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Former presidential candidate Howard Dean claimed that a "criminal enterprise" is now controlling the United States.

Dean, formerly the governor of Vermont and chair of the DNC, said President Trump is a liar - especially when it comes to Russia - and everyone knows it.

He was reacting to new reports alleging Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian attorney last summer in an attempt to find out damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

"The real savior for democracy is going to be Robert Mueller. He's going to find out what the truth is," said Dean on MSNBC.

Dean said even Trump's supporters know he doesn't tell the truth, but they back him anyway.

He said it's "beginning to look more and more" like Russia influenced the outcome of the presidential election, citing the "drip, drip, drip" of reports on contacts between the Kremlin and the Trump team.

Earlier today, the Russian lawyer who met Trump Jr. denied she has links to the Kremlin and denied ever possessing dirt on Clinton.

A lawyer for Trump Jr. said the president's eldest son "did nothing wrong."

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Continued here:
Dean: 'Criminal Enterprise' Running the Country, Mueller Will Save ... - Fox News Insider

Republica

I do not see any significant deviation from universally agreed norms of democracy and human rights in Nepals constitution.

The recent local elections after a hiatus of two decades augur well for consolidation of democracy and acceleration of development in Nepal. They bring us full circle back to when democracy and development were beginning to take root at the local level in the mid-1990s. Undoubtedly, some new progressive features have been added to make democracy more inclusive and egalitarian under the new constitutional dispensation than two decades ago. But it is fair to assume that most such progressive measures would have evolved peacefully without the trauma of a fratricidal civil war if the self-corrective mechanisms of genuine democracy through periodic elections had been allowed to mature.

However, Nepals Maoists, who had done poorly in the 1991 general election, had no patience for what they derided as bourgeois democracy. Citing some real and many exaggerated imperfections of liberal democracy, they launched a brutal armed insurgency rudely interrupting both peaceful evolution of democracy and efforts to build the foundations for economic development and social progress, especially at the local level. Euphemistically labeled Peoples War, the Maoist insurgency deceptively co-opted such terminology as inclusion, equity and social justice that are the ideals of a well-functioning democracy. But true to their ideological conviction that power comes from the barrel of the gun, the Maoists prescribed armed violence as the only way to achieve these ideals. Their clever use of revolutionary slogans and utopian promises attracted significant following of innocent people, especially from Nepals many ethnic and regional groups and other communities that were historically marginalized. They also mesmerized some nave donors and diplomats into giving the Maoists and some like-minded ethnic/regional activists undue benefit of doubt and encouragement.

Jandesh vs Matdesh

During the protracted peace process and drafting of the new constitution, some members of the international community insisted on consensus and compromise as the sacred mantra. Many diplomats and scholars of countries whose own constitutions were ratified by much smaller majorities, castigated Nepals constitution adopted by nearly 90 percent of democratically elected peoples representatives as non-inclusive and elitist. Many self-proclaimed progressive commentators, and ethnic and regional activists, considered this as the international communitys endorsement, albeit inadvertently, of what the ex-Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai cleverly articulated as the primacy of jandesh (peoples aspirations) over matdesh (voters verdict).

Granted, Nepals new constitution is not perfect, as is the case with constitutions of all other democracies. As a long-time UN official who strongly believes in universal norms of human rights, I deplore some clauses in Nepals constitution, particularly those containing discriminatory provision with regard to gender equality in acquiring citizenship by birth and naturalization. This must definitely be rectified. However, except for this single and serious flaw, I do not see any significant deviation from universally agreed norms of democracy and human rights in Nepals constitution compared to those of most other established democracies.

On the contrary, though at times clumsily worded, Nepals constitution is remarkably progressive, inclusive and full of affirmative actiontake the mandatory requirement for the President and Vice President, top leaders of the national parliament and local assemblies, as well as of provincial and municipal governments, to be from different gender and identity groups. It is exhilarating to witness, not just in theory but in actual practice, an unprecedented number of women, including from the historically deprived Dalit community and other marginalized groups, recently elected to local governments.

Obsessed with amendment

Most of the current demands for constitutional amendments that are being pressed by those claiming Nepals constitution as non-inclusive are matters relating to political choices and preferences rather than non-compliance of universal norms of democracy and human rights. Some of these demands may well be justified, but these need to be pursued through the normal instruments of democracyelections, referendums and peaceful negotiations and persuasion not through threats of agitation, boycott of elections or obstruction of democratically elected parliament and other institutions. It is time for Nepalis to shun our obsession of seeking solutions to all our problems through constitutional amendments. A constitution can only go so far, and dumping in the constitution a laundry-list of all our aspirations will only make it unwieldy, unimplementable and lead to greater disappointment and cynicism in the future. A constitution is not self-executing and even the most progressive constitution in the world cannot guarantee good governance. The fact that many rights and norms already enshrined in the constitution and laws of Nepal are not fully implemented calls for other remedies including the evolution of democratic culture and respect for the rule of law in our society, rather than endless constitutional amendments.

Indeed, our struggle now should focus on securing good governance and rule of law through legislation, education, and holding elected officials and other decision-makers accountable to the word as well as the spirit of the progressive features of the constitution. Border blockades, forceful closure of schools, health centers, public transport and other basic services that hinder ordinary citizens from exercising their civic rights have no justification in the name of inclusion, consensus, compromise or any other pretext.

Celebrating diversity

The largely peaceful conduct of the first two rounds of local (village and municipal) elections in May and June 2017 has given Nepal a rainbow of highly inclusive local governmentswith 40 percent of elected officials being women, many of them in leadership positions. A significant number of the elected women are from the historically most marginalized Dalit community. The high voter turn-out, exceeding 70 percent, and election of candidates from Nepals diverse mosaic of ethnic communities, including religious and linguistic minorities roughly in proportion to their population in the country, is a tribute to the inclusive nature of Nepals new constitution.

Future elections will undoubtedly further empower those elected from the historically marginalized communities to attain higher leadership roles as they gain more experience and can challenge their peers and rivals from the traditional elite with greater confidence. The fact that the newly elected local governments will have significant power of the purse and authority over decision-making on matters concerning peoples well beingfor example over basic education, health services, local infrastructure and management of natural resourceswill give these entities real teeth, thus bringing government services closer to the peoples door-steps. These achievements are worth celebrating, but we should be prepared for new challenges that are likely to emerge.

This is first of a three-part article on emerging national politics following the two phases of local elections

The author is a former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and author of Lost In Transition: Rebuilding Nepal from the Maoist mayhem and mega earthquake (2015)

kulgautam@hotmail.com

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Democracy, revitalized - Republica

Name changes dont bother me. I transitioned peacefully when Siam decided to continue its national life as Thailand. Ditto when Burma became Myanmar. Theres a little bit of name-changing going on at every wedding. The only name change I find puzzling is the one right now boiling over in the streets of Hamburg.

Can anyone tell me what the all-of-a-sudden anti-capitalists were before last week? Is it the new name for communists? And, if so, how on earth did they ever succeed in getting all the media to fall into line and describe the destroyers of Hamburg as anti-capitalists? It came across as though the lawyer for all the worlds communists appealed to some Media Central Command and begged to be known hereafter by a name that doesnt trigger nearly as much negativity as communists, whereupon Central Command agreed and complied!

I asked a millennial if he knew why the wielders of the wrecking ball in Hamburg, the same ones we used to call communists, now were dubbed anti-capitalists. He replied that there are many things you can be other than communists if youre against capitalism. Im still thinking about that one. Certainly its possible, but I couldnt help much if the professor demanded an essay-answer.

Whoever the suddenly-arrived anti-capitalists are, its hard to give them a robust welcome. Hitler and Mussolini brownshirts and blackshirts were perfect gentlemen compared to these nouveau-thugs in the early stages of their takeover tyranny. The media tell us a handful of these anti-capitalists conceal their identity as they go about their destruction, and among their objectives is to project the illusion that all hundred-thousand of the overwhelmingly law-abiding and orderly demonstrators are part and parcel of their mob. Thats a gargantuan lie, but it worked in Hamburg. Who are these predators? Whats their political past? Whos paying them? What are their intentions? Above all, where is the medias curiosity?

Obviously theyre not shy about their disdain or hatred for capitalism. And if they dont want to be thought of as communists, theyre practicing very unsafe politics. One hopes theyre more prudent in their sexual lives than in their political exhortations. They interest me more than Ill ever interest them. Theyre literally living on what I find to be the most fascinating playing field in the entire world of politics.

Please note that these anti-capitalists are doing their cavorting and proclaiming in a country that is one of capitalisms major success stories. After World War II, Germany became a living laboratory of real-life communism (East Germany) versus real-life capitalism (West Germany). Good breeding prevents me from jumping up and down upon the result when all those millions of Germans chose sides. Never has a visiting American presidents unsolicited advice been more enthusiastically obeyed than when President Ronald Reagan hollered, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

The other side of the coin is just as embarrassing to the anti-capitalists. Were not hallucinating when we detect a preference for socialism, collectivism or communism lurking in the heart of those who smash windows and burn cars in the name of anti-capitalism. Is there no awareness or respect for the reality of Venezuelas sad plight while all this anti-capitalism is raging onward? That most-fascinating political playing field I referred to is simply this. How can there still be full-throated advocates of socialism after weve witnessed 39 socialist economies fail with never one single success?

Ive asked that question every time good fortune tosses me into the company of those who prefer socialism, and the answers I get explain why theres so much fascination here. Take it all in from the top. There have been many capitalist success stories. I dont know of a single failure. Im certain theres never been one in a major way in a major country. Why, then, should we listen to socialists who cant point to a single success?

Get your desperate hands off Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Those Scandinavian successes are all capitalist successes. They have high taxes and broad welfare, but the means of production are in private hands and those countries are free, freer than America in some respects.

If you had a cat that tore up 39 of your sofas would you buy an additional sofa for him to play and prey upon? The answers I get from the avowed communists and socialists and anti-capitalists are fascinating.

They dont deny the facts. They cant. Instead, they say, The Russians were unprepared for socialism. The Poles were too coerced. The Chinese were too brutal. The Hungarians were too technocratic. The Czechs were too wedded to the West. The Albanians were too backward. And then they get to their political punchline thats supposed to knock your socks off, even if youre wearing pantyhose. However, they insist, We are the ones who know how to do it right!

We still have a presidential election scheduled for 2020. Your vote is sorely wanted.

We may wind up hating the anti-capitalists, but right now I think the appropriate emotion toward them is pity.

I suspect our anti-capitalist brothers and sisters are those who cannot see a fat man standing beside a thin man without concluding that the fat man got that way at the expense of the thin man!

Media wishing to interview Barry Farber, please contact media@wnd.com.

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Media turn 'communists' into 'anti-capitalists' - WND.com

US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) addresses a rally in support of the Affordable Care Act in Covington, Kentucky on July 9, 2017.JAY LAPRETE AFP/Getty Images

Bernie Sanders was traveling through Trump country (West Virginia and Kentucky) last weekend in an effort to rally opposition to Republican attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare. These efforts notwithstanding, Sanders still refuses to embrace Obamacare. As soon as we defeat this disastrous bill, I will be introducing a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program, he said during the rally. He hasnt even embraced the Democratic Party, despite his bid to become the Democratic presidential nominee. When asked if he was a Democrat, he responded , Not even remotely anymore. The Democratic Party now is a disaster, an absolute mess. I dont see a party now that represents me.

Sanders still describes himself as a democratic socialist, rejecting the moderate left progressivism of the Clintons, as he emphasized in his presidential campaign. According to Sanders, the Clintons embraced Wall Street, where Hillary Clinton had made hundreds of thousands of dollars giving speeches, following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who during his presidency had deregulated banks by signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, repealing the Glass-Steagall cornerstone of New Deal banking reform. The Clintons had accommodated consolidations and mergers in the world of banking, they had encouraged the growth of too-big-to-fail big banks, and Sanders was the only candidate willing to take on Wall Street and break up the big banks.

Putting aside the question of the practicality of a break-up-the-big-banks reform agenda, we should pose a simpler, conceptual question first: Why would a socialist want to break up big banks? Socialists want to nationalize banks, not break them up. If anything, socialists prefer bank consolidation to simplify the administrative task of running a nationalized banking system. Nationalization is the only path to provide the collective ownership of the means of production (in this case, the production of financial products). Socialism entails the abolition of private property in business life, but breaking up banks would leave banks as privately owned enterprises still seeking to make profits through the marketplace. Socialists argue that profit-making in a competitive market leads inevitably to exploitation and alienation.

