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elcome to Connect the Dots. I’m your host Lila Garrett and as the parade of horrors continues with the Trump administration, it’s tempted to move to Iceland. I’m thinking about it… But first I want to express my admiration for you my listeners, and your colleagues. The level of protest has been beyond heartening. It’s been an education. There has not been an outstanding incident of violence since the inauguration and that is something of a miracle. You can be sure it’s not because of the Trump people. It’s because of us. The singleness of purpose, the determination to maintain our democracy, the righteous indignation…yes, righteous…the steely conviction of the millions of protesters who continue to stand against the grotesque Trump agenda is not just reassuring. It’s a thing of beauty. Now what we must work against, aside from this draconian administration itself, is resisting our own battle fatigue. People get worn out…at least good people do. Bad people never seem to. Have you noticed that? “Bad” is a simplistic word…but there’s no other way to describe them. The sadistic man-child Donald Trump is relatively new to this group. But we’ve been stuck with the Koch Brothers errand boy, Mitch McConnell, for what feels like centuries. Now he’s President of the Senate because the Republicans have the majority. When they’re the minority, he’s still their leader, and throughout his endless years of service he has worn his miserable character on his remarkably ugly face. Socrates or Plato or one of those wise men said, after the age of 40 a man looks like who he is. Mitch McConnell is a perfect example of that. But the real poster boy for this phenomenon is Steve Bannon. Bannon wallows so in hate and causing pain it hurts to look at him. His menacing face is almost biblical…or at least Shakespearean. Iago who talked Othello into killing his wife is Mary Poppins compared to Bannon. With him whispering endlessly in Trump’s ear, we can expect nothing from this administration but a pyramid of disasters for the next 4 to 8 years. It’s that bad out there. Add to this the remarkable ineffectiveness of most of the Congress and Senate, and what have you got? Us, or if you insist, “we” the people. The protesters, particularly the youth who have been awakened by the sudden realization that what’s at stake here is the survival of the planet. Or not. We’ve been taught the human animal has only two instincts…self preservation and preservation of the race. Both are up for grabs…so there’s no time to grow weary of the never ending fight against the infidels, if you’ll pardon the expression. We cannot brush aside the grownups who are still playing cops and robbers. Not when the cops are criminals and the guns are real. Ah, how Trump loves guns. When he made a pitch for his right wing Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, seated cozily next to Trump was Wayne LaPeer, Exec Vice President of the National Rifle Association. Did you notice that? Beaming because he was the buddy of the POTUS, LaPeer smiled smugly, proud no doubt of the thousands of deaths that he and his group are responsible for. Trump was comfortable too. They seemed the perfect couple. Is it possible that Trump is forever challenging us by his outrageous choices, or is he just mocking us? He’s meticulous about picking people who are direct enemies of the departments they’re slated to head…For attorney general Jeff Sessions who believe in justice for white Christians. Everyone else beware; for the EPA, Pruitt. who doesn’t believe in the EPA; for Labor Andrew Puzder who doesn’t believe in the minimum wage; for education Betsy deVos, who opposes public education. The list goes on. For the most part in confirming these outrageous choices it’s astonishing how many Democrats wimp out. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon, was confirmed for Secretary of State by a 43 to 56 vote. Since there are 46 Dems (including two independents) and 54 Republicans in the Senate, that’s got to mean three Dems voted for Tillerson. During week two of his tenure Trump managed to keep hundreds of immigrants, mostly children and women, seeking safety from terrorists in their country from finding safety here. He found time to threaten Iran, insult the President of Australia, threaten to send troops into Mexico if they don’t pay for the wall (he’s said he was kidding but Mexico isn’t laughing), nominate mega right wing Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, recommend to repulsive Mitch McConnell that he use the nuclear option to get Gorsuch approved. (The nuclear option suspends filibuster and the 60 majority vote…so if the nuclear option is used Scalia’s clone Gorsuch needs only a 51 majority to be seated.) Move over you eight old judges…a 42-year-old monster is about to grab the swing vote. . And once the pasty faced fanatic who opposes the separation-of-church-and-state Neil Gorsuch is seated that just about closes the door on any possible Trump impeachment. Republicans have all of it…the White House, the Congress, the Senate the Supreme Ct. But we have the big one. The people. Let’s close ranks. Let’s get specific. Let’s begin new groups no matter how small, or join existing ones that are known for their knowledge and action. Let’s do it all. Last week we covered ADA (Americans for Democratic Action), PDA (Progressive Democrats of America) and Roots Action.org. all opposed by Trump & Co. But luckily they’re supported by we the people. There are a lot more of us than there are of them.   Lila Garrett Connect the Dot

elcome to CONNECT THE DOTS. I’m your host Lila Garrett and after a week of watching the parade of Donald Trumps’ choices for his cabinet and agency leaders, I was ready to give up. Fortunately, there are people and organizations out there who aren’t even considering it. Three of those noble people are interviewed on CONNECT THE DOTS today. They are Robert Weissman, of Public Citizen , Harvey Wasserman author of Solartopia, and Daniel Barnhart, Secretary of United Teachers of Los Angeles. These are organizations and leaders who handle the walk down the long dark road planned by Donald Trump as a challenge rather than a defeat. And before we even begin today’s show, I want to thank them. But the question remains, what normal human being can watch the parade of sneering Neanderthals offered by the “evil infant”—aka the President-elect—and not be affected by it? More than affected. Terrified. What writer of fiction can come up with three natural enemies who, out of greed, are now locked at the hip in a relationship as close as Romeo and Juliet, Eloise and Abelard, Tom and Jerry. I’m referring, of course, to Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon Mobile, the biggest privately owned oil company in the world. He made a deal with Vladamir Putin, the dictator of Russia, to drill 63.7 million acres of pristine land in northern Russia. This untouched land has under it three times more oil land than Exxon Mobil gets from the entire world put together, including the 14 million acres it leases from the US. What a coup for the new devoted duo! That lease agreement between Tillerson and Putin was made in 2011. But shortly after it was made, the Obama administration slapped Russia with sanctions for attacking the Crimea.   That meant Exxon wasn’t permitted to drill in their yummy new 63.7 million acres. What a bummer for Tillerson and poor little Exxon. And what an insult to Putin. Something big had to be done. And something big was done. The story goes, Tillerson and Putin put their heads together and decided they needed a US President they could control to lift those sanctions. Enter Donald J. Trump! Remember when we all wondered why he ran for President when he was really in the gambling and beauty contest business? Well, now we know. A threesome was born that was so nefarious only the devil himself could have thought of it. Putin with his political power and Tillerson with Exxon’s money would see to it that Trump, with his lack of integrity and insatiable appetite for money, won the election. Trump as President would then make Tillerson Secretary of State and viola! There go the sanctions! This would lead to digging for huge amounts of super polluting oil, which in turn would generate an estimated $500 billion in profits…some of which would be given to the flunky who made it possible: Donald, author of the Art of the Deal, Trump. And so, a new world-ruling triumvirate would be born! Of course, Tillerson, as Secretary of State, still has to be confirmed by the Senate.   He was hit pretty hard by Senators McCain and Rubio, so the Senate may have the character to reject him. But let’s not hold our breath. Despite the fact that even with his aggressive self confidence, he denies that most dictators are violators of human rights, he isn’t quite sure about climate change and despite Russia’s horrendous bombing deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Aleppo, Syria, he still wouldn’t call Putin a war criminal. Unlike Trump, Tillerson did quit his job with Exxon. But let’s not worry about him. We’re sure he can have that job back anytime he wants it. And his passion for oil and the power to pollute the world is not likely to diminish. Oil seems to be the top catalytic agent for getting millions of people killed. But why not be positive? Think of it as the solution to population control. I don’t know about you but my next purchase is an electric car. As horrifying as Trump’s sellout of our country is to the dictator of Russia and the King of Corporate Power, there is another Cabinet candidate who is the opposite of both of them in personality, but can do as much damage: Jeff Sessions, nominated for US Attorney General, the most powerful legal operator in the country. When asked whether he will actually deport 11 million Latino immigrants, the New York Times quoted him as saying haughtily he might deport more by extending the definition of criminality…and this was before the Senate interrogations began. Jeff Sessions is the poster child for making America White again. He’s a champion of racism, torture, cruel and unusual punishment, the death penalty. If it’s grotesque, painful, and punishing for immigrants and people of color, he’s not only for it; he’s turned on by it. And he has been for 40 years. Formerly a fan of the KKK, he only rejected them when he discovered they smoked pot. During Sessions’ interrogation by the Senate, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, a middle-of-the-road Democrat, went over Sessions’ consistent record of cruelty, prejudice and injustice throughout his career. If you’re looking for an incarnation of Dorian Grey, pleasant on the outside, brutal and sadistic on the inside….Jeff Sessions is your man. In my opinion, as bad a choice as Rex Tillerson is for Secretary of State, Jeff Sessions for Attorney General is arguably worse. The truth is the overwhelming majority of Donald Trump’s choices to lead our country is appalling. Either Trump has no judgment at all or he’s selecting these candidates out of infantile spite. You, the American public don’t love me? I’ll fix you! Try surviving this! Naturally, Trump’s choices are all white males except two: Ben Carson for head of HUD is black and Betsy DeVos is a woman.  Carson, an arch conservative, believes, poverty is a “choice” and Betsy DeVos, nominee for Secretary of Education, vehemently opposes public schools. he protests for many of these outrageous choices have already begun. One such protest will occur soon January 19th, against Betsy deVos. It is being organized by passionate supporters of public schools, the United Teachers of Los Angeles. Similar protests are taking place all over the country on all issues that affect our lives. We have two choices. Either we prevail as a species who have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or we exist as lackeys to the missing link. The choice is ours. Lila Garrett Connect the Dots    

