Conway.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellyanne_Conway

Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick was born on January 20, 1967, in Camden, New Jersey, to Diane Fitzpatrick.[7][8] Conway's father, who had Irish ancestry, owned a small trucking company, and her mother, who was of Italian descent, worked at a bank. They divorced when she was three.[9] She was raised by her mother, grandmother and two unmarried aunts in the Atco section of Waterford Township, New Jersey and graduated from St. Joseph High School in 1985. Her family's religion was Catholic.[7][10][11]

Conway credits her experience working for eight summers on a blueberry farm in Hammonton, New Jersey for teaching her a strong work ethic. "The faster you went, the more money you'd make."

[...] Among the political figures Conway worked for were Congressman Jack Kemp; Senator Fred Thompson;[14][better source needed] former Vice President Dan Quayle;[19] Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; and Congressman (now Vice President) Mike Pence.[15] She worked as the senior advisor to Gingrich during his unsuccessful 2012 United States presidential election campaign.;[20] another client in 2012 was U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin.[21]

[...] In the 2016 Republican presidential campaign, Conway endorsed Ted Cruz and chaired a pro-Cruz political action committee known as Keep the Promise I, which was almost entirely funded by businessman Robert Mercer.[23][24] Conway's organization criticized Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as "extreme" and "not a conservative."[25] On January 25, 2016, Conway criticized Trump as "a man who seems to be offending his way to the nomination."[26] On January 26, Conway criticized Trump's use of eminent domain, saying "Donald Trump has literally bulldozed over the little guy to get his way."[27]

[...] On August 19, Trump named Conway the campaign's third campaign manager.[15][30] She served in this capacity for 10 weeks, through the November 8 general election, and was the first woman to run a Republican general election presidential campaign.[30]

Likely it was working with Akin that Conway learned and/or formulated "alternate facts." (Actually, anywhere in the sequence of politicians, alternative facts were frequent and resplendent; Akin just topping the rest.)

And that line, "The faster you went, the more money you'd make." Wasn't that originally a line from the film, Pretty Woman?

Anyway, TUNE TIME.

Stridency. You want stridency, I can give you a YouTube stridency link. With a wrinkle.

This YouTube link. For a little reported "coincidence" this web search suggested - stridently - by the commentator in that item.

Alternate facts? Or just an alternate view of shared facts? Without the commentator's stridency in the way, aside from that, is there a true story in among the shouts?

UPDATE: Several Wesley Clark videos exist on YouTube; this one is as good as the rest.

FURTHER: Still hunkered in the bunker in Pennsylvania, not extradited, this link; which tells a story different from this one.

Several Gulen links and a websearch. Here, here, here, here, here, and this websearch.

Broader links: Here, here, here, and here, for a sampling. Do your own web search. From midway through the last linked item:

For Americans to really understand what’s going on, it’s important to review some details about this sordid but little-remembered history. During the 1950s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers — CIA Director Allen Dulles and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles — rebuffed Soviet treaty proposals to leave the Middle East a neutral zone in the Cold War and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead, they mounted a clandestine war against Arab nationalism — which Allen Dulles equated with communism — particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies that they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism. At a White House meeting between the CIA’s director of plans, Frank Wisner, and John Foster Dulles, in September 1957, Eisenhower advised the agency, “We should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect,” according to a memo recorded by his staff secretary, Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster.

The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 — barely a year after the agency’s creation. Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers and crafted a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model. But in March 1949, Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Quwatli, hesitated to approve the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. In his book, Legacy of Ashes, CIA historian Tim Weiner recounts that in retaliation for Al-Quwatli’s lack of enthusiasm for the U.S. pipeline, the CIA engineered a coup replacing al-Quwatli with the CIA’s handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za’im. Al-Za’im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, four and a half months into his regime.

Following several counter-coups in the newly destabilized country, the Syrian people again tried democracy in 1955, re-electing al-Quwatli and his National Party. Al-Quwatli was still a Cold War neutralist, but, stung by American involvement in his ouster, he now leaned toward the Soviet camp. That posture caused CIA Director Dulles to declare that “Syria is ripe for a coup” and send his two coup wizards, Kim Roosevelt and Rocky Stone, to Damascus.

Two years earlier, Roosevelt and Stone had orchestrated a coup in Iran against the democratically elected President Mohammed Mosaddegh, after Mosaddegh tried to renegotiate the terms of Iran’s lopsided contracts with the British oil giant Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP). Mosaddegh was the first elected leader in Iran’s 4,000-year history and a popular champion for democracy across the developing world. Mosaddegh expelled all British diplomats after uncovering a coup attempt by U.K. intelligence officers working in cahoots with BP. Mosaddegh, however, made the fatal mistake of resisting his advisers’ pleas to also expel the CIA, which, they correctly suspected, was complicit in the British plot. Mosaddegh idealized the U.S. as a role model for Iran’s new democracy and incapable of such perfidies. Despite Dulles’ needling, President Harry Truman had forbidden the CIA from actively joining the British caper to topple Mosaddegh. When Eisenhower took office in January 1953, he immediately unleashed Dulles. After ousting Mosaddegh in “Operation Ajax,” Stone and Roosevelt installed Shah Reza Pahlavi, who favored U.S. oil companies but whose two decades of CIA sponsored savagery toward his own people from the Peacock throne would finally ignite the 1979 Islamic revolution that has bedeviled our foreign policy for 35 years.

Flush from his Operation Ajax “success” in Iran, Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1957 with $3 million to arm and incite Islamic militants and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians to overthrow al-Quwatli’s democratically elected secularist regime, according to Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, by John Prados. Working with the Muslim Brotherhood and millions of dollars, Rocky Stone schemed to assassinate Syria’s chief of intelligence, the chief of its General Staff and the chief of the Communist Party, and to engineer “national conspiracies and various strong arm” provocations in Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan that could be blamed on the Syrian Ba’athists.

And in ending:

America’s founding fathers warned Americans against standing armies, foreign entanglements and, in John Quincy Adams’ words, “going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Those wise men understood that imperialism abroad is incompatible with democracy and civil rights at home. The Atlantic Charter echoed their seminal American ideal that each nation should have the right to self-determination. Over the past seven decades, the Dulles brothers, the Cheney gang, the neocons and their ilk have hijacked that fundamental principle of American idealism and deployed our military and intelligence apparatus to serve the mercantile interests of large corporations and particularly, the petroleum companies and military contractors that have literally made a killing from these conflicts.

It’s time for Americans to turn America away from this new imperialism and back to the path of idealism and democracy. We should let the Arabs govern Arabia and turn our energies to the great endeavor of nation building at home.

What do Trump and his advisory people have in mind for the seven nations singled out in his travel ban, while the Saudis, Pakistanis, Indonesians, and others are not among the Inglorious Seven? Why those seven, geopolitically, or otherwise? Are those target nations in any way an existential threat to us in the US, oceans away? Is another Oil War in the making? Or is the one Dulles-Eisenhower fretted over, no longer a Marxist worry, somebody's worry besides ours? Indeed, are we within an ongoing Oil War, and with the Russians having much oil in reserves, how does that factor into things? What is actual national policy and how might it differ from publicly declared policy? And is State Department policy consonant with or in disharmony with CIA aims? Who are we? What do we stand for? What should we stand for? Last, does Great Again mean having boots on ground in multiple distant places, without a WW III resulting, or more, or less?

Punditry, three wise men. (blind mice?)

Each a video, each longer than ten minutes [longer than a tweet].

Here, here and here.

First is interesting, do watch. Chomsky is in the middle. Last one, the longest one, is top notch entertainment. Less of a pundit probe than a narrated good [money] fellas expose of power behind the throne. More Rasputin than Putin, (with the Russian not even mentioned). Good content once you get past the opening nuisance lead-in soundtrack.

Harold Hamilton likely is sleeping happy in his plush dog house, home of his widget factory where he ostensibly keeps his own dog headquartered, happy there given his overlap (word search "Bopp") with one of the names mentioned. Woof for a bit part in a bigger movie?

People are Strange. Morrison told you that. Trump, the Mercers, cabinet picks, all the pieces are put together in that last item; which would have been one hell of an insightful thing if published as an October surprise.

However, January 13, 2017, is the given date of origin by YouTube for that third item, so the benefit of hindsight is included. But aside from that, it is a very well constructed tale, which is much of what Internet content is all about. Also as with Morrison, strange personal passings, Seth Rich and Shawn Lucas, happened this election cycle; so readers join me in rejoicing that we still suck air.

Parting shot: Much of the theme of that third video is Mercer being a super hot-shot computing guru. Super hedge fund success. Hires a legion of PhD mathematicians and physicists to quant out the best market gambles. Do you suppose, as a possibility, some of that talent could hack and phish as well as a Cozy Bear?

We will never know.

Interesting too, Comey's FBI never got its forensics-analytics staff to touch and examine the DNC server - to have their direct actual chance to learn the Bear facts. Presumably Seth Rich had data access and a login and download trail on that server. Comey was claimed in "news" as blamed by Clinton-Podesta for a close electoral college loss, so such bias must be the complete reason the DNC wanted him and FBI staff to not have access to alleged Bear tracks, presumably also on that server.

Trump and the Supreme Court opening. A speculation.

Trump, being who he is, always wants to keep people on their toes, never knowing what's next, what curveball gets thrown on a full count, bases loaded. He prides himself on being ever aware of expectations and opportunity.

That said, the move to disarm all who preconceive is clear. And you read it here first.

He will nominate Garland.

An overdue nod to a well written online item, where recognizing it by linking was put off until it became inexcusable procrastination.

this link

Dutiful link followers will note that my procrastination has saddled the item with the bane of internet linking: the dead link.

When you hit that one, try this still online item. It conveys the flavor of Podesta at his Rovian spinning best - i.e., not good enough to sell the brand.

While Timmer might never be inclined to link to Brietbart, in this instance, truth prevails despite the messenger.

............................................

My only beef with that Brietbart item, its headline's gross insult to progressives. Progressives never had jack to do with the Podestas and the Clintons, and it offends honesty to say otherwise. Progressive distaste for corporatism, Goldman Sachs purchase money, and Foundation millions to a careerist pair of politicians and careerist lobbying of the Podestas was real. Bubba and his band are past due, like a lost library book you started reading but could never be fully captivated by it to suspend disbelief. Aside from Brietbart's disrespect for all things progressive, lassoing them to the Clinton thing, putting that affront aside -- the idea of a laundry list of things blamed besides personal weakness and unending chutzpah, well beyond mere hubris, fits each Clinton, like a glove.

Jeff Bezos bought WaPo, he's corporate big, the Amazon man, and does his owned media hence dutifully editorialize in favor of corporate big?

That is experimenting with a headline. This is not about Bezos, nor about WaPo. It is about Wired and about Justice Democrats.

But slanting a headline grossly and admitting it up front and clearly; that's not playing by the rules. The rules rampant at NYT and WaPo, even HuffPo say be sly. Here, a one man blog w/o editorial nor ownership input beyond yours truly, that allows thumbing one's nose at headline slanting dogma, the "gotta be tricky rules rule" dogma of CNN and FOX and MSNBC, each with their ad-sales and ratings review decision making - the lack of anyone's foot on the throat shaping opinion and intuition is the entirety of the fun of it here.

Having said that -

Now, Wired - dateline Jan. 23, 2017, via its writer Emma Grey Ellis states in part (with links omitted):

So, kind of like a left-wing Tea Party.

They’ve even given themselves a name: the Justice Democrats. And like some mirror-universe version of the Tea Party, the Justice Democrats likewise plan to build grassroots support on the internet. In the wake of the Women’s March and other anti-Trump protest movements, progressives have realized that they still need to mobilize in a way that will garner political power. The Justice Democrats think that a successful YouTube empire, combined with Sanders campaign digital expertise, might be enough to put new, millennially-minded candidates into office.

Though the group has largely disappeared from the headlines, the Tea Party’s success in driving the GOP to power—and to the right—is manifest. The Justice Democrats, a hodgepodge of Sanders-campaign veterans and liberal media types, hope to have the same effect. Right now the group numbers just 12 people, but they claim the digital platform experience of The Young Turk Network (with a YouTube channel that has over 3 billion views), the Sanders campaign, and the popular streaming and YouTubing Secular Talk Radio.

That digital-first approach might confer a few advantages. The progressive base is young and internet savvy, as was clear during the Sanders campaign. Second, the internet never keeps its thoughts to itself. The Justice Democrats are planning to use the TYT and Secular Talk Radio YouTube channels and social media presences to push out videos on everything from policy positions to potential candidates, and they’re depending on their subscribers’ feedback. “We’ll use the digital platform to find a candidates that have the best chance of success,” says Cenk Uygur, co-founder of the Justice Democrats and founder of TYT Network. “Our followers will naturally get excited by some of them, and that gives you some strong evidence of where you’re more likely to be productive.”

And of course, the internet could solve their biggest political problem: money. TYT raised $1.1 million to fund investigative journalism during the Trump administration, and the Sanders campaign raised over $200 million. They’ll need to repeat that performance if they’re to run somewhere between 200 and 400 candidates for the 2018 midterm elections. “Money is how the Tea Party got coopted by the same corporate interests they thought they were fighting,” Uygur says. “You can’t raise money on TV by asking people to go to a website later. And we’re not going to take money from corporations. We’re going to do it with small online donors, Bernie style.”

[...] “The ultimate goal is to take over Congress,” says Uygur. “The first thing the Democrats will do is beseech us to not primary people,” Uygur says. “They’ll offer some concessions, and our answer will still range from ‘no’ to ‘hell no.'”

That’ll certainly threaten party unity, and make these Justice Democrats unpopular. The thing is, despite the efforts of his mainstream detractors, Trump is POTUS. Protests are in full swing, but progressives still risk apathy or exhaustion from their supporters. “The left needs to take a lesson from the Tea Party and frame these issues in terms of existential threat,'” says Christopher Parker, a political scientist at the University of Washington who has studied the Tea Party. “That life will not look the same for you after Trump is done.”

Existential threat? Yes, that's been a part of Tea Party fearmongering MO. But, being Chicken Little explains Tea Party success? Digital media? My impression is some GOP insiders cooked up a "rile 'em" strategy and once the genie was released from the lamp it went its own way. Specifically micro.

Indididual non-cetralized groups sprang up using the rubric, each getting talking points from centralized data, but each having its own gripes, bitching and prejudices - it's own Facebook page in essence - which led to local cohesion.

The defining moment/person: Eric Cantor.

Thus far, and it is early, no local Justice Democrats group is meeting on any regular basis in Minnesota.

Drinking Liberally has been in action for years, and its size and reach is unknown to me because I don't socialize that way. Not my cup of tea.

Of interest, the web address of Drinking Liberally is:

http://livingliberally.org/drinking/chapters/MN/minneapolis

Using the browser addon for quickly parsing a URL to the homesite, readers are now strongly urged to peruse:

http://livingliberally.org/

If it resonates with you, follow up. The people there are believed to be well intentioned and believed open to welcoming new blood.

That said,

If Justice Democrats can take out Diane Feinstein, who is married to big time money and who clawed to the top atop dead bodies of Harvey Milk and Mayor Mosconi, bless them then, for that shall prove them real.

A progressive in that Senate seat would be a godsend.

Holding much hope for them, for change, there is doubt over likelihoods. I put in, so far my two hundred seventy buck contribution. That's 10 times twenty-seven, a rallying point amount, so let us pay heed as time marches to November 2018. If CHANGE can be caused in the absence of billionaire table scrap purchasing of politicians from and by the bushelfull, it will be a unique departure from the hateful John Roberts - Alito status quo, where money no longer just talks but barks so loud and incessantly that little else can be heard.

Or do I misjudge Pete Hegseth?

We wait. We hope.

______________UPDATE______________
HuffPo, "The Democratic Base Is Marching Right Past Its Leaders;" see Crabgrass earlier, here.

DU, here. Linking here. That DU item is dated Jan. 24. The day after Justice Democrats sprang forth from Zeus' head.

Remember the decision for "Our Revolution" was to go a 501(c)4 route, not mixing in individual candidacies, thereby leaving a void.

End of February might be a best time to reexamine the JD approach and this particular implementation of it, to see whether it grows legs. Navel gazing any more now likely is counterproductive. As well as time consuming.

BONUS: Tune time for the establishment DC Dems who've survived last election cycle, in office, still getting paychecks, in Angst, razors edge: Here. Here - long and extended.

Frontman against Jeff Sessions. Pharma man. Finance man. And what about administrative leadership goal seeking by another individual?

atlantablackstar.com, analyzing Cory Booker, who seems ambitious and opportunistic. But others see higher qualities. Twice a mayor, now a Senator, voters in numbers judged him positively.

This might be the month for black men hit pieces, this link, but Ellison and Booker are individuals beyond any race question, you can like one and trust him, while feeling differently about the other. Or like or dislike both. But put race aside when assessing character.

It would be easy to call each ambitious and opportunistic. Surely each has opportunity, and would you respect either turning it down?

Not knowing either personally, how should I judge beyond reporting and published commentary, which are doubtful measures at best.

Absolutely offensivly negligent reporting; or deliberate vaguenesss; whichever, mainstream media is deficient, factually.

This is part of a distaste for "mosque attack" reporting by US outlets. Just the latest. Morning online headlining and reports.

First, AP feed carried by Strib:

Canada PM says mosque attack that killed 6 is terrorism

QUEBEC CITY — Six people were killed and eight were injured in a shooting at a Quebec City mosque during evening prayers. Authorities reported two arrests in what Canada's prime minister called an act of terrorism.

Quebec provincial police spokeswoman Christine Coulombe said early Monday that some of the wounded were gravely injured. She said the dead were approximately 35 to 70 years of age. Thirty-nine people were unharmed. More than 50 were at the mosque at the time of the attack.

One suspect was arrested at the scene and another nearby in d'Orleans, Quebec. Police don't believe there are other suspects. They did not release names of the two.

"The Muslim community was the target of this murderous attack," Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard said at an early morning press conference Monday.

Next, and not surprisingly, Strib carrying AP morning report:

The Latest: German government condemns Quebec mosque attack

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman is condemning the "despicable" attack at a Quebec City mosque.

Spokesman Steffen Seibert said the German leader was shocked by the shooting during Sunday evening prayers that left six people dead.

Seibert said Monday: "If the killers intended to set people of different faiths against each other or to divide them, they must not and will not succeed in that. We stand in mourning beside the Muslim community in Quebec."

Now, consider if a legitimate effort to be factual were at play. Headlines, for all we know, might, depending on actual facts, read:

Wahabi sect members attack Shia mosque, killing six

Skinhead bikers high on meth attack mosque, killing six

Recent Iranian shia immigrants fire upon worshipers at Sunni mosque, killing six

Yes, the death toll was gotten correct; but each of those potential headlines carries its own flavor; and avoids speculation about "alternate facts."

Given the total blackout of whether mosque attacks in European or North American nations are nativist hate crimes, or of the Sunni/Shia conflict; between Muslim faiths; we should, from the totality conclude the vagaries are deliberate and not surprisingly coincidental.

It would be as if an English report during the War of the Roses were to be written: Church attack kills seven as swordsmen invade sanctuary.

Would that be Cromwell's act, or Royalists at mischief?

A mosque attack can have many flavors, and if we are to be informed, why aren't we? And would we be correct in thinking that the local outlet edits detail out of AP feeds; or that AP edits out detail in sending out feeds? Expect the latter, given the universality of lack of detail.

____________UPDATE___________
If the attacked mosque were to be interdenominational, Sunni and Shia emigres from the Middle East sharing a facility and prayer time, that would be major news. Why do the reports decline to identify denominational detail, that is the question? It slants things to ignore or downlplay Shia and Sunni animosity. Are we to be told that Saudi and Iranian Middle East tensions are merely related to regional power tripping; without other bases of explanation? That would be insulting our abilities to understand and to weigh and regard western nation policies. And ignoring reality dating back to the Seventh-Eighth centuries [Christian calendar]. It arose directly after the Prophet's death; two factions, alive today. Not like Calvin and Luther centuries after Rome itself fell with its priesthood remaining intact. Instead, right after a cause for separation and dispute became feasible. One Prophet, two factions; politics at play as well as a clash of faith.

In a sense this has similarities to western media Benghazi reporting, Stevens killed at the safe house, reinforcements from the CIA annex arrived, with additional loss of life. Why in the world was there a "CIA annex" there in the first place? What were the spooks up to? Are we to conclude: Nothing to see there, in that direction, so move on to the next headline?

The entire anti-Clinton Gowdy-choreographed dog and pony show dragged on interminably, without that dimension ever being explored. Or even mentioned.

We are being played. Give us a break.

RT reports as if Trump is serious in getting rid of Islamic State. If true it would be policy shifted in a good way.

This link.

Putting a time line on authoring a provisional plan is also a good sign.

It again causes one to wonder what the CIA annex was up to in Benghazi when Ambassador Stevens and support personnel were killed. In effect, wondering about what the US policy really was; vs what we were being told.

So, such skepticism is merited for Trump. But if he has the will to tamp down the real threats, whether Russia do the heavy lifting or not, it will be good. We have no cogent national interest in dragging out war in Syria. If Europeans want a Qatari pipeline to Turkey, it would be their fight against Bashar al-Assad and Russian opposition, a case not publicly being advanced to the people of the US.

If an objective is to lessen Western European dependence on gas piped from Russia, we, as a people, ought to be told that is an objective.

The entire thing, the place of the Saudi kingdom as a policy setter for our nation is questionable, if that is an aspect in play.

It's really not our fight, unless someone cogently explains it is, in which case, who's sponsoring and funding Islamic State, and why? And how precisely has Islamic State been armed?

Mainstream Media is experiencing technical difficulties? We fight back?

YAYTV = this link

Yet Another Young Turks Video. They are so good linking to them is easy. And it's good for you.

Well this is just fine. To this point a spectrum of voters within France agree with me.

The Economist was cited earlier (Jan 23) by Crabgrass, here, for an item it published available online about French Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon.

Today Reuters reports on Hamon as the French Socialist leadership finalist in their upcoming election; here and here. Both items are accessible, with the latter excerpted as:

Alongside promises to legalize cannabis, abandon diesel fuel and cancel debts between European Union countries, Hamon, the ruling Socialist Party's candidate pledges a "universal income" for all citizens.

The cost, says the 49-year-old, will be around 350 billion euros ($374.82 billion), roughly equivalent to the annual budget of Europe's second-biggest economy. An ambitious overhaul of taxes will be pursued to fund it, he says.

The idea has captured the imagination of Socialists who feel betrayed by a shift to more pro-business policies under President Francois Hollande and Manuel Valls, the former prime minister whom Hamon beat on Sunday to win the left's presidential ticket.

Hamon's win, with over 58 percent of the vote according to partial results on Sunday evening, is yet another upset in an unpredictable presidential race.

He was until earlier this month one of several outsiders in a party contest that Valls, a more moderate and more experienced leader, was initially predicted to win.

Valls labeled Hamon "the sandman", a seller of dreams which would condemn the Socialist Party to an opposition role for years to come.

[...] Hamon struck a chord with left-wing voters by declaring on the campaign trail: "I am running for president so that France's heart will beat once again."

Hamon's most visible public roles were as Hollande's junior minister for the social economy and later as education minister. He quit that post in protest at what he viewed as the party's shift towards the political right and big business.

ROBOTS VS WORKERS

His campaign platform, he says, is based on his conviction that jobs are scarce and will become more so as a digital revolution takes hold and leaves workers displaced by self-driving cars, drones and robots.

Society will only adapt if it accepts that people work less and jobs are shared across a greater number of workers, Hamon says - hence his proposals of a shorter working week and a basic income of 750 euros a month for all adult citizens, whether they work or not.

"Look at Germany, model country with full employment, where the jobless rate is five or six percent. Nobody sees the poverty rate is 17 percent. In reality, it's a tradeoff: jobs at the price of poverty," Hamon said at a meeting in Marseille.

Hamon acknowledges his proposal will require a major revamp of taxes. Among other fiscal policy promises, he plans a "robot tax" levied on the profit margins of digital industry groups as well as higher taxes on giants like Google and Apple.

[...] Asked if he was a dreamer, Hamon argued that France had lost its way and borrowed a line from Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci: "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born."

($1 = 0.9338 euros)

(DATELINE: Sun Jan 29, 2017 -- 4:12pm EST -- Reporting By Brian Love; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Richard Lough)

The guy is alright! That said -

A problem stateside is what at least one of the Bush family called "that vision thing." Not a problem with Hamon. Nobel Laureate Minnesotan Bob Dylan, in a song - which one it was I do not remember - wrote/sang, "He that ain't busy being born is busy dying."

And stateside again, Justice Deomcrats was born days ago.

Again, that vision thing.

The minority party of two here had better soon find itself being born.

Not that the French in their ways deserve to be lassoed into things here; they deserve better for certain; but when good ideas present themselves it is hard to not try to bend them to needs more local than an ocean away.

In closing, after 58% of a left leaning vote at this stage, may Hamon achieve a comparable 58% in France's final. Total victory is always best.

________________UPDATE______________
Personal limitations are vexing. I speak and understand only one language. French is not it. Yet, French online YouTube video allows those not having my admitted limitation a chance to see, not only to read (or view English coverage) through a filtering bottleneck of US domestic coverage. E.g., here.

Video online availability is not the issue; e.g., here, here, here, and a debate, here. The viewing numbers with those videos are discouragingly low. Yet, the last of the links, the debate, you can follow the format and production cuing, but wtf they are saying is a roadblock, a vexing one, for me because of the insular US linguistic skills prevailing even among the educated, of which I claim membership. My ignorance of French deserves apology, apology is given, but it leads to our having a populace ignorant of much of the rest of the world, kept insular, with a suspicion being US national elites prefer us that way.

Trump's international support reported in Reuters.

This link:

Sun Jan 29, 2017 | 2:44pm EST
Netanyahu in hot water over praise of Trump's wall - By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM When Benjamin Netanyahu sent a tweet in support of President Donald Trump's plan for a wall along the Mexican border, the Israeli prime minister can barely have expected it would be retweeted 40,000 times and cause a backlash at home and abroad.

Already under arguably the greatest pressure he has faced in his 11 years as prime minister, with police questioning him in two criminal probes into abuse of office, aligning himself with Trump may further undermine his standing.

The tweet, sent from his personal account shortly before the Jewish sabbath officially ended on Saturday, was very clear:

"President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel's southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great Success. Great idea," Netanyahu wrote, appending pictures of the Israeli and U.S. flags alongside each other.

Netanyahu was referring to a steel fence Israel has built along its border with Egypt, mainly to keep out migrants fleeing conflicts in Africa, including Somalis, Sudanese and Eritreans.

Israel has also built a steel-and-concrete barrier along its border with the occupied West Bank, which it says is to prevent militants crossing into Israel. Palestinians see the barrier, which has drawn international condemnation, as a land grab.

On the one hand, Trump's election as president was seen as a godsend for Netanyahu, the first time in four terms as prime minister that he would have a Republican in the White House.

As well as the Republicans being more ideologically aligned with Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, Trump has already shown a willingness to turn a blind eye to Israel's settlement building in the West Bank, which Barack Obama's administration frequently criticized, casting a pall over U.S.-Israeli ties.

On the other hand, Trump is an unpredictable actor who in just nine days in office has sewn division across the United States and shocked capitals around the world with a series of executive actions that are overturning decades of U.S. policy.

The adverse reaction to Netanyahu's tweet, which was retweeted by Trump and drew far more attention than Netanyahu's tweets usually do as a result, appeared to be an early sign of the danger Netanyahu faces with aligning himself with Trump.

The Mexican government was outraged that he would involve himself in what it regards as a bilateral issue.

[...] Though Netanyahu has not deleted the tweet, Israel's foreign ministry immediately sought to nuance its content.

The prime minister was referring to Israel's "specific security experience", the foreign ministry spokesman said, adding: "We do not express a position on U.S.-Mexico relations."

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

If the gentleman could barely have expected backlash, he's been talking too much to too narrow a cut of domestic advisors, and when he wakes up he cannot smell coffee.

History holds a lesson with regard to Senate approvals of Trump nominees.

Remember that we were handed Scalia because Bork got borked. Not that Bork should not have been borked. The swine, after two in front of him in the Justice Department said no and resigned, he stepped up as solicitor general and said, "Sure," in firing Archibald Cox. That had to be borked.

But then years of the Scalia menace, his having two votes, his and that of Thomas.

Sit back, have a cup of coffee, and think it over.

___________UPDATE___________
Without following up on any of the hits of this websearch = elizabeth warren voted for ben carson

I'd bet money she recalled Bork/Scalia, had that cup of coffee, and thought things over. A blind bet. Any takers.

Huh? The Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch [a/k/a FOX] want to take Berlin?

John Gilmore does march to his own drummer, so WHAT to make of this at Gilmore's site:

https://conservativeminnesotans.blogspot.com/

What drew me was a Hegseth mention; what I found was a confusion:

Hegseth wanting to be relevant? What?

Following the screen capture, Gilmore's next immediate sentence, "It was Facebook come to life." That I understand. Not intended as complimentary. As I'd say it.

But that screen capture? Hegseth's not had a plywood violin, rather an ill-aimed throwing axe, with little else to set him apart from anonymous mediocrity besides salutes back and forth with the Kochs over astroturfed veterans, as tools of ambitious advancement.

So Rupert's payroll parties up the regulars in-state? Call in the clowns? Will a Hegseth Freedom Club gig be next?

Tune Time: My favorite online version. Cohen was asked by a reporter, "What do you mean by First We Take Manhattan And Then We Take Berlin," and replied what he meant was, "First we take Manhattan and then we take Berlin." I do like the occasional triangulated staging of that online version.

Trader Price.

click to read - source

source - earlier report

Unrelated, of course, but of interest to History Channel fans:

source

____________UPDATE____________
Open gender alligator hunting. There are a host of other online reports, with this Crooks and Liars one both succinct and inclusive.

Once GOP Rep. Chris Collins gave the Innate Immunotherapeutics insider tip to fellow GOP representative, physician Tom Price, and there was that interesting small group private placement with both participating, may we say Innate Immunotherapeutics became a doctored stock?

Hardee's and Carl's Jr. are low-wage burger joints run by Trump's Labor Secretary nominee, so how do you in a sophisticated way differentiate a product in that market?

Well, one could say an image would replace a thousand words, but for the flavor of the Puzder brand, there is YouTube.

Sophisticated, to a fault; here, here and here. Somehow we may ponder, are those products actually ill-differentiated, one from another? Seems so.

Again, Mr. Putzer, IS labor secretary nominee, so how does he treat the living wage issue; have a side job?

Another question, won't it be one hell of a hoot to see how some Senators vote on the nomination. It could be a defining moment.

_______________UPDATE_______________
Well, a picture IS worth a thousand words,

PUZDER

The opening linked article notes, mid-item:

"I used to hear, brands take on the personality of the CEO. And I rarely thought that was true, but I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality."

Puzder's vision has helped guide the company to impressive growth. When he became CEO in 2000, three years after CKE purchased Hardee's, he led the company in turning the concept from a struggling and shabby Southern and Midwestern chain to one that mirrored the West-coast centric Carl's Jr. in everything from menu to marketing. The "one brand with two banners" has lead [sic] the way in the current quality burger trend, from launching the half-pound "Six Dollar Burger" (sold for $3.95) in 2001 and releasing the first all-natural fast-food burger in late 2015.

If knowledge in politics begins at home, The Detroit Free Press is near the home of Betsy DeVos, and can recognize a train wreck when presented one.

This DFP (freep.com) link.

Perhaps the kindest thing that can be said about DeVos would be to call her pasture dressing. It would go downhill from there.

Indirectly like-minded to the DFP, the New York Times gives kid glove terminology to folks with tons of money. At greater length, but with fewer links than in the DFP item, NYT weighs in lightly on the nominee's deficiency.

Public menace might also aptly serve to describe the gentle lady who stinks of money and has given much stinking money to Republican establishment-hack politics.

DOES ANY READER KNOW: Not a Tea Party lady, it being coarse and beneath her station? Or does she mix somewhat with GOP hoi poilli?

____________UPDATE____________
Not to be too harsh: May this Michigan maven be tasked to drink Flint's water.

To bury TPP not to praise it.

No Marc Antony slight of hand here, the post's headline rules.

A friend emailed an ourfuture.org link with good "trade policy" analysis at an introductory level, but insightful; this excerpting:

TPP was another “trade” deal written in secret using a process dominated by corporate interests. As David Dayen, writing in The Nation Tuesday, put it,

The public recognized that free-trade deals aren’t about free trade anymore—tariffs are currently so low it would be hard to get them meaningfully lower—but about guaranteeing corporate profits through eliminating regulations and enforcing patents. Another deal written in secret, with lobbyists whispering in negotiators’ ears, gave nobody confidence that this would change. Secret enforcement tribunals were a prime target for criticism, because they protect corporate and investor profits and enable financial speculation. No such platform exists for workers if their rights are violated.

This rigged trade process and its results brought us Trump, and here we are.

So now that that’s over, how should our country trade with the world?

[...] It is a common misconception that we need to have a trade deal with a country before American companies can export to that country. This is partly due to misleading arguments used to sell corporate-favoring trade agreements, like saying, “Ninety-five percent of America’s potential customers live overseas, so closing ourselves off to trade is not a solution.”

Not having a trade agreement doesn’t “close ourselves off to trade.” American businesses trade with the rest of the world and the rest of the world trades with us regardless of trade deals. But without trade deals countries can set tariffs and barriers according to their own country’s needs and goals.

In places where people have a say, people say they want good wages and environmental protections (and public education and health care and infrastructure and parks and science and other things people vote for in democracies). These protections mean that working people and the environment receive a larger share of the economic pie. The economic pie is also larger as a result of that investment in public education and infrastructure and the rest, so the “investor” class does better, too. To pay for these investment those who do better are taxed more.

In non-democracies and other places where people don’t have a say people aren’t paid well, the environment is not protected and a few people at the top end up with a larger share of the smaller economic pie.

[...] Business and “investor” interests want to pay lower wages and environmental protection costs, so they encourage countries to pass “free trade” deals that prevent governments from imposing tariffs and barriers in the future. They call the idea of democracy taxes and other decision-making by governments to protect national interests “protectionism.”

“Free trade” deals set aside each country’s political decision-making in favor of “more trade” — thereby placing business interests above national sovereignty. Governments are prevented from acting to “protect” a country’s interests and businesses are free to seek the lowest costs, regardless of what happens to countries and the people in them and the environment.

[...] The AFL-CIO recently posted, 6 Ways We Could Improve NAFTA for Working People, which can be applied more generally to new trade negotiations, [...]

[[...] The Sierra Club has issued a discussion paper, A New Climate-Friendly Approach To Trade, [...]

[...] The Coalition for a Prosperous America offers 13 21st Century Trade Agreement Principles. Among these: Balanced Trade, reciprocity, stop currency manipulation, allow “Buy America” procurement, enforceable provisions, and more.

[links in original, italic emphasis added] In passing, re the interesting terminology "... other places where people don’t have a say people aren’t paid well, ... and a few people at the top end up with a larger share of the smaller economic pie."

Can you say Hardees?

Moving on, technology relates in ways to "competitive advantage" see, e.g., here and here, and other detail from this websearch. The future of jobs, workers and robots in balance, offers threats and promises, depending on how rapacious corporate profit-seekers are allowed to be, as well as on other secondary factors.

_____________UPDATE___________
OurFuture.org has an interesting homepage reading selection.

More Young Turks video: (1) Net Neutrality - 219,426 viewings. (2) Executive Director [Tech Lead and then some] for JusticeDemocrats - 46,905 views

Respectively, this link, and here.  Readers, boost those numbers.

Have a look and tell a friend.

A separate video, on the Obama "legacy" starting with noting Chelsea Manning's commuted sentence; moving to truth about Obamacare - the Repbulican's plan until somebody said, "Okay, we'll implement it," and we know what happened from that. Only 44,515 viewings at the time this is typed; while the item deserves a far greater viewership.

And, with Blogger stats saying French and Norwegian viewers are curious about things posted here - contributions arising from other nations, by ordinary people and not corporate/business powers, would be welcome and helpful, for JusticeDemocrats.

https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/justicedemocrats?refcode=justicedemocrats.com

Great, right? Flow that cash. Help that plan. Act that blue. Sign in on the home page.

Now, everybody can complain. My turn.

So far, no snail mail P.O. Box donation address given. I will cut a check, if you post where I can mail it. Duh!

Old fart bickering, but - waiting, watching, hoping. Yes, three-to-four days old and there are priorities, that is understood. So, how about that snail mail option, next week?

____________UPDATE__________
Having cause to believe JusticeDemocrats will soon have a P.O. Box for snail mail which will be posted on their website, readers are encouraged to pay attention to the site as that and other things, perhaps "news" links, may be added as this entirely new effort matures in multiple ways up to the next mid-term elections - that being 2018.

May the effort grow and prosper.

Justice Democrats.

Re this earlier post, there was misunderstanding.

A 2011 item was found as a top hit by web search, separate from the current Justice Democrats effort. Overlap of terminology combined with a slowness of web search indexing to catch up with current events together led to the confusion. By now, the web search engine indexing has caught up with earlier news of the week; so try two google searches:

= justice democrats

= justice democrats youtube

If you want a third and fourth:

= justice democrats young turks

= justice democrats wikipedia

Justice Democrats - note sidebar editing - are simply grassroots good folks, who've had enough. Keith Ellison might prevail in seeking the DNC chair, and good might come of that, but as a separate thing, Justice Democrats are reformist minded people who feel change from within might revitalize the moribund party that lost big time by being the secondary tool of the corporatist and Wall Street manipulators; in effect, Republican-lite did not sell as well (and has not) as Republican-real, and yet vast majorities of the people poll-after-poll want the things that Bernie advocated, justice from Democrats, for which they packed the Sanders speaking venues and contributed millions of dollars at an average contribution value of twenty-seven bucks. I.e., real people with real issues who were not serviced by lip service from the Goldman Sachs speech seller with the Foundation taking in millions while real people felt left out.

This is a new and good thing, less than a week old as this is written as a publicly active entity, with obvious thought and sincerity having gone into laying grassroot groundwork before springing onto the scene to rescue the atrophied, misdirected second party with progressive life support and invigorating ideas for - get this - real CHANGE. Are you ready? Real HOPE. Not the hollow delivery on any such word pairing you may or may have noticed earlier this decade. Real. Actual. May they succeed.

And, may the entrenched better part of the entrenched control group now holding the reins move toward a unified view with these idealists moving toward being pragmatists, so that the Bullshit ends, the Democratic Party embraces people and not buyers with big pocketbooks; and may the Clintons enjoy their Foundation in obscurity after they put their cohorts into dire straits. They ran the ship aground with greed and falsity and people with good motives want to take or share a large measure of time at the helm, at best, and have a fair voice and fair share, as is the aim of the workable alternative that Keith Ellison offers to the presently entrenched oligarchs of party power. May the better and purer of that present control segment adapt, and the worse go the way of the Dixiecrats; i.e., elsewhere.

