counterpunch | Fires are raging everywhere in California these days, and firefighters are having enormous trouble keeping up. Chronically understaffed local fire departments simply don’t have the resources to handle act one of what climate change has in store for us.
California’s wealthy aren’t particularly worrying about that lack of
resources — because they have more than enough of their own. They can
afford to shell out
up to $25,000 per day for one of the private firefighting services that
are popping up in California wherever the rich call home.
In a deeply unequal America, none of this should surprise us. Public
services almost always take it on the chin in societies where wealth
starts furiously concentrating. Why should inequality have this impact? A
little incendiary parable — on tennis — might help us understand.
commondreams | Augusto Nunes, a defender of Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, struck Greenwald in the face after the Intercept journalist repeatedly called him a "coward."
epsilontheory | There’s no way that the Justice Dept. will ever bring a criminal case
against Boeing, not one that hits top management or really shackles the
company.
And I know that Boeing said today that Muilenburg won’t get a bonus
or (more) stock grants until the 737 MAX is flying again, but this
article got Radical Me thinking …
I
wonder how much money Muilenburg and his management team and his board
of directors have pocketed since he took over as CEO in 2015 and
Chairman in 2016?
I
wonder if executive compensation practices have changed over that span
since … you know … Boeing started buying back nine billion dollars of
stock every year?
Tell you what, I’ll make it easy and I won’t even count the cash
compensation of Boeing management since 2016. I’ll just stick to the
direct value of the sterilized stock options they exercised and the
restricted stock units they were vested. And I won’t count any
compensation of any sort here in 2019.
thenation | There are many, many different versions
of the vampire’s tale, but in its most timeworn Eurocentric telling,
vampires are evil’s upper crust: beautiful, blue-blooded aristocrats
draped in velvet, exuding idle menace. Dracula and his cursed kin are
the undead 1 percent and act accordingly: terrorizing villages,
murdering peasants, siphoning off others’ lifeblood, and turning up
their aquiline noses at the slightest hint of dissent.
An entire cottage industry operates around their stories, and vampire
lore does not always confine itself to the page. In the 17th century,
the very real and very sadistic Countess Bathory—she of Hungarian legend
and historical infamy—is said to have broken the bodies of more than
650 village girls and bathed in serf blood to retain her youth. For
that, history remembers her with a strange sort of fondness: as an
unfathomably wealthy, castle-dwelling noblewoman always depicted as lavishly dressed and dripping in jewels. She was monstrous in an elegant sort of way, the kind that inspires gothic novels and Swedish black metal records. Vituperative inhumanity, but made fashionable.
Vampires’ modern-day counterparts, on the other hand, leave much
to be desired from an aesthetic standpoint. Unlike the ancient Romanian moroi, Irish dearg-due, or Ghanaian sasabonsam,
today’s vampires are parasitic new money. Vulgar, ugly, and smug, their
wrists are cluttered with hideous statement watches, their torsos clad
in power suits or, worse, upmarket hipster threads. Some call them
vulture capitalists, after the great birds who feast on carrion. While
catchy, this term doesn’t quite fit; these monsters do not focus on the
dead—they go after the living. They run hedge funds, trade stocks, and
manage private equity firms, flush with generational wealth but always
hungry for more. Instead of hot blood, these fancy fiends hunt for cold
cash—and much like their spiritual predecessors, care little for how
others must suffer in their pursuit thereof.
perc.org.uk | In the late 1960s, a young banker named Joel Stern was working on a
project to transform corporate management. Stern’s hunch was that the
stock market could help managers work out how their strategies were
performing. Simply, if management was effective, demand for the firm’s
stock would be high. A low price would imply bad management.
What sounds obvious now was revolutionary at the time. Until then
profits were the key barometer of success. But profits were a crude
measure and easy to manipulate. Financial markets, Stern felt, could
provide a more precise measure of the value of management because they
were based on more ‘objective’ processes, beyond the firm’s direct
control. The value of shares, he believed, represented the market’s
exact validation of management. Because of this, financial markets could
help managers determine what was working and what was not.
In doing this, Stern laid the foundation for a ‘shareholder value’
management that put financial markets at the core of managerial
strategy.
