Picking Up The Torch From Bernie Sanders – Why I Am Running For Mayor Of Aurora, Illinois

 

Sanders' political career is far from over and his voice still echoes powerfully on the floor of the U. S. Senate, but we need to be thinking about the next steps in fixing our economy, addressing the climate crisis and establishing a government and economy that works for everyone. The progressive movement must stay focused on winning down ballot races, non-partisan seats, and picking up the torch to carry it forward for the next generation.

We need more people to get involved. If you are not helping a progressive like Cori Bush, Marie Newman, Jamal Bowman or Paula Jean Swearengin then you might want to think about adding your name, with your populist/progressive views, to the ballot in the next election. With Covid creating nationwide unrest and The Black Lives Matter movement pushing significant police reforms, the space for more people to run for city and municipal seats is needed more than ever. We must elect strong leaders to take us where we need to go.

My decision to run for Mayor of Aurora, the second-largest city in Illinois, came when I realized that Trump, a climate denier, and Biden, a fossil fuel enabler were not going to address the climate crisis. I see our nation divided over racial injustices and white nationalists openly taking to the streets with weapons-- not even hiding behind badges.

After an explosive night protesting and rioting in Aurora on May 31st, our city council is now considering some minor police reforms like an appointed citizens’ review board for any cases of police brutality. But this came only after purchasing more riot gear against the community wishes, and a complete failure to even discuss crime prevention. The city has finally agreed to purchase body cameras, is discussing a citizens’ review board, and/or requiring Aurora police to live in our city. These are low hanging fruit ideas. Unfortunately, the City of Aurora is not talking about proven crime prevention methods like job creation and mentorship services that are directed at intervention for at-risk youth. This is where we need to go as a city and nation.

The intersectionality of these issues creates opportunities for the needed change. We need fundamental change and I believe that we can work locally to create a template that mirrors the goals of the Green New Deal. Creating jobs, economic stability, and moving towards real solutions of addressing the climate crisis and racial divide. Our campaign for mayor is focused on making Aurora one of the greenest cities in the United States, closing the wealth gap, and making sure that ALL Aurora citizens can participate in a growing green collar economy. This city can show other cities in the nation that the GND is indeed the only practical solution.

As a union carpenter I have made my own house dramatically more energy efficient, bought a hybrid and I mow my lawn with an electric mower. I’m reducing my carbon foot print every day, but we need to move much faster if we want to stave off the climate crisis. The next step for me, was looking at what we could do to empower more people in my city to make the same necessary changes.

Such a large-scale plan will require the City of Aurora to align our tax incentives for energy efficiency improvements and solar initiatives with state, national and utility programs to bring more dollars to the effort. We need job training programs in our high schools, junior college and Aurora University. If we are aggressive about the green building movement, it will attract new companies who want to be part of our green collar economy. I want Aurora to be an epicenter of change and a model city for how to address the climate crisis. Over one hundred years ago Aurora adopted the motto “The City of Lights” to highlight its being the first city in the United States to use electric streetlights.

Aurora sits astride the beautiful Fox River and I would like to see how many mini hydro-turbines we could put in to power our city. Turbulent, a Belgium company, has designed a turbine that might work really well along the Fox River.

We can improve and adopt more stringent building codes. Future public buildings to support roof solar panels and increased insulation to lower energy uses are needed. Currently, installing solar in public buildings that can handle them or creating cool or green roofs are additional ideas.

I would phase-in replacing gasoline-powered city vehicles with electric vehicles and transition our public transportation to a smaller, electric fleet of vehicles that serves transportation needs for the community.

We would offer incentives for home and business owners to install electric charging stations. Incentives would be congruent with state, federal and utility incentives. While many state and federal programs are only available to low income housing, the city’s approach would be to make all residents eligible.

I would create a department of sustainability that would be responsible for implanting these programs. The department’s primary function would be to proactively engage the community and actively help people take advantage of new and existing programs. Another function of the department would be to conduct energy audits for residents so they could prioritize safety and efficiency improvements, help them find resources and contractors to make those changes or enable those who want to DIY the project. Currently, the City of Aurora pays people to drive around neighborhoods and police lawns that don’t get mowed on time and they penalize old people who don’t bring their garbage cans back from the curb in a timely manner. I would significantly downsize this department and transition those employees over to the department of sustainability.

Finally, over the long term I would work towards developing a local food economy that provides fresh, locally grown food to local restaurants and residents via an expanded farmers’ market and home delivery system. We can engage schools in teaching how to grow locally, create local jobs, and provide spaces for community gardens.

Our campaign is about turning the City of Lights into a beacon of hope. I believe that we can make progress undoing systemic racism, combating climate change, retraining those who have fallen through the cracks, welcoming all to our city who want to be part of this necessary change and providing inspiration to those who have lost faith in our broken political system.

