Monday, September 21, 2020

What Ginsberg Left Behind

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R.I.P Ruth Bader Ginsberg

by Thomas Neuburger

Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away on September 18 from consequences of her ongoing cancers. According to an NPR report, she dictated this note shortly before her death: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

Which is one of the problems: She could have fulfilled that wish herself, by resigning earlier. She didn't, and now we're dealing with what she's left behind.

The Failure Before

Ginsberg's mother died of cancer the day before Ginsberg graduated high school. Her husband died of cancer in 2010 (during the Obama administration), a condition he had suffered under since the birth of their daughter many years before.

Ginsberg herself was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999 and treated. In 2009 she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and treated. In 2014 she had a stent placed in her right coronal artery. Future bouts of ill health requiring hospitalization followed in 2018, 2019 and 2020. In 2011 she was she was using her job to help cope with the death of her husband; then that she was waiting for Hillary Clinton to be elected in order to be "the closest thing to a chief justice on a liberal court":

"Why didn’t she step down while Barack Obama had the power to replace her? She was waiting: for a justice, as she said, who would resemble her. And although she didn’t admit it, we knew she was waiting for Hillary Clinton to replace Justice Antony Scalia with a liberal, somebody with a stiffer spine for progressive battles than the one Obama had shown. Had there been five liberals after 2016, she would have been the senior liberal in the majority, and able to assign all the liberal decisions. She would have been the closest thing to the chief justice on a liberal court."

She even, in September 2020, officiated at a wedding without a mask.

If this sounds like ego and ambition, it is. Despite her many virtues (and they are many), this failure of Ginsberg's to rise above herself parallels an equal failure of mainstream Democratic Party leaders and their voters to rise above their "feels" and to work for actual policy.

As Alex Shepherd put it, there has been a "growing obsession with celebrity among Democrats, as if celebrity itself could somehow transcend the grubby business of politics. With figures like Ginsburg and Barack Obama, this thinking went, the party could win the day on the back of its leading lights. Those pleading for Ginsburg to retire were brushed off, or branded as sexists." (I accept this criticism if by "Democrats" he means "mainstream Democratic leaders their partisan voters." Progressives, those decidedly not mainstream, understand quite well the flaws in their celebrity figures and their actions.)

I would blame the media for much of this as well. While right-wing media leads Republican voters much more toward policy, liberal media leads voters toward celebrity and "celebrity moments" that may or may not represent and encapsule good policy.

Obama and Ginsberg are excellent examples of liberal celebrity — an elevation that tends to stigmatize and dampen liberal criticism even when criticism is warranted. The passage of the ACA — Obamacare — is a good example of celebrating the celebrity moment at the expense of critical evaluation — "Hurrah for the win," it's media cheerleaders seem to say, while ignoring its flaws, how it missed the moment, and how it led, at least in part, to Trump.

Or, as The Daily Koko put it on Twitter, "The liberal refusal to view their leaders as tools to accomplish agendas, but rather view them as a projection of their own professional ambitions, has caused incalculable damage to even just the liberal project."

This doesn't just indict Party leaders; it indicts Party voters as well, or that large group that votes out of historic or tribal loyalty, people whose support for the Democratic Party is uncritical and automatic.

The Problem Now

That was the failure before Ms. Ginsberg died, the failure to pass her seat to someone at least "not of the Right" (in the sense that the decidedly centrist Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland was at least "not of the Right").

Instead Democratic leaders and the voters who count on them to act in the interest of the country are faced with an uphill task: to make sure that a President Joe Biden appoints Ginsberg's replacement, and to make sure the next Senate confirms her.

That will involve, of course, making sure Joe Biden wins the November election, not a certainty. But it also involves preventing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from gaming the process as he gamed the Garland and Gorsuch nominations, holding the Court seat open for nearly a year and giving Obama's nomination to Trump.

Winning will be no small task. Republicans hold 53 seats in the current Senate, which means the Democratic caucus must, first, vote as a bloc (hello, Joe Manchin; hello, Doug Jones), and second, get four Republicans to vote with them to block any nomination prior to the seating of a new Senate in January.(Murkowski and Collins, though opposed to taking up a vote "before the election," have been silent holding a vote during the post-election lame duck session.)

And finally, if Democrats do hold off a Trump nominee until after the election AND if Biden wins in November, McConnell might still control the next Senate as well. In that case, it will still be a fight to confirm a nominee. Line one in my list of Rules of Political Acquisition is, "When Republicans have power, they use it."

