Guest Post By Dr. Abdul El-Sayed-- Medicare-For-All... NOW

I hope you remember our old friend from Detroit, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. Abdul is a physician, epidemiologist, and progressive activist. He is Senior Advisor at Medicare for All NOW! We endorsed him when he ran for governor of Michigan in 2018 as did Bernie, AOC, Justice Democrats and The Nation. Prior to that, he served Detroit as Health Director. We are very enthusiastic about what he's doing now at Medicare For All Now! and we asked him to share an explanation with DWT readers and Blue America members. If you like what you hear-- and I know you will-- please consider clicking on the thermometer at the bottom of the page that we just set up to support the work of that organization.

Medicare For All NOW!
-by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

Medicare for All has emerged as a rallying cry for Progressives across the country. However, as the plan has grabbed the national imagination with the promise of universal coverage without copays, deductibles or premiums, it has also grabbed the attention of fierce opposition from the corporations and CEOs who make so much money off the current system.

Hospital systems, insurers, and drug companies have begun to rail against Medicare for All, propping up interest groups and pouring millions into anti-Medicare for all ads in key states. The opposition is well-funded, organized, and determined and their message aims to paint Medicare for all as a danger to the communities who would most benefit from its passage.

Medicare for All NOW! was started by Wendell Potter, a former health insurance executive who blew the whistle on the industry’s greed, to push back on their misinformation campaigns. Led by Kerri Evelyn Harris, who ran for Senate in Delaware in 2018, we are working in critical states to tell the truth about Medicare for All: Medicare for All extends our choices by eliminating the insurance company middlemen telling you what doctor you can or can’t see. Medicare for All reduces costs by eliminating the out-of-pocket spending that is driving so many families into bankruptcy. And Medicare for All would be the best way to protect Medicare for seniors by increasing the services it covers and by making it more sustainable.

Right now, we are mobilizing in South Carolina, where the opposition assumes that voters won’t support Medicare for All. But we know that’s not true-- in fact, we’re confident that Medicare for All is just the organizing tool that can propel a pro-Medicare for All candidate to primary victory in South Carolina, where 30% are either on healthcare for the poor or uninsured.

Every $25,000 we raise will put 20 organizers to work-- each coordinating 150,000 doors knocked. After South Carolina, we intend to work in the most important Battle Ground States of 2020 throughout the general, organizing around Medicare for All.

But we can’t do it without you. Will you support us? Right now, every dollar you give earns us $2 total. Howie Klein has generously agreed to match every dollar you contribute up to $2,500. Help us win a future where no one goes without the healthcare they need, where no one has to go bankrupt because of healthcare debt, and where out-of-pocket healthcare costs are no more.

Help us win the future for Medicare for All.

Eye On The Ball This Week: 2 Special Elections, 5 State Primaries

As you know, Blue America raises money for progressives running for office, primarily for the House, but also for the Senate, for a handful of worthy incumbents, for governors, for state legislators who look like they will have careers beyond the state level, and, in one, case, for presidents. Oh, yeah... and for progressives who have won their primaries and have been subsequently abandoned by the DCCC. Keyword: progressives. However, this cycle, there is a special circumstance: the existential threat to our democracy, our country, our world posed by Trump. So this cycle while sticking to our rule of raising money just for progressives, we're also rooting for all candidates with a "D" next to his or her name running against a Trump enabler. Actually, there are 2 exceptions, where even holding our collective nose and closing our eyes won't work: Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)... but that's a separate story.

The point is: we need Democrats-- even imperfect (and very imperfect) Democrats-- to put a check on Trump. In primaries though, like the ones coming up this week in Michigan, Kansas, Hawaii, Washington and Missouri, its all progressive all the way. In the OH-12 special election, a conservative Democrat, Danny O'Connor, is pitted against a very conservative Republican backed by Trump. To our friends in northern Columbus and it's suburbs and in Dublin, Worthington, Westerville, Pataskala, Mansfield, Bellville, Etna, Newark, and Zanesville... on Tuesday vote for "Danny Boy," as the orange orangutan called O'Connor on Saturday night in Lewis Center. Whatever else it is, it's a vote that will help hold Trump accountable and help keep him from pushing the U.S. in an ever more fascist direction. That overrides everything else. As Trumpanzee said: "Get your friends, get your neighbors, and get your family." Here's the kleptocratic ape's brilliant and inciteful political critique of the OH-12 election Tuesday:

The PVI is R+7. Trump beat Hillary 53.2% to 41.9%. Obama only took 43.9% in 2012 and 44.8% in 2008. It's a solid red, solidly gerrymandered, district. If O'Connor wins tomorrow-- and support for him is surging as of this morning-- the NRCC will be begging Trump to stay out of non-Southern states from now until November 7. And this special election is all about Trump-- which is exactly what he wants, what he always wants. In fact, yesterday, on ABC's This Week John Kasich said the hapless GOP candidate told him that he didn't invite Trump to Saturday's Delaware County rally. Kasich said the Trump appearance may lose the race for Balderson because of "the chaos that seems to surround Donald Trump has unnerved a lot of people... Suburban women in particular here are the ones that are really turned off, it's really kind of shocking because this should be just a slam dunk and it's not."

Last week, DCCC West Coast regional vice chair Ted Lieu tried to lure Trump into doing some of his crazy rallies in California. "I would pay the permit fees for Donald Trump to come to California and do one of his toxic rallies," he told us. "Can't wait for him to explain how the GOP tax scam increases taxes on millions of Californians; the random Trump tariffs hurt Californian farmers: and the rollbacks to environmental laws hurt our air and water. Trump's presence in California would help all Democratic candidates." Aside from the Ohio special election, 4 states have primaries on Tuesday and Hawaii has its primary on Saturday. Let's go through the House races first.

