democratic-party-united-states

"One never knows what the future holds."

"My core values that originally drew me to the Republican Party have not changed, but the party which once echoed the vision of Ronald Reagan no longer exists"

"The voters saw through her blatant self-serving move and now she’s cashing in her 30 pieces of silver."

"We always knew Dawn Addiego’s party switch had nothing to do with her values and everything to do with personal gain."

"I’m certainly open to any opportunity that may present itself."

"Democratic presidential candidates are struggling to distinguish themselves from their party rivals and competing for endorsements. Their horizontal vision in these disagreements diverts their gaze from the peril we face as Donald Trump dismantles the norms that have guided our political life since 1776. Whatever their differences, Democratic candidates must agree to broad principles related to key issues, for example, immigration, health care, and the growing wealth gap. A general consensus would leave plenty of room for healthy debates about implementation, but failure to emphasize shared ideals in relationship to two or three major questions will blunt Democrats’ offensive against a candidate whose campaign is based on slander and fear."

"Pompous little twit. You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get the food into the cities. Horses? If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating. You would bring about mass death."

"The Green New Deal’s focus on invest­ing in high-speed rail could mean sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial work for elec­tri­cians and rail work­ers like Lib­er­a­to. The leg­is­la­tion also calls for ​“repair­ing and upgrad­ing the infra­struc­ture in the Unit­ed States,” which means fix­ing bridges and roads, retro­fitting build­ings, and updat­ing sewage and water sys­tems. And the AFT’s green school build­ings cam­paign will need the sup­port of build­ing trades unions, like elec­tri­cians, plumbers, roofers, and boil­er­mak­ers. All of this infra­struc­ture work means more union jobs — but only if the labor move­ment acknowl­edges the true mag­ni­tude of cli­mate change and decides to play a lead­er­ship role in fight­ing it."

"It is within this context of 70 long years of secrecy, special legal exemptions, deception, fraud, lies by omission, non-binding agreements — and the global role of militarism as climate crisis multiplier — that we can best evaluate the Democratic Party’s version of the Green New Deal (GND).... The GND now has overwhelming public support and that is truly a great accomplishment. The Democrat’s version has many fine ideas linking inequality and social justice to efforts to fight climate change — and those ideas are all true... In its current form the plan also uses the language of market solutions and technical fixes that sadly repeat the weakest features of failed climate “action” already offered by elites. But most important, the Democrat’s GND — once again — omits the US government and military as a cause of climate disaster. The other — almost unbelievable omission — is the failure of the Democrat’s GND to explicitly call for dramatic reductions in the use of fossil fuels. In fact, the words “oil” “gas” “coal” or “fossil fuels” do not even appear in the final document that established the committee... The Democrat’s GND remains a vague non-binding wish. The 2050 deadlines are standard political dodge-ball. When faced with crisis, corporate politicians always want to ‘kick the can down the road” — postponing real action until the damage is already done and someone else takes the blame. Adaptation to disaster and management of the crisis rather than prevention of climate chaos is the hidden but actual program of the Democrat’s GND."

"The framework of the Green New Deal gives us some radical, concrete, aspirational, yet achievable goals to fight for."

"Specifically, the resolution says it is the duty of the federal government to craft a Green New Deal “to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions”. That includes getting all power from “clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources”... The document also endorses universal healthcare, a jobs guarantee and free higher education – a huge shift in messaging from nearly a decade ago, when Democrats were advocating for a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gases by allotting industry permits for pollution."

"The Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Teach­ers (AFT), the sec­ond largest teach­ers’ union in the coun­try, passed a res­o­lu­tion in sup­port of the Green New Deal at its bien­ni­al con­ven­tion at the end of July. The Green New Deal, fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion intro­duced in ear­ly 2019, would cre­ate a liv­ing-wage job for any­one who wants one and imple­ment 100% clean and renew­able ener­gy by 2030. The endorse­ment is huge news for both Green New Deal advo­cates and the AFL-CIO, the largest fed­er­a­tion of unions in the Unit­ed States. The AFT’s endorse­ment could be a sign of envi­ron­men­tal activists’ grow­ing pow­er, and it sends a mes­sage to the AFL-CIO that it, too, has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get on board with the Green New Deal."