Starting on the Wrong Foot Entirely

This leads to a smaller point that leads to a larger one. Democratic leaders, right out of the gate, are starting on the wrong foot entirely, what Peter Daou called "preemptive surrender."

Let's start with Nancy Pelosi. This CNN headline says it all: "Pelosi says she will not leverage government shutdown to avoid Senate vote on court seat".

"None of us has any interest in shutting down government," she announced, saying "that has such a harmful and shameful impact on so many people in our country." she announced "We have arrows in our quiver that I'm not about to discuss right now."

The key word in the CNN headline is "leverage." Democratic leaders have some — or quite a bit, depending on whom you listen to — but they don't want to use it, or use all of it, or even hold the threat of using it as a bargaining chip. A shutdown may not be much leverage — we'll have to let the experts weigh in on that — but imagine if her answer instead had been, "We'll do whatever it takes."

Meanwhile in the Senate, CNN notes that Democratic senators are "all vowing a furious fight to keep the seat vacant until next year." Yet at the same time, Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer reportedly told members of his caucus on a conference call that "if Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans move forward with this, then nothing is off the table for next year."

Schumer, in other words, threatens Democratic retaliation next year if Republicans attempt to replace Ginsberg this year. That doesn't sound like much of a threat to stop them this year.

In addition, this threat comes from the same Chuck Schumer who unilaterally let a bunch of Trump's judicial nomination pass in the run-up to Brett Kavanaugh's nomination hearing. According to Sahil Kapur, writing in August 2018, the "Senate just cut a deal to fast-track votes starting at 3:45p today on 11 nominations—including SEVEN Trump nominees to be district court judges," and worse, "Schumer got literally nothing for the deal."

Don't blink while looking for that "furious fight." You may miss it.

The Real Solution

The real solution, of course, is for Democrats to pack the Court — to set the number of justices at 13 or more, leaving the six (or five, if the Democrat's "furious fight" succeeds) conservatives in place and adding enough liberals and progressives so that they can undo the massive damage done by the Federalist Society and their conciliatory Democratic enablers.

The Constitution does not set the number of justices; that's left to Congress, which can do what it wants in that regard. Historically, the number of justices has varied from five to ten. The current total, nine justices, was set during the Grant administration.

But will Democrats pack the Court? Will they dare to use the power they will have, if they gain control of Congress, to end this Supreme Court nightmare? Answer now if you wish, but I'm going to wait to see if that "furious fight" emerges.

The Larger Problem

While regaining control of the Supreme Court is a large problem — face it, this isn't about Party; the ideological right-wing is peopled with monsters who have monstrous dreams and desires — this isn't the largest problem the nation faces.

A much greater problem is the credibility of the Democratic Party itself as currently led. How long will people believe that the Party is willing rescue them, when to all appearances ... it just isn't?

The nation suffers many ills, some of them possibly terminal, all wrought by money and the service rendered to money by the entrenched political class. In "normal" times, this process can go on forever, with politicians serving money while people elect them hoping for something better. A compliant media can do much to keep people hoping.

But in times when lives are degrading, people want real change, not just the promise of change, not just a kind of change that doesn't make things worse.

In times when lives are degrading, people look for improvement. The push for Obamacare in 2009, at a time when many people's lives were coming apart, was based on a hope that this time change would matter, this time Democrats would make health care better in America. But Obamacare was false hope; Democrats created health care system that made things better for some, much worse for others, and still left many without coverage — all to serve wealth and their donors.

The change the people got then wasn't what they wanted. But times soon stabilized, 2009 became 2012 and beyond. Evictions slowed and some people saw a recovery while others, who saw their own lives getting worse, watched Obama nightly through MSNBC's star-gazing eyes and settled back, accepting the status quo. The ship motored on.

The "Covid Normal" — Continuous Degradation

But these are different times than any of those. These are times when many people's lives are degrading in a decline promises not to stop. The coronavirus crisis is still with us with no solution in sight.

Moreover, the economic effects — the massive job losses, the austerity both parties advocate in response, the death of millions of small businesses, and the accelerated consolidation of wealth and power by the mega-rich — these will be with us for the next generation, for many of us, the rest of our lives.

A generation of continuous decline cannot produce a "normal" that people can settle into. People will look for answers, and real change. This one may not be able to be papered over by dutiful MSNBC spokes-anchors.

In short, Democratic leaders are struggling today to prove to an unsettled, pain-ridden public that they offer real solutions, and not cosmetics. Yet they've nominated a candidate who will veto Medicare for All despite its great cross-generational, cross-party popularity, a candidate who's still in the 1990s when it comes to marijuana reform, a candidate who's still pro-police, a candidate who's running on a platform with exactly two planks:

"I talk like some guy from the white working class, and I'm not the monster the other guy is."

No wonder this election, like the last one, is closer than it ought to be.

A Party Litmus Test?

And now comes the Ginsberg vacancy. Democrats, as a group, as currently led and cheered on by their media surrogates, are put to the test once more. Will they put up a "furious fight" or just the show of one? And will the public notice if they don't?

Perhaps both answers will be No. But at some point the Party will fail one of these tests in a way that actually matters, and then only tribal Democrats will vote for them, people for whom the Democratic Party is part of their blood. When that black day occurs, the nation will take a turn it cannot turn back from, and face just three paths only:

• More or less continuous Republican rule by increasingly smaller voting populations
• Rule by a real third party that replaces the Democrats
• The kind of civil chaos and disruption that no one wants to live through

There's only one good choice among those three, and none of them have the Democratic Party's name on it. But whichever path the nation finds itself on, today's Democratic leaders will have led us to it.
 

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Thursday, August 13, 2020

Does a Republican Have To Win Before a Progressive Can Run for the White House?

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Is the Democratic Party transitioning its base from working people and progressives to #NeverTrump Republicans and whoever this guy represents?

by Thomas Neuburger

In the wake of Kamala Harris's pick as Joe Biden VP, I want to look again at something I covered in June (see "What's the Earliest a Progressive Democrat Can Be Elected President?"). There I made the following assumptions:

Because no progressive Democrat will run in the primary against an incumbent Democratic president, either the Party must be reformed — or a Republican must first take the White House — before a progressive can win the presidency.

Will the Democratic Party self-reform? Can it be reformed by others? Opinions vary on that. Those looking at the election of AOC, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and the near election of Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020 would say "Yes, we just need to keep pushing."

On the other hand, those looking at what looks like the start of AOC's "acquiescence" to Party leaders (see Ryan Grim's discussion of that here); the lock-grip that Obama, through Biden and now Harris, seems to have on Party decision-making; and what looks like the deliberate transitioning of the Party from a base that supports the AOCs and Bernie Sanders of the world to a party that welcomes John Kasich to its Convention, George Bush to its circle of love, and Nicolle Wallace, Bush's White House Communications Director, to a choice two-hour slot on its house news network, MSNBC — those people see a different picture, a picture of solidifying, not loosening, neoliberal control.

Those differing opinions vary by demographic. That is, the closer one is to Democratic Party politics, even as a strong progressive, the more likely that person is to see reform in the headlights, just about to happen. The further one is to Democratic Party politics — the more one dwells in the world of the plebs, the civilians, the mass of voters and non-voters — the more the prospect of reform seems left in the dust, a diminishing dot in the Party's rear-view mirror.

Even mainstream writers like Thomas Frank ask (I'm paraphrasing), Which party represents the lower 90%, the workers of the country? Which represents the people? And they answer, Neither.

Is it possible a viable, non-fringe progressive Democrat will challenge an incumbent Democrat for the presidency? I have yet to see it, the Party wouldn't allow it, and the rules of the game, which place a premium on playing within Party leaders' boundaries, don't permit it.

To confirm this idea, note that even the "rebel" AOC failed to endorse Cori Bush, running against incumbent Democrat Lacy Clay, an endorsement that, had the race been close in Lacy Clay's direction, might have mattered. The record of Bernie Sanders' ultimate acquiescence to Barack Obama and surrender to Joe Biden makes the same point.

Which leaves us with this: A progressive will run a viable primary campaign only if no incumbent Democrat is in the race. That means the public might be offered a progressive option:

• In 2024, if Biden loses to Trump.
• In 2028, if Biden wins and Harris loses in 2024.
• In 2032, if Biden wins, Harris wins in 2024, but loses in 2028.
• In 2036 or later in all other cases.

No one wants Trump to win, which means 2028 at the earliest, and that's only if a Republican is elected in 2024. Not a charming prospect.

Inside-the-box thinking says that challenging Party leaders must not overly disrupt the Party itself, a party that neoliberal leaders almost completely control. This is where inside-the-box thinking has gotten us — a Biden-Harris ticket and no one else with any chance of winning to vote for.

Perhaps out-of-the-box thinking is needed next time around, something along "in your face" and "open rebellion" lines. Careful, respectful, quiet and "polite" rebellion may just not be enough to fix what ails us, what's already gone so wrong in the only country we have to live our lives in.
 

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Monday, July 27, 2020

Why Don't Democratic Leaders Support Verifiable Elections? The Reason Is Simple and Obvious

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The original Mayor Daley wasn't the first, but he was the best at election manipulation. Daley would have not supported verifiable elections for the obvious reason. Why don't today's Democrats support verifiable elections?

by Thomas Neuburger

"Everyone I know wants Trump to lose. Do you know anyone who actually wants Biden to win?"
—Howie Klein, here

I've often contended that neither political party — not the Democrats, not the Republicans — wants free, open, verifiable and uncorrupted elections.

Both parties, of course, say they want fair elections. The Republicans use these pronouncements, though, as cover for creating obstacles to voting by Democratic-leaning citizens based on demographics like race and place of residence. That much is a given, and this hypocrisy is obvious to everyone, including Republicans.

But what about the Democratic Party? There the situation is more mixed, but it's not unmixed. I cut my adult teeth in Chicago, the perfect model, if not ground zero, for election manipulation, and there are many Chicago's in the country.

There are also many approaches to stealing elections, but one of the most common is faked and manipulated vote totals, and for that, the solution is well known: hand-counted paper ballots. Given that fact, you have to ask yourself: If Democratic leaders really wanted uncorrupted elections — as opposed to just elections they could win — wouldn't they demand a national return to hand-counted paper ballots, the gold standard for honest elections?

And yet they don't. Year after year they keep the same corruptible voting systems in place, often expanding them, and focus their fire instead on Republican gerrymandering and voter list purges as evidence of the other party's evil and their own goodness.

It's likely there's a simple and obvious reason for Democratic leadership not seeking to secure our elections with hand-counted ballots, but it's not a pretty one: Like the Republicans, Democratic leaders, many or most of whom hate progressives with a passion, also want the ability to "fix" elections when they wish to.

"Ballot-Stuffing" in Philadelphia

For example, consider this, from the Philly Voice:
South Philly judge of elections pleads guilty to stuffing ballot boxes, accepting bribes

Prosecutors say Domenick DeMuro, 73, inflated results for Democratic primary candidates

A former judge of elections in South Philadelphia pleaded guilty this week to fraudulently stuffing ballot boxes for Democratic candidates in recent primary elections, accepting bribes from a political consultant hired to help influence local election results.

...During the 2014, 2015 and 2016 primary elections, DeMuro admitted that he accepted bribes ranging from $300 to $5,000 per election. A political consultant hired by specific Democratic candidates gave DeMuro a cut of his fee to add votes for these candidates, who were running for judicial and various state, federal and local elected offices.

DeMuro would "ring up" extras votes on machines at his polling station, add them to the totals and later falsely certify that the voting machine results were accurate, prosecutors said.
U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain said, "DeMuro fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear."

This happens all the time and is rarely caught and punished. In this case, it's likely the bribes from a "political consultant hired by specific Democratic candidates" were the only reason DeMoro was prosecuted. A number of hand-made videos during the 2016 primary showed similar corrupt "certifications" at the local level, all of them disadvantaging Bernie Sanders, yet none of these videos sparked an ounce of indignation from "free election" Democratic leaders — whose preferred candidate, it should be noted, Hillary Clinton, benefited every time.

"Progressive Democrat" Blocks Gerrymandering Reform in Nevada

Or consider this sordid tale from Nevada, in which the local League of Women Voters attempted to eliminate gerrymandering following a recent Supreme Court decision that returned gerrymandering lawsuits to the states to resolve.

From the Nevada Current (emphasis added):
Apparently some Democrats think gerrymandering is fine in blue states

In June of 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause that federal courts will no longer accept partisan gerrymandering cases. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority that partisan gerrymandering is a political issue that must be resolved at the state level. In response, the League of Women Voters U.S. launched a People Powered Fair Maps plan to create barriers to partisan gerrymandering in each state.

The League of Women Voters of Nevada adopted the plan and reached out to our democracy partners to form the Fair Maps Nevada coalition. On November 4, 2019, Fair Maps Nevada filed a constitutional amendment ballot initiative to create an independent redistricting commission. Nevada’s constitution protects the right to circulate a ballot initiative as well as the right to vote on ballot questions.
So far, so good. But wait:
On November 27, 2019, Mr. Kevin Benson, a Carson City attorney, filed a lawsuit challenging the ballot question’s summary of effect for a “progressive Democrat.” His client argued that the summary of the amendment that appears on each signature sheet was misleading. Fair Maps Nevada offered to edit the summary to clarify the amendment’s intent, but Mr. Benson refused. The Judge James Russell ultimately agreed with Mr. Benson’s client and asked both parties to submit new versions of the summary to address the plaintiff’s complaints. 
It's suspicious that a self-proclaimed "progressive Democrat" would try to monkey-wrench the process, but still, so far, so good. However: 
Fair Maps Nevada submitted a new summary, but Mr. Benson did not. Instead, he argued that the whole amendment was misleading and so should be blocked completely from moving forward.
In other words, the whole exercise was a sham to get the entire process thrown out by the local judge.
Essentially, Mr. Benson was asking Judge Russell to deny the Fair Maps Nevada coalition our constitutionally protected right to circulate a petition. Judge Russell accepted Fair Maps Nevada’s new summary of the amendment and closed the case [in favor of Fair Maps Nevada].
Still, the issue didn't die there. Benson took his appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court, which allowed it to go ahead. Fair Maps Nevada eventually won, but not before they realized (wasn't it already obvious?) that this mystery litigant's real goal was to run out the signature-gathering clock on the initiative. Further, the state Supreme Court failed to close the legal loophole that allowed the appeal in the first place, preparing the way for similar future challenges on the same spurious grounds.

Why would a Democrat, in Democratic-controlled Nevada, want to block gerrymandering reform, if not to continue to benefit from the unreformed system?

The Danger for Democrats

The danger for Democrats in tolerating and continuing their own vote corruption is great. When voters say "both parties do it" — they're right. Perhaps Party leaders, national and local, think they can get away with these acts given that most of the mainstream media — busy people's only source of news — protects listeners and viewers from information that supports the "both are corrupt" frame.

But that protection can't be effective forever. While most Sanders supporters, for example, will vote for Joe Biden, most won't give him money, under the assumption perhaps that his billionaires have that covered. And this is widely seen as a race that most want neither candidate to win — especially if you include non-voters — even though even more voters want Trump to lose.

The bottom line is this: While Democratic leaders may think the situation — their current and safe control of their share of power — is well managed, the nation may easily become so alienated by both parties, and by the people's inability to vote outside the two-corrupt-parties framework, that they seek "other avenues" for change.

Ironically, a "back to the normal" Biden administration may be just the match Americans need to spark an active rebellion against the corruption of both political parties. One more round of mainstream Democrats in charge, may be the last straw for that national beast of burden, our suffering governed, to bear.

If that's the case, watch out. Democratic leaders are running out of time, as are we all. When a nation seeks "other avenues" for reform, that nation's in trouble.
 

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Wednesday, May 20, 2020

There Really Is A Reason We Have Primaries-- Too Bad So Few People Use Them

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Do you watch the Humanist Report much? If not, maybe you should. In the video above, host Mike Figueredo successfully explains why progressives need to show some spine when it comes to dealing with foot draggingly corporate careerist Democrats, especially in leadership. As you know, Marianne Williamson has endorsed Shahid Buttar, who's running against Nancy Pelosi, Mckayla Wilks, who is running against Pelosi's top lieutenant, Steney Hoyer, and Jen Perelman, who is taking on faded party leadership figure Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Look at Marianne's list of candidates; 14 of them are taking on entrenched Democratic incumbents.


One senior congressional Democrat, a progressive, didn't agree that anyone can lump Pelosi and Hoyer together. "It's like apples and hand grenades," he told me. "And to have this video come out within 24 hours of her calling Trump a "fat fuck" is bad timing. Would anyone else call Trump a "fat fuck!"

Yesterday Shahid Buttar told us that he's "incredibly grateful for Marianne Williamson's support. Having seen her as a voice encouraging empathy at the highest levels of our national politics, I'm eager to build a brighter future together with her-- finally putting people and communities, rather than corporations, at the center of our public policy. Often, it takes a voice like hers, from the outside of politics, to see so clearly what the root of the problem is in Washington-- entrenched Democratic so-called leaders like Nancy Pelosi who are our immediate hurdles to progress. I'm impressed by Marianne's courage in joining me to take on the top brass of political corruption, and I hope other figures in the Democratic Party have the strength to follow in her footsteps."

Well, one of those figures is Eva Putzova who served on the Flagstaff City Council and as a Bernie DNC delegate. Now she's running for Congress in a district (AZ-01) held by former Republican state legislator Tom O'Halleran, who now bills himself as a Blue Dog. He opposes everything the Democratic Party stands for. Eva told us that she "became a U.S. Citizen in 2007 and the day after the naturalization ceremony I registered to vote as a Democrat because I am a democrat. Then in 2016, I went to the DNC as a delegate for Bernie Sanders, which opened my eyes to how the party leadership at both national and state levels is enmeshed with corporate interests and how the only way we can reclaim Democratic Party for democrats is to replace those who are bought by corporations. So many young people we talk to on the campaign trail are turned off by conversations about policies because they are turned off by the corrupted politics. I'm challenging the most Republican Democrat in Arizona precisely for these reasons: his votes and inaction on the most enormous challenges we face, like climate change, are a direct reflection of his support of the corporate agenda. The top Democratic Party representatives in Congress lost their ability to lead with courage and to drive transformation because they are out of touch with the people of this country and because they accepted and institutionalized corruption. They have to go because they are no longer Democrats."


All the details are here: https://secure.ngpvan.com/DAR1YEp-bkWTNtpHzgUd7A2

Michael Owens is a former Democratic chairman for Cobb County, which went blue under his leadership. He knows the party inside and out and he's taking on one of the last of the Georgia Blue Dogs, David Scott. He was very happy to have received an endorsement from Marianne. "Her willingness to suppprt progressive candidates," he said, "is a breath of fresh air, in what can often be the caustic environment of primary politics where challengers are running against establishment Democrats. The true strength in moving the progressive movement forward is through down ballot candidates."

Jan Perelman is the progressive Democrat running for the south Florida seat that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is sitting in-- opposing everything remotely progressive other than gay rights and abortion. When it comes to working families' interests, she's a baby step from being a Republican. "I'm always so amazed that I'm considered the 'left,'" Jen told us last night. "I have been a Democrat since I registered to vote in 1989. I am pro-labor, pro-environment, and anti-war, which are not radical positions. It was the Democratic Party that 'left' me when it was taken over by corporate interests and stopped representing working people. We cannot move forward as a country as long as entrenched corporate Democrats remain beholden to special interests. As a primary challenger who takes zero corporate money, I am going to do everything in my power to bring the Democratic party back to its roots as the party of the people."

Goal ThermometerRobin Wilt is also challenging an old school corrupt political hack, Joe Morelle, in Monroe County, New York. Robin was very enthusiastic about Marianne endorsing Shahid and told me that "not only proved that her run for the Presidency was not borne of vanity, but of integrity; but she has also demonstrated the type of political leadership and courage that the left wing of the party has long been lacking. As Democrats, as long as we remain complicit in supporting leadership within the party that does not advance an agenda that centers those most impacted by the deleterious policies that have produced the massive inequities that we witness today, we can no more say that we care about marginalized communities and the plight of the disenfranchised than can Republicans make that claim."

Continuing, Robin said that "It is disingenuous and craven to claim that you support universal health care, and then support leadership that blocks Medicare for All at every turn. It is disingenuous and craven to claim that you care about wealth and income inequality, and then support leadership that preserves a tax structure that benefits only the top 1% and accepts massive amounts of money from corporate interests. It is disingenuous and craven to claim that you care about climate justice, and then support leadership that thwarts implementation of the Green New Deal. It is disingenuous to claim that you care about housing justice and then support leadership that will not advance a Federal Homes Guarantee. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King warned us about the well-meaning moderate that compromised his/her principles for the sake of pragmatism. King understood that whenever we compromise with a lie about who people are, and barter the human rights of the people we serve for our own comfort, we empower the political forces that have exploited our divisions to maintain power. The politicians who are blocking the expansion of healthcare to all Americans, abiding corporate polluters, increasing investment in the war and mass incarceration and detention economies, all while slashing our nation’s safety net and denying workers the right to earn a living wage are the selfsame politicians who are blocking a progressive agenda. Our silence is enabling their deceit. It is time that we follow Marianne Williamson’s courageous lead, give voice to the voiceless, and unabashedly support true progressives that adhere to the principles we hold dear."

Hector Oseguera, the New Jersey progressive running for a seat held by party hack Albio Sires, told us this morning that "It's an absolute honor to be part of Marianne Williamson's movement to bring the Democratic Party back to earth. This is a party that's supposed to represent the working-class people of this nation, but has gotten way too comfortable with their corporate sponsors. When you look at my race, you'll find that I'm the only Democratic candidate in this Democratic primary. The incumbent has an abysmal record on immigration, corporate welfare, and mass surveillance. Whether it's the environment, healthcare, or affordable housing, my opponent is to the far right of the average voter in my district, relying on a network of political cronies and corrupt big money interests to keep him in power. He's received dishonorable mentions in books like the Soprano State and the Jersey Sting, covering his history of corruption and ethics violations that have contributed to New Jersey's reputation as a politically corrupt state. This progressive movement, which owes a lot to Marianne's leadership, is working to dismantle the facade that corporate Democrats offer much substantive difference from their Republican colleagues."

In the Oklahoma City congressional district, Tom Guild is running against one of the most conservative Blue Dogs in the House, Kendra Horn. Tom noted yesterday that "Marianne Williamson is showing exemplary leadership in endorsing, raising money and fighting for progressive congressional candidates throughout America. My opponent opposes Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, raising the minimum wage to $15; she voted against labor’s major legislative initiative in Congress in 2020, voted against Sen. Tim Kaine’s and Ro Khanna's resolution to restrain Donald Trump from taking military actions that could start another endless war in Iran, and recently met remotely with lobbyists for Big Insurance Companies who were seeking money to bail out COBRA in the HEROES Act. That’s just a small sampling of her support for Republican-lite regressive policies. On the CARES Act she voted for the rule to let the bill proceed to the floor of the House to be debated and voted on, then she voted no on the bill. Go figure. Unless progressives oppose Nancy Pelosi’s DCCC gravy train and their support for Republican-lite members of the House running as Democrats, we essentially have two big corporate parties corrupted to the hilt by Wall Street and special interest campaign money. That may be one of the big untold stories as to why so many Americans choose to opt out and not vote every year. They see little structural and substantive difference between the two major parties on issues important to them. I thank Marianne for her support for our campaign and commend her for her integrity in grabbing the bull by the horns and supporting, Shahid, Pelosi’s primary challenger. Marianne has the guts of a government mule and that’s exactly what it will take for progressives to rule the roost. Progressives need to be tougher and stick out their necks to support fellow progressive candidates even when it’s hard to do and not convenient for them. I’m happy that I promoted Marianne to help her make the presidential debates and encouraged people on Facebook and Twitter to donate to her campaign. I was all in for Bernie, but saw that progressives needed all the help we could get in the primaries and in the debates. We need to GO BIG, GO BOLD, or GO HOME!"





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Thursday, April 23, 2020

Do Democrats Think They're Bulletproof, or Do They Not Just Care about Winning in 2020?

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by Thomas Neuburger

Some flavor of this piece has been written many times, but it bears repeating. One of these two things must be true:

• Either Democratic Party leaders, who define by their actions the Party they completely control, must think they're electorally bulletproof, completely immune from rejection by voters whose interests they claim to serve,

• Or the Party's leaders — Pelosi, Schumer, Clyburn and all the rest — think they themselves will be fine next year no matter what happens in November, think so little will change for them, that they're perfectly fine losing in November, thank you very much.

It can't be any other way. Democratic leaders, all of them, are showing no fear at all that any of their actions now will affect the election, or that any of their actions now will eject them from Party power and DC status and privilege — membership in the "Oh It's You, Senator" Club.

Zero fear. Do Party leaders think their actions are invisible to ordinary Americans? Or that the press will cover them so favorably (because, Trump) that they can do any damn thing their donors want them to do and suffer no blowback at all?

Apparently yes. And perhaps they're even correct in thinking this.

Here's just a taste of the evidence from the past few days of Party actions they have been nervous about. First this from David Sirota at his new Substack site.
Dems Give Unanimous Consent To Trump
Traumatized a generation ago, party leaders' default setting during a crisis is fear-driven acquiescence.

Why do Democrats want to win Congress if they don’t want to use power? What is the entire point of Democrats raising money and ginning up activist energy to win control of the U.S. House, if when a crisis hits they just pass whatever Mitch McConnell sends them? Is there anything they’ll actually negotiate for? And why won’t they flip the script and force McConnell to vote yes or no on their own agenda?

These are the questions bouncing around my mind as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi accede to another GOP-written stimulus bill -- and I think ultimately the answer has to do with deep-seated, self-destructive fear that was internalized by party leaders a generation ago during another national crisis.

Before we get to that, consider the present: the GOP bill adds more money for testing, hospitals and small business loans — the latter including a few vaguely positive tweaks, but no serious measures to prevent those loans from being raided by big business.

McConnell had the nerve to write a multi-trillion dollar check to large corporations, and then turn around and block money for state aid -- and he actually admitted he blocked it specifically because he doesn’t want states using it to prevent cuts to the retirement benefits of teachers, first responders, firefighters, cops and other public-sector workers....

Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein points out that the legislation doesn’t include any resources for first responders, budget-strapped states or food stamps. It doesn’t include any new oversight of the first bailout bill. It includes nothing to help states move to a vote-by-mail system in the event that coronavirus complicates in-person voting during the general election.

It basically doesn’t include any alleged Democratic Party priority at all.
Frankly, he's much too kind; his subhead gives them way too much credit on the blind vs. evil scale. Are Democratic leaders showing fear and learned helplessness, cowardice in the face of McConnell and Trump's attacks? Or are they simply letting Republicans do what they and their donors want done anyway, to "write a multi-trillion dollar check to large corporations"?

Either way, Sirota says it doesn't have to be like this. House and Senate Democrats have good alternative choices:
Senate Democrats could put up some kind of fight -- they could filibuster, they could try for amendments, they could do anything other than just voice vote through whatever McConnell gives them.

House Democrats could do even more. They literally control the House. It is theirs. They could pass their own emergency legislation and dare McConnell to reject it, at a time when he is running for reelection and polls show he is one of the country’s most unpopular senators.

But they refuse -- and their rationale is revealing.

Yes, Democratic leaders want to placate their corporate donors by passing corporate bailout bills. Yes, they are part of a bipartisan establishment that takes orders from K Street. That’s all true. [emphasis added]
One of the great mysteries of this last round of bailout is, Where was the House bill? There was none.

Next, from Matt Taibbi at his own Substack site:
Why Did Democrats Nominate Donna Shalala to the Bailout Oversight Panel?
With the Congressional Oversight Committee, Democrats had a rare opportunity to reverse public perception about the party’s closeness to Wall Street. Instead, they punted again
First, he notes that "the Congressional Oversight Committee is not about health, but high finance, and Shalala appears to know nothing about that." He follows with this from David Dayen:
She holds shares in Boeing, as well as Alaska Airlines and Spirit Aerosystems, which builds a lot of pieces of Boeing aircraft. She owns Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, and Occidental Petroleum at a time of a historic crash in oil price… She owns retailers and retail producers Ralph Lauren, L Brands, Burlington Stores, and Five Below… She owns big banks JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of New York Mellon, BBVA Compass, and HSBC…
Then Taibbi adds: "Shalala owns between $301,000 and $615,000 in UnitedHealth, suggesting she wasn’t much troubled by the suit accusing the firm of overbilling Medicare for billions – not a great look for someone now charged with watching for the same kind of behavior with significantly larger stakes. Worse, Shalala has between $202,000 and $550,000 in a series of iShares exchange-traded funds. These are BlackRock funds, at the center of the Fed’s new bond-buying programs already discussed at length in this space."

This, he notes, puts "a big-name Clinton apparatchik with millions invested in the very financial markets that stand to rise from bailout programs."

Taibbi's conclusion, that this "seems like a major unforced error, to put it mildly," is similarly excessively kind. From Taibbi I understand that — he's more reporter than partisan, and that's what reporters say when they don't want to editorialize in their own voices. (Sirota is at least as much partisan as reporter, so I expect something more to the point from him.)

Finally, I offer this, from Nina Turner:



The linked headline says it all, or most of it. From the linked article, we find this:
The [CARES] act allows pass-through businesses that are taxed under individual income versus corporate an unlimited amount of deductions against their non-business income, such as capital gains, according to The Washington Post. They can also use losses to avoid paying taxes in other years.

Hedge-fund investors and real estate business owners are “far and away” the ones who will benefit the most, tax expert Steve Rosenthal told the Post.
The CARES Act passed 419-6 in the House and 94-0 in the Senate.  Hands across the water.
 

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