Well, that escalated quickly. Unity still is not a priority at the DNC.

I found an interesting account of some of the proceedings of the Democratic National Committee platform deliberations in Orlando, Florida, July 8th and 9th. I know, the platform is non-binding but it says a lot about what the party sees for its future. I'm not even a registered Democrat, but I care because they are part of this duocracy that we must contend with until we find a way to reduce the power of the duocracy and introduce serious competition for them. This year could be the year that we see the first signs of coalition government in the United States, but we may have to wait until the next midterm elections for that.

There is a growing #demexit movement afoot. Dissatisfied Sanders supporters are going to the Green Party. Even Cornell West has endorsed Jill Stein, and their contributions are growing. I think she'd make a great first female president, but she needs to be on the ballot in 50 states to be a contender worth considering. Some sources say she's on the ballot in 47 states, others say it's more like 24. If Sanders is not on the ballot, many people are planning on writing him in, and I think that may turn out to be the best strategy to get him in if he's not on the ticket. Elite Democrats would like us to believe that we have no other choice but Clinton, but their plans don't seem to be working.

There are visible signs of worry in the Clinton camp about this #demexit, a movement to register with another party or as independent if Sanders is not the nominee by July 29th. But there is also a sense of ease, one that is based on the notion that there are more loyal Democrats than there are people willing to vote for Trump.

For those people who want to vote for Trump out of spite, you need to read this USA Today article. Trump doesn't always pay his bills, he uses stall and delay tactics, and lawyers to foist the cost on others. Read that and ask yourself if you want him to be president. According to the article, he has over 200 mechanics liens on his properties. 200? Isn't that like, a lot? I think so. But if you're a billionaire, who cares? This is a man who thinks he can balance the budget? I don't think so.

This intransigence is not just with Trump. It's with the Clinton camp, too. It's all over them. They seriously believe that they're entitled to a blank check from Sanders supporters. Read here and here about the fights during the platform deliberations in Florida. One glaring example is how they refuse to put clear opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership in the platform. The TPP is a trade agreement designed to be the greatest corporate power grab ever. Yet, high level Democrats are afraid to put their opposition to this treaty into their platform. Why? President Obama has been the biggest cheerleader for it. "Oh, God no! We wouldn't want to offend President Obama on this one!"

Sanders and Clinton have both expressed opposition to the TPP, but I only believe one of them. I know for a fact that Clinton has exerted a great deal of support for that agreement when she was Secretary of State. I expect her to do the moonwalk on that one. Sanders? We know where he stands and that is very clear, very strong opposition to the TPP.

So when both of them express opposition to the TPP during this election cycle, it is any wonder why the DNC can't put it in writing in the platform? There is a lot of money riding on the passage of that agreement. That's money that could land in Democratic coffers for the mid terms. That is why they oppose putting that language in the platform. We wouldn't want to piss off those 132 people who financed 60% of superPAC spending in 2012 now, would we?

Then at the last minute in the deliberations on the platform, without any notice prior to the start of the deliberations that would last two days, they wanted to add "The Final Amendment". That amendment would add Hillary Clinton's name to the platform text. The Democrats have never put the name of a candidate in the party platform before. It must have been very urgent because they left out Bernie Sanders.

There was a chorus of opposition from the back of the room. People demanded to have the text of the amendment in writing. It wasn't in their packet of documents they had when they started. In other words, at the last minute, they wanted to enshrine Hillary's name in the platform before she has even secured the nomination.

The amendment was quickly withdrawn when the establishment could see that the ire of the Sanders supporters would not abate. Interestingly, there were "handlers" at the deliberations, telling Clinton supporters how to vote. Handlers? Clinton supporters needed coaching on how to vote? I thought these people were there to vote their conscience. I guess not. There were no handlers for Sanders supporters. They brought their brains and their hearts to the deliberations and voted their conscience.

This is the problem with the DNC. If you need to follow a handler to tell you how to vote, I don't think you have any business being there. Leave your ego at the door, but keep your brain and heart handy. You might need them. Clinton supporters clearly failed that test. Maybe the presence of the handlers is a symptom of another problem.

The millenials, some 81 million people born between 1982 and 2002, have taken note that their prospects for economic advancement are pretty grim. They've noted that both parties have, in an economic sense, put their young in a walled garden that only allows for subsistence and debt. Nothing more. Common Dreams has covered the plight of the millenials well with a fresh offering here. More to the point, what we see is that the Democratic elite are pandering to what we call, "the professional class", a group of people who have degrees and profitable professions. Old guard Democrats are angling for their money.

That's why they can talk about supporting the TPP with a straight face. The TPP does what every other trade agreement has done in modern history: protect the professional class while putting everyone else in competition with the rest of the world. If you don't believe me, check out this book by economist Dean Baker on the same subject, covering a span of 40 years of American history. It's called "The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive". We learn from that book that conservative factions of the duocracy, under the influence of big money in politics, have written the rules in favor of the wealthy, the rich and the professional class. If you're not upper middle class or higher, you're out of luck. It's time to rewrite the rules.

So when you watch the Democratic National Convention on TV, keep the events in Florida in mind. Be prepared for similar shenanigans at the convention, only scaled up, big time. Remember, everything breaks when you scale it. There is a reason it's going to be a contested convention. Sanders knows it. His supporters know it.

This is not a fight about gender and race. This is a fight about who has the money and who gets to earn it and keep it. So be sure to fund a delegate to ensure that Sanders has all the support he needs. We need to let the DNC know that they had better think it through before they nominate one of the worst presidential candidates in history. Let's hope they come to their senses and nominate Bernie Sanders instead.

An open letter to the Clinton superdelegates

Dear superdelegates,

This is an open letter to you, the superdelegates of the state of Utah, the place where I live. It is also for any other superdelegate who is still pledging support for Hillary Clinton.

Here are the superdelegates for Utah:

Peter Corroon, current Democratic Party chair for the state of Utah, Bernie Sanders
Wayne Holland, former chair of the Utah Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders

Breanne Miller, vice chair of the Utah Democratic party, Hillary Clinton

Patrice M. Arent, current member of the Utah house, 36th District, Hillary Clinton

To the superdelegates who already support Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you. To all the others, this letter is for you.

I have been reading the story of the struggle for the for the Democratic Nomination for more than a year. I read how more than 450 of you aligned your support for Clinton before even the first primary was held. I was disappointed to see how the press tallied your "votes" into the delegate totals long before you are scheduled to vote on July 25, 2016. I have seen that many of you are steadfast in your determination to vote for Hillary Clinton to be the first woman nominated as presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. Notice that my language says that the nomination is still in contention. That's because neither primary candidate has the 2383 delegates needed to "clinch" the nomination.

While I can empathize with your desire to make history, I can think of better women for the nomination. Unfortunately, we have a contender for the nomination that is of dubious and questionable character in Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary is one of the most unpopular candidates for president in modern history. She is still under investigation by the FBI and Congress.

Sure, you could say that those are right-wing conspiracies to derail her candidacy. But you might have noticed that there are no such "conspiracies" against Bernie Sanders. I have read article after article about Clinton's dubious record, not from the conservative side of the spectrum, but from intelligent people on the left. I have written a few myself. I offer the following for your enlightenment:

• Do I Really Need to Worry About Hillary’s Emails? Yes. She Will Be Indicted. - from self-professed Clinton supporter and admirer.
• Why the Democratic delegates must choose Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee - from a defense attorney who can look at Clinton's record in the most favorable light and still find real problems with Clinton's history and behavior.
• Almost any article from the last six months on my blog, The Digital Firehose. I have been writing tirelessly on this subject because I don't believe in Hillary Clinton. I believe in Bernie Sanders. I believe in his movement and I believe in his character as someone who truly wants to serve the nation as president.

Hillary has had the privilege of working with a bounty of advantages that any candidate for president would dream of:

• Household name recognition like no other
• A compliant media willing to add the spin she needs in the press
• A well organized and financed campaign coordinated with the supposedly neutral DNC
• The almost unanimous endorsement and support of every major figure in Democratic history that is still alive today

She should be a shoe-in, right? So why is there so much litigation surrounding the primary elections? Can it really just be sour grapes? I don't think so. Sanders supporters feel rightfully offended by the way the elections were organized and the way the votes were processed. Every single problem that was reported seemed to mean an advantage for Hillary Clinton.

