How And Why Bernie Will Defeat Trump

Crooked Hillary…

Everyone who pays attention to the news – especially political news – has heard the phrase uttered by the Current White House Occupant, sometimes also known as POS45. There’s even a Wikipedia page of the nicknames he gives folks.

Que sera, sera… eh?

Nevertheless, recall the 2016 General Election?

Why, of course you do!

Who could forget it, right?

I mean, it was a choice between “the devil you know, and the devil you don’t know.” Either way, it was a devil. But at least with one, you could half-way predict what that devil might, could, or possibly would do.

Not so with the other devil.

Or, put another way, a known quantity versus an unknown quantity.

And, time has proven it to be the case.

But for all the investigations which have been launched against her, or about her, and her dealings, nothing has stuck. So maybe she’s the “Teflon Don,” rather than her husband “Blowjob Bill,” eh?

Remember Donna Bazile, the twice-former, interim Democratic National Committee Chair? Recall how she’d been discovered having sharing debate questions with Hillary after a WikiLeaks email dump, and during a second such revelation resigned in shame from her position at CNN as political commentator/pundit?

Yeah… THAT Donna Brazile.

And, perhaps you may recall how she later revealed in her book, an excerpt of which was made into a Politico article, what she’d found when she was briefly DNC chair, specifically, how a back-room deal was struck between Hillary and the DNC a year before the 2016 election campaign season began.

So, let’s recap.

Here’s two of the article’s first three paragraphs, which are excerpted from her book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House:

“I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.

“So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.”

Focus upon that last sentence – “It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.”

“…for which she expected to wield control of its operations.”

That, my friends, is a classic example of a quid pro quo – giving one thing of value in exchange for another thing of value. Legally defined as a type of valid contract, the quid pro quo is not an illegal act in and of itself, per se, and must be considered within context to determine if it was an illegal act, or not.

There’s little-to-no question that it was unethical, at the very least, and certainly hasn’t reflected positively on the party, nor upon Hillary.

But how did it get to that point?

After the convention, Ms Brazile called Gary Gensler, Chief Financial Officer of Hillary’s campaign, who told her that the Democratic Party was broke and $2 million in debt.

Stewardship of the party’s finances was in shambles, to say the least, and it was due in significant part, or so she claims, from her predecessor Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Representative from Florida’s 20th Congressional District.

Ms. Wasserman-Schultz, as you may recall, also later resigned as DNC Chair after a tranche of WikiLeaks emails showed she had given significant help to Hillary during her Presidential campaign, rather than remain a supportive, yet independent observer. So perhaps it was for the best, anyway.

Not everyone in the party had been happy with her at the helm, either. Lis Smith, a longtime campaign operative, former Communications Director, and former Deputy Campaign Director for candidates like Martin O’Malley, Bill de Blasio, Claire McCaskill, and Barack Obama, said of Wasserman-Schultz’ resignation that, “Her resignation is good news for Democrats, and great news for anyone who believes the DNC needs wholesale reform. Hopefully we can all learn from her little experiment this past primary season and never repeat it as a party.”

Senator Sanders was more diplomatically circumspect in his remarks, saying that, “While she deserves thanks for her years of service, the party now needs new leadership that will open the doors of the party and welcome in working people and young people. The party leadership must also always remain impartial in the presidential nominating process, something which did not occur in the 2016 race.”

But, back to the story at hand.

Ms. Brazile wrote that while she was interim DNC Chair that, “I wanted to believe Hillary, who made campaign finance reform part of her platform, but I had made this pledge to Bernie and did not want to disappoint him.” But in her search for the “smoking gun,” after diligent efforts, speaking with numerous party lawyers and officials who feigned knowledge or responsibility, she continually came up empty-handed… until later. She wrote:

“When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.

“The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook [Hillary’s Campaign Manager] with a copy to Marc Elias [General Counsel for Hillary’s campaign]—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”

She wrote that while she was the interim DNC Chair, she experienced some unusual events, which at the time, seemed nothing more than purely odd, if not curious, but certainly not suspicious, nor even eyebrow-raising. One of those trifling matters was that, as chair of the party, she was hamstrung from doing anything the party chair would have normally done, such as write press releases, unless

Everything Old Is New Again

The Democratic Party’s Establishment cronies, whom are probably more accurately known as Corporate Democrats, or even as “Republicans Lite,” have had their knives out for Bernie Sanders for quite some time.

Not only have they no idea what they’re talking about when they go about Bernie bashing, and falsely claiming that the ideas he promotes are somehow “radical,” but they’re just plain old wrong. Of course, it would be very easy to imagine that anyone who opposes such ideals to benefit the people are in the pockets of their Big Money Corporate Donors, and doing the bidding of their Wall Street Corporate Money masters.

“We need to create a culture,
an entire culture,
which as Pope Francis has reminded us,
can not just be based on the worship of money.
We must not accept
a nation in which
billionaires compete as to the size of their super-yachts,
while
children in America go hungry
and
veterans sleep out on the streets.”

Neither is he a “socialist,” a brush and political nom de guerre which his opponents attempt to paint him with, and thereby demonize him. It would be more accurate to say he’s a social Democrat, insofar as his ideas and policies are designed to benefit the people – not mega-corporations, not billionaires.

President Harry Truman (D), seated LEFT

His opponents’ efforts to make political hay for themselves with the fact that he calls himself a “Democratic socialist” are purely self-seeking, self-serving efforts to ensure continued votes from their constituents… but most importantly, Big Money from Corporate Donors.

Bernie Sanders has NEVER participated in any anti-American activity or organization, and has NEVER promoted any such thing. And, in fact, like every Military Service Member, and countless others in Federal Service whether elected, or not, he has sworn an oath of allegiance to the Constitution, and to the United States.

The principles Bernie Sanders talks about are NOT “radical.”

In fact, the ideas like a:
1.) Right to education;
2.) Right to earn a decent wage;
3.) Right to a job;
4.) Right to housing;
5.) Right to medical care,
and more, are straight out of the FDR playbook from his SOTU January 11, 1944, when he said in part that “necessitous men are not free men.”¹

The Democratic Party has simply chosen to ignore those ideals – wrongfully so, in my estimation – and instead, has proceeded down the merry Republican path, oblivious to the damage and destruction that lies ahead.

Time, and time again, Senator Sanders has made it abundantly clear exactly and precisely what he means when he uses the term democratic socialism. The most detailed example of which was a speech he delivered at Georgetown University, Thursday, November 19, 2015.
(see: http://inthesetimes.com/article/18623/bernie_sanders_democratic_socialism_georgetown_speech

• https://www.c-span.org/video/?400961-1/senator-bernie-sanders-address-democratic-socialism

• https://youtu.be/p9OP0gfmPgA

• https://www.georgetown.edu/news/bernie-sanders-defines-democratic-socialism-in-georgetown-speech/)

“Real freedom must include economic security.
That was Roosevelt’s vision 70 years ago.
It is my vision today.
It is a vision that we have not yet achieved.
It is time that we did.”

Republicans have a long lineage of falsely claiming anything that benefits the people is somehow “socialist.” It could be thought of as their “birthright,” because Republican fear mongering using that term, and others, is nothing new. If they can convince you that someone, some idea, plan, or thing, is going to steal something from you, they’ve already won. That’s their strategy, plain and simple.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Medicare Bill at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, with President Truman seated next to him. Twenty years earlier, President Truman proposed his idea for nationwide health care. Archive photo from the White House Press Office.

They did it in the three Republican administrations (1921-1933) – Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover – which in turn, gifted America, and the world, with the Great Depression.

They did it with Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy’s unfounded fear-mongering “Red Scare” tactics, who found a Communist behind every shrub, and on every street corner.

They did it to “Give ’em Hell Harry” Truman in 1945 a mere 7 months into his Presidency when he proposed mandatory “universal” health care, and later proposed expanding Social Security, a full-employment program, a permanent Fair Employment Practices Act, and public housing and slum clearance, which in his January 5, 1949 SOTU he called the “Fair Deal.”

• During a 1946 Senate hearing on the National Health Insurance Bill, Republican Senator Robert Taft shouted out: “I consider it socialism. It is to my mind the most socialistic measure this Congress has ever had before it,” then led his party members out of the room. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce accused Truman in 1947 of taking a “backroad to socialism” in the fast lane toward a “police state.”

They did it with LBJ’s Great Society programs.

Reagan did it long before becoming President with a 1961 recording “Reagan speaks out against socialized medicine,” and continued the same rhetoric after winning election in 1980, and re-election in 1984.

They did it to President Obama with the Affordable Care Act.
• Tea Party Caucus founder Michele Bachmann infamously called the ACA “the crown jewel of socialism,” and “socialized medicine.”

Trump, and others, are doing it to Bernie, and to AOC’s Green New Deal.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders – I , official portrait

For Republicans, the dread “socialism” is their great boogeyman – a nondescript, amorphous thing to fear, that’ll not only kill you, but will eat your babies first. It’s their ideological whipping boy. But like the boy who cried ‘WOLF!,’ the problem with their tired old argument, and oft-repeated claim, is that not only is it a disservice to the public, and an utter lie, but by so doing, they take the people for complete fools who they manipulate by using such terms.

They have NEVER defined the term “socialism,” because it is not in their interest to do so. In fact, no Republican, Corporate Democrat, Wall Street trader, billionaire, or any other person who has never had the people’s interest at heart has ever defined, nor attempted to define, “socialism.” NEVER.

Senator Sanders, on the other hand, has.

In his Thursday, November 19, 2015 Georgetown speech, he said in part that,

“So let me define for you,
simply and straightforwardly,
what democratic socialism means to me.
It builds on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said
when he fought
for
guaranteed economic rights
for all
Americans.
And it builds on what Martin Luther King, Jr. said
in 1968 when he stated that;
“This country has socialism for the rich,
and rugged individualism for the poor.”
It builds on
the success
of
many other countries around the world
that have
done a far better job
than we have
in protecting
the needs of
their working families,
the elderly,
the children,
the sick
and
the poor.

“Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.

“Democratic socialism means that we must reform a political system in America today which is not only grossly unfair but, in many respects, corrupt.”

He continued by saying, “It is a system, for example, which during the 1990s allowed Wall Street to spend $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to get deregulated. Then, ten years later, after the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior of Wall Street led to their collapse, it is a system which provided trillions in government aid to bail them out. Wall Street used their wealth and power to get Congress to do their bidding for deregulation and then, when their greed caused their collapse, they used their wealth and power to get Congress to bail them out. Quite a system!

“And, then, to add insult to injury, we were told that not only were the banks too big to fail, the bankers were too big to jail. Kids who get caught possessing marijuana get police records. Wall Street CEOs who help destroy the economy get raises in their salaries. This is what Martin Luther King, Jr. meant by socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for everyone else.”

In short, just like the Scriptural passage in 2 Kings 2:13 describing the transition of one generation’s prophet to another
–
“He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan.”
–
Bernie Sanders has picked up FDR’s mantle.

 

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(¹ Vernon v. Bethell (1762). 2 Eden 110 alp. 113, 28 E.R. 838 (H.C.)), found in “Abusive or Unconscionable Clauses from a Common Law Perspective” (2010) p381, by Stephen Waddams, Universil.y Professor and holder of the Goodman/Schipper Chair, faculty of Law, University of Toronto, 49 Canadian Business Law Journal 378-399. The complete quotation in context is: “The court, as a court of conscience, is very jealous of persons taking securities for a loan, and converting such securities into purchases. And therefore I take it to be an established rule, that a mortgagee can never provide al the lime of making the loan for any event or condition on which the equity of redemption shall be discharged, and Lhe conveyance absolute. And there is great reason and justice in tills rule, for necessitous men are not, truly speaking, free men, but, to answer a present exigency, will submit to any terms that the crafty may impose upon lhem.”)

The Birmingham News knew of plot to assassinate Fred Shuttlesworth

The things we continue to learn about the explicit wickedness and evil of that era continues to plague the South, and the nation at large… particularly those who pander to it in the Republican party. And GOP party officials wonder why they continue to lose elections. Perhaps they should get a clue.

—

Good and Evil in Birmingham

January 20, 2013

By DIANE McWHORTER

FIFTY years ago, Birmingham, Ala., provided the enduring iconography of the civil rights era, testing the mettle of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so dramatically that he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.

During his protest there in May 1963, the biblical spectacle of black children facing down Public Safety Commissioner Eugene (Bull) Connor’s fire hoses and police dogs set the stage for King’s Sermon on the Mount some four months later at the Lincoln Memorial. And the civil rights movement’s “Year of Birmingham” passed into history as an epic narrative of good versus evil.

Our understanding of the “good” has expanded beyond the lone-dreamer theory to embrace other activists, like King’s partner in Birmingham, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. Yet the evil segregationist archetype is fixed in the popular mind as the villainous housewife of “The Help” or the cretinous mob of “Django Unchained” — nobody we’d ever know, or certainly ever be.

But the disquieting reality is that the conflict was between not good and evil, but good and normal. The brute racism that today seems like mass social insanity was a “way of life” practiced by ordinary “good” people.

According to the Southern community’s consensus of “normal,” those fighting for rights now considered mainstream were “extremists,” and public servants could rationalize plans to murder men like Shuttlesworth, confident that they were on the right side of history.

Consider new evidence about a plan by Connor to have Shuttlesworth assassinated. Under Connor’s orders, Detective Tom Cook