AFL-CIO Trumpka Dead, Is Randi in play to succeed? Implications for AFT/UFT? Flight Attendent union leader and progressive Sara Nelson in running

Maybe I've been wrong on Mulgrew becoming AFT president. Imagine the scenario where Randi runs for AFL-CIO and wins (not so sure about that) and Mulgrew moves up -- Mulgrew wariness in the UFT might just make that enticing. Who would replace Mulgrew? Inside betting is on Leroy Barr. A former UFT president has been AFT president for 43 of the past 47 years.

This is a very disjointed piece based on old published and unpublished info I've been storing until the election was announced - which was in 2022. These articles are from pre-pandemic times mostly when the election was scheduled.

May 16, 2019 - Is Randi After Trumpka's Job? Would that make Mulgrew AFT President? .. Ed Notes - 

If she wants to be AFL-CIO president, she's going to have to break Trumka's kneecaps.... A source

For the record, Trunpka died of a heart attack, not knee capping, but check alibis.

Speculation has already begun. Will Randi run, as there have been indications in the past? Will Sara Nelson, a Bernie wing union leader also run? Does this set up another battle of progressives vs center/right Dems? And if Randi runs and wins who heads the AFT? Does Mulgrew follow the historic pattern since 1964 (other than 1966-74, 2006-10) where a UFT President runs the AFT? And if there is this chain reaction, who runs for president of the UFT in 2022?

Breaking News: Richard Trumka, the longtime A.F.L.-C.I.O. president and an influential voice in Democratic politics, died at 72 after having a heart attack

Under the A.F.L.-C.I.O. constitution, the federation’s current secretary-treasurer, Liz Shuler, will take over as president until its executive council can meet to elect a successor. The federation’s next presidential election was originally scheduled to take place this year, but was delayed until next year because of the pandemic.

Sara Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, is a contender.
If it's Randi vs Sara, that's the repeat of the Biden/Bernie or any of the internal Dem Party battles.

Sept, 2020 - Jacobin: How We Can Elect Sara Nelson as President of the AFL-CIO

 The Guardian reported in July 2019 that Trumka intends to back current AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Liz Shuler. Many labor activists, however, hope that the militant and charismatic president of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), Sara Nelson, throws her hat in — meaning that for only the second time in its history, the AFL-CIO might have a contested race for its presidency... When voting for AFL-CIO president, however, each delegate will get to cast a number of votes equal to the number of members they represent. So an international with a million members will get a million votes, split equally among the twenty delegates.

The Jacobin article, which doesn't address a Randi candidacy, has good historical analysis. 

Here's a piece from Bloomberg Law May 2019 that does:

Punching In: A Game of Thrones at the AFL-CIO (1)

Dem Party War - Progressives under attack as Biden wing gloats, Do Prog join Nina Turner in a bowl of shit? Who won the black vote?

As the campaign wound down, Democratic heavy hitters flocked to the district, as the race, rightly or wrongly, was cast a re-litigation of their party’s 2016 presidential primary.... Brown ran better in most suburban communities, and held Turner to just a narrow edge in Cleveland proper -- Brown was especially strong in Beachwood, which has a high Jewish population. Though it doesn’t account for much of the district, Turner narrowly carried OH-11’s portion of Summit County.... Sabato's Crystal Ball

Thursday, August 5

I reported on the much talked about Nina Turner loss twice yesterday:

• The Left wins one - Punchbowl - Rep. Cori Bush is ...
• Nina Turner Loss, Cori Bush win on rent relief -...

So yesterday I followed a lot to commentary on the outcome. The right center Dems on Morning Joe gloating and attacking the left, with Sharpton leading the way. Below I posted the NYT article and the Sabato report on the race. Speaking of which, did the black vote abandon Nina because she is too radical and anti-Biden with her comment about eating a bowl of shit when she voted for him? or how about the fact that she didn't support Hillary in 2016 and voted for Jill Stein (most likely, though she didn't say? These anti-Dem comments were used to great effect - plus the Israel thing. 

Plus the open primary may have brought in Republicans:

@ryangrim

Progressives (including Nina Turner) pushed hard for open primaries and this analysis finds strong evidence of a significant number of people who typically vote Republican choosing a Dem ballot to oppose Turner over Israel https://dansdeals.com/more/dans-comm

The district has lots of whites and Jews -- so Nina lost those badly, which means that counter to early reporting, she actually didn't do badly with the black vote. Her biggest problem was turnout -- low. And the fact that her black base was younger and they just don't vote as much as older.

Ryan Grim on The Hill had an interview with Brianha Joy Taylor -- worth finding it if you can -- I can't seem to.

Some of the best stuff was Sam Seder's analysis (my daily watch from noon to 2:30 which often kills my day) on Majority Report where he took some shots at the progressives who engage in rhetorical flourishes that come back to bite them when they have to gather support beyond their base to win an election. Sam points out that the purpose of running is to win and the purpose of winning is to make changes. 

The Nina discussion starts around 1 hour and 12 minutes and goes on until 2:02 -- long but a lesson for the left from Sam, who is often attacked for not being left enough -- but I like reality based leftists.

https://youtu.be/3C66oYWDDjw

 

Sam strikes back at the Ultra left dum dums who criticize Cori Bush for "performative" politics. Sam and Emma take them to task for their attacks on those who actually run in the Dem Party to win and not search for the mythical left cannon unicorn of the Labor-Green-People Party where they can get ten votes or just enough to let Republican right wingers win. Ahhh purity. Sam points out  that if Cori Bush were some civilian instead of a formerly homeless Congresswoman, her sleep-in would have been laughed at.

  

https://youtu.be/EvTWGQNxykk

 Here is the NY Times article which features the despicable corp shill Hakeem Jeffries who I pray will be primaried and even if it's a losing battle I will be giving money to whomever.

In String of Wins, ‘Biden Democrats’ See a Reality Check for the Left

Progressives are holding their own with moderates in fights over policy. But off-year elections suggest they need a new strategy for critiquing President Biden without seeming disloyal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/us/politics/biden-democrats.html

Nina Turner, the hard-punching Bernie Sanders ally who lost a special election for Congress in Ohio this week, had unique political flaws from the start. A far-left former state legislator, Ms. Turner declined to endorse Hillary Clinton over Donald J. Trump in 2016. Last year, she described voting for President Biden as a grossly unpalatable option.

There were obvious reasons Democratic voters might view her with distrust.

Yet Ms. Turner’s unexpectedly wide defeat on Tuesday marked more than the demise of a social-media flamethrower who had hurled one belittling insult too many. Instead, it was an exclamation mark in a season of electoral setbacks for the left and victories for traditional Democratic Party leaders.

In the most important elections of 2021, the center-left Democratic establishment has enjoyed an unbroken string of triumphs, besting the party’s activist wing from New York to New Orleans and from the Virginia coastline to the banks of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio. It is a winning streak that has shown the institutional Democratic Party to be more united than at any other point since the end of the Obama administration — and bonded tightly with the bulk of its electoral base.

These more moderate Democrats have mobilized an increasingly confident alliance of senior Black and Hispanic politicians, moderate older voters, white centrists and labor unions, in many ways mirroring the coalition Mr. Biden assembled in 2020.

In Ohio, it was a coalition strong enough to fell Ms. Turner, who entered the race to succeed Marcia Fudge, the federal housing secretary, in Congress as a well-known, well-funded favorite with a huge lead in the polls. She drew ferocious opposition from local and national Democrats, including leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus who campaigned for her opponent, Shontel Brown, and a pro-Israel super PAC that ran advertisements reminding voters about Ms. Turner’s hostility toward Mr. Biden.

Ms. Brown, a Cuyahoga County official, surged to win by nearly six percentage points.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, a top member of House leadership, said in an interview Wednesday that Democratic voters were clearly rejecting candidates from the party’s most strident and ideological flank.

Where some primary voters welcomed an angrier message during the Trump years, Mr. Jeffries said, there is less appetite now for revolutionary rhetoric casting the Democratic Party as a broken institution.

“The extreme left is obsessed with talking trash about mainstream Democrats on Twitter, when the majority of the electorate constitute mainstream Democrats at the polls,” Mr. Jeffries said. “In the post-Trump era, the anti-establishment line of attack is lame — when President Biden and Democratic legislators are delivering millions of good-paying jobs, the fastest-growing economy in 40 years and a massive child tax cut.”

In Washington, Democrats have worked to keep a delicate peace between the party’s centrist and left-wing factions, viewing collaboration as vital to enacting any kind of ambitious legislative agenda. The tense give-and-take has yielded victories for both sides: This week, a group of insurgent House progressives, led by Representative Cori Bush of Missouri, pressured Mr. Biden into issuing a revised eviction moratorium even after he had questioned his power to do so.

But moderate party leaders on Capitol Hill and in the White House are greeting the results from the off-year elections with undisguised glee, viewing them as a long-awaited reality check on the progressive wing’s claims to ascendancy. Mr. Biden’s advisers have regarded the off-year results as a validation of his success in 2020 — further proof, they believe, that the Democratic Party is defined by his diverse, middle-of-the-road supporters.

Top lawmakers have also grown more willing to wade into contested races after the Democrats’ unexpected losses in the House in 2020, which many of them blamed on a proliferation of hard-left language around policing and socialism.

Earlier this year, Representative James E. Clyburn, the majority whip, and Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, rallied behind a centrist Democrat, Troy Carter, in a special election for Congress in Louisiana, helping him defeat a more liberal candidate. Both endorsed Ms. Brown and campaigned for her in Ohio, with Mr. Clyburn accusing the far left of intemperate sloganeering that “cuts the party’s throat.”

The Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, too, yielded a moderate winner this summer: The Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams, who campaigned on an anti-crime message, rolled up endorsements from organized labor and won immense support from working-class voters of color. Visiting the White House, Mr. Adams branded himself “the Biden of Brooklyn.”

In Virginia, Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond said the trend in Democratic politics this year was unmistakable. A former aide to former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Mr. Stoney endorsed his old boss’s comeback bid this year, backing him over several candidates running to the left. Mr. McAuliffe, a white centrist who used to lead the Democratic National Committee, won the primary in a landslide, carrying every city and county in the state.

“When you look at Ohio, New York City and Virginia — voters, and particularly Democratic voters, are looking for effective problem solvers,” Mr. Stoney said. “I know Democrats want to win, but more than anything they want to elect people who are going to get things done.”

Doug Thornell, a Democratic strategist who advised Ms. Brown in Ohio and Mr. Carter in Louisiana, said both candidates had won majority support in their races from demographic groups that also make up the core of Mr. Biden’s base. Those voters, he said, represent a strong electoral bloc for a candidate seen as “a Biden Democrat.”

“You had older African American voters, suburban voters; there was a significant turnout of Jewish voters in Ohio,” Mr. Thornell said. “These tend to be more moderate voters, on issues. They’re a bit more practical.”

The left has not gone without its own modest electoral victories this year, and progressive strategists are quick to dispute the notion that 2021 has been a wholesale shutout. Activists scored upsets in several lower-profile mayoral primaries, in midsize cities like Buffalo and Pittsburgh. They have also helped a few prized progressive incumbents, like Larry Krasner, the Philadelphia district attorney, stave off challenges from other Democrats.

Nelini Stamp, the national organizing director of the progressive Working Families Party, predicted the 2022 elections would be more representative of the overall trajectory of Democratic politics. She acknowledged that Ms. Turner’s defeat was a significant disappointment.

“There have been some tough losses, and this is one,” she said, “but I also believe there have been a lot more wins, from where we’ve come from, in the last five years.”

Yet the off-year elections suggest that the Democratic left urgently needs to update its political playbook before the 2022 midterm campaign, refining a clearer strategy for winning over moderate voters of color and for critiquing Mr. Biden without being seen as disloyal. Progressive groups are already mobilizing primary challenges against Democratic House incumbents in New York, Nashville and Chicago, among other cities, in a renewed test of their intraparty clout.

Waleed Shahid, a strategist for Justice Democrats, a key group that organizes primary challenges from the left, said it was clear that the internal dynamics of the Democratic Party had changed with Mr. Biden in the White House. Intraparty conflict, he said, is “harder when you have an incumbent president.”

