The truth is global warming has chased away millions of American jobs. It is way too hard to to start up factories under the strict environmental rules we have here. It's much more profitable to send the jobs over seas where there is no rules. I know I live in Alberta Canada where the oil for Keystone pipeline would of come from. Obama cancelling Keystone cost us billions and 10's of thousands of good paying union jobs. Yet the oil is tanked in every day from Venusuala and Nigeria with apparently no worries at all. No one in their right minds would even think about starting a factory under the current rules here. The carbon foot print is the same probably higher but the pay checks are not handed out in our countries. We need to clean up the planet but we also have to understand our standard of living is going to drop significantly.

For the three idiots #1, #2, & #3 you are so stupid to believe the hardships in the middle class Americans was caused by President Obama,,when he came into office the country was in a fatal tailspin because of the policies and things that Dubya/Cheney did in the eight years he was in office. Teo Deadly, Needless, & Unfunded Wars where 50K plus American Troops lost their lives, and the hundreds of thousands that were severely wounded and will depend on the VA for medical care and compensation for their needless wounds. Starting in 2008 during Dubya/Cheney's rhein over 800,000 people a month were losing their job, the housing market was in collaspe, the banking and wall street was collasping, 401K's were loosing so much money that many people almost lost everything. Dubya/Cheney put a hundred trillion dollar or so package together to save wall street, banking, and insurance gaints their owners, how much of that money was ever repaid. The packages Obama put together to save the auto industry and other failing companies has been repaid and they are all doing very good now. If the Tealiban Bagger Terrorist Controlled Republicans hadn't blocked ever jobs bill and inforstructure packages America would be recovering at a much faster pace, and despite their blocking everything America still recovered and is gaining speed every month, positive jobs growth for every month for the past 7 plus years starting in the summer of 2009. I know the truth really sucks for your kind but it is there like it or not.

Thanks, Paul :) The system is broken. We, you and I and everyone here, need to organize a referendum process, or citizens assembly, which can manage a non-partisan election on the national level, giving citizens the right to create laws and amendments. Think direct democracy, managed by citizens.

I hope you'll use the site I've pointed to, join the process, VOTE, and share the idea with many more. We need to improve our political system. Let's get to work!

http://www.thenationalreferendum.org/proposed-laws-amendments/

GRASS ROOTS in SEWER PIPES: {Public Sectors versus Parties’ Establishments}: - - - √ The case of the REPUBLICANS: TeaPartyism CLOGS and makes the party dysfunctional. {Establishment defeated} … … √ re the DEMOCRATS: Progressivism can CLEAR the party from its being clogged by Corporate interests, - toward the party’s re-gaining Functionality. {Establishment Should be defeated}

Debbie Wasserman Shultz and the DNC should not be undermining any Democratic candidate unless they're DINOs. Bernie's staff had access to this information by a mistake they made not Senator Sanders or his people and he should not be punished for it.

They need to stand up and apologize to him and give him the access that is allowable for all candidates.

I support Senator Sanders all the way and will only vote for Clinton if he loses the primary just to prevent any Republican from getting into the White House and finishing the job Bush created. Can Clinton supporters say the same?

Reply to #3: Kilo, I agree that Republicans are not the only ones to blame. Corporate Democrats are also to blame. I think it's time they all get fired from Congress by we the voters, and go find themselves other jobs more suited to their values and priorities, like corporate jobs. That's where they belong.

Since these clowns are so in love with corporate money and hostile to democracy, they don't belong in government. This is why government isn't working, not because government is inherantly incompetent or evil. When we've got those greedy little psychopaths gumming up the works, then telling us government doesn't work, that's exactly what we get: incompetent, inefficient, wasteful government. Surprise!

Reply to #10: What do we do about it? A good place to start would be to vote every neo-con occupying a congressional seat -- (corporate Democrats as well as Republicons) -- out of office. AND elect Bernie Sanders for president.

The system is not broken beyond repair. I think that's a self defeating conclusion. It can be un-broken with the right people steering the boat. We have to get off our complacent butts and fight these toxic clowns, before they destroy more people's lives let alone every basic principle this country was supposedly founded on.

