OPINOINS BASED ON FACTS (OBOF)
THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)
YEAR ONE
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OBOF
YEAR FIVE INDEX
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OBOF
TYMHM
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Jan.
07, 2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 1
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Jan.
19, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 2
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Feb. 03, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 3
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Feb. 23, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 4
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Mar. 02, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 5
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Mar. 06, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 6
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Mar. 13, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 7
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Mar. 23, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 8
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Mar. 28,
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 9
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Apr. 13,
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 10
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May 02,
2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 11
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May 09,
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 12
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May 19, 2015
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Agenda
1. Mics. short articles from papers around the
country, plus thoughts from Floyd.
2. Run Bernie Run.
3. Don't
underestimate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
4. Movement Builders Should
Listen to Bernie Sanders—Focus on Mass Action, Not Candidates.
5. Bernie Sander’s ‘Political Revolution’ Can
Only Come About if He Abandons the Democrats.
1. Top story: Obama defends
trade deal
Obama talked about trade in a speech at Nike's
headquarters, which some felt was an odd choice. "President Obama made a forceful new case for
global trade Friday at the headquarters of footwear giant Nike, for decades a
symbol of outsourcing, eroding corporate labor standards and the dark side of
globalization. Many people, including fellow Democrats who are deeply skeptical
of Obama's trade agenda, were mystified by the choice of location, at what they
consider to be the starting line of globalization's economic race to the
bottom."
Mike DeBonis in The Washington Post.
~~~
That said, a trade deal in the Pacific could help workers
in places like Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam U.S. U.S. U.S. companies greater protections and
conveniences when doing business in countries party to the agreement, will
likely lead to a flood of footwear and apparel contracting into Vietnam ... and wages in Vietnam
~~~
With a crucial vote in the Senate on Tuesday, the deal's
prospects are uncertain. "Obama’s most
aggressive and sustained legislative push since the Affordable Care Act faces a
crucial first test this week when a divided Senate considers a bill that would
grant him accelerated power to complete a massive trade accord with 11 nations
across the Pacific Rim. But after lobbying members of Congress in a campaign
that has included rides on Air Force One, meetings in the West Wing, private
vows of political support and public attacks on critics in his own party, Mr.
Obama’s top legislative priority remains at risk. ... It will get only more
difficult for the president as the debate moves from the Senate to the House.
Republicans on whom Mr. Obama is relying to provide the bulk of the votes for
the trade measure are finding their colleagues — many aligned with the Tea
Party — reluctant to hand the president a victory. Leaders have warned the
White House that they may not be able to supply enough votes to compensate for
balky members of the president’s own party."
Julie Hirschfeld
Davis and Jonathan Weisman in The New York Times.
~~~
BAI: Obama also had harsh words for Warren (D-Mass.). "'She’s
absolutely wrong,' Barack Obama said, before I could even get the question out
of my mouth. ... This past week, as I had just reminded Obama, Warren
~~~
Run Bernie Run.
Author: Michael T.
Hertz
NationofChange
Op-Ed
Published: April 30, 2015
FROM FLOYD:
The good news about my health said goodby this week. Took a fall big
time. Thus, being so late again. I sure appreciate all of you continuing to
tune in. I'll keep trying to get
information to you that I think is important to all of us and based on as much
fact as I can find.
I previously said, that I was not going to get into the 2016 election
until about July 2016. I am making an
exception here because, I have a great respect for Senator Bernie Sanders and
the articles below sets the stage for his running for President quite well and
interesting. Previously, I said that
none of the present contenders set me on fire, but I've got to tell you,
Senator Sanders has already lit a fire for me. I'll get off this political stump next week.
~
BEINART: Don't underestimate Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.).
"By conventional
standards, Sanders’s candidacy is absurd: He’s not well known, he doesn’t have
big money donors, he’s not charismatic, and by Beltway standards, he’s
ideologically extreme. But candidates
with these liabilities have caught fire before. Think of Jerry Brown... Pat Buchanan... Howard Dean... Ron Paul... While Sanders lacks Warren
~
It’s
finally happening. Someone is
challenging Hilary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. And that someone is
Bernie Sanders, the Senator from Vermont
Or is
he? There is talk all over that, even
though he has thrown his hat into the ring, Bernie is not focused so much on
winning as on dragging Hilary (or whoever is nominated) to the progressive
left. In other words, he is in the race
to do what Elizabeth Warren says she is trying to do outside the race: force
the Democrats towards a progressive position on many topics.
