Bernie will endorse HRC soon

In furtherance of my prediction that Bernie will endorse HRC next week, I saw this quote posted by Joshua Holland on FB just now. 

"We now have the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party" 

--Bernie Sanders

♦ David Studhalter

 

​

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Sanders supporters rallying around HRC

I call to the attention of all my nervous HRC-supporting farflung correspondents the piece in the Washington Post today which finds that Sanders supporters are rallying around Clinton faster and more completely this year than Clinton supporters did around Obama in `08 as of the approximately same point in the campaign that year. 

Takeaway: Don't panic. We will defeat Donald Trump, and the party will adopt a good deal of the Sanders agenda going forward. And that is a good thing. 

Thank you and over and out. 

♦ David Studhalter

 

Please visit The Gyromantic Informicon 

I got an offer for free 12 week trial NY Times digital edition subscriptions.

I got an offer from the NY Times for 2 free 12 week gift subscriptions to the Digital Edition of the Times. If any of my farflung correspondents would like one, please let me know. First come first served. I imagine you'll have to cancel when the free period is up, so if that's a hassle you'd rather not deal with, keep it in mind. 

♦ David Studhalter

 

Please visit The Gyromantic Informicon 

Ryan Grim: Obama's SEA CHANGE on Social Security

Farflung correspondents,

Normally I do my own diatribes, but this one's worth passing on unchanged. /Ryan Grim.

♦ David Studhalter

 

Please visit The Gyromantic Informicon 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ryan Grim <ryan@huffingtonpost.com>
Date: Mon, Jun 6, 2016 at 1:53 PM
Subject: Obama went from cutting Social Security to boosting it. Here's how that happened...
To: studhalter@gyromantic.com

