RSN: Why 'Primary' Should Be a Verb for Progressives
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=48990"><span class="small">Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Thursday, 05 September 2019 11:13
Solomon writes: "Right now, in dozens of Democratic congressional districts, the most effective way for progressives to 'lobby' their inadequate representatives would be to 'primary' them."
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. (photo: Amr Alfiky/NPR)
Why 'Primary' Should Be a Verb for Progressives
By Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
05 September 19
rogressive activists often see a frustrating pattern. Many Democrats in office are good at liberal platitudes but don’t really fight for what we need. Even when constituents organize to lobby or protest, they have little leverage compared to big campaign donors, party leaders and corporate media spin. Activist efforts routinely fall short because — while propelled by facts and passion — they lack power.
Right now, in dozens of Democratic congressional districts, the most effective way for progressives to “lobby” their inadequate representatives would be to “primary” them. Activists may flatter themselves into believing that they have the most influence by seeking warm personal relationships with a Democratic lawmaker. But a credible primary campaign is likely to change an elected official’s behavior far more quickly and extensively.
In short, all too often, progressive activists are routinely just too frigging nice — without galvanizing major grassroots power.
With rare exceptions, it doesn’t do much good to concentrate on appealing to the hearts of people who run a heartless system. It may be tempting to tout some sort of politics of love as the antidote to the horrors of the status quo. But, as Martin Luther King Jr. wrote shortly before he was murdered, “love without power is sentimental and anemic.” Beyond speaking truth to power, it’s crucial to take power away from those abusing or squandering it.
In the long run, constituents’ deference to officeholders is a barrier to effectiveness — much to the satisfaction of people who reap massive profits from the status quo of corporate power, rampant social injustice, systemic racism, vast economic inequities, environmental destruction, and the war machinery.
If activists in New York’s 14th Congressional District had been content to rely on lobbying instead of primarying, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would still be tending bar — and power broker Joe Crowley would still be serving his corporate clients as a Democratic leader in Congress.
The Bad Blues report issued in early summer (written by Jeff Cohen, Pia Gallegos, Sam McCann and myself for RootsAction.org) zeroed in on 15 House Democrats who deserve to be primaried in 2020. The report acknowledges that it is “by no means exhaustive — only illustrative,” adding: “There may well be a Democratic member of Congress near you not included here who serves corporate interests more than majority interests, or has simply grown tired or complacent in the never-ending struggles for social, racial and economic justice as well as environmental sanity and peace.”
A few words of caution: Running a primary campaign should be well-planned, far in advance. It should not be an impulse item. And it’s best to field only one progressive challenger; otherwise, the chances of ousting or jolting the incumbent are apt to be greatly diminished.
“It isn’t easy to defeat a Democratic incumbent in a primary,” the Bad Blues report noted. “Typically, the worse the Congress member, the more (corporate) funding they get. While most insurgent primary campaigns will not win, they’re often very worthwhile — helping progressive constituencies to get better organized and to win elections later. And a grassroots primary campaign can put a scare into the Democratic incumbent to pay more attention to voters and less to big donors.”
An example of a promising campaign to defeat a powerful corporate Democrat is emerging in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, where six-term incumbent Kurt Schrader is facing a challenge in a slightly blue district that includes much of the Willamette Valley and the coast. The challenger is the mayor of the 20,000-population city of Milwaukie, Mark Gamba, who told us that Schrader “likes to pretend that he’s reaching across the aisle to get things done, but it almost always goes back to the corporations that back him financially.”
Schrader — a longtime member of the Blue Dog Coalition — gets a lot of money from corporate interests, including from the Koch Industries PAC. Last year, only one House Democrat was ranked higher on “key issues” by the anti-union, anti-environment U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Gamba intends to make climate a central issue of the campaign to unseat Schrader — who, he says, “has been notably absent on any substantive climate policy.” (Only four House Democrats have a lower lifetime environmental score than Schrader.)
Gamba also supports Medicare for All, while he says his opponent “is quietly but actively opposing Medicare for All or any law that actually cuts into the profits of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.” A coalition of groups — including National Nurses United, Health Care for All Oregon-Action, and Democratic Socialists of America — has scheduled a rally in front of Schrader’s Oregon City office on September 6. The organizers say: “We should convince him how affordable and equitable Medicare for All will be.”