The proposal to break up the banks sounds more like the trust-busting Progressive Era agenda one would associate with Woodrow Wilson than anything socialist. Eugene Debs, not Woodrow Wilson, was the socialist of the Progressive Era, and Debs had been sufficiently schooled in Marxist theory to realize that socialism required the abolition or private ownership of the means of production. Sanders admires Debs (he had a picture of Debs displayed in City Hall when he was mayor of Burlington, Vt., but it isnt clear he understood the radical agenda Debs had embraced. Is it possible that the only prominent national politician who describes himself as a socialist today is clueless regarding the meaning to the term socialism?

Prepared remarks by Sanders on democratic socialism suggest as much. He begins his commentary on democratic socialism by focusing on Franklin Roosevelts 1937 inaugural address, where Roosevelt famously stated that one-third of the nation was "ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. Sanders identifies with FDR and his campaign against the economic royalists, praising New Deal policies for succeeding in putting millions back to work and taking them out of poverty and restoring their faith in government. Democrats would almost universally share these laudatory views of Franklin Roosevelt, but Sanders proceeds to note that almost everything FDR proposed was called "socialist. Does this make FDR a socialist? The implication of Sanders logic, given that he embraces both FDR and democratic socialism, is that because FDRs enemies labeled his agenda socialist, he was a socialist. FDRs political enemies also called him a dictator, especially after he introduced his court-packing bill. Did that make FDR a dictator?

Later in his speech, Sanders finally defines what democratic socialism means to him. Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy, he said. Adam Smith, the author of the The Wealth of Nations in 1776 and the father of capitalism, would have said that capitalism intends to "create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy" (Sanders definition of democratic socialism).

Finally, Sanders concedes, I dont believe government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth deserve a fair deal.

Sanders isnt a socialist. He is an American progressive. Given the dismal history of socialism in the 20th century, which is inextricably intertwined with the history of totalitarianism, Sanders would do well to start using words with their conventional meaning. The only cause that Sanders idiosyncratic usage of words promotes is his own political ambition.

Donald Brand is a professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross.

See the article here:
Why Bernie Sanders Isn't Actually a Socialist - Fortune

Even as Venezuelas collapse accelerates, some are dismissing the implications of that collapse with the predictable, thats not real socialism. But Venezuelas people cant argue the finer points of socialist theory - theyre too busy trying to survive.

Venezuelas intensifying economic and political crisis has brought thousands of anti-government protesters into the streets over the past three months, and at least 75 people have died in the unrest, the Washington Post reports. A large number of Venezuelans are spending everything they earn to avoid starving.

With inflation at an estimated 700 percent (and thats a low estimate - the country could slip into hyperinflation at any moment), minimum wage is enough to buy one-quarter of the food needed by a family of five, economists say.

Since 2014, the proportion of Venezuelan families in poverty has soared from 48 percent to 82 percent, according to a study published this year by the countrys leading universities, the Post explains. Fifty-two percent of families live in extreme poverty, according to the survey, and about 31 percent survive on two meals per day at most.

So what happened to this country, which once had the worlds largest oil reserves and South Americas strongest economy? In a word, socialism.

Lets start with the centrally controlled economy. Venezuelans welcomed price controls, at first. In 2002, the late Hugo Chavez instituted a program of price controls and even seizures of entire industries.

But the results were predictable. If farmers cant produce eggs at a profit, for example, then theyre not going to produce eggs.

Those price controls have led to shortages in every sector, including toilet paper.

First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short, USA Today reported last year. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities - toilet paper.

As Johns Hopkins University economist Steve Hanke explained, State-controlled prices - prices that are set below market-clearing price - always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union.

Of course, many on the left will defend socialism by declaring that Venezuela isnt real socialism. But thats a classic fallacy.

That this is an evasion, a form of willful denial, can be seen in the fact that countries tend to slide pretty quickly from being real socialism to suddenly not being real socialism the moment they do something that is embarrassing to the cause, writes Robert Tracinski in The Federalist. A few years ago, a lot of people, from (Sen. Bernie) Sanders on down, were hailing Venezuela as a great example of the achievements of socialism. Now that the Maduro regime is shooting protesters, suddenly its not real socialism.

Socialism is always an empty promise, he says.

Socialism declares that its goals are freedom, prosperity, and total equality. If, in practice, it actually results in oppression, poverty, and special privileges for the party elites, then it must not be real socialism, Tracinski writes. By that standard, socialism can never fail, because if it fails, it is by definition not really socialism.

Lets ask the Venezuelans.

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Editorial: Venezuela is what real socialism looks like - Tyler Morning Telegraph