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'There Is Hope for the Progressive Movement': With Bold Message of Economic Justice, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Rallies Draw Thousands in Kansas
"Whether you live in Vermont or the Bronx or Kansas, you are outraged by a situation in which three people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of America."
Jul 20, 2018
"And they said it won't work in the Midwest."
That was how New York democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opened her speech at a packed and enthusiastic rally in Kansas City Friday night, one of two events the 28-year-old congressional candidate held alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in an effort to prove that an agenda confronting entrenched corporate power and demanding economic justice has far-reaching appeal.
"Whether you live in Vermont or the Bronx or Kansas, you are outraged by a situation in which three people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of America."
--Sen. Bernie Sanders
The two rallies on Friday--both of which were filled to capacity, with the Wichita event drawing an estimated 4,000 Kansans--were organized on behalf of progressive congressional candidates James Thompson and Brent Welder, both of whom are running on platforms that mirror those of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez: Medicare for All, a living wage, tuition-free public college, robust support for unions, and other central progressive priorities.
"I'm running for Congress because billionaires and giant corporations have too much control over our government," Welder, a former labor attorney who doesn't accept corporate cash, said to applause Friday evening. "As a worker's rights advocate and labor lawyer, I've spent my career fighting the giant corporations that rig the economy against workers and our community."
Since Ocasio-Cortez's landslide victory over corporate Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley in New York's primary last month, pundits and Democrats alike have raised doubts about the viability of democratic socialism beyond "the coasts" and have cautioned candidates against sprinting "too far to the left" in Midwestern states like Kansas.
If the overflowing rallies and electric atmosphere at Fridays' rallies are any evidence, these warnings couldn't be more wrong-headed.
\u201c- 3,000 people gathered in Wichita, Kansas,\n- on a Friday at 1pm,\n- 3 months before the general election, \n- to support a civil rights attorney running without corporate money on a boldly progressive agenda.\n\nThe Midwest feels pretty alright to me!\u201d— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) 1532124694
"Whether you live in Vermont or the Bronx or Kansas, you are outraged by a situation in which three people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of America," Sanders said during the afternoon event for Thompson, a civil rights lawyer who hails from the Koch brothers' home district of Wichita.
"I just do not accept what the pundits are talking about when they say blue state and red state and purple state," Sanders added. "I believe that any state in this country where working people are struggling is a state prepared to fight for justice."
\u201c"I do not accept what the pundits are talking about when they say blue state and red state. I believe that any state where working people are struggling is a state prepared to fight for justice." @BernieSanders in Kansas for @BrentWelder #KS03\u201d— People for Bernie (@People for Bernie) 1532129633
Ocasio-Cortez echoed Sanders' sentiment Friday afternoon, arguing "there is hope for the progressive movement" wherever there are working-class people, adding that Kansans can achieve progressive change in their state with the same grassroots tactics that propelled her to an upset win last month: Organizing relentlessly and knocking on doors.
"Corporations are buying politicians left and right. We've seen a lot of that in Kansas, and I think it's clear that has hurt working people."
--James Thompson, Kansas congressional candidate
"If you have never knocked on a door before, I am talking to you," Ocasio-Cortez declared. "If you have never voted before, I am talking to you."
At present, every U.S. senator and representative from Kansas is a Republican, the governor's mansion and the Kansas legislature are dominated by the GOP, and the state is still struggling to recover from former Gov. Sam Brownback's catastrophic "conservative experiment," which included massive tax breaks for the rich and deep spending cuts to public services like healthcare and education.
Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, Welder, and Thompson all decried such austerity and fealty to corporate interests and billionaires like the Kochs on Friday, while clearly arguing that politics-as-usual from the Democratic Party will not be enough to overcome these powerful interests.
"Corporations are buying politicians left and right. We've seen a lot of that in Kansas, and I think it's clear that has hurt working people," Thompson said. "So I think there should be a few of us in Washington who just can't be bought off, who are just going to be on the side of the unions."
As for the current Republican-controlled Congress and White House that are hell-bent on gutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in the service of delivering more tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, Sanders concluded: "They ain't gonna do it, because we are gonna stop them."
Watch the full event for Thompson:
Watch the full event for Welder:
Part one:
Part two:
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Kris Kobach Redux
Kris believes he would be a worthy successor to Kansas Governor Brownback. He is right.
Jan 13, 2018
To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.
--Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
It's not that he's ever been far away. It's just that whenever he returns, it causes the casual observer to marvel at how a great education could produce such a distorted intelligence and twisted mind. The good news is that soon he will leave the national stage in order to return to his home state and favor its voters with his peculiar views of government. A graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and Yale Law School, he is proof that, as one University President put it, some years back, when speaking of college graduates, "you can never be sure they are educated." He is Kris Kobach.
Kris is remembered for a number of peculiar triumphs that occurred during the last two years. It was he, who while serving on the Republican Platform Committee of the Republican National Convention, successfully inserted language into the platform that addresses illegal immigration in the manner now demanded by the country's Resident Fool who has found shelter in the White House. The language he successfully inserted was: "The border wall must cover the entirety of the southern border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular and pedestrian traffic." In furtherance of this project, eight sample walls have now been constructed in Texas, the prettiest of which is described as being a pale blue and white and resembles in some respects a split level home. The wall was not Kris's only platform success. He inserted into that platform language pertaining to gay marriage and stating that the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion legalizing it was obviously incorrect.