Stern would probably never have imagined that these ideas would 50
years later be castigated as a fundamental threat to the future of
liberal capitalism. In recent times everyone from the Business Roundtable group of global corporations, to the Financial Times, to the British Labour Party has lined up to condemn the shareholder ideology.
“Fifty years of shareholder primacy,” wrote the Financial Times, “has
fostered short-termism and created an environment of popular distrust
of big business.”
It is not the first time Stern’s creation has come under fire. A
decade ago Jack Welsh, former CEO of General Electric declared
shareholder value “probably the dumbest idea in the world”. And 15 years before then, British political commentator Will Hutton, among others, found paperback fame with his book The State We’re In preaching much the same message.
To critics, the rise of shareholder value is a straightforward story, that has been told over and over
again. Following a general crisis of postwar profitability in the late
1970s, corporate managers came under fire from disappointed shareholders
complaining about declining returns. Shareholder revolts forced
managers to put market capitalisation first. The rise of stock options
to compensate corporate managers entrenched shareholder value by
aligning the interests of managers and shareholders.
Companies began
sacrificing productive investments, environmental protections, and
worker security to ensure shareholder returns were maximised. The fear
of stock market verdicts on quarterly reports left them no choice.
This account fits a widespread belief that financiers and rentiers mangled
the postwar golden era of capitalism. More importantly, it suggests a
simple solution: liberate companies from the demands of shareholders.
Freed from the short-term pursuit of delivering shareholder returns,
companies could then return to long-term plans, productive investments,
and higher wages.
NationalReview | James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, a group that has often infiltrated
news organizations to uncover liberal bias, has released an explosive
“hot mic” video of Good Morning America co-host Amy Robach venting about ABC’s decision to spike a story about Jeffrey Epstein’s nefarious activities three years ago.
“I had this interview with [Epstein victim] Virginia Roberts,” Robach
is seen saying in the video, “we would not put it on the air. The
[British royal] Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about
Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. We were
afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will that we, that also
quashed the story.”
Robach now claims, through a network statement,
that she was caught “in a private moment” of frustration over the lack
of progress on a story. “I was upset that an important interview I had
conducted with Virginia Roberts didn’t air because I could not obtain
sufficient corroborating evidence to meet ABC’s editorial standards
about her allegations.”
Sorry, but Robach’s response to the firestorm doesn’t square with her
initial comments, in which she states that “Roberts had pictures, she
had everything . . . it was unbelievable what we had. [Bill] Clinton, we
had everything.”
“Everything” sure sounds like sufficient corroborating evidence. Even
if employing the most scrupulous journalistic standards, a giant news
organization wouldn’t need three years to substantiate — or dismiss — a
story with pictures, dates, and a credible witness.
We certainly know that ABC didn’t need “everything” — or much of
anything, for that matter – when it was running scores of pieces online
and on television, highlighting every risible accusation against
then–Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
johnsolomon | In recent interviews, Joe Biden has distanced himself from
his son’s work at a Ukrainian gas company that was under investigation during the
Obama years, with the former
vice president suggesting he didn’t even
know Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings.
There is plenty of evidence that conflicts with the former vice
president’s account, including Hunter
Biden’s own story that he discussed the company once with his famous father.
There also was a December
2015 New York Times story that raised the question of whether Hunter Biden’s
role at Burisma posed a conflict of interest for the vice president, especially
when Joe Biden was leading the fight against Ukrainian corruption while Hunter
Biden’s firm was under investigation by Ukrainian prosecutors.
But whatever the Biden family recollections, the Obama State
Department clearly saw the Burisma Holdings investigation in the midst of the
2016 presidential election as a Joe Biden issue.
Memos newly released through a Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit filed by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on my behalf detail how State
officials in June 2016 worked to prepare the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,
Marie Yovanovitch, to handle a question about “Burisma and Hunter Biden.”
In multiple drafts of a question-and-answer
memo prepared for Yovanovitch’s Senate confirmation hearing, the department’s
Ukraine experts urged the incoming ambassador to stick to a simple answer.
“Do you have any comment on Hunter Biden, the Vice President’s
son, serving on the board of Burisma, a major Ukrainian Gas Company?,” the draft Q&A
asked.
