July 28, 2016
THE CONVENTION AND MORE
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/28/487732727/convention-speeches-soar-raise-a-question-can-clinton-connect-with-ordinary-peop
Convention Speeches Soar, Raise A Question: Can Clinton Connect With Ordinary People?
RON ELVING
July 28, 2016 6:16 AM ET
Photograph -- President Obama and Hillary Clinton stand together on stage on the third day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The third night of the 2016 Democratic convention scaled several major peaks: President Obama gave, perhaps, the best-written oration of his career. Vice President Joe Biden gave, perhaps, his last national convention address, and his prospective successor, Tim Kaine, gave his first.
But when it was all over, and Obama was joined on stage by the woman who wants to succeed him, you could feel the love welling up from the delegates and you could sense the doubt hanging over them — an invisible cloud casting a psychological shadow.
Yes, the crowd had been wowed by Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Warren and the "Comeback Kid" himself, Bill Clinton.
But would Hillary Clinton herself be able to seal the deal on the last night?
Never known as a big-venue speechmaker, Clinton will face a make-or-break moment with multiple pitfalls, varying objectives and a variety of critical audiences.
For starters, she needs to overcome her reputation for being overly intense and humorless in her public presentations.
Beyond that, she needs to reassure those who doubt her integrity after many months of pounding from conservatives and media organizations on Benghazi and on her private email server.
Alabama delegates cheer during the convention on Thursday.
Matt Rourke/AP
She needs to reassure those who have been told that a woman (or at least this particular woman) is not equal to the task of national security in a time of foreign crisis and domestic threats.
And she needs to convince members of her own party that she shares their sensibilities as expressed in the party platform, widely regarded as the "most progressive in party history."
Hillary Clinton joins President Obama onstage after he delivers his speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday.
POLITICS
Obama: 'Reject Cynicism And Reject Fear' And Elect Hillary Clinton
President Obama speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia Wednesday evening.
POLITICS
READ: President Obama's Speech At The Democratic Convention
And as she speaks, she will likely face a crossfire from the still-restive ranks of die-hard Bernie Sanders delegates.
Although they have not been as constantly disruptive as they were on Monday afternoon, pockets of unity-resistant Sandersistas have distracted from the convention program here and there. They chanted "stop" when a former admiral spoke, and they kept up a steady stream of noise when Leon Panetta, former secretary of defense and CIA director, was on stage. At another point they chanted "no more war" until the rest of the convention drowned them out with "USA."
This tended to undercut the message the convention organizers had tried to convey on Wednesday night — a message of Democrats being sure-handed and resolute on national security.
Panetta, in particular, recast his remarks after hearing Republican nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday call for Russian hackers to look for old State Department emails Clinton was said to have deleted. Trump suggested this would be a field day for the media.
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta speaks during the third evening session of the Democratic National Convention.
POLITICS
Former CIA Director Panetta Calls Trump's Russia Comment 'Inconceivable'
Panetta wanted to point out this amounted to urging "an adversary" to go fishing in important pools of potentially classified information. (Trump later backed off the call, saying he was just being sarcastic.)
The Sanders contingent includes many peace activists and people for whom Obama and Clinton and Panetta are guilty of continuing George W. Bush's "war on terror." The fact that they wound down the war in Iraq gradually and actually extended the war in Afghanistan makes them unacceptable.
These protesters are akin to the anti-war activists of the Vietnam era who cared more about defeating the hawks in the Democratic Party than about defeating the Republican Party, which ultimately proved at least equally hawkish, if not more so.
These holdouts remained unmoved by Clinton winning the roll call vote on Tuesday by nearly a thousand votes, or by her receiving Sanders' endorsement. Instead, they see the entire system as rigged and regard the leaked batch of DNC emails as proof the entire process was corrupt, even the primaries and caucuses, which were actually run by the individual states or state parties. They are not dissuaded by the fact that Sanders did win nearly two-dozen states.
So Clinton will need a strategy for dealing with some kind of pushback from this contingent when she rises to accept the party nomination Thursday night.
But there could be an even larger issue looming over her campaign and its communication with voters. Hillary Clinton needs to connect with ordinary people, especially Anglo white people over 30 who do not have a college education. Polls show this group is trending to Trump by roughly 2 to 1.
As powerful as Obama was on Wednesday, he probably did not break through to this group, which did not feel his magnetism in 2008 or 2012 and provided much of the voting muscle for his midterm humiliations in 2010 and 2014.
Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, wave to the crowd at the Democratic National Convention.i
Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, wave to the crowd at the Democratic National Convention.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Hillary Clinton generally ran ahead of Obama with these voters in 2008, powering her primary wins then in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and elsewhere. But when the opponent is a Republican, and specifically Trump, she does not match up well.
Among the speakers on Wednesday night, Biden's voice was the one most attuned to the ears of this voting group. The son of Irish Catholic working people in Scranton, Pa., Biden moved to neighboring Delaware and began his political career there. His speeches still appeal to regular folks quite directly, often with terms such as "malarkey" and a tendency to unbridled enthusiasm. In this, Biden has offered balance for Obama's often cerebral and even lecture-like speeches.
But others on the podium also suggested models for breaking through to those who do not watch C-SPAN or spend time with political newsprint. Kaine stressed his working-class roots (his father had a metalworking business) and flashed a style of enthusiasm and outreach reminiscent of Biden's own.
Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire several times over before he served three terms as mayor of New York, found plain terms to convey his feelings in his brief remarks. While others this week have droned on in critique of Trump's business persona, Bloomberg was brief: "I'm a New Yorker, and I know a con when I see one."
Bloomberg also cut through some fog when he called Clinton the "sane and competent" candidate for president this fall. No one missed the contrast implied.
Another example of connecting in a few words was Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland and a presidential candidate for several months last winter. O'Malley motored through a brief address to the delegates in his shirtsleeves with necktie loosened and collar open.
O'Malley hit his job-oriented issues fast and hard, keeping his voice high but under control, smiling a lot and using his hands. He left the stage to a sudden and surprise standing ovation. Asked later if his casual look had been a last-minute inspiration, O'Malley compared it to campaigning tieless in Iowa and New Hampshire.
PBS NewsHour via YouTube YouTube
But of all the scores of speakers who have taken the podium this week, the one who might have been the best template for communicating with ordinary voters was Joe Sweeney, who served 21 years as a New York policeman and detective.
Sweeney rushed to the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11, 2001, digging for survivors. Later, he and other rescuers learned the air they breathed that day had been toxic. On Tuesday night, Sweeney told the story of Clinton, then a senator, turning the Environmental Protection Agency around on that issue and getting help for people who got sick.
"A lot of people moved on," Sweeney testified. "They thought everything was fine. But Hillary Clinton kept in touch and kept at it. Ten years later, Hillary Clinton was still our toughest champion, making sure we still got our health benefits."
"Still Our Toughest Champion" might make a kind of motto, if a person were running for something. It is exactly the kind of brief, sharp and intelligible message too often lacking in politics, or at least in presidential politics on the Democratic side.
It may not be possible for every candidate to be pithy, pointed and able to draw blood with the use of the language. But someone who wants to be president should explore and understand how language is used, and how it will be used against them.
A historic example will be on stage in Philadelphia on Thursday night in the 10 o'clock hour.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/28/despite-unity-push-sanders-supporters-now-urge-dem-exit.html
DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
Despite unity push, Sanders supporters now urge Dem 'exit'
Published July 28, 2016 FoxNews.com
Video – Fox News, “The big mistake both parties are making at their conventions”
PHILADELPHIA – Despite the Democratic Party’s robust efforts this week to put forward a show of unity at their Philadelphia convention – including bringing Hillary Clinton onstage Wednesday night for a handoff hug from President Obama – a rowdy swath of disaffected voters is making clear the theatrics haven’t healed the fractured base.
Anti-Clinton and other demonstrators are moving forward Thursday with at least one protest, and holding events encouraging voters to “de-register” from the party.
They’re operating in part under the Twitter hashtag #DemExit, one that Green Party candidate Jill Stein has deftly been using as she openly appeals to Sanders supporters to join her team outside the Philly convention arena.
“DNC wants your support for lying, undermining, and insulting you. They'll lock you out if you don't comply. #DemExit,” Stein tweeted.
Stein has proven to be a chief agitator, as Bernie Sanders himself rejoins the fold and urges Democrats to get behind Clinton’s campaign. Even the celebrities are split, with liberal Hollywood stalwarts like Susan Sarandon standing with the Sanders crowd this week.
Clinton is set to deliver her nomination acceptance speech Thursday night. Before she does, a group called Black Men for Bernie is hosting a de-registration event outside City Hall. From there, another #DemExit de-registration event is slated for mid-afternoon outside the Wells Fargo Arena, the convention site.
2016 Election Headquarters
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics.
See Latest Coverage →
The efforts hang over the final day of a raucous convention, where Sanders supporters from the start have protested how their candidate was treated by the party brass, particularly after leaked DNC emails pointed to a pro-Clinton bias inside headquarters. Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned in the wake of the leak, but that didn’t stop protests inside and outside the convention hall.
Stein, meanwhile, has maintained a presence on the sidelines of the Philadelphia chaos and she tries to keep the flame of the Sanders movement burning, even marching with protesters Tuesday after Clinton was nominated.
"Those who are in tears, whose hearts have been broken, I’m going [to rallies] to really reassure them that their work has not been in vain," Stein told FoxNews.com on Wednesday.
For many in the Sanders crowd, Stein is a far more natural fit than Donald Trump, the Republican nominee also making a play for disaffected Sanders voters.
Amanda Sullivan of Weston, Fla., sweated it out on a blistering 97-degree day to hold her “Bern or Jill but never Hill!” sign as she joined the 1,000-deep group of demonstrators at City Hall earlier this week.
Sullivan told FoxNews.com that she’s frustrated by the Democratic Party’s exclusion of some in the party and says she cannot vote for Clinton in a November matchup.
Leonardo Watson of Georgia told FoxNews.com that while not every aspect of the Green Party syncs with his own views, it’s a better match than Clinton.
“Look, Clinton’s not an option. It’s not about party unity. It’s about standing up for yourself and what you believe in -- and right now, with Bernie out, that’s Jill Stein.”
FoxNews.com’s Barnini Chakraborty contributed to this report.
https://www.conservativeoutfitters.com/blogs/news/breaking-bernie-sanders-has-left-the-democratic-party
BERNIE SANDERS IS NO LONGER A DEMOCRAT #DEMEXIT
July 27, 2016
PENNSYLVANIA - Another black eye for the Democratic Party as Bernie Sanders announces a huge change. In 2015 Sanders announced he was no longer an Independent and intended to run as a Democrat in all future elections. Sanders quickly changed his mind after leaked documents appear to show the Democratic Party unfairly worked to elect Hillary Clinton.
With the Democratic National Convention in full swing, former candiate Bernie Sanders officially confirmed to reporters he will return to the United States Senate as an Independent. Sanders was elected as an Independent but promised last year to file paperwork changing his party affiliation. The Senator from Vermont has held the office since January 3, 2007.
Leaked documents published by WikiLeaks reveal the Democratic Party unfairly favored Hillary Clinton in the primary. Fallout from the #DNCLeaks led to the resignation of party leader Debbie Wasserman Schultz who was then immediately hired by Hillary Clinton.
Bernie Sanders Is No Longer A Democrat #DemExit
https://www.conservativeoutfitters.com/blogs/news/dnc-suspends-rules-and-turns-up-music-to-stop-roll-call-vote-video
SHOCKING: DEMOCRATIC PARTY STOPS DELEGATE ROLL CALL VOTE ON VP NOMINATION BY TURNING UP THE MUSIC
July 27, 2016
Video -- DNC SUSPENDS RULES AND TURNS UP MUSIC TO STOP ROLL CALL VOTE (VIDEO)
PENNSYLVANIA -- Democrats suspended their convention rules (and democracy) Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. As the nomination for Hillary's running mate Tim Kaine began, delegates on the convention floor started shouting "ROLL CALL VOTE". Party officials from the DNC turned up the music to drown out the VP dissenters.
Since this is from a conservative site, I doubt it’s complete accuracy. I didn't see this statement published anywhere else, but I didn't search for it specifically, either. I did listen to the video that they presented, but I couldn’t make out what I was hearing. If they did do this, it’s almost exactly what happened in Nevada. It sucked then, and it sucks now! It just firms up my resistance to the DNC and my determination to pull out. See the section below from the FB Writers For Bernie comments.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/transgender-delegates-democratic-convention/
Meet the transgender delegates at the Democratic convention
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS July 28, 2016, 11:32 AM
PHILADELPHIA -- On Thursday, Sarah McBride will be making history, taking the stage at Democratic national convention as the first openly transgender speaker at any major political party's convention.
"We're in an incredible place right now," McBride, a press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, said of the Democratic party in a Wednesday interview with CBS News. "A place that I think really underscores the progress in this country overall on trans rights. And I couldn't be prouder to be a part of this convention."
The transgender activist, standing outside the arena where President Obama would later deliver an optimistic message about American progress, gushed on excitedly about the convention's message of "inclusion and equality." Around the corner, people milled around an all-gender restroom at the Wells Fargo Center, where five percent of the facilities had that same level of access.
img2259.jpg
REENA FLORES/CBS NEWS
"It's a convention that says that here in America every person should be valued, respected and protected," she said. "Where every voice matters."
But McBride's pride at her historical role in Philadelphia underscores an important fact: for the transgender community, the progress has come suddenly and swiftly in these last few years -- but it's been a long time coming.
As recently as 2004, no one in the Democratic party uttered the "T" word -- that was the first year Barbra Casbar Siperstein attended a national convention as a delegate.
Casbar Siperstein, a transgender superdelegate, put it this way: "The 'T' was silent in LGBT."
Twelve years later, the community is seeing a complete turnaround.
"It's literally a 180 from 2004," Casbar Siperstein told CBS News. Back then, "there were five of us who were delegates who were part of the official delegation....Today, there are 28 appointed or elected transgender delegates."
For Laura Calvo, a trans superdelegate from Oregon, the change in representation is an important one on a policy and personal level.
Obama calls for optimism in Democratic convention speech
Play VIDEO
Obama calls for optimism in Democratic convention speech
When Calvo first became involved with the Democratic party in Oregon, she said "there was nobody else like me."
"I was always the one person in a crowd of, you know, 600, one thousand people who was openly identified as trans," said Calvo, who now sits as the vice-chair of the DNC's LGBT caucus. "And now it's really wonderful to see that I'm not the only person there, and that we do have a diversity of delegates from around the country."
This year, there are 28 openly transgender Democratic delegates, and moreover, they've seen a breakthrough in the party's platform, too: for the first time, it uses the word "transgender."
The struggle for inclusion of that language began in 2004, the year then-Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, was the nominee, Siperstein recalled. She said his campaign wanted to distance itself from the issue.
"We were frustrated by the fact that we had -- there was no language," she said. "We tried to get nondiscrimination language in the party platform. We could not. They didn't want to hear it."
That rejection hurt people like Calvo, a police officer who was outed at work as a trans woman in 1995 and lost her job as a result.
"My boss basically said I was a freak and I couldn't come back. And just six months earlier or eight months earlier, I was deputy of the year," Calvo said. "But there was no recourse for me, there was no anti-discrimination laws. There was nothing that I could turn to for help."
Vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine addreses the DNC
Play VIDEO
Vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine addreses the DNC
But the culture and politics are in a far different place now. Same-sex marriage has been blessed by the Supreme Court. President Obama recently issued directives to public schools about transgender bathroom access, the Democratic platform itself contains non-discrimination planks specifically aimed at the needs of the transgender community.
"There is still much work to be done," reads the 2016 platform, passed earlier this week. "LGBT kids continue to be bullied at school, restaurants can refuse to serve transgender people, and same-sex couples are at risk of being evicted from their homes. That is unacceptable and must change."
The specifics in the platform matter a great deal to Ella May, a 54-year-old transgender delegate who hails from North Carolina, home of the controversial HB2 legislation, a statewide bill that prevents transgender people from using bathrooms corresponding to the gender with which they identify.
"HB2 is a hate bill," May said. "And that's what it was meant to be."
The party's platform speaks to laws like this. "We will oppose all state efforts to discriminate against LGBT individuals, including legislation that restricts the right to access public spaces," it reads. "We will support LGBT elders, ensure access to necessary health care, and protect LGBT people from violence -- including ending the crisis of violence against transgender Americans."
Vice President Joe Biden delivers passionate speech at the DNC
Play VIDEO
Vice President Joe Biden delivers passionate speech at the DNC
Could the platform go further? Sure, Calvo, the DNC's LGBT vice-chair, acknowledged. But it's still a giant, progressive leap.
"Nothing's perfect," Calvo said. "When you can say is that this is the public policy -- that discrimination shall not happen and there's consequences to it. Then that starts to shift some of the thinking and some of the attitudes of folks."
Mara Keisling, a transgender member of the platform committee, praised the historic breadth of the policy statements.
"It is a really wonderful, pro-transgender platform," Keisling said. "It recognizes that we need to be part of America. That we are part of America. And policy needs to reflect that."
FROM FACEBOOK : “WRITERS FOR BERNIE” SITE
Elle Smith shared her post.
4 hrs
Elle Smith
5 hrs
I don't believe that we are inherently good.
If we humans were good, then we would not need gods to oversee us, we would not need laws that govern our behavior. We would not need police to enforce these laws nor would we need to oversee the police so they do not abuse their power over us.
If we were truly good, we would want what is good for each other and we would not feel the animosity towards those who we believe do not "pull their own weight." Without even knowing anyone else's story or what their life's journey might be, we are reluctant to reach back and pull each other up.
So when a candidate such as Bernie Sanders comes along, we cannot find our way forward, past our petty insecurities, past the fears that we may fail. We are so reluctant to help each other. Why is that? We are certainly selfish. Is to help without personal gain beyond our reach?
We had a candidate with such personal conviction, he raised us all. We had a candidate whose record reflects his deep seated need to share and do what is good and what is right. And our nation just falls apart.
We break off into factions and in-fighting. Right now Bernie Sanders supporters are playing into the hands of those who have kept their thumb on the scale. We are fractured and many are lost in a sea of disillusionment and feelings of betrayal. Go Green, write him in, Hillary, just don't bother... the feelings run so deep for so many people who have supported Bernie and his ideals so fervently that we feel we have nowhere to go.
I am with you, all my friends. Each and every one of you who have put time into this campaign.
To all of you who have encouraged me, I love you.
Your vote is your own. Use it wisely.
Follow up to Elle Smith above: CharynJoy Voas Humyns are born with the innate capacity for empathy, which is the heart of all goodness. Iim not at all a bad oerson, i dont needs any gods ryling over me. Im im controlmof my own behavior. Im not the least bit lost at sea. I'm going to do everything I can to bring a revolution against what's wrong. Nothing could damage any hope of that more than Trump who will brutally crush all such efforts.
Like · Reply · 1 · 4 hrs
Lucy Maness Warner
Lucy Maness Warner I agree 100%. Thank you for this eloquent statement. Do I have the courage and faith in the immediate future to write in Bernie's name this year? I know how BAD Trump is, but I'm not sure how POWERFUL he is. I am in a quandary. What I was planning to do is vote for Hillary in November, but then immediately withdraw my name from the Democratic Party, join the Greens, and send them a letter telling them so. I think if we all did that, the Dems would change their way of doing things. They aren't dumb. They've just become corrupt. I do want to be able to vote for something I believe in!!
Like · Reply · 4 hrs
Virginia Allain
Virginia Allain I love this. Where have you posted it? Sent to newspapers? In groups on FB? Hope you spread it around.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 13 mins
Lucy Maness Warner
Lucy Maness Warner I will publish this sequence of comments on my news blog (lucywarner2013.blogspot.com ), but I'm not very adept AT ALL in working on the Net. Every month or so I run across a new term that techies -- especially the young ones -- all know. If you know how to pass it around, do. I will forward this to my own FB page.
Lucy Warner a Day At a Time
LUCYWARNER2013.BLOGSPOT.COM|BY LUCY WARNER
Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 6 mins
The following two articles bring up a controversy that was news to me. Why did the Sanders people chant “White House Interns?” What does that mean? See the sickening articles below on the subject of unpaid Interns, and especially White House Interns. These young people have been criticized recently because they are daring to ask for PAY!
