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Biden playing the long game by moving South Carolina up to first primary state
Joe Biden may be 80 years old but only Republicans and a few wobbly Democrats who think the president is out grazing in a pasture are underestimating someone who is, first and foremost, a politician of the old school. Biden’s decision to have the Democratic Party hold its first primary in 2024 in South Carolina, thus edging out traditional first primary state New Hampshire, as well as the first nominating process—caucus—state Iowa, is a political master stroke of genius. As it now stands, South Carolina will lead the Democratic primary calendar on Saturday, February 3. Having the primary election on a Saturday will likely increase voter participation among two Democratic strongholds, African-Americans and college students. Continue reading
Election 2022: Workers battle hordes of corporate campaign cash
WASHINGTON—Even as workers and their allies hit the political hustings, campaigning door-to-door, explaining issues, phone banking and more, they face one big problem on the campaign trail: Hordes of corporate campaign cash fueling the drives of anti-worker—and anti-democracy—politicians. Continue reading
Key Senate committee passes bill to prevent Trump-like Electoral College coups
An 1887 law would be reformed to prevent radicals in state government and Congress from subverting the popular vote for president.
Efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law whose quirks and ambiguities became a roadmap for Donald Trump and his allies to try to subvert congressional certification of 2020’s Electoral College vote, moved a step closer in the Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday. Continue reading
Trump successfully judge-shopped for an unqualified South Florida right-winger
Donald Trump, the New York real estate mobster who fled Gotham City for Florida during his twice-impeached presidency to avoid the arm of justice in the Empire State, needed a corrupt and inexperienced federal judge to stymie the Justice Department’s investigation of his theft of thousands of highly-classified and other official documents from the White House. He found one in Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon, a right-wing Federalist Society Cuban-American. Continue reading
Rights groups tell Zuckerberg to stop ‘dangerous censorship’ of abortion content
"Meta's censorship of information on abortion and reproductive health is jeopardizing the safety and human rights of millions across the U.S."
A coalition of civil society organizations on Wednesday demanded that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg put a halt to censorship of abortion rights content on his company’s platforms following reports that Facebook and Instagram have been removing posts aimed at helping pregnant people access reproductive care in U.S. states where it is heavily restricted. Continue reading
Democrats must demand Justice Thomas resign … and his wife is prosecuted
In 1969, Richard Nixon and congressional Republicans took down the Supreme Court’s most liberal member, Abe Fortas, threatening to send his wife to prison. There’s a lesson here for today’s Democrats and Clarence Thomas. Continue reading
Senate Republicans, after stormy debate, sink voting rights bill
Democratic lawmakers and people’s movements continue the fight nevertheless.
WASHINGTON—Catering to their white nationalist Donald Trump constituents and the corporate contributors who fund GOP campaigns, the Senate’s 50 Republicans sent the two big voting rights bills down the drain again. Continue reading
Biden should make normalizing relations with Cuba “a priority”
Silvia from Miami, Eduardo from Hialeah, Abel from Lakeland. The names pour in on the donations page for “Syringes to Cuba” as Carlos Lazo promotes the campaign on his popular Facebook livestream. An energetic Cuban-American high school teacher in Seattle, Lazo created a group called Puentes de Amor, Bridges of Love, to unite Cuban Americans who want to lift the searing U.S. blockade that is immiserating their loved ones on the island. Continue reading
Amy Klobuchar, Minneapolis police and her VP quest
When Amy Klobuchar was running for president, corporate media served as her biggest political base.
Eighteen years before Minneapolis police killed an unarmed black man named George Floyd on Monday, Minneapolis police killed an unarmed black man named Christopher Burns. Today, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar decries the killing of Floyd. Back then, Minneapolis chief prosecutor Amy Klobuchar refused to prosecute city police for killing Burns. Continue reading
How YOU can dump Trump
Grassroots action’s immense upset victory in Wisconsin shows we can overcome even a rigged election. Continue reading
‘In a dark time, the eye begins to see’: The 2020 Bernie campaign represents a fight that must continue
Corporate media and corporate Democrats want the Bernie 2020 campaign—and the grassroots energy behind it—to melt away. That's not going to happen.
“In a dark time,” poet Theodore Roethke wrote, “the eye begins to see.” Continue reading
Bernie vs. Biden
As the Democratic Party’s “moderate” (or shall we say “establishment”) wing coalesces around Joe Biden to stop Bernie, the primary contest is starting to look a lot like 2016, when the same wing rallied around Hillary Clinton. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: U.S. continues its war on the rest of the world
The duopoly corporate parties enforce silence and ignorance on foreign policy to ensure that Americans have neither the knowledge nor the tools to resist their country’s policy of endless war. Continue reading
Bernie or Biden?
As the Democratic Party’s “moderate” (or shall we say “establishment”) wing coalesces around Joe Biden to stop Bernie, the primary contest is starting to look a lot like 2016, when the same wing rallied around Hillary Clinton. Continue reading
Bernie Sanders’ people-powered campaign is on fire
The Bernie 2020 campaign is a crucible of broader activism from the grassroots that can spark uprisings of heat and light.
To corporate media, Bernie Sanders is incorrigible. He won’t stop defying the standard assumptions about what’s possible in national politics. His 2020 campaign—with feet on the ground and eyes on visionary horizons—is a danger to corporate capitalism’s “natural” order that enables wealth to dominate the political process. Continue reading
Conservative Democrats appear to be trying to elect Trump again
Whether the Democrats or Republicans had the congressional majority, the conservatives have ruled for decades. The system is rigged by having conservative Democrats vote with Republicans for an enduring majority. Continue reading
The Democrats’ Medicare debate overlooks the elder care crisis
Public options and tax credits won't solve the problem of skyrocketing long-term care costs. Only a robust Medicare for All plan will do the job.
Once again, the Democratic primary debate on October 15 devoted considerable time to candidates’ competing proposals for expanding access to Medicare. But once again, the debate failed to address one of Medicare’s biggest flaws—the lack of long-term care coverage for our country’s rapidly growing elderly population. Continue reading
Over two nights, Democrats start building the wall against Trump
Who will rid us of this troublesome fake?
You somehow know that when Donald Trump, our nation’s juvenile lead, sent out his one word tweet—“BORING!”—during the first of the two Democratic presidential debates last week, he probably really was bored. That’s because the candidates were talking about some real policy ideas, for which we know he has the attention span of an intellectually challenged mayfly, the insect who got left behind in third grade. Continue reading
If Congress has no mojo to govern, let’s make it a part-time job
If the American public needs any further evidence that the US Congress is unable to function as an operating legislative branch of the federal government in the ‘pursuit of happiness’ or to ‘promote the general welfare,’ look no further than Congress’s most recent public disapproval rating of 69%. This is of course nothing new as Congress has been in ill repute with the American public for decades—and no one seems to know what to do about it. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: Scoundrels and reparations
Reparations should not be a topic for national discussion until there is something akin to a consensus among black people about what to demand and how to do it. Continue reading
War, peace and presidential candidates
Forty-five years after Congress passed the War Powers Act in the wake of the Vietnam War, it has finally used it for the first time, to try to end the U.S.-Saudi war on the people of Yemen and to recover its constitutional authority over questions of war and peace. This hasn’t stopped the war yet, and President Trump has threatened to veto the bill. But its passage in Congress, and the debate it has spawned, could be an important first step on a tortuous path to a less militarized U.S. foreign policy in Yemen and beyond. Continue reading
Note to six senators: ‘Present’ is not presidential
On February 7, US Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) released the text of a joint resolution calling for a “Green New Deal.” Continue reading
Democrats need to think big for 2020
We need a true populist, someone who is able to detail how Trump has betrayed the very workers he claims to serve
There is a dizzying array of potential presidential nominees for Democratic primary voters to choose from—so many that they won’t even fit on one debate stage. But there is one basic choice the party will have to make: Will it nominate someone based on perceived electability, which is usually code for incremental policy ideas and a long political career, or a fresh-faced progressive reformer with big ideas? Continue reading
The Fakebook inside Facebook
What to do about a global info-and-disinfo pipeline, and who can do it?
Beginning in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and his companions made a historic contribution to the annals of alchemy: They converted the lust for human contact into gold. Facebook’s current net worth is more than $500 billion, with Zuckerberg’s own share tallied at $74.2 billion, which makes him something like the fifth-wealthiest person in the world. Continue reading
Mueller v. Trump: The ultimate lawsuit
Eventually, Trump is likely to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump’s repeated statements about the Russia “hoax”—along with his apparent attempts to influence the FBI’s investigation—warrant a close look at the process by which he could do so. Equally important are the limited ways to stop him. Whether by design, inadvertence or a combination of both, Trump and his minions—including Newt Gingrich and Trump’s lawyers—have been laying the groundwork for what could become America’s defining moment. Continue reading
Confirmation vote for Pompeo for CIA reminiscent of Iraq war vote
In the U.S. Senate, some votes have more impact than others. That was certainly the case with the January 23 Senate vote to confirm Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Quite aside from President Trump’s embattled relationship with the CIA, Pompeo’s confirmation by the Senate is similar to the Senate’s passage of the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, legislation that gave President George W. Bush the green light to engage in a costly invasion and occupation of Iraq. Continue reading
Comcast, Time Warner and Congress: perfect together
As the US Senate holds its first hearing on the proposed Comcast-Time Warner deal—a $45 billion transaction that will affect millions of consumers and further pad some already well-lined pockets—it’s useful to get a look at how our elected officials have benefitted from the largesse of the two companies with an urge to merge. Continue reading
Madoff’s money ended up in Israel, off-shore banks, and Democratic coffers
(WMR)—WMR has learned from the executor of the estate of a woman defrauded by jailed New York securities dealer Bernard Madoff that much of Madoff’s money never disappeared as alleged by some but was invested in businesses in Israel, transferred to offshore bank accounts, and pumped in small amounts to the political campaigns of Democratic women candidates, particularly U.S. Senate candidates, endorsed by the group EMILY’s List. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: Democrats move right and towards defeat
Posted on June 29, 2020 by Margaret Kimberley
Besides not being Trump, the Democrats offer nothing, but think they can win with a candidate who has no constituency, charisma or any platform positions that would attract more voters. Continue reading →