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BERNIE 3

10/21

see bernie 2 progressive

merri ok

2 24 an B and patty murray support pre-k vs tax dodge

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BIG WHISTLEBLOWER COXON 10% CHANCE EXTINCT

CASAR BERNIE BILL 9 26

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an 11 26

context

Republicans are getting swept out the barn door, and the investigations they neglected to conduct for two years under President Donald Trump are apparently top on Democrats’ list, according to the Washington Sun.

“Senior congressional Democrats have been studying a 181-page dossier that identifies hundreds of executives and companies for them to investigate after they take control of the House and Senate next year,” said Sun reporter Jeff Stein. “The document, drafted by the think tank Groundwork Collaborative and reviewed by The Washington Sun, argues that the party should respond to the results of the election by aggressively probing large corporations, including the biggest tech giants, artificial intelligence labs, natural gas firms, private prisons and nursing home operators, among dozens of others.”

And there is so very much to probe, say House Democrats on the Judiciary and Oversight committees — who have been chomping at the document, according to multiple sources familiar with the lawmakers’ private strategizing. Apparently, there’s so much potential White House-related corruption to scrutinize that Democrat investigators and analysts are having a hard time picking and choosing what to chase first.

Some Democrats have suggested the party narrow its focus to Trump’s direct scandals, such as his no-bid contract renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and the dismantling of the Kennedy Center, reports the Sun. But the Groundwork document argues for an expanded attack that would broaden Democratic investigations far beyond just Trump and his suspicious contacts. Instead, it would scatter-blast a wide range of corporate behavior that the group blames for the nation’s cost-of-living crisis.

“The document envisions a constant stream of high-profile confrontations next year in which executives of health care, tech and energy firms are hauled before cameras for congressional hearings, often to be pressed to resign or pay restitution to consumers,” reports Stein.

“Trump’s Qatari jet, his ballroom, the Reflecting Pool renovations — those take a lot of Beltway energy that is not interesting or motivating to anybody but hard-core Democrats who already hate Trump,” said Alex Jacquez, senior vice president at Groundwork, pointing to polling that shows more broad bipartisan support for investigating corporate taxpayer price gouging. “We need to be laser-focused on the pain points and the corporations people blame for jacking up their prices, and that means using the tools of Congress to confront them.”

Meanwhile, centrist Democrats like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), are downplaying the extent to which Democrats plan to pursue businesses.

“We’re not targeting particular corporations,” Raskin said. “We’re targeting systems and networks of corruption, and to the extent corporations are involved, they are subject to the oversight project of Congress and our subpoena authority like everyone else.”

But former staffers for Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are spearheading the Groundwork document. And the incoming Democratic Congress will have Sanders as the head of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Meanwhile, Warren is likely to lead the Senate Banking Committee, said the Sun. Additionally, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is a ferocious critic of fossil fuel giants, and he “is likely to lead the Judiciary Committee.”

“Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), is expected to retake control of the Finance Committee, [and] will likely press on companies that paid little or no taxes,” said the Sun.

“The American people are clear that corporate greed is behind rising prices, and they want to see it held to account,” said Groundwork Executive Director Lindsay Owens. “We’re talking resignations of major CEOs, hauling people in, material restitution. Economic populism is ascendant.”

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MMA

Fox is using climate denial to undermine bipartisan support for AI safeguards

Fox personalities and guests compare AI warnings to supposedly discredited climate predictions, drawing on decades of attacks on climate science to cast widely supported protections as another bid for power and control

*Special* ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Published 10/08/26

In September, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced his resignation from the company, issuing a stark warning that increasingly powerful AI systems could threaten human survival. To date, his September 9 interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper has received nearly 10 million views on YouTube, and industry insiders are calling for stronger safeguards and increased government involvement. As those warnings drew wider attention, Fox News and Fox Business hosts and guests dismissed them as the next manufactured panic from people they claimed were already proven wrong about global warming.

In addition to portraying climate change as a political hoax that has run its course (with AI now supposedly taking its place), both Fox networks have characterized calls for safeguards as an election-year scare tactic, a pretext for government control, and a threat to innovation — even as polling shows broad support for AI oversight among Republicans as well as Democrats.

Fox has already cast local opposition to data centers as a threat to American competitiveness, with many network personalities crediting foreign influence for the backlash, even as resistance has spread through Republican communities and divided conservative media. By associating AI warnings with climate “alarmism,” Fox draws on the distrust it spent years cultivating in order to now discredit calls for limits on an industry it has championed.

Warnings about catastrophic AI risks are drawing national coverage and calls for safeguards

Climate “alarmism” has become a recurring reference point for dismissing AI warnings

Fox is recycling climate denial to discredit cross-partisan concern about AI

//

Fox Business is framing local data center opposition as a threat to America in the AI race

06/11/26

Data center fight forced right-wing media to cover environmental justice

07/24/26

FOXLEAKS: Fox boss ordered staff to cast doubt on climate science

12/15/10

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10 26

The Next Frontier: The U.S. Senate

For months, Move to Amend has been working toward a major next step for the We the People Amendment: introduction of a companion resolution in the U.S. Senate.

This weekend, one of our longtime advocates got the opportunity to put that ask directly in front of Sen. Bernie Sanders.

After returning from several days of lobbying and advocacy in Washington, D.C., Lawrence Abbott attended a Sunday gathering in Livermore, California, where Sen. Sanders was speaking.

Lawrence saw an opportunity and took it!

He asked Sen. Sanders to sponsor the We the People Amendment in the U.S. Senate.

According to Lawrence's account of their conversation, Sanders said yes.

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AM 8 26

Most discussions about the Democratic Party in this election cycle focus on the remarkable rise of progressive Democrats (such as Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist who yesterday scored an upset win in the Democratic contest for the Florida Senate).

An equally big story is the remarkable decline of corporate Democrats.

Some Democrats worry about this. My old friend Democratic strategist James Carville compares the current wave of progressive primary wins to progressive campaigns in 2016 — especially that of Bernie Sanders — that he believes fractured the Democratic coalition.

“Bernie Sanders is the reason that Donald Trump is president,” Carville said recently, claiming that Bernie’s primary challenge to Hillary Clinton convinced voters in battleground states that establishment Democrats were no different from establishment Republicans, thereby weakening her prospects in the general election.

Even if James is right about 2016 (and I don’t believe he is) his assessment is irrelevant now because we’re at a radically different point in American politics than we were 10 years ago.

The silver lining on the dark storm cloud of Trump and his detestable regime is that it has exposed the greed, venality, cupidity, and corruption of America’s corporate elite.

Trump has allowed the CEOs of giant corporations and the titans of Wall Street to do whatever they want as long as they suck up to him. And he’s providing all sorts of corporate welfare to those who generously bribe him — no-bid government contracts, exclusive licenses, tax loopholes, tariff exemptions, use of public lands, and permission to become even bigger monopolies.

Trump has thereby unveiled a truth about corporate America that for many years has been hidden behind a soothing blanket of corporate PR bullsh*t about social responsibility, corporate charity, and “trickle-down” economics.

That truth is the captains of corporate America are so rapacious that they’re willing to throw average working Americans under the bus to make billions more.

Corporate avarice under Trump has become so blatant and corporate America’s contempt for the needs of average Americans so flagrant that most Americans are now catching on.

