https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBR8Qe4fqSU
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Briahna Joy Gray: Biden FLAGRANTLY REJECTS His Own Campaign Promises
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN_eBWIGFwI
Krystal Ball: Biden ABANDONS Public Option At WORST Possible Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIeQFUUXMRY
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Democrats 'Must Be Trying to Lose': Progressives Fume After Report Says Biden Budget Excludes Key Promises
"If the aim is to avoid a midterm massacre, why would you do this?" asked one political critic.
by
Kenny Stancil, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/24/democrats-must-be-trying-lose-progressives-fume-after-report-says-biden-budget
Progressives are fuming in response to reports that President Joe Biden's forthcoming official budget proposal will not include a public option, drug pricing reform, student debt cancellation, or an estate tax increase.
As a candidate, Biden said he would: enact a public option to create a government-run alternative to private insurance plans; reduce the sky-high and life-threatening prices of prescription drugs; cancel up to $10,000 of student loan debt per federal borrower; and raise the estate tax, which affects only the wealthiest 0.2% of U.S. households.Fulfilling these campaign pledges is necessary to improve the lives of working people in the United States, left-leaning critics say, while reneging on them imperils the future electoral success of the Democratic Party by depressing turnout among spurned constituencies and increasing the probability of Republican victories in the 2022 congressional midterms and beyond.
When Biden unveils his official budget proposal on Friday, however, none of those initiatives—which were already considered inadequate by progressives demanding Medicare for All, at least $50,000 of student debt relief, and substantially higher taxes on the super-rich—will be included, according to the Washington Post, which spoke with four unnamed individuals briefed on the matter.
Observers slammed the Biden administration for its about-face, warning that the White House's refusal to follow through on its promises will be the reason why "Democrats get routed in the midterms in 2022."
"Our budget reflects our priorities," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in response to the Post's reporting. "Fixing the broken healthcare system has to be a priority. Ending the student debt crisis has to be a priority, too. We need to keep our promises and deliver."
The Biden administration, for its part, defended its decision to backtrack on campaign pledges. The White House's argument is that the budget should "focus on advancing" the public investments proposed in Biden's $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan and his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, both of which seek to upgrade the nation's physical and social infrastructure and raise revenue through modest tax hikes on wealthy individuals and corporations.
"The budget won't propose other new initiatives but will put together the full picture of how these proposals would advance economic growth and shared prosperity while also putting our country on a sound fiscal course," said Rob Friedlander, spokesperson for the White House budget office.
According to the Post, "the White House jettisoned months of planning from agency staff" because they feared "their initial plan could fuel criticisms that the administration is pushing new spending programs too aggressively."
Instead of using his budget proposal to push for a public option or endorse progressives' calls to expand and improve Medicare by lowering the eligibility age from 65 to 55; including dental, vision, and hearing aid benefits; and allowing the federal program to negotiate directly with Big Pharma to slash drug prices, Biden will ask Congress to implement policies to reduce the costs of prescription medications and increase health coverage.
Given the popularity of strengthening Medicare, including reforms that result in lower drug prices, some progressive advocates urged the White House to "get in front of" the issue.
Perhaps the strongest denunciations of Biden's retreat from campaign promises focused on his abandonment of a pledge to cancel up to $10,000 in student loan debt per person.
As Current Affairs, a magazine of progressive political commentary, noted on Twitter: "50k of student debt cancellation was the inadequate compromise; 10k of cancellation was Biden's pathetic, outrageous alternative proposal. Now they're offering $0 of cancellation, meaning that on student debt [Biden] might as well be [former President Donald] Trump."
Jacobin's Branko Marcetic, author of Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden, asked: "If the aim is to avoid a midterm massacre, why would you do this?"
"The aim should be to get all the constituencies that brought you to power to stay energized, but young people aren't going to turn out at the 2020 numbers without a raging pandemic and Trump on ballot," he said.
In response to Marcetic's question and prediction, Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson said that the Biden administration's decision defies reason and undermines his party's upcoming electoral prospects.
