The Nightmare Realized: Trump Is Taking Us To War

We stand on the brink of a major conflict with Russia. How did we get to this perilous point? What happened to America? Here’s a brief overview of the past year to help understand how things went so horribly wrong.

May 2016 – Ted Cruz and John Kasich, the last Republican candidates for president standing, ended their campaigns, making Donald Trump the presumptive Republican nominee to the shock of almost everyone.

July 2016 – Despite numerous polls showing Bernie Sanders had the best chance of beating Trump in the general election, and with the overt help of the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton received Sanders’ endorsement and became the Democratic nominee for president.

November 16, 2016 – Despite endorsements by every major newspaper in the country, despite being declared the winner of the presidential debates, despite numerous revelations exposing her opponent’s racist and misogynistic background, despite her opponent’s refusal to release his tax returns, despite reports of Russian influence within the Trump campaign, despite spending almost twice as much money during her campaign as Trump, despite the polls and despite winning the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, Hillary Clinton loses the election by 77 Electoral College votes to wealthy TV personality Donald Trump. White Americans in the Mountain, Midwest and Southern states expressed their anger at “the establishment” by voting in a true outsider.

January 20, 2017 – Donald Trump is inaugurated 45^th President of the United States.  Trump spends his first few days in office arguing that his inauguration crowd was larger than Obama’s (it wasn’t) and that he would have won the popular vote if it wasn’t for millions of illegal voters (no evidence has been found to support this claim). Using his Twitter account, Trump establishes a pattern of outrageous, insulting and often fabricated comments to communicate his views and reach his constituents.

January 2017 to May 2017 –

Trump nominates scores of uniquely unqualified alt-right ideologues and family members to cabinet posts and positions as advisors. With the help of Mitch McConnell and a lapdog congress, nominations are rammed through the approval process with virtually no vetting. This pattern continued to include the April appointment of rabidly right-wing judge Neil Gorsuch to a seat on the Supreme Court.

Accusations of Russian involvement in the recent U.S. election rise to the surface as it is revealed numerous Trump administration officials met with top Russian politicians and oligarchs before and after the election. Trump’s ties to Russian oligarchs going back years are exposed. Investigations are started, but Congress continues to run interference for Trump and block any serious probe into the accusations.

The Trump administration approaches government spending with a chainsaw, proposing drastic cuts in every area except military spending. Many new appointees as cabinet heads are avowed enemies of the agencies they now oversee and have no problems with slashing their own budgets or eliminating the agency altogether. Threats are made to privatize Social Security and Medicare. Environmental and safety regulations are decimated.

Trump wages war on undocumented citizens, ordering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to arrest and deport thousands of immigrants, tearing families apart and deporting many people who have been productive, contributing Americans for decades.

Intrigue and internecine warfare escalates within the White House, as various factions fall in and out of favor with Trump. Family members are given positions of enormous influence within the administration and resentment has escalated. Once Trump’s most influential advisor, white nationalist Steve Bannon appears to be on the way out as Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner accumulates more and more power.

April 2017 – As the conflicts within Syria continued to simmer, reports reached the west that chemical weapons were used on citizens of a Syrian village and that men, women and children died horrible deaths as a result. The attack was blamed on Syrian President Assad. Despite the fact that Donald Trump had criticized President Obama for similar actions in Syria on many occasions in the past, Trump ordered the bombing of a Syrian airstrip on April 6. Details of the attack have since emerged, and we now know the Trump administration communicated with Russia before the attack and, coincidentally, Syrians at the airport were given a heads-up hours before the attack and were able to evacuate the facility before the bombs fell. The Russians were notified of the attack before congress.

The Syrian attack appears to have angered Russia, and some type of response is expected. Additionally, there have been no reports of whether the bombing destroyed any chemical facilities or accomplished anything substantial. There are suspicions being voiced that the attack was an attempt to divert attention away from the Russian investigations in Washington.

Today – The situation in which American finds itself is frightening. We have an unqualified, unhinged narcissistic president who may be wittingly or unwittingly instigating a war with Russia to take the heat off of his administration’s collusion with Russia to sway our presidential election. We cannot count on the other two branches of government to help us, as congress and the Supreme Court are under the influence of right-wing radicals who have no allegiance to democracy or even what most of us consider reality.

Trump is taking America down a very dark and dangerous path at a rapid pace. The question is, how will we stop him before it is too late?

Trump Fans To The Rest Of America: SHUT UP!!!

During the presidential campaign, Trump said, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters." At the time, it was treated as typical Trump hyperbole, another “People love me” boast from a man who has no idea what “love” is. Today, however, this turns out to be one of the most accurate statements The Donald has made.

If you spend time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other major site that posts political articles, you will undoubtedly have run into a Trump supporter in the comments section trying to defend their president. They are usually angry, emotional and devoid of any evidence supporting their rant. One woman responded to a comment I made about Flynn resigning after his Russian fiasco by writing, “Hillary Clinton is the one who should be in jail. SHUT UP!!!”

