Without Bernie Sanders on the ticket as the VP candidate, Clinton will
probably go down in flames. With him, Trump loses badly. On the other
hand, what a great VP he would be, because as President of the Senate, he
would advance a great progressive solution oriented agenda. Bernie's
ability to further advance his reforms would make a quantum leap from
platform planks to actual legislation.


When I first read that Sanders had endorsed Clinton in New Hampshire, I
went into a mourning that lasted for about 12 minutes. The pundits may
speculate about this news, but I must go on record now to observe that I
don't see a way Clinton can win without Bernie Sanders as her running
mate. This inexorable truth may become clear to Clinton, especially as her
credibility woes and legal baggage increase.

Only Sanders has the ideological pull and charisma, plus the devoted
followers, who might mourn for 12 minutes like I did, and then move on to
the Real Politik. Such a ticket would pick up 80-85% of the Sanders

 

The man who murdered police officers in Dallas, Texas, this week had earlier been employed in a massive operation, now in its 15th year, that has killed many thousands of people in Afghanistan. He was trained to kill by the U.S. military using U.S. tax dollars. He was conditioned to believe violence an appropriate response to violence by the examples everywhere to be found in U.S. public policy, history, entertainment, and language.

Murdering police officers because some other police officers committed murder is unfair, unjust, immoral, and certainly counterproductive on its own terms. The Dallas killer managed to get himself killed by means of a bomb delivered by a robot. The police could have waited him out but chose not to, and no one indoctrinated to accept violent revenge will blame them. But that technology will spread among police and non-police killers. The airwaves are reverberating with cries for a race war. Greater militarization of the police, not greater restraint, will follow this incident. More lives will be lost. More screams of agony will be heard over loved ones lost.

 

For decades, people have tried to fix the Democratic Party. They've imagined that their failings in this regard could be overcome by a greater effort. But it is hard to imagine anyone in the future mounting as significant an effort as did Bernie Sanders and his supporters.

We're cynically told to just wait, because younger people hold better views. But the holding of views, by anyone, has nothing to do with it. And younger people have a pretty consistent record of becoming older people.

Why does the holding of views have nothing to do with it? Because the Democratic Party is bought and paid for and directed from the top down.

Here is a party that pretends to have solved the healthcare crisis with such self-deluding intensity that it refuses to express support for providing universal healthcare.

Here is a party that criminally pushes for more militarism and war including the overthrow of the Syrian government, and that will not admit the existence of occupied Palestine.

In the wake of the police killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Philando Castile in St Paul, and Henry Green in Columbus, a Black Lives Matter rally was scheduled for Friday, July 8 at the Franklin Park Amphitheater. But it almost didn’t happen.

As news came in Thursday night about the shootings of Dallas police officers, the original organizers of the action postponed it, citing safety concerns. This didn’t sit well with many who planned to be there. By early Friday afternoon new plans were in place for a speak-out in the evening at the same location. About 450 people showed up.

“The allegations are not only categorically false, but disgusting at the highest level and clearly framed to solicit media attention or, more likely, are politically motivated. To be clear, there is absolutely no merit to these claims and, based on our investigation, no evidence that the person who has made these allegations actually exists.” – Alan Garten, corporate attorney for Donald Trump, April 28, 2016

he federal lawsuit, titled Katie Johnson v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein, accuses Trump and Epstein of rape and other sexual assaults during the summer of 1994, when plaintiff was 13 years old. Attorney Garten denied the accusations and cast doubt on the existence of the plaintiff.