Shahid Buttar Campaign to Unseat Nancy Pelosi
2022-05-25 Will Progressives in Swing Districts Get the Cuellar Treatment From Democratic Leadership?
On May 12, just a couple of weeks ago, Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman let this slip: “According to multiple sources familiar with new polling data, Blue Dog Reps. Kurt Schrader (OR-05) and Henry Cuellar (TX-28) are now trailing progressive opponents.” This made some sense. Schrader was running in a district that featured mostly new territory for him, against an opponent, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who had garnered the unprecedented support of several local Democratic parties. And Cuellar’s race was upended by the leaked Supreme Court draft overturning Roe v. Wade; he was the only House Democrat to vote against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have maintained a woman’s right to an abortion. Jessica Cisneros, Cuellar’s opponent, highlighted that vote and the Supreme Court decision, and it was showing in the numbers.
Both Blue Dogs would enjoy outside support from corporate interests. Schrader had the endorsement of President Biden. But Cuellar had something that Schrader didn’t: active and full-throated support from the House Democratic leadership, including fundraisers and robocalls from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, plus a campaign visit from the latter. The impact of that was clearly seen on Tuesday night: Cuellar looks to have sneaked through by a razor-thin margin, while Schrader lost his bid for re-election rather badly.
What happens next will be revealing about the leadership’s true priorities. Both McLeod-Skinner and Cuellar (if he pulls it out) will compete in light-blue seats in November with what political prognosticators have characterized as a slight lean to the Democrats at best. Each seat would be equally crucial to Democrats’ long-shot chances of holding the House. Each would have a virtually equal case to warrant resources from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the general election. https://prospect.org/politics/will-progressives-in-swing-districts-get-cuellar-treatment-democratic-leadership/
2022-01-25 ‘Is Pelosi insane?’ Dems slammed over $500 million in military aid to Ukraine
Despite warnings that a dangerous war with Russia could soon be unleashed if diplomatic efforts fail, House Democrats are reportedly looking to bypass typical procedures and fast-track a vote on legislation that would send $500 million in military aid to Ukraine – a move that critics say only adds fuel to the fire.
The Intercept reported Tuesday that “Democrats in the House of Representatives are planning to expedite a massive bill that would dramatically increase U.S. security assistance to Ukraine and lay the groundwork for substantial new sanctions on Russia – hastening a war-friendly posture without opportunity for dissent as concerns over a military invasion abound.”
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told members on a caucus call Tuesday that she’s looking to skip marking up the bill and move it straight to the House floor, setting up the possibility of a vote as soon as early next week,” The Intercept revealed, citing two unnamed congressional sources.
Formally known as the Defending Ukraine Sovereignty Act of 2022, the legislation is co-sponsored by 13 Democrats in the House and 41 in the Senate, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
News of the push for speedy passage of the bill comes just one day after Biden put 8,500 U.S. troops on standby to deploy and as anti-war voices increase their warnings against military action.
One senior Democratic aide told The Intercept that the House leadership’s plan to rush a vote on the measure “is how the space for nonmilitary options gets slowly closed off in Washington, without any real debate.”
If passed, the bill would authorize $500 million in “supplemental emergency security assistance to Ukraine” if Russia invades the country. The legislation would also greenlight $3 million in “international military and education training” for Ukraine and ramp up U.S. sanctions against Russia.
“Is Pelosi insane, fast-tracking massive weapons transfers to Ukraine and ginning up a new war with a nuclear-armed Russia? Don’t these Democrats get it?” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, told Common Dreams in response to the news. “The American people don’t want more war!”
“We can think of a lot better uses of $500 million than weapons to Ukraine that only intensify the conflict and feed the war machine,” Benjamin added. “What we desperately need is de-escalation and vigorous diplomacy, including guarantees that Ukraine won’t join NATO.”
Even without action from Congress, the U.S. is currently pouring arms into Ukraine, as evidenced by Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov’s tweet Sunday hailing the arrival of “80 tons of weapons” from “our friends in the USA.”
As the New York Times reported Tuesday, the U.S. “has authorized Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to send Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Ukrainian forces, augmenting the Javelin anti-tank missile deliveries to Ukraine that Britain began this month.”
Such developments in recent days have intensified concerns that the U.S. is on the verge of embarking on yet another military intervention that could have devastating human consequences.
“President Joe Biden and members of Congress, expanding NATO any further would constitute an unnecessary provocation as well as an unwise military obligation,” she continued. “Taking such expansion off the table would address Russia’s primary security concern and reduce the likelihood that U.S. troops will be sent to yet another unwinnable war. Simply by acknowledging this, you could save thousands of lives and billions of dollars.” https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/pelosi/
2021-01-07 The Squad Won’t Fight Pelosi and Corporate Power
For the first time in this century, significant numbers of young people of all races are expressing raw hatred for the Democrats and denouncing “The Squad” for collaborating with the oligarchy.
The most volatile elements of “left” Democrats have finally understood that you can’t oppose corporate duopoly rule while living in the oligarchs’ (out)house. The former Sandernistas brought in the New Year loudly demanding that “The Squad” — the handful of Democratic Representatives that style themselves as the “progressive” cutting edge of the Congress – refuse to support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House unless the 80-year old millionairess and corporate bag woman agreed to submit Medicare for All to a full House vote. “A vote on Medicare for All will prompt a national conversation on guaranteeing health care in the middle of a pandemic,” wrote former Bernie Sanders press aide Briahna Joy Gray. A roll call tally “will show the country who really supports it, not just rhetorically, but in practice. Then we can hold our representatives accountable.”
The goal of the exercise was to expose and embarrass those lawmakers that pretend to back legislation favored by nearly 90 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of all Americans, but who always buckle to Pelosi’s corporate discipline. Gray, Dr. Cornel West, Movement for a People’s Party national coordinator Nick Brana, NFL player Justin Jackson and podcasters Katie Halper, Krystal Ball, Kyle Kulinski and Jimmy Dore held a #ForceTheVote Town Hall to compel The Squad to act as the people’s operatives in the legislative bowels of the beast. As it turned out, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and her leftish congressional cohorts chose to serve as the first corporate line of defense against the #ForceTheVote strategy — originally conceived by Jimmy Dore .
AOC threw up flak like a veteran corporate dissembler, tweeting that she and her allies had won a great concession from Pelosi to exempt Medicare for All from the PAYGO (“pay-as-you-go”) House rule requiring big-money bills to identify enabling revenues before consideration for passage. PAYGO was put in place by Pelosi in 2019 to demonstrate that Democrats were “fiscally responsible,” continuing Barack Obama’s second term quest for a Grand Bargain with the GOP. “Progressives in the House have won a rules change that would allow Medicare for All, a Green New Deal or other big ticket agenda items to be exempted from paygo,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “This was a necessary step in opening the way for it.”
But of course, the gesture was merely a reshuffling of marked cards. Jimmy Dore responded to an AOC defender at The Intercept: “Unwittingly, what he’s doing here is making the case for #ForceTheVote, because now we’ve got rid of the hurdles that would stop it, so we can just go do it.” AOC was “pretending to be part of a movement,” but was in reality still “running cover for Nancy Pelosi.”
But, that’s what is supposed to happen when faux insurgents act as corporate defenders. As #ForceTheVote advocates pointed out, the death of 40 to 60 thousand Americans a year due to lack of healthcare, and 300,000-plus Covid-19 fatalities to date, is corporate-inflicted violence on a horrific scale. AOC has endured only slights to her celebrity as payback for defending the indefensible.
In the end AOC, newly-elected St. Louis Congresswoman Cori Bush, and Barbara Lee voted to elect Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House for the fourth time, after initially abstaining on a procedural ballot. In collapse, The Squad had shrunken to three fingers of one submissive hand.
It must be noted that back in 2005-06, when Pelosi was gearing up for her first successful run for Speaker, she prevented Democrats from holding hearings on the Katrina catastrophe in fear of identifying the Party too closely with Black issues, and then forbade the Congressional Black Caucus and all other Democrats from attending Republican hearings on Katrina. All of the Black Caucus meekly complied with her diktat – except for Atlanta Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who was shunned by her fellow Black congresspersons as a result. As Peter Gamble and I reported in The Black Commentator , Pelosi “was able to convince the Congressional Black Caucus, as a body, to stand down in the face of a horrific crisis: the displacement of hundreds of thousands of residents of New Orleans.” The Black Caucus’s political irrelevance and impotence can be dated to that debacle. AOC and her Squad are on the same path – and the slope is much steeper in this era of accelerating national and imperial decay.
Covid-19 ensured the demise of Trump and has laid bare the anti-people nature of racial capitalism and the corporate duopoly that serves the oligarchs. Pelosi and her Democrats have shown themselves to be one with the Republicans in enforcing the Race to the Bottom that capitalists have imposed, worldwide, and whose noose has been tightening in the United States for two generations. Medicare for All is anathema to both corporate parties because it would go far towards deprivatizing one-sixth of the U.S. economy but, just as importantly, it would greatly diminish the precarity and desperation of workers who fear they must take and hold any job that provides health insurance. The oligarchy understands perfectly that its super-profits are derived from super-exploitation of the precarity-stricken workers of the planet, and on the deepening desperation of its own workforce.
It is with these forces that The Squad is collaborating, through their subservience to Pelosi and the duopoly. https://www.blackagendareport.com/squad-wont-fight-pelosi-and-corporate-power
2021-01-06 Freedom Rider: Let the Black Caucus Be Black
Black people suffer because they have no real representation in Congress. The Congressional Black Caucus takes its orders from Nancy Pelosi, who serves corporations, not people.
“Let Black Democrats Be Black!” was written by Glen Ford in the November 1, 2006 issue of Black Agenda Report. The title is evergreen and could be used again as the 117th Congress was sworn into office this week. The same issues of corporate control, austerity policies, imperialism, and Democratic Party corruption prevail and make these issues salient year after year.
Ford’s piece appeared as the Democrats were poised to take control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994. Black people were supposed to be particularly happy because veteran Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members like Charles Rangel and John Conyers were slated to chair House committees. But just as in 2006 Nancy Pelosi is still the Speaker of the House and her continued presence in the position is proof that any initiatives considered remotely leftish will be dead on arrival unless members who call themselves progressive put up a fight.
“Corporate control, austerity, imperialism, and corruption prevail year after year.”
This year the excitement is directed at newcomers like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. Both defeated long time Democrat incumbents in primaries by positioning themselves as progressives. Bush defeated CBC member Lacy Clay in the Missouri district that includes the city of Ferguson. She ran on a platform of ending police killings in the place where Michael Brown’s death in 2014 was the spark for an ongoing movement. Bush and Bowman both call for significant cuts to the military budget, Medicare for All, and defunding the police. They ran on progressive issues but the question is whether they will take principled stances or go along to get along like so many of their colleagues.
The recent #ForcetheVote campaign called on members to withhold support for Speaker Nancy Pelosi unless she committed herself to bringing Medicare for All to a vote. Bowman and Bush got the message that the movement was gaining traction and said they were not committed to supporting Pelosi. Yet on the day when they and others could have proven their progressive credentials, they voted for the woman who has been keeping CBC members in line for years. Despite much debate about the #ForcetheVote campaign, only five Democrats declined to vote for Pelosi. Every CBC member, every progressive caucus member, and the group known as “the squad” all supported her.
Once known as the “conscience of the Congress” they long ago succumbed when monied interests began targeting them. The CBC now live under the control of Pelosi and political action committee dollars. Some don’t mind going along for the ride while others fear that defying party dictates will mean that they face a well-funded challenger.
The ultimate losers are black people because they have no real representation in Congress, state houses or city halls. If their votes counted for anything the minimum wage would be higher, austerity would come to an end, police would fear committing extra judicial murder, and they would have Medicare for All. Instead, they live in fear of the Republicans, the white peoples’ party, and accept that keeping them out of office is the highest political expectation they may have.
Electoral politics cannot be the basis for political change. The people cannot, must not, rely on politicians to get what they want. We have seen enough so-called progressives fall by the wayside. The political circus will come to an end only with sustained popular pressure that comes from mass action. Only then will black politicians truly act on behalf of their constituents. https://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-let-black-caucus-be-black
2021-12-16 Nancy Pelosi triggers backlash after she defends stock trading by lawmakers
Progressives and government watchdog groups on Wednesday condemned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s defense of individual stock trading by members of Congress, days after an extensive report revealed dozens of conflicts of interest by lawmakers who own stocks related to the healthcare industry and other sectors Congress is supposed to regulate.
After being asked by Business Insider at her weekly press conference whether members of Congress and their spouses should be barred from trading stocks, Pelosi said the practice should be permitted to continue because “we are a free market economy. https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/nancy-pelosi-stock-trading/
2019-07-31 Nancy Pelosi: The leader of the “Hizb al-Shaitan”
Pelosi is not transparent like Trump in her cunning moves but, like Trump, is averse to any challenge to the status quo.
In the United States, God is in the custody of the Republican Party whereas most Republicans are in the pockets of the multi-millionaires, billionaires, and corporations. It is not much different with the Democratic Party whose sponsors are mostly the same elements from the wealthy class. Democratic Party is the official opposition party or “Hizb al-Shaitan” and the party’s leader in the Congress is Nancy Pelosi.
Charges of election rigging are leveled by the opposition at the ruling party, and sometimes vice versa, as an aftermath when an election is held in a polarized environment; thus hindering a smooth transfer of power. This happens all the time in many countries. Depending on circumstances and strength, parties fight tooth and nail to claim power.
But the Unites States is witnessing a diametric situation; Pelosi must be the world’s first politician to concede defeat even before the elections are held. The US elections are almost 16 months away. Her reasoning: to gain power in 2020, the Democrats should win by a huge margin; only then will Trump accept the results. But what if even losing by a great percentage Trump refuses to leave? Trump has tasted power on such humongous scale that he’s not going to abdicate his throne unless he’s dragged out of the White House and thrown into the mental asylum van.
What kind of a leader Pelosi is who, instead of encouraging the Democratic voters/supporters/congresspersons to fight to the end for the victory they have gained, howsoever small it may be, doesn’t think fighting for a victory with tiny margin is worthwhile. So she has a plan ready beforehand to quit the arena.
Pelosi instead should have roared if Trump denies the victorious Democrats to take over power we’ll be out on the streets with our people and force Trump to pack up and go. But it’s too much to expect even such a reasonable thing from Pelosi who is the establishment person playing the role of a puppy for the extremely wealthy class.
. https://www.blackagendareport.com/nancy-pelosi-leader-hizb-al-shaitan
2019-07-17 Freedom Rider: The Trump and Pelosi Lovefest
Trump and Pelosi are birds of a feather when it comes to beating up on dissident women of color.
In 2007 this columnist declared that Nancy Pelosi is our enemy. She was the new Speaker of the House after Democrats emerged victorious in the 2006 elections. But they didn’t oppose George W. Bush and the Republicans the way their voters wanted them to. Little has changed since that time. Democrats mobilize in order to defeat the Republicans but still end up with snake in the grass leadership like Pelosi.
Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar dissented and voted against the latest compromise with Republicans to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement. Immigration is supposed to be a litmus test issue which sharply differentiates Democrats from Republicans. But that is not how the game is really played.
“Like a true gangster Pelosi conducted the beatdown in public.” Pelosi trashed her members in an interview with the New York Times. “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world. But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.” Like a true gangster Pelosi conducted the beatdown in public.
When Ocasio-Cortez truthfully stated that the remarks were disrespectful and showed a pattern of attacking women of color, Pelosi, the corporate media, Democratic party propagandists, and lap dog Congressional Black Congress (CBC) members all sprang into action. Gregory Meeks joined in ganging up on his colleagues and threatened Ocasio-Cortez with a primary challenge. Kamala Harris weighed in with a seal of approval for Miss Nancy.
Trump knows that Pelosi is his friend. She is in no way part of an opposition to his administration. She is the rainmaker for the Democratic Party and the wielder of discipline against progressives. The two tasks are linked, of course. The very wealthy speaker brings in the cash from her equally wealthy friends. They give with the expectation that nothing even vaguely resembling progressive policy will ever see the light of day.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-trump-and-pelosi-lovefest
2019-02-14 Pelosi Sabotages Medicare for All, But Corporate Media Pretend Not to Notice
When the top Democrat secretly plots to subvert a proposal supported by the vast majority of her party, that’s supposed to be news — unless the corporate media decide otherwise. “The plutocrat-owned press is protecting Pelosi from the extreme embarrassment.”
Thanks to Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid in 2016, his signature Medicare for All proposal is the litmus issue for Democrats in the unfolding 2020 campaign. With supermajority support among Democratic and independent voters and backed by more than half of Republican s, the single payer scheme was endorsed by a majority of Democratic candidates in November’s House races. Most of the declared Democratic presidential candidates claim to back Medicare for All, including even New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who has accepted more money from Big Pharma than any other member of his party. So compelling is the issue, a Politico-Harvard poll shows that fully 84 percent of Democrats want the party to make Medicare for All “an extremely important priority.”
It should be huge news, then, that the top Democrat in Congress, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, is actively working to discredit and sideline the most popular domestic political proposal of the century. But, apparently not. The Intercept’s February 5 blockbuster, “Top Nancy Pelosi Aide Privately Tells Insurance Executives Not to Worry About Democrats Pushing ‘Medicare for All,’” was picked up by only one “mainstream” corporate media outlet: Newsweek. In burying this bombshell, the plutocrat-owned press is protecting Pelosi from the extreme embarrassment of being caught conspiring with insurance companies to subvert Democratic voters’ highest priority issue, with the obvious aim of derailing Bernie Sanders’ anticipated second run for the presidency.
“Passage of Medicare for All would open Pandora’s box, shattering the corporate consensus on endless austerity and the sanctity of the ‘market.’” Pelosi’s game plan to deal with single payer supporters in her own party is exactly the opposite: subversion and backdoor deals to undermine Medicare for All, in secret.
The corporate media is part of the conspiracy of silence on Pelosi’s undercover Medicare for All machinations, just as they collude in ignoring Bernie Sanders’ steady stream of speeches on this issue and a slew of wildly popular proposals that would end private exploitation of a whole range of services to the people. Although single payer healthcare would directly benefit most businesses that employ workers, by eliminating profit-driven insurance payments and driving down drug and hospital costs, passage of Medicare for All would open Pandora’s box, shattering the corporate consensus on endless austerity and the sanctity of the “market.”
That’s what Russiagate is really about – not fantasy plotters in Moscow, but silencing actual dissent to the corporate narrative at home. Unfortunately, Bernie Sanders and his brand of Democrat “socialists” can’t grasp the connection. They embrace the half of the corporate narrative that justifies endless war with Russia, China, Syria, and now Venezuela – while rejecting its twin: endless austerity. And then they wonder why the corporate narrative is just as hostile to single payer, free college tuition and a Green New Deal as it is to Putin, Assad and Maduro. Which leaves them at the mercy of their conniving corporate overseer, Nancy Pelosi. https://www.blackagendareport.com/pelosi-sabotages-medicare-all-corporate-media-pretend-not-notice
2019-02-13 The Left Must Finally Break With the Democrats
It is vitally important to create a mass-based and corporate-free party of working people.
As generations of progressives have done before them, Bernie supporters embarked on a renewed mission to reform the Democratic Party after it rigged the presidential primary election [see back issues of U&I on this subject]. Their first thought was, “What if we try to get a strong platform out of the Democratic Party?”
It turns out that the platform is nonbinding and meaningless. That is why the Party just scrapped the platform passed by the delegates the following year and replaced it with a more conservative one called the “Better Deal.”
Well, next, progressives said, “What if we try to elect a DNC chair to take over the Party apparatus?” It turns out again that the Democratic Party’s members and voters have nothing to do with selecting the leadership of the Party. The DNC members (corporate lobbyists, consultants, and superdelegates) get to pick the Democratic National Committee chair. The Party donors supported Tom Perez, so that’s who we got. Once again the progressives were thwarted by the Party.
So progressives then said, “How about if we replace the DNC members and get a majority?” Well at the DNC’s fall meeting in 2017,the Party simply picked out the progressives and purged them from the National Committee.
The shocked progressives then said, “What if we try to reform the presidential primary process ahead of 2020?” So they pushed for the elimination of superdelegates, open primaries, same-day party registration, and progressive influence on the key Rules Committee, which oversees the primary process. And the DNC Unity Reform Commission was put together to level the playing field and create a fair primary process.
“But right from the start, the Democratic Party rigged the commission itself. The Party stacked it with a bunch of consultants, corporate lobbyists and people who participated in rigging the 2016 primary (like Donna Brazile). It also gave all 30 seats on the Rules and Bylaws Committee to establishment loyalists. Not surprisingly, the DNC ended up expanding its control over the primary process.
It kept closed primaries to shut out independent voters who lean progressive. It kept joint fundraising agreements between the DNC and presidential campaigns, which allow establishment candidates to control the Party throughout the primaries like Hillary Clinton did. It slashed the number of states that hold caucuses, which favor progressive candidates. It refused to eliminate superdelegates, moving them to the second ballot at the convention but reserving the right to force a second ballot if they choose.
It introduced a loyalty oath that allows the DNC chair to deny progressives access to the ballot if he deems that the candidate has been insufficiently “faithful” to the Party during their life. And most important, it did nothing to remove corporate and billionaire money from the primary or the Party, ensuring that Wall Street can continue purchasing its politicians.
These rules will have a huge impact on the 2020 Democratic primary. Take the caucuses for instance. Bernie won two-thirds of the caucus states in 2016, while Hillary won three-quarters of the primary states. Bernie was competitive thanks to the caucuses. So the Party leadership said, hey, let’s get rid of them. And that’s what they’re doing.
Undeterred, some of the most hard-core individuals trying to reform the Democratic Party thought, “Well now we’re at the midterms so let’s try to elect some progressive Democrats and take power legislatively.”
When the dust settled in November of 2018, it turned out that the “Blue Wave” had been a corporate wave. The party establishment had successfully blocked all but two of the progressives who challenged incumbent Democrats. Only two progressives unseated House Democrats in all of 2018: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley. There are 435 members of Congress.
The other two progressives who are often discussed in the media basically swapped seats with progressives who used to sit there: Rashid Tlaib took John Conyers’ seat and Ilhan Omar took Keith Ellison’s seat.
Dejected progressives thought, “In that case, let’s replace Pelosi as speaker of the House. She is deeply in the pockets of Wall Street and has enriched herself to the tune of $100 million in the course of her public service.”
The Party responded to the dissension by threatening to pick an even more conservative Speaker of the House than Pelosi, someone from the Blue Dog Caucus, for example. This needs to be understood: The opposition to Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House was coming from the right wing of the Party. The majority of the Democratic House Caucus considers Pelosi to be out of step with the Party because she is too far to the left. The Democratic Party is so conservative that Pelosi is now left of center.
As a result, the progressives capitulated and voted to make Nancy Pelosi Speaker again. But they went beyond endorsing her reluctantly. The handful of new progressives launched a campaign to rebrand her as a progressive.
“Pelosi comes from a space of activism and organizing,” said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “No one can really doubt Pelosi’s progressive chops,” stated Pramila Jayapal. “Pelosi has a progressive track record,” added Rashida Tlaib. “Pelosi will play an important role in advancing the agenda of progressives,” said Ilhan Omar.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/left-must-finally-break-democrats
2018-11-28 Bernie Sanders Puts Forward a Program That Could Split the Democratic Party
Bernie Sanders has opened his 2020 campaign with a 10-point program that could bust the Democratic Party wide open – which would be best thing Bernie could do for the world. “Every step closer Sanders gets to the nomination brings the Democratic Party nearer to the split that is necessary.”
Bernie Sanders last week unveiled a 10-point legislative agenda that he believes will galvanize the Democratic base in much the way that Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract With America” propelled the GOP to its biggest electoral sweep since 1946 . The Vermont senator’s wish list is genuinely impressive in sweep , a full-blown progressive domestic platform for his expected second run for the presidency in 2020. But the immediate obstacle to Sanders’ proposals for Medicare-For-All, tuition-free public higher education, expanded Social Security, a $15 an hour minimum wage, “bold action” on climate change, fixing the criminal justice system, comprehensive immigration reform, progressive tax reform, a $1 trillion infrastructure overhaul and cheaper prescription drugs, is not Donald Trump’s GOP troglodytes — it’s Nancy Pelosi and her corporate Democrats, who answer to a much higher power: big capital.
“The immediate obstacle to Sanders’ proposals is not Donald Trump’s GOP troglodytes — it’s Nancy Pelosi and her corporate Democrats.”
Writing in the Washington Post , Sanders said it’s “not good enough for Democrats to just be the anti-Trump party.” If Democrats “want to keep and expand their majority in the House, take back the Senate and win the White House, Democrats must show the American people that they will aggressively stand up and fight for the working families of this country – black, white, Latino, Asian American or Native American, men and women, gay or straight.”
https://www.blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-puts-forward-program-could-split-democratic-party
2018-11-28 Freedom Rider: The Democrats Win and Black People Lose
If the Democrats were a true political party, Nancy Pelosi’s failures would have taken her out of the running for any leadership position. “We must say no to the false dichotomy of Trumpian fascism or the pretend Democratic Party variety.”
Black Agenda Report was first published in October 2006, just as the Democratic Party was poised to take control of the House of Representatives with Nancy Pelosi as leader. Twelve years later they will be in the majority for the first time since 2010, and again with Pelosi at the helm.
In those early issues of BAR, our team pondered the meaning of a Democratic majority that didn’t represent the interests of the black constituency that brought it to power. In 2006 John Conyers was the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. He had publicly stated his goal of holding impeachment hearings to investigate George W. Bush. But Pelosi made it clear that impeachment was “off the table,” and indeed it was.
Fast forward to 2018. Despite the supposed Democratic Party outrage over charges of collusion against Donald Trump, Pelosi again says there will be no impeachment. What she does offer are right wing talking points about “pay as you go” federal spending, a guarantee of more austerity that may as well have been written by the Koch brothers.
Nancy Pelosi may have raised millions of dollars for Democratic candidates, but the money did little to help as four election cycles went by without a victory. If the Democrats were a true political party her failures would have taken her out of the running for any leadership position. Instead her fealty to the rotten system makes her an untouchable.
In 2006 the BAR rallying cry was “Let Black Democrats Be Black!” Our demand referred to the Democratic Party beat down of the progressive policies that the constituents of Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members want to see enacted. It appears that 2018 is a repeat of 2006.
“Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership have silenced and side lined what remains of any left wing tendency.”
Nancy Pelosi is only good at two things. She raises lots of money, which isn’t really hard for someone with an estimated net worth of $120 million. Pelosi gets credit for asking her rich friends to contribute to her favorite cause, something that every lady who lunches knows how to do.
Her other talent is shooting down any and all progressive policy proposals. She and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership have silenced and side lined what remains of any left wing tendency. The phony left, represented by the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, mouth the right words but then sign on to Pelosi and the rest of the discredited gang. https://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-democrats-win-and-black-people-lose
2018-11-28 Ocasio-Cortez, Nancy Pelosi, and the Con of Diversity
Poor people, especially poor Black Americans, cannot eat from or survive off “diversity.”
The midterm elections have been over for two weeks and the Democrat-controlled House is set to nominate corporate mainstay Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Pelosi has been met with opposition in her own party and the Bezos-owned Washington Post has questioned whether she will garner enough votes for the nomination . Even Donald Trump felt compelled to come to Pelosi’s aid, offering the long-time California representative votes from the Republican Party . The debate over the Speaker position is indicative of growing divisions with the Democratic Party-wing of the duopoly. However, this debate has little significance for the masses of exploited and impoverished workers and poor people, especially Black Americans, in the United States and around the world. The opposition to Pelosi is a public relations stunt on the part of the Democratic Party, which has long united against the interests of the poor and working-class around the con of diversity.
The con of diversity, as outlined by BAR executive editor Glen Ford, allows the corporate ruling class to brand imperialism as “inclusive” at the expense of Black Americans. Diversity began when affirmative action was effectively tossed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978 in the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case. Institutions were no longer required to enforce “quotas” for racial minorities, freeing the corporate ruling class from any mandate to provide redress to Black Americans who have been historically disadvantaged by injustices of white supremacy. Diversity served as a convenient replacement for affirmative action. Loyal servants to the U.S. empire and capitalist state were elevated to a small number of high places while poor and working-class Black Americans were denied political and economic power in every aspect of society.
Democrats like Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez are two different strands of the same diversity disease. Pelosi is an entrenched corporate Democrat with a net worth of 196 million dollars . She is a staunch advocate of capitalism and most of her campaign contributions come from large donors or corporate Political Action Committees (PAC). Pelosi has been a major supporter of the drive to war with Russia, a policy that has its roots in her support of U.S. funding for the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush Jr. Administration. In a word, Pelosi is beloved by the ruling class for her decade’s worth of service to finance capital and the war machine even as she promotes herself as a progressive politician for the “99 percent.”
“The opposition to Pelosi is a public relations stunt on the part of the Democratic Party.”
Pelosi’s office was recently occupied by activists from the PAC “Justice Democrats.” Activists demanded support from Pelosi for a Green New Deal. The policy has been a feature of the Green Party’s list of demands on the U.S. government for years, but no Greens were consulted prior to the protest. New York Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez paid a visit to the protest as a show of faux-opposition to Pelosi. Despite the sexy optics of the protest, Ocasio-Cortez demonstrated the full extent of the danger that the diversity con game poses to the oppressed and exploited masses. Ocasio-Cortez said this about Pelosi when speaking to the corporate media at the protest, “One of the things that I admire so much about Leader Pelosi, is that she comes from a place of activism and organizing and she really appreciates civic engagement.”
Nancy Pelosi does indeed come from a place of activism and civic engagement in service of imperialism. In a townhall last year, Pelosi told a young socialist activist that the Democratic Party was capitalist through and through . Pelosi opposes Medicare for All even though nearly ninety percent of Democrat voters support single-payer healthcare. Pelosi has fought for the militarization of immigration policy and has drawn staunch criticism from immigrant rights groups. And most recently, Pelosi has used her “activist” spirit to call for bipartisanship in the form of tax policy that would effectively strangle in their crib any hopes for Medicare for All or any other progressive demand. Her proposal for a three-fifths majority requirement in the House to raise the tax rates of the bottom 80 percent of earners is a right-wing dog whistle that masquerades as an attempt to “increase” the income of a mythical “middle class.” And as a loyal servant of Israel and war, Pelosi was perfectly fine with giving the U.S. military 57.4 billion dollars more than what Trump proposed for the defense spending in 2017.
Poor people, especially poor Black Americans, cannot eat from or survive off “diversity.” Yet the imperialist system has essentially given poor Blacks and other workers two choices. They can support the White Man’s Party led by Donald Trump or support the Rainbow Coalition of Death and Plunder led by the Democrats. This is no choice at all. U.S. imperialism is a class system in crisis. Both corporate parties are scrambling to resolve the crisis but neither has any solutions to the inherent contradictions of imperialism. Thus, all choices made within the duopoly electoral system only reinforce the suffering of the people. https://www.blackagendareport.com/ocasio-cortez-nancy-pelosi-and-con-diversity
2017-06-18 Freedom Rider: Nancy Pelosi Sends Democrats Over a Cliff
The Democrats can’t serve their Black and working class base because they get their money from the 1%. “Their allegiance to global elites prevents them from making even small changes.” Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi brags that no change is coming because “we’re capitalist.” But Pelosi’s fund-raising power “won’t bring victory to a party that has been thoroughly discredited.”
Nancy Pelosi, leader of congressional Democrats, should be ought of a job. Pelosi has few political victories to speak of but she does raise money, lots of money. That is the only reason she is still the House Leader. She is a wealthy woman with access to other rich people who in turn keep party coffers full. When asked about her defeats she counters with one theme, her fundraising prowess.
She has raised $568 million since becoming leader in 2002. That seems impressive until it is pointed out that Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for only four years, from 2006 through 2010.
They steadfastly refuse to engage voters with the issues that concern them and for a very important reason. Doing so would jeopardize their ability to court favor with the 1% of rich individuals, banks, and corporations. Democratic voters want Medicare For All and living wage jobs but those policy decisions are in conflict with the wishes of the party’s rich sugar daddies. So the voters be damned.
The result is defeat after ignominious defeat. Hillary Clinton certainly knew how to raise money too, a cool $1 billion to be exact. And yet she still lost to the man she thought would be easiest to beat. After watching Donald Trump win an Electoral College victory there was no soul searching, no attempt to change. Pelosi has said publicly on more than one occasion, “We don’t need to change.”
The Democrats are in a profound state of contradiction. Their allegiance to global elites prevents them from making even small changes. The party is in a bind, flailing about with no purpose other than proving to its rich contributors that they are still on board with capitalism.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/nancy_pelosi_capitalist_pig
2017-02-18 How Does House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Commute From California Since the U.S. Air Force Took Away Their Jet She Used?
With all the “shit-n-shinola” liberals in Congress have been pulling off over the years, and especially now after November 8, 2016, I thought tax payers would like to know something about U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s travel plans the U.S. tax payers paid for. Just like most Democrats, everything for nothing; isn’t it due them?
According to a Judicial Watch press release dated July 21, 2011, we find just how luxuriously then-House Speaker Pelosi, family and friends traveled on tax payers’ dime, until the U.S. Air Force took away her use of their aircraft. The records were obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Overall, according to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch in January 2011, Pelosi used the Air Force aircraft for a total of 43 trips, covering 90,155 miles, from January 1 through October 1, 2010. Judicial Watch, through FOIA, continues to pursue other records related to Pelosi’s use of Air Force aircraft. Previous documents obtained by Judicial Watch show the former Speaker’s military travel cost the USAF $2,100,744.59 over one two-year period – $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. For example, purchases for one Pelosi-led congressional delegation traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008 included: Johnny Walker Red Scotch, Grey Goose Vodka, E&J Brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark Whiskey, Courvoisier Cognac, Bacardi Light Rum, Jim Beam Whiskey, Beefeater Gin, Dewars Scotch, Bombay Sapphire Gin, Jack Daniels Whiskey, Corona Beer and several bottles of wine.
Remember, that was a few years back when Obama was president. However, current remarks President Trump makes about Washington, DC’s ‘swamp critters’ aren’t being taken very kindly or in proper context by Democrats and the newly-formed “Purple Revolution” fashioned by the Clintons and George Soros’ MoveOn.org to precipitate a color revolution in the USA against the Trump Administration, as Soros and his Open Foundation Society successfully carried out in other countries, e.g., Arab Spring and other color ‘revolutions’ around the globe [2-5]. Are you aware of that? A “Purple Revolution” in the USA! Purple no longer is my favorite color.
That, apparently, is the liberal left’s agenda: Keep the real news from tax payers and others; gush the fake news. Does President Trump have that one correct, too? Control the media! Remember Pelosi’s infamous, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it away from the fog of the controversy,” regarding the Obama Administration signature healthcare bill, aka ObamaCare, that has driven the price of healthcare premiums up by an average of 24 percent for 2017, while some in Phoenix [2016] faced a premium increase of 145 percent! https://youtu.be/hV-05TLiiLU? https://www.activistpost.com/2017/02/nancy-pelosi-commute-california-air-force-takes-plane.html
2013-06-24 Nancy Pelosi booed for saying Snowden broke law
Speaking on stage Saturday at the NetRoots Nation conference in San Jose, California, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA.) was booed when she said that former NSA contractor Edward Snowden broke the law when he leaked classified documents revealing secret surveillance programs.
During Pelosi’s time on stage she also called on the audience to reject any comparisons between Barack Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush on their oversight of surveillance programs, reports The Hill.
“He did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents,” Pelosi stated, drawing loud boos from her audience.
I understand, I understand, but he did violate the law. And the fact is that, again, we have to have the balance between security and privacy, and we don’t know what sources and methods may have been revealed, which is a tough thing.
Americans Disapprove of Government Surveillance Programs. Most polls you come across seem to show division between approval and disapproval of the NSA leaks; but by the reaction Pelosi received, it’s hard to believe that most Americans would disapprove of Snowden’s actions.
In fact, a White House petition to pardon the whistleblower has just broke the 100,000 signatures milestone. The White House has made a pledge to respond to petitions that receive over 25,000 signees.
The news of NSA surveillance programs has spread disgust around the globe. The Rest Of The World Is Absolutely Disgusted With Our Big Brother Spying Methods
Pelosi can try to detach Obama from Bush, but at this stage in Obama’s presidency, after a recent flood of scandals, the American people are coming to the realization that government overreach has gone too far, and commonsense/law is being spit on by their representatives. It’s a sad state of affairs when legislators like Pelosi cannot recognize what the law is. Ever hear of the Fourth Amendment? https://www.activistpost.com/2013/06/nancy-pelosi-booed-for-saying-snowden.html
2013-06-07 Watch Nancy Pelosi Lie Through Her Teeth About Healthcare
Just a few weeks ago the honorable Congresswoman from San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi, made the stunning claim that health insurance in America would be cheaper than ever before. “Many of the initiatives that he passed are what are coming to bear now, including the Affordable Care Act,” she said at a recent press conference about legislation championed by the President. “The Affordable Care Act is bringing the cost of health care in our country down in both the public and private sector.”
Of course, days later we found out what the future of” affordable” health care and lower costs actually meant, when the IRS admitted that prices would top $20,000 per year for the average American family. It seems that these are the ramifications for passing a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. health care industry without having first read the bill to find out what was in it.
Now that we know government mandated ObamaCare will actually cost Americans at all income levels significantly more than was promised by the President and Congressional democrats, Nancy Pelosi is backpedaling on her statements, claiming that she and the bill’s supporters never said there’d be lower premiums.
Well, some people don’t have health insurance and they’ll certainly have their health insurance premiums go up [laughs] because they don’t have any health insurance now, so they don’t have any premiums now.
Nancy Pelosi is absolutely right. Obamacare, which will be enforced at the barrel of a gun, is freedom!
It’s a liberation… of your money from your wallet, to be spent on Nancy’s mile high booze-it-up plane junkets and subsidies for her district that will enrich her colleague Dianne Feinstein’s personal net worth. What’s worse is that the people of San Francisco and the greater United States remain oblivious to how they just got raped by this woman, her cronies in Congress and the healthcare industrial complex. Nancy Pelosi belongs in prison, not on the floor of the United States Congress. https://www.activistpost.com/2013/06/watch-nancy-pelosi-lie-through-her.html
2011-08-11 Givebacks in a Deepening Crisis
Unfortunately, it appears that the political party – the Democrats – who introduced and once championed social security and Medicare, are now becoming participants in its destruction. Not only President Obama, but Senate leader Harry Reid and House leader Nancy Pelosi have all publicly indicated this summer they are prepared to concede that and to cut Medicare before year end 2011 in some form. Next it will be social security retirement. And Medicare again.
If that happens and the leadership of the Democratic Party abandon Social Security and Medicare to concession bargaining, as it appears they will, the only answer to stopping concession bargaining is to create a new party of labor, every member of which must solemnly pledge to expand the social wage, to defend and expand social security and Medicare, and to stand firm on the question of concession bargaining.
There can be no “Bi-Partisan” compromise. It is time to raise the flag, with the motto boldly proclaiming across it: No Concessions! No Retreat! https://againstthecurrent.org/atc154/p3355/
2007-10-17 Freedom Rider: Nancy Pelosi, Public Enemy Number One
“If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have ‘Impeach Bush’ across their chest, it’s the First Amendment.” – Nancy Pelosi
The Democratic Speaker of the House would like to arrest activists for loitering. Her Quisling like behavior has led protesters to her front door in San Francisco, but she has only herself to blame for the inconveniences she and her rich neighbors now suffer. The great unwashed masses have a right to assemble at her home, her office, or anywhere else they choose in order to exercise what is left of their right to speak freely. Her own words show her level of contempt for the democratic process.
It is clear that Nancy Pelosi’s reign as Speaker has been an absolute disaster for the Democratic party and for the entire nation. Her eagerness to cooperate with the Bush regime is matched only by her incompetence in leading Congress. Under her watch, Congress gave Alberto Gonzales, on his way to riding out of town on a rail, a significant victory by expanding FISA regulations to allow warrantless surveillance of American citizens.
“Her eagerness to cooperate with the Bush regime is matched only by her incompetence in leading Congress.”
The story of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act debacle has been blamed on Bush. It is true that he once again lied about a terror threat, but it is not true that Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats were innocently stampeded. The Democrats had every intention of caving from the very beginning. Pelosi and the rest of the leadership promised the ACLU and other civil liberties groups that they wouldn’t pass a bill without first investigating the extent of White House law breaking and without consulting them first. They did no such thing. As an ACLU lobbyist put it, “They turned around and screwed us over – and the Constitution – all at once.”
Disappointment in the Democrats, pleas to “grow a spine” miss the point entirely. Pelosi and her clique have no interest in Democracy. They go through the flimsiest pretense of opposing Bush when they have no interest in doing so. Her goal is to preserve the status quo, not to overturn it.
Nancy Pelosi now has stated publicly what she thinks of us, the citizens of this country. We are an irritant to be tolerated, not people with rights that must be respected. Pelosi is an omen, a warning that acceptance of Democrat party actions is the first step on the road to political hell. It is a lesson that must be learned now, before President Hillary Clinton takes office.
“They go through the flimsiest pretense of opposing Bush when they have no interest in doing so.”
The fix is definitely in for Clinton to win the Democratic party nomination. The Democratic candidates’ fundraising prowess versus Republicans is a sign that the big money political donors of both parties are all betting on the Democratic horse.
Clinton’s ascension to the throne now reserved for family dynasties should not be accepted as an absolute victory. The “middle of the road” after Bush is still right wing. Triangulation this time around means more war, New Orleans destroyed and deserted, and more dirty dealings in Congress.
Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of what passes for Congressional leadership have perfected their criminal enterprise. Every act of treachery is followed by lame excuses for inaction. The truly spineless ones, progressives wallowing in denial, foolishly whine, asking each other what is wrong when the answer stares them in the face. The Democratic party is complicit in killing democracy.
“Civil liberties groups and antiwar groups must finally realize that they can only play a role in movement politics.”
Activists must keep protesting at her house and working for her defeat in the 2008 congressional elections. They must also cease cooperating with her. The farce must end before it is too late. Pelosi, like Bush, has no loyalty to her constitutionally based responsibilities. She must no longer be treated as though she is a friend when she has proven herself to be an enemy.
Civil liberties groups and antiwar groups must stop meeting with Pelosi or her staff. They must finally realize that they can only play a role in movement politics. It is said that insanity is defined as repeating the same action over and over yet expecting a different result. Progressives have waged many righteous battles in the last seven years, but they are about to go down in history as insane actors in a badly written play.
Activists must begin making demands. They must demand impeachment, they must demand that New Orleans be rebuilt, they must demand no further funding for occupation in Iraq or for a new war in Iran. Pelosi and her co-conspirators must be called out as the back stabbers that they are. Only then will democracy have any chance of being restored. https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-nancy-pelosi-public-enemy-number-one
.
Nancy Pelosi – Alternative Media
Shahid Buttar Campaign to Unseat Nancy Pelosi
.
progressiveissuesblog 