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Mexico’s ‘Bernie Sanders’ Wins in a Huge Historic Landslide With Mandate to Reshape the Nation

Progressive anti-Trump candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been elected president of Mexico on Sunday in an apparent landslide victory.

Exit polls gave AMLO, as his supporters call him, ­a huge lead over his two closest competitors, and both of them conceded the race shortly after polls closed on Sunday night. Official results were due to be announced later on Sunday night with AMLO supporters expected to flood Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zócalo, to celebrate his anticipated victory.

The New York Times reports:

“Mr. López Obrador’s win puts a leftist leader at the helm of Latin America’s second largest economy for the first time in decades, a prospect that has filled millions of Mexicans with hope — and the nation’s elites with trepidation.

“The outcome represents a clear rejection of the status quo in the nation, which for the last quarter century has been defined by a centrist vision and an embrace of globalization that many Mexicans feel has not served them.”

Journalist Gwynne Dyer, writing on Common Dreams Sunday:

“It will also annoy Washington greatly. López Obrador is promising that all 50 Mexican consulates in the United States will help to defend migrants caught up in the American legal system. “Trump and his advisers speak of the Mexicans the way Hitler and the Nazis referred to the Jews, just before undertaking the infamous persecution and the abominable extermination,” López Obrador wrote just after the Great Distractor’s election.” It’s quite likely that within a year the US intelligence services will be tasked with the job of finding ways to bring him down.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: There are a lot of congressional districts like mine out there

In the span of less than a week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive candidate who stunned political observers with her victory in last week’s New York Democratic primary, has become representative of the potential future of the Democratic Party.

And, as she explained during a Sunday appearance on “Meet The Press,” she believes that her district and her situation may not be all that unique.

“I think that there are a lot of districts in this country that are like New York 14, that have changed a lot in the last 20 years and whose representation has not,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And it’s not to say whether someone should be voted out or voted in, but I think it definitely speaks to perhaps us evolving in our messaging and at least how we do things.”

Maxine Waters on criticism from Schumer: Leadership will do anything to protect their power

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said Sunday she was surprised to see Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) criticize her for advocating to publicly confront Trump Cabinet officials, but noted that political leaders “will do anything that they think is necessary to protect their leadership.”

“You know, I was surprised at Chuck Schumer, you know reached into the other house to do that,” Waters said when asked by MSNBC host Joy Reid if she was surprised to see leaders in her own party criticizing her. “I’ve not quite seen that done before. But one of the things I recognize, being an elected official, is in the final analysis, you know, leadership will do anything that they think is necessary to protect their leadership.”

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Waters said she’s choosing not to focus on other lawmakers’ comments.

“I’ve got to keep the focus on the children and the fact that this administration is endangering children in the worst kind of way,” she said.

Waters said last week that she was forced to cancel two public events because of a serious death threat she received. She then stated on Saturday at an immigration rally that anybody who attempts to hurt her “better shoot straight.”

“I know that there are those who are talking about censuring me, talking about kicking me out of Congress, talking about shooting me, talking about hanging me,” Waters told the crowd in Los Angeles. “All I have to say is this, if you shoot me you better shoot straight, there’s nothing like a wounded animal.”

Ocasio-Cortez shreds conservative TV host for sharing picture of her childhood home

New York Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tore into a conservative TV host who tweeted a picture of her childhood home in an attempt to discredit her.

John Cardillo, a host of Newsmax’s “America Talks Live,” shared a picture of Ocasio-Cortez’s childhood home in Yorktown Heights, claiming she lived there until she went to attend Brown University.

“This is the Yorktown Heights (very nice area) home @Ocasio2018 grew up in before going off to Ivy League Brown University,” Cardillo tweeted. “A far cry from the Bronx hood upbringing she’s selling.”

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Ocasio-Cortez fired back at Cardillo Sunday afternoon, saying she did not attend Brown University or any other Ivy League school.

“I went to [Boston University],” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Try Google.”

“My mom scrubbed toilets so I could live here & I grew up seeing how the zip code one is born in determines much of their opportunity,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote, noting that she grew up partially in a working-class neighborhood.22

“Your attempt to strip me of my family, my story, my home, and my identity is exemplary of how scared you are of the power of all four of those things,”

Biden rallies Dem support for progressive Md. governor candidate

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday rallied support for Ben Jealous, who won the Maryland Democratic nomination for governor on Tuesday.

Jealous is a progressive candidate who was backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). He will run against Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) this November.

Biden encouraged Maryland Democrats to come together ahead of this year’s general elections, according to the Baltimore Sun.

He said today’s Republican Party prioritizes corporate wealth over middle-class, working families, the Sun reported.

“We have to stop [the Republican party],” Biden reportedly told the crowd at the fundraiser. “We can’t do it if we’re divided.”

Democratic Party sources told the Sun that Jealous raised about $150,000 on Saturday night.

Biden was joined by major players in the Maryland Democratic party, such as Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. Elijah Cummings, and the national party, such as Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez.

The current and former lawmakers praised Jealous’s positions on health care and criminal justice reform, according to the Sun.

New Study Warns of Deepwater Horizon Disaster Long-Lasting Impact on Marine Life’s “Building Blocks”

Following President Donald Trump’s “reckless” decision last week to repeal an ocean protection policy enacted by his predecessor, a study published Friday in the journal Nature details the long-term impact of BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, outlining how “lingering oil residues have altered the basic building blocks of life in the ocean.”

