SEPTEMBER 13 AND 14, 2019
NEWS AND VIEWS
SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 7:00PM ET
Exclusive
Interview: Bernie Sanders Discusses the Debate, Joe Biden, and Corporate
America
In a special
episode of the Useful Idiots podcast, Sanders talked about fighting corporate
talking points, his “huge” differences with Joe Biden, and his thoughts on how
best to take on Donald Trump.
By
VIDEO -- INTERVIEW 30:21 MIN DURATION
The third
Democratic debate was a bizarre affair, marked by whimsical outbursts by Kamala
Harris (“Hey-y-y-y, Joe” seemed to catch everyone off guard), the unveiling of
Yosemite Sam-inspired epithet (Cory Booker’s “Dagnabit”), and heated exchanges
between Julian Castro, Joe Biden, and “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg.
One candidate who
didn’t participate in the silliness was Bernie Sanders.
Hoarse after a tiring stretch of campaigning — Bernie says he lost his voice
after a huge rally in Denver three days ago — Sanders, as he has all campaign,
doggedly pushed hardcore issues like Medicare for All, climate change
legislation, and a reduced defense budget.
Sanders in this
race has been all business. Despite numerous reports of his demise, and
transparent efforts by some media outlets to write him out of the race early
(a New York Times graphic before the debate placed Elizabeth Warren and
Joe Biden alone in a “center stage” graphic), he remains entrenched as one of
the finalists in what increasingly looks like a three-candidate field atop the
polls.
In 2016, Bernie had
little trouble outlining for voters the differences between himself and a
single familiar opponent, Hillary Clinton.
In the 2020 race,
his challenge will be drawing contrasts with two very different candidates in
Biden, an old-school establishment Democrat, and Warren, the ascending liberal
challenger.
On his way to
Nevada for a campaign event, Sanders
spoke to Rolling Stone podcast hosts Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper
by phone. In a special episode of Useful Idiots, he talked about fighting
corporate talking points, the “huge” differences between himself and Joe Biden
on policy, and his thoughts on how best to take on Donald Trump.
Below is a transcript
Matt Taibbi: How are you doing?
Bernie
Sanders: Great, other
than not having a strong voice. I lost my voice in Denver – I forgot there was
a microphone. So there you go.
Taibbi: Are you not feeling well?
Sanders: No, I’m feeling fine. It’s just that I’ve
been doing too many speeches.
Taibbi: You do a lot of them.
Sanders: We’re off to Nevada in a few hours. So
there you go.
Taibbi: Excellent. Well we won’t take up too much
of your time. We just wanted to talk a little bit about the debate last night.
One of the themes, with regard to you: a couple of candidates, Secretary
Castro, Senator Harris, they dropped a line about how we want to thank Senator
Sanders, give you credit for moving the Medicare debate. But the subtext of it
was, essentially, “Thanks a lot Bernie, we’ll take it from here.” Where do they
want to take it, and why is that a bad idea? What’s the difference between what
you’re saying and what they’re saying?
Sanders: Thanks for
asking that question. Look, at the end of the day, we have to make a
fundamental decision in this country. Number one, is healthcare a human right,
or is it not? If it is a human right, then we guarantee healthcare to every
man, woman and child, regardless of income.
And what we say is,
if you’re sick, if you need to check up, you go to any doctor you want to, you
go to any hospital you want to, and you don’t have to take out your credit
card, you don’t have to pay a nickel out of your pocket for that visit. Because
that’s what healthcare is, if we talk about it as a human right. And that’s
what exists in Canada, that’s what exists in most industrialized countries
around the world.
And then the second
point is, we have to ask ourselves, which my opponents are not, is: why is it
that we’re spending twice as much per person on healthcare as the people of any
other country?
That’s a profound
statement. I got all these conservatives who want to save money. We’re spending
$11,000 a year per person on healthcare, twice what the Canadians spend, what
the French spend, what the Germans spend. They manage to cover all of their
people.
The answer gets to
the whole heart and soul of this debate. Is the function of healthcare to make
$100 billion in profit for the healthcare industry, which is what they made
last year? Is it to make billions of dollars in profits for the drug companies,
medical equipment suppliers? Or is the function of healthcare to provide
healthcare to all people in a cost-effective way?
So to answer your
question… what Medicare For All, the bill that I wrote, does, it expands on
what the Canadians do. This is not a new idea. It does away with all premiums,
all copayments, all out-of-pocket expenses.
Anybody goes to any
doctor, any hospital that you want. We phase it in over a four-year period.
Medicare is a popular program right now, only applicable by and large to people
65 and older. Four-year period, we go down to 55, 45, 35, and we cover
everybody. We expand the kind of healthcare that people get to include,
dental care, which is a big, big deal, hearing aids and eye vision as well.
That’s it.
Taibbi: Last night was interesting. Before the
debate, a pharmaceutical lobby, the Partnership for America’s Healthcare
Future, was urging candidates to equate Medicare For All with a
middle-class tax hike. And right on cue, Vice-President Biden does
that. Is that going to be a new talking point that you’re going to have to deal
with, with Medicare For All?
Sanders:
Absolutely, he is echoing what the health industry wants him to say. So here’s
the point, let me say it again. I’ll give just one example. I talked to a guy
last week who works for a large company, as a matter of fact, and he has pretty
good health insurance. So we chatted. This is the story, like millions of other
Americans.
He has a family of
four, I believe. He is paying $1000 a month in premiums, and he has a $4000
deductible. That means in his case, he is spending $16,000 a year. This is not
to mention what his employer is paying, which is probably an equal amount. But
he’s paying $16,000 a year out of his own pocket before he gets a nickel of
coverage from his insurance company. Now, Joe Biden may think that he’s
delighted, this guy is delighted to pay these premiums. And the answer is that
what you pay premiums or you’re paying taxes, you’re paying money out of your
own pocket.
Under Medicare For
All, that guy, and virtually everybody in America, will be spending less on
their healthcare, because there are no more premiums under my bill. No more
out-of-pocket expenses, no more co-payments. And nobody in America will pay
more than $200 a year for prescription drugs.
So if you’re upset
that under a Bernie Sanders proposal, in his case you’ll pay whatever it may
be, being hypothetical here. You’ll pay $9000 a year out of your pocket in
taxes, as opposed to $16000 a year in premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.
Fine. I don’t think
that guy will be upset about it. I think he will be delighted about it. So that
is what the issue is, and it is really disturbing that we have Democratic
candidates who are echoing the talking points of the healthcare industry.
Which, let us not forget, made $100 billion in profits last year. And will be
spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try to defeat my proposal.
