Most 2018 DCCC Recruits Are Being Endorsed By The Chamber Of Commerce-- Meet Next Year's Chamber Endorsees

2018 DCCC recruit Jeff Van Drew is honest enough to be running for reelection as a Republican. Other 2018 DCCC recruits are being endorsed by the US Chamber of Commerce. Maybe someone needs to change the DCCC-- drastically

ProgressivePunch has awarded grades of "F" to 108 Democrats in Congress. 35 of them are part of the the most right-wing freshmen class in the history of the modern Democratic Party. Some of them-- like Steny Hoyer and Cheri Bustos-- are among top party leadership. All of them are extremely conservative and would have been considered Republicans before the GOP took a turn towards fascism in Reagan-era politics. Many of them, in fact, were Republicans.

I had to laugh yesterday because one of the "ex"-Republicans, a super-rich, utterly worthless bucket of slime from California, Gil Cisneros-- who was a potato chip taster who won a lottery and bought off the Democratic Party for a House seat-- was extolled as a hero of the revolution by none other than... Elizabeth Warren. Maybe she's getting bad advise, but Cisernos doesn't support anything Warren stands for. (By the way, Progressive Punch rated her record "A.") She wrote yesterday that she often talks "about the big, structural change that I believe is necessary to ensure the sanctity of our democracy, to hold our government accountable to working for the people and not corporations, and to bring bold action on the issues that matter most - like access to affordable health care, protected social safety programs, and attention to local economies." Yep she does work hard for those things. Cisneros works against them.

She wrote that "systemic change relies in part on the action of good public servants-- those who hold themselves accountable to hard working families, those who are committed to fighting for justice. It depends on people like Gil Cisneros." Did someone slip some ayahuasca into her tea? Cisernos didn't earn an "F" because he's a good public servant-- he's not-- or because he holds himself accountable to hard working families-- be doesn't-- and especially not because he's committed to fighting for justice; he isn't.

"That is why," she continued, absurdly and damaging her own brand, "for his righteous fights, for all that he brings to our Congress, for his tireless work on behalf of his constituents and Americans everywhere-- I am proud to endorse my friend Gil Cisneros in his reelection bid for Congress."

Friendships can account for a lot, I guess. Cisneros spent $9,252,762 to buy his seat in 2018. And that doesn't count these contributions:

• $47,300 to the DNC (July 7, 2016)
• $33,400 to the DNC (Sept. 9, 2015)
• $33,400 to the DNC (March 31, 2016)
• $32,4000 to the DNC (Feb. 11, 2014)

Warren wasn't done. "I’m proud to endorse Gil because, to me, he’s the exemplar of the type of fighters we need in Congress: those who offer more than just empty talk and actually lead with their actions. Who keep the promises they’ve made to people who elect them, who don’t sell out to special interests-- and who won’t back down from protecting working families’ right to quality, affordable health care and social safety nets that the President is trying desperately to rip away. Gil listens to his constituents, he stands with hard working Americans, he’s committed to doing right by those in California’s 39th-- and I’m committed to ensuring that Gil is reelected to Congress in November... [A]t this crucial point in the campaign cycle, Gil’s campaign is laser-focused on doing all that they can to spread his message of progress. But the only way that they’ll be able to talk to more voters, hire more staff, and shore up their media operation is with donations today from folks like us."

No shame. Like when she savaged her friend Bernie.

That was a tangent I didn't mean to get into. What I wanted to talk about was the blurring on the lines between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, not a new topic around DWT. Using their lifetime crucial vote scores as the determinant, these are the worst Democrats in the House-- the ones who have voted less than 50% of the time for progressive positions-- along with their district's PVIs:

• Conor Lamb (PA)- 48.06% [R+1]
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- 47.98% [even PVI]
• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)- 44.30% [R+4]
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)- 44.30% [R+6]
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- 44.27% [D+9]
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- 42.31% [R+3]
• Abby Finkenauer (IA)- 41.77% [D+1]
• Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)- 40.51% [R+1]
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 39.95% [D+9]
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 39.10% [R+12]
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 39.01% [R+3]
• Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)- 35.44% [R+2]
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- 29.11% [R+10]
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)- 29.11% [R+6]
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)- 27.85% [R+13]
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 25.32% [R+6]
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)- 24.05% [R+10]

Many of these right-of-center faux-Democrats-- what people call the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- are about to get rewarded for their consistent anti-progressive stands and for preventing the congressional Democratic Party from even taking up issues opposed by corporate America. The Chamber of Commerce, despite furor in the GOP-- is going to back them for reelection. According to Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, two dozen freshmen Blue Dogs and New Dems are about to get the reelection nod from the U.S. Chamber, although Isenstadt's point is that this is "triggering a revolt within the right-leaning organization and drawing fierce pushback from the group’s powerful GOP donors. The decision represents a sharp departure for the traditionally conservative Chamber, which has spent over $100 million backing Republican candidates during the past decade, and it threatens to further complicate the party’s prospects in the November election while driving a split in the business community." Yeah, yeah... but it's hardly unknown for the U.S. Chamber to back right-wing, anti-progressive Democrats. Like the NRA, they reward the worst scum inside the Democratic Party, despite wing nut special interests flipping out and huffing and puffing. Some of the fake Dems up for Chamber endorsements include Kendra Horn, Elaine Luria, Andy Kim and Joe Cunningham.

