“My name is Paul Wellstone and I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic party!” – Paul Wellston, #RIP

The Honorable Paul D. Wellstone, PD-MN. (July 21, 1944 – October 25, 2002)

Years ago PD – Progressive Democrat Paul David Wellstone very famously quipped: My name is Paul Wellstone and I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic party! And ever since the Democratic party has been trying to figure out what such a human qualifier like that even means?

But with the advent of Progressive firebrands like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren that human qualifier is being answered.

This weekend the Libertarian party or Libertarian National Committee held its national convention in Orlando, FL. C-Span covered the live event. I pretty much watched it all the way through, making a few exceptions for normally scheduled television and “honey-dos” for my lovely wife along the way. LOL.

I live in Kentucky and a few weeks prior to this event I sat down and made this video on Kentucky primary day for 2016. Take a look:

As most of you know I am throughly disgusted  with the 2016 Democratic primary process. In particular how it is that Hillary Clinton has come so far without real question or scrutiny? Essentially, being handed my Democratic party’s nomination for the presidency of the United States of America in two thousand and sixteen.

Over this Memorial day weekend I have been thinking a lot about Mr. Wellstone and his epic qualifier and in the video above I lamented that after this Democratic primary and in particular the general election cycle for 2016 I am through with the Democratic party. Resolving to go the way of Independent or Decline to Say in terms of my voter registration thereafter.

Seemingly I’m not alone in this as many in the Republican party have followed suit. Burning their voter registration cards in effigy, like the peace nicks of the 1960’s that burned their draft cards as opposed to being drafted for service in the Vietnam War or the Women of the Women’s Liberation Movement who burned their bras and kitchen aprons as well.

But after this weekend and the last Libertarian presidential debate on C-span for 2016, and the epic opening and closing statements of Dr. Marc Allan Feldman and Mr. Darryl W. Perry my faith in humanity and the Democratic party has been renewed! Because it was both these men that managed to stir the echoes and fan the flames of democratic progressivism anew for me personally. Watch.

Hearing these men’s words and the stir of echoes from the late great Paul Wellstone in 1990 when it was first running for the United States Senate from Minnesota has renewed and restored my faith in the Democratic part of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. Renewed that there is hope. Promise. And people out there filled to overflowing with a heart for the People of America and the World.

We cannot now nor anytime in the future let up folks. Our foot must stay on the gas pedal of progress, BUT not the kind of progress we’re seeing today. Instead it should be the progress that people like Senator Wellstone and so many others have advocated for, some for years some for decades, from the very beginning.

That healthcare for all is a fundamental right and not a privilege. That people deserve and have earned the right to a livable wage and a standard of living with access to housing and public transportation that is commiserate with the times. The right to organize and unionize for representation at the table of free markets. That as Americans we have a right to expect that our government will keep its nose out of our bedrooms and off our bodies. The right to come and go as we please and do business or not do business; politically, socially or ecumenically with nation’s, Peoples and places of our choosing. And the right that when we retire medicare, Medicaid and social security will be their for us in the twilight of our ‘golden years’.

To many these ideals seem ‘high-minded’, ‘professorial’ and downright nice, BUT they are ideals ‘devoid of reality’, for now. But that through the advent of time, hard work, dedication and small ball politics we’ll get there, eventually. Afterall this is not Scandinavia or the Republic of Myanmar, we are told. “Hello. I’m earth. Have we met?” And so it goes, right?

I am all for third political parties because they keep the Republican and Democratic parties honest and accountable. They hold the two-party system in this country to a full accounting of the American people. Moving forward in 2016 third political parties can and should expect more mainstream viewership.

Not all that long ago I was reading a posting from former Independent Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura that said that there is the very real possibility that we could see the emergence of three or four [mainstream] political parties from this 2016 election cycle. Giving us, the Voters, all the more to choose from. And as a Progressive, never mind a Democrat, I’m all for that. More Voices. More Choices, and when I get elected to high office I will work to preserve, protect and defend voting and the free exercise thereof for any candidate or political party of your choice, regardless of names behind it or the money that it has in its coffers.

And speaking of, “money in politics” or the epic Citizens United Supreme Court case I have to, as a Progressive Democrat, draw a line in the sand. And push back against the idea that somehow people like Charles and David Koch, Foster Friess and Sheldon Adelson, just to name a few BIG MONEY donors, will get to dictate to Us, We the American Voters that is, how our political process or Our Future should be.

BIG MONEY politics is not a march towards progress at all, instead its a means to an end.

And if true BIG MONEY donors, like the ones I just mentioned, will, through these Never Trump and Never Hillary movements, co-opt folks, good folks at that, like former Governor of New Mexico and 2016 Libertarian presidential nominee Gary E. Johnson and former Commonwealth of Massachusetts Governor  and 2016 Libertarian vice presidential nominee William F. Weld or the Johnson-Weld Campaign for 2016, all for the sake of ballot access in all fifty states and an inside tract towards the interworkings of American democracy.

