Bernie Could Still Win

[Octafish]

The most compelling reason for Bernie Sanders to continue his campaign is that he has a shot at victory.

By Donald Brand
US News & World Report | Contributor April 27, 2016

The nomination appears beyond the grasp of Sen. Bernie Sanders, and he is under increasing pressure from Democratic elites to drop out. The delegate numbers tell a bleak tale. Including yesterday's primaries, Clinton leads him by 826 delegates (2,097 Clinton, 1,271 Sanders). Sanders could counter that the electoral terrain on Tuesday favored Clinton and the terrain going forward is more favorable to him. His campaign has the money to continue and the reasonable argument that even voters in late-voting states deserve a choice. Still, Sanders can't catch Clinton unless the dynamics of the campaign are radically altered.

That doesn't mean, however, that it's time for him for him to go.

Democratic primaries and caucuses award delegates proportionately. Even if Sanders were to win all of the states that have not awarded delegate thus far, he would have to win approximately 80 percent of the remaining vote to surpass Clinton and capture the nomination based on pledged delegates. His widest margins of victory in the primary states that have already voted were in Vermont (86 percent) and neighboring New Hampshire (61 percent). In other states holding primaries, Sanders never exceeded a 60 percent margin. In caucus states, Sanders has done much better, winning close to 80 percent of the delegates in state like Utah and Alaska. The bad news for Sanders, as if he needed more, is that most of the states going forward are holding primaries rather than caucuses (11 primaries, 3 causes). Two of the caucuses are in territories – Guam and the Virgin Islands – that award only 7 pledged delegates each. Moreover, most of the primaries going forward (8 out of 11) are closed or semi-closed, meaning they do not allow independents to participate. Sanders has generally done better in open primaries where he tends to garner substantial independent support.

It would seem to be an open and shut case: Sanders can't win the nomination and for the sake of the party he should drop out. But, in politics, it is never that simple.

Sanders might justify staying in the race because he wants to influence the platform. This reasoning is dubious, because Sanders has already won enough support to demand significant concessions on the platform. He has also managed to force Clinton to the left on economic issues, particularly tougher Wall Street regulation and on economic inequality. It is not clear that winning more delegates will push her further to the left. The more compelling reason that Bernie should stay in the race is that he could still win.

CONTINUED...

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-04-27/why-bernie-sanders-could-still-become-the-democratic-nominee

Donald Brand is a professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts

[onehandle]

1. Nope. nt

[Octafish]

4. That smear about gun violence was effective.

Congratulations on the lowest I have seen a Democratic candidate I like sink.

[grossproffit]

7. Bernie sunk himself when he said that Hillary was unqualified. That was the lowest I've ever seen.

Also, his last debate performance was awful.

[Octafish]

13. Was that the time he invited himself to the Vatican to see the Pope?

Or was it the time he wasn't in the photograph at UChicago protesting unfair housing for students of color?

[redstateblues]

32. The Hail Mary Papal ambush was an epic fail

A naked political move by Bernie to try to win NY

[grossproffit]

34. He should have kept that "meeting" of Pope Francis to himself.

Many were offended by his politicizing it. Of course, we're crazy and Bernie is winning!

[senz]

61. He was quiet about it. Hill fans politicized it.

Y'all filled up GD-P with insulting, ridiculing obsessive OPs about it for days.

Such behavior will not be forgotten.

[polly7]

82. This place needed about a hundred fainting couches for that week.

Maybe they were placed in the lounge and the perpetually offended just didn't know about that.

[arikara]

102. They were over the top

going on about him hiding behind potted plants, and ambushing the pope on his way to the bathroom. I have never witnessed more extreme idiocy here ever.

I know Bernie's trip to the Vatican really irked them and they had the trolls with their talking points out in full force over it, but I think some of the stupider ones actually believed the bullshit they were spouting.

[bjo59]

53. I'm so sick of the misquoting of what Bernie Sanders said with regard to "unqualified."

I heard him answer say "IF she "x", IF she "y", IF she ... then, yes, she is unqualified. He did not say "Hillary Clinton is unqualified for president" with no qualifications in that statement. Everyone who is saying that he did knows that he did not. The big lie - just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and then repeat again. Manufacturing Reality 101.

[senz]

57. Yes. She had demeaned him personally and then he stayed theoretical.

She spun his NY Daily News interview to make him out to be "confused" and not having "done his homework," both of which were a lie, while he said if she were to do this or that, then she would be unqualified. He he wasn't trying to disqualify her as a human being. He never goes personal.

So a couple of days ago at the MSNBC Town Hall, she pulled up the same dirty accusation.

He could never, in a thousand years, behave the way she does.

[Vattel]

109. exactly

[akbacchus_BC]

54. That is not even up for debate. Mrs. Cllnton did worst when she was running against

Senator Obama in 2008. The sniper fire thing ... she lied. Anyways, that is in the past as she is much more preferable than an idiot Trump.

[CorporatistNation]

15. Bernie CAN Still Win.. As Hillary HAs Pending Significant Legal Problems! The SHOE WILL DROP!

150 Agents... Ain't fer nutin!

[redstateblues]

33. Praying for the email fairy? Pretty pathetic

[George II]

41. But those 150 agents aren't investigating Clinton. No shoes are dropping.

[nolawarlock]

31. You mean this?

[amborin]

48. Clinton approved $120M of Sandy Hook gun maker sales:

[senz]

58. Not only pushes guns, then she's a hypocrite about it later.

Ick. I wouldn't want her in the presidency!

Excellent video, amborin. Makes its point very well.

[Octafish]

72. Thanks, that's the one!

"I could live with Hillary as president." -- Rupert Murdoch

Oh, and the guy who owns The Daily News feels the same.

[polly7]

84. She has so many .......... repulsive (but helpful!) ........... friends. nt.

[Octafish]

87. She really does.

Like this guy, George W Bush. He and Hillary's husband, Bill Clinton, work in the "Weath Management" department for former Sen. Phil Gramm at UBS.



Before UBS, they all worked together in Washington, where Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) shepherded financial deregulation of the banks through Congress and President Bill Clinton (D-USA) signed it into law, the repeal of New Deal protections that kept Wall Street from using the taxpayers for their tab at the casino. President Bush was there, too, making sure the Banksters got away in 2008.

Forensic economist and former Fed regulator William K. Black wrote it reminds him of what happened during the Savings and Loans Crisis of the late 80s and early 90s. That was the greatest heist in history, until the Banksters of 2008 -- who did their thing thanks in largest measure to the work of Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Phil Gramm when they were, coincidentally, in federal office.

[polly7]

89. Thanks so much, Octafish.

I can't tell you how much I've learned from all your posts .... some of this just takes your breath away. The corrupt relationships that seem to go back decades explain much of what's been killing this planet and so many human beings on it. I find it all horrible, so can only imagine how bad it must be for those of you living with it directly, knowing all of this.

Amazing posts.

[Octafish]

91. Here's the pic that got to me, polly7.

Gridlock? Shut down? Austerity? Heh. It's all part of the act.

Kennebunkport, July 30, 1983: Bill Clinton, George Bush & George Wallace.



Wallace and his third wife, the former Lisa Taylor, meet with Vice President George Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton at a lobster bake at Bush's residence at Kennebunkport, Maine, July 30, 1983. The third Mrs. Wallace, whom the governor married in 1981, was 30 years his junior and half of a country-western singing duo, Mona and Lisa, who had performed during his campaign in 1968.

CREDIT: AP/Birmingham Post

SOURCE: http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/george-wallace/13/

Michael Beschloss, my mom's favorite historian, says it's genuine: https://twitter.com/beschlossdc/status/275941914182828033

George Wallace did all he could to oppose President Kennedy and his administration's policy to integrate public schools, including the University of Alabama.

Something else important to know: Wallace’s running mate in 1968 was Gen. Curtis LeMay, who exhibited insubordination to President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern noted, exhibited signs of stress over the possibility of a military coup.

Most importantly: Thank you for the kind words and understanding, polly7. The only reason I continue to learn about this sickening history and post it -- the only reason -- is for Democracy. The fact I've met true friends is the icing on the cake.

[rhett o rick]

113. Goldman-Sachs said he could live with Clinton as president. As did the Koch Bros and

Richard Perle and the Neocons. Actually the Republicon elite can live with her as president.

[RobertEarl]

2. The super delegates hold the key

Who knows, something could happen between now and the convention and make the supers change their minds. I am sure they all have questions about previous commitments. Heck, most of them committed before the primary even started, It would be logical for them to reconsider.

[jcgoldie]

6. logical?

What would not be logical is for them to overturn the will of a rather large majority of voters in the democratic party.

[RobertEarl]

10. 300 delegates out of 4,000+

Is not a rather large majority. Just stop saying that.

Even 300 out of the required 2,238 is not.

Too, given that a rather small percentage of voters actually voted, the numbers you are hiding behind are pitiful for your excuses of going with what people desired.

[jcgoldie]

19. I don't need to stop saying it

over 15% differential in the people who vote in an election is a large majority....

[RobertEarl]

25. No. Just stop

A large majority would mean H has enough voted delegates to secure the nomination. She does not have that majority and she never will.

[leftynyc]

67. The superdelegates

are NOT going to overturn the majority of votes - at the moment it's 3 million more than Sen Sanders. And it's pathetic that you're hoping they do. Just fucking stop it.

[George II]

42. But it is a majority, so the majority of superdelegates (according to the SANDERS campaign)....

....should vote with the majority.

If such a "rather small percentage of voters actually voted", why couldn't Sanders "energize" them?

[Octafish]

9. It would depend on what things look like in the summer.

A lot could happen between now and then. The author of the OP thinks the email scandal can lead to that very scenario.

Without the Superdelegates. It's a certainty Bernie will have picked up sufficient delegates out west to prevent Hillary from winning the nomination on the first ballot.

If it's a brokered convention: All Bets Are Off.

[RobertEarl]

12. It is an open convention

Between now and then the Bernie revolution will not be stopping. We await Bernie's reasoning to begin making moves about the convention and toward influencing the supers. Phone calls, letters, etc, will be entering the supers' world's in the next few months. If they can't stand the Bern, they may run, run away?

[lmbradford]

38. I read that it isn't about the emails....

it's really about the fact that she had that server, without govt knowledge, and then wiped it. That just became espionage. I also heard that this case is already before a grand jury and the case is made. They are just crossing their T's and going through the Clinton Foundation information and seeing if there are links to other crimes there.

Joe DiGenova was on C-Span answering questions and really had a lot of insight.

Link: http://www.c-span.org/video/?406228-4/washington-journal-joseph-digenova-hillary-clinton-emails

[leftynyc]

68. LOL

DeGenova? The same clown that's been sniffing the Clinton sheets since the 90s? THAT'S who you're hanging your hat on? I would think you'd be embarrassed at using some right wing asshole hack as a source but apparently some Bernie supporters are beyond shame.

[yourpaljoey]

78. Wonder is she will look pretty in orange?

[George II]

43. Aren't YOU the author of the OP?

Brokered convention? How do you see a brokered convention with only two candidates?

[dchill]

52. Hell, I can see a contested convention..

with only ONE viable candidate. There no denying the charges that have been made. Unless you're Hillary or one of her following. The rest of us see no clear path to the Oval Office.

[George II]

80. If "charges have been made" then there wouldn't be an investigation. You people have to...

...spend a little time reading about what the FBI is investigating. They are NOT investigating Clinton.

Face it, Sanders will not be the nominee. It's time to stop this trashing of Clinton and unite behind our nominee.

[dchill]

103. What are YOU reading?

Who do you think they're investigating?

[George II]

105. What are YOU reading? Exactly what is being investigated? Do you know?

[Octafish]

71. I posted the OP. I did not write it.

I like to share ideas. In politics, I think it's the democratic thing to do.

As for the convention, it's a place to elect the nominee. It is not a coronation.

[JudyM]

24. Many of them committed to her in tacit exchange for donation kickbacks through their

individual state dem establishments. This deal is not going to be easy for them to back out of.

[RobertEarl]

27. True

They would be in grave danger to admit they did something so dastardly as committing before any of the People cast the first vote.

They may not admit it, but we all know it to be true. We are watching. Seems they are between a rock and a hard place.

[jwirr]

108. The best kept secret right now is which states made that

deal and which ones did not.

[JoePhilly]

69. One minute ... Super Delegates are BAD BAD BAD ...

... the next minutes ... The super delegates hold the key!!!!!

Absolutely hilarious.

[treestar]

85. They were so undemocratic

Now they are to be used to overcome the decision of the voters!

[JoePhilly]

88. I get the sense some of these folks ...

... think they, and only they, are entitled to decided who the nominee is.

[Zynx]

3. Indictment? Is that all you've got?

[Octafish]

11. Bernie may go on the attack.

He could bring up the Sec. Clinton's enriching connections to Swiss bank: UBS.

Remember the time UBS was gonna name 52,000 tax cheats until Hillary stepped in?
Before the Swiss bank could name more than 6,500, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State intervened.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/hillary-helps-a-bankand-then-it-pays-bill-15-million-in-speaking-fees/400067/

That possibly was legal. Definitely immoral. And likely unconstitutional, but hey! The people who benefit in secret make the laws in secret. Certainly won't hear them discussed on tee vee, and thus never even considered in the minds of many. What I find disgusting are the people who know about this and do nothing.

UBS is a Swiss bank that is enjoying better days, thanks to the US taxpayer and a number of key US political leaders.

Hillary Helps a Bank—and Then It Funnels Millions to the Clintons

The Wall Street Journal’s eyebrow-raising story of how the presidential candidate and her husband accepted cash from UBS without any regard for the appearance of impropriety that it created.

by CONOR FRIEDERSDORF, The Atlantic, JUL 31, 2015

The Swiss bank UBS is one of the biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton intervened to help it out with the IRS. And after that, the Swiss bank paid Bill Clinton $1.5 million for speaking gigs. The Wall Street Journal reported all that and more Thursday in an article that highlights huge conflicts of interest that the Clintons have created in the recent past.

The piece begins by detailing how Clinton helped the global bank.

“A few weeks after Hillary Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, she was summoned to Geneva by her Swiss counterpart to discuss an urgent matter. The Internal Revenue Service was suing UBS AG to get the identities of Americans with secret accounts,” the newspaper reports. “If the case proceeded, Switzerland’s largest bank would face an impossible choice: Violate Swiss secrecy laws by handing over the names, or refuse and face criminal charges in U.S. federal court. Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information on 4,450 accounts, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.”

Then reporters James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus lay out how UBS helped the Clintons. “Total donations by UBS to the Clinton Foundation grew from less than $60,000 through 2008 to a cumulative total of about $600,000 by the end of 2014, according to the foundation and the bank,” they report. “The bank also joined the Clinton Foundation to launch entrepreneurship and inner-city loan programs, through which it lent $32 million. And it paid former president Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of question-and-answer sessions with UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann, making UBS his biggest single corporate source of speech income disclosed since he left the White House.”

The article adds that “there is no evidence of any link between Mrs. Clinton’s involvement in the case and the bank’s donations to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, or its hiring of Mr. Clinton.” Maybe it’s all a mere coincidence, and when UBS agreed to pay Bill Clinton $1.5 million the relevant decision-maker wasn’t even aware of the vast sum his wife may have saved the bank or the power that she will potentially wield after the 2016 presidential election.

SNIP...

As McClatchy noted last month in a more broadly focused article that also mentions UBS, “Ten of the world’s biggest financial institutions––including UBS, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs––have hired Bill Clinton numerous times since 2004 to speak for fees totaling more than $6.4 million. Hillary Clinton also has accepted speaking fees from at least one bank. And along with an 11th bank, the French giant BNP Paribas, the financial goliaths also donated as much as $24.9 million to the Clinton Foundation––the family’s global charity set up to tackle causes from the AIDS epidemic in Africa to climate change.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/hillary-helps-a-bankand-then-it-pays-bill-15-million-in-speaking-fees/400067/

About UBS Wealth Management

It's Buy Partisan

After his exit from the US Senate, Phil Gramm found a job at Swiss bank UBS as vice chairman. He later brought on former President Bill Clinton. What a coincidence, they are the two key figures in repealing Glass-Steagal. Since the New Deal it was the financial regulation that protected the US taxpayer from the Wall Street casino. Oh well, what's a $16 trillion bailout among friends?



It's a Buy-Partisan Who's Who:

President William J. Clinton
President George W. Bush Heh heh heh.
Robert J. McCann
James Carville
John V. Miller
Paula D. Polito
Anthony Roth
Mike Ryan
John Savercool

SOURCE: http://financialservicesinc.ubs.com/revitalizingamerica/SenatorPhilGramm.html

One of my attorney chums doesn't like to see his name on any committees, event letterhead or political campaign literature. These folks, it seems to me, are past caring.

Some of why DUers and ALL voters should care about Phil Gramm.



The fact the nation's "news media" isn't really following this story should also be of great concern -- for the 99-percent.

Which is my point: So far, Bernie's has been a true gentleman and just talked up his own side. He brings this up and its, "Goodnight, Madame President."

[Zynx]

16. He won't go there, even if there is there...there.

[grossproffit]

35. Wow. That's batchit crazy. Who are these people?

[JudyM]

28. MSM has never been more of an ethical disappointment than in its silence in this primary about

her very serious ethical/legal issues.

[BreakfastClub]

29. She doesn't have legal problems. Please stop believing fantasies. nt

[JudyM]

30. Fantasy? Get a clue.

[840high]

62. She's knee deep in legal problems.

[Gwhittey]

37. I think they where worse selling Iraq War to American public

For Bush/Clinton war machine.

[JudyM]

39. You've got a point, there!

[beachbum bob]

5. I could win Powerball...same odds of sanders

Getting superdelegates to switch....

[Octafish]

14. Good point. But if you don't buy the Lottery Ticket, the odds of winning approach zero.

Better to buy a lottery ticket. A million to one is a lot better than a quadrillion to one, which is what the US taxpayers are on the hook for, thanks to all the derivatives and whatever frauds of Wall Street the repeal of Glass Steagall have us on the hook for.

[Zynx]

17. Do you actually understand the difference between the notional value of derivatives versus the

market value of derivatives?

[Octafish]

23. No, but Brooksley Born does.

Unbelievably, the "banks" get federal deposit insurance for the money they scam away. So, they've socialized the risk. The irrepressible banned by Kos has nothing to worry about, they've privatized the rewards.

Big Business gets a break on financial reform

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- Big business scored a major win Wednesday when two regulatory boards agreed to limit the impact of tough rules to regulate the complex trades that helped spur the 2008 financial crisis.

Regulators have been struggling for months to figure out who should be included in a new crackdown of swaps or derivatives -- complex financial bets derived from other financial products such as the price of jet fuel or mortgages.

Derivatives were the key reason that American taxpayers were on the hook for the American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500) bailout in 2008. Derivatives also threatened to take down the global financial system when Lehman Brothers collapsed.

When Congress passed Wall Street reforms in 2010, lawmakers left the big decisions of how to regulate derivatives up to supervising agencies. Generally, the Democratic-controlled Congress wanted swaps to be more transparent and safer.

CONTINUED...

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/18/news/economy/swaps-rules/

Never thought I would see Democrats side with management.

[JimDandy]

36. Had every main Clinton supporter on this site pegged as one.

They stood out like a sore thumb: the authoritarians, corporatists, boot-strappers, cop supporters, insurance-not-health-care, war-mongers... geez they were so predictable and identifiable from their posts here before she announced.

[noretreatnosurrender]

8. Excellent Read

Thank you for posting.

[Octafish]

75. Thanks! Here's an important read you might enjoy...

Our situation can be visualized as a bank robbery where we saw the robbery and can identify the perpetrators, so we go to the police station to report the crime and when the sergeant at the front desk looks up, we see it was the bank robber.



http://www.pgpf.org/what-we-are-doing/fiscal-summit

Milton Friedman and the Rise of Monetary Fascism

The Dark Age of Money

by JAMES C. KENNEDY
CounterPunch Oct. 24, 2012

EXCERPT...

Monetary Fascism was created and propagated through the Chicago School of Economics. Milton Friedman’s collective works constitute the foundation of Monetary Fascism. Knowing that the term ’Fascism’ was universally unpopular; Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics masquerade these works as ‘Capitalism’ and ’Free Market’ economics.

SNIP...

The fundamental difference between Adam Smith’s free market capitalism and Friedman’s ‘free market capitalism’ is that Friedman’s is a hyper extractive model, the kind that creates and maintains Third-World-Countries and Banana-Republics, without geo-political borders.

If you say that this is nothing new, you miss the point. Friedman does not differentiate between some third world country and his own. The ultimate difference is that Friedman has created a model that sanctions and promotes the exploitation of his own country, in fact every country, for the benefit of the investor, money the uber-wealthy. He dressed up this noxious ideology as ‘free market capitalism’ and then convinced most of the world to embrace it as their economic salvation.

SNIP...

Monetary Fascism, as conceived by Friedman, uses the powers of the state to put the interest of money and the financial class above and beyond all other forms of industry (and other stake holders) and the state itself.

SNIP...

Money has become the state and the traditional state is forced to serve money’s interests. Everywhere the Financial Class is openly lording over sovereign nations. Ireland, Greece and Spain are subject to ultimatums and remember Hank Paulson’s $700 billion extortion from the U.S. Congress. The $700 billion was just the wedge. Thanks to unlimited access to the Discount Window, Quantitative Easing and other taxpayer funded debt-swap bailouts the total transfers to the financial industry exceeded $16 trillion as of July 2010 according to a Federal Reserve Audit. All of this was dumped on the taxpayer and it is still growing.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/24/the-dark-age-of-money/

As they operate with impunity, their looting has gone Big Time.

PS: You are most welcome, noretreatnosurrender. Readers are leaders.

[noretreatnosurrender]

86. Thanks Octafish

The Friedman piece was another great read. The 2016 Fiscal Summit is disgusting (thought leaders) and very revealing when you look at the speakers. Have you read this earlier piece from Counterpunch?:

November 17, 2006
The Road from Serfdom

by Greg Grandin

http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/11/17/the-road-from-serfdom/

[Octafish]

92. The Spartacus Youth League - WOW!

Thank you very much, noretreatnosurrender. I had not read that crucial, if painful, report.

In letters to various editors and detractors, Friedman downplayed the extent of his involvement in Chile, fingering Harberger as more directly involved in the mentoring of Chilean economists. While defensive, he nevertheless reveled in the controversy and the frisson of being ushered into speaking engagements via kitchens and back doors to avoid demonstrators. He enjoyed exposing the double standard of “liberal McCarthyism,” pointing out that he was never criticized for giving similar advice to Red China, the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. In recounting an episode when a man was dragged out of the Nobel award ceremony after shouting “down with capitalism, freedom for Chile,” Friedman delighted in noting that the protest backfired, resulting in his receiving “twice as long an ovation” than any other laureate.

Friedman defended his relationship with Pinochet by saying that if Allende had been allowed to remain in office Chileans would have suffered “the elimination of thousands and perhaps mass starvation . . . torture and unjust imprisonment.” But the elimination of thousands, mass hunger, torture and unjust imprisonment were what was taking place in Chile exactly at the moment the Chicago economist was defending his protégé. Allende’s downfall came because he refused to betray Chile’s long democratic tradition and invoke martial law, yet Friedman nevertheless insisted that the military junta offered “more room for individual initiative and for a private sphere of life” and thus a greater “chance of a return to a democratic society.” It was pure boilerplate, but it did give Friedman a chance to rehearse his understanding of the relationship between capitalism and freedom.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/11/17/the-road-from-serfdom/

Certainly explains why they hate Bernie.

[font color="green"]"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." -- Henry Kissinger[/font color]

The author of the following, one of those Chicago Boys helping implement the scam for Pinochet, provides more than a glimpse of what the future may hold:

President Clinton and the Chilean Model.

By José Piñera

Midnight at the House of Good and Evil

"It is 12:30 at night, and Bill Clinton asks me and Dottie: 'What do you know about the Chilean social-security system?'” recounted Richard Lamm, the three-term former governor of Colorado. It was March 1995, and Lamm and his wife were staying that weekend in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.

I read about this surprising midnight conversation in an article by Jonathan Alter (Newsweek, May 13, 1996), as I was waiting at Dulles International Airport for a flight to Europe. The article also said that early the next morning, before he left to go jogging, President Bill Clinton arranged for a special report about the Chilean reform produced by his staff to be slipped under Lamm's door.

That news piqued my interest, so as soon as I came back to the United States, I went to visit Richard Lamm. I wanted to know the exact circumstances in which the president of the world’s superpower engages a fellow former governor in a Saturday night exchange about the system I had implemented 15 years earlier.

Lamn and I shared a coffee on the terrace of his house in Denver. He not only was the most genial host to this curious Chilean, but he also proved to be deeply motivated by the issues surrounding aging and the future of America. So we had an engaging conversation. At the conclusion, I ventured to ask him for a copy of the report that Clinton had given him. He agreed to give it to me on the condition that I do not make it public while Clinton was president. He also gave me a copy of the handwritten note on White House stationery, dated 3-21-95, which accompanied the report slipped under his door. It read:

Dick,
Sorry I missed you this morning.
It was great to have you and Dottie here.
Here's the stuff on Chile I mentioned.
Best,
Bill.

Three months before that Clinton-Lamm conversation about the Chilean system, I had a long lunch in Santiago with journalist Joe Klein of Newsweek magazine. A few weeks afterwards, he wrote a compelling article entitled,[font color="green"] "If Chile can do it...couldn´t North America privatize its social-security system?" [/font color]He concluded by stating that "the Chilean system is perhaps the first significant social-policy idea to emanate from the Southern Hemisphere." (Newsweek, December 12, 1994).

I have reasons to think that probably this piece got Clinton’s attention and, given his passion for policy issues, he became a quasi expert on Chile’s Social Security reform. Clinton was familiar with Klein, as the journalist covered the 1992 presidential race and went on anonymously to write the bestseller Primary Colors, a thinly-veiled account of Clinton’s campaign.

“The mother of all reforms”

While studying for a Masters and a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University, I became enamored with America’s unique experiment in liberty and limited government. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the first volume of Democracy in America hoping that many of the salutary aspects of American society might be exported to his native France. I dreamed with exporting them to my native Chile.

So, upon finishing my Ph.D. in 1974 and while fully enjoying my position as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University and a professor at Boston University, I took on the most difficult decision in my life: to go back to help my country rebuild its destroyed economy and democracy along the lines of the principles and institutions created in America by the Founding Fathers. Soon after I became Secretary of Labor and Social Security, and in 1980 I was able to create a fully funded system of personal retirement accounts. Historian Niall Ferguson has stated that this reform was “the most profound challenge to the welfare state in a generation. Thatcher and Reagan came later. The backlash against welfare started in Chile.”

But while de Tocqueville’s 1835 treatment contained largely effusive praise of American government, the second volume of Democracy in America, published five years later, strikes a more cautionary tone. He warned that “the American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” In fact at some point during the 20th century, the culture of self reliance and individual responsibility that had made America a great and free nation was diluted by the creation of [font color="green"] “an Entitlement State,”[/font color] reminiscent of the increasingly failed European welfare state. What America needed was a return to basics, to the founding tenets of limited government and personal responsibility.

[font color="green"]In a way, the principles America helped export so successfully to Chile through a group of free market economists needed to be reaffirmed through an emblematic reform. I felt that the Chilean solution to the impending Social Security crisis could be applied in the USA.[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.josepinera.org/articles/articles_clinton_chilean_model.htm

PS -- and no side note: This was just revealed publicly for the first time by George Washington University's National Security Archive:

Sen. Frank Church and his committee's work on CIA Mafia Assassination programs was censored by Dick Cheney.

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB543-Ford-White-House-Altered-Rockefeller-Commission-Report/

[noretreatnosurrender]

93. Thanks

They certainly won't stop until they've hollowed out the U.S. like they did to Chile. The TPP will only help move that along.

I love the emails from nsarchive.

[jwirr]

110. Could be applied in the USA. Are we crazy to put another

Clinton in the WH? Okay, I know - yes.

As to Frank Church - I always felt that the reason he was pushed out of Congress was that he dared to investigate the CIA and what we were doing in SA.

He was a good man and one of the liberals.

[Octafish]

114. Back in 1975, Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) warned us, so NSA spied on him...

As you know jwirr, Frank Church was a patriot, a hero and a statesman, truly a great American.

The guy also led the last real investigation of CIA, NSA and FBI. When it came to NSA Tech circa 1975, he definitely knew what he was talking about:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy lefti, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. A brave man, the NSA was turned on him. Coincidentally, of course, he narrowly lost re-election a few years later.

And what happened to Church, for his trouble to preserve Democracy:

In 1980, Church will lose re-election to the Senate in part because of accusations of his committee’s responsibility for Welch’s death by his Republican opponent, Jim McClure.

SOURCE: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_church_1

From GWU's National Security Archives:

"Disreputable if Not Outright Illegal": The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald, Frank Church, et al.

Newly Declassified History Divulges Names of Prominent Americans Targeted by NSA during Vietnam Era

Declassification Decision by Interagency Panel Releases New Information on the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Panama Canal Negotiations

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 441
Posted – September 25, 2013
Originally Posted - November 14, 2008
Edited by Matthew M. Aid and William Burr

Washington, D.C., September 25, 2013 – During the height of the Vietnam War protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of selected prominent Americans, most of whom were critics of the war, according to a recently declassified NSA history. For years those names on the NSA's watch list were secret, but thanks to the decision of an interagency panel, in response to an appeal by the National Security Archive, the NSA has released them for the first time. The names of the NSA's targets are eye-popping. Civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. Also startling is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Howard Baker (R-Tennessee).

SNIP...

Another NSA target was Senator Frank Church, who started out as a moderate Vietnam War critic. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Church worried about U.S. intervention in a "political war" that was militarily unwinnable. While Church voted for the Tonkin Gulf resolution, he later saw his vote as a grave error. In 1965, as Lyndon Johnson made decisions to escalate the war, Church argued that the United States was doing "too much," criticisms that one White House official said were "irresponsible." Church had been one of Johnson's Senate allies but the President was angry with Church and other Senate critics and later suggested that they were under Moscow's influence because of their meetings with Soviet diplomats. In the fall of 1967, Johnson declared that "the major threat we have is from the doves" and ordered FBI security checks on "individuals who wrote letters and telegrams critical of a speech he had recently delivered." In that political climate, it is not surprising that some government officials eventually nominated Church for the watch list.[10]

SOURCE: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/

[font size="4"][font color="red"]I wonder if Sen. Richard Schweiker (R-PA) also got the treatment from NSA?[/font color][/font size]

“I think that the report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards, and I think the people who read it in the long run future will see that. I frankly believe that we have shown that the [investigation of the] John F. Kennedy assassination was snuffed out before it even began, and that the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was not to use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up.” — Senator Richard Schweiker on “Face the Nation” in 1976.

Lost to History NOT

DU shines light on what Corporate McPravda wants to send down the Memory Hole.

[jwirr]

115. Am I correct that he was the last of the big FDR liberals to

go down before the 80s? He was one of my favorites back then.

[Melissa G]

18. There are so many shoes that have yet to fall with Hillary..

As well known as she is and with all the advantages she has had, she is unlikely to be able to shake a brokered convention.

This is compelling evidence of Bernie's strength and her weakness.

Bernie could still win. He has the financial support to go all the way and he is taking our issues at least to the convention floor and maybe even the White House.

It has been said that no candidate ever quits running for President, they just run out of money. Hillary may run out of money. If it were not for Super Pacs and Citizen's United, she already would have been out of money.

Bernie is not running out of money. He is people powered!

[Octafish]

81. Lots of shoes...and why DU matters.

Our future is at stake. Bernie understands the powers of the US government should be be used to make life better for ALL Americans. Contrast that with...

What Hillary tells the BIG WIGs

Hillary Clinton Speaks from Peter G. Peterson Institute on Foreign Aid

C-SPAN aired Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks at the Peter G. Peterson Institute. Pete Peterson made billions as a private equity underwriter (PEU). He used $1 billion to establish his institute, focused on getting America's financial house of cards in order (without asking corporations or the rich to step up in any major way.)

[font color="green"]America believes government cannot do anything competently, thus the private sector is the answer. That goes for international development.[/font color]

SNIP...

That requires partners. Giants of philanthropy gathered in New York in 2009. This list included Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Pete Peterson, George Soros, David Rockefeller, and Oprah Winfrey.

SNIP...

Clinton stated in her talk:

[font color="green"][font size="5"]Aid chases need, investment chases opportunity.[/font size][/font color]

[font color="green"]She mentioned the Clinton Foundation as a partner. President Bill Clinton privatized government functions during his two terms, benefiting multiple private equity underwriters.[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://stateofthedivision.blogspot.com/2010/01/hillary-clinton-speaks-from-peter-g.html

That sounds exactly like what Reagan used to say. To such thinkers, money trumps peace; and which is why all the Big Money goes towards those candidates who appreciate where it comes from.

PS: Thank you for grokking, Melissa G. Thank you for fighting the Good Fight!

[Melissa G]

94. Thank you for shining a light and providing such useful information!

I am grateful you are still here. I am an Octafish post fan. Always good reading!

I hope the admins realize what might be left of DU if they push out the Bernie folks before the convention is over.

[Octafish]

95. You are most welcome! Got to stand up for Skinner and the Admins.

At no time have they told me what to post or what not to post. Their only caveat is that the information be true.

That's why DU is the place for Democrats on the 'Net.

It's also why I feel lucky to have real-world friends through our virtual community.

Please know that your friendship really does mean the world to me, Melissa G!

[Melissa G]

107. DU is the place for Dems on the net

I hope it stays that way. The primaries are always gnarly.

Great to have you here!

[Gothmog]

20. If the OP is silly enough to believe this, then open an Irish brokerage account

Anyone silly enough to believe the premise of the OP should open an Irish brokerage account and put their money where their mouth is. Predictwise has Clinton at 98% to be the nominee which means that you would get great odds http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-president-democratic-nomination In other words, the free market system and the smart money making a market here do not think that any of the options listed above are going to happen.

[grasswire]

21. Today I had a conversation with my congressman's aide.

Democratic congressman. He has endorsed HRC some time ago.

His aide and I talked about the election. I told him we Bernie supporters are not giving up. He said "Well, we think that Bernie still has a good path to the nomination." I said "Yeah, some people are looking to the FBI." And he said "Many people are, yes."

[JudyM]

26. Wow. Interesting!

[CorkySt.Clair]

47. He was probably just trying to get you off the phone.

[grasswire]

49. I wasn't on the phone.

He attended a ceremony where the Library of Congress was receiving my family's donation of my uncle's WW2 papers. He was a P.O.W. who received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, etc. etc. Two Congressional aides were representing the Congressmen at the ceremony. I talked to one. He was quite frank.

[NanceGreggs]

64. OMG!!!

Thanks for that - best laugh I've had in a long time!!!

[redstateblues]

50. Which Congressman? Many people are? Like Trump supporters?

Many people think Obama was born in Kenya. Many people think the earth is flat.

[840high]

63. He's right.

[grasswire]

97. I know it. And on the right side of history. nt

[Octafish]

100. Which is what matters.

“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.” -- Mahatma Gandhi

[Wednesdays]

106. Will this one fall in February 2017 is the question...

[moriah]

22. So author is saying Bernie could still win if Hillary is politically assassinated?

Have to say, still better than Hillary herself suggesting Obama could have been assassinated, but WAY desperate.

[Zen Democrat]

40. No. Author is saying Bernie could still win. Hillary doesn't have anything wrapped up.

A brokered convention is a strong possibility.

[senz]

59. An FBI indictment for one's own actions

would be political suicide, not political assassination.

[amborin]

44. Doesn't HRC still need to win 729 delegates, to get the nomination? So conceivably, neither can get

enough before the convention

[SidDithers]

45. And monkeys could fly out my butt...nt

Sid

[bvf]

74. As opposed to staying put? Ah! That explains a lot.

[Octafish]

79. Said the poster who will never vote for Hillary.

And while you've been asked a thousand times without answering, I'll ask again: So, why do you care?

[Joob]

46. Bernie IS going to win! Most likely.

[redstateblues]

51. Ancient Alien Theorists say

[JoePhilly]

70. ... and if that's true ...

My kids and I play the Ancient Alien Theorist game all the time.

[akbacchus_BC]

55. Why you keep raising my hopes? I really wish Mr. Sanders could win the nomination.

He is so honest and I really believe he is for the working class. Darn, I so wanted him to get the nomination. A Democrat is better than trump or cruz, so if it is Mrs. Clinton, so be it.

[7wo7rees]

56. Thanks for sharing Octa. nt

[senz]

60. For the sake of this country and its people, let us hope so.

Thanks, Octafish.

[merrily]

65. Yes, he could, but Bernie's always been winning; and the rest of us won the day in May 2015

when he made his informal announcement. They tried writing him off even before that. They are still trying. They don't get it.

[randome]

73. No one was trying to 'write him off'. Many said he couldn't win. And that was proven correct.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"If you're bored then you're boring." -Harvey Danger[/center][/font][hr]

[Beacool]

66. Yeah, and if I were taller and a bit younger I could run for Miss America.

This is going to be a looooong spring.

[merrily]

76. Supporters of Sanders need to either double down on donating and working or jump ship. jMO

[treestar]

77. Oh geez.

he makes the case that Bernie can't win, then hopes for an indictment.

LOL, even if indicted, that does not mean the super delegates automatically care. Innocent until proven guilty, for one. Even if Hlilary were indicted, it doesn't mean those voters will go oh well we have to settle for Bernie.

Having the private server was not criminal. Even if not a good idea. This is getting pathetic.

[Stuckinthebush]

83. It is comical now

I just laugh

[Octafish]

90. Four More Years of Trickle Down doesn't make me happy.

Warfare via Banking

Milton Friedman and the Rise of Monetary Fascism

The Dark Age of Money

by JAMES C. KENNEDY
CounterPunch Oct. 24, 2012

EXCERPT...

Monetary Fascism was created and propagated through the Chicago School of Economics. Milton Friedman’s collective works constitute the foundation of Monetary Fascism. Knowing that the term ’Fascism’ was universally unpopular; Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics masquerade these works as ‘Capitalism’ and ’Free Market’ economics.

SNIP...

The fundamental difference between Adam Smith’s free market capitalism and Friedman’s ‘free market capitalism’ is that Friedman’s is a hyper extractive model, the kind that creates and maintains Third-World-Countries and Banana-Republics, without geo-political borders.

If you say that this is nothing new, you miss the point. Friedman does not differentiate between some third world country and his own. The ultimate difference is that Friedman has created a model that sanctions and promotes the exploitation of his own country, in fact every country, for the benefit of the investor, money the uber-wealthy. He dressed up this noxious ideology as ‘free market capitalism’ and then convinced most of the world to embrace it as their economic salvation.

SNIP...

Monetary Fascism, as conceived by Friedman, uses the powers of the state to put the interest of money and the financial class above and beyond all other forms of industry (and other stake holders) and the state itself.

SNIP...

Money has become the state and the traditional state is forced to serve money’s interests. Everywhere the Financial Class is openly lording over sovereign nations. Ireland, Greece and Spain are subject to ultimatums and remember Hank Paulson’s $700 billion extortion from the U.S. Congress. The $700 billion was just the wedge. Thanks to unlimited access to the Discount Window, Quantitative Easing and other taxpayer funded debt-swap bailouts the total transfers to the financial industry exceeded $16 trillion as of July 2010 according to a Federal Reserve Audit. All of this was dumped on the taxpayer and it is still growing.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/24/the-dark-age-of-money/

Think this is history or something in far-off Faroffia? Think again.

President Clinton and the Chilean Model.

By José Piñera

Midnight at the House of Good and Evil

"It is 12:30 at night, and Bill Clinton asks me and Dottie: 'What do you know about the Chilean social-security system?'” recounted Richard Lamm, the three-term former governor of Colorado. It was March 1995, and Lamm and his wife were staying that weekend in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.

I read about this surprising midnight conversation in an article by Jonathan Alter (Newsweek, May 13, 1996), as I was waiting at Dulles International Airport for a flight to Europe. The article also said that early the next morning, before he left to go jogging, President Bill Clinton arranged for a special report about the Chilean reform produced by his staff to be slipped under Lamm's door.

That news piqued my interest, so as soon as I came back to the United States, I went to visit Richard Lamm. I wanted to know the exact circumstances in which the president of the world’s superpower engages a fellow former governor in a Saturday night exchange about the system I had implemented 15 years earlier.

Lamn and I shared a coffee on the terrace of his house in Denver. He not only was the most genial host to this curious Chilean, but he also proved to be deeply motivated by the issues surrounding aging and the future of America. So we had an engaging conversation. At the conclusion, I ventured to ask him for a copy of the report that Clinton had given him. He agreed to give it to me on the condition that I do not make it public while Clinton was president. He also gave me a copy of the handwritten note on White House stationery, dated 3-21-95, which accompanied the report slipped under his door. It read:

Dick,
Sorry I missed you this morning.
It was great to have you and Dottie here.
Here's the stuff on Chile I mentioned.
Best,
Bill.

Three months before that Clinton-Lamm conversation about the Chilean system, I had a long lunch in Santiago with journalist Joe Klein of Newsweek magazine. A few weeks afterwards, he wrote a compelling article entitled,[font color="green"] "If Chile can do it...couldn´t North America privatize its social-security system?" [/font color]He concluded by stating that "the Chilean system is perhaps the first significant social-policy idea to emanate from the Southern Hemisphere." (Newsweek, December 12, 1994).

I have reasons to think that probably this piece got Clinton’s attention and, given his passion for policy issues, he became a quasi expert on Chile’s Social Security reform. Clinton was familiar with Klein, as the journalist covered the 1992 presidential race and went on anonymously to write the bestseller Primary Colors, a thinly-veiled account of Clinton’s campaign.

“The mother of all reforms”

While studying for a Masters and a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University, I became enamored with America’s unique experiment in liberty and limited government. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the first volume of Democracy in America hoping that many of the salutary aspects of American society might be exported to his native France. I dreamed with exporting them to my native Chile.

So, upon finishing my Ph.D. in 1974 and while fully enjoying my position as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University and a professor at Boston University, I took on the most difficult decision in my life: to go back to help my country rebuild its destroyed economy and democracy along the lines of the principles and institutions created in America by the Founding Fathers. Soon after I became Secretary of Labor and Social Security, and in 1980 I was able to create a fully funded system of personal retirement accounts. Historian Niall Ferguson has stated that this reform was “the most profound challenge to the welfare state in a generation. Thatcher and Reagan came later. The backlash against welfare started in Chile.”

But while de Tocqueville’s 1835 treatment contained largely effusive praise of American government, the second volume of Democracy in America, published five years later, strikes a more cautionary tone. He warned that “the American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” In fact at some point during the 20th century, the culture of self reliance and individual responsibility that had made America a great and free nation was diluted by the creation of [font color="green"] “an Entitlement State,”[/font color] reminiscent of the increasingly failed European welfare state. What America needed was a return to basics, to the founding tenets of limited government and personal responsibility.

[font color="green"]In a way, the principles America helped export so successfully to Chile through a group of free market economists needed to be reaffirmed through an emblematic reform. I felt that the Chilean solution to the impending Social Security crisis could be applied in the USA.[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.josepinera.org/articles/articles_clinton_chilean_model.htm

The Future holds more of the Same, unless We the People can dosumpinaboudid.

5 WikiLeaks Revelations Exposing the Rapidly Growing Corporatism Dominating American Diplomacy Abroad

One of WikiLeaks' greatest achievements has been to expose the exorbitant amount of influence that multinational corporations have over Washington's diplomacy.

By Rania Khalek / AlterNet June 21, 2011

One of the most significant scourges paralyzing our democracy is the merger of corporate power with elected and appointed government officials at the highest levels of office. Influence has a steep price-tag in American politics where politicians are bought and paid for with ever increasing campaign contributions from big business, essentially drowning out any and all voices advocating on behalf of the public interest.

Millions of dollars in campaign funding flooding Washington's halls of power combined with tens of thousands of high-paid corporate lobbyists and a never-ending revolving door that allows corporate executives to shuffle between the public and private sectors has blurred the line between government agencies and private corporations.

This corporate dominance over government affairs helps to explain why we are plagued by a health-care system that lines the pockets of industry executives to the detriment of the sick; a war industry that causes insurmountable death and destruction to enrich weapons-makers and defense contractors; and a financial sector that violates the working class and poor to dole out billions of dollars in bonuses to Wall Street CEO's.

The implications of this rapidly growing corporatism reach far beyond our borders and into the realm of American diplomacy, as in one case where efforts by US diplomats forced the minimum wage for beleaguered Haitian workers to remain below sweatshop levels.

In this context of corporate government corruption, one of WikiLeaks' greatest achievements has been to expose the exorbitant amount of influence that multinational corporations have over Washington's diplomacy. Many of the WikiLeaks US embassy cables reveal the naked intervention by our ambassadorial staff in the business of foreign countries on behalf of US corporations. From mining companies in Peru to pharmaceutical companies in Ecuador, one WikiLeaks embassy cable after the next illuminates a pattern of US diplomats shilling for corporate interests abroad in the most underhanded and sleazy ways imaginable.

While the merger of corporate and government power isn't exactly breaking news, it is one of the most critical yet under-reported issues of our time. And WikiLeaks has given us an inside look at the inner-workings of this corporate-government collusion, often operating at the highest levels of power. It is crystal clear that it's standard operating procedure for US government officials to moonlight as corporate stooges. Thanks to WikiLeaks, here are five instances that display the lengths to which Washington is willing to go to protect and promote US corporations around the world.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/151370/5_wikileaks_revelations_exposing_the_rapidly_growing_corporatism_dominating_american_diplomacy_abroad

Explains why rightwing asswipes hate DU. Also gives us a heads-up on why we need Libaral, Progressive Democratic Action.

[Zorra]

96. Still in to win, and will stay in until. nt

[rock]

98. You mean if aliens

(Yeah that kind from outer space) land and lay waste to all the buildings in DC with laser cannons ... , well, maybe.

[Octafish]

99. You mean like Hillary's chum John Podesta talks about?

Podesta: Yes, Hillary will get to the bottom of the UFO question



Between you and me, while I might be scared to meet an alien, I wouldn't want to be photographed with one.

PS: Has it been established that aliens are from outer space? Maybe they're from another dimension or another universe layer?

[rock]

101. Like I say

Maybe.

[Octafish]

104. Four names stand for what I know about UFOs: Mantell, Moncla, Wilson, Valentich.

The first three were pilots, officers in the United States armed forces. The fourth name was a young Australian air cadet. Each lost their life in association with UFOs. There likely are others. Here's a bit on them:

Thomas Mantell

Mantell Case (1948)

EXCERPT...

Mantell was an experienced pilot; his flight history consisted of 2,167 hours in the air, and he had been honored for his part in the Battle of Normandy during World War II.

On 7 January 1948, Godman Field at Fort Knox, Kentucky received a report from the Kentucky Highway Patrol of an unusual aerial object near Maysville, Kentucky. Reports of a westbound circular object, 250 feet (76 m) to 300 feet (91 m) in diameter, were received from Owensboro, Kentucky, and Irvington, Kentucky.

At about 1:45 p.m., Sgt Quinton Blackwell saw an object from his position in the control tower at Fort Knox. Two other witnesses in the tower also reported a white object in the distance. Base commander Colonel Guy Hix reported an object he described as "very white," and "about one fourth the size of the full moon ... Through binoculars it appeared to have a red border at the bottom ... It remained stationary, seemingly, for one and a half hours." Observers at Clinton County Army Air Field in Ohio described the object "as having the appearance of a flaming red cone trailing a gaseous green mist" and observed the object for around 35 minutes. Another observer at Lockbourne Army Air Field in Ohio noted, "Just before leaving it came to very near the ground, staying down for about ten seconds, then climbed at a very fast rate back to its original altitude, 10,000 feet, leveling off and disappearing into the overcast heading 120 degrees. Its speed was greater than 500 mph in level flight."

Four P-51 Mustangs of C Flight, 165th Fighter Squadron Kentucky Air National Guard already in the air—one piloted by Mantell—were told to approach the object. Blackwell was in radio communication with the pilots throughout the event.

One pilot's Mustang was low on fuel, and he quickly abandoned his efforts. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt (the first head of Project Blue Book) notes that there was some disagreement amongst the air traffic controllers as to Mantell's words as he communicated with the tower: some sources reported that Mantell had described an object &quot which) looks metallic and of tremendous size," but, according to Ruppelt in The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, others disputed whether or not Mantell actually said this.

The other two pilots accompanied Mantell in steep pursuit of the object. They later reported they saw an object, but described it as so small and indistinct they could not identify it. Mantell ignored suggestions that the pilots should level their altitude and try to more clearly see the object.

Only one of Mantell's companions, Lt. Albert Clemmons, had an oxygen mask, and his oxygen was in low supply. Clemmons and a Lt. Hammond called off their pursuit at 22,500 feet (6,900 m). Mantell continued to climb, however. According to the Air Force, once Mantell passed 25,000 feet (7,600 m) he supposedly blacked out from the lack of oxygen (hypoxia), and his plane began spiraling back towards the ground. A witness later reported Mantell's Mustang in a circling descent. His plane crashed at a farm south of Franklin, Kentucky, on the Tennessee-Kentucky state line.

Firemen later pulled Mantell's body from the Mustang's wreckage. His wristwatch had stopped at 3:18 p.m., the time of his crash. Meanwhile, by 3:50 p.m. the UFO was no longer visible to observers at Godman Field. The Mantell Incident was reported by newspapers around the nation, and received significant news media attention. A number of sensational rumors were also circulated about Mantell's crash. Among the rumors were claims that Mantell's fighter had been shot down by the UFO he was chasing, and that the Air Force covered up evidence proving this. Another rumor stated that Mantell's body was found riddled with strange holes. However, no evidence has ever surfaced to substantiate any of these claims. In 1956, Ruppelt wrote that the Mantell Crash was one of three "classic" UFO cases in 1948 that would help to define the UFO phenomenon in the public mind, and would help to convince Air Force intelligence specialists that UFOs were a "real", physical phenomenon (Ruppelt 30). The other two sightings were the Gorman Dogfight and the Chiles-Whitted UFO Encounter.

CONTINUED...

http://www.mufon.com/mantell-case---1948.html

Felix Moncla and Robert Wilson

Radar operator stated he watched the aircraft approach the UFO; then saw the two blips merge into one return on his scope; which then took off at a high rate of speed and out of radar range.

Marksville Weekly News

Avoyelles Parish has connections to a UFO mystery that goes back 49 years. Gordon Heath from Surrey, British Columbia was in Marksville recently to investigate the background of Lt. Felix E. Moncla who disappeared along with another crew member, Second Lt. Robert L. Wilson, over Lake Superior on Monday, November 23, 1953.

According to Heath, who is a UFO hobbyist, Moncla was on temporary assignment at Kinross Air Force Base in ...(sic. Michigan)... when he was sent to identify and unidentified craft over the Soo Locks, which is restricted airspace. Moncla, in an F-89C, pursued the craft for about 30 minutes flying at 30,000 feet over the middle of Lake Superior. He was flying about 500 mph when he was instructed by ground radar to descend to 7,000 feet.

When the unidentified craft was finally on radar it was noted that the two radar images, the UFO and the Air Force jet, were very close and at some point they intersected but only one remained. Heath says that the unidentified craft flew north and disappeared from radar.

Lt. Moncla's jet mysteriously disappeared without a trace.

http://www.nuforc.org/mancla.html

No remains of the crew or wreckage of the F-89C have been found.

Frederick Valentich

His late father holds the missing flyer's picture:



Delta Sierra Juliet? Do you read?

Boats and aircraft have found no trace of the 20-year old Australian pilot who disappeared with his plane on Saturday night after radioing that he was being chased by a UFO. Frederick Valentich was on a 125 mile training flight in his single engine Cessna 182 along the coast of Bass Strait when he told air traffic controllers in Melbourne that he was being buzzed by a UFO with 4 bright lights about 1000 feet above him.

Controllers said his last message was taped and was: "It's approaching from due east towards me. It seems to be playing some sort of game... flying at a speed I can't estimate. It's not an aircraft. It's...It is flying past. It is a long shape. I cannot identify more than that. It's coming for me right now." A minute later: "It seems to be stationary. I'm also orbiting and the thing is orbiting on top of me also. It has a green light and a sort of metallic light on the outside." Valentich then radioed that his engine was running roughly. His last words were: "It is not an aircraft."

The Australian Air Force said it had received 11 reports from people along the coast who said they saw UFOs on Saturday night, but the Transport Department was skeptical. Ken Williams, a spokesman for the department, said, "It's funny all these people ringing up with UFO reports well after Valentich's disappearance. It seems people often decide after the event, they too had seen strange lights. But although we can't take them too seriously, we can never discourgae such reports when investigating a plane's disappearance."

SNIP...

[font size="5"]ACTUAL TRANSCRIPTION OF MELBOURNE FLIGHT SERVICE [/font size]

The transcript portion of the communication between Valentich and Melbourne Flight Service as released by the Australian Department of Transport follows: (FS - Flight Service, DSJ - Frederick Valentich aircraft designation).
1906:14 DSJ Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet. Is there any known traffic below five thousand?

FS Delta Sierra Juliet, no known traffic.

DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, I am, seems to be a large aircraft below five thousand.

1906:44 FS Delta Sierra Juliet, What type of aircraft is it?

DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, I cannot affirm, it is four bright, it seems to me like landing lights.

1907 FS Delta Sierra Juliet.

1907:31 DSJ Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet, the aircraft has just passed over me at least a thousand feet above.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, and it is a large aircraft, confirmed?

DSJ Er-unknown, due to the speed it's travelling, is there any air force aircraft in the vicinity?

FS Delta Sierra Juliet, no known aircraft in the vicinity.

1908:18 DSJ Melbourne, it's approaching now from due east towards me.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet.

1908:41 DSJ (open microphone for two seconds.)

1908:48 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, it seems to me that he's playing some sort of game, he's flying over me two, three times at speeds I could not identify.

1909 FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, what is your actual level?

DSJ My level is four and a half thousand, four five zero zero.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet, and you confirm you cannot identify the aircraft?

DSJ Affirmative.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, stand by.

1909:27 DSJ Melbourne, Delta Sierra Juliet, it's not an aircraft it is (open microphone for two seconds).

1909:42 FS Delta Sierra Juliet, can you describe the -er- aircraft?

DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, as it's flying past it's a long shape (open microphone for three seconds) cannot identify more than it has such speed (open microphone for three seconds). It's before me right now Melbourne.

1910 FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger and how large would the - er - object be?

1910:19 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, Melbourne, it seems like it's stationary. What I'm doing right now is orbiting and the thing is just orbiting on top of me also. It's got a green light and sort of metallic like, it's all shiny on the outside.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet

1910:46 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet (open microphone for three seconds) It's just vanished.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet

1911 DSJ Melbourne, would you know what kind of aircraft I've got? Is it a military aircraft?

FS Delta Sierra Juliet, Confirm the - er ~ aircraft just vanished.

DSJ Say again.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet, is the aircraft still with you?

DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet; it's (open microphone for two seconds) now approaching from the south-west.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet

1911:50 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet, the engine is rough-idling. I've got it set at twenty three twenty-four and the thing is coughing.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, what are your intentions?

DSJ My intentions are - ah - to go to King Island - ah - Melbourne. That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again (open microphone for two seconds). It is hovering and it's not an aircraft.

FS Delta Sierra Juliet.

1912:28 DSJ Delta Sierra Juliet. Melbourne (open microphone for seventeen seconds).

SOURCE: http://www.ufocasebook.com/australianpilot.html

Don't take it as a put-down. Some people are real closed-minded when it comes to UFOs.

[pdsimdars]

111. I didn't read the whole thing. As soon as I got to your delegate count I knew it was a sham.

That is not the delegate count. Super delegates are not "real" until the convention. To list them with the delegate count is mis-information, a kind of propaganda. Rubbish. You should know better.

[pdsimdars]

112. Superdelegates -- including them in your total

There is another OP about just this very issue. The head of the DNC on CNN is telling the guy interviewing him that they should NOT be included in the totals on those election nights, because they don't vote until the convention. The ONLY thing that is being chosen in the primary elections is the pledged delegates.
As I said, that article is slanted, biased and misleading. Period. I would think you would know better.