​ • ​ Barack Obama Once Proposed Cutting Social Security. Here's What Changed His Mind. By Daniel Marans, Arthur Delaney and Ryan Grim WASHINGTON — When President Barack Obama announced his support this week for expanding Social Security benefits, it was nothing less than a sea change. Progressive activists claimed credit for the move as both a clear nod to their power in the age of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and the fruits of ambitious activism that slowly but surely moved the bounds of the mainstream political discussion. Whether Obama's remarks mark a shift in his policy views, a politically expedient concession to an ascendant progressive wing or something in between, it is an unmistakable indicator of the Democratic Party's return to its New Deal roots. But getting there required a slog through the political aftermath of the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression. Fighting Popular Wisdom Obama entered the White House at a time of economic crisis and rapidly increasing national debt. Virtually from the start of his presidency, Washington was seized with hysteria over the latter phenomenon. Although a diverse array of economists believe Obama's $800-billion stimulus package played a key role in helping the economy recover, it elicited howls from the right for contributing to the already rising debt. Much of the growth in annual budget deficits for which Obama was blamed, however, was due to the Great Recession and the Bush tax cuts — things he had no control over. Stopping "out-of-control spending," in the form of the president's stimulus package and other policies, became one of the nascent tea party's rallying cries. Even as the country struggled to beat back double-digit unemployment, addressing the debt became among the most pressing issues in Washington. Think tanks and pundits on all sides of the spectrum lined up to warn of the dire consequences of avoiding an "adult" conversation about the unsustainable costs of Social Security and Medicare. And the Obama administration — rather than fight the narrative of out-of-control debt tooth and nail — chose to accommodate it. Just a year into Obama's presidency, the White House began to pivot away from fiscal stimulus and toward austerity. The president convened a bipartisan debt reduction commission in February 2010, co-chaired by Morgan Stanley director Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, and former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.), and charged it with forging a fiscal "grand bargain." That became the catchphrase of choice on the Bowles-Simpson commission — and in budget talks in subsequent years — for a compromise agreement to reduce the long-term debt, through a combination of Social Security and Medicare cuts historically anathema to Democrats and revenue increases and defense cuts hard for Republicans to swallow. It was very lonely to be on the side that said: 'Absolutely no cuts, under any circumstances.'Alex Lawson, Social Security Works A small group of organizations on the progressive end of the Democratic Party arose to mobilize against the commission's efforts with a focus on protecting Social Security. Activists say they were emboldened by the knowledge that the Beltway elite was out of touch with how Americans felt about Social Security. Perhaps thanks to its universal nature, even Republicans support it by wide margins. Opposition to Social Security cuts was the only policy position that supporters of all the presidential candidates agreed with in a March 31 Pew poll. Social Security experts Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, both veterans of the 1982 commission that orchestrated the last round of major reforms to the program, secured foundation funding for the creation of the advocacy organization Social Security Works. Social Security Works led the Strengthen Social Security coalition, an alliance of progressive organizations, labor unions and think tanks in what was then a fight to stop cuts expected to be recommended by Obama's fiscal commission. The coalition members, which ranged from the National Organization for Women to MoveOn.org, rejected the policy arguments for the cuts on several grounds. Social Security is a self-funded program that faces a modest financial shortfall andshould not be cut to reduce a deficit it did not cause, they argued. And besides, the activists maintained, Social Security has only become more important as other traditional sources of retirement income declined and newer ones have failed to close the gap. But in a political environment where austerity was all the rage, advocates like Alex Lawson, Social Security Works' executive director, were initially at pains to find members of Congress willing to pledge not to cut the program, let alone expand its benefits. "It was very lonely to be on the side that said: 'Absolutely no cuts, under any circumstances,'" Lawson recalled. "There weren't many allies." The tea party was more useful than Democratic leadership when it came to killing a grand bargain that would have cut Social Security benefits.Adam Green, Progressive Change Campaign Committee Deprived of access to the closed-door commission, Lawson began live-streaming the closed door on days when the commission met. The gimmick resulted in a bombshell conversation with commission co-chair Alan Simpson in June 2010. Simpson went on a profanity-laden rant, tearing into progressives who questioned the commission's concern for "the lesser people" and repeating alarmist myths about Social Security's finances. A couple months later, Simpson wrote to the head of the Older Women's League mocking Social Security as a "cow with 310 million tits." The comments prompted a high-profile — albeit unsuccessful — campaign for his ouster. "Alan Simpson was the gift that kept on giving," Lawson said. Thanks in no small part to Simpson, a letter started by Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) asking the commission to hold Social Security harmless gathered signatures rapidly, with 137 House Democrats eventually putting their names on it.   Their efforts did not shape the substance of the commission's proposals, but they laid the political groundwork for a broader movement that would ultimately succeed. Gene Sperling, who served as a White House economist during negotiations over the grand bargain that would have led to Social Security cuts, said that organized labor and Altman deserve significant credit for reshaping the conversation. "You can argue over details and payfors, but the change in conversation from how to reduce Social Security for solvency to how to strengthen Social Security and overall retirement security for tens of millions of seniors is a very positive one," Sperling told HuffPost. (He is now an adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign.) "And beyond the politicians, you have to give some credit to the AFL-CIO, Nancy Altman and the Strengthen Social Security coalition for helping to change the terms of the debate." BILL CLARK/GETTY IMAGES Obama Makes An Offer The Bowles-Simpson commission's final report in December of that year proposedmajor cuts to Social Security, including an increase in the retirement age, a lower benefit formula for above-median earners and a stingier cost-of-living adjustment. Although it maintained the pretense of bipartisan balance, 69 percent of the commission's proposed budget savings came from spending cuts. The proposal itself went nowhere. It became the blueprint, however, of subsequent plans to cut Social Security — especially after Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2011. With Republicans hell-bent on holding hostage every debt ceiling increase and extension of government funding to extract major policy concessions, Obama decided to put one of the commission's proposals — the chained Consumer Price Index — on the table. The chained CPI would change the formula used to adjust Social Security and other benefits for inflation. Although scholars debate whether it represents a more accurate price index than the one currently used, one way or another, it lowers the value of benefits over time relative to what they would be otherwise. Obama appears to have come closest to striking a deal with the benefit cut during last-minute budget negotiations with Republicans at the end of 2012, in the lame-duck session of Congress after he won re-election. The country faced what was dubbed a "fiscal cliff" at the start of the new year as a slew of Bush-era income tax cuts were due to expire and automatic spending cuts were set to take effect. Obama offered Republicans chained CPI in exchange for providing more tax increases. But under pressure from hardline anti-tax legislators, Republican leaders in Congress refused to compromise more. Thank you, tea party!Adam Green, Progressive Change Campaign Committee At one point, the White House reportedly suggested putting chained CPI back on the table after Republicans had not presented a counteroffer on taxes with the budget deadline less than 36 hours away. Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was apparently so peeved at the idea that he threw a note with the proposal into a blazing fire in his office fireplace. Reid ruled out reconsidering chained CPI because it seemed to him that Republicans weren't serious about giving ground on the Bush tax cuts, according to Jim Manley, a longtime spokesman for Reid who by then had stopped working for the senator. And that was the last time Reid ever entertained the idea of messing with Social Security. "Since then it's been, 'Hell no,'" Manley said. Progressives recognize that they benefitted from hard-line conservatives' delusion that by holding out, they could win even larger cuts. "One of the ironies is that the tea party was more useful than Democratic leadership when it came to killing a grand bargain that would have cut Social Security benefits," said Adam Green, co-chair of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, an online activism group at the forefront of the fight against cuts. "They were so crazy and unwilling to take 'yes' for an answer. That allowed us to live to fight another day." "Thank you, tea party!" Green added. According to a former Obama administration official who was involved in the grand bargain negotiations, Obama and his team at the White House concluded that, in order to get tax hikes out of Republicans, they'd have to give ground on a major Democratic priority. One camp was pushing for a bump up in the Medicare eligibility age, reasoning that as long as the Affordable Care Act was in place, people between 65 and 67 would be in fine shape. In fact, they thought, low-income elderly, would do better under Obamacare than under Medicare. But the faction pushing to put chained CPI on the table won out. Once that decision had been made, the official said, Obama rationalized his way toward believing that it was merely a modest statistical adjustment. In his second term, Obama even appeared to embrace chained CPI as his own, including it in his annual budget proposal in April 2013, which came after a fierce internal debate, according to one participant. The budget encountered stiff resistance from congressional Democrats and progressive activists, spurring a petition delivery and protest outside the White House where Bernie Sanders spoke. The following year, the provision disappeared from the president's budget. READ THE FULL STORY HERE You're getting this email because you either signed up for it in the past or we've corresponded before and I thought you'd enjoy it. If somebody forwarded you this note, you can sign up to start getting your copy here. Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address or to stop receiving emails from Bad News, please click here.

Sanders v. Clinton on ELECTABILITY

As this signed editorial in Huffington Post argues, the possibility that Sanders really is more electable than Clinton is not entirely to be dismissed. I for one find it hard to imagine a scenario in which Sanders is the nominee at this point, but the fact is that it is entirely possible that Clinton will lose, where Sanders would not have, and that being the case, voters in the remaining primaries (which, of course, includes the biggest prize of all, California), should think long and hard before concluding that Clinton is inevitable anyway, so why bother to vote for Bernie.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerome-karabel/sanders-clinton-electability_b_10106256.html

♦ David Studhalter

 

Please visit The Gyromantic Informicon 

Sara Benincasa: I'm voting for the Democrat in November Because I'm Not a Human Tire Fire

​Comedian Sara Benincasa wrote the following, and I am ignoring copyright and reproducing the entire thing because I doubt she'd mind, and it bears repetition. (Warning: some profanity).

​

I'm Voting For The Democrat In November Because I'm Not A Human Tire Fire

This is for anybody wasting time online blathering about how Hillary and Trump are the same; how if Hillary gets the nomination, they won't vote at all; or how they're super-stoked to vote for a third party candidate because THEY HAVE PRINCIPLES, GODDAMMIT.

Hi. I'm your Auntie Sara. Time to wake the fuck up. If you are decent, you are going to vote for the Democrat in November. Not because you love Hillary (or Bernie, for whom I will vote if Hillary doesn't get the nomination!) Not because you love the two-party system (I don't! Do you? That's weird! We deserve better!) But because we're dealing with brass tacks reality here, not our dreams.

No, I don't assume you're sexist because you want to vote for Bernie. Of course not. I know many good and decent people, men and women and gender queer folks, who want to vote for Bernie, or for Hillary, or for Jill, or for ALMOST anyone but Trump. Yes, Bernie Bros are real. Yes, Hillary people can be annoying. Yes, any folks can be awful. I am not a woman who thinks everyone who loves a dude is sexist. I love dudes too! Sometimes ladies also! Sometimes folks who don't conform to gender! Anyway, read on.

When I was a tiny baby woman of 20, I loved Michael Moore's assertion that Gore and Bush 2 were EXACTLY THE SAME, MAAAAAAAN. I loved this because he was funny and smart, this Michael Moore, in my opinion. I still dig Michael Moore, though only in part and not in an idolatrous way, because I have put away most childish things like blind devotion to anyone who says something that sounds good but does not bear up to actual analysis. He is a wonderful filmmaker and storyteller with whom I do not always agree. He has evolved and so have I.

Other people who I thought were funny and smart and sensible loved Ralph Nader, too! Especially this one girl I knew with expensive dreadlocks (yes she was white, you silly billy, but you knew that already!) I thought Nader sounded great! I recognized he would never ever win the general, so I advocated for Gore. But still, this Nader was a delight! Also he made sure we had seatbelts! Were you aware? History is fun!

Then Bush 2 won.

AHHAHAHAHAH.

Remember No Child Left Behind? AHAHHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, how fun it was to contend with that gem of legislation a few years later when I was teaching in the public high school system. Remember abstinence-only education? Of course you do; it's how you had your first child. And your second. They're so cute now! Hooray!

My point is this: don't throw your vote away because your ego and your "personal brand" says you've got to Feel the [fill in the blank thing that sounds great but will not lead to the Democrats actually winning the presidency in November 2016.]

I get it if it makes you feel really good personally and like a great liberal with super awesome true blue standards to vote for Bernie and support Bernie. He has many good things to say! He's done some lovely stuff! He is smart and amazing and I admire him a great deal. I admire many people. That's great. I also enjoyed Ralph Nader for a time. You know who's also great? Dr. Jill Stein, the Green lady! She seems great! But when Hillary gets the nomination, and she will, it is imperative to vote for the Democrat because the DNC platform is vastly superior to the GOP values. And if it makes you feel good in your feelings to stay home from the polls because you don't like Hillary or don't agree with things that she has done or said, you are effectively voting for Donald Trump.

And I'm not voting for Hillary JUST because I think she's more electable. I admire many things about her, too. Too many to list here, in fact! I don't know her personally. I don't know Bernie personally. I don't know Trump personally. This is about the work. This is not about being a fangirl or fanboy or doing what will make my friends (most of whom love either Bernie or Hillary) happy. This is what I think is right for my country in the pragmatic long run where feelings cool and your angry or elated reaction to this post is but a mere memory and you and I and everyone we know has to actually contend with the policies enacted by our president.

So get your fucking shit together once Hillary is the nominee, unless your ego and need to talk about stuff at your organic locally grown dinner parties for the next four years is greater than your respect for and compassion for the people who would suffer terribly under a GOP presidency and the Supreme Court for the next 10 to 40 years.

Sometimes you make the best choice and you still don't love it. But this is real life, not your copy of "Be Here Now." I had that book too. It was great! It was written by a wonderful man who comes from a world of white privilege. I do too! Isn't it crazy that I can make sense in some ways and be annoying or odious to you in other ways? This is how life works: things are not always all great, and neither are people.

Yes, we ought to have a system in which two parties are not dominant. It'd be great to have more than two viable candidates for president. Can you magically make that happen by November? No? Cool. Don't vote Green. Don't vote Libertarian. Vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Because it matters, and your choice this fall, barring an act of a God who does not exist, is Hillary or Trump. That's your choice. Hooray!

You don't like Hillary's past support for military actions in XYZ? Cool! Me neither, sometimes! Show me a president who has never made a decision that led to the deaths of women and children and innocent humans at home or (more likely) abroad and I will show you a lie. You think Bernie wouldn't take military action if necessary? You think our bombs wouldn't land on kids even if he took every precaution to ensure only military targets were hit? In what fucking world is the leader of any country a saint? Saints don't exist. Saints are a lie.

You think that's an endorsement of policies that kill innocent children? Then you're sorely in need of a course in reading comprehension.

I supported Hillary in the primary back in '08. Then I supported Barack Obama in the general. Why? Because, as the title indicates, I am not a human tire fire. Barack Obama has done amazing things for queer people here! He has also okayed the use of drones that killed innocent children in Pakistan and elsewhere! If you cannot look critically at your candidate, you will not look critically at your President. You're a cult member. Cult members never do anything good ever, except for the Amish people who make really great soft pretzels. But they still oppress women, even with their charming bonnets! Can you hold many truths in your brain at once? No? I'm sorry about that. Please read more and then talk to humans who are not like you, sometimes.

In the real world, sometimes you do not get all of the candy. Sometimes you get a little bit of the candy and that is better than getting a pile of actual flaming garbage. Don't just think about yourself… Think about the people who will be affected by the policies of the next president, as well as the people who will be affected by the Supreme Court. Unless your politics is just about whatever T-shirt you wear, in which case you really ought to get more into football.

You think this is condescending? I'm using small words to help you understand what many, many, many of us get: your assertion that you can't in good conscience vote for Hillary is an insult to me and women and queer folks and all the people who benefit and even have a chance to thrive under Democratic policies. You'd consign us to 4 years of Trump and two or three decades of a disgusting, vile Supreme Court because you have a sad feelz in your tum-tum?

You're goddamn right I'm condescending to you. You deserve this.

Get with the fucking program.

Drone Program is an Illegal Assassination Program, let's call it what it is.

​On the issue of Drone assassination, Jeremy Scahill has pointed out that there's no difference between Sanders and Clinton, and they BOTH, disturbingly, seem to endorse the idea of a "unitary executive" when it comes to the exercise of arbitrary military power by the president. The fact is that, by declaration at least, the US is SUPPOSED to have a policy against assassination. (Because it's not a DRONE program; it's a program of poorly targeted remote assassination, and it is ILLEGAL). In reality, they have made a calculation: the American people are more interested in apparent "progress" against terrorists than the fine points of international law or even basic ethics. A program that just automatically classifies virtually everyone it kills as an "enemy" when, in reality, almost all of them are unidentified, is preferred to appearing to be accomplishing nothing at all. But, again, the reality is that not only is assassination immoral and illegal, it is counterproductive. Essentially all we are accomplishing in the Middle East right now is blowback, more blowback, and still more blowback. Please read Andrew Bacevich's excellent new book on the folly of America's 35+ year war in the Middle East, and why it will NEVER succeed, "America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History," or see http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/8/andrew_bacevich_americas_war_for_the  ​

Clinton surrogate... Clinton (Bill) .... and Sanders "call a truce" in California (LA Times)

This speaks for itself, and I believe it is accurate reporting.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-bill-bernie-california-20160523-snap-story.html

People like me, planning to vote for Bernie in the last primaries, are not "dead enders," and we're not undermining Clinton!

Robert Reich, whom I greatly admire, posted the following on Facebook. My reply follows.

Many of you who support Bernie ask me what you should do at this point. My suggestion:

1. Continue to work like hell for Bernie, especially given upcoming primaries in California and New Jersey on June 7. Putting aside superdelegates, the difference between him and Hillary Clinton isn't huge. So far, Bernie has won nearly 10 million votes and has 1,499 pledged delegates. Hillary Clinton has won 13 million votes and has 1,771 pledged delegates. California could make a huge difference.

2. Don't demonize or denigrate Hillary Clinton. If she wins the Democratic nomination, I urge you to work like hell for her. She'll be the only person standing between Donald Trump and the presidency of the United States. Besides, as I've said before, she'll be an excellent president for the system we now have, even though Bernie would be the best president for the system we need.

3. Never, ever give up fighting against the increasing concentration of wealth and power at the top, which is undermining our democracy and distorting our economy. That means, if Hillary Clinton is elected, I urge you to turn Bernie's campaign into a movement – even a third party – to influence elections at the state level in 2018 and the presidency in 2020. No movement to change the allocation of power succeeds easily or quickly. We are in this for the long haul.

What do you think?

¶¶

Ah, the breath of sanity. I'm a total Bernie supporter, but I also recognize reality. I have had to defend my position... that every last vote and voter should be able to, and should, REGISTER their preference for Bernie and his agenda until every primary (and especially in my state, the largest of all) is over. Bernie should leverage his votes and his voters for as much of his agenda as the platform, symbolic and real, on which Clinton will run, assuming she is to be the nominee. THEN, Bernie will full throatedly endorse her, and we, Progressive Democrats energized and determined to advance his agenda going forward, will support her election against the proto Fascist Trump. And we will win that, while continuing to work for reform in our party and a genuine Progressive agenda for the country.

Sadly, I've had to defend this not only against "Bernie or Bust" folks, but against Clinton supporters who seem to think her weakness as a candidate, and the fact that her neocon foreign policy and Progressive-lite domestic agenda are failing to catch fire, is somehow Bernie's and his supporters' fault. The recordation of who supports who, and what, is what primaries are for, and Clinton supporters who say we're disloyal, or "harming" Clinton, for exercising our franchise are the ones who don't seem to understand how our democracy is supposed to work.

A better test case for why a short primary season and national primary with runoff or automatic runoff should be instituted as soon as possible I can hardly imagine.

PLEASE READ: Clinton as presumptive nominee despite the fact that Sanders has at least half the party behind him

​​

As a from-before-he-announced Bernie Sanders supporter, and wholehearted believer in the general outlines of Bernie Sanders's agenda, I don't endorse the behavior of every single Sanders supporter. Some are understandably frustrated by the dysfunctional primary system in this country, under which, legitimately, Clinton is on the way to nearly certain nomination, and as a result, have said some intemperate things. Still there is an undeniable late momentum in the Sanders campaign, which has won the majority of primaries in the last month and a half and has at least a shot at carrying California, the largest prize of all.

To those Clinton supporters who say Sanders is a spoiler, and are angry that he won't "drop out," I say: your argument is hollow and indefensible. Clinton herself waited until almost literally the last minute herself when she was in a somewhat similar situation in 2008. But that's not really the point. The point is that the Sanders campaign is not just a personality contest. The candidate must remain in the race to advance the agenda his supporters, now clearly at least half the Democratic Party, believe in. His campaign, in other words, is a movement for Progressive realignment of the Democratic Party. Sanders and his supporters expect to be taken seriously, and to have a significant voice at the convention. They expect the nominee to take their views seriously, and to address the FACT that Sanders's policy positions in general are currently favored by the majority of Democrats.

In short, Sanders's supporters demand to be heard, and we expect anyone who claims to be the leader of the Democratic Party to represent the views and aspirations of the rank and file. Which means no more neo-liberal Centrist "Clintonism." Hillary Clinton, if she expects to unite the party and turn this into a wave election with a very good chance of flipping the Senate and making significant inroads in the House, must articulate and actually put into effect major small-d democratic reforms in the way the Party functions, and, more importantly, must articulate and honestly work to execute a far more Progressive policy agenda than what she has articulated in the past. The fact is, as of the present, she is barely winning the unqualified support of half the party. To unify the party, she had better realize that she needs to move towards, and stay with, the Progressive base. That means no backtracking on the disastrous, failed trade policy of the Obama administration. Rethinking the neocon interventionism that is probably the most disturbing thing about her record, personally. Supporting significant movement towards single-payer or public option in health care with major reform in out of pocket costs to working people and America's vast marginalized underclass. Supporting labor interests over finance in all aspects. Ditching the centrist Wall Street compromise mentality underlying Dodd Frank and working to enact serious, effective and permanent Wall Street reform, as articulated best by Elizabeth Warren. Supporting major tax reform to shift the burden of taxes more onto the wealthiest Americans and closing the loopholes and offshore havens that allow many of them to (legally) evade taxes. Expand, not cut, retirement security. Work to enact massive infrastructure investment, especially in renewable energy. And work for family leave, paid child care, enhanced job programs, enhanced food security, and free public education through college. (Which we once had in this country, in case anyone has forgotten).

If she gets smart, and embraces substantially all of these things, she will not only win the White House in a landslide, she will have a real mandate to make major changes in this country, once we are able to gain control of the Congress, which, with this kind of mandate, could actually be within reach while she is still president.

But if she does not, if she reverts to form, tacks to the Center, brings in Larry Summers and Robert Kagan and their ilk as advisers, the chance that she will face the kind of gridlock that's hobbled the Obama administration, and that a rebuilt Republican party could come back to power sooner rather than later, will be much greater. And our country cannot afford that. Clinton could win the election but effectively lose the ability to govern, and squander an opportunity for real change, that she owes in a significant measure to the insurgent campaign of Bernie Sanders. And if she does not understand that, she is not nearly as smart as people say she is.

I wish I could say I was optimistic, but I'm not, particularly. I see many signs that Clinton is already reverting to the kind of compromise-in-advance, Republican lite politics that have disaffected, justifiably, so many in the natural consistency of a Progressive Democratic Party that should be there representing them. I hope against hope she gets a bit more of the "vision thing" before the Summer campaign season is fully underway, and campaigns on, and then put into effect, real Progressive policies. Clinton is supposedly a "fighter." If, as seems almost certain, she is the nominee, she will have to prove it.

Reuters: Sanders leads in national poll

​

It's so painful to contemplate. Reuters has a poll showing Sanders with a national lead. And there is every reason, based on analysis and polling, to believe that he would be a STRONGER, not weaker, candidate against the Trump insurgency on the other side. Which most people recognize as quasi-Fascist demagoguery that we simply CANNOT allow to come to pass in our country. But the Byzantine electoral math, and protracted primary process, in this country has made it almost impossible for Democrats to simply assess their situation NOW, and choose the stronger, more popular, more electable candidate (notwithstanding conventional, but wrong, conceptions).

So if the machine grinds out Clinton as our candidate, I can only hope that she is smart, and wise, enough to recognize that the Sanders revolution is the future of the party, and that the way to counter the Trumpeter movement is to come out strong and bold with a policy and rhetorical campaign that presents a dramatic reform agenda and a promise of a "New New Deal" that will transform our ossified, oligarchic, and plutonomic political/economic system in a historic reform. Because if all she offers is establishment politics as usual (which is what her entire career represents), I really do fear that she could just possibly lose. And that would be a TOTAL DISASTER for our country. So, please, PLEASE, Ms. Clinton and all ye Clintonistas...

If ye have not and will not feel the Bern, at least GET THE MESSAGE. We need a genuine, strong, and determined Progressive alternative. And if it must be led by Hillary Clinton, then SHE MUST STEP UP and rise to that occasion. So far, I've seen very little evidence that she's capable of it. But hope springs eternal.

And meanwhile, I will continue to hope for a miracle, which is that Sanders becomes our nominee some kinda way. Hey, a guy's gotta have hope, don't he?

​

Trappist-1, nearby (40 ly) brown dwarf with "Earthlike" planets?

I can never resist commenting on this sort of thing. Geek alert! If you aren't interested in life in the universe in its broadest sense, turn the page!

http://www.space.com/32761-three-alien-planets-trappist-1-s…

There are three issues the articles about this fail to cover adequately. 1. Brown dwarfs, to remain hot enough to warm even quite nearby planets to Earthlike temperatures, are likely to be quite young. Young celestial bodies translate to insufficient time for the evolution of complex life, which took several billion years on Earth. 2. Complex life insofar as we have any grasp of how it does or might possibly come into existence, requires photosynthesis. Chemoautotrophic life could exist, but no examples of such life developing sufficient energetics to evolve into complex microscopic organisms, are known on Earth, and there are pretty good theoretical reasons for concluding that the "engineering" of such organisms simply would not support that. And, as a corollary, the peak of the light curve of a dim star like this is so far in the infrared that the chemistry of photosynthesis, no matter how liberal you are in allowing for variations, simply DOES NOT WORK. There just isn't enough energy in the photons for the quantum states in the atoms involved in the reactions to change. No one can even suggest how photosynthetic reactions using infrared light might be made to work. And, again, there are pretty good theoretical reasons to believe this JUST DOES NOT HAPPEN, anywhere, at any time.

Artificial habitats in such places might be made to work; there is energy and matter. But it's highly unlikely that complex life (beyond the most rudimentary heterotrophs and chemoautotrophic bacteria-like organsims) could evolve there naturally.

