Why is Bernie likely to lose the Democratic nomination?

First, yes, Sandernistas, the enthusiasm is good. But, if you're over the age of 30 and think Bernie Sanders is still going to win the Democratic nomination, it's probably time to stop believing in the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, and instead wake up and smell the coffee. More than that, it's time to start thinking seriously about Plan B, after it's even more clear that he won't win, that is, voting Green in the general rather than sitting out.

Not only is he behind on straight delegates, not counting supers, the remaining slate, rather than favoring him, is stacked against him. Only Wisconsin, among remaining primaries, is an "open" one. Large California and two small states are "mixed," allowing for day-of party registration. (And I'll stand by this prediction even if Clinton is right, and not just lowballing her odds on March 22 events.)

And, independent voters have been huge Sanders supporters, as shown above, but, of course, if you can't vote for him in the primary, then you're unable to support him.

So, why IS he going to lose, assuming my analysis about the greater uphill sled he faces for the rest of the way is true? Several reasons, some of them at least partially self-inflicted, or at least self-induced. I'm going to start with those first.

1. Getting a late start into the race. He played footsie with waiting on Elizabeth Warren too long. He should have said: "I need an earlier declaration, either yes or no." If Warren couldn't or wouldn't deliver, he should have declared himself, period.

Personally, I don't think Warren will ever run. So, anybody on the left-hand side of the Democratic party, no matter who wins the general election in 2016, needs to throw their 2020 rose-colored glasses in the trash.

(Sidebar: Warren said some vaguely nice things about Sanders, but never endorsed him. Sandernistas still yearning or hoping for such an endorsement are apparently clueless that the Massachusetts primary has already happened.)

2. Not having a top-level campaign organization. It's not been bad, and probably is no worse than Hillary Clinton's in a number of ways, but it's not great. While Bernie's gotten all those small donations, those aren't necessarily a sign of good staff and they're definitely not necessarily a sign of good Web-savvy staff. In other words, battling an Establishment candidate, he needed as robust a staff as the guy who was successful eight years ago — Dear Leader.

3. Adopting the "socialist" label when he didn't need to — and when he's not one. As I've blogged before, in calling for a British-style National Health Service, and said elsewhere in supporting nationalization rather than bailout of problem banks, I'm more of a socialist than Bernie Sanders is. And, no, corporate welfare, whether for Big Ag or for the military-industrial complex, doesn't count as actual socialism.

Now, the Bernie Sanders of 20 years ago might have been neck-and-neck, and the Bernie of 25 years or more ago would have been ahead of me. But, that's what happens when you're in Congress that long. He could have called himself something like "a new New Dealer," or campaigned on a pledge to "restore the Great Society," and both been more accurate about his actual politics and possibly scared off some Democrats less.

I say "possibly," because there is no guarantee of that, as we start transitioning to elements less under his control.

That said, why put an unnecessary millstone around your own neck? True, the label may have attracted a few people, but it may have scared off more.

4. The "he's not a Democrat" theme. Actually, he is, other than the technicality of the last initial of "I." And, he has been since he first got elected to Congress. He's even participated in Congressional Democratic fundraisers. That hasn't stopped the utter bullshit, uttered by both Democratic professionals and Inside the Beltway pundits, claiming that he's not. That gets back to No. 2, and looks ahead to ...

5. Fighting an Establishment candidate. Hillary Clinton may have claimed she's not a good politician. But she is a well-connected one, as those of us who have bitterly complained about Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Iowa caucus shenanigans and other things know. Per the Clinton Foundation, she's also a well-heeled politician, no matter Bernie's small-donor fundraising prowess. And, she's one that, even by political standards, at least among Democrats, is unafraid to be brazen in her lying. And, again, per the "he's not a Democrat" bullshit, you've got others unafraid to be brazen in lying on her behalf, too.

That said, we're going to do a whiplash transition back to something very much in Sanders' control, and that is ...

6. Running inside the Democratic box. Per the "he is" link, he's long been a Democrat. Per the fact that he refused to call out Clinton for the Honduras coup or Dear Leader himself for the semi-coup in Ukraine, he's long been very much inside the bipartisan foreign policy establishment box. Criticizing coups 60 years ago is nice, but when you focus on GOP coups, and ignore actual or attempted coups by Democratic presidents in the past decade (or 50 years ago — JFK with Bay of Pigs, Diem and Trujillo), you're clearly determined to stay in that box. Being a warhawk-lite, not quite as bloodthirsty as Clinton, further underscores this, as does a debate failure to make a straightforward "I will cut the Defense Department" statement. In turn, things like this are why, even if Sanders had gotten the nomination, I likely would have voted Green again anyway. I wanted a bit more of a domestic policy revolution, and something a lot different in foreign policy. And, related to that, Sandernistas' refusal to face reality about Tulsi Gabbard has become more irritating by the day. (Jewish organizations not part of the Israel-first lobby, like Mondoweiss, have defended Zaid Jilani.)

Beyond that, as things like farm bills and foreign aid show, foreign and domestic policy aren't always inseparable.

I'm not disillusioned. I knew about Sanders' shortcomings months ago, just like I knew about Obama's shortcomings in 2007 and knew before the end of that year that I would vote Green in 2008. That said, an earlier announcement and a campaign staff even better than it is in some ways would have made Sanders last longer as a useful cudgel to beat Democrats over the head.

Could Sanders win the election if he were nominated? Sure. So could the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.

In all of this, I'm not anti-Sanders. I pulled the lever for him here in Texas. It's just that I'm a realist in terms of how I view the two-party box, and also how I see the need to get Sandernistas to sign on to the Plan B of voting Green in the general election.

Going beyond Bernie Sanders: Defending corporate socialism

Bernie Sanders' speech last Thursday about democratic socialism was very good in many ways. (Here's my take.)

However, part of it was, well, sad.

And, that is that even Bernie Sanders feels the need to run away from the issue of corporate socialism. And why?

Arguably, before 1971 and its partial privatization into the U.S. Postal Service, the old U.S. Post Office was corporate socialism. I've argued, not on this blog but in actual newspaper columns for my paid day job that we ought to go back to that, in fact. I say that in part because the old Post Office worked better than today's Postal Service.

I have also argued that, for cost control if nothing else, we need to go beyond single-payer national health care, whether Sanders' "Medicare for All" or whatever, to a British National Health System. That is, we need to start nationalizing portions of the actual health care services, i.e., doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, etc.

Certainly, to this day, reddish-state North Dakota's Bank of North Dakota is corporate socialism at its finest. Seven American Indian tribes, considered "nations" for some legal purposes by the government of these United States, also own or control banks. And, Bernie supports postal banks today, and they're kind of like the Bank of North Dakota, which offers limited services as compared to a commercial bank.

Bernie himself has railed against Great Recession bailouts of "too big to fail" banks. Don't know about him, but at the start of the Great Recession, I favored Dear Leader following Sweden's 1990s model and nationalizing some of them. That's corporate socialism. (As with Sweden, I was OK with eventually selling them again.)

And, a younger, 30something Sanders ran for senator and governor on the platform of the Liberty Union Party, with its platform — and his own personal one — favoring nationalizing banks and more. (Click that link; it's a good piece by John Judis.)

So, per the LUP's snarking on Bernie, which hasn't been updated in years, it's kind of sad. It's also kind of sad that he's considered as "radical" by a fair chunk of Democrats as well as about all Republicans, at least elected ones.

Because he's not. Would that he were.

Per my stance on wanting a National Health Service, I don't call myself a corporate socialist, actually. Corporate socialism is not something I generally desire, or actively push. It's more that at times it may be a "necessary evil." But, when it is, I'm ready to see it used, and I'm not afraid of talking about using it.

Or, Sanders, beyond welfare-state socialism, could promote more worker ownership of industries, which does have bits of traction here in the U.S., per Vox. Consumer-owned or controlled co-ops are yet another way to skin this issue. Outdoors equipment company REI is the largest in the US.

Get rid of those damned dams — and BuRec!

Glen Canyon Dam/Wikipedia photo

Daniel Beard, a former chief of BuRec (that's the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to you non-Westerners) talks about "deadbeat dams" and other ideas for dealing with Western drought in an interview with High Country News.

The interview is based on his new book of that same name, "Deadbeat Dams," which just came out last month and which sounds like a must read.

Beard is not playing around.

He wants to get rid of the Bureau of Reclamation, and as far as all the "deadbeat dams" costing us money, misuse of precious Western water and more, replace it with a dam decommissioning commission similar to the military base closure commission, so as to remove removal of dams from politics and Congress.

The biggest, beyond the "deadbeat" dams, is selling, or rather, "selling" water at subsidized rates, just pennies on the dollar.

The Western farmer is possibly America's biggest socialist, followed by the American rancher and his below-market grazing fees. Next on the list is the Western politician who decries socialism while protecting this.

Example Numero Uno? Modern conservative legend Barry Goldwater.

He repeatedly called for abolishing the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1964. But, was there ever a peep from him about abolishing the Bureau of Reclamation? About not building Glen Canyon Dam?

Absolutely not.

Just like his pale successor, Schmuck Talk Expresser John McCain, Barry Goldwater was a Grade A hypocrite on such issues who got a pass at the time from conservatives and later from the national press.

Beyond that, as drought looks to intensify another year in the West, as some states clamp down on groundwater pumping because of that and more, like a possible 30-year drought cycle in the southern Plains/Southwest, or a 200-year cycle in California, our broken water system, like our broken hydrocarbon use system, needs to be acknowledged as broken.

And, the Archdruid of Reclamation, Floyd Dominy, would be turning over in his grave if he could. John McPhee, who wrote a book partially about him as among his many Western and naturalism books, is still alive ... maybe kicking enough to do a follow-up of sorts. Sadly, Marc Reisner is not alive to update "Cadillac Desert."

Politicized rice farmers blame politics for farm bill defeat

First, I'm glad the proposed farm bill lost in the House, because it cut food stamps way, way too much. (And it's sad that, even with those massive cuts, only 24 Dems would vote against it. Real liberals need to thank wingnuts for being wingnuts.) And, it had other problems, too.

Too much in deductibles support on crop insurance backups. Not enough cuts on commodity supports on some crops, much of which goes to corporate farmers, like Texas members of the USA Rice Federation. That group said:

"U.S. farmers, ranchers, rural America, taxpayers, and consumers all lost today but politics is evidently alive and well," said USA Rice Producers' Group chair Linda Raun.  "Rather than pass a bill that reduces the deficit by $40 billion while meeting the commitments of a farm bill, the country was treated to more Washington dysfunction," Raun added.  "Patience in farm country is wearing thin.  This is a sad day for rural America.  Members of Congress need to ask themselves if they want to reduce the deficit or just talk about it.  Failure to pass a farm bill leaves rural America in limbo." 

Let's get rid of all the corporate farm socialism pork in the farm bill, as part of what we do to "reduce the deficit."

In Texas, rice farmers are regularly at the hog trough, whether wanting extra water out of the Colorado during ongoing West Texas drought, or stuff like this.

Texas supports one-quarter of US socialism

That's a statement you'll never see Ted Cruz make.

But, if we're talking about big-business socialism, it's 100 percent right.

The New York Times has compiled info on what local, county and state governments give away in "incentives" to recruit businesses, and, Texas' corporate socialism was almost exactly one-quarter of the national total. 

No, I'm not surprised.

While it may seem to start at the top, with Gov. Perry's Enterprise Fund, that's really NOT where it starts. City and county economic development corporations, common in Southern states as a union-fighting tool, are a large part of it. From there, local government development incentives, beyond EDC ones, plus local government property tax breaks, are next.

The Enterprise Fund is just the icing on the cake, folks.

And, whenever wingnuts bash national economic planning or how the government shouldn't pick "winners and losers," they need to look in the mirror first. At the local, county and state level, Texas does it all the time.

But, it's peculiar even among Southern states to Texas, in degree.

How bad is it? Texas corporate socialism is as much as the next four states -- Michigan, Pennsylvania, California and New York -- combined.