Sanders as a third-party candidate.....might it work?

[Cliff Varnell]

The "Russia hacked our emails" story concedes an admission of authenticity of those self same emails.

Yes, I'm shocked --shocked! -- that the DNC was wired to elect Hillary!

Except that we knew that from the get go.

What we don't know is how deeply indebted Donald Trump is to Russian banking/mob entities.

Better to go with the Devil we know, as they say...

[Peter Lemkin]

Schultz is going to be booed out of her job tonight, I think. It is all up to Sanders tonight if he has the guts to demand back what was stolen by trickery from him - or not [I fear not]! Clinton deserves all the shame she is collecting like a magnet. Her shame goes back to her teens and only grew in its mendacity over time. Hey, she once supported Goldwater and recently [!] said how she'd like to use Kissinger as an adviser. She and hubby Bill were involved in dirty money, drugs, secret intelligence ops, murder, wars, taking away from the poor, giving more advantage to the rich, and other crimes of all sorts.

This discussion of 'lesser of evils' makes no sense to me - evil is evil and I'll have none of it, thank you - or we only preserve the 'tradition' of 'lesser of evils', i.e. have one evil following another. America, is it the lesser of evil system....I think not...it is one of the most evil systems and powers and 'ya gotta start somewhere to end all this evil. No, we are not the only evil, but we are fully evil and getting MORE so by the day - the trend is unmistakable and must be reversed before life is erased and there are more wars and more misery for most - and more privilege and lucre for the few.

If you thought the Republican Convention had fault lines within it, just wait until you see what happens at the Democratic Convention - and all well deserved too.

[Cliff Varnell]

My response in this

Schultz is going to be booed out of her job tonight, I think. It is all up to Sanders tonight if he has the guts to demand back what was stolen by trickery from him - or not [I fear not]! Clinton deserves all the shame she is collecting like a magnet. Her shame goes back to her teens and only grew in its mendacity over time. Hey, she once supported Goldwater and recently [!] said how she'd like to use Kissinger as an adviser. She and hubby Bill were involved in dirty money, drugs, secret intelligence ops, murder, wars, taking away from the poor, giving more advantage to the rich, and other crimes of all sorts.
[size=12]
500,000 Iraqi children died from the embargo Bill Clinton enforced.

1,000.000+ Iraqis died in George Bush's invasion, and Iraq is a nightmarish society today.

Bush and Clinton didn't have an appreciably different level of "evil"?

No?

Really?[/SIZE]

This discussion of 'lesser of evils' makes no sense to me - evil is evil and I'll have none of it, thank you - or we only preserve the 'tradition' of 'lesser of evils', i.e. have one evil following another. America, is it the lesser of evil system....I think not..


Excuse me?

I never argued that.

Having a President beholden to the Globalist Oligarchy is an appreciably lesser evil than a President beholden to the Russian Oligarchy and the American white supremicist Dominionist Oligarchy.

Hillary inherits the legacy of the "left wing" of the Globalist Oligarchy.

You know...the folks who brought us World War 2, the heroin scourge in American inner cities in the 50's (crack in the 80's), the assassination of JFK, and Vietnam (to warm up).

I get it.

I'm saying Hillary is subject to pressure from below (the Dem base is anti-Oligarchy) just like that corporate centerist B. Obama "evolved" on certain issues..

With Trump there'd be a civil war.

With Hillary the anti-war movement must be ready from Day One.


.it is one of the most evil systems and powers and 'ya gotta start somewhere to end all this evil. No, we are not the only evil, but we are fully evil and getting MORE so by the day - the trend is unmistakable and must be reversed before life is erased and there are more wars and more misery for most - and more privilege and lucre for the few.

If you thought the Republican Convention had fault lines within it, just wait until you see what happens at the Democratic Convention - and all well deserved too.

I hope so!

Feel the Bern doesn't stop here.

But like Bernie sez-- on her worst day Hillary is a 100 times better than Trump.

[Peter Lemkin]

Schultz is going to be booed out of her job tonight, I think.

Right on the mark there!...but it didn't take rocket science to see that was coming....now will Clinton dump her too? Hardly matters, as Clinton will surround herself with the same type of persons in a variety of disciplines - from Grand Warriors through Intelligence Big Boys along side Goldman-Sachs types and the petty business as usual in the Empire corrupted.

I don't see how the Sanders 'revolution' can continue within the Democratic Party and it was, IMO, always a mistake to even try to build it there. Look on the Left and an the Right there is common ground [that America has some HUGE problems and most are discontent at the decline in quality of life and salary, endless wars, fear (some real; most created) and an unease about the general path of society and its priorities. How the Left and Right react to these are different and their solutions are different. I don't see room in the DNP of today for a progressive movement - it has to move outside of it if it is to survive. I am disappointed at Sanders who made the mistake to change from a Socialist to a Democrat.....but to most Americans the term 'Socialist' is just another spelling of 'Communist' and both are dirty words and concepts - such is the propaganda.

I don't know the exact equations for weighing evil, but I think on her worst day Clinton is awful, as is Trump. Perhaps on his worst day SANDERS is 100 times better than Trump; but on their average day my calculus is more in the area of Trump only being 2-3X as evil as Clinton [though they are evil in very different ways for the most part; but both elitists despite the rhetoric otherwise].

It is a sad day for America, but which day is not? I would love to see something like the '60's revolution' again in the USA and had some hopes for OWS and Bernie Sanders - but both have now folded. Will it surface again and fight on? I can only hope so, but it HAS to be outside of the establishment political system which is set up to co-opt progressive ideas and positive changes for the majority of the US and World.

I think barring a scandal or unforeseen event Clinton will win...then what?...we have Big business as usual; wars as usual; banksters as usual; poverty growing as usual; an out of control series of black ops as usual. Do I think the platform changes pushed by Sanders will be adhered to by Clinton? NO!

Those who backed Sanders will become very disenchanted, just as those who backed Obama have become. We need third and forth and fifth parties with the ability to elect members to Congress and the Presidency. We need a whole new polity and fast.

In the end, do I think Sanders has made a lasting effect? Sadly, I think very little - though the discontent with the status quo is still there. The status quo is pro at deflecting discontent away from itself and sadly all too many are fooled time and time again (or simply confused or downtrodden into ineffectual effort).

We need a peaceful revolution in America and the World and that starts with the best of the not-evils, not the least of the evils......what it really needs is basically a movement without central leaders. Obama promised all kinds of things and outside of a few positive domestic steps turned out to be a disaster and not as advertised puppet of the MI+C. Clinton, outside of a few positive domestic steps will IMO be worse than Obama - not a move forward, but backwards.

Sanders is far from perfect - especially in his foreign policy - but compared to the others a breath of fresh air. Jill Stein of the Greens is infinitely better than Sanders, but few know the Green Party even exists and feel a vote for them is a 'wasted vote'. I say a vote for business/politics as usual is the wasted vote in the completely rigged system.

[Magda Hassan]

Schultz is going to be booed out of her job tonight, I think.

Right on the mark there!...but it didn't take rocket science to see that was coming....now will Clinton dump her too? Hardly matters, as Clinton will surround herself with the same type of persons in a variety of disciplines - from Grand Warriors through Intelligence Big Boys along side Goldman-Sachs types and the petty business as usual in the Empire corrupted.

Clinton hired Schultz with in hours of her sacking. What a good signal that sends out about her tolerance for corruption. ::hush::

Well, she was always working for Clinton any way. Now it is official.

[Peter Lemkin]

Great show today on Sanders, the Sanders movement, the current political system, and the one we want to have - watch the debate between Chris Hedges and Robert Reich. This is a enlightening discussion. Hedges is better and better, and hones in on the very nucleus of the problem....and Reich is undergoing an interesting nascent radicalization...if behind where Hedges is by a mile. It occupies the entire second hour [of the two hour show] of today's Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/26/wh...upport_now

[Peter Lemkin]

If anyone wants to see why I support Dr. Jill Stein for President along with the Green Party, generally, listen to this debate here, again from today's especially good DemocracyNow!

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/26/ji...nton_green


One can also find lots of youtube speeches by Jill Stein and one can download the Platform of the Green Party [not a bad read!] Stein offered to step down to Vice Presidential candidate if Sanders would take on the Presidential ticket...but Bernie Blew It Big Time!....I believe the Green Party could have gotten second place out of four main players/parties, and damaged the stranglehold on America greatly. It would not have won the war, but it would have been a significant battle won on the long walk to freedom.

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/gp...1436484918

[Cliff Varnell]

Further discussions with Brother Peter in this beautiful color.

Schultz is going to be booed out of her job tonight, I think.