There
is also the significant question as to whether even if he were nominated Bernie
could win. Since 1964, there hasn’t been
a Democrat who has run on an openly progressive platform and won. After Johnson’s win in 1964, Humphrey lost in
1968 and McGovern was trounced in 1972. Carter
came in 1976, but he was really centrist, and then he lost to Reagan in 1980. In 1984 Mondale lost and in 1988 Dukakis lost.
Clinton won in 1992 and 1996, but he was
centrist. Gore lost in 2000 and Kerry
lost in 2004. Obama won, and he suggested that he was progressive, but he has
done things that are not progressive and his major accomplishment at home
(Obamacare) was watered down substantially from
There’s
a lot of fear on the Democratic side that Bernie
might be another McGovern or Dukakis. As
well he might. On the other hand, although Hilary looks “unbeatable,” she really isn’t. She has more scandals lurking in the
background than any candidate in recent memory, and perhaps in history. This has been pointed out from the right and the left.
While
she may be able to shrug off some of them, there are so many – and they are
likely to be repeated ad nauseum going forward – that it will be hard for the
electorate to ignore them. So much
baggage could take her down. Of course,
with Bernie in the race, Hillary’s baggage will come under public scrutiny well
before the Democratic nomination. We
have over a year before the conventions and even a long time before the Iowa
The
only fortunate thing for Hillary and the Democrats in general is that most e
Republican nomination. Ted Cruz seems
plain crazy. Chris Christie has his own scandals. Rick Perry seems dumb. The only two who appear to avoid either really
extreme programs or personal problems are Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. Scott Walker vs. Hillary Clinton might
well result in a Republican victory. So,
too, might Marco Rubio.
Can
Bernie Sanders beat either of them? Fortunately
for him, the Koch Brothers have decided to support Scott Walker. So, Bernie could fairly accuse him of being a
tool of the billionaires and that might work well. Hillary, on the other hand, has so much
personal wealth (Bill and she collectively have over $100 million.) – and appears so tied into Wall Street — that
it would be hard for her to argue that she is combating the billionaires.
This
leaves Marco Rubio as probably the least problematic Republican candidate. He does have some problems with the
Republicans who are anti-Latino, but he would probably draw more than enough Ltinos
to offset that issue. On the other hand,
he, too, appears to be tied into Wall Street.
So, Bernie
Sanders could use his “beat the billionaires” campaign with the two most likely
Republican nominees, while Hillary could not because of her own money ties. But Rubio and Bernie share one quality:
neither have a lot of personal wealth.
In case
you didn’t know it, Bernie is 84th out of 100 senators in wealth, with $406,500 in 2012. Marco Rubio supposedly had only net assets of
$379,506 in 2010, although that was a huge increase over the previous year. He is reputed to be one of the least wealthy
Senators due to his student loans. (The data on politicians
wealth is really very flaky, unfortunately).
So even
if Marco Rubio appears tied to Wall Street, he can play up his immigrant
background and his present personal lack of wealth
There’s
a lot of time between now and even the opening of the Iowa
It’ll
probably be a horse race.
~~~
Movement Builders Should Listen to Bernie Sanders—Focus on Mass
Action, Not Candidates
Author: Kate Aronoff
Waging Nonviolence Op-Ed
Published: May 12, 2015
Is Bernie Sanders a more progressive presidential
candidate than Hillary Clinton? Undoubtedly. Will he single-handedly catalyze
a united left front in the United
States
Unchallenged, Hillary Clinton is likely to run a
campaign chock-full of populist optics, but thin on any real engagement with
the issues that make progressives most nervous about her bid: foreign policy,
welfare, corporate influence and more. Sanders, a registered independent, who
caucuses with Democrats yet identifies as a democratic socialist, has been
unafraid to talk about class inequality, even — heaven forbid — capitalism. He’s even started bringing a long-taboo word
back into mainstream American political conversation: socialism.
As Ned Resnikoff points out for Al Jazeera, Americans’ stance
toward socialism has been thawing since the Cold War. Between Occupy Wall Street, Kshama Sewant’s
election to Seattle City Council, and — now — Sanders’ candidacy, it may
finally be possible to de-link the “S Word” from the gulags and authoritarianism
of the Soviet Union, and re-associate with such basic amenities as healthcare,
education and housing. According to a 2011 Gallup poll, 49 percent of 18-29 year olds
even have a positive view of socialism. With
any hope, this year’s Democratic primary debates will challenge Clinton to choose firm sides on these issues, and maybe
even build them into her platform in response to the vocal minority more
endeared to Sanders’ populism than Clinton
Likewise, Sanders, with some notable silences, generally espouses
views closer to those of activists within today’s emergent movements for social
justice. Beyond words, though, what could his candidacy as a Democrat mean for
organizers on the ground? While a
left-of Clinton Democratic contender may help positively shape the debate going
into primary season, electing a progressive into the White House doesn’t mean
anything unless there’s a movement infrastructure in place to hold them truly
accountable.