Kansas has 4 congressional districts and there are 3 that have Democrats running. KS-01-- the entire western and most of the central part of the state-- is so godforsaken (R+24 PVI), that no Democrat is even running. In the other 3 districts there are 2 Bernie carts and a Blue Dog in contention. KS-04 (Wichita) seems to be on the way to nominate James Thompson, the Kansan Blue America has endorsed. An oddity of this race, for the Koch brothers seat Mike Pompeo left to join the Trump regime, is that incumbent Ron Estes' Republican primary opponent is also named Ron Estes (and he's a registered Democrat!).

There is also an excellent progressive running against Republican Kevin Yoder in KS-03 (Topeka, Lawrence, Atchison, Pittsburg), Brent Welder. It's the least red district in the state (PVI-- R+4). Brent has a bevy of standard variety Democrats to get through tomorrow before he can face Yoder. For KS-02 (Kansas City), the DCCC has heavily backed a right-of-center Blue Dog, former state House minority leader Paul Davis, for the open seat, and his has no primary opponent. There are 7 Republicans in the hunt. Davis has raised more than the 3 top Republicans in the race combined.

The big race statewide in Kansas is for governor. After Sam Brownback bankrupted the state and ran off to become Trump's so-called "Ambassador for International Religious Freedom," Lt. Governor Jeff Colyer, a relatively mainstream conservative became governor. Neo-fascist Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has his head planted up Trump's ass, is challenging him. Both Hannity and Trumpanzee, Jr have endorsed Kobach, of course.

In Michigan, there is also a big gubernatorial primary tomorrow. The status quo establishment pick is Gretchen Whitmer and the progressive in the race is Abdul El-Sayed (endorsed by Blue America). There's also a fake-progressive multimillionaire in the race, Shri Thanedar, who has helped fund Republicans. On the GOP side, Trump has endorsed a vile extremist, Attorney General Bill Schuette, against more mainstream conservative, Lt. Governor Brian Calley (who's being backed by outgoing Gov. Rick Snyder.

Michigan has 14 primaries (one of which-- in Detroit-- is a special election to replace John Conyers). The front runner is AAA progressive Rashida Tlaib (endorsed by Blue America). These are the primary candidates in Michigan, all progressives, we recommend voting for:

• MI-06: Matt Longjohn
• MI-09: Ellen Lipton
• MI-11: Haley Stevens
• MI-12: Rashida Tlaib

There's not much going on for progressives in Missouri,other than a long shot chance to replace corrupt Democrat Lacy Clay with progressive Cori Bush in St. Louis.

Washington state has 10 congressional seats-- 6 held by Democrats and 4 held by Republicans. With the exception of Pramila Jayapal in Seattle-- one of the best members of Congress-- the Democrats are all status quo conservative New Dems. The big news though is that 3 of the 4 Republicans are vulnerable in November. Imagine a Washington delegation with 9 Democrats and 1 Republican! One of the New Dems, Adam Smith (WA-09), is being primaried by progressive Sarah Smith. Now, what we all want is to see 3 Republicans replaced with 3 Democrats-- in WA-03, where Carolyn Long is poised to oust Jaime Herrera Beutler; in WA-05, where Lisa Brown (endorsed by Blue America) is poised to oust the 4th highest ranking Republican in the House, Cathy McMorris Rogers; and in WA-08... well, that's the complicated one, which will be solved tomorrow. Dave Reichert, the Republican incumbent in this district-- with an even PVI (and where Obama won both times and where Hillary beat Trumpanzee 47.7% to 44.7%)-- is retiring. A more conservative Republican, Dino Rossi, has his nomination locked. The 3 top Dems in the primary, Kim Schrier, Jason Rittereiser and Shannon Hader, are all decent progressives. The Democrats in the district, which stretches from Seattle and Tacoma's eastern outer suburbs-- 75% of the voters live in King and Pierce counties-- and then east past the Cascades as far as Wenatchee, Chelan and Ellensburg, will render their verdict tomorrow.

And then comes the one primary next Saturday, where there is a gubernatorial battle and a congressional race in Honolulu. The Honolulu primary pits one of the most progressive candidates anywhere in the country, Kaniela Ing (endorsed by Blue America) running against 4 conservatives from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. One, Beth Fukumoto was the actual minority leader of the House Republicans until recently, fighting every progressive bill Kaniela proposed. Now she claims to be a "Democrat." The other 3 are Ed Case, a former far right/Republican-lite Blue Dog member of Congress (the Kyrsten Sinema of his day and a cousin of AOL's Steve Case). He may be the worst in the race, but Donna Mercado King is a close runner-up-- a vicious anti-gay sociopath and a Republican in every way except for the "D" next to her name. Doug Chin is the corrupt corporate Attorney General who was appointed to his job and never won a race for anything and likely never win. We'll be talking more about this crucial race later in the week. Please consider contributing to Kaniela here, while considering why this poster-- and Alexandria's decision to travel to Hawaii next weekend-- is so important.

Abdul El-Sayed Is Running On A Bernie-Like Platform. Will Bernie Voters Turn Out For Him In The Gubernatorial Primary?

