Red States and Welfare

A classic rebuttal to conservatives who cry about welfare, is the fact that states that consistently vote Republican, also receive a majority of welfare spending. Before thinking about it deeper, I used that argument as well. It’s an easy way to score some points in a debate, but when you think about it, should liberals really be using this argument?

After some thought, I do not like this argument at all and I think liberals should drop it for two reasons. One, it comes across as putting people down who use welfare. Liberals always fight against this when conservatives shame people so why are we pointing fingers at states that receive more welfare funding? You could say that this means that these states are on average poorer and use that to point out the failures of Republican economics, which is fair, but it still gives me a bad feeling.

The second and main reason that liberals should stop using this argument is because it’s kind of embarrassing for the Democratic party. This means that some of the poorest states in the country are voting for the Republican party a majority of the time and that says more about the Dems than it does the voters.

Isn’t that the voting block the Democratic party is supposedly fighting for; the poor and working class? Maybe instead of making fun of Republican states for using welfare, we should better articulate why our plan would help them out more and it would be helpful if that plan contained bold, progressive steps to reduce poverty and lift people up. Instead of berating voters for not voting for us, maybe we should try and convince them to.

Just a thought.

End Endless Wars

Donald Trump was a different type of Republican, or so they said. During the campaign and even before his infamous ride down the escalator his views haven’t always lined up with the mainstream GOP, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. He was never a big fan of entitlement reform, he railed against free trade and promised to not touch medicaid. He has already attempted to break the last promise by supporting a healthcare plan that would gut medicaid.

He has also repeatedly said that we should intervene less in other countries and has called for a complete withdraw from Afghanistan. On Monday night, he flipped on that position as well by announcing we would stay in Afghanistan for as long as it takes to “win” and would likely be ADDING more troops. This is yet another example of the President molding into an establishment Republican. But more importantly, this continues a visionless foreign policy that reaches beyond his presidency.

We have been in Afghanistan for 16 years now. That means that in two years there will be soldiers there who were not even alive for 9/11. It is America’s longest war and there is no end in sight. We have been searching 16 years for a victory that likely does not exist. Trump said we would stay there until we win, but does anyone even know what winning is at this point? We are never going to eradicate terrorism completely. You can kill a terrorist, but you cannot kill terrorism.

By remaining in Afghanistan all we are doing is risking American lives in order to obtain a goal that is unobtainable, that is if we even have a goal to begin with. In fact, it is possible that we are making matters worse. A shocking article  from NewsWeek points out that Trump has killed more civilians in just seven months, then President Obama did in seven years. That was astonishing to me and I’m surprised that isn’t getting more news coverage–actually I’m not so surprised. When we act recklessly and kill innocent civilians we further radicalize people and create more terrorists. It just simply is not worth it.

President Obama made the same mistake and other Presidents have to. We cannot control what happens in every corner of the world. When we use our military (we should use it way less), we need to have a clear goal and a clear exit plan before we ever go in because too often we fail to account for what happens after we leave and it forces us to stay…forever. We should do a complete withdrawal in Afghanistan and stop engaging in military action that does not have an obtainable goal.

Tear Them Down

Living in the St. Louis area, I’m obviously a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan. I try to make it to as many games a year as I can. The experience of going to Busch Stadium for a ballgame is like no other. One of my favorite parts is seeing all the statues and monuments outside the stadium that honor Cardinal greats like Stan Musial and Bob Gibson. Those statues are there to idolize those players.

You never see statues built for players who didn’t have a positive impact. There are no statues for backup catchers, there are no plaques for teams that finished in last place; sure you can look that up in the history books, but there are no plaques or statues.

The same can be said for the Confederate Statues that are all over the south. They are not there to just serve as historical references so we don’t “forget our past.” They are there to idolize the Confederate soldiers represented in the statue. They are there to glamorize those figures. It’s an attempt to glamorize the confederacy. What it is glamorizing is a group that committed treason against their country in order to preserve the right to own another human being as property, and they lost.

These statues and monuments do not belong on public property that is paid for by tax-payer dollars. That means African-Americans are paying taxes for land that has a statue idolizing someone who was in favor of their ancestors being held as slaves. That’s not right and those statues need to come down. It’s the least we can do for people of color in this country. There should be no symbols of the confederacy on taxpayer funded lands. Full stop. Now, I don’t care what people do on their own property. People should be able to fly whatever flag they want on their own property, just not on public land.

Tearing down these monuments and flags isn’t “white washing history,” it’s taking down an iconography of hate. There are many holocaust museums and monuments around the world, but there are no statues of Hitler and swastikas aren’t flying. We need less monuments idolizing the Confederacy and more idolizing the brave people who were not treated as human beings, but still had the courage to fight for freedom and for a better world.

Democratic Infighting

Kamala Harris is the freshman Senator from California and is considered by many as a rising star in the Democratic party. She is an African-American woman who has been strong in standing up to Donald Trump. This has a lot of people declaring her as the favorite for the 2020 nomination. However, some aren’t on board.

Andrew Joyce of MIC wrote an article about how Harris has a “Bernieland” problem. Basically, the point of the article is that many progressives on the left aren’t ready to get behind Harris just yet. These battles between progressives and Harris’ defenders are still ongoing.

As I have said before, I truly believe this fighting isn’t a bad thing. We should be fighting about what direction the party should be going. This particular fight has made me realize some things I dislike about both sides of this argument. First, to the Kamala Harris’ defenders: If she is your candidate and you like her then that’s great and if you feel like you should defend her against criticism then you should, but you should know that these criticisms of Kamala Harris are legit and if she is to run for President then she needs to have answers.

The main criticism she receives from the left is in regards to her time as California Attorney General. She declined to prosecute now Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin’s bank during the crisis around home foreclosures. Her office received reports from prosecutors recommending that Harris should file a civil enforcement action against the bank and discussed evidence of “widespread misconduct.” Harris declined to take any legal action.

Kamala Harris was the only Democratic Senatorial candidate in 2016 to receive a donation from Mnuchin.

These criticisms are well-founded and gives the left every reason to be suspicious of her and her ties to big money and it does not make people racist or sexist for daring to bring this up about Senator Harris. If she is to run for President, the voters deserve answers about this.

Now to the Bernie wing of the party (myself included): Bernie Sanders’ campaign did a lot of great things, but it did struggle to make significant inroads with communities of color. That is a legit criticism and something that progressives need to do a better job of. Also, despite the criticism of Harris being fair and admittedly worrisome, I do not believe she should immediately be crossed off the list of good candidates. It will be hard to find a perfect candidate that you agree with 100% of the time.

Harris seems to be a pretty progressive person. She has indicated that she supports Medicare for All, Free College and a $15 Minimum Wage. As a progressive, that makes my ears perk up. She should absolutely have an answer to her critics and if the Mnuchin mistake makes you feel as if you can’t vote for her then you don’t have to, but let’s let this play out and hear what all the hypothetical candidates have to say.

But first, let’s focus on winning the House back in 2018.

 

Lets Get Back To Busting

Bernie Sanders’ wildest, most socialist idea to some was that we should break up big banks that are too big too fail. Too many it seemed like more government involvement than ever before and he received a lot of flack for it. But that used to be the norm. Thanks to the Sherman Antitrust Act the government has the power to break up monopolies in order to help the consumer. We just don’t do it as much.

But we should. Bernie Sanders is right to say that we need to break up these huge banks that control large sections of the American economy, but we need to do a lot more than that. There are other industries that could also use some good old-fashioned trust-busting.

Air travel has become increasingly more expensive because there is only a small handful of companies that you can buy from. The economics is simple; the less companies there are in a market, the less incentive there is for companies to lower their prices because people have to buy from them anyway. We should break up big airline companies and enact policies to encourage more competition.

There is a lot of talk about pending legislation to do away with net-neutrality which is horrible and needs to be defeated, but that is a different story for a different time. The reason that is so scary is because of the consolidation of internet providers. There are only a couple companies you can buy internet service from which is why we pay more than other people in other countries around the world.

Finally, we should not allow Amazon to purchase whole foods. Amazon is making an attempt to control every sector of the American economy and that is not good for consumers or employees. It would be lower prices at first, sure, but after time those prices would go up. This would also force many small, mom and pop grocery stores to go out of business.

