Aggressive US Lies and Misleads to Justify War on Iran
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=20877"><span class="small">William Boardman, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Wednesday, 19 June 2019 13:13
Boardman writes: "The Secretary of State delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at the State Department, Thursday, June 13, 2019. (photo: Getty)
Aggressive US Lies and Misleads to Justify War on Iran
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
19 June 19
“It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today. This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.
“This is only the latest in a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests, and they should be understood in the context of 40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.”
he secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and international skepticism attests.
Pompeo’s official assessment was false even in its staging. For most of his four-minute appearance, Pompeo stood framed by two pictures behind him, each showing a tanker with a fire amidships. This was a deliberate visual lie. The two pictures showed the same tanker, the Norwegian-owned Front Altair, from different angles. The other tanker, Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous, did not catch fire and was not shown.
First, what actually happened, as best we can tell five days later? In the early morning of June 13, two unrelated tankers were heading south out of the Strait of Hormuz, sailing in open water in the Gulf of Oman, roughly 20 miles off the south coast of Iran. The tankers were most likely outside Iran’s territorial waters, but within Iran’s contiguous zone as defined by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. At different times, some 30 miles apart, the two tankers were attacked by weapons unknown, launched by parties unknown, for reasons unknown. The first reported distress call was 6:12 a.m. local time. No one has yet claimed responsibility for either attack. The crew of each tanker abandoned ship soon after the explosions and were rescued by ships in the area, including Iranian naval vessels, who took the Front Altair crew to an Iranian port.
Even this much was not certain in the early afternoon of June 13 when Mike Pompeo came to the lectern at the State Department to deliver his verdict:
It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today.
Pompeo did not identify the unnamed intelligence entities, if any, within the government who made this assessment. He offered no evidence to support the assessment. He did offer something of an argument that began:
This assessment is based on intelligence….
He didn’t say what intelligence. He didn’t say whose intelligence. American intelligence assets and technology are all over the region generating reams of intelligence day in, day out. Then there are the intelligence agencies of the Arab police states bordering the Persian Gulf. They, too, are busy collecting intelligence 24/7, although they are sometimes loath to share. Pompeo didn’t mention it, but according to CNN an unnamed US official admitted that the US had a Reaper Drone in the air near the two tankers before they were attacked. He also claimed that Iran had fired a missile at the drone, but missed. As CNN inanely spins it, “it is the first claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack.” As if the US doesn’t have information on Iranian movements all the time. More accurately, this is the first admission that the US had operational weaponry in the area prior to the attack. After intelligence, Pompeo continued:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used….
Pompeo did not name a single weapon used. Early reporting claimed the attackers used torpedoes or mines, a claim that became inoperative as it became clear that all the damage to the tankers was well above the waterline. There is little reason to believe Pompeo had any actual knowledge of what weapons were used, unless one was a Reaper Drone. He went on:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation…
The “level of expertise needed” to carry out these attacks on a pair of sitting duck tankers does not appear to be that great. Yes, the Iranian military probably has the expertise, as do the militaries of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Israel, or others with a stake in provoking a crisis in the region. And those who lack the expertise still have the money with which to hire expert surrogates. The number of credible suspects, known and unknown, with an interest in doing harm to Iran is easily in double figures. Leading any serious list should be the US. That’s perfectly logical, so Pompeo tried to divert attention from the obvious:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping….
There are NO confirmed “recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping,” and even if there were, they would prove nothing. Pompeo’s embarrassingly irrelevant list that follows includes six examples, only one of which involved a shipping attack. The one example was the May 12, 2019, attack on four ships at anchor in the deepwater port of Fujairah. Even the multinational investigation organized by the UAE could not determine who did it. The UAE reported to the UN Security Council that the perpetrator was likely some unnamed “state actor.” The logical suspects and their surrogates are the same as those for the most recent attack.
Instead of “recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping,” Pompeo offers Iran’s decades-old threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (which it’s never done), together with three attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, an unattributed rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an unattributed car bomb in Afghanistan. Seriously, if that’s all he’s got, he’s got nothing. But he’s not done with the disinformation exercise:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.
The whole proxy group thing is redundant, covered by “the level of expertise needed” mentioned earlier. Pompeo doesn’t name any proxy group here, he doesn’t explain how he could know there’s no proxy group that could carry out such an attack, and he just throws word garbage at the wall and hopes something sticks that will make you believe – no evidence necessary – that Iran is evil beyond redemption:
Taken as a whole, these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace and security, a blatant assault on the freedom of navigation, and an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension by Iran.
The attacks in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan have all been provoked by the US and its allies. The US has long been a clear threat to international peace and security, except when the US was actually trashing peace and security, as it did in Iraq, as it seems to want to do in Iran. There is, indeed, “an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension,” but it’s a campaign by the US. The current phase began when the Trump administration pulled out of the multinational nuclear deal with Iran. The US wages economic warfare on Iran even though Iran continues to abide by the Trump-trashed treaty. All the other signatories and inspectors confirm that Iran has abided by the agreement. But Iran is approaching a point of violation, which it has been warning about for some time. The other signatories allow the US to bully them into enforcing US sanctions at their own cost against a country in compliance with its promises. China, Russia, France, GB, Germany, and the EU are all craven in the face of US threats. That’s what the US wants from Iran.
Lately, Trump and Pompeo and their ilk have been whining about not wanting war and claiming they want to negotiate, while doing nothing to make negotiation more possible. Iran has observed US actions and has rejected negotiating with an imperial power with a decades-long record of bad faith. Lacking any serious act of good faith by the US, does Iran have any other rational choice? Pompeo makes absolutely clear just how irrational, how dishonest, how implacable and untrustworthy the US is when he accuses Iran of:
… 40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.
This is Big Lie country. Forty years ago, the Iranians committed their original sin – they overthrew one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships, imposed on them by the US. Then they took Americans hostage, and the US has been playing the victim ever since, out of all proportion to reality or justice. But the Pompeos of this world still milk it for all it’s worth. What about “unprovoked aggression,” who does that? The US list is long and criminal, including its support of Saddam Hussein’s war of aggression against Iran. Iran’s list of “unprovoked aggressions” is pretty much zero, unless you go back to the Persian Empire. No wonder Pompeo took no question on his statement. The Big Lie is supposed to be enough.
The US is stumbling down a path toward war with no justification. Democrats should have objected forcefully and continuously long since. Democrats in the House should have put peace with Iran on the table as soon as they came into the majority. They should do it now. Democratic presidential candidates should join Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren in forthrightly opposing war with Iran. Leading a huge public outcry may not keep the president from lying us into war with Iran any more than it kept the president from lying us into war with Iraq. But an absence of outcry will just make it easier for this rogue nation to commit a whole new set of war crimes.
Intellectually, the case for normal relations with Iran is easy. There is literally no good reason to maintain hostility, not even the possibility, remote as it is, of an Iranian nuclear weapon (especially now that Trump is helping the Saudis go nuclear). But politically, the case for normal relations with Iran is hard, especially because forty years of propaganda demonizing Iran has deep roots. To make a sane case on Iran takes real courage: one has to speak truth to a nation that believes its lies to itself.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
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.
Trump Officially Kicked Off His 2020 Campaign and It Was a Mess
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=25345"><span class="small">Zack Ford, ThinkProgress</span></a>
Wednesday, 19 June 2019 13:13
Ford writes: "President Donald Trump filed for reelection the day he was inaugurated and has held countless campaign rallies in the two and a half year since. On Tuesday night, he 'officially' kicked off his 2020 campaign."
Trump supporters at his 2020 campaign kickoff in Orlando, Florida. (photo: Mandel Hgan/AFP)
Trump Officially Kicked Off His 2020 Campaign and It Was a Mess
By Zack Ford, ThinkProgress
19 June 19
A blast from the past.
resident Donald Trump filed for reelection the day he was inaugurated and has held countless campaign rallies in the two and a half year since. On Tuesday night, he “officially” kicked off his 2020 campaign.
In a rambling speech in Orlando, Trump confirmed that this campaign will look quite similar to the last — in no small part because he spoke as if he was still campaigning against his former rival, Hillary Clinton.
“The only collusion was committed by the Democrats, the fake news media, and their operatives, and the people who funded the phony dossier, crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC,” Trump said Tuesday night, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s nearly two-year long investigation into Russian interference efforts and the Trump campaign in 2016.
Trump also made several references to “acid-washed” emails, and chants of “Lock her up!” from the crowd quickly followed.
“We now have a great attorney general. Let’s see what happens,” he offered, suggesting prosecuting Clinton was still on his to-do list.
Trump also talked about a variety of policies he supported and changes he was proud of. He described few of them accurately, contradicting himself at times in the same breath, while at other times taking credit for improvements he wasn’t responsible for.
Though nothing actually changed in terms of Trump’s campaign status on Tuesday, the rally gave a glimpse at the kind of rhetoric Americans can expect over the next 17 months.
Attacking the fake news
Trump wasted no time in lambasting the “fake news,” with his supporters eagerly taking up the chant “CNN sucks” of their own accord. He accused the “fake news” media of participating in “collusion” with the Democrats and Clinton campaign and suggested that the “fake news media” would lie about everything from how full the arena is to whether China will pay for his tariffs (it won’t).
The rally didn’t last one hour before one of Trump’s supporters was arrested for trying to smack a reporter’s phone out of his hand.
Lying about later abortions
“Late-term abortions” is not a medical term but a phrase made popular by abortion opponents to refer to abortions late in the second trimester. In reality, medical experts consider a “late term” pregnancy to refer to 41 or 42 weeks gestation, past someone’s due date. Individuals rarely seek abortions later in pregnancy, and when they do, it’s often because they face serious medical risks to following through on the pregnancy. But anti-choice lawmakers and activists have manufactured a controversy around infanticide, and the president has argued before that Democrats want to murder babies after they are born.
When introducing Trump on Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence claimed that “leading voices in the Democratic Party advocate late-term abortion and even defend infanticide,” lauding Trump for standing “for the sanctity of human life.” Trump then claimed that Democrats support “taxpayer-funded abortion right up to the moment of birth, ripping babies straight from the mother’s womb,” adding, “Leading Democrats have even opposed measures to prevent the execution of children after birth.”
This notion is completely manufactured.
Taking credit for a veterans law Obama passed
Both Pence and Trump boasted that “Veterans’ Choice is now the law.” Twice, Trump said, “We passed V.A. Choice,” bragging about how it makes it easier for veterans to find a doctor without having to navigate administrative hurdles and waitlists.
But the Veterans’ Choice Program was first passed in 2014 and signed into law by former President Barack Obama. Trump did expand eligibility for the program, slightly decreasing the wait time and driving distance thresholds so that more veterans can take advantage of it. But he did nothing to originate the concept, as he boasted on Tuesday.
Distorting health care access
Another of Trump’s brags was his removal of the “individual mandate” from the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which fined people who did not have health insurance to help prevent insurance costs from entering a death spiral.
“How many people are happy they no longer have to pay for the privilege of not paying for bad health insurance?” Trump asked. “This is the only country, you pay for the very distinct >privilege of not having to pay.”
As CNN’s Daniel Dale pointed out, “In most industrialized countries, of course, you’re simply given health insurance.”
Ignoring the consequences of fossil fuels
The word “climate” was not uttered during the Orlando rally, but Trump did insist that the United States has the “cleanest and sharpest” air and water “anywhere on Earth.” That’s untrue, as a recent report from the American Lung Association found that the country’s air quality is actually the worst it’s been in the better part of a decade — a direct result of climate change.
It’s telling that Trump’s claim about clean air and water came just one sentence after he boasted that the United States “is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world,” another claim that is true but was also true before he took office.
Lying about how tariffs work
Trump has been criticized for months for claiming falsely that China will pay for the tariffs he has imposed on imports, when in reality U.S. companies pay the tariffs and traditionally pass the costs onto U.S. consumers. He seemed to have caught on to this Tuesday night, but instead of admitting that he was wrong, he doubled down on his claim and blamed the “fake news” for contradicting him.
“And by the way, when the fake news tells you you are paying, in the case of China, they’ve devalued their currency; that helps them,” he claimed, even though the U.S. has not designated China a currency manipulator. “And you are not paying very much if you are paying anything at all, in the case of China. And we are taking billions and billions of dollars in.”
Flaming war on socialism
Pence and Trump both decried the evils of “socialism” that Democrats allegedly support Tuesday night. “It was freedom, not socialism, that gave us the most prosperous economy in the history of the world,” Pence said. “It was freedom, not socialism, that ended slavery, won two world wars, and stands today as a beacon of hope for all the world.”