Blue America's thing has always been House races. Occasionally we stray a little and support people running for Senate, state legislatures and governor-- but not that often. This cycle, for example, we found 4 candidates-- at least so far-- running for governor who are right up our ally. It's never a thing about backing a Democrat because a Republican would be worse. That's almost always the case and no one needs Blue America to tell them about lesser of two evils. You never see someone like Gavin Newsom or Gina Raymond or Colleen Hanabusa on our list of endorsees. We've tried explaining over the last few months why we have been happy to endorse Michigan progressive Abdul El-Sayed. And this week, he gave us-- and hopefully-- lots of Michigan voters another reason for backing his bid. "Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed," wrote Jonathan Oosting in the Detroit News, "wants to make Michigan the first state in the nation with its own Medicare-for-all government health insurance system under a proposal he unveiled Wednesday."

Abdul explained to Michiganders that "Michiganders today are trapped in a broken health insurance system that leaves too many families suffering from high costs and lack of affordable coverage. Nearly 600,000 Michiganders still lack health insurance coverage, even after the expansion of Medicaid thanks to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)... Michicare is a plan for Medicare for All for the state of Michigan, providing publicly financed health insurance to all Michigan residents under age 65. Michicare would cover a comprehensive set of benefits based on the essential health benefits outlined by the Affordable Care Act, and every Michigander would choose a primary care provider to help direct their care. Michicare would eliminate co-pays and deductibles for medically necessary services, so you would not pay out-of-pocket fees when you are seeking needed care. Michicare would decrease overall healthcare costs in Michigan by moving to a streamlined system with lower administrative costs and fairer prices. Instead of deductibles, out-of-pocket costs, and premiums paid to private insurers, Michicare would be publicly financed through a combination of a payroll tax and a business tax. Private insurance companies would still be permitted to offer supplemental health insurance, but Michicare would provide comprehensive benefits to all Michiganders, diminishing the need for private coverage. Michicare is an ambitious and realistic plan to secure truly universal healthcare in Michigan."

His campaign website explains in great depth why Michigan needs Medicare-For-All, what the system would do (including how it deals with prescription drugs and, unlike Medicare, with vision and dental issues) and how it would be paid for.

El-Sayed is a doctor and the former director of the Detroit health department and his plan will result in significant health care savings for families and employers. Needless to say, conservatives oppose it and are already screaming like stuck pigs, screwing the same bullshit about it that they spewed when Social Security and Medicare were first proposed-- and fought by Republicans. "Government monopoly" is their mantra. James Hohman of the reactionary Mackinac Center for Public Policy emphasized the cynical right-wing talking points: "I can’t imagine a lot of voters will be happy to pay higher taxes in order to pay for wealthy people’s health care costs." Yeah, sure... that's what Medicare-For-All is all about. And, of course, Establishment Democrats, like Whitmer oppose single-payer as well-- even if they're afraid to say so out loud, just avoiding a substantive discussion of the idea and hoping voters don't notice. Whitmer's campaign is getting lots of money from executives from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, the state's largest private health insurer. So... sshhhhhh.

“This is an opportunity to stand up for health and human rights, to give health care to 600,000 Michiganders who have been locked out of the system," El-Sayed told The Detroit News ahead of a mid-day press conference.

The plan would “do away with things like co-pays, deductibles and premiums, which are tools the insurance companies use to extract value out of the health care system,” he said.

The plan also potentially could cost billions of dollars to implement and administer for state government. El-Sayed declined to share any cost or proposed tax revenue projections beyond what he estimates could be $5,000 a year in health care-related savings for an average Michigan family.

Single-payer health care-- or government-subsidized health care-- is an increasingly popular idea among Democrats, especially the progressive wing of the party. El-Sayed’s detailed proposal might help him stand out in his primary race against Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer of East Lansing and Ann Arbor entrepreneur Shri Thanedar.

Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who won Michigan’s 2016 presidential primary over eventual Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, is a leading advocate for a federal Medicare-for-All type program.

El-Sayed’s state version would cover all Michigan residents, until the age of 65, when traditional Medicare coverage kicks in, according to his campaign. But it would continue to provide additional prescription drug, vision and dental coverage for seniors.

To pay for it, El-Sayed is proposing a new 2 percent tax on gross receipts for businesses with fewer than 50 employees and a 2.25 percent tax for businesses with more than 50 employees. But first $2 million in receipts would be tax exempt, meaning about 75 percent of all Michigan businesses would not be subject to the tax, he said.

The Shelby Township Democrat also wants to move to a graduated income tax. His plan calls for raising the state's 4.25 percent personal income tax to 5 percent for the lowest earners and up to 8 percent for the state’s wealthiest residents. The increase would be administered through a payroll tax deducted from employee wages.

Moving to a graduated income tax would require voter approval for an amendment to the Michigan Constitution. Other elements of the plan could require sign off by the state Legislature, currently controlled by Republicans, or GOP President Donald Trump’s administration.

Despite the potential road blocks, El-Sayed said he’s confident it's "possible" the plan could be law and noted fall elections could dramatically reshape political power in Lansing.

“We’ve got an opportunity here to put policy ahead of politics, to present a plan that Michiganders want and that will save Michiganders money,” he said. “We’ll worry about the political reality after that.”

El-Sayed's "Michicare" coverage would be based on required essential health benefits outlined in the federal Affordable Care Act insurance law, including outpatient, emergency and hospital care, maternity and newborn care, reproductive health, mental and substance abuse care, prescription drugs and rehabilitative services.

Michigan residents could still choose to purchase private health insurance to supplement the Michicare program, and business could also offer supplemental health insurance to their employees if desired.

The average Michigan family making $48,432 a year would save almost $5,000 a year on insurance, out-of-pocket health costs and auto insurance, which could get cheaper if unlimited medical benefits are not required, according to the El-Sayed campaign.