Smartly, Elizabeth Warren — maybe in a move to preserve
her chances for 2020 or 2024 — has repeatedly declined the left flank of the
Democratic Party’s calls for her to run for president. Still, as a recent New Yorker profile
of Warren pointed out, Warren’s role is as the Democrats’ squeaky,
anti-establishment wheel and a bulldog on Wall Street bankers, Republicans, and
centrist Democrats alike; there’s also no indication she won’t make a run in
the future. By that time, America’s
progressives, working together, may be well organized enough to actually put
someone into office they can trust — and have enough street heat to make sure
they don’t go back on their word.
As Joel Bleifuss argues over at In These Times,
candidates are nothing without grassroots supporters ready and willing to take
their candidates to bat should they screw up. Sanders himself told MSNBC that “No president,
not Bernie Sanders, not anybody, will succeed [in taking on the oligarchs]
unless there is a mass mobilization of millions of people who stand up and say
enough is enough.”
Looking towards the 2016 elections, those attempting to
build or catalyze transformative movements should take Sanders’s own advice — part
of which might mean putting a little less faith in the man himself.
Focusing on candidates themselves, however, aligned
with a movement’s views, is a flawed way to approach achieving major
progressive wins. As Arun Gupta writes for Telesur TV, “go ahead and vote for
Sanders and Clinton, but that’s all. Spend the rest of your time, energy and money on building militant grassroots
activism.” Rather than stumping for
Sanders or some Warrenite specter of Hillary that will never exist, organizers
might devote their time to building out movements that won’t just ask for
center stage come election time, but make it impossible to imagine candidates
who aren’t vying for those movements’ support, even tapping its leaders for
their cabinets.
If
Barack Obama’s hawkish, hardly “change” filled presidency has been any
indication, elected officials are only as valuable as the masses holding their
feet to the fire. As a legitimate
candidate, Sanders has the potential to claw open conversations that organizers
have been pushing for years, creating rare opportunities in the national
dialogue that grassroots forces can use to their advantage. It may even make the next administration,
Republican or Democratic, less devastating to working families, communities of
color and the planet. But on issues as
pressing as violent, systemic racism, climate change, and severe economic
inequality, good candidates won’t save us. Strong movements will — and they
could make the next election cycle one to get truly excited about.
~~~
Bernie Sander’s ‘Political
Revolution’ Can Only Come About if He Abandons the Democrats
FROM FLOYD:
As you read this article keep in mind that it is my understanding
that as a Independent, Sanders might not be able to get on the ballot in all 50
States. In addition, if abandoned the
Democratic status, he would not be allowed in the debates.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who just declared his presidential
campaign in late April, is running to win, and says the United States will need
a “political revolution” to do it. After the Democrats caved on fast-tracking
the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Bernie’s political revolution may actually
happen, but only if he abandons the Democratic Party and continues his campaign
as an Independent.
This week, Senate Democrats caved in an unprecedented 24-hour
period on fast-tracking the maligned Trans-Pacific Partnership
– the largest global free trade deal in a generation. Tuesday, Democrats in the
Senate appeared to have thwarted President Obama’s pressure to
speed through a classified treaty that corporate attorneys have spent the last
several years writing behind closed doors.
Opponents of the agreement argued that the deal would be
catastrophic for American jobs and workers’ rights around the globe, and
blasted the deal’s lack of concern for even the most basic environmental
standards. Yet, by Wednesday, Senate Democrats had made a deal with party
leadership to agree on fast-tracking the TPP if standalone bills on currency
manipulation were voted on first. Even though Democrats got nothing in terms of
worker protections or environmental guarantees, they caved anyway.
Bernie Sanders has been one of the most vocal opponents of the
TPP in either house of Congress, recently tag-teaming with Sen. Sherrod Brown
(D-Ohio) to stall a vote on the agreement with
dozens of amendments and procedural delays. On the campaign trail, Sanders has
vowed to end shadowy, closed-off negotiations of trade deals kept secret from
the American public. He’s also loudly criticized the
TPP’s Investor-State Dispute Settlements, which would allow corporations to set
up their own kangaroo courts to override any member nation’s regulations on
business if they’re deemed to negatively affect corporate profits.