You could say that she was not referred for indictment, but James Comey's press conference included damning statements of Clinton's record as Secretary of State. His past clients and employers provide a conflict of interest for him as well, making him unsuitable to reach the conclusion that no referral is warranted. The impression voters like myself have, is that Clinton is above the law and that she can continue her campaign, even with a cloud over her reputation. If she is above the law, then she is unaccountable to us. Who is she accountable to?

I want to draw your attention now to a passage from one of articles I linked to above, Why the Democratic delegates must choose Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee:

"I was particularly bothered by the speaker fees, even after just hearing about a handful of speeches to Goldman Sachs for $225,000 each. That is a lot of money, and Goldman Sachs is a huge and powerful bank. I decided to do my research. And that research led me to learn that it wasn’t just 6 speeches to Goldman Sachs, but 184 speeches by Hillary and Bill to 148 huge and powerful multi-national corporations for a total of $47,756,500 in just the two years before she declared her candidacy."

Hillary Clinton "earned" $47 million in speaking fees in the two years leading up to her announcement as candidate for president of the United States. These are not donations to her family foundation. These are not even political contributions. These are payments for services rendered.

What I would like to know is this: Did any of you, as superdelegates know about this? Now that you do know, how can you justify a vote for Hillary Clinton? You might say, "But she is loyal to all of the people of the United States!"

Which people? The people at the top or the bottom? Or is it somewhere in between?

Former presidential candidate and professor at Harvard University Larry Lessig has compiled and immense body of work on the subject of big money in politics. He has built a superPAC to end all SuperPACs. He has shown us that just 132 Americans have funded 60% of superPAC funding in the 2012 election cycle. His message? "He who pays the piper calls the tune."

"Hillary will say anything and change nothing." That's what then Senator Obama said as he debated Hillary Clinton in 2012. Who is calling the tune for Hillary Clinton now? Sure, she can mouth the words of Senator Sanders all she wants, but she's not a credible progressive. Even after she received the "endorsement of the century", her polling is no better than it was before.

Have a look at this graphic:

Now look at the trend since the endorsement. She went from 11% over Trump to 2.7% over Trump in the polling average. Historically, Clinton almost never recovers from polling setbacks.

She is not just polling badly. She is polling badly against someone I regard as the worst GOP candidate for president, ever. Both of them have net favorability ratings that are near or at historic lows. This polling is not a right-wing conspiracy. This is an indictment of her character.

Bernie Sanders is free of all the baggage that Clinton carries. No scandals, no investigations, no body trails foreign or domestic. He doesn't take big money contributions. He is dependent upon the people alone. He plays the tune called by the people. I may disagree with some of his policy positions, but I know that he is true to the people.

He's not perfect and I wouldn't want him to be. I want our next president to be one of us. Unpolished, a little ruffled, and maybe some wild hair days. I want someone who plays the laws he signs. I know where he stands and that he won't change with the winds like Hillary does. I voted for Sanders because I believe in him and I believe he is the best candidate to serve our country.

Superdelegates, I can't change your mind if you're dead set to vote for Hillary Clinton as the nominee. But you have to ask yourself, is Hillary Clinton the legacy you want to leave behind for your kids and their kids? You may find your sleep easier if you nominate Bernie Sanders, instead. I know I did when I voted for him.

Sincerely,

Scott C. Dunn

Stronger together? Explain this, Hillary.

Hillary says, "We're stronger together." Well, I'd like to believe her. But she's not acting that way. Someone did some very interesting research and found that everyone in recent history that has been caught violating federal secrecy rules has been tried and convicted. Most while Hillary was Secretary of State. Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept notes with interest how the Obama Administration has prosecuted more people under the Espionage Act than all other administrations combined. He also notes this:

This extreme, unforgiving, unreasonable, excessive posture toward classified information came to an instant halt in Washington today — just in time to save Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations. FBI Director James Comey, an Obama appointee who served in the Bush DOJ, held a press conference earlier this afternoon in which he condemned Clinton on the ground that she and her colleagues were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” including top-secret material.

So on the day that James Comey made his announcement that Hillary would not be referred for indictment, that pattern of excessive punitive action towards those who betray secrecy rules stopped with Hillary Clinton. As far as Clinton is concerned, we're all in this together, except for laws that we all must obey. Then she gets to skate. Yeah, we're together alright. She has the courage of conviction as long as it's not hers.

Then came the endorsement on July 12th. What I witnessed on that date was nothing short of astonishing. To see Bernie with a bright red face, giving a speech he wanted to give, but giving the endorsement that he didn't want to give, was a demonstration of monumental restraint on his part. 

Bernie or Bust fans were not amused. The more reasoned among them could figure out that Bernie was playing chess with the DNC. We know his hand was forced, and he made a bet, so to speak. OK, you have your endorsement two weeks before the convention. Now watch and see what happens. 

The endorsement changed nothing. In fact, it only made things worse for Hillary. Many are still #neverhillary, #stillsanders and some, probably in the heat of the moment, declared they were voting for Trump. That endorsement only stoked the fire of all who oppose Hillary, this writer included. The memes of that day were unforgettable. Many seemed to borrow liberally from the movie, "300", with viscerally moving pictures of the mood changing from sadness in the morning to fierce defiance by the end of the day. I'd like to show you one sample I'll never forget, but they are damn hard to find right now.

What happened? Hillary is dropping in the polls and is tied or behind Trump in some key swing states. National polling between Clinton and Trump is now very close to or at the margin of error. Donations to the Green Party are going through the roof, though I don't see them as a serious contender as Jill Stein is on the ballot in only 23 states. If you wan to see her on the ballot, get moving. I'm #stillsanders.

The day after the endorsement, Bernie gave a speech with nary a single mention of Hillary. A few hours after the endorsement, he had a conference call to round up all delegates and get them to convention. He's organized funding for those delegates to make sure they get there, too. I'd say that all out war has been declared, but you wouldn't know it by reading the mainstream media headlines. Are we together? It's hard to tell.

Republicans are still mounting challenges to Clinton in Congress, too. But don't get your hopes up. I think they'd rather wait until after she's secured the nomination to sick the FBI on her. And that is if she really does secure the nomination. There is also plenty of litigation to go around this election, too. In California, they're suing over election fraud that swung the votes in favor of Hillary. I suspect that there will be a few delays in certifying the votes in at least a few states.

If you're looking for uncertainty that Hillary will be nominated, it's easy to find. If you're hoping that Bernie will be nominated, you're not alone. You can stoke that hope by lobbying a superdelegate, too. Millions are beside you, like me, looking forward to that day in Philadelphia when we can declare Bernie the nominee.

Are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced!?!

I am still reflecting back on the day of the endorsement. As I review the responses from everyone else who saw it or heard about it, I am reminded of the strong feelings in my gut the first time I read of it. I am reminded of how I felt driving home, listening to Jimi Hendrix. I didn't get to hear the last song of that CD on the way home. I heard it the next day on the way to work.

The title of this blog post is in reference to the last song on the CD, "Are you experienced?" In the song he asks the second question, "Have you ever been experienced!?!' As I think of those words, I am reminded of the discussion of the body language displayed by both Sanders and Clinton during that fateful gathering in New Hampshire on the 12th of July. Here is a sample:

The image above to me, is that of a man completely in touch with his feelings about what he is about to do or has done. The woman to the left, seems to be completely bereft of any compassion for the man. I can't help but think that she is enjoying the sight of seeing someone do the one thing he doesn't want to do.

These are two entirely different experiences for two different people. For Sanders, I can totally get the emotional pain he is going through. But I also get that he is doing what he needs to do in order to get through the door. He is not doing this of his own volition. To unite against Trump, the worst GOP candidate for president, evah? I don't think so. I surmise that he is doing this because the DNC said that he's going to do it or they will kick him out and not let him back in. They can talk about it in court later, after the convention.