"The Green New Deal, a proposal introduced by Democratic lawmakers Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey and galvanized by an engaged youth movement, is perhaps the U.S. government's most robust attempt to make a dent in the country's outsized carbon emissions and end its reliance on fossil fuels, both of which propel the ongoing climate disaster when in use (burning them releases harmful chemicals into the atmosphere) and during extraction (via methods like oil drilling and coal mining, which cause irreparable damage to the environment). The Green New Deal also seeks to address the dire income inequality that has existed since European colonizers stepped foot on this native land, and has only been exacerbated by climate change, both here and on global terms. This policy proposal isn't a fix-all, but it is an ambitious program that, if implemented, has the potential to enact real, much-needed change, especially if other entities (for example, New York City, whose city council recently passed a Climate Mobilization Act) are inspired to take action on a local level."

"Texas is about as far from a Green New Deal as you can possibly get, seeing as a Green New Deal is a plan to bring together the need to get off fossil fuels in the next decade to radically decarbonize our energy system,.. to marry that huge infrastructure investment in the next green economy with a plan to battle poverty, to create huge numbers of good, union, green jobs, to take care of people. It’s a plan to have universal public healthcare and child care and a jobs guarantee. So it’s all the things that are not happening in Texas, because there isn’t just this extreme weather, which many scientists believe is linked to our warming planet — you know, you can’t link one storm with climate change, but the patterns are very clear, and this should be a wake-up call — but Texas is also suffering a pandemic of poverty, of exclusion, of racial injustice... we’ve heard this messaging, I think, because of panic, frankly, because the Green New Deal is a plan that could solve so many of Texas’s problems and the problems across the country, and Republicans have absolutely nothing to offer except for more deregulation, more privatization, more austerity. And so they have been frantically seeking to deflect from the real causes of this crisis, which is an intersection of extreme weather, of the kind that we are seeing more of because of climate change, intersecting with a deregulated, fossil fuel-based energy system."

"ensuring a commercial environment where every businessperson is free from unfair competition and domination by domestic or international monopolies..."

"...the Green New Deal is exactly the right idea. You can raise questions about the specific form in which Ocasio-Cortez and Markey introduced it: Maybe it shouldn’t be exactly this way; it should be a little bit differently. But the general idea is quite right. And there’s very solid work explaining, developing in detail, exactly how it could work. So, a very fine economist at UMass Amherst, Robert Pollin, has written extensively on, in extensive detail, with close analysis of how you could implement policies of this kind in a very effective way, which would actually make a better society. It wouldn’t be that you’d lose from it; you’d gain from it. The costs of renewable energy are declining very sharply. If you eliminate the massive subsidies that are given to fossil fuels, they probably already surpass them. There are many means that can be implemented and carried out to overcome, certainly to mitigate, maybe to overcome, this serious crisis... A lot of the media commentary ridiculing this and that aspect of it are essentially beside the point... the basic idea is correct."

"directing investments to spur economic development, deepen and diversify industry and business in local and regional economies, and build wealth and community ownership, while prioritizing high-quality job creation and economic, social, and environmental benefits..."

"ensuring the use of democratic and participatory processes... to plan, implement, and administer the Green New Deal at the local level;"

"enacting and enforcing trade rules, procurement standards, and border adjustments with strong labor and environmental protections—"

"obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories, honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of indigenous peoples;"

"Jacobson said this could be completed by 2035... At the same time, policymakers would introduce a range of measures to promote energy efficiency, and electrify other sectors of the economy that now rely heavily on burning carbon, such as road and rail transport, home heating, and industrial heating. “We don’t need a technological miracle to solve this problem,” Jacobson reiterated. “‘The bottom line is we just need to deploy, deploy, deploy.”"

"The Green New Deal needs to be fortified by spiritual foundations. That this idea is being discussed is a refreshing encouragement. Not everything is lost. But this is the time to act..."

