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Sanders: Election ‘a referendum on the disastrous Trump administration’

Former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday said Democrats’ victories in Tuesday’s elections were a reaction to President Donald Trump’s presidency.

“Yesterday’s elections were really a referendum on the disastrous Trump administration, on his temperament, on his reactionary policies,” said Sanders, speaking with Anderson Cooper. “It was a referendum on Trump and Trump and the Republicans lost.”

Sanders, who is an independent, suggested fear of Trump may have helped animate Democratic voters in Tuesday’s contest.

“The American people from coast to coast are frightened of this President, and they are tired of seeing the billionaire class get their way,” he said. “I think it was a good night for Democrats.”

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“Probably the most interesting aspect of last night in Virginia was the fact that the Democrats may control the House of Delegates, winning I think some 17 or 18 seats,” he said. “And those seats were won often by young people, people who had not ever been involved in the political process and they got involved and in many cases, they won. And you’re seeing that all over this country.”

I don’t remember if I posted this yesterday, so here it is again if I did:

A Year After Trump, Democrats, Socialists, and Populists Sweep Elections

A year ago, Bernie Sanders ran an insurgent campaign that helped popularize democratic socialism and resurgent populism among American progressives. On Tuesday, populist candidates won in places you may not expect — from Manassas, Virginia to Knoxville, Tennessee.

In Virginia, Democratic Socialists of America-backed Lee Carter defeated the GOP whip Jackson Miller in the House of Delegates. Richmond-Times Dispatch reporter Patrick Wilson noted that the state Democratic Party offered little support to Carter. He won anyway. Numerous wings of the broader party united behind Carter, including factions, such as Planned Parenthood, who had backed Hillary Clinton last year.

Across the country, DSA candidates took offices, winning both as Democrats and independents. Socialist Seema Singh Perez won a seat on the Knoxville City Council. In Pittsburgh, a pair of DSA-backed candidates won, including Mik Pappas, an independent candidate who defeated a 24-year incumbent Democrat to become the 31st Magisterial District judge. Pappas ran strong on criminal justice reform, focusing on restorative justice rather than punitive measures.

In Somerville, Massachusetts, DSA members JT Scott and Ben Ewen-Campen unseated long-time incumbents to join the Board of Aldermen. DSA member Charles Decker will represent Ward 9 in New Haven, Connecticut.

And in Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner — also backed by DSA — will soon take office promising to radically overhaul the city’s criminal justice system.

Three Richest Americans Now Own More Wealth Than Bottom Half of US Combined: Report

In the United States, the 400 richest individuals now own more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the population and the three richest own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent, while pervasive poverty means one in five households have zero or negative net worth.

Those are just several of the striking findings of Billionaire Bonanza 2017, a new report (pdf) published Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) that explores in detail the speed with which the U.S. is becoming “a hereditary aristocracy of wealth and power.”

“Over recent decades, an incredibly disproportionate share of America’s income and wealth gains has flowed to the top of our economic spectrum. At the tip of that top sit the nation’s richest 400 individuals, a group that Forbes magazine has been tracking annually since 1982,” write IPS’s Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie, the report’s authors. “Americans at the other end of our economic spectrum, meanwhile, watch their wages stagnate and savings dwindle.”

Collins and Hoxie are quick to note that the vast gulf that currently exists between the rich and everyone else is not the product of some inexplicable “natural phenomenon.” It is, rather, the result of “unfair economic policies that benefit those at the top at the expense of those at the bottom.”

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“The wealthiest 25 individuals in the United States today own $1 trillion in combined assets,” the report notes. “These 25, a group equivalent to the active roster of a major league baseball team, hold more wealth than the bottom 56 percent of the U.S. population combined, 178 million people.”

The top 25 list features billionaires who have attained their vast riches through a variety of means, from inheritance to investing to founding a corporate giant like Amazon or Google. What unites these enormously wealthy individuals—aside from the fact that they are all white—is that they just keep getting richer, decade after decade.

Average Americans, by contrast, have not fared nearly as well: a significant percentage of the U.S. households “have no savings at all or owe more than they own,” making them residents of what Collins and Hoxie term “Underwater Nation.”

Senator Bernie Sanders Urges Zimmer to Let Unionization Vote Stand

U.S. Senator and University alum Bernie Sanders has written a letter to University president Robert Zimmer urging him to respect the result of last month’s graduate student unionization election, according to a tweet from Graduate Students United. In October, graduate students voted to unionize, but the administration has stated that it intends to pursue legal action.

One of @UChicago's most famous alums, a fellow named @BernieSanders, wrote to President Zimmer today with a clear message: Respect the democratic decision of grad employees who voted #YesGSU! pic.twitter.com/g7QR3KIWdm

— UChicago GSU (@uchicagogsu) November 8, 2017

“As an internationally prestigious institution of higher learning, I hope very much that you will set an example throughout the world by supporting a democratic decision made by graduate students and teaching assistants….” Sanders wrote. “To appeal this decision to an anti-worker, Trump-appointed National Labor Relations Board is not something that a world class institution of higher learning should do.”

Sen. Sanders, DNC Official to Raise Money for Vermont Dems

The Vermont independent and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota are slated to appear at the event on Thursday evening in Burlington. Also attending will be U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, both Vermont Democrats.

The appearance at the party’s Autumn Harvest Festival at the Echo Center on the Lake Champlain waterfront comes after Democrats got a boost from election wins around the country on Tuesday.

Nation That Says It Can’t Afford Medicare for All Has Spent $5.6 Trillion on War Since 9/11

A new analysis offers a damning assessment of the United States’ so-called global war on terror, and it includes a “staggering” estimated price tag for wars waged since 9/11—over $5.6 trillion.

The Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Center says the figure—which covers the conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan from 2001 through 2018—is the equivalent of more than $23,386 per taxpayer.

The “new report,” said Paul Kawika Martin, Peace Action’s senior director for policy and political affairs, “once again shows that the true #costofwar represents a colossal burden to taxpayers on top of the tremendous human loss.”

‘Nightmare Scenario,’ Declare Aid Groups, as Saudis Put Yemen Under Total Blockade

Nearly 20 humanitarian agencies on Wednesday warned of a “nightmare scenario” after the Saudi-led coalition blocked off all entry points to Yemen, a decision that cuts off life-saving aid and compounds the catastrophe in the war-ravaged country.

“Yemen is the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 21 million people in desperate need of assistance,” said Shane Stevenson, country director for Oxfam. “To prevent more lives from being lost and the needless suffering of millions, it is vital that aid is not delayed or impeded another hour.”

The Saudi coalition—which, with assistance from the U.S., has been waging a military campaign against Houthi forces—announced the closure of all Yemen’s air, land, and sea ports on Monday after the kingdom intercepted a missile launched by Houthi rebels.

Yemen is in the grips of the fastest-growing cholera epidemic on the books, is facing the world’s worst food crisis, and has seen its health infrastructure decimated by the ongoing conflict.

https://youtu.be/qzHz52AZM9I

Can somebody tell me who is held accountable for @wvdemocrats & @WVFDW for promoting my opponent during a primary at a party hosted event? (The Roosevelt – Kennedy Dinner) AND for allowing @SenSchumer to speak on his behalf for his candidacy during a primary at the event? @DNC pic.twitter.com/3ZWxN6w4Pa

— Paula Jean Swearengin (@paulajean2020) November 9, 2017

How a Socialist Beat One of Virginia’s Most Powerful Republicans

Within minutes of NBC News’ calling Virginia’s gubernatorial election for Ralph Northam on Tuesday night, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez phoned into MSNBC to celebrate. “I’m feeling incredibly optimistic,” he said when host Chris Hayes asked about Democratic gains in the state’s House of Delegates. “The author of the anti-transgender bathroom bill just got defeated by a woman named Danica Roem—a transgender woman who is a spectacular candidate.”

Perez proceeded to name-check Elizabeth Guzman and Hala Ayala, the first Latinas ever elected to the House, but then Hayes asked him about another candidate—one who’d barely received any national attention throughout the campaign. “There’s also, I believe, a Marine veteran who identifies as a democratic socialist who, if I’m not mistaken, is running competitively with someone in the House GOP leadership,” he said. “The House GOP whip might lose to a socialist Marine veteran? Is that actually happening?”

It was indeed. Democrat Lee Carter, a red-haired, 30-year-old Marine veteran from Manassas, won a remarkable nine-point victory to oust Delegate Jackson Miller, a deep-pocketed Republican incumbent who serves as House Majority Whip. Carter ran openly as a socialist—he and his supporters crooned the union anthem “Solidarity Forever” after their victory—and he won with almost no institutional support from the state Democratic Party. The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Patrick Wilson reported last month that party leaders “abandoned” Carter after he declined to report campaign metrics like the number of doors he’d knocked and the amount of money he’d raised. Carter told Wilson he “ceased reporting to the House caucus after multiple information security lapses in which confidential information that we reported to the House caucus was leaked outside of the party infrastructure.” But he also said the party leaders “wanted a bit more editorial control over my messaging than I was comfortable with.”

Texas Democrat Aims To Unseat One Of Trump’s Most Loyal Congressional Supporters

Like most Texas Democrats, Will Fisher woke up on Wednesday, November 9 bewildered by the results of the previous night’s presidential election and scared of the implications of President Donald Trump.

“I was one of those shouting from the rooftops that this guy is dangerous,” Fisher said. “A real danger to our democracy and our democratic institutions.”

Instead of becoming discouraged by the election results, Fisher started organizing and became more involved with the Flower Mound Democrats. Eventually, in May, he decided to seek a spot in the U.S. House of Representatives in Texas’ 26th Congressional District in the 2018 midterm elections.

TX-26 is a Republican stronghold on the northern tip of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. The district includes Denton, Lewisville, and Flower Mound, and was referred to as “perhaps the most conservative area in the state,” in The Dallas Morning News earlier this year

.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, a former OB/GYN, currently represents the district. Dr. Burgess has emerged as one of President Trump’s most loyal supporters in Congress. According to FiveThirtyEight, Burgess votes with Trump 97.6% of the time.

Sources: AT&T, Time Warner under pressure to dump CNN

AT&T and Time Warner are under pressure from the Justice Department to offload CNN to win the Trump administration’s approval of their $85 billion merger, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

DOJ presented the companies with an ultimatum at a meeting Monday: Sell off Time Warner-owned Turner Broadcasting, which includes CNN as well as networks like TBS and TNT, or jettison DirecTV, which AT&T acquired two years ago, one source said — adding that it’s clear the real sticking point for the government is CNN, a frequent target of President Donald Trump’s anger.

“The only reason you would divest CNN would be to kowtow to the president because he doesn’t like the coverage,” the source said. “It would send a chilling message to every news organization in the country.”

Justice Department officials later said that the companies themselves offered to sell CNN but that DOJ’s antitrust division rejected that option. DOJ told the companies that divesting CNN wouldn’t necessarily solve the harm to the public caused by the mega-merger, the officials said.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson pushed back against that narrative.

“Throughout this process, I have never offered to sell CNN and have no intention of doing so,” he said in a statement.

House panel passes bill to boost drilling on federal land, offshore

The House Natural Resources Committee passed a bill Wednesday aimed at boosting oil and natural gas drilling on federal land, as well as offshore.

The bill, the Strengthening the Economy with Critical Untapped Resources to Expand American Energy Act — or SECURE American Energy Act — passed 19-14, with nearly all Republicans in support and all Democrats opposing.

The legislation would provide for Alaska and Atlantic Coast states to take shares of revenue from future offshore oil drilling in those areas, end the president’s authority to withdraw offshore areas for drilling and require all planned offshore drilling rights sales to occur.

On federal land, it would allow states to take over permitting and oversight authority for drilling on federal lands within their borders, which Republicans said would remove unnecessary federal red tape.

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Democrats said the bill would remove necessary protections, like those for marine mammals and birds, while ignoring and exacerbating climate change.

“This bill does nothing to solve the real energy problems we’re facing today,” Rep. Alan Lowenthal (Calif.), the minerals subpanel’s top Democrat, said at the hearing.