Elsewhere, Marcetic expressed awe that Biden has been able to succeed "in pursuing his 'nothing will fundamentally change' vow while getting a nonstop stream of rapturous comparisons" to former presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson, who oversaw the implementation of far-reaching New Deal and Great Society programs, respectively.
Recent polling shows that voters want the federal government to quickly pass ambitious policies that improve life for working people. According to a survey conducted last week by Data for Progress and Invest in America, 58% of likely voters support passing the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan together using the budget reconciliation process, compared with 34% who are opposed.
Emphasizing that congressional Democrats are not beholden to Biden's budget proposal, Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, told the Post, "It is the president's budget request, but the House actually drafts the budget."
THE FIGHT FOR A NEW COLOMBIA
By Hasan Dodwell and Nick MacWilliam, Tribune Magazine.
May 24, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/the-fight-for-a-new-colombia/
The Latest Round Of Protests Against Colombia’s Right-Wing Government Have Seen A Brutal Crackdown, Leading To At Least 43 Deaths.
But the mass movement for social change is only growing stronger.
On 28 April, Colombian trade unions and social movements staged a new round of Paro Nacional (National Strike) protests, the latest in an ongoing series of mobilisations to address the litany of problems impacting Colombian society.
Opposition to a planned tax reform – which strike organisers said would unfairly target the middle and working classes in what is one of Latin America’s most unequal countries – was the central issue, particularly in the context of the global pandemic which has pushed an estimated five million Colombians out of work. Calls to repeal the tax reform were aligned with longer-running demands around growing poverty levels, addressing the human rights crisis affecting much of the country and properly advancing implementation of the 2016 peace agreement.
Since the National Strike movement was launched in November 2019, protesters have become accustomed to the police crackdowns of President Iván Duque’s right-wing administration. Yet even by recent standards, the spread and duration of the violence unleashed since 28 April has been extreme. For over three weeks of daily protests across Colombia, Colombian security forces – especially the notorious riot police unit, the Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron (ESMAD) – have committed massive human rights violations as Duque’s government seeks to suppress anger towards his government.
As befits the camera phone era, social media has told the story of Colombia’s social revolt. Thousands of images and videos have spread virtually, with several standing out for their exhibitions of social unity or poignant solidarity: mothers bearing improvised shields join youthful protesters on the frontline to face off against militarised police; statues of colonisers are toppled and replaced with likenesses of victims of state violence: music, art and dance energise crowds whose voices rise as one to demand a fairer Colombia.
While the official organisation of the National Strike movement comes from trade unions together with peasant, indigenous and other established social organisations, the protests have been characterised by the mobilisation of young Colombians from poor urban neighbourhoods. In cities across the country, most notably in Cali, this new generation of political protesters have become the so-called ‘front line’ resisting ever-increasing levels of police brutality.
Social media has also exposed the horrific violence inflicted on protesters by security forces. In one harrowing video, as four ESMAD agents drag her into a police station in Popayán, 17-year-old Alison Melendez shouts that they are removing her trousers. The next day, after reporting they had sexually assaulted her, she took her life. Footage filmed in the town of Madrid in Cundinamarca shows a tear gas canister fired at protesters from an armoured police vehicle. The projectile hit 24-year-old Brayan Niño in the face, killing him despite the efforts of those around him.
By 18 May Colombian human rights organisations had registered security forces apparent responsibility for more than 2,300 acts of violence, 43 killings (including four minors), 18 sexual assaults and 30 cases of eye injuries. Men in plain-clothes have been filmed firing at protesters as uniformed police officers stand alongside them and do nothing, particularly alarming given Colombia’s long history of state collusion with paramilitary terror.
There has been widespread international condemnation of the Colombian government’s response to the protests. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it had witnessed the use of ‘excessive force’, while the US Embassy in Bogota called for ‘restraint’ from Colombian police to avoid ‘additional loss of life’.
55 Members of the US Congress signed a letter calling the human rights situation ‘out of control’, while British and Irish trade unions demanded justice for victims of police violence. The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights has requested permission from the Colombian government to investigate abuses. For its part, the British government, which has training programmes with the Colombian police, has not directly criticised the state violence.
