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2020 Presidential Election
By: AGelbert Date: September 14, 2019, 6:19 pm
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[center]3rd Democratic Debate: Medicare for All as the Bogeyman?
(1/3)[/center]
September 13, 2019
The third Democratic Party's presidential debate featured all
ten front-runners for the first time. In segment one of our
debate discussion, we take a closer look how candidates
discussed the healthcare issue. Our panelists are Osita Nwanevu,
Helena Olea, and Jacqueline Luqman, with Greg Wilpert as host
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/wsVwNhuunxk[/center]
[center][font=times new roman]Story Transcript[/font][/center]
GREG WILPERT: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert
in Baltimore.
The ten Democratic Party candidates, who are ahead in terms of
opinion polls and fundraising, held a third presidential debate
on ABC Television on Thursday. It took place in Houston, Texas
at Texas Southern University, a historically black university.
The over two and a half hour debate covered a wide variety of
issues; such as health care reform, racism, gun control,
immigration reform, foreign policy and education reform. Notably
absent were questions on climate change and economic policy.
Here at The Real News Network, we have been providing analyses
of the presidential debates so far with a changing roster of
panelists. Today we have joining us here in the studio,
Jacqueline Luqman. She’s a host and producer here at The Real
News Network as well as the editor of the website Luqman Nation.
Also in the studio is Osita Nwanevu. He’s a staff writer at The
New Republic and a former staff writer at The New Yorker and
Slate. And then remotely, we have Helena Olea joining us. She is
an international human rights lawyer with the Alianza Americas
and she is a Lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago
in the Departments of Criminology, Law and Justice. Thanks to
all three of you for joining us today.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Thank you.
HELENA OLEA: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: So we cannot cover everything that was discussed
in this debate. And so we decided not to focus on this horse
race that so many other people focus on. That is, who got under
whose skin or who won the debate? Rather, we want to dig a
little bit deeper into the actual issues that were discussed. So
in this first segment, we start with the topic of healthcare
reform, which has been a persistent issue in this presidential
campaign.
SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR: While Bernie wrote the bill, I read the
bill. And on page eight, on page eight of the bill, it says that
we will no longer have private insurance as we know it. And that
means that 149 million Americans will no longer be able to have
their current insurance.
SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: Insurance companies last year sucked
$23 billion in profits out of the system. How did they make that
money? Every one of those $23 billion was made by an insurance
company saying “no” to your healthcare coverage.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Mayor Buttigieg—
MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: The problem, Senator Sanders, with that
damn bill that you wrote and that Senator Warren backs, is that
it doesn’t trust the American people. I trust you to choose what
makes the most sense for you.
SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: There’s 150 million people on private
insurance. 50 million of those people lose their private
insurance every year when they quit their jobs or they go
unemployed or their employer changes their insurance policy. So
if you want comprehensive health care, freedom of choice
regarding doctor or hospital, no more than $200 a year for
prescription drugs, taking on the drug companies and the
insurance companies, moving to Medicare for All is the way to
go.
GREG WILPERT: So it seems like one of the main dividing lines
between the candidates are those who like to say, or who would
like Medicare for All— that is, universal health care— and that
they would like it to replace all private insurers. And that’s
basically the position of Sanders and Warren versus everyone
else who would like to expand Medicare or some version of it and
keep private insurance. So let’s start with you, Osita. What’s
your take on this distinction between the candidates on this
issue and how they’re talking about it?
OSITA NWANVUE: Well, this has been front and center, I think, at
just about every debate that’s happened so far. It used to be
the case that when people talked about Medicare for All the big
debate was, “well, how are you going to pay for it? How are you
going to absorb the cost of creating this new government
system?” Now it seems the critics of Medicare for All have
shifted into this debate about whether private insurance gets
kept under the new system, and it’s not a trivial distinction
substantively or politically.
If you look at polls done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and
other groups, most Democrats do support Medicare for All, just
the idea of it in general. But when you ask them, “Do you
support a system in which private insurance will be eliminated,”
numbers start to go down. People who criticize Medicare for All
say that this is inherently an inbuilt risk of advocating for
the program. This means that people aren’t going to be willing
to get on board with the system, the kind that Sanders is
proposing.
I think what’s actually reflected in that number is something
that Sanders and Warren both got at. People don’t really love
Aetna. They don’t really love Blue Cross/Blue Shield. That
number is there because people are worried that a new system
will create a kind of instability. But if Sanders and Warren can
assure people that in the new system everybody’s going to keep
insurance, maybe not their private insurer, but insurance, and
they’re going to be able to go to whatever doctor they want to,
that might be something that reassures people who might be wary
about the private insurance number.
GREG WILPERT: I mean, I think it’s interesting that this issue
doesn’t seem to come out very clearly as to what the debate is
really about. I mean they don’t seem to be able to get that
message across, that this is really the core of the problem. And
then they keep proposing it as if it was a fault in the system
that they’re proposing. What’s your thought on this, Jackie?
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: So the problem with the way the Democrats are
framing their resistance to Medicare for All is very interesting
and it’s based on what Amy Klobuchar actually said. Now, she
referenced the actual language in the bill to make the argument
that Medicare for All, the Sanders’ bill and the bill that
Warren backs, will eliminate private insurance altogether. But
according to her own words, that’s not what the bill actually
says. She said that on page eight of the bill that Sanders
wrote, that we will no longer have private insurance as we know
it.
So it’s not that under Medicare for All, private insurance will
not exist anymore. It is that the way we operate in this system
of relying primarily on private insurance for health care
coverage, will not exist as it does now. Because if everyone is
ostensibly covered under Medicare for All, then private
insurance will not be a primary source of coverage. I think
that’s a major distinction, but it’s a fine point that unless
you really listening, you miss. And the Democrats are playing
that up, I think very craftily, but I think it’s one that we
really need to pay attention to.
GREG WILPERT: Helena, I want to turn to you. What do you think?
What do you make of this kind of debate on this particular
issue?
HELENA OLEA: I think it’s very interesting to go back to the
point that workers do not choose their insurance, as it has been
presented. I think that in that element in particular, Bernie
was very good in stressing with the numbers that workers do not
have a choice. It’s really the employer who chooses among plans
and then presents to them, sometimes a limited choice between
two or three insurances at best, in really large employers.
So I think that what we should be discussing here is coverage
and quality of healthcare. The discussion is not about choosing—
As some others have said, no one really cares about your
insurance company. You do not feel you are being well-treated by
your insurance company. And I think that Warren’s point about
the profit that insurance companies make really addresses that
argument, but they do have to present it differently. This idea
that the government is choosing for you, rather than choosing
yourself, has kind of taken over this discussion and it’s very
unfortunate. It’s not the main point.
