October 1 and 2, 2016


News and Views


http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2016/09/29/etsu-student-arrested-after-wearing-gorilla-mask-black-lives-matter-protest/91268320/

Tennessee student arrested after wearing gorilla mask to Black Lives Matter protest
Adam Tamburin, atamburin@tennessean.com 4:40 p.m. CDT September 30, 2016

Photograph -- East Tennessee State University student Tristan Rettke was arrested this week after wearing a gorilla mask and handing out bananas during a Black Lives Matter rally. USA TODAY
Related: THE TENNESSEAN, Belmont removes student after racist post goes viral
Photograph -- Tristan Rettke, (Photo: Submitted)


Another Tennessee college is confronting racism this week after a white freshman at East Tennessee State University came to a Black Lives Matter protest wearing a gorilla mask and carrying bananas wrapped in a rope.

The student, identified by campus police as Tristan Rettke, told investigators he came to the Wednesday event and approached Black Lives Matter protesters, waving the bananas at them and carrying a burlap bag with a Confederate flag on it, "in an attempt to provoke" them, according to an incident report provided by ETSU. Rettke was arrested and charged with civil rights intimidation — a felony — and was suspended while the university conducted a student conduct investigation. The university said Friday he is no longer enrolled.

ETSU said in a statement that the campus was "outraged" by Rettke's "inappropriate and offensive behavior" and said university leadership valued "diversity, inclusivity and respect for others." University leaders hosted a meeting to discuss racism on Wednesday night and shared a two-hour video of the conversation on Facebook and YouTube.

Students and higher education leaders praised the university's speedy response to the issue, but they agreed the incident was yet another high-profile example of the more subtle racism that exists every day on campuses in Tennessee and nationwide. A similar incident at Belmont University captured national attention last week, when a student was expelled after he shared a social media post calling black NFL football players "piece of s--- n----s" who needed a "bullet in their head."

Wendy J. Thompson, a vice chancellor with the Tennessee Board of Regents college system, was in the middle of a two-day conference meant to promote diversity efforts at campuses across the state — including ETSU — when news of the ETSU incident broke Wednesday. She said that many of the students and administrators at the conference were not shocked by what they heard.

"The only shocking thing about it was the public nature of it," she said. "On a college campus there are many other students who suffer more slights and indignities that are not as visible."

Thompson cited quick action at ETSU and Belmont as a positive first step that helps "set a tone" of acceptance, but she stressed the ongoing need for programs that promote diversity on all campuses.

"It's easy to react to an incident and it's easy to sort of rally all the forces together," she said. "The real work comes now."

Thompson said she hoped the incident would underscore the significance of pro-diversity initiatives that have become commonplace as the Black Lives Matter movement and police shootings have led to more potent calls for racial equality on and off campus. The stakes for students who don't feel included in a campus community — because of race, socioeconomic background, age or other factors — could be high.

Often, she said, those programs "can be the difference between students staying or leaving."

ETSU President Brian Noland said he had been working for months with top administrators to strengthen the university's programming around diversity. Rettke's arrest illustrates why "that plan is all the more important than it ever has been."

Noland said his priority after the incident was to talk with students, in small groups and at the Wednesday evening assembly. Moving forward, he said, his team would work to re-evaluate the freshman orientation process to ensure students discuss issues of diversity in detail during their first days on campus. He compared that evaluation to recent attempts to strengthen sexual assault education for new students.

In the meantime, Noland expressed hope that Rettke's arrest would mark the beginning of a more positive movement on campus. He said an on-campus demonstration Thursday offered a hopeful counterpart to Wednesday's outrage, as students, faculty and staff linked arms to celebrate unity.

“Yesterday was a wake-up call for the campus as a whole and a reminder that the university experience and the social experience for groups on our campus are not always the same and are not always equal,” Noland said. “We’ve got to take what was an offensive and unfortunate situation and try to find a way to use that to have a positive conversation."

Reach Adam Tamburin at 615-726-5986 and on Twitter @tamburintweets.



East Tennessee State University is keeping its’ skirts out of the mud, which is a good thing. This is one of six or more similar cases in the news reports the last couple of years, just as overt and aggressive racism is coming out from under the logs and rocks into the sunlight in many other parts of life – city police forces, for instance. Bigotry is getting some noticeable competition, I’m glad to see.

