BERNIE 2 progressive

see older

7/17

SEE BERNIE 3

see AOC and The Squad

progressive 1/18

see populism

SEE DEMS 4

=-=-=

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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rww

12/17/2025

Peter Montgomery

Intercessors for America, a network of “prayer warriors” that functions as a shameless public relations arm of the Trump administration, is promoting a “prayer guide” denouncing “The Communist Takeover of the Democrat Party.”

“For years, unbeknownst to most Americans, the Communist Party has been purposely and diligently chipping away to gain a foothold into our nation,” the guide begins, before launching into a screed against the Democratic Socialists of America and the DSA-endorsed Mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani.

It’s not your father’s communist party! Green. Hip. And with new mouthpieces now carrying water for their repackaged red ideologies. Has this soft-peddled, mainstream-embraced socialist movement now found their foothold?

Among the political figures cited in the document, in addition to Mamdani, are Sen. Bernie Sanders and Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Greg Cesar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Inexplicably, the graphic on the front page of the prayer guide is an image of the Turkish flag and what appears to be a statue of Mustafa Kamal Atatürk, founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey. Did someone at IFA confuse the star and crescent of the Turkish flag with the Communist hammer-and-sickle symbol? There is nothing in the text that explains the choice of image.

Every other page of the IFA document carries a banner reading “THE COMMUNIST TAKEOVER OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY.” Among the policy proposals that the IFA regards as signs of a "Communist takeover" in process: Universal Basic Income, Single Payer Healthcare, “Tax the Billionaires,” Green New Deal, and Free Public College.

The guide ends with half a dozen prayer points, including “Pray for a spirit of confusion over the camp of socialists” and “Pray against the spirit of darkness behind socialism.”

---

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/aoc-elon-musk-2657242582/

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pilloried the world's richest person and Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, on Friday after he used the social media platform to equate the far-right and the far-left, implying that both are hateful.

"The far-left hates everyone, themselves included!" said Musk, the chief executive of Tesla whose net worth has skyrocketed to more than $200 billion during the Covid-19 pandemic. "But I'm no fan of the far-right either. Let's have less hate and more love."

"In Texas, Republicans passed a law allowing rapists to sue their victims for getting an abortion," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) responded incredulously. "Can anyone name a 'far-left' policy that extreme implemented anywhere?We can't even get our party to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada."

Musk's Friday comments came less than 24 hours after he shared an image arguing that a "conservative" occupies the same ideological territory today as in 2008 while a "liberal" has moved increasingly leftward and become a "woke 'progressive'" unrecognizable to a centrist who once had more in common with the left but is now closer to the right.

Musk's argument about a supposed leftward shift couldn't be further from reality, according to critics.

Setting aside the fact that the Democratic Party as a whole has moved toward former President Ronald Reagan on many economic, carceral, and immigration policies since the late 1970s—resulting in more than four decades of bipartisan neoliberalism, which has only recently been challenged by a growing minority of progressive lawmakers—the Republican Party's rightward shift, which has been intensifying for decades, is completely ignored by Musk.

Georgetown University professor Don Moynihan responded to Musk's post by sharing evidence from thePew Research Center that shows how increasing political polarization in the U.S. Congress is being driven primarily by Republicans moving further and further right—not the other way around.

According to Pew's March analysis of lawmakers' roll-call votes, "Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than at any time in the past 50 years." While Democrats have become slightly more liberal on a two-dimensional spectrum, Republicans have become "much more" conservative.

To take just one example of the GOP's creeping authoritarianism, Republican senators in 2006 voted unanimously to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Last November, only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined Democrats in a failed bid to restore the landmark pro-democracy law.

Fueled by former President Donald Trump's "Big Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, Republican lawmakers at the state level have embarked on a nationwide assault on the franchise, passing 34 voter suppression laws in 2021 and introducing dozens more this year.

The GOP has also gone on an unprecedented censorship binge in recent months, banning books and threatening the job security of teachers across the nation. In addition, Republicans have been attacking abortion rights at a dangerous clip, as Ocasio-Cortez alluded to, as well as LGBTQ+ rights.

Meanwhile, progressive lawmakers who are advocating for universal access to healthcare—during a pandemic that has killed nearly one million Americans—and an accelerated clean energy transition to secure a livable planet are being stymied at every turn by corporate lobbyists and lawmakers in both parties.

bernie ~ CA recall ads. also eliz w

11 21

big win

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/infrastructure-bill-unions/

BBB passes house; jayapal holds line

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...

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/lobbying-congress/

an 921

...no lnx

...the Post, which published Sanders' remarks on Tuesday, offered a detailed look at the "massive lobbying blitz" that corporate America has launched in recent days in a bid to water down—or kill entirely—the reconciliation package, a centerpiece of President Joe Biden's economic and climate agenda.

The range of big-name corporations involved in the campaign—from the pharmaceutical giantPfizer to the fossil fuel behemoth ExxonMobil—reflects the potentially far-reaching scope of the nascent reconciliation bill, which could allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, reverse former President Donald Trump's corporate tax cut, institute paid family and medical leave, strengthen workers' rights, and establish a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.

"The emerging opposition appears to be vast, spanning drug manufacturers, big banks, tech titans, major retailers, and oil-and-gas giants," the Post's Tony Romm reported. "In recent weeks, top Washington organizations representing these and other industries have started strategizing behind the scenes, seeking to battle back key elements in Democrats proposed overhaul to federal healthcare, education, and safety net programs."

One of the organizations that has been "most active" in the effort to prevent passage of the reconciliation bill, according to the Post, is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobbying organization in the country. Romm reported that the Chamber is "in the early stages of putting together an economywide coalition to coordinate the fight against the still-forming economic package, including its significant price tag, policy scope, and potential for tax increases."

"The Chamber-organized effort could encompass traditional lobbying on Capitol Hill as well as advertising campaigns targeting Democratic lawmakers," Romm noted. "The group has been in talks with potential allies such as the National Association of Manufacturers, whose board includes executives from firms such as Dow Inc., Exxon, Caterpillar, and Johnson & Johnson... Other opponents include the Business Roundtable, whose board counts the chief executives from Apple and Walmart."

As Democrats move further along in the process of translating their newly approved $3.5 trillion budget blueprint into legislative text—a process lawmakers hope to complete by next month—the lobbying push is likely to intensify. The Hill reported Monday that corporate influence-peddlers are growing "increasingly optimistic" that they will succeed in keeping major tax hikes, Medicare expansion, and other critical measures out of the final package...

"The business community has made progress with certain Democrats on legitimate policy concerns with some of these proposals and their implications on the economy and international competitiveness," an unnamed lobbyist with ties to Senate Democrats told The Hill. "A lot of those arguments are landing."

While The Hill does not name the "certain Democrats" who have been receptive to lobbyists' arguments, the outlet noted that "business interests have Democratic allies in Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and the group of House moderates led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.)"—all of whom have voiced opposition to the $3.5 trillion price tag.

But Sanders—who has characterized the reconciliation bill as potentially the most consequential legislation since the New Deal—said in an interview last week that $3.5 trillion is "the minimum of what we should be spending."...

bernie (and aoc) worked on planks?

ana 221

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday was the lone progressive to vote against Tom Vilsack reprising his role as secretary of agriculture, citing concerns that progressive advocacy groups have been raising since even before President Joe Biden officially nominated the former Obama administration appointee.

The Senate voted 92-7 to confirm Vilsack, with Sanders (I-Vt.) and six Republicans opposing his appointment. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) was the only member who did not vote.

In a statement on his decision, Sanders first said that "I have known Tom Vilsack for many years and look forward to working with him as our new secretary of agriculture."

"I opposed his confirmation today because at a time when corporate consolidation of agriculture is rampant and family farms are being decimated, we need a secretary who is prepared to vigorously take on corporate power in the industry," Sanders explained. "I heard from many family farmers in Vermont and around the country who feel that is not what Tom did when he last served in this job."

The Hill reports Sanders made similar remarks about Vilsack to journalists after the vote, saying that "I think he'll be fine, but not as strong as I would like."

The progressive group RootsAction praised Sanders on Twitter for taking a stand against Biden's pick to run the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)....

aha this is a kind of extraction, pvtize profits, socialize costs

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/bernie-sanders/

'The Walton family is the real welfare queen': GAO report details how taxpayers subsidize corporate giants' low wages

pinpointing a reality denounced as "morally obscene" by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a new government study shows how some of the nation's largest and most profitable corporations—including Walmart, McDonald's, Dollar General, and Amazon—feast upon taxpayer money by paying their employees such low wages that huge numbers of those workers throughout the year are forced to rely on public assistance programs such as Medicaid and food assistance just to keep themselves and their families afloat.

According to a statement from Sanders' office, the study he commissioned the Government Accountability Office to carry out—titled "Millions of Full-time Workers Rely on Federal Health Care and Food Assistance Programs"—found that an estimated 5.7 million Medicaid enrollees and 4.7 million SNAP(Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipients who worked full-time for 50 or more weeks in 2018earned wages so low that they qualified for these federal benefits. In addition, an estimated 12 million wage-earning adults enrolled in Medicaid and 9 million wage-earning adults living in households receiving SNAP benefits worked at some point in 2018.

Upon the study's release Wednesday, Warren Gunnels, staff director and policy adviser for Sen. Sanders, tweeted: "The real looting in America is theWalton family becoming $63 billion richer during a pandemic, while paying wages so low that 14,541 of their workers in 9 states need food stamps—all subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. Yes. The Walton family is the real welfare queen in America."

According to the Washington Post:, based on the GAO report:

Walmart was one of the top four employers of SNAP and Medicaid beneficiaries in every state. McDonald's was in the top five of employers with employees receiving federal benefits in at least nine states.

In the nine states that responded about SNAP benefits—Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington—Walmart was found to have employed about 14,500 workers receiving the benefit, followed by McDonald's with 8,780, according to Sanders's team. In six states that reported Medicaid enrollees, Walmart again topped the list, with 10,350 employees, followed by McDonald's with 4,600.

In Georgia, for example, Walmart employed an estimated 3,959 workers on Medicaid—an estimated 2.1 percent of the total of non-elderly, non-disabled people in the state receiving the benefit. McDonald's was next on the list, employing 1,480 who received Medicaid, or 0.8 percent of the total of non-elderly, non-disabled people on the program.

"At a time when huge corporations like Walmart and McDonald's are making billions in profits and giving their CEOs tens of millions of dollars a year, they're relying on corporate welfare from the federal government by paying their workers starvation wages," said Sanders in a statement. "That is morally obscene."

With the individual wealth of high-ranking executives and members of billionaire families like the Walton's, who own Walmart, soaring even as front-line, minimum wage employees and their families struggling to stay afloat amid the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, Sanders argues that the stark contrast should be a wakeup call for those who have refused to see how unjust and economically backward it is for the federal government, meaning taxpayers, to subsidize the cruel wages that massive profitable companies force their workers to accept.

"U.S. taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America," said Sanders. "It is time for the owners of Walmart, McDonald's and other large corporations to get off of welfare and pay their workers a living wage."

The Walton family is worth $238 billion. Yet they pay wages so low, 14,541 of their workers in 9 states are forced… https://t.co/NHcullycqz

— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders)1605742875.0

"No one in this country should live in poverty," Sanders added. "No one should go hungry. No one should be unable to get the medical care they need. It is long past time to increase the federal minimum wage from a starvation wage of $7.25 an hour to $15, and guarantee health care to all Americans as a human right."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

UC police used "friendly force trackers" and FBI tech to surveil grad student strikers protesting for a living wage

NICOLE KARLIS

MAY 18, 2020 11:45PM (UTC)

The University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) Police Department, with assistance from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office and the California National Guard, used military surveillance to suppress the UC Santa Cruz graduate student wildcat strike earlier this year, according to emails acquired through the California Public Records Act.

Vice first reported the content of the emails on May 15 which provided insight into the coordinated efforts between the UC Santa Cruz Police Department, Alameda County Sheriff's Office, and the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, to police the protests. As Salon has previously reported, police and campus officials reacted to the nonviolent labor action with threats, arrests, firings, and violence from the police with batons, according to grad students at the strike, for months as grad students demanded a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) to help alleviate the rent burden of living in a pricey coastal California town.

The new emails, which have been reviewed by Salon, dive deeper into the efforts to police the protests that went beyond what the grad students observed on the picket line. They show the UC Santa Cruz Police Department requested mutual aid from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office to police the protests as early as December 31. Notably, UC Santa Cruz is located in Santa Cruz County, not Alameda County — which is about 40 miles north.

"It's disturbing to be part of a labor action like this and to see the militarized nature of the university's response," Will Parrish, a PhD student in UCSC's History of Consciousness program, told Salon in an interview. "I felt disturbed to see both the level of militarization and the casualness of their discussions in their email threads."

Specifically, the UCSC Police Department requested deputies, trucks and vans in the case of arrests. All expenses, including food and lodging, were paid for by UCSC police for at least 65 officers. At the time, grad students were on a wildcat strike, withholding final grades for the fall quarter until their demand for a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) was met. Withholding grades evolved into a full wildcat teaching strike in February, meaning they withheld teaching, grading, and office hours, as their demands continued to be dismissed.

According to emails dated February 11 and 13, the California National Guard provided "friendly force trackers," which is a military surveillance technology, as part of the effort. Police also had access to a federal surveillance portal operated by the FBIcalled LEEP, an acronym for "Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal." The FBI's page on LEEP describes it as "a secure platform for law enforcement agencies, intelligence groups, and criminal justice entities" that "provides web-based investigative tools and analytical resources" to help said groups "collaborate in a secure environment, use tools to strengthen their cases, and share departmental documents." Some of the sample use cases for LEEP that the FBI cites include "active shooter incidents," "child abductions" and "takedown operations."

The emails don't specify exactly how these technologies were used, nor do they specify the amount spent on the efforts. However, grad students believe that it could be in the millions.

"Rather than meet us at the bargaining table the UC instead spent close to five million dollars in deploying dozens of UCPD from across the state, California Highway Patrol, and Alameda County sheriffs, and even solicited assistance from counterterrorism intelligence agencies," UCSC Literature PhD student Hannah Newburn said in a statement. "Since when did asking for a raise become a threat to Homeland Security?"

Carlos Cruz, a UCSC PhD student in the history department, told Salon he was given evidence, and an audio clip that Salon listened to, to add to speculation that he was being surveilled by police during the protests. In the audio clip, presumably a police officer is stating Cruz's whereabouts and said his name "Carlos." He also had an alarming in-person encounter with a sergeant.

"I had a sergeant who was able to identify me by first, middle and last name and date of birth," Cruz said, adding there were racist undertones to the exchange. "It's really scary to see how they got my info and knew who I was."

In an emailed statement to Salon, Scott Hernandez-Jason, the Director of News and Media Relations at UC Santa Cruz, told Salon: "Throughout the strike, UC Santa Cruz police officers were focused on supporting the safety of our community on and off campus and protecting the rights of everyone in our campus community, including those engaged in expressive activity."

Hernandez-Jason said the department used the trackers "to know the location of on-duty officers who were helping keep people safe."

"To infer anything else about the use of the trackers would be erroneous. UC Santa Cruz is built across 2,000 acres of hilly land with two entrances, so understanding the location of officers was vital to coordinate their efforts," Hernandez-Jason said. "There was no tracking of students or strikers."

The emails also revealed that after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) :{tweeted on February 19:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: in support of striking graduate students at UC Santa Cruz, an officer from the Governor's Office of Emergency Services emailed the California State Threat Assessment Center commander Eli Owen to request assistance to "verify/validate Mr. Sanders schedule." The email referred to the tweet as "intel" that Sanders might appear on the UC Santa Cruz campus.

Hernandez-Jason said about this email that "UC Santa Cruz was paying attention to his publicly posted campaign schedule so that it could begin planning in case he chose to visit the campus."

This isn't the first time military tactics have been used to spy on protesters. The Intercept previously reported on how FBI emails and intelligence reports suggested federal surveillance of Black Lives Matter protests. Similar surveillance happened in the 1960s and 1970s during anti-war protests. Sara Hinkley, a Policy Research Specialist at :{UC Berkeley Labor Center:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, told Salon in an emailed statement that whether such a move was worth it for UCSC will be calculated by how tarnished its reputation is for the handling of the wildcat strike.

"In the case of UC, the loss of reputation and academic stability will likely have repercussions for many years," Hinkley said. "It's unfortunate that they chose to treat their own students and employees as an enemy meriting military surveillance."

Hinkley added: "I think it's likely that decision will end up costing them much more than if they had recognized the students' demands and fairly bargained a solution to the real financial stress that graduate students are experiencing."

NICOLE KARLIS

Nicole Karlis is a news writer at Salon. She covers health, science, tech and gender politics. Tweet her @nicolekarlis.

nyt

https://www.mediamatters.org/new-york-times/ny-times-piece-bernie-sanders-and-soviet-union-should-never-have-been-published

hhmn

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/independent-analysis-raises-questions-about-how-bernie-sanders-would-pay-for-his-proposals-report/

220

https://www.mediamatters.org/glenn-beck/cpac-glenn-beck-says-bernie-sanders-revolution-will-lead-another-holocaust

progressives plan to #BernTheDNC with mass nonviolent civil disobedience if democratic establishment rigs nomination

Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Nick Brana, Eleanor Goldfield, Phil Ateto, Shelly Williams / Common Dreams

If there is an effort to steal the nomination from the people, our goal will to be make clear to the Democratic establishment that we know their game and we aren't gonna play this time.

an 220

wapo 220

By Paul Kane

February 26, 2020 at 1:27 PM EST

Sen. Rubio says Sanders is a Marxist, not a democratic socialist

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) continued to press his argument Wednesday that Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is actually a Marxist — offering a preview of the kind of Republican attacks the senator from Vermont could face if he becomes the Democratic nominee.

“Bernie Sanders is actually not a socialist. His sympathies and ideas are Marxist,” Rubio said in a tweet, referring to the ideology named for 19th-century German philosopher Karl Marx.

Rubio attached a clip of an appearance on Fox News from Tuesday night in which he made that argument.

“This is Marxism, and Marxism is based on the belief that no person has any value as an individual, that your value is that you’re a member of a class,” Rubio told host Sean Hannity. “Second, Marxism is based on the belief that an employer and an employee, a worker and an owner, can’t both help each other and both be better off.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/historically-rich-people-have-fought-to-stop-politicians-like-sanders-making-his-rise-all-the-more-unlikely/

no lnx

Historically, rich people have fought to stop politicians like Sanders — making his rise all the more unlikely

Written by Keith A. Spencer / Salon March 1, 2020

My favorite uncomfortable interview moment arises in a 1996 BBC segment featuring linguist and scholar Noam Chomsky. In the interview, conducted by British journalist Andrew Marr for the BBC show “The Big Idea,” Marr tells viewers he has come to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to talk to the professor and dissident about “bias in the media.” The interview came about eight years after the publication of Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s 1988 book “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media“; the term “manufacturing consent” that the two co-authors adopted refers to how mainstream media outlets shape coverage in order to present an agenda that benefits the ruling class.

The awkward moment, which Marr politely takes in stride, arises when Marr confronts Chomsky about his assertion that media figures like himself express opinions that reflect what the rich elites believe.

First, Chomsky pushes back on the assertion that journalists are innately noble defenders of democracy. “I’m sure you’re speaking for the majority of journalists who are trained — have it driven into their heads — that this is a crusading profession. Adversarial, ‘we stand up against power’ — a very self-serving view,” Chomsky says to Marr.

“How can you know I’m self-censoring?” Marr interjects.

“I’m not saying you’re self-censoring,” Chomsky replies. “I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”

The point that Chomsky is making is a good example of selection bias — a statistics concept that I’ve written about before that works as a great analogy for understanding the political and media world. Chomsky’s point is that Marr never would have made it as far in his media career if he had been appropriately critical of power and imperialism.

To rephrase Chomsky’s point, media bias doesn’t manifest through conscious propagandizing by those who work at the top. Talking heads with six- or seven-figure salaries — folks like Wolf Blitzer or Chris Matthews — aren’t hired because they are ardent propagandists who believe in the same things the boss believes. Rather, they are hired because they are appropriately uncritical of power and militarism.

In other words, the Wolf Blitzers and Chris Matthewses of the world would never have gotten hired in the first place — or probably not made it as far as they had — if they hadn’t toed a tacit line that represented the interests of the people who own the media outlets that have employed them over the years.

The selection bias analogy is quite apt when we think about who is a successful politician and who isn’t. In the United States’ flawed democracy, the rich have untoward power to shape not only elections, but also our beliefs about candidates through mass media.

That means that our political candidates — on both sides, but particularly the right — rarely hold positions in line with the things that the majority of Americans believe in. To wit:

Gallup polling has consistently found that only about 21% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. (On the other hand, just about every member of the Republican Party believes this — the party that supposedly represents half the country’s views.)

Gallup polling also shows that 54% of Americans agree with the statement “it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage.”

In 2019, only 35% of Americans believed immigration to the United States should be decreased.

Also, in 2019, the same Gallup poll asked: “Thousands of refugees have left Honduras and other Central American countries to escape the situation there. Would you approve or disapprove of allowing these refugees to come into this country?” 57% approved.

A 2019 poll from The Hill-HarrisX found that “58% of registered voters said they would support a proposal that would make public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition-free.” The pollsters note that “the same group also said they would back a plan eliminating all existing student debt.”

I picked these polls intentionally, as these reflect the core platform of presidential frontrunner Bernie Sanders: he is a pro-choice candidate supporting Medicare for All, who pushes back against xenophobic immigration views like Trump’s, and who believes in forgiving student debt and making public colleges free.

That means that Bernie Sanders’ political views are well in line with the mainstream. In that regard, his frontrunner status makes sense.

So then why is he billed by the mainstream media as an anomaly, or even dangerous?

The answer has to do, again, with selection bias.

The candidates who represent a centrist or center-right agenda — candidates like Mike Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg — have more support from monied folks who donate to their campaigns and thus give them more visibility, both in newsmedia and in airtime.

Over time, we have started to think of milquetoast centrism as comprising “normal” political beliefs for Americans, when in fact Sanders’ platform is way more average in terms of what Americans believe and want.

This is all to say that to find someone like Bernie Sanders — an independent from Vermont, an open democratic socialist, who has been virulently anti-imperialist for decades, consistent in his beliefs, and who refuses the allure of PAC money — is astonishingly unusual in the federal government. There is a selection bias specifically preventing people like him from rising as high as he has. And how he got to where he is occurred because of a combination of luck and his own prowess as a politician.

First, the luck part. Unlike other states in the union, there is not a lot of industry in Vermont, and frankly not a lot of wealth. It is an underpopulated state: only Wyoming has a smaller population.

You can understand how Sanders rose to the Senate by contrasting Vermont politicians with California politicians. Conservatives love to gripe about California’s far-left politicians, but that is pretty far from the truth: to make it to the Senate or the governor’s house as a Californian, you must kowtow to the vast piles of money hoarded by the ghouls in Silicon Valley, the agriculture industry, and Hollywood. To do otherwise would risk becoming the focus of a targeted campaign against you by said industrialists’ super PACs and communications firms, as frequently happens with any Californian candidate whose economic views stray too far towards the redistributive for the tastes of the monied. (This goes back at least to socialist Upton Sinclair’s bid for California governor in 1934, which was undermined by business interests employing sophisticated propaganda. His campaign foreshadowed California politics for decades to come.)

Whereas in a state like Vermont, with little industry and relatively little wealth, there are fewer business interests to upset. That means that a politician who caters to the working class rather than the ruling class can get much further — even to the Senate — without having his candidacy tanked by disinformation campaigns run by rich people’s political action committees, as essentially happened with Sinclair in California.

Now, for the skill part. Sanders is an intensely disciplined politician when it comes to rhetoric. He has not strayed ideologically from his beliefs in 30 years; this makes it that much harder for his detractors to call him a waffler or expose him for being an inconsistent politician. By plugging the same message year after year, voters know what to expect from him. To borrow an odious 21st-century marketing term, his branding is on point.

Now, this depiction of Sanders is, as my headline alludes, at odds with the narrative about him. True, he does not fit into the visual rubric of diversity (though he is Jewish). But he is an ideologically diverse candidate — and his base, which is the most diverse of all the Democratic candidates for president, certainly speaks to this strength.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/02/who-is-funding-the-anti-bernie-sanders-super-pac/

Several outside groups are trying to slow the momentum of current Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) by spending millions on ad buys, as he continues to dominate the polls.

The campaign against Sanders originated with hybrid PAC Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel moderate group, that spent over $1.4 million against Sanders. The group spent over $800,000 running ads against the frontrunning Democratic presidential candidate in Iowa and it’s spending $600,000 in Nevada, according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. ...

medicare for All is cheaper: Multiple studies say M4A is more cost-effective than a public option

Igor Derysh / SalonFebruary 22, 2020

Two new studies found that the Medicare for All plan proposed by candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., would cost less than the public option…

hmmn just workin the ref?

Sanders campaign manager: Fox News has been ‘more fair than MSNBC’

Matthew Rozsa / Salon

“It feels like they’re covering progressives from an elitist perspective.”

220 dn bernie mike lee utah chris m?

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/2/14/headlines/senate_passes_resolution_limiting_trump_s_war_powers_authority

frontrunner out of iowa, thus flak serenghetti (chris matthews?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/the-myth-of-bernie-bros-how-a-misunderstanding-of-social-media-is-driving-media-elites-to-psuh-an-easily-disprovable-stereotype/

no lnx many

The myth of ‘Bernie Bros’: How a misunderstanding of social media is driving elites to push an easily disprovable stereotype

Written by Keith A. Spencer February 9, 2020

The nature of punditry makes it hard to tell which myths media personalities earnestly believe in, and which they perpetuate in bad faith. Consider the “welfare queen,” a villainous trope popularized by Ronald Reagan in stump speeches in the 1970s, and which never actually existed. Despite being a clear fiction, the idea was tantalizing both to politicians and pundits, and hence the welfare queen became embedded in culture. Pundits and politicians today still invoke the racist caricature, often through dog-whistles.

Why do some myths persist, or remain uncorrected by the media, while others dissipate? The short answer seems to be that when they serve a media narrative, or play on existing stereotypes, they grow to possess a power that goes beyond fact or truth. To this list of indefatigable myths, one might add the pernicious “BernieBro” — so ubiquitous a concept that it has its own Wikipedia article. The self-explanatory neologism was coined by Robinson Meyer in an Atlantic article in 2015 before being distorted by the Twittersphere and the punditry — something that Meyer later came to regret, as he felt the term he reified suffered from “semantic drift.”

But that was five years ago, before we had as much data on Sanders’ support base — which, as it turns out, should be sufficient to debunk the stereotype that Sanders’ support base consists entirely of a mythic tribe of entitled, pushy young millennial men. To wit: young women make up more of Sanders’ base than men. He polls especially high with Hispanic voters, far more so than with white voters; Hispanic voters also donated more money to him than any other Democratic candidate. Polls consistently show that nonwhite voters prefer him over the other candidates. Notably, the demographic group that likes Sanders the least is white men.

Moreover, of all the candidates, Sanders has taken in the most money from women. Many of Sanders’ female supporters bemoan how they are ignored by the mainstream press. “The ‘Bernie Bro’ narrative is endlessly galling because it erases the women who make up his base,” writer Caitlin PenzeyMoog opined on Twitter. “To paint this picture of sexism is to paint over the millions of women who support Sanders. Do you see how f**ked up that is?”

And yet. Even with all this demographic data on Bernie Sanders’ support base, many intelligent pundits and politicians persist with the myth. How do they justify it? They just know, apparently. But specifically, they feel it on Twitter.

Just one week ago, New York Times op-ed columnist Bret Stephens published a column with the headline “Bernie’s Angry Bros.” The column did not contain a shred of the aforementioned demographic data about Sanders’ support base, but rather was driven by a series of anecdotes supposedly proving his point about the irascible fans of the Vermont senator. Stephens’ main evidence, aside from social media anecdotes, was a story about Sanders supporters getting angry during or after the 2016 Nevada caucuses, believing they had been rigged against their candidate. (The idea that people might grow angry at being disenfranchised is horrifying to Stephens, probably because he is a well-insulated upper-middle class pundit for whom political decisions have no real material impact on his life — unlike the people in Nevada he disparages.)

The Daily Dot has a long feature listing pundits who have helped perpetuate the BernieBro narrative long after demographics showed his support base to be a multiracial, working-class coalition. Hillary Clinton apparently still believes that Sanders is tailed by a horde of “online Bernie Bros” who issue “relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women,” as she said in a Hollywood Reporter interview just last month.

What could compel otherwise intelligent people to perpetuate a false and harmful narrative that essentializes Sanders supporters and erases their real and diverse identities?

Again, the answer to that is Twitter. Specifically, how Twitter is understood by journalists and pundits, and how it is wielded by angry people online.

The skewed demographics of Twitter

Twitter, unfortunately, informs the worldview of many of the country’s most elite pundits, and some of its politicians too. Opinion columnists like David Brooks and Bret Stephens (both of the New York Times) are excellent examples of pundits who, at various times, seem to see the world as refracted through the bluebird’s drinking glass.

The problem is, Twitter is very much not a representative sample of the world. It is not a zeitgeist; it is not a cross-section of the population.

It is hard to understand this, even for very smart people, because the corporation that runs Twitter tries very hard to make it seem like Twitter is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of every cultural and political conversation.

But it is not true. However, the eponymous corporation behind Twitter profits from this perception of its platform as a zeitgeist. After all, the president is on it! Still, Twitter (the company) promotes this narrative of itself as where the conversation lives. They make money off of the lie that it is a representative cross-section of the world’s opinions and thoughts.

But a study of Twitter demographics say otherwise.

Pew Research polls from 2019 found that about 22% of the US population is on Twitter, and 44% of users are in the 18-24 age range. Linger on that for a second: a substantial proportion of the people getting in Bret Stephens’ mentions and making him upset may be scarcely older than children. Interestingly, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine — a pundit with whom I rarely agree — is on the mark here.

“It is hard to exaggerate the degree to which the platform shapes the minds of professional political observers,” he wrote in a recent column. “Part of Twitter’s allure to insiders is that it creates a simulacrum of the real world, complete with candidates, activists, and pundits all responding to events in real time. Because Twitter superficially resembles the outside world’s political debate — it does, after all, contain the full left-to-right spectrum — it is easy to mistake it for the real thing.”

But a study of Twitter demographics say otherwise.

Demographics and “real” users aside, Twitter — like most social media sites — has a huge number of accounts that aren’t even individuals. A great deal of Twitter users are instead are brands, spam accounts or bots who behave like actual people.

Because of this, getting in arguments with “people” on Twitter — or even just seeing Twitter as the so-called public sphere — is akin to arguing politics with a clown in a funhouse mirror. It is so heavily distorted — by corporate PR and marketing, by the way that people behave differently online, and even by powerful bad actors (whether state or individual) who can wield Twitter armies quickly and easily — as to be effectively useless as any sort of gauge of public opinion. It is a terrible place to gauge human behavior, or make broad pronouncements of what humans are like. And it’s an even worse place to get a sense of a politician’s support base.

I have a modest proposal for my peers in the journalism world: I would like to propose that anyone writing about a Twitter “mob” of any political ilk be required to include the previous paragraph in an asterisk at the bottom of their story. We should all be forced to include a disclaimer to clarify that it is impossible to make any kind of quantitative assessment of human behavior on Twitter because of how deeply skewed it all is — by hackers, PR professionals, paid influencers, intentional government or corporate misinformation campaigns, and the way the online disinhibition effect makes people act.

The reactionary mind at work

After reading all this, someone with a personal story of a (purported) Sanders supporter being cruel to them online might still object. The Bernie Bro is real! This anecdote proves it.

But to say “a single candidate’s follower was mean, therefore I don’t support this candidate’s policies regardless of their actual political implications,” is a rhetorical fallacy. There are definitely individual assholes out there. Likewise, assholes can believe in good causes, and nice people can support terrible causes. It is a reactionary mistake to oppose a candidate — who represents a set of specific political positions poised to help or harm different social classes — on the basis of another’s individual behavior.

That means that the normalization of the BernieBro also diminishes the experience of those who are bullied by other candidates’ supporters. A video went around of an Elizabeth Warren supporter accosting two Sanders fans at the Iowa caucus; yet it didn’t get a lot of play because it didn’t reinforce existing stereotypes that we have about Warren’s supporters. Plenty of stories about online bullying by other candidates’ supporters are ignored because we lack a comparable stereotype to bundle them.

It would be one thing if Bernie Sanders — or any popular politician — told their supporters to be angry and menacing and threatening online, and then that behavior was reified on Twitter and in real life. But that has not happened with Sanders, nor with anyone else among the current crop of Democrats. You cannot draw a line from Sanders’ rhetoric to any of the stereotypes of BernieBros, because his rhetoric and voting records speaks to him being an egalitarian, a civil rights advocate and a compassionate progressive voice.

Ben Shapiro claimed that Bernie Sanders during World War II “would've been on the side of the USSR, which at the beginning was, at least, on the side of the Nazis."

https://theconversation.com/the-meme-endorsement-you-might-have-missed-and-why-it-matters-for-2020-130174

...On Jan. 19, the New York Times editorial board made history when it endorsed two candidates, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, for president, concluding, “May the best woman win.”

This came on the heels on another key endorsement, one that got far less media coverage: On Jan. 15,New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens, a private Facebook meme group, endorsed U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Within hours, Bernie personally thanked the group’s nearly 180,000 “NUMTOTs,” as they affectionately call themselves.

Why would a leading contender for the Democratic nomination so eagerly patronize a niche group on a social media site?

In 2020, it’s simply smart politics – and a sign of how campaigning and political messaging strategies are rapidly changing. Bernie’s post on the Facebook group’s page now has over 16,000 reactions and nearly 3,000 comments.

Though they might seem like humorous, pithy or even nonsensical digital artifacts, memes, as our research has shown, wield the power to unite, divide, persuade and provoke voters. They’ve become an increasingly important – even indispensable – communication tool in politics, helping ordinary voters shape political debates and hone arguments from their phones.As experts on political memes, we’re well aware of the waysmemes and meme groups can influence politics on the sly.

It’s a radical departure from just a decade ago, when donors and legacy media outlets largely set the tone, defined the parameters and dictated the topics of debate.

With social media now a battleground for political debate, memes have become a key way for regular supporters of a candidate or party to unite around certain issues, generate talking points and crystallize policy platforms – regardless of what The New York Times, Fox News or The Washington Post has to say about it.

New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens is a large, diverse meme group on Facebook. Created in 2017, the page attracts those who share an interest in urban planning, housing justice, transportation infrastructure and climate change.

But with the 2020 presidential race well underway, the group has also been discussing the candidates and their policies.On Facebook, thousands of NUMTOTs engage in robust democratic debate; it just so happens that much of this debate often comes in the form of Pokemon or Winnie the Pooh memes. In the past few days, NUMTOTs have debated renters’ rights, fair housing policies, flood management for densely populated areas, public transit, income inequality and shelters for LGBTQ+ youth.

The page has an outsized ability – on Facebook, at least – to communicate members’ political positions. Endorsing Bernie could prove particularly effective for mobilizing young voters, since 90% of NUMTOT’s members are under 34 years old. [pix tweets]

...

120 bernie gaining ground in Iowa? corp press ignores? nader et al see corp dem bias to ctr?

https://www.ecowatch.com/bernie-sanders-fracking-ban-2644992555.html

While Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been in Washington this week for the impeachment trial, he has put forth two bills to help the environment.

On Tuesday, he pushed forward a bill to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as The Hill reported. The bill, titled "A bill to ban the practice of hydraulic fracturing, and for other purposes," will go to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for review.

While the text of the bill is not yet available, Sen. Jeff Merkley from Oregon is a co-sponsor of the bill. On Thursday, Sanders tweeted that he also worked on the bill with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Darren Soto (D-Fla.), as The Hill reported.

"I don't mind if @MarkRuffalo spoils his own movies. But please, don't ruin the surprise of our new legislation with Rep. @AOC, @SenJeffMerkley and @RepDarrenSoto. I don't want the dirty fracking industry CEOs to know what hit them," wrote Sanders in his tweet, which embedded a video of the actor and activist, Mark Ruffalo, touting a potential federal ban on fracking.

...

he bill drew support from several environmental activist organizations.

"Senator Sanders' bill names the problem and provides the only solution," Natalie Mebane, Associate Director of Policy at 350.org, said in a statement. "In order to avoid the worst of the climate crisis, we must rapidly transition off of fossil fuels, and end fracking and the dangerous pipelines that come with it."

The ban on fracking that Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren advocate has democrats concerned that such a policy could push Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, to President Donald Trump in November.

"In Pennsylvania, you're talking hundreds of thousands of related jobs that would be — they would be unemployed overnight," said John Fetterman, Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor, to The New York Times. "Pennsylvania is a margin play. And an outright ban on fracking isn't a margin play."

Sanders not only introduced a ban on fracking. On Wednesday, he, along with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Ma), introduced The Preventing Future American Sickness (PFAS) Act, which takes aim at 'forever chemicals' polluting waterways, as The Hill reported.

As EcoWatch reported, a recent study from the Environmental Working Group found that toxic forever chemicals, or PFAS, are far more prevalent in drinking water than previously thought.

"As hundreds of communities across the country are dealing with toxic PFAS contamination in their drinking water," Sanders says in a statement put out by Food and Water Watch, "it is unconscionable that huge corporations like DuPont have, for decades, concealed evidence of how dangerous these compounds are in order to keep profiting at the expense of human health. Congress must pass this legislation to put an end to corporate stonewalling and criminal behavior and tackle this public health crisis. It is not a radical idea to demand that when people in the world's richest country turn on their taps, the water they drink is free of toxic chemicals."

The legislation would ban the chemicals from food packaging and ban the incineration of PFAS firefighting foam. It would also direct the Environmental Protection Agency to designate PFAS as hazardous under both the Clean Air and and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act — commonly called CERCLA or Superfund, as Common Dreams reported.

Labeling the chemicals as hazardous substances would force manufacturers to foot the bill for cleaning them up, according to The Hill.

"Every American—regardless of the color of their skin, their zip code, or their income—has the right to be free from exposure to a slew of carcinogens and hazardous chemicals," said Merkley, as Common Dreams reported. "But millions of people are ingesting dangerous PFAS chemicals against their will through the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the food they eat. Congress needs to come together to put the health of our communities above the wish lists of American's biggest polluters, and that means establishing and enforcing chemical standards that protect Americans from PFAS substances."

Both bills face an uncertain future in a Republican-controlled senate. Even if they did get through the Senate, Trump has said he would veto them, as Common Dreams reported.

an 120

57 climate scientists object after Biden falsely claims ‘not a single solitary scientist’ thinks Sanders’ Green New Deal can work

Jon Queally / Common Dreams

In an open letter, the climate experts say Bernie’s plan “not only possible,” but necessary “if we want to save the planet for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and future generations

57 sci bernie gnd ~ boden

an 120

no lnx

57 climate scientists object after Biden falsely claims ‘not a single solitary scientist’ thinks Sanders’ Green New Deal can work

Written by Jon Queally / Common Dreams January 29, 2020

After former Vice President Joe Biden late last week falsely claimed that “there’s not a single solitary scientist that thinks” the kind of bold Green New Deal initiative put forth by his 2020 Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders “can work,” more than four dozen U.S. climate scientists responded Tuesday to make clear that just isn’t true.

Sanders’ Green New Deal is a sweeping proposal that calls for “100 percent renewable energy for electricity and transportation by no later than 2030 and complete decarbonization by at least 2050” while investing $16.3 trillion over ten years to create an estimated 20 million new jobs, support vulnerable communities and a just transition for workers, and fund a massive infrastructure project.

The Vermont senator has said such a plan is necessary to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

Biden made his comment attacking the plan during a campaign event in Iowa on Friday, but climate experts like meteorologist and journalist Eric Holthaus were quick to object:

I’m a scientist, and I think it can work. https://t.co/w2TlbQz4wv

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) January 24, 2020

Sanders also rejected the comment, telling a crowd in Iowa, “Well, Joe, you’re wrong.”

.@BernieSanders responds: “My good friend Joe Biden has recently said, and I quote, “not a single, solitary scientist” endquote agrees with my plan. well Joe, you’re wrong. Many leading scientists agree with our plan. ” https://t.co/RIMk5bhTKU pic.twitter.com/7VoBsrQ4S3

— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) January 26, 2020

Proof of that support came Tuesday in the form of the succinct yet forceful letter (pdf) addressed to Sanders by 57 climate researchers and scholars. “The top scientific body on climate change, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), tells us we must act immediately to bring the world together to stop the catastrophic impacts of climate change,” the letter states.

“The Green New Deal you are proposing is not only possible, but it must be done if we want to save the planet for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and future generations,” it continues. “Not only does your Green New Deal follow the IPCC’s timeline for action, but the solutions you are proposing to solve our climate crisis are realistic, necessary, and backed by science. We must protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the planet we call home.”

In a tweet Tuesday night, Geoffrey Supran, a research associate in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, said that while the “scholarship is clear” and the technology to solve the climate crisis is available, “what we lack most is political will.” According to Supran, “Mr. Biden’s comment embodies that.”

The letter is far from the only endorsement of the Sanders’ climate plan. As soon as his Green New Deal plan was released in August of 2019, it was heralded by green groups and climate experts as a “game-changer“; “a roadmap of what we as a society need to do to confront the climate emergency“; and the only proposal “put forward by a major candidate that represents a level of ambition that matches the scale of the unprecedented crisis in which humanity now finds itself deeply entangled.”

According to Dharma Noor, writing for Earther over the weekend:

You can argue about some of the details of Sanders’ climate plan, but you can’t argue about the seriousness of the crisis it will have to take on. The climate crisis is already causing heat waves, wildfires, storms, and floods. And unless we take serious action, it’s going to get far, far worse. On that, the science is clear and the Sanders’ plan is absolutely in line with what’s needed to address it.

“To have any chance of getting to net-zero by 2030, we certainly need a plan that looks a lot more like Sanders’ than Biden’s,” [Dr. Peter Kalmus, Associate Project Scientist at the UCLA Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering] said. “I don’t know if we can get to net-zero emissions by 2030, no one knows. But I do know that it’s up to us, and if we don’t try, then we certainly will fail.”

According to the climate ranking scorecard put out by Greenpeace, which assess the proposals of all the 2020 candidates, Sanders is the only presidential hopeful who garners an A+ grade, putting him at the top of the chart. Biden, meanwhile, ranks in 5th place—behind Tom Steyer (A), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (A), and Pete Buttigieg (B+)—with a B+.

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why Bernie Sanders is too ‘evidence-based’ and ‘cautious’ on foreign policy for the DC elite Alex H

congress to Vote on $22 Billion Defense Increase One Week After Trump Slashed Food Stamps

Alex Emmons

Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders and California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna called the defense bill an example of “astonishing moral cowardice.”

This Populist legacy is reflected in today's campaigns of Bernie Sanders andElizabeth Warren, with Sanders hanging a picture of the labor Populist and Socialist Eugene V. Debs on his office wall, and with Warren proposing post-office banking and similar proposals once sustained by the Populists and Socialists of her native Oklahoma.

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New York Times compares Bernie Sanders’ ambitious climate plan to Trump’s border wall in deeply flawed and misleading report

Jim Naureckas, Julie Hollar / FAIR

aha: djt trying to shore up the core of the base, not just evang but dominionist?!

1119 bibi corruption charges

coup rhet

us djt declares settlements legal; bernie pro-palestine in campaign

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/political-scientist-the-chaos-of-trumps-reign-could-be-a-prelude-to-an-era-of-reform-and-were-already-seeing-the-signs/

no lnx

Political scientist: The chaos of Trump’s reign could be a prelude to an ‘era of reform’ — and we’re already seeing the signs

Written by Matthew Chapman / Raw Story November 25, 2019

President Donald Trump and his political allies have assaulted countless constitutional and structural norms in American politics, and the country is more divided than it has been in decades. But the endgame, wrote political scientist Lee Drutman for The New York Times on Monday, could in fact be a popular movement for progressive reform.

“Eras of reform follow a general pattern,” wrote Drutman. “First, a mood of impending crisis prevails. Unfairness and inequality feel overwhelming, and national politics feels stuck and unresponsive to growing demands. But beneath the shattered yet still stubborn national stasis, new social movements organize. Politics becomes exciting and full of moral energy. New writers, empowered by new forms of media, invent new narratives. And future-oriented politicians emerge to channel that energy and challenge the old establishment.”

“Of the reform periods, the Progressive Era holds the clearest parallels to ours,” argued Drutman. “In the 1890s, inequality, partisanship and discontent were all sky-high. The depression of 1893-97 shattered faith that a growing industrial economy would lift all boats. New leviathan railroad and public-utility corporations seemed imposingly powerful, and partisan politics seemed thoroughly corrupted by them. Mass immigration was changing the face of the nation.”

“As public dissatisfaction built, and pressure grew from multiple directions, the political system eventually responded, led by a new generation of reform-oriented activists and politicians. New forms of participatory democracy — the primary, direct elections for the Senate, the initiative and the referendum — reshaped a political system that seemed to privilege the few over the many,” continued Drutman. “Women achieved the right to vote, first in cities and states, then finally nationwide in 1920. New regulatory agencies wrestled with the size and scope of giant corporate enterprises, cutting some down to size, putting stricter boundaries on others. But even as late as 1902, it was far from obvious that the years ahead would bring so much change.”

All of this happened, Drutman wrote, in spite of the fact that there was no clear leadership and organization to the reform, and despite the fact that not all of the reformers agreed on what to do.

“When future historians look back on the 2010s, they will observe three larger trends that paved the way for a new era of reform by clearing away the old consensus: a loss of faith in ‘neoliberal’ economics, the breakdown of white male-dominated social and cultural hierarchies, and the collapse of the ‘normal’ political process,” wrote Drutman, noting that the financial crisis, the monolithic power of big tech companies, and the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements have all pushed the political system to breaking point. “These cultural changes have provoked a backlash that contributed to Donald Trump’s rise and the associated growth of alt-right movements. Fights over identity now define national partisan competition because they echo and reinforce fundamental divides in the ethnic and geographical coalitions of the two major parties and amplify the zero-sum stakes of two-party electoral conflict. The unceasing culture war is a battle over two very different and diverging visions.”

Drutman envisions that the endgame is a series of reforms that break the two-party system itself. “In 2018, Maine became the first state to use ranked-choice voting for federal elections (after Mainers approved it in two statewide referendums). This month, New York City voters adopted it. Also in 2020, expect voters in Alaska and Massachusetts to decide whether they want in on ranked-choice voting,” he wrote. “By removing the spoiler effect of third parties, ranked-choice voting can break the us-versus-them force driving our partisan warfare, and create space for a political realignment that creates new coalitions to shape economic reforms and negotiate social change.”

“As with each era of reform, we’ll get some things right and some things wrong. We’ll overcorrect for some past mistakes, and make some new ones,” concluded Drutman. “But democracy isn’t something to perfect or solve. It’s a continuing, improbable experiment in self-governance, of devilish scale and complexity. We’re still learning.”

You can read more here.

Sanders unveils bold plan to legalize marijuana — and help restore communities hit by the drug war

Eoin Higgins / Common Dreams

Sen. Bernie Sanders released an expansive plan on Thursday to as president legalize marijuana and ensure the benefits of legalization are felt across all communities, especially those affected by the…

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/enough-is-enough-study-reveals-the-mind-boggling-wealth-of-global-millionaires/

...according to Credit Suisse, the U.S. added 675,000 new millionaires over the past year, bringing the country’s total to 18.6 million.

Japan and China both added over 150,000 millionaires, while the U.K., France, Australia, and Italy were among the nations that saw a decline in millionaires.

Overall, the report shows the world’s millionaires now own a combined $158.3 trillion, or 43.9 percent of all global wealth

... new figures detailing vast inequities in wealth distribution globally and within individual nations come as two of the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in the U.S., Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have released proposals designed to combat wealth inequality through taxation.

Warren’s “Ultra-Millionaire Tax” plan, unveiled in January, would impose a two percent tax on assets over $50 million and a three percent tax on assets over $1 billion.

Last month, Sanders released his “Tax on Extreme Wealth” proposal, which would would create a one percent tax on wealth between $32 and $50 million. The tax would progressively increase for richer Americans—those with over $10 billion in wealth would face an eight percent tax.

...

main rev dr is congress to k street lobby?

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/10/congress-to-k-street-176-members

congress to K Street: 176 members left for influence gigs over last decade

Over the last decade, at least 176 members of Congress joined the influence industry. A majority of those former lawmakers took their talents to K Street lobbying firms or major law firms that engage in federal lobbying work. Read More

Over the last decade, at least 176 members of Congress joined the influence industry, according to a new report from OpenSecrets that focuses on “shadow lobbying” and the revolving door.

Leaving Congress for lobbying or consulting work is bipartisan. Since the 111th Congress, which ended in January 2011, 94 Republicans took a spin through the revolving door as did 81 Democrats.

A whopping 26 of the 29 members of last Congress to join the influence industry were Republicans — a lopsided number driven by a wave of Republican retirements ahead of House Democrats’ sweeping win in November. The reverse happened during the red wave in 2010, when 40 of the 56 members who went through the revolving door were Democrats.

A majority of the former members took their talents to K Street lobbying firms or major law firms that engage in federal lobbying work.

Powerhouse lobbying firms Squire Patton Boggs and Akin, Gump are the top collectors of congressional talent, taking in five former members each since the 111th Congress. To kick off 2019, Squire Patton Boggs hired former Reps. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), who retired at session’s end, and Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), the fourth-ranking Democrat who lost in a primary upset to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The firm also retains former House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) as an unregistered adviser.

DLA Piper, Venable, Cannae Policy Group, Greenberg Traurig and King & Spalding each hired four members of Congress each over the same time period.

High-ranking members of Congress have no trouble finding high-paying jobs where they can leverage their extensive experience and connections.

Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) received a seven-figure job at financial firm Moelis & Company, which advises corporations on strategic decisions. Former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) worked as an adviser for Gephardt Group after retiring from Congress in 2011. Former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who read talking points from Saudi Arabia on the House floor, became policy director for Brownstein, Hyatt, which lobbies for the Middle Eastern country.

None of those three representatives registered as lobbyists for their new gigs. But OpenSecrets’ analysis found that representatives on average are more likely to register as lobbyists than senators. Forty percent of senators joining the influence industry registered to lobby compared to 55 percent of representatives.

The revolving door is nothing new, but an increasing number of lawmakers are trying to shut it through new policies, including Democratic presidential contenders Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Warren’s plan bans presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, federal judges and cabinet secretaries from ever becoming lobbyists and limits other federal employees. It also attempts to expand the definition of a lobbyist to any individual paid to influence government.

This week, Sanders released his plan to stop Washington corruption, which includes a ban on lobbying from former members of Congress and their senior staffers.

“Congress cannot represent their constituents while special interest groups have the ability to influence decisions with corner offices and lucrative job offers,” Sanders said in a press release.

Lobbying experts say a ban on lobbying for former members — unlikely to pass Congress and survive the courts as it is — would actually encourage “shadow lobbying” if lobbying disclosure laws are not made more rigorous.

:{Click here:(style="box-sizing:inherit;max-height:1e+06px"):}: to explore a searchable list of revolving door members.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/bernie-sanders-green-new-deal-plan-will-nationalize-power-generation-in-the-us/

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Bernie Sanders’ Green New Deal plan will nationalize power generation in the US

Written by Thomas Neuburger September 10, 2019

“You can’t nibble around the edges any more,” says Sanders in explaining his plan to essentially nationalize electricity production in the U.S. The full interview is here.

Bernie Sanders recently released his plan for implementing the Green New Deal. These include such comprehensive goals as transitioning to 100% renewable energy for electricity and transportation by 2030 and decarbonizing the entire economy by 2050 (full details here).

To get there, Sanders plans a number of ambitious projects, including massive and job-creating infrastucture spending and “declaring climate change a national emergency.” The implications of the latter are not entirely spelled out. A number of candidates have proposals that “declare a national emergency” regarding climate change, but not in the same sense that George W. Bush, for example, may have meant had he declared the 9/11 attacks a national emergency (he didn’t, but he could have).

That kind of national emergency, a Bush-Cheney kind, implies an exercise of presidential power that approaches martial law, something that most pro-climate Democrats don’t contemplate. Does the Sanders plan contemplate a stronger-than-rhetorical response to climate change? It’s not clear yet from Sanders camp messaging.

Nevertheless, the subject of emergency federal power does come up because of the breadth of the Sanders plan, and in particular, because of one key component:

Build enough renewable energy generation capacity for the nation’s growing needs. Currently, four federal Power Marketing Administrations (PMAs) and the Tennessee Valley Authority generate and transmit power to distribution utilities in 33 states.We will create one more PMA to cover the remaining states and territories and expand the existing PMAs to build more than enough wind, solar, energy storage and geothermal power plants. We will spend $1.52 trillion on renewable energy and $852 billion to build energy storage capacity. Together, with an EPA federal renewable energy standard, this will fully drive out non-sustainable generation sources.

We will end greed in our energy system. The renewable energy generated by the Green New Deal will be publicly owned, managed by the Federal Power Marketing Administrations, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Tennessee Valley Authority and sold to distribution utilities with a preference for public power districts, municipally- and cooperatively-owned utilities with democratic, public ownership, and other existing utilities that demonstrate a commitment to the public interest. The Department of Energy will provide technical assistance to states and municipalities that would like to establish publicly owned distribution utilities or community choice aggregation programs in their communities. Electricity will be sold at current rates to keep the cost of electricity stable during this transition.

The whole plan (again, I urge everyone to read it) has been called by some a “new Manhattan Project” and compared to FDR’s reshaping of U.S. industrial policy and capacity during World War II. As Juan Cole writes, “Sanders intends to push [fossil fuel] corporations aside and institute a Federal industrial policy that can make things happen. The analogy is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt accomplished during World War II, when US industrial capacity vastly expanded and 16 million men were mobilized and Social Security was implemented.”

The plan has rightly been called a nationalization of electric power generation. Chris Hayes noted this fact in his recent interview with Sanders, calling it “a federal takeover of the whole thing,” to which Sanders essentially agrees (see video at the top). Other writers have said the same. For example, In These Times, under the headline “Bernie Sanders Calls To Seize the Means of Electricity Production” accurately describes the plan as “moving toward 100% public ownership of power.”

So there really is no doubt. Sanders, if he’s elected, plans to nationalize electricity generation in the U.S.

What are the implications of this proposal? A few thoughts:

Bernie Sanders is serious about addressing climate change. Simply speaking, Sanders is right. It’s long past time for tinkering around the edges of the problem. This chart shows CO2 emissions per capita per country:

Yes, the rest of the world bears responsibility as well, but you have to start with what you can directly control, and the U.S. government can directly control U.S. carbon emissions, if it chooses to. (Dealing with the need for global response is also addressed in Sanders’ Green New Deal plan. I’ll take a separate look at how Sanders plans to globalize the U.S. initiative.)

Are the other candidates as serious about addressing and mitigating climate change at the fastest possible rate? I think several other candidates are sincere in wanting to, but I don’t see any of them willing to act as forcefully, at least not so far in the campaign. This plan, therefore, lays down a marker for other pro-climate Democrats.

The institutional Democratic Party will respond to Sanders’ plan with fear and derision. In addition, their criticism will get widespread and supportive media coverage.

Sanders’ Green New Deal plan allows institutional Democrats to take the charge that Sanders is a “socialist” and part of the “hard left” to eleven, and they will not miss the opportunity to go all out. “Socialism” already smacks of communism, though the connection is usually made in Democratic and mainstream media circles by implication. (This incident, engineered by the producers of the early CNN Town Hall, is a rare counter-example.)

But a planned and federally directed “U.S. industrial policy” can be made to sound very much like a Stalinist “five-year economic plan,” and it wouldn’t be surprising if this comparison is made. It will be especially interesting to hear Elizabeth Warren’s response, since she’s made a point of saying “I’m a capitalist“; I’m almost certain she’ll be asked to give one.

The response on the Right will be “government takeover!” I’ve seen hints already that those who set the agenda for frightened and agitated right-wing base voters are positioning the Green New Deal as a backdoor, left-wing plan for “government takeover” of the economy. In this, their language exactly parallels the language that markets Second Amendment fears to frighten right-wing voters.

The cry on the right will also be cranked up to eleven, including by that master of marketing, Donald Trump, who has already started with the “we’re not socialist” rhetoric. Note that the clip at the top is sourced to a YouTube channel called “GOP War Room.” Expect a lot more of the same from sites with “liberty,” “freedom” and “Fox” in the name.

Finally, this is a conversation that absolutely must be had. Before the U.S. can begin to address climate change meaningfully, we must be open about what’s actually needed so voters can consider those courses of action, even if they end up rejecting them. Calling any discussion of the breadth of needed reform off-limits — whether done perniciously or with good intention — is like hiding a small elephant under a rug, then throwing a cocktail party using the lump as a drinks table; the thing you’re avoiding adds fuel to your blindness.

Put simply, American voters must be allowed to choose whether or not to address climate change meaningfully, regardless of the possibility that they may choose not to address it at all. An honest conversation is the least we owe voters whose descendants will ultimately thank them or hate them for what they finally decide. Letting voters choose for themselves is called democracy.

Despite the fears of many though, there are reasons for optimism. If voters are given a realistic discussion of the alternatives and a realistic presentation of the way to get there, they could easily choose well. They certainly chose well under FDR, when war raged in Europe and the Imperial Japanese wolf was at the door. It’s at least even odds they would choose as wisely again, when all of nature seems poised to cause their demise.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/to-fight-corporate-assault-on-journalism-sanders-unveils-plan-to-stop-big-media-mergers-and-bolster-independent-news

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To fight corporate ‘assault on journalism,’ Sanders unveils plan to stop big media mergers and bolster independent news

Bernie Sanders image by JStone, Shutterstock

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams August 27, 2019

Warning the “decimation of journalism” by big business and billionaire executives poses a major threat to democracy, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday unveiled a plan to stop the long-running corporate consolidation of American media, take anti-trust action against tech giants like Facebook and Google, and bolster independent news.

“Today, after decades of consolidation and deregulation, just a small handful of companies control almost everything you watch, read, and download,” Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, wrote in an op-ed for the Columbia Journalism Review.

This consolidation, as well as the domination of the digital market by Facebook and Google, has led to the destruction of local independent news and hard-hitting reporting, Sanders said, leaving a void that has been filled by the vapid punditry, “infotainment,” and business-friendly propaganda that is so often featured on America’s corporate-owned television networks.

“At precisely the moment when we need more reporters covering the healthcare crisis, the climate emergency, and economic inequality,” wrote the Vermont senator, “we have television pundits paid tens of millions of dollars to pontificate about frivolous political gossip, as local news outlets are eviscerated.”

Sanders went on to provide an overview of the long-running destruction of local news and independent journalism, which he said has been “gutted by the same forces of greed that are pillaging our economy”:

Over the past 15 years, more than 1,400 communities across the county have lost newspapers, which are the outlets local television, radio, and digital news sites rely on for reporting. Since 2008, we have seen newsrooms lose 28,000 employees—and in the past year alone, 3,200 people in the media industry have been laid off. Today, for every working journalist, there are six people now working in public relations, often pushing a corporate line.

To fight the corporate assault on journalism—which Sanders noted has been made “far worse” by President Donald Trump’s “authoritarian bullying”—the senator’s plan would:

Impose an immediate moratorium on federal approval of mergers of major media companies;

Require media corporations to disclose whether their corporate transactions and mergers would cause significant layoffs of reporters;

Require that employees “be given the opportunity to purchase media outlets through employee stock-ownership plans”;

Block federal merger and deregulation moves that harm people of color and women;

“Reinstate and strengthen media ownership rules” with the goal of limiting “the number of stations that large broadcasting corporations can own in each market and nationwide”;

Enforce anti-trust laws against tech behemoths like Facebook and Google “to prevent them from using their enormous market power to cannibalize, bilk, and defund news organizations”;

Increase funding for federal programs that support public local media “in much the same way many other countries already fund independent public media.”

“Today’s assault on journalism by Wall Street, billionaire businessmen, Silicon Valley, and Donald Trump presents a crisis,” Sanders wrote. “We cannot sit by and allow corporations, billionaires, and demagogues to destroy the Fourth Estate, nor can we allow them to replace serious reporting with infotainment and propaganda.”

“When I am president,” Sanders said, “my administration will put in place policies that will reform the media industry and better protect independent journalism at both the local and national levels.”

Sanders’ plan to stop corporate consolidation of U.S. media and reverse its devastating effects won praise from journalists and press freedom advocates.

Journalists should understand that ?@BernieSanders? isn’t against journalism. He’s against a profit-driven corporate system that has long stymied real journalism and is now destroying the entire industry. https://t.co/y3wwnDXbvu

icn 819

Sanders Unveils $16 Trillion Green New Deal, and Ideas to Pay for It

BY: NICHOLAS KUSNETZ

Bernie Sanders' plan starts to flesh out details of a Green New Deal. It's the most ambitious climate plan of any candidate yet, but the cost estimates and deadlines are raising questions.

builds on GND, inslee drops out

Calling the global climate crisis both the greatest threat facing the U.S. and the greatest opportunity for transformative change, Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled today a comprehensive Green New Deal proposal that would transition the U.S. economy to 100 percent renewable energy and create 20 million well-paying union jobs over a decade.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/bernie-sanders-unveils-plan-that-would-fundamentally-transform-us-criminal-justice-system/

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Bernie Sanders unveils plan that would ‘fundamentally transform’ US criminal justice system

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams August 19, 2019

Decrying America’s status as the “world’s leading jailer,” Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday released a comprehensive plan to confront the crisis of mass incarceration, end the criminalization of poverty, and dramatically overhaul the U.S. criminal justice system.

“We have a criminal justice system that is racist and broken, and working together we’re going to fundamentally transform it,” said Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

The platform, which Sanders unveiled at an event in Columbia, South Carolina on Sunday, condemns America’s “overly-punitive approach to public safety” and urges investments “to rebuild the communities that mass incarceration continues to decimate.”

“We have over two million people in jail and prison, more than any other nation on earth, and they are disproportionately African-American, Latino, and Native American,” Sanders wrote in an email to supporters on Sunday. “We spend $80 billion a year keeping people behind bars, money which could be used for education, job creation, and affordable housing.”

People for Bernie

@People4Bernie

"We spent, and I want everybody to hear this, $80 billion a year in tax dollars at the local, state, and federal level to lock up fellow Americans... It might be a better idea to take some of that $80 billion and start investing in our young people." @BernieSanders

Embedded video

“We spent, and I want everybody to hear this, $80 billion a year in tax dollars at the local, state, and federal level to lock up fellow Americans… It might be a better idea to take some of that $80 billion and start investing in our young people.” @BernieSanders pic.twitter.com/KyEv2q9hsf

— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) August 18, 2019

To remedy this dysfunctional and devastating system, Sanders’ platform—detailed on his website—calls for:

A ban on private prisonsas part of a broader effort to “end profiteering in our criminal justice system”;

An end to cash bail, which traps poor Americans in a cycle of debt;

Halting excessive sentencing “with the goal of cutting the incarcerated population in half”;

Transformation of policing by ensuring oversight and accountability for law enforcement, banning use of facial recognition software by law enforcement, and ending “programs that provide military equipment to local police”;

Abolishing the death penalty;

Legalization of marijuana and erasure of past marijuana convictions; and

An end to the criminalization of addiction by funding adequate treatment for those addicted to opioids.

“If we stand together, we can eliminate private prisons and detention centers. No more profiteering from locking people up,” Sanders said during his speech in South Carolina.

“If we stand together we can end the disastrous ‘war on drugs,'” the senator added. “If we stand together we can end cash bail. No more keeping people in jail because they’re too poor. If we stand together we can enact real police department reform and prosecute police brutality. If we stand together, there is nothing, nothing, nothing that we cannot accomplish.”

Watch the speech:

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/why-bernie-sanders-is-absolutely-correct-about-the-washington-post-and-corporate-media-as-a-whole/

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Why Bernie Sanders is absolutely correct about the Washington Post — and corporate media as a whole

Written by Norman Solomon / Common Dreams August 14, 2019

Many decades ago, the great media critic George Seldes observed: “The most sacred cow of the press is the press itself.” That remains true today.

Bernie Sanders set off the latest round of outraged denial from elite media this week when he talked to a crowd in New Hampshire about the tax avoidance of Amazon (which did not pay any federal income tax last year). Sanders went on to say: “I wonder why the Washington Post—which is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon—doesn’t write particularly good articles about me. I don’t know why. But I guess maybe there’s a connection.”

Sanders has fought explicitly and effectively to raise the wages of Amazon workers as well as millions of others. Yet the mass-media pretense is that the financial interests of the Post‘s owner have no effect on the newspaper’s coverage of Sanders.

Corporate denial is the name of that media game. Usually, expressed denials aren’t necessary. But there’s nothing usual about Bernie Sanders, who’s been willing to call out the biases and blind spots of corporate media since he entered politics.

For his latest transgression, Sanders earned purportedly authoritative pushback from the likes of the Post‘s top editor, its media columnist and others with high media visibility. “Contrary to the conspiracy theory the senator seems to favor,” Post executive editor Martin Baron declared, “Jeff Bezos allows our newsroom to operate with full independence, as our reporters and editors can attest.”

The Post‘s media columnist Margaret Sullivan quickly chimed in with a harmonizing tweet on Tuesday, defending her editor boss along with the owner of the paper: “I’ve never seen or heard a hint of @jeffbezos interfering in @washingtonpost coverage.”

CNN‘s Chris Cillizza, citing his work at the newspaper for a decade, indignantly wrote: “For the last three of my years at the Post, Bezos owned the company. Not once in all of that time—and I wrote multiple pieces a day about politics and politicians (including Sanders and Trump) over that time—was there ever even a whiff of Bezos’ influence in the newsroom.”

As George Seldes commented long ago, “The most stupid boast in the history of present-day journalism is that of the writer who says, ‘I have never been given orders; I am free to do as I like.'” Seldes noted that reporters routinely “know from contact with the great minds of the press lords or from the simple deduction that the bosses are in big business and the news must be slanted accordingly, or from the general intangible atmosphere which prevails everywhere, what they can do and what they must never do.”

All Baron or Sullivan would need to do to disprove their own current claims would be to write a bunch of pieces denouncing the man who owns the Post—and then see what happens due to their breach of required self-censorship.

On television, a CNN anchor joined with a USA Today columnist to claim that Sanders’s criticism of the Post‘s coverage was free of evidence. The fact that corporate-media employees are vehemently defending corporate media is illustrative of the dynamic. It makes you wonder where career self-interest ends and sincere delusion begins.

Baron, Sullivan, Cillizza and countless other employees of corporate media are well-paid while publicly maintaining their denial in the service of corporate power. So, with the virtues of the Washington Post on parade, Emperor Bezos must be decked out in the journalistic finery of his new clothes, even when the self-interest and implications of billionaire leverage over media are stark naked.

What Bernie Sanders is pointing out is not—and he never said it was—a “conspiracy.” The problems are much deeper and more pernicious, having to do with the financial structures of media institutions that enable profit-driven magnates and enormous corporations to dominate the flow of news and commentary.

The Post‘s Baron is ill-positioned to defend his newspaper against charges of anti-Sanders bias. Such bias has been profuse, and it began well before a pivotal moment in the 2016 campaign on the eve of the high-stakes Michigan primary in early March. Then, as FAIR analyst Adam Johnson showed, “the Washington Post ran 16 negative stories on Bernie Sanders in 16 hours.”

This year, the Post has strained to throw negative light on Sanders’ campaign, whether focusing on Wall Street or Venezuela. Nor is the Post far afield from other powerful media outlets. For instance, the New York Times reportage has taken Sanders to task for alleged sins such as desiring to exercise control over his own campaign and failing to please Democratic critics who are actually corporate lobbyists but not identified as such.

Nor is the AT&T-owned CNNfar afield from the baseline of cable news giants that supposedly provide a liberal alternative to the odious Fox News. Coverage from MSNBC—owned by Comcast,“the world’s largest entertainment company”—has provoked one assessment after another after another documenting the network’s anti-Bernie bias.

“The corporate-owned and corporate-advertiser-funded media of this country are the biggest barriers between Bernie Sanders and the Oval Office,” I wrote five months ago. “Often functioning as propaganda outlets, the major news media serve as an amplification system for corporate power that has long shielded the Democratic Party from the combined ‘threats’ of social movements and progressive populist candidates.” (I continue to actively support Sanders.)

Journalists who have staked their careers on remaining in the good graces of corporate employers are certainly inclined to say in public that billionaire owners and huge corporations don’t constrain their journalistic work. And in their minds, they might be telling the truth. As George Orwell wrote, “Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.”

explicit defense of socialism 2x

https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/bernie-sanders-delivers-no-nonsense-takedown-of-trumps-corporate-socialism-in-epic-wsj-op-ed/

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Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the self-described “democratic socialist” who has been in second place behind former Vice President Joe Biden in many recent polls on the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, often finds himself defending and explaining his use of the word “socialist.” President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been using the word “socialist” in an effort to tar and feather Democratic candidates as anti-American — and the 77-year-old Sanders, attacking Trump in a riveting op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal on June 26, explains that Trump himself is a “socialist” of sorts, but not in a good way.

Trump, Sanders notes in his piece, has declared, “America will never be a socialist country.” But the president, Sanders stresses, does embrace a form of socialism: “corporate socialism,” which he says “uses government power and taxpayer resources to enrich Mr. Trump and his billionaire friends.”

Sanders goes on to say that the type of “corporate socialism” Trump embodies is alive and well on Wall Street — and working class Americans are the ones who suffer as a result.

“Consider the corporate socialism we’ve seen on Wall Street, where the high priests of unfettered capitalism reign,” Sanders writes. “As you will recall, Wall Street’s deification of ‘free markets’ went out the window in 2008 as they watched the financial crisis caused by their own greed and illegal behavior threaten the existence of some of the largest financial institutions in the country. Suddenly, Wall Street became strong supporters of big-government socialism.”

Sanders adds that when Wall Street and too-big-to-fail banks were being bailed out by taxpayers during the Great Recession, “working people all across the country lost their jobs, their homes and their life savings. The most vulnerable were hit the hardest, with the African-American community losing half its wealth.”

The Vermont senator emphasizes that under Trump’s “corporate socialism,” the winners have included huge pharmaceutical companies, billionaires and “a monopoly like Amazon” but not working-class Americans.

When Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist,” context is crucial: truth be told, he is really a New Deal/Great Society liberal — not a follower of Marxist-Leninist or Maoist ideology, although far-right Republicans and Tea Party extremists will characterize him that way. Sanders believes in capitalism with a robust social safety net. And he concludes his WSJ op-ed by noting the difference between his “democratic socialism” and Trump’s “corporate socialism.”

“More Americans are noticing the contradiction between coddled socialism for the rich and the destruction of opportunity for everyone else,” Sanders declares. “I am confident that we will be able to build a grass-roots movement that will not only defeat Donald Trump in this election, but finally create a government that works for all people — not just the billionaire class.”

Sanders plan would wipe out all $1.6 trillion in US student loan debt by taxing Wall Street speculators

Bernie Sanders to attend Walmart annual shareholders meeting to promote proposal that would give hourly workers a seat on company’s board

Alex Henderson

https://www.alternet.org/these-14-democrats-are-core-what-bernie-sanders-calls-most-progressive-freshman-class-modern-us

As s conservative pundits and self-interested corporate Democratspredictably attempted to spin this week's midterm election results as a win for so-called moderates and proof that the Democratic Party should tack to the center, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) dismissed this "absurd line" in an interview on Thursday and called the incoming crop of newly elected House members "the most progressive freshman class in the modern history of the United States."

—Sen. Bernie Sanders

"Many of these folks are not just women, not just people of color, who campaigned on Medicare for All, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks, campaigned on making public colleges and universities tuition-free, on undoing Trump's tax breaks for billionaires," Sanders told Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi in response to one *Washington Post* columnist's claim that Sanders-style progressives "scare" voters.

"I think the Washington Post is going to be very surprised at who shows up on the first day of Congress and gets sworn in," Sanders said. "The political establishment notwithstanding, the future belongs to progressives."

The group of diverse and unabashedly bold progressives—disproportionately young and female—who will help shape House Democrats' agenda in the months and years to come include Michigan's Rashida Tlaib, Minnesota's Ilhan Omar, New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and New Mexico's Debra Haaland, all of whom ran on platforms including Medicare for All, ambitious climate action, and a $15 minimum wage.

Below is the full list of the newly elected Democratic representatives who were endorsed by Sanders and prominent progressive organizations like Justice Democrats and Our Revolution. (Click the image or here to enlarge.)

In his *Rolling Stone* interview, Sanders said the establishment dogma that candidates must temper their progressive positions and remain firmly in the center of the political spectrum to win elections "enabled Republicans to gain control of the Senate and the House and the White House and for Democrats to lose almost 1,000 seats in the previous nine years."

This new group of elected progressives, Sanders said, provides strong evidence that unwavering support for immensely popular policies like Medicare for All and commitment to fighting for the working class produce voter enthusiasm that can't be matched by business-friendly centrism.

"It wasn't moderate Democrats or conservative Democrats who got young people into the political process," Sanders concluded. "It wasn't moderate Democrats who increased voter turnout in this election compared to four years ago, I think by almost 50 percent."

As Ocasio-Cortez declared Tuesday night in her victory speech in New York, "When we advocate and champion the causes of our neighbors and our economic dignity, and come with innovative and ambitious plans for our future, there is no state beyond our grasp, and no community beyond victory. We just need to keep at it."

Appearing on ABC's This Week on Sunday just moments after President Donald Trump's chief economic adviser and noted Wall Street stooge Larry Kudlow dismissed a new United Nations climate report showing that the world must cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 to avert global catastrophe, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) denounced the White House for its "dangerous" rejection of climate science and slammed Trump for working hand-in-hand with Big Oil to make "a bad situation worse."< The reason is simple: Almost no one believes there's much chance the United States has the political will to do anything substantial to combat climate change. Because as long as the Republican Party holds any bit of power in Washington, D.C., it will do whatever it can to thwart efforts to wind down greenhouse gas emissions

...?

$15/hr employees whole food, what about contractors? bernie BEZOS bill

amazon just hit 1 trillion value?

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/here-are-5-reasons-why-aging-gen-xers-and-boomers-need-democratic-socialism

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/05/16/daily-202-the-far-left-is-winning-the-democratic-civil-war/

...BIG IDEA: Tuesday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Democratic moderates.

The success of very liberal candidates in primaries across four states is causing a new bout of heartburn among party strategists in Washington, who worry about unelectable activists thwarting their drive for the House majority. But it also reflects a broader leftward lurch among Democrats across the country since President Trump took office.

-- In Nebraska, a liberal social worker and political neophyte who built her campaign around “Medicare for All” scored a shocking upset in a Democratic primary to take on Rep. Don Bacon (R). Kara Eastman, 45, beat former congressman Brad Ashford, 68, in an Omaha-area district that national Democrats believed they could pick up in November.

Eastman advocated for universal background checks to buy guns, raising taxes and decriminalizing marijuana. “I’m tired of hearing Democrats don’t have a backbone, that we don’t stand for anything,” that touted her support for universal health care. “That changes now!”

Ashford had the full-throated support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which must now reevaluate whether to invest in the race.

-- In Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, where GOP Rep. Charlie Dent’s retirement created a winnable open seat for Democrats, early front-runner John Morganelli — a district attorney who has been locally prominent for decades — lost the primary to attorney Susan Wild, who ran at him from the left. Morganelli, who opposes abortion rights and “sanctuary cities,” was attacked relentlessly on the airwaves for speaking positively about Trump and tweeting that he was open to taking a job in the administration during the transitio. -- In the Philadelphia suburbs, centrist Rachel Reddick — a 33-year-old Navy veteran endorsed by Emily’s List — lost the Democratic primary to take on Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R) after “proud progressive” Scott Wallace ran ads attacking her for being a registered Republican until 2016. Wallace, 66, is the grandson of Henry Wallace, who was Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president for a term and then ran against Harry Truman, who FDR dumped him for, from the far left in 1948. In a victory speech to supporters in Bucks County last night, Wallace declared: “Together, we can make America sane again.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) campaigns on Friday for John Fetterman in Philadelphia. (Elizabeth Robertson /Philadelphia Inquirer/AP)

-- Statewide, John Fetterman — a small-town mayor with a bristly beard and tattoos on both of his arms — toppled Pennsylvania’s incumbent lieutenant governor, Mike Stack, thanks in part to the strong endorsement of Bernie Sanders, who stumped across the state for him on Friday and Saturday. Fetterman campaigned on universal health care and legalizing marijuana.

-- In the Pittsburgh area, two card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America topped incumbent state representatives in Democratic primaries with 65 percent and 68 percent of the vote, respectively. (The New Yorker profiled one of the winners, Summer Lee, last week.)

“Since it was founded in 1982, the Democratic Socialists of America has played virtually no role the country’s elections,” Clint Hendler writes for Mother Jones. “That’s begun to change, fueled by the organization’s 2016 endorsement of Bernie Sanders and a growth spurt led by the activists and organizers he inspired. In Pittsburgh, the local DSA chapter is 500 members strong and hosts Marxist reading groups, organizes against controversial anti-abortion pregnancy centers, and works to reduce police stops by fixing residents’ brake lights. … Pittsburgh’s DSA group is one of the first chapters in the country to have launched a political action committee …”

...

Luis V. Gutiérrez	D	IL-4	11.0%	-68.9	14.3%	-3.3
Donald M. Payne Jr.	D	NJ-10	10.8%	-72.4	12.5%	-1.7
Alcee L. Hastings	D	FL-20	10.5%	-62.1	15.3%	-4.8
Gwen Moore	D	WI-4	10.4%	-52.2	16.4%	-6.0
Adriano Espaillat	D	NY-13	10.1%	-86.9	12.7%	-2.6
Maxine Waters	D	CA-43	10.1%	-61.7	14.8%	-4.7
Janice D. Schakowsky	D	IL-9	10.1%	-45.2	17.2%	-7.0
Frank Pallone Jr.	D	NJ-6	10.1%	-15.6	35.4%	-25.3
Mark Pocan	D	WI-2	10.0%	-36.8	20.3%	-10.3
Nydia M. Velázquez	D	NY-7	9.1%	-76.5	13.8%	-4.7
Mark DeSaulnier	D	CA-11	9.1%	-48.8	16.3%	-7.2
John Lewis	D	GA-5	9.0%	-73.1	13.9%	-4.9
Yvette D. Clarke	D	NY-9	9.0%	-69.1	14.2%	-5.3
Keith Ellison	D	MN-5	9.0%	-55.2	15.0%	-6.0
Pramila Jayapal	D	WA-7	8.9%	-69.9	14.0%	-5.1
Raúl M. Grijalva	D	AZ-3	8.9%	-29.9	22.0%	-13.1
Karen Bass	D	CA-37	8.1%	-76.1	12.4%	-4.3
Barbara Lee	D	CA-13	6.4%	-80.6	12.8%	-6.4
Bonnie Watson Coleman	D	NJ-12	6.3%	-33.2	20.5%	-14.2
Xavier Becerra*	D	CA-34	0.0%	-72.9	0.0%	0

538 6/18

Kirsten E. Gillibrand	D	NY	8.2%	-22.5	23.1%	-14.9
Jeff Merkley	D	OR	9.6%	-11.0	33.9%	-24.3
Elizabeth Warren	D	MA	9.6%	-27.2	20.6%	-11.0
Bernard Sanders	I	VT	11.0%	-26.4	21.0%	-10.0
Cory A. Booker	D	NJ	12.3%	-14.1	30.1%	-17.8
Edward J. Markey	D	MA	12.5%	-27.2	20.8%	-8.3
Kamala D. Harris	D	CA	15.1%	-30.1	19.3%	-4.2
Ron Wyden	D	OR	16.4%	-11.0	33.9%	-17.5
Richard Blumenthal	D	CT	19.4%	-13.6	30.5%	-11.1
Mazie K. Hirono	D	HI	21.9%	-32.2	18.5%	+3.5

https://www.alternet.org/deadbeat-millennial-who-really-blame-when-30-something-still-lives-home

... interview Bernie Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver about his book "How Bernie Won," a text that sheds some light on what American liberals actually believe. Specifically, the book argues that modern American liberalism is really an attempt to return to the political ideals embodied in President Franklin Roosevelt's 1944 State of the Union address. The section excerpted below is colloquially referred to as the "Second Bill of Rights" and argues not that people should be able to live off others, but rather that anyone who is willing to work should be able to find a job and support himself or herself off of their labor.

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people — whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth — is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however — as our industrial economy expanded — these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights — among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all — regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

The mischaracterization of millennials at play with the coverage of Rotondo is equally problematic.

While liberals are no more likely than other people to be moochers, millennials are indeed much more likely than previous generations to continue living with their parents when they're still in the 25-to-35 age range. As of 2016, 15 percent of millennials within that group still lived in their parents' homes, by far the highest that number has been in more than 50 years. It's why the term "The Boomerang Generation" has become a thing.

For this, we can thank the Great Recession.

As a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis pointed out earlier this year, Americans born during the 1980s were uniquely vulnerable when the Great Recession began in the late-2000s and have consequently faced unique hardships in coming to their own as adults. People who were in their late 20s or early 30s in 2016 were the only age group that continued to lose financial ground after the recession ended.

"This represents a missed opportunity because asset appreciation is unlikely to be as rapid in the near future as it was during the recent period," the study pointed out. Another section near the end of the report deserves to be quoted in full:

Families whose heads were born in the 1980s are different. They generally were too young to be homeowners during the housing bubble; in fact, only 19 percent of 1980s families were homeowners in 2007. Even by 2016, fewer than 45 percent of 1980s families were homeowners. The predominant type of debt they owe is non-mortgage debt, including student loans, auto loans and credit card debt. Because none of these types of debt finance assets that have appreciated rapidly during the last few years—such as stocks and real estate—they have received no leveraged wealth boost like that enjoyed by older cohorts. The 1980s cohort was unique in falling even further behind its wealth benchmark between 2010 and 2016. Given the prospect of lower asset returns in the future than in the recent past, 1980s families face a formidable challenge in building wealth rapidly enough to reach benchmark levels set by earlier generations.

Despite these economic facts, people who were lucky enough to not come of age during the nadir of the Great Recession still continue to heap unrealistic economic expectations on millennials born in the 1980s.

Earlier this month, MarketWatch became a target of ridicule when it wrote that by the age of 35, millennials should have twice their current salary saved up. This may have been the norm during the Baby Boomer era or for members of Generation X, but for millions of Americans who entered the economy in 2008 or the years immediately thereafter, the notion that this would be feasible is downright ludicrous.

...

Knowledgeable and trusted local groups have been key to the recent election victories by bona fide progressives. These groups build relationships through work in their communities, know whom to speak with and can tackle the intensive work of going door to door. Several national organizations understand the power of a local focus and have invested in identifying amazing grassroots partners -- their 2017 results speak to the potential of thisemerging network. Groups like Our Revolution, Working Families Party, Black Lives Matter, Democratic Socialists of America, People's Action, Progressive Democrats of America, Democracy for America and the Movement Voter Project are just some of the organizations doing important work. As the Movement Voter Project put in its recent report, "Failure is not an option. Not for our children. Not for our grandchildren."

Buoyed by the British Labour Party election gains this week, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on Saturday urged a summit of progressive activists who propelled his presidential candidacy to ramp up efforts to win elections and help remake a Democratic Party he deemed a failure.

"They won those seats by standing up to the ruling class," he said, referring to the British elections and citing wins by progressive US candidates in several state and local races while writing off losses as evidence liberal progressives could still be competitive even in conservative states.

But Mr Sanders, who lost the Democratic nomination nearly a year ago to Hillary Clinton, showed little interest in a push by "Draft Bernie" activists who want him to start his own "People's Party." Many activists blame establishment Democrats for losing to President Donald Trump by failing to embrace a more populist left-leaning agenda.

Jeremy Corbyn's election performance inspires Bernie Sanders followers

Sanders headlined the three-day "People's Summit" in Chicago, attended by celebrity activists including actors Danny Glover and John Cusack, which brought together main progressive groups such as National Nurses United, Democratic Socialists of America and People for Bernie.

Many activists said they hoped to transform the momentum from recent protests such as January'sWomen's March in Washington into concrete plans to support a growing wave of grassroots candidates to secure electoral power.

"We could have 10,000 people marching, but if we don't have some means of translating that into winning political office

and enacting a legislative progressive agenda, at the end of the day, what does it amount to?" said Nick Brana, the former staffer for the Sanders campaign leading the "Draft Bernie" group.

Bernie Sanders says Labour party shows the way to beat Donald ...

www.independent.co.uk › News › World › Americas › US politics

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:{Jun 11, 2017 - Buoyed by the British Labour Party election gains this week, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on Saturday urged a summit of progressive activists who propelled his presidential candidacy to ramp up efforts to win elections and help remake a Democratic Party he deemed a failure.:(style="word-wrap:break-word"):}:

UK election: Bernie Sanders congratulates Jeremy Corbyn, saying he ...

www.independent.co.uk › News › UK › UK Politics

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:{Jun 9, 2017 - Bernie Sanders has congratulated Jeremy Corbyn after Labour exceeded expectations in the general election and looks to be on course to increase its number of parliamentary seats. The former Democratic ... Projections suggest the party is on course to receive 40 per cent of the vote, giving it 265 seats.:(style="word-wrap:break-word"):}:

===

http://www.alternet.org/economy/bernie-sanders-right-wing-ideology-rules-our-economy

For over 40 years, In These Times has published incisive reporting and analysis on one of the defining issues of our time: the crisis of inequality. Our new book, The Age of Inequality: Corporate America’s War on Working People, brings together In These Times’ best writing on the topic from leading thinkers and journalists. In this selection, originally published in 2009, Bernie Sanders writes about the intellectual failures, and simultaneous political success, of the “Chicago School’s” greatest avatar, Milton Friedman.

“THE FAILED PROPHET” (2009)

THE LATE MILTON FRIEDMANWAS A PROVOCATIVE TEACHER AT MY ALMA MATER, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. He got his students involved with their studies. He was a gifted writer and communicator. And he received a Nobel Prize for his contributions to economics.

But Friedman was more than an academic. He was an advocate for, and popularizer of, a radical right-wing economic ideology.

In today’s political and social reality, the University of Chicago’s establishment of a $200 million Milton Friedman Institute (in the building that until now has housed the renowned Chicago Theological Seminary) will not be perceived as simply a sign of appreciation for a prominent former faculty member. Instead, by founding such an institution, the university signals that it isaligning itself with a reactionary political program supported by the wealthiest, greediest, and most powerful people and institutions in this country.Friedman’s ideology caused enormous damage to the American middle class and to working families here and around the world. It is not an ideology that a great institution like the University of Chicago should be seeking to advance.

Those who defend the Milton Friedman Institute will assure us that it will encourage a free and open exchange of ideas. That may very well be true. But if the goal of the institute is simply to do nonideological research, there are a lot of names that one could come up with other than that of the most polemical and ideological economist of his time.

My suspicions only deepen when I read on the University of Chicago website that donors who contribute more than $1 million to the project will have a special relationship with the institute as members of a Milton Friedman Society and will be expected to facilitate the institution’s “connections to leaders in business and government.”

I work in Washington, D.C., and I know about the power that big money has over process. When the insurance companies and the drug companies and the oil companies and the banks and the military-industrial complex make contributions to political campaigns, we usually know exactly what it is they want in return.

The timing of this project is a little ironic. Friedman earned his bread by denouncing government at virtually every turn. He, like his acolyte, former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, believed that a largely unregulated free market constituted the most superior form of economic organization imaginable. Well, the tune of the right-wing free marketeers has changed a bit in the last few months.

My colleagues in the Senate and I are now picking up the pieces of a banking system brought to the edge of collapse by this theory of deregulation and by the insatiable greed of a small number of wealthy financiers playing in the market and engaging in incredibly risky—if not illegal—behavior.

In the rush to bail out Wall Street, we saw President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the people in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable—folks who loved Friedman’s ideas and who, no doubt, would be prepared to financially support a Milton Friedman Institute—reverse their longstanding rhetorical opposition to government intervention.

Instead, they demanded that we come to the rescue of the financial firms that had lined up in front of Congress for their emergency welfare checks.

For years, all of these people, including the president of the United States, have been telling us that government should not be involved in ensuring health care for all Americans as a right of citizenship. (“What a terrible idea!”) They have been telling us that the government should not be involved in making quality education affordable to all people; that the government should not be empowered to ensure that we reverse greenhouse gas emissions; that the government should not regulate pollution that contaminates our air and water and land; and that the government should not provide a strong safety net for our children, for our seniors, or for the disabled.

But the issue here is not just economic policy. It goes deeper than that. It touches on the core of who we are as a society and as a people. Are we as human beings supposed to turn around and not see the suffering that so many of our brothers and sisters are experiencing? Are we content to be living in a nation where, thanks in part to the Friedmanite ideology, the richest 1 percent owns more than the bottom 90 percent and the top one-tenth percent owns more than the bottom 50 percent?Well, it turns out that when the shoe is pinching their foot, they have become the strongest believers in government intervention—especially if working people and the middle class are bailing them out.

With all due respect to the late Milton Friedman, his economic program is nothing more than a wish list for the greediest, the most monied interests in our society. At the same time that this ideology is supported by the rich and powerful—except when they’re lining up in Washington for their welfare checks—this same ideology is almost unanimously opposed by working families and middle-class people across this country.

What would some of the items on Friedman’s wish list be? First of all, the Friedmanites would be supportive of the concept of a culture of greed. They want people making billions of dollars on the covers of Time and Newsweekbecause these people are supposed to be our national heroes. We are not supposed to recognize a teacher who makes $40,000 a year opening up the minds of young people. We are not supposed to recognize a childcare worker who makes $18,000 a year giving poor children an opportunity to grow intellectually and emotionally. Those jobs are not considered important work.

But if you’re a billionaire on Wall Street creating exotic financial instruments that end up being worth nothing, you are considered a hero. The fact that this culture of greed has permeated our political culture means that corporate CEOs can now earn more than 400 times what their workers earn without fearing a political backlash.

Now we have a case study for what happens when the ideology of Milton Friedman becomes the operating ideology of the government. Under Bush, the median family income has declined by thousands of dollars. Millions of Americans have entered the ranks of the poor. Some 7 million have lost their health insurance. Some 3 million have lost their pensions. And the gap between the very rich and everybody else has grown much wider.

Our country is due for a transformation. We have endured years of right-wing ideology, and we are eager to move in a different direction. I believe that we will see a major reordering of social and economic priorities and that this last general election represented a repudiation of right-wing economic arguments.

In the Bush era—a period in which some of Friedman’s greatest admirers managed the U.S. economy—the top 400 families in this country saw their wealth increase by $670 billion.

Yet we have children in this country who have no health care, children who are undernourished, and children who sleep out on the streets. From an economic perspective, from a moral perspective, and from a philosophical perspective, the ideology of Milton Friedman is dead wrong.

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