GREG WILPERT: Yeah, I think that’s a very interesting point. You
want to add—
OSITA NWANVUE: I think I’d just say too, one of the things that
escapes notice in this discussion is that if you look at the
plans that are being offered by the other candidates— you know,
Pete Buttigieg and people who have offered what they say are
more moderate versions of Medicare for All— their plans also
point to a world in which private insurance doesn’t exist or is
radically eliminated. It’s just on the longer timeframe.
I mean, if you look at what Pete Buttigieg says at the last
debate, he says that he prefers a system in which we create a
robust public option, and if the public option really is good
and it’s cheaper than what’s available in the private market,
then most Americans are going to choose that and that undermines
the private insurance system. Well, that’s still – it’s
essentially what Sanders is saying he’s going to do
automatically or from the get-go. Buttigieg just wants to
stretch that out.
And I think politically, if you’re concerned about the Sanders
plan, is that Republicans are going to attack it and
conservatives are going to attack it as something that
eliminates private insurance. I don’t think the Buttigieg plan
fools them into not doing that or reassures people. Once the
message gets out that just like Sanders, Buttigieg or Beto or
whoever’s offering a public option plan, it’s also going to take
us to a world in which private insurance doesn’t really exist.
So I think people should just be forthright and have a
discussion about the role they envision private insurance
playing in the system in terms of what private insurance is
actually supposed to be doing in the healthcare system. Offer a
defense of what Elizabeth Warren talked about. The fact that all
of this profit in the industry is a product of private insurance
companies saying “no” to certain services, “no” to different
treatments. Offer a defense of that or debate the issue more
directly than just scaremongering about the Sanders plan because
I don’t think I really serves anybody very well.
GREG WILPERT: Yeah, I mean that’s really interesting, the things
that they leave out. I mean, and just as Helena mentions, the
fact that there’s also no choice. And the other thing that seems
to me that is being left out of this discussion is kind of the
class dimension. What I mean specifically is that if you keep
private insurance, then you’re going to have a system I guess
where the people who can afford the private insurance or who
want doctors who charge way more than they would under the
public option or the Medicare option, have offered a different
kind of service, a different level of service with much higher
premiums, with much higher basically insurance, but also higher
charges for themselves. So then you have a very differentiated
system in the end in terms of service. What do you think?
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: I mean truthfully, that’s exactly what we
have right now even if you are an employee and you receive your
insurance through an employer. You select your plan, if you have
a choice of plans based on how much you can afford to pay out of
pocket for each plan. And there are different levels for these
plans. This is for people who have full-time jobs, who have
full-time employee benefits, who get a choice in, allegedly, of
what kind of insurance they can select. So if you’re a single
person, you can choose the least out of pocket, the plan that
gives you the least amount of coverage or the basic coverage for
the least out of pocket expense for you.
But what if you have a family or what if you have some health
issues or you just want more to be covered in your plan, then
you would opt to pay for a higher level of coverage. You know,
it’s the basic, it’s the gold, it’s the platinum level of health
insurance plans. We already have that among one class of insured
people and that’s full-time employed people. But then there are
people who are not full-time employees, who are part-time
employees, or who are unemployed and they’re on a different type
of insurance or they have access to a different type of
insurance. So we already have a class stratified health care
coverage system in this country. Medicare for All really does
seem to address that.
So the idea, I think, and this is the problem I had with what
Pete Buttigieg said, that Sanders doesn’t seem to trust the
American people to choose, but if we’re not giving American
people an actual choice in whether they’re going to be fully
covered or whether they have to worry about if they can afford
decent healthcare coverage, how can the American people trust
any of them with providing what’s supposed to be a choice or
not? And I think it’s clear that Americans don’t.
GREG WILPERT: Another issue that hasn’t come up in this
particular debate, but that’s very closely related and came up I
think in a previous one, which is the issue of whether or not
non-citizens, particularly undocumented immigrants, should be
covered. And that gets to the issue – a human rights issue,
right? And so I wanted to ask you, Helena, what do you think of
the fact that this has been left out and you’re a human rights
lawyer?
HELENA OLEA: Well, I think that we should also underscore the
point that it’s incredibly positive and this is a great
evolution in the United States that we are having a discussion
about the right to health, that health care is a top element in
the discussion of the presidential debate is an important gain.
As of today, most Americans are even skeptical of the concept of
the right to health. They still believe that it’s a service that
you purchase in the market, so we are moving ahead and I think
that that’s very important.
And I did miss from the discussion any mention whatsoever about
ensuring access to healthcare for undocumented persons in the US
and it’s interesting. I was wondering whether this was done on
purpose, whether those who raised the point very strongly in the
last debate decided that perhaps this was not going very well,
and so they decided to retreat a little bit in this point, but
we have the videos. It’s documented there, so we’ll see whether
we observe it again. I’m sure the Republicans are going to try
to throw it back at the Democrats as we move ahead in the
election process.
GREG WILPERT: So we’re going to conclude our first segment here
on the third Democratic presidential debate. I urge everyone to
join us for the next segment where we’ll take up more on the
issue of immigration, but also inequality and racism. Thanks for
joining us here at The Real News Network.
HTML https://therealnews.com/stories/3rd-democratic-debate-medicare-for-all-as-the-bogeyman-1-3
#Post#: 13600--------------------------------------------------
Re: 2020 Presidential Election
By: AGelbert Date: September 14, 2019, 6:23 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]3rd Democratic Debate: Education, Inequality, and Racism
(2/3)[/center]
September 13, 2019
Our panel on the 3rd Democratic presidential debate takes a
closer look at how the candidates look at and overlook crucial
issues related to inequality and education in the United States
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/lzAKc5Vre0g[/center]
[center][font=times new roman]Story Transcript[/font][/center]
GREG WILPERT: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert
in Baltimore.
This is our second segment on the Democratic Party’s third
presidential debate, which took place last Thursday in Houston,
Texas. Joining me here in the studio to analyze the debate are
Real News host and producer Jacqueline Luqman, and New Republic
staff writer Osita Nwanevu. Joining us remotely is human rights
lawyer and University of Illinois-Chicago Professor Helena Olea.
Thanks again to all three of you for being here.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Thank you.
OSITA NWANEVU: Thank you.
HELENA OLEA: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: So in this segment, we’ll take a closer look at
the how the candidates discussed inequality, racism, and
immigration.
SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS: I have, as part of my proposal, that we
will put $2 trillion into investing in our HBCUs, but also—
LINSEY DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.
SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS: But this is a critical point. If a black
child has a black teacher before the end of third grade, they
are 13% more likely to go to college. If that child has had two
black teachers before the end of third grade, they are 32% more
likely to go to college.
SENATOR CORY BOOKER: My kids are not only struggling with racial
segregation and housing and the challenges of underfunded
schools, but they’re also struggling with environmental
injustice. If you’ve talked to someone who’s a parent of a child
who has had permanent brain damage because of lead, you’ll know
this is a national problem because there’s over 3,000
jurisdictions in America where children have more than twice the
blood lead levels of Flint, Michigan.