Most colleges are putting forth a real effort to change this trend of thought. A freshman student is full of passion and energy, but they can go in a number of different directions, some of which are not good at all. That energy needs to be applied toward learning and the kind of social activities that broaden rather than creating a negative and exclusive viewpoint. I personally would like to see Fraternities be less powerful, given that some of the racist incidents on campus have been a part of their social life.

That’s one of the most important goals of working for a college degree – educating the spirit as well as the logical faculties. That results in a more fair and humane society as the graduates carry their enlightened views out into the world, not merely the guaranteeing of a higher income to scholars upon graduation. A lawyer can go into that field purely to become as wealthy as possible, to do good in the world, or both. To work toward creating laws that put class-conscious and Rightist views into practice is not doing good, but destroying the basis of a liberal society such as we try to have. The atmosphere at UNC-Chapel Hill was exciting to me because of its’ free and liberal teachings. I never heard of anything like these racist incidents while I was there.



BLAME IT ON THE MSM!

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-responds-nyt-report-taxes-debt/

Allies call Donald Trump a "genius" if no taxes paid
By EMILY SCHULTHEIS CBS NEWS
October 2, 2016, 9:51 AM

Photograph -- Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Manheim, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 1, 2016. REUTERS/MIKE SEGAR


A defiant Donald Trump lashed out at a report that he may not have paid federal income taxes for as many as 18 years — and his allies went further, saying the GOP nominee is a “genius” if he didn’t pay his taxes.

In a Sunday morning tweet, Trump did not deny the claims, only said he “know[s] our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president”:

Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes
7:22 AM - 2 Oct 2016
11,418 11,418 Retweets 28,829 28,829 likes

The New York Times reported Saturday that the GOP nominee declared a $916 million loss on his income tax returns in 1995. This move would have corresponded to a tax deduction so large that he could avoid paying federal income taxes for “up to 18 years.”

Responding to the story Saturday night, Trump’s campaign initially dismissed the report altogether.

“The only news here is that the more than 20-year-old alleged tax document was illegally obtained, a further demonstration that the New York Times, like establishment media in general, is an extension of the Clinton Campaign, the Democratic Party and their global special interests,” his campaign said in a statement.

However, the Trump camp did not deny the content of the report, but said he has a “responsibility” to pay “no more tax than legally required.”

“Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the statement read. “That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes, along with very substantial charitable contributions.”

Trump bragged about his tax strategy during the first presidential debate last Monday, days before the Times report came out. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said maybe he hadn’t released his tax returns because “he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know he’s paid nothing in federal taxes.”

“That makes me smart,” Trump responded.

Trump’s allies are coming to his defense, too. In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the Times story shows the “genius” of the GOP nominee.

“There’s no one who’s shown more genius in their way to maneuver around the tax code,” he said, adding that it was a “very good story for Trump.”

He said the report is a net positive for Trump because it showed “what an absolute mess the federal tax code is, and that’s why Donald Trump is the person best positioned to fix it.”

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also called Trump a “genius” for not paying income taxes.

“The reality is, this is part of our tax code. The man’s a genius,” he told CNN. “He knows how to operate the tax code to the benefit of the people he’s serving.”

Clinton’s campaign quickly jumped on the news, with campaign manager Robby Mook saying Saturday night that it “reveals the colossal nature of Donald Trump’s past business failures and just how long he may have avoided paying any federal income taxes whatsoever.”

The campaign also released a corresponding “tool” on its website where users can calculate how much they would pay in taxes if they were Donald Trump (the answer is always $0). “Factcheckers: Please send inquiries to senior Trump strategist Corey Lewandowski at corey@cnn.com,” the website says, referring to former Trump campaign chief Corey Lewandowski.



This article, other than being entertaining, is pretty much a waste of time. I do love the DNC’s “tool” for calculating The Donald’s taxes, though.