Researchers at the University of Southern Mississippi collected and studied microbial samples from seven of the more than 2,000 historic shipwrecks at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico to analyze how the spill affected the ocean’s smallest living creatures, which are foundational to the marine food chain. As the report explains, “shipwrecks serve as artificial reefs and hotspots of biodiversity by providing hard substrate, something rare in deep ocean regions.”

While conservationists and scientists have, for the past several years, expressed alarm about the consequences of the spill—which poured 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf and devastated local wildlife—this is the first study of shipwreck-associated microbiomes, and caused the researchers to issue new warnings about the long-term impact.

“At the sites closest to the spill, biodiversity was flattened,” Leila Hamdan, a microbial ecologist and the study’s lead author, told the Guardian. “There were fewer types of microbes.”

“This is a cold, dark environment and anything you put down there will be longer lasting than oil on a beach in Florida. It’s premature to imagine that all the effects of the spill are over and remediated,” Hamdan warned. “We rely heavily on the ocean and we could be looking at potential effects to the food supply down the road. Deep sea microbes regulate carbon in the atmosphere and recycle nutrients. I’m concerned there will be larger consequences from this sort of event.”

The new study comes as a tanker and a jetty collided this week at the Port of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, dumping more than 200 tons of heavy fuel oil into the water, endangering hundreds of swan

Not Extreme: Sanders’ and Ocasio-Cortez’s Leftism has been core to the Democratic Party

Mainstream Democrat enemies of Sanders’ “extremism” need to take a closer and more honest look at the history of the Democratic Party. Universal health care and free higher education are not pie in the sky. These causes were advocated by prominent Democrats during the Great Depression, at the end of World War II, and during the Great Society. Unfortunately many of these battles were lost, but their proponents were hardly marginal players, and most advanced democracies have established these as rights in some form. Even in the US, a nation long regarded as most suspicious of government, polls indicate that these are very popular. It is the complex, jerry rigged Affordable Care Act, designed to preserve the costly role of the private insurance industry,, that is the outlier.

Even after Secretary Clinton’s stunning defeat corporate Democrats seek to run as the not-Trumps, enemies of his extremism. What they will not acknowledge is the role that their own agenda has played in furthering the racism and xenophobia they rightly detest. Consider this comment from the Daily Koz: “Right-wing propaganda outfits like Sinclair and Fox News created the environment that allowed Trump to get elected. Now they’re doing everything they can to keep his white supremacist base angry and engaged ahead of this year’s midterm elections.”

What is missing here is the role that a whole series of centrist Democrats policy choices played in creating that environment In this context Democrats should take more seriously a caution political theorist Corey Robin offered right after Trump’s election: [A liberalism based on fear of a devil] can never see in those enemies anything other than a black hole of motivation, a cesspool where reason goes to die. Hence the refusal of empathy for Trump’s supporters. Insofar as it marks a demand that we not abandon antiracist principle and practice for the sake of winning over a mythicized white working class, the refusal is unimpeachable. But like the know-nothing disavowal of knowledge after 9/11, when explanations of terrorism were construed as exonerations of terrorism, the refusal of empathy since 11/9 is a will to ignorance.”

Empathy today might start with recognizing the consequences for both minorities and working class whites of financial deregulation, corporate trade initiatives, bailing out bankers even as ordinary mortgage holders were allowed to sink. This agenda, coming from the party once charged with a duty to protect the working class, left that class only two possible election day default options: succumb to Donald Trump’s xenophobic siren song or stay home. Right now the democratic populism recently articulated by Ocasio-Cortez and like- minded campaigners and activists is essential to combating Trump’s extremist authoritarian incursions.

Sen. Sanders introduces Social Security improvement bill

Following reports that the wait for a Social Security disability appeals decision reached an all-time high of more than 600 days, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) introduced legislation Wednesday to give the Social Security Administration the funds necessary to restore timely service to beneficiaries.

Social Security has played a fundamental role in the lives of hundreds of millions of hardworking Americans; however, since 1970, funding to administer Social Security programs has decreased 34 percent per beneficiary, adjusting for inflation. The Social Security Administration’s budget has declined 9 percent since 2010, while the number of beneficiaries has gone up more than 15 percent. This has resulted in the loss of more than 10,000 employees, as well as the closure of all rural contact centers and more than 10 percent of all field offices nationwide.

These funding cuts have had an unconscionable human cost – last year alone, 10,000 people died and thousands more lost their homes or declared bankruptcy while waiting on a disability decision.

“Social Security is the most successful government program ever, but it can’t work for Vermonters if it doesn’t have adequate staff to answer the phones, meet with applicants and process claims. We must reject Republicans’ efforts to cut and privatize Social Security, and instead ensure that all seniors and people with disabilities receive the benefits they have earned and deserve in a timely manner,” Sanders said.

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Sanders and Larson’s legislation would address the 1 million-person disability backlog, speed up the time it takes for seniors and persons with disabilities to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits and prevent the Social Security Administration from closing field offices that provide essential services to the American people.