Clinton? Well, she's reveling in what we might call, social class essentialism. That's a fancy phrase for the behavior seen in people who think they are superior to others. I am reminded of a meme I just saw this morning. It contained a quote from Ernest Hemmingway:

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self."

This is how I live my own life. I avoid comparing myself to others. I look for ways to compare myself to myself yesterday and today. I find that as I polish this stone that I call peace, my life gets better.

I simply don't see Clinton doing that. I see her history on foreign policy and I don't see peace. I see her history with the DNC and I don't see peace. Oh, they're working together, but its not for the betterment of the country. Their work has one goal: to get Clinton elected no matter how the people voted or wanted to vote. I see how she has so far escaped prosecution for her alleged crimes. If she truly believed that she were innocent, then she would proudly suspend her campaign, do the trial and get back to it.

But she is far from innocent. As one person put it in a post on Google+:

Then there is my credibility. I want real reform. I don't want a candidate that pretends to want reform and goes back to the same old thing once in office. Hillary is emblematic of the status quo. The lack of indictment for the e-mail issue only proved that her being a political insider makes her immune to laws that would have us in jail for doing anything similar.

If I want equal justice under the law (which I do), how can I vote for a person who got special treatment? How can I support such a candidate by not being dishonest or a hypocrite? The answer is... I can't. If I was willing to cast a vote for Hillary, then I might as well be willing to vote for Trump. No thanks!

The truth is, Hillary doesn't act like someone who is willing to live under the same laws that that rest of us do. This is why I will never vote for her. As I watched video of the New Hampshire event, I tried hard to believe her speech. I could see her echoing the words of Sanders. But I could see her, even then, ever so slightly walking back his words. I just could not bring myself to believe that she believes what he believes. I could see her as president walking back every word better than Michael Jackson ever did the moonwalk. Why?

Because she, like so many other politicians, has refined the act of soliciting campaign contributions to an art and science. She has a family foundation perfectly suited to the task. "Hey you big Middle East tyrant! Want some arms? Baby, I got a special on surface to air missiles for you. Just make a quiet contribution of $2 million or more and I'll include tech support for free." She is the model citizen to explain why we need to get big money out of politics.

Sanders knows her history. He has known her for 25 years. That red face I saw when he was at the podium must have been something like rage, knowing that he has to make an endorsement to someone who cajoled him for his position on gun control, while arranging deals for arms as Secretary of State.

As I watched that video, I saw Sanders completely in touch with his feelings. Clinton, not so much. She smiled when she needed to smile. She was a bobblehead much of the time. She clapped somberly when she needed to clap. But when she smiled, she smiled more like someone in control of someone else rather that someone who had actually earned what she was getting.

This post is just another in a long series to show that I am #stillsanders. It is to share with you all, including Clinton supporters, that I'm just not going to change my mind on this one. Clinton could say exactly what Sanders says and I won't believe her. Sanders could endorse here and that won't save her. If Clinton supporters want to unite the party, they know what to do.

Ignore the mainstream media gloating, Bernie is still in it to win it

I am relieved to see that Bernie is still working on plans to appear at the convention. There appear to be rumors floating around that he must concede and endorse Hillary Clinton if he wants to have a chance to speak to a full house at the convention. They are not true. We know this because someone has "leaked" news of a conference call he had with his supporters.

What we learned from that conference call is that he's asking for all of his delegates to be there and to vote for him in a roll call vote. Yes, some people may remember that in 2008 Hillary Clinton moved to suspend the roll call vote in order to allow Barack Obama to be the nominee. Bernie is not doing that. He did not concede. He will even have attorneys present to ensure that every delegate gets a seat for that vote.

He's doing what makes total sense: use every possible angle to assert leverage on the convention and to maintain influence. If he should somehow win the nomination, that's a bonus. Why would he even bother?

Well, there are a few really good reasons. Like more than 700 supedelegates. Surely they must have noticed the following items in the news:

1. Hillary has been slipping in the polls since being "exonerated" by FBI Director James Comey. The RCP polling average against Trump is now less than 3.6%, very close to the margin of error.
2. Donations to Jill Stein of the Green Party have increased by nearly 1000% since Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton.
3. Director Comey made several statements during his announcement of the decision not to refer Clinton for indictment that directly contradict statements she made under oath to Congress. There could be another FBI investigation under way to determine if Hillary Clinton perjured herself during the Benghazi hearings.  
4. Bernie Sanders, like Barack Obama before him, brought millions of people to the party to vote for him. Now a large contingent of Sanders supporters are organizing a #demexit after the convention. I suspect that the superdelegates would like to see those new voters stay with the party.

This is the short list. Someone compiled a list of 150 reasons not to vote for Hillary Clinton. All of this and more can explain the body language of Bernie Sanders when he made his endorsement. He knows that much of this is beyond his control. But he also knows that he is the messenger for a desperately needed movement to restore democracy in our country. If he were not to use every possible angle to get to the nomination, millions of voters would be sorely disappointed.

I would like to put this in a personal perspective. From time to time, my family and I go to the mall. The mall is usually nuts and crowded, so parking may be hard to find. But I always drive by the closest spots first because I know that I have a 50/50 chance that there will be a spot close to an entrance. I only do one pass and then go looking farther away. If I get a spot close to the door, bonus! If not, oh, well.

Granted, the chances are not much better for Bernie, but we won't know if he doesn't ask. That's why he's doing what he's doing. It's not for him. What he's doing is for us. All of us.

So don't fret, don't jump ship, and let go of your anger if you have any towards Bernie Sanders. Don't go to the Dark Side. Stay with him. He knows what he's doing. He's in it for the long game, and he's not afraid of an uphill climb. Compare his attitude with that of Hillary Clinton. She had everything given to her and still endured an enormous struggle. The mainstream media doted on her. More than 400 superdelegates were on her side before the first primary. The primaries had numerous coincidences that seemed to work out in her favor. Without Sanders, she would have walked right into the White House.

Bernie Sanders doesn't have to do this. He's doing all of this because it's the right thing to do. Let us set aside any fears, condemnations and reproach we might have for him and join him, in mind if not in body, on the journey to and at the convention. For the moment, we can stop trying to predict the future and say, "I don't know". We can suspend judgment to wait and see what happens. That is what I think of as faith in action.

Faith is distinct from belief in that belief holds something to be true despite all evidence. Faith is a reservation of judgment, of holding the mind open to new information. Belief clings where faith lets go. Bernie or Bust.

A mere endorsement is not concession

Yesterday at work, I got the news. Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Ugh. I was angry, but not very much. The voice of reason was already in my ear, telling me there is more to this. Bernie is much smarter, older and wiser than most of us when it comes to politics. He understands political intrigue like no other. He knows more than he lets on.

Still, I drove home from work playing "Are You Experienced", by Jimi Hendrix. I reeled in a "Purple Haze". I could hear the chaos in my mind from the surreal experience of watching Sanders so completely and utterly endorse Hillary Clinton. I listened to "Manic Depression" and sang along with Jimi. I reveled in the "Fire". I cried a little inside as "The Wind Cries Mary". But somehow, I knew that there was more to Sanders endorsement than just acknowledging that she had bested him.

Sanders has been in politics for decades. He's seen 14 elections come and go and won. This moment in politics is a Zen moment. So it finally happened. Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton. Everyone thought he'd get cooties. After more than 12 hours of reflection, I'm not so worried about this anymore. I'm #stillsanders. I'm still thinking he has a chance to get to the top. If Clinton should somehow fail to get the nomination, Sanders has made his play to ensure there is unity in the party.

There are numerous reasons for superdelegates to change their minds. Sure, they may think they have the power to get their lusty coronation, but the movement behind Sanders is far, far beyond his control. I've seen the Sanders groups and supporters. Most of them are #neverhillary. Many of them are already professing their desire to vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party. Some have openly stated they will vote for Trump. No, I won't vote for Trump.

I thought that giving this speech would be dogfood for Sanders. But it was not. It was a speech like any other speech he gave. It was a stump speech if I ever saw one. But it was not for Clinton and it was not for Sanders. It was for the revolution. Sanders can see that he has nothing to lose by making this endorsement. An endorsement is not a concession. Franklin Roosevelt proved that in the last century. He endorsed his rival and still won the convention. Sanders must know this history. He still has his delegates. He is still a superdelegate.

