The problem of Corporate Democrats and how to kick them out

[SteveMDFP]

Thanks for the reply, Steve.

First we need to agree on what definition of neoliberalism to follow, and then we can see up to what point specific policies, votes and legislation by various Democrats fit that definition. Along the way we can also discuss whether these various Democrats are not corrupt, but simply believe in the narrative that neoliberal policies are the way to go (which might also be the case for those who maintain there is no such thing as Corporate Democrats, or at least they're not a real problem). Do you agree with the Wikipedia definition I posted?

But to jump ahead, based on your comment, I would think that people like Pelosi, Schumer and Feinstein have always more or less aligned with Clinton and Obama. Do you mean to say there has always been a rift within the Democratic Party (besides the one with more leftist progressives, Berniebros, etc), and Democratic Party leadership is now glad to be rid of the irrelevant Clintons and Obama, so that they can steer away from the neoliberal policies of the past?

And are the Clintons and Obama truly irrelevant? I've heard that Obama personally took care of getting Tom Perez elected as chair of the DNC, because otherwise Keith Ellison would have gotten the position.

Definition?  What you posted is fine.  It's certainly true that "neo-liberal" and "neo-conservative" get tossed around imprecisely.  Clarity in language is important.  But having differing definitions isn't the problem on this forum, I think.  Certainly in other places on the web.  But ASIF is possibly the finest collection of bright minds, even brilliant minds, on the web that I'm aware of.  Which, by the way, is a real tribute to your many, many hours of cultivating this environment.  I'm pretty much in awe of what you've done here--even if a few of your posts drive me to distraction.

". . .  these various Democrats are not corrupt, but simply believe in the narrative that neoliberal policies are the way to go."  I'm certain you can cite a few scattered examples, I've cited the biggest one myself, Obama's TPP scheme.  It's thankfully dead.  Trump's miniscule silver lining.

" Pelosi, Schumer and Feinstein have always more or less aligned with Clinton and Obama."  Serving in congressional leadership effectively *always* requires making compromises in the interests of progress. That typically includes coming to agreement with the Democratic President. But Obama, apart from the awful (failed) trade deals, can't be called a neocon, as far as I can see. 

His overall thrust was progressive.  Perhaps insufficiently so in the minds of some, but pretty consistently in the right direction.  Most of the insufficiency there can be traced directly to having an R-controlled congress for most of his time.  In retrospect, I think we all wish he and the congressional democrats had moved faster in his first two years.  Few expected he'd have only two years to get bills through congress.

Personally, I was very happy that he got health coverage for many of the uninsured--a step that eluded multiple Presidents before him.  And got the economy on a healing track.  He made significant advances in issues of renewable energy, environmental protections, minority rights, women's rights, and consumer rights.  I don't see how his record, overall, supports a "neoliberal" label, quite the opposite.

"And are the Clintons and Obama truly irrelevant? I've heard that Obama personally took care of getting Tom Perez elected as chair of the DNC, because otherwise Keith Ellison would have gotten the position."  Not sure they were important, they might have been.  But this question is really a tempest in a teapot for at least two separate reasons:

First, the DNC doesn't lead the Democratic Party.  At least not on the truly important issues of what legislation gets advanced (or blocked) or what Executive policies get implemented.  That all happens in Congress and the White House, where the DNC has little influence.  No, the DNC serves mostly as a fund-raising organ.  They have some influence on which Democratic nominees get financial support.  But it's not clear, with all the "dark money" sloshing around, that this function is all that critical any more.

Second, it's not like the candidates were a progressive on one side and a neoliberal on the other.  They *both* have excellent progressive credentials.  Ellison, in my eye, would likely have been less successful at the core task of fundraising.  I cite the respective Wikipedia entries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison
"But FiveThirtyEight argued that Perez and Ellison have "essentially identical" ideologies.[49][51][61]"

Whereas Perez has really a much more impressive track record of accomplishments other than being a politician:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Perez
He's had a long track record of solid accomplishments in a wide range of responsibilities.  And he doesn't have the toxic history of being a supporter of Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam (one of Ellison's liabilities).

There's no policy tension between the two, from anything I've read.  They're on the same page, they call each other friends.  The DNC chair contest between them is a non-issue.

[Martin Gisser]

Mr. Gisser wrote:

"I have now heard ad nauseam that Democrat coastal elitists should listen more to the flyover Americans. -- It looks more like those folks can not be reached and prefer to vote against their interests over voting for a librol "libtard". They clutch their bibles and only watch Fox "News" and have neither interest nor mental capacity to engage with the real world outside their bubble - even engage with their own problems.  They prefer suffering over reason. (That lesson could have been learned already from healthcare and gun control debate...) Those folks are essentially unreachable - and that is their fault, not the librols'."

That's a pretty broad brush you're swinging there.

[...]

I have remarked before that very few on this forum know any Trump voters, and fewer yet know any well. Coincidentally, as I was reading Mr Gisser's comment, two of them walked through my door. For convenience, I shall call them Pat and Mike. My computer was using a TV as a screen so they happened to see it.
[...]
[...]

I have a few (but not many) similar friends here in Barvaria. Main difference seems their hands are in better shape (we have serious health insurance incl. paid leave). When we play being formal and shake hands they like to show me that they could break my academic fingers...

"I cain tayl he aihn't frum 'raound heah, nohow"

I had a small NJ town in mind with half a dozen churches along the road.

Pat admitted he had a bible, but in his defense he explained that it was holding up a corner of his coffee table, it was structural, as it were.

Maybe he takes better care of his AR-15.

Whooosh another stroke with my broad brush. Sorry, can't help it.

Now you're in trouble, Martin! 

Haha, possibly. Here in Barvaria it depends on the tribe (Oberbayern, Munich vs. Bavarian Forest) and mostly on the degree of brain damage from alcoholism. Sidd's friends sound sober enough.

-------------
Apropos brain damage. So I had a second look at the NRA after over 20 years of absence. Discovered NRATV. The hate, spin and BS is breathtaking!
Former president ol' Bush canceld his membership in 1995 after hate speech from Wayne LaPierre - and this manure spreader is still merrily at work!

https://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/bushnra.asp

The letter referred to federal law-enforcement agents as “jack-booted government thugs” and said that “in Clinton’s administration, if you have a badge, you have the government’s go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens.”

After decades of bombardment with this shit it is no wonder that the "simple folk" ended up under a president Trump.

So, I retract 33% of my diagnosis.

---------------
Recent events promise there's a movement gaining steam to kick out some Corporate Republicans - the NRA sponsored ones.

---------------
Bonus, this promising thing:
A guy on Facebook has a video https://t.co/rBXTO0NEL2 where he destroys his AR-15. Possibly going viral.


A commenter was quick to point out this is a felony. Weird!


--------------
Now for a Barvarian morning beer, 7am. Not from a can.

[Rob Dekker]

Steve, thank you for being a voice of common sense and rational reason on this fine forum.
I could not find a particular part of your response to quote, since I agree with all of it.

Maybe only on TPP. I don't think there was any 'silver lining' there. I think that the US could have negotiated a deal that assures worker's and human rights in other nations, and Obama was very close to ensuring that under TPP.

In that sense, by discarding the whole thing, Trump failed on that as well.

So let me leave it at that.

[sidd]

Re: "Maybe he takes better care of his AR-15."

mmm, thirty ought six. deer season. Lately he's been doin bow and arrow. I dont think he has put a round thru his rifle except at target one or twice a year lately. Back in the day when he still had a family, his son came up to him one deer season and asked for a gun. The kid was told he could have one (twelve years old at that point) but it was a breakout double barrel shotgun, and he had to carry it unloaded and broken behind his father every time they went hunting.  If he dropped it or got dirt in it or pointed it at anything living, that was it, he was done for the year.  Kid got to go hunting for real few  couple years later, after his dad thought he was safe. And he was.

Actually, most of the gun owners i know support stiffer regulation. Especially insurance. One of them came up with a plan that sounds good to me. Make serious insurance mandatory on firearms and ammo. If you own a shotgun, or a rifle the license costs you about as much as a hunting license, say a few tens of dollars a year. Handgun, lot more. 10 round clip, even more.  No insurance without a gun safe for storage.  I think the NRA could get behind that, they already sell insurance. Proceeds benefit gun victims.

Yes this will require mandatory tracking of gun ownership. So, probably a nonstarter, but there's a lot of money there on the table waiting to be picked up. A few hundred million firearms is at least a couple billion dollars yearly in insurance, i know the insurance companies are salivating at the thought. Get their lobbyists in bed with the NRA and you might get that done.

Any democrat candidates listening ?

sidd

[Rob Dekker]

Yes this will require mandatory tracking of gun ownership. So, probably a nonstarter, but there's a lot of money there on the table waiting to be picked up. A few hundred million firearms is at least a couple billion dollars yearly in insurance, i know the insurance companies are salivating at the thought. Get their lobbyists in bed with the NRA and you might get that done.
sidd

Sidd, I think you are missing the point.
This is not about money.
This is about lives.
In Japan, or the Netherlands, or ANY other civilized country there are no school shootings.
Listen to this speech, posted by Martin, in a different thread :

[Martin Gisser]

In Japan, or the Netherlands, or ANY other civilized country there are no school shootings.

Actually we had our share here in Germany. Wikipedia lists 6 (starting 1913), and I recall one more ca. 2000 (Brannenburg). Maybe 2 were serious massacres, but not with an AR-15 style rifle. But let's not bicker about that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:School_shootings_in_Germany

[Susan Anderson]

I'm trying to extricate myself from this discussion (and Russiagate and Trump presidency) because I feel my time is better spent supporting the resistance elsewhere. But I am seriously bothered by Neven's absolute conviction that most Democrats support neoliberalism. I can only repeat, and I know I won't be believed, that:

Almost all Democrats are not neoliberals. Reagan was the original model of a modern neoliberal, and the Republican party has embraced it wholesale. What Democrats are now is a minority, which is being blamed for what the majority is doing.

