Monday Reads: This is Crazy! This is Crazy!

Posted: May 6, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: , , , , | 17 Comments

Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!

I give you exhibit one (see the twitter below) demonstrating that White Nationalist Christianity is a threat to this country.  There is absolutely nothing normal, usual, or whatever about this suggestion or response given by the Russian Potted Plant occupying the White House.  Jerry Falwell Jr. is a monster.  Read on.

How do we explain all this?  White Nationalist Christians want to revive the same brutality they inflicted on Black Americans and Indigenous Americans and Trump is their vehicle. They want him in office for as long as possible and the Wisdom Beings know he wants to be there until death sweeps him into the darkness.

This is from Gideon Rachman writing for the Financial Times:  “Donald Trump is updating America’s historic ruthlessness. Promising US voters ‘greatness’ has led the president to celebrate a brutal past”

 

Donald Trump says so many strange and outrageous things that it is impossible to remember them all. But one Trumpian remark that has stuck with me is the US president’s repeated insistence that, after conquering Iraq, “we should have kept the oil”. To the ears of the Washington establishment, this was yet another Trump gaffe. Even Dick Cheney, the former vice-president and most hawkish of hawks, had never portrayed Iraq as a war of conquest. But Mr Trump’s deliberately provocative remark was an insight into both his philosophy and his appeal to voters. When many Americans feel frightened that both US power and their own living standards are in decline, Mr Trump is making an appeal to American ruthlessness. The US president says to voters that the country cannot afford to be “politically correct” any more. The way to Make America Great Again, in the words of his slogan, is to rediscover the ruthless instincts that made America great in the first place. In a nod to past American ruthlessness, Mr Trump has hung the portrait of Andrew Jackson, US president from 1829-1837, on the wall of the Oval Office. Jackson was once seen as one of the great builders of the American nation and his statue stands in Lafayette Square, opposite the White House. But a more recent generation of historians has accused Jackson of complicity in genocide for ordering the forced removal of Native Americans from their land — a policy that led to the “trail of tears” in which thousands died. By honouring Jackson, whom he praised as a “very tough person”, Mr Trump is honouring the brutal policies that allowed the US to conquer the west.

This is completely insane and ignores the rule of law and our constitutionally defined government institutions. I think Nancy Pelosi is right …. if he’s thrown out of office he will not leave either by ballot or impeachment. From WAPO this morning: “Claiming two years of his presidency were ‘stolen,’ Trump suggests he’s owed overtime”.

President Trump on Sunday seemed to warm to the idea of reparations — for himself, and in the form of an unconstitutional, two-year addition to his first term in the White House.

He retweeted a proposal offered by Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, that he be granted another two years in office as recompense for time lost to the Russia investigation. Half of his first term, Trump wrote in a Twitter dispatch of his own, had been “stolen.”

The argument was perhaps tongue-in-cheek, leading some legal experts to dismiss the comments as bravado. Others, however, saw the president’s apparent longing to overstay his four-year term in office as an assault on the rule of law. That it was raised playfully, they said, was small comfort, especially given Trump’s playful refusal, in the fall of 2016, to say that he would accept the outcome of an election that polling suggested he was destined to lose.

“I will keep you in suspense,” he said at the time.

None of this is normal. All of this is crazy.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said they will vote Wednesday on whether to hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress after Barr missed a deadline to produce a complete version of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.

The panel had set a deadline of 9 a.m. Monday for Barr to provide the unredacted version of Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. It announced the planned vote in a statement Monday.

“Although the Committee has attempted to engage in accommodations with Attorney General Barr for several months, it can no longer afford to delay, and must resort to contempt proceedings,” reads the text of a contempt report released by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). “The Committee urgently requires access to the full, unredacted Mueller Report and to the investigatory and evidentiary materials cited in the Report.”

The only good news is that Mueller has firmed up his commitment to address a hearing.  In response, we have a Trumpf Twitter Meltdown:. This is via TBogg at Raw Story.

Reacting to news that special counsel Robert Mueller has made “tentative” plans to appear before a House Committee, President Donald Trump went on a furious Twitter rampage demanding Mueller not show up.

On Twitter, Trump ranted, “After spending more than $35,000,000 over a two year period, interviewing 500 people, using 18 Trump Hating Angry Democrats & 49 FBI Agents – all culminating in a more than 400 page Report showing NO COLLUSION – why would the Democrats in Congress now need Robert Mueller” before adding, …”to testify. Are they looking for a redo because they hated seeing the strong NO COLLUSION conclusion? There was no crime, except on the other side (incredibly not covered in the Report), and NO OBSTRUCTION. Bob Mueller should not testify. No redos for the Dems!”

And to that we remind Trumpf and all his minions of a simple definition that bit Nixon in the ass too. Barr can read up on Nixon’s jailed and disgraced AG John Mitchell.

I doubt any one as old as me will forget the day they actually arrested a US AG.

I was dreaming of my first year in college and just trying to wait out high school during this.  Now, we’re living the nightmare again.

On March 2, 1974, a federal grand jury indicted Mitchell on six counts of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, false statements to the F.B.I., false statements to the grand jury and perjury. The charges stem from testimony in which he denied having any knowledge of Nixon’s efforts to spy on his Democratic political rivals.

Eleven months later, Mitchell was convicted on five counts and received sentences “from 20 months to five years on the conspiracy and obstruction counts, to run concurrently; to be followed by three concurrent terms of 10 months to three years for the three counts of lying under oath, for a total of 30 months as a minimum, after which Mr. Mitchell would be eligible for parole, and eight years as a maximum,” the New York Times reported at the time.

Mitchell was also slapped with a $10,000 fine.

Barr may face a similar fate. Democrats in Congress have begun demanding that Barr resign or face impeachment after a letter from Mueller to Barr was released on Tuesday.

In it, Mueller “expressed a frustration over the lack of context” in Barr’s summary of Russian election interference, contacts between Russians and members of Trump’s campaign, and Trump’s efforts to sabotage the investigation.

Barr’s four-page memo to Congress was fuzzy, Mueller wrote, because it downplayed the significance of the evidence Mueller collected, specifically on whether Trump obstructed justice.

