Progressives (Liberals)

That's right, it's not what MJ said. it's what you said.

Stop being disingenuous

A decade ago, it was conventional wisdom that the world would soon start running low on oil and that the United States would henceforth be at the mercy of the inexorable trend. Then the fracking revolution came about, and the U.S. resumed its long-lost place as the world’s No. 1 oil and natural gas producer.

The result: lower oil prices for American consumers, less dependence on petrodespots, a dramatic shift from coal to natural gas for electricity generation (with concomitant benefits in carbon emissions), and hundreds of thousands of working-class jobs, including tens of thousands in swing states like Colorado and Pennsylvania.

Elizabeth Warren wants to kill all this.

You don’t have to think that fracking is an unalloyed blessing — much less deny that tough safety standards are necessary — to acknowledge its benefits. You might also argue that curbs on oil and gas production are needed both to preserve the environment and accelerate a transition to renewables. Fine.

Yet it takes a peculiar sort of political audacity to pledge, as the Massachusetts senator did last month, to “ban fracking — everywhere.” Warren also favors a ban on fossil-fuel exports — another U.S. industry that has seen dramatic growth in recent years — and a “total moratorium” on new fossil fuel leases on federal lands, which generate billions every year in federal and state tax revenue.

American Indian tribes also got about $1 billion from those leases in 2018. Isn’t the Warren campaign supposed to be about sticking it to richer Americans instead of poorer ones?

That’s a question that would-be Warren supporters might ask a little more insistently as she approaches front-runner status.

Take health care. As an ethical matter, it may be defensible for Warren to argue that Medicare for All is fairer than the current system. As an economic matter, she could be right that overall costs will come down under her scheme. And as a political matter, it isn’t surprising that she has been less than forthright about the middle-class tax increases her plan will require.

But what about the fact that Warren isn’t merely proposing a dramatic change in the way 170 million or so Americans obtain health insurance? She is advocating the abolition of an entire industry, one that employs approximately 550,000 people. Whatever one thinks of health-insurance companies (and most Americans seem satisfied with the coverage they have), isn’t it worth wondering what these half-million workers might do with themselves after being put out of work — or, as voters, what they might think of Warren’s designs for their future?

Then there’s big tech, another industry Warren doesn’t like and promises to “break up” by turning Facebook, Amazon and Google into regulated utilities. For this task, involving some 800,000 workers and companies with about $500 billion in revenues, she has … a 1,700-word plan.

One wonders what Warren thinks might happen when things don’t work out. Industries aren’t assemblages of Lego blocks that can be taken apart and reassembled according to a clever new design. They are complex and evolving ecosystems, organized around scores of institutions, hundreds of laws, thousands of personalities, millions of relationships, and a potentially limitless number of ideas.

What will happen to the real human beings whose lives and careers will be upended or derailed while the mandarins of the Warren administration try to figure things out? Will President Warren have contingency plans for her ever-proliferating plans when — as they inevitably will — things don’t go according to plan?

Of course she won’t. She won’t because she can’t; she can’t because the central flaw of every economic plan is the plan itself. That’s the lesson of the 20th century, and it’s why Warren’s critics aren’t totally off the mark in accusing her of being a socialist — not in intent, but in mentality. Those with plans for everything prove only that they can’t be trusted to plan for anything.

Voters may not yet see this, which is why Warren has risen in the polls. But they will, eventually, especially when they notice what the senator’s plans entail for them. It’s one thing for a Democratic politician to promise, as Barack Obama once did, to “spread the wealth around” — but only when “wealth” and “wealthy” mean the same thing. The Warren standard is to spread your wealth around whether you’re wealthy or not.

In a recent column, my colleague David Brooks posed a difficult and necessary question: If the choice is Trump or Warren, what then? David’s answer is that one would have to choose Warren, for the sake of democracy. Maybe he’s right. But voters tend to place their personal interests ahead of their political ideals. And, other than Bernie Sanders, no Democratic candidate would more richly tempt Americans to vote the former than Elizabeth Warren.

For the sake of democracy, let’s hope Democrats give America a better, safe, easier choice.

Giuliani Is Drawing Attention to Hunter Biden’s Work in Romania. But There’s a Problem.

Hunter Biden worked to help a Romanian executive facing corruption charges. But so did the former New York mayor — and a former F.B.I. director.

They’re doing everything they can to get me to run as a 3rd-party candidate so they can retain control of our Party.

to get me to run as a 3rd-party candidate so they can retain control of our Party

It looks like Tulsi is adopting the progressive stance—running Centrists out of the D party. There’s already one corrupt, corporate-controlled Conservative party. We reject having two.

Question: What kind of bubble-headed rube does it take to convince that Tulsi Gabbard is frequenting Hannity and trashing Democrats because she wants to save democracy?

Maybe one of her fans can fill us in as to how she's running centrists out of the party

The Overwhelming Evidence in Support of Clinton’s Claims About Gabbard

Hillary Clinton stirred up quite the hornet’s nest when she said this during a podcast interview with David Plouffe.

Quote:

“I’m not making any predictions but I think they [the Kremlin] have got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said. “She’s the favorite of the Russians… They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.”

Even though Clinton didn’t say the name of the person she was referring to, Tulsi Gabbard immediately knew who she was talking about and responded with an unhinged rant about Clinton on Twitter—then proceeded to go on Tucker Carlson’s show to repeat her attack.

A lot of reporters in the mainstream media claimed that Clinton had accused Gabbard of being a Russian asset without any evidence, while Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia, took to the New York Times to suggest that Clinton’s remarks were a conspiracy theory based simply on innuendo.

I suspect that Clinton chose her words carefully and, rather than accuse Gabbard of anything, was connecting the dots about Russia’s interference based on evidence that has been widely reported. For example, back in February, Robert Windrem and Ben Popken reported that “Russia’s propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard.”

Quote:

An NBC News analysis of the main English-language news sites employed by Russia in its 2016 election meddling shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is set to make her formal announcement Saturday, has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.

Several experts who track websites and social media linked to the Kremlin have also seen what they believe may be the first stirrings of an upcoming Russian campaign of support for Gabbard.

Having been on the front line of Putin’s last attempt to interfere in a presidential election, Clinton is very aware of the tactics that were used against her. It wasn’t simply that Moscow supported Donald Trump. In his indictment against those who participated in Russia’s social media campaign, Robert Mueller documented that they were also involved in supporting candidates during the Democratic primary.

Quote:

A 37-page indictment resulting from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation shows that Russian nationals and businesses also worked to boost the campaigns of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Green party nominee Jill Stein in an effort to damage Democrat Hillary Clinton…

The document, which spells out in detail how the Russians worked to support Trump’s campaign, alleges that on or about Feb. 10, 2016, the Russians internally circulated an outline of themes for future content to be posted on social media accounts.

“Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on ‘politics in the USA’ and to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump – we support them),’” the indictment said.

On or about Nov. 3, 2016, just five days before the election, the Russians tried to boost Stein’s campaign by buying an ad to post on the Instagram account “Blacktivisit,” according to the indictment. The ad read in part: “Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it’s not a wasted vote.”

The evidence is clear: Russia established a pattern of attempting to disrupt the Democratic primary in 2016 and is obviously doing the same thing this year. The only remaining question is why they chose Tulsi Gabbard.

The most obvious answer to that question is that Gabbard has centered her campaign on a message of ending regime change wars, like the one in Syria. That is based on a lie, and just so happens to reflect the talking points embraced by Assad and Putin. The United States condemned Assad’s use of violence to put down civilian protests against his regime, which is how the civil war in that country began. But U.S. military involvement in Syria has always been about defeating ISIS, particularly by working with the Kurds.

Gabbard also tries to sell herself as the anti-war candidate who stands for peace. But in addition to calling herself a “hawk” when it comes to the war on terror, her past positions hardly qualify as peaceful. When Putin and Assad began bombing northwestern Syria—a campaign that has been labeled a war crime—Gabbard endorsed their efforts.

Quote:

Tulsi Gabbard
@TulsiGabbard
Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won’t bomb them in Syria. Putin did. #neverforget911
9:03 AM - Oct 1, 2015

Quote:

Tulsi Gabbard
@TulsiGabbard
Bad enough US has not been bombing al-Qaeda/al-Nusra in Syria. But it’s mind-boggling that we protest Russia’s bombing of these terrorists.
10:40 PM - Sep 30, 2015

When it comes to Gabbard’s voting record in Congress, she is one of only a handful of representatives who voted against the Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned Russians involved in the murder of tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. In addition, she was one of only three representatives listed as “not voting” on two other bills related to Russia.

Quote:

Last week, the House voted on a bill honoring slain Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in Moscow in 2015. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), came with a number of provisions, including calling for an investigation into Nemtsov’s death and sanctions against those responsible. The bill also condemned Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin for persecuting political opponents…

Soon after, the House voted on a bill sponsored by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) that reiterated America’s position of not recognizing Russian sovereignty over Crimea.

Vladimir Putin has focused his efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy on three areas: (1) Ukraine, (2) Syria, and (3) overturning the Magnitsky Act. On all three, Gabbard has either provided direct support or failed to oppose his aims. Of course, it also helps that Gabbard has positioned herself to malign not only Hillary Clinton, but the entire Democratic Party as well—specifically by claiming that the 2020 election has already been rigged.

None of that is evidence to suggest that Gabbard is an active agent of the Kremlin. It might be that Putin is supporting her because her views align with his. As John Sipher notes, Russians calls someone like that a “useful idiot.”

Quote:

The Russians – like the Soviets before them – generally have a much larger stable of assets. They utilize fellow travelers, terrorists, and members of fringe groups as well as maintaining friendships with people who either knowingly or unknowingly accept their propaganda. They call these people “useful idiots.”…

One reason the intelligence services in Russia are more comfortable with sources that have not signed on the dotted line is that the Kremlin uses its intelligence services for more purposes than western counterparts. …Russian intelligence services play a more central role in carrying out their foreign policy objectives. It plays an active and offensive role. They use their services to engage in information warfare, disseminate disinformation, support propaganda, engage in perception management and sow chaos abroad.

That was the focus of Clinton’s claims about Gabbard and the evidence is overwhelming that she is right to sound the alarm. To ignore it is to invite the same kind of interference that infected the 2016 presidential election.