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Keystone pipeline leak days before Nebraska expansion ruling

TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone pipeline leaked an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil onto agricultural land in northeastern South Dakota, but state officials don’t believe the leak polluted any surface water bodies or drinking water systems.

State officials and pipeline operator TransCanada Corp. disclosed the leak Thursday, and the company shut down the pipeline.

TransCanada said it activated emergency response procedures after detecting a drop in pressure resulting from the leak south of a pump station in Marshall County. The cause was being investigated.

Discovery of the leak comes just days before Nebraska regulators are scheduled to announce their decision Monday whether to approve the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, an expansion that would boost the amount of oil TransCanada is now shipping through the existing line, which is known simply as Keystone. The expansion has faced fierce opposition from environmental groups, American Indian tribes and some landowners.

This lady takes the wrong approach to literally everything…

Y’all wanted your Keystone pipeline and predictably it comes with 210,000 gallons of oil spilled onto your farmland. https://t.co/YP4T2hSdOa

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) November 17, 2017

The Lakota Sioux warned us.
Tribal nations tried to protect us.
Relatives at Standing Rock fought for the health of our land.

DAPL maimed us, tapped our phones, and infiltrated camp so they could leak oil and poison our water.

Time to end fossil fuels.#MniWiconi https://t.co/26a2KYdHnO

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 16, 2017

Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil have just spilled from the #KeystonePipeline. How long until it’s @Enbridge Line 5? #ShutDownLine5

— Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) November 16, 2017

Democrats Are Doomed Unless They Start Listening to Millennials

2017 is the year of the youth vote. From the stunning surge of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the UK elections to Ralph Northam’s victory in Virginia, the power of young voters to influence political outcomes is increasingly clear. It is often absurd to speak in terms of “generational ethos,” but the cohort that voted so strongly for Labour in the UK and the Democratic Party in the US do have shared memories. Coming of age during a cataclysmic recession caused by the excesses of the 1 percent, millennials have experienced a political system that prioritized assets over human beings. They’ve watched as failures of the elite class resulted in the further accumulation of wealth in the hands of the ruling class, even while pundits declared that the system worked.

The Boomer generation, secure in the post-war welfare state, felt no compunctions pulling up the ladder. They voted for white supremacists devoted to the destruction of the social safety net while secure in the knowledge that their own healthcare would remain cheap—and indeed, Medicare has not been threatened by the Republican Party like Medicaid has. Yet despite the clear leftward lean of young people, caused in no small part by the Great Recession, pundits have frequently overlooked their electoral power, and too many Democrats still don’t know how to energize them.

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The implications of the increasingly powerful youth vote are clear, if Democrats want to embrace them. Though elections are often decided by turnout among young people, many Democratic strategists have spent their time concerned with winning back older whites. The tactics Democrats have been advised to pursue to attract Obama to Trump voters, such as criticizing “sanctuary cities”, ceding ground on immigration enforcement, and rejecting “multiculturalism,” won’t play well with young people. Millennial independents are more racially liberal than non-millennial independents. While moving to the center on race may have helped Democrats win “independent” voters in the past, the strategy will have diminishing returns.

The diversity of the millennial generation can be see in the young candidates running for office across the country. The down-ballot races in 2018 will build the next generation of political talent. Daniel Squadron, a former New York state senator and executive director at Future Now Fund, argues that Democrats have often missed opportunities down-ballot. “For the first time, people see the potential in state races, but the seeds that are planted take time to sprout,” he told me. “The focus has to be maintained in 2018, and in accountability after candidates are first elected.”

“Young people are ready to take back our democracy, to build the future we’re going to live in. It’s time our politics and our politicians reflect that,” Abdul El-Sayed a Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Michigan who transformed a public health department eviscerated by privatization, told me. He highlighted policies like “tuition relief, universal healthcare, environmental protection and clean energy,” that he felt would mobilize young voters.,

What Democratic civil war? The left already won.

There’s been lots of talk about a supposed civil war brewing within the Democratic Party, as its centrist and progressive wings vie for power. But at least as a matter of presidential politics, this talk isn’t premature — it’s too late. The war may not have been won but the eventual victor is clear: By the end of the 2020 presidential primaries, an increasingly liberal grass-roots activist base is likely to have gained full control of the party.

The party that nominated Barack Obama to the presidency almost a decade ago had moved considerably to the left by the end of his second term. Hillary Clinton was barely able to withstand these changes in her campaign against Bernie Sanders. She ultimately secured the nomination by harnessing the remnants of the decaying Democratic political apparatus and racking up overwhelming support from the appointed superdelegates.

This transformation has been building since the beginning of the past decade, fueled by Bush v. Gore, George W. Bush’s subsequent decision to go to war in Iraq and growing income inequality exacerbated by the economic crisis. The Trump presidency has only further energized the liberal base.

It is difficult to overstate the depth and breadth of the move to the left on social and economic policies among Democrats since Bill Clinton’s presidency. The Pew Values Survey released last month found that the percentage of Democrats and Democratic leaners who express liberal or mostly liberal political values exploded from 30 percent in 1994 to 73 percent in 2017.

Two months after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are still living in misery. As a nation we must do better. pic.twitter.com/a11cjeTZUs

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 16, 2017

Tribes make renewed push for pipeline protections

Two American Indian tribes in the Dakotas are making a renewed push to bolster protections for their water supply while federal officials further study the potential impact of the recently completed Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Lawyers for the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes on Wednesday filed court documents urging a federal judge to reject the recent arguments of federal officials and the pipeline developer that the tribes’ proposals are unnecessary or unwarranted.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is requiring the Army Corps of Engineers to further review the pipeline’s impact on tribal interests, but he’s allowing oil to continue flowing while that work is done over the next several months.

The tribes fear any oil spill beneath the Lake Oahe reservoir on the Missouri River would contaminate their water supply. They want additional protections including implementation of an emergency spill response plan that incorporates tribal input and includes equipment staging.

The Corps and Texas-based pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners maintain the pipeline is safe. Their attorneys argued in court documents earlier this month that the tribal proposals aren’t needed, would duplicate other efforts or would be burdensome.

‘Biggest Pile of Money on the Planet’ To Dump Fossil Fuels Holdings

Environmental advocates on Thursday applauded the latest organization to shift away from continued support of the fossil fuel industry—Norway’s national bank.

In a move 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben called “astonishing,” Norges Bank, which oversees the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, advised the Norwegian government to dump all of its shares in oil and gas companies, leaving those entities out of its $1 trillion fund.

The bank’s decision comes two years after Norway’s parliament approved a measure calling for the fund to begin divesting from coal companies.

Norges Bank made the new recommendation in light of falling oil prices. Oil and gas are seen as increasingly risky investments as more countries turn to cleaner energy sources in order to meet requirements under the Paris climate agreement, which aims to keep global warming under two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

While Norway has built much of its sovereign wealth through oil and gas development in the past—six percent of the fund is invested in fossil fuels—it’s now home to a fast-growing solar power sector, with solar installations rising by 366 percent from 2015 to 2016.

Judge won’t impose deadline in gas pipeline suit

A federal judge tells developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline he won’t order all landowners in its West Virginia lawsuit to respond by Dec. 4 to motions for summary judgment for rights of way available under federal regulations.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver at a status conference Thursday said he wants the developers to locate landowners and serve them with court papers.

How the Alaska Pipeline Is Fueling the Push to Drill in the Arctic Refuge

he war over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) — one of the most contentious and enduring environmental fights in U.S. history — is once again heating up.

Congress is considering a budget bill that permits oil drilling throughout the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge. With Republicans controlling the executive and legislative branches of government, proponents like Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski believe now is the best chance in decades to develop the refuge.

The debate over drilling in ANWR — a wilderness area nearly as large as South Carolina — has long pitted protecting this pristine environment against American energy security and creating jobs. But behind these talking points is a material infrastructure, the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, that has been incentivizing Arctic development for decades.

The truth is that the need to keep feeding the 40-year-old pipeline with oil is a key factor behind the current drive to open ANWR to fossil fuel drilling. The volume of oil flowing through the Alaska Pipeline has fallen sharply in recent decades, from a peak of two million barrels of North Slope oil a day in 1988 to 500,000 barrels a day last year. That steep reduction has created numerous technical problems, including a buildup of ice and paraffin wax (naturally found in crude oils) that hinders the easy passage of oil. One solution to the sluggish pipeline flow? Pump more oil into it, hence the drive by Congress and the Trump Administration to drill in ANWR and the nearby National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA).

As a result, the nation is now confronted with a great irony: The Alaska Pipeline was approved and built because the nation needed the oil following the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, but decades later, when the U.S. has abundant supplies of cheap oil and natural gas, it is the pipeline itself that demands ever-more petroleum. That perverse impetus to start drilling oil in these unparalleled Alaskan wilderness areas will — along with projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline — keep the U.S. pumping, transporting, and burning oil for decades to come, even as the world rapidly warms.

Petitions to request dropping of charges against pipeline protesters

As a follow-up to the one-year anniversary of clashes between law enforcement and protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline on Backwater Bridge near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, anti-pipeline activists intend to deliver a petition on Monday with more than 55,000 signatures to state’s attorney Allen Koppy asking that all charges be dropped against the hundreds of people still facing charges for anti-pipeline activism.

The petitions were collected online and in-person by representatives of the Lakota People’s Law Project over the past four months. They’ll be delivered by Standing Rock leaders Phyllis Young and Ladonna Brave Bull Allard, Lakota People’s Law Project director Daniel Paul Nelson and Cheyenne River pipeline activist HolyElk Lafferty.

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“Nobody should suffer consequences for protecting our only source of water,” said Lafferty, who asserted that, even once the petitions are dropped and the cases are over, the movement created at Standing Rock will live on.

“The veil was lifted, and now there are millions of people staring straight at the dysfunction created by capitalism, and specifically the fossil fuel industry,” she said. “Standing Rock activated a sense of responsibility in each of us, a sense of courage. People saw what we were doing on the ground and people became active within their own environments. Now there are many, many people out there who, because of what they did for Standing Rock, know they have the power to make change.”

Battle Lines Drawn as GOP Moves Closer to ‘Greatest Transfer of Wealth to the Super-Rich in Modern American History’

With their passage of a deeply unpopular $1.5 trillion tax cut bill on Thursday, House Republicans did their part in “paving the way for the greatest transfer of wealth from regular people to the super-rich in modern American history,”—a move that sparked a flood of outrage from progressive activists and lawmakers who vowed to mobilize and do everything in their power to “kill the bill.”

“If we are going to stop Republicans from taking healthcare from millions and slashing Medicare to give tax cuts to the wealthy and large corporations, now is the time to stand up and fight back,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a call to action that was echoed by many of the progressive groups that played a significant role in the fight against Trumpcare.

There already is far too much media concentration in this country. We need more diversity, more local ownership, more viewpoints. @AjitPaiFCC's decision is a massive step backwards. https://t.co/ceePYiVUD2

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 16, 2017

Leading Democrats, Bernie Sanders Turns on Al Franken in ‘Watershed Moment’ in Sexual Harassment Scandal

Al Franken’s political opponents— including President Donald Trump —were quick to criticize the Minnesota senator after radio anchor and model Leeann Tweeden accused him of forcefully kissing her and shared a photo of him grabbing her breasts while she was asleep.

But some of the most senior figures in the Democratic Party are now calling for an investigation into their colleague, who was recently even being considered as a potential presidential candidate for the party in 2020.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, said in a statement: “Sexual harassment is never acceptable and must not be tolerated.” Schumer also called for an Ethics Committee investigation into the “troubling incident.”

Bernie Sanders, who is an independent senator but who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, issued a statement saying that sexual harassment is “completely unacceptable” and agreeing with calls for an investigation.

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Franken issued a lengthy apology for the incident. Regarding the picture, he said: “I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself.” Regarding the alleged kiss, Franken said that “while I don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit as Leeann does, I understand why we need to listen to and believe women’s experiences.”

He also said that he was asking for an ethics investigation to be started and would “gladly cooperate.”

Joe Biden Is the Last Person the Democrats Should Run in 2020

On Monday, Joe Biden said he’s “not closing the door” on a future presidential run. A new Politico/Morning Consult poll demonstrated why he’s considering going for it by showing Biden leading Trump by 11 points in a very hypothetical 2020 matchup.

But don’t be fooled by these numbers—the same poll found that a “generic Democrat” would fare even better against Trump. More to the point, to even find himself facing Trump Biden would have to win a likely packed-to-the-brim Democratic primary. And when a Resistance-drunk Democratic base looks at Biden, it’s going to see a lot not to like. He’ll face the same problems Hillary Clinton did in 2016, but magnified.

Let’s begin by noting that Biden has already positioned himself as anti-populist Democrat in ideological opposition to Bernie Sanders, who according to some polls is the most popular politician in the US. In practice, this seems to mean going around saying things like “the wealthy are as patriotic as the poor,” which seems slightly tone deaf considering he’d be competing to replace Trump and throw out his Cabinet of billionaires and hedge fund titans.

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While Hillary was forever tied to the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act that her husband signed into law, Bill actually credited Biden with passing the legislation, which the former president later admitted made America’s mass incarceration crisis worse. As recently as 2015, the bill that gave states financial incentivizes to incarcerate more citizens and instituted mandatory minimums for nonviolent crimes was referred to as “1994 Biden Crime Bill.”

Biden’s role in Anita Hill’s 1991 sexual harassment hearing is also troubling. The then-senator led the proceedings as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and even though he ultimately voted against confirming Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, he was widely criticized by the left for “having mismanaged the allegations of sexual harassment made by Ms. Hill against her former employer, Mr. Thomas,” according to a 2008 New York Times story. In a 2014 interview with the Huffington Post, Hill said that Biden did “a disservice to me, a disservice more importantly, to the public.”

Bill Clinton’s accusers deserved to be heard, Donna Brazile says during Miami visit

Apostate Democrat Donna Brazile continued to torch her own party during a talk at the Miami Book Fair Wednesday night, with harsh words for Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Hillary Clinton campaign and even the sexual transgressions of Bill Clinton.

Brazile called Wasserman Schultz a spendthrift who unleashed a “cancer” on the party during her term as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, accused Hillary Clinton of planting the seeds of her own campaign’s destruction with an arrogant disdain for advice and suggested however gently that the women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual improprieties should have gotten a more respectful reception.

“It was brave of them to come forward,” she said of the former president’s accusers, noting that going public with their stories placed them “in the middle of a political circus.”

“The point we should be making at this time is that we should have zero tolerance on sexual harassment, whether it’s Roy Moore, Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein — you fill in the blank,” Brazile said. “We should have a zero tolerance policy. No woman — or man — should be faced with inappropriate behavior or conduct.”

The North Carolina Farm Act of 2017 impedes farmworkers’ 1st Amendment right to participate in unions. Today, w/ @SupportFLOC, @ACLU_NC and @ncjustice, we filed suit challenging that law.
https://t.co/JdXgAbVzL2

— Southern Poverty Law Center (@splcenter) November 15, 2017

So honored to be featured on #Project100’s slate of inspiring future female leaders of America! https://t.co/VLO3aSEoiw

— Sarah Smith 🦆 (@SarahSmith4WA) November 16, 2017

Israeli military chief wants closer Saudi ties as Iran tensions rise

Israel’s military chief has given an “unprecedented” interview to a Saudi newspaper underlining the ways in which the two countries could unite to counter Iran’s influence in the region.

Speaking to the Saudi newspaper Elaph, Gen Gadi Eisenkot described Iran as the “biggest threat to the region” and said Israel would be prepared to share intelligence with “moderate” Arab states like Saudi Arabia in order to “deal with” Tehran.

The interview, however, is particularly striking in its very public and confrontational messaging: an appeal by Israel to Riyadh for a joint action on Tehran, delivered by Israel’s most senior soldier.

It is the latest dramatic twist in weeks of turmoil in the region, which followed an unexpected purge of Saudi princes and officials by crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has also increasingly locked Saudi Arabia on a path to confrontation with Iran.

While Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic relations, they have been edging closer recently, including a visit last year by a retired Saudi general heading a delegation seeking to encourage better relations.

Indigenous Woman Gets San Diego Support For Mexico Presidential Run

Ahead of Mexico’s July 2018 presidential elections, Latino groups in San Diego are rallying to get a name on the ballot: María de Jesús Patricio Martinez, known as Marichuy, a traditional Mexican healer and indigenous Nahua woman.

If Patricio gets enough signatures, she will be the first indigenous woman to run for president in Mexico. Groups like Raíces Sin Fronteras and Universidad Popular will be gathering signatures from Mexicans living in San Diego on Saturday at the Centro Cultural de la Gaza starting at 5 p.m.

“She’s an alternative. We know that a lot of people are so tired of the political parties … they don’t know the needs of the people, they don’t know how they struggle to have food, how they struggle to have a house, how they struggle just to live,” said Rosa Barajas, a member of Raíces Sin Fronteras.

Patricio is running on behalf of the National Indigenous Congress, which represents 60 indigenous communities across Mexico and which she helped create. Her viability as a candidate comes amid a rise in Mexican nationalism, in part a backlash to President Trump’s rise in the U.S.

“In that struggle, in that resistance, we are finding our identity — our roots,” said Barajas, who met Patricio in May and has traveled with the Mexican Congress.

Barajas said Patricio appeals to Mexican immigrants in San Diego because many of them came fleeing poverty in Mexico. They believe that Patricio, as an advocate for indigenous rights, will address poverty in Mexico because she has been fighting for the country’s poorest communities for decades. She launched a natural medicine health center in her hometown of Tuxpan, Jalisco a few years before co-founding the National Indigenous Congress.

“We didn’t come because we wanted to enjoy different world, no it was because we needed it, because we were pushed, because people lost their places, their jobs, their land,” Barajas said.

Primatologist Jane Goodall has sent a letter to every senator urging them to oppose oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. https://t.co/0cozKaHK22

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 16, 2017

Oregon and Washington Join 20 Countries to Phase Out Coal By 2030

Even though the Trump administration used its only public forum at the COP23 climate talks in Bonn to promote coal, it’s clear that many individual U.S. businesses, cities and entire states would rather keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Oregon and Washington state have joined a new global alliance to phase out coal and switch to cleaner power sources to avoid dangerous climate change and to stay below the 2°C target set by the landmark Paris climate agreement two years ago.

The Powering Past Coal Alliance, launched Thursday at the climate talks, involves more than 20 nations including Angola, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, Fiji, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Marshall Islands, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Niue, Portugal and Switzerland, according to Reuters.

Notably, the world’s biggest coal users—China, India, the U.S., Germany and Russia—have not joined the new pact.

Members of the new alliance will take actions that include setting coal phase-out targets and barring further investments in coal-fired electricity in their jurisdictions or abroad.

