The Progressive Wing

Thanks orl!

🚨 NEWS 🚨 @AOC is now joining @BernieSanders for a GOTV rally on Sunday for @HelenGymPHL!!!
Do attend.https://t.co/oGlzu3oFhO
— Brendan McPhillips (@BrendanMcP) May 10, 2023

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

In a long but intriguing and damning article in Jacobin, Clarence Thomas is hung out to dry. What a creep!

Influenced by Dark Money, Clarence Thomas Has Reversed His Position on a Landmark Legal Doctrine

Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas has abandoned his own stated principles and changed his position on one of America’s most significant regulatory doctrines. Why? A dark money network of conservative billionaires is making his family rich.
Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas changed his position on one of America’s most significant regulatory doctrines after his wife reportedly accepted secret payments from a shadowy conservative network pushing for the change. Thomas’s shift also came while he was receiving lavish gifts from a billionaire linked to other groups criticizing the same doctrine — which is now headed back to the high court.
The so-called “Chevron deference” doctrine stipulates that the executive branch — not the federal courts — has the power to interpret laws passed by Congress in certain circumstances. Conservatives for years have fought to overturn the doctrine, a move that would empower legal challenges to federal agency regulations on everything from climate policy to workplace safety to overtime pay.
Thomas wrote a landmark Supreme Court opinion upholding the doctrine in 2005, but began questioning it a decade later, before eventually renouncing his past opinion in 2020 and claiming that the doctrine itself might be unconstitutional. Now, Thomas could help overturn the doctrine in a new case the high court just agreed to hear next term.
Groups within the conservative legal movement funded by Leonard Leo’s dark money network and affiliated with Thomas’s billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow have organized a concerted effort in recent years to overturn Chevron. That campaign unfolded as they delivered gifts and cash to Thomas and his family in the lead-up to his shift on the doctrine.
In 2010, Crow bankrolled a dark money group led by Thomas’s wife, Virginia or “Ginni,” that paid her $120,000. Leo was on the group’s board of directors. In 2012, Leo’s dark money network steered undisclosed consulting payments to Thomas’s wife. The Leo network has funded Republican politicians and several nonprofits pressing the Supreme Court to overturn the Chevron doctrine next term.
Crow, meanwhile, provided luxury travel to the Thomas family for two decades. The justice did not report those trips, and similarly failed to disclose that Crow bought his mother’s house, and allowed her to keep living there rent free, and paid his grandnephew’s boarding school tuition.
Groups within the conservative legal movement funded by Leonard Leo’s dark money network have organized a concerted effort in recent years to overturn Chevron.
Last year, Crow’s wife joined the board of trustees at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank that pressed the Supreme Court to hear the new case aimed at ending the Chevron doctrine.
Crow also cofounded the Club For Growth, a pro-business dark money group that issued a memo pining for the end of the Chevron doctrine.
Spokespeople for Leo, Crow’s company, and the Supreme Court did not respond to the Lever’s requests for comment.
Thomas Reverses Himself
After revelations of the gifts and cash, Thomas’s most loyal defenders have sought to deflect criticism by depicting the justice as immune from influence, insisting that he “refuses to compromise his principles,” as Utah senator and former Supreme Court clerk Mike Lee (R) claimed in a tweet on Monday.
But in this situation, Thomas abandoned his own stated principles on an issue at the heart of one of the conservative movement’s most significant crusades to limit government regulation.
At issue is the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, brought by environmental advocates to challenge the Ronald Reagan administration’s weakening of air pollution regulations.

There’s more –
https://jacobin.com/2023/05/clarence-thomas-chevron-regulatory-doctrine-conservatives-dark-money

There are reliable reports surfacing that Thomas and his equally corrupt bitch of of a wife, Ginni, are being watched by the DOJ. This crew ain’t conservative; Leo and all that scum are FRight, corrupt, power hungry assholes. He may end up being the first SCOTUS ‘judge’ kicked off the Court. If he’s indicted for criminal activity, that will go down. That changes the Court to 5-3, plus will send a very powerful message to Roberts, Alito, and Coney what’s-her-face. Man, will people like me 🥰 it!!

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

Cant wait to see him gone. As the old saying states, “He looks good gone, he got diamonds in his back.” And he can take his “corrupt bitch of a wife” with him.

And thanks for starting us out today, obf.