elcome to CONNECT THE DOTS. I’m your host Lila Garrett, scared to death. As we approach the finish line, which easily could be today December 19th, when the Electoral College votes Trump in…..or, let us pray, votes him out, it is clear we are looking at the future not just of our country, but the world. What’s at stake? First, certainly our democracy. What’s most amazing is how vulnerable it is. We have been wallowing in pride over our founding fathers, our Constitution, our system of checks and balances, our diverse population of many colors genders and religions, living together in 3 ½ million square miles which make up the United States, and managing it. Not perfectly, not without threats to this minority or that, but hanging in there nevertheless. What’s at stake? Certainly our position as leader of the free world. If we are going to be honest, we didn’t exactly earn that position. We demanded it. Sometimes countries welcomed it like Hawaii and Alaska (they used to be separate countries, remember?) Sometimes it took persuasion, violent persuasion—Korea, Vietnam, most of South America. And of course we have a thousand or so military bases around the world, whether they’re welcome or not. One of the largest is Rumstein, in a free nation that is proud of its own sovereignty—Germany. We decided long ago no country is going to have a stronger military than the United States. And no country has. Despite that, Trump is going to double it. So even though, despite our hunger for empire, we don’t own all the world’s countries, they seek our approval to do just about anything….or else. What’s at stake if we continue on this path? The physical beauty of our country for one thing. Think a minute…except for 9-11 and, long ago, Pearl Harbor, we have never been attacked. The 9-11 attack involved two buildings and killed 3000 people. We’ve allowed our rage over 9-11 to rule our foreign policy ever since. Two buildings, 3000 people. Unthinkable. Infuriating. Ironically, instead of teaching us the horrors of war, it seemed to free us to do the same to others. With our endless war policy destroying two buildings and killing 3000 people is all in a day’s work to us. We have been waging random war ever since. 9-11 was the catalytic agent that set our endless war policy from George W Bush and the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles, to the present. Under Obama we’ve been attacking at least seven countries….including Bush’s two, which are still raging. Add to that Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, and God knows where else. Meanwhile the arms industry is ecstatic. And the media is mysteriously reticent to note that or to check on our constant wars. They’re too busy exaggerating the effect of Russia’s “hacking” our election. Endless war has created the horror of ISIS…the rogue band of avengers with the grotesque practice of killing when and how they choose. On MSNBC, last week the news ticker that runs through their programs proudly reported that we had killed 50,000 members of ISIS. How do they know those were all ISIS members? They don’t. Bombs, drones and missiles don’t ask for your identity before they blow you up. Trump once raged that he would “carpet bomb the bastards”. Well, he can relax. We do carpet bomb them…and we take thousands of innocent victims with them. Aleppo is the poster child for the results of such attacks. Even though the perpetrators there were Russia and Iran the results were the same. They always are. Turn homes into graves and innocents into corpses is the drill. o the question is, how did we, the richest most powerful democracy in the world, allow a paranoid narcissist to sweep aside our democratic institutions, line up a cabinet who are determined to destroy the very agency they head. How did we allow ourselves to get to a place where we are reeling helplessly while one war loving ego-maniac (my apologies to ego-maniacs) creates a plutocracy run by himself and his children. Maybe he has a kingdom in mind. We are moving backwards at such speed it would be no surprise. Have we, with all our military might, no defense against such a takeover? Or did Trump actually lose the election by 3 million votes and still somehow win it. Have we a Congress whose greatest skill is rolling over? Or, most outrageous of all, have we a system where our vote doesn’t count….literally. Lila Garrett Connect the Dots

elcome to Connect the Dots. Today, we want to review two ways to stop Donald Trump and his team of racist thugs from taking over the country if not the world. Just to mention a few of them: Tom Price: Head of Health and Human Services opposes anything that relates to either Health or Human Services. He’s against Medicare, Social Security, programs for women’s health including providing contraception for poor women. He’s the exact opposite of what the job calls for. Jeff Sessions: Attorney General, former Ku Klux Clan supporter, lost a judgeship because of his virulent racism against blacks. Michael Flynn: In charge of of Homeland Security, openly hates Muslims, but likes torture….especially water boarding & forced rectal feeding. Myron Ebell: Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn’t believe in climate change. Steven Mnuchin: Goldman-Sachs billionaire, Trump’s pick for Sec of the Treasury made his fortune by foreclosing on the homes of 36,000 people. Betsy deVos: Trump’s pick for Education Secretary doesn’t believe in public education. Ben Carson: Proposed new head of HUD says “poverty is a choice.” Steve Bannon: This notorious anti-semite is Trump’s chief advisor. Famous for his extreme right politics, he’s widely regarded as the most powerful of Trump’s “team.” The list goes on. Trump’s choices really spit in the eye of “We The People.” He and his grotesque transition team are arguably the most dangerous takeover that has ever threatened our country. One way to stop them is to see to it that Trump is not inaugurated on January 20th. That can be done through the Electoral College, which votes on Dececember 19th. 38 electors must change their vote from Trump to Clinton and the Trump nightmare will be over. Just 38. And particularly after the vote recount that’s going on now in Wisconsin and Michigan it can happen. It’s nothing really new. The Electoral College has changed the winner of the presidency five times in the past. Five times they’ve disagreed with the vote of the people and selected his opponent instead. This included John Adams, who was replaced by Thomas Jefferson. Then John Adams won the people’s vote, but the Electoral College overrode him. This time the electoral college can agree with the vote of the people…Hillary Clinton has by now over 2.6 million more votes than Trump. The Electoral College can do the right thing by changing the winner from someone who basically lost the election to the person who actually won it. Hillary Clinton. Five million people have already signed a petition demanding that the Electoral College make that change. You can find that petition on my Facebook Page, or online. Its called Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President. That’s when the electors vote. December 19th. Our future is riding on that day. And the timidity of the Democratic Party has to change. Nancy Peloisi, who again was voted in as Leader of the Democratic minority, said the Democrats should work with Trump and his team. Can she be serious? If you are familiar with the toxicity of the Trump agenda, you know there is no way to work with it. That’s like asking Congress to drink arsenic hoping they’ll get to like it. The Trump racist, pro-war, pro-climate change agenda must be opposed every step of the way. The Republicans used that approach when Obama was elected. Mitch McConnell, Senate leader of the Republicans, publicly announced that the Republicans in the Senate and House would oppose Obama at every turn. McConnell stated firmly that he and the Republicans would see to it that Obama got nothing through. And that became the prophesy that has haunted us for the last 8 years. It worked, for them. Let’s take a page from their playbook. Let it work for us. There’s a great new petition out sponsored by CredoAction.Com. It quotes Elizabeth Warren, who in short, said, if “Democrats don’t stand strong, our government will be under the control of hatemongers, and corporate cronies whose only qualification is their loyalty to an authoritarian president-elect.” You can find this exciting petition at act.alternet.org or CredoAction.com. And, again, you can find a copy of it on my Facebook page. Sign on, share it, send it out to your entire list and to your Representatives. Let the Democratic Party know that if they have any spine at all this is the time to show it. There may be no other time. hat’s what we’re going to talk about today. That and a lot more. Congressperson Barbara Lee is with us as is Congressman Alan Grayson and activist Marcy Winograd. On the subject of Trump and Company, let’s begin with Congressperson Barbara Lee. Her time is limited because she is between votes in the Congress. So let’s get to her right now. Lila Garrett Connect The Dots

ave you noticed that the Democratic Party has become the Republican Party? The Republican Party has become the Fascist Party? And the rest of us, the majority, who want to raise the minimum wage, a peace economy instead of a war economy, free public colleges, universal healthcare, real equality of race, gender, justice and an end to our endless drive for empire…we the real majority are the ones with no place to go?! The ones that still call themselves Republicans have contempt for us. The establishment Democrats suck us in to swell their ranks, then, when they’ve had their way with us, they throw us out like old whores and slam the door in our faces. “We’ll take it from here” they say. And they do, as we saw with Bernie Sanders. They take it from there, all right, and when we have swelled their ranks and we have no place else to go they dump our agenda and challenge us to leave. Some of us do leave and vote for Jill Stein even though we know she has no chance. Most of us stay, cringe and pull the lever for the establishment candidate. In this case, Hillary Clinton. But we’ve done it before with Hubert Humphrey in 1968. With Dukakis in in 1988. The irony is, every time we have compromised, we have lost. So, do we finally get it? Time for us to decide: do we keep knocking on the door of the Democratic Party and going through the same old drill, or do we finally create a place to go. Do we develop a viable third party. We know its been tried before and we thank to parties that have tried it….Peace and Freedom. the Greens, Labor Party the Progressive Party. They have all paved the way for this moment, but they are hot button names which scare people away. Time to throw it in the teeth of the establishment. How’s The NEW Democratic Party. Or The REAL Democratic Party. As brash as that. Do we take the same old path, or do we start a Real/New Democratic party and slam the door in the sell-out tired old Democratic Party’s face for a change. nd let’s not invite Debby Wasserman Schultz, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed, or Chuck Schumer to our party or we’re right back where we started. Okay. I feel better. But for those not quite ready for that, let’s start with the question, where do we go from here? Anybody??? Lila Garrett Connect the Dots

ince new media has placed the Black Lives Matter protests front and center—challenging the notion of American exceptionalism—mainstream media, politicians, and talking heads across all platforms have been quick to criticize the movement for not having a specific set of demands. Well, that set of demands has been laid out and published online in a platform created by The Movement for Black Lives entitled “A Vision for Black Lives, Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom & Justice.” The Movement for Black Lives is affiliated with the Black Lives Matter Movement but is broader. It is comprised of a coalition of organizations representing thousands of people across the United States. I learned of this coalition shortly after its first convening in 2015—a convening that occurred almost organically in response to the sustained violence enacted by state actors against black people in cities across the country and broadcast widely through the new media. With input from members of Black Lives Matter as well as dozens of other organizations representing thousands of people across the country, The Movement for Black Lives released a comprehensive platform that provides a roadmap of sorts that would help to make life more fair and equitable for black people. In reviewing it, I suggest that the Vision for Black Lives is a vision that, if implemented, would simply put black people on par with the dominant culture. While the vision centers on black communities, the movement states, “We are a collective that centers and is rooted in Black communities, but we recognize we have a shared struggle with all oppressed people.” They spent over a year talking to grassroots community organizations to gather, assess, digest, and then synthesize the data they gleaned from these many discussions with over 60 organizations. ne of their goals was to provide a set of comprehensive answers to those trying to understand what the Black Lives Matter movement wants. Their vision offers more than mere bandaid solutions and is well worth the read for all who are progressive and sincerely dedicated to making this nation a nation that is for the people. Dick and I recorded a podcast about the Movement for Black Lives. You can access it just below this article.  The LA Progressive will be providing more coverage of this important matter in the weeks to come. Sharon Kyle LA Progressive, Publisher

illary Clinton offered a strong economic platform at last week’s Democratic National Convention. She promised to boost employment and wages with large-scale investments in infrastructure and green jobs. She declared her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), said she would expand Social Security and proposed tuition-free education for the middle class. This agenda should resonate with voters. The analysts at Moody’s certainly liked it. But times have been tough for a while now, and Americans are in a skeptical mood. This time around, Democrats will need to convince voters they really mean it – especially if the bad news keeps coming. The day after she accepted the nomination, as Clinton and vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine took their message to the Rust Belt, a new report showed that the economy grew by only a disappointing 1.2 percent last quarter. There’s a recovery going on, but a lot of people can’t feel it. The middle class is dying. Inequality is getting worse. Wages are stagnating. Labor force participation remains low. It’s true that Republican nominee Donald Trump’s economic proposals are a grab bag of false promises and giveaways to his fellow oligarchs. But his message is clear and direct: They’re screwing you, and I’ll make them stop. What’s Hillary Clinton’s economic message? According to her acceptance speech, “My primary mission as President will be to create more opportunity and more good jobs with rising wages right here in the United States.” In normal times that message might be enough. But these are not normal times. A recent poll shows that Americans trust Trump more than they trust Clinton to create good jobs. Another showed that voters thought Trump would be more effective at “improving economic conditions.” Findings like that seem to induce cognitive dissonance in some Democrats. A number of those I met at the convention seemed incapable of believing that their party could actually lose to a transparent grifter like Trump. Nevertheless, that’s a very real possibility. As Toni Monkovicwrote in a recent New York Times analysis, “it’s clear that Donald Trump has a realistic shot to become president.” People haven’t forgotten that Wall Street’s well-documented criminality and greed caused the 2008 financial crisis. It has now been seven years since banks trashed the American economy – and got away with it. In those seven years we have experienced the slowest and weakest recovery, by far, than any since World War II. A few positive signals in the statistical noise won’t impress millions of struggling Americans. Neither will the fact that cuts in government spending, driven more by Republicans than Democrats, contributed to these weak results. Many voters see the economy in more stark terms: the status quo isn’t working for them. They’re right about that. Every major convention speaker paid tribute to Bernie Sanders’ message. But there were also overtures to Republicans who might be disaffected by Trump. The problem is, there aren’t that many of them. Polling shows that the number of likely Republican defectors to the Democrats (and vice versa) is no higher this year than last time around. A more promising approach can be found in a recent Democracy Corps survey for the Roosevelt Institute. It found that “the public is hungry for politicians to internalize what they have known for some time” – namely, that “the rules of the economy have been written by the wealthy, corporate special interests … so the economy works for them, not the middle class.” This theme was tested against one featured prominently at the convention, that of building on the progress made under President Obama. It was considerably more effective. Hillary Clinton said last week that Democrats must do a better job convincing voters that “we get what you’re going through.” She’s not off to a good start. Last week Trump called NAFTA “the worst trade deal in history.” By contrast, when The Washington Post asked Clinton whether the country would have been better off without NAFTA and two similar pacts, she said, “I think that’s a hard question to answer.” “I look at this from both sides,” she added. Answers like this will only inflame voter mistrust. Clinton has a good chance of winning anyway, given Trump’s weaknesses, but it’s far from a foregone conclusion. Down-ticket races could also be affected. In this climate, and given the renewed visibility of deep-pocket Democratic donors, Clinton and Kaine’s expressed opposition to the TPP could leave many voters unpersuaded. They could address that by promising to whip against it on Capitol Hill if, as expected, President Obama tries to push it through during the lame-duck session. It’s not enough to say, “Wall Street can never, ever be allowed to wreck Main Street again.” That, too, will be met with skepticism. Clinton could give that pledge some teeth by promising not to appoint anyone from Wall Street to a senior position in the Treasury or Justice Departments. It’s not enough to propose raising the minimum wage. Clinton and Kaine could show their support for “$15 and a union” by walking a picket line if the opportunity arises. here are other steps the campaign could undertake to win skeptical voters. Most importantly, they need to understand that voters are skeptical. “We begin a new chapter tonight,” Clinton said last week. That’s the right approach. But some voters may need to be convinced they’re not just hearing the same old story. Richard Eskow Campaign for America’s Future

efore the latest Wikileaks release blew up a tempest that so far has led to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz losing her post as DNC chair—and even her right to pound the lectern with a wooden mallet to open the DNC festivities —it seemed that Hillary Clinton’s pick of Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate would be a hot topic of discussion. Would the choice further ruffle progressive feathers? Would it make for a powerful antidote to the Donald Trump craziness? Would it lead to catastrophe for the Democratic Party? Or something in between? We wanted to know, so we asked you in this week’s survey: Why Did Hillary Go Mild with Tim Kaine? And dozens of you responded. Even as the blowback from Wikileaks — now dubbed #Wassergate Scandal — seems about to set the convention on its ear, the Tim Kaine choice is still worth a look — especially as one of the plots brewing among Bernie’s supporters is to open up vice presidential nominations. Research—or a Chance to Talk? We ran a survey that can be found here. Several of you chided us for poor survey research methodology, but I’d have to say that calling what we’re doing here “research” is a stretch. Does the fact that 64% of 90 respondents in our survey say that the Tim Kaine pick will cause some Bernie supporters to vote for the Green Party’s Jill Stein tell you something you can extrapolate to some larger group of voters? No, of course not. It’s like those polls asking which candidate you support on a Bernie-friendly website—you’ve seen them, the ones that say 90% of folks will vote for Bernie. Right, don’t take that to my bank. What this weekly survey does is give our readers an opportunity to weigh in on important topics, providing a general sense of the way sentiments are shifting on important issues of the day. Not so much in the Gallup, Nate Silver, or Zogby mode, this is more like the NFL field goal kicker who tosses a handful of grass into the air to see which way the wind is blowing. And one way the wind is blowing with this survey is in defense of Tim Kaine, both as a man and as Hillary’s choice. Here’s Jeffrey on that point: “Kaine is not only fairly progressive, he was able to get gun legislation through in his state (which is the headquarters of the NRA), and he was scored with a 100% voting record in the Senate for women’s issues. He was an anti-discrimination in housing attorney for 17 years. He is well liked by his colleagues and by his opponents. He is also articulate and intelligent, and has a depth of governing experience–as mayor of a major U.S. city, a lieutenant governor, a governor, and a senator. Progressives have little to worry about, and should be enthusiastic that Hillary will have such an able representative on the campaign trail and governing partner in the White House. It was a good choice.” Jeffrey forgot to mention the two missions to Guatemala in Kaine’s youth and his Spanish language fluency, which doesn’t exactly make him Latino and may not attract huge additional numbers of Latino voters—who are already overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton and against Donald “And They Are Rapists” Trump—but it does make for a nice political resume. And he does seem to be quite a good man, self-effacing, modest, wearing his religion more on his heart and less on his sleeve, someone who has served and served admirably in political offices from the grassroots up. He’s charming, too, as we hear him introduce himself to us. But he’s also a mighty safe choice. True, his personal opposition to abortion may irritate those who favor a women’s right to choose, and his past support for trade deals and military interventions may irritate—well, he’s a centrist Democrat, virtually a Nelson Rockefeller Republican, like Hillary, so a lot of his stances will offend the more progressive among many in the Bernie Sanders camp. To them, the Kaine pick can feel like a “pronounced middle finger,” because Kaine is far to the right on a host of pressing issues—”reproductive rights, climate change, financial regulation, and corporate-friendly trade agrees …than where they think the party, and the country, should be headed.” But none of that is “new” offense because he’s basically mirroring what Clinton’s positions are likely to be once she stops pivoting. Before #Wassergate energized the left at the convention, “safe” might have been the watchword. Certainly, Kaine isn’t going to overshadow Hillary, who struggles to generate enthusiasm for her candidacy, even now seldom able to fill more than a high school gymnasium with her crowd—can you imagine thousands of boisterous Hillary supporters marching down the streets of Philadelphia this week or 60,000 overflowing Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village as Bernie did some months back? No, probably you can’t. So she couldn’t afford to have a big personality playing second fiddle in her band, a Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren or maybe even a Corey Booker. But now that a truly frightening Republican convention has given Trump a three-point lead, maybe “safe” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. “She’s Not Him” Some of you hopped on us for disloyalty. Said Shirley: “Shame on you. Kaine was not my first choice….but the more I hear the more I like. Get on board, guys. We have to win this one!!” For those of us who haven’t returned our “Feel The Bern” t-shirts and scraped off our “Sanders 2016” bumper stickers after Bernie endorsed Hillary, we’ll need to get used to being beaten about the head and shoulders with this sentiment. A Donald Trump presidency would ruin the country, or even destroy all civilization in some tellings, so you damn well get with the program and fall in behind Hillary Clinton—the inimical “Lesser Evil” choice. I bet Bernie’s delegates in Philadelphia are hearing that every time they turn around—”Don’t you know, ‘SHE’S NOT HIM!'” And, and, and “HE’S NOT HIM EITHER!” And The Donald is doing his level best to give teeth to that grim vision. He doesn’t have actual policy positions — c’mon, demanding that we build a 20-foot-tall wall the length of our border with Mexico isn’t a policy—but like a good demagogue, he can stir up a crowd’s passion to hate some other group, be it Muslims, or Mexicans, or Blacks, or Women, or….how many have I missed? So this “Lesser Evil” dilemma will be hard to ignore unless you live in a dead blue state like California, where you can send a message with a vote for Jill Stein. (Who said if you want to send a message, use Western Union? In the Digital Age, is Western Union still a thing?) With Kaine, Hillary’s team seems to be playing a game of chicken with Bernie supporters, according to Caitlin Johnstone: “From the early signs, it appears that the DNC will keep pushing the Trump line, hoping to scare the slaves back into their cages, while staring them down and continuing to walk towards the right with no concessions to the progressives. They have shown no signs of altering their path even slightly. Classic domination move.” While Hillary went mild in picking Kaine, it’s hard to see what she gains with him. He might help bring Virginia into the fold, but the Spanish language thing won’t be a big plus. It’s said he relates well with working class whites, which might help with the Midwest that was so devastated by the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs. But Kaine wouldn’t seem to appeal especially to women or young people, nor to younger people of color, nor certainly to Bernie’s liberal crowd. As Larry Wines says: “HRC is trying to resurrect the DLC’s old central emphasis on a conservative Democrat who can win just enough votes in red states to make some of them purple and flip a few to blue in the Electoral College.” Thumbing Her Nose My sense is that Hillary’s camp is thumbing its nose at Bernie Sanders and the millions of voters, many of them new, who flocked to him. And she can do that because they have no place to go, at least in the short run. So she can safely tack back to the center and look to scrape up disaffected Republicans and sleepy-headed moderates. But what that will mean, should it be successful, is that a Clinton-Kaine Administration will owe nothing to the growing progressive, anti-establishment, populist movement that fueled Bernie’s campaign and may well flood through the coming years. She’ll be able to largely ignore the country’s resurgent left, stifling them as the Obama administration has largely done, when she and Tim Kaine go about enacting a series of incremental changes that ultimately change nothing. ‘d rather be working to support a Bernie Sanders-Tulsi Gabbard ticket this fall, but failing that, I’m going to be looking for advancing the progressive program that Bernie Sanders neither created nor owns but that he did historic work in advancing—universal healthcare, protecting a woman’s right to choose, free college tuition, massive move to clean energy, mass move away from military adventuring, thoroughgoing criminal justice reform, money out—way out—of politics…. Well, you’ve been to the rallies, you know. Dick Price Editor, LA Progressive

he Bernie Sanders campaign is the latest and largest wave of a rising populist tide, gaining force from the Occupy movement, the Dreamers, Black Lives Matter, the Fight for $15, the Wisconsin showdown, and more. The failure of the political establishment has been exposed, but the center still holds. So what’s next? First, Sanders is right: Beating Donald Trump is vital to ensuring that bigotry and nativism do not poison and discredit the new populist moment. Once Trump has been defeated, the progressive movement should focus on defining issues and politics from the bottom up. The next movement waves—climate change, student debt, protests against systemic inequality and brutal policing—will continue to shake the establishment. Battles over these defining issues will deepen the understanding that there is an alternative. At the national level, this will start with a pitched battle over the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the lame-duck Congress, followed by challenges to the Wall Street–Washington revolving door in executive appointments, as well as skirmishes over real immigration reform, fair taxes, and rebuilding America. In states and localities, the Sanders movement should join with insurgents in communities of color to drive real change—campaigns to establish a living wage; to save public schools; to make clean-energy, clean-water, and mass-transit investments, paid for by taxing the rich; and to enact sweeping criminal-justice reform. Those fights will set up insurgent candidates to challenge those standing in the way, from city councils to the statehouses to Congress. any flowers will blossom from the energy unleashed by the Sanders campaign. The Vermont senator would be well-advised to create a vehicle both to drive these defining-issue battles, and to identify and support Sanders Democrats up and down the ballot. Wherever possible, these Sanders Democrats should take control of state parties. Then we can begin to reshape how our democracy actually works. Robert Borosage Campaign For America’s Future

have many friends, most of them younger than me, who are terrified by the divisions in the country, by the violent acts that periodically add to the tension, and by an election which brings out a level of fear and anger they have never seen before. Unfortunately, this is not new to me. I have vivid memories of the year 1968 and that Presidential election. We had a terrible war. Assasinations. Riots in every major city. Campus take overs. And a country divided down the middle over race and politics I will give you snippets of this to put things in perspective. Race was a huge divider. There was bitter white resentment of Black urban uprisings and campus protests, fueled by a third party candidate named George Wallace, and used as a political platform in somewhat less visceral ways by the Republican candidate Richard Nixon. You could feel the tension on the streets, especially in neighborhoods which were undergoing rapid racial change. I vividly remember signs along the Cross Bronx Expressway which said “This is Wallace Country” as the line separating whites from Blacks and Latinos quickly moved from Tremont Avenue to Fordham Road. It also divided families. I was basically kicked out of my family for falling in love with a Black woman and adopted by her extended family, which had a base in the Bronx. Walking hand in hand through the city was like maneuvering a minefield. You never knew who was going to blow up at us But it wasn’t just race. It was the war, drugs and the “hippie youth culture too.” I vividly remember driving through the Midwest with white friends on the way to Chicago, all of whom had long hair, and getting hate looks from parents while the children passed the peace sign. Some of my friends had been virtually disowned by their parents too, for growing their hair long, opposing the war, or participating in protests. Those of us who were living through it saw no end in sight. Many of us thought we would die early deaths and that there would be a revolution or the emergence of some kind of fascist state. We had our apocalyptic fantasies and great music to fuel our fevered imaginations. But though some people died, others burned themselves out, and families fractured, the nation survived and we stumbled on without our political system collapsing. suspect the same will happen now. We will hurt one another, and leave some lasting scars, but we will not turn into some unrecognizable dictatorship. So friends, by all means worry, but do not despair. We will get through this. Damaged, but not destroyed. Mark Naison With A Brooklyn Accent

n the aftermath of the Dallas massacre and the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, President Barack Obama had a national conversation on race relations this past Thursday. Billed as a “National Conversation with the People of the United States on Race Relations, Justice, Policing and Equality”—the one-hour ABC News discussion attempted to touch the surface of these urgent and deeply interrelated matters. Unfortunately, several key people who were impacted by last week’s tragedies were not present because they were attending funerals. And some who did attend were left frustrated. Said Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Cullors: “ABC used the faces of the black community to exhibit a watered-down message of hope and reconciliation. And Obama collaborated. Instead of what felt like a placating and painfully repetitive conversation about issues – which organizers and advocates had already broached with the president – we should have been discussing more pressing matters.” The townhall was part of a series of events the President has participated in this week in the wake of the Dallas rampage that left five police officers dead and eleven others wounded, following the two police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota earlier in the week. On Wednesday, Obama had convened a longer, edgier meeting at the White House with police, elected officials, and civil rights advocates to address what all acknowledge is a gaping divide between communities, viewpoints, and races. e wanted to get your take on the president’s interchanges with the audience. So our survey this week gives you a chance to share your opinion since most of us were not physically at the townhall. Please explain your answers in the comments section below and look for our survey recap in the next day or so. Sharon Kyle Publisher, LA Progressive.

