From Juanita Broaddrick to Tara Reade: In Forty Years Has Nothing Changed at All?

Juanita Broaddrick, right, with residents of her Arkansas retirement home and Bill Clinton in April 1978, the same month she alleges that Clinton assaulted her (source)

by Thomas Neuburger

Hid among the grease and grime of the Tara Reade rape discussion — "Should we believe her? To what extent? Would Biden really do such a thing? But what if a public discussion leads to Trump's reelection?" — lies the shadow of another rape accusation.

Undiscussed, rarely brought up, as carefully hid or moreso by the Democratic Party–supporting media as the Tara Reade story was, stands the rape charge by Juanita Broaddrick against 32-year-old Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton, a rape said to have occurred in 1978.

The facts are these (source: a nicely researched 2017 piece by Dylan Mathews at Vox). First, this is what Broaddrick says happened:

In 1978, Broaddrick was volunteering for Clinton's gubernatorial campaign, and claims she met him when he visited his campaign office in her home town of Van Buren, Arkansas, that April. She says he then invited her to visit his office in Little Rock, which Broaddrick agreed to do a week later, when she was in the state Capitol anyway for a conference of nursing home administrators. Once she was at a hotel in Little Rock, she claims Clinton told her that he wasn't going to the campaign headquarters and offered to meet her in her hotel lobby coffee shop instead. Once he arrived, she says he called her room and suggested that they have coffee there, since the lobby had too many reporters. Broaddrick says she agreed.

Then according to a 1999 Washington Post story:

As she tells the story, they spent only a few minutes chatting by the window -- Clinton pointed to an old jail he wanted to renovate if he became governor -- before he began kissing her. She resisted his advances, she said, but soon he pulled her back onto the bed and forcibly had sex with her. She said she did not scream because everything happened so quickly. Her upper lip was bruised and swollen after the encounter because, she said, he had grabbed onto it with his mouth.

"The last thing he said to me was, 'You better get some ice for that.' And he put on his sunglasses and walked out the door," she recalled.

Broaddrick's story has no third-party witness, but quite a lot of contemporaneous corroboration:

• The director at the nursing home where Broaddrick worked told reporters "that she entered the hotel room shortly after the assault allegedly took place, and 'found Mrs. Broaddrick crying and in 'a state of shock.' Her upper lip was puffed out and blue, and appeared to have been hit.' Kelsey elaborated to the New York Times, "She told me he forced himself on her, forced her to have intercourse."

• In 1999, three of Broaddrick's friends told NBC News on camera that Broaddrick told them at the time that Bill Clinton had raped her.

• In addition, David Broaddrick "with whom Broaddrick was having an affair ... also NBC that Broaddrick's top lip was black after the alleged incident, and that she told him, 'that she had been raped by Bill Clinton.'"

The Other Side

Opposed to this evidence lie the usual adversarial questions about why Broaddrick delayed so long to say something, why she chose the time she did to come forward, and what her underlying motives might have been. Bill Clinton was being impeached for the Monica Lewinski affair — pilloried, really, by Ken Starr's special prosecutor's office — when Broaddrick's story was leaked to the public.

The response to this has been that Broaddrick, according to Vox, "had been courted to come forward about the allegations by Clinton enemies for years," and refused many pleas that she speak out.

"She only came forward after she was interviewed by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's office and her allegation leaked. Broaddrick told the [Wall Street] Journal [here] that NBC News reporter Lisa Myers pursued her for nearly a year before she agreed to an interview, and that she came forward because she wanted to rebut false rumors circulating after her statements to prosecutors (like that David Broaddrick had accepted hush money from the Clintons in exchange for silence)."

In short, if Vox's account is correct, Broaddrick was almost literally the most reluctant of reluctant witnesses at a time when Bill Clinton was beset on all sides with eager ones.

Did Hillary Clinton Weigh In?

It's an ugly story, both in the context in which it occurred — the dubiously moral, hypocritical Republican Party assaulting a presidency it never considered legitimate using charges they themselves were guilty of at the time — and in the Broaddrick story itself.

And the ugliness continued, according to Broaddrick, shortly after the event. In a 1999 interview she gave to the Drudge Report and quoted by Vox, Broaddrick said that "mere weeks after the alleged [1978] assault, Hillary Clinton had tried to thank her for her silence on the matter at a political rally." Broaddrick:

She came directly to me as soon as she hit the door. I had been there only a few minutes, I only wanted to make an appearance and leave. She caught me and took my hand and said 'I am so happy to meet you. I want you to know that we appreciate everything you do for Bill.'

Here her husband had just done this to me, and she was coming up to thank me? It was scary...I started to turn away and she held onto my hand and reiterated her phrase -- looking less friendly and repeated her statement----'Everything you do for Bill'. I said nothing. She wasn't letting me get away until she made her point. She talked low, the smile faded on the second thank you. I just released her hand from mine and left the gathering.

No one knows for sure what happened between Broaddrick and Bill Clinton in the hotel room save Broaddrick and Clinton himself, just as no one but Broaddrick and Hillary Clinton knows for sure what passed between them at the rally just a few weeks later — and only Clinton herself knows for sure what she meant to convey, regardless of how Broaddrick took it.

But if Christine Blasey Ford is credible (in my opinion, eminently so), then Tara Reade is credible at the very least — and so is Juanita Broaddrick.

The #MeToo Era: The Briefest of Lights in 40 Years of Darkness

Why bring this up? Because the alleged Broaddrick rape occurred in 1978 — and here we are, in 2020, with many of the same actors, all with the same loyalties, using much the same tactics to silence and sidestep the consequences of almost the same (alleged) crime, the forceable rape of a low-level female political associate by a high-level male with a history of intruding on women.

      Juanita Broaddrick, 1978
      Cover-up continuing, 2020

      Tara Reade, 1993
      Cover-up continuing, 2020

Has nothing changed for Democratic Party leaders in those 42 years?

It's almost as though the #MeToo era, two and a half years at most, the briefest of lights in two dark generations, never occurred at all.
 

Conservatives And Corruptionists Rally Behind Status Quo Joe-- Even They Know The Oligarch Would Be A Disaster

Pick yer poison

A friend of mine-- a generally reliable DC political operative-- told me Sunday evening to watch for the power within Democratic Party politics that Obama still wields on Monday. He didn't tell me how but, sure enough, early Monday morning-- after Steyer had already bailed on Sunday-- we all saw first Mayo Pete and then Amy Klobuchar close down their campaigns and endorse Biden-- and just as establishment-connected centrists-- primarily hack politicians-- began endorsing Biden from coast to coast. Writing yesterday for Newsweek, Alexandra Hutzler reported that there is intense pressure on Bloomberg to pull out too. "But the wild card in the 2020 Democratic field," she wrote, "is Michael Bloomberg... with virtually unlimited resources, the 78-year-old billionaire has more options than his rivals to stay in the race-- despite calls for him to drop out-- even if he doesn't start to collect primary victories. 'If the reason for Bloomberg getting into the race was that everyone else seemed anemic as opposed to Sanders and someone needed to take him on, well that's not the case anymore. Not after South Carolina,' Democratic strategist Scott Ferson told Newsweek."




I doubt it will be meaningful but yesterday already saw EMILY's List endorse Warren, perhaps giving her some false hope that there's a pathway to victory for her.

And as Biden emerges as the only viable moderate alternative to Sanders, calls for Bloomberg to exit are likely to increase. Both Kofinis and Ferson said the longer Bloomberg stays in the race, the more likely it is that either Sanders wins or that there is a brokered convention.

That's not likely to bode well with moderate Democrats, who are already concerned that Sanders could run away with the party's nomination. Buttigieg alluded to such a possibility as he abruptly suspended his campaign Sunday night.

"He didn't want to be the person who hung on too long and could be blamed for an eventual Sanders nomination," Ferson said.

Buttigieg's exit came less than 24 hours after Steyer bowed out after his unexpectedly poor performance in South Carolina. The editorial board at USA Today suggested that other Democrats follow Buttigieg and Steyer's lead and drop out of the race.

Klobuchar quickly followed suit, effectively ending her campaign Monday. According to NBC News, she will announce her departure Monday night and throw her support behind Biden ahead of Super Tuesday.

If Bloomberg doesn't perform well on Super Tuesday, he has no chance to capture the number of delegates needed to secure the party's nomination. But thanks to his $1 billion war chest, he can afford to remain in the race, though many experts say his prolonged appearance would be a detriment to the Democratic Party. Staying on the ticket would likely siphon votes from other candidates and lead to a contested convention or to a landslide Sanders victory.

"The Democratic Party is not going to nominate Michael Bloomberg. It's just not going to happen," Kofinis said. FiveThirtyEight forecasters currently predict there is less than one one-hundredth of a chance Bloomberg wins the Democratic primary.

Bloomberg has said he'd continue to pour millions into the race to fund whoever wins the nomination, even if it's not him. But during a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, Bloomberg signaled he'd continue as a candidate even if he doesn't finish in the top three on Super Tuesday.

On Monday, Bloomberg told supporters in northern Virginia that he had just spoken to Buttigieg and Klobuchar (who are both expected to back Biden) and that he wished them well.

"I thought both of them behaved themselves," he said. "I felt sorry for them but I'm in it to win it."

This came just as Politico put into print what much of the Democratic establishment had already been whispering about Bloomberg for a month now: that his lies are worse than Biden's lies and closer to Trump's lies. (DISCLAIMER: Neither Biden nor Bloomberg is worthy of public office because, like Trump, they feel entitled to lie at will.) Laura Barrón-López reported that Bloomberg's lies risk putting the Democratic Party in jeopardy. "First," she wrote, "came the heavily edited video of Democratic candidates looking speechless at a debate when Mike Bloomberg points out he’s the only one of them who’s started a business. That was followed by tweets of fake quotes last week attributed to Bernie Sanders praising dictators. And shortly before that came news that the Bloomberg campaign was paying social media influencers to hype the billionaire, a novel move by a presidential candidate that was never contemplated by election law."

“This is absolutely dangerous for the fair functioning of our political process,” Dipayan Ghosh, co-director of digital platforms and the Democracy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School, said of the video and tweets posted by Bloomberg. “And it could very well send the Democrats down the slippery slope of disinformation.”

That would further erode discourse online and contribute to an already distrustful electorate, he added.

Republicans including President Donald Trump have increasingly used disinformation online. One glaring example was a doctored video of a stammering Speaker Nancy Pelosi that President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Guliani circulated in May on his Twitter account and then deleted. The Atlantic ran a lengthy magazine piece under the headline: "The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President."

In response, Democrats have debated whether to engage in similar tactics. With his virtually unlimited budget Bloomberg has amassed an enormous digital operation: He is the only Democratic hopeful with the financial wherewithal to even begin to challenge the sophisticated digital machine Trump has built. And the former New York City mayor-- eager to distill what will resonate with voters-- is testing tactics and messages more aggressively than any of his Democratic rivals.

But the campaign’s flirtation with disinformation and its use of paid-for social media to spread his message have also raised questions about the lack of regulation applied to politicians and their campaigns on platforms like Twitter and Instagram.

...Only two candidates-- Joe Biden [who lies every time he opens his mouth] and Elizabeth Warren-- have issued official pledges to not use illicit tactics. In June, Biden promised no bots, deep fakes or disinformation. Warren has openly feuded with Facebook over its standards for allowing false statements in political advertising, and she released a policy proposal to crack down on disinformation.

Combating the expansive and fast infection of the seep of disinformation into American elections isn’t being “pollyannaish about blood sport in politics,” said Graham Brookie, head of digital forensic research for the Atlantic Council. It’s about being “extremely vigilant about anything that would be potentially misleading.”

Brookie didn’t consider the edited debate video disinformation, but said it walked up to the line. He did, however, call the Bloomberg tweets quoting fake Sanders’ comments “outright disinformation.”

“While a number of consumers might identify it appropriately as satire, you can't depend on an audience to clearly and coherently consume information,” Brookie said.