Opposition to the planned tax reform comes at a time when more than five million people are estimated to have lost their main source of income due to the global pandemic and poverty levels increasing to over 40 per cent. Coronavirus has particularly impacted the many Colombians eking out a living in the large informal sector, which accounts for roughly half of the labour force in roles such as transport workers, domestic staff and street vendors.
National lockdowns, coupled with an absence of state support, pushed many Colombians into even deeper conditions of precarity. Although Duque repealed the tax reform after five days of intense unrest, it was far too late. His government had spilled too much blood.
In the midst of the killings and brutal violence being carried out by state agents, and far from calling for the abuses to come to an end, government officials issued repeated stigmatising statements against the protesters. On 3 May, defence minister Diego Molano said ‘Colombia faces the terrorist threat of criminal organisations,’ while Vice-President Martha Ramírez implied that indigenous organisations were funded by illegal drug money.
The use of smears to delegitimise popular movements is by no means a new tactic – trade unionists and activists have long been labelled as ‘guerrillas’ or ‘terrorists’. During the recent weeks, however, and in the context of a peace agreement now signed with the country’s largest and oldest guerrilla organisation, the attempts to stigmatise appear to have largely strengthened the resolve of the protesters.
Anger over economic injustice sits alongside major concern for human rights and peace. The 2016 peace agreement brought the curtain down on decades of armed conflict between the Colombian state and the FARC. The peace process has seen important advances, such as the FARC’s reformation as a political party and the development of an internationally acclaimed transitional justice system which has begun investigating crimes committed during the conflict.
In one of its most significant findings so far, it found that between 2002 and 2008 – during the government of former president Alvaro Uribe – the Colombian military murdered 6,402 civilians and falsely presented them as guerrillas killed in combat.
Since its inception, however, the Colombian right has made efforts to undermine the peace process. Indeed, Uribe, who continues to wield significant political power and whose support for Duque was fundamental to his successful presidential campaign, has been the lead voice in that opposition.
Duque’s electoral campaign was based on antagonism to the peace agreement and a promise to make fundamental changes. Since 2018, when Duque was elected, Colombia has depended on a political movement hostile to the peace process. The protests have given voice to a major rejection of the ongoing influence of uribismo in Colombian politics and its attacks on human rights and peace.
Furthermore, since the agreement was signed, more than 1,000 social activists and community leaders have been murdered across Colombia, with violence concentrated in regions historically impacted by conflict, structural poverty and state abandonment. The FARC’s agreed withdrawal created power vacuums in areas the state has failed to secure. Paramilitaries and other illegal armed groups now vie to exert control over territories or illicit economies, targeting local leaders and displacing entire communities.
Additionally, more than 270 FARC former combatants have been murdered since putting down their weapons. The UN Verification Mission in Colombia warns that violence towards social activists and FARC former combatants is the main threat to the peace process. The Duque government, however, has sought to downplay the human rights crisis and denies that killings reflect a systematic targeting of specific groups.
With elections scheduled in 2022, the protests could prove pivotal in determining who takes the presidency. The pro-peace movement enters electoral campaigning in a position of strength but whether it will be able to successfully coalesce around a single candidate could prove decisive. Left candidate and 2018 runner-up Gustavo Petro currently leads the polls and his supporters will be confident that the intensity of the protests reflects a widespread desire to fundamentally reshape Colombia’s social, political and economic model.
The multitude of factors underpinning popular discontent in Colombia has now exploded to the fore. In meetings on 10 and 16 May with government officials, the National Strike Committee presented demands to resolve the crisis, including an immediate end to the violence. Human rights organisations have called for drastic police reform, which involves removing police jurisdiction from the Ministry of Defence and disbanding the ESMAD. However, with the Duque government still committing flagrant human rights abuses, there is little indication resolution is close. The Colombian people have shown they do not plan to back down any time soon.
The Campaign To Crush Gig Workers
BY ROBERT GALBRAITH – 25 MAY 2021
Lyft, Uber, and other allied gig work companies are reportedly nearing a deal with New York state legislators and labor leaders that would allow tech giants to continue classifying their workers as independent contractors rather than employees, and would prohibit newly unionized workers from “any picketing, strikes, slow downs, or boycotts,” according to leaked language of the state bill.
The potential legislation comes as companies led by Lyft and Uber have engaged in a multi-year, multi-million-dollar political influence campaign in the state and cultivated deep ties to New York Democrats. Their efforts could lead to a radical reshaping of labor relations in a state that has long been a labor stronghold.
If the bill leaked last week passes into law in its current form, the development would be a landmark victory for gig work companies. While the firms failed to secure a similar compromise in Connecticut, they spent $200 million to pass a 2020 California ballot initiative denying employee status to gig workers in the state after labor negotiations broke down there.
Details about the deal Uber and Lyft are negotiating with New York politicians and labor leaders were obtained last Friday by Labor Notes and Bloomberg. While the pact would allow gig workers to vote to form unions and collectively bargain, it would codify the non-employee status of app-based ride hailing and delivery companies drivers. It would also preempt local laws — like New York City’s — that set minimum wages and require companies to pay drivers for time they are waiting for fares.
Gig work companies are willing to invest heavily in this fight because classifying their workers as independent contractors — which foists the costs of buying and maintaining cars and other necessary equipment onto workers in addition to denying them a minimum wage, health care, and other basic workplace rights — is critical to their corporate model.
Democratic state Senator Jessica Ramos, who chairs the senate labor committee, came out strongly against the deal on Friday, saying that it would legitimize company-dominated unions and undermine the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a federal bill that has passed the U.S. House of Representatives that would recognize a more expansive set of rights for gig company workers.
“I cannot support legislation crafted without uncompromised worker voices at the table and I will not stand aside while billion-dollars corporations try to legislate the lives of immigrant workers, my neighbors,” Ramos said in a statement.
A Million-Dollar Election Campaign
Uber and Lyft spent a combined $1.1 million to influence New York elections in 2020, the bulk of which went to ads backing Democratic candidates for the state Senate. The money came through a pair of independent expenditure committees, or super PACs, that can pour unlimited sums of corporate money into state and local elections: New Yorkers for Independent Work, registered by Lyft head of external affairs Jordan Markwith, and New Yorkers for Flexible Work, registered by Uber director of public policy Josh Gold.
The company’s efforts in New York have focused on buying favor with the state’s Democratic Party, which controls both houses of the state legislature. Even though Democrats are traditionally more amenable to workers rights than Republicans, the New York party under Gov. Andrew Cuomo has displayed a decidedly pro-corporate bent.
New Yorkers for Independent Work, which was funded by two Lyft loans totaling more than $1.2 million, did the bulk of the outside spending.
In the Democratic primary, Lyft’s super PAC spent $86,000 on digital ads and $127,000 on mailers supporting six incumbent assembly members, all but one of whom won their primaries. In the general election, Lyft spent $774,640 through its super PAC on ads and mailers supporting five Democratic state senate candidates, three of whom won their elections.
Lyft’s spending appeared targeted at maintaining a Democratic majority in the state senate as billionaire Ronald Lauder and New York police groups attempted to flip control of the state house back to Republicans. Lyft even paid to boost progressive, union-backed Democrats presumably more likely to back protections for gig economy workers, underscoring the firm’s apparent view of the Democratic Party as a necessary collaborator in blocking workers’ rights.
Uber spent far less on the 2020 elections than Lyft, spending $105,000 for streaming ads on Spotify and “telephone and data services” backing six incumbent state Assembly candidates facing primary challenges, most of whom lost their races.
Beyond their Super PACs, Uber and Lyft have spent a combined $12.1 million on traditional lobbying in New York from 2017 through April 2021, mostly through firms with close ties to the Democratic Party establishment.
Deep Democratic Ties
Uber and Lyft have also hired staff with deep ties to New York Democrats.
Matthew Wing, Uber’s head of work communications, is a former communications director and press secretary for Cuomo and is married to Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s top aide. Josh Gold, the Uber lobbyist named as the control person on Uber’s super PAC, is a former political director for the Hotel Trades Council and manager of New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio’s universal pre-kindergarten campaign.
What’s more, the companies have spent tens of millions of dollars retaining lobbying firms and launching front groups with heavy Democratic Party connections.
That includes Mercury Public Affairs, which ran Lyft’s super PAC, New Yorkers for Independent Work.
Charlie King, Mercury’s New York co-chair, worked under Cuomo at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, ran as Cuomo’s running mate in 2002, and advised Cuomo’s 2014 reelection campaign. Morris Reid, a partner at Mercury, was also a senior aide to Cuomo at HUD. Another Mercury partner, Michael McKeon is the executive director of Republicans for Andrew Cuomo. Mercury also ran Lyft’s New Yorkers for Independent Work super PAC in the 2020 election.
Uber’s super PAC, New Yorkers for Flexible Work, was run by Red Horse Strategies, which is closely affiliated with the Democratic Party and progressive political campaigns. Red Horse Strategies previously worked with the Long Island Law Enforcement Foundation, a super PAC affiliated with the Suffolk County police union. The firm has also worked in the past for 32BJ, one of the unions at the center of the fight to win employment status for gig company workers in New York.
Patrick Jenkins, another Uber lobbyist, is a close friend and the former college roommate of New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. While lobbying on behalf of Uber and other corporate clients, Jenkins has also engaged in political consulting work for Heastie’s campaign and political action committee.
In December 2019, Uber and Lyft launched Flexible Work for New York, a front group seeking “to protect New Yorkers’ ability to maintain flexible work hours that fit their schedules and support their families,” to create the appearance of grassroots support for their agenda.
In its registration documents, Flexible Work for New York indicated that it is lobbying on behalf of TechNet, a lobbying group representing many big technology companies, including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash as well as other major gig work firm like GrubHub, Postmates, Seamless, and TaskRabbit. The coalition listed its address as Technet’s office in Washington, D.C.
Flexible Work for New York was initially run by the public relations and lobbying firm SKDKnickerbocker, which also disclosed lobbying on behalf of the group “on a pro bono basis.” SKDKnickerbocker had previously disclosed pro bono lobbying for both Lyft and Uber in 2018.
SKDKnickerbocker is owned by the Stagwell Group, a conglomerate founded by Mark Penn, a close advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton. SKDK partner Josh Isay is a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Former partner Jennifer Cunningham, who has lobbied for both Uber and Lyft in the past, is a long-time friend and political advisor to Cuomo. Anita Dunn, a partner at SKDK, was a senior advisor and communications director for former President Barack Obama’s campaigns and was a top strategist with “effective control over” President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. Dunn is now a temporary senior advisor in the Biden White House.
In December 2020, Flexible Work for New York was rebranded as the New York Coalition for Independent Work (NYCIW) and re-launched under the control of Mercury Public Affairs, party-affiliated strategy firm that also ran Lyft’s super PAC.
Under both its names, the Uber- and Lyft-backed front group employed similar tactics to those used by gig economy employers in their successful $200 million campaign to pass Proposition 22, the 2020 California ballot initiative overturning a law granting employment status to gig workers in that state.
During the Prop. 22 campaign, gig employers paid the president of the California chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to speak out in favor of the initiative. Similarly, Flexible Work for New York enlisted religious leaders from across the state to pressure legislators not to grant labor protections to gig workers.
Further, when the “launch” of the rebranded NYCIW was announced in December 2020, the nonprofit Arc of Justice, Inc. was named as a “founding member” of the coalition and its director, Rev. Kirsten Foy, was quoted in the press release. Foy is a protege of Rev. Al Sharpton and works as the Northeast Regional Director of Sharpton’s National Action Network, which is also named as a coalition member on the NYCIW website.
Foy has been an outspoken advocate for the gig company position on labor rights, giving interviews and publishing opinion pieces on the matter. On Arc of Justice’s website, both Uber and Mercury Public Affairs are listed as “benefactors” of the organization.
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