“There is a tension between presenting yourself as a yes-man or a yes-woman for Biden, versus pushing the administration like what Cori Bush just did,” Mr. Shahid said, suggesting centrist Democrats might now have a lower bar to clear. “It’s a much easier argument to make: ‘I’m for the status quo and I’m with the president.’”

Democratic Party leaders counter that for the past few election cycles, it is left-wing candidates who have had a comparatively easy run, feasting on older or complacent incumbents who simply did not take their re-election campaigns seriously. They vow that is not going to happen again in 2022, and point to the races this year as proof.

Mainstream Democrats, Mr. Jeffries said, are not “going to act like punching bags for the extreme left.”

“Let me put it this way: The majority of Democratic voters recognize that Trumpism and the radical right is the real enemy, not us,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Apparently the extreme left hasn’t figured that out.”

WaPo

→ Paul Kane column: “Pelosi faces energized left wing on top of razor-thin House margin”

 Sabato Crystal Ball (as opposed to Breakthough's Krystal Ball) does great deep dives into political analysis -- here they did down into Nina numbers and we learn a few things not on mainstream media reports.

Learn more about the Crystal Ball and find out how to contact us here.

Sign up to receive Crystal Ball e-mails like this one delivered straight to your inbox.

Use caution with Sabato's Crystal Ball, and remember: "He who lives by the Crystal Ball ends up eating ground glass!"

OH-11

Wins for Clinton and Trump? In two special elections last night, Ohio voters in two congressional districts went to the polls to cast ballots in primaries. Though there were four primaries overall, the results in the the two most watched contests were, to some degree or another, unexpected. In the Cleveland area’s OH-11, County Councilwoman Shontel Brown upset former state Sen. Nina Turner in the Democratic primary. Turner, who had superior name recognition, built a fundraising advantage and was seen as a clear, but not prohibitive, favorite for much of the campaign. Though Turner represented part of the area in the legislature from 2008 to 2014, she was most known for her work on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) presidential campaigns. Brown, who was initially elected to the Cuyahoga Council in 2014, positioned herself as a mainstream Democrat. As the campaign wound down, Democratic heavy hitters flocked to the district, as the race, rightly or wrongly, was cast a re-litigation of their party’s 2016 presidential primary. In the closing week, Sanders stumped for Turner while House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D, SC-6), a major figure in the Congressional Black Caucus, made a visit on Brown’s behalf -- Hillary Clinton endorsed Brown earlier on. Despite Turner’s apparent advantages, Brown prevailed by a 50%-45% margin (there were almost a dozen minor candidates who split up the balance). While Turner’s association with Sanders undoubtedly seemed to help raise her profile, her association with the Vermont senator may ultimately not have been much of an asset in OH-11: in the 2016 primary, it was Clinton’s best district in the state, giving her a nearly 40-point advantage over Sanders. Roughly 90% of OH-11’s votes come from Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County, where Brown did slightly better than her districtwide showing, but there were some interesting local patterns. Brown ran better in most suburban communities, and held Turner to just a narrow edge in Cleveland proper -- Brown was especially strong in Beachwood, which has a high Jewish population. Though it doesn’t account for much of the district, Turner narrowly carried OH-11’s portion of Summit County. An interactive map from our friends at RRH Elections gives a detailed breakdown: Brown carried many of the white-majority areas while Turner ran better in the heavily Black precincts that make up Akron proper.

Given the working class nature of the Akron area, perhaps Brown’s relative moderation played better with white voters. A few months ago, a similar dynamic was at play in Louisiana’s 2nd District: in an April special election, now-Rep. Troy Carter (D, LA-2), who was tagged with the “establishment” label, beat out state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson in an intraparty runoff. Peterson’s posture as an “unapologetic progressive” sold well in gentrifying white neighborhoods in New Orleans, but Carter racked up healthy majorities in the district’s white -- and non-white -- working class pockets.

Both the LA-2 result and the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, where Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams was seen as a moderate choice, represent, to some degree or another, disappointments for progressives. Now, with a loss in Ohio, progressives find themselves looking for a high profile win.

The Left wins one - Punchbowl - Rep. Cori Bush is winning

I defamed Punchbowl for their coverage of a big win for the activist left in my earlier post.

Nina Turner Loss, Cori Bush win on rent relief - Lessons for the left

I rarely do this but I complained and received an initial response from one of the head honchos Jake Sherman and then a follow up: 

This is John Bresnahan from Punchbowl News. I saw your email asking why we didn’t say more on Rep. Cori Bush’s protest in our A.M. edition today. I wanted to be sure you saw our A.M. edition from yesterday, Tuesday. We covered the protest pretty thoroughly, including an interview with Rep. Bush. Thanks for being a reader. I really do appreciate it.  Bres

By the way -- even the free morning editions is a must read politically -- in the trial I was getting it 3 times a day and each was a deep dive. Even if I paid I couldn't keep up. Subscribe: Your referral link is:  https://punchbowl.news/?rh_ref=689b4055

Rep. Cori Bush is winning.

The Missouri Democrat's sit-in protest over her party’s botched handling of the eviction moratorium has lasted four days. She’s been joined by colleagues, other members of the Squad and a growing number of supporters. And now, it’s exceedingly clear that the Democratic Party’s leadership and the White House have a problem on their hands.

This very vocal group of junior lawmakers want to extend the federal eviction moratorium, but the leadership says they don’t have votes in the House to do it. Furthermore, Democrats don’t believe they have 60 votes in the Senate in the face of solid GOP opposition. And President Joe Biden’s administration doesn’t think it has the ability to extend the moratorium on its own.

Bush, though, has refused to back down, and she’s helped put the White House and Democratic congressional leaders in a tough spot. Bush has been camped out on the House steps since Friday, sleeping sitting up in order not to draw warnings from the U.S. Capitol Police. The above photo is after she met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in his Capitol suite Monday.

And Bush’s protest is gaining momentum. It’s become a scene, with TV cameras rolling and young people singing. There was even an appearance by a visibly ailing Rev. Jesse Jackson on Monday evening. Jackson had been arrested early in the day during a protest over voting rights, but he still made sure to drop by Bush’s sit-in.

