How Out Of Step Is Biden With His Own Party? More Than You Might Guess

The Challengers by Nancy Ohanian

A new Langer poll for ABC News and the Washington Post shows that 86% of Democrats approve of Biden's pick of Kamala Harris as his running mate-- and so do most independents and even 25% of Republicans. This morning's CBS News Battleground Tracker has the Biden/Harris ticket with 279 electoral votes to Trump/Pence's 163. Even if Trump wins all the undecided votes-- he won't; Biden leads in all of them-- he would still lose, since they make up 96 electoral votes, not enough to put him over the hump. And the new Marist poll for NPR and PBS today shows Trump/Pence losing to Biden/Harris by a very wide margin-- 11 points, in a 53-42% rout. That said, my interest in party conventions ended in 1964 when I went to Atlantic City, sweet 16, to cheer on LBJ. Can you recognize which one is me?

And convention platforms are of barely more interest to me than the conventions-- all meaningless show. Platforms get shelved the moment a president is elected-- if not sooner. A lot of friends of mine are delegates to this year's convention and have been working hard-- and in good faith-- on the platform. One of them slipped me this information over the weekend. It's kind of subversive inasmuch as it shows Biden consistently and significantly out of step on the top issues of the day with his own party's elected delegates. And Ro Khanna wasn't the only delegate to vote against a platform that was railroaded through by Biden campaign honchos despite not representing the values of most Democrats:

Although the majority of delegates were elected on Biden's ticket, they are more progressive than he is on the issues. "It is common for the media," wrote the authors of the document, "to portray the Sanders’ supporter as reaching for 'pie in the sky' and the Biden supporter as nostalgic for a simpler time and dedicated to incremental solutions. The truth is that taken as a whole, the actual participants to the 2020 Democratic Convention believe in big ideas. We are absolutely unified in the mission of getting Trump out of office. This part is clear without needing a survey. But we are also in strong agreement when it comes to the issues of healthcare, climate crisis, education access, and election integrity. The precursor to this survey was an investigation of every state’s Democratic Party platform on the same four issues, which showed strong support for Medicare for All, Green New Deal, College for All, and Fair Elections, within the Democratic Party across the country."

We felt a survey was necessary to further investigate because we could see that the platform committee of 2020 was not bringing the biggest, most urgent solutions to the table for a vote. When we started the survey, we were not sure what the results would show, but we suspected exactly what we found to be true: across each of the four topics we polled, enough Biden delegates agreed with the Sanders delegates such that the delegation as a whole has a strong preference for bold, progressive solutions.

On the issue of healthcare, when the data was weighted across all of the pledged delegates (based on the current proportions of delegates), 75.1% of the delegates support Medicare for All, and 75.3% support Single-Payer.

On the Climate Crisis, 84.7% of the delegation supports a 10 year mobilization, and 78.9% support the Green New Deal.

On education access, 87.0% of the delegation supports cancellation of student debt, and 77.6% support tuition free college.

When it comes to elections, 71.9% of the delegation support Rank Choice voting, 90.3% support election audits, and 73.2% oppose party interference in primary elections. The following pages and graphs tell the full story of the opinions of the 2020 Delegation.

HEALTHCARE

When asked to react to the statement, “American should be able to access public coverage through a public option, and those over 55 should be able to opt in to Medicare.” 85.5% agree (either strongly or somewhat) with this statement, and 54.2% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We should support a comprehensive single-payer, government-run insurance system that eliminates all copays and deductibles, is not tied to employment, and does not require payment at the point of service.” 75.3% agree with this statement, and 48.6% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We should support expanding the current healthcare system to Medicare for All that is comprehensive in its coverage.” 75.2% agree with this statement, and 52.1% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to rank their preference of the three statements, 58.5% of delegates rank either Single-Payer or Medicare for All as their first choice solution.

Environment

When asked to react to the statement, “We must be committed to getting 50 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources within a decade, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions more than 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.” 82.4% agree with this statement, and 60.4% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We must achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers and should be accomplished through a 10-year national mobilization.” 84.7% agree with this statement, and 62.3% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “Recognizing the scientific research that climate change is driven by human activity, we must support a Green New Deal that explicitly cares for fossil fuel states and workers.” 79.0% agree with this statement, and 61.1% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to rank their preference of the three statements, 61.5% of delegates rank Rapid Transition/Green New Deal as their first choice solution.

EDUCATION

When asked to react to the statement, “Every student should be able to go to college debt-free. Those who currently have student debt should be able to refinance their loans at the lowest rates possible.” 69.5% agree with this statement, and 41.9% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We should eliminate existing student loan debt and eliminate predatory student loan practices.” 87.0% agree with this statement, and 59.5% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We should call for free education to extend through public college or university and vocational/technical schools.” 77.6% agree with this statement, and 59.9% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to rank their preference of the three statements, 67.3% of delegates rank Cancel Student Debt/Tuition Free-College as their first choice solution.

Before I was sent the full document, another delegate had sent me just one table, one table because she knew it was an issue I've been carrying on about since Rahm Emanuel took over the DCCC and Chuck Schumer took over the DSCC-- the ability of corporate money-obsessed party bosses to fix primaries-- up and down the ballot-- for candidates in their own craven, corrupt images. Most Democrats don't like it either. The document noted that "When asked to react to the statement, 'Organizations using the Democratic name, such as the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC, should not interfere in state and local elections by making endorsements prior to a primary election because doing so creates the appearance of an unlevel playing field while the party is committed to maintaining impartiality.' 73.2% agree with this statement, and 68.6% believe the language is appropriate." Damned shame it won't mean a damned thing-- just like the rest of the platform, convention and sentiment of the Democratic grassroots. Keep repeating to yourself: "Biden is better than Trump. Biden is better than Trump, Biden is better than Trump... Trump is Satan."

This morning's CBS News poll asked Democrats (only) if they wanted or didn't want to hear from 11 people at the party convention scheduled to begin tomorrow. In order of how much excitement each speaker drew:

• Barack Obama- 92%
• Joe Biden- 91%
• Kamala Harris- 91%
• Michelle Obama- 88%
• Elizabeth Warren- 72%
• Bernie- 68%
• Nancy Pelosi- 65%
• AOC- 63%
• Hillary Clinton- 58% (with 42% opposed to her having a speaking slot)
• Bill Clinton- 56% (with 44% opposed to him having a speaking slot)
• John Kasich- 38% (with a resounding 62% opposed to him having a speaking slot)

One more little, tiny note for those who have come this far: Two years after I, all rosy-cheeked and innocent, was waving that handmade LBJ sign on the Atlantic City boardwalk, I was in jail for burning my draft card, dropping out of school and slamming heroin because I was obsessed and out of my mind about America killing innocent Vietnamese women and children and, soon after, moving abroad. "Hey, Hey LBJ... how many kids have you killed today?" And LBJ, you know, was much, much better than Biden... in every conceivable way.

Democrats Adopt Fossil Fuel Industry’s Plan On Climate During Highly Choreographed Platform Meeting

-by John Laesch

While there were some small wins by the Sanders representatives on the Democratic Platform, it remains far from the, “most progressive platform ever” as toted by the party. Unfortunately, I also saw the Democratic Party fail future generations when they adopted the fossil fuel industry’s plans to “mitigate” the climate crisis. Furthermore, the Biden representatives voted down multiple progressive platform pieces that might have moved voters to the polls in November. You can watch the entire 5-hour meeting here

WHAT AMENDMENTS...

Despite the organized process on camera, behind the curtain, the process was very undemocratic including the fact that platform members received information at the very last-minute, or not at all. I logged onto the virtual meeting an hour early as instructed by the DNC. The 200+ amendments that we were supposed to vote on were still not available to platform committee members. I sent an e-mail to the DNC secretary to see if it would be uploaded to the portal or to determine if I was doing something incorrectly. By 12:30, half an hour before the meeting started, I noticed that the platform amendments had been uploaded. I downloaded, printed, and started reading.

There were two categories of amendments. The bulk of amendments were listed under, “The Chair’s Amendments” and included almost 200 amendments that both campaigns agreed upon. I didn’t see any of my proposed amendments here.

The other category of amendments listed as “Amendments for consideration” were the amendments that would be discussed and actually voted on. I didn’t see my proposed amendments here either.

My primary amendment challenged the use of tax subsidies for fossil fuel companies that extracted the dirtiest and hardest to reach oil. I had submitted a total of 9 amendments on climate. Four of the nine were an effort to strip Democratic support for the fossil fuel industry’s plan that focuses on carbon capture and storage. I want to give credit to fellow climate activists, June Sekera and RL Miller for helping draft language and amendments. The primary amendment I was fighting for read:

I move to amend page 46, line 20 to bring back and improve upon a sentence from the 2016 Democratic Platform, “Democrats believe the tax code must reflect our commitment to a clean energy future by eliminating special tax breaks and subsidies for fossil fuel companies, including any tax subsidies for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), carbon capture and storage (CCS) or direct air capture (DAC).

The problem of course was that the Biden people didn’t want a public debate over climate; they wanted unity. My concern over a Biden administration advancing Enhanced Oil Recovery to mitigate the climate crisis is that it would be like Donald Trump trying to solve the Coronavirus crisis without masks, testing or social distancing. CCS coupled with EOR will produce more carbon, not less. For the moment I want to return to my account of the platform committee meeting.

Wheeling, Dealing & coercing TO DROP AMENDMENTS

Around 9:00 AM the morning before the platform meeting a Sanders staffer called and was pressing me to once again drop my amendments. This was the third of such calls and this time she amped up the Biden threats. If we didn’t drop these amendments, the Biden people would pull more progressive measures from the platform that we had successfully negotiated. Her final offer was an opportunity to speak for 2-3 minutes, but only if I dropped the amendments. I rejected that offer and said that I would prefer a “moral defeat” and an actual vote. Even though I did not drop my amendments, someone made the decision to break DNC rules and just dropped the amendments anyway. Apparently other platform members had accepted speaking opportunities in exchange for dropping their amendments.

The most moving speaker was Patrisse Cullors, who became a community organizer with Black Lives Matter because police beat and abused her mentally disabled brother, Monty. Patrisse in her speech expressed the thrill of being on the platform committee as an opportunity to fundamentally change things and give black people a stronger voice in the platform, but then she openly called out party leaders for ignoring her recommendations. “Unfortunately, I learned that all my recommendations made by and for families like mine from across the country had been rejected.”

Other platform committee members who made speeches in exchange for pulling their amendments included Peter Rickman, a union leader from Wisconsin and Ryan Dietsch, a Parkland student who survived the mass shooting and still suffers from PTSD.

MORAL DEFEAT TIMES THREE

What was interesting is that the Biden camp used some of the Sanders’ “moral defeats” to send a strong message to their corporate donors that there was no danger of the American people taking back their government under a Biden administration.

Defeat #1: Healthcare

Climate wasn’t the only top issue on the chopping block. Several amendments to healthcare were voted down from Medicare for All, Expanded Medicare for Children, A Public Option, and even Individual States to make their own determination on a public option.

Dr. Abdul El Sayed and Michael Lighty, the former political director of the National Nurses Union, advanced several unsuccessful proposals to add Medicare for All into the Democratic Platform. It was all theater and when I called Lighty to hear the back story, he said that there was real hope that the Biden campaign would advance a state single payer plank as part of the Chair’s Amendments.

According to Lighty there was significant dialogue over content leading up to the morning of the platform meeting, but support was pulled at the last minute. Corporate healthcare lobbyists have been fighting single-payer healthcare for decades and their financial investment in the Democratic Party is no secret.

The defeat of Medicare for All also guaranteed that the 2020 Democratic Party Platform is indeed not the most progressive in American History. According to a recent article by The Nation Magazine, the 1972 Democratic Party Platform took a very bold position on healthcare that read, “establish a system of universal National Health Insurance which covers all Americans with a comprehensive set of benefits including preventive medicine, mental and emotional disorders, and complete protection against catastrophic costs, and in which the rule of free choice for both provider and consumer is protected. The program should be federally-financed and federally-administered.” Almost 5 decades later, the Democrat’s platform like their party continues to move towards a corporate state.

Defeat #2: Palestine

The second moral defeat that seemed staged was a wink and nod to wealthy Democratic donors that a Biden presidency would not change a thing with respect to foreign policy in the Middle East. Amendment 331611 acknowledged human rights abuses and the continued occupation of Palestinian territory by Israel, but it was defeated by a vote of 34-117 with 5 abstentions.

The Sanders supporters and a few Justice-oriented Biden supporters voted in favor of the amendment that was presented by Clem Belanoff, a veteran platform member who also served in 2016. To counter Clem’s powerful presentation that used the words of both Barack Obama and former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sheron, the Biden team used two speakers. One was the Hillary Clinton 2016 whip, Wendy Sherman. The other was Dan Shapiro. The point is that team Biden got two people to speak against the amendment and only Clem was allowed to speak in favor of the amendment.

Defeat #3: Cannabis

The third moral defeat was a vote on legalizing marijuana at the federal level. Several other platform committee members later told me that this vote had more to do with Biden’s personal views on marijuana. Several Biden representatives voted in favor of the amendment that was presented by Dennis Obdusky from Colorado. Amendment 58848 failed by a vote of 50 - yes, 106 – no and 3 abstentions.

Better than Trump though

AN IMAGE OF UNITY ON ISSUES OF RACE AND CLIMATE

While the Biden people welcomed the opportunity to publicly shoot down language on healthcare and human rights they knew that they couldn’t paint a picture of disunity throughout the entire meeting. One of the places where they sought to push unity was climate, and one of the proposals that was initially suggested by RL Miller did help improve the platform language. It was more of a technical fix than a substantive change, but the high-profile introduction of the amendment by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave the impression that this was a unified progressive platform. The original draft platform read:

Democrats will immediately rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and convene a world summit aimed at new and more ambitious global targets to reduce carbon pollution.

The amended language read:

Democrats will immediately rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, commit the United States to doing its fair share and leading the world in the effort to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and convene a world summit aimed at new and more ambitious global targets to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

After the amendment was introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sunrise Movement leader Varshini Prakash spoke in favor of the amendment. It passed unanimously and gave the impression that progressives were making real milestones in advancing the Democratic Party Platform on the topic of climate.

The reality is that the amendments that really changed things were dropped or watered down.

BACK TO CLIMATE AND WHY CCS + EOR ARE THE WRONG DIRECTION

The fossil fuel industry has been purposely misleading the public on the topic of global warming since scientists started talking about it back in the 70’s. The most comprehensive body of research that I have read on the topic has been produced by investigative journalist, Amy Westervelt in her podcast, “Drilled.” She documents how the fossil fuel industry used countless op-ads, misleading research and paid media to convince the public that global warming is a hoax even while they were planning to build offshore oil rigs that accommodated for rising sea levels.

After decades of denial, the fossil fuel company is now coming up with their “solution” to global warming. It is commonly referred to as carbon capture and storage. They are using the same communication tactics that they used to mislead the American public for the last 40 years. If you google “carbon capture” you will find a host of fake environmental groups advocating for CCS. They have put a number of pro-fossil fuel scientists in front of a camera talking about how great CCS will be. The Carbon Capture Coalition is a fossil fuel organization that used to be called the National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative that has been advancing CCS, tax credits and direct cash incentives for companies that capture and store carbon. Some environmental groups are even starting to embrace CCS even though it is relatively new, requires substantial energy to capture carbon, and very little research has been done to prove that it will efficiently remove carbon from the air.

The coalition and other CCS proselytizers have slipped language into bi-partisan spending bills that create 45Q tax credits that incentivize capturing carbon, enhanced oil recovery, and storing carbon underground. But there has been little accountability and/or oversight for companies that have claimed the tax credit. In May of this year, Senator Bob Menedez (D-NJ) got the IRS Inspector General to look into how or whether tax credit claimants were documenting their claimed CO2 storage. The IG found that most were not. The oil companies who took $1 billion in carbon capture tax credits under the “45Q” tax credit program neglected to document actual storage for $900 million of the tax credits they took. How is this not another blank-check bailout?

For those who are new to the CCS/EOR debate. Enhanced Oil Recovery is a process that oil companies have perfected over the past 30 years. I’m oversimplifying the technical aspects, but basically, they use water and CO2 to push more oil out of the ground. Normal drilling operations leave about 25% of the oil in the ground and EOR is a very expensive way to extract the last 25%. To make the process profitable, oil companies need federal subsidies. They found a way to justify the subsidies by using captured carbon from power plants to access cheap CO2. Now they are selling this approach to congress and the general public as something that will mitigate the climate crisis. It won’t even come close.

A review of the scientific literature by June Sekera has revealed that CCS/EOR generates more carbon than it removes. Plus, it does not reduce the amount in the atmosphere because, with this smokestack capture method, you can never bury more than you capture coming out of the smokestacks. Under the most optimistic of assumptions, and if the CO2 is simply stored and not sold for re-use, the best that CCS smokestack capture could possibly do is slow down the rate at which emissions are adding to the stock of CO2 in the atmosphere. Another reason that this plan will fail is because we don’t have a large-enough capacity to remove a meaningful amount of carbon with mechanical means. Operating at a climate-significant level would require as much infrastructure and pipelines as now exist for the oil and gas industry. And, even then, you’re not reducing atmospheric CO2, you’re just slowing its buildup, and even that’s not certain.

Another term that you need to become familiar with is Direct Air Capture (DAC). This mechanical-chemical method of carbon capture uses enormous fans to suck in air and then uses thermochemical processes to separate out the co2. A few DAC startup companies have been launched with money from venture capitalists and oil companies. Bill Gates has put money into one of these DAC businesses. The 45Q tax break also subsidizes DAC.

A Harvard scientist who’s been engaged in the Bill Gates-funded project, David Keith, was quoted laying out the vision for their DAC company, Carbon Engineering. A 2011 Fortune Magazine article described their business plan: the company would to build its first carbon-capture plants in places where there is cheap gas, cheap labor, cheap land, and ideally, a strong demand for CO2. Keith said: "If we can find all of those at once, we’re printing money.” This makes me wonder why organized labor is advocating so hard for DAC plants.

As it turns out, the company has partnered with Occidental Petroleum to build a DAC plant in the Permian Basin in Texas in order to do enhanced oil recovery. The business plan for this partnership relies on a variety of public subsidies for carbon capture. It also relies on a high price of oil, since the process is extraordinarily expensive, and given the recent price implosion, the planned operation and promised jobs may not materialize.

The huge fans and thermochemical processes for DAC require an enormous amount of energy and some have proposed using solar panels to power the fans and “make the process green.” Scientists have estimated that scaling the DAC process to remove 1 gigaton of CO2 would require 3,500 Twh of energy, which equates to nearly all the electricity generated in the United States in 2017. So let me get this straight. Instead of shutting down the coal plants and powering peoples’ homes directly with solar energy we are going to build massive solar farms to capture carbon that power plants still produce? How is this sane?

The land required is also extraordinary. To remove just 1 gigaton of CO2 would require a land area ten (10) times the size of Delaware. This estimate is based on information in a 2019 report by the National Academies of Sciences. (And this does not count the land area required for pipelines to transport of the captured CO2 or the tremendous underground space needed for geologic storage.)

So we cover large swaths of land with solar panels to remove 1 Gt of carbon. This is like draining an Olympic-sized swimming pool with a straw; consider that the United States produces 5 Gt of carbon per year and global CO2 production is 37 Gt. This has to be the most ludicrous idea ever presented by the techno-utopians who miss the obvious, straightforward solutions. Instead consider a simple three-pronged approach that better utilizes taxpayer money to benefit working families and the environment.

• Prong one involves incentivizing and mandating energy efficient commercial and residential building standards and renovations. We also need to move quickly to electric vehicles or carbon free transportation.
• Prong two involves keeping fossil fuels in the ground and pursuing alternative energy like solar and wind and integrating them into an improved power grid as rapidly as possible.
• Prong three involves using foreign trade agreements to leverage changes in other heavy carbon-producing countries like India and China.

These three prongs are oversimplified and of course there are other excellent ideas that need to be part of the discussion, like a carbon tax to pay for the aggressive changes that are needed to address the climate crisis.

Like Patrisse I thought that we would have a real, substantive discussion on climate. Below are the other amendments that I proposed that were dropped without my consent. All of them were designed to move the country in the right direction on climate. Unfortunately, we are going to have to find a new strategy.

I Move to Amend page 45, Line 36 to exclude the words, “and carbon capture and storage.”

To replace the words on page 48, line 25, “direct air capture and net negative emissions technologies” with the words, “and technologies that support and enhance proven biological methods of carbon drawdown and sequestration.”

To amend the words on page 48, line 27 to read, “including requirements that industries utilize carbon capture and sequestration that permanently stores greenhouse gases without prior utilization for enhanced oil recovery.”

As we approach this critical election it is important that Democrats be the party of climate scientists, not oil profiteers. That we be the voice of reason in healthcare coverage as many lose their jobs and insurance during this pandemic.

Thanksgiving Message-- By Bernie... And Andrew Perez

I don't have the impression that most Democratic political leaders have a clear program for going forward as a nation. Republicans, though  do. The conservatives' vision is dystopian but they never take their eye off their goals. Obsessive money-greed does that to people. It's a problem. Bernie penned a Thanksgiving OpEd that was picked up by the Washington Post today, and that seeks to solve that problem. Below are some excerpts-- lol, nearly the whole thing, as it turns out. Please read 'em... and if you like them, click here-- and do your thing.

It is not good enough for Democrats to just be the anti-Trump party. If they want to keep and expand their majority in the House, take back the Senate and win the White House, Democrats must show the American people that they will aggressively stand up and fight for the working families of this country-- black, white, Latino, Asian American or Native American, men and women, gay or straight. This means addressing the crisis of a broken criminal-justice system and reforming inhumane immigration policies. But it also means fighting to expand a middle class that has been disappearing for more than 40 years, reducing inequality in both income and wealth-- which has disproportionately hurt African Americans and Hispanics-- and aggressively combating climate change, the most urgent threat facing our planet.

Twenty-three years ago, after the Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in four decades, House Republicans led by Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) passed a series of bills through the House that had been on their wish list for years. Their guide was the so-called Contract with America, a radical right-wing agenda full of tax breaks for the wealthy, massive cuts to programs vital to working families, and racist and cruel bills to “reform” welfare and our criminal-justice system.

While I strongly disagree with Gingrich on virtually every issue, the House Democratic leadership should take a page from his playbook by passing a bold agenda through the House. Starting on the first day of the new Congress, the Democratic leadership in the House, supported by their colleagues in the Senate, should be just as bold in passing an agenda that reflects the needs of working Americans-- centered on economic, political, social, racial and environmental justice.

Specifically, during the first 100 days, Congress must pass a legislative agenda that includes:

Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour and indexing it to median wage growth thereafter. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage that must be increased to a living wage — at least $15 an hour. This would give more than 40 million Americans a raise and would generate more than $100 billion in higher wages throughout the country.

A path toward Medicare-for-all. The Medicare-for-all bill widely supported in the Senate has a four-year phase-in period on the way to guaranteeing health care for every man, woman and child. Over the first year, it would lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55, cover dental, hearing and vision care for seniors, provide health care to every young person in the United States and lower the cost of prescription drugs.

Bold action to combat climate change. The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it clear we have just 12 years to substantially cut the amount of carbon in our atmosphere, or our planet will suffer irreversible damage. Congress must pass legislation that shifts our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and renewable energy. We can lead the planet in combating climate change and, in the process, create millions of good paying jobs.

Fixing our broken criminal-justice system. We must end the absurdity of the United States having more people in jail than any other country on Earth. We must invest in jobs and education for our young people, not more jails and incarceration.

Comprehensive immigration reform. The American people want to protect the young people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and to move toward comprehensive immigration reform for the more than 11 million people in our country who are undocumented. And that’s exactly what we should do.

Progressive tax reform. At a time of massive and growing inequality in both income and wealth, Congress must pass legislation which requires wealthy people and large corporations to begin paying their fair share of taxes. It is unacceptable that there are large, extremely profitable corporations in this country that do not pay a nickel in federal income taxes.

A $1 trillion infrastructure plan. Every day, Americans drive to work on potholed roads and crumbling bridges, and ride in overcrowded buses and subways. Children struggle to concentrate in overcrowded classrooms. Workers are unable to find affordable housing. The structures that most Americans don’t see are also in disrepair-- from spotty broadband and an outdated electric grid, to toxic drinking water and dilapidated levees and dams. Congress should pass a $1 trillion infrastructure plan to address these needs while creating up to 15 million good-paying jobs in the process.

Lowering the price of prescription drugs. Americans pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs because, unlike other countries, the United States doesn’t directly regulate the price of medicine. The House should pass legislation to require Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices and allow patients, pharmacists and wholesalers to purchase low-cost prescription drugs from Canada and other countries. It should also pass legislation to make sure that Americans don’t pay more for prescription drugs than citizens do in other major countries.

Making public colleges and universities tuition-free and substantially reducing student debt. In a highly competitive global economy, we must have the best-educated workers in the world. Every young person in America, regardless of income, must have the opportunity to receive the education they need to get a decent job and make it into the middle class. The House should pass the College for All Act to make public colleges and universities tuition-free and substantially reduce student debt.

Expanding Social Security. When 1 out of 5 seniors is trying to get by on less than $13,500 a year, we must expand Social Security so that every American can retire with dignity and security. The House should pass legislation to expand Social Security benefits and extend its solvency for the next 60 years by requiring that the wealthiest Americans-- those making more than $250,000 a year-- pay their fair share of Social Security taxes.

Here is the bottom line: Instead of us having a Congress that listens to wealthy campaign contributors, it is about time we had a Congress fighting to create an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just those on top.

Atmospheric CO2 Jumps +4 ppm in June Compared to June 2015

Graphic showing global warming from 1850–2016. Notice the rapid outward spiral near the end (source).

by Gaius Publius

A climate note, to add some perspective to the "very encouraging" or "just in the margins" changes to the Democratic platform, as you prefer to see them.

Last April we noted this — "Atmospheric CO2 Is Rising Off the Chart — Spikes Above 409 ppm on April 10". That number, 409 ppm CO2, was from the daily chart at Mauna Loa, one of the main stations measuring atmospheric CO2. (There's also an hourly chart, a weekly chart and a monthly chart, all showing mean measurements over a stated time period.)

Here's what the hourly chart showed then:

Preliminary weekly (red line), monthly (blue line) and daily (black points) atmospheric CO2 averages at Mauna Loa for the last year (my annotation; source; click to enlarge)

This shows that for April 10, 2016, the daily average atmospheric CO2 was above 410 ppm. In contrast, consider that as recently as 2013 the daily average peaked above 400 ppm for the first time in recorded history and the monthly average was just a hair short at 399.76 ppm.

The monthly data is now in for May and June of this year (monthly peaks are always in May), and the chart below shows that data:

Recent monthly mean CO2 (red line) and the trend (blue line). Source NOAA; h/t Kees van der Leun.

A quick summary of this year's atmospheric CO2 vs. last year's measurement:

Daily mean CO2 at peak, 2015 — 404.63 ppm
Daily mean CO2 at peak, 2016 — 409.34 ppm
Difference — 4.71 ppm

Monthly mean CO2, June 2015 — 402.80 ppm
Monthly mean CO2, June 2016 — 406.81 ppm
Difference — 4.01 ppm

Increase in atmospheric CO2 varies from year to year based on a number of factors. CO2 isn't just pumped into the air; it's also extracted from the air by a number of natural processes (dissolved into the ocean, extracted by plant photosynthesis, and so on). Volcanic activity and the temperature of the ocean are also factors. So there's no guarantee this rate will continue. On the other hand, we could be at the start of a spiraling-out-of-control period.

That said, the average increase in CO2 over the ten-year period ending in 2014 was +2.11 ppm. Over the prior ten-year period, the average increase was +1.87 ppm. The increase this year — +4 ppm — blows those numbers out of the water.

A Simple Calculation

Consider a simple calculation. Most governments that try to show they are interested in ending man-made CO2 emissions have "exit rates" — rates at which humans go to zero emissions — which nonetheless have us increasing emissions as late as 2050. The underlying assumption is that if we start the count at 400 ppm in 2014 (per the monthly chart at the above), then add +2.11 ppm per year, we don't get to 450 ppm for roughly 20-25 years (allowing for modest acceleration in the growth rate). But if atmospheric CO2 growth suddenly zooms to +4 ppm/year starting with this year's 406 ppm, we're at 450 ppm in 11 years.

Eleven years from now is 2027, and 450 ppm is a game-over scenario. Partly because global warming will have shot well past +2°C, producing enough social, political, economic and military chaos to make a global solution impossible; and partly because if we haven't stopped Exxon et al before then, we never will, and the process will go to termination. That is, we won't stop until we're once more pre-industrial, or worse.

Climate Destruction and the Democratic Convention

And that's what's at issue in the Democratic Party's lack of commitment to end (not reduce the rate of, but end) global warming. The degree to which Hillary Clinton, or any Democratic Party official, serves the interests of Exxon and the frackers who finance their campaigns, is the degree to which she and the rest of us doom our grandchildren to go ungently indeed into a very warm, very long, civilization-ending night. With the lights turned off.

For more on that platform fight and its importance, read this:

Democratic Party Platform 7/1/16 Draft Would Lock In Catastrophic Climate Change

The title is the bottom line.

GP
 

Does A System Forcing A Choice Between A Trump And A Clinton Deserve Your Participation?

This is a real thing

There was a little brouhaha on Friday over Bernie supposedly telling CNN's Chris Cuomo that he wants a position in Hillary's administration. He doesn't. He's pushing for his policy positions-- not a position for himself. I don't want to see Donald Trump as president. And I don't want to see Hillary Clinton as president either. Unlike Bernie, I have no intention of voting for either one of them. Having known her personally and having watched her career unfold over the decades, I have no doubt that she's the wrong person for the presidency-- despite how unfit and utterly contemptible Trump is. Yes, he's worse than her. But, as I've said endlessly, the lesser of two evils, is still evil.

I'm pretty sure she's going to be president and, like everyone, I'll be glad that she shatters the ultimate glass ceiling for women. That means something; it means a lot. But, after that, every decision she makes will be a nightmare, starting with her personnel decisions. Friday the Platform Committee sessions ended in acrimony when the Clinton and Wasserman Schultz appointees blocked attempts to stop the TPP and to strengthen the party's position on a $15 minimum wage (watch the video below). AFSCME's Paul Booth, a penultimate party hack and Clinton appointee, helped kill the strong $15 minimum wage proposal. Yeah, AFSCME is a kind of union. I wonder if their members know Hank Paulson, Bush's Mr. TARP, has hopped into bed with them to make Clinton president.



At this point one can only imagine what kind of human garbage she has in mind for cabinet positions. Remember Victoria Nuland, the longtime neocon aide to Dick Cheney who seamlessly moved into Hillary's state department and who engineered the coup in Ukraine, putting in place a rouge's gallery of fascists and neo-nazis? She's rumored to be a top contender for secretary of state. Another victory for... feminism?

And if Nuland makes it into the cabinet, she's not going to be the only monstrosity-as-bad-as-anything-Trump-would-pick in there. Wall Street has already paid in advance for the Treasury Secretary position. Larry Fink (of BlackRock) has been rumored to be in position for the job. And nightmare rumors of her cabinet picks include Michele Flournoy as Secretary of Defense. It would be hard to find anyone worse. Glenn Greenwald:

Flournoy, the former Defense Department official whom Defense One calls “the woman expected to run the Pentagon under Hillary Clinton,” this week advocated for “sending more American troops into combat against ISIS and the Assad regime than the Obama administration has been willing to commit.” In an interview with that outlet, Flournoy “said she would direct U.S. troops to push President Bashar al-Assad’s forces out of southern Syria and would send more American boots to fight the Islamic State in the region.” She had previously “condemned the Obama administration’s ISIS policy as ineffectual,” denouncing it as “under-resourced.”

This week, Flournoy specifically advocated what she called “limited military coercion” to oust Assad. In August 2014, Obama announced what he called “limited airstrikes in Iraq”-- and they’re still continuing almost two years later. Also note the clinical euphemism Flournoy created-- “military coercion”-- for creating a “no-bomb zone” that would entail “a declaratory policy backed up by the threat of force. ‘If you bomb the folks we support, we will retaliate using standoff means to destroy [Russian] proxy forces, or, in this case, Syrian assets,’” she said. Despite D.C. conventional wisdom that Obama is guilty of “inaction” in Syria, he has sent substantial aid, weapons, and training to Syrian rebels while repeatedly bombing ISIS targets in Syria.

Even U.S. military officials have said that these sorts of no-fly or no-bomb guarantees Flournoy is promising-- which Hillary Clinton herself has previously advocated-- would risk a military confrontation with Russia. Obama’s defense secretary, Ash Carter, told a Senate hearing last December that the policy Clinton advocates “would require ‘substantial’ ground forces and would put the U.S. military at risk of a direct confrontation with the Syrian regime and Russian forces.” Nonetheless, the Pentagon official highly likely to be Clinton’s defense secretary is clearly signaling their intention to proceed with escalated military action. The carnage in Syria is horrifying, but no rational person should think that U.S. military action will be designed to “help Syrians.”

It’s long been beyond doubt that Clinton intends to embark upon a far more militaristic path than even Obama forged-- which is saying a lot given that the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner has bombed seven predominantly Muslim countries in seven years. Repeatedly, Clinton has implicitly criticized Obama for excessive hostility toward Israel, and she has vowed more uncritical support for Israel and to move closer to Netanyahu. Just yesterday, Clinton surrogates battled Sanders’s appointees in the Democratic Platform Committee meeting over Israel and Palestine, with Clinton’s supporters taking an even more hard-line position than many right-wing Israeli politicians. Clinton was the leading voice that successfully convinced a reluctant Obama to involve the U.S. in the disastrous intervention in Libya.

Her past criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy were based overwhelmingly in her complaints that he did not use enough military force, including in Syria. As the New York Times put it in 2014: “That Mrs. Clinton is more hawkish than Mr. Obama is no surprise to anyone who watched a Democratic primary debate in 2008... She favored supplying arms to moderate Syrian rebels, leaving behind a somewhat larger residual military force in Iraq and waiting longer before withdrawing American support for President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt during the historic protests in Cairo.”

...But the fact that Hillary Clinton has a history of advocating more war and killing and support for heinous regimes and occupations is the one thing Democratic pundits have, with remarkable message discipline, completely ignored. From Bernie Bros to Sanders’ Secret Service costs to Hillary’s kick-ass, mic-dropping, slay-queen tweets, they’ve invented the most embarrassingly childish and trivial distractions to ensure they don’t have to talk about it. But now Clinton’s almost-certain defense secretary is already-- months before she’s in power-- expressly advocating more war and bombing and dangerous interventions. That makes the costs of a Clinton foreign policy-- at least for those who assign any value to lives outside of American soil-- much harder, and more shameful, to ignore.