Sanders is also very likely to be aware of all the litigation in this campaign. There is a litany of lawsuits across the country seeking to challenge the primary election results. There are investigations ongoing in several states for election fraud. With all the doubt and suspicion about the results, the convention is just a small part of what Hillary must overcome if she is nominated and elected. And let us not forget that Congress is asking the FBI to investigate whether or not Hillary Clinton perjured herself in the Benghazi hearings. I know, Republican talking point. But if she can't deal with that now, she's not going to be able to deal with it when Trump brings it up in every debate. On national TV.

I looked at the body language of the speech and I thought for sure I saw Sanders face turn bright red at a few points in the beginning, but he settled into it. Hillary was a bobblehead. She clapped on cue. Her smile seemed more like something she learned in training than a genuine smile. When it did appear to be genuine, I had the impression that she was childlike at the wonder of seeing Sanders work his magic in her favor. But I do not think that Sanders did this willingly. I think he did this because he understands that something greater than him, Hillary or Trump is at work here. America may be waking up after all.

Given the antipathy that a majority of Sanders supporters have for Clinton, I suspect that she will be a lame duck president before she even sets foot in the White House. The motorcade to the White House will not be greeted with a welcome, it will be very much like the scene in 2001 for George Bush. I believe that if Hillary is nominated, the GOP majority in Congress will remain, perhaps even more so if Sanders supporters decide to sit this on out. Sanders brought millions into the Democratic Party. I've seen the #demexit plans for July 29th. If Clinton prevails, that giant sucking sound will be the sound of people jumping ship.

I can't say that I know exactly what will become of this. I know that things are moving fast and that it's not really up to them. It's up to all of us to shape our history as it unfolds. I am content to trust that Sanders does indeed know what he is doing. It is up to us to support him and to prosecute the revolution.

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." -- TS Eliot

Bernie has nothing to fear by not endorsing Hillary Clinton

In the days leading up to the Democratic National Convention, we are seeing an enormous amount of pressure and propaganda to get Bernie Sanders to endorse Hillary Clinton. Hillary supporters are supremely irritated with Bernie Sanders and continually wonder why he won't politely concede the same way that Hillary Clinton did in 2008.

I have news for you, Clinton supporters. There is little doubt that Barack Obama won the primaries fair and square. But there is nothing but suspicion about how the primaries were won by Hillary Clinton. There is even a fair amount of doubt that she even won the primaries at all based on indirect evidence. See all the lawsuits and investigations? Don't even think that those investigations are part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to deny her the White House. Most of us Sanders supporters would make Hillary look about as conservative as Richard Nixon.

Nevertheless, despite the alleged wins by Hillary, she still lacks the pledged delegates needed to clinch the nomination. You can call her the "presumptive nominee" all day long and that won't mean squat. According to the Green Papers a site dedicated to an accurate accounting of election results, Hillary still has only 2,202 of the 2,383 pledged delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Bernie Sanders has 1,847 pledged delegates. The superdelegates, most of whom have declared their support of Clinton long before the first primary was even held, do not vote until the convention.

In recent days, we've seen word of concessions on the part of the platform drafting process for the DNC. Adding nice words for Sanders in the Democratic platform is nice, but it's not binding. Hillary can walk all of it back once she's in the White House. She's spent a lot of time supporting the TPP, but seriously, if opposition to the TPP were put into the platform, she can ignore it. $15 minimum wage? Who cares if she's in the White House? She'll ignore it and go back to fighting unions like she did before in Arkansas.

Now comes word of a rally being held by Bernie Sanders today and Hillary Clinton will be there. The rumor is that Bernie Sanders is planning to endorse her there. Clinton supporters are salivating at this opportunity for Sanders to publicly and undeniably concede this election. That isn't going to happen.

The rumors have been spread around by the mainstream media in the hopes of defusing an enormous protest planned for the convention. Some are projecting 10 million will descend upon Philadelphia to protest, but I seriously doubt that there are enough toilets to support that many people let alone the lodging. I think that a more reasonable estimate is about 100,000-200,000 can be expected to be on the streets around the convention. Even that would be a very high number of people to be camping out around the convention site. And they will need a place to go potty. And eat. The local restaurants would be nuts to deny them service if the thought should ever cross their minds.

Some have voiced concern that Bernie Sanders would lose his superdelegate status if he were to refuse to endorse Hillary Clinton. Surprise, surprise. Bernie is a superdelegate. He's only been a Democrat for what, a year and he's a superdelegate? But he must endorse Hillary Clinton or he loses his superdelegate status, right?

Has anyone else noticed that Al Gore is a superdelegate and is withholding his endorsement of the presumptive nominee? Does Al Gore seem at all worried that he might lose his status as superdelegate? No. Clinton is still the presumptive nominee. There is no nominee. Isn't that odd that Al Gore, former Vice President with Bill Clinton refuses to endorse Hillary Clinton? I mean, wouldn't that be a shoe-in? Why does Al Gore seem so reluctant to endorse Hillary?

Now it's time to dash those rumors that Bernie is going to endorse Hillary. Somebody had the temerity and the brains to call the Bernie Sanders campaign just to check it out. Sure enough, the true story is that Bernie Sanders will not endorse Hillary Clinton, at least not today. Even Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Sanders will not confirm an endorsement for Hillary to be forthcoming.

It's important to note that Bernie is one of the most experienced politicians in the United States. He's seen 14 elections won and a few more lost. He understands a concept called "leverage". He's staring a political movement that has mobilized millions of people to act and act now to stop Hillary Clinton. His supporters are learning to avoid the mainstream media for news. They are going to social networks for news. Many of them are saying that if Bernie endorses Hillary, they will vote for Jill Stein. Automatically.

They are going to Reddit to find stories from people who are close to the sources. They are forming their own networks of reporters to find and relay the news on Facebook. Clearly, the Associated Press cratered when they announced that Hillary had "clinched the nomination" a day before the last primaries were held on June 7th. But they ain't seen nothin' yet. When millions of people openly say that they're going to ignore the mainstream media because they can't be trusted, they've got bigger problems than finding readers. They're going to have trouble finding advertisers.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Leverage. Hillary's supporters want this really, really bad. They are absolutely salivating at the novelty of electing the first woman president in America. Well, she's got nothing on Angela Merkel, Margaret Thatcher and and dozens of other countries. Here's a list of all of all female heads of state worldwide throughout history. Here's a list of current female world leaders, most of whom were elected in apparently fair elections. I do want a woman for president, just not Hillary. I'd rather have Jill Stein from the Green Party for president.

Sorry, lost myself again. Leverage, right? Yeah, Sanders has leverage. He has 1800 delegates (more than 1900 if you count the superdelegates) behind him. He has more than 12 million votes behind him. And don't forget the millions more who wanted to vote for him but could not. They could all walk and vote for someone else. God forbid that Trump might be elected as president, right?

Who knows what Bernie wants to do with all that leverage, but he's not going to betray legions of followers with an endorsement almost two weeks before the convention. We do know that he's planning on showing up at the convention with thousands of followers in tow and his delegates. We will have to trust that he's an experienced politician and that he will do everything he can to win the nomination. There is still a chance he might win, however slight. That's because the nominee hasn't been selected yet. For now, we must remain committed to victory, one way or another.

"When one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too. " -- Goethe

Looking for clean hands in the debate over Hillary's emails

The debate over the Hillary's emails is over the top and across the field (cue up the video of Daffy Duck hooting and hollering and hopping off into the sunset). Now that FBI Director James Comey has announced that he will not recommend indictment, he didn't do so without a parting shot. In his announcement, he not only let her off the hook, but gave us numerous reasons not to let her off the hook. He also made one tacit admission during his announcement. In so many words, he said that she was too big to jail.

What do we mean by "too big to jail"? Well, Hillary Clinton is a multi-millionaire. She can pay for all you can eat legal representation. With the right legal team, she can bury government attorneys in discovery, motion practice and delays while waiting to secure the Democratic nomination. She could make it seem like a political witch hunt, yet, Comey is the Director of the FBI in Barack Obama's administration.

Congressman Trey Gowdy, R-SC, has been in Congress since 2010 and was elected in a Tea Party wave of anxiety and resentment after the banking crisis in 2008. He was named as chair of the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding Benghazi in 2014. Since then, he has been crusading against Hillary Clinton and now it appears that he is setting Hillary Clinton up for perjury charges with his latest hearing in Congress, featuring FBI Director James Comey. It seems that Gowdy has joined the effort to disqualify Hillary Clinton as a candidate for president.

In that hearing, the exchange between Gowdy and James Comey seemed to prove that Hillary had lied about the emails, the email server and her motivations for setting it up. The hearing seems to have been setup as a way to give publicity to the questions that remain about her emails, the servers, and the devices she used to conduct official business as Secretary of State. I qualify my statements because Hillary is innocent until proven guilty. But that didn't stop Comey or Gowdy from doing their best to tar Hillary during her campaign for president.

There are some who might ask why I'm bringing up Republican talking points. I bring them up because Hillary Clinton is going to answer the same talking points in a series of debates leading up to the November election. If she can't deal with that now, there is no way she will deal with that in November. Her polling is already slipping as a result of being roundly criticized by Comey and being let off in the same breath. She now has only a 4.5 point lead over Donald Trump in the polling average maintained by Real Clear Politics. That is getting closer to the margin of error than Clinton supporters will find comfortable.

But this post isn't about whether or not Clinton can sustain the attacks and prevail in the coming election. This is a search for clean hands. While the Republicans are working hard to discredit Hillary Clinton over her deliberate act to delete 30,000 emails, they would like us to forget that they had their own email scandal in 2007. Here is the heart of the story from Wikipedia:

The administration officials had been using a private Internet domain, called gwb43.com, owned by and hosted on an email server run by the Republican National Committee,[6] for various communications of unknown content or purpose. The domain name is an abbreviation for "George W. Bush, 43rd" President of the United States. The server came public when it was discovered that J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, was using a gwb43.com email address to discuss the firing of the U.S. attorney for Arkansas.[7] Communications by federal employees were also found on georgewbush.com (registered to "Bush-Cheney '04, Inc."[8]) and rnchq.org (registered to "Republican National Committee"[9]), but, unlike these two servers, gwb43.com has no Web server connected to it — it is used only for email.[10]

This private email server was only discovered after Congress began an investigation into the firing of a group of US attorneys and found that not all of the documents were on government servers. The Bush email scandal was every bit as serious as the Clinton email scandal, just on a much larger scale, and the uncertainties of how that server was used are even greater.

Upon discovery of this email server, more than 22 million emails were deleted. Where was Democratic outrage when Karl Rove and his associates deleted 22 million emails from a private server that was apparently used for government and political business? Were there any calls for indictment by any Democrat anywhere? Not that I can find, at least not on this Wikipedia page. But David Brock at Correct The Record, a SuperPAC for Hillary Clinton, wrote an open letter to Mr. Gowdy to remind him that he does not have clean hands. How nice of you, David.

Private emails, private email servers, deleted emails, unsecured servers, and the list goes on. What we know is that if government officials are using private emails and servers, they are not doing the people's business. They're not working for the people, they're working for their donors, the big money in politics.

How do we know this? Perhaps James Comey's decision not to recommend indictment is instructive. Have a look at his Wikipedia page. He was US Attorney for the southern district of New York in the Bush Administration. Since then, he has worked for Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor, investment firm Bridgewater Associates, and HSBC after their $1.9 billion settlement with the Justice Department for laundering money for Mexican drug cartels. Don't let that revolving door hit your ass on the way out, James.

Neither party has clean hands. (Don't even get me started on Trump. :) ) Could the Democrats take the high road by asking Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race? Can we sweeten the deal by adding several primary elections under investigation, and a few lawsuits to prevent certification of the primary results without counting all of the ballots? I really don't know, but if the Democrats want to unify the party, and show that they are willing to hold people accountable, then perhaps they could.

Guess who has clean hands in this entire fracas? Bernie Sanders. No scandals, no FBI investigations and certainly no body trails. Bernie Sanders doesn't change positions on policies with the wind. No one is asking him for his emails. Yet, the Democratic elite seem content to ignore him, hoping he will go away. They must be hoping that people will forget that he is still running for president. Yes, he is still running for president.

I haven't forgotten. Neither have millions of die-hard Sanders supporters. I'd like a president with clean hands before setting foot into the White House. How about you?

The right of nomination is real, but it's been co-opted by party politics

More than a year ago, I wrote about the right of nomination and how it has been captured by the top 0.05%. I believe that someone has discovered how this happened. Over the last 116 years, American politics adopted and used a primary election system for nomination of candidates to run for office. The primary is then followed by a general election to decide the winner between parties just as we do now. I believe that the primary and convention process of selecting a nominee that we have now is, by design, a way to keep power in the hands of the 1%.

I got this idea after reading "Sanders Supporters: Check Out This Amazing Piece of American History for a Path You Might Take, by David Morris, co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. This is the story of the Non-Partisan League and how they came to power. In the following excerpt, let me show you what caught my eye:

To gain power the NPL relied on a political tool born of the Progressive movement: the political primary. To make government more responsive and transparent, Progressives urged states to bypass political conventions, political bosses and backroom deals and adopt direct primaries. By 1916, 25 of the 48 U.S. states had adopted the primary as the vehicle for nominating political candidates.

The primary system gave people the power to elect candidates of their political party, but the key to the remarkable political revolution that swept through North Dakota was its adoption, in 1908, of an “open primary” law that allowed anyone to vote in a party’s primary even if unaffiliated with that party.

Hmm. What's that you say? An open and direct primary where anyone could vote for any candidate of any party in a primary election? What a novel concept.

The Non Partisan League was an organization dedicated to program based politics rather than party based politics. To put it differently, they focused on the issues rather than the party or personality. This is an important distinction that is often drawn by Senator Bernie Sanders, a man who, despite what the mainstream press may tell you, is still running for president.

As Morris puts it, the NPL was "a movement for an American-style decentralized, anti-corporate, democratic socialism." That sounds very much like what Bernie Sanders is attempting to start. Morris has detailed the tools used by the NPL to gain power and transform the local economy of North Dakota. The changes made by North Dakota allow their citizens to act more like a state than a colony. Yes, dear reader, today as you read this,"the several states" are being treated like colonies.

In sum, here is a list of the tools used by the Non-Partisan League to help the people maintain and assert power:

1. Legislation or constitutional amendments by initiative
2. A focus on program based politics rather than party based politics
3. Direct and open primaries that leave the political party and their convention events out of the nomination process

Many states already offer item 1, legislation or constitutional amendments by popular vote. I'm not aware of any states that offer non-partisan elections at every level based on programs rather than political parties. The political party has become the nexus of centralized power in our current political system. Taking the parties out of the nomination process would limit the backroom deals eschewed by the NPL.

An open and direct primary means that there are no superdelegates to subvert the will of the people. There are no delegates to send to far off places in expensive hotels on expensive flights taking taxis or renting cars to get to the convention and all the events that take place there. And we know that the hotels are going to jack up the prices for every night they can during the convention.

An open and direct primary means that the people maintain a strong hold on the nomination process. An open and direct primary forces all political parties to play to the largest audience, not just the most extreme political factions that support them. Note here, that the two "front-runners", Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have some of the worst net favorability ratings in history. Neither candidate polls well with or is trusted by a majority of Americans.

I believe that closed primaries are a part of the conservative agenda and I think that conservative actors have taken note of this. Morris notes that the courts have not been kind to open primaries:

Recently the courts have not been sympathetic to the open primary. Not long ago the Supreme Court invented a new “right of association” and bestowed that right on political parties. In 2000, for example, by a 7-2 vote, the Court overturned a California form of open primary approved by the voters by a 60-40 vote. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia objected that the California law "forces political parties to associate with—to have their nominees, and hence their positions, determined by—those who, at best, have refused to affiliate with the party, and, at worst, have expressly affiliated with a rival."

I believe that the right of association, as Justice Scalia put it, is not as important as the right of suffrage. It is not as important as the right of self-determination as a part of a group. Scalia seems to have conveniently ignored what happens when a party becomes dominant and then uses that dominance to close off dissent, and to enact the wishes of their members against the will of the rest of the people who have to live with new laws that work against their interests. Scalia was a very conservative justice on the Supreme Court, and I think he could see what was coming if he was not able to put some restraint on open primaries.

As we have seen in this primary season, that "right of association" was used to deny people the right to vote most obviously in Arizona, California, and New York. Making all primary elections completely open must become a priority in order to restrain the power of the dominant parties and to force them to acknowledge that they do not exist in a vacuum.

A comparison of our primary selection process to what they had in North Dakota, easily explains how we are now faced with a choice of two evils. A system that permits a narrow class of voters to assert power in two dominant political parties, offers little to no competition and provides every incentive for the most corrupt to rise to the top. That system gave us the choice between a corrupt businessman and a morally bankrupt and politically powerful woman set on using every means at her disposal to secure the White House.

Party loyalty has hard to observe problems built into the system. I've noticed that people who are loyal to the party tend to be blind to the policy positions of that party. This is true for both Democrats and Republicans. How else can we explain a middle class that has repeatedly voted for people who once in office enact law after law that work against the interests of the middle class?

Both parties have slipped in and supported policy positions that benefit primarily the 1% while hanging the rest of us out to dry. Our elected officials do this because they must appeal to big money interests before the rest of us are even considered. The most significant example is the so-called free trade agreements that have come to pass. Both parties have supported them at the expense of the rest of us. As a result of that kind of behavior, Congress has the lowest approval rating in history, yet has the highest re-election rate in history.

Their exclusive primary elections and conventions provide insulation from the electoral consequences of their support of free trade agreements, while securing the blessings and the large contributions that only the 1% can provide. As big money in politics came to be accepted and perceived as a necessity, the 1% is now able to pay the piper and call the tune. Let that sink in. Big money is perceived to be a necessity in running a successful campaign.

Politicians like Bernie Sanders offer hope to millions of people that there are people with integrity who are willing to run for office. When they reject big money and solicit small contributions from thousands or millions of donors, they make themselves dependent on the people alone. That principle requires them to appeal to the broadest number of people with policy positions that will help the most people rather than the few.

I believe then, we may have a sort of prescription for fixing American politics so that it works for all of us:

1. Every state must provide for legislation or constitutional amendments by initiative.
2. We must put an emphasis on program based politics rather than party based politics.
3. Every state must offer direct and open primaries that leave the political party and their convention events out of the nomination process.
4. We must abolish the Electoral College to reduce the amount of influence that one state or another may have on the presidential election.

5. Publicly funded elections with conditions designed to reduce the influence of big money in politics.
6. Require disclosure for all political contributions.

There are many proposals for political reform to choose from, but I think that the Non Partisan League has provided very useful instruction. By following their example, we can work together to restore our democracy and ensure that our government and the economy it supports will work for all concerned, not just the 1%. 

I read the news today, oh, boy. Believer it or not, there is still hope for Bernie and his movement.

While the earth burns...Hillary is not going to be indicted (I'm still in a daze on this one). Oh yeah, and it seems that FBI director James Comey inadvertently proved that Hillary Clinton committed perjury. Bernie is "working" with the Clinton campaign. Trump can't keep his foot in his mouth without pulling the trigger. Obama brought Hillary Clinton on Air Force One?

Close your eyes and click your heels together three times. Remember, "Not my circus, not my monkeys".

It's easy to get depressed over all this news and more. But there is actually some good news out there. I know, it seems hard to believe. But remember, we're dealing with the mainstream media, guided by a Democratic National Committee determined to shape the narrative without their fingerprints on the stories they pass on to the press as news. Sanders supporters who listen to or read the mainstream news are exposing themselves to a message that says, "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

I am writing to you dear reader, to let you know that there is always hope and that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

First, there is John Laurits. He's got a great series of articles on the delegate math and can see a path to 50% of the delegates at the convention, a path that you will never see reported in the mainstream media. Remember, we're all supposed to be depressed that we didn't win, and we're not supposed to have any hope that we might win. The mainstream media would like us to believe that the Sanders campaign is dead. It's not.

Laurits has pointed out that the hope for winning the nomination is to fund the delegates. There are a few delegates who are suffering from sticker shock and may or may not get to the convention if they don't get the money to go. Funding the delegates will get them to the convention. It's important to note that at a few statewide conventions, Clinton lost votes because her delegates were MIA. We don't want to suffer the same fate. So if you have some money to spare, fund a delegate!

I find one of the most interesting sources of Sanders news at Naked Capitalism. Their posts are deep, long and intellectual. If you scratch them, you won't get a simple answer. From time to time, I poke around there to see what they're talking about. It's mostly macroeconomics, but they also get into politics, and today, they've got a doozy. It's a bit of a long read, but it's worth the effort, "The Sanders Revolution: North Dakota as an Example of the Long Tail of Grass Roots Activism". It's a republication of an article from David Morris, co-founder of The Institute for Local Self Reliance, or ILSR.

Some old timers who know my blog may well remember that name. The Institute for Local Self Reliance is parent to the Community Broadband Networks, a blog devoted to the public option for internet access, maintained by Christopher Mitchell. What are they about? In a nutshell, they are about distributing political power rather than centralizing it. The article by David Morris is long on history, but it's very useful history for those who support Bernie Sanders and others who think like him.

Morris rightly notes the history of the state of North Dakota and how a socialist party managed to infiltrate the early Republican Party of that state. He shares with us, the story of the Non-Partisan League and how they worked as a group to develop and assert power against the monopolies that prevailed at the time. We also learn how they set the foundation for the public option in that state, as well as the institutions that remain there to this day, like the Bank of North Dakota. And finally, we learn that the public option has given the citizens of North Dakota a fiber network for internet access that is world class with real competition from local providers.

But the takeaway, the meat of the article is about how grassroots movements create lasting change in a way that media manipulation can never match. The grassroots movements of North Dakota in the first 25 years of the last century created institutions that conservatives today would be crazy to try to abolish today. Because they started from the bottom up, they created not just a party, but a way of life and thinking that still permeates the culture of North Dakota today.

Why is that important to Bernie Sanders? The Sanders campaign has grassroots stickers plastered all over it. Grassroots means an unprecedented 7 million+ contributions averaging $27 each, or a total of more than $222 million in campaign finance to work with. That grassroots campaign gave the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, a serious run for her money and it's still not over.

Better yet, Sanders has encourage people to run for office with a central plank of getting big money out of politics (you can sign up here at his website). More than 12,000 people have signed up to learn how to run for office. Sanders polls better than Clinton with young people by a landslide. They are the next generation.

If this movement takes hold and can maintain momentum past November and beyond, we could well see some serious changes in the next mid-term election. Already, we are seeing incumbents who supported Hillary Clinton matched up with primary contests they weren't expecting to fight. Just ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I guess they thought they were in safe seats. A few Sanders supporters have already won primaries for their Congressional districts, too.

What does media manipulation get for you? A contingent of independent voters that is larger than the two dominant parties combined. Even in this article, NBC News is trying to spin it to save the two dominant parties, Democrats and Republicans. But the fact remains that at the current rate of growth, independent voters will outnumber both parties combined. Both parties are truly disconnected from the public with 26% for Republicans and 30% for Democrats.

Here is one more pearl of wisdom bestowed upon us by the State of North Dakota from the same article:

To gain power the NPL relied on a political tool born of the Progressive movement: the political primary. To make government more responsive and transparent, Progressives urged states to bypass political conventions, political bosses and backroom deals and adopt direct primaries. By 1916, 25 of the 48 U.S. states had adopted the primary as the vehicle for nominating political candidates.

The primary system gave people the power to elect candidates of their political party, but the key to the remarkable political revolution that swept through North Dakota was its adoption, in 1908, of an “open primary” law that allowed anyone to vote in a party’s primary even if unaffiliated with that party.

The NPL recognized the right of nomination and that it resides with the people. They eschewed big money in politics and promoted open primaries. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Even if Sanders does not win the nomination, and there is a pretty good chance he won't, he landed an enormous blow against establishment incumbents in Congress and in many statehouses. As more people become motivated to run for office following that one simple principle to get big money out of politics, establishment supporters will find it harder and harder to field their own candidates. Why? The people they claim to support will have become wise to their game.

This is not about hate. Don't hate Clinton. Notice what she's doing and oppose her. Don't hate the adversary, for it is not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is indifference. Indifference says, "You know what? I really don't care anymore what you do. I have other plans."

Love says, "I care more than ever about my country and where it's going. I'm willing to volunteer, I'm willing to write, to share and even run for a seat on the school board or the water district. I accept that it took a long time to get here, and that it may take awhile to get back on track. But I'm willing to do the work to get our country working for everyone again."

Sanders came in peace to save the Democratic Party. The DNC was not wiling to listen. That's OK. We may have to form a new party to get a brand new Congress and a president who actually represents the rest of us.

The call of fiduciary duty, Sanders vs the DNC

Somewhere out there, amidst the din of calls for Sanders to surrender, is a tiny voice, a voice that even when heard, is often ignored. This voice is the voice of fiduciary duty. It has something to say on both sides of the Democratic nominee selection process. According to The Wex Legal Dictionary:

A fiduciary duty is a legal duty to act solely in another party's interests. Parties owing this duty are called fiduciaries. The individuals to whom they owe a duty are called principals. Fiduciaries may not profit from their relationship with their principals unless they have the principals' express informed consent.

Sanders has received many millions of dollars from millions of contributors in trust for him to run his campaign to the very end. That means, by following the rules, and the laws, he is using every possible avenue to win the nomination. That means staying in the race to the nomination to the very end, until the last vote is counted at the Democratic National Convention in just a few weeks.

When people call upon him to surrender his campaign for the nomination, they are asking Bernie Sanders to abandon his fiduciary duty to his supporters to use every means possible, within the rules provided, to secure the nomination. This fiduciary duty is above and beyond the maintenance of his relationship to a loyal and enthusiastic following of millions of Americans. Were he to abandon the quest for the nomination prematurely, he would betray his followers. His followers are Americans who have for years wanted a way out of voting for the lesser of two evils. They have wanted to vote for a true progressive, and having found him, they have supported him tirelessly. That support will continue, well beyond the end of the campaign, whatever the outcome.

As far as Sanders and his supporters are concerned, this is not over. Not even close.

During the campaign, Sanders encountered numerous obstacles in his quest for the nomination. Oddly, one of those obstacles turned out to be the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The DNC also has a fiduciary duty to the people they serve. The DNC has received millions of dollars in contributions from millions of people all over the country. Many of these donations were made in the hopes of supporting Bernie Sanders and others like him. Yet, the DNC has not been the neutral and impartial arbiter of the nomination process that we would all expect them to be.

For many Sanders supporters, it has been plainly obvious that there was a pro-Clinton bias exhibited by the DNC. I am one of them and I have seen this bias from the beginning. For the most part, I just assumed that it was politics as usual. But in recent days, I learned of a class action lawsuit against the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I've read the complaint and now I see the full story, in all its gory details. It's a short read, so check it out here.

The quick summary is that the DNC bylaws and rules require it to be a neutral party with respect to candidates seeking the nomination to run as candidate for president. The DNC computer systems were hacked and an email was stolen and released to the public to show that the DNC had already made up its mind that Hillary Rodham Clinton or, "HRC", was going to be the nominee. In addition, the DNC had agreed to commit resources to push stories out "without fingerprints" that would support HRC and respond to criticisms about her. That was in May of 2015, after Sanders had already announced his candidacy. That strategy document made no mention of any other candidate and shows that even then, the DNC was confident that HRC would be their nominee.

It is estimated that the number of plaintiffs to be included in the classes for this lawsuit could include millions of people. The classes of people include those who donated to Bernie Sanders directly, those donated to the DNC and all registered members of the Democratic Party.

Did the DNC breach a fiduciary duty to the people who made a contribution to the DNC? I think so. Did they commit a fraud upon the people they serve? I think so, too. But ultimately it is up to the court to decide these questions.

The amount of bias against Sanders and in favor of Clinton that has been exhibited by the DNC is, in my estimation, unprecedented and almost certainly without peer in the GOP and in past elections for either party. I believe that a reasonable jury or judge would be hard pressed to find for the defendant if this case ever gets to trial. I do hope that it does get to trial so that the verdict, with damages is made public for all to see and so that the DNC members who participated in this farce will be made an example for all to avoid. Let's not let them have a settlement protected by a non-disclosure agreement. Justice should be free or all to see.

The fact that Bernie Sanders has not conceded and has not endorsed Hillary Clinton is a testament to his determination to honor his duties and obligations as a candidate, both fiduciary and otherwise, to the people who support him. This is why I support him and will continue to do so, well after the election is over, regardless of the outcome. A peaceful revolution has started, the kind of revolution that democratic governments are designed to permit, so that the people are better able to determine their own collective fate, without spilling any blood. Let us confine this revolution to spilling ink and electrons instead.

So the next time someone tells you that Bernie Sanders should drop out, remind them that he has a duty to his supporters to use every legal option at his disposal to win the nomination. In the same breath, you can remind the opposition that the DNC appears to have violated their duty to be neutral in the selection process of the nominee. Is it really too much to ask for a level playing field during the primaries? Perhaps for this DNC, it is.

Corruption is the symptom, child abuse is the cause

What is it about humankind that makes us so prone to war? I can't say I know for sure, but I think I have an idea of where it starts. All violence, all abuse, all addiction and all efforts to establish and maintain an advantage over another human being arise from one very basic and centuries old problem: child abuse.

Years ago, while I was in search of myself, to know the person that I am and to give that person expression, I read many books on the subject of addiction and psychology. The standout authors of that time were Alice Miller, Bob Earll and John Bradshaw. If you're old enough, you know those names from the recovery movement of the 1980s in the United States.

I read The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller and learned how children internalize abuse and identify with the abuser. Then I read For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence, and learned how Hitler, a serial killer and an addict were all victims of extreme child abuse. I went on to read more of her books to learn how the most infamous dictators in history arose from child abuse to become leaders who, with political power, imposed the fate of their childhood upon others, especially their fellow citizens.

Decades later, I find myself reading the story of a rebellion in a state of Mexico, where the government could do nothing to stop the cartels from inflicting the damage they do in the towns where they operate. I see a chain of events that brought us here.

Children are abused in America. They find that they have a need that they cannot articulate, they cannot satisfy, as a result of that abuse. So they turn to addiction, usually to drugs, for an escape from the voice, the urge to satisfy that need that they cannot name. To deal with the shame of their childhood fate imposed upon them by their own parents, they may become addicts. Or they may become high achievers or high earners. Why? Shame is the rocket fuel of success. Surrounded by great or small wealth (does it even matter?), still they cannot satisfy the need they cannot name.

Drug trafficking, human trafficking, modern day slavery, corruption, mass shootings, war, and pollution - there's plenty more but those issues come to mind - all of it can be attributed to child abuse.

Children are not born inherently mean. They learn it from someone else, usually their parents. Perhaps they learn it from a sibling or other people, but they learn it from someone else. They are not born to hurt someone else. Children depend on others to survive, and so they only know to ask for what they need. Children must cooperate and negotiate for their life every day. They're born cute and cuddly for a reason.

All attempts to remedy the human suffering in the world will fail until we, as a human race, become willing to address and end child abuse once and for all. Children are not property and they are not pets. Children are human beings who are learning to be like someone else around them. Like the people who raise them.

Yell at your children and they will learn to yell back. Hit your children and they will hit you back. Maybe not when they are small, but later, when you find yourself in a senior home, vulnerable, and defenseless, then the urge may find its way to their hands. They may have no conscious memory of the abuse, but their body will remember. And by then it may be too late. Elder abuse does make the news from time to time, but it is rarely reported.

Adults who abuse children are retelling the story of their own abuse. We may forgive them, for they know not what they do. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop them. In light of what I have learned, I have lost the willingness to be angry at anyone who abuses a child. I have lost the willingness to be angry at any children when they "get out of line". I have compassion for both, the abuser and the child. I know that I must set the example by being the change I want to see.

Someone once said a long time ago, that an unexamined life is not worth living. I have been examining my mind and my life and know myself well. I know that children reflect back at us who we are. If we have not done the work of introspection, to discover who we were as children and what needs we were denied, we will find it difficult to avoid imposing the same fate on our children. We will try everything we can find to meet that need we cannot name, but without knowing that need, our efforts will be in vain. Once we can name that need, then we can begin the task of meeting that need. Or we can begin grieving the loss we suffered at the hands of someone else, so we don't have to do that to our own children.

So when I look at my daughters, I am mindful that they have needs and that they need to learn how to articulate those needs. Rather than trying to instill fear into them, I try to talk with them to find out what they need and provide it to them. I try to teach them to articulate what they need and tell me what it is. I let them know what I can do for them without intimidation, without shaming them. And when I have to say no, I say it with love. I let them know if their request is not appropriate, or not possible. I am not saying I do this perfectly, as I have my own issues, still to be discovered. I am saying:

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." -- TS Eliot.

Shame a child into denying to themselves their needs and they will lose their voice. Yell at them or hit them for trying to name that need and the child learns to lie about that need and will find way to meet that need later. Worse, they may find a substitute for that need that doesn't really fill the need. This can happen later as adolescents when they might find drugs, porn or sex as forms of addiction. As adults they can become addicted to money, addicted to the quest to have enough money to be secure in knowing they will never be vulnerable to abuse again. Just ask Wall Street. If they should ever rise to power, they will inflict everything they learned in childhood upon everyone within their reach.

All attempts to solve the problems of human suffering will fail until we decide we want to stop child abuse. There is no other answer to the problem. Once child abuse ceases, peace will be relatively easy to achieve compared to what we are doing now. Cooperation will be seen as normal. There will be no need to assert an advantage over someone else. Why not?

Because when the child abuse ends, worldwide, we will know what the Beatles were telling us so long ago. All you need is love.

To put this discussion in the political context, I see numerous politicians offering solutions, but most of them seem take a symptomatic approach. It doesn't really matter what form of government is instituted. Government is not the problem. People are. In surveying the politicians on the scene, there are only a few who seem to understand that concept. Jill Stein, Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. I'm sorry, but neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump are not part of the solution.

Jill Stein is running for president as the nominee for the Green Party. She has a clear understanding of the rampant corruption worldwide and, like Bernie Sanders, understands the urgency of the need to remove big money from politics. Jeremy Corbyn is now the leader of the Labour Party in the UK. After seeing one of his speeches, I believe that he too, understand this problem of money in politics and the need to reform government into a utility that helps all of us. The big money in politics is symptomatic of addiction to power and money. How else can we explain it?

At the moment, Bernie Sanders is the one person I'm supporting as a candidate for president. He has the best shot at it other than two "front runners" who have enormous issues to overcome. Sanders has compassion for the Palestinians where the other two do not. He has compassion for our soldiers. He sees health care as a human right. He seems to understand that health care should include mental health care. I think on an intuitive level, he may know that child abuse is at the bottom of all of the human suffering we seek to stop. I hope so.

In the human body, as in all multicellular organisms, every cell cooperates for their mutual survival. If the cells start to seek advantage over one another, then cooperation begins to fail. That's what cancer does. It is the point at which the cells stop cooperating that the body dies. In the same vein, I believe that when the people of the United States stop cooperating, the nation dies. I believe we are approaching that point, but that there is still hope that we can keep it together.

Bernie Sanders is not the last hope. But he's a great start to solving the problem of creating a sustainable peace in our country and the world. He knows that this goal will require an enormous amount of effort and cooperation. That's why he's called for many people to run for office, any office, local, state and federal, to help him effect this change. At last count, more than 12,000 people have heeded his call.

There is more to life than accumulating wealth and power. There must be a greater purpose. Until we end child abuse, it may remain much harder for succeeding generations to find out what that purpose is.

Every genius that has walked among us knows this. Albert Einstein says, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Stephen Hawking says that greed, stupidity and pollution are the greatest threats to earth. Carl Sagan said that, "Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception." These are signs that humans are unable to cooperate. I believe that all failures to achieve mutual cooperation can be traced back to child abuse.

We must find a way to cooperate for our mutual survival. The alternative is pretty grim. Stopping child abuse is probably the best chance we have as a species to survive. I hope that our next president understands this.

The party of impunity seems to think that indictment is normal

Rumor has it that today is the day that Hillary Clinton has an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in regards to her use of a private email server and email account. We've been waiting for months for this investigation to come to an end and no one knows for sure when that will happen.

Interestingly, Bill Clinton had a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch aboard her plane on the tarmac at an airport in Phoenix. It is hard to imagine what would be so urgent that he needed to talk to her then and there. If he wanted to prevent an indictment, his plan would surely backfire after such a public meeting. I mean to say, that boarding Lynch's plane and delaying takeoff for 25 minutes is a very public way of saying that whatever he wanted to say to her is about more than grandkids.

Naturally, Lynch had to defend the meeting. But I have to wonder. Given the circumstances, what kind of power does Bill Clinton have that could convince Lynch to allow him to board at all? The US Attorney General is well aware of the laws and knows she would create a conflict of interest by having that meeting with Bill Clinton. She already has a conflict of interest since she was first appointed as a US Attorney by Bill Clinton in 1999.

Loretta Lynch is one of the most powerful women in the world. She doesn't have to have a meeting with Bill Clinton if she doesn't want to. Or does she? If Bill Clinton has any kind of power over her at all, that would give the lie to anything said by Barack Obama that there has been no political influence over her handling of the case.

So, Lynch has had to state publicly that she will accept any recommendation from career prosecutors at the FBI. She has had to make it clear that she is beyond any conflict of interest. So if the FBI does recommend indictment, she will accept that decision and refer Hillary Clinton for indictment. What that means in so many words is that if such a recommendation came across her desk, someone in the FBI believes that a grand jury could be convinced that a crime has occurred.

Now take a step back. Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party to run for president of the United States against the Republican nominee. Any normal person would decline the nomination until this issue has drawn to a close and her name is cleared. Her name will not be cleared by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, dear Clinton supporters, you do have to worry about those emails. Is this the new normal?

Are we, as a nation prepared to accept candidates for office who are under criminal investigation? I think that is what the Democratic Party is asking us to do.

Robert Menendez has been indicted for corruption charges and somehow, remains a superdelegate who can vote for Clinton. Chaka Fattah has been convicted on charges of racketeering and had the good sense to resign. (the last time I looked, he was still on the list, but things move fast in politics)

Take note that both of these superdelegate stories are from the Washington Post, not the Washington Times or WorldNet Daily. These are totally confirmed fact-checked stories. In both cases, it is all about money. Fattah had the good sense to resign as superdelegate and lost the last primary election due to his looming case against him, so at least the voters figured him out. But Menendez will soldier on to the convention as if nothing happened.

The Democratic Party used to be the party of the people. They used to support unions, they used to fight free trade agreements, they used to fight for social justice. But as the outcome of the deliberations on the Democratic Party platform for this year shows, they're still very concerned about money in politics. No, they're not that concerned about getting big money out of politics, they're concerned about losing they're sources of big money.

This is just another reason why I support Bernie Sanders. Clinton, Menendez and Fattah, all represent the dialing for dollars class of Congress member. Instead of spending time legislating for the people, they spend up to two thirds of their time calling very wealthy people and asking for money. What a demoralizing job.

Sanders doesn't waste his time calling wealthy people for money. He doesn't get caught up in complicated schemes to raise more money. He is dependent upon the people alone for his campaign contributions. He has done this for 14 elections and is doing the same for this election. He is even fundraising for delegates to the convention that can't afford the cost of travel and lodging to get there.

Sanders doesn't take the big money so he can stay focused on the issues most important to the people he serves. Without the influence of big money, he can vote on the merits of the legislation rather than the money behind it. If he becomes president, he can sign bills into law by following the same principles.