illary Clinton’s 6-point lead over Donald Trump in last month’s CBS News poll has now evaporated. As of mid-July (even before Trump enjoys a predictable post-convention bump in the polls) she is tied with him.  Each garners the support of 40 percent of voters. This is astounding, given that Trump’s campaign is in shambles while hers is a well-oiled machine; that he’s done almost no advertising while she began the month spending $500,000 a day on ads; and that Republican leaders are deserting him while Democrats are lining up behind her. The near tie is particularly astonishing given that Trump has no experience and offers no coherent set of policies or practical ideas but only venomous bigotry and mindless xenophobia, while Hillary Clinton has a boatload of experience, a storehouse of carefully crafted policies, and a deep understanding of what the nation must do in order to come together and lead the world. What happened? Apparently the FBI’s recent report on Clinton’s email heightened what already were public concerns about her honesty and trustworthiness. Last month, on that same CBS poll, 62 percent of voters said she’s not honest and trustworthy; now 67 percent of voters have that view. So as the Republican convention prepares to nominate the least qualified and most divisive candidate in American history, the Democrats are about to nominate among the most qualified and yet also most distrusted. What explains this underlying distrust? I’ve known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old. For twenty-five years I’ve watched as she and her husband became quarries of the media – especially, but not solely, the rightwing media. I was there in 1992 when she defended her husband against Jennifer Flower’s charges of infidelity. I was in the cabinet when she was accused of fraudulent dealings in Whitewater, and then accused of wrongdoing in the serial rumor mills of “Travelgate” and “Troopergate,” followed by withering criticism of her role as chair of Bill Clinton’s healthcare task force. I saw her be accused of conspiracy in the tragic suicide of Vince Foster, her friend and former colleague, who, not incidentally, wrote shortly before his death that “here [in Washington] ruining people is considered sport.“ Rush Limbaugh claimed that “Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton,” and the New York Post reported that administration officials “frantically scrambled” to remove from Foster’s office safe a previously unreported set of files, some of them related to Whitewater. I saw Kennth Starr’s Whitewater investigation metastasize into the soap opera of Bill Clinton’s second term, featuring Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, and Juanita Broaddrick, among others – culminating in Bill Clinton’s impeachment and Hillary’s very public (and, presumably, intensely private) humiliation. Then, more recently, came the storm over Benghazi, which led to inquiries about her email server, followed by the questions about whether or how the Clinton Foundation charitable work and the Clintons’ own for-profit speeches might have intersected with her work at the State Department. It is worth noting that despite all the stories, allegations, accusations, insinuations, and investigations spread over a quarter century – there has never been any finding that Hillary Clinton engaged in illegal behavior. But it’s understandable why someone who has been under such relentless attack for a large portion of her adult life might be reluctant to expose every minor error or misstep that could be blown up into another “scandal,” another media circus, another interminable set of investigations generating half-baked conspiracy theories and seemingly endless implications of wrongdoing. Given this history, any sane person might reflexively seek to minimize small oversights, play down innocent acts of carelessness, or not fully disclose mistakes of no apparent consequence, for fear of cutting loose the next attack dogs. Such a person might even be reluctant to let their guard down and engage in impromptu news conferences or veer too far off script. Yet that reflexive impulse can itself generate distrust when such responses eventually come to light, as they often do – as when, for example, Hillary was shown to be less than forthright over her emails. The cumulative effect can create the impression of someone who, at worst, is guilty of serial cover-ups, or, at best, shades the truth. o while Hillary Clinton’s impulse is understandable, it is also self-defeating, as now evidenced by the growing portion of the public that doesn’t trust her. It is critically important that she recognizes this, that she fight her understandable impulse to keep potential attackers at bay, and that from here on she makes herself far more open and accessible – and clearly and fearlessly tells all. Robert Reich Republished with permission from Robert Reich’s blog.

ith Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton today he gains power and influence over the long-term direction of the Democratic party and potentially the policies of the next administration. Bernie has more clout remaining inside the tent than outside of it. By joining forces with the Democratic party’s 2016 nominee he has become a kingmaker. This endorsement unifies the Democratic party and cements the social movement Bernie leads as a powerhouse inside the party pulling it to the left. Going forward he can mobilize his supporters to keep the heat on Clinton whenever her knee-jerk corporatism and militarism get the better of her. And what was the alternative for Bernie at this point in the election? To sweep up his 1,900 delegates, walk out of the Democratic convention, and run as a third party in a doomed and ultimately symbolic campaign? Such a foolish move would divide and weaken the Democratic party and terminate any role the Sanders movement could realistically play in Democratic politics going into the future. Bolting the party would also strengthen Republican candidates up and down the ballot in every state of the Union and could even divide the Democrats to the point where the unthinkable could happen: the election of President Donald J. Trump. If Hillary Clinton becomes president she will do whatever she can to keep Bernie and his formidable coalition inside the Democratic party. Bernie and his supporters have the leverage now to generate enough opposition from within the party to sink her presidency. This clout should pull her to the left on many key issues as the Democratic party platform for 2016 already shows. illary Clinton acknowledged today “Bernie is building a movement that is bigger than one candidate or one campaign.” She could solve just about all of her problems with the left side of her party by simply asking Bernie to join her as her running mate. “Stronger Together.” Joe Palermo Joe Palermo’s Blog

thank all the people who consoled me on my father’s passing. I had mentioned it here so publicly, partly because Dad’s death rests so heavily on my soul right now and partly to explain my uncharacteristically dour mood, which has flooded my perceptions of this violent week across America. Around here, I’m known as the “glass half-full guy,” the one who can always find that ray of hope, that way to accentuate the positive, that reason to get up and take another run at things. This soul-saving approach to life comes in part, I think, from the years I spent working at a halfway house for recovering alcoholics and addicts. Far too frequently, one or another of them would find reason to give way to the madness, according to their temperaments and the circumstances of their lives at the moment, by putting a gun in their mouth or pitching one last epic bender to drown themselves in blood from the ruptured veins in their throats. If you couldn’t find a way to lift your spirits in that work, you would be tempted to drive down to the beach yourself and swim out in the general direction of Hawaii until the muscles in your arms and legs gave out—if that matched your temperament. And so I became the Glass Half-Full Guy in part out of necessity. But sometimes, as in this week filled with police murders of innocent black men, coupled with the murders of police officers, I have to suspect that this irrepressible optimism I’m blessed with has a strong admixture of self-deception to it. More Guns Than People This week’s survey asked your views about gun violence generally and particularly police murders of innocent black and brown men. I encourage you to read the many responses. In both cases, and especially around gun control, solutions abound. The problem? The lack of will to do anything about it. As Janey Mitchell responded, we need to…pass sensible gun control laws without loopholes.” Perhaps we could treat guns like cars. To get a driver’s license, typically you have to take some training, pass a written test, and then score well on a driving test. And at some point if your behavior shows you can’t drive responsibility, you lose your right to drive. You have to have insurance, you have to register your vehicle, and you have to care for the vehicle responsibly—and you can’t drive an Abrams tank down the street. Just so with guns. Let’s make it so you have to show that you’re responsible enough to own a gun, that you’ll use it properly, that you’ve got it properly registered, that your weapon isn’t designed to mow down soldiers in battle—and if you fail to follow through on those things, you’ll lose that right to own a gun. But nothing like that is going to happen. The howls from Second Amendment defenders would be deafening, reminding us that in a different world altogether two and half centuries ago our sainted Founding Fathers wanted to guarantee our right to mosey down on Saturday afternoon to the town square where we could join our mates in practicing close-order drill before quick-timing it over to Farmer Brown’s pasture, there to take turns taking potshots at cow pies. Militia indeed! Our “leaders” in Washington can’t even figure out how to stop people pretending the semi-automatic military rifle they brandish is there for self-protection or hunting quail. No, there’s way too much money in the manufacture and sale of guns. In America, we’ve got more guns than people. Just think of all the profit there is in that! I do rather like Larry Wines’ idea of attacking the culture of violence: “The standard TV fare cannot be shoot-em-cop shows and murder mysteries. The most common item from the prop department cannot be a gun. If we must, we should pass financial incentives to promote programming about people making a difference for others and for trying, as doubtful as it is that we can succeed, to save the planet and assure that our species has a future as part of a necessarily diverse and integrated and healthy functioning ecosystem.” Here’s another instance where our technology is outpacing our human abilities to deal with it. We can only suspect what thousands of hours watching gun violence on a screen or killing digital people in a video game does to our brains—and especially to our children’s brains. Not good things, certainly, but look at all the profit in that. Money rules, especially for people who have mountains of it, so let’s move on. Get over it. Thirty years from now, with the the sea levels rising to our doorsteps from climate change, we’ll still be arguing how many AR-15s a person can own. You watch. Police Shoot Yet Another Unarmed Black Man Sensible responses to the drumbeat of police shootings of black and brown men emerged from this week’s survey as well: Clearly the recent militarization of our police has only produced more death and distrust on both sides of the equation. Who we hire as police, how they are trained, and how they interact with our communities are all in need of re-examination before more people get killed.— Tony Butka Our justice department can begin by starting an investigation into every police shooting in the last 5 years, and hand down serious sentences where they are merited.— Hugo Leal We can train police officers out of their inherent bias against black men, so they will be less fearful and behave more rationally towards black people. We could also emphasize de-escalation in encounters with black people.—Lee Marshall Several of you offered more radical approaches: End the constant regime change Wars that dull our senses of outrage over killing innocent people. End the War on drugs. End the hiring of military veterans as police. End military hardware for police. Disarm the police. End poverty.—Dick Chase If the death of civilians was just a matter of training and not hiring crazies and incompetents, we’d see black, white, brown people killed at the same rate. We don’t. That fate falls mostly on persons of color. I see pure neo-Confederate racism.—Radhika To which I say, sure, we need reforms. We need to fight for civilian oversight of police departments, for full accountability and transparency for police officer activities. Yes, we need better police officer training—the outrages this week, like other prominent ones in the past, displayed deplorable police tactics for dealing with the public. Based on my own experiences from Vietnam, I think we need to look at the hiring of combat veterans for our police forces, too. The instincts and techniques you need to survive in combat are just not what work on our streets filled with civilians. I wonder how many veterans-turned-cops have been triggered into inappropriate violence. And let’s stop tricking out police officers to look like space age paratroopers while we’re at it. Absolutely, we need to redefine a policeman’s role in our society. A great many things are dumped on police departments, functions that could better be served elsewhere, leaving police officers to deal with actual crime. Helping the homeless, selling individual cigarettes, crowd control, treating the mentally—there are lots of things other, less militarized, less lethal, government workers could do. But right now, some these steps seem like band-aids, necessary in some cases to staunch the bleeding—or at least to give that appearance—but not nearly enough to cure the patient. Looking Back, Looking Forward I’m glad to see that protesters are out marching in the streets tonight, holding rallies, closing down freeways—efforts I hope will bring the national conversation around police violence and gun control to more productive places. But we’ve been here before, haven’t we? And we know we’ll get here again…and again…again. On on a different night, in a different mood, I might think any of this will make a difference. Here are three areas where more fundamental change might be in order. Looking back, our nation has never fully taken responsibility for the centuries of slavery we imposed on the Africans we captured and brought to our shores as slaves to fuel our economic growth. We have never had the kind “Truth and Reconciliation” South Africa had in atoning for Apartheid. Instead, we have kept African Americans in one kind of bondage or another to this very day. Looking forward, somehow we need to figure out how to live together—not in the same vast country, not in the same states, not even in the same cities, but in the same neighborhoods. Black, brown, yellow, red, and white—our kids need to go to the same schools, we need to shop in the same stores, we need to walk the same streets and greet each other as we go out to pick up the mail. If we knew each other as friends and neighbors, we’d be much less like to create police officers who kill some of us but not others. ight now, we need to solve poverty. Our politicians always like to talk about what they’re going to do for “hard-working, middle-class Americans.” That’s well and good, but there’s an awful lot of “desperately poor Americans,” too. No one ever uses them as steppingstones to higher office. We need a new War on Poverty, a real Homeland Security Department that would focus on bringing some piece of the American Dream to all of us. Maybe in time I’ll get my “Glass-Half Full Guy” face on and think some of this could happen. Maybe in time. Dick Price Editor, LA Progressive

he Hillary Clinton FBI interview has happened. CBS is reporting that Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has met with the FBI for a scheduled interview as part of the ongoing investigation the Bureau has been conducting to determine if Clinton broke the law when she set up a private email server to conduct official State Department business. According to the report, Hillary Clinton voluntarily agreed to be interviewed but White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell tweeted “Use of word “voluntarily” in the context of @HillaryClinton FBI interview means there was no subpoena.” The three-hour meeting was conducted this morning at the FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. This FBI interview comes on the heels of the much talked about meeting between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former president Bill Clinton. The pair met on Lynch’s airplane on the tarmac of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport on Monday. According to Lynch, neither she nor Clinton had planned the meeting, which happened serendipitously when the two were at the same airport at the same time. Lynch claims that Clinton walked across the tarmac and got onto her plane. Bill Clinton appointed Lynch to be the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999. According to Lynch, their social meeting lasted about 30 minutes and all that was discussed was the grandchildren, their travels, and former Attorney General Janet Reno, who served in Clinton’s administration. Since the news of this meeting came out and perhaps because of the shadow it has cast on the email server investigation, Lynch has said she regrets having had the encounter with Clinton. The Attorney General says she now plans to distance herself from the case but she is not recusing herself. e’d like our readers to weigh in on this. Our survey question for this week has to do with what may possibly be the final step in the FBI’s investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information on Hillary Clinton’s private email server when she served as President Obama’s Secretary of State. We want you to answer the survey question below but then we’d also like to know if you believe the Bill Clinton/Loretta Lynch meeting was serendipitous or was it in way calculated and by whom. Also, let us know if you believe that Lynch and Clinton only had a social conversation. Sharon Kyle Publisher, LA Progressive

American Gun Lust he murderous rampage at the LGBT-friendly dance club in Orlando, Florida, last weekend has once again thrust America’s gun control debate front and center. A lone gunman, claiming ties to Islamic extremist groups and carrying a military assault rifle and a semi-automatic pistol, opened fire in the crowded Pulse nightclub early last Sunday morning, killing 49 people and wounding at least another 53 before dying in a hail of police bullets. Afterwards, as President Obama talked of grief beyond description and urged renewed progress on gun control, Democrats in Congress revived proposals for expanding background checks to gun shows and online firearm sales and banning people on the government’s terrorist watch list from obtaining gun licenses. Seeming to bow to public outrage, Republicans showed some willingness to compromise, but quickly pivoted to terrorism links to the Orlando shooting, even though the FBI quickly discounted any ties the shooter, Omar Mateen, actually had to ISIS, indicating that racial hatred and homophobia more likely motivated the outrage. What Can Change? The Orlando massacre was utterly horrific, the worst mass shooting in recent American history. But it was also just another mass shooting in a numbingly long list—San Bernardino, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, and then a great many with fewer victims and less lasting notoriety. Our survey this week asked if Americans will ever be able to defeat the powerful gun lobby to enact sensible gun control measures found elsewhere in the world. The results were mixed, with 56% saying change would happen and 44% saying it would not. For Cynthia Parker, the problem stems from our weapons manufacturing industry: “We have an economy supported by defense/guns from the lowest jobs in New England’s obscure gun and munitions factories, to West Coast based defense giants like Lockheed, Northrup and Boeing who survive on government contracts. Add to that, the computer and intelligence efforts begun by government and refined by Silicon Valley, I see no practical way to unravel the twisted mess!” Art Cribbs recalled that the Second Amendment came about largely in response to Southern slaveowner fears of their slaves: “It begins with the origin of the Second Amendment as an act to protect the institution of slavery by arming the minority of slave owners against a majority slave population in locations where militia either did not exist or were too far away to protect against slave revolts.” Dick Chase added the standard “Good Guy with a Gun” argument: “A well-armed citizenry is a safer citizenry. If just one or two of those poor folks in that Orlando nightclub had been carrying a handgun the loss of life would likely have been far less.” Chase’s argument sounds good in the telling, but runs aground on the facts. There have been precious few examples of an armed “good guy” fending off a crazed shooter. In point of fact, when Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Gifford was grievously wounded and others in her party murdered, at least three trained people present were armed but could do nothing to stop the mentally disturbed shooter. Although a number of people who responded to the survey thought progress was possible, no one articulated a way that might happen. And barely a week from the Orlando barbarity, gun control talks in Congress seem headed toward the usual rocky shore according to Democratic U.S. Representative Jim Himes: “The reason you won’t see a compromise anytime soon is because Congress actually acting in the wake of Orlando would be a tacit admission on the other side that guns had something to do with what happened in Orlando as opposed to ISIS.” What About Australia? Whenever a mass shooting like Orlando’s falls upon us, gun control advocates frequently cite Australia’s example. In 1996, a 28-year-old lone gunman, Martin Bryant, opened fire at a former prison colony, a popular tourist attraction in Port Arthur, Tasmania, killing 35 and wounding 23. Apparently, the Australian people and their government had reached a tipping point. John Howard, the conservative prime minister, pushed through the National Firearms Agreement in the shooting’s aftermath, winning unanimous support among both political parties for stringent gun control measures, including: Banning nearly all automatic and semiautomatic assault rifles and pump shotguns, Tightening licensing rules, Establishing a 28-day waiting period for gun purchases, Creating a national gun registry, and Instituting a temporary buyback program that removed more than 20% of firearms from public circulation.As a result, gun deaths in Australia fell almost in half, from 516 in 1996 to 188 in 2011 and 230 in 2014. By contrast, with its much larger population and apparently more violent society, the United States suffered 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) in 2013, 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000), and 21,175 by suicide with a firearm. 1.3% of all deaths in the country were related to firearms. Looked at another way, the U.S. had 3.2 gun murders per 100,000 people from 2013 to 2013, while Australia had 0.2, Norway 0.1, and Japan 0.0. The problem with the Australian comparison is that we’ve had our Port Arthur Massacre, and then we’ve had it again, and again, and again—and yet as far as our national gun control reform discussions get, even as the murder victims are being buried, is to debate whether we can prevent suspected terror risks from buying semiautomatic weapons or whether banning a military assault rifle would sit right with the Constitution’s framers, whose muskets could only fire three musket balls a minute with a highly skilled musketeer. Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em Speaking of tipping points, what happened to cigarette smoking over the course of my lifetime might apply here. Like the powerful gun lobby,  there is also a powerful tobacco lobby in the U.S. but never-the-less, Americans don’t put up with second smoke and smoking is no longer a socially accepted past time. n the most recent LA Progressive podcast, Sharon and I talk about how Americans reached a tipping point with cigarette smoking, going from 46% of American adults smoking in 1965 (and 55% of men) down to 17% in 2014. We discuss the possibility of America making a similar pivot on gun ownership and gun violence—and then how likely that cultural shift might be.  Check out the podcast below. Please add your thoughts in the comments section. Dick Price Editor, LA Progressive

n his most recent post, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich penned a letter to his friend Bernie Sanders. “I don’t know what you’re going to do from here on, and I’m not going to advise you,” Reich said. “You’ve earned the right to figure out the next steps for your campaign and the movement you have launched.” But Bernie Sanders has, on more than one occasion, rebuked the notion that he himself launched a movement. “It’s not about me,” he’s always quick to emphasize.“It’s about all of us.” Certainly we agree with Reich that there’s a movement underway. But Bernie’s point can’t be stressed enough. This is a bottoms-up, people’s movement. This political revolution is fortunate enough to have a person like Bernie Sanders to help move it forward. But make no mistake, it needs all progressives to do their part to carry out the mission articulated by Bernie Sanders, by Occupy, by Fight for Fifteen, by the Dreamers, by Black Lives Matter, and by so many other groups fighting for “Change We Can Really Believe In.” Given that the Associated Press and corporate mainstream media has already labeled Hillary Clinton the preseumptive presidential nominee and Trump is the only one still standing on the Republican side, what are you likely to do this election season? Please answer this survey and share it with your friends. And then in the comment box below, tell us what you plan to do with your progressive energies going forward. Sharon Kyle Publisher, LA Progressive

e was known as “The Greatest”, Muhammad Ali, arguably the greatest athlete of all time, passed away on June 3, 2016 at the age of 74. He was, perhaps the most iconic boxing figure in history, but it was so much more than boxing that made him beloved by the black community, his boxing fans, his nation and beyond.  The remarkable, charismatic, larger than life Ali has been called the most recognizable and admired figure of the 20th century. While sports fans remember him for his athletic prowess, social justice activists the world over admired his commitment to civil rights,  refusal to fight in an unjust war, and his philanthropy. Ultimately, it was Parkinson’s disease that took him out of the public eye. For more than 30 years, Muhammad Ali suffered the disease that interferred with his ability to move and speak coherently.  His wife Lonnie Ali said, “Even though Muhammad has Parkinson’s and his speech isn’t what it used to be, he can speak to people with his eyes. He can speak to people with his heart, and they connect with him”. li suffered from a respiratory problem and was admitted to a Phoenix-area hospital in Arizona Thursday. He passed away on Friday, June 3, 2016. Muhammad Ali’s skill in the boxing ring lead to notoriety but his love of humanity made him a legend. Rest in peace, dear Champ. Sharon Kyle Publisher, LA Progressive  

Democratic Party Platform 2016 very four years political parties develop a “party platform”—a formal set of principal goals the party supports which is used to appeal to the general public. They put energy into creating discreet components of the platform known as “planks” which are used to appeal to specific constituencies while the overall platform is ultimately put forward to garner public support. So what?, you ask. Well, many say the party platform is aspirational, but increasingly, a lot of people have come to believe that the party platform holds no real power and is irrelevant. In looking back over the years at Democratic Party Platforms endorsed when the Democratic nominee won the presidency, I found the following verbage: 2012 – We believe in an America where everybody gets a fair shot and everybody plays by the same set of rules. At the core of the Democratic Party is the principle that no one should face discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability status. 2008 – Minorities have been hit particularly hard—in 2006, more than 40 percent of the home loans made to Hispanic borrowers were subprime, while more than half of those made to African Americans were subprime.  We will work to end housing discrimination and to ensure equal housing opportunity. 1996 – For 220 years, America has been defined by a single ideal: Opportunity for all who take the responsibility to seize it. Tough punishment. We believe that people who break the law should be punished, and people who commit violent crimes should be punished severely. President Clinton made three-strikes-you’re-out the law of the land, to ensure that the most dangerous criminals go to jail for life, with no chance of parole. 1992 – A national public works investment and infrastructure program will provide jobs and strengthen our cities, suburbs, rural communities and country. We will encourage the flow of investment to inner city development and housing through targeted enterprise zones and incentives for private and public pension funds to invest in urban and rural projects. While cracking down on redlining and housing discrimination, 1976 – We must be absolutely certain that no person is excluded from the fullest opportunity for economic and social participation in our society on the basis of sex, age, color, religion or national origin. Minority unemployment has historically been at least double the aggregate unemployment rate, with incomes at two-thirds the national average. Special emphasis must be placed on closing this gap. ince 1976, there have been changes in the party platforms but some things remain the same which begs the question — what good is a party platform and how do we hold the party accountable for what it says it is going to deliver or better yet, how do we help them to deliver on their promises? This year, with the phenomenal performance of Bernie Sanders, many progressives hope to hold the party’s feet to the fire using the platform developed, in large part, by several progressive leaders. This year, the Democratic Party Platform will be developed with input from thought leaders from various sectors. As the 2016 Democratic Presidential front runner, Hillary Clinton chooses six of those thought leaders, Bernie Sanders chooses five, and the Chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, selects four. Here is the line up: Hillary Clinton’s Picks: Neera Tanden – President of the Center for American Progress, a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. Worked with both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton in various capacities. First-generation, American born to immigrant Indian parents. Wendy Sherman – Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the fourth-ranking official in the U.S. Department of State. Former social worker. Born to a  prominent Jewish family. Paul Booth –  Executive assistant to AFSCME President Lee Saunders. Led AFSCME organizing in Illinois and then nationally in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is the largest trade union of public employees in the United States. Luis Guitierrez – Member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing the 4th Congressional District of Illinois. An outspoken proponent of worker’s rights, gender equlity, and LGBT rights. Rep. Guitierrez is of Puerto Rican descent. Alicia Reece – Member of the Ohio House of Representatives. Reece is the vice-chair of the Ohio Women’s Democratic Caucus. An African American with a history of civi rights activism, Reece is a graduate of Grambling. Carol Browner – Former EPA Administrator, Secretary of Environmental Regulation for Florida. Browner is also a lawyer, environmentalist and businesswoman. Bernie Sanders’ Picks: Cornel West – American philosopher, academic, social activist, author, and pubic intellectual. The first African American to graduate from Princeton with a Ph.D in philosophy. A frequent media commentator on political and social issues who focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society. James Zogby – Founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.–based organization which serves as a political and policy research arm of the Arab-American community. He is Managing Director of Zogby Research Services, LLC, specializing in research and communications and undertaking polling across the Arab world. Keith Ellison – A member of the U.S. Representative representing Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District since 2007.  Ellison is the first Muslim to be elected the the U.S. Congress. He is also the first African American elected to the House of Representatives from Minnesota. Bill McKibben – An American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and leader of the anti-carbon campaign group 350.org. He has authored a dozen books about the environment, including his first (The End of Nature) in 1989 about climate change. Deborah Parker – A former vice chairman of the Tulalip Tribes in Washington, Parker is a Native American who was an early Bernie Sanders supporter and an outspoken advocate for  American Indian and Alaska Native issues. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Picks: Barbara Lee – A member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing the 13th Congressional District of California. Lee has been in Congress since 1998. She’s held several leadership positions and gained national attention when she was the only member of Congress to vote “No” on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists Elijah Cummings – A member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing the 7th Congressional District of Maryland. Cummings has been in Congress since 1996. Cummings is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and served as Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. Howard Berman –  An attorney and former U.S. Representative. Berman served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years. Vacating his seat in 2013, Berman served  California’s 28th Congressional District. Bonnie Schaefer – Former Co-CEO and Co-Chairman of the Board of Claire’s Stores, Inc., the leading international specialty retailer offering value-priced costume jewelry and accessories to fashion-aware tweens. very four years the parties convene a platform committee whose members expend quite a bit of time laboring over the words that will be incorporated into the document that will ultimately represent the aspirations of the party.  The American Presidency Project,  a non-profit organization affiliated with the University of California, Santa Barbara, has archived political party platforms dating back to 1840. In addition to the party platforms, their data base contains 117,510 documents related to the study of the Presidency. Sharon Kyle Publisher, LA Progressive  

Clinton Nomination s the Bernie Sanders campaign juggernaut swings through Southern California this week—National City in San Diego County Saturday, Anaheim and Irvine in Orange County today, Santa Monica and East LA Monday, then onto Riverside on Tuesday—likely drawing thousands upon thousands of avid supporters to each venue, talking about Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination just yet is a bit ridiculous. And you might know from our formal endorsement for Bernie, the regular coverage of his campaign that we publish, and the occasional pro-Bernie article we can find time to write ourselves, that we here at the LA Progressive have stood foursquare behind Bernie Sanders. Indeed, we maintain that stance, hoping that Bernie can drive to a convincing victory here in California so he can take a powerful argument to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia in late July. But as the great catchphrase of our times tells us, “It Is What It Is”—and the chances that Bernie Sanders will be our next president are exceedingly slim. So our “5 Reasons Hillary Won” poll asked how did we find ourselves in this fix with a dyspeptic crypto-Republican set to throw down with a reality show celeb to lead our country? Now let’s review the top three reasons you found for Hillary’s current dominance and two reasons that received curiously scant support. Mainstream Media’s Fat Thumb Not surprisingly, the evident media bias toward Hillary rose right to the top with 68% of respondents putting one of their votes there. As Dee said: “I finally stopped watching cable news. MSNBC has been the Hillary all the time station. Nothing about Bernie. The girl’s club did not appeal to me.” The lopsided coverage has been hard to miss, but not so hard to explain. The mainstream media are owned by the creamiest cream of the one percenters, who want nothing to do with the higher taxes Sanders wants to impose on the wealthiest among us, the restrictions he would put on Wall Street’s out-of-control financial institutions, the effort he would make to move us toward universal healthcare—and the likelihood that he would not adopt a “more muscular” foreign policy to keep our military-industrial complex humming at top speed. As Mickey Weinberg said, “Both of the major political parties and the corporate MSM [mainstream media] are comfortable with status quo power relations and the places of the respective principal players and their cronies within it.” Neither Trump nor Clinton are going to upset any applecarts; indeed, Hillary’s vaunted “increments of progress” will likely be little more than a cosmetic makeover. Social media has become a major factor in the Sanders campaign favor, as Karen Wingard pointed out, fueling a groundbreaking crowd-funding engine that will have a deep impact on future campaigns and reportedly causing the Clinton campaign to invest $1 million in bloggers to try to combat Bernie’s online army. Still, according to the American Press Institute, Americans get the bulk of their news from more tradition television, radio, and print newspaper sources: “The most frequently utilized devices include television (87 percent), laptops/computers (69 percent), radio (65 percent), and print newspapers or magazines (61 percent).” But can you imagine where the Sanders campaign would be if over the past year Bernie had gotten anything like the onslaught of free, revenue-boosting coverage that Trump has gotten—or the fawning kid-glove treatment Clinton has received from so many reputable corners? Closed or Open Two related survey choices about closed primaries and the independent vote both scored high—with both drawing 55% of your votes. Clearly, Sanders has done exceedingly well in states that have allowed independents and same-day registrants to vote in Democratic primaries. In states with closed primaries, he has done much less well. As the Boston Globe reported: “In Wisconsin’s open primary, exit polls showed Sanders won independents, 72 percent to 28 percent, fueling his victory there. In New Hampshire’s open primary, where Sanders defeated Clinton by 22 points, he was roughly tied with Clinton among registered Democrats but received a big boost from independent voters. In Michigan’s open primary, where Sanders upset Clinton last month, exit polls show he dominated among independent voters, 71 percent to 28 percent.” As across the country many more Americans are registering as independents, keeping them out of primaries would not seem to work well in general elections. Currently, according to a Gallup poll, 42% of voters register as independents, with 29% registering as Democrats and 26% as Republicans. But, as the Washington Post and others have pointed out, many of these “independents” lean toward one party or the other, leaving just 12% who are actual independents. And, as regular columnist Berry Craig points out, open primaries present their own problems: “Imagine in some open primary states, more than a few Democrats voted for Donald Trump, figuring he’d be a pushover in the general election—a decision they may come to rue. Evidently, some Trump supporters in West Virginia voted for Sanders to get back at Clinton.” Fortunately, California has an partially open primary in which people who have registered as “No Party Preference”—which once was “decline-to-state” or DTS voters—can request a partisan ballot for the Independent Party, the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party. Those Pesky Superdelgates Again not surprisingly, the poll highlighted some of the heat that has been directed at the superdelegate system and at superdelegates themselves from Sanders supporters. “Superdelegates that can be bought, bullied, and cajoled undermined the democratic process,” commented Laurie Smyla. In an earlier poll, we reported on the superdelegates, how the system came to be, and how it’s left a bitter taste in many people’s mouths: “And since Hillary has been running for president for at least a decade, she has mastered a plan to leverage the superdelegate system to her advantage, signing up a great many of the 719 superdelegates long before the race began, thus closing off any potential challenger before the starting gun sounded.” But no matter what the talking heads might lead you to believe, the fact remains that superdelegates will not cast their votes until they get to Philadelphia, even if a great many have indicated—often long ago—a preference for Hillary. So it ain’t over till it’s over. We’ve gotten to know several superdelegates, both among elected officials and among party stalwarts. From the ones we’ve had a chance to observe, you should not mistake these party stalwarts with the Koch Brothers or Sheldon Adelsons of the world. They are not venal people, looking to subvert American democracy to line their pockets and protect their class interest. Rather, they seem to be people who have decided to give a good part of their lives—both as volunteers and as paid party cadre—to supporting their political ideals first, to building a strong Democratic Party second, and way down the line to service their loyalty to particular candidates. They’re the ones who serve on committees, organize rallies, set up campaign offices, and run for party offices—good eggs who keep the party machine running. No doubt there are exceptions among them, but that’s what I see from my mountaintop perch. Among elected officials who serve as superdelegates, the calculus is likely different. With them, their need and desire to get reelected, to move to the next rung in the ladder, to have weighty influence in party affairs, rises much closer to the top. And building a strong Democratic Party to help them do that likely moves beyond desires to support those political ideals they might have formed in their youth. I say that because in no place in these descriptions did I say they are stupid people. They’re not. They’re obviously go-getting strivers who found ways to navigate through the political world. Which means they’re seeing the same things we’re seeing. They’re seeing that Trump has already surpassed Clinton in polling across the country. They see that Hillary—with all her support in the media, on Wall Street, and in the Democratic Party hierarchy—can’t shake a 74-year-old, small-state senator from Vermont who’s spent his life registered as an independent, and is, oh goodness, a “self-described socialist,” as you’ve no doubt heard from more than one talking head. And they see that no stadium ever seems big enough to hold Bernie’s rallies—in Red States and Blue, in big cities and small towns, from coast to coast—while Hillary has so much trouble filling high school auditoriums that her campaign has shifted to what they call “boutique events,” as if that’s a good thing. And if Bernie wins California big—seven points, 10 points 12 points—what are they going to say to all those thousands and thousands of people turning out to his events, to the millions making small-dollar donations, to the scads of independents looking his way? Are they going to say to the next generation of voters, who will hold sway for the next 40 years, “You’re young. You don’t know how this works. Go eat your peas.” No doubt some of them will, but I pray most of them don’t. And I hope Bernie Sanders keeps running the same high-minded, energetic campaign he’s been running right through California, through Philadelphia, through November, straight through to create “A Future We Can Believe In”—whether he does it from the White House or his white house in Burlington, Vermont. What We Missed s several of you pointed out, our poll did not give nearly enough weight to the effect “voter suppression, unaccountable proprietary voting machines and software, collusion by party establishment insiders, electoral fraud and vote theft, and illegal election rigging in general” has had, as Sasha Karlik said. To our surprise, very few of you pointed to the role the African Americans and Latino vote played—especially in the early-voting Southern states—in giving Hillary her early lead. And then both our poll and our readers downplayed the actual policy differences between possible Sanders administrations and Clinton administrations. In follow-up articles, we’ll address those misses Dick Price, Editor Here’s the survey, in case you missed it: