Over Memorial day weekend Libertarians came together from across the country and around the world to nominate their president and vice presidential candidates at their annual national party convention. And for many the top of the ticket for the fall and the general election season is troubling, deeply troubling.
But lets look at it from this perspective for just a minute, shall we? My prediction is that the Johnson-Weld ticket will be Libertarian-lite in that they’ll run under the Libertarian party banner but will, instead, draw from the well of the Never Trump Never Hillary movements in a kind of “A Coalition of the Willing.” Or as Bill Clinton and Dick Morris did so infamously in the 1990’s, “Triangulation.”
In either case I like Bill Weld and have enormous respect for Gary Johnson, ever since 2011 when he first ran for the presidency. Then as now Johnson stands for some of the same things that I do, but with Charles and David Koch, through Bill Weld, pulling on Johnson like he’s a puppet and they’re the masters even I can’t stomach that!
I hate Charles and David Koch with every fiber of my being for what they have done to this great country of ours and this beautiful world in which we all live. They are evil incarnate, in my opinion, and hell itself would be a far worse place with them in it.
I call LINO – Libertarian in Name Only! And for those disgruntled and disaffected Libertarians I offer this as your Battle Cry:
Hold fast, and as Jesse Ventura says, “Stay Vigilant…”
–Rhett.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, SHARE! PLEASE? THANK YOU. COME AGAIN.
“As Americans, as Soldiers for the United States of America – of which you will be soon enough – we all have a first, best duty to the preservation and perseverance of freedom which all Americans, and free people everywhere, enjoy…” – Gen. Douglas MacArthur
The article troubled me because of an ongoing similar legal situation. I tried to dutifully share the article out and around on social media thereby doing my part to advance the agenda in terms of discussing, civilly, the issue more broadly with a wide variety of concerned citizenry, but I found that I was unable to do any of that.
So I go to my account there because for some months prior I’d been having some trouble with posting/blogging or, as they call it, “posting a diary about a relevant story, issue or [personal] concern of yours for the rest of the world to see…”
Of late its been suggested that 2016 Democratic Socialist turned Social Democrat Bernie Sanders is out over his skies. In fact, and as has been suggested by the artist formally known as Paul Krugman over at The New York Times, Mr. Sanders is ‘Over the Edge’ in terms of his financial proposals and a few other things in terms of what keeps Mr. Krugman up most nights this election cycle.
Atop: Then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham-Clinton testifies before the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Foreign Intelligence on Benghazi in 2013. Bottom: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders kicks off, officially, his Campaign to become President in 2016 under the Democratic party banner in 2015 just outside Burlington, VT. USA (photos courtesy of The Associated Press/Getty Images, 2015. Photo Editing done by Rhett E. Column, Say What News?! 2016)
Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Krugman writes, may be right to intimate, as she has, that Mr. Sanders is ‘unqualified to be President [of the United States]’.
But I wanted to push back from the table for just a minute and present, as the late great comedian George Carlin used to say, “a carefully reasoned argument” as to why I think Mr. Krugman and Grandma Clinton are dead wrong about the qualifications argument.
Mr. Morris lays out an excellent argument for what I call simple civil discourse. Translation – Discussion. Talking about the issues of the day. (Contrasting and comparing the candidates records and policy positions before making a final decision on who we want as a country and as a nation to be our next Commander and Chief.) Working out the differences, the quote, unquote nuances and coming to a general all-around consensus for the betterment of We the People via the ballot box.
And in all honesty, I have, as yet, to hear that, discussion, civil discourse that is, from the likes of Hillary Clinton, Paul Krugman and those else who support the cause-celeb of the day: An American Female President.
That’s really what this is all about for Mr. Krugman and Company, the chance to make themselves feel good about their political prejudices by seeing; come hell or high-water fair or unfair, “America’s first female president” elected. And under normal circumstances I’d be all for it.
[In fact I was in 2012, as you’ll soon see and read.]
I’m all for women at the forefront. Women’s liberation. Women at the helm. Have at it ladies. Us men folk will be over here in the corner cheering you and your equal parts on.
But in the case of Mr. Krugman and Grandma Clinton they don’t make clear, exactly, WHY Bernie Sanders is the unqualified qualified candidate to be our next U.S. President. In fact they stop abundantly and abruptly short of in so-doing in amongst the usual nonsensical, non sequitur BS arguments about Mr. Sanders economic policy, which he’s good and well laid out HERE and HERE.
