#Kamala Harris SEIU rally

[sepdet]

Candidates' Different Views on Labor Day

Their contrasting social media posts, with bonus federal law violation and (I think?) AI generated fake workers from Trump, are illuminating:

Contrast that with Trump and Musk joking about firing striking workers a few weeks ago:

Under Biden, Harris chaired Biden's pro-labor task force assigned to "promote [Biden's] policy for worker power, worker organizing, and collective bargaining." Here is the plan they created with specific proposals.

As I've noted, my intro to Harris was at a 2017 rally for the ACA organized by SEIU Local 721. As VP, she's done a lot of union outreach, like this speech celebrating collective bargaining to honor the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas.

---

Meanwhile, Trump's Labor Day email to his followers is a shill for illegal merch:

US Public Law 94-344, the Federal Flag Code: "Out of respect for the US flag, never

place anything on the flag, including letters, insignia, or designs of any kind. [...]

Use the flag for advertising or promotional purposes."

The Flag Code was a big deal in the 80s, Trump's favorite decade. Congress passed a law with a big fine and/or jail time for knowingly violating it. The Supreme Court rightly struck down those penalties as a violation of free speech, but the code remains.

Trump followed this email with Labor Day posts on his social media platform:

Happy Labor Day to all of our American Workers who represent the Shining Example of Hard Work and Ingenuity. Under Comrade Kamala Harris, all Americans are suffering during this Holiday weekend - High Gas Prices, Transportation Costs are up, and Grocery Prices are through the roof. We can’t keep living under this weak and failed “Leadership.”….

Workers an afterthought. Every time he calls Kamala "Comrade," I remember Russian news btoadcasts calling him "Comrade Trump."

….In my First Term, we achieved Major Successes to protect American Workers by negotiating Free and Fair Trade Deals, passing the USMCA (U.S./Mexico/Canada), and giving Businesses and their Workers the tools to thrive. We also invested heavily in Education and Job Training programs for those who wish to expand upon their abilities, and be successful in an Industry that they love. We were an Economic Powerhouse, all because of the American Worker! But Kamala and Biden have undone all of that. When I return to the White House, we will continue upon our Successes by creating an Environment that ensures ALL Workers, and Businesses, have the opportunity to prosper and achieve their American Dream. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Dismantling Obama's trade deals and putting in his own which raised tarriffs and prices and killed supply chains, making shit up, and taking credit for Biden's job training programs, par for the course. Labor Day? All about ME ME ME.

Someone on the Trump campaign realized that he probably needed a picture of himself with workers, since Kamala had posted one shaking hands with them.

However, there's something off about this image posted to his social media site at 5PM:

The suit and tie are so unnaturally smooth, I did a reverse image search to see if it was a real photo. Zero Results. What are the chances? Any photo like this should already be on the web. And there's what look to be AI artifacts (Eg guy on left missing half of vest, fragments of orange stripes).

TL;DR: I don't think he found a group of workers or cosplayers to loom in front of; I think he's embraced the AI generated crowds he falsely accused Harris of using.

[bearer-of-the-light]

King family calls for protests on MLK Day weekend to push for passage of voting rights bills

by Rebekah Sager 16 December 2021 Daily Kos https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/16/2069569/-King-family-calls-for-protests-on-MLK-Day-weekend-to-push-for-passage-of-voting-rights-bills

Martin Luther King III addresses a 'Let's Finish the Job for the People' rally near the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 14, 2021 in Washington, D.C.  Getty Images

“We are coming together at symbolic bridges. We’re hoping that it will be replicated across the country to really bring home the point of the symbolism of bridges in the Black community,” King told theGrio.

Biden indicated on Wednesday that he understands the immediacy of passing voting rights legislation, even signaling that he would push back on championing his Build Back Better plan to 2022 in order to get it done.

“No celebration without legislation,” King III said in a statement according to CNN, adding: “Just as they voted for a bill to deal with infrastructure, bridges, and all of the things that go along with infrastructure we are now saying use that same effort, that same focus, to pass the John Lewis bill and the Freedom to Vote Act.”

Both pieces of legislation have continued to be jammed by Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats have so far refused to change the rules requiring 60 votes for bills to move forward. The Senate is currently split at 50-50.

Meanwhile, at least 19 states have enacted 33 laws to disenfranchise American citizens. And the GOP is laying the groundwork as we speak for more voting restrictions and blocks to the ballot in next year’s legislative sessions.