The greatest weapon we have is our numbers (99%!), and our votes. This is why Republicans have been trying so hard to keep us from voting (i.e. gerrymandering, caging; unwarranted, illegal, race-based voter purges, voter ID laws, inconvenient voting times, the revoking of legislation that protects voters' rights, rigged voting machines, etc. etc.) So if you're tempted to believe your vote doesn't matter, comrades, think again. If it didn't matter, they wouldn't be going to such desperate lengths to obstruct and sabotage voters. Like Thom says, they've got nothing to sell us, nothing to offer and no solutions to the problems that plague us en masse... why else would they go to such lengths to make it difficult or impossible for us to vote, while distracting the more gullible majority with wedge issues like gay marriage, abortion ad nauseam? People need to wake up!

With those obstructionist goddam clowns occupying the House and Senate, what we're getting is taxation without representation. Bernie Sanders is presenting us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get at the heart of this problem -- oligarchy -- and start turning this shit around. Once we've taken back our government so that it serves us, these problems will dissipate like the proverbial fart in a windstorm. But we've got to fight for it. Nobody's handing it to us on a platter.

The DNC database fortunately has a complete record of actions with time stamps. Any competent outside database expert will be able to sort out who did what and when. This includes when the database partitions went down and why, who looked at what, and can ultimately prescribe corrective action if necessary. BTW, Bernie already has many times more items on his contributor list and therefore has much more to lose and less to gain than Hillary by a database malfunction.

I agree with John_mulkins123, but I think the corporate media and the powers that be have convinced Americans that they have no power. Recent reports, studies, and statistics confirm that Washington---regardless of political party---could care less about what we want or what we think (in fact, Princeton just concluded a 20 year study to that effect and of course, we all know, thanks to another study by two top universities, we are now an oligarchy---just as we all suspected all along).

Thanks to gerrymandering and Citizens United, they risk very little by ignoring us. Obama is as beholding to the corporate oligarchs as any Republican. Yes, if enough of us come together and unite behind a particular congressional or presidential candidate, we might pull an upset. But the system is rigged to prevent any serious reformer from actually accomplishing anything. Simply put, the system is broken beyond repair, so the real question is what do we do about it?

THANKS TOM, FOR COMING OUT SWINGING ON BEHALF OF THE SANDERS CAMPAIGN WHEN THIS NEW RAFT OF BS WAS DELIVERED TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY BY THE UNDEMOCRATIVE DNC VIA THEIR LEADER DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ FROM HER THRONE OF KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM.

Reply to #1, #2 & #3: Kilo, running a country is NOT like running a business. Therefore a businessman or businesswoman for president is the LAST thing we need. And no, more deregulation is not the answer. Deregulation is a major factor behind our current crisis, and now you want more?! Gimmie a break. And you’re supporting fracking?! Fracking poisons people’s drinking water and causes earthquakes. (HELLO.) And you’re defending the billionaire Welfare Queens, while blaming Obama for destroying the middle class?! Brilliant. Of course it would have to follow that in Kilo’s realm of reality the policies of the George W. Bush Administration were just swell for the middle class. Way to go, Kilo! But don’t stop there. For our entertainment, how about explaining your logic a bit further? How were the Bush Administrations policies so great for the middle class as opposed to the current administration? Are you going to claim that the middle class was in great shape after eight years under Bush?!!!! HaHaHaHaHa. If Obama succeeds in ramming through the TPP, however, I supposed a more viable case could be made for Obama destroying the middle class. But until then, no way. Obama inherited this mess; he didn't create it. Anyone who claims otherwise has got a mighty short memory.

In post #5 Mathboy points out that the job of a community organizer gives one a good look at where the problems lie “as opposed to a Fortune 500 CEO solving his own problem of having too few mansions.” Bull's eye, mathboy!

I just had a not-so-friendly little debate on YouTube with some idiot who claims that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would wipe out small businesses and hurt low-wage workers. The HELL it would. I did a google search and here's what I found. According to Economic Roundtable: “Over 650 economists, including five Nobel Prize winners and six past presidents of the American Economics Association, signed a statement stating that federal and state minimum wage increases can significantly improve the lives of low-income workers and their families, without the adverse effects that critics have claimed.’” Far as I’m concerned, that ought to resolve the matter. But just as conservatives like denying science, they are also fond of pooh-pooing economic reality. But what else can we expect from an ideology built on arrogance and stupidity? This plutocrat's paradise is built entirely on fantasy.

US needs to give all immigration a rest, create a secure national identity card, and bring back the WPA.

There are many workers over 40 who will never be able to compete in the job market.

But they have skills they could offer to enrich life in their community.

Do away with welfare as giving money to people causes hard feelings in regular workers.

But a WPA is impossible until we get a handle on illegals.

ct