That his ideas, “oh that’s so nice, so sweet in an alternative world, BUT those kinds of things will never ever work in the real world…let me show you what will.”
Or.
“All that “reform,” Senator Sanders is talking about sounds nice and all, but that’s just ‘Pie in the sky’ and not ‘tenable’ in a post-9/11 world…”
Besides, I don’t think that ninety to ninety-five percent of the voting population of the State of Vermont would have elected and kept him elected since 1981 (in some capacity or another) to best represent them in the United States Congress all these many years now were their some kind or sort of doubt, do you?
Then candidate for Mayor of the City of Burlington in the State of Vermont Bernie Sanders with Jane O’Meara at his campaign headquarters and office, c. 1980
But maybe I’m wrong, maybe this is, as Mrs. Clinton and her campaign staff as well as media scrummed-out supporters say, “nuance and process”. That this is all just “delaying the inevitable”. Mrs. Clinton has her “insurmountable delegate lead over Mr. Sanders,” seemingly, and so therefore we are going to have, eventually, our first female president, historic no? Tis true! It would be historic, very historic.
You say well, except for that one time in 2012 when he said that Obama needed a primary challenger, which Mrs. Clinton has so eloquently reminded us all. Democracy much Mrs. Clinton? What, was Mr. Obama supposed to run entirely unopposed in 2012, like you in 2016? Oops! Did I say that? Yes I did. Watch.
But what do we know right?
More importantly, what do those of us who support and believe in Senator Sanders message know? And that’s just the way Hillary Clinton, Paul Krugman & Company want it. Off message. Off topic. Off kilter. So that the rest of us who don’t know any better pick up on the happy horse crap waste pile that they are shoveling. It’s doing nothing more than dividing and conquering us folks! It’s a waste of time and a political distraction from Hillary Diane Rodham-Clinton’s real and true record on issues (a video from 2008 when she was running against then Senator Obama for the Democratic party nomination) like these:
And these:
And then, FINALLY, this:
Record much Mrs. Clinton? Or do you just wanna stay home, stand by your man and bake cookies all day like you did, or at least that’s what you told us that you did “jokingly,” right?
–Rhett.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, SHARE! PLEASE? THANK YOU. COME AGAIN.
Production Label and Logo for Ms. Shonda Rhimes Production Company known as ‘ShondaLand’ (photo courtesy of Wikipedia, 2016) …
I love ABC television and ShondaLand’sScandal. As most of you know by now all of the cast, crew and production team for this television series as well as Grey’s Anatomy and How to Get Away with Murder have come out for Hillary Clinton for the presidency of the United States in two thousand and sixteen.
And while my wife and I are long-time fans and supporters of these epic tee vee series, Ms. Shonda Rhimes, I can’t help but say, “Shonda girl! You backin’ a loosin’ horse.”
But to each his own, and may the best man win, right?
When it comes to Scandal I’m particularly impressed with the back-and-forth dynamic that exists between ‘President Grant’ and the [former] First Lady, now turned U.S. Senator for the State of Virginia ‘Mellie Grant’ played by actors Bellamy Young andTony Goldwyn.
‘Fitz and Mellie’ are always arguing, fighting, making up – albeit temporarily, politically, to help each other, get one another through the ‘process’ of a life in politics or public service. And it isn’t always easy for the two of them, in fact, it can be downright nasty – no matter how good intentioned filled ‘Mellie Grant’, from time to time, may be towards her husband (now ex-husband) ‘Fitz’.
And that dynamic of ‘helping’ or ‘helpful Hannah’ that ‘Mellie’ portends can be for ‘Fitz’ nerve-racking, and as you’ll soon see, playing itself out in deeply dramatic scenes like this one. Watch.
As you can see “the President” reminded “the First Lady” that she was “ornamental and not functional”in nature. “First ladies don’t set policy,” even real-life ones at that (be they former or otherwise).
And yet the country and the free world for that matter is stuck with a former First Lady of these United States (and former Senator for New York City) in Hillary Clinton doing exactly that. Goodly intentioned though she maybe Mrs. Rodham-Clinton has done nothing to truly benefit her fellow-man or the at-large-public she so lovingly claims that she best represents, “for the last twenty-five years or more”.
She’s neither sponsored nor co-sponsored any major bills, acts or pieces legislation. Advanced no major policy or position papers. Took no hills nor advanced on any beachheads while wearing the uniform of the United States Military.