The Brennan Center found that the presidential election in 2020 had the highest voter turnout in over a century despite efforts to sabotage the process with the bogus “Big Lie” and other misinformation.

The King family will be joined in their protest by over 75 groups, including National Action Network, National Urban League, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, SEIU, and MoveOn.

King’s family and supporters will rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Jan. 15, King’s birthday, "to restore and expand voting rights to honor Dr. King's legacy."

In July, the Supreme Court allowed for Arizona to restrict how ballots are cast, limiting the ability of Black and brown people to challenge state laws they deem discriminatory. This upholds two provisions: one says in-person ballots cast at the wrong precinct on Election Day must be wholly discarded. Another restricts a practice known as "ballot collection," requiring that only family caregivers, mail carriers, and election officials can deliver another person’s ballot.

On Jan. 17, the federal holiday commemorating MLK,  the family and other activists will march across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C. They also plan to march across a bridge in Phoenix to draw contrast to the famed 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, for voting rights for Black Americans.

The protests are efforts to pressure Biden and the Senate pass these critical voting rights laws and to "ensure the Jim Crow filibuster doesn't stand in the way."

Arndrea Waters King says there’s no better way to celebrate the lauded civil rights leader than standing for voting rights.

"If we're really talking about celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., voting rights was a cornerstone of his legacy," she told CNN, adding that "we cannot simply in good faith celebrate him or celebrate that legacy with this current attack on access to the ballot box."

In an interview with SiriusXM recently, Vice President Kamala Harris said she believed the “most critical battle” before us is “to protect the integrity of the right to vote.”

“We’ve got to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and we’ve got to pass the Freedom to Vote Act because we need the tools to be able to fight against what these states are trying to do,” she stated.

[paulbenedictblog]

%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

Cnn news Harris expected to cut staff, slash paychecks in effort to move resources to Iowa

Cnn news

In shriek to redirect sources to Iowa, presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., plans to sever her crew basically based entirely in her headquarters, relocate others and presents her consultants a pay reduce.

All for Democratic Get collectively?

Add Democratic Get collectively as an curiosity to beget updated on essentially the most contemporary Democratic Get collectively information, video, and diagnosis from ABC Info.

In a memo to crew, equipped to ABC Info by the advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign, Harris' advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign supervisor acknowledged they are enforcing an "organizational realignment to hump all-in on Iowa."  

The first step contains lowering their headquarters crew. Marketing and marketing campaign supervisor Juan Rodriguez acknowledged he's going to buy a pay reduce alongside with the total other consultants and that they intend to "neat and renegotiate contracts." 

Worth Makela/Getty Pictures

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks at some stage in a city hall on the Jap Disclose Jail on Oct. 28, 2019, in Philadelphia.

Within the subsequent few weeks, Rodriguez acknowledged they'll even be transferring crew from other predominant states, alongside side New Hampshire, Nevada and California to Iowa. South Carolina is no longer going to be one in every of the states affected. 

"Successfully now we have made a resolution, a no longer easy resolution, however made a resolution of what we would like to blueprint to seize," Harris told reporters at a advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign tournament on Wednesday. "And that's about clearing a path for Iowa and placing our sources into Iowa as now we have indicated from the initiating place and in divulge that's where we're."

In step with the memo, the incentive for the cuts is to allocate a seven-figure media seize within the weeks sooner than the Iowa caucus.

The transfer is basically the most contemporary instance of how the senator is doubling down on a success big within the Iowa caucuses. A pair of weeks within the past her crew launched a new effort to advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign per week within the early balloting impart. Harris' presence within the impart has been marked by various rallies, one-on-one dinners with Iowa families and a block birthday celebration. Her resolution to focal level on Iowa, where she has nine of her 20 advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign locations of work, has also approach on the trace of no longer campaigning in other early balloting states, such as New Hampshire and South Carolina.

"We're pulling sources wherever we would like to drag them from to assign the sources into Iowa that we prefer," Harris acknowledged of the crew cuts, which she called a "no longer easy resolution."

Worth Makela/Getty Pictures, FILE

Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-CA, speaks at some stage in a city hall on the Jap Disclose Jail in Philadelphia, Oct. 28, 2019.

"So it by no technique was speculated to be straight forward, I'm running for president of United States, however from where we stand upright now, incandescent the form of reinforce now we have right here in Iowa and in other states where we're unexcited very powerful committed to being, I blueprint think that now we have a path, and that we're on a path with a conception to seize the nomination," Harris acknowledged.

Constant alongside with her advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign supervisor, she's going to proceed to impart a mighty portion of November within the impart, alongside side Thanksgiving. In step with a new Quinnipiac poll, Harris is pulling 5% of reinforce among Democratic and Democratic-leaning self sustaining voters.

Harris launched her presidential narrate in January in entrance of a crowd of 20,000 folks, one in every of the most effective within the 2020 cycle. She had a step forward moment within the major debate when she challenged faded Vice President Joe Biden on his past stance on busing policies.

"There was a little bit lady in California who was portion of the second class to combine her public schools and she was bused to varsity on on daily foundation foundation. That little lady was me," Harris acknowledged.

Despite the appealing start to her advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign, the senator has struggled to retain the momentum since then. Info of the rearrangement of her crew came before a busy weekend in Iowa. Quite loads of the presidential hopefuls will likely be descending upon the early balloting states for the Iowa Democratic Get collectively Liberty and Justice Celebration in Des Moines. Feeble President Barack Obama's remarks at this dinner were seen as a turning level in his advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign in 2007. This cycle's contenders will likely be hoping to recreate that step forward moment.

In new days, Harris has tweaked her stump speech to repeat upon what she calls "the donkey within the room" -- the difficulty of electability. The senator has puzzled whether or no longer America is ready for a woman to be president, let by myself a girl of color. At an tournament where she spoke to marching union individuals shut to Los Angeles Global Airport, she pushed apart criticism about the country being ready for her candidacy.

"I ought to provide one thing certain. On this election, folks have started to instruct, 'Oh, they ought to no longer ready for you Kamala. They're no longer ready for a woman. They're no longer ready for a woman of color. They narrate me it can perchance per chance per chance no longer be your time,'" she acknowledged. "But right here is no longer a new conversation for SEIU. We have now heard this in every advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign now we have and -- right here's the operative observe -- won."

[dinafbrownil]

Bruising Labor Battles Put Kaiser Permanente’s Reputation On The Line

Kaiser Permanente, which just narrowly averted one massive strike, is facing another one Monday.

The ongoing labor battles have undermined the health giant’s once-golden reputation as a model of cost-effective care that caters to satisfied patients — which it calls “members” — and is exposing it to new scrutiny from politicians and health policy analysts.

As the labor disputes have played out loudly, ricocheting off the bargaining table and into the public realm, some critics believe that the nonprofit health system is becoming more like its for-profit counterparts and is no longer living up to its foundational ideals.

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Compensation for CEO Bernard Tyson topped $16 million in 2017, making him the highest-paid nonprofit health system executive in the nation. The organization also is building a $900 million flagship headquarters in Oakland. And it bid up to $295 million to become the Golden State Warriors’ official health care provider, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The deal gave the health system naming rights for the shopping and restaurant complex surrounding the team’s new arena in San Francisco, which it has dubbed “Thrive City.”

Kaiser Permanente reportedly bid up to $295 million to secure the naming rights for a shopping and restaurant complex surrounding the Golden State Warriors’ new arena in San Francisco, which it dubbed “Thrive City.” (Hannah Norman/KHN)

The organization reported $2.5 billion in net income in 2018 and its health plan sits on about $37.6 billion in reserves.

Against that backdrop of wealth, more than 80,000 employees were poised to strike last month over salaries, retirement benefits and concerns over outsourcing and subcontracting. Nearly 4,000 members of its mental health staff in California are threatening to walk out Monday over the long wait times their patients face for appointments.

“Kaiser’s primary mission, based on their nonprofit status, is to serve a charitable mission,” said Ge Bai, associate professor of accounting and health policy at Johns Hopkins University. “The question is, do they need such an excessive, fancy flagship space? Or should they save money to help the poor and increase employee salaries?”

Lawmakers in California, Kaiser Permanente’s home state, recently targeted it with a new financial transparency law aimed at determining why its premiums continue to increase.

There’s a growing suspicion “that these nonprofit hospitals are not here purely for charitable missions, but instead are working to expand market share,” Bai said.

Therapists, psychologists and other mental health providers rallied in Oakland in October to protest the long wait times their patients face. About 4,000 mental health providers in California who belong to the National Union of Healthcare Workers threaten a five-day strike starting Monday. (Credit: Chris Joel)

The scrutiny marks a disorienting role-reversal for Kaiser, an integrated system that acts as both health insurer and medical provider, serving 12.3 million patients and operating 39 hospitals across eight states and the District of Columbia. The bulk of its presence is in California. (Kaiser Health News, which produces California Healthline, is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)

Many health systems have tried to imitate its model for delivering affordable health care, which features teams of salaried doctors and health professionals who work together closely, and charges few if any extraneous patient fees. It emphasizes caring and community with slogans like “Health isn’t an industry. It’s a cause,” and “We’re all in this together. And together, we thrive.”

Praised by President Barack Obama for its efficiency and high-quality care, the health maintenance organization has tried to set itself apart from its profit-hungry, fee-for-service counterparts.

Now, its current practices — financial and medical — are getting a more critical look.

As a nonprofit, Kaiser doesn’t have to pay local property and sales taxes, state income taxes and federal corporate taxes, in exchange for providing “charity care and community benefits” — although the federal government doesn’t specify how much.

As a percentage of its total spending, Kaiser Permanente’s charity care spending has decreased from 1.29% in 2012 to 0.8% in 2017. Other hospitals in California have exhibited a similar decrease, saying there are fewer uninsured patients who need help since the Affordable Care Act expanded insurance coverage.

CEO Tyson told California Healthline that he limits operating income to about 2% of revenue, which pays for things like capital improvements, community benefit programs and “the running of the company.”

“The idea we’re trying to maximize profit is a false premise,” he said.

The organization is different from many other health systems because of its integrated model, so comparisons are not perfect, but its operating margins were smaller and more stable than other large nonprofit hospital groups in California. AdventHealth’s operating margin was 7.15% in 2018, while Dignity Health had losses in 2016 and 2017.

Tyson said that executive compensation is a “hotspot” for any company in a labor dispute. “In no way would I try to justify it or argue against it,” he said of his salary. In addition to his generous compensation, the health plan paid 35 other executives more than $1 million each in 2017, according to its tax filings.

Even its board members are well-compensated. In 2017, 13 directors each received between $129,000 and $273,000 for what its tax filings say is five to 10 hours of work a week.

And that $37.6 billion in reserves? It’s about 17 times more than the health plan is required by the state to maintain, according to the California Department of Managed Health Care.

Kaiser Permanente said it doesn’t consider its reserves excessive because state regulations don’t account for its integrated model. These reserves represent the value of its hospitals and hundreds of medical offices in California, plus the information technology they rely on, it said.

Kaiser Permanente is spending $900 million on a new headquarters in Oakland, which the company says will save at least $60 million a year in operating costs by bringing all of its Oakland staffers together under one roof. (Credit: Kaiser Permanente)

Kaiser Permanente said its new headquarters will save at least $60 million a year in operating costs because it will bring all of its Oakland staffers under one roof. It justified the partnership with the Warriors by noting it spans 20 years, and includes a community gathering space that will provide health services for both members and the public.

Kaiser has a right to defend its spending, but “it’s hard to imagine a nearly $300 million sponsorship being justifiable,” said Michael Rozier, an assistant professor at St. Louis University who studies nonprofit hospitals.

The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West was about to strike in October before reaching an agreement with Kaiser Permanente.

Democratic presidential candidates Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, as well as 132 elected California officials, supported the cause.

California legislators this year adopted a bill sponsored by SEIU California that will require the health system to report its financial data to the state by facility, as opposed to reporting aggregated data from its Northern and Southern California regions, as it currently does. This data must include expenses, revenues by payer and the reasons for premium increases.

Other hospitals already report financial data this way, but the California legislature granted Kaiser Permanente an exemption when reporting began in the 1970s because it is an integrated system. This created a financial “black hole” said state Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), the bill’s author.

“They’re the biggest game in town,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of the consumer group Health Access California. “With great power comes great responsibility, and a need for transparency.”

Patient care, too, is under scrutiny.

California’s Department of Managed Health Care fined the organization $4 million over mental health wait times in 2013, and in 2017 hammered out an agreement with it to hire an outside consultant to help improve access to care. The department said Kaiser Permanente has so far met all the requirements of the settlement.

Ann Rivello, a therapist who works at Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center, says she’s frustrated that Kaiser Permanente markets itself as a leader in mental health care. Her patients have to wait about two months between appointments for individual therapy, she says. (Credit: Chris Joel)

But according to the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which is planning Monday’s walkout, wait times have just gotten worse.

Tyson said mental health care delivery is a national issue — “not unique to Kaiser Permanente.” He said the system is actively hiring more staff, contracting with outside providers and looking into using technology to broaden access to treatment.

At a mid-October union rally in Oakland, therapists said the health system’s billions in profits should allow it to hire more than one mental health clinician for every 3,000 members, which the union says is the current ratio.

Ann Rivello, 50, who has worked periodically at Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center since 2000, said therapists are so busy they struggle to take bathroom breaks and patients wait about two months between appointments for individual therapy.

“Just take $100 million that they’re putting into the new ‘Thrive City’ over there with the Warriors,” she said. “Why can’t they just give it to mental health?”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/bruising-labor-battles-put-kaiser-permanentes-reputation-on-the-line/

[thisdaynews]

Bernie Sanders' extreme makeover

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/bernie-sanders-extreme-makeover/

Bernie Sanders' extreme makeover

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ willingness to step up his efforts to win institutional support represents a major shift for the Democartic presidential candidate. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

2020 elections

A candidate with an aversion to schmoozing and ring-kissing bows to the necessities of a top-tier presidential campaign.

Bernie Sanders was notorious in 2016 for refusing to ask Democratic power brokers for their support. While Hillary and Bill Clinton were lighting up their phone lines, elected officials grumbled they never heard from Sanders or his campaign.

He also lacked the campaign infrastructure to compensate: “We had no political shop,” said Mark Longabaugh, one of Sanders’ top strategists that year.

Story Continued Below

This time around, the candidate with an aversion to schmoozing and a reputation as a loner in the Senate is bowing to a side of politics he’s long despised. Sanders is making dozens of calls each week to elected officials, labor leaders and party chiefs, according to his aides. In between his rallies, he regularly meets with politicians behind closed doors. And surrogates, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the co-chairman of his campaign, are aggressively courting House members.

All of that is standard fare for a top-tier presidential campaign, but it represents a major shift for Sanders. His willingness to step up his efforts to win institutional support is the latest sign that he believes that shunning the Democratic establishment might work for a long-shot outsider campaign, but won’t cut it if he truly wants to win the nomination.

“He is trying to talk to anyone and everyone who he thinks might have a desire to support the campaign at some point in time,” said Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ 2020 campaign manager. “We want to make sure the doors are open.”

Sanders’ willingness to work the phones isn’t the only indication he’s running a more traditional in-it-to-win-it campaign. He recently hired a fundraiser — a position he didn’t have in his 2016 bid — and is planning in-person “grassroots” fundraisers that could draw larger donors. In addition to his standard big rallies, Sanders is mixing in more intimate town halls in Iowa, where voters demand up-close-and-personal contact with candidates. And he has at times weaved his life’s story into his speeches, another standard campaign practice that he eschewed four years ago.

Compared with himself in 2016, when he rarely courted influential politicos, Sanders is a chatterbox these days. The people who’ve received his calls say he sometimes talks about why he’s the best person to beat President Donald Trump. Other times he veers toward policy. Occasionally, if he’s known the person long enough, he’ll ask for an endorsement.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, is one of the people who’s heard from Sanders. They appeared together last month at an Ohio town hall sponsored by her union, which endorsed Clinton in 2016.

“Look, Bernie really wants to be president. And I think what he’s doing is the work of relationship-building,” Weingarten said. “We’re far away from an endorsement and there’s a lot of other [candidates] in the race … but I do think that Bernie has spent time not only being the iconoclast he is and being the independent soul he is, but also working with allies to work for a better country.”

Sanders is wooing natural allies as well as people unlikely to get on board his campaign. He’s placed calls to everyone from Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry to United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, according to people familiar with the conversations. Fetterman, a progressive, backed Sanders in 2016; the SEIU sided with Clinton, though a faction of the union’s members supported Sanders. And Gerard’s members showed up in force to Joe Biden’s campaign kickoff.

One of the more promising places Sanders has looked for support is the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which he helped create in 1991. Khanna, a member of the group, said he’s spoken to about 10 others in the caucus about Sanders’ campaign and his hope they’ll endorse it.

Sanders aides say the strategy isn’t to clinch the most endorsements: He just needs enough that he can point to a respectable level of support from the party and not be written off as too far outside the mainstream.

“He was completely shut out of any institutional support in 2016,” Khanna said. “Now, I believe, he will have a critical mass of institutional support to get his message out and win the race. He doesn’t need to have the most institutional support. He just needs to have enough.”

Even if Sanders could persuade some power brokers to hold off on endorsing any candidate in the primary, particularly if they lean toward Biden, it would be something of a victory.

In many of his calls, Sanders makes the electability argument — that he can take down Trump in a general election — a big question mark in the eyes of some Democrats given his democratic-socialist profile.

Some Democrats who’ve watched Sanders since 2016 said that a major difference between now and then is he has a built-out political team helping him seek endorsements. His political director is Analilia Mejia, a former New Jersey political director of an SEIU local, and his deputy political director is Sarah Badawi, who worked as a top strategist at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

The change hasn’t gone unnoticed. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said Sanders showed up to a 2015 meeting with top union leaders by himself. Typically, presidential candidates come with at least a few aides in tow.

“It’s my view that he had to spend a lot more energy himself on the campaign itself previously,” Nelson said.

Jeff Weaver, a longtime adviser to Sanders who managed his campaign in 2016, said the leftward shift of the Democratic Party has made more people receptive to Sanders’ outreach.

“Last campaign, Bernie Sanders started as a relatively unknown person on the national stage. Secretary Clinton was widely known and had locked up the support not just of national Democrats but of party folks in the states as well,” he said. “Now it’s a new day. The party has changed dramatically in the last four years, to say the least, and there’s a lot more openness to Bernie.”

So far, Sanders is in the middle of the pack in the race for big-name endorsements, trailing other top-tier contenders such as Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a fellow Vermont Democrat who backed Clinton in 2016, endorsed Sanders the day he launched his second campaign. Leahy said Sanders didn’t approach him in 2016 because he had already made clear he was behind Clinton. Sanders is also backed by five members of the Democratic National Committee, as well as Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Vermont Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman.

Sanders has also announced 15 endorsements from state lawmakers in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and his staff has said it will unveil supporters in Iowa and Nevada in the future.

Even if the Democratic leaders they’re courting don’t support Sanders now, his allies hope the efforts will ease tensions should he become the nominee. Sanders is polling second, behind only Biden, in most surveys.

“When you’re going to want to pull the party together, it makes it much easier because you’ve established relationships,” Longabaugh said. “They don’t see you as a three-headed monster anymore.”

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

Read More

[takebackthedream]

Movements Are Driving Democratic Party Debate by Robert Borosage

As Donald Trump’s demented presidency grows ever more isolated, calls for unified opposition grow louder.  Political publications and Twitter are flooded with warnings about the Democratic Party’s supposed massive circular firing squad, also known as the “Left’s War of Mutually Assured Destruction.”

Senator Bernie Sanders, according to some, is “sabotaging the Democratic Party,” and has started a “foolish family feud.”

Apostles of Convention

Two apostles of convention, Dana Milbank and Mike Tomasky, have recently issued dire warnings about Democratic division.  Milbank, known for bringing snark to the Washington Post political coverage, argues Democrats could fare well in 2018, unless Sanders supporters come “to the Republican’s rescue” by “sowing division” and attempting to “enact a purge of the politically unpure.”

Somehow in Milbank’s overheated imagination, suggestions of primary challenges for candidates who don’t support Medicare for All become “not just taking a stand but excommunicating all who disagree.”  This Milbank thunders is what Republican zealots did with guns and taxes, helping to make the Republican Party the “ungovernable mess it is today.”  Yeah, look where Republicans ended up after their bitter and passionate political struggles:  in control of the White House, both houses of Congress, with full control in 26 states, having captured over 1000 state legislative seats.  

Tomasky gallantly comes to the defense of Senator Kamala Harris, newest star of the party’s establishment, who was criticized for her decision as California Attorney General to let Steve Mnuchin, the “foreclosure king” who is now Trump’s Treasury Secretary,  walk, despite the recommendations of her staff and clear evidence of massive fraud.  

Tomasky concedes that scrutiny is justified, and accepts that the issue is serious, but wrings his hands at a Democratic “purity Olympics.”  All serious candidates, he warns, are compromised by money, so we can’t expect the purity Bernie Sanders enjoys, coming from Vermont.  Democrats shouldn’t have “litmus tests” like a $15.00 minimum wage that stifle debate.  

Say what?  Democrats are having a big debate about what the party stands for.  Defining issues – Medicare for All, $15.00 minimum wage, curbing Wall Street, money and politics, balanced trade etc –are central to that debate.  Harris clearly wants to position herself has a potential presidential candidate.  Where she stands and what her record reveals aren’t going to get a pass just because she comes from a big state.

All this garment rending and hand wringing is excessive.  Democrats need a major debate about values and policy.  A bit of common sense is in order.

Unified in Resistance

For all the fretting about division, activists from all wings of the party and from movements outside the party have joined in propelling the popular mobilization against Trump’s horrors. Whether it is more left-wing groups like MoveOn, Democracy for America, People’s Action, OurRevolution, or groups led by ex-Clinton and Obama activists like Indivisible, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and others, all have been focused and engaged on countering Trump.

Single-payer supporters joined to help fend off the attack on Obamacare. Sanders sparked that effort with mass rallies in various Trump states, even choosing to postpone introduction of his bill to create universal Medicare. That mobilization helped forge the remarkable unity of Democratic legislators in the House and Senate against the effort to repeal Obamacare, against the Republican budget, and more.

That mobilization also contributes directly to Trump’s continued decline in the polls, which now show record lows. Trump’s demented behavior helps, of course, but it is remarkable that with unemployment at 4.3 percent, the stock market setting records, and the president’s uncanny ability to dominate the news, he’s losing ground even among his core voters.

Brain Dead?

Democrats would be brain dead and without a pulse if they didn’t have a major debate about the way forward now.

Trump’s stunning victory was, as Andrew Bacevich writes, invoking Thomas Jefferson, a “fire bell in the night.” As he puts it, “It is a consequence, not the cause,” of the “collapse of the post–Cold War consensus.” The core establishment consensus—on corporate defined globalization, on policing the world, on neoliberal economic policies—has failed most Americans.

In this century, we’ve had two “recoveries” under two presidents—one Republican and one Democratic—that haven’t reached most Americans. Inequality is at obscene extremes.

The human costs of social decay are clear: declining life expectancy, teen suicide, record incarceration, an opioid epidemic, and rising obesity. The failure to invest in decent schools or even core infrastructure is crippling. Trump called out that failure—and enough Americans voted for him, even though most thought he didn’t have the temperament or the experience to be president.

More of the same will not work. Yet Republicans seem intent on peddling their same old supply-side snake oil. Some establishment Democrats seem mainly content to recycle the Obama agenda. They argue that Trump is just a black swan—an accident.

Sure, Hillary won a majority of the votes cast, Trump and Republican approval is in the pits, and Democrats are exceeding past performance in all the special elections. Depending on Trump’s toxicity alone to mobilize Democrats might suffice to pick up seats, perhaps even take back the House in 2018, but it won’t begin the hard process of forging a broad consensus on an agenda that would actually make this economy work for most Americans.

It won’t begin to build a consensus for a real security agenda that extracts us from wars without end and without victory. And it won’t begin to create a mandate for the public investment and political reforms needed to deal with America’s spreading social crisis.

Entrenched interests, policy gurus, political operatives, and big money all have a significant stake in defending business as usual. If Democrats are to meet the promise their leaders made in their “Better Deal” platform to put forth a bold agenda that works for working people, a fierce debate isn’t pernicious. It is utterly imperative.

The Record Is Clear

Politically, the Democratic establishment has been an abject failure.

The scope of Democratic reversals over the last eight years is staggering. Hillary’s loss was only the last insult. Democrats have lost everywhere—the Senate, the House, and in state legislature.s, and governor’s mansions. Since Obama was elected in 2008, Democrats have slowly lost the House and the Senate, and over 1,000 state legislative seats. The Republican party can now claim 34 governors, a record high for the party. Republicans are in full control in 26 states; Democrats in six.

The New York Times reported on the party fight in an article entitled: “Democratic Split Screen: The Base Wants it All; the Party Wants to Win.” The basic theme was the activist “base” of the party—which the authors mistakenly equated with the Sanders movement—wanted a revolution, while the party pros just wanted to use this moment to win elections. 

But, given the track record, clearly the party pros don’t have much of a clue on how to win elections, much less forge a lasting majority coalition. There is no show worthy of applause. The consultant class has too big a stake in television ads, and too little awareness of the importance of passion and mobilization. The pros assume an electorate that can’t be changed.

Democrats, fixated on the “rising American majority,” believe demography is their destiny, but as the Clinton campaign demonstrated, they fail even at reaching and mobilizing what they know is the Democratic base—African Americans, particularly older African-American women, the young, Latinos, and single women.

They’ve done a miserable job even of protecting the right to vote in the face of relentless Republican efforts to suppress it. Given the results of the last election, Stan Greenberg’s conclusion—that Democrats don’t have a white working-class problem, they have a working-class problem—is indisputable.

So the party pros’ claim to authority based on experience—“We know how to do this”—has no traction. If they want to build power, Democrats will have to change their agenda, their message, the way they raise money, the way they reach out to their base, the way they seek to mobilize and inspire voters.

Everyone talks change now, but the same consultants, the same pros, the same operatives close ranks to sustain their careers and build their fortunes. Displacing them—or getting them to change dramatically—will again not be easy.

Movements, Not Politicians

Our media personalizes political debates. Sanders against Clinton, Sanders-Warren against Booker-Harris-Cuomo. And no doubt political leaders looking ahead to 2020 presidential race work to organize ideas, activists, and money to define a political identity.

But this debate is largely driven by movements and activists on the ground. The $15.00 minimum wage is becoming a Democratic party consensus, and with it a range of measures to lift the floor under workers: fair hours, paid family leave, paid vacation days, overtime, and a crackdown on wage theft.

This happened largely because of the political movement of workers, significantly organized by SEIU and Change to Win, demanding a decent wage. The revolt on trade, culminating in the rejection of Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership, was driven by popular outrage and mobilization forcing politicians (and, more grudgingly, economists) to respond.

The remarkable mobilizations of Black Lives Matter forced criminal-justice reform onto the agenda. The fight over abortion and Planned Parenthood is driven by engaged activists. The demand for “Medicare for All” is propelled by a growing movement, anchored by the National Nurses United and the Sanders campaign.

In the wake of 2016, the energy coming out of the Bernie Sanders’s insurgent primary campaign adds an important new impetus. Insurgent presidential campaigns—McGovern, Jackson, Dean, Obama—unleash energy. They bring new activists into the party; they build the demand for reforms; they challenge old leaders and entrenched ways of doing business.

Sanders helped to rouse a new generation and bring them in remarkable numbers into electoral politics. In states and counties across the country, new activists are organizing to take over party councils. They are recruiting and supporting insurgent candidates. They are demanding changes in everything from party rules to the platform to how the money gets raised and where it gets spent. Not surprisingly, this leads to bruising, and often bitter divisions and fights.

The outcome is fraught: The party could be transformed. The entrenched could fend off the interlopers. The party could divide and split apart. But bemoaning this battle is like decrying the rising of the sun. People are engaged and the demand for change is real. Even if he wanted to, Sanders couldn’t shut this down—and he has every reason to want to build this battle for the future of the party.

Is 2018 At Stake?

With bitter fights over agenda, party committees and structure, and myriad primary challenges, some people worry Democrats will be unable to come together to take advantage of Republican failures to win back the House in 2018. The looming next election is always used as a club to limit dissent, to reassert regular order, to suppress new ideas.

No one can predict 2018. Will the economy continue to generate jobs, finally leading to wage increases? Will Trump lead us into a global catastrophe?

We do know that Trump will help mobilize Democrats, liberals, progressives, and activists. We know that liberal money is likely to match what exists on the right. We know that taking back the majority is an uphill climb. Gerrymandering has dramatically limited the number of contested districts. Voter suppression laws will have even greater scope. Congressional Republicans now earn record low favorability; Democrats aren’t much better. 

But with Democrats at their nadir, in need of new ideas, new strategies, new thinking and new energy, the call for coming together in 2018 cannot and should not suppress the much-needed and necessarily fierce battle over the party’s direction, future and leadership.

When the Tea Party movement began challenging establishment Republicans, Republicans lost some Senate seats that they might have won. Sanctimonious leaders like Eric Cantor were unceremoniously rejected in primaries. Reports of the party’s tearing itself apart were ubiquitous. Yet Republicans enjoy more electoral success than any time in the last half-century. Their internal divisions may make it hard to govern, but they don’t get in the way of winning elections.

There are fundamental questions to be decided. Democrats are lucky that at this point the debate is taking place within the party as well as without. The cost of suppressing this debate will be far greater than the costs of waging it.