That's why I suggested we talk about neoliberalism and whether or not it has been supported on the policy front by the Democratic Party since the Clinton era, or perhaps even earlier than that. And as I said the definition of neoliberalism has changed over the years, and the meaning of it is less clearly defined in the US, or more ambiguous, than elsewhere.

So, first we need to define what we mean by neoliberalism (I posted the Wikipedia entry) and then how much that definition can be applied to the Democratic Party in its presentation and voting/legislative record.

Please, don't get upset so easily. The war isn't won or lost here.

"upset" ... Well, I'm sorry, nothing I can say about that that doesn't sound defensive, but here goes. Mostly, my decision is about wishing to stop using my energy arguing with a relatively small number of people who appear to have made up their minds. Yes, sometimes if it's late at night or I've had a couple beers. [Telling women they're emotional is also an argument that changes the subject. Sometimes so, sometimes not.]

I still work hard to make what I am trying to say clear and correct myself when I am persuaded I am wrong.  What does bother ("upset") me is when people ignore almost all of what I wrote and take part of it out of context. That's not a response, it's misdirection, and it's all too familiar from my extensive experience with science denial. I make no apology for being appalled to see the all-too-common echoes of Republican opposition work and foreign trolling that blames the Democratic minority for not making the laws and running things. Blaming is easy; fixing things is hard. My capital (emotional, active, and financial) will be better spent elsewhere than in trying to provide another perspective here.

This is part of what I've been trying to get at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-the-idea-that-changed-the-world:

Over the past few years, as debates have turned uglier, the word has become a rhetorical weapon, a way for anyone left of centre to incriminate those even an inch to their right. (No wonder centrists say it’s a meaningless insult: they’re the ones most meaningfully insulted by it.) But “neoliberalism” is more than a gratifyingly righteous jibe. It is also, in its way, a pair of eyeglasses.

I repeat, I and my friends and the people I support are still liberals, and smashing "liberals" as neoliberals is unacceptable to me. For most of my life, I was condemned as a liberal by people you would have no hesitation calling neoliberals: the supporters and enablers of tax cuts for the rich, going back to the 19th century (or at least before the "Great Society" (improbably, the personally awful Lyndon Johnson's work), kleptocrats with their trickle[deluge]-up disguised as trickle-down.

I respect you, but on US politics I see a single-minded (not wrong, mind you, money in politics is the devil, and income equality too) view that seems to ignore an awful lot of reality. I am daily besieged and battered by the news of ongoing damage here in the US (sorry that sounds emotional, but I'm trying to convey what it's like to live here with our current nauseating government).

I don't mean to belittle the harm the US does and has done abroad. If anything I think "foreigners" are largely better educated and more sensible than my compatriots. Choosing to claim that my assertion that our daily exposure is different from what people abroad see is insulting is another kind of false argument: it's the simple truth, and would be true if I made claims about your country based on limited access and various sources that may or may not be pushing an agenda of one kind or another.

Eisenhower was eloquent and right about the military industrial complex, but he was complicit in violence against the working class.

re Wikipedia neoliberalism, I quoted it not long ago. The first paragraph is accurate. I see there's more and I promise to read it, but for the reasons listed in the rest of this communication, I don't want to spent time and energy relitigating here or on the Russiagate and Trump Presidency items. I do, however, promise to read and respect any response you make.

Neoliberalism or neo-liberalism[1] refers primarily to the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. Such ideas include economic liberalization policies such as privatization, austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society. These market-based ideas and the policies they inspired constitute a paradigm shift away from the post-war Keynesian consensus which lasted from 1945 to 1980.

PS. Hayek was for universal health care and a guaranteed minimum income. This is too long so I won't provide the quotes, but they're in his Wikipedia item. Go figure!

[sidd]

Kucinich on the warpath: no more oil or gas or frack waste burial in Ohio:

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/dennis-kucinich-vows-to-end-all-oil-and-gas-drilling-in-ohio-if-elected-governor-and-then-take-the-industry-to-court/

He's running for governor, Cordray is also in the race. Will be interesting.

sidd

[Neven]

Susan, thanks for that background article on Hayek. I enjoyed the read.

Steve, now that we've agreed on what neoliberalism means, I will try in the coming week to find out up to what point the Democratic Party has supported neoliberal policies, economic and otherwise. Again, I believe they have, simply by looking at the current situation (either they tag-teamed with Republicans, or they failed miserably in stopping them).

I also fail to understand why the Democratic Party effectively shuns Bernie Sanders, as working together with the most popular US politician with the most popular ideas, would mean the Democratic Party crushes the GOP and wins back all those seats it has lost under Pelosi. Given that Sanders isn't that far out to the left of the political spectrum, and as you all keep saying, the Democratic Party is liberal, the divide shouldn't be all that great. So, what's going on there?

[Rob Dekker]

Steve, now that we've agreed on what neoliberalism means, I will try in the coming week to find out up to what point the Democratic Party has supported neoliberal policies, economic and otherwise.

I don't understand, Neven.
First you stated that Pelosi and other Democrats "eat their young", but now it seems you still have to find evidence for any of that.
If you still have to gather evidence, what made you form your opinion in the first place ?

I also fail to understand why the Democratic Party effectively shuns Bernie Sanders,....

OK. Full stop right there.
What made you think that "the Democratic Party effectively shuns Bernie Sanders" ?
Was there a newspaper article or so ?
You know, which EVIDENCE did you use to conclude a sentence like that ?

[Neven]

I don't understand, Neven.
First you stated that Pelosi and other Democrats "eat their young", but now it seems you still have to find evidence for any of that.
If you still have to gather evidence, what made you form your opinion in the first place ?

Because I look at the current situation, I look at the system, I've seen the hollow and shallow talk by the Clintons, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein, Booker, etc and so on, but most of all, because of analysts/historians I highly respect, who have been saying it for years (that both parties in the US serve the interests of concentrated wealth through neoliberal policies). You know, people like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Chris Hedges, Thomas Frank, Bill McKibben, Richard Heinberg, but also less known bloggers like John Michael Greer, George Mobus, Howard Kunstler, etc. I've been reading/watching that stuff for years and years, as I have almost zero confidence in mainstream media (threw out my TV ten years ago).

If I have to gather evidence, it's to convince you, and Steve and Susan and anyone who is willing to listen, that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Democratic Party and that this is the biggest hurdle to be overcome if first steps towards meaningful change can be made. Some of those mentioned analysts/historians say that the Democratic Party's job is to make sure no true left emerges, while the GOP wreaks havoc.

Apparently the opinions of all these people don't mean much to you, as you guys keep repeating the same establishment mantra, and then ask for evidence (look at the legislative/voting record). And so that's what I'm going to try and do.

Mind you, at the very least the Democratic Party has failed to take a stand against the hypocrite maniacs of the GOP (Sanders shows how that can be done). In the worst case it has actually aided to build this system by pushing neoliberal policies itself, getting things done the GOP can't.

Either way, I'm of the opinion that all of the party leadership needs to be replaced, and a strong signal has to be sent out that the Democratic Party has to become the party of the people again, and not the party of Wall Street, Hollywood and identity politics. If only for the fact that we can't afford to continue like this. If the Democratic Party hasn't been pushing neoliberal policies for the last 30 years, sacrificing workers on the altar, if there is no such thing as Corporate Democrats, if this is the best they can do, and we simply must support them unquestioningly (which is what Rob, Steve, Susan and others have been adamant about ever since this thread was started), there is no hope whatsoever for the future.

I don't have much time, so give me some time to present a convincing case. If there is one, of course. All those smart people can't be totally wrong, can they?

OK. Full stop right there.
What made you think that "the Democratic Party effectively shuns Bernie Sanders" ?
Was there a newspaper article or so ?
You know, which EVIDENCE did you use to conclude a sentence like that ?

Well, we showed you what has recently happened at the DNC, where a substantial group of people who had openly supported Bernie Sanders, was kicked out and partly replaced by lobbyists and consultants. You acknowledged that. We can discuss (for the nth time) whether it has swayed the primary results, but it's clear the DNC was far from impartial.

Here's an article that was posted a few weeks ago about how the DCCC is unwilling to support and endorse candidates that are too much to the left, even if they have good chances of winning elections.

In his farewell address, President Barack Obama had some practical advice for those frustrated by his successor. “If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself,” Obama implored.

Yet across the country, the DCCC, its allied groups, or leaders within the Democratic Party are working hard against some of these new candidates for Congress, publicly backing their more established opponents, according to interviews with more than 50 candidates, party operatives, and members of Congress. Winning the support of Washington heavyweights, including the DCCC — implicit or explicit — is critical for endorsements back home and a boost to fundraising. In general, it can give a candidate a tremendous advantage over opponents in a Democratic primary.

"Prioritizing fundraising, as Democratic Party officials do, has a feedback effect that creates lawmakers who are further and further removed from the people they are elected to represent."

In district after district, the national party is throwing its weight behind candidates who are out of step with the national mood. The DCCC — known as “the D-trip” in Washington — has officially named 18 candidates as part of its “Red to Blue” program. (A D-trip spokesperson cautioned that a red-to-blue designation is not an official endorsement, but functions that way in practice. Program designees get exclusive financial and strategy resources from the party.) In many of those districts, there is at least one progressive challenger the party is working to elbow aside, some more viable than others. Outside of those 18, the party is coalescing in less formal ways around a chosen candidate — such as in the case of Pennsylvania’s Hartman — even if the DCCC itself is not publicly endorsing.

Let me turn the question around: Where have you seen that the Democratic Party has embraced Bernie Sanders and declared that his platform is the way to go forward for the party? Just recently, for instance, Pelosi and Schumer refused to support Sanders' single-payer health-care-reform bill.

[sidd]

DiFi race getting crowded. If her competitors split the vote that's good for DiFi.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/20/alison-hartson-kevin-de-leon-dianne-feinstein-california-senate/

sidd

[Rob Dekker]

Let me turn the question around: Where have you seen that the Democratic Party has embraced Bernie Sanders and declared that his platform is the way to go forward for the party?

