Amos's River of Justice

Category: U.S. Politics

  • Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Rupert Murdoch?

    My goal in posting the previous video was not to promote Sanders. His part in it was a bonus. My goal was to call the media’s bluff on this knock-down, drag-out road show, staring Donald Trump. So for anyone interested in the facts I’ll just mention some revelations that I think might explain the craziness of this campaign.

    The main idea that stuck with me from the video is that using violence and ‘patriotism’ to move the working class to the right is the M.O. of Rupert Murdoch. This led me to do further research. Remember Trump’s temper tantrum over Megyn Kelly? It’s likely it had nothing to do with his hurt pride. Trump’s purpose was to show that he’s on the side of conservatives at Fox News who are miffed that Kelly has become the ‘face’ of Fox. [1]And although Murdoch has objected to Trump’s candidacy he agrees with Trump’s plan to temporarily ban Muslim immigrants.[2] Furthermore, Murdoch has been telling the GOP it would be madness to block Trump.[3]

    Then there’s the fact that Trump went out of his way to make this about Bernie. At the time I thought it was a bad move for Sanders’ supporters to close Trump’s rally, but then it came out that it was George Soros who financed it. Soros is a Clinton supporter. Here’s an article from Washington’s Blog that pins the whole thing on Clinton. Gee, I wonder if it means anything that Trump played it the way he did?  Weird.

    Credible Account Says Clinton Is Behind Violent Protests at Trump Rallies
    Posted on March 12, 2016 by Eric Zuesse.

    This concerns the question of the identity of the people who are behind the violent protesters at Donald Trump’s rallies.

    There are going to be ad-hominem attacks against me for my reporting this account, which will contradict the myths that both progressives and conservatives hold regarding the U.S. government, but anyone who recognizes that the press to this day hides its having hidden the incontestable fact that George W. Bush knowingly falsified, lied regarding the evidence concerning “Saddam’s WMD,” will at least give this account, and its source, fair and unprejudiced consideration, as being possibly accurate and honest. Sometimes, in order to get to the truth in a case, it’s necessary to rely upon the testimony of people that one considers despicable; the FBI wouldn’t be able to crack many cases otherwise — and, sad to say, neither can I. So: please don’t dismiss me for relying here upon a researcher whom I personally detest — and whom you might likewise detest.

    I believe that the libertarian Roger Stone, who is the Republican Party’s most gifted opposition-researcher, after having been Richard Nixon’s most gifted dirty-trickster, and after his having ferreted out the hypocrisy of Eliot Spitzer for paying prostitutes — after, in other words, Stone’s having worked for politicians I despise, and destroyed the careers of ones I admire — is among this nation’s stellar investigative journalists; and I have found, over the years, that, when he reports about dirty tricks, what he has reported is only confirmed, not disconfirmed, as time passes. In other words: though I don’t like the man, and I disagree with his politics, I respect his news-reporting. And, here is what he says, in a rush interview with the ‘conspiracy theorist’ (another libertarian) Alex Jones, on Saturday evening, March 12th, and I think that the entire nation needs to hear Stone’s account, at least to give it consideration. So, here it is:

    https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderEmerickJones/videos/10153989651258459

    My rush transcript of highlights from his rush-interview:

    I think everybody in the country has now heard about these violent protests [at Trump rallies] which are being blamed on supporters of Bernie Sanders. … This is a false-flag. These demonstrators are flying under a false banner. They are not Sanders supporters by-and-large. This is an operation directed by supporters of Hillary Clinton, paid for by George Soros and Move-On, by David Brock at Media Matters for America, also funded by Soros, and also by the reclusive billionaire Jonathan Lewis. Now, Lewis was identified by the Miami New Times as a ‘mystery man.’ He inherited roughly a billion dollars from his father Peter Lewis … [founder of Progressive Insurance Company]. Jonathan Lewis interestingly withdrew his support of the Democratic National Committee over the immigration bill that he thought was unfair to gays. In any event, this is a Hillary Clinton operation. The idea here, very clearly, is to divide the Sanders economic voters from Trump; in other words, those voters who lost their jobs because of NAFTA and all of the other globalist international trade-deals that have screwed this country, they now realize that these voters are potentially, when Sanders is out of the race, Trump votes, and this is an effort to make Trump toxic, to disqualify him, [as a] racist, bigot, the whole thing is essentially a hoax. It’s a gambit directed, by the way, by Brock. Brock was once a friend of mine and was a comrade in the fight for freedom; but he went over to the dark side, with the Clintons, for money: big, big, big, money; and this is unfortunately his little dirty trick, Unfortunately, they have leaks within their operation, my sources are of the very best. The entire collaboration in Chicago is a Hillary Clinton operation. And, frankly, I can’t see Bernie Sanders having anything to do with it. I don’t agree with Bernie, but I respect him, and this is not his handiwork or the handiwork of his campaign.

