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“History that repeats itself turns to farce. Farce that repeats itself turns to history."

-- Jean Baudrillard

News and Opinion

DNC Scrambles To Change Debate Threshold After Gabbard Qualifies

On a CNN panel on Monday, host John King spoke with Politico reporter Alex Thompson about the possibility of Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard qualifying on Super Tuesday for the party’s primary debate in Phoenix later this month.

“I will note this, she’s from Hawaii,” King said of Gabbard. “She’s a congresswoman from Hawaii; American Samoa votes on Super Tuesday. The rules as they now stand, if you get a delegate, you’re back in the debates. As of now. Correct?”

“Yeah, they haven’t, I mean, that’s been the rule for every single debate,” Thompson replied. “And the DNC has not released their official guidance for the March 15 debate in Phoenix, but it would be very obvious that they are trying to cancel Tulsi, who they’re scared of a third party run, if they then change the rules to prevent her to rejoin the debate stage.”

And indeed, as the smoke clears from the Super Tuesday frenzy, this is precisely what appears to have transpired.

pic.twitter.com/LTr4Wfqqki

— Min Min (@parisencorecom) March 4, 2020

“The Gabbard campaign said it was informed that it would net two delegates from the caucuses in American Samoa, which will allocate a total of six pledged delegates,” The Hill reports today. “However, a report from CNN said that the candidate will receive only one delegate from the territory on Tuesday evening.”

“Tulsi Gabbard may have just qualified for the next Democratic debate thanks to American Samoa,” reads a fresh Business Insider headline. “Under the most recent rules, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii may have qualified for the next televised debate by snagging a delegate in American Samoa’s primary.”

“If Tulsi Gabbard gets a delegate out of American Samoa, as it appears she has done, she will likely qualify for the next Democratic debate,” tweeted Washington Post‘s Dave Weigel. “We don’t have new debate rules yet, but party has been inviting any candidate who gets a delegate.”

Rank-and-file supporters of the Hawaii congresswoman enjoyed a brief celebration on social media, before having their hopes dashed minutes later by an announcement from the DNC’s Communications Director Xochitl Hinojosa that “the threshold will go up”.

“We have two more debates– of course the threshold will go up,” tweeted Hinojosa literally minutes after Gabbard was awarded the delegate. “By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.”

“DNC wastes no time in announcing they will rig the next debates to exclude Tulsi,” Journalist Michael Tracey tweeted in response.

This outcome surprised nobody, least of all Gabbard supporters. The blackout on the Tulsi 2020 campaign has reached such extreme heights this year that you now routinely see pundits saying things like there are no more people of color in the race, or that Elizabeth Warren is the only woman remaining in the primary. They’re not just ignoring her, they’re actually erasing her. They’re weaving a whole alternative reality out of narrative in which she is literally, officially, no longer in the race. ...

The establishment narrative warfare against Gabbard’s campaign dwarfs anything we’ve seen against Sanders, and the loathing and dismissal they’ve been able to generate have severely hamstrung her run. It turns out that a presidential candidate can get away with talking about economic justice and plutocracy when it comes to domestic policy, and some light dissent on matters of foreign policy will be tolerated, but aggressively attacking the heart of the actual bipartisan foreign policy consensus will get you shut down, smeared and shunned like nothing else. This is partly because US presidents have a lot more authority over foreign affairs than domestic, and it’s also because endless war is the glue which holds the empire together.

And now they’re working to install a corrupt, right-wing warmongering dementia patient as the party’s nominee. And from the looks of the numbers I’ve seen from Super Tuesday so far, it looks entirely likely that those manipulations will prove successful.

All this means is that the machine is exposing its mechanics to the view of the mainstream public. Both the Gabbard campaign and the Sanders campaign have been useful primarily in this way; not because the establishment would ever let them actually become president, but because they force the unelected manipulators who really run things in the most powerful government on earth to show the public their box of dirty tricks.

Freedom Rider: U.S. Continues Its War on the Rest of the World

It isn’t clear who the next president of the United States will be but the terrible handiwork of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump are creating terrible suffering for millions of people around the world. Donald Trump is making a big show of a phony peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban were given life by Jimmy Carter, who sought to undermine the sovereign government of that country. We were told that the Soviets had invaded when in fact the government of president Najibullah had invited them, an act he had every right to undertake. What followed was years of civil war, billions of dollars funneled to the mujahadeen, including the likes of Osama bin Laden, who subsequently turned against his sponsors and killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. No one wanted to remember that bin Laden was originally lauded as a freedom fighter by Carter and Reagan, only to be rubbed out years later by Barack Obama.