Over the weekend, Chris Hedges noted that "Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Karl Marx grounded their philosophies in the understanding that there is a natural antagonism between the rich and the rest of us. The interests of the rich are not our interests. The truths of the rich are not our truths. The lives of the rich are not our lives. Great wealth not only breeds contempt for those who do not have it but it empowers oligarchs to pay armies of lawyers, publicists, politicians, judges, academics and journalists to censure and control public debate and stifle dissent. Neoliberalism, deindustrialization, the destruction of labor unions, slashing and even eliminating the taxes of the rich and corporations, free trade, globalization, the surveillance state, endless war and austerity-- the ideologies or tools used by the oligarchs to further their own interests-- are presented to the public as natural law, the mechanisms for social and economic progress, even as the oligarchs dynamite the foundations of a liberal democracy and exacerbate a climate crisis that threatens to extinguish human life. The oligarchs are happy to talk about race. They are happy to talk about sexual identity and gender. They are happy to talk about patriotism. They are happy to talk about religion. They are happy to talk about immigration. They are happy to talk about abortion. They are happy to talk about gun control. They are happy to talk about cultural degeneracy or cultural freedom. They are not happy to talk about class. Race, gender, religion, abortion, immigration, gun control, culture and patriotism are issues used to divide the public, to turn neighbor against neighbor, to fuel virulent hatreds and antagonisms. The culture wars give the oligarchs, both Democrats and Republicans, the cover to continue the pillage. There are few substantial differences between the two ruling political parties in the United States. This is why oligarchs like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg can switch effortlessly from one party to the other. Once oligarchs seize power, Aristotle wrote, a society must either accept tyranny or choose revolution."

That's why, as Hedges went on to explain, "the New Deal was the bête noire of the oligarchs" and why "[t]hey began to undo Roosevelt’s New Deal even before World War II broke out at the end of 1941. They gradually dismantled the regulations and programs that had not only saved capitalism but arguably democracy itself. We now live in an oligarchic state. The oligarchs control politics, the economy, culture, education and the press. Donald Trump may be a narcissist and a con artist, but he savages the oligarchic elite in his long-winded speeches to the delight of his crowds. He, like Bernie Sanders, speaks about the forbidden topic-- class. But Trump, though an embarrassment to the oligarchs, does not, like Sanders, pose a genuine threat to them. Trump will, like all demagogues, incite violence against the vulnerable, widen the cultural and social divides and consolidate tyranny, but he will leave the rich alone. It is Sanders whom the oligarchs fear and hate."

The Democrats, like the Republicans, serve the interests of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. The Democrats, like the Republicans, serve the interests of the defense contractors. The Democrats, like the Republicans, serve the interests of the fossil fuel industry. The Democrats, along with the Republicans, authorized $738 billion for our bloated military in fiscal 2020. The Democrats, like the Republicans, do not oppose the endless wars in the Middle East. The Democrats, like the Republicans, took from us our civil liberties, including the right to privacy, freedom from wholesale government surveillance, and due process. The Democrats, like the Republicans, legalized unlimited funding from the rich and corporations to transform our electoral process into a system of legalized bribery. The Democrats, like the Republicans, militarized our police and built a system of mass incarceration that has 25% of the world’s prisoners, although the United States has only 5% of the world’s population. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are the political face of the oligarchy.

The leaders of the Democratic Party-- the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Tom Perez-- would rather implode the party and the democratic state than surrender their positions of privilege. The Democratic Party is not a bulwark against despotism. It is the guarantor of despotism. It is a full partner in the class project. Its lies, deceit, betrayal of working men and women and empowering of corporate pillage made a demagogue like Trump possible. Any threat to the class project, even the tepid one that would be offered by Sanders as the party’s nominee, will see the Democratic elites unite with the Republicans to keep Trump in power.

Natasha Korecki for Politico: According to Advertising Analytics, Bloomberg has yet to book TV ads after Super Tuesday. A source with knowledge of the conversations said talks were occurring at the staff level between the Biden and Bloomberg campaigns since last week. A separate source said high-level donors who had been persuaded to hold back on Biden following devastating losses in Iowa and New Hampshire had started pushing back, telling Bloomberg team members they were likely to shift back to Biden."

Want more on the oligarch who bought his way into contention? Historic.ly is running an excellent series on him. Part 2 is here.

Artificial Intelligence Predicts Big Bernie Win Tomorrow-- With Far-Reaching Effects On Biden's Electability Argument

When computers mimic the human mind by showing an ability to "learn" and then use that learning to solve problems... that's AI-- Artificial Intelligence. Today it goes beyond human speech recognition, military war-game simulations and autonomously operating cars and tracks to... predicting who's going to win the Iowa caucuses tomorrow. You don't need AI for that you say? You can check the Real Clear Politics polling average (which shows Bernie ahead with 23.8%, compared to Status Quo Joe's 20.2%, Mayo Pete's 15.8% and everyone else below the 15% needed to win any delegates). Or you can check the latest trustworthy polls, like Emerson's (which shows Bernie with 30%, Biden with 21% and no one else over 15%) or the Civiqs poll with Iowa State University (which shows Bernie leading with 24%, followed by Elizabeth with 19%, Mayo with 17% and Status Quo Joe hanging on with his fingernails at 15%).

Or go ask Polly. Polly? Polly is an AI tool powered by Advanced Symbolics Inc., itself an artificial intelligence-driven market research company. Polly, the first AI in the world able to predict human behavior up to the minute-- everything from buying decisions to voting intentions-- is predicting a win for Bernie tomorrow. "She uses publicly available online information," explains ASI, "to create representative samples of any population or target audience. Without asking any direct questions, Polly tracks and interprets how people in the sample feel toward a topic along with their intentions.

When looking at the forecast numbers, the story isn’t between Sanders and Biden (although polls have shown them neck-to-neck for the past few days), but with the shift in momentum for Warren. Polly sees Warren cracking 15% of the vote, which is significantly higher than the 13-14 percent polls have been showing. These votes come at the expense of Biden, who will drop to 20% for the first time since the Democratic Debate on January 15.  Heading into New Hampshire, this will appear momentum shifting from Biden to Warren.