Right on the mark there!...but it didn't take rocket science to see that was coming....now will Clinton dump her too? Hardly matters, as Clinton will surround herself with the same type of persons in a variety of disciplines - from Grand Warriors through Intelligence Big Boys along side Goldman-Sachs types and the petty business as usual in the Empire corrupted.

In 2016 the people have the internet and social media and the capability to organize quickly and with increasing effectiveness.

Let's get ready to hold Hillary's feet to the fire the way Bernie put her feet to the fire.

Hell, Hillary has been giving Bernie's stump speech for a couple of months.

When Hillary fucks up she catches holy and unholy Hell.

It ain't the 90's anymore...

I don't see how the Sanders 'revolution' can continue within the Democratic Party and it was, IMO, always a mistake to even try to build it there.

It's not up to Hillary or the Democrats.

It's up to us.

We must stay engaged or the entropy of Empire continues.


Look on the Left and an the Right there is common ground [that America has some HUGE problems and most are discontent at the decline in quality of life and salary, endless wars, fear (some real; most created) and an unease about the general path of society and its priorities.


Gas is going for $2.35 a gallon.

401ks are fatter than ever.

43 year low in layoffs.

For all its problems Obamacare freed a couple of million people from "job lock" -- where folks kept jobs they hated just to get the health insurance.

Expanded Medicaid is the only instance of correction in over-all income inequality.

The negotiated removal of weapons of mass destruction from Syria and Iran wiped out the #1 rationale for War Against the Shia.

I can go to Cuba now.

Our electronic communications are no longer bulk collected by the NSA and fed into the DEA files on every American.

Yeah, a lot of people are pissed off.

Trump-chumps hate the fact that Obama and the Dems have scored many policy victories.

Our Bernie revolution is built on anger toward the Republican victories since Nixon which have crippled the middle-class.

The claim that Bernie and Putin's Bitch appeal to the same anger is bullshit.

Anytime Hillary bends toward the Dark Side the revolution must rise up!

We got the tools, damit.

No excuses change only comes from below and it's entirely ON US!!

How the Left and Right react to these are different and their solutions are different. I don't see room in the DNP of today for a progressive movement - it has to move outside of it if it is to survive. I am disappointed at Sanders who made the mistake to change from a Socialist to a Democrat.....but to most Americans the term 'Socialist' is just another spelling of 'Communist' and both are dirty words and concepts - such is the propaganda.

I don't know the exact equations for weighing evil, but I think on her worst day Clinton is awful, as is Trump.

This is a very interesting moral point, how to weigh evils.

I'd say it is preferable to deal with an evil that can be ameliorated, to a degree remedied or pushed-back against.

We can push back against Hillary.

President Donald Trump and his racist private army?

Time to buy weapons and get ready for war.

Perhaps on his worst day SANDERS is 100 times better than Trump; but on their average day my calculus is more in the area of Trump only being 2-3X as evil as Clinton [though they are evil in very different ways for the most part; but both elitists despite the rhetoric otherwise].

One is subject to political pressure, the other is not unless you're a Dominionist or Russian Oligarch.

It is a sad day for America, but which day is not? I would love to see something like the '60's revolution' again in the USA and had some hopes for OWS and Bernie Sanders - but both have now folded. Will it surface again and fight on? I can only hope so, but it HAS to be outside of the establishment political system which is set up to co-opt progressive ideas and positive changes for the majority of the US and World.

I think barring a scandal or unforeseen event Clinton will win...then what?...we have Big business as usual; wars as usual; banksters as usual; poverty growing as usual; an out of control series of black ops as usual. Do I think the platform changes pushed by Sanders will be adhered to by Clinton? NO!

Those who backed Sanders will become very disenchanted, just as those who backed Obama have become. We need third and forth and fifth parties with the ability to elect members to Congress and the Presidency. We need a whole new polity and fast.

In the end, do I think Sanders has made a lasting effect? Sadly, I think very little - though the discontent with the status quo is still there. The status quo is pro at deflecting discontent away from itself and sadly all too many are fooled time and time again (or simply confused or downtrodden into ineffectual effort).

We need a peaceful revolution in America and the World and that starts with the best of the not-evils, not the least of the evils......what it really needs is basically a movement without central leaders. Obama promised all kinds of things and outside of a few positive domestic steps turned out to be a disaster and not as advertised puppet of the MI+C. Clinton, outside of a few positive domestic steps will IMO be worse than Obama - not a move forward, but backwards.

Sanders is far from perfect - especially in his foreign policy - but compared to the others a breath of fresh air. Jill Stein of the Greens is infinitely better than Sanders, but few know the Green Party even exists and feel a vote for them is a 'wasted vote'. I say a vote for business/politics as usual is the wasted vote in the completely rigged system.

[Drew Phipps]

The worst might be yet to come with the DNC email hack
Pamela Engel
Jul 26th 2016 8:14PM

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/07/26/th.../21439542/

The leak of emails from the Democratic National Committee has already rocked the party's convention this week, but it might not be over quite yet. Cybersecurity experts and Democratic strategists worry that more emails could come out in what might be a slow drip of hacked messages deployed strategically throughout the election cycle for maximum impact. "Like everyone in DC, I immediately searched my name," an unidentified strategist who works with the DNC told BuzzFeed News. "I wasn't in there, which I was happy about, until I realized just how sinister this leak actually was."


Russia is a prime suspect in the hack. US officials told The Daily Beast that they suspect the Russians wanted to tip the scale in favor of Donald Trump, the Republican nominee who has spoken favorably of Russian President Vladimir Putin. "The release of emails just as the Democratic National Convention is getting underway this week has the hallmarks of a Russian active measures campaign," David Shedd, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told The Daily Beast. He suspects that more leaks are coming.


Internal Democratic National Committee emails published by WikiLeaks on Friday showed top staffers considering leaking negative information about Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who was running against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Among other things, officials at the DNC were shown to have scoffed at Sanders' supporters, and at one point questioned Sanders' religious beliefs. DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned over the scandal. Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, told Yahoo News in reference to the apparent attempts to undermine Sanders' candidacy, "It was going to come out at some point. It was clear that this was going on." He also thinks that more is coming, noting that the leaked emails range from only January 2015 to May 2016. "The emails only cover a certain time period, so there are other time periods and, if they have the emails, I'm sure there are emails in there," Weaver told Yahoo.


The leaks riled up Sanders supporters the week that the Democratic Party was supposed to be rallying around its presumed nominee, Clinton. The first day of the convention in Philadelphia was marked by chaos as Sanders supporters remained obstinate in their support of him over Clinton. "If the hack is linked to Russian actors, it would not be the first time cyber intrusions linked to the Kremlin and its supporters have sought to influence the political process in other countries," Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement to The Daily Beast. "Given Donald Trump's well-known admiration for Putin and his belittling of NATO, the Russians have both the means and the motive to engage in a hack of the DNC and the dump of its emails prior to the Democratic Convention. That foreign actors may be trying to influence our election let alone a powerful adversary like Russia should concern all Americans of any party," he said.


Franklin Foer wrote for Slate that the DNC leaks are worse than Watergate, the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon. Foer wrote that it appears that Russian hackers have "stolen documents and timed their release to explode with maximum damage." "It is a strike against our civic infrastructure," he wrote. "And though nobody died and there was no economic toll exacted the Russians were aiming for a tender spot, a central node of our democracy." Ajay Arora, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Vera, told BuzzFeed News that this could become the new normal. "This is a bellwether of things to come," Arora said. "The techniques are advancing. There are strategic attacks, and then there is tactical warfare. There are parties out there now thinking, 'hey, let's affect outcome of whole election.'"

They could have just listened to Assange, who said more damaging information was coming, last week. I listened to a story yesterday on NPR where a named lady expert, with experience "monitoring elections in Europe", made almost exactly the same points as these talking heads. Almost as if they're all using the same memo. I'll try to find a link to that story.

Here: http://www.wnyc.org/story/behind-alleged...-dnc-leaks

[Drew Phipps]

Reuters is changing its poll methodology to remove the word "Neither" from its list of choices.

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/07/29/th.../21441339/


Instead of "Neither/Other" it will offer "Other" in order to bring its poll results closer in line with other polls. It appears that inclusion of the word "neither" was garnering 3% of the vote. That seems significant, in view of the fact that both the Green and the Libertarian parties would like to participate in the televised debates and need a certain number of poll points to get there.


Or the word "neither" could just express the general level of disgust with the whole thing, although an informal poll (conducted by me of certain people I know) indicates that about 50% of them are willing to express a general level of disgust with the whole thing.