If one needed any additional evidence that Bernie Sanders has captured the imaginations and desires of a good chunk of the populist, progressive left, all you needed to do was listen to his speech Tuesday night as the California primary results were coming in. He was loud and boisterous, and his thousands-strong crowd was hanging on his every word. When Sanders pledged to continue the fight at the Democratic convention next month, the crowd went wild.  

Even the most passionate anti-Sandernista has to admit that the once fringe, white-haired loner from Vermont has shaken the Democratic Party to its core. Indeed, despite losing four out of six states last night—including a twelve-point loss in California, a state where the Vermont senator thought he had a chance in squeaking out a victory—Sanders appears to relish his role as an attack dog on Hillary Clinton’s left. The fact that Clinton became the first woman in U.S. history to win the nomination of a major party means nothing to him.

Bernie’s supporters are just as vehement about the “political revolution” as they were when the primary season started in Iowa. Summing up her interactions with Sanders supporters in California, Molly Ball of the Atlantic wrote that “Sanders and his people have their own sets of rules.” In their eyes, the Democratic primary is “rigged.”

There is clearly a lot of animosity in the Sanders camp. A large part of it is the realization that their candidate will not win the nomination and that the tens of millions of dollars in $27 donations were not enough to beat the Clinton political machine. Another part is a genuine anger towards anything and everything that reeks of “the establishment,” from the Democratic National Committee and its chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, to the very reporters who cover the presidential race.

Has Bernie’s political revolution died?

Electorally, yes. With Clinton’s wins in California, South Dakota, New Mexico, and New Jersey, Sanders would need to convince hundreds upon hundreds of superdelegates currently in Hillary’s column that he has a better shot at defeating Donald Trump in November. That case, needless to say, fails to take into account the results of the Democratic primary, where Secretary Clinton has won more states, more votes, and the majority of pledged delegates. For his strategy to succeed, Sanders would need a miracle bigger than the 1986 New York Mets.

Bernie’s “political revolution,” however, has the potential to outlast his presidential campaign and is certain to be far stronger than his final delegate count.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-bernie-changed-the-game/

 

By Ben Tanosborn

Forty days left until the Democratic Party's convention in Philadelphia, and Bernie, just like Jesus did two millennia ago, will be trying to find answers in solitude... and fight temptation from the devil of "accommodating politics."  Jesus would do it, according to the Gospels, in the wilderness without food; Bernie is likely to do it at home, in pretty Burlington (Vermont), keeping a normal diet and the company of a smart phone.

The demonstration of affection for progressivism by Democrats and honest-to-heart Independents was dealt a heavy blow by Tuesday's election results; results likely to be reinforced by President Obama's imminent endorsement of Hillary Clinton... triggered by a battle cry urgency to stop this 2016-boogeyman, Donald Trump, from branding the nation as his psycho-political casino:  Fantasy-Trump-America. 

It's beginning to look as if the $200 million spent by Bernie believers to bring about and promote a progressive sociopolitical agenda for America may prove not to have been in vain, as the voice of progressivism that Clinton-Husband silenced in the 1990's, might not  remain totally muzzled in Clinton-Wife's prospective centrist-right platform.

Resurgent progressivism and loyal conservatism both appear to be undergoing painful castration in this 2016 presidential election; one by undemocratic and corrupt insider party politics, the other by the uglier face of bigoted-populism which might represent well over 25 percent of the nation's population.  No, folks... not 5, 10 or 15 percent, but upwards of a quarter, maybe a third! This populism is responding to a demographic change in America of major transformational proportions; populism with a latent bigotry now finding an opportunity to surface as champion-du-jour, Donald Trump, singularly leads the way in "finally!" making acceptable both the vocalization and the behavior that up to now has been considered taboo, politically incorrect.  
  Once again we are politically marching towards another presidential election with the limited prospect of choices, most based on aesthetics, not substance; a chance to select the proverbial lesser evil or failing to select at all.  Next January, either odious-Donald or odious-Hillary will be taking up White House residency, Johnson (Libertarian) and Stein (Green) having only non-critical influence in the outcome of the election thanks to our electoral system.  And that brings us to why America is in such dire straits.

It's been eight decades since the start of the Spanish Civil War and the advent of that cloak-and-dagger term, "fifth column," coined by a Spanish general, Emilio Mola, and popularized in the works of an American writer, Ernest Hemingway. 

A fifth column referred to a secret group that surreptitiously undermined the efforts of a larger group from within; a term perhaps a bit distant and esoteric for us today, but its meaning, whether we associate it with patriotism or with treason, remains with us no matter what we call it, or how we prefer to explain its aims and behavior.

