Author Archives | Jakob Benedetti, Staff Writer

Impeachment Continues

With the impeachment proceedings against President Trump chugging along and now entering a new round of hearings, I think it’s a good time to reflect on the accusations made against Trump, their validity and whether or not there’s a chance he’ll actually be removed from office. 

The core claim made against Trump to justify the current impeachment proceedings is that he engaged in something legal experts refer to as a “quid pro quo”, which is a Latin phrase that basically means to demand something from someone in exchange for something else. In this case, Trump is accused of demanding that Ukrainian President Zelensky open a criminal investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in connection to dealings they had in Ukraine when Joe Biden  was serving as President Obama’s liaison to the Ukrainian government. In exchange, Trump would give military aid to Ukraine in their fight against Russian-backed rebelsbut here’s the kicker: the aid was already promised to Ukraine by law. This means that by conditioning the aid on providing dirt on Trump’s political rival, Biden, Trump probably broke the law by abusing his power as President and using taxpayer dollars for his own personal political gain. 

Of course, Trump supporters claim that there was no wrongdoing as the aid was eventually delivered and no dirt on Biden was ever produced. However, simply the act of asking for that dirt prior to delivering the aid is a potential violation of campaign finance law, and in any case according to House Democrats, an act that meets the standard for impeachment. 

To me, whether or not Trump actually broke any laws is irrelevant. Frankly, I think he should’ve been impeached his first or second year in office for personally profiting from a hotel he owns in D.C., where among other things the Saudi Arabian government openly stayed and overpaid at when they came to discuss increased military aid to their country, which Trump promptly agreed to even after (I would argue, correctly) blaming the Saudis for 9/11 during his election campaign. Normal people call this a “bribe”. 

In terms of the Ukraine scandal, I also think that Trump should be impeached and removed from office whether or not one believes he actually broke any laws. If anything, the fact that it’s potentially legal to leverage taxpayer aid mandated by Congress for dirt on a political rival from a foreign government says everything one needs to know about America; the legal system itself is unable to prevent the abuse of power in the highest levels of government, and so we’re stuck relying on the same corrupt politicians who wrote the laws, Republicans and Democrats, to keep themselves in check.

Make no mistake, Trump absolutely is guilty of the quid pro quo and leveraging aid to Ukraine for personal political gain. In fact, he admitted as much to reporters on the White House lawn, saying when asked what he wanted from Ukraine: “It’s a very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens.” Which is why the Trump defense has pivoted from originally denying the quid pro quo, to now saying it wasn’t a problem because his goal was to expose Biden’s corruption. If Trump himself was uncorrupted and actually had fought to “drain the swamp” like he promised, I might be able to accept this. But anyone paying attention can clearly see that Trump has not only failed to fight corruption in Washington since taking office, he has in fact become corrupted by the big donors and interest groups, aka the swamp, that have been corrupting both establishment Democrats and Republicans for decades. 

That said, there is absolutely no way Trump is getting removed from office for the Ukraine scandal, or for any reason except losing the election in 2020. The obedience demanded by the leadership of both parties and the sheer polarization in the country means that very few, if any, Republicans will vote to impeachand 20 of them would need to in the Senate for Trump to actually be removed from office. We’ve already seen how willing they are to smear public servants who are daring to speak out about Trump’s misconduct in order to distract from the accusationseven if Trump’s own Ukraine ambassador has testified against him. The moral rot at the core of both parties enabled Trump to become president. Now, when the Republicans could redeem themselves, they’ve chosen to scream “fake news” at anyone who reports negative facts about Trump and his conduct instead of actually doing self-reflection and taking a moral stand against the wannabe demagogue that they created.

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What the Media Can Learn from 2016

In 2016, one of the major developments was the changing nature of political media in the face of increasing use of social media and “alternative” news platforms. Media entities reliant on traditional forms of publishing journalism—print media, television, radio—began feeling pressure to adapt, and to find new ways to attract consumers to their content. In addition, increasing political polarization and division over domestic issues meant that media outlets increasingly came to be seen as either being generally on the political right or left. This perception was amplified when Donald Trump became the Republican frontrunner, despite being universally dismissed by the “mainstream” media pundits—except of course for Fox News. Many of Trump’s supporters accused the media of being part of some sort of vast, left-wing conspiracy to unfairly smear Trump. 

But here’s the problem: the media was biased against Trump in 2016. When he first entered the primary in 2015, he was met with universal scorn by the pundit class, and his campaign was dismissed as a sideshow meant to boost Trump’s personal brand. That may be true, but the media’s mistake was believing that the rest of the country felt the same way. Clearly, it did not. Their arrogance backfired, and Trump’s populist message of “America First” resonated with large sections of the electorate. 

The media’s first mistake was to not take Trump and the populist anger he represented seriously. Their second mistake was to reverse course after it became clear that Trump would be a real contender in the primary. We know from Politico reporting on the personal accounts of Hillary Clinton staffers and memos sent to the DNC that the Clinton campaign instructed their allies in the media to present Trump (as well Cruz and Carson) as more preferable than Jeb Bush, who they really feared, believing a Trump-like candidate would be easy to beat. The Clinton camp even went so far as to hold off on attacking Trump during the primary in an effort to harm the establishment candidates. In addition, the imperative of the media companies to attract consumers meant that all Trump had to do to get free advertising was something outrageous, knowing that the voters he needed to win the primary already believed the media was biased against conservatives. 

See, the media’s mistake with Trump ultimately was that although most of their coverage of him was negative, he was the only candidate in 2016 who represented the sort of anti-establishment message that so many voters wanted to see. Well, except of course for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent who ran as a Democrat, and is doing so again in 2020. But while the media had reasons to cover Trump, they had every reason to ignore Sanders, who represented an anti-establishment movement on the Left. Not only did Sanders have a “radical” agenda based on progressive values and pro-worker policies, but he was willing to call out the corrupt politicians and their donors by name. 

In 2020, the media is not going to make the same mistakes. Although they’ve been forced by his successes in 2016 to cover Sanders more, it’s clear that Biden has received the lion’s share of coverage despite raising less money and having fewer volunteers than Sanders and others. In addition, when you look at how positive the media’s coverage of the candidates are, it’s clear that there’s a handful the pundit class pretty unanimously likes, including Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar, and at least one, Tulsi Gabbard, that they unanimously hate. Instead of totally ignoring Bernie or having wall-to-wall negative coverage of him, they’ve simply chosen to cover other candidates more and better than him.

But if the media are all liberals, why would they be propping up the more conservative candidates in the race? I would argue because the media in general does not have a liberal bias, they have an establishment bias. Many people who are on these cable shows or who write these editorials used to be politicians and/or work for one of the two parties. They’re friends with the people in power, or if not, they desperately want to be, at least so they can drag some vaguely familiar face on their show from time to time. Everything the media did in 2016—ignoring Sanders, cynically propping up Trump, etc.—was with the goal of getting Hillary elected President. Ironically, if they’d just covered Bernie and Trump fairly, a Democrat named Sanders might be president now instead of Trump.

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Impeachment Begins

Only two Presidents in history have been impeached by the House of Representatives—Bill Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868. However, in order to actually remove a President from office, two-thirds of the Senate then has to vote to accept the articles of impeachment passed by the House, in which case the President would be removed. In the case of both Clinton and Johnson, this did not happen; however, most agree that if Richard Nixon had not resigned when he did prior to being impeached, he likely would have been removed from office for the Watergate scandal. 

   I mention this because I think it’s important to understand the context for the impeachment proceedings recently filed against President Trump by House Democrats. Although only one President in history has been forced to leave office because of the threat of being removed via the impeachment process, it remains a powerful tool that the legislature can use to keep the President in check. 

   As a result, many Democrats and others on the left began calling for some sort of formal impeachment inquiry almost as soon as Trump was elected, either for being improperly associated with his businesses and apparently using his status as President to enrich himself, allegedly enlisting the help of foreign actors to give himself a boost during the election or other reasons. Until this point, however, the position of the House Democratic leadership is that there has not been a clear violation of the law that could be tied directly to Trump which would classify as “high crimes and misdemeanors”, which is the constitutional standard to begin the impeachment process. 

   That all changed last week when a whistleblower, a (now former) government employee, revealed that Trump had apparently tried to initiate a “quid pro quo” with the leader of Ukraine—in other words, Trump had withheld military aid to the country, which remains embroiled in internal strife between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian forces, in exchange for potential dirt on Joe Biden, who may have made some shady deals in the country when he was serving as Obama’s VP.

   There are basically two things about the origins of this impeachment process I would like to note. First, I’d like to point out the massive hypocrisy currently being displayed by members of the House Democratic Caucus, particularly the establishment leaders like Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff. They talk lovingly about this particular whistleblower that has revealed Trump’s crime and pledge to do anything they can to protect him against the administration’s nefarious plotting. Yet, many of these same people would respond with disgust and monotonous talking points if anyone so much as dared to mention Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning—two whistleblowers who revealed that the US government had not only been spying illegally and unconstitutionally on its own citizens as well as foreign leaders, but that US troops in Iraq had been killing journalists, medics and other civilians for sport, largely without consequence. Perhaps Snowden and Manning’s failure in attracting these Democrats’ adoration comes from the fact that their revelations came out when Obama was President, not big bad Trump. In any case, today Manning is in prison and Snowden is in hiding in Russia, while the Trump whistleblower is living rent-free on the Impeachment Express. 

   The other main thing I want to point out is how many in the media and Washington are content to ignore the other half of this story, which is the corruption that took place in Ukraine during the Obama administration. Apparently, Joe Biden did basically the same thing Trump is being accused of—holding aid money over the Ukraine government’s head in order to extract some political concession, in the case of Biden, this being the firing of a non-corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Biden’s corruption involving his son, Hunter Biden, who around this time had been hired to the board of a Ukrainian energy company and given a huge salary, despite having no background in the industry. If one was to take an unbiased view, then one would conclude that if Trump is being held accountable for this scandal, then so should Biden. 

   This all isn’t to say that what Trump is accused of is unimportant or not worth investigation. On the contrary, although I did not think impeachment would have been a good strategic move for the Democrats previously, and still think it probably will turn out not to be, I think, on principle, the Democrats should pursue impeachment at this time as they finally have something solid which would satisfy the constitutional standard for impeaching. Frankly, I think there’s a near-zero chance Trump will actually be removed from office, but as a matter of principle, an inquiry, at the very least, is called for.

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The Primary Within the Primary

Last week, the third edition of the 2020 Democratic Primary debates was held in Houston,
Texas, with the top 10 polling candidates slugging it out on a single stage. It was the first time
that all of the top-tier candidates appeared on the same stage and also the first time the number of candidates was reduced to accommodate a single event. Immediately after the candidates had
given their opening statements, the ABC moderators set up what has become the classic dynamic
of this campaign so far—progressives led by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren versus
conservatives led by Joe Biden on the issue of healthcare.

In this article, rather than focusing on this debate or the progressive versus “moderate”
dynamic, I’d like to take some time and talk about the progressives in this race, namely Senators
Sanders and Warren.

Many pundits and media-folk predicted at the beginning of the campaign that Sanders and
Warren would cannibalize each other’s support, effectively splitting the progressive base and
giving Biden the nomination. This idea was repeated before the second debate, when they were
scheduled to appear onstage alongside one another for the first time. The idea was that Warren
and Sanders’ messages and policies are so similar, that they would be forced to attack one
another in order to have a chance of winning the nomination. Instead, they worked as a tag-team, deflecting mud slung at each other by the centrist candidates and building off each other’s points to create a somewhat cohesive narrative, particularly on the issue of healthcare. In the campaign overall, Warren and Sanders have refrained from attacking one another and frequently
complimented each other in public. This is perhaps possible because the pundits, unsurprisingly,
got it wrong; Sanders and Warren have proven to attract support from very different
demographics, with Sanders’ coalition being overwhelmingly poor and young, and Warren being
most popular among white voters with college degrees.

The friendly nature of Sanders and Warren’s relationship, and the similarity of much of their
rhetoric has led many to believe that they are basically the same candidate. After all, they both
support Medicare-for-All, eliminating student loan debt and a Green New Deal—all things that
Biden and others do not. Warren has even adopted much of Sanders’ rhetoric from 2016
regarding movement versus electoral politics and the need to take on the establishment. As usual, however, the devil is in the details.

 

Let’s take the most important issue in this primary aside from beating Trump: healthcare. Polls
indicate that a strong majority of Democratic primary voters favor moving to a national
healthcare system. Although Warren has been one of the most vocal supporters of Medicare-for-
All for years, she’s taken steps throughout the campaign to signal to big donors and other elites
that she’s not serious about enacting the plan introduced by Sanders in the Senate, despite
formally endorsing the bill as her own campaign’s plan for healthcare. When campaigning, she
frequently talks about “multiple pathways” to Medicare-for-All which she calls her “North
Star”—rhetoric which is used by other candidates who don’t support “M4A”. In addition, despite
pledging to swear off big-money fundraisers and donations from establishment interests, she’s
since clarified that this only applies to the primary, because apparently corruption only matters
some of the time.

This uncertainty about her true position and her tendency to talk about other, less ambitious
healthcare plans she’s signed on to in the Senate, have led many progressives to accuse her of
attempting to co-opt the label and rhetoric of M4A, while not actually intending to pass it once
elected. Such a strategy would also give her the benefit of not having to release her own
healthcare plan and see it possibly become a drag on her campaign, as other candidates
attempting to co-opt M4A have done.

Look, I like Elizabeth Warren. She has a strong, progressive record in the last 20 years, despite
being a Republican for most of her life, and she knows how to get stuff done in Washington. But
honestly, I’m not sure why she’s running in this race. If she really is the same as Sanders in
terms of policy and her vision for the country, as so many in the media seem eager to portray
even as they smear Sanders and M4A nonstop, then why doesn’t she drop out and endorse him?
In a normal situation, the media and people in the Democratic establishment would be treating
the runner-up in the primary last time around as the presumptive nominee, or at least in a tie for
that position in their minds with the former VP Biden. But for whatever reason, the mainstream
media and the Democratic establishment have decided that Sanders is an unacceptable choice,
and that Warren is just fine. Wonder what they know that we don’t?

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Recession Imminent?

You may have heard on the news or from your friends that people are saying a recession is on its way for the US, and possibly the global economy. There’s no real, universally agreed-upon way to tell exactly when a recession will begin or how bad it will end up being, but then again economists don’t fully agree on what constitutes the “beginning” of a recession to begin with. That said, there are several indicators that US economists have identified which typically predict future economic behavior with some degree of accuracy, particularly when multiple of these indicators are pointing in the same direction. As it happens, several of these indicators are currently pointing to a recession sometime soon, while others are pointing to a more measured decline, if a decline occurs at all.

Let’s start with the indicator most fervently pointing towards a coming recession, what economists refer to as the “inverted yield curve”. It’s not as complicated as you might think; basically, the “yield curve” refers to a graph which compares the interest rates on two types of US Treasury bonds: the two-year and the ten-year bond. A bond is a unit of debt which is issued by the government and can be purchased by individuals or companies, who in purchasing said bond are essentially loaning money to the government, which it then pays back (theoretically) with interest. Typically, the ten-year bond has a much higher interest ratein other words, a much higher “yield”than the two-year. This is because investors require a greater incentive to have their money tied up for a longer period of time. When confidence in the short-term performance of the economy declines, however, then the demand and thus the interest rate on two-year bonds will increase relative to ten-year bonds because investors will see the short-term as a greater risk than the long-term. If this continues to the extent needed for the two yield curves on the graph to crossin other words, for two-year bonds to have a higher yield than ten-year bondswe say that the yield curve has inverted. Economists have found that a yield curve inversion usually means a recession is coming sooner rather than later. 

Secondly, it seems as if the Federal Reserve is preparing for some kind of downturn. From the New York Times: “Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said last week that the economy was in a ‘favorable place,’ but reiterated that the U.S. central bank would ‘act as appropriate’ to keep the economic expansion on track. The Fed lowered its short-term interest rate by 25 basis points last month for the first time since 2008, citing trade tensions and slowing global growth.” It’s important to note that the interest rate mentioned here is different from the interest rates on government bonds, however they are related. When the Fed lowers interest rates, it means that they believe the economy is headed downward, and by artificially lowering the base interest rate in the economylowering the cost of borrowing moneythey hope to increase spending and lending to give the economy a preemptive boost. If the Fed decides to lower interest rates further sometime this month or next, it could reinforce the likelihood of a recession.

All that said, there are some reasons to be positive. Consumer spending remains high even as sentiment begins to decline, which could signify that any recession would be relatively mild or at least farther off than seems by looking at other indicators. Continually stagnant wages compared to the cost of living could undermine this, however. If spending declines significantly in the next few months, it could signify a recession is imminent. In addition, unemployment is at record lows in many sectors, and job security is relatively high, even as more jobs continue to be outsourced and key sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture are being hit especially hard by Trump’s trade war with China. 

In conclusion, anyone who says they know exactly what’s going to happen or when the recession is going to hit, if at all, is either lying or blinded by arrogance. Overall, it does appear that a recession of some kind is likely within the next 12 months, however the exact cause, timing and magnitude are impossible to determine with 100 percent accuracy until after the recession has already begun. As conditions in the economy change, these and other indicators will change and will alter the likelihood of a recession, and thus our expectations will have to change as well. The best thing to do now is wait, observe and try our best to see the crash coming before it hits.

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The ‘swamp’ in action: Josh Hawley

On the last edition of “the ‘swamp’ in action,” I took a look at the corruption of former U.S. Senator and current MSNBC analyst Claire McCaskill. I thought it only fair that this time around we should look into the record of the guy who replaced her: former Missouri attorney general and current Senator, Josh Hawley.

The biggest thing to talk about with Hawley is that he’s a hypocrite. During his 2016 campaign for attorney general, Hawley made a big deal out of decrying “career politicians,” or people who are only in politics for themselves and are only trying to run for an office so they can run for a higher one in the future. He then accused his opponent of being a career politician, and as such said she was unable to effectively do the job of attorney general because political concerns would get in the way of her judgment—unlike Hawley who sought no higher office and would focus only on enforcing the law and protecting Missouri voters.

That was the idea, anyway. He even went so far as to make several ads featuring this argument in which he swore to voters repeatedly that he would serve out his full term as attorney general. Just nine months into his four-year term as attorney general, Hawley announced he was quitting to run against McCaskill.

Aside from the obvious hypocrisy here, I was amazed that I couldn’t really find a decent response from Hawley about this during his senate campaign. The best response I found to a question specifically about this was from a CNN article: “‘No, no, no,’ Josh Hawley said, suddenly animated. ‘No. No. No. Not on the agenda.’”

He was responding to criticism raised by both Democrats and Republicans, that his swift rise made him a political opportunist who was looking ahead to a senate bid when he ran for attorney general two years ago.

“That’s a hard no…. It was not anything — no, that was not on the brain,” Hawley said.

Although Hawley’s defenders are right, there’s no way to know for sure what was “on the brain,” it does seem suspicious that he would so readily abandon what seemed to be one of his core principles—standing against career politicians and opportunism—without so much as a thorough explanation as to why.

In addition, after running for attorney general on an anti-corruption platform, Hawley seems to have assimilated quite well into the pay-to-play culture in the state capitol. Despite promising to form a public corruption unit and be tough in investigating corruption by state officials, Hawley refused to seriously investigate corruption claims against former Gov. Eric Greitens.

There were several allegations that Greitens had misused information and funds from a veterans’ charity he started, but Hawley refused to investigate them until it would have been politically harmful for him to continue to do so. When forced into a situation where he had to investigate Greitens in regards to the former governor’s misuse of an encrypted messaging app called Confide, he quickly cleared him on all counts after an investigation where Hawley did not collect any evidence or even interview Greitens. Maybe it all has something to do with the $50,000 Greitens gave him?

We should mention also Hawley’s relationship with GOP megadonor David Humphreys, who donated nearly $3 million to Hawley’s attorney general campaign in 2016. Humphreys was then accused of pay-to-play corruption after the election involving an alleged scheme with State Sen. Ron Richard (R-District 32) to weaken Missouri’s consumer protection laws in exchange for campaign contributions. When pressed by bipartisan critics to investigate the claims, Hawley refused and deferred the matter to a local prosecutor.

Here’s the thing: nothing Hawley did was remotely illegal. Refusing to investigate Greitens until he had no choice, only doing the bare minimum whenever he had to, going back on his campaign promises, refusing to touch the Humphreys case and getting in bed with major swamp monsters like Humphreys and the Koch Brothers aren’t against the law, but they do show who the real Josh Hawley is. The anti-careerism and the grassroots rhetoric are just a façade, a mirage to give the impression of principle in the face of an opponent—McCaskill—who had been a resident of the swamp long before he had arrived on the political scene. Unfortunately, it worked.

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​Bernie Sanders, in 2020, with the social justice warriors

I know what you’re thinking: here we go again. It seems like only yesterday I was waiting up late to see the final results of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, and here we are now about to start the same process all over again.

But however annoying or repetitive this business of politics and voting may be to you, it’s important to understand that the outcomes of all elections that you’re able to vote in have a direct impact on your daily life. You may not know it yet, but it’s true. Whether or not Trump wins reelection, hell, whether or not your mayor or state legislator wins reelection is going to have an impact on the biggest issues facing our society. A looming climate change crisis, continuously widening inequality, a political system in need of significant reform, a broken, racist criminal justice system and crumbling infrastructure are all urgent issues.

Which is why, for those of us serious about dealing with these issues in a proactive way, choosing a presidential candidate who will address them without fear of how the establishment or mainstream media will react is critical. I believe the candidate who best fits this description is Sen. Bernie Sanders.

I’m supporting Bernie not because of who he is, but because of what he stands for and what he’s been fighting for his entire life. When Sen. Sanders was in college he participated in protests and civil disobedience as part of the Civil Rights Movement—he was even arrested on one occasion for his activism, and chaining himself to fellow activists on another. He also marched with Dr. King in Washington and attended the “I Have A Dream” speech. As someone who is incensed with the resurgence of overtly anti-Semitic and racist political speech (see: Charlottesville or the Donald Trump campaign for President), I believe we need someone who has a deep background in fighting for civil rights and racial equality, not only when it suits their immediate political interest but throughout their entire life.

I understand that some people have criticized Bernie for appearing, in 2016, to focus on economic injustice rather than racial inequality, however, I would contend that racial justice and particularly criminal justice reform and protecting voting rights have always been a key part of his platform. Although it’s true that his stump speeches tend to focus on economic issues like the need for universal healthcare or pro-worker trade policies, what detractors often leave out is that securing economic justice will by definition disproportionately help people of color who have been left on average poorer than whites by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

If anything, we should be questioning why other candidates have only just now seemingly come around to Bernie’s positions on economic issues despite claiming to have always been supporters of racial equality. You can’t have one without the other, something Bernie has clearly understood all along.

Furthermore, Bernie is the strongest candidate on key economic issues that would have a massive, positive impact on the lives of all working and middle-class people in this country. Medicare for All would save families and businesses money while providing healthcare to all people as a right and lowering the cost of prescription drugs and healthcare overall. Making public colleges and technical schools tuition-free would significantly ease the debt burden that students have to carry and improve access to higher education for those with good enough grades. Ending the war on drugs and legalizing marijuana would do much to fix the criminal justice system, while also raising money. And reversing the Trump tax cuts and enacting progressive tax reform would provide enough money to fund greater public investment in these policies and others to improve our country while tackling the growing problem of income inequality. Sanders has also been a longtime advocate of the Green New Deal and serious climate action in general, which is sure to be a major issue.

I understand that there is still a lot of trepidation among liberals and leftists about Bernie Sanders, despite his lifetime of fighting for progressive causes even when no one else in the Democratic Party would. But in my opinion, it seems that Bernie Sanders is already the leader of the Democratic Party. It was he who brought Medicare-for-All, $15 minimum wage, free college and the Green New Deal to the forefront of Democratic politics. It was he who inspired thousands of people across the country to get involved in politics and run for office for the first time, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasion-Cortez. It was he who got pay raises for Amazon and Disney workers. And it was he, along with Rep. Ro Khanna, who started the conversation on ending the War in Yemen. Bernie Sanders may not be the only progressive running for president, but he’s the only one who’s been consistent in his views for his whole life, and I’m proud to say he’s the first presidential candidate I’ll be voting for.

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The Swamp in Action the Tale of Claire McCaskill

If you don’t know, Claire McCaskill was one of Missouri’s two U.S. senators, representing the state for two terms before being unseated by Josh Hawley in 2018. If you were paying attention to that campaign and to Sen. McCaskill’s record in general, then you were probably not so surprised to see MSNBC hire her as a political analyst after her reelection ended in defeat. Which raises the question: How, at a time when thousands of hardworking journalists who make middle-to-working-class wages are being laid off and quality, unbiased journalism is increasingly elusive, could MSNBC possibly justify hiring Claire McCaskill?

It’s not like she has anything particularly new to offer in terms of political analysis, being mostly in lockstep with “centrist,” pro-business dogma, and she clearly doesn’t have any popular support in Missouri even among her base. So why hire her and not put her compensation towards hiring actual journalists?

The answer may not surprise you, and it’s much the same reason we discovered last week for Beto O’Rourke’s sudden rise to the heights of mainstream media adoration: McCaskill, like O’Rourke, is a proud resident of the Swamp.

To be clear, I use the term “swamp” in a mostly sarcastic sense. I’m not a Trump supporter nor was I ever, and I voted for McCaskill. But the more I learn, the more disgusted I am with the political and economic establishment of this country, especially corrupt politicians like McCaskill.

The first major evidence of systemic corruption in McCaskill’s office came in 2011 when it was discovered that she used taxpayer money to fund 89 trips on private jets. This isn’t out of the ordinary; it often makes more sense to fly private if you have a whole campaign staff to transport. The problem was that McCaskill admitted only one of these flights was for an explicitly political purpose, and even worse, that the company which the taxpayer money had gone to was owned by herself and her husband, Joseph Shepard. She eventually refunded the Treasury after facing public pressure.

The starkest indication of the kind of politician McCaskill is, though, comes with an explanation of her relationship to nursing home owner Rick DeStefane, a longtime family friend and frequent donor to Republicans and Democrats alike—and to McCaskill in particular. For example, DeStefane donated $30,000 total to Chris Koster’s 2016 campaign for governor, quickly backtracking and sending checks to Greitens and other high-level Republicans after Koster lost. The interesting part is that DeStefane’s nursing home company has been notoriously negligent, and had to settle a lawsuit with the federal government in 2017 which uncovered widespread Medicare fraud.

Essentially DeStefane’s company overcharged the taxpayers for treatment they either didn’t give or forcefully gave to patients who didn’t need it. Despite taking on nursing home corruption and elder abuse a key tenet of McCaskill’s original Senate campaign, she appears to have done very little, if anything at all, in terms of legislation to prevent this or punish companies who conduct such abuse in a systematic manner for the sake of profit. Maybe it has something to do with the lake house her husband and DeStefane jointly own via an LLC that they also jointly own? In addition, although McCaskill has refunded donations from other sources for far less, she has never refunded a dime from DeStefane.

These are just a few examples, of course. Since she’s been in Washington, McCaskill has received millions from special interest groups, corporate lobbyists and rich executives. Who knows what other deals she’s made, promises she’s kept to people who’ve never even been to Missouri?

Which is why, when she claims that “It’s obvious from my record that I fight every day for Missourians, including Missouri seniors—and clearly there’s nothing other than what’s best for Missouri that has, or would ever, impact my work in the Senate….” I don’t believe her and neither should you.

But why the job at MSNBC? It’s not like she’s strapped for cash, being worth over $60 million if you take into account her husband’s wealth. No, the reason she got hired at MSNBC is because they play the exact same swamp games that enabled McCaskill to massively outspend her opponent, and still lose.

If you’ve read the Beto article, this is the part where politicians who’ve been funded by elites for so long actually begin to believe the narrative spun by the media companies funded or owned by those same elites—so much so that she is now ready and willing to become a part-time propagandist for the people who used to donate to her reelection campaigns.

Don’t believe me?

Then look at the very first thing she did after being hired: attack Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the first “big D” Democrat in years to actually take a stand against the elites and status quo that made McCaskill rich.

(Tweet @JakobBenedetti if you have suggestions for the next edition of “The Swamp in Action.”)

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The Swamp in Action: The Tale of Beto O’Rourke

For the past several months, as gossip about the impending Democratic primaries has ramped up, one name that’s been thrust into the spotlight is that of former Rep. Beto O’Rourke—who narrowly failed at unseating Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. At face value, his inclusion in these conversations is logical.

O’Rourke is certainly a charismatic guy and a skilled orator, and has a broadly liberal platform. Winning a Texas Senate primary and a Democratic presidential primary are two different things, however, especially after certain details about O’Rourke’s record in Congress were revealed by journalist David Sirota, among others. Sirota showed that O’Rourke voted with Republicans on key parts of Trump’s agenda, including support for weakening Wall Street regulations and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, waiving liability for utility companies who cause environmental harm and passing another round of massive tax cuts for the rich—in addition to a failed Republican plan to undermine protections for preexisting conditions.

Normally, all these votes would be non-starters in a presidential primary where they would undoubtedly haunt him from the moment he announced his candidacy. The reaction to these revelations, however, was mixed.

On one hand, many people were rightly disgusted at these votes and soured on O’Rourke as a potential candidate, especially after we also learned that he broke a promise not to take money from fossil fuel companies or executives in his Senate campaign. Yet there were many people, especially those on TV news, who rejected Sirota’s reporting. They decried his work as yet another attack of the “Bernie bros,” and proceeded to launch personal attacks against Sirota and anyone who listened to him.

The question I think we need to ask ourselves, is how we got to a place in our political discourse where investigative journalism uncovering disturbing facts about a politician’s record could be seriously considered out of line in any way? How did we get to a point where suggesting that a congressman who represents one of the bluest districts in the country shouldn’t vote with the Republicans literally 30 percent of the time is somehow considered taboo?

The answer is simple: follow the money. If you want to know why O’Rourke voted against consumers and people with preexisting conditions and for fossil fuel companies and the wealthy, all we must do is look at who financed his campaign. Despite signing a pledge to not accept money from fossil fuel companies or executives, an investigation by Sludge revealed that O’Rourke did just that. This caused the organizers of the pledge to remove his name from their list. Neither they nor Sludge were able to reach him for comment.

When these donations are taken into account, O’Rourke was second only to Ted Cruz himself in terms of the money received from fossil fuel companies in 2018. Coincidentally, Beto has not signed onto the Green New Deal or any other major climate legislation. In addition, most of the “Beto-hype” in the media has been driven by members of Third Way, a pro-business think tank in Washington that is almost entirely comprised of and funded by Wall Street executives. No wonder he’s in favor of deregulating Wall Street.

But why the backlash to these revelations about O’Rourke’s record? It’s not like these economic elites are also funding the mainstream media networks.

Except, they are.

Here’s how it all works: first, wealthy elites such as pharmaceutical company executives or Wall Street bankers buy advertising on, or simply buy outright, media companies while simultaneously funding “think tanks” in Washington. These think tanks advocate for the best interest of the people paying them, which usually means lobbying lawmakers to adopt austerity and voodoo economics as a guiding principle and to deregulate all major industry. These lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, then take campaign contributions from PACS and SuperPACS also set up by these elites, or, in the case of O’Rourke, directly from elites themselves.

They then go on the news outlets owned by these same elites in order to aid the hosts with propagandizing the American people into falsely believing that the best interest of billionaires is also their best interest. Then, when members of the public and other journalists begin to push back with accurate reporting on the corruption and gaslighting taking place, the mainstream press and establishment politicians decry the dissidents as sexist “Bernie bros” who know nothing about how the government works. Ironic.

Make no mistake: this episode with O’Rourke and Sirota is the swamp in action. Uncovering previously unknown details about a politician’s record is literally the core function of investigative political journalism. Look, O’Rourke isn’t all bad, but at a certain point we either choose to reject the swamp and all of the politicians and so-called journalists who comprise it, or we submit to the whims of a wealthy few and allow our country to slip ever closer to outright oligarchy.

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Previewing the 2020 Presidential Election

If you thought you could forget about politics for a while now that the midterms are over, think again. The first stages of the 2020 election have already begun in the form of the “invisible primary,” where potential candidates analyze the race and attempt to sway party leaders and donors to their side.

There are as many as two dozen potential candidates on the Democratic side—a few of whom have already announced their intention to run. So far, candidates who’ve already declared they’re running include Maryland Congressman John Delaney, West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda and New York entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Although none of these candidates will likely end up winning, the fact that the 2020 primary field is already almost as large as the 2016 field foreshadows a potentially massive list of candidates vying for the chance to take on Donald Trump.

Speaking of Trump, he’s the only Republican who says he’s running, however a number of Republicans have expressed an interest in running against him in the primary. These include outgoing senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, as well as John Kasich, outgoing governor, who has also floated the idea of running as an independent with Democrat John Hickenlooper, a fellow outgoing governor. In my opinion, anyone who runs against Trump in the primary will be absolutely demolished—no chance at all. Anywhere between 81 percent and 88 percent of Republican voters approve of Trump’s performance. As for the split-ticket idea, if the goal is to spoil the election in favor of the Democrats, then it will surely succeed, but no Republican is going to be president in 2020 except for Trump—barring extreme circumstances (looking at you, Mueller).

But let’s go back to the Democratic side. As we said, there are as many as two dozen potential candidates, and the media has been speculating for months who will actually run. To make this easier, we’re going to separate the potential candidates into three tiers.

The first tier is made up of candidates who have a large national profile, who have taken actions that presidential candidates usually take and who have expressed at least some interest in running (this is not an exhaustive list, don’t @ me). This includes Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Sherrod Brown and former Vice President Joe Biden. These are candidates who’ve written books, who’ve travelled to Iowa and New Hampshire (the first two primary states) and who’ve been open in building their national brands and organizations. The only question is which of these candidates will ultimately decide to run.

The second tier of candidates are those with smaller national profiles, but who’ve gotten their name into the mainstream by holding some lower elected office or catching the media’s attention. These include John Delaney and Richard Ojeda—who I mentioned before—as well as Congressman Tim Ryan, outgoing governors Terry McAuliffe, John Hickenlooper and Steve Bullock. Former NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg; New Orleans mayor, Mitch Landrieu; Los Angeles mayor, Eric Garcetti; and former Obama-staffer, Julian Castro, as well as failed U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke are also included in this tier. The eventual winner of the primary is unlikely to come from this group, but it’s still entirely possible. Obama was considered a low-tier candidate in 2008 and he ended up winning. However, the number of candidates from this group who end up running will probably only determine how large the primary field is—thus how split the vote is between the more well-known candidates.

The third tier of candidates are those that have no real business becoming POTUS, in my opinion, and basically are only in the conversation because of the media. These include Michael Avenatti, Tom Steyer, Mark Cuban, Howard Schultz, Oprah and Dwayne Johnson. Right now, it looks like Avenatti and Steyer may very well run, which should make the primaries more interesting at least.

The 2020 elections are already shaping up to be even more crowded than 2016, and maybe even more raucous with Trump looking at a potential attempt to primary him and the Democrats having an extremely wide field to choose from. In my view, if the Republicans were smart they would try to primary Trump, however it seems like any such challenge would fail. If the Democrats were smart and wanted to be sure they could defeat Trump, I think they would nominate Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren and stay away from corporate Democrats and candidates in the third tier.

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