BNR Letters to the Editor Roundup for 4-6-16
I will let LoneStarMike do my cheering over last night's well earned victory in Wisconsin. Here's your morning roundup of Letters to the Editor, Facebook stats, and other articles from the comments on BNR over at the GOS.
Enjoy!
Posted by LoneStarMike
- Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
- Bernie won Wisconsin — ‘twas a blowout they say
- We’ll keep phone banking — day after after day
- And I couldn’t care less — what Markos will say
- Mister Bluebird's on Bern’s shoulder
- It's the truth, it's actual
- Ev'rything is satisfactual
- Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
- Next is Wyoming — Hip, Hip Hooray
On a side note, I was watching the New York Times page on Wisconsin results as they came in. Around 11:00 p.m. there was about 90% of the vote in and Clinton was showing she’s won 4 counties. One of them was Burnett County in Northwest Wisconsin. I think she had 390 votes and Bernie had 340. But they had only reported votes from 13 of 24 precincts in that county.
Right before I went to bed, around 1:00 a.m. Burnett County had flipped to Bernie by only 16 votes Bernie 933, HRC 917. It was so nice to see another county turn from Blue (Hillary) to green (Bernie.)
Current Facebook stats as of 5:00 a.m. CST
Bernie2016/Hillary2016/Senator Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders 3,785,754 Presidential Campaign Page
Hillary Clinton 3,117,008 Presidential Campaign Page
Bernie Sanders 3,693,035 U. S. Senatorial Page
Tuesday, Bernie had 650,472 more likes than Sec. Clinton
Today, Bernie has 668,746 more likes than Sec. Clinton
(The gap widens and it’s the highest it’s ever been)
This Little Piggy Went To Market
Bernie Sanders practices what columnist Hinton preaches
South Jersey Times LTE — Southern New Jersey
Milton Hinton's April 3 column, "Fix tax code that trashes the middle class," about how the tax system is unfair, was right on.
Rich corporations like CBS, Verizon, Xerox and Citigroup often don't pay any federal income taxes at all because the system is rigged in their favor. They influence our elected officials - who make the rules - by giving money to those officials. Call it campaign donations. Call it lobbying. Call it speaking fees. I think it's about time we called it what it really is: bribery.
Hinton writes that this issue doesn'?t get a lot of attention. The media don't talk about it much because they are "bought," too. The best case scenario is that some writer or TV personality will speak up, and then lose his or her job.
The only presidential candidate speaking up about this is Bernie Sanders. But the establishment and the media want you to think he doesn'?t have a chance. His numbers do add up; look for yourself at BernieSanders.com.
Don'?t fall for Sanders' detractors' accusations that his supporters just want free stuff. I don't want free stuff. I want what's mine!
I want some of my money back from the rich people like the Koch brothers and from corporate America. They should be paying their fair share. We shouldn't be paying for it all.
There will never be another candidate like Sanders in most of our lifetimes. And even if there were, and the rich get any more of a toehold, it will be past the point of no return. The people will never get our power back again.
That's how serious this election is. Don't believe that Sanders doesn't have a chance. He is our last chance.
No Frackin' Way!
Campaign finance reform needed to make change
The Poughkeepsie Journal LTE — Poughkeepsie, New York
American democracy has been clouded by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that has allowed for unlimited money to be given to political campaigns. This is in direct counter to existing campaign finance regulation that limits how much money is allowed to be given to a candidate. When I hear voters who complain about the feasibility of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ policy plans, I always bring this subject up.
Our campaign finance system is directly related to all of the major issues in our country today.
For example, if you receive a million-dollar donation to a super PAC supporting you from a group of insurance-company executives, you could imagine that you might not be interested in supporting or voting for government provided health care. This is why campaign finance is connected to everything else. Many special interests are pushing back against any change that could be negative to its goals or bottom lines.
And this isn’t just a partisan issue. Special interests lobby and fund both Republicans and Democrats. Even Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has amassed a large following of conservatives who have acknowledged that our system of campaign finance is corrupt.