“A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism, and the destruction of the American dream,” Trump said.
At another point, Trump ironically contradicted himself. “Republicans do not believe in socialism, we believe in freedom, and so do you,” he claimed, adding, “We will defend Medicare and Social Security for our great seniors.”
Medicare and Social Security are two of the country’s biggest socialized medicine programs.
Building that wall
Of course, Trump’s speech was laced with the same xenophobia and racism that have been the hallmarks of his candidacy since he first rode down that golden escalator. “We believe our country should be a sanctuary for law-abiding citizens, not for criminal aliens,” he said, creating a false comparison given undocumented immigrants commit crimes at far lower rates than natural-born citizens.
Trump suggested that Democrats only support expanding immigration for political purposes. “They would strip Americans of their constitutional rights while flooding the country with illegal immigrants in the hopes it will expand their political base and they will get votes someplace in the future,” he claimed. “That’s what it is about.”
The crowd then erupted into chants of “Build that wall!” and Trump falsely bragged about how “very rapidly” it was being built.
FOCUS: Joe Biden Is One of the Most Tone-Deaf Politicians in the History of Representative Government
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
Wednesday, 19 June 2019 11:58
Pierce writes: "He paints the bullseye on his own self more artistically than anyone I've ever seen."
Joe Biden. (photo: Getty Images)
Joe Biden Is One of the Most Tone-Deaf Politicians in the History of Representative Government
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
19 June 19
He paints the bullseye on his own self more artistically than anyone I've ever seen.
ednesday is Juneteenth, the annual celebration held every 17th of June to commemorate the end of slavery in the state of Texas and, more generally, the decision by the nation, sealed in blood, that owning other human beings was no basis for a moral society. And what better way for a Democratic candidate for president in 20-freaking-19 to celebrate Juneteenth than to go before an audience of bankers and plutocrats and wax nostalgic for the days when you could "get things done" with segregationist monsters? From The New York Times:
At the event, Mr. Biden noted that he served with the late Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both Democrats who were staunch opponents of desegregation. Mr. Eastland was the powerful chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Mr. Biden entered the chamber in 1973. “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Mr. Biden said, slipping briefly into a Southern accent, according to a pool report from the fund-raiser. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”
“Well guess what?” Mr. Biden continued. “At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.” Mr. Biden made the comments about Mr. Eastland and Mr. Talmadge as he spoke about the need for unity, including a call for bipartisanship that has drawn derision from some liberals who don’t see room for compromise in today’s polarized Washington. “I know the new New Left tells me that I’m — this is old-fashioned,” he said. “Well guess what? If we can’t reach a consensus in our system, what happens? It encourages and demands the abuse of power by a president.”
Here, in rebuttal, is good ol' civil James Eastland in 1957:
The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the Reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination… Mr. President, it is the law of nature, it is the law of God, that every race has both the right and the duty to perpetuate itself. All free men have the right to associate exclusively with members of their own race, free from governmental interference, if they so desire.
Here's some more, from the Honolulu Record in 1956, when Eastland was preparing to chair a congressional committee's Red-baiting investigation into the newspaper and several Hawaiian labor organizations:
"...the pure blood of the South is mongrelized by Northern politicians to obtain political favors from Red mongrels."
"The white people of the South do not have race prejudice. They have race consciousness, and they are proud to possess this awareness of the significance of race. Had they not possessed it the South would have been mongrelized and southern civilization destroyed long ago."
"Mr. President, let me make this very clear. The South will retain segregation. The governor of a sovereign State can use the force at his command, civil and other, to maintain public order, and prevent crime and riots. He can use these forces to prevent racial integration of schools if this is necessary, under the police power of the State, to prevent disorder and riots. In fact, it is his duty to preserve order and prevent turmoil and strife within the state."
I'm beginning to wonder if Joe Biden is the proper candidate for this particular political moment.
Already in the past month, Biden also has yearned for the days in which he could do civility with Strom Thurmond, at whose funeral Biden spoke, and he's treated Joy Reid with total disrespect at the Reverend William Barber's Poor People's forum. From the Washington Post:
Joy-Ann Reid, an MSNBC host who moderated the session, asked Biden how he would pass his plans through a stubborn Congress — in particular, how he would work with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who makes little secret of his satisfaction at blocking Democratic initiatives.