The recommended answer for Yovanovitch: “For questions on Hunter
Biden’s role in Burisma, I would refer you to Vice President Biden’s
office.”
consortiumnews |“They
put him into a straight-jacket, put him into an isolation room and
waited outside the door for 1hr18 minutes until he died.”
He
invented the beating death in 2011 when he decided to create and lobby
for the Magnitsky Act in the U.S. Congress to stop Russian authorities
from pursuing him for $100 million in evaded taxes and illicit stock
buys.
Ironically,
though he uses the U.S. to build a wall against Russian tax collectors,
he gave up his American citizenship in 1998 to avoid paying taxes. He
is listed by CBS News as a “tax expatriate.”
If you are serious lawyers and investigators, you will examine the evidence and respond. (And change your story.)
The
rest of the op ed is to support unspecified steps to hold to account
those who benefit from human rights abuses and corruption. No mention of
the persecutors of Julian Assange or the beneficiaries of the U.K.’s
worldwide system of tax havens. The real purpose appears to be to repeat
the Browder hoax in the lead.
I sent copies of the article to Brandon and Bailin. No response.
I also sent a complaint to IPSO the British Independent Press Standards Organization.
It
calls itself ” the independent regulator of most of the UK’s newspapers
and magazines.” It says: We hold newspapers and magazines to account
for their actions, protect individual rights, uphold high standards of
journalism and help to maintain freedom of expression for the press.
Clauses breached 1 Accuracy This
op ed article is based on egregiously fake facts. See this story and
the links for the evidence. I have sent it to the authors. They should
retract the story.
https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2019/10/london-times-runs-fake-browder-story-by-acolytes-ben-brandon-alex-bailin/
spectator | However many Ukraine whistleblowers there
may or may not be, Cockburn’s source says that at least one of the
(purported) seven has nothing to do with Ukraine at all. Instead, it’s
claimed that this whistleblower reported a call between Trump and the
Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. He or she is said to have had
‘concerns’ about what was said on the call about the president’s
son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner. Kushner himself is known to have a
very close relationship with MBS. Cockburn has previously written that
Kushner may have been what Cosmo would call an ‘oversharer’
when it came to MBS. Unfortunately, it’s claimed that what he was
sharing was American secrets: information Kushner had requested from the
CIA would (allegedly) be echoed back in US intercepts of calls between
members of the Saudi royal family. One source said this was why Kushner lost his intelligence clearances for a while.
According
to Cockburn’s source about the seven whistleblowers, there’s more. It
is that Kushner (allegedly) gave the green light to MBS to arrest the
dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who was later murdered and
dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. A second source tells
Cockburn that this is true and adds a crucial twist to the story. This
source claims that Turkish intelligence obtained an intercept of the
call between Kushner and MBS. And President Erdogan used it to get Trump
to roll over and pull American troops out of northern Syria before the
Turks invaded. A White House official has told the Daily Mail
that this story is ‘false nonsense’. However, Cockburn hears that
investigators for the House Intelligence Committee are looking into it.
Who knows whether any of this is true…but Adam Schiff certainly seems to
be smiling a lot these days.
theconservativetreehouse | According to recent reports U.S. Attorney
John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr are spending time on a
narrowed focus looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016
presidential election. One recent quote from a media-voice increasingly sympathetic to a political deep-state notes:
“One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list
presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come
across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for
help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services””. (Link)
It is interesting that quote comes from a
British intelligence official, as there appears to be mounting evidence
of an extensive CIA operation that likely involved U.K. intelligence
services. In addition, and as a direct outcome, there is an aspect to
the CIA operation that overlaps with both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control. In this outline
we will explain where corrupt U.S. and U.K. interests merge.
To understand the risk that Julian Assange
represented to CIA interests, it is important to understand just how
extensive the operations of the CIA were in 2016. It is within this
network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok
is clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations.
By now people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations
involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor now generally
admitted/identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked
by the CIA (John Brennan) to run an operation against Trump campaign
official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. {Go Deep}
In a similar fashion the CIA tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper
to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the
auspices of being a Cambridge Professor Stefan Halper also targeted
General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI
agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos.