Some of us feel that the Clintons, given the major transformation that has taken place in Democratic national politics in the past generation, did become the quintessential fifth column for the G.O.P., instrumental in sowing, cultivating and harvesting such change.  A change that drastically disconnected the Democratic Party from the progressive nerve center of old, its "new and improved" Clintonian party ideology finding a permanent home in the center-right confines of America's political spectrum.
Bill Clinton, and his then bride, Hillary, may have entered elective politics in Arkansas back in the mid-1970's using the Democratic front door, but in chameleonic fashion, as Ronald Reagan consolidated the tenets of his presidency in the 1980's, Governor Clinton was quick to mimic his own right turn in politics in the hinterlands of Arkansas.  Heck, if President Reagan was then making hay advocating a smaller government and welfare reform, Bill and his Little Rock cadre of young New Democrats certainly was able to see an immediate personal future following suit embracing both issues, a plagiarized version of what The Old Gipper was preaching from the White House.  

After all, old soldiers may never die, but young politicians must adopt change - ideology forever damned!  Or they too, like the old soldiers, could slowly (or speedily) fade away. And Bill Clinton then, just as Bill Clinton now, was proving to be masterful at remaining politically relevant without the slightest intention of fading away.  And that feverish desire for relevance as qualified and quantified in his mind by both money and power, appeared to consume not just him but his spouse as well throughout their lives.  Such intense desire might have given this duo the cavalier attitude many of us see in them.  It's as if this couple is intent to prove to any and all Americans that fidelity has little or nothing to do with the rule of morality, and everything to do with faithfulness to a cause, particularly when that cause is close, personal and meritoriously deserved; even if characterized by most as personal selfishness, totally lacking honesty and decorum.

Bernie will give his all to bring back progressivism to the Democratic Party, but it will be to no avail... for Americans are not yet ready for a revolution; we may still need a few more darker days in both the economy and our unintended quest in world affairs.  By election time the Clintons political machine will be humming, well-greased, courtesy of Wall Street... and the fifth column will no longer have to operate in the shadows, Hillary and Bill having made fifth column deception a mainstream virtue.

Ben Tanosborn

- See more at: http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/columnists/10-06-2016/134688-bill_hi...

http://www.tanosborn.com/

 

 

On May 8th 2016, MIranda Devine told us that Trump haters are living in Never-Never land. And of course the cruch line is:

"Like the Never Turnbulls, they try to make a virtue out of delusion." 

In the end, the Nevers have only wishing, hoping, praying for a miracle, while reality keeps slapping them in the face, Miranda informs us.

Yes, these lines are not directed to the lost tribes of Democrats. They are squarely pointing the finger at all those CONservatives who have a beef with Trump's demagogy and Turnbull being the front man of an Abbott in no need of a front man.

We shall see... We know that Trump is supported by Murdoch, but Murdoch is lukewarm about Turnbull... but Murdoch knows that Turnbull is a necessary step to get his golden boy Abbott back in the saddle after the election. Wait for the fireworks six months from the elections... independently of the results.

 

Moons ago, MAD Magazine had a section on what "Celebrities" would say about some movies. Here we have "It's a Wonderful Life" as reviewed by Donald Trump:

 

As well, "John Gotti" is doing the review of "The Untouchables"... finishing his review with a cheers to his Hero, Al Capone, for having fought prohibition. 

 

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Washington: The Trump notion of branding is not cutting it in politics. As revealed in a slew of investigative pieces on the art of his deals, his modus operandi is to lend his name to a project that others fund.

The Republican Party candidate does it for tower projects and golf courses; the upshot is that he gets a lot of money for not too much work. But to win the presidency, a candidate has to have more skin than ego in the game.

Donald Trump's poll numbers are going through the floor, but for all his "do-it-my-way" braggadocio, when his campaign needed an infusion of a piddling $US100,000 ($135,000) to fund advertising in battleground states, an "emergency" request was made to supporters on Saturday. The candidate would not, or could not write a cheque.

Trump has made it clear that he intends to rely on the Republican Party machine to do the heavy lifting, supporting his candidacy with its on-the-ground staffing and data programs. If Trump was to pay his own way, it would cost him in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

After two weeks of Trump's tone-deaf response to the news of the day, Republican insiders feel they are watching a slow-motion train wreck in which it's not just the poll numbers that give them heartburn. Political observers are slack-jawed too.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/slowmotion-train-wreck-as-donald-trumps-poll-numbers-sink-through-the-floor-20160619-gpmxl3.html

It’s a Wonderful Life is very moving but it is really an examination of the consoling possibilities of capitalism, and it is fantastical. These are stories to warm a child; but the FBI still considered it communist propaganda – 1946 was quite a paranoid year.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/25/christmas-film-wiz...

 

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