According to most polls, a majority of Americans believe money has too much influence in our political system. I urge all of you who are unsure of Sanders’ ability to get things done to reconsider his main argument — that unless we start gaining control over money in our elections, we will never achieve any meaningful change.
The Rich Are Not Amused
Change the course of history — Support Bernie Sanders
Statesman Journal LTE — Salem Oregon
We face an existential threat in America today that will grind our children’s children into a life of perpetual poverty and misery.
Ninety percent of the wealth in the country is owned and controlled by 10 percent of the population. Forty percent of our wealth is owned and controlled by 1 percent of the population.
Every day the consequences of this terrible thievery of our national wealth become more obvious. The poor get poorer, the rich get richer, the middle class disappears. We are damning our children to a life of quiet desperation.
Yet we dither. We shout angry slogans with Donald Trump. We listen to the pious platitudes and carefully evaluate the sound bites of the focus groups.
One candidate, an old white guy from Vermont, sees the problem and is trying to rally us to the cause. But by his own admission he can’t do it alone. It will take a revolution to effect the change that is needed; and we the people are simply not responding.
This is our chance to change the course of history. We may not get another. Please, you ardent fans of Donald and Hillary, see the threat and join the revolution!
You Are What You Eat
Election 2016 is battle for soul of our nation
Las Cruces Sun-News LTE — Las Cruces, New Mexico
Mr. Max Mastellone’s excellent comments (Sun-News, March 3) on why Bernie Sanders should be the nominee for president of the United States leaves no doubt this election is a battle for the soul of America.
The subject is very important, since Bernie Sanders has not only been ignored by the corporate news media but also by elitists on the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C. In this day and age, when most of the news media are owned by corporate conglomerates that operate mostly on guesses (speculations), a large segment of the population no longer listens.
I feel it’s a planned effort to exclude certain groups like Mexican-Americans, Hispanic and other minorities from proper representation, only to be seen and not heard. For the same reasons, I feel the DNC is taking the Hispanic vote for granted, since it was already determined Hillary Clinton was to be the Democratic nominee for president.
For Hispanics this is an “El Voto o La Bota (The Vote or the Boot),” issue. Americans must understand the U.S. is connected at the hip with Mexico and Latin America and it doesn’t need a rich, pompous individual to separate the nation from the rest of the Americas, failed immigration policies (mostly by Republicans) or not! After all, climatic conditions are the biggest threats to all human kind. War is not an option.
Indeed, in the battle for the soul of America, is a billionaire who is buying and bullying his way to the White House, promoting verbal exchanges and building walls on the U.S.-Mexico border. Next is a Social Democrat who wants to educate, improve the standard of living for every citizen with a fair tax plan and put America’s infrastructures back on course.
People & Planet Over Profits
Minimum wage will help workers
The Bulletin LTE -Bend, Oregon
I am responding to the editorial, “Tiered wage plan isn’t going to help small businesses.” The new minimum wage was not created to help business owners but rather their employees. Studies indicate that when workers have financial security their morale improves, which in turn equates to increased productivity.
The editorial states that if the minimum wage is raised, an employer may not be able to continue to make a profit and have no other choice but to reduce the number of employees. There is another choice, though, which is simply for the employer to share more of the profits with the workers. That means the business owner, like the employees, might have to eat hamburger rather than steak a few times each week and cut back on some luxuries that the employees have never enjoyed.
I’m sure some conservatives will shout “socialism” at that suggestion. They will be the same people who have traditionally been opposed to unions and tried to weaken their influence. If it weren’t for employer greed, unions would have never been necessary. On the positive side, if employees earn more, they will buy more — especially things they couldn’t afford before the wage increase. The increase in purchasing power will be a definite stimulus to our economy and help businesses to increase profits. Hurray for our Legislature and Gov. Brown. They did what was right.
Over The Edge?
