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Morning Consult poll: Bernie Sanders is most popular senator, Mitch McConnell is least popular

Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the most popular member of the U.S. Senate, while Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the least popular, according to the latest Morning Consult poll.

The poll, released Wednesday, surveyed more than 350,000 registered voters in senators’ and governors’ home states to compile approval ratings for the third quarter of this year.

Vermont voters were especially happy with their senators, with 63 percent approving of Sanders and 61 percent approving of Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy.

The other three senators with the highest approval ratings in their states were: Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Independent Angus King of Maine and Republican John Thune of South Dakota. All three had approval ratings of 58 percent.

McConnell had an approval rating of 33 percent, with 52 percent of Kentucky voters disapproving of the Senate leader. Still, in a bit of good news for McConnell, his net approval rating rose 8 percentage points from the second quarter to the third quarter.

Majority leaders, by virtue of their roles as party leaders, often suffer from the perception that they are unduly partisan.

The other most unpopular senators were: Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona, with a 49 percent disapproval rate; Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri, with a 48 percent disapproval rate, and Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey, with a 46 percent disapproval rate.

Lol, damned if he does, damned if he doesnt. It’s almost like these people are slightly hypocritical..

Bernie Sanders to campaign in Columbia before SC election; some Democrats not happy

Bernie Sanders is diving into South Carolina’s election campaign, and some Palmetto State Democrats are not happy about it.

Sanders will speak Saturday, Oct. 20, in Columbia at a rally of Our Revolution SC between noon and 2 p.m. The group, which has endorsed Democrat James Smith for governor, is an offshoot of the independent Vermont senator’s unsuccessful 2016 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Our Revolution SC is holding its two-day fall conference Oct. 19 and 20 in Columbia, starting at the Lourie Center on Friday and moving into the larger Koger Center for the Arts on Saturday. The event is free, but attendees are asked to register online.

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Some S.C. Democrats are not happy about Sanders’ visit.

Amanda Loveday, a former executive director of the S.C. Democratic Party, told the Associated Press that Sanders’ visit is “extremely selfish” and not in the best interest of the state’s Democratic candidates.

Smith campaign spokesman Brad Warthen said Smith’s support from the Sanders-aligned group is consistent with the Democrat building a broad base of support.

“Unlike the McMaster campaign, which practices the politics of exclusion, we practice the politics of inclusion,” Warthen said. “We have and we welcome the support of citizens who voted for Bernie Sanders as well as those who voted for Donald Trump, and everyone in between.”

Progressives furious about Senate judicial nominee deal

Progressive outside groups immediately panned a deal Thursday on President Trump’s judicial nominations, which is paving the way for the Senate to leave town until after the November election.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced a deal on 15 nominations—marking one of the Senate’s final items on its to-do list before a weeks-long recess.

But progressives immediately argued the agreement was too soon after Democrats lost their uphill bid to block Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.

Chris Kang, the counsel for Demand Justice, blasted Democrats as “passive” and warned that progressives were “not going to tolerate this kind of weakness much longer.”

“This deal was totally unnecessary and it is a bitter pill to swallow so soon after the Kavanaugh fight that so many progressive activists poured their hearts and souls into. This period will be long remembered not just for the historic number of judges Trump has been able to confirm, but also because of how passive Democrats were in response,” he said.

The agreement was negotiated by leadership in both parties, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). And under Senate rules, any one senator could have objected to McConnell’s request to set up the Thursday votes—no one did.

Native American tribe slams Supreme Court decision upholding North Dakota voter ID law

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe slammed the Supreme Court’s decision allowing North Dakota to enforce a voter ID law.

The law requires voters to present identification that includes a current residential street address if they want to vote in this year’s midterm elections.

“Native Americans can live on the reservation without an address. They’ve lived in accordance with the law and treaties, but now all of a sudden they can’t vote. There is no good reason that a P.O. box is not sufficient to vote,” Standing Rock Chairman Mike Faith said in a press release.

“Why is it getting harder and harder for Native Americans to vote? This law clearly discriminates against Native Americans in North Dakota. Our voices should be heard and they should be heard fairly at the polls just like all other Americans,” he added.

A district court temporarily blocked the North Dakota secretary of state from enforcing the new requirements during the primary elections. But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked that court order last month, allowing the law to be put in place ahead of the general election.

‘The Guy Who Defended Company That Caused Worst Oil Spill in US History’ Just Confirmed to Head DOJ’s Environmental Division

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) joined with Senate Republicans on Thursday to confirm Jeffrey Bossert Clark—a climate-denying former attorney for the fossil fuel industry—to lead the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

“Clark’s blatant hostility toward environmental protection is good news for polluters, but awful news for the rest of us,” warned Environmental Working Group (EWG) president Ken Cook. “The guy who defended the company that caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history is not likely to aggressively go after corporate environmental outlaws.”