LINSEY DAVIS: Thank you.
SENATOR CORY BOOKER: And so if I’m President of the United
States, it is a wholistic solution to education— from raising
teacher’s salary, fully-funded special education, but combating
the issues of poverty, combating the issues of racial
segregation, combating the issues of a criminal justice system
that takes—
LINSEY DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.
SENATOR CORY BOOKER: Parents away from their kids and dealing
with environmental justice, is a major pillar of any climate
policy.
LINSEY DAVIS: In a conversation about how to deal with
segregation in schools back in 1975, you told a reporter, “I
don’t feel responsible for the sins of my father and
grandfather. I feel responsible for what the situation is today,
for the sins of my own generation, and I’ll be damned if I feel
responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.” You said
that some 40 years ago, but as you stand here tonight, what
responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to
repair the legacy of slavery in our country?
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Make sure that we bring in to
help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. We
bring social workers into homes with parents to help them deal
with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want
to help; They don’t know quite what to do. Play the radio. Make
sure the television, excuse me, make sure you have the record
player on at night. Make sure the kids hear words. A kid coming
from a very poor school or very poor background will hear 4
million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.
GREG WILPERT: Okay, so there’s quite a bit to unpack here, but
let’s take it from the top. And Jackie, I want to turn it to you
to talk about specifically Kamala Harris’s a proposal on the
HBCUs.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: You know, the HBCU discussion is really
interesting in political discourse because people focus solely
on providing more funding to HBCUs that’s going to unilaterally
help every black kid who goes to college. And I preface what I’m
about to say by saying that it’s not that HBCUs do not deserve
and need additional federal funding— they do. The issue is that
most black kids who go to college don’t actually attend an HBCU.
Most black kids who go to college attend predominantly white
institutions. So while additional funding for HBCUs is critical
to continue the mission that HBCUs have to be a safe and robust
and culturally relevant educational environment—Even though,
yes, HBCUs produce almost every black doctor in this country,
it’s also true that for most black students, they’re learning on
the campuses of predominantly white institutions, so where is
their assistance coming from? Where are they getting help if –
not if, but when HBCUs are getting additional assistance?
That’s a real issue that I think certainly plays well on a
debate stage at an HBCU, but when you look at the reality of the
statistics, it raises questions about how genuine these
politicians really are in closing every gap in inequality or
every gap in quality of education between black and white
students on college campuses, all of them across this country.
GREG WILPERT: This also raises the issue, I think, or is related
to the issue of reparations in a sense because, of course, some
have proposed that it would go specifically towards higher
education for particularly the African American population in
the United States. Now, I’m just wondering though, what do you
make of this, Osita, this debate, and particularly also how it
might relate to reparations, which came up very briefly? We
don’t have a clip of it, but Beto O’Rourke did mention that he
supported that, at least in a very general sense. Of course,
nobody’s specific about it. What do you think of that?
OSITA NWANEVU: Yeah, the non-specificity is very important I
think across the entire— I mean, the HBCU thing, HBCUs, as was
just said, are absolutely wonderful institutions, but it’s a
very narrow discussion. It’s a discussion narrow enough in fact,
that the Trump administration has made a lot of gestures towards
HBCUs over the past couple of years just because it’s such a
non-controversial, kind of very small part of the education
situation in this country.
If you want to deal with structural inequities that really
impact most African Americans in the education system, you have
to look at sort of the root alignment, the root structural
systems that define education funding in this country. And
that’s something that presidential candidates have often
struggled to talk about in any kind of serious way because in
this country, education is a state responsibility. A lot of the
policy is set up at state and local level, so people can come
out on the national debate stage and say this and that, but most
of what you get in policy are sort of incentive programs from
the federal government to get schools to adhere to certain
standards. They’ll put out these carrots for federal funding,
but that doesn’t actually change the fundamental aspects of
education in this country.
It doesn’t change the fact that we become a country that’s
re-segregated a lot of its schools. That’s going to take a lot
more structural attention, and I think it ties into the
reparation discussion too because in the exact same way, you
have to think a lot bigger than the candidates are willing to
really think right now and willing to talk about openly. I don’t
know how anybody could oppose studying the issue. My suspicion
is that when you study the issue, it’s going to become very
obvious, empirically, as it’s become obvious to a lot of people
that reparations make a lot of sense to close the racial wealth
gap. The question then becomes what do you actually do? What
kinds of sweeping proposals do you actually put forward? How do
you make them work politically?
But everything is happening at the surface-level discussion
where people are being more forthright about the history of
racism in this country, that legacy of slavery, all the
structural inequities. People talk with the right kind of talk,
but the solutions are still very limited. You see that in
education. You see that to the extent to which people are
talking about reparations. It’s still a kind of inchoate policy
conversation.
GREG WILPERT: Yeah. This goes also to the issue of, like you
mentioned, the economic issue of inequality, which as I
mentioned in the beginning in the first segment, it didn’t come
up directly at least, and certainly not in the context of
overall economic policy. Helena, I’m wondering what do you think
of this lack of discussion of economic policy and how to address
that in a larger, structural sense?
HELENA OLEA: I think that that’s a very good point because when
we are discussing a number of issues such as healthcare, for
instance, we are in a way kind of tapping on economic policy,
but we are really not discussing it in deep. I think that that’s
a crucial element of the debate and I think it’s related to the
format that was used as well. I would like to point out a couple
of things in this regard. It’s interesting that their choice was
to bring the Latino journalist to ask questions about
immigration, as if that was only an issue that affects Latinos,
where it affects the population from all over the world.
Similarly, when we’re talking about education, everyone is
thinking about racial segregation and discrimination against
African American students, and we should be thinking of
education and discrimination from a wider stance.
And so just as equally as it’s important for African American
kids to have African American teachers, it’s equally important
for Latino children to have Latino teachers, and we should be
able to look at these issues from a broader perspective. I think
we’re leaving that element out in this discussion. We are
tapping onto it.
Similarly, I also want to point out that when we’re talking
about reparations, it’s interesting also to consider where are
we cutting the line? Are we only going to refer to slavery, or
are we also going to address the continuous discrimination that
has affected African Americans in the US until today? I think
that the issue is much more complex. We definitely need a wide,
open and long debate on this issue. So I agree absolutely with
Osita, with the political correct point of saying, “Yes, I
agree,” but that is a very empty comment. We really have to
grapple with the basic and most important elements of this
discussion on reparations.
GREG WILPERT: I want to turn now to the other part of the clip
that we saw, which was particularly the one of Biden where he
talks about the need for a different kind of education at home.
What do you make of that, Jackie?