BERNIE AND HILLARY – FOUR ARTICLES


https://theintercept.com/2016/09/30/hillary-clinton-center-right/

UNOFFICIAL
_SOURCES
ft✉⎕
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Hacked Audio Reveals Hillary Clinton Sees Herself Occupying “Center-Left to Center-Right”
Lee Fang, Alex Emmons
Sep. 30 2016, 5:31 p.m


IN THE HACKED recording of a private conversation with campaign donors in February, Hillary Clinton distanced herself from progressive goals like “free college, free healthcare” and described her place on the political spectrum as spanning from the center-left to the center-right.

Clinton has been inconsistent in the past about espousing political labels. She has at times touted herself as stalwart liberal. For instance, she said last July: “I take a backseat to no one when you look at my record in standing up and fighting for progressive values.” But a few months later, she told a group in Ohio: “You know, I get accused of being kind of moderate and center. I plead guilty.”

The newly disclosed comments came in audio, apparently from hacked emails, that was revealed this week by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative blog run by a Republican communications strategist. Clinton was speaking at a Virginia fundraiser hosted by Beatrice Welters, the former U.S. ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, and her husband Anthony Welters, the executive chairman of an investment consulting firm founded by former Clinton aide Cheryl Mills.

Clinton’s opponent at the time, Sen. Bernie Sanders, was pointing to successful programs in Norway and Sweden, which provide universal daycare, family leave, and government sponsored healthcare and college education, as policies that he would seek to adopt.

CLINTON: It is important to recognize what’s going on in this election. Everybody who’s ever been in an election that I’m aware of is quite bewildered because there is a strain of, on the one hand, the kind of populist, nationalist, xenophobic, discriminatory kind of approach that we hear too much of from the Republican candidates. And on the other side, there’s just a deep desire to believe that we can have free college, free healthcare, that what we’ve done hasn’t gone far enough, and that we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know, Scandinavia, whatever that means, and half the people don’t know what that means, but it’s something that they deeply feel. So as a friend of mine said the other day, I am occupying from the center-left to the center-right. And I don’t have much company there. Because it is difficult when you’re running to be president, and you understand how hard the job is — I don’t want to overpromise. I don’t want to tell people things that I know we cannot do.

Listen here: Go to website for the audio.

Clinton went on to explain why she felt so many Democratic voters were gravitating to Sanders.

CLINTON: Some are new to politics completely. They’re children of the Great Recession. And they are living in their parents’ basement. They feel they got their education and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves. And they don’t see much of a future. I met with a group of young black millennials today and you know one of the young women said, “You know, none of us feel that we have the job that we should have gotten out of college. And we don’t believe the job market is going to give us much of a chance.” So that is a mindset that is really affecting their politics. And so if you’re feeling like you’re consigned to, you know, being a barista, or you know, some other job that doesn’t pay a lot, and doesn’t have some other ladder of opportunity attached to it, then the idea that maybe, just maybe, you could be part of a political revolution is pretty appealing. So I think we should all be really understanding of that and should try to do the best we can not to be, you know, a wet blanket on idealism. We want people to be idealistic. We want them to set big goals. But to take what we can achieve now and try to present them as bigger goals.

Listen here: Audio recording.

Clinton has been accused numerous times in the past of patronizing young Sanders supporters. On Meet The Press in April, Clinton said she said “I feel sorry sometimes for the young people” who believe Sanders’s claims about her taking money from the fossil fuel industry.

During her remarks, she reiterated her belief that politics is the art of the possible, dismissing the more aspirational approach of Sanders and his supporters. “I want to be very clear about the progress I think we can make,” she said.

Top photo: Hillary Clinton in Florida.



EXCERPTS – “‘a deep desire to believe that we can have free college, free healthcare, that what we’ve done hasn’t gone far enough, and that we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know, Scandinavia, whatever that means, and half the people don’t know what that means …. During her remarks, she reiterated her belief that politics is the art of the possible, dismissing the more aspirational approach of Sanders and his supporters. ‘I want to be very clear about the progress I think we can make,’ she said.”

