Monday, December 9, 2019
People Who Want to Ban Fracking Immediately, Says Joe Biden, 'Oughta Vote for Someone Else'
Thursday, December 05, 2019
Common Dreams
"Might I recommend Bernie Sanders: the climate candidate," responds Vermont senator's press secretary.
Eoin Higgins, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/05/people-who-want-ban-fracking-immediately-says-joe-biden-oughta-vote-someone-else
If you want a candidate committed to banning fracking in the United States immediately, find another candidate than Joe Biden.
That's the advice of Biden himself, given to an activist from the Sunrise Movement in a video posted online Thursday after the two discussed the former vice president's adviser Heather Zichal and Biden's plans for the future of fracking.
In the video of the interaction posted on Twitter by Sunrise Thursday afternoon, Biden appears confused about Zichal's connections to the natural gas industry, protesting that the adviser "worked for us in the administration."
"No, no, I know," the Sunrise activist patiently explains as Biden grabs him by the shoulders. "But she also worked—"
"If you look at my record," Biden begins, "look at my record. Just look at my record."
The two discuss fracking as well. Biden tells the activist that "you can't ban fracking right now" because "you gotta transition away from it."
"You're gonna ban fracking all across America, right now, right?" Biden asks the Sunrise activist.
"I would love to," the activist replies.
"I'd love to, too," says Biden. "I'd love to make sure we can't use any oil or gas, period. Now, now, is it possible?"
"Yes," replies the Sunrise activist.
"Well, you oughta vote for someone else," says Biden, releasing the young man and moving on.
As Sludge reported in May, adviser Zichal "recently occupied a lucrative seat on the board of the Texas-based liquified natural gas (LNG) company Cheniere Energy." Cheniere is a frequent donor to Republican politicians.
CounterPunch editor Jeffrey St. Clair referred to Biden's "No Malarkey" bus tour in a tweet about the interaction.
"Here's some choice malarkey from Biden on his climate advisor, Heather Zichal, who pulled down more than a cool (or hot, I guess) million on the board of Cheniere Energy, a Texas-based liquified natural gas company whose execs she'd gotten cozy with while working for Obama," tweeted St. Clair.
The interaction caught the attention of Briahna Joy Gray, campaign press secretary for Bernie Sanders, who earlier this year added a federal fracking ban to his 2020 campaign platform.
"Biden says 'you ought to vote for somebody else' if you want us to ban fracking and transition away from fossil fuels now," tweeted Gray. "Might I recommend Bernie Sanders: the climate candidate."
Bernie Sanders Tops New California Poll—But You Wouldn't Have Known It By Reading This LA Times Headline
Thursday, December 05, 2019
Common Dreams
In latest #BernieBlackout example, Sanders' deputy campaign manager notes it took major newspaper "three paragraphs to mention who is leading."
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/05/bernie-sanders-tops-new-california-poll-you-wouldnt-have-known-it-reading-la-times
A new poll released Thursday found that Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading the 2020 Democratic presidential field in California—but you wouldn't have known it by reading the Los Angeles Times' original headline on the survey, which mentioned Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden, but not the senator from Vermont.
"Warren and Biden lose ground in California's shifting 2020 Democratic race," read the newspaper's initial headline which, in the face of backlash, was later changed to, "Warren and Biden lose ground, Sanders moves ahead in California's shifting 2020 Democratic race."
While the Times changed its headline, it did not alter the body of the story, which doesn't mention Sanders until the third paragraph.
"The Democratic presidential contest in California remains extremely fluid—but not enough, at least so far, to provide an opening for Michael Bloomberg," reads the story's lede paragraph.
The poll, conducted for the Times by the U.C. Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, found that Sanders is leading the California presidential primary race at 24% support and has gained 5% since September.
Warren polled in second place at 22% (down 7% since September), Biden in third at 14% (down 6% since September), and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg in fourth at 12% (up 6% since September). The survey's margin of error is plus or minus 4%.
"The person who gained ground is not allowed to be in the headline," Faiz Shakir, Sanders' campaign manager, tweeted in response to the Times original headline.
Despite Sanders' jump since September, the Times framed the survey solely around Warren and Biden's fall.
"That erosion has benefited Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who narrowly tops the primary field," the Times reported.
The new survey, the Times noted, also found that Sanders is leading 2020 Democratic field in California "on three other attributes—being the candidate who would bring the right kind of change to Washington (28%), the one who comes closest to sharing voters' values (27%) and the candidate who best understands the problems of 'people like you' (28%)."
The newspaper's treatment of Sanders on this poll was for many observers just the latest example of a trend by many mainstream outlets of ignoring, sidelining, or otherwise downplaying the Sanders presidential campaign—a phenomenon some refer to as the #BernieBlackout.
'Flat-Out Corruption': DeVos Accused of Scheming to Stop Next President From Canceling Student Loan Debt
Thursday, December 05, 2019
Common Dreams
"Normally the rich are moderately more subtle about rigging the system in their favor. They're scared."
Jake Johnson, staff writer
60 Comments
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/05/flat-out-corruption-devos-accused-scheming-stop-next-president-canceling-student
Billionaire Education Secretary Betsy DeVos this week proposed handing over the federal government's $1.5 trillion student loan portfolio to a "stand-alone government corporation," a move observers condemned as a corrupt ploy to strip the next president of the ability to cancel student loan debt.
"This very much appears to be a Betsy DeVos scheme to block the next president from unilaterally forgiving federal student debt, which she is well aware a president could do without Congress," The Intercept's Ryan Grim wrote in a series of tweets late Wednesday. "The DeVos family is heavily invested in the student loan industry and this is just flat-out corruption."
DeVos' plan, first introduced on Tuesday, would spin off the Education Department's Federal Student Aid office into a new and supposedly independent federal agency.
"One has to wonder: why isn't Federal Student Aid a stand-alone government corporation, run by a professional, expert, and apolitical Board of Governors?" DeVos tweeted Tuesday. "A separate Federal Student Aid would be better positioned to deliver world-class service to students and their families as they finance higher education."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who has proposed wiping out all student loan debt, dismissed the Education Secretary's plan on Twitter.
"No, this isn't it, Ms. DeVos," said Sanders. "Cancel all student debt."
Sanders' national press secretary Briahna Joy Gray also weighed in:
Devos' proposal, which has not been fully developed, came weeks after she was held in contempt of court failing to comply with an order to stop collecting loan payments from former students of a defunct for-profit college company that defrauded tens of thousands of borrowers.
The Department of Education admitted in a court filing Monday that it improperly attempted to collect student loan payments from 45,000 borrowers, far more than the department originally estimated.
As the New York Times reported Tuesday, during DeVos' tenure as Education Secretary, "a program to relieve the debts of teachers, police officers and others who work in public-service jobs has become a bureaucratic disaster, rejecting nearly all who apply. The department allowed a troubled for-profit chain, Dream Center Education Holdings, to collect millions of dollars in federal funds that it was ineligible to receive before it collapsed this year."
Democratic presidential contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted Wednesday that "Betsy DeVos really didn't like being held in contempt of court, so she wants to make federal student loans someone else's problem."
"Of course, there's a simpler idea," said Warren. "Universal free college and technical school, and canceling student loan debt."
'What Cruelty Looks Like': Trump Finalizes Plan to Strip Food Aid From 750,000 Low-Income People by 2020
Wednesday, December 04, 2019
Common Dreams
"When it came to tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, Trump felt the nation's finances were firm enough to give up more than $1,500,000,000,000. When it's time to spend a fraction of that to help poor people eat, that's when the well has supposedly run dry."
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/04/what-cruelty-looks-trump-finalizes-plan-strip-food-aid-750000-low-income-people-2020
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it has finalized a plan to tighten punitive work requirements for food stamp recipients, a move that would strip nutrition assistance from an estimated 750,000 low-income people by mid-2020.
"Pay attention. This is what cruelty looks like," tweeted the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in response to the completed rule, which would be the first of a series of proposed food stamp cuts to take effect.
The rule change, which was first unveiled earlier this year, would restrict states' ability to exempt people without dependents from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program's work requirements. The rule is set to take effect April 1, 2020.
"For able-bodied adults without dependents, U.S. law limits SNAP benefits to three months, unless recipients are working or in training for 20 hours a week," the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. "States can waive those limits in areas where unemployment runs 20% above the national rate, which was 3.6% in October."
The Trump administration's proposal to curtail states' ability to waive work requirements sparked a flood of outrage from aid groups, Democratic lawmakers, and ordinary people. During the rule's 60-day public comment period, tens of thousands of people decried the measure as an immoral attack on the most vulnerable by an administration that has worked tirelessly to fatten the pockets of the rich.
"The comments make it clear that most Americans not only oppose but are utterly repulsed by this plan to punish the poorest among us by denying them help to feed themselves," Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said in a statement in April.
According to an Urban Institute study (pdf) published last week, the Trump administration's three proposed SNAP changes combined would strip federal food aid from 3.7 million people.
"The basics of the situation are clear," Rolling Stone's Patrick Reis wrote Tuesday. "When it came to tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, Trump and Republicans felt the nation's finances were firm enough to give up more than $1,500,000,000,000. When it's time to spend a fraction of that to help poor people eat, that's when the well has supposedly run dry."
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