wall street

Progressive pundit Michael Tomasky has given his permission for Bernie to stay in the race but warned him that "if he wants to remain a major progressive leader in a Clinton presidency, it’s time to ratchet back his attacks on the presumptive nominee." Has Bernie been attacking her? I must've fallen asleep and missed it. "From here on in," write Tomasky, "Sanders ought to lay off the attacks on Hillary Clinton, the Goldman Sachs speeches and all the rest.

Mankind, it seems, likes to get behind a banner as a way of defining collective identity. This season it is the election of a new authority figure to occupy the White House that ineluctably sucks us up into the dizzy heights of a form of American pantomime that flashes itself to all and sundry. The Barnum & Bailey Circus spin-doctoring pitch to the audience (native and global) is a dynamo unto itself that can banish all insouciance, and does, in order to bring us ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’ per supposedly democratic means.

The presidential elections of 2016 have several unique characteristics that defy common wisdom about political practices in 21st century America.
Clearly the established political machinery — party elites and their corporate backers — have (in part) lost control of the nomination process and confront ‘unwanted’ candidates who are campaigning with programs and pronouncements that polarize the electorate.

Lee Fang interviews Hillary Clinton about her Wall Street speeches (source)by Gaius PubliusIt's been a day of fascinating small bits of news. Let's look at just two that have caught my eye.Did Hillary Clinton Help Rahm Emanuel Kill the Public Option? For example, did you know Hillary Clinton may have helped the Senate reject the public option during the ACA debate?

Should Hillary Clinton recuse herself from running for president due to a conflict of interest?
The post Why Hillary Clinton Should Be Disqualified from Running for President appeared first on The Anti-Media.

The American “New Economy” is the American Third World economy in which the only jobs created are low productivity, low paid nontradable domestic service jobs incapable of producing export earnings with which to pay for the goods and services produced offshore for US consumption.
The post The Us Economy Has Not Recovered and Will Not Recover appeared first on BSNEWS.

In 1962, Michael Harrington wrote The Other America, which basically identified the causes of poverty and inequality in the United States as the result of unregulated free market capitalism. This book in turn had a significant impact on the thinking of John F. Kennedy and the role of government in promoting greater social justice. But it was the Johnson Administration and the War on Poverty programs (Medicaid, Medicare, Food Stamps, Expanded Social Security Benefits, etc.) that followed the Kennedy Administration’s lead.

As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.
– Pope Francis I, Laudato Si

Bernie Sanders is far too easy on Hillary Clinton in their debates. Clinton flaunts her record and experience in ways that Sanders could use to expose her serious vulnerabilities and disqualifications for becoming president. Sanders responds to Clinton’s points, but without the precision that could demolish her arrogance.

Americans perceive what has happened to their democratic Republic only dimly, tricked by rightists who call all collective government actions bad and by neoliberals who make “markets” a new-age god. But ex-congressional budget official Mike Lofgren shows how this “Deep State” really works, writes Chuck Spinney. By Chuck Spinney Just about everyone knows something is dangerously wrong with our nation’s…