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More on Amy Vilela:

After Daughter’s Tragic Death, Mother Begs for Single-Payer Health Care

Amy Vilela believes her daughter was denied proper care due to her insurance status, and now wants a system not driven by profits

Current Health Care Fight Is The Latest Battle In A Lengthy War

Downtown Las Vegas Protest Part Of New Spirit Of Activism

Daughter’s death leads to lawsuit against Centennial Hills Hospital

“My 22-Year-Old Daughter Died Because She Told ER She Didn’t Have Health Insurance”: The Enduring Nightmare of America’s Health Care System

Sanders talks Trump, Russia and healthcare on ‘The View’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday there is “very strong” evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia, in an interview on “The View” Wednesday.

“I think what we have is some very strong evidence about the possibility of collusion,” Sanders said when asked if there is a smoking gun of collusion in the case of Donald Trump Jr. meeting with Russian lawyers during the 2016 campaign to procure opposition research on Hillary Clinton.

The Vermont Senator added that “what is important is that every American, that they believe this process is objective and it is fair.”

“Politics is ugly,” he said when asked if the allegations of collusion were politics as usual. “But,” he added, “presidential candidates do not have email chains with foreign governments who are talking about how they can elect you, and have dirt on your opponents. That is a clear violation of campaign finance law.”

The conversation also touched on healthcare and the GOP plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

Bernie Sanders on how to avoid war with North Korea

This article is part of a new series, A Chat with Bernie Sanders. The series will run abridged transcripts of episodes from The Bernie Sanders Show. The show seeks to be a place where people can learn about the progressive agenda.

In this first article in the series, Bernie Sanders talks to the former secretary of defense William J Perry, who served in the Clinton administration. The subject of their chat? North Korea.

Listen to the full show

I don’t agree with everything in this article but some of it’s true enough..

 The Circular Firing Squad Isn’t Amusing Anymore

 Democratic Party mainstreamers should stop claiming that they and they alone are pragmatic. (Or as a smug New York Times headline put it, “The Base Wants It All. The Party Wants to Win.”) That argument has long been highly debatable, but after 2016 it is delusional. They have controlled most of the candidate selection and most of the campaigns that have resulted in the weakest presence of Democrats in elective office since the age of silent movies.

At the same time, an intellectually honest left should stop insisting it has a monopoly on virtue or that both major parties are the same. This was not true in the 1960s, and—notwithstanding the frustrating limits of what the Clinton and Obama years accomplished in terms of progress on health care, the environment, the minimum wage, militarism, and civil liberties—millions of Americans had much better lives than would have been the case if Republicans has occupied the White House during the same time periods.

False choices are a luxury that must be jettisoned. It is neither rational nor helpful to ignore misogyny as a factor in the demonization of Hillary Clinton (and, for that matter, Nancy Pelosi). Sexism is still a thing. On the other hand, Obama and Clinton partisans need to acknowledge that the vast majority of Bernie Sanders voters were not motivated by his gender but by his articulation of positions that they felt were an inspiring departure from the constricted political playing field of recent years.

‘The People Deserve Better’: Watch Warren Rip Trump’s Union-Busting Labor Nominee

Raising alarm about the Trump administration’s ongoing war on organized labor at a time of stagnant wages and withering employee rights, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday drilled a top Trump labor pick for spending much of his career “making it harder for workers to join unions.”

Warren’s comments came during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing, as senators questioned Trump’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) nominees, Marvin Kaplan and William Emanuel.

Kaplan and Emanuel both ultimately advanced out of the committee, but not before Warren grilled Emanuel for his work on behalf of “one of the most ruthless union-busting law firms in the country”—Littler Mendelson—and concluded that “the American people deserve better.”

“I’m not at all convinced that working men and women can rely on him to stand up for their rights,” Warren said after reviewing Emanuel’s record. “I opposed his confirmation to the NLRB.”

Joining Single-Payer Chorus, Al Gore Says For-Profit System Had Its Chance

On the heels of what appeared to be Trumpcare’s final collapse on Monday and in the midst of growing grassroots demands for Democratic lawmakers to embrace a “bold” agenda, former Vice President Al Gore said at an event on Tuesday that he believes the United States should move toward a single-payer system that guarantees healthcare for every American.

“The private sector has not shown any ability to provide good, affordable healthcare for all,” Gore said at Borough of Manhattan Community College, where he was promoting his new climate change documentary. “I believe we ought to have single-payer healthcare.”

The Partisan Use Of Preemption Is Surging by Jim Hightower

We the People are being burgled. Again.

The latest hit is just the latest in a long string of political robberies, a nationwide crime wave being pulled off by moneyed elites and their political henchmen. With each heist, they haul off a little more of our democratic power: the ability of the working majority to have any real say in the corporate and governmental decisions that affect us.

The elites are master thieves, often plucking pieces of our power without us realizing it, until we try to use it and — phhttt — it’s gone. And yet another democracy-stealing tool has recently been fabricated and quietly distributed to profiteering corporations and right-wing ideologues throughout the country: PREEMPTION.

This concept has been around since Day One of our nation, contained in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and in similar clauses in state constitutions. It allows higher levels of government to intervene and overrule lower levels – the Feds can legally preempt state and local laws, and states can preempt city and county ordinances.

Obviously, this extreme power is fraught with danger, so it’s meant to be used sparingly and only to advance a very big public purpose like, for example, overriding state and local laws that officially sanction rank racial discrimination.

Wisconsin Republican Party outraises Democrats

The Wisconsin Republican Party has nearly 50-times as much cash on hand as the state Democratic Party through the first six months of the year.

Reports filed this week with the state show Republicans ended June with more than $1.7 million in the bank. That compares with just $36,000 for Democrats.

The Republican Party reported raising nearly $2.2 million over the first six months of the year, compared with just over $600,000 for Democrats.

Warnings as GOP Aims to Gut Protections for Endangered Species

Conservation groups are issuing warnings on Wednesday as Congressional committees in both chambers considered Republican-backed bills aimed at weakening the Endangered Species Act.

In the Senate on Wednesday, the Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing for the ironically named Hunting Heritage and Environmental Legacy Preservation (HELP) for Wildlife Act. And while its backers refer to it as the Sportsmen’s Bill, critics describe it as a Trojan horse specifically designed to undermine the species protection laws.

The Democratic Plan to Combat Trump’s Voter Suppression Commission by Tom Perez

In 2016, 39 Americans were struck and killed by lightning. In the same year, there were four documented cases of voter fraud. That’s right. You’re more likely to see someone fatally struck by lightning than witness a case of in-person voter fraud.

Study after study after study has debunked the myth of “voter fraud.” So why is President Donald Trump spending taxpayer dollars on a voter fraud commission? The answer is simple: This is a propaganda factory for justifying the Republican Party’s broader voter suppression efforts.

As the commission meets in Washington, D.C. today, there seems to be no limit to how far Republicans will go to disenfranchise certain voters. Instead of working to convince voters to support their policies, they’re working systematically to suppress the fundamental democratic rights of the American people.

Keystone XL opponent plans appeal to South Dakota high court

Suffolk woman fighting to keep Atlantic Coast Pipeline off her land

Dominion Energy is moving full speed ahead with its Atlantic Coast Pipeline, but one Hampton Roads resident is saying, “Not in my backyard.”

Paulette Johnson bought the property in Suffolk 10 years ago, and when she did, she had no thought even in her wildest imagination that a pipeline would cut right through the property. Yet, that will likely happen.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a likely done deal, but not if Johnson has her way. Johnson and pipeline opponents fear massive explosions.

In January on the Texas panhandle, there was police dash cam video showing a massive explosion. A 26-inch natural gas line ruptured, creating a ball of raging fire, lighting up everything around it.

“If I choose to stay, I will have to live with that fear for the rest of my life, and I also have the fear of leakage into the ground will affect my water,” Johnson said.

House votes to streamline pipeline reviews

The House voted Wednesday to streamline the federal permitting process for a variety of oil and natural gas pipelines.

Lawmakers voted 248-179 on the Promoting Interagency Coordination for Review of Natural Gas Pipelines Act, a bill by Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) to designate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as the lead agency for interstate gas pipeline permitting and require other agencies to coordinate with FERC and conduct simultaneous reviews.

The chamber also voted 254-175 to pass the Promoting Cross-Border Energy Infrastructure Act, a bill by Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to give FERC responsibility for permitting oil and gas pipelines and electric transmission lines that cross the Canadian or Mexican borders, such as the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.

That bill would remove the requirement that such projects obtain permits from the president and would end the State Department’s leading role in those decisions.

Hundreds Flood Pipeline Hearing

Cumberland and Johnston county residents voiced critical concern about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), asking for answers and imploring a state agency to deny a crucial permit for the multi-billion dollar project Tuesday.

The N.C. Division of Water Resources (DWR) held the first of two regional public hearings at Fayetteville Technical Community College to gather feedback before deciding whether it will issue a major water quality certification permit Sept. 18.

Tom Clarke of Godwin, who has two UNC Chapel Hill documentarians filming his fight to stop the ACP, stood in front of 10 DWR representatives and a crowd of about 200 and begged for the truth.

