The Sanders Institute’s “The Gathering” is underway. Jimmy and Roslyn Carter sent their best wishes to the group. Sister Turner is up on deck first.
Join our Facebook live stream today, Friday, Nov. 30th for the inaugural Sanders Institute Gathering. Today we will discuss bold progressive ideas on healthcare, the climate crisis and criminal injustice, concluding with an international roundtable. #sandersinstitutegathering18pic.twitter.com/7SYj9Fq9g4
In the past day or so on twitter, there are tweets about what progressives want and especially, what Pelosi must do to garner their support if she wants to regain the Speakership in Congress.
Winnie from People for Bernie started the wish list this way:
David Sirota went outside the box with this thought:
I'm serious here — Democrats could right now nominate @BetoORourke or @StaceyAbrams for Speaker of the House. They have legislative experience, they are from red states, and they have serious national followings. I know it may seem far-fetched, but why would that be a bad idea? https://t.co/0hkUhB5FA2
I’m making this thread separate…something we can chew, nibble, etc.
Personally, I like Sirota’s idea, but given that’s unlikely, I know one thing right away I want: amend the 2017 tax law. I want SALT (state & local taxes) to be completely tax deductible again. Additionally, raise the minimum wage and MFA. Long-game: to add more members to the House to properly represent the American people. The last revision of the numbers in the House was 1911.
Tonight we find out how much of a check the American people want to have on our Executive Branch. Or put it another way, how many of the 1000 legislative seats will the Dems gain from the last 10 years of losses? Will voters feel comfortable with the economy and overlook Trump? Will Trump’s divisiveness prevail and turn out his base?
Will we see our first women Native American Congressional Reps? First AA governor of FL and first female gov of GA? How well will the OR candidates perform in this cycle?
Of course, we hope there are no machine irregularities, but it’s anticipated that some will occur. And election lawyers will be on hand just in case.
In the Senate, Democrats are defending 26 seats while Republicans are only defending nine.
(those are predictions if they are filled in with red or blue, gold signifies toss-up)
In the gubernatorial races, there are 33 races, in which Dems could possibly pick up 9 of them.
(those are predictions if they are filled in with red or blue, gold signifies toss-up)
First polls close at 6ET in Indiana, VT and KY. Most in the MSM are saying to watch the 6th district in KY, but the bellwethers will be in VA 4 GOP races and FL 4 GOP races when the polls close at 7 ET.
Larry Sabato of Crystal Ball expects Dem pick-ups in the gubernatorial races, including Kansas.
Big races:
TX Sen – Beto vs Cruz
NV Sen – Rosen vs Heller
FL Sen – Sick Rott vs Nelson
AZ Sen – McSally vs Sinema
CA Sen – DeLeon vs Feinstein
MO Sen – Hawley vs McCaskill
TN Sen – Breesan vs Blackburn
VT Sen – Sanders vs a pack of Indies (well, not a big race, but it is Bernie’s re-up)
FL Gov – DeSantis vs Gillum
GA Gov – Kemp vs Abrams
MD Gov – Jealous vs Hogan
WI Gov – Evers vs Walker
IL Gov – Pritzker vs Rauner
AZ Gov – Garcia vs Ducey
ID Gov – Jordan vs Little
MI Gov – Whitmer vs Schulette
IA Gov – Hubbell vs Reynolds
NWIN followed Native artist the Dream Warriors (Frank Waln, Tall Paul, Lyla June, Tanaya Winder and Mic Jordan) as they brought the “Heal It” tour to Oklahoma, visting six Indigenous communities in three days. Watch as the Dream Warriors provide healing to these coummunites with music, storytelling and heartwork:
A welcomed judicial pushback on Trump assault on the environment, this time in the form of a judge overruling Trump’s efforts to remove grizzlies from the threatened species list.
Judges in the US ordered protections to be restored to grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park, halting plans for the first licensed trophy hunts of the bears in the region in more than 40 years.
US District Judge Dana Christensen in Missoula, Montana, sided with environmentalists and native American groups by overruling the President Donald Trump’s decision to strip the grizzlies of their status as a threatened species.
The ruling came as the Trump administration is seeking to rewrite regulations that scientists say would erode wildlife protection for the benefit of commercial interests.
While the decision only affects about 700 of the remaining 2,000 grizzlies in the ‘lower 48’, it’s a great step towards protecting the magnificent beast known as the grizzly!
The de-listing, welcomed by big-game hunters and cattlemen, had applied to about 700 Yellowstone-area grizzlies in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.
Grizzlies, which are slow to reproduce, number fewer than 2,000 bears across the Lower 48. That is far below an historic high of 100,000 before widespread shooting, poisoning and trapping reduced the bears’ population to just several hundred by 1975, when they were placed under federal protection.
Environmentalists have said that while grizzlies have made a comeback, their recovery could falter without continued federal safeguards. They point to, among other things, alterations in the bears’ food supply from climate change and high levels of human-caused mortality.
And a win for Native American tribes as well!!
Native American tribes, which revere the grizzly as sacred, sought reinstatement of its threatened status as essential to protecting their religious practices.
I’m going to try and make this somewhat succinct so it can be shared as a primer if needed since the establishment is trying to confuse everyone by forcing a binary view between Capitalism and Socialism. In reality they are the two sides of the same spectrum and except in the extreme cases are always blended to some degree, so by trying to pick one or the other, the Overton Window is being pushed to the two endpoints and ignoring the entire spectrum between. The reason this is being done is because we aren’t choosing between the two end points, …Continue reading →
I walked into Rashida Tlaib’s election watch party shortly after midnight.
Rashida sounds like the sort of candidate we need to pull this country back from the brink.
Hip-hop, salsa, Detroit house and Arabic music thumped from the speakers. The cafe walls, where the party was being held, were adorned with the work of local artists. There were no suits or gowns, just the squeak of sneakers and blue campaign T-shirts filling the room. Tlaib’s party felt like a real party, where millennials of all races mingled naturally with middle-aged and elderly supporters that were celebrating as the results rolled in.
When I read about her primary win I was surprised that I’d never heard of her before. How did I miss her?
Her message was intersectional long before “intersectionality” was catapulted into the prevailing social justice lexicon. Fighting American Islamophobia was her mandate before the phenomenon became a catchy buzzword. She tenaciously challenged anti-black racism years before the Black Lives Matter movement mainstreamed it into popular consciousness. Rashida defiantly stepped up against the state, and land-seizing billionaires, to defend the rights of vulnerable elements in her community, south-west Detroit, which was predominantly Latinx.
“brilliantly diverse sea of people”
Twelve years later, this commitment to social justice and grassroots organizing is what fueled Rashida to knock down the ultimate door, and make history as America’s first Palestinian and Muslim congresswomen. And indeed, that was the very spirit represented by the brilliantly diverse sea of people that celebrated until Rashida was ready to declare victory, at 2.46am on Wednesday morning.
And she has such a positive message that resonates:
Flanked by her son, Adam, her younger brother Rachid, and her campaign staff, Rashida, in tears, shouted: “I love this campaign and what it represents. It inspired people around the country to know that you do not need to sell out, you do not need to change who you are, to run for office. Be who you are – it’s what our country needs right now.”
Khaled is doing his part on pushing back on the hate and the fear (two negative forces that so often seem bound together). That is also what this country “needs right now”.
Please share anything you’ve picked up on the beaches of our media below!
Fox News continues to spread misinformation about the Mercatus Study. Here’s Bernie’s video which thoroughly debunks the myths about the Canadian health care system: Fox News is at it again. They can't accept what a right-wing think tank found: that Medicare for All will actually save our country trillions of dollars. pic.twitter.com/5HakZHBFEa — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) July 31, 2018 Tweets and news items of possible interest in the comments section. Hope you have a great day!
Over and over again, myRepublican colleagues and some of my Democratic colleagues have come down to the Senate floor to complain about the $21 trillion national debt.
Over and over again, our Republican friends tell us that we cannot possibly afford to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care as a right to every man, woman and child through a Medicare for All program.
We have been told that we cannot afford to make public colleges and universities tuition free, or to make sure that everyone in America has access to affordable housing, childcare, or a good job that pays a living wage with good benefits.
Even though over half of older Americans have no retirement savings we have been told we need to cut Social Security.
But, when it comes to spending $716 billion on the military - more than the next ten countries combined - all of a sudden there is a deafening silence from my Republican colleagues about the deficit.
Mountain Valley Pipeline protesters lock themselves to drilling equipment Opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline tried a new tactic Monday: chaining themselves to construction equipment. West Virginia state police arrested three people who were trying to slow down workers in Lindside, a community in Monroe County, West Virginia. They delayed construction for a few hours on Route 219. Police cut them out around 10 a.m., about two hours after they received a call. Police said Maxwell Shaw, 24, Evin Ugur, 21, and Sydney White, 18, are all from Massachusetts and are out on bond. Court documents showed they’re each facing …Continue reading →
Federal appeals court orders halt to work on Atlantic Coast Pipeline A federal appeals court has ordered a halt to construction of Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline, finding that restrictions against harming wildlife are inadequate for the controversial 600-mile natural gas project. Three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said in a ruling issued late Tuesday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to set clear limits for impact on threatened or endangered species. The judges said that “the limits set by the agency are so indeterminate that they undermine . . . the enforcement …Continue reading →
Last night, Republicans blocked my amendment to the #FY19NDAA that would stop the U.S. from refueling Saudi-led coalition jets bombing civilians in Yemen. They argued that our alliance with the Saudi monarchy meant we needed to overlook their war crimes in Yemen. I disagree. pic.twitter.com/jfTNfct1PF
Go here to see the vote. Unfortunately, it looks like nine Democrats also “blocked” Ro’s amendment, but I’m glad that my Rep. Joe Courtney voted with Ro. Tulsi Gabbard and Beto O’Rourke also voted with Ro.
Louisiana State Court Declares Bayou Bridge Pipeline Permit Illegal A Louisiana judge recently ruled that the state regulators violated guidelines when it issued Energy Transfer Partners’ controversial Bayou Bridge pipeline a coastal use permit. The permit was issued for the last 18-mile stretch of the fracked oil pipeline that would have run through the riverside town of St. James Parish, where dozens of refineries and industrial facilities are already fueling a public health crisis in the mostly African-American community. The proposed 162-mile Bayou Bridge pipeline would connect the contentious Dakota Access Pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico. As noted by …Continue reading →
Enbridge Fined for Failing to Fully Inspect Pipelines After Kalamazoo Oil Spill The Canadian oil pipeline company responsible for one of the largest inland oil spills on record has agreed to pay a $1.8 million fine for failing to thoroughly inspect its pipelines for weaknesses as required under a 2016 agreement. Federal officials say Enbridge, Inc., did not carry out timely and thorough inspections on one of its pipeline systems, as it had agreed to do as part of a consent decree reached with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Justice. The 2016 settlement stemmed from a …Continue reading →
