Bernie Sanders in Wisconsin. Could a third-party candidate do this?by Thomas NeuburgerI'm thinking out loud these days, trying to crack the uncrackable nut, escape the inescapable trap laid for policy-minded voters, the one that says “It's a Republican or a neoliberal; there's no other viable choice. Pick one.”More and more, people want to pick neither.
This could be labelled Part II of a post that began yesterday morning. The word "oligarch" comes from the Greek "rule by the few." The accepted definition today is "a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence." Michael Bloomberg's photo could easily be next to the definition in any American dictionary.
I don't forget about politicians I hate. And my hatred for Status Quo Joe didn't begin when he decided to run for president again. Nor when he screwed over Anita Hill. Nor when he outed himself as one of the most homophobic Democrats in Congress.
Nina Turner, Ro Khanna and Rick Santorum debating Sen. Kamala Harris' potential presidential candidacy by Gaius PubliusMuch is being written these days about newly minted Sen. Kamala Harris, former Attorney General of California and in the eyes of many, one of the more likely candidates for president in 2020, at least so far.
Ignore Chris Matthews' aggressive pro-Clinton badgering. Focus on Turner's determination to keep her progressive powder dry ... for the moment.by Gaius PubliusI'm not saying this is a trend ... yet ... and I'm presenting this just as news, not as something I do or do not want to happen.Frankly, part of me is watching this drama with a novelist's fascination, or more accurately, with a novel reader's fascination.
Hillary's not a good candidate for several reasons, electability being one, her record of leadership being another. Obviously she's better on the issues-- all of the issues-- than Cruz or Christie or Rubio or any of those clowns. But that's a really low bar. The problem with her, policy-wise is that she's a flip-flopping opportunist who has been consistent on one thing: watching which way the parade is headed and then running to the front when it's absolutely safe to do so. For example, it took Hillary quite a long time to come around on LGBT equality.
Hillary is better than theseI want to get something off my chest and I figure late night on a Sunday is as close to yelling at a wall as I'm going to get. Personally, I have no intention of voting for Hillary Clinton ever, obviously not in a primary, but not even against an outright fascist like Cruz or Trump, one of whom is likely to be the GOP nominee.
When the House passed, 343-86 a bill to repeal Glass-Steagall in the summer of 1999, only 69 Democrats, 16 Republicans and 1 Independent stood in opposition. The Independent, of course, was Bernie Sanders. Many Members who made that vote, which turned out to be so predictably catastrophic for the U.S. economy, are no longer in Congress. But many are. Tammy Baldwin (D-WA), like Bernie now in the Senate voted NO; so did now Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS).