What we’re seeing here is a fascinating exercise of outside political power -- the kind of power that's difficult to successfully deploy. Bush has drawn the attention of the media as she sits outside the Capitol, and that in turn means attention from the administration and senior members of the Democratic leadership. These kinds of demonstrations rarely work, but in a one-party government with tight margins in both chambers, everything needs to be taken seriously. 

Bush is putting pressure on Biden to resolve this situation, at least in the short term. She wants him to extend the eviction moratorium -- which expired July 31 -- even if it’s later struck down by a federal court. That would buy some time for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schumer to attempt some legislative action to resolve the situation.

“I think the quickest way to get this thing done is for our president to go ahead and get this thing done by an executive order and get it done. He can get it done right now,” Bush insisted during an interview Monday night. 

Bush is firm in when she’ll end her protest: “It ends when we win, it ends when we win. It ends when we don’t have to worry about this moratorium at this point. It ends when we get to say, ‘Okay, we got a little bit of time. Let’s go ahead and get to work to get a bill done so Congress can actually act.’ That’s when it ends for me.”

Bush, 45, is a freshman legislator, yet she’s certainly captured the interest of Democratic party elders. Vice President Kamala Harris and Schumer came to see her on Monday. Schumer told her to call him at any time if she needs anything. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) made an appearance too.

When we stopped by, Bush was juggling interviews with CNN and MSNBC. Reps. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) and Mark Takano (D-Calif.) were there. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) was there. There was some chanting and praying. You don’t typically see this on the East Steps of the U.S. Capitol.

“This is spontaneous political combustion, and it’s building and building,” said Markey, who was first elected to Congress in 1976. “It’s just growing each hour into a national movement.”

This is an old story on Capitol Hill. The rank-and-file wants something that the leadership can’t deliver. In this case, instead of simply saying that the game is up, the leadership and the White House continue to obliquely suggest it’s possible. The House Democratic leadership is publicly pressing Biden to take action. And at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., that’s been a bit frustrating because administration officials believe their hands are tied -- although, publicly, White House officials say they’re checking whether they might be able to do it. 

All this energy leads to the questions we are focused on, and the one that you should be focused on: Just how big of a problem is this for Biden? How big of a problem is it for Pelosi? And how much anger is there between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and Biden’s White House?

The answers are: Pelosi is skating at the moment because all of the anger -- and we mean all of it -- is aimed squarely at the White House. The anger is real, and it’s tangible.

“Once [the House] left, it was just generally accepted that this was going to lapse, and that there was nothing that we could do about it,” Ocasio-Cortez told us. “And Congresswoman Bush and I were kind of just sitting here at a loss after that rush to adjournment. And we just knew that we simply could not accept this.  … We now have Majority Leader [Chuck] Schumer that is hopping on board and pushing back on the White House and the administration. And so my hope is that this ends with the Biden administration using its authority.”

Ocasio-Cortez sent an email to her political email list yesterday, urging people to keep the pressure up on Congress.

The larger question is what happens if the White House can’t find a way to extend this unilaterally? With a bunch of important legislation in the coming weeks, do Bush and Co. try to hold them up to ensure the inclusion of the eviction moratorium? Our bet is yes -- especially with the tight margins in both chambers. 

The Coverage:

WaPo: “Liberals erupt in fury at White House over end of eviction moratorium,” by Sean Sullivan, Marianna Sotomayor and Tyler Pager ...

AP: “White House calls on states to prevent evictions,” by Josh Boak and Lisa Mascaro ...  “Landlords, tenants fill courts as eviction moratorium ends," by Michael Casey and Philip Marcelo in Providence, Rhode Island

 

The Coverage

WaPo: “Liberals erupt in fury at White House over end of eviction moratorium,” by Sean Sullivan, Marianna Sotomayor and Tyler Pager ...

AP: “White House calls on states to prevent evictions,” by Josh Boak and Lisa Mascaro ...  “Landlords, tenants fill courts as eviction moratorium ends," by Michael Casey and Philip Marcelo in Providence, Rhode Island]

 

Nina Turner Loss, Cori Bush win on rent relief - Lessons for the left

I was so rooting for Nina Turner -Dem Party Goes After Nina Turner and Bernie Wing o... so it's a sad day. I wanted so bad to see her in Congress. But maybe in the real election next year. But then again Cori Bush activism was a winner.

Expect much gnashing of teeth from progressives over the Nina Turner loss but also much celebration over the Cori Bush win after her sleepout on the steps of the capitol forced the Bush admin to continue rent relief. The media won't connect the two and report mainly on the loss. MSNBC Morning Joe crew was positively glowing today while under reporting the Bush story.

Corporate media and Dems, following the celebration of the Eric Adams win in NYC, are overjoyed over the defeat of Nina Turner and the Bernie wing of the party in last night's primary.

NY Post: AOC-backed Sanders ally beaten in closely watched Ohio House primary

With 96.5 percent of precincts reporting, Brown led Turner by 4,380 votes out of more than 71,000 votes cast.

Yesterday began with a big celebration by the activist left over how Cori Bush and the Squad stood up Joe Biden and the Dem party central over it's disastrous handing of rent relief. Heather Cox Richardson reports:

...after pressure from progressive Democrats, especially Representative Cori Bush (D-MO), who led a sit-in at the Capitol to call for eviction relief, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that in counties experiencing high levels of community transmission of Covid-19, it is extending until October 3 the federal moratorium on evictions that ended this weekend. It is doing so as a public health measure, but it is also an economic one. It should help about 90% of renters—11 million adults—until the government helps to clear the backlog of payments missed during the pandemic by disbursing more of the $46 billion Congress allocated for that purpose.

One thing I've learned about many on the left -- celebrate and exaggerate the wins and blame the losses on corporate money - or the weather - or anything. Center/right/corp Dems push the idea that the majority of voters, particularly in the Black community, don't support the left. At least the older, more conservative church-going faction. But Cori Bush defeated one such black incumbent with a lot of support in the 2020 primary. But lessons learned by corp dems -- they didn't want yet another Cori Bush in Congress so they pulled out all the stops in Cleveland.

The Cleveland primary makes that point. There were many centrist black candidates and corp Dems used the Biden strategy against Bernie -- unite behind one. And it worked -- this time -- there is another election next year and Nina my be back and doing a lot of campaigning -- starting today. Turnout was terrible and that was what brought Nina down.