This is a campaign for and by the people which is why I’m not taking campaign contributions from those who do business with the city. The pay to play tactics result in only the select few being represented and we must have leaders who create government that helps everyone. Supporting candidates who are challenging corruption will be the only way to change the campaign finance laws we have today.

I will never forget the sage advice of a retired teacher, Doug Donnan during an organizing meeting against a Democratic-led pension theft bill years ago, as he pounded the table and said, “power belongs to those who take it. Do not be afraid to take power.” To my sisters and brothers in the movement, the torch has been passed. It is time to lead. Put your name on the ballot, manage campaigns, step up and do what we need to take hold of our future. If you aren’t ready to run yourself, please consider supporting my race for Aurora mayor.

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

-by John Laesch

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

WHAT AMENDMENTS...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wheeling, Dealing & coercing TO DROP AMENDMENTS

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

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

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

MORAL DEFEAT TIMES THREE

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

Defeat #1: Healthcare

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

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

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

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

Defeat #2: Palestine

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

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

Defeat #3: Cannabis

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

Better than Trump though

AN IMAGE OF UNITY ON ISSUES OF RACE AND CLIMATE

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

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

The amended language read:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blue America's Newest Endorsed Candidate, Rachel Ventura (IL-11)

Rachel Ventura is the progressive Democrat challenging New Dem, Bill Foster in Illinois’ 11th congressional district. Ventura currently serves on the Will County Board, representing swing district #9. To win her 2018 campaign, she challenged the local Democratic establishment, was outspent 3:1 and still dominated the 5-candidate primary field by running a well-organized grassroots campaign. In the general election, the all-volunteer campaign knocked on over 10,000 doors and beat the Democratic candidate by 11% and the Republican by 8% of the vote with a strong GOTV effort.

At times during her first year on the board she became a controversial voice-- challenging Democratic leadership, but she also has had some early successes that are defining of the kinds of things she will fight for on the floor of the House of Representatives.

When the aquifer that provided water to the Village of Fairmont began drying up, village officials wanted to privatize Fairmont’s water system to a company named Aqua. Ventura stepped in and worked with regional governing bodies to move the Fairmont residents over to the Joliet public water system. Residents of Fairmont, a largely African American community, saved significant amounts of money on their water bills and dodged lead poisoning. Just recently, Aqua was sued by the Illinois Attorney General and the Will County State’s Attorney for failing to treat their water properly, causing elevated levels of lead in University Park’s water system.

Ventura also successfully fought for Will County to become the second county in Illinois to adopt the Greenest Region Compact, a framework to move Will County towards a green future. Recently, she led the battle to move all of the county buildings over to 100% renewable energy, a measure that would have created jobs and set an example for other municipalities to follow.

But if she is being successful at the county level, why jump to Congress so quickly?

This spring, Rachel realized that her ability to work towards meaningful change would have to have to come at the federal level. It began with a meeting with Rep. Bill Foster to get him to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All bill being advanced by Rep. Pramila Jaypal. After sharing her experience with Foster as a single mother who had to go without health insurance for two years, she realized that Foster was not going to be moved. He promised a follow-up meeting and then the Our Revolution group was told by Foster’s congressional office that they would only be given one meeting per group, per year.

The group rallied outside of Foster’s office in early June of 2019.

Ventura shared her personal story of her fear in leaving her previous marriage with an abusive husband and losing health insurance in the process.

“If we do not have health care as a right, there are millions of people in relationships, abusive relationships, and they fear leaving,” Ventura said. “And they stay in a horrible situation because they’re too afraid. That is not a government that works for everyone.”

A similar effort in Aurora Illinois was organized by a coalition of progressive and environmental groups (Sierra Club, Progressives of Kane County, Our Revolution and DSA) who met with and rallied outside Foster’s office on June 22, 2019, seeking his support for the Green New Deal. Again, Foster refused to support the sweeping and necessary framework to tackle the climate crisis.

About a month later, on July 20th, she announced her candidacy.




Ventura is an aggressive grassroots campaigner and a little over 30-days into the campaign, she announced having attended 68 events, recruited 150 volunteers and raised money from 93 individual donors. It will take an intense door-to-door effort to reach voters in the suburban district.

Illinois 11th congressional district is one of those partisan gerrymanders that guarantees single-party rule. But this one wasn't created by the GOP; the Illinois legislature is firmly in the hands of the Democratic Party and the Democrats drew the boundaries on IL-11, creating a D+9 district in an area that Republican House speaker Denny Hastert used to call home. West of Chicago, the bulk of the voters live in Will and DuPage counties, with smaller numbers in Kane and Kendall counties. It includes Joliet (Will Co.) in the south and all of Aurora (Kane Co.) and much of Naperville (DuPage Co.) in the north. The district is 79.6% suburban and most of the people there are in blue collar, sales and service jobs. Almost half the population is white and the medium income in $68,154.

