THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES; WITHOUT BERNIE

The old white guy from Vermont gave it his best shot but the Establishment was just "too big" to take down. And, in the end Bernie gave up the dream but not his small donor mailing list. 

"If you don't want to vote for a warmonger or racist billionaire, there are more options. The political revolution will keep going," Stein tweeted in the hour preceding Sanders' announcement alongside Clinton in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.



In another tweet, Stein wrote, "While Trump praises dictators, Hillary takes their money. Remind us again of Saudi Arabia's human rights record?"



As Sanders began speaking, Stein offered her own hashtags to disaffected Bernie backers. "The revolution continues with those who will fight for a government that represents all of us--not just the 1%. #HillNo #JillYes," Stein wrote. 

READ MORE; Jill Stein shreds Sanders' Clinton endorsement 

AN "UN"POPULARITY CONTEST

It's a sad commentary when Americans have to chose between two of the worse liked candidates in history in selecting a leader. Worse yet what does that say about the country?



From the looks of the polls most voters are voting "against" the opposing candidate than "for" a candidate of their choice.



That is indeed hitting an all-time low in American politics.



One in Four Americans Dislike Both Presidential Candidates

ESTABLISHMENT 1 - REVOLUTION 0

Fortunately this is a much longer game and much more will happen that will have an impact on the Revolution who's objective is to clean up the corrupt political system that is destroying democracy in America.


Unfinished Business

On the loss side of the ledger, the platform committee voted down an outright ban on fracking. While the draft calls for improving past trade deals and improving future ones, Clinton delegates voted down language introduced by former NAACP director Ben Jealous that explicitly rejected the TPP. (The debate over Jealous’ language makes for compelling viewing, especially after Jealous introduces his amendment 15 minutes into this video.)

Language regarding justice for Palestine was rejected. As the Orlando Sentinel reported, “the committee also shot down progressive-backed language to limit political contributions to $100 per person or entity and to publicly finance campaigns; to outlaw racial gerrymandering; and to prevent public officials from joining the industries they regulate.”

These are significant losses. And while some of the platform’s policies can be enacted through executive action, most will remain moot as long as Republicans control Congress.

What’s more, it would be extraordinarily naive to assume that any elected official will feel honor-bound to follow the platform. As I wrote last week about the party’s banking platform, they will be under tremendous pressure from donors to surrender on critical issues.

The Revolution Goes On

But platforms are promises. That makes them useful in the hands of activists willing to hold politicians to them.

It’s easy to lose faith when important battles are lost, or to become overconfident when they’re won. But, in both defeat and victory, this revolution must go on.

This is the most progressive Democratic platform in history, but only because millions of people demanded it – with their votes and their activism. More activism is needed now. Minority reports may be filed on the planks that lost in Orlando. Future platforms must be stronger in their support for Medicare for All and other key initiatives. And Democrats will need to be held accountable after they’re elected.

Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America and a close Sanders adviser, told me after the Orlando meeting: “Bernie Sanders and all of us who have worked for the past year, including millions of Americans in every state in the union, will continue the struggle.”

Don’t Stop the Revolution: The Sanders Movement After Orlando - NationofChange | Progressive Change Through Positive Action

THE CLINTON'S LIKE TO PLAY FOR PAY

Bill and Hillary have brought this corrupt game of "pay for play" to a new level and no one seems to care much given the extent to how it has played out during the course of their political careers.

What should be of greater concern now is that the Democratic Establishment is hell bent on bringing the corruption into the White House by nominating Hillary who is a packaged deal with Bill; two of the worse offenders of this cronyism.

Behind a Bill Clinton speaking engagement: A $1,400 hotel phone bill and $700 dinner for two

Clinton changed the rules of political speech-making for cash. He would push not just corporate hosts but also nonprofits and universities to pay fees well beyond what they were accustomed to. His aides would turn what had been a freewheeling format into tightly scripted events where every question from the audience was screened. He and Hillary Clinton would become so skilled at churning profits out of their lectures that they would net more than $150 million from speaking alone after he left the White House.
                             
Inside the negotiations to secure a Bill Clinton speaking engagement: Bartering, bickering and outsize expense reports

Contracts and internal emails connected to half a dozen speeches Clinton gave in the Bay Area soon after departing the White House offer a glimpse into the unusual demands and outsize expense reports associated with bringing him to town. The events took place as part of a speaker series sponsored by the Foothill Deanza Community College District, another by UC Davis and another run by a for-profit firm. The community college hosted him again in 2012. The documents became public through an open-records request filed by the Republican National Committee amid a presidential race in which the lucrative speaking fees paid to the Clintons are being closely examined.

They show a former president who deftly avoided discussing past scandals by refusing questions that were not screened by his staff in advance. There is the nearly $1,400 bill for a day’s worth of phone calls from San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel and the $700 dinner for two. And they also show that an agency representing Clinton continued to pursue a deal with an event host who emailed a racist remark about audiences and jokingly referred to the male aides Clinton traveled with as his mistresses.

Speechmaking is as politically charged as it is lucrative for the Clintons. Hillary Clinton’s refusal to disclose transcripts from speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs and other large corporations has become a campaign liability. Her husband’s collection of fees from corporations of as much as $750,000 for a single speech is a source of relentless charges of conflict of interest from critics.