Paul ADK

Unfortunately he’s not gone yet, and since he has no pride he sure has no shame. He won’t be going anywhere until he’s forced out. I’d recommend McConnel style shadow protests, as in he shouldn’t be able to leave his house without getting heckled mercilessly. And any thought of dinner out should be fleeting, for both of them. The idea would be to shine that spotlight 24/ 7, until neither of them can go about their crooked business.

x2700 i doubt the DOJ has the balls to do it,and the Turtle will pull in every skeleton to see that it doesn’t happen

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

Sad.

an outright fabrication that shaped (for the worse, i think) the way millions of americans thought about the relationship between king and malcolm pic.twitter.com/quAVSqNjhy
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) May 10, 2023

https://twitter.com/JWMason1/status/1656300815965978624?s=20

shouldn't be shocked they'd lie this blatantly but this negotiation line IS NOT TRUE. the debt ceiling was raised or suspended 4 times under Trump without conditions, and under Obama in 2013
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) May 10, 2023

Drug companies claim over and over again they need HUGE profits for research and development, but over the past decade they spent more money on stock buybacks than research. Greed, greed, greed. pic.twitter.com/vgHNFL1x6z
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 10, 2023

Amen x 100, Senator Sanders. When’s his successor gonna appear? Sure hope it happens before I croak. 👍

https://theintercept.com/2023/05/10/richard-glossip-execution-stay/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter.

Hey Birdies, check out this read from the Intercept:

Unreal, literally. BTW, my late mother was born in Broken Arrow, OK. 🙂

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

Brings a tear.

A lesbian bar in Houston is at risk of shutting down because insurance companies don't want to issue a policy due to the proposed drag ban. It's a 21+ bar. This is the goal, they want to eliminate LGBTQ people from public life. https://t.co/S6TWxty8Nq
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) May 10, 2023

This is not new. Insurance companies also killed ERA. I went to a talk by Gloria Steinem, and she said insurance companies weren’t happy about creating separate policies for women; also because of LGBTQ issues.

A Progressive Approach to Crime in Philadelphia https://t.co/ZyEz7RPEUM pic.twitter.com/WTD1fwFK9r
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) May 11, 2023

The last and thus far only public poll found the race is virtually a dead heat between Parker, Rhynhart, Gym, and Brown. Gym is the most progressive candidate in the race, and she has consolidated the support of the bulk of the Philly left, particularly the Working Families Party, which has invested heavily in the race. She’s also got endorsements from prominent national figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, who are holding a rally for Gym this weekend. If she can pull out a victory, it could provide a lesson for how progressives can win in crime-wracked big cities.

If it can happen in Chi-town, no reason why Philly can’t follow suit. 🙂

NEW: @RashidaTlaib says she's not backing down from holding an event tonight commemorating the Nakba, even after @SpeakerMcCarthy said he will move to block it from happening. pic.twitter.com/ckdpGMHP27
— Daniel Boguslaw (@DRBoguslaw) May 10, 2023

Nakba Day (Arabic: ذكرى النكبة, romanized: Dhikra an-Nakba, lit. ’Memory of the Catastrophe’) is the day of commemoration for the Nakba, also known as the Palestinian Catastrophe, which comprised the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948, and the permanent displacement of a majority of the Palestinian people. It is generally commemorated on 15 May, the Gregorian calendar date of the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948. For Palestinians, it is an annual day of commemoration of the displacement that preceded and followed Israel’s establishment.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/bernie-sanders-steps-in-to-help-rep-tlaib-hold-anti-israel-event-in-capitol/amp/

Sen. Bernie Sanders chaired a gathering in the US Senate Wednesday during which Congress member Rashida Tlaib hosted an event where she bashed Israel as an “apartheid” state that engages in terror.
The gathering was to mark the Nakba, a Palestinian term meaning “catastrophe” that refers to the displacement of Palestinian people when Israel was founded in 1948.
Michigan lawmaker Talib had initially hoped to hold the event in the Congress Visitors Center but Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy thwarted her plan by reserving the space himself and hosting a celebration to mark 75 years of US-Israel ties.
Sanders then stepped in by chairing the meeting in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Hearing Room, located in the Senate office building and therefore outside of McCarthy’s reach

You go, Rep. Tlaib!! I have been a fan ever since her first term in office.

