It appears that Bernie Sanders is being pressured to turn over his donor list to Joe Biden and the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).
Fuck that.
The people who donated to you do not want to be a an asset to be managed by some hack political consultant whose only qualification is their close relationships with members of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).
Please, just don’t.
The Trump White House is looking to propose a stimulus where people will be required to sign away a portion of their Social Security benefits for a payment now.
🚨 COVID paper alert 🚨Excited to share a new paper with @sc_cath and @mjmill611
We show that allowing workers to access a tiny % of their future Social Security benefits today can provide the liquidity they need to weather this storm.
Thread: pic.twitter.com/Jmu7VeH0FH
— Natasha Sarin (@NatashaRSarin) May 5, 2020
This is a transparent strategy to cut social security benefits to reduce its popularity, so that the money can be shoveled out to private accounts where Wall Street will profit from egregious fees and the like.
As an aside, it turns out that a senior Biden Advisor Larry Summers’ protege and sometime co-author Natasha Sarin supports the same death of a thousand cuts to social security. (See the embedded Tweet)
The Trump administration is casting this idea as a way to keep the deficit down, but considering the fact that they are trying to cut more taxes, and there is always money for more war, it’s clear that they want to destroy the most popular federal program one bit at the time:
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Senior White House economic officials also are exploring a proposal floated by two conservative scholars that would allow Americans to choose to receive checks of up to $5,000 in exchange for a delay of their Social Security benefits, according to three people familiar with the internal matter. That plan was written by Andrew Biggs of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute and Joshua Rauh of the right-leaning Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Senior administration officials have discussed the “Eagle Plan,” a 29-page memo that called for an overhaul of federal retirement programs in exchange for upfront payments to some workers, but the White House has already rejected it, according to three administration officials. A copy of the plan was obtained by The Washington Post.
The proposal calls for giving Americans $10,000 upfront in exchange for curbing their federal retirement benefits, such as Social Security, the report says. Art Laffer, a conservative economist who is advising the White House on its economic response, said in an interview he reviewed the presentation and supports it.
Of course Laffer likes it.
Laffer has been an idiot ideologue has been arguing that cutting taxes to basically nothing will generate more revenues, which failed so abysmally with Sam Brownback in Kansas.
There is, of course a point where higher taxes reduce revenues, but the best evidence puts this at 75%±15%, not the less than 20% that Laffer argues for on things like corporate and capital gains taxes.
Social security is a system which by any metric is more efficient and more effective than the private sector, but the Randroid free market mousketeers believe that government programs are an ineluctable evil, so even if 80% of the benefits line the pockets of Wall Street, they support killing it.
They hate Social Security because it works, not because it doesn’t.
Democratic Socialists of America, (DSA) has declined to endorse Joe Biden for President.
Given Biden’s long history of sucking up to banks, racists, and sexual harassers, and the carceral state, this should surprise no one.
Political organizations do not vote, and, “But Donald Trump,” is not a reason to contradict one’s stated values.
Of course, this non-endorsement will be used to blame the left, when Biden loses, because an honest account of the incompetence and corruption of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) would result in too many nepotism hires having to find honest work.
Following the withdrawal of Bernie Sanders from the presidential race, our country has lost the only viable Presidential candidate advocating the comprehensive reform we need to address this pandemic head-on. Sanders’s exit leaves Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. His differences with Sanders and the broader left could not be starker, as was recently made clear when he committed to vetoing Medicare for All, Sanders’s signature legislative priority. Biden’s recent, disgraceful embrace of anti-Chinese xenophobia in his general election campaign, and credible allegations against him, are dangerous examples of how corporate Democrats continue to fail at stopping the ugly advance of far-right politics, racism, and misogyny.
The Democratic Socialists of America will not be endorsing Biden. We fully agree with Senator Sanders that taking on the reactionary, racist, and nationalist right wing represented by Donald Trump is imperative for the survival of millions of working-class people across the country and the world. We believe that the only way to beat the radical right once and for all is through a socialist movement that draws millions of disillusioned working-class people, here and abroad, into the political arena. We will continue to welcome the millions of people who supported Bernie’s platform and are looking for a political home.
We also recognize this moment to strategically strengthen our movements and power. We will fight like hell against the Trump agenda by running pressure campaigns, engaging in mutual aid, helping to build strong, democratic unions, building coalitions with those organizing against capitalism, acting in solidarity with immigrants and incarcerated people against deportation and detention, working to protect tenants and unhoused people, organizing to expand voting rights, locations, and the right to vote by mail. We will demand COVID relief that addresses inequality through a lens of reparations, push for an end to sanctions that are killing millions and fuel militarism in many parts of the world, and will back democratic socialist candidates at the grassroots level. That’s because we know that politics does not begin every four years with a national election: when we get organized, we become the agents of the change that will win the better world the working class desires and deserves.
Were the DSA to engage in obvious hypocrisy by endorsing Biden, it would damage the DSA, and Biden would get nothing from it.
“Vote for the slightly less awful rapist,” is a political strategy that would destroy DSA.
Joe Biden has denied the sexual assault allegations made against him by Tara Reade on Morning Joe.
Joe Biden has categorically denied allegations from a former Senate aide that he sexually assaulted her in 1993.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s first public comment on the allegation came at a delicate moment for his campaign.
“I recognize my responsibility to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished,” Biden wrote in a Medium post on Friday morning. “So I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago. They aren’t true. This never happened.”
So, there you have it.
Where it goes from here, I have absolutely no idea.
Then we had reports from her brother and a fellow Congressional staffer (still anonymous) saying that she had related the alleged incident to them contemporaneously in 1993.
THEN we have what appears to be a call from her mother to Larry King in 1993 referring to this incident.
Now, we have a neighbor, one who says that she is voting for Joe Biden anyway, has announced that she was told about the alleged incident to them in 1993.
This allegation, while not definitive, is clearly credible, and bears an independent and aggressive investigation:
In March, when a former aide to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden accused the candidate of sexually assaulting her in 1993, two people came forward to say that the woman, Tara Reade, had told them of the incident shortly after it allegedly occurred — her brother, Collin Moulton, and a friend who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
Now two more sources have come forward to corroborate certain details about Reade’s claims. One of them — a former neighbor of Reade’s — has told Insider for the first time, on the record, that Reade disclosed details about the alleged assault to her in the mid-1990s.
“This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it,” Lynda LaCasse, who lived next door to Reade in the mid-’90s, told Insider.
The other source, Lorraine Sanchez, who worked with Reade in the office of a California state senator in the mid-’90s, told Insider that she recalls Reade complaining at the time that her former boss in Washington, DC, had sexually harassed her, and that she had been fired after raising concerns.
These allegations are now unequivocally credible.
I don’t know why centrist Democrats hate progressives more than they hate Donald Trump, but it is clear that they are willing to destroy themselves to troll progressives.
Case in point is the public admission that the Biden campaign is consulting with Larry Summers on the economy.
It appears that the whole “Own the Libs” shtick is something that is shared by both Republicans and centrists.
Why else hire a glib, obnoxious, incompetent, (Obama stimulus, repealing Glass Steagall) and corrupt (Andrei Shleifer) lightning rod.
It’s pretty clear that the self-declared “Adults in the room” simply aren’t:
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers is advising Joe Biden’s presidential campaign on economic policy, including its plans to revive the U.S. economy after the coronavirus pandemic, according to five people familiar with his involvement.
The Obama and Clinton administration veteran’s role will likely roil progressives who view his past work on the 2009 recovery as too favorable to big banks. That’s awkward for the Biden campaign at a time when it is trying to win the trust of former supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Summers was the first name on the “Biden do not reappoint list” published last month by the American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner, who wrote that Summers in 2009 “not only lowballed the necessary economic stimulus and ended it prematurely, but he successfully fought for rescuing the biggest banks rather than taking them into temporary receivership.”
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Opposition from the left kept Summers from being nominated for Federal Reserve Chairman by President Barack Obama in September 2013, when a handful of Senate Democrats, including Warren, Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester and Jeff Merkley, complained to the White House that he was too lax on financial regulation. Summers withdrew his name from consideration after weeks of debate within the White House about a possibly difficult confirmation fight.
I would note that Jon Tester is one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate, as well as being from one of the most conservative states to have a Democratic Senator.
This is a stupid and self-destructive, but hell, stupid and self-destructive seems to be what passes for Democratic Party branding, I guess.
If Joe Biden Had a Personal History of Dismembering Grandmothers and Feeding Them to Children as an After-School Snack, He Would Still, in My View, Be Far Preferable to Donald Trump or Mike Pence
Ms. Featherstone is commenting on the complete abandonment of #MeToo by the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) with regard to Joe Biden.
I do not know if the most recent allegations of assault are true or not, but it is clear that the response of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has been abjectly deplorable.
Over at The Intercept, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim are suggesting that that there should be a Joe Biden/Bernie Sanders Presidential ticket.
Seriously, which ever person is at the top of the ticket, it is pretty likely that they will be succeeded by their VP, and their policies are diametrically opposed.
Additionally, the DemocraticParty establishment (there is no Democratic Party establishment) would would vociferously oppose Sanders as a running mate, (It would interfere with their keeping their phony baloney jobs) and Sanders supporters would oppose the selection of Biden with equal vigor given that they consider Biden to have been on the wrong side of every major issue throughout his career.
This isn’t journalism, it’s bad fan fiction.
Joe Biden has announced that he does not want to get involved in a political fight with Donald Trump over the latter’s complete mishandling of the of the Covid-19 pandemic.
My dear Biden: If you don’t want to use your Presidential Campaign I should like to borrow it for a while
This is worse than a crime, it is a mistake:
Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he does not want to be in a political fight with President Trump over the coronavirus outbreak but that he would continue to call the president out on misinformation regarding the virus.
“I have not been criticizing the president, but I’ve been pointing out where there is disagreement on how to proceed,” Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said on ABC’s “The View.”
“The coronavirus is not his fault, but the lack of speed with which to respond to it has to move much faster,” he continued. “This is not about Democrat or Republican. This is not about what your party is. It’s about getting through this.”
“The American people don’t want us in a political fight, and I want no part of a political fight either, but when the president says things that turn out not to be accurate, we should not say ‘you’re lying,’ we should say ‘Mr. President that’s not the facts, here’s the deal.
Seriously, if Joe Biden does not want to campaign for the Presidency, why does he want to be the nomineee?
Honest to God, that is the campaign slogan for the Democratic intelligentsia supporting the Biden candidacy.
I am NOT joking.
At The Atlantic, a bastion of the Democratic Party establishment, they just published an article titled, “Stay Alive, Joe Biden.”
The subhed is, “Democrats need little from the front-runner beyond his corporeal presence.”
They are literally saying that he’s not dead yet, and he is not Bernie Sanders, and so he must be the nominee.
Seriously, have they learned NOTHING from the clusterf%$# that was the Hillary Clinton campaign.