I'm holding my applause

Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga call for a "united front against China"

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Democrats, including the party's left-wing, are wildly cheering Biden's announcement of a planned troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by September 11th. And who can blame them? Most Americans have long grown weary of this country's "eternal war on terrorism" which has dragged on now for two decades at great cost in human lives and taxpayer dollars. It was a war that Biden supported from the start.

Called a "smart war" (as opposed to the "dumb war" in Iraq) by President Obama, the Afghan war has been backed and underwritten by the leaders of both parties and cheered on in the press. All the while meeting little resistance from a once-powerful and militant, now-dormant anti-war movement. 

But now, the great majority of Americans from right to left, support an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops. A poll from the right-leaning Concerned Veterans for America showed that 67% of veterans support a complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. 

So why am I, a long-time anti-war activist, withholding my applause for now? Two reasons: First, I'll wait until all the remaining 2,500 troops (plus thousands of U.S.-hired military contractors) are out of Afghanistan and the last missile is fired on Afghanis from a U.S. drone. You see, I've heard these withdrawal announcements before including the one made most recently by our previous president to withdraw all troops by May 1st. By delaying the withdrawal by 4 months, Biden is violating the agreement Trump made with the Afghanis. Second, I'm concerned that the announced withdrawal is really a repositioning of U.S. troops so they can be used to ramp up an even more dangerous U.S. war threat against China. 

I know that any criticism of Biden's foreign policy is difficult, if not impossible for Democrats to make right now. Just like it was when Obama was elected after the Bush years. After 4 years of Trump and with Biden's pandemic relief money flowing to cities, states, and schools, Biden deserves the ratings he's getting. 

But I'm still leery of the intentions of his new team of cold warriors now heading the State and Defense Departments just as I was of regime-changer Hillary Clinton and neocon, John McCain during the Obama years. 

It's unimaginable to me that in the midst of this global pandemic, Congress would approve a bloated ($715B) Pentagon budget with barely a note of dissent from regular democrats. This represents a leap well beyond Trump's giant gift to the warmakers. 

The day after... I started writing this post the day before yesterday's White House meeting between Biden and JapanesePrime Minister Yoshihide Suga. It was there that Biden confirmed my worst fears when he gave the clearest expression yet of his out-of-whack strategic foreign policy objective, echoing Sec. Anthony Blinken's call at last month's Alaska summit for a "united front against China."

The new strategic plan is a failed one that can only pull this country deeper into a new cold war and closer to a hot one as well. 

And if you thought the Afghan war was a dumb one...

The return of the regime changers. Missiles are flying again in Iraq.

“They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
― Joseph Heller, Catch 22

Pres. Biden and his newly-appointed Sec. of State Anthony Blinken seem bent on pushing the U.S. into a disastrous hot war with Iran. Biden has only been in office a couple of months and already missiles are flying again in Iraq and Syria. 

Yesterday a missile attack in western Iraq led to the death of a U.S. mercenary. 

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the contractor “suffered a cardiac episode while sheltering” and died shortly afterward. He said there were no service members injured and all are accounted for. British and Danish troops also are among those stationed at the base. 

The rocket attack was the first since the U.S. struck Iran-aligned militia targets along the Iraq-Syria border last week, killing one militiaman and stoking fears of another cycle of tit-for-tat attacks as happened more than a year ago.  -- AP

Now the Pentagon is surely preparing for another retaliatory move.  

It appears to me that this escalation was intentionally meant to sabotage the resumption of U.S. nuclear weapons talks with Iran. Blinken seems to be another regime-changer in the mold of Hillary Clinton.

All this begs the question, why are U.S. troops and mercs still in Iraq after 17 years, over a million deaths, and $4 trillion in taxpayer money wasted. BTW that's triple the money needed for pandemic and economic recovery. 

We should also remember that amid the fallout of the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed Iran's General Qassem Soleimani a year ago, the Iraqi parliament voted to oust all U.S. troops stationed in their country. Trump's claim on Iraqi oil aside, it now seems like with the current escalation, Iraqis along with all other countries in the Middle East, already ravaged by the global pandemic, face the prospect of being drawn into all-out war again. 

The current escalation dashes the hopes of those who believed that the Democrats' victory would lead to at least a temporary halt to our failed imperialist adventures in the region and to the possibility of bringing our troops home and out of harm's way.

They should have known better. 

The story about Iranian election interference is borderline laughable

It looks like a record voter turnout and that could signal a crushing defeat for Trump and his down-ticket Republicans. That is, if all the votes are counted and if millions of voters aren't denied access to the polls (a big IF, I know).

