And the Democrats are Republicans

Just when you think it is so obvious, out comes even more evidence of the absolute corruption of the Democratic Party.

Watch the first five or six minutes of this 11 minute interview (if you can stand it). The remainder is about Monsanto's corruption.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VwV-Z-y3ek]

https://theintercept.com/2016/05/11/lobbyists-dnc-2016-convention/

The Host Committee is deeply involved in planning events for the delegates, fundraising, and handling media relations, among other responsibilities.

The Host Committee’s finance chair is Daniel Hilferty. In his day job, Hilferty is CEO of Independence Blue Cross, a health insurance giant that covers nine million people. In December, Hilferty became board chairman of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association of America, a trade group that lobbies for the insurance industry, and he serves on the board of directors of America’s Health Insurance Plan’s (AHIP), the insurance industry lobbying group that spearheaded the campaign against the Affordable Care Act. Lobby registration documents show the BCBS Association is actively supporting a number of Republican bills to roll back provisions of the ACA. 

Allyson Schwartz, a former Democratic lawmaker, is a co-chair of the Host Committee. She was recently named head of a new advocacy group for the health insurance industry called Better Medicare Alliance. The group, according to the Center for Public Integrity, was set up by APCO, a lobbying firm for health insurance companies, to push to expand Medicare Advantage plans, the privately managed programs that were curtailed with the enactment of the ACA.

David Cohen is the special advisor to the Host Committee, and serves as the executive vice president of Comcast, overseeing the company’s lobbying and regulatory strategy. In addition to being a “Hillblazer” — one of Hillary Clinton’s bundlers who has raised $100,000 or more — Cohen has been a particularly bitter and duplicitous leading opponent of the rules regarding net neutrality, the principle that all Internet traffic must be treated equally. And despite hosting fundraisers for Clinton at his home last summer, Cohen has spent heavily to help elect a Republican Congress, including recent donations to the NRCC; Sen. Toomey; Sen. Scott; Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; as well as $33,400 to the NRSC, a committee for helping elect GOP members to the Senate.

The Philadelphia Host Committee chair, former Gov. Ed Rendell, headed for Wall Street as soon as he left office, and has since represented a number of controversial special interests. In 2011, as New York was debating regulations on fracking, Rendell wrote a pro-fracking opinion column in the New York Daily News, while failing to disclose that he was a paid consultant at a private equity firm that had investments in the industry.
That same year, Rendell started providing paid speeches on behalf of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a fringe Iranian exile group that was considered a terrorist organization by the State Department at the time (it was delisted in 2012).

I guess Al is right. The Democratic Party is lost. There is no return to FDR in there.

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Host Committee Chair
'nuff said

Hope the Selloutacrats have a great convention

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Lookout's picture

I couldn't find the source where I read that many plan to protest the convention. I hope it isn't '68 again, but by the same token I hope they understand our disgust!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Alex Ocana's picture

Am I imagining the response is going to be militarized police trying to keeping the strictly non-violent march on the outskirts of Philly which will degenerate into a police riot against strictly non-violent flash mobs? Beware of paid agitators. If they aren't "tackled" by the protest side, they are the forerunners of violent repression and nutty news cycles.

I also think smaller supporting marches should be organized all over the USA, and Europe if possible. (I am not an organizer sort). My comments on on the March FB group were apparently blocked. LOL.

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From the Light House.

Lookout's picture

...for the links. That's what I was remembering. And Alex I sure hope we don't see violence, but I hope the DNC feels the outrage.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

earthling1's picture

They are the Billionaire Party. We may not be able to take the label "Democrat" back, but we can call them as we see ' em.
Otoh, the Republican Party has moved so far out in right field they're just a chain link fence away from Fascism.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Lookout's picture

At least not what is parading as a democrat. The party has been a constant enemy to Bernie and progressives for many years. And you're correct the rethugs are fascists. So where do we go from here?

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

The definition of fascism is government and Big Business deciding policy and working together. Exactly what we have.

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Lookout's picture

corporations before people.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

earthling1's picture

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Alex Ocana's picture

See: "Lusotropicalism".

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From the Light House.

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Orwell was an optimist

Lookout's picture

from wiki:

Following the end of his career as governor of Pennsylvania, Rendell returned to his former law firm, the Philadelphia-based Ballard Spahr. In January 2011, he accepted a position as an on-air political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, and the following month took up a position as Senior Advisor at boutique investment bank Greenhill & Co. In April 2011, Rendell joined Element Partners, a Philadelphia-based cleantech investment firm, as an Operating Partner. Also in 2011, Rendell reportedly acted as a go-between for Range Resources Corp, an oil and gas exploration and production company, and then United States EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, regarding a Texas water contamination case; and has been a vocal proponent of shale gas extraction as part of a United States energy strategy.

from http://usuncut.com/politics/democratic-national-convention-comcast/

Comcast, which has been named America’s worst company, is an honored guest at this year’s Democratic National Convention. Comcast is a longtime friend of the Democratic Party, having donated nearly $10 million to Democrats since 2010. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Comcast has favored Democrats in Congress in four of the last six election cycles.

The tentacles of the loathed cable company reach deep into the Democratic Party. Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who is the chairman of the DNC’s hosting committee, has been a Comcast employee since 2011. As a paid pundit for NBC News, Rendell receives regular paychecks from Comcast, which has owned NBC/Universal since 2013. MSNBC, which falls under Comcast’s umbrella of control, has been repeatedly criticized for being too soft on Hillary Clinton and too adversarial toward Bernie Sanders.

And as blogger Gaius Publius reported, David Cohen, who served as chief of staff to Rendell when he was mayor of Philadelphia, is currently the Senior Executive Vice President of Comcast, making approximately $15 million annually. This relationship continues today, as Cohen is serving as senior adviser to Rendell on the DNC’s host committee this year. Rendell made headlines recently when he told supporters of Bernie Sanders that the Vermont senator would lose the nomination, and that they better “behave themselves” after Hillary Clinton is named the Democratic nominee.

For Cohen to have such a significant role at the DNC is odd, considering his financial support for Republicans and opposition to Democratic initiatives, like President Obama’s net neutrality decision and Philadelphia’s paid sick leave legislation. Cohen has hosted multiple fundraisers for prominent Pennsylvania Republicans such as Governor Tom Corbett, who was infamous for slashing education budgets after giving away nearly identical amounts in corporate tax breaks. Cohen also raised money for U.S. Senator Pat Toomey.

Not only are party leaders offering exclusive access to politicians for corporate executives who pony up enough cash, but they’re also willing to let corporate lobbyists have an outsized role in picking the next Democratic nominee. As The Intercept’s Lee Fang reported in February, three Democratic superdelegates — Jill Alper, Minyon Moore, and Maria Cardona — are lobbyists for Dewey Square Group. One of the firm’s clients is the U.S. Telecom Association, and they previously worked for Enron and against healthcare reform in 2009.

Given that the 2016 Democratic nomination will likely come down to superdelegate ballots, this means corporate lobbyists will be among those casting the final ballots.

Superdelegates are lobbyist.jpg

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

riverlover's picture

Or is that price-dependent?

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

the biggest problem we have is that half our Democrats are Republicans, and half the Republicans are crazy.

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"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles. -- Bob Dylan"

TheOtherMaven's picture

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Gerrit's picture

the same Corporatist Oligarchist Party, or COP, for short :=) And yes, both parties are unsalvagable and should be broken up for parts.

It is time for a true FDR party, the American Democratic-Socialist Party - the ADP..

And here in Canada, we need the same thing. We need a Democratic-Socialist Party of Canada to be a home to Canada's lefties and stand up to our corporatist Libs, Cons, and NDPs. Come to think of it, we (the royal we, of course) need to link up the European left and the North American left to fight global corporatism.

Great post, my friend, I hope you have a very good day eh,

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Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.

Thumb's picture

It might be time to start a national Labor party. MN kept the DFL (Democrat/Farmer/Labor) as distinct from the national Democratic party (though largely one and the same), but it would be nice if there was a national party dedicated to the lower 95%.

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"Polls don't tell us how well a candidate is doing; Polls tell us how well the media is doing." ~ Me

ZimInSeattle's picture

I think that the main appeal of Trump to those on the right and some on the left is that his election would be one giant FUCK YOU to the establishment destroying both parties and the Clinton's as well. More and more I'm thinking this would be a good thing. Burn it to the ground.

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

mouselander's picture

that a new political party representing the interests of the bottom 90% is badly needed and overdue. Done correctly, it could challenge and perhaps fatally undermine the viability of the Democratic Party, in much the same way as the Republican Party challenged and ultimately supplanted the Whig Party in the 1850's.

I have to say I don't much care for the name "Peoples Progressive Party", however. Anything with the word "Peoples" in it automatically conjures up an association with the Peoples Republic of China, which strikes me as something that would register negatively in the minds of most Americans. A better name would be the New Progressive Party, which would suggest a tie-in and sense of continuity with the original Progressive Party of Theodore Roosevelt and Hiram Johnson.

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