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Okay, I have to breathe. Biden’s comment came
in response to a two-part question that was asked of him. One,
that he had to – what was his response to his previous comments,
which were problematically racist, about the role that America
has to play for addressing the legacy of slavery. And two, what
does he see now 40 years later after his initial comments, how
does he feel about that now? His response was that America has
to basically help poor, black families raise their children
because they don’t know how to. In a nutshell, in a nutshell,
that is what he said. He said we need to send social workers in
to help people raise their kids because it’s not that they don’t
want to raise their kids, they just don’t know how, and they
need to have the record player on at night so the kids can hear
words.
And people don’t quite know what that is in reference to, but
it’s in reference to a 40-year-old debunked study— “study,” I
say that in quotes— that I think University of Kansas
researchers did where they went to 42 families and followed
their children from the ages of 16 months to 18 months for four
years. And they came up with this bizarre conclusion that rich
families, the children of rich families were exposed to hearing
30 million more words over that four years than the children of
poor families did— the 42 families they’d studied over four
years. That study has since been debunked for a number of
reasons: because it didn’t account for all of the different
people outside of parents that children have around them in
different perspectives, didn’t account for different cultural
environments where language is different and words may be
different, didn’t account for the time spent with children and
parents based on economic situations where wealthier families
may have more time.
So it didn’t account for a lot of things, but Joe Biden is still
relying on this idea that poor families just don’t talk to their
kids. And especially in the context of this question, poor black
families. That’s his idea of addressing the legacy of slavery.
So that is the contrast that we are facing in dealing with this
legacy of slavery and racial injustice, where you have one
candidate, Beto O’Rourke, who rightfully does mention I support,
if I’m president, I am going to sign HR 40 into law, and HR 40
does exactly what you say. It documents this history of not just
slavery, but also, Helena, the continuing discrimination that is
endured after slavery. But then at the other end of the
spectrum, you have Joe Biden who is the so-called frontrunner
who still believes that one of the problems of slavery is that
black people don’t know how to raise their children.
GREG WILPERT: I also thought it was interesting that he seems to
have this idea that you can fight poverty with social workers,
but what do you think, Osita?
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Yes.
OSITA NWANEVU: This is what’s so interesting about this primary.
I mean, across all kinds of issues, there’s been a breathtaking
series of sweeping proposals advanced not just by Senators
Sanders and Warren that you would expect to be the most
ambitious, but even the moderate candidates have moved well left
on a lot of different issues. Even Joe Biden on an issue like
climate puts out a respectable plan. But when it comes to this
core issue of antipoverty policy and in dealing with some of
these inequities you’ve been talking about, the party still
doesn’t exactly know what to do. It hasn’t matched the level of
ambition that we’ve seen in other policy areas.
Biden’s answer was something that you would have expected
somebody like him to say in the 90s. It’s obviously important to
read to your kids and spend time with them. That’s not the
reason why we see all these inequities. We know, given social
science research, that even black parents who do everything
right and kids who work hard at school, they’re still suffering
from the same inequities that we see across the racial spectrum
for them. We know that African Americans who are high-income or
higher income than lower income white people, will often live in
neighborhoods that are still underfunded, that still lack
certain resources. There are racial components of inequity in
this country that we haven’t really taken seriously outside of
academia.
So as far as this idea that you’re going to solve those
inequities by sending social workers into these communities and
teaching parents how to raise their kids right, if you want to
look at the most ambitious thing somebody said on poverty on the
stage last night, it was actually Andrew Yang, Andrew Yang’s
UBI. The idea of doing a universal basic income gives all
Americans a certain level of income. They can use it to pay
rent. They can use it to pay for childcare, whatever they find
most necessary in their lives. That is a more serious solution
that would help more black people than the Joe Biden’s idea of
lecturing black parents that they’re not doing things right.
Give people material resources and they will have the power to
change the things in their life that they find the most
burdensome.
Now Yang is not offering reparations specifically for African
American people. There’s a narrowness to what he’s saying, but I
think that the core idea that the thing that is hurting people
the most is structural inequity that can be solved by improving
people’s material situations. That is what the party has to dial
into, just the way that it’s dialed ambitiously into the
healthcare situation or the healthcare reform proposals. There
needs to be some kind of commensurate interest and really
rethinking antipoverty policy in this country, really
reinvigorating the welfare state in a big way.
GREG WILPERT: I mean, just turning also to a clip that we saw
from Corey Booker. I mean, what I thought it was interesting
about his clip is that he did address the issue of inequality,
of systemic inequality. He didn’t provide any solutions or
answers in so far as I know his platform doesn’t really either,
but at least he raised it as the core of the issue. That’s
something that, at least in this debate, hardly anyone else
really did. Although I would say that Sanders and Warren
probably come closest to actually offering some solutions or
some responses to that issue. I want to turn to you, Helena,
what do you think of that? What was your reaction to Cory Booker
and the possibilities of addressing this topic of inequality?
HELENA OLEA: Well, I do believe he deserves to be acknowledged
for trying to understand education from a broader perspective
and not giving the simple answer that we heard from many on the
stage about teacher’s salaries. You know, that’s it. Education,
teacher salaries, and we’re done with the topic. I do appreciate
considering other factors and so I think he must be praised for
that. I appreciate the inclusion of environmental justice, which
I think is an important element and also including – it’s an
interesting way to also mention criminal justice reform, which I
think is also a plus in this aspect in particular. I think it’s
the beginning of new conversations that we should be having on
how to really address the needs in terms of education.
We should also move, hopefully in the future debates, to
addressing access to higher education. More than that broader
promise of “we’re going to eliminate all loans,” but something
more concrete. How can we ensure that our college students do
not have to work at least 40 hours a week? Because it’s
impossible to obtain an education of quality when you have other
burdens. How do we protect our students who are also parents at
the same time? There are other issues on the table that I think
we’re leaving out.
GREG WILPERT: Well, unfortunately, we can’t take up every issue
in this discussion either, but we’ll continue to cover it as
best we can. So this concludes our second segment on the third
Democratic presidential debate. Join us for the next one. We
will take up the issue of foreign policy and socialism. Thanks
for joining The Real News Network.
HTML https://therealnews.com/stories/3rd-democratic-debate-education-inequality-and-racism-2-3
#Post#: 13601--------------------------------------------------
Re: 2020 Presidential Election
By: AGelbert Date: September 14, 2019, 6:26 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]3rd Democratic Debate: Foreign Policy Continues
Imperialist Tradition (3/3)[/center]
September 13, 2019
While most Democratic candidates are finally shifting the debate
on Afghanistan, 18 years after the war began, the discussion on
other issues, such as Latin America, continues in the same old
imperialist vein as before
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/103mQcm7kKY[/center]
[center][font=times new roman]Story Transcript[/font][/center]
GREG WILPERT: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert
in Baltimore.