David Sirota faces facts in this tweet:

@NinaTurner ran a brave campaign. More Dem voters supported her corporate opponent not just because an overwhelming amount of super PAC money was spent to destroy Nina, but also because in general more Dem voters want a corporate government than something else. This is reality.

I follow left wing alt media, which is so anti-corp Dem. I was listening to live reports from The Young Turks - TYT - and there was more than a bit of hysteria over the Turner loss -- with a semi-attack on the voters -- the black voters - who chose corp Dems over Turner. When Bernie lost to Biden there was a lot ot crying on the left over how dare the corp dems unite -- Bernie could have won if they split the vote - as he did in early primaries with 30% -- but they ignore the reality that if you add up the non-Bernie vote it pretty much comes to about a third.

Some of this racial dynamic plays out in the UFT, where Unity Caucus attracts a significant portion of older Black UFTers. Younger Black teachers, if they are active, are also being recruited by Unity and if they are progressive, will go to MORE. Or do outside UFT activism if turned off by MORE/DSA left rhetoric. That will be an interesting dynamic.

I also follow corp media - Punchbowl covers Congress -- now watch how they report the Cori Bush story -- give her some credit but give Pelosi most of the credit -- as if she gave a shit until Bush embarrassed her.

[UPDATE NOTE 1- I complained about the coverage and received this from Jake Sherman - hi Norm -- We covered this extensively in our midday and PM editions. Only problem is those versions behind pay wall - so if a tree falls in a forest -- etc.

UPDATE NOTE 2: More from Puncbowl which did cover Cori Bush in its free morning update on Tuesday --Here is a follow-up with their full report - The Left wins one - Punchbowl - Rep. Cori Bush is winning]

]

Happy Wednesday. We wanted to bring you a little bit more on the backstory of how the White House completely reversed its position from “We can’t issue a new eviction moratorium” to “We’re going to issue a new eviction moratorium.”

There’s no doubt that Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Mondaire Jones’ (D-N.Y.) public pressure campaign -- which included Bush camping out on the Capitol steps for five days -- was key to creating the political environment for Biden’s decision. With so much anger from the left, inaction wasn’t an option.

Yet behind the scenes, Speaker Nancy Pelosi played a pivotal role. She helped convince the Biden administration to issue a revised moratorium that lasts until Oct. 3, despite possible legal challenges from landlords. The previous moratorium expired on July 31, leaving millions of  families facing possible eviction and causing an uproar among progressives.

Over several days, Pelosi engaged in a frantic round of phone calls and lobbying, pressing President Joe Biden and senior White House officials to respond. Pelosi spoke directly with Biden three times over the weekend and into Tuesday, making a case that the White House found compelling. Pelosi was adamant the president needed to move unilaterally and insisted the Delta variant presented a new public health emergency.

Pelosi argued the White House didn’t need to issue a national moratorium but should rather focus on halting evictions in areas where the CDC was recommending masking. That way, the two public health emergencies overlapped for the agency, according to people familiar with the arguments Pelosi made to Biden, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain and Steve Ricchetti, a counselor to Biden.

During one conversation with Pelosi, Biden said his legal advisers were warning him that he couldn’t extend the moratorium due to a June 29 Supreme Court ruling. The high court had let the moratorium stand in a 5-4 decision, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the CDC had “exceeded its existing statutory authority” and Congress must act to extend the ban. Biden asked Pelosi if she had any legal experts with a different take. Pelosi provided Biden with several names, including Laurence Tribe, the well-known Harvard Law professor. Tribe also has a long friendship with Klain, himself a Harvard Law grad. Tribe encouraged White House officials to move ahead with the revised moratorium. 

When Biden decided to make his announcement on Tuesday on the new moratorium, the first person he called was Pelosi, who’d just finished a caucus call with her members and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

“Today is a day of extraordinary relief,” Pelosi said in a statement released by her office. “Thanks to the leadership of President Biden, the imminent fear of eviction and being put out on the street has been lifted for countless families across America. Help is Here!”

Cori gets one line. A joke.

And here's another celebratory anti-left article from the 

NYT: On Politics: Kyrsten Sinema vs. the Left

The Sunday News - Holy Shit - It's August, Union Protest at BlackRock Ignored, China and Ed Deform, Ruth Pearl dies - Horrors of childhood in Iran

August 1, 2021 - YIKES - 

When I was a classroom teacher, today's date evoked feeling that this amazing freedom from angst had turned a corner and it was time to begin thinking of going back to school. In fact at some point in the week after Aug. 1 I would go into school and set up my classroom and muck around doing a few things to ease my mind and the coming intense workload around Labor Day, allowing me to enjoy the rest of August. Of course, the last time I had to set up a classroom was in 1996, and for the past 17 years since full separation from the DOE, it's been like one big continuous August. 

I thought I'd capture a few items from the news that popped up that you might not have seen.

China Attacks Ed Deform test prep

China changed its two-child policy to allow married couples to have three children. It promised to increase maternity leave and ease workplace pressures.

This is a fascinating article and I'm including it in full after the break for those behind a pay wall. Fundamentally, the government is attacking test prep and over preparation - not for the same reasons we oppose it here -- better for the child -- but because it costs too much and parents are sticking to one child while the Party wants to increase the birth rate. 

Parental focus on education in China can sometimes make American helicopter parenting seem quaint. Exam preparation courses begin in kindergarten. 

Quaint? Have they checked out the Stuyvesant prep classes?

China Targets Costly Tutoring Classes. Parents Want to Save Them.

Many families and experts say Beijing’s education overhaul will help the rich and make the system even more competitive for those who can barely afford it. 

In China, the competitive pursuit of education — and the better life it promises — is relentless. So are the financial pressures it adds to families already dealing with climbing house prices, caring for aging parents and costly health care.

The burden of this pursuit has caught the attention of officials who want couples to have more children. China’s ruling Communist Party has tried to slow the education treadmill. It has banned homework, curbed livestreaming hours of online tutors and created more coveted slots at top universities.