In the few months since Gamba announced his primary challenge to Schrader, voices of opposition to the incumbent have become more significant. “I have called out Congressman Kurt Schrader for his continuing record of voting against the needs of workers,” the retiring Oregon AFL-CIO president, Tom Chamberlain, recently wrote. “On July 15, 2019, Schrader once again showed his corporate colors and voted against raising the federal minimum wage. I am always hopeful that a strong pro-worker candidate will emerge from Oregon’s 5th Congressional District so we can show Schrader the door to retirement.”
The good news is that Justice Democrats — which was instrumental in Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning 2018 victory — is backing a primary challenge to Cuellar in the person of Jessica Cisneros, a young human rights lawyer with a history of defending immigrants. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she was born and raised in Laredo, the main population center in the strongly Democratic South Texas district. If Cisneros defeats the well-funded Cuellar in the primary, “the Squad” of House progressives would gain an exciting new member.
Insurgent progressives need a lot more allies elected to Congress as well as colleagues who feel rising heat from the left in their districts. That will require social movements strong enough to sway mainstream entrenched Democrats — with the capacity to “primary” them when necessary.
Norman Solomon is co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic National Convention and is currently a coordinator of the relaunched independent Bernie Delegates Network. Solomon is the author of a dozen books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
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.
Finally, 20 Years Later, Walmart Does the Right Thing
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=35918"><span class="small">Michael Moore, Michael Moore's Facebook Page</span></a>
Thursday, 05 September 2019 08:36
Moore writes: "Yesterday Walmart finally announced they'd stop selling ammo for assault weapons & handguns - 20 years AFTER these 2 boys, Richard and Mark, were shot at Columbine High School - and 18 years after I took them to K-mart headquarters where the three of us convinced K-mart to permanently ban their assault weapon and handgun ammo."
Michael Moore. (photo Getty Images)
Finally, 20 Years Later, Walmart Does the Right Thing
By Michael Moore, Michael Moore's Facebook Page
05 September 19
esterday Walmart finally announced they’d stop selling ammo for assault weapons & handguns — 20 years AFTER these 2 boys, Richard and Mark, were shot at Columbine High School — and 18 years after I took them to K-mart headquarters where the three of us convinced K-mart to permanently ban their assault weapon and handgun ammo.
Columbine was one of the first the first school massacres of the modern era — and my friends and I decided that day when it happened to make a film (“Bowling for Columbine“) that would shock the nation’s conscience so that there would never be a second school massacre. Ha! Well, we believed in the power of film (and still do).
We asked Walmart back then to join our success at K-mart in banning these bullets and clips. They refused. And in these 20 years since Columbine, while Walmart continued to sell millions of bullets, over 500,000 Americans have been killed (homicide, suicide, accidents) by gun violence — more than all the Americans killed in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Bush Wars combined. My crew and I seriously thought one movie would keep the body count to the 15 who died that day at Columbine. I asked at that time, “How many deaths will it take for this country to lay down its guns? Are these 15 dead children (including one teacher) enough? When will America’s conscience scream ‘ENOUGH!’?”
Well, sadly, it was never enough. There have now been THOUSANDS of mass shootings (definition: 4 or more shot per incident) since Columbine — an average of one mass shooting per DAY! Walmart finally now got around to banning the non-hunter ammo — once the death and the blood and the white nationalist racial killer came to their doors. So good on them. I guess the 22 dead at their El Paso store was their limit. What’s yours? The 20 first-graders with their heads and faces blown off at Sandy Hook clearly wasn’t enough. Would 100 six-year olds splattered across the hallway walls of your local elementary school be enough? What if a cadre of alt-righters stormed the high school in your neighborhood, spraying bullets everywhere and leaving a thousand dead children riddled with the ammo they’ve been stockpiling from Walmart? Would that be enough? C’mon — everybody has a number! There IS a number in most people’s heads where the average citizen would finally say, “OK, THAT’S enough dead kids with no faces left. Let’s drive to DC and occupy the Senate!”
But as our movie also pointed out, laws alone won’t end this madness. We are different from nearly all other countries because only we want to kill each other in such large numbers. Why? Why us? Have that discussion in the car on your way to DC.
Here’s the clip from “Bowling for Columbine” showing how we ended the ammo sales at K-mart in less than 24 hours, 18 years ago:
Google's Punishment for Violating Kids' Privacy on YouTube: $170 Million
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51543"><span class="small">Peter Kafka, Vox</span></a>
Thursday, 05 September 2019 08:36
Kafka writes: "Google's YouTube has agreed to pay million in fines to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it illegally harvested children's personal data, which it used to serve them personalized ads."
Fans gather at a party to celebrate the launch of the YouTube Kids app in 2015. (photo: Jesse Grant/Getty Images/YouTube)
Google's Punishment for Violating Kids' Privacy on YouTube: $170 Million
By Peter Kafka, Vox
05 September 19
YouTube will pay $170 million to settle charges it violated kids’ privacy and a 1998 law. That’s a pittance.
he federal government has levied a record-setting fine against a giant internet platform for abusing its users’ privacy. Critics say the government hasn’t done nearly enough.
First things first: $170 million ($136 million will be paid to the FTC and another $34 million to New York state, which joined the Feds’ case) is a record for companies accused of violating the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. It’s also basically a rounding error in terms of profits for Google and YouTube.
Google’s parent company Alphabet may generate $161 billion in revenue this year; RBC analyst Mark Mahaney thinks YouTube will generate $20 billion of that.
That alone is enough to make the settlement unsatisfactory to the FTC’s Rohit Chopra, who voted against the Facebook deal and also dissents today. “Financial penalties need to be meaningful or they will not deter misconduct,” Chopra writes in a statement, which is partially redacted but indicates that he wanted Google to pay something in the billions for its sins.
The bigger issue is whether YouTube is fundamentally going to change the way it does business. This will also sound familiar from this summer: YouTube says it is going to overhaul the way it interacts with kids who watch videos on its massive platform, but critics doubt the platform’s commitment to that pledge.
Today’s settlement requires YouTube to ask people who upload videos to the service to indicate whether those videos are aimed at kids. If the video uploaders say their videos are for kids, then YouTube is supposed to make sure it doesn’t collect data about kids who watch the videos (without getting an okay from their parents); it also promises not to show children ads that use “behavioral” targeting, which requires all kinds of internet surveillance.
YouTube notes that it will do more than the terms of the settlement require; it’s also going to use software to backstop the self reporting, using “machine learning to find videos that clearly target young audiences, for example those that have an emphasis on kids characters, themes, toys, or games.”
But that doesn’t satisfy FTC commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who also voted against the FTC’s deal with Facebook this summer. She wanted today’s deal to require YouTube to scour its platform for kids content — instead of simply making it ask video makers to comply with its rules.
Making YouTube’s policing effort voluntary — without fear of penalty if it falls short — Slaughter says, lets it off the hook, or even worse. “A cynical observer might wonder whether in the wake of this order YouTube will be even more inclined to turn a blind eye to inaccurate designations of child-directed content in order to maximize its profit,” Slaughter writes in the dissent.
None of the back and forth, by the way, has anything to do with other kid-related complaints that have surfaced about YouTube over the past few years, like showing kids wildly inappropriate videos. YouTube does promise to make other changes in the way it works with kids, including a pledge of $100 million to be spent over three years to help video makers create appropriate stuff for kids.
But just like the Facebook settlement from earlier this summer, the gap between the YouTube settlement’s terms and the fundamental restructuring that YouTube’s critics want points out an even more fundamental question: Is the US government (or any government, really) up for the task of regulating giant internet platforms?
In both cases, the government is relying on the five-person FTC to rein in the most powerful forces on the internet by asking them to interpret and enforce laws that are, in internet terms, prehistoric.
The Facebook settlement hinged on a 1996 telecom law; today’s deal is focused on alleged violations of a 1998 privacy law. Think about the tech you used in 1996 or 1998 — which certainly didn’t involve a smartphone or Google or Facebook or instant global connectivity — and think about what’s going to be required for a thoughtful, useful set of rules that let us deal with tech today and in the future. Then think about whether today’s political system is remotely ready to grapple with that challenge.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=47905"><span class="small">Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website</span></a>
Wednesday, 04 September 2019 12:45
Keillor writes: "Each life is a work of art but these days I live a very small life, more an etching than a mural."
Garrison Keillor. (photo: MPR)
Listen to Your Uncle, for Crying Out Loud
By Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Blog
04 September 19
ach life is a work of art but these days I live a very small life, more an etching than a mural. My friends are thinking large thoughts about the EU and Hong Kong and the future of American democracy, and I am thinking about these organic blueberries I bought to put on my bran flakes— why am I putting them in a colander to wash them? They’re from Bayfield, Wisconsin. Why wash Bayfield off them with Minneapolis tap water? Once you start worrying about the cleanliness of Wisconsin blueberries, you’re on the way to distrusting the Pure Food and Drug Act and believing that liberals in the FDA are spraying blueberries with scopolamine to undermine free will, and soon you have purchased an assault rifle for when chaos sweeps the land, and your neighbors look uneasy when you step outdoors. So I don’t wash the blueberries. My big decision of the morning.
I never shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, but Johnny Cash did and that’s what I call living large. Bob Marley shot the sheriff. Bob Dylan shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy. She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to him. “I can’t help it if I’m lucky,” he said. I shot baskets in the driveway when I was a kid but then I got a driver’s license and started living large and now I sit and shoot the breeze. Like what I’m doing now.
I live in a bubble as most people do, which makes for a small life. I went to the Minnesota State Fair twice this year, an occasion where I rub shoulders with Otherness, the anti-vaxxers, the NRA crowd, the deep state conspiracy believers, the wall-builders, and here I am, a socialist and reader of Fake News who wants to take guns away from law-abiding people, and we’re all eating the same corn dogs and deep-fried cheese curds together, and being Minnesotans, we’re too polite to talk politics, and then we go back to our fellow bubbleheads and curse the other team.
To be brutally honest, it’s a little boring in my liberal bubble and when the conversation turns to the relative virtues of wines, I feel obliged to cause trouble. I say, “I never knew an Indian who cared for wine.” My failure to use the approved term “Native American” makes people blanch. Most of the Native Americans I’ve known used the word “Indian” freely, misnomer though it is: they don’t consider themselves generic, they belong to a specific band but they don’t expect you to know that. I don’t care to be called “Anglo-American” — I’d rather be called “Sweetheart” — and though the intention of “Native American” is good, the word “Native” to me suggests teepees and stone tools. But “Indian” leads to serious throat-clearing around the table. I like that.
I can cause trouble by saying that Laurel & Hardy did more for kids than Mister Rogers. I’m prepared to argue that the State Fair is not what it once was. I will argue for Elizabeth Warren, knowing the table is mostly pro-Biden. I defend fall and winter against summer. Other people talk lovingly about the small independent bookstore, I am glad to say a good word for Amazon.
In my cranky uncle role, I’m libertarian. It’s a big country, there’s room for us all. If you believe the earth is flat, go live in North Dakota and be happy. If you want to keep an arsenal of weapons, buy eighty acres of woods and build a cabin and fire when ready.
Let’s liven up the conversation. Let’s not sit discussing the relative virginity of our olive oils. The Brits will have to figure out Brexit. Hong Kong is between the mob in the streets and the commissariat and I’m with the mob for all the good it does them. As for democracy, we have a president who reflects this country better than we communists realize. Crude, ignorant chauvinists have done pretty well in this country for generations.
I had a couple cranky uncles who did their job well and now they’re gone and if I don’t take their place, who will? Want me to defend the devil himself? Glad to do it. For a fallen angel, he’s given God a run for his money and when he lands in the fiery inferno, he will not lack for company.
Trump Pulls $3.6 Billion From Pentagon Budget to Build Border Wall
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=49824"><span class="small">Matt Stieb, New York Magazine</span></a>
Wednesday, 04 September 2019 12:45
Stieb writes: "During the 2016 campaign, Republican candidate Donald Trump assured prospective voters that Mexico would pay for a wall on the southern border."
Trump border wall prototypes being built in October, 2017, near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, California. (photo: Mani Albrecht/U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Flickr)
Trump Pulls $3.6 Billion From Pentagon Budget to Build Border Wall
By Matt Stieb, New York Magazine
04 September 19
uring the 2016 campaign, Republican candidate Donald Trump assured prospective voters that Mexico would pay for a wall on the southern border. “It’s an easy decision for Mexico,” he said, “Make a onetime payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year.” Shortly before his inauguration, that promise turned into an IOU, as Trump tweeted in January 2017 that “any money spent on building the Great Wall (for sake of speed), will be paid back by Mexico later!” In early 2019, that burden finally, inevitably came home to the U.S. taxpayer, when the president shut down the government for 35 days to get $1.375 billion earmarked for wall funding — though Democrats offered $1.6 billion prior to the winter closure.
Now, the military is joining the push to fund Trump’s dream hybrid of politics, real-estate development, and xenophobia: On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper agreed to the Trump administration’s request to route $3.6 billion in funding for military construction projects to the building of 175 miles of new or reconstructed barriers along the southern border. According to the Washington Post, doing so “will effectively defund 127 military construction projects using emergency authorities.” The Post also lays out Esper’s explanation for the move, as well as Trump’s authority to raid the Pentagon for the funds:
Esper determined that the use of the military construction funds was necessary to support American forces deployed to the southern border with Mexico under the national emergency that Trump declared in mid-February. The formal determination allows Trump, under an obscure statute in the federal code overseeing the military, to tap the funds appropriated for other purposes without sign-off from Congress.
The Department of Defense has not released the details of the 127 military construction projects from which it will siphon funding, though a spokesperson claimed they would be available later this week. (They did state that half of the sites are on American soil, and half are abroad.) The Pentagon also said that the projects wouldn’t be delayed if Congress would “backfill” the money for the projects. Naturally, Democratic lawmakers weren’t thrilled with the idea of refunding the projects they’ve already paid for. “The president is trying to usurp Congress’ exclusive power of the purse and loot vital funds from our military,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday. “Robbing the Defense Department of much-needed funds is an affront to our service members and Congress will strongly oppose any funds for new wall construction.”
Schumer added that the decision is equivalent to a “slap in the face” to men and women in the military, a comment that taps into a common theme of Trump’s relationship with the armed forces: celebrating the pomp of American military power without heeding the advice of actual military officials, or supporting the welfare of veterans. The president is fond of having generals around him who are straight out of “central casting,” but has little interest in listening to them. Trump has also allowed members of his Mar-a-Lago resort to influence policy at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and did not earmark enough money in his 2020 budget to implement the VA Mission Act, a piece of reform legislation approved by Congress last year that boosts veterans’ access to private physicians.
On Tuesday, Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker told reporters that construction with the $3.6 billion will begin in mid-January, just in time for the president to boast of progress on the southern-border barrier to rally the pro-wall base for reelection. However, the progress isn’t automatic: To date, the Trump administration has replaced just 60 miles of old sections of the border wall with new fencing, and has built only 46.7 miles of new barriers — a fraction of the 654 miles that were in place before Trump became president.
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rogressive activists often see a frustrating pattern. Many Democrats in office are good at liberal platitudes but don’t really fight for what we need. Even when constituents organize to lobby or protest, they have little leverage compared to big campaign donors, party leaders and corporate media spin. Activist efforts routinely fall short because — while propelled by facts and passion — they lack power.
esterday Walmart finally announced they’d stop selling ammo for assault weapons & handguns — 20 years AFTER these 2 boys, Richard and Mark, were shot at Columbine High School — and 18 years after I took them to K-mart headquarters where the three of us convinced K-mart to permanently ban their assault weapon and handgun ammo. 
he federal government has levied a record-setting fine against a giant internet platform for abusing its users’ privacy. Critics say the government hasn’t done nearly enough.
ach life is a work of art but these days I live a very small life, more an etching than a mural. My friends are thinking large thoughts about the EU and Hong Kong and the future of American democracy, and I am thinking about these organic blueberries I bought to put on my bran flakes— why am I putting them in a colander to wash them? They’re from Bayfield, Wisconsin. Why wash Bayfield off them with Minneapolis tap water? Once you start worrying about the cleanliness of Wisconsin blueberries, you’re on the way to distrusting the Pure Food and Drug Act and believing that liberals in the FDA are spraying blueberries with scopolamine to undermine free will, and soon you have purchased an assault rifle for when chaos sweeps the land, and your neighbors look uneasy when you step outdoors. So I don’t wash the blueberries. My big decision of the morning.
uring the 2016 campaign, Republican candidate Donald Trump 
