An incredible thing has happened in 2019: We’re actually talking seriously about taxing the rich. And the debate is not over whether to do it, but how.
Within the month of January, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposed separate measures that would, respectively, increase top marginal tax rates on income, levy a direct tax on wealth and interrupt intergenerational transfers of fortunes.
It’s important to note that these policies are not in any way mutually exclusive: When it comes to billionaires, we can tax them when they’re alive, and we can tax them when they’re dead!
To achieve left priorities like a Green New Deal, Medicare for All and universal childcare, we probably need some version of all three of these types of taxes. But it’s important to evaluate not just how much of the price tag new progressive taxes would cover, but how they would transform the balance of power, invigorate our politics and mobilize Americans around achieving bold, transformative policies.
Republicans want to cut taxes for Trump's kids and other children of billionaire families. No. It's time to enact a progressive estate tax and start investing in programs that actually help working families, not the top 0.2%. pic.twitter.com/EDUd49hhmU
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ is prepared for the possibility that Democrats in New York could redraw her district after the 2020 election, she told The Intercept in an interview.
Following the 2020 census, every state will draw new district boundaries to reflect changes in the population, the political implications of which will stretch for at least the next decade. In 2014, New York approved a constitutional amendment establishing a nonpartisan redistricting commission, which is set to take over the redistricting process starting in 2020. The 10-member commission, meant to be independent from the legislature, is made up of individuals selected by leaders from the state Senate and Assembly, and the original eight members pick two additional members.
But Ocasio-Cortez’s most determined adversaries are not partisan Republicans, but Democrats who say that she has been a disruptive influence. On Tuesday, The Hill reported that at least one member of Congress has been urging New York party leaders to recruit a Democratic primary challenger to Ocasio-Cortez. But the news led to a surge of donations to Ocasio-Cortez, suggesting that a more efficient means of ousting her might be simply to eliminate her district.
The 29-year-old congressperson noted (accurately) that it’s generally expected that New York will likely lose a seat, despite the city itself growing at a consistent pace. “I don’t know if that means that all of our districts are going to be redrawn dramatically, because they have been historically gerrymandered, or what will happen, but there’s certainly a possibility, if not a guarantee, that my district in the coming years will not look like my district today,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “So I think it’s entirely possible, and New York politics being what it is, we have no idea where things are going to go.”
Indeed, Ocasio-Cortez could just run, and probably win, in any nearby New York City district the party may try to draw for her. She noted that when it comes to future redistricting, she’s in a unique situation because her name recognition is so strong “that even when I won my primary in New York [District] 14, we won like a third ballot, a third-party primary in a different congressional district the same day.” And that was in November 2018, before an endless media cycle that has been all Ocasio-Cortez, all the time.
Moving her into a different district would pit her against another incumbent Democrat, and that Democrat has an incentive to avoid that race. ”Maybe some people wouldn’t want trouble for themselves,” she noted.
Another reason not to target Ocasio-Cortez would be Chuck Schumer. The Democratic Senate minority leader, and a major player in New York politics, is up for re-election in 2022. The commission redrawing the lines may be technically independent, but Schumer’s power is no secret. If Ocasio-Cortez were gerrymandered out of the House, she’d need something new to do — and primarying Schumer would be an obvious option on the table. That could make Schumer Ocasio-Cortez’s strongest advocate at the redistricting negotiating table.
This stuff is really sad. The GOP is so intellectually bankrupt that they no longer engage to debate issues in good faith, but instead seek to lie, distort, name-call, target, & destroy people/communities w any means possible.
I hope the DCCC stays out 2020 in her district. I’m concerned that behind the scenes, they will try to meddle and get a business friendly Dem to primary her.
“Let’s play a lightning round game,” begins Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in her most recent viral moment, lambasting the lack of campaign finance regulations at a House Oversight Committee hearing.
“I’m gonna be the bad guy, which I’m sure half the room would agree with anyway.” At this point, Ocasio-Cortez is not even bothering to hide her mischievous grin.
It’s an intentional provocation, and she’s relishing it. Ocasio-Cortez is trolling us all — and it’s good.
Usually, madcap provocation isn’t something to celebrate. But at this point in our nation’s history, we may need to go to the edges to face the challenges ahead.
Climate change has stopped being theoretical: 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record and polar ice melt is clearly contributing to sea-level rise and extreme weather. Scientists suggest that we’re 12 years away from catastrophe.
There’s rampant inequality, such that the richest 400 Americans now own more of our nation’s wealth than the bottom 150 million. It’s a concentration of wealth not seen since the Roaring Twenties, and we know where that got us.
And there’s the total absurdity (indeed, trollery — is a see-through steel-slat wall anything but a joke?) taking place on our southern border. Almost eight months after Trump supposedly ended the family separation policy, thousands of children have still not been returned to their parents, and the Department of Health and Human Services now bizarrely suggests that reuniting them would somehow cause further harm.
The normal modes of dialogue have ceased to be enough. And though Ocasio-Cortez often seems to be at the extremes of our discourse, she’s also speeding the movement toward change.
Whether we like it or not, provocation is how we conduct business today. Maybe we should be happy that someone is finally trolling for good.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren will officially launch her 2020 presidential campaign Saturday with a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts, using the backdrop of Everett Mills — the site of a historic 1912 labor strike led by women and immigrants — to highlight the progressive populist ideals she has made the centerpiece of her candidacy.
The formal start of Warren’s White House campaign comes as the Democratic primary intensifies by the day, with numerous candidates including Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker already in the race, and others, like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar, expected to jump in soon.
Warren plans to unveil a new, high-profile backer in Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III on Saturday, who will endorse his former professor at the outdoor event. According to multiple sources familiar with the plans, Kennedy will discuss why he believes Warren’s record on economic issues should set her apart from the rest of the ballooning 2020 presidential field.
In addition to Kennedy, other members of the Massachusetts delegation will also speak at the rally, sources told CNN, including Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Lori Trahan, Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera and Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu. All are expected to indicate their official support for Warren’s campaign.
Kennedy’s decision to throw his support to his home state senator — and not his good friend, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who is considering a bid of his own — is a clear signal to fellow Democrats that she remains a serious primary contender despite a politically trying week.
Senator Elizabeth Warren formally launched her presidential bid in Massachusetts on Saturday with a tough populist call to fight economic inequality – a message she hopes will distinguish her in a crowded Democratic field and help her move past the controversy over her prior claims to Native American heritage.
Warren – who walked on stage to the theme song from 9 to 5, the 1980s film about working women – kicked off her bid for the White House at a mill site where largely immigrant factory workers went on strike nearly 100 years ago, providing the longtime consumer advocate a fitting forum to advance her political platform.
“This is the fight of our lives,” she said.
She did not hold back from taking swipes at Donald Trump, but also suggested that she had a much broader vision of remaking America than simply unseating the president. She attacked big business and the wealthy in a system that she said was “rigged” against ordinary Americans.
She is an old Yuppie but after Bernie, she’s the better candidate in the list. She would hire smart people and not all of them Clinton/Obama hacks. Her foreign policy is what we need to look at.
In anticipation of another shutdown, Nelson says that the union will be out leafleting in airports in 80 major cities next week ahead of Saturday’s demonstrations. “We are also working very hard to get information out to all of our members about what’s at stake. We need people to fully understand what the issues are so that we can be prepared to respond potentially with withholding our service, if that’s what it takes to stop a continuation of the shutdown,” she added.
The AFA isn’t working alone. Nelson cites the American Federation of Teachers as “a very strong ally” in addition to Unite Here, which represents many federal subcontractors who have still not received backpay for paychecks withheld during the shutdown. Reached by phone on Friday afternoon, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, told New York that AFT is “very concerned” about the shutdown’s impact on both the aviation industry and its unions. “We are working together to do what is impossible to do alone,” she said.
For almost two years, Donald Trump has laid down fire at Robert Mueller, calling the special counsel’s work a “witch-hunt”, a partisan charade and now “presidential harassment”.
The bigger threat to Trump, however, may have just walked up and tapped him on the shoulder.
Trump did not tweet about or otherwise acknowledge the revelation on Monday night that prosecutors from the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York (SDNY) had issued a subpoena seeking a mountain of documents from his inaugural committee.
But former prosecutors and others familiar with the Manhattan-based prosecutors’ work allowed their jaws to drop at the news of the subpoena or – in the case of former SDNY chief Preet Bharara, whom Trump fired early on – their virtual eyes to bulge.
On Friday, ProPublica and WNYC reported further eye-popping news: that the inaugural committee paid the Trump International hotel in Washington a rate of $175,000 a day for event space.
For those claiming the US just sat around and twiddled its thumbs after the CIA-backed 2002 coup in Venezuela, here’s a good breakdown of how the US helped seed anti-chavismo in Venezuela using its constellation of NGOs and “pro-democracy” groups. https://t.co/cmm2mJkAGQ
Even the Nation has a mealy mouthed intro to this article. Almost half sounds like a quasi- justification, and then you get to a little about the pre-crisis years.
Yes, it’s quite apparent who the MSNBCLINTON’s favored candidate is. Chances are that I won’t be watching, reading, or taking to heart, any of their crap anytime soon.
In less than a day, activists from El Paso raised enough money to transport the mocking Donald Trump baby blimp to the Texas city in time for the president’s first campaign rally of the year on Monday, which is expected to center on his demand for border wall funding.
The “Baby Trump Does El Paso” GoFundMe page had $4,086 as of Friday, easily meeting a $3,500 goal. Extra funds will be donated to the Annunciation House in El Paso, a nonprofit that provides support to immigrants.
The GoFundMe campaign’s organizer, Laura Valdez, noted in a post that the blimp was “already on its way” from California.
The president’s welcome to the city may be a bit chilly in several ways. El Paso officials are furious that Trump falsely characterized their city as “one of the most dangerous in the nation” before a border barrier went up. In fact, contrary to Trump’s State of the Union slam, El Paso has been one of America’s safest cities for decades. The border barrier wasn’t constructed until 2008.
“It is sad to hear President Trump state falsehoods about El Paso in an attempt to justify the building of a 2,000-mile wall,” said Sheriff Richard Wiles.
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) sent Trump a letter Thursday demanding an apology for his State of the Union statements. She attacked the president’s “outright lies” and “cheap attempts to use our community as a political prop.”
Additionally:
— EL PASO CALLING —
Come one, come all!
A bold, confident, ambitious message for the country from the U.S. – Mexico border.
*** JOIN US ***
Monday 5pm at Bowie High School — 801 S San Marcial St. in El Paso, TX, USA. https://t.co/giyL6u3EVL
You can argue about the cause, you can argue about the solution, but you sure as hell can't argue that having no insects left on planet earth is going to be a major freaking problem https://t.co/sMg2B5hw4X
No kidding. I’m so disappointed that she jumped to her feet to applaud Trump on the “no socialism “ part. I would definitely still vote for her, but she is making it harder every day.
She took a jab at Trump about tax returns, but a bit at Bernie too. FWIW, I support all of the candidates and the current POTUS to release at least 5 years of tax returns.
She should have kept seated while applauding, as Pelosi did. But perhaps she was trying for an optic of winning back Trump voters who originally voted for Obama/Clinton.
Senator Bernie Sanders would begin a 2020 presidential bid with 2.1 million online donors, a massive lead among low-dollar contributors that is roughly equivalent to the donor base of all the other Democratic hopefuls combined.
Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman who narrowly lost a Senate race last year, is also poised to be a fund-raising phenom if he runs for president: He has twice as many online donors as anyone eyeing the race besides Mr. Sanders.
Three senators who are already running have their own solid track records with small donors. Senator Elizabeth Warren, with the third-highest number, has notable strength in New Hampshire, even topping Mr. O’Rourke there. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has built up broad national support among small donors, despite a reputation as a big-money fund-raiser, while Senator Kamala Harris raised $1.5 million online in her first 24 hours as a presidential candidate.
For Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Rourke, the enormous early edge in their donor rolls has afforded them the flexibility to wait longer before deciding to jump in, and has sparked a sense of urgency in other campaigns. Both men have signaled they would rely overwhelmingly on small donors to fuel any campaign.
The particular power of Mr. Sanders’s list was on display in late December when he emailed supporters with the provocative subject line, “If I run.” That single email netted $299,000 from 11,000 donations, according to a senior Sanders official.
That is almost the exact amount that Ms. Warren raised on the day she announced she was entering the race, data shows.
The advantage that Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Rourke enjoy is not just the size of their lists but the exclusivity of their donors — the vast majority of whom (an estimated 87 percent for Mr. Sanders, 72 percent for Mr. O’Rourke) have not contributed to any other potential 2020 candidate. In contrast, less than half of Ms. Warren’s donors have given only to her among the potential 2020 field.
Warren definitely gives the appearance of one who has learned from other people’s mistakes and from other people’s successes. I can see a LOT of planning for her run.
As we speak, the US is overtly trying to overthrow a government in the Western Hemisphere, but it’s not treated as a particularly big story in the media. Meanwhile, every incremental Mueller development is frantically trumpeted 24/7 by every major outlet. Sick, twisted priorities
One reason Maduro is so despised by the opposition is that he refuses to follow the neoliberal economic prescription of austerity, privatization, deregulation, etc. Such refusal makes Venezuela almost unique in Latin America now. As Brazilian professor Dawisson Belem Lopes has written (July 15, 2017), “…Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru have proud neoliberals serving as presidents these days,” even though the “neoliberal experience of the 1990s was simply disastrous for Latin Americans.”
"As one of the last regional holdouts against a return to neoliberalism, Venezuela has been especially vulnerable to isolation and targeting, and not just by the U.S." https://t.co/xQYytyVvU6
Mexico has less of a neoliberal, now, but how sad is it that we’ve helped install so many in South America?
This article says that food distribution is actually in the hands of private corporations that are withholding. And the reason Canada jumped on board so quickly is because Venezuela “revoked authorization” for mining ventures.
More disturbing and unreported events in the article.
Yes, a lot of their food is distributed by the wealthy company owners. The ‘one who controls the spice’….kind of thing. (Dune reference)
During my visits there (pre-Chavez) certain basic foodstuffs had their prices set by the government. Bread was kind of high, equivalent of $2.50 USD (or so) which was a lot for the majority of the population who made less than $500/month. I used to wonder about the reasons for the cost controls, but now I wonder if it was to prevent the rich people from hoarding food (like they do now) so as to drive the prices up.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) handed down an impassioned rebuke of the Trump administration’s migrant child separation policy during Matthew Whitaker’s hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday.
The acting attorney general appeared stunned as the congresswoman grilled him on the “zero humanity” border policy and how it affected the children.
Jayapal asked him whether the Department of Justice kept track of the migrant parents who were separated from their children by border officials.
“There’s only one answer to this,” Jayapal reminded Whitaker. “It’s gone through the courts.”
When Whitaker said he didn’t believe the Justice Department was tracking separated parents, the congresswoman replied, “You were not tracking it. That is the correct answer.”
As Jayapal continued, her voice grew louder: “Your department was not tracking parents who were separated from their children. Do you know what kind of damage has been done to children and families across this country?”
“Children who will never get to see their parents again,” she added. “Do you understand the magnitude of that?”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA): “Did the U.S. attorneys track when they were prosecuting a parent or legal guardian who had been separated from their child?”
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker: “I don’t believe we were tracking that.” pic.twitter.com/tCk4oyZZb4
I’m with my pal @johncusack on this. If kidnapping isn’t a high crime or misdemeanor then we’ve all lost our minds. Stealing kids from their parents and funneling them through the Bethany Christian Services black market? Impeach these vile monsters now. https://t.co/Y7wYqQ87BChttps://t.co/NQIz61JpPV
Legit criticism. She’s had 6 weeks to get her digital team together. What gives?
I'm enjoying watching Senator Warren's livestream. But she's doing something very wrong with her digital because not very many people are tuned it. This is a big mistake. A mistake we wont ever make over in Bernlandia. #FeelTheBern
Joy Reid brought three guests on this am, heard two of them discuss Warren during the five minutes hubby had tv on (he’ll tune in at times but only for a few minutes then off the tv goes) and the Cherokee woman (sorry, didn’t catch her name, but she sounded very knowledgeable) wasn’t at all happy with the way white people try to claim Cherokee ancestry and was negative on Warren
Then the Latina woman doubled down on negativity and pivoted to how little Americans understand their own history re: Native Americans/Mexicans.