Freedom is good. We need separation of powers in government so no branch becomes more powerful. That same logic applies to the economy. We cannot let one company or a small group of companies gain too much power or the freedom of choice for consumers will go down. Let’s get back to busting.

What Being Liberal Means

Every campaign the Republican candidate will embrace the term “conservative.” But you never hear the Democrat call themselves liberal, in fact they run away from it. It seems like the Democratic strategy has been to pretend you aren’t actually a Democrat. We should stop being ashamed of being liberal and start explaining why it is we are. We should embrace the term.

Sometimes people who aren’t political junkies like myself will ask me why I am liberal or why I am a Democrat? It’s a genuine question and one that is hard to answer. If you asked me about a specific policy I could tell you why I’m for it or why I’m against it, but the bigger picture can be lost. I’ve recently asked myself this and this is what I’ve come up with.

I am a progressive liberal before I am a Democrat. I am a Democrat because they align the most with my beliefs. That means that I am not afraid to call out Democrats for being wrong when I think they are. The best way I can sum up why I am a liberal is that I believe that we are all in this together. I believe that we should care for each other and help each other out. Humans are by nature good people and we need to tap into that nature.

Take politics out of the question for a second: When you see homeless people or pictures of people who are hurting and struggling, that hurts you. When a kid is going hungry because his family cannot afford groceries, that hurts me. When someone has to decide between chemotherapy and going bankrupt, man, that really hurts me. When there is a child who has great grades and a good work ethic but skips college because he just can’t afford it, that hurts.

Being a liberal is about thinking of our country and our world as a collective and not just a group of individuals. That means helping others out even if it means less for you. We should stop pretending like taxes are a bad thing. They are only bad when they go to bad things. I have no problem chipping in a couple dollars off of my paycheck so that everyone can have healthcare or so everyone can go to college. We should also be totally unashamed of our calls to make the richest Americans pay more in taxes. It would not hurt them at all and the amount of good it can do is unimaginable.

At the end of the day, a rising tide lifts all boats. As the richest nation in the world we cannot use the excuse of “we can’t afford it” when it comes to helping our fellow man. When people have a level playing field and we don’t allow people to slip into poverty or even worse, die because they can’t afford healthcare, we become a better nation and everyone benefits. It doesn’t have to be political, just be a good human being and help each other out. That sounded very liberal and that’s okay.

Will Democrats Ever Learn

Last Tuesday Democrat Jon Ossoff was defeated in a special election in Georgia’s 6th congressional district. He was defeated by Republican Karen Handel by about four points after many polls had it much closer or even had Ossoff winning. Democrats had high hopes for this election because of Trump’s unpopularity in that district. Despite being a very conservative district, Hillary Clinton only lost it by 2% in November which led many people to predict a Democratic upset.

But it wasn’t to be. Despite the DNC spending loads of money on the race, they could not pull it off. Since then the establishment Democrats have been giving themselves pats on the back for making the race competitive, but deep down they know; he should have won. The reason Jon Ossoff lost is because, like the Democratic party as a whole, he had no message. He ran on deficit reduction and refusing to raise income taxes. Yippee! Nothing inspires voters like deficit reduction!

Like many failed Democratic candidates he subscribed to the notion that in order to win in a Republican district you should try and be like a Republican. That’s why Ossoff would refuse to call himself a progressive and instead labeled himself as a “pragmatist”. He also vowed to actively fight against single-payer healthcare. He was a boring candidate with a boring agenda and that is why he lost.

Time-after-time we continue to see Democrats make the same mistakes over and over and over and over again. It’s like they will never learn. Establishment, centrist politics is dead. That is an ideology destined to lose. With the Republicans moving so far to the right, the answer is not to chase them in that direction, it’s to go the opposite way and produce your own positive vision for the country. The Democratic platform has to be more than just “we’re better than the Republicans.”

If Democrats are serious about taking back the house in 2018 then they need to have a clear message about what they would do if they were in power. They should embrace progressive policies ESPECIALLY single-payer healthcare which, in the face of the Republican healthcare plan, is sounding pretty good.

The Democratic party has to learn their lesson, or they will never start winning.

Waging War Illegally

The United States is currently militarily involved in seven countries around the world and that’s not counting information that is classified. None of them are actually considered wars and none of them except one received a vote in congress. War is often questioned on its merits and if it is the right move or not, but almost never does anyone ask, are these wars even legal?

The one country that received a vote was Afghanistan. However, the legal basis for us fighting there to this day is still based off of a vote in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. That vote authorized the use of force against anyone involved in the attacks. That authorization is used to justify our war against ISIS even though the organization did not even exist then.

Article 1 of the constitution clearly states that congress has the power to declare war. The War Powers Act of 1973 solidifies the commonly held belief that the President can order the use of military force to protect the U.S. against an imminent attack. He then must notify congress of the action within 48 hours and must receive a vote by congress to continue military activity after 60 days. Essentially, the President can use the military as a defense without the support of congress, but in order to go on offense he must receive congressional approval.

That rule is almost never followed. Presidents of both parties for years have used our military illegally. President Clinton intervened in Yugoslavia without the authorization of  congress, President Obama illegally attacked Libya and Trump did the same with Syria. In none of these situations was there an imminent threat against the United States. The reason behind these attacks may be noble and in the interest of protecting human rights, but that does not give the President the power to go to war without congressional approval.

The reason approval is never sought is because congress doesn’t want to vote on it. They don’t want to take a very controversial vote to go or not to go to war so instead we let Presidents use our military illegally. I would be remiss if I did not mention Senator Tim Kaine a Democrat and Senator Jeff Flake a Republican, who are pushing to get a new authorization of the use of force. This is badly needed now more than ever with Donald Trump as commander in chief, but we should always follow the constitution regardless of what party is in the White House.

Russia Russia Russia

Former Ohio State Senator and Bernie Sanders surrogate Nina Turner received a lot of flack for a comment she made recently about the ongoing Russian investigation. She basically said something along the lines of “no one in Ohio is asking about Russia.” Of course this received a lot of attention and made some people question her, but I think her statement is spot on.

The investigation into possible Russian collusion is important and it needs to be thorough. I think that Nina Turner knows this. She knows that we need to investigate this and follow the evidence wherever it takes us. But, what she also knows is that there is sometimes a difference between important issues and campaign issues. So yeah Democrats should investigate this, but is this an issue that’s going to win them elections?

I don’t think so.

Turner is right; a father who just lost his factory job and is wondering if he is ever going to be able to afford to retire (much less help pay for his kid’s college) is not waking up everyday thinking about Russia and he won’t go into the voting booth thinking about it either. As Bill Clinton always said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Democrats are still searching for a clear, positive message and the Russia investigation has gave them a pass to not focus on that. They should be able to investigate and stand for something at the same time. This investigation might not be solved by 2018 and if it’s still the only thing Democrats are talking about, then they’re in for another rude awakening.

The Student Loan Crisis is About to Get Worse

There are so many things going on with the Trump administration that it is hard to cover certain things. Some of the worst things are happening behind closed doors; Jeff Sessions undermining civil rights groups in the Justice Department, mass deportations and then there’s Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education.

DeVos has moved to streamline a student loan collection program. The government has had a “contest” of sorts to see which loan collection company they will give their government contract to. A company called Navient seemed to be in the lead under the Obama administration until they became worried about the company’s past performance. How fair a company treats borrowers was of the number one concern to the Obama administration, but DeVos is ready to set that aside and sign the contract.

DeVos, like most of the Republican party, does not believe the federal government should be involved in collecting student loan debt. This may be the way to get the government out of it and let the private sector take its course. If this happens and it looks like it’s going to, Navient will have a free pass to do whatever they want and to be as harsh as they want.

DeVos along with many in the administration has likely not had to borrow much in their life (unless you’re Trump who took a small multi-million dollar loan from his father),this leaves them unaware of the troubles faced by American college students who just can’t afford the rising cost of college. For many now, college has become a debt sentence. Graduates often get a student loan bill in the mail before their diploma.

Defaults on student loans have skyrocketed and the cost of college is rising every day. Because of that, we will likely see even more loans being taken out which will undoubtedly lead to more defaults, which could have drastic impacts on our economy. Now, Navient will be able to treat borrowers as they like. We will likely not see any positive reform in this area any time soon. In fact, things are going to get worse.