Biden bristled at the suggestion that his approach was misguided. As he wound through his response, Biden moved nearer to Reid, who was seated, and leaned over her. “Joy-Ann, I know you’re one of the ones who thinks it’s naive to think we have to work together,” Biden said. “The fact of the matter is, if we can’t get a consensus, nothing happens except the abuse of power by the executive branch. Zero.” He added that “you can shame people into doing the right thing.”
Here with a rebuttal is an actual concept: President Donald J. Trump. Here with another rebuttal is a sadly imaginary concept: Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland. Damn, Joe. You were there, my dude. You were doing more than just putting on the Ray-Bans in viral videos.
Meanwhile, at the same feast of fat things in New York on Tuesday night, Biden reassured the assembled plutocrats that he considers them the real victims of scurrilous attacks.
Mr. Biden’s appearance at the Carlyle was his third fund-raiser of the day. There and at previous stops, he implicitly suggested that bold actions on a range of issues could be achieved without anyone being “punished,” including the wealthy. “I got in trouble with some of the people on my team, on the Democratic side, because I said, ‘You know what I’ve found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people,’” he said. “Not a joke. I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money.”
Well, that's true. It is unfair to demonize the minimum wage worker who just cleared your table, Joe. He "makes money." But the guys who wrecked the entire economy and then got rich selling off the ruins, and who are preparing to do it again? They should roast in hell on the next spit over from James Freaking Eastland.
Joe Biden would be a better president than the one we have now. But I'm not sure everyone has a grasp on how very low that bar is. However, and especially on the campaign trail, Joe Biden also is consistently one of the most tone-deaf politicians in the history of representative government. He paints the bullseye on his own self more artistically than anyone I've ever seen. Maybe that's part of his charm.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51008"><span class="small">Edward-Isaac Dovere, The Atlantic</span></a>
Wednesday, 19 June 2019 11:00
Dovere writes: "No one needs Biden to fade more than the other white, male, moderate candidates who believe they'd be able to step in and take his place."
Former Vice President Joe Biden talks to the media in Washington, D.C., April 5, 2019. (photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
The Moderate Men Waiting for Biden to Fall
By Edward-Isaac Dovere, The Atlantic
19 June 19
What if Democratic voters really are looking for a middle-of-the-road candidate in 2020?
oe Biden’s Democratic rivals are hoping he tumbles. Many are confident that he will.
No one needs Biden to fade more than the other white, male, moderate candidates who believe they’d be able to step in and take his place. To anyone who complains how hard it’s become for a white man with middle-of-the-road politics to find space within the Democratic Party, many would recommend the tiniest violin, strings removed. Theoretically, it’s both the most crowded and most dismissed lane, full of people currently competing to be the most memorable also-ran: Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, Montana Governor Steve Bullock, Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, Representative Eric Swalwell of California, Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, and, to a certain extent, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
They’re getting punchy—in part because they believe they’re starting to sense Biden’s weakness, and in part because they believe there’s an opening for moderates, with so many other candidates largely following the lead of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on progressive issues such as Medicare for All. For all the ways the 2020 Democratic primary race is like no election before, these candidates are still convinced it will still be like every other modern election, in that a white man from the middle will make it into the final round. And they think that there’s a way to energize voters around calls for compromise—though that’s not how modern American presidential politics works. When announcing that he wasn’t running for president in March, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that he didn’t think he could break through as a moderate—and he was ready to spend millions of dollars on a 2020 campaign. But the moderates who are running insist that this is their moment, despite what you hear on Twitter and in echo chambers on the left.
“The Democratic Party is going through the process of deciding if we want Joe Biden to be the nominee or not,” former Representative John Delaney of Maryland told me, waiting to board the plane in Washington, D.C., for what was his 29th trip to Iowa a week and a half ago. “He has 100 percent name ID, he’s very well liked, and he’s polling really well. If the Democratic Party decides for a variety of reasons that he may not be the best nominee, then I think it becomes wide open for other, more moderate-oriented candidates.”
Delaney has already been to all of Iowa’s 99 counties. He’s made another 19 trips to New Hampshire. He’s been going at it for two years, and so far, what he has to show for it is 1 or maybe 2 percent in the polls, and the notoriety among insiders for throwing himself so hard into running a race no one believes he can win. His biggest splash so far came from delivering a speech at the California Democratic Party convention earlier this month in which he opposed Medicare for All, only to be told on Twitter by New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the rising Democratic star, that he should drop out. When her office turned down Delaney’s offer to have a debate, her friend, Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, jumped in, tweeting “No means no!”
Delaney is a self-made multimillionaire from two companies he founded, and though he’s largely self-funding his campaign, he has nowhere near Bloomberg-level money. What Delaney believes he has, though, is the freedom and guts to say what most of his opponents won’t, such as the idea that most Americans don’t want to give up their private insurance plans, as they’d have to under the current version of Sanders’s Medicare for All bill.
“Everyone is afraid to say it in the Democratic Party, but if our nominee runs on Medicare for All, the Republicans won’t be afraid to say it,” Delaney told me. “In fact, they’ll probably spend a billion dollars, sending messages to the American people that one of the most important things in your life, your health insurance, which 100 million people like, according to polling, the Democrats are going to make illegal.”
Walking through the farmers’ market in Des Moines, I watched Delaney make this case to Jenny and Joe Newman, a couple who had driven an hour in from Ames to see several of the Democratic candidates speak. “I just don’t know why we’ve got to shock the system,” Delaney told them. “I agree with you,” Jenny Newman responded. Afterward, they told me they hadn’t realized that Medicare for All would get rid of private insurance, and Joe Newman said that working as a podiatrist, he wasn’t sure whether that was the best idea.
If the Newmans’ sentiments are representative of a larger population, it’s theoretically good news for Delaney. But that’s a big if. After our conversation, I watched him walk five blocks back to his car through the farmers’ market, with not one person appearing to recognize him.
John Hickenlooper, the former Colorado governor, was also at the farmers’s market, also not making big waves of his own. At the same California convention at the beginning of the month, Hickenlooper was booed for speaking out against socialism. The former Denver brewpub owner began this particular trip to Iowa touring a new brewpub in Des Moines, where he interviewed the kitchen workers about their knife skills, asked what botanicals were used in the gin, and talked up his “three-legged stool” plan of nonprofits, businesses, and government working together. So what, I asked him, did he make of the argument that Republicans will call the Democrats socialists no matter what, so they might as well have the courage to back big changes, and not chase the supposed center? “They are going to call us that. That’s why it’s important that we say we’re not,” Hickenlooper told me. Maybe now, one of Hickenlooper’s aides had argued to me, was the “insurgency of the moderates.”
Hickenlooper wasn’t sure about that phrase. “Sounds like a movie script,” he told me. He picked at an appetizer plate of charcuterie and olives at the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel where he and 18 other Democrats quickly made their cases at an Iowa Democratic Party event in Cedar Rapids. Sanders had just gotten the crowd cheering as he said, “We will not defeat Donald Trump unless we bring excitement and energy in this campaign, unless we greatly expand voter turnout, and unless we give millions of working people and young people a reason to vote, and a reason to believe that participating in politics will improve their lives.”
That, Hickenlooper said, could actually be where Sanders will be the one out of sync with where the party is headed. “I thought the path of the discourse had obviously taken a turn—organically, I think that almost always happens. One side pushes an angle, and if there are enough people that have a different perspective, somebody sooner or later speaks up,” he told me. “At a certain point, you step back and you say, ‘Wait a second. I think the majority of people don’t agree with the orthodox view.’ Senator Sanders deserves tremendous credit for actually providing clarity to some of the biggest issues. He really put into focus the problem, and his solution. That captured so many people’s attention that many people adopted it without really putting it within their own framework of what they believe, seriously thinking it through.”
So how, I asked Hickenlooper, was he proposing to capture people’s attention? He talked about an apprenticeship program he’d pioneered in Colorado that was now being modeled in other states, even as he lamented that “no one pays attention because my name’s not Bernie Sanders.”
“We’ve created a politics of celebrity and of attention. Doesn’t matter why people are paying attention to you, people have to pay attention,” he said.
Hickenlooper’s fellow Coloradoan, Michael Bennet, is among those who do not want the “moderate” label at all, though Bennet has a health-care bill called Medicare X, offering Medicare as an option, and is mounting a campaign that rejects the burn-it-down, all-out-war mentality that has set in among many of the loudest voices in the party.
“I reject the idea that they’re moderate ideas,” Bennet told me after speaking at the Iowa Democratic Party event in Cedar Rapids. “The more I’m in this race, the less I think it’s about ‘moderate’ versus ‘progressive,’ the more I think it’s about whether you’ve got a vision that is connected to where the American people really are or whether you’ve got one that’s really good at responding to what’s on the cable at night or on social media.”
It’s not just on social media and cable news, though. Combine the polling numbers for all the straggler male moderates, and that still wouldn’t add up to Sanders’s share. And for all the predictions about Biden’s numbers collapsing, they haven’t.
“You all said I was going to fail from the beginning,” Biden said in Iowa last week. He looked at me. “You, you said, ‘Biden is going to start off and he’s going to plummet.’” (Though he was pointing at me, I noted that it was other people who’d made the prediction to me in my reporting for other stories.)
But so far, seven weeks into Biden’s third official run for president, that hasn’t proved true—though the polls don’t reflect the small size of the crowds he’s drawing, the lack of enthusiasm most people in those crowds have been demonstrating, or the loose commitment to vote for him that they walk away with.
The Strategy of the Democratic Right Is Divide and Conquer the Left
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=63"><span class="small">Marc Ash, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Wednesday, 19 June 2019 08:30
Ash writes: "So if two thirds the Democratic voters want to nominate a progressive candidate for President and Democratic leadership wants a conservative, corporate-friendly nominee, what is Democratic leadership to do?"
MSNBC's Steve Kornacki imparts polling wisdom to the viewers in the run-up to the 2018 Midterm elections. (image: MSNBC)
The Strategy of the Democratic Right Is Divide and Conquer the Left
By Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
19 June 19
o if two thirds the Democratic voters want to nominate a progressive candidate for President and Democratic leadership wants a conservative, corporate-friendly nominee, what is Democratic leadership to do?
Fracture the base, divide and conquer. Wonder why DNC oracles MSNBC and CNN are so gung-ho on promoting at least twenty-three candidates for the Democratic nomination? It waters down and fractures the progressive vote, which allows Democratic leadership’s preferred conservative, corporate-friendly candidate, Joe Biden, to stand apart from the crowd.
Sanders and Warren are true progressive candidates. However, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, and a host of the other candidates appeal to progressive-leaning Democratic voters well enough to keep what should be a progressive majority safely marginalized.
The 2016 race for the Democratic nomination was essentially a two-way race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Despite Clinton’s massive advantages, Sanders all but won anyway – massive chicanery by the Clinton campaign notwithstanding. Minority rule is not an exclusively Republican strategy. It’s just as appealing to Democratic leadership. Maintain power at all costs.
The Polls
Chris Hayes, on MSNBC Monday evening, dismissed polling as meaningless at this stage of the nominating process. What Hayes did not take into consideration was that his own network broadcasts poll results around the clock, replete with well-informed analysts eager to define for the viewing audience what they mean.
Used in that way, poll results – regardless of their methodology, verifiability, or accuracy – are actually more effective in shaping public sentiment than gauging it. It’s called push-polling and the cable networks use it as aggressively as any political propaganda oracle in US history.
The Debates
A political debate, when allowed to play out organically, can be very enlightening and instructive. Unfortunately, when the debate is broadcast on a privately owned network, those who wish to participate are obliged to play by the network’s rules.
The candidates want to debate each other, and that’s what the voters want as well. But the privately held network wants, for a variety of reasons, to be in the middle of the process and is not at all shy about inserting themselves there.
It’s billed as a political debate, but with the network imposing their will, it becomes a heavily produced political presentation. Like any other manufactured programming, any result can be achieved. Wouldn’t it be nice if the candidates were allowed to interact as adults and actually … debate?
There’s a sense here that the DNC has too much control and the networks have too much influence. That is leading us back to the same dynamic that defined the 2016 presidential election – and likely the same result.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
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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he secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and international skepticism attests.
resident Donald Trump filed for reelection the day he was inaugurated and has held countless campaign rallies in the two and a half year since. On Tuesday night, he “officially” kicked off his 2020 campaign.
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oe Biden’s Democratic rivals are hoping he tumbles. Many are confident that he will.
o if two thirds the Democratic voters want to nominate a progressive candidate for President and Democratic leadership wants a conservative, corporate-friendly nominee, what is Democratic leadership to do?
