"Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous released a plan Wednesday calling on Maryland to take the plunge and create a universal health care system without waiting for the the federal government to take the lead."
"Against the odds, Jones might be able to bring together a new coalition. If he succeeds, it will open the door for other changes. If he fails, Democrats must learn to stop ignoring their core voters between campaigns and start appealing on kitchen table issues across race lines."
A raucous standing room only crowd greeted House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-8) at Rockville's Luxmanor Elementary School cafeteria early Saturday (Nov 4) morning. The Democratic representatives along with several Montgomery County residents came to discuss the dangers to Maryland and the nation that they see in the Republican House tax bill.
Speaking first at the town hall he had organized, Raskin attacked the plan for being largely composed of corporate giveaways. These include a drop in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 12% on income currently stashed overseas and 10% on profits from transnational activities. Deriding the bill as the “billionaire tax break and job cutting plan,” Raskin noted also that the Republican plan slashes $1.5 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid over a decade.
Ricketts claims that unions create an us against them mentality. Regardless of whether a business is unionized, there will always be some conflict between workers and management over how much of revenues will be paid to the former and how much will remain for the latter. But smart managers can work with unions to reduce tensions. If Ricketts is correct and the online sites are money-losers that he is funding out-of-pocket, he should have sat down with union officers, opened his books, and discussed the situation.
A loss in the Virginia gubenatorial race would be devastating for the Democratic Party. It could happen as Ralph Northam continues to misread crucial constituencies and take them for credited.
Donna Brazile, a Clinton partisan, deserves great credit for her candor in this article.
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"I had to keep my promise to Bernie. I was in agony as I dialed him. Keeping this secret was against everything that I stood for, all that I valued as a woman and as a public servant. Hello, senator. I’ve completed my review of the DNC and I did find the cancer,” I said. “But I will not kill the patient.”
Former movie producer Harvey Weinstein is a serial sexual harasser, exercises zero anger management, and abuses nearly everybody with whom he has contact. He is one among a number of powerful, or once powerful, Hollywood men who share some or all of these behaviors and characteristics. Trying to avoid the rapists, gropers, and grinders is, therefore, a very serious dilemma for women in the entertainment industry. Sadly, it’s not the only one.
Branko Marcetic has a strong piece at the Jacobin called the Clinton Double Standard. He argues that liberals have given the Clintons a pass for harassing behavior that is not dissimilar to what Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, and other are alleged to have done. What makes the article especially trenchant is that Marcetic provides an out for pro-Clinton liberals.
Like Ross Douthat, David Brooks is rarely right. When he is, the occasion deserves mention:
But eventually a new establishment came into being, which we will call the meritocratic establishment.
These were the tame heirs to Hoffman and Rubin. They were well educated. They cut their moral teeth on the civil rights and feminist movements. They embraced economic, social and moral individualism. They came to dominate the institutions of American society on both left and right.
It's not just that the crisis will make it harder for the island to rebuild. In addition the austerity imposed on the island 1) by virtue of its debts to Wall Street and 2) in 2016's bipartisan recovery bill - Promesa - increased the island's vulnerability to catastrophic storms like Irma and Maria.
While watching the documentary Don’t Look Back about Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England, I was struck, as so many others have been, by the dichotomy between Dylan the young man and Dylan the artist. As a man, he comes across as immature, petulant, and sometimes downright nasty. As an artist, his musical genius shines through every guitar strum, harmonica chord, and whiny nasally sung note. In one uncomfortable hotel room scene, Dylan wields his multifarious talents - he’s a master songwriter, lyricist, guitar player, and troubador - as weapons against the outclassed Donovan. But Dylan also evinces humanity, humility, and empathy in his public performances.
To me, John McCain epitomizes the complexity in most of us. Neither all bad nor all good, he appears to be a fundamentally decent man. We on the left need to remember that those who disagree with us are not invariably corrupt amoral souls or unregenerate racists and sexists. Yes some are. But assuming the worst in individuals with different political views is not only unfair but also likely makes it tougher for us to achieve laudable goals.
"Several years after private equity firm Carlyle Group LP successfully pushed the White House to relax Environmental Protection Agency rules to the benefit of two Carlyle-owned oil refineries in Pennsylvania, former President Barack Obama, as part of a series of paid speeches, made a stop at its conference last week."