“Tell us the truth from the beginning,” he implored. “Deny this permit until they (ACP) get their act together.”

Dakota Access-style protests may happen often, panel tells pipeline companies

Well-funded and organized protests like the one involving the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline may become commonplace, officials said Wednesday as they urged the industry to prepare for such activity.

The struggle over the recently completed $3.8 billion pipeline was discussed at an annual oil industry conference in Bismarck, with a panel dissecting what the industry learned. Native Americans and other opponents worried about the pipeline’s effect on the environment established a massive encampment in North Dakota to protest it.

“The opponents will not rest,” said Craig Stevens, a spokesman for Grow America’s Infrastructure Now, a pro-pipeline coalition of businesses, trade associations and labor groups.

Pipeline Companies Are Feuding With The Steel Industry Over Upcoming Commerce Department Report

President Donald Trump will soon have to pick a side in a dispute between two of his favorite industries.

Pipeline companies and the U.S. steel industry are facing off ahead of a report due this weekend from the Department of Commerce that could lead to limits on pipelines’ ability to import steel, a proposition pipeline companies say could spell doom for upcoming projects and the steel industry believes will bolster the country’s economy.

Straws Suck

Of all the plastic products we use and take for granted, plastic drinking straws are among the most unnecessary. Designed to be used once and discarded, their only real purpose is to keep your mouth from touching a glass or ice. It made more sense in the days when contaminated vessels were more of an issue.

Now, there’s a movement to get people and businesses to ditch the straws. It may not seem like a big deal, but it is. In the U.S. alone, people discard 500 million straws every day, or more than 180 billion a year. That’s about 1.4 million kilograms of plastic sent to landfills and into the oceans every day!

Public Lands and Waters ‘For Sale’ at U.S. Dept. of Interior

Greenpeace placed a giant sign reading “For Sale: By the US Department of Interior, Public Lands and Waters, Inquiries From Oil and Gas Companies Encouraged” outside of the Interior Department Tuesday as Sec. Zinke held an event outside the building.

Sec. Zinke and the Interior Department are currently reviewing the status of national monuments, marine sanctuaries, and protections from offshore oil and gas drilling, potentially opening up new drilling activity in the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

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Public records highlight that Zinke’s personal schedule includes several meetings with oil and gas companies and lobbying firms including BP America, Chevron and ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, the Western Energy Alliance and Continental Resources.

“The Trump administration and Secretary Zinke want to sell our public lands and waters away to desperate fossil fuel companies,” said Greenpeace USA Climate Campaigner Mary Sweeters.

John McCain has been diagnosed with brain cancer, says spokesman

US ends controversial laptop ban on flights from Middle East

The United States has ended a four-month ban on passengers carrying laptops onboard US-bound flights from certain airports in the Middle East and North Africa, bringing to an end one of the controversial travel restrictions imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Hillary Clinton is more unpopular than Donald Trump. Let that sink in

Donald Trump is one of the least popular politicians in the history of the United States. Yet, Trump is still more popular than Hillary Clinton. Let that sink in.

According to the latest Bloomberg National Poll, Trump has a net favorability of 41% whereas Clinton has a net favorability of 39%. If Democrats are to escape the political wilderness, they will have to leave Clinton and her brand of politics in the woods.

Now, there is no doubt that Clinton has suffered sexist double standards just as Barack Obama encountered racist double standards. Trump labeled her “Crooked Hillary” and his supporters rallied around the chant “Lock her up”. Rich in hypocrisy, Trump has continued to attack Clinton for her emails even though his son has proven to have done much worse.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to pin all of Clinton’s unpopularity on sexism and the conspiracies of the extreme right. The Bloomberg poll demonstrates that more than one-fifth of Clinton supporters say they now have an unfavorable view of her. Based on follow-up interviews with poll participants, many Clinton voters expressed that their negative feelings were not simply due to her losing but were about the Democratic party’s positioning for the future.

Ohio judge: Richard Cordray plans to run for Ohio governor

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray will run for governor in Ohio next year, according to his friends, a move that would inject a Democratic celebrity into a battleground-state campaign and remove a key Obama administration holdover.

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Bill O’Neill said a mutual friend called Cordray last week to ask if the bureau chief was considering a run for governor. O’Neill himself had considered running in the past but told the friend — whom he refused to name — that he wouldn’t if Cordray did. It was clear from the conversation that Cordray will launch a campaign, O’Neill said.

“He’s getting ready to run,” O’Neill told POLITICO.

O’Neill’s comments were first reported by Cleveland.com.

To mount a campaign, Cordray would have to leave the consumer bureau before his term expires in July 2018.