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Sellouts
the enemy within
In political movements a "sellout" is a person or group claiming to adhere to one ideology, only to follow these claims up with actions contradicting them, such as a revolutionary group claiming to fight for a particular cause, but failing to continue this upon obtaining power.
nov 12, 2019
They lack ideas, courage, and competence so they find happiness riding a fence while not pissing off society's oppressors. The defend the status quo while lying about supporting progress. They are the very definition of "kind of pregnant"
Sellouts
*SCHUMER SCORCHED FOR WHITEWASHING PETE KING’S RACIST, ANTI-ISLAM, ANTI-LGBTQ RECORD AS SOON AS HE ANNOUNCED HIS RETIREMENT
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CENTRIST DEMOCRATS HAVE A NEW IDEA TO WIN REELECTION: IGNORE LABOR AND GIVE TRUMP A MAJOR TRADE DEAL(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CENTRIST DEMOCRATS, LED BY REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER, TO FUNDRAISE WITH CORPORATE LOBBY GROUP SEEKING TO DEFEAT DEMOCRATIC AGENDA(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JOE BIDEN’S SUPER PAC IS BEING ORGANIZED BY CORPORATE LOBBYISTS FOR HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY, WEAPONS MAKERS, FINANCE(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WAYS AND MEANS CHAIR RICHARD NEAL SIDES WITH PHARMA AND GOP AGAINST AMENDMENTS TO STRENGTHEN DRUG-PRICING BILL(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The more Joe Biden stumbles, the more corporate democrats freak out
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Demand Justice targets Democratic Sen. Chris Coons for voting in favor of Trump judicial nominees(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EXXON MOBIL IS FUNDING CENTRIST DEMOCRATIC THINK TANK, DISCLOSURES REVEAL
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Why Is a Freshman Democrat Attacking Progressives in a Washington Post Series?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*THE KOCHS FUNDED THIRD WAY TO PUSH FREE TRADE TO DEMOCRATS, NEW BOOK SAYS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Maxine Waters Puts Corporate Democrats to Shame
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Union leaders rebuke centrist Democrats for claiming Medicare for All would harm workers
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The real problem wasn’t the racism — it was the Trump taking ‘the Lord’s name in vain’ twice: supporter(ARTICLE BELOW)
*DEMOCRAT-BACKED CENTRIST PAC IS SUPPORTING A REPUBLICAN AGAINST A VULNERABLE SWING-DISTRICT INCUMBENT(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JOSH GOTTHEIMER WARNED DEMOCRATIC LEADERS HE HAD VOTES TO BLOCK BILL MANDATING BETTER CONDITIONS FOR CHILDREN IN DETENTION(ARTICLE BELOW)
*'An existential threat': Bernie Sanders faces mounting opposition from moderate Democrats
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*“Moderate” Democrats Are Really Conservatives — and They Are Dangerous
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Tulsi Gabbard’s Financial Disclosures Leave Out Ties To Koch-Funded Think Tank
(ARTICLE BELOW)
cartoons(at the end)
Schumer scorched for whitewashing Pete King’s racist, anti-Islam, anti-LGBTQ record as soon as he announced his retirement
November 11, 2019
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement - raw story
U.S. Congressman Peter King, a Republican of Long Island, NY, announced bright and early Monday morning he will not seek a 15th term, and will retire at the end of 28 years in Congress. King, a strong Trump supporter, has an impressive record of holding on to a district that has voted largely Democratic, including voting for Barack Obama twice, and even Al Gore and John Kerry over George W. Bush.
Rep. King, a powerful Republican who twice served as Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, also has a record of ugly racism, anti-Islam attacks, pandering to the lowest forms of bigotry, and serving the powerful by demeaning minorities and the poor.
King last year defended ICE in the wake of the deaths of two migrant children. He also likened NFL athletes quietly protesting police violence and killing of Black people to giving a Nazi salute. And he declared there are “too many mosques” in America.
The Congressman from Long Island defended NYPD officers in the killing of Eric Garner, saying if the man who was placed in a chokehold (which violates police policy) had not been “obese,” he would not have died – while at the same time saying “police had no reason to know that he was in serious condition.”
King hunkered down to protect the moneyed interests, attacking the grassroots viral phenomenon known as Occupy Wall Street, calling it a “ragtag mob” of “anarchists.” He warned if the movement were given any “legitimacy” it could go on to have an impact on shaping policy. “We can’t allow that to happen,” he said, despite it having significant support across the country.
That’s just a brief and recent history of Congressman King’s remarks – his policy stances are an entirely different, albeit disturbing matter. He’s voted against the right of marriage and adoption for same-sex couples, and voted against banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
And there’s a lot more too, over his 28 years in Congress.
Democrats are now hoping to flip the district, which just moved slightly left to “lean Republican” after King’s announcement.
And yet, here’s Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, whitewashing – or at least, ignoring or excusing – King’s abysmal record (and by tweeting from a right wing news source.) Senator Schumer’s “kind” words come just days before Trump’s public impeachment inquiry hearings – an impeachment King said in his retirement announcement he will vote against.
Chuck Schumer✔
@SenSchumer
Peter King stood head & shoulders above everyone else
He’s been principled & never let others push him away from his principles
He’s fiercely loved America, Long Island, and his Irish heritage and left a lasting mark on all 3
I will miss him in Congress & value his friendship https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1193849653189591040 …
Rep. King, a powerful Republican who twice served as Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, also has a record of ugly racism, anti-Islam attacks, pandering to the lowest forms of bigotry, and serving the powerful by demeaning minorities and the poor.
King last year defended ICE in the wake of the deaths of two migrant children. He also likened NFL athletes quietly protesting police violence and killing of Black people to giving a Nazi salute. And he declared there are “too many mosques” in America.
The Congressman from Long Island defended NYPD officers in the killing of Eric Garner, saying if the man who was placed in a chokehold (which violates police policy) had not been “obese,” he would not have died – while at the same time saying “police had no reason to know that he was in serious condition.”
King hunkered down to protect the moneyed interests, attacking the grassroots viral phenomenon known as Occupy Wall Street, calling it a “ragtag mob” of “anarchists.” He warned if the movement were given any “legitimacy” it could go on to have an impact on shaping policy. “We can’t allow that to happen,” he said, despite it having significant support across the country.
That’s just a brief and recent history of Congressman King’s remarks – his policy stances are an entirely different, albeit disturbing matter. He’s voted against the right of marriage and adoption for same-sex couples, and voted against banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
And there’s a lot more too, over his 28 years in Congress.
Democrats are now hoping to flip the district, which just moved slightly left to “lean Republican” after King’s announcement.
And yet, here’s Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, whitewashing – or at least, ignoring or excusing – King’s abysmal record (and by tweeting from a right wing news source.) Senator Schumer’s “kind” words come just days before Trump’s public impeachment inquiry hearings – an impeachment King said in his retirement announcement he will vote against.
Chuck Schumer✔
@SenSchumer
Peter King stood head & shoulders above everyone else
He’s been principled & never let others push him away from his principles
He’s fiercely loved America, Long Island, and his Irish heritage and left a lasting mark on all 3
I will miss him in Congress & value his friendship https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1193849653189591040 …
corporate demos selling out workers!!!
CENTRIST DEMOCRATS HAVE A NEW IDEA TO WIN REELECTION: IGNORE LABOR AND GIVE TRUMP A MAJOR TRADE DEAL
Ryan Grim - the intercept
October 29 2019, 5:00 a.m.
REP. CHERI BUSTOS, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is advocating internally for Democrats to wave through the House President Donald Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA, without any of the revisions demanded by labor unions and environmentalists — and despite concerns that it locks in high prescription drug prices.
Bustos has argued to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that approving Trump’s free trade deal is important for vulnerable House Democrats who recently flipped Republicans seats, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the Bustos strategy. The argument goes that those vulnerable Democrats would be able to demonstrate to constituents that while they may be pursuing impeachment, they are also willing to work across party lines with the president. Inside the House caucus, the messaging is referred to as showing the ability to “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Pelosi’s office said the speaker did not intend to allow the trade agreement to move forward without addressing concerns from environmental, labor, and patients’ rights groups. A spokesperson for Bustos emphasized the Congresswoman’s support for labor and environment issues, and stated: “She and the speaker have taken meetings together with stakeholders to discuss these issues. The Congresswoman has faith in her colleagues currently working with our trade groups to resolve these issues – and has withheld her position on the trade deal until we see this process reach its conclusion – which she hopes is a trade deal that has support from a broad set of stakeholders. As she has said for months, there is still work to be done before we reach that point.” A House leadership aide suggested that Bustos and the centrists pushing for a vote have an uphill climb, because the fall and spring floor schedule is crowded, and Bustos currently lacks the sway to work her will.
Bustos has help in making the DCCC’s argument to the caucus: former caucus Chair Joe Crowley, who was ousted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and is now a paid lobbyist for Trump’s revised NAFTA, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He’s joined in the effort by former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who has also become a lobbyist for Trump’s trade deal.
Republicans, too, are urging the strategy on. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the top-ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, told CNBC viewers on Friday that he was optimistic Democrats would soon sign off on Trump’s deal. “I think we’re a couple weeks from getting a green light,” he said. Pelosi, he argued, needed a political win for moderates in the context of the impeachment fight, echoing the Bustos argument.
“This new trade agreement is everything Democrats dreamed of for labor and environment,” he said. “They have never sniffed the kinds of reforms you’re seeing in this agreement, and for her moderate and competitive members, they can’t go home with just impeachment in their pocket. They’ve got to have some economic growth.”
The push represents a remarkable gamble: that it is worth undermining key constituencies by signing a subpar agreement on the chance that it could help a handful of Democrats in swing districts win reelection. In addition, the assessment itself is questionable; if a voter is angry that a Democrat voted to impeach Trump, it’s difficult to see how that anger would be lessened by learning that the representative also voted for Trump’s trade deal. Endorsing bad Republican policy for uncertain political gain may be a hallmark of Democratic centrism, but supporting Trump’s unrevised trade deal is an unusually extreme example.
Rank-and-file House Democrats are worried that the poorly negotiated deal would lock in lower wages, environmental destruction, and higher drug prices for decades. USMCA is a renegotiated version of NAFTA, but only goes into effect if and when it is approved by Congress. The legislative branch is negotiating changes to the deal that would then need to be agreed to by Canada and Mexico. Without a new agreement, the old NAFTA remains in effect indefinitely.
---
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, has been making a similar argument to Bustos’s, but less for protection of vulnerable members and more because he believes that the deal is good enough. Unions, he has argued internally, will just have to go along. He has proposed a divide-and-conquer strategy, by appending pension reform — a high priority of the Teamsters and a handful of other unions — to the deal in the hopes of splitting a few unions off from the labor movement and winning their support. That would allow House leaders to say that labor is divided on the question, so the party might as well vote yes.
The three areas in which the agreement faces the most resistance are in environmental protections, labor rights, and drug prices. Unions in particular are worried that there are no serious enforcement mechanisms that would require Mexico to raise labor standards and extend protections to union organizers. “I hear a lot of the frontliners want to see it passed,” texted one House Democrat nervous that the deal will get rammed through. “But if the final text doesn’t have real labor and environmental standards, AND WITH REAL ENFORCEMENT, then we shouldn’t even bring it up for a vote.”
The push from centrist Democrats began quietly in the summer, with 14 Democrats signing a letter to House leaders. “We write in support of continued negotiations through the upcoming recess, to ensure a vote on a bipartisan agreement by the end of this year. It is imperative that we reach a negotiated agreement early in the fall,” read the letter signed by Scott Peters, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, the corporate wing of the party, as well as Reps. Collin Allred, Kendra Horn, Haley Stevens, Anthony Brindisi, Joe Cunningham, Lizzie Fletcher, Ben McAdams, Josh Harder, Lou Correa, Sharice Davids, TJ Cox, Susie Lee, and Greg Stanton.
Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and other centrist and conservative Democrats have continued insisting publicly on the need for quick action throughout the summer and fall. “We gotta make this happen,” insisted Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., at an event with Trump’s agriculture secretary.
There is currently a working group hashing out revisions to the pact, going back and forth with the White House’s top trade official, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Bustos’s staff has signaled to members of Congress concerned that she is trying to give the agreement away that Bustos supports the working group process, but the pressure from Bustos and the moderates to move quickly gives the White House the upper hand in negotiations where they’d otherwise be on the defensive. After all, if Democrats do nothing and win the White House, they would be able to negotiate a much stronger agreement.
“The Democrats and Congress seem to be making progress with the USTR. Now is not the time to do anything but continue to ensure what is passed by the House helps drive down drug prices in the United States,” said Jonathan Kimball of the trade group the Association for Accessible Medicines.
The trade group, which represents generic drug companies, is pushing against big pharma over provisions that would extend and expand drug company monopolies on patented drugs, blocking cheaper generics from the market. The treaty also expands the definition of what makes a biologic drug, which would put many more medicines off limits to generics for a longer stretch of time, keeping prices high. The treaty would block Congress from doing anything significant legislatively to lower drug prices, even as Democrats ran their 2018 campaign significantly on a promise to lower drug prices.
Unions, meanwhile, are pushing to strengthen provisions that would push Mexico to enact and enforce labor reform and raise wages for Mexican workers, which would make it easier for American workers to compete. Labor officials note that Mexico has neglected to fund its stated commitment to labor reform, and Neal recently traveled to Mexico to try to extract concessions from the Mexican government on enforceability. He came away with a letter of assurance from the Mexican president, which unions have dismissed as unserious.
The Sierra Club has been weighing in on the agreement for the last three years, Ben Beachy told The Intercept, and opposes it in its current form. He directs the group’s “A Living Economy” initiative, which advocates for green economic policy. “The deal as it stands is a pro-polluter deal any way you slice it,” Beachy said. “It not only fails to mention climate change, but would actively contribute to the climate crisis. Trump’s NAFTA 2.0 would perpetuate NAFTA’s outsourcing of pollution and jobs while giving new handouts to fossil fuel corporations.” The group has put out numerous statements regarding concerns that the current deal lacks binding environmental standards, and recently signed a letter along with 110 members of Congress calling for the new deal to address the climate crisis in a meaningful way.
And though Bustos is working in their name, not all front-line Democrats are united on putting through the deal. “We shouldn’t just ram anything through,” said one. “If we don’t get it right, we never get it back.”
Bustos has argued to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that approving Trump’s free trade deal is important for vulnerable House Democrats who recently flipped Republicans seats, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the Bustos strategy. The argument goes that those vulnerable Democrats would be able to demonstrate to constituents that while they may be pursuing impeachment, they are also willing to work across party lines with the president. Inside the House caucus, the messaging is referred to as showing the ability to “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Pelosi’s office said the speaker did not intend to allow the trade agreement to move forward without addressing concerns from environmental, labor, and patients’ rights groups. A spokesperson for Bustos emphasized the Congresswoman’s support for labor and environment issues, and stated: “She and the speaker have taken meetings together with stakeholders to discuss these issues. The Congresswoman has faith in her colleagues currently working with our trade groups to resolve these issues – and has withheld her position on the trade deal until we see this process reach its conclusion – which she hopes is a trade deal that has support from a broad set of stakeholders. As she has said for months, there is still work to be done before we reach that point.” A House leadership aide suggested that Bustos and the centrists pushing for a vote have an uphill climb, because the fall and spring floor schedule is crowded, and Bustos currently lacks the sway to work her will.
Bustos has help in making the DCCC’s argument to the caucus: former caucus Chair Joe Crowley, who was ousted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and is now a paid lobbyist for Trump’s revised NAFTA, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He’s joined in the effort by former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who has also become a lobbyist for Trump’s trade deal.
Republicans, too, are urging the strategy on. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the top-ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, told CNBC viewers on Friday that he was optimistic Democrats would soon sign off on Trump’s deal. “I think we’re a couple weeks from getting a green light,” he said. Pelosi, he argued, needed a political win for moderates in the context of the impeachment fight, echoing the Bustos argument.
“This new trade agreement is everything Democrats dreamed of for labor and environment,” he said. “They have never sniffed the kinds of reforms you’re seeing in this agreement, and for her moderate and competitive members, they can’t go home with just impeachment in their pocket. They’ve got to have some economic growth.”
The push represents a remarkable gamble: that it is worth undermining key constituencies by signing a subpar agreement on the chance that it could help a handful of Democrats in swing districts win reelection. In addition, the assessment itself is questionable; if a voter is angry that a Democrat voted to impeach Trump, it’s difficult to see how that anger would be lessened by learning that the representative also voted for Trump’s trade deal. Endorsing bad Republican policy for uncertain political gain may be a hallmark of Democratic centrism, but supporting Trump’s unrevised trade deal is an unusually extreme example.
Rank-and-file House Democrats are worried that the poorly negotiated deal would lock in lower wages, environmental destruction, and higher drug prices for decades. USMCA is a renegotiated version of NAFTA, but only goes into effect if and when it is approved by Congress. The legislative branch is negotiating changes to the deal that would then need to be agreed to by Canada and Mexico. Without a new agreement, the old NAFTA remains in effect indefinitely.
---
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, has been making a similar argument to Bustos’s, but less for protection of vulnerable members and more because he believes that the deal is good enough. Unions, he has argued internally, will just have to go along. He has proposed a divide-and-conquer strategy, by appending pension reform — a high priority of the Teamsters and a handful of other unions — to the deal in the hopes of splitting a few unions off from the labor movement and winning their support. That would allow House leaders to say that labor is divided on the question, so the party might as well vote yes.
The three areas in which the agreement faces the most resistance are in environmental protections, labor rights, and drug prices. Unions in particular are worried that there are no serious enforcement mechanisms that would require Mexico to raise labor standards and extend protections to union organizers. “I hear a lot of the frontliners want to see it passed,” texted one House Democrat nervous that the deal will get rammed through. “But if the final text doesn’t have real labor and environmental standards, AND WITH REAL ENFORCEMENT, then we shouldn’t even bring it up for a vote.”
The push from centrist Democrats began quietly in the summer, with 14 Democrats signing a letter to House leaders. “We write in support of continued negotiations through the upcoming recess, to ensure a vote on a bipartisan agreement by the end of this year. It is imperative that we reach a negotiated agreement early in the fall,” read the letter signed by Scott Peters, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, the corporate wing of the party, as well as Reps. Collin Allred, Kendra Horn, Haley Stevens, Anthony Brindisi, Joe Cunningham, Lizzie Fletcher, Ben McAdams, Josh Harder, Lou Correa, Sharice Davids, TJ Cox, Susie Lee, and Greg Stanton.
Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and other centrist and conservative Democrats have continued insisting publicly on the need for quick action throughout the summer and fall. “We gotta make this happen,” insisted Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., at an event with Trump’s agriculture secretary.
There is currently a working group hashing out revisions to the pact, going back and forth with the White House’s top trade official, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Bustos’s staff has signaled to members of Congress concerned that she is trying to give the agreement away that Bustos supports the working group process, but the pressure from Bustos and the moderates to move quickly gives the White House the upper hand in negotiations where they’d otherwise be on the defensive. After all, if Democrats do nothing and win the White House, they would be able to negotiate a much stronger agreement.
“The Democrats and Congress seem to be making progress with the USTR. Now is not the time to do anything but continue to ensure what is passed by the House helps drive down drug prices in the United States,” said Jonathan Kimball of the trade group the Association for Accessible Medicines.
The trade group, which represents generic drug companies, is pushing against big pharma over provisions that would extend and expand drug company monopolies on patented drugs, blocking cheaper generics from the market. The treaty also expands the definition of what makes a biologic drug, which would put many more medicines off limits to generics for a longer stretch of time, keeping prices high. The treaty would block Congress from doing anything significant legislatively to lower drug prices, even as Democrats ran their 2018 campaign significantly on a promise to lower drug prices.