The fact that the party Sanders has caucused with throughout his
time in Congress so directly ignored his warnings and supported passing the
deal without scrutiny from the American public is a direct slap in the face to
him and his nascent campaign. If Sanders responded by abandoning the Democratic
Party entirely, it would create a shockwave in American politics.
Just two weeks after announcing his presidential campaign, Bernie
Sanders has already doubled his polling
position and raised more money in 24 hours than
several top Republican candidates did in their first day, including Marco
Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. As of May 6, Sanders raised $4 million – 99.4%
of which came from donors giving $250 or less.
Roughly 200,000 volunteers have signed up to help his campaign.
Clearly, his message of taking on the billionaire class that owns Washington
On one hand, it’s easy to see why Sanders launched his campaign
within the Democratic Party. Even though the Vermont senator is a lifelong
independent, he’s also a realist who knows that to run a campaign that has a
chance of winning a first-past-the-post, winner-take-all race with 270
Electoral College votes, it has to be done within the two-party structure.
Candidates from other parties, like the Green Party’s Jill Stein or the Justice
Party’s Rocky Anderson, have revolutionary ideas but are forever relegated to
outside status by the punditocracy that has trained Americans about who is
acceptable to vote for based on dollars raised and pollsters’ rankings. Without
Elizabeth Warren in the race, Sanders is the standalone progressive populist in
the Democratic primary.
However, running as a Democrat means Sanders is second to Hillary
Clinton, who has pledged to raise $2.5 billion this
election cycle. To highlight the absurdity of that number, it would be more
money raised for just one candidate than the cumulative amount raised by both
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012, combined. The fact
remains that American elections favor those with more money – candidates with
the most campaign cash tend to win nine times out of 10. Clinton
comments
From Floyd:
There were more than 150 comments after this article. I choose a couple as those that I felt stated
points we should be concerned about.
You, of course, may totally disagree or agree. The price is right.
And I
would add - Have we forgotten that a person ran as a Democrat, yet his platform
was different from other Democrats. And
this person won and was able to get most of his positions accomplished. That was FDR. Today he would be a Green Party
member, but he didn't have to be in order to bring our country out of the
Depression.
Why is
the TPP continually called a trade deal when there are 27 chapters and only 5
deal with trade? What about the internet? What about banking? What about protecting our judicial system? What about protecting environmental laws that
affect our water, air, and food supply? What
about the OTHER 27 chapters? This is a
One World Order clambake that brings out the true Obama
corporatist-affiliations.
I think
the concentration on the 5 chapters right now is the five that have been
leaked. In my opinion, all anyone should
need to sh-tcan this deal is the chapter on the ISDS tribunals made up of a
rotating group of corporate attorneys which, essentially, gives corporations
the status of nation-states and the tribunal the power of a nation's
judiciary...except no appeals process!
Bnerin I, too, disagree
with Carl Gibson as many of the responders also have. Just because he is
running as a Democrat does not mean that he will be like Obama or Hillary. Nor does it mean that he has to drop all the
things he says he wants to do if elected. The reason that most people have
dropped out of voting is that no one is laying the right kind of cards on the
table as Sanders does. And unlike Obama,
Sanders will not back off of his platform because he is not financed by the 1%
as Obama was. Obama's weakness is that he did win by the vast amount of money
he got from the wealthy donors and supporters and became their servant.
By
running as a Democrat, and winning, he has the chance to be on all 50 states
ballots whereas as a third party person he could not be on all the ballots.
If
Sanders has any weakness it is his foreign policy which he has said little of,
but his past votes as a Congressman and Senator gives us an insight as to how he
stands on foreign issues, and I would not like some of his actions like
supporting Israel's attack on Gaza. What
we voters who like Sanders domestic policies must do from now to the day of
voting in 2016 is to tell him what our views are regarding foreign policies. There are thousands of warriors whose life
showed them how awful and fruitless these wars have been under the Republican
and Democrats since the Vietnam war to the latest Drone killings.
There are
millions of citizens suffering from lack of a living wage, lack of universal
healthcare, both husband and wife working to the detriment of their children, -
all under both Democrats and Republicans politicians. There are millions of Americans seeing that we
must take quick action to save our climate or else our grandchildren will be
saying "why did you wait so long to save our environment?" All these citizens are hungry for the needed
changes and will be quite willing to vote for a Sanders whether he is a
socialist, independent or democrat.
~~~
If the good Lord is
willing and I can keep from falling and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with
you again, hopefully, on Friday this week.
God Bless You All
&
God Bless the United States of America
Floyd
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