Chamber leaders-- including President Suzanne Clark, Chief Executive Officer Tom Donahue and Executive Vice President Neil Bradley-- have been pushing the proposal ahead of a Thursday committee vote to finalize a slate of 2020 endorsements.

But the group’s donors and members are up in arms, with some threatening to pull funding and others openly venting their frustration. Some are raising the prospect that Chamber board members will quit in the weeks to come.

There is particular concern the Democrats in question do not have the pro-business record an endorsement would convey. State Chamber of Oklahoma President Chad Warmington wrote a letter Tuesday to national Chamber leaders fervently opposing the proposal to back Rep. Kendra Horn, perhaps the most vulnerable House Democrat in the country.

Citing the Oklahoma congresswoman’s voting record on energy issues, Warmington wrote, “I question how the U.S. Chamber could endorse a candidate who consistently voted against the largest industry in Oklahoma, employing over 90,000 workers throughout the state. That is hardly a pro-business record. I am also concerned the U.S. Chamber would endorse a congresswoman that voted in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who are not pro-business nearly 90 percent of the time.”

Warmington added: “I don’t believe an endorsement of Congresswoman Horn is warranted at this time and certainly not justifiable based on the current record of consequential votes impacting Oklahoma businesses.”

...The clash also provides a window into a growing rift in the business community over its place in the Donald Trump-dominated Republican Party, which has at times embraced policies the corporate world opposes. While the Chamber has almost exclusively endorsed Republicans over the past decade, it has collided with the president over everything from tariffs to immigration.

Clark told the Washington Post last year that “if anybody here ever thought of themselves as working for a partisan place, they should stop.”

Thomas Wilson, chairman of the Chamber’s executive committee, said in a statement that "the Chamber’s board has actively and successfully supported more bipartisanship in Washington since 2016 so we can create jobs and economic prosperity,” adding that “our priorities cut across party lines.”

“We are excited about the positive impact our enhanced endorsement criteria is having on creating better solutions for America," Wilson added.

The Chamber’s shift toward Democrats has deeply worried Republican officials, who long regarded the Chamber as a key piece of their campaign infrastructure. And it comes as two other prominent Republican-aligned political organizations, the National Rifle Association and Koch political network, pare back their electoral activity.

The Chamber has typically endorsed a handful of House Democrats each election year, though people familiar with the group say it hasn't endorsed so many at a single time. It rarely gets behind freshmen members, who are especially vulnerable in their first reelection race.

The DCCC has also tended to add the most conservative Democratic candidates to its endorsement list (the much-distrusted red to blue program, once notoriously run by Debbie Wasserman Schultz to benefit her own Republican cronies!) This morning, a progressive Democrat meeting all the supposed criteria for a DCCC endorsement asked me if I could help her figured out why she still wasn't on this list. I laughed and suggested she could join the New Dems or Blue Dogs and Cheri Bustos would have her on the list in 48 hours. Of the 33 mostly right-of-center candidates on the Red-to-Blue list, 25 have also been endorsed by the Blue Dogs and/or New Dems who Bustos has allowed to act as Red-to-Blue gatekeepers this cycle.

The Blue Dogs have found the 8 most Republican-like Democratic candidates to get behind for 2020, none of whom should be considered Democrats when it is time to go to the polls-- unless you want to make sure no progressive legislation ever even reaches the floor:

• Eugene DePasquale (PA-10)
• Gretchen Driskell (MI-07)
• Margaret Good (FL-15)
• Jackie Gordon (NY-02)
• Christine Hale (IN-05)
• Josh Hicks (KY-06)
• Brynne Kennedy (CA-04)
• Sri Kulkarni (TX-22)

The New Dems have endorsed 30 anti-working class candidates so far. Their list is is where the Red-to-Blue list comes from. This is the new crop of neo-liberals. Red-to-Blue endorsees are in red:

• Alyse Galvin (AK-AL)
• Hiral Tipirneni (AZ-06)
• Christy Smith (CA-25)
• Margaret Good (FL-16)
• Carolyn Bourdeaux (GA-07)
• Betsy Dirksen Londrigan (IL-13)
• Christina Hale (IN-05)
• Hillary Scholten (MI-03)
• Dan Freehan (MN-01)
• Deborah Ross (NC-02)
• Kathy Manning (NC-06)
• Pat Timmons Goodson (NC-08)
• Jackie Gordon (NY-02
• Kate Schroder (OH-01)
• Eugene DePasquale (PA-10)
• Wendy Davis (TX-21)
• Sri Kulkarni (TX-22)
• Gina Ortiz Jones (TX-23)
• Carolyn Long (WA-03)
• Sara Jacobs (CA-53) who is running against a progressive Democrat in November, Georgette Gomez (who you can contribute to here)
• Jill Schupp (MO-02)
• Kathleen Williams (MT-AL)
• Amy Kennedy (NJ-02)
• Nancy Goroff (NY-01)
• Desiree Tims (OH-10)
• Hillary O'Connor Mueri (OH-14)
• Christina Finello (PA-01)
• Sima Ladjevardian (TX-02)
• Cameron Webb (VA-05)
• Marilyn Strickland (WA-10) who is running against a progressive Democrat in November, Beth Doglio (who you can contribute to here)

