There is no doubt the No. 1 priority of the corrupt, corporate, Democratic Party Establishment is to prevent actual progressives from leading the political party.
This speaks very much to high-profile offices, starting with president of the United States.
Last Thursday [April 25, 2019], 47th vice president of the United States and former Delaware U.S. Sen. Joe Biden made it official: He is running to unseat Republican incumbent Donald Trump for president of the United States in 2020.
If Biden gets nominated, what the corrupt, corporate, Democratic Party Establishment will achieve is preventing Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard from the nomination. That is what they care about—if they can only care about one thing with 2020—protecting their status quo of continuing to serve not the people but Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex.
It is not difficult to understand what would come of a 2020 Trump-vs.-Biden general election.
There is plenty to consider.
I can sum it up with this one example (because it speaks to historical pattern):
No member of Congress who voted for the wars in Vietnam or Iraq was later elected president of the United States.
The last two losing Democratic presidential nominees—John Kerry (2004) and Hillary Clinton (2016)—voted for the war in Iraq.
The losing Republican presidential nominee from 2008, John McCain, voted for the war in Iraq.
If the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries voters vote the nomination to Joe Biden—and I mean going on the assumption (not that I would really assume) it would be legitimate—they are beyond being fools.
Joe Biden will not be president of the United States.
Today [Friday, April 26, 2019] is the 86th birthday of television comedy legend Carol Burnett.
I don’t admire celebrities. But, when it comes to extraordinary talents of particular ones, my appreciation for them endures. No one from television has lasted with the impact more than Burnett.
Born April 26, 1933, in San Antonio, Texas, Burnett had a hard life in childhood as she was raised by her grandmother given her parents were both alcoholics. A biography of Burnett, which includes starting out in her 20s and as a regular on CBS’s The Garry Moore Show, can be read here: Wikipedia — Carol Burnett.
The Carol Burnett Show was broadcast for 11 seasons, on CBS, from 1967–1978, and won Emmys for outstanding variety series in 1972, 1974, and 1975. Her cast mates Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, and Tim Conway were also prized.
Burnett got to work with a film director I admired, Robert Altman, in 1978’s A Wedding, a comedy about two families, from separate geographic regions, merging as one has ties to organized crime.
After her series ended, Burnett delivered an Emmy nominated, dramatic turn in Friendly Fire, broadcast 40 years ago this week on ABC, April 22, 1979. She and Ned Beatty played parents of a son who is killed in Vietnam as the result of an error by his fellow soldiers.
Burnett was co-lead to Alan Alda, who had been a guest on her variety series more than once, in The Four Seasons (1981), a comedy directed and written by Alda about upper middle class couples who routinely vacation together as a group. There was consideration of Burnett possibly garnering an Oscar nomination, but that never came to fruition. Even Burnett was dismissive of it.
Burnett received a 1996 Tony nomination for best actress in a play for Moon Over Buffalo, a comedy about traveling actors in repertory theatre in Buffalo, New York. She was also nominated in 1960 for best actress in a musical, in what was her 1959 Broadway debut, for Once Upon a Mattress.
Burnett and her variety-series regulars have had more than one reunion; have promoted DVDs of memorable sketches; and she has made the rounds guest-starring in numerous television series. She won an Emmy in 1997 for playing Helen Hunt’s mom on NBC’s Mad About You. Burnett received a 2009 Emmy nomination for playing a former star, now a recluse, on NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In three separate episodes starting in 2013, on CBS’s Hawaii Five–O, she played the aunt to series star Alex O’Laughlin. She has kept busy.
Here are some sketches which highlight the comic genius of Carol Burnett:
Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the first presidential candidate in history to call for getting rid of the Electoral College.
It is an interesting—and even a daring—position.
It is also overdue.
After the last two Republican presidential pickup years, from 2000 and 2016, one would think the Democratic Party would be, in general, in support of eliminating the Electoral College.
They are not.
Well, perhaps some of them are; but, there are not enough of them.
The argument Sen. Warren, and others who agree, have is this: All states are not being represented accurately. All people’s votes are not weighted equally.
The Electoral College, now allocated to 538 electoral votes, consists of 435 electors representing the U.S. House, 100 from the U.S. Senate, and 3 from our nation’s capitol, District of Columbia.
The problem: While the U.S. House is proportional representation, relative states’ populations, the U.S. Senate does not regard populations; they are the same number applied in each state. Folding in the U.S. Senate, with the U.S. House, distorts populations in some states toward electing or re-electing a United States president.
