Bernie speaks up on behalf of Labor Secretary nominee Julie Su.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday used his opening remarks at Julie Su’s confirmation hearing to slam the corporate-led campaign against the labor secretary nominee, characterizing it as a desperate effort to tank a public official who is “prepared to take on powerful special interests and stand up for the needs of the working class of this country.”
“Let’s be honest. The debate over Ms. Su has nothing to do with her qualifications,” Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said during the panel’s hearing. “No one can tell us with a straight face that Ms. Su is unqualified for this position. She is exceptionally well qualified.”
“No. This debate has everything to do with the fact that Julie Su is a champion of the working class who will stand up against the forces of corporate greed,” Sanders continued. “Today, large multinational corporations are spending millions of dollars trying to defeat her nomination… And while many corporate interests oppose her, she is supported by every major labor organization in this country representing over 20 million workers, including the AFL-CIO, the United Mine Workers of America, the Teamsters, and the SEIU.”
Su’s confirmation hearing comes as her prospects of filling the secretary of labor position in a permanent capacity remain unclear because two Senate Democrats and one independentâSens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.)âhave yet to say whether they support her nomination. Su is currently serving as acting labor secretary.
Sanders noted in his opening remarks Thursday that “every Democrat in the Senate”âincluding Sinema, who was a Democrat at the timeâvoted to confirm Su as deputy labor secretary in 2021. (Every Republican voted no.)
“The only thing that has changed since that vote is that Julie Su has done an excellent job as deputy secretary of labor,” said Sanders.
Watch the Vermont senator’s full opening statement:
In the run-up to Su’s confirmation hearing, industry groups including the California Business and Industrial Allianceâa trade organization founded by corporate executivesâran ads in Arizona, Montana, West Virginia, and elsewhere portraying the nominee as “unqualified” for the top Labor Department post, pointing to her tenure as a California labor official.
The Hillreported Thursday that “Stand Against Su, a coalition that says it’s backed by franchisees and freelancers, is running digital and newspaper ads in West Virginia, Montana, Arizona, and Maine to pressure key senators to reject Su’s nomination.”
“The coalition is led in part by the California Business and Industrial Alliance,” The Hill noted.
Su’s opponents, including Republican senators, have highlighted the unemployment insurance fraud that took place in California amid the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in billions of dollars in improper payments.
Su, who was head of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency between 2019 and 2021, has stressed that the increase in fraud stemmed from the federal government’s major expansion of unemployment insurance early in the pandemicâa swift emergency effort to provide relief to those thrown out of work.
Sanders echoed that point Thursday, stressing that “the unemployment insurance fraud rate was 15.4% in Tennessee, 15.3% in Arizona, 14.3% in South Carolina, and over 14% in Massachusetts.”
“All of those states had Republican governors and Republican labor secretaries and all of those states experienced higher unemployment insurance fraud rates than California,” Sanders said. “The truth is that the Trump administration failed to provide adequate guidance and resources to states on how to administer these emergency unemployment benefits and, as a result, fraud went up.”
Nearly 11,000 people have signed an AFL-CIO petition urging the Senate to confirm Su, a civil rights attorney who Biden nominated to fill the top Labor Department role last month following the departure of Marty Walsh.
“Her record speaks for itself,” the petition states. “As a young attorney representing trafficked Thai garment workers outside of Los Angeles, she won $4 million in stolen wages. Her case set a huge precedent, and that was just the beginning of a storied career.”
With Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) absent and her timeline for return unclear, the Senate Democratic caucus can’t afford to lose a single vote if Su is to be confirmed.
Tester was supposed to meet with Su following Thursday’s hearing, but the meeting was canceled due to an apparent scheduling conflict.
“I’m very ambivalent,” Tester said of Su’s nomination. “I voted for her before. I don’t have a problem with her right now. We’ll see how things go.â
Both Manchin and Sinema have refused to say whether they will vote to confirm Su.
“No comment,” Manchin told reporters Thursday when asked about the nominee.
Just plain disgusted,we should be doing better as a society. But until the people that think that power,greed is the way for society to grow and prosper were in trouble and got a long way to go….
Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death
Speaking of my love for Bernie, I came across this post, one of the few that I ever posted, which I published on April 23, 2016 at TOP. A sad experience when I went to NY to canvas for Bernie. Just sharing the sadness –
Visit with Monty Yesterday I read with interest a diary titled âRevolution of Internet Tantrum.â In it the diarist states,
âWell, sadly, what we found out that day after Netroots, was that the revolution that Bernie Sanders was heading, was not a fan of anybody doing anything that made Bernie look bad. Their message did not matter. Nothing did, really, excepting Bernie himself. â
I appreciate the diaristâs right to have her independent point of view and to justify her decisions by her own values and experiences. But donât be fooled Sistah. I could use your exact paragraph above and change the subject from Bernie to Hillary and make the same justification for whom I would support in the primary â Bernie (especially since you didnât give the specific examples of how Bernie failed but OâMalley recovered his respect. (And personally, I wasnât following around here at the time.)
I would justify my conclusion by the manner in which the BLM activist who confronted Hillary by paying $500 to attend Hillaryâs fundraiser was treated by Hillary. I assume you are familiar with that. I wonder how that made you feel towards Hillary. Do you recall Hillary supporters here justifying her behavior towards that activist?
I have a very personal and recent experience which increased my disgust with Hillary similar to that which you hold towards Bernie. First, Iâll say I was “ready for Hillary” before Bernie got into the race. But I was immediately drawn to Bernie when he articulated his reasons for running as it relates to removing the stranglehold that corporations and billionaires have on our politics that allow them to buy our governments and pass laws that benefit them alone but are destroying poor and working-class Americans and are unsustainable for our Mother Earth. (I was already familiar with Bernie from the âLunch with Bernieâ series on the Tom Hartmann show.) And the more researched information I learned about Hillary and the Bill Clinton administration as it effected the black community, the more disgusted I became. This evening I was telling this story of a personal experience to my (GenX) daughter when I went to her house to pick up my dog which she kept for me while I went home to Harlem last week to volunteer for Bernieâs campaign. This experience, which gave me goose bumps and chills, I relate directly to the Clintons and the policies they pushed during his presidential term that adversely affected black communities. Specifically, I stopped in to visit a neighbor and very good friend of my deceased husband who lives on my block in Harlem. When I approached their building on Sunday, his wife was outside and stated that it was Montyâs 93rd birthday, he was having some serious health issues and he was going to be happy to see me. Monty, one the Tuskegee Airmen, an American Hero and, when he was in good health, was a stalwart in the Mother Zion AME Church which is located a block away. He had brought my husband in as a member of the board of the new community center that the church built in the 1970âs because my husband was an architect with the NYC Dept of Buildings and a valuable assist for expediting permits, etc. When I asked Monty what was going on because I noticed while canvassing that the building was being gutted inside. Monty emitted a chilling hoarse breath as he slumped in his chair and forced out the words that the church had sold the Varick Center building that he had worked so hard to get built for the community and had signed his personal liability on the mortgage. I was tearing up and could only hold his hand. Mother AME Zion church has a history that goes back to slavery when it was located down on Wall St and the plaque where it stood is located in the ground down there.
My interaction with Monty on Sunday made me recall back in the early 90âs when my husband was lamenting that the Varick Center Board was worried because each year their govt funding for the Head Start program was being reduced and they didnât know how long they would be able to continue the program.
I blame the destructive policies advanced by the Clintons with their war on drugs, war on crime, welfare âreformâ, and whatever other programs the Reagan regime (and âbenign neglectâ Moynihan) passed to them for the destruction of our families, our schools, our communities, the loss of our children and the loss of the James Varick Community Center in my Harlem. Yeah, weâve been âbrought to heel.â But we got for-profit prisons. Letâs cheer for Hillary.
Aint, I am a generation behind you age wise, but man, this is a terrific essay!!
Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death
Thanks obf. Feeling sad today. But grateful for the life of my neighbor, friend, tennis teacher at the Harlem Y in the 60’s – Dabney Montgomery. He made his transition about 6 years ago.
The leaders of the three main insulin manufacturers will testify at a Senate Health Committee hearing on insulin pricing next month, Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced Friday.
The CEOs from Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi will testify as Sanders uses his bully pulpit to continue pressuring the companies about the high cost of insulin, even though all three said they plan to lower the prices of older insulin products.
Those three companies control about 90 percent of the insulin market.
Aside from insulin, the hearing will also feature executives from the major pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) CVS Health, Express Scripts and OptumRX.
PBMs are the intermediaries in the prescription drug supply chain who negotiate discounts with drug companies on behalf of insurance plans. They are facing bipartisan scrutiny from House and Senate lawmakers and are also a frequent target of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which blames PBMs for high prescription drug costs.
Sanders has long been a critic of pharmaceutical companies, but the inclusion of the PBM industry leaders signals a new front in his drug pricing fight.
In a statement, Sanders acknowledged that all three of the insulin companies said they will cap out-of-pocket costs at $35 and cut the list price of their most commonly-prescribed product.
âThatâs an important step forward. We must make certain, however, that those price reductions go into effect in a way that results in every American getting the insulin they need at an affordable price,â Sanders said.
âBut thatâs not all. We have got to substantially lower the price of all prescription drugs. The United States cannot continue to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs while drug companies and PBMs make billions in profits,â Sanders added.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which became law last year, capped the price of insulin at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare.
Democrats at the time of the billâs passage tried to impose an out-of-pocket cap for all insurance, but Republicans successfully argued the provision was contrary to Senate rules and blocked it.
There are dueling Senate proposals aimed at lowering the cost of insulin.
Sanders and Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) introduced legislation that would cap the list price of insulin at no more than $20 per vial.
Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) have a bill that would cap all insulin products at $35 per month for people with private insurance and would also extend that discount to the uninsured.
On Friday, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) introduced their own bill.
It would cap privately insured patientsâ insulin costs at $35 or 25 percent of list price per month for at least one insulin of each type and dosage form. It doesnât address the uninsured.
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Their legislation would require PBMs to pass 100 percent of the rebates and discounts they negotiate on the manufacturerâs insulin list price to the health insurers, which could help lower premiums.
It would also create a new expedited Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval pathway for biosimilar products without adequate competition, so that there can be alternatives on the market more quickly.
The FDA has only approved two biosimilar insulin products that are interchangeable with brand-name products.
Bernie is performing one valuable public service: as chairman of his Senate committee, he is forcing these craporate yahoos to testify and putting a public media spotlight on them.
Jen Ellis was a second-grade teacher and part-time mitten maker back in 2021 when her life changed on Inauguration Day. A photo of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sitting cross-armed and cross-legged in a folding chair, wearing a pair of mittens made by Ellis, became a viral meme on the internet. The one-of-a-kind mittens were made of recycled sweaters and lined with fleece, and they had been gifted to Sanders in 2016. As the meme spread around the world, Ellis became in demand on multiple media platforms, requests for the mittens increased, and her email overflowed.
Two years later, Ellis chronicled this unique time in her life in a book called Bernieâs Mitten Maker. She wrote about the role crafting has played in her life, the stress of becoming an internet sensation and her efforts to do something positive with the newfound attention. Ellis auctioned off mittens to raise money for Outright Vermont and Passion 4 Paws. Vermont Teddy Bear launched a line of Ellisâ mittens, and a portion of the proceeds go to local nonprofits. Darn Tough Vermont made a limited run of JENerosity socks, which raised funds for the Vermont Foodbank.
After 17 years of teaching, Ellis left her job and is now in graduate school for counseling. She lives in Essex Junction with her family and their dog. Ellis only makes mittens for charitable causes or friends these days. Senior multimedia producer Eva Sollberger met up with Ellis at her home to watch her cut up some vintage sweaters and to hear about the process of writing her book.
Ellisâ book launches on May 2 at Phoenix Books in Burlington.
I say this to our care workers: YOU take care of our young kids. YOU give them the emotional and intellectual support they need. It is about time our society treats YOU with the dignity and respect YOU deserve. pic.twitter.com/XtnkAkDI8M
Another perspective: despite Alitoâs tantrum, this is a good thing.
The court has devolved into a highly politicized entity that is rapidly delegitimizing. Open discussion of checking the courtâs abuse of power & defying Kacsmaryk possibly contributed to pause/consideration https://t.co/T9I29rll5k
Here's a nice, compact explanation of the "SUV loophole" that triggered the multi-decade trend toward gigantism in the US auto market. We did this to ourselves and we need to undo it. https://t.co/RcK0rs8K18
The Bennys have a hybrid SUV that is medium sized. Mr. Benny is tall and needed some extra room. A pickup would not work for us when it comes to our travel style but I see your point. Mr. Benny would like to drive a Winnebago for travel, but that’s not feasible for me. I have limited sight depth perception. As it is, the SUV we have is as large as I can do for driving. I started driving small cars in 1977 and our other car is a 2004 compact hybrid. Mr Benny can drive it as long as he doesn’t have to pedal long stretches in it.