Katie Halper: Senator, I’m Katie Halper. I wanted to
know, you talk a lot about movement politics, and of course your motto is, “Not
me, us.” What will the movement have to do when you’re president to keep you
responsible to the movement, to keep your feet to the fire? Which I’m sure is
something you want the movement to do, but what are they going to have to do,
just so we can prepare?
Sanders: Well Katie, we are living in an
unprecedented moment in American history. And it’s not just the racism and the
pathological lying and the sexism and the homophobia of Donald Trump. It goes
beyond that. And I’m the only candidate I think who talks about this
consistently.
And I know Matt,
you guys have been writing about
this for years, you’re some of the few people in America who write
about this stuff. And that is, we are looking not only at the incredible
greed of the corporate elite, but the corruption of the corporate elite, and
the power of the corporate elite.
So you’re talking
about Wall Street, you’re talking about six banks that have assets equivalent
to half of the GDP in this country, more than $10 trillion. Banks that borrow
money at 2.5% and charge people 25%, 30% interest rates on their credit cards.
You’re talking
about the drug companies, who are involved in price fixing. They’re now under
assault in court cases right now for selling opiates to the American people
when they knew that those opiates were addictive. You’re talking about the
insurance industry charging us the highest prices in the world for healthcare.
You’re talking about the fossil fuel industry knowing, knowingly, producing a
product that is destroying the planet. What can you say about that? So
you’re talking about corruption, you’re talking about incredible power. And
when we talk about the debate last night, and every other debate that I have
been on, these are issues that we’re not allowed to talk about.
No commentator, no
moderator, has ever asked me about the power of the corporate elite, the corruption
of the corporate elite, and how you deal with that issue. And obviously that is
at the heart and soul of what this campaign is about.
Katie, to answer
your question, what I have said and I think you’ve heard me say this a million
times, is no president, not Bernie Sanders, anybody else, can do it alone.
Because these people have unlimited amounts of money, they control the
corporate media, they have unbelievable power. The only way we defeat them is
with a President of the United States who is prepared to stand up to them.
But behind that
president has got to be an unprecedented grassroots movement of millions of
people. Who are telling the insurance companies, “Sorry, everybody in this
country will have healthcare as a human right.” Telling the fossil fuel
industry, “Sorry, your short-term profits are not more important than the
future of this planet.” Telling the drug companies, “Sorry, we’re not going to
die because we cannot afford the outrageous prices of your medicine.” The
only way we accomplish that is with a mass movement, that is what this campaign
is about.
Halper: And what is the mass movement going to look
like? Does that mean protests, does that mean running for office?
Sanders: That means mobilizing millions of people,
to run for office absolutely, to make it clear in a way that does not happen
right now. Give you an example. Last month I was in Louisville Kentucky,
challenging McConnell to bring up gun safety legislation, to bring up the bills
passed in the House that raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour. To bring up
the legislation passed in the House which will do the best that we can to
prevent Russian intervention in our elections.
Kentucky, it turns
out, is a poor state. It is a state where people are struggling. And yet you
got a senator there from Kentucky, not only McConnell but Rand Paul, in a poor
state, that believe in massive tax breaks for the rich, and cuts to social
security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, environmental protection.
How does that
happen? How do you have a poor state, a struggling state, elect the people who
represent the interests of the rich and the powerful, and ignore the needs of
the vast majority of the people in that state? And what the political
revolution is about is going into those states, and I have been into Kentucky,
got a lot of support there, going into West Virginia, another poor state, going
into so-called red states, and blue states, and rallying the working class of
this country.
Here is the main
point, that I try to make all over this country. The ideas that I am talking
about, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, healthcare for all, making
public colleges and universities tuition-free, canceling student debt, dealing
with climate change aggressively, these are not radical ideas. These are ideas
that the working class of this country supports.
Problem is, we have
a lot of people who are not voting. We’ve got to get them voting. With have a
lot of young people who are very, very progressive, who are not involved in the
political process. We’ve got to get them involved. The only way you do that is
by having the ideas, the movement that brings them into the political process.
And that’s what we’re working on day after day right now.
Taibbi: I want to talk a little bit about what your
strategy would be if you were in the general election. A lot of the candidates,
both in the last race and in this year already, they fall into the trap when
they’re campaigning against Donald Trump of trading insults with him, getting into this
endless cycle of barbs, and the media loves to cover that.
Correct me if I’m
wrong, I feel like you have a different strategy. You don’t seem to want to
engage Trump on that level. You always seem to want to continue talking to
voters, almost past him, and focus on the issues, focus on your message of
opposing corporate power.
If you were the
nominee, how would you deal with Donald Trump differently from the other
candidates?
Sanders: I think, Matt, that what you said is
basically correct. On one hand you cannot ignore his pathological lying, his
racism, his sexism, his xenophobia, his religious bigotry. I mean you can’t do
that. You have to defend people who are being attacked by this racist
president.
But on the other
hand, if you become obsessed, and I think this is the point you’re making, if
you become obsessed with Donald Trump’s tweets, you fall into his trap. So I
think the main point we make, when we go
to states like Michigan, when you go to Wisconsin, when you go to
Pennsylvania, when you go to Florida, is you say to the working people of those
states, “You know what, not only is this guy a liar, he’s a fraud.
He told you that he
was going to stand with the working class of this country, he told you he was
going to take on Wall Street and the drug companies and the insurance
companies. Well the evidence is clear, he lied to you.”
You don’t stand
with the working class when you try to throw 32 million people off of health
insurance. You don’t stand with the working class of this country when 83% of
the tax benefits that you push for, that you succeeded in getting, go to the
top 1% at the end of 10 years. You’re not standing with the working class.
You remember, Matt
and Katie, that when he campaigned he said, “I’m a different type of Republican,
I’m not going to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.” Absolute lie. His
budget does exactly that.
So he said, “I want
American companies not to go abroad.” Well he’s producing products for his own
company abroad. “Oh my God, it’s terrible that we have all these undocumented
people in this country, I hate undocumented people.” Oh yeah? Well they’re
working in your companies.
They’re working at
your resorts, Donald Trump, you’re a goddamned liar. Forgive me. Shouldn’t say
that.
Taibbi: Everybody’s using profanity now, it’s okay.
Sanders: All right. And that’s what you expose him,
is the fraud. Here he is hiring undocumented people in his own resorts, after
he is ranting and raving and demonizing undocumented people. So I think that is
the point you make to working-class people: he lied to you.
And I think we also
have to understand, and you’ve heard me say this a million times, Matt – that
is to my mind, it wasn’t that Trump won, it’s that the Democratic Party lost.
And the Democratic Party forgot about the tens of millions of working-class
people in this country, black and white and Latino, Native American,
Asian-American, people who are struggling.
Half of the people
in this country are living paycheck to paycheck. Car breaks down, they’re in
severe trouble. They can’t afford to go to the doctor. Those are the folks we
have to start paying attention to. And when we do that, you’ll defeat Donald
Trump.
Taibbi: In 2016, when you ran against Hillary
Clinton, you made a very clear argument. You said, the first difference is I wouldn’t take money from the banks. You made a
very clear distinction about the difference between you and Hillary Clinton,
that she essentially was receiving the largesse of a lot of the corporations
the we’re talking about.
Do you have to make
the same argument now about Joe Biden?
Sanders: Yes, you do. And the point we made, it is
impossible to take on the greed and corruption of the corporate elite if you’re
taking their money. And on that note, let me say something that I’m really
very, very proud of. It’s just something I’m telling you from the heart.
Is that right now,
as of today, we have received more individual contributions than any candidate
at this point in an election in American history. I think we have three million
individual contributions, from very close to one million individual
contributors. So a million people, three million contributions. No candidate in
American history at this point in a campaign has ever done that.
And these
campaigns, there was a piece in the paper the other day. These contributions
are coming from working-class people. That’s where they’re coming from. They’re
coming from teachers, who I think are our largest single source of funding.
They’re coming from workers at Amazon, they’re coming from workers in Target.
They’re coming from waiters and waitresses.
This is a
working-class campaign, taking on the corporate elite, funded by the working class
of this country. We are 100% funded at the grassroots level. I don’t go to
wealthy people’s homes to raise money, and our average contribution, God knows,
what is it? Nineteen or twenty bucks a piece.
So this is
historical. There’s never been a campaign that has relied on working-class
financial support to the degree that we are. And I’ve got to tell you, I’m
extremely proud of that.
Taibbi: Was it out of bounds last night for
Secretary Castro to chide Vice-President Biden about, “Did you
forget what you said two minutes ago?” Do you think it’s a legitimate
question to talk about things like gaffes, an inability to string sentences
together….
Sanders: All I can tell you, Matt, that’s not my style.
I don’t try to engage in personal attacks on people. Joe Biden and I have
enormous differences regarding our voting record, and how we envisage the
future of this country.
Biden voted for the
war in Iraq, I opposed it. Biden voted for these terrible trade agreements,
NAFTA and PNPR with China, which have cost us over four million jobs. I helped
lead the opposition against that. Biden voted for the Wall Street bailout, I
did everything I could to prevent that. Biden voted for this terrible bankruptcy
bill, I voted against it.
So his views, his
voting record, very different than mine. His views on healthcare, on climate,
on the needs of working-class people are very different. Those are the areas
that I will focus on. I think we’ve only got another minute or so, guys.
Halper: Okay. So who will your running mate be when
you win the nomination?
Taibbi: Katie volunteers.
Halper: I volunteer.
Sanders: Send me your resume.
Halper: Matt has agreed to release me.
Taibbi: From her contract.
Sanders: Well you know, a Vice-President needs a
staff, Matt needs a steady job, so there you go.
Taibbi: Sounds good.
Halper: You talk about how lacking substance
sometimes these debates can be. Anything that you wanted to say, that you
didn’t get a chance to say last night?
Sanders: I was disappointed that I didn’t get the
chance to speak about the racial justice issue, that I didn’t have a chance to
speak about immigration, didn’t have a chance to speak about climate change.
I am very proud of
having introduced by far the most comprehensive climate change legislation ever
introduced by any presidential candidate. And I’ve been attacked because that’s
a very expensive proposal, $16 trillion. It actually pays for itself.
But the point that
I have made over and over again, is what is the alternative? In terms of not
doing everything humanly possible to combat climate change and transform our
energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency. What is the
alternative? If we do not do this, what the scientists are telling us…
Just stop and
think, we’re not talking about hundreds of years or thousands of years. In
terms of extreme weather, think right now in the last few years what happened
in the Bahamas, what’s happened in Puerto Rico, what happened in New Orleans.
I’m in Houston right now. Of what is happening in Charleston, South Carolina.
What we are seeing with our own eyes right now in the United States. Not to
mention the heat waves in Europe, in Australia, in India. Not to mention that
hundreds of thousands of people in Guatemala are unable to grow the food that
they need in order to feed themselves.
Think about that
problem becoming much, much worse in years to come. We are literally fighting
for the future of the planet. And I don’t know how anybody can say we cannot
afford to do that. Because if we do not, the planet we leave our kids and our
grandchildren becomes increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable. We just cannot
allow that to happen.
So I’m proud that
our proposal is supported by some major environmental groups, it is the most
comprehensive proposal out there, and we have to do nothing less than do
everything possible to save this planet.
Halper: To people who say you have great ideas but
you can’t win the general – what’s your response to that?
Sanders: I would suggest to them, take a look at
every credible poll done in the last year. Every credible poll has me defeating
Donald Trump, sometimes by double-digit figures. Interestingly enough, just a
poll came out the other day in Texas, of all places, having me beating Trump by
six points, which is more than any other Democratic candidate.
We won Wisconsin in
the primary process last time, we won Michigan. I believe we can win
Pennsylvania, I believe we can win North Carolina. I believe we can win Texas
and some other states that Trump won. In point of fact, to beat Trump you’re
going to need a campaign of energy and excitement, you’re going to need to
bring young people and working-class people into that campaign in a way that we
have never, ever seen before.
I don’t think that
status quo politics, the politics of Joe Biden, is going to do that. So I think
we are the campaign to defeat Donald Trump.
Halper: Thank you.
Taibbi: Thank you, Senator, and have a good trip to
Nevada.
Sanders: Take care.
In This
Article: 2020 election, Bernie
Sanders, Democratic Debates, Democratic Primary, Elizabeth
Warren
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FOR THE FIRST OF MY MENTAL WANDERINGS FROM
THE SUBJECT OF THE DAY, GO TO THIS WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON MIKE TAIBBI, WHOSE
PORTRAIT DRAWING SHOWS A MAN WITH A NOTICEABLY TAN COLORED SKIN, AND IN REAL
LIFE HE DOESN'T APPEAR THAT WAY AT ALL. MAYBE IT'S THE BAD LIGHTING, AS D.
TRUMP JUST TODAY CLAIMED ABOUT WHY HE KEEPS GETTING PORTRAYED AS BEING
"ORANGE." IT IS PROBABLY EXPLAINED BY THE OPENING BIO OF TAIBBI IN
INFOGALACTIC, I THINK. NO MATTER WHAT SKIN COLOR I THINK HE HAS, HIS FATHER WAS
PARTLY FILIPINO AND HAWAIIAN, AND WAS ADOPTED BY A SICILIAN COUPLE NAMED TAIBBI.
INFOGALACGTIC LOOKS TO BE A USEFUL NEW COMPETITOR TO WIKIPEDIA. SEE BELOW.
Matt Taibbi
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge
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Matt Taibbi
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Taibbi in 2008
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Born
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Matthew C. Taibbi
March 2, 1970 (age 49) |
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Occupation
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Journalist,
political writer, columnist
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Jeanne
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Relatives
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Mike
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Matthew C. "Matt" Taibbi (/taɪˈiːbi/; born March 2, 1970) is an American author
and journalist.
Taibbi has reported on politics, media, finance, and sports, and has authored
several books, including Insane Clown President (2017), The Divide:
American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap (2014), Griftopia:
Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America (2010)
and The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics,
and Religion (2009).
Personal life and early years
Matt Taibbi was born in 1970 to Mike Taibbi,
an NBC television
reporter, and his wife. According to Matt, his surname Taibbi is
a Sicilian name of Lebanese/Arabic origin, but his father, who is partly of
Filipino-Hawaiian descent,[1] was
adopted as a child by a Sicilian-American couple who possessed the surname.[2] He
grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburbs. He
attended Concord Academy in Concord, Massachusetts, and graduated in
1992[3] from Bard
College located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He
spent a year abroad studying at Saint Petersburg
Polytechnical University in Russia. Taibbi is
atheist/agnostic.[4]
Career
Taibbi joined Mark Ames in 1997 to co-edit the English-language Moscow-based,
bi-weekly free newspaper, The eXile, which
was written primarily for the city's expatriate community.
The eXile's tone and content were highly controversial. To some, its commentary
was brutally honest and gleefully tasteless; others considered it juvenile,
misogynistic, and even cruel.[5] [6][7] In
the U.S. media, Playboy magazine published pieces on Russia both by
Taibbi and by Taibbi and Ames together during this time. In 2000, Taibbi
published his first book, The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New
Russia. He later stated that he was addicted to heroin while
he did this early writing.[8]
In 2002, he returned to the U.S. to start the satirical bi-weekly The Beast in Buffalo,
New York. He left that publication, saying that "Running a business
and writing is too much." Taibbi continued as a freelancer for The Nation, Playboy, New
York Press (where he wrote a regular political column for more
than two years), Rolling Stone, and New York Sports Express (as Editor
at Large).
Taibbi left the New York Press in August 2005. It was
shortly after his editor Jeff Koyen was forced out over issues raised by
Taibbi's column, "The 52 Funniest Things About The Upcoming Death of The
Pope".[9][10][11] "I
have since learned that there would not have been an opportunity for me to stay
anyway," Taibbi later wrote.[12]
Taibbi became a Contributing Editor at Rolling Stone, writing
feature-length articles on domestic and international affairs. He also wrote a
weekly political online column, titled "The Low Post," for the
magazine's website.[13]
Taibbi covered the 2008 presidential campaign for Real Time with Bill Maher.[14] He
was invited as a guest on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show[15] and
other MSNBC programs. He also has appeared on Democracy
Now![16] and Chapo Trap House,[17] and
served as a contributor on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.[18] Taibbi
is an occasional guest on the Thom
Hartmann radio and TV shows. He is a regular contributor/guest on
the Imus in the Morning Show' on the Fox Business network.
Financial journalism
His July 2009 Rolling Stone article "The Great
American Bubble Machine" described Goldman
Sachs as "a great vampire
squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its
blood funnel into anything that smells like money".[19][20][21] In
financial and political media the expression "Vampire Squids" has
come to represent the perception of the financial and investment sector as
entities that "sabotage production" and "sink the economy as
they suck the life out of it in the form of rent."[22]
Tackling the assistance to banks given in foreclosure courts,
Taibbi traveled to Jacksonville, Florida to observe the "rocket
docket." He concluded that it processed foreclosures without regard to the
legality of the financial instruments being ruled upon, and speeded up the
process to enable quick resale of the properties, while obscuring the
fraudulent and predatory nature of the loans.[23]
Financial scandals were frequently headlines in 2012, and Taibbi's analyses
of their machinations brought him invitations as an expert to discuss events on
nationally broadcast television programs.[24][25] In
a discussion of the Libor revelations,
Taibbi's coverage [26] was
singled out by Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, Inc., as most
important on the topic and required reading.
In February 2014, Taibbi joined First
Look Media to head a financial and political corruption-focused
publication called Racket.[27] However,
after management disputes with First Look's leadership delayed its launch and
led to its cancellation, Taibbi returned to Rolling Stone the
following October.[28]
Sports journalism
Taibbi also wrote a column called "The Sports Blotter" for the
free weekly newspaper, The Boston Phoenix, until September
2010. He covered arrests, civil suits, and criminal trials involving
professional, college and at times, high school athletes.
Awards
In 2008, Taibbi was awarded the National Magazine Award in the
category "Columns and Commentary" for his Rolling Stone columns.[29] He
won a Sidney Award in 2009 for his article
"The Great American Bubble Machine".[30]
Controversy
In March 2005, Taibbi's satirical essay, "The 52 Funniest Things About
the Upcoming Death of the Pope",[31] published
in the New York Press, was denounced by Hillary
Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Matt Drudge, Abe Foxman,
and Anthony Weiner. Subsequently, the editor who
approved the column was fired.[32] Taibbi
defended the piece as "off-the-cuff burlesque of
truly tasteless jokes," written to give his readers a break from a long
run of his "fulminating political essays." Taibbi also said he was
surprised at the vehement reactions to what he wrote "in the waning hours
of a Vicodin haze".[33]
Journalist James Verini, while interviewing Taibbi in a Manhattan
restaurant for Vanity Fair, said Taibbi cursed and
threw a coffee at him, then accosted him as he tried to get away, all in
response to Verini's volunteered opinion that Taibbi's book, The Exile:
Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia, was "redundant and
discursive".[34] The
interview took place in 2010, and Taibbi later described the incident as
"an aberration from how I've behaved in the last six or seven years".[35]
After the death of conservative commentator Andrew
Breitbart, in March 2012, Taibbi wrote an obituary in Rolling Stone, titled "Andrew
Breitbart: Death of a Douche."[36] Many
conservatives were angered by the obituary, though Taibbi claimed that it was
"at least half an homage," claiming respect for aspects of
Breitbart's style but also alluding to Breitbart's own openly derisive obituary
of Ted
Kennedy.
