Short answer: Student loan forgiveness is what's been lost. Somehow, Biden presides, w/o any attention to that campaigning issue. Surprised?
An excerpt:
As of this year, one in four Americans — nearly 45 million people — have student debt, and U.S. college students and graduates collectively hold over $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. In Minnesota, 900,000 people carry student loan debt, owing an average of $31,250 in federal and private student debt.
With these numbers, it’s no surprise
that canceling student debt has become a calling card for Democrats;
during his 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to cancel $10,000 in student debt per borrower once he became president.
That hasn’t happened, though Biden
did extend a moratorium on student loan payments during the COVID-19
pandemic, forgave billions of dollars in federal student loans and
committed to improving public service loan forgiveness programs. Beyond
that, Biden has said that he thinks Congress, not the president, has the
power to totally cancel student debt.
Glide and Slide - the old DC way of selective memory, and selective views of who can do what (presuming there is sufficient will to try). MinnPost subheadlined its item:
Even if Biden did what progressives are
calling for, experts say it would do little to change the larger
structural issues with post-secondary education in the U.S.
What structural issues? First, in the Crabgrass queue, the answer is not to keep young people off the labor market four years longer (two years for community college) by letting a subsidized program degenerate into four more years of high school, come one, come all. It could. Then a four year degree would mean little, unlike it being a sign of academic chops, today, from most universities (indeed, even now, we could discount "remote learning" PhD degrees from dubious outlets - hello Marcus B. - where things can slip to paying, writing a dissertation likely to go unread by any scholar, with the thing accredited, somehow, by some body which some State government (Ohio?) grants slack to, politics always having its answers). But digressions aside, MinnPost's item, again:
Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District
Rep. Ilhan Omar [...] .joined several other
progressive lawmakers in sending a letter
to President Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging the
administration to release a memo assessing whether it has the authority
to cancel student debt through executive or administrative action.
“We know that there are 45 million
Americans that are shackled with student loan debt, and the average
amount of debt is more than $30,000,” Omar said. “I truly believe that
it’s important for us to cancel student debt in its totality, because
it’s going to help give Minnesota families and, you know, families
across this country the opportunity to pursue their dreams of
homeownership or opening a business and starting their lives.”
In
April, the White House promised it would release the memo in a matter
of weeks. But six months have passed since then. And though the
progressive lawmakers have yet to hear back from Biden (their deadline
for a response was last Friday), Cardona said on Tuesday that examining loan forgiveness is a “priority” for Biden.
Right up there with getting regular monthly pedicures might be an equal Biden priority. Or assuring everyone says "Dr. Jill" is one of Joe's priorities.
How f***ing prior is a priority, one might ask, the answer being "One of degree, not kind."
Excerpting further:
In their letter to Biden and Cardona,
Omar and the other progressives wrote that federal student debt could
be canceled with the “flick of your pen.”
To lawmakers like Omar, the issue of
student debt is not just economic. “If you look at Minnesota, we know
that while thousands of people have been struggling economically, the
disparities within the people of color and Indigenous folks is a dire
situation,” Omar said.
According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics,
Black and African American college graduates owe an average of $25,000
more in student loan debt than white college graduates. Four years after graduation,
48 percent of Black students owe an average of 12.5 percent more than
they borrowed and 29 percent face monthly student loan payments of $350
or more.
Dr. Dominique Baker, assistant
professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University, said
that divide comes from the racial discrimination that has been baked
into American life for hundreds of years.
“For centuries, we created policies
in our country that brought us to this point where Black individuals
tend to rely more on student loans,” Baker said. “And at that same time,
once they’ve taken out the loan, they face a discriminatory labor
market, and our discriminatory society is such that they struggle more
with being able to make their payments.”
[...] Baker also pointed out that a common
misconception surrounding student debt is that it only affects younger
people. While [...] older adults are also taking out significant Parent Plus loans, which
are federal student loans available to the parents of dependent undergrads.
“A lot of parent borrowers and about
15 percent of my clients are over the age of 55, and most of them will
have Parent Plus loans, and they are not able to retire because of the
amount of debt they have,” said Jan Miller, president of Miller Student
Loan Consulting.
[...]
So, without making a college degree as inconsequential as a high school degree now is, what you gonna do? Call ghost busters? Cheapening a university degree already exists, with too easy accreditation for suspect programs happening today. Having more of the same is nobody's answer to nothing. "Bethel University" simply fails to ring the bell the way Stanford, MIT, Yale or even Howard, Case-Western Reserve, or Carelton College rings the bell of actual academic credibility and gravitas. It ain't the big leagues. Never will be. Ditto, "Liberty University." Four years and a piece of paper might open doors, depending on who issued the paper page you end up holding. It can be in Latin, or English, or in another language, but the question has to always be which institution issued it and how high are standard there (And yes, Jarad Kushner holds a Harvard BA degree like his brother's, dad apparently getting a two-for for twenty five million into the school's endowment fund). The beat goes on.
________UPDATE_______
Joe Manchin has a degree. Mark Zuckerberg does not. Proving you can be an asshole, degree or not. Per NYT -
With the post-pandemic evolution of what's been called "The Great Resignation," it is time to salute the labor movement, and consider a future.
Without commentary or excerpting, two links, here and here. Readers are encouraged to do their own web search, or to talk to friends about the work week and options.
Link. No excerpt. The item is short and the news likely to percolate to mainstream. (That is said with no MSM, so far, noted by Crabgrass to have reported the detail.)
Expedited review includes the cases being "scheduled for oral argument on Nov. 1."
Reading of that was news to me.
UPDATE: Mainstream coverage is out. E.g., Seattle Times carries AP report, headlined,
Speed of Texas abortion cases has few high court precedents
Apparently no one is going to challenge the social spending bill gutted clean of progressive priorities by corrupt conservatives, led by Manchin and Sinema in the Senate and Gottheimer, Schrader, Case, et al in the House.
(And Biden seems happy with the package, as fundamental change.)
Klein's headlining of the post was even more judgmental.
New story? Progressives caved.
UPDATE - Biden is hurting everybody by calling this gutted shell of a bill "historic" and by saying Congress make-up after the 2022 election hinges on passing the damned stripped down shell - think, rusted auto body, some windows left unbroken, with motor and transmission already removed, that's the Biden pride and joy and Manchin along with some others walked the plank to meet what Biden/Harris really intended.
Bernie, not Biden, represents the heart and brains of the Democratic Party. The Schumers in both Houses of Congress, they want a body having no heart or brain, their donors want that, and the Schumers above all want happy donors - it being the politics of serving their constituency.
Or that's roughly the kind of impression Strib's report leaves with me.
Surely a less cynical reader would see things differently, so follow the link and see if you are less cynical.
Just wanting to see that children are raised right on the public's dollar? Or something else, (but of course equally well-intentioned and respectful of public money taxed to be spent on public purposes and not end up as privately pocketed pork).
What we can wonder, since it's not in the report, was this bright idea Swanson's first, or Fletcher's, i.e., who sold what to whom?
The fast-moving developments put Democrats closer to a
hard-fought deal, but battles remain as they press to finish the final
draft in the days and weeks ahead.
"Let's get this done," Biden exhorted.
"It will fundamentally change
the lives of millions of people for the better," he said about the
package, which he badly wanted before the summits to show the world
American democracy still works.
Without cause to believe that exchange did not happen, we presume it did, and then why not presume Francis was talking past Biden to some U.S. Catholic bishops?
To say Francis does not suffer fools well and yet cordially met Joe Biden is to overlook that Francis has to suffer the worse of his U.S. Catholic bishops.
We are fortunate that Francis is an apolitical Pope, yes/no?
UPDATE: Breitbart. However bad some might want to paint Facebook, some exist to accord Facebook lesser evil status in one-on-one comparisons.
Strib carrying an AP report of Facebook doing a dinky rebrand.
Some of Facebook's biggest critics seemed unimpressed by
the name change. The Real Facebook Oversight Board, a watchdog group
focused on the company, announced that it will keep its name.
"Changing their name doesn't
change reality: Facebook is destroying our democracy and is the world's
leading peddler of disinformation and hate," the group said in a
statement. "Their meaningless name change should not distract from the
investigation, regulation and real, independent oversight needed to hold
Facebook accountable."