There are two common characteristics at work here. First, at least since the start of the congressional Benghazi hearings, Hillary Clinton has become a focal point of conservative ire, a Dark Lord Sauron-like figure embodying the twin evils of liberalism and feminism. I am not a huge fan of Hillary, but the hatred directed at her by the poorly educated right is in a realm of unreality that borders on madness. Any suggestion that Trump or members of his administration should be held accountable for their actions is routinely met with some form of a “Hillary, too” remark.

The other common feature of my right-wing troll’s comment is the use of all caps, “SHUT UP.” She’s angry. They’re all angry. Even though their hero won the presidency, they will not abide any criticism of Trump or his actions, and want you to know that whatever your complaint is, you’re WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Of course, they never offer any factual rebuttal because there is none. Like Trump, they want you to cower in fear not at their knowledge, but at their righteous anger, their God-approved surety in their cause.

One possible interpretation of the anger Trump fans feel is that their faith in their leader is beginning to weaken amid the daily stories of his unhinged behavior, and as their pride and devotion continue to come under attack, they lash out instinctively like wounded animals at their enemies. The other interpretation is that they are imbeciles. Either way, I expect the anger to continue ratcheting up the longer Trump stays in office.

Playing the Blame Game

The political blame game is in full swing across the country. What happened to Hillary? How was this sure win squandered? Was the FBI director to blame? From Michael Moore to John Stewart to Barack Obama, everyone is weighing in on the biggest question of the year: How did Democrats lose the 2016 presidential election? Of course, I have my own thoughts on who is to blame for this devastating loss, so why not toss those into the mix?

I don’t believe there is any “one thing” that can be blamed for Hillary’s loss on election day. Clinton and even some Republicans are claiming FBI Director Comey’s announcement of a reopened investigation into Hillary’s emails turned the tide, but I really don’t believe that. It didn’t help her, that’s for sure, but the vote count would have been too close for comfort either way. I think the mainstream corporate media played a roll in this debacle, giving Trump thousands of hours of free air time simply because he was an entertaining buffoon throughout what could have been a Cruz/Clinton snore fest. However, this is only a part of the story.

My feeling is that the true story goes back more than thirty years to the 1980s. It was during the Reagan era when the weather vane of political momentum was swinging strongly to the right and conservatives were enjoying their “Morning in America” with the Gipper at the helm. Democrats of the era began to panic. Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale came off as weak, wishy washy candidates compared to the simple-minded yet resolute Reagan, and Dems started rethinking the party’s overall message. Unfortunately for the party in the long run, they decided that if they couldn’t beat conservatives, they would join them, and the Democratic bus veered right, giving us the neoliberals of the last three decades.

Yes, we’ve had two Democratic presidents elected during that time, but from my perspective, Clinton and Obama are neoliberals who conned the left into believing they were far more liberal than they actually were, and that they governed much closer to the center. And Clinton was one of the founding members of the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of centrist Democrats whose goal was to make the party more palatable to corporate America and fiscally conservative voters.

In its misguided attempt to try and beat Republicans at their own game, Democrats ran from the legacy of the New Deal, retreated from its traditionally strong support for farmers and rural America, pulled back support for unions, cracked down on welfare recipients, amped up the war on drugs, and adopted a distinctly more militarily aggressive approach to foreign affairs. In other words, they distanced themselves from the very ideals that truly distinguished them from Republicans.

The big problem with the Democrats strategy was that they forgot to consider why poor, rural and lower-middle class whites keep voting against their best interests and electing Republicans. Values. Republicans have two things going for them as a national party. One is the money they receive as unabashed government proxies for corporate America. They are the bought and sold minions of the military/industrial/media complex, shamelessly selling votes to the highest bidder. On the other side of the economic tracks, Republicans attract voters with their veil of values. Successful conservative politicians are those who are able to exploit the values of poor, less educated constituents and convince them that they are victims of the big, bad government who wants to take away their churches, guns and money.

The victimization of poor and poorly educated whites has proven tremendously successful, and it is what propelled Trump to the presidency (along with appeals to racism, sexism, etc.) Democrats had nothing to counter Trumps claims. Had they been championing the needs of the poor and unemployed over the past thirty years? Not really. Had they done anything to help revitalize small-town America with decent jobs? Uh, no. Democrats were too busy trying to be Republicans to care about people on the fringes of America’s cities or on welfare or in prison or living on the streets. We Democrats don’t do that New Deal stuff anymore. Then along came Bernie Sanders.

An old-school New Dealer with the unfortunate label Democratic Socialist, Sanders espoused many traditional Democratic positions and low and behold he began gaining support in his bid for the presidency. His views seemed fresh and hopeful to more idealistic younger voters, although they were historically what Democrats had stood for since FDR was in office. The Democratic Party, however, still under the control of neoliberals, saw Sanders as a threat, and even though poll after poll showed he had the best chance of beating Trump, they threw him under the bus and anointed Hillary their candidate.

The lesson is simple. If Democrats want to win in the future, they need to re-embrace the views espoused by Sanders and Warren and other truly progressive members that clearly distinguish them from Republicans. If the Party chooses candidates who can energize voters with hope and an optimistic vision for a better America, only then will Democrats find themselves on the winning side.

Campaign 2016: The Awful Truths We’ve Learned So Far

Although election day is still ahead of us, this nightmare of a presidential campaign has already revealed some very serious flaws in the American experiment that will require our attention in the future if we are to survive as a country. If Trump wins, of course, all bets are off and every ounce of energy we the people have will need to be focused on keeping him from blowing up the world. If Clinton prevails, and all indications are that she will, perhaps, just perhaps, there may be some shred of hope for us, although I won’t hold my breath waiting for her to tackle the deep systemic problems we face as a nation.

Public education

Once the hallmark of our democracy, public education has been under attack from conservatives for the past 40 years, and the resulting wounds are deep and potentially life threatening. The grand culmination of their efforts is presidential candidate Donald Trump, a racist, sexist, anti-intellectual billionaire who lies, bullies and promotes violence with every breath he takes, a fascist strongman who, if elected, would use the Constitution as toilet paper. The most frightening aspect of all of this is his popularity in red state America. In the Mountain States, Midwest and South, conservative school board members have worked tirelessly to eliminate science, the arts and critical thinking from school curricula and replace it with thinly disguised religious propaganda and pseudo-science, pushing for “traditional values” over intellectual inquiry and independent thinking skills. What we’ve all reaped for their efforts is a large swath of citizens who lack basic analytical abilities and are thus easily manipulated by appeals to their darkest fears and cries of victimization. Con-men (and women) in their churches, schools, and the corporate media have stoked a burning anger within these people and then directed that anger at all the wrong targets, immigrants, minorities, scientists, college professors, none of whom have any direct influence on the policies that influence the everyday lives of Americans. That would be the politicians who actually make policy in Washington and state houses around the country. We need a national effort to revitalize America’s public education system to provide children with an authentic education that focuses not merely on tests and rote knowledge, but critical thinking and analytical skills that encourage lifelong learning.

Campaign finance reform

I know I tend to harp on this subject, but with the ascension of Donald Trump, we have the poster child for everything that is wrong with our election process. Trump has zero qualifications for being President of the United States. There are two reasons why Trump has reached the position he is now in: He’s wealthy and he is highly skillful at tapping into the darkest regions of people’s psyche to manipulate them. That’s it. Supporters claim he is a successful businessman, but that is simply not true. He’s filed for bankruptcy four times, he’s lost billions of dollars over the years on failed deals, he’s being sued by just about everyone except me, and no one really knows how much he’s worth. The way we elect people to the highest offices in America needs to change drastically. The influence of money in our elections is criminal and must be undone if we are to survive as a democracy. Americans need to demand that this issue be addressed by candidates running for office and that it be part of our national debate.

The Republican Party

As part of the 2016 election cycle, we have the truly bizarre situation of lifelong Republicans who are so horrified by their candidate for president that they are publicly announcing they will not vote for him. Trump is, of course, the monster they helped create. From the days of Jim Crow to the Vietnam War “America, love it or leave it” era to the drug war to the Southern Strategy to welfare queens to attacks on abortion rights to welfare reform to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to voter intimidation tactics to the Tea Party, Republicans have veered farther and farther to the right over the years, providing comfort and support to the looniest candidates and conspiracy theories, resulting in a party offering up a presidential candidate that their own leaders can’t stomach. The question is, what will the party do about this situation after Trump? Will they continue their descent into a religious/fascist party of violent “revolutionaries,” or will some group or individual within the party have the strength to pull it back from the mouth of madness? Some of this may depend on how Trump supporters respond after The Donald loses his presidential bid. It’s hard to imagine people like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan condoning violence, but these are very strange times and we’ll have to wait and see. We can be sure, however, that they will continue not doing their jobs and fight Clinton’s agenda every step of the way.

Lack Of Competition In America’s Major Industries Is A Serious Problem, Yet No One Wants To Talk About It

What could be more dangerous and threatening to democracy than having a mere handful of companies controlling our money, our news and entertainment and our food? Yet this is exactly the situation we find ourselves in today, and there has been little to nothing said about this situation from either Presidential candidate. The reason why is obvious. Industry giants contribute and control candidates running for office. They help set the national agenda and pad the bank accounts of elected officials who do their bidding.

Some will characterize this claim as a conspiracy theory, but in this case, the facts say otherwise. Here are a few:

- The American economy, and to a large extent the global economy, is controlled by four banking behemoths: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup (joining them from abroad are BNP, Deutsche Bank, Barclays and a few other older large banks). Eighty percent of the New York Federal Reserve Bank is owned by eight families: Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Lehmans and Kuhn Loebs of New York, the Rothschilds of Paris and London, the Lazards of Paris, and the Israel Moses Seifs of Rome.

- Six companies own 90 percent of the media in America: Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, 21^st Century Fox, Time Warner, CBS Corporation and Viacom. In 1983 there were 50 companies in this category. A mere 232 media executives control the information and entertainment diet of 277 million Americans.

