WEEKEND QUOTABLES ...'Palestinian lives matter' -- Bernie Sanders

Israeli missiles destroy AP/Al Jazeera/BBC media offices in Gaza

MSNBC’s Ali Velshi

“Palestinians are at best third-class citizens in the nation of their birth. The idea that it’s even remotely controversial to call what Israel has imposed on Palestinians a form of apartheid is laughable.” -- Velshi

Peter Beinart, editor at large of Jewish Currents

"In our bones, Jews know that when you tell a people to forget its past you are not proposing peace. You are proposing extinction." -- Jewish Currents

Sen. Bernie Sanders

“[I]f the United States is going to be a credible voice on human rights on the global stage, we must uphold international standards of human rights consistently, even when it’s politically difficult. We must recognize that Palestinian rights matter. Palestinian lives matter.” -- New York Times Op-ed

CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad 

“President Biden has the political power and moral authority to stop these injustices. We urge him to stand on the side of the victims and not the victimizer." -- Politico

 

Apartheid states aren’t democracies.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 15, 2021

I was proud to stand with so many people worldwide - including Jewish comrades - in solidarity with Palestinians at the weekend. Those who use human rights abuses as licence for antisemitic hate only undermine their cause. I have always condemned antisemitism & will continue to.

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 17, 2021

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Time Magazine

There were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in the past year. A torrent of hate and violence against people of Asian descent around the U.S. began last spring, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Community leaders say the bigotry was spurred by the rhetoric of former President Trump, who referred to the coronavirus as the “China virus.”Amid the current upsurge in attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and in reaction to the growing national movement against anti-Asian hate crimes, former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee seized the moment to post this dismissive, mocking tweet about people of Chinese ancestry in America. 

Mike Huckabee

“I’ve decided to ‘identify’ as Chinese,” Huckabee tweeted Saturday. “Coke will like me, Delta will agree with my ‘values’ and I’ll probably get shoes from Nike & tickets to @MLB games,” he added, in a reference to criticism against Georgia for its new law making it more difficult to vote. -- Huffington

 Congresswoman Ilhan Omar 

“It’s been really horrendous to watch the defense put George Floyd on trial instead of the former police officer who’s charged with his murder.” -- Guardian 

Former House Speaker, John Boehner

“P.S.: Ted Cruz, go fuck yourself!” -- Leaked audiobook

 Rebecca Solnit

My hope for a post-pandemic world is that the old excuses for doing nothing about climate – that it is impossible to change the status quo and too expensive to do so – have been stripped away. In response to the pandemic, we in the US have spent trillions of dollars and changed how we live and work. We need the will to do the same for the climate crisis.  -- Guardian

Sen. Bernie Sanders

“I have no problem with going to West Virginia, and I think we need a grassroots movement that makes it clear to Joe Manchin and everybody else in the United States Senate, including Republicans, that the progressive agenda is what the American people want." -- MSNBC

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Dr. King is arrested for "loitering" in Montgomery, Alabama, in September 1958.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “The Radical King”, Beacon Press

WHO's Mike Ryan on year 1 of Covid

We can blame climate change. We can blame policy decisions made 30 years ago regarding everything from urbanization to the way we exploit the forest," he said. "You can find people to blame in every level of what we're doing on this planet." -- Beacon Journal 

President-elect Joe Biden

 “We remain in a very dark winter,” Mr. Biden told Americans on Friday. “The honest truth is this: Things will get worse before they get better.” -- New York Times

 Bill Barr To Trump...

Your 'clownish' legal team is lying and your voter fraud claims are 'bullsh*t'. -- Crooks & Liars

Jesse Wegman

 The rioters incited by President Trump and Republicans to storm the seat of the federal government on Jan. 6 did not have Mr. Warnock’s name on their lips. They didn’t have to. In their eagerness to destroy American democracy rather than share it, they showed themselves to be the inheritors of a long tradition of rebellion against a new world order: a genuine, multiracial democracy. -- New York Times Op-Ed

 

The Keystone pipeline is & always has been a disaster. I'm delighted that Joe Biden will cancel the Keystone permit on his first day in office. With all of the major crises facing America, we must never lose sight of the most existential threat facing our planet: climate change. https://t.co/8lDZDOgsVy

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 18, 2021

What did Bloomberg buy for $1B? Not much.

Food for thought...

Michael Bloomberg tried to buy the election. He spent more than $1B on his failed presidential run. To put that in perspective, that's more than the combined campaign expenditures of every Democratic running in 2020.

He used his money to entice campaign workers across the country with promises of a paying job through the November election, regardless of whether he ultimately won the nomination or not. But Bloomberg reneged on that promise, scrapping plans to form his own super PAC and eventually transferring millions instead to the DNC.

His main purpose in running was to leverage his power against the left. Some even speculated that had Sanders won the primary, Bloomberg would have run as an independent or 3rd-party candidate. But now that he's dropped out and with Joe Biden as the apparent candidate, it doesn't appear that all the spending has bought him any more leverage within the party than he had before.

Evidence? Biden's team is now meeting with the AOC/Sanders team, not Bloomberg, to try and resolve their differences enough to win the Sanders base to support the Democrats. The reason? They have troops in the field and Bloomberg doesn't. And without that base, Biden has little chance of winning in November.

