Bernie 2020

The woman in the video is Disney heiress, Abigail Disney, a member of Patriotic Millionaires, which released the video yesterday to advocate for the inclusion of an ultra-millionaires tax in the New York state budget (which is going to be wrapped up in 2 weeks... and the villains here are Governor Cuomo and Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, of course + The Long Island 6: Todd Kaminsky, Monica Martinez, Kevin Thomas, James Gaughran, John Brooks and Anna Kaplan). The tax only affects individuals with annual income over $5 million.

Let me talk about something difficult for most people, though not for me. Next month I turn 71. My old friend Martha was just in town and she's either my age or a year younger. She's a research scientist at Columbia and recently retired. In college she was the only person I knew who was politically to the left of me. When she asked me who I was voting for next year, I said Bernie of course.

As Jonathan Bernstein made clear in an OpEd yesterday for Bloomberg News, Americans have become inured to deceit and manipulation from our political class. And he wasn't even speaking about Trump. His piece was on Paul Ryan's farewell speech. Unlike many inside the Beltway, Bernstein has long recognized Ryan as a faker and a fraud.

I always figured the battle for the Democratic nomination would pit a progressive, presumably Bernie, against a corporate Dem, like Biden or Bloomberg or Gillibrand...

It would be a tragic mistake for Democrats to pick a 2020 nominee based solely on ousting Trump. Electability is always an important consideration but it should never-- not even now-- be the only consideration. Almost any reasonably decent candidate should be able to beat Trump. It's not about them; it's not even about Trump. It's about us. Is there a candidate offering us something we want from our government?

Progressive Democrats by Nancy OhanianI went to the first convention of the burgeoning alternative music business way back in the late '70s. All of us at indie labels, indie radio, indie publications, etc, got to meet in person for the first time and share our passion nd ideas about a music scene that was starting too take root in the popular culture. It was small and focused and fun.

Last night at this time, we took a quick look at the incipient 2020 Bernie presidential campaign. Let's do it again tonight.

Earlier today we looked at the case for a mushy-middle 2020 scenario. The conclusion was inevitable: the Democrats need to avoid that disaster-- basically by ignoring their own craven, visionless and predatory establishment-- and demanding that Bernie be the candidate against Trump.

Didn't we learn anything from the Hillary debacle? Voters are looking for someone authentic-- not a concoction of consultant and pollster memos-- who stands for something that helps ordinary working families. I doubtHouse Democrats will even try to live up to that once they take over in January, but that's what turned out their voters three weeks ago.

This morning, the New York Times published a piece by Sydney Ember, Bernie Sanders: Lion Of The Left, But Not The Only One Roaring.