Posted by Don midwest
Elizabeth Warren shows what can be done in congressional hearings
Like the billionaires who are now out of the closet, the Republicans put this guy in as a spokesman for reducing oversight of financial products for consumers. He is very “knowledgeable” for transfer of wealth away from the people.
Elizabeth Warren destroys talking points on financial reform, roasts Republican witness
US a POW and congress went MIA
Writing a Blank Check on War for the President: How the United States Became a Prisoner of War and Congress Went MIA
There was a reason that there was no standing army when the Republic began — the founding generation knew that monarchs used wars to whip up support of the people
Even so, the onset of the next war finds the Constitution once more being ill-treated. We don’t repeat past transgressions, of course. Instead, we devise new ones. So it has been during the ongoing post-9/11 period of protracted war.
During the presidency of George W. Bush, the United States embraced torture as an instrument of policy in clear violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, ordered the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen, a death by drone that was visibly in disregard of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Both administrations — Bush’s with gusto, Obama’s with evident regret — imprisoned individuals for years on end without charge and without anything remotely approximating the “speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury” guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Should the present state of hostilities ever end, we can no doubt expect Guantánamo to become yet another source of “lessons learned” for future generations of rueful Americans.
What about separation of powers doctrine? Founding generation very concerned about limiting power
Congress on the Sidelines
Yet one particular check-and-balance constitutional proviso now appears exempt from this recurring phenomenon of disregard followed by professions of dismay, embarrassment, and “never again-ism” once the military emergency passes. I mean, of course, Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, which assigns to Congress the authority “to declare war” and still stands as testimony to the genius of those who drafted it. There can be no question that the responsibility for deciding when and whether the United States should fight resides with the legislative branch, not the executive, and that this was manifestly the intent of the Framers.
On parchment at least, the division of labor appears straightforward. The president’s designation as commander-in-chief of the armed forces in no way implies a blanket authorization to employ those forces however he sees fit or anything faintly like it. Quite the contrary: legitimizing presidential command requires explicit congressional sanction.
Actual practice has evolved into something altogether different. The portion of Article I, Section 8, cited above has become a dead letter, about as operative as blue laws still on the books in some American cities and towns that purport to regulate Sabbath day activities. Superseding the written text is an unwritten counterpart that goes something like this: with legislators largely consigned to the status of observers, presidents pretty much wage war whenever, wherever, and however they see fit. Whether the result qualifies as usurpation or forfeiture is one of those chicken-and-egg questions that’s interesting but practically speaking beside the point.
Wisconsin Berns: 'We’re Going to Shock Them All and Win This Nomination'
subtitle
Winning seven out of eight most recent contests, says Sanders in victory speech, proves that 'momentum' of his campaign can no longer be ignored
I am feeling delusional this morning. Maybe I didn’t sleep well enough but things didn’t turn out like some thought it would. But it is delusional to even consider for a minute that the power structure would give up easily so nothing left for me to remain in my delusional state. Hope you have a nice day while I wallow in la la la land thinking that the Bernie movement will bring about needed change.
As he neared the end of his speech, Sanders turned his attention to New York—where he said Clinton was getting "nervous" over the battle for voters in that state—but also big western states including Oregon and California where said he had an "excellent" chance of winning.
After that, Sanders said, "I think a lot of these superdelegates are going to be looking around them and asking, 'Which candidate has the momentum? Which candidate is bring out huge numbers of people? But we will win in November, if there's a large voter turnout.' That's what always happens – Democrats and progressives win when there is a large voter turnout. Republicans win when people are demoralized. This campaign is giving energy and enthusiasm to millions of Americans."
He concluded, "I think the people of this country are tired of establishment of politics and establishment economics. I think the people of this country are ready for a political revolution."
Obama’s dangerous tactic here to stay
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald 30m30 minutes ago
Major part of Obama legacy here to stay: killing large groups of people by drone w/o knowing who they are foreignpolicy.com/... #Inspiring
here is the link
Continued to send $ to war machine and create more terrorists, rinse and repeat.
Article above about how the political establishment has gone full murder and spending precious resources that could be used for other causes
We need a leader who has been against our taking over governments around the world, does not support special ops troops in over 130 countries, closes down the almost 1,000 military bases around the world, and gets the American people to understand and atone for our military efforts for the billionaires, corporations and politicians.
War is the dark secret of our sole.
Jeremy Scahill responded to my question about American exceptionalism that it is so buried in our culture that he doesn’t know what will change it.
Future generations will look back at this time of climate change when it looks like changes already done will lock in for thousands and thousands of years, and they will say how could humans be so stupid to spend their time on wars and hating people and not spent the trillions on moving away from carbon? How could they destabilize the climate which leads to billions of people displaced while they worried about terrorists? How could the Catholic church be against birth control, and the previous Pope who said that homosexuality was a bigger problem than deforestation of the Brazilian rain forest?
Yes the youth are rising up because they know that the future has collapsed and even with all our efforts, it will never be as bright as it was a few short decades ago.
When you are in a hole, keep digging
In May 2013, President Barack Obama’s aides indicated that they were prepared to phase out the most controversial element of the administration’s drone war: so-called “signature strikes” against military-age men on battlefields around the world that took place even if American officials didn’t know who the targets were — or if they were actively plotting against the United States.
The tactic had sparked fierce criticism from human rights groups and some lawmakers, who said it effectively gave the CIA carte blanche to bomb groups of men in countries ranging from Yemen to Pakistan simply because of where they lived and whether they showed any behavior commonly associated with militants. Opponents argued that the strikes were certain to kill innocents given that U.S. officials knew so little about who they were targeting and had no concrete way of identifying the dead afterward.
Nearly three years later, the administration has abandoned any pretense of reining in its use of signature strikes. With the Islamic State expanding its reach, Washington is doubling down on the tactic and dispatching drones to strike at targets in Yemen and Somalia.
In March, U.S. drones and other warplanes bombed an al-Shabab trainingcamp in Somalia north of Mogadishu, killing what the Pentagon later estimated were about 150 militants who had gathered for a graduation ceremony. And an air raid a few weeks later on an Islamic State training camp in the mountains of Yemen killed dozens of suspected militants, the Pentagon said. U.S. officials privately acknowledged that they didn’t know the precise identities of who they killed.
Commerce Scty defends TPP Corp Tribunals
Another example of the corporate coup d’etat — Commerce Secretary for President Obama. How many billionaires are in politics instead of simply owning politics?
Secretary Pritzker, a former Council on Foreign Relations board member and one of the richest women in the world, explained that opposition to TPP was misguided and that free trade was being unfairly scapegoated for larger forces hurting US workers, such as automation. Pritzker claimed that wealth shifting east to a rising middle class in Asia was inevitable, and the only real question was whether or not US companies would get in on the action. Pritzker warned that without US “leadership,” the rules for commerce in Asia may be set entirely by non-Americans. Perish the thought.
So Bernie’s opposition to TPP is misguided? Well, not if you benefit from it. Will the Republicans rush through Fast Track allowing Obama to enact TPP as one of his signature achievements? Without wikileaks leaks of the totally top secret documents (you have noticed that secrecy is used to hide waste, fraud and abuse which used to be a crime) and the Bernie movement, we would have already had TPP enacted.
But Obama’s loyal supporters of the oligarchy are still working to get TPP enacted. (Obama already signed the TPP. Here is a full page of smiling Obama signing the TPP. Look at it and weep
Back to the article with the first paragraph. The paragraph above is the second paragraph. This paragraph right off says “coup d’etat” by giving up sovereignty, but hey, who cares …
On Monday, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker told a meeting before the Council on Foreign Relations that a controversial provision within the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which surrenders US sovereignty in favor of corporate interests, was a good deal because a US company has prevailed every time the process has been used. The process, known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), allows corporations to sue governments outside of normal legal channels and have the dispute settled in a corporate-friendly tribunal.
COMMERCE SECRETARY PRITZKER DEFENDS CORPORATE TRIBUNALS IN TPP
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