Even though Wasserman Schultz had rigged the system so that Hillary received 73 electoral votes to Bernie's 65, the voters in the Michigan primary wanted Bernie-- by a margin of 595,222 (49.8%) to 575,795 (48.3%). Had they gotten their way, had the Democratic establishment not shoved a status quo candidate down their throats, Bernie would be president now, not Trump. Take Kalamazoo County. Not only did Bernie beat Hillary 20,146 to 12,593 but he beat Trump as well (8,655). Same in Eaton County, where Bernie beat Hillary 7,007 to 5,560, where Trump took 5,386 votes on the same day. Same in Grand Traverse County-- Bernie 8,091, Hillary 4,140, Trump 5,891. Same in Ingham-- Bernie 22,909, Hillary 18,287, Trump 8,056. Kent Country saw Bernie roll up the votes as well-- 43,375 to Hillary's 25,899 and Trump's 22,742. We could go on and on. But you get the point.

The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll-- released yesterday-- shows that 22% of voters nationally (32% among Democrats), picked health care as the issue that will be most important in determining how they vote in November, above the economy and jobs at 19%, guns at 13%, taxes and spending at 11% and immigration at 10%.If El-Sayeed can appeal to these voters in the August 7th Democratic primary, he'll be Michigan's next governor-- and Michigan will be the first state with a viable Medicare-For-All healthcare system.

Public Broadband-- Will Michigan Lead The Way For America?

Blue America endorsed Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed for many reasons and he reconfirmed our faith in him this week with a stunning and common-sense new policy proposal to create a state-level public internet service provider for Michigan, similar to the proposal state Rep Kaniela Ing has proposed for Hawaii and is running on in his race for Congress.

El-Sayed is eager to build on the recent successes of municipal broadband networks and his "MiFi" proposal would facilitate partnerships between state and local government to build infrastructure and provide access to affordable and high-quality internet for all Michiganders.

He pointed out in an e-mail to Michigan voters yesterday that "1.2 million Michiganders, both urban and rural, currently lack high-speed internet access and live in areas that the major corporate ISPs deem not profitable enough to service with broadband. MiFi will deliver broadband access to those areas, and introduce real competition to an industry that has been dominated by de facto monopolies. Households that choose public broadband will also benefit from a provider that will enforce net neutrality, and won’t sell their personal data for profit. "We are,' he said 'so excited about this proposal to make internet faster, cheaper, and available to everybody!'"

Abdul's full policy proposal, which you can read here, outlines his plan to:

1- Implement net neutrality through an executive order or by supporting legislation to prohibit network discrimination.
2- Establish the Michigan Internet Office (MIO) to coordinate and manage state investments in broadband projects, secure funding for broadband initiatives, and oversee mapping and planning processes related to internet access. The MIO will also administer the public ISP. All communities that establish networks through a public-public partnership will have the option to provide their own retail service. The MIO-run ISP will only serve communities that opt to have the state provide service instead. This option for local control is important in Michigan, where the state has in recent years stripped local governments of power through the emergency manager law, lack of revenue-sharing, and more.
3- Create a commission to develop a broadband access plan that outlines how we can both fully connect Michigan through municipally-owned and community-owned broadband networks and contain costs by leveraging public resources (ex. partnering with locally-owned utility companies, developing regional collaborations, etc.)
4- Develop publicly-owned broadband networks at the state and local levels. First, through the MIO, the El-Sayed Administration will issue an RFP to solicit local governments interested in either building or expanding community-owned fiber networks, with priority given to underserved and unserved communities. All accepted localities will then partner with the state (again through the MIO) to draft plans to build and finance these networks. Second, the Administration will establish a state-owned ISP managed by the Michigan Internet Office. The ISP will provide retail service for partners that install broadband infrastructure, but do not have the capacity or desire to provide retail service.
5- Invest in fiber-to-the-home networks and fiber optic technology by mandating that at least 75 percent of all new broadband infrastructure financed by the state are fiber networks and require that all cable laid as part of our proposed public-public partnerships be fiber optic cable, and that all such fiber be open access-- meaning that all competitors, public or private, can use the lines to provide service.
6- Sponsor legislation that encourages public provision of broadband. Michigan is one of 20 states with laws that restrict the development and expansion of publicly-owned broadband networks. The El-Sayed Administration will lobby to change these laws and provide a level-playing field for all internet providers.

Alex Shephard, writing about the proposal for the New Republic, dubbed it a public option for the internet. "American politicians of every stripe," he wrote yesterday, "have long bemoaned the lack of high speed internet access across the country. Despite being the center of technological innovation for the past 60 years, average internet speeds in the United States lag behind those in South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and a host of European Union countries. Outside of big cities, high-speed internet access is often unavailable, which slows economic development and affects education." This is especially true in rural areas. And this is serious problem of economic concentration and monopoly. The industry "is highly concentrated-- many areas only have one internet service provider-- meaning that companies are not competing for customers in ways that push them to expand their networks. These companies have not, moreover, been incentivized by the federal government to expand their networks." Señor Trumpanzee signed an executive order that "ostensibly aimed to make it easier for internet companies to connect rural communities, but didn’t actually accomplish much of anything." Abdul El-Sayed is far better.

Without shareholders or the profit motive, research suggests that this public internet would result in lower costs for consumers. El-Sayed’s plan, moreover, would create a series of smaller internet companies-- rather than a large state monopoly-- so there is little reason to believe that another behemoth, which would in turn create costs to support its expansive overhead, would be created.

El-Sayed’s plan doesn’t just focus on rural communities-- although it’s likely they would benefit the most from such a plan. In Michigan, 40 percent of urban residents don’t have access to high-speed internet and the plan outlined on Monday includes funding to expand internet access in cities, where many last-mile connections have not been made.

Similar plans have worked in other places, albeit on a smaller scale. Chattanooga built its own municipal broadband service and subsequently experienced an economic boom. Unemployment dropped, wages grew, and manufacturers-- notably Volkswagen-- moved to the city. “We know that the wage rise is linked to internet jobs and particularly the technology sector,” the city’s mayor told The Tennessean in 2016.

“The internet is the highway of the 21st century,” El-Sayed said in a statement. “But too few have access because internet service monopolies have held universal internet hostage to their own profits. MI-Fi is our solution; publicly-owned broadband infrastructure can ensure that every household in rural and urban Michigan has the access they need to protect net neutrality in our state.”

Aside from being sensible, a public option for the internet has the added benefit of being politically beneficial for Democrats. Telecom companies have used their expanding market power to gouge consumers and provide subpar service for years. Running on providing better, cheaper internet access is also running against corporate concentration and monopoly power-- which is what congressional Democrats are aiming to do in 2018 in their “Better Deal.”

Paul Clements is running for Congress in southwest Michigan. He likes the idea-- a lot. "High speed internet is the telephone of the 21st century. Everyone needs it. In my discussions across the district this is a common demand from voters, and I've been saying for a long time that government needs to make sure everyone can get broadband service at a fair price. In Congress I will be happy to work with new Michigan Governor El-Sayed to help to implement his plan to break up monopoly providers and make public broadband available to everyone in Michigan."

Time To Ice ICE!

On Wednesday evening we talked about Randy Bryce’s powerful platform on immigration issues. One was a very controversial call to abolish ICE… something the DCCC advises its candidates to stay away from. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement was created just 15 years ago,” wrote the Bryce campaign, “and it is now time to rethink whether it is achieving its intended purpose. Rather than deporting immigrants who pose a risk to the nation’s security, ICE has grown power hungry, sucking up more and more federal resources and directing them towards the deportation of children and families, who are otherwise completely law-abiding. In 2017, the detention of immigrants with no criminal records more than doubled. Accordingly, Randy believes that ICE should be abolished, and Congress should explore which existing agency could best house immigration and customs enforcement, so that only those who pose a true threat to our country’s security face deportation.” This kind of bold, progressive leadership drives the DCCC institutionally insane. The DCCC doesn’t want independent-minded leaders like Bryce in Congress upsetting their tepid applecart.

Today, Alexandria Ocasio, the primary opponent of Joe Crowley, corrupt Queens County machine boss and one of the House Democrats leaders, went after ICE the same way Bryce did. She started by reprinting this letter from a donor who had grown disenchanted with the Democratic Party after then-DNC chair, Wasserman Schultz, was caught rigging the 2016 Democratic parimaries against Bernie:

“Let’s talk about this issue a little more,” continued Ocasio. “ICE was only established in 2003, in the same suite of legislation as the Patriot Act, the AUMF (authorizing war without Congressional approval), and the Iraq War. ICE was established as an enforcement agency ¨outside of the purview of the Justice Department”-- removing due process from our immigration proceedings. As such, ICE essentially operates without rigorous accountability

. “Across the country, ICE has established for-profit detention centers and their forces are invading our courtrooms, our buses, our local businesses, our homes, and our schools. They have thrown people into indefinite detention without due process.

“In a troubling development last week, the Trump administration ended a policy that exempted pregnant immigrant women from being detained in unregulated ICE facilities. That means ICE, which operates without oversight from the Justice Department, can now keep pregnant women in dangerous, unregulated, for-profit facilities.

“Our community, New York 14, is half immigrant. I take ICE issues very seriously because they seriously impact families in NY-14. ICE doesn’t belong in Corona. ICE doesn’t belong in Parkchester. ICE doesn’t belong in Jackson Heights. ICE doesn’t belong in New York. ICE doesn’t belong in any town or city in America, breaking up families without due process, accountability, or oversight. We must abolish ICE. And with your help, our campaign can win the Democratic primary in NY-14 and be the voice we need in Congress to end ICE’s impunity.”

Many Democrats who are starting to talk up about abolishing ICE were inspired by Sean McElwee’s column in The Nation last month, It’s Time to Abolish ICE. He point: “A mass-deportation strike force is incompatible with democracy and human rights.” He features three of Blue America’s strongest endorsees: Ocasio, Dan Canon (IN) and Kaniela Ing (HI).

Dan Canon is running for Congress in Indiana’s ninth district this year. A career civil-rights lawyer, Canon filed one of the cases against gay-marriage bans that eventually became the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges, and he proudly wore a Notorious RBG shirt under his suit to the Supreme Court. He is currently representing individuals suing Donald Trump for inciting violence at his rallies.

Canon has also defended clients swept up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, and fought a Kafkaesque deportation system that, at one point, wouldn’t even disclose the location of his client. Now Canon believes ICE should be abolished entirely.

“I don’t think a lot of people have any kind of direct experience with ICE, so they don’t really know what they do or what they’re about. If they did, they’d be appalled,” Canon told me. “ICE as it presently exists is an agency devoted almost solely to cruelly and wantonly breaking up families. The agency talks about, and treats, human beings like they’re animals. They scoop up people in their apartments or their workplaces and take them miles away from their spouses and children.”

The idea of defunding ICE has gained traction among immigrant-rights groups horrified by the speed at which, under President Donald Trump, the agency has ramped up an already brutal deportation process. Mary Small, policy director at Detention Watch Network, said, “Responsible policymakers need to be honest about the fact that the core of the agency is broken.” Her group led the charge to defund ICE with its #DefundHate campaign last year.

Groups like Indivisible Project and the Center for Popular Democracy have also called for defunding ICE. Brand New Congress, a progressive PAC, has the proposal in its immigration platform.

“ICE is terrorizing American communities right now,” said Angel Padilla, policy director of the Indivisible Project. “They’re going into schools, entering hospitals, conducting massive raids, and separating children from parents every day. We are funding those activities, and we need to use all the leverage we have to stop it.”

Though ICE abolition is spreading on the left, it quickly meets extreme skepticism elsewhere. In part, this is because the mainstream political discourse has a huge blind spot for the agency’s increasingly brutal policies. While elites have generally become concerned with rising authoritarianism, they have mainly ignored the purges ICE is conducting in immigrant communities. For example, in their recent book, How Democracies Die, Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky do not mention ICE at all. Centrist pundits like Jonathan Chait have dedicated thousands of words to the threat of “PC culture” on college campuses, but haven’t found time to question whether an opaque and racist deportation force might pose a larger threat to democracy than campus editorial pages.

…Obama, while he made pains to distinguish between “good” and “bad” immigrants, presided over aggressive deportation tactics in his first term in order to build support for a path to citizenship that never came.

The central assumption of ICE in 2018 is that any undocumented immigrant is inherently a threat. In that way, ICE’s tactics are philosophically aligned with racist thinkers like Richard Spencer and the writers at the white-supremacist journal VDare. ICE’s modus operandi under Trump bears a striking resemblance to the strategy proposed by white supremacist Jared Taylor in 2015:

The key, however, would be a few well publicized raids on non-criminal illegals. Television images of Mexican families dropped over the border with no more than they could carry would be very powerful. The vast majority of illegals would quickly decide to get their affairs in order and choose their own day of departure rather than wait for ICE to choose it for them. The main thing would be to convince illegals that ICE was serious about kicking them out. Ironically, the more ICE was prepared to do, the less it would have to do.

This is a near-perfect summary of ICE under acting director Thomas Homan, who has repeatedly made clear that all undocumented residents should be afraid of his agents. “You should look over your shoulder, and you need to be worried,” he boasted in his congressional testimony last year.

Homan does not apply any light touch when expressing his authoritarian tendencies. He has threatened to jail and prosecute local officials in so-called “sanctuary cities” that do not fully comply with ICE mandates. The agency has also clearly been targeting political opponents for deportations and has worked to deport individuals for speaking to media about ICE.

Homan’s authoritarian saber rattling has essentially been ignored in the mainstream political dialogue, but the candidates and activists I spoke with hear it loud and clear. So do the communities they represent.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is challenging Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th Congressional District, which covers part of the Bronx and Queens, told me she believes that “After a long and protracted history of sexual assault and uninvestigated deaths in ICE’s detention facilities, as well as the corrosive impact ICE has had on our schools, courts, and communities, it’s time to reset course.

” New York’s 14th district is among the most diverse and immigrant-heavy in the country. Ocasio-Cortez not only supports defunding ICE, but also wants a full congressional inquiry into ICE enforcement and detention practices. She further argues for a “a truth and reconciliation process for victims of any potential sexual assault, neglect, and misconduct discovered as a result.”

Kaniela Ing, a member of the Hawaii State Legislature currently running for the House in the state’s first district, has also endorsed defunding ICE, tweeting this week that “When they say defund Planned Parenthood (and destroy millions of lives), we say defund ICE (and save millions of lives).”

There is increasing support for limiting or even ending cooperation with ICE at the state level, too. Abdul El-Sayed, a gubernatorial candidate in Michigan, told me that he “will not waste a dime of state taxpayer money to enforce laws that would tear apart families-- and tear apart our economy.”

Jessica Ramos, who is running for a New York State Senate seat in Queens, has also endorsed defunding ICE. “Instead of making our communities safer, ICE has taught immigrants to fear and distrust law enforcement,” she said. “It’s absolutely time to defund the agency and start working on real, common-sense immigration reform.”

Ramos’s opponent in the primary, Jose Peralta, joined the Independent Democratic Caucus in the statehouse last year, which is a group of politicians who were elected as Democrats formed a power-sharing agreement with Republicans. He claimed this would position him to bring tuition benefits and protections to undocumented immigrants, but those benefits have not materialized, though he has gotten a nice pay raise thanks to the GOP.

The call to abolish ICE is, above all, a demand for the Democratic Party to begin seriously resisting an unbridled white-supremacist surveillance state that it had a hand in creating. Though the party has moved left on core issues from reproductive rights to single-payer health care, it’s time for progressives to put forward a demand that deportation be taken not as the norm but rather as a disturbing indicator of authoritarianism.

White supremacy can no longer be the center of the immigration debate. Democrats have voted to fully fund ICE with limited fanfare, because in the American immigration discussion, the right-wing position is the center and the left has no voice. There has been disturbing word fatigue around “mass deportation,” and the threat of deportation is so often taken lightly that many have lost the ability to conceptualize what it means. Next to death, being stripped from your home, family, and community is the worst fate that can be inflicted on a human, as many societies practicing banishment have recognized. It’s time to rein in the greatest threat we face: an unaccountable strike force executing a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Why Abdul El-Sayed In Michigan?

The Michigan primary is late in the season, August 7. Not that he could win again, unpopular incumbent current Governor Rick Snyder is term-limited out and it's likely a Democrat is going to win in November. But which Democrat. The establishment seems to be rallying around Gretchen Whitmer, former state Senate Minority Leader. Aside from EMILY's List, she's been endorsed by most of the state's conservative-leaning unions as well as a shit-load of moderate, establishment legislators There's also a progressive in the race, Abdul El-Sayed. He's been endorsed by local Bernie Sanders groups up and down the state, by the Michigan Nurses Association, the Justice Democrats and by one congressman-- Ro Khanna.