Thinking back in time, there have been Congressional Interns in the news, too, one even for having to endure sexual harassment. They want to keep these jobs because they will be more likely to get into Yale or Harvard Law if they have such a position. However, these Interns receive NO PAY for working as long or longer than any average office worker does, and they are specifically chosen from the top rungs of our wealthy because their parents have to pay their way in DC – rent, food, transportation – which is not cheap. The parents do it happily because it gives their sons and daughters a leg up above young people who have worked at a less prestigious place.
What really is so bad about this? Children from homes which are not ABOVE the Middle Class are not selected for the honor. It’s not based on educational attainment, but on MONEY. Young black boys get on the path to prison, and the upper crust kids get this. We really do need many, many reforms in this country. President Obama didn’t start such a system, but he didn’t STOP it either. He needs to do one more Executive Action, and put a stop to this.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/green-party-s-stein-woos-disaffected-sanders-voters-n617801
Green Party's Stein Woos Disaffected Sanders Voters
by IRIN CARMON
NEWS JUL 27 2016, 11:24 AM ET
Related: Meet Jill Stein, the Green Party Candidate for President
Image: Jill Stein -- Jill Stein Lisa Abitbol / Courtesy of Gloria Mattera
Related: Third Time's the Charm?: Minor Parties Hope for 2016 Wins
PHILADELPHIA — A threatening storm had darkened the skies in Franklin D. Roosevelt Park across from the site of the Democratic National Convention Tuesday, but Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein wanted the people to know that there was room under her tent.
Stein threw her arms open wide as she spoke, green scarf billowing. "The revolutionary campaign deserves a revolutionary party," she said, speaking to supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders. "And that's what you have in my campaign, going forward together."
To shouts of "Jill, not Hill," Stein continued, "We say to the Democratic National Committee. We say to Hillary Clinton: No thank you!" While she had welcomed Sanders into her party, so far, he had ignored her invitation, she told NBC News.
Stein, who was a Massachusetts-based physician and environmental activist before she got into Green Party politics, is happy to be, as she has put it, "Plan B." She told NBC News, "I'm the only participant in the election right now that is not bought and paid for by Wall Street that refuses corporate money, lobbyist money and Super PACs, so we have the unique liberty to stand up for what it is that the American people are clamoring for."
Nearby, two young white activists had taped their mouths shut and scrawled "Nice White Liberals" on their t-shirts, dangling hands dipped in red paint to stand in for blood. Others hoisted Bernie Sanders' image in paper mache and cardboard cut-out, with giant bobbing arms, fingers pointed, to mimic the senator's expressive body language.
As they'd marched down South Broad Street, some Sanders supporters had revived the old Occupy chant, "We are the 99 percent!" The Occupy movement, one marcher said, was a sunflower that scattered seeds, one of which had been Sanders' campaign.
Depending on which poll you consult about Sanders voters' intentions to switch, as the candidate did, to Clinton, 10% (Pew) or the 24% (NBC/WSJ) of attendees would refuse to vote for Clinton.
But for Stein, who received 0.36% percent of the nation's votes in her 2012 campaign, the Sanders holdouts spell an unprecedented opportunity. People like 23-year-old Pennsylvania student Tyler Capone-Vitale, who carried a sign criticizing Clinton for her past support of the Defense of Marriage Act with an extra taunt about "White House interns."
Despite Sanders' protestations to the contrary, Capone-Vitale still hadn't given up on Bernie running — somehow. Of Stein, he said, "That she's the underdog is nice. She's not the establishment."
Sanders himself has minced no words in urging his supporters to vote for Clinton. "It is easy to boo, but it is harder to look your kids in the face who would be living under a Donald Trump presidency," he told California delegates Tuesday.
Ralph Nader, Stein's predecessor on the Green Party ticket who has also praised Sanders' candidacy, disagrees: "Why should a person volunteer to be complicit in Hillary's future war crimes and toady relationship with Wall Street?" he asked in an interview with NBC News. Of Stein, Nader said, "She's boringly honest. She does her homework. She has great endurance, a lot of stamina."
Core to Stein's proposition is that any differences between the parties pale beside their shared sins. Though Sanders' candidacy arguably shows the benefits of running within the party by dragging its frontrunner and its platform to the left, Stein believes the lesson is that the Democratic Party is irrevocably broken. "Bernie did everything right and the party still pulled the rug out from under him," she said.
She declined to say whether she believed Trump would be worse than Clinton from a progressive perspective. "I'm kind of agnostic on that question," Stein said. "I don't think it matters. My response to that question is there may be differences between the two parties, but those differences are not enough to save your job."
About White House Interns – see Salon and the site for action group “http://www.fairpaycampaign.com/” below:
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/19/how_the_young_elite_rise_in_washington_d_c/
How the young elite rise in Washington, D.C.
The White House engages in blatant class discrimination by allowing One Percenters to subsidize it
MICHAEL LIND
SUNDAY, JAN 19, 2014 06:59 AM EST
Satirical Photograph of White House -- (Credit: TriggerPhoto via iStock/Salon)
What do you call an employer that refuses to pay its workers any salary at all? Answer: The White House.
President Barack Obama has called for an increase in the U.S. minimum wage. And yet his administration expects hundreds of young people each year to work at the White House for an hourly wage of zero.
According to a White House website, White House interns are expected to work “at least Monday-Friday, 9 am-6pm.” Nice touch — “at least.”
