VIDEO OF THE DAY: Matt Gaetz gets unexpected bad news
His efforts to escape the House ethics report have hit a major snag.
Take Action: Don't confirm Matt Gaetz as Attorney General!
Donald Trump Is waging a shock-and-awe war against his own Senate
Jeet Heer, The Nation: "After a decade on the national stage, Donald Trump still has the power to stun, as he demonstrated to foes and admirers alike on Wednesday with the announcement that he’s nominating Florida Representative Matt Gaetz to be attorney general. Idaho Representative Mike Simpson, a Republican, was asked if Gaetz had the character and experience necessary to be attorney general. He responded, 'Are you shittin me, that you just asked that question? No! But hell, you’ll print that and now I’m going to be investigated.' Maine Senator Susan Collins said she was 'shocked' at the nomination and that “if the nomination proceeds I’m sure there will be an extensive background check by the FBI and public hearings and a lot of questions.” Collins is perhaps being optimistic that she and her fellow Republicans, who will form a majority in the new Senate, will be permitted to play their constitutional role of advising on and consenting to presidential nominations. This assumes that Trump will govern within the rules of the Constitution. Trump has already demanded that Republicans in the Senate allow him recess appointments to fill his government quickly, without Senate oversight. The schemes to bypass the Senate on nominations and Congress as a whole on spending are both evidence of Trump’s authoritarian push to move beyond the checks and balances of the Constitution. It’s unclear that Republicans in Congress, or indeed many of their Democratic peers, have the will to resist this authoritarian onslaught."
Take Action: Reject Matt Gaetz's nomination for Attorney General!
Bob Casey's Senate race is NOT OVER
Pennsylvania Democrats: The battle for Bob Casey’s Senate seat isn’t over yet. Contrary to the calls by the media, all of the ballots in Bob Casey’s Senate race have NOT been counted. Republican Dave McCormick leads by 0.5% — around 30,000 votes — and there are still over 100,000 provisional ballots that have NOT yet been cured and counted. “Curing” is the process for mail ballots that fixes mistakes that the voter made when completing the packet so it can be accepted and counted. This means there remains a big chunk of PA voters whose votes haven't been counted — and it means we could still win this critical Senate seat for Bob Casey. Will you make a donation to help Bob Casey win re-election?
"Fund the police" backfired — and gave Trump more power than ever
Jerry Iannelli, The Appeal: "In the last four years, mainstream Democrats have: nominated a former prosecutor for president; elected an ex-NYPD officer to run New York City; campaigned on deporting more people; funneled money and weapons to regimes committing war crimes; overseen the beatings and arrests of people demanding police reform; sent more police officers to wallop students protesting for Palestinian rights; ratcheted up the War on Drugs; worked with major corporate retailers to arrest more shoplifters; filed racketeering and conspiracy charges against police-reform protesters in Atlanta; made it easier to arrest New Yorkers and Californians with mental illness; defended the use of solitary confinement; supported a landmark Supreme Court case to let cops arrest unhoused people; tried to imprison one of the world’s most famous rappers; promised to build Donald Trump’s border wall; ran endless ads about Trump’s criminal record; and applauded as the president chanted 'Fund the Police' during his most-watched yearly address. And yet, after an election last week in which voters all but screamed that the Democratic Party is moving in the wrong direction, centrist and conservative pundits have drawn the opposite conclusion: The Democrats are, somehow, still too soft on crime. The belief persists against all logic: Four years of proudly Backing The Blue, at a minimum, failed to help Democratic voter turnout—and likely depressed votes from progressives. Instead, the pro-cop platform seems to have done nothing but legitimize Republican grievances and hand Trump a bolstered police and surveillance state. Despite this, many of the Democratic Party’s staunchest defenders seem to think the only way forward is to become even more like Republicans—rather than offer voters anything different at all. 'Funding the police' has done little other than tell those people to sit home—while funneling money and weapons to a police state happy to help Trump carry out a second term."
Take Action: Say NO to Elon's DOGE department!
Israel is carrying out a war on hospitals
Jake Sonnenberg, Jacobin: "n early October, Shoshan Hassan Mazraani, the head emergency department nurse at the Marjayoun hospital in southern Lebanon, was drinking coffee at work when she saw an Israeli strike hit without warning 'directly on the ambulances”' outside. The attack killed seven paramedics and wounded five others. The same day, Israeli strikes repeatedly hit Salah Ghandour Hospital in the nearby town of Bint Jbeil. In that assault, nine hospital workers were injured, several critically. “The hospital was struck three times,” the facility’s director, a physician named Moanes Kalakish said later. “One shell struck the on-call room and two shells struck the paramedics’ waiting room, [both] inside the hospital." In the weeks since, Israeli attacks have struck medical systems across Lebanon, hitting hospitals, ambulances, and clinics as part of an aerial assault and invasion that has now killed more than 3,000 people, including over 150 health care and rescue workers, in the past twelve months. In total, HRW reported that Israeli attacks across Lebanon have hit a total of 158 ambulances and fifty-five hospitals. In a separate analysis, CNN found that in just the first month of the escalating offensive in Lebanon, Israeli strikes hit thirty-four hospitals and 107 ambulances, killing 111 emergency medical technicians. In Gaza, Israeli forces have killed around a thousand Palestinian health care workers and bombed nearly every single hospital. An independent UN commission concluded in October that Israel 'has implemented a concerted policy to destroy the health-care system of Gaza' and 'deliberately killed, wounded, arrested, detained, mistreated and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles,' constituting multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the crime of extermination. In July, a group of eleven independent UN special rapporteurs and experts found that Israel was engaged in an 'intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people,' amounting to 'a form of genocidal violence.' These efforts have been so total and so transparently deliberate that they have been described variously as a 'War on Hospitals,' a 'War on Health,' and an 'Epidemiological War,' eventually demanding the invention of a new term to describe the carnage: medicide.
Take Action: End Elon Musk's lucrative defense contracts!
The Democrats must become an anti-establishment party
Robert Reich, The Guardian: "What’s the Lesson of the 2024 election? According to exit polls, Americans voted mainly on the economy – and their votes reflected their class and level of education. While the US economy has improved over the last two years according to standard economic measures, most Americans without college degrees – that’s the majority – have not felt it. In fact, most Americans without college degrees have not felt much economic improvement for four decades, and their jobs have grown less secure. The real median wage of the bottom 90% is stuck nearly where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large now as it was then. Most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top. This has caused many Americans to feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave voice to that anger. Harris did not. The real lesson of the 2024 election is that Democrats must not just give voice to the anger, but also explain how record inequality has corrupted our system, and pledge to limit the political power of big corporations and the super-rich. Only by reducing the power of big money in our politics can America grow the middle class, reward hard work and reaffirm the basic bargain at the heart of our system. If the Trump Republicans gain control of the House, they will have complete control of the federal government. That means they will own whatever happens to the economy and will be responsible for whatever happens to America. Notwithstanding all their anti-establishment populist rhetoric, they will become the establishment. The Democratic party should use this inflection point to shift ground – from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, 'never-Tumpers' like Dick Cheney and vacuous 'centrism' – to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans. This is and should be the Lesson of the 2024 election."
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