I said a few days back that Bernie’s revolution would of been difficult but it would be peaceful. What’s next is an ‘occupy’ on steroids where the people who have spent all this time building up political relevancy with the establishment will now be shunned from both sides.

A lot of people gonna be mad at me for this video but it is what it is pic.twitter.com/YTQseI3ccP— Papi Chulomin 🌹🇸🇾🇵🇸 (@papichulomin) April 14, 2020

Sorry all, playing catchup! Forgive my repeats as usual!

The “Adults in the Room” Didn’t Save Us From COVID-19, and They Won’t Solve the Climate Crisis

Democratic Party leaders have repeatedly brushed off urgent calls for radical climate action by declaring that they—the Serious Adults in the Room—should be trusted to fix the situation. Yet their utter failure to rise to the COVID-19 crisis and catch the millions of people in free-fall right now should dispel any notion that current political leadership will save us from the climate crisis—poised to be far worse than the global pandemic if the status quo continues unabated.

In February 2019, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was confronted by young organizers from the Sunrise Movement about her opposition to the Green New Deal, she told them to step back and let her take care of it. “That resolution will not pass the Senate, and you can take that back to whoever sent you here and tell them,” she declared, adding, “I’ve been in the Senate for over a quarter of a century and I know what can pass and I know what can’t pass.”

That same month, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, derided the Green New Deal as, “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?” Her remarks suggested that she, the pragmatist, should hold the levers of power—not radicals who have proven themselves naive and foolish by demanding too much.

And then, when Trump’s NAFTA 2.0—known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—passed with no climate provisions, despite the outcry of climate activists, Pelosi insisted that the concession was necessary, in light of Trump’s control of the White House, and we should entrust the Democrats with fixing this issue at some later date. “There’s only so far an administration that doesn’t believe in the climate crisis or science will go, but the changes Democrats secured in USMCA put us on a firm footing for action when we have a president who brings us back into the Paris accord,” Pelosi spokesperson Henry Connell said in a statement.

Obviously Republicans are far worse than Democrats on climate crisis and COVID-19 response. But Republicans will be insatiable, power-serving racists no matter what the Left does. It’s important to calibrate criticism of Democratic leadership with this understanding, but Republicans’ existence as a reactionary force does not excuse the clear failure of Democratic leaders to match the urgency of our COVID and Climate crises.

If oil goes any lower, Exxon Mobil might have to layoff some members of Congress.

— Joseph Fahmy (@jfahmy) April 13, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/politics/biden-bernie-sanders-2020-democrats.html#click=https://t.co/QiqwsbKSEQ

And for the first time in 16 years, it appears that there will be no drama ahead of the convention, no protracted negotiations over personnel, policy or even endorsement stagecraft.

The moment demands sobriety and Mr. Sanders recognized that.

“The threat is so profound,” said Paul Begala, the longtime Democratic strategist, alluding to both the coronavirus and what Democrats see as the risk if President Trump wins re-election. “There’s just no space for the normal gamesmanship that may have played out.”

In this sense, it was fitting that the surprise blessing by Mr. Sanders took place online, as the sudden end to in-person campaigning in March is partly why this race concluded so quietly.

Mr. Biden was already on his way to claiming the nomination before the country effectively shut down to combat the pandemic. But the virus all but ended the race, monopolizing the attention of voters and leaving Mr. Sanders no opportunity to forge ahead with even a symbolic bid.

The deadly outbreak also seemed to accomplish the impossible — intensifying the already immense Democratic fear of a second Trump term, which had been the most animating issue of the primary all along.

Still, for a movement figure like Mr. Sanders, enough of an independent that he still refuses to formally join the party whose nomination he nearly claimed in 2016, it was a remarkable moment of “self-sacrifice,” as Mr. Begala put it.

It was also a moment that plenty of establishment-aligned Democrats were skeptical would ever happen.

The working assumption among many in the party had been that Mr. Sanders would again compete in every state and take his candidacy to the convention.

But unlike in 2016, when few Democrats or Republicans believed Mr. Trump could win, there’s little doubt now that the president could be re-elected.

“We’ve got to make Trump a one-term president,” Mr. Sanders said in the video, alluding to the president’s handling of the virus. “I will do all that I can to make that happen.”

Bernie actually had the second highest net favorability in this poll at +45, which was better than everyone else except Biden, so Bernie certainly is also liked by black voters.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/14/poll-biden-black-vp-185043

Black voters in battleground states would be more enthusiastic about voting for Joe Biden in November if he chose an African-American woman as a running mate, a new poll shows.

Biden is already highly popular with black voters, according to the poll of 800 black voters conducted for BlackPAC, a progressive-leaning advocacy group. But 55 percent of African-American voters said they would be more excited to turn out or vote for Biden if he picked a black woman to join his ticket, the poll showed. Another 27 percent said the pick made no difference because they’d stick with Biden.

The poll shows 50 percent of those surveyed view Harris favorably and 18 percent unfavorably, giving her a net favorability rating of 32 percentage points.

Georgia Democrats’ 2016 gubernatorial nominee Stacy Abrams, whom Biden advisers have also discussed as a running mate, has a net favorability rating of 36 points. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Biden surrogate in Georgia and with black voters, is lesser-known than Harris and Abrams and has a net favorability rating of 17 points, as does Florida Rep. Val Demings.

BlackPAC’s Shropshire points out that black voters also like white women who are seen as strong Democratic champions, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has a 40-point favorability rating but isn’t in the running for Biden’s veep. Two other senators who ran against Biden in the primary — Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (+33 point rating) and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (+17 points) — are also on his shortlist.

Biden had the highest net favorability rating in the poll: 58 percentage points.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/joe-biden-harassment-nytimes.html

Lerer and Ember, as they take pains to make clear, have not exposed Biden as a serial sexual abuser. That doesn’t mean there’s no troubling pattern there. In addition to Reade, several women have accused Biden of treating their bodies as if they were his to touch and acting with complete disregard for their comfort or consent. How might a person who does these things make a sexual advance on a subordinate? With deference and care, or with reckless entitlement? Generally speaking, a man with a healthy regard for women’s bodily autonomy does not make a habit of manhandling and infantilizing them in the course of his job duties. When confronted with his accusers’ versions of events last year, Biden responded by mocking the concept of consent and admitting to nothing more than being a pathologically friendly old-timer. He also tried to erase the gendered aspect of his behavior: “Whether they’re women, men, young, old, it’s the way I’ve always been,” he said in a video response to the initial allegations. (For the record, no men have accused Biden of inappropriate kisses or squeezes.)

At any rate, anyone else who professes certainty about the alleged incident is lying—nobody but Biden and Reade know whether her story is true. This includes deputy Biden campaign manager Kate Bedingfield, who told the Times in a statement, “What is clear about this claim: It is untrue. This absolutely did not happen,” and the interns, whom Reade supervised in Biden’s office, who the Times takes pains to note did not know about the alleged incident. (Imagine confiding in the interns you manage that your boss just sexually abused you.)

If the backdrop of how the journalists reported the story is bizarrely present in the piece, so too is their assessment of why it matters. The Times article attempts to address the inevitable calculus voters will have to make in November by providing a thorough accounting of the “pattern of behavior” laid out by the more than 20 women who’ve accused Trump of sexual harassment or assault. Indeed, before they describe Reade’s allegation in any detail, Lerer and Ember write that the allegations against Trump go “far beyond the accusations against Mr. Biden.”

It’s not wrong to consider how a sexual assault allegation might affect a political candidate’s chances. But Lerer and Ember chose to forgo any informed political analysis in favor of a simpler comparison: Whose sexual assault allegations are worse? It’s a crude calculation that bears little relationship to the way actual voters think or behave. It also suggests that the allegation against Biden primarily matters because he’s the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Why else would completely unrelated allegations against a completely different politician have a place in a story about Reade?

Sexual assault allegations against public figures matter, full stop; their effects on political candidacies should be ancillary concerns. Immediately comparing the sexual assault allegations against one politician with those raised against his competitor is no way to evaluate claims of sexual misconduct, which should be considered on their own terms. One assault allegation from 1993 doesn’t seem so bad when it’s held up against decades of alleged groping, forced kisses, and rape, but is that how we should be assessing the consequences of sexual violence?

There’s a reason why Trump brought Bill Clinton’s accusers to a 2016 presidential debate. By reminding voters of another set of sexual abuse allegations, Trump sought to minimize and deflect from his own. There may well be voters who’ll choose their vote for president based on who has drawn a longer list of sexual assault allegations, and they should feel free to compare Biden and Trump by that measure. But journalists should know better than to engage in this obfuscating exercise of relativity.

https://www.salon.com/2020/04/14/as-trump-threatens-to-kill-postal-service-saveusps-pushes-for-action/

As the Trump administration continues its refusal to save the U.S. Postal Service from financial collapse amid the coronavirus pandemic, people nationwide are stepping up to bolster the vital federal agency by purchasing stamps in bulk and demanding action from Congress and the White House.

Using the hashtags #USPostalService and #SaveUSPS, supporters are encouraging the purchase of stamps and other products from the USPS in the absence of emergency funding from the government.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Sunday joined Brennan in calling on Congress to save the postal service, saying Trump is looking to fulfill a longtime right-wing goal of privatizing mail delivery.

On social media, supporters of the USPS shared how millions of people have relied on the service, which dates back to 1792 and whose existence is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

“The USPS is a lifeline for rural communities like mine in [Illinois’ 16th congressional district] and we should fight to strengthen it, not let it fail,” U.S. House candidate Dani Brzozowski tweeted. “The USPS employs over 600,000 Americans, and over 100,000 veterans. Their jobs are on the line.”

USPS is part of the public infrastructure. It is a vital part of the public health response.
– Only postal workers reach all 160 million households and businesses 6 days a week. #SaveUSMail 2/3 pic.twitter.com/WnpseRLzUx

— Sara Nelson (@FlyingWithSara) April 13, 2020

Hey folks, it's awesome that you want to buy lots of stamps. We currently dig the WPA & Marvin Gaye sets. But #SaveThePostOffice needs a collective solution.
We need to get Congress to act. Send them a message. Then a letter. With your favorite stamp! https://t.co/wQ3WANwQPL

— usmailnotforsale (@usmailnot4sale) April 13, 2020