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Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Sirota at his TMI site, (in need of paying subscribers to keep up the effort, so pay heed), publishes two items of interest.

 Sirota, himself, authors one of the items dated Aug 24, "Corporate Dems Want You To Shut Up While They Get Loud -- Progressives are told to keep quiet until after the election — meanwhile, corporate Dems are blasting out divisive ideological messages that could demoralize Democratic voters and depress turnout."

The second is authored by Walter Bragman, "Joe Kennedy Touted Commission That Proposed Social Security & Medicare Cuts -- The Democratic Senate challenger lauded the Simpson-Bowles proposal as “the right blueprint forward.”

No excerpting of the Joe Kennedy item, read it all at Sirota's site, but the first item does mention a pain-in-the-ass clucking former Obama advisor and former Chicago mayor, now a direct rather than covert servant of the rich:

Indeed, at the very moment many good progressives are blunting their criticism and making clear that defeating Trump is of utmost importance, Corporate Democrats aren’t being asked to wait or hold their tongues. In fact, they are doing the opposite: Rahm Emanuel — who has been advising Biden — just went on television to show that the corporate wing of the party is intent on using the stretch run of the Most Important Election Of Our Lifetime™ not to doggedly focus on actually winning the election, but to instead try to predetermine post-election policy outcomes. 

Emanuel and his ilk depict themselves as evincing a non-ideological “just win, baby” attitude. But they are most decidedly pushing a very clear corporate ideology — and they are doing so in dangerously divisive ways that could depress the big turnout that’s desperately needed to defeat Trump. 

‘There’s No New Green Deal, There’s No Medicare For All’

The larger dynamic at play was exemplified by Emanuel’s television appearance on a CNBC segment dubbed “Democrats 2020 Agenda: What’s at stake for business?” As progressives are being told to keep quiet and not even so much as tweet their concerns, Emanuel used the platform to demand that during this health care and climate emergency, a prospective Biden administration must reject the two major initiatives that polls show are popular.

“Two things I would say if I was advising an administration,” said Emanuel, who left the Chicago mayoralty in disgrace after his city officials suppressed a video of the police murder of a teenager. “One is no there’s no new Green Deal, there’s no Medicare For All, probably the single two topics that were discussed the most. That’s not even in the platform.”

Rather than give individual links for each item, simply go to Sirota's site's opening page, which solicits paying subscribers to keep the effort alive:

 https://sirota.substack.com/

If you've money you are not sending to incumbent Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey who is running against young Kennedy's deeply funded austerity binge, use it to subscribe to Sirota, or do both.  Consider that Kennedy while preaching austerity especially aimed at the elderly, had ol' Nancy Pelosi endorse the whippersnapper against one almost of her age, with better thinking than her.

And do note that Pelosi did that endorsement against an incumbent of her own party. Kennedy is well connected and can rain cash into conservative-Dem political causes - but surely Pelosi has higher reasons than mammon for making her curious choice. Such as not liking Markey's policy because it is more progressive than things Pelosi donors want. The donors are her constituency. 

Markey supports Green New Deal and Medicare for All; unlike the former Obama guy, Rham E., who gloats over Biden dodging any support for either of those two extremely popular policy proposals. Biden, Emanuel, Pelosi - will Trump-hate stuff (see the below video) put out without mention of Biden and without including any issues and policy position helpful for US have enough steam to push ol' Joe across the finish line ahead of Trump?

Or will he need turnout from progressives and the young, blocs he ignores or even disdains, to not be Hillary II in losing to Donald J. Trump? It is getting late for the Biden-Harris ticket and its backers to keep giving the middle finger to progressives and the young while expecting a win without either of those largely overlapping blocs.