You Can Tell A Lot About Candidates By Who Endorses Them-- And That Includes Status Quo Joe And Bernie

Biden has a shit load of endorsements and-- most of them are shit. They include corporate whores, Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. His congressional endorsers include some of the worst Democrats in Congress and nearly every one of them has a voting record with a ProgressivePunch "F" score. Here's a list of garbage behind Biden:

• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)
• Vicente Gonzalez (Blue Dog-TX)
• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Stephen Lynch (New Dem-MA)
• Tony Cárdenas (New Dem-CA)
• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)
• Brad Schneider (Blue Dog-IL)

At the heart of the Biden campaign are his false claims to be a fighter for working families. That's never really been true. He's mixing "families" up with "banksters" and "big corporations." And many of his endorsers are fakers just like him. Kurt Schrader, certainly one of the worst members Biden looked to for backing, is a good example. His progressive 2020 opponent, Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba, wrote yesterday that "The Neoliberal policies of the last half century have included efforts to erode the power of the unions at every turn. As a result, they have achieved their desired result of concentrating wealth at the very top and creating insecurity within the middle class. No one can argue that the majority of Americans are not as well off as their parents were and become less well off with each passing year. HR 2474: Protecting the Right to Organize act of 2019 Is a critical step towards repairing the damage that anti-worker corporations and politicians have done to our working families. The middle class only exists because workers organized and demanded fair and safe working conditions and pay. If we hope to continue to have a middle class, then we must support our union brethren when they fight to regain workers rights. My opponent is the only Democrat in our federal delegation that is opposed to the PRO Act, which is outrageous given that our district has one of the highest membership rates in the U.S. Much like his cynical vote against the $15/hour minimum wage, he is looking out for the interests of giant national corporations instead of the working folk here in the 5th congressional district." And Gamba made that statement as he was heading off to Salem "to stand with our union brothers and sisters on their picket line in front of Representative Schrader's office.The 5th has some of the highest union membership in the U.S. and it's high time that Schrader is taken to task for voting against the people he was elected to represent."

On every single issue facing the country, from war and peace healthcare and Wall Street, these people are more a part of the problem, not part of the solution. They're supporting a delusional hack who still thinks he can put together a conservative coalition with Republicans to accomplish something for working families. Watch this interview with Savannah Guthrie the crazy old coot did Sunday on the Today Show:





Bernie has a very different kind of endorser, men and women looking towards the future, from AOC and Pramila Jayapal to AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib-- and virtually most of the best 2020 congressional candidates. Yesterday, another remarkable woman stepped forward to endorse him, just before caucusing in Iowa began. Writing for The Root, Terrell Jermaine Starr, explained who Barbara Smith is and why her endorsement of Bernie is worth more than any dozen Biden endorsements combined. "Barbara Smith, founding member of the black feminist Combahee River Collective that coined the term 'identity politics,'" he began, "has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for president." Starr interviewed her about the reasons why.

“Of all of the people who are running, Bernie Sanders is the person whose political commitment most closely reflects and align with political commitments that I’ve had throughout my life,” she said. “He has a much deeper understanding of what the situation is, why we have injustice and inequality and oppression and discrimination or whatever words you use to describe a society that isn’t functioning the way that it should be functioning. He is the most incisive, sharpest understanding of where all that comes from.”

Briahna Joy Gray, national press secretary for the Sanders campaign, told The Root that the campaign is “enormously proud to have earned the endorsement of one of the preeminent black feminist activists in American history. Barbara Smith’s work highlighting the interlocking oppressions of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and class has helped to empower millions of people in the fight for substantive equality. That fight is central to this campaign, and we’re humbled to have earned her support.”

In addition to her scholarly work, Smith has also served in elected office. She served two terms as a city councilwoman in Albany, N.Y., between 2005 and 2013. Her endorsement comes just as voters in Iowa begin caucusing here, where Sanders is one of the favorites to win.

Sanders has long been criticized for not having a race analysis. But Smith strongly pushes back on that narrative, adding that he fits within the framework of identity politics and cautions against misusing the term from its intended purpose.

“The way it’s been used in the last couple of decades is very different than what we intended,” she said. “The Combahee River Collective has a race, class, gender, and sexuality platform and analysis. We wrote in our statement that all of the systems of oppression are interlocking, she said.

“When we use the term ‘identity politics,’ we are actually asserting that black women had a right to determine our own political agendas. We, as black women, we actually had a right to create political priorities and agendas and actions and solutions based in our experiences in having these simultaneous identities-- that included other identities via the working class, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. So that’s what we meant by it. That didn’t mean we didn’t care about other people’s situations of injustice. We’d absolutely did not mean that we would work with people who were only identical to ourselves. We did not mean that. We strongly believed in coalitions and working with people across various identities on common problems. I think that the Sanders campaign and the candidate himself are absolutely consistent with what we meant by identity politics.”