Something More Productive than BooFriggingHoo

My impulse is to say "cry me a river" to business leaders worried that they might not be able to speak their minds under a Trump presidency:

That style, including his opaque personal financial dealings and his sudden shots at certain companies, has helped unnerve a corporate America that traditionally craves stability. Some business leaders and economists have worried whether executives can speak their minds about the president-elect or his policies without fear of facing Trump’s rage.

But after taking a deep breath or two, I'm wondering...are there alliances that progressive leaders can build with the business community under this Administration? Is there a way to find common ground pushing back on policymaking that is based on personal interest/vendetta?

Needy Chicago Organizations

Torrey Barrett, The CEO of K.L.E.O., an amazing community center in the South Side, provided me with the names of a few great organizations that serve African-Americans in Chicago.

Brightstar Community Outreach - Christopher Harris
Growing Power - Erika Allen
Greater Englewood CDC - Glen Fulton
Phalanx Family Services - Tina Sanders


Please consider donating your time and/or money to K.L.E.O. or these other worthwhile organizations. 

Pre-Action Prep: Leaning on Dems on ACA and Medicare

I read this little columnfrom Talking Points Memo yesterday on how badly the GOP will want some Dems to join them in ACA repeal and Medicare privatization votes and it struck me that this is definitely something to mobilize around. We need to pressure our more conservative party-members like Manchin and McCaskill to stick with the party on this and not provide the GOP any political cover for stripping millions of people of health care coverage.

 From what I'm reading, the prospect of actually taking health insurance away from millions of constituents is giving some GOP voters and officials serious second thoughts. Obviously, my biggest hope is that we can stop any repeal of the ACA and privatization of Medicare from happening and I think that keeping up pressure on Dems will help since GOPers know that making these moves unilaterally would hurt them in the polls. Aside from targeting our Senators and Reps, what can we do to pressure conservative Dems?

Sassy Action: Hold Rauner Accountable

IL Peeps: Gov Rauner is doing Facebook Live at 7:30pm tonight. Tweet him questions at @GovRauner or post on FB. Among other things ask him why he vetoed automatic voter registration based on specious fraud concerns. Make your voice heard!

Race for the DNC

A follow up post to Bridget's about the new Chair for the Democratic National Committee.  Ilyse Hogue, who I mentioned in a comment to that post is the current head of NARAL, is throwing her hat into the ring.  Daily Kos just endorsed her and linked to her platform.

Ilyse would be taking this on as a full-time position, not part-time like current members of Congress. I think that is super important and, though I like Ellison a lot (he hasn't released a platform yet but he just did another interview with more on his approach), I just don't think he can dedicate the time and energy that revitalizing our party needs.

Some of what I like about Ilyse's platform:

• Co-opting the "system is rigged" messaging with a focus on voter suppression, gerrymandering etc.  

• A focus on local politics, party and policy as a way to create a pipeline for federal elections but to also build momentum and support for the party.

• Creating a more inclusive, strategic and equitable primary process. 

• Starting all messages with values that are shared across the culture.  Repugs do this annoyingly well.  

Interested in your thoughts on other candidates and whether there are ways we can get involved in this process.

Sassy Action: Call IL Reps TODAY to save Motor Voter Law

Got this from Daily Kos and reposting in full.  Please call today!  Given all the restrictions on voting we need to keep up momentum with state Motor Voter laws.

Ilsa, on Tuesday, November 29, the Illinois House of Representatives is expected to hold a vote on whether to override Gov. Bruce Rauner’s August veto of a bill that would automatically register nearly every resident of Illinois to vote.

By automatically registering every resident of the state to vote "every time they visit a Department of Motor Vehicles, office of Human Services, office of Healthcare and Family Services, the Secretary of State’s office, or an Employment Security office," the bill--SB250--is expected to add two million more voters to the rolls.

There are enough votes to override the veto. We just need to make sure everyone shows up.

Please, click here to find the name and phone number of your member of the Illinois House of Representatives. Once you have the phone number, please call ASAP and tell your Representative to show up and vote to override Gov. Rauner's veto of the automatic voter registration bill. Here is a sample script you can use:

Hi, my name is Ilsa and I am calling from Chicago. I am calling to ask you to support improving our democracy by voting to override Gov. Rauner's veto of the automatic voter registration bill. Thank you.

Here is the full background:

Bipartisan majorities in the Illinois legislature adopted automatic voter registration earlier in the summer. (The bill is SB250.) If the bill becomes law, Illinois would follow six other states that have adopted automatic voting registration in the past two years.

Governor Scott Rauner vetoed the bill. The Democratic state Senate overrode the veto on Wednesday, November 16. Now it’s up to the state House to override the veto as well.

