Populism 2015 Platform: Building A Movement for People and the Planet

1. Rebuild America for the 21st Century and Create Jobs for All.
America’s public infrastructure – from roads to rail to water and energy systems – is increasingly dangerous to our health and a drag on our economy. National investment in rebuilding America will create millions of high-quality jobs, bid wages up, help close the racial jobs gap, and make America a better place to live and work.

2. Raise Wages, Empower Workers and Reverse Inequality.
Inequality has reached new extremes, as more and more jobs become contingent and part-time, with low pay and few benefits. We should lift the floor under every worker by guaranteeing a living wage, paid sick and vacation days, and affordable health care. We should empower workers to form unions and bargain collectively. We must curb perverse CEO compensation policies that give executives personal incentives to plunder their own companies.

3. Invest in a Green Economy.
Catastrophic climate change is a clear and present danger. The United States should lead the global green revolution that builds strong and resilient communities. Public investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency can create jobs and opportunity, particularly in communities of color that have borne the worst consequences of toxic corporate practices.

4. Eliminate Institutionalized Racism to Open Opportunity to All.
In a society of increasing diversity, ending systemic racial disparities is vital to building economic prosperity. This begins with comprehensive immigration reform, expanded voting rights and an end to mass incarceration and the systematic criminalization of people of color.

5. Guarantee Women’s Economic Equality.
We will ensure that women are guaranteed the same pay, protections and opportunities as men in the workplace and in society. Families must have access to high-quality child care and paid leave from the workplace for childbirth, illness and vacation. Women must also be guaranteed affordable health care and a secure retirement – with Social Security credit for work in the household.

6. Provide a High-Quality Education to Every Child
Every child must have the right to high-quality, free public education from preschool to college. This requires providing the basics – preschool, smaller classes, summer and after-school programs, and skilled teachers. Free four-year, post-high school education should be available for all who seek it. We must also provide relief to the generation now burdened with a student debt that they may never pay off.

7. Expand Shared Security for the 21st Century.
No child should go hungry in America. Health care should be a right, not a privilege. Every worker deserves a secure retirement. A job should be available to everyone willing and able to work. We will strengthen and expand America’s shared security programs – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, food support and housing assistance. Greater shared security makes the economy more robust by enabling entrepreneurs and workers to take risks, knowing that they can survive failure.

8. Enforce Fair Taxes on Corporations and the Wealthy.
Our tax code rigs the rules to favor the few. Multinationals pay lower tax rates than small domestic businesses. Billionaire investors pay lower rates than their secretaries. Top income tax rates have been lowered even as working people face ever-higher sales taxes and fees. It is time for the rich and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes so that we can invest in an economy that will work for all.

9. Forge a Global Strategy that Works for Working People.
Our global trade and tax policies are rigged by multinational companies to drive down pay and worker protections while harming the environment. We need more but balanced trade, global standards that protect the rights of workers, consumers and the environment. That requires a crackdown on tax havens, currency manipulation, and deals that allow corporation to trample basic labor rights here and abroad.

10. Make Wall Street Serve the Real Economy.
Financial deregulation has devastated our economy and protected banks that are too big to fail, too big to manage and too big to jail. The financial casino fosters ever more dangerous speculation, while investment in the real economy lags. The resulting booms and busts devastate families and small businesses. We need to break up the big banks, levy a speculation tax, and provide low-income families with safe and affordable banking services. We should crack down on payday lenders and other schemes that exploit vulnerable working families.

11. Change Priorities to Address Real Security Needs.
Our current national security policies commit us to policing the world. The result costs lives and drains public resources. We need a real security policy that makes military intervention a last resort, and focuses on global threats like climate change, poverty and inequality. We should reduce military budgets and properly support humanitarian programs.

12. Fight for Democracy and Curb the Power of Big Money.
From big-money politics to the assault on the right to vote and a corrupted lobby culture in Washington, our democracy is under assault. It is no accident that the assault has escalated as a new majority of people of color, young people and working women has begun to emerge. We need to close the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, and expose the entrenched interests that buy our legislators. We need public financing of elections that bans corporate and big money. We must guarantee the right to vote, with easy access to registration and the polls.

https://populism2015.org/the-new-populist-agenda/

Dear (RiverLover),

This weekend, thousands of grassroots leaders are coming together to build a movement for people and the planet -- Populisim2015. You have the chance to be part of something big, and join USAction as we continue to fight for families and the end of wasteful Pentagon spending.

This conference is co-sponsored by National People’s Action, the Alliance for a Just Society, USAction and Campaign for America’s Future. These four organizations have come together under a shared platform: Jobs for all. Higher wages. A green economy. An end to racial and gender inequality. High-quality education for every child. Economic security. Fair taxation. Peacemaking, not warmongering. Curb Wall Street and big-money politics.

You can participate online by using the hashtags #Populism2015 and #PeoplePlanet1st. Be sure to also follow along by watching the livestream of tomorrow evening’s opening plenary People and Planet First: The New Populist Movement from 6 to 7:15 pm Eastern. Saturday’s plenary features national radio commentator and populist activist Jim Hightower. You can click here on Saturday to watch the livestream.

Can’t watch tomorrow? You can also watch the livestream of Sunday afternoon’s plenary: Advancing a Populist Agenda that Puts People and Planet First with Congressman Keith Ellison and Vien Truong from 1:30 to 2:45 pm Eastern. Click here on Sunday to watch the livestream.

Your participation in this conference means we are one step closer to changing priorities to address our need to have real security in our lives.

Thank you for taking action, and we’ll see you this weekend!

Fred Azcarate
Executive Director

Why Martin O'Malley and Elizabeth Warren Can Beat Any Republican, Including Walker, Bush, Paul and Cruz
by H.A. Goodman
3/25/2015

A paradigm shift is needed in today's Democratic Party.

Rising stars in the Democratic Party like Tim Kaine, Jim Webb and especially Martin O'Malley and Elizabeth Warren are all formidable candidates, despite the fact that one liberal icon has amassed $328,755,858 and owns her own server. If Republicans can be proud of the fact that Ted Cruz would "most likely" be able to serve as president, Democrats should trumpet the plethora of talent within their ranks. The truth is that presidential elections are decided by electoral votes, not the soap opera we'll all witness for the next 593 days. To win the White House a candidate needs 270 electoral votes; far fewer than the 332 votes Obama won in 2012 to beat Romney.

Martin O'Malley and Elizabeth Warren can defeat anyone Republicans have to offer in 2016, primarily because they possess ideas and attributes that resonate with the majority of Americans.

First, let's analyze how President Obama was able to rout the Romney campaign in 2012. In an article for The Wall Street Journal just days before the election, Karl Rove made the following observations about America's political landscape:

It comes down to numbers...

"In addition to the data, the anecdotal and intangible evidence--from crowd sizes to each side's closing arguments--give the sense that the odds favor Mr. Romney. They do. My prediction: Sometime after the cock crows on the morning of Nov. 7, Mitt Romney will be declared America's 45th president. Let's call it 51%-48%, with Mr. Romney carrying at least 279 Electoral College votes, probably more."

Why are Rove's words important for Democrats in 2016? Romney won only 206 Electoral College votes for several reasons. The numbers and especially the "anecdotal data" Rove referenced didn't reflect the damage done by Romney's 47% statement. When a wealthy Republican candidate states that 47% of Americans are "dependent upon government" and "believe that they are victims," this might speak to conservatives, but it doesn't resonate with the average American...

Therefore, the hot button issues important to conservatives, like Scott Walker's ability to defeat unions, aren't enough to ensure that a state like Wisconsin won't go to a Democrat in 2016. According to The New York Times, Wisconsin went blue despite Paul Ryan being Romney's choice for Vice President...

...America in 2016 will be the same America that voted twice for Obama through electoral maps dominated by blue ink. Martin O'Malley and Elizabeth Warren, in addition to others like Kaine and Webb, can beat any GOP challenger simply because on key issues, they speak to the most people. Democrats don't need to pin their hopes on one candidate; we have a plethora of talent and should trumpet our candidates like the GOP flaunts its challengers. Like 2008, Hillary Clinton could be overshadowed by a newcomer named O'Malley or a courageous woman named Warren. If this happens, both Democrats and the average American will win big in 2016.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/martin-omalley-and-elizabeth-warren-can-beat-any-republican_b_6937318.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Yes, We Need Elizabeth Warren in the Senate. And She Should Also Run for President.
3/19/2015


A growing chorus of progressives -- including the members of MoveOn.org and our friends at Democracy for America -- are urging Elizabeth Warren to run for president. But not everyone who loves Warren is on board. Some raise a counterargument: Warren shouldn't run for president, they say, because we need her in the Senate.

It's an understandable sentiment: She's an electrifying, awesome senator. Elizabeth Warren has done for C-SPAN what Mad Men did for AMC. Her voice, on the Senate floor and in committee hearings and speeches across the country, soars above the turgid Washington morass like Yo-Yo Ma playing a cello suite from a hang glider over a sewage plant.

What's more, she gets things done. When she sees common ground, she reaches across the aisle to pass legislation; for example, the Smart Savings Act, introduced by Warren and Rob Portman (R-OH), passed through the Senate unanimously last December. And when no common ground can be found, or the price of compromise is simply too high, Warren stands firm, takes her argument to the public -- and, on issues from student loans to Wall Street regulation to the TPP, transforms the debate.

So, yes: We do need her in the Senate! Please don't leave the Senate, Elizabeth Warren!

But here's the thing: You don't need to leave the Senate to run for president.

You don't have to choose. You can be in the Senate and the race for the White House at the same time. Just ask former Senators Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bob Dole, Ted Kennedy or Joe Biden. Or Joe Lieberman, Chris Dodd, Sam Brownback, Elizabeth Dole, Lamar Alexander, Tom Harkin, Dick Lugar, Evan Bayh, or Orrin Hatch. Or the ghost of John F. Kennedy or Warren G. Harding. Once the campaign is over, you go right back to the Senate, likely with increased stature -- or you go to the White House, in which case you don't need C-SPAN to get your speeches on television.

Let's game this out.

Suppose Warren runs...(SNIP, rec reading it!)

...Politics, they argue, is a dirty business. And presidential politics is the dirtiest of the dirty. If she runs for president, they worry, she'll have to make nice with special interests. She'll have to dial it down. She'll have to rein in exactly what we all love about her. And for some folks, the worst part of all comes if she wins: A President Warren, they say, would have to make exactly the kinds of compromises that Senator Warren so wonderfully refuses to accept.

That's an understandable sentiment, too. But it doesn't give Warren enough credit.

What makes Warren such a singular figure isn't just her way with words. It isn't a refusal to compromise -- in fact, she frequently compromises, when doing so advances the best interests of working families and the middle class.

And it certainly isn't some kind of saintly remove from the earthly realities of politics.

No, what draws people to Warren is her unusual combination of guts, brains and heart--her willingness to fight, and fight smart, for what's right. To make a difference in people's lives.

That's her superpower. And the opportunity to make a difference is what pulled her into politics in the first place. ...

Read More here~
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-wikler/yes-we-need-elizabeth-warren-in-the-senate-and-she-should-also-run-for-president_b_6896892.html

...According to Hillary Clinton, all government business related emails have been reverted to the State Department. Whether that is true or not is a conclusion she has robbed history of the ability to make.

In other words, she didn’t just exercise shady judgment for the sake of convenience, she disrespected American history and its rules for preserving information on behalf of journalists, academics, historians and the American and global public.

Why We Celebrate Rivers


...In India, rivers like the Yamuna and Narmada are worshipped as goddesses. Rivers feed us, connect us, and give us a sense of identity. This is why we celebrate them with an International Day of Action for Rivers on March 14 every year.

Scientists confirm what our ancestors knew from experience. Rivers connect land, freshwater and marine ecosystems. They host some of the world’s most diverse plant and animal communities. Rivers sustain much of our agriculture, and their fisheries nourish millions. Their sediments protect our coastlines against erosion by the sea, and pull carbon out of the atmosphere. Healthy rivers act as natural buffers that balance ever more serious floods and droughts.

We often ignore that we depend on rivers for our long-term prosperity. We are damming them, polluting them and sucking them dry. Some rivers don’t even reach the sea anymore. Between 10,000 and 20,000 freshwater species are at risk of extinction or have already died out. Because their migration routes have been cut, the survival of 24 of the world’s 26 majestic sturgeon species is threatened or near-threatened.

Rivers and other wetlands are more strongly affected by the loss of species than any other major ecosystem...

...Please take a moment to think about what you can do to protect the arteries of our planet. We can all avoid products that waste and pollute valuable water. We can educate our children about a way of life that respects the ecosystems of our planet. We can raise our voices and cast our votes to support the protection of the environment. We can get engaged in local watershed groups and support organizations like International Rivers. Because, after all, rivers are in our hands.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/03/14/why-we-celebrate-rivers

....Today, We Are All Walter Mondale

The hits keep coming. In more recent years New Dems have tried to apply the 1984 “lesson” to whatever political moment they’re in. Before declaring itself the New DLC (because in their mind the word “new” is some kind of magic incantation) and then ultimately folding and giving way to Third Way, the DLC tarred Democrats with the pejorative “member of the unelectable Mondale wing.” The trait that earned a Democrat this label circa 2003 was opposition to the Iraq war, a sin no Democrat with serious future national aspirations could commit lest they consign themselves to irrevocable Not President status. Anyone who would have suggested to the DLC that the next Democrat to win the White House would be a Hyde Park State Senator named Barack Obama elected in large part because of his opposition to the Iraq war would have been met with all sorts of political spectrum positioning-based derision.

In 2006 Kentucky populist John Yarmuth was written off by then-DCCC chair Rahm Emanuel as too progressive to win. Yarmuth won and has remained outspoken in the House while winning re-election ever since while, for the record, Rahm’s prized Blue Dogs have seen their ranks decimated multiple times over (and Rahm himself is now struggling to hold onto his own mayoral seat in Chicago). In 2012 Matt Cartwright ran as a proud economic progressive FDR Democrat challenging 10-term incumbent Blue Dog Rep. Tim Holden for the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania’s newly redistricted 17th District. When Cartwright prevailed economic conservaDems in DC warned that Cartwright’s win could herald an era of unelectable Democrats ousting them in primaries. Cartwright defeated his Republican opponent in the general election by 22 points....

...What they have done is, on a number of instances, shamelessly changed their rationale for why elected Democrats need to do what Third Way’s donors wanted Democrats to do. They do this because New Dems organizations like Third Way are not on a mission to get Democrats to win elections. They’re on a mission to lock Democrats into serving high finance, even at the expense of winning elections. The New Dems are not acting out of concern that progressive populist Democrats will lose. They don’t want liberals to win.

Elizabeth Warren challenges Obama (and Clinton) on trade
3/12/15

Washington (CNN)Elizabeth Warren's push to kill major trade negotiations -- backed up by the AFL-CIO's plans announced Wednesday to cut campaign contributions to its traditional Democrat allies to fight alongside her -- could become major headache for President Barack Obama.

And eventually Hillary Clinton, too.

Warren is spearheading a growing liberal push to undercut Obama's attempt to negotiate free trade deals with Pacific Rim countries and the European Union. Her beef: Corporations could gain the ability to challenge countries' laws under a complicated provision that's routinely tucked into new deals.

The innocuous-sounding "investor-state dispute settlement mechanism," critics on both the left and the populist right fear, would be like an independent, international court, with the power to force the U.S. government and American corporations to abide by its rulings.

The issue pits Warren against her own party's president, and on the same side as populist conservatives. The Massachusetts Democrat took aim at that provision on a conference call hosted by liberal groups on Wednesday, saying it should "raise alarm bells for everyone."

"The name may sound a little wonky, but this is a powerful provision that would fundamentally tilt the playing field further in favor of multinational corporations," Warren said. "Worse yet, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty."...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/11/politics/elizabeth-warren-obama-hillary-clinton-trade/

How Our 'Free Trade' Policies Kill Jobs
Dave Johnson
Campaign for America's Future
3/10/15

The U.S. is currently running a net trade deficit of over $500 billion each year with our "trade partners." We have been running trade deficits every year since the late 1970s. We buy from them, but they don't reciprocate and buy from us, so the trade is out of balance -- way out of balance.

These other countries use the proceeds from our purchases to set up their own industries so that they don't have to buy from us in the future. We let this happen, so as our industries move away, we will have no choice but to import. In many cases our own so-called "American" corporations are voluntarily "deindustrializing" and sending the factories and equipment to "trading partners" elsewhere.

The Damage

When a country runs a trade deficit, it means that the "demand" for goods and services created by that country's economy is being exported, and people are being hired in other countries instead of in that country. It means that the growth of that country's economy and the number of jobs available is lower than it would be otherwise. Last week's Wall Street Journal article "U.S. Trade Gap Narrows in January," for example, called our trade deficit "a drag on overall growth." They quantified by how much, reporting, "Net exports -- the difference between exports and imports -- subtracted 1.15 percentage point from fourth-quarter gross domestic product."

...At Economy in Crisis, John Olen writes in "Lack of Jobs is Due to Our Trade Deficit":

Trade policy that encourages businesses to relocate production of goods to other nations without penalizing them for selling those goods back to this nation has resulted in millions of lost jobs. White House estimates show that for every $1 billion in goods exported, the economy creates 5,000 jobs. Unfortunately, that street goes both ways -- data from the Economic Policy Institute shows that for every $1 billion in goods imported, the economy loses 9,000 jobs.

Read More~
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/how-our-free-trade-polici_b_6839248.html

Former chief of staff to president Bill Clinton John Podesta provided office space for Media Matters early in its formation at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank which Podesta established in 2002.[23] Hillary Clinton advised Media Matters in its early stages out of a belief that progressives should follow conservatives in forming think tanks and advocacy groups to support their political goals.[23][24] Wiki

In early 2014, Brock was named to the board of Priorities USA Action as the super PAC also announced its support for a possible Hillary Clinton presidential run in 2016.[14] In February 2015, Brock abruptly resigned his position with the super PAC.[15]
Wiki

...Democrats and outside allies of the Clintons read that as an invitation to deride the investigation. Media Matters and Correct the Record, two of David Brock's organizations—one that occasionally defends Hillary Clinton, and the other that does nothing but—have repeatedly called the e-mails story "false" and an extension of the "Benghazi hoax." They've maintained that line of argument as conservative groups tumbled over one another to enter the e-mail fray....

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-05/democrats-see-a-familiar-pattern-in-the-clinton-email-story

The D.C. Centrists' Straw Men
3/4/2015

One of the tiredest clichés in all of American politics -- and a favorite of D.C. "centrists" -- is that economic populism is all about beating up on the rich and redistributing income instead of pursuing economic growth.

A note here before I get into the main point of this piece: In that sentence above I put "centrists" in quotation marks because in Washington, D.C., centrism seems to be about being in line with certain kinds of big-money special interests rather than supporting what the center of the country, in terms of voters, believes. D.C. centrists believe in cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits; not taxing Wall Street tycoons at the same levels as their secretaries; weakening regulations on the kinds of financial speculation that caused the 2008 financial panic; bailing out bankers when they get in trouble, and not prosecuting them when they break the law; and doing trade deals that have historically benefited mostly big business and created bigger trade deficits. Voters are in opposition to all those policies by very big numbers, so those positions certainly aren't centrist to them, but that doesn't seem to matter much to the insider D.C. "centrists."...

...Perhaps most irritating of all, a man who has been bashed for years by a lot of these same "centrists" decided to join them in their critique. Here's Howard Dean quoted in the same article:

"Our program cannot be soak the rich -- that's a mistake and alienates middle class people. But on substance, the Warren wing is correct," said Dean.

"The rhetoric about wealth creation needs to be scaled back because Americans like wealth creation," he added. "The level playing field argument wins it for us. The reason you do not want to talk about 'tax the rich' is because when middle class people hear it, they hear 'they're going to raise our taxes.' Democrats can't do that."

I appreciate Howard Dean saying that on substance the Warren wing is correct. And I know that, having endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, he is now in the uncomfortable place of trying to walk a tightrope between Hillary's politics and the views of his old progressive friends. But let me reassure him and his fellow worriers: Elizabeth Warren and her fellow progressives are not, either in rhetoric or policy, anti-growth or anti-business or out to "soak" the rich (unless by "soak" you mean taxing them at the same rate as their secretaries). And to say that they are is a cliché completely unsupported by anything they are saying.

...Creating new jobs, raising the income of middle-class workers and retirees, investing in the infrastructure businesses need for transportation and a good workforce, investing in the creation of new technologies and products -- these policies are not against economic growth. In fact, they would do more to promote economic growth than any policy proposal I have seen from the corporate-oriented Democrats.

All these things Warren talks about -- new jobs, more money for most people to spend, modern infrastructure, promoting manufacturing and small business, R&D -- do in fact create economic growth. Her entire economic program is about creating sustainable economic growth.

And I looked and looked for all the times where Warren bashes the rich or uses negative "rhetoric about wealth creation" that Dean refers to. I went through every recent speech, committee transcript, and floor debate where she spoke that I could find, and I couldn't find any instances where she said there is anything wrong with being rich or wealth creation. I couldn't find them because they don't exist.

These are the ultimate "centrist" straw men that D.C. insiders set up in order to knock down: that progressive populists don't care about economic growth, and that they bash the wealthy.

Now, I will admit one thing: There are certain big corporations that Elizabeth Warren has spoken ill of. She didn't like it, for example, that HSBC laundered drug-cartel money but no executive went to jail for those crimes. She's not big into Wall Street banks blatantly cheating their customers and clients and never being held to account for it. ...

She wants a level playing field for low- and middle-income folks with the wealthy and powerful. Is that what is so radical that is scaring all these D.C. establishment folks? Seriously? Come on, guys, this is just silly. You don't want accountability for banks that launder drug money and cheat their customers? Look, if you want to make arguments as to why we shouldn't regulate or prosecute Wall Street, make them. If you think progressive taxation or a higher minimum wage is a bad idea, tell us why. But don't set up these ridiculous straw men and tell us that the Warren message is all about stuff she has never said.

Let me close by saying this specifically to my friend Howard Dean: You are a good man who has spent the last decade-plus courageously standing up to D.C. insiders even when they attacked you in these same ways. Don't let yourself be used by these same insiders when they are trashing Elizabeth Warren and other progressives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/the-dc-centrists-straw-me_b_6800302.html