Trump And Republicans In Congress Are Making The Pandemic Worse For Everyone But Their Campaign Donors

Cone of Shame by Nancy Ohanian

On the Senate floor yesterday, Elizabeth Warren reminded her colleagues that the country is "just days away from a housing crisis that could be prevented if Mitch McConnell stopped stalling and the Senate act. This is about our health, our economy, and our values. Forcing thousands of people out of their homes during a pandemic will make a public health crisis worse. Wide spread housing disruptions will also affect essential workers and others who are keeping our economy going. And a wave of evictions will hit communities of color the hardest, further deepening racial inequities in our nation. So first, how bad is this problem? More than 30% of all renters say today that they have little or no confidence they can make their next housing payment. More than 40% of Black and Latinx renters aren't sure they'll be able to make their next rent payment. Nearly two thirds of renters who are not confident about making their rent earn less than $35,000 a year. And more than a quarter of black and Latinx renters couldn't pay last month's rent, or had it deferred. Think about that. That's 1 in every 4 Black or Latino renters who are already behind on their rent. And to add to that, the high unemployment rate, the numbers of workers across the country who have had their hours and income cut, and the number of small businesses that have shuttered and may never reopen, and it's clear that the number of evictions will continue to rise. Experts are predicting an avalanche of evictions if we don't institute new protections. We are already seeing a rise in evictions in cities where local eviction bans have lapsed. This is a crisis we can avoid. Instead of further delay and denial, the Senate can step up now and prevent this catastrophe before millions of people are forced out of their homes."

She and Chuy Garcia, in the House, introduced the Protecting Renters from Evictions and Fees Act which would prevent renters from losing their homes if they lose their job or have their hours cut during the pandemic and can't make their housing payment. Their bill would extend the federal eviction moratorium to last until until March of 2021 instead of expiring this week. Republicans oppose the bill.




The pandemic is horrible enough on its own without the GOP and Trump making thing worse on every front. On a smaller scale, ABC New reported yesterday that Trump's properties aren't enforcing local mask mandates. They are hosting gatherings in cities and counties with mask mandates without enforcing the mandates for guest or employees. And even with Señor Trumpanzee finally being forced by his new campaign manager to say good things about masks and social distancing, his utterances are still, at best, mixed messages.

A Morning Consult poll for Politico shows that a bipartisan majority of registered voters strongly support (that's 53%) state mandates that would fine or jail individuals if they fail to wear a mask in public. Another 19% "somewhat" support the mask mandates-- so 72% overall. And that includes support from 68% of independent voters and 58% of Republicans. Republican statewide elected officials are still sabotaging efforts to stop the spread of the contagion-- governors in states with huge problems-- like Florida, Iowa and Georgia for example-- are being very aggressive in their opposition to mask mandates, Brian Kemp of Georgia and Kim Reynolds of Iowa suing cities that order mask wearing and in Louisiana where there's a Democratic governor, the Republican attorney general, Jeff Landry, has declared that the Louisiana mask mandate are social distancing rules are unconstitutional, encouraging law enforcement officials not to enforce them and citizens not to obey.

Finally-- just the right mask for Trump!

You know that old Abraham Lincoln speech, "A house divided against itself, cannot stand.?" He was talking about slavery in the South. Today the phrase is also applicable mostly to southern states and could be used to the mask problem. By encouraging the spread of disease, right wing politicians like Trump, Ron DeSantis (FL), Brian Kemp (GA), Bill Lee (TN), Henry McMaster (SC), Tate Reeves (MS), Mike Parson (MO), Kristi Noem (SD), Kevin Stitt (OK), Doug Ducey (AZ), etc. negative the efforts the rest of us are making to beat the pandemic.

It's hard to imagine that anyone will believe the Trump regime's and Trump campaign's new attempt to reset their disastrously failed approach to the pandemic-- especially not Trump himself who can't admit a mistake, still claims everything was done right and exhibits support that is, at best, very half-assed. His followers seem to be ignoring the whole thing. The media seems interested... and no one else. The reaction from the Lincoln Project was to add a laugh track to Trump's deceitful bullshit:





Meanwhile, instead of approving the rescue package passed by the House over a month ago, Senate Republicans and Trump Regime officials are discussing a short-term extension of unemployment insurance just to get them through the election. As Beto O'Rourke put it on MSNBC, the Texas Republican Party is a "death cult" that wants to allow people to die. And these are the states that reported the most new cases from Thursday and ---> yesterday (keep in mind today's new cases lead to September's new deaths).

• California +10,278 ---> 12,137
• Texas +9,992 ---> 10,528
• Florida +9,440 ---> +9,785 (back over 10,200 today)
• Arizona +3,500 ---> +1,926 (back over 2,300 today)
• Georgia +3,413 ---> +3,314
• Tennessee +2,190 ---> +2,473
• South Carolina +1,892 ---> +1,705
• Oklahoma +1,714 ---> +918
• Louisiana +1,698 ---> +2,764
• Mississippi +1,635 ---> +1,547
• North Carolina +1,626 ---> +2,306
• Alabama +1,467 ---> +1,455 (back over 2,300 today)
• Missouri +1,328 ---> +1,249

Today, Who Is Offering More Value To Society-- The People Harvesting And Distributing Our Food, Or A Hedge Fund Manager?

On Monday, Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna jointly rolled out a bicameral call for an Essential Worker Bill of Rights to be included as part of a broad emergency relief package that’s needed to address the public health, economic and democratic crises the country is facing right now. The Essential Worker Bill of Rights would ensure all workers deemed essential during this crisis receive hazard pay, a livable wage, workplace health and safety protections, universal paid sick days, paid family leave, free health care, support for childcare, protections for whistleblowers and collective bargaining protections.

The business section of Monday's Washington Post noted that "While much of America shelters at home, millions of people still are working at hospitals, grocery stores, pharmacies, day-care centers and warehouses across the country. Many report working longer hours, often without adequate protective gear such as masks and gloves, as they scramble to meet heightened demand during a pandemic that has claimed 110,000 lives, including 20,000 in the United States." Warren added that "Essential workers are the backbone of our response to the coronavirus. They are putting their health and the health of their loved ones on the line to keep our country running-- and we need to have their backs."

In their rollout, Ro reiterated that "Nearly 60 million Americans are still working to keep our internet running, to deliver our groceries, to make sure we have electricity, and to care for the sick. In an age of automation, we are reminded of the dignity and importance of work that is not remote. This crisis needs to open our eyes to the value of workers who are often invisible, and we need to give them the pay and benefits they deserve." The bill he and Warren put together rests on ten goals:

• Health and safety protections. Every employee, including employees of contractors and subcontractors, should be able to do their job safely, which means having necessary amounts of personal protective equipment provided by employers at no cost to the employee. Employers should be required to take proactive actions when someone at the job site may have contracted coronavirus, including informing employees if they may have been exposed and evacuating the job site until it can be properly cleaned. And the Occupational Safety and Health Administration should be required to immediately issue a robust Emergency Temporary Standard to keep employees safe.
• Robust premium compensation. Every worker should be paid a livable wage, and essential employees are no exception. During this pandemic, essential workers should also be paid robust premium pay to recognize the critical contribution they are making to our health and our economy. Premium pay should provide meaningful compensation for essential work, be higher for the lowest-wage workers, and not count towards workers' eligibility for any means-tested programs. It must be retroactive to the start date of the pandemic, and not used to lower the regular rate of pay for any employee.
• Protections for collective bargaining agreements.
• Truly universal paid sick leave and family and medical leave.
• Protections for whistleblowers.
• An end to worker misclassification. The pandemic has highlighted the longstanding problem of employers misclassifying workers as independent contractors in order to avoid providing the full suite of benefits and protections available to employees. At a time when too many essential workers are being denied basic employment protections, Congress should crack down on worker misclassification.
• Health care security. All essential workers should get the care they need during this crisis, including those who are uninsured or under-insured, regardless of their immigration status. We must use public programs to provide no-cost health care coverage for all, as quickly as possible. Congress should also listen to workers who have called for a full federal subsidy for fifteen months of COBRA for employees who lose eligibility for health care coverage.
• Support for child care.
• Treat workers as experts. Any time a public health crisis hits, the government should work with employers and workers to craft a response and set safety and compensation standards. Essential workers, and their unions and organizations, must be at the table in developing responses to coronavirus-- from determining specific workplace safety protocols to helping develop plans for distributing PPE to holding seats on the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
• Hold corporations accountable for meeting their responsibilities. Congress should ensure that any taxpayer dollars handed to corporations go to help workers, not wealthy CEOs, rich shareholders, or the President's cronies. That means taxpayers and workers should have a stake in how funds are used and companies should be required to use funding for payroll retention, put workers on boards of directors, and remain neutral in union organizing drives. CEOs should be required to personally certify they are in compliance with worker protections, so they can face civil and criminal penalties if they break their word. And any federal funding should be designed to ensure that employers cannot skirt the rules by firing or furloughing workers or reducing their hours or benefits in order to access a tax credit or avoid a worker protection requirement. 

Needless to say, the Trumpist regime has a very different way of looking at all of this. Short version: they oppose it. As NPR's Franco Ordoñez explained it last week, Trump is, for example, seeking to lower farmworker pay in the midst of the pandemic. Trump's 59th chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and his crackpot Agriculture Secretary, Sonny Perdue are coming up with a plan to reduce wages for foreign guest workers on American farms, in order to help U.S. farmers struggling during the pandemic. (Politically, this might help corporate farms that have been hurt by Trump's trade war with China.) Have you turned your lawn into a vegetable garden? Maybe you'd better think about it.

The nation's roughly 2.5 million agricultural laborers have been officially declared "essential workers" as the administration seeks to ensure that Americans have food to eat and that U.S. grocery stores remain stocked. Workers on the H-2A seasonal guest-worker program are about 10% of all farmworkers.

The effort to provide "wage relief" to U.S. farmers follows an announcement Friday by the USDA to develop a program that will include direct payments to farmers and ranchers hurt by the coronavirus. Trump said Friday that he has directed Perdue to provide at least $16 billion in relief.

Last month, the U.S. State Department said it will start processing more applicants seeking H-2A temporary guest worker visas to ensure U.S. farmers have foreign workers in time for spring planting.

The most recent push to lower wage rates for workers on H-2A visas has drawn pushback from some strange bedfellows: immigrant-rights advocates and immigration hard-liners usually aligned with Trump.

Erik Nicholson, national vice president for the United Farm Workers, says people who have worked in agriculture for decades are concerned they are going to lose their jobs. And he said vulnerable guest workers are not being provided proper hand-washing facilities and still being forced to live in cramped housing.

"So in the middle of a pandemic, rather than trying to figure out the cheap way to do things, we need to make sure we live up to the expectations society has of us as an industry to keep the food flowing," Nicholson said.

Groups on the right fear Trump is succumbing to the will of the agriculture lobby that is demanding lower wages for foreign and domestic farmworkers at a time of record high unemployment in the United States.

The Department of Labor reports that 16.6 million Americans have filed for unemployment aid in the past few weeks.

"President Trump should see right through what the agriculture lobby is demanding in the name of 'food security' at the height of a health crisis-- lower wages for American workers and more cheap foreign labor," said Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports immigration restrictions. "These appalling demands underscore that the whole way this nation produces food should be reexamined."

It's unclear how the reforms would be made, including whether they would be taken through executive action or through the federal regulatory process. But Perdue has pushed for adjusting what is known as the adverse effect wage rate, which prevents farmers using the H-2A program from paying all workers-- U.S. and guest workers-- wages below the prevailing rates in the surrounding area.

Earlier this year, Perdue said the adverse wage rate has set almost a $15 minimum wage for agriculture, noting "no other business in the country has that," according to the agriculture trade journal DTN.

The "adverse effect wage rates" are based on a USDA survey of what agricultural workers are paid in each state. It's $11.71 in Florida, $12.67 in North Carolina and $14.77 in California.

A USDA official told NPR that Perdue is working with Trump to "resolve long-standing challenges facing the agriculture industry, including reforms to the H-2A program.

"These challenges have been exacerbated by these uncertain times," the official said in a statement.

U.S. farmers say they have had to cut back on production because of the high number of restaurant and hotel closures. Cory Lunde, a spokesman for the Western Growers Association, said U.S. farmers are fighting to keep "our farms afloat in the face of the near-total collapse of the food-service sector" and more recent slowdown in the retail market.

Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, said Trump administration officials are trying to look at ways to help because "they understand that we're in trouble and they want to secure the food supply for the American people."

"When a farmer goes out of business, you know, he doesn't come back," Wicker said. "Food supply is a national security issue and, as bad as this COVID-19 crisis is, perhaps it can be a catalyst to start a conversation about our agriculture policy and having sustainable agriculture and diversity."

These cutbacks sound suspicious. OK, hotels and restaurants are closed so farmers lost those customers. But are people consuming less food? Five dinners out, pre-pandemic means five dinners prepared at home instead, no? Are people eating significantly less food? Amazon and Walmart stock prices are almost back to their pre-pandemic highs, at least in part because they are selling lots more food.

A few days ago, the Washington Post published a report pointing out that "Next to health-care providers, no workforce has proved more essential during the novel coronavirus pandemic than the 3 million U.S. grocery store employees who restock shelves and freezers, fill online orders and keep checkout lines moving. Some liken their job to working in a war zone, knowing that the simple act of showing up to work could ultimately kill them. At least 41 grocery workers have died so far." What if they decided it was too dangerous-- especially considered the tiny wages they make-- and decided to stop working? Ditto for the men and women who pick our food. Think about it when Congress starts debating the Warren/Khanna bill.

Two rural district progressives, J.D. Scholten in Iowa and Kathy Ellis in Missouri saw right through Trump's ruse. "CEOs don't make this country work-- working people, especially our farmworkers, do," said J.D. "But despite Trump deeming farmworkers as 'essential' during this pandemic, he's pushing forward a 10% pay cut for 250,000 H2A farmworkers. This is his latest attack on immigrants and he's using a shameful excuse of 'helping farmers' to do it. We don't need to hurt farmworkers in order to help farmers. Our coronavirus response should reflect our values and lift up all those on the frontlines who are putting their lives on the line to help others." Kathy is on the same page-- "This issue could not be more important. In my own state of Missouri, our local union leaders have been calling on the Governor to deem all of our frontline workers-- grocery store workers, food suppliers, agricultural workers-- essential workers with essential protections. His response has been, 'I cannot deem everyone an essential worker.' We need national leadership on this issue because in too many states like mine, local leaders aren't taking the steps they need to support our frontline workers. I proudly support this Bill of Rights, and am grateful for their leadership in pushing this forward."

Government Must Help People DIRECTLY-- Not Through Grasping Big Business Crooks

This morning, Naked Capitalism carried a piece by economist Michael Hudson on the ramifications of the pandemic on the U.S. economy. Hudson explained how to escape from catastrophe by looking at a biblical perspective.

The word “Jubilee” comes from the Hebrew word for “trumpet”-- yobel. In Mosaic Law, it was blown every 50 years to signal the Year of the Lord, in which personal debts were to be canceled. The alternative, the prophet Isaiah warned, was for smallholders to forfeit their lands to creditors: “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.” When Jesus delivered his first sermon, the Gospel of Luke describes him as unrolling the scroll of Isaiah and announcing that he had come to proclaim the Year of the Lord, the Jubilee Year.

Until recently, historians doubted that a debt jubilee would have been possible in practice, or that such proclamations could have been enforced. But Assyriologists have found that from the beginning of recorded history in the Near East, it was normal for new rulers to proclaim a debt amnesty upon taking the throne. Instead of blowing a trumpet, the ruler “raised the sacred torch” to signal the amnesty.

It is now understood that these rulers were not being utopian or idealistic in forgiving debts. The alternative would have been for debtors to fall into bondage. Kingdoms would have lost their labor force, since so many would be working off debts to their creditors. Many debtors would have run away (much as Greeks emigrated en masse after their recent debt crisis), and communities would have been prone to attack from without.

The parallels to the current moment are notable. The U.S. economy has polarized sharply since the 2008 crash. For far too many, their debts leave little income available for consumer spending or spending in the national interest. In a crashing economy, any demand that newly massive debts be paid to a financial class that has already absorbed most of the wealth gained since 2008 will only split our society further.

...In the past, the politically powerful financial sector has blocked a write-down. Until now, the basic ethic of most of us has been that debts must be repaid. But it is time to recognize that most debts now cannot be paid-- through no real fault of the debtors in the face of today’s economic disaster.

The coronavirus outbreak is serving as a mind-expansion exercise, making hitherto unthinkable solutions thinkable. Debts that can’t be paid won’t be. A debt jubilee may be the best way out.

Over the last couple of years, no one has written more cogently than Matt Stoller about the politics of monopoly. His book, Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy should be required reading for a literate electorate. Last night, he wrote-- with a sense of urgency-- that "Congressional leaders are likely to put a very ugly deal in front of the American people, and if it passes, America may be unrecognizable after this pandemic. But there is a way to stop it, if people on the populist left and people on the populist right work together." Please pay attention:

You can't filibuster COVID-19

Here's the situation. Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, and the Trump administration is negotiating a bailout package to address the coronavirus crisis. There's been a lot of chatter about the need to support workers as the economy goes into a freeze. This is happening around the world; the British government, for instance, is willing to pay 80% of worker wages during this downturn for those affected by the crisis.

But in the U.S., our leaders seem to be falling prey to what can only be called a corporate frenzy of favor-seeking. “Any time there is a crisis and Washington is in the middle of it is an opportunity for guys like me," said one lobbyist.

Now first I should say that I don’t know exactly what is going to be in the final bill, because the whole process is opaque and being negotiated right now by some untrustworthy political leaders. We will only find out the details at the last minute. So all I have to go off is rumor and reporting. But if we wait until we know the full contours, it will likely be too late to act. I hope I’m wrong, but the list of what lobbyists are asking for is long, and ugly, and often the requests for money or legislative favors are done to cover up mistakes made before the coronavirus hit.

Take Boeing. The aerospace giant of course wants a $60 billion bailout. Financial problems for this corporation predated the crisis, with the mismanagement that led to the 737 Max as well as defense and space products that don't work (I noted last July a bailout was coming). The corporation paid out $65 billion in stock buybacks and dividends over the last ten years, and it was drawing down credit lines before this crisis hit. It is highly politically connected; the board of the corporation includes Caroline Kennedy, Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein, three Fortune 100 CEOs, a former US Trade Representative, and two Admirals, one of whom is the board’s only engineer. Using the excuse of the coronavirus, Boeing is trying to get the taxpayer to foot the bill for its errors, so it can go back to making more of them.

But that's not all. Defense contractors want their payments sped up, and I've heard they want to widen a giant loophole called 'other transaction authority' to get around restrictions on profiteering. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezo want "$5 billion in grants or loans to keep commercial space company employees on the job and launch facilities open." They also want the IRS to give them cash for R&D tax credits.

CNBC reported that hotels want $150 billion, restaurants want $145 billion, and manufacturers wants $1.4 trillion. And the International Council of Shopping Centers wants a guarantee of up to $1 trillion. The beer industry wants $5B. Candy industry wants $500M. The New York Times reported that "Adidas is seeking support for a long-sought provision allowing people to use pretax money to pay for gym memberships and fitness equipment." Gyms are of course closed. Meatpackers want special visas so they can undercut wages of their workers, and importers want to stop paying duties they incurred for harming domestic industries for illegally dumping products into the U.S.

Now, I'm not opposed to supporting industries. This is a crisis, and we do not want a lot of the productive capacity of the United States to fall apart because of a pandemic. But the key to supporting enterprises is to make sure that there are strict conditions, so that power doesn't consolidate into the hands of monopolists and financiers cherry-picking distressed assets. Otherwise, America will simply be unrecognizable after this pandemic. CNBC personality Jim Cramer, for instance, is worried that after this pandemic America will have just three retailers. And he's right to be worried about that.

Here's how we can stop it. There are enough members of Congress to act and prevent what really looks less like a relief package and more a corporate coup. However, the problem is that this group is split into different political parties, and Congressional leadership is taking advantage of that dynamic to jam this through. Mitch McConnell wants big business to rule, so he's playing a trick. He is refusing aid to workers. Democrats are negotiating with him to try to get unemployment assistance and social welfare. McConnell knows Dems won't pay attention to corporate bailouts if he takes the public hostage, and Democrats know that they can hand out favors to big business if they just talk about how they got larger checks for workers.

So McConnell will put a bill down in front of Nancy Pelosi, with some good stuff like unemployment insurance, but also the really ugly stuff to hand over America to big business. The corporatists in the Democratic Party will tell her "Pass the corporate coup bill, after all we have to do something right now!" And because she doesn't have the votes from within her own caucus because of these corporatists, and because she doesn't particularly care if America is sold off to big business, she will do that. The only hope is to get together a bipartisan group from the right and the left to oppose this charade.

And there's a precedent.

In 2008, when Congress was on the brink of passing a $700 billion bailout to Wall Street, something astonishing happened. A motley bipartisan group of roughly a hundred members, as well as outside experts, formed what was called the "Skeptic's Caucus," and organized enough votes to take down the package. Congressional leaders then attached some minor tweaks, and forced the package through after the stock market crashed. Ultimately, the skeptics failed, and the bailouts ended up shifting power and wealth to an unaccountable elite class.

But for that brief moment, it became clear that opposition to Congressional leadership on corporate subsidies is possible. We will need another Skeptic's caucus, and quickly. And this time, it can succeed. Because this time, no one is fooled by what is happening. We can see it plainly.

So whether you are a Republican or Democrat, join a new Skeptic's caucus. And demand your member of Congress represent YOU, and not just big business. Help the people by dealing with unemployment, rent, mortgages, not big business executives trying to save their cushy positions.

Stoller, who began his Capitol Hill work in Alan Grayson's office, later worked as a Senate staffer for Bernie. As you can see from the just-released video clip above, it certainly looks like Bernie will be one of the senators standing behind his ideas. Another is Elizabeth Warren:

Obama: "I Feel The Bern." Does Elizabeth Warren?

Elizabeth Warren did miserably Tuesday, even losing her own state-- and keeping Bernie from winning it against Biden! Although as more votes are counted, her total delegates may go up, as of Thursday at midday, he had won a mere 40 delegates bringing her total to just 48-- compared to 511 for Status Quo Joe and 459 for Bernie. As of Wednesday morning, she had won 7 delegates in California, 1 in Colorado, 2 in Maine, 17 in Massachusetts (less than either Biden or Bernie), 10 in Minnesota, 1 in Tennessee and 2 in Virginia. As you know, she ended her campaign this morning.

She took Wednesday off and flew home to Boston to reassess and decide if she should drop out and, if she does, to endorse Status Quo Joe or Bernie or no-one. A campaign aide told that media that she "is talking to her team to assess the path forward."

And now that she's dropped out, where are her supporters likely to go? A late February Morning Consult poll asked them who their second choice is. This is how it looked then-- and, obviously without her endorsing anyone:

• Bernie- 40%
• Status Quo Joe- 16%
• Mayo Pete- 16%
• Klobuchar- 12%

In a press release from US-Bookies.com in Denmark-- which shows Trump as the heavy favorite to win reelection against Trump-- all bets are on Elizabeth endorsing Bernie. "Odds suggest that Bernie Sanders is [the] most likely candidate to receive Elizabeth Warren’s endorsement, according to betting aggregators US-Bookies.com/. Sanders is the odds-on favorite to received Warren’s endorsement at 2/7, while the odds she endorses Biden are a more distant 5/2."

This is just plain horrible:

The Democratic Party Grassroots Dream Ticket: Bernie + Elizabeth

Elizabeth Warren ended her campaign this morning and will hold a press conference later today. Listening to the corporate media since Tuesday, you would think that Bernie was no longer in the running and that the nomination was all sewn up by the Republican wing of the Democratic Party's candidate, Status Quo Joe. That's what the establishment wants you to think. But it just isn't true. Biden did well Tuesday night-- primarily because a well-coordinated effort to persuade poorly educated voters on our side that Biden was the candidate who could beat Trump succeeded. But he didn't run away with a insurmountable number of delegates the way the media asserts. Votes are still being counted.

In California, for example, there are 415 delegates. As I'm writing this piece, 84.19% of votes are in and just 271 have been assigned to a candidate, leaving 144 delegates still to be determined.