In explaining the rebrand,
Zuckerberg said the name Facebook no longer encompasses everything the
company does. In addition to the social network, that now includes
Instagram, Messenger, its Quest VR headset, its Horizon VR platform and
more.
"Today we are seen as a
social media company," Zuckerberg said. "But in our DNA we are a company
that builds technology to connect people."
The words connect and exploit have different meanings.
His holding a press conference to pontificate about his dislike of the police reform referendum was outside of his duty, and offensive. The complaint filed about it, BRAVO. He should be disciplined for overstepping his authority.
NY Post headlines, "Trump to headline NRCC fundraiser in November with eye on 2022," with that item beginning:
Former President Donald Trump is slated to attend a National
Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser in Tampa in early
November, marking his first event with the House GOP’s campaign arm this
cycle, two sources on the NRCC’s conference call confirmed to The
Post.
NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) announced that the former president
will headline the event during a call with members on Tuesday.
Republicans have been bullish
about their odds on flipping back the House of Representatives, with
House saying they see Trump playing a key role in their efforts to pick
up seats.
So, when you are Emmer in Trump's shadow never lose sight of the old standby. Sling mud at Pelosi.
Value and trust evaluations are always subjective - in the eye of the beholder.
Behold Trump and Emmer in their party with their newspapers where everybody there sez "Pelosi is not popular."
What has that got to do with how the Republicans are trying to stall and defeat some popular things Biden sez he wants done? That being the real issue, how to react? If it is unpopular to oppose what is popular, then shut up about opposition and dump another load on Nancy. That is a bit disingenuous of our Republican friends. But typical. Not that Nancy deserves a free pass from progressives, where she's not anchored at all, but the Republicans call her "socialist" and that's something they possibly believe even while there is not a shred of evidence she has even a single socialist bone in her body.
The Republicans repeat lies so often that Trump saying he won the election seems to be earning status among Republicans as a candidates' litmus test. Gotta say Trump's right about that, to have a chance in the GOP. Barriers exist to be surmounted, and Republicans are climbing all over agreement with Trump's whining.
Forget that. Look at how they are a force against good, in both Houses of Congress. Emphasize that. Repeatedly.
That is where the news is. Not in a GOP poll saying anything about Pelosi where you know they can rig their internal polling any way they choose.
Cut to the heart of things. Let GOP voices try diversionary tactics. Strategically, they are in total lockstep against even moderate progressive proposals which have overwhelming popular appeal.
BOTTOM LINE: KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid.
While Manchin and Sinema each is against helping people who aren't rich, and they have House Dem cohorts, there surely are details which the above KISS image glides and slides past, However, for the truth of what it says, the image resoundingly stands on a sound and true - and worrisome - foundation.
Can't the Republicans give an inch, for the people? For US? How can they collectively be so mean? And nasty. Diversionary tactics and all.
Commentary from years ago about dead-end jobs working for morons - we have all had at least one job like that, and if it was yours when the pandemic developed, you may be a part of the extensive workforce reequilibration movement as is happening these days, and for you, this - via Johnny Paycheck -
Next, this link, Reich suggests the oligarchs are steadfast and aggressive in wanting to derail Build Back Better change; or to trim it, thus "incredibly shrinking" it. He wrote:
It’s easy to blame the two holdout senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten
Sinema, who have demanded that Biden’s ambitious plan be whittled back.
But they’re not alone. Some other Democratic senators have quietly
assured their biggest financial backers that the package would be far
smaller. And remember: Not a single Republican in the Senate will
support any of it, and most Republicans in the House are opposed.
Look
behind all of them and what do you see? The American oligarchy – the
CEOs of America’s largest corporations, the billionaire class, the
inhabitants of Wall Street, and the platoons of Washington operators and
influence-peddlers on their payrolls. For six months, the oligarchy has
been waging all-out war on Biden’s plan.
Why?
Not simply because the oligarchs don’t want to pay more taxes (the
super-rich pay little or no taxes as it is). There’s a deeper reason.
They oppose social programs that give average working Americans more
security. They want working people to be insecure. Insecurity
leads to a more tractable workforce. A tractable workforce accepts low
pay and lousy jobs, which leaves more for top executives and big
investors.
My warning to the oligarchy: There’s more
anti-establishment anger in America today than at any time in the last
century. Some of that anger fueled Donald Trump’s vicious racist
nationalism, and continues to do so. Some of it fueled Bernie Sanders’s
reform candidacy, and progressives remain the the most energized part of
the Democratic Party.
Four weeks paid leave is better than no
paid leave, and $1.75 trillion for social infrastructure is better than
nothing. The question is whether it’s enough. Americans want better pay
and more economic security. The oligarchy wants them to be insecure,
which will only stoke more anger. If that anger finds its ways into
constructive reforms, we’ll all be the better for it. But if those
reforms are stymied, that anger could threaten everything in coming
years: our economy, our democracy, our future.
That’s my view. What do you think?
I think Reich hits the nail on the head. That "make 'em insecure, get 'em on payments, and they become more pliant" mentality is exactly what Biden displayed back when "bankruptcy reform" made it impossible to get bankruptcy relief on student debt; back when Biden had Senate power and when students were protesting instead of docile. Fuck 'em and fead 'em beans. That's another way to say it.
That remains my key Biden image, and he surely seems amenable to his fronting team, Manchin, Sinema, and House Blue Dogs going chop, chop, chop to where he's not the first one blamed and he skates, while the people take a hit - with nothing fundamentally changed. Trust Joe? Once the dust settles and something gets passed, where the money ends up will be non-transparent, and while half a loaf logic prevails, it is still only half a loaf. And if it is chopped to a half-slice, enjoy, Crabgrass might just publish "I told you so."
If anything ends up passed, it is better than Trump's sole accomplishment, lowering taxes on the wealthy and their business activities, corporate and otherwise, which was an accomplishment in the eyes of the 0.1% and a poke with a sharp stick in the eye for each and every jackass who voted for him. Against the Clintons, okay, voting against them did have its necessity - but after four years, jackasses still, go figure.
Trump as good as those he pardoned. Had to go.
Yes, Biden/Harris was an egregious offering, indefensibly so, but Trump/Pence had proven worse. The inner party Dems did us all in, and that betrayal starts with Clyburn.
Bernie would have decisively won, 2016 and 2020 - WITH COATTAILS.
Biden squeaked in, 2020, sans coattails.
And all that stuff is precisely why the Schumers and Clyburns and Pelosis of the Dem Party deserve scorn after they did US and Bernie in. The Clintons and Podesta brothers on the 2020 sidelines smug about the fraud being foisted off on US, that is reality.
Warren during primary time being done in also. It is why Build Back Better "reform" will only be half-assed and inadequate, even as a bandaid. And why the Dem Party will have hard-sell times, 2022.
Of course, when physicians and hospitals are rewarded for
doing more (rather than doing better), that's exactly what they do.
They buy and advertise multimillion-dollar surgical robots that barely
move the needle on patient outcomes, and they recommend pricy treatments
that often prove ineffective. In fact, a study found 1 in 4 health care
dollars is wasted.
In contrast to
fee-for-service, some of the nation's highest-ranking health care
providers rely on an alternative reimbursement model called
"capitation." From the Latin caput, meaning "head," capitation refers to
a "per-head fee." In practical terms, it works like this: A payer
(insurance company or self-funded business) gives a group of doctors and
hospitals a fixed, annual, per-patient sum, paid upfront for all health
care services rendered each year.
At Kaiser Permanente, a large
health care system where I served as a CEO for 18 years, capitation
helped our clinicians curb wasteful spending, lower medical costs and
achieve the nation's No. 1 quality rating from both the National
Committee for Quality Assurance and Medicare. When physicians have
incentives to do better (rather than do more), that's what they do. They
achieve higher rates of medical prevention, reduce complications from
chronic disease and commit fewer medical errors.
As a result, patients who
receive care through organizations like Kaiser Permanente are 30% to 50%
less likely to die from heart attack, stroke and colon cancer than
patients in the rest of the nation. If every health care provider in the
U.S. matched even the low end of those results, we'd not only save
billions of dollars annually, but we'd also save more than a
quarter-million American lives each year.
The benefits of capitation
don't end there. Prepaid health systems also have natural incentives to
invest in "non-traditional" health care programs, aimed at addressing
the social determinants of health, thus providing the kinds of public
health benefits seen in nations like Norway and the Netherlands.
In Pennsylvania, Geisinger
Health provides patients with free transportation to doctors'
appointments to remove the barriers to obtaining medical care. Geisinger
also runs a weekly food program for patients with diabetes, offering
fresh fruits, vegetables, lean meats and whole grains to bolster healthy
eating habits.
Mount Sinai's Urban Health
Institute sends community health workers to the homes of asthma patients
to help address environmental triggers of the disease, such as dust and
secondhand smoke.
Finally, leaders at Kaiser
Permanente recently partnered with leaders in the Oakland community to
invest $25 million in housing for the homeless because they understand
that reliable shelter is essential for better health.
Some views among capitalists focus on worker fungibility, experience, and cost with the ever present maximization of profit being the measure of "success." Davocrats, the Davos elite, mouth other platitudes, but capitalism has delivered two World Wars (Europeans doing their thing, the US of A gaining the profits), while the Manhattan Project was indicative of a wartime power of capital controlling a nation toward perfection of a weapon to make prior war look like mere debate. Not a good record for European capitalism, and possibly there is a better way; with "Replacement" Angst being attached to neo-capitalist experimentation, globally, called a New World Order with nothing new to it. Put a new dress on the whore, and still a whore, so what has capitalism to say for war being an arm of diplomatic contesting for market dominance - successful capitalism - as a sign of national well being? Perhaps the Davos thing about unification of populations worldwide, with mobility of persons aiding homogenization of labor pools hither and yon, may prove a success. Perhaps, however, it may be a Pandora's Box of bad policy; with a compelling entropy against undoing what currently is being engineered zealously.
Perhaps war is not the bastard child of capital against capital, between nations, and homogenization of populations will lessen nuclear war possibilities, but perhaps not, and nonetheless the homogenization effort seems prevalent, while being tested and being uncertain of whether the engineering's leading to good or bad. Other alternatives get left off the table, capital making and enforcing its rules. Meanwhile, we see "white nationalism" arising among many distanced from holding much capital, disgruntled over their lot, and blaming when channeled to do so, others who also lack capital and power and are non-white.
Divide and conquer is nothing new, and not unique to capital's preeminence today, but simply a tool used to effect. We live in interesting times. Since 1789.
________UPDATE_______
A word about the two parts of this post, where capitalism is in control either way, but government can make the game more sound, by policy. That is what the good doctor is saying. High cost pill-pushing will continue to be too much the norm so long as those entrusted with health of populations have the system rigged to reward high-cost pill pushing regardless of effectiveness or waste. Still, an alternative regulation of capital uses, the Doctor's "capitation" answer, remains hung high on capitalism being its own answer; with tinkering. That is a questionable premise. And why the one thought begat the other. Is capitation a policy bandaid? Or an insight that will better the lot of a nation spending foolishly high on low efficiency medicine. And if that, bettering the lot of currently abused patient populations, why would anyone think it is better in any sense than stronger regulation of those allowed to make well above average livings off the distress of the rest of us? Open up med school enrollments as a day-one step, and find out if de-bottlenecking the way the present restricted-access operation creates a false scarcity of healthcare, that step might change things for the better, be the parallel adaption be capitation, or remain fee for service. The notion there is one magic step is a path to ignoring other steps. Generating more healthcare providers for a population, percentage wise, seems to have worked in Cuba, and one should wonder who would not want it to work here.
Questioning motivations behind a status quo is inherently healthy, and too frequently ignored. Perhaps an insight is that capitation is better than decapitation, since the latter results in final solutions which come with problems attached. One may argue that decapitation, 1789 and onward, really fixed nothing. Yet it was done with the best of intentions. In some instances. A different elite replaced aristocracy, but it remained some few living well higher than the many, that being a key aspect of how healthcare is being delivered in the US today.
Strib seems to favor printing anti-referendum stuff. Most recently, the chief, chief, what about the chief? Here. This atop the online page today, with Smith's equally prominently featured item from Oct. 19. Re: Editorial choice and slants, bless MSM.
First, Smith item start and finish:
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said Tuesday she will vote no on the
Minneapolis policing ballot measure dividing prominent Democrats more
than a year after the police killing of George Floyd.
"After many conversations, I
have concluded that Amendment #2 does not address the core public safety
challenges we face, and may well move us in the wrong direction," Smith
said in a statement.
If Minneapolis voters approve
the measure in the city's Nov. 2 election, the city could replace the
Minneapolis Police Department with a new public safety agency. Fellow
Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who, like Smith, lives in
Minneapolis, opposes the ballot question along with DFL Gov. Tim Walz.
But Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar,
two Democrats who both live in the city, are openly backing the measure.
"With the murder of George
Floyd, Minneapolis became the epicenter of a global reckoning around
racial justice and police brutality," Smith said Tuesday.
[...] While Smith said she didn't support defunding the police, she emphasized that policing needed to be reformed.
Smith's Tuesday announcement comes just two weeks before Election Day. Smith said she "wrestled" with her vote on the question.
"While there is much I agree
with in the amendment, one component poses an insurmountable problem —
the requirement that the new Department of Public Safety report to both
the mayor and the City Council," Smith said.
She cited her own background
in local government, working as chief of staff for then-Minneapolis
Mayor R.T. Rybak. Smith said her City Hall experience "tells me that
this change will exacerbate what is a deeply flawed city governance
structure, where accountability, authority and lines of responsibility
between the mayor and City Council are diffused and dysfunctional."
"I believe imposing this
dysfunctional structure for public safety would likely have a negative
effect on public safety and the operations of the police department,"
Smith said.
Readers are left to find on their own - was Smith's tenure with Rybak at the same time Klobuchar was County Attorney and never during years ever prosecuted police brutality? The status quo allows for too little public scrutiny and input into how police behave; while the union remains strong on defending good/bad/mediocre cops as its vision of duty to one another. Opinions can differ, but a multi-person council seems more responsive to community voices than a boss mayor. Diffusing authority and responsibility might allow more scrutiny, the more the better, since internal affairs investigations never seem to find dischargeable conduct, finding excuses and silence as a best alternative. Put otherwise, how many cops has internal affairs fired, if you know? If you don't know, then the problem seems bigger than if there were sunshine on police officer discipline decision making.
Tight organization leads to maintenance of a comfortable status quo, for the insiders. Tina Smith liked having Rybak to answer to, rather than having to answer to each councilmember - which might have been good for Smith but less good for a community facing police weight on the neck, so to speak.
Smith, Frey, Klobuchar, and Walz each stamp law and order AND CONTINUITY over innovation with a less certain outcome than continuity, their friend.
Smith, appointed to the Senate by Mark Dayton, the man elected on the mantra, "Tax the Rich," which proved to be a slogan and not a keen intent. Same old, with Smith chief of staff.
NEXT - Here is how Strib, online this morning, featured its hail to the chief -
click image to enlarge and read
Freedom of the Press is great! Just ask Glen Taylor. He owns one. Loves it.
My trust is with the councilmembers, over Frey and a lifetime cop together saying the status quo is what's best for cops and community. The council is fresher, it will create reform of executive functions and organization, which will then be another bureau, but one with reformed and renewed public oversight; for the good of all, not solely for the good of the insiders wanting maximum leeway and minimum accountability.
Think Bob Kroll. Vote for reform. Think George Floyd; his neck and Chauvin's heavy badge.
________UPDATE______
https://readsludge.com posted a few years ago an item mentioning Tina Smith.
Manchin also gets mentioned in that item.
______FURTHER UPDATE_______
Sniff around OpenSecrets details about Tina Smith; e.g., starting here, where a number of variables can be altered; but this link shows a suggestion that Tina would come down as not rocking any big boats. Investments in Tina Smith suggest she would not embrace any change from a status quo favorable to those who invested their money in her. As a bet, those corporations having their people investing in her would not want policing as currently done monkeyed around with in any material way; and lo, what conclusion has she reached on policing reform?
Link. Do not pass either bill, unless the peoples' bill is NOT SOLD OUT.
Manchin and Sinema are the Biden/Harris fig-leaves for SELLING US OUT.
Conveniently so. Carefully scripted. Allowing a Biden/Harris/Pelosi/Schumer foursome of deceit to voice a "Who Me? Not me. Joe and K." And they surely are telling that lie often - where often enough, it gets believed as truth.
Oppose fascism winning, or wish you had? Table scraps do not taste good.
Fascism is fascism, whether topped by a strong boss or a collective. One party touts strong boss, the other touts its collective. Stronger together? Either way surveillance is imposed, policing being armed in line with wealth dictating mercilessly while watching tirelessly.
Is Congress your friend? Or friend to somebody else? Or, consider, has Congress been divided, thereby conquered? Is Bloomberg your friend? How is the hedge fund in which you invested doing? No hedge fund - well, no matter, . . .
NYTimes, "M.I.T.’s Choice of Lecturer Ignited Criticism. So Did Its Decision to Cancel. - Dorian Abbot is a scientist who has opposed aspects of affirmative action. He is now at the center of an argument over free speech and acceptable discourse."
Breitbart, "Scientist’s Talk Canceled Because Experts Should Reflect Diversity: ‘Citational Justice’ Necessary."
Breitbart's post, under a lead photo, summarized its viewpoint:
A geophysicist and professor at the University of Chicago who was
scheduled to talk about climate change at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) was blocked from speaking after faculty members and
graduate students protested. The angry response was not because of the
content of his proposed speech but because Dorian Abbot, who is white,
has written in the past about his belief that while diverse selection
pools are a good thing, the best person should win the prize based not
on race but on merit.
NYT's item begins:
CHICAGO
— The Massachusetts Institute of Technology invited the geophysicist
Dorian Abbot to give a prestigious public lecture this autumn. He seemed
a natural choice, a scientific star who studies climate change and
whether planets in distant solar systems might harbor atmospheres
conducive to life.
Then a swell of
angry resistance arose. Some faculty members and graduate students
argued that Dr. Abbot, a professor at the University of Chicago, had
created harm by speaking out against aspects of affirmative action and
diversity programs. In videos and opinion pieces, Dr. Abbot, who is
white, has asserted that such programs treat “people as members of a
group rather than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made
possible the atrocities of the 20th century.” He said that he favored a
diverse pool of applicants selected on merit.
He
said that his planned lecture at M.I.T. would have made no mention of
his views on affirmative action. But his opponents in the sciences
argued he represented an “infuriating,” “inappropriate” and oppressive
choice.
On Sept. 30, M.I.T. reversed
course. The head of its earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences
department called off Dr. Abbot’s lecture, to be delivered to
professors, graduate students and the public, including some top Black
and Latino high school students.
“Besides
freedom of speech, we have the freedom to pick the speaker who best
fits our needs,” said Robert van der Hilst, the head of the department
at M.I.T. “Words matter and have consequences.”
Ever
more fraught arguments over speech and academic freedom on American
campuses have moved as a flood tide into the sciences. Biology, physics,
math: All have seen fierce debates over courses, hiring and
objectivity, and some on the academic left have moved to silence those
who disagree on certain questions.
A few fields have purged scientific terms and names seen by some as offensive, and there is a rising call for “citational justice,”
arguing that professors and graduate students should seek to cite more
Black, Latino, Asian and Native American scholars and in some cases
refuse to acknowledge in footnotes the research of those who hold
distasteful views. Still the decision by M.I.T., viewed as a high
citadel of science in the United States, took aback some prominent
scientists. Debate and argumentation, impassioned, even ferocious, is
the mother’s milk of science, they said.
“I
thought scientists would not get on board with the
denial-of-free-speech movement,” said Jerry Coyne, an emeritus professor
of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago. “I was absolutely
wrong, 100 percent so.”
Dr.
Abbot, 40, spoke of his shock when he was told his speech was canceled.
“I truly did not know what to say,” he said in an interview in his
Chicago apartment. “We’re not going to do the best science we can if we
are constrained ideologically.”
This
is a debate fully engaged in academia. No sooner had M.I.T. canceled
his speech than Robert P. George, director of Princeton’s James Madison
Program in American Ideals and Institutions, invited him to give the
speech there on Thursday, the same day as the canceled lecture. Dr.
George is a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance, which is
dedicated to promoting academic debate.
“M.I.T.
has behaved disgracefully in capitulating to a politically motivated
campaign,” Dr. George said. “This is part of a larger trend of the
politicization of science.”
The story
took another turn this week, as David Romps, a professor of climate
physics at the University of California, Berkeley, announced that he
would resign as director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center. He
said he had tried to persuade his fellow scientists and professors to
invite Dr. Abbot to speak and so reaffirm the importance of separating
science from politics.
“In my view, there are some institutional principles that we have to hold sacred,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.
Galileo was forced to recant, than let off the Roman Church's hook with that scolding.
How would Edward Teller, if still alive, fit into political correctness? Teller has been alleged to be the Dr. Strangelove model for the Peter Sellers movie character.
Worth reading, an online chapter excerpt from a book about where physics was politicized in National Socialist Germany. The beauty of real science is in part its being apolitical (where the term "political science" is a bastardization invented by hucksters to justify their being given faculty paychecks).
On Oct. 26, 2001, Congress passed the U.S. PATRIOT Act. As a member
of the U.S. Senate at the time, I cast the lone vote against it.
Twenty years of hindsight confirm that expanded government
surveillance comes at a steep price for civil rights, our democratic
legitimacy and marginalized populations. Congress has a unique
opportunity to begin the deconstruction of the surveillance state. It
should seize it.
The PATRIOT Act accelerated the nation’s move toward a surveillance
state like adding fuel to fire. It was passed by Congress within weeks
of the 9/11 attacks without adequate time to fully comprehend its
sweeping ramifications.
The act authorized widespread wiretapping and expanded the scope of
search warrants and subpoenas. Suddenly, the government had ample access
to our private communication and information.
As I feared, the power granted by the PATRIOT Act has not been used
exclusively, or even primarily, for counterterrorism. Instead, the act’s
provisions have been employed in the so-called war on drugs and against
political activists. And, as history foreshadowed, communities of color
have been disproportionately targeted by government surveillance.
The PATRIOT Act also represented a seismic shift in our democracy’s
checks and balances, to the benefit of the executive branch. I have
written before about how Congress ceded its national security
responsibilities after 9/11. Just as alarming is how the PATRIOT Act
hamstrung our judicial branch.
For example, Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act expanded the government’s
ability to access personal records held by third parties, including
doctors, librarians and internet service providers. And while a judge
must certify that the government has met the statute’s broad criteria,
the government does not have to show any evidence to back up its claim.
Instead, the judiciary must trust the government at its word.
[...] The Supreme Court’s conservative majority [...] underscores the need for Congress to act. The House and Senate’s inability to reach agreement last year on key portions of the USA Freedom Act presents an opportunity to rein in the surveillance state — an opportunity that could be pursued in tandem with Supreme Court reform.
Twenty years after the passage of the PATRIOT Act, Congress cannot begin the necessary process of dismantling the surveillance state fast enough.
That quote is from the start to near the end. The item is tightly written and well argued.
And really, what good has it, The Patriot Act, been; besides being costly in "protecting" the homeland from its homlanders? Privacy did not die but was only suspended. Correction only requires the will of Congress. Awake them. Educate them. They may act.
________UPDATE_______
What if they are running a NWO
replacement scam, rather than indolently asleep? Were it so, Gotta surveil those you
are replacing? They could get restless. That's just good sense?
Means
follow intent? Same as it ever was? A kind of people always at war with
one another, war scale escalating, that being their history while now
there are nukes? Globalize is the prize?
What if they're just entirely
mean and bought, and slovenly happy with a status quo avarice running and ruining our over-stressed earth?
Everything is a market? War a market? Peace the same? Study market forces? Beware of the blob?
What
if Davocracy is happening, covid being an experiment? A predicate event
for a reset? Testing the waters for a reset, or a replacement, great or
otherwise?
What blowback possibility would you not, if them, want survieled?
What if MTG is correct in what she says she believes? But does she really believe it? How do you know Trump didn't win? A media "Trust me" as cause to believe?
One thing is certain:
Clyburn can't grant you cred.
But isn't cred in the eye of the beholder? Cred, crud, a vowel of a difference? Or is that last question too cute, too coy?
All Crabgrass has is questioning. You have answers. However, please read a spectrum of stuff (and think it over) before being self-satisfied.
Story here, linking to earlier UN coverage, here, and to a very recent posting by the Intl. Committee of the Red Cross, here. So far, for whatever reasons, U.S. mainstream media have deemed the story to not be newsworthy.
Hate crimes are newsworthy. Criminals motivated by hate need to be curbed. Not just in the U.S. of A. but wherever they go about doing hateful things to other humans.
U.S. media coverage might be helpful so that our citizens can better understand things going on abroad.
It is cryptocurrency. This post starts by an admission of ignorance. Why does it exist, and why should I care, are questions I have yet to wrap my mind around. To me it is the tulip bulb thing of centuries ago.
Why are people doing this? Who knows? Crabgrass is dazed and confused about the entire Gestalt of it.
A websearch. If you can buy a Tesla with it, it is real, since a Tesla is real. But can you still buy a Tesla with it?
U.S. Federal Reserve notes - another fiat money, you can take to a Seattle pot shop and buy bud. Or edibles. Show up there with an iPhone talking bitcoin, and as likely as not the large gentleman who checks ID will escort you out of the shop.
Perhaps not, but that is the image in mind.
It is all based on trust, and on what tangible item you can exchange fiat money for, where tangibility is always a measure of actual clout.
Not a cryptocurrency holder, I do not know what it can be exchanged for, where, with tangible existence on the other side of the deal. Blockchain sounds like a neat techno thing, but so what?
Wikipedia, for anyone interested, here, here, here and here. Read each, and do you know any more than you did before seeing the links?
It seems to be an experiment in trust. Just like banking. As likely as not, conventional banking, central banks and all, consume less scarce energy than the whole of the cryptocurrency community, chasing what?
Take one state at random. Well, possibly not entirely at random, but one politician talks, another writes, and between them we see a range. While it arguably is a large range, recall the phrase: Never Forget.
Never Forget: Aside from that range. Every stinking Republican in the U.S. House and in the U.S. Senate is on point for GOP obstruction against the will of the people.
Not a one of them, so far, has stepped forward and said, "I support the will of the people to make people's lives better and more secure." NOT ONE!
They, not Joe Manchin, not Sen. Senima, are the BIG PROBLEM.
With eyes on the prize, never, never, never forget who the collective, concerted, and steadfast obstructionists are. Yes, two dem roadblock-bottleneck individuals are getting lots of press attention these days.
BUT THE PROBLEM IS THE OTHER HALF OF THOSE IN CONGRESS, WHO ARE ESCAPING DUE ATTENTION FOR BEING WHO THEY ARE.
IF BUT ONE OR A FEW OF THEM IN EACH HOUSE WERE TO HAVE GONE DECENT, BILLS WOULD ALREADY HAVE PASSED. AND THE NATION WOULD BE MOVING TO ADDRESS OTHER NEEDS AND AIMS. BECAUSE OF THE REPUBLICANS BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS ARE IN GRIDLOCK. FIX THINGS. VOTE THE OBSTRUCTIONISTS OUT. THEN GET GOOD THINGS DONE.
Having noted that which mainstream media sweeps under the rug, the true roadblocks' nature, there still is cause to look at Bernie and Manchin, and in your heart, to decide which is gold and which is dross.
Just don't let Republicans skate.They are the problem.
Crabgrass sentiments toward candidates who decline to identify issues and answers are comparable to what Klein at DWT already has written, so why try to reinvent the wheel. Read what he has posted.
Klein examines specific candidacies where a trend toward declining to have an ISSUES page is equivalent to a big, empty, "TRUST ME!" When that's the message, Should you? How gullible are you? (Two phrasings of the same question.)
Putting that question into a primary contest where one goes with issues, another goes with "Trust me," examine a pair of campaign presentations, and see how you feel.
Specifically, looking at one district, GA14, where MTG currently wears the fright wig, compare and contrast two Dem challengers Greene. This is very important, since MTG is known to stand for nothing but hysteria and fear mongering. So, Dems are different, right? Dems want to present level best thinking and attitude, a capacity to recognize challenges and form policies, right? Dems do not want puffery and consultant-scripted pablum, right?
is honest substance about rural revival. Northwest Gorgia needs. A family-first business woman facing rural needs of GA14, offered as such, no bells, no whistles, no cosmetic scripting, but substance. This
is a black guy posing in a black hat, no regional family ties shown while posed alone by the handlers against a good run of pristine barnwood. You read about his vision, and what you see is he does not like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Who does?
Vision? We don't need no stinking vision. Want to see a different view of the man?
Established politicians endorse him, even one from California, and yet, same barnwood, same cosmetic hat, same posture, same enigma, issue-wise.
He has an endorsements page. She has a platform page.
Not overly wordy, but: Issue by issue; plan by plan. He doesn't go there. He has bravado. But MTG has enough of that herself to where the voters might be growing tired of unthethered bravado.
The only place Flowers and his handlers thought to put a FAQs page is about his merchandising. She has a merchandising page, where she clearly defines it as a way to contribute, and posts notice of who can contribute, legally, to her campaign. Formatted clearly as an ActBlue page. He has slogans, all with a focus against MTG and not really for much else of any positive substance.
A well-traveled "merc" who might have been doing whatever, well paid in multiple foreign venues, paid and following orders. He could have guarded poppy fields, or been a convoy truck driver, or warehouse supervisor, he will not say. That vs a person whose life was in district, talking about needs of the district.
What she sees and what she'd work to improve are no mystery. One sells ego, the other sells perception and dedication. Or so it seems to Crabgrass, where opinions can differ.
Local press coverage, here and here, mostly about fundraising, and mostly commentary about Greene. No concerted effort to find local coverage was made by Crabgrass - those two items showed up per a generic search.
This "Join the Mission" video has to have thinking people ask, he says he is running on "personal character and self respect" but we expect that from any candidate, and beyond that what's he stand for? Consultants script his video, weave together film clips, a John Wayne stride included past a military aircraft; but who really is this guy? Pure bullshit, from a candidate noted as problematic, here and here. It seems as if the handlers of the candidate see GA14 as lacking thinking people, (probably because they sent MTG to Congress). But those two New Republic items raise questions which scripted bravado dialog fails to answer.
Donate to who you see as the sounder and better grounded candidate of the two. Or find a third GA14 candidate or do donations outside of there. It is just that MTG has to go. Yet an option is to wait post-primary and then fund the Dem winner.
Neither of these two, Flowers and McCormack, appeals to Crabgrass as a dedicated Democratic Socialist in the sense Bernie has defined the term. Not that such a persona would likely generate traction and win in GA14. But one of this contrasting pair has actual gravitas while the other is a "Trust me" anti MTG candidate, vocally and to the detriment of telling us more of who, exactly, we are looking at.
One concerning aspect, per this earlier one of the two National Review items, is that two mercs appear to have been expressly recruited to run against MTG and her like-minded Colorado attitude-kin, Rep, Bobert. As if some military psy-op person made the choice, send in macho mercs to eliminate two troublesome women in districts where mercs might sell well with the men folk.
Whether, how, and by whom this pair, one in Georgia the other in Colorado, were recruited is a question for which we ordinary people will never receive an answer. And if having one, would you trust wholly what anyone says about motivation behind that quaint pairing?
National Review looks to have nothing good to say about either of the "nat-sec bros" challenging strange incumbancies; while the entire world might have nothing at all good to say about either of the pair of wigged-out incumbents.
It is as if a "Fight fire with fire" mentality is at play in inserting two mercs into two parallel candidacies. Either way, any way, however recruited, the mood here is to wish Holly McCormack success while encouraging considerate readers to help fund her campaign, doing so as concerned politically aware individuals.
BOTTOM LINE: Why should GA14 vote out MTG for one who could well be as much a loose cannon as her? Put another way, of the two Dem primary candidates noted here which would you lend money to? Do the GA14 voters want a post-primary equivalent of a cage fight, or are they better than that, and want to replace a problem with a solution? Not disrespecting GA14 voter intelligence, the guess here is the family-oriented problem solver will prevail, even if less well funded, even if not being Hollywood-DC scripted and relying of DC consultant handling to set posturing norms, including clean spiffy photo-op barnwood lumber props and all.
