The current dust-up between fellow Senators and Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren is an ugly thing. It boils down to a private conversation at Sen. Warren’s apartment, where, supposedly, Sanders claimed that a woman could not win the 2020 election. I don’t know the truth of what was said. A misunderstanding is likely. The following piece is not intended as an attack on Elizabeth Warren or her candidacy; she remains my second choice. The real villain of this story is neither Sanders nor Warren, but CNN. And their malfeasance in regard to Sanders and the left as a whole is typical in the American press. I present several instances of this below.

A week after Sanders emerged as the Iowa frontrunner, CNN, an anti-labor network which helped give Trump billions in free publicity, decided to run an unverifiable story a month before the Iowa caucus. All four of the sources they cite are either Warren reporters or heard Sanders’ comment from Warren herself. I do not claim here to know who said what in that meeting from 2018, and I accuse neither senator of lying. But I do know CNN’s coverage of this scandal was among the worst mainstream journalism I have ever seen: At the debate, which CNN themselves moderated, this gem of an exchange occurred:

Moderator: In 2018, you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?

Sanders: Well as a matter of fact, I didn’t say it…In 2015 I deferred in fact to Senator Warren. There was a movement to draft Senator Warren to run for president. And you know what, I said, ‘stay back’. Senator Warren decided not to run and I did run afterwards. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by three million votes. How could anybody in a million years not believe that a woman could become President of the United States?[…]

Moderator: Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here. You are saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election.

Sanders: That is correct.

Moderator: Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you that a woman could not win the election? [audible laughter from the audience]

I suspect the laughter was an acknowledgement from the audience of the biased nature of the question. Understandable: It is truly incredible seeing CNN, one of the supposed pillars of American journalism adopting a line of questioning with the same amount of good faith as the phrase, “When did you stop beating your wife?”

A basic proposition: That corporations are self-interested firms that seek to maximize shareholder value. CNN is owned by telecoms giant Warner Media, formerly Time Warner, a regular on the Fortune 500. The Washington Post, as Sanders often points out, is owned by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos. It’s also worth noting that CNN hired a Republican operative with no journalism experience to lead its coverage of the 2020 race. With this ownership and these kind of people in charge of coverage, is it really conspiratorial to suggest that the billionaires’ pet news orgs would lean towards politicians and policies that benefit the wealthy?

It has become increasingly obvious to those of us on the left that the capitalist press will never, ever give the movement for a democratic, worker’s America a fair shake. Certainly, one could be forgiven for thinking CNN was openly taking sides and crossing their fingers for a Trump victory or that of a right-wing Democrat.

While the Warren/Sanders tiff represents the first foray of the Warren campaign into negative advertising against her socialist rival, her surrogates in the media have been at it for months. In October of 2019, a clip surfaced of an MSNBC segment, “The Contenders”, about the Democratic primary. Featuring a speech by Emily Tisch Sussman, Former VP of Campaigns for the Center For American Progress, it touched on Elizabeth Warren’s supposed superiority to Bernie Sanders:

I overheard someone say…basically at this point, if you are still supporting Sanders as opposed to Warren, it’s kind of showing your sexism, because she has more detailed plans and her plans have evolved. I thought it was an interesting point, and I think there may be something to it.

This audio is followed by nods and assents from Sussman’s two male cohosts. This assertion is so emblematic of the liberal press for multiple reasons: One, Sussman, at least in the clip, did not mention that her father is a billionaire, and therefore might have an ulterior motive for trashing his campaign. It’s also worth point out that Sussman’s former employer, the Center for American Progress, recently laid off the entire staff its news arm, ThinkProgress.com, and hired non-union staff. If this doesn’t necessarily serve as an indictment of Sussman herself, it certainly does indict CAP’s ostensibly progressive liberalism. Crush labor, then bloviate on air about the horrors of the Trump administration.

Of course, I would be amiss if I didn’t mention the Gray Lady of liberalism herself, The New York Times. On Sunday they came out in support of not one, but TWO candidates for Democratic nominee: Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. Here’s some choice bits from their so-reasonable-it’s-actually-insane reasoning:

• On Klobuchar and foreign policy: “In 13 years as a senator, she has sponsored and voted on dozens of national defense measures, including military action in Libya and Syria. Her record shows that she is confident and thoughtful, and she reacts to data — what you’d want in a crisis.” Imagine thinking Libya — with multiple warring governments and a thriving slave trade after US missile attacks helped oust Muammar al-Gaddafi — is a foreign policy success. But the Times was a cheerleader for the Iraq War, so this continuation of their hawkish streak is hardly surprising.
• On Bernie Sanders: “we see little advantage to exchanging one over-promising, divisive figure in Washington for another.” Here we see the galaxy-brained centrists continue their “Trump and Sanders are the same!” logic because they both have passionate fans. As opposed to Hillary Clinton, whose stands were notoriously rational. This is far from new material. Let’s not forget the Center For American Progress teaming up with the right-wing American Enterprise Institute to acknowledge the threat of “populism”. The most concise and accurate refutation to this is by Jacobin’s Liza Featherstone: Bernie and Trump are alike only in that they both frighten the folks at The New York Times.
• On Joe Biden: “The former vice president commands the greatest fluency on foreign policy and is a figure of great warmth and empathy. He’s prone to verbal stumbles, yes, but social media has also made every gaffe a crisis when it clearly is not.” Here we see the media’s continuing refusal to acknowledge or even consider Biden’s declining mental faculties. And where was Biden’s “warmth and empathy” when it came to desegregation? Or his authoring of the now-notorious 1996 crime bill? His militarism abroad?
• Imagine how “realistic” and “pragmatic” it is to choose TWO candidates in a race with no ranked-choice voting. Even if we were to take their endorsement at face-value, wouldn’t they be splitting the vote?

What are we to make of this? For a long time I hesitated on calling out these news outlets, because when they aren’t free-associating, evidence-free, about the left, they do really good work. The New York Times remains a gold standard of American journalism when they decide to do their jobs. Other times they hire Sydney Ember, with only a background in investment banking and marketing, to be their point person on Bernie Sanders.

So how are we to trust mainstream sources when they are corporate-owned and their most popular pundits include such luminaries as Rachel Maddow? Her night-after-night coverage of the Mueller Report, Russiagate, and promises of Trump in prison amounted to nothing except a brief statement from the Justice Department that, yes, the president is legally invincible and cannot be changed with a crime. Cool! Watergate was for nothing! Maddow is also author of Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth, which posits that oil empires helped bring about Putin and Trump. Fair enough. Extraction industries are dirty to the core and gave us such dynasties as the Bushes and the House of Saud. But it’s an oversimplification and one in which she makes some major oversights. Note that she points out the corruption surrounding  Equatorial Guinea’s oil boom but, to my knowledge, does not acknowledge Obama’s friendly dinner party with its fascist president, Teodoro Obiang.

Or Joy-Ann Reid, who, rather than admit she made homophobic statements in the past, suggested that Russia had hacked her blog to make her look homophobic. I, for one, find it difficult to believe that Reid’s show was such a threat to the Russian state apparatus that it would bother with cyberattacks in retaliation.

It’s these brave women that liberals would have us side with against that horrible misogynist, Bernie Sanders.

I should note at this point that this is no apologia for Putin and company. I too oppose Russia’s government. I oppose Putin because his regime is an authoritarian quilt of state, corporate, and intelligence concerns that kills, tortures, and imprisons dissidents, suppresses the poor, supports terrorism, has no concern for climate change, and whose overarching agenda seems to be the maximization of the power of the corporate-state apparatus. Incidentally, these are the same reasons I oppose the United States government.

I would like to conclude by saluting Democracy Now, Jacobin, Means TV, The Intercept, and other left news sources that are building an alternative to the mainstream media. Because it’s become increasingly clear that liberal networks like MSNBC, newspapers like The New York Times, and think tanks like the Center for American Progress have failed to cover left alternatives to the current system responsibly. The have a nasty habit of teaming up with the “responsible” anti-Trump Republicans, and are largely hawkish on foreign policy. In short, these liberals are as much of a facet of the American imperialist establishment as Fox News, the CIA, or the Republican Party. They too must be defeated if we hope to build a better society.

The post Beat The Press appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It seems like everyone is either running for President or having think pieces written about the possibility of them running for President. When I say everyone, I do mean just about everyone (see articles about John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore). It’s way too early to start talking about electability, so disregard whatever you read on that subject. At this point in 2011, it seemed pretty clear to everyone that just about any Republican could topple Obama after his midterm thrashing. If that’s too far back for you, remember in 2015 we were told that the only Republican equipped to defeat Hillary Clinton was Mitt Romney.

To be clear, electability matters but we don’t exactly have a metric for what that means. After 2016, it’s abundantly clear that the American voter will elect just about anyone if frustrated enough. It seems electability has just become whatever the pundit decides it is at a given moment. But as we enter a new presidential cycle it’s easy to imagine a scenario where just about any Democrat could defeat President Trump but it’s just as easy to imagine a scenario where nearly nobody could (there are two candidates who I think would win in either case, more on them later).

There are two potential candidates that are worth talking about, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. This isn’t an endorsement of either or to disparage any candidate, I will vote for literally any Democrat in a race to defeat Donald Trump. Full Stop. However, I think it’s important to acknowledge now before the media narratives take hold that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are not the same, and Elizabeth Warren is different from the rest of the Democrats.

Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist. That’s an important distinction if not the most important distinction. Bernie’s view of politics is shaped by a criticism of class and capitalism which is unique and totally separate from the reformist tendencies of Elizabeth Warren. Warren believes that reforming capitalism is the way to fix larger societal problems and Sanders believes that capitalism is the problem. Warren would tell us that we need to fix our rigged system while Sanders would tell us that the system isn’t rigged but rather that’s just the system and hence why we need an entirely new system. That’s not nothing, it’s an entirely different worldview. Both are worlds more progressive than the field, but those differences matter.

Elizabeth Warren in her announcement video talks about the American Meritocracy. Warren believes that an America can exist where people if they work hard enough can achieve based on that work. Bernie Sanders does not believe that and has made a point throughout his career to state his view that we’ve never truly been a meritocracy and opportunity only exists for those with resources.

Sanders and Warren are different, but not like Sanders and Clinton were different. The Senators do share a number of policy positions and Warren has been very progressive in her own right. Warren and Sanders have co-sponsored Medicare-for-All legislation and other bills relating to environmental protection. Warren recently introduced a bill to create a government-run pharmaceutical manufacturer to mass-produce generic drugs and bring down prices for consumers. Since she first appeared on the national stage during the recession, Warren has been a bonafide progressive. So much so that Bernie was ready to not run for President at all in 2016.

In Bernie’s book “Our Revolution” he explained that he was wanted Elizabeth Warren to enter the race and was waiting on her to do so. It may seem like an eternity ago, but Warren not Sanders was the leader of the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party. There were draft movements and party insiders pushing her to run as a contrast to Hillary Clinton, and she refused forcing Bernie to take up the mantle. It was not expected that Bernie’s campaign would be so successful, but it was and the energy in the party moved. That is something that supporters of both should remember when the primaries get into full swing.

Warren stands out for her record in the public and private sector of being very aggressive towards Wall Street and her clear distinct vision on policy. We know who Warren is and what she believes. As for the rest of the field, there’s a lot of similarities between the potential candidates. Much like the Republicans in 2016, there are candidates crowding ideological lanes or overlapping with other candidates making it unclear who could cobble together enough delegates for a majority. There’s a reason for that. Not only are many of the Democrats looking toward 2020 similar in nature, they are essentially the same. Rhetorically there are differences but it’s hard to find the policy disagreements or where their governing philosophies diverge (they also seem to share the same corporate donors). For example, Candidate A says they believe “Everyone should have access to healthcare”, Candidate B says they believe “universal healthcare should be our goal”, while Candidate C says, “Healthcare is a human right and there should be access for everyone.” Now re-read those statements, none of that was a specific policy aim or particularly ambitious. We currently have “universal healthcare” if we consider those who have access. Everyone has “access” much in the same way that I have access to a Ferrari. I do not envy the Iowa Caucus goer who’ll be forced to delineate which candidate’s positions they support most.

I’m not going to mince words, there are some people thinking about running who I find to be particularly odious. Earlier in the piece I said there are two people who I believe undoubtedly could defeat Donald Trump in any circumstance. One of them is Bernie Sanders, who I hold in very high regard for his consistency in policy and personal character. The other is Vice-President Joe Biden who is maybe one of the most likable people in politics, I like him quite a lot. Nevertheless, he has a record as a Senator that is somehow worse than Hillary Clinton’s. Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War, he voted for the Crime Bill, he wrote the legislation that deregulated the banks, his performance during the Clarence Thomas spectacle was shameful, and that doesn’t even begin to mention his complicity in the disastrous War on Drugs.

It troubles me to see so many potential candidates emulating Biden or vying to be the next Barack Obama. It is a very worrying prospect that one of these candidates might turn to the triangulation of Bill Clinton and abandon a progressive policy agenda. There is an obsession among some Democrats about how to appeal to the Trump voter, and I’m unsure what or who they’d be willing to sacrifice just for the possibility that some rural areas might be brought back into the fold. The rest of the field with a few exceptions at this point simply do not seem to have the authenticity about their positions that Warren and Sanders do. That said, every Democrat is better than Donald Trump. Many like Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and Sen. Corey Booker have been pushed to the progressive side of issues despite relatively centrist pasts and we should encourage that movement. Of course, Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio has been inveighing against the excesses of Wall Street and the downsides of Free Trade for over a decade in Ohio. In Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has always been a supporter of labor interests. Not to forget Beto O’Rourke, who has been a champion for the rights of immigrants and a leader in the fight against racial injustice.

The primary will eventually devolve into a contest of personality rather than policy and we’ll judge candidates by their fundraising totals and not their policy agendas. Hopefully before we get there, we’ll have had a serious assessment of the candidates and thought about not just “who can beat Donald Trump” but “who do we want to be President.” It may seem like the same question, but answers may vary.

The post Bernie vs. Warren vs. Everyone Else appeared first on Occasional Planet.

You might be surprised to know that Elizabeth Warren has written in favor of school vouchers.  Granted, that was from a book that she co-authored with her daughter in 2003, but the position expressed in unequivocal.

The book is “The Two Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are (Still) Going Broke,” written by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi.

To get a better understanding of her words, let’s set a scenario. Suppose that you are a young couple and you move into a new neighborhood with other parents around your age. You love where you live and in most respects it is exactly where you would like to raise your children. But there is a problem. You are not confident that the local public schools will provide the kind of education that you would want for your children. And you’re not alone. Many of your neighbors feel the same way. So what are your choices? Let’s list them:

1. Accept the situation as it is and go with the local public schools. Perhaps you can be good at “manipulating the system” to the benefit of your children. Perhaps not.
2. Leave the neighborhood in which you want to live for another neighborhood with a public school system that you deem to be better.
3. Stay in the neighborhood where you live, but send your children to private or parochial schools. Tuition for such schools could run from $5,000 to $22,000 per year per child. In 2017 dollars, that could run from $65,000 [thirteen years of school for one child in parochial school] to $858,000 [thirteen years of school for three children in non-religious private school].
4. Home school your child or children. The cost to you would not be measured in tuition, rather in lost earnings if you chose to home school your children rather than opting to be in the work force outside of home-school.
5. Get together with other parents in your neighborhood and work to start a new school for children in the neighborhood. It might be a school that would also be attractive to families outside of your immediate neighborhood.

This fifth option does not come free. The school is going to need teachers, a facility, supplies and money for a variety of other expenses ranging from field trips to specialist teachers. But it is a school that likely would have your imprint on it as well as those of other children and adults in the neighborhood.

There are two ways to fund this school. The first is to make it a private school and charge tuition. That may be a good idea, but it would be a financial burden on the families as described in option 3 above.

The second way (which is only available in a few communities in the United States) would be for the school to become a “voucher school.” By all rights, it should be a not-for-profit [501(c) 3 tax status] school. The money that would have been allocated for the children in the local public school district would now be allocated for your children and those of others so that they could attend this new school. In other words, the school would be funded by public money that would amount to the cost of educating each child in your school district by the number of children in the school.

From a societal point of view, there would be a downside in that the public school system would have less money for its operations. On the other hand, it would have fewer students to educate, thus reducing its expenses.

In the beginning, the parents of the students would still have costs. A facility would need to be rented, and eventually maybe a new structure built. That would require money that would not be included in the cost per pupil allocation from the local public school district.

If voucher funding were available, this kind of school would be a real option for parents and children. Here is what Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia had to say about this option:

Any policy that loosens the ironclad relationship between location-location-location and school-school-school would eliminate the need for parents to pay an inflated price for a home just because it happens to lie within the boundaries of a desirable school district.

A well-designed voucher program would fit the bill neatly. A taxpayer-funded voucher that paid the entire cost of educating a child (not just a partial subsidy) would open a range of opportunities to all children. Fully funded vouchers would relieve parents from the terrible choice of leaving their kids in lousy schools or bankrupting themselves to escape those schools.

We recognize that the term “voucher” has become a dirty word in many educational circles. The reason is straightforward: The current debate over vouchers is framed as a public-versus-private rift, with vouchers denounced for draining off much-needed funds from public schools. The fear is that partial-subsidy vouchers provide a boost so that better-off parents can opt out of a failing public school system, while the other children are left behind.

When we talk about the baby and the bathwater with school vouchers, here is what the baby looks like:

1. The school is not-for-profit, literally and legally. Tax dollars would not be siphoned to school corporations in which shareholders are profiting.
2. The school does not have a religious affiliation.
3. The school meets all standards for non-discrimination.

Democrats have shied away from vouchers for good reasons:

1. There are legitimate concerns about religious affiliation. For the sake of practicality, I will agree with this concern, although I’m always open to the philosophical question of what’s the difference between a religion and any other set of beliefs.
2. Schools that are not in the public sector potentially could be extremist and not respect the essential balance in a democracy between individual liberties and concern for the common good.
3. Vouchers would siphon off money from the public schools, and thus weaken public school systems.
4. The public schools would be left with only the children that no one else wants to educate.

These last two points are the trickiest ones for many liberals to accept. Here are quick responses to each concern:

1. Yes, vouchers do siphon off money from public schools. But do we educate our children in order to preserve the public school system, or to provide the best schooling for the children who are of school age? If vouchers result in more students going to schools that satisfy both them and their parents, then the creation of these schools is a good thing. It’s not a race to see which communities can have the biggest public school systems. In fact, it’s not a race. It’s a complicated maze in which we try to pair as many students as possible with the schools that will serve them best. Don’t try measuring that, it’s a fool’s errand.
2. It is true that public schools might be left with the students who “no one else wanted to teach.” But if vouchers would allow for the establishment of new kinds of schools, many of which would be small, that would allow teachers and counselors to work creatively with students who are struggling, it is possible that many teachers would feel a calling to work in such schools because they would see these schools as places where they could do the most amount of good. One of my dream jobs would be recruiting bright and caring students from our best colleges and universities to come teach in humane environment in our inner cities or in rural areas, and to get paid well for it.

Right now may not be the best time for a major effort to promote nationwide vouchers. But it would be very helpful to experiment with them further, particularly in our inner cities where so many young adults want to live, except for the lack of public schools to their liking. It is a good time for Democrats to put their knees in a brace, do away with the knee-jerk reaction, and give serious consideration to the potential upside of vouchers.

The post School vouchers: The baby versus the bathwater appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are putting a new focus on the Glass-Steagall Act, which was, unfortunately, repealed in 1999 and led directly to the financial crises we have faced ever since. Here’s a bit of history of this legislative debacle from an older post on Occasional Planet published several years ago :

On November 4, 1999, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) took to the floor of the senate to make an impassioned speech against the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, (alternately known as Gramm Leach Biley, or the “Financial Modernization Act”) Repeal of Glass-Steagall would  allow banks to merge with insurance companies and investments houses. He said “I want to sound a warning call today about this legislation, I think this legislation is just fundamentally terrible.”

According to Sam Stein, writing in 2009 in the Huffington Post, only eight senators voted against the repeal. Senior staff in the Clinton administration and many now in the Obama administration praised the repeal as the “most important breakthrough in the world of finance and politics in decades”

According to Stein, Dorgan warned that banks would become “too big to fail” and claimed that Congress would “look back in a decade and say we should not have done this.” The repeal of Glass Steagall, of course, was one of several bad policies that helped lead to the current economic crisis we are in now.

Dorgan wasn’t entirely alone. Sens. Barbara Boxer, Barbara Mikulski, Richard Shelby, Tom Harkin, Richard Bryan, Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders also cast nay votes. The late Sen. Paul Wellstone opposed the bill, and warned at the time that Congress was “about to repeal the economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.”

Democratic Senators had sufficient knowledge about the dangers of the repeal of Glass Steagall, but chose to ignore it.  Plenty of experts warned that it would be impossible to “discipline” banks once the legislation was passed, and that they would get too big and complex to regulate. Editorials against repeal appeared in the New York Times and other mainstream venues, suggesting that if the new megabanks were to falter, they could take down the entire global economy, which is exactly what happened. Stein quotes Ralph Nader who said at the time, “We will look back at this and wonder how the country was so asleep. It’s just a nightmare.”

According to Stein:

“The Senate voted to pass Gramm-Leach-Bliley by a vote of 90-8 and reversed what was, for more than six decades, a framework that had governed the functions and reach of the nation’s largest banks. No longer limited by laws and regulations commercial and investment banks could now merge. Many had already begun the process, including, among others, J.P. Morgan and Citicorp. The new law allowed it to be permanent. The updated ground rules were low on oversight and heavy on risky ventures. Historically in the business of mortgages and credit cards, banks now would sell insurance and stock.

Nevertheless, the bill did not lack champions, many of whom declared that the original legislation — forged during the Great Depression — was both antiquated and cumbersome for the banking industry. Congress had tried 11 times to repeal Glass-Steagall. The twelfth was the charm.

“Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,” said then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. “This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”

“I welcome this day as a day of success and triumph,” said Sen. Christopher Dodd, (D-Conn.).

“The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown,” said Sen. Bob Kerrey, (D-Neb.).

“If we don’t pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt or years down the road Shanghai becoming the financial capital of the world,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “There are many reasons for this bill, but first and foremost is to ensure that U.S. financial firms remain competitive.”

Unfortunately, the statement by Chuck Schumer sounds very much like it was prepared by a lobbyist. This vote underscores the way in which our elected officials are so heavily swayed by corporate and banking money that our voices and needs become irrelevant. It is why we need publicly funded elections. Democratic senators, the so-called representatives of the people, fell over themselves to please their Wall Street donors knowing full well there were dangers for the country at large, for ordinary Americans, in repealing Glass-Steagall.

It is important to hold Democratic senators (along with current members of the Obama administration) accountable for the significant role they have played in the current economic crisis that has caused so much suffering for ordinary Americans. In case you were wondering, the current Democratic Senators who voted yes to repeal the Glass-Steagall act are the following:

Daniel Akaka – Max Baucus – Evan Bayh – Jeff Bingaman – Kent Conrad – Chris Dodd – Dick Durbin – Dianne Feinstein – Daniel Inouye – Tim Johnson – John Kerry – Herb Kohl – Mary Landrieu – Frank Lautenberg – Patrick Leahy – Carl Levin – Joseph Lieberman – Blanche Lincoln – Patty Murray – Jack Reed – Harry Reid – Jay Rockefeller – Chuck Schumer – Ron Wyden

Former House members who voted for repeal who are current Senators.

Mark Udall [as of 2010] – Debbie Stabenow – Bob Menendez – Tom Udall -Sherrod Brown

No longer in the Senate, or passed away, but who voted for repeal:

Joe Biden -Ted Kennedy -Robert Byrd

These Democratic senators would like to forget or make excuses for their enthusiastic vote on the repeal of Glass Steagall, but it is important to hold them accountable for helping their bank donors realize obscene profits while their constituents lost jobs, savings and homes. And it is important to demand that they serve the interests of the American people.

The post Glass-Steagall: Warren and Sanders bring it back into focus appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The midterm elections are just four months away. Can you guess which party is flailing around on the campaign trail without a unified message?

The answer is easy. It’s the Democrats. Sadly, it’s déjà-vu all over again. Every election season progressives see their hopes dashed as the Democratic Party fails to deliver a coherent vision, and individual candidates try to distance themselves from even the meager legislative record they’ve tallied up during the past term.

In the run up to election day, you’d think it would be smart politics to guide voters to clarity on the very real differences between the two major parties. Unfortunately, that’s not how our crazy political world works. Contrary to the popular meme, on income inequality, immigration reform, healthcare, equal pay for women, access to family planning, student loans, tax policy, the environment, and a host of other issues the differences between the parties are deep and real. But you wouldn’t know that when listening to obfuscating Democratic contenders.

Think about it. When was the last time Democrats and progressives pulled together a coherent message before, during, or after an election cycle?

Perennial Democratic timidity and the failure to articulate a clear message means that Democrats fail to address head-on the serious issues and challenges buffeting confused voters who aren’t sure which way to turn. It’s no wonder voters believe politicians fail to represent their interests and that the system is rigged against them. Predictably, voter apathy is at a record high, and the percentage of the voting-age public turning out to vote is at a historic low.

One issue that should be ripe for Democratic picking is income inequality and the skewed tax policies that have crippled investment in infrastructure, education, and research and diminished the employment prospects and future of the middle class, low-wage earners, the poor, and young people. Perhaps the truth is that the majority of Americans have so thoroughly absorbed Republican messaging about the inevitability of an inequitable economy that they fail to see through the misinformation that Republicans have exploited so brilliantly to explain away their culpability in causing the economic disparities. It’s inconceivable that voters fail to understand that Republicans in Congress have spent the past six years maneuvering ferociously to maintain and even expand policies and tax loopholes that favor corporations, the financial industry, and millionaires and billionaires while doing nothing for the economic interests and needs of the majority.

Just look at the diminished prospects of the middle class. Americans should be out in the streets raging and protesting. At the very least we should be going to the polls in record numbers. And yet most of us are doing just the opposite.

The economic numbers below, which reflect the reality of a middle class losing ground, paint a dispiriting picture of an economy that produces unimaginable profits for the few and stagnation for the many.

– Since 1999 middle-class incomes in real terms have dropped by an incredible $5,000.
– Since 2009 fully 95% of all newly generated income has gone to the top 1%.
– 3.6 million Americans struggle to live on wages at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
– Every year the American taxpayer subsidizes the profits of the low-wage fast-food industry to the tune of $7 billion in safety-net benefits like Medicaid, food stamps, and subsidized housing.
– The low-wage policies of the biggest big-box giant—Walmart—costs American taxpayers $6.2 billion annually in public-assistance programs.

Make no mistake about it. This is the economy that the conservative movement and its mighty messaging machine have built over forty years. On issue after issue, the conservative lens has defined the terms of the discussion and hidden the true reasons for the economic struggles of what used to be a proud and expanding middle class. Republican think tanks and lobbying organizations, like The American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and ALEC, an organization that writes legislation favorable to corporate interests that ends up word-for-word on the dockets of state houses, have dominated the agenda and the direction of economic policy.

So is it time to throw in the towel and cave in to the propaganda, to conservative messaging shenanigans, and the pundits and pollsters (including Nate Silver of Five Thirty-Eight) who predict that the Democrats could lose their majority in the Senate? I say, not just yet. Not as long as there’s one public official out there fighting for the middle class and challenging other Democrats to become champions of the people who work hard at jobs that pay them less today than they did decades ago—jobs like designing and building our infrastructure, educating and caring for our children, providing health care. That lone fighter is Elizabeth Warren.

It’s my hope that every Democrat running for office in the upcoming election has listened to the exchange below between Massachusetts Senator Warren and Chris Matthews of “Hardball” and absorbed the lesson of how powerful a principled and coherent message can be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puVrkf7ORB4

And if Democratic candidates are still not convinced, I suggest that they step off the campaign trail and make their way to an undisclosed location somewhere near Boston harbor. There, at what might be called the Elizabeth Warren School of Analytic Thought and Communication Skills, they can hunker down and take a quick fix of intensive remedial courses.

So get out your notebooks and IPads, Democrats, here’s the curriculum that could help you keep or secure that coveted desk on Capitol Hill.

I. Defining the Problem
– Fact-Based Economics for Congressional Dummies
– Invisible Market Forces and Government Policy: Identifying the Differences and Destroying the Myths
– Somebody’s Got to Pay for It: How the Middle Class Got Stuck Paying
An Unfair Share of Taxes
– America: The History of Third-World Infrastructure
– Winners and Losers: Four Decades of the 1% and their Congressional Lackies Sticking It to the Middle Class
– Bye, Bye, American Dream: Recognizing the Causes of Institutionalized Income Inequality
– Standing on the Brink: The Systematic Destruction of Unions and the Living Wage
– Millionaires and Billionaires: How Much Is Enough?
– Anatomy for Politicians: Finding Your Backbone

II. Communicating the Solution
– Who Am I?: Authenticity for Congressional Dummies
– Finding Common Ground: Identifying and Simplifying the Message
– Learning to Connect: The Psychology and Communication of Empathy
– Verbal Tactics: Consigning Trickle-Down Economics to the Trash Heap of History
– Self-Interest versus the Common Good: Reconnecting the Politician with the Constituent
– Articulating Differences: A Primer for Winning Elections

The post Democrats need to attend Elizabeth Warren’s “communication school” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has another brilliant and truly progressive proposal. It would help the more than 68 million Americans (25% of all households) who use payday loan services because they have no checking or savings account, and also help shore up the struggling U.S. Postal Service.

It’s not Warren’s idea, but one that she and others—even within the Obama administration—have championed for a long time. This past week, she penned an op-ed on Huffington Post on the heels of a new report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Postal Service. The report explores the possibility of the USPS offering basic banking services—bill paying, check cashing, savings accounts, debit cards and even simple loans—to its customers. The Inspector General weighing in on postal banking moves it from a good idea being tossed around and going nowhere to a significant policy proposal.

Warren writes:

With post offices and postal workers already on the ground, USPS could partner with banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don’t have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods.

Families rely on financial services more than ever, but those who need them most—who struggle to make ends meet—too often must contend with sky-high interest rates and tricks and traps buried in the fine print of their loan products.

In a more lengthy article in the New Republic, David Dayen writes that post offices could deliver the same services as payday loan operations at a 90 percent discount, saving the average household over $2,000 a year in interest and fees and provide the struggling USPS with $8.9 billion in annual profits.

Instead of partnering with predatory lenders, banks could partner with the USPS on a public option, not beholden to shareholder demands, which would treat customers more fairly. As the report says, “the Postal Service could greatly complement banks’ offerings,” and in turn help drive out of business some of the most crooked companies in America, while promoting savings and expanding credit for the poor.

The Post office is well positioned to deliver simple financial services. After all, it once was a bank. Dayen explains:

The postal service, with public trust earned over generations and 35,000 outlets in the best real estate in practically every city in America (in fact, the report notes, 59 percent of all post offices are in “bank deserts” with only one bank branch or less), is well-positioned to deliver simple financial services. In fact, it did for over 50 years. Begun in 1911, the Postal Savings System allowed Americans to deposit cash with certain branch post offices, at 2 percent interest. By 1947, the system held deposits for over four million customers. Though dismantled in 1967 (after banks offered higher interest rates and eroded its market share), the post office continues to issue domestic and international money orders, including $22.4 billion worth in 2011, as well as prepaid debit cards through a deal with American Express.

The OIG proposal is an amazing win-win proposition. It would shore up the postal service under attack by corporations and politicians who want to privatize postal services and it would save hundreds of thousands of jobs by stabilizing one of the biggest employers in the country. It would provide financial services to the poor and working poor giving them a better chance to get ahead. As Dayen says, “it’s classic inequality reducer.”

In his very thorough report, “Providing Non-Bank Financial Services for the Underserved” Inspector General David C. Williams makes the case that the USPS could potentially start providing banking services immediately without congressional approval. But there are significant political problems and hurdles to clear to make this happen, not the least of which is the current Postmaster General, Patrick Donahoe who, according Dayen, has not been open to innovative ideas that would save the post office and expand its services. Rather, he has concentrated on things like closing facilities, cutting staff, and raising rates. To get an idea of how bad Donahoe’s leadership is, read Ralph Nader’s 2012 “Letter to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe—It’s Time to Resign.” The letter is co-signed by Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, Judy Lear acting director of Gray Panthers, and other activists.

So far, no post office official has endorsed the IG report. Dayen thinks it’s time for President Obama to step in:

He’s been looking for something to show he can help improve the lives of ordinary Americans, regardless of Congress’ inaction. Here’s a perfect opening on an issue of equal access, of affordability, of saving an American institution. Sure, the banks will squawk: the chief counsel of the American Bankers Association has already pronounced himself “deeply concerned”—but as the IG report shows, they have no interest in serving this community. So surely that won’t stop the President from urging the USPS to take advantage of this lucrative and worthwhile option. Unless he values payday lenders and greedy middlemen more than the financial security of the Postal Service and millions of poor Americans.

Given Obama’s less than stellar record on helping the working poor, and given he owes his presidency to big banks, I will be surprised if he provides the leadership necessary to make this happen. I hope I’m wrong. Meanwhile, I’m betting on Elizabeth Warren. She ends her op ed with this:

The Postal Service is huge—employing more than a half million people—and its history is long and complicated. Any change will take time. But this is an issue I am going to spend a lot of time working on—and I hope my colleagues join me. We need innovative ways to create pathways for struggling families to build economic security, and this is an idea that falls in that category.

The post Elizabeth Warren: The post office could become a bank, replace payday lenders appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Eleven days and counting into the government shutdown, here’s Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren on day three channeling anger, disappointment, and utter incredulousness at the “anarchy” that Tea Party Republicans (and their Republican colleagues who lack the spine to stand up to them) have foisted upon us.

Watch as Senator Warren pulls no punches as she debunks the false media meme that the shutdown is the result of congressional dysfunction across both aisles.  Take heart as well in the Senator’s words that “we’re not a country of anarchists” and that this “reckless faction,” like the reckless factions that have come before them, will fail.

The post Elizabeth Warren: Straight talk about the Republican shutdown appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Sometimes it seems that contemporary American politics and the sometimes upside-down policies of our dysfunctional Congress are so entangled and opaque that it’s impossible to sort out what’s true and what’s false.

Thankfully, there are a few people on the national scene that have the right combination of communication skills, brain power, and moxie to come to our aid and ease our troubled minds.  One of those people is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

In the video below Senator Warren rides to the rescue and demonstrates how to tease out the knots and connect up the dots. Listen—and listen well—to her description of her “state of disbelief” and her clear-eyed explanation about how Republicans took us all hostage with their delusional shutdown of our federal government.

The post Teasing out the knots. Connecting up the dots: Sen. Warren on the government shutdown appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Lawrence O’Donnell, host of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” truly insulted me and most of his viewers recently.  He asked us to leave to room, go cook something, do the dishes, or take a walk.  He wanted a very narrow audience, the twelve new Senators elected on November 6.

His point was that their political future would best be ensured if they maintained a low profile with the national media and limited their appearances to local media within their state.  His reason was that voters in their states want to feel special; that their newly elected senator was exclusively dedicated to the interests of his or her constituents and did not have aspirations to rise into the national spotlight.

The example that he used was Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, a one-time high-profile comedian.  Franken has exclusively appeared on Minnesota outlets, with one exception.  That was when he was sandbagged into an interview at the Democratic National Convention by one reporter.  The reporter happened to be none other than Lawrence O’Donnell.  Franken knew that he was stuck; that he couldn’t just run away from an interview.  However he justified his appearance because he was standing in the middle of the Minnesota delegation at the convention.

The post Advice to freshman Senators: Keep a low profile appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In recent days, there have been national and local indications that individual office-holders and candidates are truly advancing a progressive agenda. This is most refreshing because, for too long, the progressive banner has been carried by a few pundits, such as Paul Krugman, some blogs, and a couple of reliable stand-bys in Congress. Three encouraging developments in the political arena are:

One: President Obama’s new attitude

President Obama’s speech on jobs was encouraging and his actions following the speech have given true reason for optimism. First, he has drawn a line in the sand with regard to the need for increased tax revenues. He has strengthened his commitment to ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, and he has cleverly called the revision the Buffett Plan. Second, he has said that he will veto any debt reduction bill that does not include the Buffet Plan. He’s using the bully pulpit, and it’s already working. In a speech in Cincinnati on September 19, House Speaker John Boehner seemed on the ropes. He may be conservative, but he’s not dumb. The framing is on the side of progressives, and Boeher’s complaining about class warfare attacking the wealthy is about as effective as a national referendum to declare the Yankees “the people’s team.”

Let’s give President Obama credit for dealing himself a strong hand and playing it. However, this will be a long drawn-out struggle. It’s doubtful that the House will pass any tax increases, meaning that the president won’t have any bill to veto. However, with 71% of Americans supporting tax increases as part of a deficit reduction plan, 2012 could be a good year for Democrats – if the Democrats have a spine and stand up for progressive policies.

Two: Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren, the remarkable special advisor for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is now a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Ted Kennedy’s old seat in Massachusetts currently held by Scott Brown. Frankly, when the word was out that she might run, I was concerned that she might morph into just another politician. It was with trepidation that I went to her web site. I have basically given up on contributing to political candidates, because it’s hard to think of any other kind of spending that has more waste, fraud, and mismanagement. But Elizabeth Warren could be different. When I clicked on the “Donate Now” button, I shouted out a big cheer. Her default donation is $3. That’s correct, three dollars. Of course, you can give more if you wish, but the suggested donation of $3 shows that she is aware of the financial struggles that many of her likely supporters are experiencing. It’s clear that she is going to run with integrity. It is the job of progressives in Massachusetts and elsewhere to spread the word that she wants to run a principled campaign. There’s a symbiotic factor to this. The more respect and support she gets for being honest and not seeking the big bucks, the easier it will be for her to continue to do so.

Three: A real progressive runs for Missouri House

Missouri’s 83rd House district recently became vacant, and the Democratic Party met to select a candidate to fill the vacancy. Democratic committeepeople from the 83rd met to nominate a candidate in the Nov. 8 special election.

They had a chance to select a remarkable candidate in Tracy McCreery, but they preferred to take the “politics as usual” path. Tracy is simply too good to not be in office. With support from friends and colleagues and considerable personal courage, Tracy is now running for the seat as an independent.

How good is Tracy? She brings the basic characteristics of a progressive to the table: empathy, honesty, intelligence, and fairness. Additionally she has experience. It’s not the kind of experience of being “present and inattentive.” Tracy worked for eight years as a legislative aide to State Senator Joan Bray, the most thoughtful progressive legislator Missouri has seen in years. During that time she engaged in the struggles over protecting a woman’s right to choose, fair funding for public schools, providing mass transit that is accessible to those who need it most, and a host of other issues. She has pounded the pavement of St. Louis County, listening to voters and helping to develop solutions to their needs. Through it all, she has maintained a fundamental commitment to keeping government out of areas where it doesn’t belong but having it omnipresent to provide a safety net for those in need.

Fortunately, Tracy is giving residents of the 83rd District an opportunity for a “do-over” to remedy disappointing decision of the committee that selected the Democratic candidate. Running as an independent can be very challenging, because one loses key financial and volunteer resources. However, being an independent can also be liberating, allowing one to follow principles that might be compromised when running as part of a ticket. That freedom only matters if you have an individual with solid values; I think with Tracy we do.

In recent years, the Democratic Party has experienced tremendous difficulty in creating a clear and progressive agenda. Rather than being proactive, the party and its supporters have been very reactive, spending an inordinate amount of time taking the bait from Tea Party members and letting the right set the agenda.

Congratulations to President Obama for taking a new tack in negotiating, to Elizabeth Warren for challenging the political norms, and to Tracy McCreery for challenging the political establishment. Let the proactive momentum continue!

The post Three encouraging signs of progressive momentum: local, state, national appeared first on Occasional Planet.