MARCH 20, 2020
PROGRESSIVE
OPINION AND NEWS
TO WATCH THE
ROUNDTABLE, GO TO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBstcJ2GjGQ.
Published on
Friday, March
20, 2020
byCommon Dreams
As #WhereIsJoe
Biden Trends, Sanders to Host Coronavirus Roundtable to Address Pandemic
"Trump is
in front of the cameras every day, reassuring people, putting on the appearance
of 'leadership,'" said one Democratic critic. "Where is Biden? Why
isn't he dominating the airwaves?"
byJon Queally,
staff writer
PHOTOGRAPH -- Democratic
presidential frontrunner Joe Biden is seen on stage as he and Senator Bernie
Sanders take part in the 11th Democratic Party 2020 presidential debate in a
CNN Washington Bureau studio in Washington, DC on March 15, 2020. (Photo:
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
While users on
social media asked Friday why Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden
appears to be missing in action on the coronvirus crisis—causing the
#WhereIsJoe hashtag to trend— Sen. Bernie Sanders indicated his intention to
remain focused on the global pandemic by announcing a virtual roundtable event
focused on the crisis.
The campaigns
of both remaining Democratic contenders have been dramatically curtailed by the
infectious disease, but Sanders—who remains a sitting member of the U.S.
Senate—has been much more active and vocal on the subject of how to manage the
outbreak over the last week, even as his presidential hopes have been dashed by
repeated primary losses to Biden.
On Tuesday, Sanders
released a blueprint for what he believes is necessary to fight the pandemic
while also protecting working families and the nation's most vulnerable from
economic fallout. Called "An Emergency Response to the Coronavirus
Pandemic," the plan sets forth a series of principles alongside detailed
policies that guarantee healthcare coverage related to both testing and
treatment of the virus be fully covered at no cost, would establish an
Emergency Economic Finance Agency to manage the crisis, and create a separate
oversight agency designed to protect consumers from price-gouging and corporate
corruption.
While Biden
also released a coronavirus action proposal—the "Plan to Combat
Coronavirus (Covid-19) and Prepare for Future Global Health Threats"—the
former vice president has been noticeably absent from the airwaves despite
largely being seen as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Biden has pitched
himself as the best candidate to take on President Donald Trump over his
presidential mismanagement and crass leadership—a critique that others say is
now more relevant than ever given Trump's egregious handling of the coronavirus
outbreak.
As Peter Daou,
Democratic operative and Sanders supporter, stated on Twitter:
Peter Daou
✔
@peterdaou
People, I mean
this sincerely: #whereisjoe?
Trump is in
front of the cameras every day, reassuring people, putting on the appearance of
"leadership."
Where is
#Biden? Why isn't he dominating the airwaves???
11.3K
12:08 PM - Mar
20, 2020
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"While
Bernie Sanders leads," wrote historian Christo Aivalis, "Joe Biden is
hiding. In this crucial moment, Americans need leadership, and they aren't
getting from the man already being crowned as the Democratic nominee."
Journalist and
co-founder of The Intercept Jeremy Scahill, tweeted: "We were all told
that we desperately need Joe Biden’s leadership and experience. Now all we have
to do is find him."
jeremy scahill
✔
@jeremyscahill
· 3h
We were all
told that we desperately need Joe Biden’s leadership and experience. Now all we
have to do is find him.
jeremy scahill
✔
@jeremyscahill
How can anyone
who is excited about Joe Biden being the nominee defend his remarkable lack of
anything even vaguely resembling leadership at this crucial moment? And
staffers posting tweets on his feed doesn’t count.
2,349
1:58 PM - Mar
20, 2020
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In an Common
Dreams column Thursday, progressive activist Norman Solomon argued that the
coronavirus crisis offers a serious opportunity to compare the governming
styles and ideological commitments of Sanders and Biden—especially as a
contrast to Trump and the Republicans.
According to
Solomon, "the differences between what Biden and Sanders are advocating
have enormous implications for what could be done to curb the deadly virus in
this country."
The Biden vs.
Sanders vs. coronavirus question, Solomon wrote, "is not only an electoral
contest between presidential candidates. It's also a contrast of patchwork
fixes vs. profound structural changes. Refusal to upset the apple carts of
corporate power vs. willingness to fight that power. Tepid adjustments vs.
truly transformational agendas."
As people
across the country increasingly realize that key planks of the Sanders
agenda—from Medicare to All to paid sick leave to better labor
protections—would make a world of difference in combatting the virus, the
shortcomings of the status quo, including the nation's tattered safety net and
the bottomless greed of its for-profit healthcare system, are also coming into
to sharp relief:
Meagan Day
✔
@meaganmday
Less than a
week ago Joe Biden insisted there’s no connection between single-payer
healthcare and coronavirus, while Chris Cuomo complained that Bernie Sanders
would “try to make it a healthcare issue”
https://twitter.com/abbyvesoulis/status/1240994625739018253 …
Abby Vesoulis
✔
@abbyvesoulis
An uninsured
COVID-19 patient just got her medical bill: $34,927.43. @abbyabrams has the
story. https://time.com/5806312/coronavirus-treatment-cost/ …
4,047
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20, 2020
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Jen Perelman
For Congress
✔
@JENFL23
This is why I
can not support Biden.
Despite a
#pandemic, he is siding with Big Pharma over providing an affordable vaccine to
#coronavirus patients.