That is WHY I am renewed, restored and resolved to making the Democratic party Democratic again. Progressive again. Giving people a viable alternative(s) that will speak to and do far more than  just be this candidate or a part of that political movement because its popular or politically expedient.

Because it’s not about a person or a slogan, a campaign or a dream, instead its about us, all of us together. We are, after all, all in this thing called life together and we are only as good as the person next to us. No better and no worse.

My name is Rhett E. Column (aka David Davidson) and I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic party! Care to join me in the march towards progressive ideals?

–Rhett.

The Disgusting Co-Opting of a Naturally Important Movement: How the Political Establishment and the Black Lives Matter Movement shook hands; #BlackLivesMatter

The Facebook Banner for the Black Lives Matter [Movement] Community Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Lives-Matter/747345981986069?fref=ts (photo courtesy of the Black Lives Matter Movement, 2015) …

SEATTLE, Washington — Before I retired for the evening I was looking up some information about the epic ABC television series, “Scandal” late last night.

In particular I was curious to know the name of the individual who plays “Olivia Pope’s” dad?

That guy has been around for years! And so I was curious because I like his acting ability, especially on that show.

And so I wanted to look him up. Well. I didn’t because I was rudely interrupted by the news that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders had been interrupted, protested, heckled (or whatever you wish to call it, either way it is just downright rude and disrespectful that he was) by the Black Lives Matter Movement yet again.

HOW IT’S ALL HAPPENED:

Senator Sanders had been invited by a group of concerned citizens to commemorate the birthday of Medicare and Social Security in Seattle, Washington, according to this article from PoliticusUSA.

Rather than allow the Senator to speak, a group of young people, led by two unidentified African-American women, stormed the stage, and got face to face and nose to nose with both a setting U.S. Senator and a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

Lets take a look at what should happen whenever protesters get close to America’s most important people.

And then lets look at what happened before protesters were removed from the presence of very important people. E.g. 

Click to access STATUTE-82-Pg170-3.pdf

The Robert Kennedy Rule of Protection or Public Law 90-331, a Joint Resolution of the United States Congress…

Granted. The Black Lives Matter Movement posed no real threat to Senator Sanders, BUT they were none the less threatening. Listen.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH, AND THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF, CAREFULLY & RESPECTFULLY:

I have lamented and waxed poetic on here about free speech, freedom of speech, and the free and laborious exercise thereof. I have also lamented and waxed poetic that you can agree to disagree without being disagreeable.

Because when you are disagreeable, rude, and disrespectful to our nation’s civil servants, as these young people clearly were, instead of talking and listening to each other, they walk away, just like Bernie Sanders did in Seattle over the weekend, and just like he did at the Net Roots Nation Conference in Phoenix earlier this summer. Watch!

Again, you don’t have to agree with a thing Bernie Sanders says or does, BUT you do have to respect him because he is our public servant.

And this I think is where things have gotten a rye. Rather than respecting our public servants people have taken to name calling, spitting, assaulting them and more.

But this is what it has come to.

And it’s also come to the simple fact that there are those within the political establishment who have co-opted a naturally important movement, the Black Lives Matter Movement for the purposes of derailing a person’s presidential campaign and money.

HOW THE CO-OPTING BEGAN, PART A:

As luck would have it: The ‘Bernie Sanders hates black people’ screed began shortly after his presidential campaign was launched, according to this report from the Democratic Underground, and it’s been promulgated ever since.

Mr. Byron York wrote a piece for The Washington Examiner titled, “Bernie Sanders’ Progressive Whitopia”.

In the posting for the Democratic Underground the author details this about York’s Washington Examiner piece,

Mr. York, observed with apparent deep concern for what he portrayed as the excluded minority voices in Bernie’s kick-off campaign speech in Vermont a few days before. We’ve heard this theme repeated many times since across the web:

The startling omission was the issue of race and policing that has roiled the political debate in recent months. Ferguson, Baltimore, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray — none were in Sanders’ speech. Allegations of police brutality and black victimization were all absent. Sanders made one brief mention of African-American unemployment and at the end of his speech offered a catch-all sentence in which he envisioned an America “where every person, no matter their race, their religion, their disability or their sexual orientation realizes the full promise of equality that is our birthright as Americans.” But the racial issues that have dominated the news at various times in the past year were nowhere to be found.

Moving forward the author of the Democratic Underground article cemented their closing arguments with this posting from Mr. Charles C.W. Cooke with National Review online,

Why would he use his candidacy to discuss race when the first black president is still in office? Why would he expend his energy critiquing the excesses of American policing when Barack Obama is in the White House and Hillary Clinton is busy condemning her own husband for the tough-on-crime policies he advocated when in office?
Answer: He wouldn’t. His role in this game is to make Hillary more fiscally socialistic. Somewhere deep down, he knows that.

In further examination of the Cooke article I found fascinating how his article conveniently and strikingly mirrors the York Examiner article on Bernie Sanders in this way,

I’ve been racking my brains to try to work out why this could be. As far as I can see it, presidential candidates emphasize or de-emphasize issues for three reasons: 1) They think it will help them in the primary; 2) They think it will help them in the general; 3) They are running not to win but to raise awareness, and they therefore keep their message tailored to those topics that interest them. On the face of it, none of these explain Sanders’s omission. Did he just . . . forget?

Per York, some influential progressives think that he did: The oversight surprised some progressive listeners. “There really was no mention … of over-policing, mass incarceration, these issues,” said MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in reporting the speech. “It struck me as a missed opportunity.” John Nichols, a writer for The Nation appearing with Hayes, noted that the 73 year-old Sanders “attended the March on Washington in 1963.”

But Nichols, a Sanders fan, did not try to gloss over the omission. Sanders will have to “give a speech where he goes hard-core into these issues,” Nichols said. “They cannot be unaddressed.” That Hayes and Nichols would be surprised and annoyed is understandable.

But I think they’re maybe misunderstanding the role that Sanders sees himself playing. As far as I can tell, Sanders believes that the Democratic party is strong — or at least tolerable – on the questions of race and immigration and police excesses, but unacceptably weak on the question of economics.

HOW THE CO-OPTING BEGAN, PART B:

Coupled with this FACT and the FACT that Hillary for America Spokesperson Karen Finney, former MSNBC host of “Disrupt with Karen Finney” and long time Democratic political operative as well as champion for progressive causes everywhere, has a working relationship with the two co-founders of the Black Lives Matter Movement and the political establishment of Washington, D.C. and New York City, you can begin to see a pattern emerge.

A pattern of deal making, handshaking, and money.

And here’s some TRUTH on that, that I really think you need to hear.

HERE ARE THE FACTS:

The fact is, is that Bernie Sanders has been arguing for, working for, and living for the least of these amongst us his entire adult life.

He has been working for the poor and the middle class, the elderly and the disabled, the weak and abused, the oppressed and the downtrodden.

Regardless of race, color, creed or ethnic or national origins. It matters not your stripe or lot in life to him. IF you need a helping hand Bernie Sanders will help you. If you need a voice Bernie Sanders will speak for you. If you need a friend or Allie Bernie Sanders will be that friend or Allie to you. Bottom line.

So for this kind of tasteless crap to go on, and be directed at a man who has gone and done the work, has put in the time for a newer and better America, a newer and better World is ridiculous!

With all due and proper respect the Black Lives Matter Movement just needs to stay black, be black, and love it! And here’s why:

Contrarian to popular opinion being black, and being an American is a good thing.

(Or at least it could be, provided…)

Especially when you focus in and focus on the real problems, the real issues facing black America, Black Americans.

For instance. The Black Community faces far more socio-economic, socio-panoramic problems than any other race or class of people on this planet, according to this posting from Assata Shakur Public Forums..

Black people are plagued with more diseases, pestilences, famines, impoverishment, brought on by the governments of this world than any other race or class of people.

To date there are far more African-Americans, who are alive still — thankfully, in prison across this country than are on the streets of the United States according to this report from my friends at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P).

But because Bernie Sanders believes that a free college education, a job and healthcare will do us all a world of good the Leadership of Black Lives Matter Movement and the Political Establishment of Washington and New York have a problem with that, that kind of talk, that kind of rhetoric cuts into the narratives of disparity, doom, gloom, “and dare I say it,” entitlement. — Cue the fear-mongering!

Because as long as the black man is down public appearance and speaking fees are up! Up for the educated, elite and high brow social class to teach, preach and lament, “Oh you poor, poor soul you. White man done oppressed, depressed, and compressed you again ain’t he?”

But we now know how right Reverend Jeremiah Wright really was, don’t we?

There’s a real problem in the United States of America and the World, and it’s not Bernie Sanders ‘has a problem with black people’. It’s that the Political Establishment has a problem with Bernie Sanders, and they’ve co-opted a naturally meaningful and important movement to get their point across.

As a result, a deal with the devil has been made.

But the TRUTH is, is that the LIE & the DEAL is being Exposed!

And no matter how hard they try those who know the TRUTH and LOVE BERNIE SANDERS [WE WILL] EXPOSE you. You will be held to an accounting. Maybe its time we did some interrupting, some heckling at your next event? Or! Maybe its just time we vote you out?

See you at the polls fellow Voter!

#POTUS2016News

— Rhett E. Column

#SayWhatNews, #AXJ, #FreePress Approved!