February 16, 2016

MOVE, RAIL, POKE, NAIL!

(A response to the Washington Post)

MOVE, RAIL, POKE, NAIL!

Bernie Sanders talks with his hands. His hands speak in the imperative-of universal single payer health care, a national $15/hr minimum wage, free college, fair taxes on corporations, prison reform, and reversing the argle-bargle of Citizens United, which sloshed the green bile of Wall Street into elections.

There are some who are deaf to those imperatives. Instead, they wag about the diction, dialect and tone of his hands and seek to modulate them, to inflict their own inflections on them.

But Bernie’s hands remain consistent. They speak in an authentic voice that does not hide in pockets, whisper behind podiums, or lie mute in clasped supplication. They MOVE, RAIL, POKE, NAIL!

Last week, from out of the distant past, we recognized his young hands, stop-motioned in half-sentence, as they spoke in their newly found powerful voice to long-ago fellow students at a college sit-in and railed against the injustices of segregated housing.

Today, his hands speak with confidence, in an even more powerful voice, making great sweeps across packed stadiums and arenas creating small air currents that we cannot see, and YUUUGGE currents of electrifying excitement that we can...excitement that jumps from person to person, in texts, tweets, blogs and forums, from Charleston, South Carolina to Portland, Oregon, and Ypsilanti, Michigan to Las Vegas, Nevada.

They are a force to be reckoned with. They gather our voices together and amplify them across this nation-our yearnings and demands for justice, fairness, and equality for all-as we join hands with his, to work together: an unstoppable force for the change we all can believe in.

Until those hands lie clasped in final stillness: MOVE , RAIL, POKE, NAIL!

by JimDandy

February 10, 2016

Sanders received 15 hard-pledged delegates in NH. Clinton received 9 hard-pledged delegates.

Months before last night's primary results were known, 6 of the soft-pledged superdelegates stated they would back Clinton. A 7th superdelegate, state Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, stated she would wait until after the primary to endorse. The 8th superdelegate, NH Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley, was prohibited from supporting anyone in the primary. He is now free to support who he wants.

So, as of right now, the delegate count is tied at 15 to 15, as long as each of the 6 unpledged superdelegates continues to back Clinton all the way through the convention. That is an unlikely scenario, as, in previous primaries, superdelegates have changed their support to mirror how their constituents voted in the primary. So these are the actual combinations that could now occur:

Sanders - Clinton
15 -------- 09 (all 8 superdelegates abstain)
15 -------- 10 (7 superdelegates abstain and 1 remains soft-pledged to Clinton)
15 -------- 11 (6 superdelegates abstain and 2 remain soft-pledged to Clinton--etc down the list)
15 -------- 12
15 -------- 13
15 -------- 14
15 -------- 15 (the last 2 available superdelegates abstain)
15 -------- 16 (1 supports Clinton, 1 abstains)
15 -------- 17 (both support Clinton)
16 -------- 15 (1 supports Sanders, 1 abstains)
16 -------- 16 (they split the 2 remaining superdelegate)
17 -------- 15 (both support Sanders)
18 -------- 14 (both support Sanders and 1 also defects from Clinton to Sanders)
19 -------- 13 (both support Sanders and 2 also defects from Clinton to Sanders--etc down the list)
20 -------- 12
21 -------- 11
22 -------- 10
23 -------- 09

So, in 2 scenarios they tie, in 2 scenarios Clinton wins NH, and in 14 scenarios Sanders wins NH.

I'm liking Sanders' chances of a win at the convention...

February 8, 2016

Posts that call Bernie supporters BernieBros have no place here.

It has become an almost racist term that labels all of his supporters as white priviledged "alpha male idiots". It's being used in an attempt to silence dissent and criticism of his political opponent, Hillary Clinton.

I've objected in the past to posts that refer to Clinton using derrogatory and misogynist term, such as "chick", which are meant to devalue her as a woman and devalue her appointment as U.S. Secretary of State. They have no place here either.

But use of the term BernieBros, with its very specific racial undertones, constitutes a broad brush attack on all of his supporters here and is beyond rude. That is against DU's TOS. Its use is unacceptable and every instance of its use here needs to result in a TOS alert. I intend to do so.

February 8, 2016

It's going to be the year of the underdogs!!!! Broncos and Sanders!!!

Both of them slogging it out and winning!

Whoo hooooooo!

January 19, 2016

Bernie is an amazingly spry guy...for any age! n/t

January 18, 2016

Then WE need to raise it...the rank and file progressives...

and get back our Democratic Party from the third way corporatists/DINOs who have had a hold on for at least 25 years.

December 20, 2015

Check in here if you're at a Debate Party!

We've got about 70 people at my Bernie Debate Party. Most of them Independents, a couple of us Dems, and, so far, no Republicans. About 1/4 of us here are minorities.

How's your's going?

December 18, 2015

DFA is the DEMOCRATIC BASE. This simply confirms what's being observed

on the ground by precinct reps of County Democratic Parties.

And to top off the huge, beginning body of support in the Dem Party for Bernie, the phone banking is having great success in reaching new supporters to get them to the caucuses and out to vote in the primaries.

The Clinton supporters in my local county party are being overwhelmed by Bernie supporters who are using up all the base's normal phone banking energy to make calls to get Bernie elected.

The complacency of Hillary and her supporters and the lack of Media attention is what allowed Bernie's support to swell under the radar. I decided a month ago to not say one thing more to the Hillary supporters to dissuade them of Hillary's 'inevitability' as it became clear that thinking was working in his favor.

GO BERNIE!!!

May 2, 2015

When you check that box

you are indicating to the campaign that an employer's name isn't needed to accompany the donation. (Employed donors must submit that info by law.)

My experience is that retired donors get hit up at each phase of a campaign just like those who are employed. (The former campaign solicitor blushes, looking down and kicking the dirt)

But I know what you mean...

May 2, 2015

Baltimore: Killer Police out on $250,000 Bond; Window breaker jailed on $500,000 Bond

The Criminal Injustice System at work.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/latest-police-custody-death-officers-charged-30730377