May 8, 2015

De Blasio’s National “Contract With America” Strategy Leaks

David Freedlander

Everyone from Susan Sarandon to Van Jones is helping draft and push de Blasio’s new “Contract with America,” which will push for paid sick leave and free, universal pre-K.

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During the 2013 mayoral campaign, de Blasio used his support of paid sick leave to pummel the Democratic front-runner, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, sparking his come-from-behind victory. De Blasio then signed an expansive law on the topic soon after becoming mayor. Universal pre-K became de Blasio’s signature accomplishment of his first year in office, even if his mechanism to pay for it—a tax on the city’s upper-income earners—was rejected by Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The contract will also put de Blasio in the center of some of the debates currently roiling Washington. According to a draft of the document circulated this week, de Blasio will call for the passage of comprehensive immigration and for Democrats to “oppose trade deals that hand more power to corporations at the expense of American jobs, workers’ rights, and the environment.”

President Barack Obama has called for a new Pacific trade deal that he says would open up new markets for American goods. He has received little support for that view among Democrats, however, and Hillary Clinton has declined to back the agreement.

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De Blasio is expected to be joined in Washington by a more than 60 members of Congress, progressive activists, and labor leaders, among them Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, Congressmen Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva, and the actor Susan Sarandon. Last month de Blasio convened a number of progressive thinkers at Gracie Mansion, including Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel and civil rights activist Van Jones to hash out ideas about how to build a progressive agenda in 2016. De Blasio has pointedly declined to endorse Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, even though he was the campaign manager of her 2000 Senate run in New York and even though both Bill and Hillary Clinton were on stage with de Blasio at his inauguration.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/08/de-blasio-s-national-contract-with-america-strategy-leaks.html

May 8, 2015

Christie, Conservative Radio Host In Yelling Match Over Social Security

Conservative radio host Howie Carr on Thursday grilled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on his proposed cuts to the social security program, and the debate quickly devolved into a shouting match.

Carr began the interview by telling Christie that he's concerned about "illegal aliens" getting social security benefits. Christie assured Carr that he would roll back President Obama's executive actions on immigration if he were elected president.

The two then launched into a heated debate over Christie's proposal, which would reduce or eliminate Social Security benefits for individuals who exceed a certain threshold of retirement income. Christie also proposed raising the retirement age.

Carr lamented that when he began paying into the Social Security system, the rules were different.

"I'm older than you are. I'm 63. I started paying into this program when Lyndon Johnson was president, right? Nobody said anything about means-testing," Carr told Christie, according to an audio clip highlighted by Business Insider. "You're proposing what amounts to a bait-and-switch, aren't you? I mean, what's the difference between this and Bernie Madoff?"

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/chris-christie-howie-carr-social-security

May 8, 2015

Ben Carson: Minimum Wage Should 'Probably' Be Higher

Source: TPM

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson said that the U.S. should "probably" raise the minimum wage during a CNBC interview that aired on Friday.

While discussing government benefits, CNBC's John Harwood asked Carson what he thought about the minimum wage.

"I think probably it should be higher than it is," Carson responded.

Carson's position in favor of a minimum wage hike sets him apart from other potential Republican 2016 nominees. Most conservatives, including those who have announced presidential campaigns, oppose increasing the minimum wage.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ben-carson-raise-minimum-wage

May 8, 2015

Folk Singer Who Turned 'We Shall Overcome' Into Civil Rights Anthem Dies

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Guy Carawan, a folk singer and social-justice advocate credited with turning the African-American spiritual "We Shall Overcome" into a unifying anthem of the 1960s civil rights movement, has died at 87.

For years, Carawan was a leader of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee. It served as a gathering place for social-justice activists, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

The song "We Shall Overcome" was adapted by Pete Seeger and others at Highlander from the spiritual "I Will Overcome." As Highlander music director, Carawan taught the song to activists who led the sit-in movement of the 1960s. He even sang it at the first organizing meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee on April 15, 1960, Carawan's wife, Candie Carawan, said.

It included a verse added a year earlier by a 13-year-old African American activist named Mary Ethel Dozier. Candie Carawan said Dozier came up with the words, "We are not afraid," during a sheriff's department raid on what was then the Highlander Folk School as she, Guy Carawan and others sat in the dark, waiting. The Carawans marched with King in Selma, Alabama. Guy Carawan made recordings to preserve the civil rights movement and Appalachian folk songs.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/we-shall-overcome-singer-dies

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May 8, 2015

Mike Huckabee Attempts to Scare Iowa Voters Without Being Scary

By Josh Voorhees

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—The applause started with a single man in the corner of a crowded back room in a Pizza Ranch here on Thursday. After a short beat that was still long enough to be awkward, the rest of the room joined in. Mike Huckabee, who had just finished explaining that “our country is in real trouble,” began to chuckle. “You know the joke about the sound of one hand clapping?” he said with a smile. “That was it.” The crowd, which only moments ago had let out a solemn Amen in response to his dire warning about a nation in peril, began to laugh. Once they had stopped, Huckabee picked up where he had left off, describing how the “Washington-to-Wall Street axis of power” had created a government that has put the country on the path to ruin.

Call it doomsaying with a smile.

Huckabee’s 2016 campaign, which officially kicked off on Tuesday, faces a number of pressing questions, chief among them: Can he repeat his surprise victory in the 2008 Iowa Caucus, which was fueled in large part by an Evangelical base that will have significantly more options this time around? And, can the former Arkansas governor raise enough cash to go the distance in a race that will require vastly more of it than the one he had to drop out of seven years ago? The answer to those questions will likely decide whether Huckabee seriously challenges for the Republican nomination next year, but both hinge on another question, which was raised by the Washington Post’s Steve Hendrix earlier this week: “Will the same ‘I’m not mad at anybody’ on-air vibe that fueled his rise make him a non-starter for mad-as-hell early Republican voters?” Translation: Huckabee better get angry, or he risks getting lost.

On Thursday, one of the 50 or so Iowans who had turned up at the afternoon meet-and-greet brought a copy of the Post article along and asked Huckabee about it while he was working the room. Huckabee responded by signing the newspaper. A few minutes later the former governor was in the front of the room taking swings. He decried the “the donor class” and their outsized role in elections, and spoke at length about his own experience going toe-to-toe with the “Clinton political machine” during his days as lieutenant governor and governor in Arkansas. His words were angry, but his tone was not. He punctuated most lines with a smile, and occasionally a laugh. His message: I’m as angry as the rest of the GOP field but I don’t need to shout about it.

more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/05/08/mike_huckabee_cedar_rapids_pizza_ranch_how_the_former_arkansas_governor.html?wpsrc=slatest_newsletter&sid=5388f1c6dd52b8e4110003de

May 8, 2015

Huckabee the Huckster

“Behind former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s warm smile, inclusive rhetoric, and gee-whiz populism lies an ethics record that would make a Clinton blush. His greedy, cheesy money grabs in Arkansas were a preview of today’s greedy, cheesy money grabs,” National Journal reports.

“As part of what the New York Times called ‘unconventional ways to fund a campaign,’ the newly minted GOP presidential candidate recently pitched a dubious medical treatment via infomercial… But that’s not all! Huckabee is allowing his mailing list – the names and email addresses of his political supporters – to be used to peddle cancer cures based on Bible verses.”

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http://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=104961753&f=17571&u=37190363&c=4942750

May 8, 2015

Karl Rove Waves White Flag on Obamacare

Karl Rove: It’s Time to End Calls of Repealing Obamacare
May 8, 2015 By Sara Goddard

Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal: “If the Supreme Court holds in King v. Burwell that the Affordable Care Act—also known as ObamaCare—does not allow subsidies for health coverage to flow through federal insurance exchanges, Republicans better be ready to say what to do next.”

“President Barack Obama will then accuse conservative justices of overreaching and demand that the GOP Congress immediately extend subsidies to every state. His message will be politically potent, as it will turn the words of Republicans in 2013 back on them: ‘If you like your plan,’ Republicans said, ‘you should be able to keep your plan.’ Hillary Clinton will join in depicting Republicans as heartless brutes who would let people die for lack of health insurance rather than fix Mr. Obama’s law.”

“Some Republicans may insist on simply repealing ObamaCare. But doing this would chew up valuable time and give the president a veto opportunity he relishes. For now, Republicans should focus on putting Mr. Obama on the defensive with a proposal that makes sense to Americans.”

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http://wonkwire.com/2015/05/08/karl-rove-its-time-to-end-calls-of-repealing-obamacare/

May 8, 2015

Romney Will Host Candidate Retreat

“Mitt Romney, who earlier this year decided against a third presidential bid after briefly flirting with a run, will jump back into the national political scene next month when he hosts GOP presidential hopefuls and some of the party’s biggest donors in Utah,” the Washington Post reports.

“Confirmed speakers from the likely 2016 Republican field include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Marco Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and Sen. Lindsey Graham. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, long seen as a Romney rival due to tensions between their camps, was invited but will not attend, per a Romney ally.”

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http://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=104964435&f=17571&u=37190363&c=4942750

Mitt's struggle to be relevant to someone...anyone, continues.

May 8, 2015

Why Is Lincoln Chafee Running?

Former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee’s “exploration of a presidential run has been met with a mix of bewilderment and derision in his home state,” the Boston Globe reports.

“The Providence Journal, in a stinging editorial, tore into his single term as governor and declared it ‘preposterous’ that ‘such a dismal record in an executive position would be a recommendation for the presidency (of the United States!).'”

“The national press, for its part, has largely ignored his near-candidacy. The endless dissections of prohibitive favorite Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid make at least passing reference to other Democratic hopefuls, such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley. Chafee, the Republican-turned-independent now seeking the Democratic nomination? Not so much.”

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http://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=104964002&f=17571&u=37190363&c=4942750

May 8, 2015

Homophobia meets populism: Is there an upside to Huckabee’s “backside” politics? - By Joan Walsh

If the right-wing populist is as tough on Jeb Bush as he is on women and Big Gay, he could shake up the GOP race

JOAN WALSH

Everyone remembers Mike Huckabee as the nice guy of the 2008 race, but he probably had his biggest impact with one perfect zinger: Monied rival Mitt Romney, he quipped, didn’t look like one of the guys you worked with, “he looks like the guy who fired you.” Fast forward to 2012, and Romney’s GOP rivals continued the Huckabee line on the plutocratic Romney, beating up on his employer Bain Capital and its “vulture capitalism” before the Obama campaign had to spend a dollar.

In 2016, Huckabee promises to be far nastier than he was last time around. In his declaration speech on Tuesday, Politico’s Roger Simon cracked, he looked like “an angry beach ball in a suit.” Most of his fire is reserved for the culture war: He’s nastiest when talking about Democrats who think women “can’t control their libidos,” women who in fact indulge their libidos, the gay marriage lobby and Barack Obama. He’s smeared the president as imbibing left-wing values “growing up in Kenya” (he did not) and urged Christians not to enlist in the military until there’s a new commander in chief.

But Huckabee has not abandoned the populist economic rhetoric that got the big-spending former Arkansas governor into trouble with anti-tax conservatives last time around. In fact, he’s learning how to meld populism with homophobia: Crusading against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Huckabee told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that American workers would “take it in the backside” if the trade deal was approved. And we all know nobody’s supposed to take it in the backside.

Could there be an upside in Huckabee’s populist backside politics? Maybe, though he’s still a very long shot for the nomination. Salon’s Jim Newell argues that melding his culture warrior stands with economic populism could give Huckabee a lane of his own in the GOP primary, even if he’s unlikely to win it. Alone among the GOP candidates, he’s committed himself to defending Social Security and Medicare. And now he’s taking on the TPP, when most of his rivals are teaming up behind it with Obama.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/08/homophobia_meets_populism_is_there_an_upside_to_huckabees_backside_politics/