As for Clinton’s smug remarks on Sanders and his supporters, she knows darned well what “as far as Scandinavia” means, as do most modern day politically oriented people. Scandinavia is known to be farther into the Democratic Socialism range than we are in this country, but we haven’t been a nation of pure capitalism in years, since FDR instituted the graduated income tax and the social security system. Then later we set up Medicare. All most of us Sanders followers really want is a more steeply graduated income tax and SS funding system, a revamping of the IRS rules, with the goal of moderating the disgustingly large Grand Canyon sized gap between the rich and the poor; a one payor medical care system, and free tuition for the Middle Class and lower. More would be nice, too, but those things would solve some of our present problems. I also want to see the grip of Yuuge Business loosened on our cost of living factors like insurance, transportation, drug and other medical costs, putting food on the table, and securing a safe, warm and reasonably comfortable place to live. There should be no more children lying on the floor every night because the family can only afford a one room apartment. Finally, our environmental issues such as global warming continue to be a reality today, and are increasing at a startling pace. We should be saying, “Bye bye, Koch Brothers,” and “Hello well-regulated businesses.”

Oh, yes, we must have good jobs with benefits for those without a professional degree, a $15.00/hour minimum wage and strong unions. If people do have to work as a barista, as she said above, they should get $15.00 an hour at least for it. Since some of them have college degrees, they do deserve higher pay. The real point is that “a good job” should provide basic needs, and nobody at all should have to sleep out under the stars unless they just like to do that, and then it should be behind their own house and not in a back alley curled up in a cardboard box.

I will make only one more comment after reading this article on Hillary’s political views and intentions BEFORE she and the DNC were put under some serious Political Pressure by those of us, who by the way, don’t think much of the blatant cowardice of Democrats these last 15 years or so – I have learned in this lifetime of mine that the true “art of the possible” politically is the art of a constantly changing scene of vigorous push and shove which is the Legislature; and when we as Progressives DON’T FIGHT, we can assume that we will lose. That’s the way wars work. Or, as the old folks used to say, “Can’t never done nothing!” Of course, if you’re of a certain turn of mind, you just keep taking that Billionaire money and asking “What next, Boss?”

If a significant portion of Progressive Democrats “vote with their feet” and leave the party after November 8, 2016, we will see what the DNC does next. I’m not proposing to do that before we defeat Donald Trump together, of course. That would be unthinkable. When we do exit the Big D, Bernie’s “Our Revolution” is an immediately available welcoming party, so go to Google and look us up at https://ourrevolution.com/.



http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-228861

Sanders takes Clinton’s case to young voters
The Democrat leans on her socialist rival as she tries to tell a positive, Trump-free tale of her candidacy.
By Annie Karni
09/28/16 05:52 PM EDT

Photograph -- Hillary Clinton turned to the Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to help deliver the lesser-known, positive case for her candidacy Wednesday. | Getty
Related: Sanders planning a ‘very, very vigorous’ Clinton stump schedule, By MADELINE CONWAY


DURHAM, N.H. – It was the threat of a common enemy -- not any particularly deep love for one another -- that united Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders last July at their first joint rally in Portsmouth after a long and bitter primary race.

But during their second joint event of the general election, staged at the University of New Hampshire here on a brusque [sic] fall day that brought back visceral memories of last year’s hard-fought race, Clinton turned to the Vermont Senator instead to help deliver the lesser known, positive case for her candidacy.

This time, the former rivals -- more comfortable with each other than during their first go-round -- barely mentioned Donald Trump. In front of a crowd of about 1,200 that lined up hours in advance, Clinton and Sanders sat as partners in a dry panel discussion to discuss debt-free college, part of Clinton’s new aim to combat her high negative numbers by giving "Americans something to vote for, not just against.”

“We have to focus on what we want to do,” Clinton said, revisiting the kind of policy rollout discussions that drove her primary fight before she entered the Trump-bashing phase of her campaign. “We're going to put a moratorium so you don't have to pay your student debt back for a couple of years while you try and get your business started. We're also going to provide loan forgiveness for people who want to go into public service or national service.”

But it was Sanders, who inspired millions of millennial and independent voters during the primary to get involved in politics and join a movement, who was there to help drive the positive message home for Clinton. “Is anyone here ready to transform America?” he asked the crowd, hinting there was nothing un-revolutionary about Clinton’s more incremental plans for change. “You've come to the right place.”

Sanders is the only one of Clinton’s most high-profile surrogates -- like Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and the Obamas -- with whom Clinton has now campaigned at multiple events since clinching the nomination.

And while Warren has made a name for herself as a funny and bracing Trump attack dog, progressives said Sanders' highest and best use is to help Clinton pitch her positive case, especially in a crucial battleground state like New Hampshire.

“Bernie Sanders can make the positive, progressive argument for Clinton better and more authentically than just about anyone else on the trail,” said Neil Sroka, communications director for Democracy for America. “The biggest risk for Democrats are the progressives and Democratic-leaning voters who, because Donald Trump says something insanely bigoted every 12 minutes, haven't heard enough about the bold, progressive platform and agenda Democrats are running on this year.”

160928_clinton_sanders_1_gty_1160.jpg
After a contested primary bout against her, Sen. Bernie Sanders has embraced Hillary Clinton's candidacy. | Getty

Indeed, Sanders’ former top operatives have been pushing the Clinton campaign to move away from simply disqualifying the Republican nominee. “She has to get away from this ‘Trump’s bad’ and talk more about what she wants to do,” Sanders’ former campaign manager Jeff Weaver told POLITICO in an interview ahead of Monday night’s debate. “I think right now it’s a coin toss. To the extent they continue on this Trump’s terrible, she’s terrible’ conversation, that’s his race. If she runs that kind of race, she’s going to lose it.”

Clinton's campaign was so set Wednesday on keeping the message on an issue -- rather than on Trump -- that the Democratic nominee did not gaggle or take questions from reporters all day.

Sanders performs best with millennial voters, rural constituencies, and independent voters, whom he won in the primary by a 3 to 1 margin. And insiders close to Sanders said he can help move those voters to Clinton’s column -- their research shows that millennial voters currently supporting third party candidates like former New Mexico Gary Johnson and Green party candidate Jill Stein are less attached to those candidates than the “second-choice Trump voters” backing Johnson.

The Sanders camp and the Clinton camp bonded during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last July, where they shared access to the boiler room at the Wells Fargo Center that served as the nerve center of the four-day show. And Weaver and Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook remain in regular communication about how Sanders can help elect Clinton. Sanders, a close associate said, is expected to hit the road hard for the Democratic nominee beginning Oct. 3, stumping for the former secretary of state for five or six consecutive days at a time.

The self-described Democratic Socialist is best known in New Hampshire, his neighboring state where he deeply shook Clinton’s confidence with his 22-point primary win here last February. She has yet to return to the battleground state during the general election without Sanders standing by her side.

20160725_Bernie_Sanders_3_Getty.jpg
Sanders warns that debate is 'not a night of entertainment'
By YOUSEF SABA

On Wednesday, any chill between the two former rivals seemed to have thawed. Sanders opened his arms to embrace Clinton in a big hug (two months ago, he extended his hand for a stiff shake instead). They spent time together privately before their joint panel discussion on debt-free college, and then seemed to finish each other’s stories about the crippling financial burdens of student debt. Clinton nodded vigorously when Sanders recounted a story of meeting a supporter who was not only helping to pay off a child’s student debt, but still making payments on her own.

And while Sanders lost the primary, the joint event was about touting one of the areas where he emerged as the party's victor. In an effort to unite the party, Clinton ultimately embraced the majority of Sanders’ free college plan that she had mocked in the heat of battle, announcing that she would eliminate tuition at in-state public colleges and universities for anyone making less than $125,000.

“I want young people to leave school excited about the future, not being saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt,” Sanders told the crowd in Durham. “When you have Republicans telling us it's OK to pay tens of billions in tax breaks to the richest people in this country, do not tell me that we cannot afford to make public college available.”



http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sanders-clinton-comments-leaked-audio-absolutely-correct/story?id=42496761

Sanders Says Clinton Comments in Leaked Audio 'Absolutely Correct'
By MARYALICE PARKS
Oct 2, 2016, 10:52 AM ET

PHOTO: Senator Bernie Sanders exits the stage after addressing the New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont delegation breakfast at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on July 27, 2016 in Essington, Pennsylvania.Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
WATCH -- Bernie Sanders Says Clinton Comments in Leaked Audio 'Absolutely Correct'
Related -- Bernie Sanders Hints at Putting Ongoing 'Pressure' on Hillary Clinton Over Banking Issues
ANALYSIS: Why Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders Are Key to Hillary Clinton's Chances


Bernie Sanders told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that Hillary Clinton was “absolutely correct” when she said many of his supporters were living in their parents’ basements and struggling to find jobs.

