The beatings will continue. But I don't even think they care if moral improves.

The situation drives home the necessity of a community like C99 for me.

We know it will be bad for the foreseeable future. What we can and must do is support each other, connect like minded folk and be the best progressives we can be.

I recently added a sig line for posts here. It's from this essay:
https://umairhaque.com/winter-de1a9265c9ec#.pj6ml0y94

Umair is way more a pessimist than I am. But, he is always thought provoking.

Today's investment tip: bet the ranch on catfood futures (I hope everyone reading this sentence will make a point of reading Nasser's piece in its entirety; it is very powerful--see link immediately below)...

The Coming Plague of Poverty Among the Elderly: Clinton's Plan For Gutting Social Security
by Alan Nasser
Counterpunch.org
November 4, 2016

In the recent Wikileaks revelations confirming Hillary Clinton’s duplicity, one of the clearest disclosures of her policy plans concerns her intention regarding Social Security. She stated that she would return to the position of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, charged with producing recommendations for reducing the deficit, i.e. cutting government social spending.

The Commission, or “Simpson-Bowles committee” -named after co-chairs former Wyoming Republican senator Alan Simpson, and Erskine Bowles, former Morgan Stanley board member and chief of staff under Bill Clinton- was appointed by Obama in 2010. Among its members were some of the most persistent deficit hawks. Most significantly, the Commission was stacked with leading enemies of Social Security flailing their arms over the “impending insolvency” of the program. The day before his appointment as co-chair, Simpson said in an interview with the Washington Post: “How did we get to a point in America where you get to a certain age in life, regardless of net worth or income, and you’re ‘entitled’? The word itself is killing us.” (Feb. 17, 2010) In a later e-mail he described Social Security as “a milk cow with 310 million teats,” and had characterized its beneficiaries as “greedy geezers.” Bowles’s record was in line with Simpson’s. He had earlier negotiated with Newt Gingrich how best to cut safety net programs. The ultimate objective was to privatize Social Security.

In a rare moment of candor, a then-editor of The New York Times, Fred Brock, wrote an article critical of the Social-Security-is-going-broke alarmists titled “Save Social Security? From What?” (Business section, November 1, 1998). Brock attributed the faux hysteria to “hidden agendas…..Wall Street would love to get its hands on at least some of the billions of dollars in the Social Security trust fund . . . But knowing that the idea [of full privatization] won’t fly politically, [politicians] are pushing for partial privatization, in which individuals would invest a portion of their contribution in the stock market, all in the name of rescuing the system.”

Bowles’s efforts to undo Social Security through “partial privatization” began during the Clinton regime. The left-liberal economist Robert Kuttner, in his 2007 book The Squandering of America, detailed how Washington elites of both Parties had been planning to weaken Social Security since the Clinton Administration. Steven Gillon’s 2008 book The Pact included letters and interviews with reliable sources illustrating Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich’s collaboration to get Congress behind a plan to begin turning Social Security’s so-called trust fund over to Wall street, which would manage, for a fee, retirees’ benefits. Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin had prodded the president to work with Gingrich not merely to reduce benefits and extend the retirement age, but to begin the privatization of Social Security. Clinton appointed Bowles as his intermediary. But the Monica Lewinsky scandal caused both embarrassed Congressional Democrats and Gingrich to distance themselves from Clinton. The privatization plan fell apart.

A waiting game was now under way.

Hillary Clinton’s speeches to the captains of finance strongly imply that she would resume the project of privatizing Social Security. Hers will be a gradual, stealth approach. The opening salvo will be further cuts in benefits and extensions of the full-benefit retirement age. But these alone will not satisfy Wall Street. The privatization plan will be resurrected, first in the form of legislation once again to begin “partial privatization.” In the end, the objective will be to turn the program into a broker’s-fee-for-service plan entirely in the hands of Wall Street. Retired workers will no longer be unqualifiedly entitled to Social Security benefits. Their fortunes will be tied to the vagaries of the stock market and other speculative ventures favored by brokers. And retirees will pay for this “service.” There will be no refunds when the market goes belly-up...

The truth about tomorrow...

Forget Fear and Loathing. The US Election Inspires Projectile Vomiting
Barbara Ehrenreich
The Guardian
Sunday, November 06, 2016

The most sordid side of our democracy has been laid out for all to see. But that’s only the beginning: whoever wins, the mutual revulsion will only intensify

Back when America was “great” – say, in the 1970s – the most unpleasant emotions a presidential race might inspire were “fear and loathing”. We expected our political process to provoke antagonism and ennui. We did not expect it to trigger projectile vomiting.

But this year is different, with psychotherapists reporting widespread depression, insomnia and digestive problems among the electorate. Record numbers are voting early, by mail, as if to purge themselves of all connection to the proceedings.

Add in the realization that the whole world is watching this spectacle and the sensitive American is likely to feel something akin to physical shame – as if someone had walked in and found them deflowering a close relative or a pet. And just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, the Clinton email scandal looped in penis-fetishist Anthony Wiener, estranged husband of Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin. The most sordid side of our democracy has been laid out for all the world to see...
...

...On the liberal left, tragically, we do not have Bernie Sanders, who would have dispatched Trump’s populist pretensions with a wrist flick. But no, representing the side of tolerance, good government and cosmopolitanism, we have the very epitome of Democratic party elitism, a woman who labeled half of Trump’s supporters “deplorables”, a politician who is so robotic that any efforts to analyze her motives risk the charge of anthropomorphism. Consider her statement on the Standing Rock occupation in North Dakota, which could have been issued by an unmanned typewriter. As soldiers and police bore down on the protesters, she urged all parties – tribal peoples and the pipeline company that threatens their culture and habitat – “to find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest”.

If a withering cynicism hangs over the land it’s because both candidates share a Tony-Blairish zeal for turning money into influence and vice versa. He has his Trump Foundation, whose largest beneficiary was reportedly a fountain in need of renovations that faces the Trump Plaza hotel. She has the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which shares some of its revenues with the global poor, but also emits a stench of corruption which, according to leaked emails, even the ever tractable Chelsea could not help noticing.

The question is not who will win but what happens the day after...

Our very real, soon-to-be Soylent Green reality.

trying to rally the troops New Deal sounding plans....

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/11/06/hillary-clinton-vote--f...

SNIP

Exclusive Clinton op-ed: I'll look for common ground

Hillary Clinton 1:11 p.m. EST November 7, 2016

First, we will put forward the biggest investment in new jobs since World War II. We’ll invest in infrastructure and manufacturing to grow our economy for years to come. We’ll produce enough renewable energy to power every home in America within a decade. We’ll cut red tape for small businesses and make it easier for entrepreneurs to get the credit they need to grow and hire — because in America, if you can dream it, you should be able to build it. We’ll pay for it all by asking the wealthy, Wall Street and big corporations to finally pay their fair share. And this commitment will go far beyond the first 100 days. Creating more good jobs with rising incomes will be a central mission of my presidency.

Second, we will introduce comprehensive immigration reform legislation. The last president to sign comprehensive immigration reform was Ronald Reagan, and it was a priority for George W. Bush. I’m confident that we can work across the aisle to pass comprehensive reform that keeps families together and creates a path to citizenship, secures our border, and focuses our enforcement resources on violent criminals. This is the right thing to do, and it will also grow our economy.

Third, to break the gridlock in Washington, we need to get secret, unaccountable money out of our politics. It’s drowning out the voices of the American people. So within my first 30 days, I will introduce a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. We should be protecting citizens’ rights to vote, not corporations’ rights to buy elections.

Fourth, we need to get started on end-to-end criminal justice reform. Too many people have been sent away for far too long for non-violent offenses. I believe our country will be stronger and safer when everyone has respect for the law and everyone is respected by the law.

There’s so much more we need to do together, and we certainly won’t get it all done in the first 100 days. But we’re going to roll up our sleeves and get to work for American families — and I’ll never, ever quit.

Heh. FWIW I found this during a Twitter search.

Whoa, lookee here, Clinton's a Populist? Infrastructure and jobs. I'll drink to that. She wrote that. But what will she do? What will Congress allow? We could get behind that if it's not a ruse like much of what we have seen from her camp.

Some of it is useless distraction ie the constitutional amendment.

Well hell, Hill, why do I have my doubt about your sincerity on these?

Yep, for sure, we should start in on them but we HAVE to try something different than all we used trying to influence Obama.

cast and counted the old-fashioned way.

But in many places in the country, we no longer have an honest, paper ballot-based process.

Get to know your allies from online, in person.

Find ways, build ways, for us to retreat and re-energize and heal ourselves, as opposed to dragging ourselves along like the Terminator even when we only have one arm and a head, like we usually do.

Create temporary autonomous zones. Create semi-permanent autonomous zones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone

Work on resilience/independence at every level.

Come together. Come together to work, come together to play, come together to cry, come together to pray.

Come together to eat.

If this sounds all too sweet or woo-woo, lacking political muscle or ignoring all the Important Issues of the Day, look at how well we've been doing without these tactics (we've been getting killed).

I've been in touch with a few official Republican sites regarding news/rumors of Hillary cheating at various locations. We don't have the manpower to watch these poll. I hope that the Republicans do.

Anyway, they told me that if they can get 30% of the NYC vote, they'll take NY. I live in PA and I tell you, he might take this state, too. Florida is too close to call, in my not so humble opinion. Hillary never had a chance in Texas. Even if she has a lock on CA [which I doubt], it won't be enough.

I'm betting a wooden nickel on The Donald. And his VP, who leaves cloven footprints behind him.

is if the stock prices for fossil fuel, MIC, pharmaceutical, medical insurance, financial and media corporations start climbing rapidly the day after the election.

At least I did. I assumed a great deal about the voices on the Left. With regard to many, I was wrong. I let my hope cloud my judgement. I still believe in the message, just not so many messengers.

I agree with you that the aftermath will be a nightmare. I'm just not sure how quickly or when we will realize.

there reeeeally needs to be an option to check a box for "none of the above"

It's called a NOTA vote. It generally refers to "None of the above candidates" and can be interpreted as a "no confidence." vote.

In fact, the fall of the Soviet Union came about because of NOTA votes.

The US doesn't have Federal Election Laws, per se. They forgot to put them in the constitution. So, it's up to each state to add a NOTA provision. I believe Utah did this.