WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Columnist Laura Washington

"My message to Chicago Ald. Jim Gardiner: You are mired in a bottomless pit of misogyny." -- Sun-Times

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez re. Manchin

“In Washington, I usually know my questions of power are getting somewhere when the powerful stop referring to me as ‘Congresswoman’ and start referring to me as ‘young lady’ instead." -- Guardian 

Rev. William Barber re. Manchin

“He is a part of the demolition crew of this democracy.” -- The Sunday Show

Justice Stephen Breyer

“I Don’t Intend to Die on the Court” -- Fox News Sunday 

Dr. Anthony Fauci

"If you want to get on a plane and travel with other people then you should be vaccinated." -- Podcast  

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus 

"Because manufacturers have prioritized or been legally obliged to fulfill bilateral deals with rich countries willing to pay top dollar, low-income countries have been deprived of the tools to protect their people.”

“There has been a lot of talk about vaccine equity,” Tedros added, “but too little action.” -- Truthout

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Surfside, FL condo building collapse could be an omen of things to come if we go light on the infrastructure bill.

AOC on the infrastructure bill

 “Frankly, we really need to understand that this is our one big shot, not just in terms of family, child care, Medicare, but on climate change,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, said on “Meet the Press.” 

Dave Zirin

Civil disobedience in 2021 is teaching the truth. -- FB

Dallas Schools Superintendent Michael Hinojosa

“I’m Mexican American, and with the Alamo, they always talked about slaughtering the Mexicans when I was a little kid,” he said. “Can you imagine what went through my mind? When I became a teacher, I could say, ‘Well, here’s the other perspective. Make up your own mind about it.’” -- Washington Post 

Cas Mudde, Univ. of Georgia prof

There is a specter haunting America – the specter of critical race theory. -- Guardian

Gwen Berry

Athlete/activist Gwen Berry at the Olympic Trials

Berry said that her mission was bigger than the sport and "me being able to represent my communities and my people, and those that have died at the hands of police brutality, those that have died to this systemic racism."  -- Reuters 

More AOC 

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Calls AOC a "little communist" and says locking her up is a good idea. 

AOC: First of all, I’m taller than her -- Twitter

Former Attorney General William Barr

...in a newly released book excerpt, said he suspected then-President Donald Trump's claims of widespread election fraud were "all bullsh*t," but that he launched unofficial inquiries into some of them to appease his boss.

 D.T. responded

"The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: 'You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump,'" the excerpt reads. -- CNN

 

CRT is not taught in the schools. 99% of teachers never heard of it. https://t.co/OLQYPwRJr2

— Diane Ravitch (@DianeRavitch) June 28, 2021

Shit, my last paycheck for 89 hours of work in 2 weeks was $1323, and I'm at a job I kind of like. Can't imagine why people aren't chomping at the bit to go work at shit jobs to make shit money with little to no benefits

— David Raleigh (@david__raleigh) June 28, 2021

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

 Dave Zirin on Henry Aaron

We have lost someone who, even though he played much of his career in Atlanta, was a fierce foe of Jim Crow—and then the New Jim Crow, with its savage inequities in the criminal justice system. As he once said, with his deep and sincere humility, “Am I a hero? I suppose I am, to some people. If I am, I hope it’s not only for my home runs.… I hope it’s also for my beliefs, my stands, my opinions. Still, I’m not at ease being a hero.” -- He Had a Hammer

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 

...in response to an assassination threat from a Trump supporter:

“On one hand you have to laugh, and on the other know that the reason they were this brazen is because they thought they were going to succeed.” -- @AOC

AFT Prez Randi Weingarten

With robust testing, we can open schools this spring before the vaccine is widely available.We have spent months studying this problem and finding solutions. We know how to minimize risks enough for everyone to trust being back in a classroom. -- USA Today 

Hunts Point striker Ismael Cancela

 “We worked through a pandemic. I’ve been working here for 28 years, and it’s hard work,” said Ismael Cancela, a warehouse worker and Local 202 member. He told me that the offer of a 32-cents-per-hour-raise was a “slap in the face.” -- The Intercept

Biden's Health and Human Services nominee Xavier Becerra 

...Tells CNN Sunday that the country was experiencing an uncontrolled spread of the virus. "The plane in a nosedive. And we've got to pull it up." -- The Hill

 Jake Laperruque

No, we do not need new terrorism laws. The Capitol riot wasn’t caused by a lack of legal authority. -- Slate

Dr. Anthony Fauci

“The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence and science is, and know that’s it — let the science speak — it is somewhat of a liberating feeling.”  -- Maddow

This virus does not see or care about nationality, borders, or religion — its devastating impact is everywhere. The Netanyahu administration has a moral and humanitarian obligation to ensure that both Israelis & Palestinians have access to vaccines.https://t.co/mcD5TXLTI3

— Marie Newman (@Marie4Congress) January 5, 2021

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Right Ruling for the wrong reason...A British judge has blocked the extradition to the U.S. of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, ruling that “Mr. Assange’s risk of committing suicide, if an extradition order were to be made, to be substantial.”

Trump to Raffensperger

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have." Raffensperger’s Twitter response: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.” -- AP

Sen. Dick Durbin (IL)

President Trump's call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) "merits nothing less than a criminal investigation." In his statement calling for an investigation, the No. 2 Senate Democrat labeled the conversation as "more than a pathetic rambling, delusional rant."

"His disgraceful effort to intimidate an elected official into deliberately changing and misrepresenting the legally confirmed vote totals in his state strikes at the heart of our democracy and merits nothing less than a criminal investigation." -- The Hil

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backs Pelosi for Speaker

...a progressive leader, backed Pelosi and told reporters that Democratic unity was important “at a time when the Republican Party is attempting an electoral coup.” -- AP

Trump ~ Fauci

The number of "China Virus" cases and deaths in the U.S. are "far exaggerated," President Donald Trump said on Twitter. He cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's methodology. "When in doubt, call it Covid. Fake News!" Trump said.

Anthony Fauci, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, said anyone who went into the "trenches" – intensive care units at hospitals across the nation – will quickly realize how severe the virus is. He called the statistics "real numbers, real people and real deaths."

Trump shot back on Twitter: "Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?" --  USA Today

When we look back on all this, the notion that Trump was impeached for the Ukraine call alone will seem utterly bizarre.

— Carlos Lozada (@CarlosLozadaWP) January 3, 2021

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 

Debra Haaland, the next Sec. of the Interior

“I’ll be fierce for all of us, for our planet, and all of our protected land,” said Haaland in her acceptance speech. “This moment is profound when we consider the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed it his goal to, quote, ‘civilize or exterminate’ us. I’m a living testament to the failure of that horrific ideology.” -- Guardian

'Not Tuskegee...'

“This ain’t that, I’ll say it again, this ain’t that,” Cook County Commissioner Dennis Deer (2nd) said. “I want to get the message across that this is not Tuskegee; this is about you and about your children and about your generation.” -- Sun-Times

Kim Foxx

 “If we recognize substance abuse disorder as a health condition, then we must modify our justice system to treat it as such,” she said. “Criminalizing health is not in the interest of public safety.” -- Sun-Times interview

 CNN's Jake Tapper 

...says he won't have Kayleigh McEnany on his show because she “lies the way most people breathe.” -- Independent

NY State Dem Party Boss Jay Jacobs

AOC hasn't signaled a run for the Senate. But that didn't stop Jacobs from warning her not to challenge Chuck Schumer.  

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would “absolutely” lose a challenge if she went head-to-head against the veteran Democratic lawmaker, said Jacobs — who noted he’s yet to meet the Queens rep. -- NY Post

 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

'Absolutely' my job to push Democrats to the left.

