Hillary Clinton won the election, Trump won the Electoral College

Hillary Clinton  won California by 4.3 million votes. Turnout over 75%

Bill Fletcher: “It is important to approach any examination of the November election with a degree of nuance. As widely noted, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by what now appears to be at least two million votes. The Libertarian and Green Parties received far more votes than the margin of victory in no less than eleven states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.


This election was decided by a razor-thin margin due to the undemocratic Electoral College.” Read the excellent piece, Fighting Against the White Revolt of 2016, “ by Bill Fletcher and Bob Wing below this post.


Duane Campbell.

Hillary Clinton won the election by 2 million votes, but Donald Trump won the Presidency in the Electoral College. What’s that you say about democracy ?


During the last year the according to the Southern Poverty Law Center the militant, fascist, militarist, racist terrorist group Storm Front has grown to over 300,000 members. ( one of several such groups).


These and parallel developments may require that we reconsider and adjust our basic political strategy. We need a serious new analysis because the terrain of our struggle and our activity has shifted significantly.


Examples.


Some 2 -11 million immigrant workers in the US now face terrorism and possible deportation. Over 2 million U.S. citizen children face the possibility that their parents will be deported and they will be placed in foster care.






I had a piece on the Democratic Left blog on the possible consequences of a victory by Trump and Trumpism. http://www.dsausa.org/trump_s_racially_divisive_politics_must_be_exposed_and_opposed_dl


David Bacon has a new piece on the current situation. http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2016/11/immigrant-communities-brace-for-trump.html?


If you prefer video, here is a good piece Hate Rising. http://antiracismdsa.blogspot.com/2016/11/hate-rising-with-jorge-ramos.html


This video is also up on YouTube.


The labor movement faces its most difficult assault since the passage of the Taft-Hartley act which changed the nature of organized labor in the U.S.



Labor will be shaken to its core. Harold Meyerson has a good piece on this on the DSA blog, Talking Union. https://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/trump-and-the-crisis-of-labor/


The Trump administration’s chief military advisor advocates siding with Asad and Putin in Syria, and usually recommends U.S. military interventions in troubled areas.


This militarist approach could well set us back to the decades of U.S. intervention from 2000- 2010. The U.S. anti war movement , or what remains of it, will have their backs to the wall.


The ecological justice movement now faces a regime that take us back to the 1970’s on ignoring climate change. – while the environmental crisis grows. As Nomi Klein said, “This Changes Everything”.














This short list, and similar ones including the privatization of public education ( see below), show that the political terrain upon which we operate has dramatically shifted. Doing more of the same, or being more confrontational alone is not an adequate response.


We need a re-evaluation of our basic strategy and how we fit into developing a left resistance to the rise of neo fascism and Trumpism.


I see that Freedom Road has a piece out on this relating this period to the imposition of terrorism that ended the first Reconstruction era.


Best case scenario: Trump is elected, the Republicans gained control of all three branches of government.


Worse case. Trump is elected, Republicans gain control of all three branches of government. They use their power to organize a substantial power shift and the creation of an authoritarian, racist state.


The difference between the best case and the worse case is how we organize and resist.






Duane Campbell


Defeat Racism campaign.



Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article119672758.html#emlnl=Todays_Top_Stories#storylink=cpy

Progressive Alliance Voter Recommendations : Candidates

Sacramento Progressive Alliance- Ballot Recommendations- Candidates

President	United States	Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)
U.S. Senate	California	Kamala Harris (D)
U.S. House	District 3	John Garamendi (D)
	District 4	Robert Derlet (D)
	District 5	Mike Thompson (D)
	District 6	Doris Matsui(D)
	District 7	Ami Bera (D)
California Assembly	District 6	Brian Caples (D)
	District 7	Kevin McCarty (D)
	District 8	No endorsement
	District 9	No endorsement
California Senate	District 6	Marika Yamada (D)
Natomas Unified Board	At-Large	Sue Heredia
Los Rios College Board	At-Large	Pam Haynes
Bond Issues	Davis Measure  H	Yes
	Sac City Unified – B	Yes

For recommendations on the propositions, see post below.

Debate is Over: Trump Lost

Rick T. Wilking/Pool via AP

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton smiles as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during the presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, Monday, September 26, 2016.