Biden's controversial debate response on
legacy of slavery
Joe Biden and
Julián Castro had a tense exchange during the third Democratic presidential
debate, during which Biden made some controversial statements that led many
critics to call for him to drop out of the 2020 race for the White House.
Author Anand Giridharadas joins Joy Reid to discuss. Sept. 14, 2019
0:58 / 5:09
How Senator Bernie Sanders clarified his
vision of Democratic Socialism at third Democratic Debate
4,627 views
•Published on Sep 14, 2019
580K subscribers
VIDEO -- Julian Brave NoiseCat
At Thursday's
Democratic debate, Senator Bernie Sanders was questioned about his perspective
on the crisis in Venezuela and responded with his vision of what democratic
socialism should look like. "I agree with what goes on in Canada and in
Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe
that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to
provide paid family and medical leave," Sanders says. "I believe that
every worker in this country deserves a living wage and that we expand the
trade union movement." Julian Brave NoiseCat, a journalist and director of
the Green New Deal strategy at Data for Progress, finds that Sanders' answer
distinguished his take on socialism from the broader left and clarified its
priorities of human rights, healthcare and worker rights. Sanders is
"talking about the legacies of people who fight for universal human
rights, the right to healthcare, the right to housing, economic and social
rights," NoiseCat says. "And I think that... continuing to
distinguish that this is exactly what the broader left, generally, and then
what the socialist movement, in particular, is pushing for is an important
thing." #DemocraticDebate #DemocracyNow Democracy Now! is an independent global news
hour that airs on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday.
Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: https://democracynow.org Please consider supporting independent media
by making a donation to Democracy Now! today: https://democracynow.org/donate
THIS NEXT ITEM IS THE MAJOR SPEECH BERNIE
MADE LAST JUNE, IN WHICH HE TALKED EXCLUSIVELY ON THE SUBJECT OF DEMOCRATIC
SOCIALISM. IT IS COMPREHENSIVE AND UNDERSTANDABLE, REMINDING PEOPLE OF WHAT WE
HAVE DEPENDED UPON FOR ALMOST A HUNDRED YEARS NOW -- SOCIAL SECURITY. ASK YOUR
MOTHER IF SHE WANTS TO GIVE HERS UP AND LIVE ON HER OWN SAVINGS ALONE, OR YOUR
DAUGHTER EITHER IF SHE IS ALERT TO WHAT REALLY HAPPENS IN POLITICS. THE
REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FOOL THE PUBLIC INTO ALLOWING WORKERS TO KEEP
THEIR PAYROLL TAXES FOR THEIR OWN UNDOUBTEDLY BRILLIANT INVESTMENTS. SOMETIMES
CHOICE IS NOT REALLY A GOOD IDEA.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS TO
THAT SOCIAL SECURITY FUND IF PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO TAKE THEIR MONETARY INPUT
OUT AND BUY STOCKS OR REAL ESTATE OR SOME OTHER GREAT DEAL WITH IT. EACH
PAYMENT GOING OUT TO AN ELDERLY OR DISABLED PERSON IS COMING ACTUALLY, NOT FROM
THAT INDIVIDUAL'S PERSONAL "FUND," BUT FROM THE DAILY INCOMING TAXES
FRESH FROM THE WAGES OF CURRENT EMPLOYEES. SOME CONSERVATIVE WISEACRE IN THE
LAST YEAR OR SO CALLED IT "PONZI SCHEME." IT ISN'T, THOUGH, BECAUSE
WHAT BERNIE MADOFF DID WAS TO FAIL TO ACTUALLY INVEST HIS CLIENTS' MONEY EXCEPT
INTO HIS OWN POCKETS. THAT'S A PONZI SCHEME. HAD HE DONE THE INVESTMENTS AND
THEN PAID THEM THEIR RETURNS, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A LEGITIMATE BUSINESS. OF
COURSE THAT TAKES A YUUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY TO COVER THE RETURNS.
SO, ASSUMING AMERICANS ARE SMART PEOPLE, WHY
CAN'T WE PROPERLY HANDLE THE INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS AS WE ALL KNOW WE SHOULD? LET'S
FACE IT, MOST PEOPLE CANNOT MANAGE TO SAVE MUCH GIVEN THE DAILY LIFE BILLS AND
EXPENSES AND OUR LOW WAGES. IF WE HAD A REAL SURPLUS, WE COULD, BUT THAT JUST
ISN'T THE CASE. THE SOCIAL SECURITY TAXES TAKE IT OUT OF THEIR PAY BEFORE THEY
GET A CHANCE TO SPEND IT, PERHAPS FOOLISHLY, AND IF THEY ARE ESPECIALLY ASTUTE
AT INVESTMENTS, THEY WILL FIND A WAY TO DO IT DESPITE WHAT THE GOVERNMENT DOES.
MODERN INVESTMENT PLANS LINKED TO RETIREMENT FROM
WORK ARE GOOD FOR THAT, BUT YOU STILL GET TO KEEP YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY
RETIREMENT AS WELL WITH THOSE. MY POINT IS THAT INVESTMENT SHOULD BE AN OPTION FOR
PROVIDING ADDITIONAL INCOME AND NOT A NECESSITY JUST TO GET BY. THAT'S THE WAY
IT NEEDS TO BE. MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT PROFESSIONALLY TRAINED TO DO THOSE WEALTH
PRODUCING JOBS SUCH AS MEDICINE AND LAW -- AND POLITICS.
OF COURSE, MOST WHO GET REALLY WEALTHY HAVE
NOT A "JOB" BUT A MARKETABLE IDEA, A PLAN, A UNIQUE TALENT, A NEW
WIDGET, ETC. I WISH THEM WELL AND I RESPECT THEM, BUT IF THEY MAKE IN THE
$500,000 RANGE, I BELIEVE THEY SHOULD PAY A MUCH STEEPER RANGE OF WEALTH /
INCOME TAXES INTO THE PUBLIC COFFERS SO THAT MOST PEOPLE WILL GET A LITTLE
BOOST FROM TAXING THEM. THE CURRENT WEALTH DIVIDE IS TRULY UNCONSCIONABLE. YES,
THAT MAKES ME A "TAX AND SPEND LIBERAL." TO ME A NATION HAS
RESPONSIBILITIES TOWARD ALL WHO LIVE THERE, AND ABOVE ALL, IT IS NOT THE GREAT
PIGGY BANK FOR CORPORATE INTERESTS. TO DEFEND MY VIEWS, I WILL PRESENT THIS
EXCELLENT VIDEO ON THE THEORY OF GOVERNMENT WRITTEN BY JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU.
Bernie Sanders: Trump believes in corporate
socialism, I believe in democratic socialism
22,637 views
•Published on Jun 12, 2019
1.87M subscribers
Sen. Bernie Sanders
of Vermont delivered an address explaining and defending democratic socialism.
The 2020 presidential candidate said the ideology is often misunderstood. CBS
News political correspondent Ed O'Keefe and CBSN political contributor Sean
Sullivan join CBSN's "Red & Blue" with more.
WHO MIGHT BERNIE SANDERS' VICE PRESIDENTIAL
CANDIDATE BE, IF HE WINS? I THINK THE MOST LIKELY WOULD BE WARREN, OR HE MIGHT
BE HERS. ANYWAY, THIS IS A GOOD LIST OF THE MOST PROMINENT AND INTERESTING
POSSIBILITIES. EXCELLENT PHOTOS OF EVERY MAJOR CANDIDATE ARE FEATURED WITH A
BRIEF BIO OF EACH, ALONG WITH THOUGHT PROVOKING OBSERVATIONS ON THE VICE
PRESIDENTIAL RACE FOR 2020. TECHNICALLY, PEOPLE DON'T REALLY "RUN"
FOR VICE PRESIDENT. IT'S A NOMINATION PROCESS. THAT'S SOMETHING I DON'T LIKE
ABOUT IT. LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS IF TRUMP IS UNSEATED EARLY -- PENCE WILL BE
PRESIDENT, AND HE HASN'T BEEN TESTED BY THE REFINERS FIRE OF PUBLIC ATTENTION.
Who Is Running
for Vice President in 2020? These Are the Contenders for the Democratic
Nomination
By
September 9, 2019
In the 243 years
since 1776, the Republic has soldiered on for 38 of them—16% of its
existence—without a vice president. It’s not such an important job.
That said, the only
person to land the presidency without a single vote being cast for them was
Gerald Ford, who ascended House of Cards-style through Richard
Nixon’s vice presidency after Spiro Agnew’s resignation. So it’s not nothing.
If there is a black
swan to American political conventional wisdom, it’s the resident of the U.S.
Naval Observatory who works in the Executive Office Building at the
far-less-sexy 1650 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The quintessential
vice presidency is still John F. Kennedy’s selection of Lyndon B. Johnson in
1960, which gave the youngest-ever president an elder statesman at his side,
pulled Johnson out of the running as an antagonist in the Senate, helped win
Texas in a national election that was still won by only 112,987 voters, 0.17%
of the popular vote, and created the definitive moment of referring to the vice
presidency as “a heartbeat away from the Oval Office,” as LBJ was sworn in as
Air Force One raced JFK’s corpse to Washington.
But 1960 was 69
years ago, when Alaska and Hawai’i were year-old states—before the creation of
Medicare, the Education Department, Housing Department, Energy Department,
Homeland Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, the 25th or 26th
amendments, before civil rights, Miranda rights, Roe v. Wade, 24-hour news, the
Internet, gay marriage, or social media. Just about the only thing that hasn’t
changed is our Cold War against Russians. Hillary Clinton’s loss could be seen
as the last gasp of the Democrats '90s heyday. Next up: a truly 21st-century contender.
A 21st-Century
Contender
While running for
vice president isn’t a political move per se, the crowded field of contenders for
the Democratic party’s 2020 nomination guarantees plenty of losers hoping to
save face in the coming months.
Five Republican
losers in 2016—Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Nikki Haley, John Kasich, and Rob
Portman—were offered Donald Trump’s vice presidency before it went to Mike
Pence. Fortune asked experts—authors, historians, and other
cultural cognoscenti—to wax political on what the vice presidency now means in
perpetual election cycles and whose strengths and weaknesses are maximized by
that tough tightrope stretched between functional and charming—avocado
milquetoast, so to speak.
“You want a
plausible president,” says Joel Goldstein, a law professor at St. Louis
University who wrote The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to
Significance, Mondale to Biden, “someone who will follow, not lead. People
talk about Palin but look at Paul Ryan with Romney in 2012 or John Edwards with
Kerry in 2004. Edwards was more interested in John Edwards on the ticket than
John Kerry on it.”
Palin Redux
Broadly though, the
nightmare scenario is another Sarah Palin, who unraveled under the sudden,
surprise pressure of national attention in 2008, spreading unspooled, untested,
and uniformed into an outsized role on the campaign trail. For Democrats
licking their wounds after 2016, “there’s some apprehension about putting a
woman in the #1 spot again,” says Ellen Fitzpatrick, a history professor at the
University of New Hampshire who wrote The Highest Glass Ceiling:
Women’s Quest for the American Presidency. “Maybe #2 works better.”
As well, Black
Lives Matter, MeToo, and the immigration crisis are now newly emboldened litmus
tests for voters.
“Diversity is a
strength but also a challenge,” says Fitzpatrick. Allyship—Bill Clinton as the
nation’s first black president or Barack Obama as the first gay president—is
clashing hard with the desire for actual representation epitomized by
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“I think about
Shirley Chisholm running for president in 1972 and saying it’s not enough to be
taken for granted as a voting bloc, that people demand to be seen and heard,
truly represented,” adds Fitzpatrick. “That time is now.”
A Pew Research
Center poll in May found white men to be the least-inspiring nominees among
Democrats. Two white men haven’t won an election for the Democrats since 1996,
nearly a quarter-century ago. Not that Democrats are about to nominate Kanye
West and The Rock. “At some point soon, a ticket will have two minorities or
two women,” says Goldstein, “but not in 2020.”
“There are, in any
case, too many of them,” says Felipe Fernández-Armesto, a history professor at
the University of Notre Dame who wrote Our America: A Hispanic History
of the United States, “too little differentiated from one another and too
poorly qualified to be worthy of support. The best way to enhance their
credibility—if by credibility one means other people’s trust in and esteem for
them—would be to withdraw. If either of the two senior candidates, Biden or
Sanders, becomes the nominee, I hope he won’t reward with candidacy for vice
presidency any of the also-rans who have cluttered
the hustings.*”
Nevertheless, here
are candidate-by-candidate rundowns presented alphabetically, the only pecking
order out of Washington’s swampy grasp.
Former Georgia
gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams delivers the Democratic response to
President Donald Trump's State of the Union address.
REUTERS TV/REUTERS
Stacey Abrams
People don’t run
for the vice presidency. But Abrams is not most people. Although not a
presidential candidate, she has openly courted the vice presidency—without
suitors, perhaps given her turnaround since March, when she swatted rumors of
running with Biden by saying “You don’t run for second place.”
And yet: “A black
woman from the South ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of Washington consultants,”
says Fitzpatrick. Abrams’ failed 2018 run for governor of Georgia was widely
seen as stolen, offering a systemic redemption story for voters who feel
Hillary Clinton’s election was also rigged against her.
SCOTT EISEN—GETTY
IMAGES
Joe Biden
There is virtually
no chance Biden has any interest in being vice president a third time, although
it’s legally possible. Biden himself was redeemed by Obama for his performances
in debates, which helped turn around Biden’s rough start in 2007, when he
called Obama “articulate and clean.”
JEFF
KOWALSKY—AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Cory Booker
Passed over by
Hillary Clinton, “Booker hasn’t done himself any favors going after Biden on
race,” says Jules Witcover, a longtime political reporter who wrote The
American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power, “given there’s still a
good chance Biden could win. It’s not just about demographics or all of these
calculations we have now, it’s also about chemistry.”
Booker is also the
only unmarried man in the mix, forcing consideration of worst-case scenarios in
which a breakup with his new girlfriend, Rosario Dawson, becomes messy tabloid
fodder—although that’s a risk avoided by two other prominent Democratic
bachelors whispered as possible presidents: Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo.
And given that
Ocasio-Cortez is too young for the job (a vice president must be at least 35
years old), perhaps Vice President Booker could be the White House’s new
tweeter-in-chief.
JUSTIN SULLIVAN
GETTY IMAGES
Pete Buttigieg
Buttigieg is
exactly the kind of choice, like Palin, that may seem historic and progressive,
but has broad ability to backfire. His mayoral record on race is fraught, and
being praised for reading Ulysses is strange in a race where
Elizabeth Warren has written eight books. Even Palin did not
have the audacity to leapfrog statewide or federal office to go from mayor to
the White House.
“Generally you want
someone with 10 to 12 years in the House, Senate, a governorship, or the
Cabinet,” says Goldstein. “The mayor of South Bend is so far away from that.”
JUSTIN
SULLIVAN—GETTY IMAGES
Julián Castro
If one of the
current longtime front runners—Biden, Sanders, or Warren—becomes the
presidential nominee, they will likely need a counter to elderly whiteness from
the Northeast.
Castro throws Texas
up for grabs, as O’Rourke does, but adds Chisholm-style representation that
could help in Latino-strong swing states including Florida, Nevada, North
Carolina, and Ohio—and non-Latino liberals who feel Obama brought the party
past a point of no return on diversity.
“I can’t bring
myself to use the term ‘Latino,’” says Fernández-Armesto. “It’s an academic
invention that doesn’t denote me and shows intellectuals’ contempt for ordinary
people’s self-designations. We’re really talking about Hispanics, right?
Greasers, as our despisers say. The Hispanic vote is going to split roughly
75/25 in favor of Democrats (or around 70/30 if the party exhibits its usual
incompetence) whoever’s on the ticket. The most important Hispanic constituency
for capturing the Electoral College is in Florida, where Hispanics are largely
very conservative. So a radical Hispanic on the ticket will be a lot worse from
an electoral point of view than an Anglo or Hibernian-background centrist.”
DREW ANGERER—GETTY
IMAGES
Kamala Harris
Although she
identifies as a black woman, Harris could also electrify the nation’s vast
Indian-American population (her mother is an Indian immigrant, her father is
black). But with so much social justice on the agenda, is another prosecutorial
lawyer what Democrats want? That criticism may come to bear sharply in guessing
appointments to the Supreme Court, which hasn’t had a public defender in its
ranks since Thurgood Marshall retired in 1991.
MANDEL NGAN
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Amy Klobuchar
“Klobuchar fits
with Sanders,” says Goldstein. “Klobuchar is sort of that perfect balance of
memorable and forgettable,” says Witcover. “If any of the men win it, they’d be
wise to knock at her door.”
JEREMY HOGAN—SOPA
IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES
Beto O'Rourke
While his campaign
has rebooted poorly a few times, and O’Rourke amplified criticism that he’s
privileged and vain as he focuses on the White House over a Senate seat in
Texas, “I can’t see anyone except Mr. O’Rourke enhancing Democratic chances,”
says Fernández-Armesto. “We all know what the Democrats’ strategy must be:
recover enough Trump defectors among the working classes of Ohio, Michigan,
Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Except for Mr. O’Rourke I don’t see a potential
pick who might have a positive effect on that constituency. The Democrats have
spent the last 60 years or so alienating historic supporters: the South,
Catholics, and now Jews and low-paid workers. The last category is recoverable
and the need to recover is urgent.”
O’Rourke, he sums,
is the best candidate to be the president’s “poodle.” His candor and profanity
are traits that worked well for Biden.
MELINA MARA—THE
WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
Bernie Sanders
A 2016 reminder:
Sanders was the only party rival to Hillary Clinton, who opted against
including him on her ticket despite her campaign slogan of being “stronger
together.” That’s how zero the odds are of Sanders being anyone’s veep.
JOE RAEDLE—GETTY
IMAGES
Elizabeth Warren
“Warren’s policies
and rhetoric for putting the squeeze on the financial sector clearly
demonstrate her ability to strengthen a Sanders administration focused on
economic justice,” says Brian Abrams, author of Obama: An Oral History
and Party Like a President: True Tales of Inebriation, Lechery, and Mischief
From the Oval Office.
ALEX WONG GETTY
IMAGES
Andrew Yang
Despite polling
better than O’Rourke, who had the darling attention of Vanity Fair and
Beyoncé, Yang has low prospects in part because only 6% of the electorate is
Asian. That number falls to 2% among Democrats.
About 44% of Asian
Americans identify as Democrat, but 42% identify as wild-card Independents. The
Asian American Action Fund’s total spending in 2018 was a paltry $108,214.
Asian Americans are statistically insignificant culturally and financially in
Democrats’ party machinery. More than anyone else in the running, he is
campaigning on ideas, but Yang has yet to find his yin.
"cluttered the hustings"*
"HUSTINGS" IS OCCASIONALLY SEEN THESE
DAYS, BUT RARELY DEFINED. THAT MAY BE BECAUSE IT HAS MULTIPLE MEANINGS, MOST OF
THEM VERY OLD DATING BACK TO THE 12TH CENTURY OR EARLIER, ACCORDING TO
MERRIAM-WEBSTER. IN ADDITION IT IS OFTEN USED IN SOME VARIANT WAYS AND
CIRCUMSTANCES. IT'S LIKE "ON THE STUMP" AND ESPECIALLY
"PLATFORM."
SOME ORIGINS FOR THOSE ARE INCLUDED IN THE
MERRIAM-WEBSTER DEFINITIONS BELOW OF HUSTINGS. THIS IS THE KIND OF DEFINING
THAT I WANT TO SEE: PRECISE, COMPREHENSIVE, AND HISTORICAL. THE FIRST SOURCE MAY
BE GOOGLE ITSELF, AS IT GIVES NO SPECIFIC PUBLICATION EXCEPT
"DICTIONARY" AND "From Oxford."
CLICKING ON "DICTIONARY," I FOUND "LEXICO POWERED BY
OXFORD." IT IS NOT THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY.
Web results
"HUSTINGS"
noun
a meeting at which candidates in an election address
potential voters
the campaigning associated with an election.
plural noun: the hustings
"a formidable
political operator at his best on the hustings"
Origin
Late Old English
husting ‘deliberative assembly, council’, from Old Norse hústhing ‘household
assembly held by a leader’, from hús ‘house’ + thing ‘assembly, parliament’;
hustings was applied in Middle English to the highest court of the City of
London, presided over by the Recorder of London. Subsequently it denoted the
platform in Guildhall where the Lord Mayor and aldermen presided, and (early
18th century) a temporary platform on which parliamentary candidates were
nominated; hence the sense ‘electoral proceedings’.
LEXICO'S DEFINITIONS AND HISTORY ABOVE ARE
GOOD, BUT THIS ONE BY MERRIAM-WEBSTER IS MORE INCLUSIVE, SO I HAVE USED BOTH.
"hustings"
Definition
of hustings
1a: a
local court formerly held in various English municipalities and still held infrequently in London
b: a
local court in some cities in Virginia
2a: a raised
platform used until 1872 for the nomination of candidates for the
British Parliament and for election speeches
c: the proceedings
or locale of an election campaign
Did You Know?
Hustings are where babies are kissed, flesh is pressed, and media events are
staged. The term traces to an Old Norse word meaning "house
assembly," and 1000 years ago hustings were judicial assemblies where
Anglo-Saxon kings and their followers held council and resolved civil disputes.
Over time, "hustings" came to refer not only to the assembly but also
to the platform where the leaders of such gatherings sat, and in due course the
term was applied to the entire campaigning process as well. Nowadays, "on
the hustings" is synonymous with "on the stump," and it can
refer to any place along the campaign trail where a candidate makes a pitch for
public office.
First Known Use
of hustings
History and
Etymology for hustings
Middle English,
from Old English hūsting, from Old Norse hūsthing,
from hūs house + thing assembly
Learn More
about hustings
Share hustings
Resources
for hustings
Listen to Our
Podcast about hustings
Statistics
for hustings
Look-up
Popularity
Bottom 30% of words
Time Traveler
for hustings
The first known
use of hustings was before the 12th century
Comments
on hustings
What made you want
to look up hustings? Please tell us where you read or heard it
(including the quote, if possible).
DURING MY ONE AND ONLY TRIP ABROAD, TO
BRITAIN AS IT HAPPENS, I WAS TOLD ABOUT A PLACE IN LONDON'S HYDE PARK WHERE A
"STUMP" EXISTED THAT WAS USED IN ACCORDANCE WITH LONG TRADITION FOR
ORDINARY PEOPLE WHO HAD SOME ISSUE OR POINT THAT THEY WISHED TO MAKE COULD
LEGALLY STAND ON THAT PARTICULAR "STUMP" AND SPEAK FREELY AS LONG AS
THEY DIDN'T USE PROFANITY. I CAN'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE STUMP AND I CAN'T
FIND IT ON GOOGLE, BUT I DID FIND AN INTERESTING CONCEPT CALLED "SPEAKERS'
CORNERS." FOR A VERY GOOD READ, GO TO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakers%27_Corner.
THAT'S VERY MUCH LIKE ONE OF THE DEFINITIONS GIVEN FOR "HUSTINGS," BUT
IS SIMPLER BECAUSE IT ISN'T NECESSARILY SPEECH BY AN ANNOUNCED POLITICAL
CANDIDATE. IT'S MORE LIKE A FOUNDATION FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND DEMOCRATIC
LIFE.
THE TRIP TO BRITAIN THAT I RECALL SO HAPPILY, WAS AN AUTO TRIP, DURING
WHICH MY FRIEND AND I ENDANGERED THE LOCAL POPULATION BY DRIVING A RENTED CAR
AND VISITING A SMALL BUT EXCITING SERIES OF PLACES. WE ONLY HAD TEN DAYS, SO WE PACKED THE HOURS TIGHTLY.
WE
MADE A LOOP OUT OF LONDON TO CANTERBURY AND DOVER; FROM THERE TRAVELED SOUTH
ALONG THE SEACOAST AND THEN TO TOWNS AND SEVERAL FAMOUS ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES IN
THE CENTER OF ENGLAND, THEN BACK INTO LONDON BY WAY OF WINDSOR CASTLE. WE THEN DID
OUR TOURIST THING IN LONDON, ATE IN A GREAT RESTAURANT CALLED THE SWAN, DID A
THAMES BOAT TOUR, WENT TO HYDE PARK, AND MORE. WE SAW MAGNIFICENT STONE WORKS, RANGING FROM PREHISTORIC TO ROMAN TO RENAISSANCE, TRAVELED LITTLE LOCAL ROADS WHICH WERE AS
BEAUTIFUL AS THEY WERE TREACHEROUSLY NARROW AND FULL OF CURVES, AND SHEEP,
THATCHED ROOFS, NOT TO MENTION THE SURPRISE FOR ME, THE HIGHLY CREATIVE AND INDIVIDUALISTIC RESTAURANT AND INN SIGNS.
IT RANKS UP THERE IN PERSONAL IMPORTANCE WITH FINDING MY OWN TRUE LOVE.
IF YOU READ ENOUGH OLD BRITISH NOVELS AND POETRY, IT MAKES YOU WANT TO MAKE
THAT TRIP.
I AM GRATEFUL TO MY MOTHER FOR ABOUT HALF OF THE MONEY REQUIRED FOR THE EXPENSES. WE NEVER GOT ALONG WELL, BUT SHE MUST HAVE LOVED ME TO DO THAT, AND THEY SAY THAT WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER. TO STRENGTH!
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