Elizabeth Warren Is Officially Running For President Warren’s official entry into the race to win the Democratic nod to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020 has been expected since she announced the formation of an exploratory committee in late December. She joins a field that already includes three of her fellow Democratic senators ― New Jersey’s Cory Booker, California’s Kamala Harris and New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand ― and could soon include Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden, along with a host of other candidates. She launched her campaign with an introduction from Rep. Joe Kennedy III, winning the blessing of the highest-profile member of the first family of Democratic politics, and with the backing of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and fellow Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey. “We need a leader that will restore the solidarity that Donald Trump stole,” said Kennedy, a former student of Warren’s at Harvard Law School. “A leader that will bring us together to confront our great threat: A system that protects the powerful and the privileged.” There’s a practical reason to announce in Lawrence ― it’s a quick, 10-minute drive to New Hampshire, which hosts the first-in-the-nation primary ― but the symbolic reasons to choose the former mill town 40 minutes north of Boston instead of a more prominent locale are stronger. The Bread and Roses Strike, which was led in large part by women, immigrants and immigrant women, is a rich historical text for Warren to invoke during a speech announcing her bid. It allows Warren to connect to a landmark moment in labor history, and it also links her directly to one of just a handful of majority-minority cities in her home state, giving her a chance to show her appeal to the voters who may ultimately decide the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. “It’s about immigrants, it’s about women, it’s about workers’ rights, it’s about pay equity,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Boston-based Democratic strategist. “It’s about everything Elizabeth Warren has spent her life fighting for.” The Bread and Roses strike began in response to a pay cut of 32 cents a week. The roughly 30,000 people who worked in the mills were crowded into tenement houses, having arrived in Lawrence from more than 50 different nations. Seven of the eight people who worked in the Mills were either immigrants or the children of immigrants. At the city’s dominant employer ― the American Woolen Company ― half of the employees were women between the ages of 14 and 18. While doctors in Lawrence had a life expectancy of 65, more than one-third of mill workers died before age 25. The strike quickly led to clashes with local police, and a state militia was called in. The International Workers of the World organized the strikers, and soon news of the strike was dominating the nation’s newspapers. Wealthy suffragettes, believing their struggle for the right to vote was linked to that of the strikers, began supporting them financially. To draw additional attention to the cause, the mothers of Lawrence sent their children by train to New York City, a so-called “Children’s Exodus.” The sight of the malnourished children drew more sympathy to the strikers’ cause. In late February, as a second group of children prepared to leave for Philadelphia, police began clubbing them and their parents. The violence drew further condemnation, and soon both the U.S. House and Senate began investigating the conditions in Lawrence. In March, owners agreed to a 15 percent raise for the mill workers, to give double pay for overtime and to improve safety conditions in the mills. The eventual agreement ending the strike was read aloud in Arabic, Polish, Armenian and a slew of other languages, reflecting the diversity of the strikers. Snip Journalist Bruce Watson, in his book on the strike, “Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream,” wrote that in 1912, “the great rudder of a stable society, the middle class, had not yet been invented.” But within months of the end of the strike, Warren noted, Massachusetts became the first state in the country with a minimum wage, part of a newly empowered labor movement that would soon win a 40-hour work week and the elimination of child labor. In Warren’s telling of American history, the middle class that the strike helped create over the following decades has fallen by the wayside. “This wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t inevitable,” she said, pointing the finger at power-hungry lobbyists, misguided Republicans and the corrupting influence of corporate money on politics that she said had derailed progress on everything from gun control to climate change. “Over the years, America’s middle class had been deliberately hollowed out.” To fix it, Warren argues, involves more than throwing Trump out of office, and requires a more aggressive form of liberal politics. “Today, millions and millions and millions of American families are also struggling to survive in a system that has been rigged by the wealthy and the well-connected,” she said during her 40-minute speech. “Corruption is a cancer on our democracy. And we will get rid of it only with strong medicine ― with real, structural reform.” But Lawrence’s story is as much about immigration as it is about labor. “The city of Lawrence symbolizes what our country stands for. The wave after wave of immigrantswho come to this country seeking a better life,” said Juana Matias, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who previously represented Lawrence in the Massachusetts State House. “Warren coming to Lawrence demonstrates the commitment she has to the middle class.” Instead of the polyglot immigrant community that existed in 1912, Lawrence today is dominated by immigrants from the Dominican Republic and emigres from Puerto Rico. The city, which is nearly three-quarters Latino in a state that is roughly three-quarters white, has struggled. A 2014 story in Boston Magazine labeled it “The City of the Damned,” documenting a state takeover of the city’s failing public schools, a high crime… Read more »
Vermonter
That’s Industrial Workers of the World — not international. Women were deeply involved in leading the strike, especially Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (who should have a movie made about her). Mother Jones was there too. Joe Hill helped strikers learn English by singing songs, such as “You Won’t Get Me, I’m Part of the Union”. One interesting thing about the Wobblies is that they didn’t favor written agreements with the bosses. A verbal agreement was better because if the boss tried to cheat or mistreat the workers, everybody dropped their work and went out on a wild cat strike. The Wobblies were so effective that something had to be done about them. After World War I, they were rounded up and put in concentration camps.
In Her Latest Think Piece for Variety, Amber Tamblyn writes, "Medicare for All was Bad when Bernie talked About it, but Now it is Good Because Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Wants it" pic.twitter.com/RNUHf2hIZ5
While I’m pleased the Supreme Court agreed to temporarily block a Louisiana abortion law, it’s troubling, but not surprising, that Kavanaugh wrote a separate dissent arguing the court should disregard long-standing precedent, despite his assurances that he'd respect precedent.
