The New Supermajority

Cecile Richards is partnering with Alicia Garza of Black Lives Matter and Ai-jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance to mobilize activists with their new group, Supermajority.

Resistance hasn't resulted in what women want, and so The Supermajority. Thousands have joined its rollout today. Rachel Maddow interviewed Cecile Richards tonight, who has beautifully articulated what actions women have awakened to taking.

In collaboration with its separate education division, Supermajority will train women on how to participate in politics and activism in their communities, both online and on the ground.

One of the main goals of the group is to create a “women’s New Deal for gender equality,” the cofounders said, an agenda that their members can push candidates and legislators to adopt.

The group will also focus heavily on mobilizing voters during the 2020 primary and general elections, Richards said, but she added that it was too early to say whether the group would endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary for president.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emaoconnor/cecile-richards-alicia-garza-supermajority-activist-group

CORPORATE CAMPUS V COUNTRY -- The Long And Winding Road To The Future

This is about The Primaries decision about the corporate way our our constitutional way.

We have to decide in 2020 just who will run this government.

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell

Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse details the facts of our situation in Captured, a dense briefing of our corporations' growing power, and his plan for untangling us and our government from corporate misuse of the Constitution in their capture of our government.

The quick look...

1.
YES, corporations help create great wealth for humans. Jobs, networks of communications, ways and means for uplift through public works, scholarships, internships, and just jobs.

NO, corporations do not help the body politic. Right now they win the "trial of strength" against our democracy that Jefferson warned us about.

YES, the US is now a corporate campus, but we citizens, as the first officers of democracy, need to make our bordered land base home a country again.

Sheldon Whitehouse’s “Captured” lays out both the history of corporate existence AND the fight ahead of us in-country humans against our corporate campus.

2.
Corporations are centuries-old fictional personhoods. Six existed in our original colonies. Our Founders did not mention them in the US Constitution.

Corporations:
1. do not rest, retire or die — by “perpetual succession” beyond the lives of their incorporators, directors and officers ;
2. exist purely for shareholder profit — when moral issues or public goods are at stake, this single-mindedness is a flaw;
3. have no soul or conscience, just a founding charter — an artificial being kept from misconduct only by specific laws or reputed practices that interfere with profitmaking;
4. have no loyalty to any flag or nation — CEO’ do not make decisions based on what is good for their charter’s home country, or any country;
5. do not have any natural size limit — they will promote policies that help them grow beyond the economies of countries
6. have no natural limit to their appetite — no corporation says, “I think I’ve made enough;” no corporate lobby says, “I think I’ve acquired enough political influrence.”

No human being can outlive the relentlessness and cross-generational power of corporate entities.


As Republican Teddy Roosevelt said: “ Behind he ostensible government sites enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. Our government, Nation and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests… We must drive the special interests out of politics… the citizens of the United States must effectively control the might commercial forces which they have called into being There can be no effective control of corporations while their activity remains.”

“To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.”

But we CAN in this time stop corporate rule for all time. “Corporate charter death" is one of our weapons. Law is another

3. " Corporate Whores and Their Corporate Wars" History In Brief:

Blackstone’s Commentaries from the 1760’s, and the 1917 Fletcher Cyclopedia of the Law of Corporations describe the antagonism thousands of years ago between corporations and government.

-- Jamestown and Plymouth were founded by corporations. Six native-born business corporations existed in the colonies.

Corporations are not mentioned in the US Constitution. Though their future political power was not foreseen, misgivings about their power colored the ratification of the Constitution by the states. Even after ratification, the total number was 200 — growth, but not the explosion that was to follow.

