Author: Ward Chanley

To those who have been following deportation politics

From The Nation:

To those who have been following deportation politics in this country, Trump’s policies, as they are now unfolding, have an eerie resonance. They seem to be growing directly out of policies first instituted in the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. True, President Obama liked to talk about “our tradition of welcoming immigrants,” while our new president has tossed such liberal humanitarian rhetoric in the garbage can, instead playing up a harsh nativism. Still, the fact is that two Democratic presidents laid the groundwork for Trump’s developing policies.

https://www.thenation.com/article/clinton-and-obama-laid-the-groundwork-for-donald-trumps-war-on-immigrants/

Taste the Rainbow

It’s almost summer

It’s almost summer, so of course, this is happening…

Biden “doesn’t have time” to explain his healthcare plan

Because his “healthcare plan” amounts to “whatever the insurance industry wants.”

As Joe Biden storms through Iowa and prepares for his first visit as a presidential candidate in South Carolina, the Democratic front-runner has said he doesn’t “have the time” to lay out the details of his healthcare plan.

“I don’t have time; I don’t want to keep you standing any longer,” Mr Biden said recently in Iowa City, declining to lay out his vision for America’s healthcare future to the assembled crowd, according to POLITICO.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-biden-healthcare-2020-campaign-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-a8898926.html

Happy Birthday, Karl Marx

From the Howie Hawkins Campaign:

Happy 201st birthday to one of the world’s most important thinkers, Karl Marx.

Marx (and his collaborator, Engels) understood that our ecosystem is vibrant and intricate, where balance is key and where we can’t often control the outcomes of our impact.

It’s time for system change, not business as usual. Get involved at https://howiehawkins.us/

Das Kapital, Volume III, Part IV: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch46.htm

#EcosocialismOrBarbarism #H20 #Howie2020

Our planet is on the verge of collapse

From GPNJ:

Our planet is on the verge of collapse. We need to quickly change the systems that allow for the exploitation of our ecosystems. Incrementalism will not fix this. We can make personal lifestyle changes, but it’s only by working together that we have the power for real change.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/climate/biodiversity-extinction-united-nations.html

Nature is in its worst shape in human history, UN report says

Nature is in more trouble now than at any other time in human history, with extinction looming over one million species of plants and animals, scientists said Monday in the UN’s first comprehensive report on biodiversity.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-global-biodiversity-report-1.5124089

After McGovern and Carter

The Democratic Party does not care about beating Donald Trump. It didn’t in 2016, and it doesn’t now. What it cares about, all it has ever cared about, is preserving the status quo.

We may have moved past the party’s ability to clear the field for its preferred frontrunner, as it did for Clinton, but make absolutely no mistake: after McGovern and Carter, the “party of the people” will never, ever again allow the people to decide a candidate.

If it comes down to Bernie and somebody else in the primary, you know in your bones the corporatocracy ain’t ever picking Sanders.

The specter of superdelegates

“The specter of superdelegates deciding the nomination, particularly if Mr. Sanders is a finalist, is highly unappetizing to party officials. “If we have a role, so be it, but I’d much prefer that it be decided in the first round, just from a unity standpoint,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/politics/bernie-sanders-democratic-party.html

Sure, it’s in Stabenow and the rest of the superdelegates’ interest to spread some bullshit about “party unity” in interviews. However, don’t think for a second that this talk of party unity will stop superdelegates from nuking Bernie’s candidacy, if he comes into the convention as the front-runner. And, sure, since @EIWBM_Cat started saying it, I agree with her that the DNC doesn’t have the political capital to engineer a coup. Nina is probably right that the DNC couldn’t engineer its way out of a paper bag, right now. But with Stabenow saying this, out loud, now – “if we *have to have a role*, so be it” – don’t think for a second that superdelegates won’t pick the candidate if handed the opportunity. And right now, it looks like they probably will.

We warned you

We warned you that this is what they were doing.

A widely shared New York Times article about the growing nervousness Democratic Party bosses have about Bernie Sanders includes one comment from a superdelegate that may prove controversial.

If we have a role, so be it, but I’d much prefer that it be decided in the first round, just from a unity standpoint,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

https://gritpost.com/dnc-bosses-superdelegate-coup/