Sparky's Inferno

Bernie Sanders may be more of a Democrat than the Democrats

By PatrickforO

He is talking about issues that at one time formed the core of the Democratic ideal. If you read some old speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt and other New Deal Democrats, you'll see that Bernie has come back to that core message; it is a message that saved America from going Communist in 1933, and created a powerful middle class that helped this nation become great. It created a 'great prosperity' from about 1950 to 1980 when the deterioration began.

So, you see, if you take a little longer view of history, you will see that beginning in the 1980s, the Democratic Party began its evolution toward the right as the Republicans 'evolved' even further right.

In the context of history, Obama and Clinton are what used to be called 'Eisenhower Republicans.' In fact, if you read Ike's brilliant 1963 essay, "Why I'm a Republican," and compare what he says in it, you'll see that Obama and Clinton are a little to the right of the ideas espoused therein, particularly on so-called 'free trade.'

So, what I'd say to you is that in Bernie, we have a reversal of the destructive neoliberal/neoconservative 'evolution' of Dems throughout the 80's, 90's, and 00's. Bernie is taking us back to the New Deal, which is basically a set of policies to strengthen the American middle class. Bernie does one better, though. He's got a good platform on racism and reform of the correctional system.

This is why so many of us are responding to Bernie. The American people are angry at how the game has been rigged against us, at how hard it is to get ahead now, at how dim the futures of our children are compared to ours. We are ripe for another New Deal - a Real Deal where our interests are once again put front and center. 

Trump, Alabama and the ghost of George Wallace

The South rises for Trump, but only 20,000 of them.

By Ben Schreckinger

AP Photo

MOBILE, Ala. — It was immigration, not segregation, that brought some 20,000 southerners — far fewer than predicted — out for Donald Trump on Friday night, but the ghost of George Wallace loomed large.

Wallace, an avowed segregationist, was the last presidential candidate to win electoral votes as a third-party candidate. The threat of Trump doing so, propelled by a hardline immigration stance that many have condemned as racist, looms over the Republican Party now as it did over the Democratic Party then, even as the enthusiasm of his following, for once, fell far short of expectations.

Wallace carried five Southern states, and Trump, who is leading early national polls in the race for the Republican nomination, touted his leads in Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Texas.

Trump also panned birthright citizenship as a bad deal for the U.S., saying, “We’re the only place just about that’s stupid enough to do it.” Trump’s recently released immigration plan calls for ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, according to the legal consensus, though Trump disputes that point.

Trump invited Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, one of Congress’s most ardent immigration hardliners who helped the businessman craft his immigration plan, to the podium, where the two embraced.

He also attacked his favorite punching bag, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, on the issue. “ Jeb Bush, ugh,” said Trump, pausing for dramatic effect, before calling the former governor “totally in favor of Common Core, weak on immigration.”

Praising a woman who had brought Trump’s book “Art of the Deal” to the rally, he said, “I’ve got to get her the hell out of here, she’s so beautiful.”

He went on to say, “I will protect women. It’s so important to me”

There were also vestiges of Wallace’s Alabama, including on the sample editions of “The First Freedom” newspaper one man handed out to drivers as they entered the parking lot. The paper’s front page included a story about “black-on-white crime in South Carolina” and an editor’s note about German media’s silence about “the actual programs these peaceful ‘neo-nazis’ stand for.”

The vast majority of supporters where white: of over 1,000 people waiting to enter on the east of the Ladd Peebles Stadium at 5 p.m., eight were black.

A black pastor opened the rally with an invocation, asking, “What if we could replace hate with love?” He was followed by an all-black middle school student council that led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Marty Hughes, 47, wore a camouflage hat with Confederate flag detailing and said he liked Trump’s stances on immigration and taxes. He called the removal this year of Confederate flags from government property across much of the South “stupidity” and said he didn’t think a President Trump would stand for it. He named Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and neurosurgeon Ben Carson as other candidates who appealed to him.

Trump’s appeal to Leo Renaldo, is, “That he’s going to send them packing,” explained the 65-year-old, who drove four hours from Mississippi for the event, before his wife interjected, telling him, “Don’t say that.”

“Legal immigration is fine,” added Renaldo.

“He tells it like it is,” said Bob House, 57, a maintenance manager, of Trump’s appeal. “None of this political correct stuff.”

Earlier, the city said it expected 40,000 supporters at the rally, but various media outlets estimated that the total was in the ballpark of 15-20,000, leaving the stadium looking less than half full. Police officers at the rally said they would not be providing a crowd estimate.

The Trump campaign, which had said it expected 36,000 attendees, referred POLITICO to Colby Cooper, chief of staff to the mayor of Mobile, who said the city’s estimate was 30,000 attendees. “It’s an approximate number,” he said.

'He tells it like it is,' said Bob House, 57, a maintenance manager, of Trump’s appeal. 'None of this political correct stuff.' | Getty

“This is one of the largest events Mobile has successfully pulled off, next to our Mardi Gras,” Cooper added. “We’re grateful to the Trump campaign.”

