JULY 31, 2017
NEWS AND VIEWS
COMPILATION AND COMMENTS
BY LUCY WARNER


SANDERS AND THE DEVELOPING PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT VS ALEC

BERNIE AND OTHER PROGRESSIVES ARE ON A ROLL. YESTERDAY’S "THE HILL" ARTICLE, UNFORTUNATELY, SAID THAT THE ONE PAYER SYSTEM “MEDICARE FOR ALL” HAS “DIVIDED DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS.” ABOUT THE TIME THAT BERNIE SANDERS CAME TO THE HEAD OF THE PROGRESSIVE PACK IN 2015 OR SO, I CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE DEAR OLD DEMOCRATIC PARTY JUST DOESN’T STAND FOR THE LITTLE MAN ANYMORE. THERE ARE ALSO REPORTS THAT OUR DEMS ARE BEING FUNDED BY THE KOCHS AND OTHER HUGE MONEY ENTITIES, JUST AS THE REPUBLICANS ARE.

THE PROGRESSIVES, HOWEVER, DO CARE. AFTER THE 2016 COUP AGAINST SANDERS BY CLINTON AND THE MAINSTREAM DEMS, I KNEW IT FOR A CERTAINTY; SO, ON THE DAY I WENT TO THE POLLS IN 2016 TO VOTE ONE LAST TIME TO SAVE THE COUNTRY FROM THE RIGHTIST FORCES, I.E. VOTE FOR HILLARY, BLESS HER HEART, I THEN PROCEEDED TO THE REGISTRATION DESK AND REMOVED MY NAME FROM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ROLLS. I’M NOW A DECLARED INDEPENDENT, LIKE BERNIE. THE DEMS HAVE CALLED ME AT LEAST HALF A DOZEN TIMES ASKING FOR MONEY AND I JUST TELL THEM GENTLY AND LOVINGLY THAT I WON’T GIVE, AND WHY. I DID, ALSO, WRITE THEM A FOUR OR FIVE PARAGRAPH EMAIL AT THE DNC, DECLARING MY DECISION.

SEE THIS JULY 30, 2017 FROM THE HILL AND THE NEXT FROM COMMON DREAMS ON THE SURPRISING SUCCESS OF THE ONE PAYER PLAN, ACCORDING TO POLLING RESULTS AND SOME 100 DEMOCRATS IN THE FEDERAL LEGISLATURE.

AFTER THAT IS A PIECE THAT SPEAKS CLEARLY TO ME OF THE PATH IN WHICH WE NEED TO MOVE. THAT ARTICLE IS FROM A GROUP CALLED “NAKED CAPITALISM.COM.” IT GIVES A SUMMARY ON WHERE THE OUR REVOLUTION PROGRESSIVES ARE NOW, AND WHERE SANDERS HIMSELF IS. ALL OF THEIR ARTICLES ARE EXTREMELY TIMELY AND PERTINENT AS WELL. TAKE A LOOK AT THEM.


http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/344520-sanders-im-absolutely-introducing-single-payer-healthcare-bill
Sanders: I'm 'absolutely' introducing single-payer healthcare bill
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 07/30/17 10:42 AM EDT

Photograph -- Sen. Bernie Sanders (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday that he will “absolutely” introduce legislation on single-payer healthcare now that the Senate GOP’s bill to repeal ObamaCare has failed.

“Of course we are, we’re tweaking the final points of the bill and we’re figuring out how we can mount a national campaign to bring people together,” Sanders told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union.

Sanders promised to introduce a “Medicare for All” proposal once the debate over repealing ObamaCare ended. He is one of several progressive lawmakers who back the healthcare model that has divided Democratic lawmakers.

It’s unclear exactly when he will introduce the legislation. The Senate has two weeks remaining in sessions.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) attached an amendment to one version of the ObamaCare repeal bill Wednesday that would have created a single-payer healthcare system in the U.S. Daines does not support a single-payer system but used the model as a political maneuver.

Sanders’s spokesman slammed the amendment as a “sham” at the time and said Sanders and other Democrats would refuse to vote on the measure.


PHYSICIANS FOR A NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/04/26/medicare-all-bill-reaches-record-breaking-104-co-sponsors-congress
'Medicare for All' Bill Reaches a Record-Breaking 104 Co-Sponsors in Congress
Majority of House Democrats now support single-payer health plan
Wednesday, April 26, 2017 - 5:45pm

Organization Profile:
Physicians for a National Health Program
Contact:
Clare Fauke, Communications Specialist,
(312) 782-6006
clare@pnhp.org

WASHINGTON - Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), a group of 21,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals, announced today that H.R. 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act has reached a record number of co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, now totalling 104.

H.R. 676 was introduced in January by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), and has rapidly gained support from members across the country, adding 28 new co-sponsors in April alone. The bill would yield about $500 billion annually in administrative savings and provide immediate coverage to the 26 million Americans who are currently uninsured, achieving President Trump’s campaign promises of more coverage, better benefits and lower costs.

“Americans are fed up with an inhumane, profit-driven health system that leaves millions without care,” said Dr. Carol Paris, president of PNHP. “Quality health care is not a luxury, nor is it a commodity that can be bought and sold in a marketplace. It is a social good that can be best delivered through a single-payer national health program."

Demands for a national single-payer health plan dominated town hall meetings during the spring congressional recess. PNHP members have contributed to this upswing in activism by calling, writing and visiting their representatives, asking them to co-sponsor H.R. 676 for the benefit of patients, physicians, and the broader economy.

“Gallup, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and other polling organizations have found that there is majority support for Medicare for All in America today,” said Rep. Conyers in a recent editorial in the Detroit Free Press. Thanks to this groundswell, he said, "Single payer is politically achievable."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has also announced plans to introduce a Medicare for all bill in the senate next month.

"The momentum towards a universal health program is unstoppable," added Dr. Paris. "Americans of all political stripes are reiterating their long-held support for improved Medicare for all, and Congress has a responsibility to act. We urge all members—including Republicans, whose constituents are demanding a better health care system—to come together and finally enact H.R. 676. Now is the time."

###
Physicians for a National Health Program is a single issue organization advocating a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program. PNHP has more than 21,000 members and chapters across the United States.

Organization Links
Physicians for a National Health Program
PNHP (Press Center)
PNHP (Action Center)


ABOUT H.R. BILL 676

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Health_Care_Act
United States National Health Care Act
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the 2010 health care reform bill signed into law by President Barack Obama, see Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The United States National Health Care Act, or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (H.R. 676) is a bill introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Representative John Conyers (D-MI).[1] The bill had 49 cosponsors in 2015. As of July 17, 2017, it had 115 cosponsors,[2] which amounts to a majority of the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives and is the highest level of support the bill has ever received since Conyers began annually introducing the bill in 2003.[3]

The act would establish a universal single-payer health care system in the United States, the rough equivalent of Canada's Medicare and Taiwan's Bureau of National Health Insurance, among other examples. Under a single-payer system, most medical care would be paid for by the Government of the United States, ending the need for private health insurance and premiums, and probably recasting private insurance companies as providing purely supplemental coverage, to be used when non-essential care is sought.

The national system would be paid for in part through taxes replacing insurance premiums, but also by savings realized through the provision of preventative universal healthcare and the elimination of insurance company overhead and hospital billing costs.[4] An analysis of the bill by Physicians for a National Health Program estimated the immediate savings at $350 billion per year.[5] Others have estimated a long-term savings amounting to 40% of all national health expenditures due to preventative health care.[6] Preventative care can save several hundreds of billions of dollars per year in the U.S., because for example cancer patients are more likely to be diagnosed at Stage I where curative treatment is typically a few outpatient visits, instead of at Stage III or later in an emergency room where treatment can involve years of hospitalization and is often terminal.[7]

The bill was first introduced in 2003,[8] when it had 25 cosponsors, and has been reintroduced in each Congress since. During the 2009 health care debates over the bill that became the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, H.R. 676 was expected to be debated and voted upon by the House in September 2009,[9] but was never debated.[10]

The bill was introduced again recently by Rep. Conyers in the House of Representatives. Senator Bernie Sanders has said that he intends to introduce a parallel bill in the United States Senate in the future. [11][12]



I FOUND MYSELF STUCK TODAY IN THE WEBPAGE OF COMMON DREAMS, SO I’VE INCLUDED A NUMBER OF THEIR OTHERS ON PROGRESSIVE SUBJECTS BELOW, FROM DISABLING LOCAL USE OF ENERGY PRODUCTION SUCH AS SOLAR ON CITIZENS’ HOUSETOPS TO ATTEMPTS TO QUASH STATE RULES MANDATING TRANSPARENCY ON THE VAST GULF BETWEEN CEO AND WORKER PAY. I AM SO IMPRESSED, I HAVE DONATED A SMALL AMOUNT TO COMMON DREAMS FOR THEIR USE AND TO SEND ME A DAILY REPORT OF NEW INFORMATION. FOR SUCH ALT-RIGHT STATE LAWS, SEE THE DAVID KOCH ORGANIZATION’S “THINK TANK,” CALLED ALEC, AT:

ALEC Exposed: The Koch Connection | The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/alec-exposed-koch-connection/
Jul 12, 2011 - This article is part of a Nation series exposing the American Legislative Exchange Council, in collaboration with the Center For Media and Democracy. ... ALEC gave the Kochs its Adam Smith Free Enterprise Award, and Koch Industries has been one of the select members of ALEC’s ...


IS IT SINGLE PAYER TIME? BERNIE SAYS HE’LL GIVE IT A GO, AND HE APPARENTLY IS ALMOST READY TO DO IT. THE SECOND COMMON DREAMS ARTICLE BELOW STATES THAT 104 DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS ARE BEHIND IT.



THIS MARCH 12 ARTICLE FROM NAKED CAPITALISM IS A GOOD THOROUGH EXAMINATION OF WHAT IS COMING INTO BEING IN THE MODERN PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT. BY THE WAY, THE “PROGRESSIVE PARTIES” OF BOB LAFOLLETTE AND TEDDY ROOSEVELT AREN’T THE SAME THINGS, NOR IS THE MODERN LEFTWARD DRIFT WHICH IS BEING CALLED “PROGRESSIVE” LINKED. IT ALSO ISN’T YET A “PARTY,” AND ACCORDING TO THE NYT ARTICLE BY JEFFREY D. SACHS, 2011, IT IS DESCRIBED AS “THE NEW PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT.” WHATEVER WE CALL IT, IT IS IMPORTANT TO THIS – LOOSELY FORMED -- TOPIC TODAY. WHERE ARE WE PROGRESSIVES GOING NOW? GO TO THE LAST ARTICLE BELOW, HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2011/11/13/OPINION/SUNDAY/THE-NEW-PROGRESSIVE-MOVEMENT.HTML


http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/03/campaign-calls-bernie-sanders-lead-new-party.html
Campaign Calls on Bernie Sanders to Lead a New Party
Posted on March 12, 2017 by Yves Smith

Yves here. Even though the idea of a new political party sounds and is quixotic, the US has moved to the left when faced with significant forces outside the two-party system. One was the Progressive Party under Bob LaFollette. Another was the labor movement, particularly when in 1930s when the young CIO was both militant and effective. Unions lost when they decided to operate within the party system rather than being feral.

From the Real News Network:

PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay, in Baltimore.

After the election of Donald Trump – I should say, after the nomination of Hillary Clinton and then the election of Donald Trump – a movement to elect Bernie Sanders, the people involved in that movement, had to decide what to do next: stay within the Democratic Party, or fight outside the Democratic Party.

Of course, everyone was waiting to see what Bernie Sanders would do, and he endorsed Hillary Clinton and actively campaigned for her, which was a matter of some debate amongst Sanders supporters. Now, there’s a new initiative: to create a new party and recruit Bernie Sanders to be the head of that party. Well, Bernie got asked about this on Meet the Press, and here’s his response.

CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you a question. Some of your former staffers, including Nick Brana, have a Draft Bernie for a People’s Party Movement. Essentially, they want to start a new political party. In the statement it said, “Despite Bernie Sanders’ monumental endeavor to bring people into the Democratic Party, people are leaving it by the millions. The collective efforts to reform the party cannot stem the tide of people who are going Independent, let alone expand the Democratic base.” What do you say to those efforts?

BERNIE SANDERS: Well, I say two things. Right now, we are in a pivotal moment in American history. We have a president who is delusional in many respects, a pathological liar, somebody who is trying to–

CHUCK TODD: Strong words, can you–

BERNIE SANDERS: Those are strong words.

CHUCK TODD: Can you work with a pathological liar?

BERNIE SANDERS: Well, it makes life very difficult, not just for me, and I don’t mean… you know, I know it sounds… it is very harsh. But I think that’s the truth. When somebody goes before you and the American people and says, “Three to five million people voted illegally in the last election.” Nobody believes that. There is not the scintilla of evidence. What would you call that remark? It’s a lie. It’s a delusion.

But second of all, to answer your question, I think what we need to do right now is focusing on bringing the American people together around a Progressive agenda. American people want to raise the minimum wage. They want to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. They want the wealthiest people in this country to start paying their fair share of taxes. They want the United States to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee healthcare to all people as a right.

CHUCK TODD: So if the Democratic Party isn’t that vehicle, then you would support something like that, but you still believe the Democratic Party is that vehicle?

BERNIE SANDERS: Now, right now… right now, Chuck, I am working to bring fundamental reform to the Democratic Party, to open the doors of the Democratic Party to working people, to lower income people, to young people, who have not felt welcome in the embrace of the Democratic Party.

CHUCK TODD: All right, I gotta leave it there. Senator Bernie Sanders, thanks for coming on and sharing your views, sir. Appreciate it.

PAUL JAY: So, did Bernie Sanders leave the door open, not just to the Democratic Party, but did he leave the door open to perhaps joining in a third party effort, if the Democratic Party is, as Chuck Todd said, not the vehicle to achieve the political objectives Sanders is fighting for? There’s some debate about that.

Now joining us is the author of that document – or one of the authors – is Nick Brana. Thanks for joining us.

NICK BRANA: Hey, Paul. It’s great to be here.

PAUL JAY: Nick is the founder and director of Draft Bernie for a People’s Party. He was the National Political Outreach Coordinator on Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign through the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and went on to become a founding member of Our Revolution. He left Our Revolution – that’s the organization that was initiated, or created on the initiative of Bernie Sanders. He left Our Revolution along with other former Sanders staffers around the time of its launch.

Thanks for joining us.

NICK BRANA: I’m glad to be here.

PAUL JAY: NBC interpreted Bernie’s statement as closing the door on whether he would in fact be even open to the idea of a third party run. How did you interpret what he said?

NICK BRANA: They did. But anyone who watches the field clip, as you just played it, can see that the only thing that he really said is, “Right now I’m working on the Democratic Party.” When Chuck Todd asked him again, you know, but if the Democratic Party doesn’t prove to be that vehicle, Bernie would not answer that question. He would not tell, he would not rule it out, basically, and that’s what Chuck Todd was looking for an answer for. And that’s because Bernie has kept the door open.

Because Bernie, I think, like the rest of us, understands that the Democratic Party, reforming the Democratic Party is something that is becoming increasingly bleak, changing that party – you know – the prospects of that. And I think it’s become very clear that Progressives don’t have the leverage with the party in order to be able to enact any of the things or to make them take us seriously, as well–

PAUL JAY: Now, you’re a former staffer of Sanders’.

NICK BRANA: Yeah.

PAUL JAY: Have you talked to him? What has he said? You’ve asked… you obviously must have asked him in one form or another to come head up this new initiative.

NICK BRANA: Yes. I have reached out, but those conversations are things that I can’t go into. Those kinds of… you know, discussions, unfortunately. But…

PAUL JAY: Well…

NICK BRANA: But, yes.

PAUL JAY: But he certainly seems by all his activity to be committed to what he just said, reforming the Democratic Party. One of the issues that’s been a fight both within the Democratic Party, in fact, even within Our Revolution – I think it was one of the reasons you and some of the other staffers left – is that are the Progressives, including Sanders, going to focus on this issue of primary and right wing and corporate Democrats, and really organize that fight? And/or is it just going to be about ‘defeat Trump’, which means if establishment Democrats are likely to win the seat, you’ll leave them alone despite what their politics are?

NICK BRANA: That’s definitely the direction that I think that the DNC is going. The DNC, with having elected Tom Perez,… he was specifically recruited, Tom Perez, to run in the DNC against Ellison and against other more Progressive candidates, specifically to oppose Progressive change in the party. You know, it was for that explicit purpose. And in the DNC election, the party showed that it was still… that it’s still fully in control, basically, of that vehicle. You had Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, making calls in favor of Tom Perez. And … also you had this incredible resolution where the Democratic Party, the DNC, said that it was going to continue to take corporate money to the DNC itself.

But most telling to me, Paul, is something that was never on the table in the first place. And that’s the… it’s something that we all espoused and agreed upon on Bernie’s campaign, and that’s the idea that the politicians themselves, not necessarily the DNC being hooked onto corporate money, that’s certainly true, but the politicians, Democratic politicians themselves being hooked on the corporate lobbyist and Wall Street billionaire money. And that was never even contested in the party, you know? And that to me… for it not to be even on the table, you know, tells me that the party is really not going to be the institution through which we can effect Progressive change.

PAUL JAY: But Bernie clearly is committed to this. Before the election, and Trump winning, which I don’t think many people expected – I don’t think Bernie expected it – but before the election, Bernie was talking about: everyone should run, the people should get involved, run for office; and there should be an organization, which I always thought that’s what Our Revolution’s role was always going to be, that would support what he called “candidates who support the political revolution”, and the various social and economic objectives, including single payer healthcare and such.

That meant primary and right wing Democrats were actually a high priority. Now, Trump’s been elected. Has that changed the dynamic? Has it changed it for Bernie? Has it changed it for others? Because now he shares a stage with Chuck Schumer who’s, like, the personification of the corporate Democrat.

NICK BRANA: Right. That would certainly be something that would need to happen. If he were to try to reform the Democratic Party, you have the primary, and obviously right wing Democrats. The reason that I don’t think that that would be successful is the same reason that Bernie’s campaign was so successful, kind of the same reasoning behind that. And that’s that actually reforming the Democratic Party doesn’t inspire the same level of kind of energy and enthusiasm that Bernie did on the campaign.

>People are becoming increasingly dim about that, because the party has gone… has done everything in its power to try to shut that down and to try to show that that’s really… that there is no room for Progressives. You know, they have these two sayings. They say, “This is a Big Ten [sic] Party”, you know? And they say that, “we have to unite”. Well, what they mean, those have become code for, you know, we want your votes, Progressives, we want your money, but we don’t want to actually enact any of the policies that the majority of Americans want and that Progressives want.

PAUL JAY: How does this play out? Because this is all built around right now recruiting Bernie, and at least for now you don’t have Bernie. So how do you build this, and what happens if you don’t get Bernie?

NICK BRANA: I am confident that Bernie will join us when he sees that the momentum is really on this side. And that’s what I’ve seen – the people who are joining us; there are thousands of volunteers who are signing up to volunteer, we’re starting weekly national organizing calls, getting people involved in their community, collecting petitions for him, speaking to other Progressives, getting the word out. And that I think, once Bernie sees that the momentum within the movement is on the side of starting a new party, then I think he will join us. I think he will come with us, because he knows that no matter what he’s going to in the end, he needs those Progressives, he needs that energy; and what we’ve seen in what we’re doing is really inspiring, because it’s a reawakening, actually, of that energy and enthusiasm and hope from the campaign.

People say that it feels like the early days of Bernie’s campaign. Because in the midst of this horrible kind of narrative and all the terrible things that are happening with Trump, obviously, what led to Trump in the nomination process, the Democratic Party, all of that has just been so bleak for people; and … actually drafting Bernie to start a new party is something that’s actually offering a solution to all of these things, and people are reacting very well to that.

PAUL JAY: So, what do you say to the people who were, to a large extent, making this same argument before the election, and supported the Green Party and Jill Stein? Because many of the arguments they gave were that the Democratic Party can’t be reformed, it has to be done as a third party campaign. And they’ve been doing it, they have a certain amount of national structure. Why not do it through them?

NICK BRANA: Right. That’s a great question. We get it a lot. The reason is that, what the Green Party is trying to do, what the Libertarian Party is trying to do, it’s a really admirable effort to bring a diversity of perspectives into our politics. Even if we don’t agree with them, that’s what democracy should mean: diversity of perspectives.

But, that kind of effort, to build a third party that can overtake actually a major party, has never succeeded, that route to doing it. And so by that I mean, when a party tries to build itself up from nothing, from scratch, up into a party that can challenge the major parties, successfully, we just saw that’s what has never worked successfully.

We just saw in the general election the two most despised candidates going against each other. 82% of people told the New York Times they were disgusted with the election, and with the way it had unfolded, and yet still the Green Party and the Libertarian Party couldn’t break 5%. They couldn’t get the minor party status.

And so that tells you how effective those systems are at really keeping the third parties down.

PAUL JAY: Now, wouldn’t that apply to a third party you create? Even if you have Sanders?

NICK BRANA: Yeah. That’s what I’m getting to, is that there is a successful model, though, you know, for creating a new party, and when I started looking into this I realized that it was the same way that the Democratic and the Republican Parties have been created in the past. Those began as small parties and they became major parties; especially the Republican Party example was very apt, as having overthrown the Whig Party in just four years. So essentially that model is that; rather than trying to build up from nothing, where the laws that the establishment has created to keep down third parties, they attack third parties at the takeoff stage, so it’s really difficult to take off.

But what they can’t answer is what the Republican and Democratic Parties did, which is when you bring an existing base of millions of people over to a new party. That’s the model that Lincoln followed, for example, when he built a large following – he and others in the Republican Party…

PAUL JAY: But there is an example of this happening more recently. When Wallace… when Roosevelt’s Vice President, and I guess it’s around… I think it’s in 1945, at the Democratic Party Convention, where Wallace was expected to be nominated again as the Vice President, there’s a bunch of backroom dealings going on, enormous pressure, and essentially there’s a coup takes place, and Truman is brought in as Vice President. Well, Wallace runs on a third party ticket, and there you’ve got somebody who’s got enormous support, takes a whole section of the Democratic Party base with him – and gets trounced.

And I think part of the reason for that is then – and far more even now – the media simply marginalizes the person. Because the media is so part of the State, and they only want the two parties, and it’s one of the reasons the Green Party doesn’t break through, because the media simply will not let the Green Party have a platform. They’ll never let them be in a debate, and so on.

NICK BRANA: And that’s why an established candidate, someone who has built up a following in the establishment parties and then shown the limits of that party – you know, which is exactly what Bernie has done, which is exactly what Lincoln did – they built a majority following in their party when the establishment of that party had refused to acknowledge that majority. So basically there’s a party within a party that happens to be the majority. And you could take that party and you could make it a new institution that actually reflects what people want, which is what Lincoln did successfully.

To your example with Wallace, the difference there, I would say, was that at that point the Democratic Party still represented FDR’s kind of New Deal proposals, and so it was still an institution that had the respect of working people at the time. Right now, it has moved so far away from that. I mean, we basically have a one-party state. That’s what Chomsky calls it, and Gore Vidal kind of comically says it has two right wings, a one party State with two right wings.

Because of that, when you look at party affiliation, party affiliation back then in Truman’s time was very high for the Democratic Party. But it has declined ever since then as the Democratic Party has moved further and further and further away from kind of working class representation, until now when it’s reached historic lows, really, and the number of Independents just dwarfs the number of Democrats and Republicans – it’s much higher. It’s far higher.

And so we’ve reached this point where, really, there’s an ocean of Independents out there who are just waiting for someone to unify them, and that’s why I think if Bernie left he would take – you know, talking about the party within the party – he would take the majority of the Democratic Party. Or half, you know, to be conservative.

PAUL JAY: Well, you know what the counter-argument’s going to be, is that it would lead to the re-election of a second term Trump. Because you’ll have this split in the Democratic Party. That will be the counter-argument–

NICK BRANA: I think that’s the traditional kind of reasoning. The reason I disagree with that, is that you have this incredible situation in this country where neither major party gives voice to the majority of opinions in the United States. When you look at the political spectrum by representation, by Democrats and Republicans, you see that it’s actually a tiny sliver of the actual political spectrum of what Americans believe, and it’s far off to the right wing. You know, what Democrats and Republicans debate is far off to the right wing. They just constantly agree on that, you know, especially on economic and foreign policy, and there are more substantive differences in social policy.

But because of that, there is this vast electoral real estate in actually representing people; you go issue by issue and people agree with Bernie. You know, people want tuition-free public college. People want universal healthcare. People want actually to reinvest some of the money that we’re spending on wars abroad at home. People want… Bernie’s platform is the majority platform; when you look at the United States and when you actually look at those issue poll statistics, you realize that Bernie’s the moderate; by the opinion of the American people, Bernie’s a moderate and that’s why he’s so popular.

PAUL JAY: Okay. Well, we’ll follow this along, and we’ll come back to you in a few months and see how it’s going. Your big target, I think, is the one-year anniversary, is that right?

NICK BRANA: Right.

PAUL JAY: One year anniversary of the DNC convention, you hope to have how many signatures?

NICK BRANA: That’s right. We’d like to have at least 100,000 signatures. I think that’s very doable. There are people who are joining us every day, because they say that this is something that has reawakened the inspiration that they felt on the campaign.

PAUL JAY: Okay. Well, thanks very much for joining us.

NICK BRANA: Of course.

PAUL JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.



WHERE DOES THE "REAL NEWS NETWORK" STAND POLITICALLY? CENTER TO LEFT, FACTCHECK SAYS, AND ITS’ INFORMATION IS CONSIDERED RELIABLE. AS LONG AS NOTHING TURNS ME TOTALLY OFF ABOUT REAL NEWS NETWORK I WILL CONTINUE TO LOOK FOR ARTICLES THERE.


https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/real-news-network/
LEFT-CENTER BIAS

These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation. See all Left-Center sources.

Factual Reporting: HIGH

Notes: The Real News (TRNN) is a nonprofit, viewer-supported daily video-news and documentary service. TRNN launched in 2007 by Paul Jay, who serves as the network’s CEO and senior editor. TRNN describes itself as a news source “focused on providing independent and uncompromising journalism.” The Real News has a moderate left wing bias that is reflected in its positions on economics. It generally gives perspective from both sides, but favors more left-wing economics through whom it interviews. (5/18/2016)

Source: http://therealnews.com/t2/


TWO OTHER IMPORTANT ARTICLES ON REAL NEWS:

Trump Stacking The National Labor Relations Board to Favor Corporations

Can the Democratic Party Represent Wall Street and Main Street? (2/3)
The politics of the possible vs a progressive vision for the future, with TRNN's Paul Jay and members of Maryland Working Families

NOTE: The first time I heard Hillary Clinton advocating “the politics of the possible,” I felt ill.


BERNIE SANDERS IS MY MAIN MAN, BUT ROBERT REICH IS ANOTHER VERY GOOD ONE.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/31/trumps-big-loss
Published on
Monday, July 31, 2017
by RobertReich.org
Trump’s Big Loss
by Robert Reich

Photograph -- "What’s particularly worrisome about Trump’s attack on the processes of our democracy is that the assault comes at a time when the percentage of Americans who regard the other party as a fundamental threat is growing." (Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr)

The demise of the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act is hardly the end of the story. Donald Trump will not let this loss stand.

Since its inception in 2010, Republicans made the Affordable Care Act into a symbol of Obama-Clinton overreach – part of a supposed plot by liberal elites to expand government, burden the white working class, and transfer benefits to poor blacks and Latinos.

Ever the political opportunist, Trump poured his own poisonous salt into this conjured-up wound. Although he never really understood the Affordable Care Act, Trump used it to prey upon resentments of class, race, ethnicity, and religiosity that propelled him into the White House.

Repealing “Obamacare” has remained one of Trump’s central rallying cries to his increasingly angry base. “The question for every senator, Democrat or Republican, is whether they will side with Obamacare’s architects, which have been so destructive to our country, or with its forgotten victims,” Trump said last Monday, adding that any senator who failed to vote against it “is telling America that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare.”

Now, having lost that fight, Trump will try to subvert the Act by delaying funding so some insurers won’t have time to participate, not enforcing the individual mandate so funding will be inadequate, not informing those who are eligible about when to sign up and how to do so, and looking the other way when states don’t comply.

But that’s not all. Trump doesn’t want his base to perceive him as a loser.

So be prepared for scorched-earth politics from the Oval Office, including more savage verbal attacks on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, more baseless charges of voter fraud in the 2016 election, more specific threats to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, and further escalation of the culture wars.

Most Americans won’t be swayed by these pyrotechnics because they’ve become inured to our unhinged president.

But that’s not the point. The rantings are intended to shore up Trump’s “base” – the third of the country that continues to support him, who still believe they’re “victims” of Obamacare, who are willing to believe Trump himself is the victim of a liberal conspiracy to unseat him.
b>
Trump wants his base to become increasingly angry and politically mobilized so they’ll continue to exert an outsized influence on the Republican Party.

There is a deeper danger here. As Harvard political scientist Archon Fung has argued, stable democracies require that citizens be committed to the rule of law even if they fail to achieve their preferred policies.

Settling our differences through ballots and agreed-upon processes rather than through force is what separates democracy from authoritarianism.

But Donald Trump has never been committed to the rule of law. For him, it’s all about winning. If he can’t win through established democratic processes, he’ll mobilize his base to change them.

Trump is already demanding that Mitch McConnell and senate Republicans obliterate the filibuster, thereby allowing anything to be passed with a bare majority.

On Saturday he tweeted “Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW!” adding the filibuster “allows 8 Dems to control country,” and “Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don’t go to a 51 vote majority NOW. They look like fools and are just wasting time.”

What’s particularly worrisome about Trump’s attack on the processes of our democracy is that the assault comes at a time when the percentage of Americans who regard the other party as a fundamental threat is growing.

In 2014 – even before Trump’s incendiary presidential campaign – 35 percent of Republicans saw the Democratic Party as a “threat to the nation’s well being” and 27 percent of Democrats regarded Republicans the same way, according to the Pew Research Center.

Those percentages are undoubtedly higher today. If Trump has his way, they’ll be higher still.

Anyone who regards the other party as a threat to the nation’s well being is less apt to accept outcomes in which the other is perceived to prevail – whether it’s a decision not to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or a special counsel’s conclusion that Trump did in fact collude with Russians, or even the outcome of the next presidential election.

As a practical matter, when large numbers of citizens aren’t willing to accept such outcomes, we’re no longer part of the same democracy.

I fear this is where Trump intends to take his followers, along with as much of the Republican Party as he can: Toward a rejection of political outcomes they regard as illegitimate and therefore a rejection of democracy as we know it.

<i>That way, Trump will always win.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Robert Reich

Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.


TODAY'S PROGRESSIVISM

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-new-progressive-movement.html
SundayReview | OPINION
The New Progressive Movement
JEFFREY D. SACHS NOV. 12, 2011

Photograph -- Protesters severely disrupted operations at the Port of Oakland, Calif., earlier this month. Credit Kent Porter/The Press Democrat, via Associated Press

OCCUPY WALL STREET and its allied movements around the country are more than a walk in the park. They are most likely the start of a new era in America. Historians have noted that American politics moves in long swings. We are at the end of the 30-year Reagan era, a period that has culminated in soaring income for the top 1 percent and crushing unemployment or income stagnation for much of the rest. The overarching challenge of the coming years is to restore prosperity and power for the 99 percent.

Thirty years ago, a newly elected Ronald Reagan made a fateful judgment: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Taxes for the rich were slashed, as were outlays on public services and investments as a share of national income. Only the military and a few big transfer programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits were exempted from the squeeze.

Reagan’s was a fateful misdiagnosis. He completely overlooked the real issue — the rise of global competition in the information age — and fought a bogeyman, the government. Decades on, America pays the price of that misdiagnosis, with a nation singularly unprepared to face the global economic, energy and environmental challenges of our time.

Washington still channels Reaganomics. The federal budget for nonsecurity discretionary outlays — categories like highways and rail, education, job training, research and development, the judiciary, NASA, environmental protection, energy, the I.R.S. and more — was cut from more than 5 percent of gross domestic product at the end of the 1970s to around half of that today. With the budget caps enacted in the August agreement, domestic discretionary spending would decline to less than 2 percent of G.D.P. by the end of the decade, according to the White House. Government would die by fiscal asphyxiation.

Both parties have joined in crippling the government in response to the demands of their wealthy campaign contributors, who above all else insist on keeping low tax rates on capital gains, top incomes, estates and corporate profits. Corporate taxes as a share of national income are at the lowest levels in recent history. Rich households take home the greatest share of income since the Great Depression. Twice before in American history, powerful corporate interests dominated Washington and brought America to a state of unacceptable inequality, instability and corruption. Both times a social and political movement arose to restore democracy and shared prosperity.


The first age of inequality was the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century, an era quite like today, when both political parties served the interests of the corporate robber barons. The progressive movement arose after the financial crisis of 1893. In the following decades Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson came to power, and the movement pushed through a remarkable era of reform: trust busting, federal income taxation, fair labor standards, the direct election of senators and women’s suffrage.

The second gilded age was the Roaring Twenties. The pro-business administrations of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover once again opened up the floodgates of corruption and financial excess, this time culminating in the Great Depression. And once again the pendulum swung. F.D.R.’s New Deal marked the start of several decades of reduced income inequality, strong trade unions, steep top tax rates and strict financial regulation. After 1981, Reagan began to dismantle each of these core features of the New Deal.

<b>Following our recent financial calamity, a third progressive era is likely to be in the making. This one should aim for three things. The first is a revival of crucial public services, especially education, training, public investment and environmental protection. The second is the end of a climate of impunity that encouraged nearly every Wall Street firm to commit financial fraud. The third is to re-establish the supremacy of people votes over dollar votes in Washington.

None of this will be easy. Vested interests are deeply entrenched, even as Wall Street titans are jailed and their firms pay megafines for fraud. The progressive era took 20 years to correct abuses of the Gilded Age. The New Deal struggled for a decade to overcome the Great Depression, and the expansion of economic justice lasted through the 1960s. The new wave of reform is but a few months old.

The young people in Zuccotti Park and more than 1,000 cities have started America on a path to renewal. The movement, still in its first days, will have to expand in several strategic ways. Activists are needed among shareholders, consumers and students to hold corporations and politicians to account. Shareholders, for example, should pressure companies to get out of politics. Consumers should take their money and purchasing power away from companies that confuse business and political power. The whole range of other actions — shareholder and consumer activism, policy formulation, and running of candidates — will not happen in the park.

The new movement also needs to build a public policy platform. The American people have it absolutely right on the three main points of a new agenda. To put it simply: tax the rich, end the wars and restore honest and effective government for all.

Finally, the new progressive era will need a fresh and gutsy generation of candidates to seek election victories not through wealthy campaign financiers but through free social media. A new generation of politicians will prove that they can win on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and blog sites, rather than with corporate-financed TV ads. By lowering the cost of political campaigning, the free social media can liberate Washington from the current state of endemic corruption. And the candidates that turn down large campaign checks, political action committees, Super PACs and bundlers will be well positioned to call out their opponents who are on the corporate take.

Those who think that the cold weather will end the protests should think again. A new generation of leaders is just getting started. The new progressive age has begun.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the author, most recently, of “The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity.”

A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 13, 2011, on Page SR6 of the New York edition with the headline: The New Progressive Movement. Today's Paper|Subscribe