By his advisors’ own admission, the former president pushed the limits of what could be charged for speeches when he entered the market in 2001.

Hillary Clinton would later say her family at that time was “dead broke” and deep in debt after years of attorneys’ fees related to impeachment and other Clinton controversies. The going rate for former presidents to deliver remarks in a public venue had been in the range of $60,000 per speech.

HILLARY LOSES IN COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION

Post-ABC poll: Reaction to FBI decision on Clinton e-mail use - The Washington Post


A new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that a majority of Americansdisapprove of FBI director James Comey’s recommendation that Clinton not be charged with a crime over her email arrangement, by 56-35. Americans say by 57-39 that her handling of it makes them worry about how she’ll handle the presidency.

What’s striking, though, is the degree to which this is driven by differences between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans are nearly unanimous in their disapproval of Comey’s decision, by 88 to seven. But according to the crosstabs, Democrats are substantially more split: 31 percent of Dems also disapprove, versus 63 percent who approve. Similarly, Dems say by 31-68 makes them worried about her presidency. Among independents, those numbers are 59-31 and 63-34.

In other words, nearly a third of Democrats disapprove of Comey’s recommendation against charges and say it makes them worried about her presidency, and a whole lot of Dem-leaning independents say the same.

What’s more, the crosstabs show that this is particularly pronounced among young voters and liberals: A majority of voters under 40 disapprove, by 55-32. And nearly half of liberals (43 percent) disapprove, while 49 percent approve. Similar percentages of those groups say this worries them about her presidency. Given those demographic breakdowns, it is possible — though the polling doesn’t say one way or the other — that there is substantial overlap between those Democrats and Dem-leaning independents who disapprove of Comey’s decision and those who support Sanders.

As you may recall, one of Sanders’s biggest moments during the primaries came when he publicly exonerated her over the email mess at a debate last fall, to great cheers from the audience. Since then, of course, during the voting throughout the first half of this year, Sanders emerged as a real threat to Clinton, and he amassed unexpected support among Democrats and Dem-leaning independents. A lot of those voters probably came to see Clinton more negatively, amid increasing criticism of her ties to Wall Street and fundraising, and perhaps came to adopt a similarly dim view of her email arrangement, as it received more and more media coverage. So one thing to keep an eye on will be how, or whether, Sanders goes about reassuring his supporters — and other Democrats and Dem-leaning independents — that Clinton’s email arrangement should not weigh on them.

Now, it’s true that in our new poll, a majority of Americans — 60 percent — say that the outcome of the email issue won’t effect their vote, while only 30 percent say it makes them less likely to vote for her. But it would be folly to dismiss the possibility that the email story could nonetheless subtly reinforce negative perceptions of her, particularly since it will apparently continue, as Republicansvow to push for an investigation of Clinton’s statements to Congress about it during the Benghazi probe, which, while unlikely to produce proof of perjury, will at least keep the issue in the news. It’s also very possible, of course, that GOP overreach on this issue could end up mitigating the impact of it. But the Clinton campaign can’t count on that happening.

COSBY NEEDS A THERAPIST; NOT AN ATTORNEY

Bill would be much better off if he spent his money on getting some psychological help rather than continue trying to find way to wiggle out of taking responsibility for his actions.



Hiring new attorneys does not alter reality and this guy has a terrible time dealing with it. A little jail time might be good for his soul.



Bill Cosby Axes His Main Lawyer After Less Than A Year | Deadline

THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE POOR; AND A FEW RICH FOLKS

A new study by economist Emmanuel Saez claims that the top 1% income earners in the United States hit a new high in 2015. The study used data from the IRS to show “families at or near the top of the income ladder did substantially better in 2015 than those below them. The share of income going to the top 10 percent of income earners—those making on average about $300,000 a year—increased to 50.5 percent in 2015 from 50.0 percent in 2014, the highest ever except for 2012.”

Saez concludes that the 2013 tax increases had no substantive effect on reducing inequality beyond a “dip in pre-tax income earned by the top one percent in 2013” as “by 2015 top incomes are once again on the rise—following a pattern of growing income inequality stretching back to the 1970s.”

In other words, while President Obama claimed in 2013 that income inequality was the “defining challenge of our time,” his policies have made no meaningful contribution to addressing it.

Economic inequality is not only getting worse, but it may arguably be worse than it has ever been. At least that is the conclusion of economists Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson, who write in a new book that income inequality today is the worst it has ever been in all of American history.

The larger historical argument is problematic, as it starts with colonial America and goes through the time of slavery, where the analysis includes food and shelter for slaves as compensation, but the trend is undeniable. With a few exceptions, contemporary America is unrivaled in its level of economic inequality.

Lindert and Williamson come to conclusions through their long-view historical analysis similar to those of other scholars, restricting their study to the previous decades. Rent-seeking through the financial system provided the rich of America—old and new—with break away wealth. In earlier periods, it was the industrialists and land speculators running away with the gains, whereas today it is derivatives traders and hedge fund managers.

At least the robber barons of old left a railroad or two when the bubble burst. The plutocrats of today leave nothing but heartache once the pillaging is done.



US Income Inequality Reaches Highest Level In History