Although Kris serves as Kansas's Secretary of State, he has enjoyed serving as the vice-chair of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity. Vice President Pence was the chair of that Committee, but Kris assumed the role of leader which was singularly appropriate since he is more in tune with perceived election fraud than almost anyone in the country. At the time the Advisory Committee was created, he said: "As the chief election officer of a state, ensuring the integrity of elections is my number one priority. The work of this commission will assist all state elections officers in understanding, and addressing, the problem of voter fraud." There were probably few people in the country with Kris's experience.
As Secretary of State of Kansas Kris had sought to impose a requirement that anyone wanting to register to vote in that state offer proof of citizenship before registering. He claimed that was needed to put an end to voter fraud. Unimpressed, the federal judge who declined to permit that requirement to go forward in federal elections, and had a much keener understanding of the scope of the problem than Kris, observed that: "There is evidence of only three instances where noncitizens actually voted in a federal election between 1995 and 2015," and during that time only 14 non-citizens attempted to register. While serving on the Advisory Commission, Kris claimed on Breitbart news that he had found proof that 5,51l voters who voted in New Hampshire in the 2016 election were not eligible to vote. He based that on the fact that the voters lacked New Hampshire drivers' licenses when they registered, and failed to obtain them after voting. It turned out that there is no requirement that someone registering to vote in New Hampshire using an out of state driver's license is required to obtain a New Hampshire driver's license after voting.
The Commission on which Kris served has been dissolved. Its activities have been referred to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Kris says he will continue as an advisor to that department, presumably so his expertise will not go to waste. Tyler Houten, a spokesperson for the DHS, said that: "Mr. Kobach is not advising the Department on this matter." Whether he will be involved or not, Kris has found another way to spend his time that he hopes will prove to be more successful than his tilting at the windmill of imaginary voter fraud. He hopes to become Governor of Kansas. Since he has made his mark as incompetent in his recent efforts, he may be well qualified to become the governor since Sam Brownback, the man he would replace, has the second lowest approval rating of any sitting governor according a survey by Morning Consult. Through creative tax reductions initiated by Governor Brownback, it is anticipated that the state's deficit will exceed $280 million this year.
Governor Brownback has been nominated to serve as Ambassador at large for international religious freedom and, if confirmed, will be replaced by Jeff Colyer, the lieutenant governor. Mr. Colyer has already said he will run for the position in the 2018 election, and if Governor Brownback is confirmed, he will be running as the incumbent. Kris believes his successes in bringing failed lawsuits attacking imaginary voter fraud, his claim to have seen voter fraud in New Hampshire, where none existed, and his mistaken description of himself as an advisor to the DHS, are proof that he would be a worthy successor to Governor Brownback. He is right. Whether that is what Kansas voters are hoping for, only time will tell.
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Instead of Cutting Taxes, Listen to Kansas
A failed experiment left the state with underfunded schools, gaps in public services—and lessons for the rest of us
Nov 04, 2017
Republicans scrambled on Wednesday to put the final touches on the catastrophic tax proposal they rolled out this week. But the progressive lawmakers and activists gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol were already clear on their message: not one penny in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
At the Rally to Resist the Republican Tax Scam, lawmakers, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, detailed the damage they expected to see from the Trump tax plan. But one speaker already had personal experience with the "trickle down" policy touted by Republicans. As she spoke to the crowd, Kansas resident Sarah LaFrenz was clear: there's no cutting taxes without slashing public services.
LaFrenz knows this well because Kansas Governor Sam Brownback successfully sold her home state the lie that tax cuts lead to economic growth. Under the governor's leadership, Kansas passed cuts so deep that they were called experimental.
Brownback said his tax plan would be "like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy." He promised the cuts would help create jobs -- similar to what the national GOP claims the Trump tax bill will do. But instead, it devastated the state's economy. Now, only five years later, the state legislature is reversing the policy, widely considered a failure.
But Republicans refuse to learn from those mistakes. Instead, they hope to repeat them at the national level. LaFrenz won't let that happen without warning Americans about what those tax cuts could mean.
"What happened in Kansas is an incredibly personal story for me, because every single person that I know from home was deeply affected by this," LaFrenz said. "As a mother of three children, I have seen firsthand what this experiment has done to our people."
Who continues to pay the price of this failed tax policy? The kids of Kansas. Take, for example, the treatment of youth in foster care. "The state of Kansas has literally lost children because we decided to trim spending in this reprehensible manner," LaFrenz said, referencing the 70 kids missing from the state's foster care system.
Members of the Kansas legislature were surprised last month when they learned that the Department for Children and Families cannot account for dozens of foster children that were supposed to be under state care. But the foster system, managed by private contractors, has faced high turnover from social workers hoping to leave the heavy caseloads and low pay behind.
The budget dysfunction also deeply affects Kansas schools. As LaFrenz pointed out, the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled multiple times that the state's low education spending is unconstitutional. But the state's tax system continues to burden the legislature as it considers how to adequately fund schools.
LaFrenz wants the lessons from Kansas to echo across the country. After her speech, she headed inside the halls of Congress to let lawmakers know that policies like the ones they're floating have already had an enormous impact on her community. As she exited the rally, she left some parting words of advice.
"I am here today to implore you all to learn from Kansas. When they decide to starve our public services in order to give tax cuts to rich folks, our lives are endangered, we are harmed, and we sometimes lose people altogether."
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