Rebecca Leber at Mother Jones writes—At Bernie Sanders’ Big Climate Change Town Hall, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Steals the Show:
Bernie Sanders didn’t have to remind the hundreds of activists, young people, policy wonks, and thousands of viewers online watching his climate change town hall Monday night of “the great crisis facing our planet and facing our humanity.” That was one of the central points he made during the event entitled, “Solving our Climate Crisis,” which might be the beginning of a likely presidential bid for Sanders in 2020. But even though the 2016 presidential hopeful was the main attraction during the event, the real star was newly elected New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has elevated the Green New Deal, a rallying cry for a complete realignment of the US economy for a carbon-free future, to top billing in the Democratic party.
“This is going to be the Great Society, the moonshot, the civil rights movement of our generation,” Ocasio-Cortez, a former Sanders organizer, told the crowd of about 400 on Capitol Hill. “That is the scale of the ambition that this movement is going to require.” [...]
She explained, briefly, her Green New Deal, a short document calling for a Select Committee that pursues 100 percent renewable energy, energy-efficiency upgrades, decarbonizing all major sectors, and a massive jobs and retraining plan. “We can use the transition to 100 percent renewable energy as the vehicle to establish economic, racial and social justice in America,” Ocasia-Cortez said. This is hardly the only messaging out there for climate legislation, but it’s recently become the most high-profile one, aided by the recruitment of 18 other progressive House Representatives around a four-page framework they hope a House Select Committee will take up in the new Congress. There is still plenty of debate within Democratic circles on the best strategy for eventual federal legislation—a carbon tax or jobs program, the promise of 100 percent renewable energy or an interim goal—but the Green New Deal goes bold on a progressive vision that could attract a new kind of coalition.
Sanders also discussed ambitious action, focusing on diagnosing the problem. “All of these reports make a very simple and profound point. And that is, time is late,” he said. “This is a crisis situation, it is unprecedented and we’ve got to act in an unprecedented way.” [...]
You can see Ocasio-Cortez talk and answer some questions at the Solving Our Climate Crisis town hall here. And you can watch the commentary of several others at the town hall here.
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.”
~~Octavia Estelle Butler
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2017—No lower bounds for new GOP: Sexual predator Trump endorses Alabama child molester Roy Moore:
Because Donald Trump is a liar, a coward, a con man, an amoral blob of goo, and a man charged by more than a dozen women of sexual assault, he has been pretending at being coy in his support for child molester and sexual predator Roy Moore, the anti-Constitution but pro-child-rape piece of human trash who is currently seeking office as Alabama's next senator. Trump had been attempting to do this by demanding that Alabama voters not support Moore's opponent, prosecutor Doug Jones, under the theory that it doesn't matter what you think about child molestation—what's really important here is that rich assholes get tax breaks. Republicans don't think Doug Jones will play ball on that one, so that just leaves the child molester as Republican voters’ only possible choice.
Trump had gone so far as to schedule a rally in panhandle Florida, just a skip away from the Alabama state line, so that his not-quite-endorsements of the child molester get broadcast into the state without his Royal Highness Garbage Fire Von Sex Criminal having to technically step into the child molester’s state to do it. Because, as we mentioned, the man is a garbage fire.
Since Trump is also an idiot, however, he wasn't able to play that game for very long, finally letting the cat out of the bag this morning—and so Roy Moore's wife had a very special Twitter announcement.
Judge Moore just got off the phone with President Trump—we have his full support! Thank you Mr. President! Let's MAGA!
Yup, Trump did it. He called up the child molester to express his full support.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: MD and DC emoluments suits greenlighted for discovery. NC-09 is blowing up. Post-election GOP thievery in WI and MI explained, even as the NYT papers over it. The Saud family feud that led to the Khashoggi murder, continued. Motives? Yes. Reason? Not yet.
RadioPublic|LibSyn|YouTube|Patreon|Square Cash (Share code: Send $5, get $5!)