He's been honing his character for over a decade, watching his ratings, learning what the dummies like to hear and how they like it delivered. It's politics as Reality TV. The guy who wrote Idiocracy says: I never expected #idiocracy to become a documentary.

His jobs are 1)to take media space away from Bernie, and 2)start a full-scale race war (maj of white people and maj of black people wanting to kill each other). He's trying to provide a false people's candidate to take oxygen away from the real one, and to set white working people and black working people at each other's throats. Then the Washington Post can say that "democracy" is now threatening "American self-government," because "democracy" has given rise to Trump.

It will amplify the amount of Trump coverage and create a backlash that will fall on Bernie.
It will suck all of the media air out of platform and policy, and it will cover the violence.
They will retaliate at Bernie rallies. This will devolve into the mud.
Everyone has a right to attend a political rally without be harassed.

Not only is this bad strategy, it is morally wrong. If they want to protest, go protest Wall Street, Washington DC - put pressure on the superdelegates to move their support. What a yuuge mistake.

several times. They are "non-violent" and "intentional" and "staged" and peaceful protests with the intent to get handcuffed and arrested and to make a "statement" and for the next day headlines and the media. If you have been arrested several times, it also gets expensive to get out of the one to two days imprisonments.

With a White House fence it is easily done. There is a certain section in front of the fence where you are not allowed to stay, you would have to walk on and pass, but not to stand still. So, if you on purpose stand still at that point, you get arrested. Handcuffing yourself at that part of the WH fence makes it harder for the police to "carry or drag you away". Would you stand still ten meters further down in front of the fence, nothing would happen to you.

A couple of celebrity protesters used this place to make their political resistance known that way. I think Bill McKibben and some actors as well. Have forgotten it. It's peaceful protest and civil disobedience, but staged for a purpose. Same kind of protests happen in front of the Supreme Court (Cornel West among those who got handcuffed there). You are not allowed, if I remember correctly, to sit and stand on the steps that lead up to the Supreme Court. So, placing yourself there, leads to handcuffing and arrests. These are staged events and both sides know it, demonstrators and police.

These demonstrations are not comparable with spontaneous mass demos, who tend to be more explosive in nature when they are suppressed or abused by groups, who want them to become violent and seek out confrontation with the police in a violent manner. I am not sure, who started the violence on the rallies, the demonstrators or the police.

Just saying, because the US is so huge, any mass demonstration has to be organized, people have be bussed in and with that usually it gets civil and non-violent. If those happen at the Washington Mall, the only damage they leave behind is a trampled up lawn with lots of bare soil spaces in between. And it leaves the barriors behind and the beautiful mall looks like a field for cattle whose pathways are caged so that the "cattle people" can't trample on the grass anymore.

football included, your boyfriend is right. I used to always watch the defense and the line play.

I sure do miss Jon Stewart...

Major change in society comes as a result of social movements, not politics. And sometimes it takes a long time for a social movement to gain enough momentum to force political change. The politics follows the social movement, not vice versa. Most politicians are guardians of the status quo of power so they are reluctant to cede that power for change until they are forced to. Good politicians recognize this and act accordingly. Great ones will be on the forefront. And there are very few that are ever on the forefront of real social change.

I think same sex marriage is a good contemporary example. What appeared to happen overnight was a long time in the making. The enacting of anti-gay marriage laws in many states in recent years was a good indicator that the critical mass was being reached and those in power were doing their best to stem that momentum. Obama and Clinton were way behind the social movement and Bernie was ahead of it. Ironically, a good Catholic Joe Biden was the one who recognized the power of the social movement to legalize same sex marriage and he forced Obama's hand on the issue.

What I see in the Sanders campaign is the continuation of Occupy in that there is national public figure giving a public voice to the issues raised by the Occupy Movement and its predecessors. Throughout his campaign, Sanders has talked about this being us and that he cannot do it alone. I think most of his core supporters clearly understand that concept and are in it for the long run. I keep going back to my own small experience in Occupy and the millennials I met there. They are literally fighting for their future and their existence. At our Occupy, climate change was clearly their greatest concern.

My greatest fear is that in order to run under the Democratic banner, Bernie may have been required to support the nominee if he is not it. So I will be looking for two things as this race continues. First, if Bernie is mathematically eliminated, will he continue to stay in the race and go to all 50 states? This is something I very much support as a means to getting his message out. The second thing if he does not get the nomination, I will be looking at how he frames whatever support he does or does not give to Clinton.

There is so much more I could write, but this is enough for one comment.

I agree that we (those here and Americans in general) need to start planning and working together to determine 'What do We Want?' What do we ant our country to be? How do we want it to be governed? If our votes counted on every law and policy, what laws and policies would we vote *for*.

I don't have a clue how to begin doing this, and my brain is cloud-gathering today so I can't even explain myself well. But what I appreciate about your comment is that you are pointing out is that, no matter who is elected, we have to start *now* to determine what we *expect* our government to do for the citizens of America, and we need to figure out new ways of conveying our expectations to the political call and its parties.

I'll try to make up an example: We all know that America's economic policies toward its citizens have to change, so let's choose that as one area of change that will we demand. That's a broad area, so I'll focus on scraping back some of the wealth that catapults around Wall Street and transferring it back to the citizens and their General Welfare. So here's a possible scenario:

Sanders (if I understand correctly; corrections welcome) is saying he wants a .05% transaction tax on Wall Street, which will be used to provide free college for all (and I saw today that a UMass (iirc) study has shown such a tax will more than covers the education costs). That's well and good -- but I don't think it goes far enough. Let's make the transaction tax 3.0% -- while also bringing back Glass-Steagall and otherwise regulating the industry. Earmark the additional tax revenue for rectifying the damage done to Americans by 30 years of far-right economics (Or even 'center-right' economic policy if you wanna be all Clintonista about it, ok with me if you do). So another portion of the revenue could be earmarked to relieve existing student debt and ease up Millennials' monthly costs-of-living. (Plus additional uses I can't think of now.)

Now, somehow, in the background of this imaginary scenario, I've already got established a wide-spread, beyond-partisan coalition, with well-constructed and accessible internet communications established, making communications and coordinated actions possible quickly. (Possibly some thing like a Union of American Citizens could be brought into being, coordinating with (say) the Labor Party. (I had a realization this last week, after reading about the Labor Party, that -- in the political/economic zeitgeist we're in now -- we're all either Labor, or Fodder, or both.)

So, from this imaginary standpoint of all being part of this post-Party Unified Citizens of America, when (say) Congress is going to consider a transaction tax bill, our representative all receive text, emails tweets and (yes!) postcards saying 'as a member of UCA, I expect my government to do [this] with this bill. I will be watching your vote.' To party leaders, we write: 'The members of UCA will no loner accept [this] and expect our gavernment to [do that]. If you want my vote for your party in [year], please know I will be watching your actions as a Party Leader.'

(Okay, why postcards? Because not everybody has Internet (and that should be a plank in the 'UCA' platform). They're cheap, so even most poor people can afford them, and 'UCA' members who are 'buddied up' with poor folks (hmm, I'll have to build that in) can buy a bundle for their buddies. They are physical and have to be handled; when they are handled, they can be read; they have no envelopes so don't have to go through safety procedures like letters; they have to be handled again in the pol's offices, where they will be read again by handlers in addition to the addressee. Because of 'UCAs' amazing online presence, members can report how many, to whom were sent, so that if word goes out on a Fri about upcoming transaction tax action, asks members to Send Now, by Mon or Tues 'UCA can put out a press release announcing that 'over 350,00 individual messages were sent to Congress and Party Leaders by member of the UCA, all asking that their reps do [this]', while UCA members who have made themselves Press Outreach Coordinators call the pol's media officers saying, 'Hi, Louise, we sent a bunch [actual number] of messages to your guy, have you seen them yet? Yeah, I'm calling to get the Congressman's statement . . ..' Pol's statement or non-statement would be put online immediately.

Ah, what a world! (That's my brain for you; give it a concept and it writes a story.)

And yes, I know, I went pretty far with that scenario. But the technology is already here to support it, or at least 'close enough for governnment work' [haha].

But where we need to start is with the FOUNDATION and the framing timbers -- the FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS AND GOALS -- of what we want American government to change into. We need to develop that framework of thought beginning RIGHT NOW, imo, in order to have a coherent package in place by January 2017.

I think the economic aspect should be developed first, since its effects will be felt by all Americans. (Bernie's proposals are a place to start, as are the Congressional Progressives' budget.) Because economic concerns affect us all, I think this could be used as a unifying concern.

Economic issues are already cross-partisan -- and if you want to learn something surprising about this, look for the article about the excerpt of Thomas Franks' new book at TruthDig.com. Franks write about a survey done by ACL-CIO among its blue-collar members, which Franks uses to illustrate the major concern among Trumpists. Trumpists, Franks says, are not unified as bigots, but because of their economic fears after the last 30 years.

OK. I'm done now. If I had known this was going to come out this way, I would have set it up as a diary instead of a comment. You'll have to blame my brain, which has a mind of its own.