• Bernie- 155
• Status Quo Joe- 93
• Bloomberg- 14
• Elizabeth- 9

The second biggest batch of delegates (228) comes from Texas, where basically all the votes are counted but where jut 159 delegates have been assigned and 69 remain to be divvied up. Fairer than most media reports, this is how Politico is reporting the delegate count, without indicating the numbers of delegates still to be assigned, particularly from California, which is expected to close the gap between Bernie and Biden.

Writing for the Washington Post yesterday, Annie Linskey and Sean Sullivan reported that Bernie and Elizabeth team members are working out her exit from the race and endorsement of his campaign. "The whirlwind of activity," they wrote, "reflects the rapid changes in a Democratic primary that is still very much in transition. As late as Tuesday, many Warren allies believed she would stay in the race until the Democratic convention, despite her poor showing to date in the primaries, in hopes of retaining her clout and influencing the eventual nominee. But after Warren's bleak performance in the Super Tuesday primaries, her associates, as well as those of Sanders and Biden, say she is now looking for the best way to step aside. There is no certainty she will endorse Sanders or anyone else, but the talks reflect the growing pressure on the senator from Massachusetts to withdraw."

Warren and Sanders spoke by phone Wednesday, Sanders told reporters in Vermont. "She has not made any decisions as of this point," he said. "It is important for all of us, certainly me, who has known Elizabeth Warren for many, many years, to respect the time and the space she needs to make a decision."

"She has run a strong campaign," Sanders said. "She will make her own decision in her own time."

Liberal groups that endorsed Sanders are now planning a conference call for Thursday, in part to discuss the impact of Warren's candidacy on the race and the potential effect of a withdrawal.

Winning the backing of Warren, who began the race as a leader of the party's liberal wing but later positioned herself as a uniter, would be a coup for either Sanders or Biden. For Sanders, it could help unify the liberal faction and signal that he is very much still in the race; for Biden, it would extend the recent rush of party leaders who have rallied around him.

Warren's status is a major wild card in a primary that appears to be settling into a protracted battle between Biden and Sanders. Other candidates with no clear path to the nomination have dropped out, but her aides say privately they had hoped Warren would stay in until the next Democratic debate, on March 15.

Warren may be the only female candidate to qualify for that debate, and her departure would leave Democrats essentially deciding between two white men in their late 70s-- after the party's last two presidential nominees were a black man and a white woman.

Her debate skills have been a high point of her campaign, showcasing her mastery of policy and her intellectual deftness-- particularly in the Las Vegas debate, when she verbally disassembled former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, arguably ending his campaign.

And despite a string of disappointing finishes in the early primary states, Warren continued to draw thousands of people to her rallies, including recent events in Seattle, Denver, Houston and Detroit.

Money, too, has continued to flow. Her campaign raised $29 million in February, compared with Biden's $18 million haul for that month. Warren also has the support of a super PAC that's been airing $14 million worth of TV ads for her. But Tuesday’s results, which were significantly worse than her campaign had projected, may have changed the equation. Early returns showed her capturing just 28 of the 1,338 delegates at stake, although that number could grow as California continues to tabulate its numbers.

...Warren has also been facing mounting pressure from liberal activists and Sanders supporters to depart the race. They argue that she is hurting the senator from Vermont by dividing the party’s liberal faction, while Democratic centrists have coalesced behind Biden. Sanders also fell below expectations Tuesday, as Biden rolled up big margins.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a Sanders backer and leading voice on the left, said via Twitter: “Imagine if the progressives consolidated last night like the moderates consolidated, who would have won?”

Omar added: “That’s what we should be analyzing. I feel confident a united progressive movement would have allowed for us to #BuildTogether and win MN and other states we narrowly lost.” Sanders lost Minnesota by nearly nine percentage points, results show.

Other left-leaning groups have been pressuring her for weeks to depart.

“She should drop out of the race and endorse Bernie Sanders,” said Matt Bruenig, founder of the People’s Policy Project, a liberal think tank, whose group has been pushing for her exit since her fourth-place finish in New Hampshire.

“The questions is how to get her to prioritize that this [a progressive agenda] is a more important thing than whatever it is she hopes to achieve by staying in,” Bruenig said.

It is not clear that Warren would immediately-- or ever-- back Sanders. She stayed on the sidelines during the 2016 Democratic primary between Sanders and Hillary Clinton, eventually throwing her support to Clinton and hoping to be selected as her running mate.

...As it became clearer Wednesday that Warren was seriously considering leaving the race, liberal groups became increasingly magnanimous.

"The decision of whether or not to drop out is her decision and her decision alone," said Charles Chamberlain, chair of Democracy for America. "We don't think that anybody in the progressive movement should be calling on a woman-- especially the last woman-- to drop out." (Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii remains in the race but has not met the criteria to participate in any recent debates.)

Chamberlain said he would urge other groups backing Sanders to take a similar approach Thursday during the organization's conference call, and respect a decision either to remain on the debate stage or to endorse Sanders.

He added, "The bottom line is that progressives trust Elizabeth Warren, and we're confident that she's going to make the right choice here."