This is our third segment on the Democratic Party’s third
presidential debate, which took place last Thursday in Houston,
Texas. Joining me to analyze the debate are here in the studio,
Real News host and producer Jacqueline Luqman, and New Republic
staff writer Osita Nwanevu. Joining us remotely is human rights
lawyer and University of Illinois-Chicago Professor Helena Olea.
Thanks to all three of you for joining us again.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Thank you.
HELENA OLEA: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: In this segment, we will take a closer look at
foreign policy.
SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: We need a foreign policy that is about
our security and about leading on our values. The problems in
Afghanistan are not problems that can be solved by a military.
We need to work with the rest of the world. We need to use our
economic tools. We need to use our diplomatic tools. We need to
build with our allies. And we need to make the whole world
safer, not keep troops bombing in Afghanistan.
DAVID MUIR: Senator Warren, thank you.
MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: We have got to put an end to endless war.
The best way not to be caught up in endless war is to avoid
starting one in the first place. And so when I am president, an
authorization for the use of military force will have a built-in
three-year sunset. Congress will be required to vote and a
president will be required to go to Congress to seek an
authorization because if our troops can summon the courage to go
overseas, the least our members of Congress should be able to do
is summon the courage to take a vote on whether they ought to be
there.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I was opposed to the surge in
Afghanistan. The whole purpose of going to Afghanistan was to
not have a counterinsurgency, meaning that we’re going to put
that country together. It cannot be put together. Let me say it
again. It will not be put together. We don’t need those troops
there. I would bring them home.
GREG WILPERT: This debate on Afghanistan, or actually the
comments that the different presidential candidates made about
Afghanistan, I thought it was rather interesting. It did seem to
signify a certain amount of departure from the way it had been
discussed, at least under President Obama, and of course under
President Trump. One thing that wasn’t mentioned in this
discussion, though, is the fact that, of course, there was
supposed to be a peace agreement between the US Government and
the Taliban, which was scuttled in the last minute, and nobody
commented on that it seemed.
I just want to turn to you, Helena, first about what you think
of this debate and the turn that it has taken in terms of, first
of all, Warren talking about the need for diplomacy. That seemed
like a significant shift within the Democratic Party and even
Biden’s talk about him being opposed to the surge, which I think
is actually one of the things that was accurate. Although, I am
very skeptical still to what extent he actually favors
diplomacy, considering that he actually favored the war in Iraq.
What do you think, Helena?
HELENA OLEA: I think the aspect of foreign policy was debated
in a very particular way. The first thing that we should say is
that only three topics were mentioned under it. It began with
trade, but somehow trade ends up being separated from the rest
of the discussion of foreign policy, which I think is
unfortunate. Then they only refer to Afghanistan in tangent,
they referred to Iraq, and I think it was also a result of
Biden’s comments that it ended up being part of the discussion,
but that was not the intention of the questions. Then Venezuela
was mentioned shortly. I think that this is very schematic, but
we are definitely observing an evolution. Public opinion is
shifting to the point where they believe that the troops should
– cannot continue in Afghanistan and we need to find a way out.
GREG WILPERT: Osita, what do you think? Does this signify an
important shift in the Democratic Party, as regards at least to
the war in Afghanistan? Perhaps not in other areas because we’ll
get to those in a moment and we’ll see that that might be
different, but at least on the issue of Afghanistan?
OSITA NWANEVU: I think that we see a wider shift in foreign
policy, both on that debate stage, in Congress and really, even
to some extent, across both parties. I think that there’s a wide
public impatience with “forever wars,” as Pete Buttigieg called
it. We’ve seen, obviously, moves against the United States’
involvement in the war in Yemen. All of this is of a piece with
I think a broader public mood that is turning against these wars
and doesn’t really see them as fruitful anymore.
It’s become clear that to the extent that we believe that there
was an interest in going there after 9/11 to strike against the
Taliban, we’re now trying, I guess, to meet with the Taliban.
There’s a sense, I think, even if people aren’t willing to admit
it openly that we overreacted in the last 20 years to the threat
of Islamic terrorism, and engaged in a lot of conflicts that we
had no real sense of how we were going to end them, I think that
the public’s realization of that now is producing a sea change
in American politics— not just within the Democratic Party, but
more broadly outside of it.
GREG WILPERT: What do you think, Jackie?
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: I think the candidates’ responses were
definitely a reflection of what both of you said— the public
distaste for endless war now. But I think it’s also the
Democratic Party’s response to the candidate that wasn’t on the
stage, that I think in this issue of war that they most don’t
want their message to come out, and that’s Tulsi Gabbard. I
think it was sort of a surprise, a little bit, that it was
another military veteran, Pete Buttigieg, who sounded so similar
to what Gabbard would have said. I think that was probably a
shock, a little bit, to the DNC because that’s the kind of
message – that we need to end endless wars. And we need to even
further, what Buttigieg and Warren said, we need to not have
them. The best way not to have an endless war is to not enter
into a war.
We know that the defense lobby is an enormous contributor to
both parties, so I’m sure Buttigieg’s comments and Warren’s
comments on not even getting into wars made the defense
benefactors of the DNC quite nervous. For the American people,
both of their comments, and most of their comments at least on
Afghanistan, because I agree also that they were very measured
in how they talked about military engagement and war and the
wider issue of imperialism in the United States and around the
world. They were very careful to pick and choose where they
would say, “Okay, we’ll stop doing this, but we have a different
perspective on what should be done over here.” I do agree it’s a
reflection of how this country is seeing our military
differently in what it does around the world.
GREG WILPERT: I want to turn to the next clip that we have,
which is on Venezuela. Let’s run that now.
JORGE RAMOS: You admit that Venezuela does not have free
elections, but still you refuse to call Nicolas Maduro “un
dictador,” a dictator. Can you explain why and what are the main
differences between your kind of socialism and the one being
imposed in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua?
SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: First of all, let me be very clear.
Anybody who does what Maduro does is a vicious tyrant. What we
need now is international and regional cooperation for free
elections in Venezuela so that the people of that country can
create their own future. In terms of democratic socialism, to
equate what goes on in Venezuela with what I believe is
extremely unfair.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: In Venezuela, we should be
allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I’ve
confronted Maduro.
JULIAN CASTRO: Sure. Thank you, Jorge. I’ll call Maduro a
dictator because he is a dictator. What we need to do is to,
along with our allies, make sure that the Venezuelan people get
the assistance that they need, that we continue to pressure
Venezuela so that they’ll have free and fair elections. And
also, here in the United States, offer temporary protected
status, TPS, to Venezuelans.