In fact what we’re told, what the world has been told is that Hillary Rodham-Clinton prior to ‘her turn in 2016′ was “doin’ nuthin’ but ‘standin’ by her man like Tammy Wynette and bakin’ cookies back home at the Governor’s Mansion in Arkansas.” Watch.
Placating the masses back home in Arkansas with a kind of “poor people’s campaign of her own for the poor people of Arkansas,” as the first lady there.
“As First Lady of Arkansas for twelve years, she chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and served on the boards of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Legal Services, and the Children’s Defense Fund. Mrs. Clinton wrote a weekly newspaper column entitled “Talking It Over.”…”
In concern of life before politics. Well. Lets see:
She was a “[Barry] Goldwater Girls,” in the 1960’s.
Then Republican Party Candidate for President in 1964, The Honorable Barrymore M. Goldwater, Sr., and “The Goldwater Girls,” at a presidential campaign stop in Cairo, IL. USA in March of 64′ (photo used as an example) …
Walmart Board of Directors Photo (featured is Mr. Hillary Rodham-Clinton setting next to Mr. Sam Walton, Walmart Founder & CEO c. 1992) — Photo courtesy of Walmart Stores, Inc.
Hillary Rodham-Clinton is a modern-day ‘Mellie Grant’ folks. Ornamental. Functional. For the sole political purpose and bidding of the Elite and Ruling Class of the United States of America and the World as we now know it. Whether it’s the use or misuse of purpose(s) of the Clinton [Family] Foundation
Brother of Hillary Rodham-Clinton, Tony Rodham, who stole billions of dollars in blood and treasures from the country of Haiti (highlighted in the photo), and son Zach in 1999 with former President Bill Clinton on the gulf course in South Florida (photo courtesy of Getty Images – editing done by Rhett E. Column, Say What News?!)
Or calling African-Americans ‘super-predators’.
She is a modern-day Mellie Grant Window Dressing for the Functional, but no less Ornamental, Elites of the United States of America and the World. – Translation: Schill.
–Rhett.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, SHARE! PLEASE? THANK YOU. COME AGAIN.
They say that politics makes for strange bedfellows, and its taken me most of my life to understand what that even means and it wasn’t until this national election cycle, in fact, that I’ve come to fully understand its true meaning.
And as luck would have it this is not the first time Mr. Lewandowski has had trouble with the law. In 1999 he was arrested after attempting to bring a loaded weapon into the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
Before that he was charged with assault and battery after having bit a fellow campaign staffer’s ear according to this report from the PalmBeachPost.com in the early 1990’s while working on a Congressional campaign in his home state of New Hampshire, the first mainstream campaign he ever worked on.
By all rights and accounts Mr. Lewandowski shouldn’t just be in jail, BUT under it. Affluenza anyone? Anyone?
We are told though that all of this is just nuance. Side show. Carnival barker stuff. And to ignore the obvious for obvious sake. Act as if nothing ever happened. That this is all just make-believe. Pretend. For ratings in a presidential election year. Culminating into this sort of Max Von Sydow‘Needful Things’ – esque “Hey these things happen,” moment:
No. These sort of things don’t just happen politically or otherwise. They are be design and purpose. Not to say that Ms. Fields, the reporter to which Mr. Lewandowski is alleged to have assaulted in Jupiter, FL. earlier this month, set all this up to happen, BUT that she was used and has been used as a message board for both the left and the right politically. Excused away, almost, by both; in lieu of her ’15 minutes of fame’ in the mosh pit known as social media.
For his part Mr. Lewandowski maintains his ‘innocence’ and his boss, Mr. Donald J. Trump, is ‘Standing by his man’. Watch.
Doubling down, as early as yesterday evening during a town hall event on CNN, on Lewandowski staying put in the presidential campaign:
And in the midst of this political circus are the voices of calm and reason. Myself. Mr. Bill Moyers and so many others.
Guys who are saying, “Whoa! Wait a minute. Hold on just one minute here. This guy – Lewandowski – needs to be put in jail! And damn it all to hell Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Rahm Emanuel need to exit stage left…”
And speaking further on the exit of Wasserman-Schultz and Rahm Emanuel Mr. Moyers & Mr. Winship wrote:
“Their disappearance might also help Hillary Clinton convince skeptical Democrats that her nomination, if it happens, is about the future, and not about resurrecting and ratifying the worst aspects of the first Clinton reign when she and her husband rarely met a donor to whom they wouldn’t try to auction a sleepover in the Lincoln Bedroom.”
That Mrs. Clinton in all her political resplendent should ‘man up’ and:
“… come right [on] out and ask for the resignations of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Democratic National Committee Chair — and Florida congresswoman — Debbie Wasserman Schultz.”
“Rahm Emanuel first came to prominence as head of the finance committee for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, browbeating ever-increasing amounts of money out of fat cat donors, and following [the] Clinton[‘s] into the White House as a senior adviser attuned to the wishes and profits of organized wealth.”
“After alienating most of Washington with his arrogance and bluster Emanuel left in 1998 and went into investment banking in Chicago, making more than $16 million in less than three years.
He came back to Washington as a three-term Illinois congressman, chaired the fundraising Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (calling on his Wall Street sources to get in on the gravy by electing so-called New Democrats over New Deal Democrats), and soon was back in the White House as Barack Obama’s chief of staff.”
The Buffet Rule Map breakdown, courtesy of Wikipedia 2016…
Remember that shocking dash cam video of a black 17-year-old named Laquan McDonald being shot 16 times by a Chicago policeman while he was walking away? Of course you do; who can forget it? Remember, too, that for 400 days the police kept the existence of the video secret and did nothing about the shooting. Meanwhile, the City of Chicago paid five million dollars to McDonald’s family, who at that point had not filed a lawsuit. But despite the large sum of money coughed up by his own administration, Emanuel claims he never saw the video. If that’s true, he was guilty of dreadful mismanagement; if he did know, he’s guilty of far worse.
Only after his re-election was the cover-up of the murder revealed. In Perlstein’s words, “Given that he surely would not have been reelected had any of this come out before the balloting, a recent poll showed that only 17 percent of Chicagoan’s believe him. And a majority of Chicagoan’s now think he should resign.””
By this time you may well be asking, “what could be worse?” Great question! And here’s my answer:
The Honorable Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, (D-FL) Congressperson and 1st Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (photo courtesy of The Florida-Sun Sentinel, 2012)
And rather than admit to those problems, and deal with them accordingly, the three-man tag team of Ford, Jr. Wasserman-Schultz and Meek, like so many of their colleagues, swept those controversies under the rug – passed the buck and left the American people to pay for the check.
Why am I not surprised?
“As for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, she embodies the tactics that have eroded the ability of Democrats to once again be the party of the working class. As Democratic National Committee chair she has opened the floodgates for Big Money, brought lobbyists into the inner circle and oiled all the moving parts of the revolving door that twirls between government service and cushy jobs in the world of corporate influence.
She has played games with the party’s voter database, been accused of restricting the number of Democratic candidate debates and scheduling them at odd days and times to favor Hillary Clinton, and recently told CNN’s Jake Tapper that super delegates — strongly establishment and pro-Clinton — are necessary at the party’s convention so deserving incumbent officials and party leaders don’t have to run for delegate slots “against grassroots activists.” Let that sink in, but hold your nose against the aroma of entitlement.
[Wasserman-Schultz] has aligned herself with corporate interests out to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s effort to create national standards for the payday-lending industry, a business that in particular targets the poor. Payday loans, as Yuka Hayashi writes at The Wall Street Journal, “are quick credits of a few hundred dollars, with effective annual interest rates ranging between 300% and 500%. Loans are due in a lump sum on the borrower’s next payday, a structure that often sends people into cycles of debt by forcing them to take out new loans to repay the old ones.”
According to the nonpartisan Americans for Financial Reform, this tail-chasing cycle of “turned” loans to pay off previous loans makes up about 76 percent of the payday loan business. The Pew Charitable Trust found that in Wasserman Schultz’s home state, the average payday loan customer takes out nine such loans a year, which usually has them mired in debt for about half a year. … The very people, it must be acknowledged, who now have an ally in the chair of the Democratic National Committee, who has so engineered the rules of the current Democratic primary process so as to virtually assure her unlimited access to a Clinton White House where she can walk in freely to press the case for her … donors and pals.[..]”
Professor Tim Canova, former California University School of Economics Teacher (photo courtesy of New Time of Broward and Palm Beach, 2016)…
As a long-time lawyer, educator and economics and policy adviser to Mr. Bernie Sanders and others Professor Canova has seen, first-hand, the devastating effects Wasserman-Schultz brand of governance on South Florida since he moved to Hollywood, FL. in 2012 from the greater Los Angeles, CA. area.