After 2 bruising election challenges by union carpenter John Laesch, Hastert was forced to resign or face certain defeat in 2008. (Laesch has remained active in union politics and is now Ventura's campaign manager.) Conservative multimillionaire, Bill Foster beat GOP multimillionaire, crackpot and frequent candidate Jim Oberweis 57 to 43%. Foster self-funded about $2 million into his race and Oberweis put close to $4 million of his own in. Pretty disgusting! The DCCC spent $1,349,399 on Foster's behalf, about the same amount the NRCC spent on Oberweis. The following cycle the voters kicked Foster out and elected Randy Hultgren (R). Then came the new gerrymander and in 2012 Foster ran against Republican Judy Biggert in the re-drawn district and beat her convincingly, after dumping another half million of his own into the race.

Obama won the district both times with healthy margins and Hillary beat Trump 58.9% to 35.4%. It's what you call a safe blue district. And not just safe, progressive. When given a chance to choose between Bernie and Hillary in the 2016 primary, IL-11 voters chose Bernie 52.3% to 47.7%. Foster joined the Wall Street-oriented New Dem caucus and earned an "F" from ProgressivePunch for his corporate-oriented voting record. After all these years in Congress his only two signature bills were naming post offices and he's probably best known for joining the Republicans and 32 other corrupt conservative Dems to gut Dodd Frank's consumer protections. He's considerably to the right of his own constituents. Foster has refused to co-sponsor Pramila Jayapal's Medicare-For-All bill, refused to co-sponsor AOC's Green New Deal resolution, refused to co-sponsor Lloyd Doggett's bill to lower the price of drugs... and he opposes impeachment:

So... the opposite of Blue America's newest endorsee, Rachel Ventura, a progressive member of the Will County Board who has challenged Foster to debate all the issues that are most pressing and most important to the people in the district, where he doesn't even seem to live, splitting his time between DC and New York City.

In framing the primary for Will County voters recently, Rachel said that she recognizes the national significance of the race as the divide spreads wider between the progressive Democrats and the New Dem Coalition and their so-called "Problem Solvers" allies, two conservative caucuses that Foster belongs to. "We are living through a tumultuous period of upheaval and crisis and I feel like our current representative is in a state of stasis," she said. "It is just too much inaction on major issues like climate change, meaningful health care reform, wealth inequality, and campaign finance reforms. We the people deserve meaningful actions to address the crisis facing our generation and the next."

If you're with us about putting forward the kind of progressive agenda that both Bernie and Elizabeth are campaigning on, it is crucial we get rid of more dead wood from Congress like Bill Foster and replace them with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Democrats from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party-- like Rachel Ventura. Foster has accomplished nothing in Congress and it's hard to understand why he even wants to stay there. He opposes the tide of history and his time is up. Please consider contributing to Rachel's grassroots campaign by clicking on the Blue America 2020 congressional primary thermometer on the right and contributing what you can. There are already too many members of Congress from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. If you want to see action on Climate Change, the Green New Deal, banning the sale of assault weapons, a fairer tax system that requires the richest Americans to pair their fair share, we all need to step up and do what we can to replace slugs like Foster with can-do progressives like Rachel Ventura.

Impeachment Time Is Coming

Pelosi thinks it's "bad politics" to impeach Trump. (It's no less her duty than it was Paul Ryan's-- maybe more so.) She may be wrong... and her hand may be forced. A new poll, released this morning by the Associated Press, confirms that most Americans believe that Trump has obstructed the investigation by Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election that put Trump into the White House. And a smaller majority think that if the case is proven that Trump worked with the Russians on this, he should be impeached and removed from office.

It's become painfully obvious that the Republican-controlled Senate won't vote to remove Trump regardless of what crimes he's committed (and what danger he puts the country in)-- including high treason. But if Pelosi is making her calculations based on what is good and bad politics, impeaching Trump, only to see the Republicans vote not to remove him, might be great 2020 Senate election politics. This could tip the scales in Republican-held seats in Kentucky (McConnell), Arizona (McSally), Colorado (Gardner), North Carolina (Tillis), Iowa (Ernst), Kansas (Roberts, if he runs again), Maine (Collins) and maybe even in Texas (Cornyn). 

A majority of Americans-- 58 percent-- think the president has tried to impede the Russia investigation, while 4 in 10 say he has not. An overwhelming share of Democrats, 90 percent, say the president has sought to obstruct the probe, compared with 22 percent of Republicans.

The survey also shows that if Mueller’s investigation finds that Trump did not personally have inappropriate contacts with the Kremlin but nonetheless tried to obstruct the FBI’s work, 51 percent of Americans think Congress should take steps to remove him from office, while 46 percent think it should not.

The special counsel’s obstruction investigation has shadowed the president for a year and a half, unfolding alongside his inquiry into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to sway the election and the separate campaign finance probe in New York. The last month has produced bombshell developments in the investigation, including Cohen’s sentencing, allegations that Trump’s former campaign chairman lied to prosecutors and a judge’s unexpected upbraiding of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

...About 8 in 10 Democrats and 2 in 10 Republicans think Trump should be removed from office if he committed obstruction. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats and only about 1 in 10 Republicans think Congress should take steps to impeach him if he directed illegal payments.

Overall, 45 percent said Congress should take steps to remove him from office if he orchestrated the hush money payments. Slightly more, 53 percent, said Congress should not take steps to remove Trump for that.

About 4 in 10 think he broke the law when it comes to directing Cohen’s payments, and about as many say the same of his ties to Russia. About 2 in 10 think Trump has done nothing wrong, with the remainder saying his actions were unethical, but not illegal.

About 7 in 10 Democrats believe Trump has done something illegal involving Russia. Among Republicans, 55 percent say Trump has done nothing wrong when it comes to Russia, while 35 percent think he has done something unethical but not illegal.

...The poll finds rising confidence among Democrats of the fairness and impartiality of Mueller’s investigation. Overall, about a third of Americans say they’re extremely or very confident that the inquiry is fair and impartial; another quarter say they are moderately confident. Roughly 4 in 10 say they’re not confident.

Democrats are more likely to express confidence today compared with a year ago, 51 percent to 38 percent. Just 14 percent of Republicans say they are confident, which is unchanged from last year.

Members of Congress who will have to sit in judgment of Trump, probably shouldn't be making too many public statements about impeachment at this point. I reached out to some former members and so candidates we supported who ran and didn't wind up winning. Alan Grayson has been loud and clear about his support to move forward on impeaching Trump. This morning he reiterated that "Trump said on national TV that he fired Comey because of 'that Russia thing.' He exchanged information with Manafort and dangled a pardon after Manafort signed a plea agreement. That’s obstruction of justice. Trump called on Russia to hack Democratic e-mails, and Russia did so. Russia also ran a social media campaign to suppress votes for Clinton. Trump paid back Russia by removing Ukrainian support from the GOP platform, appointing a National Security Advisory on Russia’s payroll known as 'Misha' [Flynn], giving state secrets to the Russian Ambassador in the Oval Office, refusing to implement sanctions on Russia, and now withdrawing US troops from Russian ally Syria.  That’s collusion and treason. Trump should be impeached and removed from office because he has committed impeachable offenses, in broad daylight. Q.E.D."

Dan Cannon, who ran for an Indiana congressional seat this year, sees it much differently. "It's incredible that nearly half of Americans would not support impeachment at this point, given everything we know about our incompetent, narcissistic, crime-boss president. These poll responses, especially from Democrats, say a lot about how easy it is to manipulate the public into accepting a new normal for ethical behavior and the rule of law in general, and how quickly that manipulation can be accomplished. Still, as much as I would enjoy seeing Trump impeached, imprisoned, and humiliated, I think a better outcome would be to see him decisively defeated at the ballot box next year. Without the votes in the Senate, impeachment seems an exercise in futility anyway (Trump doesn't have the dignity even of a Richard Nixon type-- he won't resign). The real question is whether American democracy can handle another two years of Trumpism."

Los Angeles progressive activist and former congressional candidate Marcy Winograd told me she's "looking forward to a Democrat-controlled House conducting vigorous hearings and investigations into multiple Trump abuses of power, most importantly the use of corporate facilitators to pose as regulators, allowing polluters to plunder our land, air and water. My concern about impeachment is that I would not want to see the Vice President, a fundamentalist, ascend to the presidency to execute a dystopian vision. If we could impeach both Trump and Pence, then so be it. As for Trump obstructing justice by interfering with the Russia probe, I think the answer to that is clear: He obstructed justice when he fired the former FBI director James Comey and when tampered with witnesses on twitter, urging them, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone, not to cooperate with the Department of Justice."

Blue America supported Norman Solomon when he ran for Congress in northern California. We'd be way better off now if he had won. "The House," he told me today, "should move toward impeachment, though at best there'll be nothing immediate about it. First step is an impeachment investigation via committee."

Mueller's report or anything coming through the courts shouldn't impede or delay the House from going ahead with impeachment proceedings. Impeachment is a legislative branch function-- it's not a judicial function-- and frankly it has a lot more to do with politics and media than legalisms.

Tactical discourse can go on indefinitely, and conventional wisdom has been wrong so often in recent years that you gotta wonder why the pundits are taken so seriously at this point. From the outset of his presidency, Trump has been violating the foreign and domestic emoluments of the Constitution of the United States-- which is supposed to be 'the supreme law of the land.'

Impeachment would anger most Republicans. No telling what would do for independents. The 'backfire' argument cites what happened after Clinton was impeached, but skips over what happened after Nixon was forced from office on the verge of impeachment-- the Republicans lost lots of congressional seats and the White House.

No one is above the law-- what a concept!

John Laesch is another great candidate Blue America strongly supported (against Denny Hastert). I asked him what he thinks about all this impeachment discussion. He said that "A Democratic majority was elected by the American people to serve in the House of Representatives during the 2018 election. When those newly elected members of Congress take office we will probably see more congressional investigations on top of the ongoing Mueller investigation into Donald Trump’s Russian dealings. At this point, I think the American people want the United States Congress to do more to make sure that nobody, not even the President of the United States, is above the law. But as the Democratic majority pursues their 'death by a thousand cuts' strategy to thwart the rest of Trump’s chaotic presidency, they should be paying attention to polls like this one. According to a Dec. 2018 poll, 51% of Americans think that Trump should be impeached if he obstructed the Mueller investigation and 45% think that he should be impeached if he initiated hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. According to a Reuters  poll on Aug. 2018, 70% of Americans now support Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare. It doesn’t seem like rocket science and the math doesn’t lie. The American people are more willing and ready to support fundamental healthcare change than they are ready to support impeachment. A stronger strategy for Democrats would be to advance a bold, populist agenda that works for working Americans. This strategy has the added benefit of undermining Trump's populist rhetoric that helped get him elected."

Doug Applegate had the least honey-coated and more dire warning. A former Marine colonel, who ran for Congress in the Orange County/San Diego district and basically ran Darrell Issa out of office, he reminded us just moments ago that "Since 2016, I have stated publicly that Donald Trump was unfit to command. Donald Trump's actions disclosed to date far exceed the wrongful conduct of Nixon. Should we fail to impeach a president attempting to slay our Republic by suicide, the parties responsible (both political and individuals) will forever lose the moral authority to stop the next Donald Trump. Worst yet those political parties and individuals will have enabled the next despot to occupy the Oval Office. Chuck and Nancy must act now or step aside."

Can Randy Hultgren Be Defeated In 2018? Not If The DCCC Inserts Another "Ex"-Republican As The Nominee

When the DCCC announced that IL-14 (Randy Hultgren) was on their target list there was a lot of snickering. For Chicagoland, it's a pretty Republican suburban district (primarily McHenry, Kane, Lake, Will and Kendall counties with a bit of DeKalb and a bit of DuPage). The PVI is R+5 and, although Obama edged past McCain in 2008 (50-49%), Romney won in 2012 (54-44%) and Señor Trumpanzee beat Hillary 48.7% to 44.8%. Hillary was the wrong candidate for much of the district and, in fact, Bernie beat her in the primary with a strong 58%.

The GOP incumbent, Hultgren, is a hapless backbencher and knee-jerk religious nut and shill for the GOP leadership. He started his shameful political career working for serial child molester Denny Hastert. First elected to Congress in 2010 against worthless New Dem Bill Foster, his 3 reelection bids have been by huge numbers (59%, 65% and 60%), the DCCC sitting out all 3 races. He beat Foster 51-45% in 2010 despite being massively outspent by the corporate Democrat $3,737,519 to $1,552,578. In 2012, 2014 and 2016 the Democrats who opposed him had no resources. Last year, for example, Jim Walz spent $19,745 to Hultgren's $1,297,836.

The DCCC-- and a couple of conservative Democratic congressmemembers from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- Blue Dog Cheri Bustos and New Dem Bill Foster-- are recruiting Montgomery mayor Matt Brolley-- another of those repulsive "ex"-Republicans corrupt conservative Democrats are so fond of. Brolley doesn't live in the district and doesn't live in the Democratic Party. He pulled Republican ballots in 2010, 2014 and even last year! Now, of course, Brolley is pretending to be a Democrat with progressive stands. That's not how he smells though. There is also some chatter about another DCCC-favored candidate, Lauren Underwood, who says the DCCC is asking her to run and just moved to the district in order to run for Congress. And progressive Jim Walz is running again as well.

The DCCC is especially eager to pass Brolley off as a viable candidate because their worst nightmare-- a pragmatic progressive Democrat, Victor Swanson-- is already running for the seat. For all the bullshit about how the DCCC supports veterans-- Swanson served in the Navy-- the DCCC only supports Republican-lite veterans, not progressive veterans. Swanson has been working as a social studies teacher for 17 years. His wife is also a public school teacher. We spoke with him yesterday and asked him if he's aware of what a difficult task he's taken upon himself. He was very aware of it. "When I began to think about running for Congress," he told us, "I began to have conversations with a variety of people whose lives revolve around the political arena including campaign staffers, congressional staffers, and even Members of Congress. Everyone of them said the same thing, I could not be successful because I had a real job, as a teacher. Those conversations just reinforced my feelings about how broken our Congress is. I decided to forge ahead with this campaign no matter what the naysayers thought. Congress needs to look like America and would greatly benefit from having at least a few members who have worked a real job. I am looking forward to this challenge and I want to help reinvent the political process by bring back real representative government to the People's House."

I'm hearing some chatter in the district that there's a strong move to draft John Laesch, the dedicated Berniecrat who was originally responsible for driving Hastert out of office by running against him-- in the face of concerted and vicious DCCC sabotage-- in 2006 and exposing his myriad... vulnerabilities. Stay tuned. This field is starting to get very crowded.

Convention Delegate John Laesch Tells Us What We May Have Missed At The Philly Convention

John Laesch, a union carpenter from Illinois and a dedicated Bernie delegate to the Democratic Convention last week explained at the Progressive Fox how he and other Bernie delegates started to change the conversation on the Trans Pacific Partnership in Philadelphia and how the "No TPP" signs became a banner of resistance on the floor of the convention. John's guest post:

I will never forget the rush that swept through me on my first night at the Wells Fargo Center while looking into a sea of “NO TPP” signs that quickly became the banner of resistance to the oligarchy that surrounded us on the convention floor.  I panned the 180 degrees and looked at the thousands of Democratic insiders, wealthy donors, and lobbyists that watched us chant “No T-P-P!” from their seats and VIP boxes above us. We were not supposed to be here-- this was not our party, yet, we were here. Thank you Bernie Sanders! The Democratic Party is still loyal to their corporate donors, but we silenced the pro-TPP voices at the Democratic convention.

Despite the fact that the convention hall was filled with “NO TPP” signs, neither President Obama (who supports the TPP), or Democratic nominee Clinton (who, as of today, opposes the TPP) mentioned the words, “TPP” in their prime-time speeches before the assembly of delegates and party leaders at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last week.

Speaking in favor of the TPP would have caused a loud, “boo” from delegates.

Speaking against the TPP would have caused the wealthy corporate donors hiding in VIP boxes to tightly grip their wallets.

The speakers, just like the Democratic platform, remained silent on the TPP issue.  The real victory is how we used an interruption strategy to help shape the narrative on the convention floor despite the fact that it was a highly orchestrated, four-day charade with endless anti-Trump speeches, very few votes, and zero meaningful discussions or debates.

I link to some MSM and some alternative media below, but the Wall Street Journal headline, Odds Worsen for TPP Trade Deal, and The Nation’s article, Delegates Are Using the Convention to Make the TPP Politically Unacceptable, best highlight the significance of our efforts.

I want to preface my narrative by saying, that while Illinois may have brought the signs, at the core of the organizing effort were Lauren Steiner (CA), Learner Limbach (WA), and Rand Wilson (Labor for Bernie) who organized conference calls and e-mail lists to plan these actions. This is what happened from the perspective of a Local 195 union carpenter, occupier, NIJwJer and proud Bernie Sanders delegate from Illinois’ 11th Congressional District.

California Sanders supporters were the vocal leaders on the floor of the convention-- Great job!

Getting Our TPP Signs to the Convention Floor:

A week before the convention, I called fellow unionist and the former Illinois Bernie Sanders campaign director, Clem Balanoff. “Hey, what do you think about having 'NO TPP' signs for the convention?  We need to make this convention about the TPP.”  After getting unanimous support from the Kane County Berners the night before, I had already started my gofundme page that raised some of the money for printing the signs.

Clem liked the idea and got Labor for Bernie involved over the next 48 hours.  “Labor for Bernie is in,” said Clem. “We need big signs-- as big as we can get them.  My guy says we can get an 18X24 in 100lb text stock paper, folded. They need to be folded so we can sneak them into the convention.” I designed an 18×18 NO TPP sign. We went to printers, checked out the paper, and chased down prices. A minority-owned union printer in Chicago cranked out 2,000 signs. Clem picked up half of the cost. Kane County Berners picked up the other half. This is where I thank the 15 donors who sent money to my Gofundme page-- we couldn’t have done this without you. This is also where I shamelessly tell you that I am still raising money for the next direct action here in Illinois.

Clem picked the signs up and headed to Philadelphia on Thursday. After work on Friday, I went to Union Signs in Joliet, IL and picked up the No TPP stickers and a few business cards before heading out Saturday morning.

On Sunday in Philadelphia we both went to work immediately. We met at the AFL-CIO reception where Clem was already disseminating the signs. The convention first saw the signs during AFL-CIO President Richard Trumpka’s speech when he said, “We don’t want a lame duck vote on the TPP.” A few Illinois and Texas Berners started chanting, “NO TPP – NO TPP – NO TPP!” The whole room joined in and I knew that Monday would be a success.

A pre-convention conference call spearheaded by California organizer and activist, Lauren Steiner had resulted in a Sunday night meeting at the Sheraton Society Hill Hotel to strategize for the action. The Longshoremen, Jeff Engles, Learner Limbach, and Lauren Steiner organized and ran the meeting. We talked through the direct action and everyone took some signs to disseminate.

There was also a NO TPP petition effort organized by Learner Limbach and Russell Greene (both Platform Committee Members) to request that a TPP Minority Report be allowed to be presented on the floor of the convention as part of the Platform Committee Report on Monday. A Minority Report would have allowed ten minutes for each side to speak for or against an amendment to the platform saying that the democratic party opposes the TPP, followed by a vote on the amendment. The petition was to be delivered to the Chair of the Platform Committee along with supporting documents. While there was not an expectation that the petition would result in a Minority Report being presented this was all part of a strategy to further raise awareness about the issue and to build momentum toward the other actions that were being planned. On Saturday morning the Rules Committee squashed any remaining sliver of hope for a Minority Report when they passed a rule preventing any amendments or resolutions from being voted on from the floor. The petition was only to be signed by National Delegates and Platform Committee Members and gathered around 430 signatures prior to the start of the convention.”

The following day, Clem and I were pushing NO TPP signs around the Illinois hotel. Before going over to hear Bernie Sanders speak to the 1,900 delegates at the Pennsylvania Convention Center at 2:00 PM, we loaded up 1800 remaining signs into the hands of Illinois delegates. For the next three hours myself, Clem, Jan Kralovec, Jennifer Rumsey, Ken Franklin, Mary Anne Cummings, John Willard, Daniel Dixon-Hernandez, Hillary Colby, Maggie Wunderly, Juan Hernandez, Edith Vargas, Alison Silagi-Squires, Sharon Sanders, Rand Wilson, Justin Molito, Jeff Engles, Barbara Fetonte and Chau Ngo all worked together to get signs and stickers on all of Bernie’s 1,900 delegates-- they went like hot cakes.

The DNC listed signs as a “banned item” on the convention floor, but the Secret Service was there for security, not censorship-- blunting the first amendment was the DNC’s role. It was relatively easy getting our signs past security because of the lighter-weight, folded paper-- Clem’s idea.

Deciding to Defy Bernie’s Plea:

I took a taxi to the Wells Fargo Center on that humid, 92 degree day.  I had a mile and a half walk from my taxi drop-off to the convention center. During my stroll through protestors, I received a text from Bernie Sanders at 3:27 PM.

“I ask you as a personal courtesy to me to not engage in any kind of protest on the floor.  It’s of utmost importance you explain this to your delegations – Bernie.”

I called Clem. “Was that text for us or the people who planned on holding a sit-in on stage?” Clem responded, “it was for us.” We had one of those, “I don’t know, what do you think?” conversations and hung up without making a decision.

My suit was soaked with sweat by the time I reached Wells Fargo. Over a thousand demonstrators lined the chain link fence surrounding the convention hall and greeted me with, “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!” I proudly displayed my Bernie sticker on my credentials and they cheered loudly-- their votes had put me on this side of the fence and I was here to represent them. I raised my right hand in the peace sign and walked the next 600 feet alone, they cheered along the way and I drew energy from their voices. I had made my decision-- if these people cared enough to endure hours of an oppressive 102 degree heat index on the outside, I was going to be their voice on the inside. Fortunately, I was not alone-- a majority of Berners felt that way.

Jeff Engels (ILWU Washington State) had the role of kicking off the Mic-check, “No T-P-P” chant on the word, “platform” as Rep. Elijah Cummings took the stage to ask the delegation to vote for the Democratic Platform. For background on Cummings and the platform, you can read my June 30th piece, We Need to Undercut President Obama’s TPP at the Democratic Convention or my  July 10th article, Hillary Clinton fails to unify Democrats on TPP.

California and some of us in Illinois and around the country pre-empted the mic-check by putting our signs up early (California was our floor leader throughout the convention, and we love you for it). Bernie’s text message created a conflict for Jeff also. He writes, “there were a few tense moments on Monday after the text came out from Bernie not to protest where I encountered some resistance from our people when I made my final organizing rounds on the floor to check in with all the whips, but the words just sort of came out of my mouth from somewhere deep in my soul.”

From the floor in Illinois we barely heard, Engels “Mic-Check!” but California and Illinois (probably others) had already started chanting, “No T-P-P.” Before long we were in concert with Washington State and we prevented Rep. Elijah Cummings from speaking for the next five minutes.

Engels apologized to Cummings the next day.  My hypothetical dialogue with Cummings would have gone like this: “Mr. Cummings, why do you want to see President Obama pass the worst piece of legislation in American history, the TPP, that undermines U.S. sovereignty, and workers’ rights across the globe? The TPP is bad for workers. The TPP will permanently solidify President Obama’s corporate-state presidency in history books.  Why would you want President Obama’s legacy blemished forever? The President needs to stop wasting taxpayer money on the TPP. Thank you for your time Representative Cummings.”

... TPP Signs Became the Banner of Resistance Throughout the Convention

Other signs and floor actions targeted fracking, Medicare for All, and DNC e-mails leaked to Wikileaks, but the TPP signs were there every night.