Whether those meetings will produce anything substantive in the way of pushing the campaign leftward is anyone's guess. Up to this point, Biden and the DNC have seemed to be worried more about the threat from it's left-wing than from Trump and the Republicans. But it's worth a try if only to save the campaign from another devastating loss a la 2016.

But for those who think that money is all you need to win, think again.

Sanders, who ended his campaign more than a month after Bloomberg's and notched more wins than the former New York City mayor, spent a total of $198.5 million on his campaign through the end of March.

Biden has not yet filed his campaign finance report covering March, but through the end of April, the former vice president spent just under $76 million on his campaign.

As for Bloomberg, the former stop-and-frisk mayor of New York, it appears that few care anymore what he thinks.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

I'm in prison in New York. Many are sick with Covid-19 – and I fear for our safety." -- Rikers prisoner James Johnson

N.Y. Prisoner James Johnson

Everyone here at Rikers is sick, and we can’t get treatment. I want people to know that the conditions are terrible – we need help. -- Guardian

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

“It’s not just about this boding well for progressives,” she said. “It’s about us having a goddamn planet to live on in 10 years or in 20 years. It’s about making sure that babies don’t get put in a cage again. It’s about making sure that we end the scourge of mass incarceration.” -- Guardian

Bernie Sanders

"Let me be very clear: If we are serious about building a political revolution — and continuing our fight for economic justice, social justice, racial justice, and environmental justice — we need people like Alexandria, Ilhan, and Rashida representing our progressive values in Congress." -- The Hill

Joe Biden joins Trump in China blame game

His campaign released a new ad that will air in battleground states this month accusing President Trump of being "soft on China." When Trump rolled over for the Chinese, he took their word for it. -- RCP

Noam Chomsky

 So, blame the World Health Organization, blame China, claim that the World Health Organization has insidious relations with China, is practically working for them. And that sells to a population that’s been deeply indoctrinated for a long time, way back to the Chinese Exclusion Acts in the 19th century, to say, “Yeah, those yellow barbarians are coming over to destroy us.” That’s almost instinctive. -- Democracy Now

The legacy of the '60s freedom movement

I was fortunate to be invited to take part in a zoom discussion the other night on  "The Black Freedom Movement Then and Now: Organizing Traditions" with veterans of SNCC and lots of younger, mainly black activists. There was lots of talk about lessons learned from the '60s, including how the Freedom Movement benefited from the election of so many local black elected officials, especially mayors.

But I didn't hear one mention of Joe Biden.

That's not to say that these activists and organizers aren't concerned with the national elections or that Biden's support base doesn't include black voters. It does. In fact, if Biden is successful in defeating Trump in November, he will owe his success primarily to a large turnout of African-American voters, especially from the urban centers of battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where Democrats lost the election in 2016.

I mention this only to show the disconnect between the SNCC tradition of organizing, which was community-based, and that of some current left and socialist activists who seem to be totally wrapped up in the debate about whether or not to endorse Biden and the Democrats.

In previous posts and continually on our Hitting Left radio show, I have been clear about my own willingness to support any Democratic nominee running against Trump, including Biden. This despite his record of antipathy towards the left and progressivism in general, his threats to veto any Medicare-for-all legislation if he's elected, his weak stand on climate change, and his history of support for imperialist wars abroad and mass incarceration here at home.

That's because, in my view, Trump and Trumpism represent the most reactionary political force in the world today and the most immediate and serious threat to peace and human freedom in the post-WWII era.

Tactically, I'm taking my cues mainly from leading progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders who, to one degree or another, are supporting Biden's election as a way of defeating Trump and pushing forward our progressive agenda.

AOC, whose team is currently meeting with Biden's to try and push that agenda forward, points out:

"We have to live in the reality of those choices even if many people would be 'uncomfortable' with that. It's for me personally very important to be in solidarity with the families that I represent in supporting Joe Biden in November." 

Last week, some 60's SDS members issued a public letter in response to a tweet by the DSA stating that they weren't endorsing Biden.

The letter was addressed to today's "New Left." I've been asked by some friends and younger activists why I didn't sign the letter. (I was the national secretary of SDS in 1968).

In a nutshell, I didn't sign it because I didn't like its patronizing tone and I don't agree with its non-struggle approach towards Biden and the DNC.

I also don't think the exclusively-white group of signers should have designated themselves as the representative of the '60s New Left, which often rightfully took leadership and inspiration from SNCC and the Black Freedom Movement. There's nothing drawn from our own experiences as young radicals in the '60s that shapes this didactic warning to DSA'ers.

AOC and Sanders point the way for lefties

There’s this talk about unity as this kind of vague, kumbaya, kind of term. Unity and unifying isn’t a feeling, it’s a process. -- AOC

There's no need for us to create crises. There's plenty of them to go around. Some occur naturally and others are man-made or politically manufactured. No matter how much we all yearn for a return to "normalcy" the storms will keep rolling in.

Among the questions facing millions of those of us hardest hit by this crisis, as we to race to November, is which forces are capable of leading the way out of the coronavirus crisis and of building a coalition capable of toppling Trump and Trumpism? While sectarian and divisive practices are holding back some on the left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders continue to point the way forward in these hard times.

Aside from identifying the main issues for the moment at hand, like healthcare for all, economic justice, a Green New Deal, and racial equality -- AOC and Bernie are modeling for young activists, good tactical leadership. How to unite and struggle at the same time. They are also finding new ways to keep the struggle alive under impossible conditions, while Democratic Party regulars have generally stayed hidden in quarantine. 

Bernie's endorsement of Joe Biden is a case in point. It enables Bernie and his large base of mostly-young activists to maintain their focus on defeating Trump while at the same time, continue to push those issues while the public is laser-focused on politics. Bernie has made it clear that his support for Biden is conditional and must continually be renegotiated. 

“It’s no great secret Joe that you and I have our differences, and we are not going to paper them over. That’s real,” Sanders said. “But I hope that these task forces will come together, utilizing the best minds and people in your campaign and in my campaign, to work out real solutions to these very, very important problems.” 

There are many young people, including African-American and Latinx activists who are simply not going to vote for Biden or vote period. Many for good reason. They have been given little reason to trust the electoral system, Biden or the party's leadership which has rarely reached out to them or given voice to their issues. Ocasio-Cortez probably comes closest to doing that of any seated politician.

While supporting Biden, AOC goes even farther than Bernie in making clear that her base of voters wants more than just a pat on the head from Democrats.

There’s also this idea that if we all just support the nominee that voters will come along as well. I’ve flagged, very early, two patterns that I saw [among Biden’s campaign], which is underperformance among Latinos and young people, both of which are very important demographics in November. And so, I don’t think this conversation about changes that need to be made is one about throwing the progressive wing of the party a couple of bones — I think this is about how we can win.

I guess the thing that bothered me the most about DSA's tweet announcing their non-endorsement wasn't that their members aren't supporting Biden (most probably are) but that the message said nothing else. No alternative.

We are not endorsing @JoeBiden.

— DSA 🌹 (@DemSocialists) April 12, 2020

Nobody cares about an endorsement or lack of one. AOC supports the Democratic nominee against Trump without offering an official endorsement.

But this statement more or less places them on the sidelines of a major battle being waged within the Democratic Party, not just by AOC and Bernie, but by thousands of young activists and people of color who have committed themselves to defeating Trump but who are looking for more. Now, they've painted themselves in a corner with the worst consequence being irrelevancy in the months ahead. 

Two big election wins

Another bad day for Madigan and the machine. Big wins for Kim Foxx and Marie Newman.

People are crazy and times are strangeI'm locked in tight, I'm out of range -- Bob Dylan, (Things have changed)

After nearly two weeks in COVID lockdown, I needed an emotional lift last night and I got one. In fact, two. The IL primary wins by Kim Foxx and Marie Newman had me grinning like a pothead last night while pedaling my damn stationary bike and watching the results come in.

Yes, Bernie Sanders did get trounced by 30 points as expected. Plus a couple of other local down-ticket progressives were knocked off. But the Foxx/Newman wins were big, big, big. Kim ran up the score on three great-white-hope opponents including billionaire's son Bill Conway who tried to ride the "bullshit" Jussie Smollett case to victory a la Bush and Willie Horton.

Both Foxx and Newman were backed by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot who also endorsed Biden.

The icing on the cake for me was watching Eddie Burke get beat in his own ward race for committeeman by freshman State Rep. Aaron Ortiz. 

As the song goes: It's hard out here for a pimp. 

Marie pulled an Ocasio-Cortez by narrowly defeating 8-term incumbent Dan Lipinski whose family has ruled the district for 38 years. Lipinski was backed by many old-guard Democrats, AFL-CIO leaders and party boss Michael Madigan.

She did it even while calling on Madigan to step down and backing Bernie Sanders.  Yes, that's right. The same 3rd-district voters who overwhelmingly chose Biden over Sanders chose progressive Newman over Lipinski.

Lipinski pitched himself as in line with the district’s voters and cast Newman as too extreme, citing her support for "Medicare for All" and the Green New Deal.

I shouldn't be surprised though. All over the country polls are showing voters who overwhelmingly support progressive issues like Medicare-for-all, voting for Biden because they think he can beat Trump.

Bernie lost big. But with nearly the city's entire black leadership endorsing Biden, and with the Chicago left, including the teachers union, badly divided and unable to turn out Sanders voters, he had no chance to stall the Biden momentum.

And now that it's clear that Bernie has no real pathway to the nomination, he and his team may decide to pack it in and actively work for Biden. Whether they do or not, Bernie will still have lots of influence at the convention. This mainly because Biden and the DNC know he can't win without support from the party's progressive base.

I say all this without a clue how or even if a real election campaign can be carried out under the conditions of COVID.  But I'll take victories when and where I can find them.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Yamiche Alcindor, PBS White House correspondent 

Why did you shut down the pandemic office in the White House?

Trump first calls it a "nasty question." Then says, "When you say me, I didn’t do it…. I don’t know anything about it...I don’t take responsibility at all.”  -- CNN

Sociologist Eric Klinenberg

We need social solidarity, not just social distancing. To combat the coronavirus, Americans need to do more than secure their own safety. --New York Times

Bernie Sanders

You got schools all over this country now being shut down. OK? How are we going to make sure that the kids do well in this crisis, not become traumatized? What do we do about the parents now who have to stay home with kids and can't go to work?

So I think what -- bottom line here is that, in this crisis, we have got to start paying attention to the most vulnerable. That includes people who are in prison right now, people who are in homeless shelters right now. What about the half-a-million people who are homeless tonight? Who's going to respond to them? -- Debate

Joe Biden 

“Across the country, middle and working-class families are being squeezed by debt. This is a massive problem and one that we need all of the best ideas to solve. That's why today, I'm adopting two plans from @BernieSanders and @ewarren to achieve this.” -- The Hill

 Amanda Klonsky

If you think a cruise ship is a dangerous place to be during a pandemic, consider America’s jails and prisons. -- New York Times

 Angelique Power, President of The Field Foundation

If our ancestors and our history have taught us anything, it’s that in the face of unimaginable struggle comes a symphony of superhuman connectivity and response. Our better selves rise and stretch across the chasm not because we have to, but because it is in fact what saves each of us—not only one by one—but collectively. -- Letter from the President

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Women Pack Streets in Massive Int'l Women's Day Marches Across Latin America

New York Times editorial

Already, citizens who are underinsured or uninsured are being slammed with medical bills that they can’t afford when they seek testing and treatment for the virus. Unsurprisingly, experts say that many of them are bound to avoid such care as the outbreak rages on. -- ‘Health Care for Some’ Is a Recipe for Disaster

 Rev. Jesse Jackson endorses Sanders

"With the exception of Native Americans, African Americans are the people who are most behind socially and economically in the United States and our needs are not moderate. A people far behind cannot catch up choosing the most moderate path. The most progressive social and economic path gives us the best chance to catch up and Senator Bernie Sanders represents the most progressive path. That's why I choose to endorse him today." -- CNN

Jane Fonda endorses Sanders

 "We have to get a climate president in office, and there's only one right now, and that's Bernie Sanders." -- USA TODAY

Kamala Harris endorses Biden

Senator Kamala Harris to Joe Biden: "I also believe and it’s personal and it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who is built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country."

She continued, "It was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me." -- New York Times

Trump's chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow

"Although, frankly, so far it looks relatively contained." -- Speaking on CNBC on Friday

This after Cruz's boss called COVID19 a "hoax"...

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas says he shook hands with CPAC attendee who tested positive for coronavirus, will self-quarantine https://t.co/YfnruLsrQ1

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 8, 2020

Alice Embree in Austin, Texas

"If the Coronavirus has really passed from humans to Ted Cruz, then we are f*****d." -- FB

On Chicago's 183rd birthday, I'm early voting

Happy birthday, Chicago. Sanctuary city of immigrants. Heartbeat of anti-Trump resistance. Definitely a union town with a black, gay, woman mayor. Look how far you've come in 183 years. See how far you have to go.

On my way to early vote this morning. The choice for me is pretty simple. Buttigieg out. Klobuchar out. Bloomberg out. Warren will likely be out before you read this post. My only choice left is between the two old white guys, Biden and Sanders.

One voted for the war in Iraq, supported the so-called "Race to the Top" in education, and authored the crime bill that paved the way for the world's worst mass incarceration.

The other, the leading progressive politician of our time. Author of a bill that requires congressional approval of acts of war. The leader in the fight for Medicare-for-all and tuition-free, K-16 public education. Opponent of school privatization. Supported by more than 100 African-American scholars, writers, and educators.

JUST IN: more than 100 Black Scholars, Writers, and Educators including @BarbaraRansby, @murchnik, @marclamonthill, Robin DG Kelley + have just announced their support of the movement to elect @BernieSanders.

Read the POWERFUL statement HERE: pic.twitter.com/WY8gh1lQvl

— phillip agnew (@iPhilSomething) February 29, 2020

All this and more will make my vote for Bernie Sanders an easy one.

My other easy vote will be for State's Attorney Kim Foxx who has turned IL from being the false-conviction capital of the U.S. into its opposite.

The knives were out for Sanders last night. Bloomberg skated.

Last night's debate in SC gave Michael Bloomberg his second chance to rebrand and deflect ("I said I was sorry!") as he led the rest of the pack on a wild, panic-driven, Russian-baiting attack on Bernie Sanders.

BLOOMBERG: I -- I think that Donald Trump thinks it would be better if he's president. I do not think so. Vladimir Putin thinks that Donald Trump should be president of the United States. And that's why Russia is helping you [Sanders] get elected, so you will lose to him.

And it was all downhill from there. The great irony is that Bloomberg is the only one among the seven with investments in Russia that dwarf Trump's. Bloomberg LP has long had corporate ties to Russia, including as a provider of business and financial news video to RBC TV.

Pete Buttigieg may have been the worst of the bunch with his clueless hit on the '60s Civil Rights Movement. Heading into the South Carolina primary, without a trace of African-American voter support, Buttigieg declared,

 I am not looking forward to a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump, with his nostalgia for the social order of the 1950s, and Bernie Sanders with a nostalgia for the revolutionary politics of the 1960s.

Almost as if it were in response, Rev. Jesse Jackson writes in this morning's Sun-Times:

Sen. Bernie Sanders isn’t talking about making America into Cuba or Venezuela. He’s talking about extending social guarantees like those offered in other advanced countries, such as Denmark and Sweden.

The other candidates — particularly Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg and Mike Bloomberg — have scoffed at these ideas as too radical, too bold, too costly, too ambitious. They offer mostly a continuation of the politics that existed before Donald Trump disrupted the country. The problem with that, of course, is that it doesn’t offer much hope for most Americans.

When he was New York's mayor, Bloomberg led a ruthless expansion of privately-run charters schools that turned the nation's largest school system into a virtual war zone, forcing charter and public school educators to compete for space and survival. But in last night's debate, Bloomberg played the charter moderate and none of the others on stage challenged him, not even charter critics Sanders or Warren.

I can only imagine the looks on the faces of NYC teachers when he said:

"I'm not sure they're appropriate every place" and declared that charters provided an alternative for parents and that both charters and traditional public schools "helped each other" and were "mixed in with each other."

Not a single climate change question. Horrifying.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 26, 2020

'Unelectable' Bernie wins in a landslide

Strong Latinx vote for Bernie in NV could also carry him in TX and CA.

It was just another poorly-run DNC election and another big win in Nevada for the "unelectable" Bernie Sanders. This time it wasn't even close. The Biden campaign continues to plunge with the rest of the pack, bunched far behind and seemed headed for a shakeout around Super Tuesday.

Most significant and predictive about the victory in NV was the high turnout among young, Latinx voters and the Culinary Workers Union rank-and-file workers, who broke with their own leadership to support Bernie.

From the spin that party and union leaders and some pundits are putting Sanders' win, it's clearer than ever that their real worry is that Sanders is electable -- not unelectable.

MSNBC ignoramus, Chris Matthews was the worst of the worst, comparing Sanders's win yesterday with the Nazis taking control of France in 1940. Huh?

 By Matthews account, there was no German Wehrmacht, no Vichy, and no French resistance movement led by Socialists. Rathers, the Nazis began their 4-year occupation by electing a Jewish socialist as president.

Chris Matthews just compared Bernie's victory in Nevada to the Nazis taking control of France.

Incredibly offensive thing to say about someone from a family of holocaust survivors. pic.twitter.com/t29L4K4iHm

— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) February 22, 2020

Can you imagine the uproar if some pro-Bernie tweeter had drawn such a comparison?

The funniest part of the evening for me was listening to all the victory speeches given by the losers early on in the evening, hoping that what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas. It won't, predicts the Guardian's Richard Wolffe, who writes this morning, "Bernie Sanders' Nevada win is a breakout moment. The others are toast." 

I won't go that far. A lot can still change leading up to and through the convention. And there is still the Bloomberg wildcard if the convention is brokered. But with momentum on his side and with young and Latinx voters turning Bernie's way in states like Arizona, Texas, and California, there's no better argument to be made than Wolffe's.

My biggest laugh came when Joe Biden assured his still hopeful fans, "I'm still alive."

Party leaders in the dark about how to deal with candidates' lack of party "loyalty"

Democratic insiders tend to be institutionalists. They are more likely than ordinary voters to care about the fact that Sanders hasn’t always been a registered Democrat, that he often criticizes party officials, and that he didn’t do more to help Clinton in 2016. -- Atlantic

As Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg surge to the top of the polls, and party favorite, Joe Biden continues to sink like a stone, Dem leaders are crying foul. "They're not really Democrats", they shout, pointing to Sanders' history as an independent and Bloomberg's as a Republican.

Actually, Sanders, the self-described socialist has always caucused with Senate Democrats while Bloomberg, a lifelong Democrat before seeking elective office, switched his party registration in 2001 to run for mayor as a Republican. Yes, I know. It's hard to imagine the billionaire autocrat Bloomberg as anything but a Republican and he really isn't.

Case in point. Amid one of the most pivotal campaigns in the country in 2016, one many thought could decide control of the Senate, Bloomberg poured millions of dollars into the contest — to help Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.

Each of them recently has in fact, sworn fielty to the eventual nominee with Sanders signing a loyalty pledge and Bloomberg offering to donate a much as $1 billion to the eventual nominee's campaign, even if it's not him.

That being said, the charge of party disloyalty doesn't seem to be hurting either of them in the primary and in fact, might even be helpful with white suburban Democrats who just want to beat Trump, or in some of the battleground states where the aroma of the disastrous Hillary Clinton campaign still lingers.

Sanders spokesperson, David Sirota on party loyalty:

When I was working to successfully elect a Democratic governor, @MikeBloomberg was speaking at the GOP convention helping Bush win reelection.

So spare me your pious lectures telling me I don't meet your party loyalty test. I've done more to elect Dems than 99% of my critics.

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) February 19, 2020

QUOTABLES

Wow! Cool photo from Daytona 500, posted by Trump's campaign manager. Only problem is, it's from 16 years ago. 

Common at the All-Star Game

"If this city could talk..." -- NBA on TNT

James Taylor

"It’s like the Confederacy has won the civil war.” -- Guardian

1,143 former Justice Dept. officials

Each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice...Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies. -- DOJ Alumni Statement

Bernie Sanders 

“It is unacceptable that we are closing public schools in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Together alongside Washington Teachers’ Union and teachers across the country, we will make transformative investments in our public schools, our teachers, and students.” -- Washington Post

Amy Klobuchar

Q: Do you even know the Mexican President's name?

 A: No -- Noticias

Dems being played by Trump. Now they're echoing his attacks on Bernie.

Bernie Sanders got more young voters in New Hampshire than everyone else combined/

Bernie Sanders Is The Front-Runner For Democratic Nomination. The democratic socialist is assembling a broad coalition of voters. -- Huffpost 

"I don't understand how Bernie is considered a frontrunner' after New Hampshire primary." -- Chuck Todd, MSNBC

Donald Trump is still the tail wagging the Democratic dog. His every tweet has Dems running from pillar to post in shock-and-awe.

Whether it was calling nazi thugs in Charlottesville "fine people"; or ICE agents raiding communities and separating thousands of immigrant children from their parents on the southern border; or now, the Stone sentencing outrage. Each outrage was going to be the big thing that would break Republicans away by, in the words of Chuck Schumer, putting them in touch with their "better angels."

When the needle didn't budge, they turned to impeachment, certain that the Ukraine quid-pro-quo scandal would resonate with disenchanted swing voters and peel off a section of Republicans. It was also hoped that the impeachment trial would boost the campaign of their chosen one, Joe Biden, while keeping their progressive opposition, Sanders, and Warren, out of the media spotlight.

It didn't. They didn't.

The good news, at least from my perspective, is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says that she is jumping back off the impeachment train-to-nowhere and will be refocusing the party away from the Ukraine shitshow (which probably hurt Biden as much or more than it did Trump) and on to "economic issues." Up til now, Dems have conceded them to Trump.

According to Politico:

To further underscore that point, Pelosi hosted a special speaker’s meeting on Tuesday with a top Obama economics adviser to explain to Democrats why the economy isn’t actually as strong as Trump claims and how they can message that to voters.

 “I’m glad that we’re shifting and pivoting to something else. Every time I poll in my area, it’s always the same thing: education, health care and the economy,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who is facing a fierce primary challenger from the left in his sprawling south Texas district.

 “Impeachment didn’t move the needle ... so continuing to focus on that target, you’re not going to convince anyone at this point,” said Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin, who represents a Trump-district. Kind said Trump’s real problem is in states that are key to his reelection, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where some haven’t benefited from the president’s economic good fortune.

But the risk for Pelosi and the DNC is that a focus on the economy and the environment will strengthen Bernie Sanders, who they currently see as a greater threat to their power than they do Trump himself.

Yes, you read me right. Despite recognition of the fact by both camps that without party unity, it will be impossible to beat Trump in November, party leaders and media allies are doing everything possible to make post-primary unity impossible.

First, they have become an echo for Republican red baiters. Check out one of their media faves, Chris Matthews, raising the specter of Bernie's commie assassination squads.

Leading up to Sanders’s win this week in New Hampshire, Matthews truly lost it, implying that Sanders would cheer on his public execution: “I have an attitude towards [Fidel] Castro,” Matthews explained. “I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering, okay?” -- Vice

Second, they have targeted Sanders' young activist base harder than Sanders himself, calling his supporters "Bernie Bros" and "a mob." This, even knowing that without these young activists, the party has little chance of pulling off the kind of mobilization necessary to win in November.

DNC surrogate & AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten has been leading the attack on the Sanders activists often referring to them as a "mob." Here she retweets this post by Kurt Bardella, a media strategist who previously worked as a spokesperson for Breitbart News:

Virtual lynch mobs are not something people of color or women — or anyone — should have to just live with.

Third, they are using their control of the party apparatus to tilt things in favor of their chosen candidate(s) and diminishing Sanders' primary victories in their media spin. Think Iowa and Chuck Todd's quote at the top of this column.

But here's the thing...Without young voters and a huge turnout of voters of color, a Democratic win is virtually impossible. The votes in Iowa and NH show that Bernie has the youth vote behind him. He got more young voters in New Hampshire than everyone else combined. Those are the foot soldiers every presidential campaign needs to turn out the vote.

They may not be enough to assure a win in November. But the Democrats sure can't win without them.

Only losing candidates will take black voters for granted

Biden's support is sliding among black voters. -- Washington Post

Just to be clear, at this point in the race I support Bernie Sanders. First, because his politics are closest to my own and secondly because current polls show he is among those who have the best chance of defeating Trump, head-to-head. In the final election, I will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is, even if I have to hold my nose while doing it.

The latest Quinnipiac poll has Trump at 42% and losing to every potential Democratic nominee

Bloomberg 51 - 42
Sanders 51 - 43
Biden 50 - 43
Klobuchar 49 - 43
Warren 48 - 44
Buttigieg 47 - 43

Of course, I never underestimate the Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, especially in the battleground states where Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election by not campaigning and working to turn out voters of color in cities like Detroit and Milwaukee.

But these numbers also belie the claim, repeated over and over by DNC leaders, that Sanders can't win and that their chosen one, Joe Biden, is the only candidate that can beat Trump.

Biden's claim to DNC's chosen-one status is based on the premise that he has the black vote in his pocket. But I wouldn't be so sure. That same poll shows Michael Bloomberg cutting into those numbers.

While Biden is still holding onto his lead among black voters, according to the poll, his support has plummeted from 49 percent before the caucuses to 27 percent. Bloomberg, meanwhile, has rocketed into second place among black voters, with 22 percent support compared to 7 percent late last month. -- Politico

I'm no fan of the oligarch, stop-and-frisk Bloomberg, but I can understand why this is apparently happening. Rev. Jesse Jackson offers a plausible explanation in an op-ed appearing in both Chicago papers this morning.

Democrats can’t inherit the black vote. Joe Biden is finding that his support for mass incarceration legislation costs votes. Pete Buttigieg is discovering that the opposition of black leaders in his own city amid failure to reform the police costs at the national level. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are learning that relationships in the black community have to be built over time, not simply forged by championing bold economic reforms.

Speaking of Sanders and Warren -- favorites of this city's progressive voters (including this one) -- they really blew it when it came to getting a key endorsement of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Neither candidate bothered to meet with the city's popular black, female, gay mayor and even ask for her endorsement.

They both came into town to show support for the CTU strikers (good on them) but got caught up in the wave of vicious personal attacks and overheated rhetoric directed at the mayor by CTU leaders and especially by AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten. Fearing a loss of the union's endorsement, they each left town without paying any respect to Lightfoot, who has become a key figure in state and national Democratic Party politics.

Now, they will likely neither receive endorsements from the union nor the mayor. The CTU has decided not to endorse anyone. With members split between Sanders and Warren, a CTU endorsement would mean little. It didn’t mean a thing in the 2019 mayoral race under similar circumstances when CTU-backed Toni Preckwinkle lost to Lightfoot in every ward in the city.

But Bloomberg, who has some appeal to big-city mayors because of the resources he brings as well as his strong stand on gun control, was smart enough to visit with Chicago's mayor, sparking rumors that Lightfoot would endorse him.

Bloomberg has racked up more endorsements from mayors in the 100 largest U.S. cities than any other candidate. D.C.'s African-American, female mayor Muriel Bowser has endorsed him. And former U.S. Conference of Mayors president Steve Benjamin, an African-American whose city of Columbia, South Carolina, whose position in an early voting state with a majority-black electorate gives him clout among Democrats—is leading Bloomberg’s campaign as co-chair.

So far, Lightfoot has said nothing to confirm or deny the rumor and might just as easily decide not to endorse anyone at all.

I've heard from some Warren people that she's apologized for the Lightfoot slight and is making new overtures to the mayor. But I can't confirm and doubt that would change things. Nothing yet from the Sanders camp.

But the fact remains that the road to the White House goes through urban America where black and Latinx voters will make the difference. Candidates who forget this will do so at their own peril.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

With SEIU members packing the stage behind her, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot endorses Marie Newman for Congress in the Democratic primary against Republicrat Dan Lipinski.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot 

“Dan Lipinski is on the wrong side of history and he doesn’t represent our values,” Lightfoot said. She said Lipinski also didn’t support Barack Obama’s reelection in 2012, voted against the Affordable Care Act and had disenfranchised Latino voters. Lightfoot said Lipinski also had opposed same-sex marriage in the past. “I’m happy to be here supporting Marie Newman,” she said. “We are not ever going backward, not ever.” -- Tribune

MSNBC host Chris Matthews 

...drew rebukes on social media Friday night after suggesting that as a Democratic Socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders could lead a dictatorship in which establishment political figures would be “executed,” should he win the presidency. -- Truthout

Kalyn Belsha, Chicago education writer

Educators say the [CTU] votes not to endorse were a result of a variety of concerns. Some were procedural, including questions about whether members had been adequately consulted. Others were local, including lingering tensions over the union’s endorsement of and spending on a losing 2019 mayoral candidate. -- Chalkbeat

Barbara Duffield, the Executive Director of SchoolHouse Connection

"The record number of children and youth experiencing homelessness nationwide is alarming. But for many of these children and youth, public schools are their best — and often only — source of support." -- CBS News

Robert Reich on Bloomberg

The word “oligarchy” comes from the Greek word oligarkhes, meaning “few to rule or command”. It refers to a government of and by a few exceedingly rich people or families who control the major institutions of society. Oligarchs may try to hide their power behind those institutions, or excuse their power through philanthropy and “corporate social responsibility”. But no one should be fooled. An oligarchy is not a democracy. -- Guardian

👀 https://t.co/QFXIQWKk3x

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 10, 2020

If Biden's toast, who's the new chosen one?

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it. We took a gut punch in Iowa." -- Joe Biden

It's now Wednesday evening and I still don't have the final Iowa vote count. With 86% of the vote in, Buttigieg leads Sanders by a point. I'm told, they're still trying to find my friend Burt's vote. You know Burt. He's the guy in the plaid shirt that caucused over at the Shell station in Dubuque.

But given all that, let me say I'm startled at how badly Team Biden did. Remember, JB was touted by DNC leaders as the most likely to beat Trump in a head-to-head. That claim was made with no polling evidence to back it up. But it was repeated over and over until it was accepted by many Democrats on faith, who felt, and still feel that Sanders will fall victim to Trump's red-baiting.

Now it's a desperate Biden that's using Trump's McCarthyite tactics to play on fears about Sanders. Today he told a crowd in New Hampshire:

"If Senator Sanders is the nominee for the party, every Democrat in America...will have to carry the label senator Sanders has chosen for himself,” Biden said of Sanders’ self-proclaimed "Democratic Socialist" label.

On last week's show, I actually told Brother Fred I thought Biden would win Iowa in a close race with Sanders. I thought the intense infighting between warring factions would divide the progressive vote and demoralize voters so badly that Biden would slip in front.

I was wrong as I'm sure my brother will remind me this Friday.

Instead, after spending months and practically his whole war chest in Iowa on stupid Iowa caucuses that helped few and hurt many, Biden now sits holding his gut and grimacing, in fourth place. He trails behind Buttigieg, Sanders (11 delegates each), and Warren (5), with zero delegates, slightly ahead of Klobuchar (also with zero).

With five months to go before the convention in Milwaukee and less than a month 'til Super Tuesday, Biden's campaign is in deep doo-doo. The DNC's anybody-but-Bernie campaign is proving to be a bust.

According to the New York Times which endorsed Warren and Klobuchar:

...he now faces jittery donors, an uncertain landscape in upcoming Democratic contests and a sharp challenge to the central argument of his campaign message: that he is the party’s strongest candidate to win a general election.

I may be getting ahead of myself on this, but if he's no longer the DNC's chosen one, then who is?

I know some of those jittery donors and they don't want to piss away billions on a loser again. One party bundler told me she's now backing Buttigieg. But it's hard for me to believe that many will ride a candidate who has no visible black support.

Another Dem donor told me that party leaders are now in meetings with Bloomberg's team and that with a few concessions on his part, a Bloomberg/Harris duo could be DNC-knighted. That assumes he wants their official support.

Take note of how they've been slamming Bernie for the past four years for not being a bonafide Democrat. One wonders how they will rationalize supporting a Republicrat oligarch like Bloomberg, should it happen?

My take at this point is that Democrats may or may not be able to beat Trump with Bernie as their candidate. No one knows for sure. But I doubt they can win without him and his young, activist base.

In other words, they're meeting with the wrong team.

DNC knives may be pointed at Biden as well as at Bernie

As I told the reporter, I am absolutely not running for President. Any report otherwise is categorically false. I’ve been proud to campaign with my good friend Joe Biden, who is going to win the nomination, beat Trump, and make an outstanding president.

— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) February 2, 2020

As filmmaker Michael Moore put it the other day, "the knives are out."

He was, of course, referring to the divisive campaign being waged by the DNC against the party's progressive wing. Bernie Sanders' surge in the polls has DNC leaders in a panic and they're pulling out all stops to split party regulars from Sanders, to ensure his defeat, and maintain their power regardless of the consequences in November.

But at least some of their knives are also aimed at their own guy, frontrunner Joe Biden. There's lots of buyer's remorse over Biden whose bumbling debate performances and poor fundraising ability have party leaders in a sweat. While he may eke out a win in Iowa, his numbers are weaker than anticipated, especially with younger voters who aren't content with returning to the pre-Trump status quo.

This week's Iowa State/Civiqs poll finds Sanders leading among 18-to-34-year-olds with 33% while Biden got just 1%.

They're also worried that the Hunter Biden/Ukraine scandal has legs heading into November.

Every day we're hearing talk about a possible late replacement jumping into the race in case big campaign donors lose confidence in Biden.

Yesterday, it was John Kerry.  ABC News reported that Kerry, co-architect with Clinton of the party's "regime change" foreign policy, was overheard Sunday on the phone explaining what he would have to do to enter the presidential race amid "the possibility of Bernie Sanders taking down the Democratic Party — down whole."

Sitting in the lobby restaurant of the Renaissance Savery hotel, Kerry was overheard by an NBC News analyst saying "maybe I'm f---ing deluding myself here" and explaining that to run, he'd have to step down from the board of Bank of America and give up his ability to make paid speeches. Kerry said donors like venture capitalist Doug Hickey would have to "raise a couple of million," adding that such donors "now have the reality of Bernie."

More NBC News...

 It's not clear how serious Kerry was on the call about jumping into the race. But that he would even discuss the possibility suggests that prominent members of the Democratic Party remain deeply unsettled by the current field, Sanders' strength in the polls and the ability of any candidate to defeat President Donald Trump.

Yes, Kerry is f---ing delusional. As is Hillary Clinton who has been sending up her own trial balloons. Clinton has been telling party leaders for months that she would be willing to come back from the political graveyard and enter the race. Last week, in an interview with Variety, Hillary admitted she was feeling "the urge to run because I feel the 2016 election was a really odd time and an odd outcome."

In recent weeks she has assumed the position as chief gunslinger, firing not only at Bernie but his supporters as well. Clinton's anti-Bernie tirades led to booing at a rally in Iowa, at the very mention of her name by Sanders supporters and Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Remember that Michigan is a must-win state for Dems if they have any hope of defeating Trump.

According to CNN,

From the Sanders perspective, it's hard to not want to push back against Clinton saying that the Vermont senator has no friends and cost her the election. While Tlaib's booing may not have been the perfect response, you can understand the frustration among the left toward Clinton, who not only lost what everyone in the Democratic Party assumed was a slam-dunk election in 2016 but has spent the last 3+ years blaming everyone but herself for it.

Smelling blood in the water, even Sanders-hater and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, whose 2016 campaign was a dismal failure, is raising his hand -- meekly.

“If there’s a muddled finish [in Iowa and New Hampshire] or an unelectable leftist, that’s Bloomberg time. In 2016, there were some people who said to me, ‘Well, if you could only have hung in until we got totally sick of Bernie.’ And I said, ‘Well, I couldn’t. I had no money.’"

Yes, as they say, bullshit walks. And as I keep saying, Biden better watch his back. The DNC's knives are out and they're not just pointed at progressives.