“I’m very unhappy with Wasserman Schultz’s representation of the district. Time and time again, she has voted to protect the pools of dark money in politics. My dissatisfaction with her has gone back many months, to when she voted to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
As an outspoken critic of Wall Street and Madison Avenue Professor Canova seems like the natural protagonist to Wasserman-Schultz soft-core political porn:
“Given his own experience as an outspoken Wall Street critic, Canova came to one conclusion: He ought to run to take Wasserman Schultz out. So, on January 8, he officially announced his candidacy in Florida’s 23rd District, which encompasses Hollywood and Miami Beach. … He grew up on Long Island, attended Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., and, after graduating, worked as a legislative aide to former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas. From there, he practiced commercial law at the then-prominent New York City law firm [of] Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander, and Ferguson. Among [the] other prominent alumni [who practiced law there along side the likes of] Richard Nixon and former Sen. Pat Buchanan [,who] worked for the firm before going into politics.”
As the New Times of Broward and Palm Beach put it:
“[While]he has not received any sort of endorsement from the Sanders campaign. … Canova is an outspoken liberal who believes the Federal Reserve should be reformed. While at Chapman [University], Canova was driving to a meeting with then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2011 when he noticed an encampment had emerged around Los Angeles City Hall. It turned out to be one of the nation’s largest #OccupyWallStreet protests. [And] I found it fascinating,” he says. “The encampment itself was a revelation. There were a lot of young kids, for most part, who had voted for Obama just a year or two earlier, but the new administration had not done much of anything for this generation. Many were homeless or out of work, but they were intelligent people.””
As a ‘Wall Street reformer’ Mr. Canova was called upon by Senator Sanders and eighteen other economists to study a 2011 report released by the Fed’s own Government Accountability Office which detailed that ’employees and big bank owners’ for corporations like Goldman Sachs:
“sat on the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks while their own firms received Fed [bailout] money.”
– What, I wonder, could ever be wrong with this picture? Well lets see.
Goldman Sachs Offices in downtown New York, NY. USA (photo courtesy of Village Voice Magazine, 2013)…
“After Wasserman Schultz voted to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership midway through 2015, Canova says he tried to contact the congresswoman’s office to explain his issues with the bill. He says he never heard back. So, he says, he had no choice but to try to remove her from office himself.”
And its news like this that should be a sole comfort to folks like Mr. Moyers and Winship. To know that there are people like Professor Canova, Tammy Baldwin, Alan Grayson, Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren fighting the good fight, the progressive fight , in this and future Congresses.
A choice instead of the ‘status quo’, OR as Moyers and Winship concluded in their pleading:
“This is why [politicians like] Emanuel and Wasserman Schultz must go. To millions, they are enablers of the one percent, perpetrators of the Washington mentality that the rest of the country has grown to hate. What a message such servants of plutocracy send: Democrats — a bridge to the past.”
–Rhett.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, SHARE! PLEASE? THANK YOU. COME AGAIN.
Editorial: We’re told there’s nothing to it. That accusations of cheating in the 2016 Democratic primary process are nothing more than ‘fevered dreams’ under a full moon-lit night. A chance for those of us who support Bernie Sanders to throw something up against the wall and see if it sticks when it comes to Hillary Rodham Clinton and her political scandals. And if it didn’t, if their were, by some amazing chance, no sticking power such would be fine. I’d move on, so to would a whole lot of other people, and that would be the end, Hillary Clinton would be standing on top of the steps at the South entrance of the US Capitol on January 20th 2017 being sworn in as our 45th [and first female] President of these United States of America. Case. Closed.
REMEMBER:“Democrats fall in love. While Republicans fall in line…” Or something like that, right?
Fear of loosing power. Loosing a political foothold over the people who love her so. Almost like an Ancient King or Queen of old in the last throes of their rule and reign.
“Believing,” that they are loved by the people all the while believing differently in their own hearts and minds. Knowing differently. Knowing better.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is a political potentate in the last throes of her rule and reign, she knows it – all to well – and she is willing to pull out all the stops to ensure absolute and “total victory”. No sacrifice is too great. No cost to small. Consequences be damned.
Nasty much?
Hillary the Politically Potentated
–Rhett.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, SHARE! PLEASE? THANK YOU. COME AGAIN.
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Say What News?! 