The TPP signs were part of the Tuesday night walkout when over 500 delegates left the convention floor and a hundred or so occupied the media tent. TPP signs were part of the Working Families Party discussion. A Black Lives Matter activist was holding a TPP sign during her interview. TPP signs were part of a Wednesday press conference with Nina Turner and they were there on Wednesday during President Obama’s speech. Those who chose to endure Hillary’s Thursday night speech still stood strong with their TPP signs.

Prior to the convention and after the endorsement of Hillary, I realized that Bernie might actually negotiate away a roll call vote before the convention was over. My primary purpose for attending the convention became the TPP effort, specifically, telling the president of the United States that we were against the TPP. I was not alone.

In addition to 18×18 signs, the National Nurses Union brought their own anti-TPP signs designed to sneak onto the convention floor.  They were placards folded into fans. Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) printed and disseminated anti-TPP stickers. Richard May from Oregon also worked in advance of the convention to deliver leftover, inflatable 2012 DNC convention, “Obama O’s” to each delegate hotel.

Organized labor fought against the Obama O’s in our e-mail string going so far as to suggest that this action was somehow racist. For those who think that protesting the president on the TPP is racist, let me suggest that the TPP itself will hurt minorities more than it will hurt whites. If the lives of sweatshop workers in Vietnam and China do not matter, then perhaps it will matter that the TPP will cause job loss in the United States.  During the last recession, unemployment hit black and Latino workers harder than it hit whites. Historically, workplace discrimination in America has caused higher levels, of unemployment among minorities, but research from the 2008-2010 depression shows that more Black and Latino Americans lost more household wealth (their homes and jobs) than whites. This research publication from Stanford is just one example:

Between 2005 and 2009, Hispanic households lost 66 percent of their wealth and black households lost 53 percent, while white households lost only 16 percent. By 2010, when the overall unemployment rate was around 10 percent, it was 16 percent for blacks and 13 percent for Latinos.

During President Obama’s speech, a handful of Illinois and Iowa delegates (sitting in front of the President) still held the TPP signs high. California, Washington, Texas and Oregon were with us (that I could see from the floor). Even though the last 48 hours had featured heavy intimidation, threats of arrest, and threats of pulling credentials by DNC and Bernie whips, we persisted. The Hillary supporters did all they could to put their signs in front of ours and one woman even tried tearing it out of my hands.

Displaced by non-delegates from Illinois who wanted to see Obama speak, I was sitting in the Iowa section, and a young Iowa woman sitting six seats away stared at me the entire time through teary eyes. I didn’t know what her deal was until the speech was over. She said that she was a Hillary delegate but she thought that it was disgraceful how the DNC and other Hillary delegates were trying to censor our free speech. I gave her my card and told her that we all needed to work together to stop the TPP in a lame duck session.

Chuy Garcia, Jim Hightower and Clem Balanoff

TPP-- The Next Round of organizing actions and politics:

I hope that Lauren Steiner, Learner Limbach, Jeff Engles, Labor for Bernie, the Coalition of 57, and others continue our opposition throughout the lame duck session-- we need to stay unified across the United States.

Even though the Wall Street Journal was predicting a gloomy future for the TPP, I know this: Rich people don’t spend that much time and money putting together a corporate power grab the size of the TPP and walk away from their investment.

From Illinois we will do what we can with whatever you send to hold Democrats and Republicans accountable.

I would suggest that Berners in other states figure out how to carry the banner of resistance (literally and figuratively) into the offices of pro-TPP lawmakers to make them aware of our bi-partisan opposition to this disastrous trade deal. Specifically, at this point we need to focus on U.S. Senators. In the next cycle, we need to take our resistance into polling places to oust corporate democrats and Republicans who supported the TPP.

Fast-tracking the TPP was pushed through the House of Representatives in 2015, but the senate has yet to take it up for a vote. Democratic Senate leaders like Harry Reid bluntly told President Obama that they did not want to vote on the TPP before the November election.

In this election cycle we will focus on US Senator Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who is up for election in 2016 and currently supports the TPP. After the election, we will focus on both Durbin and Kirk. Senator Dick Durbin’s chief of staff told me that Durbin is opposed to the TPP. Because Durbin is close friends with President Obama and, if Durbin retires after this term, he is vulnerable to capitulate on the TPP.

I am personally hoping that Senator Bernie Sanders filibusters the TPP in a lame duck session and I will be advocating for Senator Durbin to do the same.

In 2016 or 2018 I will be working with those who want to oust Democrat Mike Quigley, the lone Illinois Congressional Democrat who supported the TPP. And, from an organizing perspective, I have not forgotten that President Obama is from Illinois.

We lost the first round in a legislative strategy (lobbying the house against Fast Track). We drew neutral with our political strategy (Bernie Sanders for President). We started to turn the tide with our interruption strategy (Signs and chants at the DNC). What is next? Will you be part of it?

The struggle continues-- on to the next round!

Chicago's Mike Quigley was the only Illinois Democrat to voted with the GOP in favor of TPP Fast Track last year