To do so, the bill would set the Social Security’s administrative funding at 1.5 percent of overall benefit payments, eliminate the five-month waiting period for approved Social Security disability recipients and the two-year waiting period for disability beneficiaries to qualify to receive Medicare, and implement a moratorium on all closures of field offices and contact stations.

Hundreds of Thousands Take to Streets to Protest Trump’s ‘Zero-Humanity’ Policies

undreds of thousands took to the streets Saturday to protest against Donald Trump and his immigration policies in big cities and small towns across the 50 states.

Trump, who spent the day playing golf at his resort in New Jersey, took time to tweet an attack on what he called the “radical left,” who he said were behind calls to disband Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency central to his hardline immigration approach.

More than 750 “Families Belong Together” marches took place in all 50 US states and Twitter showed sister demonstrations in London, Munich, Paris, Hamburg, Tokyo, and others cities around the globe.

Democrats have run from ‘socialism’ — while embracing socialist policies

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s primary victory was announced late Tuesday night, much of the political left celebrated with glee. The former bartender not only beat incumbent Joseph Crowley in the race for New York’s 14th Congressional District seat by a 15-point margin; she also ran as a socialist and spoke of the Democratic Party as a “big tent” with room for the far left.

But by Wednesday afternoon, some of the air had been let out of the balloon. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) brushed off the suggestion that Ocasio-Cortez’s win means much of anything, saying that a win in one district “is not to be viewed as something that stands for everything else.” Her dismissiveness highlighted the continued tension between socialists and Democrats, a relationship that has long been defined by feigned distance and symbiosis.

While Republicans have relied on socialism as a boogeyman over which to feign horror, Democrats have grappled with a desire to be seen as far from socialists on policy — while adopting causes and initiatives for which socialists have called. It’s a dynamic that has kept socialists at the margins of American politics, even as their policies have become mainstream.

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In 2016, commentators frequently remarked that Sanders had pulled Clinton to the left during the campaign. Whether true or not, that sentiment captures the dynamic between the Democrats and socialists for over a century; socialists have long been the leftward flank of the political spectrum, offering ways forward but being kept from power. But this dynamic is increasingly untenable as income inequality continues to rise, the gig economy creates unsustainable working conditions and social-justice issues go unresolved. Consider that Clinton suggested that identifying as a capitalist (while qualifying that she wants accountability) became a liability among some potential Democratic voters during the campaign.

The question now is whether this flurry of interest in socialism will be sustained and whether Democrats, who have long been harried by red fright and responsible for enabling it, will make space for socialism. While the Republicans continue to decry socialism as a threat to the fabric of our society, the Democrats have a chance to capitalize on the momentum of young, up-and-coming leaders such as Ocasio-Cortez and welcome socialists into the fold for the first time.

Citing ‘Deprivation’ They Would Cause, Federal Judge Blocks Kentucky’s Trump-Backed Medicaid Work Requirements

Kentucky’s Medicaid work requirements—which were enabled and enthusiastically approved by the Trump administration—would have stripped healthcare from around 100,000 people, but a federal judge on Friday decided to block the new restrictions from taking effect, arguing that the White House’s approval of the rules did not adequately account for the “deprivation” they would cause.

“This is a victory for the people of Kentucky who rely on Medicaid for life-saving healthcare,” Frederick Isasi, executive director of Families USA, said in a statement on Friday. “Most Medicaid enrollees that are not elderly or disabled are in families that are working. Let’s stop perpetuating stereotypes and stop trying to take health care away from families.”

“These work mandates and lockout provisions are not about helping people get jobs—they’re about kicking people off the Medicaid program,” Isasi concluded. “Today’s win means that nearly 100,000 Kentucky residents will continue to be able to see their doctors, stay healthy, and take care of their families. And it should give pause to the Trump administration, Kentucky, and other states seeking illegal and harmful Medicaid changes that take healthcare away from families.”

The Millennial Socialists Are Coming

In May, three young progressive women running for the state Legislature in Pennsylvania, each endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, won decisive primary victories over men heavily favored by the political establishment. Two of the women, Summer Lee, 30, and Sara Innamorato, 32, ousted incumbents, the distant cousins Dom Costa and Paul Costa, members of an iconic Pennsylvania political family.

Elizabeth Fiedler, 37, announced her run three months after giving birth to her second child, and she had a nursery in her Philadelphia campaign office so other parents could drop off their kids before canvassing shifts. Talking to voters, she spoke of depending on Medicaid and CHIP for her kids’ health insurance, and of the anxiety she felt during two weeks when their insurance lapsed.

Lee was open about the more than $200,000 in student loans that have weighed on her since graduating from law school, which gave her a visceral sense, she told me, of the “need for free, quality education for everybody.” (An African-American woman running in a largely white district, she ended up with 68 percent of the vote.) Innamorato spoke about how her father’s opioid addiction had pushed her and her mother from the middle class. “I’ve lived the struggles of my district,” she told me.

Their races were part of a grass-roots civic renewal that is happening across this country, something that is, for me, the sole source of optimism in this very dark time.

all over the nation, people, particularly women, are working with near supernatural energy to rebuild democracy from the ground up, finding ways to exercise political power however they can. For the middle-aged suburbanites who are the backbone of the anti-Trump resistance, that often means shoring up the Democratic Party. For younger people who see Donald Trump’s election as the apotheosis of a rotten political and economic system, it often means trying to remake that party as a vehicle for democratic socialism.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren Joins Calls to Replace ICE: ‘This is Ugly, This is Wrong’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined the growing calls to reimagine and replace Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Speaking at an immigration rally in Boston on Saturday afternoon, Warren told demonstrators that the current immigration situation is “ugly” and “wrong.”

