Category Archives: News Analysis

3/20 News Roundup – The #InequalityTownHall Draws 1.7 Million Live Viewers, Myers’ Powerful #MarchForOurLives Ad & More

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Bernie Sanders: Russia and Stormy Daniels distract us from real problem of inequality

Enough about Russia and Stormy Daniels, the leaders of the progressive movement want to talk about growing income inequality in the US.

At a live-streamed town hall event on Monday night, Senator Bernie Sanders once again circumvented cable news to host a 90-minute panel discussion on poverty, the decline of the middle class and the consolidation of corporate power.

He was joined in Washington by Senator Elizabeth Warren, director Michael Moore and economist Darrick Hamilton while roughly 1.7 million viewers tuned in to watch online, according to Sanders’ office.

Speaking to the Guardian before the event, Sanders said: “We have to fight Trump every day. But we have to not lose our vision as to where we want to go as a country. We can talk about the disastrous role Russia has played in trying to undermine American democracy. That is enormously important. But we also have to talk about the fact that we have the highest rate of child poverty in any major economy of the world.”

Sanders and Moore both complained about the media’s poor coverage of inequality and working people’s struggles. Moore said: “You turn on the TV and it’s ‘Russia, Russia, Russia!’” Sanders interjected: “And don’t forget Stormy Daniels!”

Moore continued: “These are all shiny keys to distract us … We should know about the West Virginia strike. What an inspiration that would be. But they don’t show this, Bernie, because, what would happen if they did?”

Panelists were not shy to point out who they felt were the culprits fuelling inequality in the United States. Its three wealthiest men – Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet – who collectively earn more than the poorest half of Americans, were singled out as contributing to the widening wealth gap. So too were lobbyists like the American Legislative Exchange Council and major political donors such as the Koch brothers. And, of course, representatives in Congress who are beholden to corporate donors.

The event is available for viewing here.

More news/video/tweets/etc. in the comments.

3/19 News Roundup – Sanders Is Telling The Story Corporate Media Fails To; Indigenous Leaders Begin A Week Of Civil Disobedience & More

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Bernie Sanders Wants to Tell the Story That Corporate Media Fails To Tell

For decades, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has objected to the failure of major media outlets to cover the growth of economic inequality in America. As a presidential contender in 2016, he used every opportunity that was afforded him in the media to address poverty, plutocracy and the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of “the billionaire class.”

Now, he’s doing something to tip the balance of the popular discourse away from the agendas of the super rich and toward the real life concerns of working-class Americans. Something big. On Monday, from 7 to 8:30 pm ET, he will host a livestreamed town hall meeting on “Inequality in America: The Rise of Oligarchy and Collapse of the Middle Class.” With Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, filmmaker Michael Moore, economist Darrick Hamilton and others, Sanders will lead a discussion about the “growing power of corporate interests and how we can build economy that works for all Americans.” Livestreamed on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by Sanders, Warren, Moore, The Guardian, NowThis, The Young Turks and Act.tv, the initiative will reach social media sites with a combined following of close to 50 million Americans.

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The Nation: You say there are two fundamental issues with inequality. What’s the first?

Sanders: The first one is that this country is moving into oligarchy. The three wealthiest people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. The top one-tenth of one percent now owns as much wealth as the bottom ninety percent. And then, politically, what we have seen since the Citizens United decision (by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010) is billionaires like the Koch brothers and a few of their friends pouring hundreds and millions of dollars into the political process to elect candidates who represent the wealthy and the powerful. That is an issue of huge consequence to the future of America – in terms of the economic life of this country and the collapse of the middle class, and a political system which is being corrupted by big money and Citizens United.

And the second issue has to do with how the first is covered?

The second issue deals with the fact that we have a corporate media, which is not as Donald Trump defines it “fake news.” That’s not the issue. It’s not that you have people on CNN, or writing for The New York Times, who are deliberately lying or trying to destroy politicians – that’s not the case. Everyday there are very good and important articles that appear in The Washington Post and The New York Times, on CBS News and everywhere else.

The problem is that, to a very significant degree, corporate media ignores, or pays very little attention, to the most important issues facing working people. That is the problem with corporate media today.

If you look at just the issue I described to you – the movement in this country toward oligarchy – you will find very, very little discussion about that. Stormy Daniels will get ten times more print and video coverage than will the movement toward oligarchy in this country. You will see very little discussion about poverty in this country. “Poverty” is just not a word that is used on television very often.

Bernie also spoke to Ana Kasparian of TYT about inequality and his upcoming national town hall:

More news/video/tweets/etc. in the comments.

12/29 TPW Open Thread & News Roundup

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Good morning friends! Once again apologies for the issues yesterday, WordPress seems determined to have me spending all of my time I have the internet back to working researching various support forums.

Hope you are all well! I’ll throw a couple fairly recent Nina Turner videos out to start the Open Thread with and then put more stuff in the comments through the day as I read/watch it.

&

https://youtu.be/mRQJnwnHuUY

12/22 News Roundup & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

The comments are a little more functional again! There’s still work to be done… but it’s progress! As I catch up on the news (still without the net @ home) I’ll share the articles/videos that I find interesting or think you may in the comments and hope you can all join me.

Starting off today with some DemocracyNow!

Free Leonard Peltier: Obama Urged to Grant Clemency to Native American Activist Jailed for 40 Years (Transcript @ Link)

As President Obama’s last month in office begins, Amnesty International and other groups are calling on the president to grant clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who has been imprisoned for 40 years. The former member of the American Indian Movement was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. Leonard Peltier has long maintained his innocence. The shootout occurred two years after the American Indian Movement occupied the village of Wounded Knee for 71 days. The occupation of Wounded Knee is considered the beginning of what Oglala people refer to as the “Reign of Terror.” We speak to Peltier’s attorney, Martin Garbus, and Norman Patrick Brown, a longtime friend of Leonard Peltier’s. He survived the 1975 Pine Ridge shootout.

12/15 News Roundup – Sanders & Ellison Fight For A Progressive DNC, Standing Rock Updates & More

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Sanders makes pitch for Ellison as DNC chair

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) campaigned for Rep. Keith Ellison to be the next Democratic National Committee chairman on Wednesday night, casting the Minnesota Democrat as the new face of a party in need of a dramatic overhaul.

Speaking at the American Federation of Teachers headquarters in Washington, D.C., in an address that was live-streamed by progressive groups across the country, Sanders made the case that Ellison’s liberal vision is the way forward for a party whose ranks were decimated in the November election.

“Now is the time for real change in the Democratic Party, to revitalize the Democratic Party and to bring in people who have not been welcomed in the past,” Sanders said to a packed room of about 100 enthusiastic labor union members donning blue shirts.

“We should not be afraid of new energy and new faces,” Sanders said. “We should welcome and embrace new energy and faces. Now is the time for a chair of the Democratic Party who has a very different vision of the party than those in control today. Now is the time for Keith Ellison to become chair of the Democratic Party.”

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Ellison on Wednesday night showed why he is a rising star on the left.

He is a folksy, engaging and natural speaker with a style that rouses his supporters, and he laid out Democrats’ path forward under a President Donald Trump.

“We have got to reset the future of the Democratic Party on a basis of grassroots activism,” Ellison said to cheers. “On the basis of working people striving every day to make a better life for themselves. African-Americans, white Americans, Latino Americans, Asian Americans, Jews and Muslims and Christians and Hindus or people of no faith at all. Folks like you and me. Folks like us need to say the Democratic Party has to be democratic and that starts with getting leadership in there to fight for that.”

More news in the comments. Thanks for sticking through all the technical difficulties!

12/14 News Roundup – Sanders Blasts Trump’s Billionaire Cabinet, Electoral College Intelligence Briefings, #NoDAPL & More

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Bernie Sanders Blasts Trump’s Cabinet of ‘Billionaires and Millionaires’

When our last president-elect who lost the popular vote and dodged Vietnam, George W. Bush, set up his first cabinet in 2001, the oil heir received considerable backlash for its combined wealth: $250 million, adjusted for inflation. That figure is less than one-twentieth the net worth of the family of Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education.

Yes, Trump’s cabinet is the wealthiest in history, with a combined net worth of over $14 billion and counting. It includes three former Goldman Sachs bankers, an ex-Bank of America executive, and the CEO of ExxonMobil. And it’s presided over by Trump, a billionaire real estate heir. These days, America is looking an awful lot like a plutocracy—something that is very worrying to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

“[Trump] said, ‘We are going to be standing up for working people. We are anti-establishment.’ Well, if the cabinet he appointed of billionaires and millionaires is anti-establishment, boy, I would hate to see what the ‘establishment’ looks like,” said Sanders.

The delightfully cranky former Democratic presidential candidate was speaking during an appearance on Tuesday’s edition of Late Night with Seth Meyers, where he discussed the pending Trump presidency.

Asked about how “reality has shifted” during the past year, Sanders replied, “We have a president-elect who is not well-known for being scrupulously honest—let’s say that. That’s a nice way to say that.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neJcnmkx3zI

12/12 News Roundup – Sanders On Face The Nation, Standing Rock Updates, Governor Nina Turner?.. & More

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Good morning, hope you all had a great weekend! I’ll put the video of Bernie’s appearance on Face The Nation below, and put the rest of the news in the comments. Please add your findings into the mix!

Bernie Sanders blasts Donald Trump’s “Cabinet of billionaires”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday blasted President-elect Donald Trump for his Cabinet picks thus far, saying it is shaping up to be a “Cabinet of billionaires.”

“I guess they have a few poor millionaires on it, but, mostly, it is billionaires,” Sanders told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “And this is coming from a candidate for president, Mr. Trump, who told us he was going to take on the establishment. Well, maybe I am not seeing something here, but you don’t appoint the head of ExxonMobil to be secretary of state. That is not quite taking on the establishment.”

The net worth of Mr. Trump’s Cabinet selections thus far, according to estimates from Forbes and other outlets, is a combined $14 billion: several, including deputy commerce secretary pick Todd Ricketts, education secretary pick Betsy DeVos, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and Small Business Administration pick Linda McMahon, are each worth more than $1 billion.

12/07 News Roundup – Noam Chomsky, A Blizzard At Standing Rock, Trump’s Transition, & More

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Noam Chomsky: Bernie Sanders can win back Donald Trump supporters

Professor Noam Chomsky said that Donald Trump supporters could be enticed to vote Democrat again if the Bernie Sanders movement offered a real program for “hope and change”.

On the same evening that vice president Joe Biden said he might run for president in 2020, Mr Chomsky told the crowds at Democracy Now!’s 20th anniversary event that reigniting a “militant labour movement” could swing the next election.

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“Suppose people like you, the Sanders movement, offered an authentic, constructive program for real hope and change, it would win these people back,” he said.

“I think many of the Trump voters could have voted for Sanders if there had been the right kind of activism and organization. and those are possibilities. It’s been done in the past under much harsher circumstances.”

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, testified to congress that the success of the American economy was based on “growing worker insecurity”. Mr Chomsky pointed to this as an example of how workers have continued to suffer, even if the stock market is nearing record highs. It was one major reason why people voted for Mr Trump.

“You should also bear in mind what a remarkable phenomenon the Sanders campaign was. Here’s somebody unknown, came from nowhere, was using words like socialism which used to be a real curse word, no corporate or media support, no support from the wealthy, everything that has been crucial to win elections.”

Meanwhile, Water Protectors continue their fight in a blizzard:

A blizzard and freezing temperatures created disorder this week for protesters intent on celebrating their partial victory over the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.

Many roads were closed due to dangerous driving conditions and some protesters were stranded along streets in cars. Volunteers searched tents, teepees and makeshift lodgings in the main resistance camp to make sure no one was snowbound.

“The weather conditions are real. You could die,” said John Shirley, a veteran from Anchorage, Alaska, who’s been at the protests for a week. “The wind is the big thing. It feels like there are needles going through you.”

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The volunteers had turned the casino hotel into an impromptu shelter for members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their allies who’d been living at Oceti Sakowin camp, some of them for months.

The medical workers said that they’d treated more than 100 patients for dehydration, hypothermia and other conditions. Medics needed supplies to treat roughly 100 other patients with chronic diseases like diabetes and high-blood pressure, according to Rupa Marya, a doctor coordinating medical care.

Despite the inclement conditions, the festive atmosphere hasn’t been completely subdued. Native American protesters, who prefer to call themselves water protectors, led a celebratory powwow lasting hours during the blizzard.