Copyright © 2016 - 2021, The Troy Press
Copyright © 2016 - 2021, The Troy Press
Copyright © 2016 - 2021, The Troy Press
Source
Bob Rubin and Alan Greenspan convinced the New Democrats, over a quarter-century ago, that the key to economic growth was to out-Republican the Republican Party in the fervency of their embrace of austerity. This began the long war of the New Democrats against the working class that culminated in the loss of their candidate, Hillary Clinton, to Donald Trump. Rubin's and Greenspan's support for austerity constitutes economic and political malpractice. Austerity is the enemy of the general economy and the people of the world, but it targets for its greatest harm the working class. As I have explained in earlier columns, Hillary was so devoted to austerity that she made it her major new policy theme in the closing weeks of her campaign - even as every poll warned her that she had enraged the white working class, a principal victim of austerity.
The stranglehold that Rubin and Greenspan's anti-worker dogmas continue to exert over the Democratic Party's faux centrists' policies even after Trump's election is illustrated by a December 5, 2016 New York Times editorial entitled "How to Help Working People" and Larry Summers' December 4, 2016 op ed entitled "Trump's tax plans favour the rich and will hamper economic growth: The proposals would threaten to increase federal debt and interest rates." Summers is Rubin's protégé.
Source
Hundreds of women and children were released from two family detention centers over the weekend, after a Texas state judge sided with critics who say the facilities more closely resemble jails than child care centers.
The mass releases were a victory for immigrant rights advocates, who argue that it's unnecessary and inhumane to lock up undocumented mothers and kids seeking asylum in the U.S.
Source
"The reality is that this country both politically and economically is moving toward an oligarchic form of society where a small number of very wealthy and powerful people control our economy and our political life," Sanders said.
"So what we have to do," Sanders said, "is create a strong grassroots movement where we bring people together to fight not only for social justice, not only for environmental justice, but for economic justice as well. But here is where it becomes difficult.
"It is very easy for many Americans to say, I hate racism, I hate homophobia, I hate sexism," Sanders said, "but it is a little bit harder for people in the middle or upper middle class to say, maybe we do have to deal with the greed of Wall Street.
Source
When the opportunity called for Warren to stand up for Native Americans, joining in the fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, Warren was nowhere to be found. But as soon as the Army Corps of Engineers announced it would not grant the final easement for the pipeline's construction, instead initiating an environmental impact study to explore alternate routes, Senator Elizabeth Warren immediately swooped in to exploit the Dakota Access Pipeline for political points now the political risk in doing so has been substantially mitigated, and to provide herself with plausible deniability that this was her stance all along.
Source
A crude oil transmission pipeline has been shut down in western North Dakota following a leak that spilled oil into a creek. The state's health department said it has sent personnel to the site.
"A series of booms have been placed across the creek to prevent downstream migration and a siphon dam has been constructed four miles downstream of the release point," Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager for the North Dakota Department of health, said, according to Reuters.
The health agency said the spill was discovered on Monday and an unknown volume of oil leaked from the pipeline operated by Bell Fourche Pipeline Company into Ash Coulee Creek, 16 miles northwest of Belfield in Billings County. The leak is 200 miles away from protests taking place over the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Source
Hundreds of U.S. veterans that joined the historic uprising at Standing Rock at a pivotal moment ahead of a key victory are turning attention to their next act of solidarity, this time to stand with communities suffering from the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
One of the main organizers who brought together more than 2,000 veterans to form a human shield around water protectors at Standing Rock in the face of an anticipated violent crackdown, U.S. Army veteran Wesley Clark Jr., said that while details of the trip to Flint aren't finalized, the move is on the agenda.
"We don't know when we are going to be there," Clark, who is the son of retired U.S. Army General and former Democratic presidential nomination hopeful Wesley Clark Sr., told the Flint Journal, "but we will be heading to Flint."
"This problem is all over the country," he added. "It's got to be more than veterans. People have been treated wrong in this county for a long time."
Most Daily News Summary entries come from The Progressives' Chat Forum, which typically receives has between 700 and 1000 comments per day. Join us right now by picking the top list entry on this page.