California’s Little-Known Genocide

“Gold! Gold from the American River!” Samuel Brannan walked up and down the streets of San Francisco, holding up a bottle of pure gold dust. His triumphant announcement, and the discovery of gold at nearby Sutter’s Mill in 1848, ushered in a new era for California—one in which millions of settlers rushed to the little-known frontier in a wild race for riches.

But though gold spelled prosperity and power for the white settlers who arrived in California in 1849 and after, it meant disaster for the state’s peaceful indigenous population.

In just 20 years, 80 percent of California’s Native Americans were wiped out. And though some died because of the seizure of their land or diseases caught from new settlers, between 9,000 and 16,000 were murdered in cold blood—the victims of a policy of genocide sponsored by the state of California and gleefully assisted by its newest citizens.

Today, California’s genocide is one of the most heinous chapters in the state’s troubled racial history, which also includes forced sterilizations of people of Mexican descent and discrimination and internment of up to 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II. But before any of that, one of the new state’s first priorities was to rid itself of its sizeable Native American population, and it did so with a vengeance.

Former Virginia Tech Prof Equates U.S. Historical Behavior Toward Native Americans and Palestinians

Espousing the view that the U.S. is a “settler colonial power,” independent scholar Steven Salaita said Native Americans and Palestinians have both, historically, been targets of U.S. imperialism in a lecture Wednesday.

“Palestinians need to have basic human rights,” Salaita said. “They need a social, economic and political transformation that allows them to breathe, that allows them to exist.”

While there are some differences between the histories of indigenous communities and Palestine, he said, they share forms of militarization and disfranchisement of political rights. And after centuries of oppression and mistreatment, he added, Palestinians and Native Americans through global activism have fought against the colonialism that continues today.

Salaita noted the connection between the U.S. and Israel saying we “cannot separate the behavior of Israel with the behavior of the U.S.”

Jealous releases strategy on opioid crisis

Slamming Gov. Larry Hogan’s record on dealing with the crisis of heroin and opioid addiction, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous released his strategy Friday for bringing down Maryland’s soaring levels of overdose deaths.

Jealous’ 12-page proposal is his first comprehensive policy position since he launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination to run against the Republican Hogan.

The candidate said his strategy relies much more on treatment, and less on prison time, than Hogan’s approach over the past three years.

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Jealous’ plan calls for providing the overdose-reversal drug naloxone to Baltimore and the 23 counties at affordable prices. He said its a “scandal” that Baltimore has been forced to ration the drug because of rising prices. He said he would use the state’s purchasing power to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for the best prices.

The candidate, who is competing against seven other Democrats in the June 26 primary, also promised to increase the number of 24/7 “crisis centers” to at least 10 and possibly more. Current law has established only one in Baltimore. At $4 million each, the expansion to 10 would cost the state an additional $36 million.

Other features of Jealous’ plan:

• Creating “outreach teams” in each jurisdiction to react when opioid overdoses spike in a particular area, and training residents to administer naloxone and to help get addicts into treatment.
• Stepping up needle exchange programs to cut the spread of infectious diseases by addicts sharing syringes.
• Better tracking and more quickly sharing data about fentanyl overdoses with health care providers and first responders than the Maryland Department of Health currently does.
• Expanding programs that divert people arrested for minor drug offenses from the criminal justice system into treatment.

Congressional Candidate Dan Canon On GOP’s Tax Bill

Senate Republicans continue to take aim at the Affordable Care Act, this time in the form of a proposed repeal of the ACA’s individual mandate. Introduced as a tax reform bill to cut taxes for individuals and businesses, the reality is very different.

When asked about the GOP Tax Bill, civil rights attorney and candidate for Indiana’s 9th Congressional District Dan Canon said the following: “With this so-called “tax reform” bill, the Senate GOP has dropped all pretense of being interested in anything other than crony capitalism. What few benefits there are for average Americans expire in just a few years to pay for the actual intended beneficiaries of this bill – big business. In fact, in the long term this bill actually raises taxes on individuals across the board, including the middle class who are already bearing too much of the burden of corporate welfare.

“Even more insidious are implications to health care under cover of a tax bill. Republicans are calling for repeal of the individual mandate under pretense of helping taxpayers, when in fact this would cause insurance markets to collapse, effectively ending the ACA and impacting coverage for all Americans. When doctors, patient groups, and insurance companies come together to speak out against an idea you can be pretty sure it’s a bad one.

“We need people in Washington who remember who they really work for. Who don’t expect people to subsidize profits. Who want to protect and expand health coverage. I think voters are ready to make that happen.”

Burns, Supreme Court candidate, stumps in Ashland

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Tim Burns was in Ashland earlier this week on a campaign swing through northern Wisconsin

Burns, an unabashed liberal, said he was campaigning for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by conservative justice Mike Gableman. That seat has a scheduled primary election on Feb. 20, 2018, and a general election on April 3, 2018.

Thus far, there are three candidates for the position — Burns, a Madison attorney; Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Rebecca Dallet; and Sauk County Circuit Court Judge Michael Screnock.

Dallet is seen as a centrist candidate while Screnock is a conservative who said the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the justice he admired most.

On the other hand, Burns said he was a progressive who supported unions and reproductive choice and strong environmental protection.

Burns said he was the grandson of a Mississippi sharecropper, whose father and mother were both forced out of school by poverty.

“I grew up at the greatest time for working families in this country,” he said. “I was able to work hard and get a full scholarship to law school.”

After graduating from law school, he worked for three prestigious law firms. He currently works for the law firm Perkins-Coie, an 8,000-lawyer national law firm.

“”I have spent 25 years doing what I really love to do — suing insurance companies,” he said.

Burns said his decision to run for the Wisconsin Supreme Court was “very much a process.”

“Equal opportunity for people who struggle keeps disappearing,” he said. “I have litigated in cases all over the country, so I’ve seen firsthand the changes in our courts. Over the past 25 years, I have seen that they are becoming more and more pro-business, more and more pro one-percent, more and more pro-concentrated wealth.”

John Fetterman wants to unite the left to defeat the right in his run for Pennsylvania lieutenant governor

On Nov. 14, Braddock Mayor John Fetterman announced his campaign to run for the state’s second highest office, lieutenant governor. The seat is currently held by Mike Stack (D-Philadelphia). Stack has been criticized for allegedly abusing his staff, as well as for trying to expense thousands of dollars in hotel stays in Philadelphia, where he owns a home. Fetterman, also a Democrat, is hoping to unseat Stack, and join Gov. Tom Wolf (D-York) on the 2018 general election ticket.

In a Nov.14 phone call with Pittsburgh City Paper, Fetterman acknowledged the infighting between the Democratic Party and arguments over how the left should move forward to secure votes in the era of President Donald Trump. The neoliberal side of the Democratic Party, which is more aligned with the policies of Hillary Clinton, believes a more moderate, while still generally progressive, approach will succeed. The Democratic Socialist side, which is more aligned with the policies of Bernie Sanders, feels that drastic changes must take place in order to win elections.

But Fetterman believes his record shows that the two sides can come together. In 2016, he was one of the first U.S. Senate candidates to endorse Sanders, but after Sanders lost the primary, Fetterman started to campaign for Clinton. (He even started campaigning for his senate-election opponent Katie McGinty when he lost in the primary election.)

Fetterman said the different factions in the Democratic Party agree on “90% percent of everything” and that working out those minor differences is necessary to defeat Trump and the Republican Party.

“I was a Bernie endorser,” said Fetterman. “We as a party have to come together, and we can’t let differences come between us. The only way Trump is going to win a second term is through a divided Democratic Party.”

A Small Town in Pennsylvania Has Been Ripped Apart by a New Gas Plant

There are lessons to be learned from what’s happened in Jessup.