If we do not
hold our politicans accountable during a crisis, then when?#JEN2020
#MedicareForAllhttps://www.google.com/amp/s/prospect.org/api/amp/coronavirus/biden-sides-with-big-pharma-against-affordable-coronavirus-v/
…
Biden Sides
With Big Pharma Against Affordable Coronavirus Vaccine Plan
Unlike Sanders
and other Democrats, Joe Biden has not embraced a key executive authority:
cutting the cost of a possible coronavirus vaccine and other pharmaceuticals
developed with federal research...
prospect.org
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2020
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FROM READING
THIS ARTICLE, IT’S CLEAR THAT BIDEN HAS SIDED WITH RIGHT-LEANING FORCES,
PARTICULARLY THE DRUG MANUFACTURERS, NOT JUST RECENTLY BUT DOWN THROUGH TIME.
MOST DISAPPOINTINGLY IT WAS PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON WHO ALLOWED THE AUTHORITY TO
MANDATE FAIR PRICING ON DRUGS BY THE NIH TO BE REMOVED. THAT’S WHAT A NEW
DEMOCRAT IS FROM THEIR INCEPTION, IT LOOKS LIKE.
WHO LED THE
FIGHT AGAINST THIS IN THE FORM OF AN AMENDMENT? REP BERNIE SANDERS AND SENATOR
PAUL WELLSTONE. IT WAS DEFEATED. SANDERS HIMSELF, ACCORDING TO THIS ARTICLE,
DID TAKE SOME $400,000 FROM PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES, AND APPARENTLY IN THIS
ELECTION CYCLE. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT THE SOURCE OF THAT INFORMATION IS, AND
WHAT SANDERS HIMSELF HAS TO SAY ABOUT IT. THAT ISN’T GOOD, CONSIDERING HIS
STANCE ON SUCH MATTERS. IT WILL TEND TO WEAKEN THE PUBLIC FAITH IN HIM. FOR
COMPARISON, THOUGH, TRUMP HAS TAKEN $752,000 AND BIDEN $1.34 MILLION. BITE NOT
THE HAND THAT FEEDETH THEE.
Biden Sides
With Big Pharma Against Affordable Coronavirus Vaccine Plan
Unlike Sanders
and other Democrats, Joe Biden has not embraced a key executive authority:
cutting the cost of a possible coronavirus vaccine and other pharmaceuticals
developed with federal research dollars.
BY DONALD SHAW MARCH
19, 2020
PHOTOGRAPH -- STAR
SHOOTER/MEDIAPUNCH/IPX
Former Vice
President Joe Biden delivers an address on combating the coronavirus at the
Hotel Du Pont in Wilmington, Delaware, March 2020.
Sludge produces
investigative journalism on lobbying and money in politics. The American
Prospect is re-publishing this article.
The
pharmaceutical lobby scored a major win earlier this month when it stopped
House Democrats from adding language to the emergency coronavirus funding bill
that would have pressured drug companies to make coronavirus vaccines
affordable. Instead, the industry secured language in the bill that prevents
the government from taking any action to address vaccine prices that could
delay their development.
There are,
however, existing executive powers that could be used to keep
coronavirus vaccine prices low. In 1980, when Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act
establishing procedures for private companies to patent inventions built upon government-funded
research, it created a safety valve allowing the government to break such
patents when companies fail to satisfy the health and safety needs of
consumers.
The authority,
known as “march-in rights,”* lets the government seize patents in these
cases and license the rights to responsible third parties. The authority
could likely be used for vaccines like the one currently being developed by Moderna
in partnership with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID).
It will be at
least a year until a vaccine is ready, according to NIAID Director Dr.
Anthony Fauci, and the question is whether whoever is president then
will be willing to use this power against the drug companies.
Unlike many of
the leading Democrats who ran in the presidential primary, former Vice President
Joe Biden has not embraced the use of march-in rights against pharmaceutical
companies. In October, The Hill surveyed Democratic presidential candidates
on their willingness to use march-in rights and found that Senator Bernie
Sanders (D-Vt.), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Senator Kamala Harris
(D-Calif.) and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg either included the
idea in their pharmaceutical policy platforms or told the reporters that they
were supportive of it.
Biden does not
call for using march-in rights in his campaign materials and he did not
respond to The Hill’s questions on the matter. Sludge asked the Biden
campaign on March 16 if Biden would be open to invoking march-in rights for coronavirus
drugs built upon NIH research, but, like The Hill, did not receive a
response.
In not
embracing march-in rights, Biden is aligned with the pharmaceutical industry,
which launched a coalition led by two of its top lobbying groups, Pharmaceutical
Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and The Biotechnology Industry
Organization (BIO), to push back against calls for using the authority.
Biden’s
COVID-19 plan calls for new authority for the Department of Health
and Human Services Secretary to approve the commercial price of vaccines
developed with federally funded research. Such authority would either
require an act of Congress, which has not shown an ability to go against
the pharmaceutical lobby, or specific language to be included in drug
development contracts. For the many coronavirus drugs already being
developed, such as the vaccine candidate currently being tested by NIH and
Moderna, it’s likely too late for contractual language to be added.
The
pharmaceutical industry has given Biden far more campaign money than anyone
else who has run for president this cycle, including President Trump.
Joe Biden’s campaign and the outside groups backing him have taken over
$1.34 million from the pharmaceuticals and health products industry, according
to the Center for Responsive Politics. For context, Trump has received
about $752,000 from the industry this cycle, while Sanders has received
about $422,000.
The Biden
campaign’s ties to the drug industry go much deeper than the contributions
it has received. His campaign chairman and top aide, Steve Richetti, is a
longtime healthcare lobbyist who has personally represented drugmakers
Novartis, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Sanofi on issues related to pricing and patents,
among other matters.
The pharmaceutical
industry has given Biden far more campaign money than anyone else who has run
for president this cycle, including President Trump.
The pro-Biden
super PAC, Unite the Country, which has spent over $11.8 million
supporting Biden so far, is led by multiple individuals with ties to the
pharmaceutical industry. Among its leaders is longtime Biden friend
Larry Rasky, the founder, chairman and CEO of Rasky Partners, a lobbying
firm whose pharmaceutical clients have included Eli Lilly. Another member of
the super PAC’s professional team, Amanda Loveday, is an associate director
of NP Strategy, a public relations shop launched by corporate law
firm Nexsen Pruet, which has clients in the healthcare and pharmaceutical
industries. Unite the Country board member Mark Riddle has
previously served on the board of a centrist think tank, the New Democrat
Network, that received funding from the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America, the drug industry’s top lobbying group.
Last month,
House Democrats pushed to have march-in rights for coronavirus treatments
codified in the emergency funding bill. That effort was abandoned due to opposition
from the Trump administration and Senate Republicans. Senior Chief Deputy
Whip and Energy and Commerce Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee
Chair Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) then led 45 of her colleagues
in sending a letter to Trump on the matter, and she sent a separate letter
to Health and Human Services Secretary and former Eli Lilly president Alex
Azar on March 2.
“You must
understand that the House of Representatives would find it unacceptable if the
rights to produce and market that vaccine were subsequently handed over to a
pharmaceutical manufacturer through an exclusive license with no conditions
on pricing or access, allowing the company to charge whatever it would like and
essentially selling the vaccine back to the public who paid for its
development,” Schakowsky wrote to Azar.
Despite the
Democrats’ pleas, the pharmaceutical lobby prevailed. The Democrats’
language on march-in rights was not included in the bill and new language
was added to specify that HHS could not take any action stemming from
concerns over pricing of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics that could delay
development of such products. The language is so broad that some observers believe
drug companies could use it to block any effort to reduce prices, including
march-in, by claiming that it reduces incentives to innovate.
Last year, Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked a bipartisan House bill
to lower the price of some prescription drugs through Medicare negotiation
after a surge in large campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical
industry.
The Biden
campaign has received large contributions from many executives and board
members of pharmaceutical companies and lobbying groups, including PhRMA Vice
President Carl Meacham ($1,658), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals board chairman Roy
Vagelos ($2,800), Dendreon Pharmaceuticals Chief Operating Officer Christina Yi
($2,800), and Takeda Pharmaceuticals Vice President Joel Posener ($1,000).
Among Biden’s bundlers who have raised at least $25,000 for the campaign
is David Scheer, who is a board member of pharmaceutical companies including
Esperion Therapeutics, OraPharma, and ViroPharma.
In September of
last year, Bloomberg News reported that Biden told a private gathering of
donors at a surgeon’s home in Dallas, Texas that there were “great drug
companies out there—except a couple of opioid outfits.” At the second Democratic
debate in July, Biden supported smaller-scale cost controls for prescription
drugs, tweaking the Affordable Care Act, instead of Medicare for All’s proposed
provisions allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices with
corporations.
Until 1995, the NIH
had authority to require companies to make drugs based on public research
available at reasonable prices. As The Intercept reports, this “reasonable
pricing” authority was stripped by the Clinton administration in 1995 at
the behest of the pharmaceutical lobby. Amendments were offered in
Congress to restore the authority—in the House by then-Rep. Bernie Sanders and
in the Senate by Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.)—but were defeated. When the
measure was brought up in the Senate, Biden was one of eight Democrats who
voted with Republicans to table and kill the amendment.
This article
has been updated to clarify the date Sludge asked the Biden campaign if
Biden would be willing to use march-in rights for coronavirus drugs.
DONALD SHAW
Donald Shaw is
a money-in-politics reporter and a co-founder of Sludge.
HEALTH &
SOCIAL POLICY POLITICS SCIENCE, TECH, ENVIRONMENT CAMPAIGN SPENDING ELECTION
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“MARCH-IN
RIGHTS”*
GO TO THE WAPO
WEBSITE BELOW TO READ THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE ON MARCH-IN RIGHTS IN REGARD TO
DRUGS. APPARENTLY THE MARCH-IN RIGHTS STILL ARE IN FORCE, BUT THIS ARTICLE
GIVES USEFUL INFORMATION.
A rare
deterrent to limitless drug price increases may die under Trump
CLEARLY BERNIE
CAN DO TWO THINGS AT ONE TIME. LOOK AT THE MEASURES THAT OUR MAINSTREAM
DEMOCRATS ARE PUSHING. IT MAKES ME ANGRY AND WORRIED ALL IN ONE KNOTTED BALL,
LIKE THE YARN AFTER THE KITTEN GETS INTO IT.
WEB ONLY /
VIEWS » MARCH 19, 2020
While
Mainstream Democrats Fumble, Bernie Sanders Is Modeling a Serious Response to
Coronavirus
Democrats make
a huge mistake by shying away from a robust material response to the crisis.
BY NATALIE
SHURE
PHOTOGRAPH -- Bernie
Sanders is one of the few legislators offering bold solutions to the crisis.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
We are facing
an emergency that will lay bare every gross inequality in American life.
The escalating
coronavirus pandemic, still in its early days in the United States, has
already upended American life. Within days, the country’s residents have begun
to transition into an unprecedented phase of social lockdown: many
workplaces have required or encouraged employees to work from home, and over 40
states have temporarily closed some or all schools. Across the country, public
gathering spaces including theatres, arenas, bars, restaurants and retailers
are also shuttered, furloughing or laying off thousands of workers.
The longer that
major sectors of the economy—largely kept humming by low-waged and tipped
workers—go without customers, the worse the aggregate impact of these
developments will be. As more and more workers lose their income amid the
coming major economic downturn, their ability to secure basic needs like
food, utilities, housing and healthcare will be seriously threatened.
Those who will
see their pay fall due to closures, business slumps or care duties in light of
canceled classes will still face ruinous financial obligations. Precarious
and poor workers will have little wiggle room as small business owners struggle
to keep shops open. Healthcare access will be hampered by tighter family
budgets and widespread loss of employer-sponsored insurance. This dire
situation clearly demands a dramatic political response, but so far many
Democrats have been reluctant to rise to the political moment.
To stave off
the extreme harms promised by the pandemic, Speaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) has resisted universal measures, opting instead for means-testing
in the face of unprecedented social chaos. The two-week sick leave bill
she championed contained major carve-outs**, comprising up to 80% of
the total workforce. The bill exempts employers with 500 workers or
more, and allows small employers to opt-out as well. Moreover, as Adam
Johnson and Sarah Lazare point out at Jacobin, the bill contains no provisions
for often precarious freelance and gig workers, leaving them more vulnerable
to the dual pressures of lost income and illness.
While Pelosi’s
defenders may be inclined to defend the move as the best possible result of a
painful compromise, that’s not the argument she herself made: “I don’t support
U.S. taxpayer money subsidizing corporations to provide benefits to workers
that they should already be providing,” Pelosi tweeted. Her deputy chief of
staff was even more explicit: “As congress considers the next steps, the
Speaker believes we should look at refundable tax credits, expanded UI &
direct payments - but MUST be targeted.”
Their
hesitation is especially troubling given that Republicans appear to be publicly
coalescing around the idea of universal cash relief. Sen. Mitt
Romney (R-Utah) expressed early support for the idea, proposing a $1,000 pay
out to every American. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told reporters at a
press conference Tuesday that the Trump administration planned to send out
checks within two weeks, while Pelosi reportedly remained steadfast in her
opposition. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), for her part, has put forward a
plan calling for $500 in payments to each family—a far more paltry sum.
To be sure, this
rhetorical divergence hardly suggests that Republicans are on the verge of
becoming a workers’ party, especially as many of their plans include means-testing.
But that they’re able to occupy even a rhetorical space to the left of a
disjointed message from elected Democrats is a failure—what Kate Aronoff at the
New Republic calls a “realignment from hell.” While expansions on the
widely panned bill are being debated among House Democrats, it’s unclear
whether these will replace, supplant or simply act as bargaining leverage over
further legislation.
The coronavirus
pandemic presents an opportunity to make an urgent case that very few
elected officials so far are making: We are facing an emergency that will lay
bare every gross inequality in American life, and the only hope of mitigating
the mass suffering that lies ahead is a colossal public investment
in what’s necessary to ensure dignified lives.
Keeping
families stable requires universality and equity, which can be corrected later
through progressive taxation. Forcing people to contend with administrative
quagmires in the midst of a crisis guarantees that far too many fall into
the cracks. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has presented a bold $2 trillion plan
including direct monthly cash payouts of $2,000 to every household, 100%
payment of unemployment benefits for everyone who loses their job as a result
of the crisis as well as moratoriums on evictions, foreclosures, utility
shutoffs and loan payments. A similar set of proposals was put forward
Wednesday by House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters, including
billions of dollars in grants to small businesses.
These are the
types of policies [that] begin to meet the scale of the crisis—and represent
the clear way forward for a party that claims to represent working people.
When asked by a
reporter about his plans for his ailing presidential campaign in light of the
coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday, Sanders responded, “I’m dealing with a
fucking global crisis…right now I’m trying to do my best to make sure we don’t
have an economic meltdown and that people don’t die. Is that enough for you to
keep busy today?”
That’s the type
of urgency this crisis requires, and Sanders, Waters and other left-leaning
officials are showing what real leadership looks like under these dire
conditions. Democratic leaders should join in and get busy with them.
Support
nonprofit journalism
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is ramping up to provide you with increased coverage during the coronavirus
crisis, and our online content will remain free to all.
If it is within
your means, please consider making a donation to help fund our journalism
during this critical time.
NATALIE SHURE
Natalie Shure
is a Los Angeles-based writer and researcher whose work focuses on history,
health, and politics.
CARVE-OUTS*
What is a
“carve-out” in health insurance?
Reviewed on
January 12, 2017 / 0 reviews
To sum it up...
A carve-out
plan involves one health insurance provider excluding coverage for specific
situations or conditions while another carrier provides coverage for these
excluded conditions
Carve-out plans
are mostly preferred by employers because they offer a cost-effective way of
providing health insurance for employees
Big employers
who self-insure their employees have a vast array of carve-out options such as
cancer, trauma, cardiac care, neonatal intensive care and organ transplant
Before signing
up for your employer’s health insurance policy, find out whether it’s a
carve-out plan and what risks are excluded if so
If there is one
facet of health insurance whose understanding eludes a lot of people, it’s the
carve-out health insurance plan. Basically, carve-out plans cobble coverage
together via several different carriers. Typically, carve-out plans are offered
by employers who self-insure their employees.
Sometimes,
carve-out plans are reserved for high ranking company executives, a low-risk
subgroup of employees. When this happens, the rest of the company’s employees
may be left without necessary health insurance coverage.
In a business
setting, carve-out health insurance policies need an able leadership and strong
management capable of negotiating appropriate coverage for employees in carved
out health insurance plans.
Enter your zip
code above to find a health insurance plan from one of your state’s top
provider!
Carve-Out Plan:
Definition
Sometimes,
self-insuring employers can isolate specific risks and use a third party vendor
to cover them. The third party vendor will assume financial risk and receive a
flat fee from the company in exchange for coverage.
This health
insurance coverage situation is referred to as carve-out health insurance.
Services
Offered via Carve-Out Health Insurance Plans
A man writing a
numerical list
Employers, over
the past few years, have carved out health insurance plans in several specialty
areas. Some of these areas include:
High-priced
health services such as burn units and organ transplants
Visual services
Dental services
Pharmac.
Mental health
. . . .
Paid Curve-Out
[sic] Plan for Extra Protection
adobestock_66382055-1600x1600
As a patient,
you can opt to pay extra for a carve-out plan if deemed fit. The additional
coverage will be offered by a third party vendor on top of your standard health
insurance coverage.
The carve-out
plan will cater for the costs associated with chronic illness, prescription
medication, and other forms of specialized products or care. It is a good way
to supplement your employer-provided health insurance coverage.
“MOST PEOPLE I
TALK WITH ON THE PROGRESSIVE SIDE OF THE LEDGER, THEY’RE OF THE VIEW THAT IT’S
TIME TO GET ON WITH THIS....” EVERY TIME I SEE A STATEMENT LIKE THIS, I WONDER
WHO THOSE “PROGRESSIVES” ARE; JOE BIDEN, MAYBE? THERE ARE SOME 35 STATES LEFT
TO VOTE, AND THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS WILL ONLY HAMPER THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE A STRONG
ONLINE PRESENCE AS BERNIE DOES. IF BIDEN DOESN’T HAVE ONE, MAYBE HE NEEDS TO
GET ONE SET UP.
Progressives
debate Sanders's future
BY JONATHAN
EASLEY - 03/20/20 10:16 AM EDT
PHOTOGRAPH –
BERNIE SANDERS © Getty Images
Progressives
are debating what should come next for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose
once-promising second presidential bid has been all but snuffed out by former
Vice President Joe Biden.
Sanders is publicly
giving the appearance of winding down his campaign after a string of blowout
losses that has pushed Biden to a near-insurmountable lead in delegates.
The Vermont
senator has pulled his digital campaign ads and scaled back his fundraising
efforts. The coronavirus pandemic, meanwhile, has effectively pulled the
candidates off the campaign trail completely.
Some
progressives say the time has come for Sanders to throw in the towel so the
nation can focus on addressing the health crisis and so Democrats can move on
to the business of defeating President Trump in November.
“Politics takes
on a different aura when the nation is facing possibility of millions dying
from a pandemic, so the ups and downs of politics seem remarkably trivial in
comparison and I think that’s taken some of the wind out of Bernie’s sails,”
said Robert Reich, who served as Labor secretary under former President
Clinton.
“Most people I
talk with on the progressive side of the ledger, they’re of the view that it’s
time to get on with this. We know Joe Biden is going to be the nominee.
We’ve got to get Trump out, and there’s national emergency, so let’s move
along.”
But some of
Sanders’s allies see reasons for him to stay in.
The Vermont senator’s
supporters believe his presence in the race will keep the left engaged between
now and the Democratic convention in July, potentially delivering additional
down-ballot victories for progressives.
They believe
Sanders should continue to act as a liberal counterbalance for Biden, keeping
him sharp heading into the general election and giving him new opportunities to
win over Sanders’s supporters.
And they argue
that Sanders is not attacking Biden or doing anything that would harm him ahead
of his expected general election match-up with Trump.
“Sen. Sanders
can run an ideas-focused and positive race, and he’s actually much better at
that than he is at drawing contrasts anyway,” said Neil Sroka, a progressive
strategist with Democracy for America, which has endorsed Sanders.
“That’s good
for progressive power-building and might even be the best thing for
Biden if he ends up as the nominee. Biden won’t have an easier time gaining the
approval of Sanders’s supporters if Sanders is disengaged. And what would
happen for Joe between now and the convention? He’d basically disappear.
It’s good to have meaningful contests between now and then to keep him out
there and to give him opportunities to win over Sanders’s supporters in a
way that would be impossible if he were to leave the race tomorrow.”
There is also
incentive for Sanders to stay in the race to pull Biden further to the left.
Just hours
before their one-on-one debate last week, Biden announced that he supports
Sanders’s plan to make public colleges and universities free for families who
make less than $125,000 a year.
However, Biden
remains resistant to the left’s top policy goal of implementing "Medicare
for All." The former vice president has gone so far as to say that as
president he’d veto any Medicare for All bill passed by Congress.
That stance has
not hurt Biden in the slightest during the primaries. For instance, exit polls
in Mississippi found that nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters there support
Medicare for All, but Biden won every county in the state on his way to a
65-point victory.
Sanders is
clearly feeling pressure over his future, blowing up at a reporter on Capitol
Hill this week when he was asked about whether he’d stay in the race.
"I'm
dealing with a f---ing global crisis,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju. “Right now,
right now I'm trying to do my best to make sure that we don't have an economic
meltdown and that people don't die. Is that enough for you to keep me busy for
today?"
Sanders in
recent days has repurposed his campaign to focus almost exclusively on the
government response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a speech to
supporters on Tuesday, as voters were casting ballots in Florida, Illinois and
Arizona, Sanders didn’t even mention the elections or ask his supporters to get
out and vote for him.
Instead, he
used his address to lay out his health and economic plans for the virus.
The Vermont
senator is pushing to empower Medicare to cover all treatments and testing for
the disease, he wants to establish an agency to deal with the economic fallout
for working-class voters and he proposed creating an oversight agency to ensure
that corporations do not misspend the bailout money coming their way or
overcharge consumers during the panic.
Sanders said
he’s taking his proposals directly to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer
(D-N.Y.), and progressives are watching closely to see how leadership responds,
believing Sanders has banked truckloads of political capital and wondering if
he can turn it into sway on Capitol Hill.
The coronavirus,
liberals say, fits into Sanders’s wheelhouse, as it touches on the issues he’s
raised for years about the health care system, corporate oversight and new
protections for the working poor.
Among the items
being debated in Congress: Paid leave, a $15 minimum wage for companies that
need taxpayer assistance, government-administered health care and cash payouts
to those in need.
“The economic
fallout from this means that people could be far more open to radical change,”
said Sroka. “Everything broke in a clear way and you’re seeing socialism emerge
as a political force. I think this political generation awakening in this
moment and the need for an aggressive response in a lot of ways could be a
fulcrum or an acceleration on the path we’ve been on since the last financial
crisis.”
But Reich
argued that it’s impossible to know what lies beyond the coronavirus horizon.
He said that
any progressive changes that happen now will be short-term to deal with the
crisis, and that the only people with real power in Washington at the moment
are Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.).
“I think Bernie
has some influence, but we’re dealing in days and hours, rather than measures
of time that his movement can affect,” Reich said. “When Washington is facing a
crisis, the normal rules of political power don’t apply. Normally that’d be an
interesting question, how much leverage does Bernie have and where are
progressives on putting conditions on bailouts? But right now, it’s not
terribly interesting. Congress is moving too fast for progressives or anyone to
get organized or mobilized.”
Rather, some
Sanders supporters are looking to the future and how the progressive movement
will build on the groundwork that Sanders laid.
“Bernie’s two
presidential campaigns were built on the back of three decades of
movement-building, with victories and defeats along the way, and we’ve moved
the policy debate exponentially in a relatively short period of time,” said
Jonathan Tasini, a progressive strategist and Sanders supporter.
“If he is not
in the White House, he will return to the Senate as perhaps the most
influential Democratic member but, really more important, across the country
there are now scores of seeds planted for local, state and federal campaigns,
electorally and issued-based, that will sprout and feed what I truly believe is
inevitable change.”
TAGS MITCH
MCCONNELL CHARLES SCHUMER BERNIE SANDERS DONALD TRUMP NANCY PELOSI JOE BIDEN
PROGRESSIVES 2020 2020 CAMPAIGN 2020 PRIMARY MEDICARE FOR ALL
THIS REALLY IS
A VERY GOOD VIDEO. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND IT.
Watch:
Concentrated Power and Coronavirus
The Prospect
and American Economic Liberties Project host a conversation with Rep. Mark
Pocan
BY PROSPECT
STAFF MARCH 19, 2020
PHOTOGRAPH -- YICHUAN
CAO/SIPA USA VIA AP IMAGES
Container ships
in the Port of Oakland, California, March 9, 2020
On March 17,
the Prospect and the American Economic Liberties Project held a virtual event
on the coronavirus and the global supply chain structure. In addition to
causing a sudden stop in economic demand and the serious threat to the health
of millions, the crisis has exposed cracks in how we make and distribute
medicine and other key goods. We have centralized supply in corners of the
globe, in particular China; we are dependent on Chinese production
for everything from batteries to active pharmaceutical ingredients, from parts
for advanced drones and missiles to bibles. The shutdown of production and
trade as a result of the coronavirus crisis reveals a critical dependency that
makes our system of commerce fragile and prone to shocks.
Prospect
executive editor David Dayen moderated an hourlong discussion on this topic,
featuring: Congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI); American Economic Liberties Project executive
director Sarah Miller and senior fellow Lucas Kunce; and Rush Doshi, director
of the China Strategy Initiative at the Brookings Institution.
The video is
below.
SEE WEBSITE: Prospect
executive editor David Dayen moderated an hourlong discussion on this topic,
featuring: Congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI); American Economic Liberties
Project executive director Sarah Miller and senior fellow Lucas Kunce; and
Rush Doshi, director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Brookings
Institution.
THERE ARE QUITE
A FEW GOOD STORIES IN THE NEWS TODAY, SO I’M JUST GOING TO STOP LOOKING AND
COLLECTING WITH THIS CLOSE-UP OF A WOMAN WHO, TO ME, IS ONE OF THE REAL STARS
ON THE SANDERS STAFF. SHE’S YOUNG, BUT TOUGH IN A VERY ATTRACTIVE WAY, BRIAHNA
JOY GRAY.
Bernie Sanders'
Messenger: Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray Keeps Fighting the Good Fight
Terrell
Jermaine Starr
Today 3:43PM,
MARCH 20, 2020
• Filed to:
BRIAHNA JOY
GRAY
PHOTOGRAPH -- Briahna
Joy Gray looks on as U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders walks to greet supporters at
Wofford College, in Spartanburg, S.C., February 27, 2020.
Photo: Terrell
Jermaine Starr (The Root)
SPARTANBURG,
S.C.—There are few political operatives who have turned the role of national
press secretary on its head like Briahna Joy Gray. As Bernie Sanders’ top
messenger, she speaks for the senator in ways he often can’t articulate
himself. More directly, she not only speaks for the campaign, she defends his political
revolution.
I call her the
Bernie Whisperer.
If you don’t
see her on television or a radio show talking about the need for Americans to
divest from neoliberal politics in favor of the Democratic Socialism her
candidate favors, she is on Twitter sparring with critics or amplifying the
messages of Sanders’ supporters. In her role, Gray is as much a cheerleader and
activist as she is a national press secretary.
She has to be.
The campaign is
bracing for the reality that Sanders’ pathway to the Democratic nomination is
growing slimmer. The coronavirus pandemic has stalled Sanders’
rallies—signature galvanizers of his campaign. For now, Gray told me Sanders is
not dropping out and it is her job to vigorously spell out what a Joe Biden
Democratic nomination will look like—which, in her words, is a loss to Donald
Trump in November.
All of those
black people who backed Biden will suffer another four more years, she worries.
Even as her boss has failed to win over consequential black support, Gray has
never wavered in promoting him. When I caught up with her several weeks ago
backstage at a rally at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., Sanders was ahead
of Biden in delegate count and hoped to deliver a decent showing in the
Palmetto State. Not only did Biden win South Carolina easily, the former VP
later swept the South on Super Tuesday and garnered a lion’s share of the black
vote. One of the responsibilities Gray feels she has is to help articulate to
black people why Sanders will move them along economically in ways that Biden
can’t.
As Sanders
delivered his stump speech, Gray and I spoke backstage, where she told me about
her own frustrations with American capitalism and why she feels a Sanders
presidency will better help the older black folks who are devoted to Biden.
Soon after graduating from Harvard Law in 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement
was taking shape. The language of the 99 percent versus the 1 percent was
becoming mainstream and working at a corporate law firm exposed Gray to
corporate maleficence.
“We were
dealing with a lot of the issues that later on seemed to have been the causes
of the financial crisis,” she said. “Seeing, doing the document view, reading
the emails, seeing that people knew. They knew something was wrong, they knew they
were mis-valuing financial products, they knew what was coming down the pike,
and they didn’t end up suffering the consequences. It was the American people,
disproportionately black people, who lost 40 percent of our wealth in the
financial crisis. That was a very radicalizing experience for me.”
Briahna Joy
Gray texting at a Bernie Sanders rally in Spartanburg, S.C., on Friday,
February 27, 2020.
Briahna Joy
Gray texting at a Bernie Sanders rally in Spartanburg, S.C., on Friday,
February 27, 2020.
Photo: Terrell
Jermaine Star (The Root)
Gray could not
leave the firm because she needed the money for her $2,300 monthly student loan
payments for law school. She clerked for U.S. District Court federal Judge
Brian M. Cogan of the Eastern District of New York between 2012 and 2013, but
she took on more loan debt to do so. As someone in her 20s, Gray knew she
should not be struggling to make ends meet.
“I was someone
who, on paper, did everything right and I was still feeling so trapped,” she
said. “That will radicalize people. I think that a lot of people in our
generation felt similarly stuck in one way or the other. Getting into your 30s,
not being able to buy a house. Still dealing with student loan debt. Not being
able to help your parents out the way that you would like to.
“Seeing our
older relatives still having to work past retirement age because Social
Security doesn’t go far enough,” she continued. “Seeing at the same time,
people on both sides of the aisle making efforts to cut those same Social Security
programs. All of that starts to make you feel like, ‘Well, I’ve been a loyal
Democrat my whole life. If the Democrats are still not protecting me from
falling through the cracks, why should I vote? Why should I participate?’”
Here at the
Wofford rally, the college-age audience can likely relate to Gray’s experience.
That has been Sanders’ most active audience: young people who have a grievance
with the America they feel is failing them. Young people who, unfortunately for
Sanders, have not shown up at the polls and simply aren’t voting in numbers
commensurate with their parents and grandparents. I asked her about the
generation divide and accusations that Bernie Sanders and his supporters are
trying to destroy the Democratic Party.
She understands
both sides. On one hand, there are a lot of black folks who feel ignored by the
party and live in communities that have not seen any real investment during
their lifetimes. Then you have others who recall a party that has stood by them
through the worst of times.
“There were a
lot of black people who lived the experience of the Democratic Party defending
them through the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s and feeling like, especially now in the
Trump era, that the Democratic Party and certain actors are the last defense
against some truly horrible stuff happening,” she said. “I think both things
can be true. The Democratic Party is, of course, not all bad. There are a
number of amazing people within it, including Bernie Sanders, who always
caucused with the Democrats, voted with the Democrats, and supported the
Democratic agenda more consistently, in fact, than a lot of people who have a D
behind their name. But the question is, shouldn’t we all be trying to make the
Democratic Party live up fully to the ideals that it says it represents?”
The problem
with Sanders has always been his messaging to black voters as a whole. In South
Carolina, he pulled 17 percent of the black vote compared to Biden’s 61
percent; that figure barely beat his 2016 total in the state. In California, he
got 15 percent to Biden’s 42. Sanders took his worst beating in Mississippi,
where black voters backed Biden over Sanders 9 to 1. Sanders skipped
Mississippi to campaign in Michigan, where Biden won 66 percent of black voters
to Sanders’ 25 percent. Over the course of the 2020 primary, I’ve reported from
Sanders’ rallies and the same theme arises again and again. Plenty of young
people of various ethnic groups, but not enough of those black folks who vote
in large enough numbers to decide an election.
That is not the
work of an operative like Gray. When a candidate doesn’t speak to the essence
of a key voting bloc, there is very little someone like Gray can do about it—no
matter how skilled she is.
Tara Dowdell, a
political consultant who has worked on local and national campaigns, told The
Root Gray was the ideal pick to be Sanders’ top press person because she is so
devoted to his message and is very keen on galvanizing his base of supporters.
In a very crowded field with 20 or so candidates, Gray was essential for
keeping the campaign’s supporters engaged and motivated.
“The problem
was that it was effective when it was a divided field,” Dowdell said. “When you
have a ton of people in the race, you have the ability to win with fewer
supporters as long as you hold your coalition together. Now, when you have a
smaller field, the ability to build those relationships outside of the existing
coalition becomes critical. And I think the campaign is learning or I hope that
they’ve learned that you have to be careful. If you are gonna attack people
within the party, at some point, you’re going to need those people. I do think
she was effective for rallying the troops in a divided field but things change
so quickly that you have to be able to adapt to those changes and one way to
survive in politics is by having those relationships to fall back on.”
Briahna Joy
Gray talking with Bernie Sanders campaign volunteers at Wofford College in
Spartanburg on Friday, February 27, 2020.
Briahna Joy
Gray talking with Bernie Sanders campaign volunteers at Wofford College in
Spartanburg on Friday, February 27, 2020.
Photo: Terrell
Jermaine Starr (The Root)
Gray didn’t
join Sanders’ campaign to support a candidate tethered to those types of
political relationships, however. She joined to help lead a people-centered
movement. To understand how Gray maintains hope that the campaign can still
win, you have to understand her upbringing. Born to a father who was a research
chemist and a mother who was a graduate student, Gray spent some of her early
childhood in North Carolina while her mother pursued a Ph.D. program in
psychology she says she didn’t finish.
Her parents
then moved to Saudi Arabia for two years and worked as educators before working
in Kenya for six years. Gray was 13 years old when the embassy in Nairobi was
bombed in a terrorist attack in 1998. Her family knew some of the people who
perished. From that point forward, her sense of safety always felt precarious.
When the
September 11 terrorist attacks took place in 2001, she didn’t feel the same
vulnerability that most Americans were struggling with. In fact, it made her
consider who would be discriminated against in the aftermath.
“‘Whoever did
this, whatever they look like is going to be in trouble,’” she thought.
“Whoever was in that plane, if they’re black, black people better watch out. If
they’re Arab, Arab people better watch out. In fact, that’s what ended up
happening. There were people rounded up in the streets in the days after 9/11.
There were an incredible number of civil liberties violations, and it was [a]
horrible, horrible time that a lot of Muslim Americans remember. And a lot of
people who aren’t Muslim, who are Sikh or just were mistaken for Muslim,
remember. So I do think that having that international perspective did give me
the space to consider the broader implications of some of American political
happenings that were perhaps better understood with a more international
perspective.”
After Sanders
delivers his stump speech, Gray smiles as her boss walks by to pose for photos
with supporters. Then a line queues up near her. The students, many of them
black, want photos with Gray.
“You’re such an
inspiration to me,” one of them tells her.
It happens
every campaign stop and she still isn’t used to it.
“It is so
surreal,” Gray told me as more students or volunteers ask for a selfie.
This election
cycle has seen more black women in senior roles than any cycle ever. A lot of
them communicate with each other, regardless of the campaign they are working
on.
Gray told me
her circle of support is more insular, with former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner
as a primary source of support. She calls on Turner and others to help guide
her through the grueling days of the campaign season when she’s unsure of how
to proceed.
Being such a
front-facing black woman brings mean-spirited attacks. Gray told me she’s
received many racist and sexist attacks online. A sexist attack recently aimed
at Gray came from The Root’s former Politics Editor, Jason Johnson. During an
appearance on The Karen Hunter Show, Johnson called Gray one of Sanders’
“misfit black girls,” causing the words to trend on Twitter.
“That’s more
misogynist than any gangster rapper ever because it says I don’t respect or
value your mind,” Killer Mike told me during a campaign stop in Columbia, S.C.,
on behalf of the Sanders campaign back in February. “I don’t respect or value
that you have a choice or say. It was belittling. It was intellectual cynicism
and evil at its finest. And we allowed it. Because the nigga don’t rap.”
Gray first
caught the attention of the Sanders campaign through her writing as a
freelancer while working her law firm job in New York City. She’d work long
hours during the day and write columns about Sanders during the evenings
without the firm’s knowledge. After she joined The Intercept, the campaign
asked her to join Sanders’ traveling press corps before eventually offering her
the national press secretary role.
“I was told
that the campaign didn’t feel like they had seen anybody who was able to
articulate Senator Sanders’ message as well as I did,” she recalls. “They had a
lot of confidence in me in part because I was a true believer, for a lack of a
better word.”
That is Gray’s
most critical asset: being a believer.
Given how much
the delegate tide is in Biden’s favor, Gray’s optimism will be essential as
many states are postponing primaries as governors work to contain the
coronavirus. Right now, she is in Washington, D.C., planning more digital
engagements with Sanders’ supporters and keeping active on Twitter—which
includes taking on critics who she feels misrepresents Sanders’ positions while
ignoring Biden’s weaknesses.
I asked her
about criticisms of her Twitter engagement and she brushes them off. Though she
has sparred with many people on the timeline, Gray says she has only blocked
two people and maybe has 10 muted. Her Twitter vigor also comes from a place of
feeling alienated by mainstream media she feels marginalizes Sanders and
reports on his Democratic Socialist philosophy pejoratively.
Ultimately, the
negative press directed at Sanders won’t help take down Trump in November, she
told me.
“I think it is
my duty, not only as a person on this campaign but as an American who is old
enough to watch 2016 and saw how that went, to keep being honest and holding
people’s feet to the fire,” she said. “And make them figure out how they are
going to justify their position and defend themselves in a general election
because that’s what it’s going to come down to.”
Correction:
3/20/2020, 5:10 p.m. ET: The story has been edited to clarify that Briahna Joy
Gray did, in fact, clerk for a federal judge.
Terrell
Jermaine Starr
Terrell
Jermaine Starr is a senior reporter at The Root. He is currently writing a book
proposal that analyzes US-Russia relations from a black perspective.
WHILE THE
WASHINGTON POST TODAY WROTE A DISGUSTING ARTICLE ABOUT SANDERS, AT HIM, REALLY,
THIS ONE ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION HAS PICKED UP 125,548 VIEWS IN FOUR HOURS, 10K
THUMBS UP AND ONLY 211 THUMBS DOWN. CLEARLY SOMEBODY DOES LIKE HIM.
BERNIE HOSTS
VIRTUAL CORONAVIRUS ROUNDTABLE
125,548 views •
Streamed live 4 hours ago, MARCH 20, 2020
UPS 10K
DOWNS 211
Bernie Sanders
389K
subscribers
Sen. Bernie
Sanders hosts a virtual roundtable on the economic and health crises created by
the coronavirus outbreak. Sanders will be joined remotely by musical guests,
including André Cymone and Nahko Bear of Nahko and Medicine for the People, and
leaders who are on the frontlines of the fight to ensure working people aren’t
left behind in the response to the crisis.
Category News & Politics
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