Your points are all good ones. I know from your comments, you and Mr. B are travelers. đ My beef with SUVs is I do not feel close to the ground as in center of gravity. That makes me uncomfortable and a little nervous. We have a p/u and hatchback at our casa.
While the kids were young the mini van worked perfectly for us. If i had to haul something it worked good once the seats were out or collapsed. The big stuff-had family or friends for that just took a few beers :). Got a Mazda-5 for the commute to work and its my “retirement” car as thats on the horizon. Decent mileage
âOh my god, they wrote down the racism policy,â was Attorney Mackenzie Hayes's reaction, a former prosecutor for Jack Campbellâs State Attorneyâs Office, upon finding the memo at the office, which directed harsher punishments for Hispanic people. pic.twitter.com/WuRPwEGBMk
Rushes to judgment seldom come at you any faster than the commentary about the killing of tech entrepreneur Bob Lee in a deserted neighborhood of San Francisco early on the morning of April 4.
The stabbing death of Lee was almost instantaneously taken as confirmation of an emerging narrative about the city â dirty, dangerous, unlivable. Lee’s friends and business acquaintances knew whom to blame: San Francisco’s liberal politicians.
“Chesa Boudin, & the criminal-loving city council that enabled him & a lawless SF for years, have Bob’s literal blood on their hands,” tweeted venture investor Matt Ocko, naming the progressive district attorney who was turned out of office in a recall vote last year.
Elon Musk’s take on the incident, aimed at Boudin’s “tough on crime” successor as D.A., was widely quoted. “Many people I know have been severely assaulted,” he tweeted. “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately. Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat violent offenders @BrookeJenkinsSF?”
Newspapers and cable news programs piled on. Not all jumped to the same conclusion as Ocko and Musk, but instead exploited the killing to remind readers and viewers of the “concerns” that had been aired over violent crime in the city, and how those had ostensibly led to Boudin’s recall.
As it turned out, of course, Lee’s stabbing death seems to have had nothing to do with street crime or prosecutorial laxity or coddled criminals or “repeat violent offenders.” The April 13 arrest of a fellow tech worker in connection with the crime suggests that the assault was the outcome of a dispute between Lee (who had moved to Miami) and the alleged assailant (an Emeryville resident) over Lee’s relationship with the latter’s sister.
Superficially, then, the initial coverage of Lee’s killing appears to be a case of what the great press critic A.J. Liebling once labeled “the futility of flapdoodle.” It’s what happens when uninformed or misinformed sources run wild, equipped with little but received wisdom.
That San Francisco was overrun by violent criminals was taken as gospel; a predawn killing in a deserted part of town was shoehorned into the prevailing narrative.
Never mind that the narrative itself is untrue. As my colleague Summer Lin reported, violent crime in San Francisco â homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault â peaked in 2013, and by 2020, the last year for which statistics have been released, cases had fallen by about 32%.
The city recorded 56 homicides in 2022, according to the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association. But that was fewer than in other cities of a similar size, including Denver (88 homicides), Nashville (108) and Columbus, Ohio (140). [Star Tribune opinion editor’s note: There were 82 homicides in Minneapolis in 2022, and 40 in St. Paul.]
In fact, says civil rights lawyer Alec Karakatsanis, a close analyst of law enforcement narratives through his indispensable Copaganda Newsletter on Substack, San Francisco is one of the safest big cities in America.
I canât think of a more fitting way to recognize #Earthday than with the photo of our planet taken on Apollo 11. It was breathtaking view to be sure, but also a poignant reminder of all that we must do to responsibly advance as a species. For now, it remains our only home. pic.twitter.com/EbuicU1mCE
Its an old article but very relevant at his point in time. The gun nuts want to go back to the “old West” where everyone was packing lets do it!!!!!The old west they are referring to was only on TV -a fantasy a myth. Citizens back then were more safe from gun play than they are today. I might note that none of the old west gun owners were complaing of thier 2a rights they simply compiled with the local laws. Todays NRA, Faux news and their Yell Qaeda gun nut followers are the ones most responsible for our gun issues today.
Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?
Gun control advocates fear, and gun rights proponents sometimes hope, the Second Amendment will transform our cities into modern-day versions of Dodge. This is all based on a widely shared misunderstanding of the Wild West.
After a decision by the Supreme Court affirming the right of individuals to own guns, then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley sarcastically said, “Then why don’t we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle it in the streets?” This is a common refrain heard in the gun debate. Gun control advocates fear — and gun rights proponents sometimes hope — the Second Amendment will transform our cities into modern-day versions of Dodge.
Yet this is all based on a widely shared misunderstanding of the Wild West. Frontier towns — places like Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge — actually had the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation.
In fact, many of those same cities have far less burdensome gun control today then they did back in the 1800s.
Guns were obviously widespread on the frontier. Out in the untamed wilderness, you needed a gun to be safe from bandits, natives, and wildlife. In the cities and towns of the West, however, the law often prohibited people from toting their guns around. A visitor arriving in Wichita, Kansas in 1873, the heart of the Wild West era, would have seen signs declaring, “Leave Your Revolvers At Police Headquarters, and Get a Check.”
A check? That’s right. When you entered a frontier town, you were legally required to leave your guns at the stables on the outskirts of town or drop them off with the sheriff, who would give you a token in exchange. You checked your guns then like you’d check your overcoat today at a Boston restaurant in winter. Visitors were welcome, but their guns were not.
In my new book, Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, there’s a photograph taken in Dodge City in 1879. Everything looks exactly as you’d imagine: wide, dusty road; clapboard and brick buildings; horse ties in front of the saloon. Yet right in the middle of the street is something you’d never expect. There’s a huge wooden billboard announcing, “The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited.”
While people were allowed to have guns at home for self-protection, frontier towns usually barred anyone but law enforcement from carrying guns in public.
When Dodge City residents organized their municipal government, do you know what the very first law they passed was? A gun control law. They declared that “any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law.” Many frontier towns, including Tombstone, Arizona–the site of the infamous “Shootout at the OK Corral”–also barred the carrying of guns openly.
Today in Tombstone, you don’t even need a permit to carry around a firearm. Gun rights advocates are pushing lawmakers in state after state to do away with nearly all limits on the ability of people to have guns in public.
Like any law regulating things that are small and easy to conceal, the gun control of the Wild West wasn’t always perfectly enforced. But statistics show that, next to drunk and disorderly conduct, the most common cause of arrest was illegally carrying a firearm. Sheriffs and marshals took gun control seriously.
Although some in the gun community insist that more guns equals less crime, in the Wild West they discovered that gun control can work. Gun violence in these towns was far more rare than we commonly imagine. Historians who’ve studied the numbers have determined that frontier towns averaged less than twyo murders a year. Granted, the population of these towns was small. Nevertheless, these were not places where duels at high noon were commonplace. In fact, they almost never occurred.
Why is our image of the Wild West so wrong? Largely for the same reason these towns adopted gun control laws in the first place: economic development. Residents wanted limits on guns in public because they wanted to attract businesspeople and civilized folk. What prospective storeowner was going to move to Deadwood if he was likely to be robbed when he brought his daily earnings to the bank?
Once the frontier was closed, those same towns glorified a supposedly violent past in order to attract tourists and the businesses to serve them. Gunfights were extremely rare in frontier towns, but these days you can see a reenactment of the one at the OK Corral several times a day. Don’t forget to buy a souvenir!
The story of guns in America is far more complex and surprising than we’ve often been led to believe. We’ve always had a right to bear arms, but we’ve also always had gun control. Even in the Wild West, Americans balanced these two and enacted laws restricting guns in order to promote public safety. Why should it be so hard to do the same today
T and R x 2, jcb!! đ I took yesterday off and just slept and forbade my eyeballs from any reading! Gotta do it more often, I have to admit.
Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death
This statement was in an email I received today from Robert Reich (whom I also admire). Wow.
Pop quiz: What do Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and Senator Joe Manchin have in common?
If you said, âAll three received gifts from billionaire Republican benefactor Harlan Crow,â you are correct! Iâd say, âyou win,â but the truth is we’re all actually losing.
The luxury cruises on a mega-yacht, private jet trips, and private resort vacations received — and never reported — by Justice Thomas are designed to influence the Supreme Court, but it isnât the only institution this billionaire is trying to buy with his money. He also has his eyes on the U.S. Senate.
FEC filings show that both Sinema and Manchin benefited from Crowâs billions, too. Sinema even had to return a portion of his donations because he exceeded the legal limits.
Brandon Johnsonâs election as Chicagoâs next mayor represented a further leftward movement of the stateâs Democratic-led politics, fueled by generational and ideological changes that are stretching and sometimes straining the fabric of the partyâs big tent.
âIn my view, the state of Illinois, led by Gov. (J.B.) Pritzker and this legislative body, has become the vanguard for progressive policy all over this country,â Johnson told lawmakers Wednesday to resounding applause while making his first visit to Springfield as mayor-elect. âYouâve done it.â
But Johnsonâs 4% victory over Paul Vallas to become the cityâs 57th mayor, laid bare some fundamental splits within the stateâs Democratic Party that go deeper than just Chicagoâs most recent mayoral contest.
Vallas billed himself as a âlifelong Democratâ despite ties to right-wing activists, the conservative Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, and his declaration in 2009 that he considered himself âmore of a Republican than a Democratâ and was âfundamentally opposed to abortion.â
In the end, Johnson succeeded in raising questions in votersâ minds about Vallasâ Democratic bona fides. Still, several older Democrats in the party establishment who are considered more moderate endorsed Vallas. They included former Secretary of State Jesse White and Dick Durbin, the No. 2 ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate. Durbin served with Vallas in Springfield more than 40 years ago in the office of the late Democratic Senate President Philip J. Rock of Oak Park.
Christopher Mooney, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the Democratic leaders who backed Vallas look out of step with the way the party is headed.
âI think itâs not a good look for a lot of those folks,â Mooney said. âThe progressives are in ascendancy in the state. Youâve got the governor and now the new mayor â two poles of political power in a state who are both proudly progressive.â
âThe Democratic Party has always been a pretty broad base. Republicans ⊠especially in Illinois today (are) very narrow. They have sort of an exclusionary interest â if youâre not for this, youâre out, or youâre a RINO (Republican in Name Only), youâre not a real Republican,â Mooney said. âWho knows if the progressives go that way too.â
The potential for increased friction between moderates and progressives threatening the partyâs future has grown to the point that a special committee was formed by Cook County Democrats to determine what it means to be a Democrat in todayâs political climate.
âWhat I started to see was there are Democrats that are confused,â said Northwest Side Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, a member of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee, who is chairing the committee. âYour regular Democrats are confused as to what are the principles around being a Democrat, and how the Democratic Party is being influenced by some portions of the left.â
Villegas just won reelection to the City Council against a progressive challenger backed by the Chicago Teachers Union after last year losing a Democratic congressional primary to Delia Ramirez, a product of the progressive United Working Families organization whose candidacy was backed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
âMy task was to figure out, the Democratic Party is a big tent. What are core pillars that we can identify with that would allow people who want to be a part of the Democratic Party to say, âYou know what? Although I donât agree with everything within the new Democratic Party, what are those core pillars that make me a Democrat?â â Villegas said.
âSo whether itâs making sure that weâre providing for working families, paying livable wages, a womanâs right to choose, affordable housing, what are some of the core things that, as Democrats, when a candidate from the Democratic Party speaks, is going to touch on those core pillars to say âYeah, Iâm a Democrat. But obviously Iâm either more of a moderate Democrat or more of a left Democrat.â So that way they get more of a sense of where theyâre at within the big tent of the Democratic Party.â he said.
Pritzker, with the emergence of power of the legislatureâs Black Caucus, has set out the template for the partyâs progressive pillars â organized labor rights, abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, criminal justice reforms, including cashless bail for nonviolent crimes, and banning so-called assault weapons.
âThe governor is leading by example. I mean, the guy is advocating very, very strongly and very, very emphatically, very, very nationally. Especially on abortion and guns. Thatâs right down Main Street for progressives,â Mooney said.
Pritzker acknowledged that Johnson represents âa new generation politician,â despite his age of 47, by bringing both younger voters and voters of color to the polls â important parts of what Pritzker calls âthe Democratic coalition.â
The two-term governor said âolder voters show up in large numbers and theyâre very importantâ to party fortunes but âthings are evolvingâ toward younger voters.
âThe Democratic Party is much more resolute about the issues that we stand up and fight for,â Pritzker said. âThat resoluteness certainly defines the younger generation and I admire that.â
One veteran Democratic campaign strategist, who asked not to be identified due to his links with current politicians, said generational change is morphing with a progressive ideology, in part due to greater educational opportunity â and social media and digital technology.
âThe Black community, in particular, has a larger number of people who are college educated and moving into a gravitational pull of politics that makes them more progressive and more activist,â the strategist said. âOlder voters, theyâre not looking for revolutions. Theyâre just looking for things to be improved. They donât believe the whole system needs to completely change over because when youâre older, youâre more of an incrementalist.â
As for moderate older Democrats, the strategist said, âThe center never holds. It just adapts and that new generation takes over. They start paying taxes and try to change things and run into failures and then they get more incremental in the amount of change that they think the system can handle. Then the cycle repeats itself.â
In Springfield, members of the Democratic supermajorities have created a moderate caucus along with its progressive caucus â a recognition of the factional ideologies in the House and Senate.
Those differences were readily apparent in the passage of the controversial Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act, known as the SAFE-T Act, dealing with criminal justice and policing as well as cashless bail. Due to the overwhelming number of Democrats, some moderates representing a more conservative, less progressive ideology were able to vote against it without their votes needed for passage.
Moderate caucus leaders said it is paramount to represent the ideology of their districts, which brings geography in play. Democrats have seen their numbers reduced downstate, while increasing in the once traditional Republican suburbs and exurbs.
âThey have their issues, we have our issues. Youâve got to work together and get a consensus,â state Rep. Marty Moylan of Des Plaines, a moderate House Democrat, said of his progressive colleagues.
âYou know, sometimes their issues donât agree with ours and then weâll discuss it and try and come up with some kind of conclusion,â Moylan said. â(Weâre) not going to agree on everything. But that doesnât mean that weâre not Democrats.â
One major reason Democrats have not fractured so far is the political alternative â Republicans.
People, particularly in the suburbs, who might have once considered themselves moderate Republicans on social issues no longer fit into the narrow cast of what the GOP calls itself now, Mooney said.
And Pritzker said Republicans âhave painted themselves into a terrible cornerâ on social issues.
âWe are the party of reproductive rights. Thereâs nowhere else to go,â he said. âIf you are a believer that womenâs rights need to be protected, you are a Democrat and should vote for Democrats. If youâre a believer in public safety and protecting our children from being victims of mass shootings at schools, then you are a Democrat and should vote for Democrats.â
wpDiscuz
https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-corporations-julie-su
Love me some Bernie. May his tribe increase. Hope Su makes it through but I’m not optimistic.
40+ years of putting up with these fascist craporate creeps and their legalized bribery!!! And I am beyond sick and tired of it!!!!
Just plain disgusted,we should be doing better as a society. But until the people that think that power,greed is the way for society to grow and prosper were in trouble and got a long way to go….
Speaking of my love for Bernie, I came across this post, one of the few that I ever posted, which I published on April 23, 2016 at TOP. A sad experience when I went to NY to canvas for Bernie. Just sharing the sadness –
Aint, I am a generation behind you age wise, but man, this is a terrific essay!!
Thanks obf. Feeling sad today. But grateful for the life of my neighbor, friend, tennis teacher at the Harlem Y in the 60’s – Dabney Montgomery. He made his transition about 6 years ago.
Nicely done Ain’t!!!
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3962969-sanders-calls-insulin-company-pbm-executives-to-testify/amp/
Bernie is performing one valuable public service: as chairman of his Senate committee, he is forcing these craporate yahoos to testify and putting a public media spotlight on them.
https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/stuck-in-vermont-jen-ellis-writes-bernies-mitten-maker-a-book-about-the-power-of-crafting/Content?oid=38038799&media=AMP+HTML
With the constant corrupt stench of Thomas and the far right Evangelical bent, Roberts knows his Court is a joke–a bad one.
I would not be caught dead owning a SUV. A pickup truck makes more sense as does a 3-door hatchback.
The Bennys have a hybrid SUV that is medium sized. Mr. Benny is tall and needed some extra room. A pickup would not work for us when it comes to our travel style but I see your point. Mr. Benny would like to drive a Winnebago for travel, but that’s not feasible for me. I have limited sight depth perception. As it is, the SUV we have is as large as I can do for driving. I started driving small cars in 1977 and our other car is a 2004 compact hybrid. Mr Benny can drive it as long as he doesn’t have to pedal long stretches in it.
Your points are all good ones. I know from your comments, you and Mr. B are travelers. đ My beef with SUVs is I do not feel close to the ground as in center of gravity. That makes me uncomfortable and a little nervous. We have a p/u and hatchback at our casa.
While the kids were young the mini van worked perfectly for us. If i had to haul something it worked good once the seats were out or collapsed. The big stuff-had family or friends for that just took a few beers :). Got a Mazda-5 for the commute to work and its my “retirement” car as thats on the horizon. Decent mileage
https://m.startribune.com/a-stabbing-in-a-liberal-city-a-rush-to-assumptions-then-a-revision/600268702/?refresh=true&clmob=y&c=n&clmob=y&c=n
Wonder where O-ville is ranked? With no guns here, I’m not bothering to look. đ
Happy Earth Day!
Its one of those iconic pictures, sadly Earth was in better shape in a lot of ways back then that it is todayđ„đ„
I agree. Still, that’s a beautiful kozmik picture. đ
Its an old article but very relevant at his point in time. The gun nuts want to go back to the “old West” where everyone was packing lets do it!!!!!The old west they are referring to was only on TV -a fantasy a myth. Citizens back then were more safe from gun play than they are today. I might note that none of the old west gun owners were complaing of thier 2a rights they simply compiled with the local laws. Todays NRA, Faux news and their Yell Qaeda gun nut followers are the ones most responsible for our gun issues today.
Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?
Gun control advocates fear, and gun rights proponents sometimes hope, the Second Amendment will transform our cities into modern-day versions of Dodge. This is all based on a widely shared misunderstanding of the Wild West.
After a decision by the Supreme Court affirming the right of individuals to own guns, then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley sarcastically said, “Then why don’t we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle it in the streets?” This is a common refrain heard in the gun debate. Gun control advocates fear — and gun rights proponents sometimes hope — the Second Amendment will transform our cities into modern-day versions of Dodge.
Yet this is all based on a widely shared misunderstanding of the Wild West. Frontier towns — places like Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge — actually had the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation.
In fact, many of those same cities have far less burdensome gun control today then they did back in the 1800s.
When Dodge City residents organized their municipal government, do you know what the very first law they passed was? A gun control law. They declared that “any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law.” Many frontier towns, including Tombstone, Arizona–the site of the infamous “Shootout at the OK Corral”–also barred the carrying of guns openly.
Today in Tombstone, you don’t even need a permit to carry around a firearm. Gun rights advocates are pushing lawmakers in state after state to do away with nearly all limits on the ability of people to have guns in public.
Like any law regulating things that are small and easy to conceal, the gun control of the Wild West wasn’t always perfectly enforced. But statistics show that, next to drunk and disorderly conduct, the most common cause of arrest was illegally carrying a firearm. Sheriffs and marshals took gun control seriously.
Why is our image of the Wild West so wrong? Largely for the same reason these towns adopted gun control laws in the first place: economic development. Residents wanted limits on guns in public because they wanted to attract businesspeople and civilized folk. What prospective storeowner was going to move to Deadwood if he was likely to be robbed when he brought his daily earnings to the bank?
Once the frontier was closed, those same towns glorified a supposedly violent past in order to attract tourists and the businesses to serve them. Gunfights were extremely rare in frontier towns, but these days you can see a reenactment of the one at the OK Corral several times a day. Don’t forget to buy a souvenir!
The story of guns in America is far more complex and surprising than we’ve often been led to believe. We’ve always had a right to bear arms, but we’ve also always had gun control. Even in the Wild West, Americans balanced these two and enacted laws restricting guns in order to promote public safety. Why should it be so hard to do the same today
yep
+270!
A long time ago on a planet far far away this was a reality…..
Sigh…… đ
T and R x 2, jcb!! đ I took yesterday off and just slept and forbade my eyeballs from any reading! Gotta do it more often, I have to admit.
This statement was in an email I received today from Robert Reich (whom I also admire). Wow.
It’s just a sad state of affairs in this country. Can it change? We will see.
Brandon Johnsonâs win as mayor furthers Democratic leftward tilt as party examines big tent philosophy
There are also 2 issues important to young folks: dealing with climate chaos, and pot legalization.