​

 

Andrew Sullivan on Donald Trump and the threat of Demagoguery: "America Has Never Been So Ripe for Tyrrany"

​http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html 

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How to defeat Donald Trump in easy do-it-yourself instructions

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I think dismissing Ted Cruz at this point is perfectly justifiable. But dismissing the Trump phenomenon is dangerous. His appeal is more akin to the appeal of classic fascists than it is to normal American politicians. If the Democratic candidate is to be an establishment politician (and admittedly a smart one), she had better school herself and fast not on how to emulate this dangerous demagogue, but how to effectively counter his appeal. And for that, she should turn to, and embrace, Bernie Sanders and his campaign, full-throatedly. Because Bernie appeals to the same "disgusted with all of them" attitude. Clinton is not Sanders. But there's plenty of time between now and November to reforge the Democratic party as the party of the people's interests. And if she does that, she can win the presidency, the Senate, and even, just possibly, the House. If she doesn't, we could have the kind of historically low-turnout election that is the only way someone like Trump could win. And he knows it.

I'm still supporting Sanders. Although his path to the nomination is now tortuously narrow (despite being the preference of a majority of potential "D" voters (as opposed to registered Democrats) in November), his campaign is the future of the Democratic party. And they had better get that through their heads.

My advice Clinton: Think big! Promise a major transformation of American governance! Read FDR's speeches from shortly before he died, when he was planning a big post war economic reform! Consult with Bernie about what it is the Sanders movement stands for an embrace it! that is the path to crushing Trump and gaining a landslide that will allow you to actually govern.

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Trump as Trojan horse?

What are the chances that years from now in a tell all, Trump will let fall that, sure, he was always a big ego and all, but he never wanted those RIGHT WINGERS to run the place, and running for president was terrific publicity, so he went along with the House of Cards style machinations of the Clintons and ran as a Trojan horse in 2016 to ensure HRC's victory AND Senate flipover? And it succeeded beyond everyone's wildest dreams?

Nah.

Atheism as a belief system

An FB post noted that no atheists have organized terror or jihad based on their belief system, to which I commented the following.

Valid point. But atheism isn't a belief system. Just the opposite; it's a considered working empirical conclusion based on the foremost principles of empirical science; skepticism and adoption of theories only after falsifiable test, OR when that's infeasible, substantial cross linked evidence that strongly disfavors alternate hypotheses in comparison (as in cosmology, where lab experiments aren't possible).

Any serious consideration, without a priori postulates, of the hypothesis of an active, conscious God capable of and engaging in changing events in the physical universe, will have to conclude that there is no consistent evidence for the existence of such a being. People are free to believe whatever they like, but there is no REASON to adopt this belief based on the only reliable method we have for testing truth claims; the scientific method. Indeed, the hypothesis that God-belief resembles other forms of wishful thinking found in the study of human psychology, finds considerable support.

No Bernie Sanders independent run!

In response to Facebook posts proclaiming "Bernie or bust" and advocating an Independent run, I posted the following reply:

I disagree. We must think longer term. Bernie himself has made clear that if he is not the nominee, he will endorse Clinton, and THEN continue to work to build a Progressive coalition to elect real progressives at all levels, and to reform the party so that next time a candidate espousing the SANDERS AGENDA will emerge victorious. Political change requires patience as well as enthusiasm, strategy as well as tactics. Bernie will go to the convention, and the result will be FAR BETTER than it would have been had he not run. And he has done a huge (YUGE) amount to move the Democratic party to the left, and towards far more transparency and responsiveness to its voters. The structure of elections in this country isn't going to be wished away, it will have to be transformed by a sustained effort. But fragmenting the party and ensuring the election of all three branches of government to the party that's closer to fascism than EVER BEFORE in America is foolhardy, and terribly, terribly bad for the future of our country.  

To any of my friends who continue to believe that Sanders is less electable, and not a candidate of serious issues...

Please take the time to watch Cenk Uygur's interview from several weeks ago. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggFitmOTSok  

Note in particular what he says he's trying to accomplish in the event he is NOT successful in getting the nomination (about which I believe he is perfectly realistic about his chances).  

Another exchange with HRC supporter

​I admit I'm getting a little tired of this kind of exchange, but here's the latest in an ongoing exchange with a Hillarist. 

HILLARIST:

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Hi,

Here is how I see the affect Sanders has on the electorate:  We live in a news cycle of TV news. Programs on TV come and go with rapid regularity. Bernie, along with Trump, represent the allure of the New and a break with the same, old stuff of hum-drum American politics.  Hillary who has been in the public sphere for more than 25 years comes across as yesterday's news no matter the fact that she has had first-hand knowledge of the levels of government as First Lady, US Senator for eight years and as Obama's choice for the most important post in the cabinet as Secretary of State.  Highly intelligent, years of significant experience appear to count for little among those who like something new on the TV screen.

Senator Sanders ( not even a Democrat ) is the new show. He appeals to the aspirational desires of the Center Left with his lofty rhetoric and defiance of the financial system which, in this globalized economy, has left the less-educated in fear of declining living standards as their manufacturing jobs and their middle class lifestyles disappear.   American education is the best in the world when it comes to Undergraduate, Graduate and Professional Education but has significant shortcomings in Secondary Education and Job Training.  Sanders rails at the big banks and the decline of the Middle Class, but seems lacking in the necessary means of achieving those goals.  That does not seem to matter. He is new and interesting. His speeches appeal to the current fears of American decline. Hillary is the old model.  Bernie is the new car in the showroom. But, we may ask, what's under the hood? 

​ME:​

Oh please. This is so condescending. And I for one have posted and emailed about "what's under the hood" so many times I'll just refer you to my post on gyromantic.com, "Why I'm supporting Bernie Sanders."

But seriously, the implication that support for Sanders is the result of ill- educated addiction to novelty is outright insulting. Do you think the most celebrated economic analyst of recent years, Thomas Piketty, who has said that Sanders's economic agenda is the right prescription and would be transformative, is some dopey kid who just wants a shiny new toy? Or that Andrew Bacevich, probably the foremost military historian of the present time, whose analysis of US middle east policy is in complete accord with Sanders, is likewise?  People support Sanders because they prefer the policies he promotes to what Clinton is offering. And generally for very sound reasons. At present, irrespective of the way the nomination process works, which will probably make her the nominee, MORE DEMOCRATS FAVOR SANDERS. If she's smart, (which she is), she won't ignore that. And if they're smart, her supporters will cut out the ad hominem insults. (And so will Bernie's...I don't deny some of them are doing that, too, and it's not helpful. )

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Ongoing discussion of Bernie vs. Hillary

In an ongoing conversation with a Hillary Clinton supporter correspondent, I recently sent the following: 

<

I understand why people support Clinton. I will vote for her if she is the nominee, as I've always said and as Bernie has always said, and still says.

But when you say ...

the vast majority of opinion indicates Clinton is better prepared to be president.

...That's Just not true. We're entitled to our opinions but not our own facts. The majority of democratic politicians believe that, and the majority of the talking head class will say this, too. But actual data shows that support for Clinton has declined to where it's close, but nationally, Sanders has higher approval rating among Democrats and is actually ahead in head to head matchups.

And when you say

If it's Trump vs Clinton it will be like LBJ and Goldwater in 1964.   ...

That's true, but it's even more true that it's Sanders who does better against Trump, and all Republicans, than she does. In fact Kasich [who will not be nominated] beats her in national polls, but Sanders beats Kasich.

This won't determine the nomination, but as rationale for supporting Clinton you cite prepositions that are actually contrary to available evidence.

And there's no reason to believe the Senate is more likely to go Democratic with her than him. I happen to believe the enthusiasm and turnout factors suggest just the opposite.

Fortunately, whoever wins the nomination, and it will of course most likely be Clinton, will win the general, the way things look right now.

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Reply to a correspondent

In response to my observations about Andrew Bacevich and his new book about the failure of American foreign policy in the Middle East ever since 1980, and that this is one of the main reasons I'm supporting Bernie Sanders, a correspondent said, "Enjoy being in the Minority. Bernie will lose."

Apart from the, well, frankly, smugness of this remark, I felt constrained to reply with this: 

«Ah, well, that may be, but it's hardly the point of my post. And even the most die hard Clintonistas recognize (if they're honest) that Bernie Sanders and the movement he has instigated has moved the center of gravity of the Democratic Party significantly to the left, so that the era of "Democratic Leadership Council" style wannabe-Republicanism in our party is finally over. Certainly positions taken in this campaign by Clinton herself reflect this undeniable reality. And for that alone, Sanders' and his supporters' efforts in this campaign have been worthwhile and salutary for the future of our country. As it happens, I believe that his policy positions reflect an emerging majority (hence recent polls that show him leading Clinton in head-to-head national matchups). The undemocratic party-procedural election process in this country is what it is and his road to a nomination at this point is incredibly steep if not actually impossible, but that doesn't make him a "loser" and it doesn't change the reality that: by and large, it is Sanders's positions on issues that are the new mainstream of the Democratic Party. 

And, perhaps ironically as it supposed to be her wheelhouse, but this general trend also applies to foreign policy.» 

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Andrew Bacevich

Fixing to read Andrew Bacevich's «America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History», about the folly of the 35+ year attempt by the U.S. to control events in the Middle East. Starting with the "Carter Doctrine"in 1980. He notes that between the end of WW2 and 1980 virtually no American soldier was killed in action in the M.E. Since 1990, virtually no American soldier has been killed in action ANYWHERE ELSE. And what have we gained from that? We have become conditioned to it, but it's time at last to face the fact that our direct involvement there has been a colossal mistake whose only parallel is the abject failure of the War on Drugs.

Apropos, Hillary Clinton's apparent failure to understand either of these crucial policy insights is a major reason I'm supporting Bernie Sanders.

Longman on Paul Ryan's presidential ambitions

Wa Mo's Martin Longman says Paul Ryan is just being coy in denying presidential ambitions. I say, who cares? The Democratic nominee, even if it's Hillary Clinton, will defeat any Republican. That might not have been the case four years ago, but now, with half of Trump's supporters refusing to vote at all if they don't nominate him, I'm not too worried.  

Blackout warnings bogus ... of local LA interest mostly

Yuge surprise! An article in the Bus sec of the LAT today sez just what I suspected. Sempra (The Gas Co) is planting this fearmongering about blackouts this summer in order to scare people into tolerating the sweetheart deal they're cooking up with the regulators to keep the Aliso Canyon gas storage facilities open with minimal disruption to their bad practices of the past.  

Separation of Church and State

I saw this posted on social media. Not absolutely sure it's authentic, but it sure is an appealing and well said message:

"The reason we separate Church and State is because the Founding Fathers believed government should be guided by a balance of morality, and reason, not blind religious faith. Practice your religion in freedom; just don't make everyone else practice your religion."

Kareem Abdul Jabbar

The price of civilization

I do consulting (legal writing) and earned more doing that last year than I anticipated. Can't complain. I have a very modest retirement pension. No complaint. I'm fortunate enough to have some investment income, although I don't actually see any of it to spend. That's for later. I'm deferring Social Security till "full" retirement age, 66 for me. (Born 1953). My tax bracket is actually pretty fair and reasonable for people at my modest income level. And I do nothing to try to take exemptions or deductions that I'm not 100% entitled to. I believe in a role for government and that taxes are the price of civilization as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr said in the 1920s. So when I found that my federal and state income, estimated 2016 first installment, and self-employment taxes added up to thousands of dollars... enough for a moderate budget weeks long European vacation, I was, well, not exactly delighted, but accepting. This is my dues.