GREG WILPERT: Okay. Well, this topic could potentially open up a
can of worms because there is perhaps substantial disagreement
about the nature of Venezuela, although not on that stage, but
perhaps among our panel here. We’ll see. Let me turn first to
you, Jackie. What do you think of Sanders’s response, especially
considering that all of them that we saw, or that spoke to
Venezuela, didn’t say anything about the United States, but
specifically did zero-in on Venezuela? What do you make of that?
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: This is where the Democratic Party is
extremely weak and it is extremely complicit in US imperialism
around the world. Sanders, his response about free and fair
elections and even the question was deeply, deeply problematic,
but the issue that Democrats, any of them, are saying that we’re
going to ensure free and fair elections in Venezuela when they
can’t even ensure free and fair elections here in the United
States, that’s a serious problem. Then, there’s also this talk
of the evil that Maduro does, and this is not to say that Maduro
is a good guy, but that’s not the point. The point is that
Venezuela is facing the economic issues it’s facing because of
US intervention and sanctions, primarily. There’s certainly the
other arguments and discussions to be made about decisions that
Maduro and Chavez made, of course, but primarily the issue now
is sanctions that the United States Government has implemented
against the elected leadership of that country.
Then that’s the other issue, that the elections in Venezuela are
continued to be framed by Republicans and Democrats as
fraudulent, and that Maduro was not elected by the people, but
six million people did vote for him. None of the candidates—
certainly not Sanders, he was guilty of this also— also didn’t
bring up the fact that nobody voted for Juan Guido. There are
lots of issues with the way the Democratic Party frames this
particular discussion because, in my estimation, the Democratic
Party is just as pro-imperialist as the Republican Party is. I
don’t think there’s much modulation between the two on this
particular issue. Even given whatever legitimate arguments
people have for or against Maduro as a leader of his country,
all of their answers on this particular issue, and even the
question itself, were a big problem.
GREG WILPERT: I think the contrast between the answers that they
gave to Afghanistan and the answers that they gave to Venezuela
is quite telling. That maybe the shift that I was talking about
earlier with regard to Afghanistan is not as big as we might
think, considering how willing they are to endorse this idea
that the US should be involved in Venezuela. I want to turn to
you next, Helena. What do you think of that? Is this— especially
what Sanders, Castro and Biden said in this context?
HELENA OLEA: Yes. I agree a lot with Jacqueline. I think that
the question was terrible and we really have to begin right
there. It’s a personal feud that the journalist has with Maduro,
which we understand, but I think that that was not the way to
frame the issue. Element number one. I do believe that the point
made about who elected Guido is quite important. There are a
number of questionings about Guido and how – where he’s getting
the funding, who’s helping him. There are very recent
accusations that he is receiving paramilitary aid from Columbia.
I do think that this is much more complicated than how the
candidates understand it. I think it’s not a matter of how we
label or not label Maduro. The real issue should be what should
be the role of the US. Sanctions are very important.
The other element also is that the US withdrew aid to Central
American countries to give it to Guido and the opposition in
Venezuela. That was not mentioned there, which also reflects
that they are very badly informed on this topic. Finally, there
was no mention of the six million Venezuelans who are abroad,
mostly everywhere in the Americas, trying to start a new life,
just a brief mention of granting TPS for Venezuelans by Julio
Castro. I think that the issue is much more complex than that,
and so it did reflect this very limited view. I think that it’s
a great shortcoming in terms of their foreign policy. They
talked about human rights as a prescription that should be
considered, particularly Elizabeth Warren mentioned it. Then
what does human rights translate into, and how do we consider it
and understand it from all of the topics? They could have
connected that to the US migration policy, and they also failed
to address that in their response.
GREG WILPERT: Yeah. I find it pretty amazing that they didn’t
mention at all the issue of sanctions against Venezuela, which
are absolutely crucial, especially in the context of the people
leaving Venezuela, of course, and the problems, economic
problems that the country has. I’m wondering what do you make of
this, particularly the way these candidates are treating that
particular issue, and does that mean that they’re still wedded
to imperialist politics, as Jackie says?
OSITA NWANEVU: I think that to a large extent the Democratic
Party obviously is. I don’t think that the American people and
Democratic Party specifically have given a lot of thought to the
United States’ history in South and Central America. The record
of intervention is something that you know about it only if
you’re very well read on the left. It’s not something that gets
talked about in the media and its history is part of the reason
why we have this situation in Venezuela now. I don’t think that
there’s a very serious discussion on the Democratic primary
debate stage or within the primary on that particular issue.
Hopefully, Bernie Sanders and the other progressives in the
field raise public awareness of what’s been going on.
I do think that it’s very hard for me to understand why this
comes up as an issue time and time again in these debates when
the only people who I think respond to the kind of
fear-mongering that the moderators are trying to do about
Venezuela and socialism are people who already watch Fox News
and are not Democratic primary voters. I don’t really think that
resonates with anybody. I don’t think that people, for better or
for worse, are very clued into what’s going on in the country at
all. I think there’s an education, there’s the public education
aspect of what needs to go on here as far as Latin American
policy is concerned. Hopefully, this sort of positive energy
we’ve seen on other foreign policy issues eventually migrates
over to that sphere of the world, and people begin taking the
situation not only in Venezuela, but across the litany of states
America has intervened in over the past couple of decades.
Hopefully, people started taking those foreign policy questions
more seriously.
GREG WILPERT: The issue that you raise, of course, of the
socialism is one that came up and that’s a perfect segue to the
next clip that we have, which is particularly Bernie Sanders’s
response to that question, and also an ad that ran for the
Republicans attacking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, where she is
being portrayed as a socialist and being equated with the Khmer
Rouge in Cambodia. Let’s run that clip.
SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: What I believe in terms of democratic
socialism, I agree with what goes on in Canada and in
Scandinavia guaranteeing health care to all people as a human
right. I believe that the United States should not be the only
major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical
leave. I believe that every worker in this country deserves a
living wage and that we expand the trade union movement. I
happen to believe also that what, to me, democratic socialism
means is we deal with an issue we do not discuss enough, Jorge,
not in the media and not in Congress. You got three people in
America owning more wealth than the bottom half of this country.
You’ve got a handful of billionaires controlling what goes on in
Wall Street, the insurance companies, and in the media. Maybe,
just maybe, what we should be doing is creating an—
MODERATOR: Thank you.
SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: Economy that works for all of us, not
one percent. That’s my understanding of democratic socialism.
MODERATOR: Secretary [inaudible], you wanted to—
ELIZABETH HENG, REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN AD: This is the face of
socialism and ignorance. Does Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez know the
horror of socialism? My father was minutes from death in
Cambodia before a forced marriage saved his life. That’s
socialism: forced obedience, starvation. Mine is a face of
freedom. My skin is not white. I’m not outrageous, racist, nor
socialist. I’m a Republican.
GREG WILPERT: We can see here this incredible contrast between
the way the Republicans are portraying socialism, and the way
Bernie Sanders is portraying democratic socialism. Of course,
this is going to be a major issue, one presumes, especially if
Bernie Sanders were to become the candidate. But I imagine that
even if not, we know that Obama was regularly being accused of
being a socialist. Let me turn to you first, Osita. What do you
think? Do you think that this will become like “the” campaign
issue and how can Democrats deal with it?
OSITA NWANEVU: I think that’s going to be an issue even if
Biden’s nominee. The Republicans, this is the button that they
push in every election. The fact that they lost the House in
2018 doesn’t seem to have dissuaded them that this is a
reasonable strategy, but it’s what they’re going to do. It’s the
only trick that they’ve got. I don’t think that it really
resonates with people. People in the country, broadly speaking,
there’ve been numbers or polls showing that socialism has gone
up in public estimation over the past several years. It’s still
kind of underwater compared to when you ask people about
capitalism, but that hasn’t really sunken Bernie Sanders’s
popularity with the American people, broadly speaking. Maybe
they have certain apprehensions about socialism, but he does
just as well as any of the other candidates when you do look at
these head-to-heads against Donald Trump. The election has yet
to happen, obviously, and we don’t know how things would change
in certain ways, but I think if you’re a Republican, you have to
wonder about the extent to which this is actually something that
is going to be effective.
I think it’s important that in the 2016 presidential election,
Trump did not win by calling Hillary Clinton a socialist. In
fact, he adopted a kind of populist rhetoric, he talked about
the fact that the system was rigged, and that certain wealthy
people controlled it. It was really like superficially similar
to what people on the left said, and it resembled left rhetoric
more close and it resembles these attacks on socialism we see
now, the attacks on socialism we heard under Mitt Romney’s
candidacy and John McCain’s candidacy. The one thing that’s
actually won them is turning away from that kind of rhetoric and
they don’t seem to have gotten that. They don’t seem to have
internalized that fact at all. I think it’s going to be a real
point of Republican messaging through the election. I don’t
think it’s going to matter very much, but it is what we can, I
think, pretty reliably expect them to harp on.
GREG WILPERT: Helena, let me just turn to you quickly. What’s
your interpretation of the importance or significance of the
issue of socialism in this particular campaign?
HELENA OLEA: I agree very much with Osita’s point. I think that
he’s quite on point on a number of these issues. I think that it
reflects a great ignorance and I also think that Republicans are
failing to understand how faded in the American public the Cold
War is right now. When you talk to the younger generations that
were not a part of it, they really do not understand what you
are referring to, and I think that this is a big mistake on
their part, and socialism doesn’t scare the American people
anymore. I think that they have to understand that, but they are
so much scared that they produced ads like the one you showed.
It’s very interesting to see them playing with the issue,
portraying a non-white American attractive woman with long hair,
dark hair like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, saying “there is another
face to it,” and playing to these scare-mongering tactics of the
past. I think that it’s in the back of the old Republicans, it’s
not in the mind of the American people anymore.
OSITA NWANEVU: I actually want to jump in at that point because
I think it’s extremely, extremely interesting and important that
the person whose face was burning in that ad was not Bernie
Sanders, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That is no accident. I
think the Republicans have been much friendlier to Sanders over
the past couple of years, even though he is this socialist
candidate who’s actually won millions of votes, than they have
been to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’s just this random
Congresswoman. Why is she the focus of all these Fox News
segments? Why is she the focus of all of this attention online
and not Sanders, who is ostensibly the greater threat to the
country as a socialist?
I think it has to do with the fact, as Helena said, that she is
a non-white person, she’s a woman and, like the other members of
the squad— Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar— these are the things
that Republican voters find threatening. They look at Bernie
Sanders, they understand he’s a socialist, but he also looks
like them and that’s something that doesn’t register the same
fear triggers that putting up a picture of Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez might. I think that’s an extremely important thing
for us to notice and understand. It is not an accident at all
that she is the focal point of all of this anxiety about
socialism, and not the actual socialist candidate for president
who millions of people in this country have already voted for.
GREG WILPERT: Right. Jackie?
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Yeah. There are so many interesting angles to
what Sanders said and the ad. I think what Sanders said is the
perfect counter to the messaging of the evils of the bogeyman
socialism as we’re moving. He moved the discourse from this, as
Helena said, this outdated Cold War kind of rhetoric to, “This
is the answer to our current economic crisis that we are all
facing. And by the way, guess what? Other countries have already
done it, so it can’t be that bad.” The interesting thing about
what Sanders said is that when he mentioned other countries, he
was careful to mention Canada and Scandinavia, but did not
mention Cuba and Venezuela. If you’re looking at Venezuela,
whatever issues you have with Maduro, Venezuela just completed a
housing project where they built three and a half million units
of free and affordable housing for working people.
We have an exploding homelessness crisis in this country and in
California alone. That is a socialist success story to me, but
it’s interesting that that wasn’t mentioned. Cuba routinely
sends the best doctors in the world around the world to respond
to disasters. Why? Because the people don’t go into debt
becoming doctors in Cuba and the government pays for research.
Those are socialist success stories, but just as it is
intentional the way the Republicans used a woman of color to
demonize socialism in their ad, I think Sanders and his team
were very careful to use the same kind of imagery of socialist
success stories as a counter, and not bringing up these kinds of
problematic countries of color where socialism is successful and
working for the people, but the government of this country has
problems with the leaders. I think that’s intentional too, but I
think that again, like we’ve said, the discourse on those issues
around those countries is so surface-level, we may not see it.
We may not understand it’s there, but it’s definitely. I don’t
think his choice of words was accidental either.
GREG WILPERT: Okay. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to leave
it there. We’ve run out of time, but I think this was a very
interesting discussion. This concludes our third segment of the
third Democratic presidential debate. Again, I was joined by
Real News host and producer Jacqueline Luqman, and New Republic
staff writer Osita Nwanevu. And joining us remotely was human
rights lawyer and University of Illinois in Chicago Professor
Helena Olea. Thanks again to all three of you for having joined
us today.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Thank you.
OSITA NWANEVU: Thank you.
HELENA OLEA: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: I’m Greg Wilpert and thank you for joining The
Real News Network.
HTML https://therealnews.com/stories/3rd-democratic-debate-foreign-policy-continues-imperialist-tradition-3-3
#Post#: 13604--------------------------------------------------
Re: 2020 Presidential Election
By: AGelbert Date: September 14, 2019, 8:42 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Bernie Sick of Republican Talking Points Against
Medicare for All[/center]
2,829 views•Published on Sep 13, 2019
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/513dZO7DIxs[/center]
Thom Hartmann Program
171K subscribers
Why are the media and even other Democratic presidential
candidates using Republican talking points against medicare for
all?
Bernie Sanders sets the record straight on medicare for all on
the Thom Hartmann program.
Senator Bernie Sanders, fresh from the TV debate, joined Thom on
the program live today.
What did Joe Biden ask Bernie Sanders? Listen to the answer.
Bernie Sanders has strong views on healthcare and Medicare for
all.
Sanders shared his views on the debate, watch what he has to
say.
[center]📽️ WATCH NEXT: How Bernie Sanders Will
Pay For Medicare For All -
[/center][center]
HTML https://youtu.be/rgumGgBhWLg[/center]
#Post#: 13638--------------------------------------------------
Re: 2020 Presidential Election
By: AGelbert Date: September 17, 2019, 4:45 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]
HTML https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/7Iwt1Obw1A9OF4rmgyl-UYRo4MEJDf68gFtbGNW6JHUtpykjdICNc8oASCFbrYsucF5Fg17XbLG86FfHFO8yE4EkX6gjGVlOvmRAD7s5dGscLlHcisQ_pzhkscbiV_-D4oBdJi6nkSe_a2el9qT1VJhzoNSsAEZvHHg=s0-d-e1-ft#https://gallery.mailchimp.com/d1f5797e59060083034310930/images/2f11cead-050f-4018-bfed-c12fb45691e5.png[/center]
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September 17, 2019
[center]Top candidates (excluding Senator Sanders 👍) to
skip MSNBC climate forum 👎, fifth IL coal plant to
shutter, & more
HTML https://mailchi.mp/be18fbe8333a/top-candidates-to-skip-msnbc-climate-forum-fifth-il-coal-plant-to-shutter-more?e=0fd17c5b57[/center]
#Post#: 13669--------------------------------------------------
Re: 2020 Presidential Election
By: AGelbert Date: September 19, 2019, 10:05 pm
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[center]BLACK BEAR NEWS 9.18.19 Climate change & media[/center]
1,035 views•Published on Sep 18, 2019
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/E_-LHdbeZ_g[/center]
Black Bear News
2.41K subscribers
Sanders to attend latest climate forum while Biden and Warren
pass
HTML https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
Greta Thunberg to Congress: ‘You’re not trying hard enough.
Sorry’
HTML https://www.theguardian.com/environme...
The Incredible Belief That Corporate Ownership Does Not
Influence Media Content
HTML https://www.commondreams.org/views/20...
Friday Gas Strike
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Twitter @BlackBearNews1
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Category People & Blogs
#Post#: 13693--------------------------------------------------
Joe Biden's 'Gaffes' Are Much Bigger Problem for Democrats Than
Embarrassment
By: AGelbert Date: September 22, 2019, 2:36 pm
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[center]Joe Biden's 'Gaffes' Are Much Bigger Problem for
Democrats Than Embarrassment[/center]
8,270 views•Published on Sep 22, 2019
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/_oe4oVZj27A[/center]
The Real News Network
352K subscribers
Joe Biden’s off-the-cuff comments aren’t playing well to
audiences any more. Is this an indication of a too-long
political career finally declining, or is this a sign of a much
bigger problem for the Democratic Party in 2020? Jacqueline
Luqman talks with The Week contributor Ryan Cooper
Subscribe to our page and support our work at
HTML https://therealnews.com/donate.
Category News & Politics
#Post#: 13768--------------------------------------------------
Naomi Klein: Establishment Democrats may RUIN it for Progressive
s causing a Trump win!
By: AGelbert Date: September 26, 2019, 10:45 pm
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[center]No Is Not Enough, How Can We Stop Trump and Take Back
Our Country? - [/center]
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/brBNKktYDPw[/center]
[center][img
width=300]
HTML https://d188rgcu4zozwl.cloudfront.net/content/B07P56CC82/resources/1253588059[/img][/center]
📕 BOOK: On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal
-
HTML http://www.amazon.com/dp/1982129913?t...
➡️Please Subscribe to Our Channel:
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#Post#: 13829--------------------------------------------------
📢 This is our first television ad ✨ of the campai
gn 🧐
By: AGelbert Date: October 1, 2019, 5:50 pm
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[center][img
width=200]
HTML https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/AZeM6CRUZ6wVH0XSVpZLyEMVRMb1PkRHOe6n1Nrc-8VMizI5I_aKWmOAeN46UyGFnvRLf-6w8TkKUuwtg-D6VZEyGs5F_oR3sTSRsTTF=s0-d-e1-ft#https://s3.amazonaws.com/ak-fbs/images/plainbernie-logo.png[/img][/center]
October 1, 2019
Anthony,
Shortly after reporting a record-setting number of individual
donations for any presidential campaign at this point in the
race, we made another important announcement:
[img
width=60]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-210614221847.gif[/img]<br
/>We are ON THE AIR in Iowa.
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-120818185039-1655102.gif
This is our first television ad of the campaign, and we wanted
you to see it immediately. We also need to ask you to do
something very important in helping to make sure others see it
as well.
Watch our new ad "Fights for Us" and share it with your friends
today:
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/BZ5TW07ff2o[/center]
[center]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-111018132400-1685431.gif[/center]
All my best,
Faiz Shakir
HTML https://act.berniesanders.com/go/Fights-for-Us
#Post#: 13844--------------------------------------------------
Sanders has heart stent surgery after chest discomfort
By: AGelbert Date: October 2, 2019, 2:23 pm
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[center]Sanders has heart stent surgery after chest discomfort
[img
width=50]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-311013201604.png[/img][/center]
Source: Politico
Bernie Sanders experienced chest discomfort during a campaign
event on Tuesday and had two stents inserted to address a
blockage in an artery, his campaign announced.
“Sen. Sanders is conversing and in good spirits. He will be
resting up over the next few days," senior adviser Jeff Weaver
said in a statement. "We are canceling his events and
appearances until further notice, and we will continue to
provide appropriate updates.”
Read more:
HTML https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/02/sanders-has-heart-stent-surgery-after-chest-discomfort-000164
I feared this greatly. [img
width=30]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-310119164317.gif[/img]<br
/>Now the 🐘 Repukians and the pseudo-left Democratic Par
ty
Leadership will use this against Senator Sanders to try to
destroy his presidential bid.
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-120818180835-16271224.gif<br
/>
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-210818163124-16681686.gif
I'm sure 🦀 Trump and his 🦕🦖 Hydrocarbon
Hellspawn enablers are all celebrating.
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418193910.gif
[center][img
width=190]
HTML https://media.tenor.com/images/926c7a7fd37a2d72b10bc8e1252980b5/tenor.gif[/img][/center]
[center][img
width=240]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-270718182509.png[/img][/center]
[move][font=courier]The future is looking brighter and brighter,
for Tardigrades.[/font][/move]
[center][img
width=340]
HTML https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/8f/53/a0/8f53a09c9eaa9565e80341dfc9c779b1.jpg[/img][/center]
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