....there is a difference in kind between Bernie and the other Democratic candidates, a difference unlike the differences among them. It’s the difference between a principled Social Democratic program to meet human needs, based on and supported by a mass movement, and a program of neoliberal tinkering to protect profit-making possibilities, based on and supported by capitalist donors/the donor class.
His nomination would be a radical departure and would radically disrupt the Democratic Party and the whole political game, and he would have a great chance to win, opening new and substantively different and left, social-democratic possibilities in the U.S.
-- Jim Kavanagh
bernies-last-dance-with-the-dems
If Sanders wins in 2020, it would be the first time since the 1970s that a new president wasn’t worse for planet and people than his predecessor. This is the point that I feel some of my radical compatriots are missing. Collectively, we would be taking a step in the right direction. Yes, it would be a small step, and no, it wouldn’t be a “revolution” but it would be something and we’ve had nothing—or less—for far too long.
-- Kollibri terre Sonnebrunne
2020-presidential-election-really-is-different
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Friday, February 7, 2020
Impeachment? Doh!
What are the larger implications? For our own nation this buffoonery has reinforced a near universal conviction that our government, our system, our whole culture, is dysfunctional, derelict, and unredeemable. Americans have no idea what can be done about it, and can’t face the fact that nothing can. The cognitive dissonance resulting from maintaining the gospel of exceptionalism as all the evidence screams nonsense has raised stress to intolerable levels where they will remain.
Europe, Asia, and the wider world are mesmerized by the spectacle of a thrashing, blundering monster, lost beyond recall in gross irrationality and solipsistic madness, but capable of working horrors yet unknown in the throes of its devolution. The raving lunacy of our highest, most powerful officials would be risible if it were not seriously, potentiall fatal for those who must watch the loons goad the supine world toward death and extinction.
-- Paul Edwards
Thursday, February 6, 2020
the shadow...................
Impeachment, the Iowa disaster and petty show acts will not win an election against Donald Trump. While they do not drive away core Democratic voters, they do make it difficult to get the additional votes that are needed to win. Many on the left and the right who dislike Trump will rather abstain or vote for a third party than for a party which is indistinguishable from the currently ruling one.
Meanwhile Trump hauls in record amounts in donations and, with 49%, achieved his best personal approval rate ever.
Either the Democrats change their whole course of action or they will lose in November to an extent that will be breathtaking. It would be well deserved.
-- Posted by b on February 6, 2020 at 15:57 UTC, Moon of Alabama
the-democrats-deserve-to-lose
the shadow....
The force accused of sowing the confusion and disarray surrounding the first Democrat Party contest of the 2020 election season is a dark money Democratic nonprofit called Acronym. It was Acronym that launched Shadow Inc, the mysterious company behind the now-infamous, unsecured, completely unworkable voter app which prevented precinct chairs from reporting vote totals on caucus night.
The exceptionally opaque Acronym was itself created with seed money from a Silicon Valley billionaire named Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) who has financed a series of highly manipulative social media campaigns.
feel the Bern
With more than 97% of the precincts now reporting in Iowa, Sanders—despite many mainstream media outlets and pundits treating Buttigieg as the winner of the contest—extended his popular vote lead in the state to more than 2,500 (44,753 to 42,235). With state delegate equivalents (SDEs), the current totals show Buttigieg now maintains only a three point lead—550 to 447 (one-tenth of a percentage point.)
bernie-won-iowa-trending
bernie-won-iowa-trending
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
the shadow
A precinct chair in Iowa said the app got stuck on the last step when reporting results. It was uploading a picture of the precinct’s results.
The chair said they were finally able to upload, so they took a screenshot. The app then showed different numbers than what they had submitted as captured in their screenshot.
-- Jeff Zeleny, CNN
Democratic operative Tara McGowan is denying that her high-profile liberal firm ACRONYM played a role in the Monday evening caucus debacle, claiming that her firm was merely an investor in the company Shadow Inc., which developed the app at the center of the controversy. But internal company documents, a source close to the firms, and public records show a close and intertwined relationship between Acronym and Shadow.
-- Lee Fang
iowa-caucus-app-shadow
The chair said they were finally able to upload, so they took a screenshot. The app then showed different numbers than what they had submitted as captured in their screenshot.
-- Jeff Zeleny, CNN
Democratic operative Tara McGowan is denying that her high-profile liberal firm ACRONYM played a role in the Monday evening caucus debacle, claiming that her firm was merely an investor in the company Shadow Inc., which developed the app at the center of the controversy. But internal company documents, a source close to the firms, and public records show a close and intertwined relationship between Acronym and Shadow.
-- Lee Fang
iowa-caucus-app-shadow
Saturday, February 1, 2020
have a cuppa tea
"England is not much any more"
-- Charles De Gaulle
Sixty years ago, De Gaulle, who envisaged a European confederation as a way to achieve independence from the American liberators (who came to stay), saw very clearly that the U.K. would be America’s Trojan horse in the European community. That is called vision, the quality of a statesman – a breed that seems to have died out in the West. He opposed British membership as long as he could, but the American influence was too great. And curiously enough, the ardent European federalists joined in promoting British membership, seemingly unaware that such membership was totally incompatible with the political unity they desired.
-- Diana Johnstone
uk-came-went-leaving-europe-in-a-mess
-- Charles De Gaulle
Sixty years ago, De Gaulle, who envisaged a European confederation as a way to achieve independence from the American liberators (who came to stay), saw very clearly that the U.K. would be America’s Trojan horse in the European community. That is called vision, the quality of a statesman – a breed that seems to have died out in the West. He opposed British membership as long as he could, but the American influence was too great. And curiously enough, the ardent European federalists joined in promoting British membership, seemingly unaware that such membership was totally incompatible with the political unity they desired.
-- Diana Johnstone
uk-came-went-leaving-europe-in-a-mess
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