MORNING MESSAGE
Keith Ellison’s Quest for DNC Chair
Rep.
Keith Ellison offers a lifeline to a Democratic Party that is struggling to stay
afloat. The question is whether party officials realize that they are sinking
and accept it ... Of all the candidates, only Keith Ellison is the real deal.
Ellison was elected to Congress in 2007 after a long history in the hotbed of
movement politics. His mentor and friend was the late Paul Wellstone, the rare
political leader who understood that politics was about people and passion, and
brought grass-roots organizing into the electoral arena ... He doesn’t simply
talk about ways to build grassroots support, or about inside-outside strategies,
he has created them. When he was first elected, his district had the lowest
turnout in the state. Now it has the highest.
Final Week For DNC Chair Race
CNN
to host debate Wednesday: “The debate … will air at 10 p.m. ET … CNN has not
yet announced which candidates will be attending … The DNC leadership election
will be held on Saturday, February 25.”
Ellison
picks up endorsements. LAT: “Tina Podlodowski, chair of the Washington State
Democratic Party, will formally announce on Monday she’s backing Elllison … Also
on board is Alexis Tameron, the Democratic chair in Arizona …”
The
New Yorker profiles Ellison: “Ellison offers an idealistic synthesis,
drawing on Wellstone’s approach—which bears some resemblance to Martin Luther
King, Jr.,’s Beloved Community, a semi-utopian vision that insisted on the
inextricability of economic justice, civil rights, and antiwar sentiment.
Ellison’s advantage in promulgating this sixties-descended, peace-and-love brand
of liberalism is, perhaps, the matter of his own identity: no one is likely to
accuse a black Muslim who fought his first political battles over apartheid and
police brutality of shunting the concerns of minorities to the margins.”
Steve
Phillips of Center for American Progress argues Democrats should tack left in
NYT oped: “…more Obama voters defected to third- and fourth-party candidates
than the number who supported Mr. Trump. That is the white flight that should
most concern the next D.N.C. chairman … The way to win them back is by being
more progressive, not less.”
New Travel Ban
Trump
to try travel ban again. USA Today: “President Trump plans to issue a
revised version of his temporary travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries
as early as Tuesday, with a likely focus on fewer people so it will survive
legal challenges … [The draft] would only bar entry to those without a visa and
who have never entered the United States before … By focusing a new executive
order on foreigners who have never been in the U.S., the Trump administration
also makes it difficult for anyone to even initiate a lawsuit.”
SCOTUS
case could provide window into judicial thinking. Bloomberg: “The high court
on Tuesday will hear an appeal from the parents of Sergio Hernandez, a Mexican
teenager who was shot to death by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in 2010. At issue
is whether constitutional protections apply to Hernandez even though he wasn’t
in the U.S. when he was shot. The question is a variation of one of the central
issues in the legal fight over the stalled travel ban…”
Trump
maintains powers to curtail immigration. Bloomberg: “Trump has broad
discretion to use the money and [ICE] employees as he sees fit without seeking
approval from Congress. The president wants to bolster that force, saying he’ll
hire 10,000 more agents and use state and local law enforcement as immigration
officials.”
Trump
plan involves deportations to Mexico, regardless of nationality. ProPublica:
“… that could mean the United States would push hundreds of thousands of
Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, Brazilians, Ecuadorans, even Haitians into
Mexico. Currently, such people are detained in the U.S. and allowed to request
asylum.”
“The
Private Prison Industry Is Licking Its Chops Over Trump’s Deportation Plans”
reports Mother Jones: “…given that America’s detention system for immigrants
has been running at full capacity for some time now, where is the president
going to put all of these people before deporting them? In new jails, for
starters … It’s not difficult to guess who profits.”
Seattle
mayor threatens to sue Trump. Politico: “Seattle Mayor Ed Murray … will use
his state of the city speech — delivered at a mosque in North Seattle — to
announce a plan to officially demand answers on the creation and intention of
President Donald Trump’s executive orders, as well as his plans for DACA and
sanctuary cities. If the administration doesn’t respond within the allotted 20
business days, Murray says, he’ll sue.”
Border Tax Battle
16
manufacturing CEOs back Speaker Ryan on border adjustment tax. CNBC: “In a
letter to House and Senate leadership, they argued that the current tax system
penalizes American factory workers and restrains business investment and
economic growth … The letter underscores the deep division within the business
community as Washington debates the most sweeping changes to the American tax
system in more than 30 years. The companies backing the letter are part of the
newly formed American Made Coalition and would benefit from the proposal
championed by House Speaker Paul Ryan [which] faces significant opposition from
the retail industry … they have established their own lobbying group, the
Coalition for Affordable Products.”
But
Ryan fighting uphill. The Atlantic’s Michelle Cottle: ”At this point,
anti-BATers have an edge. Why? Partly, because the provision is super
complicated and almost impossible to explain in terms that don’t sound like
something a coven of economists vomited up.”
Can
Republicans avoid another government shutdown? AP: “For years, Republicans
needed President Barack Obama’s signoff and relied on Democratic votes to pass
the measures and balance out opposition from tea partyers … Some House
conservatives are demanding a round of budget cuts to ‘offset’ new spending on
the Pentagon and Trump’s wall … ‘I don’t think we’d be able to jam anything
through that didn’t have some significant buy-in by Democrats,’ Sen. Roy Blunt,
R-Mo., said … Lawmakers face an April 28 deadline, which seems like plenty of
time. The administration, however, is off to a slow start…”
Breakfast Sides
Gorsuch
wooing Dems. Politico: “Gorsuch and his allies are engineering a full-court
charm offensive to win over Democrats soured by the GOP’s yearlong blockade of
Garland … And there are signs it’s working … There are 10 ripe Democratic
targets: Senators up for reelection in states Trump won. But two of them have
already said they would oppose Gorsuch.”
Cities
should consider a luxury housing tax to fund affordable housing, argues Eric
Uhlfelder in NYT oped: “…cities need local financing initiatives that make
up for the coming reduction in federal assistance … an annual luxury housing
tax, levied on new high-end condos and rentals … would feed a self-sustaining
fund dedicated to develop truly affordable units.”
Unions
needed to tame the gig economy. American Prospect’s Katherine V.W. Stone:
“…here is a long history of unions protecting their members from employers’
efforts to force workers to bear all the risks and costs of fluctuating demand …
[Workers] in the world of so-called alt-labor, use worker centers, associations,
and other worker-empowerment strategies that are not technically unions. If the
Trump administration changes rules and laws to weaken traditional unions … these
new strategies become that much more important.”
Progressive
Breakfast is a daily morning email highlighting news stories of interest to
activists. Progressive Breakfast and OurFuture.org are projects of People's
Action. more
»