Trump has repeatedly claimed that 15,000 people attended a rally he held at a convention center in Phoenix, Arizona, in July, but the room’s capacity was just over 2,000 people. A convention center staffer at that event told POLITICO that the fire marshal had permitted just over 4,000 people to enter the room for the rally.

Trump continued to show a flare for showmanship, as he has at previous rallies. “If it rains I’ll take off my hat and prove once and for all that it’s real,” he said toward the outset of the rally, before following through and showing the crowd his hair, to loud cheers.

Before the event, his plane circled the stadium, eliciting a standing ovation.

Voter outreach

China Protects Its Workers, America Doesn't Bother

By Leo W. Gerard 
International President, United Steelworkers

Confronted with a dire situation, a world power last week took strong action to secure its domestic jobs and manufacturing.

That was China. Not the United States.

China diminished the value of its currency.  This gave its exporting industries a boost while simultaneously blocking imports. The move protected the Asian giant’s manufacturers and its workers’ jobs.

Currency manipulation violates free market principles, but for China, doing it makes sense. The nation’s economy is cooling. Its stock market just crashed, and its economic powerhouse – exports – declined a substantial 8.3 percent in July ­– down to $195 billion from $213 billion the previous July. This potent action by a major economic competitor raises the question of when the United States government is going to stop pretending currency manipulation doesn’t exist.

When will the United States take the necessary action to protect its industry, including manufacturing essential to national defense, as well as the good, family-supporting jobs of millions of manufacturing workers?



While China lowered the value of its currency on three consecutive days last week, for a total of 4.4 percent, the largest decline in two decades, a respected Washington think tank, the Economic Policy Institute, released a report detailing exactly how the United States lost 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000.

The report, “Manufacturing Job Loss: Trade, Not Productivity is the Culprit,” clearly links massive trade deficits to closed American factories and killed American jobs. U.S. manufacturers lost ground to foreign competitors whose nations facilitated violation of international trade rules. China is a particular culprit. My union, the United Steelworkers, has won trade case after trade case over the past decade, securing sanctions called duties that are charged on imported goods to counteract the economic effect of violations.

In the most recent case the USW won, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) finalized duties in July on illegally subsidized Chinese tires dumped into the U.S. market. The recent history of such sanctions on tires illustrates how relentless the Chinese government is in protecting its workers.
Shortly after President Obama took office, the USW filed a complaint about illegally-subsidized, Chinese-made tires dumped into the U.S. market. The Obama administration imposed duties on Chinese tire imports from September 2009 to September 2012.

Immediately after the tariffs ended, Chinese companies flooded the U.S. market with improperly subsidized tires again, threatening U.S. tire plants and jobs. So the USW filed the second complaint.
Though the USW workers won the second case as well, the process is too costly and too time consuming. Sometimes factories and thousands of jobs are permanently lost before a case is decided in workers’ favor. This has happened to U.S. tire, paper, auto parts and steel workers.

In addition, the process is flawed because it forbids consideration of currency manipulation – the device China used last week to support its export industries.

By reducing the value of its currency, China, in effect, gave its export industries discount coupons, enabling them to sell goods more cheaply overseas without doing anything differently or better.

Simultaneously, China marked up the price of all imports into the country. American and European exporters did nothing bad or wrong, but now their products will cost more in China.

Chinese officials have contended that the devaluation, which came on the heels of the bad news about its July exports, wasn’t deliberate. They say it reflected bad market conditions and note that groups like the International Monetary Fund have been pushing China to make its currency more market based.

Right. Sure. And it was nothing more than a coincidence that it occurred just as China wanted to increase exports. And it was simply serendipity that in just three days, “market conditions” wiped out four years of tiny, painfully incremental increases in the currency’s value.

If the value of the currency truly is market based and not controlled by the government, then as Chinese exports rise, the value should increase. That would eliminate the artificial discount China just awarded its exported goods. Based on past history, that is not likely to happen. So what China really is saying is that its currency is market based when the value is declining but not when it rises.

China did what it felt was right for its people, its industry and its economy. The country hit a rough spot this year. Though its economy is expected to grow by 7 percent, that would be the slowest rate in six years. Its housing prices fell 9.8 percent in June. Car sales dropped 7 percent in July, the largest decline since the Great Recession. Over the past several months, the Chinese government has intervened repeatedly to try to stop a massive stock market crash that began in June.



In the meantime, the nation’s factories that make products like tires, auto parts, steel and paper continue to operate full speed ahead and ship the excess overseas. As a result, for example, the international market is flooded with under-priced Chinese steel, threatening American steel mills and tens of thousands of American steelworkers’ jobs.

This is bad for the U.S. economy. The U.S. trade deficit in manufactured goods rose 15.7 percent ­– by $25.7 billion ­– in the first quarter as imports increased and exports slipped. In the first half of this year, the trade deficit with China rose 9.8 percent, a total of $15 billion.

As EPI points out, that means more U.S. factories closed and U.S. jobs lost. If China had bombed thousands of U.S. factories over the past decade, America would respond. But the nation has done virtually nothing about thousands of factories closed by trade violations.

The United States could take two steps immediately to counter the ill-effects of currency manipulation. Congress could pass and President Obama could sign a proposed customs enforcement bill. It would classify deliberate currency undervaluation as an illegal export subsidy. Then the manipulation could be countered with duties on the imported products.

The second step would be to include sanctions for currency manipulation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that the administration is negotiating with 11 other Pacific Rim countries. The deal doesn’t include China, but it could join later. The deal does, however, include other countries notorious for currency interventions.

American manufacturers and American workers demand rightful protection from predatory international trade practices.

Follow Leo W. Gerard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/uswblogger 

Julian Bond, 1940-2015

Posted by sallybrown

"He advocated not just for African-Americans, but for every group, indeed every person subject to oppression and discrimination because he recognized the common humanity in us all." Goodbye to Horace Julian Bond, freedom fighter and lifetime champion of civil rights.

Bond co-founded the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Community, served as the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center at its founding, and led the NAACP for a decade.

"Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965, but his white colleagues in the House refused to let him take his seat because of his opposition to the Vietnam war. A year later, the Supreme Court accused the legislature of violating his freedom of speech, and ordered it to seat him."

Bond went on to serve for 20 years. He was a public opponent of the Vietnam War and a public supporter of the fights for women's rights and gay rights. He taught a generation of college students the history of the civil rights movement, including at American University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia.

SPLC Statement from Morris Dees.
New York Times.
Washington Post.

Jeb Just Can’t Help Himself: The Myth of His Electability Continues to Fade

By Joan Walsh

Calling Saddam's ouster a 'pretty good deal' and name-checking Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb keeps rivals' hope alive.

I’m running out of ways to describe the awfulness of Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign. If or when he fails, his jocular Thursday comment about the Iraq war — “Taking down Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal” – will be in every highlight reel.

Not only is Jeb! now fully embracing his brother’s disastrous, bloody war of choice. He’s talking about it in a glib salesman way, reminding us that the war was in fact “a pretty good deal” for his cronies: for Halliburton spinoff KBR, the entire defense industry, and a metastasizing web of private security contractors including disgraced giant Blackwater. The families of the dead and wounded in Iraq might disagree.

Things got worse in his speech Friday, where he volunteered that “Paul Wolfowitz is giving some advice.” Wolfowitz, the scowling face of the smug neocons.

I’ve asked this before: Does Bush even want to win?

Donald Trump claimed Bush had his “47 percent moment” – the comment that doomed Mitt Romney — when he suggested we’re spending too much on women’s health. But his dumb remark about toppling Saddam being “a pretty good deal” could rival that. Then again, there are so many contenders for the inconvenient, inadvertent truth-telling moment that could doom Bush: suggesting underpaid American workers “need to work more hours;” that “the federal government shouldn’t be doing this” when asked about the minimum wage; arguing that we should be “phasing out” Medicare.

Of course he walked all of those remarks back. Let’s see if he tries to do the same with this one.

All of these campaign flubs are occurring against the backdrop of the strangest presidential primary of our lifetimes, in which Donald Trump has taken the lead nationally, as well as in Iowa and New Hampshire, with 16 lackluster rivals trying to catch up. For a while Bush strategists were pretending the Trump candidacy benefited Bush, by depriving his rivals of the attention they need to gain traction, and predicting Bush would consolidate support as some of the bloated GOP field dropped out. I used to think that myself, to be honest. But now I’m not so sure.

Whose support does Jeb! think he will consolidate as the campaign goes on? Which of the non-Trump candidates is likely to throw him support? Sen. Ted Cruz and Ben Carson are surging after last week’s debate, and neither man’s supporters seem a likely match for Bush. Cruz is second so far in fundraising, so he isn’t going anywhere, and if Carson stumbles, his voters won’t flock to Bush.

Among the current bottom-tier candidates, who might be expected to leave the race early — Governors Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal, plus Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum — all are to Bush’s right and seem unlikely to throw him their support (which is a collective 9.5 percent right now, anyway). Sen. Rand Paul is flailing: he’s averaging 4.5 percent in national polls and has fallen from third to ninth place in Iowa (once a stronghold, thanks to his dad) and from third to sixth in New Hampshire. But his supporters aren’t a natural for Bush, either.

Of the candidates who are closer to the Bush wing of the party – Senators Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, Governors John Kasich, Chris Christie and Scott Walker, former Gov. George Pataki and perhaps Carly Fiorina – only Pataki, Christie and Graham seem like contenders who aren’t contending, and probably won’t. But by definition, that means none of them has much support he can turn over to Bush if he leaves the race, since they’re each polling between 0 and 3.8 percent.

For now, Fiorina and Kasich are rising, so they’re not going anywhere soon. Walker is sinking, but I have a hard time thinking that the ambitious Wisconsin governor and his moneyed backers will pull the plug quickly (although if Walker loses his neighboring state of Iowa, where he’s now dropped from a persistent 1st place to 3rd, the humiliation might drive him back to Madison). Rubio shares a natural constituency with Bush, and you can imagine a scenario in which he could be persuaded by mutual friends to step aside. But with Bush so weak, and with a decent war chest, he might think it should be Jeb who steps aside. And he might find others in the GOP establishment who agree.

Even if Trump fades, who fattens up on his voters? It’s probably not Bush. Trump fading or even dropping out would certainly shake up the race, and it’s certainly possible, if not likely, that will happen. Trump skeptics comfort themselves by saying his frontrunner status reflects his celebrity as well as the crowded field – and that the 20-25 percent support he’s getting in polls isn’t a commanding lead anyway.

But that’s where Mitt Romney rode out much of the 2012 campaign: from June 2011 to February 2012, according to Real Clear Politics, Romney hovered between 20 and 28 percent in the polls. For most of that time he was ahead of the pack, though he did surrender the polling lead to Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum, briefly. He only began to break away once he’d won some early primaries, and some rivals dropped out.

Romney benefited from candidates to his right splitting the Tea Party vote, while he chased out moderates like Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty early. Conceivably Bush could benefit from the same split on the right, especially if Trump stumbles. But Bush was supposed to chase away a lot of his rivals with his presumed electability and large war chest. With every gaffe and stumble, the myth of his electability dissipates. He’s still got that war chest, though, so we can’t count him out.

Joan Walsh is Salon's editor-at-large, and the author of "What's the Matter With White People: Finding Our Way in the Next America." Read more of her work at Salon.

Market for rare and vintage console video games is booming

By David Pescovitz 

CNN Money investigates the crazed market for the video games of yore, fueled by the likes of RetroLiberty, a YouTube channel about finding vintage video games at swap meets or parking lot deals, and Videogamesnewyork, a shop specializing in vintage game gear from the last century.
From CNN Money:

Prices skyrocketed almost overnight, says JJ Hendricks, whose site Video Games Price Charting tracks the going rate for vintage games. He estimates the market for retro games is now worth about $200 million annually. Hendricks once spent months negotiating with a mysterious source in Canada to buy one of only two Powerfest 94 prototypes known to exist (seen at right). He ultimately made the deal -- for $12,000 in cash. It's the perfect storm. Just as kids who grew up in the '80's and '90's are reaching their thirties, the supply of vintage games is shrinking.

"I think it's just a nostalgia for when they were younger," says David Kaelin, who runs the Classic Game Fest in Austin, Texas, and owns a chain of shops, Game Over Videogames. "It was a more innocent time in gaming. They were easier to pick up and play, less violent, more universally accessible than they are now...."

"For retro gamers, one of the most important things is reliving that experience you had when you were a kid," says (RetroLiberty's Aaron) Stapish, who plays retro games about 30 hours a week. "So you want to have the actual game, you want to actually put the game in the system and hold it with the original controller."

"Your old video game could be worth $12,000" (CNN Money)

ANOTHER Woman Dies In Police Custody

Another week and another unnecessary and extremely tragic death of an African American woman in police custody. The incident occurred in late July in Cleveland, when Ralkina Jones was denied her medicine by authorities. Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola (Think Tank), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

"A black Cleveland woman who died in police custody pleaded with jail officials to properly administer her prescription medications in the hours before her death.

“I don’t want to die in your cell,” she told officers in video released Tuesday.”



http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/video-shows-ralkina-jones-chilling-words-before-dying-in-police-custody-i-dont-want-to-die-in-your-cell/

Jeb Bush Provided Distorted Version of Iraq History

By Taegan Goddard

Jeb Bush, in his speech this week that was billed as a major foreign policy address, “provided a distorted version of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and an incorrect account of the origins of the Islamic State,” according to McClatchy.

“Bush vowed that if elected he would expand U.S. military intervention in the Middle East significantly. His version of events, however, seemed intended to absolve his brother, President George W. Bush, of blame in destabilizing the region while trying to pin the region’s current bloodshed on President Obama and his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.”

“Bush’s account of the withdrawal as a ‘case of blind haste’ omitted the fact that it was his brother who’d set the withdrawal date of Dec. 31, 2011, in an agreement that he signed with the Iraqi government in 2008. He also neglected to note that the Iraqi government strongly opposed the continued presence of U.S. forces.”

What Bernie Sanders' Campaign Is Doing to the Democratic Party

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/noam-chomsky-what-bernie-sanders-campaign-doing-democratic-party

The Slow Political Death Of Chris Christie

Posted By Rude One

On 8/2/15 at Monmouth racetrack in New Jersey, the crowd was there to cheer home state horse American Pharaoh after the Triple Crown winner won another race. Stepping into the Winner's Circle, presidential candidate and Governor Chris Christie must have thought it would be his moment to bask in the glory of another large farm beast and receive a bit of adulation himself.

Now, your average horse race fan is not generally a bleeding heart liberal, but they do know how to cheer for winners and how to treat losers. So they booed Christie, loudly, the kind of boo that only a large percentage of a crowd of 61,000 can make. Then they cheered the horse's trainer and owner who said Christie's name, which led to more boos.

This really happened. The governor of New Jersey was given a huge, audible hooting of derision from the crowd. Because the people of the Garden State now fucking hate Chris Christie. He is the big-mouthed motherfucker who promised to give a shit but turned his back on his state for the chance to lose a presidential race. He was supposed to be the straight-talking teller of hard truths, but he turned out to be just another vindictive bully.

It worked for a little while, when Jersey wanted him to take lunch money from the feds for Sandy relief. But once Bridgegate and every other (so far minor) scandal took their toll, he went from being the bruiser Jersey loved to the Bluto it wanted Popeye to beat the shit out of. Christie was always a myth. He was always 300 pounds of shit in a 100 pound bag. Mythic images, though, are like Icarus (and sometimes they are exactly Icarus), and this motherfucker flew way too close to the sun.

So in Jersey, the state Christie has all but abandoned, the citizens are alternately amused and disgusted at his flailing campaign. Here's Christie, whose staff closed the George Washington Bridge as political retribution and who himself canceled a new rail tunnel that would have vastly improved life for the state's citizens, trying to say he's on the side of commuters when it comes to the incredible failure of his administration to do dick about the decaying mass transit infrastructure: "Here's the way we fix it. If I am president of the United States, I call a meeting between the president, my secretary of transportation, the governor of New York, and the governor of New Jersey."

You might think, "Hey, he's governor of New Jersey. Why doesn't he get a meeting with the other parties?" But then you're thinking with your rational brain and not your political pandering brain, which must calculate how many blow jobs the Koch brothers will require for every statement you make.

Christie the bully, the man who probably doesn't remember giving David Wildstein shit swirlies in the locker room at their high school, emerged again yesterday on This Week with Jake Tapper's Resting Asshole Face.  Tapper asked, "During your first term as governor, you were fond of saying that you can treat bullies in one of two ways — quote — 'You can either sidle up to them or you can punch them in the face.' You said, 'I like to punch them in the face.' At the national level, who deserves a punch in the face?"

Without missing a beat, Christie said, "Oh, the national teachers' union," going on to explain, "They are the single most destructive force in public education in America. I have been saying that since 2009. I have got the scars to show it. But I'm never going to stop saying it, because they never change their stripes."

Drama queen rhetoric aside, a reflective man wouldn't readily admit that he wants to punch in the face a group that represents significant numbers of women.  A thoughtful man might have said, "Democrats in Congress," just to spread the pain. A wise man might have said, "Well, I don't actually want to punch anyone in the face." Christie is neither. And asking a bully who he thinks the bullies are is like asking a public masturbator who the perverts are.

In Jersey, the citizens are gonna pop a cold one and sit on the shore and bask in the last month of summer.  They will watch Christie's political death with the kind of joy one gets from seeing the asshole who revs his engine blow it out.  They will await their chance to boo him again, ready to be in another arena and give a thumbs down.

A message for Bernie Sanders (NSFW)

Contains limited profanity.

Most 2016 GOP Presidential Candidates Would Push Seniors Into Poverty By Cutting Social Security

Meanwhile, Democratic candidates favor expansion.

 

By Nancy Altman

 

In the first nationally televised 2016 presidential debate, Americans got a glimpse at what their economic future might hold if one of the Republican candidates becomes president -- and the picture wasn't pretty.

Social Security is essential for workers and their families who want to retire with dignity and independence and want to be protected in the event of death or a disabling illness or accident. Given the Social Security views of those who took the debate stage Thursday night, Americans should be very worried.

Governor CHRIS CHRISTIE doubled down on his destructive proposal to turn Social Security into a means-tested welfare program. On top of that, he proposed raising Social Security's full retirement age to 69, a thirteen percent, across-the-board benefit cut. Like President George W. Bush before him, Governor Christie will, if elected president, seek to destroy Social Security, while claiming to be just "saving" it.

Christie's views on Social Security are extreme, fringe and totally out of touch with the American people. Polling released last week by Social Security Works shows that Americans across the board-- including majorities of Republicans and Independents-- oppose cuts to Social Security and say they are less likely to vote for candidates who support cuts to the program.

To his credit, MIKE HUCKABEE stands firmly against benefit cuts, and with the American people. He wrongly seems to believe that Social Security contributions have been stolen, not merely lent and so must be paid back. But he is light years ahead of all the other Republican candidates on this issue, with the exception of DONALD TRUMP, who in April remarked, "Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social Security, they want to do it on Medicare, they want to do it on Medicaid. And it's not fair to the people that have been paying in for years and now all of the sudden they want to be cut." He made clear, "I'm not gonna do that!"

Since the others did not offer their views last night, here they are (with the exceptions of Ben Carson and Jim Gilmore who haven't made their views known.)

PRIME TIME DEBATE

JEB BUSH: Privatize Social Security, Raise the Retirement Age As High as 70,End Medicare

SCOTT WALKER: Raise the Retirement Age

TED CRUZ: Privatize Social Security, Raise the Retirement Age, Cut Benefits

MARCO RUBIO: Raise the Retirement Age, May Cut Benefits, Privatize Medicare

RAND PAUL: Raise the Retirement Age to 70, Means-Test Social Security

JOHN KASICH:Privatize Social Security, Cut benefits

SECOND TIER DEBATE

RICK PERRY: Social Security is a "Ponzi Scheme," "Monstrous Lie"

RICK SANTORUM: Raise Retirement Age,Means Test Social Security, May cut cost of living adjustments for current and future beneficiaries

BOBBY JINDAL: Privatize Social Security

CARLY FIORINA: May Raise Retirement Age

LINDSEY GRAHAM: Cut Social Security Benefits for People who are unmarried and have no children.

GEORGE PATAKI: Raise Retirement Age, Shift More Medicare Cost to Seniors and People With Disabilities

With a looming retirement income crisis and growing wealth and income inequality, expanding Social Security, not cutting it, is the right policy. It is also what the overwhelming majority of Americans want. It sounds like everyone but Huckabee and Trump are taking their Social Security advice from their billionaire donors.

Last election, voters didn't realize that they had a choice, since President Obama, inexplicably and inaccurately, asserted in a presidential debate against Mitt Romney, "I suspect that, on Social Security, we've got a somewhat similar position," This time around, with Democratic Presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both advocating expansion, voters are likely to have a clear choice. For the sake of their families' economic security, they should exercise it wisely.

Nancy Altman is author of The Battle for Social Security: From FDR's Vision to Bush's Gamble (John Wiley & Sons, 2005) is president of Social Security Works and Chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. She is co-author, with Eric R. Kingson, of Social Security Works! Why Social Security Isn't Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us All (The New Press, 2015), and has written the forward to a new release of Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice.

Protesters Drove Bernie Sanders From One Seattle Stage. At His Next Stop, 15,000 People Showed.

By John Wagner

Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a rally in Dallas in July. (Mike Stone/Reuters)

Bernie Sanders came to Seattle on Saturday with plans to give two speeches.

The first didn’t happen. An appearance by the senator from Vermont at an event celebrating the anniversary of Social Security and Medicare was scuttled after protesters from a local Black Lives Matter chapter took over the stage.

Hours later, Sanders, who has been drawing bigger crowds than any other presidential contender, drew his largest yet: about 15,000 at the college basketball arena where the Washington Huskies play.

Quite the reception for Sanders in Seattle. pic.twitter.com/dibVAOGd5x

— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) August 9, 2015

[The Bernie Sanders predicament: Where do you fit all those people?]

Aides said Sanders, who has emerged as the leading alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, spoke to a full house of 12,000 inside the arena and to what police estimated to be an overflow of 3,000 people outside of it.

Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, was met with boisterous cheers as he decried the political influence of the “billionaire class” and pledged to raise the minimum wage, mandate family leave and push other policies that improve the lot of the working class.

"This is the country we can create," Sanders said during an hourlong stump speech was broadcast live on social media.

#BlackLivesMatter Protesters shut down Bernie Sanders rally in Seattle http://t.co/GT1KCqmsGQ pic.twitter.com/MoPYyl19MX

— Craig Newman (@craignewman) August 8, 2015

The first event — which was held at a city park and live-streamed by a Seattle television station — went less swimmingly.

Sanders was the final speaker on a long program held at a city park. Shortly after he took stage, a small group of protesters from a Seattle chapter of Black Lives Matter took the microphone and demanded  that the crowd hold Sanders “accountable” for not doing enough, in their view, to address police brutality and other issues on the group’s agenda.

[Why Hillary Clinton and her rivals are struggling to grasp Black Lives Matter]

After sharing a few local grievances with the crowd, including school disparities and gentrification in Seattle, the protesters asked for a period of silence to commemorate  the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown being shot and killed during a confrontation with a police officer in Ferguson, Mo.

Event organizers allowed the period of silence, as some in the large crowd booed and shouted for the protesters to leave the stage. Afterward, Marissa Janae Johnson, who identified herself as a leader of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Seattle, asked the crowd to “join us now in holding Bernie Sanders accountable for his actions.” She motioned for Sanders to join her at the microphone.

After several minutes of frantic conversations, Sanders left the stage and greeted people in the large crowd who had turned out to see him. Many chanted his name.

In the hours that followed, several activists took to social media to question whether Johnson was speaking for the broader Black Lives Movement.

[O’Malley booed as he points out: ‘White lives matter. All lives matter.’]

The tense scene in Seattle was reminiscent of one July 18 in Phoenix, when a larger group of Black Lives Matter activists disrupted a Democratic presidential forum at the liberal Netroots Nation gathering that featured both Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.

At the Netroots event, both O’Malley and Sanders were able to continue speaking, though neither filled their allotted times.

At Saturday’s event, Johnson noted that O’Malley had since released a plan on criminal justice, which calls for several policing reforms, including widespread use of body cameras.

Though Sanders has not formally released a similar plan, he has been speaking out about policing issues, including during an appearance last month before a gathering in Louisiana of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the nation’s oldest civil rights organizations. In that speech, he called for the “demilitarization” of police forces, an end to privately run prisons and an effort to address the “over-incarceration” of nonviolent offenders.

[Bernie Sanders needs to court black voters. And he has started doing it.]

As Sanders left the event in Seattle on Saturday, he told reporters that he found the situation "unfortunate."

At Saturday night's rally, Sanders made a brief reference to the early episode, saying that "on criminal justice reform and the need to fight racism there is no other candidate for president who will fight harder than me.”

"Too many lives have been destroyed by the war on drugs," Sanders said. "Too many lives have been destroyed by incarceration."

Some of his biggest applause lines came when he declared that college education should be tuition free and that the United States should move to a single-payer, "Medicare for all" health-care system.

Saturday night's rally was the latest around the country where Sanders has filled arenas and convention halls. By contrast, Clinton's largest crowd, which her campaign estimated at 5,500, came at her formal kickoff in June in New York.

Sanders is in the midst of a three-day swing on the West Coast. Aides say the campaign is also expecting large crowds at events in Portland and Los Angeles.

Black Lives Matter activists push Sanders off stage at Seattle event http://t.co/nNUI42XVOW pic.twitter.com/SkPx7PhXZ0

— Xerox (@FatenXerox) August 9, 2015

John Wagner has covered Maryland government and politics for The Post since 2004.

The GOP's First 2016 Debate Showcases Its Right-Wingers And True Crazies

By Steven Rosenfeld

Fox News shows the nation how nuts the GOP has become.

The Republican Party’s first official debate of the 2016 presidential election showed the GOP’s leading candidates as not just all hard right-wingers, but different shades of crazy.

There was Donald Trump, who will doubtless draw the most press attention by declaring right off the bat that if he is not the nominee, he would seriously considering running as an independent—which, as Fox News’ debate moderator Bret Baier said, “would almost certainly hand over the race to Democrats and likely another Clinton.”

That brought boos from the crowd and a spontaneous attack by Sen. Rand Paul, who blared, “This is what’s wrong. He buys and sells politicans.” To which, Trump replied, “ Well, I’ve given him [Paul] plenty of money.”  

That feisty spree set the tone for much of the next two hours. Trump would go on to explain that, of course, he spends money to buy politicans’ attention, and failed to see anything at all wrong with that. When asked what he got in return from Hillary Clinton, he said that she came to his latest wedding. But beyond political gossip like that—or saying he was tired of being criticized for being politically incorrect after crude and sexist statements about women—the Fox News debate made it clear that most of the GOP’s leading candidates roughly fell into two right-wing camps: truly crazed extremists (Donald Trump, Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee) or blandly presentable right-wingers, whose agenda is still remarkably out-of-synch with mainstream America (Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Chris Christie).

The blander crazies are probably the more dangerous crew, because even though their policies are very far to the right—anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-tax, anti-immigrant, anti-government, anti-science—they will be portrayed by mainstream media as moderates. Take reproductive rights, just an example.

Bush answered a question about being on the board of ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s foundation, which has supported Planned Parenthood, by saying that his record as governor was to lead the country in restricting abortions, passing parental notification laws, outlawing late-term abortions, and being first in the nation to have pro-life license places. That was the quote-unquote, moderate response, when compared to Mike Huckabee, who said that the next president must declare that the Constitution’s 5th and 14th amendments protects the rights of the unborn “from the moment of conception.” Speaking of the Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion rights, he said, “It’s time that we recognize that the Supreme Court is not the supreme being.”

Other social issues followed the same arc. Early in the debate, one Fox moderator pressed Ohio Gov. John Kasich for being a litte too much like St. Peter because he expanded his state’s Medicaid program under Obamacare, which Kasich defended. But when asked about same-sex marriage, he replied, “If one of my daughters happened to be that…” Kasich quickly followed up by saying, he’d love his daughters unconditionally, but such exchanges showed just how immoderate the GOP’s supposed moderates are.

The more serious exchanges were interrupted by moments that were astounding political theater, such as Trump sparring with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly who said, “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals…’ Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?” Trump began his reply, saying, “I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct… I frankly don’t have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble.”

Exchanges like that quickly ended and were followed by other zany questions, such as asking Ted Cruz why he recently called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar? To which, Cruz replied, because he was one—and the country needed politicians who spoke the truth. “As Republicans, we keep winning elections. We have a Republican House. We have a Republican Senate, and we don’t have leaders who honor their commitments. I will always tell the truth and do what I said I would do.”

When it came to specifics of what the candidates would do, the template was roughly the same. The plan is to cut taxes and regulations to promote economic growth, build up the military—including sending troops overseas fight a new ground war with ISIS, and saying that this strategy worked for Ronald Reagan and would surely work again. Of course, there were small differences. On immigration, everyone objected to amensty for the undocumented already in America, but some—such as Jeb Bush—said a pathway to legalized status was needed, especially to ensure economic growth. Others were less charitable. Trump, of course, said a new border wall needed to be built—but with a large door in it for those following a legal process to enter.

The debate did showcase the candidates' political skills and that might shake up their ranking in the polls. Chris Christie had a good night, feistily dismissing questions about New Jersey’s lagging economy under his watch—it was worse before he got there, he said—and eagerly attacking Rand Paul for his opposition to NSA spying on Americans. Marco Rubio, who has the best smile of anyone on the stage, didn’t say anything that was truly cringe-worthy, even though he was fervently pro-life and almost libertarian on federal oversight—on the environment and education. John Kasich appeared almost grandfatherly on stage, projecting himself as a seasoned hand on budget and national security issues. And Jeb Bush, when pressed on being the heir to a political dynasty, replied he had a higher bar to prove himself with voters, which came across as both insecure and honest. In contrast, Scott Walker, who didn’t make any mistakes, came across with answers that seemed a bit too canned—practiced and unengaging.

The crazies, however, may have won the night’s battle but set themselves back in the longer war. Trump clearly distinguished himself as someone who really doesn’t care what people think about him—he’s a businessman who will do whatever it takes. The other outlying ideologues—Cruz, Huckabee, Carson, Paul—all seem to be in narrower silos where their followers will love what they said, and how they said it, but they’re less likely to break through to a larger base.

You can be sure that the Republican Party will declare their first debate a great success. Millions of people watched. They saw candidates up close and personal. Their remarks will surely shake up the race. And, to be sure, the night will also be seen by Democrats as pure political manna from heaven—because the modern GOP was on display in vivid color, and because it is not a party of mere establishment right-wingers, but also out-and-out crazies running for the presidency.

Related Stories

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Bernie Sanders: Tonight's GOP debaters don't care about working people

By Eliza Collins

There may be 10 candidates in Thursday night’s prime time Fox debate, but Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders thinks they will all be talking about the same thing.

“When you watch that debate just imagine if you are one of the wealthiest people in this country and extremely greedy and selfish, and you’re going to have 10 candidates more or less talking about your needs and not the needs of working people,” Sanders said in a recorded interview with Ari Rabin-Havt on SiriusXM’s Progress Channel.

Sanders believes he knows the agenda the GOP candidates will break down and it is in strong contrast with the one espoused by the Vermont senator.

Sanders, whose policies have associated him with socialism for decades, knocked the Republican focus on tax cuts and government spending.

Also on POLITICO

The GOP debate: 5 things to watch

ALEX ISENSTADT

“They want to give more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires at a time when the rich are getting much richer,” Sanders said. “They want to cut or privatize Medicare, cut Medicaid, cut education, cut the environmental protection agency.”

Sanders, who is one of the biggest Senate opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline — and who has criticized Hillary Clinton on not doing enough to combat climate change — knocked the GOP for its views on the issue.

“There may be one or two on there who actually have listened to the scientific community and think that climate change is real. Most of them refuse to accept that, and none of them are prepared to act aggressively to transform our energy system,” he said.

The top 10 polling Republican candidates will take the stage Thursday night for a two-hour debate in Cleveland, Ohio. A “happy hour” debate will take place at 5 p.m. for the candidates who didn’t make the top 10.

TPP Copyright Chapter Leaks: Website Blocking, New Criminal Rules On the Way

Posted by timothy

An anonymous reader writes:  

Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) [Wednesday] morning released the May 2015 draft of the copyright provisions in the Trans Pacific Partnership (copyright, ISP annex, enforcement). The leak appears to be the same version that was covered by the EFF and other media outlets earlier this summer. 

Michael Geist unpacks the leaked documents, noting the treaty includes anti-circumvention rules that extend beyond the WIPO Internet treaties, new criminal rules, the extension of copyright term for countries like Canada and Japan, increased border measures, mandatory statutory damages in all countries, and expanding ISP liability rules, including the prospect of website blocking for Canada.

Scott Walker Tricked Into Posing In Front Of $900 Million Check Signed By Kochs

Student dupes Walker into posing with check illustrating he's bought and paid for by the Koch brothers.

 

By Sophia Tesfaye 

It was supposed to be a routine meet-and-greet at a local New Hampshire pizza parlor, but today’s campaign stop turned into a “Punk’d” episode for Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker, after he was tricked into posing with a phony check from the Koch brothers made out to him for $900 million.

According to the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui, who shared an image of Walker posing with the prop check, Walker appeared to believe he was posing with a sign reading “Walker 4 President” before the sign was turned to the cameras to expose its true sentiments:

Click to enlarge.

Walker appeared to have been trolled by a member of 350 Action, an environmental group which has led the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline and is calling on 2016 presidential candidates to refuse campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies.

In a blog post on July 15, one day before the date on the phony check presented to Walker, 350 Action’s Jong Chin outlined the group’s efforts to push 2016 candidates on the issue of climate change in the early voting state of New Hampshire before promising, “We have some time to work with, and a lot of events to go to, including a couple Clinton and a couple Walker events on Thursday."

But as 360 Action fellow Tyler McFarland explained on Twitter, the check was finally delivered to Walker today in Manchester:

According to the Center for Media and Democracy, the Koch brothers have spent upward of $11.6 million to support Scott Walker since he became governor of Wisconsin in 2011. And David Koch reportedly said that the Republican nominee “should be Scott Walker” earlier this year, although he and his brother Charles have yet to formally endorse a candidate.

Things Trump could do...