Carter began the use of jihadist proxies and all of his predecessors followed in his foot steps. The current turmoil in Syria is a direct result of Obama’s turn at creating disaster. Along with his partners in NATO, and Israel, and gulf monarch states, he sought regime change against Bashar al-Assad. Now the Syrians are on the verge of taking back their country with the help of their allies but NATO member Turkey has again proved itself to be treacherous and makes a last stand with its jihadist proxies to continue the suffering of the people there.

The presidential campaign is a farce, as foreign policy is treated like a frill that need not be mentioned. That is because the war party duopoly have no intention of changing U.S. foreign policy in any significant way. ... Bernie Sanders may be the most progressive on domestic issues, but his foreign policy positions are no better than those of the men who previously filled the job he hopes to hold. When he isn’t calling Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping thugs he is supporting the destruction of Venezuela and other countries targeted by the United States. Tulsi Gabbard questions the regime change concept but she has been barred from debates and is thus rendered invisible to the electorate. Her invisibility is hardly coincidental. ...

Americans should know that Turkey’s gambit of unleashing refugees into Europe is a direct result of its acting in concert with the U.S. regime change plot. Of course the Europeans now wringing their hands in fear of newcomers went along with the scheme and share in the blame as they continue their role as America’s vassal states. The foreign crises that are treated like background music are in fact very important. No one knows if Turkey’s rampage on behalf of the United States can start a hot war that candidates will suddenly have to address. ... After inauguration day on January 20, 2021 the United States will continue to be the biggest threat to peace in the world. Millions of people will be bombed or sanctioned and Americans will continue to live in ignorance as they wonder why their country is hated. They need only look at the presidential candidate debate stage to answer the question.

Attacks on Syrian government forces 'just the beginning' warns Erdogan

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that his country's attacks on Syrian government forces are "just the beginning" as Damascus said it would continue to confront Turkish troops in the northwest. Speaking at a meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) a day after announcing a full military operation against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erdogan said Turkey had already inflicted the "heaviest casualties ever on the regime".

On Sunday, Turkish drone strikes killed 19 Syrian soldiers and downed two government planes, in the wake of increasing clashes around the last rebel-held territory of Idlib. The attacks mark the most serious direct clashes so far between the Assad government and Turkey, which supports rebel groups that have been fighting against the government since 2011.

Last week, at least 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an air strike in Idlib which Russia, denying it was behind the attack, said was carried out by the Syria government. Erdogan stressed that Turkey had no interest in coming into conflict with Iran and Russia, which back the Syrian government, but said that his country was determined to carry out retribution against the elements who "spilled our soldiers’ blood". ...

On Monday, Damascus pledged to repel Turkish forces, as government troops re-entered the strategic northwestern town of Saraqeb, clashing with Turkish-backed rebels.

Syria - Another Short Note On The Recent Developments

After the confusion caused by the sudden stand down of Russian forces in Syria and the following Turkish drone attacks everything seems to be back to normal.

Russian planes are again bombing Jihadis and Turkey has been told by Russia that none of its planes or drones will be safe within Syria's sky.

The Pentagon announced that it will not provide air support to Turkey. It will also not send any Patriot air defense to Syria but President Trump promised to ask other NATO countries to do so. They are likely to deny the request. It seems that Pentagon has won the fight with the State Department which supported the Turkish push for protection.

The Turkish president Erdogan said that Turkey has no "particular problem" with Russian and Iran aligned forces in Idleb. This comes after Iran and Hizbullah had warned that Turkish troops in their now surrounded 'observation posts' would be easy targets. The Turkish units which have invaded Idleb were quiet today. ...

Erdogan wants Idleb but neither Syria nor Iran nor Russia will let him have it. President Putin will meet Erdogan during the commong days and will make sure that the point is understood.

US prosecutors accuse Honduran president of taking drug money

US prosecutors have said that the president of Honduras met a drug trafficker in around 2013 and took $25,000 in exchange for protecting the trafficker from law enforcement.

The US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York issued a statement referring to President Juan Orlando Hernández only as a “high-ranking Honduran official” or as “CC-4”, a co-conspirator.

