Thursday, January 23, 2020

Unfuck the USA


Short list of what needs to happen in 2021-22:

1. Warren or Sanders needs to win the Dem nomination and then defeat DT in the general.

2. The Dems need to hold the House and take over the Senate.

3. Once in control, the Dems then need to pass a law expanding the U.S. Supreme Court to something like 25 justices, nominate as many new ones as are needed, and confirm them.   Similarly expand and fill the federal appellate and trial courts.  If actual de-trumpification is not possible then we at least need to dilute and minimize their effect.

4. Enact the following policies on voting/democracy: 
a.       Make election day a national holiday;
b.       Prohibit felony disenfranchisement laws and voter ID requirements;
c.       Comprehensive campaign finance reform that includes limits on individual donations, restricts participation by non-natural persons, and requires public media to refrain from publishing material that is demonstrably false or misleading;
d.       Require all states to conduct electoral redistricting through a process that uses a computer program, created by a non-partisan team of computer experts, to draw lines that establish districts according a standard set of objectively fair and reasonable criteria that are not calculated to advantage one political party or the other;
e.       Make the receipt of federal funding contingent upon a host of pro-democracy policies, including (i) vote-by-mail or on-line voting, (ii) instant-run-off voting, (ii) automatic voter registration schemes, etc.

      The Dems should also do whatever they can to extend the political franchise to D.C. residents, Puerto Ricans, and any other U.S. citizens who do not currently enjoy full participation in the government.

       5. Take action on inequality, including the following:
a.       Establish single-payer health coverage (Medicare for all) to ensure all Americans have access to basic health care (and also alleviate the financial strain on small business and innovation);
b.       Establish public funding for “K-16” and cancel existing undergraduate student loan debt, to ensure future generations have access to the basic education level needed to enjoy economic opportunity in our modern economy, alleviate the burden that student loans already impose on the economy, and avoid the eventual burst of the student debt bubble;
c.       Raise the federal minimum wage to $15/hr. and require automatic annual adjustments thereafter pegged to the U.S. productivity level, which will further redistribute wealth from the uber-rich to working households and exert upward pressure on the wages of all workers;
d.       Establish at least 12 weeks of paid parent leave for new parents;
e.       Fund housing vouchers at a level appropriate to the need, invest in capital improvements to existing affordable housing, and appropriate additional moneys as needed to erase the 7.2 million dwelling unit gap in affordable housing, and fully fund McKinney-Vento programs predicated on a Housing First model to end homelessness throughout the USA;
f.        Enact comprehensive immigration reform that (i) makes all DREAMers eligible for green cards immediately and provides a path to citizenship if they want it, (ii) reaffirms the U.S. commitment to international refugee and asylee law, abolishing detention camps and reuniting families as quickly as possible; (iii) reverses all Trump-era and preexisting discriminations against non-citizens, ranging from the travel ban to the public charge rule to everything in between; (iv) restores the USA’s self-image as a haven open to people seeking a better life (and which recognizes that most immigrants work hard and build businesses that employ people, contrary to the myths of the right), with immigration restrictions limited to very serious considerations (such as screening out terrorists or people carrying contagious diseases, and none of the political white supremacy bullshit).

6. With whatever additional time the Dems have within their guaranteed 2-year window, enact the “Green New Deal” and save the fuck out of the planet while there is still something left of it to preserve. 

7. Cancel Columbus Day as a federal holiday and replace it with the first two days of the NCAA Tournament.

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