- Ten companies control almost everything we eat and drink: Nestle, Pepsico, General Mills, Coca Cola, Kellogg’s, Associated British Foods, Mondelez, Mars, Unilever, Danone and Mars. From granola bars to frozen foods to your morning glass of orange juice, ten companies determine the diets of most Americans.

Although today’s situation may not conform to the strict definition of a monopoly, the result is basically the same. What makes this so undemocratic and anti-capitalist?

Competition. One of the basic tenets of capitalism is the supposed benefits of competition. If I build a good mousetrap, but you build a better one, you, and supposedly the consumer, benefit. When you have only a handful of giant corporations controlling an industry, competition and innovation are stifled and, in some cases, bought up and incorporated into the mother company. Consumer choices are artificially limited.

Workers’ rights. The less competition, the easier it is to control prices and wages. Workers are the big losers when they have so few choices of companies for which to work, and the companies are more than happy to take advantage of this situation by keeping wages and benefits as low as possible, despite making huge profits.

Market control. The media monopoly is a good example of how a small group can control an entire industry. There have been numerous examples in recent years showing clips of local and national newscasters from different networks not only airing the same stories during the same news cycle, but reading from the exact same script. News is no longer news, but corporate propaganda designed to not only sell things, but to keep the masses docile and uninformed.

It’s really a crime that this very serious situation is receiving absolutely no attention during this campaign. A few notable politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders understand the problem, but they have been excluded from the race to the White House by the Goliaths they are fighting against. When you have two candidates who benefit financially from the very companies we need to break up, there’s little hope change will come anytime soon.

When America Looks In The Mirror, It Sees The Face of Donald Trump

Donald Trump is without question a despicable human being. The latest revelations of his demeaning rhetoric towards women are being rightly condemned by just about everyone across the political spectrum. Yet this is only one in a long line of horrible comments by Trump objectifying women, and only now are many of his staunchest supporters speaking out against him.

The bar has been lowered so far for The Donald, that it was only when his fans had to actually dig into the ground to push it below the surface that any complaints were raised. Conservatives and evangelical Christians are just fine with sexism, misogyny and suppression as long as you use the right terms and phrases. “Grabbing them by the pussy” is not correct form and thus, objectionable. When you get down to it, it is really only semantics that separate the rest of the conservative pack from Trump, and no one should forget that.

Ask yourself, how can someone who believes that a wife should be subservient to the husband criticize the substance of what Trump said? How can a person who insists a woman should not have control over her own body call out Trump for his comments? The bluster and indignation from the right is as phony as a Trump apology and the only real concern on the part of the Republican Party is that their candidate can’t stop handing Hillary more ammunition.

Can anyone imagine what would happen if Trump’s hot mic comments were uttered by Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? Yet as of today, Trump is still the Republican presidential nominee. Our institutions are failing us, our “leaders” are not leaders at all, but tools of the one percent, and our democracy is dying. Donald Trump is the abomination born of nationalistic greed and hubris, the spawn of anti-democratic chauvinism and American exceptionalism. Conservatives pretending to be aghast at his remarks are his long-time enablers now swimming in a cesspool of hypocrisy. Far from an aberration, Trump is the true face of America in 2016, the candidate we deserve.

Tonight’s Debate Is A Clash Between Concepts of Reality, Not Merely Ideology

On the morning of the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, my overburdened in-box is filled with subject lines like, “Nate Silver says it’s a dead heat,” and “Hillary’s losing.” Behind all of the hyperbolic fear mongering is the never-ending quest for donations, but back in the real world, the race is far, far closer than it should be. I don’t doubt for a second that Hillary is sitting backstage somewhere or on a plane wondering for the millionth time why she isn’t fifty points ahead of Trump in the polls. We should all be wondering that.

A portion of the blame goes to the corporate media. If the presidential race isn’t a close one, viewers will become bored and tune out, so it’s in their best interests to continuously sell the drama of a neck and neck competition. A second issue is the successful demonization of the Clintons, and especially Hillary, among the right wing media over the past twenty-five years. They’ve accused her of every crime from witchcraft to murder and in the echo chamber of the wing-nut nation if a Clinton is involved, it has to be true.

Most discouraging of all, however, is that there exists in this country of public education, twenty-four seven news and the vast information resources of the Internet such a large group of voters who are unable to discern fact from fiction, reality from ideology. I’ve watched interviews with Trump supporters and while they’re often intended to be humorous, it strikes me as tragic that adults in America in 2016 would lack the basic, almost childish, intellectual skills needed to see that Donald Trump is completely unfit to be President of the United States.

I’d like to think that the debates will be a game-changer, that Hillary will decimate the woefully inept Trump and put his ignorance on display for all to see, but we know that won’t be the case. Trump could stand at his podium and not say a word for an hour and his supporters would declare him the winner. If he walked over and punched Hillary in the nose, his people would anoint him a god. The Clinton/Trump battle isn’t a competition between two ideologies, it is a fight between two versions of reality.