“This is ugly, this is wrong, and this is not the way to run our country,” Warren said. “The president’s deeply immoral actions have made it obvious we need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality and values.”

She added: “This moment is a moral crisis for our country.”

With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory, Congress will likely gain a new climate champion

Ocasio-Cortez’s plan for tackling climate change deserves attention

HISPANIC CAUCUS WELCOMES ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ WITH OPEN ARMS — BUT MAYBE NOT HER ENTIRE PLATFORM

MEMBERS OF THE Congressional Hispanic Caucus were — like many others Tuesday night as the results of the race for New York’s 14th Congressional District came in — surprised but excited that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was one step closer to becoming the youngest female member of Congress in history.

But that was followed by another thought: We need to speak with her. Anybody have her number?

“That’s a solidly Democratic seat, so I believe she’ll be the next congresswoman from the 14th District of New York, and we look forward to enthusiastically welcoming her to the Hispanic Caucus,” Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas told The Intercept. “The nation was impressed by how she ran a campaign that was true to herself, emblematic of the place that she comes from, and powered by grassroots energy.”

In 1992, Rep. Nydia Velázquez was also a young Puerto Rican woman who unseated an incumbent in New York City. She said she’s always pleased to see more Latinas in public office.

“As always, those of us who come from more humble backgrounds, particularly women and people of color, have to work a little more and fight a little harder — but Alexandria has clearly shown she’s got the spirit and the energy to make her voice heard,” she said.

But while Democrats enthusiastically welcome Ocasio-Cortez, embracing the particulars of the platform that fueled her win is a bit of a different story.

THERE’S AN EASY ANSWER TO WHY ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ WON: SOCIALISM

IT SEEMS NO one can stop talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old former bartender who ousted 10-time incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley from his seat in New York’s 14th Congressional District last Tuesday.

But some people should.

As I’ve written before, each electoral contest between now and 2020 will be scrutinized for its predictive value, parsed for insights into how to beat Trump. But some of the insights from the prognosticators who ignored the Ocasio-Cortez campaign until she won are, well, not very insightful.

Myriad horse-race callers seem hell-bent on divorcing Ocasio-Cortez’s core ideology from any causal analysis of her win, with no discernible motive other than preserving the party’s failing strategies, and the strategists paid to enact them, for another election cycle. Others downplay the radical nature of her policy platform by claiming her leftism for the center, and pretending her choice to identify as a democratic socialist is a distinction without a difference.

The Biggest Lesson from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Win? Run on Democratic Socialism.

The 28-year-old Latina scored the biggest upset of 2018 by rejecting Democratic Party orthodoxy and running on a laser-focused message of economic justice. If other candidates want to win, they should follow her lead.

DATA SUGGEST THAT GENTRIFYING NEIGHBORHOODS POWERED ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ’S VICTORY

WHEN CANVASSERS for the campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reconvened in the Bronx last Tuesday evening, they swapped stories about what they’d seen. With no exit polling, anecdotes were all they had — but they were adding up to something that warranted optimism.

The volunteers had fanned out across the district, focusing particularly on areas in Queens and the Bronx where an influx of young people was changing the character, complexion and politics of the neighborhoods. Whether the volunteer had been in Astoria, Sunnyside, or Woodside, all gentrifying neighborhoods in Queens that the campaign targeted heavily, he or she shared the same story: Turnout seemed higher than usual, and the people turning out were young, they were diverse, and they were pumped for Ocasio-Cortez.

Many of the voters looked to the canvassers like stereotypical Bernie supporters — young people who might have supported Senator Sanders during the 2016 presidential campaign. These types of voters, galvanized by a popular presidential candidate or a certain ideology, might not be expected to turn out for a typical midterm primary. They’re what’s known in political circles as “drop-off voters.” But the Ocasio-Cortez campaign’s pivotal insight was that enough of them lived in the district to help carry her to victory if they were found and motivated to vote.

According to a precinct-by-precinct analysis of last week’s results by Steven Romalewski, director of the Mapping Service at the City University of New York’s Center for Urban Research, Ocasio-Cortez’s success can be attributed, in large part, to exactly that strategy. The drop-off voters didn’t drop off.

Huge news for our campaign! Thank you. Together, we will take on big pharma, big banks, big donors, mass incarceration, and big corruption. I really appreciate the support. I won't let you down. https://t.co/mmCvm1lYrc

— Zephyr Teachout (@ZephyrTeachout) July 1, 2018

De-DeVos (v.): what we need to do in Michigan to make sure our children have a shot at the future they deserve. It means getting the profit motive out of education, putting the empathy back in it, and reinvesting in our school buildings. pic.twitter.com/XudiaHHqmw

— Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) July 1, 2018

Federal judge dismisses suit over literacy rights in Detroit

A federal judge has dismissed an unprecedented civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Detroit students fighting to establish literacy is a U.S. constitutional right.

