Politics

With the Democratic Party’s “Unity Reform Commission” now history, major political forces are entering a new stage of contention over the future of the party. Seven months after the commission’s first meeting -- and nine months after Hillary Clinton backer Tom Perez won a close election over Bernie Sanders supporter Keith Ellison to become chair of the Democratic National Committee -- the battle lines are coming into focus for next year.

The commission’s final meeting adjourned on Saturday after a few steps toward democratizing the party had won approval -- due to the grassroots strength of progressives. But the recommendations from the commission will go to the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which was one of the DNC decision-making bodies that Perez subjected to a purge two months ago. Now, in the words of Jim Zogby (who was removed from the Executive Committee by Perez), “There are virtually no Bernie supporters on the Rules and Bylaws Committee.”

In order to shed some clear illumination on what is really at stake in Alabama's December 12 US Senate Election, I am submitting this pair of letters from two key Alabamans regarding Roy Moore. Alabama may be a long way geographically from California, but these two letters brings us closer together!

The first, from the first accuser of Roy Moore going back to sexual manipulation when she was 14 and he was a 32 year old Assistant District Attorney, recently ran in Alabama.

The second, that of his former Law Professor, Guy Martin, was also published his in Al.com, the largest newspaper media group in Alabama, on Sept. 21, just before the Alabama Primary. We acknowledge the high principles of the journalism displayed by Al.com, in their originally publishing these two letters, and thank the editors there for their courage and their integrity in leading this effort, and making clear, as they put it recently, that they don't want to be "on the wrong side of History."

Letter from Leigh Corfman to Roy Moore:

http://www.al.com/…/…/11/roy_moore_leigh_corfman_accuse.html

Steve Bannon’s attempted fascist putsch in Virginia and New Jersey has failed.

Is Alabama next? Can the Democrats keep it from being stolen?

Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections in the Garden State and the state “for lovers” were soundly won by moderate Democrats. The elections were widely featured in the corporate media as referendums on Donald Trump.

on October 24 was a seventeen-minute Senate floor speech to announce that he would not run for re-election, all gussied up with at least implied imprecations against a president and administration he could not bring himself to call by name. In seventeen minutes, Flake managed to find fault with nothing more specific in the world today than “our disunion … the indecency of our discourse … the coarseness of our leadership … the compromise of our moral authority.”

hat motivated White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to bring himself to the White House briefing room October 19, only to perform something like a self-immolation?

He began with abrupt fuzziness:

OK, not clear what that might mean, reporters understood that he was there to defend President Trump’s handling of his suddenly infamous phone call to Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow and mother of three, comforting her with “your guy … must have known what he signed up for.” Kelly is not in the habit of engaging with reporters, but he had been a witness to the call. So the next thing he said was:

Even as some Democrats are at long last growing frustrated with the lack of actual evidence for the past several months of stories about Russia stealing a U.S.

Amidst the hellish chaos of the Donald Trump catastrophe, it’s more essential than ever to understand how he got into the White House and who put him there. Then we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

In her recent blame-everybody-else-while-doing-nothing screed, “What Happened,” Hillary Clinton fingers James Comey, the Russians and Bernie Sanders.

But, in fact, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry put this madman in office.

This trio of multi-millionaire corporate Democrats won the presidential races of 2000, 2004 and 2016. Then they lay down, said hardly a word and did even less as they let George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump rule the land.

All three presidencies were stolen by stripping large numbers of black, Hispanic, Asian-American and young citizens from the voter rolls, and then electronically flipping the vote count. In 2000 and 2016, the thefts were finalized by the Electoral College.

Along the way, the United States House, Senate and a thousand state, federal and local offices also have been flipped. The Supreme Court has come along for the ride.

The City Council race in Columbus is shaping up to be an interesting one. Yes We Can candidates Jasmine Ayres and Will Petrik are running on progressive platforms that include affordable housing, policing reform, renewable energy, and a living wage. Beyond a few token initiatives, the current City Council only pays lip service to these concerns. As Berniecrats, Petrik and Ayres intend to push hard for real reforms.

It remains to be seen whether Left Democrats will be able to win seats on City Council without the corporate campaign backing enjoyed by the three candidates endorsed by the Franklin County Democratic Party. If Ayres and Petrik do manage to get elected in November, it remains to be seen whether they will be able to reform the local political machine from the inside. The FCDP establishment holds the levers of power in the party, and they have made it clear that they like things as they are. They will resist to the death any changes that displease their corporate sponsors.

I spoke recently at a conference on America’s war party where afterwards an elderly gentleman came up to me and asked, “Why doesn’t anyone ever speak honestly about the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? Nobody has mentioned Israel in this conference and we all know it’s American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for Netanyahu? Shouldn’t we start calling them out and not letting them get away with it?”

It was a question combined with a comment that I have heard many times before and my answer is always the same: any organization that aspires to be heard on foreign policy knows that to touch the live wire of Israel and American Jews guarantees a quick trip to obscurity. Jewish groups and deep pocket individual donors not only control the politicians, they own and run the media and entertainment industries, meaning that no one will hear about or from the offending party ever again. They are particularly sensitive on the issue of so-called “dual loyalty,” particularly as the expression itself is a bit of a sham since it is pretty clear that some of them only have real loyalty to Israel.

Nine months after losing the presidency, the Democratic Party is in dire need of a course correction. Grass-roots enthusiasm for the party is far from robust. Despite incessant funding appeals and widespread revulsion for the Trump administration, the Democratic National Committee’s fundraising is notably weak. And the latest DNC chair, Tom Perez, sounds no more inspiring than his recent predecessors. When Perez speaks next to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, it’s a stark contrast between establishment cliches and progressive populism.

While a united front against the Trump regime would be ideal, mere unity behind timeworn Democratic leadership would hardly be auspicious. Breaking the Republican stranglehold at election time will require mobilizing the Democratic Party’s base on behalf of authentic populism. But the power structure of the DNC has other priorities.