Last week, it tried something bigger: barring private companies that offer after-school tutoring and targeting China’s $100 billion for-profit test-prep industry. The first limits are set to take place during the coming year, to be carried out by local governments.

The move, which will require companies that offer curriculum tutoring to register as nonprofits, is aimed at making life easier for parents who are overwhelmed by the financial pressures of educating their children. Yet parents and experts are skeptical it will work. The wealthy, they point out, will simply hire expensive private tutors, making education even more competitive and ultimately widening China’s yawning wealth gap.

 You have to wade through the NYT neoliberal interpretation that test prep for everyone is a good thing. [Below the fold for entire article.]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/business/economy/china-education-tutors.html

 

Why Jews Don't forget

I have become more conscious about Jewish history and Jewish identity issues, especially when some Jews poo-poo issues like Black Lives Matter. Jews should support BLM because in our own history we faced heavy issues too. I'm not playing a game of "my holocaust was worse than yours." These thoughts were triggered by this obit:

Ruth Pearl, Mother of Murdered Reporter Daniel Pearl, Dies at 85

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/us/ruth-pearl-dead.html

A few excerpts:

Ruth Pearl, the mother of Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was brutally murdered by Muslim extremists in Pakistan in 2002

his kidnappers beheaded him on Feb. 1, 2002, recording a video of his last words — “My father’s Jewish, my mother’s Jewish, I’m Jewish.”

His murderers singled him out because he was American and Jewish

 She was born Eveline Rejwan on Nov. 11, 1935, in Baghdad. Her father, Joseph, was a tailor and ran an import business, and her mother, Victoria (Abada) Rejwan, was a homemaker.

Eveline was 5 when a failed coup led to an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence across Iraq. In what came to be known as the Farhud, Jewish-owned stores were ransacked and at least 179 Jews were killed. Her family hid in their home for days, protected by Arab neighbors, who told would-be looters, “There are no Jews here.”

Soon afterward the family moved to a suburb, but the violence continued. Joseph was beaten while riding his bicycle, resulting in the loss of vision in one eye; he later had to bribe a police officer to free his two sons after their arrest on false charges. Others were less lucky. Mrs. Pearl recalled seeing the bodies of Iraqi Jews hanging from gallows in a square.

“Growing up as a Jewish child in Baghdad,” she wrote in “I Am Jewish,” “left me with recurring nightmares of being chased by a knife-wielding Arab in the school’s stairway while 2,000 schoolmates screamed hysterically.”

 

 

 

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Striking Alabama Coal Miners Taking Protest Back To New York (AL.com) — Striking Alabama coal miners traveled to New York City this week to picket the corporate office of BlackRock, the largest shareholder in Warrior Met Coal, the Alabama company the workers have been on strike against since April. You can donate to their strike pantry here and read excellent coverage of the strike here.

• How Unions and Their Allies Are Trying to Hold Amazon Accountable (Capital and Main) — “In California, labor advocates are supporting Assembly Bill 701, which would require all warehouse employers to provide workers with a written description of expected quotas, the number of tasks to be performed within a given time and potential adverse employment action. In other words, the employer has to share the metrics and the penalties for not meeting them.” 

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz’s Latest Stunt Completely ChinaBackfired

UFT Elections (Part 2): ICE/UFT meeting calls for United Slate for UFT elections, addresses back to school safety and abusive principals

We ... call on all caucuses and UFT members opposed to one party ruling Unity Caucus to come together now when there is common cause at UFT district/borough level Chapter Leader meetings, Delegate Assemblies, Executive Board meetings and to secure a better contract for all members during the upcoming negotiations....

At the meeting, the united front was not even the main item on the agenda. Right now, of greater importance was back to school safety issues were front and center, as was the consistent problem of how to support teachers facing dictator principals.

It's ALIVE! ICE/UFT passed a reso calling for a united front in the spring 2022 UFT elections (see reso below). See Part 1 of my series for why I supported this reso - UFT Elections (Part 1) - Historical Analysis - Comparing the 2016 success and the 2019 disaster

 I was asked to call a zoom meeting of the Independent Community of Educators and I admit I did so reluctantly, stamping my foot and declaring, "I ain't meeting without getting my rice pudding in person." 

OK. So I asked for RSVPs and got about three, including from an island in Greece and one from an ICEer in Mexico City. "This noon-time meeting will be a shorty," I figured, and I could go back to the beach. If a tree falls at a meeting and no one was there, did the tree really fall? 

Boy, was I surprised when 20 people showed up, including people from different groups in the UFT. It's the first time I saw young people at an ICE meeting, where there is no membership required, since I was young myself. Actually, ICE has no membership. Show up and you're in. We've had people eating at other tables in the diner become ICEers by being in the same space - or by ordering rice pudding.

If so many people emerge in the middle of a hot summer day to attend a meeting, ICE/UFT still lives.

July 28, 2021 - Good morning

The Independent Community of Educators emerged out of dormancy and came to life yesterday with its first zoom meeting ever, a meeting attended by over 20 people, some for the first time. Included were actual youngish in-service UFT members, including newly elected chapter leaders and delegates who made up the majority of attendees. Many of us original ICEers had come to think of us as a retiree group and had been putting our energy into Retiree Advocate Caucus where we work with people from New Action and former MOREs. ICE last met in person (usually no more than a dozen people) at our fave rice-pudding diner years ago. Since the faction in control of MORE/UFT Caucus had formally asked ICE, a founding caucus of MORE, to leave and began suspending individuals, some ICEers had pulled back from UFT activities - me included.

ICE/UFT - The Uncaucus

People in the ICE community have been pressuring me to call a meeting for months. I wasn't sure what ICE really was. The public face of ICE is the James Eterno and the ICE blog. We have an expanding listserve with many veteran UFT activists and a few new people. We still have money in the bank. Founded in 2003 and running as a caucus in the 2004, 07, 10 UFT elections, ICE merged with TJC and independents to form MORE in 2012, aiming at the 2013 elections. While TJC disbanded, ICE continued to meet to discuss important issues that were being given short shrift in the rigidly run MORE. 

 

The idea of an uncaucus --  being active in UFT issues but not formally running as a caucus in elections - was born in ICE. Yesterday's resolution fits into the uncaucus idea - calling on all non-Unity UFT caucuses and the non-caucused independents to join together for the 2022 spring UFT elections.

Hail the Eternos

Enormous credit goes to James Eterno for keeping the ICE brand going with the ICE blog, which has developed an enormous following due to his diligence in being the only space for people to go for up-to-date reporting on the UFT. But as we saw yesterday at the meeting, James and Camille Eterno have an enormous number of contacts in schools throughout Queens, even elementary schools. James and Camille have been advising many teachers seeking help and have also helped advise those running in recent UFT chapter elections. Some of them were at the meeting.

The resolution passed yesterday to me is a no brainer - as I pointed out - UFT Elections (Part 1) - Historical Analysis - Comparing the 2016 success and the 2019 disaster.

The reso was not just about UFT elections every three years but calls on all groups to start cooperating on many fronts, including the delegate assembly and district meetings where we begin to make demands and not just sit there and listen to a Unity Caucus presentation. And of course at the Ex Bd if a unified slate should win seats - and the only way is with a united front. We've been seeing some cooperation around a few issues, especially the move of retirees out of formal public Medicare and into privatized Medicare Advantage plans. In service members will be getting the same treatment, or non-treatment very soon. Some of us have been floating an idea for a big demo in front of 52 Broadway before the Jan. 1 implementation.

I have some issues to still raise and will do so in parts 3, 4--infinity and at the next ICE meeting.

If UFT elections are rigged, What's the point in running? Why not boycott? 

If there is no united front, what do we as ICE do? 

Someone suggested we recaucus and run another slate like we did in 2004 when we were not happy with the other groups.  

Another idea is to try to unite all groups that could be united and support that group. 

Or just sit it all out and watch with amusement.

RESOLUTION FOR A UNITED SLATE IN THE 2022  UFT UNION-WIDE 2022 

As passed unanimously by the Independent Community Educators at our meeting of July 27th, 2021

Whereas The UFT Leadership Unity Caucus, the ruling one party system that has suppressed democracy and stifled member participation under a 60-year hegemonic, unilateral control of the UFT, has failed the membership on a number of issues and can only be seriously challenged by a united opposition,

Be it Resolved: The Independent Community of Educators urges all UFT opposition caucuses and non-affiliated independents within the UFT to come together and form a full and united slate to run against the Unity Caucus in the 2022 United Federation of Teachers union-wide elections.

The Covid 19 pandemic, with its challenges and life and death consequences for our union family, has forged new relationships between opposition caucuses, groups and independent union members within the United Federation of Teachers.

A growing consensus and collective spirit towards greater cooperation has blossomed among those opposed to the Unity leadership and have found common cause in fighting for a better union and safer schools during the pandemic.

This cooperation has been evident in seeking to mutually coordinate around vital issues for rank and file members fighting against the privatization of Medicare for our senior retirees; and mobilizing to organize and cooperate within the Delegate Assembly for common agendas.

It is our fundamental belief that only a full and United Slate in the 2022 UFT union-wide election can challenge the ruling one party system that has suppressed democracy and stifled member participation under the 60 year hegemonic, unilateral rule of the Unity Caucus.

This United Slate will be formed by UFT members who believe a better, democratic union is not only necessary, but presently possible. Our union leadership must energetically and responsively involve, engage, and educate its members at all times. Together we can fight for this!

The goal of the United Slate would be to challenge the Unity Caucus in order to ensure they are  responsive and transparent to our members. We will use the election as a platform to educate all union members about the dangers of an increasingly isolated leadership that makes decisions for us, not with us. If we were to win seats on the Executive Board, which historically speaking is very possible, we would work in concert to give voice to members of our union, bring member’s issues to the leaders that they have otherwise chosen to ignore, and speak truth to power. 

The members of Independent Community of Educators, which in the past has won seats on the UFT Executive Board in coalition with other groups and as founding members of MORE, will assist in providing logistical support for the union-wide elections through completing petitioning efforts, canvassing, electoral analysis, media promotion and distribution.

We also call on all caucuses and UFT members opposed to one party ruling Unity Caucus to come together now when there is common cause at UFT district/borough level Chapter Leader meetings, Delegate Assemblies, Executive Board meetings and to secure a better contract for all members during the upcoming negotiations. 

We need not and can not work together on every one of our platform/program points. There are political differences amongst the groups, but on issues where we find ourselves under the same banner, and we know there are many times when this will be and has been the case, we ought to find the means to coordinate for the betterment of our union, its members and the families we serve. 

 

UFT Elections (Part 1) - Historical Analysis - Comparing the 2016 success and the 2019 disaster

UFT Slate Ballot 2016                   

    UNITY

    MORE/New Action  

 

UFT Slate Ballot 2019

    UNITY

    Solidarity

    MORE

    New Action

The real losers in all of this Norm is the active teacher base... Comment on Ed Notes 2019 UFT election report, May 23, 2019

As we approach another UFT general election cycle in the spring of 2022, I've been looking back at the various coalitions and where I've stood. 

I've always been ambivalent about the election process, though until the last election in 2019, I had thrown myself deeply into the battle since 2004. A group of independents, unhappy with the then state of the caucuses, formed a new caucus, ICE/UFT, specifically to run in that election, mainly because the predominant caucus, New Action, had made a deal with Randi that enraged the other anti-Unity forces. TJC was already out there but many felt they were a closed box, undemocratic and dominated by a few voices with a narrow agenda. People were upset at both TJC and NA.

The creation of a new caucus went against my normal grain. When I began Education Notes in 1997 I tried to make it a unifying force and in fact soon after the 2001 UFT elections I called a meeting of all interest groups and independents in the UFT to unite for the next elections, but also to begin working together instead of in separate silos inside the UFT, especially at Delegate Assemblies. After an almost fist fight at the second meeting I have up and instead began to drift toward bringing people together around some of the principle issues I was addressing in Ed Notes, which led to the formation of ICE a few years later.

Generally I have always been in favor of caucuses uniting, either permanently as in 1995, when New Action emerge out of the merger of New Directions and Teachers Action Caucus and in 2012 when ICE and Teachers for a Just Contract merged into MORE (along with other groups). 

