Jason Hirthler — The Corporate Liberal in America

Whether seated in Congress or exiting a voting booth, a corporate liberal is someone who supports anything progressive that does not challenge corporate power. In practice, this means corporate liberals will fight for progressive identity politics. If it has to do with race, sexual orientation, and gender, it generally doesn’t challenge corporate power.  

Major corporations support progressive positions on those issues, too. Corporate liberals march for gay rights and the larger LGBTQ community itself. They support feminism. They support reproductive rights. They support African-American protests against police brutality—up to the point where they become threatening to the establishment. (Bill Clinton did initiate the prison industrial complex that unduly incarcerates huge numbers of minorities.)…

AKA Volvo liberals or latté liberals. Missing in the trenches.

Counterpunch
The Corporate Liberal in America
Jason Hirthler

Pepe Escobar — How Donald Trump will follow the money

The headline is a bit misleading. The post is much broader and includes US foreign and military policy as well as the economy.

In modern liberal "democracies," policy battles are among elites, and this one is between industrial capital and finance capital. Industrial capitalists want their country back and think that Trump can deliver it to them.

Policy is prime determinate in macroeconomics, and this is a policy war among US elite and their disparate interests. Since the US is the global hegemon, its economic, foreign and military policy shapes the global economy as well as geopolitics. Industrial capital wants a course correction. Finance capital, backed by the Democrats, want to stay on course, which is a collision course with Russia and China in Eurasia.

RT
How Donald Trump will follow the money
Pepe Escobar

Andrew Levine — The Dream is Over: Bye, Bye Bernie

Bernie Sanders has gone over to the enemy side; it is now written in stone. Everyone who felt the Bern will have to deal with that as best they can. The dream is over.

Well, the dream may be over regarding Bernie, but the dream itself lives on.

My view is that it was a mistake to view Bernie as representing "the Left." He was not representing the actual Left anymore that Barack Obama was, and progressive Democrats bought into that, too.

There is no Left in mainstream American politics. The so-called Left in the mainstream are poseurs.

That's not to say that Bernie would not likely be a better president from the prospect of the Left. Moreover, polling shows that he is the most popular choice if a direct election were held now. The other two candidates have very high negatives.

But America needs a real mainstream alternative on the Left that gets media coverage. The mainstream media even shut out Bernie, who was only somewhat left of center.

Counterpunch
The Dream is Over: Bye, Bye Bernie
Andrew Levine

AP — Poll: Majority Of Americans Motivated By Fear In 2016 Presidential Election

The vast majority of Americans say they are afraid of at least one of the two major candidates — Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump — winning the White House, a remarkable finding that reflects an unsettled nation unhappy with its choice.
Eighty-one percent of Americans say they would feel afraid following the election of one of the two polarizing politicians, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. That includes a quarter who say it doesn’t matter who wins: they’re scared of both.
Three-quarters of voters say their pick for president is motivated by a desire to cast their Election Day ballot against Clinton or Trump, more than those who say they’re voting for the candidate who shares their positions on the issues or is the most qualified to hold the office.

Mint Press
Poll: Majority Of Americans Motivated By Fear In 2016 Presidential Election

AP

The rest of the world has similar feelings.

The qualified deterioration of the US’ global influence has been debated for long, but the US leadership seems worried that the country is fast losing respect in the world as well. Of course, when some Americans keep repeating that the US possesses the most powerful military in the world, it does not create respect, but fear.…

Eurasian Review
US: ‘Losing Respect’ Abroad – Analysis

Chintamani Mahapatra | Rector, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Professor, School of International Studies, JNU, & Columnist, IPCS

What's wrong with the picture?

CNN — Bernie endorses Hillary — Reactions

"I have come here to make it as clear as possible why I am endorsing Hillary Clinton and why she must become our next president," Sanders said at a joint rally here.CNN

Bernie Sanders endorses Hillary Clinton
MJ Lee, Dan Merica and Jeff Zeleny, CNN

Updated 2:19 PM ET, Tue July 12, 2016

What is most disappointing is that Sanders has refused invitations to speak to the Green Party, a truly democratic national party that has long championed the progressive stands that lifted the Sanders campaign to the top of national polls.

Fortunately, this November voters across America will still have the choice to cast a revolutionary vote to cancel student debt, achieve full employment and stop the climate meltdown through a Green New Deal, provide universal healthcare with Medicare for All, provide a welcoming path to citizenship, end mass incarceration and create a foreign policy based on international law and human rights. We need to commit to improving the lives of all Americans, not just the wealthy and special interests.

Counterpunch
Revolution Undermined: On Bernie Sanders’s Endorsement of Hillary Clinton

Jill Stein

Bernie Endorses Hillary.

How disgusting is that?

Not surprising. Predictable in fact. But disgusting nonetheless.

Brilliant Bernie Burns It Down

Russell Mokhiber

Alex Christoforou — Despite Corruption And Scandal, Bernie Sanders Will Endorse Hillary Clinton Tomorrow

There was a time a few months back where many Americans thought that Bernie Sanders was a different type of politician. A person of higher moral fabric…with a sense of integrity, sorely missing in US politics.

It was “Bernie of Bust” for many. A mantra that captured a country’s desire to break free of the corruption that plagues its political system, from top to bottom.

Forget about all of that. Come tomorrow Bernie Sanders will kiss the ring of the most corrupt, scandal infested politician ever to run for the office of US President.

Maybe Bernie is being pragmatic. Maybe he is willing to do anything to stop Donald Trump from having a chance at winning the elections. Or maybe, just maybe, Bernie cut a deal…and like so many other people and institutions that come in contact with a Clinton, he too got infected with the corruption virus.

A true man of integrity would never endorse Hillary, no matter what party lines dictate. A man who supposedly stands up for the 99%, would never endorse a candidate who just used her 1% status to avoid an indictment, that would have landed anyone of normal, ‘earthly’ status, into prison.…

The Duran

Despite Corruption And Scandal, Bernie Sanders Will Endorse Hillary Clinton Tomorrow
Alex Christoforou

Andrea Germanos — Green Party's Jill Stein: Sanders Can Lead My Party's Ticket

Presumptive Green Party candidate for U.S. President Jill Stein has reiterated her offer for Bernie Sanders to head that party's ticket instead, where—unlike in the Democratic party—she says he'd be able to continue to "build a political movement."

Stein's new comments to the Guardian US come as the Vermont senator has signaled he may soon offer an endorsement of rival Hillary Clinton.

Stein, who also ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2012, told the Guardian US: "If he saw that you can't have a revolutionary campaign in a counter-revolutionary party, he'd be welcomed to the Green party. He could lead the ticket and build a political movement," she said.

It's a suggestion she's made already this campaign season.…

According to Stein, "in many ways, the Democratic Party creates campaigns that fake left while it moves right and becomes more corporatist, more militarist, more imperialist.

This is why we say it's hard to have a revolutionary campaign inside of a counterrevolutionary party. That's why we're here as the Green Party to build a place where a revolutionary movement can truly grow with a political voice."

Is Bernie a real revolutionary or just another bag of hot air?

Common Dreams

Green Party's Jill Stein: Sanders Can Lead My Party's Ticket
Andrea Germanos, staff writer