In the suit filed in 2016 through a California public interest law firm, the youths alleged the conditions of their schools are so poor and inadequate they had not received the best education and were denied access to literacy on account of their races, violating their rights under the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.

But attorneys for Gov. Rick Snyder and state education officials have said no fundamental right to literacy exists for Detroit schoolchildren. The lawyers had asked the judge to reject what they have called an “attempt to destroy the American tradition of democratic control of schools.”

The state asked U.S. District Judge Stephen J. Murphy III to dismiss the case, saying the U.S. Supreme Court and Michigan courts do recognize the importance of literacy, but reject claims it is a legal right.

Democrats see a surge in interest, but can that create a ‘blue wave’ in red Idaho?

Idahoan Courtney Beebe has been a Democrat since she was a high school student in American Falls.

“Everyone I ever admired was a Democrat,” said the 40-year-old Coeur d’Alene lawyer, who volunteered for former U.S. Rep. Richard Stallings in her youth.

Over the years, Beebe has supported the party and its values, including through donations. But Donald Trump’s election motivated her to become a precinct chairwoman in Kootenai County — and to be one of about 170 delegates to the 2018 Idaho Democratic Convention, a two-day event that wrapped up Saturday on the campus of The College of Idaho in Caldwell.

The Democrats spent two days discussing priorities, updating their platform and unifying around their nominees. Major platform stances included a demand to repeal Idaho’s Right to Work law; support for Medicaid expansion, compassionate immigration reform and a restorative criminal justice system; and calls for the legalization of CBD oil, medical cannabis and recreational cannabis use for people 21 or older.

Those at the convention were focused on the issues, not the long odds of getting a Democrat elected in a state dominated by Republicans. But they were encouraged by high voter turnout in the May primary and energized by local and national buzz about 38-year-old gubernatorial candidate Paulette Jordan, a Coeur d’Alene Tribe member trying to become the first female governor of Idaho and the first Democrat elected to the top spot since Cecil Andrus in 1990.

Jordan, who served two terms in the Idaho House of Representatives, handily defeated the party’s 2014 nominee for governor, A.J. Balukoff, a 72-year-old businessman and longtime Boise schools trustee.

With respect to the Senator, strong, clear advocacy for working class Americans isn’t just for the Bronx.

Sen. Sanders won:
– Michigan
– Minnesota
– Kansas
– Nebraska
– Wisconsin
– Indiana

We then lost several of those states in the general. What’s the plan to prevent a repeat? https://t.co/99K08qr7SH

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 1, 2018

This is HUGE! We just passed a resolution at the @FlaDems Executive Committee meeting banning private prison money and all affiliated PAC and lobbyist money in the Florida Democratic Party. It took two hours and pushback from some of the leadership but we did it! pic.twitter.com/q6dZ24j3uo

— Tomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) July 1, 2018

Could progressive newcomer Sarah Smith upset 11-term incumbent in Washington primary?

Thirty-year-old Sarah Smith and a team of volunteers are hitting the pavement, knocking on door after door to spread the word: She’s running for Congress and taking on 11-term Democratic incumbent Adam Smith in the primaries.

“I had to struggle to overcome this thought in my head of: I’m not from a political dynasty; I’m not supposed to go into politics; I’m working class; I haven’t gone up the ladder; I haven’t done it the right way; I haven’t asked for permission,” Sarah Smith said. “I had to really get out of that mindset because at the end of the day, we don’t need to ask for permission to run to represent our neighbors.”

Sarah Smith is a candidate under Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, the same slates that supported New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who just dealt a crushing defeat to 10-term Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley.

“I cried when she got elected. I’m a sucker,” Sarah Smith said.

Both women are part of a push to elect progressives aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders. In a state that caucused strong for Sanders in 2016, Sarah Smith’s platform is gaining ground.

“I am for single-payer medicare for all; I am for debt-free education; I am for abolishing (Immigration and Customs Enforcement); I am for investing in our infrastructure; and I am for getting us out of, what is it, nine to 11 different military occupations we’re in?”

‘Ali is On the Grill’: Israeli Settlers Taunt Family of Palestinian Toddler Murdered in Arson Attack

Around two dozen right-wing Israeli settler youth were recorded on video taunting relatives of Ali Saad Dawabsheh, the 18-month-old Palestinian toddler murdered along with his parents in a July 2015 arson attack.

The Times of Israel reports the extremists chanted “Ali is burned, where is Ali, Ali is on the grill” as Hussein Dawabsheh, Ali’s grandfather, and Nasr Dawabsheh, the slain boy’s uncle, left a courthouse in Lod District following a June 19 ruling on the admissibility of confessions made by suspects in the deadly terror attack. Hussein and Nasr have been Ali’s legal guardians since the death of his parents. The men were accompanied by Arab Israeli lawmakers Ahmad Tibi and Ayman Odeh, of the Joint List party.

“Where is Ali? Where is Reham? Where is Saad? It’s too bad Ahmed didn’t burn as well,” the youth chanted as they jubilantly danced. Ali’s father, 32-year-old Saad Dawabsheh, died four days after masked attackers firebombed his family home in Duma village in the illegally occupied West Bank on July 31, 2015. Ali’s mother, Reham Dawabsheh, 26, succumbed to her mortal injuries five weeks after the terror attack. Their son, Ahmed Dawabsha, who was 5 at the time, suffered severe burns and required months of treatment, but survived.

Some 20 police officers reportedly stood by watching the hate chants, without intervening.

The news inside the courthouse wasn’t much better for the slain toddler’s surviving family, as a three-judge panel tossed out a confession by a teenager accused of involvement in the deadly attack after finding that his confession had been made under duress. Elisha Odess, a 17-year-old American Israeli from Tzofim, an illegal Jews-only settlement in the West Bank, alleges he was tortured by agents from Shin Bet, Israel’s internal state security agency. Shin Bet has denied the allegations.

A Wall Won’t Fix Immigration by Jim Hightower

Until our leaders address the real issues, it’s not possible to build a wall tall enough to stop them from coming.

Muslim candidates rise above Trump hostility to focus on issues

Deedra Abboud, an attorney, is competing for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Arizona. She has never sought public office before. But she has become a fixture in national headlines – in part because of online vitriol generated by the fact she is a Muslim.

Abboud wears a headscarf. Slurs against her have included calling her a “towel head” and suggestions that Muslims should not serve in the US government.

Abboud told the Guardian she saw a “silver lining” in finally being noticed. But she also felt a familiar frustration. She is from Little Rock, Arkansas, as evidenced by her southern twang. Nonetheless, she has had to settle for being known as “the Muslim candidate”.

“I wear a scarf, I don’t want to hide it,” she said. “It’s something I want to take head-on. It’s just sometimes I think it’s relegated to only that.”

Abboud is one of a wave of Muslim candidates seeking elected office in Donald Trump’s America, many spurred into action by the president’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies.

“We’re trying to change what leadership and power look like in this country,” said Fayrouz Saad, a 34-year-old from Michigan who if elected would become the first Muslim woman in the House of Representatives.

Nearly 100 Muslims are running for office at state and federal levels. Almost all are Democrats, few have held office before. Several who were interviewed by the Guardian said they did not want a disproportionate focus to be placed on their faith. Much like their opponents, they said, they wished to talk about the issues.

What’s the ‘Green New Deal’? The surprising origins behind a progressive rallying cry.

The man who popularized the phrase that left-leaning Democrats now use to describe a vision for a radical government spending plan to combat climate change is a self-described centrist “free-market guy” with a New York Times column.

It was Thomas Friedman who in 2007 started calling for a “Green New Deal” to end fossil fuel subsidies, tax carbon dioxide emissions, and create lasting incentives for wind and solar energy. At the dawn of the global financial crisis, the “New Deal” concept that Franklin D. Roosevelt coined 76 years earlier to describe the labor reforms and historic spending on infrastructure and armaments that pulled the United States out of the Great Depression proved attractive.

Friedman’s ideas made it into the mainstream the following year when presidential candidate Barack Obama added a Green New Deal to his platform. In 2009, the United Nations drafted a report calling for a Global Green New Deal to focus government stimulus on renewable energy projects. A month later, Democrats’ landmark cap-and-trade bill — meant to set up a market where companies could buy and sell pollution permits and take a conservative first step toward limiting carbon dioxide emissions — passed in the House with the promise of spurring $150 billion in clean energy investments and creating 1.7 million good-paying jobs.

But, by 2010, austerity politics hit. The cap-and-trade bill, known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, died in the Senate. In Britain, the Labor Party, acting on a proposal that a team of economists calling themselves the Green New Deal Group drafted, established a government-run green investment bank to bolster renewable energy — only for the conservative Tories to sweep into office months later and begin the process of privatizing the nascent institution. Balanced budgets and deficit hysteria became the dogma of governments across the developed world. Talk of a Green New Deal withered on the vine.

Today the phrase is making a comeback among the ranks of Democratic insurgents running on left-leaning platforms in 2018 primaries across the country. Far from serving as shorthand for middle-of-the-road climate policies, the decade-old slogan is being reborn as the kind of progressive platform that increasingly looks like the only policy approach capable of slowing the nation’s output of planet-warming gases and adapting to a hotter world.

LCV Action Fund Endorses Deb Haaland for Congress

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Action Fund, which works to elect candidates who will support sound environmental policies, announced today its endorsement of Deb Haaland for Congress in New Mexico’s 1st District.

“Deb Haaland’s commitment to environmental justice will make her an excellent representative for New Mexico,” said LCV Action Fund Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Tiernan Sittenfeld. “She will be a champion for America’s clean energy future and a voice for the communities who are the most exposed to the devastating effects of climate change and pollution. We know she will be an important ally in Congress and are delighted to endorse her campaign.”

“Deb Haaland has a proven record of standing against threats to New Mexico’s air and water,” said Conservation Voters New Mexico Executive Director Demis Foster.

“She is committed to defending our public lands, cultural values, and communities. We would be thrilled to see her continue that work in Congress.”

“For me, the fight for our planet is personal,” said Deb Haaland. “My parents instilled respect and reverence of the land and water into my siblings and I from a very young age. It was important, because their parents and grandparents sustained themselves from the land. My family history makes the LCV Action Fund endorsement extremely meaningful to me and my campaign. If elected to Congress, I will work alongside LCV to address the pressing challenges facing our environment and communities because of climate change. I will fight for a swift transition to 100% renewable energy, be fierce on the front lines to keep public lands in public hands, and to continually pressure the EPA Administrator to do his job and protect our land, water and air.”

‘We need to have non-Indigenous people also stand up for the land and waters for their babies and for all species to come’: Christi Belcourt’s latest exhibition landed in Thunder Bay https://t.co/nb0oBKYeRX pic.twitter.com/bRhMkowXxW

— APTN National News (@APTNNews) July 1, 2018

(video @ link in tweet)

Pipeline protesters gather at governor’s mansion

Three days after a state regulator ruled a Canadian oil company can build a pipeline across much of northern Minnesota, opponents are fighting back, rallying Sunday outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul.

After months of fighting, opponents say the decision was both a disappointment and a shock, bringing Calgary-based Enbridge another step closer to replacing a line that’s now 50 years old. It’ll follow the existing path from Canada to Wisconsin partway through northern Minnesota, then veer south to bypass the Leech Lake reservation. Enbridge claims the new $7 billion pipeline will let it move double the oil of the current one, plus create jobs and revenue. But critics say regulators simply chose money over the environment.

“It’s pretty egregious,” said Andy Pearson of MN350, a climate-focused nonprofit in Minneapolis.

“They looked us in the eye on Thursday and told us, ‘We did hear everything you had to say and we don’t care,’” said Akilah Sanders-Reed of an activist group called Youth Climate Intervenors. “‘We are afraid of this oil company and we’re going to cave to them rather than following the law and the request of our people.’”

Those people are mostly young, saying they’ll be most affected by future pollution, rallying support from environmental groups and others who say the decision is both wrong and illegal. And they say the fight’s not over, since Enbridge still needs 29 local, state and federal permits, which Governor Mark Dayton says are no sure thing.

“The governor has already said that he intends to put a very high level of scrutiny on those permits,” said Pearson. “Again, his state agencies have concluded that this pipeline shouldn’t be built.”

Blacksburg woman released on bond after pipeline protest

State police responded to the scene at 7:43 a.m., but it took all day to bring Satterwhite down from the boom of the excavator, where she had positioned herself about 20 feet off the ground.

Further complicating her removal was the fact that Satterwhite had placed her arms into a lockbox device, known as a “sleeping dragon,” that was attached to a hydraulic piston on the excavator.

A sleeping dragon is an elbow-shaped piece of pipe. A protester inserts their arms into each end and then chains their hands together inside the device, complicating efforts to remove the person from whatever they have attached themselves to.

After being checked by a physician who was standing by, Satterwhite was taken in handcuffs to the county magistrate’s office, where she was later released on bond. A hearing has been scheduled for July 13.

Satterwhite, who teaches Appalachian studies at Virginia Tech, has previously been active in protests by pipeline opponents, who say the project will leave lasting environmental damage to pristine lands and waters.

I’ve shared Drezus before here, but as I’m listening to this song while I put together this post.. figured I’d share again.

You can lock us in jail and throw away the key
Take away my rights but you ain’t stopping me
‘Cause I been quiet for too long its time to speak
We got to stand for something to keep us free!
I’m idle no more

TransCanada, Whose Pipeline Just Exploded, Wants Feds’ Help to Beat Green Groups

Facing mounting protests and lawsuits from environmental groups and property owners, backers of the natural gas pipeline industry are seeking help from the U.S. government to help push their projects through, Reuters reported.

“It’s definitely not getting easier to build a new pipeline,” Stanley Chapman, executive vice president and president of U.S. natural gas pipelines at TransCanada Corp, told the news service at the World Gas Conference in Washington.

“I’m seeing more already-approved pipeline projects that are under construction get held up by a judge in lawsuits and this has to be addressed either by FERC or with legislation,” he added, referring to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees construction of new pipelines.

Followers of the Keep It In The Ground movement would say that the best means of fossil fuel transportation is none. Environmentalists oppose oil and natural gas pipelines over fears of air and water pollution, as well as its impact on climate-warming emissions.

Supaman at The Wilma- A blend of hip-hop and cultural awareness

“Beneath the wooden floor you stand on is a concrete foundation, and under that is soil,” said Native American Hip-Hop artist Supaman. “In that soil is the blood and dust and bones of the native people. Under The Wilma is the blood and dust and bones of the native people.”

Supaman gave a free community concert at the Wilma Theatre on June 28, perfectly blending hip-hop beats and cultural teaching for an educational and inspiring tone.

His audience, mostly younger kids and teens, enjoyed the interactivity and learning as much as they enjoyed the music. They smiled and laughed, eagerly engaging in Supaman’s instructions, “Turn to your neighbor and give them three compliments!” he shouted from stage. “Now hug your other neighbor, hopefully its not you ex!”

The concert was part of the Montana Arts Integration Conference taking place at the University of Montana this week. The conference, keyed toward educators, administration, and policy makers, focuses on defining and learning about arts integration, and making connections within the arts community of Montana.

Much like I believed for years and years that Bernie would be a ‘big thing’ before it actually happened, I quite sincerely believe that people like Akala and Lowkey’s impact in bringing truthful messages through music to ‘millenials’, etc.. will someday make them household names rather than me just talking about them here. That also includes all the great indigenous hip-hop artists that I also continually talk about. So it always makes me happy to see more and more outlets interviewing them or writing about the movement.

Why More Indigenous Artists Are Using Hip-Hop to Reclaim Their Heritage

The links between hip-hop and indigenous people aren’t obvious at first. What could pop-locking, graffiti-tagging sneaker heads possibly have in common with peoples whose cultures date back centuries in the Western hemisphere?

But as some of the artists performing at the Hip-Hop: First Peoples, New Voices event at Grand Performances explain it, the links and parallels are abundant in the music, the art, the narratives and the dances. Most important, hip-hop is a channel for these artists to reclaim their people’s culture and heritage by building up their communities with their own voices.

“The urban, native community is almost a silent, unknown community unless you are distinctly aware,” explains Leigh Ann Hahn, programming director at Grand Performances. “I think a lot of the community is overlooked or melded into what a lot of people think of as the monolithic Latino community. It’s an important voice that Grand Performances has not looked at [before] in any depth.”

..

“Hip-hop is something that was derived out of oppression,” explains Lumhe Micco Sampson, one half of The Sampson Brothers. He and his brother Samsoche are dancers who perform during rapper-producer Waln’s sets. Their best-known dance is the hoop dance, in which they connect large hoops in elaborate ways that also tell a story.

“There’s many different dance forms that can be put into hip-hop, so it’s not a far-fetched idea for a Native American to incorporate what he knows into something that is modern,” says Lumhe Micco. “For us, it’s just a matter of getting that exposure and creating a story in that context as opposed to somebody else telling our story for us. You actually see us up there telling those stories. Literally up until the 1930s, Native Americans were prohibited by law, even prosecuted, for dancing, singing, any of those types of things that have to do with our ceremonies. For me, this is an ultimate act of rebellion, a declaration of my culture and my humanity.”

Maryam Henderson-Uloho spent thirteen years in prison in Louisiana, seven in solitary confinement. After her release she struggled to find housing or employment. She began selling secondhand goods out of a suitcase on a street corner in New Orleans. In just three years, she grew her business to a brick-and-mortar thrift store—one that also provides housing and employment for other formerly-incarcerated women. She calls those women—and her store—Sister Hearts.

“When I got out of prison, they wouldn’t allow me to open a bank account. I could not rent an apartment. I could not get a job. So I started just selling stuff out of a suitcase on the street corner. The first day I made $40. And I just kept doing that. Three years later, I have a 15,000 square foot thrift store and transition housing facility for other female ex-offenders.”

Our Revolution leader fuels the Bern and rebuffs critique

Nina Turner leads the progressive grass-roots group Our Revolution. But recent headlines made a crowd anticipating her arrival at a local church wonder if she was more a saint or a sinner.

Turner, head of the political action organization formed by supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., after his 2016 presidential bid, is the spokeswoman who hailed 28-year-old New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent primary win, noting Our Revolution had endorsed and worked on her behalf.

But the group’s president was also the public face targeted in a recent Politico report headlined “Bernie’s Army in Disarray,” which blamed her for a laundry list of management missteps that “has left many Sanders supporters disillusioned, feeling that the group that was supposed to harness the senator’s grass-roots movement is failing in its mission.”

As Turner introduced herself at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Bennington Friday night, many were curious to see just who she was. By the time the crowd of 100 repeated the chant “NI-NA” before capping her speech with a standing ovation, it was clear the daughter of an evangelist was preaching to an appreciative choir.

“Whether you care about the environment or women’s rights or racial justice or what’s happening to our sisters and brothers on the southern border, all that we love is on the line,” she said to cries of “right on!” “To get the wonderful change that we know that we can have in this country, it is really about us in this room.”

Turner, a former Cleveland city councilwoman and Ohio state senator, appeared as part of a two-day tour organized by Rights & Democracy that, as seen in Facebook live video streams, had people jumping to their feet in Bristol, Burlington and Rutland and the neighboring New Hampshire communities of Keene, Manchester and Plymouth.

Former City Council Speaker Endorses Cynthia Nixon for NY Governor

Former New York City Council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito threw her support behind Cynthia Nixon on Sunday, calling the gubernatorial candidate a “fighter for communities across New York.”

Mark-Viverito, who currently works as a senior advisor to Latino Victory, officially endorsed Nixon at a press conference in East Harlem, Nixon’s campaign said.

The activist and “Sex and the City” actress aims to unseat Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary on Sept. 13.

“[Nixon has] stood up for LGBTQ equality, women’s rights, and for better schools and more equitable education funding here in New York City and all across the state,” Mark-Viverito said in a statement. “She’s stood arm-in-arm with immigrants and black and brown New Yorkers in every one of those fights.”

“And in these dark times, she’s exactly the kind of progressive fighter New York needs right now,” she added.

Tim Geithner, Obama's pick for treasury, now runs a company which makes high-interest predatory loans to people. This is why we don't want any more Corporate Democrats. https://t.co/sXIO2BAfmj

— Democratic Restoration Movement ? (@NoFascistLies) July 2, 2018

A waitress she worked with felt Ocasio-Cortez didn't give her enough when splitting her tips at the end of the night one time. All the other co-workers say she was great.

That's it. That's literally it. That's what someone wrote and published an article about. https://t.co/JSS90D38aB

— Andrew Boyd Allen (@A_B_Allen) July 2, 2018