This morning, Rep. Khanna told us that "Abdul is setting the standard when it comes to progressive ideals and progressive policies. His policies on housing rights, on water rights, on Medicare for All, on rebuilding schools in the wake of Betsy DeVos, on getting the corporate money out of politics-- they are the future of progressive state leadership, and having visited Flint, his state needs him. His background rebuilding Detroit’s Health Department as a doctor speaks for itself. And his story as the son of Egyptian Immigrants raised by his father and stepmother from Michigan’s heartland is inspiring."

The top Republicans running, sound like a roster of unindicted co-conspirators in Snyder's crimes against the state-- Lt. Governor Brian Calley, state Senator Patrick Colbeck, and the heavily favored state Attoney General, Bill Schuette.

If Abdul, very much an underdog, wins, he'll be the first Muslim-American elected governor anywhere. Michiganders I know tell me his campaign is a real breath of fresh air compared with other candidates seeking statewide office who are all running much more timid, defensive campaigns, having learned all the wrong lessons folks from first Bernie and then Trump winning the state. Bernie beat Hillary in the primaries 595,222 (49.8%) to 576,795 (48.3%). And then Trump won the state's 16 crucial electoral votes-- with a little very targeted help from Vlad-- 2,279,805 (47.6%) to 2,268,193 (47.3%).

Abdul, a 33-year-old former Detroit health commissioner, is running on, among other things, a pitch perfect example of how to run on climate change. RL Miller, head of Climate Hawks Vote flat out reffered to his Climate Change plane as "a national model." Keep in mind that he had already released an environmental justice platform that includes

• completely rebuilding Michigan's water infrastructure and passing legislation mandating clean water for all
• a green infrastructure bank
• a progressive carbon tax
• opposition to new fossil fuel infrastructure
• shutting down the Lne 5 oil pipeline
• a ban on fracking
• increased funding for agencies cracking down on polluters
• a sustainable cities initiative

Last week Alex Kaufman, reporting for HuffPo, wrote about how Abdul is forcing Climate Change as an issue into the campaign. Abdul "remembers coughing up black phlegm each night after spending the day in the smog-choked markets of Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt, during summer visits to his grandparents, who were poor vegetable sellers. It was a jolting experience for a kid born and raised in a manicured Michigan suburb. Yet when El-Sayed started working as a doctor in Detroit years later, he realized pollution wasn’t just some distant problem. In the shadow of the Motor City’s infamous trash incinerator-- where some 650,000 tons of garbage is burned annually, much of it from the surrounding suburbs-- El-Sayed saw soaring rates of asthma and lung cancer in majority-black neighborhoods. That’s part of what inspired the 33-year-old physician to enter politics, first as Detroit’s top health official and now as a Democratic candidate for Michigan governor. "When we poison our air and water, we are poisoning people," he told Kaufman. "Nowhere is that more clear than the state of Michigan now. When you talk about Flint, when you talk about asthma, when you talk about Kent County."

“He doesn’t talk like consultants say to talk,” Sean McElwee, a progressive policy analyst and researcher who hosted El-Sayed at a gathering in New York last October, told HuffPost. “He combines the sort of populist energy people are excited about with Bernie with detailed knowledge of how to implement policy.”

El-Sayed’s proposal to set aside $105 million in his first state budget to establish an infrastructure bank that would fund renewable and energy-efficient projects is the “centerpiece” of his plan to “reinvest in the capital-stock of Michigan,” according to a campaign white paper. His administration would eventually ramp up the institution’s public funding to $1.5 billion, with plans to generate at least $4.5 billion in energy and clean water infrastructure investments over 15 years. The public-private institution, dubbed the Pure Michigan Bank, could generate $3.3 billion in private investment by 2030, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists report.

“We want to put Michigan on the path to 100 percent renewable energies,” El-Sayed said. “What we’d be able to do is empower innovative financing that addresses the insecurity of those kinds of big-picture infrastructure projects and empowers individuals to use those mechanisms.”

The bank would provide low-risk seven-year loans at 5 percent interest for energy-efficiency projects and similar 10-year loans for renewable-energy plans. It would also offer credits to low- and middle-income homeowners to invest in efficiency upgrades, small-scale solar installations and other clean energy projects.

 “We can’t just count on the free market to do it all by itself,” said William Lawrence, Michigan organizer for the climate campaign group Sunrise Movement. “We have to put public money behind this kind of infrastructure build-out and also create smart institutions like this infrastructure bank to get some of the private money flowing in the right direction.” (Sunrise endorsed El-Sayed for governor last month.)

The bank would operate independently of any state agency, reducing its vulnerability to funding cuts under a future administration. To help pay for it, El-Sayed has proposed instituting a carbon tax and diverting some of that revenue to the bank. Another option is to follow the model of Connecticut’s green infrastructure bank and impose a small ratepayer fee.

“The idea of creating an institution, capitalizing it and being designed in such a way that it’s likely to survive even if you have Rick Snyder 2.0 as governor, that’s appealing,” said Jeff Hauser, a veteran progressive Democratic operative, who was referring to the current Republican governor’s history of austerity cuts. “It’s intriguing to me that someone is thinking about how to create change that can entrench and build upon itself. That’s really key.”

It should be a popular platform among primary voters. Democratic voters in Michigan overwhelmingly support new rules raising fuel efficiency standards, giving the Environmental Protection Agency power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions and requiring a minimum amount of renewable energy in electricity generation even if that means a small price increase, according to 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies data provided by McElwee.

El-Sayed also wants a major public investment in clean drinking water. Michigan became the poster child for unsafe tap water four years ago when lead contamination in Flint turned into a long-running crisis and a national disgrace.

As a first step, El-Sayed said he would merge the state’s Department of Environmental Quality with its Department of Natural Resources and raise the combined agency’s budget to as much as $950 million a year. That would include restoring funds for the Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance to their 2006 levels of about $16 million a year. El-Sayed has suggested raising money for that budget by closing the state’s corporate tax exemptions and loopholes.

He has proposed spending at least $690 million annually to replace aging water pipes, which would create 13,800 jobs each year, his campaign has calculated based on data from the BlueGreen Alliance. To raise the money, he suggested issuing $600 million in bonds and passing a ballot proposal to expand the state’s Drinking Water Revolving Fund, which offers low-interest loans for up to 30 years to water suppliers. The ballot proposal would increase the fund’s available money from $36 million to $50 million by reallocating $14 million from the Department of Corrections budget. He also vowed to push the federal government for more funding.

El-Sayed distinguished himself on the issue of lead toxicity during his 2015-2017 tenure as Detroit’s Health Department chief, during which he tested all schools and child care facilities for lead contamination. His gubernatorial housing policy would expand on that, by using lead-abatement funds to help renters pay their legal defense in related landlord disputes and to perform full inspections and mitigation on all housing stock, and by fining building owners who don’t comply, as The Nation reported in January.

But it’s his plans for dealing with lead in drinking water supplies that have drawn the most local attention. El-Sayed has vowed to set stricter water quality standards by reducing the “action level” for lead, the threshold for government intervention, from 15 parts per billion to 5 parts per billion and pushing for legislation that bars public projects to replace pipes from only partially replacing lead pipes. Outside of urban areas, where wells for drinking water are more common, he has promised to crack down on agricultural pollution. The Detroit Metro Times called his proposal “the most comprehensive water plan of the gubernatorial race.”

Another key part of that plan is to protect universal access to water. In Detroit last year, the city began the controversial practice of shutting off water to nearly 18,000 residents who hadn’t paid their bills. El-Sayed has suggested a new tiered pricing system, which would force households that use more water to pay higher rates but would ensure that everyone in the state has basic access to clean water.

“Freshwater is going to become, and it’s quickly becoming, the most important resource in the world,” El-Sayed told HuffPost. “The fact that, as a state that’s surrounded by more freshwater than any place in the country, we can’t figure out how to allocate freshwater to folks in places like Flint and Detroit and protect that freshwater from being poisoned-- that’s a political failure.”

El-Sayed’s other major plan to protect water rests on decommissioning Line 5, a nearly 65-year-old pipeline that carries 23 million gallons of oil per day through the Straits of Mackinac, where lakes Huron and Michigan connect. The pipeline is operated by Enbridge, the Canadian company responsible for the second-largest inland oil spill in U.S. history, in the Kalamazoo River in 2010. A 2014 University of Michigan study concluded that the Straits of Mackinac are the “worst possible place for an oil spill in the Great Lakes.” A single spill there could pollute more than 700 miles of shoreline, according to a 2016 University of Michigan study.

Environmentalists have campaigned for years to shut down Line 5, but Enbridge has cultivated key allies in Snyder and Heidi Grether, director of the Department of Environmental Quality-- who is herself a former oil industry lobbyist. In November, the governor struck an agreement with Enbridge to replace one section of the pipeline. In January, Snyder rejected a recommendation from Michigan’s Pipeline Safety Advisory Board to close the pipeline immediately. Enbridge spent nearly $2.4 million on U.S. congressional lobbying in 2017, more than double its 2016 total. That included lobbying on a federal bill affecting Line 5.

Because he swore off all donations from fossil fuel companies, El-Sayed’s supporters argue that as governor, he would be insulated from the influence of Enbridge and its industry advocates. El-Sayed is one of the first major Democratic candidates to take the pledge against accepting fossil fuel money that’s being pushed by Sanders and progressive groups such as 350.org.

The pledge is “not as material as the other proposals we’re talking about on the table, but ... it’s a very clear way to show where he stands,” said Lawrence, the Sunrise organizer. “He’ll actually follow through on his proposals on Election Day.”

And, of course, it certainly isn't just climate he's good on, and better than any of his opponents. He started his campaign running on a strong pro-immigrant platform and connecting with working families on the bread and butter issues that dominate the race. He has a simple, straight forward 20-point program on his website for Michigan voters to use to make a decision on whether or not they want to move their state forward. No need to vote for a pig in a poke in this race!

• Fight inequality in all forms
• Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour
• Implement state-level single-payer healthcare
• Protect a woman’s right to choose and eliminate the gender pay gap
• Never accept a dime of corporate money and get the money out of politics
• Rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges
• Make college tuition free for families earning under $150K & Reinvest in public education
• End the profit motive in public education
• Reform auto insurance to reduce costs while protecting people
• Fund and implement universal Pre-Kindergarten
• Amend civil rights legislation to enumerate protections from LGBTQ+ Michiganders
• Reform our criminal justice system & tackle mass incarceration and police violence
• Aggressive action on climate, environmental justice, and no new fossil fuel infrastructure
• Legalize marijuana
• Fight for clean water for all and shut down Enbridge’s Line 5
• Tackle the opioid epidemic through comprehensive mental health reform
• Stand with labor to end Right to Work and protect Prevailing Wage
• Provide high-speed broadband internet to every community in Michigan and protect net neutrality
• Support child and elderly care for Michiganders
• End gerrymandering and legislative term limits and reinstate FOIA for public officials

It sure isn't a Trump agenda-- or a consultant-driven careerist agenda. If you want to see it implemented, please consider tapping on the thermometer above and contribute what you can.