“The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” Mueller said.

Barr took it upon himself to clear Trump of any wrongdoing, however, Mueller was clear in his report that Trump is not innocent and that he can and should face impeachment and/or criminal charges upon leaving office.

“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” Mueller wrote. “Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

Instead, Barr made a surprising excuse for Trump. The president, he said, was upset about the investigation, and his alleged attempts to thwart the probe should be viewed as emotional and without criminal intent.

“There is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks,” he said.

But the fact that Mueller had informed Barr of his misgivings about how the report was presented to the public conflicts with testimony Barr gave to the Senate last month.

During a hearing on April 10, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) asked Barr if Mueller “supported his conclusion” about Trump’s criminal culpability.

“I don’t know whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion,” Barr replied.

Mueller’s letter is proof that Barr was not being truthful, and Beschloss’s hat tip to the past has struck a nerve.

I’m going back to the beginning of the year and an article from The New Yorker that might put some perspective on this creature who is determined to out-Nixon Nixon.  This is from Sarah Larson: “Slow Burn”: What Can Watergate Teach Us?  You should read it.  I may have to strart listening to podcasts more and “Slow Burn” seems like a good place to start.

“I’m going to start with a story that you’ve probably never heard,” Neyfakh says at the beginning of the first episode. It’s the story of “the mouth of the South,” Martha Mitchell, whose husband, John Mitchell, is a former U.S. Attorney General and, at the time of the Watergate break-in, in charge of the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Martha Mitchell, Neyfakh says, enjoyed snooping on her husband and talking to the press, and was “treated by Nixon’s men as someone who knew too much.” First, Neyfakh says, “she was kept against her will in a California hotel for days. Then she was forcibly tranquilized while being held down in her bed. Later, when she went public, Nixon loyalists tried to discredit her in the press as an unreliable alcoholic.” She was called crazy; she seemed crazy. “But it turned out that she was onto something.”

Imagine John Mitchell’s conundrum, Neyfakh says: “You’re the President’s closest confidant, and you’re in charge of all kinds of political skullduggery. Meanwhile, your wife is famous for listening in on your meetings, getting hammered on whiskey, and blabbing to reporters.“ When John Mitchell heard of the break-in arrests, he and Martha were in California. He didn’t want Martha to learn the identity of one of the burglars, because she knew him: James W. McCord, a former C.I.A. officer who had worked in security for the Mitchells. “So when he left for D.C., Mitchell put a former F.B.I. agent named Steve King in charge of Martha, and he told him to keep her away from newspapers, TV, news, any coverage of the burglary,” Neyfakh says. She was “literally held a prisoner within four walls,” we hear Martha telling David Frost, in her languid Southern accent. She managed to get a copy of the L.A. Timesand call her friend Helen Thomas, the longtime White House correspondent; midway through the call, Thomas says, she heard Mitchell say “Get away! Get away!” We hear Mitchell say that King “rushes in and jerked out the telephone”—tore the cord out of the wall. Later, Neyfakh says, Martha and King got in a scuffle and she put her hand through a plate-glass door. King, now the Ambassador to the Czech Republic, appointed by Donald Trump, did not respond to Neyfakh’s request for comments.

Everybody knew about Martha Mitchell at the time, but if you weren’t of news-consuming age in the early seventies, it’s fascinating to meet her now. Remembering such figures and anecdotes, Neyfakh says on the show, helps us get a feel for the moment to moment, life in the time as it was lived. Martha Mitchell reminds him of Anthony Scaramucci: they are florid, larger-than-life characters who reveal much about the political moment and then are quickly forgotten. Watergate, he says, has “dozens of Scaramucci-level stories.” He goes on, “I think that’s why hearing Martha Mitchell’s story gives me such a vivid sense of what it was like to live through Watergate. It lets me inhabit that moment when no one knew what was going to happen, when the people involved didn’t know, the reporters covering it didn’t know. Nixon himself certainly had no idea.” Most of us listening are hoping that our unknowns will be resolved as definitively as Watergate’s did.

…

These days, “We’re living through this crazy time when we wake up in the morning dreading the alerts on our phones, and we have no idea how this is going to end,” Neyfakh told me. “And the last time we can remember it happening on this scale was during Watergate. Did it feel the way we feel now?” In some ways, yes; in others, no. A significant difference, I pointed out, was that the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the Russia scandal, while gravely serious, are also seen as a possible savior from the greater disaster of Trump himself, whereas Nixon, while loathed by seventies liberals, was a more run-of-the-mill politician, feared by few. The stakes are higher now. Considering that idea, Neyfakh stuck up for the craziness of Nixon. “I have the impression that people didn’t quite realize the depth of Richard Nixon’s paranoia, emotional instability, anger, and taste for vengeance until after the tapes came out publicly,” he said. In public, “he was very practiced, and he presented as a President in a way that Trump has no interest in doing.” People were more unnerved about Nixon when they learned what he was really like—a problem we really don’t have. He mentioned a moment that I had found chilling in the episode, in which Feldbaum describes watching Nixon’s post-Saturday Night Massacre speech on TV and thinking, This guy is not well. At that moment, he feared where Presidential emotional instability would lead: What might an unstable Commander-in-Chief do? We’ve all wondered that, too. But Trump, in his hubris, often goofs up, and so did Nixon. Nixon’s particular portfolio of eccentricities, of course, included recording himself, not managing to avoid surrendering the tapes to the authorities, and incriminating himself. Neyfakh and I laughed about this, in amazement.

“It’s truly, in the language of the modern Internet, a great self-own,” Neyfakh said.

All of this is rolling on in front of us in one media platform after another.  If Nixon’s tremendous hubris and personality disorders brought him down, I cannot help but believe the same will be done for Trump. It’s just watching this all reach new levels of craziness and lawlessness is not easy.  It’s good to remember that we have been through some of these feelings before.   It’s just that omnipresent media coverage amps up the assaults and insults.

It’s exhausting. Isn’t it?  It is also important to remind ourselves that eventually, Trump never had the support Nixon had at one time. He may fall quicker than we think. However, Nixon loved just enough of the country to leave peacefully when the writing was on the wall.  I worry about this with Trump

Remember Martha?  She was the woman nobody believed.  I don’t believe that Robert Mueller’s appearance before Congress or the folks that worked for him or any other number of Trump whistle blowers that were sent to Martha Land will be silenced by history. That is why Congressional hearings on all of this need to speak louder than the evil likes of Jerry Falwell, Jr. We need to up the volume.  

We have to move public opinion. The only way to do that is with the same kinds of hearings we had with Watergate.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Saturday Reads: The Magical Mystery tour in My Right Eye

Posted: May 4, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: open thread | 16 Comments

Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!

My right eye has gone on a bit of an acid flashback that the Ophthalmologist called “ocular migraines” yesterday. Basically, I get flashes now and floaters. It’s a bit like my eye should be accompanied by Pink Floyd music while a nice astrophysicist shows laser shows and a simulation of a meteor shower from the Pleides. My brain is processing it a bit better but I’m extremely tired and a bit nauseous. I was lucky to find out that nothing is wrong with my retina and I have none of the headaches typical of migraines. Mostly I feel like I don’t process information very well like I’ve got a sensory overload or something so I apologize if this is a bit short or trippy.

As you may know, I’m making small donations to folks I want to see on the debate stage. My first thank you note came yesterday from Amy Klobucher so I thought I’d share it with you. I’m trying to remain open but you’ll recall I have a few that I’m an absolute no on.

I’m not sure what my criteria is going to be but I really would like to pull a woman through and a person of color. I think it’s time we retire the likes of Bernie and Biden although I know there are actually a few good white men in the line up. I think it’s just time we start changing out the starting team to younger and more diverse thinkers.

Biden is already showing how out of touch he really as I read this headline from the NYT: “Biden Thinks Trump Is the Problem, Not All Republicans. Other Democrats Disagree.”

As Joseph R. Biden Jr. made his way across Iowa on his first trip as a 2020 presidential candidate, the former vice president repeatedly returned to one term — aberration — when he referred to the Trump presidency.

“Limit it to four years,” Mr. Biden pleaded with a ballroom crowd of 600 in the eastern Iowa city of Dubuque. “History will treat this administration’s time as an aberration.”

“This is not the Republican Party,” he added, citing his relationships with “my Republican friends in the House and Senate.”

There is no disagreement among Democrats about the urgency of defeating Mr. Trump. But Mr. Biden’s singular focus on the president as the source of the nation’s ills, while extending an olive branch to Republicans, has exposed a significant fault line in the Democratic primary.

Democrats, like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, see the president as a symptom of something deeper, both in a Republican Party overtaken by Trumpism and a nation cleaved by partisanship. Simply ousting Mr. Trump, they tell voters, is not enough.

It’s a debate that goes beyond the policy differences separating a moderate like Mr. Biden from an insurgent like Mr. Sanders, elevating questions about whether the old rules of inside-the-Beltway governance still apply. And it has thrown into stark relief one of the fundamental questions facing the Democratic electorate: Do Democrats want a bipartisan deal-maker promising a return to normalcy, or a partisan warrior offering more transformative change?

So, I really could spend the afternoon screaming wtf is transformative about Sad Old Man Sanders but I won’t. I’ll just conclude that Biden totally missed what the Republican Party did to President Obama while he was his Vice President.

Max Boot writes this at WAPO this morning: “This nation is at the mercy of a criminal administration”.

Imagine that you live in a town that has been taken over by gangsters. The mayor is a crook and so are the district attorney and police chief. You can’t fight city hall. But at least you know you can turn for help to the state or federal government. Now imagine that it’s not a city or state that has been taken over by criminals — it’s the federal government. Where do you turn for help? That is not a theoretical concern. After the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report, it’s our grim reality.

Even before Mueller’s probe ended, federal prosecutors in New York had implicated President Trump in ordering his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to violate federal campaign finance laws. Mueller then documented at least six ironclad incidents of obstruction of justice by Trump along with numerous instances of misconduct that, while not criminal, are definitely impeachable. The New York Review of Books reported that two prosecutors working for Mueller said that if Trump weren’t president, he would have been indicted.

Now the administration is obstructing attempts to bring the president to justice for obstruction of justice. William P. Barr isn’t the attorney general; he is, as David Rothkopf said, the obstructor general. We now know that Mueller wrote (in Barr’s description) a “snitty” letter objecting that Barr’s deceptive summary of his work, designed to falsely exonerate Trump, “threatens to undermine … public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

Barr’s jaw-dropping performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday dispelled any lingering confidence in the impartial administration of justice — the bedrock of our republic. He actually testified that if the president feels an investigation is unfounded, he “does not have to sit there constitutionally and allow it to run its course. The president could terminate the proceeding and it would not be a corrupt intent because he was being falsely accused.” Given that no president has ever felt justly accused of any misconduct, this means that the president is above the law. Barr is endorsing the Nixon doctrine: “Well, when the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.”

Today in History:

Well, that fits with the acid flashback party my right eye is having. This is an open thread.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Monday Reads: Yeah, it’s Monday all Right

Posted: April 29, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | 28 Comments

Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!

A girl is traumatized.

I’m in the middle of a major plumbing meltdown. I’m still traumatized by last night’s Game of Throne’s Battle of Winterfell. I really really don’t want to look at the news either because our version of the Army of the Dead is still walking around the Halls of Congress. Oh, and the President told his cult that good OB/GYNs like my daughter basically will murder babies when they actually fit the definition of a living, breathing, sentient human being and not a cluster of cells or a miscarriage in process or whatever of a million things can happen or go wrong in the entire gestation process.

There is nothing pleasant that comes out of a Trump Rally.  So, why does the media normalize anything that happens there?  There is nothing normal about him, his cult, or anything any of them do.  In the Vox Article ” Coverage of Trump’s latest rally shows how major media outlets normalize his worst excesses”, Aaron Rupar writes ” Lying is still being recast as “reviv[ing] an inaccurate refrain.”

Here is exhibit One from Toronto Star’s Fact Checker.

Rupar writes:

The New York Times did attempt to fact-check Trump’s lie about Democrats and abortion— Trump accused Democrats of supporting doctors who “wrap the baby beautifully” before they get together with the mother and “determine whether or not they will execute the baby” — but in so doing, the outlet demonstrated it doesn’t really have a vocabulary to adequately deal with Trump.

Instead of calling Trump’s lie a lie, the Times used the euphemism “revived an inaccurate refrain” in a tweet that was widely mocked. The accompanying article goes out of its way to avoid accusing Trump of lying, instead describing him as “reviv[ing] on Saturday night what is fast becoming a standard, and inaccurate, refrain about doctors ‘executing babies.’”

Major media outlets have long struggled with how exactly to cover Trump, with the Times famously coming to the word “lie” in a headline late, something the paper’s own public editor criticized it for. This effort to find euphemisms for the word “lie” is actually normalizing his worst excesses. Coverage of this sort makes him seem like any other politician.

The irony is that on Saturday night, as always, the media was one of Trump’s foremost targets of abuse — yet the very outlets Trump demeans continue to bend over backward to cover him in the most favorable possible light.

No doctor does that.  They would be arrested for murder immediately and it would be a violation of everything they’ve worked and studied and are paid to do.   There is no such thing as a “partial birth abortion” either even though Republicans pass laws to ban an imaginary procedure. Trump has made this equivocation before.

If that sounds a bit flippant, that’s because, as Jen Gunter, an OBGYN who trained in late-term abortions, pointed out on Twitter, “There is no such thing as a ninth month abortion.” Those who seek late-term abortions are seeking them before a pregnancy reaches full term but often and unfortunately after they have discovered in the second or third trimester some problem with the fetus or danger to the mother.

But the inaccuracies started before Trump even responded: Wallace’s question was problematic right out of the gate because of the term he used. “Partial birth” is a political, not medical, term, and it does not refer to all late-term abortions. It refers to a very specific and rare procedure called dilation and extraction*, in which a fetus is partially pulled through the birth canal and then aborted, nearly always when the fetus cannot live outside the womb and typically when the mother’s health is in danger, the fetus has a serious abnormality, or both. Such a procedure is not conducted lightly: the fetus has a fatal defect and will not survive, or the mother is at risk of death herself.

As this NPR article notes about a partial-birth abortion ban passed in 2003, “when some members of Congress tried to amend the bill to ban only those procedures that take place after viability, abortion opponents complained that would leave most of the procedures legal.” And the Supreme Court ultimately declined to strike down the ban anyway. Further, most states don’t allow late-term abortions: just eight states and Washington, D.C., have no restrictions on abortion timing, and the rest have restrictions and other regulations in place.

As noted, these types of abortions are extremely rare. Although both the rate and number of abortions have steadily fallen in the U.S., an estimated 1 million procedures are performed each year, according to the Guttmacher Institute. These procedures remain very safe, considerably more so than pregnancy and birth, in fact. Of these abortions, 91.4% are performed in the first trimester, less than 14 weeks into pregnancy. Just 1.3% of abortions are performed at or after 21 weeks, and an estimated 0.2% of all abortions involve the dilation and evacuation procedure. And why would women seek them in the first place?

After viability, every effort is made to save the infant–when possible–who is fully outside the womb, breathing and considered as human as you and me.

Good News every one! It appears a huge portion of the population does not want to vote for Trump.  This means he’ll be looking for Russian, Saudi, Chinese, etc help again.  The Republicans will go full metal voter suppression.  AND we need a hero … I’m borrowing Arya from the Game of Thrones Realm because she was definitely there with mad battle skills when every one most needs it.

“And what do we say to the God of Death?

Not Today.”

No memes.  Just Arya warrior woman photos for us today.

Politico suggests that folks are saying Joe is a front runner in name only.  Ah, Joe, it’s so!!!

Even with Biden in the race, several more prospects — among them, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Gov. Steve Bullock (D-Mont.) — are still looking to get in. And while Biden begins from a commanding position in the polls, it’s unclear how much of that support will remain adhered to him. Rival campaigns expect it to erode.

TV crews still follow the hordes of candidates running under 10 percent in the polls, any number of whom have good reason to believe that with far lower name recognition than Biden and the other behemoth in the race, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), their own campaigns have time to grow.

The key milepost, nearly every campaign agrees, is the first official debate in June.

“Between now and the debates, polls are going to be all over the place, and then even post the debates, polls are going to be all over the place,” said Robert Wolf, a venture capitalist and influential Democratic donor who raised money for and advised former President Barack Obama.

Predicting the Democratic field would not narrow to a “true top 5” until the fall, Wolf said, “In 2007-2008 it was really a choice between Obama, Edwards and Clinton. In 2016, it was a choice between Bernie and Hillary … Today, you could argue no one’s north of 25 percent, and you know, it doesn’t feel like that many people are picking one [candidate] versus the other.”

Three of the nation’s most influential activists are launching an organization that aims to harness the political power of women to influence elections and shape local and national policy priorities.

Dubbed Supermajority, the organization is the creation of Cecile Richards, the former head of Planned Parenthood; Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter; and Ai-jen Poo, executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. The group, which describes itself as multiracial and intergenerational, has a goal of training and mobilizing 2 million women over the next year to become organizers and political leaders in their communities.

The effort comes at a moment when women have emerged as perhaps the most powerful force in politics.

Millions of women marched in cities across America to protest President Donald Trump’s election. Women also comprise the majority of the electorate in the 2018 midterm elections, sending a historic number of female candidates to Congress and helping Democrats retake control of the House. A record number of women are also seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, including four senators.

Richards, who has long been a force in Democratic politics, said women “feel newly empowered and frankly motivated to take action, including so many women who never thought themselves as an activist before.”

Richards, Garza and Poo spent the past year traveling the country talking to women about how to harness their activism. They found that despite increased energy, many women find getting involved in politics intimidating and are unclear about how to do more than just march or protest.

“Women are mad as hell and we’ve been in resistance mode for two years,” Garza said. “Now it’s time to equip people.”

Friday Reads: Just Say Hell, No to Joe (Don’t give me no lies and keep your hands to yourself)

Posted: April 26, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: 2020 Elections, morning reads | 39 Comments

Good Morning Sky Dancers!

Well we knew this was coming but it doesn’t make the circumstances any better.  Joe Biden announced he and Bernie would be skedaddling together for the Democratic Nomination for POTUS, By Gum, for the benefit of all white men every where!  Women and People of Color should start swooning!  It’s the No “real” Apologies Tour!!

He’s got a long list of explaining and apologizing to do and so far, he’s fucked up the very first one by telling Anita Hill that he regretted what she had to endure.  He failed to mention his role, control and actions that created the circumstances of “what” she had to endure.  He absolutely showed us the meddle of a man in that one action and it doesn’t get any better.  Not his records today.  Not his actions yesterday.

Well to that and his campaign  I say a big Oh, Hell, No!  To Joe. We see what you’re doing right down to the timing of this contact with Professor Hill.  It’s a little too little and a lot too late!

Via Essence and Tanya A Christian: “This Is Why I Call BS On Joe Biden’s ‘Apology’ To Anita Hill”.

As I’ve watched the documentaries, read articles, and consumed copious amounts of media around the definitive moment in American history, I’ve been forced to concede that a man that I, on more than one occasion, have referenced as “Uncle Joe,” a man who I actually like, for the record, was a very clear culprit in the character assassination of the attorney turned professor.

This week former Vice President Joe Biden and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the time of the Thomas hearings admitted such to a crowd in New York City, saying:

“We knew a lot less about the extent of harassment back then, over 30 years ago. She paid a terrible price, she was abused for the hearing. She was taken advantage of. Her reputation was attacked. I wish I could have done something. To this day I regret I couldn’t come up with a way to get her the kind of hearing she deserved, given the courage she showed by reaching out to us.”

It’s not the first time Biden has expressed these sentiments. In fact, the 76-year-old has been vocalizing regret over his scarlet letter “A” —for Anita— for quite some time now. But as the 2020 democratic field gets increasingly more crowded, and rumors of a run from the former Delaware senator continue to swirl, people are, more and more, looking to the long-time politician to answer for this one particular transgression. In the nearly 30 years since the event, Hill has said that she never did receive a formal apology from the former lawmaker, and it’s indeed high time. But even if that happened, what does that mean for a Biden candidacy?

As a Black woman who has empathized with Hill since I was five years old (I mean — my dad made it impossible not to), Biden’s handling of her case makes me question his fitness for the job. And it’s not because of what went down three decades ago — he’s done a lot of good since then. My issue stems from the fact that Biden often connects his apologies to something along the lines of “It was a different time” or “She deserved better” or my favorite, “I wish I could have done more.”

It’s funny. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” is another phrase my dad commonly used, and one that I often reflect on when I hear sound bites from Biden’s sometimes-draining apology tour. Mainly because I don’t want a President who wishes they could have done more. I rather one who takes it on the nose and admits they could have done more, but didn’t. One who acknowledges faults, without caveats. And one who will protect the interests of Black women, not because we need a handout, or even that “we exhibit courage” — that’s a given — but because we’re the most loyal voting block in the Democratic party and we deserve at least that..

From Vanity Fair and Alison Durkee.  “ANITA HILL EVISCERATES JOE BIDEN’S ”APOLOGY” IN SCATHING INTERVIEW”.

For Hill, though, the one-on-one with Biden was apparently too little, too late. Soon after news of their conversation broke, The New York Times published Hill’s own account of their discussion, which she said left her feeling ”deeply unsatisfied” and could not characterize as a full apology. “I cannot be satisfied by simply saying I’m sorry for what happened to you. I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose,” Hill told the Times, adding that she would not be supporting Biden’s candidacy. Biden “needs to give an apology to the other women and to the American public because we know now how deeply disappointed Americans around the country were about what they saw,” she said.

This will be only one of a hell of a long list of things he must address and address fully.

His record reads like that of an old school Conservative Republican despite how much he likes to call himself a liberal right now.  BB posted this Harper‘s Magazine Op Ed but did not quote from it.  Let me do that. “No Joe! Joe Biden’s disastrous legislative legacy” from the keyboard of Andrew Cockburn.

It fell to Biden to highlight some redeeming qualities when called on, inevitably, to deliver Thurmond’s eulogy following the latter’s death in 2003 at the age of one hundred. Biden reminisced with affection about the unlikely friendship between the deceased and himself. Despite having arrived at the Senate at age twenty-nine “emboldened, angered, and outraged about the treatment of African Americans in this country,” he said, he nevertheless found common cause on important issues with the late senator from South Carolina, who had been wont to describe civil-rights activists as “red pawns and publicity seekers.”

One such issue, as Branko Marcetic has pitilessly chronicled in Jacobin, was a shared opposition to federally mandated busing in the effort to integrate schools, an opposition Biden predicted would be ultimately adopted by liberal holdouts. “The black community justifiably is jittery,” Biden admitted to the Washington Post in 1975 with regard to his position. “I’ve made it—if not respectable—I’ve made it reasonable for longstanding liberals to begin to raise the questions I’ve been the first to raise in the liberal community here on the [Senate] floor.”

Biden was responding to criticism of legislation he had introduced that effectively barred the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from compelling communities to bus pupils using federal funds. This amendment was meant to be an alternative to a more extreme proposal put forward by a friend of Biden’s, hall-of-fame racist Jesse Helms (Biden had initially supported Helms’s version). Nevertheless, the Washington Post described Biden’s amendment as “denying the possibility for equal educational opportunities to minority youngsters trapped in ill-equipped inner-city schools.” Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, then the sole African-American senator, called Biden’s measure “the greatest symbolic defeat for civil rights since 1964.”

By the 1980s, Biden had begun to see political gold in the harsh antidrug legislation that had been pioneered by drug warriors such as Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon, and would ultimately lead to the age of mass incarceration for black Americans. One of his Senate staffers at the time recalls him remarking, “Whenever people hear the words ‘drugs’ and ‘crime,’ I want them to think ‘Joe Biden.’” Insisting on anonymity, this former staffer recollected how Biden’s team “had to think up excuses for new hearings on drugs and crime every week—any connection, no matter how remote. He wanted cops at every public meeting—you’d have thought he was running for chief of police.”

The ensuing legislation might also have brought to voters’ minds the name of the venerable Thurmond, Biden’s partner in this effort. Together, the pair sponsored the 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which, among other repressive measures, abolished parole for federal prisoners and cut the amount of time by which sentences could be reduced for good behavior. The bipartisan duo also joined hands to cheerlead the passage of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act and its 1988 follow-on, which cumulatively introduced mandatory sentences for drug possession. Biden later took pride in reminding audiences that “through the leadership of Senator Thurmond, and myself, and others,” Congress had passed a law mandating a five-year sentence, with no parole, for anyone caught with a piece of crack cocaine “no bigger than [a] quarter.” That is, they created the infamous disparity in penalties between those caught with powder cocaine (white people) and those carrying crack (black people). Biden also unblushingly cited his and Thurmond’s leading role in enacting laws allowing for the execution of drug dealers convicted of homicide, and expanding the practice of civil asset forfeiture, law enforcement’s plunder of property belonging to people suspected of crimes, even if they are neither charged nor convicted.

Despite pleas from the ­NAACP and the ­ACLU, the 1990s brought no relief from Biden’s crime crusade. He vied with the first Bush Administration to introduce ever more draconian laws, including one proposing to expand the number of offenses for which the death penalty would be permitted to fifty-one. Bill Clinton quickly became a reliable ally upon his 1992 election, and Biden encouraged him to “maintain crime as a Democratic initiative” with suitably tough legislation. The ensuing 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, passed with enthusiastic administration pressure, would consign millions of black Americans to a life behind bars.

In subsequent years, as his crime legislation, particularly on mandatory sentences, attracted efforts at reform, Biden began expressing a certain remorse. “I am part of the problem that I have been trying to solve since then, because I think the disparity [between crack and powder cocaine sentences] is way out of line,” he declared at a Senate hearing in 2008. However, there is little indication that his words were matched by actions, especially after he moved to the vice presidency the following year. The executive director of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, Eric Sterling, who worked on the original legislation in the House as a congressional counsel, told me, “During the eight years he was vice president, I never saw him take a leadership role in the area of drug policy, never saw him get out in front on the issue like he did on same-sex marriage, for example. Biden could have taken a stronger line [with Obama] privately or publicly, and he did not.”

Amber Phillips  of WAPO expands on the notion that Biden will have a “woman problem”.  I know  I’m not alone in saying yes he will.  I’m one of the women that has had a problem with him for a very damn long time.  I found Obama’s choice specious to say the least.

When given the chance to apologize or explain some of his actions, Biden has recently stumbled. None of this is to say that Biden cannot deftly navigate or overcome these potential pitfalls. But in 2020, there are more layers of Biden’s record with women for voters to consider than there were in his past two presidential campaigns.

The Cut, which published an essay by his original accuser, Nevada lieutenant governor nominee Lucy Flores, is keeping a running list of his accusers, which is a Google search away for anyone who cares to look it up. The accusers range from Flores, who says Biden came up behind her and kissed the back of her head, to D.J. Hill, who said he rested his hand on her shoulder, then started to move it down her lower back.

Biden tried to address their concerns by saying he takes them seriously, but he didn’t apologize. Then he made a joke about it the first time he was out in public. The message Biden seemed to broadcast, I wrote: These women are making a big deal out of nothing.

Biden’s issues go deeper than that.  His original position on women’s choice issues was a total patriarchal stinker.  The National Review calls it to the right of most Republicans.

  • Biden once said Roe v. Wade went “too far” and voted in 1982 for an amendment to allow states to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision; he changed his mind and voted against the same bill in 1983.
  • Biden repeatedly voted for the ban on partial-birth abortion, a particular late-term abortion procedure in which a child’s body is mostly delivered breech before her skull is punctured and crushed. “It did not, as I would have liked, ban all post-viability abortions,” Biden said of the ban in 1997. “I was and still am concerned that in banning only partial-birth abortions, we do not go far enough.”
  •  Biden has repeatedly voted for the Hyde amendment, which bans federal funding for elective abortions for Medicaid recipients. “I will continue to abide by the same principle that has guided me throughout my 21 years in the Senate: those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them,” Biden wrote to a constituent in 1994. “As you may know, I have consistently — on no fewer than 50 occasions — voted against federal funding of abortions.”

There is no such damn thing as these freaking procedures called “partial birth” or whatever they want to describe.  After viability, it’s a successful or unsuccessful delivery and most fetal death at that point is due to severe malformity. Just ask a damn board certified OB/GYN like my daughter for example.

I have no idea why any woman wants to get on board with any of this unless they are, in fact, a right wing Republican.  Oh, and about making a young woman–whose name you don’t even speak–the prop in your introduction …  THIS  from Heather Heyer’s mom.  Yup, she had a name.  SHE HAD A NAME!!!

What exactly does it say about Biden that he couldn’t speak her name or talk to her mother to see if using her memory would be alright for his big fucking centerpiece of a “White Male Savior” propaganda?

What does it fucking say to us all?

Oh, and thank you @HelenStickler  AGAIN!  for the artwork for all of us that want something a helluva lot better than a Biden or a Bernie or a Beto or, well, hell just go down the list.

 

We need to stop a lot of things besides Trump.  Pence is behind him. McConnell is right there stacking the courts for who ever.  We need the best and we need a fighter for all of us!  I’ve been sending donations to all the women right now and Julian Castro because I want to hear some ideas that aren’t as stale as the front runners.  I don’t want to fight for abortion rights with a Democratic President. Believe me, it’s bad enough with one attack our rights down here in Louisiana.  Let’s not settle for “it could be worse” because that’s really, really really, an argument to elect some one.  Nor is, well, we think he could beat Trump if there’s a high enough turnout.  I can’t imagine Joe turning out the largest parts of the Democratic base and I’m tired of pandering to white men.

That’s my screed for today.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

 

Monday Reads

Posted: April 22, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | 28 Comments

Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!

Well, we made it to another Monday and the Preziditz still considers himself above the law and totally exonerated of all his obvious wrong doing.  The headline that I’m reading about is about the Trump Family Crime syndicate and a wild lawsuit trying to stop or delay the investigation of the House Oversight Committee into their Financial Reports.   He doesn’t seem to understand that the scrutiny comes with job.

Meanwhile, enjoy the artwork of Helen Stickler (@HelenSticker) as we plow through the headlines today.

I made dozens of memes from repurposed soviet era Russian matchbook cover art, made into and ‘propaganda.’ Here’s a collage of them all, and I’m posting them individually several times a day.

From WAPO: “Trump sues in bid to block congressional subpoena of financial records.”

President Trump and his business sued House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of his financial records on Monday.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent Trump’s accounting firm from complying with what his lawyers say is an improper use of subpoena power by congressional Democrats.

“Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family,” the filing by Trump claims. “Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically.”

The filing, in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, further escalates a clash between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House over congressional oversight.

Last week, Cummings subpoenaed Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump.

For more than a decade, Mazars and a predecessor firm signed off on financial statements for Trump that he used when seeking loans. Some of the statements include frequent exaggerations or inaccuracies and were accompanied by a note from the firm saying it was not responsible for the accuracy of the information.

The Oversight Committee on March 20 asked the company for copies of “statements of financial condition” and audits prepared for Trump and several of his companies, including the one that owns the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. The panel also requested supporting documents used to produce the reports and communications between the firm and Trump.

Politico explains the purpose of the information here.  As usual, the White House has invented an imaginary term–presidential harassment–to try to smear legitimate checks on the executive branch by its coequal branch.

The committee is investigating allegations from Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen that the president at times artificially inflated and deflated his assets for his personal benefit. Cummings requestedsimilar documents last month from financial giant Capital One, which also asked for a friendly subpoena.

Republicans have contended that the investigation is intended to embarrass Trump, and they said the subpoena to Mazars — which Cummings formally issued last week — amounts to an abuse of power. The White House has refused to comply with various congressional demands for documents and witness testimony on a host of subjects including Trump’s tax returns and the White House security clearance process.

Trump’s filing on Monday morning in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia reams Democrats for their myriad investigations targeting Trump, his presidential campaign and his business empire. The filing comes a week after attorneys William Consovoy and Stefan Passantino threatened legal action against Mazars’ outside counsel if the company complied with the subpoena.

Daily Beast has further background information on the request.

Cummings’ request came after estranged Trump lawyer Michael Cohen raised questions about whether his former boss used to inflate or deflate the true value of his financial assets to help him carry out his business dealings.

The chairman specifically requested documents related to Trump and the Trump Organization that were used in a failed attempt by the president to purchase the Buffalo Bills NFL franchise.

“Mr. Cohen produced to the committee financial statements from 2011, 2012, and 2013 that raise questions about the president’s representations of his financial affairs on these forms and on other disclosures, particularly relating to the president’s debts,” his letter to Mazars stated. “Several of these documents appear to have been signed by your firm.”

Cummings later explained: “We are following up on specific allegations regarding the president’s actions based on corroborating documents obtained by the committee, and we will continue our efforts to conduct credible, robust, and independent oversight.”

During his testimony before the Oversight Committee, Cohen said that between 2011 and 2013, he gave Trump’s financial statements to Deutsche Bank with the aim of getting a loan to purchase the Bills franchise.

According to Cohen, Trump increased his net worth from $4.56 billion in 2012 to $8.66 billion in 2013, much of it based on the addition of “brand value.” Cohen said Trump would inflate his total assets to get friendlier treatment from banks.

There are further issues under investigation concerning Trump’s gross abuse of his office. This is from WAPO’s edtorial board.

The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reported last month that in 2017, Mr. Trump ordered Gary Cohn, then the director of the National Economic Council, to persuade antitrust authorities to file against AT&T’s purchase of the cable television company, which includes CNN. “I’ve mentioned it 50 times. And nothing’s happened,” the president allegedly said to John Kelly, who was chief of staff at the time. “I want that deal blocked!” Mr. Cohn, Ms. Mayer writes, told Mr. Kelly not to comply — but the Justice Department did bring suit and eventually lost in court.

Lawmakers have rightly been seeking more information about Mr. Trump’s alleged attempted meddling in the Antitrust Division’s decision, whether it was to reward Fox News because the outlet has been favorable to him or to hurt CNN because it has not. If he did intercede, it was a grave offense to press freedom and the rule of law, and one the president ought to be held accountable for. Unfortunately, accountability is not this administration’s strong suit: This week, the White House rejected a House Judiciary Committee request for documents on related discussions with the Justice Department, claiming executive privilege. The Justice Department, similarly, has yet to respond to multiple requests.

Even the appearance of impropriety in antitrust enforcement is damaging to public trust. T-Mobile executives spent $195,000 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington after the carrier announced its plan to purchase competitor Sprint. Any decision the Justice Department makes on the merger will now be viewed through that lens: The company has at least given the appearance of believing it could exert influence over enforcers through the chief executive. Who could blame consumers for thinking the same thing?

The Justice Department might have made its decision on the merits, as antitrust chief Makan Delrahim has insisted. Or Mr. Trump might have managed to persuade an associate to strong-arm the department. Or he might otherwise have signaled to Mr. Delrahim — who was on the record saying he did not “see this [merger] as a major antitrust problem” before he became Mr. Trump’s pick — what position he was expected to take. Unless the White House changes course or the Justice Department decides to be much more forthcoming, Congress will have to do more than ask nicely to find answers.

Charles M Blow of the NYT discusses impeaching Trump which is something Peolosi and the House Dems will be discussing this week.

And finally, there was no President Trump in the 1990s producing a head-scratching number of headlines each day. Trump can’t ride a victory nor will he be crestfallen in defeat. There would likely be untold new outrages even after an impeachment.

As for me, I’m afraid of lawlessness and the horrible precedent it would set if Congress does nothing.

On Friday, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitterthat “the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States.”

In another tweet she explained:

“To ignore a President’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future Presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways.”

I worry that inaction enshrines that idea that the American president is above America’s laws. I worry that silent acquiescence bends our democracy toward monarchy, or dictatorship.

As Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, “In America the law is king.” He continued: “For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

Who will we let be king in this country, the president or the law?

We’ve learned today that SCOTUS will take up a case involving LBGT discrimination.  How will the Republican Tactics to stack the court with activist judges impact the current laws?]

The Supreme Court is taking on a major test of LGBT rights in cases that look at whether federal civil rights law bans job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The justices said Monday they will hear cases involving people who claim they were fired because of their sexual orientation and another that involves a funeral home employee who was fired after disclosing that she was transitioning from male to female and dressed as a woman.

The cases will be argued in the fall, with decisions likely by June 2020 in the middle of the presidential election campaign.

The issue is whether Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination, protects LGBT people from job discrimination. Title VII does not specifically mention sexual orientation or transgender status, but federal appeals courts in Chicago and New York have ruled recently that gay and lesbian employees are entitled to protection from discrimination. The federal appeals court in Cincinnati has extended similar protections for transgender people.

In Altitude Express v. Zarda, the justices will decide whether federal laws banning employment discrimination protect gay and lesbian employees. The petition for review was filed by a New York skydiving company, now known as Altitude Express. After the company fired Donald Zarda, who worked as an instructor for the company, Zarda went to federal court, where he contended that he was terminated because he was gay – a violation of (among other things) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination “because of sex.”

The trial court threw out Zarda’s Title VII claim, reasoning that Title VII does not allow claims alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation. But the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit reversed that holding, concluding that Title VII does apply to discrimination based on sexual orientation because such discrimination “is a subset of sex discrimination.”

Altitude Express took its case to the Supreme Court last year, asking the justices to weigh in. In 2017, the justices had denied review of a similar case, filed by a woman who alleged that she had been harassed and passed over for a promotion at her job as a hospital security officer in Georgia because she was a lesbian. However, that case came to the court in a somewhat unusual posture: Neither the hospital nor the individual employees named in the lawsuit had participated in the proceedings in the lower courts, and they had told the Supreme Court that they would continue to stay out of the case even if review were granted, which may have made the justices wary about reviewing the case on the merits.

Altitude Express’ case will be consolidated for one hour of oral argument with the second case involving the rights of gay and lesbian employees: Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia. The petitioner in the case, Gerald Bostock, worked as a child-welfare-services coordinator in Clayton County, Georgia. Bostock argued that after the county learned that he was gay, it falsely accused him of mismanaging public money so that it could fire him – when it was in fact firing him because he was gay.

Bostock went to federal court, arguing that his firing violated Title VII. The county urged the court to dismiss the case, arguing that Title VII does not apply to discrimination based on sexual orientation. The district court agreed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld that ruling.

In the third case granted today, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC, the justices will consider whether Title VII’s protections apply to transgender employees. The petition for review was filed by a small funeral home in Michigan, owned by Thomas Rost, who describes himself as a devout Christian. In 2007, the funeral home hired Aimee Stephens, whose employment records identified Stephens as a man. Six years later, Stephens told Rost that Stephens identified as a woman and wanted to wear women’s clothing to work. Rost fired Stephens, because Rost believed both that allowing Stephens to wear women’s clothes would violate the funeral home’s dress code and that he would be “violating God’s commands” by allowing Stephens to dress in women’s clothing.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit on Stephens’ behalf, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled for the EEOC and Stephens. The funeral home went to the Supreme Court last summer, asking it to review the lower court’s ruling. Today the justices granted the funeral home’s petition for review, agreeing to consider whether Title VII bars discrimination against transgender people based on either their status as transgender or sex stereotyping under the Supreme Court’s 1989 decision in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, which indicates that a company can’t discriminate based on stereotypes of how a man or woman should appear or behave. The funeral home’s case will be argued separately from Bostock and Altitude Express.

The other news is with the Tenacious E.  Elizabeth Warren is calling for vast forgiveness of student loan debt.  This women releases a policy a week, I swear!   

 

We got into this crisis because state governments and the federal government decided that instead of treating higher education like our public school system — free and accessible to all Americans — they’d rather cut taxes for billionaires and giant corporations and offload the cost of higher education onto students and their families. The student debt crisis is the direct result of this failed experiment.

It’s time to end that experiment, to clean up the mess it’s caused, and to do better — better for people who want to go (or go back) to college, better for current students, better for graduates, better for their families, and better for our entire economy.

The first step in addressing this crisis is to deal head-on with the outstanding debt that is weighing down millions of families and should never have been required in the first place. That’s why I’m calling for something truly transformational — the cancellation of up to $50,000 in student loan debt for 42 million Americans.

My plan for broad student debt cancellation will:

Cancel debt for more than 95% of the nearly 45 million Americans with student loan debt;
Wipe out student loan debt entirely for more than 75% of the Americans with that debt;
Substantially increase wealth for Black and Latinx families and reduce both the Black-White and Latinx-White wealth gaps; and
Provide an enormous middle-class stimulus that will boost economic growth, increase home purchases, and fuel a new wave of small business formation.
Once we’ve cleared out the debt that’s holding down an entire generation of Americans, we must ensure that we never have another student debt crisis again. We can do that by recognizing that a public college education is like a public K-12 education — a basic public good that should be available to everyone with free tuition and zero debt at graduation. My plan for universal free college will:

Give every American the opportunity to attend a two-year or four-year public college without paying a dime in tuition or fees;
Make free college truly universal — not just in theory, but in practice — by making higher education of all kinds more inclusive and available to every single American, especially lower-income, Black, and Latinx students, without the need to take on debt to cover costs.

And, yet another white guy enters into the race.  This time its MA Congressman Seth Moulton.  Well, at least he is a registered Democrat and isn’t on Social Security and Medicare yet.

We need to keep the oxygen going for the alternatives!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

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