"When we talk about the concern of the environment as an elitist concern, one year ago I was waitressing in a taco shop in Downtown Manhattan. I just got health insurance for the first time a month ago. This is not an elitist issue; this is a quality-of-life issue. You want to tell people that their concern and their desire for clean air and clean water is elitist? Tell that to the kids in the South Bronx, which are suffering from the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country. Tell that to the families in Flint, whose kids have—their blood is ascending in lead levels. Their brains are damaged for the rest of their lives. Call them elitist... People are dying. This should not be a partisan issue. This is about our constituents and all of our lives. Iowa, Nebraska, broad swaths of the Midwest are drowning right now, underwater. Farms, towns that will never be recovered and never come back. And we’re here, and people are more concerned about helping oil companies than helping their own families? I don’t think so...This is about American lives. And it should not be partisan. Science should not be partisan. We are facing a national crisis. And if... if we tell the American public that we are more willing to invest and bail out big banks than we are willing to invest in our farmers and our urban families, then I don’t know what we’re here doing..."

"On the national level, the Green New Deal is a step in the right direction toward building environmental justice into climate change policy. And as Iʼve written about elsewhere, there are steps that can be taken to “Indigenize” it, thus making it more responsive to Indigenous issues. This would include explicit recognition of Indigenous nationhood and political relationships to the US (not based on race), and the affirming of TEK as a methodology for tackling climate change. The GND is modeled after FDRʼs New Deal, which is always celebrated as progressive action that lifted the US out of economic depression through infrastructure development projects like dams and extractive industries that put people to work. Whatʼs far less acknowledged, however, is how much environmental and cultural death and destruction all that development wreaked on Indian country. We see a similar pattern occurring globally in the realm of “sustainable” development, which has given rise to a modern global land rush that impacts Indigenous communities the most. Ultimately, unchecked capitalism is the problem and we need to heed the research that connects cultural diversity with biodiversity if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."

"The Green New Deal is wildly popular among both Republican and Democratic voters, as HuffPost previously reported. Still, Republican lawmakers have been quick to dismiss it as a “top-down” and “impossible” proposal. The Trump administration’s relentless push for so-called “energy dominance” includes plans to massively expand offshore oil and gas drilling. And an internal document that surfaced last year suggested the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation’s leading ocean science agency, is planning to gut protections for America’s marine national monuments, opening millions of acres of federal water to commercial fishing. Ocean conservation nonprofit Oceana is among the many groups that celebrated the introduction of the Green New Deal last week. Protecting oceans, as the resolution calls for, is a “no-brainer,” Beth Lowell, the group’s deputy vice president U.S. campaigns, told HuffPost... “By rebuilding ocean abundance, we can help the coastal communities and fisheries that rely on healthy oceans for generations to come,” she said."

"A large-scale effort to protect and restore wild spaces would be a grand departure from the last two years, when the Trump administration slashed protections for 2 million acres of national monument land in Utah, offered up millions of federal acres for oil and gas leasing, some of which sold for as little as $1.50 per acre, and prioritized opening Alaska’s fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to fossil fuel development. A press release put out by the Interior Department last week, titled “Energy Revolution Unleashed,” touted a record $1.1 billion in oil and gas lease sales last year... It is time the federal government end its practice of leasing lands for fossil fuel production at below market value, and instead explore boosting renewable energy development that helps protect ecosystems, species and indigenous lands."

"Starting with a visit by...young climate activists to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Bay Area office...Their exchange — about whether the California senator would vote for or co-sponsor the Green New Deal...went viral. It led to a turbocharged debate about whether the video had been edited, but it also brought with it a tangible change in the halls of Congress...In her now-infamous response, Feinstein said she was in the process of drafting her own, more moderate resolution on confronting climate change that she felt would have a better chance of passing in the GOP-run Senate. The group of young people, who ranged from 11 to 24, were from several different climate action groups. The viral Twitter clip has racked up more than 9 million views, and was the first time many people had heard of Feinstein’s alternative resolution, and when climate activists learned about it, they went into overdrive to stop it. Feinstein, facing pressure... elected to shelve it."

