‘D’-enied!

During the 2000s, I used to watch on CNBC the financial expert Suzy Orman.

Her program was broadcast on Saturday nights.

Orman had a segment titled “Can I Afford It?”

Orman would take calls from viewers who would tell the host: on what exactly they were interested in their spending money; give their financial information (status); and wait for Orman to tell the viewer whether that viewer has been approved or denied.

It was obviously much more memorable when Orman would say, “Denied!”

Orman did not always deny based on financials. She had some in-betweens. Orman would then draw the viewer’s attention to using judgment. Sure, something could be approved. But, sometimes, even with initial approval, it wasn’t wise for such viewer to buy.

I am reminded of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries being effectively over, that the presumptive nominee is Joe Biden, and that runner-up Bernie Sanders has not only “suspended” his campaign but also endorsed Biden—and is even urging his primaries voters to vote in the general election for Biden.

That brings the decision, for the general election, to the would-be voter. It is especially of importance to a person who voted in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries and who did not vote the nomination to Joe Biden.

The majority of primaries voters will vote in the general election for Joe Biden. Those individuals may explain why. But, not the full 100 percent of those who did not vote the nomination to Biden will turn around and vote the 47th U.S. president to get elected in the general election to become the 46th president of the United States.

In a way, I feel like I am my own version of Suzy Orman.

The information has been submitted to me. I, as a citizen and voter, have been asked whether I will approve or deny. After all, I did participate by voting in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries from my home state Michigan. And, even though the general election is not for another six months, I am prepared to give my answer.

Based on the party apparatchik still embracing the Clinton era of neoliberalism, which delivered the presidencies of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, and based on their corruption—in many forms—dating back to at least 2016, I am going to reveal my answer in the following (and last) paragraph.

My answer, to the 2020 Democratic Party, and to presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, is—are you ready for it?—D-enied!

Pulitzer winner Chris Hedges: These “are the good times—compared to what’s coming next”

Salon has an interesting interview with former New York Times journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and Emmy nominee Chris Hedges.

(Thank you, for posting it in the comments section, cathyx!)

Here is the link:

Pulitzer winner Chris Hedges: These “are the good times—compared to what’s coming next”

(Next blog topic will be Friday, May 1, 2020, at 06:00 a.m. ET.)

Sheepdog Alert

Noam Chomsky.

Norman Soloman.

And everybody involved in a 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries campaign that was—and was not—Joe Biden’s.

It is that time—that time of arrival—that is Sheepdog Season.

Sheepdog Alert!

Democrats ramp up their sheepdogging especially when they know they have a lousy candidate.

Please be advised to remain on alert for those—very much including progressives who one may generally trust (or used to trust)—who will sheepdog for the Democratic Party, and for presumptive 2020 nominee and corporate tool Joe Biden, on the way to Election Day.

The first of May arrives this coming Friday. We may be in for a long six months.


Sources:

• Mehdi Hassan and Noam Chomsky on Biden vs. Trump (includes, within, an embedded video)

• Some Progressives Are in Denial About Trump’s Fascist Momentum

‘Glenn Greenwald on Noam Chomsky Favouring Biden Over Trump & Voting for Lesser of Two Evils’

There was an interview, published to YouTube on April 15, 2020, with Glenn Greenwald on acTVism Munich.

The first clip, baring the title of this blog’s topic, with a running time of 10 minutes, hones in on Greenwald responding to Noam Chomsky trying to get people to vote for Joe Biden in the general election. (My opinion: Chomsky, for all his talk, is a Democrat. And, from one presidential election cycle to the next, he regularly sheepdogs for them.)

The second video is the entire interview with a running time of 52 minutes.

CBS Salutes Prince

CBS is broadcasting a tribute concert to the late Grammy and Oscar winning singer and songwriter Prince (June 7, 1958–April 21, 2016).

It is scheduled for Tuesday, April 21, 2020, at 09:00 p.m. ET.

The special is titled Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince.

Here are links to reports on the special:
 • “Let's Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince” To Air April 21 On CBS Featuring John Legend, H.E.R., Usher & More
 • ‘Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince’ Set to Air on the 4th Anniversary of His Death

(Side note: I am not pleased with the special’s inclusion of John Legend.)


I grew up, during the 1970s and 1980s, with music from Prince. And I don’t feel it is necessary to write about his life when there is plenty of that information, for those in need, on the Internet.

I have, in recent months, grabbed more and more of his music from my Apple Music account. (This is well before the U.S. arrival of COVID–19. I would be out for walks and listed to some music from this master.) I have some hard CDs saved to to my iTunes—albums like the 1984 soundtrack to Purple Rain and the 1987 LP Sign o’ the Times (both Grammy nominees for Album of the Year)—but I have been going for anything that springs to mind by Prince.

Prince was a bold and unique visionary. He was very controversial; mainly, of course, because of the sexual content from numerous songs. But, that is part of the mark of a great artist—being not like others—and letting the squares deal or not deal.

I also have gratitude to Prince for writing one of my favorite songs from the 1980s, “I Feel for You,” which was a phenomenal hit for the luminous R&B legend Chaka Khan (who won the 1984 Grammy for Female R&B Vocal Performance while Prince also won as songwriter for R&B Song).

The following is a selection of music—really a small amount to sample (I don’t want to overload)—that personally delights me. For any Progressives Chat reader with thoughts about Prince—whether it his music or the artist (or both)—please share.

 • “I Wanna Be Your Lover” (1979), from the album Prince, was from the Disco era but did not play like Disco. It stood out as pure R&B—very fresh (even today its sound is fresh)—and showed that Prince, 21 in the year 1979, had a bright future ahead of him.

♯♯♯

 • “1999” (1982), from the album 1999, was an exciting and knockout punch. Extraordinarily joyous—putting it into a category, by an artist not categorized, was silly. It’s a brilliant piece of music.

♯♯♯

 • “Little Red Corvette” (1983), from the album 1999, was a pulsating and thrilling piece. It starts out slowly but kicks into high gear—and it doesn’t let go. It is also, as much of Prince’s music, provocative. It’s a classic.

♯♯♯

 • “Let’s Go Crazy” (1984), from the soundtrack Purple Rain, was a Pop sensation and a thrilling, elaborate song-opener to his feature film.

♯♯♯

 • “Sign o’ the Times” (1987), from Sign o’ the Times, synched R&B and Funk with some Blues. A very interesting album—which includes his duet with Sheena Easton (“U Got the Look”)—but the LP’s title track has really stayed with me after all this time.

♯♯♯

 • BONUS • “Colonized Mind” (2009), from Lotusflow3r, is included in addition to the prior five videos because it is an example why Prince—even though so much of his material was with focuses on sexual nature—was also politically aware: “Upload: a 2 party system | The lesser of 2 dangers | Illusion of choice; Download: a veiled form of fascism | Nothing really ever changes | U never had a voice.” “Colonized Mind” was released one year after the Economic Meltdown of 2008 and in the first year of the presidency of Barack Obama.

‘Obama Gaslights’ … Sanders Urges His Primaries Voters to Back Biden … Rejecting Green Party Candidate Hawkins

A video of 44th U.S. president Barack Obama endorsing 47th U.S. vice president Joe Biden for the presidency of the United States has me, ordinarily, not wanting to give it any of my attention. After all, I have reached the point in which I generally do not want to read about or hear from Obama. (I like that U.S. president Donald Trump, once asked if he heard a speech delivered the night before by Obama, said no—he was not interested because, quite frankly, Trump is bored by Obama.) I made an exception. Jimmy Dore—and wife Stef Zamorano—delivered perceptively and terrifically in their responses to Obama’s bullshit in this segment of The Jimmy Dore Show.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

One week after bowing out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, by “suspending” his campaign, Vermont U.S. senator Bernie Sanders endorsed this week presumptive nominee Joe Biden for the party’s nomination and for the presidency of the United States.

I don’t have as strong a reaction as some.

The reason is because I am not surprised.

Sanders upset his voting-supporters because he pushed the usual corporate Democratic Party Establishment narrative—that Republican incumbent U.S. president Donald Trump is the most dangerous U.S. president ever (or whatever the exact words; and that has to, presumptuously, be the No. 1 general-election motivator for voters)—and Sanders went so far as to take preventive action to scold his primaries voters who will not fall in line in the general election.

One may question what, if anything, is gained by this.

One may also question if Sanders was threatened.

One may as well question whether this is an effort to sheepdog actual progressives—and Bernie Sanders’s primaries voters—into the Democratic Party, in general, for the 2020 United States presidential election (come November 3, 2020).

I have reached the conclusion that, more than anything, Bernie Sanders is propping up a corrupt, corporate, Democratic Party Establishment—for however many reasons specifically explain his actions (the primaries candidates did sign on for promising to endorse the eventual nominee)—and the overall decision, come Election Day, is up to his primaries voters along with the rest of the participating electorate.

Fall in line?

Or…

Fall out?

In the following video is an another perceptive take by The Political Vigilante’s Graham Elwood.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The below video is MCSC Network’s Niko House covering Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins. Hawkins is considered the frontrunner for that party’s 2020 presidential nomination. (In 2016, I voted in the general election for Green Party nominee Jill Stein. I should have done so as well in 2012. But, I didn’t totally fail. And I won’t fail here.) And, if he succeeds, Hawkins and his party will not receive any of my votes in the general election. House does really well with explaining why Hawkins is unacceptable. (Jimmy Dore has, perhaps a couple times, also mentioned on his program that Hawkins should be rejected.) But, the following video’s clips really capture why a presidential nomination—for what is supposed to be the left-wing Green Party—would be obscene should it go specifically to Howie Hawkins.

Jimmy Dore Is Correct!

The recent Jimmy Dore Show criticisms, by the host and toward 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, are necessary.

There have been people, especially at a truly progressive discussion site at which I participate, who voted the nomination to Sanders in 2016 and have followed Dore. They feel the host has gone overboard.

I don’t think so.

I think whether Dore has overdone it is not the point.

While it is the case that the Democratic Party Establishment is corrupt—and will do all they can to stop the actual left from reaching meaningful power in the party much less a presidential nomination—the criticisms of a candidate Sanders are necessary with focus on what he could and should have done differently. That they may have made enough difference.

The first thing Sanders should have done was strategize against Joe Biden. This would have required acknowledging Biden, for the primaries, as Sanders’s enemy. I don’t think he did. The fact that Zephyr Teachout researched and wrote about a then-U.S. senator Biden having been an enemy to proponents of Social Security, and did so repeatedly over a thirty-year period, and Sanders opted to soften that blow against Biden, showed Sanders was not fighting for the nomination. Sanders was more interested in so-called decorum. What he did, with that example, was protect Biden.

The fact that Biden was no friend to Blacks historically, unlike Sanders (who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s), and that Sanders did not use it as ammunition to win over—or to at least dent Biden’s margins—with Blacks tells me Sanders did not seriously go after the Black vote in 2020.

Who Sanders has in his campaign—any party establishment figures—certainly plays a role. But, ultimately, the cold, harsh reality of win-or-lose U.S. politics ultimately rests with the candidate.

The nomination was winnable.

Jimmy Dore is coming down on Bernie Sanders, in part, because he is aware Sanders did not actually do what he could to win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

It isn’t just Jimmy Dore.



The first video, below, is titled “Trump Shows Bernie How to Win Pres. Election.” Its running time is 13 minutes. It was published to YouTube on Monday, April 6, 2020.

Adding to this, with a second video, is Jamarl Thomas. The second video, with a running time of 25 minutes, is titled “Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Weakness Is Just Nauseating At this Point.” It was published to YouTube on April 7, just shortly before Sanders “suspended” his campaign.