Kamala Harris: What does it mean?
So Harris has decided to co-sponsor Medicare-For-All with Sanders.
SnappleBC already called bullshit on this, and I'm not going to disagree with him on most of it.
However, even if her gesture is misdirection, it still isn't meaningless.
If it was a no-brainer then everyone would do it
California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris is the only high-profile lawmaker to openly approve the plan. However, other Democrats and progressives alike have been slow to support the measure.Sen. Amy Klobuchar, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe haven’t spoken publicly about the proposed measure, and other high-profile Democrats like Sens. Chris Murphy, Sherrod Brown, and Kirsten Gillibrand have yet to announce their support as well.
If it didn't mean anything then wealthy donors would have turned loose all the candidates to endorse it.
That means one of two things:
1) Harris has the confidence and support of the donors that other candidates don't have. Which means that "inevitable" will be used with her name soon enough.
or,
2) Harris is simply smarter than the other candidates, and can read the political winds. She realized that she could knee-cap her progressive critics in one blow, early-on.
or both.
Of course, ensuring that Americans have access to affordable health care requires “playing politics.” And the unions, activists, and progressive groups pushing for single-payer have played them well. By refusing to temper their demands in the name of unity, the left has amassed enough “energy and momentum” behind single-payer to get the policy endorsed by Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, and 60 percent of the House Democratic caucus.
Harris' announcement has had pretty much the effect you would have expected.
Progressives reacted to her announcement with cautious optimism. They lauded her decision but expressed concerns over her sincerity. National Nurses United Director Roseann Demoro tweeted, “@SenSanders from Vermont has publicly supported the Ca #SinglePayer Bill #SB562. I would like to see Ca Senators do the same.”
... In California, the State Democratic Party finally endorsed SB 562, the Medicare for All bill. However, Speaker Rendon has yet to allow the bill to move forward, and neither of California’s senators, Kamala Harris and Diane Feinstein, have publicly supported it. Harris’ support for the bill would help make Medicare for All a reality in California, but if she fails to speak out on the issue, her support for Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in the Senate will be seen as little more than empty rhetoric. Progressives will see it as pandering to win their support rather than a sincere effort to provide health care to every American.
At the very least, Harris has shown herself to be more savvy than Hillary. It's likely that Harris won't make the same mistakes of arrogance like this one.
Comments
An interesting number
link
You do more with one hand that I can do with two, and
I'll even throw in my feet.
I love your analysis. You always make me think.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Opportunist. If Kamala is
the party's savior the party is in trouble. (and we all know it is). And, it's Not that she can't win. Maybe she is the best of the bunch! It's just that, if the party is looking at Kamala as the best of the bunch the bunch is damn weak. The party now has no "bench" becuz the party has had its ass handed to it since 9/11, and whatever bench they once had is gone. Long gone. When I look at Kamala as the party's flag bearer my reaction is, "we" are so fucked.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Gaslighting.
That's all this is.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
There's nothing to stop any Dem candidate
from gaslighting.
Why only Harris?
Didn't say she was the only one.
I fully expect Booker and Patrick to do the same.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Better yet...
If HR 676 does happen to gain any real traction and comes close to passing, I predict that something like this will happen.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xop8QLIJCpY]
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Hmm!
First term senator with enthusiastic, monied support...
I think we've been down this path before.
https://anewworldsinbirth.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/2653/
Plus, I thought you were sleeping?
(Edited)
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Heh.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Sounds like it was set up to have her come forward first
and get the early credit, give her some progressive cred. She's already proven what she is and it's obviously not something that will pass, so it's a political move probably made in concert with Sanders and the DNC.
Maybe
If that's the case, then it's a "tell" of what the establishment intends.
Another point
If the Dem establishment went to all this trouble, then the progressive insurgents are making measurable progress.
This is 180 degrees opposite of "never, ever happen". The progressives have earned grudging respect.
YEP AND YES -
WE HAVE MADE SO MUCH PROGRESS AS PROGRESSIVES THAT WE ARE RIGHT BACK IN 2006-LAND, WHEN A YOUNG INSPIRED PERSON OF COLOR (WHO WAS ALSO THE JR SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS) OFFERED US ALL A WAY TO SOLVE THE HEALTH CARE MESS.
"THE ONLY SOLUTION FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM IS SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE." (PAUSE FOR WORSHIPFUL APPLAUSE.) "AND TO GET THERE, WE NEED A DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY IN CONGRESS, AND A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT." WILD APPLAUSE. WAR WHOOPS, EXCITEMENT.
Gosh 2006 is a really great year. But being there again and again doesn't help us if we never get to see the actual enactment of SPUHC.
Which doesn't look like it will ever happen in our lifetimes.
Believing in the improbable can make your life a miracle.
@Carol Joy Yeah, correct.
