She lays out clearly what the real issues are and exposes the bogus concerns about paying for progressive policies.
#HappyHalloween #Bernie2020 fam. Here’s a tip for all phonebankers & canvassers & everyone who agrees it’s #NotMeUs
When someone asks ‘How are we gonna pay for #MedicareForAll?’ here’s what you say: pic.twitter.com/Mz3sNWrQEg
— Silicon Valley People 4 Bernie (@2020svp4b) October 31, 2019
Rachel M. Cohen updates us on an interesting development in a Texas congressional district that is solidly Democratic but where the incumbent Henry Cuellar seems more like a Republican.
While Cuellar is more commonly known for voting to support a 20-week abortion ban and funding a Mexican border wall in his own southern Texas district, his record on labor issues has driven worker advocates crazy for years.
In May, Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott introduced the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a bill that would eliminate right-to-work laws, impose new penalties on employers who retaliate against union organizing, crack down on worker misclassification, and establish new rules so employers cannot delay negotiating collective bargaining contracts.
The bill has 214 Democratic co-sponsors, and Cuellar is not among them.
…He was one of the few Democrats not to co-sponsor the $15 minimum wage bill the House passed this summer, and while he ultimately voted for its passage, he also voted for an unsuccessful amendment that would have exempted millions of workers from the law.
Cuellar has also criticized many of the signature labor reforms of the Obama era — including expanding overtime pay to 4 million workers and holding corporations liable for the violations of their franchisees. He’s one of just three Democrats to co-sponsor legislation restricting the definition of a joint employer, which would make it harder for workers at franchised companies to unionize and hold large corporations accountable.
One of the big questions will be to what extent the election to be held on December 12 will be a proxy referendum on Brexit, the deadline for which has been pushed back yet again to January 31, 2020. There is clearly a lot more at stake on the outcome of a general election than what will happen with Brexit but it will undoubtedly loom large. Those for whom it is a major issue and want to leave the EU will mostly vote for the Conservatives while those who want to remain in the EU will mostly vote for the Liberals and Labour.
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Lawrence VanDyke has been nominated for a position on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The American Bar Association has sent in their customary evaluation and it finds him ‘Not Qualified’. Their letter explains why saying, among other things, the following:
Mr. VanDyke’s accomplishments are offset by the assessments of interviewees that Mr. VanDyke is arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day practice including procedural rules. There was a theme that the nominee lacks humility, has an “entitlement” temperament, does not have an open mind, and does not always have a commitment to being candid and truthful.
Some interviewees raised concerns about whether Mr. VanDyke would be fair to persons who are gay, lesbian, or otherwise part of the LGBTQ community. Mr. VanDyke would not say affirmatively that he would be fair to any litigant before him, notably members of the LGBTQ community.
Of course, the Republican majority in the senate will confirm him. In their eyes, this will read like a glowing recommendation.
When questioned during the hearings about whether he would be fair to the LGBT community, he cried.
The Satanic Temple keep pushing on the contradictions that exist in how US governmental institutions treat religions. Rather than simplifying matters by requiring that the government and all its agencies be strictly secular, as a reasonable reading of the Establishment Clause might require, the government and the courts have sought to find ways to accommodate religious beliefs in some form, partly I suspect out of fear there will be an outraged reaction from Christian evangelicals who strongly believe that this is a Christian country.
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For some reason, rapper Kanye West, who once famously said that George W. Bush does not like black people, has become a supporter of Donald Trump and the Republican party. But he does not stop there. He has gone on to suggest that black people have been brainwashed to vote Democratic and that he is one of the few who has seen the light.
Trevor Noah talks to his studio audience between taping parts of his show. In this clip, he carefully explains to West why black people vote the way they do, because for them voting is not something to be taken lightly as it is for rich people like West for whom it does not really matter who is in office. It matters deeply in so many ways.
Dave Weigel tweets out the following.
Sanders asked about criticism of his endorsements from pro-BDS members of Congress like Tlaib: "Being Jewish may be helpful in that regard. It will be hard for anybody to call me, whose father's family was wiped out by Hitler, an anti-Semite." #JStreet19
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) October 28, 2019
Really, Bernie? The Republicans painted John Kerry, who fought in Vietnam and was injured twice, as some kind of coward who pretended to have been injured, while their own candidate George W. Bush got a safe stateside post in the Texas Air National Guard. They have shown that facts do not stand in the way of smearing anyone.
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I have heard of the magazine Vogue and its seemingly junior counterpart Teen Vogue. Going purely on its name and shamelessly stereotyping, I had imagined that the latter would deal with pop culture and fashion. It turns out that I was quite wrong. While it does deal with those things, it turns out to also be a magazine pitching radical progressive politics at its target audience of teenagers.
David Palumbo-Liu, professor of comparative literature at Stanford University, says that the transition reflects the changing times.
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Sanders keeps making very clear arguments about its benefits in order to counter the distortions.
This is by far the best explanation and pitch @BernieSanders has made for #MedicareForAll https://t.co/dHa5hagHHM
— Jordan (@JordanChariton) October 25, 2019
Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman explain how the Sanders’s plan for Medicare for All will result in reduced taxes, because what we now pay in health care premiums are in fact taxes, something that opponents of universal health care plans try to ignore.
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The role that money plays in US elections is obscene. As a result, the strength of a campaign is not only measured in terms of poll numbers but also in terms of how much money is raised and spent by each candidate, which in turn influences the polls.
The Biden campaign is currently in a little bit of financial trouble in that the amount of money it has in hand is far less than that of his main rivals Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, even though the contributors to the Biden campaign are big money contributors. As a consequence, despite his vow not to take money from lobbyists and Super PACs, his wealthy supporters and lobbyists are forming a Super PAC to fund his campaign, as Lee Fang reports, funded by wealthy people who are concerned about people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren winning the nomination and (Oh, the horror!) even the presidency.
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