    [Jones here goes on to explain why he respects the investigative reports from Stone, then says, “When I saw all these Bernie shirts and Bernie people saying ‘We attack!’ — you know, people shooting guns in the air saying ‘We support Bernie!’ that is so clearly a way to attack him, make him look like a radical revolutionary, and to make Hillary look good, and also make Trump look like a racist when the media plays this up. You’re absolutely right. … To be clear: you have sources inside saying this is a Soros/Brock Media Matters, which they admit is run by the White House, they have weekly meetings, Obama’s former transition chief. … We’ve seen the build-up toward race-war this summer, this fall, to try to cloud the entire election; is that what you’re getting at; is this the opening salvo … ]

    [Stone continues] I think Hillary understands that Trump would lose the votes of certain establishment Republicans if he is the nominee. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter, because of his crossover outreach. Right now in Ohio, Democrats and independents in the Mahoning Valley, these people have lost their jobs because of these great globalist trade deals, are lining up to vote for Donald Trump in the Republican primary, which is legal in Ohio with some paperwork. And we saw this same crossover in Michigan. So it occurred to the Clinton people that Bernie’s economic voters — not his hard-left voters, she’s not going to get them, they’re not going for Hillary, blue-collar folks who have just figured out that they have been left out of the new-world-order economy, are a ripe target for Trump; he’s already getting that, she is petrified of it; so, this little maneuver, this David Brock dirty trick, solves two problems at once: it helps knock down Bernie, because after all these people are involved in violence; and it also disqualifies Trump as a future vote, by portraying him as a racist or a bigot. The whole thing is a kabuki dance. And I think it’s very important that Trump understand that it’s not the Sanders campaign that’s disrupting his rallies; this is a Hillary Clinton operation.

    [Jones asks for more details.]

    [Stone continues] Hillary Clinton empowered a certain member of Congress to approach the billionaire John Lewis to pay for a portion of this overall program. This isn’t just Chicago. You’re now going to see these phony demonstrators, these ringers, showing up at other Trump events. … That’s as much as I’m prepared to say. …

    ——

    That’s the interview.

    Hillary Clinton’s campaign benefits enormously by this tactic:

    1: It re-orients the issue away from economics toward race; away from economic issues and toward ethnic conflicts

    2: It identifies Sanders with violent supporters.

    3: It identifies Trump with racism and violence by his having black ‘Bernie supporters’ (of which there are few) disrupting Trump’s rallies.

    4: While it smears both Sanders, her current opponent, and Trump, her likely future opponent, it leaves Hillary herself unscathed.

    So: the proposed explanation makes sense, and it’s entirely in character for Hillary Clinton.

    Therefore: I believe it. ((Washington’s Blog, March 12, 2016. Available: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/03/credible-account-says-clinton-behind-violent-protests-trump-rallies.html))

    The only part of this article that I disagree with is the claim that one of the purposes of the demonstration was to hurt Trump.  It will be interesting to see how it affects his campaign.

     

    [1] Cathy Burke, Sources: Trump Will Only Speak to Rupert Murdoch to Resolve Fox Feud, News Max, 27 Jan, 2016. Available: http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Sources-Trump-Rupert-Murdoch-Fox-News/2016/01/27/id/711311/

    [2] CNN reported, Rupert Murdoch Praises Donald Trump, Epic Times, Jan. 17, 2016. Available: http://www.epictimes.com/2016/01/rupert-murdoch-praises-donald-trump/

    [3] ((Justin Carissmo, Donald Trump: Rupert Murdoch says Republican Party Would be Mad Not to Unify Behind Fellow Billionaire, Independent, 3 March, 2016. Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-rupert-murdoch-says-republican-party-would-be-mad-not-to-unify-behind-fellow-a6909586.html))

  • The Donald is the Corporate Media’s Creature

    One of the most disturbing parts of the violence at Trump rallies is his refusal to acknowledge his part in it. The other disturbing part is the media’s collusion. The networks give Trump more press than any of the other candidates, while at the same time they insist that all the candidates are interchangeable. Likewise they insist that Trump’s followers are interchangeable with the followers of Bernie Sanders.

    Considering that we’ve spent the last 50 years fortifying ourselves against the kind of behavior we’re seeing at Trump’s rallies—for the reason that its effects on the human race are only too well-known—Trump’s behavior should give us doubts about his motives and intentions. When you add the media’s behavior to the picture, as well as the bias that the police and secret service have shown at Trump’s brawls, you realize this is bigger than Trump.

    Another term for today’s media is ‘the corporate media’. The media became corporate through a process rather than a single event. The following YouTube video published back in 2013 lays it all out.

    If you want to know which candidate best serves our political and media grand poobahs, find out which one gets the most air time. Based on the amount of air time Donald Trump gets relative to other candidates, I think it’s reasonable to ask whether he’s really the rogue player he claims to be.

  • Bernie Sanders: a Future to Believe In

    Sorry Hillary Clinton, but the real artful smear in this presidential campaign had nothing to do with your paid speeches. The real artful smear was your establishment’s racist innuendos about Bernie Sanders’ whiteness.

    Blaming an entire race of people for a nation’s problems has always been politically useful. In this campaign it started as a tool for reining in Bernie Sanders’ candidacy. I remember how sick I felt when I first heard the corporate media inform the public that Bernie Sanders is a white man from a white state. They argued that for the sole reason of his whiteness, black people weren’t going to vote for him. In retrospect I think this was the beginning of the campaign-conversation’s downhill slide.

    From there it progressed to the [intlink id=”2148″ type=”post”]Black Lives Matter[/intlink] episodes at Sanders’ rallies. Unfortunately this movement’s scorn for the idea that all lives matter may have invited the answering snarl we’ve been hearing from white supremacists—a snarl that is now being skillfully marshaled by Donald Trump.

    Do I need to point out that Donald Trump has been a perfect foil to Bernie Sanders from the day he announced his candidacy? Although there is no resemblance between Sanders and Trump, the corporate media continues to insist they’re the same. Donald is Bernie, they say, only Republican. Of course this leaves Cruz and Rubio as the only bonafide Republicans in the race and frankly I think their youthful cluelessness is rather touching compared to the cleverness of Trump and Clinton. The Republicans think they’re in the game when they don’t even know what the game is.

    For me, Sanders’ candidacy has always been about what we are leaving to our [intlink id=”2062″ type=”post”]children and grandchildren[/intlink]. If you look at the future realistically it’s clear that these dishonest political games are a luxury we can’t afford. Ideally, the presidency of the United States is not a feather in someone’s cap. The person who fills this office must be able to lead us into a future that no one has ever seen before.  In spite of this fact the establishment of both parties clings to economic, social, and foreign policies that are inadequate to deal with it.

    We really only have two choices: we can continue in our self-centered, short-sighted, and greedy path, which will condemn most of the world’s population to a slow death by disease and starvation; or we can make a common-sense plan for world-wide peace and prosperity. If we go with the first choice, we’ll survive at the expense of our humanity, if we survive at all. If we go with the second choice I won’t deny that we’ll have to innovate to assure the survival of the planet, but what a challenge that will be. And what an adventure!

    So I say let’s not be the kind of people who throw the weak and the vulnerable under the bus. Instead, let’s to do our best to assure a humane future for all of the world’s people.

    This is the conversation. If we want it to continue we need Sanders in the White House.

  • South Carolina’s Big Misunderstanding

    I just saw a disturbing story on CBS News. They did a survey to find out which issues are most important to South Carolina’s voters. They listed four concerns, and they counted income inequality and the economy/jobs as two different issues. The economy and jobs was at the top of the list with 43%, and income inequality was at the bottom with 10%. (Healthcare was second with 23% and terrorism third with 20%.) According to this story, respondents defined a good economy as one where they can get good job for themselves and their neighbor, and they defined income inequality as a liberal issue having to do with whether one person earns the same salary as another. This is not at all what Sanders is talking about. Income inequality has everything to do with the economy and jobs.

    When most of the wealth is at the top the economy doesn’t work. The wealthy have so much money they couldn’t spend it even if they wanted to, so they invest it, meaning that it doesn’t circulate. When corporations are so large that they account for the majority of the productivity and sales, they leave no room for local business and job creation. And when they are so powerful that they can move overseas to save costs, they no longer offer anything of value to the community. Likewise, the Wall Street Journal has been saying that the stock market likes the idea of breaking up big banks. Big banks are not good for the banking business and they are not good for communities.

    The fact that the CBS survey separated economy/jobs from income inequality makes you wonder whether the voters made this mistake on their own, or they had help.  Hopefully it’s possible to clear this up before super Tuesday–and to find out if the other states have similar surveys in circulation.

  • Nevada’s Deep State

    The mystery of the Nevada Democratic Caucus has been cleared up. ((Arun Gupta, A Corporate Democratic Party is Hostile Ground for Bernie Sanders. Telesur, Feb. 25, 2016. Available: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/A-Corporate-Democratic-Party-Is-Hostile-Ground-for-Sanders-20160224-0029.html)) Caucus votes were delivered to Hillary Clinton by the casino owners, the Democratic Party, and the Culinary Workers Union, which was supposed to be neutral.

    Unionized Black and Hispanic workers at six major Las Vegas casinos backed Clinton with the help and encouragement of their union leaders, their bosses, and Harry Reid. The colluding casinos were Caesars Palace, Harrah’s, MGM, Rio, the Winn and New York-New York.

    Harry Reid not only pushed CWU local 226 into helping with the effort, he also pressured casino owners to give their workers paid time off so they could caucus. And to make it really easy to vote for Clinton, the Democratic Party set up caucuses at the casinos and extended the noon starting deadline by an hour or more to assure a large casino turnout.

    And it gets weirder. Members of the SEIU have been working for four years for a $15 an hour wage but during the caucuses many of them ended up telling lies for the $12-an-hour lady. The pro-Clinton Service Employees International Union passed out fliers portraying Clinton as a supporter of a $15-an-hour wage.

    The media would like us to believe Nevada changed everything for the Democratic contenders, but as usual it’s just playing a part in the magic show. Hillary’s Nevada Victory was all smoke and mirrors.

  • Here’s Bernie’s Path to Victory

    Please read this article showing how close the race really is.  Your vote will make a difference.

    http://inthesetimes.com/article/18913/bernie-sanders-delegate-path-to-victory-super-tuesday

  • Democrats Debate Bernie Sanders’ Proposals

    Playing at 10 am ET: Democrats debate Bernie Sanders’ proposals.

    http://www.wbur.org/listen/live

  • The Valiant David Brock

    When David Brock criticizes Bernie for being too hard on Hillary it almost sounds like he wants to give her a handicap. He might be right—if not for Donald Trump Hillary Clinton would be out of the running by now—however Brock’s criticism of Sanders is nonsense and I think everyone knows it. About his claim that criticism will weaken Hillary in the general election, maybe we should just do away with the primary elections and carry her around on a pillow.

  • After Nevada

    The reality is that the contest between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is no contest at all. Unfortunately, a sufficient number of people are still voting based on the unreality presented by the media. One solution is to try to reach those people, but how? The Internet is a great tool, but not everyone has the time or inclination to do extensive research. Consider the many Youtube videos by South Carolinian bloggers.  And the polls say Clinton is still leading in that state.

    Don’t worry too much though. People aren’t giving up on Sanders after the Nevada Caucus. In spite of what the media tells you the delegate counts are just about even. It’s the superdelegates that have to be dealt with. ((Sam Frizell, Super PAC begins populist push to support Bernie Sanders, Time, February 21, 2016. Available: http://time.com/4231656/bernie-sanders-super-pac-superdelegate-progressive-kick/)) If you want to know their names you can find them at http://superdelegatedemocracy.com/#  In Arizona, Raúl Grijalva is alone in supporting Sanders.  Those supporting Clinton are: Ruben Gallego; Luis Heredia; Ann Kirkpatrick; Kyrsten Sinema; and Carolyn Warner.  You can sign the petition here demanding that the superdelegates do what’s right: ((<link href=‘https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed.css’)) And if you haven’t done so already, you could volunteer in the Sanders campaign’s state of the art organization. Volunteering has never been so easy. If you’re interested, please go to berniesanders.com.

    But in spite of everything people are doing the political process will be an uphill battle. For that reason, we also need to make sure that President Obama cooperates with the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s emails and the more recent investigation of the Clinton Foundation. At the beginning of the campaign, Senator Sanders took the approach of waiting for the FBI to complete its investigation into her email account. Unfortunately the FBI can’t convene a grand jury without Obama’s cooperation. ((Charles Lipson, Hillary Clinton’s Coming Legal Crisis. Real Clear Politics, January 13, 2015. Available: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/01/13/hillary_clintons_coming_legal_crisis_129293.html)) ((Boston Herald staff, Editorial: the Clinton Family Values, The Boston Herald, Feb. 15, 2016. Available: http://www.bostonherald.com/opinion/editorials/2016/02/editorial_the_clinton_family_values)) ((Report: US State Department subpoenaed documents from Clinton Foundation, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 12, 2016. Available: http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Report-US-State-Department-subpoenaed-documents-from-Clinton-Foundation-444684))

    The fact that the seriousness of these investigations hasn’t been made public is exactly what makes them so dangerous. By all measures Bernie Sanders has a better chance of beating the Republican candidates in the general election, while Clinton’s reckless past and brazen calculation that she can get away with it represents a potential general election disaster for the Democratic Party.  Now that’s scary.  It seems Donald Trump has re-tweeted support from supremacist groups: ((http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/21/politics/donald-trump-predicts-hillary-clinton-highest-turnout/index.html))

  • The Southern Firewall

    Remember after New Hampshire when the Clinton campaign was talking about its firewall in South Carolina? I assumed it was a reference to black voters. I was wrong. The Clinton ‘firewall’ in the South is part of the general Clinton milieu—a milieu that is becoming so all-pervasive that it deserves its own name. I propose to call it, the ‘too-clever-for-its-own-good-milieu’.

    First characteristic of the Clinton milieu: a willingness to be loose with the truth.

    The flap over that picture of Bernie Sanders doing civil rights work in the 60s is a good example. Last fall the question was raised about whether that really was Bernie Sanders in the picture. The Clinton campaign grabbed ahold of that doubt and held on to it like a life-preserver until the evidence ripped it to shreds. In the meantime they brought Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga) forward to say how he’d never met Bernie Sanders in the 60s, and also how he did meet the Clintons. This in spite of the fact that no one has disputed Bernie Sanders’ involvement in civil rights during this time and no one has ever claimed that the Clintons were involved in civil rights work in the 60s. This ploy met its demise when the photographer who took that picture, Danny Lyon, came forward with additional pictures from the University of Chicago archives and was able to prove that it really was Sanders in the picture, ((Veterans For Bernie, 1016, New Pictures Emerge of Bernie Sanders’ Civil Rights Activism. Available: http://vetsforbernie.org/2016/02/yes-bernie-sanders-protested-for-civil-rights/)) after which John Lewis was forced to ‘clarify’ his previous comments.

    Second characteristic of the Clinton milieu: strategic connections that if known would not be quite so useful, and therefore are kept hidden.

    Lewis’s casting of doubt on Sanders occurred during the press conference where the Congressional Black Caucus PAC announced its endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. What the press failed to explain was that the Congressional Black Caucus PAC (CBC PAC) is not the same thing as the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). This is why it was necessary for Rep. Ellison, a member of the CBC who supports Senator Sanders, to release a statement saying that the CBC had not endorsed Hillary Clinton. So what is the PAC exactly? Concerning this confusion, Amy Goodman quotes Lee Fang: in a Democracy Now video, ((Democracy Now, Who Endorsed Hillary Clinton, the Congressional Black Caucus or its PAC Filled With Lobbyists? Feb. 12, 2016. Available: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/12/who_endorsed_hillary_clinton_the_congressional))

    “Members of the CBC PAC board include Daron Watts, a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, the maker of the highly addictive opioid OxyContin; Mike Mckay and Chaka Burgess, both lobbyists for Navient, the student loan giant that was spun off of Sallie Mae; former [Rep. Albert] Wynn, D-Md., a lobbyist who represents a range of clients, including work last year on behalf of Lorillard Tobacco, the maker of Newport cigarettes; and William A. Kirk, who lobbies for a cigar industry trade group on a range of tobacco regulations.

    “And a significant percentage of the $7,000 raised this cycle by the CBC PAC […] was donated by white lobbyists, including Vic Fazio, who represents Philip Morris and served for years as a lobbyist to Corrections Corporation of America, and David Adams, a former Clinton aide who now lobbies for Wal-Mart, the largest gun distributor in America.”

    Of course the CBC PAC’s chair, Rep. Gregory Meeks insists that this money does not affect any of the votes cast by the CBC members who are on the board of the PAC. Who doesn’t say that? Apparently we have a veritable miracle going on here—a whole political system in which large amounts of money have no corrupting influence at all.

    But that’s not all. There is also the question of the South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman’s ties to the Clinton camp. Jaimie Harrison is a principle at the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm founded by Tony and John Podesta—the same John Podesta who is chairman of Hillary Cllnton’s presidential campaign. Furthermore, he was already a principle at the Podesta Group when he became chairman of the South Caroline Democratic Party. It’s not surprising that his analysis of the presidential race favors Clinton.((Kelly Ridell, S.C. Democratic Chairman’s Ties to Hillary Clinton’s Camp Raise Fairness Questions, Washington Times, Feb. 11, 2016. Available: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/11/jamie-harrison-south-carolina-democratic-party-cha/))

    If the Washington Post is correct that Hillary still has a lead in South Carolina, and unless South Carolina’s voters are all part of the elite, I think the majority of them are going to have a bad case of buyer’s remorse come next year.

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