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9/15 News Roundup & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

A GoFundMe campaign is underway for the vet who spoke up at Bernie’s town hall in Nevada the other day.

The donation link is here.

Its goal is $150,00 and I’ve been watching it steadily climb, small donation by small donation. Bobi Haley just gave in the most recent donation, of $5, and Linda Ganz, also $5, succinctly commented most recently:

No one should kill themselves because of medical bills.

It’s currently up to over $15,000. After hearing that man’s plea for help I hope that goal is met. Heartstrings pulled.

 

“Hearing his voice, that was really powerful. It was a wake-up call,” Weigel said. “I know he cares. He’s always cared about veterans.”

 

UPDATE:

People are posting pics too:

9/11

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Some good articles on The Nation today related to 9/11.

How the US Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Forever War

In the 18 years since 9/11, war has become this country’s permanent condition, with no peaceful end in sight.

This September 11 marks the 18th year since hijackers seized four US airliners, plowing three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the fourth into a field in southern Pennsylvania. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and deranged our national politics. In the fraught months that followed, US leaders declared one war after another, miring this country in conflicts from Central Asia to the Middle East. There is still no end in sight.

The longest of these conflicts—in fact, the longest war in US history—is the one that George W. Bush launched against the Taliban less than a month after 9/11. He called it “Operation Enduring Freedom” and claimed its mission was “to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime.” He spoke of “freedom.” He trumpeted the “generosity” America would show the Afghan people. But many of us knew what this really was: a war of vengeance, waged against an impoverished country some 7,000 miles away, with no meaningful vision for peace.

But far too many people just went along with it.

Wars without end expand the prerogatives of the president and the budgets of the national security state. Presidents from both parties have repeatedly invoked the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force to dispatch troops across the globe. In today’s dollars, the Pentagon’s budget now exceeds its levels at the height of the Cold War.

Forever war is an affront to our Constitution. The founders, worried that the executive had an inherent propensity for war, gave the power to declare it to Congress, believing that this decision should be made only by the people’s representatives after debate and deliberation. Now, war is our permanent condition, and Congress has essentially abandoned its constitutional responsibilities.

Who will have the guts to change this “condition”? I can think of one person who might fit that bill.

 

Bernie Sanders at ISNA

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Bernie Sanders talks tough in well-received address to US Muslims

On subjects such as Uighurs and the Saudi war in Yemen, presidential candidate makes an impression at the Islamic Society of North America convention

Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the leading candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, received a rousing welcome at a special event at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) convention, where he was given a standing ovation and made his presidential pitch to Muslims of America.

Organisers said some 6,000 people attended the event on Saturday evening, which also saw fellow Democrat candidate Julian Castro address the close-to-capacity crowd at the George R Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas.

 

US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders with Debbie Almontaser, founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, at the Islamic Society of North America’s Convention in Houston, Texas, on Saturday (Reuters)

 

Sanders and Castro were the only two Democratic candidates to accept ISNA’s invitation to attend the event for a community that has felt increasingly marginalised under the presidency of Donald Trump. Attendees made no bones as to who they had come to see.

“I feel strongly that the divisiveness and bigotry that Trump has introduced in the country can only be counteracted by a person like Bernie Sanders,” said Moosa Khan, who stood up to applaud the Vermont senator a number of times during his address.

 

“He made an effort to come here and talk and listen. He is showing his support for our community and he definitely has my vote.”

 

In contrast to Castro, Sanders’ address and policy talking points seemed to have been tailored to appeal to some of the pressing concerns of the American Muslim community.

 

Sanders also said that, as US president, he would hold China to account for its persecution of the Uighurs in Xinjiang province. He also described India’s unilateral decision in August to revoke the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir and impose a communication blockade and military siege on the valley as “unacceptable”.
He then chastised “political elites in both the Republican and Democratic parties” for pursuing “endless wars and interventions”.

Sanders said that, unlike Trump, who has “an affection for authoritarian regimes around the world,” he “would make democracy and human rights a priority for the United States of America”.

8/29 News Roundup & Open Thread

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The chatter heats up for the next Democratic debate.

The next debate will bring a new challenger on stage with Joe Biden

Media loves the drama and CNN is no exception. So, for them at least, it’s all about the expected clash between Warren and Biden who have not yet been on the same debate stage.

And with Bernie refusing to attack Warren:

Sanders has tense encounter with journalist while refusing to criticize Warren

that’s where the media appears to intend to focus their attention… in between finding new ways to demonize Bernie of course.

8/3 News Roundup & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

RIVERTON, Wyo. — On a momentous day for Tribal Nations, Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), the House Republican Conference Chairwoman, stated that the successful litigation by tribes and environmentalists to return the grizzly bear in Greater Yellowstone to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) “was not based on science or facts” but motivated by plaintiffs “intent on destroying our Western way of life.”

One of the largest tribal-plaintiff alliances in recent memory prevailed in the landmark case, Crow Tribe et al v. Zinke last September, when US District Judge Dana Christensen ruled in favor of the tribes and environmental groups after finding that the Trump Administration’s US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) had failed to abide by the ESA and exceeded its authority in attempting to remove federal protections from the grizzly. Tuesday, USFWS officially returned federal protections to the grizzly.

How tone deaf can a person be? Tribal nations are “intent on destroying our” our? “Western way of life”?

“So, in striving to protect our culture, our religious and spiritual freedoms, our sovereignty and our treaty rights – all of which are encapsulated in the grizzly issue – we are ‘destroying’ Cheney’s idea of the ‘Western way of life’?” questioned Rodgers. “I would remind the Congresswoman that at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition an estimated 100,000 grizzly bears roamed from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast. That was all Indian Country. Now there are fewer than 2,000 grizzly bears and our people live in Third World conditions on meager reservations in the poorest counties in the US. Does she really want to talk about ‘destroying’ a ‘way of life’?” asked Rodgers.

Uh oh, there’s that word ‘Halliburton’ we are all too familiar with. So is this really about grizzly bears? Or is it more about the Cheney family fronting for the oil and gas industry? I’m going with the latter.

Tribal Nations, including the Oglala Sioux Tribe which petitioned for a Congressional inquiry into the influence of multi-national fossil-fuel corporations on FWS’s grizzly delisting decision, previously exposed the role of extractive industry in the process. USFWS engaged multinational oil and gas services group, Amec Foster Wheeler, for the peer review of its grizzly delisting rule that tribes and environmental groups deconstructed in court. Amec Foster Wheeler appointed Halliburton executive Jonathan Lewis as CEO in the same timeframe as USFWS contracted the company.

I hope Rodgers is right!

“There’s more chance of her father receiving the Nobel Peace Prize than her Grizzly Bear State Management Act reaching the House floor,” said Rodgers of Cheney’s bill.

More news and analysis below.

7/31 July DNC Debates, Night Two & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

 

I’ll be sharing some interesting polling data below.

Bottom line? jcitybone was right, Williamson did quite well last night.

Who will stand out tonight??

 

7/11 News & Afternoon/Evening OT

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Hello Friends! A fresh thread for us.

Bernie picked a very good battle, one very much worth fighting, when he jumped into the planned closure of Hahnemann University Hospital.

Politico: Sanders says Philadelphia hospital closure ‘illustrates the entire problem’ with healthcare

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., condemned the planned closure of Philadelphia-based Hahnemann University Hospital as an example of the failure of the U.S. healthcare system, Politico reports.

“The situation in Philadelphia illustrates the entire problem: In a city with one of the highest poverty rates in the country, a major hospital serving low-income communities is on the verge of laying off 2,500 people, abandoning 500 medical residents, and closing its operations thanks to an investment firm looking to make as much money as possible in a corporate fire sale,” Mr. Sanders said July 7, according to Politico.

Mr. Sanders voiced his support for the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, which is advocating to keep the hospital open. The union represents 800 registered nurses at Hahnemann University Hospital. PASNAP endorsed Mr. Sanders in 2016

 

Important story from about the closing of Hahnemann Univ. Hospital in Philadelphia. Its private equity owner is bankrupting the 171 year-old medical center and selling the real estate for luxury condos

https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1149279612863680513

 

Private Equity’s Latest Scheme: Closing Urban Hospitals and Selling Off the Real Estate

Private equity experts worry that private equity firms buying up hospitals simply to sell them for their real estate could become a trend.

“This is an industry where once somebody does this successfully, lots of other private equity firms will follow,” says Eileen Appelbaum. “You just have to think to yourself how many hospitals are in gentrifying neighborhoods in urban America, where the property is worth a lot more than the hospital itself.” Indeed, Freedman could carry this off himself: Paladin has Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C.’s luxury condo–packed U Street neighborhood in its portfolio, along with four hospitals in south and east Los Angeles.

Union workers and community members say that’s why they intend to fight against the closing.

“It’s a community, despite the fact that there are lots of hospitals in the city of Philadelphia, the patients and workers who get served by one hospital are a community,” says Sue Bowes. “I am fighting really hard for this hospital not just for us but so that another hedge fund doesn’t come in and close down hospitals, and leave patients with nowhere to go. It’s just simply wrong.”

My question is, how the heck did a private equity vulture get his hands on a university hospital?

David Gilmour, PPI & con artists

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

You may have heard about David Gilmour (Pink Floyd guitarist) auctioning off his most famous guitars the other day so he could donate the money to a group called ClientEarth.  He raised over $21 million.

Gilmour revealed that the money from the auction would benefit ClientEarth, which funds environmental lawyers and experts in the fight against climate change. “The global climate crisis is the greatest challenge that humanity will ever face, and we are within a few years of the effects of global warming being irreversible,” he said in a statement. “We need a civilized world that goes on for all our grandchildren and beyond in which these guitars can be played and songs can be sung.”

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/david-gilmour-guitars-christies-charity-auction-850597/

But, I’ve just learned that a so-called Democratic think tank is working against that ‘fight’.

Phil Goldberg, PPI’s director of its Center for Civil Justice, is leading the charge.

 

For over a year, PPI’s website has been showcasing Goldberg’s work attacking climate litigation, which he calls “copycat climate suits.” Goldberg is a former lobbyist for coal giant Peabody Energy, which his law firm still represents.

 

And while Goldberg’s bio on PPI’s website lists him as a partner in the corporate law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon, there’s no mention of his hiring earlier this year by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) to serve as special counsel in its fight against climate litigation. NAM’s Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, which it launched in 2017, targets climate lawsuits against the manufacturing industry’s energy sector.

PPI stands for Progressive Policy Institute.

PPI’s website also does not disclose Goldberg’s recent work for Grow America’s Infrastructure Now (GAIN), a front group funded by several oil and gas trade associations. In a report for GAIN titled “Vigilante Regulation,” Goldberg, along with two other Shook, Hardy & Bacon attorneys, detail how tort law can be employed to stem what the authors call “anti-pipeline activism.”

 

It’s just plain freaky that a hired gun for the fossil fuel industry would pretend to be neutral or, shockingly, even perhaps ‘progressive’ under the guise of PPI, which has a good reputation as a think tank,” said Denise Antolini, an associate dean at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa’s School of Law.

So many sharks in the water..I mean front groups, to store in the brain!

Goldberg previously served as an adviser to the Civil Justice Task Force of the “corporate bill mill,” the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where he published reports against state-led climate lawsuits in the group’s publication Inside ALEC.

ALEC!

How in the world can PPI get away with calling itself ‘progressive’ when the director of its Center for Civil Justice has done work for ALEC??

Aha, here’s how:

PPI’s website, which greets its visitors with the banner “radically pragmatic,” does not publicize its funding sources. But the group’s funding seems to come at least in part through its parent organization, the Third Way Foundation, whose tax forms states it is “doing business as the Progressive Policy Institute.”

I hope Gilmour’s beautiful guitars help with much needed funds to counter groups like PPI!

PPI and others’ pushback against climate litigation will only intensify, predicts Robert Brulle, a sociology professor at Drexel University, who studies environmental movements and climate science disinformation campaigns.

 

“As these cases move toward discovery and eventual trial, the architects of the campaign to obstruct climate action, such as the National Association of Manufacturers, are gearing up for a long battle in the courts,” he said.

 

https://truthout.org/articles/a-democratic-think-tank-is-promoting-pushback-against-climate-lawsuits/

I’m cool with Bernie calling Third Way out. They say they welcome the attention, but I suspect they’d prefer to be operating in the dark.

I, for one, only believe the last eight words of the above tweet. That’s what con artists do, they mix a lot of lies in with a little truth. They need to be called out at every turn.

 

6/2 News Roundup & Bernie at Arab American Caucus #CADem2019

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Happy Sunday everyone!!

Please feel free to use this as an open thread, I just thought this might be a good place to post this video of Bernie’s arrival at the Arab American Caucus meeting at the California Democratic convention.

 

Fair warning-I will be posting some other tweets from the CA convention down below.

But please post whatever you like on this fine Sunday!

Cheers!

 

Memorial Day 2019 & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

My wish for Memorial Day is having less people to memorialize.

Congress Needs to Take Responsibility for America’s Wars

We’re still sending troops into harm’s way under an authorization passed right after 9/11.

 

Bush invoked the AUMF on 18 occasions and Obama invoked it on 19, to justify action against terrorists—though many of them had nothing to do with 9/11 and some did not even exist at the time. The Trump administration has also cited the AUMF to argue that U.S. troops can stay in Syria without any new authorization from Congress.

 

This argument originated with Obama. In 2014, a “senior administration official” laid out the case in an email to the New York Times. The official argued that the AUMF justified military operations against ISIS in Syria because the Islamic State—as the group was also known—had a “longstanding relationship with al-Qaida” and because its leaders regarded ISIS as “the true inheritor of Osama bin Laden’s legacy.” Therefore, the president could rely on the AUMF as authority for the use of force against ISIS, “notwithstanding the recent public split” between ISIS and al-Qaida’s senior leadership.

 

As the Bipartisan Policy Center observed in an analysis of the law’s history, “Critics of the expansive use of AUMF argue that the last sentence”—noting the split between ISIS and al-Qaida—“is most telling.” The analysis added: “Though ISIS came into being as Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), it was disavowed by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in February 2014. … Furthermore, ISIS did not come into being until 2004—three years after the AUMF’s passage.”

 

In other words, the notion that the president has presumptive authority to keep troops in Syria or any other country—other than Afghanistan—has a flimsy foundation.

 

“flimsy”

 

On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee approved a bipartisan amendment that would repeal the AUMF and give Congress eight months to draft new legislation addressing the ongoing wars.

But:

 

the move to repeal or revise the law doesn’t necessarily mean that Congress will resist Trump’s—or any other president’s—march toward war. According to the Congressional Research Service study, on the 19 occasions when Obama mentioned the AUMF in reports to Congress on the use of force, he often emphasized his executive authority under Article II of the Constitution, noting almost in passing that his decision was also “consistent with” the AUMF. He was reporting the military operations to Congress, as required by the War Powers Act—which gives Congress 60 days to vote against a military operation, if it so desires. There was never a vote—nor did anybody expect one.

Will this time be different?

The truth is, whatever the fate of AUMF, most members of Congress don’t want the responsibility of going to war—or of stopping a war from happening. They would rather let the president, even a president they don’t much like, take the heat.

 

House Appropriations passes defense bill that would limit funds for border wall, pull US support from Yemen war

 

The bill reflects House Democrats’ desire to curtail Trump’s recent moves in foreign policy and along the border, most notably through Rep. Barbara Lee’s (D-Calif.) amendment to retire the 2001 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF). The provision would sunset the AUMF – used as legal justification for military operations against terrorist groups 41 times in 18 countries since it was passed – eight months after the bill is enacted, giving Congress time to debate and vote on a new AUMF.

 

The AUMF debate comes as Trump has threatened Iran with military force.

 

But GOP lawmakers argued ending the current war authorization without a new one already approved could hamper military operations.

 

“I can think of few things more dangerous and ill-conceived than removing a fundamental underpinning for US military operations without having consensus agreement on what is to replace it,” said the Defense subcommittee’s ranking member, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas).

Oh, and I hope you all are having an excellent Memorial Day!

🙂

I’m heading outside, but I hope to check in later. Please share whatever’s on your mind below.

Peace XO

Warren’s adorable dog & Sunday 5/19 Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Good Morning All!

Just thought I’d get a fresh thread going and that maybe it wouldn’t hurt your eyes to see this tweet from Elizabeth Warren’s Twitter account.

Please share anything down below!

I hope you all have a fine and happy Sunday!!