College democrats urge boycott of DCCC

The DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) announced recently that they would boycott all vendors who worked with any candidate who challenged a Democratic party incumbent. This move at protecting incumbents, however bad they are like Dan Lipinksi, was seen as an attempt by the party leadership to protect their power that was being challenged by the new young progressives some of whom, like Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, got into Congress by challenging long-term incumbents. Now the DCCC itself is being boycotted by some college Democratic groups who are angered by this move.

YOUNG DEMOCRATS AT 31 colleges across the country are boycotting the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee over its decision to cut off vendors working for primary challengers.
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The students also call out the DCCC for releasing the vendor rule alongside diversity standards it will hold vendors to. They cite Pressley, who said that Democrats “cannot credibly lay claim to prioritizing diversity & inclusion when institutions like the DCCC implement policies that threaten to silence new voices and historically marginalized communities.”

Alienating young people is not a good strategy for any party.

A poignant story

I have just finished reading How to Hide an Empire by historian Daniel Immerwahr. It is an excellent book about the complex relationship of the US with the concept of empire and the great lengths it has gone to hide the fact that it is an imperial power. In the early part (p. 56-58) he recounts a poignant story. He tells it so well that to summarize and paraphrase it would be to do a disservice to the story so I give it below.

He sets it up by saying that industrialized agricultural practices had greatly depleted the soil and up to the beginning of the 20th century, the main sources of fertilizer to revive soils were natural sources that were mined from rocky islands in the Pacific ocean that were made of out of hardened bird droppings called guano.
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Bernie hasn’t changed

Watch this interview with Phil Donahue from back in 1981 just after he had won the race for mayor of Burlington, Vermont. He was fighting against the big banks and corporations and for the poor and working class back then too and his basic message has not changed. It is also clear that he has never combed his hair in his life.

Marie Newman will challenge conservative Democrat again

The Democratic party establishment has announced a crackdown on insurgent candidates challenging incumbents in primaries, warning that any vendors who support such candidates will be blacklisted by the party. It is clear that they are so scared of the energy of the new young progressives that they will go to any lengths to support neoliberal and even conservative incumbents. An excellent test case of this is Illinois congressman Dan Lipinksi. If you did not see the (D) after his name, you could be excused for thinking of him as a Republican based on his views and voting record.
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The Extinction Rebellion protest in London

Over the past nine days, a group known as Extinction Rebellion has been blockading central London to highlight the problem of climate change and to protest lack of action on it. They just ended the protest.

Extinction Rebellion, which has been backed by senior academics, politicians and scientists during nine days of peaceful mass civil disobedience, said it would leave its remaining blockades, but added: “The world has changed … A space for truth-telling has been opened up.

“Now it is time to bring this telling of the truth to communities around London, the regions and nations of the UK, and internationally. In this age of misinformation, there is power in telling the truth.”

The group said it would like to “thank Londoners for opening their hearts and demonstrating their willingness to act on that truth”.

The statement added: “We know we have disrupted your lives. We do not do this lightly. We only do this because this is an emergency.”

The activists said protesters had “taken to the streets and raised the alarm” in more than 80 cities in 33 countries. “People are talking about the climate and ecological emergency in ways that we never imagined,” they said.

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The ‘Stop Bernie’ movement tries to regroup

Bernie Sanders has shown that his popularity during the 2016 election is not ephemeral and is continuing this time around too. This has caused considerable consternation in the Democratic party establishment at this threat to the dominance of its neoliberal orthodoxy and they are scrambling to find ways to derail the Sanders campaign. The Center for American Progress and ThinkProgress, both closely affiliated with the party leadership, has made no secret of its desire to derail the Sanders campaign.
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The TurboTax ‘free’ tax software rip-off

According to the deal that the IRS has with the private tax preparation companies, the IRS will not develop its own free software provided that the companies offer free software to people earning less than $66,000 per year. Congress is now about to pass a measure making that agreement an actual law. But Justin Elliot and Lucas Waldron at ProPublica tried to file free and found that TurboTax has made it incredibly difficult for people to even locate the free service.
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