The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all
based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets
and the targets much easier.
redstate | Eric Ciaramella, the alleged whistleblower, was a young man on a
mission. This Ivy-league graduate, said to be fluent in Russian,
Ukrainian and Arabic, a favorite among Obama Administration officials,
was introduced to us by investigative reporter Paul Sperry on Thursday.
Washington insiders, including the mainstream media, have known his
identity for quite some time, and for obvious reasons, have remained
silent. Even after Sperry outed him this week, we’re hearing crickets
from those on the left. The conservative media, however, which
understands that history is repeating itself, has gone into overdrive to
expose the truth.
Here’s what we know about Eric Ciaramella (EC):
He submitted a whistleblower complaint on August 12th.
He is a registered Democrat.
He is a CIA analyst who specializes in Russia and Ukraine. He ran the Ukraine desk at the National Security Council (NSC) in 2016.
He was detailed over to the NSC in the summer of 2015 and worked for then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
He worked for former Vice President Joe Biden when he served as the
Obama administration’s “point man” for Ukraine. He may have flown over
to Ukraine with Biden on Air Force Two.
He worked for former CIA Director John Brennan and appeared to have been a highly valued employee.
In June 2017, then-National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster appointed EC to be his personal aide.
EC did not have direct knowledge of the July 25th conversation
between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It
is very possible he learned about the call from NSC Director for
European Affairs Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified last week
before Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee.
EC contacted at least one of Schiff’s staff members prior to filing
his complaint. Two of EC’s colleagues from the NSC were hired by Adam
Schiff this year, one of whom, Sean Misko, was hired in August.
He was posted to the NSC in the White House’s West Wing in mid-2017 and “left amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.”
Well,
this episode has long been in the making. One of the hardest things I
ever went through, and most dancers will go through in my salsa, is
finding the beat in the music.
We all go through this problem,
and with this part 1 of a multiple part series, I will try to do my best
to help you practice on how to find the beat in salsa music. I will
play some songs, do some counting and hopefully give you some tips on
how to train your ear to listen and feel the clave of the salsa music.
wikipedia |Salsa is a popular form of social dance originating in Eastern Cuba[citation needed].
The Salsa we hear now is said to be born in New York to a mixture of
Afro Cuban folk dances with Jazz. Evidence shows that the “Salsa” sound
was already developed in Cuba before being brought up to New York[citation needed]. The movements of Salsa are a combination of the Afro-Cuban dances Son, cha-cha-cha, Mambo, Rumba, and the Danzón. The dance, along with salsa music,[1][2][3] saw major development in the mid-1970s in New York.[4] Different regions of Latin America
and the United States have distinct salsa styles of their own, such as
Cuban, Puerto Rican, Cali Colombia, L.A. and New York styles. Salsa
dance socials are commonly held in night clubs, bars, ballrooms,
restaurants, and outside, especially when part of an outdoor festival.
In many styles of salsa dancing, as a dancer shifts their weight
by stepping, the upper body remains level and nearly unaffected by the
weight changes. Weight shifts cause the hips to move. Arm and shoulder
movements are also incorporated. Salsa generally uses music ranging from
about 150 bpm (beats per minute) to around 250 bpm, although most
dancing is done to music somewhere between 160–220 bpm. The basic Salsa
dance rhythm consists of taking three steps for every four beats of
music. The odd number of steps creates the syncopation inherent to Salsa
dancing and ensures that it takes 8 beats of music to loop back to a
new sequence of steps.
Fania record label in the 60s, was the one that gave the name "Salsa" to
this new blend of different influences, rhythms and styles of Latin
music in New York City, especially in el Barrio, Spanish Harlem, and the
Bronx. Salsa means sauce which represented son, guaguanco, son montuno,
Jazz elements, Latin Jazz, Cuban influences. Prior to that time, each
style was recognized in its pure original form and name. It evolved from
forms such as Son, Son Montuno, cha cha cha, and Mambo which were
popular in the Caribbean, Latin America and the Latino communities in
New York since the 1940s. Salsa, like most music genres and dance
styles, has gone through a lot of variation through the years and
incorporated elements of other Afro-Caribbean dances such as Pachanga.
Different regions of Latin America and the United States have distinct
salsa styles of their own, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, Cali Colombia.
wikipedia |Pachanga is a genre of music which is described as a mixture of son montuno and merengue
and has an accompanying signature style of dance. This type of music
has a festive, lively style and is marked by jocular, mischievous
lyrics. Pachanga originated in Cuba in the 1950s and played an important
role in the evolution of Caribbean style music as we know it today.
Considered a prominent contributor to the eventual rise of Salsa,
Pachanga itself is an offshoot of Charanga style music.[1]
Very similar in sound to Cha-Cha but with a notably stronger down-beat,
Pachanga once experienced massive popularity all across the Caribbean
and was brought to the United States by Cuban immigrants post World War
II. This led to an explosion of Pachanga music in Cuban music clubs that
influenced Latin culture in the United States for decades to come.
sicsempertyrannis | The average American has no idea how alarming is the news that former
CIA Director John Brennan reportedly created and staffed a CIA Task
Force in early 2016 that was named, Trump Task Force, and given the
mission of spying on and carrying out covert actions against the
campaign of candidate Donald Trump.
This was not a simple gathering of a small number of disgruntled
Democrats working at the CIA who got together like a book club to grouse
and complain about the brash real estate guy from New York. It was a
specially designed covert action to try to destroy Donald Trump.
A "Task Force" is a special bureaucratic creation that provides a
vehicle for bring case officers and analysts together, along with admin
support, for a limited term project. But it also can be expanded to
include personnel from other agencies, such as the FBI, DIA and NSA.
Task Forces have been used since the inception of the CIA in 1947.
Here's a recently declassified memo outlining the considerations in the
creation of a task force in 1958. The author, L.K. White, talks about
the need for a coordinating Headquarters element and an Operational unit
"in the field", i.e. deployed around the world.
A Task Force operates independent of the CIA "Mission Centers" (that's the jargon for the current CIA organization chart).
So what did John Brennan do? I am told by an knowledgeable source
that Brennan created a Trump Task Force in early 2016. It was an
invitation only Task Force. Specific case officers (i.e., men and women
who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and admin personnel
were recruited. Not everyone invited accepted the offer. But many did.
theintercept |MH: Let’s talk impeachment. The Democrats have launched an
impeachment inquiry into President Trump specifically around this
suggestion that he was pressuring a foreign country Ukraine to dig up
dirt on his political opponent and even withholding military aid until
they agreed to do so. Do you support the House Democrats’ decision to
finally start an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump?
NC: First notice something, they’re going after Trump not on
his major crimes but because he went after a leading Democrat. Does that
remind you of anything? Yes. Watergate. They didn’t go after Nixon on
his major crimes. They were off the record. It was because he had
attacked the Democratic party.
MH: Good point.
NC: So yes, they’ll protect themselves. Is it the right thing
to do? I mean, Trump is impeachable 100 times over. You know, he’s a
major crook. There’s no doubt about it. Is it politically wise? I
frankly doubt it. I think it’ll turn out pretty much like the Mueller
report, which, that I thought was also a political mistake. What’ll
happen is probably the House will impeach, goes to the Senate. The
Republican senators are utterly craven. They’re terrified of Trump’s
voting base. So they’ll vote to turn down the impeachment request. Trump
will come along, say I’m vindicated. Say it was the Deep State and the
treacherous Dems trying to overturn the election. Oh, vote for me.
MH: I had the filmmaker Michael Moore on the show last week,
and he thinks that eventually this evidence is going to pile up against
Trump that’s so damning — and we’ve already seen some of the testimony
from the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and others — that actually he
thinks Republican senators, some of them who you know, who need to save
their skins will join Senate Democrats to vote to remove Trump from
office. You don’t seem to buy that?
NC: I think you may find a handful who will find a way to
evade taking a position But if you just look at the record of the party —
I gave you a couple of examples, but we could go on — it’s very hard to
imagine any bit of principle emerging. It’s true that if some of them
thought they were really going to suffer for it politically or in other
ways, maybe they’d change, but that doesn’t seem too likely. I mean,
just take a look at Trump’s voting base, you know, there are pretty
regular polls and studies. They haven’t changed. They buy his line.
Here’s our hero. The one man in the world who’s willing to stand up for
us.
MH: Although whether it works or not in the Senate, it doesn’t
mean the House Democrats shouldn’t take a stand regardless of whether
Republican Senators convict. Can Trump be beaten at the ballot box next
November? Is there a Democratic candidate who you think can beat him or
more than one candidate?
NC: Well, here it’s very interesting to see what’s being done.
You may have seen a day or two ago in the New York Times was a big
article about a meeting of the Democratic centrists, the establishment,
the billionaires, the donors, you know, the mainstream political
figures. And it was about, their concern about just what you asked, is
there a Democrat who can defeat Trump? And they went through the
possible Democratic candidates and discussed their flaws, and then
asked, can we bring in someone else like Bloomberg or Michelle Obama?
Take a look at the leading candidates they listed: Warren, Biden and
Mayor Pete. Do you notice somebody missing?
MH: Senator Sanders doesn’t make the cut of these lists.
NC: There’s a very good reason for it. He has absolutely
infuriated the liberal establishment by committing a major crime. It’s
not his policies. His crime was to organize an ongoing political
movement that doesn’t just show up at the polls every four years and
push a button, but keeps working. That’s no good. The rabble is supposed
to stay home. Their job is to watch not to participate.
dailymail | Nearly a thousand protesters took to the
streets of Brooklyn to demonstrate against the NYPD after a spate of
violent arrests on the subway and over its plans to put more officers on
the beat to catch anyone who skips paying the fare.
The
protesters started gathering in Downtown Brooklyn near Barclays Center
at about 7pm Friday, with their signs reflecting the dual nature of the
march.
While flashier banners bore
slogans such as 'Don't let these pigs touch us,' 'F**k the police,'
'Punch that cop' and 'NYPD out of MTA,' other signs read 'Free transit,'
'Poverty is not a crime' and 'Our subways need more $ for elevators,
not for cops.'
Their grievances stem
from two issues. One, alleged police brutality against New Yorkers
including a group of teenagers who officers were seen fighting with in a
recent viral video.
The
other issue is that police have vowed to create 500 additional jobs
specifically for officers to monitor the subway network and arrest
anyone who jumps the barriers rather than pay the $2.75 fee.
Over the last month. several videos have emerged of NYPD cops violently arresting seemingly nonviolent subway riders.
One,
which circulated last week, showed them pounding on the windows of a
subway car, waiting for the doors to open, before rushing on board,
tackling the man to the ground. It is unclear why he is wanted. He had
his hands in the air for several minutes before they arrested him and
bystanders say the officers drew their guns.
Why I ain't see this covered in the Kansas City Star or more realistically, as an item in Go-ogle News?
truthdig | A huge national spotlight is now on Adam
Schiff, the member of Congress leading the impeachment inquiry. In his
tenth term, Schiff is really going places. But where is he coming from?
This year, as chair of the House
Intelligence Committee, he has relentlessly built a case against a
horrendous president. For progressives eager to see Donald Trump
impeached, Schiff is an enemy of their enemy. But whether he’s a friend
is another matter.
“Schiff’s record on foreign policy, civil
liberties, human rights and other key issues has often put him more in
line with Republicans than with liberal Democrats,” international
affairs scholar Stephen Zunes told me. “It is ironic, therefore, that
Trump and the Republicans are portraying him as some kind of
left-winger.”
For a backstory perspective on Schiff, I
contacted a progressive activist who has been closely tracking his
political career for two decades. Howie Klein, the publisher and editor
of DownWithTyranny.com, lives in Schiff’s congressional district in the
Los Angeles area. They met when Schiff was a state senator running for
Congress in 1990 against a Republican incumbent.
“I was all gung-ho and raised a lot of
money for him from my music industry colleagues,” Klein told me. “I
didn’t understand at the time that although he was a Democrat, he was a
conservative Democrat. There were a couple of hints during the campaign,
but it wasn’t until he was elected and joined the Blue Dogs and started
voting that I realized that we had traded a right-wing Republican for a
GOP-light Democrat.”
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