he’s had me in his hip pocket. You know, whatever he needs, if I can provide it, he’s got it. He knows it.”
Freeman also made headlines on Friday for narrating an ad for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
The five-time Academy Award winner says he dined with the commander in chief at a downtown Washington restaurant this week to discuss plans for the space that’s slated to be built in Chicago.
“There was a bunch of us there to start helping him design the Obama center,” Freeman tells host Larry King on an episode of Ora.tv’s “Larry King Now,” airing Feb. 29. Actor Tom Hanks was also reportedly eyed among the guests at the exclusive dinner with the president.
“We’re not going to call it the library,” Freeman, 78, says to King with a smile. “It’s going to be called the Obama Center.
“[The president’s] anxious to make it so that when people visit, they come away with maybe a little incentive to take part in the process,” Freeman added. Construction on the presidential center is reportedly poised to be complete in 2020 or 2021.
Calling himself “a big fan,” the "Million Dollar Baby" star, who donated $1 million to a pro-Obama super-PAC in 2012 and narrated a campaign ad that year for Obama’s re-election bid, heaped praise on the president.
“Ever since I read [Obama’s 2006 book ‘The Audacity of Hope’], he’s had me in his hip pocket. You know, whatever he needs, if I can provide it, he’s got it. He knows it.”
Freeman also made headlines on Friday for narrating an ad for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
February 21, 2016
Bernie's Campaign and "WE" his Supporters are Exposing the Rot!
The Caucus System Sucks. Those who participated know this and will let the Dem Party know about it!
What has been exposed in both Iowa and Nevada about our flawed voting system in many states will be out there for Party Reformers to Parse through and make sure this doesn't happen again. DWS....You Have Been on Notice...and you need to Resign...along with the other Party Ops taking the Money and ruining our Elections System to the Advantage of Those YOU DEEM to be the CHOSEN ONES of those who have Funded you For Years!
Bernie Has the Message for the PEOPLE and he is Exposing the Rot of our Party who has Sold Out their Left Activists who bring Truth to Power and Will Not Stop!
We Work Harder and we have the Experience of being in the Trenches since "Stolen Election 2000!" We have the Info of how Our Party Organizers and Ops have betrayed us and we Have the Will to Keep Fighting.
Let's Congratulate Ourselves that we've Come this Far and We Have the POWER!
Even the Mainstream Media is picking up that our Election System is Egregiously Flawed and they are grudgingly reporting.....which will make a difference because they know they will lose more and more of their audience IF THEY DON'T.
TRUTH WILL WIN! We WILL PREVAIL!
February 20, 2016
By Daily Kos Elections
Saturday Feb 20, 2016 · 2:00 PM EST
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/20/1487128/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Nevada-Democratic-caucus-liveblog-1
"Daily Kos" Live Nevada Election Blog--(For those not doing MSM):
Democratic caucus liveblog #1By Daily Kos Elections
Saturday Feb 20, 2016 · 2:00 PM EST
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/20/1487128/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Nevada-Democratic-caucus-liveblog-1
February 19, 2016
The King and Queen of Haiti
By Jonathan M. Katz
May 04, 2015
Sunday, January 30, 2011. Two hundred thousand people occupied Egypt’s Tahrir Square, defying a military curfew to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Tunisia’s authoritarian leader had just been overthrown, unleashing a wave of anti-government protests from Yemen to Syria to Morocco. South Sudan’s provisional president announced his people had voted overwhelmingly for independence, clearing the way for the breakup of Africa’s largest country. Yet as Hillary Clinton rushed to Andrews Air Force Base to catch her battered government-issue 727, the secretary of state was not headed to Cairo, Tunis or Juba. She was going to Haiti.
Haiti doesn’t seem like a place that would be central to a U.S. presidential candidate’s foreign policy. It’s a small country, whose 10.3 million people inhabit the western third of a Caribbean island the size of South Carolina. They are the poorest people in the hemisphere when you average their country’s meager $8.5 billion GDP among them, and would seem poorer still if you ignored the huge share held by the country’s tiny elite—which controls virtually everything worth controlling, from the banks and ports, to agriculture and, often, politics. It is not a major exporter of anything. Even its location, 500 nautical miles from the Florida Keys, has been of only passing strategic importance to the United States since a brutal 1915-1934 U.S. occupation assured no European power would surpass its influence there.
Yet the world’s most powerful couple have an abiding interest in this out-of-the-way place; the island where Bill Clinton four decades ago recommitted himself to politics after an eye-opening journey and an evening with a Vodou priest. During her tenure at State, Hillary traveled to Haiti four times, as often as she did Japan, Afghanistan or Russia. Bill Clinton continues to visit even as her presidential campaign starts up. He attended the February dedication of Port-au-Prince’s new luxury Marriott hotel, a trip on which he reaffirmed, once again, that his work in Haiti represented “one of the great joys of my life.”
Over the past two decades, the once-and-perhaps-future first couple repeatedly played a key role in Haiti’s politics, helping to pick its national leaders and driving hundreds of millions of dollars in private aid, investment and U.S. taxpayer money toward its development. They’ve brought with them a network of friends and global corporations that never would’ve been here otherwise. Together, this network of power and money has left indelible marks on almost every aspect of the Haitian economy. The island nation, in many ways, represents ground zero for the confusing and often conflict-ridden intersection of her State Department, the Clinton family’s foundation and both of their foreign policies.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/clinton-foundation-haiti-117368
"The King and Queen of Haiti"
The King and Queen of Haiti
There’s no country that more clearly illustrates the confusing nexus of Hillary Clinton’s State Department and Bill Clinton’s foundation than Haiti—America’s poorest neighbor.
By Jonathan M. Katz
May 04, 2015
Sunday, January 30, 2011. Two hundred thousand people occupied Egypt’s Tahrir Square, defying a military curfew to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Tunisia’s authoritarian leader had just been overthrown, unleashing a wave of anti-government protests from Yemen to Syria to Morocco. South Sudan’s provisional president announced his people had voted overwhelmingly for independence, clearing the way for the breakup of Africa’s largest country. Yet as Hillary Clinton rushed to Andrews Air Force Base to catch her battered government-issue 727, the secretary of state was not headed to Cairo, Tunis or Juba. She was going to Haiti.
Haiti doesn’t seem like a place that would be central to a U.S. presidential candidate’s foreign policy. It’s a small country, whose 10.3 million people inhabit the western third of a Caribbean island the size of South Carolina. They are the poorest people in the hemisphere when you average their country’s meager $8.5 billion GDP among them, and would seem poorer still if you ignored the huge share held by the country’s tiny elite—which controls virtually everything worth controlling, from the banks and ports, to agriculture and, often, politics. It is not a major exporter of anything. Even its location, 500 nautical miles from the Florida Keys, has been of only passing strategic importance to the United States since a brutal 1915-1934 U.S. occupation assured no European power would surpass its influence there.
Yet the world’s most powerful couple have an abiding interest in this out-of-the-way place; the island where Bill Clinton four decades ago recommitted himself to politics after an eye-opening journey and an evening with a Vodou priest. During her tenure at State, Hillary traveled to Haiti four times, as often as she did Japan, Afghanistan or Russia. Bill Clinton continues to visit even as her presidential campaign starts up. He attended the February dedication of Port-au-Prince’s new luxury Marriott hotel, a trip on which he reaffirmed, once again, that his work in Haiti represented “one of the great joys of my life.”
Over the past two decades, the once-and-perhaps-future first couple repeatedly played a key role in Haiti’s politics, helping to pick its national leaders and driving hundreds of millions of dollars in private aid, investment and U.S. taxpayer money toward its development. They’ve brought with them a network of friends and global corporations that never would’ve been here otherwise. Together, this network of power and money has left indelible marks on almost every aspect of the Haitian economy. The island nation, in many ways, represents ground zero for the confusing and often conflict-ridden intersection of her State Department, the Clinton family’s foundation and both of their foreign policies.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/clinton-foundation-haiti-117368
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