If we had a progressive, fair, watertight tax system where everyone, including the 0.1%, had to pay THEIR fair share in just the same way, we would have more than enough for the infrastructure, education, research and development, housing, health care, and jobs investments our nation DESPERATELY needs to be making. So I accept my responsibility without complaint.

And this is yet another reason I believe Bernie Sanders should be our next president.

​Reasons to support Bernie Sanders:

​Everyone has their own views, and that's the way it should be. But if anyone has any doubt at all, please read my reasons for supporting Bernie Sanders. ​

·       Consistent record of supporting working peoples' interests against oligarchic mega-rich corporations and individuals, including rapacious and actually, literally criminal banks and other wall street institutions (for example nearly all of them participate in illegal assistance to the very rich to hide offshore assets from taxation; and participate in illegal and fraudulent derivative-related activity even after the meltdown they created in the first place; contrary to attempts to mischaracterize Sanders's positions, this includes so-called "shadow banking.")

·       Supports legal regime to actually enforce and reinforce statutory and regulatory control on Wall Street excesses (including breaking up the "too big to fail" banks under existing Dodd Frank powers (the recent flap over how to do this is totally distorted; if you read his answer he understands perfectly how the legal regime would allow this to be done) & 21st Century Glass Steagall, etc.

·       Non-interventionist foreign policy, 100% voting record going back to 1980s. Opposes sweetheart defense contract deals and rampant privatization of national security, military, and intelligence infrastructures in the US. Supports international cooperation wherever feasible, and even handedness and rethinking policies of "projection of power."

·       Supports tax reform to undo the trend towards rigged tax code favoring the very rich and offshoring of individual and corporate wealth, as recently revealed in truly wretched excess in the Panama Papers… 100% record on this issue going back decades. To include significant realignment of marginal rates on very high incomes to resemble the tax system we had in this country during the great prosperity of 1950-1974, before Reaganomics and tax changes to favor the rich, which are still in effect

·       Favors free trade, not regimes of so-called Trade Agreements that are really systems of rigging the rules in favor of big corporations and deals with foreign governments to switch jobs overseas.

·       Favors realistic transaction tax on Wall Street to discourage financialization of the economy and encourage actual production

·       30 year record of slow, steady legislative progress on liberal reforms

·       Supports infrastructure investment to build trains, bridges, public transport, libraries, public universities, research and development, renewable energy infrastructure and technology research, etc. both to create jobs and address the no. 1 environmental AND national security issue in America, which is Climate Change (military strategists agree)

·       Supports free tuition for public universities and colleges, like many states had until the 1970s in this country, financed by the transaction tax and tax reform

·       Supports moving towards a system which recognizes that health care is a right not a privilege, including ending special interest deals with Big Pharma and for profit medical industry

·       Supports ending Citizens United and other methods to take the power of money out of politics and end the oligarchic superstructure has used to control policy with money; public financing of elections

·       Supports programs to put people to work and ensure that no one goes without decent housing and nutrition support

·       First to support $15 min. wage among national candidates

·       Supports rational gun control; has D- rating from NRA (only supports some restraint in making non-intentional gun dealers liable for sale of guns), including total assault weapons ban and registration of handguns


Economists like Thomas Pikkety, author of the hugely influential Capitalism in the 21st Century, have said that this program would be transformative and ensure a robust and growing economy with a much fairer distribution of the wealth resulting from American innovation and productivity.
 

Contrary to many characterizations of Sanders's ideas of how to do this, he has created the largest political movement of citizens demanding change, and the greatest amount of enthusiasm for political change in a long, long time. It is defeatism on the part of the Centrists of the Democratic party to say, "get real, you can't do this, you need the Republicans and they won't vote for anything." You don't need the Republicans if you persuade enough of the people to join this peaceful political revolution, and if you take money out of politics so legislators are free to actually represent what their constituents, not their financial backers, want. We can change the rules of the Senate in one vote to do away with the filibuster, and with a 50 state, fight every race strategy, we can take back both houses of Congress within a few years, and enact a Progressive New New Deal. This is perfectly possible, but it requires bold, big thinking, not the kind of compromise-in-advance, triangulate, play the incremental change game favored by Centrists like Clinton and Obama.


Hillary Clinton has compromised, one might say triangulated, positions on every single one of these issues, and has refused to commit to vetoing TransPacific Partnership and many other more progressive positions she has articulated, but failed to actually commit to. She has taken huge amounts of money from special interests, which necessarily implies a quid pro quo, while Sanders has refused to do so (similar to how Russ Feingold has refused to do so, and is about to be elected to the Senate again). This election, where the Republicans are cracking up and will almost certainly lose, is a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to elect a real progressive to the White House and commence a years-long movement to reinvent American government as much more progressive, which is what the majority of Americans want, according to all impartial polling.


Lastly, it is simply not true that Sanders is less electable than Clinton. A poll in Wisconsin on election day showed 90% of Democrats thought Sanders was honest, only 58% thought Clinton was. Her "negative view" numbers, long known to be the best predictor of electoral success, have always been higher than his. He consistently polls higher than her against either Trump or Cruz. And, recently, national polls have shown the Democratic electorate favors him, by a slight margin, overall.


If you have not yet voted in your state's primary or caucus, please consider voting for Bernie Sanders, to bring about REAL CHANGE in America.  

Successful bone anchored hearing assist surgery (BAHA)

To everyone who was kind enough to express good wishes, my surgery today went well and I expect a fast and uneventful recovery. In six to twelve weeks I should get the actual sound transducer appliance, which will allow me to hear close-in, quiet sounds on the left side of my body through my (good) right ear, conducted through the bones of my skull. 

♦ David Studhalter

 

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