Revolt in the DNC

[ryoder 1,590]

DNC vice chair Tulsi Gabbard resigns, and endorses Sanders.
She is an Iraq war vet, and member of the House Armed Services Committee.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/28/dnc_vice_chair_resigns_endorses_sanders_blasts_clintons_interventionist_regime_change_policies/

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[tkhayes 348]

hardly a 'revolt'.

[JerryBaumchen 1,466]

Hi Robert,

Quote

Revolt in the DNC

I'm thinking this may be an even bigger revolt: http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read-republican-party-brink-coming-apart-n527901

Or is it panic?

Jerry Baumchen

[Phil1111 1,173]

JerryBaumchen

Hi Robert,

Quote

Revolt in the DNC

I'm thinking this may be an even bigger revolt: http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read-republican-party-brink-coming-apart-n527901

Or is it panic?

Jerry Baumchen

Quite right, panic all around:
" SALEM, Va. — "He's 6'2," Marco Rubio said of Donald Trump Sunday night, "which is why I don't understand why he has hands the size of someone who's 5'2. You know what they say about men with small hands."

It was perhaps the most explicit small-penis joke in the history of presidential politics.

Rubio has crawled into the mud with his vulgarian opponent. This may be necessary if he is to beat Trump, but it clearly carries dire risks for a man who wants to come across as presidential."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/with-penis-jokes-and-spray-tan-riffs-rubio-gets-in-the-mud-with-trump/article/2584485

"Thus the support for Trump among evangelicals in South Carolina and Nevada, which, in all likelihood, will hold up elsewhere. Religious conservatives feel they have been pushed aside in today’s cultural politics, just as the working class is increasingly sidelined by economic changes. Both are seen as dead weight by an establishment dominated by the “creative class.”

Trump is a brash pugilist. He called former president George W. Bush a liar for saying there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Commentators were shocked. Bush has been a darling of the religious right. Shouldn’t this crude broadside undermine Trump’s support among evangelicals?

No. They’ve voted and voted and voted for candidates put forward by the Republican establishment. Where has it gotten them? Like so many people in Middle America, religiously and socially conservative voters are ready to smash things."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/evangelical-christians-are-so-sick-of-losing-that-theyre-voting-for-trump/2016/02/26/d0efa184-da39-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html

US voters are frustrated and mad at the state of the economy. The elitism of politicians and their parties. Thats where Sanders support comes from.

There as been enough juicy political add-munitions generated to keep Democrats writing a new 30 second TV add every day till the presidential election.

Revolt...revolution...

[Coreeece 2]

JerryBaumchen

Hi Robert,

Quote

Revolt in the DNC

I'm thinking this may be an even bigger revolt: http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read-republican-party-brink-coming-apart-n527901

Or is it panic?

Well let's see, first the article talks about presidential candidates taking pot shots at each other and then we have the left painting the GOP front runner as a bigoted fascist - seems pretty typical so far. . .

. . .but wait, here comes Hillary to save the day despite Sanders valiant and noble effort!

Wow, I didn't see that one coming from NBC. . .

Never was there an answer....not without listening, without seeing - Gilmour

[normiss 892]

I'm really confused by the comment that "voters are frustrated and mad at the state of the economy".

[Phil1111 1,173]

normiss

I'm really confused by the comment that "voters are frustrated and mad at the state of the economy".

..."Sometimes you come across a headline and story that is stunning in its implications. Not that you expect people who live in a modern version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis rarefied atmosphere to get how it must be for the great masses below....
(Of course I'm quoting from the story and not implying or suggesting that you [normiss] fly to the DZ in your private Gulfstream jet above the unwashed masses below.)

“I find the whole thing astonishing and what’s remarkable is the amount of anger whether it’s on the Republican side or the Democratic side,” the Wall Street mogul said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Bernie Sanders, to me, is almost more stunning than some of what’s going on in the Republican side. How is that happening, why is that happening?”

America is the richest and most unequal nation in the world — at least when you look at the wealth in 55 of the more conventionally developed countries. Median income has largely fallen behind economic growth as corporations continue to retain a bigger share of the benefits, turning into a reverse of what is usually claimed as the danger of income redistribution. Perhaps that will change, as Tim Worstall has argued elsewhere on Forbes,...

People in the U.S. don’t tend to think that way. What many perceive now is a basic economic unfairness. They work hard, play by the rules as they’ve learned them, and keep getting further behind. The debt funding for college and large purchases seems to be never ending for large portions of the populace, which cements in a sense of unending inequality.

Then there is the realm of politics. Elected officials on the left and right are acknowledging what has been obvious for many years: Money owns influence. Large corporations and wealthy individuals pour cash into campaign coffers and it’s generally not out of the goodness of their hearts. As Donald Trump said to the Wall Street Journal, “As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”

There’s social unrest over historic treatment of minorities, fear of the “other” (immigrants, refugees, overseas competition, and even those with opposing views), and worry about being marginalized. How could anyone expect anything other than anger?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2016/01/21/blackstone-ceo-surprised-american-voters-are-unhappy-with-economy-politics-life/#196f38e970d9

It's amusing to hear Trump complain that his personal donations are apparently unrewarded but further(from a separate story):

"“THIS country is a hellhole. We are going down fast,” says Donald Trump. “We can’t do anything right. We’re a laughing-stock all over the world. The American dream is dead.” It is a dismal prospect, but fear not: a solution is at hand. “I went to the Wharton School of Business. I’m, like, a really smart person,” says Mr Trump. “It’s very possible”, he once boasted, “that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”...

Mr Trump is not in thrall to the hobgoblins of consistency. On abortion, he has said both “I’m very pro-choice” and “I’m pro-life”. On guns, he has said “Look, there’s nothing I like better than nobody has them” and “[I] fully support and back up the Second Amendment” (which guarantees the right to bear arms). He used to say he wanted a single-payer health service. Now he is much vaguer, promising only to replace Obamacare with “something terrific”. In 2000 he sought the presidential nomination of the Reform Party. A decade ago he said “I probably identify more as Democrat.” Now he is a Republican....

he has a genius for self-promotion, unmoored from reality (“I play to people’s fantasies. I call it truthful hyperbole,” he once said). Second, he says things that no politician would, so people think he is not a politician. Sticklers for politeness might object when he calls someone a “fat pig” or suggests that a challenging female interviewer has “blood coming out of her wherever”. His supporters, however, think his boorishness is a sign of authenticity—of a leader who can channel the rage of those who feel betrayed by the elite or left behind by social change. It turns out that there are tens of millions of such people in America."
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21663225-why-donald-dangerous-trumps-america

The actual numbers since the last recession:

"2009–present

The distribution of household incomes has become more unequal during the post-2008 economic recovery as the effects of the recession reversed.[65][66][67][68] CBO reported in November 2014 that the share of pre-tax income received by the top 1% had risen from 13.3% in 2009 to 14.6% in 2011.[1] During 2012 alone, incomes of the wealthiest 1 percent rose nearly 20%, whereas the income of the remaining 99 percent rose 1% in comparison.[23]

If the United States had the same income distribution it had in 1979, the bottom 80 percent of the population would have $1 trillion — or $11,000 per family — more. The top 1 percent would have $1 trillion — or $750,000 — less. Larry Summers[69]

According to an article in The New Yorker, by 2012, the share of pre-tax income received by the top 1% had returned to its pre-crisis peak, at around 23% of the pre-tax income.[2] This is based on widely cited data from economist Emmanuel Saez, which uses "market income" and relies primarily on IRS data.[67] The CBO uses both IRS data and Census data in its computations and reports a lower pre-tax figure for the top 1%.[1] The two series were approximately 5 percentage points apart in 2011 (Saez at about 19.7% versus CBO at 14.6%), which would imply a CBO figure of about 18% in 2012 if that relationship holds, a significant increase versus the 14.6% CBO reported for 2011. The share of after-tax income received by the top 1% rose from 11.5% in 2009 to 12.6% in 2011.[1]

Inflation-adjusted pre-tax income for the bottom 90% of American families fell between 2010 and 2013, with the middle income groups dropping the most, about 6% for the 40th-60th percentiles and 7% for the 20th-40th percentiles. Incomes in the top decile rose 2%.[34]

The top 1% captured an estimated 95% of the income growth during the 2009-2012 recovery period, with their pre-tax incomes growing 31.4% adjusted for inflation while the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 99% grew 0.4%. By 2012, the top 10% (top decile) had a 50.4% share of the pre-tax income, the highest level since 1917.[67]

Tax increases on higher income earners were implemented in 2013 due to the Affordable Care Act and American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. CBO estimated that "average federal tax rates under 2013 law would be higher—relative to tax rates in 2011—across the income spectrum. The estimated rates under 2013 law would still be well below the average rates from 1979 through 2011 for the bottom four income quintiles, slightly below the average rate over that period for households in the 81st through 99th percentiles, and well above the average rate over that period for households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution."[1]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States#2009.E2.80.93present