Right now, there are 256 electoral votes from the nation’s Top 10 populous states: California (55), Texas (38), Florida (29), New York (29), Pennsylvania (20), Illinois (20), Ohio (18), Georgia (16), North Carolina (15), and Michigan (16).
The Top 10 states’ current allocation of 256 electoral votes, from the 538 electoral votes, are 47.58 percent. But, from the U.S. House, the 236 representatives in those Top 10 states, from the 435 congressional districts, are actually 54.25 percent of the nation’s population. Add an elector to District of Columbia, for electing a U.S. president, and the math becomes 236 divided by 436 to equal 54.12 percent.
The amount of people in the United States who live in a Top 10 state are 54 percent.
We have over 300 million people in the U.S. This means at least 162 million are in a Top 10 state. But, in accordance to current allocations of electoral votes throughout the nation, the Top 10 states are given approximately 141 million. What this means is that at least 13 percent less in weight is allocated to the populations of the nation’s Top 10.
That is an argument against retaining the Electoral College.
Here is a related video by Secular Talk’s Kyle Kulinski:
In 2008, and for a few years after, 44th United States president Barack Obama was cool. More than ten years after his first-term election, he is chilly.
I don’t have a positive let alone warm feeling for Obama.
I think Ralph Nader had it correct, from years ago, when Nader said he doesn’t respect Obama and considers him a “con man.”
Part of the latest con from Obama occurred when he gave a speech in Berlin and he told his audience,“One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States…is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be’ and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a ‘circular firing squad’, where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens.” (Source: Barack Obama warns progressives to avoid ‘circular firing squad’.)
Obama is trying to gaslight. He, and his likewise corporate Democrats, are not allies to progressives. Actual progressives. Let us keep in mind that, in his first two years in office, Obama had 59/60 members in the Democratic-held U.S. Senate and more than 250 Democratic-held seats in the U.S. House. And, yet, his Affordable Care Act had no public option, let alone single payer or specifically Medicare for All, and no reimportation from Canada for prescription drugs, and it came with a mandate requiring people, if they weren’t already insured, to buy private insurance. That was not a failure to get his Democratic Congress on board with an actual progressive healthcare bill. That was intentional.
Nearly ten years later, the Affordable Care Act is obviously not good enough. While it gave people more “access,” they are not protected from potential bankruptcy. (I have a family member with the experience.) We need Medicare for All. What reveals the opposition to that, in Democratic ranks, are people like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Barack Obama—all, from their positions, recent party leaders.
I see Obama now as a political enemy. How could I not? In December 2012, one month after he won re-election, he told Miami, Florida-affiliate Noticias Univision 23, “The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican.” (Source: Obama: More Moderate Republican Than Socialist.)
Imagine if a December 1984 Ronald Reagan or a December 2004 George W. Bush, the last two two-term Republican U.S. presidents, “The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1960s, I would be considered a liberal Democrat.”
I, frankly, don’t like Obama. I used to. Not anymore.
My favorite video response, in addressing that speech by Obama, came from MCSC Network’s Niko House. It will be the first of the following videos. I have also included ones by The Jimmy Dore Show’s Jimmy Dore, The Rational National’s David Doel, The Humanist Report’s Mike Figueredo, Secular Talk’s Kyle Kulinski, and Status Coup’s Jordan Chariton.
With the arrest of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, on Wednesday, April 11, 2019, comes the issue of what this means for press freedom. Lots of videos discussing the issue. One that really speaks to this issue was published to YouTube by The Real News. Daniel Ellsberg, now 88, who was the Julian Assange of the early-1970s, with the Pentagon Papers (Source: Wikipedia — “Pentagon Papers”), is very insightful. I share it with readers of Progressives Chat.
Noting that this week has anniversaries, a combination of births and deaths of people in music and politics, I cite the following five because they stood out in my mind as being worthy of this one blog topic thanks to timing.
Brenda Russell
The sublime songwriter and singer Brenda Russell turns 70. She was born April 8, 1949, in Brooklyn, New York. Russell’s career took off more in the late-1970s, with her 1979 self-titled album including “In the Thick of It,” “A Little Bit of Love,” “So Good, So Right,” “Way Back When” and, later as a 1985 hit for Luther Vandross, “If Only for One Night.” Russell received a 1988 Grammy nomination in the key category Song of Year, awarded to the songwriters, for her haunting pop hit “Piano in the Dark.” (Video of that recording, which was on Billboard’s Top 10 Pop Chart, follows.) An excellent songwriter, a strong singer, this surprisingly underappreciated talent was nominated for five Grammy Awards as well as a 2006 Tony for Best Original Score for the stage-musical adaptation of Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film, which was an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker, The Color Purple.
Laura Nyro
The groundbreaking songwriter, not quite as well-received as a singer, wrote late-1960s and early-1970s hits for other musicians. Among them: “And When I Die,” which she sold to Peter, Paul & Mary, who were first to record it, and was best-remembered as a late-1968 hit for Blood Sweat & Tears; “Wedding Bell Blues,” a hit for Fifth Dimension; “Stoney End,” recorded by several artists, including Nyro, was mostly remembered in 1970 by Barbra Streisand. Nyro’s albums included More Than a New Discovery (1967), Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968), New York Tendaberry (1969) and, from the late-1970s, Smile (1976). An intriguing and striking achievement was Nyro collaborating with Labelle—which were Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx, and Sarah Dash—on Gonna Take a Miracle (1971), with the four performing with a sound of classic soul with the likes of “I Met Him on a Sunday,” “Jimmy Mack,” “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” and, of course, “It’s Gonna Take a Miracle.” Laura Nyro was born October 18, 1947, in New York, New York, and died from ovarian cancer, at age 49, on April 8, 1997, in Danbury, Connecticut. (The following video is her June 17, 1967 performance, at age 19, at the Monterey Pop Festival in Monterey, California.)
Phil Ochs
It was 43 years ago that Phil Ochs (December 19, 1940–April 9, 1976), the folk singer and songwriter, died. (Source: Wikipedia — Phil Ochs.) Ochs’s “Love Me, I’m a Liberal” is a fantastic commentary on the hypocrisy of left-wingers who wear their hearts on their sleeves and give a good deal of lip service—yet, when it comes to time to stand up, not only do they refuse but they also betray their allies to their left. (The following is a video tribute to that great song which is as fresh here in 2019 as it was with its original release in 1966.)
Franklin Roosevelt
On April 12, 1945, the 32nd president of the United States Frankin Roosevelt died. (Source: Wikipedia — Franklin Roosevelt.) So, this year marks the 74th anniversary of the death of who is, arguably, the greatest president in United States history. Next year will be the 75th anniversary. Roosevelt, born January 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York, won all four of his elections (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944) in landslides with electoral-vote scores north of 400. The only Democratic president, after Roosevelt, who achieved that was Lyndon Johnson with his full-term election in 1964. A revered Ken Burns documentary on The Roosevelts, which originally broadcast on PBS in 2014, is available on both Blu-ray and DVD. (The following video, from C–Span, in 2013, is of Franklin Roosevelt’s first inauguration and speech.)
Tulsi Gabbard
The U.S. Representative from Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District, and a 2020 candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, Tulsi Gabbard was born April 12, 1981, in Leloaloa, American Samoa. She turns 38. Given the fact that we have been following progressive politics, there is no need for me to write more, with this birthday mention, on Gabbard. It is pretty interesting timing. (Source: Wikipedia — Tulsi Gabbard.) Gabbard is a very important person in U.S. politics. As I mentioned, in a previous blog topic, only two 2020 Democratic candidates have the ability to unseat Republican incumbent U.S. president Donald Trump. One is Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. The other is Tulsi Gabbard. (The following video is her February 4, 2019 presidential candidacy speech.) So, Happy Birthday to Tulsi Gabbard!
Apple is coming out with its first credit card this summer.
It will be a MasterCard.
Apple is partnering with Goldman Sachs.
Yes, I am absorbing that.
This particular blog topic is different from most. But, it still involves politics. With the financial meltdown of 2008, there is something to this that does not sit well.
I made the switch from PC to Mac—and I mean, iMac—in 2017. (I use a desktop computer housed in a very nice hutch.) I already had the iPhone by then. I had iPod Classics in the 2000s and the first half of this decade. In fact, I bought an iPod Touch before my iPhone. I also have the tablet iPad and the streaming device Apple TV. So, obviously, I like Apple products.
Anticipating that I will be offered the new credit card, I decided to look at videos which are about the Apple Card.
Above is the video, by Apple, for the new Apple Card.
Below are two videos, not by Apple, with some thoughtful takes on the Apple Card.
A live discussion on Sunday [March 31, 2019] was streamed on YouTube between host Jamarl Thomas and guest Michael Tracey. It lasts nearly 1 hour 15 minutes. Even though that may be too much time for some to watch, it is interesting.
This video, titled, “Why Democrats Are Blue and Republicans Are Red—and Why It’s the Opposite Everywhere Else,” was published to YouTube one year ago today, April 1, 2018. I was going to use it loosely as this blog topic until I came across the Jamarl Thomas–Michael Tracey video.