Take North Carolina for instance, where more people have now early-voted than the total number of people who voted for Donald Trump in North Carolina in 2016. Nationwide, nearly 50 million people have already voted, including at least 21.2 million in battleground states

Registered Democrats are outvoting Republicans by a large margin in states that report such data. So Trumpers are resting their hopes on a huge Election Day MAGA turnout. 

But with Election Day only 10 days away, we're seeing a barrage of disinformation from DT's camp about "widespread voter fraud" and "foreign interference" that could tamp down Election Day turnout. This despite evidence coming from FBI director, Christopher Wray that such fraud just doesn't exist. 

The Republicans aim to spread last-minute chaos and confusion like they did in 2016 with then-Director James Comey's last-minute "expose" of Hillary Clinton's emails. All this to discourage an anticipated huge voter turnout. They know that the larger the turnout, the more likely a Democratic sweep.

Watch as...

MSNBC's Hallie Jackson cuts short interview with Trump spox Hogan Gidley after he peddles conspiracies about widespread voter fraud and then deflects when asked if Trump has confidence in his FBI director.

"Nope, okay, I guess you're not gonna answer that question then..." pic.twitter.com/NjzJs83cRB

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 22, 2020

With the voter-fraud conspiracy theories now largely debunked, the next phase of the disinformation campaign points the finger at "foreign interference." Actually, this is coming from both camps with Democrats are pointing once again at Russia while Trumpers at Iran. I don't doubt that there are efforts by foreign intelligence agencies to influence the outcome, one way or the other. But it's doubtful that these attempts will bear fruit.

United States national security officials said that Iran and Russia had obtained American voter registration data, and that Iran had used the information to send threatening, faked emails to voters. -- New York Times

But the current wave of hysteria about Iranian interference is almost laughable. With DT threatening to fire Wray and Atty. Gen. Wm. Barr unless they do something big at the last minute to help turn the election, the best they could come up with was an alleged Iranian scheme to send threatening emails, supposedly from the Proud Boys, to potential Democratic voters, warning us not to vote, "or else."

John Ratcliffe 

So it was left up to John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, to sound the alarm. 

From NYT:

 ...spoofed emails, sent to Democratic voters, purported to be from pro-Trump far-right groups, including the Proud Boys. Iranian hackers tried to cover their tracks, intelligence and security officials said, first routing the emails through a compromised Saudi insurance company network. Later, they sent more than 1,500 emails using the website of an Estonian textbook company, according to an analysis by researchers at Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm.

I mean, really? 1,500 emails? Anybody you know get one?

Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh but the thought of some Iranian hackers sitting in a room somewhere, thinking they could swing the election by trying to sound like American Proud Boys, and sending a tiny group of emails to us via Estonia, strikes me as funny. 

My take: If it's voting disinformation you're looking for, look no farther than the White House Communications Dept. 

Did you know there are U.S. soldiers fighting and dying in Africa? Why?

U.S. training combat forces in Africa

It's called AFRICOM. You didn't hear or read much about its secret war in Africa until three years ago when four U.S. soldiers were killed in Niger and earlier this year when Spc. Henry Mayfield Jr., 23, from the Chicago suburb of Hazel Crest was killed in combat in Kenya. But it's a serious and costly imperialist military adventure.

Last week, the Pentagon admitted for the third time that its bombing campaign against terrorist groups in Somalia, which has been underway for more than a decade, had caused civilian casualties there. The U.S. military has carried out more than 180 airstrikes in Somalia since 2017, 42 of them in 2020.

There are currently about 7,500  U.S. troops and 1,000 DoD civilians or contractors (mercenaries) based throughout Africa, who are primarily tasked with training as well as combat missions. Most operate from Camp Lemonnier, a permanent and growing U.S. base in Djibouti, which is used as a staging ground and command center for special operations missions across the continent, The U.S. has another 200 troops in Kenya and roughly 100 "nonuniformed personnel".

AFRICOM'S self-proclaimed mission?

U.S. Africa Command, with partners, counters transnational threats and malign actors, strengthens security forces and responds to crises in order to advance U.S. national interests and promote regional security, stability, and prosperity.

But AFRICOM's unstated purpose also has to do with U.S. global strategic contention with Russia and China than it does with fighting terrorism. China now has 52 embassies in Africa — a 24 percent increase from 2012.

AFRICOM didn't start with Trump's administration but goes back to Clinton in the late 90s and was escalated by Bush and then Pres. Obama in 2004. Trump, with his "America First" approach to foreign policy, has actually been committed to a 10% "drawdown" of troops on the African continent despite the objection of hawks like John Bolton and Steve Bannon.

U.S. military adventures in Africa will likely continue and increase under a hawkish, anti-China Biden administration especially with Susan Rice or Tammy Duckworth as his V.P. or in a key foreign policy position.

Even though congress willingly surrendered its constitutional war powers back during the Korean and Vietnam "conflicts", it still oversees the gigantic Pentagon budget and gladly funds foreign military adventures like the current ones in Africa, regardless of the consequences here at home and without any public debate.

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.

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.

An irreparable split?

"Nobody likes [Bernie], nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done...It is not only him. It's the culture around him. It's his leadership team. It's his prominent supporters. It's his online Bernie Bros... -- Hillary Clinton

 "The knives are out." -- Michael Moore

Until a few weeks ago, I was backing either Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders in the primary, whichever one was shown to have the best chance of defeating Trump in November. They were both seen by voters as the representatives of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and despite their own obvious differences over some issues, they refused to attack each other during the primary debates.

But that all changed when party leadership, including Warren, decided to launch an all-out anti-Bernie offensive, aimed at splitting and defeating their left opposition, no matter what the cost in November.

Just when the polls started showing a possible victory for any of the top Democratic Party nominees in November, a seemingly irreparable split between regulars and progressives has badly damaged the party's chances.

Panicking over Joe Biden's floundering campaign and Sanders' emergence as the frontrunner in Iowa, his running strong New Hampshire, and Nevada, and his having emerged, according to The New York Times, as "the dominant liberal force in the 2020 race", party leaders have stepped up their attacks on Bernie and his supporters.

In Iowa.

The attacks have been crude, vicious, and broad-brushed, leaving little room for retraction or resolution once the primaries are over.

The latest tossed out there by AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten, referred to Bernie supporters as a "virtual lynch mob". Ugh! 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.

“There’s ..nothing progressive about having so little tolerance for different opinions that even the hint of opposition is enough to incite a virtual mob” https://t.co/4xQ7Q43gk5 via @NBCNewsTHINK

— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) January 27, 2020

Talk about intolerance for different opinions... Doesn't Hillary loyalist Weingarten realize that this supposed lynch mob includes thousands of her own union's rank-and-file members?

Sadly, Elizabeth Warren, possibly feeling the pressure from big party campaign donors and seeing a possible path to replace Biden as the party leadership's chosen one, has broken ranks with the progressives and joined in the anti-Sanders assault. An early sign was her campaign's leak of a private conversation she had with Bernie and the unprincipled bloc she formed with Amy Klobuchar (see my January 16th post) during the last debate. Warren and Klobuchar share little in common on the most important political issues, but their attack on Bernie earned them the NYT's co-endorsement. Whatever that's worth.

Brother Fred and I will be discussing this and more, Friday on Hitting Left. Tune in 11-noon CT on WLPN 105.5 FM in Chicago. Streaming live at lumpenradio.com

Party leaders, desperate for a credible centrist flag bearer, have even rehabilitated Hillary Clinton who has become their main anti-left gunslinger. She fired the first big barrage, claiming that most Bernie supporters weren't loyal Democrats, and then this assessment of Sanders' populist-socialist agenda?

"It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it."

Clinton's blast was the green flag for her followers to join in.

Sanders willingly signed a loyalty pledge required of all candidates, promising to run and govern as a Democrat if he won the presidency.

But my first question is, will party leaders themselves honor the pledge should Sanders win the nomination? Answer, doubtful.

My second question is, can the progressive coalition be put back together again after the split? Answer, if the similar split that happened around Chicago's mayor's race is any indication, not likely.

And third, can the Democrats defeat Trump without active support from their progressive base? Answer, no.

That's the problem these days, isn't it?
Damn voters are "non-reliable." You have to go out and win them.

— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) January 26, 2020

18 years of lies on Afghanistan revealed

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” -- Napoleon Bonaparte

Three U.S. presidents, Bush, Obama, and Trump, have bought and sold this big lie to the public and built their failed foreign policies upon it.

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. -- Craig Whitlock, Washington Post

LOOKING BACK...On Oct. 2, 2002, then IL State Senator Barack Obama said in a major speech at an anti-war rally we organized in Chicago that "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars." He referred to the Iraq War as his "dumb war" example in contrast to Afghanistan, which was billed as a winnable and necessary war to topple the Taliban government, drive out al Qaeda terrorists and install a pro-U.S. regime in Kabul.

"We must embrace America's singular role in the course of human events but we must also be as pragmatic as we are passionate, as strategic as we are resolute. 

Then there was...

Hillary Clinton supported the 2009 increase in U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. During the administration's Afghanistan War review in 2010, Clinton endorsed General Stanley McChrystal's recommendation for 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, before endorsing a fallback proposal (ultimately accepted by Obama) for 30,000 troops. -- NYT

And regime-changer McCain...

Robert Kagan, a former adviser to his 2008 opponent John McCain, warned that a quick withdrawal threatens recent gains against the Taliban - and popular opinion could swing against the president if an emboldened enemy takes the speech as a cue to step up attacks.

"This is a political decision, not a military decision," he told POLITICO. "Americans are tired of this war, that's true. But they hate losing more, and if there's the perception that we're being run out of there, the public will turn on him fast." 

Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.

The government has not carried out a comprehensive accounting of how much it has spent on the war in Afghanistan, but the costs are staggering -- into the trillions.

Now, Trump says he's ready to engage in peace talks with the Taliban, in preparation for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

News of the talks came just before The Washington Post reported it had obtained more than 2,000 pages of government documents that it says show how U.S. officials have for years misled the public about the war in Afghanistan.

What an irony it would be if Republican Trump, facing impeachment and a difficult 2020 re-election campaign, ended the war that Democrats couldn't or wouldn't end. Shades of Republican, Richard Nixon in March of 1973, withdrawing his defeated army from Vietnam, only to be impeached in October of that same year.

I'm doubtful. Most likely, this is for media consumption.

The media has been complicit... The editorial board of the very same WaPo that this week revealed the pile of lies driving the Afghan war, opposed the war's end just months earlier.

The Washington Post’s editorial board (1/28/19) was similarly apprehensive at the prospect of US withdrawal. Lamenting what it considered a deal brokered “mostly on the enemy’s terms,” it proclaimed that “an end to the Afghan war is desirable, but not at the expense of everything the United States has helped to build there since 2001.” -- FAIR

Tell us, WaPo. What exactly has the U.S. built there? The truth, this time please.  

Have unions learned their lesson on early endorsements?

In 2016, Hillary Clinton received early endorsements from the two big teacher unions. But many of their members ultimately campaigned for Bernie Sanders. 

Organized labor is still traumatized after the 2016 Democratic primary, when several unions endorsed Hillary Clinton early on, only to see the decision backfire when portions of their membership bolted for Bernie Sanders. So write Politico's Ian Kullgren and Natasha Korecki.

“Everybody’s kind of taking a step back,” said Steve Rosenthal, a former political director for the AFL-CIO who is advising unions on 2020 campaigns. “[They’re] assessing the field — meeting with them, talking with them, finding where they stand on issues that are important to working people. But I don't see any rush at this point or any movement toward any type of major endorsements.”

Yes, that's exactly what Randi Weingarten and the AFT leadership should have done in July of 2015, six months before the Iowa caucuses. They raced ahead of their own teacher members to be the first ones out there to demonstrate their fealty to the party leadership in exchange for what they hoped would be a "seat at the table." Their tactical objective was to kill off a Sanders insurgency before it got started. 

There were no negotiations with the Clintons, and nothing offered by Hillary to union teachers in return. The early endorsement also represented a show of top-down, undemocratic force directed against union dissidents who wanted Sanders, not Hillary.

The early endorsement by AFT and NEA leaders not only failed to carry the day for Clinton, but it sharpened the divide within the union where the struggle seemed to be more directed at the insurgents on the left than at Trump and the Republicans. 

A similar dynamic played out at the NEA where the Vermont union preemptively endorsed Sanders as national leaders moved to endorse Clinton.

They thought they would be with the winner, and unfortunately it was their positioning to be with that winner,” said Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America and a close adviser to Sanders.

Now, many union leaders are vowing not to make the same mistake again. But I can't imagine Weingarten doing anything differently this time around when it comes to endorsing Joe Biden.

Unlike last time, “There’s no process in place. We’re not making any endorsements,” said Sean McGarvey, the NABTU president. “We don’t see ourselves making any endorsements any time early … if at all.”

CTU jumped out early to endorse Preckwinkle and then stuck with it in her losing run against Lori Lightfoot.

Here in Chicago, the CTU's early endorsement of Cook County Democratic Party boss Toni Preckwinkle in her primary campaign for mayor brought back troubling memories of 2015. When the endorsement carried over into Preckwinkle's runoff campaign against Lori Lightfoot, it not only forced members to foot the bill for a losing effort against an overwhelmingly popular and progressive Lightfoot, but led to a bitter, vitriolic internal campaign against Lightfoot supporters and neutrals even though Lightfoot and Preckwinkle held similar positions on education and labor issues.

CTU Pres. Jesse Sharkey claimed that the choice was made at least in part because Preckwinkle “gives us better leverage in a contract fight." Even if that were true (which I doubt), it makes the endorsement that much more suspect. I'm sure that his quote will be used by anti-union, "right-to-work" conservatives who want to take away union rights to have election PACs. 

I support unions flexing their muscles (what's left of them) to support pro-labor candidates who agree to pursue a pro-labor list of demands. But endorsements should be made carefully and only after democratic internal debate with r&f voices being heard, especially dissident ones, and then given in exchange for something tangible. 

The pathway to rebuilding a decimated union movement depends mainly on the militancy and unity of the members, not on divisive early paper endorsements in hopes of a pat on the head from elected officials. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Bernie Sanders at last night's rally in Chicago: "Real change never takes place from the top on down, it always takes place from the bottom on up." (Fred Klonsky pic)

More Bernie

Asked if he's interested in any advice from Clinton, Sanders replied, "I think not.""Hillary and I have fundamental -- you know, fundamental differences. And that's what it is," he explained. -- CNN

CTU Pres. Jesse Sharkey

“The top two vote getters are people who have lifted up public education and support a number of our key policies,” Sharkey said. “That said … the case to our membership has to be about what are the concrete things we’re actually going to see.” For example, Sharkey said he was happy to hear Preckwinkle’s stance against closing schools, but he wants to hear her views on other critical issue facing the district. For instance, “can we get a nurse in every school — every day,” he said.
-- Chalkbeat

Toni Preckwinkle would keep Rahm's school chief

 Preckwinkle said Friday she plans to keep Jackson for two reasons: CPS needs stability after a revolving door of five CEOs in the past eight years and Mayor Rahm Emanuel got it right with his fifth try. -- Sun-Times

Chicago law firm explains how it pays its lawyers

 "Our system is a little more, I hate to say socialist, but it's a little more evenly distributed among the folks involved in the team." -- Crain's

 Joe Ferguson, Chicago's inspector general, wants focus on corruption 

"Chicago [is] at one of those paradigm-shifting moments. And its confluence with an election at a point in time that the city still has to grapple with significant fiscal issues because of a pension crisis both locally and at the state level, means that this corruption moment is one that actually could matter," Ferguson says. "If the shift doesn't come as a result of the election, I'm not sure what's ever going to make it change." -- WBUR [Joe Ferguson will be our in-studio guest on Hitting Left on March 29th]

Dumbest quote comes from defeated Alderman Joe Moore... 

A little democracy could be a good thing, but I think people need to understand it’s coming at a very inopportune time." -- Tribune

A clean break with Clintonism would be a good start for Democrats on the road to 2020

"I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in." --  Hillary Clinton. 

Last week on Hitting Left, brother Fred asked me and our guests for our takes on the so-called Democratic "blue wave". I responded that while the midterms represented a big victory for the Democrats, I wouldn't call it a blue wave, but rather an anti-Trump wave.

The wave came primarily from youth, women and people of color, many running or voting for the first time. The Democratic Party leadership had no single unifying or inspiring message or program besides anti-Trump, around which to mobilize voters. Apparently, that was enough in many races and could be again in 2020.

This election sweep was mainly a mass response to Trumpism and the threat his regime represents to democracy, world peace, economic stability and human rights.

Will that wave continue and grow through 2020 and beyond? Most likely, it will. But never underestimate the ability of the Democratic Party leadership to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like they did in 2000, 2004 and 2016.

Here's one way they could blow it in 2020. The same way they blew it in 2016. Follow the Clinton road again.

Trump sends 6.000 troops to the border with Mexico.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton, emerged from the woods to dip her toes once more into presidential campaign waters.

In an interview with The Guardian, she urged European leaders to "get tough" on immigration, a la Donald Trump, by sending a message that they will no longer offer “refuge and support” to refugees.

She blamed immigrants fleeing war, violence and oppression in their home countries for "opening the door to political turmoil" and for the rise of the European neo-fascist, anti-immigrant movement. Not to mention, Britain's decision to withdraw from the European Union. A clear case of blaming the victim and putting the cart before the horse.

HC's anti-immigrant warning was first pitched before the United States midterm elections this month. Maybe she was caught short by the overwhelming defeat served up to Trump and his caravan scare tactics. Her appeasement rhetoric however, played right in the hands of Republicans who took a licking in the elections, but who can now quote her when making their anti-immigration pitch and demanding $52B for Trump's wall.

Before Hillary Clinton says another word about shutting the door on refugees in Europe or anywhere else, she and the Democratic leadership should look back on their roles in driving the global refugee crisis, from  support for the invasion of Iraq to the destabilization of Libya and Syria to her backing for the military coup in Honduras.

Aviva Chomsky writes in The Nation:

It was, after all, President Clinton who oversaw the draconian Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. It drastically increased all levels of immigration “enforcement,” enlarging the Border Patrol, criminalizing numerous types of low-level immigration violations, and facilitating and expanding deportation procedures. (A similar emphasis on casting blame on individuals for structural and systemic problems was also at the heart of Clinton’s welfare reform of that same year.)

In many ways, Donald Trump is only reiterating, with more bombast, ideas and policies pioneered under Clinton, that then became a basic part of Barack Obama’s approach to immigration. Those policies drew directly on racist “tough on crime” and anti-terrorism police tactics that also helped foment white racial fears.

Putting the lack of morality of it aside for a moment, Democrats can't win in 2020 by appeasing Trump and by running point for his anti-immigrant platform. A clean break from Clintonism would be a good start down the road to a real blue wave.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Nobody's talking arming teachers any more. 

Lynne McKernan, seventh-grade AZ writing teacher 

Said Arizona lawmakers walked out of the Capitol on Friday without speaking to teachers. "In the middle of a crisis, they chose to adjourn rather than sit down with our representatives who have asked to speak with them for weeks."

"Other schools have the roof caving in," McKernan said. "We used to catch mice at our school. It was like a hobby: 'How many mice did you catch in your classroom today?'"    -- LA Times

Lydia Coffey, former KY teacher, now running for a state House seat

“I think women are just tired of feeling like we’re second class. We’re tired of white men in power telling all of us what to do.” -- Huffington

Mike Elk is a member of the DC-Baltimore NewsGuild

The teachers’ strikes have brought into sharp focus forces that have been reshaping the landscape for workers in America. Nissan, the union-backed Fight for $15 campaign for minimum wage workers and now the teachers have shown that after years of attack from anti-union powers, organized labor can still make a difference. -- Guardian

Michelle Wolf at WHCD 

“Trump is also an idea guy. He's got loads of ideas. You've got to love him for that," she said. "He wants to give teachers guns. And I support that because then they can sell them for things they need - like supplies." 

More Wolf...

"It is kind of crazy the Trump campaign was in contact with Russia when the Hillary campaign wasn't even in contact with Michigan. It's a direct flight. It's so close." -- The Hill

 Trump Lawyer, Michael Cohen

“Boss, I miss you so much." -- WSJ

R.I.P. Jean Gump

 A young, fully armed soldier who descended from an armored vehicle to arrest the trio had cowered as she reached into her purse. “Shoot if you must, sonny,” Ms. Gump said defiantly, “but I’ve got to blow my nose.” -- N.Y. Times

PA election another hopeful sign for Dems in midterms

Emergence of Women's March and new student (anti-gun) movements could be key to midterm elections. 

“Just two years ago, Trump won this district by 20 points. Two years before that, Democrats didn’t even bother running an opponent against the Republican incumbent. You know, I’m really enjoying this radical new Democratic strategy called ‘trying.’” — Samantha Bee

Trump and the GOP suffered another major defeat this week with the election of Conor Lamb over wing-nut Republican Rick Saccone in the PA congressional race. While the vote was close, there was no way, under ordinary circumstances, that a Democrat, even a pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrat -- a Republican wolf in Democrat sheep's clothing (sorry) -- like Lamb, could have won. But these are anything but ordinary circumstances.

Actually, Lamb only carried one of the four counties (Allegheny) in the district. But it was enough. He owes his victory to an aggressive field operation, strong union support and the reality that he was running against Trump more than Saccone.

The overwhelming Trump vote here in 2016 belied that fact that there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in the district. Trump's win was key in his carrying the state by less than a percentage point, or about 40,000 votes. Clinton's loss in PA was key to the Democrat's defeat  despite Clinton winning the popular vote by nearly 4 million votes.

The difference now was that Democrats "really tried" as Samantha Bee pointed out, and that many white district Trump  voters have become disenchanted and either stayed home or voted for Lamb.

Trump won whites with some or no college education by 39 points, a wider margin than any candidate since at least 1980.

NPR reports:

There are no exit polls to know for sure how this group voted Tuesday, but Lamb made clear appeals to them and it would be impossible to make up a 20-point gap without at least some crossover. In fact, dozens of precincts went more Democratic than in the 2016 election.

Lamb benefited from Saccone's history of supporting "right to work" legislation in the state Legislature. The district has a sizable number of union households that might have been willing to support a different Republican candidate, but unions and the Lamb campaign were able to define Saccone as anti-union.

Black women voters were key in AL election win. 

Lamb's win, on the heels of Doug Jones' narrow senate race victory over Trump-backed, white nationalist, child molester Roy Moore in Alabama could signal a Dem tsunami in midterm elections. That win came as a result of huge black voter turnout organized mainly by African-American women.

The difference in this western PA district of 700,000 is that only 2% are African-American. Seventy-one percent of residents (500,438) are registered to vote. Democrats hold a majority — 46% to 41% Republican voters.

Note that there are 118 Republicans sitting in seats Trump won by less than the 18th Congressional District in PA. Dems need to flip a net of 24 seats to take back control of the House.

Of course, Democrats are quite capable of a blowing it, even while riding the anti-Trump wave. Encouraging signs for them are the emergence of the "me too" and Women's March movement (Trump won among white women voters in 2016) along with a new post-Parkland youth and student movement.  Both of which should produce a wealth of new anti-Trump midterm voters.

However, if the Democrats are banking on more pro-gun, anti-abortion candidates like Lamb, they will suffer the consequences.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 Father of a Stoneman Douglas shooting victim painting a mural in his son’s honor: abc7.ws/2tAsQPr

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter, Jaime, was killed at Stoneman Douglas

“This time, the gun rights crowd messed with the wrong community, the wrong kids and the wrong dad...I have dedicated the rest of my life to fighting for the cause of gun safety.” -- Guardian

Betsy DeVos

 Lesley Stahl: Have you seen the really bad schools? Maybe try to figure out what they're doing?Betsy DeVos: I have not-- I have not-- I have not intentionally visited schools that are underperforming.Lesley Stahl: Maybe you should.Betsy DeVos: Maybe I should. Yes. -- CBS 60 Minutes

Jeff Biggers

As the son of a union teacher and the grandson of a union coal miner, I believe the West Virginia teachers have renewed a strategic call for other movements engaged in what we have called a “resistance” against the onslaught of policies decisions and regulatory rollbacks by the Trump administration. -- Guardian

Stable Genius on NBC's Chuck Todd

 “He’s a sleeping son of a bitch." -- At Penn rally

Megyn Kelly

“I would not say that Putin likes Trump,” she said. “I did not glean that at all from him. I did glean that perhaps he has something on Donald Trump." -- The Hill

DACA, KIPP, CORPORATE CIVIL RIGHTS...

DACA DEADLINE IS TODAY, AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN: Today is the day that the protections for the “dreamers” begin expiring, and CNN reports that nothing is going to happen to protect them in Congress today or in the near future.

What took so long?

Mayor di Blasio's "peacemaker" with the charter school lobby is the new chief of policy and public affairs at scandal-ridden KIPP. Richard Beuery, who is African-American, was targeted last year in racist emails by Dan Loeb, one of the city’s most prominent supporters of charter schools. But now, with the overdue firing of KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg in response to allegations of sexual misconduct with former students, the organization is badly in need of a brand makeover. 

#TIME'S UP...There's still no explanation forthcoming as to why it took KIPP so long to get rid of Feinberg. He was "involved" with a former KIPP student, employed by KIPP Houston in 2004, which led to a "financial settlement" at the time. KIPP has to explain how it is that they just learned about it now? 14 years later? Until then, good guy Beury is left trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again. 

After listening to former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg being interviewed by MSNBC's Katy Tur, I came away convinced that the man is batshit crazy and surmising that the rest of DT's campaign staff must have been made up mainly of unvetted grifters, hustlers and outright foreign agents. Nunberg has been subpoenaed by Robert Mueller to testify before the grand jury, but tells Tur he will risk jail and won't testify. He also tells her that special prosecutor Mueller likely has the goods on Trump. 

What's he afraid of? Sounds like a man who woke up with a horse head in his bed. 

All this confirms my belief that Mueller can bring down DT and his whole grifter family if he really wants or dares to. That's a big IF. It also leaves me wondering how bad the Clinton campaign must have been to win the popular vote by 4 million and still lose the election to this bag of dicks? 

Citizens United...UCLA Prof Adam Winkler writing in the Atlantic, tells us how U.S. law intended to protect the rights of African-Americans and other minorities became all about the “Civil Rights of Corporations.” 

One of the great misuses of the word 'Trust' ever.

Rahm flew Randi out to build union support for the Trust

"We've debated this long enough. I'm not in the position of analysis. I'm in the position of getting things done." -- Rahm to the City Council in 2012 

Back in 2012, Rahm Emanuel's proposed Infrastructure Trust got him him great press, especially with flack David Axelrod pumping it like it was the second coming of the Marshall Plan. The New York Times hailed it as the $7 billion plan that would "transform the city’s infrastructure from the skies above to the pipes underground".

This at a time when the mayor was closing half of the city's mental health clinics and school system was reportedly on the brink of collapse.

Rahm even flew in AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten to laud the Trust at Bill Clinton's Global Initiative Conference, even while the CTU was taking its strike authorization vote. Teachers were angry as hell after Rahm reneged on the 4% raise promised them the year before and the last thing on their minds was new grand privatization plan from the mayor.

I wrote at the time that this was one of the great misuses of the word trust ever.  I and others pointed out that rather than creating jobs or saving schools, the Trust would more likely line the pockets of a handful of Rahm's billionaire patrons and give the mayor an unregulated slush fund to use for his own political advantage. No city program had ever been rushed through the City Council without careful review since the great parking meter heist during the Daley administration. As it turns out, the Trust did nothing and all Rahm's big "investors" were all show and no go.

Why the question mark?

Fast forward to read today's headline: Rahm’s trust a bust? Fails to raise a dime but has cost taxpayers $5M

S-T Watchdog Tim Novack writes:

But the infrastructure trust has fallen short of the expectations the mayor laid out. It has yet to raise a dime in private financing for a single public works project, records show. At the same time, it has cost Chicago taxpayers more than $5.1 million to pay for its handful of employees, offices on Wacker Drive, consulting fees and other expenses.

A top city official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, wonders why the mayor hasn’t shut down the trust.

“There’s no excuse for the mayor to avoid closing down this thing that’s been a complete failure,” the official said. “They’ve done nothing that can’t be done by [the Department of Fleet and Facilities Management] or the Public Building Commission.”

The agency’s five-member staff is overseen by a seven-member board headed by Emanuel’s appointed city treasurer, Kurt Summers. The board includes Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th), four business leaders and Jorge Ramirez, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, which is an investor in the Chicago Sun-Times. There’s also a four-member advisory board that includes Ald. Michael Scott Jr. (24th).

 If this all sounds to you a lot like the mayor's current scheme to entice Jeff Bezos into moving his Amazon's HQ2 here with the promise of 50,000 new jobs, you're on to something. You get it.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Juanita Irizarry, director of Friends of the Park on Hitting Left. Listen to podcast n iTunes. 

Donna Brazile

“I want to talk about the arrogance and isolation of the Clinton campaign and the cult of Robby Mook, who felt fresh but turned up stale, in a campaign haunted by ghosts and lacking in enthusiasm, focus, and heart....Three titanic egos – Barack, Hillary, and Debbie – had stripped the party to a shell for their own purposes.” -- Hacks

Mark H. Haefele, Chief Investment Officer at UBS

“Investors have never felt less secure, even though we are eight years into a bull market." -- New York Times 

Bernie Sanders

 I can’t tell any one person what to do, but I will say this: despair is not an option. Now more than ever, we need you to fight back. -- Boston Review

Mehdi Hasan

We bomb them, they bomb us. They bomb us, we bomb them. Will it ever end? -- The Intercept 

Donald Trump

 According to the Japan Times, diplomatic sources confirm that with a Monday meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looming, our very lucid leader has set low expectations with complaints that “he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles.” -- Gizmodo

Are Dem leaders on the road to nowhere in 2018-20?

Sneed this morning on...

Dem presidential loser Hillary’s Clinton’s new book, “What Happened,” which details an intimate view of her disastrous campaign, blasts and blames everyone . . . including herself.

And a disastrous campaign it was. Hillary turned out to be the worst possible candidate, although Dem leadership will never admit it. They're content to blame the November debacle on Putin/Sanders/Stein, an analysis that leaves them on the road to nowhere in 2018-2020.

I wonder if the book will hold accountable her top (all-white) campaign strategist/pollster team of Podesta, Mook, Benenson, Anzalone, Binder & Co., who somehow thought it was a great idea for her to bash young Sanders voters and then hang out in Arizona the last week of the campaign.

She ended up winning the national popular vote by 3M only to lose WI, MI and PA by a combined total of 77,744 votes and there's a sociopath with his finger on the nuclear button in the WH. The consequences of Dem arrogance and entitlement.

Speaking of same old, same old... it looks like Dem leaders in IL are all-in behind billionaire J.B. Pritzker in the party primary.

Sneed again... Picking Pritzker . . . and pricking Kennedy? [Perfect verb for Kennedy, the perfect prick--mk]

• Translation: Sneed is told top Cook County Dem slatemakers gathering Thursday and Friday for their biannual slatemaking meeting are predicting J.B. Pritzker will be endorsed as the party’s pick to try to unseat Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

“It’s simple. Pritzker has the financial wherewithal to mount a vigorous campaign against Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has limitless money to fund his re-election campaign,” the source added.

Makes perfect sense in a way, since there's little to separate the rest of the Dem primary pack from J.B. besides the size of their war chests in this, likely the most obscenely expensive gov's race in history.

Last point this morning...

Saw some progressive Chicago educators scratching their heads yesterday over the mayor's sudden, apparent support for vouchers. Rahm himself has played his cards close to the vest, since his not-so-secret meeting with Ed Sec. Betsy DeVos back in April. We wouldn't have known about their meeting, were it not for a recently released cache of Rahm's private emails that reveals he had been open to discussing a controversial voucher-like program that could divert millions of taxpayer dollars to private schools.

Jay Rehak

Tomorrow at 11 CDT on Hitting Left with the Klonsky Bros...
Brother Fred talks pension theft with Chicago Teachers Pension Fund trustee board prez Jay Rehak and Teacher Retirement System blogger and activist John Dillon.