I got that from Bernie Sanders himself :

"Democrats Adopt Most Progressive Platform in Party History"

https://berniesanders.com/democrats-adopt-progressive-platform-party-history/

[Neven]

Let me turn the question around: Where have you seen that the Democratic Party has embraced Bernie Sanders and declared that his platform is the way to go forward for the party?

I got that from Bernie Sanders himself :

"Democrats Adopt Most Progressive Platform in Party History"

https://berniesanders.com/democrats-adopt-progressive-platform-party-history/

Nowhere in that piece do I see Bernie Sanders say that the Democratic Party has embraced him. Furthermore, the context in which to place this article - published just before Sanders conceded to Clinton, in July 2016 - is actually Sanders trying to push Clinton and the Democratic Party further left towards the people's needs, and away from the usual neoliberal economic policies.

In fact, it is about the adoption of amendments on the 'Democratic Party platform writers meeting' which will be 'submitted at the Democratic National Convention later this month'. Things like these:

The initial document already included commitments to abolish the death penalty, break up too-big-to-fail financial institutions, establish a modern Glass-Steagall Act, end corporate tax loopholes, ban private prisons and expand Social Security.

Tell me, Rob, has the Democratic Party already adopted these amendments in their platform to appeal to voters? When do you think they'll do that?

And then the article ends with:

“While we have made great progress in the Democratic platform advancing the issues that have inspired millions of Americans in this campaign, the fight is just beginning,” Sanders said.

“If we are going to transform America and create a government which works for all and not just the 1 percent we need to elect candidates who will fight for these principles. We need to elect a Democratic Congress and president and make certain that the language in the Democratic platform is translated into law. We must ensure that progress for working families in America does not end on the pages of the Democratic platform but becomes reality,” Sanders said.

How I read that, he is referring to the Obama administration.

As for the 'candidates who will fight for these principles', the article I posted yesterday presents evidence that the DCCC is everything it can to shut out such candidates. And as we've seen, the DNC got rid of a bunch of long-serving folks who made the mistake of supporting Bernie Sanders, and partly replaced them with lobbyists and consultants.

I think you can do better, Rob, and I would ask you to, but I prefer to focus now on the question whether the Democratic Party has largely been pushing neoliberal policies for the last 30 years, or not.

[Neven]

DiFi race getting crowded. If her competitors split the vote that's good for DiFi.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/20/alison-hartson-kevin-de-leon-dianne-feinstein-california-senate/

sidd

What I've seen of Alison Hartson so far, looks quite powerful. She also has a good cv.

Here she is on The Young Turks:



Rob, you're in California, right? Would you consider voting for someone like Hartson, or someone else opposing Feinstein?

[Rob Dekker]

Let me turn the question around: Where have you seen that the Democratic Party has embraced Bernie Sanders and declared that his platform is the way to go forward for the party?

I got that from Bernie Sanders himself :

"Democrats Adopt Most Progressive Platform in Party History"

https://berniesanders.com/democrats-adopt-progressive-platform-party-history/

Nowhere in that piece do I see Bernie Sanders say that the Democratic Party has embraced him. Furthermore, the context in which to place this article - published just before Sanders conceded to Clinton, in July 2016 - is actually Sanders trying to push Clinton and the Democratic Party further left towards the people's needs, and away from the usual neoliberal economic policies.

In fact, it is about the adoption of amendments on the 'Democratic Party platform writers meeting' which will be 'submitted at the Democratic National Convention later this month'.

Negotiations are a combination of Sanders 'pushing' Democratic party and the Democratic party 'embracing' Sanders. Either way both parties were happy with the outcome :

https://ballotpedia.org/The_Democratic_Party_Platform_and_DNC_Platform_Committees,_2016

We got 80% of what we wanted in this platform,” said Warren Gunnels, a foreign policy adviser to Sanders.[30]

When Sanders endorsed Clinton on July 12, 2016, he personally indicated his approval of the platform, saying, "I am happy to tell you that at the Democratic Platform Committee which ended Sunday night in Orlando, there was a significant coming together between the two campaigns and we produced, by far, the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party.

And regarding this :

Tell me, Rob, has the Democratic Party already adopted these amendments in their platform to appeal to voters? When do you think they'll do that?

The 2016 Democratic Party platform was approved by voice vote at the national convention on July 25, 2016.
----
The official link to the convention document of the Democratic Party Platform 2016 does not seem to work :
https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Democratic-Party-Platform-7.21.16-no-lines.pdf
But here it is from another link :
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/papers_pdf/117717.pdf

You will see almost all of the Bernie Sanders campaign issues addressed in this document, and sometimes even his statements (like "Our goal must be to create a financial system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires.").

This Platform was so much progressive, that some argue Clinton lost the elections because the Democratic Party had moved too far to the left.

[Rob Dekker]

Rob, you're in California, right? Would you consider voting for someone like Hartson, or someone else opposing Feinstein?

I don't know enough about Hartson yet to give you an answer.
But what I DO know is that in this piece by TYT they discuss two issues :
- The Trump tax scam, and
- The Net Neutrality issue.
I'd like to note that Hartson and Feinstein are on the same side of the issue.
For example :
https://twitter.com/senfeinstein/status/913145668646182912
https://twitter.com/senfeinstein/status/940314410115108864?lang=en

If Hartson cannot identify several issues where she differs from Feinstein's opinion, and where her opinion is better for Californians than Feinstein's opinion, she won't get elected [edit] or if she would get elected it would be for the wrong reasons.

Which brings us back to evidence-based reasoning and the voting record. Please provide some evidence of Feinstein's voting record that she is clearly a 'corporate' Democrat and votes against the people.

[SteveMDFP]

I don't understand, Neven.
First you stated that Pelosi and other Democrats "eat their young", but now it seems you still have to find evidence for any of that.
If you still have to gather evidence, what made you form your opinion in the first place ?

Because I look at the current situation, I look at the system, I've seen the hollow and shallow talk by the Clintons, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein, Booker, etc and so on,

I can't imagine any less useful source of information about *any* politician than what they they say in front of a microphone.  Watch what they do, not what they say.  Left, right, or center.  Isolated clips, in particular, are easy to cut and spin in the interest of propaganda, rather than serious inquiry and analysis.

but most of all, because of analysts/historians I highly respect, who have been saying it for years (that both parties in the US serve the interests of concentrated wealth through neoliberal policies). You know, people like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Chris Hedges, Thomas Frank, Bill McKibben, Richard Heinberg, but also less known bloggers like John Michael Greer, George Mobus, Howard Kunstler, etc. I've been reading/watching that stuff for years and years, as I have almost zero confidence in mainstream media (threw out my TV ten years ago).

This seems like an "appeal to authority" in the context of a discussion forum.  Saying, "this is so because Chomsky says so" is entirely like a denier saying "the world isn't warming, because Judith Curry says so."  Present the argument and an analysis, not an authority.

If I have to gather evidence, it's to convince you, and Steve and Susan and anyone who is willing to listen, that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Democratic Party and that this is the biggest hurdle to be overcome if first steps towards meaningful change can be made. Some of those mentioned analysts/historians say that the Democratic Party's job is to make sure no true left emerges, while the GOP wreaks havoc.

Apparently the opinions of all these people don't mean much to you, as you guys keep repeating the same establishment mantra, and then ask for evidence (look at the legislative/voting record). And so that's what I'm going to try and do.

In a serious discussion forum, genuine analysis, backed by evidence, is why we're here.  Unexamined assumptions and perceptions get challenged here all the time.  Yes, if you think you know what's wrong with the Democrats, by all means describe it, analyze the data, and cite evidence.

Mind you, at the very least the Democratic Party has failed to take a stand against the hypocrite maniacs of the GOP (Sanders shows how that can be done). In the worst case it has actually aided to build this system by pushing neoliberal policies itself, getting things done the GOP can't.

I don't see this at all.  The Democrats haven't supported neoliberalism since Bill Clinton was in office.  You should provide some evidence.  My perception is that Democrats have been taking stands against the GOP since forever.  They do make some compromises in the interest of getting important legislation passed.  That's the nature of the legislative process.

Either way, I'm of the opinion that all of the party leadership needs to be replaced, and a strong signal has to be sent out that the Democratic Party has to become the party of the people again, and not the party of Wall Street, Hollywood and identity politics. If only for the fact that we can't afford to continue like this. If the Democratic Party hasn't been pushing neoliberal policies for the last 30 years, sacrificing workers on the altar, if there is no such thing as Corporate Democrats, if this is the best they can do, and we simply must support them unquestioningly (which is what Rob, Steve, Susan and others have been adamant about ever since this thread was started), there is no hope whatsoever for the future.

Inaccurate.  I don't support anyone unquestioningly.  I don't know any intelligent person who does.  But I think a serious analysis of the political system and current realities leads to different conclusions than the ones you've drawn.

I don't have much time, so give me some time to present a convincing case. If there is one, of course. All those smart people can't be totally wrong, can they?

OK. Full stop right there.
What made you think that "the Democratic Party effectively shuns Bernie Sanders" ?
Was there a newspaper article or so ?
You know, which EVIDENCE did you use to conclude a sentence like that ?

Well, we showed you what has recently happened at the DNC, where a substantial group of people who had openly supported Bernie Sanders, was kicked out and partly replaced by lobbyists and consultants. You acknowledged that. We can discuss (for the nth time) whether it has swayed the primary results, but it's clear the DNC was far from impartial.

Here's an article that was posted a few weeks ago about how the DCCC is unwilling to support and endorse candidates that are too much to the left, even if they have good chances of winning elections.

Looked at both sides of the arguments in these cases?  A less-progressive Democrat winning a primary is a net good if the alternative is the more progressive Democrat losing in the general election to a Republican.  Assessing candidates' likelihood of winning, and thus where support can be best deployed, is a very complicated task.  I'm sure the DNC has made errors here, I'm not sure they've made inexcusable errors. 

In his farewell address, President Barack Obama had some practical advice for those frustrated by his successor. “If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself,” Obama implored.

Yet across the country, the DCCC, its allied groups, or leaders within the Democratic Party are working hard against some of these new candidates for Congress, publicly backing their more established opponents, according to interviews with more than 50 candidates, party operatives, and members of Congress. Winning the support of Washington heavyweights, including the DCCC — implicit or explicit — is critical for endorsements back home and a boost to fundraising. In general, it can give a candidate a tremendous advantage over opponents in a Democratic primary.

"Prioritizing fundraising, as Democratic Party officials do, has a feedback effect that creates lawmakers who are further and further removed from the people they are elected to represent."

In district after district, the national party is throwing its weight behind candidates who are out of step with the national mood. The DCCC — known as “the D-trip” in Washington — has officially named 18 candidates as part of its “Red to Blue” program. (A D-trip spokesperson cautioned that a red-to-blue designation is not an official endorsement, but functions that way in practice. Program designees get exclusive financial and strategy resources from the party.) In many of those districts, there is at least one progressive challenger the party is working to elbow aside, some more viable than others. Outside of those 18, the party is coalescing in less formal ways around a chosen candidate — such as in the case of Pennsylvania’s Hartman — even if the DCCC itself is not publicly endorsing.

Let me turn the question around: Where have you seen that the Democratic Party has embraced Bernie Sanders and declared that his platform is the way to go forward for the party? Just recently, for instance, Pelosi and Schumer refused to support Sanders' single-payer health-care-reform bill.

If you mean they declined to try to bring his bill to the floor, they absolutely did the right thing.  For congressional leaders to bring a bill forward, knowing that it can't be enacted in the current environment, they do the cause great harm.  Pelosi's clear that she *likes* single payer, she just thinks such a bill can't be made law right now, and I think she's right.

Bring a great bill forward, which appeals to the true-blue base, watch it get defeated, and your base gets demoralized, and the opposition gets invigorated.  It's a dumb thing to try.

[sidd]

First, here is DiFi's greatest hit in my book: Torture Report
(actually that's kinda like Mueller's greatest hit in my book: pulling FBI out of torture)

But, as I posted before i have reasons to distrust DiFi. e.g

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1937.msg132656/topicseen.html#msg132656

sidd

[Rob Dekker]

First, here is DiFi's greatest hit in my book: Torture Report
(actually that's kinda like Mueller's greatest hit in my book: pulling FBI out of torture)

But, as I posted before i have reasons to distrust DiFi. e.g

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1937.msg132656/topicseen.html#msg132656

sidd

We already discussed point a) in your post, which revealed that Pelosi did NOT take impeachment off the table.
Now you are bringing up point b), against Dianne Feinstein, and you call it the "greatest hit in my book: Torture Report".

But if you check your link to that point b) :

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664_pf.html

you will find only ONE mention of Dianne Feinstein and that is in this context :

In May 2007, four months after Democrats regained control of Congress and well after the CIA had forsworn further waterboarding, four senators submitted written objections to the CIA's use of that tactic and other, still unspecified "enhanced" techniques in two classified letters to Hayden last spring, shortly after receiving a classified hearing on the topic. One letter was sent on May 1 by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). A similar letter was sent May 10 by a bipartisan group of three senators: Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Which suggests that Dianne Feinstein was one of the few senators that actually sent a letter with written objections to the CIA's use of waterboarding.

So what's your problem with Dianne Feinstein again ?

[aperson]

Dianne Feinstein is only as progressive as her voting bloc requires her to be. One common litmus test for dems is to step back to when the Overton window was in a different place and see what their colors were. For Feinstein for example, she was glad to court dixiecrats. See: http://sfbayview.com/2015/08/1984-confederate-flag-of-slavery-taken-down-from-san-francisco-civic-center-3-times/

"At the time, Feinstein, who was in the running for the Democratic vice presidential nomination, was seeking to curry favor with the Dixiecrats, who would be arriving in town three months later for the Democratic National Convention. She had the flag put back up – a racist provocation that came one day after the outrageous acquittal of a KKK-Nazi death squad who had gunned down five leftists, civil rights activists and union organizers in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1979. Bradley and the SL responded by going right back and tearing the new flag to pieces, just hours after Feinstein had hoisted it."

I recommend this strategy for evaluating dems rather than trudging through the realpolitik of determining which of their legislative votes were sincere and which were kayfabe to improve polling numbers. Although we can get into the gritty details of her legislative record in this regard if you really want to dive deep.

[Martin Gisser]

http://sfbayview.com/2015/08/1984-confederate-flag-of-slavery-taken-down-from-san-francisco-civic-center-3-times/

"At the time, Feinstein, who was in the running for the Democratic vice presidential nomination, was seeking to curry favor with the Dixiecrats, who would be arriving in town three months later for the Democratic National Convention. She had the flag put back up – a racist provocation that came one day after the outrageous acquittal of a KKK-Nazi death squad who had gunned down five leftists, civil rights activists and union organizers in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1979. Bradley and the SL responded by going right back and tearing the new flag to pieces, just hours after Feinstein had hoisted it."

This is bullshit, pure and simple.
Origin of smear:  International Communist League 2015
http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1071/sf1984.html
Missing context: The flag was part of an exhibition of historical flags initiated by some businessman in 1964
https://www.sfchronicle.com/oursf/article/When-a-Confederate-battle-flag-flew-in-front-of-11956809.php

Why is it always me German who smells the shit and does the google klickeklacke?

[sidd]

Apparently, I was not clear enuf. Let me spell it out again:

In my opinion, "DiFi's greatest hit" was releasing the torture report. Of course she should be excoriated for going along with torture in the first place, but I do give her credit for releasing the report.

sidd

[SteveMDFP]

The relationship between campaign contributions and influence in Congress isn't obvious or straightforward.  Though gun control is itself off-topic, the subject of how a particular group wields power and influence in Congress is an instructive example:

The NRA is a powerful political force — but not because of its money
Liberals say Congress can’t pass gun control because it's bought by the NRA. They’re wrong.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/5/16430684/nra-congress-money-no

[Neven]

Tell me, Rob, has the Democratic Party already adopted these amendments in their platform to appeal to voters? When do you think they'll do that?

The 2016 Democratic Party platform was approved by voice vote at the national convention on July 25, 2016.
----
The official link to the convention document of the Democratic Party Platform 2016 does not seem to work :
https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Democratic-Party-Platform-7.21.16-no-lines.pdf
But here it is from another link :
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/papers_pdf/117717.pdf

You will see almost all of the Bernie Sanders campaign issues addressed in this document, and sometimes even his statements (like "Our goal must be to create a financial system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires.").

This Platform was so much progressive, that some argue Clinton lost the elections because the Democratic Party had moved too far to the left.

Yes, that was all in 2016, during election time. It's 2018 now, Rob. Where is the Democratic Party  embracing Sanders and his ideas? We'll wait...

[aperson]

http://sfbayview.com/2015/08/1984-confederate-flag-of-slavery-taken-down-from-san-francisco-civic-center-3-times/

"At the time, Feinstein, who was in the running for the Democratic vice presidential nomination, was seeking to curry favor with the Dixiecrats, who would be arriving in town three months later for the Democratic National Convention. She had the flag put back up – a racist provocation that came one day after the outrageous acquittal of a KKK-Nazi death squad who had gunned down five leftists, civil rights activists and union organizers in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1979. Bradley and the SL responded by going right back and tearing the new flag to pieces, just hours after Feinstein had hoisted it."

This is bullshit, pure and simple.
Origin of smear:  International Communist League 2015
http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1071/sf1984.html
Missing context: The flag was part of an exhibition of historical flags initiated by some businessman in 1964
https://www.sfchronicle.com/oursf/article/When-a-Confederate-battle-flag-flew-in-front-of-11956809.php

Why is it always me German who smells the shit and does the google klickeklacke?

Probably because you don't actually understand American politics and the racist history of claiming that racist symbols are historical artifacts instead of symbols of hate. What, do you think the Confederate monuments that started appearing everywhere after Plessy vs. Ferguson are historical monuments too? In America we don't have anything like Strafgesetzbuch section 86a, so we have to keep dealing with phony recontextualizations of these symbols as they keep appearing to oppress minorities.

The second article you provided even includes:

"But for several months in 1964, the Confederate battle flag was raised every day in front of San Francisco City Hall. And when African American leaders protested, city leaders sided with the backers of the Civil War-era symbol — ordering it replaced after it was cut down during a protest rally."

Would you like to go through the shaky Civil Rights history of a lot of current democrats like Feinstein, Biden, and Hillary Clinton? Do you not understand how Republican and Democrat parties shifted on civil rights when the Reagan-era Southern Strategy was started? I get the impression that you'd be in for a surprise.

[SteveMDFP]

Yes, that was all in 2016, during election time. It's 2018 now, Rob. Where is the Democratic Party  embracing Sanders and his ideas? We'll wait...

Sanders and the other congressional democrats generally vote the same way.  What more could a legislator expect?

Outside of Congress, remember that Sanders is not a Democrat. 

All in all, there's about as much embracing as any reasonable person might expect.

[aperson]

Yes, that was all in 2016, during election time. It's 2018 now, Rob. Where is the Democratic Party  embracing Sanders and his ideas? We'll wait...

Sanders and the other congressional democrats generally vote the same way.  What more could a legislator expect?

Outside of Congress, remember that Sanders is not a Democrat. 

All in all, there's about as much embracing as any reasonable person might expect.

One of the last major votes was a budget resolution that passed the senate and then the house. While the democrats had leverage on a government shutdown both from Rand Paul in the senate and the House Freedom Caucus in the house, democrats opted not to force a government shutdown to secure the rights of dreamers. Pelosi gladly used her speakership power to pseudo-filibuster in the house for 8 hours, but she didn't use her authority as whip to actually corral democrats into voting for one of their party planks -- safety for dreamers.

The cloture vote in the senate (not the budget resolution vote itself, that is purely theater), and the budget vote in the house will easily show you where democrats fractured on this issue. I will note that Sanders and quality democrats like Warren, Ellison, and McGovern voted no. I think it's ridiculous to claim that democrats generally vote the same way when we look at the records of representatives like Manchin, Doug Jones, and many others on these issues.

And this is the problem with many democrats, they only look at ephemeral polling numbers instead of having any sort of actual moral bulwark behind their decisions.


I'll note that the subsequent dream act 4-bill vote was an absolute failure, to the surprise of no one, and now democrat legislators and pundits are silent on the issue of the future of dreamers as the clock runs out for them to not have the fear of deportation over their head every day.


Edit: I'll also note that the votes in the house are much more damning than the votes in the senate, because the correct realpolitik strategy was to push the vote to the house and force a shutdown there between dem and HFC no votes. It would have put Ryan in a spot where the only path forward was a bipartisan deal that included stuff like both wall funding and amnesty for dreamers.

I'll also use this to stress that looking at voting records in a vacuum without considering the larger political process behind a bill is a very poor way to evaluate legislators.

[Neven]

Which brings us back to evidence-based reasoning and the voting record. Please provide some evidence of Feinstein's voting record that she is clearly a 'corporate' Democrat and votes against the people.

Sure, let's do it. Here are some quotes from articles about Feinstein (that give me an idea what to look for):

LA Times

The state has clearly moved to the left in the ensuing decades. And while on some issues, Feinstein has embraced the new progressivism, she can’t be said to have led the way on such signature liberal causes as universal healthcare, the $15 minimum wage, campaign finance reform, tuition-free higher education, battling climate change or reining in Wall Street.

Paste Magazine

Look up her record. She scoffs at single-payer. She voted to confirm nine of Trump’s squad of rapacious plunderers. Feinstein supports capital punishment, and has been a long-time encourager of the drug war. In 2006, she publicly backed a cynical and shabby amendment to ban flag “desecration,” which the Seattle Times described as an “interesting word, given its connotations of religious devotion.”

She consistently supports the most draconian DRM tech protections—that means the heavy hand of IP lawyers on the Internet, on cable and satellite channels. And then there’s her affection for National Security.

Here are snippets from Wikipedia that IMO don't look all that great for a Democrat:

- On October 1, 2008, Feinstein voted in favor of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.

- Feinstein is a supporter of capital punishment.

- Iraq war
Feinstein supported the Iraq war resolution in the vote of October 11, 2002; she has claimed that she was misled by President Bush on the reasons for going to war. However, former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter has stated that Feinstein in summer 2002 acknowledged to him that she knew the Bush administration had not provided any convincing intelligence to back up its claims about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

In February 2007, Feinstein warned Republicans not to block consideration of a measure opposing President Bush's troop increase in Iraq, saying it would be a "terrible mistake" to prevent debate on the top issue in America.

In May 2007, Feinstein voted for an Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill, which continued to fund the Iraq occupation without a firm timetable for withdrawal. The Senator said, "I am deeply disappointed that this bill fails to hold the President accountable for his Administration's flawed Iraq War policy. The American people have made their voices clear that there must be an exit strategy for Iraq. Yet this President continues to stubbornly adhere to more of the same."

- Free speech
She was the main Democratic sponsor of the failed 2006 constitutional Flag Desecration Amendment.

In 2007, Feinstein was asked in a Fox News interview whether she would revive the Fairness Doctrine, and she replied that she was looking at it.

In 2010, Feinstein voted in favor of unilateral US censorship of the Internet by voting in favor of COICA. Also in 2010, Feinstein said in reference to Cablegate, "Whoever released this information should be punished severely."

In 2013, Feinstein called for the immediate extradition and arrest of Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked information about the PRISM surveillance program.

- Health care
In an April 2017 town hall meeting in San Francisco, Feinstein stated that "If single-payer health care is going to mean the complete takeover by the government of all health care, I am not there."

edit Neven: It's impossible that she doesn't knows that this is not what single-payer health care means. 

-Intelligence programs and NSA programs
After the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures involving operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), Feinstein took measures to continue the collection programs. Foreign Policy wrote that she had a "reputation as a staunch defender of NSA practices and the White House's refusal to stand by collection activities targeting foreign leaders".In November 2013, she promoted the Fisa Improvements Act bill, which included a "backdoor search provision" that allows intelligence agencies to continue certain warrantless searches as long as they are logged and "available for review" to various agencies.

In June 2013, Feinstein labeled Edward Snowden a traitor after his leaks went public. In October of that year, Feinstein stated that she stood by her labeling.

-Wiretapping
In August 2007, Feinstein joined Republicans in the Senate in voting to modify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by narrowing the scope of its protections to sharply alter the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor phone calls and email messages of American citizens. Feinstein voted to give the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve international surveillance of the communications of Americans entirely within the executive branch, rather than through the special intelligence court established by FISA. Many privacy advocates have decried this law and Senator Feinstein's vote in favor of it. In February 2008, Feinstein joined Republicans in the Senate in voting against removing the provisions that provided immunity from civil liability to electronic communication service providers for certain assistance (most notably, access without warrants to fiber-optic cables carrying bulk transmissions for the purposes of interception and monitoring) provided to the Government.

-USA PATRIOT Act
Feinstein was the original Democratic cosponsor of a bill to extend the USA PATRIOT Act. In a December 2005 statement, Senator Feinstein stated, "I believe the Patriot Act is vital to the protection of the American people."

Feinstein proposed an amendment to the Patriot Act would have explicitly excluded U.S. citizens from the detention authority created by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed just after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The amendment failed 45-55.

Though her amendment was defeated, the compromised amendment, passed 99-1, affirmed that nothing in the NDAA is intended to alter the government's current legal authority to detain prisoners captured in the war on terror.

And just as with Pelosi I found a kind of San Francisco archive called FoundSF, with an article describing Feinstein and her husband pre-2006. Some quotes:

- In the case of Blum-Feinstein, we can see what being in the top 1% means. They currently own a private jet, a Gulfstream G650, worth $55 million in 2008. Blum-Feinstein also own an entire 161 room San Francisco hotel (The Carlton) and at least six other homes. At a low estimate, including their hotel, their personal real estate holdings, together with their private jet, are likely worth well over $100 million today.

- Blum and Feinstein’s policies and actions promote neoliberalism. Blum’s field of operation is worldwide, exporting jobs overseas to capture surplus value in areas of the world that are expanding rapidly at a time when there is stagnation in mature capitalist economies. Blum’s foreign investments have focused on Asia, including China, Australia, and Korea, often through the TPG and Newbridge Capital.

Feinstein and Blum are also major investors in two private educational corporations, the Career Educational Corporation, and ITT Educational Services. At the same time, Blum donated heavily to the political campaigns of California Governor Gray Davis, amounting to at least $75,000 in a two-year period beginning about 2000. As a result, Davis, following his “pay to play” politics, appointed Blum to be a member of the University of California Board of Regents. Within a few years, Blum became the Chairman of this Board while it raised tuition for the University’s students again and again, increases that amounted to 32% in only one year. Students have had to take out massive loans to attend school.

One source indicates that the amount of debt loaded on all U.S. students has jumped from $90 billion in 1999 to $550 billion in 2011. As students were priced out of an increasingly expensive public university system, the inferior, privately operated correspondence type diploma mills where Blum had major investments became increasingly attractive. Not to be left out of the drive to weaken public education and teachers unions in order to open space for private capital accumulation, Feinstein had become a supporter of school vouchers by 2003, undermining public schools by allowing parents to use public money to pay for tuition at private or parochial schools in Washington, D.C.

-A final aspect is cutting taxes on the wealthy, and, of course, Feinstein consistently favors such cuts. One example is Feinstein’s support for a phase-out of inheritance taxes on large estates. In July of 2000, she was one of a small group of Democratic Senators defending and voting for a Republican sponsored bill to repeal an estate tax law first passed in 1916, a law that applied to only the top 2% of taxable estates.

- Both Blum and Feinstein have been members of the CFR for a number of years (membership is by invitation only). Blum has been a trustee of and part of the power structure of the Brookings Institute for years (Brookings regularly hosts the “Brookings-Blum Roundtable” discussion series) and Feinstein currently serves on the North American branch of the Trilateral Commission, after having first become involved with this organization in 1988. One result of these close connections is the fact that Feinstein is an enthusiastic war hawk and strongly supports all the current wars and occupations of U.S. imperialism, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya.

- The daughter of a wealthy doctor, educated at elite private schools, including Stanford University, Feinstein spent her way to political power, breaking records for campaign fundraising and spending beginning with her early campaigns for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Serving the wealthy, first and foremost herself and her husband, has marked her career. As the Los Angeles Times (October 28, 1994: A24) expressed it after observing only her actions for only a short time in office:

“A review of the senator’s first two years in office found that Feinstein supported several positions that benefited Blum, his wealthy clients and their investments. She was a vocal proponent of increased trade with China while Blum’s firm was planning a major investment there. She also voted for appropriations bills that provided more than $100 million a year in federal funds to three companies in which her husband is a substantial investor.”

- In 2007 investigative reporter Peter Byrne published a series of reports that showed that her actions in the early 1990s was only the beginning of Feinstein’s aiding her husband’s firms. As chairperson of the Senate’s Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee from 2001-2007, Feinstein supervised and supported the appropriation of over $1.5 billion for two military contractors, URS Corporation and Perini Corporation, both companies that Blum had a controlling interest in. Blum later sold URS for a reported personal profit of $57 million. When Feinstein’s actions were exposed in early 2007, she abruptly quit her post on this subcommittee.

- As is the case on every other key question involving our collective future, Feinstein has been and is against the people’s interest in having a just and free society. In a 2011 editorial, the San Francisco Chronicle (May 26, 2011:A15) called her “one of the biggest cheerleaders for renewing…” Bush’s Patriot Act, which allows roving wiretaps, snooping into personal records and permits the unwarranted surveillance of people without having to show probable cause. The Chronicle said that Feinstein and other supporters of renewal were going “too far” and were “erasing bedrock guarantees” of the Constitution. This action is part of a pattern of spying favored by Feinstein. In 2007 she voted for immunity for telecommunications companies who illegally spied on their customers. Some of these, such as ATT, were also heavy donors to her political campaigns. As Chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee she also recently criticized the CIA for not spying enough on the Egyptian people, stating that “the CIA should have monitored Facebook more closely.”

- Blum and Feinstein routinely undercut ecological needs in favor of the accumulation of wealth and power. One example is Feinstein’s relationship to wealthy corporate farmer Stewart Resnick, the owner of over one hundred thousand acres of prime farmland in the San Joaquin Valley. He has written big check after big check to her political campaigns, as well as hosted her at least two of his mansions. Over the past few decades he has also given several million dollars to the Democratic and Republican Parties and their candidates. Then, when Resnick called Feinstein in 2009 to weigh in on the side of corporate agribusiness in a drought fueled ecological dispute over water to big landowners or water for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s ecological needs, Feinstein jumped in, pushing the agribusiness viewpoint onto two Cabinet level secretaries and calling for a sweeping review of the science to allow more water to go to Resnick and other big operators. Due largely to excessive water diversions, the Delta’s ecology is in serious trouble, with fish populations in catastrophic decline.

According to this article, it seems Feinstein even left a cultural mark (in punk rock  ):

It was during that dark fall of 1978 that San Francisco was traumatized by the Jonestown tragedy (hitting San Francisco’s black and left communities hardest—many of the more than 900 dead were well known former allies), and just days later the world really did seem to spin out of control when Dan White murdered Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk in City Hall. Dianne Feinstein, the rich matron politician who had come in a dismal third in the 1975 mayoral contest and was considered to be finished politically, was president of the Board of Supervisors, and thus ascended to the now vacant mayor’s office. Her regime quickly changed directions from Moscone’s liberalism. Feinstein wasted no time in shifting mayoral support to downtown interests, opposing renter protections, and supporting a new office building boom. Foley is good on how much we all hated Feinstein (unlike David Talbot’s weirdly hagiographic treatment of her in his best-selling Season of the Witch), and how the Dead Kennedys’ political lyrics were partly inspired by that vitriol:

By the late summer of 1979, Dead Kennedys fans churned and bounced to any number of favorite songs, including “Let’s Lynch the Landlord.” Given the context of the time and place, though, it might as well have been called “Let’s Lynch the Mayor.” On the one hand, the song, which grew directly out of experiences Jello Biafra and Klaus Flouride had with a landlord when they lived together, provides a description of living in an apartment where nothing works—not the water, the heat, the oven—where the ceiling leaks, there are roaches and some asshole is “blasting disco down below.” On the other hand, it is not a stretch to imagine the mayor lurking in the lyrics as Biafra sings “I’m doubling the rent … you’re gonna help me buy City Hall.” The chorus about lynching the landlord is, therefore, both transgressive and cathartic, particularly if the landlord might have been Dianne Feinstein. In the wake of her brutal crackdowns on punks and open shilling on behalf of real estate interests (including her own), playing a song like that provided a momentary sense of freedom from the kind of cynical, corrupt, and sclerotic political system the mayor represented.

Sorry for the long texts, Rob. I think I can find more, especially in that SF archive (probably things about Pelosi there as well). I'm also willing to look more extensively at voting records, but I could use some help there, as there's a lot of jargon and it's not always clear what it's about. I'd look at stuff related to the death penalty, Internet rights, surveillance, single payer health care, wars, and Wall Street-related things like bailouts, and anything related to her husband's business interests.

Of course, it would save me a lot of time if you would say that, after reading all these things, you're not all that convinced anymore about Feinstein's intentions and progressive image, Rob! 

[Rob Dekker]

Thank you for your reply, Neven.
It's going to be hard, and probably counter-productive for me to reply to each of these issues individually.
So let me instead address a good number of them.

Overall, I really need you to understand that California is for US standards very liberal, but not like some Scandinavian countries.
 
Also, remember that Bernie obtained 45% of the Democratic vote here, and Hillary 55%.
And that's not even counting the Republican voters here (which are no unsubstantial).
So there is your framework for the "will of the people".

And note that we were the last ones to vote, so Bernie was well-known, so you can't use the excuse that Bernie was loosing because he was so little-know.

OK. That said, here is my take on the issues :

Which brings us back to evidence-based reasoning and the voting record. Please provide some evidence of Feinstein's voting record that she is clearly a 'corporate' Democrat and votes against the people.

Sure, let's do it. Here are some quotes from articles about Feinstein (that give me an idea what to look for):

LA Times

The state has clearly moved to the left in the ensuing decades. And while on some issues, Feinstein has embraced the new progressivism, she can’t be said to have led the way on such signature liberal causes as universal healthcare, the $15 minimum wage, campaign finance reform, tuition-free higher education, battling climate change or reining in Wall Street.

Regarding "universal healthcare", Feinstein suggests she is "not there yet" that we should fix the flaws in Obamacare instead. As much as I like the idea of Medicare-For-All, I think Feinstein better reflects the will of the people of Califonia than my opinion does. And please remember that even Bernie Sanders suggested that we "work towards" a single payer system, not that would immediately swap over.

Regarding a $15 minimum wage, I understand that Feinstein DID embrace that with the Democratic Party Platform.

Regarding tuition-free higher education, I am not sure what Feinstein's position is, and neither do I know how Californians feel about that (and the cost this would impose on tax payers). Do you know ?

Regarding battling climate change or reining in Wall Street, Feinstein has a perfect voting record AFAIK.

Paste Magazine

Look up her record. She scoffs at single-payer. She voted to confirm nine of Trump’s squad of rapacious plunderers.

Already talked about single-payer.
Regarding "squad of rapacious plunderers. " be specific.

Feinstein supports capital punishment,

The majority in California time and again voted to uphold the death penalty in ballot provisions.
So Feinstein simply reflects the will of the people here, regardless of how much I disagree with that opinion.

and has been a long-time encourager of the drug war.

More information please...

In 2006, she publicly backed a cynical and shabby amendment to ban flag “desecration,” which the Seattle Times described as an “interesting word, given its connotations of religious devotion.”

Wasn't this a smear ?

She consistently supports the most draconian DRM tech protections—that means the heavy hand of IP lawyers on the Internet, on cable and satellite channels. And then there’s her affection for National Security.

I'm not sure what this is all about.
In the recent attacks on Net Neutrality, she sided with the people (and lost).

Here are snippets from Wikipedia that IMO don't look all that great for a Democrat:

- On October 1, 2008, Feinstein voted in favor of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.

OK. That was an Obama action, and it saved the US from total economic collapse, after the Bush administration caused the banking system to go into cardiac arrest.
Feinstein voting in favor of this was just common sense.
Without this, we would be dead in the water.
And in hindsight, US tax payers made a couple of billion dollars in the process.

- Feinstein is a supporter of capital punishment.

Yes. Just like the average Californian voter is.

- Iraq war
Feinstein supported the Iraq war resolution in the vote of October 11, 2002; she has claimed that she was misled by President Bush on the reasons for going to war.

Yes.

However, former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter has stated that Feinstein in summer 2002 acknowledged to him that she knew the Bush administration had not provided any convincing intelligence to back up its claims about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Sounds like an attempt to rub the Iraq vote into Feinstein's face by smearing. Reference please.

In February 2007, Feinstein warned Republicans not to block consideration of a measure opposing President Bush's troop increase in Iraq, saying it would be a "terrible mistake" to prevent debate on the top issue in America.

Sounds like a smearing attempt. More information needed.

In May 2007, Feinstein voted for an Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill, which continued to fund the Iraq occupation without a firm timetable for withdrawal. The Senator said, "I am deeply disappointed that this bill fails to hold the President accountable for his Administration's flawed Iraq War policy. The American people have made their voices clear that there must be an exit strategy for Iraq. Yet this President continues to stubbornly adhere to more of the same."

Her words sound reasonable to me.

- Free speech
She was the main Democratic sponsor of the failed 2006 constitutional Flag Desecration Amendment.

Wasn't this a smear ?

In 2007, Feinstein was asked in a Fox News interview whether she would revive the Fairness Doctrine, and she replied that she was looking at it.

More information needed.

In 2010, Feinstein voted in favor of unilateral US censorship of the Internet by voting in favor of COICA. Also in 2010, Feinstein said in reference to Cablegate, "Whoever released this information should be punished severely."

Huh ? What is this all about ?
Do you have more information ?

In 2013, Feinstein called for the immediate extradition and arrest of Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked information about the PRISM surveillance program.

I do not disagree with her on that.
If Snowden did nothing wrong, he should not fear going to court in the US.

- Health care
In an April 2017 town hall meeting in San Francisco, Feinstein stated that "If single-payer health care is going to mean the complete takeover by the government of all health care, I am not there."

edit Neven: It's impossible that she doesn't knows that this is not what single-payer health care means. 

She is right. Isn't it true that single payer health care IS a complete takeover by the government of all health care ?

I think it is, and it's not a bad thing. After all, the profits the insurers and health care providers are currently incurring would, under a single-payer system, go back to the tax payer.

I think that is one of the reasons we want single-payer in the first place.

-Intelligence programs and NSA programs
After the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures involving operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), Feinstein took measures to continue the collection programs. Foreign Policy wrote that she had a "reputation as a staunch defender of NSA practices and the White House's refusal to stand by collection activities targeting foreign leaders".In November 2013, she promoted the Fisa Improvements Act bill, which included a "backdoor search provision" that allows intelligence agencies to continue certain warrantless searches as long as they are logged and "available for review" to various agencies.

One thing people often fail to understand : You can put all kind of restrictions on government to collect info on any of us. But there are no such rules for corporations.

The Koch Brothers can collect any information they want on any of us, without a FISA warrant.
Or Russia for that matter.

In June 2013, Feinstein labeled Edward Snowden a traitor after his leaks went public. In October of that year, Feinstein stated that she stood by her labeling.

I'm not sure if I would call him a 'traitor', but it comes pretty close.
Either way, he should have his day in court.

-Wiretapping
In August 2007, Feinstein joined Republicans in the Senate in voting to modify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by narrowing the scope of its protections to sharply alter the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor phone calls and email messages of American citizens. Feinstein voted to give the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve international surveillance of the communications of Americans entirely within the executive branch, rather than through the special intelligence court established by FISA. Many privacy advocates have decried this law and Senator Feinstein's vote in favor of it. In February 2008, Feinstein joined Republicans in the Senate in voting against removing the provisions that provided immunity from civil liability to electronic communication service providers for certain assistance (most notably, access without warrants to fiber-optic cables carrying bulk transmissions for the purposes of interception and monitoring) provided to the Government.

Regarding FISA, I stated before that it only applies to the US government agencies.
So corporations (or foreign governments) can do whatever surveilance they want.
Keep that in perspective please.

-USA PATRIOT Act
Feinstein was the original Democratic cosponsor of a bill to extend the USA PATRIOT Act. In a December 2005 statement, Senator Feinstein stated, "I believe the Patriot Act is vital to the protection of the American people."

Feinstein proposed an amendment to the Patriot Act would have explicitly excluded U.S. citizens from the detention authority created by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed just after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The amendment failed 45-55.

Though her amendment was defeated, the compromised amendment, passed 99-1, affirmed that nothing in the NDAA is intended to alter the government's current legal authority to detain prisoners captured in the war on terror.

I guess that Feinstein was one of the 99 senators that approved that bill ?

... And so on...

Of course, it would save me a lot of time if you would say that, after reading all these things, you're not all that convinced anymore about Feinstein's intentions and progressive image, Rob! 

Sorry Neven. There just seems to be a story behind ANY of your allegations against Feinstein, and at closer scrutiny each story seems to indicate that Feinstein simple reflects the will of the people of California, not corporate interests...

[Rob Dekker]

I never understood why people on this forum seem to think that you need to "kick out" particular Democrats to restore democracy in this country.

It makes much more sense to me if Democrats would "kick out" Republicans.

Like in this case :

"Dem wins Kentucky state House seat in district Trump won by 49 points"

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/374777-dem-wins-ky-state-house-seat-in-district-trump-won-by-49-points

The blue wave is coming...

[aperson]

I never understood why people on this forum seem to think that you need to "kick out" particular Democrats to restore democracy in this country.

This is an absolutely silly argument. Do you really think Manchin, for example, shouldn't get primaried just because he's a Democrat? How about the 73 house democrats that sold out dreamers on the last budget vote?

Surely you don't cast a blanket that all democrats are good just because they have a (D) tag.

[Alexander555]

Rob, are you a state employee ?

[Martin Gisser]

Probably because you don't actually understand American politics and the racist history of claiming that racist symbols are historical artifacts instead of symbols of hate. What, do you think the Confederate monuments that started appearing everywhere after Plessy vs. Ferguson are historical monuments too? In America we don't have anything like Strafgesetzbuch section 86a, so we have to keep dealing with phony recontextualizations of these symbols as they keep appearing to oppress minorities.

We can debate forever if this was a "phony recontextualization". There aren't enough sources to decide this issue. Anyhow:

The Confederate battle flag wasn't the only one. They also had the British Union Jack and the flags of the Texas and California republics. Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/file/234/1/2341-confederate_flag_ruckus_1964.pdf

“All the flags come from the history of America and, whether we like it or not, the Confederacy was a part of our history,” Bergman said. “You can no more take the flag out of an historical display than you can go to the history books and tear out the pages on the Civil War.”

German Strafgesetzbuch §86 has the very same exception.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__86.html

(3) Absatz 1 gilt nicht, wenn das Propagandamittel oder die Handlung der staatsbürgerlichen Aufklärung, der Abwehr verfassungswidriger Bestrebungen, der Kunst oder der Wissenschaft, der Forschung oder der Lehre, der Berichterstattung über Vorgänge des Zeitgeschehens oder der Geschichte oder ähnlichen Zwecken dient.

--------------
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1984/5/9/a-viable-alternative-pi-am-not/?page=1

Bradley climbed the flagpole in San Francisco again later last month--to replace the Confederate flag with the historic 33-star Fort Sumter garrison flag, donated to the city to celebrate the removal of the flag. Mayor Dianne Feinstein ordered that flag removed. Later, under recommendation of Wallace Levine, head of the Veterans Affairs Council, the Mayor agreed to fly the "California Hundred" flag, in honor of the first 100 California Volunteers who paid their way east to fight against slaveowners.

(my emph.)

[SteveMDFP]

I never understood why people on this forum seem to think that you need to "kick out" particular Democrats to restore democracy in this country.

This is an absolutely silly argument. Do you really think Manchin, for example, shouldn't get primaried just because he's a Democrat? How about the 73 house democrats that sold out dreamers on the last budget vote?

Surely you don't cast a blanket that all democrats are good just because they have a (D) tag.

Manchin's pro-Coal votes and voting for Gorsuch are certainly disappointing, among others.  However, he's from very conservative and pro-coal WVa.  If he didn't vote this way, he'd lose to a Republican in the next election, and that's far worse than having a disappointing D.  His votes on these matters haven't made any difference at all on actual outcomes.  His voting for these is a strategic advantage for progressives, with little, if any, actual downside.

His votes, when it really mattered, have been good.  Along with every other Senate Democrat, he was crucial to stopping the repeal of Obamacare, and he voted against the abominable tax bill.

If he's primaried by a more progressive candidate who wins the primary, we get a Republican instead.

The vote for the last continuing resolution, without protecting dreamers, was a real dilemma.  The bill that passed assured no domestic spending cuts, kept the government from shutting down, and funded CHIP and teaching health centers for several years to come.

Shutting down the government for more than a couple of days would have devastated public opinion of the Dems and Dreamers, both.

But remember, the leverage of the Ds is not over.  This was a continuing resolution until March 23.  In a few weeks, we get another turn at bat for the Dreamers.  And the courts are currently letting them stay put and continues DACA until resolution at trial.  That might be quite some time. 

I don't see that a vote for the CR by any Democrat, either way, should be considered a mortal sin.

[zheega]

If he didn't vote this way, he'd lose to a Republican in the next election, and that's far worse than having a disappointing D.  His votes on these matters haven't made any difference at all on actual outcomes.  His voting for these is a strategic advantage for progressives, with little, if any, actual downside.

The problem is that he might lose anyway. When Republicans and rep-leaning independents have to choose between a slightly pro-Trump Democrat Manchin and a very pro-Trump Republican (whoever that will be), almost all of them will vote for a Republican. Democrats and dem-leaning independents might stay home in large enough numbers for Manchin to lose.

People do argue that the specifics of 2018 (a big anti-Trump blue wave) might still energize the Dem base and allow Manchin to win anyway. But if 2018 is a big blue wave anyway - why not get a progressive in there? Once the Democrats have a majority (or even a super-majority that they held in 2010 for a few months) they might again disappoint their base like they did in 2009/2010 when they won on a progressive "hope&change" agenda, then passed Romneycare and allowed Wall Street to (literally) get away with murder.


Obama even implemented a program that helped banks foreclose on homeowners. I wonder why Democrats got destroyed in 2010 midterms. I can't quite tell...

[aperson]

Manchin's pro-Coal votes and voting for Gorsuch are certainly disappointing, among others.  However, he's from very conservative and pro-coal WVa.  If he didn't vote this way, he'd lose to a Republican in the next election, and that's far worse than having a disappointing D.  His votes on these matters haven't made any difference at all on actual outcomes.  His voting for these is a strategic advantage for progressives, with little, if any, actual downside.

That's not really how wave elections work. Charisma and the spread of the generic ballot poll are much bigger factors than anything else. Paula Jean Swearengin is running against Manchin in the 2018 primary. You argue we should vote for Manchin over her? On a climate change forum!?

His votes, when it really mattered, have been good.  Along with every other Senate Democrat, he was crucial to stopping the repeal of Obamacare, and he voted against the abominable tax bill.

Seriously? He was a yea vote on the cloture motion for the Stop Dangerous Sanctuary Cities Act in 2018. Do we need to drill down through his entire record because that claim is ridiculous.

The vote for the last continuing resolution, without protecting dreamers, was a real dilemma.  The bill that passed assured no domestic spending cuts, kept the government from shutting down, and funded CHIP and teaching health centers for several years to come.

Shutting down the government for more than a couple of days would have devastated public opinion of the Dems and Dreamers, both.

Everyone would have forgot in a week as the news cycle moved on. A gov't shutdown in the house also would have threatened Paul Ryan's speakership position due to being unable to reach a compromise that the house freedom caucus supports. There is bipartisan support for wall funding + daca safety to pass both the house and the senate.

But remember, the leverage of the Ds is not over.  This was a continuing resolution until March 23.  In a few weeks, we get another turn at bat for the Dreamers.  And the courts are currently letting them stay put and continues DACA until resolution at trial.  That might be quite some time. 

I don't see that a vote for the CR by any Democrat, either way, should be considered a mortal sin.

I'm sure that makes dreamers very comfortable given that this administration is currently up to its neck in court cases from CBP and ICE. Depending on the courts to protect dreamers from a fascist gestapo is a numbers battle that the ACLU won't be able to keep up with, and that's also been the case so far.

[sidd]

Here's one that likes spying:

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/22/patrick-ryan-congress-berico-dataminr/

sidd

[sidd]

Texas race heats up, lets see what the primaries turn out:

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/22/emilys-list-laura-moser-texas-congress/

sidd

[Neven]

Sorry Neven. There just seems to be a story behind ANY of your allegations against Feinstein, and at closer scrutiny each story seems to indicate that Feinstein simple reflects the will of the people of California, not corporate interests...

Hmmm, okay. Well, maybe California isn't all that liberal, or people don't know what 'liberal' really means. As said, many of these things are 'signature liberal causes'.

Either way, it seems to me that however much of an effort I try to make, and no matter how much 'evidence' I produce, you will simply refuse to accept it. I could post Dick Cheney's resume and present it as Feinstein's, and you would probably find no fault with it whatsoever. Whether this is because of me or because of you, I don't know. But I fear I'm causing you to dig your heels in further and further, and that's of no use to anyone.

Maybe I'll look some more into Feinstein and Pelosi during their days as public figures in San Francisco, but just to satisfy my own curiousness.

In the meantime I'll post anything I find interesting with regard to the subject of this topic, and people can do with it whatever they want. We'll see how things play out and whether minds (including my own) can change.

[SteveMDFP]

Sorry Neven. There just seems to be a story behind ANY of your allegations against Feinstein, and at closer scrutiny each story seems to indicate that Feinstein simple reflects the will of the people of California, not corporate interests...

Hmmm, okay. Well, maybe California isn't all that liberal, or people don't know what 'liberal' really means. As said, many of these things are 'signature liberal causes'.

Either way, it seems to me that however much of an effort I try to make, and no matter how much 'evidence' I produce, you will simply refuse to accept it. I could post Dick Cheney's resume and present it as Feinstein's, and you would probably find no fault with it whatsoever. Whether this is because of me or because of you, I don't know. But I fear I'm causing you to dig your heels in further and further, and that's of no use to anyone.

Maybe I'll look some more into Feinstein and Pelosi during their days as public figures in San Francisco, but just to satisfy my own curiousness.

In the meantime I'll post anything I find interesting with regard to the subject of this topic, and people can do with it whatever they want. We'll see how things play out and whether minds (including my own) can change.

Well I for one appreciated the effort to bring a better quality of evidence to the discussion.
I'd researched Pelosi, and found little wanting in her legislative history.
But I think Feinstein is more hawkish on defense/security/crime.  California can certainly sustain a more progressive Senator than Feinstein.  So if would be good if she got primaried from her left.

Mind you, if she were the Senator from North Carolina, I'd be thrilled to support such a Senator from such a state.  But California can do better.

I'm not all all convinced that their legislative flaws have to do with being "Corporate," however.  I think they're just a little hawkish on some issues.

[SteveMDFP]

 

His votes, when it really mattered, have been good.  Along with every other Senate Democrat, he was crucial to stopping the repeal of Obamacare, and he voted against the abominable tax bill.

Seriously? He was a yea vote on the cloture motion for the Stop Dangerous Sanctuary Cities Act in 2018. Do we need to drill down through his entire record because that claim is ridiculous.

Seriously.  The cloture vote was on the 2016 version of the bill.  His vote made no difference in the outcome.  I'd like to think his vote would have been different if the outcome were in doubt.  Can't prove it, though.
 

[zheega]

This is some classic "corporate Democrating" right here - https://theintercept.com/2018/02/22/emilys-list-laura-moser-texas-congress/

It was those types of activists EMILY’s List spent 2017 encouraging to make first-time bids for office. But that doesn’t mean EMILY’s List will get behind them. Also running is Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, a corporate lawyer who is backed by Houston mega-donor Sherry Merfish. EMILY’s List endorsed her in November.

With both Fletcher and Moser battling for a spot in the two-person runoff, and Westin surging in the race, EMILY’s List’s endorsement of Fletcher could end up having the paradoxical effect of producing a runoff between the two men. EMILY’s List, while expending resources in several competitive primaries between women, has also stayed out of other races that pit a pro-choice woman against an anti-choice man. Despite significant pressure, the group held out on endorsing Marie Newman against Democratic incumbent Daniel Lipinski, only shifting course when it became clear the SEIU would be breaking with Lipinski.

The group has also declined to endorse the pro-choice Kara Eastman running against anti-choice Democrat Brad Ashford; the same is true for Lupe Valdez running against Andrew White for Texas governor. (White says that he believes Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and that his religious beliefs would not influence how he approached the issue, but he is far from a champion of reproductive rights.)

The support of first Merfish and then EMILY’s List for Fletcher raises questions about whether the endorsement was made at the behest of a major donor or because the organization truly believed Fletcher is the stronger candidate.

[aperson]

 

His votes, when it really mattered, have been good.  Along with every other Senate Democrat, he was crucial to stopping the repeal of Obamacare, and he voted against the abominable tax bill.

Seriously? He was a yea vote on the cloture motion for the Stop Dangerous Sanctuary Cities Act in 2018. Do we need to drill down through his entire record because that claim is ridiculous.

Seriously.  The cloture vote was on the 2016 version of the bill.  His vote made no difference in the outcome.  I'd like to think his vote would have been different if the outcome were in doubt.  Can't prove it, though.

Gorsuch confirmation, Scott Pruitt confirmation, Mnuchin confirmation, Sessions confirmation, DeVos confirmation, Fix Gun Checks Act of 2016 Nay, Rescind Funds from Planned Parenthood Act Yea and Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act Yea (Isn't pro-choice like *the* core plank of democrats?), the list goes on and on and on.

And let's not forget Manchin-Toomey as a bipartisan gun control bill that would stymie any further democrat advancements on gun control legislation with its half measures and concessions.

I fail to see how having him in is more worthwhile than his primary challenger. For anyone that tries to argue "well progressivism results in worse polling numbers", I might as well just point to the 2016 general election and walk away.

What I will concede about WV primary challengers is that they must first and foremost use labor and union rights as the base of their platform, and the current primary challenger does not do this.

[Rob Dekker]

Either way, it seems to me that however much of an effort I try to make, and no matter how much 'evidence' I produce, you will simply refuse to accept it. I could post Dick Cheney's resume and present it as Feinstein's, and you would probably find no fault with it whatsoever. Whether this is because of me or because of you, I don't know. But I fear I'm causing you to dig your heels in further and further, and that's of no use to anyone.

Well, that feeling is mutual. To me it looked like you already made up your mind that Feinstein is "corporate", and no matter what I point out you don't change your opinion.

I would have hoped that you would have found something in Feinstein's voting record that resembles an obvious sell-out to corporate America. Something like the Keystone XL.
The Keystone XL is so obviously a "corporate" decision that I use it as a litmus test for "corporate" politicians.

I'm still glad we have this more in-depth talk about the issues, because it's much better to argue with evidence than it is to argue with pre-conceived ideology.

So thank you for going in-depth on this one.

P.S. And I like your idea of posting Dick Cheney's resume (or anyone else's) and let us decide if that candidate is corporate or not. Just leave the name out. That would be a fun exercise.

[zheega]

I would have hoped that you would have found something in Feinstein's voting record that resembles an obvious sell-out to corporate America. Something like the Keystone XL.
The Keystone XL is so obviously a "corporate" decision that I use it as a litmus test for "corporate" politicians.

Feinstein voted for GW Bush tax cuts... Something very similar to Trump tax cuts. She voted for the Patriot Act. She voted for all NSA surveillance bills I can remember. She supports the freaking death penalty.

She has been a big fighter against marijuana legalization;

Feinstein’s opposition was hardly a surprise. For decades, the San Francisco Democrat has opposed nearly all forms of drug reform, from medical marijuana in the 1990s to California’s adult use measure in 2016. In recent years she’s been a key ally of Iowa’s Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, the two elder senators working together to block Congressional measures aimed at drug reform in the age of medical and adult-use legalization.

In 2015, the Feinstein-Grassley tandem warned that America was losing its will on drug enforcement as new states legalized cannabis for recreational or medical use. “We’re already seeing signs that the United States’ position on drug control issues is weakening,” Feinstein and Grassley wrote in a letter to then-Attorney General Eric Holder

Pipelines seem to be one of the few good points for Feinstein tho. But I think all of her primary opponents are against those pipelines anyway, so we wouldn't be giving anything up if she lost against one of the progressive challengers.

[aperson]

While it doesn't track the dynamics behind each bill, 538 does have a tracker that shows how often a representative votes in line with Trump's stance on a policy normalized against how well Trump did in that representative's district. It makes a loose collection of representatives that should be "primaryable" by polling numbers alone: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/

While this does support the argument that it would be hard to put a much more progressive dem than Manchin in West Virginia, it also makes an argument that Feinstein is less progressive than her constituents and that she is the most primaryable D senator.

[zheega]

While it doesn't track the dynamics behind each bill, 538 does have a tracker that shows how often a representative votes in line with Trump's stance on a policy normalized against how well Trump did in that representative's district

This is an interesting tool, but it should be noted that national attention in politics has increased a lot since Trump won. And voting with Trump as a Democrat is much harder than it was when Bush was president for example. Remember all the heat Booker got when he voted against importing cheaper drugs from Canada. He probably had no idea anyone was paying attention.

With long-time incumbents such as Feinstein we can look at their entire history tho. And it is not very good.

[Rob Dekker]

I would have hoped that you would have found something in Feinstein's voting record that resembles an obvious sell-out to corporate America. Something like the Keystone XL.
The Keystone XL is so obviously a "corporate" decision that I use it as a litmus test for "corporate" politicians.

Feinstein voted for GW Bush tax cuts... Something very similar to Trump tax cuts. She voted for the Patriot Act. She voted for all NSA surveillance bills I can remember. She supports the freaking death penalty.

She has been a big fighter against marijuana legalization;

Most of these issues reflect an ideology, not so much a "corporate" vote.
And she voted against the Trump tax cuts because they are not "similar" to the Bush tax cuts.
As opposed to the Bush tax cuts, the Trump tax cuts benefit corporations much more than workers.

Pipelines seem to be one of the few good points for Feinstein tho. But I think all of her primary opponents are against those pipelines anyway, so we wouldn't be giving anything up if she lost against one of the progressive challengers.

Sure, but remember that every Republican voted in favor of the Keystone XL, and then some Democrats as well.

Which suggests where the priory (of "kicking people out") should be for the blue wave that's coming.

[Neven]

Well, that feeling is mutual. To me it looked like you already made up your mind that Feinstein is "corporate", and no matter what I point out you don't change your opinion.

Maybe that's also true. Ever since I 'woke up' 12 years ago, watching a large amount of documentaries, reading many books and practically the whole Internet  , a certain world view has formed that is dominated by this belief that the source of our collective woes is a system that has given us a consumer culture, filled with propaganda and addictions, and a dogmatic faith in neoclassical economic theory, with the sole goal of increasing concentrated wealth at an exponential rate. When one looks through that lens, one automatically questions things like 'freedom' and 'democracy', fostering a deep distrust of anything that is deemed 'establishment narrative'.

I continue to believe that a first step towards a structural solution lies in the overhaul of the Democratic Party, but maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, here's another video from the Real News Network: