Democratic National Convention **live commentary thread**

[NOVA Green]

Chaos ensures whenever the name "Hillary Clinton" is uttered. Jeez.

Gotta throw'em out, that's the only way they'll get the message

If you boot 46% of the party, then you get the boot in November...

Just sayin'.... unlike the Republican Party we don't act like a bunch of jack-booted thugs when it comes to suppressing dissent and freedom of speech (RE stories from the "Cruz Underground" at the RNC).

Passions are high today, and hopefully the lineup tonight and Bernie himself will be able to chill this out before we roll into the rest of the week.

[NOVA Green]

This is why it isn't healthy to follow politics this closely- do what 95% of America does- ignore the convention

Like this post...

[NOVA Green]

We're witnessing the birth of the Green Tea Party.

Well Green Tea is legal where I live....

More seriously---- yes there is a large section of the core base of the Democratic Party that *voted* twice for Obama, and believes that he has brought significant progress to the country, followed through on almost all of his campaign promises, and as a President is man of integrity and conviction, whose progressive agenda was thwarted at every turn by Republicans in the House and Senate.

There is a deep yearning among 50% of the Democratic Party base to expand upon the Obama legacy, move it further with key economic policies, and is skeptical of Hillary's record on war and peace, trade policies, environmental record, as well as a perspective that the Party Establishment made up their minds back last Summer to back Hillary, regardless of *whomever* the challenger might be.

Reality is that the vast majority of Bernie supporters will vote Hillary come November, but yes there is something akin to a "Green Tea Party", or as some would say a "Watermelon" movement within the party that will not go away, regardless of how distracting it might be at this moment within the current election cycle.

[NOVA Green]

Haven't seen much on this thread, other than the usual Hillary hacks freaking out blaming everything on Bernie, and the Republican hacks rubbing their hands.

What is neglected is the fundamentals that the Democratic Party is deeply divided regarding foreign and economic policy, over decades of poor decisions going back to the early 1990s and the time of the DLC.

We saw NAFTA rammed down our throat supported by a Democratic President, where the vast majority our Senators and Reps voted against.

Personally, I saw (500) jobs disappear virtually overnight in a (9,000 employee) manufacturing facility of a Fortune 500 company where I worked, where the starting pay was $11.50-13.50/Hour (DOE) back in the mid '90s, including two friends that worked on those lines. Subsequently, the same company shut down virtually all manufacturing lines and relocated them to Ireland, Puerto Rico, and Singapore, and several thousand more high paying manufacturing jobs (Including management, engineers, sales and marketing, etc...) in order to take advantage of corporate tax loopholes.

These stories exist across America, and yes the Democratic Party at senior levels was responsible for that trade agreement.

Is it any wonder that Donald Trump has made this a major issue, when it appears for many Democratic voters that the Party is so much in favor of "Free Trade" without providing "Fair Trade" that actually provides the labor and environmental protections, job retraining and education policies that were promised when the Democratic Party DLC (Now thankfully retired) chose to go that route???

I know many posters on this forum, including a huge number of red avatars, don't actually remember what happened because they are too young, nor saw friends, family, and even communities impacted by the destruction caused by a Neo-Corporatist vision as part of a giant "race to the bottom" based upon a Globalist vision that appears to care more about Wall Street investors where everything is Profit/Loss and not about investing in America Inc....

Don't blame Bernie for actually speaking the truth when it comes to the collusion of *both* political parties in the selling out of America to the highest bidder.

[NOVA Green]

Haven't seen much on this thread, other than the usual Hillary hacks freaking out blaming everything on Bernie, and the Republican hacks rubbing their hands.

What is neglected is the fundamentals that the Democratic Party is deeply divided regarding foreign and economic policy, over decades of poor decisions going back to the early 1990s and the time of the DLC.

We saw NAFTA rammed down our throat supported by a Democratic President, where the vast majority our Senators and Reps voted against.

Personally, I saw (500) jobs disappear virtually overnight in a (9,000 employee) manufacturing facility of a Fortune 500 company where I worked, where the starting pay was $11.50-13.50/Hour (DOE) back in the mid '90s, including two friends that worked on those lines. Subsequently, the same company shut down virtually all manufacturing lines and relocated them to Ireland, Puerto Rico, and Singapore, and several thousand more high paying manufacturing jobs (Including management, engineers, sales and marketing, etc...) in order to take advantage of corporate tax loopholes.

These stories exist across America, and yes the Democratic Party at senior levels was responsible for that trade agreement.

Is it any wonder that Donald Trump has made this a major issue, when it appears for many Democratic voters that the Party is so much in favor of "Free Trade" without providing "Fair Trade" that actually provides the labor and environmental protections, job retraining and education policies that were promised when the Democratic Party DLC (Now thankfully retired) chose to go that route???

I know many posters on this forum, including a huge number of red avatars, don't actually remember what happened because they are too young, nor saw friends, family, and even communities impacted by the destruction caused by a Neo-Corporatist vision as part of a giant "race to the bottom" based upon a Globalist vision that appears to care more about Wall Street investors where everything is Profit/Loss and not about investing in America Inc....

Don't blame Bernie for actually speaking the truth when it comes to the collusion of *both* political parties in the selling out of America to the highest bidder.

No, I contest the idea that anecdotes should be taken as facts, especially on free trade.

Fair enough, and obviously there will be jobs generated and jobs lost.

So the theory of "Comparative Advantage" based upon economic theories of Smith & Ricardo assumes that all trade is created equal (Apples to Oranges).

What is clear is that not all trade is created equal, and additionally the entire concept that a huge chunk of American workers making decent paying living in the manufacturing are shoved out to pasture, because we have supposed benefits of buying tacky assembly required products from China at our local Wal-Mart, rather than higher-quality products from North/South Carolina is ludicrous.