In return for a full week’s worth of work and possible overtime, the White House provides its interns with no pay and no housing help. The latter is significant, because the Washington, D.C., metro area has among the highest costs in the U.S.
The problem with the unpaid internship program, which Obama inherited from previous Oval Officers and which has continued, is not sweatshop exploitation — it’s blatant class discrimination.
While colleges and other institutions sometimes fund unpaid internships, their major beneficiaries are rich kids. According to BuzzFeed:
Interns living in Washington, one of America’s most expensive cities, told BuzzFeed they wouldn’t be able to do it without serious financial help from the home front.
One intern working in the executive branch on foreign policy and law-related issues said he pays his bills “through a mix of financial aid and parental support.” (He asked to remain anonymous in case his candor would upset his bosses.) The intern, a 24-year-old third-year law student at UCLA — a school that offers a small stipend to students with public service internships — says he’s enjoying his time in D.C. thanks in large part to checks from his parents.
It gets worse. In many cases, the interns are not only unpaid, but they (or rather their rich parents) are actually subsidizing the White House.
CNN reported on one former White House intern who recounted the costs she paid, in addition to foregone salary income:
As Emily Jane Fox, a former unpaid White House intern herself, reports for CNNMoney, the White House is coming under pressure from groups like the Fair Pay Campaign to pay the college students who work 9-to-6 jobs (at least) for no money.
Fox told me it cost her “a couple thousand dollars” to take a White House internship in 2010.
“Think about it,” she said. “You’re there for three months. You’re relocating to a new city. You have to pay rent. You have to pay transportation costs to and from the White House.”
Plus: She had to buy a suit.
The Obama administration, like previous administrations, allows rich parents in effect to buy résumé-enhancing jobs in the public sector for their upper-class offspring. The sale of public offices to rich families was one of the abuses of the Ancien Régime that helped to inspire the French Revolution. Like that corrupt premodern practice, unpaid internships are an inherently aristocratic institution. If you are in your late teens or early twenties, and you don’t have a personal trust fund or rich parents who can fund your living expenses as an unpaid intern in Washington, D.C., New York or San Francisco, then you are out of luck.
When I say rich kids, I mean really rich kids. We’re talking One Percenters. Even many upper-middle-class parents with professional jobs might not be able to subsidize children with unpaid internships at the White House, Washington think tanks or New York publications and media enterprises.
Because my own parents were not rich, in my twenties I could never have afforded a job as an unpaid or poorly-paid intern at any of the magazines for which I once worked in my thirties as a writer or editor — the New Republic, Harper’s Magazine or the New Yorker. Indeed, it was my unscientific impression that the interns at these publications were much richer, in their twenties, thanks to family wealth, than most of the middle-aged editors and writers. An intern at one magazine had a party for the magazine staff at her two-story Midtown Manhattan apartment.
Unpaid internships have the effect, if not the intent, of providing the children of the super-rich with major advantages over the children of the lower 99 percent in the job market after college. Imagine what a benefit a White House internship is on a résumé. Too bad that benefit is not available to poor, working-class, middle-class or even upper-middle-class Americans, unless they are lucky enough to find an outside sponsor to pay the wages that the Obama administration refuses to pay.
It’s bad enough that elite institutions like magazines and think tanks ration opportunity by discriminating in favor of the sons and daughters of the One Percent by means of unpaid internships. A president who engages in this practice sends a signal to all other employers in the United States: As long as you call a job an “internship” you are free to discriminate against the majority of Americans who were not born into the upper class.
Mikey Franklin, one of the founders of the Fair Pay Campaign, has called on the White House to end the unpaid internship program:
“If we can get President Obama to start paying his interns, other democrats on Capitol Hill and liberal institutions will have to follow suit,” Franklin said. If all goes according to plan, the Fair Campaign has a good chance of success in this regard. As the White House continues to work to raise the minimum wage, Franklin is hoping to tap into the political momentum of this cause to draw attention to the hypocrisy of fighting for a livable wage while hundreds of your employees are completely unpaid.
In the Washington Post back in August 2013, a conservative named Ed Rogers denounced the idea of paying unpaid interns even a minimum wage:
It is ironic on many fronts that some (but surely not all) Obama White House interns are agitating to get paid. Never mind the fact that these interns signed up knowing exactly what the terms were. The point is, they want more and they expect the government to give it to them. Typical. What happens to people when they get in close proximity to a government payroll? Are President Obama’s pro-entitlement policies so powerful they’re affecting even the White House’s own interns?
Rogers denounces unpaid interns as whiners:
If you don’t think the opportunity is worth some sacrifice or a little planning to be able to scrape by for a while – even if you have to sleep on a friend’s couch – then you should quit. Go be an intern at your local “Occupy” chapter, put that on your résumé, and see how that works out for you.
Even if you sleep on a friend’s couch, how is a non-rich unpaid White House intern supposed to be able to afford to eat? By begging for food from friends? By going to soup kitchens? By working only a few hours part-time on weekends (the White House says its interns are expected to work five full weekdays and maybe more)?
When I read the Ed Rogers op-ed in the Washington Post, I suspected that it was actually a parody written by a progressive. Ed Rogers sounds suspiciously like “Ed Anger,” the parody-conservative who used to denounce Michael Jackson for turning America’s children into sissies in the pages of the tabloid Weekly World News back in the Reagan era and published the classic “Let’s Pave the Stupid Rainforests & Give School Teachers Stun Guns: And Other Ways to Save America” (1996).