The new assistant attorney general’s nomination has been stalled for more than a year due to concerns about his history as a lawyer. Clark has represented B.P. in lawsuits that stemmed from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in suits attacking the U.S. government’s authority to craft regulations that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

In his new post, as E&E News reports, “Clark will lead the federal government’s litigation positions in cases dealing with pollution control laws, public lands, natural resources, wildlife, and tribal issues.” Jeffrey Wood—who worked for Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he was a senator for Alabama—has been running the division during the lengthy confirmation process.

“[Clark] is a favorite of the Federalist Society, having chaired that group’s environmental law and practice group. But his nomination is strongly opposed by groups that care about protecting the environment,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told The Hill. “He is exactly the wrong person to be in this job of enforcing regulations to protect our environment.”

Amazon Sends Letter to Bernie Sanders Promising Wage Hikes

In a new letter sent Tuesday to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Amazon promised that “all hourly operations and customer service employees will see an increase in their total compensation as a result of this announcement,” according to a copy obtained by The Daily Beast.

This follows a memo sent from the senator last week expressing concerns that the e-commerce titan’s announced minimum-wage boost to $15/hr. would be accompanied by a loss of bonuses and stock options, resulting in a net decrease in total compensation.

“The significant increase in hourly cash wages effective November 1 more than compensates for the phase out of incentive pay and future RSU grants,” wrote Jay Carney, senior vice president for global corporate affairs at Amazon on Wednesday.

Sanders previously applauded Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for the decision after he staged a months-long pressure campaign against the company and other large corporations.

Sen. Bernie Sanders to campaign in nine battleground states to end ‘right-wing government’

Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Thursday that he will campaign in nine battleground states this month to try to elect Democrats in congressional, gubernatorial and state legislature races from California to South Carolina.

Sanders, the 77-year-old Vermont independent who ran for president as a Democrat in 2016, said he will support “progressive” candidates during his nine-day tour across the country. However, not all the Democrats that Sanders is helping are liberal enough to be considered progressive.

Some of them, like Rep. Jacky Rosen, who is challenging Republican Sen. Dean Heller in Nevada, are viewed as traditional, mainstream Democrats. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is not a left-wing darling, helped convince Rosen to run.

Sanders, in an email to supporters Thursday, said the Nov. 6 election is “a pivotal moment in American history.”

“Do we continue with a one-party, right-wing government in Washington led by a pathological liar with strong authoritarian tendencies?” Sanders wrote, referring to President Donald Trump. “Or, do we stand up to Trump and fight for an agenda that represents all Americans, and not just the 1%?”

Bernie Sanders shifts support to Whitmer in Michigan governor’s race
Kathleen Gray, Detroit Free Press

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator who ran for president in 2016, will travel to Ann Arbor next week in an effort to fire up progressive voters for Gretchen Whitmer’s gubernatorial campaign.

Sanders backed Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the race for governor before the Aug. 7 primary and appeared at a rally for El-Sayed’s campaign the weekend before that election. But the former Detroit health department director finished second of three candidates in the race, behind Whitmer and in front of retired Ann Arbor businessman Shri Thanedar.

While Sanders said Whitmer is the candidate who will help ensure every Michigander has clean drinking water and access to quality schools, his endorsement of the campaign presents some challenges, too.

Reforming campaign finance by getting political action committee dollars out is a key issue for Sanders as well as a transformation of health care into a single-payer, government-run system.

But Whitmer has accepted PAC money in her race for governor and has not supported a single-payer system for health care, saying it would be difficult to implement such a system on a state level.

Still, Sanders said in a statement endorsing Whitmer: “Too often, Michigan’s working families have been left behind by the political elite. That’s why Gretchen will work to get big money out of politics, invest in infrastructure, and move towards universal pre-school.”

The Discourse on Palestine Is Shifting. Will Concrete Policy Changes Follow?

Even as Washington churned through a miasma of Brett Kavanaugh lies and horror, a different kind of history was being written more than a thousand miles west. For all who doubted whether the public and political discourse on Palestine and Israel has changed at all, the keynote speakers at the national conference of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights in St. Paul, Minnesota proved them wrong.

Certainly, much of the conversation is still dangerously one-sided, too often uncritically supportive of Israel. U.S. policy has gotten worse, much worse, in the last two years. And we know that U.S. democracy is so flawed, so broken, that changing public opinion does not guarantee a shift in actual political decision-making.

But there can be no question that, as Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and Rev. William Barber II of the Poor People’s Campaign demonstrated unequivocally, dramatic shifts are underway in public engagement on the issue, from movements to the media to policymakers. Those changes are simultaneously creating and reflecting a new political moment, in which variants of the struggle for Palestinian rights are finding center stage in a widening range of organizations and movements.

In that basement hotel ballroom, though, there was still uncertainty when Rep. McCollum rose to speak. She outlined Israel’s new “nation-state” law. Most of the audience was already familiar with the law, and how it had turned the country’s longstanding discriminatory practices designed to privilege Jews and disempower Palestinians, into an official component of Israel’s Basic Law: the equivalent of a constitutional amendment. But would she say the whole truth? Four or five hundred people were sitting on the edge of their chairs.

“The world has a name for the form of government that is codified in the Nation-State Law,” she said. “It is called ‘apartheid.’” There was a collective gasp, and the audience, many in tears, leaped to their feet in a massive ovation.

Identifying Israel’s practices as apartheid isn’t new, and in most parts of the world it isn’t controversial or even particularly noteworthy—it’s simply an accurate description. But in the context of the United States, and especially in the context of the U.S. Congress, describing Israel with that term has long assumed to be political suicide. Rep. McCollum recognized it was not – and she repeatedly invoked her district constituents who, she said, “expect me to fight for progressive values, human rights and policies that respect and elevate our shared human dignity. I am representative, a reflection of the people who elect me. So, my work to promote peace, attack poverty, defend the rights of children and stand in solidarity with the oppressed, including the Palestinian people, is because I have the support of my wonderful constituents.”

Socialist Foreign Policy Must Center Climate Change

As midterm elections loom, suddenly everyone is formulating a foreign policy for the Left. On August 9, Phyllis Bennis put forward “A Bold Foreign Policy Platform for the New Wave of Left Lawmakers,” for In These Times; on September 4, in Foreign Affairs, Daniel Nexon called for “a new progressive internationalism.” On September 13, Bernie Sanders wrote in the Guardian that we need an “international progressive movement” to combat a rapidly coalescing “new authoritarian axis.” His motion was seconded by Yanis Varoufakis.

And it didn’t end there. Soon joining the call for a new progressive foreign policy were Daniel Bessner in the New York Times, Katrina vanden Heuvel in the Washington Post and more. All these pieces addressed traditional foreign policy questions and what progressives should pressure the U.S. government to do.

This piece is about something different: not primarily what candidates or the state should do but what we in the socialist movement should do, with or without state power—and how we can update our approach for the 21st century. (I am using socialist as a catchall term for all the anarchists, labor organizers, municipalists, feminists, anti-racists, gender activists and other progressives who make up our still-amorphous movement.)

No one should be shackled with a lifetime of debt for the simple act of trying to get an education, yet Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and this administration are actively working to make it harder for students to get the help they need. pic.twitter.com/01zhFOS0MD

— Our Revolution (@OurRevolution) October 11, 2018

"This President needs his ego stoked every single day."

CNN commentator @ninaturner slams President Trump for "having a lovefest with Kanye West" today instead of focusing on hurricane recovery. https://t.co/kjeqsOy7HN pic.twitter.com/6bjhnhHZ78

— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) October 12, 2018

Bernie’s New Internationalist Vision

Bernie Sanders has been called “bad on foreign policy” by just about everyone under the sun. Coming from those to his right, it typically means insufficiently deferential to the hawks of the foreign policy establishment. Sanders vocally opposed and voted against the Iraq War, is more critical of Israel than any other major American politician, has proposed drastic cuts in military spending, sought to terminate the US nuclear weapons program, opposes US support for the Saudi-led offensive in Yemen, and has expressed strong opposition to past CIA-backed coups in Latin America and Iran, among other unorthodox foreign policy positions.

Coming from the Left, criticisms have often been founded in legitimate concern that Sanders’s foreign policy hasn’t departed from the bipartisan consensus as much as his domestic economic policy has. For example, while all of the above is true, he doesn’t support the movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, and he has cast his vote for US military intervention several times during his decades-long tenure in the Senate. He has spoken on occasion about the need to preserve American military might, even while he inveighs against the waste and the abuses of the US military at other times.

As a young man Sanders sought to be a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, visited post-revolutionary Cuba, and arranged diplomatic meetings with Sandinistas. But his tenure in the Senate coincided with a yawning absence of a strong domestic antiwar movement, and he often found himself toeing the liberal line on foreign policy, saving his dissent for domestic policy fights and big-ticket foreign policy episodes like the Iraq War.

But Sanders’s life and his task have changed considerably since his presidential campaign catapulted him from relative obscurity into the national spotlight three years ago. Now, Sanders seems to be taking more seriously the responsibility he bears to represent the Left on American foreign policy. This responsibility entails using his platform to differentiate a leftist approach to foreign policy from a liberal one, as he’s done with domestic policy

This goes great with your morning coffee! @ninaturner, @RoKhanna, @SymoneDSanders, and @SenJeffMerkley in a fantastic panel discussion with @mehdirhasan.https://t.co/apENfzEd8H

— ? eScapE From Tomorrow??? (@scapelliti) October 12, 2018