The Democratic party leadership has a lot more in common with Republicans and the Trump administration than it has with its own base and hence it should not come as a surprise that it finds ways to maneuver against policies that its supporters want but goes against the interests of the ruling classes. This struggle has come into the open as progressives are launching primary challenges against veteran Democratic lawmakers and the latter scramble to find ways to defend their penchant to ally with Republicans tio undermine the progressive agenda.
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Tomorrow special counsel Robert Mueller will be testifying before congress and there is intense speculation about what he might say. You can bet that the Democrats will be trying to get him to imply that Russian meddling in 2016 helped elect Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

I think that we can all agree that it is wrong for one nation to meddle in the elections of another nation in order to sway it in favor of someone they feel will be of benefit to them. But what is problematic is the way that Americans sanctimoniously condemn such actions when other nations do it to them but think it is perfectly fine when the US does the same thing, and worse, to other nations.

Mehdi Hasan provides a brief history of the utterly egregious meddling that the US has done in other countries (including Russia) that go well beyond email hacks and Facebook fake news that the Russians are accused of doing. And of course that does not even include things like sponsoring coups, assassinating other countries’ leaders, and actual invasions.

In this tweet, Bernie Sanders does not mince his words about who the real enemies of the people are. The fact that they vigorously oppose him is as good a recommendation as you are likely to get.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. pic.twitter.com/rlJnVEdaIP

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 21, 2019

When Donald Trump launched his racist attacks on the four Democratic progressive congresswomen of color, he was undoubtedly encouraged to do so by the way that others who support the Democratic party establishment had earlier criticized them and the way they did so. Take for example, Jennifer Rubin, a neoconservative and Never Trumper who is a columnist in the Washington Post. She, like other neoconservatives (Bill Kristol, Max Boot) who were solidly Republican but have become disenchanted with Trump possibly because in his election campaign he condemned the wars that they instigated and did not want to expand into new wars, now feel free to advise Democrats on what they should do. They hate the progressives in the Democratic party with a passion because they are opposed to the current wars and are not in favor of using the US military to further the neo-imperialist agenda.
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The state budget for Ohio should have been approved before July 1 but this year there was an impasse and it got delayed while the legislature and the governor tried to arrive at a compromise. A deal was finally agreed upon and the budget was due to be sent to the governor for his signature. But today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer (no link unfortunately) has a story about how at the last minute, a new provision was secretly introduced into the 3,000 page budget document without debate that would have reduced the taxes paid by the wealthiest suburb of Cleveland (called Hunting Valley) to the schools.
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