Nice end run Bernie😁😁😁 McCarthy must be pissed😁😁😁

Bernie is still sharp and can pull a lever or two.

https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/11/free-school-meals-legislation-us-congress

Representative Ilhan Omar, Senator Bernie Sanders and colleagues are set to introduce legislation on Thursday to revive one of the coronavirus pandemic era’s most popular social experiments: universal free school meals.
The bill would permanently end child hunger in schools, they argue, by offering free breakfast, lunch and dinner plus a snack to all students from preschool to high school, regardless of income.
Bernie Sanders unveils plan for $17-an-hour US minimum wage
It would also restore a federal programme that saw about 30 million kids a day getting free meals as the once-in-a-century pandemic forced a reimagining of the role and responsibility of government in providing a social safety net.
“People were able to see across the country that a programme like this can pass and get implemented and it spurred a lot of excitement,” Omar, who in 2020 authored the Maintaining Essential Access to Lunch for Students (Meals) Act, said.
Studies show that access to free breakfast improves students’ attendance rates and academic performance in school. Free school meals are linked to better health, fewer behavioural problems and lower suspension rates.
Omar, who represents a district in Minnesota, said: “The fact that we here in the United States are having a debate on the value of providing crucial meals to our children in times where we are expecting them to exercise their brain and to receive information through their educational lessons is an embarrassment. Myself and others would consider it morally bankrupt.”
Advocates say universal free meals also remove the public shame of being a free or reduced-price lunch child, as well as the embarrassment of families who cannot pay their kids’ lunch accounts.
“I remember myself having the PIN that you have to enter to get a school lunch and all of the stuff that you have to go through, trying to hide and being really anxious about the comments and the cruelty sometimes that comes with kids bullying kids who don’t have enough resources,” Omar said. “It is a huge problem and it’s something that you carry with you even years after you leave school.”
When the free school meals programme expired last September, with families eligible based on income levels once again required to apply for their children to receive free or reduced-price food, Omar was not alone in her disappointment.
“We hear it from school administrators. We hear it from parents and young children themselves when we visited schools across our district and some of the parts of the country where we’ve been able to connect and visit. It was a catalyst for the debate and the ultimate passage of the universal school meals in Minnesota.”
Five states – California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota and New Mexico – have passed laws to provide free universal school meals and more than a dozen others support similar policies, suggesting that the concept caught the imagination of educationists, health advocates and policymakers.
The Covid-19 pandemic saw government intervene with an expanded child tax credit that reduced child poverty by an estimated 40%, three stimulus cheques, a moratorium on evictions, increased unemployment benefits, and more funding for food and housing. Many on the left say the programmes proved themselves to be effective and should be maintained, pandemic or not.
Omar commented: “You would hope that would have been the lesson learned by all but we’re witnessing Republicans attempting to pull back some of those investments and refusing to see their value, even though many of the constituents that they serve more likely benefited from some of these programmes than the ones that some of us on the Democratic side represent.
“That should be telling on who and what some of our Republican colleagues care about when they talk about reviving economic opportunity for American families.”
The Universal School Meals Program Act of 2023 provides additional incentives for local food procurement, including protecting and promoting small family farms, ensuring local ingredients and learning opportunities for students, and enriching local economies.
It is likely to run into a buzzsaw of Republican opposition on Capitol Hill. But Omar contends that nearly 75% of Americans support permanent universal school meals – including a majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents.
“I know that often on the Hill people will talk about listening to their constituents,” she said. “The favourability of the constituents we collectively serve in regards to universal meals is pretty high.”
She added: “Senator Sanders has been my partner in this crusade to make sure all of our kids are fed. We routinely say it is important for us to feed the bellies of our children before we try to feed their brains.”
Democratic senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Democratic representatives Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Gwen Moore of Wisconsin are among those supporting the bill.
Sanders, an independent senator for Vermont, said in a statement: “It is an international embarrassment that today, in the richest country in the history of the world, we are seeing record numbers of children and youth struggling with hunger on a daily basis.
“What we’ve seen during this pandemic is that a universal approach to school meals works. We cannot go backwards. It is time for Congress to pass this legislation to ensure no student goes hungry again.”

US pharmaceutical companies charge Americans more than anyone else. They report generating the bulk of the revenue in the US.
But they apparently earn almost no (taxable) income in the United States.
Rather remarkable.
1/ pic.twitter.com/DQus1F2B4l
— Brad Setser (@Brad_Setser) May 10, 2023

The interim report of the Senate Finance Committee showed how one firm does it —
AbbVie transferred (a long time ago) the rights to its most valuable drugs to Bermuda, and books all its profits there (with manufacturing mostly in Puerto Rico)
7/https://t.co/zvisOfq5mg
— Brad Setser (@Brad_Setser) May 10, 2023

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/11/manchin-epa-new-rules-biden-00096320

When Sen. Joe Manchin upbraided EPA on Wednesday for requiring power plants to reduce their carbon emissions, he didn’t mention that the agency’s rules could threaten his personal income.
The West Virginia Democrat vowed to oppose President Joe Biden’s EPA nominees because the agency’s rules being proposed Thursday could push coal- and gas-fired power plants “out of existence,” he said.
The risk to one plant, in particular, could jeapordize a lucrative source of money for Manchin. His family business Enersystems Inc. delivers waste coal to the Grant Town power plant, a financially struggling coal facility near Manchin’s hometown that he has spent much of his political career protecting.
The Grant Town plant has repeatedly threatened to shut down. Now, with the release of EPA rules that are expected to push many power plants into installing expensive technology to capture their carbon emissions before the pollution escapes into the sky, the plant faces an increasingly troubled future. Many coal plants might shut down rather than comply with the stringent new climate rules.
“This is going to make it harder for them to stay around. You won’t find written anywhere in the rule that this is supposed to be putting coal plants out of business, but just do the math,” said Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability at Duke University.
Last year, Manchin earned $537,000 from Enersystems, according to financial disclosure records he filed with the Senate. He has been paid more than $5 million by the company since being elected to the Senate in 2010. The Grant Town plant is the main facility to receive coal from Manchin’s family business. Enersystems is now run by Manchin’s son, Joe Manchin IV.
Spokespeople for Manchin and Grant Town did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Manchin, who faces a strong Republican challenger with deep connections to the coal industry in next year’s election, expressed outrage in a 221-word statement released Wednesday against the Biden administration’s “extreme ideology” for targeting fossil fuel carbon emissions.
“This Administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability,” Manchin said.
The Grant Town plant generates 80 megawatts of power, making it one of the smaller plants in West Virginia and the only one that continues to burn waste coal, a mix of mud and minerals that is often found discarded near old mines. Waste coal is a high-carbon fuel.
Environmental regulations have long threatened the Grant Town plant.
In 2021, Richard Halloran, the president of the plant’s operator, Grant Town Holdings Corp., said in state testimony that he planned to use the facility to power cryptocurrency mining as a way to diversify its income stream. He noted that the plan, which he described as a financial lifeline for the struggling plant, carried inherent risks because of the freewheeling nature of cryptocurrency.
“This will give us less protection against the anti fossil fuel (coal) sentiment and legislation and taxation, but we will try to fight this battle as hard as possible,” Halloran said.
West Virginia, which still gets about 90 percent of its power from coal, is an outlier in the United States. Many states, including New York, have moved beyond coal entirely, replacing it with natural gas and renewables.

CNN (Fox lite) joined Newsmax,OAN and a few others at the bottom of the barrel with last nights debacle. Fuax news still reigns supreme -still below the bottom of the barrel. From what i’ve read Collins was basically overwhelmed by Cult-45 and talking over her.Throw in a Cult-45 crowd in the peant gallery and the night was complete. CNN made a piss poor decision to use any woman in a format like this with Cult-45 considering the total lack of respect he has for women in general. I wish Ed Schultz was still around, would’ve been a perfect moderator to go up against Cult-45. That i would’ve watched. CNN AKA known as Conservative News Network must have made an advertising killing last night as the weapons of mass deception are all about the $$$$$$ what they spew out doesnt have to be factual anymore.

Man, just about every comment I’ve heard has been they could only stand a few minutes of it and either hit ‘off’ or changed the channel. Plus, the orange troglodyte defamed that gal he owes $5M to, again. Is he really that braindead? I guess so.

Who knows, she may get another 5 mill as he cant seem to keep his mouth shut

It’s funny that when the ‘liberal media’ shows ‘balance’, it’s only ever indulging *the right*
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 11, 2023

Man, if that ain’t the pathetic truth!

^^^
THIS

do I think that not listening to Trump is going to make him go away? no. additional action is necessary
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) May 12, 2023

‘Incredible Bulls**t’: Anderson Cooper Ripped For ‘Gaslighting’ Over Trump Event
huffpost.com/entry/…
You guys know i couldn’t resist to give this title a proper edit to its 😁

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