There are two RW yahoos on this court who are beginning to worry about the FR fascist crap that controls the country. Alito and Head Supreme what-ever-his-name-is/Roberts? They are worrying about their legacies. Screw them!
Seeing trash in the ocean when I was out surfing as a kid was one of my first motivations to get into public service. What's happening in our oceans is devastating. One answer to plastic pollution is biodegradable materials like hemp. https://t.co/sXreSK1EnJ
As we speak, the US is overtly trying to overthrow a government in the Western Hemisphere, but it’s not treated as a particularly big story in the media. Meanwhile, every incremental Mueller development is frantically trumpeted 24/7 by every major outlet. Sick, twisted priorities
Speaking of a non story. I wonder if the US will overthrow the government in France?
Despite a drop in numbers from the massive turnouts of the first "yellow vest" demos in November 2018, thousands still turned out across France to protest against President Emmanuel Macron's policies https://t.co/vmdcY1NP6m
The American people are tired of a health care system that works for Wall Street investors, insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry—but ignores their needs. They want to move to a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system.
Is it not recalling or possibly just not familiar with all of Bernie’s tweets, but isn’t this the first time in this election cycle that Bernie has clearly defined MfA as single payer, compared to the rest of the candidates?
Mr. Guaido, you can proclaim yourself leader of Venezuela but you don’t get to authorize US military interventions. Only the US Congress can do that. We will not. https://t.co/rbPldFOnOZ
The last person even censured by Congress was Rangel, and that was for using the wrong letterhead. It's pretty clear most pols and their loyal voters will tolerate or defend racism and sexual abuse among their own. Whether it makes them fit to serve ALL their constituents or not. https://t.co/Zib0kFLFrj
One useful thing Bernie will add to the 2020 mix is a foreign policy angle that the current contenders mostly aren’t talking about. https://t.co/guzN9AZkmB
Yet @CNN, you and @jaketapper lie to scare people about the costs of Medicare for All, slam progressives, and actively work to make sure your corporate sponsors are appeased by misinforming Americans about how achievable M4A actually is.
I don’t think that “turn the other cheek” is a winning strategy in today’s environment!
"If we start trash-talking between each other, I hope everyone turns away from that candidate," say @CoryBooker in Marshalltown, IA. "Some people are gonna tell you we need to fight fire with fire. Well, I ran a fire department. I can tell you, that doesn't work."
New study shows that the current U.S. oil/gas production boom that’s touted by Republicans & Dems is actually a carbon emissions bomb exacerbating the climate crisis that threatens all life on Earth https://t.co/fqDXwtSD9E
I think I may have burst a blood vessel reading this pro-dictator, warmongering Tony "conflict of interest" Blair op-ed on Iran and the Middle East in the Washington Post.
How some in the Labour Party can slam Corbyn but be okay with Blair is still beyond me. FFS.
TYT got better on their main show, but I’m still miffed that Jordan got the boot and we’ve only seen David Siorta as a guest on Rebel HQ, and doing any new reporting.
I posted about Pluto the other day as its a good way for access to TYT without resorting to waiting for it to be put up on youtube. I still think they cover too much fluff issues and like Benny says need to do a better job with their better journalists.. but in comparison to the ‘msm’, its at least watchable and occasionally even informative.
I finally watched the SOTU and found this display of nationalism very disturbing. Yes, it’s exciting that there are so many women in Congress, but Trump prompted Dem reps to chant “USA, USA!” bc of the milestone for women right AFTER a racist diatribe about immigrants & the wall pic.twitter.com/GwgC3160Ju
T and R, jcb!! I saw “Bohemian Rhapsody” with a dear pal today. You want to talk about wicked????!! I am still buzzing just like I always felt after going to a live concert. 🙂
Lots of people voted Trump cuz he campaigned on pulling out of ME wars. He’s signaled he wants out of Syria/Afghan but wants to go into Iran & Venezuela. He’s not antiwar, he just wants his own wars.
Tulsi, a Veteran, unites anti-war movement , which is why they fear/smear her https://t.co/9khM6XaGnB
No real significance (or maybe it explains a few things) I just found it interesting.
Map shows the percentage of the population in South America that is considered to be "white". This essentially points to the long term effects that European colonization had. Source: https://t.co/Z4CJ32Uiahpic.twitter.com/27jH3Owc10
Another day and more murders! But we only hear about Venezuela.
Israeli snipers killed two unarmed Palestinian teens yesterday in Gaza. They also shot 17 more demonstrators, including 2 journalists and 4 medics in the 46th week of Great March of Return protest. https://t.co/pPmgpdsDKi
If there is one defining symbol of how horribly broken our health care system is, this is it: One-third of all GoFundMe campaigns are created to pay for medical expenses, a stunning 250,000 campaigns that have raised an astonishing $650 million, CBS recently reported.
What’s behind this appalling portrait of tens of thousands of families having to beg for help to pay for critically needed care? A morbidly named concept branded as, “Skin in the Game.”
The twisted thought is that requiring patients to pay up front through premiums, deductibles, and co-pays before they can walk in the door, will discourage patients who supposedly over utilize the system if not confronted with punitive out of pocket costs.
As if undergoing invasive medical treatment or diagnostic procedures, or enduring long waits in Emergency Rooms or doctor’s offices is somehow an enticing experience.
However, the volume of patient services, whether hospital stays, office visits, tests, or prescription drugs, is no greater in the U.S., and sometimes less, than in other highly developed nations. The U.S. vastly outspends the rest of the world not because of patient over use, but because prices are so much higher – to the benefit of the mammoth health care corporations at the enormous expense of everyone else.
Rather than reign in this corporate hijacking of our health, policy wonks and politicians of both major parties, typically funded by the healthcare industry, shift the blame and the cost to patients and working people generally.
Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement on the situation in Venezuela:
“I support the decision of the National Assembly, Venezuela’s sole remaining democratic institution, to recognize Juan Guaidó, President of the National Assembly, as the Interim President until full, fair and free elections can be held. The United States must respect legitimate democratic processes, and support the right of the people of Venezuela to protest and defend their human rights.
“Nicolas Maduro’s regime of repression and impoverishment for his personal enrichment continues to gravely violate human rights, and must be condemned swiftly by the full international community. His recent decision to block bridges and cut off channels of food and supplies imperils the health and futures of the Venezuelan people, and must be immediately reversed.
“During this perilous time, the United States must support the people of Venezuela.”
This is scary. How is there no protesting? I suppose I can look at myself and say we’re all too busy and too tired and too sick to protest? But it’s more like Democrats now think this is OK. And the people I depend on to speak up are absent.
At this point, I’m spending tomorrow offline (not tonight 😉). Maybe I can contribute to peace by finding it at least a little more within, cuz this stuff brings up shock and rage.
Does she, and they, even realize what they’re approving of? running a covert regime change just like we did in so many countries. Our MSM is helping— we don’t see the Chavistas wearing red or the Yellow Vests—everyone is brainwashed by Russians—we don’t get the histories or the facts.
The point is they are basically murdering people for oil, for minerals, and to install another right wing government.
So to recap, supporting the Venezuela coup we've got Trump, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Netanyahu, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, almost all of the beltway establishment, and anyone who consumes MSM. If you're still buying the CIA/CNN Venezuela narrative, you're a fucking moron. https://t.co/YCNKr2mdNZ
Here's Joe BIden in 2002, on the floor of the Senate, explaining why he supports giving Bush authorization to attack Iraq. Add to this his support for regime change in Libya and decide for yourself if you trust Joe Biden to determine who should rule Venezuela: pic.twitter.com/0xt9XdAosl
4000 Native Americans died on the Trail of Tears due to forced relocations under the Andrew Jackson administration. Trump decided to honor Navajo code talker vets in front of Andrew "Indian Killer" Jackson's portrait last year because of course. Now this… https://t.co/XbXGnlRS5J
Hours after Elizabeth Warren officially announced her presidential bid on Saturday, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to antagonize the Massachusetts senator. As he has in the past, the president referred to her as “Pocahontas,” mocking her claims of Native American ancestry.
But this tweet seemed to take his hostility to an entire new level: “See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!” he added, a potential reference to the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the 1800s that led to the deaths of thousands of people.
Trump is known for being a fan of President Andrew Jackson, who supported the removal of Native Americans from their home. Trump has repeatedly referred to the late president on Twitter and put a portrait of him in the Oval Office. He also traveled to Jackson’s tomb in Tennessee after being sworn in.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/21737/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-wealth-income-tax
I think AOC’s district is likely safe because she’s just way too popular.
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/09/ocasio-cortez-district-redistricting-2020/
Now that would be a dream come true. Bye-bye, Chuck!
I hope the DCCC stays out 2020 in her district. I’m concerned that behind the scenes, they will try to meddle and get a business friendly Dem to primary her.
They will be ‘bit’ if they do it. Leave that district alone.
In the back rooms already I’d bet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-is-a-troll-the-good-kind/2019/02/08/c3a39550-2be7-11e9-b2fc-721718903bfc_story.html?utm_source=reddit.com
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/09/politics/elizabeth-warren-campaign-kickoff-massachusetts/index.html
I wonder where Anyanna Pressley lands in terms of whom she’s supporting. Warren? Harris? Booker?
Probably Warren if anybody, but more likely to wait.
I noticed Deval Patrick wasn’t there.
Well there is one potential candidate will not be distinguished by her populist call to fight economic equality
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/09/senator-elizabeth-warren-democrat-2020-presidential-campaign?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I have always loved that about her.
I can not get excited about her. I smell YUPPIE in her beliefs.
She is an old Yuppie but after Bernie, she’s the better candidate in the list. She would hire smart people and not all of them Clinton/Obama hacks. Her foreign policy is what we need to look at.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/as-another-shutdown-looms-flight-attendants-plan-protests.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/09/new-york-southern-district-donald-trump-inauguration-prosecutors
Even the Nation has a mealy mouthed intro to this article. Almost half sounds like a quasi- justification, and then you get to a little about the pre-crisis years.
So many people too scared to buck the official narrative on Venezuela. That country has been so demonized over the years!
Give me a friggin’ break!
Yes, it’s quite apparent who the MSNBCLINTON’s favored candidate is. Chances are that I won’t be watching, reading, or taking to heart, any of their crap anytime soon.
Protesters Raise Funds To Transport Trump Baby Blimp In Time For President’s El Paso Rally
Additionally:
Cockroaches and spiders (YUCK) will survive.
and twinkees and the fast food that under the car seats
To say that losing insects would be devastating for the food chain is a wild understatement.
Warren has used “Enough is Enough” twice in her speech. Wonder where she got that? 🙂
No kidding. I’m so disappointed that she jumped to her feet to applaud Trump on the “no socialism “ part. I would definitely still vote for her, but she is making it harder every day.
She took a jab at Trump about tax returns, but a bit at Bernie too. FWIW, I support all of the candidates and the current POTUS to release at least 5 years of tax returns.
I support tax returns, too. That clapping just seemed like a slap to Bernie and AOC, though. And it felt obsequious.
She should have kept seated while applauding, as Pelosi did. But perhaps she was trying for an optic of winning back Trump voters who originally voted for Obama/Clinton.