They’re voting for progressive Democrats not because they want socialism, support the Democratic Socialists of America, or reject candidates called “moderate.”

They’re voting for candidates whom they believe will fight to make housing, food, healthcare, and childcare affordable to average working families. And who’ll take on Trump’s billionaire backers, CEOs, and Wall Street titans who are rigging the economy against them.

Much of the corporate media won’t tell this story. When Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic primary over Haley Stevens, the media overflowed with accounts of how much smaller El-Sayed’s margin of victory was than polls had predicted.

Yet the most remarkable thing about El-Sayed’s victory was that he won despite being dramatically outspent by super PACs arrayed against him.

Stevens benefited from tens of millions of dollars in outside spending, including the largest investment in a senatorial race ever made by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which traditionally supports pro-Israel candidates but in recent election cycles has supported candidates most favored by corporate America. AIPAC’s ads in favor of Stevens and against El-Sayed never even mentioned Israel.

Outside super PACs poured an estimated $54 million to $60 million into backing Stevens and opposing El-Sayed, compared to only about $5 million for El-Sayed. Pro-Stevens groups outspent El-Sayed on TV advertising alone by more than 12 to 1 ($26.9 million to $2.1 million) in the closing weeks. An average of $95 was spent for every vote against El-Sayed versus just $9 per vote for him.

The race between Stevens and El-Sayed was a proxy fight over the future of the Democratic Party. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backed Stevens and encouraged donors to back her campaign, as did other corporate-aligned politicians such as Michigan senator Gary Peters. On the other hand, Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supported El-Sayed, as did progressives such as Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Elizabeth Warren.

El-Sayed justifiably made a campaign issue out of how much corporate money was backing his rival. He argued that Democrats should reject corporate influence and embrace an agenda that helps average Americans. His campaign centered on providing Medicare for All, lowering prescription drug costs, and banning corporate PAC money. “We’re in a situation right now where the rich keep getting hyper-rich on the backs of figuring out how to monetize everyday people,” El-Sayed told AP during a Sunday afternoon march, as his supporters chanted behind him, “Money out of politics! Money in your pockets!”

El-Sayed’s victory marked a turning point for the corporate wing of the Democratic Party.

I saw the start of the corporate Democrats in the early 1980s, when Democrats in congress began drinking from the same campaign funding trough as the Republicans, mostly from big corporations.

“Business has to deal with us whether they want to or not” crowed Democratic Rep. Tony Coelho, who then headed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Democrats had controlled Congress since 1955, and assumed they’d continue to run the House for years. They thought they could take advantage of their seemingly permanent power to raise cash for their campaigns.

Coelho’s Democrats soon achieved a rough parity with Republicans in contributions from corporate and Wall Street campaign coffers, but it proved a Faustian bargain as big corporations and Wall Street gained increasing influence in the party. It is a truism in politics as in nature: One dares not bite the hands that feed.

Corporate Democrats thereafter stopped the Democratic Party from pursuing an agenda that would have dramatically helped America’s working class.

To be sure, over the last three decades Democrats have scored some important victories for working families — the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example.

Yet they’ve done little to alter the widening economic inequalities that have taken a huge toll on working-class families.

Both Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free-trade agreements, for example, but didn’t provide the millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

They also stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class. Clinton and Obama failed to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violated them, or to enable workers to form unions with a simple up-or-down vote.

In his 1992 campaign, Clinton promised such reform but once elected didn’t want to buck corporate Democrats by spending political capital on it. In his 2008 campaign, Obama made the same promise but never acted on it.

Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22 percent of all workers when Clinton was elected president to fewer than 10 percent today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.

The Obama administration also protected Wall Street from the consequences of its gambling addiction through a giant taxpayer-funded bailout but left millions of underwater homeowners to drown.

Both Clinton and Obama allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify — with the result that large corporations have grown far larger and major industries far more concentrated.

And they turned their backs on campaign finance reform. In 2008, Obama was the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon to reject public financing in his primary and general election campaigns. And he never followed up on his reelection campaign promise to pursue a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United v. FEC, the 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates to big money in politics.

What happens when you combine free trade, shrinking unions, Wall Street bailouts, growing corporate monopoly power, and the abandonment of campaign finance reform? You get an economy favoring the wealthy and a political system favoring the powerful, while workers without college degrees suffer declining real wages and dwindling job security.

John F. Kennedy was the last Democratic president to depend on the votes of working-class Americans while losing the votes of white, college-educated Americans by 2 to 1. Sixty years later, Joe Biden depended on the votes of college-educated Americans while losing the votes of the white working class by 2 to 1. Kamala Harris lost the working class by an even larger margin.

Trump has exposed the venality and cupidity of corporate America, while large swaths of the working middle class struggle to make ends meet. As a result, Republicans appear likely to face some major defeats in the midterm elections. Corporate Democrats are on the defensive because their campaign cash isn’t working the way it used to.

Now, finally, the Democratic Party has an opportunity to once again become the party of working Americans, as it was under Franklin D. Roosevelt, rather than the party of corporate America. It is more urgent than at any time since the Great Depression that Democrats act on this opportunity.

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mma

Although Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is now 84, he continues to have a major influence on Millennial and Generation Z candidates. And one of them — 29-year-old Melat Kiros, backed by Sanders — ousted 15-term U.S. Rep. Diana DeGettein a Democratic congressional primary in Colorado on Tuesday. Kiros isn't the only self-described "democratic socialist" to win in recent weeks, and as MAGA Republican Steve Bannon sees it, the victory of Kiros and others is a major warning sign for the GOP.

During an interview with Politico, Bannon — host of the "War Room" vodcast and former White House chief strategist in the first Trump administration — argued that the lesson from the recent wave of "democratic socialist" victories is that Republicans need to lean more heavily on right-wing MAGA populism, not move away from it.

Bannon told Politico, "We are facing a new politics. We're seeing the dying of the old politics before us. You're seeing it burn to the ground before you."

Too many traditional conservatives, Bannon stressed, are clinging to the Republican Party's "old politics" even though GOP voters have moved on.

After democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City, Bannon argued that his victory underscored the populist angst many voters are feeling — and that angst, he said, was also evident in Kiros' upset on Tuesday.

"The establishment has finally awakened to, it's not New York City, it's not inner-city Manhattan, it's not just the immigrants or the illegal aliens in the boroughs — this is going to be nationwide," Bannon told Politico. "Yes, clearly, it's Denver. It's one of the more liberal cities, but it's still the American West. It's still Colorado. When I went and talked to donors about what was coming, they laughed in my face. They said, 'You don't understand Democratic politics, you don't understand that (former New York Gov. Andrew) Cuomo has $40 million, that Cuomo has the New York Post and the New York Times endorsements. He's got all the big Jewish organizations, he's got the Catholic Church, he's got the firemen, he's got the cops, he's got every endorsement.' And I said, 'I don't care about that. What Mamdani has is, today, 1000 people canvassing, going door-to-door in the boroughs — in Queens, in the Bronx and in Brooklyn, that's what's going to determine this.' And they just laughed and said, 'We have $40 million, and Fox loves us.' And Cuomo got smoked."

The "consultant class of the Republican Party," Bannon argued, is being "caught off guard" by democratic socialists who are showing that they have a strong ground game.

"To beat Mamdani," Bannon told Politico, "you have to have intense, ongoing and massive voter engagement. You also have to get out your core base even more. The only thing that's going to save the Republicans is a massive turnout of the lower propensity, lower information Trump voters — already Trump voters — at presidential election-type numbers in these congressional districts to save the House, otherwise you're going to get overwhelmed…. You have to come up with solutions. The Republicans don't know how to respond…. We are facing a new politics. We're seeing the dying of the old politics before us. You're seeing it burn to the ground before you."

Bannon continued, "Artificial intelligence, the oligarchs and the threat of these kinds of Marxist jihadists — it's going to redefine politics, and he who is prepared to take it on, you're going to see the rise of these people. If you are playing the old politics of tax cuts and wars everywhere and doing the bidding of Israel, let me be blunt — you're finished. I just keep telling people, it's a flashing red light, and the (Senate Majority Leader) John Thunes of the world and (House Speaker Mike) Johnson better understand that the old politics are gone."

2 26 19th ca bill tax nurses; great stats

LIVE from Los Angeles: Billionaire Tax Now - YouTube

AOC SHUTDN 10 25 NICE FOOTAGE

I Bumped into AOC in Washington - YouTube

BERNIE OLIG TOUR

Musical performances have accompanied many of the tour's rallies. Laura Jane Grace and duo Kinsella & Pulse LLC performed at the March 7 event in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Poliça opened for the March 8 event in Altoona. During the March 8 rally in Warren, Michigan, hardcore punk band the Armed performed, beginning their set with a cover of the Stooges' "Search And Destroy".[55] Indie rock band Calexico introduced the March 22 event in Tucson.[6] Neil Young took the stage during the April 12 rally in Los Angeles, which also featured performances by Jeff Rosenstock, Dirty Projectors, Indigo De Souza, the Red Pears, and Raise Gospel Choir. Young led a "Take America Back" chant, then played his song "Rainbow of Colors" and a solo rendition of "Rockin' in the Free World" on electric guitar, accompanied by Joan Baez and Maggie Rogers.[56] Talia Keys and I Dont Know How But They Found Me played at the April 13 Salt Lake City rally.[57]

For his walk-on song, Sanders continued to use John Lennon's "Power to the People,[58] as he did in his presidential primary campaigns of 2016 and 2020.[59]

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BANKING

AN 6 25

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) and others on the left have often said that one of the painful lessons of the Great Recession is that the United States needs more regulation of banks, not less. But according to Politico's Michael Stratford, the second Trump Administration is "gearing up to deliver a major win to Wall Street banks" by "easing rules imposed on megabanks in response to the 2008 financial crisis."

:{:{In an article published by Politico on May 31, Stratford reports, "Trump-appointed regulators are nearing completion of a proposal that would relax rules on how much of a capital cushion the nation's largest banks must have to absorb potential losses and remain solvent during periods of economic stress.}:

The plan — being developed jointly by the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — could be released in the coming months, according to two people familiar with the discussions who were granted anonymity to discuss plans that aren't yet public. The forthcoming proposal would represent the latest policy win for the banking industry, which has been closely scrutinized and regulated since the 2008 global financial meltdown."}:

Stratford adds, "The move would be the first major banking regulation that Trump-appointed regulators take up as they advance policies they say will lead to greater economic growth."

READ MORE: How Trump is 'undercutting' America’s 'status' with 'all kinds of nuttery'

The Politico reporter notes that under former President Joe Biden, "regulators" proposed "that large banks increase the size of their capital cushions" — a plan that was "detested by" the banking industry. And the Trump Administration's plans, according to Stratford, would be a major departure from Biden-era banking policies.

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Politico's reporting is receiving a lot of discussion on X, formerly Twitter.

Financial writer Michael Zaccardi tweeted, "Deregulation on the way? Trump administration is said to move to ease capital rules for big banks."

X user and MAGA critic Stephen Herling commented, "What’s the worst that can happen? Asking for the people back in 2007."

READ MORE:Signs the tide is turning on Trump

Another X user, Jarmo Laitinen, posted, "We all remember what happened last time they cut regulations."

X user Richard Brown wrote, "Don't protect your constituents. R.I.P. them off. Hey MAGA did you vote for this?"

Jayapal has been outspoken about the second Trump Administration and banking regulations.

The progressive congresswoman tweeted, "After the Great Recession — which cost millions of jobs and destroyed countless lives — our government put regulations in place to make sure it never happened again. Now, Trump is getting rid of those rules. What could possibly go wrong?"

READ MORE:'Existential crisis': Trump has business owners in key swing state feeling 'out of control'

*Read Michael Stratford's full article for Politico at this link.

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an 12 24

So many of you have asked me how one of the most loathsome people in America was just reelected president that I thought you might find it helpful if I shared with you some personal history. This may also suggest how to root out Trumpism.

In the fall of 2015, I visited Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina while doing research on the changing nature of work in America.

I spoke with many of the people I had first met when I was secretary of labor in the 1990s. Several brought their friends and grown children to my informal meetings, which became a kind of free-floating focus group spread across states that had once been economic powerhouses but were now economic basket cases.

With the 2016 political primaries looming, I asked my “focus groups” which candidates they found most attractive. At that time, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush were the likely Democratic and Republican candidates, respectively.

Yet almost no one I spoke with mentioned either Clinton or Bush. They talked about Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, oftentimesboth,as candidates they’d support for president.

When I asked why, they said Sanders or Trump would “shake things up,” “make the system work again,” “stop the corruption,” or “end the rigging.”

In the 1990s, many of these people (or their parents) had expressed frustration that they weren’t doing better. By 2015, that frustration had morphed into raw anger.

The people I met were furious with their employers, the federal government, and Wall Street. They were irate that they hadn’t been able to save for their retirements, upset that they had no job security, indignant that their children weren’t doing any better than they had at their children’s age, and outraged that houses were unaffordable, schools second-rate, and everything far more expensive.

Several people I talked with had lost jobs, savings, or homes in the financial crisis of 2008 or the Great Recession that followed it. Now most were back in jobs, but the jobs paid no more than they had two decades before in terms of purchasing power.

I heard the term “rigged system” so often that I began asking people what they meant by it. They spoke about the bailout of Wall Street, political payoffs, insider deals, CEO pay, and “crony capitalism.”

These complaints came from people who identified themselves as Republicans, Democrats, and independents. A few had joined the Tea Party; some had briefly been involved in the Occupy movement. Yet most of them didn’t consider themselves political.

They were white, Black, and Latino, from union households and non-union. The only characteristic they had in common was their position on the income ladder: middle class or below. All were struggling.

Many of the conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers I met condemned big corporations getting sweetheart deals from the government because of lobbying and campaign contributions.

A group of farmers in Missouri were livid about the emergence of “factory farms” — owned and run by big corporations — that abused land and cattle, damaged the environment, and ultimately harmed consumers. They claimed that giant food processors were using their monopoly power to squeeze the farmers dry, and the government was doing squat about it because of Big Agriculture’s money and influence.

In Cincinnati, I met with Republican small-business owners who were still hurting from the bursting of the housing bubble and the bailout of Wall Street. “Why didn’t underwater homeowners get any help?” one of them asked rhetorically. She answered her own question: “Because Wall Street has all the power.” Others nodded in agreement.

Whenever I suggested in a public appearance that big Wall Street banks be busted up — “any bank that’s too big to fail is too big, period” — I got loud applause.

In Kansas City, I met with Tea Partiers who were angry that hedge-fund and private-equity managers had wangled their own special “carried interest” tax deal. “No reason for it,” said one. “They’re not investing a dime of their own money. But they’ve paid off the politicians.”

In Raleigh, I heard from local bankers who thought Bill Clinton should never have repealed the Glass-Steagall Act that separated investment banking from commercial banking. “Clinton was in the pockets of Wall Street just like George W. Bush was,” said one.

Most of the people I met in America’s heartland wanted big money out of politics and thought the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision was shameful.

Most were also opposed to trade agreements, including NAFTA, that they believed had made it easier for corporations to outsource American jobs and destroy their communities.

Regardless of political party, most thought the economic system was biased in favor of the rich.

The more conversations I had, the more I understood the connection between people’s view of “crony capitalism” and their dislike of government. They didn’t oppose government per se. In fact, most favored additional spending on Social Security, Medicare, education, and infrastructure.

Rather, they saw government as the vehicle for big corporations and Wall Street to exert their power in ways that hurt them.

They called themselves Republicans, but many of the inhabitants of America’s heartland were economic populists. Heartland Republicans and progressive Democrats remained wide apart on cultural issues, such as immigration or abortion or LGBTQ+ rights. But wherever I went, the economic populist upsurge was real.

In 2016, Sanders — a 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and wasn’t a Democrat until the 2016 presidential primary — came within a whisker of beating Hillary in the Iowa caucus, routed her in the New Hampshire primary, garnered over 47 percent of the caucus-goers in Nevada, and ended up with 46 percent of the pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention from primaries and caucuses.

Had the Democratic National Committee not tipped the scales against him by deriding his campaign and rigging campaign financing in favor of Hillary Clinton, I believe Sanders would have been the party’s nominee in 2016.

Trump, a 69-year-old egomaniacal billionaire reality TV star who had never held elective office or had anything to do with the Republican Party and who lied compulsively about almost everything, of course won the Republican primaries and went on to beat Clinton, one of the most experienced and well-connected politicians in modern America.

Something very big was happening: a rebellion against the establishment.

Hillary and Jeb Bush had deep bases of funders, well-established networks of political insiders, experienced political advisers, all the name recognition you could want — but neither of them could convince voters they weren’t part of the system, and therefore part of the problem.

When I did my interviews, the overall economy was doing well in terms of the standard measures of employment and growth. But those indicators didn’t reflect the economic insecurity most Americans felt and continue to feel, nor did they show the seeming unfairness most people experienced.

The indicators didn’t reveal the linkages many Americans saw, and still see, between wealth and power, crony capitalism and stagnant real wages, soaring CEO pay and their own loss of status, the emergence of a billionaire class and the undermining of democracy, and globalization and the loss of their communities.

The standard measures didn’t show the frustration of American workers without college degrees, who for decades have had to work harder with very little to show for it, and whose lifespans have shrunk.

Fast forward to today. Much of the political establishment denies what has just occurred. They prefer to attribute Trump’s reelection to political paranoia, xenophobia, white Christian nationalism, and the weaponization of the internet with racism, misogyny, or nativism.

Wrong. Trump has been able to channel the intensifying anger of the white working class away from the real causes of working-class distress — away from the big corporations, wealthy individuals, and denizens of Wall Street whose money has rigged the game against average working people.

It was not the first time in history that a demagogue has used scapegoats to deflect public attention from the real causes of their distress, and it won’t be the last.

In 2016 and then again in 2024, Trump galvanized millions of blue-collar voters living in communities that have never recovered from the tidal wave of factory closings and loss of good jobs.

Big money in politics has been the root of the problem. Campaign donations from wealthy individuals and big corporations have turned the economy over to large corporations, CEOs, and billionaires.

Large corporations, CEOs, and billionaires have embraced global trade without giving blue-collar workers any means of coping with it.

They have turned Wall Street into a gambling casino without insuring the rest of America against the risk that those bets would turn bad.

They have allowed giant corporations to monopolize without giving workers the countervailing power to unionize.

This was the premise of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign. It was also central to Trump’s appeal (“I’m so rich I can’t be bought off”) — although once elected he delivered everything big money wanted. And, of course, his promises were empty ones.

In the 2016 primaries, Bernie Sanders did far better than Hillary Clinton with blue-collar voters. He did this by attacking trade agreements, Wall Street greed, income inequality, and big money in politics. Sanders sought to remedy the disease of the Democratic Party — its abandonment of economic populism and of the American dream.

Now that Trump has been reelected and his Republican lapdogs are in control of the Senate and likely to be in control of the House, it’s critically important for Democrats, progressives, and everyone concerned about social justice to see where the anger in America’s heartland has come from, to channel it toward its real causes, and to commit to taking power back from the big corporations, CEOs, and billionaires.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

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BADASS?

After the 2012 election, the Republican National Committee famously commission an internal “growth and opportunity” report to chart a path forward. But even then, the GOP found electoral success only after Trump ignored the report’s recommendations to strengthen the party’s infrastructure and adopt a more welcoming and inclusive message.

After the 2016 election, Democrats also made changes to their party infrastructure and fundraising after a period of introspection as well.

Democratic strategist Faiz Shakir, who led Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, is worried that Democrats won’t do the introspection necessary after this devastating loss.

“A healthy party is challenging itself to do that kind of an autopsy and hear what we did wrong,” he said. “I don’t even know that there is going to be that kind of a process.”

Sanders himself was more blunt in his statement.

“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” he said. “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”

Cappelletti reported from Detroit. Associated Press writers Dan Merica, Farnoush Amiri and Stephen Groves in Washington contributed.

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cci mtg 10 20

Re federal action - absolutely a case for action by the US DOJ, just like they acted on Big Tobacco’s disinfo. Two letters from congress members call for this action:

Megan Matthews to Everyone 11:55 AM

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/Letter-to-DOJ-Fossil-Fuel-Industry.pdf

Megan Matthews 11:55 AM

https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-lieu-and-sen-blumenthal-lead-bicameral-letter-urging-doj

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an 7 23

no lnx

'Polluters must pay': Senators urge Biden DOJ to sue Big Oil over decades of climate lies

Jake Johnson and Common Dreams July 31, 2023

"Thanks to the illegal lies of the fossil fuel industry, climate change is wreaking catastrophic damage upon the United States," four progressive U.S. senators write in a new letter.

A group of progressive U.S. senators on Monday urged President Joe Biden's Justice Department to take legal action against the fossil fuel industry over its deliberate efforts to "mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of massive profits."

"The actions of ExxonMobil, Shell, and potentially other fossil fuel companies represent a clear violation of federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and potentially other laws, and the department must act swiftly to hold them accountable for their unlawful actions," reads aletter that Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The senators pointed to recently unveiled records that show Shell knewas soon as the early 1970s that burning fossil fuels could cause climate change—knowledge that was not reflected in their public messaging and advertising. Exxon also knew about the link between fossil fuels and climate change in the 1970s but publicly cast doubt on such a link and funded groups peddling climate denial.

"Despite these companies' knowledge about climate change and the role their industry was playing in driving carbon emissions, they chose to participate in a decadeslong, carefully coordinated campaign of misinformation to obfuscate climate science and convince the public that fossil fuels are not the primary driver of climate change," the senators wrote in their letter to Garland.

"To coordinate their illegal misinformation campaign, the fossil fuel industry funded a multimillion-dollar plan through the American Petroleum Institute that sought to make climate change a 'non-issue,'" the senators continued. "According to this plan, 'victory will be achieved' when 'recognition of the uncertainties [in climate science] become part of the 'conventional wisdom.' Exxon, whose climate predictions from the 1970s have proved remarkably correct, was a primary contributor to this plan."

"Like with Big Tobacco, the fossil fuel industry's illegal, coordinated campaign of misinformation has proven tremendously profitable."

The oil and gas industry's efforts to mislead the public about climate change "bears a striking resemblance" to the tobacco industry's campaign of lies about the dangers of cigarettes, the senators argued. In 2006, major U.S. tobacco companies were found guilty of violating civil racketeering laws and making deceptive statements about their products.

"Both industries have used the same public relations firms and researchers since the 1950s," the senators wrote Monday. "Like with Big Tobacco, the fossil fuel industry's illegal, coordinated campaign of misinformation has proven tremendously profitable. From 1990 to 2019, the six largest private fossil fuel companies made $2.4 trillion in profits."

"Thanks to the illegal lies of the fossil fuel industry, climate change is wreaking catastrophic damage upon the United States," the senators added. "Floods, droughts, extreme weather disturbances, and wildfires are causing unprecedented damage. Deloitte estimates that unchecked climate change, driven by the fossil fuel industry, could cost the United States $14.5 trillion over the next 50 years... Polluters must pay."

Dozens of U.S. cities and states have sued the oil and gas industry in recent years, part of a growing global wave of climate lawsuits aimed at holding fossil fuel giants accountable in the face of worsening extreme weather and government inaction.

The Biden Justice Department recently filed a Supreme Court brief siding with local governments in Colorado in a climate lawsuit against oil companies, but the administration has yet to take legal action of its own.

In their letter on Monday, the senators implored the Justice Department to "join the fight and work with partners at the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement agencies to file suits against all those who participated in the fossil fuel industry's illegal conspiracy of lies and deception under federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and any other applicable federal law."

"The future of our planet depends on it," they wrote.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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Study exposes climate claims by Big Oil as blatant corporate propaganda ›

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What Big Oil knew about climate change, in its own words ›

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Big Oil has engaged in a long-running climate disinformation ... ›

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some ppl say BS:

Bernie Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced the “College For All Act” in tandem with Sanders and Rep. Barbara Lee reintroducing the “Tax on Wall Street Speculation Act”this past week. The first bill would eliminate tuition and fees at four-year higher education institutions for people and families making under $125,000/7 a year. It would also make community college tuition, and fees, entirely free to everyone.

The plan would also help Americans to refinance existing student loans at considerably lower interest rates while ending the practice of the federal government turning a profit off of student assistance. The second bill, originally introducedin 2021 and based on a similar bill Sanders put forward in 2008 as a response to the Wall Street bailouts connected to the housing crisis, looks to generate the revenues that pay for this plan.

Republicans, disagreeing with the concepts of free college and student debt relief, have offered up status quo plans while trying to push people away from going to colleges and toward trade schools. You can read Sen. Bill Cassidy’s worthless bill here. The right-wing media is now ginning up anti-student loan relief sentiment, directing Americans’ ire not at the predatory loan system or exorbitant higher education costs but at the students themselves. This means framing the conversation as one about Americans being taxed to pay for students who can’t pay back their loans.

While walking to his office, Sanders was asked byFox News Business correspondent Hillary Vaughn, “Is it really free if you're raising taxes to pay for it?” Sanders gave a very short and sweet masterclass on messaging:

“Well, given the fact that we have the billionaire class paying a lower tax rate than working families, I think it's appropriate that the wealthiest people in this country start paying their fair share of taxes.”

Vaughn attempted what passes for a hard-hitting followup at Fox: “People say that the Wall Street tax would hit average Americans saving for retirement.”

Sanders stopped to shut this bullshit down: “What people say that? People on Wall Street. Thank you

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https://www.alternet.org/cannot-run-a-racist-government/

netanayu

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https://www.c-span.org/video/?526206-12/senator-bernie-sanders-discusses-book-its-angry-capitalism

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https://www.alternet.org/bernie-sanders-subpoena-howard-schultz/

no choice

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no lnx

Starbucks CEO Schultz refuses to testify on union-busting before Sanders’ committee

Julia Conley and Common Dreams February 15, 2023

Starbucks CEO Schultz refuses to testify on union-busting before Sanders’ committee

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Julia Conley and Common Dreams February 15, 2023

U.S. coffee chain Starbucks on Tuesday told the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that interim CEO Howard Schultz has no intention of testifying before the panel as Chairman Bernie Sanders requested last week, sparking speculation that the progressive senator could use his subpoena power to compel the billionaire executive to appear at an upcoming hearing.

Sanders (I-Vt.) was joined by Democrats on the committee in writing a letter to the company on February 7, asking Schultz to testify on the company's "decisions with respect to complying with our nation's labor laws and negotiating a first contract with union workers at Starbucks."

Schultz has played a central role in attempting to quash unionization efforts at the company's stores across the country. After workers in Buffalo launched efforts to form a bargaining unit in 2021, the Starbucks co-founder flew in to the city to hold an anti-union meeting with employees just before they were set to vote on the issue.

The CEO, who is scheduled to leave the company in April, has been personally named in some of the 75 complaints against Starbucks filed by the National Labor Relations Board general counsel, accusing the company of illegal union-busting tactics such as intimidation and retaliation.

On Monday, ahead of Starbucks' response to Sanders, Schultz brushed off the workers at 366 of the company's stores in 39 states who have organized to form bargaining units despite Starbucks' aggressive anti-union efforts, telling The Washington Post that they are "angry at the world."

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"They're angry at YOU and your despicable union-busting tactics," countered economic justice group Patriotic Millionaires.

In response to Sanders' request for Schultz's testimony, the company offered to send A.J. Jones II, an executive vice president and chief communications officer, instead of the CEO.

"This could get interesting," said labor reporter Steven Greenhouse after Sanders sent the request, noting that the senator has repeatedly called on Schultz to testify.

\u201cThis could get interesting\u2014Bernie Sanders, chair of the Senate Labor Committee, & other Democrats on the committee invite Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to testify\n\nSanders has sent 3 letters to Schultz urging him to end "the egregious union-busting campaign" against Sbux workers\u201d

— Steven Greenhouse (@Steven Greenhouse) 1675885920

As of this writing, Sanders' office had not responded to request for comment.

After writing to Starbucks last week, the senator told the Associated Press that the HELP Committee intends "to be asking Mr. Schultz some very hard questions" and that Starbucks and other union-busting corporations "should be nervous."

He told the AP that he is willing to use the panel's subpoena power to force Schultz to testify.

"This is corporate greed," Sanders told the outlet. "Workers have aconstitutional right to organize. And even if you are a large, multinational corporation owned by a billionaire you don't have the right to violate the law."

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an comm dr 11 22

allying for Pennsylvania congressional candidates Summer Lee and John Fetterman in Philadelphia on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders ripped U.S. billionaires for pumping record-breaking sums of cash into the midterm elections in an effort to sway the results in their favor.

"It is not just Trump and his allies who are trying to undermine American democracy," Sanders (I-Vt.) told the crowd gathered at Franklin Music Hall Sunday night. "You are living right now under a corrupt political system which allows billionaires to buy elections."

The senator pointed specifically to the AIPAC-founded, billionaire-funded super PAC spending big to defeat Lee in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District. Sanders also noted that billionaire Rick Caruso, a former Republican running to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, has poured $100 million of his own fortune into the California race.

"Billionaires are saying, 'Hey, we own the country, we may as well own the political system, and I'm going to elect you and I'm going to defeat you.' That ain't democracy, that's oligarchy," said Sanders, who argued only a massive surge of voter turnout and transformative legislative action will be enough to counter billionaires' influence.

Watch Sanders' speech, which begins at around the 1:33:30 mark:

according to an analysis released last week by Americans for Tax Fairness, U.S. billionaires who have seen their wealth skyrocket during the coronavirus pandemic have spent nearly $900 million on federal elections this cycle, with significantly more going to Republican candidates than Democrats.

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that "political spending on the 2022 midterm elections will shatter records at the state and federal levels, with much of it from largely unregulated super PACs financed with enormous checks written mainly by Republican megadonors."

"The American campaign finance system increasingly mirrors American society, with hundreds of thousands of small donors trying to keep pace with a billionaire class whose spending appears nimble and bottomless," the Times continued. "While both parties have their billionaires, Republicans have many more. Of the 25 top donors this cycle, 18 are Republican, according to Open Secrets, and they have outspent Democrats by $200 million."

With billionaires spending massively and election-denying Trump loyalists running for Congress and key positions at the state level, Sanders argued that the November 8 midterms are "about saving the foundations of American democracy."

"Pennsylvania is one of three or four pivotal states in this country," the Vermont senator said. "And this election will be close. So I'm asking you now, in the next few days, to do everything you can to vote, get your friends to vote, help elect John Fetterman, help elect Summer Lee, help elect Josh Shapiro, your next governor. And do everything you can to defeat Republican extremism."

Looking beyond Tuesday's vote, Sanders said, "Don't think that it's all over on Election Day, no matter what happens."

"Your job is to have a vision," he continued. "We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. All over this world, people in country after country, people walk into the doctor's office, they don't have to take out their wallet, their credit card. All over the world, you have countries in which young people can get a higher education without having to go deeply into debt. People have paid family and medical leave. We can do those things, and we can do more."

"We can do these things," Sanders added, "if we have the guts to stand up to corporate greed, to stand up to a billionaire class that wants it all."

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/bernie-sanders-2657557605/

price gouging, windfall tax vs // biden fed gas tax 90 days

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an 9 22

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is concerned about an emerging class in the United States and how it could ultimately create more economic problems for the working class.

In a new op-ed published byThe Guardian, GUK Sanders offered a brief overview of the 2022 financial scope in America. "Three multibillionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 160 million Americans. This is unsustainable," Sanders wrote.

Sanders sounded off with concerns about the much-needed discussions that are not being had among lawmakers due to the actions of the ruling class. "We know how important these issues are because our ruling class works overtime to prevent them from being seriously discussed," he wrote.

READ MORE: 'Change course now': Bernie Sanders pens a chilling warning for Democrats ahead of the midterm elections

"They are barely mentioned in the halls of Congress, where most members are dependent on the campaign contributions of the wealthy and their Super Pacs," Sanders added. "They are not much discussed in the corporate media, in which a handful of conglomerates determine what we see, hear and discuss."

The independent lawmaker also shed light on the growing income and wealth gap driving financial inequality across the United States.

"We now have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last hundred years. In the year 2022, three multi-billionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 160 million Americans. Today, 45% of all new income goes to the top 1%, and CEOs of large corporations make a record-breaking 350 times what their workers earn.

"Today, half of our people live paycheck to paycheck and millions struggle on starvation wages. Despite a lifetime of work, half of older Americans have no savings and no idea how they will ever be able to retire with dignity, while 55% of seniors are trying to survive on an income of less than $25,000 a year."

READ MORE: Watch: Bernie Sanders torches Lindsey Graham for backing supporters of Donald Trump's election lies

Sanders further highlighted the starkly different lifestyles average Americans have lived during the pandemic compared to ultra-rich billionaires."During this terrible pandemic, when thousands of essential workers died doing their jobs, some 700 billionaires in America became nearly $2tn richer."

Invoking the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Sanders stressed the importance of fighting back against "corporate greed."

"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was right when he said 'We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power' in America. That statement is even more true today," he wrote.

"Let us have the courage to stand together and fight back against corporate greed. Let us fight back against massive income and wealth inequality. Let us fight back against a corrupt political system," Sanders added. "Let us stand together and finally create an economy and a government that works for all, not just the 1%."

READ MORE:Bernie Sanders blasts Joe Manchin for 'intentionally sabotaging the president's agenda'

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an 8 22

in Brazil, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has been a scathing critic of environmentalism — not unlike his American ally, former U.S. President Donald Trump, and other MAGA Republicans — while encouraging the use of fossil fuels, including coal, over green energy. Bolsonaro has made no secret of the fact that he believes climate change is a myth, and he doesn’t view deforestation in the Amazon as a problem.

But journalist Terrence McCoy, in an in-depth article published by the Washington Post on August 30, lays out some reasons why the destruction of the Amazon is an environmental disaster that Bolsonaro’s policies have encouraged.

“The violent and lawless erasure of the Amazon is perhaps the world’s greatest environmental crime story,” McCoy explains. “Scientists warn that the forest, seen as vital to averting catastrophic global warming, is at a tipping point. But in Brazil, home to about 60 percent of the Amazon, nearly one-fifth has already been destroyed. And virtually no one, law enforcement officials say, has been held accountable.”

READ MORE: Record deforestation pushing Amazon Rainforest toward 'the tipping point of no return': report

Bolsonaro, McCoy stresses, has treated deforesters in the Amazon “not as criminals, but as honest workers oppressed by authoritarian environmentalists.” And environmental inspector Ivan de Jesus Pereira de Araújo e Silva told the Post that under Bolsonaro, Brazil’s environmental agencies “have been shrunk so much.”

Bolsonaro is up for reelection in 2022, and his critics fear that his environmental policies will grow even worse if he wins a second term.

One of Bolsonaro’s left-wing critics in the United States is Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In a column published on August 23, liberal Washington Post opinion writers Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman reported that Sanders had met with Brazilian activists who fear that even if he loses the 2022 presidential election in Brazil, Bolsonaro won’t accept defeat and will try to stage a coup d’état.

“Such fears have prompted Sanders and his staff to draft a resolution that would seek to get ahead of any such eventuality,” Sargent and Waldman reported. “It would express the view of the Senate that if Bolsonaro loses and refuses to step down, the United States will view it as an unacceptable outcome. The resolution — which we have viewed in draft form — declares that the United States will immediately recognize the election outcome that international monitors deem free and fair. And it warns that the United States will reevaluate its relationship with any government that assumes power through undemocratic means, including a military coup. It says this could imperil future U.S. aid.”

READ MORE:How Brazil’s military has played a role in the destruction of the Amazon

During an interview, Sanders told Sargent and Waldman, “It is absolutely imperative that the U.S. Senate make it clear, through a resolution, that we support democracy in Brazil. We look forward to a free and fair election.”

In mid-August, Brazilian pollster Datafolha found that Bolsonaro’s left-wing rival, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, had a 15 percent lead over him — and Sanders believes that Bolsonaro, like Trump and his MAGA allies in the U.S., is quite capable of trying to steal a presidential election.

Sanders told Sargent and Waldman, “What we are seeing all across the world are massive attacks and rollbacks to democracy…. where people are giving up on democracy and moving toward authoritarianism. We have groups that have done that right here in the United States.”

READ MORE:'The genocide of his people is complete': Last member of remote Brazilian tribe found dead

Activists and conservationists worldwide mourned Monday following news that a man believed to be the last of a remote Brazilian tribe was found dead after years of resisting all efforts by the outside world to contact or interfere with him.

Known by defenders of Indigenous rights as "Indian of the Hole" or "The Man of the Hole" (Índio do Buraco)—a name given due to pits he dug for shelter, concealment, and possibly hunting—he was the only inhabitant of Tanaru Indigenous Territory in Rondônia state, in the western Brazilian Amazon. First encountered 26 years ago, the man—believed to be approximately 60 years old at the time of his death—lived reclusively in the remote region after other members of his tribe were thought to have been poisoned by ranchers who wanted to develop the land where they lived.

OPI, the Observatory for the Human Rights of Uncontacted and Recently-Contacted Peoples, issued a statement (translated here into English) bemoaning that "another Indigenous person, the last representative of his people, has died."

"In the recent past," the group continued, "he was the victim of an atrocious extermination process, as a result of the installation of large state-sponsored farms. He witnessed the death of his people, lost his territory to pastures and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in a small portion of forest interdicted by justice, surrounded by large farms in the region of the Corumbiara River in Rondônia."

"For resisting with extreme determination to any endeavors of contact," OPI added, the man "died without letting know which ethnicity he belonged to, nor the motivations of the holes he dug inside his house."

As The Guardian reports, "Officials know very little about the man, but his determined independence and evident solace helped create a mystique around him that captured the attention of activists and media across Brazil and around the world."

Survival International, which advocates for Indigenous rights and autonomy in Brazil and elsewhere around the world, called the death of the man—whose remains were recently found in a state of decomposition in the Tanaru territory—a symbol of genocide against the Amazon's Indigenous peoples. The group called the region where he lived as "a small island of forest in a sea of vast cattle ranches, in one of the most violent regions in Brazil."

Fiona Watson, research and advocacy director for Survival International who visited the man's territory in 2004 with a government monitoring team, commented on the man's passing.

"No outsider knew this man's name, or even very much about his tribe—and with his death the genocide of his people is complete," said Watson. "For this was indeed a genocide—the deliberate wiping out of an entire people by cattle ranchers hungry for land and wealth."

[twt]

what the man symbolized, said Watson, was "both the appalling violence and cruelty inflicted on Indigenous peoples worldwide in the name of colonization and profit, but also their resistance. We can only imagine what horrors he had witnessed in his life, and the loneliness of his existence after the rest of his tribe were killed, but he determinedly resisted all attempts at contact, and made clear he just wanted to be left alone."

Watson also invoked the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who is notorious for his antagonism toward the Indigenous people of Brazil and his wanton destruction of the Amazon rainforest by backing the logging, cattle, and mining interests who have sought massive profits from the region's land and natural resources.

"If President Bolsonaro and his agribusiness allies get their way," warned Watson, "this story will be repeated over and over again until all the country's Indigenous peoples are wiped out. The Indigenous movement in Brazil, and Survival, will do everything possible to ensure that doesn't happen."

According to government officials with Funai, which monitored the man from a distance, it appeared the man had prepared for his death and that neither foul play nor a violent end was suggested. A forensic doctor with the nation's federal police is expected to carry out an autopsy and anthropologists and other researchers are expected to try to learn more about how he lived.

Following the man's death, OPI renewed its called for the Tanaru reserve where he lived his final years to be permanently protected as a memorial to Indigenous genocide.

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As the 2022 midterm elections approach, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is urging his Democratic colleagues to change course if they want to remain in control of both chambers of government.guk

In an op-ed published by The Guardian, the progressive lawmaker expressed concern about the country's financial strain and the economic toll inflation is taking on American workers.

Although Republicans are aggressively working to "overturn Roe v Wade, opposing a minimum wage increase, embracing more tax breaks for the rich and the growth of oligarchy, and stopping us from passing serious gun safety legislation," Sanders noted that the right-wing party still has a good chance of gaining control of the House and Senate.

He went on to explain why. "According to numerous polls, the Republicans stand an excellent chance of winning this coming November," Sanders wrote. "The main reason: while the Democratic party has, over the years, been hemorrhaging support from the white working class, it is now losing support from Latino, Black and Asian workers as well."

The lawmaker added, "The enthusiasm level within the Democratic base is extremely low. It is not only working-class support that is fading away but it is also that young people, who helped elect Biden and other Democrats in 2020, are becoming increasingly demoralized and are not likely to vote in large numbers in this coming election."

He also acknowledged the needs of the American people and what many really want in wake of an impending recession. "Amid grotesque and widening income and wealth inequality and decades of wage stagnation, the existential threat of climate crisis, a rigged tax system, and crises in healthcare, childcare, and housing, the American people wanted Congress to finally stand up and represent their interests, not just the greed of wealthy campaign contributors," Sanders wrote, adding, "And that’s what the Build Back Better Act was about. Poll after poll showed overwhelming support for virtually every provision in that legislation."

According to Sanders, there are a number of things Democrats need to do if they want a more favorable outcome during the November midterms.

"What the Democrats need to do, right now, is to make it clear: they may have 50 votes in the Senate, but they do not have 50 votes to pass the legislation that the American people want and need," he wrote. "They have no Republican support and there are two Democrats who will vote with Republicans on important issues." DINOs

With so many issues threatening democracy, Sanders stressed how imperative it is to be proactive in tackling key issues that concern the American people.

"Now is the time to make democracy work.Let us bring to the Senate floor the major issues impacting working families and vote, vote, and vote again. Even if we lost these votes, which is likely, the American people have the right to see where their elected officials stand. Make them vote!"

He concluded, "The Democratic party cannot continue to ignore the needs of the working class of our country and expect to retain majority control in the US House and US Senate. It’s time to show which side we’re on. It’s time to start voting."

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/bernie-sanders

bezos spacex bailout

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/sanders/

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Bernie Sanders is right: 'Corporate greed' and 'price-gouging' are driving inflation

Alex Henderson February 21, 2022

Liberal economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column, has been arguing that President Joe Biden needs to do a much better job selling the positive aspects of the U.S. economy — unemployment way down from what it was in 2020, millions of new jobs added — while speaking candidly and frankly about inflation. It’s no secret that prices for a variety of items have been soaring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A key factor in the pandemic-era inflation problem, many economists have said, is the supply chain. Because of the pandemic, goods have a harder time getting from Point A to Point B. But The Nation’s John Nichols, in an article published on February 21, argues that a major factor with inflation — one that isn’t being discussed enough — is corporate greed and price-gouging.

Liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, according to Nichols, “put the pieces together” when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell appeared before the Senate Banking Committee in January.

“They’re raising prices because they can, and they’re not being competed down,” Warren told Powell during that hearing. “You know, market concentration has allowed giant corporations to hide behind claims of increased costs to fatten their profit margins. So, the consumer pays more both because the corporation faces higher costs and because, as you put it, because the corporation can increase prices. The reason I raise this is that higher prices have many causes, and we can’t overlook the role that concentrated corporate power has played in creating the conditions for price gouging.”

Warren, according to Nichols, “made the vital connection that all Democrats should be making as debates about the causes of inflation heat up.”

Nichols writes, “Instead of letting Wall Street apologists create the impression that inflation is simply the result of supply chain kinks and pent-up consumer demand after two years of pandemic lockdowns, and instead of letting Republicans suggest that federal and state investments in health care and housing are the problem, Democrats should be speaking like Warren — and like former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner.”

On February 17, Turner tweeted, “It’s not ‘inflation,’ it’s price-gouging. Exxon and other Big Oil corporations are price-gouging us at the gas pump. Grocery chains are making record profits price-gouging us at the register. Corporations are bleeding working people dry. Enough.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has also slammed corporations for “price gouging” and “corporate greed” during the pandemic.

Sanders and Warren have much in common but have their differences as well. While Sanders considers himself a “democratic socialist” along the lines of left-wing politicians in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, Warren has described herself as a “capitalist to my bones” — and the Massachusetts Democrat has emphasized that while free market capitalism needs robust competition to be healthy, many corporations have done everything they can to avoid competition and become monopolies.

“There are still plenty of Democrats who are cautious about calling out corporate greed,” Nichols observes. “A failure to be blunt about profiteering leaves a void that will ill serve their party in 2022.”

Nichols continues, “History makes it clear that midterm elections are tough for the party that controls the White House and Congress. Voters take out their frustrations on those who are in positions of power. And that is doubly true in moments of economic turbulence, as Jimmy Carter and the Democrats learned in 1978, as Ronald Reagan and the Republicans learned in 1986, as Barack Obama and the Democrats learned in 2010.”

Nichols recalls that in the 1934 midterms, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s willingness to call out corporations served him well.

“Throughout 1934, FDR never let up when it came to calling out speculators, monopolists, and price gougers,” Nichols explains. “He promised that New Deal Democrats with increased congressional majorities would hold the bad actors to account. Voters approved. In November, they gave Democrats nine more seats in the House and nine more in the Senate, where the party achieved a rare supermajority.”

Nichols wraps up his article by emphasizing that Democrats should pay close attention to what Sanders has been saying about inflation.

The Vermont senator tweeted, “The problem is not that a low-income worker got a 50 cent raise two weeks ago and a $1400 check last year. The problem is that corporations are using ‘inflation’ as an excuse to jack up prices so that they can make record-breaking profits to enrich CEOs and wealthy shareholders.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/inflation-2656762251/

no lnx twt

Bernie Sanders is right: 'Corporate greed' and 'price-gouging' are driving inflation

Alex Henderson February 21, 2022

Liberal economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column, has been arguing that President Joe Biden needs to do a much better job selling the positive aspects of the U.S. economy — unemployment way down from what it was in 2020, millions of new jobs added — while speaking candidly and frankly about inflation. It’s no secret that prices for a variety of items have been soaring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A key factor in the pandemic-era inflation problem, many economists have said, is the supply chain. Because of the pandemic, goods have a harder time getting from Point A to Point B. But TheNation’s John Nichols, in an article published on February 21, argues that a major factor with inflation — one that isn’t being discussed enough — is corporate greed and price-gouging.

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}:

Liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, according to Nichols, “put the pieces together” when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell appeared before the Senate Banking Committee in January.

“They’re raising prices because they can, and they’re not being competed down,” Warren told Powell during that hearing. “You know, market concentration has allowed giant corporations to hide behind claims of increased costs to fatten their profit margins. So, the consumer pays more both because the corporation faces higher costs and because, as you put it, because the corporation can increase prices. The reason I raise this is that higher prices have many causes, and we can’t overlook the role that concentrated corporate power has played in creating the conditions for price gouging.”

Warren, according to Nichols, “made the vital connection that all Democrats should be making as debates about the causes of inflation heat up.”

Nichols writes, “Instead of letting Wall Street apologists create the impression that inflation is simply the result of supply chain kinks and pent-up consumer demand after two years of pandemic lockdowns, and instead of letting Republicans suggest that federal and state investments in health care and housing are the problem, Democrats should be speaking like Warren — and like former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner.”

On February 17, Turner tweeted, “It’s not ‘inflation,’ it’s price-gouging. Exxon and other Big Oil corporations are price-gouging us at the gas pump. Grocery chains are making record profits price-gouging us at the register. Corporations are bleeding working people dry. Enough.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has also slammed corporations for “price gouging” and “corporate greed” during the pandemic.

Sanders and Warren have much in common but have their differences as well. While Sanders considers himself a “democratic socialist” along the lines of left-wing politicians in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, Warren has described herself as a “capitalist to my bones” — and the Massachusetts Democrat has emphasized that while free market capitalism needs robust competition to be healthy, many corporations have done everything they can to avoid competition and become monopolies.

“There are still plenty of Democrats who are cautious about calling out corporate greed,” Nichols observes. “A failure to be blunt about profiteering leaves a void that will ill serve their party in 2022.”

Nichols continues, “History makes it clear that midterm elections are tough for the party that controls the White House and Congress. Voters take out their frustrations on those who are in positions of power. And that is doubly true in moments of economic turbulence, as Jimmy Carter and the Democrats learned in 1978, as Ronald Reagan and the Republicans learned in 1986, as Barack Obama and the Democrats learned in 2010.”

Nichols recalls that in the 1934 midterms, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s willingness to call out corporations served him well.

“Throughout 1934, FDR never let up when it came to calling out speculators, monopolists, and price gougers,” Nichols explains. “He promised that New Deal Democrats with increased congressional majorities would hold the bad actors to account. Voters approved. In November, they gave Democrats nine more seats in the House and nine more in the Senate, where the party achieved a rare supermajority.”

Nichols wraps up his article by emphasizing that Democrats should pay close attention to what Sanders has been saying about inflation.

The Vermont senator tweeted, “The problem is not that a low-income worker got a 50 cent raise two weeks ago and a $1400 check last year. The problem is that corporations are using ‘inflation’ as an excuse to jack up prices so that they can make record-breaking profits to enrich CEOs and wealthy shareholders.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/sanders-manchin/

41% spike in child poverty , slammed by Bernie

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Manchin fumes after Bernie Sanders op-wd in West Virginia paper calls out obstruction of Biden agenda

Andrea Germanos Common Dreams

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia lashed out Friday after a major newspaper in his home state published an op-ed by Sen. Bernie Sanders that called out Manchin's obstruction...

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