“During the campaign we had our differences, but what she was saying there was absolutely correct,” Sanders said during an interview Sunday morning in response to the newly leaked audio of Clinton talking about Sanders’ supporters during a private fundraiser in February.

“You have millions of young people, many of whom took out loans in order to go to college, hoping to go out and get decent-paying jobs and they are unable to do that,” said Sanders, who endorsed Clinton two months ago. “And yes, they do want a political revolution. They want to transform this society.”

The interview on ABC’s “This Week” was Sanders’ first response to the audio that was trending on social media over the weekend, although some of his staff had taken to Twitter to defend Clinton.

Clinton’s remarks came during a fundraiser at the home of former U.S. Ambassador Beatrice Welters, and the audio was first released by the conservative publication The Washington Free Beacon on Friday night.

“They’re children of the great recession. And they are living in their parents’ basement, they feel that they got their education and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves, and they don’t see much of a future,” Clinton said in the audio.

“If you’re feeling that you’re consigned to being a barista or some other job that doesn’t pay a lot and doesn’t have much of a ladder of opportunity attached to it, then the idea that maybe, just maybe, you could be part of a political revolution is pretty appealing,” she continued. “So I think we all should be really understanding of that, and we should try to do the best we can not to be a wet blanket on idealism.”

Donald Trump’s campaign jumped on the story of the audio, with the Republican nominee using it to make a direct appeal to Sanders’ supporters.

“Crooked H is nasty to Sanders supporters behind closed doors. Owned by Wall St and Politicians, HRC is not with you,” Trump tweeted Saturday.

Sanders said he took Clinton’s words “exactly the opposite way.”

Clinton’s campaign yesterday emphasized to reporters that the former secretary of state has worked with Sanders since the primary ended. Sanders has been campaigning on behalf of the Democratic nominee in battleground states.

“As Hillary Clinton said in those remarks, she wants young people to be idealistic and set big goals,” Clinton campaign spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement yesterday. “She is fighting for exactly what the millennial generation cares most about -- a fairer more equal, just world. She's working to create new pathways to jobs and career opportunities, to build more inclusivity and community, and to ensure everyone gets a fair shot.”

Many Sanders supporters, particularly college-age and other young voters, say they do not plan to vote for Clinton but are backing third-party candidates, according to recent polling.

Sanders said he was not going to tell people how to vote, but that Clinton’s policy proposals on climate change, equal pay and other issues were by far the closest to his own of any other candidates.

“Take a look at issue by issue,” Sanders said. “Clinton has a serious plan in order to transform our energy system … Take a look at [Libertarian Party candidate] Gary Johnson’s record on the environment, on the economy. It is a very conservative approach, something I think most of my supporters do not support.”

Asked if he agreed with a recent statement by President Obama that a vote for any third-party candidate would be a vote for Trump, Sanders said, “The evidence is overwhelming that the next president of the United States is going to be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and if you are voting for someone else and not supporting Hillary Clinton because, in a sense, she doesn’t live up to all of your specifications or ideas, I think it is in a sense a vote for Trump.”



EXCERPT -- “During the campaign we had our differences, but what she was saying there was absolutely correct,” Sanders said during an interview Sunday morning in response to the newly leaked audio of Clinton talking about Sanders’ supporters during a private fundraiser in February. “You have millions of young people, many of whom took out loans in order to go to college, hoping to go out and get decent-paying jobs and they are unable to do that,” said Sanders, who endorsed Clinton two months ago. “And yes, they do want a political revolution. They want to transform this society.”


I think when Sanders and his compatriots named their new endeavor OurRevolution, that says that, yes, we do want a revolution; not one of violence, but of laws and economic changes and the demotion of the yuuge money interests in this country to a much more acceptable part of our society. Clinton can sneer all she wants, but she did give in on the DNC platform in several ways, and is deeply in his debt now. Everybody knows she can’t win without his aid.



http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/bernie-sanders-campaign-for-clinton-228701

Sanders planning a ‘very, very vigorous’ Clinton stump schedule
By Madeline Conway
09/26/16 08:34 PM EDT
Updated 09/26/16 08:38 PM EDT

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is planning a “very, very vigorous” travel schedule to campaign on behalf of Hillary Clinton in the weeks leading up to the November election, he said Monday.

