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RSN: Who's Afraid of Nina Turner? |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=48990"><span class="small">Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Saturday, 24 July 2021 11:15 |
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Solomon writes: "Nina Turner is very scary - to power brokers who've been spending big money and political capital to keep her out of Congress."
Nina Turner. (photo: Salwan Georges/Getty Images)
Who's Afraid of Nina Turner?
By Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
24 July 21
 ina Turner is very scary – to power brokers who’ve been spending big money and political capital to keep her out of Congress. With early voting underway, tensions are spiking as the decisive Democratic primary race in northeast Ohio nears its Aug. 3 finish. The winner will be virtually assured of filling the seat in the deep-blue district left vacant by Rep. Marcia Fudge when she became President Biden’s HUD secretary. What’s at stake in the special election is whether progressives will gain a dynamic champion in the House of Representatives.
For the Democratic Party establishment, the specter of “Congresswoman Nina Turner” is alarming. The former national co-chair of the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign has a proven capacity to stir fervent energy on the left around the country. Her ability to inspire at the grassroots is far beyond what mainstream party leaders can do.
All politics is local when the votes are finally counted – but in the meantime, this contest is a national clash of political forces. Turner’s endorsements include 15 progressive House and Senate members along with numerous left-leaning organizations. Her main opponent, Shontel Brown, has supporters who include the upper ranks of Democratic Party leaders as well as corporate heavy hitters.
Hillary Clinton’s mid-June endorsement of Brown was later eclipsed by the third-ranking House Democrat, majority whip Jim Clyburn. He recorded a TV ad for Brown with a swipe at Turner while identifying himself as “the highest-ranking African American in Congress.” In the process of throwing his political weight against Turner – who is a strong advocate of Medicare for All – Clyburn didn’t mention his exceptional record of receiving hefty donations from the pharmaceutical industry.
Last fall, a newspaper in his home state of South Carolina, the Post and Courier, spelled out details under the headline “Clyburn Has Taken More Than $1 Million in Pharma Money in a Decade, Far Surpassing Peers.” The paper reported that Clyburn “has collected more in the last decade from powerful political action committees attached to the pharmaceutical industry than anyone else in the House or Senate.” Clyburn has been vocally in tune with his benefactors, warning against Medicare for All and “socialized medicine.”
That Clyburn would try to undercut Turner’s campaign is logical, especially given her emphatic support for Medicare for All. Likewise, one of her major campaign planks – calling for “environmental justice” and “re-inventing our energy and transportation systems through a Green New Deal” – would hardly appeal to the fossil-fuel mogul who is the biggest funder of the Democratic Majority for Israel super PAC, now intervening with huge ad buys to defeat Turner.
The megadonor behind that intervention is “an oil and gas executive who belongs to a billionaire family,” the Intercept pointed out days ago. “Stacy Schusterman, heir and chair of Samson Energy, a fossil fuel company that owns at least 11 oil and gas wells in Wyoming, donated $1.55 million to Democratic Majority for Israel in 2019 and 2020, a super PAC that has in turn spent over $660,000 on ads” supporting Brown and attacking Turner.
Those ads have descended into blatant deception. “Brown has gained momentum in recent weeks with hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, who funded flagrantly false mailers smearing Turner,” the Cleveland Scene newspaper reported last week. The methodical lies included claims that Turner has opposed universal healthcare – an assertion that earned the label “wildly dishonest” from Washington Post journalist Dave Weigel and the adjective “sleazy” from Rep. Mark Pocan, chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Democratic Majority for Israel is led by Mark Mellman – a longtime strategist for AIPAC, the powerful right-wing group more formally known as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which remained closely aligned with Benjamin Netanyahu throughout his long and racist tenure as Israel’s prime minister. Another spinoff from AIPAC that’s also spending big bucks on advertising against Turner is a rightward-leaning outfit called Pro-Israel America. Its founder and executive director, Jeff Mendelsohn, worked as a high-level AIPAC operative for more than 10 years.
