Tag: attack

(TRIGGER WARNING) Comparing Bernie Sanders to a domestic abuser minimizes domestic abuse

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This blog post contains a tweet that includes an image depicting violence against women. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

The Democratic Party is being increasingly dominated by two forms of progressivism. One form of progressivism prioritizes human rights issues, especially in regards to women’s reproductive rights, over other issues. This form of progressivism is associated with very liberal voters who voted for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries/caucuses, who are the core base of support, although not 100% of the support, of the resistance to the Trump Administration. The other form of progressivism prioritizes economic issues, especially in regards to efforts to reduce income inequality, over other issues. This form of progressivism is very strongly associated with Bernie Sanders, in fact, Sanders has often by criticized by progressive critics of Sanders for having supported candidates for public office who oppose abortion rights (although Bernie himself has a very pro-choice voting record as a U.S. Senator) and not regarding reproductive rights as an important issue.

Sanders has come under extremely heavy criticism for publicly endorsing Omaha, Nebraska mayoral candidate Heath Mello, who, as a member of Nebraska’s unicameral state legislature, voted for legislation that required doctors to give women who consider terminating a pregnancy a list of ultrasound providers. Although Mello has publicly disavowed his past support for anti-abortion legislation, the bill that he supported as a state legislator was designed purely to shame women, and nobody can re-write history.

Sanders’s support for Mello has prompted a large amount of criticism from progressive critics of Sanders. While most of the criticism has been over the fact that Sanders has, despite being pro-choice himself, endorsed anti-choice politicians from time to time, as well as Sanders not regarding women’s rights issues as important, there has been at least one example of criticism of Sanders that goes straight into the gutter of American politics. This was a tweet that somebody going under the alias “BroStoogeRally” posted about Bernie endorsing Jon Ossoff, a pro-choice and anti-interventionist Democrat who is running in a special election in the 6th Congressional District of Georgia:

Really? Bernie endorses a candidate with a realistic chance of winning a U.S. House seat that was previously held by a Republican who is now a member of the Trump Cabinet, and this guy has the gall to compare Bernie to a domestic abuser? Bernie is, to my knowledge, not a domestic abuser, and comparing someone like Bernie to a domestic abuser minimizes violence against women, which is a serious problem in America. Although these statistics date back to no later than late 2014, nearly 5 million American women each year experience physical violence by an intimate partner, one in four American women will be victims of severe violence by an intimate partner, and over 38 million American women have experienced physical intimate partner violence at some point in their lifetimes. It is inherently clear that domestic violence is a major problem in America, and using graphic images of domestic violence to compare political figures who aren’t domestic abusers to domestic abusers minimizes the serious problem in America that is domestic violence.

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In 2011 email, Bruce Rauner made false, racist claim about Chicago public school teachers

In a 2011 email to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other people seeking to dismantle the Chicago public school system, Republican Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner claimed that half of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) teachers are “virtually illiterate”.

Not only is that an absurdly false claim about public K-12 teachers in our state’s largest city, it’s also a flagrantly racist one.

According to the CPS website, 50.3% of CPS teachers are white, and the race/ethnicity of 1.7% of CPS teachers is unknown. That means that 48% of CPS teachers are of a known ethnic minority. I’m very convinced that Rauner was referring to non-white CPS teachers as “virtually illiterate”.

The latest email release from Rahm’s administration in Chicago has proven that Rauner is a total racist who thinks that minority teachers are illiterate, and that the Rahm-Rauner agenda to destroy public education in Illinois is motivated by racism. The truth of the matter is that public school teachers in Illinois, whether it be in Chicago or another part of our great state, are intelligent, functionally literate, and do a great job of educating our state’s children.

BREAKING NEWS: Police officers shot at Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a breaking news event. Information may change rapidly.

Multiple members of the Dallas Police Department (Dallas PD) and Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) police forces, as well as a 37-year old woman by the name of Shetamia Taylor, were shot at a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, Texas. Five of the officers who were shot have been killed, and two snipers, whose identities are not known at this time, are believed to be the perpetrators of the attack:

Violence against law enforcement, or, for that matter, any person, is NEVER acceptable. While there is a ton of institutional racism in this country, and it’s true that law enforcement officers have killed black people in situations in which they would not kill a white person (think of the deaths of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, LaQuan McDonald, Tony Robinson, Eric Gardner, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castle at the hands of law enforcement), committing acts of violence does not do a damn bit of good to advance the Black Lives Matter cause. The Black Lives Matter cause is a cause that I strongly support, but I absolutely oppose all forms of violence. If you’re going around shooting police officers, you’re just as evil of a person as the police officers who killed people like Alton Sterling and Philando Castle.

While a motive for the shooting of the Dallas police officers is not known at this time, I strongly suspect that someone had every intention of disrupting what, up until the shooting, had been a peaceful protest, in an attempt to make the protesters that did not engage in violence of any form look bad.

TRUMP GETS TROLLED: Pocahontas.com redirects to Elizabeth Warren U.S. Senate campaign website

Democratic vice-presidential nominee or not, Donald Trump will have to deal with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as the Democrats’ most effective attacker of Trump’s awful record as a businessman and human being.

Oh, and Warren isn’t just straight up attacking Trump. She’s also playing the trolling game and winning big. She bought the domain name Pocahontas.com, which redirects to Warren’s U.S. Senate campaign website.

It’s possible that Trump was planning to buy the Pocahontas.com domain name to create a racist attack site against Warren, but, if he is, he’ll have to find another domain name to do it under. I would have expected it to be impossible for Pocahontas.com to be purchased by a political figure of any kind, since I would have expected that domain name to be in Disney’s possession (Disney produced a historically inaccurate animated movie called Pocahontas, which was released to theaters in 1995 and released on VHS a year later).

Donald Trump’s racist attacks on Elizabeth Warren have failed in an epic way.

Howard Dean launches ageist attack on Elizabeth Warren

Former DNC Chairman and pro-Hillary Clinton superdelegate Howard Dean is trying to pour cold water on the idea of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) being the running mate of our party’s presidential nominee, whether the presidential nominee is Clinton or, less likely, Bernie Sanders. In the process, Dean attacked Warren for being too old for whatever fits his description of an ideal presidential candidate:

“Certainly somebody like that would be very helpful,” Dean said about the the Massachusetts senator.

But then he added, “I strongly believe we ought to have somebody under 50 on the ticket. I think the Baby Boomers have run this country for too long. We stepped away from that with (Barack) Obama; we don’t normally go back a generation. We’re gonna have two Baby Boomers running for president on the Democratic and the Republican side. So I would like somebody very much who is not in the Baby Boomer generation. Who is in this new upcoming generation — the younger the better.”

Dean cautioned this wasn’t about Warren herself, “ideologically I think Elizabeth Warren is terrific.” But, he said, there are lots of well-qualified younger options for vice president.

While 2016 is probably going to be the Baby Boomer generation’s last hurrah in a presidential election, Dean’s remarks about Warren are ageist and absurd. In fact, Warren is actually younger (66 years of age) than either Hillary (68 years of age) or Bernie (74 years of age).

Aside from legal qualifications to be Vice President (Natural-born U.S. Citizen, 35 years of age or older, U.S. resident for at least 14 years), there are two important factors that I will use to determine whether or not I could be comfortable with a particular candidate as our party’s vice-presidential nominee:

  1. Whether or not he or she is prepared to take the presidential oath of office at a moment’s notice
  2. Whether or not he or she would embarrass the Democratic Party in any way

I prefer the answer to #1 to be “yes” and #2 to be “no” for our party’s vice-presidential nominee. There’s a lot of people who fit that bill, including, but not limited to, Elizabeth Warren. Howard Dean’s real problem with Warren is that he’s an insecure asshole.

ENDORSEMENT: Jimmy Anderson for 47th Assembly District of Wisconsin

I proudly endorse Wisconsin State Assembly candidate Jimmy Anderson for the Democratic nomination in the 47th Assembly District of Wisconsin.

Before I rage against the Democratic establishment yet another time (you know it’s coming), I’ll say a few things about the candidate that I’m endorsing. Jimmy Anderson was nearly killed by a drunk driver in 2010, in fact, Anderson is a quadriplegic as a result of the injuries he sustained in an automobile crash. After finishing law school, Anderson founded a non-profit group that gives out free breathalyzers and helps victims of drunk drivers with various expenses. Anderson is a progressive-minded Wisconsinite who will fight for government transparency, restore workers’ rights, protect Wisconsin’s environment, and fight for equal rights. This press release from almost a week ago lists Katie Belanger, a political consultant and LGBT rights advocate, as Anderson’s campaign treasurer.

Now, about that pesky Democratic establishment…Anderson is running for a state assembly seat that is currently held by another “Democrat” (if you wish to refer to him as such), Robb Kahl. Kahl supported Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker during his 2010 campaign, and, thanks to people like Kahl supporting Walker, Walker and his far-right Republican allies went on to bust labor unions in Wisconsin, repeal environmental regulations, drive down wages, and make it harder for women to ensure that they’re paid the same as their male counterparts, among other things. To say the least, Kahl and his buddies in the Democratic establishment in Wisconsin are not fond of the idea of someone running against him, and, while they didn’t make fun of Anderson’s disability, they did something that is, in my opinion, even worse:

This is such a distraction,” said Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh. “Think about this. Hopefully all 35 of us (Democrats in the Assembly) are going to come out strongly for Robb. Every dollar and every door that we do for our colleague is another dollar and another door that we’re not doing in a Republican district that we can win. When we pick up a seat or two fewer in the fall, I’m going to think about these so-called progressive hypocrites that went after this unnecessary seat to make themselves happy or to high-five their friends at the co-op.”

[…]

Hintz said he generally has mixed feelings about primary challenges in safe districts, adding that it’s not enough for the incumbent to have voted with the party. Kahl, he said, has been a team player who works to get Democrats elected throughout the state.

[…]

“I’m in the business of trying to elect more Democrats, not trying to increase the size of the Solidarity Singers,” Hintz said.

Gordon Hintz, who operated a motor vehicle without proof of insurance and, before that, was fined over $2,000 for sexual misconduct, is also the type of guy who disparages progressives in Dane County, Wisconsin’s second-largest county by population for their way of life, believes that democracy is a distraction, thinks that state legislators should spend more time getting political cronies elected than legislating, and attacks people for singing.

If Hintz’s remarks weren’t offensive enough, Kahl himself, who hasn’t officially decided whether or not to run for re-election, went full elitist when asked about Anderson’s candidacy:

Kahl has yet to announce whether he’ll run for reelection. “Jimmy’s been talking about running for a couple of months now, so this isn’t a surprise,” Kahl says. “Jimmy has a compelling life story, but he’s never held elected office, and the people in my district know me, they know that I run to serve, and I will have their support if seeking the nomination is what I decide to do.”

According to Article IV, Section 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution, anyone who is a resident of Wisconsin for at least one calendar year before the election, and is legally eligible to vote, can run for state assembly in the district in which he or she resides. For Kahl to attack Anderson for not having held prior elected office is, in my opinion, elitist, since both Kahl and Anderson both meet the legal qualifications to run for state assembly in the 47th Assembly District of Wisconsin.

If you’re tired of royalist, elitist, patronizing, demeaning, and out-of-touch political insiders thinking that the Democratic Party should be an exclusive club for them and their cronies, then support Jimmy Anderson for Wisconsin State Assembly in the 47th Assembly District.

Hillary is about to go extremely negative on Bernie

It’s official…the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and their allies in the Democratic establishment and the corporate media are about to go extremely negative on Bernie Sanders in the lead-up to the Wyoming Democratic caucuses and the New York primary:

Even worse, Hillary’s henchpeople have gone as far as to say that they regard party unity as being completely irrelevant right now, and they’ll worry about party unity once the race for the Democratic nomination is settled. That is an extremely dangerous move for Hillary, as there are many Bernie supporters who already have nothing but contempt for the Democratic establishment, and going extremely negative on Bernie would only further outrage them.

Personally, I believe that the Sanders campaign needs to go as far as to openly question Hillary’s patriotism. Already, the corporate media, as if they got the cue before most of us did, is wasting no time launching blatantly unpatriotic attacks on Bernie by attacking his staunch opposition to free-trade giveaways as hurting the economies of third-world countries. Contrary to what imperial and corporate-minded politicians like Hillary, Paul Ryan, and Ted Cruz believe, it’s not the responsibility of the federal government to stimulate the economies of third-world countries or any other foreign countries. It’s the job of the federal government to ensure that America’s economy is strong.

If Hillary is going to attack Bernie on guns, then it’s best for Bernie to attack Hillary on her complete lack of economic patriotism.

Republicans attempt to swiftboat Tammy Duckworth

While the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has since deleted the tweet in question, here is a screengrab (courtesy of Nate Cohn) of an NRSC attack against Tammy Duckworth, a candidate for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination here in Illinois:

Tammy Duckworth has two main strengths, from a political standpoint. The first is her service in the U.S. Army during the Iraq War, and the second is her strong track record on veterans’ affairs. As someone who served our country in uniform and hails from a military family, Duckworth understands what veterans in this country need. Duckworth has called for mandatory federal funding for veterans’ health care, and Duckworth understands that it’s a national disgrace for large numbers of veterans in this country to be homeless.

The Republican Party of 2016 has launched some of the most ridiculous attacks against Democrats of virtually every faction of the Democratic Party.

Donald Trump launches an attack against this blog, blogging in general, and freedom of the press

This is an actual quote from Donald John Trump, the likely Republican Party nominee for President of the United States:

I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So that when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected. You see, with me they’re not protected, because I’m not like other people, but I’m not taking money — I’m not taking their money. So we’re going to open up those libel laws, folks, and we’re going to have people sue you like you never got sued before.

What Donald Trump is saying goes against everything that this country stands for. Many of the people who helped build this country in its earliest years fought for, and won, freedom of the press, which is enshrined in our nation’s Constitution as part of the First Amendment. What Trump is proposing is an idea straight out of a fascist society…the idea that, if one merely criticizes someone, even if that criticism is factual in nature, the person or entity being criticized can file a defamation lawsuit and get money out of it. That is absurd, frightening, undemocratic, and likely unconstitutional.

I will assure you, that, in the coming days, weeks, and months, I will be writing a ton of blog posts criticizing Donald Trump, and I will assure you that every one of my criticisms of Trump will be absolutely 100% factual in nature.

The one person that Bernie Sanders wants criticizing him…criticizes him

If I were Bernie Sanders, there would be exactly one person I would want criticizing me. That person is Lloyd Blankfein, the head of Goldman Sachs.

Since Goldman Sachs has become a political talking point to many, I’ll remind everyone who they are. They are a very large investment banking firm that was heavily involved in the subprime mortgage crisis that was one of many factors that contributed to the Great Recession of the later part of the previous decade. Additionally, Goldman Sachs has served as a revolving door between governments in multiple countries and Wall Street, with former U.S. cabinet members and current Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull having also worked for Goldman Sachs.

Now, back to my original point…Blankfein thinks that Bernie criticizing the undue influence of Goldman Sachs on our political system is a “dangerous moment” for America:

The head of Goldman Sachs believes being singled out for criticism by Bernie Sanders represents a “dangerous moment” for the country.

Lloyd Blankfein, the Wall Street giant’s chief executive, said Wednesday that the Democratic presidential candidate might have gone too far in personally targeting him.

“To personalize it, it has potential to be a dangerous moment. Not just for Wall Street … but for anybody who is a little bit out of line,” he said in an interview with CNBC.

Bernie isn’t personally criticizing Lloyd Blankfein. Instead, he’s taking on both a financial industry where greed is rampant and a political establishment that is beholden to same financial industry. Lloyd Blankfein is, in many ways, the personification of a lot of what is wrong about this country, and we’re taking back our country from people like Lloyd Blankfein and the politicians who are beholden to people like him! Let’s rein in Wall Street and protect American consumers! Greed is dangerous to America, not people who want to save capitalism from its own greed.