Politics
Ok let's get one thing straight: Bernie Sanders was my kind of candidate, but if he had really wanted to win in 2016 he would have challenged the primary election results ten ways to Sunday. In Massachusetts, Bill Clinton illegally campaigned inside the polling wire, glad-handing and back-slapping as Secretary of State William J. Galvin looked the other way, merely issuing a "reminder" later to everyone that electioneering inside the wire was illegal.
Presidential candidate Kamala Harris began this week in the nation’s first primary state by proclaiming what she isn’t. “The people of New Hampshire will tell me what’s required to compete in New Hampshire,” she said, “but I will tell you I am not a democratic socialist.”
Harris continued: “I believe that what voters do want is they want to know that whoever is going to lead, understands that in America today, not everyone has an equal opportunity and access to a path to success, and that has been building up over decades and we've got to correct course.”
The lineup of Democrats who have already declared themselves as candidates for their party’s presidential nomination in 2020 is remarkable, if only for the fact that so many wannabes have thrown their hats in the ring so early in the process. In terms of electability, however, one might well call the seekers after the highest office in the land the nine dwarfs. Four of the would-be candidates – Marianne Williamson a writer, Andrew Yang an entrepreneur, Julian Castro a former Obama official, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congressman John Delaney – have no national profiles at all and few among the Democratic Party rank-and-file would be able to detail who they are, where they come from and what their positions on key issues might be.
We’re all children of Abraham: Christians, Muslims, Jews. In my office, I keep a Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth.
And it’s the truth, lower-case “t,” that I’m here to talk about today. It is a truth that isn’t often spoken in this part of the world, but because I’m a military man by training, I’ll be very blunt and direct today: America is a force for good in the Middle East.
We need to acknowledge that truth, because if we don’t, we make bad choices – now and in the future. [emphasis added]
– US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, January 10, 2019
The Democratic Party has nowhere to go but left.
The 2016 Sandernista groundswell and the Rainbow Tsunami of 2018 have marked a historic shift.
The diverse wave of millennial activists that has poured into the Congress is unprecedented. And the public support for real change – a Green New Deal – is undeniable.
The real message: the three-decade triangulation of the Clintonista New Democrats has been transcended.
The faux mantra from bloviating experts, petulant pundits, and high-priced consultants has been droning on since the coming of Ronald Reagan: the Democrats must forever tack right to attract “swing” conservatives in the “mainstream middle” between the two parties.
But in the Age of Trump, such voters are all but extinct. The middle ground has cratered. The swing constituency (if it ever existed) has disappeared into the abyss. What matters now is excitement, commitment, clarity, and REAL CHANGE ... none of which can come with a corporate/compromised agenda.
To make our city government work for the benefit of everyone, Yes We Can Columbus has been advocating for campaign finance reform since 2016. Currently, candidates for Columbus Mayor, City Council, City Attorney, and City Auditor are permitted to receive unlimited campaign cash from wealthy individuals and corporations. Candidates favored by the rich can afford to pay for more air time, canvassing, campaign literature, and yard signs than candidates who depend on the smaller donations that ordinary citizens can afford.
The well-heeled candidates win, because they have more money to sway public opinion. After the election, their wealthy donors expect favors in return. And they get them.
An even playing field is essential for a healthy democracy, where working class people have a say in decisions that affect them. But the idea has had no traction with Mayor Ginther and the current City Council, who were elected under the current pay-to-play system.
In 1939 the luxury liner St. Louis brought 937 desperate, mostly Jewish refugees to Miami. They were fleeing the Nazi Holocaust. They had already been turned away by Cuba.
Amidst a Red Wave of "nationalist" hate, American "conservatives" screamed that these people were poor, didn't speak English and would take away our precious resources.
So Franklin Roosevelt did not let them into the United States. The ship was sent back to Europe. Nearly every Jew on it perished in Hitler's concentration and death camps.
Throughout Germany, Poland and everywhere else Hitler spread his hate, fascists were marching into synagogues like the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, gunning down Jews.
Today a caravan of desperate refugees is making its way from central America. They are fleeing a slaughterhouse of fascist murder and violence, as well as desperate poverty imposed by the relentless exploitation of imperial corporations.
Originally published at the Nation Magazine: https://www.thenation.com/article/democratic-autopsy-one-year-later/
– Vermont Governor Phil Scott, Republican, at press conference October 5
efore you start feeling sorry for the governor of Vermont, whose comment above is fundamentally deceitful, you should probably be aware that he is being criticized for an arrangement he created for his own benefit.