— 1819 The USSC’s first famous case dealing with corporation was Dartmouth vs. New Hampshire. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled for Dartmouth, espousing a new theory that legislative control over a corporate charter was not absolute. That once created, a corporation had certain rights over its creator. This fateful decision has been litigated ever since.
Pennsylvania’s Congressman Charles Jared Ingersoll published and spoke against mostly banking corporations. He pointed to Martin Van Buren dominating banking policy by doling out charters to friends and blocking foes. He cited that Van Buren proved that corruption works both ways: the more legislators use such powers to pick and choose the winners of finance, the more finance lobbied to bribe those legislators.
There were 30,000 corporations in 1860. By 1915, 300,000. The 200 biggest of that time still rule their industries.
State legislators across America tried to contain the corporate threat. Corps were denied automatic rights of persons, their existence extended to 20 - 50 years.
California’s 1879 state constitution was designed to protect against corporate power and to limit the legislature to any laws that loosen corporate liability or restrictions.
But by century’s end, Justice Louis Brandeis recounted that, though corps powers were sparingly conferred and strictly construed, they were more honored in the breach than in the observance, and that government control had effectlvely collapsed, not because citizens felt safe or restrictions unwise, but because "the conviction that it was futile,” as corps circumvented laws by foreign incorporation in another state.
New Jersey, called the “Traitor State,” was the first, through its Holding Company Act of 1801, to allow corporations to own stocks in other firms, which allowed trusts to grow. Other states followed.

— 1907 Then came Teddy Roosevelt and the Tillman Act, which stated in no uncertain terms that corporate political spending was not potentially corrupting. Corporate political spending was corruption. Plain and simple.

GDP 2014 revenue in billions chart by World Bank

— 20th century USSC summed up the political role by these corporate characteristics thus: “ That invisible, intangible, and artificial being, that mere legal entity, a corporation aggregate, is certainly not a citizen.
— 2020’s Citizens United

I don’t have to convince DU about how Citizens United overturned the last 100 years.

The not quick look ...

4.
Recommended for DU consideration (yes, I'm aware of the shortcomings of "binary" frames)

— That we citizens should see to it the overturning of all law that hands corporations the John Marshall unconstitutional advantage over humans under the Constitution.
— That we voters for 2020 let one party reset the scaffold of our government;
— That we voters for 2021 (not just 20204) supervise that scaffolding, to help the progressive anti-corporate forces take off from the restored scaffold of Congress and the Executive.
— That future presidents will either side with corporate governance or won’t;
— That we citizens need to see corporate activity as a major factor of our politics or we don't (and that the majority of our reps belie their oaths to the human Constitution over us)
— That we decide that AI will continue to control corporations or won’t (AI already has a decisionmaking seat in one of the top two global corps in Singapore);
-- That the military will or will not support corporations, since it supports its paymasters (Note the lowered numbers of humans on the ground, except in service of protecting corporate entities in land base “civil wars” driven by belief systems and political conflicts — just like ours now is).


There will never again be equality until we become The Who who control our future.

It's the long and winding road Teddy Roosevelt said it would be.

Now it's a toll road made by forces -- that law says can have ONE lane -- that now run the whole road.

The Constitution says it's the humans' road, and we humans have to retake it. Remake it, so our grandkids' kids can hit the road running.

Or stay behind as it gets made for us.

It will be what our decisions and actions of the primary and General Election make us -- human owners of the road, or ...

About Anita Hill

I HEAR HER. NO amount of apology will ever undo the damage done to her.

Remember: that is her only point.

It's not fair, however, to come from that position for the next eighteen months. It invites in women voters a stubborn one-issue mentality of hardening one's judgments early, then clinging to them. They disable themselves from fending off Republican attacks later because they won't do any more of the important homework on their party nominee.

No one mistake should define a politician for life, all other accomplishments weighed.

I hear her. To cling desperately to the idea that Biden still is who he was then, is to deny any politician's undeniable right, capacity and willingness to evolve.



This is a Big Issue.

Here's how Joe can repair the damage:

nominate Anita Hill for confirmation to SCOTUS when Ginsberg retires.

Justice Hill has a nice ring to it.

More Biden Baggage For The Debates -- Pick On THIS

Be careful not to provide the Republicans with all their media and election talking points while you're picking at Joe's baggage, so they don't pass themselves off as smarter than they are.

Any fair and productive discussion of Joe Biden's baggage -- Democrats are nothing if not fair, right? -- just remember to credit Biden with advising, helping and standing by the guy who gets most, but should not get ALL the credit.

Here's more than half of Joe's baggage.

Joe helped Obama with so much of the sausage making that he can ride on Obama's successes without being accused of riding on his coattails. Obama knows this: Biden helped MAKE Obama's coattails.

Think about the list below. Sure, his Democratic opponents helped vote for these, some of them.

Think about this list as he talks about governmental experience that is greater than any Democrat debating him.

Biden's got muscle memory about governing the way that Trump's got muscle memory about lying.

What Trump has put asunder, Biden will join back together as befits the country's current and future economic, social and national security needs.

Joe Biden is the one who best knows which of the following should get revived from Trump's wrecking ball.

Joe can rightfully ride on his work in the previous administration that

1. Passed Health Care Reform
2. Passed the Stimulus
3. Ended the War in Iraq
4. Began Drawdown of War in Afghanistan
5. Eliminated Osama bin laden

6. Established Stress Tests As the Condition of Recapitalizing Banks
7. Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
8. Reversed Bush Torture Policies
9. Improved America’s Image Abroad: With new policies, diplomacy, and rhetoric, reversed a sharp decline in world opinion toward the U.S. (and the corresponding loss of “soft power”) during the Bush years.
10. Kicked Banks Out of Federal Student Loan Program, Expanded Pell Grant Spending.

11. Created Race to the Top: With funds from stimulus, started $4.35 billion program of competitive grants to encourage and reward states for education reform.
12. Boosted Fuel Efficiency Standards: Released new fuel efficiency standards in 2011 that will nearly double the fuel economy for cars and trucks by 2025.
13. Coordinated International Response to Financial Crisis: To keep world economy out of recession in 2009 and 2010, helped secure from G-20 nations more than $500 billion for the IMF to provide lines of credit and other support to emerging market countries, which kept them liquid and avoided crises with their currencies.
14. Passed Mini Stimuli: To help families hurt by the recession and spur the economy as stimulus spending declined, signed series of measures (July 22, 2010; December 17, 2010; December 23, 2011) to extend unemployment insurance and cut payroll taxes.
15. Began Asia “Pivot”: In 2011, reoriented American military and diplomatic priorities and focus from the Middle East and Europe to the Asian-Pacific region. Executed multipronged strategy of positively engaging China while reasserting U.S. leadership in the region

16. Increased Support for Veterans: increased 2010 Department of Veterans Affairs budget by 16 percent and 2011 budget by 10 percent.
17. new GI bill offering $78 billion in tuition assistance over a decade, and provided multiple tax credits to encourage businesses to hire veterans.
18. Tightened Sanctions on Iran: to deter Iran’s nuclear program, signed Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (2010) to punish firms and individuals who aid Iran’s petroleum sector. In late 2011 and early 2012, coordinated with other major Western powers to impose sanctions aimed at Iran’s banks and with Japan, South Korea, and China to shift their oil purchases away from Iran.
19. Created Conditions to Begin Closing Dirtiest Power Plants: New EPA restrictions on mercury and toxic pollution, issued in December 2011, likely to lead to the closing of between sixty-eight and 231 of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants. Estimated cost to utilities: at least $11 billion by 2016. Estimated health benefits: $59 billion to $140 billion. Will also significantly reduce carbon emissions and, with other regulations, comprises what’s been called Obama’s “stealth climate policy.”
20. Passed Credit Card Reforms: Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (2009), which prohibits credit card companies from raising rates without advance notification, mandates a grace period on interest rate increases, and strictly limits overdraft and other fees.

21. Eliminated Catch-22 in Pay Equality Laws: Signed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, giving women who are paid less than men for the same work the right to sue their employers after they find out about the discrimination, even if that discrimination happened years ago. Under previous law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the statute of limitations on such suits ran out 180 days after the alleged discrimination occurred, even if the victims never knew about it.
22. Protected Two Liberal Seats on the U.S. Supreme Court: Nominated and obtained confirmation for Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman to serve, in 2009; and Elena Kagan, the fourth woman to serve, in 2010. They replaced David Souter and John Paul Stevens, respectively.
23. Improved Food Safety System: In 2011, signed FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which boosts the Food and Drug Administration’s budget by $1.4 billion and expands its regulatory responsibilities to include increasing number of food inspections, issuing direct food recalls, and reviewing the current food safety practices of countries importing products into America.
24. Achieved New START Treaty: Signed with Russia (2010) and won ratification in Congress (2011) of treaty that limits each country to 1,550 strategic warheads (down from 2,200) and 700 launchers (down from more than 1,400), and reestablished and strengthened a monitoring and transparency program that had lapsed in 2009, through which each country can monitor the other.
25. Expanded National Service: Signed Serve America Act in 2009, which authorized a tripling of the size of AmeriCorps. Program grew 13 percent to 85,000 members across the country by 2012, when new House GOP majority refused to appropriate more funds for further expansion.

26. Expanded Wilderness and Watershed Protection: Signed Omnibus Public Lands Management Act (2009), which designated more than 2 million acres as wilderness, created thousands of miles of recreational and historic trails, and protected more than 1,000 miles of rivers.
27. Gave the FDA Power to Regulate Tobacco: Signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (2009). Nine years in the making and long resisted by the tobacco industry, the law mandates that tobacco manufacturers disclose all ingredients, obtain FDA approval for new tobacco products, and expand the size and prominence of cigarette warning labels, and bans the sale of misleadingly labeled “light” cigarette brands and tobacco sponsorship of entertainment events.
28. Pushed Federal Agencies to Be Green Leaders: Issued executive order in 2009 requiring all federal agencies to make plans to soften their environmental impacts by 2020. Goals include 30 percent reduction in fleet gasoline use, 26 percent boost in water efficiency, and sustainability requirements for 95 percent of all federal contracts. Because federal government is the country’s single biggest purchaser of goods and services, likely to have ripple effects throughout the economy for years to come.
29. Passed Fair Sentencing Act: Signed 2010 legislation that reduces sentencing disparity between crack versus powder cocaine possessionfrom100 to1 to 18 to1.
30. Trimmed and Reoriented Missile Defense: Cut the Reagan-era “Star Wars” missile defense budget, saving $1.4 billion in 2010, and canceled plans to station antiballistic missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic in favor of sea-based defense plan focused on Iran and North Korea.

31. Began Post-Post-9/11 Military Build-down: After winning agreement from congressional Republicans and Democrats in summer 2011 budget deal to reduce projected defense spending by $450 billion, proposed new DoD budget this year with cuts of that size and a new national defense strategy that would shrink ground forces from 570,000 to 490,000 over the next ten years while increasing programs in intelligence gathering and cyberwarfare.
32. Let Space Shuttle Die and Killed Planned Moon Mission: Allowed the expensive ($1 billion per launch), badly designed, dangerous shuttle program to make its final launch on July 8, 2011. Cut off funding for even more bloated and problem-plagued Bush-era Constellation program to build moon base in favor of support for private-sector low-earth orbit ventures, research on new rocket technologies for long-distance manned flight missions, and unmanned space exploration, including the largest interplanetary rover ever launched, which will investigate Mars’s potential to support life.
33. Invested Heavily in Renewable Technology: As part of the 2009 stimulus, invested $90 billion, more than any previous administration, in research on smart grids, energy efficiency, electric cars, renewable electricity generation, cleaner coal, and biofuels.
34. Crafting Next-Generation School Tests: Devoted $330 million in stimulus money to pay two consortia of states and universities to create competing versions of new K-12 student performance tests based on latest psychometric research. New tests could transform the learning environment in vast majority of public school classrooms beginning in 2014.
35. Cracked Down on Bad For-Profit Colleges: In effort to fight predatory practices of some for-profit colleges, Department of Education issued “gainful employment” regulations in 2011 cutting off commercially focused schools from federal student aid funding if more than 35 percent of former students aren’t paying off their loans and/or if the average former student spends more than 12 percent of his or her total earnings servicing student loans.

36. Improved School Nutrition: In coordination with Michelle Obama, signed Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 mandating $4.5 billion spending boost and higher nutritional and health standards for school lunches. New rules based on the law, released in January, double the amount of fruits and vegetables and require only whole grains in food served to students.
37. Expanded Hate Crimes Protections: Signed Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009), which expands existing hate crime protections to include crimes based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, or disability, in addition to race, color, religion, or national origin.
38. Avoided Scandal: As of November 2011, served longer than any president in decades without a scandal, as measured by the appearance of the word “scandal” (or lack thereof) on the front page of the Washington Post.
39. Brokered Agreement for Speedy Compensation to Victims of Gulf Oil Spill: Though lacking statutory power to compel British Petroleum to act, used moral authority of his office to convince oil company to agree in 2010 to a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; $6.5 billion already paid out without lawsuits. By comparison, it took nearly two decades for plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez Alaska oil spill case to receive $1.3 billion.
40. Created Recovery.gov: Web site run by independent board of inspectors general looking for fraud and abuse in stimulus spending, provides public with detailed information on every contract funded by $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Thanks partly to this transparency, board has uncovered very little fraud, and Web site has become national model

41. Pushed Broadband Coverage: Proposed and obtained in 2011 Federal Communications Commission approval for a shift of $8 billion in subsidies away from landlines and toward broadband Internet for lower-income rural families.
42. Expanded Health Coverage for Children: Signed 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Authorization Act, which allows the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover health care for 4 million more children, paid for by a tax increase on tobacco products.
43. Recognized the Dangers of Carbon Dioxide: In 2009, EPA declared carbon dioxide a pollutant, allowing the agency to regulate its production.
44. Expanded Stem Cell Research: In 2009, eliminated the Bush-era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, which shows promise in treating spinal injuries, among many other areas.
45. Provided Payment to Wronged Minority Farmers: In 2009, signed Claims Resolution Act, which provided $4.6 billion in funding for a legal settlement with black and Native American farmers who the government cheated out of loans and natural resource royalties in years past.

46. Helped South Sudan Declare Independence: Helped South Sudan Declare Independence: Appointed two envoys to Sudan and personally attended a special UN meeting on the area. Through U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, helped negotiate a peaceful split in 2011.
47. Killed the F-22: In 2009, ended further purchases of Lockheed Martin single-seat, twin-engine, fighter aircraft, which cost $358 million apiece. Though the military had 187 built, the plane has never flown a single combat mission. Eliminating it saved $4 billion.

Yes, Joe will tell you all the stories of his work.

Don't get me started... !

VP Biden at the White House Summit on Climate Four Years Ago

This is the Biden who makes me feel better about shifting away from Governor Jay Inslee.

Because Inslee's state level models of clean energy law and other accomplishments on climate change are greater, Biden would do well to appoint him the head of a Climate Change Manhattan Project as head of the EPA.

Joe Biden On Immigration As America's Secret Ingredient

Per the admins, I'm to stay in this site lane.

Biden Calls Climate Change Deniers Mindless -- Four Years Ago

Joe Biden On Climate Change -- It's a National Security Issue, Economic Issue, Moral Issue

at the 0:22 mark

Joe Biden On Immigration As America's Secret Ingredient

Biden Calls Climate Change Deniers Mindless -- Four Years Ago