26 July 2016

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Bernie Sanders Addresses the DNC Convention, Thanks His Supporters

Bernie Sanders' Address to the DNC Convention on July 25, 2016
July 26, 2016. PHILADELPHIA, PA: Congressmember Keith Ellison, a self-declared "proud" supporter of Bernie Sanders and one of his delegates, came out onto the stage at the DNC Convention after Elizabeth Warren's speech. He spoke for a few minutes about voting and some of Bernie's more progressive issues, and then introduced the star of the event, US Senator Bernie Sanders.

Sanders spoke at the Democratic National Committee's 2016 Presidential Convention on Monday, July 25, 2016 at approximately 10:30 pm. Prior to his appearance, a modified version of his "America" campaign ad played with the ending modified to include Clinton.

He walked out on stage while "America" continued to play and was greeted with the evening's most energetic applause and cheers in the convention hall. His supporters refused to subside their cries and thunderous applause in a standing ovation that went on for well over three minutes after he took to the podium. Despite numerous attempts to begin his address, his supporters simply would not relent and continued cheering. At one point he looked a bit embarrassed at their brazenly open display of love and affection for the man who started a political revolution in the nation during one of the most confounding and contentious presidential campaign seasons in modern history.

Sanders thanked Senator Elizabeth Warren, First Lady Michelle Obama, and "the hundreds of thousands of Americans who participated in our campaign." He thanked the more than 2.5 million people who made over 8 million individual contributions to his campaign, averaging $27 each, as well as the 13 million people who voted for him and all of his delegates. Turning to the 1,846 pledged delegates who were physically in the arena to support him for being there, he thanked them for all of the work they have done and proclaimed, "I look forward to your votes during the roll call tomorrow night!" The crowd went wild with another round of thunderous applause with chants of "Bernie! Bernie!", filling the venue at deafening levels.

He thanked the people of Vermont, who "sustained me as a mayor, Congressman, Senator, and presidential candidate" and then thanked his family and wife, Jane. Telling the crowd that he understood his supporter's disappointment with the results not only of the nominating process but in how it was conducted, Sanders said, "No one is disappointed more than I am" and then hoped his supporters would take "enormous pride" at the "historical accomplishments" they were able to achieve.

Continuing his speech, each phrase was interrupted with thunderous applause and cheering, as had been typical of his campaign events. He told his supporters and those gathered in the convention hall:

"Together, we have begun a political revolution to transform America, and that revolution--our revolution--continues. Election days come and go but the struggles of the people to create a government that represents all of us and not just the 1%, a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial, and environmental justice--that struggle continues and I look forward to being part of that struggle with you."

Never missing an opportunity to chastise the mainstream media that purposefully obfuscated his efforts to reach the American people, Sanders reminded his supporters of the election's purpose:

"Let me be as clear as I can be: this election is not about and has never been about Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders or any of the other candidates who sought the presidency. This election is not about political gossip, it's not about polls, it's not about campaign strategy, it's not about fundraising, it's not about all the things that the media spends so much time discussing. This election is about and must be about the needs of the American people and the kind of future we create for our children and our grandchildren, ending the 40-year decline of the middle class.."

Sanders delivered a shortened version of his stump speech that was approximately 25 minutes long, keeping the focus on the issues that he and his supporters have raised as they launched their political revolution. Every time Sanders attempted to garner support for Clinton, his supporters in the convention hall booed loudly, as they had been doing throughout the evening. His words moved many a Sanders supporter to tears, as often happens.


Most of Sanders' supporters have been vexed with the primary election, alleging that the DNC rigged things in Clinton's favor and actively worked against the Sanders campaign--allegations that appear to have been confirmed by the recent Wikileaks dump of over 20,000 emails from the DNC. They blame Clinton, whom they perceive as being complicit in the alleged election fraud and election rigging, especially as Clinton appointed DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who has submitted her resignation effective with the close of the convention, as an honorary chair of her national campaign.

Despite a ban on custom-made or home-made signage, some Sanders supporters were able to get their message out, especially when Sanders vowed to ensure that the Trans Pacific Partnership, or the TPP, "never makes it to the floor of Congress." Both Clinton and Tim Kaine, Clinton's running mate and pick for Vice President, have supported the TPP in the past. Kaine recently stated that he doesn't support the TPP as it currently stands, indicating to many that he might support a future version of it.

Unrelenting, Sanders' supporters continued chanting, "Bernie! Bernie!", which one supporter described as a plea that he remain in the race, perhaps as a third-party candidate.

Watch his inspiring and energizing 25-minute speech in its entirety:





25 July 2016

#DNCLeak, Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Resignation Cause Further Chaos in DNC

Selected tweets. Click to enlarge.
Monday, July 25, 2016 – NEW YORK: On Sunday, July 24, 2016, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation to the Democratic National Committee as its chair effective at the end of this coming week, according to numerous reports in the mainstream media. Reports about whether or not Schultz would be participating in the upcoming Democratic convention this week bounced back and forth throughout the day. Early morning reports indicated that she would "gavel in the convention" but early afternoon reporting once again had DWS completely removed from having any role in the convention.

Supporters of US Senator Bernie Sanders, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton to become the next President but who has yet to pledge his delegates to Clinton or even suspend his campaign, became livid and took to social media, expressing their anger over Schultz's continued participation in the convention, as shown in the sampling of tweets from Twitter at the right.

Sanders issued a statement through a press release on his web site, which states in part,
...the party now needs new leadership that will open the doors of the party and welcome in working people and young people. The party leadership must also always remain impartial in the presidential nominating process, something which did not occur in the 2016 race.
Schultz's resignation was seen as an effort to provide unity to the shattered Democratic party and prevent an even more chaotic scene than was displayed at last week's Republican convention after Wikileaks published nearly 20,000 emails fromt the DNC showing collusion between the DNC and Clinton campaigns while actively working against Sanders' campaign. Also revealed in the #DNCLeak dump were high-ranking DNC officials collaborating with certain media figureheads and entire media organizations—which is a complete violation of journalistic ethics—as well as hiring workers to troll pro-Sanders groups on the Internet.

In an all-too-familiar Clintonian tactic to redirect attention away from the substance of the issues, Clinton campaign chairman Robby Mook alleged that "Russian state actors broke into the DNC" and "are releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."

Social media user Lorraine Vigoriti expresses a sentiment many Sanders' supporters hold regarding the latest attempt by Clinton to deflect attention away from yet-another-scandal:

UH-OH, they've just written another chapter in 'Alice In #WTF-Land'!!! Once again, as with the DESTROYED EMAILS, does the HRC campaign think that we are DUMBocrats? Does it really matter WHO leaked the emails or WHY they leaked them??
IF there WEREN'T any NEFARIOUS EMAILS between the Clinton campaign and the DNC then they would NOT have gotten leaked!!!!
Think outside the box...or better yet, flatten the friggin' box and place it in the recycling bin...
The efforts to reunite the party with Schultz's resignation further angered Sanders' supporters when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement supporting Schultz's resignation. In her statement, Clinton announced that Schultz will become an honorary chair of Clinton's 50-state campaign.

In essence, Schultz is being moved from once having been a chair of Clinton's 2008 election campaign to using her position at the DNC to get Clinton nominated to now directly back in Clinton's campaign. Despite some assertions that Schultz's appointment to Clinton's campaign "means nothing," why afford any courtesy to such a polarizing figure at this point in time?

Steven Krohn, CEO and founder of Krohn Media, who is not backing any of the major party candidates, lamented, "Clinton and Schultz were colluding the entire time. The entire primary was a sham. Where are the people who were conned by all of this? Bernie's people should be screaming!" His sentiment is replete throughout social media:


How can Clinton possibly think that appointing the person who has been proven to have corrupted the primary process as honorary chair of her campaign ever could be a good idea or that the outcome would be anything other than chaos? If anything, it will drive the party's stalwart progressives further away, creating a massive 9.0 earthquake that will leave a chasm deeper than the Mariana Trench. Indeed, 'Bedlam erupts' was a trending headline in the news as Schultz spoke to a local gathering of Florida delegates who were not at all pleased to see her:



One could argue that Clinton needs Schultz's ability to bring money into her campaign. But that brings the subject of the corrupting influence of money in politics—a hallmark of Sanders' supporters' distrust in the political system—immediately back to the fore, right in the middle of the nominating process at the convention. Another reason for showcasing Schultz—one many Sanders' supporters are wont to believe—is that this has been part of the plan all along and she is reaping the rewards for a job well-done.

Some would argue that Clinton is disconnected from the average American, which greatly increases the angst and anger that give rise to why so many of Sanders' supporters are "Bernie or Bust." It also is perhaps one of the myriad reasons that could explain polling data released this morning showing Trump jumping up ten points to a three-point lead over Clinton:


Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has promised, "More Clinton leaks to come" in a recent tweet:
Given all of the existing controversy surrounding Clinton, the DNC, and especially "the emails" (are we going to let "the emails" become a thing like "the gays" and even "becoming a thing" have become?) one can only wonder whether the DNC is purposefully imploding. The one person who would have avoided turning the Democratic convention into more of a spectacled five-ring circus than the Republican convention was is playing by the script handed to him.

This leaves many wondering why the superdelegates—who can switch their vote at any time—are not supporting the one candidate still in the race who would end all of this.

I created a remix of sorts from this morning's Morning Joe clips, which is well worth listening to through the end (yes, even the bits about Trump):



Perhaps—just perhaps—Sanders is playing by the script handed to him in an effort to show the Democrats exactly how disastrous their anointed nominee will perform in the coming November election. His speech this evening will reveal whether that's the case, or whether his fear of a Trump presidency has, in fact, caused him to sell out.

(If you haven't already, check out my previous article, #DNCLeak Email Shows DNC Planning Clinton Nomination Before 1/3 of Nation Voted now on HuffPo)

24 July 2016

#DNCLeak Email Shows DNC Planned Clinton Coronation Before 1/3 of the Votes Were In

WikiLeaks logo
Before the last 16 states concluded their primary process, a leaked email—part of the DNC Email Archive published by Wikileaks—shows that planning for former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the Democratic nominee had begun long before one-third of the nation even had a say in the matter.

The email below shows that the DNC had already completed content proclaiming their nominee to be Hillary Clinton on the morning of April 26, 2016—before 16 states had completed their primary voting process. The sender of the e-mail, Eric Reif, is a DNC staffer. The email contains content written to be sent out by various members of the DNC, including DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC CEO Amy K. Dacey, and President Barack Obama:
Hi all — We are starting to plan ahead with messaging to our supporters for the end of the primary and transition to the general. Below are a handful of emails and graphic copy for the initial few days of that change, arranged below in the order in which we’ll send them as we’ve laid out in a memo to Amy:

Screenshot of email sent 4/26/2016
from DNC Staffer Eric Reif
with content proclaiming
Clinton as the party's nominee
(click on image to enlarge)
The content of the proposed emails includes proclamations of Clinton being the party's nominee, such as this statement from Schultz:
... as a presidential candidate and as a member of Congress for more than two decades, Bernie Sanders has excited the people of this country, and I know he'll continue to, no matter what he does next.  So as he ends his campaign today, add your name to mine to thank him for everything.
 A proposed email to be sent from Dacey includes the following statements:
I’m proud that our party has chosen to stand behind Hillary Clinton as our nominee...if you’re ready to win this thing and show Hillary Clinton you’re with her, pitch in $10 or more right now to help elect her our next president and put Democrats in office all across the country...

I am so proud to stand behind Hillary Clinton as our party’s nominee and to lead the charge to make sure she becomes the 45th President of the United States.
And in the proposed email to be sent from President Obama, the following language is used:
... there is no one I trust more in that position than my friend, Hillary Clinton.  So today, I’m asking you to add your name with mine and say that you're ready to make Hillary Clinton the next President of the United States...

I think you and I both know who that person is: our nominee for President of the United States, Hillary Clinton...

In just a few months we’ll elect the person who’ll take my place here in this office, and I know that we’ll spend every day between now and then doing the work to ensure that person is Hillary Clinton.
It's important to note that these proposed e-mails weren't actually sent at the time. But one must ask, why did the DNC already have language drafted thanking Bernie for ending his campaign on April 26, 2016, before one-third of the states had voted in the primary process?

Why was the DNC already prepared, on April 26, 2016, to proclaim Hillary Clinton as their nominee?

And why did the DNC already have promotional materials ready to go on April 26, 2016, asking members to support their nominee, Hillary Clinton?

Bernie Sanders's supporters have long suspected the DNC of having their thumb on the scale. This email appears to prove just that, and far longer than anything anyone in the media has reported on to date.

As The Next Web reports,
The emails go a long way to prove just how broken the electoral college system is, a system that relies on delegates — not the popular vote — to nominate presidential candidates.  In what most of us sensed was a rigged system all along, WikiLeaks blowing the cover off of collusion to secure a Clinton nomination should surprise no one. That said, the proof is in the pudding, or so they say, and this leak should do a great deal to firm up that stance and hopefully bring about positive change. 
WikiLeaks' integrity has yet to be impugned. Its dedication to transparency and honesty are just some of the reasons it has won so many awards and maintains relationships with some of the world's top investigative journalists and media organizations.

For an organization that proclaims to pride itself on impartiality and neutrality, as the Rev. Leah D. Daughtry, CEO of the DNCC, proclaims this email is damning evidence of just the opposite:


But what have the Clinton camp's complaints been about the process?

As more emails are revealed, the DNC will have quite a bit of explaining to do. The information contained in this email prompts one to ask, did Bernie Sanders ever have a chance at becoming the Democratic Party's nominee?


15 July 2016

QOTD 15 July 2016

"If I would have had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." ~T.S. Eliot #qotd #quote #quotestoponder #quotables

Is this an oxymoronic or paradoxical statement, and what do you think of its meaning?

I hope you enjoy my photography! :) #picsbyPCF