At the time, MORE looked like it could unite most of the anti-Unity forces and form one umbrella opposition caucus - a big tent. Unfortunately, within a few short years divisions opened up and the alliance of ICE and TJC proved to have weak bonds -- MORE is now controlled by many of the original TJCC people while ICE is out in the cold.

I've taken various positions regarding UFT elections in 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, at times advocating a boycott and using the election as a means to pointing out how it is rigged in Unity's favor. But few agreed with me, their juices running at the very thought of an election, even if the process occupies months of time where organizing actually doesn't take place -- I base this on the outcomes of previous elections where some people not in the opposition literati get active briefly with the expectation we could win and then when the reality of seeing Mulgrew get 80-85% of the vote, fade into the woodwork.

I changed my mind in 2016 when New Action left its alliance with Unity and joined with MORE in an election coalition and we knew we could win the 7 high school seats. And we did win those seats. Barely, but we won. I remember arguing with some of the resisters in MORE who liked to run only if they wouldn't win anything that winning even 7% of the Ex Bd offered hope to the anti-Unity rank and file. And our electeds did yeoman duty - holding open pre-ex bd meetings and bringing a wide range of  people to advocate for their causes at the meetings.

That model of winning even 7% of the Ex Bd - as opposed to the outcome of 2019 where Unity won 100% - is a prime motivating factor in an attempt to bring all groups together to win those seats -- and hopefully some others in the middle and elementary schools. If all three teacher divisions were won, that would be 23% of the Ex Bd.

Outside the internal literati of the UFT, the average UFT member doesn't have much of a clue as to the differences between the various caucuses -- or even give a much of a shit. Fundamentally they often ask, "Why can't you guys get together? You are asking us to vote for you instead of Unity and even small groups like you can't come together?" Don't forget, 70% of UFT members don't vote, even higher in the teacher divisions. A non-vote is in essence a rejection of Unity and the opposition. And I believe that multiple caucuses running against Unity suppresses the vote further.

In 2019, after a successful 2016 campaign by a coalition of MORE and New Action, MORE inexplicably decided to break that alliance and run a lone campaign that was designed to purposely NOT win anything. 

In my last months in MORE I was taking part in these debates and offered two options -- either run as a united front with other caucuses and indepenents so voters face a clearly defined choice between Unity and an opposition, or don't run at all and use the election to focus on issues. Both ideas were rejected and eventually I was forced out of MORE for writing about the debate.

The outcome was a disaster from the point of electoral politics as MORE finished third behind Solidarity which had not even been able to have enough candidates to get rccognized as a slate in 2016. 

A big question on the minds of the usual suspects thinking ahead to the 2022 elections is will MORE make the same mistake, a mistake that the caucus has not been open about -- or even informed its many new members, some of whom have been in touch asking what happened?

In 2016 MORE/New Action had about 10,600 votes and a non-slate candidate for president had 1400. That was 12,000 votes against Unity, a number matching some of the better outcomes for the opposition over history. 

The total vote of three opposition caucuses running independently in 2019 was less than 7,000. How did such a disastrous outcome occur over a 3 year period? See theEd Notes Election report

The only way to challenge Unity is to have one slate go head to head, not a smorgasbord of opposition groups that only confuse the membership.

I've been hearing from people who listened to my discussion with Leo Casey and Daniel Alicea of UFT history in its early decades on the "Talk Out of School" WBAI broadcast last Saturday. 

Some have pointed to our not getting to the issue of opposition groups in the union that were opposed to Unity Caucus since 1962. And there have been quite a few such groups over the decades. I've helped found three or four (depending on how you classify them) since the 70s.

Having a clean choice of Unity vs one opposition is important for the average, non-involved in UFT internal politics voter - or non-voter.

UFT Slate Ballot 2016                   

    UNITY

    MORE/New Action                        

*Solidarity did not have the required 40 to be listed as a slate, but did run as individuals.  

 

Outcome: MORE/NA received almost 11,000 votes and the Solidarity presidential candidate 1400 votes. MORE/NA also won the 7 high school Ex Bd. seats

 

UFT Slate Ballot 2019

    UNITY

    Solidarity

    MORE

    New Action                                                                                              

Outcome: No ex bd seats - total of all opposition groups less than 8000.

The 2019 UFT election with 3 opposition slates on the ballot was an absolute disaster to have slid back so far after the gains of 2016.

So with elections coming up next year, here we are with the same situation,

I have examined my thinking over the years and firmly believe that I and many of my colleagues from back to the early 70s have tried to bring the opposition forces together for UFT elections and in other areas, like the Delegate Assembly.

The caucus system has often interfered with thee goals. Every small pond must have its big cheeses. But let's agree that there will always be one of more opposition caucus in the UFT, as there has been since the 1960s. The most successful outcomes have come when caucuses came together for general elections -- and of course I don't mean actually winning the election since Unity has had control since the inception of the UFT in 1960 - but in vote totals and winning some seats on the Ex Bd.

One of the most successful coming together elections was in 1981 when three competing caucuses - New Directions (ND), Teachers Action Caucus (TAC), Coalition of School Workers (CSW) - plus independents -  joined to form New Action Coalition - taking one word from the name of each caucus. (In 1995 New Directions and TAC merged to form the current New Action.) We signed up a full slate of 800 people to run - see photo below. And we held large petition signing events attended by hundreds who also picked up literature to distribute in their schools. That election coalition lasted though the 90s and won the high school VP position in 1985 and high school and middle school ex bd seats in the 90s - in fact has continuously won the high schools on the whole -- until 2019.

We truly all didn't get along very well but put aside the rancor of the 70s and even if it took years, this coalition began to make some headway, culminating in winning the HS VEEP in 1985 and 13 Ex Bd seats in 1991.

Many of us believe we are in a unique moment in UFT history, with signs there may be some slippage in the retiree vote and Unity fumbling on a host of issues, putting the high school and middle school ex bd seats in play. And some signs of elementary school disaffection. 

With so many teachers not voting in the past, a GOTV campaign using the many retirees who have become activated and working through the Retiree Advocate group, which itself has cross caucus people from New Action, ICE, a few former MOREs and independents might offer a change to make a dent in Unity, even if winning the whole thing may not be in the cards.

Election lit, 1981: