Cory Booker And Jared Kushner: Democrat Received Campaign Cash From Trump's Son-In-Law

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker — a potential 2020 White House contender and recipient of major campaign contributions from Jared Kushner and others in the Kushner family — declined to endorse his party's call for the White House to revoke the security clearance of the president's son-in-law.

The Democratic National Committee has called for Kushner's security clearance to be revoked after reports that he sought to set up back-channel communications with Russian officials. Similarly, Rep. Adam Schiff — the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — said Kushner's security credentials should be reviewed.

Booker refused to support those calls during an interview with CNN Sunday. Asked if supports revoking Kushner's security clearance, the New Jersey senator said: "I think we need to first get to the bottom of it. He needs to answer for what was happening at the time. It raises very serious concerns for me. And that could be a potential outcome that I seek, but I want to understand, at least hear from Jared Kushner, as well as the administration, about what was exactly going on there."

Booker also pushed back against those calling for Trump's impeachment, saying, "I'm not going to rush to impeachment."

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capita ... aw-2545035

The Democratic party is undermining Bernie Sanders-style candidates

Since losing the presidency to a Cheeto-hued reality TV host, the Democratic party’s leadership has made it clear that it would rather keep losing than entertain even the slightest whiff of New Deal style social democracy.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Perez confirmed the DNC would not be giving Thompson a dime. “We can make progress in Kansas,” he said. “There are thousands of elections every year, though. Can we invest in all of them? That would require a major increase in funds.” Fact check: the DNC has a fund just for Congressional elections, of which there are just ten this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... mpson-loss

National Democrats did not lose the four special elections for House seats since President Trump was elected. They surrendered three without a fight in Montana, South Carolina and Kansas and ran a campaign in Georgia that was shallow, risk averse and content free.

The biggest single problem for Democrats, and what enrages so many Democrats outside Washington about Democrats inside Washington, is that Republicans play politics like war while Democrats play politics like badminton. Doing little to help the Democratic candidate in Montana, and doing nothing to help the Democratic candidate in South Carolina, was a stunning example of political malpractice.

Had Jon Ossoff won in Georgia, national Democrats would have been trumpeting the victory as the beginning of the end for the Trump presidency. But Ossoff, in another astonishing example of political malpractice, said the election was not about Trump but was about “local issues.” While the Trump forces worked to drive their turnout higher and a right wing PAC suggested Ossoff and liberals favor the shooting of congressmen, Ossoff campaigned like the nowhere man with a campaign that lacked toughness, theme or the fierce urgency of fighting for a great cause.

Instead of worrying about offending sensitive Republicans, Ossoff should have quoted prominent Republicans who warn against the grave dangers, extreme actions and banana republic tactics of the Trump presidency.

Instead of treating Trump as though he barely exists and running a campaign on “local issues,” Ossoff should have openly asked voters to create a check and balance against Trump’s crude politics of crony capitalism, conflicts of interest, national division and isolation from America’s democratic allies around the world.

Democrats outside Washington are madder then hell. Democrats inside Washington need a war plan to turn public outrage into the great cause of restoring democracy and winning back control of Congress.

http://thehill.com/opinion/brent-budows ... -than-hell

Nancy Pelosi Should Resign, Frustrated Democrats Say

Democratic lawmakers said that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) should step down as the leader of the party as the embattled House Minority Leader defended her leadership.

"Nancy Pelosi was a great speaker, she was a great leader, but her time has come and gone. And yes, she is a great fundraiser, but if the money we’re raising through her leadership is not helping us win elections, then we have to have this conversation now," Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-Ny.) said on MSNBC Thursday.

Rice points to Pelosi as the reason that the Democrats keep losing. This allegation comes following the loss by the Democratic candidate John Ossoff in the special election for Georgia's Sixth District after Trump nominated Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

"The rationale for getting new leadership is that we’re losing," Rice said. "Do I think it’s fair that the Republicans playbook over the last four election cycles has been attacking Nancy Pelosi and demonizing her? No, that’s not fair, nor is it accurate. But guess what? It works. They’re winning so we have to address that reality."

http://www.ibtimes.com/nancy-pelosi-sho ... ay-2556060

California Democratic Speaker killed his own party’s plan for single-payer healthcare

Hopes of single payer supporters across the country were dashed Friday night when the Democratic Speaker of the California legislature killed a single payer health insurance reform bill by written by California Democrats.

California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon announced Friday afternoon that he was “hold” on the bill to bring universal, single-payer health care to the most populous state, effectively killing the bill for at least the rest of 2017.

“I have decided SB 562 will remain in the Assembly Rules Committee until further notice,” Rendon said in a statement.

The Healthy California Act (SB 562) by Sens. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, passed the California State Senate 23-14 last month, but will now be denied a similar floor vote by the State Assembly.

Despite his actions, Speaker Rendon claims to be a personal supporter of single-payer.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/califor ... ealthcare/

Manchin: I’m voting to repeal ObamaCare; Update: No, I’m not
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/21/m ... obamacare/

West Virginia’s Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin used a conference call with local activists in February to tell them to stop complaining about his pro-corporate voting record.

“What you ought to do is vote me out. Vote me out! I’m not changing. Find somebody else who can beat me and vote me out,” he dared the activists.

Paula Jean Swearengin, an environmental activist descended from generations of coal miners, has accepted that challenge, announcing earlier this month that she will be challenging Manchin for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/18/act ... n-beat-me/

WASHINGTON (WSAZ) -- U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin signed a pledge Monday urging a return to bipartisanship.

Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, says he is urging his colleagues to join him in signing a pledge to not campaign against a sitting colleague.

Perhaps the most significant Russia falsehood came from CrowdStrike, the firm hired by the DNC to investigate the hack of its email servers. Again in the same time period — December 2016 — the firm issued a new report accusing Russian hackers of nefarious activities involving the Ukrainian army, which numerous outlets, including (of course) the Washington Post, uncritically hyped.

“A cybersecurity firm has uncovered strong proof of the tie between the group that hacked the Democratic National Committee and Russia’s military intelligence arm — the primary agency behind the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election,” the Post claimed. “The firm CrowdStrike linked malware used in the DNC intrusion to malware used to hack and track an Android phone app used by the Ukrainian army in its battle against pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine from late 2014 through 2016.”

Yet that story also fell apart. In March, the firm “revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year’s American presidential election campaign” after several experts questioned its claims, and “CrowdStrike walked back key parts of its Ukraine report.”

https://theintercept.com/2017/06/27/cnn ... ia-threat/

Cory Booker Will “Pause” Fundraising from Big Pharma Because It “Arouses So Much Criticism”

During an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition on Friday, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker announced that he will be pausing fundraising from pharmaceutical companies, a move that comes after months of activist criticism for his vote against allowing drug reimportation to the United States.

NPR’s Rachel Martin prompted the news by asking about his funding from the industry. “You’re in politics so you know that optics matter. You yourself have faced some criticism for taking donations from drug companies. Last month, you suggested you might give some of those back. Have you done that?”

“We’ve put a pause on even receiving contributions from pharma companies, because it arouses so much criticism, and just stop taking it,” he replied, adding that he would prefer to focus on pulling in small donations from regular people.

https://theintercept.com/2017/06/30/cor ... criticism/

Ralph Nader: The Democrats Are Unable to Defend the U.S. from the “Most Vicious” Republican Party in History

The Democratic Party is at its lowest ebb in the memory of everyone now alive. It’s lost the White House and both houses of Congress. On the state level it’s weaker than at any time since 1920. And so far in 2017 Democrats have gone 0 for 4 in special elections to replace Republican members of Congress who joined the Trump administration.

How did it come to this? One person the Democratic Party is not going to ask, but perhaps should, is legendary consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Nader, who’s now 83 and has been been based in Washington, D.C. for over fifty years, has had a front row seat to the Democrats’ slow collapse. After his bombshell exposé of the U.S. car industry, Unsafe at Any Speed, he and his organizations collaborated with congressional Democrats to pass a flurry of landmark laws protecting the environment, consumers and whistleblowers. Journalist William Greider described him as one of America’s three top models for small-d democratic activism, together with Saul Alinsky and Martin Luther King, Jr. Meanwhile, the 1971 “Powell Memo,” which laid the groundwork for the resurgence of the corporate right, named him as a key enemy of “the system,” calling him “the single most effective antagonist of American business.”

But of course Nader has been persona non grata with the Democratic Party since his 2000 Green Party candidacy for president. George W. Bush officially beat Al Gore in Florida by 537 votes, with the state’s electoral votes putting Bush in the White House even though he lost the national popular vote. (In reality, a comprehensive, little-noticed study released soon after 9/11 found that Gore would have won Florida if all disputed ballots had been recounted.)

Democrats excoriated Nader, who received over 97,000 votes in Florida, for handing the election to Bush. Since it’s impossible to rerun history, there’s no way to know whether Gore would have won without a Nader candidacy. He certainly might have, but it’s also possible that — since the Nader threat noticeably pushed Gore to take more popular, progressive positions — Gore would have performed even worse in a Nader-less election.

In any case, it’s now undeniable that the Democratic Party has significant problems that can’t be blamed on Ralph Nader in 2000. In a recent interview, Nader provided his deeply-informed, decades-long perspective on how U.S. politics got to this point:

continues here...
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/25/ral ... n-history/

Joe Manchin Was One of Five Democrats Who Saved Saudi Arms Sales. His Primary Opponent Is Furious.

A Senate resolution disapproving of a portion of arms sales to Saudi Arabia — which has been waging a long, bloody war in Yemen that has sparked multiple humanitarian crises — narrowly failed along a 47-53 vote on Tuesday. Five Democrats voted against the measure, ensuring that it did not pass.

One of those Democrats was Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who is facing a challenge from environmental activist Paula Jean Swearengin in next year’s primary. In an interview with The Intercept, Swearengin reacted harshly to Manchin’s vote in favor of the arms sale — which provides equipment necessary to conduct airstrikes in Yemen — and even suggested the conservative West Virginia Democrat is a Trump ally.

“I’m not surprised because of his history of voting in favor of President Trump, like a Republican,” Swearengin said.

She then went on a tear suggesting that the weapons would end up in terrorist hands rather than focusing on how the arms could be used in the war against Yemen. “Sen. Manchin voting against the provision to stop the sale. That tells me that Sen. Manchin supports giving weapons to a country that is known for harboring terrorists,” Swearengin said. “The weapons could possibly end up in the hands of terrorists.”

She also linked the vote to Manchin’s voting record on domestic matters, saying that both are evidence that Manchin doesn’t respect human rights. “He’s showing us he doesn’t value human life, in Appalachia, in America, or other countries,” she said. “People are dying in the streets and starving in Yemen. How does he sleep at night? West Virginians are tired of dying and starving as a result of his poor leadership, too.”

Manchin, who did not reply to a request for comment, may face more votes on Saudi arms sales before the election next year.

https://theintercept.com/2017/06/19/joe ... wearengin/

Life is the division of human cells, a process that begins with conception. The (Supreme Court's abortion) ruling was unjust, and it is incumbent on the Congress to correct the injustice... I have always been supportive of pro-life legislation. I intend to remain steadfast on this issue.... I believe that the life of the unborn should be protected at all costs.

Since his retirement from politics, Gephardt has become a significant lobbyist. He founded a Washington-based public affairs firm, Gephardt Government Affairs, and an Atlanta-based labor consultancy, the Gephardt Group, as well as consulting for DLA Piper, FTI Consulting and Goldman Sachs.[2]

Since 2007, Gephardt began serving on the advisory board of the Extend Health insurance company, and then became a member of its board of directors. In 2009, Gephardt advised UnitedHealth Group, one of America's largest private insurers, in waging a strong campaign against a public option for national health care.[31]