Unions, meanwhile, are pushing to strengthen provisions that would push Mexico to enact and enforce labor reform and raise wages for Mexican workers, which would make it easier for American workers to compete. Labor officials note that Mexico has neglected to fund its stated commitment to labor reform, and Neal recently traveled to Mexico to try to extract concessions from the Mexican government on enforceability. He came away with a letter of assurance from the Mexican president, which unions have dismissed as unserious.
The Sierra Club has been weighing in on the agreement for the last three years, Ben Beachy told The Intercept, and opposes it in its current form. He directs the group’s “A Living Economy” initiative, which advocates for green economic policy. “The deal as it stands is a pro-polluter deal any way you slice it,” Beachy said. “It not only fails to mention climate change, but would actively contribute to the climate crisis. Trump’s NAFTA 2.0 would perpetuate NAFTA’s outsourcing of pollution and jobs while giving new handouts to fossil fuel corporations.” The group has put out numerous statements regarding concerns that the current deal lacks binding environmental standards, and recently signed a letter along with 110 members of Congress calling for the new deal to address the climate crisis in a meaningful way.
And though Bustos is working in their name, not all front-line Democrats are united on putting through the deal. “We shouldn’t just ram anything through,” said one. “If we don’t get it right, we never get it back.”
CENTRIST DEMOCRATS, LED BY REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER, TO FUNDRAISE WITH CORPORATE LOBBY GROUP SEEKING TO DEFEAT DEMOCRATIC AGENDA
Lee Fang - the intercept
October 28 2019, 3:00 a.m.
THE U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, the largest lobbying group representing corporate interests in the world, has worked furiously to defeat Democratic policies, from playing a key role in battling the Affordable Care Act, to spreading climate change denial, to more recent efforts to block H.R. 1, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s signature campaign reform and voting rights bill.
Now a group of centrist Democrats, led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., is scheduled to join with the Chamber in a bid to raise money.
A fundraiser invite obtained by The Intercept shows that Gottheimer and Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., are scheduled to appear at the Chamber PAC’s town house on Capitol Hill on October 29. The event honors the “Problem Solvers Caucus,” an offshoot of the centrist project No Labels. Contributions will benefit the affiliate centrist Democrat fundraising committee known as Across the Aisles PAC.
Molly Allen, a fundraiser who helped put together the event, noted in an email, “As usual with these events, we expect strong Member attendance and a lively discussion!”
The Chamber was one of the largest beneficiaries of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, funneling tens of millions of dollars of undisclosed corporate money into congressional elections, largely to elect Republican lawmakers. Democrats have long courted the “voice of business,” only to see the Chamber work tirelessly to boost GOP campaigns.
The Intercept has previously documented the role of GOP billionaires in financing an array of PACs that played a pivotal role in electing centrist Democrats during the 2018 midterm elections. Gottheimer has also earned the ire of Democrats by working to undermine party unity on votes to constrain the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen and to mandate better conditions for those detained at the border. Gottheimer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Early in the Obama administration, then-Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., a leading voice for centrist Democrats, joined the Chamber-backed effort to block labor union reform, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, as well as the Waxman-Markey legislation to cap carbon emissions from industrial polluters. The senator retired from office and joined the Chamber as a consultant.
Despite Bayh’s loyalty to the business lobby, when he reentered politics in 2016, running to reclaim a Senate seat in Indiana, the Chamber poured millions of dollars into undisclosed ads benefiting his GOP opponent, now-Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind.
The Chamber’s political donations still tilt overwhelmingly to the Republican Party, though in recent years, the group has sought to boost centrist Democrats. Last year, the Chamber’s PAC money gave about 80 percent of funds to GOP candidates and committees, while also donating to centrists such as Gottheimer, Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.
Voluntary disclosures show the largest donors include Dow Chemical, Chevron, Microsoft, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Anthem, Coca-Cola, and ConocoPhillips.
The Chamber is not only shaping election outcomes, litigation, and the legislative debate. In 2011, the Chamber was caught negotiating with a group of defense contractors on a scheme to spy on labor activists, journalists, and Democratic-leaning groups such as MoveOn.org.
Now a group of centrist Democrats, led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., is scheduled to join with the Chamber in a bid to raise money.
A fundraiser invite obtained by The Intercept shows that Gottheimer and Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., are scheduled to appear at the Chamber PAC’s town house on Capitol Hill on October 29. The event honors the “Problem Solvers Caucus,” an offshoot of the centrist project No Labels. Contributions will benefit the affiliate centrist Democrat fundraising committee known as Across the Aisles PAC.
Molly Allen, a fundraiser who helped put together the event, noted in an email, “As usual with these events, we expect strong Member attendance and a lively discussion!”
The Chamber was one of the largest beneficiaries of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, funneling tens of millions of dollars of undisclosed corporate money into congressional elections, largely to elect Republican lawmakers. Democrats have long courted the “voice of business,” only to see the Chamber work tirelessly to boost GOP campaigns.
The Intercept has previously documented the role of GOP billionaires in financing an array of PACs that played a pivotal role in electing centrist Democrats during the 2018 midterm elections. Gottheimer has also earned the ire of Democrats by working to undermine party unity on votes to constrain the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen and to mandate better conditions for those detained at the border. Gottheimer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Early in the Obama administration, then-Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., a leading voice for centrist Democrats, joined the Chamber-backed effort to block labor union reform, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, as well as the Waxman-Markey legislation to cap carbon emissions from industrial polluters. The senator retired from office and joined the Chamber as a consultant.
Despite Bayh’s loyalty to the business lobby, when he reentered politics in 2016, running to reclaim a Senate seat in Indiana, the Chamber poured millions of dollars into undisclosed ads benefiting his GOP opponent, now-Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind.
The Chamber’s political donations still tilt overwhelmingly to the Republican Party, though in recent years, the group has sought to boost centrist Democrats. Last year, the Chamber’s PAC money gave about 80 percent of funds to GOP candidates and committees, while also donating to centrists such as Gottheimer, Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.
Voluntary disclosures show the largest donors include Dow Chemical, Chevron, Microsoft, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Anthem, Coca-Cola, and ConocoPhillips.
The Chamber is not only shaping election outcomes, litigation, and the legislative debate. In 2011, the Chamber was caught negotiating with a group of defense contractors on a scheme to spy on labor activists, journalists, and Democratic-leaning groups such as MoveOn.org.
michael moore calls biden the hillary clinton of 2020!!!
JOE BIDEN’S SUPER PAC IS BEING ORGANIZED BY CORPORATE LOBBYISTS FOR HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY, WEAPONS MAKERS, FINANCE
Lee Fang - the intercept
October 25 2019, 7:47 a.m.
JOE BIDEN BEGAN the presidential campaign with a commanding lead in the polls, but questions surrounding his ability to power through the primary, along with relatively weak fundraising, has cast new doubt about his campaign.
In an effort to revive Biden’s prospects, prominent supporters of the former vice president are mobilizing to establish a Super PAC, a bid that the Biden campaign appeared to endorse on Thursday, according to a report in Bloomberg. The move represents a reversal from earlier this year, when Biden rejected support from Super PACs, which can receive unlimited donations from corporations or individuals.
Though Biden has pledged not to take contributions from registered lobbyists, the prohibition appears not to apply to big-dollar organizers of his Super PAC. Among the individuals involved with the effort are several lobbyists for leading corporations and foreign governments.
Longtime Biden supporter Larry Rasky, one of the people involved with the big-money effort, is the founder of lobbying firm Rasky Partners, which is currently registered to lobby on behalf of Raytheon, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, among other clients.
Steve Schale, a former Obama campaign strategist, is a registered state lobbyist with Cardenas Partners, a Florida lobbying firm founded by former Jeb Bush adviser Al Cardenas. Schale’s current client list includes the Florida Hospital Association, JetBlue Airways, State Farm Insurance, Walt Disney Parks, AT&T, and the Associated Industries of Florida.
As The Intercept has reported, despite Biden’s promise to reject lobbyist money, his campaign launched with a fundraiser hosted at the home of Comcast’s chief lobbyist, and his political action committee has a long record of accepting lobbyist cash.
Rasky, Schale, and the Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Rasky Partners lists a number of successful client campaigns on its website, touting efforts to win congressional support for banks and defense contractors. Disclosures show that the firm was previously retained for communications services to the Education Finance Council, a lobby group for student loan companies.
Schale previously served as the spokesperson for the Draft Joe Biden campaign in 2016 and before that, directed the Obama-Biden campaign operation in Florida.
It’s not the first time Biden supporters have floated a Super PAC. In April, Matt Tompkins, a Democratic fundraiser, launched a Super PAC called For the People, designed to support Biden’s campaign. The group never got off the ground. Federal Election Commission records show that the group has not raised any money.
But this time may be different. Bernard Schwartz, a wealthy financier who has organized dinners with prominent centrist Democrats in order to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., from gaining the Democratic nomination, is reportedly in talks to fund the new Super PAC. Schwartz is known for deep-pocketed donations. In 2016 alone, Schwartz, through his foundation, gave $1 million to Third Way, a centrist group backed by corporate donors that has vigorously opposed Medicare for All and other ideas centered on tackling economic inequality.
The Super PAC could inject badly needed cash. In the most recent quarterly campaign filing, Biden revealed that his campaign had about $8.9 million in cash reserves, far less than many of his closest rivals. Sanders’s campaign had $33 million in cash on hand, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., had about $25 million.
The money churn is far more acute with Biden, who relies on a relatively small pool of elite donors who have already “maxed out” with $2,700 donations. Warren and Sanders have a larger base of fundraising supporters giving small amounts, which they may continue to tap.
Biden has articulated the problem with big-money donations in the past, noting that privately financed elections allow those donors greater access to politicians than ordinary Americans.
“Lobbyists aren’t bad people, special-interest groups are not bad people, but guess what? They’re corrosive,” said Biden during a 2007 campaign event.
“It’s human nature. If you, Lynn, bundle $250,000 for me, all legal, and then you call me after I’m elected and say, ‘Joe, I’d like to talk to you about something. You didn’t buy me. But it’s human nature, you helped me, I’m going to say, ‘Sure, Lynn, come on in,'” he explained.
“The front of the line is always filled with people whose pockets are filled,” said Biden.
In an effort to revive Biden’s prospects, prominent supporters of the former vice president are mobilizing to establish a Super PAC, a bid that the Biden campaign appeared to endorse on Thursday, according to a report in Bloomberg. The move represents a reversal from earlier this year, when Biden rejected support from Super PACs, which can receive unlimited donations from corporations or individuals.
Though Biden has pledged not to take contributions from registered lobbyists, the prohibition appears not to apply to big-dollar organizers of his Super PAC. Among the individuals involved with the effort are several lobbyists for leading corporations and foreign governments.
Longtime Biden supporter Larry Rasky, one of the people involved with the big-money effort, is the founder of lobbying firm Rasky Partners, which is currently registered to lobby on behalf of Raytheon, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, among other clients.
Steve Schale, a former Obama campaign strategist, is a registered state lobbyist with Cardenas Partners, a Florida lobbying firm founded by former Jeb Bush adviser Al Cardenas. Schale’s current client list includes the Florida Hospital Association, JetBlue Airways, State Farm Insurance, Walt Disney Parks, AT&T, and the Associated Industries of Florida.
As The Intercept has reported, despite Biden’s promise to reject lobbyist money, his campaign launched with a fundraiser hosted at the home of Comcast’s chief lobbyist, and his political action committee has a long record of accepting lobbyist cash.
Rasky, Schale, and the Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Rasky Partners lists a number of successful client campaigns on its website, touting efforts to win congressional support for banks and defense contractors. Disclosures show that the firm was previously retained for communications services to the Education Finance Council, a lobby group for student loan companies.
Schale previously served as the spokesperson for the Draft Joe Biden campaign in 2016 and before that, directed the Obama-Biden campaign operation in Florida.
It’s not the first time Biden supporters have floated a Super PAC. In April, Matt Tompkins, a Democratic fundraiser, launched a Super PAC called For the People, designed to support Biden’s campaign. The group never got off the ground. Federal Election Commission records show that the group has not raised any money.
But this time may be different. Bernard Schwartz, a wealthy financier who has organized dinners with prominent centrist Democrats in order to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., from gaining the Democratic nomination, is reportedly in talks to fund the new Super PAC. Schwartz is known for deep-pocketed donations. In 2016 alone, Schwartz, through his foundation, gave $1 million to Third Way, a centrist group backed by corporate donors that has vigorously opposed Medicare for All and other ideas centered on tackling economic inequality.
The Super PAC could inject badly needed cash. In the most recent quarterly campaign filing, Biden revealed that his campaign had about $8.9 million in cash reserves, far less than many of his closest rivals. Sanders’s campaign had $33 million in cash on hand, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., had about $25 million.
The money churn is far more acute with Biden, who relies on a relatively small pool of elite donors who have already “maxed out” with $2,700 donations. Warren and Sanders have a larger base of fundraising supporters giving small amounts, which they may continue to tap.
Biden has articulated the problem with big-money donations in the past, noting that privately financed elections allow those donors greater access to politicians than ordinary Americans.
“Lobbyists aren’t bad people, special-interest groups are not bad people, but guess what? They’re corrosive,” said Biden during a 2007 campaign event.
“It’s human nature. If you, Lynn, bundle $250,000 for me, all legal, and then you call me after I’m elected and say, ‘Joe, I’d like to talk to you about something. You didn’t buy me. But it’s human nature, you helped me, I’m going to say, ‘Sure, Lynn, come on in,'” he explained.
“The front of the line is always filled with people whose pockets are filled,” said Biden.
WAYS AND MEANS CHAIR RICHARD NEAL SIDES WITH PHARMA AND GOP AGAINST AMENDMENTS TO STRENGTHEN DRUG-PRICING BILL
Aída Chávez - the intercept
October 23 2019, 2:21 p.m.
AT AROUND 9:30 on Tuesday night, a full 12 hours after the markup of several pieces of health care legislation had begun in the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, introduced a series of amendments designed to push H.R.3 — Nancy Pelosi’s signature drug-pricing legislation — in a more progressive direction.
“It’s good to know that at 9:30, there are so many present people here,” Doggett quipped. Doggett had withheld sharing his amendments with the committee until late on Monday night in order to pressure both House Democrats and Republicans to pass a stronger bill. That cut against instructions from Committee Chair Richard Neal, D-Mass., who had urged members of the committee not to offer amendments. The first Doggett amendment was a measure to expand the number of prescription drugs that could be negotiated under the bill.
“The chances that the typical patient will see their prices lowered are akin to winning the lottery, said Doggett, criticizing the underlying legislation as too weak. “Is it so burdensome to ask that a few more drugs be done? No, it’s not.”
Republicans, unsurprisingly, became flustered at the introduction of the progressive amendments. Ranking Member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, responded by saying that the amendments were “sprung on” the committee — and chided Doggett for undermining an opportunity for bipartisanship on the bill. “As Republicans, we believe this is a dangerous and extreme approach.” Doggett’s amendment only lifted the number of drugs to be negotiated to 50 after five years, with a later increase to 100 after 10 years.
But even most House Democrats sided with the pharmaceutical industry. Neal quickly brought Doggett’s first amendment to a vote, and the committee quickly voted it down. Doggett was one of only three “aye” votes, Neal not among them.
And only three other Democrats on the panel voted for another amendment proposed by Doggett, to expand access to the lower negotiated rates to the uninsured: Reps. Don Beyer of Virginia, Judy Chu of California, and Gwen Moore of Wisconsin. Doggett added that his proposals are just “modest corrections for big impact.”
“It’s not going to be a bill that’s perfect,” Beyer said as the markup concluded. “It’s not going to make everybody happy, but it’s going to save a lot of lives. This is time to act.”
On Wednesday, Chu told reporters that Neal urged Democrats not to introduce any amendments in order to appear as “unified as possible” during the hearing. “Mr. Doggett did it anyway, and I just felt in good conscience that I had to vote for it,” she said.
But, Chu said, she believes that “there are more Dems on the committee that support [Doggett’s] idea” and that similar amendments will come up on the House floor. When asked whether the directive to keep the bill limited in committee came from Neal himself, Chu said “it was” the chair’s philosophy. “It was strongly urged that we not have amendments.”
H.R.3, NOW NAMED after the late Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, would allow the secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate directly with drug companies on the prices of at least 35 drugs per year. Lowering drug prices is a top legislative priority for the Democratic caucus and considered an opportunity for bipartisanship, since even President Donald Trump has expressed interest in getting something passed.
For months, progressive members have worked to push the proposal further left. Though they have extracted several concessions from leadership, including dropping a contentious provision on arbitration, the caucus’s left flank has remained frustrated with aspects of the bill. Ahead of markups, Democratic leaders increased the minimum number of drugs from 25 to 35, in addition to requiring negotiation for certain newly released drugs. In a statement last month, the Congressional Progressive Caucus noted that they were “pleased” with the changes but still had concerns. For the left, there’s no reason not to support a bill that would cover more drugs for more people.
Democrats cite broad public support for a range of progressive policies to take on the pharmaceutical industry. Recent polling by Social Security Works and the left-leaning think tank Data for Progress shows that, as of September, 79 percent of voters support allowing companies to produce generics if the government determines prices are beyond patients’ ability to pay, including 84 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of Republicans, and 80 percent of independents.
Last week, CPC Co-Chair Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., expressed concerns that the bill does not go far enough, saying that he didn’t know why it shouldn’t require lower prices for more drugs. “If one person would give me that answer, I would be very happy,” he told reporters.
Neal told The Hill on Tuesday ahead of the markup that he intended to “stick with the measure in front of us,” declining to say whether his opposition to Doggett’s amendments had to do with substance. But the 70-year-old lawmaker, who publicly opposes Medicare for All, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of pharmaceutical and insurance industries cash. According to Kaiser Health News, he’s received $670,100 in campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies since 2007. Neal’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Neal is also facing a primary challenge in Massachusetts’ 1st Congressional District from Alex Morse, who became Holyoke’s youngest and first openly gay mayor at age 22 and is running as a proponent of Medicare for All. Morse is backed by Justice Democrats, the group that helped New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez win her long-shot primary race, and also supports sex work decriminalization, defunding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Green New Deal.
Republicans, meanwhile, relied on conservative talking points about the bill undermining innovation and taking away from the pharmaceutical industry’s profits. Republican Rep. George Holding at one point broached the question of whether the bill was even constitutional, which got a few quiet chuckles in the room, and suggested that the committee hold further hearings on that issue.
Tensions between progressive and moderate Democrats will likely escalate as the legislation could come up for a floor vote as soon as next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that Pelosi’s drug-pricing plan won’t be considered in the upper chamber, so the debate within the House is not so much about passing legislation as it is a preview of how Democrats would take on the pharmaceutical industry should they win the White House and the Senate next year.
“It’s good to know that at 9:30, there are so many present people here,” Doggett quipped. Doggett had withheld sharing his amendments with the committee until late on Monday night in order to pressure both House Democrats and Republicans to pass a stronger bill. That cut against instructions from Committee Chair Richard Neal, D-Mass., who had urged members of the committee not to offer amendments. The first Doggett amendment was a measure to expand the number of prescription drugs that could be negotiated under the bill.
“The chances that the typical patient will see their prices lowered are akin to winning the lottery, said Doggett, criticizing the underlying legislation as too weak. “Is it so burdensome to ask that a few more drugs be done? No, it’s not.”
Republicans, unsurprisingly, became flustered at the introduction of the progressive amendments. Ranking Member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, responded by saying that the amendments were “sprung on” the committee — and chided Doggett for undermining an opportunity for bipartisanship on the bill. “As Republicans, we believe this is a dangerous and extreme approach.” Doggett’s amendment only lifted the number of drugs to be negotiated to 50 after five years, with a later increase to 100 after 10 years.
But even most House Democrats sided with the pharmaceutical industry. Neal quickly brought Doggett’s first amendment to a vote, and the committee quickly voted it down. Doggett was one of only three “aye” votes, Neal not among them.
And only three other Democrats on the panel voted for another amendment proposed by Doggett, to expand access to the lower negotiated rates to the uninsured: Reps. Don Beyer of Virginia, Judy Chu of California, and Gwen Moore of Wisconsin. Doggett added that his proposals are just “modest corrections for big impact.”
“It’s not going to be a bill that’s perfect,” Beyer said as the markup concluded. “It’s not going to make everybody happy, but it’s going to save a lot of lives. This is time to act.”
On Wednesday, Chu told reporters that Neal urged Democrats not to introduce any amendments in order to appear as “unified as possible” during the hearing. “Mr. Doggett did it anyway, and I just felt in good conscience that I had to vote for it,” she said.
But, Chu said, she believes that “there are more Dems on the committee that support [Doggett’s] idea” and that similar amendments will come up on the House floor. When asked whether the directive to keep the bill limited in committee came from Neal himself, Chu said “it was” the chair’s philosophy. “It was strongly urged that we not have amendments.”
H.R.3, NOW NAMED after the late Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, would allow the secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate directly with drug companies on the prices of at least 35 drugs per year. Lowering drug prices is a top legislative priority for the Democratic caucus and considered an opportunity for bipartisanship, since even President Donald Trump has expressed interest in getting something passed.
For months, progressive members have worked to push the proposal further left. Though they have extracted several concessions from leadership, including dropping a contentious provision on arbitration, the caucus’s left flank has remained frustrated with aspects of the bill. Ahead of markups, Democratic leaders increased the minimum number of drugs from 25 to 35, in addition to requiring negotiation for certain newly released drugs. In a statement last month, the Congressional Progressive Caucus noted that they were “pleased” with the changes but still had concerns. For the left, there’s no reason not to support a bill that would cover more drugs for more people.
Democrats cite broad public support for a range of progressive policies to take on the pharmaceutical industry. Recent polling by Social Security Works and the left-leaning think tank Data for Progress shows that, as of September, 79 percent of voters support allowing companies to produce generics if the government determines prices are beyond patients’ ability to pay, including 84 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of Republicans, and 80 percent of independents.
Last week, CPC Co-Chair Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., expressed concerns that the bill does not go far enough, saying that he didn’t know why it shouldn’t require lower prices for more drugs. “If one person would give me that answer, I would be very happy,” he told reporters.
Neal told The Hill on Tuesday ahead of the markup that he intended to “stick with the measure in front of us,” declining to say whether his opposition to Doggett’s amendments had to do with substance. But the 70-year-old lawmaker, who publicly opposes Medicare for All, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of pharmaceutical and insurance industries cash. According to Kaiser Health News, he’s received $670,100 in campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies since 2007. Neal’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Neal is also facing a primary challenge in Massachusetts’ 1st Congressional District from Alex Morse, who became Holyoke’s youngest and first openly gay mayor at age 22 and is running as a proponent of Medicare for All. Morse is backed by Justice Democrats, the group that helped New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez win her long-shot primary race, and also supports sex work decriminalization, defunding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Green New Deal.
Republicans, meanwhile, relied on conservative talking points about the bill undermining innovation and taking away from the pharmaceutical industry’s profits. Republican Rep. George Holding at one point broached the question of whether the bill was even constitutional, which got a few quiet chuckles in the room, and suggested that the committee hold further hearings on that issue.
Tensions between progressive and moderate Democrats will likely escalate as the legislation could come up for a floor vote as soon as next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that Pelosi’s drug-pricing plan won’t be considered in the upper chamber, so the debate within the House is not so much about passing legislation as it is a preview of how Democrats would take on the pharmaceutical industry should they win the White House and the Senate next year.
The more Joe Biden stumbles, the more corporate democrats freak out
Norman Solomon / Common Dreams - alterne
t
October 14, 2019
The Democratic Party’s most powerful donors are running out of options in the presidential race. Their warhorse Joe Biden is stumbling, while the other corporate-minded candidates lag far behind. For party elites, with less than four months to go before voting starts in caucuses and primaries, 2020 looks like Biden or bust.
A key problem for the Democratic establishment is that the “electability” argument is vaporizing in the political heat. Biden’s shaky performances on the campaign trail during the last few months have undermined the notion that he’s the best bet to defeat Donald Trump. The latest polling matchups say that Biden and his two strong rivals for the nomination, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, would each hypothetically beat Trump by around 10 points.
As such realities sink in, the focus is turning to where the party’s entrenched power brokers don’t want it to go—the actual merits of the candidates in terms of political history, independence from big-money special interests, and longtime commitment to positions now favored by most Democrats.
With the electability claim diminished, Biden faces a steep climb on the merits of his record and current policy stances. The looming crisis for the Biden forces is reflected in the fact that his top campaign operatives have already publicly conceded he could lose the first two nomination contests, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
And in an era when small donations from the grassroots are adding up to big financial hauls, Biden is so uninspiring that he’s losing the money race by a wide margin. Despite his relentless harvesting of big checks from hedge-fund managers, rich CEOs and the like, Biden’s campaign raised a total of only about $15 million in the last quarter, compared to around $25 million that Sanders and Warren each received. The New York Times noted that the duo’s fundraising totals are markers for “the collective enthusiasm in the party for progressive candidates pushing messages of sweeping change.”
But Biden continues to greatly benefit from the orientations of corporate media outlets that loudly echo the concerns of corporate Democrats (often called “moderates” or “centrists”) and their kindred spirits in realms like Wall Street. Rarely inclined to dispel the longstanding myth of “Lunch Bucket Joe,” reporting has been sparse on his legislative legacy in service to such industries as credit-card companies, banks and the healthcare business.
Media affection for Biden is matched by the biases of corporate media that—for many years—have routinely spun coverage of Sanders in negative ways, amplifying the messages from people at the helm of huge corporations. Recent months have seen no letup of anti-Bernie salvos, with Sanders as a kind of “heat shield” for Warren, catching the vast majority of the left-baiting attacks that would otherwise be aimed at her. Yet, as Warren’s campaign gains momentum, she is becoming more of a prime target for wealthy sectors and their media echo chambers.
A CNBC article summarized on-air comments from network star Jim Cramer: “The financial community is really worried about the possibility of Sen. Elizabeth Warren becoming president.” A theme among corporate executives, he said, is that “she’s got to be stopped.”
Such rumblings have grown louder since that broadcast five weeks ago, as Warren has surged into virtual ties with Biden in national polls. In late September, CNBC reported: “Democratic donors on Wall Street and in big business are preparing to sit out the presidential campaign fundraising cycle—or even back President Donald Trump—if Sen. Elizabeth Warren wins the party’s nomination.”
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders (who I actively support) is even more antithetical to the economic powers that be. He directly advocates for an end to the biz-as-usual that has propelled the rapacious rise of corporate power and widening economic inequality.
Sanders underscored that advocacy in an ABC interview that aired on Sunday: “What we need is, in fact—I don’t want to get people too nervous—we need a political revolution. I am, I believe, the only candidate who’s going to say to the ruling class of this country, the corporate elite: ‘Enough, enough with your greed and with your corruption. We need real change in this country.'”
And Sanders made explicit why—at the same time that Warren is loathed on Wall Street—he is even more feared and despised by champions of predatory capital. “Elizabeth considers herself—if I got the quote correctly—to be a capitalist to her bones,” he said. “I don’t. And the reason I am not is because I will not tolerate for one second the kind of greed and corruption and income and wealth inequality and so much suffering that is going on in this country today, which is unnecessary.”
Days ago, the Bernie 2020 campaign began wide distribution of a sticker that boldly says, “Billionaires Should Not Exist.” That kind of genuine progressive politics is an existential threat to the extremely wealthy, whose riches amid vast income inequality keep killing a lot of people.
Biden, speaking at the Brookings Institution in May 2018, was transparent about why corporate Democrats remain so enamored with him. “I love Bernie, but I’m not Bernie Sanders,” he said. “I don’t think 500 billionaires are the reason why we’re in trouble. . . The folks at the top aren’t bad guys.”
No wonder Dianne Feinstein—snubbing fellow California senator Kamala Harris—recently hosted a high-profile fundraiser for Biden and last week formally endorsed him as “a tireless fighter for hardworking American families.” Feinstein’s net worth is close to $100 million, and her investment-banker husband Richard Blum is a billionaire.
At this point, the shaky Biden for President campaign appears to be the only realistic hope for those who want a defender of corporate greed at the top of the Democratic ticket next year. While progressives who understand Biden’s actual record are determined to prevent him from becoming the presidential nominee, “the folks at the top” are doubling down on their best chance to win the nomination for someone who says they “aren’t bad guys.”
A key problem for the Democratic establishment is that the “electability” argument is vaporizing in the political heat. Biden’s shaky performances on the campaign trail during the last few months have undermined the notion that he’s the best bet to defeat Donald Trump. The latest polling matchups say that Biden and his two strong rivals for the nomination, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, would each hypothetically beat Trump by around 10 points.
As such realities sink in, the focus is turning to where the party’s entrenched power brokers don’t want it to go—the actual merits of the candidates in terms of political history, independence from big-money special interests, and longtime commitment to positions now favored by most Democrats.
With the electability claim diminished, Biden faces a steep climb on the merits of his record and current policy stances. The looming crisis for the Biden forces is reflected in the fact that his top campaign operatives have already publicly conceded he could lose the first two nomination contests, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
And in an era when small donations from the grassroots are adding up to big financial hauls, Biden is so uninspiring that he’s losing the money race by a wide margin. Despite his relentless harvesting of big checks from hedge-fund managers, rich CEOs and the like, Biden’s campaign raised a total of only about $15 million in the last quarter, compared to around $25 million that Sanders and Warren each received. The New York Times noted that the duo’s fundraising totals are markers for “the collective enthusiasm in the party for progressive candidates pushing messages of sweeping change.”
But Biden continues to greatly benefit from the orientations of corporate media outlets that loudly echo the concerns of corporate Democrats (often called “moderates” or “centrists”) and their kindred spirits in realms like Wall Street. Rarely inclined to dispel the longstanding myth of “Lunch Bucket Joe,” reporting has been sparse on his legislative legacy in service to such industries as credit-card companies, banks and the healthcare business.
Media affection for Biden is matched by the biases of corporate media that—for many years—have routinely spun coverage of Sanders in negative ways, amplifying the messages from people at the helm of huge corporations. Recent months have seen no letup of anti-Bernie salvos, with Sanders as a kind of “heat shield” for Warren, catching the vast majority of the left-baiting attacks that would otherwise be aimed at her. Yet, as Warren’s campaign gains momentum, she is becoming more of a prime target for wealthy sectors and their media echo chambers.
A CNBC article summarized on-air comments from network star Jim Cramer: “The financial community is really worried about the possibility of Sen. Elizabeth Warren becoming president.” A theme among corporate executives, he said, is that “she’s got to be stopped.”
Such rumblings have grown louder since that broadcast five weeks ago, as Warren has surged into virtual ties with Biden in national polls. In late September, CNBC reported: “Democratic donors on Wall Street and in big business are preparing to sit out the presidential campaign fundraising cycle—or even back President Donald Trump—if Sen. Elizabeth Warren wins the party’s nomination.”
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders (who I actively support) is even more antithetical to the economic powers that be. He directly advocates for an end to the biz-as-usual that has propelled the rapacious rise of corporate power and widening economic inequality.
Sanders underscored that advocacy in an ABC interview that aired on Sunday: “What we need is, in fact—I don’t want to get people too nervous—we need a political revolution. I am, I believe, the only candidate who’s going to say to the ruling class of this country, the corporate elite: ‘Enough, enough with your greed and with your corruption. We need real change in this country.'”
And Sanders made explicit why—at the same time that Warren is loathed on Wall Street—he is even more feared and despised by champions of predatory capital. “Elizabeth considers herself—if I got the quote correctly—to be a capitalist to her bones,” he said. “I don’t. And the reason I am not is because I will not tolerate for one second the kind of greed and corruption and income and wealth inequality and so much suffering that is going on in this country today, which is unnecessary.”
Days ago, the Bernie 2020 campaign began wide distribution of a sticker that boldly says, “Billionaires Should Not Exist.” That kind of genuine progressive politics is an existential threat to the extremely wealthy, whose riches amid vast income inequality keep killing a lot of people.
Biden, speaking at the Brookings Institution in May 2018, was transparent about why corporate Democrats remain so enamored with him. “I love Bernie, but I’m not Bernie Sanders,” he said. “I don’t think 500 billionaires are the reason why we’re in trouble. . . The folks at the top aren’t bad guys.”
No wonder Dianne Feinstein—snubbing fellow California senator Kamala Harris—recently hosted a high-profile fundraiser for Biden and last week formally endorsed him as “a tireless fighter for hardworking American families.” Feinstein’s net worth is close to $100 million, and her investment-banker husband Richard Blum is a billionaire.
At this point, the shaky Biden for President campaign appears to be the only realistic hope for those who want a defender of corporate greed at the top of the Democratic ticket next year. While progressives who understand Biden’s actual record are determined to prevent him from becoming the presidential nominee, “the folks at the top” are doubling down on their best chance to win the nomination for someone who says they “aren’t bad guys.”
Demand Justice targets Democratic Sen. Chris Coons for voting in favor of Trump judicial nominees
Eoin Higgins / Common Dreams - alternet
October 3, 2019
A number of Senate Democrats are angry at judicial advocacy group Demand Justice for going after the chamber’s members for voting in favor of President Donald Trump’s unprecedented slew of federal judges, but the organization’s leader isn’t backing down.
“We think that the idea of doing horse trading with this administration is not worth it,” Demand Justice executive director Brian Fallon told Politico Wednesday.
Fallon is under fire from Democratic senators who feel that Demand Justice’s September ad buy in Delaware targeting Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat, is over the line. Coons has supported a number of Trump nominees, including, Demand Justice said, some whose support of Brown v. Board of Education is in doubt.
“That was way out of line,” complained Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
But it’s in keeping with the group’s mission, as Politico explained:
Demand Justice’s message on judges is simple: Democrats should reject all Trump’s judges. Fallon argues that Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees and that Democrats should take a page from their playbook. Like the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, Demand Justice uses ads to pressure Democratic senators on their voting records.
When the ad buy was announced, Coons spokesman Sean Coits rejected Demand Justice’s accusations.
“Senator Coons has opposed unqualified Trump nominees—both for judgeships and administration positions,” said Coits, “and has supported some whom he believes are qualified for their positions.”
The criticism isn’t deterring Fallon and Demand Justice, however.
“We plan to invest in Delaware a lot more heavily in the coming months, assuming Chris Coons continues voting for Trump judges,” Fallon said. “If that’s a record he’s proud of and feels like he can defend then he has nothing to worry about from our ads.”
Fallon was silent on social media Wednesday after the Politico report’s release. But he did retweet Demand Justice:
“We think that the idea of doing horse trading with this administration is not worth it,” Demand Justice executive director Brian Fallon told Politico Wednesday.
Fallon is under fire from Democratic senators who feel that Demand Justice’s September ad buy in Delaware targeting Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat, is over the line. Coons has supported a number of Trump nominees, including, Demand Justice said, some whose support of Brown v. Board of Education is in doubt.
“That was way out of line,” complained Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
But it’s in keeping with the group’s mission, as Politico explained:
Demand Justice’s message on judges is simple: Democrats should reject all Trump’s judges. Fallon argues that Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees and that Democrats should take a page from their playbook. Like the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, Demand Justice uses ads to pressure Democratic senators on their voting records.
When the ad buy was announced, Coons spokesman Sean Coits rejected Demand Justice’s accusations.
“Senator Coons has opposed unqualified Trump nominees—both for judgeships and administration positions,” said Coits, “and has supported some whom he believes are qualified for their positions.”
The criticism isn’t deterring Fallon and Demand Justice, however.
“We plan to invest in Delaware a lot more heavily in the coming months, assuming Chris Coons continues voting for Trump judges,” Fallon said. “If that’s a record he’s proud of and feels like he can defend then he has nothing to worry about from our ads.”
Fallon was silent on social media Wednesday after the Politico report’s release. But he did retweet Demand Justice:
EXXON MOBIL IS FUNDING CENTRIST DEMOCRATIC THINK TANK, DISCLOSURES REVEAL
Kate Aronoff - the intercept
September 6 2019, 7:03 a.m.
THE PROGRESSIVE POLICY Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank that grew out of the party’s pro-business wing in the 1980s and ’90s, received $50,000 from Exxon Mobil in 2018 via its parent organization, the Third Way Foundation, according to the oil giant’s 2018 Worldwide Giving Report.
Exxon Mobil did not return The Intercept’s multiple requests for comment. In an email, PPI Executive Director Lindsay Lewis said the money was used for general support and that “we only accept general support funding from corporate interests, we do not do paid for work/research or have any donor run programs.”
Lewis also confirmed that this is the first time Exxon Mobil has donated to the Third Way Foundation.
Though it’s a first, PPI’s new donor isn’t so dramatic a shift from its fundraising record. The Intercept’s Akela Lacy has also found that PhRMA — the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — has annually donated between $25,000 and $75,000 to the Third Way Foundation since 2009, upping its donation to $265,000 in 2016 — the same year that Medicare for All, which the trade group and PPI both oppose, entered the national spotlight. Donations dipped back to normal levels in 2017, although documents were not yet available for 2018 when the piece was published in late April.
In the last couple years, Exxon has taken up softer messaging on climate than either the Koch brothers or the Mercer family. With business all over the world, Exxon — like every other multinational oil company — is well-accustomed to operating in environments where denying the reality of the climate emergency outright is politically unthinkable. As climate concerns spike around the U.S., the company is still plenty opposed to environmental regulations and the lawsuits being lobbed its way from climate-vulnerable communities and attorneys general, who are each calling into question Exxon’s rule in fueling both the climate crisis and misinformation campaigns about it. Rather than paying people to say that there’s no problem at all, it can rebrand as a good-faith actor in the climate fight with paeans to carbon capture technology, low-carbon fuels (algae!), and carbon taxes that also conveniently exempt it from some of the lawsuits and regulations it’s most worried about. The decades of climate denial Exxon helped fund — and now the Trump administration — have dragged the national debate on climate change so far into the gutter that there are influentials liberals willing to give the company credit simply for not denying the science.
This all dovetails well with a centrist approach to climate politics that’s long sought common ground with industry and harbors both temperamental and ideological opposition to big, confrontational proposals like the Green New Deal. The upshot is that they’ve started to sound a lot alike. Carbon capture, R&D, and carbon pricing — while not mutually exclusive with the Green New Deal framework that the Sunrise Movement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others have begun to flesh out — have reliably been wielded as a cudgel by establishment types against calls for more sweeping action.
Kert Davies, founder and director of the Climate Investigations Center, noted that the report indicates the money PPI received was through a “corporate” grant, rather than through the ExxonMobil Foundation. “We have never sussed how these two black boxes of money are managed or dolled out. So if you grab the ExxonMobil Foundation 990s, there are sometimes different descriptions or breakdowns of the funding, but this grant won’t be there,” he wrote in an email. “There is no need for public accounting of such grants. No obligation. But they have seemed compelled to disclosed them through the years.”
Of course, $50,000 is not an enormous amount of money either for PPI or Exxon Mobil. But it may well signal a shift in the fossil fuel industry’s relationship to climate politics.
For years, Exxon Mobil prolifically funded climate denier groups like the Heartland Institute and Competitive Enterprise Institute. Under pressure, the company pledged to stop funding deniers in 2007, although it kept bankrolling politicians who deny the reality of the climate crisis. Exxon also still support right-wing think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, which received $970,200 from Exxon between 2008 and 2018. As recently as 2011, MI Senior Fellow Robert Bryce said “the science is not settled” on climate change. Another MI Senior Fellow, Oren Cass, last year — the year after three of the five most expensive hurricanes to have ever hit the Atlantic — authored a report arguing that the potential costs of climate change are overblown, suggesting that many people prefer warmer temperatures and could adapt easily to global warming. In addition to Exxon, MI is — like other flagrant denier groups — funded by the Mercer Family Foundation; Rebekah Mercer, a key financier of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, runs the foundation and sits on the MI board. Exxon also continues to give large donations the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and remains a member of the American Petroleum Institute, each of which has fought hard against environmental regulations and climate measures. The oil company only left the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council in 2017, four years after it pushed model legislation in Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona that described global warming as a “theory.”
Itai Vardi reported at DeSmog this summer that Phil Goldberg, director of PPI’s Center for Civil Justice, has come out swinging against climate lawsuits being brought by cities and states against fossil fuel companies. The law firm at which Goldberg is a partner — Shook, Hardy & Bacon — defended the tobacco industry for decades and was the inspiration for the fictional firm Smoot, Hawking in the 2005 film “Thank You For Smoking.” As a slew of lawsuits has begun to call into question fossil fuel companies’ role in fueling and spreading misinformation about the climate crisis, the industry has stepped into high gear to fight off litigation.
Goldberg is a former lobbyist for the coal company Peabody Energy who was brought on as special counsel by the National Association of Manufacturers in January as part of its Manufacturers Accountability Project, founded in 2017 to take on “activist litigation” against big oil companies; Exxon Mobil is a NAM member, and the MAP project has been among the most active bodies fighting off climate-related legal action. Both Peabody and NAM have also donated generously to climate denial groups over the years. Both, for instance, were members of the now-defunct Global Climate Coalition, which through the 1990s sought to undermine U.N. climate negotiations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Goldberg has also been an adviser for ALEC’s Civil Justice Task Force. In addition to the model legislation on global warming, ALEC has vigorously opposed climate and clean energy legislation around the country.
Lewis said that Goldberg works with PPI in a volunteer capacity and is not employed by the Third Way Foundation, despite his lofty title. Evidently, he’s vocally defending fossil fuel companies out of the goodness of his heart.
In March, Goldberg co-authored a report for the industry front group Grow America’s Infrastructure Now on how to bring legal action against anti-pipeline organizers. “Allowing vigilante regulation to go unchecked undermines our democracy. We honor civil protests in this country, but we should not have to accept improper efforts to overturn the rule of law,” Goldberg said in a press release. “People who violate the law by improperly interfering with legitimate business activities, even to advance a political or public policy preference, can be held accountable for their actions through civil litigation.” While not disclosed on the group’s website, GAIN spokesperson Craig Stevens is a partner at the DCI Group, which specializes in astroturf campaigns that have fought everything from anti-smoking laws to climate legislation. From 2005 through 2016, Exxon Mobil was a DCI client. In another detail not mentioned on the GAIN site, the group’s strategic adviser is James “Spider” Marks, who as of 2017 was the advisory board chair of the security firm TigerSwan, which — as The Intercept has documented extensively — engaged in “military-style counterterrorism measures” against anti-pipeline protesters.
Asked whether Goldberg’s positions on climate litigation were also PPI’s, Lewis replied, “PPI, which has long advocated for cap and trade, a carbon tax, and other polices to combat climate change, believes such policies should be made in representative legislatures, not the courts.” In short, yes.
Throughout the 2020 campaign cycle, PPI strategic adviser and Clinton White House insider Paul Bledsoe has commented frequently about the dangers of candidates being too hard on fossil fuels. “[Joe] Biden and other moderate candidates must emphasize that the market is already phasing out coal over time, but that their climate policies still allow a role for natural gas as a low-carbon transition fuel for some time,” he told the Washington Examiner in August. “This distinction is crucial to success in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.” In a New York Times piece about Biden’s critics on the left, Bledsoe said, “Indulging in ideological purity is great until you actually want to solve the problem.”
“Happily,” he wrote in a February Forbes op-ed attacking the Green New Deal, “there is no need to eliminate fossil fuels in the next decade or require only renewable energy or guarantee public sector jobs to meet our climate goals.” We might never find out what Exxon Mobil’s money got up to at PPI last year. If its experts keep sounding like Bledsoe and Goldberg, though, it’ll probably keep coming.
Exxon Mobil did not return The Intercept’s multiple requests for comment. In an email, PPI Executive Director Lindsay Lewis said the money was used for general support and that “we only accept general support funding from corporate interests, we do not do paid for work/research or have any donor run programs.”
Lewis also confirmed that this is the first time Exxon Mobil has donated to the Third Way Foundation.
Though it’s a first, PPI’s new donor isn’t so dramatic a shift from its fundraising record. The Intercept’s Akela Lacy has also found that PhRMA — the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — has annually donated between $25,000 and $75,000 to the Third Way Foundation since 2009, upping its donation to $265,000 in 2016 — the same year that Medicare for All, which the trade group and PPI both oppose, entered the national spotlight. Donations dipped back to normal levels in 2017, although documents were not yet available for 2018 when the piece was published in late April.
In the last couple years, Exxon has taken up softer messaging on climate than either the Koch brothers or the Mercer family. With business all over the world, Exxon — like every other multinational oil company — is well-accustomed to operating in environments where denying the reality of the climate emergency outright is politically unthinkable. As climate concerns spike around the U.S., the company is still plenty opposed to environmental regulations and the lawsuits being lobbed its way from climate-vulnerable communities and attorneys general, who are each calling into question Exxon’s rule in fueling both the climate crisis and misinformation campaigns about it. Rather than paying people to say that there’s no problem at all, it can rebrand as a good-faith actor in the climate fight with paeans to carbon capture technology, low-carbon fuels (algae!), and carbon taxes that also conveniently exempt it from some of the lawsuits and regulations it’s most worried about. The decades of climate denial Exxon helped fund — and now the Trump administration — have dragged the national debate on climate change so far into the gutter that there are influentials liberals willing to give the company credit simply for not denying the science.
This all dovetails well with a centrist approach to climate politics that’s long sought common ground with industry and harbors both temperamental and ideological opposition to big, confrontational proposals like the Green New Deal. The upshot is that they’ve started to sound a lot alike. Carbon capture, R&D, and carbon pricing — while not mutually exclusive with the Green New Deal framework that the Sunrise Movement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others have begun to flesh out — have reliably been wielded as a cudgel by establishment types against calls for more sweeping action.
Kert Davies, founder and director of the Climate Investigations Center, noted that the report indicates the money PPI received was through a “corporate” grant, rather than through the ExxonMobil Foundation. “We have never sussed how these two black boxes of money are managed or dolled out. So if you grab the ExxonMobil Foundation 990s, there are sometimes different descriptions or breakdowns of the funding, but this grant won’t be there,” he wrote in an email. “There is no need for public accounting of such grants. No obligation. But they have seemed compelled to disclosed them through the years.”
Of course, $50,000 is not an enormous amount of money either for PPI or Exxon Mobil. But it may well signal a shift in the fossil fuel industry’s relationship to climate politics.
For years, Exxon Mobil prolifically funded climate denier groups like the Heartland Institute and Competitive Enterprise Institute. Under pressure, the company pledged to stop funding deniers in 2007, although it kept bankrolling politicians who deny the reality of the climate crisis. Exxon also still support right-wing think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, which received $970,200 from Exxon between 2008 and 2018. As recently as 2011, MI Senior Fellow Robert Bryce said “the science is not settled” on climate change. Another MI Senior Fellow, Oren Cass, last year — the year after three of the five most expensive hurricanes to have ever hit the Atlantic — authored a report arguing that the potential costs of climate change are overblown, suggesting that many people prefer warmer temperatures and could adapt easily to global warming. In addition to Exxon, MI is — like other flagrant denier groups — funded by the Mercer Family Foundation; Rebekah Mercer, a key financier of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, runs the foundation and sits on the MI board. Exxon also continues to give large donations the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and remains a member of the American Petroleum Institute, each of which has fought hard against environmental regulations and climate measures. The oil company only left the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council in 2017, four years after it pushed model legislation in Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona that described global warming as a “theory.”
Itai Vardi reported at DeSmog this summer that Phil Goldberg, director of PPI’s Center for Civil Justice, has come out swinging against climate lawsuits being brought by cities and states against fossil fuel companies. The law firm at which Goldberg is a partner — Shook, Hardy & Bacon — defended the tobacco industry for decades and was the inspiration for the fictional firm Smoot, Hawking in the 2005 film “Thank You For Smoking.” As a slew of lawsuits has begun to call into question fossil fuel companies’ role in fueling and spreading misinformation about the climate crisis, the industry has stepped into high gear to fight off litigation.
Goldberg is a former lobbyist for the coal company Peabody Energy who was brought on as special counsel by the National Association of Manufacturers in January as part of its Manufacturers Accountability Project, founded in 2017 to take on “activist litigation” against big oil companies; Exxon Mobil is a NAM member, and the MAP project has been among the most active bodies fighting off climate-related legal action. Both Peabody and NAM have also donated generously to climate denial groups over the years. Both, for instance, were members of the now-defunct Global Climate Coalition, which through the 1990s sought to undermine U.N. climate negotiations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Goldberg has also been an adviser for ALEC’s Civil Justice Task Force. In addition to the model legislation on global warming, ALEC has vigorously opposed climate and clean energy legislation around the country.
Lewis said that Goldberg works with PPI in a volunteer capacity and is not employed by the Third Way Foundation, despite his lofty title. Evidently, he’s vocally defending fossil fuel companies out of the goodness of his heart.
In March, Goldberg co-authored a report for the industry front group Grow America’s Infrastructure Now on how to bring legal action against anti-pipeline organizers. “Allowing vigilante regulation to go unchecked undermines our democracy. We honor civil protests in this country, but we should not have to accept improper efforts to overturn the rule of law,” Goldberg said in a press release. “People who violate the law by improperly interfering with legitimate business activities, even to advance a political or public policy preference, can be held accountable for their actions through civil litigation.” While not disclosed on the group’s website, GAIN spokesperson Craig Stevens is a partner at the DCI Group, which specializes in astroturf campaigns that have fought everything from anti-smoking laws to climate legislation. From 2005 through 2016, Exxon Mobil was a DCI client. In another detail not mentioned on the GAIN site, the group’s strategic adviser is James “Spider” Marks, who as of 2017 was the advisory board chair of the security firm TigerSwan, which — as The Intercept has documented extensively — engaged in “military-style counterterrorism measures” against anti-pipeline protesters.
Asked whether Goldberg’s positions on climate litigation were also PPI’s, Lewis replied, “PPI, which has long advocated for cap and trade, a carbon tax, and other polices to combat climate change, believes such policies should be made in representative legislatures, not the courts.” In short, yes.
Throughout the 2020 campaign cycle, PPI strategic adviser and Clinton White House insider Paul Bledsoe has commented frequently about the dangers of candidates being too hard on fossil fuels. “[Joe] Biden and other moderate candidates must emphasize that the market is already phasing out coal over time, but that their climate policies still allow a role for natural gas as a low-carbon transition fuel for some time,” he told the Washington Examiner in August. “This distinction is crucial to success in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.” In a New York Times piece about Biden’s critics on the left, Bledsoe said, “Indulging in ideological purity is great until you actually want to solve the problem.”
“Happily,” he wrote in a February Forbes op-ed attacking the Green New Deal, “there is no need to eliminate fossil fuels in the next decade or require only renewable energy or guarantee public sector jobs to meet our climate goals.” We might never find out what Exxon Mobil’s money got up to at PPI last year. If its experts keep sounding like Bledsoe and Goldberg, though, it’ll probably keep coming.
Why Is a Freshman Democrat Attacking Progressives in a Washington Post Series?
BY William Rivers Pitt, Truthout
PUBLISHED August 21, 2019
The manner in which the establishment press will rally to the cause of conservative Democrats whenever progressive ideas gain traction has been well documented in this space. The sun rose on Tuesday morning to shine down on yet another example of the practice, this time in the guise of a Washington Post puff piece about Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger … except it wasn’t so much a puff piece as a frontal assault on the progressive wing of the House Democratic caucus.
Rep. Spanberger, who defeated Republican Dave Brat in 2018, is one of the cluster of newly elected, “centrist” Democrats Speaker Nancy Pelosi protects and cherishes as her key to holding the majority in 2020. While progressives everywhere were pleased at the prospect of Brat no longer polluting the House chamber, his replacement is suddenly proving to be a muddle of strangeness whose motive for actively participating in a brazen hit piece against fellow Democrats remains opaque.
Spanberger’s record is undeniably left of many of the red-state “Blue Dog” Democrats who came into the 116th Congress with her last November, who prefer the term “moderate” because “conservative” is bad for the brand. She has voted “Yes” on almost every bill put forward by the House during this session, many of which were important pieces of progressive legislation.
More than that, Spanberger has personally co-sponsored legislation to denounce Trump, address climate change, fully fund care for 9/11 rescue workers, enhance background checks for gun purchases, and in defense of transgender members of the military. Her only “No” vote to date was cast against the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, joining progressive “Squad” Reps. Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley in their opposition.
However, some of her “Yes” votes were deeply troubling. Spanberger’s conservative colors were revealed when she co-sponsored legislation condemning activism against Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank and for Palestinian human rights.
And then there’s the issue of immigration. A review of the Post piece reveals that the bruises Spanberger absorbed after a “Yes” vote — in favor of the Trump-favored Republican border funding bill — remain fresh.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and a number of progressive House members vigorously opposed the bill because it kept open concentration camps housing separated children, and put no restrictions on how Donald Trump could spend the appropriated funds.
For a time, it appeared a progressive version of that border funding legislation might see the light of day, which would have put Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his caucus in a challenging spot.
Ultimately, however, the bill was thoroughly bungled by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate, and Speaker Pelosi angrily bowed to the inevitable. For AOC and her fellow progressives, it was a stinging act of political cowardice compounded by flagrant ineptitude, and their reaction was both swift and caustic.
Spanberger, it seems, did not enjoy becoming the subject of their ire after that calamity of a bill passed with her help. Nearly two months later, her bitterness has not subsided. “That week,” she is quoted in the article as saying, “showed me that for some people, ideology matters more than putting food in the mouth of a child.”
Got that, everyone? Spanberger says progressives don’t want to feed children. Pretty subtle stuff. Next week: Progressives want to destroy the sun.
It gets weirder from there. The Post article obliquely notes how “most people knew” Spanberger was once an undercover CIA operative, skipping the part about how she had to get portions of her Agency record declassified in order to run for Congress. When pressed for details on her CIA career before last year’s midterms, Spanberger had few to offer. “I talk in broad brush terms about what it is that I did,” she told ABC News, “because that’s all I am permitted to do.”
For the record, I was not among the “most” who knew of Spanberger’s CIA past. I did not know that it was her love of languages that compelled her to specifically apply for work at the CIA. I do, however, know the CIA has been actively craving linguistics experts since the inception of the so-called war on terror. One can only imagine where Spanberger’s talents took her in her eight and a half years with the Agency during that torture-riddled affair. One thing is certain: She’s not telling.
Spanberger was more than happy to explain to the Post why her years spent working for “the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service” give her credibility when it comes to voting with Republicans on immigration issues and attacking progressives for failing to do the same.
While an official for the Postal Inspection Service, Spanberger worked primarily on drug and money laundering cases. As the only Spanish speaker during many of the arrests she was involved with, she was “the one dealing with crying children, telling them that we were taking their Daddy away,” she told the Post. “I was the one talking to a crying wife, saying why we were arresting her spouse.”
The Post explains that Spanberger “wanted her [House] colleagues to know she had experience easing children through difficult moments and was trying to act in their best interest.” Apparently, in order to properly contextualize votes that keep concentration camps open and funded, one must be able to think like an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. Thinking like an ICE agent also probably helps when you’re slagging House progressives in the D.C. paper of record.
“Spanberger visited the border with a bipartisan group, a trip that confirmed her position that the situation can improve only by addressing the root of the problem,” reports the Post. “For example, she favors adding more immigration judges to eliminate the backlog of migrants seeking asylum.”
Kudos to her for visiting the border (Speaker Pelosi finally got around to it a bit over a week ago). That being said, one might strenuously argue that addressing “the root of the problem” has more to do with reforming U.S. policy in Central and South America than it does with appointing additional judges to put additional people into detention centers for the crime of fleeing the consequences of U.S. policy.
The article concludes with “almost everyone” applauding Spanberger at a Virginia town hall event after she told the assemblage she was against impeaching Trump. “Congress has the role of asking questions because we should want to get to the bottom of things,” she told a constituent, quoting the Pelosi line on impeachment to the note.
House progressives have shown promising strength and vitality since the 2018 midterms, yet political reality is a subtle thing, and Pelosi’s arithmetic regarding 2020 is not entirely off base. In order to maintain majority control of the House, conservative Democrats from conservative states must be endured to a certain degree. Expecting deep-red districts to elect and then re-elect a bunch of AOC clones is not reasonable at this juncture, and so space must be made for conservative House Democrats to be who and what the voters who put them there want.
This does not explain why Rep. Spanberger chose to be the starring figure in a Washington Post hit piece on progressives regarding immigration, especially after compiling a mostly-progressive voting record that would stand up to scrutiny in many of the bluest districts in the land. Highlighting her CIA and law enforcement past while insinuating that progressives hate feeding children would seem to suggest her voting record is set to take a hard right turn. Bitterness, after all, leaves a lingering aftertaste.
My request to Rep. Spanberger’s press office for comment on her participation in the Post article received no reply, but that’s fine, we’ll be hearing more in the coming months. The last line of the piece reads, “This is part of an occasional series of stories about Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s first year in office.” Clearly, the Post is more than happy to help a Democrat attack House progressives, and Spanberger probably digs the ink she gets by serving as that paper’s willing accomplice. Just another day in politics.
Rep. Spanberger, who defeated Republican Dave Brat in 2018, is one of the cluster of newly elected, “centrist” Democrats Speaker Nancy Pelosi protects and cherishes as her key to holding the majority in 2020. While progressives everywhere were pleased at the prospect of Brat no longer polluting the House chamber, his replacement is suddenly proving to be a muddle of strangeness whose motive for actively participating in a brazen hit piece against fellow Democrats remains opaque.
Spanberger’s record is undeniably left of many of the red-state “Blue Dog” Democrats who came into the 116th Congress with her last November, who prefer the term “moderate” because “conservative” is bad for the brand. She has voted “Yes” on almost every bill put forward by the House during this session, many of which were important pieces of progressive legislation.
More than that, Spanberger has personally co-sponsored legislation to denounce Trump, address climate change, fully fund care for 9/11 rescue workers, enhance background checks for gun purchases, and in defense of transgender members of the military. Her only “No” vote to date was cast against the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, joining progressive “Squad” Reps. Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley in their opposition.
However, some of her “Yes” votes were deeply troubling. Spanberger’s conservative colors were revealed when she co-sponsored legislation condemning activism against Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank and for Palestinian human rights.
And then there’s the issue of immigration. A review of the Post piece reveals that the bruises Spanberger absorbed after a “Yes” vote — in favor of the Trump-favored Republican border funding bill — remain fresh.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and a number of progressive House members vigorously opposed the bill because it kept open concentration camps housing separated children, and put no restrictions on how Donald Trump could spend the appropriated funds.
For a time, it appeared a progressive version of that border funding legislation might see the light of day, which would have put Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his caucus in a challenging spot.
Ultimately, however, the bill was thoroughly bungled by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate, and Speaker Pelosi angrily bowed to the inevitable. For AOC and her fellow progressives, it was a stinging act of political cowardice compounded by flagrant ineptitude, and their reaction was both swift and caustic.
Spanberger, it seems, did not enjoy becoming the subject of their ire after that calamity of a bill passed with her help. Nearly two months later, her bitterness has not subsided. “That week,” she is quoted in the article as saying, “showed me that for some people, ideology matters more than putting food in the mouth of a child.”
Got that, everyone? Spanberger says progressives don’t want to feed children. Pretty subtle stuff. Next week: Progressives want to destroy the sun.
It gets weirder from there. The Post article obliquely notes how “most people knew” Spanberger was once an undercover CIA operative, skipping the part about how she had to get portions of her Agency record declassified in order to run for Congress. When pressed for details on her CIA career before last year’s midterms, Spanberger had few to offer. “I talk in broad brush terms about what it is that I did,” she told ABC News, “because that’s all I am permitted to do.”
For the record, I was not among the “most” who knew of Spanberger’s CIA past. I did not know that it was her love of languages that compelled her to specifically apply for work at the CIA. I do, however, know the CIA has been actively craving linguistics experts since the inception of the so-called war on terror. One can only imagine where Spanberger’s talents took her in her eight and a half years with the Agency during that torture-riddled affair. One thing is certain: She’s not telling.
Spanberger was more than happy to explain to the Post why her years spent working for “the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service” give her credibility when it comes to voting with Republicans on immigration issues and attacking progressives for failing to do the same.
While an official for the Postal Inspection Service, Spanberger worked primarily on drug and money laundering cases. As the only Spanish speaker during many of the arrests she was involved with, she was “the one dealing with crying children, telling them that we were taking their Daddy away,” she told the Post. “I was the one talking to a crying wife, saying why we were arresting her spouse.”
The Post explains that Spanberger “wanted her [House] colleagues to know she had experience easing children through difficult moments and was trying to act in their best interest.” Apparently, in order to properly contextualize votes that keep concentration camps open and funded, one must be able to think like an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. Thinking like an ICE agent also probably helps when you’re slagging House progressives in the D.C. paper of record.
“Spanberger visited the border with a bipartisan group, a trip that confirmed her position that the situation can improve only by addressing the root of the problem,” reports the Post. “For example, she favors adding more immigration judges to eliminate the backlog of migrants seeking asylum.”
Kudos to her for visiting the border (Speaker Pelosi finally got around to it a bit over a week ago). That being said, one might strenuously argue that addressing “the root of the problem” has more to do with reforming U.S. policy in Central and South America than it does with appointing additional judges to put additional people into detention centers for the crime of fleeing the consequences of U.S. policy.
The article concludes with “almost everyone” applauding Spanberger at a Virginia town hall event after she told the assemblage she was against impeaching Trump. “Congress has the role of asking questions because we should want to get to the bottom of things,” she told a constituent, quoting the Pelosi line on impeachment to the note.
House progressives have shown promising strength and vitality since the 2018 midterms, yet political reality is a subtle thing, and Pelosi’s arithmetic regarding 2020 is not entirely off base. In order to maintain majority control of the House, conservative Democrats from conservative states must be endured to a certain degree. Expecting deep-red districts to elect and then re-elect a bunch of AOC clones is not reasonable at this juncture, and so space must be made for conservative House Democrats to be who and what the voters who put them there want.
This does not explain why Rep. Spanberger chose to be the starring figure in a Washington Post hit piece on progressives regarding immigration, especially after compiling a mostly-progressive voting record that would stand up to scrutiny in many of the bluest districts in the land. Highlighting her CIA and law enforcement past while insinuating that progressives hate feeding children would seem to suggest her voting record is set to take a hard right turn. Bitterness, after all, leaves a lingering aftertaste.
My request to Rep. Spanberger’s press office for comment on her participation in the Post article received no reply, but that’s fine, we’ll be hearing more in the coming months. The last line of the piece reads, “This is part of an occasional series of stories about Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s first year in office.” Clearly, the Post is more than happy to help a Democrat attack House progressives, and Spanberger probably digs the ink she gets by serving as that paper’s willing accomplice. Just another day in politics.
THE KOCHS FUNDED THIRD WAY TO PUSH FREE TRADE TO DEMOCRATS, NEW BOOK SAYS
Ryan Grim, Andrew Perez - The Intercept
August 13 2019, 3:00 a.m.
IN THE FALL OF 2007, the tide was beginning to turn against free trade, as the ongoing hollowing out of the American middle class was becoming associated with globalization and the offshoring of jobs. Its leading public opponent was the bombastic CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, a proto-Trump whose economic nationalism curdled easily into racism and nativism. Many Democrats, too, were turning sour on free trade. Then-President George W. Bush relied on Republican votes to ram through the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005, but future deals were looking far from certain, particularly after Democrats seized control of Congress in the 2006 midterms.
This was a direct threat to Koch Industries, the sprawling business empire long led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. The fossil-fuel giant’s business has long been based on importing oil from Canadian tar sands, which it refines at its massive Pine Bend plant in Minnesota — and the opposition to free trade threatened to make that business much more costly. The Kochs desperately needed help with Democrats, so they turned to a reliable partner: Third Way.
According to the new book “Kochland,” written by investigative reporter Christopher Leonard, Koch Industries secretly financed a report by Third Way, a corporate-funded think tank with ties to the centrist wing of the Democratic Party. The report, titled “Why Lou Dobbs is Winning” and published in November 2007, was written to promote the free trade agenda to liberals. The white paper explained it would be the first salvo in a yearlong effort to reshape the messaging around trade policy, warning that “a new and powerful populist strain has emerged on both the left and the right of American politics that threatens to turn the nation fearful and inward.”
Third Way and Koch Industries did not respond to requests for comment.
While Third Way’s report did not note any funding from Koch Industries or any related companies or organizations, it did offer thanks to Rob Hall, then a lobbyist for Koch Industries’ Invista division, “for his support in helping us conceive of and design Third Way’s trade project,” adding credence to Leonard’s claim that the Kochs were behind the effort. Hall was previously a Koch executive. The report also added: “The authors offer their sincerest thanks to Third Way’s Board of Trustees for their continuing intellectual support of Third Way and in particular for providing several of the key initial insights on which this paper is built.” Third Way’s board of trustees is a who’s who of Wall Street and corporate elites.
It may seem odd to see the Koch brothers, who operate today as partisan Republicans, aligning with business-friendly Democrats, but the strategy dates back further. A 2001 American Prospect investigation noted that Koch Industries was a member of the executive council of the Democratic Leadership Council, founded in 1985 by centrist Democrats to combat the left inside the party. Hall, thanked in the report, was a member of the DLC’s event committee at the time.
The paper argues that “neopopulists” like Dobbs were on the rise because Americans didn’t have faith in arguments made by free traders. Polls showed that people believed that “open trade,” as Third Way dubbed it, cost jobs, only benefited major corporations, made the U.S. weaker globally, and that trade barriers and tariffs were good policies that protected jobs. The argument on behalf of free trade, the report said, hadn’t taken into account the struggles of the middle class. “Our policies” — in favor of free trade — “do nothing to restore middle-class confidence in the future,” the report noted correctly. “Middle-class economic anxiety is widespread and legitimate. And fairly or not, much of the blame for this anxiety is landing squarely on trade.”
Of course, as Leonard notes in his book, there is good reason for public skepticism about free trade deals. “Such trade policies were under attack in 2007 because they did not deliver the economic benefits that they had promised to huge swaths of the American population,” he writes. “The textile industry of South Carolina, for example, was decimated by trade agreements, such as NAFTA,” the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Third Way report was rolled out in coordination with then-Rep. Joe Crowley, a Democrat representing the Bronx and Queens, and then-Rep. Melissa Bean of Chicago. Both were leading figures in the party’s pro-business wing. “We all have to begin to speak differently about trade, how it benefits the economy and foreign policy, how it helps Americans and people abroad,” Crowley said in a 2007 Politico article.
The report, which was part of a broader push by Third Way and others to sell free trade policies to Democratic politicians, laid out a series of prescriptions to reframe the debate, and not a moment too soon. The global economic crisis that struck in 2008, which was met with austerity policies around the world, took whatever fuel there was behind the populist movement and lit it on fire.
The Obama administration embraced free trade, making the enactment of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership a cornerstone of its global trade policy that was widely opposed on the left and right. Donald Trump made opposition to free trade a central component of his campaign and rode to the White House over the objections of the Koch brothers. He immediately pulled out of the TPP negotiations and has made opposition to free trade a central component of his presidency. The leading progressive Democratic candidates for president, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both opposed the free trade agreement.
After losing a primary to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Crowley is now employed by a lobbying firm and working to pass Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA. Bean recently left JPMorgan Chase to become CEO of Mesirow Wealth Advisors.
Third Way has consistently warned against the rise of populism on the left. In 2013, the group attacked Warren, warning she would take the party off a “populist cliff.” Third Way now claims to have come to terms with Warren and contends there’s a greater threat from Sanders’ brand of democratic socialism.
This was a direct threat to Koch Industries, the sprawling business empire long led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. The fossil-fuel giant’s business has long been based on importing oil from Canadian tar sands, which it refines at its massive Pine Bend plant in Minnesota — and the opposition to free trade threatened to make that business much more costly. The Kochs desperately needed help with Democrats, so they turned to a reliable partner: Third Way.
According to the new book “Kochland,” written by investigative reporter Christopher Leonard, Koch Industries secretly financed a report by Third Way, a corporate-funded think tank with ties to the centrist wing of the Democratic Party. The report, titled “Why Lou Dobbs is Winning” and published in November 2007, was written to promote the free trade agenda to liberals. The white paper explained it would be the first salvo in a yearlong effort to reshape the messaging around trade policy, warning that “a new and powerful populist strain has emerged on both the left and the right of American politics that threatens to turn the nation fearful and inward.”
Third Way and Koch Industries did not respond to requests for comment.
While Third Way’s report did not note any funding from Koch Industries or any related companies or organizations, it did offer thanks to Rob Hall, then a lobbyist for Koch Industries’ Invista division, “for his support in helping us conceive of and design Third Way’s trade project,” adding credence to Leonard’s claim that the Kochs were behind the effort. Hall was previously a Koch executive. The report also added: “The authors offer their sincerest thanks to Third Way’s Board of Trustees for their continuing intellectual support of Third Way and in particular for providing several of the key initial insights on which this paper is built.” Third Way’s board of trustees is a who’s who of Wall Street and corporate elites.
It may seem odd to see the Koch brothers, who operate today as partisan Republicans, aligning with business-friendly Democrats, but the strategy dates back further. A 2001 American Prospect investigation noted that Koch Industries was a member of the executive council of the Democratic Leadership Council, founded in 1985 by centrist Democrats to combat the left inside the party. Hall, thanked in the report, was a member of the DLC’s event committee at the time.
The paper argues that “neopopulists” like Dobbs were on the rise because Americans didn’t have faith in arguments made by free traders. Polls showed that people believed that “open trade,” as Third Way dubbed it, cost jobs, only benefited major corporations, made the U.S. weaker globally, and that trade barriers and tariffs were good policies that protected jobs. The argument on behalf of free trade, the report said, hadn’t taken into account the struggles of the middle class. “Our policies” — in favor of free trade — “do nothing to restore middle-class confidence in the future,” the report noted correctly. “Middle-class economic anxiety is widespread and legitimate. And fairly or not, much of the blame for this anxiety is landing squarely on trade.”
Of course, as Leonard notes in his book, there is good reason for public skepticism about free trade deals. “Such trade policies were under attack in 2007 because they did not deliver the economic benefits that they had promised to huge swaths of the American population,” he writes. “The textile industry of South Carolina, for example, was decimated by trade agreements, such as NAFTA,” the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Third Way report was rolled out in coordination with then-Rep. Joe Crowley, a Democrat representing the Bronx and Queens, and then-Rep. Melissa Bean of Chicago. Both were leading figures in the party’s pro-business wing. “We all have to begin to speak differently about trade, how it benefits the economy and foreign policy, how it helps Americans and people abroad,” Crowley said in a 2007 Politico article.
The report, which was part of a broader push by Third Way and others to sell free trade policies to Democratic politicians, laid out a series of prescriptions to reframe the debate, and not a moment too soon. The global economic crisis that struck in 2008, which was met with austerity policies around the world, took whatever fuel there was behind the populist movement and lit it on fire.
The Obama administration embraced free trade, making the enactment of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership a cornerstone of its global trade policy that was widely opposed on the left and right. Donald Trump made opposition to free trade a central component of his campaign and rode to the White House over the objections of the Koch brothers. He immediately pulled out of the TPP negotiations and has made opposition to free trade a central component of his presidency. The leading progressive Democratic candidates for president, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both opposed the free trade agreement.
After losing a primary to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Crowley is now employed by a lobbying firm and working to pass Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA. Bean recently left JPMorgan Chase to become CEO of Mesirow Wealth Advisors.
Third Way has consistently warned against the rise of populism on the left. In 2013, the group attacked Warren, warning she would take the party off a “populist cliff.” Third Way now claims to have come to terms with Warren and contends there’s a greater threat from Sanders’ brand of democratic socialism.
Find the Common Ground They Say, Heh...
Soph0571 - demo underground
go to hell, moderates!!!
Maxine Waters Puts Corporate Democrats to Shame
Julia Conley / Common Dreams - Truthdig
8/9/19
Rep. Maxine Waters won praise Friday from critics of the cash-for-access U.S. political system amid reports that some Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee are frustrated at her refusal to raise money from the industry she regulates.
Politico reported that Democrats on the committee have been disappointed with Waters’s decision to focus on consumer protection legislation and Wall Street oversight—the stated purpose of the panel—rather than raising money at fundraisers and through direct contributions from wealthy banks and then doling out that cash to her fellow lawmakers.
otarell 'wilding'✔
@octarell
Because she ‘has focused the committee's agenda on consumer protection and Wall Street oversight’ exactly what she said she would do— Democrats complain Waters is slow to spread Wall Street wealth - POLITICO https://apple.news/A92bmUEtVQlez0JluKecrog …
At least one critic on social media wondered why the news outlet highlighted the Democrats’ displeasure instead of questioning why “Members of Congress [expect] to raise money from those they’re there to regulate.”
“D.C. is sick,” added Jack Mirkinson, deputy editor of Splinter News.
Jack Mirkinson✔
@jackmirkinson
Maxine Waters is apparently prioritizing consumer protection over raking in Wall Street cash…so of course Democrats on her committee are complaining. DC is sick https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/09/maxine-waters-fundraising-1632379 …
While the top Republican on the panel, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), has raised nearly $160,000 for his members, Waters has distributed just $10,000 to Democrats.
But the 15-term California Democrat told the outlet that the lack of funds being distributed throughout the committee’s ranks is deliberate.
“This committee is no longer simply a ‘juice committee,'” Waters told Politico.
Other House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) chairs have spent significant time and energy on raising money for upcoming elections to give their members a better chance of retaining their seats.
Although Waters still accepts corporate PAC money, she argued that working in the interest of voters is primarily what will help representatives to win their elections in 2020—not amassing funds from Wall Street interests who are used to contributing to lawmakers and being treated favorably in Washington in return.
“Waters said her primary focus during the first months of this year has been on organizing the panel and building a record of legislative accomplishments, including those that members can bring home to their districts,” Zachary Warmbrodt reported in Politico.
Under Waters’s leadership, the HFSC has held hearings on the persistent housing crisis in Michigan, state efforts to oversee student loan service companies, and the abuses of the payday loan industry.
The committee has also recently passed bills to make the federal Bank Secrecy/Anti-Money Laundering framework more transparent and efficient and to provide insurance discounts for first-time home buyers.
“We must never lose sight of why we were elected to office,” Waters told Politico. “We were all elected to office to address the public policy needs of our constituents.”
One social media user expressed hope that other committee leaders in Washington would take the same approach to their powerful positions.
Politico reported that Democrats on the committee have been disappointed with Waters’s decision to focus on consumer protection legislation and Wall Street oversight—the stated purpose of the panel—rather than raising money at fundraisers and through direct contributions from wealthy banks and then doling out that cash to her fellow lawmakers.
otarell 'wilding'✔
@octarell
Because she ‘has focused the committee's agenda on consumer protection and Wall Street oversight’ exactly what she said she would do— Democrats complain Waters is slow to spread Wall Street wealth - POLITICO https://apple.news/A92bmUEtVQlez0JluKecrog …
At least one critic on social media wondered why the news outlet highlighted the Democrats’ displeasure instead of questioning why “Members of Congress [expect] to raise money from those they’re there to regulate.”
“D.C. is sick,” added Jack Mirkinson, deputy editor of Splinter News.
Jack Mirkinson✔
@jackmirkinson
Maxine Waters is apparently prioritizing consumer protection over raking in Wall Street cash…so of course Democrats on her committee are complaining. DC is sick https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/09/maxine-waters-fundraising-1632379 …
While the top Republican on the panel, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), has raised nearly $160,000 for his members, Waters has distributed just $10,000 to Democrats.
But the 15-term California Democrat told the outlet that the lack of funds being distributed throughout the committee’s ranks is deliberate.
“This committee is no longer simply a ‘juice committee,'” Waters told Politico.
Other House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) chairs have spent significant time and energy on raising money for upcoming elections to give their members a better chance of retaining their seats.
Although Waters still accepts corporate PAC money, she argued that working in the interest of voters is primarily what will help representatives to win their elections in 2020—not amassing funds from Wall Street interests who are used to contributing to lawmakers and being treated favorably in Washington in return.
“Waters said her primary focus during the first months of this year has been on organizing the panel and building a record of legislative accomplishments, including those that members can bring home to their districts,” Zachary Warmbrodt reported in Politico.
Under Waters’s leadership, the HFSC has held hearings on the persistent housing crisis in Michigan, state efforts to oversee student loan service companies, and the abuses of the payday loan industry.
The committee has also recently passed bills to make the federal Bank Secrecy/Anti-Money Laundering framework more transparent and efficient and to provide insurance discounts for first-time home buyers.
“We must never lose sight of why we were elected to office,” Waters told Politico. “We were all elected to office to address the public policy needs of our constituents.”
One social media user expressed hope that other committee leaders in Washington would take the same approach to their powerful positions.
Union leaders rebuke centrist Democrats for claiming Medicare for All would harm workers
August 3, 2019
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams - Raw Story
“Medicare for All would put money back into union members’ pockets in the form of wages and other benefits. That’s why major unions representing millions of workers in the U.S. are in this fight.”
Leaders of some of America’s largest labor unions are speaking out against centrist Democratic presidential candidates who, in an effort to undercut Medicare for All, are pitting unionized workers against millions of uninsured Americans.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), and former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) have each argued in recent days that Medicare for All would undo the hard-won collective bargaining gains of unions by replacing employer-sponsored health insurance with a single-payer program.
“I really resent the 16 million workers who joined together and bargained for better health plans being pitted against millions of Americans struggling to get healthcare coverage.”
—Mary Kay Henry, Service Employees International Union
As Common Dreams reported last month, the Biden campaign released an ad featuring a retired union worker named Marcy, who said she “earned” her private insurance and wants to keep it.
Ryan and Delaney echoed the message of Biden’s ad during the Democratic presidential debate in Detroit on Wednesday, accusing Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) of throwing union workers under the bus by backing Medicare for All.
“We have all our union friends here tonight,” said Ryan. “This plan that’s being offered by Senator Warren and Senator Sanders will tell those union members who gave away wages in order to get good healthcare that they’re going to lose their healthcare because Washington’s going to come in and tell them they got a better plan.”
HuffPost labor reporter Dave Jamieson said Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president Mary Kay Henry seemed “genuinely angered” when asked about the argument that Medicare for All would hurt union workers.
“I think it’s a false choice,” said Henry, “and I really resent the 16 million workers who joined together and bargained for better health plans being pitted against millions of Americans struggling to get healthcare coverage.”
Henry was not alone.
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told Vox that she found Ryan’s argument “offensive.”
“It is real that there is work to do with unions,” Nelson said. “People do love their contractural plans. But not every union contract today has exemplary healthcare.”
Democratic opponents of Medicare for All neglected to mention the fact that National Nurses United (NNU), America’s largest nurses union, is leading the grassroots organizing for single-payer across the country.
NNU tweeted during the Democratic presidential debate Tuesday night that “Medicare for All would put money back into union members’ pockets in the form of wages and other benefits.”
“That’s why major unions representing millions of workers in the U.S. are in this fight,” said NNU.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who herself has voiced frustration with fellow Democrats’ misleading attacks on Medicare for All, thanked union leaders for “pushing back on these falsehoods” in a tweet on Thursday.
While some prominent unions--most recently the International Association of Fire Fighters, which endorsed Biden for president—have expressed opposition to Medicare for All, more than 20 unions representing over 10 million workers have endorsed Jayapal’s Medicare for All legislation, including the American Federation of Teachers, the United Automobile Workers, and the United Mine Workers of America.
“We have an unprecedented labor coalition supporting [Medicare for All],” Jayapal said, “because soaring healthcare costs are directly tied to stagnating wages and hurt workers at the bargaining table.
Leaders of some of America’s largest labor unions are speaking out against centrist Democratic presidential candidates who, in an effort to undercut Medicare for All, are pitting unionized workers against millions of uninsured Americans.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), and former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) have each argued in recent days that Medicare for All would undo the hard-won collective bargaining gains of unions by replacing employer-sponsored health insurance with a single-payer program.
“I really resent the 16 million workers who joined together and bargained for better health plans being pitted against millions of Americans struggling to get healthcare coverage.”
—Mary Kay Henry, Service Employees International Union
As Common Dreams reported last month, the Biden campaign released an ad featuring a retired union worker named Marcy, who said she “earned” her private insurance and wants to keep it.
Ryan and Delaney echoed the message of Biden’s ad during the Democratic presidential debate in Detroit on Wednesday, accusing Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) of throwing union workers under the bus by backing Medicare for All.
“We have all our union friends here tonight,” said Ryan. “This plan that’s being offered by Senator Warren and Senator Sanders will tell those union members who gave away wages in order to get good healthcare that they’re going to lose their healthcare because Washington’s going to come in and tell them they got a better plan.”
HuffPost labor reporter Dave Jamieson said Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president Mary Kay Henry seemed “genuinely angered” when asked about the argument that Medicare for All would hurt union workers.
“I think it’s a false choice,” said Henry, “and I really resent the 16 million workers who joined together and bargained for better health plans being pitted against millions of Americans struggling to get healthcare coverage.”
Henry was not alone.
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told Vox that she found Ryan’s argument “offensive.”
“It is real that there is work to do with unions,” Nelson said. “People do love their contractural plans. But not every union contract today has exemplary healthcare.”
Democratic opponents of Medicare for All neglected to mention the fact that National Nurses United (NNU), America’s largest nurses union, is leading the grassroots organizing for single-payer across the country.
NNU tweeted during the Democratic presidential debate Tuesday night that “Medicare for All would put money back into union members’ pockets in the form of wages and other benefits.”
“That’s why major unions representing millions of workers in the U.S. are in this fight,” said NNU.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who herself has voiced frustration with fellow Democrats’ misleading attacks on Medicare for All, thanked union leaders for “pushing back on these falsehoods” in a tweet on Thursday.
While some prominent unions--most recently the International Association of Fire Fighters, which endorsed Biden for president—have expressed opposition to Medicare for All, more than 20 unions representing over 10 million workers have endorsed Jayapal’s Medicare for All legislation, including the American Federation of Teachers, the United Automobile Workers, and the United Mine Workers of America.
“We have an unprecedented labor coalition supporting [Medicare for All],” Jayapal said, “because soaring healthcare costs are directly tied to stagnating wages and hurt workers at the bargaining table.
hypocrisy, racism, and a wimpy-ass sellout democrat!!!
The real problem wasn’t the racism — it was the Trump taking ‘the Lord’s name in vain’ twice: supporter
July 20, 2019 .
By Bob Brigham - Raw Story
President Donald Trump was widely condemned after supporters at a campaign rally in West Virginia turned his racist “go back” message into a “Send Her Back” chant against one of a woman of color in Congress.
One Trump supporter in West Virginia also criticized the speech, but not for the racist targeting of Rep. Ilhan Omar.
State Senator Paul Hardesty, a Democrat, wrote to the White House to complain about Trump’s use of the word “goddamn.”
The letter was republished by the Montgomery-Herald.
“I will start by saying that I am a very conservative Democrat here in the southern West Virginia coalfields. I was a Trump supporter in 2016, and I continue to be a supporter today,” the Democratic Party lawmaker wrote to the Republican president. “I have a real appreciation of your support for the coal industry, and I thank you for that.”
“I am, however, appalled by the fact that you chose to use the Lord’s name in vain on two separate occasions when you went off the prompter during your speech,” he wrote. “I know in my heart that you are better than that.”
“During the rally Trump first used the phrase ‘goddamn’ in an anecdote he shared with the crowd about a former business rival, who has since told him he’s thriving under the Trump administration, according to the president,” the Daily Mail explained. “The second use of the term came in reference to the currently terse relations between Iran and the US, where threatened the Middle-Eastern country with military conflict should their perceived provocation continue.”
Hardesty was not the only one to take issue with Trump’s use of the word.
A user on the conservative Free Republic message board warned the Almighty will punish Trump for his language.
“This is a warning to all who think God will ‘overlook’ the act of blaspheming His name,” the user wrote. “He will not.”
“I (sic) will not matter if you are a street sweeper or the leader of the greatest republic on earth…God will drop you like a stone,” he warned.
One Trump supporter in West Virginia also criticized the speech, but not for the racist targeting of Rep. Ilhan Omar.
State Senator Paul Hardesty, a Democrat, wrote to the White House to complain about Trump’s use of the word “goddamn.”
The letter was republished by the Montgomery-Herald.
“I will start by saying that I am a very conservative Democrat here in the southern West Virginia coalfields. I was a Trump supporter in 2016, and I continue to be a supporter today,” the Democratic Party lawmaker wrote to the Republican president. “I have a real appreciation of your support for the coal industry, and I thank you for that.”
“I am, however, appalled by the fact that you chose to use the Lord’s name in vain on two separate occasions when you went off the prompter during your speech,” he wrote. “I know in my heart that you are better than that.”
“During the rally Trump first used the phrase ‘goddamn’ in an anecdote he shared with the crowd about a former business rival, who has since told him he’s thriving under the Trump administration, according to the president,” the Daily Mail explained. “The second use of the term came in reference to the currently terse relations between Iran and the US, where threatened the Middle-Eastern country with military conflict should their perceived provocation continue.”
Hardesty was not the only one to take issue with Trump’s use of the word.
A user on the conservative Free Republic message board warned the Almighty will punish Trump for his language.
“This is a warning to all who think God will ‘overlook’ the act of blaspheming His name,” the user wrote. “He will not.”
“I (sic) will not matter if you are a street sweeper or the leader of the greatest republic on earth…God will drop you like a stone,” he warned.
DEMOCRAT-BACKED CENTRIST PAC IS SUPPORTING A REPUBLICAN AGAINST A VULNERABLE SWING-DISTRICT INCUMBENT
Ryan Grim, Aída Chávez - The Intercept
7/19/19
THE POLITICAL ACTION committee affiliated with a bipartisan caucus on Capitol Hill is spending money to back a Republican challenge to Rep. Katie Hill of California, a freshman Democrat who has been an independent and at times progressive voice in the House, despite serving in a district previously held by the GOP.
Hill is what’s known as a “front-liner” in Democratic caucus politics, because she’ll face a difficult challenge to hold on to her seat in California’s 25th District. Mike Garcia, an Iraq War veteran, launched his campaign in April, and the With Honor PAC jumped in to support him that same month.
House Democratic leadership crafts its entire political and legislative strategy around protecting front-liners like Hill, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently chastised the caucus for criticizing vulnerable front-liners, suggesting they hit her instead.
That makes the support for a Republican challenger from the For Country Caucus, which includes at least 10 Democrats, fairly remarkable, particularly as House incumbents have launched a full-blown counterrevolution against the so-called Squad and the organization that backs them, Justice Democrats, accusing them of undermining the party by targeting incumbents.
Justice Democrats, which became a prominent actor in Democratic politics after helping elect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, however, has so far not endorsed a single challenger to a front-line Democrat, even as a new centrist caucus backs a Republican against Hill. The caucus is co-chaired by California Democrat Jimmy Panetta, who was first elected in 2016 and is the son of longtime Democratic operative and former Rep. Leon Panetta. The caucus also includes Democratic Reps. Seth Moulton, Mass., Chrissy Houlahan, Pa., Gil Cisneros, Calif., Jason Crow, Colo., Jared Golden, Maine, Conor Lamb, Pa., Elaine Luria, Va., Max Rose, N.Y., and Mikie Sherrill of N.J. None of the caucus members responded to a request for comment.
In 2018 primaries, Crow, Luria, and Cisneros faced progressive primary opponents and won with the weight of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee behind them. They are now linked up with a PAC working in direct opposition to the interests of the DCCC.
The For Country Caucus is an offshoot of the With Honor PAC, and it initially planned to call itself the With Honor Caucus, according to internal emails obtained by The Intercept. Despite the name change, the caucus’s affiliation with With Honor is still widely apparent. The For Country Caucus adopted a pledge identical to one With Honor’s endorsed candidates had agreed to. An affiliated super PAC, called the With Honor Fund, was bankrolled in 2018 by billionaires Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz, and others, and similarly focused on electing veterans to Congress.
According to FEC records, Mike Garcia, a Republican challenging Hill, has gotten more than $3,000 in in-kind assistance from the With Honor PAC. That might not sound like much, but the type of assistance is likely much more valuable than that. The help is listed as fundraising consulting, travel costs, strategic consulting, and legal services, suggesting that With Honor PAC is using its links to ultra-wealthy people to assist Garcia with fundraising. A former Naval officer, he raised just over $250,000 in his first quarter on the trail.
The With Honor PAC’s support can also give Garcia the sheen of bipartisan credibility, highly useful in a swing district. Hill won the district by 9 points after more than two decades of Republican control.
“We support veteran candidates across the country – Republicans, Democrats, and independents – who pledge to serve with integrity, civility, and courage. With Honor Fund has not endorsed any candidates for the 2020 cycle,” the PAC said in a statement.
In addition to contributing to For Country Caucus members, With Honor has also given money this cycle to the campaigns of several incumbents, including Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy; the DCCC; EMILY’s List; and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
In March, caucus members and the affiliated PACs repeatedly denied the two had anything to do with each other. In an email to The Intercept, the With Honor PAC said they hoped members have the “courage to collaborate across the aisle” and one of the ways they can do that is with a “cross partisan caucus,” adding, “we’re supportive of them doing that, but like I stated, there is no With Honor caucus.”
“The caucus is folks that focus on, among other things, working on policy that promotes public service and just members of the caucus have agreed to a civility pledge to commit to working with integrity, honesty, and drive to find common ground across the aisle. But this is not, this doesn’t have to do with With Honor,” a Panetta spokesperson said at the time. “That’s separate.”
They’re so separate, in fact, that the For Country Caucus is now featured prominently on the With Honor PAC’s website.
Hill is what’s known as a “front-liner” in Democratic caucus politics, because she’ll face a difficult challenge to hold on to her seat in California’s 25th District. Mike Garcia, an Iraq War veteran, launched his campaign in April, and the With Honor PAC jumped in to support him that same month.
House Democratic leadership crafts its entire political and legislative strategy around protecting front-liners like Hill, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently chastised the caucus for criticizing vulnerable front-liners, suggesting they hit her instead.
That makes the support for a Republican challenger from the For Country Caucus, which includes at least 10 Democrats, fairly remarkable, particularly as House incumbents have launched a full-blown counterrevolution against the so-called Squad and the organization that backs them, Justice Democrats, accusing them of undermining the party by targeting incumbents.
Justice Democrats, which became a prominent actor in Democratic politics after helping elect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, however, has so far not endorsed a single challenger to a front-line Democrat, even as a new centrist caucus backs a Republican against Hill. The caucus is co-chaired by California Democrat Jimmy Panetta, who was first elected in 2016 and is the son of longtime Democratic operative and former Rep. Leon Panetta. The caucus also includes Democratic Reps. Seth Moulton, Mass., Chrissy Houlahan, Pa., Gil Cisneros, Calif., Jason Crow, Colo., Jared Golden, Maine, Conor Lamb, Pa., Elaine Luria, Va., Max Rose, N.Y., and Mikie Sherrill of N.J. None of the caucus members responded to a request for comment.
In 2018 primaries, Crow, Luria, and Cisneros faced progressive primary opponents and won with the weight of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee behind them. They are now linked up with a PAC working in direct opposition to the interests of the DCCC.
The For Country Caucus is an offshoot of the With Honor PAC, and it initially planned to call itself the With Honor Caucus, according to internal emails obtained by The Intercept. Despite the name change, the caucus’s affiliation with With Honor is still widely apparent. The For Country Caucus adopted a pledge identical to one With Honor’s endorsed candidates had agreed to. An affiliated super PAC, called the With Honor Fund, was bankrolled in 2018 by billionaires Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz, and others, and similarly focused on electing veterans to Congress.
According to FEC records, Mike Garcia, a Republican challenging Hill, has gotten more than $3,000 in in-kind assistance from the With Honor PAC. That might not sound like much, but the type of assistance is likely much more valuable than that. The help is listed as fundraising consulting, travel costs, strategic consulting, and legal services, suggesting that With Honor PAC is using its links to ultra-wealthy people to assist Garcia with fundraising. A former Naval officer, he raised just over $250,000 in his first quarter on the trail.
The With Honor PAC’s support can also give Garcia the sheen of bipartisan credibility, highly useful in a swing district. Hill won the district by 9 points after more than two decades of Republican control.
“We support veteran candidates across the country – Republicans, Democrats, and independents – who pledge to serve with integrity, civility, and courage. With Honor Fund has not endorsed any candidates for the 2020 cycle,” the PAC said in a statement.
In addition to contributing to For Country Caucus members, With Honor has also given money this cycle to the campaigns of several incumbents, including Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy; the DCCC; EMILY’s List; and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
In March, caucus members and the affiliated PACs repeatedly denied the two had anything to do with each other. In an email to The Intercept, the With Honor PAC said they hoped members have the “courage to collaborate across the aisle” and one of the ways they can do that is with a “cross partisan caucus,” adding, “we’re supportive of them doing that, but like I stated, there is no With Honor caucus.”
“The caucus is folks that focus on, among other things, working on policy that promotes public service and just members of the caucus have agreed to a civility pledge to commit to working with integrity, honesty, and drive to find common ground across the aisle. But this is not, this doesn’t have to do with With Honor,” a Panetta spokesperson said at the time. “That’s separate.”
They’re so separate, in fact, that the For Country Caucus is now featured prominently on the With Honor PAC’s website.
JOSH GOTTHEIMER WARNED DEMOCRATIC LEADERS HE HAD VOTES TO BLOCK BILL MANDATING BETTER CONDITIONS FOR CHILDREN IN DETENTION
Aída Chávez, Ryan Grim - The Intercept
June 28 2019, 8:58 a.m.
ON THURSDAY, HOUSE Speaker Nancy Pelosi, boxed in by the Senate and centrist Democrats in her caucus, caved to Republicans on an emergency border funding bill. The Senate bill was put on the floor after New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat and co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, told House leaders he had the votes to scuttle a House version that mandated improved conditions for detained migrant children.
Gottheimer’s attempted power play was first reported by the Washington Post, and confirmed by The Intercept.
“In order to get resources to the children fastest, we will reluctantly pass the Senate bill,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to her colleagues Thursday afternoon. “As we pass the Senate bill, we will do so with a Battle Cry as to how we go forward to protect children in a way that truly honors their dignity and worth.” A spokesperson for Gottheimer didn’t return a request for comment. The caucus had discussed coming out against the House bill at the congressional softball game on Wednesday night, and there was dissent internally, but enough of the so-called Problem Solvers endorsed the strategy to allow it to go forward.
“The children come first,” Pelosi added. “At the end of the day, we have to make sure that the resources needed to protect the children are available. Therefore, we will not engage in the same disrespectful behavior that the Senate did in ignoring our priorities.”
On Wednesday, when asked if House Democrats would take up the Senate version of the legislation, Pelosi said no. Pelosi’s reversal came days after a searing photo, showing the bodies of a migrant father and his young daughter — Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and Angie Valeria — who drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande, sparked international outrage.
Ezra Levin, a co-founder of grassroots advocacy group Indivisible, was among the many progressive leaders to slam Democrats for buckling. Despite contentious back-and-forths between the progressive and centrist wings of the party, the House passed the unamended Senate bill on an overwhelming 305-102 vote, with 95 Democrats voting no.
The House amendment would have taken away money from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and increased protections for children, among other oversight provisions. The Senate passed its version of the $4.6 billion emergency bill on Wednesday 84-8. A vote on the House version of the spending bill was beaten in the Senate 55-37, largely along party lines, with the 2020 Democratic presidential contenders missing the vote. The Senate’s vote meant House Democrats would have had to hold out to pressure the upper chamber to accept its version, while Gottheimer’s move sapped the House’s leverage. “The quote-unquote Problem Solvers Caucus, I think, threw us under the bus and undermined our position to actually be able to negotiate,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.
“Since when did the Problem Solvers Caucus become the Child Abuse Caucus?” asked Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Wouldn’t they want to at least fight against contractors who run deplorable facilities? Kids are the only ones who could lose today.”
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar joined Pocan in slamming the move, saying that a vote for Mitch McConnell’s border bill “is a vote to keep kids in cages and terrorize immigrant communities.”
When asked what Gottheimer’s objection to the House border bill was, Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal said it came down to “not giving as much ICE money as the Senate did.” She added that a bigger problem stemmed from the Senate Democrats putting them in a “terrible position” in the first place by voting on a bill that “does nothing to hold a rogue agency accountable for its cruelty,” doesn’t have any provisions to “ensure the money actually goes to the children,” or that “these for-profit agencies are held accountable.” She described herself as a “giant no” on the bill.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus also recommended the House vote against the Senate border spending bill, saying the Republicans “cannot force us to accept this bill, which does not provide necessary guardrails” and allows the Trump administration to “continue denying kids basic, humane care and endangering their lives.”
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez noted that the Senate didn’t even bother negotiating with the House. “We have time,” she said in a tweet. “We can stay in town. We can at LEAST add some amendments to this Senate bill. But to pass it completely unamended with no House input? That seems a bridge too far.”
The House failure led to widespread recriminations. Jayapal, Pocan, the CPC, and the CHC were blamed for urging House Democrats to pull out of negotiations with the Senate earlier this spring; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took heat for agreeing to a weak bill that left children vulnerable to abuse; Pelosi was slammed for caving; and Gottheimer’s Problem Solvers Caucus was widely derided for its unhelpful intervention. “The capitulation by the Problem Solvers and the Blue Dogs gave us no leverage here,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, R-Ariz.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, and DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos voted in favor of the bill, while other members of leadership, including Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries, and Assistant Democratic Leader Ben Ray Luján, who is running for Senate in New Mexico, voted against it.
“We need a bill that delivers funds to end the humanitarian crisis,” Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib said on Twitter. “Not funds to continue caging children & deny asylum seekers the help they need. Not funds to continue the harmful policies. If you see the Senate bill as an option, then you don’t believe in basic human rights.”
Gottheimer’s attempted power play was first reported by the Washington Post, and confirmed by The Intercept.
“In order to get resources to the children fastest, we will reluctantly pass the Senate bill,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to her colleagues Thursday afternoon. “As we pass the Senate bill, we will do so with a Battle Cry as to how we go forward to protect children in a way that truly honors their dignity and worth.” A spokesperson for Gottheimer didn’t return a request for comment. The caucus had discussed coming out against the House bill at the congressional softball game on Wednesday night, and there was dissent internally, but enough of the so-called Problem Solvers endorsed the strategy to allow it to go forward.
“The children come first,” Pelosi added. “At the end of the day, we have to make sure that the resources needed to protect the children are available. Therefore, we will not engage in the same disrespectful behavior that the Senate did in ignoring our priorities.”
On Wednesday, when asked if House Democrats would take up the Senate version of the legislation, Pelosi said no. Pelosi’s reversal came days after a searing photo, showing the bodies of a migrant father and his young daughter — Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and Angie Valeria — who drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande, sparked international outrage.
Ezra Levin, a co-founder of grassroots advocacy group Indivisible, was among the many progressive leaders to slam Democrats for buckling. Despite contentious back-and-forths between the progressive and centrist wings of the party, the House passed the unamended Senate bill on an overwhelming 305-102 vote, with 95 Democrats voting no.
The House amendment would have taken away money from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and increased protections for children, among other oversight provisions. The Senate passed its version of the $4.6 billion emergency bill on Wednesday 84-8. A vote on the House version of the spending bill was beaten in the Senate 55-37, largely along party lines, with the 2020 Democratic presidential contenders missing the vote. The Senate’s vote meant House Democrats would have had to hold out to pressure the upper chamber to accept its version, while Gottheimer’s move sapped the House’s leverage. “The quote-unquote Problem Solvers Caucus, I think, threw us under the bus and undermined our position to actually be able to negotiate,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.
“Since when did the Problem Solvers Caucus become the Child Abuse Caucus?” asked Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Wouldn’t they want to at least fight against contractors who run deplorable facilities? Kids are the only ones who could lose today.”
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar joined Pocan in slamming the move, saying that a vote for Mitch McConnell’s border bill “is a vote to keep kids in cages and terrorize immigrant communities.”
When asked what Gottheimer’s objection to the House border bill was, Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal said it came down to “not giving as much ICE money as the Senate did.” She added that a bigger problem stemmed from the Senate Democrats putting them in a “terrible position” in the first place by voting on a bill that “does nothing to hold a rogue agency accountable for its cruelty,” doesn’t have any provisions to “ensure the money actually goes to the children,” or that “these for-profit agencies are held accountable.” She described herself as a “giant no” on the bill.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus also recommended the House vote against the Senate border spending bill, saying the Republicans “cannot force us to accept this bill, which does not provide necessary guardrails” and allows the Trump administration to “continue denying kids basic, humane care and endangering their lives.”
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez noted that the Senate didn’t even bother negotiating with the House. “We have time,” she said in a tweet. “We can stay in town. We can at LEAST add some amendments to this Senate bill. But to pass it completely unamended with no House input? That seems a bridge too far.”
The House failure led to widespread recriminations. Jayapal, Pocan, the CPC, and the CHC were blamed for urging House Democrats to pull out of negotiations with the Senate earlier this spring; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took heat for agreeing to a weak bill that left children vulnerable to abuse; Pelosi was slammed for caving; and Gottheimer’s Problem Solvers Caucus was widely derided for its unhelpful intervention. “The capitulation by the Problem Solvers and the Blue Dogs gave us no leverage here,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, R-Ariz.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, and DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos voted in favor of the bill, while other members of leadership, including Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries, and Assistant Democratic Leader Ben Ray Luján, who is running for Senate in New Mexico, voted against it.
“We need a bill that delivers funds to end the humanitarian crisis,” Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib said on Twitter. “Not funds to continue caging children & deny asylum seekers the help they need. Not funds to continue the harmful policies. If you see the Senate bill as an option, then you don’t believe in basic human rights.”
corporate boot-lickers protecting a system of oppression!!!
'An existential threat': Bernie Sanders faces mounting opposition from moderate Democrats
Lauren Gambino in Charleston
The Guardian
Fri 21 Jun 2019 01.00 EDT
Moderate Democrats have stepped up their opposition to Bernie Sanders as part of a concerted effort to isolate him from the sprawling field of otherwise “mainstream” and “electable” presidential candidates running for their party’s nomination in 2020.
Last week, Sanders delivered a searing defense of democratic socialism, setting himself apart from the rest of the Democratic party, whose opposition he said he not only anticipated but welcomed.
At a gathering of nearly 250 political moderates convened by the centrist thinktank Third Way in South Carolina this week, some of the party’s most prominent center-left voices took the bait.
“I believe a gay midwestern mayor can beat [Donald] Trump. I believe an African American senator can beat Trump. I believe a western governor, a female senator, a member of Congress, a Latino Texan or a former vice-president can beat Trump,” said Jon Cowan, president of Third Way, hours before Donald Trump formally launched his re-election campaign with a rally in Orlando, Florida, on Tuesday.
“But I don’t believe a self-described democratic socialist can win.”
In speeches and on panels over the course of two sticky days in Charleston, moderate lawmakers, strategists and donors inveighed against the Vermont senator’s populist economic vision. The approach elevated a conversation that has largely taken place behind closed doors about how to thwart Sanders, who moderates believe would alienate crucial voting blocs in a general election.
“He has made it his mission to either get the nomination or to remake the party in his image as a democratic socialist,” Cowan told the Guardian. “That is an existential threat to the future of the Democratic party for the next generation.”
Sanders – who maintains his political identity as an independent– has made it clear he intends to run against the Democratic establishment as he seeks the party’s nomination. Third Way’s public criticism of the senator, days before the first presidential primary debates next week, reflects sharp new dividing lines in the battle for control of the party.
‘Anybody but Bernie’
“The cat is out of the bag,” Sanders tweeted on Wednesday, sharing a Politicostory about how Third Way’s leaders are warming to his closest ideological rival, Elizabeth Warren. “The corporate wing of the Democratic party is publicly ‘anybody but Bernie’.”
His campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, said in a statement that the party’s moderate faction had effectively “declared war on Senator Sanders” and denounced Third Way as a “Washington thinktank that takes Wall Street money.”
Sanders and his allies argue that the Democratic party’s turn toward corporatism led to Trump’s rise and that the theory of political electability advanced by Third Way and other centrists is no match for the mood of the electorate in a populist moment. At a party event in California earlier this month, the Democratic hopeful John Hickenlooper was booed by the audience for saying socialism is “not the answer”.
After more than two years of watching liberals rise, moderates again feel ascendant. Emboldened by the results of the 2018 midterm elections, which saw pragmatic Democrats win in dozens of Republican-held districts to deliver a majority in the House of Representatives, they are increasingly vocal in their disdain for socialism – and Sanders.
But the question of how to constrain Sanders is complicated. In 2016, Trump defeated a wide field of more experienced and more qualified candidates with a populist message that appealed to the right’s anti-establishment anger. In a race with a similarly large field of candidates, Sanders enters with far more advantages than Trump did: the Vermont senator is both experienced and qualified, with a dedicated following, a prodigious small-dollar fundraising operation, a developed economic platform and a populist appeal that surges when he is attacked by the political establishment he ran against to great effect in 2016.
Trump and Republicans continue to hurl the socialism label at the Democrat field. On Tuesday night, Trump warned in a speech formally launching his re-election campaign: “A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American dream.”
None of Sanders’s 23 competitors have embraced a socialist platform. Warren, who is nipping at his heels in some recent polls, distinguishes herself as a capitalist.
Attitudes toward socialism are shifting in the US. Recent surveys have found that young people and women associate socialism with European countries rather than Soviet Russia. Yet socialism remains broadly unpopular: less than half of American voters say they would vote for a “qualified presidential candidate who is a socialist”, according to a Gallup poll released in May.
‘Who’s better on the economy?’AdvertisementThe mood at the conference vacillated from nervous optimism to nervous pessimism about Democrats’ prospects for beating Trump in 2020.
“If we don’t nominate a self-proclaimed socialist, we’ll probably be OK,” said Jen Psaki, who was White House communications director under Obama. “I hope so.”
But the former North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp, who lost re-election in 2018, warned that Democrats would continue to lose the White House and the US Senate unless the party makes inroads with rural voters.
“We have stopped talking to the middle of the country,” said Heitkamp, who launched One Country Project that seeks to “re-engage rural America”. “People feel like we’ve abandoned the bread-and-butter issues, and people in rural America feel it more accutely.”
Emphasizing her point, she said that if farmers from her state were asked to name the three biggest problems in rural America, “not one would say: antitrust”.
During the final panel of the day, Jim Messina, Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, predicted the 2020 election will be extremely close.
“We could be sitting on election day not knowing who will win,” he said.
‘Get off Twitter’
Several speakers urged those in the room to “get off Twitter” and venture into the real world, where far fewer Democrats are engaged in “faculty lounge debates over political ideology”.
“There is a potential that the hyper-hyper-engaged – the extremely online voters that are paying attention right now – might be able to drive the direction of the campaigns,” said Lanae Erickson, a senior vice-president at Third Way.
She presented a poll conducted by the thinktank that found only one in 10 Democratic primary voters tweet regularly. When compared with the wider Democratic electorate, this cohort of “extremely online” Democrats are far less likely to identify as moderate, are more likely to have participated in a protest and support progressives policies such as Medicare for All.
Moderates’ theory on how to win in 2020, as described by one panelist during the conference, is to appeal to the “woke and the still waking”. The best candidate, they argue, is someone who can mobilize a Democratic base that is increasingly young, diverse and liberal, while still appealing to independents, moderate Republicans and working-class voters who could decide the election.
This is not achieved with “warmed-over 1990s centrism”, said Cowan, but neither is it achieved by “1960s Nordic-style socialism”.
“Voters do not want mushy, bland, empty Democratic centrism,” Cowan said. “But that’s not who this rising generation of swing district winners are.”
On Monday evening, one of those new House members, the South Carolina congressman Joe Cunningham, welcomed the group to his district, which the 37-year-old flipped last year after decades of Republican control.
Cunningham said he did not win his race by promising Medicare for All or by demonizing Republicans. Rather, he said he won by positioning himself as a moderate who was willing to work across the aisle and occasionally buck his own party.
Like a football coach rallying his team before a game, Cunningham said Republicans who run to the right to embrace Trump are “ceding more and more middle ground”.
“There is so much middle ground to gain in 2020,” he shouted. “I say we take it!”
Last week, Sanders delivered a searing defense of democratic socialism, setting himself apart from the rest of the Democratic party, whose opposition he said he not only anticipated but welcomed.
At a gathering of nearly 250 political moderates convened by the centrist thinktank Third Way in South Carolina this week, some of the party’s most prominent center-left voices took the bait.
“I believe a gay midwestern mayor can beat [Donald] Trump. I believe an African American senator can beat Trump. I believe a western governor, a female senator, a member of Congress, a Latino Texan or a former vice-president can beat Trump,” said Jon Cowan, president of Third Way, hours before Donald Trump formally launched his re-election campaign with a rally in Orlando, Florida, on Tuesday.
“But I don’t believe a self-described democratic socialist can win.”
In speeches and on panels over the course of two sticky days in Charleston, moderate lawmakers, strategists and donors inveighed against the Vermont senator’s populist economic vision. The approach elevated a conversation that has largely taken place behind closed doors about how to thwart Sanders, who moderates believe would alienate crucial voting blocs in a general election.
“He has made it his mission to either get the nomination or to remake the party in his image as a democratic socialist,” Cowan told the Guardian. “That is an existential threat to the future of the Democratic party for the next generation.”
Sanders – who maintains his political identity as an independent– has made it clear he intends to run against the Democratic establishment as he seeks the party’s nomination. Third Way’s public criticism of the senator, days before the first presidential primary debates next week, reflects sharp new dividing lines in the battle for control of the party.
‘Anybody but Bernie’
“The cat is out of the bag,” Sanders tweeted on Wednesday, sharing a Politicostory about how Third Way’s leaders are warming to his closest ideological rival, Elizabeth Warren. “The corporate wing of the Democratic party is publicly ‘anybody but Bernie’.”
His campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, said in a statement that the party’s moderate faction had effectively “declared war on Senator Sanders” and denounced Third Way as a “Washington thinktank that takes Wall Street money.”
Sanders and his allies argue that the Democratic party’s turn toward corporatism led to Trump’s rise and that the theory of political electability advanced by Third Way and other centrists is no match for the mood of the electorate in a populist moment. At a party event in California earlier this month, the Democratic hopeful John Hickenlooper was booed by the audience for saying socialism is “not the answer”.
After more than two years of watching liberals rise, moderates again feel ascendant. Emboldened by the results of the 2018 midterm elections, which saw pragmatic Democrats win in dozens of Republican-held districts to deliver a majority in the House of Representatives, they are increasingly vocal in their disdain for socialism – and Sanders.
But the question of how to constrain Sanders is complicated. In 2016, Trump defeated a wide field of more experienced and more qualified candidates with a populist message that appealed to the right’s anti-establishment anger. In a race with a similarly large field of candidates, Sanders enters with far more advantages than Trump did: the Vermont senator is both experienced and qualified, with a dedicated following, a prodigious small-dollar fundraising operation, a developed economic platform and a populist appeal that surges when he is attacked by the political establishment he ran against to great effect in 2016.
Trump and Republicans continue to hurl the socialism label at the Democrat field. On Tuesday night, Trump warned in a speech formally launching his re-election campaign: “A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American dream.”
None of Sanders’s 23 competitors have embraced a socialist platform. Warren, who is nipping at his heels in some recent polls, distinguishes herself as a capitalist.
Attitudes toward socialism are shifting in the US. Recent surveys have found that young people and women associate socialism with European countries rather than Soviet Russia. Yet socialism remains broadly unpopular: less than half of American voters say they would vote for a “qualified presidential candidate who is a socialist”, according to a Gallup poll released in May.
‘Who’s better on the economy?’AdvertisementThe mood at the conference vacillated from nervous optimism to nervous pessimism about Democrats’ prospects for beating Trump in 2020.
“If we don’t nominate a self-proclaimed socialist, we’ll probably be OK,” said Jen Psaki, who was White House communications director under Obama. “I hope so.”
But the former North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp, who lost re-election in 2018, warned that Democrats would continue to lose the White House and the US Senate unless the party makes inroads with rural voters.
“We have stopped talking to the middle of the country,” said Heitkamp, who launched One Country Project that seeks to “re-engage rural America”. “People feel like we’ve abandoned the bread-and-butter issues, and people in rural America feel it more accutely.”
Emphasizing her point, she said that if farmers from her state were asked to name the three biggest problems in rural America, “not one would say: antitrust”.
During the final panel of the day, Jim Messina, Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, predicted the 2020 election will be extremely close.
“We could be sitting on election day not knowing who will win,” he said.
‘Get off Twitter’
Several speakers urged those in the room to “get off Twitter” and venture into the real world, where far fewer Democrats are engaged in “faculty lounge debates over political ideology”.
“There is a potential that the hyper-hyper-engaged – the extremely online voters that are paying attention right now – might be able to drive the direction of the campaigns,” said Lanae Erickson, a senior vice-president at Third Way.
She presented a poll conducted by the thinktank that found only one in 10 Democratic primary voters tweet regularly. When compared with the wider Democratic electorate, this cohort of “extremely online” Democrats are far less likely to identify as moderate, are more likely to have participated in a protest and support progressives policies such as Medicare for All.
Moderates’ theory on how to win in 2020, as described by one panelist during the conference, is to appeal to the “woke and the still waking”. The best candidate, they argue, is someone who can mobilize a Democratic base that is increasingly young, diverse and liberal, while still appealing to independents, moderate Republicans and working-class voters who could decide the election.
This is not achieved with “warmed-over 1990s centrism”, said Cowan, but neither is it achieved by “1960s Nordic-style socialism”.
“Voters do not want mushy, bland, empty Democratic centrism,” Cowan said. “But that’s not who this rising generation of swing district winners are.”
On Monday evening, one of those new House members, the South Carolina congressman Joe Cunningham, welcomed the group to his district, which the 37-year-old flipped last year after decades of Republican control.
Cunningham said he did not win his race by promising Medicare for All or by demonizing Republicans. Rather, he said he won by positioning himself as a moderate who was willing to work across the aisle and occasionally buck his own party.
Like a football coach rallying his team before a game, Cunningham said Republicans who run to the right to embrace Trump are “ceding more and more middle ground”.
“There is so much middle ground to gain in 2020,” he shouted. “I say we take it!”
Training to be a corporate lackey!!!
AT DEMOCRATIC RETREAT, CHIEFS OF STAFF COACHED ON SCHMOOZING WITH K STREET
Ryan Grim -The Intercept
June 6 2019, 9:06 a.m
DEMOCRATIC CHIEFS OF STAFF gathered on Thursday for a retreat to hash out strategy for the coming year and orient themselves in Washington. One of the key agenda items: “How to Engage Downtown.”
“Downtown” in Washington is a reference to K Street, where the city’s lobbying industry has set up shop. Downtown is the destination for many a chief of staff in their post-congressional career, and that knowledge — as much or even more than campaign contributions — helps shape legislative strategies.
The annual retreat is hosted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat. A spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., referred questions on the retreat to the DCCC, which didn’t immediately respond. The Washington retreat concludes with a happy hour, at which the chiefs can “meet members of the DC Downtown Community.”
The “downtown community,” on the panel on how to engage with lobbyists, is represented at the retreat by Jonathan Smith, an Uber lobbyist and former chief of staff to a House Democrat, as well as Virgil Miller, a lobbyist with Akin Gump, a powerhouse firm in Washington.
There is no agenda item focused on how to engage with the new progressive energy in the party pushing for a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, or other sweeping reforms.
The retreat, while part management training, also included political advice of questionable value, sources there said. Fighting President Donald Trump over impeachment or immigration plays into his hands, the chiefs were told, so it’s better to stick to terrain that’s safe for Democrats, such as shoring up the Affordable Care Act and lowering drug prices. Decrying corruption in Washington, they were advised, merely breeds cynicism, which can hurt Democrats.