86 state Representatives supported the bill in May; 14 of them were Republican. Details can be found here (PDF).

We need 71 votes to override Rauner’s veto, so we should have what we need to pass this bill into law. However, there are concerns about whether Republicans stay on board and whether all Democrats show up to the veto session.

The vote is expected tomorrow, Tuesday, November 29. All residents of Illinois should contact their state Representatives, urging them to be present throughout the special session and to support overriding the veto of SB250, the automatic voting registration bill.

Cecile Richards at UC Law School

Cecile Richards, the President of Planned Parenthood, is speaking at UC Law School on Tuesday, November 29, 4:00-5:30. 

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/events/2016-11-29-schwartz-memorial-lecture-cecile-richards

Persistence of Fake News

The other day I was reading about Alex Jones, the awful man who has called Sandy Hook a hoax.  Apparently, Jones has Trump's attention, and family members of victims have decried this relationship.

The rise of fake news is disturbing.  Fake news is not news and it is not new; conspiracy theorists have been around for ages.  I have no idea how we rid the system of this stuff, but Google is not necessarily helping.  In my decision making class, we discuss confirmation bias.  Confirmation bias, broadly speaking, is the tendency to look for evidence that is consistent with (or confirms) some hypothesized belief.  It is also the tendency to weigh confirmatory evidence more favorably than disconfirmatory evidence.

The blog below asks, "Is Google making us less rational?"

Suppose that you wake up from a Rip Van Winkle sleep and hear that we have a President named Barack Obama and that he was born in Kenya.  You might respond two ways: "That's interesting.  I wonder if it is true?"  "That's crazy.  I bet that's not true!"  Those different reactions will lead to different Google queries, e.g., "Obama born in Kenya" or "Obama born in US".  Here's what you get when you do these two queries:

The first link for "Obama born in Kenya" is a Youtube link, "Barack Obama Admits he was born in Kenya Speech."  In contrast, the query "Obama born in US" brings up a very official looking informational box containing birth details, followed by a Wikipedia entry, and a bunch of entries from Huffington Post, WAPO, USA Today, etc.

So, the persistence of Fake News may be due to the silos and echo chambers which divide America.  But Google's algorithm for searches plus confirmation bias may also contribute to the problem.

business as usual?

One of George's colleagues makes some interesting points here. I have issues with several aspects of his argument (umm, the protests are not sour grapes about the election outcome, they're substantive responses to key elements of Trump's racist, sexist, xenophobic platform) (also too: evidence of corruption [e.g., Trump U, the "blind trust"] does not fall under the rubric of "personality" and is always, always relevant). But some of this analysis strikes me as right on. I'm persuaded that for the most part we've got to stick to the issues, including putting pressure on him to come through on the ones we agree on. Bizarrely enough, treating him like a normal politician could be his undoing.

Sassy Action: Fight the Kleptocracy

Rep. Cummings, the ranking Democratic on the House Oversight Committee, has requested that the committee quickly review DJT for potential (hah!) conflicts of interest related to his business.  I think this is super important and is something that Congress needs to know the public is paying attention to.

An easy action we can all take now is to send some version of the attached letter to Rep. Chaffetz, the Committee chair. (yes, the same guy trying to impeach the IRS Commissioner. Sigh.)  This letter was drafted by one of the folks on the lawyer's FB group I'm a part of and I edited it a bit.  I can also turn it into talking points if you'd rather just call. 

A good article about this emerging kleptocracy is at WaPo, here are some highlights:

• Ivanka, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are on the executive committee of Trump’s transition team, helping decide who gets hired for key positions and what the administration’s initial focus will be.

• During the Trump presidency, they will be running the Trump corporation on their father’s behalf, but the money it makes will still be his money. His main business is brand licensing, and it’s a business that is particularly amenable to enriching himself while he’s president.

• Multiple sources tell NBC News Trump received his first briefing on Tuesday and designated both Kushner and Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn as his staff-level companions for the briefings going forward.

Here is an example of how this might play out, again from WaPo:

"Well, imagine this scenario. Ivanka and Donny Jr. go to some country — let’s say Russia, for no particular reason — and arrange a meeting with a developer. They suggest a deal that the Trump corporation has carried out in places all over the world, in which the local developer builds a hotel or resort, then slaps the Trump name on it and pays the Trumps millions of dollars in licensing fees for the privilege. And let’s say that developer just happens to have ties, publicly known or otherwise, to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin. And let’s say he offers the Trump corporation very favorable terms — which, being savvy businesspeople, Ivanka and Donny accept. You’d then have a situation in which the Russian dictator has, through a proxy, deposited millions or even tens of millions of dollars into the bank account of the president of the United States."