December 31, 2016

My head is spinning

from the contradictory arguments I see around here. After being told that we need to display great understanding toward Trump-voting white men, I see many of those same people insisting Jews who object to Ellison as DNC chair should fuck off and leave the party. So why throw away the second most loyal Democratic voting block (after African Americans) while simultaneously insisting we need to expand the party? Could it be that winning elections is actually less important than following Bernie? Ellison is Bernie's pick, therefore anyone who objects to Ellison should leave the party. Bernie says the white working class is key, so we must cater to them. Or is it there some sort of preference for white male Christian voters above the rest, whether Jews who object to Ellison or disenfranchised voters of color, who have been all but ignored in the post-election analysis (except by Tom Perez).

December 14, 2016

My theory about Trump and Russia

He's badly in debt to Russian banks. Given his abysmal business credit rating (31), he was unable to get loans from US banks. He got them from Russia. Putin saw Trump's run for office as an opportunity and launched a covert operation to subvert the election in Trump's favor. Now that Trump has won, he's making one pro-Russian cabinet appointment after another and claiming the US intelligence agencies are lying about Russia's involvement in our elections.

It is possible that Trump's campaign or even Trump himself had active knowledge of Russian interference. It's hard to understand Trump's denials of US intel absent some involvement on his part.

There are reports about a server from Trump tower being in regular communication with a Russian bank. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html
What was communicated through those servers? Were Trump aids on contact with the Russian government? Were they discussing the campaign, and did Russia give them information obtaining from hacking the Clinton campaign?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but my guess is that the impetus of the relationship between Trump and Putin is financial. He's badly in debt to Russia, and that gives Putin leverage over him. Putin may even have instructed the banks to give the loans in order to cultivate dependency.

That is why the investigation into the Russian covert action needs to be accompanied by a thorough review of Trump's finances to undercover vulnerabilities for our nation.

December 11, 2016

Strange Priorities

Intelligence agencies have proof that Russians interfered in our elections in order to put Trump in office. Putin is at this moment moving missiles into Eastern Europe. We have a fascist about to enter the White House who ran on plans to create a Muslim registry and since being elected has talked about how internment camps are okay since FDR did them. He's appointed five billionaires to his cabinet, a climate change denier to the EPA and a fast foot mogul who opposes any minimum wage to the head Department of Labor. Trump appeared on television today lying about the source of information about Russian interference in the election by falsely claiming it came from the Democratic party rather than intelligence agencies. We also have the rise of hate crimes and mainstreaming of Neo-Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan.

Yet despite all that, we have people on this site who have decided what really matters is that Hillary Clinton used the word deplorables and earned money giving speeches to Wall Street banks. That sin would appear to be greater than turning the Treasury Department over to a man who made billions from throwing people out of their homes or Trump's plans for enormous tax cuts for the wealthy. The enemy, it seems, is not Russia or Trump but the Democratic Party.

The country is going to hell, but the only thing they care about is making excuses for the Putin-Trump (at least attempted) coup. They insist Russia had no impact on the election, even as they continue to complain that a few DNC emails somehow compelled 3.8 million more voters to choose Clinton in the primary. So why the outrage over the DNC emails but not Russian interference in favor of Trump? The only thing I can figure out is they object to the outcome of the primary but not the general election. If that is the case, why do we have to suffer their lectures about the future direction of the Democratic Party, particularly when they show absolutely no concern about the future of the nation?

December 7, 2016

No You Cant : Why Im Still Crying Over Hillary Clintons Loss.

Many women feel this way about Hillary Clinton's defeat in the GE. The loss is not just political; it's personal.

Eirene Donohue

December 6, 2016

"substantive proposals"

We were waiting the entire primary to hear about those. Funny he didn't release them then. The NY Daily News in particular wanted Bernie to explain his "substantive proposals" on Wall Street reform but he never did. He instead said he shouldn't be expected to know how banks would be split up since he didn't run Citigroup.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/transcript-bernie-sanders-meets-news-editorial-board-article-1.2588306

He continued to repeated his core beliefs, which are indeed heartfelt, but he never developed substantive policy proposals of HOW he was going to execute what he talked about. Nor did he have any idea of how he as president would gain the authority to enact his goals.



You might recall that in the debates he was very critical of Clinton for saying that Dodd-Frank enabled the government to identity banks that were too big to fail. He insisted only reinstating Glass-Steagal would do. Yet in that interview he said he would rely on Dodd-Frank, though he was unsure about what authority it provided or how that mechanism worked.

These are ideas he has talked about for years, yet he gave little thought to how to implement them. The same with prosecuting bankers. He could not speak to the legal basis under which they would be prosecuted. He just said they should be. I found it astounding that in all the years he's been talking about locking up bankers, he didn't once think to look into the legal provisions that would make that possible.

Substantive proposals are not something he developed during his campaign. I remain doubtful that he has since done so.

I don't in any way disagree with his overall goals or his outrage at the financial sector, but a president's job is to make those goals happen and that requires serious thought and detailed policy about the precise governmental and legal mechanisms necessary.

December 4, 2016

Clinton's loss in the GE was all her fault

personally and had nothing to do with racism or sexism, yet Bernie's loss in the primary was entirely due to the DNC and the media. He bears no responsibility at all for it.

Clinton was a "flawed" candidate, too weak to win, but Bernie isn't at all flawed, despite losing to the hopelessly weak candidate by 3.75 million votes.

Is that supposed to be logical or remotely convincing?

(This isn't basing either candidate but rather pointing out a contradictory argument).