Another viewpoint is that mercs are well paid to receive and follow orders while trusting the chain of command, and that should appeal to those funding and running Dem inner-party affairs.
Take the money and obey orders; could there be a better theme to make a Bloomberg-Democrat smile.
Hey - Soros could be behind things. Wait long enough, and some Republicans will suggest exactly that.
The post could be closed after that last paragraph. And it might be petty to go where this paragraph goes. But, the official next-to-flag-in-expensive-well-tailored-suit cliche Ballotpedia photo shows the man in a different light than the overly affected cowboy-image trope -
Holly McCormack's main website photo suggests a genuine what you see is what you get. No ambivalence, no posing, no contrivance, no consultant hand pulling image strings. Her image's background is much a part of the story.
LAST: That wedding ring in the above posted Flowers photo, is he married now or not? The New Republic hit piece (the one focused only on him) makes marital history and status an issue. (That NR item's lead photo shows Flowers' right hand deftly covering his left.)
(Although it makes no difference, you can find the McCormack video on her Ballotpedia page, the Flowers video on his ActBlue page)
This is the objective update to what has been, admittedly, an editorial.
The objective update is offered in belief that these two are the most likely Dem primary winners; and in belief that either would be superior to the incumbent (faint praise is nonetheless praise). MTG is an international embarrassment to the nation. Either of these candidates should be able to defeat her. However, as we've seen with Joe Biden, a candidate running as "having the best chance to defeat" is a candidate running a negative campaign, not one stressing positive attributes. With Biden, a better alternative was done in wrongly, so the hope is neither of these two conspires with others to rig things against the other via shady inner-party insiders playing favorites. If either is cozy with DNC or DCCC, I favor the other!
[Note - missing links and cleaning up text in the main body of the post was done after all was written and posted. No material alterations, just cleanup.]
_________FURTHER UPDATE_________
Newsweek - Does it seem to you Holly McCormack is getting a fair shake?
If you see her mentioned in passing - a mere afterthought - ask yourself who might be writing the lyrics to that outlet's song? MSM reposts the Newsweek item. Does it seem to you that either of the outlets really cares about policy? About the needs and views within the district about what will make life better, in district? Or is there a bit of over-leveraged new-sheriff-in-town love of Marcus? The problem-free candidate to take on MTG, who is not recognized too favorably but at least gets more attention than McCormack.
Is the DNC telling Newsweek who to feature and how? If not DNC, who?
Strib, local content, dated Oct. 14, "UnitedHealth Group's latest profit soars past $4 billion -- The Minnetonka-based health care giant raised earning guidance for the year as expectations for pandemic expenses held steady."
And Biden and other losers tell you, polish it, don't revise. It is like polishing a brass eagle on a massive door; it can be a fascist eagle, or not, but either way, same brass, same polish, same shine. Just, they are robbing us.
With four billion in profits - not earnings but profits - spending a few million to buy politicians in DC is chump change to those pirates.
So they do exactly that - Spend to Defend. After Obama sold us to them.
We need Medicare for All, pharma prices bargained down, clinic and hospital reform, and if we do not get it, know who the enemy is deserving solely scorn, without mercy.
They take the money and do not bite the hand feeding them money.
And in return? Not hard to guess.
Not an answer? Or perhaps an answer: Strib online has another item, an AP feed,
Quarreling Dems must put aside differences, Schumer warns
Schumer: Put aside decency and do as I say? That is Tom Waits singing you gotta get behind the mule, in the morning and plow. While wanting to watch others do that. His way. It becomes: Schumer's field of dreams needs plowing, you others, do the plowing.
In short: Schumer has to go. [linked per an update - somebody has to top every list]
Moving on -
Two links. First, a websearch yielding links that tell the truth.
"At a time when working families continue to struggle," he [Bernie] wrote, "poll after poll shows that the vast majority of the American people support the provisions in President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act. Some 88 percent believe we should lower the cost of prescription drugs, 84 percent believe we should expand Medicare to include dental care, hearing aids and eye glasses, 73 percent support establishing Paid Family and Medical Leave, and 67 percent want universal Pre-K. Further, 67 percent believe the federal government should raise taxes on high-income people and corporations to help pay for these desperately needed programs-- which is what this legislation does."
Before we get to the rest of his OpEd, I want to interject that yesterday CNN released new SSRS polling that finds overwhelming support for what Bernie and Pramila are trying to accomplish as they fight off the corrupt whores in both Houses of Congress who work for PhRMA and other greedy, selfish and anti-patriotic corporate entities. CNN's analysis shows that 75% of the Democratic Party's rank-and-file "prefer a bill that goes further to expand the social safety net and combat climate change over one that costs less and enacts fewer of those policies (20% favor a scaled-back bill). Support for an economic bill that enacts all of the proposed social safety net and climate change policies is broadest among liberal Democrats (84%), but two-thirds of moderates and conservatives in the party share that view (67%). Despite this relative agreement, the poll also suggests a near-even split among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents over which faction in this intraparty debate is doing more to help the party overall... Overall, 41% of Americans say they would rather see Congress pass an economic bill that enacts all of the proposed social safety net and climate change policies over one that enacts fewer of those policies and costs less. Thirty percent favor a scaled-down bill, and another 29% say they would like Congress to not pass any version of the bill, a sentiment driven largely by Republicans, 55% of whom would prefer to see the entire bill scrapped."
"So," asked Bernie, "given this overwhelming support, why is it taking so long for Congress to pass this bill? The answer is simple. Follow the money. As part of our corrupt, big-money dominated political system, the pharmaceutical industry is now spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying, campaign contributions and television ads to defeat this legislation because it does not want Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices. In order to increase their profits they want American taxpayers to continue paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for our medicine-- sometimes ten times more than the people in other countries."
------------------------------------
Bernie is quoted in detail in the remainder of Klein's post. You can read the quoting there, or you can follow the link to Bernie's op-ed, which is published online by FOX.
Last, Klein used this image, which has sufficient charm that it is "quoted" to the left (of course to the left, never to the right).
And, while reading the story, know two things: Bernie has to push hard, we all do, against others in the Democratic Party holding office and opposed to reform because they put personal greed first.
YET - IN CONTEXT - always remember while the Dems have bad apples in their bushel, ALL REPUBLICANS, both Houses, oppose fixing what is evil, corrupt and broken. ALL. Each and every one of them!
So blaming a few Dems is justified; but do not ever forget that every fucking Republican in either House of Congress is where failure to have already attained cogent and decent reform lives, breathes, and defacates all over.
_________UPDATE________
With a presumption, the biggest whore takes in the most money, with the item unfortunately not looking beyond 2018; the challenge for every reader - who's taken in more total cash, both sectors, than Schumer? (Check the listing. Compare Schumer's numbers to Bernie's.) Does this raise questions in your mind?
DWT in an item mentions Schumer only twice, but in a context.
GA14 is the district that sent that harpy to Congress, and should be ashamed of it.
Going on tour with young Gaetz of Florida, who'd be running a hedge fund or such were it not for Dad being big in Florida Republican circles; paints Green even worse than words she speaks.
So, my best understanding is that a few Republicans will primary her, and at least a couple of serious Democrats will seek a win in their primary.
Knowing next to nothing about the district, its history and needs, but knowing MTG stands against history and needs in order to ego trip on tour with Gaetz, she needs to be replaced with a cogent human.
For now, it is unclear, but at some point the challengers, either party, will have a most outstanding chance candidate; and it likely will not be one DCCC chooses and loves, since DCCC has the troublesome habit of supporting bought or buyable people who can kick in a bunch of money to go to DCCC approved consultants who will sell standard services - attack ads with creepy voiceovers, canned tout peices where only the name gets changed Congressional district by district, but the same stale touting wording runs true to form, droves of email money solicitations to little folk the candidate has no belief in representing but who might cut a check or Act Blue for a schlock person wanting to not care about your hopes and needs.
DCCC loves mediocre candidates, and has won some Minnesota races but in the two Congressional instances that come to mind, CD2 and CD3, it was candidate effort and not DCCC backing that defeated weak Republican candidates in those two swing districts.
This concern with GA14 is similar to my wanting to back a Dem challenger in Wisconsin's CD1, including modest contribution matching my budget when Paul Ryan was incumbent.
For GA14, the aim is clear - an electable Democrat. Indeed Anyone Else But The Incumbent or some like-minded other Trump Republican, while also, ideally, a candidate who is more than totally tepid with more personal chutzpah and appeal beyond being able to fog a mirror and speak in complete sentences at Third Grade levels of comprehension. Not asking much. Just hoping.
In These Times tells a very troubling story - authored by Jeff Schuhrke, and opening with the "nutshell" of the story:
As
the congressional battle over President Biden’s domestic agenda reached
a critical juncture last Thursday, some national labor leaders appeared
to come down on the side of conservative Democrats aiming to stall or
significantly downsize the proposed $3.5‑trillion budget reconciliation bill.
Yes, you read that correctly. Some labor leadership willing to decouple companion bills. Solidarity? For schmucks, apparently. You others go sulk? Suck eggs? Eat dirt unless you organize and pay dues, and perhaps gain "labor's" sympathy and support by doing that, perhaps not?
Before getting to detailed excerpting; related, perhaps, and perhaps not, a film title comes to mind, per a Wikipedia opening paragraph:
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (German: Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle; lit. Every Man for Himself and God Against All) is a 1974 West German drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Bruno Schleinstein (credited as Bruno S.) and Walter Ladengast.[2] The film closely follows the real story of foundlingKaspar Hauser, using the text of actual letters found with Hauser.
Can't say why that rings a bell, but it does. Rebranding from the German title was done to perhaps sooth foreseen sensitivities; but the direct translation does capture an ethic which is problematic in terms of keeping a unified front for improvement of the lives and lot of the regular people of our nation; unionized or not.
The In These Times item continues, via background before telling any sordid detail.
Dubbed
the Build Back Better Act, the reconciliation bill as currently
designed would amount to what Sen. Bernie Sanders calls (I‑Vt.) “the
most consequential piece of legislation for working people, the
elderly, the children, the sick and the poor since FDR and the New Deal
of the 1930s.” It includes historic
investments in healthcare, education and climate change policy, paid for
by raising taxes on the wealthy.
Importantly for the labor movement, the bill also reportedly includes
key provisions of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—legislation
that would reform labor law and remove many of the legal obstacles to
forming a union. Among those provisions included in the Build Back
Better Act are substantial fines against employers who commit unfair
labor practices and a ban on the permanent replacement of
striking workers.
For months, Democratic leaders have said they would pursue a “two-track” strategy
of linking the Build Back Better Act with a smaller, bipartisan
infrastructure bill championed especially by conservative Democrats like
Sens. Joe Manchin (W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Az.), which the Senate
passed in August. [...]
But giving in to pressure from nine conservative House Democrats with ties to the dark money group No Labels, last week Pelosi reversed course and planned
to call a vote on the infrastructure bill before any deal was reached
on the Build Back Better Act. The intent, made clear in a No Labels memo,
was to decouple the two pieces of legislation [...]
The 96-member
Congressional Progressive Caucus pushed back, [...] “If
we don’t pass our agenda together — that’s infrastructure AND paid
leave, child care, climate action, and more — then we’re leaving
millions of working people behind,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D‑Wash.),
chair of the progressive caucus, tweeted last Monday.
Given the Progressives' solidarity, Pelosi postponed a decoupling vote, which would have been a defeat of the Senate's bill. Now, the nub of the story:
At this crucial moment, the AFL-CIO’s chief lobbyist, William Samuel, sent a letter to members of the House. Rather than tell them to hold the line, Samuel wrote: “On
behalf of the AFL-CIO, I urge you to vote for the bipartisan
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), when it comes to the
House floor this week.” The message directly undermined the two-track
strategy of keeping the bills linked together.
Samuel added that
the reconciliation package also needed to pass, but made clear that the
infrastructure bill should pass first. “We urge you to vote in favor of the IIJA and then quickly complete negotiations and pass the budget reconciliation bill,” he wrote (italics added).
At the same time, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten also sent a letter to House members, similarly urging them to pass the infrastructure bill as “a critical first step,” adding that it “must be followed by passage of the Build Back Better Act” (italics added).
Rep. Josh Gottheimer
(N.J.), leader of the small group of conservative House Democrats
trying to decouple the bills, immediately seized on Weingarten’s letter,
tweeting a screenshot of it and writing: “Thanks to @AFTunion! Let’s get bipartisan infrastructure bill done tonight!”
In the end, House progressives stood firm
Thursday night and Pelosi was forced to postpone the infrastructure
vote — thus keeping negotiations on the reconciliation bill going for the time being, much to theaggravation of conservative Democrats.
But
the AFL-CIO and AFT letters, both issued at a pivotal moment in this
ongoing legislative fight, raise questions about some labor leaders’
commitment to passing the Build Back Better Agenda. It is especially
surprising given that the AFL-CIO has made passing the PRO Act its top legislative priority, mobilizing thousands of union members to advocate for the labor law reform all year long.
While
labor leaders continue to express support for Biden’s entire domestic
agenda, some appear reluctant to discuss their position on the two-track
legislative strategy.
The AFL-CIO did not respond to emailed
questions asking if it is confident that elements of the PRO Act would
remain in the reconciliation package if the infrastructure bill were
passed first. Three AFL-CIO affiliates that have been prominent in their
advocacy for the PRO Act — the International Union of Painters and
Allied Trades, Communications Workers of America, and Association of
Flight Attendants — also did not respond to requests to clarify their
own legislative strategy (see update at the bottom of this article).
In response to Weingarten’s letter, which she said was sent “on behalf of the 1.7
million members of the American Federation of Teachers,” a group of
rank-and-file AFT members around the country are circulating a public letter urging her “to retract her statement and demand that Congress pass both bills together at the same time.”
Passing the infrastructure bill first “would give away all progressives’ leverage to pass the $3.5 trillion BBB Act,” the letter reads. “As educators, we need our union to do everything possible to fight for this vision — not to undermine it.”
Susan
Kang, a rank-and-file member of the AFT-affiliated Professional Staff
Congress at the City University of New York and mother of two public
school students, told In These Times she is “disappointed” that Weingarten urged the immediate passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, particularly because the bill leaves out much of the Green New Deal.
“I
signed on to the letter [aimed at Weingarten] because I support the
Green New Deal through the Build Back Better Act,” Kang explained. “I
support the Green New Deal for public schools, and as my kids crowd
into outdated, unventilated classrooms in this second full school year
of Covid, it is painfully obvious that we need massive federal money to
fix our schools and make them more environmentally and socially
more sustainable.”
In a statement to In These Times, Weingarten said, “We
want and need both pieces of the Biden agenda: Build Back Better and
traditional infrastructure. AFT members have called, written, shouted
and devoted time, money and effort to overcome GOP obstinacy and get it
passed… Enacting the Biden agenda in its entirety is the best way to
transform America.”
A spokesperson for UNITE HERE, another AFL-CIO affiliate, told In These Times, “We want it all to go through, and call on Congress to work together to get it done.” The hospitality workers’ union led extensive get-out-the-vote efforts last year credited with helping Democrats retake control of both the White House and Senate.
“There is too much at stake for workers and families to leave anything off the table,” UNITE HERE President D. Taylor said in a statement. “We support any measure to achieve overdue reforms on these critical issues, including eliminating the filibuster.”
In
urging the House of Representatives to ram through the infrastructure
bill last Thursday rather than hold the line, AFL-CIO and AFT leaders
were either genuinely confident that much of the Build Back Better
Act — including key parts of labor law reform — would survive if the two
bills were decoupled, or they were tacitly willing to sacrifice some or
all of the reconciliation package to ensure passage of the
infrastructure bill by an arbitrarily set deadline.
Whichever it is, they won’t say.
Update: Since this article was published on October 4, the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE) — which is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO — has put out a statement supporting progressives in Congress “who
are refusing to buckle under to demands from corporate Democrats to
water down the budget reconciliation bill.” UE’s national officers said,
“As
anyone who has gone through negotiations knows, giving up your leverage
before securing your goals is a losing strategy. We fully support those
members of Congress who are using the only leverage they have — refusing
to vote on the smaller infrastructure bill until a strong
reconciliation bill is passed.”
Further, a spokesperson for the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) told In These Times, “We have advocated for BOTH to pass together. Not one without the other.” The spokesperson pointed to a tweet last Friday from AFA president Sara Nelson, sometimes rumored to be a future contender for the AFL-CIO presidency, that “One [bill] without the other is a decision to leave women behind.”
The Crabgrass guess is that the two union bosses writing their "decouple" letters (apparently in absence of any membership vote authorizing the membership's union to advocate such a position) had cause to expect the PRO Act part of reconciliation policy would survive even if all the regular people friendly policy were to be scuttled. Why and how such a belief might have been formed would be a great story if only Toto would pull the curtain aside on that so we could see the Wizard at work, hither and yon, bargaining and promising. Unfortunately, we can only guess why the two union bosses wrote as they did, hanging others out to dry.
Do you think Gottheimer and Weingarten had conversations? Finding common ground? Before the Weingarten letter was composed? One seeking out the other? Weingarten is not without controversy, prior to her present interventionist letter writing.
Moral of the story? If you sell out your neighbor your neighbor might take it personally, and be unhappy. Goes around. Comes around. Short-term tactics should not squeeze out long-term wisdom and decency. Labor leaders can be replaced. With the graveyards full of indispensable people, good thinking can supersede bad thinking.
Union truth is the membership cannot be fired but the bosses can be.
__________UPDATE_________
Two NYT items, years apart, discuss Randi Weingarten, and may be troublesome to some, cheerful to others. In concert with Schumer, more recently, here. Anti-progressive hostility, during Clinton/Sanders contested times, here. If it seems she has an agenda apart from knowing what the bulk of the nation's people want and deserve and acting accordingly, Weingarten's hostility toward progressive challenge to her idealized status quo Democratic Party relationships may be the bedrock underlying such an indifference to popular will. Neither Schumer nor the Clintons are great friends of the popular will. In the 2016 NYT item it is noted:
And now, as Mrs. Clinton contends with daily disclosures from the hacked messages
of top campaign aides — missives that have reinforced the central
progressive criticisms of her bid, including her coziness with Wall
Street — some of Mr. Sanders’s admirers have been compelled to consider
again what might have been.
With
a couple of breaks and more fortunate timing, many of them believe, the
rumpled socialist really, truly could have been president.
“I
think they should have put the damn emails out before the primaries
were over,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of National
Nurses United, a union that campaigned heavily for Mr. Sanders.
“Bernie could have won the election, and that’s the most irritating and
painful thing. It would have made a world of difference.
“Now we are going to have a dynamic status quo,” Ms. DeMoro predicted. “It’s going to look like change. But it’s not change.”
Not all Sanders supporters believe an earlier release would have altered the election. [...] But
the content of the messages, while a measure short of astonishing so
far, almost certainly could have upended a primary campaign premised
largely on Mrs. Clinton’s place in an increasingly progressive and
populist Democratic Party.
In
excerpts from paid speeches to financial institutions and corporate
audiences, Mrs. Clinton embraced unfettered international trade and
offered praise for a budget-balancing plan that would have required cuts
to Social Security. She spoke of the need for “a public and a private
position” on politically sensitive issues. And she allowed that her
family’s growing wealth had left her “kind of far removed” from the
experience of the middle class.
“I
feel like I’m channeling Captain Renault from ‘Casablanca,’” said
Jonathan Tasini, a former union leader who challenged Mrs. Clinton in
her Senate primary in New York in 2006. “I’m shocked — shocked! — that
Hillary Clinton has a close relationship with Wall Street.”
[...] For
at least a handful, the emails have especially rankled given the
seeming free fall of Mr. Trump, which has bolstered their view that Mr.
Sanders’s proudly left-wing politics would not have precluded victory in
the general election.
On the heels of
leaked emails over the summer from the Democratic National Committee,
which suggested favoritism toward Mrs. Clinton among party leaders, and
persistent complaints that Mr. Sanders’s bid was not taken seriously
enough from the start, Sanders allies say the latest revelations have
heightened tensions that are likely to persist if Mrs. Clinton is
elected.
“There is still this real disconnect between her and working people. That’s very difficult to see,” Winnie Wong, a founder of People for Bernie,
a group of Sanders supporters, said of Mrs. Clinton. “The people really
have to get together and make sure some of these agenda items on the
platform become a reality.”
Ms.
DeMoro, of the nurses’ union, expressed outrage over an email sent to
Mr. Podesta by Randi Weingarten, the president of the American
Federation of Teachers, who vowed to combat the nurses’ “high and mighty
sanctimonious conduct.” (Mr. Podesta replied, “Thanks.”)
“We are going to have to fight and organize like we would against a Republican, if the emails ring true,” Ms. DeMoro said.
An anti-progressive leopard, today, is not changing spots. Surprised?
Willing now to throw the Build Back Better agenda under the bus, willing to throw Bernie and Unionized nurses there years ago - it hangs together.
As to cahoots with Schumer to funnel taxpayer money to private schools, as NYT reports it, the Weingarten perspective was anti-DeVos during Trump years but in league with Schumer's being pressured by a part of his constituency.
In effect, Weingarten with her anti-progressive history is a Clinton-Schumer inner party Democrat who lives in East Hampton, New York. The Hamptons are not a constituency bloc of the kind that progressive aim to help, but rather a bloc progressives tend to want to tax more fairly, so that the rest of us can have better lives.
The most recent will to see severed the two bills that together make the agenda Biden says he desires does fit Weingarten's current Hamptons-centric life and persona, apart from expecting a labor boss to be sympathetic to the overworked and underpaid. And - Bernie in 2016 would have won against Trump. He had better people than the Podesta brothers behind him - John Podesta with whom Weingarten privaely corresponed over her will to trod down the nurses who were Bernie supporting progressives.
__________UPDATE________
For the history of Weingarten undermining Bernie and unionized nurses in cahoots with Podesta and the Clintons; the email discussion; this websearch. Please take notice that news was not news enough for any mainstream propaganda outlet to touch. None. Zippo. At least per the search return listings.
For how widespread the coverage of the AFL-CIO and AFT undermining of progressives was, this websearch. Again, please note the absence of mainstream propagandists, right wing or more right wing, touching the the story. None. Zippo.
On the latter (recent) search return list you see reddit threads, facebook posts, but no CNN. No MSNBC. No Breitbart, but that's no surprise.
WTF are those clowns doing, since they are not doing NEWS!
Reliance on what TV will tell you is reliance upon an untrustworthy set of biased but well paid talking heads scripted by big money. That Gottheimer was able to drive a wedge between two major long-term Dem blocs IS NEWS AND UNDENIABLY SO. That Pelosi blinked because of consolidated consistent progressive numbers, that's NEWS, Yes, the vote postponement got MSM marginal attention. But not the question of organized labor top dogs throwing the rest of us under the bus.
Why do you suppose that widespread coverage of the organized labor leadership's betrayal of progressive allies got zippo MSM movement off the dime? Bias? Editorial belief of no need-to-know? Those folks? Doing that? Oh, my. What next?
For all MSM's published, Weingarten and Samuel and their concurrent letters saying the same thing to all House members have no 'splaining to do to US. Yes, other less selfish labor insiders noted those letters and put up an opposition quickly and helpfully. Yes, they knew.
But why is it thought of only as inside-labor stuff among MSM mavens, and not public stuff to inform a complete population, including the part that votes?
Treat the voting population like mushrooms, and you've an unlimited future in MSM.
Like we're too dangerous to be well informed? What? WHY?
__________FURTHER UPDATE__________
A retrospective look at big union bosses and the 2016 election, here and here, (neither a mainstream media outlet), will help put the present under-the-bus attitude toward progressive pro-people intent. Either indifferent, or hostile; and either way it is cutting off the nose to spite the face.
Who are these people, and what is their history of advancement within union circles? How widespread is the gulf between progressive mood, and organized labor's "As long as our ox doesn't get gored" "thinking?"
Short-sighted and selfish? You decide.
What's to be done about it? You decide.
Will the Democratic Party ever truly be a party of the people? You decide.
Schumer and the DSCC seem to not want that to be - while taking a publicly cautious posture for 2022 before putting a heavy thumb on the primary scales. Wait and see on that. Promises to hold back are mere words; so stay skeptical. And that note of caution is only for contests without a Dem incumbent. There the institutional thumb is on scales early and often. Our Colleagues, uber Alles.