“Downtown” in Washington is a reference to K Street, where the city’s lobbying industry has set up shop. Downtown is the destination for many a chief of staff in their post-congressional career, and that knowledge — as much or even more than campaign contributions — helps shape legislative strategies.
The annual retreat is hosted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat. A spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., referred questions on the retreat to the DCCC, which didn’t immediately respond. The Washington retreat concludes with a happy hour, at which the chiefs can “meet members of the DC Downtown Community.”
The “downtown community,” on the panel on how to engage with lobbyists, is represented at the retreat by Jonathan Smith, an Uber lobbyist and former chief of staff to a House Democrat, as well as Virgil Miller, a lobbyist with Akin Gump, a powerhouse firm in Washington.
There is no agenda item focused on how to engage with the new progressive energy in the party pushing for a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, or other sweeping reforms.
The retreat, while part management training, also included political advice of questionable value, sources there said. Fighting President Donald Trump over impeachment or immigration plays into his hands, the chiefs were told, so it’s better to stick to terrain that’s safe for Democrats, such as shoring up the Affordable Care Act and lowering drug prices. Decrying corruption in Washington, they were advised, merely breeds cynicism, which can hurt Democrats.
op - ed: “Moderate” Democrats Are Really Conservatives — and They Are Dangerous
BY
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout
PUBLISHED
March 5, 2019
If I hear the word “moderate” used one more time to describe Blue Dog House Democrats who keep voting with Republicans, or any other non-Republican who actively supports today’s Republican Party, it is entirely possible I will eat my teeth. The term “Blue Dog” is a metaphor for a dog straining so hard on its leash that it has turned blue from lack of oxygen; the dog is a right-leaning Democrat, and the leash represents its tenuous party affiliation. These people are conservatives — period, end of file — who hide behind the “moderate” label even as they undermine policies Democrats have hewed to for half a century.
They are able to do this, thanks in no small part to the committed care and feeding of big-paper/big-network reporters, editorialists and producers, many of whom haven’t entertained a new idea since Windows 3.1 was the hot new thing. A recent spirited meeting of House Democrats gave these media types yet another chance to strut their fogbound stuff even as they gave cover to their “moderate” friends who, if you believe the mainstream stenographers out there, have it all figured out.
Their fallback tactic is ease: Inaccurate labeling stands in substitution for analysis because it is easier, tropes outmatch facts because they are easier, and lies from “important people” are not simply allowed to stand, but to flourish. Why? Because it is easier.
“House Democrats exploded in recriminations Thursday over moderates bucking the party, with liberal Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threatening to put those voting with Republicans ‘on a list’ for a primary challenge,” reads the opening line of last week’s febrific Washington Post article on the Democrats’ meeting, only the most recent example of the practice.
There are 137 words in the first four paragraphs of that thoroughly frantic report, a bunch of which clearly strive to become lit sticks of dynamite in the next life. Exploded! Moderates bucking the party! Threatening! On a list! Primary challenge! Frustrated! Lashed out! Pressured! Unquestioned media superstar! Upped the ante! Admonishing! Liberal activists! Unseat! On a list, again! Would that I had pearls to clutch.
“Unquestioned media superstar” takes the biscuit in paragraph three, however. The term refers to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while simultaneously dismissing her intelligence, skills, passion, wit, will and political savvy by turning her into another bit of TV fluff that will only be popular until the next big hot-minute celebrity comes along. She is bigger than that by many long miles, and those who can’t or won’t acknowledge that are setting themselves up for one hell of a surprise.
What was this House Democrats’ meeting about, anyway? Why were Democrats “exploding” over “moderates’” behavior? The meeting centered around the use and misuse of a legislative maneuver called a “motion to recommit.” It allows the minority party to add amendments to a bill just before it is brought to a vote. The rule exists to keep the majority party from wielding unlimited legislative power, and is something each party protects for the day when they find themselves in the minority. Ever since the Democrats took control of the House, Republicans have been using the rule to stick abrasive nonsense amendments to important bills.
“On Wednesday,” reports Paul Blest for Splinter News, “the House passed a major gun control bill that is sure to die in the Senate, but which laid down an important marker of the party’s priorities. Before that, however, a Republican amendment to the bill that would notify ICE when an undocumented person buys a gun was offered up and shockingly passed, due in part to the votes of 26 House Democrats — many of them members of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition caucus. This wasn’t a trade for ‘bipartisanship.’ Only eight Republicans voted for the final bill itself. Twenty-six Democrats just gave them a racist amendment for free.”
Speaker Pelosi, who ran the “explosive” meeting, was in high dudgeon and for good reason. In the eight years the GOP held the majority in that chamber, the Democrats were unable to pass a single “motion to recommit” because there were never enough Republican votes to help them do it. Since January, and because of these Blue Dog “moderates,” minority House Republicans have already managed to get two stapled to legislation. “Vote no,” admonished Pelosi, “just vote no, because the fact is, a vote yes is to give leverage to the other side.”
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t messing around, either. “When activists ask her why she had to vote for a gun safety bill that also further empowers an agency that forcibly injects kids with psychotropic drugs,” said Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent about the meeting described in the Washington Post article, “they’re going to want a list of names and she’s going to give it to them.” At the conclusion of the meeting, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez herself said, “I think it is an extension of Trump’s tactics into the House, and we cannot legitimatize it and we cannot allow for it and we cannot support it.”
While it is gratifying that enough conservative Democrats won in 2018 to alter the balance of power in the House, that altered balance is utterly meaningless if the Republicans are still allowed to call the shots. House Republicans wanted to jam the words “illegal immigrants” into a Democratic gun bill as a means of putting a tack on Speaker Pelosi’s chair, and the Blue Dogs were their willing dupes.
The background checks legislation passed by the House last week was the most important bill on the gun violence crisis passed by that chamber in decades. There has already been a vote on the Green New Deal, and there will be more to come on equally important Democratic priorities. These Blue Dogs need to wise up on a tactical level, or they are going to find out what life is like on the back bench with no committee assignments and a primary opponent who has Ocasio-Cortez on speed dial.
In the meantime, can we please dispense with the notion that these Blue Dog types are “moderates”? If they vote with conservatives, they are conservatives.
Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not part of some far-out faction to be marginalized by the puddle-minded media; they are the moderate Democrats. The clear-sighted policies they espouse — addressing the immediate threats of climate change, gun violence and wildly expensive health care to name but a few — are deeply pragmatic necessities.
Furthermore, these policies are all wildly popular with voters on both sides of the ideological spectrum, and can be paid for with an adjustment of our national priorities. The F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft is expected to cost at least $1.5 trillion before all is said and done. I can think of a few coastal cities which could use that money to stave off the ocean, which is coming, whether we like it or not. It’s either that, or the “conservatives” can try to bail the onrushing tides out of the boulevards with the alms bowls they usually fill with oil and coal dollars. The choice has become that stark.
It is time for the Blue Dogs and their media pals to get with the program and stop hiding behind meaningless labels and discredited tropes. The avalanche has begun, and the pebbles are taking the ride whether they like it or not. If they want to be on the right, they can try being on the right side of history, if there is anyone left to write it.
They are able to do this, thanks in no small part to the committed care and feeding of big-paper/big-network reporters, editorialists and producers, many of whom haven’t entertained a new idea since Windows 3.1 was the hot new thing. A recent spirited meeting of House Democrats gave these media types yet another chance to strut their fogbound stuff even as they gave cover to their “moderate” friends who, if you believe the mainstream stenographers out there, have it all figured out.
Their fallback tactic is ease: Inaccurate labeling stands in substitution for analysis because it is easier, tropes outmatch facts because they are easier, and lies from “important people” are not simply allowed to stand, but to flourish. Why? Because it is easier.
“House Democrats exploded in recriminations Thursday over moderates bucking the party, with liberal Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threatening to put those voting with Republicans ‘on a list’ for a primary challenge,” reads the opening line of last week’s febrific Washington Post article on the Democrats’ meeting, only the most recent example of the practice.
There are 137 words in the first four paragraphs of that thoroughly frantic report, a bunch of which clearly strive to become lit sticks of dynamite in the next life. Exploded! Moderates bucking the party! Threatening! On a list! Primary challenge! Frustrated! Lashed out! Pressured! Unquestioned media superstar! Upped the ante! Admonishing! Liberal activists! Unseat! On a list, again! Would that I had pearls to clutch.
“Unquestioned media superstar” takes the biscuit in paragraph three, however. The term refers to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while simultaneously dismissing her intelligence, skills, passion, wit, will and political savvy by turning her into another bit of TV fluff that will only be popular until the next big hot-minute celebrity comes along. She is bigger than that by many long miles, and those who can’t or won’t acknowledge that are setting themselves up for one hell of a surprise.
What was this House Democrats’ meeting about, anyway? Why were Democrats “exploding” over “moderates’” behavior? The meeting centered around the use and misuse of a legislative maneuver called a “motion to recommit.” It allows the minority party to add amendments to a bill just before it is brought to a vote. The rule exists to keep the majority party from wielding unlimited legislative power, and is something each party protects for the day when they find themselves in the minority. Ever since the Democrats took control of the House, Republicans have been using the rule to stick abrasive nonsense amendments to important bills.
“On Wednesday,” reports Paul Blest for Splinter News, “the House passed a major gun control bill that is sure to die in the Senate, but which laid down an important marker of the party’s priorities. Before that, however, a Republican amendment to the bill that would notify ICE when an undocumented person buys a gun was offered up and shockingly passed, due in part to the votes of 26 House Democrats — many of them members of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition caucus. This wasn’t a trade for ‘bipartisanship.’ Only eight Republicans voted for the final bill itself. Twenty-six Democrats just gave them a racist amendment for free.”
Speaker Pelosi, who ran the “explosive” meeting, was in high dudgeon and for good reason. In the eight years the GOP held the majority in that chamber, the Democrats were unable to pass a single “motion to recommit” because there were never enough Republican votes to help them do it. Since January, and because of these Blue Dog “moderates,” minority House Republicans have already managed to get two stapled to legislation. “Vote no,” admonished Pelosi, “just vote no, because the fact is, a vote yes is to give leverage to the other side.”
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t messing around, either. “When activists ask her why she had to vote for a gun safety bill that also further empowers an agency that forcibly injects kids with psychotropic drugs,” said Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent about the meeting described in the Washington Post article, “they’re going to want a list of names and she’s going to give it to them.” At the conclusion of the meeting, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez herself said, “I think it is an extension of Trump’s tactics into the House, and we cannot legitimatize it and we cannot allow for it and we cannot support it.”
While it is gratifying that enough conservative Democrats won in 2018 to alter the balance of power in the House, that altered balance is utterly meaningless if the Republicans are still allowed to call the shots. House Republicans wanted to jam the words “illegal immigrants” into a Democratic gun bill as a means of putting a tack on Speaker Pelosi’s chair, and the Blue Dogs were their willing dupes.
The background checks legislation passed by the House last week was the most important bill on the gun violence crisis passed by that chamber in decades. There has already been a vote on the Green New Deal, and there will be more to come on equally important Democratic priorities. These Blue Dogs need to wise up on a tactical level, or they are going to find out what life is like on the back bench with no committee assignments and a primary opponent who has Ocasio-Cortez on speed dial.
In the meantime, can we please dispense with the notion that these Blue Dog types are “moderates”? If they vote with conservatives, they are conservatives.
Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not part of some far-out faction to be marginalized by the puddle-minded media; they are the moderate Democrats. The clear-sighted policies they espouse — addressing the immediate threats of climate change, gun violence and wildly expensive health care to name but a few — are deeply pragmatic necessities.
Furthermore, these policies are all wildly popular with voters on both sides of the ideological spectrum, and can be paid for with an adjustment of our national priorities. The F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft is expected to cost at least $1.5 trillion before all is said and done. I can think of a few coastal cities which could use that money to stave off the ocean, which is coming, whether we like it or not. It’s either that, or the “conservatives” can try to bail the onrushing tides out of the boulevards with the alms bowls they usually fill with oil and coal dollars. The choice has become that stark.
It is time for the Blue Dogs and their media pals to get with the program and stop hiding behind meaningless labels and discredited tropes. The avalanche has begun, and the pebbles are taking the ride whether they like it or not. If they want to be on the right, they can try being on the right side of history, if there is anyone left to write it.
Tulsi Gabbard’s Financial Disclosures Leave Out Ties To Koch-Funded Think Tank
The Hawaii congresswoman, who’s running as a Democrat for president, sits on a foreign policy advisory council for the Catholic University of America.
By Nick Grube - honolulu civil beat
3/1/19
WASHINGTON — Here’s something you might not know about U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: She’s an advisor to a Charles Koch-funded foreign policy think tank based at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
One of the reasons that’s a surprise is because it’s nowhere to be found on her latest financial disclosure form.
The revelation comes in a new report from Sludge, an investigative news site that tracks money in politics, that highlights the Koch connection to the university’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship. The center was founded in 2017 through a $2.35 million grant from the billionaire’s foundation.
Gabbard, who’s running for president in the Democratic primary, is one of a dozen advisors to the center with strong ties to the Charles and David Koch network — which the author calls “The Kochtopus.”
The billionaire brothers have used their wealth to reshape American politics by pushing far-right, libertarian policies through the use of campaign donations and dark money.
They also spent millions trying to infuse their ideas into institutions of higher learning, from Catholic University to Florida State and George Mason.
As the article points out, Gabbard’s affiliation with the Koch-funded Center for the Study of Statesmanship might seem odd given her public pronouncements about swearing off donations from political action committees and the need to overturn Citizens United.
But the center’s viewpoint also appears to align with Gabbard’s anti-interventionist viewpoints that revolve around keeping the U.S. out of regime-change wars.
“Gabbard, a military veteran, has often opposed U.S. engagement in overseas conflicts, including in war-torn Syria, so she is not out of place among anti-interventionists,” the article says.
“But for a Democrat — especially a 2016 Bernie Sanders surrogate who has progressive views on campaign finance reform and single-payer health care — to accept a position at a think tank funded by Koch and staffed with several Koch-linked individuals is unusual.”
Gabbard’s congressional spokeswoman Lauren McIlvaine defended her boss’ affiliation with the center in a statement to Sludge. McIlvaine also highlighted the fact that Gabbard is a member of the Hawaii Army National Guard and has served two tours of duty in the Middle East.
“The mission of CSS is aligned with the work that she has dedicated herself to, which is why she agreed to serve on their Council of Advisors,” McIlvaine said.
But it’s the financial disclosure omission that sticks out.
Gabbard’s financial disclosure from 2017 — which is the most recent one available — shows that the congresswoman held positions within three organizations: The Sanders Institute, the Healthy Hawaii Coalition and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Profile in Courage Award Committee.
The congresswoman was on the advisory council in 2017.
According to the House Committee on Ethics financial disclosure guideline, members must report any positions they held with organizations, including educational institutions, regardless of whether they received compensation. The guidelines, however, do provide an exemption for honorary positions.
Civil Beat asked Gabbard’s office for an explanation as to why the congresswoman didn’t include the position on her 2017 financial disclosure, but did not receive a response.
This wouldn’t be the first time Gabbard has been caught for not filling out her forms correctly.
In January 2017, Gabbard and her husband, Abraham Williams, travelled to Lebanon and Syria as part of what she described as a secret “fact-finding” mission.
While in Syria she met with the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, a dictator who has been accused by both the U.S. and others in the international community of using chemical weapons against his own people.
The congresswoman was harshly rebuked when she returned by both the left and the right for meeting with Assad. She also initially refused to disclose who paid for her visit.
It was later revealed that Gabbard travelled to Syria with Dennis Kucinich, a former congressman from Ohio, and two brothers, Elie and Bassam Khawam, who said they funded the trip even though it was officially sponsored by the nonprofit, AACCESS-Ohio.
The Khawams have been described in various news articles as supporters of the Assad regime.
Gabbard did not initially disclose to the House Ethics Committee details of her trip to Syria, and after the controversy became public, amended her official travel disclosures. Amid the backlash, Gabbard also said she would reimburse all the costs of her visit.
Like Gabbard, Kucinich is also a member of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship Council of Advisors.
One of the reasons that’s a surprise is because it’s nowhere to be found on her latest financial disclosure form.
The revelation comes in a new report from Sludge, an investigative news site that tracks money in politics, that highlights the Koch connection to the university’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship. The center was founded in 2017 through a $2.35 million grant from the billionaire’s foundation.
Gabbard, who’s running for president in the Democratic primary, is one of a dozen advisors to the center with strong ties to the Charles and David Koch network — which the author calls “The Kochtopus.”
The billionaire brothers have used their wealth to reshape American politics by pushing far-right, libertarian policies through the use of campaign donations and dark money.
They also spent millions trying to infuse their ideas into institutions of higher learning, from Catholic University to Florida State and George Mason.
As the article points out, Gabbard’s affiliation with the Koch-funded Center for the Study of Statesmanship might seem odd given her public pronouncements about swearing off donations from political action committees and the need to overturn Citizens United.
But the center’s viewpoint also appears to align with Gabbard’s anti-interventionist viewpoints that revolve around keeping the U.S. out of regime-change wars.
“Gabbard, a military veteran, has often opposed U.S. engagement in overseas conflicts, including in war-torn Syria, so she is not out of place among anti-interventionists,” the article says.
“But for a Democrat — especially a 2016 Bernie Sanders surrogate who has progressive views on campaign finance reform and single-payer health care — to accept a position at a think tank funded by Koch and staffed with several Koch-linked individuals is unusual.”
Gabbard’s congressional spokeswoman Lauren McIlvaine defended her boss’ affiliation with the center in a statement to Sludge. McIlvaine also highlighted the fact that Gabbard is a member of the Hawaii Army National Guard and has served two tours of duty in the Middle East.
“The mission of CSS is aligned with the work that she has dedicated herself to, which is why she agreed to serve on their Council of Advisors,” McIlvaine said.
But it’s the financial disclosure omission that sticks out.
Gabbard’s financial disclosure from 2017 — which is the most recent one available — shows that the congresswoman held positions within three organizations: The Sanders Institute, the Healthy Hawaii Coalition and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Profile in Courage Award Committee.
The congresswoman was on the advisory council in 2017.
According to the House Committee on Ethics financial disclosure guideline, members must report any positions they held with organizations, including educational institutions, regardless of whether they received compensation. The guidelines, however, do provide an exemption for honorary positions.
Civil Beat asked Gabbard’s office for an explanation as to why the congresswoman didn’t include the position on her 2017 financial disclosure, but did not receive a response.
This wouldn’t be the first time Gabbard has been caught for not filling out her forms correctly.
In January 2017, Gabbard and her husband, Abraham Williams, travelled to Lebanon and Syria as part of what she described as a secret “fact-finding” mission.
While in Syria she met with the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, a dictator who has been accused by both the U.S. and others in the international community of using chemical weapons against his own people.
The congresswoman was harshly rebuked when she returned by both the left and the right for meeting with Assad. She also initially refused to disclose who paid for her visit.
It was later revealed that Gabbard travelled to Syria with Dennis Kucinich, a former congressman from Ohio, and two brothers, Elie and Bassam Khawam, who said they funded the trip even though it was officially sponsored by the nonprofit, AACCESS-Ohio.
The Khawams have been described in various news articles as supporters of the Assad regime.
Gabbard did not initially disclose to the House Ethics Committee details of her trip to Syria, and after the controversy became public, amended her official travel disclosures. Amid the backlash, Gabbard also said she would reimburse all the costs of her visit.
Like Gabbard, Kucinich is also a member of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship Council of Advisors.
third way and corporate democrats
anti-aca democrats
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