But in court documents, it identified “CC-4” as president of Honduras and brother of former congressman Juan Antonio Hernández Alvarado, who was convicted on drug charges last year. In previous filing, US prosecutors have described “CC-4” as the winner of the 2013 presidential elections.

It was not clear if the alleged incident involving the trafficker occurred before or after federal congressman Juan Orlando Hernández won the 2013 presidential election. He took office in January 2014.

He has not been charged and did not immediately comment on the allegations, but he has repeatedly denied earlier allegations of connections to traffickers.

US Federal Reserve makes emergency interest rate cut

The US Federal Reserve has slashed interest rates in an emergency move to protect the world’s largest economy from the coronavirus outbreak, ramping up the global response as the disease spreads.

In a dramatic intervention as the G7 group of wealthy nations promised action around the world to protect jobs and growth amid the unfolding crisis, the US central bank said it was cutting interest rates by half a percentage point to a target range of 1% to 1.25%.

Launching the emergency measure as a pre-emptive strike to protect the US economy after pressure from Donald Trump to act, the Fed warned: “The fundamentals of the US economy remain strong. However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity.” ...

Financial markets around the world initially rallied after the worst week for stocks since the 2008 crisis, in anticipation of a massive coordinated stimulus to protect the global economy. The FTSE 100 closed up around 1% at 6,718.20. However, Wall Street slumped following Monday’s rebound. The Dow closed 785 points lower on Tuesday, a loss of nearly 3%.

Central Bankers Can’t Save Us This Time

The latest magical thinking is that if Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin get on a phone call this morning with the other G7 finance ministers and central bank governors, they can seduce or strongarm the group to announce rate cuts or fiscal stimulus to keep stock markets from further steep declines and GDP from contracting. ...

Unfortunately, the Fed Chair and the U.S. Treasury Secretary are fighting the last war, the financial crisis of 2008, when multiple interest rate cuts were enough to buoy spirits on Wall Street and fiscal spending buoyed economic growth. But interest rates are already hovering at or near historic lows in much of the developed world. Further cuts would likely be akin to “pushing on a string.” ... This is a brand new war where U.S. consumers, who represent more than two-thirds of GDP in the country, are disincentivized to consume because almost every venue of consumption represents a potential threat to their health and the health of their families. ...

The only way to restore consumer confidence and re-incentivize the consumer to spend is to get the coronavirus under control. Unless all of the central bankers around the world are replaced with infectious disease scientists, they’re not going to be of much use in this crisis. And yes, it’s a crisis. ...

Core demand on the part of the consumer is further aggravated right now because workers (who are also consumers) correctly fear layoffs or job losses and want to save for that potentiality. Major industries in the U.S. are experiencing revenue and earnings slowdowns because the coronavirus has separated them from their customers. ... Retail stores were already experiencing financial difficulties and announcing store closings before the coronavirus hit and the virus outbreak will only exacerbate job losses. Hotels are being hurt not only by vacationers reluctance to travel but by businesses cancelling trips and using teleconferencing instead.

You'll Never Guess How Big Banks Want the Fed to Handle the Coronavirus: More Wall Street Deregulation

A lobbying group for big banks in the United States came under fire Tuesday from financial industry experts for pressuring federal officials to push through long-sought regulatory rollbacks in response to the worldwide economic concerns sparked by the global coronavirus outbreak.

On Sunday, Bank Policy Institute (BPI) chief executive Greg Baer, head of research Francisco Covas, and chief economist Bill Nelson published a post on the group's website entitled "Actions the Fed Could Take in Response to COVID-19." The BPI is a lobbying group whose members include Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.

While the trio of BPI leaders presented the suggestions as steps that the Federal Reserve could take "to allow banks to continue providing credit to businesses and households and liquidity to financial markets," financial industry experts "lambasted" the big bank group's requests as "opportunistic and unnecessary," according to the Washington Post.

As the Post reported Tuesday:

The recommendations are "transparently opportunistic," said Jeremy Kress, an assistant law professor at the University of Michigan School of Business. For years, the banking industry resisted calls for higher capital requirements that could have been used as a buffer, or a rainy-day fund, during economic turmoil, he said. Those buffers could have been turned off now to give the industry more flexibility to make loans during the current economic uncertainty, Kress said.

But without those buffers reducing existing capital requirements, which are currently set at minimum levels, the timing could be risky, he said.

"The whole idea of capital requirements and stress-testing banks is to make sure they have enough cushion to absorb losses" during an economic crisis, Kress said.

BPI's recommendations for the Fed include cutting reserve requirements and relaxing "stress tests" that force banks to show they can survive an economic crisis.

Graham Steele, the director of the Corporations and Society Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business, tweeted that Kress was "100% correct" in characterizing the big banks' behavior as opportunistic.

"The banking industry's hammer is deregulation, and everything—from economic booms to recessions—looks like a nail," said Steele. "In fact, well capitalized banks are better able to lend throughout the business cycle."

What Coronavirus reveals about capitalism

Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Trump Vows to 'See If We Can Help' the Uninsured as He Attempts to Rip Insurance From 20 Million

President Donald Trump said during a press briefing Tuesday that the White House will "see if [it] can help" uninsured people in the U.S. who contract the coronavirus, a remark that—as observers hastened to point out—came as his administration is supporting a Republican lawsuit currently before the Supreme Court that could rip Affordable Care Act protections from more than 20 million Americans.

"Well, we're going to look at the uninsured because they have a big problem," Trump said during a roundtable briefing at the National Institute of Health's Vaccine Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland. "And we're going to look at the uninsured people that—you know, this came—it was a surprise to all of us. It just happened. It shows what can happen in life."

"But we're going to be looking at the uninsured and see if we can help them out," the president added.

Dr. Rob Davidson, an emergency care physician and executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare, tweeted a suggestion to the president: "How about dropping the lawsuit that will kick another 20 million off of insurance?"

Protect Our Care communications director Annie Shoup pointed out that "the number of uninsured Americans has gone up by seven million people during Trump's presidency, complicating the response to the coronavirus."

"But don't worry," Shoup added sardonically, "they're gonna see if they can help them out."

'Ban this technology': students protest US universities' use of facial recognition

Students at universities across the United States participated in protests to demand their schools refrain from using facial recognition on campus.

The protests on Monday came after pushback led by students and digital rights group Fight for The Future against a proposed facial recognition program at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA) led the school to reverse course and drop the technology. Students at around a dozen schools staged protests on campus in person this week while 36 schools saw online actions including petitions.

“Colleges are becoming a flashpoint in the fight against facial recognition and we are really seeing a huge surge in students, professors, faculty and researchers organizing around this,” said Evan Greer, the deputy director of Fight for the Future.

In 2019, UCLA administrators proposed using facial recognition software for security surveillance on campus. In a campaign against the program, Fight for the Future ran facial recognition technology on more than 400 photos of UCLA faculty members and athletes and found the software incorrectly matched 58 of those with photos in a mugshot database. The majority of those misidentified by the database were people of color.

ICE Officials in Texas Are Keeping Migrants in Jail With Potentially Illegal Blanket Parole Denials

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in San Antonio, Texas, have been systematically denying parole to large numbers of people who were detained after crossing into the United States hoping to apply for asylum. Instead of being allowed to join family or sponsors and work on their cases in the U.S., many migrants are being held without a chance of release while they wait for court dates.

According to documents reviewed by The Intercept and lawyers working in the area, ICE’s San Antonio field office has been refusing parole for any detainee subject to a new Trump administration policy known as the transit bar, which makes migrants ineligible for asylum if they did not ask for protection in countries they crossed on their way to the U.S. The bar applies to most non-Mexicans arriving at the southern border.

On one form shown to The Intercept by an attorney with the legal services provider American Gateways, ICE explicitly stated that the transit bar was the sole reason that their client was denied release after a parole interview on September 25, 2019, about two weeks after the Supreme Court allowed the bar to take effect. Another denial notice sent to a different attorney contained similar language.

Agents in El Paso had been issuing the same kind of denials, though they appear to have changed course a little over a month ago. “In El Paso, there was a blanket rule that everyone was denied parole, if they were subject to the bar. That was for sure,” Taylor Levy, an El Paso-based attorney, told The Intercept. She added that some of her denials had been readjudicated and granted starting in late January. In the San Antonio sector, the policy is still in effect but is apparently being applied erratically. ...

Denying parole en masse is likely illegal, according to Michael Tan, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. Two federal court rulings have blocked the government from applying generalized parole denials to asylum-seekers specifically. It appears that ICE in San Antonio (and previously, El Paso) is relying on the legal reasoning that migrants subject to the transit bar were not covered by those rulings, because they no are longer considered asylum-seekers. But the parole statute itself specifies that decisions are to be made on a “case-by-case basis.”

The Case Against Joe Biden: Former VP’s Long Career Shows a Recurring Theme of “Appeasing the Right”

'Organized Money vs. Organized People': New Sanders Memo Details Stark Choice Between Biden and Bernie

Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign sent a memo to staffers and surrogates Monday evening spotlighting "stark" policy differences between Sanders and Joe Biden on Social Security, trade, and other major issues after the former vice president received a wave of high-profile endorsements on the eve of Super Tuesday.

The memo (pdf), authored by Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir and senior adviser Jeff Weaver, characterizes Biden's endorsements from Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Beto O'Rourke, and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as part of an effort by the former vice president to "coalesce the Washington establishment and its big donors around his campaign to protect the status quo."

"Heading into Super Tuesday," the memo continues, "the choice in the Democratic primary is now crystal clear: voters face a decision between Bernie's working-class movement and his message of change, and Biden's effort to—in his own words—make sure that 'nothing will fundamentally change' for the billionaire class that buys elections."

"With Biden bankrolled by a super PAC and boosted by billionaire donors, the primary is far from over," the document declares. "We are now entering the phase of the primary in which the differences between Bernie and Biden will take center stage."

David Sirota, speechwriter and senior adviser to the Sanders campaign, echoed that message in social media posts on Monday.

"It is organized money versus organized people," Sirota tweeted, "as it always ends up being in every consequential battle in history."

If you’re surprised about events tonight, you must have been under the mistaken impression that the establishment was just going to nicely relinquish its ownership of American politics. The truth is, it was always going to be a battle to win this election. Stay focused.

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) March 3, 2020

After Biden’s Super Tuesday Surge, Sanders Campaign Faces Questions About African-American Support

Chuck Rocha: What went wrong, how we can still win

Bloomberg Spent Millions to Buy Alabama Voters. But in Selma, He Wouldn’t Talk to Them.

Michael Bloomberg did not want to be in Selma on Sunday. When the Rev. Leodis Strong invited him to participate in the 55th anniversary of the 1965 civil rights march known as “Bloody Sunday,” the former mayor at first declined, saying that he was too busy running for president. A week later, he changed his mind — or had it changed for him — and decided that attending the historic Brown Chapel the Sunday before Super Tuesday and crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge with ailing congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis wasn’t a distraction from his campaign, but an important piece of it.

Bloomberg’s instinct to stay away was understandable. He had already spent an unprecedented amount of money in a bid for Alabama’s 52 pledged delegates and was about to pull off an impressive political trick: the rapid financial orchestration of a strong position in the state’s minority-majority primary, including a main office facing a statue of Rosa Parks, without having drawn any local attention to his legacy as the mayor responsible for stop-and-frisk policing. Being invited onto the most hallowed ground of the civil rights movement on its most hallowed day on the eve of this achievement may have felt like a trap. Accepting and rejecting the invitation both risked highlighting the nettlesome legacy that he needs black voters — who made up 54 percent of the 2016 Alabama Democratic primary — to forget. ...

Strong pointedly reminded his flock inside the church, and the thousands more watching the service on the Jumbotron outside, that Bloomberg opposed the invitation before he supported it. Bloomberg may have been expecting worse when it finally happened, toward the end of his boilerplate speech, and a dozen or so churchgoers in a center pew stood and turned their backs to him until he finished.

There was no plan to protest Bloomberg’s presence, said one of the dissenters, Ryan P. Haygood, a former NAACP lawyer who directs the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. “Given what this sacred space means, I kept waiting for him to lean into it, to talk about what he presided over as mayor,” he said. “When it became clear he wasn’t going to atone, we decided to do something. Fifty-five years ago, nonviolent protesters assembled right here in this church and prepared to get brutalized by Alabama police half a mile away. We channeled them. We think it’s what they would have done.”

Bernie Sanders and the Establishment Red Scare Meltdown

Bernie Sanders just responded to Elizabeth Warren's attack on him that he "fails to get things done." pic.twitter.com/WtvbZmIiCW

— jordan (@JordanUhl) March 3, 2020

Do Media Really Care About Money in Politics?

When the newly formed Persist PAC recently launched a $12 million ad buy in support of Elizabeth Warren, newspaper headlines were pointed. “Super PAC Launches to Support Elizabeth Warren, Who Has Decried the Role of Super PACs,” announced the Washington Post (2/19/20). “Elizabeth Warren, Long a Super PAC Critic, Gets Help From One,” was the New York Times‘ take (2/19/20).

And indeed, it was a remarkable reversal for a candidate who has largely staked her campaign on her commitment to rooting out money and corruption in politics. As she said when she launched her campaign (Twitter, 2/9/19):

Let’s be clear: I won’t take a dime of PAC money in this campaign. I won’t take a single check from a federal lobbyist, or billionaires who want to run a Super PAC on my behalf. And I challenge every other candidate who asks for your vote in this primary to do the same.

But a deeper look at media coverage suggests that media’s concern with money in politics rarely extends beyond the catchy headline. Indeed, when Joe Biden reversed his own anti-Super PAC stance earlier in the race, coverage also called out his past vows to swear off Super PAC money, and included criticisms from opponents and from groups like End Citizens United (e.g., New York Times, 10/24/19). And yet after that initial blip, coverage fizzled, and he was asked not a single question about it in any of the debates.

This time around, even with the trenchant headlines and blistering quotes from supporters of Warren’s opponents, coverage of Warren’s Super PAC tends to peter out into shrugs of “they all do it.” The Washington Post‘s Michelle Ye Hee Lee (2/19/20) reported:

Most Democratic presidential candidates are now receiving the help of super PACs and nonprofits. Among them: Unite the Country super PAC is supporting former vice president Joe Biden; VoteVets is supporting former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg; and People Power for Bernie, a coalition of nine independent groups, is supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

But of course it’s disingenuous to suggest that all outside groups are essentially the same. If media really cared, they would make some distinctions between the different kinds of money corrupting our elections, and their size and impact—context that’s been lacking in the “they all do it” coverage of the issue.

In the Democratic race, there are Super PACs, which can accept unlimited donations from deep-pocketed individuals or groups to spend in support of a candidate as long as the Super PAC doesn’t coordinate directly with the candidate’s campaign. Then there are so-called “dark money” groups, which also can’t coordinate with campaigns, but unlike Super PACs, they don’t have to disclose their donors, and they can’t make political activity their primary function (though what constitutes political activity gets a little fuzzy).
In the wake of Citizens United, dark money spending—primarily by Republican groups—jumped to $300 million in the 2012 election, and Super PAC spending exceeded $600 million. In the 2018 midterms, $150 million in dark money was spent, with Democratic groups outspending Republicans for the first time; that year, Super PACs spent over $800 million, with Republican groups leading the way. Meanwhile, Michael Bloomberg has spent almost $500 million of his own money on his 2020 campaign, dwarfing all of the other candidates’ Super PAC or dark money.

The Super PAC supporting Biden, Unite Our Country, raised $3.7 million from 71 donors in 2019 (NBCNews.com, 3/3/20)—putting its donation average at $52,113. Yet Biden’s Super PAC support is lumped in with Sanders’ dark money support, which comes from grassroots groups; the most frequently named, Our Revolution, raised $1.87 million in 2019, with an average individual donation of $17.73, and only six donations over $5,000 (the largest was around $25,000—Intercept, 2/26/20).

Our Revolution is not unproblematic; there are parts of the McCain/Feingold finance law that it appears to violate, most notably provisions about a federal office holder or candidate’s role in a 501(c) organization (e.g., “whether a sponsor, directly or through its agent, had an active or significant role in the formation of the entity”). Yet there is clearly a distinction between a group overwhelmingly funded by $20 donations and one exclusively funded by donations larger than this country’s median income.

But the brief flashes of media opprobrium about money in politics rarely draw such distinctions. Our Revolution, Unite Our Country, Persist PAC, Bloomberg’s deep pockets: They’re all the same—and none of them are worth sustained scrutiny.

If most in the media really cared, they’d also gin up much more outrage about the fact that the enforcement mechanism for campaign finance laws is currently nonexistent. The FEC, which enforces campaign finance laws, is incapable of acting on any complaints because it lacks a quorum—and Trump hasn’t nominated new commissioners for months now (Center for Public Integrity, 1/13/20). Which means that even the weak campaign finance regulations that do exist are easily flouted by donors and Super PACs. That’s been mentioned exactly once on commercial cable or network news in the last six months (MSNBC‘s The Beat, 9/23/19; it also got a report on the PBS NewsHour—9/12/19).

Super Tuesday: Michael Bloomberg drops out and endorses Joe Biden

Pelosi Carries Right-Wing Rep. Henry Cuellar Over Finish Line to Defeat Progressive Jessica Cisneros

Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, known as President Donald "Trump's favorite Democrat," narrowly bested progressive primary challenger Jessica Cisneros at the polls Tuesday in a race where the incumbent was buoyed by backing from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Koch money.

Progressive advocacy group the Debt Collective called Cuellar's victory a "huge win for fossil fuels, ICE, Nancy Pelosi, and Cheri Bustos," the Illinois congresswoman who serves as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

In an early morning update on Texas's 28th Congressional District race, Dallas Morning News reported Cuellar received 51.6% of the vote to Cisneros's 48.4%.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) publicly threw her weight behind Cuellar over the summer and campaigned for his re-election leading up to the primary, including at a stop at his campaign headquarters in Laredo just 10 days ahead of the vote when she called for "not only a victory, but a resounding victory for Henry Cuellar."

As Wells Fargo Joins Banks Rejecting Funding of Arctic Drilling, Pressure Heats Up on Others to 'Do Their Part'

Environmental advocates and indigenous groups on Monday welcomed the news that Wells Fargo would not finance oil and gas projects in the Arctic, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—an area the Trump administration is poised to open for fossil fuel exploration—the latest victory in a pressure campaign on banks over their role in abetting the climate crisis.

According to Sierra Club, the announcement came in an update to the banking giant's environmental policy. "Wells Fargo does not directly finance oil and gas projects in the Arctic region, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)—part of a larger 2018 risk-based decision to forego participation in any project-specific transaction in the region," the document (pdf) states.

The update was not, however, met with full-throttled cheers from climate advocates. "The update does not make improvements to the bank's other oil and gas financing policies," Sierra Club noted.

Yet something remarkable appears to be shifting. Wells Fargo is not the only bank forgoing financing Arctic development. Just last week, JPMorgan Chase ruled out financing new oil and gas development in the Arctic. In December, Goldman Sachs announced it would not finance such projects either.

Putting the new development in context, Sierra Club campaign representative Ben Cushing said on Twitter, "In just the last three months, half of the top six U.S. banks have rejected funding Arctic drilling." ...

There are signs that fight over fossil fuel extraction in the area could soon reach a critical moment. According to Bloomberg News, former fossil fuel lobbying Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said Saturday the Trump administration is "about to finalize a leasing plan" for ANRW—a prospect that's previously drawn ire over ecological and human rights impacts.

"The Trump administration still hasn't given up on trying to sell off the Arctic Refuge for drilling, but oil companies should pay close attention to the events of the past few months and think twice before bidding," said Sierra Club's Cushing.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

As Another Syrian Child Drowns at Sea, Greece and Turkey Trade Blame on Social Media

Regional Victory Spotlights Italy’s Sardines Movement

Moscow’s Difficult Decision on Idlib

Why Our Food Systems Need a Radical Overhaul
World's biggest meat company linked to 'brutal massacre' in Amazon

Working Families Party: “Warren Is a Progressive and Will Work to Ensure We Have a Progressive Nominee”

Then There Were Two: Sanders Wins California with Latinx Support as Biden Sweeps Southern Black Vote

Krystal Ball: Bernie can still win, here's how

Saagar Enjeti: Warren's spoiler role shows she was fake from the beginning

How Bernie can become the electable candidate

Rising: Will Biden destroy Joe Biden?

Democratic primary 2020: latest delegate count

Mystery of lifespan gap between sexes may be solved, say researchers

A Little Night Music

Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - Lucy Long

Alberta Hunter w/Perry Bradford's Mean Four - Take That Thing Away

Perry Bradford and His Gang - All That I Had Is Gone

Mamie Smith w/ Perry Bradford's Jazz Hounds - Crazy Blues

Georgia Strutters w/Perry Bradford - Rock, Jenny Rock

Georgia Strutters w/Perry Bradford - Original Black Bottom Dance

Sippie Wallace w/ Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - Parlor Social De Luxe

Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - Kansas City Blues

Ethel Ridley & Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - If Anybody Here Wants a Real Kind Mamma

Ethel Ridley & Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - Memphis Tennessee

Georgia Strutters w/Perry Bradford - Ev'rybody Mess Aroun'