Clinton Picks Signaling an Anti-Progressive, Corporate Friendly Administration

Hopes were high among liberals and progressives in January 2009 as this country’s first African American was inaugurated President of the United States. Barack Obama had run his campaign around a simple slogan, “change,” and for many of us who voted for him, that meant charting a new course away from the horrendous failures of the Bush administration toward peace and prosperity. It didn’t take long, however, for us to see that our hopes were once again misplaced.

In the early months of 2009, anticipation turned to trepidation as Obama began announcing his new cabinet, and we saw positions being filled by long-time Wall Street insiders, well-connected Washington bureaucrats and political cronies, none of whom could remotely be considered “agents of change.” Instead of a new direction, we were treated to a new face continuing many of Bush’s worst national and international policies.

Fast-forward to 2016. In this election cycle, it’s a race between a particularly repulsive Republican, Trump and the Democrat who could be the first female President in U.S. history, Hillary Clinton. That sounds good on paper, but once again, what is being billed as a historic moment in this country’s history is turning into a win for the status quo, business-as-usual crowd that actually runs America. The only difference this time around is that we progressives have no illusions about Clinton’s establishment leanings, despite the requisite liberal rhetoric of the campaign season.

Do I sound cynical or realistic? Exhibit A: Clinton chose as her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a moderate Democrat who has supported, and recently voted for, the onerous TPP agreement. Exhibit B: Just yesterday, Clinton named former Colorado Democratic Senator and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to be chair of her presidential transition team, the position that will oversee the selection of thousands of presidential appointments should Clinton win the election.

So what’s the big deal with Salazar? Well, as a Senator and Interior Secretary, he continuously demonstrated he was a friend to big oil, gas, and the mining and ranching industries. He opened the Arctic Ocean to oil drilling and played Michael Brown with his botched response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. On top of that he is an ardent supporter of the TPP and fracking. In short, Salazar is an old school corporate shill disguised as a Democratic politician, and Clinton’s choice for one of the most important positions on her transition team.

The national media is doing its job by perpetuating the myth that American voters have a real choice in this presidential election, and contrasting an obvious nutcase like Trump against Hillary surely helps reinforce that narrative, but reality is quite different. Whether Hillary or Trump is elected President, the powers behind the scenes will continue to implement the military/industrial/media agenda at the expense of democracy and the economic future of the 99 percent. Hillary is already indicating the direction she wants to take this country as President, and it is a ruinous, if familiar, path of greed, war and environmental decimation.

No Matter Who Wins the White House, Americans Lose

Are you as nauseated, saddened, horrified and disgusted by this Presidential election campaign as I am? In one generation, mine, this country has gone from the world’s beacon of democracy and prosperity to the giant village idiot bumbling and stumbling incoherently around the planet, an untethered corporate mascot gone berserk.

With the ascension of Trump, our election process has become an international joke, and other countries look at us with pity and sadness as they watch a once admired champion lean helplessly against the ropes, punch-drunk and bran damaged, in what is surely its final round.

We are here today thanks to greed, plain and simple. Despite a booming economy and a real chance for citizens to live the American dream, the military/industrial/media complex of the 1960s/70s, like Frankenstein’s monster suddenly realizing it has superhuman strength, woke up to its horrible potential to influence this country’s political process through its wealth and connections to America’s elites. The ball really got rolling during the Reagan administration with its tax cuts for the wealthy and, despite sixteen years of Democratic rule, the trajectory has been downhill ever since.

Having destroyed America’s middle class, stretched income inequality to ludicrous extremes and purchased the two major political parties, the wealthy elites are surely enjoying the spectacle we serfs naively call a democratic election. The reality is, they don’t care who is crowned President. The oily, snake-tongued Trump is one of their members, as is the neo-liberal Clinton. Neither candidate is a threat to the current hegemony that is pulling this country beneath the surface like a weight tied around its ankles.

The corporate media dutifully continues its assigned goal of making the Presidential campaign look like a race when it is actually more like a horrific automobile accident from which we can’t avert our eyes. Our elections have turned into a dark spectacle, a cirque du macabre of huge laughing orange faces, cackling countesses and obese promoters counting their stacks of coins backstage. We willingly pay the price of admission while they laugh at our gullibility from behind the curtains, filling their vaults with our hard earned cash.

This election year, regardless of who moves into the White House, Americans will lose, and despite being conned once again, their attention will be drawn to the shiny object the media tells them is the next big thing.

The Political Conventions Are Over, But Not Forgotten

Some convention highlights you might have missed:

“Censorship police” wearing yellow vests covered up signs they didn’t agree with and started patriotic chants to drown out protesters.

Signs criticizing the party’s nominee were covered over with huge American flags.

A delegate who hoisted a flag deemed politically inappropriate was thrown out of the convention.

“They tried to bully us, under the assumption that we would all just fall in line,” said one delegate. “We were called crazy, and some of us, including myself, were physically attacked. They tried to intimidate us, but their attempts only fired us up more.”

There you have it. The Republican Convention was an Orwellian nightmare…wait, what? That wasn’t from the Republican Convention? That happened at the Democratic National Convention? Yes, indeed.