Bernie supporters from last year are founding Justice Democrats, this month.

Emailing to friends yielded one interesting response:

Who knows? It looks like Trump is starting a multi-front trade war starting with our 2nd and 3rd largest trading partners (Mexico and China). I thought this would take months. It looks like he’s doing it in weeks. The last time something similar happened (along with some stupid moves by the banks and Feds), it gave us the Great Depression. Theses “Young Turks” might have their chance sooner than they think. They’d better cram on that Tea Party handbook if they want to get ahead of the curve.

The Tea Party has awakened thier moribund Tim Pawlenty - Banking Roundtable Republicans to hearing the murmurs of discontent; by the corporatists being "primaried" and retired in multiple congressional districts and local venues; so that final "Tea Party handbook" thought is likely already in play.

May the beltway never be as corrupt and complacent and disdainful of the people, ever, again. May that prove to be more than a vain hope.

Last, the fervent young man in the opening YouTube linked video, (see second paragraph above for the video link),  is named Kyle Kulinski, who has not been in it for the money but for the need of  our having voices better in telling truth than corporate owned media/propagandists. Wikipedia page. May voices of the young not be suppressed, but rather heard and embraced in asking for JUSTICE as new party DEMOCRATS.

..................................
music time

(Not at all your Podesta's tune - he doesn't have any)


_______________UPDATE______________
Primary challenges sadly might not always succeed, even with strong alternative challengers, but they can be interesting. In any and all events - THEY HELP THE PROCESS'S HONESTY AND GIVE FOLKS A CHOICE. And it is the only way reform can happen. Needed reform. Really, really, really needed. Really. Mark Dayton did not call DC a cesspool without cause.

__________FURTHER UPDATE__________
A day or two removed from first posting this item. Prescience. Zero Hedge, middle of last year, Tyler Durden, this link and note bolding. A.B. Stoddard has a months-ago riff on Real Clear Politics worth pondering. She seems an Ellison skeptic, not of the regular kind but of the doubters wondering if he'd manage a true rennaisance rather than being given a cosmetic vote such as we put him in as a token, and then we fuck him and what progress and reform he stands for, when things quiet down; business as it's been done being how it will be. As if endorsement by Schumer means same old same old. A counterview is Schumer is practical, wants the spoils back and is willing to give substantially on policy, but like Ellison recognizes cohesion is needed not rebellion, and Schumer stops play of the anti-Semitism card against Ellison in its tracks. The alliance does not bother me beyond the junior partner having to recognize the senior, and that's not measured by tenure in the Senate as the gauge. Any rebellion such as Justice Democrats will be a pressure towards justice, even if not ending in the driver's seat. With Ellison -Schumer endorsed - it is correctly seen as originally sinned if Schumer envisions his driving the car and Ellison-Sanders-Warren as passengers. Ellison driving DNC, and his thereby ruling out of other options in the candidacy direction, will work if there's not over vocal back seat drivers trying to call out directions. The direction has to be set progressive, in concrete, then and only then can other-minded but willing affiliates attach and be blessed as helpful not hindrances.

Folks should not only know, but more fundamentally, REMEMBER.

Business Insider, Feb. 2016, this opening screencapture:

click the image to enlarge and read

The URL for the entire online item: this link.

Cory knows best. Cory sez: My reason for dissing Bernie is we're a tight establishment cabal and us Senators are hanging together, trust me. Moreover, trust us Dem Sens. Trust Debbie Wasserman Schultz. We know best - nothing more to see with Bernie. Bernie's okay, but somebody, give the guy a comb.

More or less, Cory Booker's dug his hole. Deep. The more you read of the balance of that Business Insider article, the deeper it gets.



NOW, WHOLLY APART FROM HAVING ANYTHING TO DO WITH CORY BOOKER:

In this very short video Putin in a passing comment claims Russia has the world's best whores.

Glenn Greenwald interview.

This twelve minute video.

Party cohesiveness is a factor, but not the factor. Decency is the factor.

Monied Together

I could not vote for a basically non-dynamic, indeed boring, politician who became a multi-millionaire as nothing beyond being a careeer politician - a spousal pair of careerists on the money train - who took into the family pockets six and a quarter million hundred thousand dollars from Goldman Sachs for perhaps up to eight hours of speeches and who declined to endorse a pitifully small immediate minimum wage hike to a mere fifteen bucks an hour.

That's Bullshit I cannot endorse. Because I have a conscience. Nobody with a conscience can endorse that stuff.

So, 447 DNC savants of the Democratic Party. Reform. It will start with Ellison, who understands cohesiveness and has not bucked it, despite the disgraceful minimum wage position of the presidential candidate, and it will start with superdelegate offensiveness ended. Brought to a public screeching halt. Less, forget it. Let the Republicans have the spoils eight years instead of only four if you've going to be that intransigent on your cozy stinking privileges. Suffer to sing the blues.

Norway will have 2017 elections this year, that being the likely cause this blog is, as with France, getting more Norwegian hits than US hits, over the last few weeks.

Wikipedia. This google.com [US centric] search = norway next election

Knowing nothing about politics in Norway, silence here IS golden. May those elections be fraud-free, and with high voter turnout.

As would be wished for every election, worldwide.

And may each Norwegian voter be well informed and well intentioned.

Tweetsville: Who really cares if there's alleged to be a special place in hell for a Muslim who will not vote for another Muslim.

image source

Presuming I got my quote right, and consistency reigns. Or should we not expect consistency from our elderly?

Some people arguably should give it up and drift into retired obscurity.

I might. But then I have never been a desk clerk or reservations booking agent for the nether world. It might be a fun job, to not give up.

Of course if it means she'll be out stumping for Ellison as DNC head, now, then bless that thought.

Third Way, keep the moneychangers in the temple, it will be a better temple, and we can save some wood and nails.

Young Turks again.

The tout,

justicedemocrats.com

It invites skepticism, a prepackaged answer, and wanting to feel the rain besides getting wet, reader help is needed.

Who? How financed? How cognizant of Our Revolution is this earlier operation (dating at least from 2011), and where were they in 2016?

If they are competing for the same pot of money as Bernie and friends, one really should be duly skeptical.

Has anyone seen a road map, besides this [possibly so] sucker-list solicitation:

The 2011 item was authored well before Bernie ran, and he was then merely a Socialist Independent Senator from New England. Since the linked 2011 Politico report was authored, have they been an actual non-factor? Witness 2016. Having not heard peep from them while Bernie was packing every venue at which he spoke, has any reader any experiences to share? If so, a helpful comment would be welcome.

If they are at cross purposes for small donor cash with Bernie and Ellison, they'd best justify splitting the cause.

The 2011 Politico item footer states:

[Item author] Matt Stoller worked on the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and Federal Reserve transparency issues as a staffer for Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). He is now a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.

Grayson has been one of the good guys, so where is he now, [UPDATE: reviews are mixed on Grayson, as rudimentary websearch will show; e.g., NYT here, and Grayson's home state followup coverage here and is he at peace with or in fiscal competition with]

https://ourrevolution.com/

There is the old saying about putting all one's eggs in one basket; but the flip-side of that coin is you can't split one egg between multiple baskets. Who is best to lead the opposition?

That is the question to ponder while agreeing with the notion that "Third Way" talk is corporatist deceit.

One wishes Rand Paul had better social policy positions to go with some of his fiscal libertarian beliefs. His split that way is an ongoing frustration, as much of his suggestions make sense; war-wise, and otherwise.

Do either of the two focused solicitation efforts publish budget/board/staff detail; at least average donation size, whether corporate or lobbyist money is accepted; what's been taken in so far, and how it's been spent? HELP, readers.

___________UPDATE____________
The sensible approach is to see through the Trump first hundred days; and in a shorter time see whether Ellison or Perez is elected by the 447 inner party convening savants who have the vote; and if it is not Ellison, hope is thin. Ship of Fools, same ship, same fools, same shoals, flat learning curve, etc.

If the inner party does not give up superdelegate insult; same ship, same fools, same shoals. There has to be give by the failures. If it is not Ellison, and if we face ongoing superdelegate rules, still after the last election debacle, then it's back to Tennessee, Jed.

_________FURTHER UPDATE__________
The "Our Revolution" effort has had a share of disagreement over organizational detail and limitations imposed on a 501(c)4 operation; but nobody has questioned the ethics of its initiators or its board. Sanders and Harry Reid are not rumored to have exchanged any hostile words while serving together in the Senate, disagreement between them, if any, not being as visceral as reported Reid criticism of Grayson's hedge fund manageent in the context of Grayson's Florida Senate candidacy.

The Young Turks video noted at the top of this post clearly endorses the justicedemocrats effort. It is circumstantial that a 2011 item, as cited above, was written by a former Grayson staff person. That does not definitively connect Grayson as being behind, or even involved in policy or day-to-day operation of the justicedemocrats website, organization, or funding solicitation. The intent here is to suggest areas that need to be pinned down by a prudent contributor of the progressive persuasion, before cutting a check or even, perhaps, before getting onto anyone's emailing list. Such lists can be traded in political commerce, possibly sold, one entity to another.

As one favoring Sanders, a personal decision would be to affiliate with and contribute to ourrevolution. That is NOT intended to encourage or discourage anyone else's decision making. Just disclosure of a preference readers are better off knowing in judging posting here.

___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
The Young Turks video, on reexamination, was posted Jan 24, 2017; hence, ourrevolution was already up and running when it went unmentioned and the justicedemocrats operation was touted in the item.

Aside from that, the video message was clearly and primarily a critique of "Third Way" ways and means and foreseeable probable motivations. It leaves some loose end questioning by failing to even acknowledge a parallel progressive effort, ourrevolution, in the "same market" as justicedemocrats.

Is such silence golden?

One fact, Bernie already has the "$27 on average donor list" of the well-intentioned non-corporatist progressive multitudes. He, hence the ourrevolution effort he supports, hold that "marketing" hammer. Already.

____________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Some might think it pure folly to actually believe that by resort to hand-waving $20-million dollar funded studies in support of status quo refraining from rocking the cushy boat, that the spoils can be retaken. It surely is an insult to the intelligence of the majority of the people who crave actual reform, and for myself, I don't appreciate being insulted by beltway bunnies, of the think-tank variety (while also friends of lobbying interests), or office holding friends of lobbying interests. Early Beatles; Money Can't Buy You Love. (For some toady types it can buy agenda adherence, and it surely can buy a snowstorm of dinning propaganda). Ease up, third-waywards, your shell game's been exposed - we thank the alternate media for that, even should you call it "alternate facts." "Third way" has a stake in what's fake.

__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
1) Grayson is not without the charm of the enemy of my enemies is my friend, whatever else might be fact or fiction.

2) YoungTurks, Jan. 26, 2017, posting, more justicedemocrats coverage. Nineteen minutes to the segment. Does this guy hold a copy of the Sanders' list? Does he have a legal right to exploit it, were he to have a copy?

3) More, here and here. There is some redundancy between the shorter and the longer video items. But it is clearly an insurgency and not a splinter-party spinoff that the speaker is addressing. The agenda is to primary in-office Democrats, and to eliminate or enter and flood closed primary state politics.

4) Those two solicitation operations have to explain the how/who of what, if any, overlap exists. Each must at a minimum go on record that the other is/is not astroturf. Bernie, he's not, but all else needs clarity. Those videos don't address the need. Real insurgency, vs reform as best feasible, matters.

5) This is important stuff. False propheteering can be suspect, as profiteering on actual people's wants AND needs.

6) Time has its answers. Cutting a check or getting on an emailing list need not be on today's "must do" calendar. If the two are legitimate, it is a godsend.

7) We live in interesting times. Does NSA know how you plan to spend today? Your friendships?

_________FURTHER UPDATE__________
The difference may be that justicedemocrats involves Bernie supporters who disagreed with ourrevolution being a 501(c)4; and by splitting being more of a hands-on paticipant in actual primary challenge politics. That's only a guess, so any reader with knowledge is asked to enter a helpful comment.

Unlike the Republicans, who are in Big Pharma and other corporate back pockets . . .

In case the list is so long that Blogger shrinks it to where reading individual entries is difficult; this link.

That's for 2016. Again the link, so that you can try another year. John Podesta chaired the Hillary Clinton campaign.

For, example, 2012, and oh look - Sallie Mae

Tepid Clinton committment to student debt burdens bothered some this last presidential cycle, so, an experiment;

2008

2009

Sallie Mae, lobbyist spending, 2008 vs 2009, and is there any apparent difference to the untrained eye?

What happended in November, 2008, and then in January, 2009? And over eight years, student debtors Occupied, but what talks, what walks? Young people, those debtors, votes a progressive Democratic Party might well view as having potential - where realities of party priorities exist.




_____________________________
Hint to that 2008/2009 "any difference"question, two words:

CHANGE -and- HOPE

John Podesta mentioned in this Young Turks item. Some see party cohesion as the single most critical factor facing the Democratic Party into the near future, and argue for it above other considerations. In an earlier hour-long video highlighted here, Ellison noted at one point how important it was when Hubert Humphrey, a Minnesotan like Ellison, renounced the Dixiecrats as not belonging in the house. The big tent was not so big as to continue to allow a wrongful segment. Party cohesion and party reform are not the same, and at times can pull in differing directions. What's best, we all sing Kumbaya around the campfire, or not that stuff anymore, not on my watch, and I am running for watchman?

Looking on the bright side of the Trump-Pence White House occupancy.

It didn't happen while Michele Bachmann was in Congress.

Jensen Sutta Photography

This is insanity: "Fleck’s coined mantra apparently soon will be an official part of the Gophers football program. 'Row the Boat' is in the process of being transferred as property of Western Michigan University, where Fleck coached for four years until this month, to the University of Minnesota, according to MLive.com in Michigan. 'It’s just a matter of negotiating the terms of the release of that intellectual property,' WMU trustee William Johnston said. No details on the terms have been reported."

That's part of Strib's coverage, this link. A story about good money being negotiated for a dumb slogan that ought to be left where it is.

Flecker, if you want a mantra to energize a team and a fan base and the sports press and Kaler, I'll give you one that is simple, but with a measurable dimension.

Win the Rose Bowl.

There Flecker, how it is. Suck it up with the oar house stuff, this is not skulling, it's football, and why distract one iota from setting and ever reciting right goals in the soundest direction for Kaler U.?

David Mindeman writes.

This link, this opening:

I am done with listening to the talk about the "corrupt" DNC. The talk about how Bernie would have won. I am done with the bashing of Hillary Clinton. I am finished with listening to it, responding to it, and trying to compensate for it.

None of it matters and I would hope that everybody realizes that to fix this travesty, it is going to take a united front.

If I hear about any more "protest" votes, I think I'll just smash my fist into the nearest wall.

Your "purity" and "standards" are pretty much worthless right now. This Democratic Party still stands for something, but not as a bunch of fractured elements. It has to stand with one purpose - to take everything back that we have lost. All of it. The Presidency, the Congress, the State Governorships, and the State legislatures.

If you want to argue about the details, save it for when it can matter. Only when we have the majorities that can make the difference will it really matter.

That's tough, Dave. But Bernie would have won. Elizabeth Warren too. Tulsi Gabbard once voters saw the honest sincerity and lack of bullshit together with a lack of damning Wall Street speaking fees.

Mindeman misses two very relevant words in the course of his analysis, key words for tomorrow, where he states he is focused.

"Keith" and "Ellison."

That's the man who is extending the olive branch; who gave the convention speech despite all; and who likely is as tired as I am and many others are for seeing the peoples' suffering ignored by Republican-lite. The Republicans are better at being Republicans than the Clintons are. Voters proved that and it is time to move on to greener pastures and reaching out to the young who are not grizzled party mongers but are instead blinder-free and unimpressed with seeing two Tweedle parties.

Yes, the Mindeman theme, move on and gather the pieces is correct.

But do it with a learning curve or don't bother. Old, tired spiel won't cut it. Old hierarchies won't cut it. Tom Perez won't cut it. Thin skin, thick head, won't cut it. The Mindeman theme aptly explains why I remain an independent. I've no motive to yoke up and pull Debbie's wagon, and Goldman Sachs can pull its own.

It seems either learning time, or irrelevance time, and wisdom picks the former. Disrespecting the people that tried their damnedest to fix the course rather than stay the course, and who were disdained despite the crowds Bernie drew and the resonance of his honest and fair message while Hillary's high point was the balloon drop, those able minds need not accept any same old same old. Putting Tom Perez into contention from the established, failed factions quite simply is an insult to the intelligence of too many. Driving away young energy is a recipe for irrelevance. Lecturing old style to the young and energetic will not sell. It smacks of Father Knows Best.


____________UPDATE____________
Heard the song one time too many?
The simple guiding fact is that it is past the time to recognize that for the good of the world the Podesta brothers should cash in their chips and be told to leave the table much as Strom Thurmond did years ago when Humphrey called him out. Political parties sometimes just have to roll up sleeves and drain their swamps. Glide and slide over that, doom looms.

________FURTHER UPDATE_________
Dumb. An embarrassment.

Bernie did not need props nor use any because he spoke and lived truth and social justice. Bullshit free. No song needed.

And he's got the donor list of sincere people who will give to buy back America from Wall Street and lobbyists.

All I know now about the French election is LePen tugs Trump's coat sleeve; and The Economist tells me Benoit Hamon is who I'd vote for were I a French citizen.

This link. Economist opines:

Mr Hamon, who was briefly education minister in 2014, stirred up voters in recent weeks with promises of public largesse. He promotes the idea of a universal basic income of €750 ($803), to kick in by 2022. The idea is to compensate for the possibility of large-scale job losses to digital automation, though he is hazy on how the programme would be funded. He also wants to shorten the already constrained French working week from 35 to 32 hours. And he suggests levying a tax on robots. No other candidate had anything so eye-catching to offer.

It's the guaranteed annual income Hubert Humphrey and others considered in days long gone, and missed. Or am I incorrect on the parallelism?

The French have sane healthcare and sane retirement norms and sane working week hours, with less being more. (Quoting Mies van der Rohe is adding a German into the mix, but what he said often rings true, nationality aside.)

Were France to go Socialist, and Socialist of the leftist manners, it surely would bother the Germans, and that alone would make the EU more interesting now that we have one of the two oligarchs our nation's two parties offered us, and the more interesting of the two, since the Clintons had eight years to show us their brand.

While on brands: Is Trump branded merchandise selling well, or has a backlash set in? Ties, steaks and what next? Waterproof mattresses?

May the French have a joyous election. It will be soon upon them, and then it will be THEM having to live with the unhappiness of the result.

Been there. Done that.

As to how Hamon might fund a guaranteed income, the idea of taxing financial asset trading where positions are held for only milliseconds and where orders are placed and withdrawn in under a minute; or some other time frame, would make trading markets less jiggered; and it would work equally well in the US of A and/or the Republic of France. Even in Germany.

For raising Socialist campaigning cash, there are social network possibilities, perhaps a hash tag, Mamon4Hamon?

Yes pronunciations differ, but written, it looks to rhyme.

Here's wishing whatever happens, disaster is averted. At least one side of the Atlantic should be so blessed.

____________UPDATE___________
Adapting to the promise and worry of technology was something the town library's copies of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics focused on back in childhood days of the '50s. It was a promise of machines doing drudge work freeing people to realize their potential collectively and as individuals. The need to work would be undone by this, and humankind would blossom. It was not being rendered unnecessary and hence facing financial, health, and housing ruin because of job loss. It was a view of there being enough to entitle people to become more and better.

The French seem poised, possibly, to view sharing "the wealth" where that means shortening work weeks so that fewer jobs could involve more people each having something to do beyond impoverished leisure. There seems to be more skilled hand labor in aerospace than in mass manufacturing where robotics hits a crossover point when production volume is above some threshold. Military aircraft, satellites, they are hand built one-off things. Robotics should still be viewed as a promise rather than a threat an elite can use against a populace. Perhaps our nation missing that truth may not be permanant, and perhaps the French can lead the world into a potential promised land. Without a link, I recall seeing an MIT professor claiming the US could be price-competitive with China's cheaper labor, via automation/robotics. It sounded sensible, but then would the economic explanations of scaracity of resources and efficient allocation by the market become obsolete? It appears many have a vested interest in keeping capital a scarce resource vs being an abundant public good. Rigging the game is the term that comes to mind. Keep it scarce because "we" own it is, at its heart, evil thinking which should not hold the day.

Reading the brief thing The Economist published about France on the eve of an election resonated with the thinking that capital is artificially being kept scarce and in elite hands; the status "elite" being a self-definition rather than a commonly held view. It's time for a change, although there is a literature that the worse depression in the world's history grew from overcapacity, and that those embracing the view are set to avoid it. Regulated capitalism, where capital does not become scarce because "brakes" are being applied and jobs are being made in the "braking" sector might now exist. Presuming it is a problem situation, which maintains capital scarcity, what then is the way out to a better more humane world than the one people suffer under today? Yes, every family with two automobiles and multiple refrigerators and nearby supermarkets is a cut above moving uncertainly to the frontier in mid to late nineteenth century United States history, Conestoga wagons being a technology of choice then, but it is not any more an ultimate than having computers and smart phones that tell government agents where we are when we move about, and automobiles equally equipped might not be everyone's idea of the best Brave New World.

May Mr. Hamon be a pioneer testing the possibilities, if successful in being elected for leading a major advanced nation into its best future. Others seem intellectually less equipped to view vast potentials for the people of France and of the world.

"Make France Great Again" might be a better slogan for the French, since at times in their far longer history than the US has, they truly once were great. The US was economically stronger after the Second World War because it was a marginal participant in the end of the fighting, but it also profiteered greatly by supply-at-a-cost opportunity. That was chance, not greatness. We never were great as a nation. Indeed, without actual and real historical help from France, whatever the motivation the French then had, we well might still be singing "God Save the Queen."

End of rant. Knowing little of European politics or economics, the topic will not be reinvestigated here, where informed commentary is better, and is best done by those knowing more facts than are easily available to the US public, even with the Internet making research easier to attempt to gain understandings, but with the trap being that oversimplifications and misstatements abound to the point of media-manufacturing of uncertainties where none should exist.

___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
This RT YouTube item. Is mainstream media corporate constipation a French phenom too?

Feature this: Search google.com in the US and get scant EU returned items. Search google.fr, and those unfortunates in the US, myself included, who can only handle the English language are out of luck. Yes, page translators exist, and some sites have English language page availability as well as native language posting, but often site content is "adjusted" to audience too. And it would be a major surprise if media in Europe were not owned by major corporate interests wanting to tell news the way most amenable to major corporate interests.

It would wind up a conspiracy theorist to think over those Google and media ownership situations, and while on that subject, I think the hacking was done by Teddy Bear and Smokey Bear; and if the DNC boss honcho had been Goldilocks with due attention to her porridge [a/k/a political spoils], and not DWS intent only on derailing the Bernie juggernaut, then the hacking would have failed.

But, the US intelligence community will not tell you the truth and presents instead its lurid Cozy Bear and golden showers and if I need name a Goldilocks for getting the porridge that's just right, it is Elizabeth Warren, sans Goldman Sachs taint, sans Foundation.