“We need to make sure that we win this White House,” she said. “Frankly, I think it would be privilege and would be a luxury for us to talk about what we would lobby Democratic and how we would push the next Democratic administration." -- CNN

 George McGraw, founder of the human rights nonprofit DigDeep

 “Race is the strongest indicator in 2020 of whether or not you will have a tap and a toilet in your house in the richest democracy on earth.” -- Capital & Main

Mayor Lori Lightfoot

 “We must not go backward to the failed approach that Pat O’Brien supports — an approach that put innocent people in prison and cost Chicago taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

“We cannot afford to go back to those dark days. For women like myself and Kim [Foxx], justice is not an abstract thing...We know when the deck is stacked against us. That’s why I voted for Kim.” -- Sun-Times

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, head of the state’s Department of Public Health

 “I can’t break down why. I think it’s probably just a culmination of the frustration of seeing that we are repeating history." -- IL Playbook

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows

 “We’re not going to control the pandemic.” Pressed to explain why, he said, “because it is a contagious virus just like the flu." -- AP

Trump on TV

 "Turn on television: ‘covid, covid, covid, covid, covid.’ A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don’t talk about it - ‘covid, covid, covid, covid,’ " Trump said. “By the way, on November 4th, you won’t hear about it anymore.” -- Boston Globe

 

If we win Texas, Trump will be a lame duck president before we go to bed on November 3rd.

— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) October 25, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mayor Lori Lightfoot at RGB vigil

Lightfoot spoke about how, less than 12 hours after Ginsburg’s death, President Donald Trump released his list of Supreme Court justice picks. When Lightfoot mentioned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s name, the crowd booed in unison.

“The forces of darkness and evil were already at work. The hypocrisy of these people knows no limit.” -- Chicago gathering for RBG

State's Atty. Kim Foxx on RBG

 Foxx continued: “While some might argue the law is not a place for social activism, Ginsburg didn’t listen to this noise, always rising above the critics to bring justice and equality for the American people.” -- Sun-Times

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on RBG

“It’s not just the fact that she’s a woman who served on our highest court or the first Jewish woman to serve on our highest court. But it’s how she served...And when you are in this space, you don’t have to occupy this space in the way that every man before you did. You can be the first, and you can be brazen, as you are the first.” -- NYT interview

 Donald Trump

"You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn't it, don't you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we're so different? You have good genes in Minnesota." -- At Minnesota rally

Ed Rendell, former DNC Chair

“Suburban whites are pretty much gone” for Trump,  And Biden is far less objectionable to many working-class whites than Clinton, a more polarizing nominee whose favorability ratings were lower than Biden’s. -- Trump loses ground with white voters

 Rebecca Solnit

What we do now matters as it never has before. As a country, we are on the cusp of an epic decision. Climate change, Covid – our hearts ache. But a new era is possible. We can do it. -- Guardian

W.E.B. DuBois (1946)

I should be the last to insist that the uplift of mankind never calls for force and death. There are times, as both you and I know, when

“Tho’ love repine and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply,
‘Tis man’s perdition to be safe
When for truth he ought to die.” 

 -- Behold the Land (h/t Gwendolyn Midlo Hall)

 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

All school districts across the state of New York are cleared to open, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news conference by phone Friday morning.

Maggie Mulqueen, psychologist

School has never been just about the curriculum. It’s also about students’ health and development...But schools can’t fill those needs while an epidemic is raging. It is quite possible that reopening schools could actually be worse for children. -- Think

Bill Gates

Commercial labs have left customers struggling with long waits, while “very wealthy people have access to these quick-turnaround tests.” -- CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS

Derrick Morgan, on jump in Black gun ownership

“Whether it was fear of a food shortage, lack of a grocery store, the short response times for law enforcement or whether people were just fearful they were going to be attacked, I don’t know,” said Derrick Morgan, national commander of the Black Gun Owners Association, to Politico. -- Black Enterprise

Trump (#OINk)...

...slammed Ocasio-Cortez as “a real beauty” who “knows nothing about the economy.” He singled out policies in her Green New Deal proposal. “She knows as much about the environment — do we have any young children here? — as that young child over there. I think he knows more,” Trump said. -- NY Post

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. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Cook County Jail is now the national epicenter for COVID-19.

Prof. Marc Lamont Hill 

Easter calls us to remember the plight of the prisoner. Because of his political activism and message of social justice, Jesus was declared an enemy of the Roman State and sentenced to the death penalty...The story of Jesus is a reminder to challenge state authority, question unjust laws, and offer humanizing mercy to the prisoner. -- Ebony

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her support for Biden

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. -- New York Times

Chris Wallace, responds to Trump

"One of us has a daddy problem, and it’s not me." -- The Hill

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin 

“Wisconsin has a long pattern of this … Time after time, they have acted to disenfranchise people to make it tougher and tougher to vote.” -- MSNBC

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert.

Earlier social distancing measures 'obviously' would have saved more lives. We make a recommendation. Often, the recommendation is taken," Fauci said. "Sometimes, it's not. But ... it is what it is. We are where we are right now." -- NBC

Trump's crashing. Govs leading. Where's Biden?

According to today's Washington Post-ABC poll, Trump and Biden are running neck-and-neck. One can only wonder how big a lead Biden would have if he was running as serious a campaign against DT as he is against Bernie Sanders and the party's left-wing? Since capturing the lead against Sanders in recent primaries, Biden has retreated to the sidelines as President Trump has stolen the spotlight with daily coronavirus briefings. 

But now, Trump's numbers are crashing over his handling of the coronavirus. His approval ratings have plunged a net 13 points in less than a week. At this hour of crisis, with an anxious public desperately looking for leadership, the grifter president is proving once again to be a divisive and dismal failure. Now seems like the time for Dems to take the offensive.

Latest polls also indicate:

Near-universal support for social distancing. People want it to continue as long as public health experts say it's necessary. Republicans are already trying to walk back Trump's asinine calls for "reopening the economy" by Easter and quarantining individual states. They say, "he was just thinking out loud."

Also, state and local government leaders are more trusted on the pandemic response than Trump and the federal government. 

The problem for Democrats is that governors, sure winners if they were running, like Cuomo and Newsom (and I would add Pritzker), aren't in the race. Joe Biden is.

But where is Biden? According to Jon Levine in the NY Post, Biden has been turned into
"a virtual prisoner of his Delaware home, where he’s reduced to sniping at President Trump from the family rec room."

“He’s making himself irrelevant,” Saikat Chakrabarti, a former chief of staff to Queens Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, told The Post, saying the virtual broadcasts were not helping. “We need action immediately, and Biden can’t do anything real right now.”

Biden and the party leadership seem lost and ambivalent about taking on Trump. Anita Dunn, a top Biden advisor tells Politico, “Everything that's happening right now is like nothing I've experienced in previous presidential campaigns."

“Biden has a thin line,” an outside adviser said. “As much as I dislike Trump and think what a bad job he’s doing, there’s a danger now that attacking him can backfire on you if you get too far out there. I don’t think the public wants to hear criticism of Trump right now.”

The adviser doesn't tell us how Democrats are supposed to win a close presidential election without criticizing Trump. The fact is, it just won't happen. Maybe it's time for some new advisers.

Now,  possibly reacting to pressure to wage a more aggressive campaign, even in these difficult times, the party centrists have let Biden out of his bunker for some national face time.

At last, there was a Biden sighting on Meet The Press this morning.

Biden had some mild criticism of Trump's tardiness in confronting the virus. Better than nothing, I suppose.

But then a jaw-dropper. In response to Chuck Todd's question about whether or not he would continue sanctions against Iran, Biden went all Trump on us, claiming he didn't have enough info to answer the question and then implying he would keep sanctions alive since the Iranians were likely "lying" about their numbers of dead COVID victims.

I know we have to support Biden against Trump. But at times like this, you have to wonder if the Dems really want to win and if they're really going to offer progressives and young people a real choice, rather than a fading echo?

EXCLUSIVE: Would Joe Biden temporarily lift sanctions on Iran during the coroanvirus pandemic? #MTP #IfItsSunday@JoeBiden: "There's a lot of speculation ... that they're in real trouble and they're lying. But I would need more information to make that judgement." pic.twitter.com/d6KFmcm9FZ

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) March 29, 2020

Rahm: Fighting Trump is 'sinking to his level.'

"Some may accuse me of being Pollyanna-ish — there’s a first time for everything." -- Rahm Emanuel

Rahm Emanuel is trying once again, to rebrand himself. He no longer wants to be seen as the divisive advisor who was canned by President Obama or the ex-mayor driven out of Chicago before voters could get a clean shot at him at the polls.

When he still had hopes of winning re-election, Mayor 1% tried to rebrand himself as a "progressive". But now, with real progressives threatening the centrists' hold on the Democratic Party leadership, he's dropped the progressive facade and is working with the DNC leadership to isolate and discredit the party's left-wing. Rahm now wants to morph into the "no-conflict" conciliator with Trump and the Republicans to "bring the country together."

He's warning Democrats to veer away from any anti-Trump resistance movements, especially the kind being forged by the likes of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during the primary elections.

To Rahm, fighting Trumpism is "sinking to Trump's level."

In yesterday's Washington Post op-ed, Rahm appears downright giddy over the new NAFTA deal Nancy Pelosi cut with Trump. 

If everything in Washington centered on conflict, President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would never have been able to align themselves on a major trade agreement. And yet there they were, serving up evidence that division and consensus can sit, however uncomfortably, side by side. What did that moment tell us? Riven though we are, we are also, on many matters, united.

From Rahm's POV, there's no longer a need for sharp conflict with Trump over issues like climate change, gun control, or immigration. Why? Because we're all already agreed. There's a national consensus, says Rahm.

We don’t need to tell Americans that the president’s decision to bully Greta Thunberg was wrong — they know that. We don’t need to tell them that his Dec. 18 attack on Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and her late husband, John, was beyond the pale and beneath this nation — they know that as well. 

This from the former White House chief-of-staff who called immigration reform, "the third rail of politics" and who warned Obama's attorney general to "STFU" about gun control. 

Rahm's call for consensus-building with Republicans is nothing more than a poke at the left-wing of the party who he and Dem party leaders see as a greater threat to their power than they do Donald Trump. Without mentioning Sanders, Warren or AOC by name, Rahm tries to paint them as the purveyors of conflict and Joe Biden as the Pelosi-style unifier.

He writes:

If Trump is going to do his best to deepen the conflict, should we do the same? Or, after three years of enduring the White House’s efforts to pit community against community, should we lean into the exhausted electorate’s desire to embrace a leader who will bind up the nation’s wounds?

His rebranding efforts won't work. He's still the same divisive, corporate shill he's always been. If the Democratic leadership follows Rahm's lead and opts for conciliation with Trump as their strategic goal, they will fail again as they did in 2016.

But isn't it a crime to threaten the life of a congresswoman? Apparently not in Louisiana.

Gretna, Louisiana Police Chief Arthur Lawson announced Monday that Officer Charlie Rispoli would be fired for posting the comment on the social media platform and Officer Angelo Varisco would be fired for "liking" it. 

In the post, Rispoli said Ocasio-Cortez was a "vile idiot" who "needs a round." 

"And I don't mean the kind she used to serve," Rispoli wrote, apparently referencing the lawmaker's past work as a bartender. 

"This incident, we feel, has been an embarrassment to our department,” Lawson said of the since-deleted post. 

Fired? Is that it.

I thought it was a crime to threaten a government official. So I looked it up. Yep, I was right. 

Threatening government officials of the United States is a felony under federal law. Threatening the President of the United States is a felony under 18 U.S.C. § 871, punishable by up to 5 years of imprisonment, that is investigated by the United States Secret Service. Threatening other officials is a Class C or D felony, usually carrying maximum penalties of 5 or 10 years under 18 U.S.C. § 875, 18 U.S.C. § 876 and other statutes, that is investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

But the two cops who threatened or publicly encouraged the taking of the life of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were merely fired for "embarrassing the department". What's up with that?

It looks like white racist cops, encouraged by a racist president, are above the law in Louisiana, a state with 540 lynchings to its discredit. This, especially is the case if their victims are people of color, in this case, a sitting congresswoman.

This is a continuing pattern nationwide. I'm thinking particularly of the four Chicago cops finally fired after five years, for filing false statements about Jason Van Dyke's fatal shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald. No criminal charges were ever filed against the conspiring cops or their higher-ups, in the case.

Louisiana's history of lynching

Then there was the decision, by federal prosecutors, affirmed by Trump's hand-picked Attorney General William Barr, not to bring charges against a white N.Y. cop Daniel Pantaleo, after he choked to death Eric Garner on video in broad daylight. Garner's last words, “I can’t breathe” — became a national rallying cry against police brutality.

In stark contrast is the seemingly never-ending saga of black actor, Jussie Smollett, who was charged by Chicago cops with 16 felonies for allegedly filing a false report about a racist assault. The State's Attorney's office decided there wasn't enough of a case against Smollett to move forward. That made State's Attorney Kim Foxx, an African-American woman, the target of vengeful attacks by the racist FOP.

The case has become a rallying cry for the right-wing with even Donald Trump weighing in and calling for Smollett's head. Now a judge is looking to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue the case.

Such is our two-faced legal system carrying on the traditions of American slavery and Jim Crow.

An embarrassment...

“This incident, we feel, has been an embarrassment to our department,” Chief Arthur Lawson of the Gretna Police Department said at a news conferencehttps://t.co/rdJ1dUvh99

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 23, 2019

The death of irony

Dare Pelosi and the Democrats utter the "R"-word?

It's ironic that Democratic Party leaders are hesitant to use the "R"-word while criticizing Trump and the Republicans. It seems they're afraid of alienating the so-called "moderate" Republicans, who they are counting on to elect Biden in the industrial swing states. They are also leery of giving any credibility to the progressive insurgency within the party, which threatens their positions of power.

So even when DT comes out with his most outrageous, naked white-nationalist diatribes, directed mainly at AOC and "The Squad" of four congresswomen of color, (who he told to "go back" to the countries they came from), the closest they come to calling "racism" is to charge the president with "xenophobia."

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday, that Democrats will soon introduce a resolution condemning Trump’s “xenophobic” remarks. OK, but just xenophobic?

I say ironic, because even thick-as-a-brick DT recognizes, in an oblique way, that his MAGA code language is racist to its core. So when Pelosi paraphrases and mocks him, saying MAGA would more accurately be described as "make America white again," DT tells reporters, "Speaker Pelosi said 'make America white again,' that's a very racist statement."

Irony is definitely lost on this man.

"Xenophobia" is now the Dem's saveur du jour. It means dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries, and there's no doubt, DT is a xenophobe. His picture should appear in the dictionary next to the definition. But his attack on the squad is racist, not just xenophobic.

It's a much softer, safer word in white America, one that doesn't have quite the sting of "racist." But it's also inaccurate in the case of the Squad.

Three of the four may come from "broken places," but those places are right here in the U.S. So telling four women of color to leave their country of birth and "go back"to the country they "came from"? Really?

Definitely racist. Let's call it what it is.

Trump claims a 94% approval rating among Republicans... I don't doubt it. It's definitely his party now. So Democrats building their 2020 strategy on hopes that a significant number of disenchanted Republican will swing their way, is likely a losing one.

2016 redux.

They insist that only a right-centrist like Biden can play to conservative swing voters and so, they direct their main blows not at Trump, but leftward at The Squad.

BTW, I don't like the name The Squad. It makes the party insurgency seem small and isolated, which it isn't.

Saving grace may be that Trump's racist attacks on the four are so odious that centrists and leftists will be forced to close ranks in their defense. We'll see how long that lasts.

Also important to note...Today's NBC/WSJ poll shows any one of the top Democratic contenders (not just Biden) beating Trump in a head-to-head race.

I know, it's early in the race and you can't rely on the polls and...blah, blah blah. But my point here is that there's no evidence in any polling to support the claim that Biden is the only one capable of beating Trump or that contenders like Sanders, Warren, or Harris (and the rest of us) should withhold criticism of Biden or the Democratic leadership during the primary.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

As Saturday's anti-ICE march in Chicago

Cong. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia 

“It’s about damn time we tell this racist president loud and clear: Stop criminalizing desperation.” -- At Saturday's rally in Chicago.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

"I believe these women. I believed the canker sores that I saw in their mouths because they were only allowed to be fed un-nutritious food. I believe them when they said they were sleeping on concrete floors for two months. I believe them."

"And what was worse about this, Mr. Chairman, was the fact that there were American flags hanging all over these facilities — that children being separated from their parents in front of an American flag — that women were being called these names under an American flag." -- Share Blue Media

Sen. Bernie Sanders

“I support Alexandria’s and the other women’s desire to bring more people, especially younger people, working-class people into the Democratic party," he said. "That is the future of the Democratic party.” -- Fox News

Rep. Ilhan Omar

“There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.” ~James Baldwin -- Twitter

Tara Tidwell Cullen from the National Immigrant Justice Center.  

“This has been an opportunity for communities to come together and learn to understand what their rights are and be able to exercise their rights." -- Tribune

MLL in Little Village

Mayor Lori Lightfoot

... praised activists who are trying to organize against raids by informing people about their rights, which the former federal prosecutor said includes not letting ICE in if they don’t have a warrant signed by a judge. She said it’s important to remind people “that this is a city that for 150 years has been a city of welcome for immigrants (from) all over the world.” -- Tribune

Diana Nayeri, author of The Ungrateful Refugee

[Tucker] Carlson had nothing to do with Omar’s rescue from Somalia. He is just a privileged man who won the lottery of birth. If it were up to him, she would never have been allowed in. -- Slate

Trump tells elected women of color to, "Go back to the countries you came from..."

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

Saluting these women. Stay pushing. Stay shining. Stay working. Stay a pain in the ass of the #RacistInChief and all his co-horts. Stay true to who you are. Stay safe. Stay together. Stay making us proud. #FourQueens pic.twitter.com/jkcXe6Z96F

— Ava DuVernay (@ava) July 14, 2019

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a plaque marking the location of the newest settlement in the Golan Heights on Sunday.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 

"Mr. President, you're from Queens. You may fool the rest of the country, but I'll call your bluff any day of the week."  -- Newsweek

D.T.

"There's never been a time in the history of our country where somebody was so mistreated as I have been." -- Interview with George Stephanopoulos

Eliot Higgins, of the investigative group, BellingCat

While we cannot be sure whether this is a Gulf of Tonkin-style incident, we can say for certain this is not the slam-dunk evidence that some would like to claim it is. -- New York Times

Baltimore police Sgt. Ethan Newberg

After more officers arrived, Dotson struggled with the sequence of events and asked why he was being taken to jail. “Just go to jail and take your charge like a man,” Newberg called out. -- Washington Post

Political analyst Don Rose

 As we approach next week's Democratic debates, recent polling shows that despite Joe Biden's consistent double-digit lead, a majority of Democratic voters prefers a clear-cut progressive rather than a mainstream, institutional liberal candidate as personified by the former veep. -- Chicago Daily Observer