Sanders, in an interview before Monday night’s first general election debate, told MSNBC’s Brian Williams and Rachel Maddow that he plans to “go all over this country” to advocate for Clinton, the Democratic nominee and his former opponent in the party’s often-contentious primary elections.

“We’re working on a schedule right now, which is going to be a very, very vigorous schedule,” Sanders said. “We’re going to go all over this country. We’re going to go wherever Secretary Clinton’s people think that I am needed, and I am going to work as hard as I can to make sure that Donald Trump does not become the next president.”

The two are already scheduled to appear together on Wednesday at the University of New Hampshire Field House to discuss college affordability.

Clinton has struggled to capture the enthusiasm of some of Sanders’ former supporters, especially the young voters who flocked to his campaign’s promise of “political revolution” and focus on campaign finance reform.

When Williams asked Sanders how “hard” he was willing to work to campaign for Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Sanders reiterated his common refrain that “the election of Donald Trump as president would be a disaster for this country.”

“I am going to do everything that I can to see that that does not happen,” Sanders said. “When I campaign, I campaign very, very hard.”



“In an effort to unite the party, Clinton ultimately embraced the majority of Sanders’ free college plan that she had mocked in the heat of battle, announcing that she would eliminate tuition at in-state public colleges and universities for anyone making less than $125,000. “I want young people to leave school excited about the future, not being saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt,” Sanders told the crowd in Durham. “When you have Republicans telling us it's OK to pay tens of billions in tax breaks to the richest people in this country, do not tell me that we cannot afford to make public college available.”

You can’t say Bernie isn’t a team player. He is carrying his own political wisdom to the public as being hers. He did promise not to purposely cause Trump to win, and he won’t. He’s a good man. Considering the content of her “hacked” speech from February, he’s a gallant man! I wonder if Donald Trump would do that for anyone at all, much less Hillary if she beats him next month.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-warns-us-tectonic-consequences-syria/

Russia warns U.S. of “tectonic consequences” in Syria
CBS/AP
October 2, 2016, 8:49 AM

21 Photographs -- A Syrian woman and youths, one of them carrying a wounded baby, flee the site of a reported barrel-bomb attack by Syrian government forces in the northern city of Aleppo on June 26, 2014. ZEIN AL-RIFAI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Related: Fighting rages in Aleppo
Play VIDEO -- Warplanes continue brutal assault on Aleppo
Play VIDEO -- Ambassador Nicholas Burns on the Syrian war


BEIRUT - Russia warned the United States Saturday against carrying out any attacks on Syrian government forces, saying it would have repercussions across the Middle East as government forces captured a hill on the edge of the northern city of Aleppo under the cover of airstrikes.

Meanwhile, airstrikes on Aleppo struck a hospital in the eastern rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour on Saturday, putting it out of service, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees. They said at least one person was killed in the airstrike.

Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying that a U.S. intervention against Assad regime forces in the five-year-old Syrian civil war “will lead to terrible, tectonic consequences not only on the territory of this country but also in the region on the whole.”

She said regime change in Syria would create a vacuum that would be “quickly filled” by “terrorists of all stripes.”

U.S.-Russian tensions over Syria have escalated since the breakdown of a cease-fire last month, with each side blaming the other for its failure. Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes have launched a major onslaught on rebel-held parts of Aleppo. Opposition groups claim Russian airstrikes have killed more than 9,000 people inside Syria.

Syrian troops pushed ahead in their offensive in Aleppo on Saturday capturing the strategic Um al-Shuqeef hill near the Palestinian refugee camp of Handarat that government forces captured from rebels earlier this week, according to state TV. The hill is on the northern edge of the Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and former commercial center.

The powerful ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham militant group said rebels regained control Saturday of several positions they lost in Aleppo in the Bustan al-Basha neighborhood.

State media said 13 people were wounded when rebels shelled the central government-held neighborhood of Midan.