Young voters will be responsible for Sanders’s win in Iowa. 24% of voters under 25 are supportive of Sanders. Biden strongly resonates with older voters, especially 65 and over. Polly is seeing that younger voters will turn out at higher than historic levels, swinging the election to Sanders, countering the strong voter turnout among retirees.

Looking beyond the two front runners, Polly sees Buttigieg holding steady in 3rd place with 17% of the vote, followed by Warren with 15%, and then Klobuchar with 8% of the vote. The race between Warren and Klobuchar, the two leading female candidates, is interesting. Women are more likely to support Klobuchar then men (9% of women voting for Klobuchar compared to 7% of men), while Warren has more endeared herself to the male constituent (16% of men will vote for Warren, compared to 14% of women). This is consistent with Warren’s debate showing, where she held her ground as a strong female candidate while not offending men.

This is what Polly predicts for tomorrow among all people who attend the Democratic caucuses:

• Bernie- 21.47%
• Status Quo Joe- 19.98%
• Mayo- 16.82%
• Elizabeth- 15.44%
• Klobuchar- 8.36%
• Yang- 3.24%
• Steyer- 3.09%
• Tulsi- 1.88%
• Bloomberg- 0.58%

I would also note that among caucus attendees with no party (independents), Bernie's lead goes way up (although he also leads among Democrats alone 20% to 18% over Biden). The Bernie landslide among independents is something Democrats concerned about electability should be paying close attention to, since independents decide election is states Trump won that Bernie is targeting for November, namely Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Arizona, Florida and Alaska, as well as electoral college voting congressional districts NE-02 and ME-02. It should be worrying to see how badly Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Status Quo Joe perform among independent voters. This is each candidate's projected performance among only independent Iowa voters likely to participate in the Democratic caucuses tomorrow:

• Bernie- 34% (+13)
• Status Quo Joe- 14% (-6)
• Klobuchar- 10% (-2)
• Elizabeth- 5% (-10)
• Mayo- 9% (-8)
• Yang- 7% (+4)
• Steyer- 3% (same)
• Tulsi- 5% (+3)
• Bloomberg- 3% (+2)

I also want to mention one more metric Polly measured-- support for each candidate by gender. Bernie wins among males, beating Biden 26 to 14% and wins among females, beating Biden 21 to 20%. So who is against Bernie-- these corporations funding the Republican wing of the Democratic Party's (Third Way) vicious attacks against him with over a million dollars worth of TV advertising smears in Iowa:

Good target for progressives: CVS

Speaking of which, there are Democratic Party sore losers... like Hillary Clinton, once a Republican Party operative in Illinois who then moved to Massachusetts where she rose in the GOP ranks and spent her teens and twenties as a hard-core Republican. And she's still that kind of person. What kind of person? Have you ever met a Republican? I have. And I've met Hillary Clinton-- several times-- and she's the same kind of creep, which is why I just could not bring myself to vote for her in 2016. And why her repugnant attacks on Bernie come as no surprise to me whatsoever. (And, yes, that said, she was still a better candidate than Joe Biden!)

Get involved-- no matter where you live, no matter who you are. Let's not stick ourselves with another lesser of two evils candidate the DNC thrusts on us as "inevitable," the way they did in 2016. There's a great candidate running, great in the way Franklin Roosevelt was great. I hope I see another great president-- the first in my lifetime-- and I hope this guy does too. Don't feel sad... feel inspired.

Medicare-For-All? "Us Not Me" Will Win The Day AND That's Not To Dilute The Importance Of A Key Historical Figure Or Two

Hillary is being left behind by history-- but embraced by Big PhRMA

Last week Alexander Burns wasted a New York Times column on Hillary Clinton's opposition to Medicare-for-All. He caught up with her at the Times's DealBook conference, where she as much as endorsed Status Quo Joe by saying she "hoped for a return to 'boring, normal times' after the 2020 election, voicing skepticism of her party’s populist wing and predicting that Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for single-payer health care would never get enacted." As she knows, the single-payer plan is Bernie's and it nearly kept her from her stolen nomination. She's still bitter and vindictive and said "Democrats should pursue the goal of universal health coverage, but through other means."

She was an activist conservative Republican well into her twenties and Burns, rather than admitting she's nothing but a conservative and neo-lib fronting for the donor class referred to her as "A longtime leader of her party’s moderate wing."

She can't get it through her head that the American people-- and Democrats even more so-- are demanding fairer tax policies that will cut deeply into the wealth of the criminal class the Clintons, Bidens, Bloombergs and Trumps belong to. "Clinton," wrote Burns, "was most blunt about Ms. Warren’s proposal to replace private health insurance with a single-payer system funded largely by taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Asked if she thought that proposal could get passed into law, Mrs. Clinton answered in the negative. 'No, I don’t-- I don’t,' she said. 'But the goal is the right goal.'" From 1905 to 1965 conservative Democrats like Clinton worked with the GOP to prevent Medicare, calling it impossible and a dream and then, when it became inevitable, watering it down so that Bernie's Medicare-for-All plan puts back in place everything the Clinton-types ripped out of it-- from universal coverage to dental care and equitable drug prices.

Speaking on Thursday at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, N.C., Ms. Warren was asked about Mrs. Clinton’s remarks.

"I’m saying, you don’t get what you don’t fight for,” she said in response. “You know, you got to be willing to get out there and fight.”

Mrs. Clinton’s comments suggest she remains skeptical of the populist forces on the rise in Democratic politics. While she did not endorse a candidate, she indicated a clear preference in one of the largest debates raging in the Democratic Party: whether to nominate a candidate who would make sweeping changes to the country’s government and economy, or someone who would restore something like normalcy in Washington.

“I would like us to return to a presidency where we don’t have to wake up every day worried,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding, “I’d like us to get back to sort of boring, normal times.”

Yesterday, bestselling author and a former health insurance industry executive Wendell Potter responded with a Tweet Storm. "Hillary," he began, "is remembering what happened in the 90s, when I worked at Humana and we tanked the nation’s first attempt at single payer since the famed Nixon/Kennedy failure. The industry came out with what are now its greatest hits-- like dubbing what we now call Medicare for All, 'government run health care.' Public opinion that had been rising in support of single payer dropped like a rock. Fast forward 25 years and the industry play now is the same as it was then. Why, then, should Clinton expect to feel any differently about passage of single payer?"

1- A majority of Americans who receive health insurance through their employer now say they support a switch to MedicareForAll.

2- A majority of small business owners support MedicareForAll. (96% of small employers already don’t offer health insurance because it’s too expensive, but this is still important.)

3- The number of Americans receiving health insurance through an employer is falling-- and now close to 50%, down from closer to 70% two decades ago.

4- And those that do get coverage through an employer increasingly find it too expensive. The average family insurance plan now costs more than $20,000 annually.

5- And furthermore, those people find it too expensive to use. Nearly 100 million Americans are now “underinsured”-- meaning their deductibles and copays are so high they can’t afford to go to a doctor or hospital if they need to.

6- A majority of Americans support MedicareForAll even after it has been attacked. Simply remind people they’re out-of-pocket costs, premiums and deductibles will go away-- and they’re all for it.

"Finally, and this is harder to track, we didn’t have politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ten and 25 years ago with the power those two have now. Their social media followings, their email lists, the media they draw-- it all contributes to getting out the truth about the broken for-profit health insurance system the industry was able to lie about for years. There’s now a chorus of voices, led by Sanders and Warren, that are saying, 'enough!'"

And history will remember Hillary, if at all, as nothing but a First Lady and a GOP victim

Shan Chowdhury is the progressive candidate taking on transactional, crooked conservative New Dem Gregory Meeks in southeast Queens. He's campaigning strongly for Medicare-for-All. This morning he told us that "When Hilary Clinton talks about bringing it back to normal, boring times, I think about how both parties passed the 1994 crime bill or when our military ventured into a series of senseless wars. Brushing aside the reality of what working class families have to go through is unconscionable. It tells the American people we don't deserve to have healthcare because protecting the profits of the healthcare industry is in their best interest."

Kim Williams is another progressive running for a seat occupied by a corrupt conservative Democrat, in her case, Blue Dog Jim Costa. Williams' campaign is premised on issues opposed by Republicans and Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party like Costa, Medicare-for-All being an especially important one. "Clinton," she told me, "stated that she wished we could return to a presidency 'where we don’t have to wake up every day worried.' The problem is that the good people in my district, who breathe the dirtiest air in America and can’t access decent healthcare or good paying jobs, will wake up everyday worried if we don’t bring about real change. This is another example of comfortable millionaires telling those facing medical bankruptcies to quiet down with little regard or understanding for the lived experiences of working class families in America. There’s a reason so many of us have had enough with the status quo, and Medicare for All will absolutely be enacted if we send the right people to represent us."

Saturday progressive Will County Democrat Rachel Ventura co-hosted a Medicare for All event with another Blue America-backed Chicagoland candidate, Robert Emmons, who's running to unseat Bobby Rush. Rachel told us that she and Robert "sat and listened to powerful stories from victims of the for-profit healthcare system. One woman, Wendy Schuster, a resident of Joliet said that she was paying about $20,000 a year in out of pocket healthcare expenses. As a cancer survivor Wendy said that fighting claims was a full-time job even though she had insurance."

Wendy shared a more disturbing, and sad story about her 38-year old cousin who was diagnosed with a hernia. The simple laparoscopic surgery to fix the hernia was not covered by his for-profit insurance company. They denied the claim stating that it was not medically necessary. On October 22nd, her cousin went home sick and started bleeding. He tried controlling the bleeding with towels, but it was not enough. Because his insurance company had denied him the care he needed to repair the hernia, her cousin bled to death, and was discovered 48 hours later.

Every year, over 40,000 Americans die just like Wendy’s cousin because the Hillary Clintons, the Joe Bidens and the Bill Fosters of the world rather fight for the for-profit healthcare industry than fight to fix the broken system.

Another victim of the for-profit insurance industry and resident of Joliet, Janet Diaz, said that she was angry at the healthcare industry. As a Certified Nurses Assistant, Diaz worked at Silver Cross Hospital and had excellent health insurance. She was injured at work and the insurance companies passed the buck back and forth between workers compensation and her Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance plan. In the end, she got stuck with nearly $250,000 in medical bills. She had to quit-claim deed her home to her parents to protect her home from the for profit healthcare industry. Diaz concluded by saying, “we need our Senators and our Congressmen to have the same insurance that we have, and the same insurance that the homeless guy down the street has, and until that happens, we are not going to get the good healthcare that we need. Medicare for All is the only way to go. Medicare for most does not cut it.”

We also heard from a union electrician from Aurora, Mike O’Connell who described himself as a cancer survivor who had to use his “Cadillac insurance” plan. Even though he had used his insurance, O’Connell did not agree with the AFL-CIO messaging that union members prefer private insurance over Medicare for All. Mike used a slide to show us that over 28% of his paycheck was going to pay for healthcare costs, including $24,000 per year that went to private insurance companies. He showed us that under a Medicare for All plan that he would instead be paying only $8,200 per year. “Medicare for All would let me put $19,097 more in my pocket every year,” said O’Connell. “I support Medicare for All. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

These stories are tragic, and I feel like America is becoming numb to these tragedies and they are becoming the norm. The unwillingness of our political leaders to do anything is barbaric. What is even more tragic is that the solution is right in front of us and it is an easy solution, Improved Medicare for All. We have the money and we can afford to change things. Once again, we see a broken system in America where we allow wealthy donors to dictate the quality of life, or life itself for everyone else.

Robert Emmons and Rachel Ventura 

UPDATE from Columbus, Ohio:

Morgan Harper is the progressive reformer running for Columbus seat occupied by old school, do-nothing Democrat Joyce Beatty. A few minutes ago, Morgan told us that "Almost every single person I meet while door knocking in OH-03 cites health care costs as their main issue. The employer-based system we have is not working. It gives insurance companies all of the power. Medicare for All would ensure that everyone in this country has access to quality health care, and that we are able finally to control the costs of care. I am firmly committed to making this goal a reality when I get to Congress. We have to do better."

What Conservative Dems-- The Republican Wing Of The Democratic Party-- Don't Want

The Green New Deal is complicated and partially abstract and certainly not easy to understand for an idiot. It's aspirational too. Medicare-For-All isn't as complicated, but it's complicated too. You know what's not complicated? Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, a semi-livable wage. That;'s pretty straight forward. But it's something that infuriates conservatives almost as much as the Green New Deal and Medicare For All do. Conservatives have always opposed the minimum wage and always opposed raising the minimum wage.

In the late 1800s anti sweatshop activism began gaining strength in Australian, the U.K. and the U.S., leading to calls for minimum wages. Massachusetts passed the first minimum wage legislation in the U.S. in 1912. A decade later there were 15 states with minimum wage laws. The very conservative Supreme Court kept striking them down, declaring them unconstitutional, because they interfered with the ability of employers to freely negotiate wage contracts with employees. And then came the bane of every conservative heart: the New Deal. The Supreme Court struck down the first national minimum wage in the '30s. After FDR was reelected in the biggest landslide in history in 1936 and started discussing putting more justices on the court, the conservatives on the court finally saw the light and ruled a minimum wage law constitutional. The federal minimum wage started at 25 cents an hour and by 1990 it had grown to $3.80. Today the federal minimum wage is $7.25, although only $2.13 for "tipped labor."

Most of the states in the Old Confederacy-- particularly where Republicans have complete control-- don't have any minimum wage at all, of course-- Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee. Georgia's is $5.15. California, Washington and Massachusetts have the highest minimum wages among states-- $12.00 that will gradually rise, along with New York's and New Jersey's, to $15.00.

Every passage in every jurisdiction and every increase has been fought by conservatives. That has usually broken down to meaning that nearly all Republicans oppose it and nearly all Democrats support it. But something's changing. Not in the Republican party; they're as opposed to workers' having the ability to live with any sense of dignity as they ever were. Unfortunately, the change comes among Democrats. Starting with Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party began catering more to corporate and financial interests and less to unions and workers. That ugly neoliberal trend has accelerated since Clinton's presidency and now we have immense power resting in the hands of the Blue Dogs and New Dems in Congress, perhaps enough to kill the super-popular calls for a $15 national minimum wage. Let me start by making sure you know who, very specifically, the New Dems are. Almost every Blue Dog is also a New Dem; the only 6 who aren't are Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Filemon Vela (TX), Sanford Bishop (GA), Mike Thompson (CA), Collin Peterson (MN) and Dan Lipinski (IL). This is, at least in the House, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party:

• Pete Aguilar (CA)
• Colin Allred (TX)
• Cindy Axne (IA)
• Ami Bera (CA)
• Don Beyer (VA)
• Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE)
• Brendan Boyle (PA)
• Anthony Brindisi (NY)
• Anthony Brown (MD)
• Julia Brownley (CA)
• Cheri Bustos (IL)
• Salud Carbajal (CA)
• Tony Cárdenas (CA)
• André Carson (IN)
• Ed Case (HI)
• Sean Casten (IL)
• Joaquin Castro (TX)
• Gil Cisneros (CA)
• Gerry Connolly (VA)
• Jim Cooper (TN)
• Lou Correa (CA)
• Jim Costa (CA)
• Angie Craig (MN)
• Charlie Crist (FL)
• Jason Crow (CO)
• Henry Cuellar (TX)
• Joe Cunningham (SC)
• Sharice Davids (KS)
• Susan Davis (CA)
• Madeleine Dean (PA)
• Suzan DelBene (WA), vice-chair
• Val Demings (FL)
• Eliot Engels (NY)
• Veronica Escobar (TX)
• Lizzie Fletcher (TX)
• Bill Foster (IL)
• Vicente Gonzalez (TX)
• Josh Gottheimer (NJ)
• Josh Harder (CA)
• Denny Heck (WA)
• Katie Hill (CA)
• Jim Himes (CT)
• Kendra Horn (OK)
• Steven Horsford (NV)
• Chrissy Houlahan (PA)
• Bill Keating (MA)
• Derek Kilmer (WA), chairman
• Ron Kind (WI)
• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)
• Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL)
• Ann Kuster (NH), vice-chair
• Rick Larsen (WA)
• Brenda Lawrence (MI)
• Al Lawson (FL)
• Susie Lee (NV)
• Elaine Luria (VA)
• Tom Malinowski (NJ)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (NY)
• Ben McAdams (UT)
• Lucy McBath (GA)
• Donald McEachin (VA)
• Gregory Meeks (NY)
• Seth Moulton (MA)
• Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL)
• Stephanie Murphy (FL)
• Donald Norcross (NJ)
• Tom O'Halleran (AZ)
• Chris Pappas (NH)
• Ed Perlmutter (CO)
• Scott Peters (CA), vice-chair
• Dean Phillips (MN)
• Mike Quigley (IL)
• Kathleen Rice (NY)
• Cedric Richmond (LA)
• Max Rose (NY)
• Harley Rouda (CA)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Adam Schiff (CA)
• Brad Schneider (IL)
• Kurt Schrader (OR)
• Kim Schrier (WA)
• David Scott (GA)
• Terri Sewell (AL), vice-chair
• Mike Sherrill (NJ)
• Elissa Slotkin (MI)
• Adam Smith (WA)
• Darren Soto (FL)
• Abigail Spanberger (VA)
• Greg Stanton (AZ)
• Haley Stevens (MI)
• Tom Suozzi (NY)
• Norma Torres (CA)
• Xochitl Torres-Small (NM)
• Lori Trahan (MA)
• David Trone (MD)
• Juan Vargas (CA)
• Marc Veasey (TX)
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)
• Jennifer Wexton (VA)
• Susan Wild (PA)

It's Wall Street financed, pro-corporate, anti-labor organization, but not every member is anti-worker-- or at least not every member can manifest anti-worker tendencies given the constituencies they represent. And these are the people, for the most part, who went whining to Pelosi and Bustos about being protected against primaries. Some aren't even members because of the ideology but because of the corruption, since the New Dems are the nexus of bribery in the House.

Now, with all that in mind, let's consider how the New Dems are leading the opposition to the progressive plan to pass a $15 minimum wage bill, which the Democrats can certainly do and which Democratic and independent (and even Republican) voters very much want. The big campaign contributors who pay for the cushy careers of the New Dems don't want it. Take a look at this polling of registered voters. The majority of Americans want that raise of $15, which Bernie has already proposed in the Senate and has integrated into his presidential platform and campaign.

According to these pollsters 70% of Republican voters want a higher federal wage floor, with 36% supporting $15 per hour. Thirty percent of GOP respondents said they wanted to keep the amount the same, reduce it or eliminate it. A majority of both Democratic (73%) and independent voters (53%) support a $15 rate. Minimum wage increases are broadly popular across all demographic groups. The $15 proposal was supported by a majority of all age groups in the Hill-HarrisX poll. Now read this carefully, because it's going to help you understand what the New Dems are all about and who they really are and why it's foolish to help get them elected:

Support for a higher minimum wage also is strong across the ideological spectrum. Seventy-seven percent of self-described "strong liberals" supported an increase to $15, as did 66 percent of respondents who said they lean liberal. Sixty percent of moderates backed the proposal as well.

Among those who described themselves as strongly conservative or leaning conservative, support for increasing the wage to $15 did not reach majority levels; however, a majority wanted an increase to an amount above $7.25.

Seventy-two percent of respondents who said they leaned conservative indicated they wanted an increase of some amount, as did 67 percent of strongly conservative respondents.

Eva Putzova, who is running for Congress against an "ex"-Republican Blue Dog/New Dem, Tom O'Halleran, is the chair of the Flagstaff Living Wage Coalition. She reminded us that "Not a single ballot measure raising the minimum wage has ever failed-- not in a blue state or a red state. In Flagstaff, we raised the minimum wage to $15 per hour through a local initiative that was on the same ballot in 2016 as the increase of the Arizona's state minimum wage to $12 per hour. Raising the minimum wage is simply what people want. When the Raise the Wage Act passes (and I hope it will), it will be the first time in the history of this country that at least one chamber of Congress legislates the full minimum wage for tipped workers, most of whom are women and many are people of color and immigrants. The federal subminimum tipped wage has been frozen at an exploitative $2.13 since 1991 thanks to the power, money and influence of the "other NRA." Living mostly off tips forces tipped workers to tolerate sexual harassment and leads to economic instability for millions of families across the country. If Congress cares more about working families and women than short-term corporate interests, $15 per hour will be the new minimum wage floor. In the long run, even corporations benefit from stronger consumer purchasing power that comes with higher wages and more economic security."

Writing for Politico yesterday, Sarah Ferris reported on the New Dem/Blue Dog push to kill the $15 minimum wage legislation, calling it a broadening rift between the party’s progressive and moderate members, insisting on calling the conservatives from the Republican wing of the party, "moderates," the most admired political term among American voters and an implication that progressives are something other than moderate-- like extreme or radical. That's ALWAYS the Beltway media. Watch how Ferris subtly frames the news against progressives, even knowing that a majority of Americans want to $15 minimum wage.

Progressive leaders in the House are attempting to stamp out a push by some red state Democrats to soften the party’s $15-an-hour minimum wage proposal, which they see as a betrayal of last fall’s campaign promises.

Leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are now lobbying fellow Democrats to help extinguish a competing plan backed by more than a dozen moderates that would permit lower hourly wages in more rural areas. And they’re prepared to wield the power of the 96-member caucus to ensure their full $15-an-hour proposal reaches the floor.

“We want to pass a full $15 minimum wage bill. Not a regional bill. We’re very clear about that,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said in an interview. “Being in Congress means leading, and we need to lead on minimum wage.”

Democratic leaders have publicly and privately committed to passing a universal $15-an-hour wage, a priority that they say helped deliver the House majority. But the idea is running into some resistance from moderates in red states like Georgia, Iowa and Alabama, who have balked at doubling the federal minimum wage over a five-year stretch because they fear it will cost jobs, and votes, back home.

And with the $15-an-hour proposal still short on votes, some progressives fear that Democratic leaders will be forced to soften their signature bill to win over moderates, even though it will still go nowhere in the Senate.

A group of Democrats, led by Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama, plan to introduce their own bill Thursday morning that would create a “regional” minimum wage-- based on local cost of living-- instead. Thirteen Democrats have signed on as co-sponsors as of Wednesday afternoon, but that number could grow, according to Sewell’s office.

Sewell is a corrupt conservative who represents the 431st (out of 435) poorest district, in terms of median income. 64% of her constituents are African-Americans and the PVI is R+20. Do you think Blue America should tell her constituents with radio and TV ads that she's leading the fight against increasing the minimum wage to $15 on behalf of her corporate campaign donors? I suspect they wouldn't be all that pleased. A vice-chair of the New Dems, she's more loyal to them than to her own constituents. Just outrageous!

Supporters include freshmen Democrats like Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia and Dean Phillips of Minnesota-- who is a small business owner who pays his own workers $15-an-hour but has said it is not a “one-size-fits-all wage.”

Sewell’s bill would dramatically slow the wage hikes in hundreds of smaller cities from Cincinnati to St. Louis compared to metropolis areas like San Francisco and New York.

But many other Democrats-- including House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott, the chief author of the $15-an-hour minimum wage bill-- detest the idea.

“Low income areas would be locked in to lower wages. We don’t have differentiated payments for Social Security,” the Virginia Democrat said in an interview.

The introduction of Sewell's bill on Thursday will intensify a brewing clash between progressives and some moderates that has taken mostly behind the scenes.

Tension erupted last month at a meeting of New Democrats Coalition, as Scott dismissed the idea of a regional bill-- in a roomful of moderates [not moderates-- conservatives], many of whom supported Sewell's bill-- as he sought to sell his own.

Supporters of Scott's bill-- including virtually all CPC members, who got a private briefing from Scott on the bill in January-- have argued that the competing proposal is costing votes and stalling the party’s hallmark $15-an-hour policy from reaching the floor.

“The regional minimum wage proposal is a clear attempt to water down the Raise the Wage Act,” an aide to one progressive member said. “Poverty wages shouldn’t be acceptable anywhere in America.”

Progressive leaders are now stepping up the pressure on Democratic leaders to fend off changes to the $15-an-hour bill, possibly hinting at the first time the CPC decides to go to the mat to defend a progressive priority.

So far in the majority, the CPC has mostly refrained from aggressive tactics to ensure their top agenda items make it to the floor. But some members and aides are eying the battle over the minimum wage bill as the first real test for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants to prove their commitment to a progressive agenda, even if it means cornering moderates on a difficult issue in their districts.

"We're getting to get a vote on the $15-an-hour. I think there's just too much pressure that's going to build up on our caucus to do that. That was the commitment," Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) said in an interview. "We need to follow through on that."

They argue that Sewell's bill would also raise wages, only more slowly. Cities like El Paso, Texas, and Topeka, Kansas would need to raise their wages to $8.10 next year, while wages would jump to at least $10.60 in sprawling cities like San Francisco, Washington and New York City.

“More than doubling the wage over five years is going to result in lost jobs,” an aide to a member in favor of a regional wage bill said. “A lot of people would prefer to have a $10 wage than no job.”

Scott and other critics of the idea are quick to point out the flaws of the bill, as well, such as a congressional district in New Hampshire that would have three different minimum wages. Critics have also pointed out that Sewell's bill would result in sharp spikes in the minimum wage in certain areas, like a $3 increase in Virginia next year alone.

Some moderates have argued that Sewell's bill has interest from Republicans, unlike the Democrats' dream proposal, but long-time Democrats argue they need to send the message to their base.

“I think if it's not gonna go anywhere, I think we’ve got to make a statement. We’re for living wage everywhere,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), who is a cosponsor of Scott's bill.

Marie Newman, a champion of a $15 minimum wage is working on a rematch with reactionary Blue Dog Dan Lipinski in a solid blue Chicagoland seat. She nearly beat him last time and his fellow Blue Dogs fear she will easily do so this cycle. This morning, she told us that "One of the things I am most proud of about my 2018 primary challenge to Dan Lipinski, is that we forced him to change his stance on $15/hr. He went from contending '$12 is enough', to signing on to the current $15/hr legislation in the last 6 weeks of the campaign. The district and I pushed him hard. It was worth it. I cannot stress how important this legislation is to our country. In an environment where 80% of the country is living paycheck to paycheck and we have an ever-escalating patchwork of jobs phenomenon (the situation where people must cobble 2-4 jobs together to make ends meet on a consistent basis), we need hardworking folks to be paid for their efforts. The dignity of work is our bedrock in the U.S. We must give hard work dignity. We must."

Tom Guild lives in a red district based around Oklahoma City. His freshman Rep, Kendra Horn, is a big disappointment to Democrats nd many have been urging Tom to primary her. I suspect that her posture on the minimum wage legislation is going to be a key determinant for him. Early this morning, he told us that "It’s easy for members of the U.S. Congress to pontificate on a $15 minimum wage. After all, each member of the U.S. House or Senate is guaranteed $285,000 in salary and benefits each year. They are guaranteed the same lofty compensation shortly after joining Congress, even if they are involuntarily retired from the House or Senate by voters who think they did a lousy job of representing them. For folks with a golden spoon in their mouths and a lucrative retirement to die for, it’s apparently easy to be hard. Phasing in a $15 minimum wage is the right thing to do. The longer we wait, we may need to phase in a much higher dollar amount. In Oklahoma, a relatively low cost of living state, $15 an hour would allow an individual to survive and to take an annual three day vacation-- to Tulsa! $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage. A person can’t survive anywhere in the country on $7.25 without roommates, second or third jobs, or a patron saint helping them along the way. It’s easy to be hard. It’s apparently easy to be hard-- especially if you have a guaranteed $285,000 job at taxpayer expense. It sounds suspiciously like “socialism” to me. It is way beyond time to bring hard working Americans, many of them single parents with hungry mouths to feed, up to a level where they are not living in poverty while working full time. If not now, when? If not us, who will do the right thing to help our beloved neighbors?"

If you know who Randy Bryce, you know that when it comes to working people, he knows what he;'s talking about. Last night, he told me that "Republicans view average citizens as 'money farms' instead of people. They all believe that they are destined to win the lottery and when they do-- you’d best be ready to help them maintain their lavish lifestyle. We have a few Democrats who also don’t seem to see things as the rest of us do. They view the .01% as benefactors who donate to their campaigns which allows them not to need a job that may require them getting their hands dirty. The same party that rails against socialism for people is fully complicit allowing corporations-- who they see as people-- to receive handouts. That doesn’t make any sense to me especially considering that we have an existing tax code that allows for loopholes that don’t require people to pay into the pot that their hands are continually taking things out of. When it comes to fair pay for a day’s work it shouldn’t be too much to ask for one full time job to be enough to pay one’s bills. A livable wage will keep people from needing government assistance but it won’t keep corporations from grabbing every penny that they can. What will it take to start seeing the companies that get tax breaks but refuse to pay their employees a fair wage as a freeloader instead of the woman or man trying to feed their child? Raising the minimum wage isn’t about getting wealthy. It’s about dignity. Every time I hear a rich CEO state that 'hard work has gotten me where I am,' I follow with the question" 'who’s hard work'?"

Is this part of why Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina...? Sewell and the New Dems are taking a position identical to the one that just about mandated that Hillary Clinton lose the 2016 election to... Trump.

UPDATE: From Texas

Mike Siegel: "I support a $15 minimum wage, period. We need a living wage for American workers, and $15 will be a strong step in the right direction. We need to address the massive wealth inequality in this country, and a $15 wage will help. We need to address homelessness, access to transportation, and mental health-- and $15 an hour make an impact. No one should be forced to work two and three jobs just to survive. Raising the minimum wage is one of the most important things we can do to guarantee the economic security of our workers."