   Harold Meyerson

Hillary Clinton had to do three things in last night’s debate, and she did roughly 2.8 of them very well. First, she had to actually make sounder, and more appealing policy points than Donald Trump did. On the whole, she succeeded—though she still doesn’t really have a good comeback to Trump’s criticism of the past several decades of trade policy (that’s why I only give her a 2.8 of three). Second, she had to get under his skin, so he’d feel compelled to defend himself, which is to say, defend the indefensible. Third, she had to know when to let him go, to rant, to be Donald Trump, and not step on it by interrupting or trying to refute the absurd. On points two and three, she was brilliant. Getting under his skin, she handed him the rope. Letting him rant, she let him hang himself. (So, I might add, did Lester Holt, who obviously went into the debate believing that he’d let the candidates be themselves, largely free from his own interruptions, before the largest audience they’d yet faced—journalistically, absolutely the right call.)

The three issue areas that were actually discussed—as opposed to those that fell victim to Trump’s incoherence, which worked to Clinton’s favor—were the economy, our relation to the world, and the intersection of race relations and police practices. On the last, Clinton was clearly, and I thought effectively, reaching out to young minority voters—a group whose turnout she clearly needs to encourage. Her discussion of the massive over-incarceration of the past decades, and the ongoing racial bias that affects, and in many places, dominates police practices, threaded a needle: Showing her understanding of the urgency behind Black Lives Matter while at the same time making police reform sound unthreatening to moderate white voters—at least, those moderate whites who don’t believe, as Trump would have it, that we’re in a 1968 moment when cities are going up in flames. Trump’s one-note law-n-order shtick, by contrast, doubtless played well with his base, but there’s no way it put any new votes in his column. Clinton’s move to mine her potential base for more votes, by contrast, probably did enable her to win some friends and influence fence-sitters.

Stop with the Clinton campaign message that Bernie should end our campaign

Nation of Change 

I would like my friends who are campaigning for Hillary to stop telling us all that Bernie should withdraw from the race.  Your whining  serves no useful purpose.

Bernie’s campaign is about building a left opposition in the U.S. Great progress has been made in this effort.  Some 40% of Democrats now consider themselves socialist, some mean social democrats.

We still have much to do, particularly the election in California.  We are building an opposition movement.  I read the generational divide.   You haven’t convinced the millennial generation that he should drop out.  You don’t seem to get it.  Your advice has not been taken, so you give more advice.

And your campaign message that Bernie is getting too divisive is hollow.  You are obviously only listening to the Clinton campaign.  If you follow both campaigns, or progressive media, you will find that the Clinton campaign has been at least as divisive and taunting.

We need to build an opposition movement to defeat Trump.

Continuing the Bernie campaign contributes to our effort to defeat Trump.  Continuing the Bernie campaign is a statement that we support democracy, we want democracy to work.

As Bernie has said,  “The answer is, we are in this race until the last vote is cast,” Mr. Sanders said. “The people of California have a right to determine who they want to see as president of the United States and what kind of agenda they want the Democratic Party to have.

Hillary has problems.  The problems  are not created by Bernie.  Her support for Wall Street, her support for the coup in Honduras, among others,  are of her making.  Yes, they will cost her votes.  It is her history, her actions that are costing the votes- not the Bernie campaign.  See Robert Borosage’s piece on Hillary and campaign money. https://ourfuture.org/20160425/clintons-defense-of-big-money-wont-cut-it
 Those millions of us who have worked on the campaign will get together June 17- 19 in Chicago in a National People's Summit.  We will make our own decisions. thank you. 

Education and the presidential primaries

Jeff Bryant 

Numerous observers have noticed K-12 education has finally gotten some meaningful attention in the presidential primary debate – at least in the Democratic Party.

The subject had been virtually a no show in the contest until the debate in Detroit, earlier this month. It finally arose when, according to a transcript, a Detroit parent asked the candidates about the poor conditions in her child’s school.

First to respond was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who questioned, rhetorically, why we “can’t come up with the money to make sure that Detroit has good and qualified teachers” and “somehow we can not make sure that there are summer programs … and after school programs” for children?

“We have got to change our national priorities,” he said. “We’re not going to give tax breaks to the wealthy. We’re going to ask them to start paying their fair share of taxes so we can raise the money to make sure that every child in this country, in Detroit, in Vermont, gets the quality education that he or she deserves.”

When the question pivoted to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she proposed to “reinstate a program we did have during the 1990’s where the federal government provided funding to repair and modernize public schools … to force the Governor and the state to return the schools to the people of Detroit … [and] to set-up inside the Department of Education, for want of a better term, kind of an education SWAT team, if you will. Where we’ve got qualified people, teachers, principals, maybe folks who are retired, maybe folks who are active, but all of whom are willing to come and help.”

Whether you agree with the candidates’ responses or not, the subject – the conditions of struggling schools in Detroit and elsewhere – is what urgently needs to be addressed by the candidates.

Unfortunately, both in that particular debate – as well as in the larger debate among all the candidates in the primary – the attention often veers away from the issue of adequate and equitable resources for schools to a host of other distractions.

Something Rotten In The State Of Michigan

NEA Endorses Clinton

From: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- The National Education Association, the nation’s largest union, endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Saturday. 

The union’s campaign arm had indicated that it was recommending the endorsement earlier this week, as Politico first reported. Members of the 3-million-strong union who support Clinton’s main rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have already protested the move, just as Sanders supporters from the American Federation of Teachers did when Clinton secured that union's endorsement in July.

"Clinton is a strong leader who will do what is best for America’s students. For more than four decades, Clinton has fought to make sure all children have a fair opportunity to succeed regardless of their ZIP code," said Lily Eskelsen García, president of the NEA, in a statement. "Clinton will continue to advocate on behalf of students, educators and working families because she understands the road to a stronger U.S. economy starts in America’s public schools.”

“As a lifelong fighter for children and families, I am deeply honored to have earned the endorsement of the National Education Association and their nearly 3 million members," Clinton stated.

The NEA’s campaign arm had said that it believed Clinton was the candidate best positioned to win in the general election next year. But both Clinton and Sanders had received “A” ratings on the group’s congressional legislative scorecard.

Teachers Object as NEA Considers Early Clinton Endorsement

Rank-and-File Teachers Object As Nation's Biggest Union Weighs Early Clinton Endorsement

Mirroring similar rifts within other unions, National Education Association members prepare to protest Sanders snub

by

Lauren McCauley, staff writer

 23 Comments

An early NEA endorsement for Hillary Clinton would ignore the 30,000 members who have shown support for Sen. Bernie Sanders, say protesting union members. (Photo: Hillary Clinton/ Facebook)

A rumored presidential endorsement by the nation's largest union is exposing a rift between rank-and-file members who are "feeling the Bern" and leadership who appear more willing to err on the Clinton side of caution.

Various news reports have indicated that an announcement by the 3-million strong National Education Association is expected sometime this week.

According to an email obtained by Politico, the NEA PAC, the union’s political arm, is planning to hold an upcoming vote "recommending Hillary Clinton for the presidential primary" on the grounds that the former Secretary of State "is the best positioned candidate to win both the Democratic primary and general election," citing her "unmatched organizational strength, ground game, and fundraising ability to defeat the candidate of the Koch brothers."

NCLB: Obama and Clinton

Obama and Clinton: Latest statements on NCLB

Posted by James Crawford on 9 April 2008 at 11:04 am
It’s encouraging to see that both Democratic candidates are increasingly critical of the No Child Left Behind Act, as illustrated by a comprehensive report in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Obviously, they are responding to voter sentiment they encounter every day on the campaign trail. Attacking NCLB has become a sure-fire applause line, as illustrated last week in Montana. But their statements remain rather general and they have yet to propose any coherent alternative, leaving themselves plenty of wiggle room.

For example, when Sen. Clinton — who has taken semantic games to new heights in this campaign — says she would “put an end to the unfunded mandate called No Child Left Behind,” she could end up voting later to make it a “funded mandate” with only marginal changes. Indeed, that’s what many Democrats have advocated all along.

Sen. Obama points out that Clinton was an enthusiastic backer of NCLB in 2001, which she called “landmark legislation [that] sends a clear message that all American children deserve a world class education.” Perhaps, as with her vote to authorize the Iraq war, this was another case of Hillary being cruelly deceived by George Bush. She hasn’t explained, but Bill Clinton helpfully recalled in a recent speech that “Hillary was facing this impossible vote. She said ‘Bill this is not going to work, [NCLB] is going to be a disaster.’” Prophetic (if true), but apparently political calculations won out.

Meanwhile Obama has been, if anything, even more vague than Clinton on what changes he would favor in NCLB. While both candidates have criticized the overemphasis on standardized testing, neither has explicitly called for repealing the testing mandate or the high stakes attached. Nor have they promised to eliminate the absurd requirement of “100% proficiency by 2014.”

So it would be illuminating if Sen. Kennedy introduces his long-promised bill to reauthorize NCLB and holds a vote in the HELP Committee this spring. As committee members, Obama and Clinton would then have to commit themselves to specifics. Or reveal their unwillingness to do so.
Jim Crawford. ELL Advocates

Clinton and Empire

Clinton, Kissinger and the Corruptions of Empire

By John Nichols

The Nation - July 26, 2007

Of all the corruptions of empire, few are darker than
the claim that diplomacy must be kept secret from the
citizenry.This hide-it-from-the people faith that only a
cloistered group of unelected and often unaccountable
elites - embodied by the nefarious and eminently
indictable Henry Kissinger - is capable of steering the
affairs of state pushes Americans out of the processes
that determine whether their sons and daughters will die
in distant wars, whether the factories where they worked
will be shuttered, whether their country will respond to
or neglect genocide, whether their tax dollars will go
to pay for the unspeakable.

It allows for the dirty game where foreign countries are
included or excluded from contact with the U.S. based on
unspoken whims and self-serving schemes, where trade
deals are negotiated without congressional oversight and
then presented in take-it-or-leave-it form and where war
is made easy by secretive cliques that are as willing to
lie to presidents as they do to the people.

Unlike the excluded and neglected people, however,
presidents have the authority to break this vicious
cycle by making personal contact with foreign leaders,
by publicly meeting with and debating allies and rivals,
by taking global policymaking out of the shadows and
into the light of day. When the president is personally
and publicly in contact with the world, diplomacy is
democratized.

As the most scrutinized figure on the planet, an
American president who meets and maintains contact with
leaders who may or may not follow the U.S. line on any
particular issue involves not just him- or herself in
the discussion but also the American people. The
president lifts the veil of secrecy behind which
horrible things can be done in our name but without our
informed consent.

So it matters, it matters a great deal, whether those
who seek the presidency promote transparent and
democratic foreign policies or a continuation of a
corrupt status quo that has rendered the United States
dysfunctional, misguided and hated by most of the world
- and that has caused more than 80 percent of Americans
to say the country is headed in the wrong direction.
In the race for the Democratic nomination for president,
the two frontrunners are lining up on opposite sides of
the question of whether foreign policy should be
conducted in public or behind the tattered curtain of
corruption that has given us unnecessary wars in Vietnam
and Iraq, U.S.-sponsored coups from Iran to Chile, trade
policies designed to serve multinational corporations
and a seeming inability to respond to the crisis that is
Darfur.

Hillary Clinton, the candidate of all that is and will
be, wants there to be no doubt that she is in the
Kissinger camp.

The New York senator’s campaign is attacking her chief
rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama ¤, for daring to
suggest that, he would personally meet with foreign
leaders who do not always march in lockstep with the
U.S. government.

In Monday’s night’s YouTube debate, candidates were
asked it they would be willing to meet "with leaders of
Syria, Iran, Venezuela during their first term," Obama
immediately responded that, yes, he would be willing to
do so. He explained that "the notion that somehow not
talking to countries is punishment to them " which has
been the guiding diplomatic principle of this
administration " is ridiculous."

Clinton disagreed in the debate and now her camp is
declaring that, "There is a clear difference between the
two approaches these candidates are taking: Senator
Obama has committed to presidential-level meetings with
some of the world’s worst dictators without precondition
during his first year in office."

Leaving aside the fact that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, a
popularly elected leader, is not one of the "world’s
worst dictators," it is particularly galling that
Clinton - in her rush to trash Obama - is contradicting
her own declaration in an April debate that, "I think it
is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will
not talk with bad people."

Unfortunately, Clinton’s vote to give Bush a blank check
for war in Iraq and her defense of that war, her support
for neo-liberal economics and a Wall Street-defined free
trade agenda and her general disregard for popular
involvement in foreign-policy debates suggests that the
senator is showing true self when she dismisses the
value of presidential engagement with the leaders of
foreign lands.

Clinton is playing politics this week. But in a broader
sense she is aligning herself with a secretive and anti-
democratic approach to global affairs that steers the
United States out of the global community while telling
the American people that foreign policy is the domain
only of shadowy Kissingers.

She is not just wrong in this, she is Bush/Cheney wrong.
John Nichols’ new book is The Genius of Impeachment: The
Founders’ Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone’s Tim
Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately
argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich
examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of
the ‘heroic medicine’ that is impeachment with a call
for Democratic leaders to ‘reclaim and reuse the most
vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense
of our most basic liberties.’"

Copyright © 2007 The Nation

The Democratic Party Debate : the war