Yeah, correct.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I doubt that Bernie
and the DNC are bossom buddies this year. I don't see either one embracing the other. Bernie don't need the DNC and they don't need him.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
@Wink They absolutely need
They absolutely need him. He's the only thing, other than Trump and others of Trump's ilk, that they have to justify their existence.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Ha! could be. n/t
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
It's two things, IMO--
Number #1 - I'm 'guessing' that the big donors behind Harris already know that she's not serious about trying to pass/implement a public option plan (which is what most articles say that he's going to propose--not a single-payer plan.)
If I can find a video that will post here (Drupal), I'll try to post some of the HELP Committee hearings from this week (Wednesday and Thursday). According to The Atlantic, Alexander and Murray--with the blessing of the Dem and Repub Leadership--are proceeding to write a 'bipartisan' ACA fix (bill); so, I'm not sure how much any of this really matters, because if both parties 'hold hands, and jump together' on a re-write of the ACA, there's no way on earth (IMO) that they will consider a new healthcare system, anytime soon.
Plus, the trade-off from Dems will be to decentralize the ACA system--which makes it all the harder to implement a true single-payer system. The Dems understand that, and are only going to insist that a couple of the ACA features remain intact--community rating (so that pre-existing conditions don't count/matter), and maybe keep the current EHB's (essential health benefits). Personally, I doubt that Repubs will go along with keeping all of the EHB's, since most, if not all, of the Republican proposals call for state 'flexibility' on that issue.
Hey, nice to see that you're managing to continue posting. Hope your recovery continues to go well.
Mollie
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
looks to me like a good move for harris...
it looks like she has made an early move in a run against sanders.
in supporting this bill (which has no chance of passing) she takes an important issue off the table that progressives would bludgeon her with throughout the primaries.
so, she gets to say that she supported single-payer, while at the same time telling her big-money supporters that it's only a ruse, that it has no chance of passing and they can continue to confidently fill her coffers with filthy lucre.
hope that you're feeling ok, gj.
Except that there's an easy answer to it:
She didn't support single-payer in CA when they had a veto-proof supermajority. That bespeaks insincerity and grandstanding. And a lot of people are well-primed to believe that politicians, perhaps especially Democrats, are insincere.
They'll get their base excited by it though. All 29% of 'em. Well, there will probably be some holdouts who are more cynical. Let's make it between 20 and 25% of the voting public will get really excited about this.
Maybe Bernie will run as her VP. That would fix it. People still believe in him.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Taking her lead from the "best"
Talking out of both sides of her mouth a la Herself. Public and private persona, dontcha know?
(It astounds me how these people forget there's something called "teh Internet" and "iPhone video cameras.")
She also just came out for the decriminalization of MJ
"Funny" that she didn't do anything when tens of thousands of people were jailed for MJ-related crimes when she had had the power to do something about it. She's easy enough to tear down if any opponents actually attack her poor record in CA, but as we saw with Bernie and Hillary, if Harris is the "chosen one" her primary opponents will likely remain silent when it matters.
Harris is a master opportunist and a master at avoiding scrutiny
but she;s a transparent opportunist and even more disappointing than Obama, she just has had a very cooperative media in SF and CA. Progressives and right wingers will not sing her praises, and she will melt like an ice cream sandwich the first time she sees real heat.
Somebody look up her conviction rate when she was DA of SF. There was an allegation that it was the worst in the US, even though SFPD claimed that she was refusing to prosecute cases to protect her record. (disclaimer: She refused to prosecute the man who shot my best friend)
On to Biden since 1973
Harris has little experience
I do not think Harris will do well in the 2020 primaries because she has such little experience. After Trump's flubs due to his lack of experience, IMHO the American people will look to a very qualified candidate. Harris just doesn't have the resume. Yes, Obama pulled it off but that was pre-Trump.
@karl pearson
I think the Senate is Harris' only experience in a legislative position, the others have been DA/AG, so she doesn't have much experience with how the House/Senate do things.
Howard Dean hits a new low
It's time for judo.
Whatever Harris is thinking is irrelevant -- what matters is that she has just validated the idea. Which means that progressive candidates can point to her advocacy if anyone suggests that they're out of the mainstream and supporting an unworkable pie-in-the-sky ponies-and-rainbows policy.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@UntimelyRippd Sounds to me more like
Sounds to me more like the idea is validating her.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
sure, that's why she's doing it.
but the philosophy of judo (at least in the conventional wisdom) is to transform your opponent's attacking force into your own.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@UntimelyRippd Hmm, that's true.
Hmm, that's true.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Help make it happen in CA Kamala...
and I won't think your kamala-come-lately support for universal healthcare is all just another cheap political stunt.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
I believe that Medicare for all
Will be one of 3 or 4 deciding factors in winning the nomination. Harris is just getting in early.
Oh and this EXPERIENCE
Argument is nonsense. Obama and Trump prove that wrong. Experience lost in the last election. In fact it was even worse than that it was outright jury nullification.
@Song of the lark
This is a somewhat grim thing to say, but I'm not certain why we're concerning ourselves with whether or not Kamala will win.
Although the forces Kamala actually represents are disgusting (bankers, prison-industrial complex), I pretty much assume that whoever runs against her will also represent disgusting forces. The attempt to elect someone who doesn't represent these disgusting interests will be stopped (if it ever starts), by election fraud if necessary. That's what happened last year.
So really the only winnable battle here is over perception, and that's what this is all about. Last year, up until about December, people had a pretty clear view of what was going on with American politics. Both parties were corrupt as hell and a corrupt media was holding their dominance of American politics in place, with an assist from election fraud when needed (it was apparently needed early and often). Round about December, the mighty Trump freakout was instigated, and millions of people decided to abandon these grim perceptions, which offer little in the way of hope for the future, in order to rave about a man who is no more racist than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and advocate for his impeachment by the millions in the streets when they did not do the same about the men who only gained office by disenfranchising millions of Black voters and instituting a new era of Jim Crow.
I am unimpressed by people who did not flood the streets in 2000 or 2004 who do so now because Trump says racist shit on Twitter.
Especially since I was in the streets in 2000 and 2004, and could have used some help.
But as for Kamala, the thing at stake here is not policy, but the political imagination of the American people. What the establishment wants her to do for them is the same thing that Barack Obama did for them: use her race (and, in this case, also gender) as a moral currency to buy the redefinition of what moral left-wing policy is.
Her support for Sanders' bill constitutes an opening move in that game, not only because it gins up progressive cred--of a sort--for her, but also because Sanders' bill is not, as far as I understand it, a single-payer bill anyway. Isn't it actually a public option calling itself single-payer?
Not that I would have a huge problem with a strong public option conscientiously implemented, but the chances of that are so low it's ridiculous. And I do have a problem with calling a bill single-payer if it's not. That moves the Overton window back to the right, and also creates some useful (for the establishment) confusion about what single-payer is.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
God, yes
This. A thousand times over. And one of the main reasons I no longer go on other political social media sites, or talk about politics to friends on the "Left". It's just too fucking depressing.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Healthcare Over Profit
I don't recall how I stumbled on to this site, but it Rocks!
And:
http://healthoverprofit.org/2017/08/30/to-sen-sanders-we-cannot-begin-fr...
Also:
http://healthoverprofit.org/2017/08/30/physicians-to-sanders-we-cannot-s...
Has anyone said "Fuck You Bernie!" recently?
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
MM, as I mentioned above, the Senate HELP
(Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) Committee will be holding hearings this Wednesday and Thursday, in advance of hammering out a 'bipartisan' reform of the ACA.
Repub Lamar Alexander and Dem Patty Murray have already authored a couple of very corporatist neoliberal bills together, since Repubs regained the Senate majority. Remember, Murray also cut federal pensions with Paul Ryan (for future employees).
I'll post the videos as soon as I can find them. What will be interesting is to see what Bernie and Warren do and say during these hearings.
Sometimes, the videos that lawmakers post on their official websites don't work on blogs. I have to wonder if that's 'accidentally on purpose.'
Mollie
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
it's like a morning prayer
Prolly why Kamala endorses
it. If, in fact, that post is the case. Regardless, really doesn't matter what he proposes becuz whatever it is ain't going anywhere, won't even get out of committee.
#StillWithBernie (becuz, really, who else is there). Not one fucking elected Dem has said a peep about much of anything since tRump took the oath.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Sadly, there is no one
Who will advocate for the people at the expense of the duopoly's donors. And because that reality is to brutal to bear. We don't. Instead, we keep hoping that the same people who depend on keeping the donors happy will inexplicably stop and legislate on our behalf for things like SPUHC.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
No, and they better be real careful doing so.
Sanders got plenty of death threats during his campaign. You. think. TPTB have stopped doing so? Sure hasn't hurt his cred (vitally important to the young people) nor his popularity. All Harris is is BO as female. She already has a soiled AG record, and she's no orator.
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
I never expected otherwise
No one is proposing NHS.
MFA is going to look like this, and it would be 100% better than ACA
Good pre-Irma morning gj Energized Bunny!
Will be reading this one soon. Just wanted to say that is TERRIFIC that you are here. Hope we cyber buds (human, not plant LOL) and family are helping you heal and get well.
Rec'd!!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Before anyone gives Kamala
or Bernie too much credit for this bill, please read this link.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/bernie-sanders-now-no-time-compromise-...
Maybe Kamala can support this bill, because it's not a true single payer bill to begin with.
Kamala rhymes with Dambala
The voodoo snake god.
[video:https://youtu.be/nWTaSNQULHE]
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."