Generally, it appears to me that the proponents of the extreme version of free-trade (a la NAFTA) is that somehow prices will be cheaper for consumer products and that America will see a net gain of extremely high-paying jobs in services and capital to somehow work out the difference.

Reality is that America has seen a huge explosion of low-paying service and health-care jobs over the past few decades, and that yes Multi-National-Corporations (MNCs) have been exploiting and gaming the system to exploit every loophole, and sure there have been some job gains along the way.

I know you don't believe in anecdotes, but when I left Texas at the end of '15 the same MNC was moving rapidly forward to close down high-tech manufacturing lines to relocate to Ciudad Juarez Mexico, and lay off over 1,000 employees, including not only individuals payed at *Texas* minimum wage, but also management, supply-chain, engineers, and techs (In-House).

Reality is that *none* of these profits go into the hands of employees, that ship has long since sailed from the mid '90s. These are American jobs that were sacrificed at the altar of a Neo-Liberal economic agenda, where the party of the people became the party of Wall Street.

Been around the block for decades young buck, and yes I will vote Clinton (Although my wife is still leaning G. Johnson) since I firmly believe she will help move the platform forward in a more progressive direction, but you can't ignore the reality that Trump is playing a legitimate card when it feels for many blue-collar workers that both the Democratic and Republican Party have have abandoned them.

Not a crazy economic Nationalist/ Protectionist, but there are a lot of us aged 35-55 that see the games that both parties have been playing to kiss the ass of Wall Street and Multinational Corporations over the past 20+ Years.

[NOVA Green]

Haven't seen much on this thread, other than the usual Hillary hacks freaking out blaming everything on Bernie, and the Republican hacks rubbing their hands.

What is neglected is the fundamentals that the Democratic Party is deeply divided regarding foreign and economic policy, over decades of poor decisions going back to the early 1990s and the time of the DLC.

We saw NAFTA rammed down our throat supported by a Democratic President, where the vast majority our Senators and Reps voted against.

Personally, I saw (500) jobs disappear virtually overnight in a (9,000 employee) manufacturing facility of a Fortune 500 company where I worked, where the starting pay was $11.50-13.50/Hour (DOE) back in the mid '90s, including two friends that worked on those lines. Subsequently, the same company shut down virtually all manufacturing lines and relocated them to Ireland, Puerto Rico, and Singapore, and several thousand more high paying manufacturing jobs (Including management, engineers, sales and marketing, etc...) in order to take advantage of corporate tax loopholes.

These stories exist across America, and yes the Democratic Party at senior levels was responsible for that trade agreement.

Is it any wonder that Donald Trump has made this a major issue, when it appears for many Democratic voters that the Party is so much in favor of "Free Trade" without providing "Fair Trade" that actually provides the labor and environmental protections, job retraining and education policies that were promised when the Democratic Party DLC (Now thankfully retired) chose to go that route???

I know many posters on this forum, including a huge number of red avatars, don't actually remember what happened because they are too young, nor saw friends, family, and even communities impacted by the destruction caused by a Neo-Corporatist vision as part of a giant "race to the bottom" based upon a Globalist vision that appears to care more about Wall Street investors where everything is Profit/Loss and not about investing in America Inc....

Don't blame Bernie for actually speaking the truth when it comes to the collusion of *both* political parties in the selling out of America to the highest bidder.

I'm an Independent. I agree with you on some of your things. I do believe that NAFTA has cost jobs and I am not for the TPP. However, taxing Wall Street to eternity will cost jobs. You can't destroy Wall Street and expect economic prosperity.

We can agree and disagree regarding increasing marginal tax rates on higher-income Americans, as well as increased means testing of Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid.

I do believe that a slight tax on wall street speculation could well be a positive scenario.

Personally, my preference would be to mandate that US based companies actually pay real corporate taxes for all of their assets, instead of hiding behind laws that protect US companies based oversees from repatriation of corporate profits.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't mind the US lowering corp tax rates significantly to make it more competitive with Ireland, Singapore, etc in exchange for MNCs with Corp HQs based in America to not hide and stash capital overseas.

I would happily exchange a decrease in Federal Corp Tax in exchange for massive shutoffs in Corp loopholes, marginal increases for Americans making $250k/Yr income scaled to impact those at much higher income brackets, and penalties/rewards for large MNCs re-investing their profits into the USA and not only complying but supporting wage increases for employees, with minimal subsidies from tax payers in the communities that they are looking at expanding.

OK.... will settle for a little less, but with negotiations you always start high and settle lower.

[NOVA Green]

I think all the Spanish is going to backfire.

Are a huge numbers actually watching this live?

I understand that there are many Americans that might be haters simply based upon Spanish language speakers, but despite the Anglo haters, we will see some results in NV.CO, FL at the top of the ticket, as well as down-ballots in CA, NV, CO, and maybe even a few CDs in Texas.

Show isn't over yet, and what plays in IA and NH isn't how this will be received in other swing states.

[NOVA Green]

Why are the Oregon folks just making noise?

Oregon delegates are making noise because Bernie beat Hillary by 15% in an open primary, but yet Bernie got less than 53% of the total delegates because of the Super Delegates that overwhelmingly Hillary supporters.

There are so many other states where you see a similar lopsided pattern.

[NOVA Green]

I appreciated the "Bernie won all 55 counties" sign in the WV delegation.

Wish we could have had that sign in the Oregon delegation. Bernie won 35/36 counties and lost one County (Gilliam County) by one vote 101-100. There were two write-in votes for Bernie that weren't counted because of state rules...

[NOVA Green]

I may have my issues with Bill, but man, he knows how to give a strong speech.