The massive amounts of advertising and vitriol being dumped on Nina Turner leave Israel and foreign policy virtually unmentioned. And she has said little about the Middle East or other aspects of foreign affairs. But her occasional comments have been clear enough to convey principled independence. In a tweet two months ago, during Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza, she wrote: “Palestinian lives matter.” The same week, she expressed solidarity with American Jews and Palestinians who had gathered in front of the State Department to call for an end to Israeli apartheid.
While well-heeled groups that demand unequivocal support for Israel’s policies are funding anti-Turner ads, Shontel Brown has gone out of her way to express fulsome devotion to Israel as well as gratitude to Democratic Majority for Israel. Meanwhile, people who actually live in the congressional district have much to consider about the close-to-home records of the two leading candidates. Turner served on the Cleveland City Council and in the Ohio State Senate. Brown is a local elected official and chairs the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.
Early this month, when Cleveland’s daily newspaper weighed in with an endorsement, it wasn’t a close call. “There is one person in this crowded field who has shown she isn’t afraid to stand up to power and to partisan shibboleths, who has the guts to say what she thinks and do what’s right for her constituents and country, who is passionate about public service and knows the issues, the personalities, the challenges better than anyone else in this race,” the Plain Dealer editorialized. “That person is Nina Turner.” In sharp contrast, the editorial described Shontel Brown as “a pleasant but undistinguished member of Cuyahoga County Council who has little to show for her time in office.”
But the national forces arrayed against Nina Turner are preoccupied with other matters – like protecting the pharmaceutical industry’s leverage over health care, or maximizing the profits of fossil-fuel companies, or maintaining Israel’s power to suppress the rights of Palestinian people. In pursuit of such goals, the mission is clear: Don’t let Nina Turner get to Congress.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Nancy Pelosi Drop-Kicks Jim Jordan's Election-Denying Ass From 1/6 Investigation Committee |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=44994"><span class="small">Bess Levin, Vanity Fair</span></a>
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Saturday, 24 July 2021 08:22 |
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Levin writes: "Ever since Donald Trump incited a mob to lay siege on the U.S. Capitol in the hopes of blocking Joe Biden from becoming president, Republicans have pulled all manner of bullshit out of their asses in a sad attempt to explain why the failed insurrection wasn't really that bad."
Nancy Pelosi. (photo: Reuters)
Nancy Pelosi Drop-Kicks Jim Jordan's Election-Denying Ass From 1/6 Investigation Committee
By Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
24 July 21
In response, Republicans threw a fit and announced they’ll be forming their own 1/6 investigative panel.
 ver since Donald Trump incited a mob to lay siege on the U.S. Capitol in the hopes of blocking Joe Biden from becoming president, Republicans have pulled all manner of bullshit out of their asses in a sad attempt to explain why the failed insurrection wasn’t really that bad. Senator Ron Johnson has suggested he never feared for his life because the rioters were white. Rep. Paul Gosar has called the individuals who violently broke into the Capitol “peaceful patriots” and said the Department of Justice is “harassing“ them. Rep. Andrew Clyde has boldly and insanely claimed that “There was no insurrection and to call it an insurrection, in my opinion, is a bold-faced lie. Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures…if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”
Obviously, Republicans have taken this tack because deep down inside, they know they‘re partially responsible for the events that took place on January 6, thanks to their promotion of the lie that Trump actually won the election. Hence, why they refused to support an investigation into the attack on Capitol Hill, knowing the results, for them, would look really, really bad. Unfortunately for the GOP, Nancy Pelosi wasn’t just going to sit back and let her colleagues across the aisle pretend as though the failed coup, which left five people dead, never happened; after the legislation to form a January 6 commission was blocked in the Senate, the House speaker announced that she would form a select committee to investigate the events surrounding the attack.
Realizing at that point that this thing was going to happen with or without them, Republicans decided they‘d better get some of their own on the panel. But instead of appointing, say, lawmakers who hadn‘t whipped Trump’s supporters into a frenzy over the lie that the election was stolen, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tried to place Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, two of the biggest Big Lie–pushing congressmen in the House on the committee. Which would basically be like if O.J. Simpson was appointed to a board investigating the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. To which Nancy Pelosi effectively responded: Go f--k yourself.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday rejected two of the five Republican choices for a select committee that is set to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, citing concerns about preserving the quality of the probe and asking that the GOP choose two replacements. “With respect for the integrity of the investigation, with an insistence on the truth and with concern about statements made and actions taken by these Members, I must reject the recommendations of Representatives [Jim] Banks and [Jim] Jordan to the Select Committee,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Because Republicans rejected the chance to form a bipartisan commission that would have been evenly split between five Democrats and five Republicans, Pelosi’s next option was to create a select committee to investigate the riot. Unlike the bipartisan commission, which would have given Republicans the opportunity to appoint whoever they wanted from outside Congress or any other branch of government, the select committee was set up by Pelosi and the rules for it were determined by her office as well. Pelosi, a California Democrat, reserved veto power over the five members appointed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. And she used that power to boot Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Jim Banks, R-Indiana, from the committee.
While Pelosi said Wednesday that she was happy to accept McCarthy’s three other choices (Reps. Rodney Davis, Kelly Armstrong, and Troy Nehls), the minority leader—who himself voted to overturn the 2020 election results and rewritten history in Trump‘s favor since the Capitol attack—chose instead to throw a hissy fit, suggesting he‘d be taking his toys and going home. “Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts,” McCarthy said in a statement. In other words:
Anyway, we look forward to the results of the GOP’s “own investigation of the facts“ which will presumably conclude that Hunter Biden was behind the attack and that the only way to save democracy moving forward is to appoint Trump president for life.
Liz Cheney also thinks Kevin McCarthy is a despicable hack
...and suggests that Jim Jordan should be hauled before the 1/6 committee for questioning
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Short-Term Fixes Aren't Enough to Solve America's Looming Eviction Crisis |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=60257"><span class="small">Kathryn Reynolds and Abby Boshart, CNN</span></a>
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Saturday, 24 July 2021 08:17 |
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Excerpt: "After the CDC's national eviction moratorium expires on July 31, millions of renters could lose their homes."
With the federal moratorium on evictions set to expire, the United States is on the verge of a massive housing crisis. (photo: John Moore/Getty Images)
Short-Term Fixes Aren't Enough to Solve America's Looming Eviction Crisis
By Kathryn Reynolds and Abby Boshart, CNN
24 July 21
Opinion by Kathryn Reynolds and Abby Boshart for CNN Business Perspectives
 fter the CDC’s national eviction moratorium expires on July 31, millions of renters could lose their homes.
Congress has allocated almost $47 billion toward emergency rental assistance to help renters stay stably housed and help property owners cover their costs. But it’s very unlikely the money will reach most renters and landlords before courts resume judgments in eviction cases in August.
Rental assistance is reaching households very slowly, with renters waiting months after applying. Some states and localities started their programs in May or June and are still ramping up their emergency rental assistance programs. The good news, though, is that some states and localities are rushing to institute short-term eviction prevention policies that could help renters and landlords access assistance, including time-limited safe harbors from eviction for tenants who apply for rental assistance, local eviction moratorium extensions, and eviction diversion programs that offer services to landlords and tenants.
These short-term efforts shouldn’t end when the current crisis subsides. But more structural and enduring eviction reforms are needed to address longstanding inequities, ensure millions of families have housing stability, and avoid unnecessary costs to households, communities and the nation.
A crisis long in the making
An eviction crisis affected American families long before the pandemic. On average, 3.6 million evictions were filed each year in the US before Covid-19, with evictions disproportionately affecting women of color and single parents and their children. Families who have been evicted are more likely to enter a homeless shelter and spend more time experiencing homelessness than their peers, but the costs and impacts don’t stop there. Research has also found links between evictions and diminished physical and mental health outcomes for parents and children, reduced earnings and job instability for parents, and negative effects on children’s education attainment.
Landlords also face costs from evictions, including legal fees and lost rent while re-leasing their units, because they have few other avenues besides evictions to collect missed rent or solve other disputes. And governments at every level, particularly local governments, bear high costs to provide services to families experiencing housing instability.
Long-term strategies can reduce evictions and promote housing stability
Changing national eviction policy and local court practices is critical to address the nation’s long-term eviction crisis. To start, researchers, policymakers and advocates need better and more uniform data on evictions. This data is notoriously uneven and incomplete, making it hard to track evictions over time, identify communities hardest hit and design effective solutions. One proposal gaining traction is to create a federal database of eviction filings and completed evictions.
As a first step, the federal government could provide funding and technical assistance to help states and local communities create their own eviction databases.
A national right to counsel would also give renters a fairer shot in the justice system. Most landlords in eviction cases are represented by counsel, but renters can rarely afford lawyers and often aren’t aware of their rights. In response, local governments, like Maryland and San Francisco, have adopted policies and funded programs that guarantee representation for every renter facing eviction. Early data from these programs show promising results in preventing evictions, and many landlords are more likely to participate in mediation with tenants when they are represented.
The civil courts that administer evictions also need to work more closely with housing and social service practitioners, including housing assistance and financial counseling administrators, and with case workers who can connect evicted tenants to new housing opportunities. One way to do this is by setting up eviction diversion programs that offer services to landlords and their tenants, including requiring mediation and rental assistance before an eviction can proceed. At least 47 such programs already exist in state and city court systems across the United States. These types of programs can promote judicial fairness by reorienting the goal of court proceedings to promote housing stability while balancing the landlord’s property rights.
Finally, and most importantly, all of these steps are necessary because we don’t have a strong housing safety net. If the government were to expand rental assistance permanently to the many households who qualify, but who normally don’t receive assistance due to a lack of funding to cover the need, there would be fewer evictions for nonpayment of rent and greater housing stability.
The impending end to the national moratorium puts millions of American families at risk of eviction if they cannot access emergency rent relief in time. But this ticking clock shouldn’t keep policymakers and local leaders from addressing the broader eviction crisis affecting the country. Long-term solutions are the only way to guarantee every family has a home, not only during a pandemic, but always.
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Let Athletes Lead the Way on Mental Health |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=38164"><span class="small">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Hollywood Reporter</span></a>
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Friday, 23 July 2021 12:46 |
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Abdul-Jabbar writes: "Instead of demanding perfection from sports stars who get candid about their health, viewers should admire their perseverance - and take cues from their coping skills."
Kevin Love, Naomi Osaka and Michael Phelps. (photo: Getty)
Let Athletes Lead the Way on Mental Health
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Hollywood Reporter
23 July 21
Instead of demanding perfection from sports stars who get candid about their health, viewers should admire their perseverance — and take cues from their coping skills.
 hen four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka dropped out of the French Open and Wimbledon because of anxiety and depression associated with compulsory press interviews, many fans were shocked at her bold confession. While most professional athletes rallied to support her “bravery,” some critics dismissed the player, who will represent Japan at the Tokyo Olympics, as a “diva” and “narcissistic.” The same thing happened in 2018 when NBA star Kevin Love wrote an essay in The Players’ Tribune about his anxiety and depression despite his fear that others, especially his teammates, would see it as a “form of weakness that could derail my success in sports.”
Within the past few years, dozens of celebrities and athletes — among them Adele, Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Emma Stone, DeMar DeRozan, Michael Phelps and Dwayne Johnson — have openly discussed their struggles with mental health. Richard Sherman, arrested July 14 after his family called 911 during a domestic incident where he threatened to harm himself, promised to get “the help I need” in an Instagram post.
Yet the stigma of somehow being damaged, tainted, a diva or unable to perform lingers because the public perception is that, unlike with a sprained ankle, people can’t heal from or cope with mental health issues. They forget that these people have been dealing with these challenges at the same time they’ve risen to elite athlete or star celebrity status. Rather than cautionary examples of weakness, they are often models of strength and perseverance.
Professional sports is basically a high-octane reality show. The Real Housewives/Bachelor/Big Brother-type reality shows derive entertainment by exploiting the neediness and neuroses of their cast so the audience can revel in and be judgmental about the human frailties we all share. However, the source of entertainment in sports is in exalting the athletes who perform at a higher level than the average person. They achieve this through self-discipline and sheer willpower, two of the most revered qualities of a human being. They are ideals of what the human body is capable of and they inspire many of us to try harder to be a better version of ourselves.
So, while we have low expectations of most reality castmembers, who are encouraged to be melodramatic and behave badly so that we can expect their failures, we hold athletes to a higher standard with no patience for faltering. They are expected to walk it off. Rub dirt in it. To always arise phoenix-like regardless of the adversity. Which is why so many athletes who suffer from mental health issues have had to hide their personal struggles from the public lest they are derided by fans and devalued by sponsors.
One reason for this misperception is that some athletes and artists burdened with chronic mental health problems seek to self-medicate through drugs and/or alcohol. This is a classic misdirection: We shame their bad choices, never aware of the real cause. Studies indicate that at least half of those with a mental illness will experience a substance abuse disorder. Part of the reason for this connection is the reluctance to seek help because of the stigma attached. For those in the public spotlight, the stigma can be much worse. They fear losing the success they have worked so hard and long to obtain.
Unfortunately, self-medication often leads to DUIs, drug arrests and bizarre, even violent, public behavior that can have even greater consequences. The recent fall from public grace of Armie Hammer — the allegations of abuse (the actor has denied the claims), the loss of several high-profile projects, his checking into an inpatient facility for alcohol, drug and sex issues — are part of a pattern in Hollywood. Add to that, Britney Spears’ legal battle to end the 13-year conservatorship forced on her after her 2008 mental health problems, and it’s easy to see the reluctance of celebrities to admit, even to themselves, that they have a problem.
Despite careers as public performers, many athletes and performing artists are by nature introverts. Performing can create debilitating stage fright, as attested by famous sufferers like Barbra Streisand, Ozzy Osbourne, Luciano Pavarotti, Katy Perry, Rihanna and Rod Stewart. Adele admitted she vomits before her shows. Eddie Van Halen turned to alcohol to dim his stage fright. Harold Owens, senior director of MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s health and human services organization, commented, “I’ve heard [performers] say repeatedly, ‘I’ve never played sober.’ It’s a huge issue.”
Professional athletes are bound by contract to speak to the press after games or matches. For introverts, this can be much worse than the actual competition. Reporters often look to elicit a dramatic, headline-grabbing quote by provoking the athlete, goading them about losing or about their public stances for social justice. When I was an active player, the repetition of these kinds of antagonistic “gotcha” questions game after game, year after year, was frustrating and sometimes infuriating. For all of us, it takes a toll. Fortunately, soon after Love’s public revelation, the NBA hired William Parham to be the league’s first director of mental health and wellness and create a comprehensive mental health policy.
The problem is the desire for the public to hold up performing artists and athletes as paragons of perfection and then punish them when they are anything less. They see mental health issues as a character issue — to suffer is to be weak. This despite the statistics: one in four adults and one in five teens experiences a diagnosable mental disorder. Rather, the public should admire public figures’ perseverance and character strength for all they’ve accomplished despite their challenges — and learn coping skills from them. Actually, it’s a reflection of our own character whether we choose to be supportive or derisive, because that reflects either our capacity for compassion — or the depth of our own personal fears.
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ight-wing hypocrites are lining up for an expected Supreme Court nullification of Roe v. Wade. 