Bernie needs to release those tax returns if he runs
Booker is particularly pitiful at only 56,000
Warren is covering her bases, filling in the spaces Hillary did not, co-opting many of Bernie’s.
Warren definitely gives the appearance of one who has learned from other people’s mistakes and from other people’s successes. I can see a LOT of planning for her run.
Mexico has less of a neoliberal, now, but how sad is it that we’ve helped install so many in South America?
This article says that food distribution is actually in the hands of private corporations that are withholding. And the reason Canada jumped on board so quickly is because Venezuela “revoked authorization” for mining ventures.
More disturbing and unreported events in the article.
Yes, a lot of their food is distributed by the wealthy company owners. The ‘one who controls the spice’….kind of thing. (Dune reference)
During my visits there (pre-Chavez) certain basic foodstuffs had their prices set by the government. Bread was kind of high, equivalent of $2.50 USD (or so) which was a lot for the majority of the population who made less than $500/month. I used to wonder about the reasons for the cost controls, but now I wonder if it was to prevent the rich people from hoarding food (like they do now) so as to drive the prices up.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pramila-jayapal-matt-whitaker-border-separation-children_us_5c5de751e4b0f9e1b17d107f?utm_source=reddit.com
We’ve gone insane. So many truly awful things and they’re not even up for daily, public, factual discussion.
Isn’t that hooked up with Betsy Bitch DeVos?
Indeed.
I had not gone very deep with Wolff. It seems like I mostly saw videos of his, which can be troublesome for me.
He’s pretty radical. 🌝
Here’s a link to the PBS recording of Liz Warren’s kickoff speech. She arrives about the 52 min mark in the video.
Legit criticism. She’s had 6 weeks to get her digital team together. What gives?
Regardless of her positions (many that I like) I have serious doubts that she could withstand multiple attacks from Trump and the GOP.
Joy Reid brought three guests on this am, heard two of them discuss Warren during the five minutes hubby had tv on (he’ll tune in at times but only for a few minutes then off the tv goes) and the Cherokee woman (sorry, didn’t catch her name, but she sounded very knowledgeable) wasn’t at all happy with the way white people try to claim Cherokee ancestry and was negative on Warren
Then the Latina woman doubled down on negativity and pivoted to how little Americans understand their own history re: Native Americans/Mexicans.
It is clear Warren is not MSNBC’s first choice..
Elizabeth Warren Is Officially Running For President Warren’s official entry into the race to win the Democratic nod to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020 has been expected since she announced the formation of an exploratory committee in late December. She joins a field that already includes three of her fellow Democratic senators ― New Jersey’s Cory Booker, California’s Kamala Harris and New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand ― and could soon include Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden, along with a host of other candidates. She launched her campaign with an introduction from Rep. Joe Kennedy III, winning the blessing of the highest-profile member of the first family of Democratic politics, and with the backing of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and fellow Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey. “We need a leader that will restore the solidarity that Donald Trump stole,” said Kennedy, a former student of Warren’s at Harvard Law School. “A leader that will bring us together to confront our great threat: A system that protects the powerful and the privileged.” There’s a practical reason to announce in Lawrence ― it’s a quick, 10-minute drive to New Hampshire, which hosts the first-in-the-nation primary ― but the symbolic reasons to choose the former mill town 40 minutes north of Boston instead of a more prominent locale are stronger. The Bread and Roses Strike, which was led in large part by women, immigrants and immigrant women, is a rich historical text for Warren to invoke during a speech announcing her bid. It allows Warren to connect to a landmark moment in labor history, and it also links her directly to one of just a handful of majority-minority cities in her home state, giving her a chance to show her appeal to the voters who may ultimately decide the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. “It’s about immigrants, it’s about women, it’s about workers’ rights, it’s about pay equity,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Boston-based Democratic strategist. “It’s about everything Elizabeth Warren has spent her life fighting for.” The Bread and Roses strike began in response to a pay cut of 32 cents a week. The roughly 30,000 people who worked in the mills were crowded into tenement houses, having arrived in Lawrence from more than 50 different nations. Seven of the eight people who worked in the Mills were either immigrants or the children of immigrants. At the city’s dominant employer ― the American Woolen Company ― half of the employees were women between the ages of 14 and 18. While doctors in Lawrence had a life expectancy of 65, more than one-third of mill workers died before age 25. The strike quickly led to clashes with local police, and a state militia was called in. The International Workers of the World organized the strikers, and soon news of the strike was dominating the nation’s newspapers. Wealthy suffragettes, believing their struggle for the right to vote was linked to that of the strikers, began supporting them financially. To draw additional attention to the cause, the mothers of Lawrence sent their children by train to New York City, a so-called “Children’s Exodus.” The sight of the malnourished children drew more sympathy to the strikers’ cause. In late February, as a second group of children prepared to leave for Philadelphia, police began clubbing them and their parents. The violence drew further condemnation, and soon both the U.S. House and Senate began investigating the conditions in Lawrence. In March, owners agreed to a 15 percent raise for the mill workers, to give double pay for overtime and to improve safety conditions in the mills. The eventual agreement ending the strike was read aloud in Arabic, Polish, Armenian and a slew of other languages, reflecting the diversity of the strikers. Snip Journalist Bruce Watson, in his book on the strike, “Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream,” wrote that in 1912, “the great rudder of a stable society, the middle class, had not yet been invented.” But within months of the end of the strike, Warren noted, Massachusetts became the first state in the country with a minimum wage, part of a newly empowered labor movement that would soon win a 40-hour work week and the elimination of child labor. In Warren’s telling of American history, the middle class that the strike helped create over the following decades has fallen by the wayside. “This wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t inevitable,” she said, pointing the finger at power-hungry lobbyists, misguided Republicans and the corrupting influence of corporate money on politics that she said had derailed progress on everything from gun control to climate change. “Over the years, America’s middle class had been deliberately hollowed out.” To fix it, Warren argues, involves more than throwing Trump out of office, and requires a more aggressive form of liberal politics. “Today, millions and millions and millions of American families are also struggling to survive in a system that has been rigged by the wealthy and the well-connected,” she said during her 40-minute speech. “Corruption is a cancer on our democracy. And we will get rid of it only with strong medicine ― with real, structural reform.” But Lawrence’s story is as much about immigration as it is about labor. “The city of Lawrence symbolizes what our country stands for. The wave after wave of immigrantswho come to this country seeking a better life,” said Juana Matias, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who previously represented Lawrence in the Massachusetts State House. “Warren coming to Lawrence demonstrates the commitment she has to the middle class.” Instead of the polyglot immigrant community that existed in 1912, Lawrence today is dominated by immigrants from the Dominican Republic and emigres from Puerto Rico. The city, which is nearly three-quarters Latino in a state that is roughly three-quarters white, has struggled. A 2014 story in Boston Magazine labeled it “The City of the Damned,” documenting a state takeover of the city’s failing public schools, a high crime… Read more »
That’s Industrial Workers of the World — not international. Women were deeply involved in leading the strike, especially Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (who should have a movie made about her). Mother Jones was there too. Joe Hill helped strikers learn English by singing songs, such as “You Won’t Get Me, I’m Part of the Union”. One interesting thing about the Wobblies is that they didn’t favor written agreements with the bosses. A verbal agreement was better because if the boss tried to cheat or mistreat the workers, everybody dropped their work and went out on a wild cat strike. The Wobblies were so effective that something had to be done about them. After World War I, they were rounded up and put in concentration camps.
Have to say, this is a good thing!
As if one could trust Kavanaugh.
It was a hit against Collins and Murkowski.
There are two RW yahoos on this court who are beginning to worry about the FR fascist crap that controls the country. Alito and Head Supreme what-ever-his-name-is/Roberts? They are worrying about their legacies. Screw them!
I wonder if she shows this to her mother?
A bit cynical, but probably some relevance to 2020.
Sorry for the double comment.
Speaking of a non story. I wonder if the US will overthrow the government in France?
Crickets over here but the protests are being treated violently!
https://www.rt.com/news/451055-yellow-vest-france-protests/
Link contains some gruesome videos but it is reality.
Nope.
Doesn’t hurt to hear it twice. 😉
Is it not recalling or possibly just not familiar with all of Bernie’s tweets, but isn’t this the first time in this election cycle that Bernie has clearly defined MfA as single payer, compared to the rest of the candidates?
CNN caught red handed manipulating the news.
You Know, I hope the frigging Congress will finally do its job. They stopped doing it right around the time when Raygun got in.
I might add that I’ve not seen a senator’s foreign policy advisor be so active on twitter before.
Max Boot is a neocon warmonger. But CNN and the Washington Post give him a platform to spew his thoughts.
He sells newspapers in print more than via tweet.
And he attacks Trump so he’s ok in some circles.
Max Boot is a FRightwing a-hole! How do these things get all this attention?
Things like this happen every day
The timing is beyond suspicious.
I don’t think that “turn the other cheek” is a winning strategy in today’s environment!
Yeah because he doesn’t want anybody talking about his record. Pointing out differences is not trash talking.
That explains why she’s on MSDNC as a frequent guest.
Somebody here posted about a free station on Roku called Pluto. Pretty neat – – I’m watching RT Live right now. TYT. Other stuff.
TYT got better on their main show, but I’m still miffed that Jordan got the boot and we’ve only seen David Siorta as a guest on Rebel HQ, and doing any new reporting.
I posted about Pluto the other day as its a good way for access to TYT without resorting to waiting for it to be put up on youtube. I still think they cover too much fluff issues and like Benny says need to do a better job with their better journalists.. but in comparison to the ‘msm’, its at least watchable and occasionally even informative.
Thanks for letting us know. RT, too
Didn’t watch so didn’t know.
I didn’t watch it either. Der Herr is a terrible orator.
T and R, jcb!! I saw “Bohemian Rhapsody” with a dear pal today. You want to talk about wicked????!! I am still buzzing just like I always felt after going to a live concert. 🙂
I may rent it closer to the Oscars.
No real significance (or maybe it explains a few things) I just found it interesting.
Some things never change!
Another day and more murders! But we only hear about Venezuela.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/08/we-all-have-skin-game-thats-why-we-need-medicare-all?amp
Instead of reigning in overseas interventionism we get this!
.https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/2819-2/
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This is scary. How is there no protesting? I suppose I can look at myself and say we’re all too busy and too tired and too sick to protest? But it’s more like Democrats now think this is OK. And the people I depend on to speak up are absent.
At this point, I’m spending tomorrow offline (not tonight 😉). Maybe I can contribute to peace by finding it at least a little more within, cuz this stuff brings up shock and rage.
Does she, and they, even realize what they’re approving of? running a covert regime change just like we did in so many countries. Our MSM is helping— we don’t see the Chavistas wearing red or the Yellow Vests—everyone is brainwashed by Russians—we don’t get the histories or the facts.
The point is they are basically murdering people for oil, for minerals, and to install another right wing government.
To think that he wants to be President. HAH!😫
Everyone brainwashed by Russians—sarcastic. What tweeter centrists say.
Vile slime