In the rebel-held portion of Aleppo, opposition activist Ahmad Alkhatib described the hospital, known as M10, as one of the largest in Aleppo. He posted photographs on his Twitter account showing the damage including beds covered with dust, a hole in its roof and debris covering the street outside.

A doctor at the hospital told the Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, that thousands of people were treated in the compound in the past adding that two people were killed in Saturday’s airstrikes and several were wounded.

“A real catastrophe will hit medical institutions in Aleppo if the direct shelling continues to target hospitals and clinics,” said the doctor whose name was not given. He said the whole hospital is out of service.

The U.N’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Stephen O’Brien, said the city’s healthcare system is in critical need of relief, Reuters reports.

“The health system is on the verge of total collapse with patients being turned away and no medicines available to treat even the most common ailments,” O’Brien said. “With clean water and food in very short supply, the number of people requiring urgent medical evacuations is likely to rise dramatically in the coming days.”

Opposition activists have blamed the President Bashar Assad’s forces and Russia for airstrikes that hit Civil Defense units and clinics in the city where eastern rebel-held neighborhoods are besieged by government forces and pro-government militiamen.

On Friday, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders demanded that the Syrian government and its allies “halt the indiscriminate bombing that has killed and wounded hundreds of civilians, many of them children,” over the past week in Aleppo.

“Bombs are raining from Syria-led coalition planes and the whole of east Aleppo has become a giant kill box,” said Xisco Villalonga, director of operations for the group. “The Syrian government must stop the indiscriminate bombing, and Russia as an indispensable political and military ally of Syria has the responsibility to exert the pressure to stop this.”

Officials have called the situation in Aleppo a “slaughterhouse” of children.

It said from Sept. 21 to 26, hospitals still functioning in Aleppo reported receiving more than 822 wounded, including at least 221 children, and more than 278 dead bodies -- including 96 children -- according to the Directorate of Health in east Aleppo.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom criticized attacks on civilian targets writing on her Twitter account: “Unacceptable to bomb civilians, children and hospitals in #Aleppo. No humanity. Assad & Russia moving further away from peace.”

In the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition destroyed several bridges on the Euphrates river, according to Syrian state news agency SANA and Deir el-Zour 24, an activist media collective. The province is a stronghold of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS.)

SANA said that among the bridges destroyed was the Tarif Bridge that links Deir el-Zour with the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the extremists’ de-facto capital.



“She said regime change in Syria would create a vacuum that would be ‘quickly filled’ by ‘terrorists of all stripes.’” The question is whether or not to intervene when a group who lean toward us rather than toward Russia are trying to establish control, seems to be one of simple tactical planning, but the human factors are never included in the conclusions. Some kind of philosophy is always stated – “save the world for freedom” -- for instance, but what to do about thousands of refugees becomes the problem, or as in this case, the bombing of hospitals.

Our information says that the Russians and Syrians are doing the bombing, and I pray that is the truth, but what is really going on is that it’s way, way safer to participate in a war of gain which is located several thousand miles to the East of the US, than if the war were here. Who has to live in the war zone is the real issue, because they will suffer the worst consequences.

The UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA, when we intervene, are at least partially doing it for less than honorable reasons, namely monetary and strategic gain. No matter how many times the Middle East is in the center it’s, largely to primarily, a conflict over oil, and not a bid to save those people from tyranny. I think that's what Madame Zakharova was talking about. If we succeed in toppling Assad, we will destabilize the whole region, after which many thousands of terrorists will rush in to grab their piece of the pie just like they did in Afghanistan and then again in Iraq.

Some of us in America feel, also, that making the decision to get in the middle of it, even as a referee, is not a clear and honest action meant merely to “establish peace” there. I don’t think her statement was a threat of armed attack directly against us from Russia, though it is clear that Russia wants to be the puppeteer in question rather than us. I think it’s, at least possibly, a wish to put in “a word to the wise.” I want to see the Kurds being given all the weapons they can use, and let them and other Middle Eastern actors such as Iran fight ISIS together, if they can manage to continue speaking to each other for that long. Our position makes us out continually to be the "bad guys," which is understandable. Like those puzzle drawings for children, if we ask the question, “Which does not belong here?” In my view, both the US and “the Russkies” just “don’t belong.”