"On Monday (25 Feb 2019), the Sunrise Movement in the form of roughly 250 Kentucky high schoolers, occupied McConnell’s Senate office, resulting in 35 arrests. Some protesters held up a banner that read “Mitch, Look Us in the Eyes,” while others lined the halls outside his office... While the sit-in got little attention in the press, it appeared to have gotten McConnell’s. The majority leader, who is up for re-election in 2020, had recently been eager to put the Green New Deal on the Senate floor. All of a sudden, however, he suggested that it would come up at some point before the August recess. “This wouldn’t have happened without thousands of people across the country pressuring senators of both parties. Two weeks ago, McConnell was excitedly telling the media about his plans. Now, he seems happy to let this vote be forgotten,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of Sunrise. “You can bet Mitch McConnell was hearing from his own caucus about this vote. There were sit-ins and rallies at the offices of the Republicans most vulnerable in 2020: Ernst, [David] Perdue, Collins, Gardner, and of course, McConnell himself. They’re smart and don’t want to stand on the wrong side on the Green New Deal, which is very popular in their states.”"

"“I really don't like their policies of taking away your car, taking away your airplane flights, of ‘let’s hop a train to California,’ or ‘you’re not allowed to own cows anymore!'”...bellowed President Donald Trump in El Paso, Texas, his first campaign-style salvo against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey’s Green New Deal resolution. There will surely be many more. It’s worth marking the moment. Because those could be the famous last words of a one-term president, having wildly underestimated the public appetite for transformative action on the triple crises of our time: imminent ecological unraveling, gaping economic inequality (including the racial and gender wealth divide), and surging white supremacy."

"There is a grand story to be told here about the duty to repair — to repair our relationship with the earth and with one another, to heal the deep wounds dating back to the founding of the country. Because while it is true that climate change is a crisis produced by an excess of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it is also, in a more profound sense, a crisis produced by an extractive mindset — a way of viewing both the natural world and the majority of its inhabitants as resources to use up and then discard. I call it the “gig and dig” economy and firmly believe that we will not emerge from this crisis without a shift in worldview, a transformation from “gig and dig” to an ethos of care and repair...The Green New Deal will need to be subject to constant vigilance and pressure from experts who understand exactly what it will take to lower our emissions as rapidly as science demands, and from social movements that have decades of experience bearing the brunt of false climate solutions, whether nuclear power, the chimera of carbon capture and storage, or carbon offsets. But in remaining vigilant, we also have to be careful not to bury the overarching message: that this is a potential lifeline that we all have a sacred and moral responsibly to reach for."

"The Green New Deal seems to have driven the Republicans as crazy as its primary proponent in the House does... In El Paso, for example, the president... told his gathering of bot-minded fans that AOC plans to ban automobiles, airplanes, and cows... Mitch McConnell has decided again to be... clever... and put the proposal up to a vote, figuring that it somehow puts Democratic candidates in a bind... GND is wildly popular among the people who will be voting for the next 40 years. The GND forces on people two realities with which their 30 years of climate denial has managed to insulate them. First, the problem is so severe that it is going to require a massive national response even to mitigate the effects of the crisis which are affecting us now. (This is why the Pentagon has taken the crisis as an existential one.) Second, the denial argument itself is completely out of steam."

"It’s no accident that this Green New Deal has been championed by a legislator not yet 30. It’s Ocasio-Cortez’s generation who’ll bear the full brunt of the results of three decades of legislative inertia on climate change. All of us owe it to her generation and future ones to ensure that the political and economic choices she and others face in 20 years won’t be even worse because of our failure of leadership, nerve and imagination today. Timely support of this bold new deal, and the principles it stands for, may in fact be our only hope."

"Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., think they have a start to a [climate change] solution...They are introducing... a "Green New Deal"... sets goals for some drastic measures to cut carbon emissions across the economy, from electricity generation to transportation to agriculture. In the process, it aims to create jobs and boost the economy... The bill calls for a "10-year national mobilizations" toward accomplishing a series of goals... Among the most prominent... meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources... ultimate goal is to stop using fossil fuels entirely... to transition away from nuclear energy In addition... a variety of other lofty goals....upgrading all existing buildings... for energy efficiency.... working with farmers "to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions... as much as is technologically feasible....while supporting family farms and promoting "universal access to healthy food... Overhauling transportation systems... expanding electric car manufacturing... charging stations everywhere... expanding high-speed rail to "a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary".... guaranteed job "with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family... medical leave, paid vacations.... retirement security.... High-quality health care for all Americans..."

"Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden unveiled a $2 trillion energy plan Tuesday with a heavy focus on the Green New Deal agenda being pushed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the far-left flank of his party. Speaking in Wilmington, Del., Biden promised a “clean energy revolution,” which he said would deliver millions of jobs, as he attacked President Trump for calling climate change a “hoax.” Biden detailed what he called a pro-union platform that would replace the US government’s car fleet with American-made electric vehicles and includes a pledge to create a “carbon pollution-free electric sector by the year 2025.” Biden’s announcement comes as the presidential wannabe courts idols on the left of his party including Bronx-Queens Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the hope that they will support him and steer young voters his way in November. In May, AOC announced she had been selected to co-chair Biden’s climate change panel along with former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. The former veep on Tuesday promised to “create millions of high-paying union jobs by building a modern infrastructure and a clean energy future” and described his vision of a US covered in 500,000 electric car charging stations and thriving factories producing green products."

"meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources...[p.7]"

"Repairing and upgrading the infrastructure in the United States..."

"providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States... [p.11]"

"making public investments in the research and development of new clean and renewable energy technologies and industries..."

"Strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free of coercion, intimidation, and harassment;"

"strengthening and enforcing labor, workplace health and safety, antidiscrimination, and wage and hour standards across all employers, industries, and sectors;"

"to stop the transfer of jobs and pollution overseas; and (ii) to grow domestic manufacturing in the United States;"

"ensuring that public lands, waters, and oceans are protected and that eminent domain is not abused;"

"“Ecotopian” aspirations are already in full view in community networks attempting to create more conscious ways of living such as... bold policy proposals such as the USA’s “Green New Deal.” What’s more, many of the ideas put forth by these projects were long since imagined in prominent ecotopian literary works."

"“Right now, we have about ninety per cent or ninety-five per cent of the technology we need,” Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, told me. In a series of papers, Jacobson and his colleagues have laid out “roadmaps” to a zero-emissions economy for fifty states, fifty-three towns and cities, and a hundred and thirty-eight other countries, with a completion date of 2050. Just as in the Democrats’ Green New Deal, the central element... is converting the electric grid to clean energy by shutting down power stations that rely on fossil fuels and making some very large investments in wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal facilities."

"Saul Griffith, a materials scientist and inventor who is the chief executive of OtherLab, a San Francisco-based technology incubator that focusses on clean energy, agrees. In recent presentations, Griffith has sketched out an aggressive plan for switching to clean power and electrifying heating and transportation, which he says could be completed within twenty years. “It’s entirely reasonable to do it,” he said. “The United States is lucky because of its natural advantages. It’s a country with low population density, good wind, good solar, and good hydro resources. The only reason not to do it is political inertia and the influence of the existing fossil-fuel industry.”"

"I am really heartened by the initiatives like Green New Deal. The idea is still contested and may need many clarifications before it could be implemented. It needs to bring forth the Catholic Social Teaching principle of human dignity and integrity of creation..."

"Since initial backers hailed the introduction of the historic resolution as a huge accomplishment on Thursday, a growing number of labor, economic justice, racial justice, indigenous, environmental, and community organizations have lined up behind the bold proposal and vowed to pressure lawmakers to pass it. The youth-led Sunrise Movement, which has spearheaded grassroots organizing in favor of the deal, is planning more than 600 congressional office visits this week to garner support..."

"Organic Consumers Association international director Ronnie Cummins described it as "The only solution that matches the scale of our multiple crises, including global warming, corporate control of our food system, income inequality, and the general decline of our environment and our democracy...""

"And with respect to our brothers and sisters and neighbors that are in agriculture, bring them to the table. Let’s hold hearings. Let’s add provisions. Let’s amend the legislation to accommodate for the just transition and for the encouragement of those industries to grow. And I would also encourage, to my colleague on the other side of the aisle that thinks we’re trying to ban cows, to actually read the resolution and understand that there’s nothing to that effect in the legislation, and not only that, but we’re trying to invest in these communities and our agricultural workers, so that they can enjoy prosperity into the next century."

"Progressive organizers are mobilizing behind the Green New Deal resolution—unveiled last week by Rep. Alexandria Ocastio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)—with renewed energy to build "an unprecedented political coalition" to radically transform the nation's energy system and address the climate crisis while also facilitating a just transition to a new, greener economy."