It appears, however, that Ed Rogers is real. He is a Republican lobbyist in Washington, D.C., the co-founder of the BGR Group with former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, and he moonlights as a liberal-bashing right-wing pundit with his contributions to the Washington Post’s “Postpartisan” commentary section. This is encouraging news to those of us who would not mind if the Post, under new owner Jeff Bezos, were to morph even further into the Weekly World News: “Liberal Space Aliens Ate Obama’s Brain.”
In any event, Rogers undermines his own case by pointing out what an important career credential a White House internship could be:
And by the way, a White House internship is a distinct honor. It is a credential that will be part of your pitch to the rest of the world for the rest of your life.
The same former White House intern, Emily Jane Fox, has calculated the cost of paying White House interns the minimum wage to be $2.5 million:
The figure assumes Obama would pay his interns $9 an hour, the number he suggested the minimum wage should be raised to during his State of the Union address in January.
The White House has said it employs more than 300 interns each year, with 150 this summer alone, and “more than 100″ in the fall and spring semesters. Each intern is expected to work 45 hours per week.
We assumed the White House would be paying 125 interns at $9 per hour for 50 weeks per year.
The figure can be taken two ways. On the one hand, it means the White House is getting $2.5 million of free work each year.
While $2.5 million may sound like a lot, as Emily Jane Fox points out it is the equivalent of the cost of White House tours. Ask any employer you know whether hiring 300 workers — not 30 workers, 300! — at a $9 minimum wage for a mere $2.5 million is exorbitant.
Sometimes there are arguments in which only one side can make a case. This is one. There is simply no argument, other than the nepotistic self-interest of the hereditary upper class in America, for allowing unpaid internships of any kind, anywhere.
And it is hypocrisy of the purest kind for President Barack Obama to call for private-sector employers to pay a higher minimum wage, while he pays 300 workers a year each a minimum wage of zero.
The White House internship program should stop being an exclusive club for the pampered brats of the upper class to which middle-class and working-class young Americans need not apply. President Obama should practice what he preaches by paying all of his employees at least a minimum wage.
Michael Lind is the author of Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States and co-founder of the New America Foundation.
MORE MICHAEL LIND.
http://www.fairpaycampaign.com/
Working to end Unpaid Internships
Internships should be...
We're not anti-internship; we're anti-unpaid internship.
We know that a great internship can be life-changing for the intern, and hugely beneficial for the employer.
Here's what we think a great internship looks like:
1) Paid
All interns should be paid at least minimum wage, according to State, Federal and Local standards. That's at least $7.25, but more in many places.
2) Educational
Interns can do more than making coffee and making copies. Internships should offer real opportunities for learning and professional development.
3) Advertised Openly
Internships shouldn’t just be for the boss’ nephew. Internships should be advertised and offered openly and transparently, just like any other job.
Wins!
Here are just a few of our successful campaigns...
NYU Career Center
Working with students at New York University, we launched a petition calling on NYU's Career Center to stop posting ads for illegal unpaid internships. We won! NYU made unprecedented changes to their internship policy, and increased the number of paid internship postings. Other colleges, including Columbia, have since followed suit.
Lean In
We launched a rapid-response campaign after a staffer at Lean In advertised for an Unpaid Intern. After less than 48 hours, we won! Lean In removed the posting, and announced that all internships at Lean In would be paid.
Intern's Bill of Rights
Unpaid Interns don't receive protections against sexual harrassment [sic] in the workplace, so we fought hard to pass an Intern's Bill of Rights in the New York City Council. The bill was passed unanimously, and similar legislation is now on the table across the US.
In the News
Join Us Online
Want to keep in touch with the campaign?
Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter, or shoot us an Email!
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/third-times-charm-minor-parties-hope-2016-wins-n556766
Third Time's the Charm?: Minor Parties Hope for 2016 Wins
by RACHEL WITKIN and HALIMAH ABDULLAH
NEWS APR 17 2016, 12:00 PM ET
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has been down this road before.
After all, as a member of the GOP he served for two terms as New Mexico's governor through much of the 1990s and early 2000s. He even made an ultimately unsuccessful bid in 2012 to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee.
But his sensibilities leaned Libertarian and he ultimately ran in that election cycle as the party's presidential nominee. His hope: win 5 percent of the vote with an eye toward boosting the party's national profile.
Image: Gary Johnson
Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate for president, addresses an audience of students and the public at Macalester College, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012 in St. Paul, Minn. Jim Mone / AP file
While he fell far short of that goal — some polls had him netting roughly 1 percent of the vote — he's sized up the competition on the Republican and Democratic sides of the field and figures he has another shot this time around.
Related: Will Republicans Find Solace in The Libertarian Party?
"I'm not gonna' have to devote any resources at all to either side," he told NBC News.
Maybe not. But running as a third party candidate in the United States isn't easy.
Candidates have to work to get on the ballot in every state and they aren't included in the debates if they don't poll high enough. The Libertarian Party is working with the Green Party to sue the Commission of Presidential Debates to change their rules.
Currently, candidates need to poll above 15 percent nationally to be included in the debates.
"WHILE DISSENSION ON THE DEMOCRATIC SIDE IS FAR LESS INTENSE, IT'S QUITE POSSIBLE THAT UP TO A QUARTER OF BERNIE SANDERS' BACKERS WON'T SUPPORT HILLARY CLINTON COME FALL."
"Outside of having that happen, no chance of getting elected," Johnson said.
Still, the latest NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking poll found that 19 percent of voters would choose a third party candidate if given a choice between Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz. And 16 percent would vote for a third party candidate if given a choice between Clinton and Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
If these were the candidates in November... NBC News/Survey Monkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll
FACEBOOK TWITTER GOOGLE PLUS APR 12 2016, 6:02 AM ET
Third party candidacies have become a part of the conversation surrounding the 2016 election cycle as a group of conservative leaders weigh a third party alternative if Trump becomes the Republican presidential nominee. Trump has vowed to run as an independent candidate if he thinks the Republican Party has treated him unfairly in allocating delegates.
If these were the candidates in November... NBC News/Survey Monkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll
FACEBOOK TWITTER GOOGLE PLUS APR 12 2016, 6:02 AM ET
According to Ballot Access News editor Richard Winger, a Libertarian who once ran for Secretary of State for California, it's very difficult for third party candidates to be successful due to the effort it takes to get on the ballot and voters' preconceptions that third party candidates just can't win.
But he thinks this election could be a unique case due to the polarizing presidential players.
"I honestly can't think of another presidential election since 1964 where there would be so many unhappy voters in either major party," he told NBC News.
Third party candidates have had a pivotal role in the election in the past.
Ross Perot won 18.91 percent of the vote in 1992 when he was an independent, and Ralph Nader, as a Green Party candidate, won 2.74 percent
of the vote in 2000 in an election so close that some attribute Bush's win to him.
"The conditions are ripe for one or more third-party or independent candidates to flourish. The GOP could be headed for a crackup in Cleveland, whoever is nominated," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
"While dissension on the Democratic side is far less intense, it's quite possible that up to a quarter of Bernie Sanders' backers won't support Hillary Clinton come fall."
The problem, Sabato said, is that third parties often struggle in getting candidates that are seen as more broadly acceptable. There are also often internal organizational issues and problems raising the large sums needed to mount successful bids. Ballot deadlines in states are another barrier.
Johnson plans on presenting himself as a fiscally conservative, pro-immigrant, socially liberal alternative to Trump. He said he plans on contrasting himself to Clinton by focusing on "crony capitalism," military intervention, and legalizing marijuana.
Related: Meet Jill Stein, the Green Party Candidate for President
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein also feels the timing is right for a third party candidate
Stein also pointed out that her 2012 campaign focused on many of the ideas that are at the center of 2016, such as free public education and universal healthcare, and that America may be more ready today to pay attention to her platform. She netted .36 percent of the vote in that year's election.
DC: Green Party Presidential Nominee Jill Stein Makes Announcement On 2016 Race
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein announces the formation of an exploratory committee to seek the Green Party's presidential nomination again in 2016. during an event at the National Press Club Feb. 6, 2015 in Washington. Olivier Douliery / Sipa USA via AP
Stein says that while she expects Clinton to be the Democratic nominee, she hopes to take advantage of Sanders's momentum.
"We hope that Bernie Sanders and his campaign will join us in continuing to fight for the true American revolution which so many of Bernie's supporters truly put their hope and faith in," Stein said. "And we think it would be a terrible mistake to throw in the towel, we've come much too far."
"This is kind of a perfect storm for independent principled politics," she said.
What is Our Revolution?
https://mg.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=esq596so0gdnb#1160018670
Bernie Sanders
To
Lucy Warner
Lucy,
Our campaign has always been about a grassroots movement of Americans standing up and saying: "Enough is enough. This country and our government belong to all of us, not just a handful of billionaires."
I just finished speaking at the Democratic National Convention, where I addressed the historic nature of our grassroots movement and what's next for our political revolution.
I hope that I made you proud. I know that Jane and I are very proud of you.
Our work will continue in the form of a new group called Our Revolution. The goal of this organization will be no different from the goal of our campaign: we must transform American politics to make our political and economic systems once again responsive to the needs of working families.
We cannot do this alone. All of us must be a part of Our Revolution.
Join Our Revolution and help continue our critical work to create a government which represents all of us, and not just the 1 percent – a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice. Add your name here.
When we started this campaign a little more than a year ago, the media and the political establishment considered us to be a "fringe" campaign. Well, we're not fringe anymore.
Thanks to your tireless work and generous contributions, we won 23 primaries and caucuses with more than 13 million votes, all of which led to the 1900 delegates we have on the floor this week at the Democratic convention.
What we have done together is absolutely unprecedented, but there is so much more to do. It starts with defeating Donald Trump in November, and then continuing to fight for every single one of our issues in order to transform America.
We are going to fight to make sure that the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party becomes law. This means working for a $15 federal minimum wage, fighting for a national fracking ban, and so many more progressive priorities.
The political revolution needs you in order to make all this happen and more.
Add your name to say that you will join Our Revolution and be part of the fight for our progressive vision for America.
Thank you for being a part of the continued political revolution.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
No comments:
Post a Comment