Sanders supporters at the convention who did not experience an immediate epiphany and turn their enthusiastic support in the direction of Hillary were harassed, belittled, bullied and, in a few cases, physically assaulted. It was an attempt by the Clinton juggernaut to convey a united Democratic front to the media covering the event, in ways that were as undemocratic as one could possibly get. The Clintonites at the convention went so far as to pay actors to fill up empty seats and cheer for Hillary.

As you might guess, many Sanders supporters went home from the Democratic convention defeated and dismayed by the Trump-like tactics used to shut down protests from the party many thought represented minority voices and the underdogs. That’s so 1960s. Today’s Democratic Party is as beholden to money and special interests as the Republican Party, and is just as ready to stifle descent and discord. Hillary Clinton, with her vast network of rich and famous donors, is the perfect figurehead for a political party that has sold its soul for a shot at the Oval Office, where loyal members can make millions from their experiences.

Luckily for the Democratic Party and Hillary, Trump is the perfect opposition candidate, drawing media attention away from the sleazy tactics and heavy-handed suppression of Sanders with The Donald's daily gaffes and buffoonery. However, the Sanders delegates will remember their treatment at the convention and how the DNC betrayed them, and, with any luck, will take the energy they had for Bernie and build momentum for a new progressive coalition in America.

If Trump Wins, the Democratic Establishment Will Have Only Itself to Blame

The daily trove of evidence coming from Wikileaks and other sources make it abundantly clear that the DNC, the Hillary campaign and the mainstream media colluded to steal the Democratic primary from Bernie Sanders. Without missing a beat, the media, including some left-leaning outlets, is portraying Bernie supporters at the Democratic convention as spoiled brats who can’t let go of their Quixotic dream, instead of the patriots they are fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party.

Hillary supporters, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim to believe in the democratic process and fair elections and then stand behind a candidate who condoned dirty tricks, under-the-table support from the establishment and who accepted money from anyone with an open checkbook. Democrats love to tsk tsk shady Republican tactics that circumvent the democratic process, but refuse to look in the mirror when one of their own commits the same sins.

The irony of ironies of course, is that polls consistently showed that Sanders had the better chance of beating Trump in the general election than did Clinton. So the Democratic establishment, in its myopic quest to ordain the elite-approved candidate, may have cut off its nose to spite its face.

Believe me, the last thing in the world I want to see is Donald Trump taking the Presidential oath of office next January, but if that happens, the Democratic establishment will have only itself to blame. When you play in the same muck and mire as Republicans, you’re not any less dirty because you support a different candidate, and perhaps you’re even a bit more so after decades of claiming the moral high ground.

The Republican National Convention: Send In The Clowns

The only thing missing from last night’s opening of the Republican National Convention was Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” as the prelude to Donald Trump’s entrance. Hair Trump and the rabid crowd of haters would have felt right at home with the surreal homage to a psychotic dictator.

Did the remaining members of Queen actually give the RNC permission to use “We Are the Champions” at the convention? It’s hard to believe, but if true, I’ll have to plug my ears and “na, na, na,” my way through the inevitable assault of “Bohemian Rhapsody” throughout the remaining years of my life.

One of the big headlines today is the revelation that portions of Melania Trump’s speech last night were lifted from a speech given by Michelle Obama. Is your head spinning too? It’s like Cruella de Vil giving a speech at the American Dog Fighting convention using quotes lifted from Mother Theresa. The only thing more ironically idiotic would have been to plagiarize Hillary Clinton, but never fear, the convention has just started.

And then there was former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s raging, spittle-flecked speech, in which at one point he yelled at the crowd, “Are we crazy?” and they shouted back, “Yes.” The inmates share a brief moment of self-awareness.

Of course, what Republican gathering would be complete without the lies. Lies upon lies upon lies. From Benghazi to Hillary to Obama to Black Lives Matter, conservative barkers spun yarn after yarn, regurgitating the Republican litany of demonstrable falsehoods to a bloodthirsty crowd who live in an alternate reality. The Republican convention is clearly a truth-free zone.

We all like to laugh at conspiracy theorists and religious zealots who constantly predict the end of the world, only to have the target day pass like any other, but you can’t watch the Republican convention without a bit of an uneasy feeling that, should these lunatics gain control of our government, our days on this planet are numbered.

Anatomy of a Primary: Sanders Got Screwed

To the surprise of no one who supported Bernie Sanders during his primary run, analysis of the voting results by researchers (including a paper by Axel Geijsel of Tilburg University, The Netherlands and Rudolfo Cortes Barragan of Stanford University) show clearly that Sanders was the victim of a rigged system. From our corporate media that virtually ignored Sanders during the early months of his campaign to the Democratic National Committee’s shameless crowning of Clinton long before the votes were counted to the shady dealings of state democratic parties (such as California’s) that aggressively worked to disenfranchise Sanders voters, the deck was stacked against Bernie from the moment he made his announcement to run for the nomination.

While the press was giving the buffoon Donald Trump billions of dollars in free media exposure, it was ignoring Sanders and the huge, enthusiastic crowds he was drawing all across America. My friends, no one has to tell you that this is not how a democracy works.

Related to this is a documentary I just watched this morning called “Spin.” It was made in 1995, but the theme of how the media manipulates the message is as relevant as ever. The filmmaker who made Spin took a very interesting and revealing approach to his subject matter. I didn’t know this, and I don’t know if it’s still true today, but in 1995, you could use a satellite dish to download feeds of raw video taken during television broadcasts of breaks and downtime not edited for broadcast. For example, the Larry King Show was huge in the nineties, and there are numerous clips of Larry talking to guests during commercial breaks.

Anyway, these off-air segments are very revealing in several ways. They clearly show how our news is both overtly and subtly managed, slanted and sanitized for consumption, often not by outright propaganda, but by what’s omitted. The news we see on television is the news the networks and cable companies want us to see to be good little zombie consumers. Spin also shows how political handlers help politicians “spin” uncomfortable topics or questions as they are coached during breaks. And the documentary exposes the sycophantic relationship between television personalities and politicians. Larry King practically polished George HW Bush’s shoes during an interview.

In the twenty years since Spin was released, the news has gone from bad to worse, democracy in America has died and the possibility exists that Donald Trump could become President of the United States. Have a nice day.

Windmills 1, Democracy 0

A note about yesterday’s primary vote here in California that seems to exemplify the shady nature of the Democratic nomination process. Both Katharine and I are registered to vote in California. We both received confirmation of this, and we were sent a card notifying us of where to vote. Despite this, when we went to our polling place, surprise, we weren’t on the list. We were given “provisional” ballots that, instead of going through the machine and being counted, were stuffed in an envelope and ended up god knows where.

Of course, I can’t say if this was the result of any shenanigans on the part of the Democratic Party, but the result is our votes for Sanders were not counted yesterday. Since the beginning of the campaign for the Democratic Presidential nominee, the process has been compromised, controlled and co-opted by the DNC in conjunction with national media outlets to anoint Hillary Clinton the Party’s champion in November.

It’s a no-win situation for Sander’s supporters. Despite the obvious collusion between the Clinton campaign and the DNC, Sander’s supporters who complain will be labeled as sore losers and conspiracy theorists by the corporate media. Using every dirty trick at their disposal, the establishment has won, as it was ordained long ago by America’s elites.

This ugly coronation called a campaign only serves to reinforce the sad reality that America is an oligarchy, a country governed by the rich for the rich, and Clinton is a bona fide, card-carrying member of the ruling class. So far have we fallen that the choice given to us on election day will be between a narcissistic, racist dictator-in-waiting and a morally bankrupt, money-worshipping tool of the elites.

I thank Bernie Sanders for taking on the hapless job of attacking the windmills. Though the odds were always against you, you fought courageously and for all the right reasons.

I Understand the Futility of Voting in a Rigged System

So this morning I went through the motions of voting.  I say, “went through the motions” because yesterday, one of the major news services made the announcement that, based on information from the nefarious and undemocratic Superdelegates, Hillary Clinton had wrapped up the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. The announcement, timed conveniently the Monday night before the California and other primaries, is one more example of the political establishment hijacking the democratic process to essentially install their candidate as the nominee.

This Presidential campaign cycle has already shown a glaring light on our broken electoral system. Yes there’s Donald Trump, but the problems I’m talking about are systemic issues that run across party lines to rig the election in favor of America’s elites, whatever their party. This campaign season the DNC has pulled out all the stops to assure Wall Street, K Street and every street lined with multi-million dollar homes that they will have one of their own sitting in the White House come January.  The one percent can let out a sigh of relief knowing it will be business as usual for the next four years under Clinton, that greed will be rewarded and short-term profits over long-term stability will still be the order of the day.

The only hope is that the Sanders revolution will continue rolling on past the election, and that it will have energized young people to stay in the trenches and fight for progressive ideals and candidates. We need to cultivate younger candidates to run for offices at all levels of government around the country and start making inroads into the old boy’s network that has a stranglehold on our democratic institutions. Had this been a truly democratic election, Sanders would have won, but the fight can’t stop here in defeat, but must move on and grow stronger and smarter for the next battle.

The Democratic Party: Fighting For More of the Same

For all of the articles about the turmoil in the Republican Party over Trump’s successes in the primaries so far, I am much more concerned about what’s going on in the Democratic Party between Clinton and Sanders. The Party (the DNC, celebrity Democrats, the Whitehouse, the media, etc.) has already put the crown on Clinton’s head and is working overtime to make sure it stays there. From shady shenanigans at polling places to national headlines blaring Clinton’s inevitable victory to the Democratic National Committee’s unabashed support for Hillary, the Dem establishment is doing everything it can to make Bernie Sanders go away.

I find this all very troubling. Sanders truly represents what the Democratic Party should be about, but our leaders have been brainwashed over the years by Republicans into believing that only centrist, “realistic” (tough on crime, militaristic, fiscally conservative) Democrats can win elections. Sanders is already proving them wrong, and that’s making them very uncomfortable.

Since Ronald Reagan won the presidency 36 years ago, the Democratic Party has shifted to the right, believing wrongly that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Yes, we’ve won four Presidential elections since then, but look at the state of our nation. George Bush took this country down a dark and dangerous road after 9/11, and instead of trying to clean up the mess as he said he would, Obama has embraced it. Ever since he’s been on the national stage, Obama has talked like a liberal, but acted like a centrist Republican. Sanders is the only candidate who sounds and acts like a Democrat.

The Democratic establishment should be 100 percent behind Sanders, instead they are repeating the strategy that Bill Clinton and Obama used to win their elections: talk like a liberal until elected, then play it down the middle.  Hillary is the establishment choice, the “safe” choice, the choice that Wall Street and K Street can live with. With its actions this election cycle, the Democratic Party continues to willingly disenfranchises not only the left wing of the party, but other Democrats who simply want real change instead of Clinton II, with the attitude of, “Where else you gonna go?” The two major political parties have way too much say about who sits in the White House and it will take a major public upheaval to break their stranglehold.

Random “After-the-Iowa-caucus” thoughts:

Very happy to see that Bernie Sanders did as well as he did against Hillary in Iowa. It’s especially gratifying to watch someone fight against the Goliath Democratic election machine backing Hillary and pull out a David-like win (with a virtual tie).  Historically, Iowa hasn’t been a good barometer for who will actually win the nomination, but it seems to me that if Bernie can generate the kind of enthusiasm and involvement he had in Iowa, he can do that in other states as well.

Cruz, Rubio and Trump come out on top on the Republican ticket, in that order.  Alternate media is having a field day with Trump’s loss to Cruz, but again, what happens in Iowa is not a reliable predictor of who will eventually win the nomination. Trump is still very much in the race, but we can relish his “loser” status for a bit.

Speaking of the despicable Ted Cruz, just today he sent out a mailer to his supporters that is so far over the op it’s not even visible by the human eye. Claiming America is “under assault” from Islamic fanatics, it has an image of the Lincoln Memorial with old Abe dressed up like an ISIS terrorist strapped with an AK47, scarf-covered face and large hunting knife in one hand. The fear mongering here is off the charts, with absolutely no facts to support his wild assertions. The copy is all sixth-grade bluster about killing the terrorists and restoring America’s greatness. Trump is a narcissistic blowhard, but Cruz is something even more evil and diabolical. His religious values are medieval and he seems to take them very seriously, and you know if he were elected President he would do everything in his power to turn America into a theocracy.  With Trump we’d at least get some entertainment value watching Richie Rich convert the White House into a casino.

Do Those Who Endorse Hillary Realize How Broken America Is?

It’s disappointing, but not entirely surprising, to read that people and organizations you respect are endorsing Hillary Clinton for President, like Al Franken, Paul Krugman, LGBT Group, Human Rights Campaign and even Barack Obama. Krugman, Obama and others are arguing that real change (which Obama promised, but failed to deliver) requires strategic, incremental steps, and won’t be accomplished by someone as radical as Bernie Sanders. In other words, Hillary is the safe, establishment Democrat who won’t upset the oligarchs who actually run America.

There is a sense of hopelessness in all of this. Establishment Democrats seem to be throwing in the towel and admitting that we have a broken system that is beyond repair, and Hillary won’t rock the boat by trying. Everyone is afraid of Sanders except a huge chunk of the American people, who are trying to make change happen before our streets ignite in protests, and perhaps violence, over our unresponsive, undemocratic government. 

While the establishment Democrats endorse one of their own to take the helm of our sinking ship America, Republicans continue their assault on democracy. Senator Mitch “Yurtle the Turtle” McConnell introduced a resolution for the authorization of military force that gives the President more unilateral power to wage war across the globe, essentially cutting Congress out of the process and giving the President the powers of a dictator. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy calls it “…a total rewrite of the War Powers Clause in the U.S. Constitution.” 

The radical right in this country does not believe in democracy, and, with its numbers quickly dwindling, it is using what power it has left to bring about their preferred form of government, a fascist dictatorship. They have already succeeded in creating an oligarchy, but that’s not enough. If they ever get another one of their own in the White House, they want him to have Putin-like powers to force their deluded ideology onto the American people and crush dissent quickly and violently. Sounds like a Trump rally, doesn’t it?

As President, Hillary Clinton will not stand up to the oligarchs because she is one of them. Her husband did their bidding in the 1990s and she will continue to do it as President. The Democratic Hillary endorsers are the true political cynics of the day, weak-need enablers who, for a variety of reasons (none of them good), feel it is preferred to “work within the system” instead of fighting it. The problem with this is that the system is far beyond the point of a few tweaks here and there to set things right. Washington has become a façade like an Old West movie set, a cover for the dark forces to work behind for their own agenda, and Bernie Sanders is the only candidate willing to take on these puppet masters. It’s a Quixotic effort to be sure, but to do nothing, or elect someone President who will do nothing,  is not an option.